A/N: Not gonna lie, I am SO excited for this chapter. We finally (really) meet a new character! He's been in a few others, but this is the first time he's really taken centre stage. Thank you for reading :D

Chapter 18: Ulterior Perspectives

Bennet hissed as his feet touched the cool tiles of the bathroom floor.

"Computer," he said, hopping onto the mat nearest to the shower, "Turn on the floor heating, please."

The sensor in the far corner of the room beeped to signal that it had received his command.

Bennet had the lights dialled up to no more than thirty percent before he stepped into the shower. He knew that by the time he was finished, the floor would have gone from tundra, to rainforest.

As he was finishing up, Harrev entered the bathroom and turned the lights on all the way.

Bennet started, bumping against the side of the shower stall, effectively turning off the water.

"Delaying the inevitable does little for your future," Harrev said, handing Bennet a towel and turning away as he stepped out. "It's better to get your eyes adjusted now so you're not squinting at your screen for the entire morning."

"My boyfriend, the pragmatist," Bennet chuckled, and went to go get changed.

In order to accommodate their extra twenty minutes of sleep, they skipped on breakfast and went straight to brushing their teeth. Bennet took his first coffee about an hour into his shift, while Harrev didn't drink much besides water.

Harrev brushed his teeth, eyes flashing to Bennet every few seconds as he shaved off the light beard he'd let grow in over the past month. For ground missions, Spock requested that his accompanying officers be clean shaven (so as to reduce the likelihood of any hair-induced miscommunication.)

Harrev deposited his toothbrush into a holder on the side of the sink. After gargling and spitting out the remaining water, he looked at Bennet's reflection, and said, "I will miss your scruff."

Bennet laughed, then turned to face the real Harrev. "If only I could grow more than scruff."

They straightened each other's uniforms, checking for any inconsistencies. Then Harrev kissed Bennet, lingering for as long as he could before he had to leave on his slightly earlier shift.

As Commander Spock's aide-de-campe, Bennet directed all of his direct orders to the lower-ranking officers. And, as his assistant, he was also in charge of distributing a number of indirect orders. Spock's daily schedule was in an ever-changing state of flux, and he had to be prepared to handle that.

Since they'd trained in combat together, Spock rarely went on a mission without Bennet.

"So, where did the transport crash?" Bennet asked. He stood on one side of the holomap, Spock on the other.

"Here." Spock pointed to a shape Bennet assumed was meant to be some sort of rock formation.

"Behind it?"

"From where we are landing, yes," Spock said.

Before becoming joined to Spock's hip, Bennet would have said something like, "So where on the map did the transport crash?" In the years since then, his speech had become more direct, and less conversational.

When he'd met Harrev, his bubbliness should have increased, but Bennet's need to help break him out of his shell had had the opposite effect on himself at the same time.

Spock pulled up the mission file on his padd. He scrolled through the crew assembly list. He stopped on their assigned shuttle pilot.

"You have not reassigned someone to replace Mr. Sulu," he said.

Bennet winced. "I thought we were waiting for the results back on his psych eval." Even as he said it, he knew exactly what Spock's response would be.

Still too shaken up from the shuttle explosion last month, Sulu wasn't cleared for field duty.

Spock looked at him. "The mission itinerary matures in an hour."

Bennet nodded. "I'll get right on that, sir."

Itineraries, supply lists, short-frequency communications and schedules ruled Bennet's work day, and yet, because he'd majored in physics, he wore a blue shirt.

When he wasn't with Sam, Harrev was back on Orion. When he walked down one of the Enterprise's corridors, he found himself in one of the underground tunnels. The gym became the fighting pits, and on the extremely rare occasion he was summoned to the bridge, he was back in the slave centre, being forced to witness and participate in all sorts of atrocities.

His way out of this waking nightmare was a nearly-synchronized schedule with Sam, free time with Sam, nights out with Sam, and nights in with Sam.

He didn't have another way he was willing to deal with his memories. If he told Sam—or anyone else—he feared that he'd be discharged in an instant.

So he stayed quiet, holding onto his boyfriend for fear of ever having to let go.

His morning had finished with very little excitement, letting him leave early to take the short route to lunch—with Sam, of course.

