I don't own Star Trek, but I do own the Hyperdrive and time travel idea. Some ideas are from Stargate and from Doctor Who.

Hyperspace. - The Journey.

Flight of the Phoenix.

Zefram Cochrane felt as if his heart had plummeted into his intestines, which was understandable considering this was his first time in space. Cochrane hated flying, he preferred train travel. He was strapped into his pilot seat after being pushed into it by the gravity as the fuel rockets accelerated them into space, unable to move, and he felt as if the weight of History was sitting on top his puny human shoulders. He looked at the bright blue planet next to him, his mouth open and his eyes wide as he took in the incredible panorama he was seeing.

" Wow!" Cochrane gasped. The scientist thought back to the way he was before the launch of his ship, how drunk he was...stupid, small. How pathetic he was then. That was all going to change, from this point on he was going to change his life around.

Lily Sloane, his co-pilot, was following the same gaze as her friend. She'd been worried about Zef, how drunk he was, but now he seemed like a different person.

" It's so...cool," Lily said, hardly able to find the right words to describe what she was feeling.

" Yeah," Cochrane replied, glancing over at Lily. She was beautiful with her dark skin and eyes, but like most people born in the last 40 years, her life had had terrible disappointments. For a moment the scientist wondered what would come from the test flight, what consequences...would Man finally grow up, and leave the cradle on Earth? Would Man start peacefully explore the Universe? Cochrane hoped so, and he hoped the ECON would be disbanded soon when the discovery of space flight was made.

" Okay," Cochrane said, looking over his three man crew which consisted of himself and Lily and Mark Hardy, their engineer. Hardy, like Cochrane and Sloane, had never been in space before, but he looked like he needed to be pulled back to reality. " Lets bring the FLT drive online."

When Hardy realised that attention was bring drawn on him, he snapped out of his daze. Leaning over the console, he started to get to work. Cochrane smiled.

Half an hour later, the three man crew started making preparations to make the jump. Hardy was checking the systems, looking at the gauges and computer screens, " Plasma injectors - online, fusion bottles nominal. Taps activated with energy entering capacitor, we'll have to watch the taps Zef, it's still a prototype and I don't like the idea of an overload."

Zefram nodded, understanding the problem, " Yeah, okay. Keep an eye on the taps. If it looks like the levels too high, turn them off and we'll run on the fusion bottles."

Hardy nodded, and Cochrane considered the problem. It had taken him months to come up with the taps, but there were so many issues with them, and since Cochrane had had to work with substandard pieces of crap it was hardly his fault. Mark was right, the taps could be a hazard, and the last thing they needed on top of being in space was an overload or they'll never get home.

Lily was making the calculations for the jump. She was using the best computer she could've found, and it was lucky it was still in one piece. Carefully she inputted the data, and a few moments later the input was on the screen and accepted. " I've set the jump to take us past Mars." She said to Zefram and Mark, then she turned her attention to Mark, " Do you think there'll be any problem getting home?"

Even though the question was directed at Hardy it was Cochrane who answered, " As long as we don't go too far out of our solar system, we should be fine. Any further then there will be problems."

Lily didn't like that answer, " What if something goes wrong with the navigational computer?"

Cochrane took off his hat then he ran a hand through his short cropped hair. He'd heard this all before but he was so close to breaking the FLT barrier that any risk was acceptable. But like Mark and Lily even Cochrane had doubts, but this was all he had. He'd spent most of his life planning and building his engine.

" We do have a spare nav computer," he told them, trying to keep his patience. " But we need to keep focused, and we should be fine."

Not mollified the others looked at each other. Zefram didn't like the looks, " Charge the nacelles before there is a fault."

Snapped out of their staring contest, the other two co-pilots got back to work. After a few moments, Mark reported, " Nacelles fully charged, FTL drive ready."

Cochrane acknowledged him with a grunt, checking over his own instruments, " Let's do it then," He said with butterflies in his stomach. Lily gave a small but nervous smile. A philanthropist named Micah Brack had introduced Lily to Cochrane when the physicist had met with Brack and discussed with him the principles of his Faster than light drive ship. Lily and Cochrane had discussed the best way to design a practical vessel to test the drive, but the problem was technology and resources were limited due to the war that had left the planet in ruins. Electro-gravitic propulsion was impractical since Cochrane hadn't the resources to make the ship possible. The only way for the Phoenix to rise was to use rocket engines. Cochrane hadn't been overly pleased with the idea, but he knew there was no alternative. It took Sloane six months to scrounge for enough titanium just to simply build a cockpit, and another 5 months to build the field nacelles for the ship. Whilst she was on her self appointed mission, Lily had had time to reflect on the project, and she'd hoped the existence of Faster than light travel would help Mankind rise from the ashes, and put an end to the suffering Man had endured. But Lily knew that the scum of the Econ would love to extend it's hold on the rest of the galaxy. Unless something dramatic occurred to change all that.

