Archer couldn't believe his ears. As captain of the Enterprise, he was unaccustomed to having his orders questioned in such a manner. His crew may not have always agreed with his decisions, but at least they respected them – and followed them. He was the captain, after all. "I beg your pardon?"

Trip, T'Pol, and Malcolm all looked away, obviously recognizing the tone in his voice. Kamea, however, was new to the ship and wasn't yet used to his different vocal inflections. It would take her some time to realize the times – such as now – when he meant business. She crossed her arms and said, "I said, 'That's the dumbest – '"

He cut her off with a wave of his hand, not at all pleased with her attitude. She was a guest onboard. Did she really think she had the authority to speak to him in that way? "Do you have another idea?" he asked. Oh, please, he thought. Let the might Kamea bail us out of this jam. After all, she knows everything.

Kamea narrowed her eyes, and for a brief moment he wondered if she knew what he was thinking, then she shook her head. "No. But anything we come up with has to better than that. I mean, your plan doesn't even make sense."

"That's what I said," said Trip, obviously glad that Kamea was on his side. When was she not on his side? Ever since Kamea had arrived on Enterprise, she and his chief engineer had been practically attached at the hip. If he weren't positive that Trip was in love with T'Pol, he would have suspected a romantic relationship between the two of them.

Archer silenced Trip with a look, and his friend gave him a sheepish shrug in return. Archer then leveled a glare at Kamea. "It's obvious that this isn't going to be resolved by diplomatic means." Here he cast a glance at T'Pol, who merely cocked an eyebrow. "I think it's best if I end this now." He grabbed onto the railings on either side of the staircase and prepared to jump onto the landing, but Kamea's voice stopped him.

"It won't do any good." He turned to face her, just above him on the landing. She raised a delicate eyebrow in response to his questioning stare. "They don't care about any of us – hard as that may be to believe." She leaned against the railing and nodded at the ceiling, as though gesturing to the invisible Ferengi ship. "They want Enterprise."

"Over my dead body," Trip said emphatically. T'Pol laid her hand on his arm again, and he calmed down instantly. Archer furrowed his brow in confusion. Just what in the hell was going on with those two lately?

Kamea winked at Trip. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that." She returned her attention to Archer. "But the Ferengi do intend to sell Enterprise. There are plenty of unsavory characters in this galaxy who would give their right arms at the prospect of coming into possession of a warp-5 vessel."

"What about the crew?" T'Pol asked, and Archer couldn't help but notice that her hand was still on Trip's arm. In fact, instead of simply resting her hand on his shoulder, she was gripping his forearm tightly. "What do they intend to do with us?"

Kamea glanced at Malcolm and cocked her head to the side. Malcolm sighed and stepped forward to the railing, standing beside Kamea. "As far as we can tell, nothing," he said. "They're only interested in the ship."

Kamea pursed her lips and stepped onto the bottom railing, gripping the top bar in order to keep herself upright. "Depending on who their buyer is, they could plan on selling us as well. I mean, if their buyer is, say, Orion, we could just be the icing on the cake."

"Orion?" Archer asked, confused. He bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if they had ever come across that species before. A glance at Trip and Malcolm revealed that they, too, had no idea what Kamea was talking about. So he turned to his science officer, with her extensive knowledge of the Vulcan database, for information.

T'Pol nodded that she understood where Kamea was going and folded her arms across her chest, mercifully removing her hand from Trip. "Slave traders," she said. "Low warp capabilities."

Kamea smiled, but it was an odd smile – kind of rueful, and unlike anything Archer had ever seen on a Vulcan. Not that that was saying much. "Just a notch above the Ferengi in terms of respectability, though the Ferengi usually don't deal in people." She grimaced, bending forward over the railing, looking very much like a five-year-old who was unable to sit still. "I'm guessing they saw this as an opportunity. Get the ship as the main course, and the crew is dessert."

Archer rolled his eyes. He didn't like being in this kind of situation, where they had no idea what their next move was going to be. And unfortunately, since taking command of Enterprise a little more than three years ago, they had been in this situation more times than not. "This is all well and good, but it doesn't get us anywhere."

