Star Trek Reimagined.

[Charles Markov]

It had been over a week, Enterprise was halfway through with her trip to Vulcan and in Archers opinion it could not be over soon enough. The Vulcans had been a constant nuisance, continually wanting a tour of different parts of the ship. Asking about her capabilities and generally doing their level best to discover her secrets.

Ambassador Fel meanwhile, Earths replacemet ambassador to Vulcan, made the trip even more of a headache by constantly getting in the way, asking questions, demanding to speak with Archer only for her to ask him simple questions. His favourite being how to adjust the lighting in her quarters, something anyone else on the ship could have done just as easily.

Enterprise also had a few troubles of her own. Being a new ship there was still a few problems to be worked out, some defective parts to be replaced such as malfunctioning lighting elements and haywire environmental controls, and quirks of the ship to be discovered. Perhaps the worst of these issues being when the gravity on C deck had failed without warning, Archer had phoned Trip from the shower and been nearly injured when it was turned back on. A drop of two metres onto the deck had not been fun. Fortunately no one else had been injured in the mishap and the Vulcans remained blissfully ignorant that it had even happened.

It had not been all bad however, Archer was finding that he absolutely loved the ship. Enterprise was a masterpiece of design and every waking moment he was not being hounded by politicians or Vulcans he enjoyed himself immensely.

He tested the ships systems extensively in the first number of days. Making a number of stops to ensure that the ships sensors worked, or that other systems would work properly. He even gave Reed the chance to test the ships "defensive systems" by stopping on the fourth day of the journey for some target practice against a passing meteorite. It took a salvo of missiles and a blast of laser fire for the half kilometre wide ball of rock and ice to explode, but it was quite the lightshow.

The ship was continuing on its course now, all tests Archer could think of having been concluded already, and a routine was forming. Archer sat on the bridge for the first eight hours of the day, with first Travis and then Malcom taking shifts overseeing the ship. Trip spent most of his time in the engine room and elsewhere, occasionally Hoshi would have a go at commanding the ship for awhile, though she still was not comfortable with that degree of authority.

The Vulcans had not been idle either. Over the last few days they had taken repeated tours of the ship, often with Archer leading them through the engine rooms, computer cores and weapons. In groups of just two or three at a time they asked an endless series of questions regarding the ships systems, speed and capabilities. Archer did his best to give as vague answers as he could without stooping to outright lies.

The rest of the ships officers were far less concerned about lying and even said outright impossibilities when asked about Enterprise. Trip was perhaps the worst. On one occasion answering that Enterprise could achieve warp factor seven and hold that speed for nine years without refuelling when asked about the ships speed.

Fortunately the Vulcans seemed unwilling to stoop to quite the level that Archer had anticipated. Never being caught or even suspected of attempting to hack into the ships computers directly. It was not something they were not entirely unfamiliar with, the Chicago scandal of a decade prior being still fresh in everyone's mind. And Archer was certain to make sure that evidence of hacking had been looked for.

Overall Archer was finding these Vulcans far less intrusive and difficult than they had anticipated. Even ambassador Soval was proving to be less of a nuisance than he had initially believed. He was perhaps less than a problem than ambassador Fel and her staff which was constantly in his way and asking an endless series of questions and difficulties. That did not mean he was enjoying it, but he was managing through it.



If Archer had learned that just on the edge of Vulcan space there lay in wait a cruiser of the Deik'lavas class which had stationed itself along Enterises projected course with the intention of ambushing her he would have suddenly found any good will he had towards Vulcans evaporate.

The ship was part of a mission organized by a reactionary element within the navy which was convinced that they needed gain as much intelligence on the E-class ships as possible. Even resorting to force to accomplish their goals.

Captain Cho'kol and his ship the Arakas were only a part of the plan however. The anchor by which the other two parts of the planned heist were dependent upon. Prior to the ships departure there was concern raised of how unstable Vulcan scientists believed the vessels warp field to be that was passed onto the UESPA and UE government. It was ignored, but when the ship went missing it would provide a convenient reason to explain why the ship was lost.

The third element of the plan involved planted agents in ambassador Soval's own staff that would cripple the ships engines and attempt to hack her computers to stop the vessel from either attempting to escape, or fight back.

The plan was necessary, at least Cho'kol and others felt it was. Earth could not be allowed to usurp Vulcan's position as the preeminent technological power in the galaxy, they had possessed warp flight for a scant few centuries while Vulcan had possessed it for close to two millennium. Humans were also dangerous, having nearly destroyed themselves before Vulcan stepped in and stabilized the situation on Earth, delivering huge quantities of relief supplies in the process and rebuilding the planets shattered environment.

"It will be another day before the Earth ship arrives," Cho'kol said as an opening to the mornings officer meeting. He looked around at everyone and saw that he had their complete attention. "Before they get here I want our sensor nets fully assembled so we have the best coverage of the system possible, missing them is not an option."

He looked down at his board. "We also need to be certain to look for the signal from those aboard the Earth ship loyal to our cause. If they fail however I am willing to resort to the use of force."

Seeing his words had registered he continued with the briefing. Receiving reports and asking questions about the ships status like any captain would. Enterprise was forgotten for the moment. All in the room knew everything there was to know and did not need to be reminded of anything, they were Vulcans afterall and possessed perfect memories.



"This conduit is the primary feedpoint for the port nacelle is it not?" Selvek asked as he and his party of three were led through the twisting corridors of Enterprises aft sections.

"Yes I believe it is," Travis answered. He was getting tired, he had just spent eight hours on the bridge and had been looking forward to a bit of rest, only for captain Archer to ask him as he had been about to get to the lift to give these three Vulcans a quick tour of the ship.

"And it feeds directly into the main reactor?" Selvek asked.

"I would have to ask Tucker, but I believe that is true," Travis shifted in his stance and leaned against the bulkhead.

"Would that not be a problem should there be a power bleedback?" Another Vulcan asked. "Would that not run the possibility of disabling or even destroying the vessel?"

Travis did know the answer to this question. "Actually the reactor has shutoffs in the injectors to the conduits that will stop any plasma feedback into the reactor and shunt it off harmlessly."

The Vulcan that had asked the question seemed to mull over this for a moment. "But the ship would be unable to attain warp speeds then would it not? Would the conduit to be warped for further use?"

Travis nodded. "Unfortunatlely yes," he wondered for a moment why three Vulcans were this interested in the plasma conduits of the Enterprise.

Apparently catching Travis's thought the third Vulcan piped up, "Vulcan vessels have several failsafes such as this and the plasma conduits themselves are easily replaceable," he said with an air of superiority.

Travis was not enough of an expert on Enterprises' technical specification to give an answer to this, but he was certain that whatever the Vulcans used it was inferior to whatever was fitted aboard his ship. Doing his best to ignore the slight against his ship he carried on with the tour. Finally he finished the tour a few hours later and went to bed.



T'pol was waiting when Selvek and his team returned for them in the shared common room between their quarters. "Have you anything to report?" She asked as the doors cycled shut behind them.

Selvek nodded. "Nothing of use," Selvek said, sitting down on the couch across from T'pol he noted that she was not in the least bit surprised.

"The humans have proven remarkably capable of keeping us in the dark about the capabilities of the ship. I must say I am impressed by that, though frustrated." T'pol slid a notepad over to him. "Anything you noted should be written down, we need as thorough a report as possible."

Selvek nodded, he was well aware of the necessity to keep records of their tour of the ship. Even if they did not find any useful information, at least anything he could share with T'pol.

He finished his report in a few minutes and handed it over to T'pol, who read through it and signed her approval of it before setting it on a pile of similar reports. She was growing frustrated at the lack of anything useful to report. Watching her Selvek had a slight pang of guilt for not being entirely truthful with her. But logically she would not be harmed by what she did not know.

He left a short time later and went to bed. Leaving T'pol alone to think over what she had observed. She knew Selvek was not being entirely truthful with her. His body language, though well hidden, showed some guilt over something. But she had no idea just what he was not telling her. It was not like looking at the ship and trying to find out what made it work the way it did had a lot of room for secrets.

On a whim, if Vulcans had whims, T'pol looked through Selvek's personal file. It showed nothing terribly out of the ordinary. He had served with ambassador Soval for a few years after he had gotten out of the navy. He went to school at a prestigious university and graduated in the top tiers of his class.

But then as she looked a little more in depth his record began to stand out a little more. For one he was well known as being somewhat prejudiced against humans. Viewing them as primitive and in need of help. He had been reprimanded repeatedly for expressing such views, even to humans.

But the thing that raised a red flag to T'pol was Selveks service in the military. She knew from experience that most military records were freely available and easy to follow. Consisting of simple lines regarding where an individual worked and for how long, and in what capacity.

But Selvek's records held none of that. Rather they were very short and held gaping holes in their records, times amounting to almost a decade, where the record read only as intelligence. This meant for certain that he had been involved in secret missions, and not in a sideline capacity like analyst. Rather he had served likely as an operator or agent.

Often those who had served in the intelligence community were never fully out, often being used for other tasks when the situation presented itself. Could he be on such a mission now?



"You believe him to be on some form of secret mission?" Soval asked, he had listened quietly as T'pol explained her theory, but it was clear that he had his doubts.

"Yes I do think that is a possibility." She handed him a sheaf of papers she had printed out. "Our database says as much here," she gestured at the second page of the report. Soval's eyebrows raised as he looked over that.

It was standard practice to copy all data stored in embassy computers when an ambassador left his post, granted this was never intended for use in this manner, but that being said Soval was glad that she had.

"Keep an eye on Selvek if you would." He ordered and set the document down. He would have to think about it and ponder what he could be doing. There was a good possibility that whatever it was it was it had the potential to end in a huge embarrassment for Vulcan if it went wrong.

Opinion on Earth towards Vulcan had shifted a lot in the recent decade, with many coming to view Vulcan as deliberately holding Earth back to ensure its dominance. It was a view captain Archer likely shared. Whether it was true or not was not up to Soval to say.



Two days later and the ship had continued along its course to Vulcan without incident. Archer had ordered another string of speed and endurance tests to be conducted. Bringing Enterprise up to warp factor four point seven for a full two minutes before he was forced to slow down due to structural stresses on the ships hull.

T'pol had continued on her investigation of Selvik, so far she had found very little. But that did not mean she had come up empty. Far from it. Instead she was all but certain that Selvik had been activated by intelligence for an operation designed to properly spy out Enterprise. Though she was unable to come to a proper conclusion as to the end of the operation.

In order to find more information T'pol had begun to backtrack on Selvek's movements. This had begun with a very cursory glance into his quarters, but that yielded nothing. Not to be unexpected if the man had any training.

She had next looked through every report that he had filed and begun to take similar tours of the ship, by herself as she did not want to attract any attention from the remainder of the ambassadors staff. She was however certain to keep Soval informed as to her movements and discoveries.

Currently she had just gone on two separate tours of the vessel, the first time she had been unable to have the same man give the tour as had given one to Selvek, the ships engineer Charles Tucker giving it instead. However, just a few hours later Travis Mayweather had become available and so he had consented to give her a tour of the ship.

She did not know what she expected to find out, the humans had been very guarded in their answers and no member one else had managed to find anything of importance, why would Selvek be any different.

T'pol then made a leap of logic and decided that even if Selvek were as careful as he could be with his movements so as to avoid discovery with the other Vulcans he would likely not be as careful with the humans. Afterall the two seldom spoke socially, their interactions confined to tours and passing conversations.

She thus decided to be very open about her intentions. She asked Travis directly to give her an account of Selvek's actions, everything he and his party said and everywhere that he took them. She did not however reveal just why she wanted him to do so.

"This was about when the three of them decided they had seen enough," Travis said standing beside in the middle of the hallway. T'pol looked around wondering what the other had seen that he considered to be useful.

"Here?" She asked beginning to feel almost like the helmsman was fooling her.

"Yes, I thought it was weird to," Travis could tell that T'pol had her doubts but wanted to make it clear he was being entirely truthful. Her honesty with him earlier had compelled him to do the same.

He gestured to the plasma conduit and shrugged. "Asked a bunch of questions about the conduit here and then we moved on for maybe five minutes more before they said they were done."

The wheels in T'pol's mind began to turn. "Where does this lead?" She asked already having a good sense of what the answer would be.

Travis sighed as he struggled to remember what he had told the other Vulcans. "It leads to the warp nacelles from the main reactor. Its where they get the majority of their energy."

T'pol at once knew the major flaw in this design feature, it represented a critical weakpoint in the ships propulsion. Normally, even under battle conditions, this was not much of a problem. But then most starship designers did not take internal sabotage into consideration. "I need to speak with your captain," she said putting a few more pieces together. She did not yet have the entire puzzle assembled, but what she knew was alarming.



"You think that this Selvek is doing what?" Archer asked his head still spinning as he began to process the information ambassador Soval's aide had given him. The four of them, Archer and Travis on the human side, and ambassador Soval and an aide Archer did not know, were in the tiny captains office. A small space just off the port side of the bridge.

"Captain T'pol did not come to this conclusion in a vacuum. She has some evidence and it is enough that we decided to come to you immediately." Soval appeared sombre, behind him the aid, Archer could not recall her name, stood like a carved stature, face lacking emotion. Travis was a study in opposites.

"Whats on your mind Travis?" Archer asked wondering what he thought of all this, he had afterall been present for both the tour with the supposed spy and the womans conclusion that he intended sabotage.

Travis shifted uncomfortably on his feet, not liking all the attention suddenly directed at him. "Captain," he stuttered before seeming to call upon some inner strength. "Sir I think she is telling the truth," he said with much more confidence in his voice. "And even if she is wrong wouldn't it be better to be prepared and nothing to happen than to dismiss her suspicions and then have a disaster?"

Archer could not fault him on the argument. Whats more he believed her himself. Vulcans were not well known for subterfuge of this sort. They would lie, hide information and forget to inform when it suited them. But lying that one of their own staff was plotting to cripple Enterprise for some nefarious purpose, weakening their own position substantially in the process, did not seem to be within their typical SOP.

"What do you propose we do about this?" He asked suddenly deciding, for the moment, to trust the Vulcans. "I will have to inform my crew about this," he said leaving no room in his tone for debate about this. "If we are to counter whatever they plan we will need help."

"Agreed," Soval said after seeming on the verge of arguing for a second. But the human brought up a good point. And, it was not as if there was much chance of word getting to Selvek via the humans. Still, some precautions needed to be taken.

"I would ask though that not every crew member is informed, I doubt your crew would tell Selvek, but they may tip him off that something is up if they become more hostile and guarded around him."

Again Archer had to concede that the ambassador had a point. "I will tell my officers, chief engineer and weapons specialist, and a few others as there is a need," he said finally. Soval nodded while the female maintained her statue like non-expression. Travis gulped loudly beside her.

"Now," Soval's voice was quiet, he sounded as if he were plotting a conspiracy. "The only question we must ask ourselves now if what we will do to stop your ship from being damaged or potentially destroyed." He looked around at Travis and Archer, neither man was forthcoming with an idea.

Finally T'pol spoke up and laid out a simple plan that required very little action on anyones part but stood the maximum chance of preventing any plot by Selvek. Its lack of action also served to avoid making him and any members of the conspiracy.

It was sound, simple and likely effective. Archer and Soval both readily agreed and that was that. As the two Vulcans turned to leave though a last nagging thought struck Archer.

"Ambassador," he asked rising from his desk, "I have just one last question if you would care to answer it for me."

Soval wore an expression of worry for just a moment before it disappeared beneath his usual tight emotional control. "You may ask it," he said his voice steady.

Archer took a moment to think over the proper wording for what he wanted to say before deciding it was best just to ask. "Why," he began, "do you think that you were not informed of this plan as Vulcans senior official aboard? Isnt it standard Vulcan procedure to do so on intelligence gathering operations?"

"I am shocked at your detailed knowledge of my governments intelligence organizations standard procedures captain," Soval said completely deadpan. He mulled over Archers words for a moment before he answered.

"To be honest with you captain that is a question that has been bothering the corners of my mind since T'pol revealed her suspicions to me." He shrugged slightly. "Perhaps I no longer enjoy the trust I once thought I did."

With that he left, Travis followed. Leaving a stunned Archer alone to think about what this could mean. As he saw things it could either go exceptionally well, with a major boost in the UE's position with Vulcan. Or it could go extremely badly, there was potential perhaps, depending on how high up this possible plot went, for a major souring of relations between the two powers. And humans were not as peace-loving as they let on, there would be demands for blood if something majorly bad happened to Enterprise.

