Shattered Times and Timelines: USS Defiant

by the stargate time traveller

AU History for the 22nd-century changes beyond recognition as Captain Archer and his crew stumble across a ship from the future. A ship that has passed between the barriers of reality. The Federation starship USS Defiant.

Disclaimer - I don't own Star Trek in any shape or form.

This is the start of a series of short stories where history changes through time travel and moments in other realities.

Enjoy.

---

Shattered Times and Timelines: USS Defiant.

"Captain's Star Log - April 4th, 2153 - We have completed the survey of a thirteen planet solar system and studied a rare neutron star fragment. We are now underway, we are heading to a region of space T'Pol has informed us after reviewing the Vulcan star charts of the region, is several light years away from Tholian space. I have ordered the crew to be on the alert. Ever since the incident with the ship from the future, and how the whole situation spiralled out of control, we can never be too safe than sorry."

X

"Captain, I'm picking up a ship only three-light years away," Reed reported from his console, looking up briefly to make eye-contact with Archer before he returned his gaze to the console. "We're close enough to get an accurate look at the ship, captain. It's some kind of Earth-ship."

"An Earth ship? This far out?" Archer's voice was far from disbelieving. Ever since they had begun exploring space beyond the solar system ever since the invention of warp drive and First Contact with the Vulcans, ships had been sent out on long-range exploration missions in order to begin the groundwork on long-term space exploration missions, which had eventually led to the creation of Starfleet.

It had not mattered back then warp engines were only capable of travelling at warp one speeds. All that had mattered was more and more people were becoming experienced with the space travel, and those same lessons had allowed the creation of Starfleet, and even today Starfleet Command was accepting much more information about the galaxy, the universe they lived in with the experiences on Earth's first warp five ship.

Archer had read about all of the old spaceflights of the 20th through to the 21st centuries, through the use of crude solid fuel rockets, ion powered probes, and then through to the development of the first warp fields. And he knew some of those old ships had gone missing long ago, without a trace.

"Is there any idea which ship it is?" Archer asked, wondering if they were finally going to catch up with the Friendship One probe, or even the long-lost SS Valiant.

"No, sir, we're too far out."

Archer turned to T'Pol, who was already scanning the coordinates. "Anything, T'Pol?"

The Vulcan science officer lifted her gaze, her calm facade never wavering. "No, Captain."

Archer turned on the spot. He didn't like the idea of not knowing the answer to a mystery, but ever since they had discovered the depths of the damn Temporal Cold War, a conflict which they still knew so little about, although the fighters saw nothing wrong with meddling in history, if what Daniels had said was true, he had wanted to know more about the conflict and what was so special about his involvement with this 'Federation,' and why so many people wanted to prevent its creation in the first place.

But this was a mystery worth studying.

When Archer had first joined Starfleet, fighting so long so then he could command one of the first warp-five ships as a testimony to his father's work, one of his greatest hopes was he could answer the questions of what had happened to lost colonies, lost ships which had been launched from Sol over the decades, and had just vanished without a trace. While he and his crew had learnt about the mystery surrounding Terra Nova colony, which had lost contact with Earth thanks to an asteroid which had poisoned the planet, forcing the inhabitants underground; the adult population of the small settlement had already had a strained relationship with Earth, and they had wrongly believed the collision was down to humans with Vulcan support and advice, and their children had heard and held onto that same disgust. Archer had long since believed Vulcans had been holding Earth back and had resulted in his father losing hope he would ever see the warp five engine work, but over time his beliefs had mellowed out the longer they were out here, and the longer he worked with T'Pol, but one of the biggest reasons was when he had seen how irrational the acts of some people were.

But he had never lost hope for his ambitions and one of his greatest hopes, ever since he had first heard of the expedition, was to discover what had happened to the Valiant.

If this was the Valiant, it would contain the answers to a major mystery, and it would contain the personal logs, mission logs, and all the crew had seen and endured over its long voyage. What the Valiant would know would be a massive boon for United Earth.

"Travis, lay in a course. Warp three," Archer ordered.

"Aye, sir," Travis's fingers worked the helm console as he laid in the course and engaged the warp engines. As Enterprise jumped into warp, bypassing the light barrier and the stars streaked by, Archer sat down in his chair and he absently tapped the armrests of his chair in thought. It would not take long for them to arrive; at warp three, three light years would go by in a flash. But at the same time, he took a moment a think on what they were going to find. If it was the Valiant, or even Friendship One, he wondered just what they had discovered over long years, but if the ship ahead was the Valiant, he remembered asking his father those questions about her.

When he had been a kid, Jonathan had plied his father with questions about all of Earth's earliest long-range space exploration flights; Terra Nova had been one of his favourite, but so too had the Valiant. The Starfleet database was chock full of information gleaned about the ship's years in space, from pictures, survey reports, mission and personal logs, star charts of distant parts of the galaxy - distant, by that point in time. One of Archer's biggest ambitions was to travel to the same areas as the Valiant, and go much, much further.

But at the same time, he knew this ship did not necessarily have to be the Valiant. It could be any of the old warp-powered probes which had been launched over the years, and had gotten lost or simply out of contact with Earth, or, they had as the theorists suggested, simply fallen into some kind of wormhole and found themselves millions of light years away. The explorer in Archer was excited by the thought of discovering a wormhole, but he would prefer one which allowed two-way transit, but if they found one to the Delta or Gamma Quadrants, it would certainly expand their knowledge and understanding of the universe…

When Travis brought the ship out of warp, Archer leaned forward.

"The ship is dead ahead, sir," Reed shook his head. "It doesn't match anything in the database."

Archer frowned. That was not a good sign; Enterprise's computer was full of details about the earliest warp ships, and they would recognise one of the older Starfleet ships. "Hail them, Hoshi."

"I've been trying, sir. But there's no response."

"I believe I can offer an explanation for that, Captain. The ship is adrift," T'Pol reported.

"It's coming into range, now sir," Hoshi added.

"Let's see it," Archer ordered.

The screen was showing the blackness of space, but now a large white dot drifting slowly around the starscape appeared on the screen.

"Magnify," Archer ordered.

The white dot on the screen leapt forwards in size a few times. Archer gaped. It was like no Earth ship he had ever seen before, but the general design of the saucer section representing the primary hull joined by a neck to a secondary hull with warp nacelles was virtually identical to the design of starship launched from Earth over the last 90 years or so. But it was enormous, far bigger than anything launched from Sol, but Archer did not recognise the type of ship as it drifted through space.

The shape of the ship appeared, almost organic in design with the nacelles long, and shaped as if they were sculpted in the same manner as cone shells washed on the shores of a beach, on Earth, while the nacelle support struts were swept back; he had never heard of this kind of hull geometry, never mind saw something like that. While it didn't matter much to a space faring culture only just starting out in space exploration, warp faring civilisations needed to design their ships so then they create and generate a stable warp field. The ship dwarfed Enterprise so much Archer was willing to bet his own ship would probably be swallowed up by the saucer alone.

None of the crew recognised the design of the ship.

"Travis, take us closer," Archer ordered.

"Aye, sir."

The closer Enterprise drew to the mysterious ship, the more curious and puzzled the bridge crew became. None of them recognised the ship, even though it was recognisable as an Earth ship. Some of them were curious; was this ship a top-secret design gone wrong, a prototype full of technologies that had somehow been lost long ago?

Travis took Enterprise around the ship so they could get a better look at it. As they passed around the saucer section of the starship, Archer spotted writing on the saucer.

"Wait. Magnify that writing," he ordered.

Hoshi tapped in a few commands into her console, and the viewscreen zeroed in on the writing. It was a registration code with the name of the starship above. NCC-1764. USS Defiant.

"Defiant?" Archer racked his brains for any distant memory, or rumour of a ship named the Defiant, but he couldn't think of one. And he did not recognise the registration identification number. He turned to Hoshi. "Run it through our computer; see if there's a correlation."

Hoshi nodded although her expression made it clear he shouldn't get his hopes up. Archer knew he shouldn't, but he could not help but wonder if some group of people on Earth had constructed this ship. The alternative was one he did not want to even think about.

"Captain, I've been taking scans of that ship. I'm not picking up any energy readings at all, and there are no life signs on board," Reed informed him.

"And we can forget about this ship being in our records, sir. I've looked through all of our records, and there is nothing close to the design despite it being close to some of our current ships," Hoshi added.

Archer sighed. Well, there went one avenue of working out this mystery. He turned to T'Pol. "Is there anything of note, radiation, strange anomalies, anything?"

T'Pol had already been checking her sensors during this period. "There's some strange background irregularities, but I cannot understand why."

"Elaborate."

T'Pol looked up. "I can't."

Archer sighed and looked thoughtful for a second before he glanced at both Reed and T'Pol. "Intensive scans, the pair of you. I want to know as much as we can about that ship."

T'Pol and Reed both got to work before they both came back with a lot of information about the Defiant's internal structure.

"Put it on the screen. Get Trip up here. I want him to see this."

It took the chief engineer only a few minutes to get to the bridge although he had been monitoring the situation from main engineering. As soon as Trip stepped out of the turbo lift and caught sight of the internal scan results on the viewscreen, he looked at it in unhidden amazement.

"Primary systems are all offline, including life support. We're not detecting any energy signatures, no life signs," T'Pol was reporting as the chief engineer stepped closer.

"Wow!" Trip whispered in awe.

Travis grinned at him. "Incredible, isn't it sir?"

"You've a talent for understatement, Travis. Look at the size of those warp coils, I bet that thing could do warp seven! Maybe more! Where did it come from?" Trip asked.

A cold feeling was settling in Archer's stomach as a feeling came over him. It had come on when Trip had made the careless comment about the Defiant's speed factors, and as he thought about it, it did make some sense.

"We'll soon find out," he said out aloud, hiding his suspicions and his unease from the rest of the bridge crew. There was plenty of time for that after all. "We're going to send a small landing party on board that ship. I'll go, so will you Trip, T'Pol. Malcolm," he turned to Reed, "I want you to come along as well, but I also want some of the science and engineering teams to come with us as well. Just two from each, so we don't overload the shuttlepod. Travis, I want you to be in command."

X

This thing has travelled in time; I know it, Archer thought to himself as he guided the shuttlepod towards the Defiant's many airlocks along the saucer section. Guiding the shuttlepod in his spacesuit reminded him of the time they had stumbled across that Axanar ship whose crew had been killed and hooked up to pumps to drain their fluids, but this whole situation was different.

Ever since they had become aware of it, Archer and his crew had become used to strange events which had a more widespread effect, although they were a long way from understanding how the Temporal Cold War worked; Daniels had been enigmatic enough, but this whole situation reminded him of the time they'd stumbled across that ship from the future which was bigger on the inside.

With deft ease speaking of many hours of practice, Archer managed to match the shuttlepod to the rotation of the Defiant, and they locked on. As soon as they were out of the airlock, they found themselves in dark wide open corridors with white walls and black deckplates. As they walked on, they came across three bodies of the crew. One of them wore a golden shirt over black trousers and boots, while the second man of the trio wore red, the third figure was a woman wearing a dress tunic.

Archer bent down and rolled one of the men over, wincing in horror at the terrible wound in his chest. The wound was long since cauterised so there was no blood. Archer gazed sadly down at him, seeing that he was not that much physically older than Travis or Hoshi was, and judging from the expression on his face, he had died horribly.

Something metallic was lying on the ground, and Archer picked it up and held it up so he could get a better view of what it was. It was a phase pistol, of some form, but it was longer and sleeker than the weapons carried on Enterprise. He put it back down and he stood up, and looked at the others. They were looking down at the corpses with horror as well, all of them wondering what had happened here.

"Let's see if we can get to the bridge," he said.

The journey up to the bridge was like going through a horror movie. They found more dead bodies lying everywhere, and the further they moved through the ship, the more proof Archer found this ship was indeed from a different time. There were aliens among the crew, wearing the same kind of design of uniform; among the crew were Tellarites, Andorians, and a host of hominids Archer had never seen before.

