DAY ELEVEN – noon
It was close to midday when Malcolm finally rounded the last boulders, skidding around them in his haste to get to the shelter. But the shelter was empty. He ran straight down to the firepit. The ashes were obviously cold, no fire had been made in it for at least a full day. He looked around, but there was no sign of T'Pol. He would have panicked except for the fact he expected her to walk out of the forest at any time, telepathically alerted to his return. He waited a couple of minutes in hopeful expectation. Then he proceeded to make a fire, in case she could smell the smoke. But still she didn't show up.
Having long exhausted the miniature water pouches he had taken with him, Malcolm walked over to the stream and laid down on its bank, drinking deeply. It was when he got back up that he saw it, and for the second time of the day his blood ran cold. Right next to the stream, imprinted in the ground still humid from them filling the tiny organic pouches, the unmistakable print of a Klingon boot. Malcolm quickly looked over to the landing space, but there was no shuttle there. The Klingons had come back. His heart started racing in his chest. Did they find T'Pol? Was she on her way to the Orion processing station already? He looked all around like a drowning man in search of a buoy, looking for a sign, a clue, anything that would tell him whether she was still on the planet.
While his first instinct was to rush to the landing pad as the last place she may have been, he had enough training to know this would be an unproductive waste of time. If that was what happened she would no longer be there, period. He only had two directions to search, either to the side, around the mountain, or downward, towards the green lake. Since the danger lied where the lake was, that was where he needed to go. If he didn't find her there, he would have plenty of time to explore other options. He started as swiftly as he could down the slope, in a straight line, half-running when he could do so without tumbling head over heels downhill. He had gone a short distance when his eye caught a well-known shape on the ground. He would have recognized the crutch anywhere. He picked it up, noting a good part of its length had sheared off. He threw it aside and kept going.
And stopped dead in his tracks. In front of him was the nightmarish scene of the five impaled Klingons. After the first shocked recoil, he scanned the five contorted bodies more carefully, but nowhere could he see the whiteness of a jumpsuit. A small part of him sighed in relief. He noted the tendrils nailing the Klingons in place, saw how they erupted from the tree roots. The forest organism had killed them. He examined the charred remains of the trees on his left side and the group of dead Klingons, the bazookas scattered at their feet, and the overturned drum baffle at the edge of the clearing, his detective mind filling in the blanks. He didn't think the Klingons acted in self-defense. They must have been the aggressors. Did the forest organism kill them in reflexive reaction to the attack or was there malice involved? And where was T'Pol? Did it kill her too? Or were there more than five Klingons and the others took her away? Or did she escape? If she didn't have a crutch, she would be walking slowly. If she was walking slowly, he should be able to catch up with her. The blood was fresh on the ground, the killing hadn't happened too long ago.
That spurred him on, stepping gingerly in a straight line between the charred trees and the dead Klingons until he was past the clearing, and then he took off again, going even faster.
DAY ELEVEN – Beta Shift
"Hoshi to Dr. Phlox"
"Yes, Hoshi" Phlox hit the intercom on his desk. "I have a communication for you from Dr. Yuris, marked private."
"Send it through, Ensign, thank you." Phlox shut off the intercom and waited. He had had the greatest respect for Dr. Yuris since the doctor had provided the research on the Panaar Syndrome to T'Pol and he had privately rejoiced when Dr. Yuri had been reinstated, as head of the medical academy no less, after T'Pau had taken the reins on Vulcan. Once in a while he found himself wistfully hoping the other doctors who had been so quick to cast stones at T'Pol were now working as lab techs on some unknown and remote Vulcan outposts.
Phlox quickly scanned the written materials. It seemed Vulcans were so squeamish about relationships and bonds that even Dr. Yuris preferred to put things in writing than actually record them in a videopad. But what he read just confirmed his intuitive feeling. He pressed the intercom, thinking that after he talked to Trip he would need to alert the captain as well. Their shift had just recently ended.
xx
"What are you telling me?" Archer looked at Phlox, thinking perhaps he hadn't heard clearly.
The doctor sighed. "There is a reason why interfering with marital bonds is a capital crime on Vulcan. It is part of the social contract, otherwise their society would be rendered by violence. I guess that's some of what was going on in pre-Surak times."
"Can you reel it back?" Archer interrupted Phlox. He didn't care to hear the historical and societal reason for something when he didn't understand that something in the first place.
Phlox looked at him pensively. This was going to take a while. Patiently he went over what he had discussed with Commander Tucker, that the interference in the bond he shared with T'Pol triggered a rise in critical hormones that made him irritable and prone to anger and could very well lead to sudden and explosive violence. "So" Phlox ended, "as I told the Commander, anything could set off another attack like that on the trader." Archer had called Phlox in and related the savage beating that was so unlike Trip in its ferocity. "You have to be aware of the potential for violence at any time, especially against other males."
Archer looked at Phlox as if he had grown three heads. "What do you want me to do, have Trip work with women only?"
"That would be preferable, Captain", Phlox replied seriously, "though I realize it may not be possible."
