|
"Reflecting to You"
By MissAnnThropic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: None of its mine. I’m just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching taped episodes of my favorite shows. :(
Description: A different ending to In a Mirror Darkly, Part I, results in the Mirror Universe T'Pol ending up on our universe's Enterprise when the relationship between Trip and T'Pol is at a breaking point. (later becomes a cross-over with ST:TOS, Spoilers: The Tholian Web)
Author's Note: I'll bet everyone forgot this was a crossover… I will confess that, in this chapter, I could not help myself from making a teeny reference to Quantum Leap :)
Chapter 22
Archer knew something was wrong when he stepped out of the shower and Porthos was growling. Archer, dripping wet, frowned in confusion only a second before he grabbed up a towel and wrapped it hurriedly around his waist.
Stepping out of his bathroom, barefoot and suspicious, Archer found Gary Seven sitting nonchalantly on the chair in front of his desk. Porthos was standing on the captain's bunk facing the intruder, hackles up and lip curled to bare sharp teeth.
Gary looked utterly unconcerned. He glanced up at Archer and said, "Your pet doesn't care much for me, Captain."
"I know how he feels," Archer grumbled.
"We have important matters to discuss." Gary stated plainly.
Archer glowered. "You know, I would think a temporal agent would have better timing." Archer went to his drawers, pulled out underwear and pants, and gave Gary a dark look as he ducked back into his bathroom. Once he'd put some clothes on and ditched the towel, he returned to his living area.
Porthos yielded his post only when his master came and sat down alongside him. The beagle settled but never took his eyes from Gary.
"So?" Archer prompted. "What word from your 'superiors' about my crewman?"
Gary looked annoyed at Archer's choice of words. "She isn't a member of your crew. She doesn't belong here; you know that."
"How she got here doesn't matter to me. She asked for a place aboard my ship, and I gave her one. She's worked alongside us peaceably for weeks. As far as I'm concerned, she is a member of my crew. I mean to see her kept from unnecessary harm."
"You persist in thinking you have any say in that."
Archer almost smirked. "The fact that you're here to discuss 'important matters' instead of making off with Mu'Pol in the middle of the night would suggest that I do."
Gary's eyes narrowed fractionally. Then he relented with a sigh and nod. "You're as intractable and stubborn as that beast of yours."
Archer placed a hand on Porthos's head and gave a wry chuckle.
"You cannot begin to understand the danger you blithely place your derivation in with this… meddling in matters that don't concern you," Gary scolded.
"I don't have the same ability to categorize whose life I will and will not care about that you do. She may be just a 'factor of historical significance' to you, but to me she is a living, sentient being. I can't turn my back on her being put in danger. I won't apologize for having more humanity than you do."
The visitor actually looked pained a moment. "You wrong me, Captain. You have no conception just how grievously you wrong me."
"You would have sent Mu'Pol home to die," Archer accused.
"Yes. But in the interest of saving millions of lives. Does that make me brutal to you?"
"Not your ultimate goal. I can appreciate the desire to save lives. I only condemn your callous way of going about it."
"I'm sure it looks that way to you," Gary replied. "How many men and women are you responsible for on this ship, Captain? Eighty? Have you any idea how light a burden that is to bear? How free you are with the souls of so few at the mercy of your decisions? My conscience is troubled with billions."
"And you just have to pick and choose who is worth caring about?"
Gary looked long at Archer. "Imagine every individual human on Earth… and imagine trying to travel through time and right all the wrongs in every single person's life. It's a lofty ideal, but impossible."
"I'd try," Archer said lowly.
Gary considered the captain. "Yes, I imagine you would." Gary gave a tug on his suit jacket lapels. "This is pointless; I didn't come here to defend myself to you. My superiors and I have reached a compromise that may save both derivations… or doom both. The choice I leave to you. You can still allow me to take Mu'Pol and continue on your way… meet the Bolian envoy, change their world, leave Mu'Pol to hers. It would be a great deal simpler for everyone if you let me do my job and put right one incursion."
