Let the Dead Bury the Living
By Thalia Drogna
AN: Thank you to the following people for your reviews: Plumtuckered, Ragua, Ocean, Pookha, Lowenove, jonnyG, Cha Oseye Tempest Thrain (all editorial points gratefully received), Aeryn10, Anubis, Maraschino, Gabi and Rinne. On with the show...
"Archer to Enterprise."
"This is Enterprise, it's good to hear your voice Captain," said Hoshi. Archer couldn't fail to notice the genuine relief in her tone.
"What's the situation, Hoshi, can we dock in the shuttle bay or do we need to use the transporter again," said Archer.
"You're cleared to use the shuttle bay, sir," replied Hoshi. "Davis and his men have left Enterprise."
"Did Phlox find a way of getting rid of the nanites?" asked Archer, puzzled.
"No, sir. T'Pol will explain when you're back on board," said Hoshi.
"Have Phlox waiting for us when we dock, I've got two patients for him," said Archer.
"Yes, sir," replied Hoshi.
Archer docked the small Zor Rakh easily in Enterprise's shuttle bay, he threw open its doors and helped Enam and Ghanima out before he went back for Shran. Phlox entered the ship.
"He was stung by a six foot tall spider," said Archer, indicating the Andorian. "Enam gave him the antidote but it didn't seem to work so well on Andorians."
Phlox took out his scanner. "He's lucky. There's still time to save him. Would the six foot tall spider have been a member of the Creen race by any chance?"
"Yes, that's right," said Archer.
Phlox nodded. "I'll have him back on his feet in no time." He waved a couple of crewmen in with a stretcher to take the unconscious Andorian to sick bay.
"This is your second patient, Doctor," said Archer. "Ven Dath."
"A more difficult task," said Phlox after briefly scanning Ven Dath. "I'm not sure that it's even possible to correct all of the damage that has been done."
"Do your best, Doctor," said Archer.
"Of course," said Phlox. He waved another couple of crewmen into the Zor Rakh to move Ven Dath's pod to sick bay.
"Could you give Enam and Ghanima the once over as well? I don't think they've had a great life on Harrar station," said Archer.
"I'll give them a full check up," said Phlox with a smile. Enam and Ghanima were already being escorted out of the shuttle bay towards sick bay by one of the crew. Ghanima clung to her mother's leg, looking around her with wide eyes.
Archer stepped out of the Zor Rakh and was greeted by the sight of T'Pol standing alone in the shuttle bay.
"Captain, I am gratified that you have returned safely. Was your mission successful?" asked T'Pol.
"In a way," said Archer. "I brought back Ven Dath but he isn't in good shape, although he claims he has a way of helping Trip. Speaking of which, where are Trip and Malcolm?"
"Lieutenant Reed is confined to his quarters. Commander Tucker was arrested by Lieutenant Davis and removed from Enterprise while I was attending my Dohn Zhu," said T'Pol. "Admiral Forrest has not yet returned my call."
"They told me we had until Enterprise was repaired," said Archer angrily. He went to the com. "Hoshi, get Admiral Forrest on the line now and tell him I'm not in the mood for waiting. I'll take it in my ready room."
"Yes, sir," replied Hoshi.
Archer turned back to T'Pol. "We have to get him back, T'Pol. Why is Lieutenant Reed confined to his quarters?"
"He failed to check the orders with Headquarters and prevent Commander Tucker from being taken off the ship," said T'Pol.
"That doesn't sound much like Malcolm," said Archer. "I think we should talk to him."
"Agreed, he has not been acting like himself lately. Commander Tucker mentioned it when I last spoke to him," said T'Pol. "I should also inform you of the other events that have happened in your absence." As they made their way towards the bridge, T'Pol told Archer about the plan to prevent his absence from being discovered and the problems that Lieutenant Davis had caused. She gave him a thorough report of everything that had happened while he had been away.
The doors to the bridge opened in front of Archer and he realised that he was truly home. Unfortunately it wasn't the happy homecoming that he'd expected.
Hoshi noticed Archer's arrival. "Sir, I have Admiral Forrest for you." Archer merely nodded and headed for his ready room.
Reed was pacing in his quarters. He had analysed Jessica's message again and again and he didn't think there was anything more to get out of it. There had to be something though, what he had just wasn't enough to find her yet and now they had Trip they might decide that they didn't need Jessica. His door bell sounded and suddenly he was confronted by Captain Archer.
