Title: A UNIVERSE OF CHANGE version 4.0.1

Author: Albert Green Jr.

Rating: PG- 13

Category: Crossover: Star Trek-TNG/ Babylon Five

Summary: When the Enterprise-D decided to enter the temporal distortion along with the Enterprise-C to ensure the restoration of the timeline, that action set forth a chain of events that would propel both ships into a universe they never imagined.

NOTICE: THIS STORY MAY BE DISTRIBUTED FREE OF CHARGE BUT MUST NOT BE SOLD OR EXCHANGED FOR FINANCIAL RETURN IN ANY FORM.

---------------------COPYRIGHT/DISCLAIMER NOTICE-----------

"Star Trek", "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", and "Star Trek: Enterprise" and all related Star Trek related material, it's characters and certain technological devices and/or references to such, from the television shows and movies, may be or are registered trademarks of, and may be or are copyrighted by Paramount Studios and whatever Corporation it may or may not be owned by.

"Babylon Five", it's characters, certain technological devices and/or references to such, from the television show, past present of near future, may be or are registered trademarks of, Babylon 5, characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Time Warner Entertainment Co., LP.

Additional characters are the creation of the author who is solely responsible for them as such. Neither Studio is responsible for the content of this story.

THIS STATEMENT MUST ACCOMPANY THE STORY 'A UNIVERSE OF CHANGE' IF DISTRIBUTED. THIS STORY IS FREE OF CHARGE AND MAY NOT BE SOLD OR EXCHANGED FOR FINANCIAL RETURN IN ANY FORM. THIS DEDICATION MUST ACCOMPANY ANY DISTRUBUTION OF THIS STORY.

Dedication:

First of all, my wife who allowed me to hide in our basement and write in relative peace, even though punishment will come later. Then to Andrew Caruthers whose writing style has gave me incentive to continue. And I thank all those who have written me concerning 'Evolutions', all of whom have inspired me to continue writing for fun the of it, because God understands that this is hard.

Albert Green Jr.

or

Foreword:

I am doing something I promised I would never do and that is to provide a spoiler for a story. I have this belief that people who are familiar with Star Trek and Babylon Five are already aware of the story and its origins. And to those who are new to these sci-fi icons, I want them to enter my stories with a since of wonder and excitement. Before I say anything, else I will state that the temporal cold war will play an important in this and the related stories that will interlock with this universe I am creating.

This crossover story has its basis in the universe created by the entrance of the Enterprise-C's jump twenty-two years into the future [See: 'Yesterday's Enterprise' episode for details]. When it did that, the entire timeline changed for the crew and galaxy-in-general in which the present day Enterprise-D under command by Jean-Luc Picard, was a part. The Enterprise-D transformed from a ship of peace to a true Federation Battleship. The Federation and Klingon Empire were at war, but the question is why? What was going on here? Why did the 'C' jump to the exact place where the one person in the Federation could advise Picard to reverse a timeline no one else recognized as different? Does anyone really believe that a slew of photon torpedoes could cause a rupture in time and space-and if it did what does that say about space in general?

Eventually, the time line was corrected and everything returned to normal-more or less. No one really comprehended or even remembered what had happened and we moved on to other adventures. However, what would have happened if Picard had chosen another path? What if the Klingons had gotten there a little sooner and pressed Picard into making another, perhaps foolish, perhaps desperate decision? What was behind this and so many other temporal anomalies that people had to begin inventing an entire new vocabulary to explain the things happening in the Alpha quadrant? This story presents one possibility.

I also propose that the Ambassador-class Enterprise-C and the Soyuz-class starship USS Bozeman, the ship caught in the causality loop with the Enterprise-D (which kept blowing up for seventeen or so days), was part of a similar, but failed experiment. Why? I suggest that both experiments were initiated by other forces to produce the same results that the Enterprise-C ultimately generated. Those powers wanted major war between the Klingons and Federation with the ultimate purpose of negating the effectiveness of both governments in the distant future.

And what does that have to do with anything?

Well-

Say 'temporal cold war' and 'Enterprise-Archer' in the same breath and we all have a clue.

***

Let's check out some of the altered players in this story:

Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Enterprise-D: Commander of a Galaxy class warship several times stronger than its temporal counterpart. He has the soul of a poet with the temperament of a warrior, pressed into a war lasting more than twenty years. Exploration is as a whole, something to be dreamt of. Many discoveries taken for granted by that 'other' Picard has never happened to this one. He is colder and more socially isolated from his crewmembers. To him and his crew, the Prime Directive is something to aspire to, whenever the war ends and they have that luxury. But as of now, it has fallen to the wayside as the Federation fights a losing battle against the Klingon Empire.

