Almost done...the enthusiasm bug bit me...so I'm posting this chapter early.
Enjoy!
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Reed half expected to see a tunnel of light, a swirl of color, all the boundaries of time encompassing him as he returned gloriously back to his own time, the conquering traveler coming to heroically rescue his ship.
Instead, he blinked, and found himself in the hallways of Enterprise, tightly clutching the temporal resequencer. That was it? thought Reed, disappointed. The ship lurched beneath his feet and tossed him against the bulkhead. Tasting blood on his lips where he'd inadvertantly bitten his tongue, Reed picked himself up and set off towards the bridge. A weapons locker set in the wall, door hanging open, caught his eyes, and he placed the temporal resequencer in it.
Oh, what a feeling to have the smooth handle of a phase pistol in his hands again. Only a day or so, and yet he had missed it even in that short amount of time.
He knew exactly what he had to do. All the details had been included in the temporal resequencer. He just needed to get to the bridge, and Enterprise didn't need to fear for a second.
The floor shuddered under his feet, and he doubled his pace. Get to the bridge, Malcolm, he told himself. Get to the bridge.
Go rewrite history.
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"Who's attacking?" cried Archer as he burst out of the turbolift. T'Pol, serene as ever, caught him as the floors rocked once again and tossed him past her chair.
"The Suliban, I think," said Ensign Matthews, who had replaced Malcolm at tactical.
"They just came out of nowhere," said Ensign Mayweather breathlessly. "I've been trying to dodge their shots but they seem to have some sort of tracking torpedo. No matter what I do they hit something."
"Get the torpedos online," said Archer.
"Aye sir," replied Matthews. The young man bit his lip as his fingers flew
across the controls. Archer could not help but shudder; Lieutenant Reed
would have had the torpedos ready to go before he even got to the bridge.
If only, if only, thought Archer wryly.
A tense minute passed. The only sound in the room came from Mayweather's furious piloting, trying to evade the deadly shots from the Suliban ship. T'Pol, eyes pressed to the scanner, examined every part of the ship for any possible weakness.
"Torpedos online, sir," said Ensign Matthews. Sweat beaded at his temples, and he wiped it quickly. Archer nodded to him, and wished fervently that Malcolm was there.
"Lock on, ensign, and fire," Archer ordered sharply.
"Ensign, don't fire the torpedos," barked a sharp voice. "Bring the phase cannons online as well."
The entire bridge halted and turned around as one toward the turbolift.
"Malcolm?" cried Mayweather, and toppled out of his chair as the ship shook again.
"What the hell?" said Archer. Even T'Pol's mouth hung wide open to see the spectre of the lieutenant, dusty and bloody and very much alive.
The formerly dead armory officer strode across the bridge and snapped his fingers at Ensign Matthews. "Captain, permission to siphon power from the warp core?" Archer stared at him in shock as the ensign leapt up from the tactical chair. "Captain."
Archer's reply disappeared in the resounding crash from yet another hit. Reed didn't wait for another answer. He slipped into his chair, still fingering the phase pistol, and keyed in the commands to overload the phase cannons and fire a full spread of torpedos... all at the same time.
The barrage took the Suliban by surprise, and Enterprise steadied for a moment. Reed took full advantage of the lull, routing the conduits from the warp core into the phase cannons and blasting away at the enemy. Sparks burnt his cheek and crisped his hair as a power coupling blew right over his console, but the lieutenant hardly even noticed it.
He murmured the procedures from the holographic files as he rerouted the remaining power into one torpedo, charging it with electricity until it fairly sizzled. The Suliban ship exploded the moment the superpowered torpedo hit it, and Reed slumped onto his station in relief, breathing heavily.
When a firm hand grasped his shoulder, he stayed facedown for a moment, trying to think of some explanation, some rationalization.
Archer, however, did not say anything. He merely hauled the lieutenant to his feet and guided him over to the turbolift. Every eye on the bridge followed them until the lift doors swooshed shut and hid them from view.
