Disclaimer: I don't own Enterprise (well, I do have a tiny one that my
husband gave me for Christmas) or any of the regular characters, and I'm
not making any money from this story.
Warning: This is another not-so-nice story. I tried to write a happy story but I didn't like the way it was coming out, so I wrote this one. Be prepared for some pain (hopefully not on the reader's part, however!).
~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 2:
Day 2: 0800 hours
Trip struggled to open his eyes, but there was some sort of light shining directly at him that made his head throb. He blinked several times while he tried to clear his head and recall what had happened. The pain narrowed to one spot in the back of his skull and suddenly he remembered: the noise, someone hiding in the bushes, getting hit on the head.
Trip tried to raise his hand to touch the spot on the back of his head but quickly realized that his hands were restrained and he couldn't move his feet either. He blinked again and squinted to see past the bright light. When he finally managed to get his eyes to focus, he was startled to discover someone was there, staring back at him. Not just one someone, a bunch of someones, big aliens with bright purple fur, all watching him in complete silence.
After a moment Trip started to feel uncomfortable, so he broke the silence. "Hello," he said with much more enthusiasm than he actually felt.
The words caused a flurry of activity from the aliens consisting of loud gibberish accompanied by excited hand-waving. Great. Now if only I had my UT, I could figure out what the hell they're saying, Trip thought.
One of the aliens, this one with blue fur, stepped forward and crouched in front of Trip. He studied the engineer for a moment, turned and said something to the crowd, then stood up and strode out. Most of the others followed. Probably going to get the stewpot ready, Trip mused with just a touch of anxiety.
Trip peered past the light, trying to see through the gloom. Was T'Pol there somewhere? He found that it was too dark to see into the corners.
Field Worker BoRu# crossed the clearing to his makeshift hut with Banker quBiX~ following close on his heels.
"That was an alien, you know," quBiX~ hissed unpleasantly.
BoRu# didn't bother to slow down. "Of course I know that, Banker," he responded with the bare minimum of polite gestures. BoRu# dreaded these monthly visits from the bankers. They always sent someone with no field experience and even fewer manners. QuBix~ was one of the worst, finding fault with everything and threatening to pull his funding if he didn't "produce results," whatever that meant. She probably expected him to turn the native village he was studying into a tourist attraction.
"We must inform the sponsors right away!" the woman cried.
BoRu# gritted his teeth in irritation. "I intend to notify the Council of Scientists first, if that's all right with you," he said with exaggerated politeness. "You know how territorial they are." He pulled back the doorflap to his hut and sat down at his jury-rigged televid.
QuBix~ dithered in the doorway while BoRu# cranked up the outdated piece of equipment to place the call.
Day 2: 0815 hours
T'Pol crouched motionlessly in the bushes and studied the activity in the village intently. She had been watching from this spot for nearly an hour, while natives, the majority covered with purple fur, came and went across the clearing. The epicenter of most of the activity seemed to be the largest hut on the north side of the village. Just after she had arrived, two natives with blue fur had crossed the clearing and entered a small hut on the other side of the village.
T'Pol had her phaser with her, but so far it was still in its holster. She wanted to be positive she knew exactly where Commander Tucker was before attempting a rescue on her own. If in fact he was still alive. . . she had found traces of a sticky red liquid on his blanket, and although her tricorder was no longer working, she had recognized it as human blood. T'Pol decided she would wait until after dark to sneak into the village.
As T'Pol settled in to wait, she was surprised to hear a loud rumbling sound. More thunder? The sky was clear and she had seen no lightning. In the village, various natives came out of their huts and looked expectantly toward the north, and after a moment two large truck-like vehicles rolled into view. T'Pol frowned. According to their scans, the inhabitants of this planet maintained a hunter-gatherer lifestyle with the highest level of technology being stone tools. Trucks certainly didn't fit the information they had gleaned from the sensors.
Several aliens dressed in white envirosuits jumped down from the truck, unloaded some equipment, and headed toward the large hut. T'Pol caught a glimpse of the sun reflecting off what appeared to be firearms tucked into their belts. Several moments later, they re-emerged wheeling something that looked like a stretcher with an opaque white tent over it. Although T'Pol couldn't see the contents she was fairly sure she knew what, or rather who, was inside. The white-suited aliens loaded the stretcher into the back of one of the vehicles and closed the doors. That truck's engine started and it rumbled away in the direction it had come from.
Still frowning, T'Pol slipped back into the forest. She knew it was just a matter of time before they went in search of the campsite, and she intended to be gone before they arrived.
