"thank you for bringing our ship home we had actually feared it had been destroyed when it lost contact with us"
"it was no problem"
"come it is time for the evening meal why don't you tell us something about yourselves and we'll tell you a little about us"
"why thank you"
and so they eat and talk but what the crew didn't know was that the food was drugged and they promptly went to sleep and while they were asleep they were put into cells
Jewel was actually the first to wake up and since it was like their ship they could see their captures
"why did you imprison us? we helped your people get home"
"oh we know and we do appreciate that but do you know why they needed help to get home, do you know why they were disabled?"
"no we didn't really ask them what happened only if we could render assistance"
"it was because we are always looking to improve ourselves to defeat our enemy and you just so happened to stumble upon them after they had taken heavy damage from a battle they used you to not only get home but to give us technology beyond our wildest dreams"
"why you…"
she tries to get at them and sees that it was indeed a cell with a forcefield so she was basically stuck no matter what she tried
"well this is a sticky bind we've fallen into"
and so they plan for several weeks how to escape hoping that those still on the ship had retreated when the away team hadn't returned on time or called them to let them know a change in plans but of course it was never that simple simply because the crew hadn't retreated. On board the Jewel Lt. Commander Parson was once again taking in input from anyone he could
"OK so we know for a fact now that the away team has been captured"
"yes sir"
"which makes these guys unfriendly"
"exactly"
"OK so what are we going to do about it?"
well everyone thinks and they come up blank until finally an ensign of all people came up with a half decent plan
"what if we make them think we've left the away team than double back and save them?"
"not a bad idea ensign but how would we double back without attracting any attention to ourselves?"
"you've obviously forgotten the Admiral's number one rule when dealing with something like this, always have a two fold plan"
"you're right I did forget it's just that it's been a long time since she's said that and since we've been fighting for survival I haven't really thought about putting a lot of her lessons into practice"
"well we're going to do so now"
and so they finalize the plan and it works beautifully and the away team is rescued without a hitch
"nice work come on lets get out of here and for the record these are non friendlies is that clear?"
"yes sir"
well they were reaching the three year mark when things went down hill
"try and stabilize us ensign"
"no can do admiral all controls are locked"
"is there a place where we can land?"
"yes it looks to be a desert like class M planet and not to be much of a downer it looks to be the only place we can survive"
"all hands prepare for crash landing"
and so they crash land and Jewel is the first to wake up
"anyone awake report"
and so she gets a rudimentary report and finds that she can live with the current situation as could the crew once they found a way to catch the food without scaring it first
"OK Lt. Andelan go back as far as you possibly can in Earth's history and see if you can find us any weapons we can use"
"yes sir"
and so he finds out about bows and arrows and also finds that they are quite easy to make
"Admiral before we go with the plan allow me to see how we are to use these just in case"
"permission granted"
well he was unsuccessful the first day of hunting and initially everyone was a downer until they realized that maybe all they needed to do was practice the new skill
"OK everyone we're going to practice with our new weapons until we're fast enough and skilled enough to use them on the local wildlife but remember while we do need to hunt to eat don't make the wildlife go extinct"
"yes sir"
and so they all get bows and arrows and it takes a few months for them to finally start getting a handle on the weapons but at the same time they were also making repairs and so Jewel decides to check on the engine room and finds that there were problems
"that's it this thing is going in the scrap pile as soon as we get home"
"OK chief what's the problem?"
"the problem is Admiral is that this piece of junk that we call an engine is practically damaged beyond repair"
"keep at it chief I know you can do it after all you know that engine better than anyone else on board this ship see if you can't do something on your end and I'll see about contacting Starfleet command about getting us some help for this engine and while you're at it see how fast we can go once we're fully repaired we might need to start thinking about getting these engines faster in a few years if we're forced to stay here for a bit and then once we're off this planet something goes extremely wrong and it takes us longer than estimated to get home."
"yes sir"
well a few weeks later the chief found that while he couldn't do a thing to fix the engine in his current state of mind and in the current state of the engine he could see what he could salvage and work from there
well they reached the one year anniversary of being stranded on the planet and they had thrived immensely and they noticed that not only were they fast with their bows and arrows but since Jewel refused to let them forget how to use their phasers she found out that they were faster with their phasers as well
"hey Admiral looks like your insistence is paying off we're a lot faster with our phasers than when we didn't have these bows and arrows say can we keep them even after we return home?"
"we'll see ensign we'll see for now lets just concentrate on getting off this planet"
"yes sir"
and so they worked long and hard to get everything repaired and it pays off because for a brief moment three months after the one year mark they were off the ground for a total of five minutes