"I'm sorry… I can't do that."
"You are choosing a dangerous path."
"Mister Seven," Archer said calmly. "I've spent time talking to Mu'Pol. I've learned what things are like in her universe. I know that humans in her universe keep Vulcans as slaves. They mistreat them, subjugate them, beat them, murder them with little or no provocation. I know her race is not the only one. I could never look at myself in the mirror if I didn't do something to try and stop it."
Strangely, Gary smiled. "You are so very naïve, Captain. Childlike, really. Under any other circumstances, I might find it endearing."
Archer scowled.
"Shall we get on with it, then?" Gary asked in weary resignation.
"Not yet." Archer stood. "There are others who need to hear whatever it is you have to say."
"Might as well make it everyone," Gary said. "This will involve your entire crew."
Archer glanced sharply at Gary, measured him with a look, then nodded gravely. He went to his comm panel to have the beta shift communications officer on duty summon everyone required in attendance for a senior staff meeting.
*****
If the crew had any objections to be rousted out of their cabins at such an unusual hour, none said a word of complaint as they made their way into the briefing room. Archer and Gary Seven were already present and awaiting the senior staff's arrival. The first to arrive was Malcolm. The security officer was either part psychic or all paranoid, because Archer had said nothing of the nature of the meeting but Malcolm showed up with a phase pistol holster on his hip all the same. Malcolm gave Gary nearly the same dirty look Porthos had and silently took a seat at the table.
Next to come through the door was nocturnal and diurnal Doctor Phlox.
Mu'Pol arrived shortly after Phlox. When she caught sight of Gary she hesitated, tensed, but went calmly to her place at the table like a condemned criminal heading to the gallows. She meant to accept her fate with dignity.
Predictably, Hoshi and Travis arrived together. Strictly speaking, they were not senior staff members as mere ensigns, even though they were members of the bridge crew for the alpha shift, but Archer had come to value their presence in senior staff meetings as the premiere pilot and linguist aboard ship. Both positions were indispensable aboard Enterprise and he would have their contribution at important meetings.
Last to arrive were Trip and T'Pol. Given the tension between them as of late, Archer was surprised that they arrived together.
T'Pol paused just inside the room much as Mu'Pol had and gave the stranger a critical look. Trip stopped just behind her shoulder. The look on his face gave Archer an instant sick feeling. It took only that long for Archer to sense something not right with his best friend. Something empty had filled Trip's eyes where once blue fire might have sparked at the sight of Gary Seven. Now there was nothing. Hollowness. Archer knew his first concern should be Mu'Pol, but briefly he was more worried about his long-time friend.
T'Pol moved to take a seat.
Archer saw Trip torn a moment. He had a choice between sitting next to Mu'Pol in the single empty chair between her and Hoshi (as though it were left open for him), or accompanying T'Pol.
Trip, with dispassion, made his choice in a matter of seconds. His hand, almost absently, rose and his fingertips rested against the small of T'Pol's back. T'Pol allowed it. Trip followed T'Pol, taking a seat next to her at the far end of the table.
The captain glanced at Mu'Pol briefly; she looked unphased and very, very Vulcan about the whole matter. Archer didn't have time to ask the hundred of questions he had.
"You all probably know why I've called you here," Archer began. "I'll let Mister Seven explain." Archer sat down at the head of the table and waited with the rest of his crew for the overdue explanation.
Gary nodded. "I'll presume you have all been apprised of the situation and will forego the background details. In consideration of Captain Archer's intransigence, I have conferred with my superiors to determine what, if anything, could be done to assist Mu'Pol in her historical role in her derivation."
Gary stood and began to walk the length of the back of the room. "First, I must reiterate the folly in concerning yourselves with any derivation but your own. There are those like myself who make it their lives to worry about such matters; it has nothing to do with any of you."
