Chapter 3
The cell wasn't huge, but it was enough space for the three of them; five metres wide by seven metres long. There were only two beds though, and nothing else. Four very strong and very solid walls to keep prisoners where they were supposed to be. Apart from the door, the only other acess point into the room was through a small grid that led onto the ventilation system, but it was far too small for Archer, Tucker and Reed to get through, big enough for a small child to get through, possibly, but not full grown adults.
The door slid open and Auran stepped in, noting where his three prisoners were. Archer was sitting on a bunk bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, his head looking up when the Janen appeared. Trip was sat on the floor the other side of the cell, one leg straight, the other bent with one arm resting on it. And Malcolm was leaning with his back against the wall fairly close to the door, but moved as their captors entered. Prell and Havek followed behind Auran, all three pointing their weapons at the Starfleet officers.
Glaring, Archer rose to his feet and stepped forward slightly, he knew Trip and Malcolm wouldn't try anything right now, they were too sensible for that. "I wanna know what the hell you are doing! You come onto my ship pretending to be friends and then take us prisoner!"
"We were only after you, Captain. Your crewmen shouldn't have interfered."
"They're trained to interfere. And my crew will do whatever it takes to get us back safely." He paused, looking Auran up and down slightly. "You will pay for this."
The Janen gave out a hearty laugh, finding the Captain's words highly amusing. "I don't think so." He chuckled a little more. "It will be the Klingons that will be paying me for your sucessful capture and return to justice."
"You won't get away with this!" Trip's anger was clear on his voice. "En'erprise will hunt you down, and won't stop."
Again Auran laughed, these Humans really were pathetic. What were they going to try and say next? "We fired no weapons on your vessel, so they won't have detected anything. They won't realise anything is wrong untill we are well out of sensor range."
"I wouldn't count Enterprise out just yet, my crew are the best in Starfleet. Highly trained…"
Auran cut the Captain mid sentence. "Yes, yes, yes. You gave me that speech earlier during your little tour. Here's the thing." He stepped closer to Archer, his height giving him the advantage of making sure he was intimidating the Humans. "They will just think that Governor Chaleth has recalled us home. You're wasting your breath, Captain."
"It's only me the Klingons are after. What are you going to do with Reed and Tucker?" He queried, still watching Auran and the weapons they still had pointing at them.
Auran turned away and began to walk back to the door before turning back to face him. "We'll be fairly close to an Orion slave trading outpost. I believe you're familiar with that too, Captain. Sould be fairly easy to get rid of them there."
Archer's jaw clenched at the mention of selling his two closest friends into slavery, and he knew that the Janen's words would have struck fear into both Trip and Malcolm's minds. Their experience with the Orions had not been at all pleasant, and they had nearly lost nine crew, including T'Pol due to Arik Soong's attempts at escaping from incarceration. "Whatever the Klingons said they were going to pay you, you'll get less. I've seen it happen before. They'll lie to suit them."
Auran now drew out a knife and rushed at Archer, grabbing his clothes and holding the blade against his throat. Trip and Malcolm tried to help, but remembered the weapons and remained back for fear that it would all end worse than it wasgoing to. "The Klingons don't care weather you are hurt or not, Captain. They'll pay me whatever. So stop wasting your breath. Nothing you or your crew are going to say will make me change my mind about what I'm doing. We've been bounty hunters for the last thirty years. It's all we're used to. We do enjoy it though" He let go of the blue jumpsuit and put the knife away into his robes. "If I were you, I would spend your last few hours with your crewmates saying good bye."
Another crewman soon walked into the cell, pushing passed Prell and Havek to get to Auran. "Commander!" He addresed him, revealing Auran had lied about his rank too, although after everything that had transpired so far, Jonathan Archer wasn't really finding that at all surprising, everything the Janen had told them had been lies. "The Earth vessel. It's closing in on us."
A smirk came across Archer's face at hearing that, and he glanced slightly to look at Trip, whose face remained stunned, as did Malcolm's.
"What!?" Auran glared sharply at the Janen. He looked at Archer and noticed the smirk, further annoying him. Why did the Human have to be right? "Raise shields and bring the weapons online!" They all turned to leave.
"Like I said!" Archer called after them. "Don't count Enterprise out just yet."
Auran pointed a long finger at the three captives. "Separate them! I don't want to make it too easy for the Humans, and I certainly don't want them talking to each other any more!" And with that he left the cell, angrily.
"Good ole T'Pol." Tucker sighed and glanced at his friends. "What would we do without her?" He only received nods of agreement from the two of them before Trip and Malcolm were grabbed roughly and shoved out the cell, leaving Captain Archer alone with his thoughts. At least they had some sort of comfort that Enterprise was close and Auran's plans were staring to show signs of going wrong. He only hoped that the crew wouldn't try anything too stupid, especially as he knew the wild character of Ensign Evelyn Jacobs was on duty as second in command of security.
"We'll be within weapon's range in thirty seconds." Ensign Williams reported, the replacement on the tactical station.
T'Pol stood and moved to stand just in front of him. "Target their engines and weapons only." The man nodded and worked on the controls. The Vulcan then turned to look at Hoshi, moving back to the centre as she spoke. "Hail them." They would certainly try negotiating the crew's release before unleashing a full scale attack on the Janen vessel, despite the fact she was certain talking wasn't going to get them anywhere, protocol dictated that dialogue should be attempted first.
A few seconds later and Ensign Hoshi Sato replied with a shake ofher head. "No response." Just as the Commander had expected.
