Star Trek: Enterprise
“Cold War”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
Premise: The crew of the NX-01 discover the vital answers to some important unanswered questions as the secrets of the Temporal Cold War are finally revealed and resolved, ending years of speculation. Meanwhile, thanks to ongoing events, another conflict brews in the shadows of a distant world…
Featuring the entire crew of the Enterprise, NX-01, some familiar faces and some deadly new enemies!
PROLOGUE
The Escape
His shields were low but he had no other choice.
Hammering at his control pad, he violently steered the small vessel away from his homeworld. Proximity alarms were blaring, filling his small cockpit with unbearable noise. He was approaching the starbases and spacedocks that surrounded the planet. He was actually approaching one in particular, a little too closely. Adjusting his vector, he accelerated with full power to the single impulse engine behind him. Why couldn’t his department have added warp engines? Then, at least, he would have time to input his commands before…
Weapons fire struck the durasteel hull, leaving black scorch marks behind. Inside, the pilot cried out as his head slammed into the bulkhead above. He started to bleed, feeling the warm liquid of blood trickle down from his brow and over his ear.
More weapons fire narrowly missed his tiny craft. That was one of the plus points of the design which was small enough to escape an accurate disruptor lock from a Warbird. Pressing a few buttons, he turned to the limited viewscreen that he had installed, only a few weeks beforehand.
The previous test pilots had no need for viewscreens in the other models. It was only his foreknowledge of his fate that allowed him to rig this vessel with what he needed to escape. The viewscreen flickered before displaying the aft sensor data.
Yeah, it was bad.
There were three of them.
Three Valdore-class Warbirds were closing fast.
The screen flickered again. Somebody was breaking through the lockout, attempting to communicate. A face appeared.
“Stand down, Relvek! Return the ship to the laboratory and give yourself up!”
Just a few more seconds…
There. The lockout returned, and the face disappeared from the viewscreen.
It didn’t please the Commander of the lead Warbird to be cut off mid-speech. In response, more disruptor fire raked the tiny capsule. Sparks flew around from various seams in the controls, showering the pilot in flakes of debris. He broke into a sweat… Well, more of a sweat than he had been in, anyway. In a mad panic, he read a computerized display.
Damn.
His shields had completely collapsed with that last volley. The next shot would destroy him, and the Warbirds speeding towards him knew exactly that.
This was it. This was the moment. This had to work.
Do or die.
He chose to do.
Just before his capsule disappeared into the artificial vortex and left the 29th century far behind, the lights flickered back on inside the cockpit. Turning, Relvek wiped the green blood from his pointed ear.
Goodbye, Romulus.
Hello, 22nd century.
* * * *
CHAPTER ONE
Hidden Treasures of the Market
Captain’s Starlog, March 18th, 2156;
We’ve entered orbit of Kanar IV, a trading outpost in the Kanrthan system. Admiral Gardener is hopeful that the Kanarthans will be open to allowing Human expeditions to establish a small base of operations on the planet to facilitate the rapidly growing Starfleet. Since diplomacy can often be slow business, I’ve allowed some of the crew to sample the delights of the exotic marketplace below.
Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker could do nothing but turn his nose up at the … whatever it was. It looked like an apple but it was blue, covered in spines, and it stank worse than Doctor Phlox’s feet after a hibernation sleep cycle. The trader, a native Kanarthan, looked disappointed at the Chief Engineer’s reaction and searched for something else instead. The Kanarthans were friendly humanoids with pale topaz skin covering hints of cranial ridges and pleasing bright eyes. However, this, like all marketplaces across the Galaxy, wasn’t a place for being friendly. This was a place for the hard sell, and yet more fruit was shoved towards the visiting party from Enterprise.
“No… no, thanks… No, I’m fine… Thank you,” Trip attempted to excuse himself.
“You’ve lost your sense of adventure, Commander,” observed Malcolm Reed, the Lieutenant acting as Trip’s tag-along buddy for the purpose of this visit. “There was a time that you would eat anything put in front of you!”
“Anything that didn’t smell like Porthos had already eaten half of it…,” lamented Trip, finally escaping the fruit stall and heading deeper into the busy market. “You fancy going back for a taste?”
“Come on,” chuckled the British armory officer, patting his friend on the shoulder. “Let’s find the Captain.”
