Between A Rock and… Another Big Rock

By Didi

Disclaimer:  (Hate these things.)  I do not own any of the recognized characters, places or things in this story.  This is purely as pleasure writing and no profit shall be made from it.  Any copyright infringement I may be committing is unintentional and without malice.  I would be more than happy to STOP, just tell me.  There, does that cover it all? 

Rating:  PG 13 for now.

Story Summary:  The crew goes hunting underground.

Chapter Summary:  The Away Team built a bomb, the crew details their dangerous plans and Hayes gets a rude awakening. 

Timeline:  Set before the episode "Azati Prime" in Season 3. 

Author's Note:  Is it bad that I get more enjoyment out of writing this than actually watching the show, even with the great Brent Spiner guest staring in the last two episodes?

Spoiler:  Everything up through "The Hatchery."  (I'm being nicely cautious here.) 

Key:  "Spoken"   "Thoughts" 

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Chapter Twelve – Risky Business

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

        "We don't know what we're…"

        "And I'm telling you that the weight of that damn thing is…"

        "What would be the point if we cannot utilize…"

        "We ain't going to be using the damn thing if we can't…"

        "Oh for heaven sakes!"  The exasperation was written clearly on the faces of both men.  Malcolm knew that if they continued to argue they would be at it all night.  "Why don't we just have Hoshi translate the last of symbols instead of doing guess work and be done with it?"

        "'Cause she's sleeping and ah ain't waking her."  That shut Lt. Reed up nicely as Cdr. Tucker's face set into a mulish expression that was going to be impossible to deal with.

        "I'm awake, I'm awake."  Hoshi grumbled and rolled to her side and sat up.  Her hair was an atrocious rat's nest from tossing and turning for the last hour listening to the loud whispers.  "How anyone is supposed to sleep with the two of you arguing back and forth is way beyond my reasoning!"

        The two superior officers had the grace to look sheepish as they saw that not one member of the away team was sleeping or even resting.  They were all too fascinated by the squabble between the armory officer and the chief engineer.  Even Romero and DeMarco, who were supposed to be keeping watch, were eyeing the men with interest. 

        Hoshi tucked the three cloaks she had on tightly around her, ignoring the fact that she was still chilled to the bone despite the extra covering, and waddled slowly over to the unit.  "What do you need?"

        Cdr. Tucker reached up and helped her sit down slowly, watching her drained face carefully.  "First thing we do when we get back is have the Chef stuff you 'till you burst, nothing but meat and potatoes for a month for you."

        "I'm not even going to comment on that," Hoshi told him and then landed on her butt.  With a sigh, she squared her shoulders.  "Okay, let me at this for a moment and then you can get back to your arguing."

        Trip leaned back and looked around Hoshi at Malcolm.  "You feeling like you've just been scolded?" 

        Malcolm grinned and said nothing, deciding it was probably a bad idea to aggravate the communications officer anymore than they already had.  Women could be quite frightening when they've not slept properly. 

        It was another ten minutes before Hoshi stopped the horrible scratching noises that were driving the rest of the away team insane and dropped the rock she had been using to write the translations.  "That's the last of it."

        "Thank god," Sanchez called out from halfway across the room. 

        "Remind me to bring a permanent marker next time," Jamison muttered as he knelt down beside the ensign and read the translations. 

        "I sincerely hope there will not be a 'next time.'"  Hoshi rolled her tense shoulders and scooted away from the unit while Cdr. Tucker and Lt. Reed both joined Jamison.  She had moved well beyond exhaustion now.  She felt like she could fall asleep right there sitting up. 

        "Good work, Hosh," Trip turned and grinned at her over his shoulder.  "Whoa," he grabbed her before she toppled over, her eyes already closed and her body refusing to cooperate any longer.  "Okay, time for you to get a nice visit from the sandman." 

        She murmured something nonsensical and allowed him to help her lay down.  But within moments, she was sitting back up again. 

