Lt. JG Topaz-Smythe walked quickly through a section of the station that many people had not often seen. His boots echoed faintly off metallic deck plating as he hurried to his destination. The gaping corridor branched off every dozen meters towards a different access to Starbase Bravo’s massive set of computer cores. Internal chronometers responsible for keeping sync with the rest of Starfleet were had fallen out of sync. Even ships away as nearby as the Paulson Nebula were misaligned chronologically.

The discrepancy seemed minor. Potential implications of what could be wrong furrowed the young Trill-Terran hybrid’s brow with worry. His honey-brown eyes studied signs that led him through the menagerie of tunnels and access hubs. He knew he was getting close once core access to the data subsystems moved closer to the processing relay terminals.

The science officer’s stomach rumbled as a glowing LCARS panel pointed towards chronometer access. The Tellarite peppers in this morning’s hash browns were not sitting well with him. His golden-tan hand gripped his tricorder a little tighter as he groaned. His mind snapped back to the matter at hand. Caaral hoped this would be a case of simple instrument alignment. A nagging worry that this could potentially be a time slip fought into his thoughts.

Caaral rounded the last bend and spotted the door. He disappeared into the room’s maw as the doors slid shut behind him.

The chamber was quiet but for the thrum of processors and the occasional pulse of a status light. Alven stood near the chronometer relays, arms folded, eyes scanning the LCARS displays as though the readouts were suspects lined up for questioning.

The numbers told their story: a drift of less than half a second, neat and consistent. Too neat. To most it would look like a hiccup, the kind of error you chalked up to calibration. But Alven knew better.

The hairs on the back of his neck told him better, and so did the symbiont within him. Buried in its memory were lifetimes of hosts who had handled timing arrays, navigational beacons, even early warp synchronizers. That knowledge was not something he had to study; it was instinct now, a voice that whispered when things did not add up. And this did not add up. A chronometer did not just slide out of alignment with a Federation time beacon on its own.

Not here, not with redundancy built into every layer of the system. This was a shove, not a stumble. The kind of fault you could almost miss until it turned into something bigger. Transporters a fraction out of phase. Starships half a beat behind the fleet. Alven had seen small cracks become disasters before. He was not about to see it again.

He shifted his weight, considering where to dig first. Was it a hardware fault? A corrupted sync line? Or was there a hand on the scale, someone who wanted this system just out of step?

The door hissed open behind him, breaking the hum of the chamber. Alven glanced over his shoulder as Topaz-Smythe stepped inside, tricorder already in hand. Alven did not move, only watched the younger officer cross the threshold, measuring him as carefully as he had measured the fault in the chronometer.

“So are you seeing the same drift I am?”

The unjoined Trill hybrid opened a small tool kit that he set onto the cool, metallic floor. He pulled out a tricorder and studied the readings. “I heard about these variances.” Caaral’s scanner beeped as he spoke. “Now I’m having a look at it. It’s quite odd.”

Concern was written across the young officer’s spotted features. “I’m hoping we’re not actually out of sync. My personal timepieces are keyed into the station and must be off too. Let’s take a closer look at the chronometer.” After a few more moments a warning tone chimed. “It looks like the instrument is not keeping time accurately. It’s telling me there’s a high probability of instrument fault. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to point to anything in particular. It appears as if everything is in place.. Except it isn’t.” Caaral looked back to his tricorder after he spoke.

Alven listened without interrupting, his arms folded as the younger officer laid out his findings. The tricorder’s warble filled the chamber, neat little sounds that promised answers but left too many blanks.

The kid was thorough, he would give him that. Caaral’s brow was furrowed, eyes fixed on the readings like he could pry loose a confession if he stared hard enough. Smart, maybe a little too quick to trust what the device said. He pushed off from the wall and stepped closer to the console, his gaze sweeping the relays with a practiced eye.

“Instrument fault,” he repeated, voice low, not mocking but skeptical. “That’s the easy answer. Problem is, easy doesn’t explain why everything looks right while running wrong.”

His hand brushed across the LCARS panel, watching the diagnostic lights pulse in rhythm. Off by the same fraction every cycle. Alven glanced back at the young officer, measuring the concern written across his features. “You’re not wrong. Something’s off.”

Alven leaned in over the console, fingers tapping across the LCARS interface. He was not content to let a tricorder sing him half a tune. “Computer,” he said, his tone brisk, “state the operational status of the primary chronometer array.”

A polite chime preceded the reply: “All systems operating within normal parameters.”

Alven’s jaw tightened. He’d heard that answer before, from witnesses who swore they had not seen a thing. “Define normal,” he pressed. “List any variances detected in the last twelve hours.”

“Variance detected: point-three-four-five seconds relative to Federation standard time beacon. Compensatory protocols applied. Chronometer remains functional.”

He shot a glance at Topaz-Smythe. “Functional,” he muttered, almost to himself. “That’s one word for it.”

“Computer,” Alven tried again, “identify the source of the variance. Hardware, software, or external.”

A longer pause this time, as if the system did not like being pinned down. Finally: “No fault detected in station chronometer hardware or software. Synchronization link confirms discrepancy originates externally.”

Alven straightened, arms crossing once more. “Externally,” he repeated. His gut had already been leaning that way, but hearing the machine say it still landed heavy. “Specify source.”

“Time beacon, Paulson Nebula. Current beacon output inconsistent with Federation standard.”

The words hung in the room like an unwelcome guest. Alven exhaled slowly through his nose, gaze narrowing on the relays as if they could answer the questions spinning through his head. So the station was not lying. The beacon was.

“Computer”, Caaral piped in. “De-synchronize Starbase Bravo from the Paulson Nebula time beacon.”

“De-synchronization confirmed”, the computer’s feminine voice responded dryly.

“Their discrepancy was affecting us. Whatever’s going wrong must be happening on their end.” Caaral tapped his tricorder into bringing up a regional map. The Paulson Nebula was just across the border into the next star system in a spinward direction. “Hopefully the colonists aren’t affected too badly. Maybe we should investigate, sir. I’ll send notes to the science department and volunteer to follow up.”

“You’re right. We should. Let’s go get ourselves a runabout, lieutenant. There’s a mystery to solve.”