11.
"These are the last of them, sir."
Bobby stared at the crates and smiled with relief. "Good work," he said, patting the other MACO on the shoulder. He turned to L'Sar and said "And these are all of them, sir. Delivered just like you asked."
"Good, good," L'Sar said, clapping his hands. "And in such an expedient manner!"
"Everything is there, according to the packing lists," Bobby said, neglecting to mention that they were the lists Sara had sent them and not rewritten lists.
"Very good," L'Sar said, inspecting the boxes. "I hope it wasn't too much trouble."
"Oh, no trouble at all," Bobby said, trying to keep conversation short. He knew that his MACOs were tired, and tired MACOs had the potential to make mistakes, and they couldn't afford to make a mistake in this case.
"Yeah, especially once we got the lists," one of the other MACOs said. "If Ensign Rhodes hadn't sent them to us, we'd still be up there packing."
The room went dead silent. Bobby stared at the MACO who had revealed their secret with dead eyes, trying not to reveal how incredibly scared and angry he now was; scared for his friend, and angry that one of his MACOs had completely blown their plan.
"What did you say?" L'Sar said calmly, clearly trying not to show his anger. The MACO who had made the slip turned pale white, finally realizing the magnitude of what he had done. He looked to Bobby, who kept his expression neutral.
"The man asked you a question, MACO," Bobby said, trying to keep his voice at an even pitch. "Answer him." He knew that all was lost, that there was no way they could retract the statement without L'Sar becoming suspicious and uncovering the truth anyways.
The MACO swallowed his terror. "If Ensign Rhodes hadn't sent us the lists, we'd still be up there packing," he said.
"THE WOMAN WAS INVOLVED WITH THIS?" L'Sar yelled, exploding with rage. He rounded on Bobby. "YOU LIED TO ME! I'LL HAVE YOUR HEADS FOR THIS, I SWEAR IT!"
"Sir, I can show you who I got of the lists from, if you'll allow it. I have the messages saved," Bobby said carefully. He pulled out the PADD and brought up the messages, then held out the PADD to L'Sar, hoping that he wouldn't trace the messages back any further.
"They were sent by Doctor Phlox to you," L'Sar read, calming down somewhat. "Then you and your men are innocent of any deception. However, I see that these were forwarded to Phlox by someone else. Allow me a moment, if you please." Bobby had no choice but to obey, and watched in horror as L'Sar successfully traced the messages to Sara's PADD.
"As I suspected," L'Sar said, shaking with rage. "You and your men may continue unloading the crates. You will not suffer punishment. I must speak with Captain Archer immediately, however. The woman will be punished." He sent an order for his judiciary council to be assembled as he hailed the Enterprise.
On the bridge of the Enterprise, the hail came in, and Archer watched with a sick feeling in his stomach as an angry L'Sar appeared on the screen, a group of men standing silently behind him. Somehow, they had been found out.
"Captain Archer, I have discovered evidence of deception by you and your crew," L'Sar said. "The lists that were sent to the men who delivered the medicine were traced back to your Ensign Rhodes. I warned you that the women were to have nothing to do with the packing of these supplies."
"Mister L'Sar, your exact words were "I will accept nothing that the women have touched," and we kept our end of the bargain. Ensign Rhodes did not touch any of the materials that you were sent."
"Yes, but we also demanded that the lists be rewritten by your doctor before they were passed on to the delivery men!" L'Sar raged. "This was not done! I myself traced the messages from Doctor Phlox back to Ensign Rhodes. I warned you that judiciary action would be taken, and I was not merely posturing! Bring Ensign Rhodes forward. I want to question her about her deception."
This was exactly what Archer had been hoping to avoid. He knew that if discovered, Sara would be unfairly punished by laws that, at least on Earth, had gone out at least a century ago. "Mister L'Sar, I gave Ensign Rhodes the order to disobey your request and forward the messages to Phlox," Archer said boldly. "I am the one who broke your law, not her. If you must punish anyone, punish me."
