A Different Future Unfolds.
Admiral Forrest finished his explanation of everything he had learnt from Jonathan Archer and he also passed on everything Archer had sent to him from the Temporal Observatory, and he leaned back as he waited for the other member of the Starfleet Command council to assimilate what he had just told them.
But at the same time, he was worried about how his fellow flag officers were going to react when they heard why these aliens were coming for them. Unfortunately, matters were worse.
Only a day after Earth had been attacked by the probe, several warships had appeared and launched a brutal series of orbital attacks. Luckily they had been repelled by the small number of starships and a few of the Vulcan cruisers in orbit above Earth. While Starfleet and the people of Earth were grateful to the Vulcans for help, they had little doubt the Vulcan's protection was not going to last.
The casualty count was much higher. Tokyo, New York, Moscow, London, Washington, and half a dozen other cities had been attacked by the alien warships, and many more areas had been razed to the ground. The aliens had ignored all of the human's attempts to contact them, and they had destroyed several of the older Starfleet ships.
The Starfleet Command council had been in closed sessions for the last few days since the original attack on Earth and now they were trying to come up with ways of dealing with the next wave. This current meeting had only started half an hour ago, and already it was proving to be an unorthodox meeting. So many unexpected things were coming to light, and none of the admirals who were present at the meeting was sure yet about the outcome. The people in the room were human. There were no Vulcans in the session. Contrary to what some of the more prejudiced people on Earth believed, Starfleet was more than capable of forming their own decisions.
In any case, many of the admirals present knew the Vulcans were not going to get involved with this mess. They knew less than Starfleet did, although whether the High Command under V'Las's command and control would even be prepared to provide information none of the Starfleet officers knew.
"Max, are you serious? Archer had the means of predicting this probe could have attacked, and yet he didn't take the chance to warn us?" Admiral Ivanova demanded.
"I doubt it works like that, Susan. From what Archer implied and what his chief engineer who's been looking into the different temporal theories that exist, this Temporal Cold War is being fought across different timelines, alternate realities. Yes, Jonathan had the means, but I'm not sure if this Observatory works in the same way its name implies. For all we know of this point, the device needs a few moments to calibrate to changes in the timeline. Unfortunately, when I contacted him about the second attack, he hadn't known about it," Forrest knew he was making excuses so he quickly changed tack. "But the implications are worrying in itself."
Admiral Leonard nodded in agreement, his expression grim even as he looked at his own copy of the data Archer had transmitted back along with the same message to Forrest, and the admiral had simply relayed to them. "Yes, the idea that these….Borg," the admiral stressed the word carefully although it wasn't as hard as it had been when that Vulcan ambassador with Soval had humiliated him when Klaang had been brought to Starfleet Medical after the Cabal had chased him dozens of light-years zigzagging through several systems, "have altered our history and we're living in an alternate reality is troubling in itself, but the sensor data we received from Enterprise during their battles and what they sent to us from our ship's black box makes it clear they are dangerous. I think we should discuss the matter about these Borg at a later date, for now, we have more important things to concern ourselves with. The fact we might be living in a parallel universe that had been created when the Borg and this band of humans from the 24th century journeyed back in time is worrying in itself, but we need to know more about this probe and the aliens who launched it. But what about the aliens, who are they? Do they have anything to do with the war?"
"Did Archer know who was behind this?" Admiral Paris asked, jumping on the thread of questions.
Forrest nodded, knowing this was going to be a long session. "After my first conversation with him, he went to check on the Temporal Observatory." He tapped in a command sequence and the admirals and commodores in the council room received the same information. Forrest could have told them simply what Archer had relayed, but he wanted them to share the same information before he did that. "They're called the Xindi. They live in a region of space less than 50 light-years away, and nearly 2,000 light-years across. The Delphic Expanse. I've already checked the Vulcan database on The Expanse, which I'll tell you about now. They've known about it for some time, and many of their attempts to explore it have failed."
"Why?" Commodore Marcus demanded, her eyes uncertain. "The Vulcans are one of the most advanced races we know of so far. How could they have failed?'
"Because the Expanse is surrounded by some kind of thermobaric clouds that are incredibly dense. Several of the Vulcan ships who have made it out reported getting into the expanse is made hard because of the cloud formations, but getting out was even harder."