"Captain, you're back," said Reed, surprised but also pleased.
"T'Pol told me what happened," said Archer. "I want to hear your side of the story."
"I have no side, whatever T'Pol told you is what happened," said Reed. He had already decided that he wasn't going to defend himself, his actions were indefensible.
"Lieutenant, I've known you for over three years now and never once have you failed to protect a member of this crew or done anything that wasn't completely above board. I find it very hard to believe that you just let them take Commander Tucker off this ship without there being something else going on," said Archer. "If you don't tell me what's up, Malcolm, then I can't help you."
Reed knew there was no other way out of this. Unless he told Archer what was going on Davis would always have the power of blackmail over him and, as Security Officer, that wasn't something that he could allow. He went to the shelf above his bed and picked up one of the books that he had sat there. It was Sun Tzu's Art of War, which had a certain amount of irony about it given what it contained. He flicked through the pages until he reached the middle and there tucked into the spine of the book was a picture. The only one he had of him and Jessica, out of uniform and smiling, his arm around her shoulders.
He passed the picture to Archer. "Her name is Ensign Jessica Carruthers," said Reed. "Before I joined the crew of Enterprise my previous posting involved some teaching duties. Jessica was one of my students. She was also my girlfriend for the three years before I was posted to Enterprise."
"Which is against regulations, not to mention professional ethics," said Archer.
"Exactly. I'm not proud of what I did, and I won't make excuses for my actions, but we were genuinely happy together. I don't want you to think it was some sort of sordid little affair, or that I abused my position just to get her to go out with me. If anything she was the one who started it," said Reed.
Reed remembered the day that she'd walked into his classroom like it was yesterday. She looked like she had stepped out of some Pre Raphaelite painting, her curly honey-blonde hair falling in waves over her shoulders. He hadn't really seen her as anyone special until the lesson had begun and suddenly he realised that he had a real live wire on his hands. She was smart and not afraid to make her opinions known. Reed found that he began to look forward to his class with Jessica because he knew she would test his knowledge to its limits and play devil's advocate when required. Soon he found that she would wait behind at the end of classes to ask him questions and continue their debates.
He had reminded himself that she was a junior officer and a pupil and done his best to ignore what he was feeling. It had worked for a little while. Then she'd come to see him at the end of class one day with a problem.
"Lieutenant, I've been nominated to ask you a favour by the class," said Jessica.
"A favour, Cadet?" asked Reed.
"Our class are supposed to be going out to the Warp Five complex to look at the latest NX prototype, but our tutor was just taken sick. We can't go unless we can find someone else to accompany us that has a sufficient security clearance. I was hoping that you might be able to take us," said Jessica.
"What makes you think that I have the required security clearance?" asked Reed, as he packed his data padds into his bag.
"I did my home work," said Jessica. "You may just be Lieutenant Reed to us cadets, but I know you've had input into the design of the phase cannons that they're thinking about installing on the NX class. I've seen the way people look at you when you walk past them in the corridors."
"How do people look at me?" asked Reed, surprised to hear the Jessica had noticed something that he hadn't.
"Like you're someone important," said Jessica.
"I'm not," said Reed. "If I was, I wouldn't be teaching cadets."
"But you have a security clearance good enough to take a group of cadets on a tour of the Warp Five Complex," said Jessica.
"I do," replied Reed. He sighed. "When is it?"
"Next week," said Jessica. "Tuesday."
"Very well, I'll see if I can move my duty shifts," said Reed. Jessica thanked him and left, the perfect image of a Starfleet Cadet.
He'd taken the class to the Warp Five Complex and shown them around. They'd seen the current prototype and the NX-Beta and all the other stages that the Engineers had gone through to get to where they were now and at the end of the day everyone had gone home. He'd stopped to say thank you to the Engineers who had given the tour and then gone out to catch his transport back to the base. Jessica had been standing there waiting for him. They caught the same transport back to the base and ended up chatting the whole way. The rest of their relationship happened so quickly that he didn't even notice that they had suddenly become more than friends. He had woken up with her lying beside him before the consequences of what they'd done had even entered his head. The only thing that he was certain of was that he loved her and she made him complete.
