"Doctor, don't go out!" shouted Hoshi when she saw Phlox wander past the marble walls towards the front door of Starfleet Command.
"What's the matter, Lieutenant?"
"It's dangerous out there. San Francisco's people are taking out their anger on aliens. It's happening all over Earth, even in Britain."
Phlox smiled widely, much wider than a Terran could, and brought around Commander Archer's Rottweiler. "If anyone bothers me, I'll have Porthos kill them."
"Doctor!"
"Please! Archer's dog is well known. Upset Porthos, upset Archer."
"Phlox!" yelled the familiar voice of Captain Forrest. "We're done here. Give Jon back his dog. As for you, Lieutenant..."
"Understood," whispered Hoshi, who also gave the captain a wink.
"Here, boy," Archer said as Porthos leapt into his arms.
Shuttlepods were small, confined spaces. Forrest and Archer had no way to avoid talking to each other. It took a while though, as the pair tried to get around what happened as Admiral Black agreed to sent Enterprise to a chaotic region of space, the Delphic Expanse.
As they passed a ship near-identical to Enterprise, Archer said, "The NX-02."
"She'll be ready to launch in the year, and the other 8 we've laid down."
"A long time."
"Hopefully we'll be back well before then."
"Hopefully." It was no use, Archer had to say it. "I apologise for my outburst, sir."
"It was an outburst, Commander. You know that I still hadn't earned my rank back, and I won't for a long time."
"I was just trying to do you a favour."
Forrest, shook his head, grinning. "Trying to get my ship, more like. You weren't told where in this Expanse we were supposed to look."
"Not even a hint."
"This weapon they're building, did he say how long it was going to take them?"
"I didn't think he would have warned us if we didn't have a chance of stopping them."
Reed tapped his PADD again, looking over the rectangular boxes newly delivered whilst trying not to to look at his enemy. "Photonic torpedoes. Their range is over fifty times greater than our conventional torpedoes, and they have a variable yield. They can knock the comm. array off a shuttlepod without scratching the hull or they can put a three kilometre crater into an asteroid."
"How long is it going to take to reconfigure the tubes?" Tucker asked.
"We've got three teams working on it. They promise me it'll be done before we leave Spacedock, but I've got to start integrating them into the power grid."
"Let's go."
"Tactical alert," called Archer's voice over the intercom. "All hands, general quarters. Authorised personnel to the mess hall only."
"Major!" shouted Forrest, who had arrived in the armour in person. "Your pet Vissian escaped and is now holding the catering staff hostage."
"Sorry, sir," Reed said. "I'll get on it."
"She's demanding you come in person. She has demands, we don't know what."
"Sir."
It was a long way from the armoury to the mess hall. He saw that Archer was waiting outside with Porthos. The dog looked desperate to rip someone apart. When Reed got in, he saw that Veylo had put on a MACO uniform and had a phase pistol to Chef's head. "Put it down."
"Not likely, Malcolm," the Vissian snarled. "I want to get off this ship and get passage to Vissia!"
"You could have just left then. The airlocks are still open, the ship's still docked."
"I'm not allowed, no one..."
TIYAROO!
Reed's head whipped around only to see that the one who'd stunned Veylo was Tucker, of all people. "Thank you, Charles."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Tie her up," Reed told Chef. The major was clearly holding back tears. "Put her somewhere prominent. Tell the crew they can do what they like to her just as long as she's dead by the time we leave Spacedock."
Every Starfleet officer drew their knives...
2 hours later, the umbilical cords of Spacedock fell away from Enterprise. The blue glow of the impulse engines came on as Archer guided the starship out to start its quest. In the mess hall some time later, he and Tucker sat alone.
"It's bad enough one of us is up in the middle of the night," Archer said as he sipped his whiskey.
Tucker responding by pouring himself a lot of alcohol. "How's Porthos holding up? If no people have returned from the Delphic Expanse, I doubt any dogs have."
"He must be doing better then we are. He's fast asleep."
"Yeah. To Henry Archer. I wonder what he would have thought if he knew his engine was gonna help save the human race."
"When I got this job, piloting the first warp five ship was about as big as a responsibility as I could imagined. Then, we began running into so many bad guys, and we had to start thinking more about the safety of eighty three people."
"And now the stakes have gotten a lot bigger."
"Weight of the world, Charles."
"Literally. I can't wait to get in there, Commander, and find the people who did this. I'll make them wish their species went extinct centuries ago!"
"We'll do what we have to do, Charles. Whatever it takes."
"What happened in here after I left?"
Archer shook his head and turned to the spot Veylo had been left. "It was gross and obscene. If it's immoral for the Vissians or the traitors in that book to do it, it's immoral for us to do it as well. I put her out of her misery, with some help from Porthos."