"I'd like to have Dr. Phlox take a look at that, Malcolm," said the captain quietly. Reed touched his lip again, feeling where he had bitten it, and nearly laughed. Suddenly he did, and could not stop until his laughter turned into wheezes. All the adrenaline seemed to have left his system, and Archer had to support him into sickbay.
"You can let go of the phase pistol now," said Dr. Phlox briskly, face buried in a medical scanner, and then snapped upwards. "Lieutenant Reed! Weren't you dead?" Reed closed his eyes and sank down on a biobed, immensely tired all of a sudden.
"Yes, indeed," said the captain softly. "What happened? We searched for you and found absolutely nothing."
Reed looked up and found his captain's eyes. He suddenly remembered the Picards, Jean-Luc bowed over his son's dead body, tears streaking the dust on his face. Silly, wasn't it, to be sad over someone who wouldn't be born for two hundred years.
The archaeologist's words came back to him then: "No. You will not take him away from me." And he'd done that without even going back to the past. Reed had no doubt that the mysterious attackers had been from the Cabal, from the descriptions given him by the computer of the politics of the alternate future.
Henri would never be born, he realized, and the thought gave him pause. He realized that the doctor and the captain still stared at him, waiting for whatever answer he chose to give them.
"I...I found one of the devices like the one Crewman Daniels had," he began hesitantly. "I tried to access the holographic database..." Archer gave him a stern look at that point. "Anyway," Reed continued, "I pressed some wrong buttons, the building exploded around me, and I...found myself down by the Mess Hall. I thought...I thought I'd just activated some sort of transporter."
"That was a week ago," said Archer, and to Reed's surprise he grinned. "You arrived just in time, Lieutenant, and it's good to have you back. Did you save that device?"
Reed pictured it in the bottom of the weapons locker. "No, sir," he said, and swallowed, sure Archer would see right through every lie. He'd demand the truth, demand to know the real story.
I spent a day two hundred and twenty-two years in the future, thought Reed. And I know what the future will be for most of this crew. Suddenly he knew exactly how Cassandra, prophetess of Troy, must have felt, and closed his eyes with the weight of it all.
Phlox chose that moment to begin dabbing at his bloody lip with a wet cloth, and Reed opened his eyes to find Archer gazing at him with concern written all over his face. "Mr. Reed needs to rest," said Phlox. "This interesting ordeal has obviously left him quite exhausted. He will be fine to return to duty in a day or two."
Archer smiled and patted the armory officer on the shoulder. "I'll go let the crew know the good news," he said.
"Perhaps warn them that he's been ordered to get some rest?" said Phlox, raising an eyebrow. "Otherwise I'm sure Mr. Tucker will be quite willing to exhaust my patient further."
Archer nodded again and left the sickbay.
"Now, Lieutenant, I'll escort you back to your quarters. I doubt anything's been changed yet," said Phlox. Reed wrinkled his nose as the doctor smeared a white paste onto his lip. He did not say a word as they walked through the halls, although he did nod to the crewmembers they passed.
He slept until the middle of the night shift. When he awoke, he remembered again the temporal resequencer in the weapons locker, and quietly went to go get it. From the armory he liberated a locking case and stowed the resequencer inside, and hid it at the very top of his closet, above the ceiling itself where the power conduits ran between bulkheads.
Reed did not really know why he had told the captain a false story. In his bones, his deepest instincts, an urge of caution resonated. Knowing the future could be dangerous. He himself knew information already about the oncoming lives of some of his crewmates. What would happen if that were changed? His head throbbed with the possible ramifications and futures, and he decided that time should be allowed to run its own course. He would not meddle, even if he knew what would happen.
Would he have gone back if the Cabal had not attacked Cadis, searching for a rogue temporal signature? Would he have submitted to Jean-Luc's wishes and let time stay as it was? How did he know that a Federation was the right way to go? Jean-Luc had made the decision for him...for Enterprise...for Henri. Maybe...maybe... He glanced at the closet.
Quietly he sat down at his desk and began to type a letter into the computer.
"To Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the Enterprise..."
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I'm going to add a little epilogue onto this, Picard's letter as you can probably guess, but otherwise this is the end of the story. The last part should be up by or on Sunday. May Borg assimilate me if I do not post by then.
Catspaw