Chapter 7

October 23, 2152; UES Enterprise, 45 LY Galactic SW from Earth

It was barely a month since they had departed Vulcan space for the great unknown on a new exploration vector. It paralleled their original course they had travelled on for a year before the recall to Paan Mokar, but it was nevertheless a new direction on the compass. It had already paid dividends so to speak.

Jon stared at the viewscreen with a puzzled gaze, as it showed a sloping cigar-shaped object drifting leisurely against the backdrop of the endless starfield. It had a dark grey hull with odd geometric contours, which made it a bit tricky to pick out against the void of space with the naked eye. Its size was barely larger than a shuttlepod and he could see no nacelles, thrusters or anything that looked like a propulsion system exhaust or emitter on the exterior. Was it an escape pod?

"Biosigns?"

T'Pol looked up from her Sensor Scope. "None that I can detect, but its hull seems to be scattering our sensors."

"Trip finished the upgrades to Odyssey spec on those last week, that shouldn't be happening."

"Nevertheless, whichever species this belongs to, it still outclasses Enterprise' detection capabilities. The only reason we're even seeing it is because the 'object' has hull damage, which is compromising its stealth."

Lt Reed finished his own sensor analysis. "I'm not reading any weapons signatures on those hull rents. Possibly some sort of accident."

Jon stared thoughtfully at the 'object' for a while. "Bring it into Launch bay two."

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Launch Bay 2

With the 'object' in literal arms reach the puzzle deepened even further. Jon let Malcolm and T'Pol do their jobs even though he felt very tempted to get a scanner in hand to try and make sense of the thing.

Malcolm finished walking a circle around the 'ship', with his scanner waving up and down. "There's no windows. I'm not sure whether this end's the bow or the stern." Jon saw what the Armoury Officer meant. One end was flat, whilst the other tapered slightly into two large prongs, both sides could be the 'front' or heck the thing could fly upright and they were looking at the dorsal or ventral sides.

"Captain. This might be a hatch." T'Pol had stopped her own examination on a section on the side of the ship, which looked to have a rectangular surface area.

Malcolm came over and inspected it for himself. "If it is, it's been fused shut. With your permission, sir?"

Jon nodded and the Lieutenant walked over to a sealed weapons locker and pulled out a Phase pistol, which with a few taps on its controls was set to a tight beam intensity that could be used to cut through pretty much any material known to Earth science. It was very slow going, and the pistol ran itself dry of charge cutting though the fused sections along the seam of the hatch. If that's how much it took to cut mere slivers of fused fragments of whatever alloy the ship was made of, Jon imagined that a full armour plate of the stuff could shrug off any known particle or disruptor weapon currently in existence.

With a bit of elbow strength he and Malcolm pushed along what seemed to be the seam of the hatch and it grinded open with rough metallic shrieks. Abruptly smoke poured out from inside finding its way into his lungs.

He backed off abruptly whilst coughing and gave T'Pol a worried look. She moved her own Vulcan scanner forward and took some readings. "It's only smoke, no volatile gasses or detectable pathogens."

When his throat was clear he grabbed a torch and carefully climbed into the now clear interior of the mystery ship. Its interior looks matched the outer hull, and he had to crouch slightly to fit within it. It was only when he directed the torch to the other end, that it's beam fell on a chair mounted facing the 'pronged' side of the ship. There were no status displays, viewscreens or anything that looked like an interface, only a scorched ergonomic chair of sorts.

"Hmmm, no one's home."

T'Pol shut down her scanner. "The energy discharge markings are extensive, Captain. It's plausible that whoever occupied that chair has been vaporized completely."

"Possibly," Jon conceded and ducked out of the craft. "I want a full investigation done on this thing; determine which species it belongs to, perhaps we could return it to them."

"Aye, Captain."

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A fascinated Malcolm Reed was hovering his Scanner back and forth along the outer hull of the unknown craft. So far it was proving to be a rather interesting and perplexing mystery. "The hull seems to completely absorb EM and subspace radiation. Without all this damage, it never would have shown up on our sensors."

