What Price Brotherhood?
By Lieuten Keen
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I just needed to fix the finale.
Author's Note: A big hearty thank you to those of you that reviewed. This is my first fiction, and I'm learning how all the bells and whistles work. I hope that you like it.
Follow the white light.
Chapter 3:
Something outside blew apart. The concussive force hit the soft bubble and the ship rocked around. Reese stumbled and Archer reached out automatically to steady her. She wound up wrapped in his arms for a brief moment. He held onto to her gently, seeing depths in her eyes as she watched him carefully.
Daniels chose that moment to come back into the room. "We're all charged up, but the incendiary devices are growing more violent. We may only have time for one jump." He eyed the two suspiciously. "Reese, you're supposed to be monitoring the sensor sweeps," he accused.
With a lopsided smile, she pulled gently out of Archer's arms and sauntered across the room to tap at a keyboard, checking the readouts. Daniels glared at his sister, then studied Archer carefully.
"My sister doesn't like all this time travel," he stated carefully. "She had a promising career with my organization, until her fiancé refused to save an orphanage that came under fire when we were observing the past." Daniels smirked humorlessly. "As it turns out, by waiting where he was instead of helping those kids, he sustained a fatal injury when a bomb exploded nearby. Reese was saved with the children, but the temporal mess we had to clean up was extensive."
Archer's green eyes glowered at the shorter man for his insensitivity. "She calls you Rilo?" he finally interjected.
Daniels glared. "Rilo is my given name. I'm not fond of it. I prefer to go by Daniels," he gritted through clenched teeth. He urged the captain to follow him.
"Hmm," Archer hummed as he set off down the corridor with his former steward. "I once knew a dog name Rilo."
Ignoring Daniels' fuming countenance, they entered the room where the time travel machine lay. The room was white and a pedestal stood in the middle. There had been a room just like this in the Suliban helix, ten years ago when Archer interrupted Silik in a conversation with his time-traveling leader. The biggest difference here was all the memorabilia scattered around the outer edges. Archer noticed a life-size mannequin clothed in one of his old uniforms, along with phase pistols, scale model replicas of the NX-01 and an old photograph of him with Trip near the ocean. They both wore scuba equipment and Archer knew that picture had been taken before they'd ever set foot on Enterprise. It was the creepiest museum he'd ever seen.
"If you'll just step up there, Captain," Daniels' nodded to the dais.
Archer eyed the remnants of his life curiously before reluctantly setting one foot after another on the raised circle in the middle of the room. "Shouldn't we wait a bit before doing this? I'm not sure I'm ready." He felt like he needed to stall for time. They needed to prepare for his triumphant return. Relief came a moment later.
"Wait!" A cry came through the open door. Reese ran in waving something in her hand.
"What now?" Daniels exhaled in frustration.
"Two things," Reese announced, ticking them off on her fingers. "First, you can't drop him at the podium in the Hall. He was wobbly even as he came down the aisle. We'll need to set him down in the greenroom." Daniels considered that carefully and finally nodded. "If we set him in the greenroom," Reese went on, "he'll need to wear his regular uniform and change into his dress uniform in the dressing room. Otherwise, people will see him."
Rilo Daniels glared at his sister. "You're up to no good, as is often the case," he accused.
"We get one shot, Super Bounce," she made fun of his costume again. "Don't you want to get it right? We may not get another chance."
Daniels agreed reluctantly. He moved closer to the mannequin and pulled open a drawer on the side wall, withdrawing another blue uniform while Reese stood at the power console idly tapping buttons. He handed it to Archer, who eyed it questioningly, wondering how obsessed Daniels really was. He stepped behind the mannequin of himself and dressed quickly.
"Should I be concerned about your brother's infatuation with me?" he called out, feeling goosebumps on his arms.
Reese chuckled. "He's harmless. Mostly," she amended, looking at her twin with a dubious eye as he joined her, muttering and punching buttons to adjust her adjustments. "He's something of a pioneer in the Temporal Enforcement Agency, just as you were a pioneer in deep space travel. He read about you in grade school and felt a certain kinship." She looked hesitantly at the memorabilia spread around the room. "At least he doesn't kill people," she offered helpfully. "Well," she pretended to look troubled, "I don't think he does." Daniels' glared at his sister.
