Between A Rock and… Another Big Rock

By Didi

Disclaimer: Am I still doing these things? By a show of hands, now many people are actually reading this part of the chapter? (Sigh) Okay, here we go again… 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, everyone happy now? Good.

Rating: PG 13 for now.

Story Summary: The crew goes hunting underground.

Chapter Summary: Tensions rise as time grows short. Mayweather loses his cool, armory and engineering argue, Hoshi finds a problem, and a dangerous plan is hatched.

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

Author's Note: You know, I thought Enterprise was going to stop with the story arcs and just stick with the alien-of-the week stories. (I liked the way they handled TNG stories. If there is a story arc, it's two episodes then references to them somewhere down the line.) And personally, I don't care about the politics of Vulcans.

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

Key: "Spoken" "Thoughts"

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Chapter Thirteen – Push

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

"DAMN IT!"

Archer's brow rose and his feet slowed as the curse resounded around the spacious simulation room. It sounded angry, frustrated and just this side of desperate. "Do I even want to know?" he asked the three engineers outside the mock-shuttle controls. The officers all wore identical looks of sympathy.

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

Jon sighed with understanding and looked at the controls. The statistical numbers were graphed out carefully to show the progress. It was quite impressive but what bothered him were how many sets of numbers the computer was calculating. "How long has he been at this?"

"Eight simulations in four hours," he replied, turning the monitor for the captain to get a better view. "But he's improving."

"He won't use VR," Lt. Simms murmured softly, her normally perky, pink face full of concern. She was a mother of two and had all the instincts that came with it. "It would be easier on his body if he were to use VR...won't be as stressful."

"But the accuracy of his reaction time would be down twenty percent," Lt. Berube pointed out as he reset the simulation. "We want him at the top of his game."

"Yes but the physical strain of this many…"

"Twenty percent out there is life or death, Jennie." Lt. Cdr. Meyer replied, glancing quickly at the captain.

Archer patted Lt. Simms' arm gently with appreciative kindness. At such times as these, it wouldn't be surprising for shipmates to be snapping at one another; but the crew of the Enterprise seemed to be banding together more tightly, watching each others backs whenever they could. It warmed him to know that even as he was frustrated by the fact that such camaraderie was coming at the expense of his knowing what's happening on his own damn ship.

"Why don't you guys take a break and let Mayweather get some rest too. We'll try this again when you've had at least some food and a breath of air. Back here in three hours."

"Thank you, sir."

Captain Archer waited until the last of the gamma shift crew left before lifting the latch on the mock-shuttle with a sigh.

Travis could feel his own frustrations mount as he watched the playback with keen interest. There were simply too many factors to consider while he rode the gravity fields, relying more on the push and pull of the planetary movements then the shuttle's engines. The decrease in power usage would lower the chances of the Reptilians finding him before he could complete his mission. Unfortunately, it meant having to watch the minor changes of direction like a hawk guarding its young. It was impossible to anticipate the random changes the computer would throw at him and his reaction time just simply wasn't good enough to plot a successful course. It was as much touch and go as the real mission would be.

With a grunt of frustration, he shook his head as he heard the doors open. "Let's go again. I think I know where my problem is as far as that last run goes. The trajectory was slightly off when we entered the third ring and…"

"How much coffee have you consumed, Ensign?"

Whirling about in his seat, Travis lost his balance and fell off, only just managing to not completely humiliate himself by catching the side panel with one hand and landing with a thud rather than a thump. Scrambling to his feet, Travis prayed for a hole to open underfoot and swallow him. "Captain!"

"Ease up, Travis, you're looking like you'll break if you stand any straighter," Jon lowered himself into a chair and toyed with the small canisters of coffee that littered the floor. "So how many of these have you had?"

Sitting down slowly, Travis shrugged his shoulders. "Honest to god, I lost count after six."

"Hum…" Glancing out the shuttle door, Archer spoke in a conspiratal whisper. "You're driving the engineers a little batty."

Mayweather looked out into the empty room with concern, "I hadn't realized that I was so demanding."

"You aren't," Jon said getting up, motioning for the helmsman to precede him out of the simulation craft. "They're just worried about the amount of time you're putting in here. Simms looked ready to pull a medical intervention on you." He gave Travis a frown that conveyed annoyance and sympathy at the same time. "Four hours?"

Blinking rapidly, Travis frowned and looked at the chronometer on the control panels. "Has it been that long?"

Jon chuckled softly. "Time flies when you're having fun."

