Part 5 Plans and problems.
Hoshi looked at Trip for a moment. She no longer needed to take his word for it, ever since her encounter with the Captain and T'pol in the corridor she had the sense that there was something very wrong on board the ship. Nothing large, nothing that you could really point to and say 'There, that's not right' but more a general sense of unease. The feeling that people were behaving. How could she describe it? Not 'strangely,' far from it, it was if people were behaving 'too normally.' Everywhere you looked people were doing exactly what you would expect them to do. Almost like deja vu without having experienced it before, if that made any sense at all.
Hoshi reluctantly decided that she couldn't put her feelings into words, even to herself those last few thoughts didn't really make sense. That was probably why she hadn't been able to explain to Lieutenant Reed why he just had to go along with their plan.
Hoshi had known from the second that the 'Captain' had summoned her and Trip to see him that he had in some way found out that they were suspicious. This feeling had been confirmed when he had explained to the two of them that he was sending them down to the planet together. Ostensibly she had been invited to carry out further study on indigenous languages and he had been invited to tour one of their power generating facilities, but the fact that they were going together was too much of a coincidence for her.
She knew, as did Trip, that whatever fate had befallen the Captain and T'pol, the same was in store for them. That is when they had hatched their plan.
"Hoshi?" Trip's voice was concerned and she realised that this probably wasn't the first thing he had said to her.
"Sorry I was lost in thought," she apologised, "What did you say?"
"I said, we oughta go and see if the doc is more willing to help us out, because if the lieutenant does change his mind then we are going to need his help too." Trip repeated patiently. He understood her lack of concentration, she was rattled. Hell, he was rattled too and he had far more experience than the young ensign. He tried his most reassuring smile. "And this time I'll do all the talking," he continued.
Hoshi looked at him and, despite the situation, could not help smiling back at the grinning commander. There was something distinctly infectious about the way he smiled.
Archer opened his eyes and looked around, every part of him seemed to hurt, even his eyelids and he was slow to focus on his surroundings. A slight sense of panic gripped him as he realised he was alone in the clearing. He looked around again just to be sure but there was no sign of T'pol.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and then assessed his situation. His arm was now firmly strapped between two wooden splints and held in place with a neat sling. He had a cloth coat covering his legs and the same piece of bark that he had drunk from earlier was resting next to his right hand. It had been refilled with water. If T'pol had left him, she had at least done her best to make him comfortable before her departure.
Thinking about it, he could understand why she would go. He was a considerable burden at the moment, a situation that he hated to find himself in. T'pol would have a far better chance of escaping, and possibly bringing back help, if she went on her own. It would be the logical course of action.
Archer sighed, one thing he could rely on his Vulcan sub commander to do was to follow logic. He picked up the water and took a sip from it. He hadn't realised how dry his throat had become. He continued sipping until he had emptied the contents of the makeshift bowl and then he replaced it on the ground. He then lifted his hand and pushed his hair back from his face. The skin on his forehead felt remarkably warm, not a good sign given the chill of the air.
Considering his options he decided that remaining where he was was not a good idea. He really needed to find some sort of shelter against the cold of the night and then he had to look for some way to contact the ship. He tried to work out how long it had been since he had left Enterprise to come down to the planet and knew that it must be several hours. He wondered if the crew was searching for him yet?
Unsteadily he pushed himself to his feet, the jacket falling away from his legs as he did so. If he had been thinking more clearly he would have taken it with him, used it to keep warm, but the growing fever, that he was only vaguely aware of, was already beginning to affect his thought processes so he let it fall to a heap on the ground and left it.
He looked up at the moon, the only thing he had to take a bearing on, and decided that his best chance was to head for the city and see if he could find an empty building to shelter in. As he set off meandering unsteadily through the trees he felt the first droplets of rain touch his skin.
