Ludek was disgruntled. He'd been working at this stupid Tholian shipping station for most of his life - too long. Though he'd heard stories of the Federation, spoken in reverent whispers among the thralls laboring at the station, it had been defeated by the Klingon Empire before Ludek was even born. Now, though, this Tasha Yar person was causing a stir and he'd even heard that there was a Federation star ship being stored somewhere at the station.
Ludek kept his head down, did his work quietly and obediently, but he kept his ears open. He began to order his assigned tasks so that he could stay close to Yar or that Castillo person she was always with. When they thought they were being clandestine, meeting with the dock supervisor, Drake, he was always close by. His species had keen ears.
They were planning a bold escape, it seemed. When that new freighter captain showed up, they started talking as well - they weren't supposed to be here, they said. The phrase "alternate timeline" came up a lot. They were going to cause a distraction, make their way to the Federation star ship, and make a hasty retreat.
Pretty thin plan, to Ludek's thinking. The Klingons ruled Sol, ruled Romulus, ruled most of the Beta Quadrant - and had a treaty of some kind with the Dominion, who held sway over the Gamma and most of the Alpha quadrant. Where would these rebels go?
It didn't matter, he thought. If these insane workers were going to steal an ancient star ship, fight their way out of the shipping station, and fight off the Tholian Assembly's forces, Ludek could make use of that. He began making plans of his own - assembling a crew of conspirators. When the crazies went for their star ship, Ludek's crew would go to the docks and hijack a Meshweaver or something. Then they could fly to Orion and join the Syndicate - one of the last criminal organizations to hold any measure of freedom under Klingon rule.
After boarding and stealing a Tholian Meshweaver, which one of my compatriots dubbed the Tabula Rasa - or Clean Slate, in an ancient Earth language - my small crew of escapees and I managed to launch away from the station undetected. Those Starfleet types made such a commotion liberating the U.S.S. Enterprise-C that no one paid us any attention. We watched from a distance as the Enterprise engaged Tholian sector patrols until another ship of a classification I'd never seen before appeared to aid them. When the Tholians were defeated, the two ships made a break for an odd chronoton anomaly in the system...and we followed. We transitioned to what we later discovered was Earth year 2409 with no sign of the Enterprise or the other ship.
We were welcomed with open arms by Starfleet.
Imagine, then, my surprise when a year or so later I was ordered to investigate spacial anomalies in the Azure sector - only to find myself back at that Tholian slave-mine. This time it was me helping the crew of a temporally-displaced Enterprise free their ship and escape the system. It turns out the ship that helped us was the U.S.S. Pastak from the 29th century, captained by a man named Benjamin Walker.
I did everything I could to distract the Tholians from spotting the stolen Meshweaver I knew was out there. I never spotted...well, me...in the little Tholian escort - in fact, I never looked and discouraged my Starfleet crew members from doing so either. When the Enterprise went back through the anomaly, Walker pulled me out and sent me back here, to my "proper" timeline. The knowing look on his face told me he was well aware it wasn't my timeline of origin, but it was where I wanted to be, so I wasn't going to argue.
I hate temporal mechanics and can't even wrap my brain around paradoxes. I thought it best not to mention the Meshweaver and he never mentioned it either. I suppose all's well that ends well, as the humans say, but by the Bajoran Prophets that was a weird experience!