A Fair Trade - Chapter 6

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.

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CHAPTER SIX

“Captain, there’s an M–class planet on our sensors. It appears from the shuttlepod’s present course, that this might be their goal.” Hoshi was looking into the scanner at the science station, whilst T’Pol was working on repairs in the Transporter room.

Jon looked at his young linguistics officer in sympathy. She still looked like death warmed up, her face unhealthily pale and her dark eyes slightly haunted by what she’d seen in sickbay. It would be some time before Hoshi enjoyed a barbecue again. But as soon as she’d heard what had happened, she’d insisted on coming back on duty. Jon knew their Chief Engineer was very popular, as well as being highly respected, and the crew were understandably concerned for his and Barr’s safety.

“Ok, Travis, bring us into orbit, and then we can take the other shuttle down and look for them. Hoshi, keep scanning for our peoples’ biosigns. We don’t want to lose them when we’re this close.”

Malcolm appeared onto the bridge, a livid bruise visible on his forehead and his face unnaturally pale.

“Reporting for duty, Captain.”

“Malcolm, are you sure you’re fit to be out of sickbay?”

Malcolm nodded, carefully, and pointed to Tactical.

“Permission to resume my post, Captain?”

Jon merely nodded, silently thanking the stiff-upper-lipped Englishman for his quiet strength.

“We’ve got here before the shuttle has landed, which is hardly surprising, but with rescue measures still off line, I can’t do anything until they do land. Hoshi, have you got them?”

“They’ve just entered the planet’s atmosphere, Captain. There’s a lot of turbulence and static… I’m losing the signal due to an ion storm raging over the planet at 100Km. I imagine they’re in for a bumpy ride.”

^*^*^*^*^*^

Trip might have laughed at Hoshi’s choice of words if he hadn’t had his hands full stopping them all from being killed. The pod was like something demon-possessed, bucking and leaping under his hands, yawing from side to side. Most of the occupants were being tossed around like rag dolls, crashing into the walls with sickening thuds, but Trip saved his sympathy for Barr, still lying on the floor, barely conscious. He was rolling back and forwards on the pitching deck, striking against the legs of furniture and people alike, unable to stop himself.

Trip’s teeth were clenched so hard his jaw was beginning to hurt. This reminded him of the bucking bronco rides he’d seen in old movies, and although he’d never sat on one, he felt he knew what it would have been like.

The ion storm had rendered their sensors useless, and he was effectively flying blind, hurtling towards the planet with no means of telling what was out there.

With a sickening, stomach-churning lurch, the shuttle began to drop like a stone.

“Hang on to whatever you can, we’ve just lost the helm. This is gonna hurt!” he yelled, as the shuttle plummeted.

^*^*^*^*^*^

Jon was organising the rescue mission, and Malcolm wanted, fiercely, to be on it.

“Captain, I really am quite all right. Doctor Phlox was happy for me to resume my duties, and those duties are as Chief Security Officer. Your place is here, co-ordinating and supervising, supporting your crew. They need a strong lead right now.”

Jon looked at his wise tactical officer, resignedly. The man’s argument was entirely logical. T’Pol was having a bad influence on his crew. Even Trip could sometimes come up with logical arguments, these days.

‘Trip!’

Instinct and fear for his friend made him want to lead the away team, but he knew he couldn’t go off, throwing himself into every rescue situation. He would have to let his officers take control, instead. His thoughts were interrupted by the intercom.

“Mayweather to Captain Archer.”

He hit the button on the command chair.

“Archer, go ahead, Travis.”

“Sir, you need to come down to the shuttle bay.”

Jon heard the unusual note in the helmsman’s voice, and instinctively knew they’d found more work of the saboteur.

A few minutes later, as he and Malcolm joined Travis inside Shuttlepod One, his fears were confirmed. Travis grimaced.

“I was running a pre-flight check, sir, and something just didn’t feel right, so I ran a diagnostic. Somebody’s tampered with the programmes here, too. The thrusters are off-line. We’d have launched without any indication of trouble, but once we’d tried to land, we’d have been without brakes. The shuttle would have hit the ground with full G force. I don’t know if we’d have survived the drop.”

“Murderous bas…” Malcolm began, but Jon cut him off with a tired wave of the hand.

“Ok, Malcolm, it’s not unfixable, it’s just going to delay things. Everything they’ve done so far has been to delay us, giving them time to put more ground between them and us. So, instead of blowing a gasket, let’s get this repaired.”

He crossed to the intercom. “How are your repairs coming along, T’Pol?”

“Completed, Captain, but due to the ion storm, the transporter would be ineffective. Are you preparing to launch the second shuttle?”

“No, we’ve discovered another repair job, here in the shuttle bay. I’ll be on the bridge.”

T’Pol’s eyebrow was getting plenty of exercise today. This was certainly proving to be a most trying first contact. She closed the access panel on the transporter console, and made her way to the shuttle bay.

It had been two hours since the prisoners had effected their escape, two hours during which the Enterprise crew had worked to overcome all of the acts of sabotage those same prisoners had left behind. Two hours during which they had all feared for their missing crew.

She thought to remind the captain to restrict access to all sensitive areas for future guests on board ship. These humans were much too trusting for their own good.

TBC

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