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Shattered Times and Timelines: The Defiant Odyssey.
The Starfleet Command council was in an uproar as the emergency session entered its fourth hour. Usually, the Command Council debated on matters of logistics, of exploratory missions and surveys which were relayed back to the home system by subspace relays, but right now an unexpected and terrible emergency had come their way, and it was one that could not be ignored.
The admirals and commodores in command of the fleet, supervisors of the solar system bases and responsible for Starfleet operations were trying to cope with the emergency which had suddenly occurred without any kind of prior warning.
Earth had been attacked by a mysterious probe that had appeared out of some kind of subspace distortion and fired a particle beam that cut a 400-kilometre long swath from Florida all the way to Venezuela before it had just fallen apart and fell to the planet below.
Nobody knew anything about the attackers or their motives for launching such a deliberate and unprovoked attack against Earth. At first, some of the admirals speculated Enterprise might have antagonised a hostile alien race, but that was shot down as soon as it was voiced.
Jonathan Archer might be reckless according to the Vulcans, and he and his crew might have gotten more involved with other species like the Klingons, and had accidentally escalated the conflict between the Vulcans and the Andorians, but Enterprise had never encountered a species that used anything other than warp drive and not the strange propulsion method that these aliens used.
The debate had shifted on for four hours, moving from the who and the why, but nobody knew anything other than the fact the aliens were powerful enough to devise a particle energy weapon of a yield capable of cutting a swath across a planet's surface, and appearing out of nowhere using an unknown form of propulsion.
"Listen, it's pointless debating who these aliens are, we should be looking to protect Earth," Admiral Carstairs was saying. "I already have the fleet ships already in the Sol system surrounding Earth, Mars, and the moon."
"Paul, we already know of your stance concerning aliens, how we should have a dedicated fleet protecting Earth-," Admiral Jellico began to say, but it wasn't Carstairs who interrupted, but it was Commodore Vickers.
"Who else is going to do it, James? Ever since that Klingon crash-landed on Earth, we've received reports of their warbirds spying on us. The Klingons are an aggressive expansionist power, and some of us have checked their files in the Vulcan database. Do you know what they do when they conquer and occupy a planet? They then execute all government officials and place an Imperial Overseer to put down resistance. They round up and kill slave workers who refuse to work, and they sell those people as slave workers throughout the empire. Is that what you want? That is what we're gonna get if we don't get real!"
Admiral Forrest's eyes widened in horror as he mentally conjured an image of the world humanity had spent more than a hundred years rebuilding following the devastating effects of World War 3 being destroyed. The vision grew worse as he pictured the imposing Klingon architecture he had seen from the scans taken from Archer's visit to Qo'Nos on the mission to ferry that courier home, and what he had seen in the Vulcan database being constructed on Earth by exhausted and brutalised human slaves, and he had to close his eyes when he thought of all the children who'd been promised to have a fuller, more enlightening life now they were being born in a world where poverty, disease, and the threat of war was stamped out for good. As the admiral who usually and regularly kept in contact with Archer and the Enterprise, he had read enough reports to know how dangerous the Klingon Empire was. Forrest cast a look around the room, and he saw Vickers and Carstairs were not the only Starfleet flag officers who advocated Starfleet put defence before exploration.
One of those admirals, Admiral Manning asked the room at large. "How many people died because of the attack?"
"The casualty list is being revised again," Admiral Parker rubbed her face tiredly, hiding her dismay for being dragged into such a topic like this. "So far, it's up to 2 million deaths."
"2 million, and the implication is many more have died and have yet to be accounted for," Vickers pointed out, her eyes flinty hard as she gazed at the admirals she knew believed that her views and those of others were paranoid delusions and she had no hesitation in calling them out, "and while some of you believe our views are paranoid, you can't deny the truth anymore. There's a 400-kilometre trench running through Florida to Venezuela. There are 2 million + deaths, and there is already a lot of people screaming at Starfleet and the MACO's for not keeping them safe. We are responsible for their safety, nobody else."
One of her allies nodded. "There's also something else you should keep in mind; whoever attacked us by launching that probe likely has the means of launching another. Or even a fleet," he went on, warming to his subject which made many of the officers present realise more was to come, "and they have powerful weapons and have a propulsion technology we can't even begin to scratch right now. What do we have? A few warp 1 and warp 2 capable ships, particle beam weapons, and spatial torpedoes. We have new photonic weapons coming out, thanks to scans taken by Enterprise's Tactical officer of similar weapons, but that's it?"
"This debate is pointless; it's already being made all over the planet as people are demanding we make plans to address Earth's defence issues," another admiral pointed out.
Admiral Black spoke for the first time during the meeting. "I was against the launch of Enterprise for 3 reasons; 1, the business with the Klingons was really not our problem. I agreed with the Vulcans there, and if a hostile species goes to civil war with itself then so much the better since it means we would barely feel it. 2, The NX-01 had taken a long time to finish construction, and she hadn't even completed the necessary trials. They've had to do everything on the job, and while I admire Archer and Tucker and the crew for their skill, I felt they should have immediately returned to Sol where they could complete the ship and launch again in a few months rather than let them go on their way. And lastly, 3, we should have immediately begun the construction of 2 or 3 more NX-class starships as soon as Enterprise moved an inch out of Space Dock. I agree with Paul and the others, we need a large space fleet instead of just having the one starship out there. Our current construction methods are beyond slow, and they worry me.
Silence filled the room as everyone took in what Black had just said. While the majority of admirals and other flag rank officers had authorised Enterprise's mission to explore the systems outside of Earth, there had been a few who had agreed with the Vulcan's opinions that Enterprise should be ordered to return home to make the ship ready.
But their views were ignored, just like that of the Vulcans.
