Hi everyone..
Something of note.I'm not going to be too concerned with how the Ferengi understand English (or whatever language Starfleet officers/Vulcans use together). My memory may be faulty, but I don't recall there being a big explanation about why the four Ferengi in "Acquistion" were able to understand the crewmembers, so I don't think I should have to either. Let me know if I'm wrong, though.
Okay, that's it.as usual I hope you can forgive any minor mistakes and that you will point out the major ones!
Enjoy! Emrys
Disclaimer: See Following Orders Part I
Following Orders Part VIII (I think):
The progress was slow going at best. Trip, still unconscious after the hours it took to complete the beacon for Enterprise, hung limply between Archer and T'Pol, his legs dragging uselessly over each jutting tree root and exposed rock. T'Pol had attempted to ease the muscle contractions in the sick man's arm and back by using a few Vulcan massage techniques, but the muscles refused to relax. Archer could barely keep the stiffened arm over his shoulder, a circumstance that further interfered in the threesome's ability to travel.
An hour after continuing their journey, Trip was jarred into consciousness after his right foot became caught in a tangle of tenacious weeds, and T'Pol tripped at the unexpected change in the engineer's momentum. His return to awareness was unwelcome, and as he tried to gain his bearings he bemusedly wished for the relief that only seemed to come now from unconsciousness.
He weakly lifted his head and recognized by the unsteadiness of the horizon and the sudden lurching of his stomach that he was being moved. He groaned softly and allowed his head to fall back down between his shoulders.
"Trip?" he heard Jon's voice somewhere above his head, but he could barely respond to it.
"Stop," he muttered.
"What?" Archer asked in confusion.
"Can we.stop for a.a minute?" he stammered out between clenched teeth and with a considerable amount of urgency.
Archer nodded to T'Pol and together they slowly lowered Trip's weakened body to the ground until he lay on his back. T'Pol placed a cool hand on Trip's sweat-soaked forehead, and Jon saw her lips tighten in response to the waves of heat she felt emanating from the engineer's face. Trip exhibited a frailty that Archer had never seen in his friend before and which was frightening to witness.
He sat down heavily next to Tucker and kept a close eye on him. Trip appeared to be struggling against something, and Jon was about to ask him what was wrong when the engineer began to gag and retch. Quickly, Archer pushed Trip onto his side in order to keep the helpless man from aspirating on the bile and liquid that he violently threw up.
When it was over, Jon returned Trip onto his back, and quietly asked T'Pol to find some water.
"This is.humiliatin'," Trip gasped out weakly, and Jonathan could not hold back a short chuckle over the younger man's preoccupation with his pride. Gently, he wiped away the few involuntary tears that spread from Trip's eyes and gave him a supportive smile.
"I promise that when we get back to Enterprise I won't say a word to the rest of the crew. And I'll order T'Pol into silence if it makes you feel better."
Trip was blearily thankful, but somehow suspected that he would never hear the end of this particular episode in their friendship. That was provided that he survived his current condition long enough to make it back to the ship.
"Where are we?" he asked as he pushed aside the negative thoughts.
"Not far from the Renkan city," Archer replied all the while feeling slightly guilty at his omission of T'Pol's previous discoveries.
"The beacon?"
"It is completed and operating efficiently," T'Pol answered as she returned with a small, hollow tree log filled with water. She allowed Trip a short drink, and then gently began wiping down his face with her hands.
"We hid the device under some vegetation. Hopefully it'll keep until Enterprise can locate us," Archer explained further.
Trip closed his eyes in response and tried to ignore all of the physical responses that he was experiencing from the poison. Instead he attempted to concentrate solely on the feeling of T'Pol's hands as she continued to cool his face. The sensation was blessed relief, and he was almost soothed into a blissful and genuine sleep.
But the Captain's voice interrupted his reprieve, and as he opened his eyes the pain returned to assail him.
"Trip, I'm sorry, but we have to get to the Renkan city quickly. Do you think you'll be able to manage?"