"We know all about your objections, Mister Seven," Archer noted testily.
Gary sighed. "Very well. I cannot help Mu'Pol."
Archer's eyes went first to Mu'Pol. She looked unmoved by the news. If anything, Archer might say it looked as if Mu'Pol had heard exactly what she had been expecting to hear. Archer looked next, warily, at Trip. He half-expected another tirade from the chief engineer who had made this business with Mu'Pol such a personal concern of his.
Instead, Trip looked just as nonplussed as Mu'Pol at the news. He sat alongside T'Pol, just taking in information. He didn't react at all. Not even a blink of anger.
'Something's wrong,' Archer thought with dread and absolute certainty.
But Trip would have to wait.
"You called us all here to tell us you mean to do nothing?" Archer asked.
"I said I cannot help her. But you can."
Archer paused, confused.
Gary turned to stare out the window at the stars. "It is considered unethical and extremely dangerous for temporal agents to personally affect changes in the timeline beyond small course corrections. The occasional political assassination here, the rare disabling of a rocket guidance system there… small changes can have such far-reaching effects that the risk in a temporal agent affecting changes any larger than that are… well, they don't bear thinking." Gary turned to look at Archer. "We must remind ourselves, always, that while it may be our own history we're changing it is not our time to steer as one would a ship. What achievement is there in one with foreknowledge such as my own taking matters so in hand that the victories and failures of history lose their meaning?"
Archer didn't quite follow.
Gary sighed. "Imagine, Captain, that I had reason to believe that First Contact was in danger of not happening as it did on April 5, 2063. I would have the technology, the foreknowledge, and the power to go back and make the flight myself. I could take the pilot's seat, I could ensure the Vulcans saw the warp signature, I could be certain First Contact happened in Bozeman, Montana… but where is the heroic moment without the hero? How would humanity have been changed without Zefram Cochrane as their pioneer?"
"Hard to imagine," Archer confessed.
Gary nodded. "Humanity is a prideful species… more than you could ever think. Without heroic figures to pave the way, humanity is a wild, unmanageable rabble. It is the same for many races. Try to imagine Vulcan without Surak."
"It would not be Vulcan," T'Pol volunteered with certainty.
"No, it wouldn't," Gary agreed.
"So you can't go with her and protect her yourself. You can't do her work for her. It's important that Mu'Pol be the one to call the rebels to arms."
Gary nodded. "In her own way, she will be like Cochrane, like Surak, like Kahless. Her memory will be perhaps just as important when she is dead as she was alive."
"So how do you mean for us to help her?" Archer asked.
"I can send you with her."
Archer sat back, startled. His reaction was shared by all his crew around the table.
"Why isn't that the same dilemma? How do you know we won't steal her glory the same as you would if it was you?" Trip asked.
"Several reasons. One, there will be the very real possibility that some of you will die. Maybe even all of you." Gary turned his eyes to Archer. "That is the danger I warned you of, and the reason you must consider your decision very carefully." Gary left Archer to mull that over and addressed Trip again. "The reality of possible death is a charged factor that accounts for a great deal of historical import. You will become enmeshed in events in a way that I never truly can. You will become freedom fighters, not tenders of a timeline.
"Also… there are strict provisions in place in the Time Travel Treaty that restrict the level of technology I can directly utilize in the fulfillment of my missions, dependent upon the time period into which I travel. I may use transport technology to take me to a place in time that predates transporter technology, but I cannot use that same technology to take a bomb out of dangerous hands. I am an operative, not a soldier. Given those limitations, I would be far less helpful to Mu'Pol than you and your crew would, Captain.
"And you keep in mind that where you are going, there is already a Jonathan Archer, a T'Pol of Vulcan, a Charles Tucker III, and so forth. For the short period of time that you will be there, do you imagine the history books of Mu'Pol's derivation will recall your brief and unaccountable presence or the well-established figures of her derivation's Archer, Tucker, Sato, and all the rest? A handful of benevolent acts will not erase the many evils done by your counterparts."
