Red Rain
By Thalia Drogna
Trip had a problem. It was going to take him a few days work to put his plan into action and he'd have to make sure that no one noticed what he was doing, which on a ship the size of Enterprise was nearly impossible. Some of what needed to be done he'd already put in place. His Special Projects instincts hadn't completely left him and he always expected trouble even when there wasn't any in their foreseeable future. He'd been using his free time for months now to work on what he referred to as his emergency plan.
He did a little re-jigging of the Engineering roster so that no one was in the areas that he needed. Then he pulled a normal shift in Engineering before he went to work on his "extra-curricular activities". He may be breaking the rules but that shouldn't mean that normal ship operations had to suffer. He also arranged it so that Reed would be kept busy with some faulty torpedo launcher diagnostics, which of course Trip had broken in advance to give Reed something to work on. He sent Fenner off to plead with the Captain about letting him off at the next stop in the hopes that would keep the Captain out of his hair.
The only other person he had to worry about was T'Pol. She had an uncanny way of telling when Trip wasn't exactly telling the truth, which was why he did his best never to lie to her. The only way he could think of dealing with T'Pol was to stay out of her way. That was going to be tricky considering that they had a neuropressure session scheduled for that evening, which T'Pol would be suspicious if he missed, not to mention angry at being stood up. He really needed the time to work, but if his project was going to succeed at all then he also needed it to be kept secret, and that meant acting naturally.
So he found himself once again lying on T'Pol's floor, semi-naked, while she applied pressure to various places along the length of his spine. Normally he couldn't have been happier, but this time it was completely wasted on him. His mind just wasn't on the job.
"You are not concentrating on your breathing. You seem to be unusually tense this evening," said T'Pol. It was unusual for T'Pol to initiate conversation, even now they had become closer friends. Trip guessed that he had been quieter than normal so T'Pol was having to fill in for him.
"I guess I'm just worried about my friends," said Trip. "I don't know what I can do, T'Pol."
"Perhaps you should let the Captain determine what to do," said T'Pol.
"I don't have much choice there," said Trip. "It doesn't stop me worrying about the rest of the Unit."
"I understand that you are thinking about them, however as you are unable to act on their behalf at the moment, perhaps you could help Captain Archer in his investigations," said T'Pol.
"His investigations?" asked Trip.
"He asked me to retrieve the Special Projects mission files from the MACO database on Earth," said T'Pol. "I believe that Lieutenant Reed was also attempting to find out further information about the Mars to Earth shuttle explosion."
"The mission files are classified," said Trip.
"I have already begun the process of code breaking," said T'Pol.
"You know that's illegal," said Trip.
"I am aware of that, however I do not intend to get caught," said T'Pol.
"That's probably what Kevin Mitnick said," replied Trip.
"Who is Kevin Mitnick?" asked T'Pol.
"You've never heard of Kevin Mitnick?" asked Trip. "I thought you'd studied human history."
"I did, however no mention was made of Kevin Mitnick," said T'Pol.
Trip spent the rest of their neuropressure session giving T'Pol a lesson in the seedier side of American hacker history and he was extremely glad to have distracted her from her talk about the MACOs. The first rule of effective lying was not to lie at all and if T'Pol had asked him anymore questions then he might have had to start lying. He really didn't want to lie to T'Pol. He had never wanted to lie to anyone but these days it didn't seem that he had a choice.
Kanatova was a person of naturally fiery emotions, so Vulcan had come as quite a shock to her system. Everyone was just so annoyingly logical and politely unemotional that she just ended up feeling exasperated at times. She always looked forward to her dose of emotional therapy that appeared in the form of letters from home. However, despite her problems with logic, going to Vulcan was an opportunity that she couldn't pass up. It was amazing to be able to experience other species medicine first hand and actually get to do some of the things that she had only read about. The Vulcans didn't accept many alien doctors so she had been very fortunate to gain the placement that she had.
She was working in the hospital the day that the coded transmission came in for her. It appeared to be a normal communication from home, but marked urgent. When she opened the transmission it was simply a blank screen except for a small insignia in the corner and a prompt asking her for a code. The insignia was that of the MACOs and she knew immediately what the code was. She typed it in and three words flashed up on the screen.
