The Keeper
By: Dorothy Lee
Chapter One
"Owww! Damnit!" Charles Tucker swore under his breath, shaking his burnt hand. He was sprawled out up under the transporter control console, a variety of tools lying spread out beside him. Smoke was curling up from the circuit relay that had just shorted out, showering him with white-hot sparks and blistering the inside of his right hand.
For the past four hours he'd been trying to get the transporter back on line, after a plasma storm knocked out the main power grid. They were scheduled to come into orbit around a Minshara Class planet in less than twelve hours and Captain Archer had told him to make, getting the transporter working, his first priority. The rest of his engineering crew was scattered throughout the ship fixing all the other systems that had been affected by the storm. He'd decided to take on the task of fixing the transporters himself.
The comm on the wall beeped suddenly, causing him to hit his head on an overhead panel as he scrambled to his feet. Rubbing his sore head, Tucker moved over to the comm, slapping it with his good hand. "Yeah! What is it?!" He answered; irritation mixed with anger in his voice. It was obvious that he was in a very cranky mood.
On the bridge, Captain Jonathon Archer sensed his chief engineer's exasperation as well. He saw Ensign Hoshi out of the corner of his eye looking up from her communications console, painfully aware that she, as well as the rest of the bridge personnel, had heard the Commanders unorthodox reply. Even though the crew enjoyed a more relaxed discipline under his command, he still tried to stress to his senior officers the importance of maintaining a certain code of conduct; if only for the purpose of keeping respect among the men and women under their authority. Knowing his chief engineer better than anyone on this ship, Archer couldn't help worrying that maybe he'd been pushing Trip a little too hard. The entire crew had stayed on duty during the plasma storm, which they had been stuck in after the warp drive went offline, for eighteen hours. Since then most of the crew had been allowed to go back to their regular schedules, but he knew for a fact that Tucker had been working straight through for the past twenty-four hours. T'Pol had been quick to point that little bit of information out to him, he thought, glancing over at the Vulcan at her science station. She had not taken a rest period either, which he had quickly reminded her, when she argued with him over the dangers of sleep depravation. Of course T'pol told him that Vulcans didn't need as much sleep as humans.
Shifting forward in his chair, Archer spoke into the console. " Commander Tucker, Could you repeat that? I didn't quite get that last statement." Archer heard a snicker from Hoshi's direction, but chose to ignore it.
Tucker closed his eyes, mentally kicking himself as he listened to Archers response "How did I answer that hail?" He thought, rubbing his hand over his unshaven face. I must be getting tired! Sighing, he touched the call button. " Yes Sir. Sorry Captain I was..."
Archer shook his head on the bridge, chuckling softly as he listened to Trip's apology. " It's quite all right, Commander." He cut him off. "We're all a little on edge right now." He said, glancing around the bridge before continuing. " I was just wondering how you were coming on the repairs to the transporters."
The mere mentioning of the transporter raised Trip's blood pressure about ten notches. Swallowing the lump of frustration in his throat, he turned and stared at the blackened mess of circuits inside the access panel. "I could not even begin to describe to you the mess I'm lookin at right now Capt'n. Every single relay leading to the targeting scanners was fried during that storm. I'm havin to replace every one of um' . Not to mention the sensor matrix and the.."
"I get the picture Trip." Archer's voice came back, cutting him short. " Just do the best you can. We've still got about ten hours before we reach orbit.. I'm confident you'll be able to figure it all out by then. Archer out!"
"Ten hours, well, that sure makes all the difference in the world!" Trip muttered, sarcasm in his voice, as he crawled back under the console.
On the bridge, Archer leaned back in his chair pushing the urge to go down and help Trip himself. That would probably just make him think I didn't trust him to do the job, he thought. Sighing he looked at the viewscreen. The planet they were heading for, looked a lot like earth, even at this distance. He had been very excited when sensors showed it to be inhabited as well. The anticipation had been building inside of him ever since then. The thought of making contact with yet another unknown race gave him a thrill every time. Over the past few months' they had met several races of being's and had gained valuable insight on dealing with unknowns.
It was a slow process, but he felt they had come a long way since first leaving earth.
"Lt. Reed to the bridge."
"Archer here." What's up Malcolm?" Archer replied, sitting up in his seat.
"I just thought you would be glad to know that the weapons array is fully operational again. We had a little trouble with the bloody EPS power flow regulators, but they're in tip-top shape now!" Reed came back, his British accent etched with excitement.
"Good job, Lieutenant." Archer told him, pausing as he thought about Trip. "Maybe you could go down to the transporter room and give Commander Tucker a little help. He's a little short handed right now!" Archer figured Malcolm would be more help to Trip than he could be, and he was used to working with the engineer under duress.
"Will do Captain! Reed out!"
Settling back in his chair again, Archer smiled to himself. Maybe he should have warned Malcolm about Tucker's fowl mood!