The thought was disconcerting. "A short period of time… do you mean we'll be on a timetable?" Archer asked.
"That is the other reason your actions will not 'steal Mu'Pol's glory' as you call it. You are not going there to win the war or even to form the rebellion. Your sole purpose will be to correct the mistake that has caused so much havoc in Mu'Pol's derivation and derailed the course of her derivation's timeline. Your mission is to destroy the Defiant."
"You can't be serious," Malcolm spoke up for the first time during the briefing. Archer nodded at him to go on. Malcolm scowled at Gary. "You said yourself that this Defiant is a hundred years more advanced than we are. The NX class ships in Mu'Pol's universe don't stand a chance against that ship… how do you expect us to fare any better?"
"Good question," Archer directed at Gary.
Gary Seven looked beleaguered and retook his seat. "Our solution to that has come at a dear price. We have negotiated a compromise with the Tholians… a compromise that has cost us entire historical accountability in one of our many derivations." Gary turned accusing eyes on Archer. "Lives will be lost in that timeline and we no longer have any authority to stop it."
Fleetingly, Archer got a sense of the crushing responsibility that must come with being a temporal agent. He could never imagine making that kind of choice, knowing all the lives that could be forfeit. For half a second, he felt guilty for being the cause of it.
But he would not let his misgivings show. "What kind of compromise?"
"You can be inserted into Mu'Pol's derivation. As I have said, the repercussions will not be as devastating as you would think. The timeline has already been drastically altered. We recognize your inability to combat the Defiant. An NX class ship has no hope of defeating a Constitution class ship. So the Tholians have agreed to let us fight fire with fire. You will have the use of a Constitution class starship, from the same period in history as the Defiant herself."
Archer gaped. He looked at Trip quickly, disheartened to glean no sense of the engineer's reaction to the news on his remarkably mask-like expression.
"You'll give me a Constitution class ship to command?" Archer asked in amazement. He didn't know exactly what kind of ship that was, be he knew it was a hundred years beyond anything he'd ever seen.
Surprisingly, Gary laughed. "Only if you can wrest control of her from her captain, and I'd strongly advise against trying." Gary sombered. "The Defiant should never have been taken from its natural derivation. The Tholians breached treaty when they took her. That opened a culpability vacuum in the Time Travel Treaty provisions as they currently exist. That gave us, in a way, a certain amount of pull during negotiations. Because the derivation has already been altered against treaty, the Tholians have relented to allowing us to use another Constitution class ship, from the same period and derivation as the Defiant, to neutralize the threat posed in Mu'Pol's derivation." Gary smirked. "Also… the particular ship I have in mind has crewmembers aboard who have previously crossed over into Mu'Pol's derivation, albeit to a point in her future. As tangled as this mess has become, it will actually be far less catastrophic than it could have been."
"So you're going to take Enterprise and this other ship from the future to Mu'Pol's present and together we have to stop the Defiant."
"That's the objective. When the Defiant has been eliminated as a danger to the derivation's timeline and the rebellion, you will be returned to this point in time. Upon return, you must resume your original course heading."
"To meet the Bolian envoy," Archer filled in.
Gary nodded. "Any crew you lose on this endeavor will be lost forever. Returning to this time and place won't undo the deaths suffered on this mission if you choose to proceed. That will be a risk you must weigh."
Archer nodded grimly.
"What about Mu'Pol?" Trip asked. Gary looked at the engineer and Trip continued, "How is this going to ensure she won't get killed?"
"It won't. But it will rid her derivation of the greatest threat it has ever known, the greatest threat to the rebellion to date." At Trip's dissatisfied glower, Gary continued, "Would you have me put her in a cage to keep her from all harm? Not even I can promise she will live beyond tomorrow, no more than I can guarantee the same for you or anyone else. She will have a chance. How long she lives will depend on her. How she lives, the choices she makes, the alliances she forges, the effects of chance… as it is true for all of us, no more, no less."
