Red Rain

By Thalia Drogna

I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream,
I cannot make a single sound as you scream,
It can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch,
This place is so quiet, sensing that storm.

- Red Rain, Peter Gabriel

"Who's flying this thing?" asked Fenner as they helped Trip to the crew quarters.

"Carter," said Hathaway.

"Carter! When did he get his wings?" asked Fenner.

"He's Starfleet, has been for about five years now," said Hathaway.

"So's Trip, but we didn't let him pilot the Thak Tikh," said Fenner.

"Hey, I could have done," said Trip indignantly. "I get to take the helm of Enterprise every so often."

"Sure you do," said Fenner as they deposited Trip on a bed in the crew quarters. They were fairly sparse compared to his own quarters on Enterprise and about a quarter of the size.

"Major, Enterprise is going to come looking for me," said Trip.

"We made use of your notes from the Thak Tikh and made a few modifications to the NX-Theta before we left space-dock," said Hathaway. "Just get some rest and let me worry about Enterprise."

Trip was too tired to argue, the painkiller that Rush had given him was making him sleepy. He yawned and closed his eyes.

"Shouldn't we be trying to keep him awake?" asked Fenner.

"No he can sleep, but I'll be by every hour to make sure you're okay," said Rush, looking down at Trip.

"Okay," mumbled Trip, already nearly asleep.

The three MACOs left the room so that Trip could get some peace.

"Report, Lieutenant," said Hathaway. "I wasn't expecting to pick you two up in a shuttlepod."

"We didn't exactly have many other options. Captain Archer wouldn't let Trip leave so we had to steal the shuttlepod," said Fenner.

"Which means that he can't go back," said Rush.

"Or if he does it will be to a court-martial," said Hathaway. "Damn, this wasn't how it was supposed to be."

"Major, you issued Red Rain Alpha, everything goes out the window when that happens," said Fenner. "Trip did what he had to."

"We all knew the consequences if this ever happened," said Rush. "At the moment I'm just happy to be alive. There's only seven of us left, Major."

"Assuming that the Colonel and Kanatova make it to the rendezvous," said Hathaway. "I suppose we'll find out when we get there."

"Any idea what the Colonel's got set up for us?" asked Fenner.

"No idea. You know the Colonel," said Hathaway, "he doesn't tell his plans to anyone."

"What about Enterprise?" asked Fenner. "Trip was right, they will be looking for him."

"Then we'd better make sure that they don't find him," said Hathaway, "the last thing we need is someone leading the enemy right to us."

"T'Pol, what have you got?" asked Archer. T'Pol sat at the science station examining the readouts.

"I am picking up a warp signature," said T'Pol. "It is very unusual."

"It's a converted shuttlepod, it's not exactly going to be conventional," said Reed.

"Indeed," said T'Pol. "I have their course, I am transferring it to the helm."

"Mr Mayweather, follow T'Pol's course, warp four," said Archer.

"Yes, sir," said Mayweather.

They followed Trip's trail to a brown dwarf with a large, rocky accretion disk, where the trail went cold. The warp signature trace just stopped outside the accretion disk and never picked up again. T'Pol scanned further afield but still couldn't pick up the unusual warp signature of the converted shuttlepod.

Reed, however, did find something.

"Sir, I'm picking up the debris from three fighters, they match the debris of the fighters that were chasing Fenner at Veras," said Reed.

"Any trace of debris from the shuttlepod?" asked Archer, suddenly concerned. He may not be very pleased with Trip but that didn't stop him worrying.

"No sir," said Reed. "Wherever they are, they escaped from the fighters. I'm picking up the energy signatures of another ship's phase canons."

"So someone else was here?" asked Archer.

"Yes, and it looks like it was another Starfleet ship," said Reed.

"Another Starfleet ship?" asked Archer. "T'Pol, are there any ships scheduled to be in this area?"

T'Pol tapped a couple of buttons on her console, before raising her head to reply. "No, sir. The nearest ship is the Columbia, approximately thirteen light years from our position."

