Season Five

by EnlightenedSkye

Picking up six months after Terra Prime, the Enterprise attempts to hold the Coalition together while keeping an eye on the growing Romulan threat. Trip takes his own command and the war begins mid-season. [July 2155 to January 2157. 25 episodes. Fully episodic, so each chapter is a stand-alone story. ATP, Troshi, Malcolm/OC, P/C. Rated T throughout. Complete, S6 and S7 complete]

20. Episode 20: The Ktarian Gate

A/N: Welcome back, everyone! Thanks for the reviews and feedback.

This week's episode is inspired by TNG 3x08 The Price (really a trainwreck episode, but an interesting premise) and TNG 5x07/5x08 Unification. There's some heavy references to E8: Butterflies and Hurricanes here, and I really recommend you read it again to set the tone, but just in case you're short on time:

Trip, Liz, and Travis found themselves trapped in an alternate reality where T'Pol died during Shadows of P'Jem and Shran died at Paan Mokar, ushering in the Andorian War. Seeing their targets were engaged in a war of attrition, the Xindi never bothered with the probe, instead unleashing their prototype on the Denobulan colony of Teerza Prime at the suggestion of the Andorians. This incensed Captain Taxa, who slaughtered thousands of Imperial Guard soldiers in revenge. Her attack wasn't as devastating as she hoped, because Archer warned the Imperial Council ahead of time, hoping Shran's allies were still out there. Consequently, while Columbia et al ventured into the Expanse, Enterprise was kept on the diplomatic front by the Vulcans, plagued by persistent inspections of a suspicious Denobulan Infantry. To get back to their own timeline, Trip decided to make a deal with the devil. He furnished Captain Taxa with coordinates to Azati Prime and the Xindi Council planet, even though he knew the consequences in this other reality would be far reaching…

The verdict is in, and I'm going with Trip and Alira on this one: Ulysses is really, really bad. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is better, but still not great. Sorry to any James Joyce fans out there. Truth hurts.

Gotta say, this week's Lower Decks really called the "fighting your evil twin on a rickety metal catwalk" trope for this episode. Fair warning this one's a little bloodier and more violent than usual. The alternate mirror universe will return in season six. Enjoy!

Season Five

Episode Twenty: The Ktarian Gate

Maelstrom Captain's Log, July 18th, 2156: We are sheltering in place following a meeting with the Ktarian flagship. They claim to have traveled from their system via a stable wormhole, one end of which is based in their system. Apparently, there are three or four others like it in this sector, and they're more than willing to accommodate our travel needs, for the right price...

---

Following a long night of ferrying science crews to the mouth of the wormhole, Travis retreated to the mess hall, entirely dead on his feet.

At first Captain Tucker had encouraged them to let things breathe, to hold off for a day or two before investigating; besides, from a negotiations standpoint, they didn't want to look too eager for the Ktarians. Their discovery of what was presumably the first known stable wormhole was groundbreaking to say the least, and following the briefest of receptions in the wardroom, they'd taken their leave of them to shop their findings to the Kriosians.

They were much too greedy and opportunistic for Trip's liking, and the fact that none of their fellow interstellar neighbors had discovered these phenomena before was more than a little suspicious. He knew they had no intention of following through with the upcoming Coalition conference arranged by the Commodore, which wasn't so much of a peace treaty as it was a pledge to support one another through the dredges of the Romulan War. Really, the only ones they could count on at this point were the Andorians and the Vulcans, with the Tellarites on the fence.

Nevertheless, at the insistence of Ethan and Julia, their two resident science nerds, he'd finally given in, and the parade of specialists had started almost immediately. Travis watched as they launched probe after probe and scanned for hours, every so often crying out about something amazing they'd discovered and jolting him awake at the pilot's seat. He'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the first round of scientists hurried down to the shuttlebay the night before, and every time they returned to the docking berths, he would find another crew waiting on the gangway, leaving him no time to sneak back to his quarters.

When alpha shift rolled around, he'd lured Ensign Hutchison in to take his place, mentioning that he had a data chip preloaded with a soccer game they'd both wanted to watch, and he could have it if only he met him at Shuttlepod Two. He'd been somewhat dismayed to be tricked, but had gone along with it, and Travis finally found himself free, drifting up several decks in search of some very well-earned breakfast.

He loaded up his plate from the buffet line and went in search of the rest of senior staff. Kelby seldom ate with them in the morning unless he was ordered to or otherwise coerced, and Hoshi had become used to taking her meals in the Captain's mess. With their resident Vulcan out of commission and their scientists more than likely poring over sensor data in the laboratory, that left their tactical officer, who he found sitting at the far corner of the room facing towards the wall, looking for all the world like she was talking to herself.

Alira's meal was half-eaten and mostly forgotten; the only thing she seemed to be paying much attention to was her coffee mug (constantly full, steaming with some sugary concoction spiked an ungodly amount of espresso) and her PADD, which she was presently cradling as some would a baby.

She was speaking quietly, though in her own distinctly animated way, laughing intermittently. Even though she didn't seem to hear him approach, he could easily make out what she was saying, and naturally came to the conclusion who was on the other end of the line.

"I'm telling you, the Trials of Sandinna are the most accurate representation of our civil wars over a hundred thousand years ago. Its scope and attention to detail are absolutely unparalleled. These were formative times for Denobula as we know it today. I even did my second doctoral thesis on it." She paused for dramatic effect, waving her hand dismissively to no one in particular. "I'm sorry that you can't appreciate it like a scholar would."

He didn't wait for a pause in the conversation. Stepping to her far side, he bent down and pulled the earpiece away from the side of her face, calling out: "Good morning, Malcolm!"

Apparently, he'd stopped him in the middle of what he assumed to be a withering comeback, because he startled slightly before realizing who it was. "Travis! How are you?"

"Just fine!" He said loudly, sliding into the seat next to her. Alira dealt him a slightly reproachful look, then slipped off her headset, placing it on the table and turning up the volume so they both could hear. "We had a visit from the Ktarians yesterday…"

"I don't trust them," Malcolm said automatically. "Remember what happened to Hoshi on Rigel V?"

As a matter of fact, he did. When given the opportunity to help their communications officer following the detonation of an incendiary bomb, one of their most revered senators had instead chosen to leave her for dead, trapped underneath a fallen pillar with a shattered humerus that had kept her in a cast for weeks. At that time, they'd also seemed mostly focused on business, with little care to their allies except for what they could do for them to that end.

"That was just one man," Travis reminded him, always willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. "Besides, we've sent about a hundred probes in. Looks legit. Seems like a smooth ride to me."

"Bet they send you through first."

"Don't I wish," he mumbled, poking at his breakfast. Wouldn't that be the ticket, to just fly headfirst into a wormhole and away from his troubles and the war for a couple of hours? His sense of duty and loyalty to his friends notwithstanding, it was actually a pretty tempting idea.

"As I was saying…" Malcolm, as usual, was supremely focused on his objective, and Alira shifted forward, as though she was settling into an argument. "You promised me explosions, and all I've gotten so far is a couple of descriptions of weapons, some character profiles, and a love scene that went on for far too long."

"Now listen here. This story may be an legendary, sweeping depiction of one of the most devastating wars my world has ever seen, but it's also a love story between our hero and his-"

"If you promise me a war epic, I better be reading about blood and guts within the first few paragraphs. I don't do this romantic nonsense, I never have."

"Now you tell me." Alira leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "I'd take the distinctive style of our classical poets over James Joyce any day."

"I'll have you know that Ulysses is a classic. If only you could get through the first four hundred pages or so…"

"Sure it is," she interrupted, glancing at Travis. As he continued to extoll the virtues of the novel, she rolled her eyes, mouthing: It's terrible!

Travis momentarily set his fork aside and retrieved the headpiece, holding it up between them. "You know, sir, just because you had to suffer through it at boarding school doesn't mean you've got to subject her to the same fate."

"That's where you're wrong. It absolutely does."

Alira huffed incredulously and reached for her mug again, drowning her furtive smile in her coffee. Over the past few weeks since their mission to Xantoras, she'd seen their relationship come to its breaking point and nearly fracture entirely, before starting to mend itself and become whole again, through near constant conversation, agonizingly long letters, and the understanding that they would need to make to do with their new normal. It was like they were discovering one another all over again, and after spending so long distressing over telling him about her secret, nothing could be more soothing than to just hear his voice. To argue. To talk about nothing and everything, to distract themselves from the death and destruction all around them.

Months ago Hoshi had introduced her to the Japanese artform of kintsugi, wherein a broken piece of pottery was repaired with lacquer mixed with powdered gold and silver. In the days following her return to the Maelstrom, she'd thought about it again and again until she found an occasion to visit her friend's quarters one night for a bit of girl talk. There she'd cradled the vase she kept at the end of the desk, turning it over and over and tracing the glimmering seams with her thumb. She'd considered it at length before finally coming to a conclusion.

No, it was not identical to how it was before. But it was beautiful all the same.

"Say, shouldn't you be rubbing elbows with Captain Al-Shahrani by now? I thought your rendezvous was today."

Malcolm hesitated, though to his credit, forged right on ahead. "Shouldn't be more than a few hours now. We have a few more details of the plan yet to iron out. His senior most MACO talks a big game, but…"

"Get him in the same room as Sergeant Cole and see how that changes," Travis said, following that thought to its natural conclusion. He went on to talk about all the maneuvers Pascal ought to use, and their integrated tactical options, and some long-ago mission involving a Tandaran prison, but she found her focus drifting, distracted by the shift and shimmer of a few stars outside their nearest window.

A few of the crewmen around them seemed to sense what she did, that the wormhole was about to open, an occurrence that happened every few hours with dependable frequency. It was beautiful, and spellbinding, and the first time she'd seen it, she'd almost forgotten to breathe.

It emerged a second later, as a bright flash of light originating from a single point, creating a halo of luminosity out to the event horizon which quickly dulled to a swirling blue and gray orb, twisting and rotating about itself. The passageway seemed to beckon to them from the very center, offering the promise of a churning mass of distant stars. Travis knew that Hutch was out there now, so close to the phenomenon that he could probably reach out and touch it, and he couldn't help but feel a little jealous at that moment.

A crowd was already beginning to form around the windows; Alira reached for the headset, and he obliged, passing it into her hands. Slowly, she rose to her feet and approached the viewport, interrupting his train of thought and describing the wormhole in excruciating detail, not sparing a single element, from the way it made her feel to the way it seemed to waver like a boundless ocean, drawing everyone and everything around it in.

"It's beautiful," she said, the light from the singularity dancing in her eyes. "I can't believe they're willing to trade us for this. Beta quadrant to the alpha quadrant in a matter of seconds."

"I'm sure it's going to change the game." Malcolm was contemplative, thinking about a world of intersector warfare, of conflicts that spanned light years.

She had no doubt about that. "I wish…"

He heard her trail off, and moved swiftly to interrupt her before she could finish that thought. "I know."

She didn't have the chance to respond. In that next moment, a vessel emerged in another blinding flash, its hull pockmarked and burned, plasma venting from its starboard nacelle. It seemed to twist and cant towards them, entirely powerless to alter its fate. As it turned, exposing its dorsal flank, she caught a glimpse of its designation in and around the warped hull plating, and almost immediately, the room fell silent.

NX-02 Columbia.

It struck something in all of them, but for some of them, it stirred their memories of the Xindi conflict, of drifting through space, of being engulfed in death and hellfire, of venting atmosphere and crewmen through the hull. Travis was immediately there beside her, his fists clenched at his sides.

That ship was followed by a half dozen more, all tear dropped shaped with several forward attachments for phase cannons. The hull was decorated and criss-crossed with many concurrent lines, giving it a distinctly insectoid appearance. Each was smaller than the Columbia, except for the lead ship, which brought up the rear carrying something in its tractor beam.

It was an enormous sphere made up of countless layers of continuously shifting geometric shapes, turning and twisting around each other to reveal an ominous green glow within. Travis immediately recognized it, and before he could stop himself, a strange strangulated sound escaped his lips, wrought with shock and terror.

Alira swiftly ended the connection, muttering something about a tactical alert, which she was positive was imminent. As they all watched, the other ships jumped to warp one by one, leaving their leader behind in the dust.

It wasn't for long; a moment later, the tractor beam disengaged and the strange craft began to move on its own, so close that it was able to share its field, vanishing a second behind it onto the horizon.

As quickly as the wormhole arose, it seemed to vanish and shift and skitter away, leaving the Maelstrom and what appeared to be the Columbia under a new, prescient silence.

Travis glanced over at his companion, noticing how she was slack-jawed, horrified, clutching her chest. He nudged her, and she reacted as though she'd just been punched in the gut.

"Did you recognize that ship?"

As if on cue, the lights dimmed and the alarm began to sound overhead. They both rushed towards the door, pushing and struggling with their fellow crewmen on their way out.

It wasn't until they were halfway to the turbolift that she said anything.

"My old ship." She thought she heard Travis call out a request for A Deck, but could scarcely tell over the pounding of blood in her ears. "The Caileph."

---

Enterprise Captain's Log, July 18th, 2156: The Phoenix and the Saraswati have joined us at the boundaries of my home system to plan for a covert mission of crucial strategic importance for the alliance. This also presents the opportunity for a long-awaited family reunion, one that I am more than willing to indulge.

---

No sooner than Alira ended their transmission did Malcolm receive word that the arrival of the Saraswati was imminent.

It shook him from his reverie; he had meant to make his way to the bridge and try to pick up the Maelstrom on long range sensors, to get some inkling of what was going on. By now, he knew her intonations, the variety of vocal inflections that corresponded with her mood. She'd been taken aback by whatever it was she'd seen, stunned and frightened, and the fact that she hadn't even made the effort to describe it meant she was scared.

It was unusual for her.

To say that Malcolm was concerned was an understatement.

At that point, it didn't matter; irrationally, he felt the need to protect her, though he well and truly knew she could fend for herself. Whatever it was, if the situation was truly dire, all it would take was a quick distress call to have several dozen patrols and Daedalus class support ships come knocking at their door. Following their encounter with the hybrid battalion in the Bowerman Nebula, the fleet covered more area throughout the quadrant than ever; the Commodore had seen to that.

Setting his trepidation aside, he left his quarters and retreated to the starboard docking port, where he found their communications officer fairly bouncing on her toes with excitement.

"Has it been awhile, Ensign?" He asked, and she treated him to a disarming smile. Over her shoulder, the Captain and the Commodore seemed to have a conversation without words as they often did, furtively glancing at one another and nodding intermittently.

"Since a few weeks before I commissioned," Dita replied, rubbing her hands together. "A full year."

Behind the bulkhead, he heard the characteristic groan of the freighter's thrusters as their helmsman coaxed and guided the ship towards the docking port. If the Saraswati's entry in the ECS database was accurate, the vessel was ancient, even more so than the Horizon, having passed through multiple proprietors before finally landing in the hands of her parents some twenty years before. It was there she'd lived for ten years during childhood before returning to Earth to attend to her university studies, and it was there she'd spend the next day, catching up with relatives and preparing for the mission, assuming the Captain kept her word.

