Saturday, June twelfth, twenty-one fifty-six. Captain Archer was anxiously perched on his chair on the bridge of the Enterprise. Trip had told him thirteen hundred, yet the time was already fourteen o'six. He was late, over an hour late and he didn't like it at all. He was awaiting news from the Armoury; Commander Tucker, Commander T'Pol and Lieutenant Reed were working on an experiment and the last he'd heard they were close to wanting to try it out. They had come up with a way to cannibalise some of the Suliban cloaking technology to make it compatible with their systems… at least that was what they had said two weeks ago, but Archer wasn't completely convinced. The Suliban technology had a way of being rather difficult when it came to them trying to understand it or use it, but he had given them permission to try it out and see if their theory was correct. If it was it could be a major breakthrough in helping to defend their ships against hostile species, such as the Klingons.
His fingers tapped the arm rest of his command chair. Slowly he glanced around the bridge. Everyone else was working as normal. It appeared he was the only one on edge from the wait.
At long last the comm system beeped into life and the Captain pounced on the button to answer like a hungry cat finally catching its prey. It was good to finally hear something from his tardy crew.
"Tucker to the bridge." Came the voice of the Chief Engineer.
"You're late, Trip." Was the first thing that popped into Archer's mind to say. He was annoyed that he had been kept waiting for so long without an explanation, and wasn't afraid to let his good friend know how he felt.
"Sorry sir, took a little longer than we anticipated to get the machine connected to the power grid. But we're ready down here now." The man replied, glancing around the room. 'At least I hope we are.' He thought as he ran a hand through his dusty blonde hair.
"All right, take us out of warp, Ensign." Archer ordered, having already been informed that as much power as necessary was going to be needed for the experiment. Travis nodded his head, pressed buttons and seconds later the NX-01 was travelling through space at impulse power. "She's all yours, Trip. This wait had better be worth it and be careful with my ship."
"It will be, trust me. And I'm always careful! You know I love this baby." Commander Tucker stepped away with a soft smile, leaving the comm line open so that everything could be heard on the bridge.
The words 'trust me' rang in Archer's ears for several moments. With the Commander's track record, those two words didn't go very well together. There had been several times over the years when his chief engineer had said those words and things had gone disastrously wrong; like on Moralis Prime while searching for missing crew; when Enterprise was caught in a dispute between the Andorians and Kelvalars, and when chef became ill and Trip decided to take charge of the galley till he was better, to name but a few of those times. One of these days surely things would go right for Commander Tucker?
Standing in the middle of the Armoury was a very strange looking device; there were cables coming out from nearly every angle and four two-inch thick poles acted as legs, keeping the thing upright and slightly off the ground. One thicker cable led from the back of the almost spherical device and over to the main control console, then through an open panel just below. That in turn was connected directly to the deflector at the front of the saucer section. All the torpedoes and weapons had been moved to the cargo bays for safety for the duration of the test, and all of Reed's department officers had been temporarily assigned to other locations around the ship, so there were just three of them in the Armoury. In theory they were going to envelope the Enterprise in an energy bubble to take the ship slightly out of phase with the rest of the universe so that they would be invisible to everyone else. That was only a theory, and Archer had been surprised that the Vulcan officer was willing to go along with 'out of phase' when she had so often refused to believe in time travel that they had been involved in.
Rubbing his hands together, Trip stepped up to the device and flicked a small switch where a hum began to sound and a few lights suddenly turned on, steadily blinking on and off. For the moment he had only turned on battery power to check that it would start up. Satisfied with the first stage of the test he nodded his head and looked over to Lieutenant Reed. "Get ready to initiate the main power, Malcolm."
"I'm ready." The tactical officer replied. He was stood on the platform with the main control console so that he had direct control from the ship's main computer. He'd rolled the sleeves of his uniform up to his elbows, showing how much he had been working to get everything ready for this test. T'Pol was to one side of the device with a computer screen on a trolley just in front of her.