Enterprise's Armory Officer found her Chief Engineer sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of an opened access panel. He was busy using a Padd to check data from a circuit board he'd pulled from the console.
"I take it that the weapon array's fixed." Tucker said in a soft voice, not bothering to look up from his work, as Reed entered the room.
"Yes. Reed replied, crouching down to peer at the damage inside the opened panel. "The Captain asked me to come down and give you a hand."
"That was very thoughtful of 'em." Tucker remarked bitterly, laying the Padd down and getting up on one knee to place the repaired circuit board back into it's slot. Actually it really was, he thought, feeling a little bad about the way he'd said it. John was probably worried he was working to hard or something. Sometimes he felt like he was serving under his father!
Reed noticed he was favoring his right hand as he worked and caught a glimpse of the oozing blisters that covered the inside palm and fingers. "What happened to your hand?"
Locking the board firmly in place, Tucker shook his head, briefly glancing at the hand with complete disregard. "Oh..It's nothin. I had a little disagreement with a circuit relay earlier that's all." He was already busy trying to remove the next ruined board from its socket.
"It doesn't look like nothing to me!" Reed replied, reaching out and grabbing hold of the injured hand.
"Do you mind! I'm trying to get some work done here!" Trip protested, wincing in spite of himself from Reeds prodding. "I didn't know your credentials included a degree in medicine!"
Reed looked up at him a slight smirk on his face. "I don't need a degree to recognize second degree burns. You need to go to sickbay!"
Pulling out of Reed's grip, Tucker glared at the younger man. "Yeah? And while I'm in sickbay, who's gonna fix these transporters? You?" Giving up on the fused circuit board for the moment he got to his feet and picked up a couple of tools from the pile on the floor.
Reed watched him as he moved over to the transporter platform and began to undo an access panel, shaking his head as he heard Trip swearing under his breath when he tore another blister open on something inside the panel. Sighing he turned to the still opened access panel under the console and went to work on the board that had given Trip a problem. He wondered if the Captain knew just how stubborn his chief engineer could be!
Ten hours later, Archer called his senior staff to the ready room to put together a landing party. All the damaged systems on board had been repaired, including the transporters. Tucker and Malcolm had finished with them several hours ago and he'd ordered both officers to get some sleep. Hopefully they had done just that, since he planned on both of them to accompany him down to the planet! As everyone filed into the small ready room, Archer looked at Tucker's bandaged right hand. Tucker saw the concerned look on his face as he came to stand beside him. Malcolm, T'pol, Hoshi, and Travis Mayweather made up the rest of the group.
"It looks worse than it is." He whispered, leaning over toward him slightly.
Archer frowned, looking at the hand. "Maybe you should stay on the ship this round." He said, loud enough for every one to hear.
Trip felt his face getting hot as everyone turned to stare at him. "It's not that big a deal, Capt'n, really! Dr. Phlox okayed me to go.." He paused, as Malcolm cleared his throat noisily. Reed had accompanied him to the sickbay after they got the transporters working and knew that the Dr. had advised him to take a little time off, not just for the sake of his hand but the fact that he needed the rest. Glancing at Malcolm, he gave him a warning glare. "Besides, what could go wrong, this is a pre-industrial society we're gonna be observing and the only weapons they seem to carry are farming tools, it's not like we're gonna have to do any hand to hand combat with um!"
"Farming tools are not weapons." T'pol remarked.
"I, know that! It was a figure of speech!" Trips exclaimed looking at the Vulcan in irritation.
"They could be used as a weapon though." Malcolm put in, the serious tone in his voice, amusing Archer. "I've seen old movies where a pitchfork did quite a job on a guy once.."
"Okay. Enough folks. You can discuss the definition of a weapon later. We need to get back to the business at hand." Archer said holding up a hand to get their attention. "Hoshi, what can you tell us about the language?"
"From what the acoustic relays picked up, I've been able to program the translators with enough information to understand most of the general dialect. Some of the words don't translate the exact meaning, so we'll have to be careful how we say things. Other than that, as long as the translators don't break down, we should be fine."
"Okay." Archer nodded. Turning from her he addressed the rest of the group. "Sensors show only one area of the planet as inhabited. From that we can only assume that this is a young species of humanoids. The area where they live is surrounded on all sides by a continuous chain of mountains. Our shuttle will touch down near the base of the tallest mountain, here." He paused , pointing to the area he was referring on the topographical map T'pol had pulled up on the monitors. " Dr. Phlox will be doing a little work on our features so we'll look like the humanoids on the planet, but since they are a tight knit group , it will be hard to remain unnoticed so I want us to split up into pairs when we reach the village. You've all read the observation reports, so if there are no questions, I want to be ready to leave in two hours. Hoshi, T'pol, you'll be one pair, and Malcolm and I will go as the other."
