- TEN -
A Brief Respite
- December 8th, 2380 -

"Captain Dougherty, your inability to carry out such a simple task is disturbing... and disappointing." Lauren Dougherty's holographic image kept her head down towards her feet, not daring to look up and face the twelve metallic slabs that surrounded her.

"Yes sir, I apologize for my failure." There was a very short moment of awkward silence before she continued. "I can only beg for the Covenant's forgiveness, and assure you that this will never happen again."

"I trust that it won't." The same voice answered.

"That will be sufficient Bartholomew." Said a commanding voice from the largest metallic slab denoted with a one in Roman numerals.

"Sir," Dougherty started again, this time lifting her head to face her superiors. "If you may give me another opportunity, I promise I will succeed and capture Picard for you." There was a slight hint of desperation in her voice, as if she wanted to a chance to redeem herself. The large metallic slab rotated back to face Dougherty's hologram.

"No. We will take care of that. You have another task to carry out." Dougherty's face showed disappointment.

"Yes sir."

"You shall proceed with the next phase of the operation."

"But Picard's capture..." Dougherty objected.

"Is no longer your concern." The commanding voice finished, Dougherty immediately backed off. "You are dismissed captain." She nodded.

"Yes sir." She said just moments before her hologram faded out of existence. Another of the dozen slabs turned.

"Jehovah," Said the voice, addressing the previous speaker. "Picard is proving to be far more resilient than we had calculated. He may jeopardize Apokalypto."

"There is no need for worry Matthew; it is only a minor set-back. I had planned for this." Jehovah reassured.

"Picard must not be allowed to escape our grasp again." Another of the twelve spoke out.

"He will not Thomas. Do not forget our mole, and I will dispatch the Amethyst to capture him." Jehovah replied.

"One of the Foundation ships? Is that necessary?" Said another, sounding somewhat astonished.

"Of course Andrew. We have underestimated Picard for too long." Jehovah said. "We will not make that mistake again, Picard... is ours."
- October 3rd, 2156 -

"Good evening, I'm Barbara Miles of Global Media-Net. Our top story today; GMN has just learned that Starfleet's flagship, the Enterprise, has finally returned to space-dock in Earth orbit after suffering a disastrous defeat at the hands of the Romulans in the Telamon System. Telamon is a vital system to the war effort as several major trade lanes crosses through it. Although Starfleet is being its usual tight-lipped self by refusing to release any information in this latest development of the Romulan War, GMN has learned from reliable inside sources that terran losses in the battle were near total." The female anchor paused for a second for breath before continuing.

"GMN has also learned that the battle for Telamon took place approximately two weeks ago. The reason for Enterprise's lengthy return trip are a result of several stops for emergency repairs. The starship also took considerable damage during the skirmish and was forced to limit its use of its warp drive. This defeat comes at the end of a long line of Starfleet failures to halt Romulan advances since the declaration of war by the World Government about seven months ago. In fact there has been no terran victory since the beginning of this conflict, and Starfleet has been reportedly downplaying the severity of the situation as the momentum continues to swing in favour for the Romulans..."

The anchor was cut off abruptly as Admiral Forrest annoyingly turned off the monitor, not wanting to watch more as he sat in his office with Admiral Ryan and Commodore Shields.

"We've got to stop these press leaks." Ryan said, breaking the brief moment of silence. Forrest responded with a bemused look.

"If you know how, I would like to hear it." When no one answered, he continued by stating the obvious. "We can't shut them up, or they'll cry foul about us imposing on their freedoms and some such."

"It certainly isn't helping morale." Shields added, as both admirals nodded in agreement. Before anyone could speak up, a beep reverberated throughout the room, indicating that someone was at the door.

"Enter." Forrest said as the doors immediately parted ways to reveal a very beaten-looking Captain Jonathon Archer. Forrest stood up to greet his friend.

"Jon. Glad to see you make it back in one piece." Archer shook the admiral's hands before settling down in a soft and comfortable chair.

"You and I both Admiral." Archer started, "It's a miracle the Enterprise made it back at all."

"I have read the report about the battle captain, how is your ship?" Shields asked.

"My engineer, Commander Tucker, reports that it'll be at least a month and a half... maybe two, before Enterprise can see action again."

"That bad?" It was Admiral Ryan who launched this question, sounding somewhat caught off guard.

"Yes sir, we had to do a lot of patch work on the way back. They were short-term repairs, enough to get Enterprise back to Earth but they ended up doing more damage in the long run." Archer said, his voice qivering exhaustion.

