Trip raced to the transporter. He couldn't remember ever having run so fast, but T'Pol's instructions had been implicit. He was to lock on to the captain and Kamea's coordinates and beam them aboard Enterprise as soon as possible. There were several crewmen stationed by the manual release to the docking clamps, and Travis had already prepared to go to warp. Hopefully, they would be able to make the jump to warp before the Ferengi realized what had happened, and by the time they were able to do anything about it, Enterprise would be light-years away. And if, on the off chance, the Ferengi managed to mobilize and chase after them, Malcolm had the weapons charged and ready and the torpedo tubes loaded.
It was a good plan – naturally, since it was T'Pol's – provided that everything went according to the plan. But there were so many things that could go wrong. What if the Ferengi ship was still docked with Enterprise when they went to warp? Something like that had never happened before, but it wouldn't be good. What if he couldn't lock on to Kamea's coordinates to beam her aboard? Her biological signature was so unique that he might not be able to pinpoint her location on the Ferengi ship.
He tried not to focus on everything that could go wrong as he readied the transporter and waited for the signal. The rest of the plan depended on getting the captain and Kamea off that ship. And if he couldn't do that…
He waited for T'Pol's signal with bated breath.
"Commander Tucker." T'Pol's voice echoed in the transporter room, and Trip released the breath he'd been holding. "Begin now."
The transporter hummed to life under his hands as he worked the controls and tried to lock on to the captain and Kamea's coordinates. His fingers moved swiftly across the panel, but what should have taken seconds was taking far too long. Something was wrong. He got a lock on Captain Archer with no problems, but he was unable to locate Kamea.
He lunged for the companel. "Tucker to the bridge."
"Commander," said T'Pol's voice, and he could sense that she was concerned, "what's your status?"
Trip scrubbed a hand across his face and rolled his eyes, if only because T'Pol couldn't see him. It certainly wasn't her fault that the transporter wasn't calibrated for hybrids, but he needed to blame someone and it was just habitual to blame T'Pol. "Got a bit of a problem down here. I don't suppose anyone came up with a plan B?"
The concern morphed into agitation so quickly that Trip almost felt it, but he couldn't tell if it was T'Pol's agitation that he was experiencing or his own. "What is the problem, Mister Tucker?"
"Can't get a lock on Kamea," Trip said. He'd been meaning to do upgrades on the transporter for weeks now, but their experiments with the engines had pushed everything else from his mind. "What do you want me to do?"
It took so long for T'Pol to answer that Trip feared she couldn't think of anything, but after a longer silence than Trip would have liked, T'Pol said, "Very well, Commander. Report to the bridge. We will have to devise an alternate plan."
Kamea felt like her head was going to explode. There was a sharp shooting pain that she suspected had something to do with the large chunk of machinery that had struck her in the back of the head. She gritted her teeth and slowly raised a hand to rub the back of her skull. Except that she was still tied up. Damn Ferengi. She made a mental note to kick some Ferengi ass when she didn't feel like she was going to vomit if she stood up.
She opened her eyes and surveyed the scene. Sometime while she was unconscious, she and Captain Archer had been moved into some sort of makeshift holding cell. There was only one Ferengi in her line of sight, guarding the open door of the cabin in which she and the captain had been imprisoned, but as she was physically restrained, her line of sight was somewhat limited. She twisted in her spot on the floor and saw that Captain Archer was bound not far from her.
"Psst," she said. He didn't hear her. She inched her way along the floor, caterpillar style, until she was close enough to kick at him. "Captain."
The word came out muffled, and Kamea belatedly remembered that those damn Ferengi had gagged her, to keep her from spitting on them again. She growled in frustration and worked on the ropes around her wrists. They broke easily, and she removed the gag.
"Captain," she said, and he looked over at her. She cast a quick glance at their Ferengi guard to make certain he hadn't heard her before she turned back to Archer. "Please tell me you have a plan."
He shook his head, and she was momentarily dumbfounded. She had read all of Enterprise's old logs, and the captain always had a plan. He was Captain Jonathan Archer, son of Henry Archer, for crying out loud. The logs painted him as some kind of superman. Now, granted, he had written most of them, but she got the feeling he wouldn't do all that much embellishing in his official logs. That was something left to personal logs – not reports to Starfleet. But even as a kid, he had been like that. She'd only met him once, so long ago that he most likely didn't even remember, but the kid told tall tales like she'd never heard – big fish stories that would have done her maternal grandfather proud.
She sighed. "Guess we'll have to think up one, then." She untied the ropes around her ankles, and then she set about freeing Archer. "Um…got any ideas?"
He just looked at her, as though he wanted to smack her – which was probably true, he wasn't exactly president of her fan club – then shrugged. "We can't fight them; there's too many. And we don't have anything to bargain with."
Kamea pursed her lips. The captain had a point – unfortunately. With no chance of fighting or negotiating their way out of this situation, there was only one thing left to do. She glanced at Archer. "I say we run for it."