"Sounds like this Expanse is a starship trap," Admiral Parker commented.
"It gets worse. 20 years ago, a Klingon ship tried to get into the Expanse. The High Council lost contact with their ship, but when the ship reappeared the crew were splayed open. And they were still alive," Forrest's expression was grim. He meant every word that he said. He tapped in another sequence and a video clip of the Klingon rescue party boarding the warship appeared. A few moments later everyone wanted to be physically sick as they watched the grisly scene as the Klingon crew were screaming in pain even as they held onto their bodies which were falling apart, blood and organs leaking out everywhere.
"How is this possible?" Paris asked faintly.
Forrest shook his head. "I don't know."
Nobody pressed him on this. But Forrest had more to show them. "The next one is more recent. A year ago, the Vulcan cruiser Vaankara was despatched to locate another ship, the Selaya which had been sent to the map the thermobaric perimeter of The Expanse. The Selaya crew reported a subspace eddy had caught hold of their ship and was pulling them into the Expanse."
"The Vaankara had been sent to rescue them."
"Yes. But they had spent two days in the Expanse when this happened. They sent a distress call to the Vulcan High Command, and several hours later the High Command received this transmission," Forrest was once again tapping the controls.
The admirals looked on grimly and in horrified interest as they watched the clip. Some of the admirals had been allowed onboard Vulcan ships, so they recognised the interior as the bridge of a Vulcan cruiser. But what shocked them the most was the Vulcans were ripping each other apart, forgetting their emotionless and logically ordered calm as they attacked each other with their bare hands and whatever tool like a plasma extinguisher that could be used as a club. While it was all disturbing, one of the most frightening parts of the clip came when they saw a Vulcan officer casually wipe off the blood on his face and look at it as if he didn't know what it was.
"The ship was destroyed an hour later. The Vulcan High Command couldn't find evidence of a malfunction or an attack. In the end, they concluded the Vaankara crew had set the ships' destruct sequence."
"They destroyed their own ship? Surely some of them knew their own people could have helped them?" Commodore Kirk demanded.
"I visited Vulcan a year ago as part of a meeting with the Vulcan Space Command. While I was there, I had time to look into their history and take a look at some of their historical sites. The Vulcans were quite a warlike race. They nearly destroyed themselves centuries ago, and if it wasn't for Surak who was the father of their logical philosophy, then the Vulcans might either still be a savage, warlike race or they might be a dead race," Admiral Quatermain commented. "Perhaps the crew weren't so far gone to realise what happened to them could happen to others?"
Everyone was chilled to the bone by that, but if true then it would show a certain honour among the Vulcans. A common misconception towards and concerning Vulcans was so many people believed the Vulcans lacked emotions. That was not true, and the admirals knew it. They had spent enough time among Vulcan ambassadors, and respected members of their space service to know underneath the logical and emotionless calm they wore like a badge of honour, they were a passionate emotional people like humanity was, but many of them knew Vulcan had once been a war-ravaged world.
They knew the news of how United Earth Starfleet knew of the effects of the Delphic Expanse and what had happened to 2 of their vessels that would make the Vulcan High Command suspicious. But it couldn't be helped.
"And the Xindi?" Admiral Parker only wanted to know about them.
"There were originally six races that evolved on their homeworld although they shared some genetic traits. The Xindi Aquatics, the Xindi Arboreals, the Xindi Reptilians, the Xindi Primates, the Xindi Insectoids, and the now-extinct Xindi Avians. Archer described a terrible war on their world, thanks to studying the Observatory. The Insectoids and the Reptilians were belligerent and they detonated bombs underneath their tectonic plates - they could have been hoping to deal with the enemy, but Archer found out the Insectoids and the Reptilians were both manipulated by time travellers."
"More time travellers?" Leonard asked.
"Yes," Forrest nodded.
"Why would time travellers want six species that evolved on the same planet to blow themselves up?" Paris asked.
"Archer discovered a group of time-travelling aliens had been visiting Xindus, the Xindi homeworld," Forrest pronounced the name of the strange, but now destroyed planet, "for some time, giving resources and technological aid to the Xindi to help them in the war, while urging them to stop. But nobody listened."
