There was something wrong.
T'Pol wasn't entirely sure how she knew this, only that an intuition of danger, a "sixth sense" as Trip would say, was screaming at her that she and her mate were in terrible peril. The scanners on the shuttlepod - limited though they were - remained clear and T'Pol trusted Ensign O'Connor to note any planetary discrepancies from Enterprise in time to warn her; for a Human, he was quite efficient. A third look over the external sensors revealed nothing amiss, nor did a rapid scan of the internal sensors. As far as she could tell, all systems were fully functional. There appeared to be nothing wrong. And yet, she could not shake a sense of impending danger.
Trip felt her unease through their bond and slipped instantly into a more cautious frame of mind, what T'Pol unconsciously thought of as his Expanse mindset. Wary, his eyes traveled over the console's data displays, double and triple-checking everything. In nearly mid-sentence, their bickering about Trip's lack of accuracy simply ceased and their professional masks slid into place. She could tell that the passengers - Lieutenant Reyes from Medical and the three MACOs - noted the abrupt shift in the two senior officers, saw their unspoken communications, and automatically went into combat mode. Veterans all, they recognized imminent danger, even if it was unseen.
"Strap in," Trip ordered the four sharply. Gone was the extroverted engineer from Florida; a cool, collected combat veteran had taken his place. Though he had seen nothing amiss on his displays, he took T'Pol's unease absolutely seriously and she felt a surge of affection for her mate, one that she easily kept shielded. They were on duty, after all. "I've got nothin'," he stated calmly as the shuttle passed into the stratosphere. "Sensors?"
"Are negative," she replied. "As are communication frequencies." He rolled his tongue around in his mouth, eyes darting from one display to another. A thought occurred to her; whether it was his or hers was irrelevant as it was an extremely wise suggestion, and she began powering up the shuttle's weapons systems - they were admittedly minor but were much better than nothing at all. She continued to cycle through the comm frequencies quickly as Trip fed additional power to the maneuvering jets; they passed into the troposphere and were immediately buffeted by winds. Four point seven minutes remained before they would arrive at their destination. Perhaps her intuition was in error, she reflected uneasily. Another thought came to her and she transferred additional power to the sensors, effectively trebling their intensity; the cloud cover would still cause nearly ninety three point four percent of the sensor waves to be reflected but it couldn't hurt. Better safe than sorry. She frowned; that was most assuredly Trip's thought leaking into her own.
The strength of their bond continued to be a source of amazement to her, one that was as equally troubling as it was comforting. Both Ambassador Soval and Minister T'Pau had expressed cautious surprise at its intensity given that humans had never before displayed telepathic ability; it was one of the mysteries of her relationship with Trip that continued to defy explanation. There had been - and still were - Vulcan-Human couples who had formed a mating bond but in each case, direct telepathic communication required tactile contact. Not so with Trip. He had demonstrated a skill that was completely unheard of in non-Vulcans or, for that matter, many Vulcans themselves; Soval had even admitted that his own bond had never been this strong. No one could explain it.
She had some theories though. Something had happened to Charles Tucker when he nearly died of the silicate virus two years ago, something that she could not explain or understand. T'Pol knew Phlox suspected something as well; the Denobulan kept a discreet eye on Trip and Hoshi alike but had been unable to detect anything thus far.
"Adjust heading to..."
"Got it," Trip muttered softly, unconsciously accepting the new heading before she could say it out loud.
T'Pol returned her focus to the sensor board, adjusted the scanning bands. A discrepancy caught her eye and she blinked. Was that...?
"Shit!" Trip exclaimed, picking up her sudden flare of recognition. His fingers flew across the pilot's console and the whine of the engine spiked as he slewed the shuttlepod hard to starboard; the startled exclamation from Lieutenant Reyes was immediately followed by a crash - the lieutenant had clearly not been buckled in properly. A streak of ... something loomed by the viewport, incredibly massive and moving at escape velocity. T'Pol barely had time to register it as a starship when an explosion rocked the pod. Alarms shrieked and she heard the sound of tearing metal; a rapid glance to the rear of the shuttle verified her worst fears as Corporal Styles was forcibly torn from his seat and disappeared through the gaping hole that had not been there moments ago. He didn't even have time to scream.
She could hear Trip's curses as he fought with the controls of the pod, oblivious to the howl of oxygen being ripped from the pod. They were in a rapidly deteriorating freefall, the shuttle tumbling end over end and now with significant, possibly crippling, structural damage. Less than five seconds had elapsed since the unexpected attack and T'Pol could already feel the pod's inertial dampeners beginning to fail under the strain. She could hear the engine suddenly misfiring, knew that it had been damaged. Fear suddenly pulsed through her but she pushed it away, suppressed it, all the time wondering if it was hers or his. It didn't matter. She wasn't as skilled a pilot as her mate but she had discovered an unexpected advantage of her bond with Trip; without speaking, she began aiding him, borrowing of the knowledge he freely offered while barely understanding exactly what it was that she was doing. Transfer power from sensors to life support like that. Cycle through the engine re-ignition sequence thus. Reroute power from communications. Maneuvering jets fired just so. Working in complete silence and seemingly without fear, they struggled with the pod's controls, fought the planetary gravity, hoping it was enough but knowing it wasn't.
They fell through the dense cloud cover, slowing the uncontrolled tumble with seemingly random bursts from the maneuvering jets but not stopping it completely. Gravity pushed them back in their seats, an implacable yet invisible hand that kept them rooted in place. Through the viewport, she could see mountains and woodland valleys racing to meet them. Trip's anger at the pod, his terror - not for him, she realized, but for her - filled the bond and T'Pol reached out, grasping his hand with hers. She felt his surprise that she had initiated the contact, followed almost immediately by his despair that she would die. The bond reflected her own fears but, in this moment, she was grateful that she would not die alone, that Trip would be here with her. Forever. They would part but never be parted. As it should be. The ground loomed...
And then everything went black.