Now it looked like Starfleet and the people of Earth was going to pay the price for that decision to ignore it.
"Where's Enterprise, Max?" Admiral Franklin asked, his voice gruff while he kept silent, but he was clearly thinking about the implications of what was being said quite closely.
"They're on their way back to Earth. I spoke with Archer, he says they're a long way off, but they're making maximum warp speed back to Earth. They should be back soon," Forrest replied, pleased a positive part of the meeting had been revealed.
"Did you tell Archer anything about the attack, and did he have ideas about who was behind it?"
Forrest hid the sigh that came out of his mouth. "I did, Doug, but he hasn't encountered any alien race that can travel the way the probe arrived to attack. In fact, he asked if the Vulcans knew of such a race."
"And you told him no, I take it?"
Forrest nodded. "The Vulcans don't have a clue; there was enough DNA left behind for them to examine in their database."
"Did the Vulcans say anything more about the subspace distortion that was detected, or have they just put that on a need to know basis?" Vickers asked.
Forrest didn't like the antagonistic attitude permeating throughout the room from the woman, unfortunately, it was being shared by everyone else. "No, they've been quite open with us; you can tell they're confused which is why they've decided to be open with us about it. But…I agree with some of you, we should be preparing for another attack. How many fleet ships are in Earth space?"
"Virtually all of them. We had several of the ships, especially the ones capable of warp 3 travel further outwards on scientific expeditions. They've been recalled like Enterprise, but they should be arriving this time tomorrow," Admiral Jellico said.
"That's good," Forrest privately hoped whoever was behind this did not launch a second attack, but with the whole planet on Red Alert, he hoped as well the fleet would be strong enough to fight back against any attacker. Enterprise's last two years had sent back invaluable data about hostile races, and all of Earth's defences and starships had been adjusted accordingly. Spatial torpedoes had been augmented and with the recent advances in photonic weaponry, they would soon be equipping their ships with torpedoes with antimatter warheads. It certainly helped when you had an NX-class ship with a warp 5 engine going out into the galaxy, gathering information every step of the way to make it easy.
Black, meanwhile, had another concern. "How's the building on the NX-02?"
"It's slow, we're hoping to launch her by the end of the year."
"That might be too late. We need every single ship we could get our hands-on, and the NX-class ships are the most advanced ships we have," Carstairs pointed out. Forrest wished he would change the record; Carstairs, Black and Vickers were three of Starfleet's higher-ups who wanted to devote all of Starfleet's resources to constructing fleets of advanced starships that were heavily armed and capable of speeds as high as warp 5. While it wasn't as extreme depending on who it was, all of them believed Starfleet was ill-prepared for anything like this. And sadly right now Forrest could see their views and he knew the public would be demanding a much larger star fleet.
After what had happened Forrest would be very doubtful if nobody took those demands seriously.
"Can we advance construction of the NX-class; start building them in the Utopia Planitia dock complex?" Jellico looked between all of the admirals.
"We could," Admiral Manning rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "but could the yards take the complexity of the design?"
"They built our first generation freighters and then branched out to our first warp 1 explorers; the yards are designed with increasingly complex building work in mind so we don't need to replace one generation of docks with others. They can take them. I spoke to the yard commandant a few days ago when I wondered if we could increase the number of NX-class ships and explore much more ground than we can with a single NX-class ship; they said with a few modifications the yards shouldn't have any problems building NX-class ships. In any case, we designed our ships and facilities to be modular, built-in sections, and then brought up into space for us to fit together in space to cut down on the problems of gravity. We can do it. If we're lucky and make it a top priority we can have 7 NX-class ships, not counting Columbia under construction instead of releasing just one ship at a time, which I think is a big mistake," Carstairs explained.
Forrest looked down at his feet. He knew that would come back around in the faces of everyone listening. When Enterprise's keel was laid down, the plan was to release the first 3 ships of that class to test out new technologies, but in reality, the problem with the NX class was that as the most advanced deep space ship advertised there was a lot of things Starfleet was still not clear on. Sure, they had built freighters, but these were explorers and there were questions that needed to be answered as the project ran on and on for years. Many of the issues had been addressed with the building of Enterprise and her hurried launch, and much of the issues addressed there were easy enough to repeat a second time with Columbia, and with Enterprise's future sister ships if the plan to use Utopia Planitia yards to construct a large number of ships went through.
But there were dozens of admirals and captains who believed Enterprise should have been constructed in a batch, with 2 or even 4 other ships under construction so they could address the problems in different generations of NX-class ships.
But there had been other concerns, namely the budget. Building ships was very expensive, but it was a big excuse.
Forrest was not one of them. He believed the universe was a large place and there was a lot of time for them to experiment and answer their questions, what was the rush? Now it seemed that the universe had come back around and slapped the human race collectively in the face for their stupidity.
"We could do that," Forrest heard himself say, and he found himself looking up into the faces of his fellow admirals, "but do we have the time? We don't know if these aliens will be back or not, or even when."
Carstairs looked around the array of faces. "I don't think we've got much choice, Max. We have to start making preparations to build a fleet."
"We need more than that," Admiral Ivanova's voice called through the room as she walked into view. Admiral Susan Ivanova, a beautiful but stern Russian admiral who'd spent a lot of her time on previous expeditions and developed a hard edge to her personality which had made her see the universe in tones of dark grey rather than black and white, sometimes she was a more conservative version of Carstairs and Vickers, but today Forrest was willing to bet she was going to be more radical than that.
"Susan, what do you mean?" Vickers asked her.
"We need firepower against these aliens, and I think we have a way that's considerably more powerful than phase cannons or photonic torpedoes. The Verteron array on Mars; it can be used to overwhelm the defences on even the sturdiest of Vulcan cruisers," Ivanova said.
