Enterprise Fables

By Hildwyn

I Wonder What This One Does?

Rated: PG

Note: Because does not work with anything well to distinguish passage of time, or a scene change, short of creating a new chapter 'XVIIIVX' shall indicate precisely that.

It had not been a good day, Crewman Thomas reflected. First, he managed to sleep through not only his alarm, but his bunkmate's own morning preparations for duty, with the result that he only had enough time to change his clothing, run a comb through his hair, and run to his next shift. There was not even enough time to eat.

Then, when he got into the turbolift, the whole thing decided to break down on him and strand him in there for a whole hour, while they waited for the repair crew to rescue them.

When he finally did make it to his shift he was chewed out by his CO for not only being late for the shift, but because his last report was late as well. Not only that, but he was also reported to Captain Archer, and had to go meet with him later today.

At that point, he had wondered how it could possibly get any worse, but then again, that the problem isn't it? Every time you wonder that, it does get worse.

Then they ran across an old abandoned station, and Thomas was chosen to be one of the away team- something that he never would have expected to happen. Nevertheless, Archer was renowned through the fleet as not only a tough commanding officer when he needed to be, but fair, and good at motivating people to work better. Most likely, the fact that he understood that sometimes a joke, and not yelling, would suffice for putting people in line.

Now, standing on this powerless alien station, with God-knows-what-it-was shooting at the away team, Thomas wished that he never had woken up this morning.

Another bolt of phased energy lanced above his head and the crate he was hiding behind, and Thomas winced and slid further down the side of the crate.

Next to him, Ensign Michaels quickly jumped up and returned a few blasts of his own before he ducked down again and turned to Thomas with a grin.

Good God, Thomas thought, is every single armory officer in the fleet thrilled when they get to do a little shooting?

"Any luck?" Michaels asked, breaking through Thomas' thoughts.

"None," he said shaking his head, "There is too much interference; I can't get a message through to Enterprise."

"Well, I'm sure they will start wondering what is happening at one point. Besides, it isn't like we aren't holding our own," Michaels said.

Thomas just groaned and let his head fall back against the crate. Too bad he had not managed that earlier when it would have made a difference.

Thomas tugged nervously at his uniform as he entered the bridge, and headed right to the Captain's ready room.

XVIIIVX

Ensign Michaels, who was currently sitting at tactical, looked up and winked at Thomas. Count on Michaels, one of the chattiest people Thomas had ever met, next to Crewman Jenkins and perhaps Commander Tucker, and certainly the chattiest armory officer he had ever met, to already have hear of Thomas' being chewed out by Ensign Oraveczová for being late for his shift, and the whole report issue.

Thomas suppressed the urge to groan, and punched the button on the door, indicating to the captain that there was someone waiting to meet with him.

"Come!" Thomas heard the raised voice, and entered, feeling the slight breeze as the doors rushed closed behind him.

"Ah, Crewman Ryan Thomas, I trust you have been doing well?" Archer asked in a decidedly friendly way.

"Fine, sir," he said, stiffly at attention.

"Relax, crewman," Archer said.

"Yessir," Thomas said.

"So I hear that you passed in a report late, and were detained in the turbolift for a while today, and received quite the reprimand from Saskia today."

"Yessir," Thomas said, praying that this would soon be over.

"I've spoken to her already, so she won't be doing any more yelling, but she did mention that this is the second report that was late this month, and that, crewman, we can't just allow to happen. This is Enterprise, and I don't know how these things were handled on your last assignment, but we won't allow it to happen here."

Thomas only nodded. He knew the next part that was coming. He was going to be told that he would be transferred or court-martialed, or flogged, or . . .

At this point, the rational part of his brain was trying to tell him that he was not thinking clearly, but was not succeeding.

"Have you been on an away mission recently?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?" Thomas stared at Archer as if he had all the sudden turned blue and sprouted a pair of antennae.

"You weren't one of the ones who went to Risa, were you?"

"No, sir."

Archer just nodded and stood and went over to the viewport, and after a moment turned back to Thomas.

"So, maybe you've been a bit distracted lately?" Archer asked, and then moved on without waiting for an answer, "It's normal, you haven't had shore leave, or a chance to go out and do some real exploring. So this is what we are going to do."

Here it comes, Thomas thought.

"We are going to send you-"

To the brig.

"-On an away mission." Archer finished.

XVIIIVX

"Come on, we've been sitting here too long. We'll make a break for that door there," Michaels said.

"Are you mad? We'll never make it!" Thomas exclaimed.

"Of course we will! I'll lay down some covering fire for us, and we'll go through the door. What could be easier?"

Many things, Thomas thought, but instead he nodded.

"Alright, wait . . . wait . . . now!" Michaels jumped up and started shooting wildly in the opposite direction as he and Thomas took off for the door. As they neared it, Michaels aimed one shot at a panel next to the door, and it obligingly opened for them before they ran straight into it.

The doors slid shut behind them, and the firing against them ceased.

"Phew! I wasn't sure we would ever make it," Michaels said as Thomas glared at him.

"Now let's see where we are, do you have a tricorder on you?"

"I did," Thomas admitted, "until it was hit by one of the stray shots."

"That could present a problem."

"No kidding."

"Well . . . we could use that panel over there," Michaels said.

Both Michaels and Thomas walked over to it.

"Looks like some kind of com device," Thomas said examining it.

"Not my specialty."

"What do we do?"

"Hit a button."

Thomas looked at Michaels.

"No offence, sir, but are you mad? I mean, that button could do anything."

"We'll never know if we never try."

Thomas had to admit that Michaels had a point, but it was not exactly Starfleet standard procedure.

"Just pick one," Michaels said.

Taking a deep breath, Thomas hit one of the buttons, and waited what seemed an eternity for something to happen.

"Huh, guess it does nothing."

With those words, both were thrown to the side of room, and pinned by several Gs.

What the two unfortunate crewmembers did not know was that they had entered a special compartment meant to dispose of waste, or unwanted passengers. When Thomas hit the button he deactivated the magnetic seals which held the compartment to the rest of the ship, and left them floating with limited air on board, no power, and no clue as to what was happening.

The moral here: Do not, under any circumstances, press a button when you have no clue as to what it does.

I want to thank JacobedRose for the review. Here's your next chapter! Sooner than I expected to get it done, as well!