He ducked into the sonar lab, those huge silver discs lining each of the walls, and made his way through a sea of red uniforms just like his own.

He glimpsed Uhura at one of the stations, talking to one of her subordinates with swooping animated gestures. He heard her say something about an unknown frequency coming from the planet they were orbiting, and then she saw him.

For a moment, they made eye contact, both resting with the fact that the men they loved were going down there in less than a day's time. Uhura nodded to him, and Harrev moved past her line of sight on towards the lift.

"Did you see Andrews anytime during your morning?" Bennet asked. He shovelled potatoes into his mouth; Harrev pushed his own around his plate.

"Who?" Harrev said. He looked up at Sam, trying to memorize the details in his face. He felt the need to draw another portrait of him soon.

"You know," Bennet drawled, "Our resident expecting mother? I need to talk to her partner." He sighed. "Sulu's not cleared to be back yet, and Venter's the only one who'd been shadowing him enough to fly us down tomorrow."

Harrev set his fork down. "Has he ever flown on a field mission?" he asked. He wouldn't be eating today or tomorrow. Not until Sam was back safely.

"It's simple enough for a first-timer," Bennet said. He shook his head when Harrev looked away. Putting his hand over his, he said, "You worry too much."

"Mmhmm? Harrev recalled what he'd heard in the sonar lab. "Would he know much about unknown frequencies?"

Bennet smirked. "I don't know how he could, seeing as they're unknown."

Harrev shook his head. "Don't do that. Not now."

Bennet finished chewing a replicated broccoli stem and swallowed, sensing there was more to Harrev's feelings right then. He held out his hand.

"What's wrong?"

Harrev looked into his eyes. "I overheard Uhura talking about some frequency she picked up from the planet."

Bennet nodded, automatically making a note of it to mention to Spock later on.

"What else did she say about it?" he asked.

Harrev went silent for a moment. "I did not hear much else. She only noted that it was unlike anything she'd ever received from a Starfleet-issue ship."

A woman sitting a few tables away from them looked up.

Bennet raised an eyebrow. "So she thinks it's coming from something other than what we're headed towards?"

The woman, dressed in off-duty wares and sporting a wool cap to cover her mostly-bald head, touched the pressure sensor behind her right ear in order to hear them more clearly.

Neither of them noticed her, not even when she got up to leave as their conversation moved on to less pressing issues.

Harrev spent the second half of his day outside Bay Six. Stuck guarding what was essentially an air lock at this point, he forced himself into a state of neutral, non-reaction at his fellow guards' jibes and jabs.

"I don't even understand why he's got a position here anymore."

"Him and that girl. We should toss 'em both off at Somerdale."

"Literally all he had to do was not let anyone go inside… And what does he do?"

"Let's her inside!"

"Crippled the ship…

"…Should be on desk duty…"

Harrev shut them out as best he could. But whenever he closed his eyes, all he saw was Orion.

He opened them and heard something else—a woman he didn't know calling for help. A woman he did know collapsed on the floor. How he hadn't read the situation more clearly, he had no idea.

He'd carried one to med bay, leaving the other to screw up his post beyond any repair. Now, they were sending a few of their crew down to a long-abandoned crash site in a desperate attempt to retrieve the extra supplies they needed. Or so the rumours went.

"…should be dismissed…"

Could he even call them his crew members at this point?

If getting away from them right this second meant working at a desk for the next year, Harrev would take it in an instant.

Bennet found Venter walking with Andrews outside one of the gyms. Before they noticed him, there was a moment where it was just the two of them. Andrews, with one hand on her stomach, the other interlocked with Venter's. Venter looking at her in the most benign of ways, completely unaware of what Bennet was about to ask of him.

Andrews saw him first. Her gaze narrowed, then relaxed once she dissected the expression on his face. He didn't enjoy this anymore than she did.

Venter looked up as Andrews' pace slowed, then stopped completely. She turned her knowing look from Bennet to him.

"Go," she said. "I'll head back to the room."

Venter opened his mouth to protest, but she was already walking away from him.

As she passed Bennet, Andrews' eyes met his. He looked away, solidifying her suspicions.

