Star Trek Enterprise Broken Bow

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Printed in the U.S.A.

Parts of this novelization were written aboard

the topsail schoonerPride of Baltimore II

during the American Sail Training Association

Great Lakes Tall Ship Challenge of 2001.

—D. Carey

Ship’s Cook

Contents

PROLOGUE.5

CHAPTER 1.7

CHAPTER 2.9

CHAPTER 3.15

CHAPTER 4.21

CHAPTER 5.24

CHAPTER 6.28

CHAPTER 7.35

CHAPTER 8.37

CHAPTER 9.43

CHAPTER 10.49

CHAPTER 11.55

CHAPTER 12.62

CHAPTER 13.64

CHAPTER 14.68

CHAPTER 15.71

CHAPTER 16.75

CHAPTER 17.77

CHAPTER 18.79

BEHIND THE SCENES OFENTERPRISE..81

About the e-Book.91

PROLOGUE

THERE WAS NO WIND, yet there was a rush. the starship was fast, faster than anything, ever. That

was the rule. Just from the speed, the bad guys would be too scared to pick a fight. When they saw it go,

then, all of a sudden, just magically couldn’t see it anymore, they’d know to back off.

Back away, because I’m going. I’m going...

“... where no man has gone before.”

Prrrrsssshoooom!

Sure, it was just a paintbrush, but it made the perfect sound, the soft whisk of a starship’s superengines,

just the way Jonathan heard it in his head, over and over, the way Dad described the sound—the rush of

possibilities. Anything could happen! Space—the final frontier!

“Doctor Cochrane would be proud of you,” Dad said, instead ofgive me the brush before you paint

your own nose.

“I know the whole speech by heart,” Jonathan said.

“Watch out! You’re painting over the cockpit windows.”

Jonathan Archer glanced up athis dad and muttered, “Sorry,” and drew back the paintbrush. Before

them on the porch table, where Mom hated them to spill anything, was a good reason to spill. The ship

was almost finished—a shipbuilder’s scale model, one of a kind, because Dad was the builder. Jonathan

knew he was the only kid on Earth, in the whole universe and even on Mars Colony, who had a model

like this. It was only his because Dad didn’t need it anymore, not for planning, anyway.

Jonathan surveyed the ventral plates and complained in his head that the dove-wing paint didn’t quite

match the gunmetal of the nacelle housings.

But the model wasn’t suffering any, except for maybe a little overshoot from his brush on the starboard

side. Jonathan was more embarrassed that he might keep the crew from seeing some important thing in

space. And let the captain down. Captains had to be able to see everything and know everything. It was

the crew’s job to help him.Someday I’ll be a heck of a crewman, on this ship! I’ll make sure the

captain knows everything. He won’t take a step without me.

The boy pressed his lips together and didn’t say that out loud. He knew what he wanted, and he would

get it. Decision made.

Sunlight poured through the sunporch windows. San Francisco’s skyline glittered and enhanced the light

shining on the model of the starship. Jonathan was an important person, because otherwise, why would

somebody as famous as his father let him work on the actual builder’s model of the starship?

Starship ...

For a few minutes he and his dad were silent as Jonathan put touches of the darker gray on the

featureless white nacelles. He saw his dad’s hand twitch, itching to take the brush away and do this

himself, but Jonathan leaned closer, signaling that he was determined to be careful and get it right. This

was one of those things parents were just croaking to do themselves, but knew they’d be bad kid-raisers

if they didn’t let their kid try. So Jonathan was ahead. He was almost ten, and he had parents figured out.

“When’s it gonna be ready to fly?” he asked his father.

“Let the paint dry first.”

“No, I meanyour ship.”

Dad shrugged, but his eyes gleamed. “Not for a while ... it hasn’t even been built yet.”

“How big will it be?”

“Pretty big.”

Jonathan immediately began weighing comparisons in his head. As big as a Starfleet troop transport? As

big as the Universe Planetarium?

“Bigger than Ambassador Pointy’s ship?”

Dad opened the can of blue paint and Jonathan dipped the brush.

“His name is Soval,” Dad said, “and he’s been very helpful, and I’ve told you not to call him that. Get

the leading edge of the nacelle.”

