Dancing with the Wild Geese
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: By now you should know I don't own any of this. Rating: Maybe K Time: Long, long ago in a galaxy…Er, no. I mean a couple of centuries from now in an alternate universe.
Author's note: Okay, I know this is technically a crossover, but has given me problems on my last couple of stories so I'm trying to slide this one by them.
"What the hell was that?" He said.
"There is nothing on the sensors." She said calmly.
"Well, my sensors sure felt something. Like hitting a pothole on an old dirt road in my old pickup."
"I would not know about that." She replied primly.
"Sorry, darlin'. I'll try to take you to the Gulf Coast sometime when there isn't a hurricane."
"That would be pleasant."
He tapped the comm.
"Enterprise, this is shuttlepod two. Did you feel that?"
There was no reply.
"Enterprise, come in."
"Enterprise is not on our sensors."
"Well, then our new, improved sensors are shot. We can look right outside and see…"
He stopped in midsentence. Enterprise was not there.
"What the hell?" He moved the shuttlepod around to try to get a visual in their ship. There was nothing.
"No Enterprise. We may be in trouble."
She nodded.
"We are at the edge of a solar system. There is a Minshara class planet. We should probably head for it." T'Pol checked something else. "Our navigation system is down. It can't give us our location."
"We'll head the planet. One quarter impulse."
He turned towards the planet and began flying towards it.
"You are exceeding one quarter impulse." She said.
"I'm not. The controls say one quarter, it's the engines that aren't cooperating. We're at forty one percent of full impulse. Forty-five…Fifty-one…Fifty-seven…Sixty…Sixty-four…"
"Can you manually override the controls?" She asked.
'That's what I'm trying to do." He yelled.
She looked at the speed indicator.
"Eighty five percent…Ninety-one…Ninety-seven…One hundred and two...One hundred and eleven…One hundred and seventeen. If we go over one hundred and twenty five percent of full impulse the engines will explode."
"I know. I know." He yelled over the howling of the engines.
"One hundred and twenty seven percent. One hundred and twenty seven percent. One hundred and twenty seven percent and holding."
"If we don't get control of the engines back, we'll either slam into the planet or zoom on past it and go on forever."
He pulled the control panel off and began working on the engine controls. She reached over and touched the back of his neck, using their psychic bond to show him not just her love for him, but her confidence in his abilities as an engineer.
"I love you too, darlin'." He said with a grin. "I think I have…There. The damned engine is back at one quarter impulse."
"The sensors show signs of plant and animal life on the planet." She said. "There may be an energy source on the other side of the planet from us."
At that point the engines dropped to five percent of full impulse.
"Jesus! Five percent isn't going to slow us down enough to land." He dove back into the innards of the controls. In five minutes, he raised his head.
"Okay. We're at one third impulse. We should make it to the energy source in…"
At that point the engine quit.
"Damn it." He dove back into the innards of the controls. Finally, he pulled his head back out. "If nothing else goes wrong, I can get her down. But we'll never reach the energy source, whatever it is."
The shuttlepod dropped through the atmosphere of the planet.
"Looks good." He said. "Nice flat plains ahead. No mountains or anything to slam into. We're doin' good."
They were fifty meters above the ground when the engines died. The shuttlepod dropped and slammed into the ground.
'Are you okay?" he yelled.
"I'm fine. Are you injured?"
"No."
"How is the shuttlepod?"
"I'll have to check."
The check didn't take long.
"If we were back on Enterprise, I could fix this in an hour. Here, with the tools we have and no spare parts, I can't fix anything. Not propulsion, not comms, not anything."
"I believe I saw a strip of greenery, perhaps a river, as we were landing."
"How far, do you think?" He asked.
"From our altitude at the time, perhaps three hundred and fifty kilometers straight ahead of us. This planet has a magnetic field so the compass will work."
"We'd better start walking then."
They gathered all of the supplies that were in the shuttlepod and began walking towards the distant green strip. They walked through a prairie covered in knee high golden colored grass.
At dark, they set up their lightweight tent, ate a small meal and prepared for bed.
"Don't worry, darlin'. I'll keep you nice and warm." He said, grinning and zipping their two sleeping bags together.
"That is much appreciated. Being from a desert planet, I am easily affected by cold."
They arose at dawn and resumed their march. On the fifth day, they ate the last of their food. At the end of the seventh day, they were down to the last of their water.
"Sure you don't want some?" He asked, holding out their last canteen.
"You drink it. Vulcans need much less water than humans."
He drank.
"T'Pol, I'll probably be good through tomorrow. The day after that, I'll start having trouble. The day after that, I won't be able to go on. You'll have to leave me behind and hope you can find water and come back for me."
"I have no intention of abandoning you. If you can't go on, I'll carry you."
"You'll carry me?"
"Yes. Vulcans come from a higher gravity world than Earth. My muscles are denser than yours and so I am much stronger. I can carry you easily."
"What happens when you can't go on?" He demanded.