Forrest shuddered at the mention of the Verteron array on Mars being used as a weapon. It was meant to be used to redirect comets towards the Martian poles to aid in the efforts to terraform the planet for colonisation. As a Starfleet Admiral, Forrest knew how powerful the array was, but he could see it being used to great effect as one.
"I agree," Jellico nodded although his troubled expression made it clear he wasn't entirely pleased or comfortable with the notion. Neither was Ivanova, come to that. "We can easily take control of it, and we can build more of them and scatter them through the solar system and dot them about on Earth. There's no telling if these aliens won't return and attack Earth in a planetary re-enactment of the Battle of Britain."
"Good point. How powerful is the beam?" Vickers asked.
"Well, like our torpedoes and beam weapons, the Verteron beam of the array is passed through subspace, sending it faster than light, so it's got some power. But the reactors powering the array on Mars are fusion-based. If we want more power for new arrays aimed at defending Earth, we'd need to hook them up to antimatter power sources, that's the tricky part," Franklin explained.
"I don't think we've got much choice," Forrest sighed, knowing there was no point in arguing the use of the verteron array as a weapon, not if he wasn't going to get much support. He would rather have ships in orbit protecting Earth, but since they were few on the ground they had no choice. "What other ways can we defend Earth with, things that need only the minutest amount of setting up?"
"We could prepare stations equipped with phase cannons and photonic and spatial torpedoes," Parker suggested, "it won't be hard to build automated satellites carrying the weapons."
"They'd have a limited amount of space onboard them, though, that would hamper their effectiveness," Carstairs paced around the room with his hands stuffed into his pockets, "but we've no choice. We need to do whatever it takes to protect Earth."
Forrest wondered if he was the only one chilled by the implications behind Carstairs' statement, the image it left in his mind did not reassure him and indeed he could see some of the faces of his fellow admirals look worried. But he was getting frustrated by them being in this conference room just talking about their plans without doing anything to put them into place. "I think we'd better get started. The question is what do we do first? I mean, do we start building new verteron arrays or weapon platforms, or new parts for the NX-Class ships? Personally, I can make arrangements with Utopia Planitia yards to start building the ships, but what about everyone else?"
"I will handle the verteron array," Ivanova declared, but it made sense given how she had been the one to bring it to everyone's attention in the first place. "At the same time, I'll put forward a research team to find the best way of augmenting the power supply."
"Talking of the Battle of Britain which I mentioned earlier, I think we should think about building a fleet of fighters similar to the spitfires used by the Royal Air Force in the Second World War," Jellico announced.
"But that would mean taking Starfleet which isn't a military organisation and transforming it into a military organisation, something we haven't truly had for a century," Leonard argued.
"Goddamit, Leonard! We don't want to do anything like this either, but if we make it clear to the population of Earth we're taking this attack seriously there won't be mass panic," Ivanova snapped. "Do it."
But Leonard refused to let it go. "But fighters-."
"What I don't think you realise is it will take time for the NX class ships to be built. At that time Earth is vulnerable; we need something to protect us, and our current fleet is just too small. We need ships that are small easy to build and powerful. We can build automated ships. Drones. We send them out and armed with torpedoes and phase cannons and we can buy time for our engineers. I agree with the plan."
Leonard glanced at Forrest, hoping for some backup for this battle, but there was none. But before anybody could continue discussing plans and counterplans for the alien attack, a com panel chirped.
Forrest walked over to the panel and tapped it. "Forrest," he said.
"Admiral, three ships have just appeared above Earth. One of them is clearly an Earth-ship."
"What do you mean?" Forrest's eyes crinkled in surprise as he tried to make sense of this news. "One of them is an Earth-ship?"
"It's definitely an Earth-ship of sorts, but its configuration doesn't match anything in our records," the officer on the other end replied.
"Have you got pictures?" Forrest asked.
"Yes, sir. Sending them to you, now."
Forrest tapped in a sequence onto another panel and a display screen came to life. It showed the blackness of space with the glowing light of Earth's blue atmosphere and oceans shining in space. Above the planet was a large ship that had Forrest's eyes widen in surprise. Now he understood why the officer had been vague, they hadn't known how to describe this ship.
A long time ago, Zefram Cochrane had come up with a general design for all Earth's warp ships. It was a simple enough design consisting of a saucer-shaped primary hull linked to a secondary hull that contained the power generation and warps core of the ship and was joined to two cylindrical warp nacelles. There was no doubt, this ship was from Earth. But she was massive, silver-grey in colour and yet she easily dwarfed whatever NX-class ship if they were nearby.
He didn't recognise the design. It was too large and too advanced for their current line of technology. The NX-class was designed to be the first deep-space cruiser Earth had constructed, but its design was supposed to be a leapfrog to later designs, and Forrest could imagine this ship being a result of future warp developments and new advances of new technologies.
If Forrest had problems recognising the design of the ship, all the admirals in the room did as well, but his eyes turned over to the second and third ships. Now they were both identical, very alien, and very primitive in design. It was boxy, blocky, with two short nacelle structures but they didn't look like warp nacelles. They looked more like some kind of shuttle bay to Forrest, given what he could see right now. The two primitive-looking ships' design had a pre-warp feel to it.
"Forrest to Starfleet Engineering and Starfleet Security," Forrest made a decision that he made without consulting the others, "prepare three shuttle pods to rendezvous with the three unidentified ships in orbit."
"Yes, Admiral," the voice on the other end replied before cutting the connection and Forrest turned to the others. He could see a few of the admirals and other flag officers looking torn between annoyance about his flagrant lack of respect in playing the debating game but truthfully he wasn't surprised none of them was going to say anything about it since all of them were curious about the strange arrival of the two ships to ignore it. In any case, they would be fascinated to learn where the two ships came from.
