“Fine, send your ship,” Forrest told the ambassador as he played the odds of adding to the conflict against the possibility that Enterprise needed reinforcements. “Whatever Archer’s up to, I’m sure he’s got a good reason. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Does he, really?” Soval made one last cutting comment before leaving the office with his aides.
“Can you believe that?” Forrest nearly shouted once the [150] door was closed again. “If we’re not murderers, then we must be kidnappers at the very least. What the hell do these people really think of us?” It was as if Forrest were releasing all the anger he had been holding in since his first meeting with the Vulcans so many years ago.
“They’re just concerned about the sub-commander,” Williams offered, hoping to calm his friend. He had never seen the admiral so upset before.
“Don’t you dare play devil’s advocate with me!” Forrest yelled. “Concern. Worry. Those are emotions. And we know how evil emotions are.” It was the first time he had ever voiced his own emotions about the Vulcans in front of another member of Starfleet. He knew it was inappropriate but he also knew that Williams was the one person to whom he could say these things without it coming back to haunt him at some later time.
“Now you and I both know the Vulcans make more of a show out of this whole emotional suppression than they actually practice it,” Williams noted with a smile. “Soval’s just strutting because he can. It’s never bothered you this much before.”
“It’s never been this serious before,” Forrest quietly reminded his friend.
Chapter 15
The massive Suliban Helix hid within the swirling red nebula. It was comprised of hundreds of cell-ships and one lone Starfleet vessel. Enterprise was attached at a docking port, tethered to the monstrosity as a prisoner.
Once the ship had docked, and Silik and Raan had confirmed that the crew was locked down, they took the information they had gathered to the temporal chamber. They didn’t have Archer, but they had every other member of his crew, his ship, and their recovered data discs. Silik believed that his mysterious benefactor would be satisfied with those successes, if only they could reach him.
“Have you cycled through the sub-temporal harmonics?” Raan asked as he watched Silik anxiously work the controls to the room.
They had been trying to establish contact for several minutes, but the shadowed figure would not answer. The conditions that normally allowed occupants of the room [152] to bridge different time periods refused to initialize. The platform where their benefactor had stood on previous occasions was empty.
Silik hit the sequence of commands one more time hoping it would work, suspecting it was useless. He knew their problem was not a technological one, at least it wasn’t on this end of the communiqué. “He’s never failed to respond before.”
“Perhaps he’s angry that we didn’t return with Archer,” Raan suggested, sounding a little too happy with the idea.
“Archer was not on Enterprise,” Silik insisted without looking up. He wasn’t saying it for Raan’s benefit since the commander was well aware of the fact. Silik had hoped that the being from the future could hear him and understand why they had failed in their mission. “Why isn’t he responding? I need instructions!”
Raan moved in. He liked seeing Silik in this state. It made his job so much easier. “He said to destroy Enterprise if we couldn’t bring him Archer. We should tow them out of the nebula and do it now.”
“That temporal signature changes everything,” Silik said with panic rising in his voice. “If Archer was pulled through time, we need new instructions.” He continued to desperately work the console. “Where is he?”
“If he’s angry with you,” Raan said, enjoying his role as second in command, “you’ll be punished again.” The commander wasn’t exactly upset by the proposition. He assumed that Silik only had a few more failures in him before the role of Cabal leader was reassigned. Being next [153] in command, Raan was more than ready to take over the lead in this faction of the Cold War. Their benefactor was generous with his gifts to the Suliban, but even more so toward the one in charge.
Silik looked to him with eyes ablaze. He knew exactly what Raan had been thinking. It was the same type of thought he would have had if he were in the commander’s place.
“We should destroy Enterprise!” Raan asserted once again, twisting the knife.
Silik stopped working the console. No answer was going to come. The thought of ridding themselves of the Enterprise was tempting, but he knew it would not serve his purpose in the long run. Silik would need more concrete information if he was going to be rewarded once he managed to make contact.
“Have the surgeons prepare,” he ordered a disappointed Raan. “Then bring me the Vulcan.”
While Silik continued to worry over what was happening in the future, Daniels and Archer were busily trying to figure out what had happened to the past. The pair had taken up a spot on the library floor in the history section. They sat between two high stacks of books, pouring through the piles of reading material that lay around them, quietly working through the dusty collection. Some of the books were so old that the pages crumbled at their touch.
“I haven’t found a single reference to this ‘Federation’ [154] you talked about,” Archer said, ready to give up the search and move onto more pressing concerns.
“I doubt you will,” Daniels replied with regret.
“Because the monument wasn’t there?”
“Because you weren’t there,” Daniels clarified.
Archer regarded the man skeptically. “So I disappear one day and all history changes?”
Daniels kept reading, trying to maintain the balance between how much information he shared and what he kept to himself. “I’ve looked through the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries,” Daniels finally replied as he skimmed the pages. “Everything looks right up until the warp-five program. After that, nothing looks right.”
