Disclaimer - I don't own Star Trek, Babylon 5, Stargate Atlantis or anything else you'll recognise. I am just playing with a plotline that is intriguing because I see there was more potential in the Temporal Cold War.
Please let me know what you think.
A Different Future Unfolds.
Earth had witnessed many alien visitations over the centuries - from the early Vulcan expeditions in the past to survey the planet, and other aliens had stopped over many times over the centuries, but in recent years since First Contact, humanity had encountered many species in peace.
But now Earth was under siege. The Xindi were pouring from the subspace vortices so fast the ships in orbit above Earth were having problems fighting them off.
The more advanced ships that had been brought into their reality were more than a match, but the problem was the number of ships was growing every minute. Some were concerned the number of ships and databases made it harder for Starfleet's engineers to focus on one project at a time. It had even slowed down Starfleet's efforts.
Archer clenched his jaw as the NX ship rocked under the impact of another blast. "Damage report!"
"Shields are buckling, dorsal hull plating is down to 50%," the crewman on Tactical reported.
Archer cursed, knowing that this ship had received the most basic shield matrix configurations, but he had not expected the ship to be thrown off into a combat scenario so quickly.
He should have been on board his own ship. Enterprise had been heavily modified with reverse-engineered technology from the Defiant and the Temporal Database Daniels had left behind and had been augmented with shield technology from the Daedalus and the Odyssey. But this ship whose designs had been heavily modified to integrate the different technologies while R&D focused on reverse engineering what technologies and bits and pieces they could, while they tried to understand as much as they could from the salvaged pieces of Xindi junk that was left behind, had been meant for trial runs, and would not receive some of the more finely tuned pieces of technology until the basic trials were completed.
"What's the status of the rest of the battle?" Archer asked.
"Five more vortices have opened. 34 ships have emerged from them, including nine Xindi Aquatic ships," the officer over at the Science station reported. "Wait…Oh my god…Sir, you need to see this!"
Archer could feel the urge to scream his head off at the officer, but then he listened to the panic in her voice before the viewscreen shifted. His eyes widened in horror when a sphere emerged from a vortex, dwarfing all of its companion and guard ships in the same way a gas giant or a star dwarfed a moon.
His breath caught in his throat.
No, this couldn't be…
He rose to his feet in his shock as he took in the Xindi weapon, knowing that was what this thing was. The Xindi weapon. The thing the Xindi had been planning on using to destroy the human race. The thing that was the ultimate symbol of how the Xindi just refused to learn about humanity by themselves and form their own opinions.
But as he looked at the weapon as it emerged, Archer's mind almost stalled at the realisation that the Xindi had been pouring all of their resources in the finalisation of this thing. But they had realised that with the strange ships at Earth's disposal, and the growing fleet they would need to deploy and commit a large number of their own ships to distract Starfleet.
"That's why they're attacking us like this in force," Archer said, the full horror of the epiphany gripping him with rage. "They're trying to distract us from Earth. Communications, open a priority one channel to Starfleet Command. Inform them the Xindi are trying to distract us away from Earth. Tell them…tell them, we're going ahead with the Energy plan. Send that signal to the rest of the fleet. They'll know what it means," he added, knowing how secret the plan was and while the captains and commanders of those ships would know what the plan was given they'd been briefed, everybody else wouldn't.
"Yes sir."
Archer turned to the Tactical Officer. "What's the status of the minefields?"
"They're picking off the Xindi ships; some of the mines had exploded very very close to the opening of the vortices, but the Xindi are also picking them off. The cloaked self-replicating variants which were automatically beamed away from Earth and cloaked are doing their job, but the Xindi are still pouring out."
Archer had never really thought much of the minefield plan. The idea of fortifying the planet was a risk, especially with the hyperdrive experiments that were still ongoing. But it seemed they were proving their worth even if the use of cloaking technology and replication was something almost foreign. The ship rocked again with another blast.
'Helm, take us closer to the Defiant."
"Captain, we're getting a message from Starfleet Command, it's addressed to all Starfleet ships."
"Put it through," Archer ordered.
On the viewer, Admiral Black's face appeared. "All ships, surround the planet but avoid the Verteron and Polaron cannons. Initiate the energy plan. Now. Fire the energy dampening weapons."
"Do as he says, helm, put us between Earth and that weapon," Archer ordered.
"Aye, sir."
"Captain, our shields are failing. The full configuration hasn't been inputted," the officer at the Engineering console warned.