The Phoenix, powered by the ion engines and the subspace field, sped away from the Earth, moving faster than any other ship. Subspace had been discovered in 2048, but the problems on Earth had been too great for anything other than theoretical ideas to be made. One of them was simply to use subspace to send communications even deeper into space, but others were to use it for space propulsion, but the means for that were seen as laughable. The Phoenix resembled a rocket from the outside, but there were differences. Instead of wings the ship had nacelles, two of them, which were on pylons held away from the hull of the ship. The Phoenix's history had been colorful; it had once been a nuclear missile. Zefram Cochrane had thought it ironic to use an instrument of mass destruction to create a new turning point in the history of the Human race.

Cochrane saw three forks in the junction; one, the Phoenix would be destroyed and with it any hope. Cochrane hoped that first option was far from reality, the Phoenix's hull was reinforced with titanium alloys that Cochrane had spent months perfecting. The experiments, both practical and theoretical, showed the journey time was instantaneous. But Cochrane wasn't exactly sure what the stress would do to the Phoenix. That old experiment had been with a probe, specially made and designed. The Phoenix was crude in comparison, the nuclear missile was fragile in comparison. It had taken the scientist months of hard work with Lily helping to use titanium alloys to strengthen the hull.

Two, the flight would be successful. It might also usher in a new era. The existence of other worlds and new civilisations should help erode the existence of ECON and other organisations like it.

But the third alternative was much more horrendous. The ECON might find the Phoenix and the FTL drive, and steal it. They might build a fleet of warships and go on a rampage in space. And Cochrane would be responsible for it.

Inside the cramped control cabin, Cochrane flicked more controls and checked the stability of the field strength. When he was satisfied with the readings, he ordered. " Engage."

The Phoenix's nacelles glowed blue as the subspace field increased in power. Space was warped as the two sides of the conduit were brought closer together. At the end of the field near the nosecone and a point where the field tapered, the elasticity of the subspace field acted like a slingshot. The Phoenix shot forward in a flash of blue light into the hyperspace window.

The hyperspace conduit journey time lasted for over a minute. The journey ended as soon as it started. The Phoenix shot out of the dimension quickly, the momentum carrying the small ship forward. Cochranes hands worked over the sublight controls, using the momentum to carry the ship forward but stopping it quickly.

" Throttle back," Sloane ordered.

The Phoenix turned around, showing on the transparent aluminium panels a small blue-green dot in the distant sky. All three Phoenix pilots gawped in awe as they saw the floating orb.

" Is that...Earth?" Lily asked in a reverent whisper. Cochrane said nothing, with his heart pounding in his chest he activated the hyperspace telescope, a smaller device similar in concept to the hyperspace drive he'd invented. It was a primitive version to what he expected to be created in the future, but it worked well enough when he used it to study the stars.

The screen came up with a view of the Earth, the digital view incongruous with the smaller orb seen in the cockpit windows. The three pilots could see the cloudy atmosphere over the Americas, Europe...they could see half of Africa but they couldn't yet see Asia.

Cochrane looked around the cockpit of his ship, checking the status monitors. He desperately wanted to find out the status of the engines, but his co-pilots were still gawping at the view of Earth. Hating himself for doing it, he switched off the screen and brought his friends back to the here and now.

" Alright," Cochrane said, holding off any protests with his hands. " Lets check her over. Can the hull take another jump?"

The question brought both co-pilots back to reality, along with realisation that if they jumped again then the hull could collapse like a paper bag. Lily checked over the hull, checking the strength. " The hull's okay." She reported after double checking her findings; she wanted to go home and she didn't want to die in a collapsing ship in hyperspace. Cochrane nodded, going over the data on his own console.

Hardy was checking the power taps into hyperspace. Since the journey had been finished the taps had been opened up even more, allowing a more uniform amount of energy to enter the ship. " The power taps are open even more Z, the trip through hyperspace has opened the matter bridge even more."

Cochrane had expected that, " I thought so. But do you think we can go back into hyperspace again? I don't fancy spending a year getting home."

