Archer had been pacing back and forth his quarters since he got dressed while supplementing his Starlog when he heard a beep on his door. "Resume log. Come in."
T'Pol went up to him; handing him a PADD.
"Captain, since we've landed in the surface, I've taken my scans." She drawled softly in her unemotional Vulcan fashion. "I've detected various unknown energy signatures all throught the castle, especially around the humans and the Xindi before they…disintegrated." T'Pol stared down the ground and held her breath, indicating her scepticism. "If ...'disintegrated' is the proper word."
Archer stared at her from his side.
"The anomalies?" Archer made a guess; maybe it's one of those troublesome spatial anomalies in space that the Xindi are most well-known for.
"Entirely different, Captain." She added, walking to the side until she gets into a comfortable position. "I highly doubt that spatial anomalies can be generated within a planet. Besides, the energy readings are different from what we've encountered in the Delphic Expanse."
Archer paced across his Science Officer, as typical of him when he's in contemplation.
"It also appears that the energy is given off by these humans." T'Pol continued. Archer read on the PADD handed to him. He scowled in such an extended silence that is uncharacteristic of him to give.
The silence broke. "From their biosigns, I don't believe it." Archer muttered loud enough for her to hear.
"What do you mean?"
Pause. Archer pursed his lips and thumbed the screen of the PADD. His increasingly meeting brows meant that he wanted to believe that T'Pol's scanner was too haywire to have actually received these readings.
"20th-century technology relies heavily on, electro-magnetic waves, that pass through cables, aerial frequencies, satellite dishes, but," Archer stuffed air in his lungs for the long subtle exhale; collecting what he can remember from his history lessons. "But not through people."
"It appears that these electro-magnetic waves are also neurological in nature." T'Pol added in her taciturn Vulcan fashion, albeit one can sense concern in her voice.
Archer nodded heavily as he turned to his quarter's window. There was another pause, this time it is certain that the Captain seemed to have an idea what is now going on. He now turned to his Science Officer and stood tall. He handed her the PADD. "Have Dr. Phlox analyse your scans. Make it top priority. Dismissed."
Archer on-duty swept through the Bridge, with Travis on the helm.
"Have the Xindi ships detected us?" He turned to Malcolm in his station, who was now miles feeling better.
"No indication, sir." Reed dutifully answered.
"Adjust your orbit, keep us out of sight." Archer leaned to Travis.
"Aye sir," Travis tapped into the helm controls without taking a glance to the Captain. Archer stood before his chair, looking at the planet Earth onscreen. For a highly-polluted 20th-century planet, it was beautiful. Shades of blue, brown, and green appear beneath the swirling clouds that looked perfectly still. To Archer, it still looked good. There was no scar that cut through Florida and Venezuela. It appeared from orbit that the Earth really looked like it was a great and peaceful place to live in.
Archer didn't spare another moment to see the ship's view of the Earth move. He walked to Hoshi, who was tapping controls on her own.
"Any sign that we've been on the news?" He asked.
"No, sir. No broadcasts of any kind." Hoshi shook her head after briefly glancing him.
Archer winced. Just then he heard Dr. Phlox's voice through the intercom. "Dr. Phlox to Archer."
He pressed a tiny button on a nearby panel to answer. "Go ahead."
"I've finished analysing the neurological readings, please go to Sickbay immediately."
He headed to the turbolift.
"So not all humans have it?" Archer walked around Sickbay, slightly disturbed at the sight of the covered body on the bio-bed. It was Corporal Ramirez.
"It might be the case." Dr Phlox walked to the screen above the bio-bed and the body; in fact their heads, and clicked on the nearby control panel. A figure of the human body instantly appeared. It was a woman's body, and she glows facelessly in an apparently vibrant vivisection. "Suffice to say that until Subcommander T'Pol calibrated the my biomedical scans to detect these energy readings, my autopsy of Corporal Ramirez would remain inconclusive."
Archer turned his head a little to the side, a gesture that probably means that he's interested to listen.
"This neurological energy disabled all of her vital systems, similar to a sudden electrical outage without auxiliary power." There was a jump in Dr. Phlox's voice that sounds as if he's happy that a MACO died. But in all probability, it's just fascinating medical discovery. "I conclude that... Corporal Ramirez... just died."
Archer scowled. Dr. Phlox seemed to catch the notion that his explanation wasn't enough.
"I've also asked Commander Tucker and Lieutenant Reed to come back." Dr. Phlox continued, now tapping the control panel to show a scan of Trip's wounded leg and Malcolm's brain. "I've detected energy residue on Commander Tucker's wound and on Lieutenant Reed's nerve endings. All of these contain energy signatures similar to Subcommander T'Pol's scans."