A year ago, Andrews had been little more than a clumsy engineering recruit. But after pushing past her initial nervousness, she'd grown to become a fierce supervisor among the repairs force.

She'd spent the last month setting up schedules and checklists for her subordinates during her and Venter's extended shore leave. She planned on returning in full force once she'd healed and they'd adjusted to their new addition.

Without realizing it, Venter leaned back, apprehensive as to why Bennet was here. He knew there was a mission planned for the next day.

Bennet closed his eyes. Venter glanced past him at Andrews, walking away from them. She looked back once, at Bennet rather than him.

"You already have a guess for why I'm here," Bennet said.

"I have my suspicions," Venter confirmed. He looked down at his feet. "How's Sulu holding up?"

Bennet shook his head. "Not well. He failed the psych eval for field duty yesterday."

"Leaving everything to the last minute?" Venter said. He folded his arms over his chest. "That's not how Spock usually operates."

"None of this is," Bennet laughed, sounding a bit manic. "One of our docking bays is crippled, people are afraid their air's about to turn toxic, and we had four days to plan a crucial supply retrieval from a planet we've never been to."

He didn't mention the transmissions. He'd have to go to Uhura to confirm them by this evening—if he wasn't still looking for a replacement pilot by then.

Venter had heard the Captain's announcements—how crucial it was they got this supplies. New tubes and cannisters that would hopefully last them until Somerdale.

At this point, everyone was walking on eggshells, just waiting for the next thing to go wrong. He didn't want to be a part of it, but got the feeling that Bennet wasn't above ordering him.

"You know I wouldn't be here if there was another option," Bennet said.

Venter shook his head. "There are others."

"Another viable option," Bennet insisted.

Venter nodded. While he would never even consider the thought of taking over his position on this ship, he had enjoyed shadowing Sulu. But then…

"You're also aware that the baby is less than four weeks away," Venter said. "Me and Ellie, we promised each other we'd stay out of intense shit like this."

Venter already knew how the rest of this would turn out.

"I know you don't want to do this," Bennet pleaded, "But there's no one else-"

"You promise it's just an in-out supply pick up? No secret mission hidden among the chain of command for some colony-in-need you're not telling me about?"

Bennet shook his head rapidly. "Nope, nothing like that."

Venter put his palms to his forehead and spun around to face the opposite direction. "Ffffff—ine. Fine. Fine!" He threw his hands down and turned back to Bennet. "I'm sure Ellie's already figured it out, so I won't make you break the news to her. What time do I need to be in prep?"

Bennet could have hugged him—for both agreeing to the mission and for breaking the news to Andrews. Instead, he nodded curtly and said, "0800."

"Alright then." Venter grimaced, going over the million scenarios that would play out that evening.

He gave Bennet one final, dejected look, then walked past him in the same direction Andrews had gone.

A few seconds passed before he heard Bennet call over his shoulder, "Thank you for not making me pull rank!"

That evening, Bennet got in to their apartment and knew the night was going to end on a sour (if not bad) note.

"Did you already eat?" Bennet called, knowing Harrev was in here somewhere.

He smelled burnt plastic from the replicator, a sure sign that Harrev had attempted to make an elaborate dinner, failed early in the process, and given up to retire to the couch.

He went to the couch and found him laying down, methodically scrolling through files on his padd.

"No," he said upon registering Bennet's presence. "I waited for you."

Bennet smiled. "Okay, what would you like?"

"It doesn't matter," Harrev said, shrugging. "You choose."

After clearing it out, Bennet set the replicator to make a lasagna in five minutes, then returned to the couch. Harrev had sat up in the minute of his absence, making room for him on one end.

Bennet looked down at Harrev's feet, his toes curled up inside woolen socks. Each tap Harrev made on his padd had a sense of purpose behind it; he didn't waste his—or anyone else's—time.

In the silence, Bennet recalled the first time he saw him. It hadn't been a meeting. Just a brief glance, which turned into a full-on stare across the courtyard at the most attractive man he'd ever laid eyes on.

"Is there anything I need to know?" Bennet asked. He was fine with Harrev bringing work home, it just wasn't what he normally did.

Harrev looked up, balancing his padd on one knee.

"I love you," he said.

Not missing a beat, Bennet took his hand. "I love you too."