 

[Charles Markov]

"Remind me again why we trust them all the sudden?" Trip asked for what was probably the millionth time in the past three days. He been working almost nonstop for two of them to install a bypass line of conduit running past the primary junction and complaining the entire time.
When no one answered he continued. "I thought we were suspicious of the Vulcans because they wanted to discover how the ship worked, now we are working with them?"
"Some of them," Archer corrected, "and we are only working with some of them because others may want to sabotage the ship."
"No I get that, I really do." Trip took a moment to think of the proper wording for what he wanted to say. "Why are we working with them at all if we know some of them are probably planning to sabotage the ship? Why not keep all of them at arm's length and work on our own?"
Archer did not really have an answer, on the one hand it made sense that if ambassador Soval and his aide T'pol had come to him with the plot that they would be totally innocent. On the other hand however how could he be certain that they weren't a part of the plan? Or that there was a plot at all?
"Because they know just about as much about what is going on as us and are better placed to uncover additional information," Archer said trying his best to get any doubts out of his voice and to make it seem that he wasn't open to any argument on the subject.
Truthfully this wasn't something he had a great deal of experience with. Archer was a scientist and explorer first and foremost, in his mind at least. High stakes politics and spy craft were incredibly far outside of his comfort zone."
Trip seemed to accept this, although he grumbled slightly before going back to work. Deciding it best to let him be Archer turned to Reed at the weapons station, "how goes it?" He asked noting the report already coming his way. Malcoms military promptness and preparedness were really beginning to get on his nerves.
"Fairly well sir," he said looking around at his instruments. "Of course, it would be better if we knew more about what was being planned, that way I would be able to prepare more specifically, rather than a general plan for multiple eventualities as I have done."
Archer nodded not really paying attention as he read through the four page report, Malcom continued, seemingly taking no account of his captain. "I would also feel a little better if our weapons were a little harder hitting, but that decision was not up to me."
Archer agreed with him on account of the ships weapons. The ship, while the best armed ship in the UESPA, still fell well below the standards of a proper warship. She was armed with six missile silos, two launchers and three laser cannons. She was also armoured quite well for a civilian vessel, with polarised hull plating and reinforced structural frames.
But she was still not a warship. Her lasers for instance were only short ranged low powers systems suitable for little other than interception of incoming enemy fire. Her six missile silos carried only defensive missiles in racks of nine, while her two tubes could only fire probes and general purpose defence/offensive missiles of medium range only. In any stand up match against a properly outfitted cruiser she would lose, her speed was her only trump card and it looked like the Vulcans were plotting to take that away.
The report reiterated this point strongly, advocating that in the event that the ship encountered a hostile force she was to avoid direct confrontation at all costs and only use her defensive systems to open an avenue of escape.
Archer signed off on the report, a formality Reed insisted on. It was not good enough that the captain had seen it, he had to have signed it to show that he had seen it. Yet another little military practice that irritated Archer and most of the rest of the ships crew, and the lack of which endlessly perplexed the ships scant UESN compliment.
T'pol walked in just as Reed accepted the report and looked around the bridge before speaking. "Captain, is this a good time to talk?" She asked standing ramrod straight just beside the turbolift.
Archer turned his head, the woman was dressed in the usual Vulcan service dress, tight fitting but flexible her attire left little to the imagination, but would protect the wearer in the event of a loss of pressure, also providing limited defence against radiation and variations in temperature.
In Archers mind the uniform just looked like pyjamas, but it was still a rather pointed contrast in the technological levels between the two nations, despite the advances Enterprise represented.
T'pol noticed Archers look and asked again, somewhat sheepishly Archer was snapped back into the present. "Yes," he said, "whats up?"
"Up?" T'pol asked puzzled at what direction had to do with her.
"What is it you want to talk about?" Archer said, trying again. This time T'pol seemed to understand what he was saying.
"Sir how far away are we from Vulcan territory?" She asked looking at the bridge's forward display screen. It was currently showing a view of the space ahead of them. With Enterprises' speed, power and fuel consumption and heading. It did not show the ships position however.
Archer honestly did not know the answer to that, he had a general idea that Enterprise was just a few hours away from the Vulcan border, but he did not know exactly how close the ship was in terms of distance. He looked over at the helm.
"Travis how close are we to the Vulcan border?" He asked. The helmsman wheeled around and thought for a moment before he answered.
"About five hours sir at our current speed, that amounts to about two lightyears." Travis looked back at T'pol, "would you like to see my flight data?" He asked. He had no problem dealing with the Vulcans and was developing a rather good relationship with T'pol in particular.
"I would appreciate it mister Mayweather," T'pol said, looking to Archer she asked, "may I?"
"Please do," Archer said gesturing to the helm. It was weird, before all this had went down the thought of sharing the flight data from Enterprise with a Vulcan would have been insane to him, now, now it was a fairly simple little thing.
T'pol walked over and looked through the ships flight data, including her projected path into Vulcan space. She stood up and turned to Archer, a curious expression on her face.
"What is it?" Archer asked wondering just what was going on and why she seemed so concerned.
"Nothing captain," T'pol said. "Just that the ship is entering into Vulcan territory along a fairly predictable path. Perhaps it would be wise to move the ships entry into another area where there will likely be less possibility of being intercepted by any Vulcan ships."
Archer honestly had not considered the possibility. "Do you think that there is a possibility of there being a ship waiting for us?" He asked.
Rather than answer T'pol produced a drive and handed it to Archer, who looked at it, and then her. "This drive contains copied information from Selvek's personal computer, do not inform ambassador Soval as this is a serious breech of our laws and personal privacy."
Archer nodded, this represented a serious breech of even Earths laws, he was surprised that T'pol would have done this. "What does it contain?" He asked deciding to move on and pass by her breech of laws.
"Coordinates and calculations made by Selvek which correspond to a location near where the ship was going to enter Vulcan territory, I can only conclude that this means we will be intercepted by one of our own warships."
Archer blanched. "Well we know what to prepare for," he said turning white. If the data in the drive was what T'pol said it was, a location where the ship would be intercepted, then it would not be hard to avoid it and enter Vulcan territory from a different location.
But that was assuming that it involved only one ship. If the apparent plan to seize Enterprise involved more than one starship, or if the Vulcans had FTL sensors available, then it would be still possible for the ship to be intercepted.
Archer had considered turning back for Earth and scratching the entire mission. But then he would have to answer to both the government and director Forrest. And even with the evidence they had so far collected it would likely not be enough to justify, in their eyes, the ship turning back. And so, against his gut, he had accepted T'pol's logic that any plot against Enterprise would involve only one ship.
"Travis," Archer said making a decision. The helmsman turned and smiled.
"Already working on a new course that will put our point of entry into Vulcan space several AU away from our previous course," he said. He was getting to be rather good at anticipating the orders of his captain.
Archer nodded and shrugged at Trip who was finding the whole situation rather funny. Over the last few days he had joked that it was almost like Archer did not need to every once come to the bridge because Travis could read his mind as to where he wanted the ship to go.
The ship shuddered as her course was adjusted, the warp bubble around the ship reforming slightly to create sufficient drift on one side that the vessel began to turn along the new course, the whole thing, in the words of Travis, was done almost like a rudder on a ship. It was much superior to the typical method of turning which involved firing impulse engines and forcing the ship on a new direction, Enterprise's turning circle was many times smaller as a result and the ship wasted even less precious fuel as a happy by product.

"Well? Have you seen anything yet?"Cho'kol said to his sensor operator. He was getting impatient and finding it harder and harder to control the emotion as the clock ticked down. If they missed their guess as to Enterprise's point of entry into Vulcan space then they would fail in their mission.
"Nothing yet sir, likely they are still outside our sensor range," the operator said with surprising calm. Normally men as junior as him had not yet mastered the control that he had.
Cho'kol huffed. The entire point of bringing along the subspace sensor ship the Vekia was that she had much increased sensor range over those carried by Arakas. So far this extended sensor range, up to half a lightyear, had yet to prove to have any worth.
"Keep on it then," Cho'kol ordered, unnecessarily he knew but then he had to give some form of order for the record. The sensor operator, tied into the sensors aboard Vekia, nodded but otherwise said nothing.
"We cant miss the Earth ship," Cho'kol muttered under his breath as he stared out at the darkness around the Arakas.

"Sir…" Malcom said suddenly from his station. The ship was now just a few minutes from Vulcan space and would soon penetrate along the new route set by Mayweather.
"What is it Malcom?" Archer asked his voice tense. T'pol he noted, as well as Ambassador Soval, began to make their way to the weapons station, but stopped quickly.
"Sir we are being pinged by a subspace signal," Reed reported.
"Can you elaborate?" Soval asked.
Reed looked at the Vulcan for a second and then at Archer before he answered. "Sir, it is not a communications signal, it registers to high. I think it's a sensor beam."
Someone, Archer thought Pavel Maritislaw, the ships sensor operator, swore in a language Archer did not understand. Probably Polish if it was Martislaw. "Full stop!" Archer ordered. Around him alarms blared as the ship began to rapidly decelerate from warp factor three point six down to a complete stop, the entire operation would take roughly six minutes if Travis worked the ship to her limits.
"Better send a team down to the Vulcan quarters and confirm that everyone is there," Archer said to Reed as the deck beneath his feet lurched and metal screamed from the stresses it was being put through. Reed worked quickly and reported that it was done just a moment later.

"The Earth ship has began to decelerate rapidly sir," the sensor operator said his voice suddenly going tense. Cho'kol angrily clenched his fists but gave no other outward indication of the rage he was feeling.
He had already berated the man for missing the ship until it was just under five billion kilometres. And now apparently the ship had detected the sensor beam from Vekia and begun to slow.
"Get a fix on their location and relay it to the helm!" Cho'kol ordered deciding to carry on with the plan even if the Earth ship slowed just outside of Vulcan space. He prayed that Selvek and his team would be able to accomplish their part of the mission or this could quickly turn into a massive problem.

"The ship is slowing!" Selvek said to the other members of his intelligence team. He had worked since arriving on a carefully timed and intricate plan to cripple the ship. Now it looked like that plan was impossible, he had not intended to move into action until the ship was well within Vulcan space. Now it looked like he had no choice, something was obviously wrong.
The two others in his team of three immediately moved to the door of their quarters to begin their plan. Selvek moved to the cubby where he had stashed a few small arms and detonators. He swore, they were not there.
"They were here just an hour ago!" One of the others said all his panic knocking down his walls to show plainly on his face.
"T'pol and the ambassador were in here just a few minutes ago," the other said. "You do not think?"
"I do, and when this is over we will deal with them," Selvek said brushing past the missing weapons and coming to the logical conclusion that their plot had been discovered, though he dismissed the idea that either the ambassador or his assistant had told the humans. It would damage Vulcans position to much he knew.
From his boot he produced a small sidearm, a simple plasma pistol. The weapon had a power cell sufficient for just a dozen shots on kill and perhaps triple that on stun. He set it to kill. "Lets go," he ordered gesturing to the door. Hesitantly the others followed him.
The door opened and he and his team rushed out, the sound of running footsteps met them just a few metres outside their room and without even caring who it was Selvek began to fire, hitting one of the humans, a medium height man in the light body armour used by the Colonial Rangers, though he was clearly a crewmember of the ship. He went down and the others did their best to form a line, taking cover where they could. It was clear they were not professional shipboard security, their movements were choppy and amateurish, but they were much better armed than Selvek.
"Move!" He shouted over the din of weapons fire, surprisingly accurate as one of his team went down, a gaping wound in his shoulder, the humans were using projectile weapons, primitive.
He and the man not wounded ran off in the general direction of the power conduit where they would cripple the ship. Selvek was now wondering if the ambassador had told the humans, or if the security were just there to arrest the ambassador. Either way they needed to finish their mission.

"Sir I have weapons fire near the Vulcan quarters!" Reed shouted in surprise. Archer turned.
"I thought that you grabbed their weapons," he said to T'pol.
"Obviously I missed a few," she said completely deadpan.
"I have one wounded, though he will live and it looked like at least one of the Vulcans was hit, the team asks if they should pursue." Reeds hands were flying across his board as he initiated the ships scant anti-boarding procedures.
"No!" Archer shouted over the new alarms. "I want the team to lock down the Vulcans in their cabins, we can catch them as they near the conduit," Archer felt odd giving these orders, a sudden rush of adrenaline and excitement where there ought to be panic. He was enjoying this. An odd thought.
His crew raced to carry out his orders as chaos engulfed the bridge, controlled and subdued. But chaos nonetheless. It was interesting to watch, despite a formal lack of training for such events they moved well and carried out their tasks efficiently.

Efficiency could not be said to be a trait shared by the crew of the Arak's bridge crew. Captain Cho'kol had been giving orders in a rush of raised voice and furious pacing. The plan was coming apart and he was not doing a good job of hiding it from his men. They were growing nervous and beginning to make mistakes.
The cruiser had begun the lumbering turn that would bring her on an intercept with Enterprise, her enormous bulk and sluggish handling making this an agonizing and painful operation.
Cho'kol grabbed onto the railing as the ships gravity lurched in response to the stresses it was being put through. The movement passed and normal gravity resumed. A tactical readout on the forward viewscreen was showing the relative positions of the border, Arakas, Enterprise and the Vekia. The Earth ship was gaining ground rapidly. Cho'kol had no idea of its maximum speed, but intelligence guessed it to be just below or just above that of his own ship. He needed to catch her before she was to far away.

Selvek let out a curse in Helorig that would have made a person with almost complete emotional control blush as another bullet tore just past his head. He had initially been glad that the humans were using projectile weapons as that would force them to be careful not to accidentally hit something important. But he had quickly observed that the weapons disintegrated on impact with a hard surface, like a ships bulkhead, but remained intact when entering a soft object, like a Vulcan.
Another volley followed the first round and soon Selvek was covering himself to avoid getting any shrapnel in his eyes. He would have returned fire except that his own weapon was now running critically low on power and as he did not have a detonator he would need to use his weapon to take out the power conduit.
He was still working on the assumption that the humans had no idea of his target, but still he was having difficulty getting there. Seemingly around every corner there was another team of armed crew blocking his path. He and his assistant had managed to take a pair of pistols from some of them, but now the weapons were also running out of ammunition. And the likelihood of getting more was rapidly dwindling.
Selvek saw an opening and with a shout fired off the last three rounds from his pistol, catching one of the humans in the chest, sending her to the ground with a gaping chest wound and a bloodcurdling scream. He brushed past the other man, stealing his gun and firing behind him.
His surviving team member was not so lucky. Stunned as Selvek broke out the humans behind them had been ready for him and filled the Vulcan with at least seven bullets before he fell to the floor in a heap. Selvek did not look back, he had work to do.

"Sir all sections report ready for jump to warp!" The helmsman reported much to the relief of Cho'kol, they were rapidly loosing a window where they could intercept the Earth vessel.
"What are you waiting for?" He bit out," get the ship to warp!"

Selvek had nearly made it, his teammate had managed to continue fighting after going down, firing his five remaining rounds and delaying the humans just long enough to allow Selvek to temporarily evade their grasp.
It was just a few more metres now, he grabbed his pistol and set the weapon to overload, the initial plan had been to set the detonator to a timed delay and escape the ship via an escape pod to be collected by the Arakas after Enterprise was theirs. Now it was clear that survival was no longer an option.
Selvek had not problems with death. He knew that he had done his best to serve the state and that he had led a good life, accomplishing much in his admittedly short lifetime.
He had just finished setting the weapon to overload when a new round of bullets began to come his way. Stunned and kicking himself for not hearing the humans approach he blindly ran forward around a corner.
It was a mistake. A line of humans, all armed, met him and opened fire. Catching Selvek at least nine times with their fire and sending him to the ground, as he fell he released the pistol, its trigger depressing and beginning the overload.

Trip put his gun down, tossing it aside in disgust. He was not a killer and the knowledge that he had just possibly shot a fellow being made him almost sick.
He held back his breakfast and took a deep breath, his ears were ringing from the gunfire. Or where they? The noise was growing louder, a loud dinging that seemed to be emanating ahead of him. Looking over at the Vulcan's corpse Trip expected to see a grenade or something, but fortunately did not.
He did see a sidearm though, a small energy weapon of obvious Vulcan manufacture. The teams had reported that he was armed initially with such a weapon. As Trip walked closer he could see that it was flashing, red.
"Get outta here!" He screamed, he knew enough about energy weapons to know when one was about to blow up. His team scurried for cover and he himself dove around a corner just before the weapon detonated.

Enterprise bucked around for a moment before her ride smoothened for a moment. Hoshi had just time enough to breath a sigh of relief before the ship suddenly dropped out of warp, sending all aboard off in every direction but down. Lights flickered and gravity failed as alarms screeched and moaned throughout the ship.

"Sir the earth vessel has just dropped out of warp!" The sensor operator reported, Cho'kol grinned. Finally! He thought, it seemed the plan was salvageable after all. "Time to intercept?" He asked.
"Twelve minutes," came the reply.
"They aren't going anywhere," Cho'kol said with a decidedly un-Vulcan grin.