"Giving technological aid?" Commodore Kirk repeated. "And how has Archer discovered the Xindi species were being manipulated in the first place? Does he know why they're attacking us like this?"
The Command council realised what Kirk was driving at. Some of them had known about the Temporal Cold War, and its existence for some time now, thanks to reports sent by Enterprise and dealing with the Suliban. They knew the Suliban and others were manipulating history for their own ends, and the Cabal had tried to start a civil war within the Klingon Empire. And if the man who'd masqueraded as Crewman Daniels among the Enterprise crew was any example to go by, there were other groups manipulating peoples in the past, or parallel universes for their own ends.
"Archer isn't clear on the matter - he stated the Temporal Observatory is apparently detecting numerous temporal incursions which are making it harder for it to determine the full extent - but he has found out the alien time travellers appeared before the Xindi, offering them peace and friendship and technology, even if some of their science was far ahead of what the Vulcans possessed. He also found out the Xindi Avians didn't trust them."
"Why?"
"Archer couldn't say."
Parker shrugged. "I guess it doesn't matter right now. I also guess it would make sense if the Xindi were manipulated from behind the scenes by these aliens."
"We already guessed that, Tom," Admiral Paris looked around the room. "I guess it would make sense if these time travellers not only gave the Xindi a pack of lies about us, and now they're out for our blood. Has Archer given any answer for that?"
This was it. Forrest sighed and nodded. "He has. It took some digging because of the incursions in history - our history - but it looks like these time travellers looked into the future, 400 years or so ahead, and claimed humanity would destroy their new homeworld."
"And the Xindi believed them, just like that?" Paris's voice was full of righteous scorn.
"These time travellers have a kind of godly status in Xindi culture. Not only did they provide technology to them when Xindus was being ravaged by a pointless civil war when it was over and the survivors migrated away from the planet when it was destroyed, but they also appeared and helped the Xindi find new worlds to colonise, resources… with that kind of status, their word carries a lot of weight," Forrest said grimly. "It gets worse. These aliens have apparently told the Xindi if they launch a pre-emptive strike, although Archer's not sure what kind of method they'll use to wipe us out."
"Genocide?" Paris repeated hoarsely. "They're going to wipe us out because they're too stupid and frightened to come to Earth to see what we're really like? If they spent only a few moments here, they'd know we only want to explore the universe and better ourselves. How could they be so gullible?"
"It could be virtually impossible to persuade them we have no interest in destroying their world," Kirk commented. "But the big question right now on my mind is what we're going to do about it? We don't have any really large space force. We only have a few interstellar colonies and we can't evacuate to anywhere meaningful. What can we do?"
"We already have one faster-than-light deep space cruiser capable of travelling at warp 5, and we also have a database containing the knowledge of thousands of years of history, both past and future. Couldn't we use what Archer's got and quickly reverse-engineer what we can?" Quatermain asked.
"That could take time. Some of the knowledge in the Observatory will be beyond our current science," Kirk pointed out.
"We have to try," Paris interrupted sharply. "We have not spent the last century rebuilding our world, after Earth was nearly destroyed in a pointless war which blasted clouds of radioactive dust into our atmosphere, and we have not spent all of these years building starships to explore space and make something new of ourselves only to be told we're going to become extinct because a bunch of time travellers lied to a bunch of gullible idiots who think we're going to turn arounds and destroy them and their world."
"Yeah, but what can we do? We have only one faster-than-light ship capable of warp 5. The second is currently under construction. We should have built Enterprise, Columbia, and one of the other NX class ships at the same time, instead of releasing them one at a time," Admiral Parker bemoaned.
Forrest sighed. "Enterprise was a prototype. We were new to constructing ships with new hull materials and technologies. We needed to test it all on just the one starship, where we would see how it all went before we constructed the next ships. You all remember the 10-year plan for the NX project."
When the NX class ship had been planned for construction, Starfleet had decided on a program to completely revamp the entire fleet with new technologies. However, they had decided to spend a decade following the launch of the first ships to test new technologies over that period before moving on to the warp 6 and warp 7 capable starships.
Unfortunately, the aims of fulfilling the 10-year plan were immensely slow, and it had hit several snags. Enterprise had been launched a head of schedule and Columbia was not even close to being completed, never mind the fact the other ships of the class had been finished yet.
