(2155)
Jonathan Archer gazed through the telescope to the glittering structure in geosynchronous orbit over San Francisco. Within the spacedock, he could just make out the shape that was Enterprise. It was a shape that had found its way into his heart just as the crew had. And now that shape was changing. Inside, Trip was supervising an engineering team alongside Admiral Drexler as they completed the refit to the ship. Though he couldn't quite see it from here, he knew that the secondary hull was attached, and a new warp core was being integrated into the power system.
"She's beautiful, Jonathan."
Archer jumped at the familiar voice and turned around. "Daniels!"
"Sorry if I startled you." Daniels was wearing a generic Starfleet jumpsuit that showed the rank of lieutenant and bore a Starfleet Command patch. "You know, you can view it from headquarters. There are plenty of monitors..."
"If I can't actually be there, I'd rather see it this way. It's just a little more real."
"Life support will be back online tomorrow," Daniels said.
"And tomorrow I'll be up there to see it." Archer struggled to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "At the risk of sounding rude, why are you here?"
"I was actually here on other business," he answered. "But I wanted to caution you about something."
Archer sighed. "Are you telling me to put off the launch?"
"No Jonathan. Quite the opposite actually. But I wanted to warn you that events are about to-" he hesitated.
"About to what?"
"If you'll excuse the expression, they are about to take a quantum leap forward."
"What the hell does that mean?" Archer asked, not trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.
Daniels hesitated again. "I told you that things had been reset. That the Temporal Cold War never happened."
"Yes?"
"As it turns out, that was a premature assessment. There were races that possessed time travel technology that we simply weren't aware of. One in particular wasn't specifically interested in the 22nd century as a front, nor were they interested in the Alpha Quadrant-"
"Alpha Quadrant?"
"Forgive me. This part of the galaxy. But they did have an encounter with an Earth ship that was lost tens of thousands of light years from home. And that piqued their interest. They never signed the Temporal Accords and have been looking to form alliances with other powers. This isn't about your mission, or the founding of the Federation, but it does mean that parties who went dormant may not stay that way. They will be tempted to action, and yes, some of that action will take place in this part of the galaxy, and soon."
Archer looked longingly at the telescope, and glanced toward the sky where Enterprise was being refitted. It all seemed suddenly far away. "Just what are you trying to tell me? No mysteries. No hints. No vague warnings. Plain English. What are you telling me to do?"
Daniels shook his head, and glanced upward, just as Archer had. Then he looked at Archer. "Be prepared for the unexpected. Lots of it."
Trip Tucker could feel the sweat inside of his EVA suit but couldn't do anything about it. Then he glanced at Admiral Drexler to his right and saw the man working calmly and quietly, cool as a cucumber. "Admiral, everything checks out here. Seals are tight. Plating looks good. EPS lines are good. All green lights."
"That's just fine Commander. We'll just make sure the other teams show the same thing, then we can lock things up."
"I have to say, this has gone smoother than I expected. You, uh..." Tucker suddenly wondered if he was being too familiar with the Admiral. Sure he was an engineer, but he was also a flag officer. "You seem awfully comfortable out here. Spend a lot of time crawling around the outside of starships, do you?"
Drexler smiled behind his helmet. "Oh yes. Between Starfleet and UESPA and a few other places, I've spent my share of time crawling around the hulls of ships. It gets to be second nature after a while." Vulcan ships. Klingon ships. That Tholian cruiser. All sorts of ships, Drexler thought. In all kinds of time periods.
"I suppose so," Tucker said. "Never gets any easier to scratch your, uhh, to scratch an itch, does it?"
"No it doesn't." Drexler laughed. "They never seem to think we need to worry about that." That was when the six other teams crawling around the Enterprise began to report in.
Hours later, Archer was on his bunk in visiting officers quarters at Starfleet Command when his comm panel beeped. He reached over and tapped it without bothering to turn on the light. "Archer."
"Good evening, Captain." It was Trip. "You gone to bed already?"