"Damage report?" Archer asked deciding it was better to know the state his ship was in before asking why it was in that state.
Malcom looked across his board before giving a report. "It looks like the nacelles suddenly lost power sir, at the moment I cant say for certain why."
Archer had a pretty good idea, "get Trip!" He said moving up to the helm console and helping pick Travis off the deck. "Are you alright?" He asked.
"Fine sir, never better," Travis said as he gingerly tried out his left arm. His face puckered as he flexed it, but it seemed to be only bruised.
Archer looked at the rest of his crew, noting that ambassador Soval and T'pol were fine. He was surprised to see Hoshi still in her seat. "What?" She asked when she saw him looking at her.
He shrugged, "I expected you to be on the ground honestly," he said.
"I have a tight grip," Hoshi replied lifting her hands off of her chair to reveal a new series of claw marks in the leather. Despite his present circumstances Archer found himself laughing.

"Captain, we failed sir." Trips tone was sombre. He looked around at his people, fortunately no one had been killed, or even seriously injured in the explosion, just minor injuries.
"No need to apologize Trip, just glad you guys are alright," there was relief in Archers voice. "How bad is it?" He asked.
"Don't know for sure captain," Trip said. He had not really had time to look at the damage to the plasma coil, he had been busy ducking away from an explosion and then sliding around the deck as the ship dropped suddenly from warp.
"Well let me know when you have an estimate to finish repairs, there is still at least one Vulcan ship around," Archer said, in the background Trip could hear Reed giving a full report on the damage the ship had taken.
"Lets get to work!" Trip shouted to get everyone's attention. Once he was certain everyone was looking at him he continued. "We need to get the ship back to warp as soon as possible, the captains depending on us, lets go!"
Everyone that could moved to comply. Racing to exchange rifles with tools and diagnostics equipment. Trip began a quick visual inspection of the damage to the conduit, hoping it was not something to serious.

"I want to come in as close to them as possible," Cho'kol said as he leaned in close to the helmsman. The whine of the ships engines was defeaning as the Arakas clawed her way up to warp three point five. It would only get worse as the ship continued to accelerate, but fortunately she would have to begin slowing down soon to avoid overshooting the earth ship.
Rather than answer the helmsman nodded and worked his controls. The ship shuddered in response and Cho'kol noted that the whine of the engines was beginning to die down. If only slightly.

"Its not as bad as I thought, but its not good sir," Trip said. It had been five minutes since they had last spoken. In that time the ships chief operations officer had worked hurriedly to find the extent of the damage from the explosion.
"How bad is it?" Archer said a silent prayer that it would not be something that would need time in a spacedock.
There was a pause before Trip answered. "Fortunately the bastard did not destroy the whole thing when he turned himself into tiny bits. Looks from here like the blast only weakened the conduit in a small section and the computers shut down the plasma flow before it could get to bad."
"Can you fix it?" Archer asked hoping the answer would consist of three letters rather than two. Again there was a pause before Trip answered.
"Yes," he said finally to the relief of Archer, who drew an enormous sigh or relief.
"How long do you need?" He asked not caring particularly about the length of repairs, all that mattered was that the ship was not completely broken.
"Fifteen to twenty minutes and we should be good to go," Trip said much to the shock of Archer.
"Well he didn't do much damage at all then," he said.
"Well sir, its not that he didn't do a lot of damage," Trip said the old sarcasm creeping into his voice. "Its just that, well you happen to be blessed with the best engineer in the whole damned fleet!"
Archer did not doubt that, as the fleet at present had no one with Trips qualifications. But even with the quick repair time there was the question of when the Vulcans would make an appearance. He did not say that to Trip, no need to burden him with additional stress as he worked. But Archer knew he had better have a very good exit strategy for when the Vulcans came to him.
"Hurry," Archer said before signing off. He knew it was pointless to say that, but it made him feel better. Like he was doing something towards fixing the ship by uttering that single word.

 

[Charles Markov]

So I am wondering if this is easy enough to read as it is? Or do I need to make the text a little bigger? Just realised how small it is, but that may just be my computer.

 

[Charles Markov]

1. "Captain we are now out of warp sir, shall I have weapons brought to bear?" The ships tactical officer said as soon as the Arakas was back into realspace.
   
   Cho'kol shook his head, "no," he said grimly. "The plan calls for us to attempt to board the Earth ship under the pretext of looking for a criminal among the ambassadors staff, we shall then seize the ship with our boarding party, that way it is hoped that the vessel will be as undamaged as possible for later examination."
   
   The tactical officer, and really the entire bridge, nodded. In order to ensure the integrity of the plan it had been necessary for most of the ships crew to be kept in the dark about the finer points of the mission until they needed to know. Now they needed to know and Cho'kol was telling them.
   
   "Shall I prepare a boarding party then?" The tactical officer was already moving to do so even as he asked for permission, Cho'kol nodded.
   
   "Please do. I don't want to give them time to get any ideas into their minds." Cho'kol looked at the ships speed and course and sent some minor adjustments to the helm. They would need to be very careful if this plan was going to work.
   
   
   
   "One big ship," Travis said, the first to speak since the Vulcan Deik'lavas class cruiser had come out of warp half an light second off Enterprises port bow.
   
   "The vessels of this class are indeed rather large, though much of their volume is devoted to fuel." Ambassador Soval's voice flat, conversational and totally out of place in the tense environment of the bridge.
   
   "Good grief that thing is huge," Archer said as if totally oblivious to Soval.
   
   "What worries me is their armament, if they begin firing before we can get to warp we wont last very long." Malcom discretely checked the target lock on the vessels forward missile batteries. It wouldn't do much, but it was better than nothing and made him feel better.
   
   All was quiet on the bridge for a moment before Hoshi spoke up. "Captain, they are hailing us," she said the worry and fear clear in her voice. She looked at Archer questioningly. "What should I do?"
   
   Archer shrugged. "Put them on." If they wanted to talk then maybe he could keep them on the line long enough for the repairs to be completed. Hoshi worked her hands across the board and soon the comms fizzled to life.
   
   "Earth vessel this is the Vulcan cruiser Arakas, captain Cho'kol speaking," a voice said with as much entitlement as Archer had ever heard from a Vulcan.
   
   "Captain Johnathan Archer of the Enterprise," Archer answered back trying to sound as amicable as he could. "What can I do for you?" He asked.
   
   "You can come to a full stop and accept a boarding team from my vessel," Cho'kol said a tough of anger in his voice. "We believe that three of the members of Ambassador Soval's staff have committed grievous crimes. We want them."
   
   Archer could see where this was going, send over a boarding party to apprehend these fugitives, and then out of the shuttles pours enough armed men to take over the ship and capture her crew, allowing Enterprise to be captured nice and neatly. Fortunately this plan also had plenty of ways to delay it as conceivably the Vulcan captain would not want his shuttles to be fired upon the minute they left the ship.
   
   "Why do you want them now?" Archer asked, putting as much dumb innocence in his voice as possible. "We are headed to your homeworld, why not just wait to get them when we arrive?"
   
   Cho'kol did not seem to be in much of a mood for debate over this. "Their crimes are to serious to allow them any more time than necessary before their trail. Allow my boarding party to take them," he said with growing volume.
   
   Archer looked back at Soval, who responded by raising one eyebrow and shrugging slightly. Archer signed to Hoshi to cut off audio for the moment and he raised Trip. "How much longer?" He asked once he had gotten ahold of his engineer.
   
   "I need five minutes captain," Trip said, "just five minutes."
   
   "You may not have that," Archer responded. "We have a Vulcan war cruiser off our bow that is well within weapons range talking about sending over a boarding party.
   
   Trip hissed and nearly swore. "Understood, we will try our best," he finally managed to say before signing off.
   
   "Travis get a readout of the nacells, I want us to warp the moment we are able," Archer said swinging back into his chair and motioning to Hoshi to turn the audio pickups back on.
   
   "Captain I am not sure that we can do that," he said again going for the stupid but helpful human approach. "You see our small craft bay is rather cramped at the moment and we don't think our airlocks are compatible with yours."
   
   "I am sending over the boarding party captain, if they encounter any difficulties I am sure that they will be overcome," Cho'kol said dryly. "And I would remind you not to underestimate who you are dealing with."
   
   It was Archers turn to nearly swear. Clearly the Vulcan knew he was stalling, though he guessed that the man had no idea why. "Well its going to be a major embarrassment for you when your shuttles cant lock on to my ship," Archer said giving the vocal equivalent of throwing his arms up into the air.
   
   "We will see captain, prepare to receive my men," Cho'kol said haughtily before signing off. Archer was immediately in action.
   
   "How long until their boarding party reaches us?" He asked to no one in particular.
   
   "Approximately two minutes assuming they launch immediately and proceed on a direct course," T'pol said. Archer was uncertain how she had come by that figure, but something told him it was accurate.
   
   "Looks like that's precisely what they are doing," Travis announced a moment later. "Two small craft just left the Arakas' hangar and fired up their drives for a burn."
   
   Archer looked at Travis's data and this time he could not keep from swearing. "Trip for the love of all that is holy in the universe hurry up!" He said, adopting one of his friends sayings rather than resort to further profanity.
   
   
   
   "Captain the boarding party is away and reports all is normal," the operations officer announced calmly. Cho'kol nodded.
   
   "Very good," he said. Despite the human captains best attempt his men would be aboard the ship in just a few minutes. He wondered for a moment why the captain had not said anything about their drop from warp. Perhaps he could have suggested that the perpetrators of the damage were the Vulcans Arakas was looking for?
   
   It was a small thing, and something unlikely to cause Cho'kol any lack of sleep. Likely captain Archer had just been unwilling to admit to a Vulcan that his ship was not capable of achieving warp any longer.
   
   "Time before our shuttles reach the Enterprise?" He asked his operations officer.
   
   "Two minutes and eleven seconds," came the prompt reply.
   
   "At last this mission is at an end," Cho'kol said a fierce gleam in his eye. "Are the holding cells ready to receive the ships crew?" He asked now turning to his tactical officer.
   
   "They are," the man answered.
   
   
   
   "Well I was a tad optimistic when I said five minutes captain," Trip said, from his tone of voice Archer could tell that he was rubbing his neck sheepishly.
   
   "How much time do you need?" Archer asked with nothing else to say.
   
   Trip took a minute to mull over his answer before speaking. "Could you give me eight more minutes?" He asked.
   
   Archer looked over to Malcom and paused there. "Captain?" Reed asked puzzled.
   
   "Is it safe to say that the Vulcan ship will not fire on us ambassador?" Archer asked without turning to face Soval.
   
   The ambassadors eyes went wide as he realised what Archer was getting at, but he could see no other choice. "Unlikely yes captain, impossible no."
   
   Archer seemed pleased with the answer. He could work with likely not far better than he could with definitely will. "How long before the shuttles reach us?" He asked.
   
   "Forty seconds or so," Travis answered as puzzled as Reed.
   
   "Okay, we haven't got much time," Archer said putting extra urgency into his voice, "here is my plan…"
   
   
   
   "Ten seconds before the shuttles dock with Enterprise," the operations officer announced. Cho'kol was busily pacing the bridge waiting for the shuttles to dock. He turned just in time to see one of them blink off the tactical display followed by the second a moment later.
   
   "What happened?" He asked, the possibility of sudden systems failure entering and exiting his mind almost instantaneously. He knew the answer.
   
   "Enterprise has fired on the shuttles," the tactical officer announces, alarms blaring throughout the ship.
   
   
   
   "Direct hit on their thrusters sir," Reed reported grimly. "They are intact but unable to move anywhere."
   
   "Good shot Malcom!" Archer said. He had been clear that he did not want either shuttle to be destroyed outright. Killing two shuttles full of people would not go over well with either Vulcan, or Earth. Even if the shuttles occupants were going to take over the ship.
   
   "Permission to fire the second volley?" Reed asked. Without hesitation Archer answered.
   
   "Granted."
   
   
   
   "Sir I am detecting launch signatures from Enterprise! They have fired on us!"
   
   Cho'kol's head was spinning. Was Archer insane? Arakas possessed many times the diminutive Earth ships firepower and could keep up a furious barrage of fire for far longer than Enterprise just due to the amount of space she had to devote to magazines.
   
   "How many?" He asked moving to his chair as the ship entered combat standing.
   
   "Looks like six weapons signatures, all small to mid sized, likely a mixture of offensive/defensive missiles and a few defensive weapons to fly escort and shoot down our counter fire." The tactical officers voice sounded calm, controlled. Cho'kol envied him.
   
   "Prepare to engage counter fire and plot a return volley!" Cho'kol said hastily before rethinking his orders. "Target their weapons systems with our lasers," he said a half a second later. "We cant destroy or damage the vessel to badly," he said.
   
   The tactical officer snorted. Mission critical or not if he were in his captains place he would immediately let loose everything the ship had and vaporize the irritating little human vessel for daring to fire on a Vulcan warship. But he moved to comply with his captain orders regardless. He could always challenge his leadership after the fact in court.
   
   
   
   "Sir the Arakas has destroyed out initial volley and is trying to get a weapons lock on us, possibly for their lasers," Reed shouted.
   
   "Launch scramblers and get us out of here!" Archer snapped, in response the ship shuddered slightly as another pair of missiles escaped the ships tubes and the thrusters engaged. Warp drive or no Enterprise could still outrun the Vulcan at impulse, and outturn her to. If she wanted to fire her lasers on the ship then she would have to work to get a suitable target lock on her.
   
   As Enterprise began her turn her missiles screamed towards the Arakas, miniature impulse drives propelling the devices at half the speed of light down the gullet of the larger warship. Arakas's impressive array of sensors detected the missiles moments after they left Enterprise's tubes, but struggled to get a homing lock for a few seconds more, all the while the weapons drew steadily closer to the big Vulcan.
   
   There was no question on if the weapons would be destroyed or not. Designed to launch volleys consisting of upwards of a dozen missiles at once Arakas was capable of defending herself against an equal number of weapons. A mere two missiles gave her defensive batteries no trouble at all in normal circumstances.
   
   But these were not normal missiles, scramblers, or Electromagnetic Spectral Distortion Device, ESDD for short, were designed to detonate a small nuclear device several thousand kilometres from the target vessel, causing no damage due to the weapons usually small size. However the warhead was messy, shooting out far more radiation and wasted energy than the latest X-Ray weapons used in most modern missiles. The wasted energy and radiation would confuse sensors and make gaining an effective target lock nearly impossible for an enemy ship.
   
   As the weapons were omni-directional they also confused a launching vessels targeting systems, though this was not usually a problem as scramblers were used most often by vessels looking to evade combat. As Enterprise was doing now.
   
   
   
   "Get this mess off my scopes!" The sensor operator screamed as alarms wailed throughout the Arakas. The scramblers deployed by the Enterprise had proven surprisingly effective, far more so than intelligence had guessed.
   
   "Push through all this and get a positive lock on the Enterprise!" Captain Cho'kol ordered. It was clear that the mission was now impossible. Somehow Enterprise had known of the plot to capture her and was now a priority target.
   
   Cho'kol doubted that the ship would be able to make it to warp again, Selvek must have managed to knock out her drive system somehow, he had accomplished at least that much. But, after seeing what the ship was capable of he would not doubt it if it did manage to jump to warp again. And that meant it had to be destroyed.
   
   Even if the ship headed back to Earth immediately after jumping to warp rather than proceed onward to Vulcan she would bring news of their attempted capture to their government, which would in turn demand an accounting from the Assembly, which had no idea that this operation was being carried out. Not that such an answer would be acceptable to the furious United Earth.
   
   The results, not just for UE-Vulcan relations, but for the relationship between the addembly and its military, would be disastrous. Currently the navy was allowed broad and far reaching autonomy in how it used its assets, manned its ships and operated in the frontier. If it was learned that the navy had carried out a secret mission without the approval of the Assembly heads would roll. Among them Cho'kols and much of the admiralty.
   
   The Arakas cleared the debris field caused by the scramblers and her sensors began to sweep the space in front of her for the Enterprise. They found the ship in moments, several light seconds ahead of them and busily making all manner of evasive manoeuvres. Not that they would do the ship much good against the arsenal of the Arakas.
   
   Cho'kol waited until the sensors had a good lock on the ship, clearing the outer edges of the scramblers field, before ordering six missiles with a further four flanking counter missiles as escorts to be loaded into the tubes. "Fire," he said as soon as they were loaded.
   
   
   
   "I have ten weapons signatures emanating from the Vulcan cruiser sir!" Reed shouted suddenly. "Looks like six ship killers and four defending counter missiles."
   
   "Confirmed sir, six ship killers and four counter missiles," Mayweather said a moment later after checking his own scopes.
   
   "Launch counter measures and defensive missiles!" Archer shouted. "Trip hows it coming?" He asked punching at the comms switch.
   