"Do you recognise any of them?" Archer asked T'Pol, gesturing to a few alien crewmembers, whose species he had never encountered before.

"I recognise this one," the Vulcan pointed to a one of the hominids, who appeared reptilian. "A Saurian," she pointed to another, a human looking alien with strange spots on the sides of their face, "a Trill. They are a peace-loving species."

"They look like they killed one another, Cap'n," Trip said grimly.

Archer said nothing. The same thought had entered his own mind as well. Mutiny. There had never been a mutiny on one of Earth's ships, so what would make the crew of this futuristic mutiny? Archer knew mutiny could occur in many ways; on Earth, they usually occurred because commanders were unduly harsh and cruel, but there were other reasons for them. Somehow he doubted the crew had been treated harshly by the captain of the Defiant, and he doubted they'd come to a planet which affected them so profoundly they could not live without it.

Finding a lift shaft which would take them all to the bridge was easy. It was what they found when they got there which told them the mutiny had not only been violent it had been beyond bloody. The bridge of the Defiant was large, easily larger than that of the Enterprise. The turbo lift was in an alcove which opened up to the rest of the bridge, with the centre dominated by the captain's chair. In front of the chair was a console where two people were meant to sit, but they found the space occupied by two bodies; a man wearing a gold shirt with a long fresh cut along the side of his face, held down by the other man who wore a red shirt, with his hands wrapped around his throat.

Archer knelt down by the two crewmembers, seeing the rank insignia on the gold-shirted man. "This looks like the captain."

"His neck's been broken," T'Pol pointed out, making Archer look up at her, wondering what the hell had happened to make a crew member go that far.

"Cap'n," Trip called from the turbolift. Archer walked over to him. Trip had found the dedication plaque on the wall, and he shone a light on it. Archer looked at it, and he instantly scowled when he saw the date.

"This ship comes from the 23rd century," Trip said.

Archer sighed and looked down.

"You knew, didn't you?"

"Not definitively, no. But when we saw the ship, and we didn't recognise its design, and we saw its size…. And when you said this thing could go warp seven or more, it sprang to mind."

Reed and T'Pol stepped over. Both of them had heard the two speaking together.

"Daniels?" Reed asked.

The Tactical Officer hoped the mysterious temporal agent from the future had not come back and he also hoped he didn't try to take away the Temporal Observatory. Reed had been making use of the piece of technology from the future, and what made it even better was how Daniels seemed to have forgotten he had left it in the 22nd century. The captain might have ordered it locked up and the key thrown away, believing the knowledge should not be used in any way.

But Reed hadn't thrown the key away. He had secretly been breaking into Daniel's cabin; as chief tactical officer, only he and the captain could get in there anyway, although he wouldn't have been surprised if Trip or T'Pol had gone in there a few times in order to take some of the priceless information inside away to be used later. He was working on reverse-engineering the technology from the Observatory, such as holographic technology and forcefields. But there was a host of other things to take, such as information about hostile lifeforms like the Klingons.

Reed could understand why the captain did not like the thought of anachronistic technology and knowledge appearing in the 22nd century before it was meant to be discovered, but if it was going to help them in the long term, so be it.

"No, this isn't his style; in any case, the last time I saw him, in the future, Daniels went out of his way to keep future knowledge away from me. He wouldn't change his mind, not like this," Archer said with certainty.

Trip was running his scanner over the consoles before he looked up. "I can restore power from here."

Archer was tempted to tell his friend and chief engineer to not bother, but Trip was already working on the console, hooking up a power cell he had brought with him from the ship. "Trip, don't do that," Archer finally said.

Trip turned around at once, his expression surprised from what Archer and the others could see through the viewing plate in the helmet. "Cap'n-?"

"Trip, this ship is not meant to be here. We need to go."

The senior officers realised what Archer meant. Word about the Temporal Cold War had become restricted, and while some like Reed believed the Temporal Observatory should be reverse-engineered for their use, their captain did not believe it was a good idea.

Archer, sensing the other's reluctance, became more annoyed as he tried to explain his rationale to them. "This ship does not belong in this time; if we use it, there's no telling how much damage could be caused. You did not see the damage done to Earth in an alternate timeline created by Daniels because he was told to by his superiors; who knows what could happen here and now if we do anything with this ship?"

"You're right, we didn't see that timeline, sir, but have you not thought that perhaps the timeline is already irreversibly changed?" Reed asked.

Archer turned to him. "What do you mean?"

"We know that the Suliban are part of this…Temporal Cold War, but how do we know what kind of events have been altered since even before we laid the keel down for Enterprise?" Reed asked rhetorically. "For all we know, Enterprise was meant to be destroyed or something."

"You're just speculating," Archer shook his head, but the fact was Reed had just given him a lot to think about.

"And then there were those cybernetic things we encountered not long ago, Cap'n. Like you, I thought there was something familiar about it, and I checked Cochrane's files, and I came across the references to them and that group of humans, who were from the future. We know now that Cochrane wasn't drunk, he was being serious," Trip pointed out, "but that's not all."

"What do you mean?" T'Pol asked.

"I dunno if you've noticed, but aside from a few differences, all Earth starships look more or less identical barring the freighters?"

T'Pol quirked an eyebrow. "Most alien races have their own aesthetics," she pointed out. "They are not influenced by time travel."

"No, but I'm starting to think Cochrane was. You might not know this, but I heard that Cochrane himself insisted on the design of starships advanced enough to go further than warp one speeds. One of the first warp ships we sent out was originally designed to be propelled by a ring nacelle, modelled on Vulcan warp technology, but Cochrane instead opted for something different. Why would he do that?"

"Are you suggesting Zefram Cochrane saw the shape of the future human ship, and was inspired by it?" Archer asked, unsure what to think.

"I'm not sure, just like I'm no longer sure on a lot of things. Who knows how much has changed? For all we know, we're already part of an alternate timeline where Enterprise is not meant to look like she does, and is actually designed to feature a Vulcan-inspired warp nacelle to test its performance," Trip replied. "I know you don't like it, I don't, either. But this ship is here now. Why don't we take advantage of it?"

"I don't like it," Archer's helmeted head shook from side to side. "I don't like the idea of cheating-."

"Maybe we won't be, Cap'n. If we take Defiant to Earth, allow Starfleet to study the ship and learn more of how the ship works, we might make different discoveries over a period of time," Trip said. "The Temporal Cold War's already changed a great deal of the timeline, perhaps more than we know today. Why not take advantage of it so we're in a better position to fight back?"

That question more than anything sealed Archer's decision. He had been chilled by the idea history was already out of sync because of time travellers carelessly leaving knowledge and technology behind, but what had frightened him the most was the idea history had changed so much, he and his ship were not meant to be who and where they were, and what made it worse was Trip might have a point.

Archer had heard the same rumours Trip had of the design of Earth ships, and how Cochrane had made it clear the use of a saucer primary hell, nacelles on pylons above an engineering section, was the only way to design a starship, but the implication time travel had influenced Cochrane's ideas scared him.

But what had clinched his decision was how Trip had described the Temporal Cold War and how they could use Defiant, and indeed the Temporal Observatory left behind by Daniels to help them devise ways of determining where and when the sides of the Temporal Cold War were appearing and find ways of driving them away. Archer had been deliberately trying to ensure the Observatory was never used, because he was afraid of how the advanced technology could be misused to commit all kinds of damage on the present since there was no way of being certain if time travellers like Silik's benefactor had not damaged the present.

Archer sighed and nodded. "Carry on, Trip. See if you can get this ship working."

Trip grinned at the challenge ahead. "Aye, Cap'n."

Archer didn't like it, but after the last encounters with Silik and whoever his future benefactor was and Daniels' blunder which had created an alternate timeline, he was starting to see they needed every advantage they could lay claim to. But as the decision settled in his mind, a ghost of a concern entered his mind. What if Daniels showed up, and he claimed they could not keep the Defiant? It was possible, but Archer decided to worry about that later.

X

As she studied the readouts in the science station, T'Pol could not help but wonder how the Vulcan science directorate was going to respond to the news the United Earth Starfleet had proof time travel was not only possible, but somehow one of their future ships had fallen back through time. While there had been good reasons for her people's stance on time travel, T'Pol was beginning to realise her people had only been studying phenomena only prolonged scientific study could yield results from.

When she had joined the Enterprise crew, it was not an assignment T'Pol had looked forward to. She hadn't wanted to spend a few days with a crew full of humans who already believed her to be the eyes, ears, and mouthpiece of the Vulcan High Command. Distrust towards and against Vulcans was something which had affected her people for a long time, but as time had passed ever since Captain Archer had openly asked her to stay on Enterprise after she had proven herself worthy of his trust, a priceless gift in itself, T'Pol had begun to see and understand where the humans were coming from.

That mess at P'Jem had horrified her; she had been visibly stunned by her people's subterfuge, even though she could understand why Administrator V'Las would have authorised it.

She had seen many things since she had formally joined the Enterprise crew, and while the humans did have a frustrating tendency of blundering into things which were none of their concern, she had to admit their hearts were in the right place and she had come to enjoy her time with them, and she had come to care about their wellbeing.

But none of those experiences could have prepared her for what was happening now. As she sat at the science station opposite the engineering station, T'Pol was busily going through the Defiant's systems to see what Commander Tucker had brought back online; so far he had managed to reactivate the life-support systems, which was a relief since she could remove her helmet and her heavy EV gloves, and he had reactivated the sensor array and some of the other systems, including the basic propulsion systems, but the warp drive would take some time.

The Enterprise crew had made one discovery that even T'Pol with her belief in the Vulcan science directorate could not ignore.

The Defiant had been built in 2258, 105 years from now, and the more she studied from the science station the more fascinated she was becoming. T'Pol had seen the Temporal Observatory left by Daniels, but as she checked through the systems listed in the science station readouts, she could see many things had definitely improved. Many of the systems were devised logically the longer a species was space-faring, but as she had seen so far from looking at some of the corpses of the Defiant's original crew - she had no idea what would possess the crew to kill each other, and she had already made a mental note to

"Hey," she glanced over her shoulder at once out of reflex as she took in one of the helm crew assigned to Enterprise; the young woman's back was turned to T'Pol, but the Vulcan could hear the excitement and surprise in her voice, "have you guys checked out the warp drive, yet?"

"If ye're gonna say the maximum warp speed hits warp nine but pushes the ship into subspace, don't 'cause I've found that out myself," Commander Tucker said it in a way that said he was too busy looking at his own console and readouts. "I need to properly look at the engines to see how it does that, and why, but it looks spectacular. I just haven't seen the engine configuration yet."

T'Pol made a decision and she inputted a query into the Defiant's computer. A moment later she got her answer. "I've just run a check of the Defiant's database. According to the historical files, Starfleet encountered several races which created wormhole-like channels through subspace which were much faster than warp drive, and they took sensor scans to make adjustments to their own warp drives to gain a more rapid speed. Much of the work is mathematical, the warp field coils working to push the ship into subspace."

"Yeah, that would make sense," Commander Tucker nodded with a thoughtful grunt, half turning in his seat to glance over his shoulder at her, his gaze thoughtful. "I'll need to take a look at those files as well, see if I can add any improvements onto Enterprise."

T'Pol privately wondered to herself if they should be making these adjustments, but she quickly decided not to put voice to her considerations. It was only logical the crew would be fascinated by Defiant and everything onboard her.

X

As he sat reading the logs his Defiant's opposite number had left in the office in the medical bay of the strange Earth ship, Dr Phlox was uncertain of what chilled him the most, the fact the whole crew had gone insane and killed one another, or the fact it had happened with no mercy whatsoever.

When he had heard the reports of the dead bodies on the ship, Phlox had asked, and had been granted, permission to enter the ship as soon as Enterprise was properly docked onto the Defiant's airlock.

