DAY SEVEN – morning
With the Klingons gone, they could finally take stock of where exactly they had ended. The lean-to was right above the vegetation line, almost touching it, affording them a view, albeit limited, of what lay below, which seemed to be nothing else than forest and more forest. The pale dual suns threw tan shades on the rocky outcropping that towered over their heads. Wherever they were, it was at the base of some type of mountain or at least a steep hilltop, naked of all vegetation.
From the lean-to vantage point, the forest extended as far as the eye could see in what seemed to be an endless and regular pattern of groves and clearings. They debated relocating, as the fact that the beam-down coordinates were hard-coded in the Klingon ship's database meant this was a routine landing point and they would probably be back. But the price of the rare minerals that Reed and T'Pol had procured on Thanat III and that were appropriated by the Klingons fortunately dwarfed even the combined prospective slave-market income of a little-favored human and a sought-after Vulcan, which meant the Klingons would be looking to sell their riches before they sacrificed any more time locating the fugitives. It also meant that they would eventually be back to make good on their money.
By necessity, their attention next turned to whether there were any resident life forces able or willing to feast on a couple of bipeds, one copper-based and the other iron-flavored. As far as Reed was concerned, the two of them were a smorgasbord of alien temptations. From experience, if anything out there wanted to feast on them, it would come and find them, attracted either by scent, subliminal vibrations, telepathy, or whatever else it was that made it a failsafe bet that anything that could eat them, would. The silver lining to that cloud was that they didn't need to go too far and look too hard, actually it was preferable to not go too far nor look too hard lest they make a premature encounter with some potential predator. If something out there was waiting maw agape for them, there was no need to rush and find it. That clinched the decision to not relocate right away, but only once they were acclimated to the planet and had a better understanding of the topography and fauna. Reed's leaning towards staying put also being motivated by the fact that it would be easier for T'Pol once she had somewhat healed. The object of his concern was walking to where he stood right below the lean-to, staring at the undulating forest below them and considering their options.
"How's the rib?" he asked. He noticed she was favoring her right side, though the broken rib was on the left. "It is better, thank you." Her voice was not strong. Reed clenched his fists. He wanted to apologize for being human, with frail limbs and bones, so that she alone had to endure the wrath of their kidnappers. T'Pol's eyes widened slightly then she turned squarely to him. "There is no need to remonstrate yourself, Lieutenant, the Klingons are the ones who bear responsibility for their actions." She let the words sink in then added "Actually, if they had treated both of us equally, you would have been incapacitated and we would not have been able to escape from their ship, nor to avoid recapture once on the planet if we had managed to reach it." Reed smiled slightly at the attempt to cheer him up. Though she had a point.
Actually, it had been the Klingons blind assumption of human frailty that had eventually worked in their favor. His thoughts turned back to their escape.
xx
Reed had felt the change in the hum of the ship, deducted that they had gone to impulse. Then the hum had died entirely, and he had cautiously figured they may be orbiting a planet. And if they were orbiting a planet, their options for escape had just doubled. His thoughts so far had been spent on ways they could overpower their kidnappers, find a shuttle and fly away, each step on that chain being fraught with increasing complexities, from the possibility there might not be a shuttle on board to the fact he didn't read Klingon and had no idea how to fly their shuttle, forget avoid a pursuing Klingon ship.
But hope and scheming had kept his mind on the lookout for any potential opportunities, and he soon noted a lone guard brought their meager daily food rations. When the guard saw the Human lying unresponsive on the floor of his cell, probably from the nervous shock of having been captured, he stepped inside to turn him over and check for vital signs, Reed had been ready and slammed the heavy iron manacles right about where he estimated the Klingon's head to be, hitting pay dirt. The Klingon reeled backward and Reed lunged at his mid-section, groping blindly for the guard's pistol belt and managing to grab his weapon with one hand, not even bothering to get it fully out of its holster before he fired, because he was no physical match for the Klingon. He hoped the weapon was set on stun, though if he were honest about it he didn't really care either way. The guard dropped and Reed stepped out of the cell, still holding the pistol awkwardly in manacled hands.
