“Can you fix it?” The Empress hovered nearby as Rick, flat on his back, repaired conduits leading to and from the warp core on her advanced ship, the Defiant. The historian he was with was … somewhere. 

“I think so. Just a sec, ah, there it is.” Rick got up, a little dirty. “It was a bit of dirt and that was moving the coils out of alignment. Nothing a little cleaning can’t fix if it ever happens again.” 

“Got it. Can you fix the replicators?” 

“That I can’t do, sorry.” He didn’t tell her that that wasn’t permitted under the terms of his mission. 

She looked at him slyly. “That’s okay for now, Ritchie. Look, the royal treasury is, let’s just say, a little unreliable right now.” 

“Well, you just got into power. That makes sense.” He checked her out; she was a hot little number with sloe eyes and glossy, black hair. Hoshi was wearing a midriff-baring uniform that was tight in all the right places, with captain and admiral insignia fighting for attention on the skimpy material. The conflicting rank symbols didn’t matter; she had been an ensign when she’d seized power and her promotions had come from within – she’d declared herself captain and admiral and anything else she wanted. No ranks mattered, for an Empress. She was the most powerful person in the Mirror Universe – by far. “Maybe you can pay me in some other way.” 

“I see.” She ran a finger down the front of his uniform and did not stop. “That could work.” 

It took hours before he emerged from her Ready Room, and he could barely walk. 

He returned to find another temporal change. Carmen announced, “The Empress Hoshi Sato has a child now; Jun. The new undisputed heir to the bloody Terran Empire is listed as ‘father unknown’. Do you know anything about this?” She was livid. 

“I, um, oh, God.” 

“I trusted you! What were you thinking? You’ve gone too far this time!” she screamed at him. “Who the bloody hell do you think you are?” 

“I’m no one! Christ, Carmen, I’m, I’m nobody!” As he yelled, his jaw trembled; he could scarcely get the words out. Nonpersons don’t have feelings, he thought to himself, even as tears sprang from his eyes, seemingly of their own accord. 

“Not anymore, you aren’t, Mister Daniels! The Mirror government will be even angrier with you than I am. You’ll have to go back and undo this. They’ll require it, and I can’t say as I’d blame them. The timeline is in shreds. At least you haven’t been deflowering virgins.” 

That brought Rick up short. “You’re right; I’m not no one, not anymore. I’m, I’m Jun Sato’s father. And I won’t undo his life, even for the sake of the timeline.” Unlike Octavia or Irene, or even Dana, he knew he would have to save Jun, no matter the cost. He finally loved someone, but it was not who or what he’d been expecting.