The Denobulan had been concerned with the reports, and rightly so; what if the effects on the Defiant were lingering? What if some crew in the future encountered a similar phenomenon, and they had no immunity against it and they responded in much the same way?

Once he had received the preliminary findings from the Defiant, Phlox had made up his mind and he had asked for permission to board Defiant along with the rest of the salvage crew to learn more - they were currently tasked with going through the ship, mapping it out while they checked the ships' s main systems to determine if Defiant could still travel under its own power.

The moment he had, Phlox and the rest of the Enterprise salvage crew tasked with restoring power and propulsion to the ship, had been greeted with the sight of dozens of corpses.

And they had a variety of injuries; some of them had been pummelled to death by gangs who'd rampaged through the corridors of the ship like packs of wild animals, who'd beaten up their victims with tools - Phlox had been horrified by the sight of one crewman, whose head was caved in - or their bare hands, others had simply shot down their victims with weapons at close range. Phlox had seen death many times before during his career as a doctor, but as he read through the logs he was became increasingly thankful that whatever had brought Defiant here had faded and would not affect the crew of Enterprise; there was more than ample material available to the Denobulan doctor to work with in order to devise a cure, but he was pleased there was no need now.

He had to admit the doctor of the Defiant had done his best to come up with some cure; he had screened his patients chemically and physically while he and his staff were overwhelmed by the influx of patients - some of them were tied down because they were too insane to be allowed to leave the medical bay - and as time had passed many of his own staff had begun feeling and suffering the effects of whatever was going on. Phlox was impressed by the amount of actual data to work with and so it should prove easy to come up with some kind of analysis, assuming he knew what he was looking for. But he had to admit the Defiant's doctor was good; he had amassed much data in the process, but the logs ended abruptly. Phlox had no idea if his fellow physician and his staff had still been alive by this point, whether their own sanity had eroded or they had simply been killed in the madness, but he had no way of knowing for certain.

X

While she was checking the bridge's communication systems and database, Hoshi was relieved the bodies on the bridge had been removed; the sight of the lifeless corpses reminded her vividly of the horror show she had seen shortly after the business with Klaang was over. Hoshi was not sure what was worse; the fact the corpses were scattered in much the same way, or the differences between them.

The Axanar crew had been overpowered, their bodies hooked up to pumps draining them of fluids which another race sought as an aphrodisiac or something like that.

The Defiant crew's own situation was different; they had mutinied against their captain, for reasons they could not understand, but they had killed one another. Hoshi tried not to think about how many of the crew might've had some of their sanity before their friends killed them.

She pushed those thoughts aside - she was not quite the nervous wreck she had been when she had first boarded Enterprise to fill in the post as communications officer and chief linguist due to her natural talents, but Hoshi was still prone to moments. She just concentrated on her work to distract her from the thought of so many bodies among the crew.

"It looks like they managed to get at least the usual number of messages off before they started generating a distress call," Hoshi announced while she checked the communications array so she could access the logs, so she could get some idea of what was sent out from the Defiant.

"Any idea what they sent?"

Hoshi didn't reply for a moment as she access the logs. "Give me a moment. It looks like pretty routine stuff; there's a report of a distress call being detected through some kind of rift in space, but there was something else, but strange readings about the local space they were patrolling. They claim there was some kind of local distortion, but they couldn't identify it. The messages became hazy after that, the tone of the letters paranoid; it looks like the crew's madness started slowly, and it got worse from there."

Trip looked up from his work. "They got distress call leading them to a region of space where they went crazy?"

"It looks like it."

"I've found the last sensor logs - the Defiant systems were shut down shortly after, but the sensors and the main computer were still gathering a considerable amount of data. The closest thing the sensors and the crew were able to determine if there was some similarity to wormholes in space, but there was no opening or any sign," T'Pol said.

"Wormholes?" Trip rubbed his chin, holding up a hand for silence. "I can see why they'd see it like that, but it sounds like there was a wormhole in the area and the Defiant wandered across it…"

"And as they went further, the effects became more serious. I wonder what set off the mutiny," Hoshi pondered, mentally preparing herself for another lengthy check through the computer.

X

The moment Jonathan Archer went back to Enterprise, he headed straight for Daniels' cabin to check out the Temporal Observatory. As he went to the locker the precious device was, Archer did not have any of that hesitation he usually felt whenever he came here, and accessed the Temporal Observatory.

Archer hated using the thing. He believed it was a cheat, and in any case there was no way of knowing for certain whether or not Daniels would return to take it back. Sometimes he wished the temporal agent would, but it seemed the man was content leaving it with them, as if he hoped they made use of its contents. But he felt it was a cheat.

After switching it on, the Temporal Observatory instantly calibrated - Archer wondered if Daniels had set that up himself because he knew the Enterprise crew would need the information contained inside it, but he would never know - and instantly a the holographic stream of information appeared in front of him, displaying the image of the Defiant as it was… but something caught Archer's attention; there was another image of a ship like the Defiant, only different. It was smaller, the warp nacelles were more slimmer, conical, and the nacelle support struts were straight.

Why would the Observatory display different views of the same class of ship? And it is the same class, I can see that for myself.

But Archer received another surprise when he saw what would be best described as a hybrid of the two ships as the Observatory scrolled down. The image of the starship was slightly bigger than the image of the starship which had come after the image of the Defiant Archer had first seen, but it wasn't as big as the original image shown by the Observatory.

What's going on? Usually the Observatory displays just one type of information, not three. Confused and intrigued despite himself, Archer leaned forward and he began to read through the data, and his eyes widened as he realised what he was reading from the Observatory's data.

The three ships were the same class of starship, but from different timelines.

The middle ship apparently came from a timeline where the Temporal Cold War had not affected reality the way it had, and the revelation chilled Archer a great deal; how much had changed? Was there any trace of what was meant to be, or had it all changed so much beyond all recognition of what was meant to be?

Perhaps Trip's right, Archer thought to himself grimly, the Temporal Cold War has affected too much, and time travellers have intentionally or unintentionally changed things which was like dropping pebbles in a lake, rippling throughout the universe. Perhaps there is nothing we can do, and the best thing we can do is to try to carry on…

Suddenly the comm went off.

"Tactical Alert. Suliban and Tholian ships approaching!"

Archer became alarmed by the announcement, knowing full well the Suliban and the Tholians were part of the Temporal Cold War, although he had no idea just how far reaching their participation was or even what either race knew of it. He knew the Suliban were being aided by someone from the future, someone who'd been manipulating events from behind the scenes for God knew how long, and who had been giving them genetic enhancements to make them more powerful. But he knew nothing of what was going on with the Tholians, except both races were antagonistic towards each other.

Hastily stuffing the Temporal Observatory away, Archer relocked the door and rushed to the bridge.

X

"Report," Archer demanded as soon as he arrived. He had spent the last few minutes getting to the bridge coming up with ideas for what to do against the Suliban and the Tholians.

Malcolm Reed got out of the command chair so Archer could retake the seat. "We detected Tholian and Suliban warp fields about seven minutes ago, they're coming from different directions. They'll be here in two minutes."

"How many ships?"

Reed was already checking his scanners. When he looked up, his expression said it was not good news, but then whenever time travel was involved, it never was. "There are fourteen cell ships, and thirteen Tholian ships, sir."

Archer cursed under his breath. Twenty-seven ships would be overkill regardless, but after experiencing the tactics behind the Temporal Cold War, he knew this was a rare find for the two races. "Have they contacted us?"

"Not yet," the communications officer filling in for Hoshi reported.

There was no doubt in Archer's mind they were after the Defiant, and there was also no doubt in his mind they had brought out so many ships to capture the futuristic starship; the Defiant might come from an alternate timeline, but it would represent an enormous boon for whoever gained hold of it. And then Archer had the epiphany - if United Earth had it, then they could ensure a nice collective punch on the nose towards anyone taking sides in the war. The communications officer looked up; Archer momentarily wondered where Hoshi was, but he decided not to worry about it for the time being. "They'll be here in another minute, captain, and we're getting a message. It's Subcommander T'Pol."

"Put it through."

"Channels open, sir."

Archer took a second to think through what he was going to ask the Vulcan; it was likely she already knew about the approaching ships and what they would likely be doing out here, but he needed to think through his options although he already had a ghost of a plan in mind here. "T'Pol, you've detected the Suliban and the Tholians coming, haven't you?"

"Affirmative, captain. Mr Tucker's already brought the weapon and tactical systems on line on the Defiant."

Archer nodded, thankful Trip was on the futuristic ship, although he wondered just how his friend was doing over there, faced with the challenge of getting a ship a hundred years ahead of Enterprise and a timeline away from the norm back online. "Good. T'Pol, we'd better separate the two ships. We'd be less vulnerable docked."

"I agree. But we had better be quick; both fleets will be here shortly."

"Yes. Keep yourselves safe over there, and T'Pol; that ship is from the future, but its from another timeline to this one. Who knows what she can do? Archer out," Archer tapped a button on his chair to cut off the connection between himself and his first officer and he turned to Reed, "Cut us loose from the Defiant."

Reed nodded and urgently tapped in the command into his console which would alert any crew member passing to or fro the futuristic starship to get clear of the sealing airlocks. "Defiant's sealed its own airlock, sir, and ours is just closing…now," he reported before he looked up curiously, "The Defiant's from a different timeline?"

Archer could see the interest in Reed's face, but they didn't have time to dwell on it. "It does, and I'll tell you later what I've found. Bring the tactical systems up."

"They're already up, sir."

"Good," Archer suddenly had a thought. "How many of our people are on the Defiant?"

Reed checked his console. "Thirty-six."

A large chunk of the crew, then. "Get whatever security teams you have to sweep through the ship, and tell them if they see anything suspicious they're to fire at it," Archer ordered.

Reed caught on quickly, remembering their last encounters with the Suliban and their shapeshifting capabilities which made even the best human contortionist look like an amateur. "I'll get on to it right now," he said quickly, sending the message to the remainder of his security detail.

"Good," Archer turned to the communications officer. "Have they sent any transmission?"

"No, and I don't think they will, sir," the communications officer said grimly.

A moment later the reason why the communication relief said that became clear when the hull shuddered. "They're definitely not in the mood to talk. Move us away from the Defiant, tell T'Pol and the salvage crew to put up as much of a fight as they can."

X

On Defiant's bridge, T'Pol took in the sight on the holographic view screen outwardly calmly, but her mind was already working on possibilities while she multitasked by checking the computer interface built into the armrest of the command chair. "Mr Mayweather, raise shields and lock the…phasers on the Tholian ships at….four by two-seven, by five mark nine."

"Aye," the helm officer acknowledged.

"Fire."

Coruscating blue beams of energy shot towards the Tholian ships; overwhelmed by the power of an alternate timelines' 23rd century phasers, the defences of the normally formidable Tholian ships were destroyed. Surprised by the power behind the phasers, the Tholians and the Suliban, both enemies and pawns of the Cold War spread throughout time, tried desperately to get out of the phaser range of the Defiant, but the small prize crew made sure they couldn't.

In the first strike, only twenty-one ships had been destroyed by the Defiant, whereas Enterprise was barely able to destroy two of the ships. T'Pol, sitting in the command chair, was busily studying the status of the battle from the point of view from the computer access to the chair, working out in her mind the possibilities to driving away the Tholians and the Suliban.

"Mr Mayweather, lock onto the cell ships on the port bow; lock plasma torpedoes on them, also focus plasma and phaser cannons on the Tholian and Suliban ships attacking Enterprise," T'Pol ordered calmly.

"Aye," Travis's hands flew over the console, and as she lifted her head she could see that Travis was moving the Defiant closer towards the ships, but as he was carrying out the manoeuvre Travis called out, "Sub-commander, there are three Cell ships heading behind us."

