Using the three minutes, Enterprise continued pouring over the information it had obtained from the vorgon space station. The vorgons had received news of their race's demise four hundred, fourty-one years ago. One large, vorgon vessel was sent back in time to discern the locations of each Federation systems' suns. Due to the great distance that would need to be covered, however, the vorgon vessel had been a sleeper ship; the crew had been placed in suspended animation for the one hundred, thirty year trip it would make. It was sent back to the Earth year twenty-one, ninety-nine. The vorgon sleeper ship successfully entered the alpha quadrant on twenty-three, twenty-eight. Through time travel, the vorgons had acquired cloaking technology from the romulans, transwarp technology from the Borg, quantum phase inhibition technology from the in'Hikvi, and even took the time travel technology from the Yinesh. They were like a purely organic version of the Borg.
Although the vorgons were able to use micro-wormhole technology (again, stolen) to send the Federation suns' coordinates back to the vorgon homeworld, the sleepership never returned. The entire crew was then designated heroes and the vorgon government began their plot to destroy the Federation before they were, themselves, destroyed. Because the Pathfinders were in the process of destroying the vorgon systems, it was logical to assume one of the vorgon timeships would have to escape in order to go back in time and warn the vorgons the attack was coming. Would their presence alter history? What would happen if they inadvertantly destroyed the timeship that would eventually go back to warn the vorgons? Were they writing a new history, or simply playing out the history that initiated this entire situation? Enterprise was certain it was thinking like this that his former captain's head hurt. The most important issue at hand was the successful conclusion of the mission they were on. Historical or future decisions would be left to others with higher degrees of temporal philosophy than itself.
Enterprise formed its exit portal as its alert went off. From the blackness of the starless dimension it was in, a hole grew before it displaying a mulitide of pinpoints of light. As it passed the event horizon, Enterprise was greeted by a universe full of stars. Eighty thousand kilometers away, Challenger emerged from its slipstream trip as a disk of black collapsed behind it. For all the advances made in slipstream technology in almost four hundred years, it was still a less than exact calculation. A quick scan of the area failed to detect any residual warp trails, so unless the vorgons had changed course, Enterprise and Challenger were successfully in front of the escaping vessels.
Challenger spoke up. "My long range sensors are detecting a large number of vessels coming this way. I estimate they will arrive in six minutes. I suggest we phase shift to prevent their sensors from detecting us."
"I agree," Enterprise answered. Within moments, their images partly faded from their home dimension. "We will need to strike quickly and decisively," Enterprise cautioned. "If they get past us, there is no telling what evasive tactics they will employ to evade another attack like this one."
"Perhaps we should construct warp drives similar to theirs," Challenger offered.
Enterprise considered. "It would take approximately three hours to construct the drive system. We do not have the time presently."
The two vessels remained hidden inside their pocket dimension and charged their weapons. As the vessels approached, it became clear that the two timeships were missing. There were only nine ships inbound. Enterprise considered growling in frustration. Endeavor had been right. If Enterprise's theory was correct, one vessel had gone back in time to warn the former vorgon generation of the attack... but where and when did the other vessel go?
That question would have to wait. The nine vorgon vessels were rapidly closing into weapons range. Their attack would consume a great deal of power and require perfect timing. As long as the vorgon sensors didn't detect them, it would work. Hopefully, the vorgons didn't steal advanced sensor systems as well. Once within short-range sensor capability, Enterprise could tell the ships were pressing their engines beyond safe levels. Their shields were down and sensors at minimal power. To Enterprise, that meant one of two things; either they were desperate to reach the Eth-basaq system or they were nothing more than a sacrificial diversion. "Shoot to disable, not destroy," Enterprise ordered.
"Understood, Enterprise." Challenger replied obediently. Enterprise, through the computer link, could see Challenger was lowering the power levels on its weapons and responded in kind. Enterprise needed at least one vessel intact so it could download its logs and attempt to determine the whereabouts, and whenabouts, of the two missing timeships.
With less than a light year to go, Enterprise and Challenger disengaged their phase shift and fired their weapons into space. Knowing impacts between weapons and vessels travelling at warp speeds would be magnified several times, the actual weapon discharges were small. As predicted, the vorgons couldn't react in time. The purple missiles met the unprotected hulls of the nine triangular ships and tore them to pieces. Secondary explosions rocked the ships as they involuntarily exited warp speed. Three of the ships exploded within moments, causing further damage to the other six. The damage was extensive, even more than Enterprise had predicted. Lifesign readings determined heavy casualties, but the remaining creatures were quickly moving towards their respective engineering sections, desperate to get some kind of power diverted somewhere.
"I have broken their encryption," Challenger announced. It then transmitted the encryption scheme to Enterprise, who used it to gain access to the remaining vorgon ships' systems. This time, however, the vorgons changed their tactics and began reconfiguring their computer systems, actively trying to shut out the Pathfinders' demands for knowledge.
Enterprise located the source of resistance in the ship he was attempting to gain access to. Focusing an energy burst, it fired a shot into the lower hull of the ship, exposing the section to space. Several vorgons flew out into space before a force field could be localized. This process repeated twice more before Enterprise gained all the knowledge it could. Two vorgon vessels began moving towards Enterprise. They had brought their shields to at least a minimal setting and had armed weapons. While Challenger continued forcing data from the damaged vessels, Enterprise turned its guns on the incoming vorgon ships. Six quick, purple pulses of light were more than sufficient to eliminate their shields and render their weapons useless.
In less than two minutes, with all information downloaded to their respective memories, the two Pathfinders reduced their opponents to debris. The two, still linked, began sharing information and processing power in a desperate attempt to discern the location of the two timeships. One ship, the Nestheria, had been sent back in time one week to warn the Eth-basaq system and gather reinforcements. The other ship, the Surshis, had received a high-priority message from somewhere in the Eth-basaq system. No one was able to discern the contents of the message, but it activated its timedrive shortly afterwards and went back in time. There was no way to determine how far back or for what purpose.
Hopefully, that was the ship that warned the previous generation of the attack. The two ships entered slipstream knowing there would be a formidible presence awaiting them in the Eth-basaq system. After all, they now had a week to prepare. In truth, given an extra week to prepare, what other history had they altered? Who could they have eliminated who had now escaped? One thing was certain, the vorgons, and their time-tampering ways, needed to be eliminated before they could cause any more damage.