Red Rain Alpha
She cursed softly in ascorbic Russian. This was not a good time, but then when would it ever have been a good time to receive this code. The code meant that at least one of her former team mates was probably dead. Her main concern was where she could find transport at such short notice and she was going to have to start being extra careful when it came to watching her back. She didn't waste any time, she called ahead to the spaceport and booked herself on a flight off planet, in fact she booked herself on several flights just in case someone was checking up on her. It took her less than half an hour to shove a few things into a bag and leave the hospital accommodation where she had been staying. She headed for the spaceport in one of the efficient monorails that ran throughout the city.
When she got off the monorail she was aware that someone was following her. He'd got on the monorail behind her and watched her all the way to the spaceport stop. She had given him the benefit of the doubt to begin with but, as she moved through the busy streets of the capital city of Vulcan, he kept up with her, a discreet distance behind. If she hadn't been trained to spot someone following her then she never would have seen him. She quickened the pace of her walk hoping to merge into the crowd.
She arrived at the space terminal, her heart beating faster than she liked. She hadn't done this in a long time. It reminded her of the mission on Karavia. She remembered running through streets on Karavia with the other MACOs. She couldn't remember where they'd been going though. She pushed that to the back of her mind while she concentrated on losing her tail. If he found out which transport she intended to catch then the game would be over before it had begun.
She wished she'd got her pilot's licence like Trip or Fenner or Colonel Darwin, it would have made life much easier if she could fly a spaceship. Then she wouldn't be confined to commercial flights, or have to fly to an orbital station where she could catch something that would take her nearer to the rendezvous co-ordinates. If her memory was correct then she was the furthest out of them all, unless Enterprise had ended up somewhere further away. As soon as she was away from Vulcan she'd feel much happier.
She did her best to disappear into the spaceport crowd. Being the main spaceport for Vulcan, she didn't standout as much as she had in the city, there were other humans waiting for flights and checking in. There were also representatives of several other species, some of which she'd never even seen before. She needed a way to reach her ship without going through the usual security channels. She wasn't the infiltration expert on the team, that had been Arroya, but she had learnt a lot from the other MACOs and circumventing spaceport security shouldn't be that difficult. They'd broken into and out of much more heavily guarded places. That had been when they'd all been there to back each other up and now she didn't have the benefit of nine other team members to help her out.
She found a staff entrance to the rest of the airport, then waited until a Vulcan staff member went through and typed the code into the keypad. Kanatova took note of the code and a few minutes later when no one was looking she also went through the staff door. She walked down the corridor looking as if she was meant to be there, that way if anyone stopped her then she could act like she was genuinely lost and unaware of where she was. However, it was obviously a slow period because she didn't meet anyone else. She found a locker room and broke into one of the lockers that had a female name on it.
"I wish I'd asked Didier to teach me more Vulcan," she muttered quietly to herself as she pulled on the Vulcan uniform that everyone who worked at the airport wore. Luckily it included a hat which she could use to hide her lack of pointy ears. She headed towards the area where the spacecraft boarded. She'd known when she booked the various flights that she didn't intend on travelling on any of them, she planned to stow away on a flight to the orbital platform at Altair. From Altair she could hire someone to take her to the rendezvous co-ordinates. Luckily most Vulcan flights called at Altair to refuel before carrying on to their main destination.
She found herself in the baggage area, conveyor belts with suitcases on them rolled past her. She moved through towards the exit to the spacecraft. Suddenly there were two men in front of her, she pulled her phaser from inside her jacket where she'd kept it hidden.
"Step aside," shouted Kanatova over the sound of the machinery.
The men didn't move out of her way but came towards her. She fired at the men, but it didn't seem to make any difference, they kept coming towards her. This was unbelievable, she'd just shot them five times, it would have killed any normal person twice over. She turned and ran, hoping to hide between the baggage machinery. She caught sight of the third man, he joined the other two who were still coming towards her.
