Chapter Four
Half past three saw the looming of a dusky red barren planet on the bridge's wide monitor screen and the lighting up of Archer's tired hazel eyes. He stood slowly from his cushy chair and watched the mass grow in front of him as Enterprise flew closer into its region.
"It's uninhabited."
Archer turned to T'Pol. He had already made up his mind that they would be going down. With this being their first planet in three, almost four days, he would not be passing it with a wistful wave.
Yet still it had to be safe first. "Is there anything down there?"
The Vulcan merged her focus back into the scanners and readings for a minute before a report could be made with anything of interest to her Captain – and despite the planet's seemingly deserted and lifeless surface there were rare traces of life.
"Insects and capon, although the exact species are not on the database and neither is the planet. The Vulcan's are yet to collect data, although it is classed as a rogue planet."
Another rogue planet. It wasn't exactly an exhilarating prospect, to discover new bugs and birds, especially on a rogue planet, but the promise of land and somewhere different to walk around on for a couple of hours tempted his ever curious and headstrong nature sorely.
T'Pol watched the restlessness stir about in his eyes and felt compiled to offer him an excuse for a mission. "We are behind on our lesser species research. And perhaps…" she paused for a second, watching her Captain gaze at the planet as if it had evolved suddenly into a beckoning paradise, "we could invite our guests down to explore with us."
He turned, very slowly and hesitantly, from the monitor to his second in command. Her head tilted slightly. The expressions of doubt and anxiety that she had expected to see where not there on his face however, but instead a small wiry grin.
"If they agree to come along then I don't see why not." He nodded to self-confirm the idea. "Okay T'Pol, gather an away team, ask the," he hesitated, still uncertain of what truth was behind the lost group, "X-Men if they're willing to come along and maybe we'll make a fieldtrip out of it."
One of T'Pol's long thin eyebrows rose. "A fieldtrip."
Archer's smile grew. He was back to playing proud Captain, knowing he would be able to show off some of the more wondrous sides to space travel that he wholly doubted any of the X-Men had ever seen before.
"Maybe we'll even pack a lunch."
----
Storm was losing hope. She felt she was losing a touch of sanity as well. She was not happy in space.
For an hour or so now she had wondered the ship aimlessly. She had circled and pried in every available corner and vent, only stopping short of strolling across the bridge and into the crewmember's quarters. She was doing this on advice from the sage T'Pol. It was suppose to help her grasp her bearings. It did no such thing.
It had been after the tour that they had talked. T'Pol had guided Storm around the ship on her own after Phlox had announced the mutant to be free of any contagious infection. The tour had ended in the mess hall. As T'Pol talked her through how to win food over from the dispensers Rogue had left and two had become alone.
"Dr Phlox tells me you work to keep your emotions oppressed." was the first thing she had said to her all night that didn't involve anything to do with the ship and its techno-babble.
Ororo turned to face the Vulcan after watching Rogue go with a small teasing grin. She had sat down and beckoned for her to join her at a small round table for two.
"He also says you're feel unsettled and distanced with being this far out in space. That you've lost… certain connections with Earth."
She nodded. She was beginning to grow use to the sound of T'Pol's emotion-starved voice. She was also growing use to the way that her eyes clashed with that emotion-starved voice. They spoke too much and were too bright, too compassionate in their plane brown hue to be fully oppressed of emotion, as they should have been. The voice and eyes did not match, and were even unsettling to watch as a pair in a subtle sort of way.
Storm had paid more attention to this detail than anything she had been told about the Enterprise. Now she was paying a more due amount of attention to the level gaze that was fixed on her, and eyes that were seeking to be helpful.
"It's interesting that you choose to control your emotions when so many of your kind simply let them domineer and act foolishly on them, using them as excuses for acts of violence and crime."
The conversation had gone from there. Storm had smiled thinly at the comment, knowing that in her time it was painfully true, and T'Pol's eyes were far more than simply interested. She never even stated her scepticism about time travel when it was mentioned briefly in passing, but was far more interested in hearing about the mutations, and why Storm had to be the way she was with her emotions.
Trip would have said they'd 'clicked', that some sort of unholy bond between man and Vulcan had been formed and the mess hall should have been made into a shrine to honour this historical event. Trip would also have received some heavily stern Vulcan glares.