As Reed walked away from Trip, he was deep in thought. A part of him wanted to dismiss what the engineer had said, as he had earlier in the day, as paranoia and an overactive imagination but somehow he couldn't. For a start Trip now had Hoshi on his side and despite her unconvincing arguments she had seemed sincere. Her description of hearing the strange language on the corridor and of how she had felt under the scrutiny of the Captain and T'pol had actually sounded quite unnerving when she had described it. Then of course there was Trip's description of the changing data on his screen, far too bizarre for him to have made up, and finally, although he hated to admit it, he himself had started to notice something strange about the atmosphere on the ship. Particularly around the Captain and T'pol and the one away team that had already returned from the planet.
Still it was difficult to contemplate what they were asking him to do. Since it involved working without the knowledge of the Captain, something that went against everything he knew and believed in. He had a strict military upbringing and believed that everything should be done by the book, then again they had encountered so many strange things out here, sometimes there were situations that the book just didn't cover. Maybe this was one of them.
He considered his options. Trip and Hoshi were meeting him in just over an hour, until then he resolved to gather as much information as he could to help him decide. He altered his path and headed for the bridge.
T'pol entered the clearing where she had left the unconscious Captain, immediately moving over to the discarded jacket. She had decided to spend the time, whilst she waited for him to recover sufficiently to continue, to lay a false trail in case anyone should follow this far. Now she was afraid that her efforts had been wasted, the Captain may have already been recaptured. It was illogical that he would have left the clearing on his own without waiting for her.
She knelt down to examine the soft ground for signs of what had happened, quickly establishing that the only tracks were hers and those of Captain Archer, she revised her opinion. He had indeed awoken and decided to continue alone without waiting for her. Why did she spend her time with such an illogical race?
She picked up the jacket and stood. Taking up a large leafy branch she set off following the Captain's trail using the branch to eradicate the tracks, occasionally stopping to sweep leaves and other debris on to the trail so that it did not look like anyone had passed this way. She moved as quickly as she could, needing to both catch up with the Captain and avoid anyone following them.
As the rainfall began to get stronger she took the sleeveless jacket and slipped it on for the protection it would afford her against the cold droplets. She hastened her pace. The worsening weather was not likely to help Captain Archer's already weakened condition.
Twenty minutes on the bridge was all it took for Lieutenant Reed to make up his mind. He had spent the first five minutes rigging the fault in the weapons system. It was only minor, blowing out a few relays which he could easily replace later but he wanted to see how the Captain, T'pol and the one other member of the bridge crew who had been down to the surface would react. He positioned himself where he had a good view of all three under the guise of running a diagnostic test on the system and then pressed the switch.
There was a gratifyingly loud crack and shower of sparks as the panel blew out. Reed ignored it and focused his attention on the two senior officers. That was when he saw it, there was a delay, probably less than a second and if he hadn't been watching for it he wouldn't have picked it up, before the Captain, T'pol and the ensign who was covering the com reacted. When they did react what they did was entirely appropriate to the circumstances but that slight pause was enough for Reed. Trip and Hoshi were right, there was something very wrong.
The lieutenant apologised and moved to repair the panel. That done he left the bridge to return to his quarters. If he was going to do as Trip had asked then there were some things he needed to sort out.
Archer forced his injured and aching muscles to keep moving. His clothes were soaked through and his hair was plastered to his head as the rain ran down it and dripped off onto his collar. The cold was becoming an increasing barrier to his movement as involuntary shivers ran through his body, despite the increased physical exertion.
He knew that to stop now, without finding some sort of shelter, would be fatal, so he pressed on through the undergrowth.
He could not have judged how long he kept moving for, it could have been minutes or hours. It seemed like forever. He concentrated on only one thing, putting one foot in front of the other. Everything had looked the same for so long it came as a complete shock when he finally reached the edge of the trees and was gratified to see the dark outlines of buildings less than twenty feet away.
He leaned against a large trunk and attempted to bring his breathing under control, relieved that he had made it this far. Then he stood quietly and watched for any sign of movement. He had to be sure that the area was clear before he attempted to take refuge in any of the buildings he found.