Archer just shook his head in disbelief, he wasn't sure whether at the whole interference thing or at Phlox's answer.
DAY ELEVEN – afternoon
"T'Pol!" He had taken to calling her, hoping that perhaps she would answer, now that the Klingons were gone. But there was no reply and the lemmings didn't seem to care. Still, Malcolm kept calling as he hurried downhill from clearing to clearing. He must have been walking for a couple of hours now, and was thinking there was no way she could have covered that much ground with a bum leg. Just as he was about to stop and reconsider his approach, he glimpsed something white through the branches, down and to the left. She didn't react to his calling her name, nor the noise of his running footsteps. She didn't even turn to look at him, she was just stepping ahead, using the trees as a crutch and pulling herself forward. He ran to her until he was right behind her, almost touching her, and still she didn't turn around, mindlessly moving forward, always forward.
He grabbed her by the arm and whirled her around. Her pupils were dilated and she looked right through him to a horizon line well into the distance. He called her name several times, trying to rekindle an expression of recognition, anything that would let him know she was still there. Finally, when he was just about to give up, she seemed to come to, as if she were awakening form a long sleep. She blinked several times and finally looked at him and not through him. "The Klingons" she said.
Malcolm nodded "I know. The Klingons came back. They're dead now, there's no need to worry. Do you remember what happened?"
She stared at him as if she had to do intense mental calculations in order to answer. She glanced away "The tree".
She was really out of it, thought Malcolm. "The tree killed them" he helped.
She looked at him "They are not trees."
He nodded again "There's some kind of living thing at the base of the mountain. If you keep going that way you'll quite literally be throwing yourself into its jaws."
She frowned, obviously making a great effort to speak. "A... a life form. The forest is the physical form. Much like a Cnidaria, very low level of conscious thought, instinct-driven, but a telepathic hunter." T'Pol closed her eyes, obviously exhausted from having strung so many words together. When she opened them again, her pupils were hugely dilated, seeming to take over her face. Wordlessly she turned away from Malcolm, obviously intent on going back downhill.
He couldn't let that happen. He didn't know what a Cnidaria was but he knew that a telepathic hunter couldn't be good news for her. "We have to go back up to the shelter!" and before she could resist or come up with an excuse, he pulled her arm over his shoulders and started dragging her up the slope.
Going uphill was a lot more difficult than going downhill, in part due her leg and in greater part due to their ongoing struggle as she kept fighting to find her way back downhill. Malcolm gritted his teeth and held on. He had had plenty of time to think how to prevent her from being reeled in by the organism while on the outcrop, but most of it involved some kind of physical violence and he was wont to add to the damage inflicted by the Klingons. The incremental progress up the slope, as slow as it was, was still progress, even if it took twice, three times, four times as long as it should have. He kept a running commentary as they went, partly to distract himself and partly to try and keep her connected. As they steadily made their way up, her pupils came back to normal more often, which spurred him on. She would also stop fighting at those times and they were making more progress.
Still, the night started falling before they made it up to the clearing where the Klingons were pinned. Malcolm realized they wouldn't make it the rest of the way to the shelter in time. He stopped and led T'Pol to the nearest tree trunk, which she grabbed for balance. He looked at her. Her pupils were dilating and shrinking at semi-regular intervals.
"Do you need me to make a fire?" he asked.
"The temperature is not unpleasant" she replied, surprisingly coherently. Malcolm realized that the telepathic hunter was also messing with her physiology. He paused for a moment. He had thought the encroaching darkness would prevent her from going anywhere on her own, had already figured how he was going to secure her to him for the night, but perhaps her dilated pupils... "Can you see?" he asked disinterestedly, even though he was very much interested in the answer. She looked around, scanning the clearing and the trees lining it. "Not very clearly" was the answer. Malcolm mentally cussed and she looked at him curiously, as if trying to ascertain if she had indeed heard him say what she thought he had. That reminded him he needed to be careful with his thoughts. He walked to her right side, where her injured leg was, very consciously keeping his mind blank. He would have to act on instinct.
"We need to keep going," he told her. He had actually planned to stop for the night but getting away from the telepathic organism was now his main priority. He was exhausted, from the climb up the outcrop, the rush down from it, the adrenaline jolt at realizing the organism was waiting for him down below, for he had no illusion that he would be spared once T'Pol had been done with, he was hungry and he was cold. And none of that was going to be changing anytime soon. He looked over at T'Pol, thinking she looked the way he felt. The two of them were a sore-looking bunch, for sure. If they kept going like that, there wouldn't be much for the organism to feed on.
They had been going for another couple of hours, he hauling and pushing and keeping her on track, and actively suppressing any thought of how close her hand was for a Vulcan nerve pinch, when the shrieks started. Those shrieks that Malcolm had been wondering about, thinking initially they came from some nocturnal flying animal. They resounded all around them in the forest, sometime high up in the trees, sometime low to the ground, and the same instinct that had told him to keep going now told him to stay put. He guided the two of them to the nearest clump of trees, making sure they were partially hidden, and they settled there, he holding T'Pol securely in front of him, as he had done that first night in the lean-to, but this time he had a death-grip on her lest she escape and start downhill again. She was no longer fighting to go back downhill and he had a feeling that was connected to the rising of the shrieking animals. If that was what those were.