Captain Jonathan Archer was busy being cornered by another trader, another Kanarthan, and this one was selling clothes. The clothes that he was suggesting for the Captain, however, were not exactly the height of Human fashion. A shocking electric pink shirt, entirely lacking sleeves of any kind, was presented with much excitement. Trying his best to look impressed, Archer nodded gingerly and displayed an expression of mock-interest. Noticing this awkward position, Trip jumped at the chance to make light of the situation. Approaching from his Captain’s left, he took hold of the shirt and held it higher, above the shoulders so that everybody could see. There were a good number of Enterprise crew members around, and a good number of them saw their commanding officer and the distasteful attire. There would be stories in the Mess Hall tonight, that was for sure.
His mission complete, Trip grinned as Archer sighed with woe.
“Well, I like it!,” exclaimed the younger man. “Something for your next vacation on Risa?”
“I suppose anything’s better than one of your shirts,” the Captain retorted, returning the shirt to the Kanarthan and making his exit.
“Seriously, you find anything good down here?,” Trip continued.
“Nothing that we’re urgently lacking. What about you, Malcolm? Anything take your fancy?”
“There were a couple of injector casings back at that junkyard that looked to still be half-full,” replied Reed, always flexing his initiative. “Turns out, for the price that the owner was asking, we would be better off just leaving behind a few Shuttlepods.”
“Oh, I think I’ve already traded one Shuttlepod for some medical supplies,” Archer joked. “And we need the other one to get back to the ship, remember?”
“Everything's that bad?,” asked Trip, avoiding the fruit seller again as they passed by.
“Let’s just say that if Starfleet does establish an outpost here, whoever’s manning it better have well-lined pockets.”
The three senior staff officers all chuckled to themselves, meandering slowly through the stalls and keeping an eye on the storm clouds above them which looked ready to burst. As they did, distracted by the bright colors and strange wares on sale, none of them noticed the shadowy figure following them, tracking them through the crows. Ducking, the figure disappeared behind a pile of crates. He could take his time. Their uniforms stood out from the otherwise diverse public. But what was this? Were they preparing to leave? He had to make his move, and make it now. His target was the tallest. The Captain. He broke into a short run, overtaking them and turning to face them.
Reed saw it happen first. The sudden stop and turn alerted him to danger immediately, and his hand automatically went for his phase pistol. As Trip and Archer caught up with the armory officer, they noticed the figure stopping them was a Yridian.
An information dealer. Usually duplicitous and scheming too.
Great.
“You are Archer of Enterprise, yes?,” the Yridian stammered, his voice raspy.
“What of it?,” replied the Captain.
“Four years ago, you found a ship matching this picture, no?”
With his four-fingered hand, the Yridian held out a datapad. On it was a still photograph of a small gray capsule. Immediately, Archer froze. He recognized the ship. Four years ago in 2152, he had come across a pod just like it. A time pod. Containing the body of a long-dead Human. That discovery had almost cost him his ship too. The Suliban and the Tholians had been all over it.
“How do you know about that?,” demanded Red, annoyed at the uncertainty surrounding the encounter.
“This image… was taken ten hours ago in the Genaar Nebula. Two lightyears from Kanar IV,” the Yridian continued.
That information shocked and surprised the three Humans. It wouldn’t have been difficult to learn about the incident, four years ago. Hell, three different races had been involved and a Vulcan ship had been destroyed! That wasn’t the real question. The real question was to consider, if it was another time pod, what was it doing here? Wasn’t the Temporal Cold War over? The question that Trip desperately wanted to ask was a different one. He knew what the Captain’s reaction would be but he voiced his concern nonetheless.
“Why is it our problem?”
“Trip,” Archer stopped him,” you know what this is. You’re damn right it’s our problem.”
He turned back towards the Yridian, who appeared to be greedily pleased with Jonathan Archer’s reactions to the image.
“For you to give us the coordinates of this capsule, and come with us to the Genaar Nebula, you name your price.”
* * * *
CHAPTER TWO
Deflecting the Issues
Stepping out from his Ready Room, Captain Archer walked across the Bridge of the Enterprise, NX-01 and joined his Vulcan First Officer, T’Pol at the science station. He was followed, annoyingly closely, by the Yridian information dealer that they had met on the planet’s surface. His name turned out to be Dahlen Frik and he was most cooperative when talking about money. Less cooperative when discussing that which interested Jonathan Archer, though, which had been somewhat troublesome during the last twenty minutes. With her usual blank expression, T’Pol watched Frik tap away at the controls. The eyes on the Bridge all joined hers, not trusting the Yridian further than they could throw him. He concluded his commands, leaning back to allow Archer to inspect the screen.
