First off, I want to thank everyone for their kind reviews. It seems the biggest concern readers had was that it wasn't the actual Enterprise. Well, that's because Enterprise and all the continuity exist (at least through Nemesis) so Enterprise is actually running around. I picked a Sovereign over the Intrepid because despite the fact that we see more of Voyager, and have more information about it; Voyager ended up so modified, I wouldn't be able to achieve my goal of having a pristine starship. Plus, Voyager's technical continuity is pretty bad anyway. And to answer one fan's request, yes, yes I might use reviewer and submitted characters if they fit. But not just cause people ask.

STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK STAR TREK

The turbolift didn't move. Didn't budge. I realized that reality in any century could frustrate even the most patient of minds. I spoke to the comm panel. "Turbolift…" I searched for a number. "One to Engineering. Give me some power."

"Right, Joe." Another panel lit up to my right. The lift shuddered and began to move. Only it didn't move the way I thought it would. It went left. That surprised me, so when the lift arrived at the bridge a moment later, I'd seen no reason to actually stand up. I imagine I made a comical sight lying on the floor, hands behind my head. It wasn't as uncomfortable as you might think. And remember, I was still recovering from a concussion.

"Are you alright?" I heard a sweet voice say from the door. I craned my neck up to take a peak. I'd had a quick flash hope of a buxom beauty. I know, I'm a cad. Actually she was a fifteen year old girl with braces, freckles and glasses that looked like she'd picked them up in the 1950s. Disappointing.

"Oh, I'm fine. Just resting."

"Oooookaaaaayy," then she disappeared. I sighed, and stood up and left my comfortable turbolift. What I saw surprised me. When we see the bridge of a starship in a movie, it's clean, orderly and all crew members are in their appointed positions. This was a scene of chaos. It was downright crowded with geeks, nerds and other fans. I think one got caught at a convention because she was in full Klingon armor and bad face makeup. A rotund teenager sitting at the Ops station wore a Kirk-era gold shirt. Others poked at consoles, and others argued finer points of bridge design. Totally useless, I thought. I raised my voice and shouted, "Who's in charge here?"

A cacophony of voices, mostly from near the captain's chair responded. But one voice stood out amongst the others. A man, taller than most of the others, mostly because he stood straighter and held himself with more confidence, he looked me square in the eyes. "You are?"

"Larry Cartwright. Professor of archaeology and history." Sweet."Are you the one I spoke with about main power?"

"Yes."

"And are you the one that ordered me up here?"

"Yes."

"Why am I following your orders?" He looked at me hard; harder than anyone's ever stared at me. Larry clearly expected me to follow his orders, and he was used to that kind of response. He looked around at everyone on the bridge. The cacophony had silenced itself at my question. Those surrounding the Professor stared intently at him, waiting for a response. Probably so they could poke holes in his reasoning and decide that they themselves still had the best capability.

Cartwright definitely looked the part of a professor. Older, sixties probably, a white moustache and balding, but still possessing some of his white hair. He looked like my grandpa did thirty years ago. He wore classic tweed coat common to professors at my university. It's to make them look more distinguished, a quality they lack in most cases. As he stared at me, I supposed I looked indignant at first. I don't like being ordered around, but I'll do mostly anything you ask me. But… I gave in. I cleared it from my face and went back to my normal 'irreverent and questioning but non-confrontational' look.

"I hold a Commander's commission in the United States Naval Reserve. I've served on six ships, and commanded two of them." Wow. How come I've never met this guy?

"Good enough for me, Commander. How can Engineering help?" I smiled. I love resisting authority, but even more satisfying is getting them to fight when they don't need to.

"Report."

"Main power's online, my guys should be reactivating main systems now," I replied.

Some nerdy kid who actually had a pocket protector in his white shirt's pocket interrupted my report. "The board shows only twenty percent of systems restored. At this rate, it will take hours." I moved to the board and practically shoved the kid out of the way. I looked at what he had been doing. Now, remember, I'm not that smart, but I pick up computer systems quickly. The kid had been shutting off systems when he thought he had been selecting them. I started to berate him, "This isn't your new Vista laptop that your mommy bought you for school, idiot!" I continued in basically the same fashion for about a minute. When I finished, the kid had tears and I felt better.

The commander stood behind the kid. "So you're the chief engineer?"

"The chief what?"

"You certainly sound like Chief Engineer." He looked at the kid, "You, go do something that won't blow us up." I smiled at that. He gave me that stare again. I stopped smiling again.

"You, be nicer, this is the crew we're going to work with."

"Sorry, sir. Its been a little stressful." He turned and walked back to the captain's chair, ignoring me. I wondered why he hadn't made Captain grade. Probably his sunny disposition. I blinked a few times and turned back to the status board. I opened an intercom connection to Engineering and got to work trying to figure out what the ship's systems were doing and what they should be doing. John and I, working from both ends got everything running in a few hours of tedious trial and error. Once we'd gotten the hang of things, we started running the automated computer diagnostics. I tried to block it out, I really did, but I overheard a very loud, very annoying argument behind me. It consisted mostly of guys who were full of themselves trying to wrest command from Commander Cartwright. Arguments, name calling, everything except fists were flying back and forth across the bridge. I almost got hit by a padd at one point. When John and I finally had everything running the way we (and by we I mean he) wanted it, I turned back. Quite a coalition of losers had arrayed themselves against Larry. I stood and strolled up to another fence-thing. Why are these all over the ship? I leaned on it, figuring it would look cool when I interjected into the conversation. Before I could tell the moron team that, they were in fact completely useless to what we should be doing, I got nudged from the side.

"Hi."

It was that girl again. She smiled an innocent smile up at me. "Hi, yourself," I said.