"My survival will be as assured as anyone's can be," Mu'Pol intoned lowly. She met Trip's gaze. "I can ask for no more of anyone."
Trip considered Mu'Pol closely a moment then gave a slow, accepting nod.
Gary turned to Archer. "That is the choice before you, Captain. Do you have your answer?"
Archer turned his eyes to Mu'Pol. She was watching him thoughtfully. When he was silent a minute, she filled the void by saying, "You do not have to do this."
Archer turned to T'Pol. "T'Pol… are there any M class planets within range of a shuttle pod?"
T'Pol looked thrown by the question but answered dutifully, "Two… one four hours' distance and another a day's travel from Enterprise."
Archer looked to Gary. "I mean to give every member of my crew the choice to stay or go. I don't intend to leave Mu'Pol to face an undefeatable foe, but my crew may not all share my opinion. I can't ask them to risk their lives for another universe apart from our own. If anyone chooses to stay, we will provide them an emergency beacon to contact Starfleet or the Vulcans. Should we not return, they can await rescue. But I mean to go."
"So do I," Trip volunteered.
T'Pol glanced briefly at Trip then added her voice, "As do I."
"Count me in," Malcolm chimed in.
Phlox reasoned, "Heading into a war zone, you'll certainly need a doctor. I'm going."
"Us, too," Travis spoke for himself and Hoshi.
Gary sagged. "Very well. Make your announcement to your crew, Captain. I will need to visit your main engineering to install the Tholian device that will make the derivation jump possible."
Trip sat up at attention at mention of his engines being fiddled with by a practical stranger.
Gary stood. "First you'll be taken to the future, your future, as it happens, to approach the Constitution class starship I plan to involve in this mission. From there, it will be a jump for both of you to Mu'Pol's derivation… then it will be up to you and the other ship's captain to fix the Tholian's breach."
Archer stood with Gary. "Sounds like we have a lot of work to do. Assuming this other captain even agrees to come with us."
"If I know the captain as well as I think I do, he will." Gary sounded sure of himself on that.
"It's a Starfleet ship, right?" Archer had only been able to infer as much from the way Gary referred to it, but he wanted to know for sure before he met its captain. If it was Starfleet, he could make some guesses about how the captain and crew might receive such a plea for help.
Gary nodded.
"What's the ship's name, the one that will be helping us stop the Defiant?"
Gary stopped to look at Archer… and smiled.
*****
When the turbolift door to the bridge opened, the morning's latest arrivals announced themselves by way of argument.
"… stubborn, pig-headed, mulish, cavalier…"
The captain seemed nonplussed by the doctor's tirade. "Finished, Bones?" he asked with a boyish smirk and practically trotted down to his center chair. He claimed his seat with well-practiced ease.
"Hardly," the doctor said sourly, hot on the captain's heels, but whatever the rest of the laundry list of complaints were, he kept them to himself. He had that look about it, though, that he wouldn't be holding his tongue if he and the captain weren't in front of the bridge crew.
Captain James T. Kirk cast a sidelong look at Doctor McCoy, noted his resolve to just be unhappy until a more appropriate time, and gave a small nod of approval.
Leonard McCoy was grumpy and more than a little cross with his captain at the moment, but that didn't stop him from crossing his arms and staying in place at the captain's left side.
Kirk gave a cursory glance to all of the bridge stations, giving them each an opportunity to report anything noteworthy. When no one spoke, the captain tried to settle in for the day's work ahead.
Too full of energy to sit, Kirk was out of his chair only moments after taking it and strode to the railing near the science station. "Spock?"
The half-Vulcan officer turned to him. "Captain."
"I've been giving what you said some thought."
Spock lifted an enquiring eyebrow.
Kirk smiled. "About humans lacking the physical prowess and stamina to participate in Vulcan martial art forms."
"I was merely stating a fact."
