Chapter 07
Six beams of light lit up the conference room for a moment before six new figures joined the two already in the Tau'ri conference room. GPF Carter and her aide now stood before General Sheppard, Admiral Calwell, as well as Jonathan Archer, Charles Tucker III, T'pol, and Dr. Phlox from the Enterprise. Carter took a moment to study the new arrivals, especially the two new aliens, before extending her hand toward Archer.
"Hello Captain Archer. I am the General of Planetary Forces Samantha Carter of the Milky Way and it is a pleasure to meet species from another universe," she welcomed with a smile. Just from her body language, Archer could tell he was dealing with an honest human being and not some idiot who is trying to gain more political power. He smiled an honest smile and grabbed her hand.
"Hello General. It is a pleasure to meet you as well," Archer said before reintroducing his away team to the GPF. Carter motioned towards the conference table where they all sat down. Carter then began to question their new guests.
"I noticed an intense amount of damage done to your ship Captain. I was wondering if you could tell us the story behind it all," she asked. Archer shifted slightly in his seat before taking a breath and opening his mouth to speak.
"I guess I'll start from when Earth was attacked," he said. This caught the attention of the three Tau'ri officers. They sat ever further in their seats in anticipation of this story. "The Enterprise was several weeks away from Earth when a small alien probe appeared from a vortex over Earth. It fired a beam of energy that cut a swath from Florida to Venezuela, killing seven million people in total." Trip noticeably tensed up when Archer said this. Carter and the others figured that he must have lost someone dear to him in that attack, so they didn't ask about it.
All throughout the story, Carter, Sheppard, and Caldwell were surprised at the resourcefulness and dedication of the crew to do what they could to save Earth. Their story was odd at times, however it wasn't too far fetched as all three Tau'ri officers had seen their fair share of oddities while working among the stars.
Archer stopped for a moment when it came to his attempted suicide run against the Xindi weapon and his ship was attacked by a large amount of Xindi starships. He continued to tell how many people were lost during that battle. T'pol temporarily looked away from everyone for a moment as well as Phlox. They were saddened by how many were lost. Archer finished with telling how he came across the Tau'ri task force.
"The rest I suspect you know." Archer finished. There was silence for several minutes as everyone took in the information. Even the Enterprise crew was silent as this was the first safe moment that they could truly let their situation sink in. Sheppard stood up after a few moments and spoke.
"Captain, there are no words for how incredibly strong you and your crew has been." He then stood to full attention and saluted Archer. "I am quite honored to meet you sir.
"Thank you for the praise but I believe the praise goes to those who will never make it back home. In any case let us get to what this meeting was supposed to be about," Archer said as Sheppard sat back down.
"Agreed. After hearing your story, I do believe we could help you out, however we can't just repair your ship and send you on your way. The higher ups wouldn't agree to it unless there was something to gain from it. How about a technological trade? A trade of technologies could allow for both sides to advance a bit and some of our tech could give you an edge for when you return to your mission," Carter stated.
"It would be nice however we do have a time limit to return. We have to meet the Xindi Degra at specific coordinates or else Earth is doomed," Archer said with urgency. Caldwell spoke up.
"You travelled backwards in time as well through different universes. There may be a way to return you to a specific moment in your timeline when you return to your universe, but I'm no egg-head so we will have to check." Archer stared at the Admiral before speaking again.
"I guess that is all I can hope for as it will take a large amount of time and recourses to repair the ship enough to get back and by then, our deadline will have technically passed. If we may, can we return to our shuttle to pull up what technologies we would be willing to trade? As well as taking some scans of one of your vessels to see what would be good to offer." Archer bargained. Carter thought about it.
" That seems agreeable as long as we can do some more in-depth scans of your ship to see what we could offer in return."
"Thank you. Can we get a beam back to the Achilles Admiral?" Archer asked as he and his team stood up from the table.
"Of course, just step over here please." After the five others had left, Carter turned towards her old friend.
"John what do you think about all this?" she asked.
"I think these people have gone through more than could be asked of them and then some. I would like to help them right now, and even upgrade their ship for them but I know that I would most likely get chewed out for not going through proper channels," Sheppard said. Carter chuckled as she figured that John would want to help out these people no matter what. She did too but she had to follow protocol, as much as she detested it.
"I think we could possibly give them some of our older tech like the gear we had on the old Daedalus I class ships. The shields, beam weapons, Tolan Ion guns, and crystal circuitry of those ships are heavily outdated compared to what we have now so the government officials may go for that as long as Archer could compensate for it," Carter thought aloud.
"I think that would be best. I'll contact the President to see if we can get an official down here to help with the negotiations. You get your aide to pull up the list of tech from that era so Archer could look it over," Sheppard stated before leaving the room to make the call. Carter ordered her aide to make out the list of technologies to look over.
(Line Break)
As soon as they were all back within the shuttle, Archer and his team went over what had been discussed. Then Archer began giving his orders.
"Trip. I want you to get a readout of the entire ship and put it on a PADD for the Tau'ri to look over."
"The entire ship? Are you sure that is wise Cap'n?" Trip asked.
"We don't have a choice. We need these people's help and they can most likely scan our entire vessel anyway. At least giving them a complete readout would look good to a negotiator. Phlox can you make a list of medical supplies we could trade and what supplies you may need?" Archer continued. Phlox looked thoughtful for a moment before returning Archer's gaze.
"I should be able to pull up something on a PADD quickly," he said before getting to work. Finally, the Captain turned towards his second-in-command.
"Can you get a good scan of these vessels with what sensors we have left?" He asked the Vulcan.
"I should be able to get a clearer scan as soon as we return to the Enterprise. I shall give you a report on what I find within the hour." Archer nodded his head before stepping outside the shuttle to speak with Caldwell.
"With your permission, we'd like to return to our ship to get what we need. We should return within the hour." Caldwell nodded his head.
"Of course. It will take just about as long to get an actual diplomat out here for the negotiations anyway. You are all cleared to disembark Captain," Caldwell said as he saluted then walked away to give the shuttle room to take off. Archer returned to the pilot's chair of the shuttle as the hatch sealed and the engine started up. The craft slowly made it way out of the massive hangar and towards the NX-01.
True to her word, as soon as they had returned, T'pol began to take deep scans of the Tau'ri vessel Achilles and the other surrounding craft. What she found truly amazed her. Crystalline circuitry that outperformed anything that any species had on their ships. Shields powerful enough that they could likely take the brunt of a coronal mass ejection and barely be scratched. She was extremely pleased because if they could get even the original forms of all of this technology, Enterprise would more than stand a chance against anything the Xindi races could throw at them.
All of her internal excitement was suddenly halted however. The scanners had finished picking up what made up the hulls of the Tau'ri vessels, and it identified part of the metal as something she would readily admit she had a new fear of. The hulls of the Tau'ri vessels were made up in part by what the computer identified as Trellium. The mineral that almost made T'pol crazy enough to attack her own captain, and that had cost the lives of the entire crew of the Vulcan exploration ship Seleya.
Author's Note: I hope you all are enjoying the quicker chapters. I have found a lot of extra time to write so I've taken advantage of that. Reviews and constructive criticisms are welcome, but flames are not. Thank you for the patience everyone and I hope you have a good weekend. We'll just have to see if I type up another chapter tomorrow.
-D'terran