DAY ELEVEN – Delta Shift
Archer was falling asleep on his chair, his head leaning forward in spite of himself until he would suddenly wake up and glare again at the screen, bleary-eyed. Hoshi was hunched over her station and Archer wondered if perhaps she had fallen asleep. None of the bridge crew needed to be at their post, but none of them had agreed to leave when their relief came by. He himself was bemoaning the improvements made to the captain's chair, which were making it so difficult not to fall asleep. It was Reed's replacement that woke them all up.
"Captain, there's a ship 10,000 miles away" Ensign Kivich announced.
All of a sudden, everybody was alert. Archer leaned forward "What –
"Klingon, sir!" the ensign shouted so loud Archer almost jumped out of his chair.
"Ensign Mayweather, lay in a course to intercept. Ensign Kivich, get the weapons on line. Trip –
"—don't worry, Captain, engines will do anything you want them to."
The ship that showed up on the viewscreen was a fair-size, squat workhorse of a ship, and no match for a starship. Archer knew the Klingons would fight rather than talk. "All shields at maximum. Ensign Kivich, take their engines out. Travis, do not let them get away."
Enterprise dove on the Klingon transport like a hawk out of the sky. The Klingon ship tried to respond as it could, but was soon overpowered, listing to one side. Archer reflected that it was a good turn of events that the Klingons knew the fate they had so often inflicted on others.
"Any Vulcan or Human biosign on board?" he asked
"Negative, Captain" Trip answered from his console, where he had taken over the science station. The science ensigns were done with their shifts.
"Hail the ship" Archer told Hoshi.
"They're responding, Captain."
"On the screen." Archer coldly stared at the captain of the pirate ship, an imposing seven-foot specimen of a Klingon. Oh, how he would like to pulverize him and his vessel out into the next quadrant. But his mission was not to inflict punishment or revenge, he wanted his officers back and didn't care much about the Klingon pirates otherwise.
"You abducted two of my crew, and you're going to tell me where you took them."
The other captain snarled "You'll have to be more precise than that."
Archer stepped off his chair "I'm sure you remember a Human and a Vulcan."
The Klingon looked at him angrily, then sneered. "Ah, yes, the Vulcan. Very entertaining. Though she gave us a lot of trouble for someone so small." Trip paled, then flushed. The Klingon added "I almost considered buying her myself. But the Human is dead. And she's probably just bones by now."
Archer's hands clenched into fists "You killed him?"
"No, I didn't have the pleasure", the Klingon replied. "The son of a targ blew himself up when he tried to transport out."
"Transport out to where?" Trip blurted.
The Klingon eyed him with a smile full of malice. "Actually, I might tell you. See if you can survive there. That goddam forest cost me five of my men," he spat on the floor. "Perhaps you'll have more luck." He turned to Archer. "Go ahead and kill me, Captain, whether you do or not, you'll never find out."
Archer turned to Hoshi so that the Klingon captain could not see him, passed a finger across his neck. She dutifully cut the intercom. He turned to Trip "Do you have a read on their ion trail?"
"Sure do."
"Good, let's trace it back to where it came from." He motioned at Hoshi to open the channel again and turned back to the screen. "We don't need your help to find them. We'll take our leave now. Hope that the next ship that comes this way are not the Orions." Allies or not, if the Orions found a disabled Klingon ship they would not ask where their good luck came from before selling its crew.
The Klingon captain bellowed his rage but Archer already had Hoshi cut the communication. He turned to Ensign Kivich "Ensign, prepare to fire all torpedoes at once."
She looked at him in puzzlement. "Sir?"
Trip cut in "The Captain said to prepare to fire the torpedoes, not to fire them."
Archer nodded "We are going to leave and let them be. Unless they do something stupid."
At the exact same moment, Travis shouted "They are arming weapons sir, coming towards us at impulse power." He turned towards the captain in disbelief. Who would ever come after a starship disabled and at impulse power only?
Archer thinned his lips. "That's what I would call something stupid. Trip, how close are they to firing?"
Trip looked into the scanner, replied without raising his head. "They're going to be at maximum power in a few seconds. Nine, eight, six…" The bridge shook as the Klingon pirates made contact.
"Hull plating at 86%" Ensign Kivich reported.
The pirates weapons were stronger than one might have anticipated, Archer thought. The bridge shook again. Those bastards were trying to bring Enterprise down with them.
"Fire!" Archer's command erupted across the bridge. Ensign Kivich hesitated for a split second. Trip reached over from his console and hit the command, and the crew watched the pyrotechnics of the exploding Klingon transport.
As silence descended once more on the bridge, Archer and Trip stared at each other. Could it be that Reed was dead? Trip's heart sank. Reed might be dead and T'Pol was in mortal danger on some planet and there was nothing he could do to save her.