Tarorat
He needed to change position but couldn't. His arms must be caught in the bedsheets. Archer strained to bring his hand out from under the blankets. The effort finally woke him up, that or perhaps it was the "Hey, Captain!" that someone kept saying over and over. Who was in his quarters and why couldn't he bring his arm up? He was sleeping so soundly that he couldn't even fully articulate the thoughts. Slowly, the world of sleep disappeared and he started waking up.
He finally opened his eyes, taking a couple of seconds to register his surroundings, then sat bolt upright, the rush of adrenaline chasing the last cobwebs of sleep. He would have gotten up, but he couldn't, and the reason for his inability to bring his arms up was quite obvious in the shackles that held his arms tied to the wall behind him. Archer tried to turn around, a quick glance confirming the set-up was keeping him neatly seated on some bench, flush to the wall.
He looked around, there were over twenty Enterprise crew members there, all sitting on a bench running the perimeter of the steel-walled room, all shackled. Half the room was still peacefully asleep, the other half in various phases of waking up, pulling disbelievingly on the short chains that held their arms to their side and back. Trip was next to him, his head unselfconsciously pillowed on the shoulder of Chan, who was just waking up.
"Trip, hey, Trip," Archer called. On the other side of the room, Reed was looking at him with relief. He must be the one who had been calling him. In turn, he would help wake up the others. "Everyone, get up!" Archer hollered.
That did the trick.
"What the...!" Next to him, Trip was blinking at Chan, tried to turn to Archer, found out that the couldn't, held on a tight leash as he was. "Jon, what's going on?! Let me sleep." The enginner tried to turn around and burrow his head in Chan's neck, the security man half-amused, waiting for Trip to realize he wasn't T'Pol.
Archer would have none of that. "Trip, wake up!"
That pulled the engineer out of his torpor. Archer realized he must have been going without sleep for quite a while, fixing the engines of the Tarorat. Little help that did them. Finally Trip emerged. "Where are we?! Why are we here?! What's going on?!" He fought against the restraints, a losing battle, quickly slumped back against the wall. This time it looked like he was fully awake.
"I was hoping you'd provide some intelligence on that," Archer drily answered. "All I can say is that this is not Enterprise. Now, considering the only other ship in vicinity was the Tarorat, I guess that's where we are. Do you recognize the ship?"
Trip shook his head. "I've only been in their engine room." He straightened up. "Hey, I asked X-Urwjanx to see the ship and she mentioned there were storage rooms below." He chewed on his lip, "actually, she got pretty silent after that. I didn't pay attention to it." Trip started looking around, scanning all angles of the room. "D'you think that's where we are?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." Archer's tone was curt. He was boiling inside. They'd help the aliens, given them new engines, and that's the thanks he got?! And then there was the small matter that he had been forewarned by Reed and T'Pol that he knew nothing about the Anakeurians of their intentions. He looked around at the room more closely. "What about T'Pol?" he asked Trip.
That set a scowl on the engineer's face. He scanned the room, taking in who was there. "I don't know. I didn't make it to bed last night. And obviously, she's not here." That was obvious to Archer as well.
"I wonder where the women are." Reed's voice floated over them. A handful of the crewmen looked around, their expression quickly sliding towards glum.
"They must have them in a separate room," Archer supplied. He looked around again. "There's only thirty of us or so here. Any idea why they took us and not the others?"
Before Reed could answer a sudden low thud resonated in the room. It didn't sound like normal engine noises. The men looked at each other, some with concern on their face. "Quiet!" Archer ordered. Silence fell on the room. The low thud resonated again. He looked at Trip. "What does it sound like?"
The engineer was scowling. "If that's the sound from their engines we'll be dead in space pretty soon. But that can't be, we calibrated the entire set-up perfectly." Archer looked at Trip disbelievingly. Here they were prisoners of these aliens and what mattered to him was that he did a good job with the engine repair?! If it turned out the engines crapped out on the Aneukarians, he'd give him a medal.
The thud sounded again. And again, in a somewhat regular fashion, not cyclical enough to be mechanic. Trip was getting more and more perturbed as it went, trying to fathom what could cause the engine to misfire that way. It was Reed who almost jumped out before being abruptly yanked back. "Morse! It's Morse code!"
The realization dawned over the room. Everyone put their ear to the wall, trying to locate the source of the dull thuds that sounded more orderly now that they now knew what they were. Finally the source of the sounds was isolated as coming from the short wall on Archer's left, where six or so crew members tried to lean out of the way so as to minimize any interference. Meanwhile, Reed and others were feverishly decoding the message. "E-a-r-u-s..." "Can you hear us!" Private Gamza offered. Considering how many letters they had missed in the initial confusion, his guess made sense.
"Okay, but how do we signal back to them?" Trip wondered out loud.
In response one of the six men along the short wall slammed his back in the wall hard enough to generate a loud thud and make the wall vibrate.
