Another Planet's Hell

by Sita Z

When Archer finds shuttlepod I empty and drifting in space, he assumes that his officers have been killed. However, Trip and Malcolm are not dead. But maybe they wish they were. Chapter 19 UP! COMPLETE!

2. Chapter 2

Title: Another Planet's Hell

Author: Sita Z

Rating: PG 13

AN: Thanks to Gabi, cordeliablack, Aelan Greenleaf, ally, AquaSox, Lady Conqueror, plumtuckered, highonscifi, WhtevrHpnd2Mary, Parisfan, The Libran Iniquity, Ocean, Tata, KaliedescopeCat, Katt, Laura B, lieutenants-lady, Exploded Pen, Obsessed Librarian and Luna for reviewing! Wow, thanks! Keep it coming, I really enjoy getting your feedback!

On with Chapter 2!

Chapter 2

It was the smell that had woken him up; a pungent odor with traces of sweat, urine and some kind of disinfectant, triggering a faint feeling of nausea in his stomach before he had even opened his eyes. The smell, and the sound of someone crying nearby. At first, Trip didn't even recognize the dry gasps as sobs; the noise reminded him of an asthmatic desperately trying to draw in air, and only when the crying person let out a small whimper did he realize what it was.

For a few seconds Trip lay completely still, trying to make sense of his surroundings. Judging from the way the crying echoed, they seemed to be in a rather large room, more like a hall. The floor - or rather deck - he was lying on was hard, though not hard enough to be made of metal. No, judging by the smell and consistency it was some kind of rubberized floor covering, and for some reason it felt rather greasy under his fingers. Carefully, Trip turned onto his back. The movement made his head spin and caused a sharp pain behind his forehead, bringing tears to his eyes. He waited for the dizziness to pass, listening to the quiet sobs that were slowly dying away. After a while, his eyes got used to the darkness, and Trip realized that he and the crying person were not the only people in this dark, smelly room. Stretched out all over the floor, there were dozens of people, looking in the semi-darkness like so many rag dolls a careless child had thrown away. Most of them seemed to be sleeping or unconscious, lying motionless except for the occasional stir or low groan.

Trip closed his eyes again, incoherent images flashing through his mind like impressions of a movie that lacked not only a plot but also a connection between the different scenes.

Malcolm, sitting in the pilot chair, recalibrating the scanners and dryly reciting the punch line of a joke Trip had first heard when he'd still been in junior high

Both of them bent over a small display, frowning down at the strange metallurgic compounds the scanners had detected in the asteroids

A food container with a half-eaten dish of pasta dropping to the deck as the small shuttle shook and lurched, tomato sauce spattering all over his boots

Malcolm, phase pistol in hand, backing away against the wall

The hatch opening-

Then nothing.

Trip opened his eyes again. Malcolm. It was only logical that whoever had captured him and taken him to this dark place had taken Malcolm as well. More careful this time, Trip turned his head to one side. Less than an arm's length away, there was a prone figure stretched out on the deck, its face turned away from Trip. Squinting, Trip was able to make out some dark strands of hair and let out the breath he'd been holding.

"Malcolm," he whispered, reaching out and touching a bare shoulder. Only then did he notice that his own uniform was missing as well, and that, like the Lieutenant, he was clad only in his Starfleet issue shorts and undershirt. "Malcolm," he repeated and tightened his grip on Reed's shoulder. "Wake up."

"It's no use," a hoarse voice said right next to him, causing him to jump and let go of Malcolm at the same time. "They only ever wake up on their own. S'no use trying to wake him."

Trip turned his head in the direction from where the voice had come, but right then another wave of dizziness swept over him, and all he saw were dark, blurred shapes.

"I said it's no use, pinkskin," the stranger repeated. "He'll wake up by himself, eventually. S'no use trying to wake him."

"Who are you?" By now, Trip was able to make out the face of the man next to him on the floor. In the semidarkness his skin seemed to be a dark shade of gray, but the feathery antennae protruding from between his light hair told Trip that its actual color was blue. The man was an Andorian.

"I said it's no use trying to wake him up," he repeated, ignoring Trip's question. "Let him sleep."

The Andorian propped himself up on his left elbow, and Trip could see that he, too, was wearing only shorts and the worn remains of what might have been a shirt one day. His long face was thin with prominent cheekbones, and his ribs stood out so that even in the dark every single one of them was clearly visible under the skin.

