"And you're sure you can't detect it anywhere else?" Archer asked as he stood over the helm controls, looking at the scans.
"I can't see the pod anywhere sir." Ensign Travis Mayweather replied, slightly shaking his head as he continued to run more scans.
Archer straightened himself and moved over to the COMM desk where a young man was sitting. He was Hoshi's stand in while she was on the away mission.
"See if you can clear up that distress call. Find out what happened." Archer ordered him.
"Yes sir." The young man immediately set to work. Archer looked around the bridge, taking note of who he currently had on the bridge. Travis, Crewman Ferris on COMM, Ensign Whyte at tactical and Crewman Gillingham on Science station. Archer then moved off the bridge and went into his ready room.
&&&&&
Trip and Malcolm were led to a town… these people definitely had good technology. As they walked along the paths people stopped and stared at both the men walking along. If there were any pairs of on lookers they began to whisper to each other. Malcolm and Trip tried to focus on what they were saying, but they didn't understand a word of it… they were indeed unable to communicate with them both… they both wished that Hoshi hadn't been injured and she was there with them.
They entered a small run-down building, located in back streets, behind some of the taller more modern looking buildings. Once inside they moved over to a wall. One of the guards pushed a section of it and a section of the wall slid back revealing a door. He pressed another button and that door slid back to reveal what appeared to be a turbolift of some sorts. With a shove from the guards behind them both Malcolm and Trip entered, a couple staying with them, one man still carrying T'Pol. The rest stayed outside the lift. One of the guards pressed a button, the door closed, and the lift started moving down. They were being taken below ground. Once the lift door had closed the guards moved away and left the building, the section of wall sliding back into place to conceal the lift.
When the lift stopped, Trip and Malcolm found themselves facing a T-Junction corridor. To the left of them the corridor moved along and came to a door… to the right, there was another door, about the same distance as the one on the left. Directly ahead of them lay a very long corridor. As they moved forward they could see that there were holding cells, but they had no doors. The men stopped the two Starfleet officers, pressed buttons to the side of the cells and a forcefield was dropped. Both Malcolm and Trip jumped a little as they watched the forcefield shimmer as it went offline. Both men were pushed into two different cells opposite each other. T'Pol was placed in another cell to the left of Trip.
As soon as they guards were gone both men slumped down to the floor. Now there definitely no hope for them to be able to get back to the shuttlepod to try and save Hoshi.
"Commander, What are we going to do?" Malcolm called from his cell. Trip looked at him.
"I don't know Malcolm." he replied grimly.
A couple of drops of blood fell next to Malcolm's boot. He placed a hand onto his forehead and realised that he was still bleeding. He looked around his cell and noticed a white box in one corner. He moved to it and opened the box. Inside he found an array of hyposprays and some bandages. He took one of the bandages out and what appeared to be some antiseptic wipes and began to clean up his wound.
"You sure that's a good thing to do Malcolm?" Trip was watching his friend messing around with the alien's medical kit.
"I need to stop the bleeding commander. I doubt they'll do anything for me." He replied as he took a long bandage and began to wrap it around his head, covering up the wound. Malcolm then noticed the uneasy look Trip had on his face. "Do you think Enterprise will be able to find the shuttle?" he finally asked as he finished tying off the bandage.
"I don't know Malcolm. But I don't think they'll be able to find Hoshi alive in there when they do."
Malcolm's heart sank as he heard how the chief engineer was talking. He had never been so pessimistic… if anyone on the ship was pessimistic it was Malcolm, definitely not Trip.
&&&&&
Archer hurriedly entered the bridge after having spent a few hours in his ready room.
"What is it Travis?" he moved over and stood behind Travis, glancing at the controls, but more at Travis waiting for a response.
"I've found the shuttlepod. Looks like it took a really heavy beating when it crashed sir." Travis replied, looking at Archer, then back at his console again.
"On screen?" Archer turned to look at Ferris as he worked. After a few seconds a picture of the landscape showed on the view screen. "Magnify." The picture went closer and they could see the damaged shuttlepod, lying in the middle of a field, surround by lots of trees. Large pieces of debris were just about visible, however at that distance it wasn't clear if they were debris, or bodies lying there. The pod no longer looked silver, but it looked blacked… fire damage. Fearing the worst he turned round and looked away from the view screen. "Bio signs?" Archer asked as he looked at Crewman Gillingham with fear in his eyes.
"None. Sir." She replied. Archer's heart sank. He turned to face Ensign Whyte.
"Prep shuttlepod 2."
"Aye sir." Whyte stood up and went over to the turbolift. Archer took one last look at the crash site and entered the turbolift with Whyte.