        "Hoshi, you need to sleep," Trip said as he moved away from where Jamison and Reed were arguing over what to do with the unnecessary conduits that were likely to weigh them down and slow their progress.  He was going to give Jamison another two minutes to argue with Reed before he stepped in.  In the mean time, someone else needed him a little more.  "Lie down, get comfortable."

        "It's cold," she murmured softly, her eyes at half mast.  "It's warmer when I sit."

        "You can't sleep sitting up, Darling."

        "Yes I can.  Did it in school," she informed him, her eyes completely closed now. 

        Trip sighed, watched her head nod a few times and turned to Malcolm and Jamison, who were still arguing over the whether or not they should crack the casing open.  Sitting down between them, Trip faced the chief armory officer.  "Look Malcolm, I know you're concerned about whether or not we'll damage the unit if we open the casing, but we can't haul this whole thing around with us.  It'll slow us down and put us all in danger.  The conducts and power converters were for the villagers, and they used it to supply power to whatever.  We don't need it.  All we want is the raw power in the core.  If we strip away the extras, this thing can be held by one person so that's exactly what we'll be doing.  I'm sorry you don't like it but that's the bottom line.  We clear?" 

        There was a tense moment of silence as the two men studied each other carefully.  Lt. Jamison was tempted to take several steps back; but any movement now would be the wrong one. 

        Malcolm finally nodded and sighed.  "You're right. Let's get this started."

        Trip nodded his understanding and thanked his friend silently for not making this difficult.  "Jamison, can you handle this?"

        Surprised but primed, "Yes, sir."

        "Good." Trip got up slowly, ignoring the fact that both his knees cracked loudly in the silent chamber. 

        Lt. Reed frowned as Tucker walked away.  "Where are you going?"

        "I'm going to take a nap," Trip said over his shoulder.

-&-&-&-

        "No, no, no," Lt. Langley reached over and slapped Ensign Sandoval's hand.  "Are you trying to break it?  You touch that again and I'm going to hack off your hand with a really dull butter knife."

        "Butter knife?" Corporal Chang asked with a mild curiosity, he was only there for observation while the engineering team went over what was needed for 'Operation Hide and Go Seek.' 

        "It's dull, slow and painful," Jennifer Langley replied in a distracted manner as she looked over the plans again.  She really wished Beta Team hadn't gotten stuck with these plans; it was making her regret the promotion she got two weeks before to commander of engineering's Beta Shift.  Six hours now before Gamma Shift was scheduled to begin and she'd only begun to understand what needed to be accomplished.  "You boys in the armory sure didn't make this easy on us.  Scanners and homing beacons weren't ever designed to interface with torpedoes." 

        "Can it be done?"

        "I've never tried anything like this."

        "But can it be done?"  Chang asked again. 

        Langley groaned and glanced at Sandoval, who nodded at her.  "I wish Cdr. Tucker were here, he'd know what to do with it.  And yeah, in theory, it can be done.  Though why we thought we would ever need to…" 

        "And that's why you guys get paid the big bucks to do this kind of thing," Chang replied with a grin, just a little too thankful that his parents never pushed him into Star Fleet.  It was almost worse than MACO training.     

        "Thanks," Langley said dryly as she picked up the homing beacon again.  "Okay, the beacon needs to go off once it's stationary, which means we'll have to set it on remote detonation."

        "Or a timer," Ensign Sandoval added eagerly. 

        "We need to be able to control the time ratios of each target."

        "And we need enough time to get out range from each beacon if we can't figure out how to get the sensors to differentiate between us and them.  We don't want our own people setting off the torpedoes by mistake."

        "Remote is still our best bet."

        "That's risky business.  The reptilians may be able to trace the remote signal."

        "How far are we looking to…"

        "Hey guys," Mayweather stepped up behind them and smiled. 

        "Hey ya flyboy," Langley offered him a smile worth a thousand watts.  She always had a thing for the happy helmsman.  "What are you doing in armory?"