"I always say Reed's disgusting."
Enterprise had just beaten off another attack by Duras. The new photonic torpedoes with their antimatter warheads had sent the Klingon packing once more.
Captain's starlog, supplemental. We've been travelling at warp five for seven weeks. The crew is anxious to begin our mission.
On the bridge, a purple haze began to appear on the viewscreen. Archer kept an eye on his console as the rest of the crew stared in amazement.
"Distance?" asked Forrest.
"Nearly a million kilometres," Archer replied.
From his station, Tucker said, "Looks a hell of a hell of a lot closer than that."
"A common mistake when viewing something of this size," T'Pol helpfully added.
"Magnify," Forrest ordered. The resulting image was yet more swirly stuff.
"Not very helpful," sneered Tucker.
"It's that dense all the way through," Forrest said.
Still reading all kinds of data on the helm screen, Archer said, "The Expanse is surrounded by thick layers of thermobaric clouds. When a Vulcan ship went in, it took them almost six hours to get through it. Anything on long range sensors?"
"Nothing beyond the perimeter," T'Pol reported.
"Increasing to point two impulse," Archer said without input from Forrest. "Let's head in."
Not one but three Birds-of-Prey stalked Enterprise as she struggled through the Expanse. Forrest just told Duras where to go.
"The perimeter clouds are dissipating," T'Pol reported. "I'm detecting clear space ahead."
"It's why Duras wants us to come about," Archer said. "He's afraid of the Expanse. Increasing speed."
The Imperial starship then found itself nearly alone. Two Birds-of-Prey had broken off, giving in to the fear the Klingons had of the Expanse. The Terrans continued regardless.
"Only one left ,sir," Reed said.
"Keep firing," Forrest ordered.
T'Pol glanced down at her monitor. "The Expanse is less than five minutes away."
"Maybe he'll turn around like his friends." said a hopeful Tucker.
"Unlikely," Forrest replied. He looked at the MACO commander and said, "Your new torpedoes aren't having the same effect as last time."
"Duras has transferred his aft shields forward. Our weapons can't penetrate them."
"We just lost three antimatter injections, Captain," shouted the chief engineer. "Any more and we're in big trouble."
"If he's transferred his shielding forward," Archer said as more sparks flew everywhere, "what's protecting his stern?"
"Does it matter? He's chasing us."
"The stern?" Forrest demanded.
"Minimal shielding," said T'Pol.
"I can pull off an L4 at this speed," the first officer said.
"Do it, Commander," said the captain.
"I'll look for the densest cloud formation I can find."
"Captain Forrest to all hands, hold on!"
Archer found a huge black blob. Perfect. "Looks good to me."
Up zoomed Enterprise. In the blob, it should have remained invisible to sensors.
The Bird-of-Prey continued forward, unawares.
Down came Enterprise.
Forrest only had one word to say. "Fire."
Two torpedoes shot forth. The Bird of Prey collapsed in on itself as Enterprise carried on regardless.
"Well done, Jon," said the captain.
"I'd like to do that more often, sir."
"The Expanse is ahead, Captain," said Hoshi.
Forrest nodded and turned to the mutant. "Did you lose any more of those injectors?"
"No, sir," said Tucker. "We're good to go."
"Forrest to all hands. Once more, we're going into battle. This battle will last a good year but be assured we will find those who defiled Earth and we will punish them. Long live Earth! Long live the Empire!"
In it's year away from the Terran Empire, ISS Enterprise found the Xindi. Commander Archer convinced 3 of the Xindi races to ally with Captain Forrest after finding evidence that the Xindi's Guardians were the same people as the Sphere Builders who'd been wreaking havoc across the Delphic Expanse. Enterprise and its allies fought to stop the launch of the Xindi weapon, but in the end they had to fly to Earth, where a large Starfleet assault fleet waited to destroy the weapon. Commander Archer went missing and Enterprise found itself in the 20th century in an alternate timeline. After restoring the proper timeline and being reassured by Terran Empire Agent Daniels that the Temporal Cold War was over, Enterprise returned home having saved Earth, but also finding that a combination of increasing Imperial harshness and the confusion on Earth led to some groups of Tellarites, Vulcans, and Andorians forming a rebellion. Meanwhile, Starfleet decided it still would not give Forrest his rank back nor give Archer a promotion, even though they were putting Archer's old friend Erika Hernandez in command of ISS Columbia NX-02. It also rejected Archer's suggestion that Forrest be at least promoted to Commodore and him to Captain. In the midst of this new war, Enterprise led the 10 new NX-class starships into battle to put down the rebellion or die trying.
Apologies if this looks rushed. It is!