"You'll have to give us the grand tour," Malcolm teased, his fingers poised over the hatch controls. "Pity that Travis isn't here."

"Oh, he and my father could talk for hours. You know how they say Zephram Cochrane personally signed the inside of the reactor casing of the warp drive on every J-class freighter?" He nodded. "This one was one of his first. He signed the commissioning plaque."

"You're kidding." Already, he was planning on swinging by the bridge before they got on their way.

"I'm not. My mother polishes that nameplate every morning. Never a speck of dust on it," she said proudly, watching as the light above their heads turned green.

The Commodore met his silent overture of permission with a nod, and Malcolm disengaged the airlock, ushering their guests onto the ship.

It took less than a second for a woman to burst over the threshold and greet them, dipping her head momentarily towards the Captain and the Commodore before extending her hand. Jonathan was somewhat taken aback by her eagerness, but once she smiled, he was immediately set at ease; he could see his communications officer in her, especially around the eyes, which were presently shining with so much unbridled joy and that he couldn't help but reciprocate it.

"Welcome aboard the Enterprise, Mrs. Sharma." An older man, undoubtedly her father, and a young woman, perhaps several years Dita's junior, quickly stepped up behind her. "You're two hours early. I suppose I shouldn't expect anything less out of the pride of the ECS."

"You really shouldn't, Commodore." She laughed, then glancing towards her daughter, winked. "Please, you really ought to be calling me Captain."

"Mother-"

"My apologies, I thought your husband was-"

"We trade off every couple of months. Keeps things interesting." The man beside her interrupted her, then reached for them, greeting the triumvirate exactly as his better half had done. He gestured towards himself. "I assure you, we are honored to be here. I am Manish. This is my wife Sandhya and our youngest daughter, Neha."

"And our pride and joy!" Sandhya suddenly surged forward, pulling Dita into her arms. She struggled for a second, as though she was embarrassed to be doted on so conspicuously by her parents, before settling into the hug and squeezing her mother tightly, an undeniable smile spreading across her lips. "Little one, your letters don't do this ship justice! It's incredible, simply marvelous."

"Mother, you've really only seen one corridor," Neha reminded her, rolling her eyes. "Really, if I have the opportunity, I'd love to see the engine room-"

"If time allows. We don't want to impose."

"It will not be a problem, Mr. Sharma. The Phoenix is still two hours hours away at warp six," T'Pol confirmed, secretly relishing in the excitement she saw on her face. It had taken her years of living among humans to finally admit it, but she quite enjoyed seeing them happy.

"Then it's settled!" He clapped his hands together, then reached for his daughter, squeezing her shoulder. "Our Neha is quite proficient with our warp core, as well as our weapons systems."

"Sounds to me like everyone in the family is multi-talented."

"I've been blessed, Commodore, truly blessed," he said, then went to hug Dita, depositing a paternal kiss on her cheek.

"If it's weapons you're interested in, our armory will surely blow you away." Malcolm extended his hand towards her, which she accepted eagerly. "Lieutenant Commander Reed."

"Malcolm," she corrected him, and the mischievous glint in her eye told him she knew about every bit of their exploits from her sister's letters. "I'm happy to be able to put a name with a face."

For all intents and purposes, Neha was a carbon copy of Dita, though a little shorter and lighter on her feet, as though the burden of life experience had not yet brought her down to earth. Like her mother and sister, she wore the bindi and a small stud piercing in one nostril. While Dita sported her uniform and the navy blue hair wrap standard for all women in the fleet who observed modest dress, Neha wore a colorful choli, with a sari that draped around her waist and wrapped around the back of her head. She seemed somewhat amused at what was going on around her, as though she were in on a joke no one else would hear.

Immediately, Malcolm knew they had picked the right person for the mission.

"Just how much have you told her, Ensign?" When they locked eyes, Dita grinned sheepishly and looked away, confirming his worst fears.

If Manish noticed his ensuing embarrassment, he graciously ignored it. "Now, Commodore, I understand that the Enterprise has some of the most advanced navigational sensors of any NX vessel in service today."

"That's mostly to the credit of our former helmsman, Lieutenant Mayweather." He cut a glance towards T'Pol, nodding knowingly. "He's a boomer too, you know. From the Horizon."

"What a small world we live in! We must have crossed paths dozens of times..."

"Hundreds, even," Sandhya confirmed. "We've heard that designation on subspace chatter more times than I would care to admit. If you wouldn't mind, I would very much like to meet this new helmsman of yours. We've had some issues with our main computer ever since we hit an ion storm on the Draylax run three months ago."

"I always told you to take the long way around-"

"We had a deadline, Nandita. Surely you can understand that." She delivered that good natured riposte to her daughter with a soft shake of her head, then turned back to the Captain and the Commodore, treating them to a warm smile. It immediately became obvious that she was waiting for their verdict.

"We'd be happy to," Jonathan assured her, and stepped aside to allow T'Pol to take the lead. Dita and her mother joined her, their heads bent together as they chattered quietly, then her father, until only Malcolm and Neha remained. He almost seemed to forget they were there altogether, though the last moment before he rounded the corner, he tilted his head back, calling out: "You two going to be okay?"

"Perfectly, sir," Malcolm said, affording him a reassuring nod. There was a beat of awkward silence as their command team disappeared and their voices faded into the background, then he gestured towards her, then down the corridor towards the lift. "If you'll just follow me."

As it turned out, his initial impressions of Neha were spot on. She was easy going and affable, but like her sister, not above a little bit of teasing. She asked multiple questions about their catastrophic state visit to Rigel V, his foray into war games at Denobula Triaxa (she cheated, and he wasn't afraid to say it for the hundredth time, no matter if anyone asked or not), and finally, the dragon on Berengaria VII, which Malcolm was starting to suspect he would never truly live down.

She seemed to know way more about advanced warp theory than any civilian should; Anna had been pleasantly surprised by her queries, but entertained every single one of them, showing her where they kept their spare dilithium canisters and what direction they rotated their plasma injectors and how they would initiate a cold start of the engines, should they ever again encounter the unique set of circumstances that required it. Neha listened with rapt attention, and together they laughed about the trials and tribulations of running a hundred year old Cochrane-era engine, using jargon that Malcolm couldn't even hope to understand.

When they at last took their leave of Anna, they exchanged comm codes, and she promised to reach out the next time their inertial dampeners went out. He knew they likely only had a few minutes to get back to the wardroom, so he hightailed it to the turbolift, draping his hand across the door to allow her to enter first.

"You know, with a talent like yours, I'm not sure why you haven't commissioned." He meant it as a compliment to her intelligence and ingenuity, but she immediately reeled back as though she'd been slapped, sporting a distinctly strained expression that disappeared within a fraction of a second.

He faltered somewhat, rubbing his hands together and desperately wondering how he might remedy the situation. Malcolm was used to feeling out of sorts in social situations, forever out of step with the conversation and putting his foot in it. This was no exception, and after a few moments of frantic contemplation, he surrendered himself to his fate, clearing his throat and punching the button for A Deck forcefully.

As soon as the cabin began to move, Neha moved to broach the silence. For a second he thought she was going to reach out to him, to place a placating hand on his shoulder, but then she pulled back, clasping her hands in front of her. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it."

He was starting to be more and more sure that it was none of his business, but he was curious. "Why don't you?"

"Family comes first," she replied automatically. "Always has, always will."

The alarm bells started to go off in his head, and he immediately resolved not to probe into the situation any further. It naturally followed that if one child decided to leave the nest, another would remain behind to hold down the fort. He'd seen it once before, or rather, heard all about it, from Travis. He and his brother had eventually come to blows over his decision to leave the family behind, a rift in their relationship that had taken months, if not years, to mend over.

Malcolm knew he had to change the subject. "We're honored to have your assistance with this mission. I understand that your crew was the first one to volunteer."

"We're one of the few operational I-class freighters remaining," she said plainly, reminding him that they'd been a natural logistical choice for the mission. He nodded and dipped his head, silently cursing himself for his natural social ineptitude.

"And how has your experience been on the front lines convoy?"

"We haven't been shot down by a telepresence unit or Romulan marauder yet, if that's what you're asking." Finally, he heard a twinge of humor return to her voice. "The money is far and above what we could ever hope to earn behind the lines. My parents are trying to retire, they have been for years."

"I suppose you'll take command, then?"

"You'd be right about that." She paused, as if weighing her choice of words. "Assuming things don't get any worse."

He looked at her curiously, and she turned her head, smiling softly. "My husband is our medic. We just found out a few days ago that we're expecting a little stranger."

"Oh!" Malcolm exhaled slowly, digging his hands into his pockets. He'd never been too keen with children, but could readily imagine the fear and trepidation at bringing another human into the world amidst an interstellar war. It put Neha and her husband in an impossible position - stay and risk their own lives and the life of their unborn child on a decades-old cargo ship with limited defenses, or return home and abandon their family at a time when their expertise was desperately needed. It felt cheap to say so in that moment, but it was reflexive, so he summoned as much earnestness as he could and offered her a completely genuine: "Congratulations."

She laughed, short and sharp. "Thank you, Malcolm. Dita and my parents don't even know, so if you wouldn't mind…"

"Your secret is safe with me," he assured her, and as if on cue, the turbolift slowed and ushered them into the corridor behind the bridge.

"I don't know why I told you that," she admitted. A second before he pressed the door controls, she held up her hand, and he paused, leaning into the bulkhead. "I hope you'll forgive me for getting ahead of myself. From my sister's letters, I kind of feel like I know you."

He shook his head, and opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off again. "I suppose it doesn't matter if it's family, or your partner, or your closest friends. I'd do anything for love, wouldn't you?"

He surely would. And he had, only a few short weeks ago. He didn't respond, but met her gaze, nodding sagely, before hitting the switch and sweeping into the wardroom.

Much to their surprise, Captain Al-Shahrani was already there, lingering near the group by the viewport as they stood watch over the Phoenix off their port bow. Mustafa was engaged in the conversation, charismatic and charming as usual, availing their guests with what was sure to be a fascinating recount of their ill-fated attempt to make first contact with the Chelons on Rigel III. The Sharmas seemed to hang on every word, allowing the rest of the Enterprise staff to prepare for their briefing, juggling PADDs and cables and wires at the center of the room.

As they entered, Mustafa turned to one side, opening himself up to them and delivering one final witty riposte. They laughed uproariously, then he lead the way across the room, a broad smile painted across his face. He extended his hand, and Malcolm met the gesture halfway, bearing down and not looking away for a second.

At some point during their nearly catastrophic covert mission to Xantoras, he and Alira discovered that Captain Al-Shahrani had been moonlighting as Agent Jaguar, an operative of the Section who had been instrumental in procuring radioactive materials and spatial torpedoes for Starfleet's efforts to build nuclear warheads. He'd managed to trick Captain Hernandez into orchestrating the Kandar conspiracy, and just when they thought matters couldn't get any worse, he volunteered to collect their stolen cargo ship and return it to Starbase 1 for inspection.

They both knew that with the combined efforts of Mustafa and the station's senior staff, they'd left enough of a trail of crumbs to lead directly to the true nature of their mission. If they could hack into the internal cameras and auditory sensors, they could hear their furtive conversation in the hallway, where they'd been frantically attempting to salvage what they could of their relationship. They'd hear Alira call out Agent Corsica by name, and admit to wanting out by whatever means necessary.

They'd hear him come clean about adopting his Agent Winston alter ego, which was a cross he alone had to bear for nearly a decade.

It was a violation of protocol to drop your cover at any point, let alone ally with another agent or promise to forsake the establishment altogether. Alira had known, and had even said aloud, that she knew their collaboration would mean their deaths. Commander Zhang, Harris' lead field operative, had seen enough to suspect her of defecting during their brief sojourn at Starbase 1. While the years dragged on and the leads into her father's death dried up, he was sure she was already on a list of operatives to watch.

And now, he was almost sure they'd been found out.

"Mr. Reed, a pleasure to see you again. How long has it been?"

He smiled tersely, pretending to consider that for a moment. "Since the Battle of Solnara."

"He fought admirably," Mustafa assured their guests. "You could not possibly be in better hands. Well, unless my own tactical officer is involved…"

"And just where is Ensign Bradshaw?" Malcolm was sure that a ship with a Section agent at the helm would have more than one operative stationed there; he was curious to probe into the potential involvement of his senior staff.

"With my MACO lead, being briefed by your brigade." He paused, glancing at the back of the Commodore's head. "I've been told that Sergeant Cole will take good care of them."

"She will." He suddenly remembered their guests, and gestured towards his companion. "Allow me to introduce Neha…"

"Chief engineer and ordnance officer of the Saraswati," she interrupted him, shaking his hand tightly. "It's an honor to make your acquaintance, sir."

"The honor is all mine. I've just been telling your parents about our visit to Rigel III. The Chelons live in these amazing earthen mounds a dozen stories tall, the foliage is lush and green, and the mountains scrape the sky. We weren't able to make first contact, unfortunately, but the settlement we flew over was nestled along the shoreline of a beautiful lake…"

Manish stepped forward and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and together they began to heard towards the table. "He showed us pictures, Neha. It's gorgeous. Reminded me of the vacation you and Pranav took to the Caribbean for your honeymoon."

"You've never seen water so clear and so blue." Mustafa hung back until only he and Malcolm remained, then fell into step with him. "You can see straight through to the bottom. It's like a sapphire, or a lapis lazuli."

Malcolm's heart immediately dropped through his stomach. If he'd had a doubt about the outcome of Starbase 1's inspection, it was all but erased now.

To his credit, he scarcely reacted, nodding and gesturing towards an empty seat. Mustafa met his gaze and smiled, no doubt looking for a tell, searching for a clue, anything.

He was determined not to give him that satisfaction.

Oblivious to his plight, Dita rounded the corner and took her place at the head of the table. Behind her, a map of a rather nondescript region of space appeared, populated with intermittent markers arranged in orderly rows. "I'd like to thank all of you for lending your expertise today. Just so the Commodore doesn't have to, I'll remind everyone of the importance of this mission to the alliance."

Across the room, he offered a wry smile and a thumbs-up.

"We're four weeks past the Romulan invasion of Barisa VI. They've established a warp detection grid around the border of the system; we couldn't even get through on thrusters without being detected by their sensors." She frowned, knowing full well another battle was imminent, just as soon as their resident tacticians could figure out a strategy. "The entire Vulcan colony was extinguished, and three of their patrols were lost. A joint task force led by the Pioneer captured the wreckage of one of the hybrid marauders we were able to destroy before we were driven out of the area altogether."

T'Pol immediately jumped in, clasping her hands together and leaning across the table to address their guests. "They identified the hull fragments as belonging to that of the Vulcan warship Taivor, which was decommissioned some fifteen years ago and sent to Surplus Depot Z20."

"It's become apparent to us that the Romulans are harvesting salvage ships and modifying them to suit their needs," Malcolm explained. "They are less likely to arouse suspicion, but in order to move about the quadrant undetected, they have to board to install a cloaking device."

