'Timescape' (Story Code 251) by Brannon Braga

Commander Riker orders the U.S.S. Enterprise to respond to a distress call from a Romulan vessel with engine failure; meanwhile, Captain Picard, Lieutenant LaForge, Lieutenant Commander Data and Counselor Troi are returning from a conference in one of the Runabouts. While discussing the event of the meeting, everyone except Troi suddenly freezes for a few seconds, before returning to normal; Troi tells the others of the incident, only to learn that she herself was just frozen in time for over three minutes. Other strange events occur: the starboard nacelle fails, and instruments show that it has been in continuous operation for over forty-seven days; and when Picard attempts to examine some fruit that has turned rotten, his fingernails instantly grow half an inch. Using a tricorder, they discover that they have encountered a time bubble, a phenomenon that rapidly accelerates the normal passage of time; the vessel is surrounded by dozens of these temporal pockets, each moving time at a different rate; it seems that the space-time continuum in the area has been shattered, and the trail leads to their rendezvous point with the Enterprise. Carefully wending their way through the bubbles, Picard and the others find their ship - frozen in time, and the target of a Romulan warbird’s disruptor beam; strangely, a second beam also goes from the Enterprise to the warbird's engineering section. Data and LaForge adapt the emergency transporter armbands to generate skin-tight force-fields, which will isolate them from the effects of the temporal effect, enabling them to beam across to the Enterprise; in Sickbay, Troi finds Doctor Crusher being hit point-blank by a Romulan’s disruptor, while Picard discovers that three Romulans were being beamed aboard by Lieutenant Worf. Investigating Engineering, they find the source of the power surge: a warp core breach in progress. Data determines that time is not frozen as they first believed, but is moving forward at an infinitesimal rate - and he estimates that the explosion will consume the Enterprise in just over nine hours. Unless the four of them can find a way to reverse the temporal anomaly, the Enterprise and all aboard her will be destroyed…

Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander William Thomas Riker), LeVar Burton (Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Security Chief Lieutenant Worf), Gates McFadden (Doctor Beverly Crusher), Marina Sirtis (Councelor Deanna Troi), Brent Spiner (Lieutenant Commander Data), Michael Bofshever (Romulan / Alien), John DeMita (Romulan), Joel Fredericks (Engineer)

Directed by Adam Nimoy
Produced by Peter Lauritson
Co-Produced by Ronald D. Moore
Co-Executive Producer Jeri Taylor
Executive Producers Michael Piller and Rick Berman

TX:
14th June, 1993

Notes:
*Featuring Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Commander William Thomas Riker, Chief Engineer Lieutenant Geordi La Forge, Security Chief Lieutenant Worf, Doctor Beverly Crusher, Councelor Deanna Troi and Lieutenant Commander Data