Kamea ignored Archer and leaned all the way forward, balancing on her stomach on the top bar, until her face was only inches from Trip's. "Commander," she said, for once not using his nickname, as Archer knew she was apt to do, "what do we know about this dampening field?"

Trip scrubbed a hand over his face and gave a half-hearted shrug. "It has to have a base somewhere. Trouble is, there aren't any planets nearby where it could be located. Not that we could do anything about it if we found its base anyway."

"Well, the Ferengi got here somehow," said Kamea. "So their ship obviously wasn't affected."

"But that doesn't make sense," Malcolm said. He grabbed the back of Kamea's shirt and pulled on it until she was upright. "Their ship should have been affected in the same way that Enterprise was."

Trip snapped his fingers suddenly. "Unless their ship is the base."

Kamea brightened immediately. "Of course! A projected dampening field. Most species are still in the developmental phase, but the Ferengi are more than capable of acquiring a functioning transmitter."

Malcolm was nodding, picking up the trail. "Yes. They probably lurk about a practically empty region of space, waiting for approaching ships to wander through. And when they find one that looks promising, they lure it into the field, wait for it to lose power, board it, and hijack it. Then they must contact their ship and – "

"How?" T'Pol asked. "Nothing on Enterprise can function within the confines of the dampening field, which means that they would not be able to communicate with their ship."

"There's got to be something we're missing," said Trip. He tugged on his ear. "Are there any other ways to get in touch with their ship besides communicators?"

Kamea shrugged. "Did you ever see Close Encounters of the Third Kind? They communicated with an alien vessel with musical tones. And in Independence Day, they used a series of lights attached to a helicopter – "

"You've watched too many science fiction movies," said Malcolm, with a hint of amusement in his voice.

" – but everything I can think of involves some sort of electricity, which of course we don't have," Kamea said, as though Malcolm hadn't even spoken. "So how exactly were they planning on getting back to their ship?"

Everyone was silent for a moment, pondering the answer to that question. After a few minutes, Trip raised his eyebrows and said, "The same way they got on?"

Archer stared at his chief engineer, thinking. How had the Ferengi gotten on board? They had to have gotten on somehow. Perhaps they had beamed aboard and were simply given a deadline, by which they had to hijack the ship and after which the dampening field would be shut down. But they had no way of knowing that for certain. Archer glanced around at the others, but no one seemed to know any more than he did.

It was Kamea who finally spoke up, not surprisingly. After all, she knew everything. "Do the launch bay doors have a manual release on the outside?"

As one, they all turned to look at the launch bay doors.

Trip cleared his throat. "You think that's how they got in?"

Kamea lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug and crouched down, resting her chin on the bottom bar. "Are there any other ways onto the ship? Emergency hatches, docking ports, that sort of thing?"

Trip turned to T'Pol. "Would the EV suits work in a dampening field?"

T'Pol cocked her head to the side, as though considering the question. "If Kamea's speculation that the dampening field is only encompassing Enterprise is to be believed, then once outside of the ship, there shouldn't be any problems." She paused, raising an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting one of us go outside to check?"

Archer clambered up the steps before Trip could respond. "I'll go."

"Captain," Malcolm said, brushing past Kamea and grabbing Archer by the wrist, "I would recommend that we send – "

"Malcolm," Archer said, infusing as much warning into his tone as he could without sounding pissed, "I'm going." He turned to Kamea. "Just tell me how to recognize the Ferengi ship."

Kamea made a noise in the back of her throat. "Easy. It'll be the only other ship in the area."

He glared at her but didn't put much anger behind it. It had been a stupid question, really. But he was the captain, and damned if he was going to admit he'd asked a stupid question.

Malcolm and Trip helped him located an climb into one of the EV suits, while T'Pol and Kamea conversed quietly off to the side, no doubt complaining about the illogical actions of humans. Even though Kamea was half-human, she complained about humans a lot. Of course, she complained about Vulcans, too. Archer had been learning to tune her out.

When he schlepped over to the staircase and shambled down the steps, T'Pol approached him.