Nacelles ... the magic of faster-than-light drive! Zephram Cochrane’s big discovery would take men to

the stars—us,on our own, without any help from pointers. We had it before they found us, so we could

take credit for getting ourselves into space. That was fair. We were coming, and they would have to live

with it.

“Billy Cook said we’d be flying at warp five by now if the Vulcans hadn’t kept things from us,” he

dared.

He knew he was venturing into sensitive territory now, but an explorer had to gamble.

“They have their reasons,” Dad said, holding back. Then more slipped out. “God knows what they are.

...”

Jonathan lowered the paintbrush so fast that the stick hit the edge of the table and spat a blue decoration

on the ship’s stand. He turned sharply, bluntly. “What? What reasons? You always say that! You always

say, ‘They must have some good reason,’ but you never tell me what. I’m ten, and it’s time!”

Dad tried not to laugh, then chuckled anyway, and bobbed his brows. “You’re nine.”

“Nine and three-quarters! If I’m old enough to ask, then I’m old enough to get told something, and not

just, ‘Well, it’s mysterious.’ Why won’t they help? We would help them!I would help!”

Dad’s smile faded to something else. He leaned forward, hunched his shoulders, and gazed directly, in a

way that made Jonathan feel important.

Then, all at once, Dad started talking—butreally talking, really saying something, as if he had started

speaking to another grown-up all of a sudden.

“I haven’t been very fair to you, have I?” he considered. “Treating you the way the Vulcans treat humans

... the way they’ve treated me. ... I’ve been assuming that I’d be the one to decide when you were ready

to know things, assuming you don’t have anything to offer because you’re ... you’re ...”

Jonathan flared his arms and spat the word. “Primitive?”

The interruption got just the reaction he wanted. Dad smiled, rolled his eyes, flushed pink in the face, and

got embarrassed. For an instant, Jonathan felt as if he looked a lot like his dad—the sun-dipped brown

hair, the same brown eyes, pretty good smile that crinkled his eyes, friendly face, not enough of a tan.

And the same flicker behind the gaze, like maybe they were both smarter than the next guy about certain

things, even if the next guy was each other.

“Primitive ...” Henry Archer murmured. It was a mocking word, one the Vulcans used a lot, till it was

more like a joke.

The sadness in Dad’s face, though—it hurt them both. Jonathan shrugged a little, not knowing what to

say, but his feelingswere hurt. His dad had done everything a human could do to prove that we were

ready for space, just as good as the Vulcans or whatever slimers were out there, and still the pointers

wouldn’t teach the important stuff, like they thought we were just puppies in clothes who couldn’t learn.

They knew how to swim, but wouldn’t teach us. They wanted humans to half-drown, like some kind of

punishment, then learn to swim on our own, and if we almost drowned, well, then they’d step in, maybe,

and be heroes for saving us. What kind of friend is that, to think your friends are less than you in the

universe? Some friends. Couldn’t they see, just from working with people like Dad and Zephram

Cochrane? When Starfleet came around, didn’t they get it that we were serious? Didn’t they see how

much wewanted to go? Couldn’tthey learn? Couldn’t theydream?

So who was primitive, and who wasn’t?

If Ican make a person like Dad be honest with me, then I can do it with other people, too. I’ll

think about this later, and figure out what I did right. Then I’m gonna use it on somebody. I’ll

make the Vulcans talk!

And I’ll make them say they’re sorry to you, Bad. Because they should be.

As if hearing Jonathan’s thoughts, Dad stood up and tapped the lid back on the blue paint. Then he

reached for Jonathan’s hand.

“Come on, son.”

Jonathan took a leaping step, because he knew. “Where’re we going?”

“To the Spacedock.” Dad drew a long breath and nodded in agreement with himself. “It’s time for you

to see the real thing.”

CHAPTER 1

Thirty Years Later ...

OKL’HMA!

Failed! I have smashed my craft, and now I flee to live!

Die here? In rows of weeds and seeds? This is no way to die! Suliban! The savage pawns must not have

what I know. Escape is not cowardice! Run!

Thus he ran from the smelling wreck of a noble craft that had carried him so far, whose flawed intakes

he had not been able to mend in time. The wreck would distract them. It was Klingon to its core and it

would serve till the end, spewing a curtain of smoke to hide him in the stalks.

