Time's Enemy
Beyond the Fury, history hides the birth of terror!

Time's Enemy is a Pocket DS9 novel – #16 in the numbered series, and the third book in the Invasion! series – written by L.A. Graf. Published by Pocket Books, it was first released in .

Sisko, Dax, and Bashir are called to Starbase One after a future version of the Defiant, embedded in an asteroid, is found near Earth. Aboard the ship, they discover the remains of the crew and something else they weren't expecting to find…

Summary 
From the book jacket
Millenia ago, an apocalyptic battle was fought in the Alpha Quadrant. The losers were banished, but what became of the victors?

The Federation is threatened by this ancient mystery when a battered and broken version of the  is found, frozen for five thousand years, in an icy cloud of cometary debris. Captain Sisko and the crew of Deep Space 9 are summoned to answer the most baffling question of their lives: how and when will their ship be catapulted back through time to its destruction? And does its ancient death mean that one of the combatants in a primordial battle is poised now to storm the Alpha Quadrant? Only the Bajoran wormhole holds the answer – and the future of the Federation itself may depend on the secrets it conceals.

Memorable quotes 
"I thought we were dealing with a nonmilitary emergency? Otherwise, wouldn't Admiral Hayman have asked us to come in the Defiant instead of a high-speed courier?"
"Admirals never ask anything, doctor."
 - Doctor Bashir and Captain Sisko

"Constable, we've got Sisko gone for who knows how many days while the Bajoran Resistance builds a bomb right under our noses, and you're worried about an asteroid fragment that destroyed itself when it entered the star system? All our problems should be so easy."
 - Major Kira, to Odo

"So can I guess what level EM field you're scanning for?"
"Rom… Has it occurred to you that surveillance requires a certain amount of discretion?"
"I won't tell anyone!"
"If we stand here having this discussion much longer, there won't be many people on the station that don't already know!"
 - Rom and Major Kira

"What have you got, chief?"
"Nothing. They used a security bypass to override the lockouts and access the main computer. I thought maybe I could backtrack their work and figure out what they'd been looking at, but they wiped the volatile buffer when they were finished."
"You Bajorans! You never listen! I told them they'd have to disconnect the bypass, then wipe the volatile buffer. Otherwise the backwash from the buffer imprints the last few megs of its memory onto the bypass circuit."
"Anything else about this group you'd like to tell us?"
"Uh… they're irritable about people being in their room when they're not here?"
 - Major Kira, Chief O'Brien, and Rom

"Antagonizing a Starfleet admiral isn't what most people would consider a wise career move, doctor."
 - Captain Sisko, to Doctor Bashir

Background information 
 This novel takes place between  and .
 L.A. Graf writers Julia Ecklar and Karen Rose Cercone consider Time's Enemy to be their best novel. ()
Mary F. Taylor wrote of the novel "The threat of disaster drove the story, which moved relentlessly onward from the opening pages. This is a true 'can't put it down' sort of book." (Adventures in Time and Space, p 237)
 This novel suggests that the Defiants design was one of a kind and was not used as a standard starship class. However, this predates appearances of the class in  and subsequent DS9 episodes.

Characters

Regular and recurring characters 
Benjamin Sisko  Starfleet captain, the CO of Deep Space 9.
 Kira Nerys
 Odo
 Julian Bashir
 Jadzia Dax
 Quark
 Jake Sisko
 Miles O'Brien
 Rom
 Winn Adami
 Michael Eddington
 Alynna Nechayev

References 
Alpha Quadrant; Andorian; auto-destruct; Badlands; Bajor; Bajoran; Bajoran history; Bajoran Resistance; Bajoran wormhole; Cardassian; Cardassian vole; cloaking device; dabo; ; Deep Space 9; ; ; docking pylon; Dominion; DNA; ; Ferengi; ; Gamma Quadrant; hull breach; isoboramine; Jem'Hadar; Klingon; Lethean; Occupation of Bajor; Professor; Quark's; ; Romulan; runabout; ; ; Starfleet; Starfleet Academy; subspace; tractor beam; Trill; Trill symbiont; Trill (planet); United Federation of Planets; viewscreen; Vulcan; Vulcan Science Academy; warp core; wormhole
  Frozen dessert with coffee and/or chocolate flavorings originating with the Argelians.
Unclean  Ancient enemy of the Furies and the cause of the 'demonic' races defeat. The Unclean are a insectoid viroid species that consume organic matter and live in a hive society. Genetic material of their prey is added to their bodies and used to enhance themselves. Their bodies are so durable that they can survive in the vacuum of space and are capable of surviving phaser strikes.

External link 
 

cs:Time's Enemy
de:Der Feind der Zeit
Novels