   "Beautiful captain, another three minutes and we should be good to go," Trip answered his voice tense. He wanted to know what was going on, but knew he did not really want to know.
   
   "We are going to have incoming before then, about two minutes before then, can you hurry?" Archer asked.
   
   "Didn't need to know that captain," Trip said suddenly wishing he had an up to date will. "See what I can do, but I make no promises."
   
   "Not asking for any, do your best." Archer signed off and turned to Reed. "Time?" He asked.
   
   "One minute and forty seconds sir," Reed answered. Archer hoped it was not all the time he had left in the universe. Archer looked and could see counter missiles, eighteen of them, lancing out towards the Vulcans own missiles. It was strange, he had not heard them launch.
   
   "I did not think that it would come to this," Soval said from behind him. Archer turned, he had honestly forgotten that the two Vulcans were on the bridge.
   
   "What can you tell me about that ship?" Archer asked. "All I know is that it is very big and has at least ten missiles tubes."
   
   Soval looked like he was being torn in two. On the one hand he wanted to help Archer get out of the problem he was in, but he also wanted to avoid betraying military secrets to a man who may well use them to kill his own people. It was an impossible position.
   
   T'pol came to a different conclusion. "A vessel of the Deik'lavas class, of which Arakas is a member, carries twelve missile tubes and six defensive laser emplacements. She is capable of achieving speeds as high as Enterprise, though I do not know exactly how high, I also know that her onboard fuel reserves are insufficient to permit to her maintain such speeds for very long."
   
   Archer nodded, intelligence had told him more or less the same thing. Certain Vulcan ships were as fast as Enterprise, though this was a result of incredibly massive engines and brute power rather than the revolutionary warp field streamlining used by Enterprise. But he had not known of the ships weaponry.
   
   "Can you tell me anything else?" He asked, desperate for anything that could help him.
   
   T'pol thought for a moment, she was not a naval officer and thus did not know much about Vulcan warships. It would not be at all logical for information on top of the line vessels to be readily available for anyone. But something occurred to her.
   
   "A very large proportion of the ships volume is devoted to her reactors, warp drive and fuel. Possibly as much as forty percent of her interior spaces."
   
   Archer nodded, that was hardly surprising, a ship that large would need an excessive amount of fuel to travel any significant distance. Her reactor had to be massive and would eat up an enormous amount of fuel even at low speeds. T'pol was not finished though.
   
   "A typical cruiser with similar numbers of missile tubes and lasers to the Deik'laval class ships, will carry perhaps as many as one hundred and fifty missiles of all types." Archer blanched. Enterprise carried less than a third of that, and most of those were only defensive missiles.
   
   "However," T'pol was finally getting to the point, "given her speed and the size of her fuel stores I doubt that the Arakas has a similar missile capacity."
   
   "Indeed," Soval said jumping in. He had clearly decided to throw his lot in with Enterprise and T'pol. She nodded across from him, urging him to continue.
   
   Soval took a breath. "The ship possesses extremely shallow magazines, possibly only four or five missiles per tube, though I do not know exactly how many."
   
   Archer nodded and smiled slightly. It was not much, but at least he had something he could possibly use against the Vulcan.
   
   
   
   "Time to impact?" Cho'kol asked as he impatiently paced the floor. In the minute and a half since launching his missiles he had begun to wonder if perhaps he had made the right call, or at least what his superiors would think of his handling of the situation.
   
   "Ninety one seconds sir," the answer came from the tactical station.
   
   "Has Enterprise made any effort to intercept or counter the missiles?" Cho'kol had been wondering why the earth ship had just sat there maintaining the same course as it had previously. As if unaware of the missiles headed her way.
   
   "Nothing yet, though at this range it is difficult to know for certain," the sensor operator said almost glumly.
   
   "Prepare another salvo of missiles same composition as previously," Cho'kol ordered. Even if the Enterprise managed to destroy this wave of missiles another would be waiting, and another, and another if necessary.
   
   After that Arakas would begin to run low on missiles. Her size, though impressive was actually misleading. In a Vulcan cruiser of similar armament, the Dy'krevas class for instance, the ship possessed magazines sufficient to allow each one of her twelve tubes to fire off at least a dozen salvoes before beginning to run dry, on Arakas however this was a mere five salvoes.
   
   This was due to the speed at which Arakas could travel. At speeds much beyond warp factor three point the power necessary to accelerate much farther became much greater, necessitating much more powerful reactors. In turn necessitating much more fuel if a ship was to cover any great distance even at low speeds.
   
   It was a compromise as old as warp drive itself. Faster ships were larger because they needed to be in order to carry enough fuel for them to have a useful range. In turn vessels of only moderate speed could devote much more of their volume to things other than their propulsion plants. Namely missiles, cargo and crew areas.
   
   Cho'kol did not much care for the specifics of starship design philosophy. He was more concerned about his immediate situation. He did not know exactly the effectiveness of the UE's missile defence systems, though he knew them to be below those of the Vulcan navy. Nor did he know how effective the systems fitted to Enterprise were, though he knew them to be well below those of his own ship.
   
   He did know however that he needed to take out the earth ship in a reasonably short time period or he would deplete his magazines to badly to continue to fight. Thus as the second salvo was loaded into the tubes Cho'kol made the decision to increase the number of ship killer missiles included in the flight from six to eight. Opening up the ships other tubes to permit just four counter missiles to be launched. He hoped to overwhelm the Enterprise with the next salvo, assuming the first did not destroy the ship, which it very well might.
   
   
   
   "Twenty seconds to optimal engagement range," Reed reported. UESN doctrine was to wait until incoming fire had reached a point where the ships defences would have the easiest time destroying them before engaging, and he had talked Archer into following suite.
   
   "How are we coming on those engines?" Archer asked with just a hint of the panic he was starting to feel creeping into his voice.
   
   "Another few seconds sir, how long do I have before it gets good?" Trip sounded tired and more than a little shaken up. Archer knew that the stress of the past few hours was starting to sink in. The man needed a good rest when this was all over, they all did.
   
   "Around thirty now," Archer answered deciding it was not in his best interested to lie to him. Trip would find out in the end and would not be happy to learn that his captain had lied to him. "Hurry things along, but not to the point that we blow up."
   
   "Are you doubting my work captain?" Trip asked, some of the old wit and playfulness returning to his voice.
   
   "Just hurry," Archer said before signing off and doing his best to look unconcerned for the bridge crew.
   
   
   
   "Twenty seconds to impact," the sensor operator reported. Cho'kol swore.
   
   "Why haven't they engaged their missile defences?" He asked, though he did not expect and answer and would have found it insubordinate if any of his crew had dared to put one forward.
   
   He watched the countdown and flight telemetry of the missiles as the moved ever nearer to the earth ship. At such close range it was almost suicidal for the captain to have not already engaged missile defences, so much the better for the limited magazines of the Arakas.
   
   
   
   "Missiles entering optimal engagement range!" Malcom shouted, though Archer could see the same data he was and knew the moment the missiles entered the zone of death as it was known, an area around the ship where her missile defences were at their peak performance.
   
   "Deploy all countermeasures, Travis get us out of here!" He ordered. In response the deck lurched beneath Archer as the ship began a surprisingly agile corkscrew manoeuvre in an attempt to get out of the incoming missiles paths. Alerts sounded as counter missiles and lasers raced outward to intercept the incoming warheads before they could damage the ship.
   
   Triple arcs of pale blue lanced out from Enterprise's lasers, one beam missed at first and had to be readjusted, in response the missiles veered sharply off course in an attempt to confuse the beams targeting systems. When this failed they released a cloud of metal fragments ahead of them which diffused the incoming laser fire, making it nearly ineffective. One of the missiles, a ship killer, released its cloud of chips improperly and a gap was created large enough for the laser to still find its target. The missile exploded well clear of Enterprise.
   
   In all this time six counter missiles from Enterprise had nearly reached the remaining Vulcan missiles, the escorting counter missiles moved to intercept and managed to knock two of the defending weapons out. Destroying them in a kamikaze attack. The four survivors knocked out a further trio of missiles, though one had taken damage to its guidance systems and exploded harmlessly several million kilometres away from any other missile.
   
   The lasers from Enterprise had readjusted their beams and destroyed two further Vulcan missiles. A second wave of counter missiles reached the five remaining Vulcan missiles and destroyed them all just outside of their detonation range.
   
   
   
   Cho'kol swore again, he thought he had cursed more in the last hour than he had in the last fifty years of his life. "Fire another salvo!" He ordered bellowing out the words in the ear of the tactical officer.
   
   Twelve missiles arched out of Arakas's tubes, under normal combat conditions it was standard doctrine to keep at least two tubes in reserve loaded with counter missiles to defend against enemy fire, but Cho'kol wanted to increase his chances of destroying the Enterprise in this next volley. The fact that Enterprise had not fired any further salvoes at him made it unlikely that his ship would be caught off guard.
   
   
   
   "All enemy missiles destroyed sir," Reed said his voice back to its normal volume. Travis cheered loudly, startling Hoshi. The glee was short lived however.
   
   "Wait," Reed said his voice suddenly serious again. "I count at least another ten launch signatures coming from Arakas!"
   
   "Trip how are we doing?" Archer asked into the comms audio pickup for what felt like the millionth time. There was no response.
   
   
   
   "Trip how are we doing?" The voice of captain Archer asked again over the intercom for what felt like the millionth time. Trip was busy, wrapped around the new length of conduit he and his team were having a devil of a time getting the thing aligned properly into its sleeve.
   
   Problems had also surfaced around the power feed lines to the magnetic containment generator assembly, but these were being fixed. All Trip needed was time. Time he could not spend talking to the captain. He signed to ignore the comm and continued his work, he could get yelled at later, right now he had a job to do.
   
   
   
   Frustrated Archer signed off of the connection. Trip was probably busy, he understood. But Archer was feeling helpless, doubtlessly the Vulcans would have learned from their initial engagement and launched more ship killer missiles with their next salvo. And the targeting programs in the missiles would have learned from the flight data of the first wave as well and be harder to kill.
   
   Even if Enterprise managed to destroy all of these next missiles, possible, though a bit of a stretch, then there would just be another salvo after that. And another, and possibly another. But even if the ship managed to survive through four missile salvoes, unlikely given her own limited stock of counter missiles and limited defences, the fifth would surely killed her.
   
   With each evasive manoeuvre the Arakas drew closer, by the fifth salvo she would likely be within laser range of Enterprise. Practically spitting distance. Without warp drive all Archer could do was delay the inevitable.
   
   He had considered turning to fight. Entering knife range and hoping that his ships smaller size and superior agility would allow her to land a crippling blow before the superior weight of fire from the Vulcan overwhelmed his own ship. But that would end almost surely in death. No, Archers only hope out of this was for Trip to get the warp drive back on line, and he was apparently not speaking at the moment.
   
   
   
   "Missiles will be in range of Enterprise's defences in twenty seconds," the tactical officer reported. After seeing that impressive display of missile defence he had concluded that UE defensive systems were impressive, if extremely short ranged.
   
   "Tell me when they enter optimal detonation range," Cho'kol said as he checked his magazines. He had only enough ship killers for a single salvo like the last, two if he split the ship killers. He was better stocked with counter missiles, but these were of limited utility in an offensive engagement like he had been having.
   
   He had actually considered giving a similar order to Archer, moving his ship into knife fighting range and trusting in his better armour, superior laser armament and greater staying power to win the engagement before deciding better of it. He would just have to trust in his missiles to destroy the ship.
   
   
   
   Trip cursed, something he rarely did. But he had just smashed his hand in the joiner between the new conduit and the rest of the line. Several hundred kilos worth of material had not felt good. But he worked through the pain, nothing was broken.
   
   He was rewarded a second later. Suddenly it was almost as if the conduit had gained a mind of its own and slid down into the joiner with a smooth release of pressure. Ecstatically Trip slid home the magnetic field generator and powered it on. He then crawled back through into the corridor around the conduit and checked the connection.
   
   He raced over to the comms panel and told the engine room to open the channel to the conduit. He did not need to tell the bridge, they would know he had done his job when the nacelles had powered up.
   
   
   
   "Ten seconds before incoming reached optimal engagement range," Malcom reported. Even his voice was sounding shaky. Archer understood, so far all his attempts to get a target lock on the missiles had failed. Their own countermeasures were to good.
   
   Travis suddenly jumped in his seat and shouted gleefully. "Sir! I show warp power as restored!"
   
   Archer's eyes raced down to his own displays. Sure enough just as Travis had said the nacelles were once again getting fed plasma, the warp coils were powered up and ready. There was only one thing to do.
   
   "Get us out of here!" Archer said with as much calm as he could muster.
   
   "Its going to be bumpy," Travis said with his eyes toward Hoshi. She nodded glumly, it was hard to tell if she dreaded the incoming missiles more, or the thought of making a fast acceleration through warp.
   
   The ship suddenly shook as she accelerated hard. It took her only twenty seconds to build up her speed to warp factor one, and another twenty to his warp two. She continued to drive hard into the upper warp measures.
   
   
   
   "Follow them!" Cho'kol shouted as Enterprise disappeared of his sensors. The missiles seemed confused for a moment before self-destructing.
   
   The bridge crew raced to carry out their captains order, the Arakas lumbered after the earth ship and accelerated as quickly as her greater mass would allow.
   
   The race was going to be decided by physics rather than raw power. In such a race the much larger Arakas would clearly be the victor, however this contest could only be determined by the amount of realspace drag each ships respective warp field had. The lower the drag, the faster the ship could travel.
   
   There was also a question of which ship would reach the upper limit of her speed first. Enterprise had never before been tested much past warp four, while Arakas could maintain speeds as high as warp factor four point two for brief periods.
   
   
   
   "Warp factor three point five," Mayweather announced as the deck shuddered beneath him. The hum of the ships engines was almost defeaning as he pushed the ship for all she was worth.
   
   Archer wished desperately to know if he was beating the Arakas. However while at warp the ship was functionally blind, light based sensors being useless while the ship was traveling faster than light. And she possessed only basic passive subspace sensors, none of which pointed aft due to the disturbances created by her warp field.
   
   "Captain where is our current heading taking us?" Soval asked from beside Archer. Even so he could barely hear the man over the din of the engines as they roared to keep the shops accelerating this hard.
   
   It was a question Archer did not honestly know the answer to. But Trip was to far away for his voice to reach him over the engines roar. Archer pretended he did not hear him, and when Soval touched his shoulder he acted like he could not hear the mans voice.
   
   Soval did not press the matter. He knew they were accelerating deeper into Vulcan territory. Hopefully not into the waiting arms of a Vulcan government in on this scheme to capture Enterprise.
   
   Soval honestly did not think that the plot had been officially sanctioned by the government, he knew full well the independence with which the navy operated. And how greatly its own agenda could diverge with that of the assembly. But the question remained how far the plot went, and how much of the fleet was in on it.
   
   If the entire navy was a part of the plot then the next ship Enterprise encountered would likely open fire on them, and the next one. If the ship could avoid Vulcan naval vessels as much as possible as she made her way to the very core of the Vulcan nation then she should however be safe.
   
   Soval just hoped that they could make it, or at least outrun the Arakas. He knew only that the cruiser was fast, he also knew Enterprise was fast. But he did not know which was faster, and frankly, this was not the manner in which he had hoped to find out.
   
   The deck rocked as the ship breached the warp factor four barrier. Travis attempted to announce this feat, but his voice was drowned out by the engines. Soval turned and realized that the human at the linguistics station seemed to be under great stress. He had noted that she did not like the ships acceleration before, but this race seemed to be almost more than she could handle.
   
   Honestly it was almost more than he could handle. He had been aboard ships before when they made aggressive warp jumps. But the acceleration Enterprise was pulling was just insane. The little ship was buffeted by the force of her speed, everything was shaking, one particularly big bump caused Soval to bite his tongue with enough force for it to bleed, he dismissed the pain and concentrated on the ships speed, watching as Enterprise plowed through warp factor four point one, factor four point two, four point three.
   
   Finally she reached her limit at the upper end of warp factor four point four, her engines screeched as Travis fought to make the ship go even faster, but he was unable to do so. Local subspace conditions and the vessels limitations prevented her from going any faster. Soval, and everyone aboard, breathed a huge sigh of relief as the noise and jittering of the ship began to die down finally.
   
   
   
   Again Cho'kol swore, the violence of his curse causing the helmsman to jump. Arakas was equipped with passive subspace sensors configured to detect warp signatures. Currently they showed Enterprise to be maintaining a speed as high as warp factor four point four. Arakas, even with her more powerful drive, struggled to make factor four point two.
   
   She was not quite managing even at this speed and the engine room had made Cho'kol aware of the major risk of overheating across multiple systems. In order to achieve even this fantastic speed the ships reactor was currently being pushed past the redline at one hundred and thirteen percent.
   
