Scooby, this one's for you!
The rhythmic drum of steaming water against the floor came to an end as Archer stepped out of the shower, wrapping a white towel around his waist. He grabbed a second towel from off a rack and rubbed it through his hair and over his body. With a swift movement of his hand, he quickly rubbed Porthos behind the ears before struggling into his undies, black pants and boots. He put on his green wraparound, hearing a small pop as he thrust his arms through one of the sleeves. Fastening the strap, he brushed his shoulder, and found a rip in the seam. Porthos barked up at him.
"It wasn't your fault." Archer told him. "C'mon."
Porthos followed eagerly as Archer led the way through the corridors to Hoshi's quarters. When they arrived, Archer rang the chime and waited, leaning against the door frame.
The door opened after a moment, revealing Hoshi dressed in civvies. Porthos leaped over the bottom door frame, tail wagging like a flag. Hoshi smiled.
"Thanks for looking after him, Hoshi." Archer smiled as Porthos sniffed around the floor, looking for food. "He seems to like you more than me!"
Hoshi chuckled. "I confess… I give him cheese." Archer made a face of mock surprise. "I can't resist those eyes!"
Archer grinned broadly. "I'll see you in a couple of hours."
As he pulled away from the door frame, a tiny piece of metal that had tangled in the fabric of his shirt ripped the hole bigger with a hiss. Archer untangled the fabric, but the shoulder of his shirt now hung down low, exposing a chunk of hiss chest and shoulder.
"My first time wearing this shirt." Archer said to himself.
"How did that happen?" Hoshi asked. Seeing the piece of metal on the doorframe, she added "That shouldn't be there. I'll get rid of it."
With a final nod and smile, Archer walked off through the corridor towards the quartermaster's office. Stopping in the hallway at the first comm. panel he found, he punched a button to contact the bridge.
"Archer to bridge."
"T'Pol here." Came her distinct emotionless voice.
"I'm going to be a little late getting to the bridge. Say, another ten minutes?"
"Of course sir. Bridge out."
As he continued on his way down the corridors, Archer nodded at the people who passed, some of whom – mainly the females – gave him a look before continuing on. A young girl that Archer recognized from the lower decks grinned broadly in a flirty way as she passed, twirling with the hem of her red mini skirt.
When he finally arrived at the quartermaster's office, he punched the door chime and entered when Lieutenant Zabelle called out for him to enter. He opened the door, and looked around as he entered. Anju Zabelle was sitting at her desk behind the sewing machine, which was whirring away on a blue shirt. Anju's assistant was sitting behind another desk, seeming to dissect the back of a scanner, circuit boards scattered around on the desk. Rows upon rows of clothing hanging from racks lined the walls. Archer recognized clothing used on past away missions, a number of old jumpsuits, and a few copies of T'Pol's old cat suits. But what Archer found most interesting was the number of new uniforms on the racks.
"Why are there so many uniforms in here?" He asked.
"Apparently, the butts rip easily." Archer smirked at her. "So what can I… bad question." She stopped herself as she saw the damage done to the Captain's shirt, and the hum of the sewing machine came to an abrupt end. She stood and came over to him, inspecting the loose threads and damaged fabric.
"This isn't too bad." She said finally. "It's just a rip in the hem that'll take just an hour or two to stitch back up." She unbuckled the strap that held his wrap around together, and started to take it off him.
Archer grinned at the expression on her face. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
Anju laughed. "Part of the fun of being a quartermaster is being able to undress all the men!"
Archer chuckled with her, and shrugged off the rest of his shirt.
Anju plopped it down on her desk beside her machine, and went over to one of the shelves of spare uniforms and clothing where she pulled out another wraparound for him to wear.
"Thanks." He said as he tugged it on. "I'll see if I can come back at the end of my shift."
"Alright, Captain." Anju called. He went out in the corridor as the whir of her machine started up again.
Archer, T'Pol, Reed and Tucker beamed down to the uninhabited planet, on one of the northern continents. A fresh sea breeze greeted them, tangling with the plants that grew wildly around the small clearing they had beamed into.
"It's even better down here than I thought." Archer commented with a smile.
"Sure is paradise!" Tucker added. Reed glanced at him, giving him a 'be careful' look. He was suspicious of everything.
"Let's split up." Archer said, and the four officers wandered off in different directions.