T'Pol ran silently through the trees nearly five kilometers to their campsite. She knew that if she packed up and moved all of their gear, the natives would realize that a second alien existed, so she gathered just as much as she thought she would need and packed it into the emergency kit. She could not stay here unless she also wished to be captured. Therefore she would have to relocate somewhere far enough away that they would not be able to find her, and continue trying to contact the ship. She decided to walk south for at least ten more kilometers, which hopefully would put her out of the range of any search parties.
Day 2: 0930 hours
Trip banged the side of his fist against the thick white plastic side of his little prison. "Hey!" he shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Hey, let me out of here!" Once again there was no response. He rolled onto his back and reflected that it was good thing he wasn't claustrophobic, because this box they had put him in wasn't much bigger than his body. Fortunately there were air holes in both ends or he would have suffocated by now. As it was, after almost an hour of riding over bumpy roads in the near dark, the confinement was starting to bother him, just a little. Ok, a lot.
"Please, let me out!" he yelled, louder this time. Still no answer. Trip wondered what had happened to T'Pol. It wasn't like her to just pick up and leave without telling him. Maybe she had been captured too. Maybe she was in another box just like this one in some other vehicle.
Trip heard some shuffling and banging noises from outside the box, then felt a sensation of vertigo as the box was lifted and moved. "Hey, let me out!" he called again. The only reply was more incomprehensible gibberish as his captors spoke to each other.
Trip craned his neck so he could see out the airhole by his head. After a moment the light increased and he spotted a pair of white legs, and beyond them an enormous black wheel and a giant silver wing. Some sort of aircraft, maybe? Whatever happened to the natives being in the stone age? Their scans had been way off on that one.
The box tilted as they rolled up some kind of incline, then leveled off again. There was a metallic whirring sound accompanied by a dimming of the lights again, then Trip heard the unmistakable roar of jet engines being powered up.
Day 2: 0930 hours
Archer leaned back in his captain's chair, which was still not quite right despite Trip's tinkering, and yawned discretely. They had been searching for Trip and T'Pol for nearly fourteen hours with no results and still no answers as to why sensors weren't reading large chunks of the planet.
Archer reminded himself not to worry. Trip and T'Pol were probably right where they had left them, waiting for their ride to come pick them up.
"Sato to Archer. Captain, I'm picking up a comm signal!" came Hoshi's voice, excitedly, from Astrometrics.
"Just one?"
"Yes, sir, it's Sub-Commander T'Pol. She is approximately ten kilometers south of the landing site."
Where's Trip? Archer wondered anxiously. Frowning, he jabbed the comm button with his thumb. "Enterprise to Sub-Commander T'Pol," he said.
"T'Pol here," came the quick response.
"Is Trip with you?"
"No, Captain. Beam me up and I will explain."
"We'll be down in a few minutes in a shuttle."
"No, Captain, we can't risk the shuttle being observed by the natives. Please use the transporters."
"Understood. Archer out."
When T'Pol appeared on the transporter pad, Archer was surprised at her appearance. Her clothes and face were muddy, and her hair was, to put it politely, disheveled. Privately Archer thought she looked like something the cat had dragged in, but he wasn't about to say that to her.
"Captain, Commander Tucker has been captured by the natives of this planet," T'Pol said, stepping down from the transporter pad. "We must scan for his biosign in the vicinity of the village where he was taken, before it is too late."
"Whoa, slow down, T'Pol," Archer said. "Trip's been captured? Where is this village?"
"Approximately five kilometers north of our original landing site. However, he is no longer there. He was transported away to the north by truck."
Archer shot a concerned glance at Hoshi and Malcolm. "By truck? I thought these people were hunter-gatherers. Where did they get a truck?"
"Unknown, Captain, and at this point irrelevant. We must find Commander Tucker quickly."
"That might be a problem, Sub-Commander," Malcolm said. "Ship's sensors aren't reading that area anymore. Whatever interference was blocking our scans seems to be spreading."
"Have you discovered the cause?"
"Not yet. Ensign Sato and I have been working on it non-stop since the moment we lost contact with you."
T'Pol fixed Malcolm with a very Vulcan glare. "And you have made no progress?"
"Uh--uh, well--we--uh--" Malcolm stammered in reply. His ears reddened as he found himself at a loss for words.
The captain stepped in between them, taking the full force of the glare. "We're working on it, T'Pol. Malcolm and Hoshi are doing the best they can. In the meantime, how about if you and I go to Sickbay and let the doctor check you out. You can fill me in on the way."