"Who are you?" Trip asked again. The man, however, only stared at him, and suddenly pulled his lips back, revealing two rows of dark teeth. A moment later Trip realized that he was smiling.

"I've never seen a pinkskin before,"the Andoriansaid in his husky voice. "Heard of you, sure, but I've never actually seen one before."

It wasn't exactly an invitation to introduce himself, but Trip decided to try, anyway. "I'm Charles Tucker, and his name's Malcolm Reed. We're from the starship Enterprise. What is this place?"

The Andorian's smile grew even wider which gave his face a strangely skull-like appearance. "It's a wonderful place," he said slowly, never taking his eyes off Trip's face. "Don't you think so, pinkskin? Wonderful place."

Trip answered his stare, not sure whether to try again or end his conversation with this guy before things got any worse, when a movement further to the right caught his attention. The person next to the Andorian was stirring, pushing herself up on her elbows. For a moment Trip got a glance of her face, and saw that her skin was wrinkled, her mouth a thin, hard line before she opened it to speak.

"Leave him alone, Kalem," she hissed, and suddenly raised a bony hand, giving the Andorian a hard push. "Go and play your fucking games with someone else, you hear me? I'm fed up with listening to your shit all the time."

Kalem, whose grin had vanished the second she had started to speak, whimpered faintly, not even raising a hand when the woman pushed him again. "I didn't do anything," he wheezed. "Really, I didn't do anything..."

"Then get your fucking ass out of here!"

She gave him another hard shove. The Andorian, his eyes bright with tears, awkwardly got to his hands and knees, crawling away from Trip and the woman. His movements were clumsy and uncoordinated, as if he were wading through a thick, viscous substance. A few meters away he found an empty space between two of the sleepers and curled up on the floor, burying his face in the crook of his arm.

"He's fucking mad."

Trip looked at the woman who was still staring in Kalem's direction. She had moved into the space the Andorian had abandoned, and now Trip could see the sharp, bony ridges that protruded from either side of her face. Even though he had no idea what species she was, it was clear that she was old. Her gray hair was pulled back in an untidy braid, and she was as thin as the Andorian, her baggy gown hanging loosely off her bony frame.

"He's mad," she repeated. "He'll go on and on about all kind of shit if you don't stop him. It's not his fault," she added suddenly, looking back at Trip as if she expected him to contradict.

"I... I guess not," Trip said, since she seemed to wait for an answer. He bit his lip. The nausea had returned, rising from his stomach into his throat, and part of him wanted to lie back down on the floor, close his eyes and hope that sleep was going to take him away from this dark, filthy place with its mad inhabitants. Swallowing hard, he fought down the bile that was threatening to come up, and tried again.

"What is this place?"

The woman sighed, running her hand through her hair and smoothing away a few stray strands which immediately fell back into her face.

"A cargo hold," she said, her hooded eyes coming to rest on him. "This is a slave ship, kid."

Trip pushed himself into a sitting position - a mistake, for the dizziness rushed straight to his head, and he would have lost his balance if the woman hadn't grabbed his arm.

"Take it easy, kid. You're going nowhere, at least not yet."

"How... how did we come to be here?" he whispered, and the woman let out another sigh.

"I have no idea. Either they bought you from other slave traders, or you were lucky enough to run across their ship somewhere out there. Don't you remember?"

Trip shook his head. "I only remember our shuttle bein' attacked..."

"They drugged you. It makes you forget things. The memories'll come back to you soon enough." The woman's mouth hardened. "They attack every smaller ship they come across, kill half the crew and sell the other half." She let out a short, humorless laugh. "And I don't know who is better off."

"Who are they?"

"Sar'veen." She said the word very quietly. "That's what they call themselves. This ship is headed for their homeworld, K'tera. That's where we're going to be sold."

"We have to get out of here." The words were out of his mouth before he even knew what he was going to say. They had to get out of here. He had to get them out of here.

The old woman laughed again. "Oh, you will, don't worry. Only another week or so and we're there. Then you'll get out of here, kid."

Trip suddenly felt an irrational burst of anger, mixed with growing panic. "I'm not plannin' on stayin' that long," he snapped, and started to get to his feet. At least he tried to do so. All of a sudden, the nausea lurking at the bottom of his throat returned, together with the worst dizzy spell he had experienced so far. Trip dropped to his knees, his fingers digging into the deck as he retched dryly. His stomach was empty, though, and only a few drops of spit came out, falling onto the floor in front of him. A hand came to rest on his back, and Trip heard the woman's voice next to his ear.