It was a short matter to cross the empty corridor to T'Pol's cell. He thanked their lucky stars that no code was necessary to open the door. She turned her head when she heard him, started to rise awkwardly from where she had been laying down, holding her left arm tight to her body. The Klingon weapon made short work of her manacles and Reed suspected perhaps it had not been set on stun. She freed him in turn and he led the way out to the corridor, scouting for any signs someone else was coming. He knew from when they had been brought on board, she unconscious and dripping blood from a shallow head wound, that the transporter was on the same deck as the cells and had committed the path to memory. It was a simple matter to backtrack to the transporter room.
Reed checked the coordinates already laid-in. He couldn't tell where they ended and if they would re-materialize on the planet that he had seen rotating through the portholes or somewhere in deep space. He motioned T'Pol to the transporter pad. "What about you?" she hissed." "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you" he replied. He pushed what he thought was the correct control and she shimmered out of sight. He could only hope she landed somewhere on the planet below. If she didn't, he would soon be joining her into oblivion. First, though, he had a phase pistol to overload.
xx
In the end, they hadn't materialized in the vacuum of space, the coordinates were indeed on the planet, and now they were stranded there. An improvement in a lot of ways, but still lacking in many others. "We need to get back to Enterprise," he said to T'Pol. Talk about stating the obvious, the thought came unbidden to his mind.
T'Pol didn't answer, her full attention was on an evaluation of their situation and what they had at their disposal, assessing different scenarios and their probability of successful completion, considering what was required for their survival, for leaving the planet, for contacting Enterprise, for avoiding future pirates, and discarding options that were unviable, too complex, would take longer than their life span or were simply and purely impossible. What was left was not much.
"Enterprise will eventually locate our shuttlepod," she concluded.
"Yes, and by then we may be a few bones bleached under the sun." Reed snorted.
T'Pol looked at him sharply. "I thought you were a trained operative." As accurately predicted, that pricked Reed's ego and he stood at his full height. "I can certainly survive on this planet" he replied. "Good, I am V'shar-trained myself, so can I" T'Pol calmly said. Suddenly Reed almost burst out laughing. It was true. Here they were, two trained operatives on a survival mission on an uninhabited, possibly, planet. This could actually be fun. In a very British way.
DAY SEVEN – Beta Shift
Enterprise was orbiting Uu'z'tik IV the Orion processing station for this corner of space, whose coordinates and passcode they had received courtesy of Vulcan intelligence services. It seemed that even after the ascension to power of T'Pau the Vulcans had not changed their policy of frowning upon any hostile action involving one of their citizens. They had relayed through Admiral Gardner the need for Enterprise to be discreet both about the provenance of the passcode and coordinates and also about any action they might need to take towards getting their officers released, if indeed the officers were on the station. It was not too long ago that the Orions had agreed to drop their pursuit of Enterprise and stop attacking other Starfleet starships in exchange for a consolidation of their merchant rights in the disputed quadrant, and it would not be in either party's interest to jeopardize the agreement. In essence, the agreement simply meant that Human ships, like Vulcan ones, were protected from direct Orion raids. As always, if the Orions found Humans or Vulcans on other vessels, well, those were fair game. Which was why the Vulcans kept an updated database of Orion station access codes and locations.
"Anything?"
Hoshi had been running sensor scans of the station as they approached. She shook her head. "There are no human or Vulcan biosigns on the station, Captain."
Archer sighed. It would just have been too easy. He turned to Trip "How many kilos of tritanium cobalt do we have on board?"
The Commander looked at him as if perhaps he had misheard. "There are no biosigns on the planet" he repeated.
"I get that" Archer cut him off. "But that does not mean there have not been any in the past five days."
Trip nodded in understanding. "We should be able to spare four to ten kilos, Captain, so long as we re-supply in the next couple of weeks."