She ducked behind a piece of machinery. What the hell was she going to do. She swore. She poked her head above the machinery and quickly ducked back down as she saw the men approaching.
"Okay, phasers don't work," said Kanatova. "Think, Anna, think." She looked over and saw the conveyor belts. Perhaps if she could get high enough... She pulled herself up onto the nearest conveyor belt glad that the Vulcan uniforms had been designed with work in mind. It carried her upwards and she hid behind the suitcases. She saw the three men overrun her previous hiding place and then begin to look for her. The conveyor belt carried her up and out of the baggage sorting area and onto the runway. She saw a ship about to close it's doors in front of her, it only had another few cases to load and was being fed by one of the belts beside her. It was a long leap but hopefully she could make it. She rose up from her hiding place and made a running jump along the belt. She hit the belt beside her and slid back, barely holding on to the edge. She pulled herself up onto the belt breathing hard.
"No one told me that being a doctor would be like this," said Kanatova.
She saw the three men emerge from the baggage sorting area, but on the ground, they hadn't spotted her yet. The conveyor carried her into the hold of the spacecraft in front of her and the door banged shut behind the last suitcase. The automated baggage handling equipment began to move the cases into the holding areas. This wasn't going to be a comfortable flight for her, but at least she'd make it alive.
"Altair orbital here we come," muttered Kanatova and tried to find herself a comfortable place for takeoff. She hoped the inertial dampers were working well today.
It took him another two days to finish all the preparations. Even then he had to wait until the night shift were on duty. Trip wasn't at all happy about the time that had been wasted, but he knew that if he did this during Alpha shift then he would stand considerably less chance of getting away with it. He'd put into place a number of safe guards that should improve his chances of pulling it off but he hadn't been able to bypass all the security systems, there just hadn't been time.
You couldn't just walk away with a shuttlepod from Enterprise, there were security protocols to bypass or alarms would go off on the bridge to alert them to an unauthorised launch. Some of the alarms he could stop, some of them he couldn't. He'd prioritised the early warning systems when he'd planned his strategy for disabling the security alerts, but he hadn't had time to disconnect all the systems that fed the alerts, apart from the fact that disconnecting those systems triggered other alarms. Trip couldn't hope to launch the shuttle without setting off some alarms but he wanted to give himself as much breathing space as possible.
He knew that he could keep fiddling with his design and fabrication forever and it wouldn't make it any better for what he needed it to do. Now was the time to do it. He still worried about what he was about to do, not because he didn't have faith in his engineering skills but more because he was leaving Enterprise and he might never be coming back. It was to protect his friends, and he kept reminding himself of that, because if he didn't he could lose his resolve. It would be easy to stay on Enterprise and let the Captain worry about protecting him, but that had never been his style, he wouldn't just sit back and watch while other people placed themselves in danger for him.
He met Fenner in the mess hall and the two of them went down to the shuttle bay and proceeded to load up the craft with the gear Trip had stowed in the bay earlier. There was still a little work to be done on the shuttlepod but Trip had been careful to make sure it was only the final touches to his plan. It took a few minutes to make the adjustments and then they were ready to launch.
"This is it, Trip," said Fenner. "If you want to stay behind then I know the rest of the Unit will understand. I can take her out on my own. With you running interference here I should be able to make a clean get away."
"It sure is tempting to stay, but it would just put the crew in danger. And you know you're going to need an engineer to run this thing. I'm pretty confidant it'll work but it's still jury rigged, nothing more. It's going to need a little coaxing to run smoothly," said Trip.
"Then what are we waiting for?" asked Fenner, climbing into the shuttlepod.
"Just give me a few minutes to get the bay doors bypassed and make the final modifications to the shuttlepod," said Trip and he headed for the control panel at the side of the bay.
Archer had been unable to sleep. He knew why, he was worried about Trip. Someone was gunning for the Special Projects team and, no matter how much Archer might want to deny it and pretend it had never happened, Trip had been part of that team. He gave up tossing and turning in his bed and headed for the bridge, if he couldn't sleep at least he could get some work done. He stepped out of the turbo lift and immediately he knew that something wasn't right. Lieutenant Reed was there for starters and although Malcolm liked to work late, he should have been in bed and asleep by now.