"Keep a steady watch on those phase coils. If they go then the whole of this room goes with it." He instructed, glancing to the Vulcan. There was no easier way to put it, the whole test was risky, dangerous even but they needed an edge in defending themselves against those that used a similar kind of technology to attack them. He stood up straight, sighed a little and nodded his head. "All right, Malcolm. Start transferring the power, nice and slow."
After a few seconds the lights began to glow bright and the hum increased in pitch as it gained more power. "Looking good. Bring it up a little more."
"The device appears to be coping well with our systems." T'Pol mentioned, momentarily glancing at her companions, then looked back to the readings of the phase coils. One might even have gone as far to say that she was surprised that it was working. "Energy readings at forty-seven percent."
"Power flow at seventy-nine watts and rising." Announced a slightly dishevelled Malcolm. They had all been pressed for time and both men had the top buttons of their shirts undone and the Armoury officer's hair was in a right old state. Fortunately for Malcolm his motto of 'An officer at his est is always well groomed' had recently been forgotten and was in the past. T'Pol on the other hand had somehow managed to keep her appearance pristine. Not a hair out of place, not a grimy mark on her skin, nor a bead of sweat showing anywhere. Malcolm was keeping his eyes trained on the screen as the numbers began to change quicker than they had been just a few seconds ago. He knew the bubble had to be activated at a certain point in the transfer; too soon and they would have to start the whole process over again, if he was a few watts over then there would be massive problems. "One hundred and three watts."
For a few more seconds everything seemed to be going well. Power was slowly being transferred from the warp engines to the device. A smile crossed the engineer's face as he looked at the device. Everything was going well. "Ok… get ready to initiate the bubble!" Malcolm nodded his head in response, his finger poised over the button. "Almost there." Trip reported. "Almost…" But before anything else could be said, warning beeps began to sound from both consoles. The three officers began looking around and reading the screens in front of them, trying to work out what was going on.
"I'm reading fluctuations in the phase coils!"
"The power's being interrupted from somewhere!" Malcolm cried out, stepping back as sparks flew from his control panel and screens.
"Damnit! We've got an overload!" Trip almost yelled as sparks began to fly from the device. The lights on the device grew brighter and the hum rose in tone even more. "Shut off the power!"
"I'm trying! Controls aren't responding!" The Brit answered as he finally had to jump off the platform to avoid being injured as more and more sparks flew from the command console.
More sparks flew and within seconds a pale blue energy bubble began to appear above the device. At first it started off the size of a tennis ball but quickly grew bigger, growing to twice the size of a beach ball. Without warning flashes of lightning streaked through the air, almost hitting those present, and a figure was sent flying through the air, their back making contact with the stair's railings and they crumpled to the floor in an unconscious heap.
Trip dashed for the thickest cable and with one hefty pull it was disconnected from the deflector. As the generator lost power the lights faded, the hum died down and the bubble fizzled out into nothingness. Several tense seconds passed till everything was silent in the armoury and they knew that the danger had been averted.
Malcolm sighed heavily, glancing around at the rather empty Armoury. "I'm glad we moved all the weapons out of here first."
"Everyone all right?" Commander Tucker asked as he looked between Malcolm and T'Pol. After receiving nods from the two of them he cautiously moved to the strange figure that had appeared out of thin air and crouched down next to them. Turning the person gently over, he revealed a young woman with dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing a Starfleet uniform with the rank insignia of a Lieutenant, and red shoulder stripes. A red mark was clear on her left temple from when she had hit the floor, and obvious signs of a lump beginning to show beneath her fringe. Whoever she was, she was quite attractive.
"Trip? What's going on down there?" Archer's concerned voice asked over the comm system. At first Trip didn't register the question, he was too focused on this new woman that no one recognised. "Trip, report?"
"Cap'n…" He finally answered then looked to Lieutenant Reed. "Get Phlox down here." His attention went back to Archer as he checked for a pulse on the woman's neck. "Cap'n, you're gonna want to see this."