He raised an eyebrow, and she had a feeling that little suggestion confirmed all his worst fears about her. "Run for it? That's your plan?"
She glared at him, feeling suddenly defensive. "Well, it's no dumber than any of the other plans proposed today." She pointed at the door. "You go. I'll follow. We'll take out the guard – that'll be easy, there's only one – and then we'll sneak through the ship."
Archer crossed his arms, looking very much like the petulant child she had met all those years ago. "This isn't going to work."
Kamea clenched her teeth, suddenly wishing her parents had been more open to violence as a problem-solver. "We don't have time to argue the finer points of retreat, Captain. You can stay here, if you want, but I'm making a break for it."
She got into a crouch and propelled herself backwards with a series of back handsprings until she reached the door. By the time she was back on her feet, the Ferengi guard had grabbed his flaming whip and was brandishing it at her. Kamea leapt up and kicked the whip out of his hand. The Ferengi took a deep breath, apparently preparing to let loose with an ear-splitting shriek, but Kamea rendered him unconscious with a Vulcan nerve pinch. When he was on the floor, she looked at Archer, who had gotten to his feet and was now crossing the room.
"Some help you were," she said.
Archer smirked. "You seemed to have everything under control."
Kamea used her head to gesture at the door. "Come on. Let's get out of here. The smell is really starting to get to me."
They worked their way through the ship, encountering no opposition. The Ferengi must not have considered the two of them to be a threat, with Archer tied up and Kamea unconscious. She grinned – mistake number one. Never underestimate Kamea's ability to regain consciousness. The last time she dealt with Ferengi, they had only tried trying her up, because she tried to stop them from stealing the schematics for –
Kamea broke off mid-thought, coming to a horrible realization. These were the same Ferengi, or at least some of them were, that had "battled" with her all those years ago. She'd been on the depository, working on recalibrating the transporter on a Klingon Bird of Prey – they wanted to be able to use the transporter at warp and she'd practically had to invent a new branch of physics to do it – when she accidentally walked in on a group of Ferengi purging the databanks of a Xyrillian star cruiser. They'd tied her up, but she broke out quite easily and went after them. She didn't actually manage to stop them – there were too many and she wasn't yet skilled with her abilities, but they caused enough of a ruckus that the depository's security team had showed up. The Ferengi vowed eternal vengeance but she chased them off using a spare piece of plasma tubing. It was only afterwards she discovered that the Xyrillians were working on a way to project a dampening field onto a particular ship. Funny, how she'd tucked that piece of information in a back corner of her brain, with the state flower of Wisconsin and the Fibonacci sequence.
She narrowed her eyes. Having never learned the names of those Ferengi – they weren't exactly forthcoming while they were tying her to a ventilation grate – she couldn't be certain if they were the same ones. All Ferengi looked the same to her. But it was too big of a coincidence to ignore.
She turned on her heel and began to stalk back through the ship, headed for the bridge. Archer lunged for her and grabbed her by the wrist, but she kept walking, throwing him off balance and onto the ground and dragging him behind her down the corridor.
"Kamea, stop!" Archer said. He braced his feet against the wall for leverage.
It felt like her arm was being wrenched out of the socket, but it served its purpose. She stopped and whipped around. "No. Now this is personal."
Archer kept a firm grip on her wrist, but he had to know she could dislocate his shoulder if need be. "You mean being attacked and tied up wasn't enough?"
She glowered at him. She really didn't like him. She never had. Even as a kid, he'd been a condescending prick, treating her like vermin because she had pointed ears. "You try spending six days in a Robonian holding cell because you walked in on a bunch of Ferengi robbing Xyrillians and you tell me that's not personal."
He looked, if at all possible, more confused. "What the hell does that mean?"
She was not in the mood for explanations at the moment. She yanked her arm out of Archer's grip with very little effort. "You can come with me or you can leave, but I'm not letting them get away with this any longer."
Archer grabbed for her again and missed. "You can't take them all by yourself. You even said that."
No. The thought was so forceful that it felt like someone else thinking it, but the humiliation she had suffered because of these thieves burned in the pit of her stomach. She had been in worse situations than this and gotten out of them, and Ferengi were notoriously poor and cowardly fighters. In fact, even using the word "fighters" to describe them was inaccurate, as most Ferengi didn't even let conflicts escalated to that point. They either bribed their way out of them or ran. This would bother her for the rest of her ridiculously prolonged life if she didn't at least attempt to do something to salvage her dignity.
"I don't care," she said. "These kanapapikis are not going to get the best of me again."
She took off down the hallway.
Malcolm tried not to panic, but it was difficult. He felt largely responsible for the current situation. He was head of security for Enterprise, and he had allowed these Ferengi to sneak up on them, render them helpless, dock, board the ship, and capture two of its crewmembers. When this entire ordeal was over, he was going to request a complete sensory overhaul – upgrade everything, so that this never happened again.