Tucker shuffled his feet nervously when he didn't hear his name mentioned. Archer tried to suppress a smile as he turned to the younger man. "Commander?"
"Sir?"
"I'll need someone to stay with the shuttlepod..just in case we DO run into trouble. Think you can handle that?"
"Yes, Sir." Tucker replied letting go the breath he'd been holding.
"Good." Archer smiled, turning once again to the rest. "Travis you'll have the bridge while I'm gone."
"Yes, Sir!" Ensign Mayweather answered, grinning widely. He was one of the youngest crewmembers onboard, and his excitement and enthusiasm showed it.
"Lets work on making this a smooth operation folks. I'll see you all in the launch bay in two hours." Archer concluded, touching Trip on the arm as he started to leave with the others.
"Something wrong Capt'n?" Trip said when everyone had left the room.
Sighing, Archer leaned back against the console behind him. " Dr.Phlox called me before the meeting this morning Trip."
"Listen John, I can explain...I.." Tucker blurted out, gesturing with his injured hand.
Archer waved him off. "You, don't, need, to explain anything Trip." He replied, moving away from the console and walking toward the door. "Just try to avoid lying to me in the future..espcially in front of the rest of the crew."
"Capt'n.." Tucker called after him as he started through the hatch. "I'm..sorry.." He said, stopping when he saw the hurt look in Archers eyes, before the Captain turned and walked away. Sighing wearily, Tucker through up his hands in frustration, then brought them both down hard on the console in front of him, hanging his head. "Damn." He muttered softly under his breath.
Two hours and thirty-four minutes later, the shuttlepod entered the surface of the planet. It was unusually quiet onboard the small vessel and everyone seemed to be aware of the tension between the Captain and the chief engineer. Malcolm sat across from Archer in the pilots' section humming under his breath. He seemed to be the only one not affected by the charged emotions around him. Or maybe he just chose to ignore it. nonetheless, his cheeriness did manage to help Archer relax a little as he looked out the veiwport at the landscape below. The planet was nearly identical to that of earth, except for a thinner atmosphere . The sky was a pale blue and the vegetation was green below them. Up ahead of them the tall peaks of the mountains surrounding the village they were flying over were covered with snow. The shuttle bounced around suddenly, causing everyone to grab a hold of his or her seat.
"Sorry folks, just a little wind turbulence!" Malcolm said from beside him, making an adjustment on his console.
As they cleared the mountains Malcolm pointed out the window. "There she is." He said . Archer smiled as he looked out at the houses and plowed fields in the distance. A few moments later, the shuttle sat softly onto the ground with only the slightest of bumps.
Filing out of the shuttle the landing party gathered around Archer. They had all been clothed with loose fitting garments made out of a leathery type of material. Their skin was a darker color as well giving them all the appearance of having lain out in the sun too long. But the most uncomfortable part of the disguise had to be the violet-colored contacts they all had to wear. Even T'pol had complained that they irritated her eyes. As a result Archer had told them that they didn't need to put them in until they were almost to the village. Tucker had been the luckiest one though. Since he wasn't going into town he didn't have to wear them at all. In fact, he had worn his own uniform as well.
Everyone seemed to have their gear ready to go, Archer noted as they gathered around him, with the exception of Trip, who was staying behind. "It'll take us about forty-five minutes to walk into town. We'll keep in contact using the communicators, just make sure no one spots them. We're only here to observe, not make first contact, so stay as low-key as you possibly can. We'll meet back here at nightfall if all goes well. Any questions?" He finished, looking around. "No? Okay, lets get this show on the road!"
Archer turned to Trip while the rest of the group finished getting ready. He was leaning back against the side of the shuttle picking at the bandage on his hand.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he spoke, his voice low enough to keep the conversation between them. "Trip?"
"Sir?" Tucker said, looking up at him with wide eyes.
Bloodshot eyes, Archer noticed as he let out an exasperated breath. "About what happened this morning.."
"It's okay Capt'n...John.. You were right. I was wrong. It'll never happen again. I Promise." He stopped fidgeting with his hand and stood up straight as he spoke.
Archer shook his head, smiling. "You..promise?"
"Scouts honor." Tucker said grinning mischievously as he raised his hand in a mock salute.
Malcolm had joined them, and grinned widely at Tucker. "You know you're saluting with the wrong hand don't you?"
Archer smacked him on the shoulder, chuckling. " Leave the man alone Reed, he's just an engineer you know!"
"That's okay, you too. Maybe ya'll'd like to walk back to the Enterprise!" Trip replied, stepping up into the shuttlepod. His face taking on a serious look he added as they turned to join the others. "Be careful."
"We'll be expecting supper when we get back!" Malcolm called back to him getting a laugh out of Hoshi.
Tucker just shook his head at Reed, taking one last look around the area before disappearing back inside the shuttle.