But it was true. It perhaps wasn't a friendship, or 'unholy bond' that had become apparent, but more likely a mutual respect and understanding, with more stress on the understanding part.
The end result was that Ororo would try a meditating session with T'Pol, and it would be tonight after the away mission she had just literally been told about by Scott, who she had met in passing during her aimless voyage of Enterprise. She had fifteen minutes to decide whether she was going on it or not.
Her aimless walking led her to run blindly into the man who would make up that decision for her.
"Feelin' brave den mon ami?"
He was standing in the corners of a shadow, as enigmatic and fool hearted as always. Space had no effect on him, none that he was letting on about anyway.
"Gambit!" She wasn't sure if she was in the mood for him or not, but looking up at his audacious Cajun smile as she stood back from him after trampling lightly on his toes she let the tension in her muscles slowly slip away.
She sighed heavily and began to walk again, knowing he would follow, but first he took her by the shoulders and turned her the other way. They began to saunter in the direction of the ready room.
"No," was all she said quite frankly, finally answering the question.
He grinned charismatically again, his eerie crimson dashed eyes even glowing slightly. "Den we go toget'er an' have a lil' fun, neh?"
She bit her lower lip and let her headache tumble away to the back of her mind next as she shook her head and despite every edgy nerve smiled.
"As it was in Gulf City den mon ami."She nodded. "You lead Gambit, and I will gladly follow."
----
A fleeting spurt of dry red dust skipped over and around seven pairs of thick boot clad ankles, all of which stood relatively still and to attention side by side. Together they formed an obediently straight line and every toe in the set-up pointed simultaneously to the planet's North where a blazing purple sun tore over the sky in its majestic reign.
Not more than a hundred meters from the row of ankles and toes, exceeding beyond the hot bleak ground that each sole stood on, was a rich, lush green oasis. It had not been visible from the ship's sensitive monitors above the dense atmosphere, only in the shuttlepods and only when they had passed a thick formation of acidic stained clouds.
The oasis looked almost like the paradise Archer had been seeking out in this deserted planet, the excuse he had sought out just to land and explore.
He finally took a step forward from the amalgamation of mutant and human to face the six other patiently standing bodies.
"Alright then, we'll divide into two groups and relocate here again in two hours, as discussed." He then considered the teams that were yet to be announced one last time in his head and nodded. "Okay, Trip, Rogue and Cyclopes, you're all with me. T'Pol, you take Storm and Gambit."
Storm instantly grabbed Remy's wrist, silently but firmly. Her past intuitions on him were rarely wrong and he had gone to take a step forward in protest before she halted him, as she had anticipated.
From the moment he had laid eyes on Trip with Rogue, Remy had become burningly jealous of the young engineer, and desired to be possessive over Rogue once again, even though for the time begin in their complex union to date they were nothing of an official couple – only 'fellow X-Men'.
What sparked off Remy here was the mild infatuation he saw passing between their Southern bred faces whenever they dared to glance teasingly at each other. And that was only after a day of talking.
An outburst was close to his Cajun lips, and his narrow eyes confirmed it. Of course Ororo was not for letting him make a fool of himself and she smiled with a sideward glance at him.
"Just a little fun…" was all she warned in a whisper.
He growled, but only enough so Storm could hear and understand the sacrifice he was making for her. They went off for now with no further upset.
----
The oasis was plenty big to assure that when the two teams split they grew a respectful distant apart from each other quickly. T'Pol took her two mutant companions slightly due East. Archer continued a dead route North.
For the better part of T'Pol's team's trek she took lead, always a fair few strides in front with her scanner open and ears alert. The scanner continued to bounce left, right and centre, pinning all manner of unrecorded insects and birds. Her ears were bombarded with a constant low humming and pitches of squeals and grinds from every bush, tree and boulder above and around.
She knew of this planet, of its insignificant and mostly hostile and useless surface. The oasis was the only strip of habitat worthy of calling home to anything, and despite its size was really nothing much to make a whole civilisation on, or even a mass existence of any species intelligent or otherwise.
Still, she had went willing with Archer, without complaint or protest, and carried on her work without much consideration on the lack of logic that accompanied being in such a place. She chose, as an unspoken decision, to ignore it.