"I decided I needed a good night's sleep."
"You sound worried," Trip said. "Should I be?"
"I'm not even sure I should be, Trip." Archer swung his legs over Porthos and onto the floor. "What's up?"
"Just thought I'd let you know the new warp core goes online in the morning. Life support will be up next, and we can load the crew and get underway in a day or two."
"Sounds good Trip."
"You don't sound too enthusiastic, Captain. What's wrong?"
"Nothing, Trip. I'll see you in the morning." Archer closed the channel and sighed. Damn.
Archer felt better in the morning, but still with a sense of creeping anxiety. Nothing was ever easy or straightforward. But the view from the shuttlepod helped. She was as beautiful as ever, only more so. While there were several cosmetic changes, including several external phase cannon ports, as well as the stylized Starfleet delta arrow on the warp nacelles, the most obvious change was a secondary engineering hull beneath the saucer and nacelles. A large gold deflector dish dominated the front of the new hull, and the pylons that had joined the nacelles to the engineering section had been extended to connect with the secondary hull. The original deflector was still affixed to the front of the saucer, for use in case of an emergency saucer separation. That concept made Archer nervous, but he knew better than most that you couldn't underestimate the hazards of life on a starship. With that thought in mind he tried his best to enjoy the exterior tour that Trip was giving him until it finally ended in a shuttle bay at the rear of the secondary hull.
The ship was still mostly empty, with scattered work crews mostly cleaning up. "She's beautiful Trip," Archer said. "Everyone's done a great job."
"Glad to hear," he answered. "So you want to tell me what's wrong?"
He waited until they got to the bridge, which still had work crews completing system installs and testing equipment. There were some differences here too, but not as dramatic as the changes to the hull. "In here," he made his way to the ready room. Once inside, he moved quickly around the desk and had a seat. Trip opposite and waited patiently. Archer began slowly. "I, uh... I had a visitor yesterday, while you were up here."
"A visitor?" Trip asked.
"Yes," Archer answered. Then he told Trip about Daniels' enigmatic warning. When he was finished, he stood up and paced in the small office. "I thought we were finished with him. I sometimes feel like our entire mission so far has been tainted by all of these people from the future and their 'Temporal War'. I was really looking forward to being away from all that. Exploring."
"And fighting Romulans," Trip added gently.
"It seems like that's bound to come to a boil soon. But at least they're in the here and now. At least they aren't working for someone who is working for someone else centuries in the future." He sighed. "A little more straightforward. That I can handle."
"So Daniels didn't try to tell you do or not do anything specific?"
"No. Just be ready for the unexpected."
"Yeah," Trip said. "When you least expect it, expect it."
"Exactly," Archer answered. "I'm going to talk to Admiral Gardner in an hour. I want us ready to launch tomorrow."
"I'd like a couple of days to complete tests, but it's nothing I can't handle today. You... you have some place specific in mind to go?"
"No," Archer said. "But I think we need to be ready for whatever this unexpected turns out to be."
"You got it, Captain." Trip grinned at his friend. "We've faced off Klingons and Suliban and alien Nazis from the future. How much worse can it get?"
Archer forced a smile. "Maybe you're right. Thanks Trip."
In Admiral Gardner's office, Archer got his first taste of Daniels' 'unexpected'. "You will launch tomorrow, Captain. The Vulcans have passed on a request from the Suliban ambassador to meet with you on Vulcan. As soon as possible."
"I didn't realize there was a Suliban ambassador."
"Neither did we. Neither did the Vulcans. But they want to talk, and they want to talk with you." Gardner stood and looked at a monitor showing the Enterprise still in space dock. "We don't have many reasons to trust the Suliban. In fact we have more reasons to not trust them. But they want to talk. There has to be a first step, and they've taken it by meeting us in Coalition space. We have to answer that with a willingness to hear them out."
Archer stood. "I'll be there."