   It was dangerous, the magnetic fields controlling the reactors plasma could manage only so much and were now nearing the point of failure. When that happened…
   
   Cho'kol ordered the ship to begin backing off its speed. They had lost this race. All that he could do now was return to the Vekia and send a message ahead of Enterprise to inform them that she had escaped Arakas and that a new plan was needed.
   
   It was good that he had given the order to begin slowing. At warp factor three point seven the engine room reported a rupture along one of the secondary plasma feedlines to the warp coils. It was cointainable, but at any higher speed the ship would have been slammed out of warp aggressively and the rupture would have been far larger.
   
   The damage limited the ships sustainable speed to just warp factor three point one. The news did not make Cho'kol happy. But he realised it was beyond his control. Honestly he was surprised the damage had not been much worse than it had been. His ship had managed to achieve speeds for much longer than anyone had thought was possible.
   
   It was small consolation that a earth ship six times smaller than Arakas had managed to smash that warp sustainability record easily, but at least it was something to be given to command to show for his efforts.
   
   As Arakas made her ponderous warp two turn back to the Vekia Cho'kol watched helplessly as the Enterprise held warp factor four point four steadily until she disappeared from her sensors. His mission had ended in failure and the results could prove catastrophic.
   
   
   
   "Captain I cannot advise you on the proper method of dealing with your current situation. It is not my responsibility." Soval looked evenly across at Archer, and then to ambassador Fel. Archer sighed.
   
   Fel had been kept in the dark about events until well after Travis had finally taken the ship down to a cruising speed of warp factor three point four. And then only because she had all but threatened to arrest the guard Archer had assigned to her quarters. She did not have that kind of power, but the frightened mechanic had not wanted to take his chances that she did.
   
   Archer had told her all that he knew as she stormed onto the bridge, she had been calmed only by Soval, who also had to assure her that the vessel that had attacked Enterprise had indeed been a Vulcan ship. And not, as she suggested an Orion pirate vessel.
   
   Two days later, once Archer was certain they were not being pursued he had taken the ship out of warp completely in the middle of the deep space between two star systems and convened a conference to debate the ships next moves.
   
   Fel still seemed convinced that the attack was not by the Vulcan government, despite the assurances that they likely were given by ambassador Soval. It was odd to have the human apologizing and making excuses while the Vulcan owned up to his governments acts and tried to move ahead.
   
   "Whatever you do captain you must not strain the relationship between our two governments by brashly declaring that they attacked this ship," Fel said it as an order. Though she likely knew that her words carried very little weight.
   
   "And please, whatever you do you mustn't simple appear out of warp and declare that Vulcan attacked Enterprise, let them give their version of events before jumping to conclusions."
   
   Archer was not sure, but he thought he caught Soval snort out of the corner of his eye. The man clearly thought very little of his associate. Archer did not blame him. A career butt kisser Fel had only earned her position through backstabbing and openly declaring her love of and support of Vulcan. For chairman Rubenetov, who drew much of his support from Vulcan, she was the perfect candidate for ambassador.
   
   "Ma'am I am not coming to any conclusions, our sensor data is available to you if you want to confirm for yourself that we were indeed attacked by a Vulcan Deik'lavas class cruiser." Archer looked her right in the eye. Refusing to back down on his position. She finally huffed and threw her hands into the air.
   
   "Well if you want to make a major diplomatic scandal then do what you must. Just be certain that you leave me when you storm out of Vulcan territory so I can run damage control behind you." She moved to storm out of the conference room, only to be stopped in her tracts by an irate T'pol.
   
   "Do you really think that the captain is inventing something like this?" She asked, stopping Fel at the door. As the woman turned T'pol turned on her full Vulcan look of derision upon her.
   
   "And would the fact that all members of the ambassadors staff, including the ambassador, corroborate the captains story not be sufficient to convince you that he is telling the truth? Even without looking for yourself at the data from the ships sensors of the battle?" She did not give the woman a chance to answer her question before she continued.
   
   "Your refusal to accept the situation and pitiful and complete support for the Vulcan assembly shows that you are little more than a glorified pawn of your chaimans political games, and that you care little for your own government or its people." Fel moved to say something, clearly indignant at this attack, T'pol raised the volume of her voice.
   
   "You have had ample opportunity over the past few days to look over the ships flight data, and yet you have refused. Proving that you do not care for the facts, I do not believe anything anyone says will convince you of the facts, so please leave and allow the reasonable people to get on with planning."
   
   There had been enough of a command in her voice that Fel seemed to collapse, she walked out, dragging a confused aide with her out the door. T'pols glare followed her until the doors cycled shut behind her.
   
   "Forgive me," she said bowing her head slightly to Soval and Archer. "She was a distraction."
   
   "She is a bitch is what she is!" Trip said, true respect in his voice. He had always heard that Vulcans could tear a human apart, chew them up and spit them out. But he had never seen that ability used until now. He clearly found the power awe inspiring.
   
   "I'm glad she is gone. Now lets get back to business." Archer drew everyones attention back to the matter at hand. Everyone looked at him expectantly. Thinking he had a plan, he did not, but hoped that would change by the time the meeting was dismissed.
   
   "I agree with the ambassador that Vulcan itself does not have any direct knowledge of the attack, and that it was in all likelihood carrier out by fringe elements of the navy." He paused for a breath.
   
   "What we need to work out is what we are going to do once we reach Vol'Sri." He looked around, but nobody was forthcoming with an answer.
   
   Vol'Sri, the Vulcan homeworld and capital of the Assembly, was just a few days away at warp factor three point four. Between Enterprise and the system lay the core of the Vulcan civilization. Dozens of systems each likely possessing dozens of warships. Any of which were likely a part of the conspiracy to capture Enterprise. Archer had thus ordered a course directly to the homeworld to avoid any possibility of interception for as long as possible.
   
   Archer currently was assuming that he and his ship would reach Vol'Sri unopposed. A gamble, but one that made sense if the conspiracy was small and did not extend to far. He had also dismissed returning to Earth due to the likely uproar that would be caused once the ship gave word of what had happened. Better to allow the Vulcans to explain themselves and perhaps fix what had happened first.
   
   After several hours of further debate what eventually emerged was the most bare bones approach possible. Enterprise would warp into the Vol'Sri system and then radio the government, requesting that all warships leave the ships vicinity and that she be allowed to speak with the government directly, saying they had important information for them before they did anything else.
   
   The probability of the Assembly doing this was not even discussed, the plan was as basic as possible and would hopefully result in a conversation being opened quickly, creating as little time for Enterprise to be attacked again as possible.​

 

[Charles Markov]

"Sir we are entering the Vol'Sri system now." Mayweathers voice startled Archer, he was in the shower and had just woken up from his first real sleep in what felt like a year.

"I will be right there," he said, turning down the water so that only his voice would be heard on the comm.

He was on the bridge in a fresh uniform less than ten minutes later. Hair slightly damp still, but not to the point that it was noticeable.

"How long until we enter comms range?" He asked heading right for Hoshi's station.

"I can send a message now," she answered. "Just be aware that there will be a twenty second delay between when we send any messages, and when the planet receives them."

"Ok," Archer nodded. He had expected that much. But for his request he did not really need direct communications. "Send the message then please."

Hoshi nodded and a second later reported that the pre-recorded message compiled by Archer with the help of ambassador Soval had been sent to the Vulcan government requesting that all space borne traffic avoid Enterprise. No mention at this point was given of the attack by the Arakas.

"They have received the message sir," Hoshi said as an update a few seconds later.

Archer wondered how long it would take them to respond to his message. Yes it took twenty seconds to be received by the planet. But then the message had to be read by communications operators, sent to the appropriate person, their secretary would then read the message and then if said person was not to busy it would go to them to read through. And then the process would be repeated backwards for any response for Enterprise to be sent.

That being said it did not really take all that long for the message to be sent. Just a little less than fifteen minutes. For an equivalent message to be received and a reply mode for Earth it would have taken likely two, or even perhaps three hours.

"Please put it over the speakers," Archer asked even as Hoshi's hands flew over her board to do just that.

"Enterprise this is chief of naval operations home fleet admiral Yimur, your request is unusual to say the least, but not entirely unexpected. I have alerted all Vulcan warships to avoid an area sufficient to permit you safe passage to orbit of the planet."

"Interesting," T'pol said from beside Archer. He did not quite know how she managed it, but everytime he turned around the woman seemed to be there. Sneaking up on him without him ever noticing.

"That would imply some level of knowledge about the conspiracy." She looked over at Hoshi, "can you confirm the source of this message?" She asked.

Hoshi looked over her screens. "I cant say for certain, my Vulcan is patchy, and my knowledge of Vulcan comms ID tags is worse."

"May I?" T'pol asked, Hoshi shook her head and moved aside to allow room for her to work.

"It seems to check out," T'pol announced.

"Can you confirm that all Vulcan vessels are avoiding our path to the planet Travis?" Archer asked, wanting another source to corroborate that the admiral had been telling the truth.

Travis checked the ships navigational sensors for a moment before he answered. "Looks like it sir, I don't see a Vulcan warship within a million kilometres of our entry window."

"Take us in then," Archer said. He half expected another attack. But had not other option but to proceed.



The view of the system was breathtaking. As per established protocol Enterprise did not use active sensors to scan the system. Even so with just her passive scanners the ship picked up some impressive sights. Archer was impressed by the sheer scale of the systems space based infrastructure.

The Sol system possessed a dizzying array of orbital habitats, ore processing facilities, communications arrays, starship construction, repair and docking centres, and a virtual swarm of ships moving around the system at all hours. But still Sol paled in comparison to the absolute size of the traffic in the system.

With just passives, and able to scan only a tiny part of the system, Enterprise still picked up over two thousand impulse signatures corresponding to starships. All moving along steadily moving paths leading into and out of the system.

As Enterprise drew nearer to Vol'Sri itself even more was picked up. Hundreds of stations and satelites littered the planets orbitals, while thousands of shuttles and transports dotted the space between them. Constantly coming and going in a never ending swarm.

And that was not mentioning all the warships. The United Earth Stellar Navy, UESN, possessed at the moment six large and sixteen small cruisers and over a hundred patrol and attack craft. That number was more than surpassed by the thirty to forty Vulcan cruisers located throughout the system. And this impressive force represented just under a quarter of the navies total forces.

Archer was forced to admit that perhaps having the Vulcans as allies was actually a good thing. At least far better than having them as enemies. Their fleet, even the small portion that he could see, could easily take on Earth and win nine times out of ten.

The observation of the system came to an end as Enterprise entered orbit of Vol'Sri. Powering down her impulse engines and moving in on thrusters alone Archer was left feeling as if he were an incredibly small fish in a very, very big pond.

Just as Enterprise entered a stable orbit a new message flashed over Hoshi's board saying that a shuttle would be dispatched to pick up Archer, Ambassador Soval and whoever else was judged as needing to come. The shuttle would take them to the headquarters of the navy where they would speak with admiral Yimur.

With some major trepidation Archer permitted this, though he did take the precaution of having armed men to counter any boarding party if the shuttle was part of a second attempt to seize the ship. But, fortunately, that did not happen and a single pilot waved them aboard.



"Ahh captain I am so pleased to speak with you and find that you are alright." A tall, and somewhat hunched, Vulcan in a pure white naval uniform said as Archer, Soval, Trip and T'pol were brought into what looked like an office.

"Pleased to meet you," Archer and Trip mumbled as they looked around the room.

It was well decorated, wood floors melded into wood walls which in turn melded into a wooden desk and chairs. It was odd Archer thought for so much nature to be present in such a place. He normally associated Vulcans with drab metal and plastics. Not the homely and comfortable office before him.

"Admiral," Soval said from beside Archer. Yimur turned and bowed his head slightly in difference to his superior. "May I congratulate you on your appointment," he said. "Last that I had heard admiral Stevir was still in command of homefleet."

"There have been, changes," Yurim said with a touch of darkness. The man noticed Archers puzzled expression and a slight smile tugged at his lips. "Forgive me, I forget that you have been in the dark."

"Indeed we have," Soval said eying the admiral. "I gather that you have some knowledge of the plot to seize Enterprise then?" He asked.

Yurim nodded and sat down. Instinctively Archer followed suite, only to be reminded that it was Vulcan custom not to sit unless a seat was offered. This did not seem to trouble Yurim though. "Your logic is impressive," he said speaking to Soval.

"Indeed we did uncover the plot." He looked at Archer, "I must say captain you and your ship were impressive, from what we have gathered from the crews of the Arakas and Vekia you acquitted yourself quite well in the battle."

Archer was not sure how to take that. Frankly he had not anticipated this entire string of events, he also found it strange how the Vulcans were taking this whole development.

"You are talking about the Arakas attacking and trying to capture our ship right?" Trip asked, apparently as confused as Archer. "If so then you are taking a major conspiracy rather well."

Yulim smiled thinly. "I assure you that we take this entire situation quite clearly, would you like to hear of the events that have transpired since you were attacked?" He asked. Archer and Trip both nodded. Even Soval looked interested.

If they were expecting a long and detailed explanation however they were in for a let down. "Captain Cho'kol formerly of the cruiser Arakas sent a message to his superiors, my predecessor specifically, warning that his attack did not go as planned and that Enterprise was on its way. As the message was unscheduled it raised red flags when received and was decrypted, which raised more red flags. The conspiracy was uncovered and as we speak more than five hundred have been arrested. With the crew of the Arakas and Vekia adding to that figure substantially when they arrive in the nearest port."

Yulim looked at Archer, Trip, Soval and T'pol and nodded politely. "That is really all the detailed that I am going to give you at this time." Archer thought Trip was about to ask further questions, but the admirals face dissuaded him of that idea.

"So what happens now?" Archer asked finally. All eyes suddenly turned to him.

"That is up to you and your vessel captain," Yulim answered, Archer blinked. Not understanding the statement.

"What do you mean?" Trip asked.

"I mean that what happened to your vessel was a massive disaster for our government and represents a stunning betrayal of centuries of coexistence between our two races. As the perpetrators of said betrayal, even if only a tiny fraction of us as a whole, it is not up to us to decide what is to be done next." T'pol looked surprised, but she knew not to ask further questions.

Archers head swam as he felt the sudden weight of the responsibility of telling Earth about this. Doubtlessly he would be made a scapegoat, first of the government, chairman Rubenetov in particular, then by the populace as a whole. And then there would be the public reaction, the protests and striked. The madness.

Even if the government managed to remain intact, far fetched as it was due to its leaders devotion to the Vulcans, the public perception of the Vulcans would forever shift, and with it would likely come Earths stability. The UE was self sufficient in terms of its basic needs, but many high technology items and rare resources came as a result of trade with the Vulcans. With this gone the economy would suffer, in response the government would likely turn on the Vulcans. Blaming them for everything. Leading in turn to yet more anger and suspicion of the formerly close Vulcans.

It was almost more than Archer could bare to think about. It would be madness he knew. And although nothing as savage and debased as former revolutions would likely occur, the UE was to stable for that. Its reputability and control over the public would be forever altered. As would the perception of the Vulcans. No matter what they did to make right their actions.

At first Archer did not even think about the alternative, not saying a word. It would be easy to make up some story and allow the status quo between Earth and Vulcan to continue. A relationship that had its faults yes, but that had lasted for hundreds of years and was responsible for making Earth the prosperous and united planet it was today.

The question of what to do, which answer was right, the truth that had the potential to destroy everything and cause deep and lasting harm, or the lie that would preserve things as they currently stood, and potentially serve to even improve things, gnawed at Archer for almost five minutes as he struggled with his internal battle. But eventually he did come to a decision.



"Captain I must say that I am going to miss you," ambassador Soval said as he emerged from the shadows of the veranda just outside the assemblies chambers in T'pliori, the capital city of the Vulcan Assembly. Archer was startled, but recovered quickly.

"I could say the same ambassador," Archer said. And he meant it. Getting to know Soval over the past weeks, first aboard Enterprise and then on Vol'Sri in the aftermath of their arrival had been, enlightening to say the least.

And now they were to part ways. Archer had just received permission from the UESPA to begin an official tour of the worlds of the Assembly. Something that no Earth ship had done before.

It was new territory, for humans anyway. Despite centuries of interaction little was known of the Vulcans. Their culture had been shown in a deliberately sanitized and simple form by the few Vulcans that did interact directly with humanity. While virtually nothing was know of the true extent of their civilization, its history and even its age.

That was something that Archer was looking forward to changing. Following his decision the Assembly had given Enterprise free reign to explore its territory. It was a major departure from the ships original mission to chart and explore scattered frontier bordering Earths colonies. Mapping and making contact with as many of the possibly hundreds of small settlements that dotted the starscape around the Sol system before the ship pressed into truly deep space. But things had changed and Archer found himself almost liking his new assignment more.