Archer winced. They may need to adjust the pitch or they'd run out of crewmembers. "Ask them how many they are!" he ordered. Part of him hoped that the Aneukarians didn't take everyone aboard Enterprise.
Slowly, over several minutes, they established that the other room held another thirty-two men, for a total of sixty-two. Archer decided against asking the names of everyone in the other room as the information was of limited practical value. It was finally Malcolm who broke down. "Ask them if Ensign Sato is with them," he gruffly asked one of the six. Archer looked at Reed in surprise. The chief of security shrugged, "she's a communications expert, it might come in handy." Archer nodded, mindless of the furtive glances exchanged by the other men in the room.
Reed spelled out the answer, concern and doubt slowly creeping up on the men's faces as they letters came up one after the other, "n-o-w-o-m-e-n-..."
The men looked at each other. "Perhaps they left them on Enterprise," Trip optimistically offered.
Archer shot him a warning stare. It was better not to start speculating on the fate of the women, the last thing they needed was for anyone to bring doubt to the fray. "They must keep them in a separate room," he told the room. "T'Pol is with them, they'll be fine." He craned his neck to look all around, "Everyone, start thinking of ways to get out!"
Hours had passed and they were no closer to figuring a way out of the room. And they were growing thirsty and hungry. The forcefield that had been shimmering at the wide entrance to the storage room suddenly fizzled and died out. The sound of approaching footsteps resonated down the corridor. Archer sat upright, tensing up. X-Eliantix and three Aneukarians stepped in, weapons drawn, obviously skittish in spite of the fact all the men in the room were tied up.
Arched eyed them with more than a little dissatisfaction. "What is the meaning of this?! I demand that you free me and my crew immediately."
X-Eliantix walked up to him, "I apologize, Captain, I had no other choice. I'm sure you will agree once we explain. Your men and you will be treated well, I give you my word."
"Your word?! Your word doesn't have much currency with me."
X-Eliantix blinked several times. "We will explain. I need to release the restraints holding you. I only ask that you come peacefully with us, we will explain." The Aneukarians seemed extremely uncomfortable in the midst of the men, the three aliens with her forming a protective barrier, arms drawn, shielding their captain from thirty shackled men.
They walked through what seemed to be miles of corridor before Archer found himself in a large room that looked like a cross between a working room and living quarters. He surmised this must be X-Eliantix's ready room. She pulled out a contraption very similar to a chair and he sat down, repressing the urge to suddenly turn around and shout 'booh' at the three armed Aneukarians behind him. They might be freaked out enough to shoot even though his hands were manacled in front of him.
The three guards left the room and he was alone with the Aneukarian captain. X-Aljikax and a new alien came in, one he remembered seeing talking with Phlox on Enterprise. "And you are?" he asked.
"This is X-Igofox. She is our healer," X-Eliantix replied. She pushed a glass of water in front of Archer and he drank readily. "I am having food brought up. We studied the optimal combination of proteins and nutrients for a Human of your species."
'For a Human of his species'... He wasn't sure what she meant but there were other things on his mind. "Where is the rest of my crew?!" he asked, aware it came out as more of a demand.
The Aneukarian blinked her eyes at him. "The women on my ship, the ones you didn't take."
"The ones like us are on your ship, captain." Archer let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. There had been a slight hesitation in X-Eliantix's voice though, and his antennae were up. "You didn't hurt them, did you?"
In Humans, the reaction would have been affronted. "We would never hurt those like us." X-Eliantix paused. "They'll be fine as soon as they replace the dilithium converter." So that was the hesitation he had noted. They'd left them without warp drive in the middle of unknown space. Not what he'd liked to hear, but on the other hand between T'Pol and Hesse and the others, they'd get the ship back together in no time. They might actually have already repaired it.
"You realize they'll come after you," he commented. "Have you ever encountered a Vulcan before?" might as well warn them.
"They will not pursue us," X-Aljikax confidently countered, "once they fix the converter, they'll realize they're free."
"Realize they're free? Free from what?"
This time both Aneukarians blinked their eyes at him. "From you..." X-Eliantix seemed surprised he would ask the question.
Archer was dumbfounded into silence. He finally found his voice, "From me?"
"From those not like us, from your species," X-Eliantix seemed slightly agitated. "We studied your history from the ship's database, Captain. We know your species has been treating the other species as second-class citizens for millenia."
"The other species...?" Archer had never had such difficulties following a conversation.
"Those like us!" X-Eliantix was now openly frustrated.
"Hold on, hold on a second!" Archer wished one of his officers were there, someone who could tell him he was actually getting what they were saying. "You think men and women are two different species?"
Now the confusion was on the other side of the table. The three Aneukarians looked at each other as if Archer had just dropped a verbal bomb on them. "They're not!" he hastened to add in the silence that has settled on the room. "Men and women! We're the same species, just different sexes."
"Different sexes...?"
Obviously that was not computing. How could they have spent time aboard Enterprise and not picked up on that? On the other hand... "You mean you only have the one sex...?" It was his turn to be hesitant.
