Chapter 9

T'pol was led around the ship's corridors, arriving to what she could only assume was the bridge. She was thrust towards a console, an alien weapon digging into her lower back. Her eyes scanned her surroundings, there were barely a handful of people, hardly enough to run and control a ship like this. However every figure she did see had their features hidden behind a rather crude mask, her guards included. T'pol had tried to figure out which species had abducted her, Trip and her father but as of yet she had no answers.

"Your ship has been attempting to contact you." A harsh, yet commanding voice spoke behind her. T'pol turned around. He, unlike the others wore no mask, no disguise to hide his species. Her eyes landed first on his face, a jagged scar was etched upon his left eyebrow, other than that his features were flawless. He appeared to be in his mid thirties by human standards. Her eyes travelled from his face to his ears. Even with her emotionless Vulcan mask she couldn't hide the look of shock that crossed her face

"You're Vulcan." she stated.

A look of hatred glowed within his eyes, "I am nothing like your species." he spat "On the outside I may appear Vulcan, but that is where the similarity ends. My appearance was altered for the benefit of the Empire's mission."

"You're Romulan" T'pol continued, her tone accusatory.

A small smirk appeared upon his features. "Yes" he simply replied.

A wave of realisation hit T'pol, suddenly it all made sense. The Romulan's had always been very secretive, Starfleet and Vulcan never seeing their true features; despite coming into contact with them on several occasions. The only true contact between them being brief audio messages. That explained the masks, they no doubt wanted their identities to remain a secret.

As for her and the others abduction, well Enterprise was travelling to a suspected Romulan base, why wouldn't there be Romulan's in the area, albeit travelling under the guise of being Tellarite but still. T'pol briefly looked around the bridge, parts she recognised as Tellarite whereas other parts were technology she couldn't identify. A thought passed briefly through her mind. T'pol had heard many colloquial and very Human phrases during her time aboard Enterprise and 'a wolf in sheep's clothing' seemed to describe this situation and ship very well.

"Vulcan you are going to be helping us." The Romulan continued, interrupting her thoughts.

T'pol narrowed her eyes, did they actually believe she would willingly help them? "And if I refuse?".

The Romulan looked back at her, a look of amusement apparent on his face. "You will help us, of that have no doubt." he said, a conniving smile on his face, as if laughing at an unknown joke.

"Firstly you will tell your ship that you and the others are well, and that you will need to stay on this ship for at least another day, during which time you will not be able to communicate…. If you do not comply, one of your companions will be harmed." He spat threateningly, passing the familiar Starfleet communicator to her.

T'pol took the communicator; her mind conflicted over what to do. If she didn't do what her captors said then it was quite possible her, Trip and her father would be killed. However on the other hand they could be killed anyway and the people on Enterprise could meet the same fate if she didn't warn them. 'The needs of the many'.. - Surak's well known teaching briefly flickering through her mind.

T'pol looked around the room once more, trying to locate anything which could help her, something which she could use against them, she knew her efforts would no doubt prove to be useless but she tried anyway. Her eyes settled on a console in the corner, her superior eyesight identifying the images and specs. The language was unidentifiable to her but she got the 'gist' of what it did. She had one more option available, one to save everyone she loved, whether she would survive it was another question. T'pol had decided what she needed to do.

She opened up the communicator and signalled Enterprise, Jonathon Archer's voice reached her ears within seconds.

"T'pol, are you and the rest of the away team ok?"

T'pol looked over to her captors, two had gun's pointed directly at her. If she was going to act she needed to act soon.

"The Tellarites said you were busy with the repairs." Archer said "And that's why you were unable to contact us" he continued.

T'pol moved ever so slightly over to the console and to one of the guards. She risked a look at the Romulan 'Vulcan'. He appeared to be watching her actions intently, strangely it seemed he was choosing to ignore her movements.

"We are unharmed Captain." she moved a little further over to the console and the one guard, the other guards non the wiser.

"The Tellarites said you needed a further twenty four hours, is that true?"

T'pol paused and looked at one of the weapons pointed at her. 'forgive me Trip.'

"Captain it is a trap, we have been taken prisoner. Enterprise is in danger," as the words spilled from her her mouth the weapon closest to her discharged, it's pulsating beam aimed straight at her.