"Captain," she said, "you must hurry. According to my calculations, the alternative energy source on which we are powering our life support systems will only be operational for approximately another 1.96 hours."

"Actually," Trip said, appearing on the landing above Archer and leaning on the handrails, bracing his hands on either side of the staircase, "it's probably closer to one-and-a-half."

Archer rolled his eyes and looked at his science officer. Why did she bother to use the word "approximate" when her data was always so precise? Was being a know-it-all a Vulcan trait? "That isn't very reassuring."

T'Pol arched an eyebrow. "It wasn't meant to be."

While Trip hooked Archer up to the safety line, Kamea and Malcolm worked on shunting everyone out of the launch bay, because as soon as those doors opened, anything not bolted to the deck or bulkhead would be sucked out of the ship in nature's attempt to equalize pressure in the bay. Once everyone was safely out of the bay, including Kamea and T'Pol, Malcolm wandered over.

"Are you certain you want to do this, Captain?" he asked. "Wouldn't it be better if Commander Tucker or I – "

Archer silenced him with a look. "I don't like feeling helpless, Malcolm. I've got to feel like I'm doing something for this ship."

Malcolm sighed, but nodded – obviously not in the mood to get into an argument with his captain – and he and Trip retreated to the landing to open the launch bay doors. They strapped themselves to the railing with the same kind of safety wire that Archer was using. Archer gave the signal that he was ready and Trip opened the doors.

He was sucked into space immediately and, judging from the fact that no one followed, could only hope that Malcolm and Trip were still tied to the railing back in the launch bay. And thankfully, Kamea's assumption about the dampening field was apparently correct, because as soon as he was out of the ship, the systems in the EV suit began to work, including his oxygen. He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and started to "swim" upwards – in an effort to see if he could find the Ferengi ship.

There it was, latched firmly to the ship's outer hull, apparently docked at one of the ship's three docking ports. Archer wondered how they had managed to dock without anyone on Enterprise knowing. Perhaps they had docked during the power outage, when none of the sensors were working – but Trip and T'Pol had gotten the sensor back online momentarily, and nothing about a docking sequence had registered. How had they gotten onto his ship?

Archer stared at the Ferengi vessel, hoping that if he stared at it long enough, it would answer all of his questions. But the longer he floated there, the more questions popped into his head. So he did a somersault and "swam" back towards the open launch bay doors. Once he was close, he tugged on his line, which was Trip and Malcolm's cue to start hauling him back aboard.

When there was solid ground under his feet and the doors had been shut, he took off the helmet and glanced up at his chief engineer and armory officer. "Get everyone back in here," he said. "We've got some planning to do."

The rest of the crew was back in the launch bay in record time, attempting to stay away from the Ferengi, according to T'Pol. Archer called for a meeting with his senior staff – and Kamea, who seemed to know the most about the Ferengi. They gathered in a corner of the launch bay where they weren't likely to be overheard. Archer didn't want there to be a panic.

"They're docked at docking port A," Archer said.

Trip furrowed his brow in obvious confusion. "But how did they dock without us knowing?"

"Could they have a cloak?" Malcolm asked, looking at Kamea. She shrugged in response. "How could you not know?"

She shook her head and shrugged again. "They could have a lot of things. They steal things. They're thieves – that's what they do."

"Well, they're not going to steal my ship," Archer said, his voice firm. "We have to get them off Enterprise somehow."

Kamea bit her bottom lip and glanced at him. "How did you get rid of them last time?"

"We played them off each other," Archer said. "Fed into their greed. I told them that we had a lot of gold in our vault, and they eventually started fighting among themselves, each of them trying to get the biggest share of the gold."

"Could it work again?" Hoshi asked.

Archer sighed heavily. This just wasn't his day. "I don't know. It could, but if they intend to take the entire ship, they'll search it. We might not be able to pull that one off."

There was a profound moment of silence for several minutes before Kamea grinned. "We could return the favor."

Malcolm gawked at her. "What, you mean take control of their ship?"