Jon smirked despite his best intentions not to. "That's not reassuring," he snickered. It was entirely wrong to be having a good time while the world went to hell. But knowing he was doing something to make it all better was having an uplifting effect on his spirits.
"You're not supposed to be telling him this stuff!" Daniels burst out. "Too much knowledge can be dangerous!"
"You're living proof of that, brother dear," Reese agreed with saccharine sweetness.
Rilo Daniels glared at his sister some more. "He's dressed. I've adjusted the coordinates to release him in the greenroom just before the speech. Can we just fix this now?"
Reese sighed as though deeply put upon. "Second thing, he's going to need a copy of his speech. It would be stupid to get there and realize he left it on his ship," Reese told her brother with a smarmy glare. The two spent some minutes crossing their eyes and sticking their tongues at each other as though they were ten years old, and Jon found he didn't know whether to be amused or irritated.
"Ahem," he cleared his throat and they broke eye contact.
"We never really outgrew the fourth grade," she grinned pertly at Archer before leading him to the dais and handing over a data disk.
Reese stepped closer to Archer, dressed now in his usual blue coveralls and slipped a data disk in his pocket, patting the material to smooth it over his shoulders.
"Many men talk about the greatness of the future," she whispered. "Few of them have the conviction to change it. If you decide to change it, I'll take care of the rest." Her green eyes seem to pierce him deeply as she stepped down. She walked back to stand next to her brother, and Archer thought how nice it would have been to have spent his life with a woman so determined to take advantage of every moment. He spent his life on a starship and had very little to show for his efforts. At the moment, his ship would be decommissioned, his best friend was dead, and he hadn't had a girlfriend in quite a few years.
Reese stood next to her brother and watched his hands press the buttons to determine the countdown. She caught the captain looking at her curiously, and she smiled in a reassuring way.
Suddenly their ship was rocked with an especially hard blast. All three were knocked to their feet. They scrambled upright. Computers lit up and beeps chirped from several different places. Archer stepped forward to assist them.
"Get back, Jon!" Reese shouted. "They've punctured the bubble outside. We've only got one shot to send you back!" She looked like she was enjoying herself, and Archer wondered how many beers she'd consumed before he got here.
Daniels' turned from the readouts at the far end of the console. "They shouldn't have been able to pierce the bubble!" he wailed.
"It's not a bubble! It's a temporal anomaly held in inter-dimensional flux!" she corrected him with some glee.
Daniels glared at his sister, and Archer worried that they would descend into their child-like antics. "We don't have time for this!" he bellowed.
Reese snickered at the idea that they were running out of time. Her hands twisted around themselves and her nerves had her bouncing up and down. "Now, Rilo! If we don't send him now, we'll never get the chance!" While his back was turned, she poked a couple of buttons underneath flashing lights.
The ship continued to rock on its axis. "Don't call me Rilo!" the balding man beside her argued, his hands a blur on the console in front of him, desperately wishing for more time to make sure the calculations were correct.
Reese met Archer's eyes. "Good luck, Jon!" she smiled slowly. "Have hope."
There was something funny about her smile, but Jon couldn't decipher it. White light appeared all around him. His body felt tingly as though he was being transported, but then the feeling intensified and it was like being torn apart. He roared in his agony, his head tilted back and his eyes tightly closed, not really keen on seeing the things that would happen in the future as he left the future behind.
"You all right, Cap'n?" The familiar Southern drawl pierced his rigid stance at the window.
Tilting his head back into its upright position, and forcing his eyes open, Jonathan Archer found himself in the Captain's Mess Hall on B Deck of the Enterprise NX-01. Gradually his teeth unclenched and he caught sight of a reflection in the window. He turned around, panting heavily.
"Yeah, Trip," he answered, praying his voice sounded somewhat normal. "I'm fine." He cleared his throat. "I guess I'm a little nervous about..." There was something he was doing, just a few minutes before. He couldn't remember where he'd been. Patting his pockets, he hoped for some clue to fill him in. He felt the sharp edges of a data disk in his pocket.
"Did you get this out for me?" Trip's eyes didn't miss the bottle of a very fine vintage sitting on the table in front of him.
Archer moved around to sit next to his best friend. "Yeah," he agreed. They would have a little drink now, and reminisce about the future. There was something wrong with the structure of that sentence, he thought. He shook his head. If Trip was here, there was nothing to worry about.
"Do you really think the Alliance will hold?" Trip wondered out loud, sipping slowly at the beverage Jon offered him.
