—Chapter 10—
The Athena wisely minimized its exposure to the Xindi during the ten days it moved in Xindi space by cautiously taking sensor telemetry readings from as far away as practical, and as quickly as possible, while the ship's excellent sensor nets allowed the Athena to avoid the majority of Xindi sweeps, and it's stealthy nature and cunning Vulcan captain allowed the ship to avoid detection by making use of physical phenomena to conceal the Athena. Oddly enough, the only close call which the Athena had in all that time was on the way out, when a Xindi patrol of five Reptilian ships suddenly dropped out of a Xindi subspace vortex, to face the Athena, and here the ship's unique and atypical appearance served it well, for the Reptilians did not realize that they were dealing with a Human ship.
"Our weapons are hot, Captain," said Commander Hanshiro, the Athena's Tactical officer, who had acted on his own initiative to bring the weapons online.
"We're being hailed, Captain," said Salno, tensely, for the Xindi clearly did not feel threatened by one ship, weapons hot, or not.
"I suggest you target the Xindi ship on the left, Captain," said Trip, standing next to T'Pol.
"Do so, Commander Hanshiro," said T'Pol: uncertain of Captain Tucker's purpose, but placing her trust in the man himself.
"The Xindi are repeating their hail," said Salno. "We are to power down our weapons, and open communications, or we will be fired upon."
Now, thought Trip, and shared that thought with T'Pol.
"Open fire," said T'Pol, and Hanshiro obeyed his orders.
Two photon torpedoes, and a salvo of phaser fire reached out for the Xindi ship on the left, and T'Pol expected the rest of the Xindi to respond immediately with a withering counterattack, but instead the Xindi ship on the far right plowed at speed into the others, taking three of the other Xindi ships completely out of the game, and damaging the fourth quite badly. The Athena danced with the fifth Xindi briefly, for its shields had deflected most of the damage which the Athena had sent its way, only to then watch the Reptilian ship vanish into a Xindi vortex.
"After them," said T'Pol to Helm.
"Yes, Captain," said the Helm officer, though Tactical managed a salvo of photon torpedoes on his own initiative, which served to blot out the already damaged fourth Xindi ship, before the Athena entered the subspace vortex.
After a twenty minute chase, the Athena caught up to the last Xindi, and dispatched it, though suffering some physical damage and two dozen crew injuries of various severity in the process, as well as three deaths.
"Resume our original course back to the Border Fleet," said T'Pol.
"Yes, Captain," said Helm.
"Captain Tucker, my Ready Room please," said T'Pol.
Moments later, she turned to a now seated Captain Tucker, and said, "What did you do to the Xindi?"
"I determined which of the Reptilian Helmsman was most susceptible," said Trip, "and then triggered his flight instinct, as in fight-or-flight. He went to full impulse and the results were predictable when he bolted."
"That's it?"
"I can do more, but that was enough," said Trip. "And when I say I triggered his flight instinct, I mean he was instantly terrified beyond belief. He wasn't thinking rationally, thus no attempt to plot a prudent course, just blind panicked flight."
"Quite effective," said T'Pol.
"Sharing a bit of our good times Madness Season experiences with the Xindi. You should see Malcolm's little trick," said Trip. "It will make your blood run cold."
"What is it? Captain Reed makes use of psionics as a weapon?"
"He is a weapon, but I suppose you can say that about all of us to a degree," said Trip. "Now, I'm off to help repair what damage we took. I'm sure the Engineering staff could use every hand."
"Carry on, Captain Tucker."
"Job well done, T'Pol," said Shran, looking intently at the series of starmaps in his information packet, all generated from the data brought back by the Athena.
They were all in the Captain's Mess on the Columbia, Trip, Shran, Malcolm & T'Pol, and had just concluded a quick lunch.
"Very well done," said Malcolm, who had reviewed the maps an hour earlier. "Hell of a place the Xindi chose to settle down though."
The system in which the Xindi had chosen to settle was uncomfortably close to a black hole in space, which effectively barred them from traveling, or escaping, in that direction at all, due to the gravitational pull of the black hole.