"Very well." T'Pol turned on her heel and headed out the door.
Hoshi, who had been trailing behind looking thoughtful, suddenly spoke up. "Captain, the people of the northern hemisphere must have a higher level of technology than those in the south. That's why we were misled about them."
"We should not have acted without complete scans," T'Pol added.
"Hindsight is always 20/20, folks," Archer interrupted. "What's important right now is finding Trip. Malcolm, you and Hoshi get back to work on those sensors. We've got to gather more information on that northern hemisphere."
"Aye, sir."
Day 2: 1500 hours
Trip wasn't sure exactly how long the airplane ride had been because he had fallen asleep after about two hours and only awakened when the box started bumping around again as it was carried off the craft. Now by his reckoning it had been about thirty minutes that he had been traveling in another land vehicle over smooth, apparently paved roads.
Finally the truck groaned to a stop and he could hear the sounds of doors opening and the aliens getting out. They were calling to each other in their strange language, then his box was lifted and rolled out of the truck. Through his airhole he could see more white legs, and behind them double doors that slid open silently to accept them.
The doors slid shut and Trip felt a sensation of movement downward. An elevator? The movement seemed to go on forever until finally the doors slid open again. If they had started at ground level, which he was sure they had, then they must be several hundred meters underground by now. Trip's heart sank--it would be impossible for Enterprise to pick up his biosign underground. Of course, as he was pretty sure he was in the northern hemisphere, they wouldn't be able to find him anyway.
The box rolled down a long narrow corridor and made several turns before it finally stopped. Trip heard a mechanical beeping, then the sound of a heavy door swinging open on metal hinges. The cart was rolled past the door and it swung shut again. Trip could see bright light shining through the translucent plastic sides of the box. For several seconds the only sound he could hear was his own harsh breathing.
There was a scratching sound as the latch on his plastic prison was unlocked and the top swung open. Trip sat up, blinking in the sudden brightness of the light. When his eyes adjusted, he found that he was surrounded by at least a dozen huge figures, bodies entirely covered in white, with white helmets and silver faceplates that reflected the light.
"What the hell--?"
~*~*~*~*~
Warning: Things are about to get a lot messier.
~*~*~*~*~
Do you like it so far? Chapters 3 and 4 are almost ready to go. I'll post them as soon as I get some reviews for the first two chapters. So please- post those reviews!
Warning: This is another not-so-nice story. I tried to write a happy story but I didn't like the way it was coming out, so I wrote this one. Be prepared for some pain (hopefully not on the reader's part, however!).
~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 2:
Day 2: 0800 hours
Trip struggled to open his eyes, but there was some sort of light shining directly at him that made his head throb. He blinked several times while he tried to clear his head and recall what had happened. The pain narrowed to one spot in the back of his skull and suddenly he remembered: the noise, someone hiding in the bushes, getting hit on the head.
Trip tried to raise his hand to touch the spot on the back of his head but quickly realized that his hands were restrained and he couldn't move his feet either. He blinked again and squinted to see past the bright light. When he finally managed to get his eyes to focus, he was startled to discover someone was there, staring back at him. Not just one someone, a bunch of someones, big aliens with bright purple fur, all watching him in complete silence.
After a moment Trip started to feel uncomfortable, so he broke the silence. "Hello," he said with much more enthusiasm than he actually felt.
The words caused a flurry of activity from the aliens consisting of loud gibberish accompanied by excited hand-waving. Great. Now if only I had my UT, I could figure out what the hell they're saying, Trip thought.
One of the aliens, this one with blue fur, stepped forward and crouched in front of Trip. He studied the engineer for a moment, turned and said something to the crowd, then stood up and strode out. Most of the others followed. Probably going to get the stewpot ready, Trip mused with just a touch of anxiety.
Trip peered past the light, trying to see through the gloom. Was T'Pol there somewhere? He found that it was too dark to see into the corners.
Field Worker BoRu# crossed the clearing to his makeshift hut with Banker quBiX~ following close on his heels.
"That was an alien, you know," quBiX~ hissed unpleasantly.
BoRu# didn't bother to slow down. "Of course I know that, Banker," he responded with the bare minimum of polite gestures. BoRu# dreaded these monthly visits from the bankers. They always sent someone with no field experience and even fewer manners. QuBix~ was one of the worst, finding fault with everything and threatening to pull his funding if he didn't "produce results," whatever that meant. She probably expected him to turn the native village he was studying into a tourist attraction.
"We must inform the sponsors right away!" the woman cried.