The UE had been somewhat shocked as news of the Vulcan invitation reached them. And it had taken almost a week to get a response, in addition to the nine day delay each way for a message to reach Earth from Vulcan territory. But once their answer had been received it had been a resounding yes.

The ship was being prepped as Archer stood there. More fuel and supplies were being taken on and the damage from the battle with the Arakas was being repaired under the watchful eye of Trip.

"I do hope that events since our departure from Earth have not soured your opinion of us captain." Soval moved to stand right beside Archer, though he did not imitate the pose the human had, arms resting against the railing.

"On the contrary I think they have improved my opinion of Vulcans," Archer could feel Soval shift his position and look at him.

"How so?" He asked not expecting the response he got. "Do humans bond with their attackers often?"

Archer laughed, Soval had been plainly apologetic over the last few days, clearly he felt particularly guilty over what had happened. Likely because Selvek had been a member of his staff and yet he had not seen or deduced what was going on until it was nearly too late.

Archer decided to explain. As best as he could anyway. "I think that if nothing else this whole experience has shown us, me in particular, how similar we are as species." Archer paused to collect his thoughts before continuing.

"A few centuries ago my planet was ripped apart by factionalism. Social, ethnic and religious divisions caused us so many problems. We very nearly destroyed ourselves." Again he paused, this time to make sure that Soval was following him. Seeing that he was he continued.

"And then, after millennia of this division and strife we suddenly found a race, or rather you found us, that had managed all that. You." He paused to collect his thoughts again.

"I think that what we humans took away from our interactions with you was that your species was cold, calculating and unfeeling. And totally the same. One Vulcan was the same as all Vulcans."

"Ideally that is what we strive for," Soval pointed out. Archer nodded.

"That's my point," he said.

"We developed the idea that whatever one of you did was the sentiment of all. That you were all the same, and that you wanted us to be like you. Your pushing your Surak on us did not help matters."

"We came to see you as controlling. As a race you looked down on us."

"That was not the case captain," Soval said.

"But that was how it seemed from our point of view. And some of you did feel that way," Archer said. Soval was forced to concede that point.

"I saw all Vulcans like that," Archer admitted. "Self-praising and capable of seeing no fault in themselves while pointing out the flaws in us. Holding us back even. "

"And that attitude has changed?" Soval asked wondering where Archer attacks against his people would end.

"I think that, seeing the worst in your race, the depths that you can go to has humanized you, in my eyes at least. It shows that you have flaws and that you don't always do the right thing, that even with your logic you can reach different conclusions."

"Humanized?" Soval asked wondering where this was going.

"It's a good thing." Archer assured him. "It makes you more relatable. More understandable."

"You are coming to understand us," Soval said seeing Archers point. The human nodded. Soval smiled thinly. "Then our two species have reached a turning point," he said.

"What do you mean?" Archer asked, his turn to be puzzled.

"With the last centuries our two races have existed in a very strict manner," he said. "We delivered aid, but deliberately kept ourselves aloof of your affairs, also keeping our distance. This is going to change now." Soval looked at the human. "What it becomes is up to you."

Archer said nothing. He really did not have time to say anything. His communicator beeped, warning him that he needed to get to the shuttle that would take him back to enterprise, he said a brief goodbye to Soval and then left at a brisk jog to the spaceport.

 

[Charles Markov]

.By the way if anyone out there is interested I actually just wrote an Ebook and have listed it on Amazon. The universe and characters are all my own, its inspired heavily by shows like Firefly and Star Wars in that it revolves around the crew of a single ship as they attempt to get by in a big and hungry galaxy. Oh and there are also androids, superpowers and criminals! If this interest you Here it is! Know that I don't expect everyone who reads this thread to jump and buy the book (and if this feels like a cheap advertisement or is against forum rules I will delete it) but I figured I might as well mention that I did that.
So there that is, I have a book.

 

[Charles Markov]

Captain James Kirk stepped off the transporter pad for the second time today. A strange mixture of nausea, exhaustion, confusion and fear holding him for a moment as the transporter room swam back and forth across his vision. Only with effort was he able to shut out the aftereffects of the beam and stabilize the world before him. Beside him chief medical officer Leonard McCoy was not so fortunate.

"Damn these things!" He hissed as he wiped away vomit from his mouth with a wipe handed to him by a waiting orderly.

Normally Kirk would argue with his friend over the virtues of the transporter, its ease of use and shortening of journeys. But after two beam outs in just six hours he could not, in fact he even agreed with Bones slightly.

"Are you alright?" Kirk asked as a second wave of vomit came up from the doctor's throat.

"Fine," McCoy sputtered again wiping his mouth. With Kirks help the two made their way out into the anteroom of the transporter room and into the ship proper. Being cleared of any foreign contaminants by a sonic disinfector as they passed through.

"I mean it Jim, that's the last time I use one of those things," Bones stated. "Short of a full-blown medical emergency requiring immediate help I`m never using one of those things ever again!"

He sounded serious. But then again, he always did and yet in a few weeks would, under protest admittedly, beam down somewhere and then beam back in one piece. Contrary to the predictions of great bodily harm that he always shouted before each beam-out.

Kirk said nothing on the matter, only remarking. "I think our repairs are complete more or less. We should be able to get underway for our next mission in a few days. Assuming our missing crew ever show up."

"What missing crew would those be captain?" Spock asked. Enterprises Vulcan first officer had been in the turbolift car that had arrived to pick Kirk and McCoy up in, and both humans looked back at him visibly startled.

Kirk recovered first, "the crew that is still missing from our official complement," Kirk said. Enterprise had been dispatched on her first mission missing some of her crew, many had come aboard at star base six, but the ship had been sent away on a mission to rescue a Tellarite freighter before she could receive less than a dozen crew members still enroute to the ship.

"Already aboard sir, they arrived just minutes ago."

It was at this moment that McCoy recovered. "What in blazes Spock!" He thundered. "Are you trying to startle us to death?" He asked shuffling into the lift car beside Kirk and Spock.

"Doctor I was merely a passenger in this car. I had no idea it would stop to pick you and the captain up." The Vulcan explained with what had to be endless patience. Despite now months of such treatment Spock had never done anything to suggest annoyance at the doctor's constant digs and questions.

"I am glad to hear it," Kirk said determined to prevent the sort of argument that usually broke out between the two other passengers of the car. He had a mild headache from all the transporter use and was looking forward to a little time to rest in his quarters.

Spock seemed on the edge of saying something more but refrained.

"Something else mister Spock?" Kirk asked unwilling to wait for the commander to get it out on his own time. He just wanted the day to be over.

Spock was unable to say whatever it was that had by the tongue as the comm suddenly chirped beside Kirks ear. Thumbing the switch that turned on the microphone Kirk stated, "Kirk here."

"Captain," Uhura`s voice came over the speaker, booming through the tiny lift car. "I hate to bother you sir, but commodore Stevens says he wishes to speak with you at your convenience."

"Very well, thank you." Kirk said. So much for his day being over with. "I will take it in my quarters please," he said before thumbing the comm panel off.

"Well that sounds ominous." McCoy remarked after a moment of silence.

The turbolift stopped and its doors opened onto deck six. Kirk stepped out but McCoy, with quarters located a deck below, remained in the lift with Spock who had other business. "Hopefully not to bad." Kirk said as the doors closed.



On deck five, just metres above the captain one of the ships newest crew members. Doctor of xenobiology Saraesh Nojumuo was being shown to her quarters.

"So, what is it like being a xenobiologist?" Technician master grade Phillips asked. She had been following Saraesh along like an eagre puppy dog since she had first arrived aboard.

For her part Saraesh was tired of the woman. Tired of the way in which people where looking at and acting around her more specifically. She wished that her pheromones with all their potency could be turned on and off at will. Or even gotten rid of completely.

Unable to do any of that she instead had to put up with Phillips for a few more metres until she reached her quarters. "About like being a regular biologist," she answered doing her level best to be polite. It would not do to yell.

Phillips brought them to a door along the hall and stopped, frowning into her pad. "What is it?" Saraesh asked, this would be just perfect. For the computer to have gotten it wrong and assigned her the wrong quarters.

"I think the computer has goofed up a little," Phillips said with a groan. "These are senior officers' quarters, and a single cabin at that."

Saraesh brightened, "Who's cabin?" She asked. Puzzled Phillips only looked at her. "Who is assigned to this cabin?" She repeated.

"Umm this berth is assigned to lieutenant commander Rajan, the ships engineers' mate." Phillips answered clearly wondering what difference that made. A smile from Saraesh made the young woman swoon, she took a deep breath and leaned against the wall.

She managed to regain some degree of composure here. "He is a Laconian, kinda freaky looking," she explained. Saraesh's smile broadened.

"I am well aware of what my husband looks like," she said frostily. She knew full well the horror of his face, but that did not mean she appreciated it when others pointed it out. Even if Rajan himself did not care either way.

"Hussb…" Phillips stammered before practically slamming her head into her pad. A few hastily pulled up pages later and she had an answer. "I see that, yes." She said still shocked. "Well then as you are actually assigned this cabin, and the computer did not mess things up I will let you in." She said finally managing to put a sentence together.

"Thank you. For everything," Saraesh said with another smile. One which Phillips returned with a blush.

"No problem," the young woman said as she fumbled with the lock attempting twice to get the proper combination. Eventually she managed and the doors to the dark cabin slid open. "Someone can deliver your things here in about an hour."

"Thank you," Saraesh said before shutting the door. Her Orion nostrils, far superior to those of Humans, picked up a familiar scent and suddenly it was her turn to swoon. She was home.

"Anyone home?" She asked to the room.

"Depends on if you're in a good mood," came the reply. "I don't want to deal with you in complete heat," the same voice said closer this time.

Saraesh smiled. The cabin was actually fairly spacious compared to many officers' quarters. Consisting of three rooms laid out in a rough rectangle with a central living area in the middle, and a bathroom and sleeping area on either end. The voice was coming from the bedroom.

Plodding along the soft carpet her shoes did not make a sound. "Don't exaggerate!" She called. "I am not that bad, even at my worst days."

"Hah!" Came the amused reply. "You have never met you, so therefore you would not know how you get."

The two met as the door to the bedroom slid open. Rajan had been just about to enter to living area. Saraesh leapt into his arms and wrapped her arms around her husband. Taking him back significantly.

For his part the Laconian responded quickly and embraced her warmly. "I missed you," he said burying his head in her hair. Walking over to the couch he sat down, she still in his lap.

"Tell me about it," she said sighing deeply. Letting five months of emotion out all at once.

"Never again," He said with determination. "If they want to send us to a different ship they will have to send us together. None of this separate transport garbage!"

"So what have you been up to?" She asked kissing him on the mouth, forehead, neck and chest. "All I have done is try not to tolerate people for five months."

"I went to Valkru," Rajan said deciding there was no point in keeping something like that a secret. Even if just for the evening.

"And?" Saraesh said in a tone that said she wanted far more information than just where he husband had been in the last five months. Rajan resigned himself to telling her, it would do no good trying to not do so.



"Commodore what can I do for you sir?" Kirk asked. Before him on the computer screen the grizzled balding commodore looked just as tired as Kirk felt.

"Captain I am just going to say upfront I'm sorry," the older man said with a frankness that had earned him the respect of many of those he served with.

"Sorry for what?" Kirk asked wondering just how little he would like the answer.

"You were scheduled for repairs to your computer systems at Rigel were you not?" Stevens asked knowing the answer.

"We were, what has happened?" He did not feel like beating around the bush any more than he had to.

"There has been a development I am afraid." Stevens was sombre and leaned into the camera. "The Antila, a scoutship just returned from a mission to the Archanis sector, reports that the Klingons have begun construction of a major fleet base in a system roughly sixteen lightyears outside of their claimed territory. I want Enterprise to have a little peek and see if this is true."

"How soon would you like us to leave?" Kirk asked knowing there was no reason in trying to get his ship out of the mission they had been assigned.

"How quickly can you be underway?" Stevens asked. "This is considered of the highest priority from Starfleet command."

"Understood sir, I will speak with my engineer immediately and let you know when we can be underway." Kirk said rubbing his eyes with his left hand and making a note with his right.

"Thank you, Kirk, I know you have been having some technical difficulties and were wanting a thorough look over at a star base. But this is important. If the empire is building bases, especially forward attack bases, we need to know."

"Yes sir," Kirk said signing off. Technical difficulties was something of an understatement. Ever since their meeting with the boy Charlie the ships systems had been behaving in a very odd manner. Ships systems had routinely malfunctioned, or at the least barely functioned. Scotty had been wanting repairs for over a month, but their mission to the Valkru system had delayed that somewhat, and now their mission to the Archanis sector was looking to push back their repairs for at least another month.

Kirk groaned as the memory of his meeting with his second judicial board came to his mind. Despite the raid on the slave market being the largest and most successful of its kind pressure from the Valkrian system government had led to an official reprimand being logged and a very stern talking to by a judge who had to be pushing one hundred and fifty. Her beady little eyes boring straight through Kirks soul it seemed.

Pushing such thoughts that he was the fleets youngest heavy cruiser captain, and held the record for most judicial hearings being held in his first year in command for any captain in the fleet out of his mind Kirk decided to walk to engineering and speak with Scotty himself. It would he hoped be easier that way.



"Would you mind telling me what you were thinking?" Saraesh asked after a moment of stunned silence. The news that her husband had not only been to a notorious slave market and armed some of the slaves, but then had killed some of the guards had understandably shocked her into silence.

In the very matter of fact way that he tended to speak, both making Saraesh furious and slightly proud Rajan explained, "I was thinking that those men would suffer for nothing that they had done. You know firsthand how much power the syndicates control in this area, they would have been able to get their people free. And actually, have managed to get more than a few out of any real trouble already."

Nostrils flared Saraesh was about to shout. But really there was nothing she could say that would change the situation. And even if she did yell it did not change the fact that her husband was right about the syndicates. And had managed to commit his crime without getting caught, though it seemed the captain had at least some suspicion of what had actually happened.

"Has the captain done anything to you for your actions?" She asked instead, it would be good to know if Rajan were under any form of suspension or house arrest.

"No." He said shaking his head. "He can't do anything about it," Rajan was almost to calm. "And besides," he added, "even if he could I doubt whether he would do anything. He had a very low opinion of most of the slavers we captured. I think he even considered the possibility of doing something similar."

"You disapprove?" He asked when Saraesh did not say anything.

"I am far from pleased," she said. She did not disapprove, far from it. She knew exactly how cruel the slave market could be and whatever pain could be inflicted on anyone involved in it was far to good for them. No. She could not really hold that against him. "Just don't do anything like that again. Please, for me?"

Rajan nodded and kissed her. "Something tells me the captain will be keeping me far away from any future missions involving the syndicates." He said caressing her face.

"Well good, glad he learned." Saraesh said moments before she returned Rajan's kiss with a passion.



"You can't be serious captain!" Montgomery Scott, the ships chief engineer said in dismay. "Sir this is the second time they have shafted us like this. And our systems are getting worse!"

"I know mister Scott; I am well aware of the state of our systems. But this is a priority from Starfleet command." Kirk could not really argue with his chief engineer. The ships systems were indeed in a very sorry way, and despite the best efforts of the engineering staff things had not improved to much.

"Well," Scotty said. Putting aside for the moment any remarks he may have about the competency of the admiralty to focus on the fact that the ship needed to leave immediately. "If you give me two hours then I think I can get the ship ready, any less and I fear we will forget something important."

"You can have four hours if you want," Kirk said.

"Sir?" Scotty asked confused by the generous time allotment.

"I am tired mister Scott; it has been a very long day." He smiled. "Besides if we find what Starfleet thinks we will then it wont matter if we are a few hours later in getting there than we would otherwise be, no matter how much they may wine."

Scotty smiled, it was small revenge for ordering the ship away before her repairs. But it was revenge nonetheless. "I will see what I can do to make it not look to obvious sir," he said to Kirks back.

"I know you will, now if you will excuse me, I have some other business to take care of." He did not tell Scotty that his other business involved a bed, a pillow and a few blankets. "Let me know when you are ready," he called before disappearing out of main engineering.

Even as the doors closed Scotty was already thinking of ways to slow down the process of getting the ship ready. He lamented what the ships late departure would do for his reputation as being the quickest engineer in the fleet, but that was unavoidable in his eyes. Besides, he would get the title back soon enough.

Yes, the more he thought about it the better time it seemed to give the less experienced technicians and engineers some time in the hot seat. "Get me ensign Daag and his crew, and while you're at it wake up Kolkikoloni and her crew," Scotty thundered to no one in particular knowing the job would get done. "Tell them I want them to get the ship ready for departure in two hours or it is there hide."

Scotty smiled. It was a low thing to do to threaten Daag and Kolkikoloni, two of his newest officers fresh out of the academy's at San Francisco and Nea'Thraki. But it would take them far more than two hours, perhaps as many as six if he did not help them along. And it would serve as a useful learning tool for the youngsters to get practical experience.