And by the way, Kirk is still alive and trapped in a certain energy ribbon called the Nexus.

Captain Rachel Garrett, Enterprise-C: Commander of a vessel of exploration, Ambassador class. It is the flagship of its time, with a standard compliment of seven hundred fifty officers and crew. It could remain completely independent for a maximum of twelve years (if necessary). Its destiny was to fight in battle against a fleet of Romulan warbirds- and lose.

Of Rachel herself, very little is known other than the short introduction in the TV show. But the fact that a woman is in command of a Federation vessel called Enterprise makes her someone not to contend with. This part was tricky because her personality was very close to Captain Janeway's of Voyager and in fact, this suggests that Garrett was Janeway's precursor, cut from the same cloth as it were. I have fleshed out her personality with what I have seen, and have tried to bring her character to life-shifting away from the Janeway style and homing in on the Garrett traits and a life twenty two years different-a time when the Cardassians, not the Klingons were the problem. Admiral Sulu was still alive and the threat of real war with the Klingons didn't exist. She is that which is between the original and the next generation. The Prime Directive had substance and meaning but at the same time the Federation was still a touch rough around the edges, which to some, considering the times, may have been a good thing.

Commander Benjamin Sisko, third in command of the Enterprise-C. What can I say? He is 'The Sisko', one of the more underused and under-acknowledged Captains of Star Trek fame. We can't even find DS9 on TV, and being semi-polite, I will not speculate on this now. The Prophets miss him and will make that fact known. DS9 does not exist and instead he became an Officer specializing in 'ground-pounding', an Assault Commander, dealing with Klingons hand-to-hand as necessary. His wife and child are gone. He is alone, but reflective. He and his people were simply being ferried by the Enterprise-D to the front lines. His life will have a major impact on the lives he touches.

Guinan: Bartender and adversary of the legendary Q. Her people are 'aware' of things, but she is far more than simply 'aware'. We know very little about who and what she is. We know she has power, but has always refused to use it or even to enlighten others like Picard as to what she truly is. She is not what she seems and her impact on this story will be immense.

Babylon Five is literally a different universe altogether which is now being touched by those mentioned above. Six minutes will make a pronounced difference in how things will shape up there. But in the end, as Delenn would probably say, 'just because we are in the universe trying to shape it into our image, does not mean that it, in any fashion, chooses to be shaped. It chooses the shape it wants. Pray that it does not notice us.'

One more thing: This story and the following two will mainly be told from the ST perspective; although the B5- and others will not be slighted in any way. POV is important. Have fun.

AG

A UNIVERSE OF CHANGE "Prelude"

Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the USS Enterprise-D stared intently at the woman still lying on the medical bed nursing a bad fracture and serious internal injuries. He'd known her for only a few hours, but he'd come to like this woman and what he had to tell her filled him with sorrow. However, Picard had every intention of telling her anyway, because it was necessary not only for him, but for the entire Alpha quadrant. The Captain had come to understand that this entire timeline, the war with the Klingons, everything he believed for the last twenty-two years was a lie.

The Enterprise-C had entered the sector thru a very unstable temporal rift; a rift that literally appeared in front the Enterprise-D for no apparent reason. It had been speculated that the occurrence happened when something similar to a Kerr loop of superstring material interacted with the energies from multiple photon explosions, pushing the Ambassador-class ship into the future-exactly twenty-two years, three months and four days.

His heart filled him with sorrow, but he quickly hardened it for the task that he being was forced to perform. "Captain," Picard continued. "If your ship had stayed to confront those Romulan warbirds, even if it were destroyed, that sacrifice might have averted twenty years of war."

"And you want us to go back that?" Rachel Garrett, Captain of the USS Enterprise-C looked at him as though he was insane. Responding to a distress, call she and her crew had confronted four Romulan warbirds in an attempt to stop them from attacking a defenseless Klingon colony. She lost and a savage barrage of photon torpedoes ripped into her ship and created a temporal rift in surrounding space that plunged her ship with its one hundred twenty-five survivors from the past. "We just barely got out with our lives and you want us to go back?"

Picard looked at her with a compassion that he thought that he'd lost after all these years of experiencing death and destruction. "I don't believe that there is a choice in this matter." He moved closer to the Captain, his voice going soft. "Starfleet is losing this war. We estimate that within four months we'll have to sue for peace. One more ship won't change the outcome here, but it would make a significant difference if a Federation ship were seen to protect a Klingon outpost against the Romulans. It would be considered a matter of honor."