Travis rolled his eyes. "That was hardly what I call fun," he suddenly recalled who he was speaking to, "Sir."

Archer gave him a look that was full of exasperation. "Come have breakfast with me, I have it on good authority that you haven't had any yet."

"But sir, the simulations have to be…"

"Have to wait," he corrected with a frown. "And you've kept Gamma Shift there for too long already, they need to rest too. You'll have breakfast, get some rest and start fresh. I don't doubt your abilities to pull this off, Travis. You're as good as they come and you're only going to get better with experience. But you're not superhuman, you're not perfect and we can't expect you to be that…" he made a face, "Though I seem to have been demanding it of everyone else of late." He sighed and nodded to himself. "I am correcting it though, slowly but surely."

"Sir?" Confusion was clearly written upon his face.

Jon shrugged. "Don't push so hard, Travis. You're doing just fine."

"But sir…"

"I know that you're frustrated and…"

"I'm not frustrated," Travis proclaimed in a most irritated manner and then flushed at his own raised voice. "Well, I am but that's not the only thing. I'm just mad; just mad at myself for not doing better." He ran an angry hand over his face and through his hair. "I mean Hoshi and the others, they're depending on me; I can't let them down. And the rest of the officers on that shuttle with me, they're putting their lives in my hands. How can I go out there if I can't assure them that I'll get them back in one piece?"

It was the eyes that told the story. Travis had eyes that were big, angry and scared. "Failure is a trait we all would rather not experience." Jon sighed and nodded his head. "I understanding what you're going through Travis, I really do, but I can't let you shoulder the responsibilities on your own." Passing through the doors of his private dining chambers, the captain indicated the chair next to his. "I made the decision to proceed with the plans. The officers in armory will plot the course of action. You're merely carrying out what needs to be done. We know the risks, we know what failure would do, and we've accepted it. You don't get to put that on yourself, I won't allow it."

Travis closed his eyes for a moment. "But I feel it."

Jon smiled, soft and sympathetic. "Yeah, I know. That's what makes you a good guy."

-&-&-&-

Hoshi swallowed hard, her chin bobbed once as she forcibly moved saliva down her throat. Seeing the movement, the third in less than ten minutes, Trip jogged forward and talked by her as she continued to watch the walls for any new symbols. "You all right, darling?" he whispered close to her ear.

She nodded, distracted by the small opening in the wall. "Yeah, but my ears are kind of clogged though."

Trip refrained from letting out a sigh of relief.

Glancing down at her data PADD, Hoshi looked up at the darkened hole and frowned. This was new, not on the map and not marked by any symbols of explanations on the wall. She took two quick steps and disappeared into the darkness for all of three seconds before she was yanked out forcibly by the arm. "Ow…"

"You have got to stop doing that," Lt. Reed all but growled as he motioned for Major Hayes and Corporal Romero to proceed into the dark, unexplored and unknown cavern Hoshi had so cheerfully tripped into without thought.

They waited tensely for a minute.

"How's the leg, Sanchez?" Kemper murmured as he scanned their six.

"Sore, bruised but not broken," Sanchez replied in the same whispering tones as he watched the gloomy entrance with concern. "Shouldn't we have hard from them by…"

"Clear!" Romero called out.

"Now?" Sanchez finished rather lamely then shrugged his shoulder before proceeding in, taking Romero's side of the cave.

"Clear," Hayes lowered his rifle and looked around the cavern that was illuminated solely by his and Romero's light scopes as Coates appeared behind him and took position.

"Check the entrance walls," Hoshi said as she entered, wondering mildly how the MACO men got their wide shoulders through the narrow opening without tilting their bodies. "See if there are any writings."

There was a moment of silence as everyone visually scanned the walls for anything… anything at all. "I've got nothing."

"Nothing here."

"Me too."

"Ditto."

"Anyone?"

"Hoshi?" Trip frowned and lowered his light. "What are we looking for?"

Tucking her light under her arm, Hoshi pulled her PADD out again and studied the heavily marked map she'd been using to navigate. "Hum…"

Lt. Reed rubbed his forehead with his forefinger and sighed. "It's never a good sign when the smart ones are non-committal."

"Yeah," Hayes agreed whole-heartedly with the lieutenant. "I find that's usually the first sign of trouble."

Trip frowned at the two. "Now, that ain't true."

