What Does Not Kill Us- Chapter 18

What Does Not Kill Us

by Thalia Drogna

Rating: R
Genre: Action/Adventury, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters, I’m just borrowing them

~~~

Chapter 18

Archer, T’Pol and Reed stood in the situation room at the back of the bridge. Archer leant against the table looking down at the scans which T’Pol had managed to take at long range. They needed to get closer before they could draw any real conclusions from what they had detected. So far no Xindi ships had been sighted but Archer wasn’t hopeful that their luck would hold. The outpost was on a moon of one of the larger planets in the system.

“We will be approaching the outpost in a little under five hours,” said T’Pol.

“How are the scans doing?” asked Archer.

“They are proceeding satisfactorily, however once we are closer I will be able to obtain more detailed images,” replied T’Pol.

“What do you think we’re going to find down there?” asked Archer.

“Speculation is futile at this stage,” said T’Pol.

“It may be futile but I’d like to know what you think,” said Archer.

“There are two main possibilities. We can either expect to find a science station or a military outpost, whichever we find it is likely that it will be heavily guarded,” said T’Pol.

“I have been able to detect some pretty heavy weaponry, sir,” said Reed.

“A match for Enterprise?” asked Archer.

“Easily, sir,” said Reed.

“I’m getting kind of tired of being outgunned,” said Archer.

“I’m sorry, sir, I’m doing my best but it took the engineers at Jupiter station months to design the upgrades for our torpedoes and the same with the phase cannons. And that was with a complete team of dedicated engineers working on it.”

“It wasn’t a criticism, Lieutenant, just an observation,” said Archer.

“In any case, I’d suggest that we don’t go in with guns blazing, sir,” said Reed.

“My thoughts exactly, Lieutenant. T’Pol I want you to command the away team. Lieutenant, assemble your security team, tell Hayes and the MACOs to be ready to go down to the surface too,” said Archer. “Your target will be their computer core. I want you to find any information you can, about the Xindi, about the nanoprobes and about why they wanted Trip.”

“Yes, sir,” said Reed. This was the worst part as far as he was concerned, the waiting while they found out what they were really up against. He and Hayes had been running their teams through training scenarios ever since the Xindi had tried to kidnap the Commander. They had trained for every type of infiltration that they could think of and they were as ready as they were ever going to be. However, none of that helped the fact that they had no idea how many Xindi they would be facing or the layout of the outpost. At the moment they weren’t even sure exactly what the outpost was doing here. There was nothing worse than going into a situation blind, it was that sort of thing that meant men got killed. Reed didn’t like the way this mission was looking at all.

****

Trip had been going over the schematics with the nanites for the hundredth time, there had to be something else here that would give him a clue to what they did. Communication with the nanites was interesting, it wasn’t like holding a conversation. Often all he had to do was think ideas at them and they understood what he wanted, but sometimes he had to work hard to find the right words to explain to them what he was getting at. Their replies could be equally cryptic and they didn’t exactly reply to him in English, it was more like they replied to him in impressions and his brain interpreted those impressions into words that he could understand. It was a bizarre way to communicate, he reflected but it seemed to work.

The schematics were beginning to frustrate him. Working with drawings was fine but there was only so far you could go on paper. He had no idea how to even go about examining the nanoprobes further though. He’d worked out how the nanites converted his body’s energy into their own, which was at least something. Now he was trying to question them on what they’d been built to do, but they were being very unhelpful.

“Look, you could be a little more co-operative here,” said Trip to the nanites in what would have been an exasperated tone had he said it out loud.

“We don’t understand what you’re asking,” replied the nanites.

“You were built by the Xindi, right?” asked Trip, trying a different line of questioning.

“Yes,” said the nanites. “We were designed by Grenan Dath of the Xindi sloth.”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Tell me about Grenan Dath,” he said.

“Grenan Dath, born on the Xindi colony of Rezidi, to parents Gorak and Unida. Attended school at Tilat until age 15 when he transferred to the Xindi Science Academy. Transferred to Xindi ship “Telguth” aged 40. Died aged 52 in the battle of Corrida.”

“What did he do at the Science Academy?” asked Trip.

“He was the author of a number of important scientific papers and worked in the area of nano-technology. Would you like the titles of the papers?” queried the nanoprobes.

“Sure,” said Trip and the nanites reeled off the list of their creator’s accomplishments. “God damn it,” said Trip when he heard the titles of the papers. “Grenan Dath was an engineer. He was a starship engineer.”

“Correct,” replied the nanites.

“Well why didn’t you say so?” said Trip.

“You didn’t ask,” was the inevitable reply.

“So Grenan Dath designed and built you to do what?” asked Trip.

“We don’t understand that question,” the nanites said.