But for the moment, he was in his element, planning a rescue operation. T'Pol's plan, while plausible, was contingent on too many outside factors to be successful. And as he explained to the assembled bridge crew, their best chance for rescue would be a direct assault.
"You want to storm the castle?" Trip asked, sounding incredulous. He was no doubt thinking of Captain and Kamea's failed attempt.
"We outnumber them eleven to one," Malcolm said. "It seems to be our most viable option. If we arm ourselves – our phase pistols will work now – we can take their ship with minimal force."
T'Pol was nodding thoughtfully, obviously considering Malcolm's proposal. She looked up at him, her brown eyes shining. "It is a logical plan."
Trip shook his head. "What if those damn Ferengi try and use the captain and Kamea as shields?"
Malcolm bit the inside of his cheek. He hadn't considered that, and he should have. He took a deep breath and exhaled it through pursed lips. "That's a risk we're going to have to take."
"Why don't we just transport the captain and leave Kamea on the Ferengi ship?" Travis asked. He was rubbing the back of his neck but stopped when everyone turned to stare at him. "I'm not saying leave her there permanently. It's just that the captain is a better bargaining chip. He's more important to Enterprise than she is, and without him, the Ferengi will have lost a lot of their leverage."
Malcolm shook his head firmly. "No. No one gets left behind."
"Lieutenant," T'Pol said, "Mister Mayweather has a point. Without the captain, the Ferengi will not have as strong a position."
Malcolm balked at the mere thought of leaving Kamea with those things. How could the others, after having seen the way they treated her, even consider the possibility? He didn't like to leave anyone behind. To him, a mission wasn't successful unless everyone came back. He cleared his throat and glanced at Travis. "Let's call that plan B."
Archer debated the matter for only a few seconds before jogging after Kamea. He couldn't in good conscience let Kamea risk her life to free his ship without doing something to help, no matter how personal she claimed it was. And one of these days he was going to force her to talk about her past, just in case she had any more old friends lurking around the galaxy eager for a reunion.
He crept cautiously through the corridors, keeping an eye out for Ferengi, but he didn't run into anyone. Either no one had realized that they had escaped, or Kamea had already dispatched them. He was trying to decide which scenario was more likely when he caught sight of Kamea down the corridor, dragging a large sack full of…something…behind her.
He ran up to her and asked, as quietly as he could, "What the hell are you doing?"
She looked at him, and he could tell that she was trying not to smile. "So, Captain, you decided to join me."
He ignored her. "What are you doing?"
She gave him a look as though the answer should have been obvious. "Taking their cargo. I'm going to flush it out an airlock."
Their cargo? What the hell? The way she'd stormed off, he'd half expected her to hijack the ship, or kill everyone on board. And if she was going to be flushing anything out of an airlock, it should be those damn Ferengi. Archer was getting really sick and tired of getting his ass kicked on a regular basis.
"What did you think I was doing?" she asked.
Archer shook his head. This girl was going to be the death of him; he could tell. "You said you weren't going to let them get away with this. What did you expect me to think?"
She lifted one shoulder in a barely perceptible shrug. "If you want to get a Ferengi, you hit him where it hurts the most: the profit margin." She heaved the sack over her shoulder. "Grab a bag and follow me."
Kamea stumbled down the corridor and disappeared around a corner, presumably headed for the nearest airlock. Archer stared after her for a few moments, then grabbed the nearest sack and went after her. He hoped she knew what she was doing and where she was going, because he had absolutely no idea – and he had a very bad feeling about this.
He hadn't yet reached the corner when Kamea suddenly reappeared, running at top speed. "Don't just stand there!" she said. "Run!"
She didn't wait for him to respond, just took off in the direction in which they had just come. He waited only a split second before racing after her. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that she had apparently walked directly into a Ferengi. One was chasing them, wielding his flame whip. Archer picked up the pace, though he staggered under the weight of the sack of loot he was carrying. When a Ferengi appeared in the hall ahead of them, probably to see what the commotion was, Kamea swung her bag above her head and smacked him in the face. He collapsed across the floor, and Archer had to jump over him. The Ferengi that had been chasing them cracked his whip, which circled around Archer's bicep. He took a page out of Kamea's book and used the bag as a weapon. The Ferengi dropped like a ton of bricks, and the whip untangled as Archer ran.
The two of them made it to the door, but it was blocked by two Ferengi. Archer and Kamea both hurled their bags, slamming the Ferengi into the door. Archer hit the manual release, and the door slid open. He and Kamea leapt over the unconscious Ferengi and slid along the floor into the vestibule of Enterprise's docking port.
Archer almost dropped to his knees and kissed the floor, but he didn't. He looked at Kamea. "We need to get to the bridge."
A/N: kanapapikis - sons of bitches