T'pol dashed out of the way, the beam cutting into her shoulder, she ignored the pain and launched herself at the guard, he fell to the ground, dropping his weapon. He reached for it but she was quicker, she didn't have time to hesitate and so pulled the trigger. The weapon had been on stun, the guard lost consciousness.

"T'pol? T'pol? Please respond" Archer's voice cut through weapons fire.

Aboard Enterprise the sounds of weapons fire echoed around the bridge, Archer immediately ordered his chief of security to raise shields, and to bring the weapons system online. He didn't know what the hell was going on but he didn't like the sound of it.

"I want them beamed off that ship now!" Archer demanded of the officer manning T'pol's post. As the words left his mouth the bridge of Enterprise shook with such a force that Archer was nearly knocked to the ground.

"Report."

"Shields are at 65 percent, I am returning fire."

Reed proceeded to fire at the enemy ship, Enterprise's phase canons impacting the Tellarite ship's hull.

"Brace for impact." the security officer cried out

An array of torpedoes hit enterprise, members of the crew were thrown around like rag dolls. Throughout the ship, consoles erupted in flames, crewmen rushed around extinguishing the fire's and helping others who had received injuries.

Down in engineering, Commander Kelby, who had been left in charge during Trip's absence was co-ordinating teams to deal with the damage. He had sent the injured crewmen to sickbay, the others he had immediately put to work on fixing the damage. His eyes briefly drifted over to Lieutenant Hess, she had a small gash on her forehead, but fortunately, that seemed to be the extent of her injuries. She was working furiously to get the plasma relays deactivated to prevent an overload. She looked over to him and gave him a brief smile, which he returned, reassuring each other that they were both ok.

Kelby surveyed the rest of engineering, looking to see where he could provide the most assistance. He was about to climb the ladder to the upper level, to assist one of the newer Ensign's as he felt Enterprise jerk sharply starboard, another wave of weapons fire impacting the hull. The warp core shuddered, the Commander turned sharply around, he didn't even take the time to consider the consequences of what he was doing as he threw himself at Anna Hess. She was pushed, not so gracefully out of the way, the console she had been working on blowing up, showering him in sparks and metal debris. He thought he briefly heard her call his name as he fell to the floor, "...I knew I should have asked Anna to movie night." his last coherent though as he lost consciousness.

"We've received direct damage to the warp core, we can't even reach warp 1." Reed informed the bridge crew analysing the data in front of him.

"Can we beam the away team back?"

"I can't get any reading's of the interior." The nervous ensign manning T'pol's station responded.

The com channel was still open and T'pol could hear her replacements problem. Enterprise's retaliation had worked in her favour, the guards had all been knocked off their feet, she looked over to the far left of the bridge. The console in the corner was blocking all scans, it was what had prevented her from getting any information about the interior earlier.

She moved to get to it but was tackled by one of the guards, she landed hard on the floor. A fist was brutally knocked into her face, but she fought the darkness that was trying to engulf her. She fought back. She needed to save Trip and her father, they were depending on her. That thought gave her strength as she ran over to the console. She took the gun in her hand and fired, flames and sparked erupted from the machine. The elation she felt was only momentary. She didn't have a chance to see the Romulan get up and fire his weapon.

In her last seconds of consciousness her sensitive ears picked up the Romulan's voice. "…just as we were predicting." T'pol didn't have time to reflect on what this meant as her world went black!

Aboard Enterprise the ensign began noticing a change in the data. "I have a lock captain."

Archer turned sharply around "Beam them aboard." A nod was all he received.

"Transporting."

"Captain the ship just entered warp." Reed interrupted "We can't even reach warp 1, we can't pursue." He stated

Captain Archer nodded grimly and apprehensively asked the question that was on everyone else's minds.

"Did we get them?"

The young officer looked down at the data coming from the transporter room her features saddened.

"We only received two." she said

"Who?" Archer demanded

"Commander Tucker and Sovek. The realisation of what that meant struck the bridge crew.

"Commander T'pol is still on the Tellarite vessel sir."……

To be continued...
Author's note

Thanks for all the reviews, much appreciated. I know it's another cliffhanger but you'll be happy to know I have around eighty percent of this written and ready to publish. Also I know I might be getting ahead of myself a bit, but i've already started planning a possible sequal entitled masquerade. A fic which will hopefully be as well recieved as this.

Please review, I may even update faster!