"So… what's your name?"

I looked down at her, from the corner of my eye. She was trying not to look at me. "Joe."

"I'm Carrie. Isn't this sooooo cool?"

"Them?" I said, nodding at the moron team.

"No not them. The ship! We're in Star Trek!" She squealed. Carrie bounced up and down with excitement. I chuckled a bit, amused at her excitement.

"We're somewhere alright, but this isn't a TV show. I imagine there's a whole universe fraught with peril out there and no idea…" I looked down at her, to complete my sentences with 'what we're doing!' But she looked like I was bursting her bubble. I put my hand on her shoulder, reminded of the times I've helped my nieces with their troubles in life. "We need to be careful, okay? It's going to be awe inspiring to be out here in space and we're going to encounter things that we could never have imagined. But we need to respect the ship and everything else we meet. If we take it seriously, we'll get to see and do all the amazing things that are out there." She beamed a smile bright as day at me. When did I become so inspiring? Meanwhile, the League of Extraordinary Morons whined and moaned that an old man couldn't possibly be the best man to run the ship. And with that, all resemblance of maturity left me as I jumped into the fray, defending Picard as a great captain even though Sisko was my favorite. And wouldn't you know, it just made things worse. Until Commander Cartwright really put his foot down.

"QUIET!" he bellowed. That snapped me out it and back to reality, and it must have done the same for the LXM. "Look, we're in a potentially dire situation and unless anyone else here has any actual command experience, I'll be taking command of the ship. Once we're settled and we know what is actually going on, I'll be happy to step down in place of a better candidate. Until then, we need to take stock of who and what is on the ship, how much control we have over it, and determine its capabilities." The group of nerds surrounding the former naval officer were quiet and I was no exception. I looked at my feet for awhile, embarrassed that I'd let myself stop thinking straight. But it didn't look like Larry was going to hold our rampant immaturity against us.

"Now, we have a lot of work to get through. First we need to take a census of the ship. We need to know who is on board, and what skills they have. Then we need to gather those people in their department areas. Then those departments should decide who's best qualified to be the department head. So, does anyone have any suggestions how we accomplish these tasks?"

The League was quiet, until the fat kid in the gold uniform shirt spoke up. He'd been quiet through the whole argument. I felt a little sorry for him, dressed like he was, he looked like a caricature of a Star Trek fan. I imagine he wasn't too popular at school or work or whatever social group. His name was Preston, and he had a very good idea. He'd been sitting at the Ops console and managed to get the internal sensors online when John and I had restored their power. Preston knew where every living being was on the ship and could direct census takers there. He brought up his display on the main screen. I have to admit, after having only about an hour with the Ops console, Preston picked up a lot of useful knowledge. The graphics displayed two images of the ship. The first, a bow to stern cross section; the second was a top down perspective. Most of the little blue blips were clustered in the saucer section, but scattered amongst crew quarters. The engineering levels were pretty sparsely populated. No more than a handful of people per deck. Cartwright split the LXM into teams of two, armed with Padds and assigned a pair of decks. They scurried off, feeling important, leaving Preston, Carrie, the Commander and myself alone on the bridge.

"Chief, go back down to engineering and let them know what's going on," he ordered me.

"Commander, I'm no Chief Engineer."
"Well, you're in charge of engineering, so you're the chief for now."
"Oh, for cryin' out loud, I'm a historian, not a mechanic."

"For now, Joe." He gave me that look again, as if he were mentally telling me to accept my fate.

"Gah! C'mon, Carrie. We have to canvas Desk 18 and 19." I grabbed my padd and walked to the elevator. Carrie bounded in after me. After the doors closed, I look at Carrie and invited her to give the lift its commands. "Deck 18!" she said excitedly. I miss having that kind of energy.

Elsewhere…

The great claw shaped craft of the IRW Nederix slid through subspace, crossing the Romulan/Federation border unopposed. The new peace left the border patrolled, but not guarded. The ship passed many star systems on its weeks-long journey, finally arriving at its destination. Earth. The familiar sight of a Starfleet escort vessel arrived, announcing its presence in welcoming tones. The escort, a mere formality since the Nederix dwarfed the human ship by many times, swung in front of the Romulan ship to being the short journey from the system's edge to Earth itself. The Nederix's green hull reflected the light of the sun at this distance poorly, and like most Romulan ships, it gave off few emissions. To casual observers, the Starfleet escort ship might seem alone. But it wasn't. With a malevolent glare at his station, a Romulan centurion peered through targeting sensors at the Starfleet ship. He blamed everything that had ever happened in his life on the Federation. The Borg who destroyed his Uncle's colony world. The Vulcan infiltrators that sought unification with the despicable and cowardly Vulcans. And worst, the Dominion. Who'd killed his cousin Aritha. His only true love. He hated the humans, their Federation and especially Starfleet. Shinzon had promised victorious war, but nothing of the sort had happened. Starfleet prevented it. They couldn't prevent this. No one could. He, Centurion S'that, would take his revenge. His fingers flew to the disruptor controls and fired the weapons. In a flash of green light and shock, the USS Vigilant ceased to be. Its components floated away from one another, and its atmosphere burned in space.

A few survivors, safe in vacuum tight sections, fought to survive. They donned space suits, boarded damaged escape pods, or climbed into shuttles. A few of these souls witnessed the end of the Nederix as well, when the six cloaked Klingon ships descended upon the traitorous warbird, and pummeled its unshielded hull with phasers, disrupters, photon torpedoes and quantum torpedoes. They burned the ship in space, melting its components to slag and evaporating all life aboard.

The Klingons rescued the Federation survivors, and mourned their Starfleet warrior brethren, then they prepared themselves for war.