What Does Not Kill Us- Chapter 19

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 19

“T’Pol, tell me what we’ve got,” said Archer, stepping onto the bridge from the turbo lift. Reed and T’Pol were once again examining scans in the situation room. Enterprise was hidden in an asteroid belt at the edge of the star system, further out from the moon that was their target.

“It is a heavily guarded and shielded facility. We have not been detected but they have extensive atmospheric sensor nets. It will make it difficult to land the shuttlepods,” said T’Pol.

“Can we use the transporters?” asked Archer.

“The shielding would prevent that,” replied T’Pol.

“Do we still have the Suliban cell ship?” asked Archer.

“Yes, sir,” said Reed. “But we can’t fit more than six people with equipment in the cell ship and Travis is the only one who can fly it. That’s a smaller team that I was hoping to take.” Reed would have been happier with two shuttlepods full of marines and security officers. He would have settled for one shuttlepod at a push but six people, one of whom would have to be Travis, would never be enough. “Major Hayes and I had planned on a full assault squad. Six people won’t be able to do this, Captain.”

“T’Pol?” said Archer.

“I believe it can still be done, if the computer codes that Commander Tucker gave us are genuine.”

“That’s a big if, Sub-commander,” said Reed. Trip might be his friend but he still had to be realistic, at the moment there was no guarantee that Trip knew what he was talking about when it came to the nanoprobes and therefore no guarantee that the codes were genuine.

“We have only limited options, Lieutenant,” said T’Pol.

“Agreed, Sub-commander, but what if the computer codes are a trap?” asked Reed.

“If they are a trap, then we will have only sacrificed six men,” said T’Pol. “The information this outpost could provide is worth the risk in my estimation.”

“It’s still the lives of six people,” said Archer.

“It’s six lives versus six billion,” said Reed.

“Yes but will those six lives gain us anything?” asked Archer. “Otherwise it’s a sacrifice for no reason.”

“From what we’ve been able to ascertain this is a Xindi outpost of great importance,” said T’Pol. “This is the best lead on the weapon that we have had since we entered the Expanse, and we cannot deal with the nanoprobes until we have further data and I believe that this is the best way to get it.” Archer noticed that T’Pol was still referring to them as nanoprobes rather than adopting Trip’s terminology.

“You’re right, T’Pol,” said Archer. “We don’t have a choice here, we have to try it, even if it is a trap. What do your scans show?”

“It appears that the outpost is a science station, I have passed diagrams of the interior layout to Lieutenant Reed and Major Hayes. We will get to work on revising our plan for infiltration to take account of the smaller team we will have at out disposal. The main computer core is heavily guarded but Lieutenant Reed has produced some ideas on how to get around their security. I believe we have a good chance of success,” finished T’Pol.

“Okay, you have two hours to get ready. Let me know as soon as you’re happy with your plan of action, and I expect all of you to return from this. Is that understood?” said Archer.

“Yes, Captain,” replied T’Pol and Reed, even though they both knew that this was most likely a one way mission.

****

“Signal detected,” said the nanites.

“Signal?” asked Trip.

“Yes, Xindi homing frequency detected. Responding,” said the nanites.

“No, don’t,” said Trip but it was too late, he heard the response go out. “We’re here,” said the nanites and the Xindi responded, “come home”.

“They have detected our presence,” replied the nanites.

“They know Enterprise is hiding in the asteroid field?” asked Trip.

“Indirectly. They know of the presence of nanites. They detected us and will infer the presence of a ship,” said the nanites.

“Great,” said Trip sarcastically. The nanites didn’t understand sarcasm as yet and asked for clarification. Trip told them to ignore the remark which they did happily. “I have to get off Enterprise or we’re all going to be toast.” There was the problem of the guard though. Trip knew that even though it wasn’t Malcolm guarding him, he wasn’t a match for any of the security officers, especially not in his current state with one arm in a sling and needing his crutches to get anywhere. He needed to think of a plan quickly, he didn’t think the Captain would go for just putting him in a shuttlepod.

“What do you know about this outpost?” he asked. The nanites sent him a request for clearance and he did what he had done before and thought about the Xindi database they had found. Suddenly a whole slew of data was downloaded directly into his head and, surprisingly, it hurt. Trip held his head and willed the headache to subside as the images he’d received felt as if they were burning themselves into his brain. He managed to reach the com. “Tucker to Phlox.”

“Go ahead Commander,” said Phlox.

“Doc, I’m having a bit of trouble,” he got out and felt himself lose the power to remain upright as blinding pain hit him. He vaguely heard Phlox calling him by name over the com but he didn’t have the ability to answer. This was a bad time to pass out, he needed to talk to the Captain and he needed to leave Enterprise before they worked out where the nanites were. His body was betraying him though. His vision distorted and everything he saw seemed to be down a long tunnel. He leant against the wall and then slowly slid to the floor before passing out completely.