        "I can ask you the same thing," Travis replied looking over as Howards and McKinsie came over with concern in their eyes.  "Captain said you guy need a pilot?"

        McKinsie nodded her head and traded a quick glance with Howards.  "We want to minimize damage to the shuttle and keep our plans in the dark before we're ready."  She handed Ensign Mayweather the PADD in her hand with great reluctance simply because she knew the reaction she was going to get.  After much debate with Howards and several officers in the science department, engineering and armory, it was the best they could come up with and that's not saying much.  "It's going to be a tricky run.  We want to use the surrounding planets and moons to hide our movement." 

        Travis made a face that conveyed his disbelief as he studied the elaborate and complicated course plans in front of him. Scrolling through the maps, he felt his stomach drop.   "You want me to play leap frog with the planetary gravity fields?  In a shuttle?" 

        "Don't forget moons too," Sandoval chirped in less-than-helpfully. 

        Langley sent an elbow into Sandoval's side. 

        Howards winced.  "Yeah, I know it's going to be difficult…"

        "Difficult," Travis repeated rather numbly.

        "Okay, it's going to be really difficult."

        "It's going to be near impossible," Mayweather told them as he studied the plans again.  "There's a reason they tell us not to orbit with a shuttle, they aren't designed to handle the pull from the planet, you end up frying your engines if you try."

        "But field distortions would mask the shuttle's signature, which is the aim." McKinsie pointed out reasonably.  "Besides, we're not going to be orbiting.  We'll simply be skimming over the surfaces of the fields; a couple of seconds on half impulse." 

        It was true and it needed to be accomplished.  "Oh man," Travis shook his head.  He looked less than comfortable with the idea.

        Howards sympathized.  "The captain wouldn't have approved of this or sent you if you weren't the best…and that's exactly what we need right now." 

        Travis felt simultaneously blessed and cursed.  "Now I know how Hoshi feels."  Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly to steady himself, he faced the problem head on.  "Can we set up a simulation?  I want to run this through a couple of times before we face the real thing. No need to send us out there if I don't at least have some confidence that I can do this."

        McKinsie looked at Langley, who made a face. 

        Jennifer Langley cursed softly under her breath.  It always seemed that whenever Commander Tucker was off the ship, all the shit hit the fan.  "Get science to give you the readings from the scans and find Lt. Cdr. Meyer on Gamma Shift. He can set it up for you.  I've still got a scanner and a homing device to attach to the torpedoes." 

        Howards nodded and took off.  Time wasn't a friend and they needed this done yesterday.

        Langley sighed.  "This is going to be a really long night." 

-&-&-&-

        Malcolm stood over the two sleeping figures and forced himself not to sigh with some resignation.  He had spent the last two hours working on dismantling the power unit while occasionally glancing over to where Cdr. Tucker had carefully positioned himself against the rocks and pulled Ensign Sato into his arms.  The petite linguist had immediately burrowed closer to the warmth and made herself comfortable against her commanding officer in an attempt to achieve the rest her body so desperately craved.  It pained him to have to wake them both.

        But they were on a mission of grave importance, and he and Lt. Jamison were simply at their wit's end.  It was time for fresh eyes and some higher technical skills.

        Kneeling, Malcolm gripped Trip's shoulder and gave a small but firm shake.  "Commander."

        Trip groaned softly, his posterior and one arm terrifyingly numb.  For a moment, he forgot where he was and what the hell he was doing; but soft murmured protests from the warm bundle by his side brought reality crashing down around his complaining body.  Blinking rapidly, Trip tried to focus on the inquiring voice.

        "Commander, are you awake?"

        "I am now," Trip complained trying to get the circulation back into his body without disturbing Hoshi.  "What is it?"

        Giving the chief engineer an apologetic look, Malcolm jerked a thumb over his shoulders.  "That bloody contraption is a bit more complex than we had first expected.  Jamison and I have two connectors that we're simply unsure of.  It's a bit risky for us to attempt to disconnect it without being certain of the results.  I believe it's time to put some of your skills to the test."

