This is a multi-chapter adventure set before season three. I hope you will enjoy reading it and will leave a few comments.
Grateful thanks to my beta readers, Gabi2305 and RoaringMice.
§ 1 §
"Mayday! Come in, Enterp…"
Smoke. Choking, burning, thick.
Fire.
Better than drowning? Will find out soon. "Enterprise, come in!"
Heat, rising.
Increase the bloody descent vector, get the damn thing down on solid ground… Too fast! Well, Lieutenant, which will it be, death on impact, by choking or consumed by fire?
Fire. Hot, crackling, closer.
Forget it! Can't lift your hands off the controls…
Fire, crackling. A camp, a starry night. Long ago. England.
Never to… Don't go there!
Open fields… a wood in the distance… low mountains on one side… no settlements…
Could be worse. At least you won't kill anyone - beside yourself.
Fire. Scorching. Searing pain.
Don't let go! Too fast, too bleeding fast!
Touchdown. Hard. Sliding.
Stop, dammit! STOP!
Fire. Scalding. Singeing.
Where is that ocean for drowning?
Smoke.
Open the hatch...
Shadows, dancing.
Don't collapse…not yet... not…
Soft. Cool. Alien blue grass.
Bluegrass… ridiculous Yankee music. Trip…
Enterprise…
"What do you mean it disappeared?"
As Archer slowly swivelled to the left he carefully controlled his tone to keep it level with that of T'Pol's composed announcement, only slipping on the last word. But he was human after all, and could not quite project his First Officer's perceived serenity; he never managed to, when members of his crew may be in serious trouble. Just remember Vulcans keep their emotions well hidden, he reminded himself, quelling his annoyance as she provided the usual calm and precise answer to his question.
"The shuttle is no longer in visual range, nor is it being detected by sensors."
The lovely lips said the words as if the subject were a worthless asteroid, instead of a manned vessel. Archer's eyes tracked from them to the gaze above, and there, finally, he saw the trace of disquiet that reassured him that even Vulcans had a heart of flesh.
"Hoshi?" he prompted, knowing that's all he needed to say to the sensitive linguist.
Seconds ticked by as the Communication Officer tried to contact the pod.
"Nothing, Sir."
By contrast, Hoshi's voice was thickly coated with tension.
Archer pursed his lips. "Full stop, Travis."
"Aye, Sir." The helmsman's hands flew over the controls, and suddenly there was silence.
Rising from his chair, the Captain went up to the science station. "Any idea what happened?"
Before T'Pol could answer, a well-known voice rang out.
"Tucker to the Bridge. What's goin' on, Capt'n? Why have we pulled to the curb?"
Archer reached out and pressed the comm. link on T'Pol's station. "Shuttlepod Two has disappeared," he said. Without thinking, he had repeated the preposterous words, and Trip's response was an outraged and predictable 'what-do-you-mean-disappeared' that echoed his own previous one.
"I don't know, Trip. We're working on it. Archer out."
Archer closed the link, not minding being a bit abrupt. Trip would have to accept it; right now his focus was on their Science Officer, whom he silently questioned with narrowed eyes.
"Sensors did not show any deflagration, nor are they registering a debris field," T'Pol said in her calm, professional tone. "It is logical to think the vessel is still intact, only, for some reason, impossible to detect."
As she added that, her voice gradually acquired rounder edges, and Archer knew it wasn't only in deference to her human colleagues' concern over the man inside that vanished pod. There was empathy in it. Two years in close contact with a human crew had changed this Vulcan.
The turbo lift door opened and Trip Tucker marched out. "Disappeared how?" he asked without preamble, to no one and everyone.
Archer turned to him. He had long been Trip's best friend, but recently he had wondered more than once if he wasn't now sharing that title with one Malcolm Reed. Nearly freezing to death together on Shuttlepod One had had that unexpected coda for Trip and Malcolm. Their friendship was as solid as it was implausible, given how different the two officers were; but maybe that was what made it so special.
"It's not on sensors," Archer simply replied. "We cannot see it – visually or otherwise."
Trip looked from him to T'Pol, as if expecting a better explanation. "Could it have become cloaked, somehow?" he went on to ask when none came.
"It is a possibility," T'Pol said, cocking her head. "I will need time to analyse the problem," she added, to the Captain.
Archer acknowledged with a nod. "Keep hailing him, Hoshi," he instructed.
Three heart beats, one intake of breath.
His pulse filled his senses. Malcolm could feel it very clearly: thumping at the base of his throat, drumming in his ears, throbbing under the limp arm across his chest. It was a powerful reminder that all was not well, and he wished he could shut it out. But that seemed impossible; so, deciding to go with the flow instead of against it, he focused on it, hoping it would at least help him ignore the biting pain in his left arm and shoulder; in his side too.
He should open his eyes. Take stock of his situation. Because his mind might be in cottonwool but he knew that he wasn't on Enterprise - he couldn't tell how he knew, but he did. How difficult could it be to crack his eyes open? Good gracious, right now it seemed to require energy he didn't feel he had -- or was it courage? He wasn't sure he wanted to look and see in just how much trouble he had landed himself.
Landed. Landing. Fire.
A moan escaped him as the memory of his rough landing in a shuttlepod on fire assaulted his sluggish brain. He shifted ever so slightly on his back, and pain sank in its ruthless teeth. Clenching his jaw against it, he choked back a cry, but it went on echoing all the same in his mind, nightmarish, distorted. He felt himself slipping away, into nothingness, spiralling down… but the thought that this might be it, that its embrace might be the final one, was far too frightening.
Fight it, fight it... Focus: two intakes of breath every three heart beats now - his breathing had picked up speed. He pictured blips and spikes on Phlox's medical monitor. How long before the line became flat? Because he really was too weak to fight. He felt like someone hanging over the edge of a cliff, whose grip is slipping. Letting go didn't sound like such a bad idea after all.
A rustling sound, something cool on his forehead, soft words he could not understand.
He cracked his eyes open. A figure was bent over him.
TBC