BoRu# gritted his teeth in irritation. "I intend to notify the Council of Scientists first, if that's all right with you," he said with exaggerated politeness. "You know how territorial they are." He pulled back the doorflap to his hut and sat down at his jury-rigged televid.
QuBix~ dithered in the doorway while BoRu# cranked up the outdated piece of equipment to place the call.
Day 2: 0815 hours
T'Pol crouched motionlessly in the bushes and studied the activity in the village intently. She had been watching from this spot for nearly an hour, while natives, the majority covered with purple fur, came and went across the clearing. The epicenter of most of the activity seemed to be the largest hut on the north side of the village. Just after she had arrived, two natives with blue fur had crossed the clearing and entered a small hut on the other side of the village.
T'Pol had her phaser with her, but so far it was still in its holster. She wanted to be positive she knew exactly where Commander Tucker was before attempting a rescue on her own. If in fact he was still alive. . . she had found traces of a sticky red liquid on his blanket, and although her tricorder was no longer working, she had recognized it as human blood. T'Pol decided she would wait until after dark to sneak into the village.
As T'Pol settled in to wait, she was surprised to hear a loud rumbling sound. More thunder? The sky was clear and she had seen no lightning. In the village, various natives came out of their huts and looked expectantly toward the north, and after a moment two large truck-like vehicles rolled into view. T'Pol frowned. According to their scans, the inhabitants of this planet maintained a hunter-gatherer lifestyle with the highest level of technology being stone tools. Trucks certainly didn't fit the information they had gleaned from the sensors.
Several aliens dressed in white envirosuits jumped down from the truck, unloaded some equipment, and headed toward the large hut. T'Pol caught a glimpse of the sun reflecting off what appeared to be firearms tucked into their belts. Several moments later, they re-emerged wheeling something that looked like a stretcher with an opaque white tent over it. Although T'Pol couldn't see the contents she was fairly sure she knew what, or rather who, was inside. The white-suited aliens loaded the stretcher into the back of one of the vehicles and closed the doors. That truck's engine started and it rumbled away in the direction it had come from.
Still frowning, T'Pol slipped back into the forest. She knew it was just a matter of time before they went in search of the campsite, and she intended to be gone before they arrived.
T'Pol ran silently through the trees nearly five kilometers to their campsite. She knew that if she packed up and moved all of their gear, the natives would realize that a second alien existed, so she gathered just as much as she thought she would need and packed it into the emergency kit. She could not stay here unless she also wished to be captured. Therefore she would have to relocate somewhere far enough away that they would not be able to find her, and continue trying to contact the ship. She decided to walk south for at least ten more kilometers, which hopefully would put her out of the range of any search parties.
Day 2: 0930 hours
Trip banged the side of his fist against the thick white plastic side of his little prison. "Hey!" he shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Hey, let me out of here!" Once again there was no response. He rolled onto his back and reflected that it was good thing he wasn't claustrophobic, because this box they had put him in wasn't much bigger than his body. Fortunately there were air holes in both ends or he would have suffocated by now. As it was, after almost an hour of riding over bumpy roads in the near dark, the confinement was starting to bother him, just a little. Ok, a lot.
"Please, let me out!" he yelled, louder this time. Still no answer. Trip wondered what had happened to T'Pol. It wasn't like her to just pick up and leave without telling him. Maybe she had been captured too. Maybe she was in another box just like this one in some other vehicle.
Trip heard some shuffling and banging noises from outside the box, then felt a sensation of vertigo as the box was lifted and moved. "Hey, let me out!" he called again. The only reply was more incomprehensible gibberish as his captors spoke to each other.
Trip craned his neck so he could see out the airhole by his head. After a moment the light increased and he spotted a pair of white legs, and beyond them an enormous black wheel and a giant silver wing. Some sort of aircraft, maybe? Whatever happened to the natives being in the stone age? Their scans had been way off on that one.
The box tilted as they rolled up some kind of incline, then leveled off again. There was a metallic whirring sound accompanied by a dimming of the lights again, then Trip heard the unmistakable roar of jet engines being powered up.
Day 2: 0930 hours
Archer leaned back in his captain's chair, which was still not quite right despite Trip's tinkering, and yawned discretely. They had been searching for Trip and T'Pol for nearly fourteen hours with no results and still no answers as to why sensors weren't reading large chunks of the planet.
Archer reminded himself not to worry. Trip and T'Pol were probably right where they had left them, waiting for their ride to come pick them up.
"Sato to Archer. Captain, I'm picking up a comm signal!" came Hoshi's voice, excitedly, from Astrometrics.