Archer didn't like the sound of this energy residue sticking to his Chief Engineer and his Tactical Officer.
"Are they going to be fine?"
"I'm not so sure with Commander Tucker, but the residue in Lieutenant Reed's nervous system has dissipated in a remarkable rate. I've already asked him to visit me twice a day."
"Do what you can, Doctor. I'm afraid I'll be needing our Chief Engineer too many times." Jonathan said after a long silence. "Is there anything else?"
"Keep me posted." Archer swept off Sickbay with a cluttered mind again, back into the Bridge.
Archer didn't like being taken anywhere, or any-when, in this case. He already has 83 crewmen-both the living and the dead-to worry about. It's not that he's not confident of his officers' abilities, it's the gnawing pang of guilt that comes from not being there-let alone be able to do anything, when their mission fails. Daniels better have something important to say to him.
He is now standing at one end of a very long and splendid hall with a highly polished, dark wood floor. The peacock blue ceiling was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols that kept moving and changing like some enormous heavenly notice board. The walls on each side were panelled in shiny dark wood and had many gilded fireplaces set into them. Every few seconds a robe-clad man or woman would emerge from one of the left-hand fireplaces with a soft whoosh of green. On the right-hand side, short queues of same robe-clad people were forming before each fireplace, waiting in line as they wait to disappear from this place.
Halfway down the hall was a fountain. On top of it is a large shiny basalt sculpture, which looks very grand and forbidding. The stone is carved into an image of a very handsome robed man, backed with a very beautiful robed woman, a centaur, and two little creatures. The handsome man had a very contemptuous look plastered on his face. It seemed that on his face was righteous anger, though. On his feet was a very scraggly-looking young man with glasses, sprawled at the ground, pointing at the great man with a small stick and a gun. The young man wore the familiar 20th-century clothing in tatters, and behind him are two men and a woman, all lifelessly depicted in the scary piece of stone. One man wore a soldier's uniform, the other in robes; clutching a stick on his hands. The dead woman near him also held a stick on her hands.
"I've almost made the mistake of transporting you into 31st-century Earth." Archer turned to his back, right where that offhand voice came from, and he is right back here on Enterprise. It was Daniels.
"Daniels," Archer scowled.
"I haven't much time. Can we kindly go to my quarters?"
The door to Daniels' room was of course, restricted, but whether it was coincidence or some temporal manipulation Daniels did to see no one aboard Enterprise, it sure served them well to keep themselves inconspicuous.
As soon as Daniels' room door slipped closed, Archer accosted him in a too-many-words-per-minute rate. "Neuro-electromagnetic energy, passed from person-to-person. One of my crewmen already died receiving these. Who gave them that technology, the Xindi?"
Daniels quickly explained. "They did not. In fact, it's human technology. But it was supposed to remain secret all throught human history. Along with their society."
Jonathan paced heavily around the free space in the cramped quarters and gave Daniels a very incredulous look. "Secret society?"
"Yes. Unfortunately not all of them share their views to keep their society secret. I took you back into this century because they're about to engage in a great war. Captain, these terrorists actually never won in history, or else there would be no Federation, no Starfleet, not even warp drive."
"If this society is so secret, then how did you find it?" Archer raised his eyebrows.
"Because the technology in my century had entirely changed." Daniels continued as quickly as ever. "In fact, the whole society too. Humans everywhere oppressed by fellow humans, forced into manual labor, even me and my own family. There was no record of you even. Remember when we were in an alternate 31st century?"
The sight of the obliterated Planet Earth went back in Archer's mind's eye; monument-less, book-fulls, and centuries desolated. That seemed enough for a yes for his crewman.
"The last recorded resistance was back in 1998, which even lead me to travel back into 1995, in an obscure document, where a group of 'alien Muggles' helped their terrorist leader." Daniels looked as equally at loss and insulted at the term.
"I managed to infiltrate their government, and I used this to travel back here." He took something from his pockets. It was tiny, gold, much like a tiny pocket watch from the Victorian era. Daniels didn't seem to notice the increasing disbelief in Archer's face.
"I re-calibrated this device so that it could take me back by centuries, and then I jumped by myself into 1995, and then from here, get back into the correct timeline and fetch you and your crew back in here, 1995."
"Right where the Xindi were about to contact this…terrorist?" Archer had calmed down now despite his skepticism.
"They already have." Daniels rapidly interjected, "What must not happen is that this terrorist kills a certain important person, or else the entire timeline of human history will be contaminated."
Archer, already wanting to be in peace from Daniels, found himself interested once again. He took another sidelong glance at him. "What sort of person?"