"Our justice system does not allow for that," L'Sar said crossly. "Since she is the one who sent the messages, she is the one who will be punished. Bring her here."
Archer turned to T'Pol with a pained expression. "Commander, please bring Ensign Rhodes to the bridge, and Doctor Phlox with her," he said quietly. T'Pol looked as close to upset as she could get, and left the bridge. As Archer turned back to face the view screen, he could see the other members of the bridge crew looked just as shocked and horrified as he felt.
L'Sar shook his head. "Sending a woman to fetch another," he said. "Your culture would be better off learning from us."
"Our culture held your views for nearly 2000 years," Archer said. "We discovered that it was better to let our women prove their worth as equals than to keep them shoved into corners and boxes. Yes, we do have major cultural differences. But where we come from, what you're doing is considered wrong, and my job as a captain is to protect ALL members of my crew, male AND female. So forgive me, Mister L'Sar, if I'm not jumping at the chance to offer one of my crew members up to a paleolithic rule."
Before L'Sar could respond, T'Pol reappeared on the bridge, followed by Phlox, Sara, and an angry-looking Ensign Liebowitz. "Ensign Rhodes, as you requested, sir," T'Pol said. She shot L'Sar a look that clearly said she thought his laws highly illogical, putting it in kind terms, and took her place again.
Sara stepped forward, her face pale. "You requested me, Captain?" she said, clearly trying to keep her voice under control. After the embarrassing incident in the shuttlepod, she was desperately trying not to cry in front of the captain again.
"Mister L'Sar wants to ask you some questions," Archer said, glaring at the man on the view screen.
"Ensign Rhodes," Mister L'Sar said, disgust evident in his voice even as he addressed her by her proper rank. "Messages you sent to Doctor Phlox were found on Sergeant Robert Neville's PADD, as he calls it. These messages contained packing lists and recipes containing items that we had requested during negotiations. Do you deny that you sent those messages?"
"I do not," Sara said.
"And do you deny that we requested the lists be rewritten by Doctor Phlox before they were passed on to the delivery persons?"
"I do not."
"And were the lists rewritten by Doctor Phlox before they were sent to Sergeant Robert Neville?"
Sara began shaking in terror for the second time that week. "No, they were not."
"Did you send those messages to Doctor Phlox with the intention of letting him pass them to Sergeant Robert Neville in a deliberate act of defiance?"
"Now wait just a minute," Phlox interrupted. "If anyone defied your orders, it was myself and the Captain, as you have undoubtedly already been told. Sara was only operating under the orders of her commanding officers, as members of Starfleet are trained to do. Punishing her for our disobedience is unjust and unfair."
"Answer the question, woman," L'Sar said, ignoring Phlox.
Sara stared L'Sar dead in the face. "I sent the messages, but it was Phlox and the Captain who ordered me to do so."
"So be it," L'Sar said. "You are judged and found guilty of first-degree disorderly disobedience and high treason. My judiciary council and I will debate on your sentence and come to deliver it in person in three hours at the most."
"WHAT?" Melody shouted as Sara slumped over, her eyes blank and staring at the wall in front of her, nearly hitting the floor before Phlox and Malcolm caught her and the entire bridge crew gasped. "What the hell kind of trial was that!? You're a barbarian, that's what you are sir! I hope those crates explode!"
"Ensign Liebowitz, please assist Ensign Rhodes to her quarters, and try to calm yourself down on the way there," Archer said, trying to sound stern. Phlox and Melody led Sara out of the room, and then Archer turned back to L'Sar, rage written on every inch of his face. "That was no trial; that was a damn circus! If I didn't know any better, the verdict was decided before Ensign Rhodes even entered the room!"
L'Sar ignored Archer's yelling and conversed with his judicial council, who all nodded. "You will turn Ensign Rhodes over to us in three hours to face her sentence. She will be informed of her fate at that time."