Harrev held his gaze for one, two, three beats, then nodded.

Bennet got up to check on their food. There, he thought, Disaster averted.

Five steps away was as long as Harrev could hold it in.

"Then why are you going down there tomorrow?"

Bennet closed his eyes. Every time.

Turning around, he said, "Because these mission are a part of my job."

Harrev moved his padd to the coffee table, where it would be safe. "You could ask to be reassigned. It's been done before."

Bennet smiled wanly. "In what world does that work out?" He couldn't just ask to leave his post. They'd promoted him in full confidence that he'd serve out his entire contract.

"One where you and I can stay here together." Harrev's voice shook. "Safe."

Bennet took a step towards the couch. He couldn't help the uptick in his volume. "If I'm not the one doing this, then someone else—someone with much less experience in the field—will be, and I'm not about to let them take on that much responsibility without a week's notice!"

"That's how you began!"

Bennet shook his head. "Harrev… we do this every time. You know I'm going down to that planet tomorrow morning, no matter the outcome of this fight, and once we've retrieved the supplies I'll come back and we can be on our way."

"I worry about you," Harrev said.

Bennet wanted so much to just collapse into his arms and tell him everything was going to be alright. But he had a feeling that wouldn't be as effective for a third time.

Instead, he sat back down on the opposite end of the couch.

"I know you do," he said. "I worry about you too."

Avoiding his haze, Harrev cleared the work files on his padd into a neat folder. "Hmph. You're the one with the dangerous job."

Bennet laughed—or at least he tried to. "That's not entirely true."

His gaze strayed up to Harrev's hairline, imagining the streak dark bruises that had once covered his green skin. A remnant of him breaking up a fight between two unruly crew members.

The replicator dinged. Bennet didn't get up to retrieve their dinner. He felt that moving in any way might disrupt the stalemate they'd reached.

Instead, Harrev stood up, shooting Bennet a minute side-eye glance. In two sentences, he broke down all the good will they'd built up in preparation for that evening.

"You can eat," he said. "I'm going to bed."

Bennet sat there for a minute, wondering where he'd gone wrong. After coming to a biased, lacklustre conclusion, he ate a slice of lasagna alone, then went back to the couch for seven hours of cold, restless sleep.

The crew seemed to tip toe around the shuttle as they prepared it for launch—despite the fact that there wasn't a chance in hell that another explosive device had gone unnoticed for over a month.

Bennet found Venter in the cockpit, going over the mission plan.

"You know," he said, gesturing to the blinking lights along the control panel, "If you set the warm-up sequence, then go over your duties, things tend to go more quickly."

Venter stood up, nearly knocking over his cup of coffee in the process. "Yes, sir!"

Bennet raised an eyebrow. Venter shook his head and got to work on the console.

The swift patter of feet up the gangplank signalled the entrance of the cursed trio's youngest member. Ensign Idell leapt into the shuttle, lugging a bulky medipack over one shoulder.

"Sir," she said to Bennet, and tucked the pack into a storage container along one of the shuttle's walls.

She blinked when she noticed Venter. "Also… sir," she said humorously, tucking a hat over her coiled black hair. "Didn't know you were going to be here today," she muttered.

He jabbed her shoulder with two fingers. "Oh, try and contain your excitement."

Idell rolled her eyes, beginning her half of the warm-up routine. She had her job preference (medicine) but as an Ensign, she usually took on multiple duties. (In this case, that of co-pilot.)

Venter turned in his charm to face Bennet—his direct CO for today and Idell's for the past eight months—and asked, "So, why aren't you beaming down there today?"

Idell glanced over her shoulder to make eye contact with Bennet, who nodded.

"The supply drop is located inside a crater," she said, pulling up a map of the area on the shuttle's main display. She pointed out the area to Venter. "Right here." Where she touched it, a red dot appeared. "But because of the material coating the planet's surface… something-something-it-scrambles-our-systems?" She looked to Bennet for confirmation. He nodded, urging her on.

"Basically, our techs aren't confident they'll be able to safely transport us back up."

Venter raised an eyebrow. "And the shuttle is safer, why?"

Idell cocked her head. "It's old tech, outdated, really, so we shouldn't expect the same kind of interference."