If anything the trip with the mutants in toe would hopefully provide some ground to ease away the last of the Captain's apprehensions, and the X-Men's weary confusion and fear.
Storm and Gambit rarely spoke on their trek, to T'Pol or each other. From time to time their eyes met, their faces always concentrated in a thin smile as they caught sight of an indistinguishable plant or colossal tree, far surpassed anything on the Earth that they knew. Often their noses would wrinkle as bittersweet scents passed on a humid, dry wind, or if a spray of perspiration soaked them across their flushed cheeks.
They remained close to each other's side. Even Gambit's often aloof and cocky nature was put to rest for the time being as they continued to follow the lead of a woman they preyed knew what she was doing and where she was going.
"There's a clearing up ahead, if you wish to rest."
It was the first words to be said between the trio since their trip down in the shuttlepod together. The last words uttered before then had been 'Call me Stormy one more time…' before T'Pol announced to the bickering couple that they were about to land.
The humidity was growing, and Storm was painfully aware of it as she tuned into what thin weather patterns she could grasp a tight hold of. Still there was more here to account for than there was on the ship in terms of atmosphere and nature. In its own uncanny way it settled her and she had to be content with that.
They made it into the clearing, but not before Storm's left shoulder received a fist full of thick putrid slime, its yellow tinted contents oozing slowly over her long slim arm and creeping slowly down to the rotting ground through her fingertips. It had come from nowhere and seemed to have no source to speak of.
Ororo didn't speak, or hardly dared moved, but turned to T'Pol slowly with mild silent panic.
The scanner was raised to her shoulder. "It's not poisonous, but it may burn slightly."
Her tone remained flat and her eyes simply gazed levelly into Storm's. To her there was no panic and the emitting smell of the sallow liquid was nothing worthy of distasteful attention, although it made the mutant's eyes water feverishly.
"Just wipe it off."
Finally Storm's face broke and she turned every muscle there into a façade of mortified horror. Yet the look was not directed at T'Pol, or the oozing slime or even Gambit. Instead her azure eyes, which began bleeding into a shade of cloudy white, stared fixed and wide over and beyond the Vulcan's shoulder.
They had just come across their first insect.
----
The pale dirty blue sky above began to grow restless. Archer raised his dark eyes up and frowned as the skies turned murky and the purple tilted clouds rumbled boastfully a low threat.
"There weren't any readings of bad weather on the ship."
He dropped his gaze and turned it to Trip who could only shrug as he watched the clouds roll and growl with his Captain and the two mutants.
"Unpredictable weather migh' just be commonplace here sir."
Scott had turned to Rogue. They said nothing but knew instantly each other's thoughts. It was something they should have expected.
"Probably not as commonplace as unpredictably mutants though."
----
T'Pol hit the solid ground with the base of her spine first and rolled painfully until she was on her grazed side and up against a tree. She shook off a scoop of burning slime from her hand with silent distaste and spat out what small dose had crept into her mouth. Her tongue and cheeks ached but she ignored it.
Storm had seen it first but the other two were only oblivious to its presence for a few seconds after. Its dark swirling red eyes had been following them for the better part of fifteen minutes and its jaw discharging its burning gel with the hope of a meal from either one or all three of the explorers. And it was no small housefly.
The sleek black, arms-length pincer that swung violently from the undergrowth and struck T'Pol mercilessly was what proved its worth as something unwilling to go peacefully. It was a good two or three meters tall when it rose threatening onto its back barb clad legs, its glossy outer exterior the same putrid yellow as its discharged digestive spit and its entire physique generally revolting and terrifying to look at.
"So when dey say 'bugs' in dis 'ere future… Well dat be one mighty big bug mon ami."
Both Gambit and Storm dodged another wild swing gracefully and force the colossal insect out of hiding and into the small clearing, its head swinging violently from side to side in a rage of confusion and hunger. It created a schism between the duo and T'Pol, who rose slowly to her feet, showing no sign of pain or injury in her expression.
The dark skies above continued to rumble relentlessly and kicked into an agitated strong breeze, circling the four restlessly as Storm's eyes remained white and shadowed. Gambit grabbed a rotting dead tree branch and held it out to the insect's rearing back legs. It still had all seven eyes and an empty stomach for T'Pol though.