"We believe they have been using voice modulation and false transponder signatures to get past the depot's inspection protocols. The dockmaster has been able to identify six occurrences of vessel theft in the past year."

"How is it they were unable to tell that their ships were being stolen, right under their nose?" Neha seemed genuinely confused; every bit of cargo on any ECS vessel was painstakingly catalogued a hundred times before it ever reached its destination.

It was a good question, and the powers that be had been more that a little indignant to have to answer it, though they hid it well behind a veneer of emotional control. "Z20 is the largest surplus depot in the Vulcan system. It nearly covers half of a square light year, and includes discarded ships from several alliance worlds."

"We've placed a lure in the form of the T'Versa, a recently decommissioned warship with similar armaments to the Taivor. A handful of our patrols have confirmed they're on their way." Jonathan nodded, and Dita advanced the screen, zooming in on the bottom left corner of the map. "It's situated around a handful of I-class ECS freighters from the 2070s. That's where the Saraswati comes in."

"Our joint MACO task force will ride into the depot and together you'll lie in wait, turning off all systems except for sensors and life support," Malcolm explained. "Once they board, we'll beam over using an array of mobile emitters and drive them out. The Phoenix and the Enterprise will wait just outside of long-range sensors and attack once we receive the signal."

"I'll remain behind to pilot. The rest of the crew will make use of your guest quarters." Neha nodded towards T'Pol and Mustafa, who looked back at her impassively. They all knew they'd become tasked with the safety of over fifty civilians, men, women, and children who didn't ask to be brought into a war, let alone be dragged into an active firefight. The prospect was daunting, and more than a little terrifying, and they both knew there was absolutely no room for error.

"I will assist," Manish asserted, leaving little room for debate. His daughters started to protest, but he cut them off, declaring that they would talk about this later.

Jonathan could naturally follow what this meant, and moved to close the ensuing tense silence, reminding them: "The objective of this mission is to gather reconnaissance and prevent capture of our lure. We will make every effort to preserve the Saraswati, but if things start to go south aboard the T'Versa…"

"Do we have your authorization to kill, Commodore?" The question came from Captain Al-Shahrani, who seemed much too interested in the idea for his own good.

An uneasy silence descended over the room. Even Dita turned away, disconnecting her PADD from the viewscreen. He could see Sandhya reach for her husband's hand and squeeze hard, a swift, emotional gesture that couldn't be missed.

"As a last resort," he replied impassively, hoping to be the authoritative end to the subject.

---

As he did most mornings, Trip awoke mere seconds before his alarm was due to off, blinking drowsily into the near darkness of his quarters.

He often struggled with falling and staying asleep, but he was also known to oversleep on occasion. When Malcolm was onboard he often kept him honest, calling him over the comm whenever it looked like he would be late for the morning briefing. The engineering brigade back on the Enterprise had gotten used to seeing him scamper into his office with only seconds to spare, but now that he was the Captain and attempting to set an example for his senior staff, he knew that kind of behavior wasn't going to fly.

Some time ago, he'd programmed the overhead lights to start increasing brightness an hour before he needed to be somewhere. It was all a part of a series of improvements he'd made to his quarters now that he could no longer throw himself into engine maintenance without incurring Kelby's wrath. Building a bathtub for Hoshi had just been the tip of the iceberg; he had gone on to increase the polarity axis of the viewports, build a standing desk for himself at the far corner of the room, and install noise dampeners so they wouldn't have to listen to Lieutenant Novakovich practicing his trumpet at all hours next door.

Trip understood he picked it up as a hobby sometime between commissioning and Solnara, and he was working hard at it, but damn, did he have a long way to go.

The senior staff of the Maelstrom seemed to grow closer and closer by the day - the section they all lived on became more like a dormitory, forever full of laughter and merrymaking and practical jokes, mostly the product of an ongoing war between Alira, Julia, and Travis. Even Yuris and Kelby, their resident sticks-in-the-mud, had bonded somewhat, and would often be seen taking meals together. Regardless of the universe falling apart around them, he had to admit that sometimes he enjoyed forgetting the war and allowing himself to become wrapped up in his own little slice of heaven, free of worry and regret.

Now was no exception. He heaved a massive sigh and turned over, seizing the opportunity to admire the slumbering woman beside him.

Hoshi always slept in a tangle of limbs and blankets; invariably, she'd steal the covers and Trip would be forced to wrestle them away from her, ignoring the odd indignant groan or drowsy look of consternation. She was a cuddle bug when she was awake, but often rolled away from him in the middle of the night to splay out like a starfish.

She presently lay on her side facing him, her head resting in the crook of her elbow. Her hair was ruffled and tangled to an almost absurd degree, her eyelids were twitching, and her lips were slightly parted, evenly breathing in and out as she dreamed.

She was adorable.

Trip almost didn't want to disturb her, but knew he had to. Chef would be incensed if they were no-shows for breakfast, Julia hated eating alone, and he didn't want to risk incurring the wrath of either of them. Carefully, he slid across the mattress and gathered her into his arms, depositing a kiss on her bare shoulder.

He could feel her tense up, then make a small surprised sound and relax into him. Under the covers, she threw her leg over him and drew him in closer, tucking her head underneath his chin.

"We gotta get up, darlin'," he whispered, trailing his fingertips up and down her arm.

"I don't think so," she grumbled, squinting into the overhead lights. "Have them bring me my PADD and I can work just fine right here."

Her hand was drifting down his back, and before he could stop her, she seized a handful of his shorts and squeezed. He huffed in mock offense and slapped at her hand, listing over to one side.

"Don't you start something you don't intend to finish."

She appeared to be tempted by the prospect, but a quick glance at the chronometer revealed they had little time for such diversions. Hoshi groaned and sat up, rubbing at her eyes. "You know, you never make this easy."

"What? Getting up in the morning?"

"No, sharing a bed." She moved to the side of the mattress and slung her legs over the edge, revealing one of his old, worn t-shirts and a ridiculous tangle of bedhead. "I'll have you know that you snore."

"That can't be true. I've never heard myself snore."

"And you think that's enough evidence to prove that you don't?" Hoshi stood, taking the blanket with her on her route to the bathroom. "One of these days, I'll set up one of Alira's tactical audio-visual recorders in here at night to prove you wrong."

"Are you suggesting that we-"

"Trip!" She dipped her head back in the room, her words muffled around her sonic toothbrush. Her pointer finger came up in warning, but he ignored it, rising from bed and closing the distance between them.

The second he wrapped his arms around her waist, she attempted to pull away, but he held fast. "We really do just need to take a day off. No duty, no obligations-"

"No bad movies," Hoshi added, knowing full well how he usually spent his free time. It seemed like they would never get the opportunity, but she could dream about a time when it was just the two of them and they were free to linger in bed all day, laughing and talking and basking in their love.

He took another good look at her, at her shining eyes and warm smile, and realized that he'd changed his mind.

"Why not today? We'll say we're sick. I'm sure Yuris can be bribed."

She seemed amused by that idea, but soon remembered her place and shook her head. "As tempting as that is…"

"You sure I can't convince you?" The second she pushed past him to move back into the room, he caught her by the hand and pulled her back to his side, and their embrace quickly turned into a flurry of shoves and pushes and halfhearted punches as she fought to escape.

By the time they reentered the bedroom, they were both unable to get their words out around their laughter, and he reached for her once more in an attempt to get his arms around her. Unfortunately, he woefully miscalculated, and his foot caught the end of the blanket she'd wrapped around herself, throwing him off balance and causing them both to fall into the edge of the bed.

The second they landed, he heard a deafening crack, followed by the agonizing groan of metal against metal. The bedframe, which he'd only lifted a few days ago to afford them some more storage space, collapsed partially in on itself, causing them to fall several centimeters and shift one side with the angle of the tilted mattress.

Their eyes locked, and there was a moment of stunned silence. Trip could feel his own amusement bubbling up within him, and he bit his lip, desperate to stifle it. "This wasn't how I thought we'd be breaking this bed."

Her response was immediate, her laughter contagious. Soon they'd all but lost themselves in a fit of giggles once again, and she reached above her head to grab one of the pillows, slapping him upside the head with it. He was having a hard time maintaining his composure, but managed to get out that he loved her and adored her and maybe, just maybe, this was a sign from the heavens above that he really ought to be winning this argument.

The universe, apparently, had other plans.

The sudden declaration of a tactical alert shook them both from that brief moment of bliss, and soon they were hopping all about the cabin, wrestling into their uniforms and tying up their boots. A minute later, they surged into the hallway, joining the throng of junior officers rushing towards the turbolift.

Inside, they found a very distressed Ensign Taxa and Lieutenant Mayweather. Neither said anything, or dared to even acknowledge them, until the moment they burst onto the bridge to a purely confounding scene.

Julia rose from the conn and intercepted them, standing to one side, unable to take her eyes off the viewscreen. Outside, the Columbia lay fractured and immobile in open space, seemingly adrift with very few options remaining. It was a scene better befitting another time, another place, another war, and trepidation immediately seized Trip's gut.

"I thought the Columbia was out on patrol near the Draken system."

"They are, sir." Over at the comm, Ensign Medina seemed to be under extreme duress. "As of three hours ago. I've sent out for confirmation, but…"

"Spit it out, Ensign."

"They came through the wormhole, and they weren't alone."

Those three words sent a chill racing up his spine, and he reflexively turned towards Alira, whose brows were furrowed, her expression indecipherable. Travis was only all too willing to fill in the blanks. "There were a handful of Denobulan battle cruisers with them, and they were carrying something."

"Lieutenant-"

He held up a hand to placate him, then clenched it into a fist, training his gaze at the floor. When he looked back up, his eyes were shining with terror and something he couldn't quite place. "It was the Xindi weapon. The big one."

"That's not possible," he said adamantly, his voice wavering slightly. "We destroyed that years ago."

"We did," Ethan confirmed from the science station, studying the countless scans he'd initiated only moments ago. "Something's not right here, Captain. I'm reading chroniton radiation, and several different quantum signatures coming from the point in space where the wormhole was."

"So you're saying it's no longer there?"

He shook his head slowly. Over his shoulder, Travis dropped his face into his hands.

So much for a stable wormhole.

"I believe it's been destabilized on both sides," he confirmed, his fingers racing over the keys. "There's subatomic fluctuations all over the place, and the meson and lepton activity is through the roof. I'd need Lieutenant Cutler to confirm this, but if a wormhole opens over a quantum fissure…"

It opens the gateway to multiple realities, and multiple locations within those realities. Julia was following his line of thought, and didn't like it one bit. "It would probably be easily mistaken for a subspace vortex, which…"

"The Xindi used to bring their weapon back to Earth."

"Exactly, and if they opened it using a phase deflector pulse like the Reptilians did..."

"They could have traveled light years within seconds," Julia finished, then glanced towards the conn. "What was their heading?"

The gamma shift navigator, who had been so close to coming off shift when all of this went down, appeared thoroughly flustered. He sputtered a bit before Travis came to his rescue and leaned over his console, studying the readouts within. His eyes widened, and he reeled back in shock, turning on his heels. "They just corrected their course. Looks like they're headed towards Andoria."

"You don't think-"

"No," Travis said reverently, thinking about the millions of timelines out there, thinking about what luck they had to make it out of the other alternate universe in one piece. It was impossible. There was no way.

"How long until they reach their system?"

"Six hours at present speed."

"Hail the Columbia."

"I've already tried. Their comm is down. If we want answers, we're going to have to go down there." Julia crossed her arms and squinted into the viewscreen, silently begging the powers that be for clues, for a chance, for a reprieve to gather their thoughts from this rapidly encroaching tragedy.

"Then we will." Trip gestured towards Alira, and she moved off towards the back of the room, collecting whatever weapons she could from the MACO on duty. "Mr. Mayweather?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you." He was hoping he wouldn't ask for an explanation, and graciously, he didn't. Truthfully, Trip needed someone by his side who had lived through their nightmare sojourn into the Andorian War, who had been there as they navigated the seedy underbelly of the cosmos, to either confirm or deny that he was going crazy. The sudden resurgence of that particular traumatic experience had thoroughly thrown him off balance, and he was having a hard time thinking straight. "Is there a problem, Lieutenant?"

"No, I just…"

Alira passed a phase rifle into his hands, and he accepted it, his expression morphing into something passably resolute. Trip joined them behind the conn, standing close. "Novakovich, keep a transporter lock on us at all times. If we're gone for longer than five minutes, pull us out."

"Yes, sir."

"Captain, I'd be remiss if I didn't remind you about the risks of going in there, guns blazing…"

"Your concern is noted, Jules. Three to transport."

A second later, they found themselves being ushered onto the bridge of the alternate Columbia in a nearly impenetrable cloud of smoke. The overhead lights were off, and in the darkness, he could barely see crewmen moving around, attempting to bring their stations back to life and beat the turbolift into submission among a hail of sparks. Near them, an unfamiliar officer lay hunched over across the navigation console, the side of their skull thoroughly crushed by a falling bulkhead.

Alira took a step back and whipped out her flashlight, activating the beam and aiming it into the room. Despite the fact that the deck plating was thoroughly warped and not very traversable, Captain Hernandez stood only a few meters away, her eyes wild, blood painting the side of her face. She appeared stunned, and entirely furious, and when she opened her mouth, they soon understood why.

"You," she rasped, taking a step towards her. Alira could see her fists clenching and unclenching at her side, and in a flash, she was on her, landing a right hook up the side of her jaw before she was unceremoniously incapacitated and thrown to the ground.

Travis reeled back, disbelieving that she'd just been decked by a superior officer, then reached out to her, noticing that she leaned away, rubbing at the side of her face. He knew it was going to leave an ugly bruise, and if only Erika could wriggle her way out from under the knee placed squarely on her back, she knew she was more than willing to dole out another.

"Trip?" The next person to appear was none other than Jonathan Archer, who looked haunted, the hollows in his cheeks as prominent as the surprise in his eyes. "What are you-what's going-"

From the far corner of the room, he heard his room again, then a thoroughly disheveled Hoshi appeared from the shadows, clinging to him and squeezing tightly. Soon she was desperately weeping, and Trip reflexively threw his arms around her, his eyes drifting down to the wedding ring on her finger.

"Everyone listen to me!" He bellowed, and as one, every eye turned to him. Some were shocked, others were angry, but all were a captive audience. "This may be difficult to believe, but you're not at home right now. You're in an alternate universe, where…"

"That much is obvious," Erika called out, her words muffled into the deck plating. "If we were at home right now, you wouldn't be here. Would you mind telling this bitch to get off me?"

"I'm not your enemy, ma'am," Alira assured her, though she didn't release her. "Things are different here. We're not at war with the Andorians in this timeline, and I'm not-"

"I don't give a damn who you are! We've got to stop you before you-"

"Before she does what? And what do you mean I wouldn't be here?" Trip's heart was racing, and no one responded, but that told him exactly what he needed to know.

