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Long live the Empire!
Archer gaped with awe even with the bright light from the forward view screen on the Defiant's bridge - the crew had lowered the local ambient light in order to work at the consoles so they didn't get blinded by how bright the displays were; why would the original Terran crew of the Defiant work with such bright displays in the first place - making him squint a little as he took in an image that he really liked.
Rebel ships being destroyed effortlessly by the superior and greater firepower from the Defiant. Without expending any effort, the futuristic ship tore through the defences and hull armour of an Andorian warship and with a volley of torpedoes destroyed a Vulcan cruiser.
Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites with a few Orions and other races conquered by the Empire in the last decade, all of them were fair game as far as Archer was concerned. T'Pol had tried to persuade him not to attack the Vulcan ship, but Archer hadn't listened to her. He had told her bluntly in the Defiant conference room he didn't have a problem with her people, she knew that. In truth, before the Vulcans betrayed the Empire, Archer had actually admired them. But when they betrayed the Terran Empire, well they became the enemy, a race to be reconquered and made to understand you could not betray the Empire and expect to get away with it.
And yet T'Pol, a Vulcan whom Archer had always admired and even sexually desired, a woman who was highly intelligent and controlled in that Vulcan way, believed she could persuade him not to open fire on the Vulcan ship. But he had ignored her plea and ordered Mayweather to shoot the Vulcans out of this part of space. Archer didn't regret his decision and he never would, and T'Pol needed to get it into her head that every enemy of the Terran Empire needed to be sought out and suppressed. And right now, the rebellion needed to pay for the defeat at Tau Ceti, Archer planned to ensure that happened.
By the time he was finished, Archer wanted the leaders of the Rebellion to bow their heads and willingly walk towards their own executions after he had broken them all.
He had known the moment his contact who was working inside Tholian space on one of the slave gangs had sent him enough information and details about the Defiant, information that Archer had checked extremely carefully to make sure it was all genuine since distrust in others, especially in aliens, was a part of the fascist mindset of a Terran soldier that the Defiant would win them the war.
Archer's awed grin drooped a little as he thought about all of the Terrans who had given their lives to win this war. I will put this rebellion down, he swore to the dead Terrans' memories; his people had evolved beyond the belief in souls and spirits long ago, and he wasn't sure who he was swearing that promise to. Their memories or their souls.
"The last Andorian ship is retreating," Sato reported, bringing Archer's mind back to the here and now. Turning his head thoughtfully, Archer watched as the last ship that had met Admiral Black's Taskforce tried to flee. Archer could understand their logic even if he snorted at their lack of courage. No Terran would ever run away from a fight unless they wanted to be killed later.
And yet, as he studied the ship as it tried to get away on impulse, likely hoping to get out of what they perceived as Defiant's weapon range before they jumped into warp, Archer wondered if it was even necessary to destroy it at all. The rebels deserved everything they got, but Archer could not help but think chasing this one ship and destroying it was the wrong thing to do…
Mayweather was already adjusting the helm controls to intercept and lock weapons. "Weapons are locked," he reported.
"No. Let them go. I want the other rebels to know what happened here," Archer suddenly broke in as he came to a quick decision about what to do about the retreating ship. It made sense, just letting them go. Archer had realised a few moments ago it was poetic justice. They had been doing it to the few surviving Terran escape pods, letting the soldiers and crewmen on those ships huddled in the pods until their life support gave out for months now since the Rebellion began, why shouldn't they get their just desserts?
Archer sat back in the command chair - it felt really comfortable sitting in this chair, it felt like it had been designed and fitted for him - thinking about the future. He had a few plans and he had been going over them in his mind ever since he had learnt about the Defiant, but he hadn't had much time to think about them since the assault team boarded the ship in the Tholian dock, and then there was that mess with the Gorn, but now Archer had the chance.
The Andorian ship would return to the Rebellion, no doubt about that. They would tell the others in their organisation, showing them their ship's sensor logs. They would try to come up with strategies, either to steal the Defiant from the Terran Empire's hands so they could turn the ships' awesome power on the Empire, something Archer had no intention of allowing or they'd try to lure her into a trap and either try to cripple or destroy the futuristic starship.
But Archer had his own ideas. And he knew once Admiral Black saw the ship himself, Starfleet would come up with their own plans. Command would be split, with Admirals jostling to take command of the ship and pilot her into Rebel territory and use repeated brutality to force a surrender. Other admirals would want to strip the ship to the bulkheads to learn how it worked. But Archer planned to attack the Rebels gradually, leaving only enough survivors to make the others terrified, and then he planned to launch terrifying assaults on the homeworlds of the rebels as a warning to their supporters of the consequences of defying and rebelling against Earth.
And then Archer turned his mind to the long term grand scheme of things. One of the Terran Empire's biggest mistakes, and this was one he acknowledged was how fast and how quickly the Terrans had just conquered and expanded on and on into space without consolidating their gains which was one of the reasons the Rebellion had hit the Empire so badly and caused so much trouble for the military of Imperial Starfleet so much trouble.
Archer had no intention of making the same mistake again when he'd finished with the Rebellion. He planned on giving Starfleet the database of the Defiant and the ship herself when he was finished, and he planned on overseeing the construction of new warships while upgrading the current fleet of ships so they had shields and weapons of greater power; Starfleet was currently busy reverse engineering Xindi technology captured from the Expanse campaign of last year, but it was slow work, but new technologies were helping them slow down the Rebellion, and there were promises of using Xindi vortex theory to augment their current warp engines into going at speeds that were much faster; with access to the 23rd-century engines of the Defiant, they would likely be able to conquer half of the Milky Way within the next 30-40 years.
But Archer planned to go slowly and swiftly through the cosmos. He would likely expand the Empire a few light-years at a time, but he would not allow further expansion only for a rebellion to occur again in another 10 years, bringing them back to this current mess.
Soon with this ship, I will rebuild the Terran Empire. Oh, I plan on giving Starfleet and my people access to the advanced technology, but not yet, there's plenty of time for that. And this time, we shall build the Empire more patiently. Long live the Empire! Archer thought to himself with a smug smile, twisting his head to face Sato to give his woman the order to contact the Avenger and get in touch with Admiral Black. He was sure he could persuade the Admiral to the vision of his plans.