On board Enterprise, T'Pol came upon Trip and Reed having breakfast in the cafeteria. Trip waved her over on her way back from obtaining a glass of vitamin-packed juice, her typical morning repast.
"Mornin', T'Pol," Trip said as both men stood. Reed greeted her as well.
"Commander, Lieutenant," T'Pol answered. She just could not get used to human platitudes of greeting. She slid into a chair next to Reed, cupping her glass in her palms.
"Hey, T'Pol, have you heard anythin' from the captain yet?" Trip asked, curiously. "I thought maybe he'd be headin' back this mornin'."
"Avdev's orbital cycle is different from Enterprise's, Commander," T'Pol pointed out. "On the surface, at the landing coordinates, it is still night. Their escort will hail us when the captain and ensign are ready to return."
"Besides," put in Reed, "they may still be partying at that fancy reception, dancing until dawn."
"Jon doesn't dance," Trip snorted. "That much I do know." He took a sip of coffee. "Anyway, I was just wonderin', because I've been monitoring the satellite frequencies, and they seem to have been interrupted."
T'Pol said, "Indeed. You found that strange?" Working with this crew, T'Pol had learned to notice, if not to fully accept, certain intuitive flashes. "Could it not have been simply the end of the broadcast day?"
Trip shook his head. "That's what was so weird. The transmission stopped mid-program. I mean, one minute they were airing some documentary about ancient pre-flight history, and the next it was just dead air. Like someone had yanked the plug. All the broadcast stations, video and audio."
"What time was that?" Reed asked.
"About twenty three hundred hours, our time. Early evening where Jon is." He shrugged. "I dunno. It just felt . . . weird."
T'Pol stood up. "If you would, Lieutenant," she said to Reed, "hail the embassy for an update on the captain's itinerary." She left, looking more grave than usual.
Trip and Reed looked at each other. A worried T'Pol was never a good thing.
Half an hour later on the bridge, Reed reported, frustrated, "T'Pol, I can't get anything. It seems like transmissions are being actively jammed – nothing's getting through at all."
"Neither the captain nor the ensign has a communicator, is that correct?"
"They're not allowed on planet. All communications go through a central state-sponsored system. Only, that seems to have been shut down."
"Has there been any communication with the space station personnel?"
"According to them, no. Not since last night, like Trip said." Reed chewed his bottom lip. "This doesn't make any sense. I don't like being blind and deaf up here."
Communications remained stubbornly silent for the next thirty hours. By now, it was obvious that something had gone terribly wrong. Locked in orbit, there was nothing for Travis to do but monitor the mute frequencies. None of the senior crew slept, and Trip especially seemed to vibrate with tension.
Finally, at oh-three hundred hours on the third day of silence, Travis received a hail. He paged T'Pol and passed on the request that she be ready to receive the High Ambassador in the space station at oh-six thirty. T'Pol, in turn, requested the presence of the ship's Security Chief and Chief Engineer.
Trip was already pacing the confines of the small conference room when the High Ambassador and his entourage entered. "Okay, what the hell is going on!" he demanded as soon as the Ambassador was seated.
T'Pol shot him a quelling look, then directed her comments to the Avdevis. "Where are our people?" she asked tightly and without preamble, consciously aligning herself with the humans.
For once, the Avdevi dispensed with their elaborate courtesies. "Two evenings ago, there was an attack on the Parliament building by insurgent forces during our state reception. Fourteen citizens were killed, including three Members of Parliament. A substantial portion of the edifice was destroyed. It has taken many hours to remove the survivors from the rubble, as well as to identify the wounded and the dead."
Trip felt cold.
"We have now accounted for all persons who entered the building prior to the reception by reviewing our security data. All but three."
"Cut to the chase," Reed snapped.
"We have not located your captain or his Protocol Liaison. It seems that they, along with the escort assigned to them, an ambassador-in-training, were spirited from the building at the start of the attack." The Ambassador folded his long fingers on the table.
T'Pol kept her voice steady. "Why has it taken you so long to inform us of this event?"
The Ambassador widened his eyes. "Many negotiations among the remaining Members were necessary to come to a conclusion regarding the proper protocol for notifying you."
Trip snarled, "So, while y'all were arguing over who would break the news to us – and jamming the frequencies, hoping we wouldn't notice –" the Ambassador looked guilty, "our people could have been taken anywhere."
There was a rustle among the members of the entourage. Finally, the Ambassador admitted, "The Members had reached consensus about the manner of notification, when we received further information." He fluttered his hands helplessly. "Our forces, which, I assure you, were immediately dispatched to conduct a thorough search of the outlying areas for our most honored guests, found the transport assigned to our escort. It was crashed in the Sani region, which is unpopulated."
Reed stiffened. "Crashed. Were there any survivors?" he asked quietly, dreading the answer.
"The escort was dead. There was no sign of your crew . . . except for a great deal of blood. One or both of them, it appears, is, or was, most grievously injured."
Trip pushed back from the table, stood, and turned his back. "Ah, jeez," he murmured, putting a shaking hand over his eyes.
"The escort was not killed in the crash, however," the Ambassador continued. "He was shot to death."
Reed successfully restrained Trip from launching himself over the table at the Ambassador.
"Commander, please," T'Pol said mildly. "Mr. Ambassador. Are you telling us that our crewmembers have been kidnapped?"
Warily watching the seething commander, the Avdevi answered, "Again, we cannot be certain what precisely has happened. Our surveillance shows that Captain Archer and Protocol Liaison Sato fled the building during the attack in the company of their escort, Dlvec ad Reansgau. Their transport was found, as I said, crashed in the Sani region. There are signs of weapons fire on the exterior of the vehicle, indicating that they were chased and fired upon. We did find the wreckage of three other vehicles near the same region.
"Dlvec's body was found inside the vehicle, but the cause of death appears to be phaser fire." He handed over a covered glass slide sealed in a clear case. "You may be able to determine the identity of the injured person from this blood sample we collected." T'Pol accepted the slide without flinching. "We tracked the two humans into the rainforest, where we found evidence that they stopped for some time in a clearing. There the trail ends." He sighed heavily. "Signs indicate that one human or both were taken by force from that location. We cannot tell where either one has gone."
Reed said tightly, "I want to see whatever evidence you've gathered so far."
"Our forensics experts will be waiting for you. They are at your disposal. We simply do not know enough about your species to handle the situation from this point."
"Pity you didn't figure that out two days ago," Reed clipped out.
T'Pol took out her communicator. "T'Pol to Mayweather."
"Mayweather here."
"The Commander, the Lieutenant, and I will be transporting to the surface immediately. You have the conn. I am leaving an object here in the conference room. Please have someone retrieve it and deliver it to Dr. Phlox for analysis and identification. Stand by for further instructions."
"Yes, sir."
She tucked the communicator in her pocket, ignoring the attempted protest from the Ambassador at this blatant breach of protocol. "Let us proceed."