There were moments where T'Pol wished she could let out gutter oaths in her language, but thanks to her Vulcan discipline it was not possible.

"Are they near our aft weapons?"

"They're coming into range."

"Fire when ready," T'Pol ordered.

X

Archer grimaced as a jarring impact ran through the entire ship. "Damage report!"

"Hull armour is down to 60%; they're focusing all of their attention towards our warp nacelles and impulse manifold," Malcolm reported.

Archer cursed at the details. "Divert us much power as possible to the hull plating. How many ships have been destroyed?"

Reed checked and he gaped at the readings. "Sir, twenty five of the ships have been destroyed."

"So quickly?" Archer's shock mirrored his own and he heard muted gasps from the rest of the bridge.

"The Defiant took care of the initial wave. Others were damaged by us, but the weapons on that ship have made short work of them… Sir, the remaining Tholian ships are coming towards us."

"Let's see it," Archer ordered.

The screen showed the last remaining Tholian ships were charging towards Enterprise and the Defiant, but as Archer and the rest of the bridge crew watched, the large silver shape of Defiant's primary hull appeared over them. The futuristic ship fired a glowing orb towards the Tholian ships and when it impacted one of the ships so quickly the Tholians simply did not have the time to veer away or take evasive action away from the orb, which exploded against the side of the ship. But it didn't stop there; the explosion created shockwaves in every direction, reverberating outwards in a spherical shaped blast which was strong enough to destroy the Tholian ships.

"My god!" This was one of the reasons why Archer was so determined to make sure time travel did not have any effect on current history (was there even such a thing, anymore?); introducing anachronistic technology and weapons like this could cause overwhelming devastation. "What the hell just happened?"

Reed was already checking his instruments, very quickly getting the results back but they surprised him. "That weapon was generating a low level warp field; when it exploded it was like an augmented warp core breach. I'd say it was the 23rd century equivalent of a high-yield weapon."

As the son of a warp specialist Archer knew only too well the power of a warp core explosion. A single blast would effortlessly destroy any surrounding object that was too slow to get out of the way of the blast. The idea of such a thing which should be used for exploration being used in such a manner… it just shocked Archer completely.

"What kind of reality would make somebody come up with a weapon like that?" Archer muttered to himself, or at least he thought he was muttering.

"I don't know, sir. Probably the type of people who have been pounded on many times in a row," Reed's interruption made him look at the Tactical officer questioningly. "But I've been looking over their tactical systems since Defiant's power grid came back on. Their defensive mechanisms are the most telling. That ship's hull plating is several times more advanced than ours, and although it wasn't needed, that ship has something called 'ablative generators,' which are capable of generating a nearly impenetrable sheath of reinforced armour around the hull. Whoever came up with that could have only had the idea if their reality suffered a great deal from a number of attacks, or wars; perhaps the Starfleet there suffered a great deal?"

Archer made a mental note to check, but right now he was more interested in what was happening with the remaining enemy ships. "What's the status of the rest of the ships?"

"They're in retreat. They've just gone into warp."

"That doesn't mean that they won't be back," Archer pointed out.

A chime came from the communications station,

"Captain, Sub-commander T'Pol is hailing us," the temporary communications officer reported.

"Put it through on the screen," Archer ordered and he smiled as the familiar image of T'Pol's beautiful face and pointed ears appeared on the screen. "Thanks, T'Pol."

"You're welcome, Captain," the Vulcan replied calmly before her expression shifted for a second; he had been around her long enough to see she looked concerned. "Is everyone alright?"

"We don't know yet," Archer replied, a little ashamed he hadn't asked for the status report. "How about with you?"

"The Tholian and Suliban weapons did not penetrate this ships' defences, captain. However, if I may, I recommend we leave this sector as soon as possible."

"I agree," Archer knew the Suliban well enough to know they were not the type to ignore something like this. "We'll re-dock the ships, and we'll send a few more people over to get Defiant ready. We're heading for Earth."

X

"Captain's Star Log: Supplemental - We have re-docked with the Defiant, and more of the 23rd century starships systems have been restored. However, we have found a new difficulty and more than a few surprises."

X

"What do you mean, the Defiant's warp engines are different from ours?"

"Exactly what I've just said, sir," Trip replied, his head swimming from the last minute find from the Defiant's computers. "Seems the Starfleet in that other timeline discovered a race which could warp space to a greater degree, and they'd taken enough scans to alter the warp formulas so their ships could go much faster. But the good news is, we can do the same with Enterprise."

T'Pol understood immediately. While she was a little dubious about using the technology from the Defiant, even she had to admit it would be illogical not to make use of it. "If we input those formulas into Enterprise's warp drive computer, we'd be able to travel at greater speeds."

"Yeah. I've already got the engineering computer running the simulations," Trip said.

Archer nodded in approval, thankful Trip wasn't stupid enough to just input a new formula and hope it worked on faith alone."Good thinking. The last thing we want is to go to warp, and then blow up. I've been doing some checking into that ship, using Defiant's own historical files and the Temporal Observatory left to us by Daniels. It seems that in the other timeline, Starfleet was forced to fight off two races we've met and heard of; the Klingons and the Romulans…"

"You mean those aliens who left that minefield?" Hoshi shuddered as she recalled the way the mine had exploded against the hull.

"The same. The other Starfleet got embroiled in a nasty war with the Romulans first," Archer lifted up the padd he had used to record down notes of the files. "The Romulans didn't like how Earth was forming alliances with other races, and they launched a war using drone ships which used some kind of holographic cloaking device which disguised them as ships from other races."

"Wow! I remember when I was on that Xyrillian ship," Trip glared around the table when some of them looked like they were on the verge of laughing hysterically as they remembered how he'd become pregnant by accident. "Their holographic technology was incredible. Y're saying that these Romulans used a similar method?"

"Yes. The use of the drone ships caused a lot of damage and chaos at the time. They disguised themselves as Andorians, Tellarites, even Klingons and launched attacks on various powers allied with the Earth of that reality in the hopes of causing enough chaos that Earth would no longer be a threat. Sometimes they would even disguise themselves as human starships, and do the same thing."

"It is logical that the Romulans of that reality relied on the drones to cause as much chaos as possible so Earth did not become a threat," T'Pol commented, "and since they had the means of disguising their ships and sending them out under disguise, it would make sense if they wanted to destabilise the region."

"It almost worked. The Romulan drone ships caused a great deal of damage during the war, and many ships were destroyed. But the United Earth of that reality gained a great deal of Romulan technology, including the shattered remnants of a drone. From that they discovered ways of overcoming the holographic camouflage and circulated it to the other powers opposed to the Romulans," Archer said.

"What did Starfleet know about the Romulans? It's possible we will encounter the Romulans again, and if we do then we'll need to be prepared," Reed asked.

"The Romulans never showed themselves outright during the war," Archer replied grimly. "They just launched drone ships against the other powers and relied on them to fight the battles."

"That's an odd way to fight a war, and how would they have been able to control those drones in the first place?" Travis asked.

"Apparently the drones were being controlled from the Romulan homeworld," Archer replied, remembering what he had learnt from the historical records from the Defiant. "They'd equipped the drones with powerful subspace transceivers and controlled them from there. But from there, the United Federation of Planets was truly cemented; it had been founded a short time ago, as an interstellar alliance between humans, Vulcans, Andorians, Tellarites, Denobulans, Xyrillians, and several other races at that point. In summary and to keep it short, there were several major wars at the time which helped to shape the Federation; the first was a war with a race known as the Xindi, who were duped into destroying Earth."

"What?" Hoshi gasped, mentally filing away the knowledge of this Federation, and promised herself to find out as much about it as she possibly could later. It sounded fascinating that such races, including three which seemed to have a never ending conflict with each other, had joined together.

Could such a thing happen here, in this timeline? Hoshi had no idea, but it would be incredible finding out.

"Why would they do such a thing?" Travis whispered while everyone else around the table was alarmed, and more than a little worried. What if it happened here, now?

"Apparently they were used by another race. The Xindi, according to the files, had apparently lost their original homeworld and they'd been forced to settle down wherever they could, but they eventually founded a new world, and it was destroyed by humans in the future. The aliens who told them this simply gave them more than enough knowledge to launch a pre-emptive strike against Earth," Archer said grimly.

"Do you think they'll attack our Earth?"

"I don't know," Archer replied. "The Xindi live in what's known as the Delphic Expanse-," he paused when he saw T'Pol's reaction of surprise. "You've heard of it?"

"Yes," T'Pol nodded, "its a region of space some fifty light years away from Earth, and is more than two-thousand light years across, surrounded by a dense layer of thermobaric clouds. The Vulcan High Command has sent a number of ships to the Expanse, but few have returned. Those who have have reported encountering dangerous anomalies and areas where the laws of physics did not seem to work."

"How is that possible?" The engineer in Trip Tucker was flabbergasted by this news.

"Unknown. But there are unreliable reports of how the Expanse is populated by dangerous species. Very few ships will even approach it. Twenty years ago, a Klingon vessel attempted to enter the Expanse. When it re-emerged, the crew were found anatomically inverted, their bodies were splayed open. And they were still alive," T'Pol went on.

Hoshi clapped a hand to her mouth and looked away, clearly haunted by the mental image she was now getting within her mind.

"However, if these Xindi do originate from the Expanse, it's likely they've found ways of protecting themselves from these unusual anomalies,"T'Pol went on, glancing at Archer. "How much knowledge did Starfleet collect from the conflict?"

"A great deal," Archer filed away the summary of what made the Expanse a hazardous place to the back of his mind. "Starfleet sent a small fleet into the Expanse, and they collected a great deal of knowledge of Xindi technology, and also the technology of several other races, including the aliens responsible for the whole mess, and when Starfleet got it out of the Expanse a lot of technological discoveries were made. For instance, ships from Earth were given shields, forcefields, and several other technologies, including the one where warp engines themselves were augmented."

"What about the Klingon war?" Malcolm asked.

Nobody could have expected or anticipated what Archer was going to say next. "The Klingons were attacked by human augments, grown from embryos left in cold storage on Cold Station 12. During the war, the Klingons overpowered Earth's defences and they managed to occupy the planet for five years before they were driven away."

"Hold it, you're saying there are augment embryos still out there? I thought all of Project Chrysalis's work was destroyed after the Eugenics Wars?" Travis interrupted.

"Well, they weren't, Travis," Archer rubbed his eyes tiredly as he thought of one of the dirty secrets of Earth. "There were dozens of reasons behind the placing of embryos of augments of our reality placed in a cold storage facility. But in the other reality, the Klingons took the attack personally and launched an attack of Earth and her colonies. That other reality's Starfleet, although geared to exploration, just like us, has ensured their defence technology is given greater attention."

"If Earth was attacked by Klingons, it would be logical for the Starfleet of that timeline to focus on weapons research to prevent the Empire from further attacks," T'Pol pointed out. She had been tempted to not say a word but she had felt the need to remind him and the rest of the senior officers that it made perfect sense for people involved in a war would be concerned for their future safety. "The few worlds who've escaped from the Klingon Empire find it hard to forget the occupations. The Klingons tend to destroy a planet's defences, occupy the planet before executing government officials while placing Imperial Overseers to put down resistance."

"When you say placing Overseers, do you mean they make up accusations?" Reed asked, mentally believing it was a possibility considering how much of a kangaroo court or a drumhead trial the captain had gone through on Narenda 3.

"Sometimes," the Vulcan officer conceded, the others recognising how grim her tone had become even through T'Pol's suppression techniques. "Some Klingon overseers are said to be honourably fairer than others, but others believe spreading fear and terror through a populace is the best solution. If your people were conquered by Klingons in this timeline or in any other, you would find it hard not to think the same."

Everyone around the table wished they could refute that but they couldn't; they had encountered the Klingon Empire enough times over an almost two year period to know if the Empire wanted to conquer Earth, they would be able to and in a short amount of time. Perhaps the Starfleet of the other reality had good reason to devise means of fighting back and keeping vigilant.