“There were a lot of people involved with the warp-five program,” Archer suggested. He thought of the hundreds of people that had contributed to the project, including his own father.
“We didn’t bring ‘a lot of people’ here this morning,” Daniels corrected him. “We just brought you.”
Archer took a deep breath. The reality of the situation was finally sinking in. Earth—however it was defined—was no more. If all that Daniels was saying had been true, humanity had ceased to exist. Whether it had ended in one violent moment or slowly over time really didn’t matter to Archer. He found both concepts equally terrifying, especially considering that it was all because of him.
He pushed past his thoughts. They would only lead him down a path that he was not ready to pursue. He picked [155] up another book, reading its title off the spine. “ ‘The Romulan Star Empire’? What’s that?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be reading that book,” Daniels suggested, taking it out of the captain’s hands and offering one on the subject of the Denobulans. That was a race with which Archer was considerably more familiar. Knowing more about them shouldn’t affect history once they finally set things right.
“I don’t get it,” Archer said, ignoring the book. His mind returned to thoughts about himself. “What could I have done that could’ve been so important?”
“It wasn’t just you,” Daniels clarified. “It was events you helped set in motion.”
“This timeline,” Archer pressed on. “The one you say doesn’t exist. What can you tell me about it? If my mission had continued?”
Daniels put down the book on Romulans so he could focus on the question.
“It would have led to others,” Daniels said, choosing his words very carefully.
“And?”
But Daniels knew that was just about all he could reveal on that particular subject. He stared blankly at Archer, silently pleading with the man to accept the fact that there were just some things that could not be told.
“Okay, what
about this Federation?” Archer tried a new angle. “Was Earth part of it? Was I part of it?”
Daniels stood among the piles of books. Maybe he had to stop worrying about the long lost history and focus on [156] the events that had led them to this horrific present. His mind was working to piece together the dilemma before him by using whatever information he had on hand.
“Silik wanted you,” Daniels said, “not the data discs. The people he answered to were more interested in capturing Jonathan Archer than in blaming Enterprise for the destruction of the colony. They obviously knew what role you were going to play in the months or years to come.” Daniels laughed at the very irony of the situation. “By taking you away from the twenty-second century I caused exactly what I was trying to prevent.”
Who was aware of what I would do? Archer thought. Why do they want to destroy this Federation? How did they know my abduction would cause its end? Dozens more questions rushed to the captain’s mind. He tried to factor through what Daniels had said, but the concepts were beginning to overwhelm him. “You’ve lost me.”
“The only chance I have of restoring my century is by getting you back to yours,” he replied simply, although he knew the challenges involved in making the idea into reality.
“Sounds like you’ve got a ‘chicken and the egg’ problem,” Archer noted.
Now it was Daniels’s turn to look lost, puzzled by what the man had said.
Obviously some colloquialisms did not survive history, Archer thought. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Archer clarified his comment. “You said all your time portals were gone—and your technology. There isn’t even [157] electricity here. You going to find a bicycle and turn it into a time machine?”
Daniels thought over the captain’s comment. He knew Archer was just being facetious, but there was a glimmer of an idea behind the comment. His mind focused on the idea of going back to basics. “Maybe we don’t need a time machine,” he said. “Do you have your communicator?”
“And a scanner,” Archer replied as he removed the items from his uniform pockets.
“May I?” he asked, taking the technology from the captain. “The people the Suliban were working for came from three hundred years ago. They couldn’t travel through time, but they did develop a way to send back images of themselves to communicate through time.”
“You can’t do that with those,” Archer said, nodding to the devices.
“No, it’s a little more complicated,” Daniels said as he looked over the items, “but not much. We learned how to do it in high school. But we’re going to need a few things that might not be too easy to find.”
Archer was pleased to hear that they finally had the beginning of a plan. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t sure what Daniels was suggesting. He was ready to do anything.
“What are we waiting for?” he asked as they moved out from the stacks.
Chapter 16
Mayweather lay in his bed with his uniform jacket open. He stared at the wall feeling entirely useless. His place was at the helm, guiding the ship and its crew into the unknown. There was very little for a helmsman to do while trapped in his quarters. His mind worked on a way to escape, but he was just one man against an army of Suliban. He could hardly mount an effective offensive alone.
The irony of the situation was not lost on him, however. He was being held by the same race of people he had recently helped escape from a prison camp. Sure, the Suliban he had worked with at the Tandaran detention complex did not share the motives of his captors, but they all came from the same place of origin. They had shared a homeworld centuries ago. They lived the same nomadic lifestyle. They looked pretty much the same—most of the time. But it was more than just genetic enhancements that made them different.