Archer cursed again, and his mind raced as he tried to think through how they could stop this from getting much worse in this mess. Ever since they had been installed after they'd been tried out using the Defiant as a template and what was kept in the Temporal Database, Archer had studied them and their hardware to see how much they could take in a pounding match. Starfleet had been working around the clock to discover the best means of devising a shield technology that would give their ships a better chance in a battle, and they had fitted their ships with the best results of their research but once the Daedalus and the Odyssey database had come into their hands, and discovered that the Asgard shields took the energy of the impacts and recycled it into their own matrix to make them stronger, the same principle had been added to all ships of the Starfleet. But this ship hadn't received the full package yet, and now it might get them all killed.
"Drop shields," Archer ordered.
"But sir, if we do that the Xindi will attack-," the Tactical officer interrupted.
Archer had always wondered how best he should command a starship; he remembered telling Malcolm during that mess with the minefield about his old CO who'd constantly told him the crew weren't his friends. Right now he agreed with Malcolm and his old CO's standoffish command style, but this was not the time to carry on a battle by getting on the nerves of everyone else.
"We can start a recharge cycle and bring the shields back up to full strength within half a minute. Monitor the power build-up during the cycle and keep watch on the Xindi ships. Communications, tell the ships nearest to us to cover us while we recharge the shield generators; that should keep the worst of the Xindi attacks off our backs," Archer said.
"Yes, sir," three officers said at once.
"13 seconds."
"Xindi ships are closing in. Captain, sensors are picking up a power build-up coming from the Xindi weapon."
"Lock weapons."
"Captain, we're getting a hail from Voyager," the communications officer reported.
"Put it through," Archer said patiently.
"Captain, are you okay?" Archer almost wept with relief when he saw Travis's face appear on the viewscreen. "Your shields dropped."
"We are, Travis. This ship just isn't ready for battle, but I'm not going to let that stop me. We're recharging the emitters to bring them back up to full strength... Can you wait for us?"
Travis nodded, sitting in the command chair of the Intrepid-class ship which had been lost in the Delta Quadrant for almost a decade and had fought threats almost beyond the comprehension of Starfleet at that time. "Sure thing, sir. I just hope this plan works."
"I do too, Travis, believe me," Archer cursed Starfleet's decision to not fully evacuate the Earth and send the population off en-masse to scatter humanity around various parts of the galaxy. The hyperdrive prototypes had been growing stronger and stronger and more improved with each new generation that rolled out, but they had still colonised only a few parts of the galaxy.
"Shields recharged, sir," the Tactical officer reported.
Archer let out a breath of relief. "Good."
"Sir, Starfleet Command is ordering us to fire at will when the Xindi enters our weapons range," the communication officer said.
"When will they enter range?"
"2 minutes. The Xindi Insectoid and Reptilian ships are moving closer."
"Of course they are." The Insectoids and the Reptilians were the more aggressive of the Xindi species; it would make sense for the more militant races to keep the Earth fleet busy. Archer didn't plan on making it easy. "Advise the other ships to fire a volley when they get closer, on my mark. Once they have, fire the Energy Dampening Weapon. Advise the Odyssey and the Daedalus to work with the Asgard warship to pummel the Xindi ships."
"Aye, sir."
"Show me the view screen, tell the other ships to open fire on my mark," Archer ordered.
"Channel ready, sir."
Archer had been fighting the Xindi for a year, now, but the whole thing felt more and more like a decade. He was tired of this. He was tired of the never-ending death, the war. Except for the last few weeks when there had not been a Xindi attack, he had been going nonstop into battle. And he'd had enough.
He wanted this threat finished, now.
"Sir, the Xindi are almost in range," Archer glanced at the Tactical station briefly before turning back, seeing the young man was right.
"Fire," Archer ordered.
Every single ship in orbit above planet Earth and the Verteron cannon stations opened fire, beams of gold, pulses of white-blue, beams of blue and purple lanced through space. Starfleet had been retuning their weapons recently when the last Xindi attack had been hard to defeat; their shields had been augmented slightly to compensate for the counter-attacks, but the Xindi defences were no match for the more powerful 24th-century weapons.
The Xindi ships were hit almost at point-blank range. Several of the Reptilian ships were destroyed in the first few minutes, while Asgard beam transporters managed to transport photon and quantum torpedoes through the defence shields and detonated within a second of materialising. The Xindi didn't stand a chance and a large number of the Xindi attack fleet was destroyed.
"Fire energy dampening weapon," Archer ordered. "Break and attack."