Admiral Jackson had been silent the whole time, listening calmly and patiently and assimilating every single word, but now he was ready to say his piece. "I was against Archer and his crew beginning their mission of exploration from the start. Just as I was against taking that Klingon courier back. From what we learnt of them from the Vulcans and since, I believe it was stupid, reckless and stank of our hubris to take the Klingon back at all. Now we have the Klingons as an enemy.
"If we had let the Klingon Empire fight, it would mean a potential enemy would not target our ships and colonies, or heaven forbid Earth itself. But while I have been impressed with all Archer and his crew have accomplished, I still think they should have returned to the solar system to run tests on their ship. And I believe we should have tested Enterprise for a year, and then launched her. If we had done that then we might have had two other NX-class ships already on the production line.
"We need to face facts; we don't know what kind of means the Xindi will use to destroy us, but it will take a year before Columbia is finished. We can't just rely on one ship and crew to save our butts, so I say we concentrate our resources on a mass production program to build as many NX class ships as we can. Drop all of our current projects, and focus our time on building our fleet. At the same time, our current ships need to be upgraded with proven NX grade hardware, and when we get this Temporal Observatory, we take it and reverse-engineer as much from it as possible."
"Let's just be grateful the Space Dock wasn't damaged in the attack," Kirk sighed.
"Isn't dropping our projects rather extreme?"
Jackson fixed Leonard with a hard stare. "So you'd rather an alien race wipe out our race, would you? It's time to get real. We need to prepare for the worst. We can send Enterprise into the Expanse, find the Xindi and stop them. That will give us more than enough time to prepare. At the same time, we begin installing some kind of defence grid around Earth and the rest of the solar system so this doesn't happen again. I don't like the thought of transforming Earth into a fortress, but we need to start protecting our world and ourselves."
Admiral Ivanova didn't like the thought of Earth being transformed into a military installation, but she could see her fellow admirals' point. "What if we also construct a small fleet of fighters that are heavily armed, and are quick and easy to build, so when the Xindi do come along again for a rematch we have the means of slowing them down?"
"I like the idea, but what about Columbia and the other NX class ships?"
"We focus more on the weapons arrays and the engines, so when the Xindi come back and they likely will, our ships will be ready."
"They could still be destroyed," Kirk argued.
"I think Sam's right," Ivanova replied. "We drop all of our projects, and start construction of as many NX class ships as possible, and we accelerate production of the Columbia so we can launch her well within time."
"Commander Jeffries will certainly use this attack as an excuse to force through a heavier weapons complement; while I share some of Archer's beliefs about making first contact while having a ship boasting a substantial weapons array, I thought it was rather optimistic to believe all aliens would be open-minded," Commodore Kirk pointed out. "Now it looks like he has been proven wrong."
"Those weapons are going to be installed, with or without the permission of the captain of the NX-02. I don't care what the captain thinks, their ship needs to be prepared for the worst," Admiral Carstairs declared. He was in total agreement with Jackson about how unprepared Starfleet woefully was. He had seen and encountered dangerous aliens when he had been on a cargo ship, and he had always been disturbed and disgusted by the reckless optimism of Starfleet. "I think we should do everything we can to ensure the human race survives, by any means necessary."
The implications and the impact of the last statement worried a few of the admirals, especially since it held such an ominous note that could have dozens of meanings.
"Okay, so we speed up the production of the NX class fleet. Why don't we build a big bunch of space dock complexes in orbit around Mars, and take as many resources out of the asteroid field as possible? We have the basic structure already, and we do have some fleet yards there. Why not build more while we use those docks to construct the bulk of the fleet?" Admiral Leonard suggested. "They'll be vulnerable from the Xindi, but if we can find ways of defending the Sol system, then we can construct more ships."
"I can have them finish up the construction of some of the ships we have there already and get them to change over to NX class construction," Paris suggested.
"Do it," Carstairs ordered without looking once to his fellow colleagues and admirals for their own opinion. "Tell them to begin production as soon as possible. Make sure they begin mass producing some of the older model starships as well; we have experience in building them, and we can do it quickly now. But we heavily arm them. Along the way, the Temporal Observatory can be reverse-engineered and we can install some of the hardware into the new ships."
