With the mindless destruction of over seven million people, Starfleet and the crew of the Enterprise must face the fact that someone is willing to destroy the Earth and all of her people.High above the planet Earth, an alien probe appears and in an unspeakably horrific instant, releases a deadly blast that strafes the planet's surface, leaving a miles-wide, smoldering crater of destruction in its wake. Millions die in Florida, Cuba, and Venezuela, their lives blotted out in a blazing millisecond. Just as swiftly, the probe implodes and crashes on the planet surface, but the remnants provide no clue as to its origin. Who are the attackers, and what provoked them? Aboard the Starship Enterprise, Captain Jonathan Archer learns of the destruction. But before Enterprise reaches Earth, Archer is abruptly kidnapped from the bridge by the time-traveling enemies he has encountered before. He finds himself aboard a Suliban vessel, face-to-face with his old nemesis, Silik, a high-ranking individual in a battle known only as the Temporal Cold War. Silik leads him to his master, a mysterious humanoid from the far future. The humanoid claims that the attack on Earth was just a test; and the next attack will destroy Archer's home planet...unless he and the Enterprise crew stop it. Vulcan crews were driven to bloodthirsty madness, Klingon crews were anatomically inverted, their internal organs exposed outside their bodies...while they still lived. Many vessels were lost, never to be heard from again. And can he convince Starfleet Command and the Vulcan High Council to let Enterprise go to face her biggest challenge?