When he was reasonably confident that there was nobody around and sure that if he stood still any longer then he would not get moving again, he paced as quickly as he was able across the gap between the trees and the buildings, then, keeping to the shadows, he moved along the road that ran between, trying to assess what sort of area he had ended up in.
The buildings that he looked at were all fairly large and he quickly came to the thankful conclusion that he was in some sort of industrial area, which meant that at night there would be very few people around. Despite how he was feeling his sharp mind made note of the fact that the technology level seemed considerably lower than the data logs about the planet had led him to believe and it seemed considerably less prosperous. Then again every city was bound to have such areas.
T'pol had caught up with the Captain sufficiently to watch him move off into the shadows of the buildings as she reached the edge of the trees. She dared not shout out or do anything to draw his attention since it also might attract the attention of the planet's inhabitants. Instead she carefully followed, keeping to the shadows herself as she attempted to close the distance between them.
She was so intent in focusing on the Captain as she followed him up the road, that she failed to notice the figure step out behind her as she passed, by the time her heightened senses knew that there was something wrong, it was too late to stop the blow that struck her neatly just behind the ear. She dropped limply to the floor.
Warily Archer kept moving, cautiously trying every door that he came to until finally one pushed open. It was so unexpected that he almost fell into the room beyond. He just managed to stop himself from pitching forward but the effort caused a painful spasm to his rib cage and he began to cough. He moved over to the wall stretching out his good hand to lean against it and support himself. Long after the coughing fit ended he stood leaning, taking deep breaths waiting for the stars to disappear from his vision and the pain to ease off.
He heard a noise behind him and turned to see the door through which he had entered open. A slender shadowy figure entered. "T'pol?" he asked hopefully.
"I'm afraid not," the figure replied and stepped forward into the pale moonlight that shafted in through a high window. Standing before him was a dark haired young woman. Under normal circumstances he would have considered her to be beautiful but he did not look at her face. Instead he was concentrating on the weapon. It looked like an old earth hand gun and it was pointed directly at his chest.
Hoshi looked at Trip for a moment. She no longer needed to take his word for it, ever since her encounter with the Captain and T'pol in the corridor she had the sense that there was something very wrong on board the ship. Nothing large, nothing that you could really point to and say 'There, that's not right' but more a general sense of unease. The feeling that people were behaving. How could she describe it? Not 'strangely,' far from it, it was if people were behaving 'too normally.' Everywhere you looked people were doing exactly what you would expect them to do. Almost like deja vu without having experienced it before, if that made any sense at all.
Hoshi reluctantly decided that she couldn't put her feelings into words, even to herself those last few thoughts didn't really make sense. That was probably why she hadn't been able to explain to Lieutenant Reed why he just had to go along with their plan.
Hoshi had known from the second that the 'Captain' had summoned her and Trip to see him that he had in some way found out that they were suspicious. This feeling had been confirmed when he had explained to the two of them that he was sending them down to the planet together. Ostensibly she had been invited to carry out further study on indigenous languages and he had been invited to tour one of their power generating facilities, but the fact that they were going together was too much of a coincidence for her.
She knew, as did Trip, that whatever fate had befallen the Captain and T'pol, the same was in store for them. That is when they had hatched their plan.
"Hoshi?" Trip's voice was concerned and she realised that this probably wasn't the first thing he had said to her.
"Sorry I was lost in thought," she apologised, "What did you say?"
"I said, we oughta go and see if the doc is more willing to help us out, because if the lieutenant does change his mind then we are going to need his help too." Trip repeated patiently. He understood her lack of concentration, she was rattled. Hell, he was rattled too and he had far more experience than the young ensign. He tried his most reassuring smile. "And this time I'll do all the talking," he continued.
Hoshi looked at him and, despite the situation, could not help smiling back at the grinning commander. There was something distinctly infectious about the way he smiled.