“There. This is where the capsule is. Genaar Nebula. Dangerous.”
“How did you come to know of this?,” T’Pol asked skeptically. “And how did you know to find Captain Archer on Kanar IV?”
“I use the nebula for… business,” Frik slowly and uncomfortably revealed. “Sometimes, it’s good to lie low, yes? Nobody approaches it. Dangerous levels of radiation. As for finding your Captain, he is… How do you say it? Conspicuous, at best.”
“This radiation?,” Archer pressed him. “How do you get around it?”
“I modified my main deflector to create an inverse plasma field. It breaks down harmful components.”
“T’Pol?”
After a few quick readings of the coordinates provided by their new Yridian friend, the Vulcan raised her eyebrow and reported her findings. “Our hull is sufficient to repel seventy-five percent of the radiological particles found within the nebula. I recommend the inverse plasma field be created as a precaution, nevertheless.”
“Contact Deflector Control, and tell Lieutenant Johnson to make the modifications en route.”
Archer left the science station, walked over to his Captain’s chair and sat down, surrounded by the comfortable leather. He weighed multiple decisions in his head as he did so. If this was a time pod just like the one that they had encountered in 2152, it could hold valuable answers. Or it could represent a significant new danger to the sector, the resurgence of the time-travelling factions involved. Either way, he felt a responsibility to find out. Sure, the last time he had met the time agent Daniels, he had told him quite forcefully to leave Enterprise alone… but that was different. The timeline was supposed to be safe. Now, it looked as if it was in peril once more.
“Travis, set a course for the Genaar Nebula,” he ordered. “Warp Two.”
* * * *
As the sleek NX-class starship broke orbit of Kanar IV and, with a flash, jumped to twice the speed of light, Lieutenant Jason Johnson down in Deflector Control got the message from T’Pol’s station. Turning to his only colleague in the small computerized compartment found at the front of the saucer section, E Deck, he smiled. A tall blonde man, young for his rank, he had the best job on the ship. Standing with him was Ensign Gavin Stenning, a shorter dark-haired crew member with a wicked sense of humor. It had been two years since they had declared their feelings for one another. It was common knowledge among the crew about their relationship. Spending their days cooped up together in Deflector Control, it was almost inevitable, although it helped that both men had the same preference when it came to… well, the obvious. The only small issue was the rank issue. With Jason acting as Gavin’s superior, he was definitely in command and it had caused minor problems over the years. But then, what relationship was perfect?
“Got an order here about a nebula,” Lieutenant Johnson said, making his boyfriend turn around to face him. “Let’s start setting up an inverse plasma field. Orders from A Deck.”
“Do you think it’s got something to do with the Yridian that the Captain came back with?,” Gavin asked him, tapping his console as he spoke.
“Is there anything that happens on this ship that you don’t know about?,” Jason laughed.
“Um…,” the Ensign playfully adopted mock thoughtfulness. “No, not really, no.”
“Damn, I sent you out for coffee and I get coffee, plus a gossip report…”
They both laughed as they worked.
Little did they realize that they were being watched.
Right above them, hanging upside down from the ceiling.
Invisible to the naked eye.
A Suliban.
* * * *
CHAPTER THREE
Present Guy
Relvek had been unconscious. He didn’t know for how long… although, did that matter?
Lifting his head slowly to avoid the splitting headache that he had developed, he looked from monitor to monitor. They were all smashed, and broken beyond repair. The only remaining light aboard was flickering, but he managed to see that his flight controls were destroyed, too. Going nowhere fast, the Romulan scientist decided to wipe some of the green blood from his temples and ears while using the only functional interface. A temporal scan… Thank the Elements for small mercies. With the blood cleaned up, the computer finished with the calculations. The computer was so fast, and Relvek was the one to thank, pushing for the biometric circuits instead of the regular Romulan nodes.
The result was in.
Estimated year: 2156
It worked! A few years later than he had hoped but it had worked!