"Good enough" Archer got up, looked around the bridge. Times like these was when he most needed one of his missing officers, to accompany him down to the planet for negotiations. Trip would be ready getting the cash ready, so to speak, and needed to stay on Enterprise. He needed Hoshi there as well to keep an eye on communications in case of an emergency. "Ensign Mayweather, you're coming with me," he said as he left the bridge.
Travis glanced at Hoshi in semi-consternation. Being born in space, going planetside always gave him butterflies in the stomach. And not only was he going stateside, he was going with his commanding officer, so there was no room for screw-ups on his part. And not only was he going with his commanding officer, he was going with Archer, who was not always the most cautious operator. If the Orions took hostages and a situation developed where one of them had to be left behind, he knew which one that was going to be. Still, it was an honor to be asked to accompany the Captain on a negotiating mission, and that somewhat consoled Travis as he got up from his station, following Archer into the turbolift.
DAY SEVEN – afternoon
They had set up a day camp further downhill, close to where the brook came out of the stone sheer, where the slope leveled briefly before angling down again on all sides. That afforded them a view on the area the Klingons had used as a landing pad while still being far enough to mount an escape if or when the shuttle came back. They decided to keep the lean-to as a shelter for the night until they either found or built a larger one. There were enough fallen branches and boughs lining the ground and Reed used the time to weave two panels to close the sides of the lean-to so nothing could approach them without warning. This took care of water and shelter. All that was left was figure out a food supply. That would ensure their survival on the planet surface but would be insufficient to reach the stars. Reed caught T'Pol looking at the top of the rocky hilltop, hands behind her back, leaning ever so slightly to her left. He got up to looked alongside her. "If we had some kind of beacon, that would be a good place to put it," he said.
She turned to him, "Indeed, Lieutenant," paused for a couple of seconds, "now we only need procure a beacon."
There was always a rub.
xx
The rub was that without a scanner it was impossible to determine which of the vegetation was safe for T'Pol to consume. Things were a lot easier for Reed, at least in theory. There was game around, small lemming-like creatures that scampered out of sight as soon as they approached, and with a little skill and luck he would be able to get some protein. And with even more luck, keep it down. But plants could kill in a heartbeat, and neither of them were too keen on the eventuality. "Logically," T'Pol was saying, "any plant that does not kill the indigenous life forms you are able to consume should be safe for me to eat."
"Well, by that logic," Malcolm retorted "we'd first have to make sure you can consume the indigenous life forms. The fact I can does not mean they're safe for a Vulcan." Translated, it meant, 'I don't want to be a damn guinea pig'.
"Vulcan and human metabolism are close enough that while tastes may differ we should be able to consume the same foods." T'Pol replied, thinking back to what Dr. Phlox had told her at the beginning of their first mission.
One of them was going to get hungry sooner rather than later, Malcolm ruefully reflected. And since he was the frail human with a frail system and Vulcans could go without food and water longer, it would be him. He sighed at the unfairness of it all. "I need weapons to hunt with" was all he replied, and he went to search for a broken branch that could look like the beginning of something. Thankfully he had a whole arsenal of possible weapons in his head, starting with aboriginal clubs, and many sharp improvements that he could bring to them.
Behind him, T'Pol was closely examining the vegetation. She inspected a leaf from a tree, pulled on it. When nothing happened, she raised an eyebrow and proceeded further down, to the next clump of trees. For his part, Reed was scanning the ground around, looking for any dead wood that would be close to a club. He almost laughed when after only a few yards he came upon a branch lying on the ground that had almost the required shape, even with a bulbous mass at one hand. He picked it up and felt its weight, how it was balanced along the shaft. He would have a hard time whittling anything as eminently suitable as what he had in hand. He went back to where T'Pol was, carrying the club on his shoulder, Neanderthal-style. She didn't look up when he approached, still carefully examining the surrounding vegetation, seemingly preoccupied.