He awoke to the concerned face of his guard and Dr Phlox. His head felt as if it had been turned inside out and when he moved his head the room moved with him. A wave of dizziness swept over him again and he fought to hold onto his tenuous grip on consciousness.

“Get the Captain,” he said to Phlox, with great difficulty. His brain just didn’t seem to be making the connection to his mouth, he had to force every word out. His head was throbbing so hard he couldn’t form coherent thoughts. “Please,” he added. Some pieces of information were making themselves clear and he didn’t like what he saw, he had to talk to the Captain.

Phlox nodded to the security officer who had been guarding him and he heard him in the distance calling for the Captain. He couldn’t hang on any longer, everything just hurt too much. There were too many people shouting at him in his head and the images that he saw were so bright that they burned into him. The nanites were telling him that he had to leave Enterprise, except that it wasn’t exactly the nanites, they were just relaying the instruction. He tried to ignore them but that just caused him more pain. His eyes rolled back in his head and he was in merciful darkness again.

****

Lieutenant Reed felt the familiar rush of adrenaline that preceded a combat mission. He had prepared as well as he could and now it was time to put all that training into practice. There were six of them squeezed into the Suliban cell ship, Mayweather, Hayes, T’Pol, Corporal Cole, Corporal Romero and himself. They hadn’t been able to bring much equipment so they were all hoping that they wouldn’t encounter anything that they hadn’t planned for. Reed was thankful that they’d been able to bring as much as they had.

“We’re coming up on the moon, Sub-commander,” said Mayweather.

“Proceed with caution,” said T’Pol. “Is the cloaking device still functioning satisfactorily?”

“Yes, no problems,” replied Reed. “Unless we’re unlucky and they know to look for a cloaked ship, we should remain undetected.”

The occupants of the cell ship collectively held their breath as Mayweather entered the atmosphere of the moon. Reed kept an eye on the scanners for anything remotely suspicious looking but their luck held and no craft appeared. T’Pol on the other side of Mayweather was monitoring the sensors intensely for any sign that they had been scanned or detected by another means. Reed thought that in fact their luck was being too good and he was waiting for the whole mission to blow up in their faces. Optimism, he reflected, was not a useful trait in a Tactical Officer, despite what Commander Tucker thought.

Mayweather gently set the cell ship down a reasonable distance away from the outpost at a landing site they had already identified. Everything still seemed to be quiet and the Xindi hadn’t realised that they were there. They embarked from the cell ship silently and made their way toward the outpost carefully through the dense forest which covered the majority of the moon they had landed on. It was night on the moon which they hoped would give them extra cover although the Xindi sensors were more worrisome. Reed watched T’Pol’s cat like stride and wondered if all Vulcans were as agile as the Sub-commander, but quietly told himself to grow up and concentrate on the mission. They were in enemy territory and he needed all his wits about him.

A search light swept the forest and the Enterprise crew members pressed themselves back against the trees. Reed was worried about Mayweather, he wasn’t trained for this, but then he hadn’t had much choice about whether to bring him with them. He’d been on away missions before but never one in which he had been called to infiltrate an enemy base. This was a completely different type of away mission compared to what Mayweather was used to.

T’Pol signalled to Reed and Hayes to move forwards towards the base, the two MACOs and Mayweather followed them. T’Pol covered their backs and Reed took point. They reached the perimeter of the outpost, a row of sensors and shield generators. Reed quickly took out the equipment from his back pack that he needed and set about disabling the enemy systems. He silently wished that their Chief Engineer had been able to accompany them, he would have been able to short circuit the enemy sensors and shields much faster than Reed could do it, and every second counted in this situation. Reed had the shields and sensors down in less than a minute but he wondered if he had taken too long, a few seconds would have been enough for the Xindi to detect them. No alarms sounded though so he had to hope that he’d been fast enough.

The five humans and one Vulcan made their way inside the buildings of outpost, since they had left the cell ship no one had spoken a word. T’Pol looked at her scanner and again indicated to her team the direction that they should go. So far everything was going according to plan as it logically should do if they remained undetected, however T’Pol did not expect them to remain undetected much longer.

The corridors were made of unpainted steel. The lights were low compared to those on Enterprise and cast eerie shadows on the wall. Pipes and conduits ran along the ceiling, exposing the inner workings of the outpost to T’Pol’s scans and she didn’t like what she found. Despite her control over her emotions, what she saw on her scanner chilled her to her bones.

Continue to Chapter 20

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