Author's Note:
This is my first attempt at fan fiction. As a Star Trek fan, I was disappointed that the Enterprise series was cut short and felt that there was much untapped potential. I started reading Rigel Kent's Star Trek: Endeavor series here on and felt really impressed by his ideas and hope he does not mind if I try my hand at this using the characters that he invented as a basis for my story.
This is far from complete. What I have here is a teaser and I intend to use the same format that Rigel does with his stories. I owe him a great deal for inspiring me to get my creative juices flowing.
TEASER
Earth. 2156.
She did not know that death was imminent.
Not that she didn't expect that an accident may occur or that her time would come sooner or later. It's just that she didn't know how close she was to passing on and never coming back.
Lt. Commander April Franklin sat in the command seat aboard Starfleet's latest experimental craft and wondered what surprises that day would bring. She was no stranger to prototype vessels, having served in Starfleet for nearly ten years with thousands of hours of flight time aboard almost every type of space-going vessel that Starfleet had designed in that period. Some ships were better than others, but seldom did first flights ever go according to plan. Something always happened. Her reputation for flawless troubleshooting during test flights made her the go-to officer these days when something new needed testing.
Her experience, however, did not necessarily translate into calmness; she sat quietly tensed waiting for word from the crew on the orbiting science lab Niagara Falls Station to bring all of her tracking and scientific sensors online. The waiting was always the hardest part for April. She could only sit and think of hundreds of things that may go wrong on the first run, but when the flight actually began, she would be focused and could deal with problems as they arose.
Addressing the communications officer, Ensign Hans Jensen, April commanded, "Ensign Jensen, signal Niagara Falls again. I'm getting antsy to get this rig off the ground and into space where she belongs."
"Aye Aye, Ma'am," Jensen acknowledged. "Niagara Falls, this is Experimental Craft 119-Alpha, do you read?"
"EC 119-A, this is Niagara Falls. Go ahead."
Jensen's voice was clear and his speech was well articulated, April noticed. In another life perhaps he would have been an announcer of some kind. It was no wonder at all to her that he had been selected for communications duties and she decided that, although only time would tell, she had made the right decision to bring him aboard for the test work for this new class of ships.
Jensen replied, "EC 119-A is requesting permission to leave the surface, over."
Niagara's communications officer didn't hesitate to reply, "Negative, EC 119-A, sensors are still not online. That is a no-go, standby."
"Acknowledged," Jensen replied. His English was so neutral that April could not discern where Jensen had been raised. Indiana, perhaps?
"Ensign Jensen," she began, deciding that conversation would help her pass the time while the crew awaited permission to take off. "Where did you grow up again?"
Jensen swiveled in his seat to face April. "I am from Denmark, Commander. Why do you ask?"
April was surprised to hear this – Denmark, and no Scandinavian accent to show it? Her surprise was plain on her face and Jensen elaborated. "I did travel about the world a lot as a child because my father is a diplomat. I've always had an ear for languages, but the time I spent in the around the world helped me to pick up quite a bit of helpful linguistic tools."
"Remarkable," she said. She had learned Spanish as a grade school girl and managed to pass beginning Vulcan at Washington University, but was clearly not gifted with language nearly the way that Jensen was. "Which languages do you speak?"
"Danish, German, Dutch, Swedish, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Farsi, Bengali, Hebrew, Klingon, Vulcan, and Andorian," Jensen replied rather nonchalantly, as though it were no great feat to have mastered so many languages. To him it was as natural as learning a new dance step is for some people, or how natural some seem to be at shooting a weapon. It wasn't that he was arrogant; in fact, he was far from it. He just had a habit of being honest.
April let out a low whistle to express her amazement and stood from her chair to pace the bridge and stretch her legs. She had been sitting aboard ship for nearly an hour without permission to take off or any indication of when permission would finally arrive. Pacing back and forth quickly grew old, however, because this bridge, indeed the entire vessel, wasn't overly large. It took merely four steps from one side of the bridge to the other and so she decided to take a look at the tactical console occupied by Ensign Lewis Graham. They weren't carrying weapons on a test run, but the tactical station was useful for tracking other ships and space matter and gathering data in general. Because this was a small ship, the tactical station also served as the science station and the Chief Tactical Officer, in this case being Ensign Graham, would make use of the science and sensor inputs but without the duties or training of a science officer.
"Is the weather still going to cooperate with us today, Ensign Graham?"
The tall and ropey ensign from Texas drawled, "Should stay clear for the next 16 hours but if you wanted a longer forecast, you'll need to signal Ground Control."
April chuckled. "We may need to get a long range forecast if Niagara Falls continues to hold up the test flight like this."
April made her way back to her command seat and sat back down, deciding for the moment that perhaps Niagara was going to give her the green light at any moment. Seconds pattered by, then more minutes, and minutes became another hour of waiting.
