I don't own any characters you might be familiar with. I have no earthly idea how to make money off this, either.

Anything that went on in the past will be in italics.

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"Where the hell is Hoshi?" Captain Jonathan Archer screamed over the rumblings of his ship. Fires were sparking up everywhere, and the ship was being rocked by enemy weapons every few seconds.

"I can't find her lifesign, Captain. She's disappeared." T'Pol's voice could barely be heard over the sound of creaking metal and fire extinguishers.

"Who the hell is firing on us?"

"Our databases are down, Captain. I can't recognize the configuration without a better look at the ship." More enemy fire fell upon the Enterprise. An explosion destroyed the science station Sub-Commander T'Pol was working at, sending the Vulcan flying from her post and thudding against a nearby wall. Lieutenant Malcolm Reed rushed from tactical and set two fingers on her neck. Rivulets of green came pouring down his arm. The Vulcan's skull was split open.

A grim look came over his already solemn face as he looked up at Archer. "Captain, she's dead."

Mayweather turned around from his station, trying hard not to show all the fear he was feeling, "Captain…Engines are down. I can get warp to respond, and impulse drive is completely shot. I can't retreat and evasive maneuvers are out of the question. I can't do a thing."

Reed had jumped from T'Pol's body to the com station. It was obvious that station, too, was down. He was slamming his fists down on it, repeatedly calling it a "Bloody useless piece of shit."

Archer's head spun with the extent of the damage done to his ship. He shouted an order for Reed to get back to his post. It wasn't much use for the armory officer to be there. Targeting scanners were down, all weapons systems were offline, the torpedo launchers were damaged and the phase cannons had been shot off one by one and the hull plating was nonexistent. Hell, he wasn't even sure how well sensors were working. They were sitting ducks, unless by some miracle, engines could be brought online.

"Archer to Tucker!"

"Tucker here, Cap'n! Before you even ask, I can't do a damn thing! Three-fourths of my staff is dead, the anti-matter containment field is failing, there are hull breeches all over the damn place, our impulse drive has literally exploded and every useful console is either not workin' or is on fire!"

"Do whatever you can for the engines, Trip. We won't take much more of this. Archer out." Commander Tucker never would get a chance to do anything for the engines. At that moment, an enemy torpedo hit the engineering section. A few minutes later the ship shuddered. Archer's attention went immediately to tactical.

Lieutenant Reed's voice cracked as he read off the sensors. "Captain, the hull in engineering's just collapsed and the entire section has decompressed into space. Everyone but Commander Tucker made it out. But radiation's starting to leak into that deck, sir…. Anyone on that deck…"

"Thank you, Mister Reed! Send a message to all remaining crewmembers to get to the escape pods. That includes you and Ensign Mayweather."

"Captain, I have to stay with you…" Reed was sending out the message, but stayed firmly set at his post. Mayweather didn't seem to want to leave, either. Archer's hands clenched the arms on his captain's chair.

"Reed, get the hell out of my sight!"

"Captain – " Mayweather's sentence slowly faded away over a roar.

Lieutenant Reed, Ensign Mayweather and Captain Archer would never argue further on that subject. Enemy ships fired on the exposed warp core, engulfing the Enterprise in an anti-matter explosion that destroyed the ship in a matter of seconds. Two escape pods were launched from the ship. Both were used as target practice. The eighty-one humans, one Vulcan, one Denobulan, and one little beagle onboard were killed in one short-lived battle.

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Official records state that Ensign Hoshi Sato disappeared in late 2152, during a vital mission to negotiate peace on a hostile alien planet. With her disappearance, the mission failed and the race she was negotiating with opened fire on her ship. The NX-01 Enterprise, the first commissioned warp-five vessel in the history of Earth, was destroyed. Her mission failed, the Vulcan High Command lost faith in human endeavors and left the planet. As far as is known, they never check to see if humans had advanced without them. They hadn't.

Enemy ships that Sato was negotiating immediately proceeded to Earth once the Vulcans had left. Earth was unprepared for attack. All orbital defenses were destroyed in the first wave. All starships in Sector 001 were destroyed or boarded by the enemy. A crushing military defeat of all Earth's ground, water, and air forces was accomplished in less than two days. Earth, as well as the colonies on Mars, were conquered. The enemy, the Suliban, then enslaved the human race within the month.

A few cargo vessels were all that was left of the free humans, and they joined together to set up a colony on Rujio, a destination far from all trading routes and Suliban interests. They had little luck in creating starships as powerful as the Suliban's, their scientists only managing to achieve a warp three engine. Nine hundred years later, however, they had much success in creating time-warping devices. Federation timeships appeared.

But someone allowed these items to fall into the wrong hands. This man would cause the Suliban to become a hugely powerful race in the year 2151 that would later lead to the Enterprise's, then Starfleet's, then mankind's untimely demise the following year.

And this man's was helped by someone from the past. A person who was none other than Hoshi Sato herself.