Chapter 3: Hammer Of War

Despite understanding Trip's explanation for his banishment from Buran Malcolm did the (in his opinion) logical thing the next day and ignored the request to stay away. Fighting his way through the crowded corridors of his ship he began to understand though, why Trip wasn't so keen on letting him see the carnage. Just about any panel that could be opened was actually open with either a human or Vulcan head stuck in it, surrounded by cables, pipes and engineering tools. It didn't really look as if his ship was meant to be flying again any time soon, let alone in one week.

Ducking away from a fountain of sparks caused by some welding work above his head, he continued his way towards engineering, where he hoped to find either T'Len or Trip to get an idea why his ship was looking like a prototype still weeks from being finished. Inwardly he hoped it would be T'Len, as Trip would probably not take well to his uninvited presence, but it was his ship and he wouldn't be kept in the dark. Never operate with second-hand information. This old adage was one of the many things that he had learned from his time in the Section.

Well, that certainly isn't Trip, Malcolm thought with relief when he saw a very shapely derrière, sticking out from one of the open access panels. Like many Vulcan females, T'Len wore tight fitting catsuits with a thermal lining instead of the standard issue blue flight suits. He wondered if Vulcans were actually aware of how little these things left to the imagination of a species that didn't curb their thoughts and emotions.

"I will be with you momentarily, Captain," T'Len announced calmly from within the access hatch when she had noticed his arrival.

"No hurry, Lieutenant-Commander," Malcolm said and waited until T'Len crawled out of the tight space with cat-like grace.

"I take it your presence here is against Captain Tucker's wishes?" she asked dryly, with a mildly elevated eyebrow on display.

"Am I that predictable?"

"You are human," she explained dead-pan, but the chirp of Malcolm's communicator ended their conversation before it had really begun.

T'Pol raised her eyebrow a little when a slightly out-of-breath Malcolm joined her in Rear Admiral Zhukov's ready room on Salem One. The station's commanding officer sat on his desk, juggling an impressive amount of PADDs full of repair reports, material requisitions, crew reports and whatever else comes up on a station that basically amounts to a small town in deep space.

"Unless you want to incur the wrath of Commander Tucker for ignoring his request not to visit your ship, you should dust off your uniform before you let yourself be seen by him, Captain," she advised Malcolm calmly.

"Sorry," he muttered sheepishly before he noticed Admiral Gardner's face on a nearby view screen. "Admiral."

"Now that we're all here," Gardner said without answering the greeting. "There is a change in plans. Captain Reed, repairs on your ship will be finished under observation of your chief engineer T'Len.

"You, Captain T'Pol, will prepare your ship for departure as soon as possible. You will rendezvous with Endurance at Rigel X and hotfoot it back home on the double. I'm pulling both you and Lorian off the front lines."

"May I ask why?" T'Pol inquired.

"I was coming to that Captain."

According to the ship's logs this was the first congregation of the whole crew in cargo bay one since late in the Expanse mission and Lieutenant Terval, Enterprise's new science officer, found himself almost overwhelmed by the sheer volume of noise caused by eighty-one humans engaged in excited idle chatter. His keen hearing could make out that general hypothesis was that Enterprise was being 'pulled back' and whatever that meant, it obviously didn't meet with approval of the crew.

The Captain appeared behind the elevated guard rail and was obviously about to address the crew. Immediately the deafening noise died down and one could have heard 'a pin drop', as the humans described a moment of unexpected silence.

"Starfleet Command has decided to recall Enterprise and Endurance to put them on a special mission," he heard his krei explain. Momentarily the idle chatter returned as humans obviously felt a need to immediately discuss any new information they were confronted with, but a stern look from krei Charles, who stood beside her, quickly restored order.

"As a result of the recent battle of Betazed the Coalition Council has decided that we need a dedicated class of warship that can counter the Romulan warbirds. We have been assigned the task to build that warship. The project will be headed by Commander Tucker."

"If the chief builds it, the Rommies are toast!" he heard one ensign in engineering uniform shout and loud cheers could be heard.

"Does anyone have questions?" T'Pol asked and nodded into Terval's direction once he had indicated his desire to speak.

