Chapter 7:
The young woman was getting out of the small house again, still holding the weapon in her hands, but this time not aiming it at them. She gave them another suspicious look, like she needed to think about her decision once again. Then she slightly waved at them.
"You may come inside, but I warn you and I do it only once... If you try anything stupid I will shoot you – straight away."
She was that extremely distrustful, the Captain had no idea how to ever get past that. There probably was no chance to do so. But still they had made some progress – they had been invited inside. Jonathan felt a cold shower run down his spine despite of the extreme heat of the planet. He had no idea what would expect them inside of this building – he just knew what he hoped for.
"Will you come now or are you gonna stand there for the rest of the day! I got more important things to care about, so stop wasting my time!"
Jonathan gave a nod to Reed and the doctor and they hurried to get to the house. They needed to get out of the sun and Jonathan himself deeply longed to get inside of it finally and have a chance to confirm his suspicion. He needed to know...
Obviously he had been a bit to enthusiastic in his wish as the Talian woman's rifle suddenly appeared in his face. She looked at him angrily – he could almost see the glaring in her eyes. She waved the rifle slightly and forced him to take a step backwards.
"Where are you going that quick? Stop right there. You won't enter this house before I told you so! And you won't get in there before you haven't handed every last of your weapons to me."
Jonathan wasn't able to stop him from doing it and he actually hadn't expected anything else to happen. Malcolm was angrily disobeying to the woman's proposal. It was his job to take care of their safety and doing this with a weapon being pointed at oneself and without a chance to defend oneself wasn't the easiest way to achieve it.
"You're going to leave us unarmed?"
"You are the ones who wish to enter my house. So you're going to put down your weapons now or I will just shoot you! Don't fool around with me!"
She had her weapon pointed at Malcolm right now and her glare had gotten even more threatening. They were holding up against each other for a moment until Jon nodded into direction of his armory officer, silently ordering him to stop and do what she was demanding.
They handed their weapons to the Talian woman and followed her orders as she told them to take position in front of her and slowly get inside. She was still pointing her weapon at them – maybe there wasn't that much of trust they were sharing. They entered the cool, shady interior of the house, which caused Jonathan to feel a slight relief immediately. The young woman closed the heavy door behind them and looked at them for a moment.
"He's at the backroom, down the hall. He gave his allowance for you to see him."
She once again waved her weapon into their direction and they moved down the corridor. Jonathan had the urgent wish to run, but he surpressed it, holding up to the pace the young Talian ordered them to keep up to.
The backdoor room – the bedroom of the house – was even more shady than the rest of it. He needed some seconds to adjust his eyes to the dim surrounding. But when he finally was able to detect the figure lying in the woodmade, simple bed, he couldn't keep himself from gasping.
It was Trip – it was actually Trip, his friend whom he had believed lost and dead. He was barely able to keep his composure as realisation and the consequences of their discovery washed over him. His suspicions had been confirmed – he had found his friend...
But having a second look at him, he wasn't that sure he could be that happy about it after all. As Phlox had already told him earlier, Trip was definitely ill in some sort of way. He looked thin, worn out and extremely exhausted to him. Apart from that he could clearly see the sweat of fever building on his forehead. He took a step closer to the bed, completely forgetting about the young alien woman. But not for long...
"Stop right there! Immediately! Don't you dare to take a step closer to this bed without my permission!"
With a great effort of willpower he turned away facing the woman. He needed to make her understand that he didn't mean to hurt them in any way; that the man she was trying to protect was a friend of his, a very good friend actually. He wanted to get closer, wanted to take Trip's hand to confirm his presence, to have proof this wasn't all just a dream.
"As I already told you – I don't mean any harm to you. He is one of my crewmen and apart from that a very good friend, a friend I believed to have lost. I just want to help him – that's why I brought a doctor with me..."
"A doctor? Yeah sure – one of you's a doctor. I won't let you near him! I have seen enough of lie, death and mayhem to know all the good tricks. I won't give you a chance to kill him!"
"We have not even the slightest intention to kill him! We want to help him, want him to get well – can't you see he's in a bad shape? He needs medical attention. Why won't you allow us to give it to him? We gave you all of our weapons, exposing ourself to you without any chance of defense – isn't that at least a bit trustworthy?"
It was Malcolm who tried to convince the Talian this time, with a lot of force actually. He was as eager as the Captain to get help for Trip, to not have him suffering any more. The woman seemed to think about it for a few moments, trying to figure out if she could risk to trust them. Finally she gave a short, almost non-detectable nod to them.
"Allright then – you may have your chance. But as soon as you try anything suspicious, as soon as you try to hurt him in any way, I swear I will kill you!"
She stepped aside, leaving room for Phlox to get to the bed. The doctor carefully fetched his tricorder, having a close look at the woman, but she didn't seem to see any danger in it. He moved closer to his patient, scanning him carefully. Once again Jonathan could see the concern on the doctor's face grow.
"How long has he been in that shape?"
"I'm not sure – for about 6 sundowns I guess..."
"A week? A whole week? Why haven't you taken him to a doctor?"
She frowned by his words and looked at him in disbelief. She also felt angry by his offence – what had she been supposed to do? Did they know anything about this planet? Did they have any idea what kind of a life they were living? What the planet was used for? She yelled back at him in fury.
"There are no doctors! This is an imprisonment planet – people are sent here for punishment, are sent here to die – there's no need for medical supplies!"
Silence fell upon the room after her break out and the look on the strangers' faces almost fooled her into believing that they actually hadn't known about this fact and even felt sorry about that. Realizing their try she was hardly able to surpress a laugh. Did they really believe she was that stupid? Obviously they did – at least the doctors' next words to the other stranger, who had approached her first, left that impression.
"Captain – I can't do anything for him down here. I suggest we take him to the ship, to sickbay."
"No! No way! You're not going to take him anywhere!"
"But we can't help him down here!"
"That's not my problem."
"As you are the one living with him and wanting him to get well again – it is very well your problem."
She glared at Malcolm who had spoken the words in a moment of deadly silence following. The light trembling of her hands, radiated to the weapon. She took a step closer to Malcolm aiming the weapon directly to his face. Her voice was but a threatening whisper as she responded.
"I know what you're up to, I know what you're trying to do. But I won't let you do it, I won't let you take him with you. You won't get a chance to kill him!"
Jonathan had no idea what she was talking about. Why was she that fixed on the point that they had a desire to kill Trip. Hadn't she understood, that he was a fellow crewman, a friend they had lost and that they were happy to have found again? What was she so worried about?
He couldn't help it, but to get angry with her.
"This man is a member of my crew, a member of Starfleet Command of our homeplanet and it's my responsibility to take care of him. He has friends aboard our ship and a family who deeply wishes to have their son back. You may threaten us and you may try to stop us, but you won't keep us from helping a friend."
Obviously he had finally managed to impress her. She was no longer pointing her gun at any of them, slowly putting it down. Once again she seemed to carefully think about his words, chosing the right thing to do next. Then, she looked him straight in the eyes, answering in a strong voice.
"Alright then – but you will leave your weapons behind at this place and you will take me with you. I won't leave him alone."
"Agreed."
Jonathan took out a communicator, telling T'Pol, who was in charge right now to send down a shuttle that would get them back up. He didn't want to risk any more damage to his friend and he didn't want to expose the girl to the threat of being beamed upon a Starship into space. An experience she probably had never made before. He didn't wish to lose that one bit of trust she had just given to them...