He briefly thought about waking Rajan to watch the fun. He quickly thought better of it, his second in command had mentioned his wife, a science officer, was coming aboard and that he was looking forward to meeting with her. He could always tell the Laconian about it tomorrow. Besides he spotted Daag now walking in as he finished putting on his uniform.

"There you are ensign, I was beginning to think I would have to send out a search party!" He thundered startling the young man. "Now as soon as that Greek woman shows up you to can show me how highly trained Starfleet officers go about getting a state-of-the-art heavy cruiser underway." Daag blanched white but managed to mutter a feeble yessir as he finished buttoning his jacket.

Scotty smiled, this would be fun. He really enjoyed teaching…

 

[Charles Markov]

Captains log, stardate 309099.10

Enterprise departed star base seven three days ago on our mission to the Archanis sector. An intelligence packet sent to us by Commodore Stevens before our departure has given us the system we are to investigate for the rumoured Klingon base. Lying in an area less than eighteen lightyears away from several UE colonies if it possesses a base it would put Starfleet at a distinct disadvantage in the event of another war. While the presence of such a base is in violation of the treaty of Axanar that ended the four years war.

Enterprise has approached the system on the Klingon side of the border to avoid detection. We have for the past three days shadowed a Klingon freighter headed in the rough direction of the system to further lessen the chances of detection.

Three days of silent running at warp four has put great strain on the ship and her crew. However, we have managed surprisingly well. Not being able to use the turbolift, limited use of the environmental systems and strict rationing has however gone over surprisingly well. Now, nearing our destination we are looking forward to using the lifts again instead of climbing up and down the ships gangways and Jeffries tubes to get from place to place.

Kirk finished the days log entry and called up a status report on the ships progress. If all went well and their freighter continued at its course and speed the ship would indeed arrive at the target system in a little under six hours.

Kirk was not looking forward to when they arrived. He could honestly say that he fully expected to see a Klingon star base under construction when they arrived. And what would happen when news of that got out was not something Kirk wanted to think about.

Almost certainly Starfleet would begin to build their own bases in the area in response. Prompting the Klingons to increase their own activity in the Archanis sector, leading to further escalation from Starfleet. The sort of thing that could easily result in another war.

Kirk had been to young to serve in the four years war between the UE, Federation and Klingon empire. Enlisting in 2447 two years after the wars end. But many of the officers he served with had fought. He had also seen the devastation left over from the war. Bombed out colonies, fields of debris floating in orbit, remnants of Starfleet ships destroyed in the early war. And if another war were to break out it would almost certainly be even bloodier than the last.

Starfleet had not been mobilised then, not fully anyway. Possessing only a small fleet of cruisers and frigates for police work and exploration, not the massive fleet of battlecruisers, heavy and light cruisers, frigates and destroyed that it had now. Entire battlegroups were already deployed close to the border, with more being likely deployed if a base were discovered.

And the Klingon empire had been less of a threat back then. Not as heavily militarised and revanchist as it was not those had been the days before followers of the cult of Khahless seized power for themselves following the assassination of much of the empire's leadership. The empire had been willing to negotiate back then. Open to reason. Now, now any war it fought would likely involve open genocide and full-scale planetary bombardment. The death toll from such a war would be staggering.

Kirk could not think to much about it, he was not afraid of war. In fact, he had joined Starfleet with the idea of fighting. Not was he a novice in combat, having fought his fare share of actions in his old destroyer the Nautilus, though he had not had a chance to command Enterprise in a fight yet.

What worried him was the effects of such a war. A total war to use the language of the twentieth century. A war in which all the resources and collective population of the warring nations was devoted to destroying the other.

Forcibly he pushed such thoughts from his mind and focused on the mission at hand. "Mister Sulu," he called startling the ships helmsman. "What is our time of arrival?"

"Just under three hours sir, assuming system JB-27 Alpha is indeed the freighters destination," Sulu answered recovering quickly.

"I doubt the freighter is headed anywhere else given its current course." Spock left his own science station to Kirks side.

"What is it?" Kirk asked taking the offered pad and skimming over the report. Fairly mundane the report was signed by commander Scott, the ships chief engineer, mentioned a major fluctuation in the ships power feedlines from to the service hull. It was alarming, but Scott went on to claim the issue under control. Kirk groaned.

"This is the second such issue we have had with the power feeds since we left." The failures were getting alarming in both their severity and length. It was Kirk hoped not a prelude of what was to come.

"Indeed sir," Spock said taking the pad back. "Shall I ask commander Scott to give a formal report?"

Kirk thought a moment. The next few days would likely be very busy for the entire ship, but if the ship was ever to have her systems repaired it would be nice to have a detailed list of what was wrong. "Yes," Kirk finally said. "Please tell mister Scott that I would like a preliminary report on my desk this this time two days from now."

Spock nodded and moved off the carry out the order. Leaving Kirk to sit back and consider the system before him. With six hours to go before arriving in the JB-27 Alpha system Kirk decided that it would be a good idea to take a brief break for a quick bite to eat before things got to terribly crazy on the bridge. He left Spock in command for four hours, eagre to add a shower and quick nap to his schedule if possible.



"Rajan could you come over here for a minute?" Scotty was not asking.

"What do you need?" Rajan asked skidding down the gangway which connected the upper and lower sections of main engineering. He was beside the ships chief engineer in mere moments.

"Look at what we got from the bridge," the tall Scotsman said handing a printed copy of the captain's order for a system report to the Laconian. "More importantly," he added, "look at what you got from the bridge."

Rajan groaned and tilted his head back to the ceiling. "Why now?" He asked. He understood the reasoning behind the order, but still wondered if captain Kirk could have chosen a worse time to give the order. The engineering department was swamped at the moment with the fluctuation of the primary power systems.

"Are you going to be able to handle the power issue?" He asked sitting down at the main engineering console and opening up a document to begin naming just the issues he could name off the top of his head.

"I got it, don't get to convinced of your usefulness lieutenant-commander," Scotty said smirking. "I'm the best engineer in the fleet even without your capable help." The older man sauntered off and headed back towards the upper gangway where Rajan had just been. "Are the main teams still tackling the B1 circuit?" He called over his shoulder.

"Yeah they are! Should be about done by the time you get there huffing and puffing," Rajan shouted at the retreating chief engineer before turning to get going on the report.



"Report mister Sulu," Kirk asked as an alert sounded on the helmsman's console.

"Sensors show that the freighter just pulled in towards the second gas giant out from the system primary. "Sulu's voice was tense and Kirk could not blame him. The man had been at his station for roughly eleven hours and had for the past three had delicately been dealing with the movements of the Klingon freighter they had been following.

The freighter had dropped out of warp without warning two and a half hours ago and had so far been manoeuvring erratically as if it suspected it had a tail. Sulu had managed to avoid detection so far and was planning to dash around to a comet and use it as cover as soon as he was able. Overall it had been a very difficult shift.

"Keep me informed." Kirk felt bad for keeping Sulu on the bridge so long, but as the best helmsman on the ship he was indispensable with the Klingon vessels erratic movements.

"Sir I am ready to dodge into the comets trail!" Sulu suddenly barked his voice tense with concentration.

"Do it," Kirk tried to keep his voice calm. He knew that this was the moment that would either make or break their mission. If the Klingon freighter turned to bring its sensors back far enough to see the comet they would be discovered and faced with an embarrassing conversation with the Klingons.

Sulu did not breath for the next six minutes as he delicately manoeuvred the ship out of the freighters exhaust trail and towards the halo of the comet. But eventually, finally he finished with a loud exhaling of breath and reported that all was looking good. Spock followed that up and reported that the ship had not been scanned by the freighter and that they were likely undetected.

Kirk too let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding. The comets course would bring the entirety of the system into range of Enterprises scanners over the next week and then provided a good exit outside the system afterwards.

"Thank you, mister Sulu, if you would like you can leave the bridge for the evening." Gratefully Sulu seemed to slump forward in the chair before leaving the bridge for his quarters and a some well deserved sleep.

Kirk would leave an hour later after making sure the ships course would remain within the comets halo. Spock took over, though even he was long overdue for a replacement.



Kirk was awoken by darkness, alarms blaring and an incessant comm chime. Barely awake he fumbled for the comm. "Captain sir," the comm said in the voice of lieutenant Uhura.

"Report lieutenant," Kirk was now more awake and coming to notice the alarms and lack of lighting. Dimly he noted that the vibrations from the ship's engines had ceased.

"Sir the ship has lost main engine power, the flow monitor blew out and commander Scott was forced to purge reactants from the primary reactor. He reports that repairs are possible, though is not sure of how long those repairs will take."

Kirk was now up and fumbling in the dark for a uniform shirt. "Has he been able to maintain the impulse engines?" He asked, worry knotting at his stomach. The main reactor powered most of the ships systems normally, but her backup fusion reactors could pick up the slack if the main reactor was out.

Importantly given the ships current circumstances the impulse engines also were responsible for propelling the ship when she was not traveling at warp via the impulse engines. And if those were knocked out than the ship would be drifting uselessly through space, easily detected by any Klingon forces in the area.

"The impulse engines are still working sir, secondary power picked up simultaneously with main power being shut down," Kirk could hear Uhura's relief just as much as he could feel his own.

"I am on my way to the bridge, alert mister Scott that I would like a report as soon as possible on our engine status. And tell Commander Spock that I would like a readout on our position and probable location of any Klingon forces in the area." Kirk signed off and practically ran to the turbolift only to find that the system was not working yet. Likely Scotty had not yet got that system tied into the secondary power feed.



Some time later Kirk managed to get to the bridge after a long climb through the ships Jeffries tubes and gangways. Those on the bridge stood at attention only for Kirk to wave them down. Catching sight of Spock, he went over to his first officer and was handed a pad which gave a quick overview of the ship's status.

It did not look great. Lighting and even life support were out on a number of decks throughout the ship. Weapons and shields were down, not yet tied into the power grid. And some of the ship's sensors were not working. However, it was not all bad. Scotty reported that all of the ships systems would be tied into the power grid by the end of the day. Similarly Scotty reported that he should be able to have main power back up and running in a few days, though he did mention that it was a rough estimate.

It could have been far worse. The Boxer disaster came to Kirks mind, the ship had suffered a total reactor meltdown and had been forced to eject the system. Lacking warp capability, the Boxer had been forced to travel six years at impulse power to a point within range of Starfleet subspace communications.

"How long until we can scan the entire system mister Spock?" Kirk decided that he wanted to complete the ships mission if possible and not allow engine problems to stop them if at all possible.

Spock answered confidently, "we should have a complete sensor sweep complete within the next few days, and we can look through the data as it comes in."

Kirk nodded. That was about what he was expecting. "How long before we have scanned all the most likely base locations?"

"Two days captain," Spock noted the most likely locations for a Klingon base on the bad and added the route Enterprise would be taking through the system via the path of the comet.

Kirk nodded, it all seemed to be a matter of just a few days. Two days to scan likely base locations, four or five to completely scan the system, five to repair the reactor. "It's a waiting game then." He said finally.

Spock nodded, "it would seem that the reactor will not put us to much behind schedule. Hopefully we will be able to report back to Starfleet on schedule."

Kirk agreed and decided to head down to main engineering to make sure that all the ships system would be sorted. As well as make a list of all the systems that would need to be repaired the next time Enterprise was in a star base. He also decided to draft a firm letter to Starfleet command explaining the ships plight and how if the maintenance scheduled had been carried out the ship would not have found itself in this predicament.

 

[Charles Markov]

Captains log stardate 309101.318
Commander Scott, our chief engineer had just delivered his report on our current status. He gives a figure of five days to complete repairs to our systems sufficient enough to bring our main reactor back online and allow us the ability to warp out of the system.
Unfortunately, our sensor scans of the system have revealed the presence of a significant Klingon base in the system. A base capable of hosting at a force at least the equivalent of a battle group. With fuel silos, repair facilities, medical centres and crew recreational areas either under construction or nearing completion.
This base currently houses just a few E-9 escorts and a single D-6 cruiser as far as we can tell currently. All of these ships are deployed some distance away from Enterprise, with the exception of a lone E-9 on a patrol mission whose projected course will put our vessel in detection range of Enterprise in a little over four days.
The Klingon escort is making regular scans of the space along its patrol vector, making it unlikely that we will not be detected when the escort enters within range of Enterprise. Even if we engaged full impulse away from the escort we would only buy a few short hours.
Starfleet has granted me permission to do whatever must be done to complete the mission, I believe this includes firing on a Klingon vessel. However, the destruction of the escort, while buying us needed time to repair our engines, would only serve to alert the empire of our presence of the system. Forcing the Federations hand long before we are ready.
I have explained all this to commander Scott and urged him to hurry along with his repairs. He has promised to shorten the repairs as much as possible, but hastened to mention that his five-day estimate was already very optimistic. If all else fails I may indeed be forced to open fire on the escort and buy us the time to escape the system.
Kirk closed down the log entry and tried to move onto the ever-growing pile of reports in his mail box. It was not easy, concern over the predicament of his ship gnawed away at him and made him almost completely unable to focus. The biggest issue Kirk had with the whole situation, aside from starfleets decision to send Enterprise out without needed repairs, was that what happened over the next five days was completely outside of his own control. The ship would escape the system regardless, but would either make a clean getaway, or be forced to destroy an unfortunately located Klingon vessel to make a hot escape from the system.
Kirk had no love for Klingons, nor was he the type of person to shy away from his duties. But this would as far as Kirk could call be the first time a Starfleet vessel fired first at a Klingon. He was also certain it would be the first time that a Federation flagged starship would be discovered in an enemy claimed system without a state of war existing.
Finally resigning himself, for the time being, that what happened was out of his control Kirk ordered a cup of coffee and determined to read through at least five of the oldest reports in the folder before he stopped for lunch. And he made a good go of it to, managing to read through the first three fairly short reports before the fourth report, an eighteen-page document detailing a scan of a rogue planet the ship had happened across during her search for a Tellarite freighter, delayed him significantly. By the time he had signed the document it was well past when he normally took lunch and his stomach was protesting. Kirk decided that the fifth report could wait to be read until he had eaten something.

"I already told you! No lunchbreak this shift!" Scotty thundered, his voice carrying far down the Jeffries tubes where somewhere ensign Kolkikoloni had just asked to be relieved for lunch. Somewhere Kolkikoloni grumbled. "What was that miss?" Scotty roared back and got only silence.
"I think she is ignoring you," Rajan said smiling quietly to himself.
"Well I would not go that far." Scotty liked to yell at his younger officers, particularly his two ensigns, young officers who showed promise and had been assigned to a ship for their final year in the academy, toughened them up he said. Of course, he also enjoyed yelling at his staff in general, though he was not quite so hard on them as he was his future officers.
"You are going to go get some rest after we finish calibrating the field oscillation you know," Rajan remarked casually. Scotty had yelled when he had first arrived aboard. However, Rajan had simply yelled back and the two had quickly become friends.
"Oh, I am?" There was a smile in the chief engineer's voice. "I like it when you talk like you think you run the place." The smile broadened.
Rajan sighed. Scotty had been on station for over sixteen hours by this point, far from out of the ordinary for the man. But if all that needed to be done in the next five days was to be accomplished on time then Scotty would need to pace himself and not work nonstop for two or three days before collapsing. Unfortunately, not even the captain had been able to get this through his thick head.
"You are," Rajan said still maintaining the conversational tone. "And for at least six hours, after which you can come back and give me a bit of a rest."
Scotty only laughed and continued to work through the delicate repairs to the magnetic fields which controlled the flow of plasma from the main reactor to the ships EPS conduit network. However, once these repairs were completed Scott did actually leave and promise to sleep no more than four hours, "a wee nap," he called it before leaving main engineering.
"I think I am getting through to him," Rajan said to Lieutenant Alierie who had replaced Scotty for the repairs to the flow modulator.
"Don't count on it sir," Alierie said shaking his head. He had served with Scott during the ships last mission as a NCO and knew him and his habits far better than Rajan.
Rajan knew that. And it did not surprise him to see Scotty returning less than four hours later, three and a half by Rajans account. He walked up to the board on one end of the engine room and wrote a string of tasks in order of most to least important.
"Listen up everybody!" He thundered, "we will have a rough few days ahead of us. None of us is going to get to much sleep, nor will we have to much time for frivolous things like meals or time with our friends. All we have time for is fixing the ship. Does everyone understand that?"
Everyone did, or at least no one wanted to argue with Scotty over not getting it. Soon everyone was hard at work tackling the tasks assigned to them by the chief engineer.