Mark snickered lightly, but he knew that Cochrane's point was a valid one so he kept his humour to a minimum. " The hyperdrive looks okay, but I'm heading back into the engine compartment to take a look." He added, unstrapping himself. He grabbed a handle to steady himself as he floated upwards.

He'd opened up the engine compartment hatch when Cochrane floated towards him. " Take over here, Lily. Gather as much info on this sector as you can."

Lily nodded, focusing on the science consoles infront of her. She checked the screens and computer databases. The trip through hyperspace had already filled half the computer already, and the hyperspace telescopes were gathering tons of data on the outside of Earth's solar system.

Cochrane was feeling queasy as he and Mark Hardy floated inside the engine compartment and he held on with both of his hands on the handles that steadied his. The room just as cramped as the cockpit. Cochrane and his team had spent a lot of time gutting the missile of all the unwanted bits whilst keeping most of the components.

The hyperspace drive was a cylindrical device with an inverted cylindrical ovoid through it which glowed a bluish white. This was the hyperspace tap, a hole which siphoned energy off from the higher dimension. Cochrane watched as Mark examined the precious device, making suggestions as he watched his friend.

Zefram Cochrane had been working on the hyperspace drive for the good part of his life, starting out when he'd gathered information from the Linear Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The LHC had been online for a couple of years, and in that time it discovered much about the structure of the cosmos, including the higher dimensions. The universe was made up of 12 dimensions - 4 of which were known to Humans. Length, breadth, height and time. For a long time these extra dimensions were believed to exist only in theory, but quite a few scientists believed these dimensions, which were believed to be smaller than a single drop of water, and these dimensions also brought into existence the knowledge of numerous micro universes, including the substrate in space known as subspace. It was these micro universes that Zefram Cochrane devised his hyperdrive technology. The knowledge of how to access them was beyond modern physics, but Cochrane came across a propulsion theory devised by a physicist called Miguel Alcubierre, and it was a miracle too. Cochrane had spent years trying to work out how to better go about his plans to construct a hyperspace vessel. He pored over the numerous theoretical papers about previous faster than light engine designs, and then he discovered the warp drive theory and the wormhole theory. Taking his own hyperspace equations and the warp and wormhole equations, Cochrane was able to create a hyperspace engine. He tested it, sending a probe through a small closed off conduit in a lab before World War three truly exploded. The probe gathered tons of information, and Cochrane held that information, fearful that the ECON would kill him and use the hyperspace technology to destroy the world.

When he was in hiding as the bombs fell, Cochrane had time to kill. He spent a lot of time going over the probes data and discovered that hyperspace travel could be made on a planetary scale, and used for building hyperdrive engines for intergalactic travel, teleportation, hyperspace telescopes that used small versions of a conduit to make starcharts of incredible quality. Another discovery was the hyperspace tap, an energy source that reminded Zefram of hydroelectricity. It was similar too, the taps energy mode allowed high levels of energy to enter a circuit, and it was stable and renewable.

Excitedly, Cochrane studied the energy applications of hyperspace, and he discovered that a single drop of hyperspace energy held more power inside of it than the energy in a sun.

After the war ended, Cochrane spent the next ten years going over his notes, hoping to share them with other scientists still alive. His time in Montana gave him the opportunity to put his theories to work.

The locals had settled near a missile complex, and there was a massive nuclear missile in the complex, still working. Understandably, the locals were frightened that the bomb would go off, and they found Cochrane, who they knew to a be physicist and knew of their work. They found him in his caravan, going over his hyperdrive theories, and they told him about the missile, and Cochrane, knowing how scared they were, agreed to help them even though he knew he'd do most of the work in disarming the bomb. Taking a geiger counter, Cochrane went into the complex, and checked over the missile. The silo had everything he needed to disarm the missile; it had robots, disposal bays for the radioactive material. To be honest, Cochrane had his doubts that it could be done, but he went along anyway to satisfy his rampant curiosity. Zefram Cochrane made local history by becoming the first person since the war to actually enter the silo.

The visit was both fascinating and disappointing at the same time, fascinating to Cochrane but disappointing to the locals because the nuclear material couldn't be removed. Cochrane spent weeks going over the thing, and then it occurred to him; why should he wait for a convenient power source when he had one already? The plutonium was fine, it was perfect for creating a small hole into hyperspace and allowing energy to trickle into the tap. The scientist had then spent the next few years going over his designs, working with people like Lily and Mark into building a hyperspace ship.

Now this.

Mark looked up from his work, " It looks good."

Cochrane smiled. It was time to go home.