Archer opened his eyes and looked around, every part of him seemed to hurt, even his eyelids and he was slow to focus on his surroundings. A slight sense of panic gripped him as he realised he was alone in the clearing. He looked around again just to be sure but there was no sign of T'pol.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and then assessed his situation. His arm was now firmly strapped between two wooden splints and held in place with a neat sling. He had a cloth coat covering his legs and the same piece of bark that he had drunk from earlier was resting next to his right hand. It had been refilled with water. If T'pol had left him, she had at least done her best to make him comfortable before her departure.
Thinking about it, he could understand why she would go. He was a considerable burden at the moment, a situation that he hated to find himself in. T'pol would have a far better chance of escaping, and possibly bringing back help, if she went on her own. It would be the logical course of action.
Archer sighed, one thing he could rely on his Vulcan sub commander to do was to follow logic. He picked up the water and took a sip from it. He hadn't realised how dry his throat had become. He continued sipping until he had emptied the contents of the makeshift bowl and then he replaced it on the ground. He then lifted his hand and pushed his hair back from his face. The skin on his forehead felt remarkably warm, not a good sign given the chill of the air.
Considering his options he decided that remaining where he was was not a good idea. He really needed to find some sort of shelter against the cold of the night and then he had to look for some way to contact the ship. He tried to work out how long it had been since he had left Enterprise to come down to the planet and knew that it must be several hours. He wondered if the crew was searching for him yet?
Unsteadily he pushed himself to his feet, the jacket falling away from his legs as he did so. If he had been thinking more clearly he would have taken it with him, used it to keep warm, but the growing fever, that he was only vaguely aware of, was already beginning to affect his thought processes so he let it fall to a heap on the ground and left it.
He looked up at the moon, the only thing he had to take a bearing on, and decided that his best chance was to head for the city and see if he could find an empty building to shelter in. As he set off meandering unsteadily through the trees he felt the first droplets of rain touch his skin.
As Reed walked away from Trip, he was deep in thought. A part of him wanted to dismiss what the engineer had said, as he had earlier in the day, as paranoia and an overactive imagination but somehow he couldn't. For a start Trip now had Hoshi on his side and despite her unconvincing arguments she had seemed sincere. Her description of hearing the strange language on the corridor and of how she had felt under the scrutiny of the Captain and T'pol had actually sounded quite unnerving when she had described it. Then of course there was Trip's description of the changing data on his screen, far too bizarre for him to have made up, and finally, although he hated to admit it, he himself had started to notice something strange about the atmosphere on the ship. Particularly around the Captain and T'pol and the one away team that had already returned from the planet.
Still it was difficult to contemplate what they were asking him to do. Since it involved working without the knowledge of the Captain, something that went against everything he knew and believed in. He had a strict military upbringing and believed that everything should be done by the book, then again they had encountered so many strange things out here, sometimes there were situations that the book just didn't cover. Maybe this was one of them.
He considered his options. Trip and Hoshi were meeting him in just over an hour, until then he resolved to gather as much information as he could to help him decide. He altered his path and headed for the bridge.
T'pol entered the clearing where she had left the unconscious Captain, immediately moving over to the discarded jacket. She had decided to spend the time, whilst she waited for him to recover sufficiently to continue, to lay a false trail in case anyone should follow this far. Now she was afraid that her efforts had been wasted, the Captain may have already been recaptured. It was illogical that he would have left the clearing on his own without waiting for her.
She knelt down to examine the soft ground for signs of what had happened, quickly establishing that the only tracks were hers and those of Captain Archer, she revised her opinion. He had indeed awoken and decided to continue alone without waiting for her. Why did she spend her time with such an illogical race?
She picked up the jacket and stood. Taking up a large leafy branch she set off following the Captain's trail using the branch to eradicate the tracks, occasionally stopping to sweep leaves and other debris on to the trail so that it did not look like anyone had passed this way. She moved as quickly as she could, needing to both catch up with the Captain and avoid anyone following them.
As the rainfall began to get stronger she took the sleeveless jacket and slipped it on for the protection it would afford her against the cold droplets. She hastened her pace. The worsening weather was not likely to help Captain Archer's already weakened condition.