"Fire when ready, Ensign." T'Pol ordered, knowing it was just seconds till the order could be carried out. If they weren't going to respond and talk things through like civilised people, then a fire fight it was going to have to be. At least she could say that they had tried.
As soon as he was able to, the blonde haired Ensign opened fire on the enemy ship, firing the phase cannons, the blasts just impacting the shields and dissipating. He upped the yield and fired a few more shots. Enterprise now shuddered as the Janen vessel returned fire, their weapons impacting with the hull, causing sparks to fly across the bridge.
"Ensign!"
"I can't penetrate their shields!"
"Photonic torpedoes." T'Pol ordered, a sense of urgency in her voice. The Janen's weapons were certainly more powerful than their own and doing a lot more damage to them.
Phase canons and torpedoes started to work in unison. A few more shots and the canons made conact with the hull as the shields failed. Small explosions couldbe seen as the targets were taken out.
"They're dropping to impulse." Mayweather announced.
"Stay with them." She stood and leaned forward on the edge of the helm console. Within seconds both ships were travelling at impulse, but still firing at each other.
"Hullplating down to sixty four percent."
"Bridge to transporter. Now!" She ordered after pressing the comm panel right in front of her. "See what you can do about their weapons."
On the Janen ship, the familiar shimmer of a transporter beam sparkled along the dimly lit corridor as the away team materialised. Their weapons at the ready, each member facing a different direction in case they were met with resistance. They were alone. The MACOs relaxed only a tiny bit, and each turned their head to look at the only one with a scanner; Evelyn Jacobs. The hand held instrument buzzed and whistled it's usual tune as it scanned the area, attempting to locate three Human biosigns.
"This way." She almost whispered as the results came back. So far it wasn't showing any Janen nearby which was going to make it easier for them, although the scanner's range was only around 100 metres. For almost two minutes, they carried on along the corridors, pressing themselves flat against a wall when they heard footsteps and watched as a couple of crew ran across an intersection further down, completely unaware that they were there.
"Williams must've knocked out internal sensors." Crewman Danning mentioned, being careful to keep his voice down. The people didn't seem to be searching for anyone, and no alarms indicating intruders on the ship had sounded.
"Lucky for us." Woods replied, his grip on his rifle was firm and he was ready for combat, just like the rest of the team.
"Unless we can find the Captain soon our luck will run out, surely they will start thinking we've beamed over." Palmer added.
Evelyn sighed and nodded her head, keeping her eyes on the scanner and the area around them. "Those two we just saw, they may be searching the area around the cells. They appear to be circling the corridors." She indicated, using her pistol as a hand as they were full. Immediately the MACOs turned around, just in case the men would be coming up behind them. Evelyn put her scanner away for the moment, ending it's noise. Everyone was listening hard, so far they couldn't hear anything, just the sounds of their own breathing.
Crewman Danning leaned to Jacobs and whispered in her ear. "So, where is the Captain then?"
"In one of the cells, not sure which though, looks like they are each in a different cell." She replied equally as quiet, her eyes barely blinking as they scanned the gloom for any sign of movement. It worried her that they hadn't met any resistance yet, unless they had set a trap for them. "Let's find them and get out of here." She finally said, waving on two of the MACOs to go ahead first, with Jacobs and Danning following and the last two MACOs taking up the rear.
Almost as soon as the first two MACOs rounded the corner, yellow laser fire went flying through the air, directed at them, forcing them to take cover round the corners.
"You were right, Ensign!" Danning commented as he peeked round the corner and fired a couple of times.
Jacobs did the same, noting that she had managed to peg one of them in the shoulder and taken him out on her third shot. "Believe me, I wish I hadn't been." She peeked round again, attempting to count just how many they were up against. Her eyes spotted five more figures, maybe six.
The MACOs kept ducking in and out between the Janen's fire. Woods jumped out too far and a yellow coloured light hit him in the chest. He cried out in pain as he was knocked from his feet and landed on his back.
"Woods!" The rest of them all laid down cover fire as Danning rushed out to pull the fallen man out of the way. Evelyn pulled out her communicator and flipped it open. "Jacobs to Enterprise. Lock on to Woods and Danning and beam them back!" She spoke quickly, emphasising the need for urgency on this occasion. After just a few short moments the transporter was activated and the two of them were beamed out, leaving four to the fight. Evelyn sighed as she hid back round the corner again. She was worried about Woods, but now was not the time to think too much on it. They had to win this, they just had to. Her eyes soon caught sight of a dark figure moving in the gloom along the corridor from where they had just come from, trying to sneak up on them from behind. Quick as a flash she fired at the figure and he instantly went down. 'That'll teach him for trying to sneak up on us.' She thought to herself, then checked down the corridors, each way, unable to see anything else. The coast seemed clear for the moment.
Her attention went back to where the main exchange of fire was taking place. The three MACOs seemed to be doing very well, Corporal MacKenzie had chosen the right people for this assignment. Soon all the Janens were down and lying on the deck unconscious. Evelyn began to step forward, looking for the door that would hopefully lead to a cell with someone in.
All was quiet on the bridge of the Enterprise. The Janen's weapons had been knocked out so there was no point in wasting any more weapons on a ship unable to fight back and do any damage to the.
Beeping soon came from Williams' console and everyone turned their heads to look at him. "Commander, I'm reading power fluxuations. Looks like their restoring power!"
"How is that possible?" Hoshi asked.
"I think they must've powered off everything, making us think we'd disabled them!"
T'Pol tapped the comm panel next to her. "Bridge to transporter, bring our people back, now!"
