Sorry it took so long to get this updated! Too much stuff happening at home. So, this takes place in no specific time frame, though I think it is after the episode where Cutler tells Phlox she likes him.

Two days later…

Archer stared at the viewscreen as the stars flew past. The bridge was quiet, with a nervous tension permeating through the air. The night before, T'Pol, working with Green and Tucker, had pinpointed the area of space where they thought the mercenary ship had come from. T'Pol had researched not only their standard Vulcan database, but also her own personal database, to find more information about the mercenaries and the capabilities of their ships. It was not happy news. The ships were fast, light, and carried an impressive array of weapons. The only weakness they seemed to have was in the light armor they carried. They sacrificed some protection for more weapon placement, but their attacks usually came so suddenly and decisively that the lack of armor was not an issue.

Archer had put Tucker to work modifying their sensor array to detect the ships earlier than normal. Reed was lending a hand in refining their weapons systems, as well as strengthening the polarization shielding of the hull. They would arrive in the sector of space T'Pol had found in less than five hours.

He shifted restlessly as his thought turned back to their two new arrivals. Green had spent most of his time in working with Reed and Tucker in preparing the ship, as well as relating details of their flight and the impressions he had to Archer. That left Kesslyn with little to do. After she had woken up from the sedation, with her state of being considerably calmed, if not altogether whole, she had spent an entire morning with Phlox. He had taken a considerable amount of scans, and well as a DNA sample, before pronouncing Kesslyn perfectly fine. He had then happily shut himself up in sickbay to add Kesslyn's medical information to the database.

Lieutenant Cutler and Hoshi had taken charge of Kesslyn then. They had given her the complete tour of the ship. The first few places they showed her had sparked little interest, and they had to practically drag her into each area. However, by the next morning, she had displayed much more interest in her surroundings, and even though her eyes would occasionally cloud in pain and sorrow as the past events intruded, her two guides wisely chose not to push her about it. She had shown a distinct aptitude for engineering; when Tucker had commented that Kesslyn had asked thoughtful and intelligent questions about the ship's systems, Archer remembered that Green had said she had been learning about the ship, and Hoshi had told him that Kesslyn had been learning to navigate her ship.

He knew she had made a favorable impression on the crew; several of them had caught him in the halls and commented on Kesslyn's polite manner and intelligent words. Archer wondered briefly if Green and Kesslyn would want to stay on Enterprise a while longer, or go to Earth immediately. He rather hoped they would stay a while. Green had a lot of experience that might help the Enterprise crew when meeting new societies, and Kesslyn's smiles, though brief, always brought answering smiles from the crew.

His thoughts were abruptly broken off as the door hissed open behind him. Hoshi was leading Kesslyn into the bridge. She glanced at Archer, and he nodded. She then led Kesslyn over to her own station and began to explain her work. Just as Hoshi brought Kesslyn over to T'Pol's workstation, a low beeping filled the bridge. Everyone immediately turned his or her attention to Tucker's station. He looked down at his console, then up at Archer with a worried look.

"I set up our sensors to be extra sensitive, Captain. The first sign of any of those mercenary ships and we know about it. We might not be at T'Pol's coordinates yet, but we've definitely got company of the bad kind."

"Put it on screen," Archer ordered.

Tucker pressed a button, and the image of a bristling black ship filled the viewscreen. Archer heard his crew murmur, but cutting above them was Kesslyn's sharp gasp. Archer turned to see that she was gripping the railing in front of her so tightly that her knuckles were white, and her face had drained of all color. Her horrified gaze was fixed on the enemy ship.

"It's them," she whispered. "It's them, they've found us, they're here, they're here…" Her voice rose in pitch as her eyes opened impossibly wide in fear. Archer quickly moved to her and grasped her shoulders.

"Kesslyn, look at me. Look at me," he repeated, giving her a gentle shake. This broke her stare, and she turned her gaze towards him. "It's OK, they're still far away, and we've been preparing for them. We won't let them do to us what they did to your ship. OK? Do you understand?"

She nodded wordlessly, and Archer asked Hoshi to take her to his ready room and call for Green. He turned back to Kesslyn and one hand gently stroked her hair. She seemed to take strength from his gesture, and she nodded and followed Hoshi. Once she had been taken to the ready room, Archer took his seat again and stared at the image on the screen. So this was the kind of ship that had ruthlessly, fatally attacked the Wind Dancer.