Malcolm made a face at his superior. "Can I remind you of that moment before we found out that the energy unit was underwater? Or the time Hoshi thought she heard the anomalies on the ship and didn't do anything but go 'hum…' for half an hour? Or the time that you thought you saw…"

"Alright, alright." There was nothing worse that having mistakes of hesitation pointed out to a person. "Hindsight is twenty-twenty."

Hayes schooled his features carefully. "Yes, but we should be learning from experience."

"Sheesh, I swear you two live to suck all the joy outta life."

The two security officers smiled mildly. "We try."

"This is new," Hoshi pronounced, having heard none of the conversation around her. She looked around completely fascinated. "Interesting..."

Lt. Reed ran through all kinds of thoughts associated with that one word and decided women were impossible to understand when it came to the workings of their mind. So far, he couldn't find anything remotely 'interesting' about an empty cavern with no strategic use to them. "Hoshi, please tell me that this has something to do with our mission and is not just your scientific curiosity at work."

"This cavern is brand new," she repeated with a frown, marking it on her map carefully for future reference. "It's so new in fact that no one's marked it yet."

"Hoshi…"

"Wait, wait, wait," she looked around again and found a stone on the floor. "I told you that this area was new to the maze…that it's only been around a couple of decade maybe. Well, if you'd notice while we were going through the tunnels, there are markings on the wall, pointing us toward certain directions and telling me what each of the areas are used for even if they're not on the map already established." Hoshi stood on her tiptoes, looked around and room and began to scratch out swirling lines of words with ease. "This cavern is so new that no one has even discovered it yet."

There have been moments in his career when Malcolm hated his job. Reining in overly enthusiastic scientists was one of them. "Hoshi, we are on a time schedule here. We need to get moving and…"

"You don't understand," she told him in no uncertain terms.

"What don't we understand?"

She gave him a look over her shoulder that clearly spelled out her exasperation at his lack of comprehension of what all this signified for them. "The fact that no one knows about these caves yet means that we've just stumbled into an unexplored area. There is a chance that the tunnels we are heading into may no longer be there. The geography down here has changed; I no longer have a working map to go on. In other words, we're walking blind."

-&-&-&-

There had been a long-standing, silent battle between the boys in engineering and the boys in armory. The two departments often crossed swords and paths in mission and objective. While the heads of the two had no trouble distinguishing their duties and working together on them, their subordinates weren't quite as cooperative though they made a good showing of it.

Lt. Jodi Franklin tapped her foot lightly on the floor as she listened to yet another suggestion made with unnecessary force and less than friendly tone. And judging by the way Corporal Hawkins and Menendez kept exchanging questioning glances, she wasn't the only one that noticed.

"If we modify the torpedo to hold…"

"The yield would not be significantly increased and the risk of the circuit board overheating during the…"

"We need to light them each up like Roman candles on Fourth of July; even a fraction of…"

"And if there isn't any room for error and, god forbid, we end up that ridiculously unlucky, we could be putting our people in…"

"There is always safety measures built into…"

"But if you take out the secondary controls to make room for the…"

"The statistics of the primary controls on torpedoes malfunctioning show that…"

"The success rates don't matter. It's the point zero one percent we have to be worrying about here!"

"You're just mad 'cause you can't make it happen!"

"Says the guy that wouldn't know one end of a spectrometer if it came up and bit him in the…"

"Are you guys always like this?" Corporal Hawkins asked looking at the four person group consisting of Ensign Kemble and Lt. Biggins from Armory; and Lt. Fielding and Lt. Ensign Monroy from Engineering. "Or is it usually just before we're here?"

"Thank you," Lt. Franklin murmured as she elbowed her fellow engineers out of the way. "I'm glad someone with testosterone around here still has some sense left in their brains."

"Jodi…" Lt. Fielding started.

"Don't," she pointed one finger at her friend. "The Captain said we have eight hours to get this done and you guys want to stand here and argue who's got the bigger dick? Grow up boys!" She glared at the lot of them. "We now have less than six hours and Lt. Langley will be back in twenty minutes to check on our progress. How much do you want to bet she's going to be thoroughly pissed when she finds you guys still looking at a bare weapon? You haven't even attached the casing for the homing devices yet. Can we please argue about fire power later and concentrate on the practical side of this?"

Jeremy Briggins flushed with color and sighed. The tension was killing him slowly but surely and arguing with engineering wasn't going to make it any better. "Lt. Franklin is right." And though it killed him to concede, especially since the lieutenant was an engineer, he made a stab at it. "We'll leave the yield and hope for the best; we probably don't have time to strip the energy conductors to refit for new capacity. Let's setup the homing beacons and worry about the other stuff later."