Trip put down his own Engineering Scanner and stared attentively at the thing. "Some kind of stealth ship. This can't be an escape pod. I can't find any plasma exhaust ports. Not even anything remotely like a thruster."

"There's nothing here that looks like a power source either," Malcolm declared in frustration.

"How did this thing make it into deep space without an engine?" The frustrating thing was that there was no answer for this question, indeed there wasn't even a clue.

The two men moved on to the inside of the craft and began a systematic examination. Here they achieved slightly more luck, finding the first actual seams in the construction of the craft, right in the middle of the floor. It took a bit of work with clamps to get purchase on what seemed to be a panel, and it was surprisingly light for a panel that looked quite thick and dense. Underneath it revealed something that looked round with four viscous and organic looking…cables? that radiated outward and was leaking bluish fluid.

"Registers as some kind of bio-matter," Malcolm shook his head in frustration. The Scanner showed him the molecular shape of what he was looking at, but 'bio-source unknown' and 'function unknown' kept flashing next to it.

Trip frowned at the stuff, looking at the direction and orientation of the bio-matter. "Organic circuitry?"

Malcolm nodded that the theory seemed plausible. "Maybe we should get Phlox to come down and take a look."

They carefully removed the bio-circuitry device with clamps, being careful not to get the bluish fluid on them. Beneath it was the first familiar bit of anything they'd found in the craft, besides the chair…a hatch. It had four handles in four slots, which could turn as an apparent release mechanism. When the hatch was unlocked and lifted away, Trip had to blink and rub his eyes at the impossibility of what he was seeing. He had expected to see the decking of the Launch Bay...

"Malcolm?"

"I see it," the Armoury Officer's incredulity was apparent in his voice. They were shining their torches down a shaft that shouldn't have been there, that extended down for what had to be more than five meters.

"Good. Means I'm not hallucinating. How can a ship be bigger on the inside than the outside?"

Malcolm fumbled for the first simple explanation he could find. "It could be a hologram."

While a good attempt, it made little sense…why would anyone want to make a hologram that fooled you into thinking a ship was bigger than it should be. "Hand me that hyperspanner."

Trip took the tool from Malcolm and suspended it over the 'shaft', and let go. The spanner fell 'down' as it should have, and didn't smash into a holographically disguised wall, it vanished into the darkness of the shaft and they only heard a 'clang' of metal on metal after two seconds. That did it. It was real.

Trip hauled himself properly into position and extended his legs down into the shaft, to the rungs of the ladder integrated into it. Malcolm protested immediately.

"You're not going down there?"

"Got to get my spanner back," Trip smirked as he climbed deeper into the shaft, his body now entirely in space that shouldn't be there.

"We should call the Bridge first. Let them know."

Trip pretended not to hear him and continued down. "Say again, Malcolm?"

Malcolm sighed with reluctance and followed, he'd be damned if he was going to let his superior officer go into such strange 'unknown territory' alone. Climbing down the somewhat narrow shaft, that turned out to be actually about five meters in height before bottoming out was giving him chills up and down his spine.

They emerged into a darkened chamber that was bigger than the pod itself. Their flashlights fell onto more of the dark brown alloy that made up the interior of the craft. It was also immediately evident that this area had suffered a lot more damage; there was extensive scarring and scorching. Again, there was nothing recognizable as a control panel, or any writing, just more of the weird patterning of the walls.

Malcolm's voice was awed. "This gives space exploration a whole new meaning."

"I've read a few papers on spatial geometry. I never heard a theory that would explain this. The Captain'll never believe us. He's going to have to see this for himself." Their lights finally found something, a dome pedestal of some sort integrated with the floor. From the ceiling above another identical one came down, leaving a two foot long gap between the two. One had clearly suffered bad damage, and the thick alloy had been torn from the inside to leave a gap slightly bigger than a golf ball. "What do you think a reactor of some kind?"

"You're the engineer."