"So what's the plan, just go to Earth and hand over the Defiant? Won't Command wonder where we got it?" Hoshi changed the subject although the idea of a Klingon occupation worried her.

"Proof of the Temporal Cold War has always been hard to come by, but I'm hoping when they see the ship, they'll see its possible to time travel," Archer said.

"I only hope the Tholians and the Suliban don't try to attack us again, though," Trip pointed out, "they might send more ships next time."

Archer rubbed his eyes. "I hope not."

X

A few days later with Enterprise and Defiant both travelling at high warp - high for the Defiant that was, and definitely higher than anything Enterprise had been capable of in comparison - Archer was sitting in the command chair frozen with shock and anger over what he'd heard from Starfleet. Several hours ago, Enterprise had relayed a priority one message urgently sent by Starfleet Command.

Earth had been attacked by an alien probe. The probe had just appeared out of nowhere and fired a beam of energy towards Earth, cutting a blazing path through Florida and Venezuela before it broke apart and the remains scattered in the atmosphere. The casualty lists were constantly being renewed every hour, and so Archer and the rest of the crew were terrified by what the final figure was going to be.

Trip himself was badly shaken by the news; his sister Elizabeth had apparently been in Florida the last time he'd spoken to her and neither he nor his family knew if she had still been there by the time of the attack. Archer hoped the young woman had survived, as if fate had mentally compelled her to leave but nobody knew where she was.

Thanks to Trip, he had a good relationship with the Tucker family and they were good people; if they'd lost their youngest child…

But the worst thing was Archer had a terrible suspicion of who was behind this attack. When he had gone through the Defiant's historical database Archer had been horrified and taken aback by the list of wars the alternate Earth had gone through, including the one where the Klingons had transformed Earth into a prison camp, but this was a mirror of the Xindi attack on Earth.

The communications console chirped. A message was coming through. Archer closed his eyes, praying Starfleet Command was not coming back to them with another number of casualties. "Sir, we're being contacted….by Silik," Hoshi reported looking up from her console in shock.

"Silik?" Travis repeated in surprise.

"What does he want?" Reed asked.

Archer considered his options. Personally he didn't want anything to do with the leader of the Suliban Cabal who had tried to change history at the behest of another time travelling faction, but Silik never went to the trouble of contacting them, not like this. "Lets get this over with. Open a channel," he ordered.

"Aye, sir," If Hoshi was surprised by the orders she didn't show it.

Silik's grainy textured face and yellow eyes appeared on the screen. "Captain Archer," he greeted in his usual smug, calm manner.

"What do you want, Silik? I've got a lot on my mind-."

"Including the attack on your homeworld."

Archer glared suspiciously at the Suliban, knowing that thanks to his connections with a time-travelling faction in the Temporal Cold War, he knew more than Archer or his crew did about the events going on around them. "What do you know about that?"

Silik's smile made Archer wish he could snatch the Suliban through the view screen and strangle him. "My employer would like to speak to you, but considering you are travelling faster than our own ships, this cannot be a face-to-face meeting."

The viewer image changed. This time it showed the chamber Archer had seen before during that mess Silik and the rest of the Cabal had caused when they had destroyed Paragaan 2, but now a ghostly figure was standing on the platform in the room.

Archer frowned, knowing enough from his encounters with Daniels to know Silik was in communication with someone from the future. "Well, what do you want?" He asked neutrally.

"Earth was attacked," the time traveller's voice, already distorted by the communication, boomed over the audio receivers.

"What do you know about that?"

"The attack was caused by the Xindi."

Archer looked down at his feet.

It seemed the time traveller could see through whatever means were used to communicate through time. "You know of them already, presumably thanks to the Defiant files?"

Archer glared at the ghost while the bridge crew on duty currently stared at him in shock. "I was hoping the attack would never happen. In any case, I was hoping the attack would never happen."

"The Temporal Cold War is rippling through the multiverse, Captain. It is likely there are variants of the attack occurring in every timeline. Usually they begin like this."

"Yeah, but what do you get out of this? Why are you taking the trouble to communicate with us? From what I understand you've been manipulating our mission from day one when you tried to start a Klingon civil war," Archer challenged, although there was a tinge of curiosity in his voice while the rest of the bridge crew watched and listened, Archer holding up a hand for silence.

"I was trying to change history, Captain. I was not trying to destroy the major homeworlds. You mentioned the Klingon civil war I was trying to orchestrate; there would have been many advantages to a Klingon civil war. I had calculated such a civil war would have shifted the balance of power significantly and the war would have taken the sides in the conflict across the sector, involving other races who would have gotten involved because they had no choice.

"Think of it; strength comes through conflict, Captain. You can deny it all you like, but the version of the Defiant comes from a parallel timeline which is vastly different from the original timeline, and it features technologies and weapons not seen in original Constitution-class starships. A Klingon civil war would definitely drive races to become more advanced and stronger out of fear of the Empire. I didn't open this communication with you to argue, Captain, and I truly do not care about your thoughts on my aims, but I do care about preserving the major homeworlds. Earth's future is incredibly important to future eras; its loss would result in a major change in history, one even I would want to avoid.

"The Xindi were told lies about you, Captain. They've been told Earth will destroy their homeworld in the future by another faction, and they have been informed only a pre-emptive strike will ensure it never happens. However, it is likely the Xindi know, vaguely, about the presence of the Defiant, so they may change their tactics."

Damn it, this is exactly what I was afraid of, Archer closed his eyes and help the urge to groan back. His head was already aching with the paradoxes of time travel. But there was nothing they could do about it now; the Defiant was too important, and if the Xindi knew of its presence then destroying the futuristic ship was a grave mistake if the Xindi launched another pre-emptive strike against Earth.

"What do you want me to do?" Archer did not like asking the question. Not one little bit. He did not like the thought of being subordinate to this….ghost who had manipulated events like a puppet-master from behind the scenes for God knew how long, causing sheer chaos and using others as pawns.

"Just to prove to Starfleet Command the Xindi are using technology from the future. They were given help to construct that probe; they are in the process of building a weapon powerful enough to destroy Earth. Take one of your tri-I mean, scanners and examine the remains of the probe. It will have technology a quantum dating scan will pick up easily. Good luck."

The transmission cut out. Archer kept looking at the screen, surprised by what had happened. First we get a ship from the future, second we learn how different Starfleet and Earth are, third, we learn of several wars and now one of them is happening and the Suliban's time-travelling puppet-master is helping us. What's next, the Klingon High Council learning ballet?

"Do you believe him?" Travis' voice broke through his thoughts and Archer looked at the helm officer.

"I don't know. He was right about how the version of the Defiant we're travelling with is vastly different from what should have been. And he knew of the Xindi. Until we get to Earth, we won't know for sure what happens," Archer replied, glancing at Hoshi. "Contact the prize crew on Defiant. Send them a copy of the transmission and tell them to remain alert. Travis, increase speed. I want to get to Earth quickly. If the Xindi are going to become a definitive threat, I want to nip it in the bud."

"We're already travelling at warp five point six, sir, but I think engineering can make us go faster."

"Do so."

Hours later Enterprise and Defiant arrived in the Sol System. Their arrival, since their warp engines were different from the contemporary design, startled the planetary defence grid, who were already edgy and nervous after being taken by surprise by the alien probe which had attacked their planet, but they relaxed when they realised Enterprise was back although the two ships received a number of communiques demanding answers about the Defiant. However Archer and the rest of the crew were more interested in the view depicting the sight the damage caused by the Xindi probe. Everyone on the bridge stopped what they were doing and they looked in horror at the long gash across the surface of their world. The beam fired on the planet by the weapon had gouged a deep slash across the landscape.

The final causality reports had come in.

The final figure of people who'd been killed by the probe was up to seven million people.

Seven million people, gone. It was…unthinkable. Such a high loss of human life had not occurred, not since the final days of the last world war. For the cause to be an alien attack was even more unthinkable. Starfleet's purpose was to explore the galaxy, to gather knowledge about the universe they lived in. For an alien race to launch such an unprovoked attack only made it worse. Future Guy's statement about the Xindi being told humanity would attack them in the future, leading to this premeditated pre-emptive strike on Earth aside, the Xindi had never once travelled to Earth to get an idea of how humanity was. One visit would be proof to them humanity wouldn't attack them, not like that.

But he didn't care, and as he stared at the image on the screen showing the damage caused by the Xindi, Archer decided he was going to make the Xindi regret this in ways they had never imagined. He didn't care about making a peaceful contact with them. It went against his mission of making peaceful contact, but he didn't care.

The Xindi were going to pay a steep price for this. The familiar proximity chirp which heralded a ship approaching broke him out of his thoughts and he turned to Reed questioningly.

"A ship's just dropped out of warp," Reed reported, instantly going over his console.

"Where?" Archer asked.

"Two hundred kilometres off the port bow."

"Who are they?" Archer asked, wondering who it could have been and if they were here to cause more damage or if they were going to help. Enterprise had found several allies but also enemies during her time out in the galaxy.

Another warning chirp.

Reed's voice became more urgent, and worried. "They've fired some kind of-!" but before he could finish or Archer could even ask any question, the ship shook with the impact of weapons fire.

X

Seated in the Defiant's command chair, T'Pol was taken by surprise when the Klingon Bird-of-Prey suddenly appeared and attacked Enterprise and the ship she was currently in command of, although the Klingon vessel was mostly focusing its attention on Enterprise. Her concerns about the Defiant was United Earth would just take the ship apart as well as the knowledge from Daniel's observatory, and the humans would become more advanced than her own race.

The journey to Earth had been wracked with tension, and thanks to her telepathic abilities T'Pol had sensed and had become uncomfortable when she had felt the turbulent emotions from the human crew. She had been with the humans for two years now and while she had grown to respect and to trust them, she had to admit she was more adaptable with the flow of emotions than other Vulcans would have been. Indeed, as Phlox had put it she was the first of her people to spend so much time with humans in a starship. Most Vulcans would have chosen to have left long before now. T'Pol wondered at times how her people perceived her for that particular knowledge, but she found she didn't care.

Her relationship with her people was strained, but all she was focusing on was continuing her work with them.

When Defiant and Enterprise had arrived in the Sol system, she had ordered the small bridge crew to magnify on the planet's scarred surface. T'Pol knew that, by now, all of the Enterprise's human crew would know their captain had learnt of the attack and how another faction in this rapidly chaotic Temporal Cold War was responsible for coercing another race to attack and destroy their own planet and civilisation.

T'Pol had always found it hard to believe in the Temporal Cold War, although there had been dozens of events over the last two years which were very hard for even Vulcan logic to explain and while she still had doubts, there was no denying the evidence with her own experiences. The Suliban had previously been known to the Vulcan High Command as a relatively primitive, but unthreatening race.

But the humans and United Earth Starfleet had classified them as dangerous because of their cloaking technology, their hostility and how nearly every encounter with them turned violent. Under normal circumstances T'Pol would be asking how the Suliban had become more powerful, where they'd have gotten their new technologies, and how they'd gotten their genetic enhancements.

It would occur to her they had gained their enhancements on their own. It wasn't unusual for races to develop them on their own, but in this case the Suliban had been given their genetics.

And there was no disputing the origins of the Defiant, and she couldn't explain Daniels and his sudden and enigmatic appearances. This ship was more advanced than anything United Earth could develop on their own, and even the Vulcan High Command with all their knowledge and experiences couldn't have conceived of a ship like this.

Time travel existed. It was real.

But she did not understand the logic behind the Temporal Cold War. For her it merely proved her earlier points on time travel being impossible. Sides in a war, factions, were trying to rewrite the past. Was that not dangerous? Didn't it come with the risk of creating a paradox which would have terrible repercussions for centuries to come? How much damage had been done, and what was yet to come? T'Pol knew she wasn't the only one to consider those points, she knew her colleagues were concerned as well, especially now since the Defiant had arrived in their own time, an event they were positive was not meant to happen.