"We were careful to keep it a secret, made sure that we were never seen at the academy together, except in class. That picture is of us on one of the few weekends when we were able to get away together. What with my duty schedule and her classes, there wasn't much free time for us to spend together. When I got the posting to Enterprise we decided that no matter how hard we tried the relationship was never going to work with me light years away. Jessica was also concerned that I was putting too much at stake for her, so we ended it and agreed to keep in touch. I thought we'd managed to get away with the whole thing until Davis told me he'd found out about it," finished Reed.
"Malcolm, this puts me in a very difficult position," said Archer.
"I know and I fully expect to be discharged from Starfleet for my conduct, but there's something else. Davis tried to blackmail me into helping him by using Jessica against me, but I told him that I didn't care about my career. That was when he gave me this," said Reed and handed Archer the padd with Jessica's message on it.
Archer played it and looked at Reed when it had finished. "Davis had her kidnapped," said Archer, "to ensure your co-operation."
"Yes, except it backfired slightly," said Reed. "Jessica sent me a message. Davis and I were in the same year at the Academy. We took the same classes mostly, except there was one that I took that he didn't, because he thought it was a waste of his time. Hostage negotiation. We all learnt the hand signals to send a message in case we were ever held prisoner. I taught them to Jessica. I don't care what happens to me, you can court-martial me, throw me in the brig, whatever, but you have to let me find Jessica."
"If you'd told T'Pol about Davis's attempt to blackmail you in the first place we might have been able to keep Trip on Enterprise," said Archer.
"I know, sir, and I'm sorry. I didn't realise what he had planned until it was too late. I made an error in judgement and Trip suffered for it," said Reed.
"I just finished talking with Admiral Forrest about Lieutenant Davis. He's disappeared. Along with any evidence that he ever existed. Whoever has Trip, it isn't Starfleet Security. The Admiral passed on some rumours of a top secret group working within Starfleet, reporting directly to the government," said Archer.
"Davis said something to me about working for something that had more teeth than Starfleet Intelligence. So we don't know where they've taken Trip," said Reed, with concern. "I tried to ask Davis but he wasn't giving anything away."
"I'm afraid so," said Archer, "we've got two kidnap victims to find, and Malcolm, I'm going to need your help. You're reinstated to duty, Mr Reed, for the moment anyway."
"And later?" asked Reed.
"We'll see," said Archer. "Let's just get our people back."
Shran awoke in what he assumed was the sick bay of Enterprise. He felt terrible and his head hurt like he'd drunk too much Andorian ale. Memories of what had happened on the Zor Rakh began to filter back to him and he realised that he had failed in his mission.
"I was beginning to wonder when you'd decide to join the land of the living again," said a voice he recognised. He turned his head to see Enam sitting on the biobed beside his, her feet dangling over the side. Ghanima was asleep behind her mother, her small tail curled around Enam's waist.
"So we made it back to Enterprise," said Shran.
"No thanks to you and your tricks," replied Enam. "Are all Andorians so treacherous? You'd fit in well on Harrar station."
"I just did what I had to," said Shran. "You killed your mate."
"Yes, I did what I had to also," said Enam. "However I never betrayed my friend."
"Archer is not my friend," said Shran.
"I wonder if he knows that," said Enam. Shran scowled at her but didn't reply.
Enterprise's Denobulan doctor appeared at the end of his bed.
"Ah good, you're awake," said Phlox. "You'll be pleased to know that I cleared all the poison from your system. After a few days rest you should be as good as new."
"Good," replied Shran, still scowling.
"Captain Archer was asking after your health," said Phlox. "You're my first Andorian patient. It's always exciting to get a new species to practice my craft upon. Did you know that your blood chemistry is very similar to that of the Vulcans?"
Enam stifled a giggle. Shran deepened his scowl, which Enam hadn't believed to be possible.
"When can I leave?" asked Shran.
"Well you're too weak to go anywhere for the moment," said Phlox. "You need to give your body time to recover. A couple of days should do it."
"I want to see Archer," said Shran.
"He's already on his way," said Phlox, "I alerted him as soon as you awoke."
Just at that moment the sick bay doors slid back to reveal Captain Archer. "You look better than when I last saw you," said Archer, smiling. "That unhealthy green tinge has almost gone."
"What do you intend doing with me?" asked Shran.
"None of the Earth government know you're here and the only Vulcan who's aware that you're on Enterprise is T'Pol. If I ask nicely then she won't let on. Once you're fully recovered, the Zor Rakh is ready to take you home," said Archer. "I figure that if I let you go, we're even again, considering I saved your life."