The ships broke out of their formation around Earth, firing pulses of blue energy. The Breen Energy Dampening Weapon had been one of the many pieces of technology which had been placed at the very top of the priority list, right next to the Asgard transporter beams and hyperdrive propulsion. Reverse-engineering the weapon had been a very difficult and very long job, the technology had not only been from the 24th century it had been alien in origin, and Starfleet had needed to expend a lot of its time and energy in making it all work.
The pulses hit, smashing against the hulls of the Xindi warships and miniature lightning storms lashed across the hulls of the ships, which slowly began to drift as their engines lost power.
"Fire at will," Archer hated that the order came from his own mouth. But he was pleased when he regained some sense of control over himself to ask a question that popped into his mind. "Has the weapon been shot by the energy dissipator?"
"Several times," the voice of the communications officer replied with a smug tone, but it was replaced when she received a communique from Starfleet Command. "A large MACO team has just been beamed to the weapon."
X
A few minutes earlier, Major Hayes stood in the MACO detachment, clad in the new cybernetic armour designed for resilience and protection. "We're ready for transfer," he spoke into his communication headset while he tried to keep his excitement that he and his team were being despatched along with six other teams to the weapon.
He felt proud of the very fact; they were going to be responsible for the destruction of the Xindi weapon.
"Proceed. Every Xindi on that weapon is to be shot on sight. No stunning. Plant the quantum explosives."
"We understand," Hayes didn't baulk at the order to essentially kill every single Xindi. It made absolutely no sense to him why Starfleet stunned their opponents when it made more logical sense to kill them all so they were not a threat again. "Get ready," he added to the others.
Hayes blinked reflexively as the bright light of the Asgard transporter beam sent him and his team over to the Xindi weapon. The moment the blue wormhole haze faded, landing them inside the weapon disappeared they saw the Xindi Reptilian soldiers.
Hayes didn't speak. He just lifted his gun arm and blasted the Xindi down, grinning underneath his cybernetic helmet as the phaser beams and the particle cannons disintegrated the Xindi or blasted their faces in.
X
The powerless Xindi ships were drifting in space as the Breen Energy Dampening Weapon worked perfectly against them. Starfleet had been curious for a while about how well the alien weapon would work against the Xindi and their own defences, but as the Xindi fleet and their planet-killer were affected by the energy dampening weapon and were drifting silently in space, Starfleet quickly swarmed forwards with fighters and other ships to destroy the Xindi ships and their weapon.
On the bridge of Voyager, Travis Mayweather turned to the officer at tactical. "Fire photons, target the Insectoid ships close to the weapon."
"Aye, sir."
"Mr Mayweather, a subspace vortex is opening. Wait, it's a hyperspace window, sorry about the confusion. Sixteen NX-class ships are coming out, along with 4 other ships. The configuration of the 4 ships matches in Voyager's records as 24th-century Defiant-class ships, but their power emanations are off."
"What do you mean, off?" Travis asked.
"I'm not quite sure, sir. They're powered by antimatter, but I'm not picking up any warp engines."
Travis frowned, now truly confused. He watched as the four ships opened fire on the Xindi ships and their weapon, inflicting terrific damage to the Reptilian and Insectoid ships, the torpedo barrage strong enough to rip the ships to pieces.
"I think Starfleet's modified the design," Travis commented.
X
Archer was surprised to see the four Defiant-class ships, but he was glad to see them at all. Starfleet Command had ordered the construction of the Defiant-class ship for some time since they'd gotten their hands on Daniel's observatory. While they had been focused on constructing hybrid ships, using Asgard technology and technologies from the Constitution-class Defiant, and the Jem'Hadar fighter, Starfleet had been looking for a way to design and build true hybrid ships, ships whose designs were not truly hacked and torn to pieces to remove the designs 22nd-century Starfleet engineers could not work with. The Defiant-class from the 24th century wasn't exactly a true hybrid, but Starfleet Command liked the design for its battle worthy design, and for its simplicity to build although they had plans when this was over to really turn their attention to designs they had never once considered before, the Defiant-class was the prototype of what would become a more diverse star fleet.
