A groan escaped her as she tried to open her eyes against the bright lights.

"Is she alright?" a voice from her left asked in ... yes, in English.

"Oh," another voice - this one from the right - answered "apart from her injuries she's perfectly fine. She's probably not accustomed to the bright lighting though."

After she had carefully opened one eye to check her surroundings, both of the girl's eyelids fluttered open. In disbelief and utter shock, she stared at the two men in front of her. One of them was Human - she knew that for a fact. He wore a blue jumpsuit with symbols and patches attached to his shoulders and his face was somewhat stern-looking ... maybe even a little worried. She wasn't familiar with the other man's species though. His face was lined with fine ridges, a little more elegant but not unlike the Klingons', and his eyes had an icy blue tinge. To that, he seemed to be a doctor, for he was holding a scanner in one and a vaccination in the other hand.

"Can you ... understand me?" the Human tried carefully "I'm Captain Jonathan Archer. You're on Enterprise, my ship. ... We're from Earth." he added after a slight pause.

The doctor took a step closer and attempted to hold the scanner to the girl's temple, but she jerked away unexpectedly, throwing the device out of the alien's hand.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed at him in accent-free English which seemed to surprise both of them. "How did I get here? What do you want?!"

"Look." the Human sighed "We're not going to hurt you. This is Phlox, the ship's physician. He needs to check your health. You won't feel a thing."

"Why am I here?!" The girl was still reluctant to let Phlox scan her.

"We found you at a slave market." the captain explained "Someone had just ... bought you and was about to take you to their ship."

"Why didn't you let them?! That was supposed to be my new owner!"

"From what our scans show, you're Vulcan. Vulcan ethics speak against slavery. But the main reason why we took you away from him was that he was beating you up for nothing and you were starting to take severe injuries ... if you get what I mean."

She knew exactly what he meant - and at that point she realized her pounding head and aching limbs.

The Human seemed pleased with himself "Now why don't you let Phlox take those scans. Then we can talk."

"No!" she almost shrieked. Both men looked puzzled. "He's male!" the girl yelped "Males hurt me."

All of the girl's previous owners had been males. Big, lanky, Tellarite, Orion, ... but all of them had had one thing in common: Cruel violence towards her. And if she could negotiate possible pain away - and those two men sure looked like they did a lot of negotiating - she would do her best.

As the captain's confused expression didn't change, she continued "All of my owners, all my life, have hurt me. No matter what I did. So if you plan to keep your promises, Captain, and you don't want to hurt me, you'll keep away from me."

This was turning out to be much worse than Jonathan Archer had expected it to. The young Vulcan they had rescued from near death at a trading post had turned out to have a phobia of all things male.

"You're wounds need to be treated." he tried again.

But the girl shook her head. "Not by him."

Maybe he should have started the conversation a little harsher, he thought. Would she think of him as her owner she would have done as he said. But the captain just couldn't get himself to be harsh on someone so young, who had seen so much bad over the last years. And he couldn't ever imagine playing slave holder to a Vulcan.

Sickbay's doors slid open with a slight hissing sound behind him and someone entered. The person stopped walking in the middle of the room, looking around. Doctor, captain and patient were well hidden behind a heavy white curtain - therefore invisible to anyone else in sickbay.

"Hello? Doctor ...?"

For some odd reason, Captain Archer thought, his first officer had one hell of a talent when it came to arriving at the perfect moment.