Jon murmured fervent wishes to that end. They chatted a few moments about the delegates that would be there at the conference. He was having trouble focusing on the conversation; he just enjoyed the timber of his companion's familiar voice.
"Written your speech yet?" Trip asked with one eyebrow raised. He knew damn good and well the captain hadn't done it; he always waited until the last damn minute.
Archer reached for the disk in his pocket. "I'm working on it," he hedged, laying the plastic down on the table. There was a small piece of paper wrapped around the disk and Archer slid it off while Trip refilled his glass, reading the soft curves of the letters. What's it worth to you? What did that mean? Archer wondered.
Trip laughed, a hearty familiar laugh, and teased his fried about procrastinating. Archer's head spun away from him. There was something he was supposed to remember. He always remembered before. His brow furrowed. What did he always remember before? He looked up. Trip was still teasing him about this being the biggest day of Archer's life.
"It's the biggest day of our lives," Archer corrected him. The feeling of urgency filled him. He laid his hand on Trip's. "You have meant so much to me. I could never have come this far without you."
Trip stared at the hand resting on his, and a line of worry appeared between his brows. "You're the man they're waiting to see," he reminded Jon lightly. The intimate contact was unexpectedly strange since Jon wasn't a particularly physical guy, but his words of affection were somewhat soothing.
A large boom outside broke the tension that lingered in that one moment.
Archer leaped to his feet and hit a button on the companel. "Archer to the Bridge?" he questioned. The report came in; something had attacked them and they had been boarded.
"I'm on my way!" Archer barked. "Trip, stay here!" He hit the button and started out the door.
"I'm going with you!" Trip argued, following the captain out the door as they raced for a turbo lift to take them to the bridge.
They passed a crewwoman heading the opposite direction. She winked at him as they passed. Archer had one brief moment to wonder about the young woman; he didn't remember anyone having a scar on his ship.
She wasn't from his ship. She was from the future. He remembered everything in that moment. The scream that followed him through the temporal gate had come from Daniels when he realized that the explosion on the Picard had been rigged by his sister, and that while he had been watching Archer, Reese had been altering the time panel. Reese had done what Archer asked her to do, and now it was up to him to decide if interstellar peace was worth the life of his friend.
He could just imagine the tongue lashing she was receiving from her high strung brother right now, for messing in things that were none of her business.
They were suddenly out of time for daydreams as they rounded a corner and encountered the trespassers. Jon knew Reed and the security team would have headed straight for Shran's guest quarters down on G Deck when the intruders had boarded. He and Trip were all alone here. What would he do to save the future? What if this choice made everything worse? Did he really have the right to alter a predetermined destiny and lead them all into an unknown future? He was struck by the image of a broken and dead Earth outside the window of Reese's ship. Anything had to be better than that, he thought.
"Where's Shran?" the leader demanded.
"I'll take you to Shran!" Trip volunteered in a panic, his blue eyes glancing fearfully at the tall man by his side staring calmly at the armed assailants. The captain had been acting weird in the last hour. He didn't want to subject Jon to any more danger than necessary. He turned to Jon, pleading with his eyes to make his commanding officer understand, to make him comply with Trip's sudden idea.
As blue eyes met green, a fist hit a chin. Trip was driven backwards into the bulkhead, slamming his head hard enough to knock him senseless. He slid slowly to the ground into the comfort of blackness.
"I'm sorry," Jon whispered as he bent over the body of his fallen friend. "I can't let you do this."
Archer stood and faced the men with a cocky air of resignation. "I'll take you to Shran. I didn't think he'd be this much trouble. Let me call him here. He'll think the coast is clear." He was certain that he didn't want to live his life if Trip wasn't in it. He had nothing else to lose. It took a special man to change the future. He hoped he was that man.
The marauders seemed to think this idea was okay, although they took precautions as Archer unhooked an energy conduit. "I just need to plug this in up there," he indicated a panel. He wasn't an engineer, but somehow this seemed like the right thing to do. One of the attackers felt around for a weapon behind the panel, but in the end, Archer was able to jam the energy conduit into the sensitive area inside and white light filled the corridor, followed by a larger explosion.
The resulting blast blew them all backward.
The explosion roused the Commander, who struggled weakly to his feet. He ran around the corner and saw the wreckage and screamed, "NO!"