A.N: A bit delayed, I know, I'm really sorry, but hey, better late than never...
Chapter Three – Out Of The Snowstorm, Into The Igloo
-An hour or so later-
A grey smudge moved out of place along the bitter white horizon of the Godforsaken blizzard planet. Shuffled along just ahead of them, carrying on forward warily in the brief distance.
Archer lifted his head up slowly, pain crossing over the back of his head to overcome the acute numbness that had long since settled across the entire length of his ridged body. He blinked away the solidly frozen snowdrops from his eyelashes and stared on, slightly gaped mouth, his expression hardly anything more than a glazed wonder. The shadow took another step forward.
Carefully he wrapped his hold tighter around the sleeping form of his Sub Commander, afraid that if he held on any more he'd be able to check for whether or not she still had a heartbeat. It was cowardly and unprofessional of him, he knew, but she hadn't moved in what felt like to be a very long time…
"Tai?" the shadow called out in a deep toned alien tongue. "Tai-chi'iok?"
The winds picked up again and for a moment the grey loom disappeared, swallowed up by the unrest of the storm as it carried masses of loose snow back and forth wildly. Archer had to knit his eyelids shut, biting down on his frozen lip amidst the bright pain that battered into him across any scrap of skin left exposed. 'A premature end to such a wonderful mission', he mused sarcastically, hoping that was the hypothermia speaking because it didn't sound like him at all, giving up so willingly.
He tried to move one solidly frozen leg. Torrents of agonising stiffness tore at his knee before he carefully relaxed and saw attempting to move a bad option.
Buried in his chest T'Pol made a sound, a quiet mumble over her navy blue lips. He felt himself go light-headed with relief as her fingers flexed and her nose twitched. She didn't open her eyes, but she was alive at least.
"Shrika!"
The grey figure was above him, hanging over his head, flaring red eyes fixed on the olive complexion of T'Pol's face and the wisps of her bowl cut hair that poked through the thicket of her hood. Archer jumped and then felt his breath catch in his icy chest as the alien locked eyes with him and let his expression go sour. He coughed violently from the surprise, tiring instantly as he did.
Then a solid bar of strong scented wood swung just behind him and landed square between his shoulder blades.
At least with that the numb pain was gone, as he spiralled into the sleep he had been denying himself for the past hour or so sitting in the taunting snow.
………………………
The Captain's ready room – not a place Commander Tucker spent much of his time in, certainly not alone. The ready room held more lesser keen memories in its four cool blue walls than it did fond ones. He was not a crewman who the Captain made a habit of scowling, but it happened at times, and it always seemed to happen in here. Or he would be told in the ready room that the mission had been terminated, or that his engines would have to be pushed to their limits, again, or that T'Pol had caught and reported him for taking more than the rationed allowance of food (in all cases pecan pie).
Trip preferred his times aboard Enterprise to be spent with his beloved engines, or in the mess hall, or in the Captain's dining room, or in his quarters, but not in the ready room. And not when the crew were hanging short of one Captain and one Sub Commanders.
He needed time and a place to think though, and the bridge for now was not suitably qualified as that place. Too many expectant eyes, and drumming fingers, and milling around because he had no orders to give because they had no leads to work on. Also engineering was a little too out of the way along with his quarters to retreat to for thinking. So the ready room it was for him, alone.
He considered the 'alone' part for a moment and then opened the door to the bridge, sticking his head out with weary blue eyes.
"Malcolm."
The Lieutenant raised a brow in acknowledgment.
"Could you come join me in here for now?"
The Englishman stood and nodded, the two both looking towards Mayweather for a moment who was perfectly aware that the first flicker of trouble or sign of a lead meant he was ordered to holler for them.
"Problem Sir?"
Tucked away in the ready room with company now, Trip took the liberty of heaving a sigh and sat heavily on the corner of the Captain's desk.
"Tell me y' have a suggestion to offer up that doesn't involve sittin' on our hands and broadcasting weather reports until things clear up down there an' then no, ah wont have a problem."
Malcolm relaxed his posture slightly and rested his weight on one leg, crossing his arms and realising with that statement that his stay in the ready room could be a lengthy one.
