Star Trek: Enterprise - 015 - Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures

by Christopher L. Bennett

  At first, Archer had disliked the modifications, feeling Enterprise had been perfect the way she was. But the more he got used to the secondary hull, the more he felt it gave the design a balance it had been missing before. It still clashed a bit with the pontoons, but he imagined that future ship designs would integrate it more smoothly.

  The thick, squat dorsal connector that joined the two hulls had taken the place of the main shuttlebay, so the two drop bays for the shuttlepods had been relocated to either side of it. Yet Mayweather still piloted the pod into contact with the umbilical as deftly as he ever had, and soon they were safely aboard. As Archer debarked, Endeavour’s captain greeted him at the top of the ladder. “Admiral,” she said in her usual cool tones. “Welcome back.”

  “Permission to come aboard, Captain T’Pol.”

  “Permission granted.” She gave a tiny tilt to her head. “It is, after all, your ship.”

  He grinned, appreciating his former executive officer’s dry wit more than ever now that he saw her less frequently. Having Endeavour as his personal flagship meant they worked together fairly often, but still his duties forced him to spend much of his time Earthbound. T’Pol looked good in her green command tunic. She had taken to wearing her brown hair a few centimeters longer than in the past, which also flattered her. She wore the UESPA arrowhead on her breast rather than the circle-and-triangle IDIC patch of the Vulcan Space Council; after all, it was an Earth-administered ship she commanded, and she had been a member of Earth Starfleet for seven years before the services were combined.

  T’Pol was flanked by two guards, their slate-gray tunics a tribute to the former Military Assault Command Operations forces that had now been folded into Starfleet’s security division. The guards flanked General Valk unobtrusively as Archer, T’Pol, and Mayweather led him to the bridge.

  It had been less than an hour since Archer had stood on this bridge, but it still struck him how much it felt like old home week. Its layout was much the same as Enterprise’s bridge, with only minor upgrades to some of the controls and readouts; aside from the added hull, most of the improvements in the redesigned ship were under the proverbial hood. Archer knew there had been a project under way at Alpha Centauri to devise downgraded equipment that would be less vulnerable to Romulan telecapture weaponry; but with the Romulans no longer an issue, the project had been abandoned—although a few folks at Starfleet Engineering had been taken with the minimalist aesthetics of the design and were talking about incorporating a similar look into future ships, despite their greater advancement underneath.

  But it wasn’t the room that fired Archer’s nostalgia so much as the people. “General Valk,” he said to their guest, “this is Commander Malcolm Reed, Endeavour’s first officer.” The compactly built, brown-haired and trim-goateed Englishman looked crisp in his green tunic with twin commander’s stripes and the Endeavour mission patch on the sleeve. He gave a stiff, proper nod to the Tandaran general, but nevertheless watched him as closely as if he’d still been Archer’s armory officer on Enterprise. “And Lieutenant Commander Hoshi Sato, protocol officer and chief of communications.”

  “Gaval nek bor, Valk-Darak,” the lovely, deceptively delicate-featured Japanese woman greeted the general in Tandaran before extending an arm swathed in the cobalt blue of the science division. “I’ll be seeing to your needs while you’re aboard, sir.”

  “Mer nalak,” Valk thanked her, surprised at her courtesy. “But my only need,” he went on to Archer, “is to find those Suliban raiders. You claim you can do so—now is the time to prove it.”

  “Certainly,” Captain T’Pol said, settling smoothly into the command chair. “Lieutenant Mayweather, if you would care to take the helm?”

  Travis beamed. “It’s been a while, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps you should think of it like riding a bicycle. That seems to be effective among humans.”

  The lieutenant chuckled. “Yes, Captain.”

  Archer smiled to himself. Old home week, he reflected. Even Doctor Phlox was down in sickbay, waiting to confirm the raiders’ identity. But then he grew somber, remembering those who were missing—one in particular, whose absence from the engineering console was still keenly felt. I guess you can’t go home again after all.