"What the hell is with them up there? Jensen, open a channel for me to Niagara Falls."
"You're on," Jensen whispered.
She cleared her throat and began by saying, "Niagara Falls, this is Lt. Commander April Franklin of EC 119-A. Is there a problem?"
"EC 119-A, this is Niagara Falls Station. We anticipate our sensors will be online in only a matter of minutes. You are clear to take off; Ground Control will track your flight and sensor data as you leave the atmosphere and assume a standard orbit until our sensors are online. Repeat, you are clear to take off, out."
From the command chair, Lt. Commander Franklin keyed the ship intercom and announced, "Now here this, this is Lt. Commander April Franklin. We have just received permission for takeoff. All hands to duty stations."
Keying off the intercom, she addressed the helmsman, Ensign Juan Alvarez, "Ensign Alvarez, get us off the Rock and into the Great Nothing."
"Aye, aye, ma'am, powering up engines and lifting off," Alvarez acknowledged.
April knew that this was the trickiest part of what they were going to do that day; getting off the planet, through Earth's atmosphere, and obtaining a standard orbit was more dangerous in a trial run than anything except for the first jump to warp with experimental engines. That, she knew, they would be doing the following day should the initial trial run be successful. She unconsciously crossed her fingers as she kept an eye on the duty stations on the bridge and braced for acceleration.
Alvarez, a young but promising pilot, took the ship off the ground and began climbing through the atmosphere. The skies were clear over most of the western coast of the United States that afternoon and the view from the ship as it climbed was spectacular. April gave orders to turn on the view screen at the front of the bridge so she could enjoy the sight as EC 119-A began to slip the surly bonds of gravity.
As they entered the final levels of atmosphere, April couldn't help but wonder if a day would come when she would grow tired of seeing Earth from the vantage point of one several hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. A sense of serenity and wonder filled her again, as it had so many times before. Ahead of her on the view screen she noticed a familiar shape, an NX- series ship in orbit over Earth.
"Mr. Jensen," she asked, "which NX ship is that?"
"Transponder signal indicates it is the NX-06 Endeavour, Ma'am."
Ah, the Endeavour, she thought to herself. She hadn't seen Captain Trip Tucker in years, not since long before the Xindi attack on Earth. April and Trip had crossed paths a few times since she had begun her career in Starfleet as an engineer , and a fine one at that. Her skill as a trouble shooter had served her well as an engineer and now as an experimental craft evaluator. She made a mental note to contact the Endeavour as soon as she was done with the tests for the day.
Presently, however, alarms began to wail from the tactical/science station. The suddenness caused April to almost leap from her seat and jarred her loose from her train of thought.
"Report!" she bellowed out.
Ensign Graham, who never seemed to be in a great hurry, sounded so out of place when he practically slurred his response, "There's a massive buildup of energy coming from the primary impulse reactor. Will overload in 60 seconds if we don't do something fast."
"Bridge to Engineering, we're reading a massive buildup from the PIR. What's your status?" Lt. Commander Franklin said to the intercom.
"We do not know the cause!" replied Chief Petty Officer Bill Randolph. "We're trying to discern the cause but have not found anything yet - wait, what the hell is that?"
"What the hell is what, Chief Randolph?"
"There's an unknown device we've found beneath an access panel. It appears to be causing the surge. Recommend emergency beam-out immediately, ma'am, or we're all toast!"
The Lt. Commander had to act very quickly. "Mayday! Mayday! Emergency beam-out is requested immediately! Repeat, emergency beam-out immediately!"
"Our transmission didn't get through, Commander!" Ensign Graham yelled, followed by, "It's being jammed from within!"
Lt. Commander Franklin realized that with the sensor down at Niagara Falls Station and with the communications jam, chances of getting information out about the cause of the crash would be slim. She knew she had to let Starfleet know the ship was sabotaged and that this was no simple accident; the sabotage meant that there was a saboteur, and that meant that an agent (and she suspected a Romulan agent, given the current conflict with the Romulans) was probably still loose on Earth. She had to get the word out, she just had to.
She glanced back up at the view screen and saw Endeavour gleaming in the sun, several hundreds of kilometers away. Suddenly a thought occurred to her and she scrambled out of the command chair and ran to the tactical/science console and literally flung Ensign Graham out of the way. She quickly began to vent warp plasma in bursts approximating the dots and dashes of the archaic Morse Code, hoping that someone on Endeavour would see the pattern and recognize what she was trying to tell them: Romulan agents on earth. Sabotage.
Lt. Commander April Franklin's attempted to repeat the message but was cut off abruptly when, as predicted, the charge overloaded the primary impulse reactor, causing a massive explosion, its shockwaves being felt for hundreds of miles across the planet surface, it's bright flash visible, even in broad daylight, to billions in the western hemisphere.
A bright young crew was lost…and a Romulan agent was on the loose.