"It's still not safe enough to land a shuttlepod, and there's still too much interference from the storm to be able to pick up specific human or Vulcan bio signs. Hoshi can't get a lock on the communicators either, so I suspect the same applies for them. So I have no other suggestion to give you except for to be patient. If the Captain couldn't sit out a blizzard, then he'd never have passed his physical training and he certainly wouldn't be working on a Starship because of it."
Trip frowned, and the frown twisted his insides.
"Yeah, well the Captain's always had a thing about the cold…"
Malcolm's gaze sharpened into cautious interest. "Oh?"
Trip shrugged, trying to mute his own worry, failing miserably of course.
"Ah don't know, he always had some problem or other when we did the artic trainin'. He could do a desert marathon in half the time it took most the professionals to, but anything involving sub zero temps and he'd struggle. Not enough to fail him in the physical, but enough to give him a headache about the challenges. We used to joke about it, nothin' serious ever happened, it's probably not even worth mentioning right now. Ah just wish ah was down there with 'em. Ah don't figure T'Pol's doing any better. Ah hear Vulcans aren't good in the cold. It's about the only time humans have any physical advantage over 'em, when things get chilly."
Malcolm chewed on a lip and curled his toes, a habit of his that formed when he thought of compensating things to say to others. He wasn't a natural comforter, but he wasn't keen on watching his friend squirm in his own guilt, caused by nothing more than obeying the Captain's orders.
"Remember Coridan?"
Trip's mouth moulded itself into a tight, straight line. "Yeah."
"Remember how the Captain and the Sub Commander got caught by the rebels, used as hostages, were as good as dead no matter what, and were caught in a crossfire between the Coridan rebels and the Vulcans?"
Trip nodded silently. The point was obvious by now.
"Remember the Pernaia system, where the Captain and the Sub Commander had to alone to a planet on a mission we weren't allowed to know anything about. Remember how we had no contact unless they contacted us?"
"Okay Malcolm, I get it."
"Don't beat yourself up about this. Yes, they're not exactly down there in the best of situations, and okay worry about that, but don't feel this is you fault and don't feel like you're just sitting on your hands. There's simply nothing much you or any of us can do that wouldn't involve endangering other crewmember's lives."
Trip shuffled his feet and let Malcolm's words rattle through his remorse until it simmered down a little and he was allowed a modest smile.
"We'd make a good Cap'in and First Officer duo, don't ya think."
Malcolm shook his head, a smile gracing his own lips nonetheless.
"We spend one frozen weekend in a shuttlepod together an' all of a sudden we're Starkey an' Hutch."
Trip frowned. "Who?"
Malcolm shrugged. "I'm a classics fan. I apologise."
………………………
As many times as it had happened, Archer had never quite taken to receiving thorough knocks to the back of his head with solid planks of wood. With a grunt and a sniff he pulled himself awake and attempted to open his eyes amidst the shooting pains that ran circles around his temples.
"If I'm not in sickbay, I'm going to sue."
Blazing walls of white came at him from every angle, allowing no escape, nowhere to turn his eyes to get away from the piercing lights. For a moment, as he lay blinking fiercely, trying to win his sight back, he thought he might be dead.
"Sir, I would advice against making any sudden moves."
Cold breath trickled over his forehead from above as he tried to sit up, and a hand rested gently but firmly upon his stiff right shoulder, assuring him he was alive and… well enough.
"Please."
He squinted and tensed as he pushed himself up carefully, guided by the hand on his shoulder. Tenderly closing and then peeling open his eyes again he threw his gaze to the right and locked sights with T'Pol.
"Sub Commander." His brow dipped into a frown as he caught sight of the shallow cut along the left of her forehead. "What happened?"
She looked ahead. "I made a sudden move earlier."
Reluctantly he looked ahead with her.
There were three of them, huddled around a dying fire of mauve and burgundy embers. Beside them lay an array of primitive weaponry; knives, axes, bows and arrows, and amongst these sat two phase pistols, looking the oddballs in the crowd. The hulking figures paid no attention to their captives and instead ate away hungrily at strands of pinkie-red meat hooked onto long barbs of pale brown wood. All three had their backs to the couple.
There was nothing the Captain could do with those three. The rare and mild urgency sewn into his Sub Commander's hushed voice suggested clear enough to him that attempting contact would be futile, as curious as he might be about them, and as clever as trying to make an obvious and ungainly escape.