The Aneukarians stared at each other in turn. "What do you mean by sex?" that was their healer, X-Igofox.
"Like, you don't have men and women?"
The two Aneukarians seemed to twitch. X-Ilgofox leaned forward. "There is only one species of Aneukarian, those like us."
"Well, men and women are not different species," Archer put his manacled hands in front of him on the table "we're just two different genders of the same species. Human. One species, two sexes, male and female, men and women." He cleared his throat. "As far as the way men have treated women in the past, I can't say it's too glorious, but we've come a long way since. There's a strict conduct code in Starfleet and nobody would ever think of women in a different way. Women serve because they want to."
X-Aljikax eyed him suspiciously. Archer was starting to get that she was the security on the Tarorat. "How do we know what you say is true?" she asked.
"Ask — well, of course, you can't ask the women. Ask any men on the Tarorat, ask any of us. Actually," Archer just realized he had another angle, "a couple of them are in relationships with the women you left on Enterprise." He could see from the rapidity of the blinks that the concept was a hard one for the Aneukarians to fathom. "Men and women have relationships. The sexes are attracted to each other. Well, mostly." It was obvious this was way above his audience's grasp. He needed to build his case quickly. He leaned back in his chair, projecting an aura of bonhomie, "So it seems we've both been victim of a huge misunderstanding. You can now release us and get us back to our ship."
X-Eliantix shook her head from side to side. "We cannot. We need your genetic material."
It was Archer's time to blink. "You need our genetic material..." He wished Phlox was there, he could explain what they meant. "Why ours?" — after all, they thought they were a different species.
"Wel,, the genetic material of those like us is of better quality but yours is more conveniently located," X-Igofox jumped in, "your species, or sub-species, is loaded with easy access features."
"How so?"
"Well, for one, your reserves of genetic material are external, so there is no need for somatic invasion, and they are also already optimally compacted, plus you have an access tube."
All of a sudden Archer had a sense what they might be talking about. He felt himself blush. But this was no time to be embarrassed. He looked at X-Eliantix askance. "And you need our genetic material because... you're running out?" This was getting weirder by the second.
X-Igofox nodded vigorously. X-Eliantix started speaking, "Fifty years ago, a comet came very close to hitting Aneukaria. Fortunately it passed through our atmosphere and did not make contact, even though there was massive destruction from sonic waves. It was only years later that we realized the comet had dispersed radiation throughout our atmosphere. The impact was drastic. The DNA of all living Aneukarians was affected, so much so that most of our offspring cannot survive past infancy. Our entire species was condemned to disappear unless we found new reserves of unpolluted DNA. We need a reservoir of error-free DNA. The Tarorat was launched with a crew of fifty individuals, to try and find a compatible source. We had been looking for over a year when we lost engine power and Enterprise came by."
"There are more and more irregularities in our stores of reserve material. We lose 92% of each replacement generation," X-Igofox spoke in turn. "The only hope for our civilization is to extract and graft healthy root DNA and once we filter out various factors the DNA of your species is highly compatible. Your genome is different than ours but there are enough points of similarities that our doctors will be able to extract what we need."
"But why didn't you tell us?"
"We apologize for the ruse and for the necessity to abduct you but desperate times call for desperate measures. Based on your historical treatment of those like us, we didn't think you'd be willing to help."
Archer shook his head. "But why didn't you just ask?! We could have helped you! I told you about the Federation, about all the worlds that are part of it. You'd have access to all the genetic material you wanted. The Interspecies Medical Exchange could help your scientists figure out the best treatment. You wouldn't even need to join as a member!"
Three pair of black eyes blinked their common befuddlement. "Perhaps over time," X-Eliantix finally said, "but the survival of my world is at stake now. I'm sure you understand, Captain."
"Wait —," Archer, "you don't need to abduct us. Bring us back to Enterprise and we'll help you. I'm sure we'll find volunteers on Enter —," he stopped himself short, eyeing the Aneukarians narrowly. "What happens to us after you use our genetic material?"
"Based on our understanding of your biology, your species produces vast amounts of material over their lifetime. There are millions of Aneukarians in need of replenishing their reserves. More than all of you combined can provide but we hope that with proper care we can address most of the population."
"So you're going to keep us there as...," — were they saying what he thought they were saying? He thought for sure he must be mistaken —, "a 'reservoir' of genetic material?"
"You will be well taken care of, Captain," X-Igofox broke in, "it is our interest that you are maintained in optimal health for a very long time."
His head was already reeling, he might as well follow this all the way to the rabbit hole. "And what you want from us, from the sixty-two male prisoners...," he wasn't sure how to express it.
"...will be from you to extract genetic material on a regular basis." X-Igofox supplied helpfully.
She looked at X-Aljikax, wondering what the Human captain seemed to find amusing.
Glossary
X-Eliantix - captain of Tarorat, the Aneukarian ship.
X-Aljikax - first officer of Tarorat.
X-Igofox - doctor of Tarorat.
X-Urwjanx - chief engineer of Tarorat.