Herald of Light: After a long hiatus (caused by many things, included my breakup with my now ex-girlfriend), I'm going to try to finish this story before I go bact to college. I have a few chapters ahead, but I am going to look over them and see if there is anything that needs to be changed. I still remember everything I had in store for this story, so there won't be too much damage done to my ending by this long abscence.
Thanks to everyone for being so patient. And a special thanks to those who recently reviewed this story and brought it back to my attention. If they hadn't...well...it could have been a lot longer until this story got finished.
"Captain, I don't know how much longer the engines can hold this. And the engines are the least of my worries, the hull was never designed for the pressures of traveling over warp seven, and those pressures were just theoretical!" Trip was sounding very concerned, and aptly so. Enterprise was running flat out to try and get back to Earth in time. Which meant that she was doing warp 7.8 and trying to get more every second.
Right behind her was a fleet of ten ships, all as powerful as Enterprise had been at the start of this mission. If she had not been retrofitted by the Vulcans, and if Archer and his crew hadn't beaten back the attempts to get at them, that fleet could have done it. Sure, ten ships, but that didn't matter when you considered what they would do once they reached a ship without shields, like most Earth vessels were without.
They would simply board and turn the ship against the others.
Enterprise was the only human vessel equipped for the fight. Archer wanted to turn around and fight, but he couldn't, because he had to get back to Earth and warn the Admiral, maybe then they would have their internal security ready to repel the invaders. Once he got that message off, he would turn his father's ship around and give them hell. Everyone that was on board, his crew, the Vulcan and Andorian evacuees, all of them were at a station that needed help. Everyone was at a post keeping Enterprise ready for the fight to come.
"How much longer?" Archer looked down to the helm as though if he were sitting there he could will his ship to go faster.
"Three hours at this speed to reach Xena station, but we can only hold it for an hour and a half." Mayweather knew what that meant; they were going to be fighting just outside of their own solar system.
"Will that be close enough to send a message?" Archer peered over at Ensign Hoshi who was trying to rewire the entire communications system. Panels and wires were strung out over half of her and throughout all of the science station.
"I don't know Captain. Whatever they did to our long-range comms, it was through. What's worse though is that it's the same problem on all three ships. Long-range is gone, but intra-ship is just fine."
Something struck Archer, "How about the sub-space relay buoys? I still think we have one left over from that mission, don't we?"
Hoshi looked over at him, picked up her PADD and punched in her inventory of the communications equipment. There it was, at the bottom of the list in the items that needed to be jettisoned when they reached a trash point. "We have it, but its one that didn't work when we deployed it."
"What if it was repaired, do you think it would work?"
"Not long it wouldn't." Hoshi tried to compute the times and distances needed for it. "But if I could get it to send the message for maybe three seconds, that would work."
"I have an idea that would be even better. My vessel has high-velocity probes capable of warp 8, what if we attached your relay buoy to our probe?" Soval appeared from the turbolift in one of Enterprise's uniforms and holding a case full of modified phase pistols.
"Now were getting somewhere." Archer looked to Shran on the viewscreen to see if he had anything to put into the conversation.
"How about I cause some ruckus so you two can get the materials needed to get your plan together?" He ventured.
"That's suicide!" Soval exclaimed from beside Archer as he handed him a pistol. "Don't you Andorians ever use logic in a fight?"
"Don't you Vulcans ever use common sense? Here let me break it down so even a child could understand. You can't transport either piece of equipment at this high velocity, which means to get your probe" He motioned to Soval "and your buoy" he motioned to Archer "together you are going to have to slow down. And since my ship won't be needed for this, and we will have ten ships full of pissed off vampires chasing us, I'd say that you would need a little distraction. How's that for you, logical enough?"
Soval was stunned. It was the first instance that he had not only been out gunned by an Andorian, but that he had seen Andorian use logic so stunningly. "Very well, just don't get yourself killed. I intend to get you a drink after all this is done."
"Why, I didn't know you drank Ambassador."
"And I didn't know that you were so self-sacrificing." Soval said with a new respect for the Andorian.
"Hey, we get through this, I'm inviting the both of you to my bachelor party to get plastered, and that will be an order!" Archer knew that he was interrupting, but his ship was beginning to run out of time, and they would need to do this soon.
"Let's do this."
"Admiral Forest, I must protest your actions, they are not in accordance to any of the international treaties which you agreed to uphold when you took your position as head of Starfleet."
"Excuse me, Mr. President, but that is a total load of bullshit and you know it." Admiral Forest was sick and tired of using the gloves on these poli-chickens and now the gloves came off. "While it is true that those treaties are the ones which created the United Earth government, they didn't create Starfleet. My sole responsibility is to the protection and survival of mankind, which I cannot do on Earth because you assholes are deciding to have a small war!"
Before they could get in a word edgewise he continued. "Let me tell you something. I have a captain out there right now that I have lost contact with. Whatever it was that he is investigated scared the living shit out of the Vulcans AND the Andorians enough for those two species to send six ships each to meet with and upgrade the Enterprise. I have not heard from Captain Archer in almost 70 hours, and you tell me that the worst of my problems are on the surface of the Earth! TO HELL WITH EARTH, I AM MORE CONCERNED ABOUT WHAT COULD BE COMING FROM BEYOND PLUTO!" At this, he threw his PADD containing the complaints of the replacement world leaders. "And let me get something else straight with you. You….morons are so selfish to think that the fucking universe revolves around your fucking balls!" The leaders were noticeably upset at this, but it was true, there was not a woman among them.
"You are going to wake up one day to find that the rest of the world doesn't give fuck about you, and then you are going to see just how strong humanity can be when it doesn't listen to you fucking morons." With that, Forest cut the transmission and hit the intercom for his aide.
"Yes Sir?"
"Are the defensive positions ready?"
"They are sir. Sir I just had a PADD handed to me you need to look at. It's from CAPTAIN ARCHER!" She busted through his office door and handed him the PADD.
It took him a second to get the meaning of the report. "Oh God." This was worse than he thought. "Tell the Intrepid that I will be ready to transport in two minutes, and that I will be taking command of all Starfleet defensive actions from her bridge. Also activate the emergency response system and activate all defensive reserves. We've just had war declared. Defcon 1 Lieutenant."
'Xena' is one of the most common names thrown around for the so called "10th Planet" which is 2003 UB313 which is some 67.6681 AU from the sun or about 10.12 Terameters. (10.12 x 1012 Meters). For the sake of my story, I will use this as a defensive outpost and research center for the Sol System. There is no mention of this in any Star Fleet canon, but seeing as how it was discovered only last year, I can see why.