So he took better stock of his surroundings instead as he pondered their situation now that his eyes had stopped weltering in watery pain and instead had turned rather dry and numb, along with the rest of his body.
The accommodations were probably best described as a cubic igloo, tall and long and constructed from one corner to the next in solid, pale blue ice. There was no heating system and one exit carved out in the form of a bulky tunnel dug into the ground at the opposite end of the shelter. That was it. No furnishings or frilly decorations, just a few uncaringly carved log for the natives to sit on, and a small fire.
"So, who are they?" He mimicked T'Pol's whispered tone as he sat himself up properly and settled closely beside her, hoping to see if any amount of body heat could be shared in doing so. He tried to cross his legs but something pulled at his right ankle. They were both shackled to the floor.
"They appear to be the Zinok, but the Zinok were reported to have been wiped out as a primitive race some 60,000 years ago."
Archer tilted a frosted eyebrow up and she went on to fill his curiosity.
"They used to inhabit the neighbouring planet, Klaeon, where General Lamex and his people live. It was the Klae who hunted them to extinction, being more primitive themselves 60,000 years ago, although they have evolved at a phenomena pace from then. The Klae and the Zinok fought back then to secure a total claim of the planet for the superior race, and the Klae won."
T'Pol held her steady gaze on the three hunched figures for a moment before going on.
"It is possible that the Zinok have always inhabited this planet as well as Klaeon before, although these particular conditions would make life and reproduction of the race extremely difficult, no matter how well they could adapt. I assume more that there were probably survivors from the time when the Zinok were hunted to extinction on Klaeon, and have lived out of sight of the Klae since. If the Klae found the survivors recently then although now too civilised to want to kill them off with no just cause, it is unlikely they would take kindly to continuing to share their habitat. The history the people are taught has made sure they hold distasteful views of their old 'primitive and ruthless' neighbours. Relocation would have looked to be the most humane option for them, I would think."
Archer's brow took on the dark form of a scowl, one he was famous for shedding when such issues trampled on his own hard-set ethics. "Doesn't sound too humane to me."
She said nothing. She had given him all that she could hypothesis. Although extensive when compared with his, her knowledge of these two races was inferior, just as the Vulcans saw the Klae. Hypocrites though her people were for thinking it, they looked upon the Klae still as primitive for not bothering to make amends for their bloodshed past. The Klae had no shame though, only excuses, which they saw to be as reasonable and justified as the cause for drinking water.
"You okay?"
The small silence between the two was hacked away as Archer shuffled himself closer still to her, the cold biting down hard on his arms as he blew furiously on his cramped fingers.
"I thought…" he paused awkwardly as she peered at him, "I though maybe I'd lost you back there. It wasn't looking good, for either of us really. You had me worried for a moment though, to be honest."
She tilted her head to the side, noting the quiet concern in his hushed voice, taking note of it and appreciating it.
"I am fine. It would take a day or so before my body would begin to shut down completely in such conditions. Vulcans may not be well adapted to the cold, but our bodies are still durable enough to see through many hours of exposure before it becomes too much."
He looked her over sceptically.
"Your concern is unnecessary, but thank you. Are you alright yourself? You were unconscious for a long time."
With utmost care he rubbed the back of his head with one woolly-gloved palm. "Oh I'm just fine, don't worry about me."
Outside dying winds whimpered away, wheezing and coughing as they struggled to keep up their torrential strengths. It was still cold, but the harsh edges of the chill were beginning to ebb away, leaving a lull in the low temperature, allowing it to begin to climb again even if only by a handful of degrees. Archer assumed and hoped the storm was beginning to finally lose its momentum.
"Did they take my communicator?"
T'Pol sniffed slightly through a heavily blocked nose. "No, but I would not advice using it. I was struck across the head for trying to speak with them. I hardly imagine trying to speak with Enterprise would impress their tempers either."
Archer nodded, although he'd already guessed that for himself.
"Well maybe Enterprise could get a lock on the communicator instead, find us by tracking down the signal."
"And just so long as Commander Tucker does not try to contact us on it, I assume we will be fine."
Archer thought he detected the gentlest hint of sarcasm somewhere in her emotionless monotone, but he denied himself the luxuries of smiling, seeing her point.