Venter scoffed, swivelling back around in his pilot's chair to continue the warm-up sequence. "Well, great. That's 100 percent reassuring."

As he said it, Idell and Bennet looked to the back of the shuttle.

Spock, First Officer and mission leader, ducked under the threshold of the gangplank. He surveyed his aide, the ensign, and their replacement pilot: two of them had been present for his embarrassment on Sezium. The "Cursed Trio" some said behind closed doors.

Both looked determined to reject that moniker by the end of today.

"…Entering the first layer of the atmosphere…" Venter announced.

The shuttle creaked. Bennet gripped his seatbelt, making eye contact with Spock.

"Shields stabillized," Idell said as they were buffeted about by the second layer.

Aside from a brief grimace, Bennet didn't see it get to her.

She knew this shuttle. Its control panel. Its quirks. Clearly, she'd been studying up.

Bennet heard a sharp beeping from Venter's side of the cockpit. By the time he glanced over there, Idell had pointed out the red area on the map and adjusted their course.

Spock only addressed Bennet in the last minute before they touched down.

"I am unaware of the condition of the palettes. Or the supplies inside them."

He and Bennet glanced around them at the cramped interior of the shuttle.

"Maybe we should have brought a bigger shuttle," Bennet said.

Idell glanced over her shoulder. "There's a compact hover-lift underneath the floor," she said. "Once we've found the exact location, Venter, you can bring it over. From what the maps and scans have told us, the crater's sides are too narrow and the base is too uneven to land inside properly."

Venter set their stabilizers to max as they pressed on through the atmosphere. "Are you really allowed to order me around like that? You know, I outrank you—here and back home."

Idell rolled her eyes. "Unbelievable."

Bennet smirked. Siblings.

"And besides," Venter continued, raising his voice over the sound of the thrusters. "Should I really leave the shuttle unattended?"

"There have been no signs of intelligent life on our scans," Spock said.

Venter eyed the phaser on both of their belts. Idell took over steering capabilities for the moment.

"These are just a precaution," Bennet called, closing his eyes as they hit another bought of turbulence.

"Right…" Venter returned to steering the shuttle.

The shaking reached its peak as they made their final descent. The wind outside screeched so loud Bennet regretted not putting in his earplugs.

He felt a slight lurch, jerking in his seat as Venter made his first in-field landing.

As the shuttle powered down, Venter leaned back in the pilot's chair, hands hovering above the control panel, mouth agape.

Idell raised a closed fist, which Venter promptly bumped with his own.

After testing the planet's outside air, Idell and Bennet left the shuttle to check over each other's system monitors while Spock gave Venter the lookout spiel.

"You have a link to stream our vitals right here." He pointed to a section of the shuttle's control panel. "You can also access readings from the planet's surface here."

A different section: instead of three blinking outlines, this one had a topographical map of the crater and its surroundings.''

"The Enterprise, of course, shares this connection. You can assume they are listening to every word you say."

Venter looked around them, as if just coming to terms with that fact.

"So I just stay here and… keep my eyes open for anything weird?" he asked.

"With 'anything' being the operative word," Spock said, "As any species we would encounter here would be outside the realm of expectations, and therefore, as you put it: weird."

Venter looked at Idell, then back to Spock. "Right. Um, yes, sir."

Spock gave him one last not-at-all-certain appraisal, then left to join the rest of his team.

"You need a hand with that?" Bennet asked.

Idell looked over her shoulder as she descended the last few steps of the gangplank, pulling the hover-lift along with her.

"I'll be fine." She grunted, dropping to her knees as the hover lift adjusted to Quintus' gravity. She checked its readings, jumping back up to her feet once she was satisfied. "The atmosphere's not quite what it's used to, but it should hold." She sighed. "At least we don't have to wear suits this time around."

"What, like on Sezium?" Bennet meant it as a joke, but as he said it, realized the alternate drift she might catch. It wasn't even that funny.

"Sorry," he muttered as Idell self-consciously rubbed the spot on her forehead. After so many months, the scar was just barely visible. "I shouldn't have…"

He cursed himself for not being better with words. He was supposed to be an assistant—a means of communication within the beaurocratic structure.