The first successful time pod test, and he had no way of returning to Romulus to prove them wrong. A twinge of sadness coursed through his body. He checked some of the other systems. The interphasic cloaking device was holding as it had always done. To the casual observer, especially in this primitive century, his vessel would appear to be nothing more than a small, one-man capsule. Better to avoid suspicion that way, Relvek smiled to himself, remembering a history lesson that he once had about the dangers of interphasic cloaking devices. Something about Starfleet intervention and pushing a Romulan agent through a wall and into space… or whatever it had been.
Damn, his head hurt!
Also it was pleasing to note that the dampening field that held the temporal radiation within the safe confines of the time pod was functional. That was a nice comfort, knowing that if he ever managed to land this blasted thing, he wouldn’t keep skipping backwards through time like a broken record.
The working scanner stopped delivering information on time displacement for a moment, sounding an alarm. With no screen to read from, Relvek couldn’t know what was to happen next.
Two loud thuds. Something had struck the hull.
The vessel began to shake. He held on with worry spread across his face.
Unless, of course…
The sound of machinery, something retracting and something closing. The shaking stopped with a final heavy drop and Relvek came to a resting position. There was a gravity change. It felt close to Romulus sea-level but he knew that he hadn’t just been through a re-entry process. That could only leave one thing.
The hatch to his left started to open.
Light poured in.
Blinking through the haze of surprise, Relvek saw a collection of people waiting for him. Some of them held weapons.
Then he recognized the lead figure and smiled to himself.
“Captain Archer.”
* * * *
CHAPTER FOUR
The Webs We Weave
T’Pol was skeptical on the best of days.
Despite her long six years aboard Enterprise proving many times over that the Vulcan Science Directorate had shortcomings when it came to time travel, seeing the battleship-gray capsule floating in the heart of the Genaar Nebula like that made her old skepticism resurface. The Captain’s team should have the pilot by now, but the Bridge was quiet. Lieutenant Reed was absent, no doubt waving a phase pistol around the Launch Bay this instant, leaving only Ensign Mayweather with the Vulcan science officer. The wait was tolerable for her mental discipline but she could see Travis squirming at his station.
Humans… no patience.
The capsule was aboard and her scans showed that the pilot was alive but injured. The answers would be forthcoming. All in good time.
The turbolift door slid open at that point, unleashing Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed. Both of them wore concerned expressions, the obvious weight of their discovery being a heavy one.
“Captain, Dahlen Frik is asking for permission to undock and leave,” T’Pol stated, not ignoring her regular duties. “With, of course, a few closing remarks about his payment.”
“Tell him to get lost,” snapped the Captain. “He’s not getting anything else from us.”
“Shall I kick him into the airlock as well?”
For a Vulcan, T’Pol was remarkably in tune with the emotions of her shipmates. Archer took a moment before walking over to her science station and leaned over to whisper in her ear. As she listened, her expression came very close to something resembling shock. But there was one obvious word that caught her off-guard.
“The pilot is in Sickbay now. He passed out in the Launch Bay, but he knew me by name. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Get this, though, he’s apparently Romulan.”
“How can Phlox be certain?”
“He’s not one hundred percent certain. We don’t exactly know anything concrete about the Romulans but after that minefield, and then that marauder…”
“I assume you’ll have some questions for him when he regains consciousness.”
“You want to be there?”
“Indeed,” T’Pol confirmed, raising her eyebrow.
* * * *
Aboard his small shuttle, which was happily filled with whatever he had managed to squeeze from Captain Archer, the Yridian information dealer Dahlen Frik undocked with Enterprise and headed in the opposite direction. Back into the Genaar Nebula to lay low. Some of his regular clients weren’t exactly friends of the ever-expanding Starfleet. There was potential for trouble there, potential for laws and regulations to get in their way. Bah… that would be a concern for another time. Right now, he had a message to deliver. Activating his long-range communications grid, he waited for the security code input screen and watched the pale green head and crimson armored shoulders appear.
A Suliban.
“This is Frik,” he hissed into the monitor. “I delivered your agent. I have just undocked.”
“Thank you. Your payment is waiting at the designated coordinates.”
Closing the communications link with his Suliban paymaster, the Yridian set a course and engaged at full impulse power. Little did he know that upon arrival, his ship would be destroyed. The Suliban Cabal left nothing to chance, and no loose threads to be pulled later. After years of dealing with the Earth vessel, they had learned the wisdom of caution.
And that made them all the more dangerous.