"Talk about your Catch-22s."
"Catch-22?
He lost his chance to explain when one of the hulking Zinok stood up from his log and turned to face the imprisoned couple.
Archer bit back his tongue and swallowed a surprised gasp. Not an overwhelmingly shocked gasp per say, more a curiously surprised one at the sight of the alien coming towards them.
His skin was a divine white, as pure and clean as the freshly lain snow outside, almost glowing with a boastful radiance. Far more alluring though than his skin tone, he was covered in pale tan markings like splodges similar to that found on a cow and just as randomly spread. He had a patch across his nose, one running down his left cheek and across his jaw line and one across his neck which disappearing down his heavily lined coat. Even his small round ears were painted with the distinct markings. His eyes were a watery red and his many teeth a matching brown to the markings of his skin.
He had four fingers of which could be seen through pelted gloves and small horn-like bones producing from each wrist just enough to cause damage in a punch.
He was like a man of myth, the ones Archer had been taught about in his earlier school years for fun projects on Greek and Roman legends which often told of men with animal-like abnormalities such as markings and horns and discoloured eyes.
His awe had set him still and quiet and T'Pol threw quick, frequent glances at his side profile as he looked on at the alien's front one. She saw it unlikely that their host would appreciate the blatant staring. Her elbow dug into his side, an action easy to miss with them hunkered up so close together. He frowned but did nothing more than shut his jaw over and grunt quietly in protest.
"Shrika."
Archer turned to T'Pol. "What did he say?"
"Shrika tulov!"
Then with a wipe of his nose the alien bent down on his knees and, pulling out a barb of metal, unlocked the shackles from around their ankles. With two dustbin lid hands he grabbed a shoulder of each and pulled them up almost clean off the ground. Shoving them in front of him he pointed forward. "Ski."
He pointed forward towards the tunnel exit.
Brushing himself off and rolling his shoulders Archer pivoted on one heel and dared to narrowly eye the towering figure behind them. He itched to say something but T'Pol hastily placed a hand on his back and guided him forward towards the tunnel.
In a whisper that was barely audible she urged, "I would advice against it Sir."
They said nothing more as they went forward, with their host's shadow hanging over their heads on every step. They walked past the other two who did nothing more to acknowledge them than hunch a little further over the fire and rip some fresh meat from an indistinguishable carcass to cook.
"Ski," the apparent leader of the trio prompted again, pointing once more to the tunnel with one dirty, gloved finger. Archer moved himself in front of T'Pol and smiled weakly.
"See you at the other side Sub Commander."
A heavy hand sat on her shoulder and held her back (although she had made no attempts to move) as the Captain dropped to his elbows and knees and began to push himself forward through the tunnel at a crawl.
The head captor stood behind T'Pol motionless, with a deviant red gaze that seemed to miss nothing.
There was a grunt and the crunching of gritty snow underfoot and then the foreign language spoken quietly by someone else before light began to drift in through the underground tunnel again. T'Pol turned back to face the Zinok. He was wearing a smile, a smirk on pale chapped lips that made her spine tingle in an unfamiliar and unpleasant way.
"Ski ta."
She held her gaze, dared to delay for a moment longer than was probably wise and he took a step forward, almost losing her in his bulky grey shadow. She was audacious for a Vulcan, but she knew her limits.
The tunnel was short and wide in thanks to the size of the figures it was built for. It dipped in a shallow U shape underground and before long opened up again to a camp of igloos, where T'Pol crawled out and reappeared before Archer, who stood at the mouth of the passage flanked by a couple more Zinok. One looked to possibly be female, shorter than her counterparts by a mere few inches, but slimmer too. She held no more of a pity for them in her runny red gaze than any of the males did.
The silence hit them immediately. A wave of dead air fluttered through their senses, tweaking at their ears and making them strain their eyes to see if they were being tricked into deafness. They were in the epicentre of a camp of a good half a dozen or so cubical igloos, all makeshift in appearance and all ready to be knocked down with the slightest touch of a hammer. Swarms of the Zinok weaved in and out of the shelters, hulking backpacks onto their broad shoulders, tying up sledges with tightly wrapped packages, extinguishing oddly coloured fires and rounding up smaller members of their species; children, Archer guesses as he took a second look at one youngster who ran happily in and out of his proudly constructed snow castles in utter silence.
