Smiling at the two captives, the Romulan turned and left them alone. He had heard most of their argument before appearing to them.
"Are you able to get your hand free?" Malcolm asked as he began to wriggle his hands around, trying to loosen the rope, after a few seconds Evelyn began giggling, at first it was quiet but it soon grew more into intense laughing. "This is no laughing matter crewman!"
"I know sir." Evelyn replied through her laughs and deep breaths. "But you're tickling my back!"
Malcolm stopped moving his hands and shifted awkwardly at what she had just said. The laughing quickly died down. Evelyn cleared her throat and looked around the cave they were in. "This is all your fault Lieutenant." She said suddenly.
Malcolm's face was a picture of shock. "My fault?" Malcolm cried out in surprise to what his comrade had just said.
"You're the one that put Captain Archer up to allow me on this mission with you… as payback for last week!" Evelyn replied in a very accusing tone. Last week Evelyn had managed to get Malcolm sent to the brig for once for punching her due to one of their arguments.
Malcolm was quick to retaliate. "That's absurd! I would never do a thing like that… however you would."
Evelyn was now getting angry, and if it wasn't for the fact she was tied up she would've hit Malcolm hard in the face. "Whose fault is it for not bringing phase pistols?"
"Yours." Malcolm replied quickly.
"You're the head of security, it should have been your duty seeing to the weapons instead of trying to confiscate the ration packs!"
"A lot of use they are n...ow!" Malcolm yelped as once again Jacobs dug her elbow sharply into his back, the only pain she could give him at that moment.
Evelyn went into a low whisper. "Someone's coming." The footsteps were loud and clear and getting nearer.
"What do you bet that they'll take me for interrogation?" Malcolm asked.
A smile quickly grew on Evelyn's face at the thought that Malcolm Reed could loose a bet to a Crewman in the most difficult and serious of situations. "How about you be a my steward for a week if they take me?" Came the reply from a surprisingly calm Crewman.
"And you be mine if it's me?" Reed responded. He felt Evelyn nod her head behind him. "You're on." Behind their backs they did their best to shake hands to finalise the bet.
A couple of seconds later and two Romulans came into view. One moved over to the security officers and untied them so they were separated. He dragged Evelyn to her feet, pushing her over to his friend, giving him the chance to check Malcolm was securely tied up again. Once he was satisfied he nodded his head, stood up straight and began pushing Evelyn away.
As they left, Evelyn smiled at her new steward, who responded with a sarcastic 'lucky' face.
"Just my luck" He sighed, knowing that Jacobs was going to humiliate him in front of the rest of the Armoury crew. He began to work on getting the ropes off his wrists and within minutes he was free. He stood up and began to move around the corridors searching for his communicator.
Quietly the British Armoury officer moved along the corridors of the Romulan asteroid base, quickly pressing himself against the wall when he heard footsteps or voices. He soon came to a cave area and found what he was looking for. The two Starfleet EV suits were folded up on a shelf to one side. After making sure no one was lurking in the room he moved in, just as two Romulans rounded a corner a bit further along the corridor.
He looked at his suit, glad that it was all in one piece with no obvious holes, and began to put it on. He knew trying to rescue Evelyn on his won without his trusty weapon would be a very foolish task.
That's when it hit Malcolm about what they had been wearing when they woke up… their uniforms should be back in the locker rooms on Enterprise, not here on the asteroid. After close inspection of the uniform in his hands he realised it was not Starfleet regulation. The badge on the left arm was not correct and there were less pockets than there should be. The Romulans had obviously begun to produce their own near perfect, in order to infiltrate Enterprise and other NX-0 ships like her.
This was very bad news indeed.
He left Jacobs' EV suit where it was and began to search for the exit up to the surface of the asteroid. Luckily it wasn't too far from where the EV suits had been stored. He put on his helmet and left the secret base. Once he was out and could see Enterprise following alongside he sighed relief and hit the COMM button on his suit. "Reed to Enterprise."
There was silence for a couple of seconds and then over the COMM he heard the unmistakable voice of his captain. "Malcolm! Where the hell have you been?" Archer sounded pretty desperate, obviously the two of them had been missing for several hours.
"Romulans attacked us. They've got a base in this asteroid sir."
"The Romulans?" Archer repeated, making sure he had heard his friend correctly.
"Yes sir. Jacobs is still in there sir and I don't have any weapons."
Archer paused and thought for a moment. "All right. Stay where you are Malcolm, we'll come to you.
"Aye sir." Malcolm acknowledged and everything went quiet. He looked around him to make sure he wasn't being watched, and from what he could see he was all alone. 'Even company with Jacobs would be nice right now.' He thought to himself as he waited.
Malcolm waited, and waited for what seemed like hours, but were in fact just a few minutes. He watched as two figures appeared on the horizon, their faces lit up by blue-ish light that was easily recognisable as Starfleet EV suits. Within a couple of minutes they were standing just a couple of feet away from him.
"You all right Malcolm?" Archer asked as they met.
Malcolm nodded. "I'm fine sir."
"Malcolm, you said there was a base here?" The accent was one Reed was pleased to hear… Trip's.
"Yes Commander. The entrance is just over there." Malcolm pointed behind him to a large rock formation about 100 meters away from where they stood out in the darkness.
Trip sighed slightly. "Must be some kind of dampening field in place that's blocking our sensors." He speculated, turning to Archer.
"Let's find Jacobs… and find out what the hell the Romulans are up to this time." Archer said as he headed for the rocks Malcolm had indicated. Trip passed a phase pistol to his good British friend and they followed their captain back towards the Romulan's base and their missing crewman.
When they got inside and past the airlock, red lights were flashing and a siren was blaring.
"Looks like they've discovered you've gone." Archer said as he removed the helmet and placed it on the ground near to the airlock. Malcolm and Trip followed suit and began to walk off down the corridors.