Rachel looked at him with a mixture of compassion and complete dread. She understood what was happening here in the future. She'd come to the same conclusion as he had. "To tell the truth, my crew hated running from that fight." She smiled slightly. "Help us get our ship together and we'll give them a fight that they'll long remember." She was resigned to her fate. Death was waiting and there was nothing she could do about it but face it with it with dignity- and of course spitting in its ugly face.

Picard looked deeply into the eyes a doomed woman. He'd never seen anything braver in his life.

In the recreation room called Ten Forward, the woman known as Guinan felt more uncomfortable by the moment. All she had to go on were her feelings; that this time line, this existence they were presently in, was all wrong and she told an unbelieving Picard exactly that. The hundreds of hardened soldiers crammed aboard this already overcrowded starship felt wrong. Then there was Tasha Yar, and echo of a life that should not have existed. The woman called Tasha Yar felt wrong-the actual word that came to Guinan was dead.

This should have been a ship of peace not a warship, she explained to a then disbelieving Picard. With her uncanny ability to perceive things, she understood this whole series of events should not have existed. But now something else was nagging the back of her brain. The Federation was in a war with the Klingons and over forty billion had died while the Romulans were just waiting to pick up the pieces.

She told Picard that the Enterprise-C needed to return from whence it came its own time to correct the timeline, and after he understood, he agreed; but something was still wrong. Outside, the distortional temporal rift fluctuated slightly, catching her attention. She felt a shifting; something about to begin, but she didn't know exactly what was beginning.

"Captain," Tasha Yar, Chief of Security, said, quickly confirming her findings on her tactical computer. "Two Klingon bird of preys have de-cloaked."

"Red alert! Lock on and destroy," Picard said instantly. There was no trying to disable engines or minimizing loss of life, as he would have considered in another existence. He simply wanted to kill them as efficiently as possible.

"Phasers, lock onto the closest one towards the Enterprise-C," Commander William Riker added, his voice as cold as his Captain's.

"Fire."

Because of the Klingon's insistence on attacking the smaller Ambassador-class ship, it remained visible a few moments too long. Enterprise-D galaxy class starship's phasers slashed into and thru Klingon shields, causing significant damage. Life support had been obliterated and internal explosions could be seen erupting throughout the small ship. At the same time, photon torpedoes damaged the second Klingon ship just as it fired a devastating blow at the Enterprise–C. That vessel re-cloaked, barely able to escape the vengeful Starship.

The smaller Federation ship rocked violently, its already weakened shields barely holding. Captain Garrett was knocked out of her command chair, a nasty gash in the center of her head where a piece of metal had hit but thankfully not penetrated. Lieutenants Tasha Yar and Richard Castillo prepared to defend the ship from the brutal attack on the already once crippled ship.

The second Klingon ship moved off after firing and missing the Enterprise-C, vainly trying to avoid the Enterprise-D's responding salvo, its port shields damaged or obliterated. The Klingon ship itself now a death trap.

"Are there any survivors on that ship?" Picard demanded looking at the rapidly disintegrating Bird-of-prey hulk.

"Three," came the answer, from lieutenant Commander Data.

"Beam them to the brig. I want prisoners," the Captain growled. Klingon prisoners were rare and he intended to make the most of it.

"Done."

"Captain, three more Klingon vessels are de-cloaking. They're heavy cruisers. ETA four minutes."

Three.

He knew that they were coming. Starfleet's long-range tactical Intel had been tracking them, but their timing had been inaccurate. It should have been nine hours before the Klingon ships arrived not seven. They had gotten here before they were supposed to.

Such were the fortunes of war.

That was too many for the Enterprise-D to handle and protect its weakened sister ship at the same time. Picard realized that the Klingons had forced his decision and he'd run out of options.

"Emergency power to the shields to protect the Enterprise-C. Tell them to head for the rift now!" This was the decision that he didn't dare make. With the Enterprise-D traveling back into the past, the timeline would again be polluted, but maybe he could do something about it. "We're going into the rift with them. Number One, prepare to engage Romulan warbirds as soon as we clear the rift. Inform Captain Garrett of our plans."

"Yes, sir," Commander William Riker responded, relaying the orders immediately.

Both ships headed towards the rift and entered just as the Klingon battle cruisers fired a full salvo of disruptor class torpedoes at both ships. Their detonations would be seen for light years. The Enterprises shields were both obliterated.

"No!" Guinan screamed, falling to the floor. She was joined by many other people draped over tables and chairs from the force of the impact. She screamed again as the two Enterprises were covered in the blackness emanating from the rift. "This is wrong!"

No one heard her.

The additional energy blasts from the photon torpedoes warped the temporal rift. Both ships were pulled into a dark black, then red-blue tunnel, ripped apart at a quantum level and re-assembled. Hours later, both ships emerged from the rift nearly powerless and alone.