"Captain, does it not appear tactically unsound to remove two of Starfleets most advanced ships from the fight?"

"The positions of Enterprise and Endurance in the First Fleet will be filled with two Andorian Kumari class cruisers," his krei answered. "Additionally there is a shortage of ships at SOLCOM. Starfleet wants to have our two ships as an emergency response force near Earth should the Romulans manage to break through the front lines. At the time planetary defense is provided by Tellarite forces and Starfleet wants at least two ships with wartime experience as part of that force."

"Most logical," Terval conceded.

"Everybody return to his position, we are departing within the hour," T'Pol commanded and Terval brought up the rear as the humans left the cargo bay to carry out their captain's orders.

It was late evening and Trip had already been preparing for bed. But now he sat in his quarters, looking at the faces of Admirals Gardner and Jeffries on the view screen. Much to his surprise Gardner laughed when he spotted the beer mug on Trip's desk.

"That won't be necessary, Commander," Gardner said with a smirk when Trip tried to remove it discreetly from viewer range. "Who do you think approved the installation of that little brewery of yours a few months ago? And we know we practically called you in the middle of the night. As long as you don't inebriate yourself we're fine with that and I doubt your Captain would let you get away with getting plastered."

"That she wouldn't, no," Trip answered with a relieved grin.

"Have you taken a look at the plans we've sent you?" Admiral Jeffries asked.

"I was just doing so when you called and so far everything looks fine. For once the ship's hull doesn't look like it was designed by a baboon with crayons. With that shape we could build up a massive warp bubble and easily crack Warp 7. Too bad the Warp 7 project is still in its early stages."

"That's why we're calling. The Council session ended only now, so there is some information missing from the documents we sent earlier. We've come to the agreement that the new ship will be a coalition ship. That means, once the prototype has been tested, all four races will build and use it."

Trip heard the confused discussion between Gardner and Jeffries when he had removed himself from viewer range. Returning to the desk he put the refilled mug in front of himself.

"Now we're talking Gentlemen. Please, tell me everything about it," he quipped with a wide grin.

Gardner and Jeffries started laughing.

Enterprise and Endurance were docked to each other and lazily orbited Rigel X as both ships waited for a Vulcan troop transporter, which was scheduled to arrive in 10 hours time. The Tar'Hana was to deliver a 60 man engineering detachment for the new project.

"You appear quite enthusiastic about this project," Lorian remarked once he had taken a seat in Trip and T'Pol's quarters.

"You have no idea, son," Trip enthused. "That thing is a game changer. Human nacelle design, Vulcan engine, Andorian phaser and torpedo technology, Tellarite alloys for the hull. Everybody contributes what they're best at."

"It does sound like a good prospect," Lorian agreed. "But even then we are probably still only matching the warbirds and be reminded that we first have to build it."

"All true," Trip conceded. "But look at what we have now. The only ships able to match them are Vulcan Suurok class cruisers and there are only eighteen of those in service. So far we've gone up with sticks against spiked clubs, but this thing is a hammer of war."

"Maybe we should name them accordingly," Lorian remarked dryly cocking his eyebrow. "Aren't you selling ourselves short though? We've won two of the recent battles even though at great cost."

"We've won them because they still had their ridiculous cloaking devices in the ships," Trip disagreed. "Do you really think they'll leave them in any longer and make the same mistake a third time? Maybe in a few reconnaissance ships, but for the fighting force, they'd be stark raving mad not to take them out."

"Probably not," Lorian surrendered to the logic of his father. "Let's hope this new ship is as good as you make it sound."

"Trust me on that," Trip said enthusiastically.

"Have you thought about the consequences?" Lorian asked. "This ship will be your brainchild. If you would be in charge of Starfleet, who would you appoint Captain of the construction facility and later the prototype?"

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"Even though I'm only half-Vulcan, I sometimes suffer a moment of logic, father," Lorian explained dead-pan. "You will most likely be promoted to Captain. You are overdue anyway. The logical choice for captaincy of the prototype is the man who designed and built it."

"I've talked my way out of commanding Enterprise," Trip reasoned.