The Captain went off toward the ocean, the sound of thundering waves growing clearer with each step. He breathed in gulps of air and smiled to himself. He glanced up at the sky, blue but with a hint of purple, striped with streamers of white clouds hovering high above. He heard the cry of shore birds as he pushed aside thorny bushes and tall flowers. Burs clutched at his clothing like bees to a nest.
Archer reached a short steep cliff that lead down to the rocky beach. He carefully picked his way down, brushing sand-like dirt out of his eyes that sprayed up beneath his feet and into the wind. When he reached the bottom, he walked along the shore, pausing to investigate things that washed up against the rocks. Seaweed, some odd looking shells, driftwood. Archer put his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun. What was that, trapped between two rocks? It was round, and boney….
Jonathon hurriedly took the communicator out of a pocket and called for the rest of the away team to locate him and come to his coordinates. In the meantime, he investigated what he had found, picking the pieces up gently.
In a few minutes T'Pol, Reed and Trip were scrambling down the slope and gathered around him. T'Pol took readings with her scanner, Trip looked over his Captain's shoulder, and Reed glanced protectively around, trying to spot any dangers.
"I thought you said this planet was uninhabited." Archer said to T'Pol.
"It is." She answered bluntly.
"What is it?" Tucker asked.
"The skull looks human to me." Archer told him. "I don't know about the rest. The clothes are too rotted to identify them with any species. We'll have to get these bones up to Phlox." He looked at his science officer. "T'Pol?"
"I'm uncertain, Captain. My scanner cannot identify which species this skeleton belongs to." She told him emotionlessly. She smoothed down her blue mini skirt as the wind tried to pick it up.
"Did any of you find anything unusual?" Archer asked.
"Nothing like this." Reed answered, and the other two shook their heads.
Archer pulled out his communicator again. "Away team to Enterprise."
"Enterprise here." Came Travis's voice.
"Have Phlox meet us in transporter room one."
"Aye sir." He answered. "How is it down there?"
"Beautiful, but mysterious."
"Sounds like a good place to tell a couple of ghost stories." Travis smiled.
"It'll have to wait for a while. Archer to transporter room one."
"Rostov here, sir."
"Five to beam up."
The beach shimmered before changing to the transporter room. Phlox was hurrying in to the alcove, taking scans of the bones as soon as they were fully transported.
"I don't recognize this species." Phlox said in a confused, very intrigued voice.
"Welcome to the club." Archer said.
"Will somebody run down to sickbay and get me cot? These bones are old and fragile."
T'Pol nodded and hurried off to sickbay.
Archer looked at Trip and Malcolm. "You two get back to the bridge, scan the planet again. See if you can find people, dead or alive."
"Aye sir." Trip said, and the two red-shirted men went off down the corridor.
"These bones don't seem to be diseased in any way." The Denobulan said. "Though as a precaution I'll stick them in the decon chamber." Archer nodded in agreement.
A few minutes later, T'Pol arrived with the cot, and she helped Phlox and Archer gently lift the bones onto it. When that was done, T'Pol and Phlox headed toward sickbay together, but Archer remained on the transporter platform, brushing the burs off his clothes and pulling out the occasional thorn. On his side there was a large tear where a thorn and bur had gotten tangled with each other. Anju would not be pleased.
"Beam those back down to the planet." Archer ordered Rostov, referring to the burs and thorns that now lay strewn across the platform. Rostov smiled at him in amusement.
"Another one?" Anju said when Archer brought her his second ripped shirt.
Archer nodded. "Burs and thorns this time."
Anju smiled as she took Archer's shirt and found him a new green wraparound. "If you rip this one, than it's just plain old yellow shirts for you, buster. Either that or find a woman. We know how to take care of our fancy clothes." She sat down behind her machine.
"I'll stick with the yellow shirts." Archer gave her a look before leaving her office, wearing his new shirt.
He went off to his left towards Hoshi's quarters. When he arrived, he rang the door chime and waited, reminding himself not to lean against the door frame, even though he noticed that the little piece of metal was gone.
Hoshi smiled as the door opened. She held Porthos in her arms, who barked happily at the sight of his master.
"Was he good for you?" Archer asked as he took the beagle from her arms.
"He was a gentleman." She stepped out in the corridor with him, dressed in her blue mini skirt.