His gaze drifted down to Travis's tricorder, which he was holding down into his line of sight, only to confirm that the quantum signature of everything around them matched that of the universe they'd stumbled into while flying Shuttlepod One around the Coridan system. He hadn't wanted to believe it, but now that it was right there in front of his face, he was having a hard time denying it.

In their universe, his good friend T'Pol had died following her and Jon's kidnapping on Coridan, and Shran had died on Paan Mokar following a stunning betrayal by his Lieutenant. As a result, the Andorian Imperial Guardsman never got to speak with Ambassador Soval, and they'd declared war on the Vulcans only a few months later. Earth had followed suit and fallen into league with their allies, and the conflict had proceeded for quite some time, bloody and winless.

The Xindi, seeing that their human targets were presently engaged in a war of attrition, hadn't released the probe that destroyed Florida and instead bided their time until the first prototype was ready. In their own universe, this was the one Shran tried to steal to use against the Vulcans, but in the alternate reality, they'd been advised to unleash their weapon on the most Earth-like ship in the sector, killing twenty million Denobulans on Teerza Prime and ushering in a near-nuclear winter over the landscape.

It was the largest colony outside of their homeworld, and Alira had family there-or at least, her counterpart did, and subsequently began in a horrendous tour of revenge, killing damn near every ranking officer of the Imperial Guard, every single person who could have possibly aided the Xindi and lead them towards their system. Jonathan, under the assumption that Shran's allies were still out there, warned them of the impending attack, effectively taking Enterprise out of the action as the rest of the NX vessels forged into the Expanse in search of the superweapon.

When he, Travis, and Liz appeared in their universe, they'd been very near declaring a truce with the Andorians, only to be surprised by Captain Taxa, who demanded to inspect the ship to rule out collaboration with the enemy. The incident in question had been over two years before, but Archer never gave up on trying to convince the Andorians to end their alliance with the Xindi. Seeing no other way out, the three of them had agreed to give Captain Taxa the coordinates of Azati Prime and the Xindi Council planet, if only she'd help them return back to their own universe.

Trip had no idea what had happened after they returned through the quantum fissure; he'd agonized over it, over the timeline-altering decision he'd made, but hadn't thought about it in months. Now, he could see that his choice had had horrible consequences, and the guilt was already eating him alive.

"Enterprise is gone," Archer mumbled, his voice irreparably strained. "You, Malcolm, Travis…"

In that moment, you could have knocked him over with a stiff breeze. Over at the science station, Lieutenant Cutler's counterpart called out to him, and leaned into view, not taking her eyes off of him for a second.

She said something, and not-Jonathan whipped around, regarding her with unbridled horror. "It's not possible. There's millions of timelines. How could we possibly wind up in this one?"

"Quantum affinity, sir. That vortex must have really been a wormhole. It could have opened over a quantum fissure."

"Affinity?"

"The link between our realities has already been established. It's easier to traverse through spacetime. Other than that, sir…" She trailed off, pushing her hair back from her face, leaving a thick stripe of blood across her forehead. "They're on their way to Andoria. There's nothing we can do to stop them."

"There is!" Erika thrashed against Alira's grasp and broke free, rolling to one side and stumbling to her feet. They regarded one another with disdain, and for a split second, Trip thought a fistfight was about to break out on the bridge. "Your people gave them those coordinates and caused their fleet to enter into the Expanse. If they didn't know exactly where to look, we would have probably beaten them there, and they wouldn't have stolen the weapon!"

Truthfully, Erika's counterpart had no idea the circumstances they'd found themselves in, but she gathered from their facial expressions that the terms of the war had changed. This Trip was alive and well-and seemed to be a Captain now-though in their own reality he'd been vaporized by a warp core implosion as the United Earth and Denobulan fleets fought over the weapon at Azati Prime. They had been fighting the Xindi, but the Denobulans had been fighting against the universe, fighting for the right to seek revenge and extinguish the Andorian homeworld on their own terms. She'd known it would cause a cataclysm of effects that would only make things worse, and if they ever returned, they would likely be at war with the Denobulans by the time they returned home.

After nearly three years of dogfighting through the Expanse and seeing her friends and colleagues die horrifically all around her, she couldn't bear the thought of it.

"Your actions destabilized the political climate across two quadrants!" She was shouting now, furious, trembling violently. "You've got to catch them, because if you don't…"

"Why should we?" Trip demanded, though he already knew the answer, and for the first time in a matter of minutes felt Hoshi move against him. She stepped back and regarded him with an unbearable amount of sadness, realizing her husband was gone, truly gone, and nothing she could ever do could ever bring him back.

With the amount of love he felt for the real Hoshi, the one waiting for him back on the Maelstrom, it was enough to break his heart.

"Because we know we're in an alternate reality, but they don't. They're heading to Andoria, and when they reach it, they're going to blow it out of the sky." Archer took a step forward, inhaled deeply, then clutched at his side, where a fresh bloom of blood was only just starting to peek through the fabric. "Look, I don't care what you did in our universe when you came to visit, but if you don't help us now, they're going to destroy whatever kind of friendly arrangement you had with the Andorians and start an interstellar war, assuming you're not in the middle of one already."

Dear God, he knew he was right, and what's more, he knew they were likely jeopardizing the very fabric of space-time whether they helped them or not. But barring an untimely visit from a temporal agent telling him not to do it, he was determined to save the Andorian people at whatever cost.

"Do you have warp engines right now?"

"If you give us an hour, we can get warp three." The report came from the back of the room, from a crewman unseen in the shadows. His heart immediately sank.

It wasn't going to be enough.

"Set a course for Andoria. We're going to be taking off at around warp seven, but if things get hairy, we might just need you there." He reached for his communicator, only to be cut off by a very agitated Captain Hernandez.

"So that's it? And we're just supposed to put our fate in your hands? How are we even going to get home?"

He was loath to admit he didn't know the answer to that. Cutting a glance to Travis and Alira, who had been observing the proceedings with abject horror, he insisted: "You would have trusted the other Trip. Why should this be any different?"

"The other Trip is dead. I have no idea who the hell you are," she replied.

"Then you're just going to have to trust me. Tucker to Maelstrom."

"Hammond here." Erika visibly startled and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Reach out to the Commodore. Tell him he's got to authorize all alliance ships in this sector to converge on Andoria."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. Three to beam up."

Seconds later, they found themselves back on the immaculate, pristine bridge of the Maelstrom, covered in smoke and a thin sheen of sweat. Hoshi's hands were already flying across her console, and it took everything within him to avoid running to her and wrapping her in his arms.

"Is Commander Shran within communication range?"

She turned towards the dorsal display of her station, and when she nodded, he felt an ineffable surge of relief. Travis and Alira departed from his side, and as the metaphorical subspace telephone rang out overhead, he returned towards the Captain's chair and all but collapsed into it, fielding Julia's frantic questions.

Try as he might, he couldn't even begin to describe exactly what the hell had gone on over there. He was somewhat grateful to see a familiar blue face when it finally did appear, even though he knew he wasn't likely to believe him for a second.

"Pink skin! Why is it that whenever you're in trouble, I'm the first one your contact?"

He must have picked up that something was wrong by his thoroughly distressed expression, and for once, he had no witty comeback prepared. "Good to see you too, Shran. If you wouldn't mind-"

"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

"For what?" He glanced towards Julia, who raised her eyebrows and gestured toward the screen. Through the haze of his memory, he remembered. "Oh, that's right! Was it a…"

Trip trailed off, realizing he knew very little about Andorian pronouns, and didn't want to be unintentionally insensitive.

"A shen," he said, referring to one of their two female-approximate genders. "We've decided to call her Talla, after my mother."

Truth be told, Shran had been somewhat dismayed that they hadn't had a son, but the moment he'd met his daughter over crackling subspace and seen how happy Jhamel and the rest of their quad were, he was immediately smitten. Rather than vivid blue or a stark white, she'd come out slightly green, and she had quite a healthy set of lungs which he knew would produce a powerful battle cry one day. Any child of an Imperial Guard commander was sure to be a fearsome warrior, and he was determined to expedite the training process as much as possible, arranging to have Talla's first ushaan-tor sent directly to their home so that she could get used to the feel of the weapon in her tiny hands.

"That's great, Shran." Trip paused, inhaling deeply. "Though I'm afraid we've got bigger problems on our plate right now."

His antennae swiveled around and curled inward to face him, and Trip mentally prepared himself to drop the bombshell.

"In a few minutes, you'll receive orders from the Commodore to converge on Andoria. To make a long story short, several vessels from an alternate reality have emerged in ours. They've got the Xindi weapon with them and your homeworld in sight."

He scowled, and behind him, his Lieutenants began to move around, preparing to divert course. "Who?"

"The Denobulans," he admitted, cutting a glance at Alira, who wasn't even daring to look up.

"The Denobulans?!" He repeated, incredulous and furious, and struck his fist against the display in front of him causing the image to shake. "Do you really expect me to believe they came from another reality just to destroy Andoria? This will not stand!"

"It will stand because it's the truth. We heard it from Captain Hernandez and Captain Archer aboard the Columbia. They made it through the wormhole as well before it destabilized."

"Captain Tucker, do you take me for a fool? I cannot believe you'd conceive such an elaborate lie just to shift the blame off of these freaks!"

Over at the tactical station, Alira gripped the edge of her console and exhaled slowly, as though she was attempting to quell a boiling rage within her. Ethan quickly came to their rescue. "We'll be sending you some data. We've got visual sensors, quantum signatures, and enough astrometric readings to keep you busy for months. So, unless you want to believe us now…"

"And if I don't?"

"Then you can watch your homeworld get destroyed over subspace," Trip answered bluntly, staring him down. "It's your choice."

---

Minutes before returning to the Enterprise, Dita found herself waist deep in cables and conduits on the bridge of the Saraswati.

She'd been in charge of communications since she was a teenager; between lessons and socializing with the few other children on board, she started to go stir crazy, and so her father had set her down at a station at encouraged her to learn, claiming it was less risky than putting her in engineering or anywhere else.

She turned out to have a natural talent for languages. Six months in, she was having short conversations with their trading partners from all four corners of their route, from the Vulcan consulate on B'Saari to that mysterious Draylaxian businesswoman, who in retrospect was very clearly a drug kingpin of some kind. In the days before the widespread availability of the UT, she'd already been proficient in a dozen different languages, and by the age of sixteen, she was accompanying her parents on all business negotiations.

Her husband, Arvind, and his parents joined the crew shortly thereafter. They were transfers from the ECS Dublin, old friends of the family, and they hit it off right away. Try as she might, she couldn't get her mind off of him, let alone stay away from him for more than a day. One night he found her alone on the bridge and took her hand, informing her that if only she could wait a few years, he intended to make her his bride.

Their parents, of course, had been overjoyed. They'd married in one of the cargo bays when they were both twenty years old, painfully young but with the knowledge that this was right, that this was all they would ever need.

Then Starfleet came along.

Arvind commissioned first, and she'd accompanied him back to Earth, leaving behind anyone and everything she'd ever known. While he trained on Jupiter and Europa and in the Australian outback, she threw herself into higher education, eventually winding up in the xenolinguistics department at Cambridge. The transfer to the logistics desk at ECA headquarters in San Francisco was partly out of necessity, to be closer to him, to avoid taking a six-hour round trip in a shuttle several times a week, but also felt like a little bit of a homecoming.

She, like every single one of her former coworkers, had grown up a boomer, and they truly loved the lifestyle. Every J-class, every crew, every route was sacred to them, indicative of a tradition one hundred years old, one that needed to be honored and preserved at any cost. Dita knew she could have stayed there for years, and she would have.

If only the Enterprise hadn't commissioned around that time.

Everyone at Starfleet and ECA HQs were mesmerized, fascinated by tales of their missions and misadventures. Arvind immediately put his name on the list for a deep space assignment, and almost entirely on a whim, she'd reached out directly to Admiral Forrest, who recommended her for an accelerated training program that would get her on a ship as soon as possible.

Of course, she'd held onto hope that they would be assigned to the same vessel; at that point, they'd been married for over a decade, and though their relationship remained strong, she couldn't deny that she needed to be near him, that he was essential to her like air and water. Daily letters and twice yearly rendezvouses could only do so much.

Enterprise was a dream posting for her, and all of her friends from STC had been jealous. She'd been bursting with excitement and their adventures, though fraught with danger and treachery at every turn, certainly hadn't disappointed. The longer they were at war though, the more she thought about what was really important to her, her husband and family and crew, and realized she couldn't stand another year alone.

For some time, she'd planned to ask the Captain to request that Arvind be reassigned to Enterprise's engineering crew under Lieutenant Commander Hess. She didn't know why, but it seemed like an extraordinary request, and though she kept waiting for the right time, she was becoming more and more sure it wasn't going to come. Like most seemingly insurmountable challenges in her life, she just needed to be brave and charge on ahead.

It was easier said than done.

Her reverie was interrupted by someone kicking her boot on the opposite end of the bulkhead. With a sigh, she pushed off and slid out from under the console on her back, no doubt picking up a dozen dust bunnies along the way. Squinting into the lights, she discovered that the mysterious intruder was none other than her sister.

She accepted the outstretched hand and pulled herself up to standing, running her hands over her disheveled uniform. Even though the Saraswati was presently bustling with MACOs, polishing their weapons and preparing to fight, it felt oddly empty, as though its heart and soul were missing. She knew Neha felt it too.

"Any luck?"

"Not yet. You know how stubborn father is." Her weariness was evident in her face, the dullness in her eyes, her defeated and hunched over posture.

"Well, we had to get it from somewhere," she replied, and was rewarded with a small smile. "I've upgraded the long-range communications relay. You should be able to reach the Enterprise or the Phoenix for backup with no problem now."

Neha stepped forward, studying the console, then nodded curtly. "Whatever would we do without Starfleet ingenuity?"

"Probably continue on as normal," Dita replied, not missing the poorly constrained frustration in her tone for a second. To some level, she knew her sister resented her for leaving home before she ever had the chance to, effectively sealing her fate and ensuring the Saraswati would fall into her hands. Neha loved the boomer lifestyle just as much as she did, but she knew firsthand how important it was to feel that one had a certain element of control over one's life.

She felt a little guilty, but not guilty enough to remedy the situation in the way Neha wanted.

Their father interrupted their conversation, sweeping onto the bridge and coming to stand before the viewscreen. Outside, the great imposing hull of the Enterprise lay before them, solid and inscrutable, a veritable reminder of their smallness, of their insignificance, of their powerlessness to contribute meaningfully in any way to turn the tides of the war.

This was their one chance. She knew her father understood that.

"Are we nearly ready?"

He nodded, not looking back on them. "Mr. Reed and Captain Al-Shahrani have just arrived with those mobile transporter pads. Now, I'm not too sure about how safe they're going to be…"

"I've been through our transporter a hundred times, father. Those MACOs are going to be fine."

"All the same, I'm glad to not have to use it."

Behind him, Dita and Neha exchanged a knowing glance. Almost a full minute passed before one of them broke the silence. "Have you got your phase pistol?"

He tapped his waistband of his trousers and finally turned to them, crossing his arms confrontationally. "We're prepared."