"-Reminded me of my greatest embarrassment as an ensign?" Idell grimaced, shaking it off as best she could.

Spock appeared at the top of the gangplank, and they both went silent.

"Sir." Idell noted as he joined them on the planet's grey, rocky surface.

They'd landed the shuttle a few dozen metres from the crater's edge. The three of them walked in a row: Spock leading, Idell and the hover-lift secured in the middle, with Bennet bringing up the rear.

They encountered their first problem upon reaching the edge of the crater.

Slanted and uneven, the incline made it impossible for the hover lift to go down. Idell attempted to pull it over the initial bump, but it let out a piercing shriek and threatened to shut down.

Idell swore under her breath, trying every system adjustment she could think of to just. Make. It. Work.

"Sorry, sir." She stood up, wanting to give it a swift kick in the side against all of her better judgements. "It won't budge. We'll have to carry it down ourselves."

Spock thought to himself for a moment. "Have you disabled the incline-aide?"

"That's the first thing I tried, sir." Idell shook her head. Failure.

"Uh, Commander Spock?" Venter chimed in over their local comms. "I may have something up here that could help with that."

Spock holstered his phaser and flipped open his communicator. "Proceed, officer."

Idell closed her eyes as static clouded the other side. If he somehow managed to save this, she'd never live it down.

"I have a bunch of cable here in one of the floor compartments," Venter said. "Sturdy stuff, from the look of it." He paused, and they heard a rattle come from inside the speakers. No doubt, the sound of his communicator being placed on the ground. A heavy creak as he attempted to shift one of the floor boards.

"If we were to tie some to the ship, and the loose ends to the pallets…" he trailed off, waiting for Spock to get the gist of it.

Bennet cocked his head. "It's unorthodox," he said, recalling the time when his brother had used a similar method to pull a shopping cart out of a mud puddle back home.

"Agreed," Spock said, "But I do not believe we have the time to search for another option." He glanced over Bennet's shoulder to the young ensign, who was still trying to get the hover-lift to work despite having heard every word.

Bennet turned to Idell. "Go help Venter with those cables. Bring the shuttle as close to the edge as you can manage." He glanced back at Spock, who stood on the edge of the crater, waiting patiently for him.

Idell nodded, turned to run, but then faltered.

"What about the buddy system?" She said. A group of 3 was essential, lest they needed someone to get help.

Bennet frowned. "We'll watch each other's sixes. Make sure you do the same."

While Idell sprinted back to the shuttle, Spock and Bennet made their way down into the crater.

"Well, glad we got to break in the new hover-lift," Bennet said sarcastically. He shot a regretful glare back at the oversized paperweight now keeping watch at the crater's edge above them. "Who knows, we might have needed to invent some kind of crapshoot system if it had broken down."

Spock clicked his tongue. "Complaining will not make the hover-lift functional, Lieutenant."

Bennet sighed. "Don't I know it…"

It took them a couple minutes to reach the bottom. The ground here was so uneven that Bennet doubted the lift would have worked even if they'd managed to drag it down the slope.

The palettes were easily identifiable by the Starfleet logo—as well as the haphazard way they were stacked.

Palettes one and two still remained together, while three through five were strewn about in a domino-esque line that lead to the huge rock formation on the opposite edge of the crater.

"Strange," Spock said. "Protocol clearly states that supplies must be stored in the most consolidated manner possible." He went over to one and two, pronouncing them intact after his scanner gave off a little beep.

Bennet watched him for another moment, then, as if drawn forward, he made his way toward the other palettes, and, by proxy, the boulder.

Each of them was dented in some way or another. Bennet followed the pattern in which they'd been scattered, drawing his phaser once he realized that they could only have been displaced in this manner by being knocked from the stack.

Knocked out by a considerable projectile, he thought, staring up at what he knew now was decidedly not a boulder.

The overlapping material looked like metal, but it had been sanded to the point where you could barely tell. A thick layer of dirt and dust covered the surface. Bennet touched it, and his hand came away covered in grey.

The object—whatever it really was—stretched up to nearly twice Bennet's height. It dwarfed him. He shivered, despite being directly beneath the planet's sun.