* * * *
“Cold War”
By Jack D. Elmlinger
Premise: The crew of the NX-01 discover the vital answers to some important unanswered questions as the secrets of the Temporal Cold War are finally revealed and resolved, ending years of speculation. Meanwhile, thanks to ongoing events, another conflict brews in the shadows of a distant world…
Featuring the entire crew of the Enterprise, NX-01, some familiar faces and some deadly new enemies!
PROLOGUE
The Escape
His shields were low but he had no other choice.
Hammering at his control pad, he violently steered the small vessel away from his homeworld. Proximity alarms were blaring, filling his small cockpit with unbearable noise. He was approaching the starbases and spacedocks that surrounded the planet. He was actually approaching one in particular, a little too closely. Adjusting his vector, he accelerated with full power to the single impulse engine behind him. Why couldn’t his department have added warp engines? Then, at least, he would have time to input his commands before…
Weapons fire struck the durasteel hull, leaving black scorch marks behind. Inside, the pilot cried out as his head slammed into the bulkhead above. He started to bleed, feeling the warm liquid of blood trickle down from his brow and over his ear.
More weapons fire narrowly missed his tiny craft. That was one of the plus points of the design which was small enough to escape an accurate disruptor lock from a Warbird. Pressing a few buttons, he turned to the limited viewscreen that he had installed, only a few weeks beforehand.
The previous test pilots had no need for viewscreens in the other models. It was only his foreknowledge of his fate that allowed him to rig this vessel with what he needed to escape. The viewscreen flickered before displaying the aft sensor data.
Yeah, it was bad.
There were three of them.
Three Valdore-class Warbirds were closing fast.
The screen flickered again. Somebody was breaking through the lockout, attempting to communicate. A face appeared.
“Stand down, Relvek! Return the ship to the laboratory and give yourself up!”
Just a few more seconds…
There. The lockout returned, and the face disappeared from the viewscreen.
It didn’t please the Commander of the lead Warbird to be cut off mid-speech. In response, more disruptor fire raked the tiny capsule. Sparks flew around from various seams in the controls, showering the pilot in flakes of debris. He broke into a sweat… Well, more of a sweat than he had been in, anyway. In a mad panic, he read a computerized display.
Damn.
His shields had completely collapsed with that last volley. The next shot would destroy him, and the Warbirds speeding towards him knew exactly that.
This was it. This was the moment. This had to work.
Do or die.
He chose to do.
Just before his capsule disappeared into the artificial vortex and left the 29th century far behind, the lights flickered back on inside the cockpit. Turning, Relvek wiped the green blood from his pointed ear.
Goodbye, Romulus.
Hello, 22nd century.
* * * *
CHAPTER ONE
Hidden Treasures of the Market
Captain’s Starlog, March 18th, 2156;
We’ve entered orbit of Kanar IV, a trading outpost in the Kanrthan system. Admiral Gardener is hopeful that the Kanarthans will be open to allowing Human expeditions to establish a small base of operations on the planet to facilitate the rapidly growing Starfleet. Since diplomacy can often be slow business, I’ve allowed some of the crew to sample the delights of the exotic marketplace below.
Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker could do nothing but turn his nose up at the … whatever it was. It looked like an apple but it was blue, covered in spines, and it stank worse than Doctor Phlox’s feet after a hibernation sleep cycle. The trader, a native Kanarthan, looked disappointed at the Chief Engineer’s reaction and searched for something else instead. The Kanarthans were friendly humanoids with pale topaz skin covering hints of cranial ridges and pleasing bright eyes. However, this, like all marketplaces across the Galaxy, wasn’t a place for being friendly. This was a place for the hard sell, and yet more fruit was shoved towards the visiting party from Enterprise.
“No… no, thanks… No, I’m fine… Thank you,” Trip attempted to excuse himself.
“You’ve lost your sense of adventure, Commander,” observed Malcolm Reed, the Lieutenant acting as Trip’s tag-along buddy for the purpose of this visit. “There was a time that you would eat anything put in front of you!”
“Anything that didn’t smell like Porthos had already eaten half of it…,” lamented Trip, finally escaping the fruit stall and heading deeper into the busy market. “You fancy going back for a taste?”
“Come on,” chuckled the British armory officer, patting his friend on the shoulder. “Let’s find the Captain.”