"Just one?"
"Yes, sir, it's Sub-Commander T'Pol. She is approximately ten kilometers south of the landing site."
Where's Trip? Archer wondered anxiously. Frowning, he jabbed the comm button with his thumb. "Enterprise to Sub-Commander T'Pol," he said.
"T'Pol here," came the quick response.
"Is Trip with you?"
"No, Captain. Beam me up and I will explain."
"We'll be down in a few minutes in a shuttle."
"No, Captain, we can't risk the shuttle being observed by the natives. Please use the transporters."
"Understood. Archer out."
When T'Pol appeared on the transporter pad, Archer was surprised at her appearance. Her clothes and face were muddy, and her hair was, to put it politely, disheveled. Privately Archer thought she looked like something the cat had dragged in, but he wasn't about to say that to her.
"Captain, Commander Tucker has been captured by the natives of this planet," T'Pol said, stepping down from the transporter pad. "We must scan for his biosign in the vicinity of the village where he was taken, before it is too late."
"Whoa, slow down, T'Pol," Archer said. "Trip's been captured? Where is this village?"
"Approximately five kilometers north of our original landing site. However, he is no longer there. He was transported away to the north by truck."
Archer shot a concerned glance at Hoshi and Malcolm. "By truck? I thought these people were hunter-gatherers. Where did they get a truck?"
"Unknown, Captain, and at this point irrelevant. We must find Commander Tucker quickly."
"That might be a problem, Sub-Commander," Malcolm said. "Ship's sensors aren't reading that area anymore. Whatever interference was blocking our scans seems to be spreading."
"Have you discovered the cause?"
"Not yet. Ensign Sato and I have been working on it non-stop since the moment we lost contact with you."
T'Pol fixed Malcolm with a very Vulcan glare. "And you have made no progress?"
"Uh--uh, well--we--uh--" Malcolm stammered in reply. His ears reddened as he found himself at a loss for words.
The captain stepped in between them, taking the full force of the glare. "We're working on it, T'Pol. Malcolm and Hoshi are doing the best they can. In the meantime, how about if you and I go to Sickbay and let the doctor check you out. You can fill me in on the way."
"Very well." T'Pol turned on her heel and headed out the door.
Hoshi, who had been trailing behind looking thoughtful, suddenly spoke up. "Captain, the people of the northern hemisphere must have a higher level of technology than those in the south. That's why we were misled about them."
"We should not have acted without complete scans," T'Pol added.
"Hindsight is always 20/20, folks," Archer interrupted. "What's important right now is finding Trip. Malcolm, you and Hoshi get back to work on those sensors. We've got to gather more information on that northern hemisphere."
"Aye, sir."
Day 2: 1500 hours
Trip wasn't sure exactly how long the airplane ride had been because he had fallen asleep after about two hours and only awakened when the box started bumping around again as it was carried off the craft. Now by his reckoning it had been about thirty minutes that he had been traveling in another land vehicle over smooth, apparently paved roads.
Finally the truck groaned to a stop and he could hear the sounds of doors opening and the aliens getting out. They were calling to each other in their strange language, then his box was lifted and rolled out of the truck. Through his airhole he could see more white legs, and behind them double doors that slid open silently to accept them.
The doors slid shut and Trip felt a sensation of movement downward. An elevator? The movement seemed to go on forever until finally the doors slid open again. If they had started at ground level, which he was sure they had, then they must be several hundred meters underground by now. Trip's heart sank--it would be impossible for Enterprise to pick up his biosign underground. Of course, as he was pretty sure he was in the northern hemisphere, they wouldn't be able to find him anyway.
The box rolled down a long narrow corridor and made several turns before it finally stopped. Trip heard a mechanical beeping, then the sound of a heavy door swinging open on metal hinges. The cart was rolled past the door and it swung shut again. Trip could see bright light shining through the translucent plastic sides of the box. For several seconds the only sound he could hear was his own harsh breathing.
There was a scratching sound as the latch on his plastic prison was unlocked and the top swung open. Trip sat up, blinking in the sudden brightness of the light. When his eyes adjusted, he found that he was surrounded by at least a dozen huge figures, bodies entirely covered in white, with white helmets and silver faceplates that reflected the light.
"What the hell--?"
~*~*~*~*~
Warning: Things are about to get a lot messier.
~*~*~*~*~
Do you like it so far? Chapters 3 and 4 are almost ready to go. I'll post them as soon as I get some reviews for the first two chapters. So please- post those reviews!