Trip considered saying no. He wanted the oblivion of sleep. He wanted the pain to end. He just wanted to give up.
But he could not disappoint his captain, his friend. And so he weakly raised his left arm, and held back the cries of pain as they lifted him upright and began walking again.
****
"We'll keep contact with the Renkans as limited as possible," Archer said to T'Pol as they walked. "I don't want this to get any more complicated than it has to be."
T'Pol nodded her head in agreement, and her respect for the Starfleet Captain heightened again. They would be contending with a pre-warp society, and she appreciated the wisdom in remaining as distant and discrete as possible.
Their progress was now made easier by Trip's consciousness, as well as his feeble attempts to keep his legs from tangling over every obstacle in their path. But they had been walking in excess of an hour, and each of them was tiring. She gritted her teeth and lifted the Commander's arm higher in her grip.
Suddenly she perceived a small rustle of vegetation off the path behind them, and she hesitated slightly in her step. Archer noticed her break in pace and turned a questioning gaze towards her.
"What is it?" he asked.
Trip, whose head had been lolling between his shoulders again, managed a quick glance up at the Vulcan and also recognized the tension in the line of her jaw as an indication that something was not quite in order.
"Oh, don't.tell me," he muttered cynically. "Something else.is wrong."
"Trip, shhh," the Captain commanded quickly. "What is it?" he again asked the Subcommander.
"I believe that we are being followed, Captain," T'Pol replied calmly.
"Great. Oh, just.great," Trip mumbled again.
"Trip, quiet. We don't know what it is. It could be."
But the Captain was interrupted by the abrupt cries of several heavily camouflaged humanoid figures as they rushed from the vegetation and aimed primitive yet dangerous weapons at the three officers.
"So much for discretion," Archer said under his breath as he tried to make observations of the hard-to-see aliens. T'Pol looked at him sharply, but made no further comment.
The humanoids separated the three of them, and Trip fell heavily to the ground without the support of the others' arms. He groaned loudly, and then lay still. Archer moved towards his officer, but was blocked by a particularly tall alien who shouted something at him in an unintelligible language. Furious, Archer made another move past the hulking figure, but this time was pushed away and forced to walk forward on the path. Ahead, he saw T'Pol being directed the same way, but he was unable to catch another glimpse of Trip. Helpless, he could only hope that they were all being lead to the same location.
As he walked, Archer watched the humanoids. Based on how close they were to the village, he supposed that these aliens actually were Renkans. Each was much taller than any human or Vulcan that he had ever seen, but he could discern little more of their physical attributes due to the camouflage. It wasn't until they were paraded through the middle of the hut-filled village that Archer realized that the camouflage was actually part of the Renkan anatomy and not added on by other means. Each Renkan appeared to have the ability to blend effortlessly into their environment much as many species of Earth chameleon could. The effect was not so complete that the figures were invisible to the human eye, but it was quite impressive nonetheless. As figures moved from area to area, their bodies shifted quickly from one series of colors to another depending on their surroundings. Despite the uncertainty of his situation, Archer could not help but be amazed.
He was so preoccupied by the stunning characteristic that he did not realize at first that they had stopped in front of one of the larger huts. He looked up at the Renkan who earlier had blocked him from Trip, and the taller humanoid pushed him into the hut along with T'Pol. It was dark inside, with only a small torch in a far corner lighting the large, single room.
Before he could make any further observations, Archer was distracted when another Renkan entered the hut with Trip over his shoulder. The Renkan roughly dropped Trip to the floor, and abruptly left without saying a word. But before either Archer or T'Pol could move to the engineer's side, another figure inside the hut moved from a dark corner into their field of view.
Archer's astonishment was so strong that his breath practically caught in his throat.
"Krem!" he shouted at the small, large-eared alien in front of him.
*** Author's note: For those of you who haven't seen "Acquisition," Krem is the downtrodden little Ferengi that supervised Archer throughout the episode.