        Nodding his understanding, Trip glanced down with some concern at the sleeping girl in his arms.  He made a face and looked at Malcolm.  "I don't suppose you can take some time to…"

        The armory officer shook his head.  "I need to get the remote trips prepared as soon as the last two connectors are off.  We can have the bomb put together by the time we need to move again."

        "Ain't you sleeping?"

        "No time," which was the absolute truth. "I'll sleep when we're back on the ship and safe once more."  Plus he hadn't been pushing his body the way he'd seen Hoshi and Trip do of late.

        Tucker sighed and looked around.  Corporal Kemper and Major Hayes were whispering quietly to themselves while guarding the cavern entrance.  An idea hit him.  "Hey, how much do you trust Major Hayes?"

        Reed's brows went up for a moment at the unspoken question.  "Not enough for that," would have been his first response.  But glancing at the smudges of color under Hoshi's eye and remembering the truly hellish day she'd had. The ensign hadn't even complained about the claustrophobia once throughout the whole day.  Malcolm nodded his head in agreement to the commander's obvious idea.  "I'll get him."

-&-&-&-

        Beep, beep.

        "Come in."

        T'Pol paused in the doorway, her dark eyes steady on the captain's bent head for a moment.  She'd heard tiny bits of talk among the crew regarding the captain's decision on the risky mission to distract the reptilians.  Had she been consulted, T'Pol would have pointed out one very important and devastatingly dangerous factor in the flawed plan.  But since she hadn't been consulted, she was simply going to have to bring the problem to the captain's attention.

        Another two minutes of silence went by before T'Pol realized that the captain had simply forgotten her presence in the room.  Irked, the Vulcan science officer cleared her throat loudly startling the captain.  She merely raised an inquiring brow at his scowl.

        "Yes?"

        "Captain, it has come to my attention that the armory team has achieved a modified rescue plan to extract the away team."       

        Archer made a face, not sure he was correctly interpreting the near vexed tone in the Vulcan's usually bland voice.  If he didn't know better, Jon would have sworn that T'Pol was peeved at not being included in the loop.  "Actually, it isn't a rescue plan at all.  It's a distraction plan to allow the away team a chance to get off the planet without being shot to hell by the surrounding Reptilians."  He was slightly surprised that he had managed to say it so mildly. 

        If the sub-commander had been affected by the captain's less than supportive tone, she didn't show it – then again, when had she ever?  "There is one small factor that has not been taken into account."

        "What's that?"

        "We have no way to predict when the away team shall complete their mission.  Prematurely activating the homing devices to lure the Reptilians away from the planet would not serve well if Enterprise must then engage in battle with the remaining ships for a period of time.  Activating it after the away team has completed its mission would be too late to secure the distraction."

        "Well, there is that little problem isn't there," Jon murmured softly but didn't seem the least bit surprised.

        T'Pol's brow raised a fraction of an inch. 

        "I don't plan on waiting for the away team to finish before pulling the Reptilians away."

        "And what would that accomplish?"

        "Exactly what it was meant to accomplish," Jon folded his hands together in front of him and regarded his science officer for a moment.  "T'Pol, the point of this operation is to give the away team a fighting chance to get away.  Dividing the Reptilian's attention between us and the planet gives everyone some time and space to breath a little.  If I know Trip and Malcolm well, they are already well on their way into completing their mission.  Our time table was five days and I know that Malcolm plans on keeping that schedule - his mentality probably won't allow him otherwise.  That's what we're aiming at now."

        "And if they're late?"

        "That's a risk we're going to have to take."

        Her eyes reflected doubt though her face gave nothing away.  "It is unwise and irrational to take such risks."

        Archer's mouth curved gently into a quiet, thoughtful smile.  "Everything about this whole mission is a risk.  I have to trust my people to do what they can and leave the rest up to fate."

-&-&-&-

        "Easy does it."

        "Move your fingers DeMarco, I can't see."

        "Watch where you're pointing that… ow!"