"Think you're fancy with all those weapons, do you?" he muttered to the ship. "Well, hold on to something, because we're about to get some answers out of you."

He instructed Mayweather to hold position, and for Reed to have weapons ready just in case. He told Hoshi to try and hail the ship. No luck. The ship steadily advanced until it was just a few hundred kilometers away, then it paused, almost as if it were examining Enterprise. Suddenly, without warning, weapon fire blossomed from the front of the black ship.

Archer had been expecting this, however, and his crew followed as they had planned. Mayweather quickly turned the ship, and Reed brought the weapons on line. They shot across the bow of the ship, but all that accomplished was to make the mercenary vessel fire back even harder. Reed placed a photon torpedo into the enemy ship's warp nacelles, and, seeming to realize the danger it was in, turned and limped away at impulse speed. Archer, however, wasn't about to let them get away. Enterprise followed the damaged ship and again hailed them, this time with a demand to stop before Enterprise was forced to fire again.

The ship ignored their demands and increased their speed. Archer instructed Mayweather to follow, and they chased the mercenary vessel for several minutes, occasionally pausing to exchange weapons fire. Suddenly the black ship stopped in its tracks and turned to face Enterprise. Archer immediately called for a stop. He was suspicious of the other ship's sudden bravery, and a wave of uneasiness filled him.

"Travis, take us a few hundred kilometers away. I don't like the look or feel of the situation."

No sooner had Archer spoken than the mercenaries let loose a lethal-looking bolt of light from their ship. Enterprise rocked with the impact. Archer called for a report, and was relieved when Reed told him that the hull had only suffered minor damage due to the modifications he and Green had made to the polarized shielding.

However, his relief was short-lived as the reason for the mercenary ship's offensive moments became clear. From behind a cluster of small asteroids, four more ships advanced. Three were exactly like the first, but the third was larger, with even more weapons attached to it. For a moment, the mercenary ships and Enterprise faced each other in silence, motionless. Then the fighting began.

The three smaller ships flew around Enterprise in a dizzying, criss-crossing pattern, their weapons tracing lines of fire around and across Enterprise's hull. Mayweather was displaying his best moves as he struggled to keep the ship out of the line of fire, as well as maneuver around to fire back. Reed's steady hand kept the mercenaries back as Enterprise returned fire. He waited for a moment, and then his perfectly aimed torpedo resulted in a blossoming ball of fire that had been the original ship they had trailed.

The larger ship then began to open fire. Its weapons were more numerous and stronger than the smaller ships', and Archer began to feel the jarring as Enterprise took hits. The bridge was a cacophony of sound.

"Power down in Corridor 12!"

"Five injured on level 16, sir!"

"Hull breach on decks 7 and 9!"

"Fire in Engineering!"

Archer listened to the reports and seethed inside, watching the attacking ships even as sparks flew throughout the bridge and smoke started to fill the air. He wasn't going to let them get away with this.

"Malcolm, I want you to aim for their port nacelle, and when they turn again, shoot it."

"Sir?"

"They're too close to that asteroid, Malcolm. If you take out that port nacelle, the unbalance and inertia just might throw them right into it."

"Got it, sir. Torpedo ready. And…firing!"

With that, a deadly ball of fire streaked from Enterprise and hit the large ship's port nacelle dead on. The ship was unbalanced, and as Archer had hoped, it swung directly into the path of the asteroid. The explosion caused Enterprise to shudder as the shock wave washed over it. Archer allowed himself to feel a moment of satisfaction, but that quickly faded as he realized that they were still left with three more ships, and Enterprise was more damaged than they were.

He told Mayweather to swing the ship around to face the three marauders, and told Reed to prepare what torpedoes they had left. He was preparing to fire when a line of fire came from beyond the ship and destroyed the nearest mercenary ship. Another shot took out the engines of the second mercenary and sent it spinning to follow the fate of its larger companion, right into an asteroid. The third ship quickly took off, and Enterprise turned to face the newcomer. A beeping sound came from Hoshi's station.

"Sir, they're hailing us," she told him. He noticed that, while dusty and sporting a darkening bruise on her cheekbone, she was still at her post and in control. He nodded to her.

"Let's see what they have to say. Onscreen."

TBC…

So who are these newcomers? Don't worry, I will be much faster in updating than before!! Please read and review, thanks!