With all the enigma of a desert at night, this camp was as silent and still as any lonely corner of any world could be. Only it was teaming with life and activity and should have been roaring with the sounds to go with it.
A familiar bulky grey shadow swept over the couple's heads and they looked behind to see that they had been joined by their new acquaintance at last. His body was shrouded with the same complete silence the camp was doused in. He pointed a couple of times to the ground and then began to walk away with the other male and female, keeping an eye on them for as long as was possible, making sure they understood that his instruction meant 'stay put'.
Archer turned to T'Pol. She caught his gaze. They said nothing.
The captor didn't take long to return, ambling back towards the couple with two very heavy looking rucksacks held tightly in one enormous hand. He stood in front of them and dropped them carefully at their feet. His intention as before was perfectly clear. The prisoners were not just here to look. The Zinok were on the move, and Archer and T'Pol were going to help.
"Gliko kalea'e, t'y thru ski."
The couple blinked. Oh how the Captain valued his linguist for times like these. These were the sorts of situations Hoshi lived for, and where she was at this moment was either's guess. Still in orbit of the planet with the Enterprise would be nice though, Archer mused.
The rucksack was thrown into his chest and his musing was over. He grunted as his reflexes caught the deadweight of his bundle and felt his knees tremble for a moment before he seized his bearings. The Zinok gave no further instructions – he just stood and stared, blinking with his watery red gaze as he waited.
Beside him T'Pol lugged her rucksack on. He did a sudden double take on her. Her lips were already blue again, billows of frosty breath escaping from her nostrils in quick, short succession. She was taking the hassle free option of obeying as they went as her body quickly began to plummet into hypothermia-mode once again. Saying anything to her would be as logical as asking her to admit defeat about something when she knew she was right though. He would just have to keep the worry for her to himself, and deal with whatever came when it came. Holding out hope for the Enterprise to come to their aid was easy; judging when that would happen was not. And 'when' was quickly becoming the curtail factor.
Someone came to a stumbling stop beside them and the towering Zinok acknowledged the newest figure with a hushed grunt and a sneer of his lips. He nodded curtly and then left. Archer and T'Pol viewed their new mentor, and surprise fought to surface onto their faces.
Instinctively they knew it was male, and one of a decent age, but this Zinok was short and under the layers of hide that he donned, most likely scrawny and near all bone. His pasty face held few markings like the other Zinoks that they watched traipse back and forth – a small splodge of brown on the bridge of his nose and one on his left cheek but nothing more, and he possessed impressive bags under his pink gaze. He was laden with one small rucksack and a sack attached to his left calf and neither looked particularly taxing to carry, unlike the Enterprise's captaining crew's loads.
He hardly looked upon them, his gaze trained firmly to the snowy ground for the better part, his feet rooted to the spot as he stood ridged and unmoving. Others brushed past him, bumping shoulders or rucksacks, but he said nothing and they barely acknowledged them. A mutual agreement that if they didn't bother him with grunts and complaints, he wouldn't speak to them. A pathetic display that neither the human nor the Vulcan commented on about out loud.
It was never said, but once the camp was ready to up and leave, everyone turned in the same direction and left. Piles of wood were left to simmer to extinction and strips of meat were discarded to the still frequent and strong winds. The storm was gone, but the temperature still shimmered in double negatives and the winds were still fierce and alive. T'Pol never said a word, and Archer pained for her.
The igloos were left as well. They would eventually crumble in the winds, but no one dared to make enough of a disruption by knocking them down that was bound to cause another uproar with this planet's Mother Nature.
Swarming together the clan of Zinok seemed to be made up of about forty to fifty adults and one or two dozen children. Archer wondered if this was all that was left of an entire race, of if there were more groups scattered around the edges of this planet and forced to execute this meagre living. For a moment he felt for them, acknowledged their plight and forgave them for their actions. Then he glanced over at T'Pol as the two were pocked on by the runt and made to walk at the back of the moving herd, and his compassion slipped away. If she made it through the day then he had obviously underestimated her and owed her an apology for it. Educated guesses told him she'd struggle, along with himself no doubt.
They dared to look on at the horizon. There was where the mountains lay, and there, inevitable, was where they were going.