Trip stared at Jenny for a while. Just for a while.

The irony of it all didn't escape him. That was why she'd stayed down in the Bunker, he knew. Why all of them had, once they realized what life was like up here. It was why they traded what goods they could to avoid having to come up here. Why they had set up that whole system in Scraptown to keep from having to come up and make a place here.

Probably why they'd shot down T'Pol's ship, he figured. So they could make use of the salvage. Maybe even the tech itself, to try to get a leg up again. Because they'd been running out of trade goods over the last couple of years. And they'd known that the Republic of Texas and the New England Commonwealth were starting to extend their reach. In this direction.

But they had never come up out of the Bunker. Never come up and tried to teach people the things they'd forgotten. Never got a printing press running and disseminating books, like they could have. Pretty easily, in fact. Never gone out to the farms and taught the folks there the half dozen tricks they were still decades from figuring out on their own. Never established schools or a representative government or a common system of laws and…

Well, they'd just never come up here and done any of the things they'd all talked about doing. Things they knew they should have. Because deep down every one of them had known that would probably happen to them. Not to all of them, sure. But enough of them that it scared the hell out of 'em all.

None of them wanted to come up here and get their head blown off. Like Jenny just had.

And the thing was…he had come up. Maybe he'd never done any of those things either once he got out here. But he'd come up out of the Bunker, intending to. At first. Which kinda made him wonder what that said about him, exactly.

He'd tried pretty hard to fit in up here. Tried to be a hard-ass, like you needed to be in order to survive up here. But he'd never really been able to pull it off. Not completely. And he hadn't done the things he'd always resented the folks in the Bunker for not doing either. So what the hell had he even come up here for? Why had he spent all these years trying so hard not to get his head blown off, too? He'd come up originally to help people. And to get up to the Phoenix somehow, eventually.

And, really, when you came right down to it, he'd come up here so Jenny wouldn't have to. So none of the others would have to either. Not until he'd made a difference out here. Made it safe for them to come up.

He hadn't done a damned thing up here but scrape out a living, tuning trucks and cars for other people to go kill each other with. He hadn't made a difference at all. Maybe even helped make it worse, if you wanted to look at it that way.

Which was why Jenny was laying there now. Dead. Because he hadn't done what he should have done.

So even if it did make him want to sit there and ache for her. Maybe sit and cry for Jenny, who'd really only just been trying to do her damned job…that wasn't what he was supposed to be doing right now. There were other people still that needed him.

He had to get the subspace comm, so T'Pol could call for help. So she could get the hell off this god forsaken planet. And so he could get Romeo and Clover the hell out of here before all the soldiers T'Pol had stunned started waking up.

Maybe all of this wasn't what he was supposed to be doing up here. But it was what he had to do right now. So he got the hell up and started doing that. It hurt like hell, and his leg was bleeding enough to make him a little woozy…but it was just a graze. And he was supposed to be a hard ass, right? So he sorta tried to pretend that didn't hurt as much as it did. And didn't scare him as bad as it did.

And he limped on into that freaky alien ship, leaving Jenny laying there behind him. Because he owed it to her, too, didn't he?

T'Pol couldn't breath well for a minute or two. She wasn't entirely certain yet what had just happened. The facts were obvious, of course. The woman across the field had shot her. And the projectile from her weapon had struck her chest with enough force to knock the breath out of her. With enough force, in fact, to knock her back, into the crater.

She was having some trouble accepting such primitive weapons could impact with that measure of force, though. It had been extraordinary. She was fairly certain her feet had actually left the ground.

It really was quite impressive.

And the armor she wore, the tactical vest. It was extremely primitive as well. And despite being designed to absorb precisely that form of attack, she would never have been able to accept it would be able to do that. Not if she'd been aware just how hard the projectiles from those ballistic combustion weapons could actually strike a person.

But the atmosphere was oxygen rich, if only just slightly more dense than was comfortable. So she was able to catch her breath and recover somewhat by the time the first one appeared above her, looking down on her passively. Assessing her for injury.

"Subcommander T'Pol?"

She had to try twice, but she finally managed to speak.

"Yes." She croaked. And she would have been embarrassed at the sound of her voice, if she were to allow herself to experience such a thing.

"Are you injured?"

"Yes." She said, her voice a steadier now. "But not seriously."

The Vulcan officer above her continued to assess her. Before concluding there wasn't any logical reason for her to remain laying on the ground like that.

"May I offer assistance in regaining your footing?"

She nodded, raising one hand for him to grab and pull her up. Perhaps one of only a few instances where it would be appropriate to do so.

With his help, she was on her feet quickly enough. And he politely withdrew his hand before the contact could become uncomfortable. Though it did leave her a little unsteady, that was quite acceptable. He was proper enough to look away as well, finding something else in the area to look critically upon while she recovered herself.

"The others." She said. "What is their status?"

"We have found no other survivors, Subcommander." He reported.

"The humans." She specified. "Those who accompanied me here."

