Somewhere in the A'Ea Straights

"We got it!"

The sudden call made Reed and Zheezhill jump. It was Enterprise. "Lieutenant, we've located the shuttle!" Travis's voice came over the feed.

Reed looked at Zheezhill, not daring to believe... "Can you get a tractor beam on it?!" he bellowed in return.

"It's not so simple, Lieutenant. Specialist Leffowsky will explain." On Enterprise, Travis looked back at Leffowsky, querying with a motion of the head.

The scientist shook his head in reply, "We can hardly get a fix on the coordinates," he said loudly so everyone could hear, "I'm extrapolating for the shuttle location based on radar readings, correcting for geopositional...," he paused, thinking about how best to explain to an audience of non-scientists. "We're inferring shuttle location based on where it's not... in a manner of speaking..." he looked down, "We can't pinpoint the exact location for a tractor beam."

Reed felt like he'd been gut-punched. "Is there nothing at all we can do?!" It came out sounding plaintive to his ears, weak. Screw that, he had real issues to deal with. Like finding Hoshi . And Trip. And his Captain.

Leffowsky bent over his console, checking the readings. He looked up, "There's another possibility...," he paused, "I could try for a broad diffusion of the beam... it won't act as a tractor beam... much less than that... " His voice trailed off and he stopped, frowning at the data.

"Out with it, crewman!" Travis jarred him back to the present.

"We won't have the shuttle but we'll have it," Leffowsky quickly said, "In a way, we'll be holding on to a pail of water with Shuttle One inside."

"And Shuttle One will be in it?" Travis repeated.

"I hope so," Leffowsky replied, "At least, based on our computations, it should be."

Travis narrowed his eyes at Leffowsky, a frown edging his forehead. With T'Pol he would have an exact probability that the shuttle would be inside. "I need more than that, Specialist," he growled.

Leffowsky cleared his throat then straightened with his hands behind his back, unaware of how he was mimicking his Vulcan commander, "Based on all calculations and correcting for the disruption engendered by the Eylordene atmosphere," he was glad he'd had plenty of experience debating scientific methodology with her, "there is a 89.13% probability that Shuttle One is inside the identified area," and that she had taught him to lay out the facts unemotionally. "Even if it is outside of the target area, there is a 99.1% probability that it is at least partially within the target location. A broad beam will latch on to that part."

"And then what?" Travis asked, still frowning.

"The diffusion rate of the beam will be too weak to haul anything back, even bring it to the surface, but it will prevent any further descent," Leffowsky said. "Once we locate the shuttle, we could get a second more focused beam to replace the first one and pull the shuttle out, but..." he looked down at his console screen, then up at Travis, "Enterprise's energy reserves will be at around 0.5% then."

Travis almost whistled, "That's not much..."

"Life support systems," Leffowsky agreed.

Travis turned to stare at the screen and the rounded curve of A'Er'Orl, "How long to pull them out if and when we have the second beam?"

"It will take the better part of an hour," Leffowsky replied.

That was less time than they needed to recharge. Enterprise would be left dangerously defenseless. Around a potentially hostile planet. They had no idea which side the Eylordenes were on, really. All he knew was that their five most important crew members were all on that planet.

"Leffowsky, get on with the first tractor beam!" he ordered. His decision was made. ""You heard that, Lieutenant Reed? We're going to cut off comm now, we need to preserve energy."

"Roger!" Reed replied. "We'll wait to hear."

xxx

Shuttle One

"So what do we do now?" Hoshi's voice floated in the darkness. The men had grown uncharacteristically quiet, as if this was the end of the line. It just couldn't be. She needed them to act as if everything was alright. If only for her sake.

"I guess we wait..." Trip's voice made her startle. She hadn't expected he was so close. But then she remembered that she had helped get him out from under that chair. It's just that the darkness made it impossible to see anything.

"Captain...?" she called out. If Trip was on her right then Jonathan must be...

"I'm here, Hoshi," Archer replied.

Yes, he was on her left. Also very close, from the sound of his voice.

"There's not much we can do," Archer added. No point letting Hoshi know that he was wondering if the shuttle would break all at once, drowning them in one fell swoop, or if it would give way slowly, letting them know of their impending demise only by the sound of water dribbling in. He mentally shook himself. Not the most positive way to spend the time. He would have called out to Trip but he was afraid the engineer would bluntly spell it all out, and come to think of it he himself wasn't really keen on hearing about the many ways they could all die.

"Hopefully Eeyao's mate is not waiting for us at the bottom," he added, by way of lightening the mood.

"Hoshi, didn't you say you were almost out of sushi?" Trip asked. "There's your chance!" He knew what Archer was thinking. If they were all going to die, might as well have some fun in the process.

"Where's your good shoulder so I can punch it?" Hoshi sassed back. She knew what the two of them were doing, and she loved them for it.

"What d'you think her name is?" Archer mused out loud, "Eeyaa?"

"Eeyaa, for sure, and their children are Eeyaii," Trip answered definitely. "And their nickname is 'Hey You!'" He chuckled then winced, bringing a hand to this shoulder. Damn it!

xxx

Up Above The Surface

There was nothing worse than waiting. Reed was convinced of it. He felt like a damn fool, there were a hundred questions he should have asked, he should have found out more about what was going to happen. Instead, he was sitting there blind and deaf and dumb, dependent on hearing back from Travis and having absolutely no idea how the junior crewman was managing... Or would manage... His mind was pacing back and forth, thinking about everything that could go wrong... The saner part of his mind kept reminding him that things may go right, that it was not Travis' first rodeo, considering where he came from, he'd actually spent more time in space than Reed himself. Travis was quite capable of handling a simple rescue operation... Yes, but was this one simple? A needle in a haystack... So what did T'Pol's replacement came up with? Let's get the whole damn haystack... Well, at least the thought had merit...

He turned to Zheezhill, "How long before the shuttle reaches bottom?"

"Another forty-two minutes," she replied smoothly, as if he hadn't been asking for the last forty-one minutes. He saw her robe was marked with emerald accents. Either stress from waiting or annoyance at him. Both were equally possible. And he didn't care. Not one damn bit.

Travis's voice suddenly floated over the mic, "It's too deep down, we can't pull it back."

Reed closed his eyes in defeat.

Travis had already realized the room for misunderstanding. "But it worked!" he quickly added, "We've got a lock on the whole area, it's not going any deeper!"

Reed released his breath, sending a prayer of thanks to all the gods in the universe. In all universes. "How deep down?!" he asked, staring at Zheezhill.

"Four hundred fifty-two meters, sir!" Travis replied.

Reed looked at Zheezhill, hoping the UT had converted the distance into Eylordene measurements. "Does that give you an idea?" he prompted.

Zheezhill was glowing pink with pleasure, "It's within the diving team's reach!" she replied.

xxx