But now there was more trouble with the Klingon Bird-of-Prey attacking Enterprise and the Defiant. The Klingon vessel's approach had likely been detected, but because of the current crisis, Earth's defences had not detected it. The humans were likely aware of the shortcomings of their planetary defences, an act her own people had learnt the hard way never to take for granted.

"Bring the weapon systems online. Raise shields," T'Pol ordered.

"Aye."

T'Pol studied the scene. Enterprise had taken heavy damage already from the Klingon vessel; their disruptors were strong enough to punch holes into the polarised hull-plating easily. Enterprise had taken severe damage to the port nacelle, and had taken a shot to the saucer section.

"Sub-commander, those last shots took out Enterprise's phase cannons. They still have torpedoes, but they're vulnerable," the officer currently monitoring the battle at the science station reported.

"They're sending a transmission. They want Captain Archer, but they won't destroy Enterprise if he surrenders to them, if honour is to be regained," Hoshi said from her temporary post at the communications station.

Now they knew who was in command of the Klingon ship. "Duras," T'Pol wasn't surprised; the Klingon High Council were not fond of Captain Archer, so it made sense. But it was also predictable they would care more for honour than anything else.

But T'Pol knew the shortcomings of Enterprise's torpedoes only too well. "Target their disruptors. Fire when ready."

Bright blue beams of energy were fired from Defiant's phaser banks. The Klingon Bird-of-Prey was not one of the Klingon Imperial Fleet's most powerful ships, but their weapons were as powerful as anything in the Empire's arsenal. And thanks to Vulcan Intelligence, she knew the Bird-of-Prey represented the Empire's constant research and development programs aimed at ensuring Klingon technology was more than a match for most of the local powers, but while the Bird-of-Prey was matched against an Andorian battlecruiser, it was no match for 23rd century weapons.

The disruptor cannons on the tips of the wings of the Bird-of-Prey exploded, sending the Klingon ship spinning out of control, and because the ship was so close to Enterprise and knowing of the dangers if the two ships collided, T'Pol reacted as quickly as Ensign Mayweather, who quickly tried to manoeuvre the ship away from the Klingon vessel.

"Lock weapons on the Bird-of-Prey's reactor. Photon torpedoes. Fire," T'Pol ordered.

Bright white-blue orbs of energy were fired towards the Bird-of-Prey in a barrage and the torpedoes tore through the Klingon ships' hull armour as if they were made from plastic and ruptured the warp core, which resulted in an explosion which T'Pol was able to endure thanks to the inner eyelid of her eyes.

She didn't feel bad about the destruction of the Klingon ship even if she regretted the loss of life, but if Duras had continued to live then he would have remained a threat. And, remembering what Archer had said about the Klingon war fought in the Defiant's home timeline, she also realised that thanks to his unchallenged arrival in the Sol system, Duras could have taken that knowledge back to the High Council, who could have easily planned a full invasion of Earth. United Earth really did need to think of its defences.

"Contact Enterprise. Prepare to offer full assistance," she ordered, although what help they could do since they only had a small number onboard Defiant she had no idea.

"Sub-commander, a number of ships is converging on our position. Its Starfleet," Hoshi smiled.

"Put their approach on the screen." As the ships appeared on the viewscreen, T'Pol wondered how Starfleet, Earth - and the Vulcan High Command - would react to the Defiant's appearance. She couldn't see any point in Defiant being hidden; by now too many people must have seen the futuristic starship arrive and destroy the Bird-of-Prey.

How they would react to the existence of time travel she had no idea.

X

Seven Days Later..

As he remained seated in the conference room, Jonathan had a moment to reflect on the last few days of debriefing of the find of the Defiant and the Temporal Observatory, on top of the Suliban-Tholian attack to take the 23rd century starship away, the revelations from Future Guy, and lastly the attack from Duras.

When the Temporal Observatory had come up, Archer had told them about his belief the technology had no place in the 22nd century, that they should make the future for themselves, not rely on the technology from ahead which had the potential danger of screwing everything up for them. But he admitted that over the last few weeks, he'd come to accept the danger of the Temporal Cold War instead of being content to just ignoring it and its implications, and as a result they needed to defend themselves against whoever was coming back in time to do harm to the timeline.

He had given the Observatory to Starfleet Command, and now they had access to a wealth of scientific and technological data from two sources. What worried Archer the most was he had no idea what the long term consequences would be. He had no idea how much of history would be altered.

But what worried him the most was this whole mess unfolding with the Xindi was the latest of a long line of conflicts which should never be happening and he didn't know what was yet to come, and how much of history had been screwed in the process.

As Archer was still musing on the paradoxes of time travel, the door opened and Admirals Forrest, Leonard, and Carstairs stepped in and walked for their respective seats.

Forrest stared at Archer for a moment before he looked down at the padd in front of him. "Starfleet have reviewed your reports and we've determined the proofs of your claims, and we've also looked into your proposal and we've decided to accept it."

"We didn't have much choice," Carstairs commented, looking at Archer with a frown, a frown Archer wasn't surprised to see either. "However, I'm glad to see your finally seeing reality."

Archer sighed. The captain knew only too well how Carstairs had not been happy when he had argued with Commander Jefferies on the installation of many defensive systems. Carstairs had once been a space boomer before he had joined Starfleet and risen through the ranks, although he had brought with him thirty-nine years of experience which told him the universe was not the wondrous place Archer had once believed it to be.

Carstairs saw the universe not only as a wonder, but he also saw it as a dangerous place, a place to be cautious about. He believed all Earth ships should be fast, strong, and well armed. He believed in Starfleet's mission of peaceful exploration, of course, but he believed that ships should be prepared for battle at the same time.

Archer hadn't liked it. He had criticised the admiral and his opinion, more than once, but now a seed of doubt had crept in, and now he wondered if his own beliefs and optimism called for way too high a price. In any case with the threat levelled against Earth, Starfleet needed all the people it could get to defend their homeworld.

"While none of us were thrilled by you hiding that Observatory, we can understand your reasons; the implications time travellers not only exist, but are actively fighting some kind of war, destabilising races politically and scientifically beggars belief," Leonard remarked, sending a look towards his fellow admiral Archer recognised to mean Leonard wasn't thrilled by Carstairs' desire for nitpicking. "Our decision is this; Defiant will be kept in Earth's orbit, and its technology will be reverse-engineered."

Archer nodded. He'd expected it. With the threat of the Xindi, Starfleet would be desperate to defend Earth, and Defiant's weapons had been enough to destroy a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, to say nothing of the Tholian and Suliban ships that they'd encountered on their journey back.

However Leonard wasn't finished. "Captain, the people of the Earth are not…happy," Leonard said, scratching his moustache while he was left struggling to give an adequate description for how unhappy the people of the planet were, "with our current defence strategies. They want Defiant in orbit for good, especially as the satellites streamed live-feed images and footage of the battle with the Klingon ship. At the same time, there's been criticism about our lack of a real long-range space fleet."

Archer nodded. "I've heard the same things, Admiral."

The original plan for the NX project was for Enterprise to be tested within the solar system for a period of time to iron out problems and give the ship a shakedown cruise. As the shakedown was underway, design flaws not originally foreseen in the research and development stage would be found and removed before the ship was launched, but at the same time the test experiments would be used to refine Enterprises' systems would then be used to build the next generation of starships.

Starfleet's original plan had been to keep Enterprise in Sol for a few months before laying down the keel for three new NX class ships and then launch them all in one go. During that time the crews would be used to operating the ships.

But like all plans, the original idea had been reworked.

Nobody had imagined the Klingon Klaang crashing on Earth, the Suliban trying to manipulate a civil war in the Klingon Empire. But what it meant was Enterprise was forced to be tested in the field, and while his ship and his crew had performed magnificently, the ship had gleaned a great deal of information which the R&D labs back here on Earth needed to go through in order to ensure the next NX class ships were built right.

Archer knew the NX-02, already named Columbia was already under construction although who the commander would be he didn't know, especially since A.G had died in that mountaineering accident earlier in the year, using the latest information and reports of performance logs, systems Trip had modified and taken down and put back in place on Enterprise with a host of new attributes, and what Enterprise had encountered over its two-year exploration of the local sector.

But if what Leonard and the other admirals were saying what he thought they were saying, the Columbia was soon not going to be alone.

"For that reason, the command council are going to be using Defiant's database and everything Enterprise has transmitted to us over the last two years to help us modify the NX design, but the construction program for the NX class fleet will be accelerated. Preparations have already been made. In the meantime, our older ships from the mothball yards are going to be brought out and they'll be modified with the latest technologies and increased production into short-range warp ships will begin at once as soon as our studies into Defiant's weapons are begun," Forrest said gravely.

Archer sighed. He didn't like the thought of United Earth becoming a more militant organisation, but he guessed it made sense considering what was happening. "What about the Xindi threat?" He asked.

"Enterprise will be spending the next three months in Sol, and while she's here she will be refitted with technologies from the Defiant," Forrest began, but Carstairs spoke over him quickly.

"And much needed modifications and additional armaments will be put into place," Carstairs said, ignoring Forrest and Leonard, "and the design will be introduced into the Columbia as well, and the newer ships."

Shooting Carstairs a long, dark, hard look that promised one hell of an argument, Leonard took over. "When the refit is finished, Enterprise will head to the Delphic Expanse, where you will find the Xindi to destroy the weapon, or persuade the Xindi that what they've heard about us is nothing more than a pack of lies."

The way Archer was feeling right now, his anger towards Daniels, the Suliban, and the other factions in the Temporal Cold War, talking was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted nothing more than to make one of those factions regret their acts, but at the same time, however, he wanted a peaceful solution. It was a good thing he had alternatives.

But he saw a flaw with the plan. "Sir, what will happen here?"

"Defiant and the Temporal Observatory will be given to a research team, and everything gleaned from the preliminary findings will be used for the construction of new NX-class ships, as well as increasing the number of ships we already have. However, due to the threat to Earth, and our lack of colonies, finding suitable worlds far from Earth will be given top priority. We've already begun to study the secondary FTL drive which functions like a teleportation device, and we hope to send ships to other corners of the galaxy if what we've discovered about it so far is true," Leonard said. "If it works we can set up colonies far from Earth, and well hidden so then the Xindi can't attack us again."

"Yes, the teleportation device is top priority for study," Forrest remarked while Carstairs glanced at his two colleagues thoughtfully. "We're already making plans to study it as soon as possible. However, the President has received our proposals, and he's approved of them and the office has already ordered a complete study of all propulsion and weapons technologies while offering up resources to constructing new ships."

"Sirs, my first officer raised a concern, something I have been thinking about; will we provide any knowledge to the Vulcans and our alien allies?" Archer asked, trying hard to hide his uncertainty.

The admirals shared a quick glance. They had clearly not considered this factor.

"We shall...have to discuss this," Leonard began diplomatically, but Archer was now beginning to wonder if it was going to happen. The admiral didn't seem confident. And judging from Carstairs expression, the Vulcans would be lucky to learn how to make a futuristic stem bolt.

The meeting with Archer lasted another half an hour, but once the captain was gone, Forrest turned immediately towards Carstairs. "What the hell was that, Paul?"

Carstairs glared at him. "Oh, get real, Max. Hasn't this mess taught you anything yet? We haven't yet faced reality, have we? Space is dangerous. I had to watch as gangs of Nausicaans slaughtered friends and family on cargo ships. Thirteen years before official first contact with the Klingon Empire, I had to deal with a gang of Klingon marauders, and big eared aliens who tried to steal cargo. We were armed with nothing but blowpipes in comparison to what they had. Archer and you are cut from the same cloth, you're both too optimistic about space without thinking about the dangers. In his first year, Archer had to fight off an enemy who outgunned Enterprise. Well, look at the results now. Earth's just been attacked. If we're gonna survive, we need to begin thinking big and we need to start getting real."