"I'll be on the bridge in a couple of minutes, I'm just going to stop by my quarters first. Malcolm and Trip are on the bridge, they'll brief you about what's been going on." Archer said, and disappeared down the corridor.
When Hoshi entered the bridge, Malcolm and Trip were talking to each other from across the bridge. Malcolm was at his station, while Trip manned the science station.
"Hey," Trip said when she sat down at her post. "You don't have your hair in one of those fancy beehives."
"I like the classic ponytail better." She grinned at him. "So what's been going on?"
"We went down to the planet, and Captain Archer found a skeleton on the beach." Hoshi put on a face of shock at the Lieutenant's explanation. "We brought it on board, but we can't identify what species it is, though it looks human."
"I really don't think that matters." Trip said. "Vulcans look human. For all I know our skeletal structure could be exactly the same. I can think of a couple of other species that could have similar skeletons to ours, as well."
"So what are you doing now?" Hoshi asked.
"Trying to look for more humanoid life forms, dead or alive." Malcolm said. "So far, we've found nothing."
"Maybe the planet is haunted." Travis said, and his friends grinned at him.
"If we ask the Captain for permission, maybe we can go down there at midnight and cook some marshmallows." Trip said, leaning back in his chair smugly.
Travis chuckled.
"How could that person have been killed?" Hoshi asked.
"Drowning, most likely." Malcolm said. "Though he could have been attacked or poisoned by some underwater creature that caused death. We just don't know yet."
"Question." Travis said, turning his attention away from his console. "If there are more dead bodies, how will you detect them? They have no life, so they don't exactly have life signs."
"I could recalibrate the sensors to detect a certain chemical or material that's found within bones. I don't think that'll help a lot though. Usually the sensors are able to detect skeletons." Trip explained.
"Did they detect the one you found?" Hoshi asked.
Reed shook his head.
"I'm going to send a request to sickbay and ask Phlox for some information about the bones to help the sensors." Trip said, tapping away at the station.
Hoshi turned to her station, searching the planet's surface for any kind of beacon or signal that could be connected to the skeleton.
Archer plopped down on the bed in his quarters, exhausted from the day's discoveries. Porthos leaped up beside him, tail wagging, and turned in a circle three times before laying down beside his master.
"Me too." Jonathon said, before drifting off to a dreamless sleep.
A small, nearly unnoticeable ripping sound woke the Captain. Porthos was moving about beside him, his mouth working on… something. Archer looked at him, and saw he was playing with a long green string.
"Porthos, where'd that come from?" He asked, trying to find the end of the string. After a moment he discovered that it came from, and was still attached to, his green wraparound.
He sighed in annoyance before cutting it off. "No cheese for you tonight, buddy."
The beagle jumped off the bed and sat down in front of his water dish, where he lapped it up noisily.
Archer looked down at his shirt, where the string had come out. The bottom hem was ruined, and the strap was chewed up. Archer had no idea his shirt tasted so good. To Porthos, anyway.
Archer took off his wrap around and slid into a yellow shirt that he pulled out of the closet. Leaving Porthos in his quarters, he headed for Anju's office, again.
"Three strikes." She said when he arrived and presented her with his shirt. "The hem I can fix, but I can't do anything for the strap. There are tooth holes in it! I'll have to replace it with a new strap, which I'll have to make from scratch." She sighed. "I've got those other two wraparounds fixed up for you." She said, reaching behind her chair and taking the two shirts off a shelf. "I don't want to see another one for at least a week."
Archer took the shirts from her, squeezing her shoulder. "You're busy. You need to get other things done, I know. Put my shirt on low priority." He smiled as he left for the third time.
When he arrived on the bridge, he asked Reed and Trip to report on their findings.
"I recalibrated the sensors to help us detect any more bodies, living or dead, but I came up with nothing. There's no sign that there is or has ever been a civilization down there." Trip said.
"I tried looking for any kind of beacon or distress signal that could be connected to the skeleton, but I didn't find anything." Hoshi reported.
"I used the carbon-dating information to find out if any of the warp trails that lead to the planet were from around the person's time, but the possible warp trails are too old to be of any use." Travis added.
"Phlox has reported that he doesn't know what species the skeleton is. Although it looks very similar to a human, or a Vulcan, he says there are a large number of small differences that set this skeleton aside from any he's seen before. There is no information about it in the Denobulan or Vulcan databases." Reed finished.