"The ships come from two separate alternate realities," a sudden jovial, unfamiliar, voice said.
The admirals swung around. Standing in the room were two people wearing dark suits of the style of the 21st century, so not quite too dissimilar from modern times. One was a young man, who couldn't have been more than 30 years old, the second was a young woman, who appeared to be the same age. Leonard tapped on a com panel. "Security, conference room 8, immediately."
"Admiral, we're here to help you, there's no reason for this," the man said.
The woman, meanwhile, folded her arms and snorted at her companion. "What did you think was going to happen, that they wouldn't tell security that we were here?"
"I honestly thought they'd be smart enough to listen," the man protested. "Besides, you were the one who transported us here. Does it matter now? We are on borrowed time."
"Good point," the woman turned and smiled at the admirals. "Sorry about that."
"Who are you?" Vickers demanded.
"That would take too long to explain. If you really want clues, then ask your idiot, Jonathan Archer. He has on his ship a Temporal Database containing information of the upcoming centuries, all the way to the 31st century. And like most Starfleet officers, he believes he knows everything to the degree that if he lets out the information it contains, he will affect history. Wrong, he will not change anything. The database comes from a timeline, a parallel universe similar but different in some ways from yours. Your own reality deviated around First Contact. And I don't care if you believe it right now; once you examine those ships you will have all the proof you need. Quantum date their hulls and technology, go through their records, and you'll discover the truth," the woman said bluntly making the man sigh.
"Essentially, we're time travellers from a parallel world. We've travelled to this reality to give you advanced technology to help combat the Xindi threat," the man explained in a more polite manner.
"The Xindi?" Admiral Carstairs's voice was filled with understandable scepticism. Time travel was something that was taken with a pinch of salt, regardless of the proof Archer had given in his reports of the Temporal Cold War.
The man held up some kind of disc. A hologram of five different people appeared. One was clearly reptilian, another was like a giant fly, one resembled a fish or a dolphin, while the other two were more mammalian. "The Xindi. They're the species who launched the probe, but they're constructing a more powerful weapon capable of levelling Earth. One of the ships is from the 23rd century, from a timeline where the Xindi attack occurred there as well, so you will have something to form a strategy from while the second ship contains the database of an ancient, highly advanced race from another universe."
"You expect us to just help ourselves to two ships?" Admiral Leonard asked in disbelief.
"Why would that be a problem for you? You've been trying to ask the Vulcans for more knowledge of warp travel, and other pieces of advanced technology to help you expand. And besides, you have more important things to worry about now. The Xindi will be launching a second attack soon. Look, right now another time traveller involved with the Suliban," the man and the woman couldn't hide the smirks on their faces when they took in the startled looks from the admirals at the mention of the Suliban, "telling Archer about the Xindi. But right now take a look at the ships. Use what they know. Good luck."
The two time travellers vanished. Forrest sighed and looked down. "I know many of you won't believe this, but I certainly believe them. Jonathan's had a lot of experience with time travel these past two years. And he's provided enough proof to check himself up."
"We're not doubting that Max, but right now I want to know if they were right. Does Archer have some kind of Temporal database?" Jackson asked.
Forrest sighed. "I don't know," he replied softly. "Jonathan hates talking or repeating about details of the Temporal Cold War. We'll have to force the issue when he returns to Earth."
"Do you really believe those ships are from other realities?" Vickers asked before she folded her arms. "I don't think we can't rule it out. The big question on my mind is what we're going to do about this weapon. Obviously, it has to be stopped, but how do we go about it? We're going to be sending Enterprise into whatever territory the Xindi come from, but they'll be going in alone, without a support net. I really don't like that; one ship against an entire fleet of ships of unknown strength. Not good odds to me. And then there's this weapon those two were telling us about. It's probably a larger, more powerful version of the thing that cut a path of murder."
"I don't like it either, but Columbia is still under construction," Jackson said.
"I never did like the fact we came up with an action plan where we would release one single ship at a time. Is there any chance we can accelerate the construction of the NX-02 to NX-04?" Carstairs demanded.
"We could, but we'd need to upgrade the Utopia Planitia yards. There was a project in mind to do that, but it was put on the backburner."
"Yeah, well that project is our number one priority. If there really is an alien race determined to wipe us out, I want us to be ready for it, and we'd need every single ship we have available," Carstairs said decisively.
"Do you think they were telling the truth about the weapon?" Parker asked dubiously.
"Why would they launch such a savage attack on Earth? It's plausible, but even if they were lying, I agree, we need to start building more ships, and we need to reverse-engineer and study the technologies on these two new ships, and if Archer really does have access to a database containing scientific and technical knowledge, then we need it. And we need it now," Ivanova said in that blunt manner everyone had come to respect of the woman.
"The good news is Columbia's nearly finished, if we can focus on her construction for the next few months we can have her out quickly. But it's the shipyards I'm worried about. How long will it take to sort them out?" Leonard asked. Now he had processed the problem and he'd come to accept the very nature of the threat, his manner was now practical and professional.
Forrest rubbed his eyes. "It won't take us too long. But we need to make it clear to everyone we're taking action. But I think we should wait until we've studied the two ships and what's onboard them before we begin to make plans. We don't know the full scale of what their databases' contain."
"Speaking of which," Forrest closed his eyes when he heard Ivanova's pessimistic voice, although her pessimistic viewpoints had helped people see problems clearly to discover solutions, "those 'time travellers,' they claimed there was a database belonging to a highly advanced civilisation. More advanced than the Vulcans? Can we even replicate their technology?"
Vickers nodded. "She's right. Do we have the scientific resources needed to reverse-engineer the technologies and the science behind them?"
"We'll soon find out. Who's going on board the ships?" Forrest asked as he looked around the room.