"So who are they, and more to the point, where are they? Can we track them, T'Pol?" asked Archer.

"I am not detecting a warp trail," said T'Pol.

"How is it possible that a ship was here and they didn't leave a warp trail?" said Archer.

"There are ways to hide a warp signature. They have a very competent engineer with them," said T'Pol.

"I'm aware of that," said Archer. If Trip didn't want to be found then he knew all the tricks in the book to keep him and any ship he was on hidden, given the right resources. "Okay, let's see if there are any Starfleet vessels missing or where they shouldn't be. T'Pol, keep scanning and see if you can pick up their trail."

"Yes, sir," said T'Pol.

Trip awoke to someone calling his name. He jerked himself awake from the bad dream he'd been having. He'd been on Karavia and they'd been under fire. He tried to remember what they'd been doing on Karavia but no more information was forthcoming from his memory. He had no idea why his brain had decided to pull that episode out of the many nightmares that Special Projects had given him. He looked up bleary eyed as Rush ran a scanner over him. Somehow the caring image just didn't suit the tall, well-muscled, demolition expert.

"Hey buddy, it's that time again. What's your name?" he asked Trip.

"Charles Tucker III," replied Trip. He'd been through this before the previous hour and the hour before that, with a concussion he had to be woken every hour to check his awareness. Head injuries could be tricky things, but Trip was getting fed up with it now. "And yes, I know where I am, I'm on the NX-Theta."

"Actually I was going to ask you what your rank is," said Rush.

"Commander," said Trip, "assuming that Captain Archer hasn't already got hold of Starfleet and had me kicked out of the fleet. Happy now?"

"Just checking," said Rush. "You seem to be fine."

"Good, then I guess I'd better get up and do some work," said Trip.

"Hey, I didn't say that you could get up. You took a nasty knock, you should rest a bit longer," said Rush.

"Give a guy a medical scanner and he thinks he's a doctor. You're sure as hell not Kanatova, you're not pretty enough, so let's just forget about this resting thing and then I can get down to the engine room," said Trip.

"I'd forgotten what a stubborn son of a bitch you could be. Fine, you don't want to rest, I can't make you, but don't come running to me when Hathaway has your hide for ignoring medical orders," said Rush.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her, Corporal," said Trip, emphasising Rush's rank. He didn't like having to pull rank but occasionally it was necessary. "How long was I asleep for that time?"

"About an hour," said Rush, "Three hours total."

"When do we reach the rendezvous?" asked Trip, pushing himself into a sitting position and groping around on the floor for his boots. He located them and shoved them onto his feet, rapidly doing up the laces.

"About another three hours," said Rush.

"Any news on Kanatova or the Colonel?" said Trip.

"Sorry, nothing so far," replied Rush.

"Damn, I was hoping that one of them would have been in contact," said Trip.

"Yeah, I think we all were," said Rush.

"The Major said that she'd made a few modifications to the NX-Theta, any idea what she was talking about?" asked Trip.

"Well the phase canons you know about. She took the specs of the Thak Tikh's engine dampening field and had the engineers make one for the NX-Theta," said Rush.

"So our warp signature should look like background radiation," said Trip.

"Yeah, don't ask me how it works, you never taught me anything about warp signatures," said Rush. Trip had needed help with the Thak Tikh's engine so he had co-opted Rush and Carter as deputy engineers since their own specialisms were the closest to engineering of any of the MACOs.

"That's okay, Mike, I know how it works. I'm the one who took the designs off the Thak Tikh. I'd love to hear the story of how she ended up with the NX-Theta though," said Trip.

"That is a long one, she's been planning this for some time," said Rush. "I think that after all those years as the Colonel's second, some of him rubbed off on her."

"In the world we live in, that ain't a bad thing," replied Trip. He stood up and was pleased to discover that the room remained perfectly still this time.

"Must have taken you a while to put that Franken-shuttle together," said Rush.