"Looks like a breach, overload of some kind."

Malcolm's scanner gave a beep to alert him it had detected something passively. He tapped on it, and frowned with frustration. 'Energy waveform unknown' it spat back at him. "I'm picking up an energy signature. It's very faint."

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Bridge

"Captain, a vessel has just been detected by long range sensors approaching at high warp," T'Pol announced after her console flashed an audio warning. "Five light years away."

Travis, ever on the ball, announced immediately from his Helm station. "They're on a clear intercept vector, Captain."

Jon nodded. "Can you identify them, T'Pol?"

She stared into her Sensor scope briefly and arched a single eyebrow. "From the drive signature, I believe it to be Suliban, of a class we've not encountered before. Its mass, hull geometry, and minimal weapon signatures suggests it's a cargo ship."

"Cargo ship," Jon mused to himself. "What's their Intercept Time?"

"If we keep our relative speeds constant…four days."

"It seems the new sensors have no problems seeing through their stealth," Jon commented with satisfaction. He had really been getting tired of getting unannounced visits from ships with greater SCM capabilities, especially the Suliban. "The question now is why are they coming?"

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Malcolm had narrowed down the energy signature location to one section of the mysterious chamber. On the wall in a recess was an odd patterning of lines that formed a vague rounded square and four small round circles within it. "I believe it's coming from behind this."

Trip shrugged and hesitantly touched one of the circles and was surprised when the hard alloy suddenly softened under the touch of his finger, he pushed harder and it depressed even further. It had had a vague feel of a button. He moved on to the other circles and pressed them too in a random order. Nothing happened.

He moved on to try other combinations. After ten tries with no results he thought, 'Dammit, open up already.' He just about jumped out of his skin when suddenly the section of the wall in the recess seemed to 'grow' a seam, and retract down into the floor.

"I think this thing just read my mind."

"What?"

"I was distinctly thinking for the thing to open and it did…"

"Perhaps you just got lucky with the combination."

"Maybe." They looked into the recess to find some kind of box like device integrated into it. Trip found the first thing that looked like a 'button' on the inside and pressed down. Again nothing happened. He carefully thought, 'Let go.' And just like that the box device released its catches, and he had to hurriedly catch it before it fell to the floor.

"Okay, it definitely reads your mind. Let's get this to Engineering, see what we've got."

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The device now sat on a work bench in Engineering. Trip had managed to expose a forward panel to reveal slotted flat crystals that glowed with an inner blue light.

"It was heavily shielded. Whatever this thing is, it must be pretty important," Trip explained to both Jon and T'Pol. The Captain leaned down, squinting to see the extremely fine crystalline circuitry, and he could swear the light within was actually coming from a blue fluid that seemed to be flowing through it.

Jon looked up to his friend. "What's your guess?"

"Might be the black box, it could tell us what happened, maybe even who built the vessel. That's assuming we can get it working. It seems to use the same organic circuitry as the rest of the ship." Trip shook his head; his voice became positively brimming with awe. "Captain, I got to take you down into that chamber. You're not going to believe your eyes."

"Bigger on the inside?"

"Oh yes, it defies everything we know of physics, but it is."

"It seems we have a reason for the Suliban's approach, Captain." T'Pol stated.

"They want the ship and its technology, even a wreck anything advanced like that would be priceless to study."

'Bridge to Captain Archer.'

Jon walked over to the com panel. "Go ahead, Travis."

"Another ship just entered sensor range, sir. It's travelling at Warp seven on an intercept course, ETA, two and a half days. The Vulcan database identifies it as…Tholian. It doesn't say much more than the name, though."

"T'Pol?"

She didn't hesitate. "They're extremely xenophobic. The High Command has had limited contact with them. Captain, it's unusual for Tholians to travel this far from their system."

"And I don't suppose they're just coming for a friendly visit, either," Jon remarked with sarcasm.

"We're being hailed now as well, sir. Audio only."