They couldn't entirely copy the 24th-century technology. The computer processing mechanism alone would require, at least, 30-50 years to properly understand, and they already had the duotronic technology of the 23rd century to cope with, to say nothing about the technology of the Voyager which used organic technology. The warp engine was also a problem by all accounts, especially since the Defiant-class packed more power than a ship its size traditionally did. In its home reality, the class prototype nearly tore itself to pieces during battle drills, and Starfleet Command kept that in mind when they had ordered it to be put under construction. They knew they couldn't simply install a 22nd-century warp 5 engine onboard the ship, so they installed an Asgard-designed hyperdrive engine instead which pushed the power into the engine, and they'd worked around the clock using clues from the Temporal Database and the Asgard database to find solutions.
Archer was glad they had solved whatever problems there were. "Target the weapon, fire phase cannons," he ordered.
The Xindi weapon had been well armoured and defended, but with the shields down Archer was hoping the weapon would be easier to damage. It was obvious the other ship commanders were thinking the same thing, with photon and quantum torpedoes striking the weapon surface. Suddenly the top of the weapon exploded.
"What the hell was that?" One of the crew demanded.
Archer stared at the hole watching as the fire in the hole exposing the interior of the weapon dissipated before the automatic security systems and structural integrity systems on the weapon snapped forcefields into place. "Transporter mines," he said without needing to really think about it.
"Wouldn't they be too close to the MACO team?"
"Unless the commandoes are prepared for the inevitable, and I think they would be," Archer replied before he thought he heard an unfamiliar found that he had never heard before behind him, but that brief second of curiosity ended when he looked ahead and saw that the entire crew had frozen and nothing was moving on the viewscreen.
Oh no.
"Mm, it seems you're more sensitive to time bubbles than I expected; still I guess it makes sense," a familiar voice said from next to him.
Archer turned quickly and he saw Noys Lambent standing next to him, and he groaned in disgust. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"
"Don't be like that, Captain. I've helped you; if it weren't for me, your mission to the Delphic Expanse would have been more dangerous than you imagine, and without more ships, Earth would have been in more danger," Lambent snapped.
Archer closed his eyes, not wanting to snap back and tell the woman off for being right, but also trying to mask his annoyance she was meddling in their affairs. It only made time travellers more dangerous, but he knew she would never listen. "What do you want?" He repeated.
Lambent turned to the viewer, and almost as if the system was obeying her thoughts the viewscreen changed from the weapon to a smaller Xindi ship with a prominent fin protruding from the top like a fish fin before the image split to show one of the Aquatic ships. "Don't destroy these ships, Captain.'"
"What are you talking about?"
"Three prominent members of the Xindi council are on that ship, Captain. Including the Xindi Primate who was involved with the design and scientific testing of the weapon. The Aquatic ship contains the Aquatic representatives. Don't destroy them."
"What?" Archer gaped.
Noys nodded gravely. "Captain, in the Delphic Expanse are a series of spheres. They were created by the transdimensional aliens who were responsible for the attacks on Earth. Get inside one of the spheres. Or two of them. Access the databases and show the Xindi councillors who've survived this battle. The Insectoids and the Reptilians might be dead right now, but that's a good thing because it means the Aquatics and the Primates and the Arboreals will be easier to work with. Don't injure them."
"What am I going to do with them?" Archer demanded, wondering how the admirals at Starfleet Command were going to take this.
"Just take them prisoner, Captain. And don't worry about Starfleet Command, because I'm already telling them about what I'm saying to you; like you, many of them will want a more peaceful solution, the only reason they've been taking steps like constructing the Defiant-class starships - that's an impressive feat for the 22nd century, but it shows me you can do anything if given the right materials to work with - is to defend themselves," Noys said.
Archer knew there were more than a few commanders and admirals in Starfleet who would prefer a more peaceful solution to the war with the Xindi, but at the same time would it be enough? There were dozens of people out there who would love to wipe the Xindi out as revenge for what they'd done to Earth.
"I'll be seeing you, Captain. Go to the Delphic Expanse and show the Xindi what their Guardians are doing to them, to everyone here." Archer blinked when Noys Lambent vanished, her voice echoing as she disappeared, and he had to blink three more times to get himself back into the here and now after his quick brief chat with Lambent.
"Captain, we're getting a priority one message from Starfleet Command; two Xindi ships are to be surrounded and put off-limits. It's believed there are important Xindi leaders on them, and Starfleet Command wants them unharmed," the communication's officer reported.
So that was what she meant, Archer thought to himself. Out loud he nodded. "Acknowledge the order. Helm, take us to the nearest of the Xindi ships. We'll stand in as protection for them."
The helm officer turned to look at him, but years of Starfleet training where duty had been drummed into his mind made him obey the order. "Aye, sir."
Maybe this war will be easy to end, after all, Archer thought to himself.