"Aren't we putting all of our eggs into one basket? I mean we're focusing all of our attention on Earth, but I think we should begin evacuating as many of the population as we can," Commodore Kirk voiced a sudden thought.
"The Xindi could find them. They have powerful weapons, they can move easily, and their propulsion technology does not rely on warp drive," Admiral Parker pointed out. "In any case, the population is large. It would take forever to evacuate a large amount of the planet's population."
"All the more reason to get it done. We already have warp 2 and warp 3 capable freighters and fleet ships, why not take advantage of some of them and send them off with our people in stasis? We send them out with enough equipment and resources to set up colonies. Or, because the Xindi are a threat and they could track down our people to ensure we're completely extinct, we could fit warp engines onto asteroids that are hollowed out and they can drift for a few years before finding habitable planets to colonise?" Ivanova suggested.
Forrest rubbed his chin as he considered what his fellow admiral had said. Ivanova was a pragmatist. Always had been. He wasn't surprised she was considering the worst. "It wouldn't take long for us to hollow out a few asteroids. We've been doing that ever since we gained artificial gravity as well as impulse drive and warp engines."
"But if we do that, we'd be condemning hundreds of our people to spend a long life drifting through space. That's no way to live," Leonard argued.
"I'd rather take a chance like that than be killed by an alien race who's been lied to," Jackson interrupted. "When is the shortest time we can expect the asteroid colonies to be finished?"
"Hold on, we haven't come to a majority decision yet!" Paris protested.
"What's there to decide. The more steps we take to ensure the human race survives, the better off we'll be," Kirk argued.
"How many people have died?" Ivanova suddenly asked.
Paris sighed. "The warships devastated nearly every major city on Earth. Adding onto the probe attack, the number is up to 30 million people. And there's every chance that count will grow, the longer this goes on. We need to do something and quick."
Everyone around the room became grim. The loss of so many human lives filled every admiral and commodore with a potent rage.
"All the more reason to find ways of getting some of our people away. Our job is not to wrangle, it's to protect Earth. It won't take us long to build the asteroid colonies if we make it a priority. At the same time we can begin constructing new NX-class ships in other parts of the solar system," Ivanova said.
"Most of the construction work is done with prefabricated pieces built-in automated factories. If we step up production we can get more NX class ships out in the solar system," Kirk said.
"I'm more worried about the Xindi launching another surprise attack; if they do that while we're still constructing our fleet, then they could delay our plans. We need to slow them down somehow," Jackson pointed out.
"Mines," Admiral Leonard whispered before he looked around. "We could build and launch a minefield."
"I like that idea, but how would we hide the mines?"
Leonard sighed. "I don't know."
"Enterprise encountered the Suliban enough times to run scans on their cloaking technology. We can duplicate it and install it in mines," Paris suggested.
"No, it would take forever to duplicate the technology and miniaturise it to the point where it can be installed in mines," Forrest pointed out.
"Then we're back at Square 1," Ivanova sighed.
"No, not if we take the mine idea and adapt it. Instead of building mines, we build defence platforms. We arm them with all of our weapons and connect them to a sensor grid so if anything happens to a part of the grid we'll know about it. We can build them relatively quickly and if the Xindi show up we can try to blast them to pieces," Kirk pointed out.
"That seems more practical than a minefield, but I still have concerns our efforts to stop the Xindi will be for nothing," Paris shook her head. "The moment Enterprise returns, I want that Temporal Observatory stripped of all of its knowledge."
Kirk remembered something from Enterprise's recent reports. "Didn't Doctor Phlox mention he'd taken some of the Borg nanoprobes for study, and they had collected scans of Borg technology?"
"Yeah, they did. Oh, I see; you're thinking of trying to adapt Borg technology for us?"
"Why not?" Kirk challenged. "The Borg are likely more advanced than the Xindi. We need all the advantages we can get. Suppose we use our newfound knowledge of Borg hardware and construct a set of armoured suits which allow us to be like the knights of old? If we have that kind of technology, we could go toe to toe against the Xindi, or even against any of our enemies."
"That's a very aggressive view, Kirk," Leonard pointed out.
