Chapter Two

Captain Archer hadn't been the only one of the bridge crew to see the name of the other ship. Hoshi Sato had as well. So rather than getting the other Enterprise's comm officer confused as to who she was, the hail she sent was a simple, "Hey, you guys ok over there?" in English.

To say that Lieutenant Uhura was startled was an understatement. She, like the rest of her bridge crew, had known that they had hit another ship. But no one had realized that it was a Federation ship. "This is Lieutenant Uhura of the Starship Enterprise. We're fine for the most part." That was true. Other than a few minor hull breaches, things jarred out of alignment or shorted out all over the ship and a ton of minor injuries they were fine. In fact there was nothing that Scotty and his repair crews and Dr. McCoy and his couldn't handle.

She heard a slight giggle in a female voice that was trying to remain professional. "This is Ensign Sato, also of the Starship Enterprise, only we're the NX-01. So where does your Enterprise come from? By the way, my Captain has his hands full right now but I'm sure he's going to want to talk to your Captain as soon as possible." Hoshi signed off. This was going to be an interesting conversation. That Enterprise was huge, larger than anything Earth had been able to build to date. They had to have come from one of the colonies started by the old generation ships before First Contact.

The crew of the Federation Starship Enterprise considered temporal and spatial anomalies old hat. As explorers of uncharted areas they tended to run into them frequently. So it was with a sigh that Uhura turned to Captain Kirk and explained to him that she had received a hail from the Enterprise NX-01. The very first Starship built by Humans before the Federation was founded some ten years later and just over one hundred years in their past.

Kirk sat in his command chair and cursed. He hated temporal anomalies with a passion. He could feel his bondmate's agreement, although Spock was deep in his work figuring the anomaly out. "Mr. Chekov, help Mr. Spock figure out how to get us back to where we belong, hopefully without disrupting the timeline." That was always the biggest problem. The other was of course the damage that they had and that they might have done to the other ship. "Uhura, do we have visual communications?"

"No sir, audio only. Our systems are fine, but theirs are damaged."

Kirk nodded, that was to be expected. The first Enterprise hadn't had shields for quite some time after she had been launched. That would mean that while their shields protected them from a direct hit; the other Enterprise would not have had that advantage and would have taken the impact from the collision directly on their hull. He got up to walk over to Uhura's station but before he could get there Spock interrupted, "Captain we are not in our own universe."

Kirk switched directions mid-step and headed for the science station. "Tell me," he ordered.

"I have scanned the Enterprise NX-01. There is a .00001 variance at the molecular levels that indicates this is parallel universe."

"Great," Kirk muttered as he rubbed his eyes. "Not only have we been thrown back in time but also into another universe. At least we don't have to worry about messing up our own timeline. Keep working on our little entry point problem." Kirk knew that if that wasn't shut down, then they'd really be in a mess. "Uhura put me through to Captain Archer. At least, I hope its Captain Archer. With that small of a variance it should be this universe's version of him."

She nodded, "Aye sir. Ensign Sato said that he had his hands full at the moment but she was certain that he would want to talk with you as soon as he could." Kirk simply nodded and leaned against her station. There was nothing else he could do at the moment. His officers had everything else under control at the moment and he was too sore from being bashed around in his chair to wait sitting down.

Hoshi turned to Captain Archer after receiving Uhura's hail. Just like Captain Kirk, he too was standing by his ship's comm station and nursing a few bruises. "I have the Enterprise NCC-1701 on audio sir, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk. Sorry sir, but we still can't get visual."

"That's fine Ensign, it isn't like we haven't done this before." He waited until she gave him a nod, "This is Captain Archer of the NX-01."

"This is Captain Kirk," Kirk responded. "Sorry to barge in like this, Captain but we really didn't have much of a choice. Our opponents didn't give us any warning. And as you can see, I hope, the combinations of our weapons had an unexpected effect."

"Yeah, that was kind of hard to miss," Archer said. Archer remembered what the rift had looked like as it had opened. "So if you don't mind my asking Captain, where are you and your crew from?" He hoped that they knew because he had never seen or heard of anything like that tear in space. From the look on T'Pol's face as she did her best to examine the phenomenon she hadn't heard of anything like it either.

"Well, if my Science Officer is correct, then we're from the next universe over in the branches of alternate realities. We're also from about one hundred years in the future from our Enterprise NX-01." Kirk hoped that wouldn't shock these people too much. He didn't know if they were even aware of the fact that alternate realities were real.

Archer turned to T'Pol in shock. "Is that even possible?" he asked.

T'Pol turned her scanners. While she was not able to confirm whether or not the other Enterprise was from an alternate universe, she was able to tell that there were Vulcans on board the other ship. In fact, not only were there Vulcans, there were also Andorians, Tellerites, and members of half a dozen other races that she recognized as well as another half a dozen life signs that she didn't. "Although I cannot confirm his assertion Captain, I can confirm that this Enterprise has a mixed species crew, including Vulcans, Humans and other races I recognize, has more advanced technology and personally sir, I do believe that we would have had a visit from a certain crewmember if they were from our timeline."

Archer grimaced. He too, did not enjoy visits from Crewman Daniels, who was a Temporal Agent. He really did not understand temporal mechanics and the intricacies of time travel. He also did not want to run into a situation that required that he learn more than he already knew. "Lieutenant Reed, have your people be on the look out for Daniels just in case."

Malcolm nodded and sent out the alert. His security forces didn't know why Daniels was so important, but they did know that he tended to show up when the stuff hit the fan, so to speak. They already had their orders when it came to him.

Archer once more turned to Hoshi. "Ok Captain. My Science Officers says that it's possible, so I'll take your word for it. How badly damaged is your ship? I seriously doubt my engineering teams have the technical know how to help yours with repairs but we do know where you can get supplies if you need them."

"Thanks for the offer, but my Chief has repairs under control. I would like to offer crews to help with your repairs though. After all, we were the ones who hit you," Kirk offered.

"That sounds like a great idea to me Captain," Archer replied. "Would you like join them in coming over? I have had enough experiences with time travelers to know not to ask if I can join you on your ship."

Kirk laughed at the annoyance that could be heard in Archer's voice. He too had far too much experience with time travel. "The good news here is that since we're from another reality, we can throw that rule out the air lock. Send Lieutenant Uhura your transporter room coordinates and she'll send you ours. When the engineering crews have finished beaming over, then you can come over here. Does that sound alright?"

"That sounds like a fine idea," Archer said making sure that Kirk didn't hear the spiders crawling up and down his spine at the idea of casual use of the transporter. "Archer out. Don't start Lieutenant," he waved at Malcolm without turning around. "I know and I won't go over there without you." 'Sometimes it sucked to be the Captain,' he thought. But the rules were the rules and although what evidence they had said that the other Enterprise was friendly, didn't make it so. They had learned that much over the last six months.

Malcolm nodded and thanked God silently that his Captain was finally beginning to realize that security was important. "Yes sir," he said and sent the message to his second that he and the Captain would be leaving the ship while repair crews would be sent over from the other ship. "Let's hope we don't end up regretting this," he whispered to himself. Then he started running the things that could go wrong through his mind. He needed to be prepared for every eventuality.