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x-x

Before

"There's a distress call from the planet below us," the captain said, pacing in front of the group assembled in the shuttlebay. "A Denobulan ship crashed, and they're asking for help. They said that there are no injuries, but their ship has been damaged." He stopped pacing, and turned to face Trip. "Trip, I'd like you and Malcolm to take a shuttle and head down."

Trip nodded and glanced at Malcolm.

"Luckily, they came down well away from the main population centres." Jon turned his eyes to Malcolm. "But be careful; we don't want to come into contact with anyone if we can avoid it. From the communications we've been able to intercept, I don't think they'd take well to visitors."

x-x

Trip twisted slightly in his seat, trying to catch a glimpse of Malcolm behind him in the shuttle without taking too much attention from the controls in front of him. He heard rustling, and then a small crash. "What are you doing back there?" he asked, laughing slightly.

"Sorry, commander," Malcolm replied, sliding into the seat next to Trip's. "I was checking on our supplies, and I…"

Trip smiled, interrupting. "I'm sure the supplies are fine." He arched his eyebrows and glanced at Malcolm. "Unless what I just heard…" He let his voice trail off.

Malcolm smiled and shook his head, widening his eyes when the shuttle jerked to the side roughly.

"Crap," Trip muttered under his breath as he turned his full attention to piloting their vehicle. He stared at the instruments. "I can see why the Denobulans crashed. This atmosphere is full of…" He stopped speaking as the shuttle jolted to the side again. "Malcolm," he said, his voice tight. "Could you go check…"

Malcolm nodded sharply, and slid out of the seat, walking towards the back of the shuttle.

The shuttle jerked again and Trip heard a muffled swear. Keeping his eyes on the instruments, he shot back over his shoulder, "You okay back there?" as the shuttle began trembling.

"Never better," came Malcolm's unsteady reply, his voice shaking with the vibration of the ship.

The shuttle jumped again, and they cleared the clouds. As Trip tried to control their descent, he could see only brown below him. No forests, no cities, just brown plains rushing below them as they passed. "Um, you may want to strap in…" he said, just as the shuttle shuddered, then started spinning.

x-x

Now

Trip allowed Malcolm to lean against him slightly as they queued for breakfast, or what passed for breakfast in this camp. As they waited in the snaking line, Trip looked at the people around them, their fellow captives. Everyone was so ragged, so beaten down. Even those who were relatively new, like themselves, looked like they'd been here for years, the wind and the dust blurring their features as it coated their skin.

It was odd, in fact, how much their fellow internees looked like they did. Everyone here looked so human.

Trip noticed several people helping the injured or ill, trying to keep their efforts from the guards so as not to call attention to those who were struggling. He had seen what happened to people who weren't healthy here. Right from the beginning, when they'd first arrived…He tried to stop thinking about that, about what would happen to Malcolm if the guards realised that he was hurt.

Trip focused on the back of the person in front of him. He and Malcolm were lucky, really; sort of. No one suspected that they weren't from this planet. He snickered to himself. If it was this bad being from here, he couldn't imagine what would have happened if they suspected the truth.

He watched the guards out of corner of his eye. He couldn't see any obvious differences in the appearance of the guards versus the internees, but the locals obviously could. In fact, when they were first captured, he and Malcolm were immediately identified as belonging to the race in the camps, the Czarna, rather than the race of the guards, the Proszka. Apart from the guns and the uniforms, though, he couldn't tell the difference.

Best Trip could tell, there were people speaking several different languages here, so their inability to speak with their fellow prisoners wasn't questioned. Lucky. And they'd been fortunate, at first, that their translator was working after the crash, albeit poorly. They realised quickly that they definitely couldn't use it to speak without revealing themselves, and they couldn't signal the ship, but it worked well enough to allow them to understand some of what was going on. They kept the device hidden as they were forced to join other prisoners on a transport, and so they were able to overhear the conversations swirling around them; whispers of genocide, and of an internment camp on the prairie.

Malcolm stumbled beside him, and Trip reached over quickly, hauling him back up, one eye always on the guards.