All was quite… there was hardly a sound… only the feint murmur of power conduits, most likely supplying power to the forcefields that prevented Trip, Malcolm and T'Pol from leaving their cells. It had now been 3 hours they had spent in those cells. 3 hours of almost complete silence… not even the lift at the end of the corridor had been activated again since they had arrived. It almost looked as if they had been abandoned down there to die… die of starvation… and Trip was beginning to get hungry.

He hadn't had any breakfast that morning as he had been called to take a look at the engines. Once again, for about the 5th day in a row the warp field generators kept going offline once the ship reached a speed of warp 2.6… so the ship had been kept travelling at warp 2.5, only going a bit faster when Trip believed the repairs were complete and the warp field generators were working again… however after a few hours, they went back offline again.

'What if they had actually gone back to the pod to help Hoshi.' Malcolm kept thinking. It was about the only thing that was stopping him from crying… That, and the fact that Commander Tucker may try and hurt himself trying to actually walk through the forcefield to get to his friend to comfort him… and Malcolm didn't want anyone else to get hurt. He just wanted to know where Hoshi was.

A groaning sound from the other side of the corridor alerted Malcolm. He looked around and finally laid eyes on T'Pol she was beginning wake up.

"T'Pol?" He called, as he moved into a more comfortable position… having stayed seating with his back up against the wall for 3 hours, his bottom was getting numb and he needed to move. Trip noticed what was going on and also changed position… both his legs and bottom were now numb and very soon the pins and needles effect would kick in and he would be in immense pain just trying to sit comfortably.

"What happened?" She queried as she moved around to face Malcolm. She looked around her taking not of everything. She listened to the hum of the power conduits. "We are in a cell." She stated clearly. 'Nothing can get passed you T'Pol' Malcolm thought. A very similar thought was going through Trip's mind… 'T'Pol, the great Vulcan detective… do they have detectives on Vulcan?' he asked himself.

"Are you all right T'Pol?" Trip called… even though she could not see him, T'Pol turned her head in the direction she knew Trip was sitting in.

"I believe so." She replied. She lookedalong the corridor, noting the numerous cells, each one identical. "Where are we?"

"Like you said a second ago we're in cells." Trip said. "The people who live on this planet brought us here… how else do you think we got here!" Trip shouted. Malcolm could tell that the situation about Hoshi was getting to the Commander.

"Where is Ensign Sato?"

Trip and Malcolm looked at each other, they really didn't want to answer that question, but because T'Pol was a higher rank that Trip, they had to "She's not here. She was seriously injured back in the pod. They left her there T'Pol." Malcolm finally said… he was definitely about to cry, nothing was going to stop him. T'Pol was taken aback by the lieutenant's words.

The three prisoners then just sat in their cells in silence. Both T'Pol and Trip didn't say a word for fear of upsetting Malcolm.

&&&&&

An hour after Archer had told his three security officers to spread out to find any trace of his missing staff, Ensign Whyte returned... alone.

"What have you got to report?" Archer asked as Whyte came walking through the long grass.

"We've discovered a settlement, about 3 miles away sir. Cooper and Stevenson are observing the town. Looks like the people who live here are up to date with technology. What they have is pretty similar to what we had on earth about 100 years ago."

Archer was taking in every bit of detail… a civilisation… that must be where his four officers were. Archer looked at Phlox, who was still positioned inside the pod. Knowing that two of his officers were injured he had to do something, and soon. Archer turned back to face Whyte.

"Show us."

"Captain… aren't you forgetting…" Phlox began, however Archer gave him a sharp look and immediately interrupted him.

"I'm forgetting nothing. But I have two of my officers injured. I need to know where they are so we can help them… and if that means showing ourselves to a pre-warp planet, then I'm willing to take that chance… the life of my officers are more important than technology."

Phlox slowly nodded. The captain's intentions were good, but maybe he was letting his personal feelings for each of them get in the way of duty and orders.

A thought then struck Archer's mind... 'Why couldn't we detect it from the ship?' he asked himself, although not long after the question came to him, he got a reply from himself. 'Maybe a dampening field.' he thought slowly.