"Listen, I've got complete confidence that Neha can handle things on the bridge. You don't need to be here. In fact, you really ought to be with mother on the Enterprise…"

"You're wrong, Nandita." He reprimanded her gently, then traversed the room to the communications console, leaning across it towards her. "I intend to be here to defend my ship and my family. I'm afraid this discussion is closed."

"Neha can handle herself." She looked towards her sister, silently asking for backup, but woefully didn't receive it.

"So now you are attacking my right to defend my daughter." He raised his eyebrows, and they nearly climbed into his hairline, a visible display of his incredulousness. "I must have misjudged you. Starfleet had made you reckless."

"Father-"

"He's right," Neha interrupted, and she whirled on her, immensely surprised to be receiving this dressing down from two sides. "You've got different priorities now."

"I'm sorry I've got an entire crew to worry about. If we fail, there's not going to be a Starfleet, or an ECS, or a San Francisco to go back to..." She felt a bubble of anger rising in her gut, and clenched her jaw in an ineffective attempt to push it back down. "We shouldn't be talking about this right now. This is about you and your decision to stay on board while they storm the T'Versa. I'm telling you, it's only going to end badly."

"If I'm not concerned about our family, nothing else matters. I'm worried about everyone's safety, including yours, Nandita. That ship of yours goes all over the quadrant picking fights with everyone they meet."

"You must have forgotten that it was my decision to stay aboard the Enterprise when we went to war. These people are counting on me." She inhaled slowly, clenching her fists into her sides. "I'm a part of something bigger."

"I know that," he assured her with an unbearable amount of sincerity. "This has had such a toll on everyone. I can see it in your face, in your eyes. Your letters are getting shorter, and Arvind says..."

"Don't bring my husband into this," she warned.

"He says you've been very upset, and disillusioned at times. This war could go on for years. I don't want you to throw away the plans you once had. You wanted to settle down, have children…"

"Plans change," she insisted, cutting a glance at her sister, who looked immensely stricken for a reason she had no time to probe into at the moment. "I assure you that I'm fine on the Enterprise. I've got a great support system, and some wonderful friends. Arvind will always be there, but if we don't go through with this mission, Earth might not be."

Her words, a stark reminder of what was really ultimately at stake, shocked them all into silence. Finally, Manish moved to close it, reaching over the table and taking both of his daughters by the hand.

"Do you know why your mother and I accepted this front lines contract?"

She'd assumed it was about money; they were both well past retirement age and had talked about returning home to New Delhi, buying a small home and tending a garden and catching up on their reading, something they hadn't had the opportunity to do in decades. It was mostly a pipe dream at this point; between daily operations and emergency expenses and splitting their profits between everyone on board, they never expected to have the funds to do it.

Neither responded. They didn't dare.

"Your mother's cancer is back."

Those words hit Dita like a punch to the gut, and she almost pulled away, using her free hand to cover her mouth. The I-class freighters of the fleet were old and falling apart, and the engines were known to have mutagenic effects, no matter how much their new crews attempted to shield them. It was said, even of the NX vessels, that for every year you spent around the warp core, you lost a month off your life. Truth to be told, she half expected a similar fate for herself, but always brushed aside that thought. Besides, there were new advances in medicine every day. Cancer was curable now. It was survivable.

That didn't mean it didn't nearly tear their family apart with worry the first time.

"Father, I'm sorry, I didn't know-"

"She's tired. She wants to rest, and this is the only way we can get enough money to settle our debts. It's only six months, or a year, but we've got to push through." The look in his eye was nothing short of devastating. He was a man who had spent years being in control of his domain, of juggling family and obligation and business, but now, he was faced with a completely different threat, one that he was powerless to tackle by himself.

"Pranav and I will take on the loan. We can find some other contracts." Neha hesitated, gripping his hand with all his strength. "We can handle this."

"I have no doubt that you'll be a great Captain one day, my dear. But for now, we've got to stick together. We've got to trust each other."

"We're doing everything we can," Dita promised. She knew that Malcolm and Mustafa knew the risks, knew what was at stake, and they would be doing their best to keep the Saraswati out of harm's way.

For her, it meant everything.

---

An hour before their journey to Surplus Depot Z20 commenced, Malcolm found Captain Al-Shahrani in the armory, putting the finishing touches on the mobile transport units for the Saraswati.

It was a little disconcerting to find him in his domain, but he looked perfectly comfortable, as if he belonged there all along. He'd come up through the armory after all, the first NX captain to do so, and his reputation certainly preceded him. Even his own brigade seemed to move nervously around him, surreptitiously, as though they expected to be reprimanded at any moment.

He scarcely looked up as he approached, though if the way he was scowling at the console he was working on was any indication, he definitely knew he was there. Finally, Malcolm cleared his throat, and he turned his attention to him, offering him the ghost of a genuine smile.

"You ought to be back on the Phoenix by now, sir. My people can finish this up." Across the room, he made eye contact with Crewman Bennett, who nodded furtively.

"I've spoken with your Commodore. I'll be accompanying your team on this mission." He paused, then reached into a nearby compartment, pulling out a handful of fiber optic cable. "Hand me that micro-resonator."

He obliged, then sank down to his haunches, attempting to look as casual as possible. "Is the pattern buffer still out of alignment?"

"By point-five-six microns. Serves us right for assigning a bunch of armory technicians to this. We ought to have brought some of the scientists down." His face was momentarily illuminated by the muted blue glow from the device, then he switched it off, shaking his head. "I thought we could depend on them, but then again, you never know who you can trust these days."

"I know that's true," Malcolm said, quietly enough so they wouldn't be heard. Mustafa's free hand tensed up over the railing, then he began to tap his fingers contemplatively, showing that he was working through his next move. He activated the display once again and maneuvered through several directories in silence, all the while feeling the Captain's eyes on him. Malcolm knew he was waiting for him to say something that just might be the least bit incriminating, but he was determined not to fall into that trap. "Looks like the phase discriminator isn't differentiated properly. At this rate, it won't be able to tell the difference between a bulkhead and one of our own."

Mustafa whistled, soft and low. "Good thing you're here."

"It's all about diagnosing the underlying problem," he replied nonchalantly, setting out to resolve the discrepancy. "You see, the issue manifests itself in the pattern buffer, but you can never really tell what's calling the shots unless you dig a little deeper."

He knew, just as well as he, that they were no longer talking about transporters. The console chirped happily, and Mustafa double checked the primary energizing coil with his tricorder. He nodded, and together the two of them stood, gathering two armfuls of the units and wordlessly heading towards the hatch.

Once they were in the hallway, Captain Al-Shahrani broke the silence. "Are you still happy to let Sergeant Pojar lead the charge into the forward section?"

"Sure," he lied, not for a moment imagining any scenario he'd prefer to have the Phoenix's MACO chief go ahead of their own Sergeant Cole. "As long as you let my men handle takedowns and captures."

"And what makes you think yours are more qualified?"

"A dozen of them are veterans of the Xindi conflict. They've been on the ground before, not just training and reading case studies." It was uncharacteristically insubordinate of him to say such a thing, but he meant every word of it.

Mustafa seemed amused by this. "If you say so, Mr. Reed."

As they rounded the final corner to the turbolift, they passed a crewman of the Saraswati on their way to guest quarters, his eyes trained on the deck plating with a duffle bag slung over their shoulder. Malcolm tried his best to offer him an encouraging smile, but he couldn't even begin to return it, his mind most likely a storm of trepidation over their upcoming mission.

He'd come across several dozen of Dita's relatives in the corridors that afternoon, aunts and uncles and cousins and family friends, and they had been mostly silent, all wearing indecipherable expressions. Malcolm had seen to it that they knew how to call security, and which places in their rooms would be most sturdy for bracing for impact during a firefight, and they'd been grateful, though ultimately they chose to mostly keep to themselves. All things considered, he couldn't blame them.

The doors closed behind them, and Mustafa swiftly turned to face him, pinning him down under his gaze around a mountain of mobile transporter units. Immediately, his breath caught in his throat, but he held his own, not daring to look away.

"You are playing a dangerous game," he whispered, his eyes flashing with admonition.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean."

"Perhaps you should ask your lady friend about it." Straight for the jugular, unusual for an operative of the Section. "And while you're at it, remind her that there is no way out."

"Who said we wanted a way out?"

The moment he said it, he knew he had made an irrevocable mistake.

We.

Mustafa wasn't going to let it slide.

"I can assure you that no temporary fascination is worth risking your career. Your reputation. Your life."

Malcolm decided that he didn't quite care for his implications, or his veiled threats. "I'll have you know that Agent Winston remains faithful to the Section as promised."

"Really? And what about Mr. Reed?"

"They are one and the same."

"Agent Long and I aren't so convinced." He was, as always, referring to Commander Zhang, who managed Harris' maneuvers in the field from her posting on Starbase 1.

"Are you sure you're not the only ones?" He'd seen him speaking to Ensign Pascal earlier, and though they'd had smiles plastered across their faces, their words had been indecipherably quiet, most likely coded with metaphor.

"I can promise you we are not, and I can also assure you that you don't want to know the kinds of things that happen to men of conscience in a universe that only seeks to tear them down."

"It must be some burden you carry, Agent Jaguar."

"You'd be right about that, because, you see, I have to prevent you principled individuals from bringing the entire operation down."

"I intend on following through with my vows, no matter the company I keep."

"I'm truly happy to hear it, but make no mistake." He paused, then leaned in closer. "When your ultimatum comes, you will be required to make a choice, and it will not be easy."

At long last, he understood. The Section was never threatening him. They were threatening the one and only person in his life he would move heaven and hell for.

Her.

He found himself thinking about bringing their COs into the loop, so that they might figure out a way out of this mess. At any rate, he was sure they would want to know about how deeply Starfleet's seedy covert ops underbelly had infiltrated their ranks.

Both the Captain and the Commodore knew of his dalliance with the Section, insofar as it related to Phlox's kidnapping during their ordeal with the Klingon augment virus. Archer had even encouraged him to seek Harris' help in the aftermath of Terra Prime, and he'd followed orders, only to be told he would only be given information if he agreed to work for them willingly again. He'd accepted, thinking that day would never come, but now with the war raging all around them, he knew his call to action was closer than ever.

He was sure they would be forgiving, knowing he had yet to betray anyone just yet, but with her, he wasn't so sure. The idea that he wasn't only looking out for himself was inescapable.

On cue, the comm went off, and he shifted so he could reach it, hitting the controls with his elbow.

"The Commodore wants to speak with you, Mr. Reed. He's en route to the starboard docking port as we speak."

"Thanks for the heads up, Ensign." Dita sounded more nervous than she usually did, and he could tell the prospect of this mission was weighing heavily on her.

She wasn't the only one.

The doors of the turbolift opened and they swept into the corridor, descending into a silence that was perhaps the farthest thing from companionable.

---

"Captain, the Mountaineer is asking what our plan is."

"Again?" Trip's head came up from the tactical console, and he locked eyes with Hoshi, shaking his head. "Tell them we're working on it."

"They'll get there in twenty minutes, sir. We've still got an hour, and the Denobulans-"

"I know, Lieutenant." He swiveled around in his seat, almost taking out Julia in the process. She stepped to the side, far into Alira's bubble of personal space, then slid out from behind the station altogether, all the while frantically scribbling away on her PADD, scrolling through page after page of equations and calculations. "How accurate is this going to be?"

"Quantum physics isn't an exact science, sir," Ethan called out, his face illuminated by the blue glow of the science station's dorsal display, his eyes swimming in the maps and schematics laid out there.

"It's a science, Novakovich. It's right there in the word," he replied tersely, and something in that struck his memory.

They'd managed, with some difficulty and the assistance of a dozen other science crewmen toiling away in the situation room, to predict the location of any quantum fissures in the Andorian sector using subspace harmonics. The reliability of their methods was far from certain; they were using the bare bones of a paper Lieutenant Cutler had laid out during their last encounter with this alternate timeline, and seeing as none of them were physicists by trade, their journey towards understanding had been rocky to say in the least.

Liz had apologized profusely that she wasn't able to work with them when she sent the documents over, but from what Trip understood, they were mere minutes from confronting a hybrid marauder at Surplus Depot Z20, so her absence was well and truly excused. He wanted to resolve this conflict with as little bloodshed as possible, to avoid altering the other timeline and their own, and to do so, decided they would need to force the invasion fleet back through a quantum fissure. As Ethan pointed out, they'd emerge out the other end into Andorian space far from the Expanse where they'd originated, but at least they'd be out of their hair.

At this point, he dearly hoped the fissure was close enough to the homeworld that they could repel the interlopers by themselves; six patrols and two Daedalus class supports were on their way, but the nearest NX, the Cochrane, would arrive over three hours after the Caileph or even the Columbia.

That was another issue; he had two patrols right on the tail of that vessel from the alternate universe, but the question still remained if they would try to escape. They hadn't yet, and Trip supposed they didn't have a choice - even if they knew how to get home, and he assumed they didn't, they would need a much faster ship to give them a boost to power through the gateway. In their universe, he understood that it had been the Phoenix; he was sure that Captain Al-Shahrani's counterpart in that other reality was very confused, and he didn't want to think about the kind of chaos their disappearance had wrought.

There was a sudden commotion from the back of the room, then Ensign Bhaduri rushed forward waving a PADD, almost tripping over the steps in the process. He quickly righted himself and slapped it down on top of the tactical station.

"How far?"

"Less than a million kilometers from Andoria. They've got to get there fast enough to fire on them and divert their path, anything to stop them from getting to that moon." Alira made eye contact with Hoshi. "Get the Mountaineer and the Seafarer on the comm."

Trip cut her a glance filled with consternation, and she shrank away from him somewhat, knowing full well that it wasn't her place to be giving anyone orders at the moment. They hadn't even talked about it, nor given credence to it in any way, the fact that this tour of revenge was most likely being helmed by her counterpart, a living manifestation to her own violent tendencies that she so often struggled to suppress.

He was sure she was doing enough agonizing over it for the both of them.

"What about the Ktarians?"

"Text-only reply. They're claiming they had no idea that the wormhole was unstable, and have absolved themselves of all guilt."

"Of course they have. Remind me to give them a piece of my mind." When they weren't racing against the clock to avoid certain destruction of an alliance world, that is. "Have we tried reaching the Infantry?"

"I wouldn't recommend it, sir," Alira said softly, and he turned to her, lowering his voice considerably.

"Ensign?"

"There's nothing you could tell them that would increase their chances of opening up to us." Her use of us wasn't lost on him, and he knew it was the truth. If anything, it would only increase their suspicion of the Vulcans and the Andorians and every other species in the alliance. "Besides, there's no way they could get here in time."

Tragically, she was right about that too.

"Get me the Undali. Tell Shran he and his fleet have got to cut them off at the pass if they make a break for Andoria." Hoshi nodded and began to transcribe the message; really, her hands hadn't stopped moving since they arrived on the bridge hours ago. "And for everyone else, they're free to use all necessary force to stop them and drive them into the fissure."