"Well, care to test that theory?" Kirk asked eagerly. "Say… this evening after shift, in the gym?"
McCoy gave a malcontent grunt.
"For once, I must concede the doctor's wisdom, if I read his displeasure with that notion correctly."
"Thank you," McCoy drawled, then scowled. "Now, wait just a damn minute, was that a compliment or an insult?"
Kirk chuckled. "Better not ask, Bones."
Spock nodded. "Indeed."
"I may surprise you, Spock," Kirk pressed.
Spock looked doubtful. "Lieutenant Sulu once attempted to learn some of the finer points of neuro-pressure combat and failed. Given his talents in various Earth-based martial arts, I believe his failure speaks ill of your chances of success."
Kirk turned to look at Sulu at the conn. The pilot looked like he'd bitten into a sour grapefruit to be reminded of his inability to master the Vulcan martial art. "It's a lot harder than it looks, sir. It's not just kicking at body mass or making use of an opponent's momentum… not even so easy as joint locks or chokeholds."
"Well, what's so hard about it?"
Sulu's face scrunched. "It's the precision needed in the heat of combat. Coming at your opponent and managing, in a matter of a split-second, to target a point no larger than the tip of a microspanner." Sulu's eyes cut to Spock and he smiled. "I was too much of a savage, flailing brute to manage, sir."
Kirk was undeterred, which only made McCoy look surlier.
"If this neuro-pressure combat style is the same one that gave you that neck pinch thing of yours, I'd like to try it before resigning myself to being an uncoordinated, savage brute," Kirk stated.
Before Spock to further discourage his commanding officer, Ensign Pavel Chekov's spine stiffened and his attention on his control panel sharpened. "Keptin."
Kirk turned to his navigator. "Yes?"
"Something just appeared on my sensors."
Kirk's light-hearted persona vanished at once, leaving in its place the no-nonsense captain of the starship Enterprise. Kirk strode to Chekov's station. "What is it?"
"A ship, sir."
Kirk looked toward the forward viewscreen, although there was no sign of it; the sensors reached farther than the standard cruising forward viewer did. Still, it was a human habit to look.
Kirk frowned at space a second then turned back to Chekov. "What do you mean it appeared? You mean dropped out of warp?"
"No, sir. There's no warp signature. One moment there was nothing, and then it was just there."
Kirk turned to Spock. "Can you tell what kind of ship it is?"
Spock was standing over his scanner. "The design does not match any current models of presently commissioned spacecraft for any known species." Spock paused.
Kirk's stepped up toward the science station to stand before his first officer. Spock's pauses were important and telling. "Spock?"
Spock pondered his readings. "It does not match any current ship profiles on record, but if I am not mistaken, I have seen this design before. Allow me to cross-check my historical references."
Kirk bit his tongue from asking Spock to guess before he had the historical footnotes to back him up. That was pointless with Commander Spock.
Kirk was not a patient man by nature. The wait for Spock to sift through thousands of historical records, which took the Vulcan only a matter of seconds, was taking too long. Kirk began to pace the circumference of the bridge like a territorial wolf, sliding a calculating look at the viewscreen now and then (which still showed only unhelpful stars).
"It's a human vessel," Spock finally reported with his typical certainty. That was the only reason Kirk didn't ask his first officer if he was sure.
"It took you that long to verify it was human?" Kirk asked.
"Not only human," Spock turned to Kirk. "It's Starfleet."
Kirk blinked. It seemed everyone else on the bridge paused half a second to take in the news. More than a few glances made their way to the viewscreen.
"The model is one which has been out of commission for more than eighty Earth years. An NX model, to be precise."
Kirk began to stride toward Spock and froze halfway, striking a pose of barely controlled energy. "NX?"
"You familiar with that model?" Bones asked from his place still rooted next to the captain's chair.
Kirk spared McCoy a look of reproach. "You mean to tell me you're not? How could you get through college without studying the NX in your history courses?"