She nodded. "Pono. Captain says they're at docking port A. I say we troop up there, scope out their ship, see if we can't find the source of the dampening field, and turn the tables on them."

"One problem," Trip said. "None of us have ever been inside a Ferengi ship before."

Kamea looked pointedly at him. "None of you have ever been inside one." She turned to Archer. "What did it look like?"

Archer raised his eyebrows. It was an easy enough question, considering how long he had just looked at it – it was oval-shaped, with small fins coming out the side of it – but what did that have to do with anything? "Like an egg."

She nodded. "That's a C-class personal business vessel," she said. "They're the cheapest ships you can buy, so naturally they're the most common. And it just so happens I've done maintenance on C-class ships."

Archer's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. She really did know everything. "And when have you ever done maintenance on a Ferengi ship?"

Kamea rolled her eyes. "When I was working in a depository in the Helaspont Nebula."

"The Helaspont Nebula?" T'Pol asked. "That's approximately 29.725 light-years from Denobula Triaxa."

"Yeah," Kamea said, as though T'Pol had just stated that they were on a starship. But Archer got the feeling that T'Pol was explaining for the benefit of the others, who had not been to the nebula. "I know."

"What's a depository?" Trip asked. Archer was glad that his chief engineer had asked the question, because he didn't know either, but he'd prefer to not be the one that asked.

"It's like a giant space station," said Kamea. "One of the levels is a huge bank-like business, where people who don't want their stuff to be found keep their valuables, but there are a few restaurants, some shops, and an on-call maintenance crew. I worked there for a few months about six years ago."

Archer furrowed his brow. Kamea was more than willing to share anecdotes of her life on Earth, but when it came to the years since she had left, she wasn't very open. He wondered why that was, but knew better than to push. If she was anything like the other Vulcans he'd met, she wouldn't tell him anything. But he had to ask. "Why?"

Kamea blushed maroon all the way to her hairline. "I, uh, was working off a debt. I stopped there to replenish my dilithium supply, and I may have accidentally castrated the proprietor of the depository."

All the men winced and reflexively covered their private areas, while T'Pol cocked an eyebrow and Hoshi tried very hard not to laugh. She didn't quite succeed and allowed a giggle to slip through. "How do you accidentally cut off a man's…fun parts?" Trip asked, his legs still crossed as if to protect his groin.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know that a Robonian's reproductive organs are on his head?" Kamea asked, more than a little defensive. "Besides, he deserved it. He tried to molest me in the bar."

"And for that you castrated him?" T'Pol asked, her disapproval evident in her voice.

Kamea made a noise in the back of her throat. "Believe me, it's no loss to the universe if that creep can't reproduce." She licked her lips. "But that isn't the issue here. Now, do you want to go kick those idiots off of the ship, or do you want to sit here debating the moral dilemma of castrating a slime ball?"

Archer gestured for silence, which in retrospect was probably not the smartest thing to do, since it was still very dark in the launch bay, but it seemed to get the job done. "All right. We'll head up to the docking port. T'Pol, you lead and, Kamea, you bring up the rear. The longer we sit here, the better chance we're giving those Ferengi of gaining control of Enterprise, and I refuse to surrender this ship."

There was a silence, and then Malcolm said, "Jolly good, Captain."

A/N: Thanks so much for the continued reviews!

Pono -- exactly

Many thanks to "The Complete Atlas of Star Trek" by Geoffrey Mandel and to the many online Hawaiian dictionaries.

I don't own the name "Robonia". I stole it from the episode of "Futurama" when Bender pretends to be a fem-bot so that he can win gold medals in the Olympics.

I have no idea how many docking ports there are on Enterprise. I also wasn't sure about the warp capabilities of the Orions. Was that ever mentioned? And remember, this is an alternate universe, where T'Pol was never sold at an Orion slave auction, so Enterprise has not yet encountered the Orions.

And I don't like Archer. In case you couldn't tell.

I hope to have this updated again sometime within the next few days, by next Friday (5/27/05) at the very very latest. I'm almost done with my "Without a Trace" fic, so once that's finished I won't have to bounce back and forth between the two stories.