"Channel it down to engineering." There was a brief pause, then a beep followed by some slight static on the com line. "This is Captain Archer of the Starship…"

Screeching and whistling echoed from the line and Jon winced at its high pitch. It was then followed by English, which was clearly generated by computer. "Jonathan Archer."

He blinked in surprise that the Tholian knew his first name, but buried that question for a more proper one. "Is there something we can do for you?"

"We were sent to retrieve the vessel."

"I'd like to know how you heard about that ship."

The alien ignored the implied question. "It is dangerous to you. Temporal radiation."

"Thanks for the warning; does it belong to your species?"

"Yes."

T'Pol abruptly reached over to the com panel and muted the pickup. "Captain, the Tholian are a non-humanoid species. The chair…"

"I got it," Jon halted her and re-enabled the audio sensor. "I'm afraid I just caught you in a lie. That vessel can't belong to your race; it's clearly designed for humanoid lifeforms…"

Even higher pitched screeching interrupted him and the com line abruptly cut off.

"I doubt that was a compliment," Trip remarked.

Jon shook his head grimly. "I wonder if there's anyone else who thinks they have a claim on that ship. Get that black box working, T'Pol, you're with me."

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Their destination was an area of the Enterprise that had acquired an almost mythic, mysterious status along the lines of the Bermuda Triangle amongst the crew.

Crewman Daniel's former quarters.

To anyone who didn't know of it, the place would look like any of the other two person crew quarters on board the ship. It was a small space, barely three meters by two, with two bunked beds to one side, two small desks with computer workstations, and four lockers. The first clue you had that this was not normal crew quarters was the powerful electromagnetic deadbolt fastened to the door.

Jon leaned down and tapped in his personal access code. The bolt instantly released its grip and he pulled it away.

"A database from the future?" T'Pol asked sceptically.

"Our time-travelling friend Daniels left it in his quarters," Jon walked over to one of the lockers and winced as he pushed his hand 'through' the door of the locker. His arm vanished into it bizarrely all the way up to his elbow. He felt around inside the compressed space and finally pulled out his arm to reveal an aquamarine coloured device no bigger than his hand.

Both T'Pol's eyebrows were raised, and for a Vulcan, that was equivalent of her jaw dropping to the floor of astonishment. "I doubt if Daniels would approve of this."

"We'll keep this to ourselves, nothing in any official reports." He sat down at one of the desks, whilst T'Pol pulled a chair over to sit next to him. The device powered up with a purple light and a large high definition holographic screen blossomed into being above it. The device also instantly began displaying exactly what he wanted, which made sense, given what Trip experienced in the mystery ship. It started to scroll through a gallery of what he thought of as 'Ships of the Line'.

All were unfamiliar until something that looked Vulcan popped up. "A Vulcan cruiser," T'Pol commented. "I don't recognize the configuration." It had elements of a Surak class as the main hull, but had three annular warp nacelles clustered near the aft end.

"That's because it hasn't been built yet," Jon pointed to the commissioning date. They continued looking through and Jon had to mightily resist the temptation to browse through future ships that clearly belonged to the Klingons. They finally started to see similar shaped ships to the one in the cargo bay, after he willed the device to scroll faster. Finally, it looked like they had a match. "There. I think that's it. Look at the commission date. That's almost nine hundred years from now. Daniels talked about historians from the future. People who travelled back to study the past. That could be what this pilot was doing."

"This says it's powered by a 'temporal displacement drive'."

"If the Suliban or Tholian get their hands on this, they'll take it apart," he switched off the device. "Perhaps gain technological insight they're not supposed to reach yet according to history. Changing the course of the entire Temporal Cold War."

"Assuming the vessel is from the future," T'Pol countered, "why haven't they retrieved it?"

"Space is big, T'Pol, add the fact that you have to scan entire Time periods of it, and that you and I agreed not to put this in the 'history books', then it's not surprising that the future has no idea that the ship is missing."

"Logic then suggests that we should put it in the history books, to communicate with the future of our problem."