"What's our status?" asked Archer.
"We're having some problems with the weapons, sir," replied Reed. "They've gone offline and we're still trying to determine why."
Archer went over to the empty engineering station. He brought up some diagnostic displays. He was no engineer but he knew his ship.
"We narrowed it down to a few key systems," said Reed. "It looks as if two of the principal relays are malfunctioning, but for some reason it hasn't fallen back to the secondary relays."
"Is anything else effected?" asked Archer.
"I haven't heard anything from Engineering," said Reed.
"Archer to Engineering," he said pressing the com button. He was greeted by silence. He ran a systems check on communications. "Looks as if there are further faults, a couple of the communications circuits are down as well. Better wake Trip and T'Pol, we could have a serious problem here."
"I'll go by their quarters, I should get down to the armoury anyway, see if I can sort this out from down there," said Reed.
"Okay, tell Trip communications are a priority," said Archer.
"Yes, sir," said Reed and headed for the turbo lift.
He reached T'Pol's quarter's first. He pressed the door buzzer and after a few moments T'Pol answered the door in a blue silk robe.
"We're having some difficulties with ship's systems. I'm on my way to wake Commander Tucker. The Captain asked me to wake you and ask you to get to the bridge," said Reed.
"I may be of more use in Engineering," said T'Pol. "Allow me to get dressed and I will accompany you to wake Commander Tucker."
T'Pol dressed quickly while Reed waited in the corridor for her. Then they went further down the corridor to Commander Tucker's quarters. Reed thumbed the door buzzer and they waited. Reed hit the buzzer again.
"I know he's a heavy sleeper but he normally wakes up when hit the door buzzer," said Reed.
"Override the door lock," said T'Pol. Reed obliged and the door slid open to reveal an empty room.
"Where is he?" said Reed.
"Perhaps already in Engineering," said T'Pol.
"Let's get down there," said Reed.
They arrived in Engineering to find everything quiet and no sign of Trip. T'Pol located Lieutenant Hess.
"Lieutenant, the bridge is reporting a number of systems failures," said T'Pol. "In particular, communications are down."
"We haven't had any indication of any problems, the diagnostics are all showing green," said Hess. "Let me check them again." She pressed buttons on the console in front of her. "No still all showing green. Something isn't right here."
"Where is Commander Tucker?" asked T'Pol.
"Probably asleep at this time of night," said Hess.
"We just came from his quarters, he wasn't there," said Reed.
"Maybe he's already somewhere fixing the problem. If the communications are down then he couldn't let anyone know," said Hess.
"Possibly," said T'Pol. "We should concentrate on returning communications and ensuring that the diagnostics are correctly displaying."
"I'd better get down to the Armoury, let me know when Trip turns up, I could use his help," said Reed.
"Very well," replied T'Pol. She turned back to the diagnostic panel.
"I think I've got it," said Hess. "Someone has re-routed the diagnostics, here and here," she said pointing to the diagram. "Someone who knows our systems." Hess went to the panel where the re-routing had been done and reconnected the circuits in the correct order. Then she went back to the diagnostic panel.
"Communications, phase cannons, alarm systems in the shuttle bay, launch bay door controls," Hess paused. "Everything which would let someone launch a shuttle without being detected."
"Fix the communications and let the Captain know what is happening. I'm going down to the shuttle bay," said T'Pol, going to the weapons locker and getting out a phaser.
"Yes, Sub-commander," replied Hess.
Trip had almost finished his preparations, he just had to make the final connections from the engine to the control panel and then they could go. He had the access panel off on the back of the shuttle and was kneeling down to work on the connections from a better angle.
"Commander, what are you doing?" said a voice from the door way of the shuttlebay.
"T'Pol," said Trip. He quickly reattached the panel and stood slowly. He turned around to face T'Pol keeping one hand behind his back. "What are you doing here?"
"I believe I asked you that question first," said T'Pol.
"I'm leaving, T'Pol," said Trip. "I'm going to the rendezvous point."