"No doubt Commander Tucker has already gone over the Zor Rakh with a finely calibrated scanner," said Shran. Archer's face fell. Shran hadn't expected this reaction, he had merely been making a joke and certainly hadn't expected Archer to take it personally.
"I've got to get back to the bridge," said Archer, quickly making his exit.
"What did I say?" asked Shran.
"Commander Tucker was arrested while the Captain was away," said Phlox. "Judging by the people who took him, the Captain is understandably concerned for the Commander's safety."
Trip awoke on the bed, his hands and feet were strapped down. He tested the restraints and discovered that he couldn't move them. The nanites told him that the restraints were made of toughened glass, he couldn't break them or use the nanites to chew through them. He gave up struggling against his bonds, sighed and lay still. He wasn't comfortable but for the moment there was nothing he could do.
Part of the wall of the cell became transparent and Trip saw the face of Lieutenant Davis looking at him.
"Davis, you son of a bitch. So you decided to come and gloat," said Trip.
"Not gloat," said Davis. "I'm in charge of the security of this facility, I came to check on our main test subject."
"Is that how I'm seen around here?" asked Trip. "I'm not even a human being anymore."
"You're a means to an end," said Davis.
"What's the end?" asked Trip.
"Not something we tell our test subjects," replied Davis.
"So what can I expect while I'm a guest here?" said Trip.
"If you co-operate then you'll be treated well, if you don't then you'll spend all your time in restraints. I don't understand the medical stuff, but I'm certain that it can be made very unpleasant for you if you don't do what we want," said Davis.
"I didn't think I was brought here for a vacation," said Trip. "If you think I'm going to co-operate with you bastards you've got another thing coming. You know someone is going to come looking for me."
"I doubt that," said Davis. "With what we have on Reed, he'll do whatever we want."
"Malcolm's a stand up guy, I can't believe you have anything on him that will stop them coming to find me," said Trip. Suddenly it was as if he had the final piece of the puzzle, Malcolm had betrayed him. That was how they had known what the nanites could do and why Malcolm hadn't tried to stop them taking him off Enterprise. It was suddenly as if someone had ripped out his heart, his friend had turned on him. He'd really thought that he could count on Malcolm, but he guessed he had been wrong there.
"You obviously don't know Lieutenant Reed as well as you thought you did," said Davis. He was pleased to see the affect that the news had had on Trip. The more wrong footed Tucker was the easier he would be to deal with.
"I may not know Malcolm Reed, but I know Jonathan Archer. The Captain's not just going to sit around doing nothing," said Trip. "You broke the agreement and the Captain won't be happy about that." Assuming that the Captain ever returned from the Expanse, he thought.
"I think you've misread your situation. We don't answer to Starfleet. You belong to us now, Mr Tucker. You're our lab rat, and that's what you will be until either we decide that we don't need you anymore or you die," said Davis.
"Which won't be very long if you don't give me my meds," said Trip, "you know the nanites are killing me," he added as if he were telling Davis the time of day.
"We know," said Davis. "For the moment we need you and the nanites alive, although as I understand it the nanites are the more important part of that equation."
The door opened and two men in white coats, who Trip assumed to be doctors, entered the room. Trip had been waiting for this, the open door meant that the room was no longer sealed. He told the nanites to feel out for any computers that they could access. Almost immediately an alarm went off.
"Now, that alarm means that you've been a bad boy," said Davis, walking in behind the men in white coats and closing the door behind him. The nanites immediately lost any connections that they had made. "We have detectors set up that tell us when you're using the nanites to attempt to access a computer. Let me give you the ground rules. You do something that we don't like and you get punished. Depending on what you've done, we'll fit the punishment to the crime." Davis held out a hand and one of the doctors put a hypospray which contained red liquid in his hand.
"What are you going to do?" asked Trip, his accent thicker than usual, shooting a look of pure hatred in Davis' direction.
Davis injected the substance into Trip's arm without a word and the three men turned and left Trip's cell. Trip felt a warmth spread through his blood from the point of injection. The warmth turned into a burning and his blood felt as if it had turned into acid as it moved through his body. He struggled against the restraints, trying to curl in on himself, anything to stop the excruciating pain that he was now in. He let out a small whimper of pain and finally he screamed as the poison made its way through his body.
If he ever got his hands on Davis then he was going to kill him, he focused on that thought while he endured the pain.