"It's the drugs, kid. They make you feel that way if you move too much. Lie back down, and the feeling will pass. Come on, it's okay."

Somehow, the combination of her voice and her hand on his back had a soothing effect, and Trip complied, lowering himself back onto the greasy floor.

"It's okay," the woman repeated, giving his shoulder a gentle pat before she pulled her hand back. "You're doing great, kid. I'm Lu'Vis, by the way."

Trip looked up at her, and saw that the sharp lines around her mouth had softened somewhat, making her look less old and a lot more vulnerable. Again, he noticed the ridges on her face, and it reminded him of something.

"How come we can understand each other?" he asked when he trusted himself to speak again. "I mean, we're from different species, and-"

"Subdermal translators," Lu'Vis said matter-of-factly. "All newcomers are given one of those. The Sar'veen have no use for slaves who don't understand them."

Trip ran a hand across his arm, half-expecting to come across a small wound where the device had been implanted into his skin. Lu'Vis had followed his eyes.

"They inject it into your back, kid," she said. "That way you can't cut it out again."

He stared at her, and suddenly she smiled, a sad expression belying her hard features.

"It's different where you come from, isn't it?"

"Yes," Trip said quietly, not sure why he was telling this woman about it. "Malcolm and me, we're servin' on a starship, the Enterprise. We're on a mission of peaceful exploration."

Said aloud in the cramped cargo hold of an alien slave ship, the familiar phrase sounded empty, even ridiculous, but Lu'Vis didn't laugh.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"We're from a planet called Earth. The Enterprise is the first ship our people have built that ever went out into deep space." Even now, he felt a sudden surge of pride. "Our first warp-five vessel."

Lu'Vis smiled again, very faintly. "I have no idea how fast the ship I was on could go. I hardly ever left the kitchen, and I don't know a thing about engines and technology."

"How did you come to be here?" Trip asked. Her smile vanished, and he saw a hurt expression cross her features before she was able to cover it up.

"He sold us. The captain, I mean. He was running cargo, but one day a friend of his offered him a large sum if he transported some contraband to the outer fringes. He agreed, and his friend said he had to get rid of the people serving aboard. We'd cause too much trouble. Well, and that's exactly what he did."

"I'm sorry," Trip said, but she dismissed it with a shrug.

"Who cares? All I ever did on that ship was scrubbing pots and cooking the same meal every single day. It's not like I left that much behind. And even if I did, it doesn't matter. In a few days, I'll be dead anyway, so why complain."

There was something terrible about the way she said it, as if she were simply stating a fact.

"Why do you think you'll be dead?"

Lu'Vis let out a short, almost angry laugh. "Come on, kid. Look at me. I'm old, I look like shit, and after all those weeks down here I'm not in the condition to do any hard work. Do you really think anyone's going to buy me? And the traders are certainly not going to put up with the likes of me when they leave for their next tour."

She misinterpreted his silence, and continued, "Don't worry, kid, you and your buddy, you're going to do just fine. Just try to smile and be polite, and you'll be okay."

I'd rather they kill me was the first thing that came to his mind, but then he realized what a stupid thing to say that would be.

"We're not stayin' here," he said instead. "At least not for long. The people back on Enterprise'll move heaven and earth to find us. They'll be comin' for us any time."

"They won't," Lu'Vis said at once. "You said they attacked your shuttle?"

Trip nodded mutely.

"Well, the Sar'veen have a nasty little trick of making it look like you were killed. I don't know how they do it, something about a faked substance, I think. I don't know much about these kind of things. Fact is, your people are going to find the shuttle and believe you are dead. No one ever gets out of here again, kid. I'm sorry. And it's either deal with it and move on, or..."

She looked over at the Andorian who was still curled up in the same position on the floor, face hidden in the bend of his arm.

"They'd captured his whole family," she said quietly. "And they sold them, one by one, to other slave ships. He had to watch as they took his kids away. They were crying..."

She looked down at her hands. "A week ago they sold his wife. That was when he snapped. He just lost it. Started talking shit and refused to eat. Not for long, of course."

She raised her head. "There are others like him. And believe me, kid, you don't want to become like them. That's something you don't want to do. So better stop waiting for your people to come and get you. Just concentrate on surviving as long as you can. That's all we can do."

Trip stared at her, meeting her dark, weary eyes. Then he shook his head.

"No. They'll find out about the trick. The Cap'n would never leave us behind."