Twenty minutes on the bridge was all it took for Lieutenant Reed to make up his mind. He had spent the first five minutes rigging the fault in the weapons system. It was only minor, blowing out a few relays which he could easily replace later but he wanted to see how the Captain, T'pol and the one other member of the bridge crew who had been down to the surface would react. He positioned himself where he had a good view of all three under the guise of running a diagnostic test on the system and then pressed the switch.
There was a gratifyingly loud crack and shower of sparks as the panel blew out. Reed ignored it and focused his attention on the two senior officers. That was when he saw it, there was a delay, probably less than a second and if he hadn't been watching for it he wouldn't have picked it up, before the Captain, T'pol and the ensign who was covering the com reacted. When they did react what they did was entirely appropriate to the circumstances but that slight pause was enough for Reed. Trip and Hoshi were right, there was something very wrong.
The lieutenant apologised and moved to repair the panel. That done he left the bridge to return to his quarters. If he was going to do as Trip had asked then there were some things he needed to sort out.
Archer forced his injured and aching muscles to keep moving. His clothes were soaked through and his hair was plastered to his head as the rain ran down it and dripped off onto his collar. The cold was becoming an increasing barrier to his movement as involuntary shivers ran through his body, despite the increased physical exertion.
He knew that to stop now, without finding some sort of shelter, would be fatal, so he pressed on through the undergrowth.
He could not have judged how long he kept moving for, it could have been minutes or hours. It seemed like forever. He concentrated on only one thing, putting one foot in front of the other. Everything had looked the same for so long it came as a complete shock when he finally reached the edge of the trees and was gratified to see the dark outlines of buildings less than twenty feet away.
He leaned against a large trunk and attempted to bring his breathing under control, relieved that he had made it this far. Then he stood quietly and watched for any sign of movement. He had to be sure that the area was clear before he attempted to take refuge in any of the buildings he found.
When he was reasonably confident that there was nobody around and sure that if he stood still any longer then he would not get moving again, he paced as quickly as he was able across the gap between the trees and the buildings, then, keeping to the shadows, he moved along the road that ran between, trying to assess what sort of area he had ended up in.
The buildings that he looked at were all fairly large and he quickly came to the thankful conclusion that he was in some sort of industrial area, which meant that at night there would be very few people around. Despite how he was feeling his sharp mind made note of the fact that the technology level seemed considerably lower than the data logs about the planet had led him to believe and it seemed considerably less prosperous. Then again every city was bound to have such areas.
T'pol had caught up with the Captain sufficiently to watch him move off into the shadows of the buildings as she reached the edge of the trees. She dared not shout out or do anything to draw his attention since it also might attract the attention of the planet's inhabitants. Instead she carefully followed, keeping to the shadows herself as she attempted to close the distance between them.
She was so intent in focusing on the Captain as she followed him up the road, that she failed to notice the figure step out behind her as she passed, by the time her heightened senses knew that there was something wrong, it was too late to stop the blow that struck her neatly just behind the ear. She dropped limply to the floor.
Warily Archer kept moving, cautiously trying every door that he came to until finally one pushed open. It was so unexpected that he almost fell into the room beyond. He just managed to stop himself from pitching forward but the effort caused a painful spasm to his rib cage and he began to cough. He moved over to the wall stretching out his good hand to lean against it and support himself. Long after the coughing fit ended he stood leaning, taking deep breaths waiting for the stars to disappear from his vision and the pain to ease off.
He heard a noise behind him and turned to see the door through which he had entered open. A slender shadowy figure entered. "T'pol?" he asked hopefully.
"I'm afraid not," the figure replied and stepped forward into the pale moonlight that shafted in through a high window. Standing before him was a dark haired young woman. Under normal circumstances he would have considered her to be beautiful but he did not look at her face. Instead he was concentrating on the weapon. It looked like an old earth hand gun and it was pointed directly at his chest.