"You can't run away forever," Lorian said, shaking his head. "As the man heading the project to build the ship, you'll have to take command of the building facility. You cannot do that as a Commander. And Starfleet won't have two Captains stationed on the same ship, which means you and mother will both end up commanding a ship – but not the same one."

"You're probably right," Trip sighed. "I hope Starfleet keeps us at least in the same fleet. I knew the day would come anyway. With our bond more or less mature and completed now, not even the Vulcans can keep claiming that we need to be on the same ship. After all, others don't have that luxury either."

"Indeed."

"Report!" Malcolm barked as he ran onto the battle bridge of Buran.

"Commodore Archer has ordered the fleet to Galorndon Core," Tholos reported and vacated the big chair. "It appears that a Romulan squadron has invaded the system."

"We are being hailed for fleet-wide announcement," Sonos announced calmly and put it on the screen after a nod from his Captain.

"To all fleet," Archer, whose face filled the view screen, announced. "Four hours ago forces of the Romulan Star Empire have invaded the Galorndon system and destroyed the xeno-ecological science colony on Galorndon Core using nuclear fission weapons. All one hundred and thirty thousand civilian inhabitants were killed instantly. The reconnaissance ship UCS Sokrates, which sent us this information, was lost with all hands."

"They are going to pay for this," Malcolm muttered and the determined faces around convinced him that most of his bridge crew thought the same.

"Thirty minutes ago, United Earth Government declared war on the Romulan Star Empire," Archer continued. "The Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite governments have also declared the state of war as per article 5 of the Coalition Charter. We are at war. Godspeed everybody."

"Lieutenant Tholos, have you familiarized yourself with the war time measures developed by Captain T'Pol and Commander Tucker?" Malcolm asked once the view-screen had gone dark. "If so, give me the short version."

"All personnel working in outer hull regions are to wear EVA suits with extended oxygen supply at all times," Tholos started to recite without even looking at his display. Obviously the seasoned warrior had done his homework. "All enlisted personnel and junior officers will bunk in two- or four man quarters. The quarters near the armory are to be vacated and converted to additional torpedo storage. My second in command, Ensign Matura will be assigned Chief Weapons Officer with a brevet promotion to Lieutenant."

"Good," Malcolm answered with an appreciative nod. "Have Matura implement these measures on the double. We'll be at Galorndon core in less than 12 hours. I want us to be ready to go in no more than eight hours."

"Aye, sir."

"Great, our job has just become a little more urgent," Trip sighed after hearing Archer's announcement. Since until their arrival in Earth orbit both ships were still assigned to First Fleet, they had gotten the same transmission as Buran, but with a slight subspace delay. He felt the rage build up inside him.

"It was inevitable," T'Pol said calmly and refrained from putting a soothing hand on his shoulder. As much as she wanted to do that; They were on the bridge and such a display would be unseemly in full view of their bridge crew.

"Permission to leave the bridge?" Trip requested with a fierce scowl.

"For what purpose?" T'Pol asked, even though she had a fairly clear idea what his reasons were.

"I just got an inspiration to get this ship built sooner rather than later," Trip said and pointed angrily at the view screen, which hand already gone black. "We can start the final planning here. No need to wait until we're back home."

"Granted," T'Pol acknowledged. "It would be prudent to include the Vulcan engineers in your planning from the start."

"That's what I had in mind," Trip said and briskly walked off the bridge.

"All measures have been implemented, Captain," Tholos announced, relaying the incoming report from (now) Lieutenant Matura. "They are currently running final diagnostics on the phase cannons."

"Excellent, Lieutenant," Malcolm answered and sat back in his chair. He reckoned that pacing around would make the bridge crew even more nervous than they already were. The tension was palpable the nearer they came to the Galorndon system. Long range scans had shown a veritable belt of debris around Galorndon core that could not be from the destroyed Sokrates alone. Something terrible had happened and if the reports about the use of fission weapons were true, it wasn't too difficult to work it out. These devilish things had been banned on Earth since the end of World War III for a reason.

"Reed to Doctor Phlox," Malcolm intoned calmly while pressing the com button on his captain's chair.

"Phlox here," came the reply and Malcolm had to overcome a moment of confusion. It would take some time of getting used to the fact that a call for Doctor Phlox was answered by a female voice – that of one of his wives.