"How de weather behavin' for ya Stormy?"
"It will bend." She forced her words through tense gritted teeth.
Gambit's branch came alive with a pelt of vicious red and wild untamed sparks of deep golden yellow. It glowed unevenly and ravenously and the lively reaction even threw Remy. He was tempted to throw it now through fear of its over-enthusiasm, but his gloved hand kept a stubborn grip for now.
T'Pol's phase pistol had come out of its holster at her hip and was trained steadily on the repulsive insect's dark glistening underbelly.
With no room for hesitation she shot. She braced herself for its collapse but that desired effect was not to be. The neat red beam of hot plasma did nothing more than aggravate the situation. T'Pol had succeeded in nothing more than making herself dinner quicker.
The thick edgy skies were filled with piercing screams from the spitting bug as it shied up to its rear legs again and came hammering back down to charge with reckless speed towards its prey despite the continued shooting from T'Pol's pistol. It would not be dying on her beam.
"Duck petite!"
T'Pol threw her attention from the manic creature for just a second to watch Storm catapult herself into the clammy air and Gambit throw his arm with the flaming branch back then jerkily forward as he aimed and threw with deadly accuracy at the bug's unreasonably large head.
A small tangled bundle of velvety black lightning quickly accumulated in Storm's cupped palms and she threw with as much vigour and accurateness as her partner.
T'Pol quickly ducked.
The lush dark earth shook and the skies choked as both attacks collided and merged into a comet of crimson and black, crashing with putrid yellow and swirling red to make a rainbow of the massacre.
With the closest thing to terror T'Pol had ever tasted she folded herself into a tight ball and braced her tense body for an on slaughter of pincers, lightening and fire. Instead a heavy dollop of reeking slime splattered over her arched back and tucked shoulders, and then her neat flat hair and exposed neck.
Thereafter there was a strange shaken silence, smeared with quivering relief.
Storm remained afloat in the considerably calmer skies, only a little above Gambit's head and hovering on the lookout. Her eyes were her natural blue once again.
Gambit stood in deflated stillness. He was as heavily dressed in burning slime as T'Pol; only he had it pouring down in generous amounts over his bare face and lips.
The stillness remained in tact for the better part of a minute. Then slowly from the edge of the clearing and still backed up against an elder tree T'Pol began to uncurl from her ducked position.
A smouldering pile of fetid yellow lay smoking inches away from her boots. One long black pincher was at rest mere feet away from her side and a gaping mouth jammed with dozens of rows of thin needle sharp teeth grinned at her from no more than a half a meter away.
All temptations to vomit or cry were quickly dismissed of and she stood up in her straight, orderly mannered composure, still dripping with slime but otherwise unruffled.
"I think it would be best to rendezvous back with the Captain and the others now."
----
The oasis was also known as Eshikh Zad. As it turned out, the Vulcans had actually at least named the planet and its oasis, but found it lacking significant merit to go on the database. If it was on the database, T'Pol (or even Hoshi) would have read its names as Forbidden Forest and perhaps advised against an away mission there.
But this mission was always meant to be.
The biggest threat in this hostile land came not from colossal insects and their endless hunger but from the cloaked being that sat on its rich green edges.
It was a figure build from robes of silky black and organza veils. Little colour seeped out from the attire, save the grey hems of the heavy garments and the bronze leather that was a pair of sturdy pointed boots. The face was all but buried and two hands lay hidden deep in amongst folds on top of folds of expensive material. Not an inch of sallow skin showed, only the general outline of a body.
But you could tell there was a smile somewhere under there.
The teams gathered only a few kilometres away. Two crudely sharp eyes saw every detail of each individual's physique, from the emitted slime draped over three of them to the neat stitching of the arrayed uniform worn by the others.
It was pleasing to see so many of them participating in this assignment. Considering there weren't meant to be any of the X-Men out today, and yet here there stood four of them, showed promising signs alone.
Slowly, as if under the robes was a body consisting of too many years of life, the being got up from the cold black boulder that had played as a spotting sight for two hours.
The teams began retreating back to the two shuttepods that had carried them to Eshikh Zad, declaring unofficially that they had explored enough for now.
That was all right though. That was how it was meant to be.