"Spock!" He called, unknowingly activating something within the object's intricate, but long-dormant, sensory array. The Commander paused his scanning to look up at Bennet.

"This wasn't on the itinerary, was it?"

Five Minutes Earlier.

While her two superiors made their way inside the crater, Idell sprinted back to the shuttle. If she looked up at the sky, she could find a single, blinking light that betrayed the Enterprise's presence. Otherwise, they were alone.

After leaping up the gangplank, startling Venter in the process, she hunched over, hands on her knees, and tried to catch her breath.

"Okay, she said between gasps. "How are we gonna do this?"

She and Venter heaved one of the floor panels far enough out of place so that they could could get inside and transfer the cables out from underneath.

"It looks like there's a couple hundred feet down here," Venter said. From inside the compartment, he pointed past Idell in the direction of the gangplank. "If we separate this into two, we can tie the ends around the braces—"

"And drag the pallets up manually," Idell finished.

Venter nodded. "Exactly."

Idell turned and stared intently at the braces holding the rest of the shuttle above the gangplank. She looked back at Venter. "Why don't we just loop it through?"

He stared at the cable, which was over two inches in diameter, then at the braces. He nodded. "Even better."

They got a couple feet of the cable out of the floor compartment. Venter looped the first free end around a brace, then handed it off to Idell.

With both of them preoccupied, that left no on to observe the vitals feed on the control panel.

She grinned, recalling a game they'd played as children back on Earth. It involved placing your forehead against a baseball bat and seeing who could spin for the longest. Usually, headaches ensued.

"Thread some more through," she said. "I'm going to get as much as I can."

She held the free end in one hand, then slowly rotated it around her torso. She looped the cable twice before stopping.

Idell walked backward, away from the ship, pulling the cable along with her.

"You can go now!" She called once there was enough space between her and the shuttle.

Venter nodded, and pelted back up to the pilot's chair. He tested the engines, looking over one shoulder. Idell braced herself.

Venter moved the shuttle at a snail's pace. Just enough to make a difference, while not too much that it would pull Idell off her feet.

"Yes!" He cried, once the cable started to billow out from the floor compartment, with Idell acting as an anchor. They'd reach the other end in no time.

He reached the edge of the crater, turning the shuttle on a dime. One hundred metres away, Idell adjusted her end of the cable and ran in an arc to where he'd stopped.

She'd expected Venter to have threaded the other end through by the time she arrived, but he hadn't even left the pilot's seat.

She could barely make out a word because of the stitch in her side.

"What's…" she inhaled deeply. "-What's wrong?"

Venter looked at her and she was finally able to see the expression on his face.

He pointed a shaking hand to the thermal vision screen.

Her eyes widened as she distinguished Spock and Bennet's tiny heat signatures from the massive red and yellow form. Its temperature seemed to grow with each passing second-as if it were waking up.

"That was not." Spock said. When Bennet looked at him, he could swore he almost saw confusion in his eyes. Which was frightening, because Spock never got stumped.

Bennet attempted to pull the nearest pallet away from the structure, but Spock waved him off.

"Leave it."

"But we should-"

"Leave it, lieutenant."

Bennet backed off.

Spock unholstered his phaser, with Bennet following suit. Spock's communicator beeped. He flipped it open, eyes flicking from the caller ID to the egg-shaped monolith before them.

"What the hell is down there with you guys?" Venter said, his voice crackling and spitting through the connection. "I've got a giant heat signature on my screen, and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon!"

"That remains to be seen…" Spock murmured.

For all but a second, his gaze went from being focused on the monolith, to searching for the heat scanner function on his communicator.

Just a few feet behind him, Bennet saw a segment of the monolith punch out from the outer shell.

"Look out!" Bennet cried, jumping in front of Spock. Before he could even think to fire, a number of other segments followed suit. The egg unfolded with a mechanical clicking sound, revealing the creature inside in a matter of seconds.

Bennet fired once, barely getting a chance to look at the pincer swinging towards him. He fired again, then blinked, as his hand was missing. Another blink, then his forearm too.

The pincer snaked around his ribcage and hurled him back across the crater. In the moments before his release from the egg's grasp, he felt a sharp prick in the back of his neck.

Then Bennet was gone.