"Too risky," Jon shook his head. "The enemy factions would have access to it as well; and next thing we know, we're up to our eyeballs in Suliban and Tholian."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"Hopefully we can find a way to securely contact them in the 'Black box', before we're intercepted."

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October 24, 2152, Engineering, UES Enterprise

Trip carefully scanned one of the crystals inside the Black Box. It was clear that the damage to the Time ship had caused some systemic failures inside the organo-fluidic power circuitry. There was no damage, but all its solid state 'circuit breakers' were flipped open. At least, he thought they were breakers. It was now merely a question of getting them closed so power could flow again.

"All right, let's start with the power grid."

"Assuming that is the power grid. It boggles the mind, if you think about it." Reed quirked a grin, staring at his own scanner.

"What does?"

"That ship could be from the thirty first century. When I was young, I always wanted to build a time machine, see the future."

"You're probably the kind of person that jumps to the end of a book before you read it," Trip criticized.

"Don't tell me you've never wondered what it would be like," Reed scoffed. "How our mission will turn out."

"Wondering about the future and knowing it are two different things."

"If Daniels came here and offered you a chance to go to the thirty first century, you wouldn't take it?" Reed shook his head in amazement.

"Some things are better left a mystery."

Reed's tone was rather dry. "And you call yourself an explorer."

"Where's the fun in exploring if you know how it all turns out?" Trip uploaded his scans to the central computer, and snapped the scanner closed. "Hand me that micro-caliper." Malcolm did so as Trip began to slowly tweak the orientation of the breakers so that the organic conducting fluid could resume its flow unobstructed. "Suppose you could look into some future book and find out the name of the woman you're going to marry. Would you want to know it?"

"Absolutely. Think of all the awkward first dates I could avoid."

"Fine. So one day you meet Jane Doe. You go out a few times, and you pop the question. She says I do, and the two you live happily ever after."

Reed grinned his eyes dreamy, "Sounds perfect."

"Now," Trip's tone was sharp, "did you marry her for love, or because some book told you to?"

"If we're happily ever after, what difference does it make?" Reed shook his head, clearly not understanding, or caring. The last adjustment was made and all the crystals flared into life with blue light.

"Well, we've got power. Now we've got to figure out how to tap into these organic circuits."

"They're similar to the ones in the cockpit." Reed pointed out.

"We can try to replicate some, build an interface for it."

"Even if we could, to get our computer to talk to this thing might not be possible."

"This thing is probably built by our distant descendants, and the rules of basic machine logic remain the same, one is on, zero is off. We can work from that."

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Sickbay, UES Enterprise

Jon and T'Pol entered Phlox's medical domain to find the Denobulan staring intently at the main screen of his medical computer.

"Your call was urgent, Doctor."

"Ah, Captain, I've finished my forensic analysis of the interior of the ship, specifically the chair. I managed to find a few intact skin cells belonging to...the pilot."

"And?"

"The pilot is human...though decidedly not an ordinary one." Phlox tapped on the computer to highlight certain sections of the DNA structure graph it was displaying. "I found an unusual deviation in this nucleotide sequence. At first I thought I was looking at some kind of mutation, but there was something familiar about the chromosome structure, so I widened my search to include the interspecies database. This nucleotide sequence is Vulcan."

Jon could only stare at the screen, though considering the ship came from the future...

"This human, did he get that nucleotide sequence from an ancestor?"

"That's the only explanation that makes sense, given the DNA evidence," Phlox agreed. "At least one Vulcan ancestor further back than a great-grandparent. I also found genetic material belonging to several other species. This sequence is Terrelian. There's another I can't identify. I believe the individual who this skin cell belongs to is the result of several generations of interspecies breeding."

"Doctor, would it not require extensive medical intervention to produce offspring between a Vulcan and Human?" T'Pol queried.

"Certainly," agreed Phlox. "Reconciling the copper and iron based physiologies would take some doing, but it's not insurmountable with enough research. It would depend on whether the mother is Human or Vulcan. A Vulcan female would require the offspring to have dominant Vulcan traits, if she wishes to carry the baby with no complications. Or a balance could be achieved, I suppose, with an artificial womb."