"Is it? The millions lying dead because of an alien attack would likely beg to differ, Admiral. Starfleet and the MACOs are responsible for the defence of Earth. If we don't take up the role, who will? The Vulcans?" Kirk scoffed. "They won't lift a finger to help. It's nothing to do with them."
None of the admirals said a word. They might have done had a Vulcan ambassador or an observer been there, but this was a human-only meeting, and everyone in the room was furious about the attack against Earth.
"Alright, I think this meeting should draw to a close, but I think we've come up with good points. We can order them to be put into effect right now up until we can get our hands on that Observatory. In the meantime we wait for Enterprise to return, we collect the Borg technology and the Temporal Observatory, and we begin preparations for the construction of both new starships, a defence grid, and perhaps a sensor network so if the Xindi return, we'll be ready for them," Jackson was becoming tired of the meeting where they were just speaking about their plans.
"Right, I'll issue the orders for Utopia Planitia to begin preparations for the construction of NX class ships and other ships," Ivanova said.
"I'll get started by ordering an analysis of the subspace distortion the Xindi generated," Leonard added.
"And I will provide for you the means of ensuring humanity's safety," a voice suddenly said and the very air rippled around as if a door of some sort was opening, and a fair-haired woman appeared wearing a red tunic.
"Security!" Admiral Jackson leapt to his feet, summoning the two armed guards standing outside. But nothing happened. The guards didn't appear. The woman smirked slightly.
"They can't hear you, Admiral. I've shielded this room by freezing time by about ten seconds and placing us on a different time stream separated by that amount of time," the woman explained.
Ivanova glared at her, and she walked over to the door and opened it. When she stepped out into the corridor and saw the guards and the other people outside, her eyes widened when she saw they were as still as statues. She walked back inside the meeting room and glared at the unexpected visitor. "Everyone's frozen outside. What's wrong with them?" She demanded.
"Nothing. They're totally fine. They're just on a completely different time stream to us right now," the blonde-haired woman explained. "Please, sit down. We have much to discuss."
"No," Forrest tried to take control of the situation which was spiralling out of control while he glared at the woman. He had a good idea who and what she was. A time traveller like Daniels, like the Sulibans' benefactor and the aliens manipulating the Xindi. Her sudden and unexpected appearance, her style of dress, and what she'd said was proof of that. "I want to you know who you and we want you to free those people."
"No, if I do that then you'll try to have me arrested. It won't do you any good of course. Besides, I don't want to be in any position where you'll hold all of the cards," the woman walked over to a free chair and sat down.
Forrest glared at her. "We know what you are, but why are you here? Haven't you people done enough damage?"
Instead of looking angry, or even hurt the woman just smiled. The smile annoyed him. She seemed more amused than anything else. "I am here to help you," she said.
"And what if we don't want your help?"
"Oh, but you do. If you didn't need help, you wouldn't be desperate to get hold of the Temporal Observatory and the Borg technology on Enterprise. What if I could give you a lot more than that?"
"Like what?" Forrest shot a glare towards Ivanova for taking over.
The woman smiled at the female admiral. "I can give you more knowledge and technology to use."
The last thing Forrest wanted was to yet another pawn in this damn Temporal Cold War. But at the same time, it was compelling, the idea of having the means of facing the Xindi and being able to protect the human race. "Okay, but before we through to that, I want some answers."
"What kind of answers?"
"Like who are you, and why you're even here? We know from the Enterprise crew's own findings the Temporal Cold War doesn't involve a single timeline or reality; it's just creating new ones, so anything you do here won't have any kind of effect on your home reality."
The woman couldn't help it. She snickered. "It does affect, actually; whenever we travel through time into the past, we do create an alternate universe. However, it's not unknown for a temporal backwash to occur, changing small amounts of the home reality. Once a Starfleet crew from the 24th century interacted with the 21st century, changing the Bell Riots. The starship was trapped in a time bubble as a result of the displacement, and when the matter was resolved, history was changed. Aspects of history are changing for the prime timeline, Admirals. But the biggest changes are political, mostly. It's hard to explain. But that's not vital right now. The Temporal Cold War is changing history across dozens of timelines; right now my subtle manipulation of Jonathan Archer so he wouldn't be so stupid and ignore the Observatory on his ship and what he's learnt about the Borg has worked."