Her fingers froze, and they locked eyes. His expression was impassive, adamant, and when he saw she was seeking clarification, he was only too willing to provide it.

"Whatever they have to do."

He felt Alira's hand on his arm, tentative and hesitant, then looked down at her console, to the schematics of the original Xindi weapon they'd destroyed some three years ago. The power systems were circled with a thick red line, a relic of another time, another mission, another crisis.

She didn't need to say anything. He knew what she was thinking.

Contingencies.

"Get the MACOs ready."

She nodded and slipped out of her seat, making a beeline for the turbolift. Trip quickly slid into her chair and pulled up Archer's dictation of his experience in the weapon, of the inversion sequence Hoshi had nearly lost her sanity trying to decrypt.

He could only hope he would be a quick study.

---

Shran was the first one to lay eyes on the Xindi weapon, soaring into his own system in a gasp and shudder of their engines.

It was massive and imposing, a larger version of the prototype he'd almost stolen away from the Enterprise at the Xindi proving ground all those years ago. It had been a moment of weakness, and he'd almost gotten away with it, but in retrospect, he was immensely glad he hadn't.

Against his better judgment, he still felt beholden to these pink-skins, entirely loyal to them and bought into this fanciful idea of a Coalition, even though it had almost cost him his career.

Where his colleague Captain Namara was concerned, it had almost cost him his life.

The moment he saw the Caileph, he cursed, bringing his fist down upon the command station. He knew it was no longer under the control of the Commander Taxa he once knew, but the sight still brought back memories, of a rendezvous gone wrong, of a regrettable dalliance, of a dangerous game of cat and mouse that had continued for almost twenty years.

Her words had made it clear that she'd moved past it, but her actions certainly said otherwise. In spite of their situation, he wondered just how General Taxa had died in this other reality, and if he had even been involved at all.

"Commander, they've already activated the firing sequence." It was his Lieutenant, and she sounded frantic.

"Inform the Maelstrom and bring the forward cannons online." He stood, approaching the viewscreen, watching as the Denobulan convoy weaved and dodged ahead of them. "It's time to send our friends a message."

On the bridge of the Caileph, the senior staff keenly felt the impact of weapons fire in a hail of sparks and flames. Their CO was all but thrown out of her chair, but she recovered quickly, reaching for the control panel above her head and activating the aft visual sensors.

"Andorians," she seethed, coming out of her seat and rushing toward the tactical station. "Whose ship?"

"It's the Undali, ma'am." The Ensign behind the console was dizzy and bleary eyed, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead.

"Captain Namara?"

"Her biosign's not there." She pressed a series of buttons, cross referencing it with their database of Andorian operatives and conspirators. "The computer seems to think it's Commander Shran."

"That's not possible," Captain Taxa mumbled, clutching at her side. Her heart, which hadn't stopped racing since they'd managed to overpower the Xindi and take control of the weapon, was now threatening to pound out of her chest. He'd died years ago at Paan Mokar, a fitting punishment for what he'd done to her father. For months, she'd fantasized about doing the honor herself, disemboweling him or flaying him from top to bottom, but then again, she supposed he'd gotten his comeuppance in the end. But then again…

What was eighty more Andorian lives lost, when they were on their way to kill millions?

"Bring us about. Port and starboard severance beams to maximum power."

From the back of the room, a plaintive protest: "Ma'am, we haven't got the power to do both at once. Keeping the weapon in our warp field has put our EPS grid at a tremendous strain-"

"Did I ask for your excuses?" She whirled on him, her eyes burning with fury. "Make it happen, or I'll fire you out of the torpedo launchers instead!"

The moment the Caileph turned around, the weapon continued ahead on its own momentum under the watchful eye of the support vessels. Shran saw the opportunity, and he took it, smiling devilishly to himself.

A second later, their starboard engines completely exploded, incinerating every crewman working in the warp core chamber and setting off secondary detonations all over the ship.

Captain Taxa narrowly avoided striking her head on the nearest console by a fraction a centimeter, but stumbled to her feet, standing at an odd angle with the current tilt of the bridge. Something wasn't right, but at the moment, her thoughts were racing so fast her addled brain couldn't even begin to decipher it.

"They're aiming for the weapon."

"Bring us in closer and increase speed."

"The best I can give you is three-quarters impulse, ma'am."

"How long until Andoria?"

"Ten minutes on present course."

It would have to be enough. She turned to ask the ensign at the science station for a casualty report, but found her splayed out across the deck plating behind her console, her face burned beyond recognition. Biting back a curse, she decided to do it herself, sidestepping the fallen crewman and peering into the flickering controls.

---

By the time the Maelstrom arrived in the shadows of the Andorian homeworld four minutes later, the situation had turned dire. Three of their patrols had joined forces to keep the fissure open for as long as possible, but it was clear they were struggling. There were Daedalus class support ships fighting all over the place, clashing against the Denobulan marauders, who were much faster and more powerful than them even on a good day. The Caileph seemed adrift, lifeless, but a quick study confirmed that was very far from the case.

"Sixteen biosigns, very faint," Ethan called out, then gave the sphere a cursory scan. "And ten more on the weapon. It's moving a lot slower than it ought to be."

"I have a feeling we know who to thank for that." At that moment, the Undali soared overhead, venting atmosphere from several points along the hull, but seemingly in one piece. Julia nodded towards Hoshi, and she opened a channel.

Soon, Shran's voice filled the room. "You haven't got much time, Captain. We've beamed several incendiary devices aboard the weapon that triggered a few internal implosions. They're on board trying to fix it. I'm afraid we've only got…"

"Six minutes," Travis confirmed, his eyes traveling across the long-range sensors. "A dozen Andorian warships are closing from the surface."

"Tell them to hold off for five. We've got this." Trip cut a glance towards Alira, but she was already halfway towards the turbolift. He stood and gestured towards Julia. "Keep the big chair warm for me."

"I suppose there's no chance in trying to talk you out of this one?"

"None," he assured her, then dropped his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, hoping to convey his confidence and trust in her. "Bring us within a kilometer."

It was the final command he gave before they beamed into the peripheral framework of the weapon, surrounded on all sides by tall columns and green and blue and purple beacons, all blinking and blipping and creating a dizzying cacophony of light and sound. The reactor core spun around and around suspended in the air with a great open space underneath, and the noise was so deafening his ears almost immediately began to ring.

Alira lead the way down the metal catwalk in the company of a half dozen MACOs; there was no railing and a great chasm to either side of them, so they forged ahead, scarcely looking down until they felt the volley of weapons fire upon them.

Sergeant Kemper felt it first; a blaster burst brushed against his side and caused him to cry out, sinking to his knees and nearly falling from the platform altogether. One of his colleagues seized his tactical vest and pulled him forward, saving him from certain death by a fraction of a centimeter.

She was on top of him in an instant, crouching over him and giving him a chance to get up. More than once the beams made contact with the deck plating all around them, and to his surprise, seared right through the metal and kept going, farther and farther down until they very likely passed through the hull. He knew the Captain was behind him, but couldn't say for certain until he felt his hand grab a fistful of his collar, pulling him the rest of the way to his feet.

The soldiers above them were carrying some sort of round shield, which caused damn near every one of their blasts to disappear into the ceiling and out of sight. At long last, they were able to shoot down one of the snipers, and he tumbled forward over the railing, the fraught pitch in his scream not something he would soon forget. A second followed, and then a third, and soon they were coming around the edge of the control platform, towards the main console which had been blocked off from view by the reactor spinning overhead.

Sidestepping and turning to one side to avoid a burst of weapons fire, Alira looked down to ensure she wasn't about to trip over the edge of the dais; when she glanced back up, she realized she was face to face with an entirely different enemy than she'd anticipated.

Herself.

She was wearing her old Infantry uniform, the gray trousers and jacket studded with medals, her hair tied back tightly at the nape of her neck. Her entire front seemed to be covered in blood, and though she wasn't sure if it was her own, the shocked look in her eye certainly couldn't be mistaken for anything else.

There was something else there-burning rage, or perhaps a deep profound sadness-she couldn't tell, but it shook her to her very core. Rather than looking in a mirror, it was as if she was looking within herself, to the person she once was and didn't much care to be again.

She had little time to agonize over her discovery any further; the Captain was only a few meters away, and he needed to be able to duck underneath the platform and engage the inversion sequence. Without pause, she surged forward and attacked herself, punching and kicking and attempting to wrestle her opponent to the ground.

Trip and Kemper breezed past her and fell to their knees, crawling into the narrow space between the reactor and the connection to the power source. He didn't take much stock in what was going on above them, but something within him stirred, especially when he heard two identical voices answering in kind.

"You can't do this! These people are innocent!"

"They killed us! Twenty million of us, I can't-"

"You're in an alternate reality. The Andorians didn't do any of that here. If you want to fight this grudge match, you need to go back to your own timeline!"

"Call me crazy, but I don't think that's an option anymore!" The bulkhead above them shook, and he realized one of them had just been thrown against it, hard enough to leave the metal warped.

"Third one from the left," Kemper called out, and Trip suddenly remembered himself, reaching for the blue power cells above him and inverting the first one in the sequence. It turned red, casting an eerie glow over the crawlspace.

"And what happens if you do succeed? Where will you go?"

"Home, where we've always belonged!"

"Do you think they'd accept you there?" Someone suddenly screamed, and he wasn't sure who it was, but it set every hair on the back of his neck on end. "We're not so aggressive here, we don't have any reason to be, we…"

"A mistake!" One of them shouted, clawing and scraping her way across the catwalk. Trip received his instructions and quickly twisted the second rod from the right around until he heard a distinctive click. "We've got to fight for our own."

"I'm sure that's what you told yourself when you destroyed the Enterprise when they chased after you into the Expanse. Tell me, did it feel good to incinerate them knowing he was aboard?"

"He was a toy, just a plaything. Nothing more!"

"Oh, I think we both know that's not true!" The weapons fire above them continued, and Kemper suddenly dodged to one side, missing a wayward beam by only centimeters. He knew they were scrambling for control, and at that point, he couldn't tell exactly who was winning. Something heavy struck the floor repeatedly, and he realized someone was very near to getting their skull shattered.

"What kind of operative are you? You're out there allying yourself with the man who killed our father!" Her voice sounded garbled, as though she was trying to speak around a mouthful of blood.

"You see, that's the difference between you and me. I'm making peace with all of this. I realize that no matter how many missions I complete or debts I settle, it's all for nothing. You don't understand. They're never coming back!"

This seemed to thoroughly enrage her opponent, and his ears were soon full of screeching, sharp and discordant. By the time he managed to invert the final power coupling, his hands were fumbling with the charges, and he had to accept Kemper's proffered hand to pull himself out of the compartment.

The weapons fire had stopped, and in the distance he could see one of the MACOs being held upright by two of their colleagues, unconscious and bleeding profusely. Kemper gave them the signal and they began to stumble back towards the beam out point on the outer framework.

Trip knew they only had seconds to follow them before the Andorian warships opened fire on the weapon, so he was somewhat haphazard with his placement of the charges, the detonator weighing heavily in his pocket. He could hear their MACO chief trying and failing to pry the two women off each other; eventually he made his way all the way around the reactor and called out to her, causing her to falter momentarily.

It was all the time Captain Taxa needed to locate a small, serrated knife on her person and twist it into her opponent's abdomen. The squishing noises and the resulting rush of blood were truly horrifying, and he almost lost his composure right then and there.

Kemper grabbed Alira's shoulders and pulled her backwards, all but throwing her to the floor. Her eyes were wide, her expression seemingly frozen in shock, but she complied, rolling over to her knees and holding her side with force. For her counterpart, he saw very few options, so he went for the most simple, leveling his phase rifle and emptying a round into her chest.

The second it entered through the fabric of her uniform, she seemed to shift and shimmer before vanishing entirely in a transporter beam. He cursed loudly and helped Alira up, then the two of them were stumbling back out of the control platform, threatening to leave him behind in a storm of explosions and hellfire.

Trip punched the detonator, then took off running with all of his remaining strength. He also reached for his communicator, but was only able to fumble it halfway open. Desperately, he hoped that Julia would receive the message.

"Taxa, what did she mean by Shran killing your father?" He knew it wasn't the time or place to ask, but he felt that he needed to know, regardless of her present condition.

She met his gaze, wide-eyed and terrified, then pitched forward, almost tumbling off the side of the catwalk. Kemper wrapped an arm around her waist this time and lifted her off her feet as they burst into the hallway, then they were sprinting as a cascade of explosions began all around them, temporarily blinding them and nearly igniting their souls into oblivion.

---

The Saraswati breezed into the surplus depot at a cool two hundred kilometers per hour, with all systems turned off except life support and sensors.

Malcolm had to admit it was a little unsettling to travel through open space without the normal background ambient noise of the ship; it felt like he was in an isolation chamber, completely cut off from the rest of the universe, with only his thoughts to keep him company.

He was, of course, not alone; MACOs filled the corridors, checking their weapons and calibrating their portable transporters and shaking out their limbs in a bid to stay agile. Sergeant Cole followed him for a while to conduct a last minute review of their contingency plans, but she was, as always, immaculately prepared. There were about a hundred different things that could go wrong, and in the days leading up to the mission, he'd seen to it that they anticipated every single one.

On the bridge, Manish and Neha stood in absolute silence, watching the series of old, dilapidated vessels drift past them in rows. If the latest update from their patrols was to be believed, the Romulans were on their way in another stolen vessel. If they were to get their bait ship out of the depot undetected, they would need to board and modify the appropriate systems, laying themselves vulnerable to an invasion force while their backs were turned.

This was when they would strike.

Worst case scenario, they would escape with their lives and deter the hybrids from stealing any other Vulcan ships.

Best case scenario, they'd take prisoners, maybe even a few disruptor banks and a cloaking device.

He suspected they would wind up somewhere in the middle.

Captain Al-Shahrani was nowhere to be found at that moment, and for that he was grateful. It seemed that he could never really escape his scrutiny, especially now that the events on that Xantoras patrol were common knowledge to Harris's inner circle. It felt like the eyes of the universe were upon him, watching his every move, and he felt the desperate urge to escape it, to immerse himself in the mission as he once did.

He watched as Manish guided them into their assigned lot, then the overhead lights went off, followed shortly by the emergency beacons activating along the floor. For one long moment, no one spoke. No one breathed.

"Are we sure we're in the right place?"

Neha's voice took him by surprise, and he was momentarily rattled. The T'Versa lay off their port bow, placed there by keen agents of the Ministry of Security, and looked for all intents and purposes as abandoned as they did. According to his chronometer, the Romulans were supposed to have arrived fifteen minutes ago, and yet there was no trace of them, no chroniton radiation signatures or warp trails or anything of the sort.

It was all very curious.

"They're going to need to uncloak to bring their people over," he reminded her. "I promise you, we won't be able to miss them."

Neha didn't look convinced. An hour passed, then two, then finally he had to answer a communique from the Commodore, assuring them that everything was perfectly fine and going according to plan. As far as he knew, that is.