Something of note.I'm not going to be too concerned with how the Ferengi understand English (or whatever language Starfleet officers/Vulcans use together). My memory may be faulty, but I don't recall there being a big explanation about why the four Ferengi in "Acquistion" were able to understand the crewmembers, so I don't think I should have to either. Let me know if I'm wrong, though.
Okay, that's it.as usual I hope you can forgive any minor mistakes and that you will point out the major ones!
Enjoy! Emrys
Disclaimer: See Following Orders Part I
Following Orders Part VIII (I think):
The progress was slow going at best. Trip, still unconscious after the hours it took to complete the beacon for Enterprise, hung limply between Archer and T'Pol, his legs dragging uselessly over each jutting tree root and exposed rock. T'Pol had attempted to ease the muscle contractions in the sick man's arm and back by using a few Vulcan massage techniques, but the muscles refused to relax. Archer could barely keep the stiffened arm over his shoulder, a circumstance that further interfered in the threesome's ability to travel.
An hour after continuing their journey, Trip was jarred into consciousness after his right foot became caught in a tangle of tenacious weeds, and T'Pol tripped at the unexpected change in the engineer's momentum. His return to awareness was unwelcome, and as he tried to gain his bearings he bemusedly wished for the relief that only seemed to come now from unconsciousness.
He weakly lifted his head and recognized by the unsteadiness of the horizon and the sudden lurching of his stomach that he was being moved. He groaned softly and allowed his head to fall back down between his shoulders.
"Trip?" he heard Jon's voice somewhere above his head, but he could barely respond to it.
"Stop," he muttered.
"What?" Archer asked in confusion.
"Can we.stop for a.a minute?" he stammered out between clenched teeth and with a considerable amount of urgency.
Archer nodded to T'Pol and together they slowly lowered Trip's weakened body to the ground until he lay on his back. T'Pol placed a cool hand on Trip's sweat-soaked forehead, and Jon saw her lips tighten in response to the waves of heat she felt emanating from the engineer's face. Trip exhibited a frailty that Archer had never seen in his friend before and which was frightening to witness.
He sat down heavily next to Tucker and kept a close eye on him. Trip appeared to be struggling against something, and Jon was about to ask him what was wrong when the engineer began to gag and retch. Quickly, Archer pushed Trip onto his side in order to keep the helpless man from aspirating on the bile and liquid that he violently threw up.
When it was over, Jon returned Trip onto his back, and quietly asked T'Pol to find some water.
"This is.humiliatin'," Trip gasped out weakly, and Jonathan could not hold back a short chuckle over the younger man's preoccupation with his pride. Gently, he wiped away the few involuntary tears that spread from Trip's eyes and gave him a supportive smile.
"I promise that when we get back to Enterprise I won't say a word to the rest of the crew. And I'll order T'Pol into silence if it makes you feel better."
Trip was blearily thankful, but somehow suspected that he would never hear the end of this particular episode in their friendship. That was provided that he survived his current condition long enough to make it back to the ship.
"Where are we?" he asked as he pushed aside the negative thoughts.
"Not far from the Renkan city," Archer replied all the while feeling slightly guilty at his omission of T'Pol's previous discoveries.
"The beacon?"
"It is completed and operating efficiently," T'Pol answered as she returned with a small, hollow tree log filled with water. She allowed Trip a short drink, and then gently began wiping down his face with her hands.
"We hid the device under some vegetation. Hopefully it'll keep until Enterprise can locate us," Archer explained further.
Trip closed his eyes in response and tried to ignore all of the physical responses that he was experiencing from the poison. Instead he attempted to concentrate solely on the feeling of T'Pol's hands as she continued to cool his face. The sensation was blessed relief, and he was almost soothed into a blissful and genuine sleep.
But the Captain's voice interrupted his reprieve, and as he opened his eyes the pain returned to assail him.
"Trip, I'm sorry, but we have to get to the Renkan city quickly. Do you think you'll be able to manage?"