The reaction from the admirals was almost comical.
"You mean…you manipulated Archer so he would look at the Observatory, and return to Earth?" Forrest's voice was hollow with disbelief.
"That's right."
"Why?" Ivanova whispered.
"To make history better. In another timeline, the Xindi would have attacked regardless. Enterprise would have been summoned back, but Archer would not reveal the presence of the Temporal Observatory. The worst of it is while you would have sent Archer and his people off to the Delphic Expanse against the Vulcan's advice, Starfleet didn't really bother to come up with defences like you are now, and there was no second attack."
"Did a time traveller suggest to the Xindi launch a second attack?" Carstairs demanded.
"Yes. A time traveller witnessed the change to the timeline and saw an opportunity to further alter the timeline," the woman said.
"And you decided to do the same?"
"Yes. Only I am going to give you the means to become stronger. The time traveller is advising the Xindi council to send more Reptilian and Insectoid warships to attack Earth. Their idea is to ensure everyone stays on the planet. The Xindi are currently building a planet-killer to turn this world to rubble - you can't just ignore the possibility I'm telling the truth, so I suggest you begin taking the attacks seriously enough to start making a difference and take the universe seriously. The idea of using Borg hardware to build cybernetic armour is a great start but build on it. Enterprise will be here soon, and when they are here, I will give you the technology you need."
"Why not give it to us now?"
The time traveller smirked. "I already have."
The annoying smirk still on her face, the air rippled around the time traveller, and she vanished as if through a door.
"No, come back!" Carstairs and Jackson were both on their feet, but it was too late. The time traveller was gone.
"Now I know how Archer felt whenever he tried to get an answer out of the time traveller he regularly meets," Forrest commented with a shake of the head.
Ivanova checked outside before she returned. "Everyone's fine outside. It's like nothing happened to them," she said, looking confused.
"She said there will be more attacks. Do you think she's right?" Paris questioned.
Forrest sighed. Personally, he didn't want to believe her but considering what he was beginning to suspect about time travellers viewing the alternate universes they were creating as nothing but pawns on a chessboard, he had to face facts. They had to be ready for the inevitable. "I'm not sure, but we can't just dismiss it considering what we know, or rather what we don't know."
"A planet-killer?" Kirk's voice was hollow with horror and disgust at what the Xindi were planning on doing to the whole human race. They were basing their entire war on Earth based on nothing more than lies and empty promises. "We have to stop them."
"What did she mean when she said she'd already given us the technology we need?" Jackson demanded.
As if in answer to his question, a desk comm chirped. Paris walked over to it and inputted her access codes and she began to read. Everyone saw her astonished expression.
"What's wrong?" Ivanova asked, concerned when Paris didn't speak.
Paris jumped at the question. "There's a massive upload in our database. It's only just happened, but already R&D have received it. Formulas for cracking warp 6 and warp 7, all the way to warp 9." Paris' voice filled with excitement and awe.
"9?" Forrest repeated, awed and almost breathless.
"Yeah. There's a new warp scale attached to the file I'm reading, but it will take us decades to go over it, test it and experiment with it until we get it right. But if what I'm reading is accurate, we'll be able to hit speeds of warp 9.99 within 50 years."
"If we make it through the Xindi crisis," Kirk pointed out. "What else is there?"
Paris checked. "A great deal, but there are design plans for orbiting defence satellites….weapons called quantum torpedoes, polaron beam cannons, phasers, and disruptors. There are design plans for ships that would likely be easier to build, and well within reach of our current technology, but-."
An alarm began to sound.
"What the hell?" Parker demanded while Carstairs rushed to the window and cursed.
The doors opened and an officer with a commander's pips ran in. "Admirals, they're back, and they've got three times as many ships as before. They're overwhelming our defences."
X
"Captain," Hoshi called, her voice low and horrified from her station on Enterprise's bridge. "We're getting a priority one message from Starfleet. Earth is being attacked again by the Xindi."
Archer looked up, ignoring the horror from the rest of the bridge crew. "How bad is it?"
Hoshi shook her head. That alone was a sign things were really bad. "I can't tell, sir. The message was cut off. The Xindi have jammed the rest of the transmission. We only got the first part of it."