  September 26, 2162

  By the second day of the pursuit, it became evident that the raiders’ vessels were en route to the Qhembembem Outpost, a disreputable trading post orbiting one component of a dim, unremarkable binary red dwarf system in unclaimed space. Many criminals, both private and organized, took advantage of the system’s obscurity and isolation to engage in illicit transactions, including slave trading. This made it imperative to intercept the ships before they reached the outpost; otherwise the abducted Tandaran children could be transferred to any of numerous vessels and become exponentially harder to track down.

  Fortunately, Endeavour’s chief engineer, Michel Romaine, was one of the designers of the vessel’s upgraded engine, and thus was able to apply his expertise to get the engines up to warp factor 6.3 and keep them there for over eight hours, enabling the vessel to close on the two Suliban carrier ships while still on the outskirts of the binary system. The Grentra was the Tandarans’ fastest available ship, but though it could reach warp 6.5 for brief periods, it could not sustain such velocities for long without slowing to let its engines cool. The Grentra was thus lagging behind Endeavour but closing in at best speed as the carrier ships came into the Federation vessel’s visual range.

  Captain T’Pol studied the ships carefully as Sato brought them into focus on the viewscreen. It was an illogical impulse, since surely the sensors could gather far more data than her eyes could; but it had been a long time since she had been able to suppress such impulses reliably. The Vulcan had learned instead, through careful training, to allow them, acknowledge them, and move on. She simply noted the distinctive modular design of the Suliban vessels. Each carrier had a lattice-like central spine on which the various cell ships were docked, extending perpendicularly outward from docking points at regular intervals, giving the ships a crosslike appearance from the rear. T’Pol recalled her only prior encounter with such a carrier vessel, during an incident a decade before involving the Tholians. There, all the ships attached to the spine had been of the larger, more elongated variety of cell ship, but these were more asymmetrically arranged, with some of the docking points empty, some occupied by the larger slab-shaped vessels, and the rest occupied by trains of three to four of the smaller, more symmetrical cell ships. The engine modules at the rear also appeared larger than those of that earlier carrier, reinforcing the idea that these raiders were using a cruder form of warp drive than the Cabal had employed.

  “Closing to weapons range,” Lieutenant Commander Takashi Kimura reported from the tactical station on T’Pol’s right.

  The captain turned to the other side of the bridge, where Lieutenant Elizabeth Cutler sat at the science station. “Scan for Tandaran biosigns,” T’Pol instructed her.

  “Scanning,” Cutler replied, brushing back her straight, honey-brown hair. “They’re jamming, it’s hard to get a clear read . . . but I’m only getting indications consistent with Tandarans from the lead ship. Nothing in the trailing vessel.”

  “Then detaining that lead ship is our priority,” T’Pol said.

  “Leave that to us,” General Valk demanded. “Those children are our responsibility. They must not be harmed.”

  “I have no intention of allowing any harm to come to them,” T’Pol assured him. “This will be a precision operation.”

  “If they were your children, would you trust anyone else?”

  “I might have to,” she told him evenly, “if theirs were the only ship able to reach them in time.”

  Before Valk could respond, Kimura called, “Incoming fire!”

  “Hull plating,” T’Pol ordered. Kimura barely had time to polarize the hull material, strengthening its molecular bonds, before the raiders’ torpedo struck. The imp
act rocked the ship. “Evasive,” T’Pol instructed Mayweather at the helm.

  “I thought we weren’t in range,” Admiral Archer said.

  “Clever,” T’Pol replied. “They remembered that the lead ship in a warp pursuit has an advantage.”

  “I see,” said General Valk. “They let the torpedo drop to impulse behind them, using it as a mine.”

  “They won’t have the advantage long,” Reed announced.