January 2152
Two Months Ago
[159] Mayweather woke on a thin floor mat in an unfurnished, dilapidated cell lit solely by a shaft of sunlight that streamed in through a barred window. He was not alone. Captain Archer was lying on a mat beside him, unconscious. The ensign unsuccessfully tried to wake his captain but Archer would not rise. Concerned, Mayweather got to his feet, intending to search for help and, with hope, figure out where they were.
He tried the door to their cell and was surprised to find that it opened easily into a hall. Several additional cell doors lined the corridor. He looked past them in search of life wondering where they had been taken and what they had done to cause their imprisonment. The last thing he remembered was coming under fire when he and the captain had taken their shuttlepod to explore some energy readings behind an alien moon.
The sound of footsteps approaching kept Mayweather from actually stepping out of his cell. He ducked back inside leaving the door open a crack to watch as the shadowy figures of two humanoid men approached. When the figures drew closer, he could make out the dappled texture of their skin. He had never seen these aliens firsthand before, but he knew from description what he was looking at—Suliban.
Mayweather stealthily followed the men through the complex. They led him to a large common room where [160] additional members of their race had gathered. Mayweather stuck to the shadows as he took in the frightening sight. Suliban filled the complex. He returned to the cell and reported on the dire situation.
Archer took in what Mayweather had told him. The best way to proceed was by gathering as much information as they could. Since their captors had seen fit to allow them to leave their cell, the captain assumed it would be rude not to accept the little freedom they had been granted. Mayweather led him back to the communal room where they happened across a Suliban woman carrying a metal container filled with water. The woman stopped upon seeing them.
“You’re the new arrivals,” she noted in a flat tone. Her voice did not betray how she felt about their arrival in the facility.
“Why are we here?” Archer asked, assuming that she was one of the Suliban holding them prisoner.
“Why are any of us here?” she replied with an edge.
Mayweather and Archer exchanged a puzzled look. Before the captain could ask another question, a Klaxon sounded throughout the complex. The woman immediately put down her water as cell doors along the hall swung open and more Suliban came pouring out. They all joined the woman in rows as they seemed to line up for inspection. The Enterprise officers stood where they were, unsure of what to do.
The pair watched as a small team of guards entered through a wall hatch. Mayweather did not recognize their race, but he immediately noticed how closely they [161] resembled humans. He briefly wondered if they were Suliban disguised in their chameleon mode. But why would they be in disguise among their own? he quickly realized the flaw in his thinking.
One of the Suliban standing at attention dropped the small cup he was holding. When he bent to pick it up, the lead guard jabbed the man with some kind of stun stick, forcing the Suliban to stand straight. The guards continued through the ranks until they reached Archer and Mayweather.
“Follow me,” the leader ordered the Enterprise officers.
The guard, named Major Kiev, led them through the complex where they saw more Suliban standing at attention. They wound their way into the office of Colonel Grat, the military officer in charge of the facility. Grat apologized for not speaking with them sooner and explained they had been brought to the detention complex because their shuttle had stumbled into the Tandaran military zone.
“Does everybody that violates your territory get thrown into a place like this?” Mayweather asked, having never come across this race before.
“We’re at war with a species that can mimic the appearance of almost any humanoid,” Grat explained without apology. “We had to be certain that you weren’t infiltrators.”
“If you’re worried we’re Suliban,” the ensign replied, “trust me, we’re not.”
“I know. We’ve already tested your DNA,” he said in a dismissive tone before turning his attention to Archer. “You’re familia
r with the Cabal?”
[162] “Unfortunately,” Archer replied, taking a seat across from the colonel.
“Then you must know about their genetic enhancements,” Grat noted. “And how dangerous they can be.”
“Firsthand,” Archer replied, deciding to play things close to the vest until he could be sure of what was going on.
“I hope you haven’t suffered too many casualties,” Grat replied.
“We’ve been lucky so far,” the captain answered.
Grat went on to explain that he could not release the Starfleet officers until they appeared before a magistrate on Tandar Prime. In the meantime, Archer and Mayweather would be “guests” of the overcrowded detention complex until the planetary transport would arrive in three days. When Archer asked to contact his ship, the request was denied. However, the colonel did assure them he would speak with the Enterprise’s crew solely and inform them of the situation to ensure that they did not interfere.
That night, Archer and Mayweather found the “proper meal” they had been promised to be less than satisfactory. Afterward the captain went to the common area for some water. He saw a Suliban man hurrying to remove clothing from a line. The man was putting the hastily rolled clothes into a basket being held by a young girl that Archer assumed to be the man’s daughter. The captain started to leave the area, but something held him back. He turned to the man.
“I can’t believe you’d do this to a child,” Archer said [163] with barely concealed contempt as he walked over to the laundry line.
“Do what?” the man asked, honestly unaware of what the stranger was talking about.
“She seems a little young to be part of the Cabal.” Archer pointed to the girl.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
STAR TREK: Enterprise - Shockwave Page 12