Archer sat in his chair, feeling small and insignificant in the face of this terrible news even as he was dimly aware of the effect it was having on his crew. Once more he cursed his decision to keep the Temporal Observatory under wraps until now. He had assumed if he had, the timeline would not suffer any kind of contamination.
But right now he didn't care.
He didn't care about Daniels or the people he worked for. He was going to stop the Xindi from destroying Earth and the human race, and right now, given the way he was feeling, he did not care if he had to wipe out half of the Xindi if it protected his race.
Archer felt a burning rage as he thought about the people now being murdered by the aliens who were being lied to by more time travellers. He knew Starfleet was likely trying to stop the attackers, but it was hopeless given how only a few underpowered warp ships were in the solar system. Enterprise had more advanced weapons, but in comparison, they would be lucky to make a dent. "Increase to warp 5, Travis."
He knew he would likely have trouble with Trip later, but he could handle his friend and since the news of the attack on Florida, Trip had been edgier with the idea his sister might have been one of the many dead. The chief engineer would likely be more motivated in pushing the engines now.
X
Admiral Forrest couldn't believe the sheer savagery of the attack as he and his fellow admirals and commodores stood on a transport shuttle - one that had miraculously survived - and were overflying New York.
Or rather, what remained of New York. The Xindi had arrived in force through their subspace wormholes and they had immediately swarmed over Earth and whatever thing was orbiting the planet.
Spacedock was destroyed and with it the skeletal framework of the NX-02. Columbia was gone. The Yosemite stations were all gone as well. The death of innocent civilians was bad enough, but what made it worse was the personnel on the stations had been warned about the possibilities of future attacks. Seventeen ships had been destroyed, killing hundreds of the admirals' fellow Starfleet officers.
It was just senseless; Forrest could well understand the Xindi believing the lies they'd been told, but what sickened him the most was how much their soldiers clearly enjoyed what they were doing. Several of the ships had been still firing down on the already burning Earth when the others were leaving, deciding this attack had gone on long enough.
The Xindi attack was basically another wave on the planet which was already battered by the first previous attacks. Looking down on one of Earth's most famous cities had Forrest and his fellow flag officers already furious. London and Manchester were shadows of their former glory, Paris, Marseilles, Berlin, Hamburg, Barcelona… all of the major population centres were blazing infernos with half-demolished buildings razed by particle beams that sliced through the infrastructure like a blowtorch through a pound of cheese.
"How many of their ships did we destroy?" Forrest heard Ivanova whisper as she took in the devastation.
"Just 3, out of our losses." Bitterness was thick in Kirk's voice. "And 2 were shot down by a Vulcan cruiser. That's the only contribution the Vulcans have given us so far."
"They're not helping us clean up the mess?"
"Were you expecting anything else from them? Pointy eared bastards. They only care about themselves."
"This madness has gone on long enough," Forrest spat, turning away from the sight in the viewing port and glared at his fellow flag officers, his expression stopping even the possibility of an argument. "We can't let this go on anymore. We have to fight back."
"How?" Parker demanded pragmatically. "Spacedock's gone, Columbia is drifting up there as fragments of dust particles of metal. Our fleet is tiny and in tatters."
"He's right. We've got to face facts, Max. The Xindi have launched a crippling blow to our shipbuilding capabilities. How do we deal with that?" Carstairs asked looking around the grim features of his fellow officers, hoping one of them had the answer.
"The sea."
Everyone turned and stared at the young ensign who had come with them as an assistant - all their own aides were tied up with the damage Starfleet was left to clean up, and they'd taken an ensign who hadn't likely been in space outside of his own training. He blushed at the attention he was getting, and looked like he was wishing to transport himself away.
Forrest walked over to him. "What was that?" He demanded in as soft a voice as possible but with his churning emotions that was harder to achieve than he would have liked.
"I said the sea, sir." The ensign was standing to attention. "Space is clearly too dangerous for building starships right now, but if we could build ships underwater, it would provide a similar environment. It's weightless…," the ensign trailed off when he saw everyone staring at him, and so he looked down.
"Ensign," Forrest's voice made the young man look up, startled. "You've just been made a lieutenant."
Author's note - War has now begun. And there is more to come. I picture the female time traveller to be like Noys Lambent from Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity, and she will be back.