"So basically, we're still on square one." Archer said.
"Precisely." T'Pol replied, making Archer jump. He hadn't heard her enter from the turbolift. Trip stood up as T'Pol took her station, and he moved to the engineering console across the bridge.
"I want to take another away team down there. The last mission was cut off too abruptly." He surveyed the bridge. "Hoshi, Travis, T'Pol, you're with me."
The away team beamed down to the planet for the second time that day. They were about a mile or so east from where the first landing party had beamed down, and they split up immediately. Archer went down toward the shore again; T'Pol went off into the bush, while Hoshi and Travis made their way through tall grass.
After a few minutes Archer arrived at the slope, peering down to find an easier way down. He took his first step forward when he was suddenly flipped through the air by an unseen force. He landed hard, and rolled down the steep slope, unable to stop himself. He stopped when he hit the rocky bottom, dazed. With a groan, he sat up, and spotted a bear-like creature waddling down the hill. Its razor claws appeared slick, with light from the rising sun glinting off them sharply. Archer yelped, stumbling to his feet, but he only managed a meter or two before he slipped on the rocks, barely stopping his fall with his hands.
"T'Pol!" He yelled out, hoping that either the Vulcan's or Hoshi's good hearing would catch his shout.
Archer ran along the beach, the beast now charging close behind him. He fumbled for his communicator, eventually pulling it out. Turning back uphill, he flipped the communicator open.
"Archer to T–" He was cut off by a sudden push, and he fell hard onto the ground. He rolled onto his back to see the creature right behind him, and then everything went black.
He was woken by a sudden, sharp pain on his chest and opened his eyes to behold the light fixtures on the ceiling in sickbay. He looked down at himself, and discovered his shirt was missing and his chest was covered in a weave of swollen scratch marks.
"What… happened?" He asked the air between gritted teeth.
Phlox and T'Pol came into view. "Captain!" Phlox said cheerily. "How do you feel?"
"Like I've slept on a bed of knives." Archer answered.
T'Pol raised an eyebrow as Phlox smiled.
"What happened?" He asked again.
He heard the sickbay doors open before Hoshi came into view as well. She held a yellow bundle in her arms.
"I believe Ensign Sato could better answer your question." T'Pol said.
"What happened!" Archer repeated.
"I heard you shout out T'Pol's name, so I located you with my scanner and found you passed out with some kind of bear-like creature attacking you. I grabbed the nearest stick I could find and started kicking and jabbing at it. Eventually it went away. T'Pol arrived, and she contacted Travis and we came back here." Hoshi explained.
"So why do I feel like I bathed in acid?"
"The creature's claws were covered in some sort of poison or venom. I extracted it all from your system, though I want to keep you here for another 8 hours for observation." Phlox answered.
"If you will excuse me, I am needed on the bridge." T'Pol said. Archer nodded. "Get well soon." She added as she left.
Hoshi remained in sickbay. "Is there something else, Ensign?" Archer asked her.
She nodded, holding up the bundle. "I took this to the quartermaster to see if anything could be done about it, and she said it can't be saved. She wants your permission to use it as a rag."
Archer winced in annoyance. "How badly is it damaged?"
"Well…." She unfolded the bundle and held it up by the shoulders for Archer to see. His shirt was dirty and covered with a criss-crossing spider's web of rips and tears. Loose threads hung down all over the place, and blood stained most of the front of the once-bright shirt.
"She's going to wash it first, right?"
Hoshi smiled. "Aye, sir."
"Tell her she has my permission." Hoshi nodded and left.
The Captain sighed. "Anything new about the skeleton?" He asked the Doctor.
"I am still unable to identify it. The bones were beamed back down to the surface a couple of hours ago, and they should be exactly where you found them. Not all questions have answers, Captain." He added when he saw Archer's disappointed look. "We left the system a few minutes ago, just so you know."
Archer nodded and sighed. A long, thoughtful pause followed. Phlox moved about the sickbay, reaching for different things on the counters and reading the monitors. Archer stared up at the blank ceiling.
"Shirts have never given me so much trouble before in my life." He said after a while.
Phlox turned to him. "I'm sure most of the female crewmembers would agree with me if I suggested you try not wearing a shirt." Phlox grinned
Archer shot a look at Phlox, but that only made his smile brighter. Archer chuckled to himself, eventually falling asleep as he relaxed on the biobed.