Who was on this planet? Who had made the stalks into rows as tidy as amOghklyk’s spine plait? What

beasts were here who built the land into squares, the buildings into squares, and the fences into squares?

Were they also square?

Klaang ran, ran like a fear-driven child, but with anger also, which kept him leaping harder with each

step. The gravity here—he could run faster than on Qo’noS. His bulky body served better here and

seemed young again. He knew he was big, even for a Klingon, but here he sensed an advantage. Suliban

animals would lose him in this weed field.

Then the blasts began, and he knew he was wrong. The stalks beside him burst into flame and withered,

blackened. A glance over his shoulder told him they were after him even through the smoke and weeds.

He saw their mottled faces, heard their weapons, and sensed their insult.

“Hah!” A burst of new energy, driven by the stink of burning plants, drove him faster toward the square

buildings he had seen as his craft rushed overhead to its death. A good death in battle for a good old

craft, to go ferociously into the dust and flame with scars of Suliban attack. The future would know about

it.

The Suliban weapons spat bitter fire at Klaang as he ran. The alien countryside lit up in great expanses.

Ridiculously, he tilted toward each shot; escape would be preferred, but if there was no escape, he

wanted to die boldly. He was running to save the mission, after all, not himself. His conscience and his

duty were in conflict.

But to die with Suliban disruption in theback —who would tell how it really had been for him? Why he

died with wounds in his back?

Could he run backward?

He was about to try when a port opened in the nearest building and an alien emerged, bright in the face

and round in the body, with hairless chin and narrow shoulders and cloth on its head. Shock broke

across its expression, and it disappeared back into the swinging port.

Klaang angled away from that building and went for the silver tower to the side. It was windowless and

tall, suggesting an inner confusion and a possibility of darkness in which to conceal himself.

The door was large enough for him, made of thin metal and bracings. He pushed it shut and slammed the

rod that obviously bolted the door.

Would Suliban be stopped? Klaang stepped back into the darkness and looked at the door. A thin

sliver of light around the perimeter proved the door was not tight. Suliban would flatten through it.

He had seen the disgusting sight before. He began to feel his way around, and found a ladder.

By the time he heard the Suliban dislocating their skeletal structure to melt under the door—actually, he

heard their shuffles as they reassembled, but in his mind he saw the meltdown—he was bursting out

another door, high in the silver tower. Another roof!

Yes, he had seen this nearby small building, and now it was here to help him! He held his breath, and

leaped.

His soles slammed onto the tiny roof, breaking the plated material that warded off weather. In his mind,

he endured a quick guess about what kind of weather would come to a place like this.

Then he was on the ground again. He lost balance for a moment as he spun around and drew his

disruptor. Now! He would get a shot at them! They were inside that port he had just come from, trapped

in the metal tower! A disruptor shot would charge those metal walls and force the Suliban out the other

end, where Klaang would be waiting for them!

He leveled his disruptor and fired a single salvo at the open portal he had just come from.

Rather than a simple charge, what came out was a gout of sheer fireball. The tower rumbled at its base,

then blew to splinters with a great throbbing roar.

Explosives! Why would these aliens keep volatiles in a field of stalks?

Klaang staggered, shocked, blown backward by the unexpected detonation. He stared at the instantly

burning wreckage and wondered why a simple tower would get a noble death, just for hiding volatiles.

But the Suliban would have no more interest in him. Not those two Suliban.

“Top ryterr!”

Momentarily confused, Klaang stumbled and turned to see the slope-shouldered alien now standing two

steps from him, with a weapon aimed at Klaang’s breastplate.

“Aymeenut!”the alien cried.

Klaang tried to make sense of the sounds, which seemed to have some Klingon inflections, but he made

much more of the stance.“Rognuh pagh goH! Mang juH!”

Would the alien understand his warning?

The alien’s face crinkled.“May’v nodea mityer sning, muttay gerrentee i nowow tuze iss!”

Why had this creature interfered in the quarrel of others? What kind of people were these? In a rage of

insult and irritation, Klaang slapped his thighs and ranted,“HIch ghaH! Oagh DoO!”