"Yeah, well maybe some of the Colonel rubbed off on me too," said Trip "Space exploration can be pretty dangerous and I like to have my options open. Let the Major know that I'm back on duty."

"Yes sir," replied Rush and Trip exited his temporary quarters to head down to the engine room.

Just over three hours later the NX-Theta arrived at the rendezvous. The whole team were on the bridge, Fenner at the controls in the pilot's seat, Trip seated at the engineering station, Hathaway in the Captain's chair, Carter at the newly installed weapons console and Rush sat at the Communications station looking slightly puzzled by the displays in front of him.

"We're coming up on a space station, Major," said Trip, "it's not on any of the charts we have of this area. We should be in open space."

The space station looked like a spindle, with disks spaced evenly on a central axis. Intricate metal work connected the disks to strengthen the structure. Lights showed through some of the windows but it was obvious that the station was at no where near full capacity.

"I'm detecting weaponry, Major," said Carter. "That thing is armed to the teeth."

"I wondered what he had up his sleeve," said Hathaway.

"Major, I've got an incoming transmission," said Rush.

"On screen, Rush," said Hathaway.

"Yes, Ma'am," replied Rush and pressed the sequence of buttons that would display the call.

The face of Colonel Darwin appeared on the screen.

"Perfectly on time as usual, Major. I'm glad you could all make it. Welcome to Water's Edge," said Darwin.

"You're not going to believe this, Captain," said Reed as he handed Archer a padd. "There is a Starfleet vessel missing. From the museum. It's the NX-Theta."

"That ship has got to be over fifteen years old, I'm surprised it can even fly," said Archer.

"Well it was being restored by the museum, they had some idea about taking tourists up in it," said Reed. "Apparently it was fully operable."

"The ship that we're looking for had weapons as well, the NX-Theta was never equipped with phase cannons," said Archer.

"I think someone added them," said Reed. "Look at the parts list on the museum's requisition form."

Archer quickly scrolled through the files on the padd to the one he required. "How did that get past?" asked Archer, some of the items were clearly parts for a phase cannon.

"They didn't requisition everything they needed together, it was hidden in several orders and there are other uses for most of these parts. I suppose no one put two and two together," said Reed.

"Another thing to add to my list of security revisions," said Archer. "Do we have any idea who took it?"

"None officially, sir. But on a hunch I decided to check on the whereabouts of the rest of the MACOs. Hathaway, Carter and Didier were the only MACOs on Earth, with Rush and Dempsey on Mars, Kanatova on Vulcan and Darwin's whereabouts unknown. Carter, Hathaway and Rush all requested holiday or a leave of absence from their respective commanding officers in the last few days," said Reed.

"So it's a fair bet that Hathaway has the ship. What about Didier, why didn't he go with them? Is he still on Earth?" asked Archer.

"He was killed in a climbing accident five days ago," said Reed, solemnly.

"Which we know was most likely not an accident," said Archer. "So they're all heading for this rendezvous. Trip and Fenner must have met Hathaway and they're making their way together. What about Kanatova and Darwin? If we can find them then we might have a way to track down Trip."

"I found out that Kanatova left Vulcan three days ago," said Reed. "There is no record of her boarding any ship, but she was sighted at Altair Orbital two days ago. I'm still checking but so far I haven't been able to discover which ship she boarded from there."

"And Colonel Darwin?" asked Archer.

"We left him on Sigma, supposedly to catch a transport back to Earth," said Reed.

"Let me guess, he never got on a transport," said Archer.

"No, he got on a transport, just not going back to Earth," said Reed. "He was headed to Sirius Alpha. After that I couldn't pick up any sign of him, it's as if he just disappears. I'll keep looking but somehow I doubt it'll do any good. We're talking about people who were trained in keeping their movements and motivations hidden."

"We know Colonel Darwin had something planned for the eventuality that they were under attack, maybe we can find out what it was. I want more information to go on, Lieutenant. I want to know every move that Colonel Darwin has made over the past ten years," said Archer.

"Yes, sir, I'll do my best," said Reed.