"I see. We remain uncertain which are to be considered hostiles."

"Those that are currently unconscious may be safely considered hostile…" She said, glancing at his collar. "…Major."

The Major gestured behind him, at the four man team standing at a polite distance. And they scattered quickly, to do what was required. Making sure those hostiles on the field remained unconscious.

"Where did you come from, Major?" T'Pol asked, reaching into the shoulder of her shirt to undo the Velcro fastener there.

"The Seleya, Subcommander." He said, sliding his phaser rifle to one shoulder. "We detected your distress signal and my team was dispatched to…"

"Excuse me." She interrupted. "Distress signal?"

She undid the opposite fastener, reaching under her ragged shirt to pull the vest from underneath and away from her. Her chest still hurt and the added difficulty in breathing freely had become unacceptable.

The Major peered around to the side, over the field. "Considering the current situation, Subcommander, I suspect the signal in question was automated. Perhaps triggered by the efforts of the humans on site to access the wreckage of the survey vessel."

"I see." She said. "That is the logical deduction. Our subspace antenna was lost when we came under attack."

That brought his attention back to her. "Attack? By orbital mass driver weapon systems?"

"Indeed." She said, assessing him in return. "You suffered the same?"

"As it happens, yes. Our subspace antennae was destroyed in the process, as well. The satellites delivered a surprisingly high quantity of projectiles in a short amount of time, before we managed to disable them."

She glanced over at the shuttle as she lay the armored vest across her arm. It was scarred across its entire length. Very little of the outer surface having escaped some measure of damage. And the subspace antennae was indeed sheered off.

So, they'd sent a shuttle, expecting trouble. And their shields had obviously been up, in case they encountered it. And yet the Human orbital defenses had still managed to damage the vessel.

Again, quite impressive.

That brought the Kevlar vest itself within her peripheral vision. So as she considered all the implications of what the Major reported to her, the Velcro fasteners suddenly piqued her interest.

Vulcans had developed precisely that same technology, many hundreds of years ago. And still used it today. Indeed, judging from the composition of the material, the design was perfectly identical. Which was extraordinary, and suggested quite a lot concerning the similarities between Humans and Vulcans…

Humans like Trip…

Trip!

"Major." She said, jerking her head back up. Expressing perhaps an inappropriate amount of anxiety. "The human at the ship. He has been shot. He also was my comrade here…"

"He has taken refuge in the forward bridge section of the vessel, Subcommander." He said. "I have a man covering the airlock, in case he should emerge again. He appeared to be mobile and not critically injured."

"Nevertheless, you will escort me there so that we may render medical aid. Quickly."

She watched from the trees for a moment. Until she was sure no one had been able to follow Clover or track where she'd disappeared to. So when she figured it was safe enough, she made Clover calm down a little. Because she had to decide who to go to now. Trip or Romeo.

Trip was shot, but he was in the space ship now. And there were not-muties with ray guns there. Big ray guns. A lot bigger than the little one she had. There weren't any over by the truck yet, though…

And, really, she was still kinda mad at Trip. And he had that woman to take care of him now. If she went over there and got to him, to help him…well, she'd probably show up and want to make her move out of the way or something. And then they'd get in a fight.

That would just make all kinds of stupid trouble. And Romeo would let her take care of him just fine. No one would want to fight about it neither…

So she let Clover take her over there. Flowing through the woods where no one could see until she reached the truck.

Romeo was waking up already. But he was dizzy and his eyes kept crossing in a funny way. So she jumped up with him and grabbed him, to help him focus.

"Clover?" He said, groggily.

"Yeah. She's here." She said. "Come on, we gotta go now."

"Wha' happen?"

"Truck got shot." She said. "Some of them space people is here. And Trip got shot."

Romeo blinked furiously, shaking his head. "Trip's shot?" He frowned.

"Yeah. We gotta go."

"Okay, let me get on my feet here…"

So she helped him down from the truck. Stopped him from falling over until he could stand up on his own a little bit.

"Where's Trip?" He asked.

"He's in the space ship." She said. "But there's space people there. We gotta go."

"Come on. We've got to help him."

Romeo staggered forward, not really knowing which way the space ship was.

"There's space people there." She said again. Because he must not have heard that part. "They got ray guns. Big ones."

"Good guys or bad guys?" He asked, stopping to turn back, weaving almost off balance.

She frowned. "Don't know. She thinks they're like her, though."

"Okay, come on."

And he was staggering off again. Toward the space ship and the space people.

Which made her kinda mad. Because now she had to go with him. So it looked like taking care of Romeo was going to be a pain in the ass sometimes, too.

Trip had to do everything hopping around on one leg. And ignoring the pain, which made focusing a little hard. But still and all, he was a little surprised at how the subspace comm system was just about exactly what he'd expected it would be.