"I swear on everything I hold dear that if you kill her, Starfleet WILL bring military action against you," Archer said angrily. "And believe me when I say, Mister L'Sar, that I am not merely posturing either. Archer out." The screen went black and Archer slumped in his chair.
"Captain, what are we going to do?" Hoshi asked, choking back tears.
"Nothing at the moment," Archer said. "But we better start planning a way to break Ensign Rhodes out of prison now, or else we'll never be able to do it. Malcolm, did you manage to get those blueprints I asked about?"
Hours later, unaware that her coworkers were already planning her escape, Sara was in her room when a knock roused her from her stupor. She wiped her eyes and choked out an "Enter," and as soon as the door closed behind Trip, she flung herself into his arms and began crying again.
"It's gonna be alright Sara, don't worry," he said, trying to comfort her. "Captain Archer's already planning how to break you out of prison. We're not gonna let them hurt you."
"It's too late," she wailed. "They're gonna do something awful to me, I know they are. I knew I should have disobeyed Captain Archer, but I couldn't bring myself to do it."
"He didn't want you to disobey him. He wanted you to do exactly what you did."
Sara tried to wipe her tears away and looked up at Trip, the scared child on the playground pushing herself to the forefront. "You won't let them hurt me, will you Trip?"
"They'll hurt you over my dead body," he said, brushing a piece of hair out of Sara's face. There was a knock on the door, and Sara jumped backwards.
"Who is it?" she asked fearfully. Trip's heart sank as he heard "The Selfloss XII Judiciary Council. Please allow us to enter." Sara nodded to Trip, who opened the door and stood back to admit the members of the council. Sara shrank back towards her bed in terror, and Trip quickly ran and caught her before she hit the floor.
"Sara Callahan Rhodes, by unanimous vote, you will be taken into custody and brought back to Selfloss XII, to face the sentence of execution by burning tomorrow afternoon."
"NO!" Sara yelled, clinging to Trip. She looked up at him again, her eyes wild with terror. "You can't let them take me, Trip. You can't let them."
Trip wrapped his arms around Sara and pulled her close. "What the hell kind of sentence is this? All she did was follow orders! You can't take her!"
"We have our orders as well, Commander," said the head of the judiciary council. He motioned to two of the biggest men on the council, who strode forward and pulled Sara out of Trip's arms and dragged her towards the door kicking and screaming. Trip lunged forward and tried to catch Sara's hand, but was held back by two more members of the council.
"You can't do this to her!" he shouted, struggling to get away from the other council members. As soon as Sara was in the hallway, he was released and ran out the door after them.
"TRIP, HELP ME!" Sara screamed, her desperate pleas echoing down the hallways of the Enterprise. "YOU CAN'T LET THEM TAKE ME. YOU CAN'T. CAPTAIN ARCHER, TRIP, ANYBODY, PLEASE DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME." She struggled against her captors all the way into the transporter room, where they were met by a group of MACOs led by Bobby. Trip appeared in the doorway behind them almost at the same time as Captain Archer and Malcolm, and all three paused when they saw the heavily armed MACOs. Trip was hoping they'd be able to make the council let Sara go.
"Where are you taking her?" he demanded.
"She has been judged guilty and will be facing execution in the afternoon," the head of the judiciary council said shortly. "Any attempt to impede our return to the planet will result in an immediate verdict of high treason and further arrests. Please move." Bobby looked desperately at Trip, then at Captain Archer. Looking very much like he wanted to do anything else, Archer shook his head, and Bobby let the group pass to the transporters.
Sara burst into tears and kicked as hard as she could, finally landing a blow to one of her captors that brought him to the ground. The other guard let go of Sara and bent down to help his friend, and Sara saw her chance. She turned and ran for the door to the transporter room, towards Trip and freedom. She had just reached him and grabbed his outstretched hand when the Selflossians grabbed her and dragged her towards the now active transporter, her screams of terror bouncing off the walls of the transporter room.
The transporter was activated, and as they disappeared, Sara locked eyes with Trip one last time. She mouthed the words "Help me" and was gone.