"Then I will lay down beside you until we both die. I will not be separated from you except by death."
"You'll carry me until we both die? What kind of logic is that my little Vulcan scientist?" he snapped.
"The same kind of logic that allows a human male to fall in love with a Vulcan female." She said calmly.
He opened his mouth to reply but then began to laugh.
"The same kind of logic that lets a Vulcan female fall in love with a human male, I guess."
"That is settled then." She said with the slight rise of one eyebrow.
He did do well the next day but began to falter on the day after. T'Pol put her arm around him and helped him. At noon they stopped for a rest. Suddenly, T'Pol inhaled several times.
"Trip, I smell smoke."
"God. Not a prairie fire. We'll be cooked."
"The fire isn't that big. Perhaps a campfire?" She inhaled again and again. "That way. A bit to the west of our prior direction."
"I don't smell anything."
"In many ways my senses are superior to yours."
"Okay. Why not?"
They turned and headed towards the smoke, with T'Pol holding up her mate. What they didn't realize was that they were being watched.
Rifleman Prebo tucked his monocular back into the pocket of his flak jacket and grabbed his radio.
"Patrol Four to Central. Come in. Over."
"Central here. Report. Over."
"We have them on visual. Two humans. They're armed with sidearms of some sort. They're upwind of us and I can't smell any evidence of other weapons, explosives, bioweapons, or anything else. They're both wearing blue coveralls. Maybe crew from a starship that landed here. The man is being helped by the woman. Maybe he's hurt. Over."
"How far away are they? Over?"
"I make it a bit over a kilometer until they come over the rise and see the hill. I'd bet they can smell our smoke and are following that. Over."
"Keep in touch with them visually. If they stop and look like they can't go on, or any hostiles approach, go to them and bring them in. Out."
"Why not approach them now?" Rifleman Oblo asked. "They can't be any danger to us. My little sister could take those two on, easy."
"The sergeant wants to play it carefully. As for your little sister, remember the suicide bombers at Hejaz? One of them no bigger than your sister blew up a Guards Armored Brigade scout car and its crew along with maybe twenty civilians. We'll play it safe."
T'Pol and Trip kept walking. When they came over a small rise, they stopped.
"Look. On that hill. Trees. That means water."
"I just hope the taproots don't have to go down a hundred meters to find the water, darlin'."
They walked up the hill and when they got to the top, they got a surprise. There was a small valley in the hilltop and in that valley was a house.
"A house." Trip said. "A house out in the middle of nowhere."
The house was rectangular in shape and flat roofed. There was two windows and a door on the left side of the house. The windows were covered by steel bars but from the size of the door, T'Pol was sure the inhabitants were humanoid. There was a much larger door on the other side of the house, but from the tracks leading to and from it, she was sure it was for a vehicle.
They went down into the valley to the house. Trip collapsed onto one knee, but T'Pol went right to the door and knocked loudly.
"Please assist us. We haven't had any water since the day before yesterday and need assistance. We are peaceful. Please."
She saw two blurs move to her left side. She took two steps back to where Trip was and looked around. There were two more blurs on the roof. She was also sure that she could hear at least two others behind her.
The blurs disappeared to be replaced by four humanoids. They wore camouflaged uniforms and carried some type of weapons. The weapons were pointed at her and Trip.
"We come in peace. Please, we need water."
One of the people on the roof held up two containers and hit the necks against the side of the roof. He threw one to her and one to Trip.
"Tapping the neck like that makes the water nice and cold. Drink with your right hands and, using just your thumb and forefinger of your left hands, take out your sidearms and drop them. Then drop your packs."
They did just that.
"Now, "Said the one on the roof, "take five steps backwards."
When they'd done that, two more uniformed humanoids came from behind them. T'Pol decided they were military of some sort. Each one picked up one of their dropped phase pistols.
"How do we unload them?" One asked.
"There's a button on the left side above the trigger." T'Pol said. "Depress that and push down on the muzzle. Remove the round power source. The weapon will not fire then."
Both pistols were rendered safe.
Meanwhile two other soldiers were checking their backpacks. She was able to get a better look at the alien soldiers. They were humanoid, with slightly bulkier torsos than humans and slightly longer arms and legs. This made them a bit taller than most human males. They were covered with short fur, much like Captain Archer's beagle, Porthos, but each one was of one color, ranging from a light grey, browns, to an almost black. They had no external ears or noses, but she saw they had two large nostrils. They also had two large, protuberant front teeth. This reminded T'Pol of an animal she'd seen in a zoo on Earth, but she couldn't recall its name. All of the soldiers were carrying a rifle of some sort in addition to a pistol and a long knife.
One approached Trip and sniffed.
"Please hand me the devices in your right lower pocket, sir."
At least they're polite. Trip thought. I hope this doesn't end with something like please kneel so we can shoot you in the back of the head, sir.
He handed over the tools in his pocket.
"I'm the chief engineer on a starship. I like to carry tools with me."
The front door of the house opened, and a human couple stood there.
TBC