        "Shit. I'm sorry."

        "Lt. Jamison..."

        "It was an accident, Commander."

        "No, I was going to warn you about the…"

        "Ouch!"

        "…live conductors to your right," Trip finished with a sigh.  This wasn't going as well as he had hoped.  "And try not to scorch Ensign DeMarco with the welder please.  He is holding the charges and dropping them would be a real bad thing." 

        Matt Hayes opened one tired eye to watch the progress of the three men about fifteen feet from him handling live charges.  The short conversation he overhead was hardly reassuring but judging by the small energy core that the engineers had extracted from the now scattered shell of the storage unit, he would say that everything was coming along nicely.  Out of pure habit, he began to stretch his limbs to awaken himself but found half his body weighted down.  The warm body that was pressed to his side murmured a soft protest and snuggled a little closer. 

        The face that poked through the warm cocoon of heavy cloaks wrapped around Hayes was nearly colorless and fragile.  He was still amazed that despite the apparent frailty of her features, Ensign Sato was a fascinatingly strong person.  It made him wonder what other facets of this beautiful young woman were hidden from the rest of the world. 

        Hayes mentally slapped himself for that train of thought.  "She's a fleeter and a junior officer.  Stop thinking with your… damn it."  He didn't realize he had cursed out loud until the three officers working on the bomb turned and stared. 

        Ensign DeMarco grinned at the major.  "Something wrong, Sir?"

        Not quite sure why DeMarco was looking at him in such a conspiratorial manner, Matt shook his head.  "My arm is completely asleep." 

        Trip nodded his head in complete understanding and glanced at his chronometer.  "Been six hours, it's about time to wake everyone up."  He turned to wake Malcolm, who had finally agreed to take a nap two hours before, when he remembered something and turned back to warn the major.  "Hey Matt, you might wanna let me…"

        Hoshi came awake with a start, shrieked and rammed elbows into all the wrong (or right, depending on your point of view) places. 

        "… wake Hoshi for ya."  Trip winced with definite empathy. 

        It took just about everything Matt had not to give into the urge to scream. He waited with bated breath for his heart to stop attempting to jump out of his throat and was only vaguely aware of Ensign Sato sitting by his side, her face a mixture of shock, confusion, embarrassment and regret.  Some small part of him was actually kind of glad she felt regret.  Why?  He wasn't too sure.

        "Oh god, Major," she tried to help him get up but Hayes stopped her with a quick and firm shake of his head as he rolled to his side and away from her.  "I am so sorry." 

        Trip was having a difficult time containing the smile on his face as he moved to the major's side and helped the poor guy into a sitting position.   The usually impassive MACO was currently sporting the most pained expression imaginable.  "You all right, Major?"

        Matt took a deep breath, then another… then another.

        Patting the poor guy with sympathy, Trip gave Hoshi a look.  "Girl, when are you going to learn not to wake like an angry kitten?" 

        Hoshi made a pathetically apologetic face.  "I'm so sorry, Major.  I hadn't meant to do that."  She frowned and looked from Cdr. Tucker to Major Hayes for a moment.  "But in my own defense, I wasn't really expecting to see Trip halfway across the room either." 

        Looking offended, Trip make a 'who me?' gesture.  "I'm the reason you beat up Major Hayes?"

        DeMarco and Jamison snickered.

        Corporal Romero and Sgt. Coates, who were standing guard, looked away quickly before anyone could spot their less than appropriate reaction. 

        Hayes just didn't care; his breath still came in starts. 

        Sato glared at the two laughing officers before turning back to the commander.  "Well, I thought you were the one that I went to sleep with."  She made a face and wondered at how that sounded.

        Shrugging his broad shoulders, "I had'a work and the major here – doing okay there, Major? – volunteered to keep you nice and toasty."

        Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Hoshi poked Trip in the shoulder.  "Did he volunteered or did you volunteer him?" 

        Trip looked innocently contrived. 

        Hoshi shook her head.  "I thought so."