"Thank you, Doctor." Jon nodded, looking rather introspective as he and T'Pol left.

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Phlox waited until his Captain and T'Pol was well away and into the Turbolift down the corridor before he locked the door to the Sickbay. He walked over to the Bioscanner tube, keyed it open and the variable bed zoomed out on its track. The tall 'human' man in a blue Starfleet jumpsuit abruptly sat up, his blue eyes intent, "Did they suspect anything?"

"No," Phlox soothed him with a wide smile.

The man ran a hand through his dark blonde hair that was rather oddly cut. "Good."

"Can I ask why you didn't just reveal yourself? The Captain is quite open-minded, if you explained..."

"I'm no Temporal Agent, Doctor, they're enabled and trained to handle a temporal incursion," the Historian shook his head. "It's bad enough I revealed myself to you. If my ship's medical systems hadn't been destroyed, I could've just waited for Reed and Tucker to finish what they're doing."

"I'm sure that whatever passes for authority in the future will understand you had no choice."

"I'll be damn lucky if I don't lose my License," groused the Historian. "If the Integrity Commission is feeling particularly vindictive they could even..." He stopped speaking abruptly and shuddered visibly. "Thank you for the help, Doctor Phlox. It was an honour to meet you. And for the love of everything, don't speak of this as long as you live. Oh, do try to 'lose' the medical supplies you used to treat me."

"You have my word as a physician," nodded Phlox solemnly. "And I know how to cover my tracks very well if so inclined."

"Good." The Historian simply vanished with a slight ripple effect of light and was gone.

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Bridge, UES Enterprise

The ship was now on a new course at a speed of Warp five point eight, that would hopefully end up solving the Tholian and Suliban problem or at least ameliorate it. Trip had come up with the idea. 'We've got two bullies who want our lunch. So we just run in such a way that they'll bump into each other. Neither wants to share, so naturally they'll fight.'

However, now there was a whole new problem with keeping the Timeship on Enterprise.

Trip explained. "It was the weirdest thing. When we were standing next to the ship, doing an analysis of the internal circuitry and it felt like we were having the same conversation over and over again."

Phlox hovered his medical scanner over both Malcolm and Trip. "I can't find anything wrong with either of you."

Reed's tone was insistent. "We didn't imagine what happened."

"Captain, the craft has begun emitting some type of high-energy particles I've never encountered before," T'Pol reported from her station. "Neither Starfleet or Vulcan databases can make identify it; the Odyssey database identifies it as...'chronotons'."

Jon nodded, as the word morphology made sense, though he winced at how the word sounded. "This may be the temporal radiation the Tholians warned us about."

"We've spent a fair amount of time around that ship," Reed said significantly.

Phlox looked over T'Pol shoulder at the sensor readout."The particle density's quite low. It's unlikely to have any lasting effects."

Trip sighed in relief, "How do you explain what happened?"

"The radiation could have affected your perception of time," T'Pol reasoned.

"Or maybe they really were reliving the same moment." Jon countered. "Seal off Launch bay two and evacuate the surrounding sections. I don't want to take any chances. How are you coming with the black box?"

"The power is online, we've got an interface going, but accessing the data in an understandable format is taking time," Trip replied with a weary, tired sigh.

"Well, don't let me keep you. The bad guys are getting closer with every second."

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October 27, 2152

System Designated 20 Eridani B

It was an utterly unremarkable system, five uninhabitable planets surrounding a B type star. The fourth was a gas giant with nearly three dozen moons surrounding it in a complex gravitational dance. It was also a mess of various radiations. There was a flash of continuum distortion and from it emerged a dart shaped triangular vessel of roughly fifty meters in size, with a bronzed hull and four glowing propulsion emitters. Pilot Loskene, the single Tholian inside its comfortable two hundred and seven degree environment scanned the system and found that his quarry had come out of warp here and their impulse wake led right through the radiation belt surrounding the gas giant.