  Indeed, it was only moments more before Endeavour was close enough to synchronize warp fields with the nearer ship and fire its phase cannons. “Target their engines,” T’Pol ordered as the deck jolted beneath her feet from the return fire. If they could force this ship to impulse, it would no longer pose a threat and they could concentrate on rescuing the captives aboard the lead ship.

  Unfortunately the trailing carrier proved too well armed and shielded for it to be that simple. Reed seized the handhold mounted atop the helm console to stabilize himself after a particle beam impact on the dorsal hull rocked the bridge severely. “Captain, we need to engage deflectors!”

  “Agreed,” T’Pol said. “Lieutenant, activate forward deflector shields.” She activated the comm channel to the engine room. “Bridge to engineering. Adjust warp field to compensate for deflectors.”

  “They’ve taken damage to propulsion,” Kimura announced. “They’re slowing.”

  “But so are we,” Mayweather reported. “I can’t maintain more than warp three-point-two.”

  “Continue targeting propulsion and weapons,” T’Pol instructed the tactical officer.

  “What is going on?” Valk demanded. “Why are you slowing down?”

  T’Pol noted Archer’s grimace. He was reluctant to admit one of Starfleet’s tactical weaknesses. But T’Pol judged that holding on to the Tandarans’ tenuous trust in the here and now was more important. “This is an Earth ship, but the deflector shield technology is of Andorian origin,” she explained. “There has been some difficulty in reconciling the two technologies.”

  Valk laughed. “Your shields interfere with your warp field!”

  “Only for the moment,” Archer said through clenched teeth. “We just need to work out a few bugs.”

  The general’s humor quickly passed. “And while you contend with your ‘bugs,’ the other ship is getting away!”

  “A temporary setback,” Reed said confidently, even as Kimura’s determined fire finally blew out the trailing carrier’s warp drive and forced it back into normal space, where it quickly receded behind them.

  “Deactivate deflectors,” T’Pol said. “Mister Mayweather, resume maximum speed. Commander Sato, notify the Grentra of the carrier’s location. General, if you will instruct your personnel to take the crew prisoner, they will be able to verify—”

  “Captain!” Kimura cried. “The trailing ship just exploded!”

  “Scanning,” Cutler said, then shook her head. “No survivors.”

  “Mister Kimura?” T’Pol asked.

  “I fired to disable, Captain. But I suppose I could’ve miscalculated . . .” There was no shock or remorse in his voice, only professional focus. Kimura was an experienced soldier, a former major in the MACOs, and had always been able to set his emotions aside when duty required.

  “No,” Sato said after a moment. “The lead ship sent a burst transmission to the other one just before it exploded. I think it was a remote detonation signal.” She shook her head with a curt sigh. “They didn’t even warn them first.”

  Archer’s expression hardened. “They murdered their own people to conceal their identity.”

  “We know they’re Suliban,” Valk said, renewed suspicion in his voice. “Perhaps it’s their new backers’ identity they wish to conceal, eh, Admiral?”

  “Has it occurred to you that the raiders might’ve had a reason for leaving that recording for you to find?”

  “In any case,” T’Pol stressed, “we now know the lengths they will go to in order to avoid capture. Extreme care must be taken with the remaining ship.”

  Unfortunately, by the time Endeavour caught up with the second carrier twenty-three minutes later, it was already beginning its descent toward the surface of the otherwise lifeless planet hosting the Qhembembem Outpost. “Our options for preventing it from reaching the outpost’s defense perimeter in time are severely limited,” Malcolm Reed observed. “Once it’s inside, we won’t be able to get to it, or scan through their jamming fields.”

  “Then we must prevent it from reaching the surface,” T’Pol said. “Mister Kimura, deploy the tractor beam.”

  Kimura worked the controls that extended the graviton beam’s emitter array from the underside of the secondary hull. “Ready,” he said. “Locked on.”

  “Engage.”

  The false-color display on the viewscreen showed the beam appearing between Endeavour and the carrier ship. Yet instead of locking onto the ship’s center of mass, the beam went awry and only snagged a row of cell ships extending outward from the rear docking node. Moments later, the carrier jettisoned the cell ships and pulled free, its descent trajectory barely interrupted.