"I think we all should. That way we've got a clear idea of what we're facing and when we do, we can come back here, and we can get started."
"What about the Vulcans?"
"What about them?" Carstairs's scowl was matched by those of other admirals around the room. It was almost an unspoken agreement to not bring in the Vulcans into this mess.
X
Admiral Forrest resisted the urge to rub his eyes as he looked around the table. He knew it wasn't something a Starfleet flag officer should do, show exhaustion but he was tired and he wanted very much to go home and come back on this matter the next day, but some of the other admirals were truly happy about what they had found.
Just 9 hours ago, they had visited the ships which had appeared in Earth's orbit following the initial reports from the Starfleet boarding parties, and after they had gotten the basics they had arranged this meeting. It had only just started following the rollercoaster of a day.
"Okay, let us start with the Defiant, what do we know about her?" Ivanova called to start the meeting. Judging from her manner, she was just as anxious as them all to start the meeting off so they could go home.
Admiral Poole leaned forward with a sigh and read off the information from his padd. "The Defiant's a Constitution-class starship. She was launched in the 23rd century, by something called the United Federation of Planets."
"United Federation of Planets?" Vickers repeated with a frown, her eyes crinkled at the implications of the name. "What's that, Mike?"
"According to the file, Earth founded with the Vulcans, Andorians, and the Tellarites - I know, it's hard to believe," he added when he caught the reactions from everybody else who knew the three races. The Vulcans didn't seem interested to be allied with anyone, and the Andorians had an uneasy relationship with everyone they met, "but it's true. Eventually, the Federation grew to accept membership from dozens of species. In the 23rd century, their consistent enemies are the Klingons and the Romulans, whoever they are."
"Romulans? Enterprise once stumbled across a cloaked minefield in a solar system once. The mines were old, and Enterprise accidentally struck one, ripping a chunk of the port side of the saucer to pieces before they were faced with two ships that decloaked. They identified themselves as the Romulan Star Empire," Forrest interrupted, remembering the report.
"Did Enterprise get any information about the Romulans?" Jackson asked.
"No. They were more interested in getting clear of the system. They received a repeated audio message before they were contacted by the Romulans directly. It was purely an audio message, they didn't see the faces of the Romulan crew," Forrest replied.
"Sounds like a race to avoid or take note of," Carstairs noted thoughtfully before he turned to Poole. "Go on, Poole. Tell us more about the Defiant. We can talk about the Federation later; right now we need to make an action plan of what we're going to do with the Defiant herself."
"Well, it's still early days and we've got a team of scientists and engineers downloading everything from the database and making copies so our analysis teams can go over everything important, but it seems the Defiant comes from a universe and time similar to our own. Apparently in their own 22nd century, the United Earth…over there," Poole said uncertainly as he tried to work out the best way to describe the different reality before he decided it made no difference, "dealt with the Xindi as well."
That caught the attention of everyone in the conference room. At once everyone shouted different questions about it. The air was full of questions like
"What are the Xindi's weaknesses?" "Where is the weapon being built?" "It actually exists?" "How did we survive in that reality?" And on and on it went until Forrest, seeing the way Poole was being heckled, jumped to his feet in anger and let out an angry high pitched whistle.
"That's enough. We can discover the full truth later when we go through the Defiant's records and when we've got time, but right now we have more to focus on, but can we do that without hounding each other?" Forrest glared around the room in outrage.
Ivanova took a deep breath. "You're right Max. It was unprofessional but we need to find out the basics. Mike, sorry, but please go on."
Poole looked like he was calming down from being overwhelmed like that, and he relaxed. "Well, shortly after the attack in that reality, Enterprise returned home and she was outfitted with new weapons and sensors before she was sent to the Delphic Expanse. According to the Defiant's records, the Expanse is fifty light-years away from Earth and is surrounded by a cloud formation which is hazardous; it allows ships to go in, but no out, so anything that ends up within the Expanse is invariably trapped there. But did you notice anything about what I described?"
"No," Leonard blinked in curiosity.
Carstairs clicked his fingers. "No mention of time travel."
"Exactly. It seems that the Starfleet in that universe is rather reluctant to mention anything like that, but someone is likely to know something."
"Did a version of the Defiant appears, or the Daedalus or the Odyssey?"
"No, it doesn't seem like it."
Jackson shrugged as he tried to ponder on the reason why that was. "Maybe in that universe the ships didn't appear because no time traveller sent them back through time?"
"That's possible. Anyway, did Enterprise survive in the Expanse?"
"Just. The ship was severely crippled when she returned to Earth. Many of Archer's crew were killed in that reality."
X
Captain Jonathan Archer was both glad to be home, and yet he was scowling because of the dark cloud which had settled over the entire planet like a dark shroud.
It was hard to believe that only a few days ago, Enterprise had been carrying on with their mission of exploration which had been renewed by Starfleet when they discovered the truth of the destruction of the colony on Paraagan 2. But then they'd heard the unthinkable.
Earth had been attacked.
A probe had suddenly appeared in orbit above Earth, and it had fired a beam at the surface of the planet and cut a path of destruction through Florida all the way to Venezuela.
The journey had frazzled him and his entire crew after they'd heard about the attack on Earth. Archer had spent much of the journey either in his Ready Room or in his quarters going over the frequent updates on the situation. He could not believe so many people had been killed by the alien attack that was so senseless it was unthinkable. Right now the count was standing at 7 million people. Archer and his crew had seen the swath from orbit, and he'd had to struggle with his rage when he had seen the devastation.