Hawkins grinned and nudged Menendez. "Now we're talking. What do you need us to do?"

Monroy pulled up the sleeves of his shirt and handed a welder to Kemble. "Getting out of the way would be nice."

-&-&-&-

"Are you sure…"

"No."

"Well, that's not very reassuring," Trip groused as he picked his way carefully over the crumbling rocks. Their progress, after passing by the new cave Hoshi had carefully marked out for any later visitors, had slowed to a snail's crawl. Much to the dismay of the others, the linguist's prediction had been true. The geography had changed and thus rendered them blind. It was frustrating beyond belief.

"I'm doing my best, Commander," Malcolm sighed and glanced at the map again. "Hoshi, I don't think these…"

"Oh damn it," she sighed and saw that the section of the tunnels they needed to pass through had collapsed. It was the third one in a row now. A quick glance at the partially covered writings on the wall confirmed it. Closing her eyes to stomp down her growing frustration, she took a deep breath and looked at her map again. Crossing out the areas that were now inaccessible to them, she looked for another route. "We'll need to back track again, get to higher ground and loop around the damaged areas."

There were several resigned sighs but no one muttered a complaint. It was plain to see that this was more irritating to the young ensign than anyone else. "No way around this pile of…"

"This was our only other opinion to the relationship caverns. And that's the main junction to the…"

"Alright, alright, we got it," Jamison said with another sigh and took his turn carrying the heavy pack with the bomb. "Let's just keep going."

Because her legs were feeling slightly like rubber, Ensign Sato looked at the commander. "Maybe we should stop and rest for a moment. It should be almost noon, we need to eat."

With a nod, Tucker relieved his aching back of the pack he was carrying. "Agreed. Thirty minutes, people."

Coates sat down next to Sato, handing her water as the studious communications officer pulled biscuits from her pack and continued to study her charts carefully. "Any luck?"

"This is worse than being stuck on the Jupiter moon," Hoshi muttered as she scrolled along the page and sighed. "Thanks," she said distractedly, taking the water and waving away the ration bar. "How can you eat that?"

Katie grinned, "I can't look bad in front of the boys," and took a bite of roast lamb with cherry pie. "Being a woman in the MACO is hard enough; I can't let them see me as actually being a woman."

"There is no chance of them missing that little fact while we're still wearing these suits," Hoshi muttered, pulling slightly at the collar. She had put the suit back on without her underwear and it was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

"You'd be surprised," Katie said trying not to taste the god-awful ration. "Any chance of us cutting through all this today?"

"Maybe," Hoshi muttered as she continued to watch the scrolling materials. "But I was just mouthing off when I said we were going to have to back track. There's not a safe way around this area unless something else opened up since these tunnels collapsed. If we go three hundred feet up, and cut cross the old mining caverns, mind you there is a chance we'll come across locals there, we can probably get back on the original route by seventeen hundred."

"That's half our day wasted."

"No kidding," Hoshi muttered and rubbed her face with her hand.

"You alright?"

"Tired."

"I can see that. And with all the excitement this morning…"

Hoshi glared at her. "How many times am I going to have to apologize for that?"

Coated chuckled glancing across the way at where the major was speaking quietly with Cdr. Tucker and Lt. Reed. "You have to admit, it's pretty funny."

Hoshi wasn't so lost in her work that she couldn't see the humor in it. "Maybe."

"Oh man, the major is so going to get ribbed for it when we get back to the ship." She could almost see Chang, Hawkins and Palmer not letting this go for weeks to come.

"Assuming we make it out of here in one piece," Hoshi muttered and shut down her PADD. "Okay, I think we may cut our time by an hour if we cut directly though the Logging Station."

"Logging Station?"

"It's where the Jukinarians log what's placed into storage. If we can get past the area, we can cut down our traveling time."

"Is the place populated?"

"Yeah, it is."

"So, didn't we want to keep a low…"

"We did it in the village."

"Yeah, but by necessity."

"Well, consider this a necessity. There's simply no help for it, we have to push on."

"Even if it means exposure to the enemy?"

Hoshi consider this for a moment, knowing what her answer was going to be but still needing to consider it some more before she answered. "Yeah."

-&-&-&-

"Nice job, Mayweather," Lt. Simms commented as Travis stepped out of the mock-shuttle looking weary and hungry. "The last two were quite impressive."

