One in Twelve Thousandth Percent

Chapter 15:

When we get there, the entire bridge crew claps for us. Meira comes over. "Not only did you girls find some useful shit there, but were able to implement it to save our lives. You four really are badass."

"Well, I've got to give Cannon some credit as well. His team found the contacts and defended against them, giving us time to react. Our timing was just that good." Meira nods. "Well, that's good. Alright, let's go to my office so we can find out what is going on. Lewis, Ilirora, let me know if anything happens. Tinker, take over for Bray."

"Yes, ma'am." Kaz gets up and comes with us. Once we get up to her office, Meira walks over to her coffee pot and makes herself a cup, then points to it offering it for us. "Alright, what the hell is going on here?"

I shrug. "I'm not totally sure yet either. Belle has all of that on her datapad."

"Yeah, and being in pursuit like we were, the large box was more important than the rest of it. It was labeled "ISS Angel in case of emergency." Meira blinks. "Wait, what?" I nod. "That was my initial reaction. Someone had a feeling Angel was going to have a need for it or something."

Annabelle starts to scroll through the information on the pad. "Well, this is interesting." We stare at her. "You have our attention." She turns to us. "We really are in a different timeline. I just hope that we don't run into us from this timeline. That could spell trouble. These are notes from events in the past that led Janus to its untimely demise."

"Ok, what happened?" Meira scratches her head.

"Well, in a different timeline, not sure which one future me is talking about - it seems like there are several, a multiverse if you will - anyways, it says at different points that different members of the

Colony's crew are hiding information and sending it somewhere else via secure channels. One entry says that it's Zintoris in one timeline."

I wouldn't be surprised if Hikari had been one of them too.

I roll my eyes. "I never liked him anyways." "Another entry says that in a different timeline, it was someone totally different. These kinds of entries happen three more times. Each one stating a different person than the last." Misaki shakes her head. "So that means that in our timeline, it could be literally anyone with a grudge."

Annabelle nods, then continues. "As far as that particular event goes, the recipient is still the same each time, only the sender is different." I frown. "Did the future you find out who the mystery recipient was?" She shakes her head. "No, each time we got close, Angel was sent on another mission to distract us for a while. And in every different instance, we did end up becoming permanent members of Angel's crew.

Meira chuckles. "Well, that's good. I at least have something good to look forward to. Matter of fact, let's make that official now. We can write up documentation later. Anything else?"

Annabelle reads on. "Well, there is an entry from future Misaki describing a way to regularly scramble the particle frequency of the shields so that it takes less beating every time we get into battle. Oh, there's also a note in here. 'Don't let whoever is in charge of engineering try to persuade you to hold off for now. The sooner the better.' Huh."

Misaki and I look at each other. She pops an eyebrow. "Whoever is in charge of engineering?" I shrug. "Anything else?" Annabelle keeps reading. "There is one last entry, that's partially garbled. Says something about someone letting people onto the station. People just started walking through the corridors shooting civilians. They had no chance because it wasn't something they needed to watch for. About a third of the total station population died before defense started. But in the end it wasn't enough."