Disaclaimer: Me no own, if only I did . . .
Summary: The crew encounter a new race the; Serenans, while in orbit of the Serenan homeworld Commander Tucker and one of his engineers disappear, is it coincidence that both crewmembers received encrypted messages minutes before their disappearances? (New char)
It was a pleasantly, warm summer evening. A slight breeze made the cast iron gates of Sipson High sway slightly, and caused the broken chains and padlock hanging from them to clang ominously.
From inside the school urgent whispering could be heard.
"Hurry up, we gotta be quick."
A girl of about fifteen with long sleek mahogany brown hair, and startling green eyes was standing with her hands on her hips. She looked down at a boy of a similar age, possibly a year or two older, he had light brown hair highlighted blonde in places by sun, he was crouching over something, and working on it with tools from the open toolbox that lay next to him.
"No kiddin' Jen, we've broken into the school and are settin' up a very small, but o' so real bomb in the physics lab, o' course we gotta be quick."
"I'm glad to see you've tried to cut back on the sarcasm, it was getting really annoying you know" she said raising her voice slightly.
"Sshhhh!"
Two adult voices drifted in throught the open doors on the breeze from outside.
"Who'd wanna break inta tha school?"
"Dunno, we betta call the police."
The boy and girl shared looks of anguish.
"As I was saying we'd betta hurry up"
The boy surveyed his work, flipped a switch and it lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Done."
"Great, lets go"
They gathered their stuff and made towards the exit.
"I still can't believe ya talked me inta this Jen, I'll neva get inta Starfleet if this ends up on ma permanent record"
"Who cares, you wont need Starfleet, we're gonna build our own ship aren't we? Have our own 'Starfleet'."
"Yeh, but what if-"
He's interrupted by the sound of police sirens and angry voices from the front entrance of the school, which they had broken open.
"Now Trip, good thing we came out the back exit eh?" she said with a smile as the boy -Trip pushes a button on the pad he's holding. A loud piercing sound, not unlike the "Reed Alert" filled the air, emanating from the school, presumably from where they planted the bomb. Trip quickly clambered onto the back of a motorbike sitting outside the back gates, Jen placed herself a little more gracefully on the back and they sped off down a back road. The sudden thunderous sound of the school being blown up replaces the piercing alarm, the teenagers ride off into the dark, sirens still wailing.
The sirens turn into the comm alert noise, Trip swiftly sat up and banged his head on the top of his bunk.
"Sonovabit-"
Noticing the comm, he reaches over and presses the button.
"Tucker" he says while rubbing his head, and groaning at the sharp stabbing pain he was now feeling in his forehead.
"You all right Trip?" came the familiar voice of the Captain "I've been trying to contact you for over five minutes."
"What? Oh, yeh," he swivelled round so he was sitting on the edge of his bed, clutching his forehead "yeh I'm fine Cap'n fine, what was it you wanted?"
Sounding thoroughly unconvinced Archer continued nonetheless "We've arrived at an inhabited planet named Serena, we've hailed the government, and they've agreed to let us pay them a visit, I thought you might like to come along?"
Things were looking up, he thought, although the pain in his forehead hadn't subsided "Yes sir."
"Meet us in the shuttle bay? 10 minutes?"
"See you then, Tucker out"
He hit the comm button to close the channel, he rose slowly and the room span, regaining his balance he looked out the window, and saw a planet very similar to earth, except the vast seas seemed to have a hint of purple in them. Drawing himself away from the view he put his dream, or flashback, he wasn't quite sure, to the back of his mind and headed towards the shower.