When the hybrid marauder did appear, it manifested itself as a blip on their sensors. He had to look twice, but when he finally did, he picked up on the distinctive shape of the hull and reverberations from their engines, something that had been passed down from Kandar's readings that he'd bothered to commit to memory.

"No transponder signal and no subspace marker. Seems like they don't want to be identified." Through the nearest viewport, he glanced out the window towards where they'd picked up these strange readings, but found nothing.

"Twenty-six biosigns aboard the T'Versa," Manish reported, peering into the operations console.

"That's our cue. Remember our signal; if you receive it, call for the Enterprise and the Phoenix at once. No heroics, just hold the line." He took one step towards the hatch, then glanced back at them, his expression resolute. "I know you've got plasma cannons. I don't want to see you using them. If that Romulan vessel detects you, they're going to blow you out of the water."

"You have nothing to worry about, Mr. Reed," Neha assured him, then turned back to her instruments, though he could easily see the storm of worry raging in her mind.

Exiting the bridge, he ran headlong into Captain Al-Shahrani, who immediately passed a PADD into his hands. "Just in case you've forgotten the plan. My men go forward to handle the weapons array, and-"

"Mine go aft for the cloak," he finished, handing it back to him without looking at it. "It's perfectly clear."

"Is it?" They were sweeping back into the corridor where the MACOs were lining up, chattering nervously to themselves, bouncing from foot to foot. He felt a little out of place in what was clearly a very residential area of the Saraswati; the walls were covered with family photos, and a few personal affects remained scattered about, including a discarded paperback book, a blanket, and a child's teddy bear, most likely left behind in their haste to vacate ahead of this mission.

The very sight of it chilled him to the bone.

"Of course," he replied automatically, taking his post on top of the platform. He could feel Cole and Hamboyan pushing for a spot next to him, and he complied, nodding curtly towards his counterpart across the way.

They beamed into a nondescript corridor on the T'Versa and immediately took up defensive positions along the wall. The overhead lights had been dimmed for long term storage, but by and large, the ship seemed to be in one piece. The bulkheads, repeating every few meters along the wall, were sharp and angular, and a long grate ran the length of floor, giving way to the deck below. He realized it quite reminded him of the Seleya, minus the debris cluttering the hall and zombie Vulcans trying to murder them at every turn.

His tricorder came out, and he turned this way and that, before motioning for them to follow him. A moment later, he heard another trio of MACOs board the vessel, followed by a third and a fourth. Soon the lot of them were tracking down the corridor, stopping at every junction and attempting to make as little noise as possible.

The cloaking device would have naturally been installed next to the auxiliary power junction in engineering that handled hull plating. He noted with satisfaction that the hybrid soldiers seemed to be exactly where he thought they'd be, and said a silent prayer to no one in particular that they remain there for the time being.

As they grew closer to the engine room, he felt Amanda lay a hand on his arm. He paused, and Hamboyan almost ran headlong into him, stopping at the last moment. The MACOs behind them skidded to a halt, and she pressed her finger to her lips, before pointing up ahead of them.

He heard it too. Footsteps.

The safety came off his phase rifle and they began to creep forward in a single file line. The sound grew closer, soft and discordant, before speeding up inexplicably, until a hybrid came around the corner and they had a firefight on their hands.

He wore some kind of mask over his face, like a balaclava with no eye holes, and the sight was so unsettling that he momentarily felt his gut clench with fear. The soldier was dressed in a very Vulcan-like coat with unusually strong shoulders cut at square angles. At first it was just him, then a trio of them appeared in a line, and they were soon doused in a barrage of disruptor fire, green beams whizzing past their heads and kicking up sparks on the bulkheads. For more than a minute, it looked hopeless, then he felt around on this belt for the device he knew was there.

After Xantoras, he'd resolved to always bring one on away missions with him. Now, he could see it was paying off in spades.

The pin came out of the stun grenade and he threw it as hard as he could, watching as it ricocheted around the corner of the hallway and flew towards the enemy. This time, there was considerable distance between him and the detonation, but the flash still blinded him.

The bombardment stopped.

Amanda surged forward, squinting into the darkness, then motioned for him. He joined her, then nodded satisfactorily, calling back out to the team: "Take their weapons. Moreno, stay with them!"

Engineering was only a few hundred meters away, but the door was shut and locked tight. He didn't want to think about how many marauders were waiting for them on the other side of that door, but pushed his reservations aside, firing at the locking mechanism in the wall and whipping around the corner the second the hatch opened.

Sergeant Cole was next, then O'Malley and Hamboyan, then they were fighting their way out of a disadvantageous position, dodging fire from above and below.

Malcolm ducked behind what appeared to be the diagnostic junction of an EPS relay, peering out over the railing onto the lower deck of the engine room. He could see a few of them now busily working at a gap in the wall, wiring and instruments spread out all around them. A strange glowing orb-like device lay at their feet, and without even receiving confirmation, he knew it was exactly what they were looking for.

He shouted for Amanda, and she broke out from her defensive position to follow him, surging over the deck plating towards the staircase. The eyes of the hybrids pursued him, and soon all weapons fire was focused on them, even as the rest of the brigade fought to draw their attention.

He led the way, swinging one leg over the railing and sliding all the way down to the floor, walking directly towards the enemy and almost definitively towards certain death. One of them fell, then another, until a third soldier broke free and dashed towards the sensor relay on the wall.

Even before he reached it, he knew what was coming. If he could have reached his communicator, he could have warned them, but he knew he couldn't stop firing for even a moment.

The energy pulse rocked the hull of the Saraswati a second later, causing the dilithium matrix in their engines to emit a reflexive surge that lit them up like a firework on the Romulans' sensors. Neha knew it too, and before she could stop herself, she leaned into the wall, clutching her chest and fighting a wave of terror that threatened to bring her to her knees.

Manish reached for her, but she keened away, locating her phase pistol stashed atop a nearby shelf and clipping it to her waistband. When she whirled on him, her eyes were so wide with a knowledge of what was about to happen that it plainly terrified him.

"Let the Enterprise and the Phoenix know they need to get here as soon as possible. We're about to have company."

---

Over at the forward section of the ship, Mustafa's brigade wasn't having a lot of luck. They'd only managed to procure a handful of disruptor rifles, but none of the main weapons relays, a piece of technology he so desperately wanted to gain an upper hand against the enemy. Truth be told, his original plans for their mission had been entirely subverted and he dearly wanted to see it through, but at the moment, he couldn't even find a second to breathe, let alone think.

Once they made it into the armory, the Phoenix's MACO detachment had been pinned down under a barrage from all sides. It seemed that they'd been waiting for them, and he supposed he really should have been expecting it, but at the moment, all he could focus on was getting out of there alive.

The hull rumbled above them, indicative of nearby weapons fire. He dearly hoped it was a warning shot, that they weren't about to be caught in the crossfire of a battle between the inbound Romulan marauder and their own two ships, but one thing was certain.

If Mr. Reed had already called for backup, they were in trouble.

His own ears were disbelieving of his order to fall back, but once he turned to run, there was no reneging on it. The MACO brigade followed him and soon they were running faster and faster until the bulkheads blurred around them and their salvation only became that much closer.

Back in the engine room, Malcolm was struggling to lift the strange glowing orb that he assumed to be a cloaking device of some kind. It was smooth and warm to the touch, but felt like a ten ton weight under his arm. Amanda joined him, and together they hoisted it until he could wrap his arms around it, squeezing tightly in a bid not to drop it and shatter every bone in his feet.

Their fellow MACOs were laying down fire towards the hybrid soldiers on the upper level; fallen troops lay all around them, their arms splayed out, weapons scattered around over the deck plating. He made eye contact with her, and she understood, gathering a handful of pistols and thundering back up the stairs.

It was somewhat of a struggle to reach his communicator, but he finally managed, ordering the lone MACO who had stayed behind to initiate a transport for one. The moment he was back on the Saraswati, he set the giant orb down on the floor and rolled it to one side, then whipped out his phase pistol and dashed down the corridor.

The moment the enemy vessel detected biosigns, he knew exactly what they would do. At the moment, he was agonizing over the fact that his dear friend's elderly father and pregnant sister were most likely trapped on the bridge of a cargo ship with little defenses to speak of, under the rapidly encroaching threat of an enemy hellbent on extinguishing them both.

The hallways were silent, almost eerily so, and he instinctively paused every few steps to listen. When he heard nothing multiple times in a row, he quickened the pace, right up until his communicator beeped and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Reed here."

"This is the Enterprise. Are you in any need of assistance?" Not for the first time, he was immensely grateful to hear T'Pol's voice.

"That would be an understatement, ma'am," he whispered, flattening himself against a bulkhead. "There's three Romulan biosigns aboard the Saraswati, and they're having a hell of a time over on the T'Versa. Tell the backup team from the armory that they have my orders to mobilize."

"Acknowledged," she said impassively. "We will keep the enemy ship out in open space. The Phoenix is coming around for emergency transport of the MACOs."

He nodded, wanting to protest, but graciously deciding to bite his tongue. The connection ended, and he progressed further and further until he at last reached a major T junction in the corridor, spanning the shift from port to starboard. He stopped about a half meter short, heeding the alarm bells going off in his mind, and held his breath for what seemed like an eternity.

The hybrids reacted more quickly; two of them whirled around the corner, sans weapons, and laid their hands on him, immediately throwing him into the wall. The impact was sharp and painful, and his phase pistol went flying from his hands, clattering loudly to the floor.

Malcolm attempted to break free, thrashing and punching and kicking, but soon remembered that each Vulcan was three times as strong as any human. Two of them was surely impossible, and he felt one of their hands around his neck, squeezing tightly, threatening to cut off all air from his lungs.

It wasn't the first time his life had flashed before his eyes, and definitely not the first time it had taken place at the hands of a hybrid soldier. He saw himself as a child, meek and anxious, then as a wayward youth and a duty-oriented adult, before melting in his time with the Section and on Enterprise, making connections and forging friendships that endured even in the worst of circumstances. And then he saw her, like a warm breeze or a comforting embrace, and he knew it was all over, that his limbs were growing weak and his vision was blurry and the faces of his murderers were warping before his eyes. He only had moments left to live, and with his final burst of strength, silently willed the universe a chance for them to get out of this.

A chance for him to survive the war.

In the distance, someone was shouting, loud and insistent. They released him, and he fell to the ground on his knees, gasping and clutching his throat. The haze around his senses cleared steeply, and he turned his head long enough to see Neha throw something at one of the three rapidly approaching marauders, before turning and running around the corner.

His legs were shaking, but he stumbled to his feet, his thundering heartbeat punctuating his footsteps as he dashed after them. A horrified something-or-other escaped his lips, but he was sure they didn't hear him, and soon they were all rushing towards her as she stood before a dead end of the corridor.

They were growing closer and closer, and he managed to land two blasts of the stun setting into their backs, which didn't seem to hinder them. Swallowing his trepidation, he switched to kill and leveled his weapon again, feeling that he was so close to Neha now that he could reach out and touch her.

At the moment before they reached her, a bulkhead slammed shut in front of her. They skidded to a halt, as did Malcolm, then they turned on their heels and took one step towards him, only to be cut off from another hatch closing in the opposite direction. They were shouting, thrashing against the walls, firing into the locking mechanism and the metal seams of the barrier. Finally, there was a deafening sizzle of electricity, followed by several unbearably loud screams. It went on for what seemed like ages, until their cries softened and were extinguished altogether.

The walls separating them came apart, and he was soon treated to the side of a very terrified looking Neha, clutching her chest in a bid to catch her breath. Her father stood to one side holding a worn hyperspanner, a panel housing what he suspected to be the interlock of the EPS conduit wide open, fiber optic cabling extended out all around.

Between them, three hybrid soldiers lay either dead or very close to death, their hands blackened from the plasma discharge, still twitching intermittently as the electricity searched for ground. He looked at them, then looked at his companions, then exhaled raggedly, understanding what had transpired and for the moment being perfectly fine with it regardless of the horrible scene before them.

Thank God for boomer ingenuity.

The hull around them bucked and shook, and he gestured towards them, reaching out to Neha and helping her across the gap. She accepted his outstretched arms somewhat tentatively, then wholly committed to it, and he realized that she was shaking like a leaf in the wind.

"Are you okay?" His question was whisper-soft, almost imperceptible, but she shook her head with certainty and broke away from him, dashing towards the bridge.

Manish followed her, and once he was sure they were out of earshot, he fired another round into the fallen soldiers, just to make sure they were dead, then went to join them, their final cries still rattling around in his brain.

He arrived just in time to see the Enterprise rocket over the T'Versa's bow on their way towards an uncloaked Romulan vessel, pummeling them with everything they had. Crewman Bennett was certainly taking no quarter; a moment later, he saw no less than four photonic torpedoes leave their launch tubes and hit their mark, shattering the nacelle ring and venting drive plasma into open space.

Captain Al-Shahrani burst in at the moment the Phoenix inexplicably followed suit, firing on them with phase cannons. He hid it well behind a grimace, but he could see his eyes flashing, could feel his fists opening and closing at his side, enough to know that this was very much not a part of the plan. He was powerless to stop it, because the hybrid vessel's hull instantly ruptured, splitting decisively and scattering debris across a thousand kilometers.

There was a weighty, impenetrable pause, then Neha turned to him, eyes wide. He knew they were thinking the same thing.

"That shouldn't have been enough to destroy them," she mumbled, burying her face into her hands and sighing wearily.

"Do you think they meant to destroy their own ship to prevent it from falling into enemy hands? There were hundreds of biosigns aboard!"

Something about that remark set off an alarm in his head, but he shoved it to the side.

"Undoubtedly, Mr. Sharma," he replied evenly, then turned to retreat into the corridor for a headcount.

---

Following the detonation of the weapon, the away team returned to the Maelstrom, a little bruised and bloody but no worse for wear.

Alira seemed stunned into silence, a state which was quite unusual for her. She told him she could make it on her own, but he insisted, and swept her off her feet for their brief trek to sickbay, careful not to bang her feet against the bulkheads. All the while she was breathing rapidly and shallowly; he asked her just how many times she'd been stabbed to grow so desensitized to it, and she replied that he didn't want to know.

They maneuvered past sparking panels and repair teams and burst into sickbay into a flurry of activity. Yuris and his medics were bustling between biobeds, and they were surrounded by ailing crewmen on all sides, lurching and crying out and clutching their wounds and attempting to remain conscious.

All things considered, Alira was doing quite well. He let her down to the floor and allowed Yuris to give her a cursory scan with his medical tricorder. After a brief pause, he shook his head and informed her that she'd missed her old wound from Rigel V by a fraction of a centimeter. She reminded him that at least she hadn't been impaled through this time, and he acquiesced, guiding her behind one of the curtains.

Now alone at the front of the room, Trip sighed and leaned into the wall, the weight of everything they'd done pressing down on him in that moment. He knew he needed to get back to the bridge, to check in with the fleet and field questions from the Imperial Council, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw exploding vessels and glowing relays and fallen soldiers all around. The last time they left that alternate universe, he thought they were free of that particular brand of hell, but now he'd been dragged all the way through it and back again, emerging out the other side a changed man.