Captain Jonathan Archer was busy being cornered by another trader, another Kanarthan, and this one was selling clothes. The clothes that he was suggesting for the Captain, however, were not exactly the height of Human fashion. A shocking electric pink shirt, entirely lacking sleeves of any kind, was presented with much excitement. Trying his best to look impressed, Archer nodded gingerly and displayed an expression of mock-interest. Noticing this awkward position, Trip jumped at the chance to make light of the situation. Approaching from his Captain’s left, he took hold of the shirt and held it higher, above the shoulders so that everybody could see. There were a good number of Enterprise crew members around, and a good number of them saw their commanding officer and the distasteful attire. There would be stories in the Mess Hall tonight, that was for sure.
His mission complete, Trip grinned as Archer sighed with woe.
“Well, I like it!,” exclaimed the younger man. “Something for your next vacation on Risa?”
“I suppose anything’s better than one of your shirts,” the Captain retorted, returning the shirt to the Kanarthan and making his exit.
“Seriously, you find anything good down here?,” Trip continued.
“Nothing that we’re urgently lacking. What about you, Malcolm? Anything take your fancy?”
“There were a couple of injector casings back at that junkyard that looked to still be half-full,” replied Reed, always flexing his initiative. “Turns out, for the price that the owner was asking, we would be better off just leaving behind a few Shuttlepods.”
“Oh, I think I’ve already traded one Shuttlepod for some medical supplies,” Archer joked. “And we need the other one to get back to the ship, remember?”
“Everything's that bad?,” asked Trip, avoiding the fruit seller again as they passed by.
“Let’s just say that if Starfleet does establish an outpost here, whoever’s manning it better have well-lined pockets.”
The three senior staff officers all chuckled to themselves, meandering slowly through the stalls and keeping an eye on the storm clouds above them which looked ready to burst. As they did, distracted by the bright colors and strange wares on sale, none of them noticed the shadowy figure following them, tracking them through the crows. Ducking, the figure disappeared behind a pile of crates. He could take his time. Their uniforms stood out from the otherwise diverse public. But what was this? Were they preparing to leave? He had to make his move, and make it now. His target was the tallest. The Captain. He broke into a short run, overtaking them and turning to face them.
Reed saw it happen first. The sudden stop and turn alerted him to danger immediately, and his hand automatically went for his phase pistol. As Trip and Archer caught up with the armory officer, they noticed the figure stopping them was a Yridian.
An information dealer. Usually duplicitous and scheming too.
Great.
“You are Archer of Enterprise, yes?,” the Yridian stammered, his voice raspy.
“What of it?,” replied the Captain.
“Four years ago, you found a ship matching this picture, no?”
With his four-fingered hand, the Yridian held out a datapad. On it was a still photograph of a small gray capsule. Immediately, Archer froze. He recognized the ship. Four years ago in 2152, he had come across a pod just like it. A time pod. Containing the body of a long-dead Human. That discovery had almost cost him his ship too. The Suliban and the Tholians had been all over it.
“How do you know about that?,” demanded Red, annoyed at the uncertainty surrounding the encounter.
“This image… was taken ten hours ago in the Genaar Nebula. Two lightyears from Kanar IV,” the Yridian continued.
That information shocked and surprised the three Humans. It wouldn’t have been difficult to learn about the incident, four years ago. Hell, three different races had been involved and a Vulcan ship had been destroyed! That wasn’t the real question. The real question was to consider, if it was another time pod, what was it doing here? Wasn’t the Temporal Cold War over? The question that Trip desperately wanted to ask was a different one. He knew what the Captain’s reaction would be but he voiced his concern nonetheless.
“Why is it our problem?”
“Trip,” Archer stopped him,” you know what this is. You’re damn right it’s our problem.”
He turned back towards the Yridian, who appeared to be greedily pleased with Jonathan Archer’s reactions to the image.
“For you to give us the coordinates of this capsule, and come with us to the Genaar Nebula, you name your price.”
* * * *
CHAPTER TWO
Deflecting the Issues
Stepping out from his Ready Room, Captain Archer walked across the Bridge of the Enterprise, NX-01 and joined his Vulcan First Officer, T’Pol at the science station. He was followed, annoyingly closely, by the Yridian information dealer that they had met on the planet’s surface. His name turned out to be Dahlen Frik and he was most cooperative when talking about money. Less cooperative when discussing that which interested Jonathan Archer, though, which had been somewhat troublesome during the last twenty minutes. With her usual blank expression, T’Pol watched Frik tap away at the controls. The eyes on the Bridge all joined hers, not trusting the Yridian further than they could throw him. He concluded his commands, leaning back to allow Archer to inspect the screen.