Either the humans had gone in there to hide or they had simply gone straight through. More than likely it was the former. There would no point to the second scenario, as the pilot could simply go around the gas giant's gravitational influence and pick up their warp trail in subspace there. It could also be that the humans were setting a trap or ambush of some sort. It would be a foolish gesture.

Loskene's sensors lit up at that point; there was another continuum distortion which disgorged a Suliban ship. It was quite large, with yellow-brown hulled modules slotted into a central spine that tapered into an enlarged prow, with its warp nacelles and impulse drives on the other end. Loskene screeched to himself in annoyance.

What do they think they are doing? I could easily blast them to atoms in that cargo ship.

He was in a fully rated combat vessel of the Tholian Assembly, and the Suliban puppets were in a ship that barely had what the pilot would define as shields. He guided his own ship on a new course that would allow for a full scan around the gas giant's interference. His superiors would be really unhappy with him if he couldn't obtain the Timeship. It would be a real boon to their research into trans-universal sciences and even better it would be a real blow to the Federation's Temporal Agents; whose meddling the Tholian Assembly would no longer stand for.

Loskene raised his own shields and contemptuously manoeuvred within the weapons range of the cargo ship, daring it to attack. He carefully looked at his sensors, monitoring the weapons of the Suliban. The instant they fed even so much an erg of power into their capacitors, he would know and then that would be the end of it. He toyed with the idea of simply disabling their power systems and going on to claim his prize, but his superiors would see that as being weak and a message needed to also be sent to the mysterious, enigmatic and ruthless Suliban Benefactor.

It would truly be interesting to know who the being from the human twenty eighth century truly was.

At that moment, things changed.

One of the cargo ship's pods suddenly blossomed open and five combat Cell ships detached both from the ship and from each other. His sensors registered their energy profiles spiking and he wondered why his ship hadn't detected them in that pod.

Not so toothless after all.

The five Cell ships accelerated after him and immediately sent their characteristic yellow particle beams streaming into space. His ship was hit twice, his shields shrugging off the damage with some effort and immediately sent particle beams in reply from his aft emitters. He also had to throw his ship into a wild series of evasives that didn't help his aim at all.

The Suliban suddenly split into five separate courses, four of which were to try and box him in, whilst the fifth ship raced off on an irregular course at full impulse. Loskene had no intention of just sitting in the middle of a shooting gauntlet, and changed course towards the lower right Cell ship, hammering it with particle fire as much as he possibly could. He was rewarded with the Suliban ship's shields crumpling and another beam sent the cell ship into oblivion.

The four remaining enemy ships used the opportunity though to send four particle beams into his dorsal shields, weakening them with a fair percentage. He needed to even the odds, and put his ship directly towards the gas giant, jinking and weaving erratically. The radiation reduced sensor resolution considerably and now the Suliban's particle beams went astray more often than not, and he could afford to shunt his auxiliary power into restoring some shield strength as he and his pursuers weaved between the various moons.

But the Suliban were rather persistent, their weapons were still nibbling away at his ship, and his own return fire wasn't making a dent. If he managed to land successive hits on a single ship, it would fall back to recharge its shield and its fellows would charge forward to take up the attack again.

The next strategy he used was to dive for one of the moons onto an exact course which would let gravity aid in his velocity. Loskene emerged from around the moon and for a few brief vital moments he wasn't being fired upon, nor could the Suliban see him. He triggered his aft emitters and fired five blue pulses of coherent radiation into his wake.

The eager Suliban followed him, thinking his gravity manoeuvre was just a tactic of retreat. The lead ship was caught by three of the radiation pulses, its shields couldn't keep out enough of the exotic energy and its internal systems were overloaded and disabled. It continued on its momentum, totally out of control until Loskene sent a particle beam blast into it. The pieces of the cell ship continued on their new individual trajectories, most of which would be pulled in by the gas giant.

The death dance among the moons resumed.