  “Let me guess,” Valk growled. “The tractor beam is Tellarite.”

  “Vulcan,” T’Pol corrected. Still, the general’s basic premise was correct; as with the deflectors, it was proving difficult to integrate the technology effectively with the human ship’s systems—in this case, the targeting sensors, which were susceptible to the gravimetric distortion induced by the beam.

  But Reed actually seemed pleased by the result. “Captain, I have an idea.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Elizabeth, can you isolate which pods the Tandaran biosigns are in?”

  “Yes, Commander,” Cutler replied. “They’re in the two large cell ships at twelve o’clock and nine o’clock in the second cluster from the front.”

  Reed circled the tactical console and came up to Kimura’s side. “Takashi, do you think you can snag one with the tractor beam while I get the grappler lines on the other?”

  “I think I can compensate for the beam drift manually, sir. But we need to take their shields down first.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Reed told him, and they exchanged a quick look and a knowing nod.

  Working together, Kimura and Reed let loose three of the ship’s phase cannon beams against strategic points around the second docking node, and T’Pol observed the characteristic shimmer of failing shields. Moments later, the tractor beam brushed the front of one of the cells, then locked on more firmly as the ship’s forward momentum brought it more fully into contact. Seconds after that, the fullerene grappling lines snagged the other cell ship. The carrier strained against the pull for a few moments, then released both pods.

  “Get them out of there!” Archer ordered, and not a moment too soon. As Endeavour drew in both cells, the carrier began firing at them as it continued on toward the defense perimeter. “Can you beam them out?”

  “Something in the hulls is still jamming our scans,” Cutler said. “We need to get them closer to force a beam through.”

  “Then do it!” Valk bellowed.

  Fortunately, Endeavour’s refit had included the enlargement of the main transporter pad and the installation of a second unit, for both transporters were needed to beam off the occupants of both cell ships simultaneously, just before the carrier’s fire hit home and destroyed them.

  “The carrier’s almost to the perimeter,” Reed reported from tactical. “We’re too far to reach them in time.”

  But a proximity alert sounded on the console. “It’s the Grentra, incoming, sir!” Kimura reported. Moments later, plasma bolts began raining down on the compromised carrier.

  “Tell your people to take them alive, General!” Archer said. “We need to prove who’s really behind this.”

  “Don’t worry, Admiral,” Valk said. “You’ll be given that chance.”

  In moments, the carrier was neutralized and held in the Grentra’s own grappler
s. But the forward cell ship broke free and shot for the planet surface, and moments later the carrier exploded. “Grentra, damage report!” Valk demanded. Major Glith’s voice reported that the Tandaran warship had sustained only minimal damage.

  “But what about our proof?” Travis Mayweather asked.

  “That won’t be a problem,” Reed said, grinning. “Security reports we beamed over a couple of the children’s abductors along with them. One was injured in the battle, the other’s been stunned after trying to start something with our people. They’re on their way to sickbay now along with the children.”

  Archer was already heading for the lift. “General, will you join me?”

  —

  General Valk’s first concern on reaching sickbay was the well-being of the children, but Phlox assured him that they were all intact aside from some cuts and bruises, and of course the emotional trauma of their ordeal. Valk showed unexpected gentleness in speaking to the children and reassuring them they were safe—and Archer had a greater understanding for the steel underneath his words when Valk demanded that they be taken to his ship immediately so they could be reunited with their own people. Phlox agreed there was no reason they couldn’t be discharged, and Archer had them escorted to the transporters.

  That left the two captive raiders, both still sedated. One was currently on the main operating table in front of the imaging chamber, while the other was on one of the biobeds along the outer wall of the circular complex. “Suliban,” Valk said, observing their cantaloupe-skinned appearance. He gestured to their formfitting red jumpsuits. “And those are Cabal uniforms.”