“There. This is where the capsule is. Genaar Nebula. Dangerous.”
“How did you come to know of this?,” T’Pol asked skeptically. “And how did you know to find Captain Archer on Kanar IV?”
“I use the nebula for… business,” Frik slowly and uncomfortably revealed. “Sometimes, it’s good to lie low, yes? Nobody approaches it. Dangerous levels of radiation. As for finding your Captain, he is… How do you say it? Conspicuous, at best.”
“This radiation?,” Archer pressed him. “How do you get around it?”
“I modified my main deflector to create an inverse plasma field. It breaks down harmful components.”
“T’Pol?”
After a few quick readings of the coordinates provided by their new Yridian friend, the Vulcan raised her eyebrow and reported her findings. “Our hull is sufficient to repel seventy-five percent of the radiological particles found within the nebula. I recommend the inverse plasma field be created as a precaution, nevertheless.”
“Contact Deflector Control, and tell Lieutenant Johnson to make the modifications en route.”
Archer left the science station, walked over to his Captain’s chair and sat down, surrounded by the comfortable leather. He weighed multiple decisions in his head as he did so. If this was a time pod just like the one that they had encountered in 2152, it could hold valuable answers. Or it could represent a significant new danger to the sector, the resurgence of the time-travelling factions involved. Either way, he felt a responsibility to find out. Sure, the last time he had met the time agent Daniels, he had told him quite forcefully to leave Enterprise alone… but that was different. The timeline was supposed to be safe. Now, it looked as if it was in peril once more.
“Travis, set a course for the Genaar Nebula,” he ordered. “Warp Two.”
* * * *
As the sleek NX-class starship broke orbit of Kanar IV and, with a flash, jumped to twice the speed of light, Lieutenant Jason Johnson down in Deflector Control got the message from T’Pol’s station. Turning to his only colleague in the small computerized compartment found at the front of the saucer section, E Deck, he smiled. A tall blonde man, young for his rank, he had the best job on the ship. Standing with him was Ensign Gavin Stenning, a shorter dark-haired crew member with a wicked sense of humor. It had been two years since they had declared their feelings for one another. It was common knowledge among the crew about their relationship. Spending their days cooped up together in Deflector Control, it was almost inevitable, although it helped that both men had the same preference when it came to… well, the obvious. The only small issue was the rank issue. With Jason acting as Gavin’s superior, he was definitely in command and it had caused minor problems over the years. But then, what relationship was perfect?
“Got an order here about a nebula,” Lieutenant Johnson said, making his boyfriend turn around to face him. “Let’s start setting up an inverse plasma field. Orders from A Deck.”
“Do you think it’s got something to do with the Yridian that the Captain came back with?,” Gavin asked him, tapping his console as he spoke.
“Is there anything that happens on this ship that you don’t know about?,” Jason laughed.
“Um…,” the Ensign playfully adopted mock thoughtfulness. “No, not really, no.”
“Damn, I sent you out for coffee and I get coffee, plus a gossip report…”
They both laughed as they worked.
Little did they realize that they were being watched.
Right above them, hanging upside down from the ceiling.
Invisible to the naked eye.
A Suliban.
* * * *
CHAPTER THREE
Present Guy
Relvek had been unconscious. He didn’t know for how long… although, did that matter?
Lifting his head slowly to avoid the splitting headache that he had developed, he looked from monitor to monitor. They were all smashed, and broken beyond repair. The only remaining light aboard was flickering, but he managed to see that his flight controls were destroyed, too. Going nowhere fast, the Romulan scientist decided to wipe some of the green blood from his temples and ears while using the only functional interface. A temporal scan… Thank the Elements for small mercies. With the blood cleaned up, the computer finished with the calculations. The computer was so fast, and Relvek was the one to thank, pushing for the biometric circuits instead of the regular Romulan nodes.
The result was in.
Estimated year: 2156
It worked! A few years later than he had hoped but it had worked!