Lu'Vis regarded him for a long moment, her eyes sad and at the same time strangely expressionless, as if she were long past feeling any real emotions.

"Go to sleep, kid," she said then, lying back down on the floor and turning away from him. Trip stared at her thin back for another moment, then lay back down himself. The nausea was gone, and all he felt was a dull throbbing behind his forehead. Looking over at Malcolm, he saw that the Lieutenant was still unconscious, and suddenly found himself wishing he could go to sleep and wake up all over again, finding that he was back on his bench in the shuttle pod. It would take a few moments for him to realize where he was, but then he'd sit up, shake off the remains of the nightmare and swear to himself to lay off the heavy food before going to sleep. Malcolm would tease him about looking like hell, and he'd retort by saying that the only thing worse than a week of being stuck in a shuttlepod with an obnoxious Brit was being stuck in there for two weeks. And they'd have a nice, pointless discussion as to who was stuck in here with whom.

Better stop waiting for your people to come and get you.

Trip shook his head, even though there was no one here to acknowledge his refusal. He didn't even really know what exactly it was he was refusing. But he knew they were going to get out of here. They had to.

XXX

"Trip!"

Malcolm's voice. Trip opened his eyes and for a brief moment thought they were back in the shuttle pod. His surroundings were no longer dark, but lit by a bright artificial light that hurt his eyes, and there was Malcolm looking down at him, his forehead creased in a worried expression. Then he noticed that Malcolm was still not wearing his uniform.

"You're awake," the Lieutenant stated, clearly relieved. "Are you okay?"

"Was gonna ask you the same thing," Trip said and carefully pushed himself into a sitting position, glad to get as far away from the stinking floor as possible. To his surprise, the strong dizziness he had experienced earlier did not return. He looked back at Malcolm.

"What's goin' on?"

"I don't know." Trip noticed that the Lieutenant was rather pale, pressing his lips together as he took a quick look around. "The lights went on a few minutes ago."

All over the room - and it was indeed a very large room, twenty by ten meters at least - people were slowly sitting up, blinking in the harsh light of the ceiling lamps. Trip saw that most of them looked rather ill, their cheeks hollow and their eyes swollen and bleak. The greater part of the species represented in here he didn't even recognize, except for a few Tellarites and a Denobulan couple. The woman's head was resting against the man's chest, and she seemed too weak to sit up on her own. Kalem the Andorian was still curled up on the floor in the middle of the room, not moving even as his neighbors roughly jostled him while pushing themselves up.

"Hey kid," a voice said next to his ear, and he turned his head to see Lu'Vis, actually smiling at him. In the light of the lamps she looked even older, and Trip noticed that there was a thin scar running down the side of her face, a white line on her light brown skin.

"See?" she continued, this time in Malcolm's direction. "I told you he was going to wake up in no time."

Malcolm only nodded, and Trip realized that the Lieutenant must have been awake for quite some time.

"What's goin' on?" he asked again, and she looked back at him.

"It's morning. They'll be bringing us our rations soon. We're fed twice a day, mostly."

"Commander." Malcolm's tense, clipped tone brought his attention back to the Lieutenant. Malcolm continued in a low voice, leaning forward as if to avoid anyone overhearing their conversation. "This woman - Lu'Vis - told me we've been injected with some kind of device. A - a translator."

"Yes, I know," Trip said. "She told me so last night."

It was clear that Malcolm hadn't heard a word he'd said. "Who knows what other bloody devices we've been injected with," he said, his voice rising slightly. "Who knows what they did to us while we were unconscious. We have to-"

"Malcolm!" Trip laid a hand on the Lieutenant's arm. He recognized the panicky look in Malcolm's eyes; he'd felt the same last night before he had tried to get up, only to end up retching and heaving on the dirty floor. "Calm down, will ya? It's okay."

Malcolm opened his mouth to give an angry reply, but then he shut it again, closed his eyes and swallowed. When he looked back at Trip, the panic in his eyes had ebbed away, leaving only confusion and slight embarrassment in its wake.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to-"

"That's okay." Trip said. "I kinda lost it last night, too."

Malcolm sighed, running a hand through his untidy hair. "Commander, I-"

He was interrupted by the sound of a door opening at the far end of the room. The people next to it hastily retreated to the walls, making way for the two men who had entered. Both of them were tall, at least two meters in height, and of athletic build, wearing identical dark green uniforms and helmets. Their skin was gray but of a very light shade, almost white, which gave them a slightly corpse-like appearance.