Trip considered saying no. He wanted the oblivion of sleep. He wanted the pain to end. He just wanted to give up.
But he could not disappoint his captain, his friend. And so he weakly raised his left arm, and held back the cries of pain as they lifted him upright and began walking again.
****
"We'll keep contact with the Renkans as limited as possible," Archer said to T'Pol as they walked. "I don't want this to get any more complicated than it has to be."
T'Pol nodded her head in agreement, and her respect for the Starfleet Captain heightened again. They would be contending with a pre-warp society, and she appreciated the wisdom in remaining as distant and discrete as possible.
Their progress was now made easier by Trip's consciousness, as well as his feeble attempts to keep his legs from tangling over every obstacle in their path. But they had been walking in excess of an hour, and each of them was tiring. She gritted her teeth and lifted the Commander's arm higher in her grip.
Suddenly she perceived a small rustle of vegetation off the path behind them, and she hesitated slightly in her step. Archer noticed her break in pace and turned a questioning gaze towards her.
"What is it?" he asked.
Trip, whose head had been lolling between his shoulders again, managed a quick glance up at the Vulcan and also recognized the tension in the line of her jaw as an indication that something was not quite in order.
"Oh, don't.tell me," he muttered cynically. "Something else.is wrong."
"Trip, shhh," the Captain commanded quickly. "What is it?" he again asked the Subcommander.
"I believe that we are being followed, Captain," T'Pol replied calmly.
"Great. Oh, just.great," Trip mumbled again.
"Trip, quiet. We don't know what it is. It could be."
But the Captain was interrupted by the abrupt cries of several heavily camouflaged humanoid figures as they rushed from the vegetation and aimed primitive yet dangerous weapons at the three officers.
"So much for discretion," Archer said under his breath as he tried to make observations of the hard-to-see aliens. T'Pol looked at him sharply, but made no further comment.
The humanoids separated the three of them, and Trip fell heavily to the ground without the support of the others' arms. He groaned loudly, and then lay still. Archer moved towards his officer, but was blocked by a particularly tall alien who shouted something at him in an unintelligible language. Furious, Archer made another move past the hulking figure, but this time was pushed away and forced to walk forward on the path. Ahead, he saw T'Pol being directed the same way, but he was unable to catch another glimpse of Trip. Helpless, he could only hope that they were all being lead to the same location.
As he walked, Archer watched the humanoids. Based on how close they were to the village, he supposed that these aliens actually were Renkans. Each was much taller than any human or Vulcan that he had ever seen, but he could discern little more of their physical attributes due to the camouflage. It wasn't until they were paraded through the middle of the hut-filled village that Archer realized that the camouflage was actually part of the Renkan anatomy and not added on by other means. Each Renkan appeared to have the ability to blend effortlessly into their environment much as many species of Earth chameleon could. The effect was not so complete that the figures were invisible to the human eye, but it was quite impressive nonetheless. As figures moved from area to area, their bodies shifted quickly from one series of colors to another depending on their surroundings. Despite the uncertainty of his situation, Archer could not help but be amazed.
He was so preoccupied by the stunning characteristic that he did not realize at first that they had stopped in front of one of the larger huts. He looked up at the Renkan who earlier had blocked him from Trip, and the taller humanoid pushed him into the hut along with T'Pol. It was dark inside, with only a small torch in a far corner lighting the large, single room.
Before he could make any further observations, Archer was distracted when another Renkan entered the hut with Trip over his shoulder. The Renkan roughly dropped Trip to the floor, and abruptly left without saying a word. But before either Archer or T'Pol could move to the engineer's side, another figure inside the hut moved from a dark corner into their field of view.
Archer's astonishment was so strong that his breath practically caught in his throat.
"Krem!" he shouted at the small, large-eared alien in front of him.
*** Author's note: For those of you who haven't seen "Acquisition," Krem is the downtrodden little Ferengi that supervised Archer throughout the episode.