But he had needed to push it down when Duras had attacked, only for his ship to be destroyed by three unknown ships, one of which resembled a futuristic Earth ship which has to be the USS Defiant. That was something Archer was struggling to comprehend, never mind accept. He had learnt over the last two years that anything relating to time travel was usually bad news. He had received updates every hour of fresh casualties for the last few days, and the authorities back on Earth were going over the casualty lists over and over again, and he had posted the notifications on the ship's computer for the grim members of the crew to peruse. Trip was especially feeling the grief since his own younger sister had been caught in the attack.
But the news had changed when Archer received a message from Starfleet detailing the arrival of the Defiant, and the sister ships from an alternate reality.
Archer had been trying to learn more about the arrival of the ships, but Starfleet had curtly told him they would brief him on the situation when he returned to Earth with Enterprise, but getting the information was hard; Starfleet was being evasive about them. But when they destroyed Duras's ship (he wasn't planning on mounting the Klingon officer who'd been sent to drag a bunch of helpless people who were called rebels because they had been trying to escape, but when Archer helped them, they were in no position to oppose anybody; but truthfully Archer was beginning to wonder if there was any chance of persuading the Klingons they were not a threat, or if that was an invite for the Empire to conquer Earth. Sure, he knew some Klingons could be reasonable, but the majority of them were more eager to pick up a gun and shoot) Archer finally got some idea for himself about why those ships were top-secret. They were able to tear a Klingon Bird-Of-Prey to bits.
But right now he wondered if they could hold off against the Klingons to say nothing about these Xindi. He didn't truly trust Future Guy, to say nothing of Silik, but Archer found it hard to believe they were doing Earth a favour. He would never forget the way they'd been interfering in his mission from day one, and god they had murdered millions to end it.
But he was going to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
Except….Starfleet seemed to know about the Xindi already. And he didn't know how or why. Command had made it clear to him they would debrief him when they got home. But while he was worried about what that meant, he hoped to get this over and done with quickly. Archer nodded to the few officers whom he knew, and he arrived at Forrest's office. He saw the indicator that made it clear the admiral and his supervisor was in conference. Still, he had been told to let Forrest know he was there. He pressed the door chime.
"Come in," Forrest's voice came over the intercom.
Archer walked in, and he paused when he saw Forrest speaking to Admirals Ivanova, Carstairs, and Leonard. "Admirals," he greeted.
"Welcome home, Jon," Forrest appeared to have aged ten years since the last time they'd spoken, and he pointed to a chair. "Please sit down."
Archer did as he was told.
"You met the time traveller called Future Guy, and he told you about the Xindi. Why would he do that?" Forrest shook his head wondering why someone responsible for organising the Cabal would suddenly do that.
"I don't know. In fact, I was thinking about that before I came in. Silik and his boss have never been altruistic; I was thinking it could be because they've got plans for us, plans we don't know about," Archer said grimly.
"You're the expert on them, Captain, and just like you are on this Temporal Cold War; I wasn't a believer when you first informed us about it, but the more reports you sent back, the details surrounding the conflict, the more convinced I became," Carstairs said. "Speaking of which, you saw those ships in orbit."
"Yes, sir. I did. And I have a good idea you're going to tell me they came from different times," Archer's expression turned even grimmer.
"Yes, the Earth ship, the USS Defiant comes from a hundred years in the future; we've already quantum dated a piece of the hull, and it confirms it. The other ships…they're more complicated. Both of them come from the past, about a century, but they come from different realities."
"What, they're not from the same universe?" Archer didn't understand why that was, but he wasn't going to dismiss it. He had learnt the impossible usually ended up being possible.
"Apparently not, Jon. One of the ships contains slightly different technology than the second, but it's only a few things. Besides one of the ships containing the database of an extremely advanced species, otherwise, they're basically identical," Forrest leaned back in his chair before he sighed and looked awkwardly at Archer, "Jon, two time travellers arrived in the conference room."
"Time travellers?" Archer sat up straight, his body tensing. "What did they want?"
"We don't know their long-term plan, especially after the time travellers you've encountered over the last two years, but they've given us knowledge and technology centuries ahead of anything we currently have. Speaking of which," Ivanova's expression became serious, "they told us that the time traveller called Crewman Daniels left some kind of database on your ship, Captain. Is that true?"
Archer considered lying, but he gave it more thought. Sooner or later, they were bound to search Enterprise, and they would come across the security lockout on Daniels' former quarters. Finally, he gave a nod. "It is," he admitted.
"May we know why you didn't tell us about this, especially since it could be filled with valuable information?" Carstairs demanded.
"That's precisely the reason I didn't say a word, Admiral," Archer took a deep breath to steady his nerves. "Admiral, would you want to know how you died?" He asked bluntly while he thought about other questions to fire off.
"What?" Carstairs asked confused, stunned by the sudden question.
"Captain, what are you saying?" Ivanova asked, but she just gave Archer another person to ask.
"What about you, Admiral? Do you want to know how you died, whether you've got children or grandchildren? What they will do with their own lives? Please, let me put this in a better way. If somebody came to you and told you they knew the future, and they proved it, and they repeated their offer to show you the future of your life, your family, giving you the chance to see if your children would be happy and if they would go on to discover new things, would you want to know, only to discover something awful happened to one of them, would you still have wanted to know, or would you decide to let history run its natural course?" Archer took a deep breath to stop panting.
The admirals looked at each other in shock, they had never considered this.
"When Daniels left that database on my ship, I had it locked up because it represented a way for everyone to know what was going to happen; if that happened, then the people involved in this damn Temporal Cold War would have won. They had already meddled and interfered in our affairs," Archer sighed and looked down at her hands, "I didn't want to make it worse. But at the same time… I knew the database contained vital information about technology, science, but at the same time I wondered if it was a good idea to make use of that knowledge at the same time; little bits, maybe, but do we really want technology and science handed over to us on a plate? What are we working for if we have every report on every planet, every region of the galaxy at our disposal already when our job is to go out there and discover it for ourselves? That's why I locked the database away," Archer finished quietly.