The first successful time pod test, and he had no way of returning to Romulus to prove them wrong. A twinge of sadness coursed through his body. He checked some of the other systems. The interphasic cloaking device was holding as it had always done. To the casual observer, especially in this primitive century, his vessel would appear to be nothing more than a small, one-man capsule. Better to avoid suspicion that way, Relvek smiled to himself, remembering a history lesson that he once had about the dangers of interphasic cloaking devices. Something about Starfleet intervention and pushing a Romulan agent through a wall and into space… or whatever it had been.
Damn, his head hurt!
Also it was pleasing to note that the dampening field that held the temporal radiation within the safe confines of the time pod was functional. That was a nice comfort, knowing that if he ever managed to land this blasted thing, he wouldn’t keep skipping backwards through time like a broken record.
The working scanner stopped delivering information on time displacement for a moment, sounding an alarm. With no screen to read from, Relvek couldn’t know what was to happen next.
Two loud thuds. Something had struck the hull.
The vessel began to shake. He held on with worry spread across his face.
Unless, of course…
The sound of machinery, something retracting and something closing. The shaking stopped with a final heavy drop and Relvek came to a resting position. There was a gravity change. It felt close to Romulus sea-level but he knew that he hadn’t just been through a re-entry process. That could only leave one thing.
The hatch to his left started to open.
Light poured in.
Blinking through the haze of surprise, Relvek saw a collection of people waiting for him. Some of them held weapons.
Then he recognized the lead figure and smiled to himself.
“Captain Archer.”
* * * *
CHAPTER FOUR
The Webs We Weave
T’Pol was skeptical on the best of days.
Despite her long six years aboard Enterprise proving many times over that the Vulcan Science Directorate had shortcomings when it came to time travel, seeing the battleship-gray capsule floating in the heart of the Genaar Nebula like that made her old skepticism resurface. The Captain’s team should have the pilot by now, but the Bridge was quiet. Lieutenant Reed was absent, no doubt waving a phase pistol around the Launch Bay this instant, leaving only Ensign Mayweather with the Vulcan science officer. The wait was tolerable for her mental discipline but she could see Travis squirming at his station.
Humans… no patience.
The capsule was aboard and her scans showed that the pilot was alive but injured. The answers would be forthcoming. All in good time.
The turbolift door slid open at that point, unleashing Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed. Both of them wore concerned expressions, the obvious weight of their discovery being a heavy one.
“Captain, Dahlen Frik is asking for permission to undock and leave,” T’Pol stated, not ignoring her regular duties. “With, of course, a few closing remarks about his payment.”
“Tell him to get lost,” snapped the Captain. “He’s not getting anything else from us.”
“Shall I kick him into the airlock as well?”
For a Vulcan, T’Pol was remarkably in tune with the emotions of her shipmates. Archer took a moment before walking over to her science station and leaned over to whisper in her ear. As she listened, her expression came very close to something resembling shock. But there was one obvious word that caught her off-guard.
“The pilot is in Sickbay now. He passed out in the Launch Bay, but he knew me by name. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Get this, though, he’s apparently Romulan.”
“How can Phlox be certain?”
“He’s not one hundred percent certain. We don’t exactly know anything concrete about the Romulans but after that minefield, and then that marauder…”
“I assume you’ll have some questions for him when he regains consciousness.”
“You want to be there?”
“Indeed,” T’Pol confirmed, raising her eyebrow.
* * * *
Aboard his small shuttle, which was happily filled with whatever he had managed to squeeze from Captain Archer, the Yridian information dealer Dahlen Frik undocked with Enterprise and headed in the opposite direction. Back into the Genaar Nebula to lay low. Some of his regular clients weren’t exactly friends of the ever-expanding Starfleet. There was potential for trouble there, potential for laws and regulations to get in their way. Bah… that would be a concern for another time. Right now, he had a message to deliver. Activating his long-range communications grid, he waited for the security code input screen and watched the pale green head and crimson armored shoulders appear.
A Suliban.
“This is Frik,” he hissed into the monitor. “I delivered your agent. I have just undocked.”
“Thank you. Your payment is waiting at the designated coordinates.”
Closing the communications link with his Suliban paymaster, the Yridian set a course and engaged at full impulse power. Little did he know that upon arrival, his ship would be destroyed. The Suliban Cabal left nothing to chance, and no loose threads to be pulled later. After years of dealing with the Earth vessel, they had learned the wisdom of caution.
And that made them all the more dangerous.
* * * *