X

Three months later…

As he stood on the observation deck of Spacedock, Admiral Forrest stood with Admiral Leonard as they watched Enterprise slowly move out of the dock on thrusters before engaging their impulse drive. Forrest had seen Enterprise many times before, but the sight of the pride of Starfleet's ventral view bristling with new phase cannon gun ports and spatial and photon torpedo gun ports.

The NX class starship swiftly joined the small fleet of starships which had been refitted with the latest from Starfleet R&D, gathered after three long months of going through the Defiant's database and studies of the futuristic starship's technology without being too invasive and the Temporal Observatory.

The fleet of starships augmented with futuristic technology would be heading for the Expanse. As Enterprise cleared the dock and was joined by two dozen starships chosen for the mission to escort Enterprise and aid them in finding the Xindi and stopping them, they soon disappeared in flashes of light as the teleportation drives kicked in.

Forrest gasped. He had seen the sight several times over the last two months ever since the president and Starfleet's R&D department, but the sight of the teleport drive in action never failed to impress him; while it was not as dramatic as warp travel, it was still incredible. And faster. If the files contained within the Defiant's database were correct, the range of that particular FTL drive was infinite.

When he had officiated the launch of Enterprise only two years ago, Forrest had been amazed by the potential of the warp five program. But he had been content with the fact Enterprise and the other NX-class fleet would only be capable of traversing a finite amount of space, but that was okay in his mind since it meant there was more scope for adventure later.

"Incredible, isn't it?" Leonard's voice was just as amazed.

"It is," Forrest agreed.

"They've likely jumped into the Expanse by now," Leonard commented a second later, before his voice and expression turned serious. "Max, do you think we're gonna survive?"

Forrest sighed. For the last three months, Earth had been making plan after plan in order to survive. If there was one thing which had been made abundantly clear it was Earth truly did not have a good defence strategy. Instead of mass producing the NX-class starship as they should have done in the first place, they had instead been content with just building the one ship at a time. That was, as the government and many members of the public claimed, unacceptable.

For the last three months, Starfleet had been engaging in a mass construction program to make up for the numbers. They had built a number of prefabricated factory complexes and made use of the existing manufacturing facilities they had to redouble their efforts in constructing the modular parts which made up the structure of the starships.

Robotic manufacturing facilities were given the order to redoubling their construction time. Until the Xindi attack, Starfleet had planned on simply mass producing the modules and parts for the NX fleet, and getting them ready for construction while Enterprise and Columbia, when the second ship was launched, carried out mission assignments to give R&D the means on improving their technologies. But truthfully, the NX class ship was not like their original classes. They were more powerful and they had never constructed a large number of ships like the NX class before, and it was quite expensive.

But things had changed.

The United Earth government, working with the mining conglomerates and the Cargo companies were cutting the budget and they were ordering the mass production of as many NX class ships as possible. Also, the shipyards had received orders to construct the older classes again, equipping them with new technologies in order to bring them up to date. The government did not want their world to be undefended any more, and until the NX class fleet were released fully, they were all Earth had. Armed with Defiant grade weapons and technology derived from the Temporal Observatory, the ships were more advanced, and would hopefully be more than a match for a Klingon vessel.

If there was one thing Earth had learnt in all the years they'd had access to space travel, since the 1950s, it was manufacturing the parts of a spaceship or space station and then assembling it all in orbit was the most efficient way to go. The NX-02 had received a double-up in its construction time, and the NX ships from 03 to 14 were being constructed in orbit above Earth. Factories constructing the parts were given orders to accelerate the production quotas.

But those were only a few plans.

"I hope so," Forrest said, walking off. "I hope so."

X

The next year was hard for Earth, but the crisis had wrought great changes over the entire planet. The Xindi crisis was causing a great deal of tension and fear among the populace of the planet, and many were looking out to the skies for any sign of a Xindi attack. Scans from the Xindi anomaly which facilitated their faster-than-light had been added to the early warning system. If and when the Xindi returned to finish the job, Starfleet would be waiting.

In orbit about Earth, the moon, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, were a number of automatic defence platforms, armed with phaser and plasma and polaron beam cannons. The last weapon along with others came from the Temporal Observatory, and similar cannons had found their way into Starfleet's armoury.

Defiant herself was in orbit above Earth manned by a full crew of Starfleet officers while groups of engineers regularly took scans of the advanced ships' systems for reverse-engineering. The Constitution class ship was flanked by several of the new NX-class ships freshly released from their trial runs and crewed by both experienced officers and the latest cadets and a number of MACOs, along with variant classes rolled off of the production lines. Production of the NX-class fleet had been tripled over the course of the year, and many of them had been sent into the Expanse to help Enterprise and the other ships of the expedition to find the Xindi weapon and stop it from destroying Earth, but the full number of the fleet would not be reached for some time. To make up the numbers, older starships were pulled out of the mothball yards and refitted with the transmat technology which allowed a much greater range in space while the ships could only travel below warp five.

To make a further difference, Starfleet came up with an old idea. Fighters. It was hoped the fighters used to protect Earth or those who went into the Expanse would slow down the Xindi so the NX-class would be fully produced. Thanks to the technology derived from the Defiant as well as the studies made on the Xindi ships sent back from the Expanse by prize crews, the Columbia left Spacedock fully functional and she was launched much earlier than Starfleet originally intended. By the time Enterprise was launched for the Expanse mission, several more NX-class ships were already being readied for construction and launch.

Thanks to the Temporal Observatory, design plans for 24th century fighters used in a war against an empire from the Gamma Quadrant reached from a stable wormhole in the Alpha Quadrant were found. The plans were found and they were pretty soon put through production, although the problems with computer technology slowed the production down. The 24th century had a significant advantage over the 22nd when it came to computers, but once the underlying problems were ironed out, the fighters were mass produced. Armed with a plethora of new weapons and equipped with cloaking devices, the fighter ships were hoped to prove a terrific obstacle for the Xindi.

And they were.

A number of squadrons of fighters had been sent into the Expanse to help the expedition sent there. Crewed by MACOs and a few Starfleet officers, the fighters had been routing the Xindi for a while now, and they and the other ships had been sending back pieces of Xindi technology as well as information about the races in the Expanse. The pieces of Xindi technology and the database the Enterprise sent ahead after that business with the Ossarian pirates and the data sent about the spheres was sent directly for analysis. The information about the Xindi from the database and the various classes of their ships did a great deal to provide United Earth Starfleet with the technology and knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses and they'd programmed their ships' computers to combat the Xindi warships.

While the Andorian's attempted theft of the weapon prototype was frustrating, United Earth did receive a copy of the data. This valuable intelligence was immediately passed onto Starfleet R&D for analysis and strategists were given orders to come up with ways of destroying the weapon.

But the United Earth had realised there was no logic in putting all of their eggs in one basket. Building ships in bulk was only one plan for the safety and the defence of the human race. With access to the Defiant's computer and the Temporal Observatory files, Starfleet learnt of several worlds they could colonise in distant parts of the galaxy. According to the Observatory, a starship in the 24th century was lost in the Delta Quadrant where they made many discoveries about that side of the Milky Way.

The journey of the 24th century Starfleet ship Voyager laid the groundwork down for later centuries of that timeline, and when Starfleet arrived in force in the Delta Quadrant they had a great deal of knowledge with which to begin exploring the Quadrant fully. Some might consider the knowledge within the Temporal Observatory to be a cheat, but the Admiralty saw it as a great resource which provided a large amount of scientific data as well as knowledge which would be used to safeguard the human race.

Centuries after the ship returned to the Alpha Quadrant, and the Delta Quadrant was opened up for full-scale exploration, numerous planets were colonised. Thanks to the records contained in the Observatory, history was going to be changed.

Two NX-class ships out of the five that were produced within that year and fully shaken down were despatched to evaluate the planets for colonisation, and back on Earth transport ships were loaded down with colonists to send to these planets along with a number of ships for their protection. Thanks to communication technology which was derived from the FTL drive found on Defiant, reports from the colony came daily as they continued to explore the planet and established settlements. It was hoped the Xindi would not realise what was going on, and so there was a chance humanity would survive if their plans failed.

What really bogged Starfleet down was the knowledge about the transdimensional beings, the Guardians, the builders of the spheres who were not only manipulating the Xindi into constructing the weapon because of the threat the United Federation of Planets posed towards them and would defeat them in the future, but could be defeated if they meddled in history, they were initially uncertain about what to do about combating the threat they posed.

However, working with the expedition's scientific team as well as making use of the scientists on Earth, Starfleet came up with a number of plans. One of the most disturbing mission reports which had come from Enterprise was how Archer and T'Pol were made to travel back in time and stop a corrupt human scientist giving a group of Xindi Reptilians access to human DNA for the use of a bioweapon.

After that Starfleet began two major offensives. The first was they accessed the Temporal Observatory for knowledge on how to make time travel possible. When they had constructed a working time travel portal, Starfleet Command worked hard to find out if the Xindi, detecting the failure of their fellows, would opt to try again. Time agents sent from the 22nd century discovered three groups of Xindi in the past and they wiped the Xindi out as well as all of their work to ensure no more bioweapons were developed.

The second offensive was the attacks on Xindi worlds. Starfleet wanted to make it abundantly clear towards the Xindi such actions against Earth and humanity would not be tolerated, and with access to time travel technology which allowed them to scan the timelines and travel to various points, Earth would be prepared. The Xindi ordered a fourth group to travel back in time, only this time their job was centred around destroying humanity in the 21st century.

Starfleet not only countered the fourth act of time meddling, they decided to launch their own temporal assaults. They planted photonic weapons on various Xindi worlds, detonating them in the present day. And all the time the combined Xindi forces were constantly faced with battles from Starfleet ships as more and more fighter squadrons transmatted into the Delphic Expanse.

Despite that, Captain Archer and the other Starfleet captains in the Delphic Expanse were able to prove to Degra and some of the Xindi that humanity was not a threat to them, and they were merely retaliating to ensure the Xindi didn't destroy their civilisation. The scientists of the fleet and on Earth were also given an important task as more and more information about the Sphere-builders was made clear, and a plan was made to destroy the spheres and prevent the Sphere-builder's plans of creating a trans-dimensional wasteland out of normal real space. In the meantime, surrounding Earth was a growing fleet of ships as well as automated weapon platforms, all of them were aimed at space, just waiting for the Xindi to arrive.

Earth received a lot of criticism from the Vulcan High Command, even though the admirals and the United Earth government opted to give the Vulcans and their Denobulan and Andorian allies access to some of the databases on the Defiant and the Temporal Observatory. It wasn't a lot of information, just focusing on warp technology - many in Starfleet who believed the Vulcans were deliberately holding Earth back from becoming a truly sophisticated power in the interstellar community saw the irony, although there were many who claimed they owed nothing to the Vulcans - and other pieces of science which would keep Vulcan scientists occupied for another hundred years.

The Denobulans received a lot of scientific knowledge, focusing on medical science and technology. In exchange for this, the Denobulan ambassador to Earth was asked by the United Earth government for the Denobulans to continue to enrich humanity with Denobulan medical science.

In contrast, the Andorians who had visited Earth shortly after Enterprise's first meetings with them, received knowledge in exchange for offering their services as teachers to help humanity truly understand shield technology. The Vulcans didn't like it, but that only made the matter sweeter for the Andorians.

Despite receiving scientific knowledge from the two databases from different eras - something many Vulcans disagreed with since their stance on time travel was incredibly clear, the Vulcans did not like how quickly humanity was growing in technology, in some ways even surpassing themselves. But what the Vulcans openly criticised was how the humans had constantly paraded how they were enlightened and yet they were lashing out against the Xindi, and being driven by their emotions like the Klingons and falling into their baser instincts which had nearly destroyed their civilisation and destroyed their world in their last world war. The humans ignored the Vulcans and their criticism, knowing there was a degree of truth to what the Vulcans had said, but they knew they had to take steps to ensure their civilisation survived. More and more ships were sent to areas of the Delta Quadrant where they could survive elsewhere.