X
For the next 3 months, Starfleet Command came up with an action plan to make use of the four databases and sources of technology from the Defiant, the Odyssey and Daedalus, and the Temporal Database - the last one was kept under tight control. The admirals realised quickly once the United Earth government discovered what the Database contained, and they checked some of their own files if they existed that they did not want to know anything about their potential futures, which meant Jonathan Archer's concerns were more than shared, so they kept only to the scientific sides of the database which was a good thing.
Defiant's technology was reverse-engineered and studied, with Enterprise's hull plating augmented by a high factor, but the really interesting part was the shield technology used by the 23rd century and the Asgard shielding. Thanks to the Daedalus and the Odyssey database, they had not only two working versions of the technology, but they had the means to develop it and power it.
The Asgard hyperdrive technology was also prized by Starfleet, especially given what they had discovered so far about the Delphic Expanse, but many in Starfleet saw the long term big picture that the drive; the hyperdrive technology of the Asgard, and the examples on both the Odyssey and the Daedalus were capable of traversing the intergalactic void in only a few short days, impossible with warp 5 unless of course, you had the fuel and supplies and the means of coping with the trip for a long period.
Starfleet made a number of plans involving the new technologies they now had available, but because of the time, it would take for the integration of technologies like the hyperdrive onboard Starfleet ships it was decided that the Daedalus would be despatched into the Delphic Expanse after the ship was repaired and some of the hardware onboard her was updated with Starfleet technology. The sickbay was upgraded with an Imagining chamber. The nuclear missile tubes were replaced by torpedo launchers and the railgun batteries of the ship were replaced by phase cannons that had been modified by technology from the Defiant.
Odyssey received the same upgrades, but she was going to be kept in the solar system with the Defiant just in case the Xindi returned. There were several risks in sending the Daedalus into the Delphic Expanse, but the ship was the only other ship available with a working hyperdrive and Starfleet were busy reverse engineering and understanding the physics of the technology to better understand it before they could install it on board their ships.
X
"Okay," Admiral Ivanova looked around the conference room gravely, "now we've started work on the NX-03 to the NX-07, how long will it take before they are operational? It's been 3 months already, and we need to get the ships ready."
"We're moving steadily. I've got dozens of teams working in space dock and at Utopia Planitia yards working on the starships. We've found out from both the Temporal Database and the Asgard computer core they've found a way of mass-producing ships using transporter technology to beam minerals and raw materials and then moving them around a bit in a transporter beam and then mould them into different components; bulkheads, conduits, the parts of a power generator, that sort of thing. The Temporal Database mentions some kind of devastating war in the late 24th century where Starfleet was almost outmatched against a powerful empire from the Gamma Quadrant - long story - who built their own ships at an impressive rate. Anyway, they realised one efficient way of building a fleet lay in their transporter technology. They'd create a derivative of transporter technology, called replicators where they produced food out of energy. The Asgard could do something similar, but they preferred having large amounts of materials and dozens of transporters working in tandem set by a number of computers working on different preprogrammed tasks," Commander Jeffries reported. "Asgard transporters are too sophisticated right now and we'll need time to fully develop the technology, but the good news is we have the facilities already for mass-producing starships. We've already begun laying down the keels for the NX -class ships."
Carstairs shook his head in disgust. "I've said it once, and I'll say it again; it was a mistake building just one ship at a time."
"We already know that," Forrest's voice was testy but respectful at the same time. "But right now we have to think about saving lives. So what's the plan? What ships are being sent into the Expanse?"
"Enterprise and Daedalus, definitely. The other ships are in no state to go into the Expanse, although Columbia is nearly finished and the new weapons are being installed," Leonard said.
"What about the Defiant? I can't see the Xindi being a threat to that ship," Forrest asked.
Ivanova looked between Forrest and the other admirals for a moment. "It's been a matter of strong….debate," she said haltingly, looking uncertainly around the room. "We have the Temporal Database, but Defiant is valuable."
"Some of us want the ship to remain in the Solar system, knowing her more powerful weapons will be more than a match for the Xindi should the mission to find the weapon and destroy it fails, but at the same time she would be incredibly helpful on the front line of this war, and it is a war. The only problem is the C-in-C is weighing up the decision. He'll be making his decision by the end of the day," Vickers explained.
Forrest understood the problem perfectly. The Defiant and the Daedalus were both powerful in their own right while the Odyssey was not going to be allowed to leave the solar system regardless of how useful the technology and the knowledge the Asgard had installed in her was, but she was more of an asset protecting Earth while so many of their ships were currently too underpowered or under construction to do anything. "Do we know yet what his decision is?"
"No, we don't. He's been keeping to himself for the last few hours while he makes up his mind. He doesn't want any biased feelings clouding his decision," Vickers said.
"I can understand that," Forrest rubbed his crown thoughtfully. "But we're definitely sending the Daedalus."
"Yes, she has a working hyperdrive and up to date weapons and her shields have been set. We're training a crew for her right now," Carstairs said, "at the same time, we're working on integrating Asgard technology and reverse engineering what we can find from the Odyssey along the way. We'll summon the Daedalus back to Earth if and when the Columbia and several of the other ships need it; I don't see it not happening within the next few months. Personally, I want the Enterprise to go with the NX-02, the NX-03, and the NX-04 as well as the Daedalus."
"That's a tall order, Admiral. We can't rush the construction work. The ships need to be tried and readied and certified for the mission," Jeffries warned.
"I know. But right now we are under a lot of pressure to get some ships out there," Carstairs replied.
"Can we send some of the ships we already have instead? We're already modifying some of our older ships so why not use them and give the teams time to work on the NX fleet?" Leonard suggested.