He was about to spit out his further opinion, when the alien proved him completely wrong by opening

fire.

An energy stream bolted from the weapon and caught Klaang in the chest. As he sailed through the light

and bright air to the place where he would die in the stalks, he silently thanked the interesting alien for a

wound in front. At least future ages would know he hadn’t died running.

CHAPTER 2

Starfleet Spacedock

Earth orbit

SPACEDOCK WAS A TECHNOLOGICAL WONDER. Built in space of geodesic parts assembled

on Earth and expanded to full size in space, the shimmering silver dock soared in orbit around a glowing

blue planet marbled with white clouds, an image almost religious in its mystical beauty. Within the

enormous open structure buzzed a tiny workpod, moving like an insect around the elegant gray-blue

body of the planet’s first faster-than-light deep-space cruiser.

Together, as the pod maneuvered around the orbital inspection pod and under the rim of a gigantic

blue-gray saucer, the two men inside watched through a small ceiling portal as a string of hull bolts

breezed past in orderly fashion.

“Well, Trip, ol’ boy, it’s an unwritten law in these parts that every starship’s got to have a country boy

on board or it ain’t going to fly right.”

“You’re makingfun of me,” Engineer Charles Tucker noted.

“Darn right I am, pardner.” Captain Jonathan Archer smiled, completely content in the moment. “If I

didn’t take it out on you, I’d probably go ballistic in the face of some Vulcan dignitary or an admiral or a

ship’s cook or somebody important.”

“Are you saying I’m not important!”

“Why would I say that? You’re the country boy.”

“Can an engineer tell a captain to shut the heck up?”

“Sure. ‘Shut the heck up—’ ”

“Sir!”they finished together. Their laughter rang through the cramped cockpit. Sounded good. They

didn’t hurry to stop.

Archer held his gaze on his younger friend a few moments longer than necessary. Tucker was trying to

be nonchalant about the new ship’s imminent launch, but the veil was thin. He was just as excited as

Archer, but Archer didn’t feel obliged to hide his near-giddiness at just being here, skimming across this

ship, at this time in history. The two weren’t quite nine years apart in age, and between Archer’s

boyishness and Tucker’s pretending to be a grown-up at least half the time, Archer figured that put them

pretty close. Of all the newly assigned crew, they’d been together the longest, from the design stage to

fitting-out of the new warp-speed ship. The new ship hovered above them in Spacedock, as comfortable

as an eagle in its aerie, being tended, coddled, and preened by devoted minions in extravehicular suits,

none quite as consumed with wonder as the proud captain himself.

“I wish Dad could’ve seen this. ...”

At his side, Tucker let his bright grin soften to a misty understanding. “Everybody does, John. Some

things just aren’t gonna come out fair. I don’t think anybody in Starfleet’ll ever quite forgive the Vulcans

for stalling.”

“The worst part is how they pretend they didn’t,” Archer commented drably, “as if we’re too silly to

know the difference. I’ve been waiting thirty years for them to open up, and it’s never really happened.

They just keep dangling that carrot.”

With one hand on the helm controls, Tucker held out the other palm and said, “But look what we’ve

done anyway. There she is!”

Archer smiled, heartened, and drew a deep breath. “Yes, there she is. ...” He gazed for a moment at the

underbelly of the meaty, stubborn-looking ship’s wide saucer section, then turned a grateful regard to

Tucker. “With you around, who needs a ship’s doctor?”

“We do.” Tucker whirled the inspection pod around sharply as they came to the neck section and

speared downward toward the nacelles. Beneath, the planet Earth gleamed mightily in a sheen of sunlight

that made Spacedock glitter. The old Earth and the new ship moved together through the solar system

that had given them both life. Magic!

“The ventral plating team says they’ll be done in about three days,” Tucker offered when he saw where

Archer’s eyes were leading.

“Make sure they match the color to the nacelle housings.”

“Planning to sit on the hull and pose for postcards?”

“Maybe.” Archer smiled again, and sighed happily. “God, she’s beautiful. ...”

“And fast! Warp four point five on Thursday!”

Archer shivered with awe. “Neptune and back in six minutes! Let’s take a look at the lateral sensor

array.”

Star Trek Enterprise Broken Bow

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