Well, that is...it was pretty advanced. Enough that he had to stop himself from gawking at every little thing that jumped out at him. Stop himself from spending an hour or two marveling at how this or that inherent difficulty in converting data impulses into a subspace carrier wave, one that'd utilized the way subspace acted kinda like a solid in transmitting various wave forms…well, damn. He could just sit and pick this thing apart for the next year or two. And have one hell of a good time doing it.

The entire thing was very conveniently compartmentalized, too. Each function and each set of systems divided and sub-divided into handy, easily maintained and replaced components. He wasn't entirely sure how the whole thing was supposed to work together as a unit. That'd take a whole team probably a year of reverse engineering to figure out. But the core subspace signal converter was easy enough to find.

Once he figured out how the get the panels off and get in there to it. Funny how that was the hardest part of all this. He'd have to remember that little trick with the fasteners. That was a pretty amazingly sturdy little gizmo. The kind of simple little invention that made you wonder why no one had ever thought of it before. He could have probably made a billion bucks off a patent like that, way back before the war. Bought his own island or something.

He kind of wished T'Pol was here, so he could show off. Because he had the thing unlocked and slid right out of the wall in less than a minute. He was pretty sure she'd raise an eyebrow at him over that. And he'd get to grin at her.

Of course, she'd exploded Jenny's head a few minutes ago. So maybe that wouldn't be so funny right about now…

But this wasn't the time to think about all that. He had to get this thing out of there. Show it to T'Pol, so she'd finally agree it was time to leave. And then he get all of them the hell out of there.

He was pretty damned surprised to find an alien with pointy ears pointing a big ray gun at him when he hopped out of the airlock, though.

So he stared at him for a minute, the subspace converter dangling from one hand still.

"Uh…hi." He said, staring.

"Greetings." The alien said. Politely enough. "If you would disarm yourself it will not be necessary to render you unconscious."

Disarm…render…what now?

"Huh?"

"Your weapon." The alien said. "If you would remove it from your shoulder and allow it fall…"

"Oh." Trip said. "Right. I don't think so. Who the hell are you?"

"I am Subaltern Sotem. Again, if you would disarm…"

"Stand down, Subaltern."

T'Pol. With another of them.

Where the hell had all these guys come from anyway? And where were…?

"T'Pol!" He said, anxiously. "Clover and Romeo okay?"

"I do not know. I was coming here to assess you for injury…"

He was already limping away, throwing the subspace converter up on one shoulder.

"Okay, come on. Let's go."

"You are shot." She pointed out.

"Just a graze. Come on." He frowned.

What the hell? Romeo and Clover could be hurt. He'd armored the hell out of that truck, of course. But he was pretty sure that was a propelled grenade that'd hit it. One of them could have bumped their head or something.

"They are already approaching." She said.

He stopped and looked over, finding her looking away across the field. And, yep, there they were, ambling along over the shredded ground toward them. Romeo looked a little banged up. Clover just looked irritated.

So he was able to let out that breath he'd been holding until he was sure they were okay. Since they seemed to be.

He suddenly wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about that now, though. The plan was to get the hell out of there. But now all this was happening instead.

Trip looked around, frowning at how he was so off balance here.

"So…who are all these guys?"

"This is Major Kov." She said. "They have come to retrieve survivors and to destroy the remains of the survey vessel."

Trip nodded. Pretending that made sense to him, since it seemed to make sense to her.

"Yeah. Okay. Don't think that's gonna be a problem. Most of it's scrap already."

"Trip, you alright?" Romeo asked, just a few yards away.

"Yeah, yeah. Fine. Got a little shot, though."

"Who are all these guys?"

"T'Pol's folks."

"Oh." Romeo said, coming up on them now. "So…they aren't gonna try to disarm us or anything, are they? That enforced peace thing T'Pol was talking about?"

"No, no. They're fine." Trip assured.

Trip found himself staring at a bunch of aliens all of a sudden, though. Which was pretty weird. Not the sort of thing he'd expected to be doing today.

He standing on one side with Romeo and Clover. T'Pol over there with Kov and a couple of them.

"So, uh." He said, nodding. "Welcome to Earth, I guess."

"Trip. You are injured." T'Pol said.

Patiently. Like he was kinda stupid and forgot that. Which…yeah, okay. He sorta had.

He sighed. "Yeah, sorry. Kind of a weird situation here."

"In understand, of course. If you would allow our medic to treat you, that would preferable."

"Right. Okay. Yeah." He nodded.

T'Pol turned and signaled one of the men waiting behind her. Who came at him with some weird looking gizmo that made funny noises…

"Uh…what's that thing?"

"A medical scanner."

"Oh."

So he didn't back away or threaten to shoot anyone, like he sort of wanted to just then. He let the guy wave it around at him instead. Then start pulling other interesting gizmos out of a bag he had hanging from his shoulder.

Then he realized…

And he stared at T'Pol in shock.

"Oh." He said, his voice already regretful. "You're leaving now, aren't you?"

"It would seem so." She said.

And there was a little regret in her voice as well.