Travis rubbed his face and glanced at the results again. He'd gone back in the simulation when he felt ready and had been taking regular breaks every hour or so. That had been the third successful simulation he'd achieved. "I'd feel better if I could make another run at it."

"No can do," Lt. Cdr. Meyers said with a shake of his head. "Langley and the boys in the armory are loading the warheads on the torpedoes now. Homing devices with modified Star Fleet signatures are attached and ready to go on remote and timed remote as secondary systems. You're only going to get about two hours of rest before you head out."

Mayweather's stomach dropped a notch as he nodded his head.

Lt. Berube shut down the system and nodded toward the door. "Get food, get sleep then get ready. You only get once chance at this."

"You don't need to remind him," Lt. Simms murmured leading the young nervous helmsman toward the door. "Mayweather knows what's at stake, he's going to do us proud."

-&-&-&-

"Lieutenant?"

"Captain!"

The rest of armory came to alert with a snap.

Jon didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed by the attention. He wondered briefly for a moment if he was ever going to get used to all this deference. With a resigned sigh, he nodded to the officers; some still holding tools schematics, "Report."

Lt. Howards and Lt. Langley stepped away from the others and looked at each other for a moment. Howards nodded his go-ahead. Langley received it with understanding. "We're at 80 completion. We've got one more warhead to affix before loading begins."

Howards looked over at where his people were calibrating the receivers. "After that, it's up to Mayweather to get them to where they need to go. I'll be one board with Lt. Briggins and Lt. Langley."

"And the MACO's?" Archer inquired, watching the MACO officers standing on the perimeter with some concern. He did not want to alienate the combat officers.

"Lt. McKinsie has been informed and agreed. With no physical contact, there's nothing more they can do from here on out."

"I'd still feel better if you take at least one with you." He looked over the MACOs present. "Corporal Chang!"

The corporal moved across the room with the ease of one trained to be a hunter. "Sir?" The salute was more for the other officers to see then for the captain to appreciate.

"You'll accompany the shuttle team on their flight."

"Yes, sir!"

"Lt. Langley, you're in charge."

Jennifer Langley almost blanched. "Yes, sir."

"Good luck, people. Inform the bridge when you're ready to leave." Archer nodded once more before taking his leave, knowing well that his very presence was making the rest of the team tense. There's nothing like brass to make the subordinates feel self-conscience.

Langley turned to Howards the minute the captain disappeared. "Lieutenant…"

"Don't," holding his hand up, Howards turned back to complete his task. "The captain made his decision."

"I know but…"

"We follow order, Jennifer." Lt. Howards said quietly.

Chang watched with fascination having already heard the stories from Hawkins about what happened in the armory this afternoon. The two officers from different departments getting along was quite interesting.

Jennifer still felt the need to say something. "James, the captain didn't know we had already agreed that you'd be in…"

"Doesn't matter," he replied without any heat or resentment. "Captain gave his orders and we follow them, chain of command."

"Still…"

"I'm okay with it, Jen." And he was. "There's no place for egos on this mission." He said it loud enough for the rest of the team to hear. He too heard what happened earlier in the day. "Now let's do this."

-&-&-&-

"Tomaki poliphia, seian lostreian woenma quaposkea."

"Nakmis pondara mi skino lamerie trunsue jani bukin."

"Ouna?"

"Naknori junia."

Lt. Reed nudged Cdr. Tucker with an elbow and leaned closer, shifting slightly as the hood of his cloak didn't obscured his vision. "What do you think they're saying?"

"With Hoshi, it could be anything." Trip frowned as he watched Hoshi's eyes turn dark with concern. "But that don't look too good."

"Boluma," Hoshi bowed and returned to her companions. "We've got a problem."

"What now?" Sanchez muttered.

Kemper elbowed his young comrade hard.

Ignoring the curious looks of concern from the rest of the team, she motioned the others to follow. "Come with me." Taking them down a long corridor in the general vicinity of where they were headed, she searched for a moment and ignored the looks they were receiving from the locals. The long cloaks were effective in concealing their combat suits but weren't exactly convenient for the long walks in the underground maze. But an easy half-truth about the chill of lower caverns explained it away.

It was a while before she found an empty cavern. It was no bigger than a conference room on Enterprise but it provided them with privacy needed.

"What's going on, Hoshi?" Tucker asked immediately as Hayes and Kemper secured the entrance.

"The number of Reptilians has doubled in the last two days."

"What?"

