What Price Honor?
Chapter One
SCIENCE LAB, E-DECK
1/15/2151 1804 HOURS
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed turned the metal fragment over in his hands, brushing away some of the dirt clinging to it as he did so. It was roughly the size and shape of a brick, a thick, dull gray-colored mass that he'd fully expected would weigh about the same as titanium. When he picked it up, though, he was surprised to discover it was significantly less heavy -- literally as light as a feather. An unusual alloy, one that had already proven resistant -- in fact, impervious -- to the usual battery of scans.
Scattered on the table in front of him were a dozen or so metal fragments identical to the one in his hand -- debris the landing party had brought back from the ruins of the Sarkassian outpost to analyze. Standing behind him were Crewmen Duel and Perkins, whom the captain had assigned to help him.
Normally this kind of scientific analysis would have been out of Reed's field of expertise. But Captain Archer had agreed with him that a different approach to analyzing the material -- an approach that focused on determining what sort of weapons could have destroyed it -- ... read full excerpt from: Star Trek: Enterprise: What Price Honor? ebook
