REGINALD BARCLAY

TROI: I came as soon as I heard that you had been released from Starfleet Security. Reg, what happened?

BARCLAY: I-I know what you’re thinking but it’s not uh, it’s not what it seems.

Well I suppose I should-ah. I should say it is what it probably seems. But it- it’s good news.

TROI: Slow down Reg. Let's talk through this one step at a time.

BARCLAY: When you left here last night I-I couldn’t sleep. So I went back to the lab.

TROI: Reg, there’s a reason you were taken off the project. Commander Harkins is only looking out for your wellbeing. I thought that we had agreed we would spend the next few days together, talking everything through.

BARCLAY: I know, I know. But I couldn’t wait. The truth is, well the truth is that I haven’t been en-entirely honest about all of the d-details of my plan.

TROI: Go on…

BARCLAY: Weeelll. I had worked with Pete to extrapolate Voyager’s position based on their last known coordinates. Provided by their EMH when he was transferred to the Prometheus a few years ago.

TROI: That was how you got involved with Pathfinder, you were telling me last night.

BARCLAY: Right! But as I was trying to sleep I just… I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that those projections were too… Conservative.

I mean just think about everything that has happened in the past few years Deanna! Right on our doorstep. What if, what if Voyager had found their own small wormhole. Developed a faster warp drive. Or been thrown half way home by Q. My plan c-couldn’t work if we were just as-assuming they were crawling home at w-warp 6 point, point 2.

TROI: So how did this lead to you going to the lab?

BARCLAY: I didn’t go there… Straight away. Despite Pete taking me off the project, I still had access to all of my files. I-including the ones from the P-Prometheus incident. Once the Romulans had uh joined the war. They released some reports, their side of that story. I had gone over them a few years ago. But our conversation yesterday… I-I don’t know. I thought they would be worth a second look.

TROI: What did you find?

BARCLAY: At first, exactly what I did when I first looked at them. Everything they provided was so heavily redacted that it was essentially, uh, useless.

Buuut, just as I was about to go back to bed. I remembered that during the war, the Romulans provided the Federation with some encryption protocols. They-they didn’t want to just rely on Federation encryption. You know what the Romulans are like.

I decided to run their Prometheus files through the decryption sequences they had, uh shared. On all but one file, they had no effect. But this one file…

TROI: What was in it?

BARCLAY: Mostly nothing, it was still heavily redacted.

TROI: Reg...

BARCLAY: But there were a few more details… And Deanna. It was what I needed.

It was a report from a Romulan Astrophysicist called T-Telek R’Mor. It mentioned Voyager. And…

TROI: And?

BARCLAY: It was written in 2351.

TROI: How is that possible? That was before Voyager had even been designed, let alone lost.

BARCLAY: I know, I know! But, but it got me thinking. What if, what if time travel had been involved? We saw our fair share of time related, uh, anomalies on the Enterprise.

TROI: Don’t remind me

BARCLAY: Then, even with our best projections. We’d be way off. Voyager could be 20,000 light years closer to Earth, or more!

So I ran some quick projections, and came up with a series of alternate potential spatial grids for V-Voyager. The first was the, uh, most confident initial proj-projection. The second was a-a half way point and the third… Well the third was my best… Guess based on the idea that they had been thrown backwards in t-time.

TROI: And thats when you went to the lab?

BARCLAY: Right. I transmitted the new grids ahead of me and then uh-broke in..

TROI: Oh Reg…

BARCLAY: Wait, wait. That’s not, not the end of the story.

TROI: Go on

BARCLAY: When I broke in… Well I must have tripped a, uh. Alarm. I had interfaced with the array and sent the message to the first sector. T-Then Pete caught me.

TROI: And that’s when you were taken to Starfleet Security?

BARCLAY: Not exactly… I-I transferred the controls to the holodeck and activated my Voyager program.

…

… Then… I-I led Pete and his security team on a chase around Voyager.

TROI: Reg…

BARCLAY: B-But it bought me the time I needed to try the other two sectors. And the last one... The last one worked!

TROI: It worked?!

BARCLAY: Real time, two way communication between Starfleet Communications and Voyager in the Delta Quadrant

TROI: So they had been thrown back in time?

BARCLAY: N-not exactly. They transmitted their logs and navigational records while the w-wormhole was active. They’re still being reviewed, but it seems they found some uh-other shortcuts.

TROI: So it was luck?

BARCLAY: It was luck.

TROI: Well, that’s quite the story... I guess there’s only one thing for it.

Congratulations

BARCLAY: Well, I'm not not sure I deserve congratulations.

TROI: Why not? It's quite an accomplishment.

BARCLAY: I, I couldn't have done it without your help.

TROI: What did Commander Harkins have to say about it?

BARCLAY: Well, I think, I think he was pleased.