Trip noticed that all the people on the floor had fallen silent, their eyes fixed warily on the two uniformed men who were slowly making their way into the room, almost sauntering along the rows of cowering figures. They came to a halt in front of a black-haired man whose species Trip did not recognize.

"You," the taller one of the guards said in a rather bored tone of voice. "Get up."

Awkwardly, the man got to his feet, receiving a blow between the shoulderblades when he stumbled.

"Hand these out," the guard said, thrusting a large bag at the man. "And hurry up, will you? We haven't got all day."

"Yes, sir," the man mumbled. He swayed slightly, and had trouble keeping his balance as he began to hand out small brown ration bars. Most of the people started to chew on their rations the second they'd gotten hold of them, gulping down the food as if they were starving. Which, Trip thought, they probably were.

The guards were looking around the room, their expressions bored. Most people avoided their eyes, lowering their gaze when the guards looked their way, but some of them stared back, and Trip saw the hate in their eyes when they looked at the two gray-skinned men.

"I don't understand why they keep pissing on the floor," the smaller guard said, throwing a disgusted glance at a dark puddle in one corner of the room. "I mean, we got them buckets and everything, it's not like they have to piss on the floor. And it stinks like hell in here. Sometimes I think they're doing it out of sheer cussedness."

The other guard was not listening, however. His eyes had come to rest on the Denobulan couple, and he began walking towards them, kicking the people who didn't get out of his way quickly enough.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked. The Denobulan man had gone very pale.

"Nothing, sir," he said, bravely meeting the guard's eyes. "She's just tired is all."

"She's not eating," the guard stated, nudging the woman with his foot. She didn't react in any way, not even opening her eyes. "And I believe she wasn't eating yesterday, either."

"She - she ate half a ration bar in the evening, sir." The man wrapped a protective arm around the woman. "She didn't sleep very well, and-"

"Don't give me that bullshit!" The guard's voice grew louder, and Trip saw the man's fingers beginning to tremble. "Didn't sleep well my ass. That bitch is long past eating anything. She's dying."

"She's not!"

Suddenly, the room went very still. Even the man handing out the ration bars stopped in his tracks, staring at the Denobulan who was still holding the woman in a tight embrace, his cheeks flushed as he stared up at the guard.

"And don't you call her a bitch! If it wasn't for your people she wouldn't be in this condition in the first place!"

The guard was silent for a few awful seconds, then he raised his hand and brought his club down hard on the side of the Denobulan's head.

"Watch your mouth, will you! One more word, and I'll kill that bitch right here and now!"

In the meantime, the other guard had come to his help, grabbing the woman's arm and giving it a hard jerk. The Denobulan, however, wouldn't let her go, clinging to the woman despite the kicks and blows coming down on him.

"Don't!" he screamed. "Don't take her away! Please! Please don't take her away!"

Without realizing what he was doing, Trip began to get his feet, but then a small hand grabbed his arm, pulling him back down.

"Don't be an idiot!" Lu'Vis hissed. "You can't help him. You'll only make it worse!"

Malcolm, who had also made as if to get up, opened his mouth, but Lu'Vis cut him off. "Quiet!"

In the meantime the guards had managed to pull the Denobulan woman from the man's embrace. The smaller guard had slung her carelessly over his shoulder and watched as his colleague continued to beat up the Denobulan who was curled up on the floor, holding up his hands to protect himself from the blows. With a final kick into the man's stomach, the guard stepped back.

"I think he's had enough. Come on, let's go."

Carrying the unconscious woman like a bag of garbage, the smaller guard followed his colleague to the door. Neither of them looked back at the Denobulan who lay bleeding and sobbing on the floor behind them.

The bulkhead slid shut, and for a moment the silence continued. Then the people began to move again, shifting on the floor and returning their attention back to their rations.

Trip stared at the Denobulan man who was still crying, hiding his face in his arms. "He's injured," he said. "Someone's gotta help him!"

Lu'Vis stopped chewing on her ration bar. "And what do you want to do?" she asked.

"Well, we can't just leave him lying there," Malcolm said, though everybody else in the room seemed to be doing just that. "We could talk to him-"

"What are you going to say?" Lu'Vis asked, regarding Malcolm with her dark eyes. "They're going to kill her, and he knows it. So what is there to say?"

Trip looked down at the small brown bar in his hand, and knew that right now he wouldn't be able to eat anything. He leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes and tried to block out the desperate sobs of the Denobulan husband. And he stayed that way for a long time.

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