"Can we install technologies like photon torpedo launchers and shields on them?" Ivanova asked, her expression showing that she felt the idea was not perfect in her mind, but it wasn't the worst that they'd heard.
"I don't see why not. We were in the process of updating some of the older ships when Enterprise was launched," Forrest remembered a report he had read a while back detailing work on the project to keep their older ships operational while they were replaced slowly by the NX fleet.
"I dunno about sending them off to the Delphic Expanse, though. I feel safer if we had a fleet of ships, not two travelling there," Carstairs shook his head.
"We may not have a choice. We need the Odyssey in the solar system so we can download information and experiment," Leonard pointed out.
X
The debate went on, but in the end, the United Earth president and the Commander in Chief of Starfleet decided to send the Defiant into the Delphic Expanse with the Enterprise and the heavily modified Daedalus. It was soon announced later the two men had gone through the Defiant's database and the Temporal Observatory and they discovered enough about an alternate hunt for the Xindi weapon, and they realised the Expedition would need all the help they can get. When they arrived in that region of the galaxy they discovered the Daedalus was their only true means of getting around as the warp fields didn't work properly due to a number of spatial anomalies.
Meanwhile back on Earth, the study of the Temporal Database and the Asgard computer core allowed Starfleet to introduce technologies unknown or paradoxically not meant to be there. Slowly further down the road, several NX-class starships were finished and launched while they contained shields and hull plating that was much stronger, courtesy of what they had discovered in the Temporal Database.
Recalling the Daedalus after they were launched, some of the ships joined the Enterprise and the Defiant. Every day reports were trickling back to Earth using the Asgard's communication technology to compensate for the hunt for the weapon going well. The ships were nearly commandeered by a group of religious extremists, but they failed. They were attacked at a planet called Azati Prime but the increase in weaponry and their new defences saved them but they'd acquired a lot of data about the test weapon and sent it to Earth before that attack. But even stranger were the moments of time travel; the discovery the Xindi were working on a bioweapon was immediately classified to make sure nobody panicked while a sample of the bioweapon was sent to Earth along with a copy of Dr Phlox's notes and an analysis of the weapon from the Defiant's medical computer to devise an antidote should the weapon be created again, and the time traveller Daniel's instruction to Archer to contact the Xindi to make peace.
But it seemed to work, for a time as they gathered more evidence of that the spatial anomalies which were being generated by a number of large spheres manufactured and scattered throughout the Expanse were actually terraformation devices, designed to transform space into a hostile wasteland capable of tearing ships to pieces while rendering planets lifeless husks floating in the space before they would likely be eroded themselves.
The expedition sent into the Delphic Expanse was able to persuade some of the Xindi government they had been told nothing but lies about the human race. Sadly not all of them were convinced, and the Xindi Insectoids and the Xindi Reptilians, the two most belligerent and the most hostile of the Xindi subspecies launched the weapon. The Defiant and the Daedalus were able to inflict enormous damage to the Xindi ships and their weapon by beaming photon warheads onboard the weapon, but the Xindi Reptilians, urged by the so-called 'Guardians' took the weapon to Earth.
Alerted to the danger, Earth mined the area of space next to Earth and kept what ships were tested and ready waiting. Led by the Odyssey, the Earth fleet attacked the Xindi, taking care of the fleet ships easily before they damaged the weapon while a MACO team from the Enterprise expedition worked on destroying the weapon from the inside using information taken from the weapon's designer, Degra, who'd been killed by the Reptilians who believed he had betrayed them.
When the weapon was finally destroyed and humanity had the chance to recover, Starfleet Command decided to suspend the space exploration program for a few years. The only exceptions were short-term missions, such as the formation of new colonies, outposts and starbases, and the occasional combat mission, such as the attacks of the Drone Ship and the Augment crisis which brought about fresh conflicts with the Klingon Empire.
Their plan was to continue working on reverse-engineering the technologies from the Defiant, the Daedalus and the Odyssey, and the databases from the Asgard and what was contained within the Temporal Observatory.
By the end of the Xindi conflict, there were enough scientists and engineers who came to understand the workings of hyperdrive and hyperspace enough to design the first United Earth hyperspace vessel. NX-class starships were soon equipped with the hyperdrives, which used interstellar grade hyperdrives. Ships were sent out on short term exploration voyages to distant and remote regions of the Alpha and Beta quadrants, and as relationships with the Vulcans, the Andorians and the Tellarites improved, they were given access to hyperdrive technology while Earth began working on the Stargate network.
Their studies of the Asgard computer core had given them a working knowledge of the physics and technology of the Stargates, creating wormholes through space that worked on their plane.
Over the years, Starfleet came under attack, especially during the Romulan conflict, an argument appeared and it only got worse when the Romulan mining ship, the Narada appeared in their reality and attacked the USS Kelvin exploration group before inflicting severe damage to the Romulan ship, which had been returning from a mission to the Delta Quadrant in order to set up a small Stargate network within that part of space after discovering information in the Temporal Database of races that Starfleet could ally with from records derived from the USS Voyager from a timeline where the hyperdrive was not discovered.
The traditional design for Starfleet ships was soon realised to be inadequate or flawed for the rigours of the universe. While the saucer primary hull and the secondary hull with the nacelles attached to the pylons joined to the secondary hull was a graceful design, the Narada was able to take the Kelvin group by surprise until the fleet inflicted severe damage, the decision came to redesign Starfleet ships to ensure no Starfleet crew was ever threatened the same way again.
But the debate goes on. In the meantime, the databases continue to churn out miracles even as Starfleet gains more knowledge and ground while preparing for the worst with the Borg and the Dominion and keeping a research team in place to permanently research ways around both powers to ensure the losses gained in different timelines were kept marginal.