"Sir we have made tremendous progress. But other issues keep surfacing. Currently it looks like the main reactor shutdown was caused by a faulty length of filament connecting the reactor to the computers which monitored the plasma flow."
"Understood mister Scott. Please keep me informed." Kirk signed off and walked over to the science station. "Anything new mister Spock?" He asked, over the past day the ship had been using her passive sensors to scan the system.
Over that time they had found a fairly large base in varying stages of construction. It gave the appearance of a large base, capable of supporting a fleet of a decent size, and given the size of the fuel and repair docks the fleet could be supported for a decent amount of time. They had also discovered in addition to a cruiser and some escorts a pair of D-7 battlecruisers and a further light cruiser. A small fleet of support ships were also found in orbit of the small rock that passed for the second planet in the system. Mostly tankers and a supply ship or two, though from the distance Enterprise observed them it was hard to tell.
Spock looked over the sensor logs and Kirk thought that he almost, but not quite frowned through his Vulcan demeanour. "It is difficult to determine sir due to our distance from the inner system."
"However, the sensors have managed to detect a further six blips that are definitely ships, but we are unable to determine their class. I would also like to stress again that our identification of many of the other ships in the system are not complete."
Kirk nodded; Spock had done an amazing job matching the sensor readings of the ships picked up with known readings of Klingon ship classes. However, many of the matches were only sixty percent and lower. And incomplete matches was not something that Spock liked at all, especially if it went into the ships log as fact.
"Keep on them mister Spock. And run through the other ships we have detected again if you would like, just to be certain." Kirk glanced over at the viewscreen which was showing a display of the system and all the ships so far detected. A frown crossed Kirks face as he caught sight of the E-9 on a patrol of the outer system. A patrol that would cause it and Enterprise to meet in just a few days. Just under four days to be exact.
The frown did not go away. In the past day minimal progress had been made as repairs had proved more difficult than had been initially thought. At the current rate it would take close to a week and a half to get the ships warp engines back up and operational. By which time the E-9 could have passed within a few hundred kilometres of the Enterprise. Spitting distance.
Unfortunately, all that Kirk could do was wait and hope that Scotty would manage to pull out some miracle and fix the ship before that happened. And then he would be forced to destroy the Klingon. And that was looking more and more likely as the days went past.

"What do you mean you can't find it?" Rajan was starting to sound more and more like Scotty all the time, and he could not decide just how he felt about that.
"I mean sir that the feed regulator just isn't where it should be." Daag's voice was strained, he had not slept in almost four days, and they were three days into the ship's repairs. Rajan sighed, he himself had gone without sleep for just as long, and had not left main engineering in just as long. And unlike Daag he had a wife. Somewhere anyway he was sure of it.
"Would you check again?" Rajan worked through the area where Daag and his team was in his mind, trying to find out where everything was. And then he remembered. "Check the right wall across from the entrance. It should be there. We had to put it there a month back. It should be labelled with a handwritten note from Scotty."
Daag found it and soon the repairs were underway. Giving Rajan about a half second to rest before he had to get back to his own task. He was helping Scotty and lieutenant Lotterbernin with a plasma feed line regulator that gave energy to the ships port nacelle. It was slow going, but if the ship was to ever be underway it would need to be done.
The ships repairs were getting done, but much slower than the five days they had initially had been given. Currently it was estimated that the ship would take at least seven days, far from what Kirk had wanted.
But that was life, and Kirk would just have to live with whatever was done by the time the Klingon scout was within range. Honestly Rajan could did not care either way what happened to the Klingon ship. If it had to be destroyed that was just the end of it.

"Sir," Lotterbernin said swaying back and forth in the middle of main engineering. Her speech was slurred and her eyes heavy. Seeing her go down Raej jumped out from under the console where he had been working and grabbed her before she hit the deck.
"Sorry sir," she said sagging in his arms and weakly trying to get back on her own feet.
"Its fine lieutenant." Raej maneuvered her to a chair and then sat down himself, "when was the last time you had some rest?" He asked noting that the woman could barely stand.
"Don't know," she said blinking her eyes in an attempt to get them to stay open. "A few days.
Raej nodded, he had figured on an answer like that. It had been very common. Well into the third day of repairs some of the ships engineering staff had begun to collapse or fall asleep at their stations midway through the second day. Raej could not recall seeing Lotterbernin take so much as a break in the last few days, so it did not surprise him to see her in such a bad way.
Raej was just about ready to tell her to get some rest when Scotty beat him to it, "get some rest Lorretta," he said sliding down the gangway from the upper gallery.
Lotterbernin tried to argue, but Scotty was having none of it and asked a technician to bring her to her quarters for at least a six-hour rest. He walked her out of main engineering before plopping down in the chair the exhausted lieutenant had just vacated.
"You should probably get some sleep to," Scotty said looking Raej over.
Raej snorted. Montgomery Scott had gone without rest for almost two and a half days himself and looked just as bad as Lotterbernin had. His speech was slow, eyes heavy and when he walked it was with an almost drunken gait.
"Wanting to get rid of me?" He asked. "Want to have the record for going the longest without sleep for yourself?"
"You know me," Scotty leaned back in the chair and then fell to the floor sound asleep before he could finish the thought.
Raej started to laugh, falling over himself and struggling to get back up. Instead he toppled over Scotty and then himself fell asleep. The two of them went undiscovered for perhaps five minutes before the tech returned from dropping off Lotterbernin. With a sigh he called over someone to help him and arranged the two officers in along the far wall with blankets draped over them.

 

[Charles Markov]

"Hand me the driver would you?" Scotty was not asking. A four-hour rest had done wonders for his mood and concentration and he was more or less back to his normal self.

"Give me a minute," Rajan called from somewhere farther down in the Jeffries tube where he was performing a diagnostic of the computer regulator.

"I don't want it in a minute! I want you to hurry up and hand it to me now!" Scotty was not a patient man even at the best of times and as they neared the deadline to repair the ship before she was detected he was growing more so.

Rajan was far too busy to respond. His scan was showing something odd with the code in this part of the regulator. And he was struggling to work through a reason why that was.

"Well?" Scotty demanded, banging a tool against the bulkhead. When Rajan did not say anything to this either he was beside his second in command in an instant. "What it is?" He asked all impatience gone from his voice.

Instead of telling about the coding error Rajan showed him, moving aside to allow Scotty to see all the data and even alter the code as it came through.

"How long has this been here?" Scotty asked, though it was not directed at Rajan. He worked through the system, seeing just how deeply entrenched in the code the error was. Occasionally he mumbled something to himself, to low for even Rajans sharp ears to catch entirely.

Eventually, several minutes later, Scotty finally spoke. "Well this is quite the issue, I think. How about you?"

Rajan shrugged, he had looked through the program for quite a while before Scotty had come over. "If it is as deep in the system as I think it is then we may have the solution to all our problems."

Scotty shrugged. The coding troubles the ship had been experiencing since their run in with the boy Charlie had been mostly resolved over the last few months. However, some problems remained. And this appeared to be one of the bigger issues.

If the coding errors were as large and developed as they appeared then that was likely the biggest reason for the problem. And it likely had caused the shutdown to the main reactor. From the terminal in the Jeffries tube it seemed likely that the coding error had caused the ships sensor into believing that a fluctuation had broken out in the reactor. Necessitating that the whole system be shut down and likely leading to the myriad other issues in the system.

Calling other teams into the area Scotty and Rajan got to work. Attempting to understand how deep the problem was. Overall it was quickly discovered that the problem was as deep as had been initially assumed. A report had to be worked up, but Scotty let the captain know of the problem anyway and set up a tentative time for a full briefing.



"What is going on mister Scott?" Captain Kirk had been called into main engineering a few minutes prior and was clearly rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Sir I think we have it!" Scotty climbed out of a hole in the floor which gave access directly to the main reactor one deck below. His single piece jump suite was covered in dust and grime, hair was matted and crazy, and he was sweating.

"Have what mister Scott?" Kirk had been informed earlier that the underlying problem with the ship's reactor had been found, but not told what it was, or how easy it would be to fix it.

Scotty explained all that now. Kirk paid attention with what looked like half an ear, being to distracted by mention that the problem could be repaired in less than eight hours, giving Enterprise a very small window to escape the Klingon patrol ship. The rest, the explanation of how and why went completely in one ear and out the other.

"How soon do you think you can have the engines back up and running?" Kirk asked once Scotty had finished with his explanation.

"We are working on it sir, but eight hours seems like our best estimate at the moment." In reality Scotty thought sixteen hours closer to the truth, but was confident that the promise of rest would spur on his exhausted engineering staff.

"I see," Kirk said deep in thought. "Get to work mister Scott and I will begin preparations for getting the ship underway. With that, and assurances from Scotty that all effort would be made to get the engines back online Kirk left main engineering.

Scotty stood by the double doors heading out of main engineering for a heartbeat as he worked through all that would need done in the short time he had given himself. He then began bellowing orders to any and all that were in earshot.



Captains log stardate 309101.702

Mister Scott has made herculean efforts over the last five hours to get the ships warp drive back online and operational. He assures me that if the current pace of working is continued the ship will have warp capability in a little under three more hours.

Our position has not changed and, in a little under five hours the Klingon scout will enter detection range of us if we go to warp. And in nine hours we will be in weapons range of the vessel. By which point we will be detected anyway.

Hope is in sight and the ships exhausted engineering staff is now working like the damned to ensure that we can escape the system, only time will tell if we can finish our repairs in time to escape the system undetected.

Kirk ended the days log entry and moved over to the helm station where Sulu was sitting tensely waiting for the order to get underway. An order Kirk was not yet prepared to give. If they left the cover of their asteroid they would be detected all the more sooner by the E-9 scout headed for them. Better to remain undetected for as long as was possible and only expose the ship if there was no other option.

"Status of the Klingon mister Spock," Kirk ordered. Currently the ships main viewscreen, located forward of the helm and tactical stations, was displaying a forward view of their asteroid hideout, rather than a tactical overview of the system showing all the planets, moons and ships in the area as was more usual.

"The Klingon scout is still on an intercept course that will converge with our own in a little under four hours and thirty-eight minutes given current speed of half impulse." Spock turned in his chair at the science station and eyed the screen.

"Nothing at all to do but wait then," Kirk thought for what had to be the millionth time in the past few days. He settled himself into his chair. No matter what happened he was determined not to leave the bridge until this whole thing was over. One way or the other.



"Is that it?" Rajan asked, he and ensign Kolkikoloni had been working through the last of the coding bugs they had so far found and were preparing to begin the starting procedure for the matter/antimatter reactor.

From the comm came a dim reply, Kolkikoloni was herself buried up to her neck in the ships EPS conduits working on the affected systems and so the audio pickup was not all that fantastic.

"Please repeat that, you're not really coming in all that well," Rajan said, not catching her answer.

"I said that I was ready!" Came a much louder and more audible reply.

"Ok thank you ensign," Rajan began to work through the opening computer commands that would set the reactor start up in motion. He then notified Scotty on the bridge.



"Lieutenant-commander Rajan reports that the reactor restart has begun, he estimates half an hour before primary power is restored." Scotty looked out of place on the bridge, seldom manning the engineering console opposite of the science station on the bridge, preferring to leave it for his underlings and work in engineering himself.

Kirk took a big sigh, this was it. All the past days work was leading to this moment and if the reactor restart failed then nothing would stop the Klingons from discovering Enterprise. "Please tell lieutenant-commander Rajan to proceed mister Scott." There was nothing else for him to do but put the ship in motion now.

"Mister Sulu, would you please set course for star base twelve at full impulse."

"Course set… and laid in," Sulu said. Getting Enterprise underway would but an hour, allowing just enough time to get the ship into warp and undetected. If all went well in the engine room.



It was about the longest half hour in Kirks life. At regular intervals Scotty made an announcement as to what stage the reignition process was, or gave an order to the engine room. Twitching at his seat Sulu made minute course corrections as Enterprise hurled along at full impulse, abandoning the shelter of her asteroid cover for greater distance away from the Klingon scout. All Kirk had to do was sit and wait for someone to say something.

After what felt to him like a hundred days Scotty suddenly leapt out of his seat, announcing, "Sir the reactor shows to be functioning! We will have warp power in five minutes!"

"Go to warp three as soon as you have the power mister Sulu!" Kirk was now standing, and a cheer rippled across the bridge as all moved to congratulate Scotty and his team for their success. Sulu practically shouted that he would do so.

Kirk knew the ship was not safe yet. Even with an operational reactor Enterprise could not simply go straight to high warp, she had to accelerate gradually lest the gravitic force of jumping to high to fast would tear the ship apart. And if the scout suspected anything at the last minute, detecting impulse exhaust plasma or residual radiation, and activated her active sensors they would still be discovered.

But they weren't. Enterprise made the jump to warp three without incident. All sensors showing the Klingon vessel still oblivious to the starship in such close proximity to her. Kirk kept the ship at low warp to avoid detection by any subspace sensors the Klingons had deployed to watch the approaches to the system for a further day before boosting the ship to her cruising velocity of warp factor six with a deadline course for star base twelve.



"Well being a medical man and thus out of the loop of what went on I can honestly say that was terrifying." Kirk and McCoy were having dinner together in the ships forward lounge. A two-deck structure at the very leading edge of the ships command hull.

It was a custom the two had begun back when Kirk had been first assigned to the UES Nautilus, a Gazelle class destroyer deployed along the Klingon border. Kirk had insisted on McCoy following him to serve as the ships chief medical officer as he wanted someone he could talk to as a friend aboard the ship. Duty as a captain being a lonely existence for the most part.

The tradition had been continued when Kirk had been assigned to Enterprise and both made every effort to keep their weekly appointments.

Kirk was enjoying a very nice pasta, McCoy by contrast was tearing into his second plate of barbeque, a delicacy unique to the southern United States and a favourite of McCoy's. Both were enjoying a beer, smuggled aboard by Kirk in a crate labelled as "personal effects" when he had first assumed command.

"You really have no idea how helpless it can feel sometimes," McCoy continued after tearing a huge bite out of his ribs. "There is nothing to do but sit and wait for everyone else to do their jobs and hope they do it well and that everything turns out alright."

Kirk hid a smile. He felt much the same, and the week stranded without warp drive had made the feeling much more apparent.

It had been four days since they had left the system and Enterprise would be at star base twelve in another six days time where, it was hoped, the ship would finally receive her needed repairs. As well as her still missing tactical officer, the only one of her crew still not aboard.

"Bones its not a feeling unique to you and your staff. I think we all felt that way at times, you'll get no sympathy from me." Kirk used his napkin to wipe away some sauce from his mouth, hoping McCoy would catch the hint and do the same. He did not.

"I am not looking for sympathy! I was just stating fact." The doctor leaned back and sighed loudly in satisfaction, his plate only having bones left on it.

He suddenly grew more serious. "What is going to happen once you tell Starfleet about the base?" He asked, it was a question that most of the ship had been asking since the base had been discovered.

"I don't really know," Kirk admitted. "Likely we will protest and show the empire our evidence of the base. They will deny it and we will build a base of our own to defend the area if another war breaks out. The empire will send some ships to enforce the area, we will do the same and our ships will skirmish back and forth across the border."

"Sounds like the way wars start," McCoy was worried. He had worked at a star base during the four years war and could recall with crystal clarity the faces of the wounded as they returned from battles across the whole of the front.

Kirk could only nod in agreement. That was how wars started and while not a pacifist he did not want a war to break out if it could be helped. The destruction it would surely bring would be almost unfathomable in scope and scale.



"Honestly I was worried about you!" Saraesh shouted from the bathroom where she had just started a shower, having just got off her shift manning the comms station on the bridge. Like most scientific personnel in Starfleet she had secondary training to allow her to perform shifts in other departments when her degree was not needed.

"Why would you be?" Rajan was in the living room reading through a comprehensive report on the systems that needed to be repaired once they reached a star base. It had been something he and Scotty had been working on since they had got the warp reactor back online.

"Well when a wife hasn't seen her husband in two or three days they start getting a little concerned," Saraesh said coming out of the bathroom to fetch a clean pair of tights. "Besides, we chose Enterprise so that we could have more time together."

"Was that our reasoning?" Raej had been the one who had lobbied hard for assignment aboard a ship rather than a planet or station sided posting. Against the wishes of Saraesh who had wanted to be assigned to an outpost somewhere out of the way. She threw a pair of socks at him from the bedroom.

"Is it always this crazy aboard?" She asked. Rajan shrugged.

"I have only been aboard for a few months, from what I have seen though things seem to be fairly interesting most of the time." He put the report down and stretched out on the couch.

He watched his wife; he had missed her the past few days. Like she had said they had requested assignment together so that they could spend more time together. And that had not been the case so far. She had gone a little stir crazy in their quarters during the last few days. But still it was nice that she was here, and that if all went well he could see her everyday.

He heard the shower start and was up in an instant, he grabbed a change of clothes and leapt in. They wanted to be closer, and this seemed like a good way to do it.