McCoy returned a sarcastic look to Kirk's. "I paid attention to other classes that were more important to me… like med courses. And I might add your science officer there didn't know the class on first sight, either."
Spock looked almost chagrined to have that fact pointed out to the captain.
Kirk gave a shrug. "So I might have been a little taken with the time. Spock… do we have enough data to ascertain its condition? Is it a derelict?"
Spock returned his attention to his readings. "It is emitting power readings that would be consistent with a functional warp core. Also…"
"What?"
"There's an anomalous reading not associated with the NX profile coming from the ship. I believe, Captain, that it is Tholian."
Kirk's spine stiffened. "Tholian? Sulu, shields." Kirk didn't have fond memories of the scant contact they'd had with the Tholian race not too long ago. In fact, some nights he still woke with chills remembering the sensation of being stuck in space with nothing to protect him from the deep cold but his EV suit quickly running out of power to sustain him.
He also remembered that the Tholian were not above stealing human ships. He could not dismiss the possibility that is what had happened with this ship.
He claimed his center seat and sat erect. "Take us in closer."
When they were near enough for the visual sensors' extreme outer range to pick up the ship, Chekov commanded the image to the forward viewscreen. It showed, unmistakably, the frame of an NX class starship. It looked, from this distance, in good repair for a ship its age. Both nacel domes were glowing; the museum ships had their warp cores taken offline decades ago.
"Captain."
Kirk swiveled his chair around to face Uhura at the communications console. She had one hand to the receiver in her ear. Her expression was perplexed. She turned to Kirk. "We're being hailed by the captain of the ship."
Kirk turned forward again. "Put it on screen."
All eyes turned forward as the view of the stars and the small, distant ship was replaced by the upper body of a human male in an antiquated Starfleet uniform. He had a dashing look about him, a 'grab your gun and go' kind of aura, the very essence of what had captivated Cadet Kirk about the NX-era of human space exploration when he was in the Academy.
Kirk was also knowledgeable enough in the time period to recognize the man on the screen before he breathed a word. He was gaping well before the rest of his bridge crew.
The man on the viewscreen permitted a flitting smile, a quick tug at the corners of the mouth to show peaceful intent without surrendering the steeliness of command. "My name is Jonathan Archer, Captain of the Enterprise."
The rest of the bridge crew mimicked their captain in gawking.
Kirk rose deliberately. "Captain Archer… I'm James T. Kirk, Captain of the starship Enterprise." In a surreal moment, Kirk and Archer shared a wry smile when the irony had time to really set in and stain.
"I imagine you're wondering why we're here," Archer stated with a twinkle of humor in his eye.
Kirk mirrored the cordial casualness. "Among other things. Aren't you a little out of place, Captain?"
"Out of time, more like it. Would it be possible for us to speak in person? There is an explanation for all of this, but the short of it is, we need your help."
Kirk conferred with Sulu then said to Archer, "We should be at your position in twenty minutes. We'll make arrangements for an in-person meeting when we arrive. Kirk out."
When the viewscreen returned to a star vista, Kirk turned to McCoy. "What do you make of that, Bones? Jonathan Archer! Could it really be him?"
"Who's Jonathan Archer?"
Kirk pretended to look appalled. "The original, Bones. The first space cowboy." Kirk was beginning to smile at McCoy's expression.
"First captain with more guts than sense, you mean. He looked pretty good for one hundred forty-odd years."
"I noticed. About that… Spock?" Kirk turned to his science officer.
"He was quite obviously not over one hundred years old. I would prefer not to speculate until I have more information. However, I must point out that we have had experiences involving time-travel, in addition to many other strange phenomena we have encountered that might provide an explanation to this encounter."
Kirk sat down again. "I guess we'll find out in about fifteen minutes. Of course, the real question will be which ship will be the location for this meeting. If the other captain is as eager to see my ship as I am to see his…"
Back to Chapter 21
Continue to Chapter 23
|