He needed a moment to process it all, to compartmentalize and understand all he felt and more. He needed to check up on his ship, to make sure everyone was alright.

He needed to find Hoshi and hold her tightly in his arms while he still could.

The hatch opened behind him, and he turned around just in time to behold Erika and Jon's counterparts entering sickbay surrounded by a circle of MACOs. They appeared just as fatigued as he did, with an added element of concern, as though they couldn't rest until the moment they were home again.

Erika looked like she wanted to protest, to say that an armed escort wasn't necessary, but set her apprehension aside. She felt the need to thank him, this facsimile of a dead man, for doing away with their nemesis, for averting disaster not just in his universe, but their own.

What he was about to say was going to change all of that.

"You should know that Captain Taxa was shot in the chest, but got beamed away at the last second."

"We saw," Jon said gravely. "One of their ships got through the quantum fissure. She might still be alive, but as for now…"

"She poses no threat to us. Once the Supreme Council hears about her trail of destruction through two timelines, I doubt she'll keep her command." Erika seemed satisfied with that, and he couldn't blame her.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Return home while we still can and hope the Xindi and the Andorians are amenable to peace negotiations." The look in Jon's eye told him that he wasn't convinced they would be.

He nodded slowly, entirely unsure how to proceed, of how to converse naturally with two representatives from a special kind of purgatory. At that moment, Alira shuffled out from behind the curtain clutching a sterile bandage to her wound, leaning heavily on the shoulder of a field medic and accepting his help to hoist herself onto the biobed. The moment she disappeared into the imaging chamber, Trip felt Erika's hand on his arm, and turned to behold her fraught expression.

"That woman's dangerous, Trip. She's violent and duplicitous…"

"I know," he admitted, remembering all the atrocities he'd read about in her file, the classified documents concerning her time in Infantry Special Ops. There was also the fact that in the alternate universe, Shran had apparently killed her father; he dearly hoped it was something exclusive to that other timeline, because if it were true to his tactical officer, he couldn't imagine why she wouldn't mention it unless she had something to hide. As far as he knew, she was fighting against herself at a fundamental level in an effort to change all that, running from the past at every turn. "The Alira I know isn't the same one you do."

"It doesn't matter. You can't change who you are deep down. She was more than willing to kill all of us to seek revenge. However you proceed, I want you to remember that."

He nodded, dipping his head and training his gaze at the deck plating. Jon was shifting uncomfortably as well, and his next question shook him to the core.

"You're at war here too, aren't you?"

Trip hadn't wanted to give them any additional details about their universe, but it seemed that he had no choice. "We are, for a while now."

"Take some advice from people who've been fighting for their lives for four years." Jon took a step closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. It felt familiar, yet slightly out of place, as though he was reaching for him through the barrier of space and time. "Listen to your head, but don't discount what your heart's telling you. You can't win without holding on to what makes you human."

It was an unconscious repetition of what he'd told T'Pol after her ordeal aboard the Seleya in their own universe, when she'd practically begged him to leave her on the next habitable planet so they could shield the Enterprise against the continuously shifting environment of the Expanse. Trip had no way of knowing this, but he took the words to heart, and before he could stop himself, he drew his friend into a tight hug and squeezed with all his might.

Jon reciprocated the gesture, knowing full well this was the chance to say goodbye that he'd missed. He, Liz, and Hoshi had been en route to negotiate aboard the Caileph during battle when their tenuous peace had suddenly shattered, and he'd watched from the viewport of Shuttlepod One as Enterprise was fractured irrevocably into space. It was as though he couldn't sleep, couldn't rest, couldn't breathe.

The deaths of dozens of humans were on his conscience, and he couldn't even begin to forget about them, let alone T'Pol, whose memory had lingered in his mind for the past five years. After the incident, he and Erika had attempted to seek comfort in one another, but he could never follow through with it, because he could never forget the company and counsel of a single Vulcan, one who persisted in haunting his dreams even though she was long gone.

It all amounted to a sense of overwhelming guilt that threatened to consume him. He had no idea what awaited him back home, but for now it was enough to be in the company of a treasured friend, who had been taken way before his time and left him adrift in an ocean of his own regret.

When at last they separated, Jon treated him to a rueful smile, then glanced around the room, to the crewmen resting on the floors and against the walls. "Take care of these people, Trip. Lead them well."

"I'll try," he assured him. "I learned from the best."

One of the MACOs said something in Erika's ear, and she nodded, knowing that their window of opportunity was closing. Though a part of her wanted to stay in this reality where their prospects of surviving seemed so much higher, she knew it was neither her right nor her privilege to do so. And so she settled for taking her companion's arm and leading him back towards the hatch, hesitating only for a moment at Trip's parting words.

"Godspeed, Columbia."

---

The sweep of the T'Versa took a lot less time than any of them expected.

Their hybrid interlopers had been careful not to leave any evidence behind; even the downed soldiers had been beamed away, most likely back to their host vessel, where they were immediate and summarily incinerated. Lieutenant Commander Hess managed to isolate the mainframe subroutines they'd been using to integrate the cloak into the hull, and the Captain had provided a passable translation of the looping Vulcan script.

The device itself had been another issue entirely - as far as he could tell, it was impervious to scans and required some complex biometric key or passcode to access/ He'd immediately passed it off to the communications department for decryption, knowing full well they were due for another challenge now that Kandar's computer core was far behind them.

A veritable mountain of Romulan disruptors had been captured during the attack, but none of the larger models suited for starships were acquired, something Malcolm found very disappointing indeed. It became clear to him that Mustafa had chosen to lead the mission with ulterior motives; what they might be, he had no idea, but all the same, it was very unusual for the man not to follow through with anything.

The only hostages they managed to capture were the three soldiers collected from the Saraswati. They were burned beyond recognition, but Phlox had still insisted on performing an autopsy, to keep their bodies from falling into hands of the Phoenix more than anything. The net of the hybrid plot was still relatively small, though he was becoming more and more sure that was all about to change.

After a full night of scanning and searching and investigating, he stumbled into the mess hall and poured himself a coffee. It was just past the start of alpha shift, and he'd been expeditiously thrown off the bridge the second he arrived, not having put much thought into his disheveled appearance or the fact that he'd been on duty for more than twenty-four hours at that point. The Captain insisted, or rather demanded, that he get some rest, and though he inwardly despaired at the thought, he maintained his normal stony exterior and took his leave of them.

He found Dita standing by the window, looking every bit as exhausted as he did. She offered him a weary smile, then extended her tea cup to him, and he obliged, clinking his mug against it. She kept looking around, silently deliberating, and when she finally spoke he understood why.

"You know, every time I think I'm desensitized to this job, the war just throws something else at us." She was more referring to her parents' decision to trade profits over safety, something she knew she was going to lose sleep over, and yet was entirely powerless to change for the moment.

This time, he couldn't help but chuckle ruefully. "I'm almost ten years into the service. Let me tell you, it doesn't get any easier."

She crossed her arms and smiled, feigning offense. "I just think it's funny that you were the first person my sister told about the baby."

"Oh!" He turned to her, eyes wide, and shook his head. "Ensign, I'm sorry, I didn't know it was going to be an issue. She said she felt comfortable around me, and-"

"I know, and when you had a moment to keep rooting around that Vulcan ship or come to my family's aide, you chose us." She sobered up suddenly, precipitously. "I can't begin to tell you how thankful I am."

"I'm happy to. I understand how important family is." He frowned slightly, realizing how ridiculous that must have sounded coming out of his mouth. The only members of his he cared to talk to were his sister and his spinster aunts; the last time he spoke to his parents face-to-face, he'd still been an Ensign. But his reasons were rooted in childhood trauma, of a pattern of mutual distrust and incivility he didn't care to dwell on too often.

"Honestly, I'm still thinking about how to repay you." She seemed amused now, and he was more than willing to take the bait.

"You could name the baby after me." He snapped the fingers on his free hand. "Or make me an honorary member of the crew."

"How about dinner?" He started to sputter and protest, so she pushed on. "My parents are two of the best cooks this quadrant's ever seen. Do you have plans?"

"I-"

"Tonight, 1900 hours. I'm afraid I must insist." She smiled, and he quickly returned it, not wanting to impose but thinking better than to refuse her hospitality.

Behind them, the hatch opened, issuing Captain Al-Shahrani. He looked mildly out of place, but turned and made a beeline for the back of the room, towards one of the few tables that was occupied at this time of the morning. They both watched him walk away in the reflection of the window, then she leaned into him, dropping her voice to a whisper. "Neha was telling me she doesn't trust him."

He met her gaze, trying his best to keep his expression neutral. "Why does she say that?"

"He was skulking around the Saraswati during inspection like he was looking for something. His team didn't find anything, but afterwards mother discovered we had three whole cargo containers missing. Either the Romulans took it, or…"

"What was in those crates?"

"They don't know. It was sealed and shielded from scans upon pickup, bound for somewhere in the Tarod system."

Instantly, a cold breeze seemed to come out of nowhere and rush down his spine, setting every nerve ending in his body alight. He didn't want to think that his friend's family was unknowingly running contraband for some Section plot, but he was looking at some pretty substantial evidence otherwise. Malcolm didn't want to give too much away, so he settled for a very noncommittal: "You're right, that is pretty strange."

"I'm sure it's nothing." She sounded hopeful. "Anyway, I thought you should know that I took another crack at my sister. She says that the service isn't for her, whether you can get her into that accelerated tactical program or not, and that she'd take running cargo any day over what we do."

"With what she experienced yesterday, I'm not sure I blame her." Over his shoulder, he was still tracking Pascal and Al-Shahrani's conversation with interest.

"Anyway, I was talking to Phlox…" The pitch of her voice lowered again, and he leaned over. This time, she was almost inaudible. "It's a good thing we took custody of those soldiers. Two of them were hybrids, one of them was Romulan."

He had to bite his lip to control his purely visceral reaction to that news. If that data got out, it might allow other members of the fleet to differentiate between the two, to discern that the problem on Vulcan wasn't just with opponents to the Kir'Shara, but of hundreds and hundreds of hybrid soldiers recently radicalized by the Romulan Star Empire and hell bent at reuniting the two factions at whatever cost.

In terms of secrecy, he hoped that the autopsy report was being kept behind a dozen layers of encryption.

At that moment, Pascal slipped a PADD into his companion's hand, and he bid him farewell, turning and making his way towards the door. The second he stepped over the threshold, Al-Shahrani locked eyes with him, his smile unmoving, and nodded tersely, confirming that the game was still very much afoot.

---

That night, T'Pol returned to her quarters and almost immediately fell into Jonathan's arms.

He'd been waiting for her at her desk, poring over the final draft of his report to Starfleet Command, but had stood when she entered the room, pulling her close to him and propping his chin on top of her head. Neither said anything, but when she finally sighed and relaxed into him, he knew it was going to be okay.

For all intents and purposes, the mission had been a success - they'd stopped the Romulans from acquiring another ship, and now that they'd caught them in action, they could actively deploy patrols to skirt the borders of all surplus depots over the alliance. They were already spread thin, and he knew he was going to lose sleep trying to solve this particular logistical problem, but that night, Earth and Vulcan and Andoria and Tellar Prime were safe, and for the moment, that was good enough for him.

Do you need something to drink? His question reached her easily across their bond, and he already knew the answer.

His absence left her cold and bereft, but it was only temporary. He pulled a bottle of red wine from one of her cupboards and filled their glasses, passing one into her hands. It had been their ritual for some months after any particularly difficult mission, dating back to Enterprise's recommissioning for their diplomatic assignment. She keenly remembered it after the incident on Rigel V, how they'd debated logic and morality as they looked out onto the stars, and she had a feeling this was to be no different.

I must admit to feeling some concern about Phlox's findings in the autopsy report.

It just means they're integrating their Romulan and hybrid fleets, nothing more.

She broke free and approached the window. The view was different now; rather than the cosmos at warp, they were looking out onto the surplus depot, towards countless broken and dilapidated hulls of old ships, their crews dead or forgotten. It means that it will be much easier for someone to discover the truth, Jonathan.

That won't happen. In a flash, he was by her side, and when she didn't look particularly convinced, he used his index and middle finger to circle her chin and gently tilt it up towards him. We're all on your side. We might not be in control of most of what happens to us in this war, but this we'll be able to see coming a mile away.

How can you be so sure?

She could, naturally, see straight through his words. Truthfully, he was worried as well. As the murderous and treacherous nature of the Romulans was better understood, he was fearful that her loyalties would be questioned the second word reached HQ. He knew her better than anyone, knew her intentions were pure and honest, but fear reigned supreme at a time like this, at a time when no one knew if they would live to see tomorrow.

He didn't reply, just leaned forward and kissed her forehead with the utmost tenderness. She sighed and wrapped an arm around him, taking a small sip of her drink.

Have you had the time to read the Maelstrom's report on the alternate timeline incident?

I can't believe there's been another. Thank God Shran was so close, and the Imperial Guard was so willing to help.

In the words of Captain Tucker, he believes the Imperial Council will be requesting one hell of an explanation.

I'm sure he's up for the challenge. His mind was still spinning from it, as he tried to wrap his head around the fact that the Enterprise had been destroyed and the fleet scattered to the wind and his former security officer was a bloodthirsty, revenge hungry warlord who stopped at nothing to get her way.

It mirrored his shock at discovering that his good friend Erika had been involved in a secret plot to develop nuclear warheads for years, all completely under his nose.

It said a lot about all of them, and the lengths they would go to in order to see their missions fulfilled.

I understand that in that universe, I died during our hostage ordeal on Coridan.

He nodded, gritting his teeth. That had been one detail he'd tried not to dwell on. Try as he might, he couldn't imagine his life going forward without T'Pol, or what that might even look like. He didn't want to. I'm glad you're here now, that's all that matters.

The only natural conclusion we might draw from this is that if I hadn't stayed with the crew, a majority of our subsequent missions would have ended in disaster.

Jonathan couldn't believe she was teasing him at a time like this. He pulled back, eyes wide, then took a preemptively massive drink. Okay, I wouldn't go that far. You're my conscience, my top advisor in everything I do, but…

She raised an eyebrow, and he immediately knew he'd been playing right into her hand. He acquiesced and pulled her back into his side. You're impossible, I hope you know that.

This is not the first time you have told me this. Fortunately, this does not appear to hinder our ability to be bondmates.

We make a good team, don't we, honey? He turned slightly, and she followed, until they were both facing her bunk, where Lady and Porthos were curled up together, seemingly dead to the world. I gotta admit, I was hoping we'd be able to enjoy this time in bed, but…

I find myself enjoying it regardless.

Is that so?

Yes, because I am with you, she replied matter-of-factly, swirling the contents of her glass.

End of Episode Twenty

---

Next time on Enterprise…

Episode Twenty-One: Battle of Barisa VI

The fleet makes a bold move to retake conquered territory, and Ethan and Julia roll the dice. Archer is presented with a tempting opportunity to alter the past.