"And how's T'Pol and the rest of your crew?" It was a rhetorical question, but Forrest knew that Archer cared deeply about his crew and felt that he should show some sympathy towards his friend.

"T'Pol suffered a number of injuries early in the battle; she sat most of it out in sickbay. She's at Starfleet Medical resting up and recuperating." Archer then continued, a little more slowly. "The rest of the survivors are fine, but we took over sixty percent casualties."

"I'm sorry Jon; I know it was a tough one." Archer nodded in acknowledgement. "But I've got some bad and good news." The captain half frowned. "Several days ago, Starfleet Intelligence intercepted a Romulan transmission."

"We've never done that before." Archer noted.

"Right, but we may have figured out how to do so. Purely by luck but our techs believe they can duplicate the process." Forrest continued; this time a little more excited. "Now our people have only been able to decipher a small part of the transmission... but we believe the Romulans are up to something in the Vega Sector."

"Like what?" The captain asked.

"We're not sure, but Vega is key area of space between Earth and the Romulan Star Empire... now whatever it is, we think it's big. Very big." Forrest emphasised. "But we need to decipher the rest of the transmission to know exactly what it is they're up to, and we've run into a few snags..."

"How about Hoshi? Ensign Sato's great in that department, plus she's had some experience with the Romulan language." Archer suggested.

"That'll be perfect Jon." Forrest looked at Archer again, and saw in his eyes how tired the captain really was. "Send her to Intel in the morning... and as for you, get some sleep." Signalling that the meeting was adjourned, Archer slipped a half-smile as he stood up.

"I will Admiral." As he stood up to leave, then turned to face his superiors one more time before making his exit. "Goodnight."
- December 9th, 2380 -

Captain Jean-Luc Picard strode off the turbo-lift and made his way towards Engineering. Hectic would be an understatement to describe the last few days. It seems that everything, up to and including the sky, has fallen on them and the aging captain, along with his crew are still struggling to take it all in. The Enterprise-E, along with the Titan, sat silently in a nebula with much of its main systems powered down to further avoid detection.

"Mr. LaForge, what do you have for me?" The captain asked as he spotted the Chief Engineer while walking into the huge room occupied by the ship's immense warp core.

"Captain, I'm going to need at least a week in dry-dock to patch the ship up." The engineer said as walked over to meet his captain. "We've got problems all over the ship; my people are doing their best to fix them all but it's going to take time." Picard nodded.

"Well, time is not a luxury we have. Do whatever you can commander." Geordi acknowledged by also nodding. "Any luck figuring out the Illustrious' transmission?" Geordi thought for a few seconds before answering.

"We think it's probably a fake, found some irregularities with the transmission but nothing concrete for now. The Enterprise's logs though..." Geordi said as he moved to a nearby console and pressed a few buttons to bring up some text files. "You see these? These are the logs that said we fired on the Illustrious..." Geordi pointed at the screen. "Well according to the computer, the logs were altered into the form we see now." Picard had expected that.

"How?" He was pretty sure Geordi didn't know.

"That's the thing, we don't know. But we know that it was done onboard the Enterprise." Picard turned to the commander.

"We've got a mole." The captain was a little astonished by the revelation.

"It seems that way." The intercom then beeped.

"Perry to Picard. Sir, Captain Riker wishes to speak with you."

"Patch him to engineering please." A moment later, the text on the screen was replaced by Riker's face.

"Jean-Luc, you better have a look at this. We just received this through subspace... it's a general transmission." A general transmission is an un-coded message meant for anyone and everyone, falling in the same category as a distress signal. Riker's face was then promptly replaced by Picard's own, stunning the captain and the chief engineer to silence as Picard watched himself launch into a speech.

"I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard for the Armia Krajowa flagship Enterprise." Picard listened intently as his doppelganger identified himself and continued on.

"I am here today, to issue a message to Starfleet and the Federation. Five years ago, several members of the Federation Council including the President himself, approved a joint operation with the Son'a to forcefully remove the people of Baku for exploitation of their planet." The doppelganger paused for breath and dramatic effect.

"The Baku people were nearly wiped out by this atrocity, and only through the bravery and courage of my crew and ship were we able to prevent a catastrophe. Documents of this incident, along with the subsequent Federation cover up are attached with this transmission." Picard's jaw was the verge of hitting the floor.

"The Federation has become an obsolete and corrupt institution! I have a message for every Starfleet officer out there. Stand up not only for yourself. But for freedom and for humanity! Join our cause, and together we can end this tyranny that is the United Federation of Planets! Let it be known that on this day, the Armia Krajowa begins its fight for freedom and justice, and declares war on the Federation!"

To Be Continued...