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'When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty', ascribed to Thomas Jefferson.
Hayes.
Isn't it bloody infuriating when your own advice comes back and bites you in the arse?
OK. I'll admit it. I did everything but get down on my knees and beg the captain to take more security with away teams when we went exploring. So on that score, I'm happy he's taking me along on this wander through a crashed Xindi ship we happened to spot on our way to Azati Prime.
And, yes, I ought to be happy that he's also taking the Incredible Hulk, a.k.a. Major Matthew Hayes, currently the precise area of my universe that equates to an agonising itch that won't stop however hard you scratch it. Because regardless of my personal opinion of the bloke, I already know he can shoot (thanks very much, Major, I did get the memo on that one), and he wouldn't be in charge of this crack MACO unit if he wasn't good at what he does.
So yes. I'm trying to be happy. But it has to be said that my happy-ometer rises a considerable number of notches when the captain makes the decision that the Hulk can go along to guard him when the landing party splits up and Sub-Commander T'Pol, Trip and I can wander off in another direction.
Not that I approve, per se, of splitting one's forces in enemy territory. I feel it's not a tactic of which Sun Tzu would have approved either. But thanks to the Xindi's neat little trick of travelling through vortices and appearing with virtually no warning we may have very limited time to reconnoitre around this crashed ship, and I'm all for the idea of obtaining as much information as we can about the enemy – that certainly is a tactic Sun Tzu approved of.
T'Pol's been ordered to see what she can do about finding a computer interface to hack into – that sounds a decent plan, and it might be a valuable source of data if she can manage to locate one and get into it. In the meantime, she accompanies Commander Tucker (memo to self, not Trip when we're on duty) and me through the darkened corridors, hopeful of finding something else that may provide a clue to some vulnerability in these creatures we may be able to exploit.
In an attempt to lighten the rather grim atmosphere in this ship of the dead, I mention Father's obsession with insects – I certainly wouldn't imagine Trip (sorry, Commander Tucker) would ever be comfortable visiting my parents' house, of which every available wall is burdened with display cases containing 'bugs' pinned on boards. It used to freak Maddie out, and there weren't half as many then as there apparently are now. Aunt Sherrie said it was a wonder the ceilings hadn't collapsed after he made my old bedroom into his study and put up a new multi-levelled glass cabinet as well as an oak bookcase to hold all his reference books.
(That was probably one of the reasons why he decided he and Mum had to up sticks and move to Malaysia, actually. Weren't enough fields to conquer in the humble English countryside – well, you really can't expect an English cornfield to measure up to a Malaysian jungle, I suppose, not in terms of the wildlife.)
Wryly, the commander suggests we might bring him something home for his collection. I'd take him up on it, after Phlox has run all his assorted tests, but I don't think Mum would approve…
The scanner has apparently found something interesting. Obediently accompanying my senior officers, and keeping an eye out just in case there may be the odd booby trap laid ready, I find myself looking at a strongly reinforced bulkhead with a hexagonal hatch, illuminated by the white glare of our helmet lights. Must be protecting something pretty valuable. Their weapons centre, maybe … I find my fingers itching. There was never a piece of ordnance designed that I didn't want to catch a look at.
But when we step through the hatch, we find that we're in an airlock. And the sensors are still functioning, because it instantly fills with an atmosphere that my scanner indicates is breathable.
Well, that's good – or bad, because my scanner also indicates the presence of biosigns in the room beyond. Faint, yes, but even a dying man can pull a trigger or push a button, and I'm not especially keen to give some weird insect Xindi would-be martyr the chance to take three of us with him.
But even a suspicious bastard like me can't make the readings look colossally like a baited trap, so very cautiously we open the second door and step through it. You can tell Captain Archer's not here, because the others let me do my job – a) by being the first one to try breathing the atmosphere in the airlock, and b) by going into the inner room first. And we find ourselves in probably one of the oddest rooms I've ever been in.
Yes, there are several consoles, and the light in them suggests that the room has its own separate power source – I'm guessing that they're some kind of atmospheric controllers. But the strangest thing is that hanging from a number of illuminated fittings on the ceiling and inside the walls are what look like the trailing tentacles of some kind of jellyfish, each containing a gleaming egg.
Now it may just be that these insect-people happen to have a bizarre taste in avant-garde lighting, but there again I wouldn't bet on it. And weapons may be my sort of thing and engineering may be Trip's (oops again!), but xenobiology definitely isn't either of our things, so the commander wisely defers to T'Pol on that score, even while he summons the other members of the landing party to come and see this for themselves.
T'Pol as the Science Officer is probably the most useful member of the landing party at this present moment, so I'm relieved that she's here to give her attention to what these strange gelatinous lampshades may be. Shortly after being summoned, the captain and Major Hulk arrive, and T'Pol announces that the eggs are the offspring of the crew – two of whom we found dead shortly after we boarded, presumably killed in the crash – and that thirty-one of them are still viable. Not that they will be for long, as our resident Chief Engineer establishes fairly shortly that the remaining units are losing power; at a guess, the independent generator doesn't have an indefinite life.
Well, none of us are going to shed copious numbers of briny tears about that, so the captain dismisses us to the shuttlebay on the port side, where there's apparently a shuttlecraft that – assuming we can get it hooked up to our own shuttle – will be useful to give us a snoop at their tactical systems. Now this is a language that I talk fluently, assuming Hoshi will be available and amenable to help me with the icons etc, so I hurry away to get to it. You never know, there might be guns aboard to look at. Oh, and we'll pick up those two dead insect-looking Xindi we found on the way in, for Phlox to have a dekko at.
As for the captain and T'Pol? I've left Major Hulk to look after them.
After all, he knows how to do my job better than I do, apparently.