Loskene had no more auxiliary power left to replenish his shields and the three cell ships were again steadily wearing him down. He frantically tried to think of any idea which could bring the odds down, but was at a loss. The three Suliban on his tail were clearly experienced pilots themselves, and were covering a lot of the effective evasion angles with their fire. It was also clear that they were manually aiming those destructive beams.

He was rounding a gaseous moon and his shield strength down to thirty five percent when things changed considerably.

Rising out of the gas atmosphere five hundred kilometres behind them was the saucer-like human ship. It immediately opened fire with its own multiple particle cannons and anti-matter missiles in a massive strike which his sensors told him were amazingly potent. The trailing Suliban cell ship withered under the bombardment and was immolated in a bright flash of light.

The human ship accelerated after the Suliban and Loskene used the opportunity to finally turn and face his attackers with his forward shields and fresh weapon emitters. He focused on the cell ship closest to the moon and poured both particle and coherent radiation weapons fire into it. The human ship rather amazingly turned its own weapons on the remaining cell ship as if this had all been part of a plan. The Suliban ships lashed out frantically and Loskene got the shock of his life when he scanned and saw shields snap on around the human ship and bat aside the high yield particles.

Two more orange particle beams from the human ship hit its target and another glowing red anti-matter missile destroyed the Suliban cell ship. Loskene snapped himself away from his sensors and sent a particle beam from the forward array to destroy the last enemy ship.

The human ship flashed passed Loskene at half impulse and put itself on a new course incredibly fast, heading out of the radiation field and straight for the Suliban cargo ship. He found himself feeling rather envious of the pilot of that ship.

The ship was already firing off anti-matter missiles, which finally allowed him to get an idea of just how damn fast those things were. The Suliban had barely turned their cargo ship onto a new heading in retreat when the first missile reached them and detonated. The cargo ship was still there afterward, but its shields were all but gone and Loskene detected internal explosions.

That ship wasn't going anywhere.

The human ship, now out of the gas giant's radiation, swivelled and presented its forward profile directly towards him. Loskene hurriedly came to a relative stop and after a moment's consideration powered down his weapons and instead channelled all of it to recharging his beleaguered shields. He was again surprised when the humans opened a communication's channel to him.

"We have no quarrel with the Tholian Assembly or its people," the voice of Jonathan Archer, the infamous Captain of that ship resonated within his cockpit. "Nor do we wish to have one. In any case, the Time Ship is gone...we're lowering the shields around our launch bay and cargo bays...take a look."

Loskene bristled in anger at the nerve of the man, but nevertheless scanned the areas which the human had indicated.

'You might be hiding it elsewhere in your ship,' he fed into his translator.

"Fine, we're completely lowering the shield, but I warn you, our critical systems weapons are redundantly shielded...your coherent radiation will not disable them."

Loskene screeched in anger when he saw that the human was telling the truth.

"It's the funniest thing; we were repairing what we thought was the ship's emergency data recorders and then everything just disappeared at one point..." Archer began, but Loskene was not in the mood to listen to the human's sarcasm. He cut the communication channel and gunned his engines onto a new course that would allow him to leave via Warp. He did keep a sensor watch on what the human ship was doing.

He didn't know whether to be pleased or disappointed when the Suliban cargo ship self-destructed. The Tholian's hated the Suliban probably just as much as Humans did, and anything that weakened the Suliban was good...but such an Intelligence coup in the hands of Humans did not sit well with him. It also angered him that now he owed his continued existence to them.

Loskene shrugged off such thoughts and put his ship into Warp.

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A/N: Here's my holiday season's gift to you guys...an update. I wanted a longer chapter, but decided to end it here. I also wanted to write something with the Odyssey Six, but at this point in the storyline they're just doing routine stuff, training themselves and teaching others. I tried to do a Landry POV where he's reviewing the Sol Defense strategy but everything I did was yawn-worthy, so I just cut it out. I want to keep that a surprise for when their 'defenses' are actually needed ;-)