True to his word, Trip had Enterprise ready to launch the next day. When Archer stepped onto the bridge, he was more struck by the familiar than the new additions to the ship. His crew was fully in place. His family. Archer looked around at every familiar face and smiled. Nice to know there were still things he could count on. "To the future," he said simply. Then he added, quietly, "To boldly go. Take us out Travis. Set course for Vulcan." And he watched as the frame of space dock receded on the viewscreen to reveal open space. It was almost possible to forget about Daniels and his cryptic warning in the beauty that they were flying into.
It was a day later when it showed up. "Captain, there's a ship fifty thousand kilometers ahead of us." Travis announced. "At station-keeping."
Archer stood up. "Identity?"
"It is a Vulcan cruiser," T'Pol answered. "The Seleya."
"Hail them, Hoshi."
"They're hailing us, Captain."
"Of course," Archer said. "Put them on."
The image on the viewscreen changed to reveal Ambassador Soval. "Greetings Captain. You'll have to forgive this change of plans, but it was deemed necessary for the sake of security."
After a quick glance at T'Pol, Archer answered. "That's okay Ambassador. What can I do for you?"
"If you will please come aboard immediately, I'll explain."
"Very well," Archer answered. "Stand by." Then he turned back to T'Pol. "Let's go see."
A few minutes later, Archer and T'Pol were escorted into a conference room where Soval waited with a male Suliban dressed in the same maroon colored uniform that the members of the cabal wore. Archer had trouble taking his eyes away from the Suliban. And then it's appearance changed and shimmered to reveal Silik. "Hello, Captain."
"Silik? I thought you were killed!"
"I was. But it seems that nothing is necessarily permanent anymore. I remember dying next to you, on Earth. In the past. Then I awoke on a Helix." He said. "But that's not why I need to talk to you."
Archer looked from Silik to Soval, then back to Silik. "So what do you want?"
"I speak for the cabal, Jonathan."
"And?"
"We have cut ties to our benefactors from the future. They finally showed that they had no interest in us beyond what we could do for them."
"You can't tell me you never thought of that before," Archer said.
"Of course. We benefited from their genetic manipulation. But in the end they started to weaponize our people. We became aware that Suliban were being made into biological weapons. They were bred as biological suicide bombs. A dozen innocent, unaware but highly infectious Suliban refugees dropped into a population, killing millions and dying themselves. We decided that we couldn't be a part of that anymore. So I have been sent to appeal to your Coalition for assistance. We've cut ties with the future, and our past."
Archer was silent for a moment. He didn't trust Silik. This was just the kind of thing he would do to get inside their defenses. He felt T'Pol's eyes on him, and saw Soval staring at him. Was this Daniels' 'unexpected'? "Why you? Why me?"
"Because we know each other. I somehow felt that you would trust me more than any other Suliban."
"Silik, I-"
"You have no reason to trust me. No proof. No evidence."
'Is it my imagination, or has his voice lost its smugness?' Archer thought to himself. "You're right. I don't. So why should I take your word?"
"Because if this was a trap or a trick you know I would be much more clever. I would give you no choice but to trust me."
"You son of a bitch," Archer grumbled. "If you're lying..."
"I'm not," Silik answered. "I'm trying to save my people."
"Okay," he said. Time to take that leap of faith. Embrace the unexpected. "Come back to Earth with me. I'll present you to the-"
He was interrupted by an alert klaxon. They all stood up, and Soval moved to a bulkhead-mounted comm panel. "Report."
"Ambassador, we've just monitored an alert. Hundreds of planets all over the quadrant have just... have just..."
"Have just what?" Soval demanded.
"They've been destroyed. It is believed that subspace devices of some unknown configuration were used. Rigel X. Antidian III. Parcal V. There are hundreds."
Silik sat back down and seemed to shrink into his seat. "They found out. How could they have found out so quickly?"
"What?" Archer asked gently.
"Those are all planets where Suliban have settled. Cabal and civilians. They found us everywhere and have punished us. Somehow, from the future, they found out and punished us."