"I thought you already discussed this with the Captain and his orders were that you should stay. Enterprise is the best place to protect you," said T'Pol.
"But if they come for me, T'Pol, they'll have to go through you and I'm not having anyone hurt because of me. I've had enough of that. I'm already responsible for too many deaths, I can't carry anymore," said Trip. He pulled his hand out from behind his back to reveal the phase pistol that he was holding. "Now I don't want to shoot you, but I have to go and you're not stopping me."
"Trip, this isn't necessary. You do not need to leave. This is not a logical decision," said T'Pol, perfectly calmly.
Fenner appeared at the door of the shuttlepod, and took in the scene. "You want a hand, Trip?" he asked.
"I got it under control, James. Just strap in and be ready to take off," said Trip, not taking his eyes off T'Pol.
"Yes, sir," said Fenner.
"This will not work," said T'Pol. "You will not have sufficient range to reach habitation in a shuttlepod."
"You let me worry about that," said Trip.
"I cannot let you leave," said T'Pol and moved to take her own phase pistol from its holster. Trip saw her move and fired. T'Pol collapsed on the floor, stunned.
Trip hung his head and took a deep breath. "Why'd you make me do it, T'Pol? Why couldn't you just walk away?"
The com sounded. "Archer to T'Pol."
"Damn, they fixed the com system," said Trip.
"Archer to T'Pol," said the com again.
"Start her up, James," shouted Trip. He ran over to T'Pol and gently picked her up and placed her outside the door of the launch bay. "Guess this is goodbye, T'Pol. I'm real sorry about shooting you, hope you can forgive me."
He gave her a quick, soft kiss on her forehead, then he dashed back into the launch bay pulling the door shut behind him. He jammed a wrench through the door mechanism, just a precaution in case anyone else turned up to try and stop him. He ran for the shuttlepod as Fenner started up the engines. He climbed on board wondering whether this was the last time he'd be seeing Enterprise. If he did come back it would be to at least a court-martial, probably followed by his dismissal from Starfleet, stealing a shuttlepod was a pretty serious offence. Then there was disobeying a direct order, the unauthorised modifications that he'd made to the shuttlepod, shooting the First Officer and sabotaging the sensors, weapons and security alerts so that they could get away. He'd made sure that nothing he'd done was permanent but he doubted any court-martial would take that into account.
He took one last look around, realising that this was the point of no return and sealed the door of the shuttlepod.
Lieutenant Reed made his way back to the bridge, he hadn't been able to fix the problem from the Armoury so he had decided to return to the bridge to see if anything had developed there. Hoshi and Travis had also made it to the bridge and he gave them both a nod as he entered. The Captain was still seated at the Engineering station, he guessed that they hadn't managed to find Trip yet or else he was down in Engineering.
"Did you see T'Pol on your way to the bridge?" asked Archer.
"No, sorry sir," said Reed.
"Communication is repaired and Hess tells me that the diagnostic and alarm systems are nearly there. Any luck with the phase cannons?" said Archer.
"No, sir, I was hoping that the problem might be here," said Reed. It was then that his panel lit up with warning lights. "It seems the warning system is back online." He checked the warnings and diagnostics, it showed what the problem was with the phase cannons but it also showed some other alarming things. "Someone is powering up a shuttle and launching."
"What?" said Archer, alarmed. "Who?"
"I don't know, sir," said Reed. "Life signs are human."
"Put it on screen. Hoshi, hail them," said Archer. They watched as the shuttle flew away from Enterprise.
"They're not answering, sir," said Hoshi.
"Can we disable them with the phase cannons?" asked Archer.
"Sorry sir, they're still offline," said Reed.
"How convenient," said Archer. "I'm beginning to think that someone planned all this."
"Sir, I'm detecting some unusual energy signatures from the shuttle," said Reed.
"What sort of energy signatures?" asked Archer.
"It looks like the profile of a warp engine, but that's impossible, shuttles aren't equipped with warp engines..." said Reed and even as he was saying it, the shuttle disappeared in a flash of light. "It went to warp, sir," said Reed quietly.