The stupid look on everyone's face would have been funny had the situation not been so dire. "The man I was speaking to, he's the cavern guard of this area. They're not so much there to guard against thieves or anything like that, it's more against natural disasters. If there's rumbling in a section of the tunnels, he alerts everyone to evacuate their stuff so that…"

"Hoshi," Tucker interrupted. "We don't care what he does. Just get to the point girl."

"Right," she shook her head to clear the afterthoughts and wished she didn't have the habit of rambling when she got nervous. "I told him about the recent changes in the Eastern quarters and gave him a copy of the modified map. He thanks us," she gave DeMarco a look. He had been quite vocal about not interacting with the locals more than necessary. "I told him we were studying geography and were headed into the Western areas. He warned me not to go because of the Reptilians and how their numbers seemed to have doubled in the last two days. Apparently there are now ships in orbit."

"Enterprise."

She shook her head quickly. "No fire-fight…not yet. I'm betting the Captain and T'Pol moved the ship behind the gaseous moons."

Nodding his head, Tucker agreed. "Scanner can't get through."

Reed shook his head. "They're waiting for us."

"Wouldn't expect anything less from the cap'n."

"With increased Reptilians, it's going to be that much harder to get through to the weapon."

Hoshi licked her dry lips. "I have an idea."

"Let's hear it."

"Do you have an extra explosive?"

Reed eyed her funny as he dug through his pack. "Yeah, why?"

She knew he wasn't going to like this. "The key is to divide and conquer, you taught me that. I'm going to provide you guys with a distraction. With me moving alone, I can get around a lot faster. Pull the Reptilians deeper into the caverns and give you guys fewer targets to deal with."

"Hoshi…" Tucker said with a warning that was clearly to be heeded.

"Relax Commander," she said holding her hand out to Reed. "I don't plan on being buried here, I'll make sure not to get caught as well. What's the delay time?"

Reed held the explosive. "I'll go."

"No," she shook her head at him. "You can't read the signs, you don't know the tunnels."

"You'll give me a map."

"I don't know if a map is going to be accurate. We just spent half the day finding that out."

Reed's lips compressed into a grim line; he conceded her point.

Tucker jumped in even as he saw Major Hayes join them. "Hoshi, I'm not going to risk your life. You're our map out of here."

"That's not true; besides, from here there is a tunnel straight up to the surface, I can map that one out easily because I know it's accurate.

"Hoshi…"

"I can do this."

"I don't doubt that for a second but…"

She shook her head at them. "I'll get you guys into place and then take off. All I'll need is ten minutes to get into position and boom. We may be lucky and get rid of half the guards around the de-stabilizer."

"No way, Ensign." Hayes vetoed, catching the tail end of the plan and shaking his head in disbelief. If he didn't know better, he could swear she was purposely trying to make his job that much harder.

"Guys…"

Tucker nodded his head vigorously in agreement. "The cap'n would kill us."

"The captain wants this mission completed," Hoshi pointed out as she snatched the explosive from Reed's hand. When they all just looked at each other, concern and uncertainty warring on their faces, she regarded them with a frown. "What is going with you guys? You've all been acting so weird since we got on the planet."

The fire in Ensign Sato's eyes warned Malcolm that telling the truth right now would be considerably more dangerous than facing the horde of Reptilians they had to worry about. "While I agree with the Commander, I also agree with Ensign Sato. We're going to have to find a way to distract the Reptilians or at least lessen their numbers to a more manageable target."

Trip frowned. "What are you suggesting, Malcolm?"

He was probably taking his life into his hands at the moment but Lt. Reed didn't really see much of a choice in the matter… if he could have a half more hour to consider it… well, that's neither here nor there. "Major Hayes and Corporal Romero will accompany Ensign Sato," he held up a hand to forestall the protest from all quarters. "We don't send someone off by themselves, there is always a contingency plan; three per team is the smallest number to go with." That seemed to have placated Hoshi. Now came the tough ones, "Right now we don't have too many choices as far as actions to take. And we certainly cannot sit here indefinitely waiting for the enemy numbers to lessen. Ensign Sato has a legitimate plan, and until anyone else can come up with a better one, this is where we stand."

There was a long tense moment as Hayes and Tucker both ground their teeth and reconsidered the plan with much reluctance. After a minute of silence, they both grudgingly agreed that it was simply their only option.

Tucker sighed and nodded his head. "Alright, let's move. And Hoshi, you better come back 'cause I ain't facing the cap'n if we lose his best linguist."

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Teaser Line: "Now would be a really good time to run."