A Fair Trade - Chapter 3

A Fair Trade

by kittytrypsin

Genre: Action/Adventure
Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer # 1: Paramount owns the characters from ‘Enterprise’, I’m just borrowing them. But if they don’t look after them…

Disclaimer # 2: No financial gain is being made from these stories, unfortunately.

*****

CHAPTER THREE

Jon felt uneasy as he thought over Goff’s story. He supposed it could be entirely plausible that none of the prisoners got off, alive, and maybe, if the survivors were ashamed to say, they might even have physically hampered the others’ attempts to escape. But the cold hard facts were that if any prisoners had still been alive, Trip’s sensors would have detected them, and surely the odds had to be favourable for at least one being transported.

On the other hand, there could be a perfectly good reason for the only survivors being crew. He wondered how he would react under similar circumstances if he, too, were ferrying dangerous prisoners and time was against everyone being rescued. Morally, he knew he shouldn’t place one life higher in value than another, but in the face of certain death, he had to ask himself, would he have reacted any differently? He liked to think that he would at least try to get everyone off, but he knew there was no way he’d put the lives of prisoners before any of his crew. After all, they were his family.

As a precaution, he had decided to split the survivors into smaller groups, easier to keep an eye on, and less likely to start any trouble. It was still going to be a tight squeeze. Most quarters on board ship were spartan and compact, the exceptions being the Officers’ quarters. As all of their guests were male, none of them could move in with female crewmembers, so a little doubling-up amongst the crew was going to be necessary. Malcolm had been given the task of seeing their passengers to their new quarters.

“But Captain, the Sub-Commander won’t want me sharing with her. She needs space to meditate, and I’d only be in her way.” The anguished face of the linguistics officer was silently pleading for another solution.

“Hoshi, this isn’t ideal for any of us, but it’ll only be for a few days. You survived the catwalk; this should be a piece of cake. And it’s only until we reach Zena. Besides, T’Pol has already agreed.”

“She has?”

Jon gave her a huge grin, attempting to ease her anxiety. “Yeah, well, I told her it was either you or Commander Tucker.”

In spite of her discomfort at the situation, Hoshi couldn’t contain her laughter. She could just picture T’Pol’s eyebrow going through the roof at the very thought of ‘bunking’ with the commander.

“Ok, Captain. I’ll try to stay out of her hair. Maybe we should work opposite to each other.”

“Whatever, sort it out between yourselves. I’m putting two survivors in your room, one each with Travis, Malcolm and Trip, and the other four are bunking in the brig. I don’t suppose anyone’s going to be too comfortable, but at least they’re alive.”

Hoshi nodded and left to gather some personal items from her room. She tried not to feel animosity towards their passengers, these nine men who’d invaded her ‘family environment’. That thought startled her, momentarily, as she suddenly realised just how comfortable she now felt amongst the crew; they had indeed become her second family. But she couldn’t help having a feeling of foreboding that made her shiver.

Feeling a headache developing, she decided to make a call to sickbay before going to her quarters. As she entered, the acrid smell of burnt flesh caught her throat and made her gag. Clutching a hand to her mouth and nose, she looked around for the source, and when she discovered it, her eyes seemed like those of a startled rabbit caught in headlights. She staggered to the intercom.

“Captain…sir, come to sickbay…it’s awful…” she managed to stammer, before her legs gave way and she collapsed in a dead faint.

^*^*^*^*^*^

When the room stopped spinning, Hoshi cautiously opened her eyes to discover that she was on a biobed. That meant that she was in sickbay and her last awareness in this room had been decidedly unpleasant. She looked around apprehensively for the ‘thing’ that had once been a person. Someone had discreetly covered it with a sheet, but Hoshi’s travelling gaze stopped as she noticed another occupied biobed.

Doctor Phlox lay, pale and bleeding from a scalp wound, being attended by Elizabeth Cutler.

“Is he ok?” she whispered, her head too sore to speak any louder. She felt a hand gently touching her shoulder and turned towards it to see the captain looking down at her with concerned eyes.

“Hoshi, how are you feeling?”

“I-I’m ok, Captain, just a bit of a headache. I’m sorry for fainting, for being so weak, but when I saw that…I’m sorry.”

“Hey, that’s ok; I nearly lost my lunch when I saw it, too. And Phlox is going to be fine. Lucky for him that Denobulans have an extra-thick skull. If he’d been human, the blow may well have killed him.”

“Who was it?”

“Who do you mean, the attacker, or…?”

Hoshi nodded, pointing a trembling finger at the shrouded remains.

“I have to assume it was the late, departed Captain Quin, everyone else is accounted for. As to why anyone went to the trouble to cremate him, I’ve no idea. I’d just finished allocating guest quarters when your call came through. Malcolm’s rounding everybody up so that I can question them, but for a while they were being treated as guests, which meant that they were free to roam in all but the restricted areas of the ship. I’ve a feeling they’ll only tell me what they want me to know.”

As he finished speaking, a dramatically loud moan from Phlox announced his return to consciousness.

“Now I can empathise with my patients when they awaken here with headaches.”

Jon crossed to his side. “Take it easy, Doc. Somebody tried to alter the shape of your skull.”

Phlox had been gently exploring the back of his head and his fingers came away sticky with blood. Elizabeth Cutler gently rolled him onto his side, bathed the wound and sealed it expertly, as she’d seen him do on many occasions. Phlox lay patiently as she ministered to him with a hypospray, and then gingerly eased off the bed.

“Thank you, Ensign, that was most proficient. I’ll be fine, Captain, but I’m curious as to why I was attacked.”

“I don’t for one minute think that it was a crewmember that attacked you, so that only leaves our passengers. And that would indicate that there was something they didn’t want you to discover in your examination of Quin’s remains. I’m assuming that the last time you saw him, the captain hadn’t been bar-be-cued?”

Phlox’s eyebrows soared as he understood Captain Archer’s words. He padded over to the covered body and raised the sheet.

“Dear, dear me, someone went to a great deal of trouble to hide the evidence.”

“Evidence of what, Doctor?” Jon asked, intrigued at what Phlox had found.

“Just before my assailant struck, I discovered something very interesting. It had escaped me when I’d examined the captain the first time, because a large bruise covered it. When I used the scanner, however, it was as clear as daylight.”

“Doctor, you’re talking in riddles. What was as clear as daylight?” Jon sounded exasperated.

“A fine puncture wound, straight to the heart. Captain Quin was murdered, by persons unknown, but possibly by one of the nine men we’ve taken on board.”

TBC

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