"It has its benefits as well," said Shran. "That black hole means they can't be approached from that direction either, so they can focus their efforts in defending half the space they'd normally be called upon to defend, and so they're effectively doubling the impact of their numbers. If it wasn't for your Human psionic tricks, I would say that it's virtually an act of suicide to assault the Xindi."
"True," said Malcolm. "Now what?"
"Now we end this," said Trip. "Fleet wide alert. We leave in 72 hours."
"Aye, sir," said Malcolm. "We'll be ready."
"Good," said Trip. "Now, what did we miss while we were gone?"
"Nothing much. It's been the same old, same old," said Malcolm, "though we lost three ships since you've been gone."
Trip nodded. The Xindi were no joke.
"What's this make our losses so far?" said Trip.
"Nineteen, StarFleet" said Malcolm, "and five Andorian."
"We'll put an end to it soon," said Trip.
"Yes, sir," said Malcolm vehemently, and Shran nodded his agreement with Malcolm.
"Now, what say to a few drinks," said Trip, "before we split up for our respective ships?"
"A moment, Captain," said T'Pol.
"Yes, yes, T'Pol," said Trip, "I know Vulcans don't typically drink alcohol. I'll buy you an iced tea."
"Not that, Captain," said T'Pol. "You said that Captain Reed would show me his... 'trick', I believe you called it."
Trip looked at Malcolm, and the man shrugged back at Trip, then said, "It will only take a moment."
"All right, T'Pol," said Trip, and placed a banana next to T'Pol.
The Vulcan raised brow at Captain Tucker.
"That's a phaser, T'Pol, or maybe a wrench, or a chef's knife, or any number of potential weapons found aboard a ship," said Malcolm, drawing T'Pol's attention. "You're one of many Xindi Reptilians scattered through a number of ships, and your ship is engaged in combat with the evil forces of Humans driven mad. I say Reptilians, because they're easier to affect than the Insectoids."
"All right," said T'Pol, uncertain of where this was all going.
"If you squeeze that banana," said Malcolm, "you've used your weapon."
"I understand," said T'Pol. "Now what?"
A moment later, T'Pol blinked several times, and looked round her, confused. She stood now behind Trip, a handful of his hair in her left hand, as the right held the banana to his head, or rather what was left of it, for she had squeezed the base of the banana to mush.
"Congratulations, Reptilian warrior," said Malcolm, "you've just killed your captain, or perhaps your Helmsman, or Comm officer, as a battle with the Humans rages all around you."
"What?" said T'Pol.
"Yes," said Trip. "Think about it. While a battle rages, Xindi are suddenly killing their commanders, or perhaps doctors their patients, chefs killing the crew, security officers walking the halls while opening fire on any they meet, etc… Each and every act increases the chaos aboard the Xindi ship, and has to be suppressed, which takes attention off the Human attack. Malcolm can incite hundreds of Xindi, and there are two more psions like Malcolm in the fleet, with the power to incite action in a number of Xindi. For only a brief time, true, but long enough, and hopefully more than once a battle."
"I see," said T'Pol.
She saw immediately how disruptive the use of Captain Reed's 'trick' could be during the already hectic environment of a ship at war, and T'Pol was frankly disturbed by it all, but really, was it any different than shooting a photon torpedo at a ship and killing that number of people? Still…
"Commander Owens," said Trip from the Captain's Chair of the Columbia, "report."
"We've just sent our data pack back to Earth, Captain," said Owens. "They'll receive it in a month or so."
"Good," said Trip.
He'd ordered that information communicated back to Earth. His captain's logs with all of his daily reports, as well as battle reports, wins, losses, commendations, and a list of fallen crewmen and ships lost, and most importantly the starmap data pack with the current location of the new Xindi homeworld, as well as Trip's stated intention to attack the Xindi. It would take the Border Fleet twenty-two days to reach the Xindi homeworld, so that by the time StarFleet received the info packet, the fate of the Border Fleet would already be decided, one way or the other.
"All ships report ready, sir," said Commander Owens.
"Energize," said Trip, and the one hundred forty three Human and Andorian ships each entered their own private Xindi vortex, yet all headed for a shared destiny.