“But you were built by an engineer and that has to count for something,” said Trip. “What would an engineer need nanites for? What would I need nanites for?” The nanites didn’t answer, it hadn’t been a question to them and they were getting better at understanding when Trip was talking to himself and didn’t want their opinion. He knew this was important but he couldn’t quite get to the reason why. He took a deep breath and tried to decide if there was a way to get the information that he wanted. “What about the Xindi? What can you tell me about the Xindi?”

“Grenan Dath of the Xindi sloth was our designer. We have no other information about the Xindi,” replied the nanites. Trip was working blind, he really had no idea what sort of information the nanites carried within them and he had expected to hit dead ends before he got anything useful out of them. What he hadn’t expected was to hit so many dead ends and for it to take so long to find anything even remotely useful to him. It seemed as if the nanite’s knowledge was limited to technology.

“The Xindi have some pretty cool technology. What can you tell me about that?” he asked

“You don’t have clearance for that information,” the nanites said.

“I don’t have clearance? That’s a new one. You’re inhabiting my body and I don’t have clearance,” said Trip. The nanites apologised but wouldn’t budge. “Damn, another brick wall,” he said and closed his eyes trying to gather his thoughts. He was thinking about all the information that they had collected so far. The Xindi database that they had recovered and the symbols which had flashed across the screen. He knew that they would be approaching the Xindi outpost soon and he desperately wanted to come up with something which would help the away team when they got there.

The nanites sent him the equivalent message to “well why didn’t you say,” and suddenly a whole raft of green Xindi symbols ran through his head. Trip grabbed a padd and quickly scribbled down the symbols before he could forget them. He knew what they were as well, he hobbled to the comm, maybe this would persuade the Captain that the nanoprobes really were harmless.

****

“They just told you this? They just gave you the computer codes for the outpost?” asked Archer. He and Hoshi were sitting in Trip’s quarters while he tried to explain what the nanites had just given him. Hoshi was looking at the symbols that Trip had written down.

“Well I wouldn’t say that, apparently I don’t have clearance to access the really sensitive stuff. Despite them swimming around in my body, they don’t trust me with everything, I guess they know I’m not Xindi. I was thinking about that Xindi database that we downloaded and the outpost that we’re approaching. They sent me something like “authorisation accepted” and they… just told me,” said Trip.

“So who was this Grenan Dath?” asked Archer.

“Like I said, he was the guy who designed and built the nanites,” said Trip.

“He’s Xindi?” asked Archer.

“Yes, he’s Xindi, but you know as well as I do that doesn’t make him a bad person,” said Trip. “Gralik helped us. Grenan Dath wasn’t a weapons designer, he was an engineer, like me.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t design a weapon, even if he didn’t intend to,” said Archer.

“I can’t decipher this, sir,” said Hoshi. “It’s just a string of symbols, these aren’t words.”

“Which makes sense, right?” said Trip, “I mean a string of numbers and characters is what we use for our computer codes. It follows that they’d use something similar.”

“Trip, they might not even be their computer codes. For all we know it’s the outpost’s self-destruct code and they told it to you to lure us into a trap.”

“Why won’t you believe me when I say that they’re not a weapon. I’m telling you, these are the computer codes for that outpost,” said Trip.

Archer looked at Trip. “You’ve got to understand how unbelievable this all sounds. I mean first of all the Xindi inject you with these nanoprobes which destroy any piece of technology you touch. Then suddenly they start talking to you and you’re getting friendly with them.”

“I wouldn’t call it friendly, but it’s hard not to get to know them when they’re sharing my head,” replied Trip.

“Trip, my point is that they were built by the Xindi and therefore they have to be suspect,” said Archer.

Trip nodded. “I understand that, Captain, but just this once maybe you could take my word for it.” He paused, looking down at his hands. “There’s something else, I can read Xindi,” said Trip.

“You can?” asked Hoshi. “Hang on let me test you,” she added and quickly tapped on the padd. She passed a padd to him covered in the spiky Xindi symbols that he had recognised before.

“It says: if you can read this I’ll be very surprised,” said Trip and smiled at Hoshi.

“Yes, it does,” said Hoshi. “Have you any idea how long its taken me to get this far with Xindi? How come you can suddenly translate it as quickly as you read it?”

“Actually it isn’t me, the nanites just tell me what it says. They do all the interpreting, I’m just letting them borrow my eyes,” said Trip.

“I don’t care if you can read Xindi, that doesn’t make me trust the information any more,” said Archer.

“Having the computer codes could make all the difference between life and death for the away team,” said Trip.

“I’m well aware of that, Trip,” said Archer. “I’ll give the information to T’Pol but she’s commanding the away team and it’s up to her as to whether she decides to use it or not.”

“But, Captain…” said Trip, but Archer already had a hand up to stop Trip from continuing.

“That’s my final answer, Trip. Let’s find out what’s down there and then we’ll talk again about this.”

Trip hung his head but didn’t say anymore.

“T’Pol to Archer,” said the comm.

“Archer here, go ahead.”

“Captain, we are entering the system containing the outpost,” said T’Pol.

“Very well, find us a place to hide. I’m coming to the bridge.”

Continue to Chapter 19

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