        "I volunteered," Hayes said letting out a long, painful breath.  "Though I wouldn't have if I'd known your usual mode of waking is with a good kick in the..." 

        "I didn't do it on purpose," she said defensively.  "I'm not exactly used to waking up with strange men.  I panicked." 

        "Oh now I'm a strange man?" Hayes asked just to give her a hard time.  Standing was difficult but he managed with a great deal of self control.  It would definitely not give a good impression if he were to whimper like a wounded puppy, though the proclivity to do was so was strong. 

        As tempted as she was, Hoshi didn't rise to the bait "Are you okay?"

        "This is a more dangerous assignment than I had ever thought," he muttered as he walked around and worked the joints of his body loose.  "Yeah, I'll be fine."

        "I really am sorry about that."

        "I'm sure you are, Ensign."  He rolled his shoulders back.  "Can we be ready to move out in twenty?"

        "Yeah," DeMarco called out as he and Jamison carefully lowered the bomb into one of their emptied backpacks.  "We're ready to move when you are."

        Slipping back into command mode, Trip handed Hoshi the PADD he had been using.  "We're going to need the fastest route to the Reptiles.  Don't want to be down here any longer than necessary."

        Shaking her head at him, Hoshi reached around and pulled her own PADD from her pack.  "I've already mapped out two routes for us.  The blue is the shortest one but it will take us through some populated areas, including the great chambers used for village meetings during great quakes and the food storage units they use for winter."

        Trip nodded his head with understand and handed the PADD to Lt. Reed, who was still rubbing his eyes open with one hand.  "And the red?"

        "It takes us another three hundred feet lower into the labyrinth but we skirt the areas that are most likely to have locals and probably won't have any Reptilians at all.  They're some of the newer tunnels, created in more recent eruptions."

        "Are they safe?"  Reed wanted to know, his eyes not on the map but on the bomb that DeMarco was securing.

        Ensign Sato shrugged.  "As safe as any of these caverns are.  We are still surrounded by live volcanoes that can erupt at any time.  Heck, one of them is active now."

        "What?" Trip's face reflected his horror.

        The rest of the team, now all awake and beginning their preparations, stopped and stared.  None of them looked too comforted by that little snip-bit of news. 

        Hayes shook his head, his mind doubting what he just heard even as Ensign Sato confirmed it by her calm coolness.  "How do you know that?"

        "The rumbling."

        "The rumbling?" Jamison asked, his face twisted in confusion.  He looked to the others.  "What rumbling?"

        She gave him an 'are you stupid?' look and pointed to the western wall.  "The rumbling from the eruption of course, what did you think I was talking about?"

        Everyone on the team, except for Hoshi who was searching her backpack for biscuits, exchanged bewildered looks.

        "Hoshi?" Trip said quietly, watching her eyes come up as she struggled with her cloak for a moment.  "We don't hear any rumbling."

        "I'm not surprised," she said mildly as she munched a dry biscuit.  "It's over six hundred feet due Southwest and it's probably just a little eruption, nothing major.  It's more of a gurgle than a rumble actually, like the slow burn of the Hawaiian volcanoes." 

        Sanchez was the only one to voice the concern in everyone's mind.  "Are we walking straight for it?"

        "Of course."

        "Of course?" Romero shook his head.

        "We're in no danger," Hoshi murmured, thanking Katie Coates with a nod as the other woman helped clean up the scattered supplies from last evening.  "Like I said, it's a slow burn.  It's also the reason the Reptilians picked their location, it's warmer than any other spot around here."  She glanced over her shoulder.  "Hey, Commander?  Major?"

        "Yeah?"

        "You guys going to put on some pants before we leave?"  

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Teaser Line:  Lt. Cdr. Klein's shook his head slowly and glanced down at the concluding results of the simulation.  "Ensign Mayweather just lost control of the ship between the two gravity walls of the two moons on the third planet in."  He glanced at the monitor again.  "The shuttle was crushed."