In the meantime, it was hoped the peace process worked. And as a token of goodwill, Starfleet Command as well as the United Earth Government ordered all attacks on Xindi ships and colonies and outposts, and research stations, to be stopped. Starships were ordered not to fire on any of the Xindi holdings in the Expanse as long as the Xindi didn't fire first.

The most troubling thing about the Xindi war was the slow construction of the NX-class ships, but it wasn't until someone going through the Temporal Observatory to research something completely different stumbled across the basics of replication technology. They read how it was originally used and then its uses were fully investigated and understood before in the 26th century, high-powered industrial replicators were used to 'grow' ships by taking the mineral wealth out of planets and asteroids, constructing the ships from the ground up with incredible speed. Fully aware of the problem relating to the NX-class ship and the slowness of production despite United Earth putting a lot of its time and resources into constructing them in bulk, the individual who discovered this about the future, immediately took the knowledge to the Admiralty.

Experiments in transporter and replicator technology began immediately, and soon Starfleet as well as scientists like Emory Errikson, the designer and inventor of Earth's first transporter discovered the drawbacks in current science and technology. While Starfleet discovered the limitations of current matter-energy technology quickly, experiments into developing replicators continued. While they had discovered ways of reverse-engineering technology from Defiant and the Temporal Observatory, the truth of the matter was some aspects Earth's technology was still too primitive to truly to be enhanced so quickly in such a short amount of time.

But it didn't matter.

The discovery had given Earth's scientists a great deal of hope and inspiration for the future, and what they had found in the Observatory and the studies of the Defiant's transporter technology was enough to help them make advancements, but it was quickly realised they would need to wait for a long time before they were at the stage needed to construct replicators of that level.

When Starfleet realised they would not be constructing spaceships at an accelerated pace with industrial replication technologies derived from their own transporter technology they ordered the NX-class ships to be accelerated. Several NX-class ships were close to completion by the time Starfleet received word from the Expanse about the latest news. They would be fully functional and capable of warp drive in another two months, but in the end they had run out of time.

The Xindi were on their way.

X

Admiral Forrest stood with several of his colleagues in Starfleet's Operations Room. The admirals were trying hard to stop their nervousness from being noted by the lower ranked Starfleet officers, but it was almost impossible. The news of the weapon being launched by the over-zealous and aggressive Xindi Reptilians and Insectoids had leaked, and now everyone was waiting and were terrified.

As they looked at the screens and monitors, Forrest and the other admirals could see their fleet and orbiting weapon platforms waiting for the Xindi to arrive. All of the NX class ships which would be nearing completion within a few months had been launched with a full complement of torpedoes and phaser cannons.

Due to the threat and the reports that had been sent, the warp nacelles which had been fitted to their hulls were in fact fitted with impulse engines to make them more manoeuvrable. The engineers had been told of the emergency presented to them, but in truth Starfleet had been prepared for the possibility of the Xindi weapon arriving before they were ready, so the conversion from warp nacelle to impulse engine was prepared.

The Defiant itself was midway between Earth and interstellar space, crewed by Starfleet officers and MACOs. Some of the ships had a number of MACOs onboard them. They had received enough reports from Archer, who was onboard a Xindi ship crewed by allies who had begun to realise they'd been lied to for decades by the 'Guardians,' that he planned on taking a small group of MACOs to destroy the weapon. Starfleet had acknowledged the report and had decided to send in other MACOs to help.

But the worst part was the waiting.

Starfleet had been waiting for hours for the Xindi to arrive and they had plenty of time to move and position their forces into range, but everyone was prepared.

"Contact. Subspace vortex opening," one of the monitoring officers suddenly shouted to the point of hysteria.

"Let's see it," Admiral Leonard ordered, his voice full of control which instantly made the operator calm down.

Flustered the officer's hands moved over her console, hoping desperately she didn't receive a reprimand. However she needn't have worried. Hysterics from panicking and nervous operators was no where near the admirals priorities.

Forrest looked on grimly as the Xindi left the vortex and emerged into the solar system. "Wait until they get into range. Target phaser and polaron beam cannons on the ships. Launch the fighter squadrons."

"Aye, Admiral."

"Weapons locked."

Forrest licked his lips, pausing for a moment. The moment he ordered them to open fire, they would be opening up Pandora's box, but they had no choice. If they hesitated, Earth could be destroyed.

"Admiral, we're getting a message. Its from Captain Archer. He says he and a boarding party will be arriving in a few minutes. He says they're going to get close to the weapon, and beam onboard."

"Relay that to the manned ships. As soon as that ship appears, they're to distract the Xindi ships and allow them to board the weapon. Relay another command; teams of MACOs that are preparing to beam onto the weapon anyway. Let them know of the situation. Order them to kill every Xindi in that weapon on sight. All ships… open fire," Forrest ordered, ignoring the looks he was garnering for his kill on sight order.

When the order was relayed, swarms of fighters flew towards the Xindi ships and they attacked in waves. Beams of purple and red energy hit the Xindi ships, overwhelming their defences and destroying some of the Insectoid ships while the defence platforms launched every weapon in their arsenal while the larger ships raced towards the Xindi ships, opening fire on them while bombarding the weapon. Led by the Defiant, the ships from Earth fired phasers and polaron beams and disruptor bolts at the Xindi ships and the weapon.

Many of the warships escorting the weapon were battle hardened already, but they were facing against ships armed with weapons that wouldn't be discovered by Starfleet for two centuries, and while the Dominion style polaron beam cannons were highly advanced. Many of them were overwhelmed until they were destroyed. The Xindi Insectoid ships were easily picked off and attacked by the fighters, and the Defiant destroyed them in phaser strikes while the Constitution-class starship fired photon and quantum torpedoes at the weapon. The bombardment was joined by the other ships until the surface of the weapon was alight with antimatter and plasma explosions before a larger explosion caused when a torpedo strike destroyed a large section of the weapon.

As Forrest observed the battle, he had to be thankful that Earth had had plenty of time to study the data gathered from the Xindi prototype. All of the computers had been programmed accordingly, and he was just thankful the weapon was taking heavy damage. This thing had been built to wipe out an entire civilisation, and the whole of humanity would have been destroyed if it hadn't been stopped now.

He was just thankful they had managed to cause such serious damage. Oh look, a large slice of the weapon had been blasted off using a combination of phasers and polaron beams from the fighters, the ships which included Defiant, managed to severely damage and batter the weapon until a top of it peeled off like a chunk of orange peel.

"Subspace vortex opening. A ship is emerging. We're getting a transmission. Its from Captain Archer. He and his team are moving closer towards the weapon now."

"Good, advise all ships Archer is here. Tell them to increase fire on the Xindi ships guarding the weapon to allow Archer to transport onboard with his party," Leonard ordered.

"Aye, sir."

Forrest watched as the small Xindi ship, dwarfed by the size of the Defiant as the larger ship escorted them closely, moved closer to the weapon. In the meantime the order to increase fire on the Xindi ships was overwhelming the last remaining ships. The captain in command of the Defiant, tiring of the never ending cat and mouse thing, was clearly ordering his ship to destroy the Xindi ships. One of the last Reptilian warships rushed towards the Defiant, clearly intent on ramming it…

…. only for the Defiant to vanish and reappear right on the port flank of the Xindi ship, where the futuristic ship then bombed the relatively unprotected part of the warships' side and destroyed it.

Forrest looked on in sorrow, watching as the number of Xindi warships in the solar system dropped every moment. This was not the way he had expected his career to turn out, ordering brave young men and women to put their lives on the line, but it was for the best if the human race was to survive. He had only hoped that he would never have to see what his people had endured in the 21st century. Like most 22nd century people, Forrest had long since hoped war would not be on the cards. Perhaps Carstairs was right, if you needed and wanted peace, you'd better be prepared for a battle. For too long, humanity had been gazing out into space with wonder, ignoring the very real threats from races like the Klingons and now the Xindi, but now those fears and threats had come true for many.

Earth would never be the same, and Forrest genuinely hoped they didn't tear down everything that the United Earth people had been trying to accomplish for a hundred years, which was to move on and advance humanity into a better future.

Perhaps they were being too optimistic.

When the last Xindi ship was destroyed, all they could do was wait. In the meantime the weapon drew closer and closer to the planet - much of it was destroyed by the initial bombardments, and its defences were no match for the stronger weapons than they had initially expected. But it was still likely capable of destroying or heavily damaging the planet it had been despatched to destroy.

Seconds became minutes, minutes began to feel like hours as the MACO assault teams sent to the weapon finished their work while the remaining Xindi ship - the Primate shuttle - hung back, knowing it was currently being kept on a target lock by the human ships. The crew might be against the Guardians, but they knew their race were not on humanity's favourite list. Forrest had sent an order to all ships not to attack, but he was worried a bloodthirsty officer would disobey; it was only the fact they had helped that proved they were still alive.

But still….

For a moment Forrest thought about opening a channel to the Xindi ship, to get to know them, and find out more about them, and hopefully build better relations with them. But the more he thought of the idea, no matter how tempting and appealing the idea was, Forrest felt this was the wrong time. In any case, he doubted the government would be happy with him. They might want peace, but he felt many of them would like to see the Xindi vanish as so many others did.

"Admiral, we're getting a message from Defiant. They're picking up explosions. The weapon is breaking up!" One of the technicians reported.

Forrest spoke quickly before anyone could cheer. "Beam them off, NOW!"

Seconds passed as everyone waited with bated breath, and then the technician sagged with relief. "All of our people are off of the weapon. Its just exploded."

And it had. The weapon had just exploded and it was now in the final stages of breaking up into little bits as it drifted closer to the planet. Much of the debris would be caught in Earth's gravitational pull and they'd burn up in the atmosphere, but they would have large chunks crashland. With that in mind Forrest turned to the other technicians.

"Set all of our satellites to track the debris. Target phasers on the larger pieces, fire when ready. We want as much of it to burn up in the atmosphere," Forrest ordered.

"Aye sir."

"Sir, the Defiant is signalling. Captain Archer wishes to contact the United Earth government concerning the Xindi ship in our system," a technician spoke suddenly, "he wants them to open a dialogue with that part of the Xindi council."

Forrest turned to Leonard, who looked at him with interest and also hope. "Open the communication between the two," he ordered. "Contact our ships in the Delphic Expanse. Tell them….tell them the weapon has been destroyed. Tell them to come home."

X

In the Future.

Undisclosed Location.

Milky Way Galaxy.

The watcher looked up from the screen. The timelines were changing more and more ever since the Defiant had been time shifted through the interphasic rift into this alternate universe, and the watcher was pleased with the outcome of what his little involvement had been; instead of allowing that version of the Defiant to fall into the wormhole leading into a derivative of the Mirror Universe where the ship would either be captured by the Terran Empire, he had given it to the 22nd century United Earth Starfleet.

And as he watched the monitors, overlooking the timelines shifting, the watcher was satisfied. The timeline had changed beyond recognition in this universe, but really that was what the Temporal Cold War was about; create a game of multidimensional chess whose weapons were paradoxes in different universes created through time travel to fight against the other, but it also created new timelines as a result. The time war did not exist in their home reality, and everyone wanted to keep it that way.

The watcher rubbed his eyes as he thought about the issues that kept cropping up with the many worlds interpretation which were created each time a time machine or portal opened a path into the distant past. In the 24th century before time travel became commonplace it wasn't odd for time travellers to find themselves in a new universe, but it wasn't really anything to concern themselves with.

And then the Temporal Cold War began.

Relatively speaking the war had always existed in the multiverse, in some form or other. The watcher glanced at his predictions and wondered if he should do this again…