(no subject)
§ 5 §
“The coil is damaged?” Obne turned questioningly to one of his men, who had straight silver hair reaching almost to his shoulders.
“I’d have to have a look,” the man said gruffly. He licked his lips like someone looking forward to making a quick snack of something.
Trip waved a hand. “Are you an Engineer?”
Tilting his head, the man regarded him as he would a poor imbecile. “Why, what else do I look like?” he asked in mild sarcasm.
Malcolm had ‘don’t make me say it’ written all over his face, and indeed Trip could think of a few imaginative replies to that question. He quickly averted his gaze from the Lieutenant, in the effort to stifle a burst of laughter, which would definitely confirm the alien’s poor opinion of him. He felt like the kid in school who can’t look at his buddy without breaking down into giggles.
“Don’t be silly, Tego,” Obne exclaimed, giving his man a friendly - and nearly lung-damaging - pat on the back. “Commander Tucker cannot know our traditions.” He turned to Trip. “Our engineers all wear their hair long.”
Trip jerked his chin up slightly. “Oh.” Feeling a smile tug at his mouth, he didn’t trust himself to say more; someone else, however, did.
“Peculiar,” Malcolm commented, perfectly serious. “Doesn’t it get in the way?”
Tego shot him a pitying look, and didn’t deign him of a reply. “Where is this coil, then?” he asked instead, starting towards the pod.
“Ah, actually…”
With a couple of fast steps, Trip caught up with him.
“I’ve removed it from its lodging, so if you wait here I’ll---”
“I’d better have a look at the rest of the engine too,” Tego cut him off.
“Wait!”
The firm monosyllable had the same effect as a red traffic light - everyone stopped. All eyes turned to the man who had pronounced it.
“I’m sorry,” Trip went on, in a more conciliatory tone. “We are grateful for your offer to help us, but... Well, let’s say that we too have our traditions; I can’t allow you or anyone else inside our Shuttlepod.”
Looking around, he noticed that the faces of their saviours had turned threateningly dark, and he was glad when he felt Malcolm come up beside him. The Lieutenant’s stance was not to be mistaken. Hoshi and Travis also joined them.
Obne’s eyes shifted from one to the other. “Of course,” he eventually relented, a smile cracking his mask. “No need to get upset. We’re only here to lend a hand, after all.”
“Good.” Trip started to relax again. “I’ll get that coil, then.”
§§§ - §§§
“Trip, bloody hell, wake up!”
Oh, for heaven’s sake! Didn’t a man deserve to sleep in peace? “Call Rostov,” Trip drawled, turning to the other side. He couldn’t be expected to be on duty for twenty-four hours a day.
“What? Rostov isn’t here. Open your eyes, Commander!”
And couldn’t they page him, instead of shaking him brutally like a---
Something dug into his ribs, and Trip reached to remove it. A rock? His eyes shot open. Malcolm’s darker than usual gaze was boring into him from disturbingly close.
“Finally. How are you feeling?”
Trip blinked a couple of times. “Why are ya askin’?” he wondered. The moment he tried to sit up it became quite clear. His breath caught and he reached to a sore spot behind his right shoulder.
“Ouch.”
Malcolm helped him. “Yes, ouch. If it’s any consolation, you’re in good company,” he said grimly. “I don’t know what weapon they used, and where the hell they kept it, but at least it was set to stun.”
“I know,” Hoshi piped in. She was sitting cross-legged not far from Trip. Her face was set in an angry frown, and she too was massaging her shoulder. “I saw that Obne fellow raise his hand, and a beam came out of the ring he was wearing. He shot the two of you from behind, and then...” Hoshi shrugged, her mouth twitching in a lopsided smirk. “Before I could do anything, Travis and I had joined you in Oblivion Land.”
“I’m sorry, Commander,” Travis mumbled, from the other side. He was still lying on the ground and didn’t sound very much with it yet.
Trip tried to roll his shoulder, but gave up with a grimace. “Great,” he muttered. “Now both my shoulders hurt.”
Blowing out a breath, Malcolm informed him, in his deep voice, “That’s not all the bad news.”
One knee on the ground, he was cradling his right arm, which looked limp. “You okay?” Trip asked in concern.
“Yeah. The beam must have hit a nerve; my arm is a bit numb,” Malcolm replied with a dismissive shrug. “But those bloody Felons lived up to their name.”
Trip reluctantly turned to acknowledge that something rather conspicuous was missing.
Hoshi said it out loud. “They took the Shuttlepod.”
A Shot In The Quadrant stood a few metres away, in all its ugliness. Of their own pod no trace remained, other than the landing groove it had dug in the ground.
“I can’t believe it,” Trip breathed out.
Malcolm let out a sarcastic huff of a laugh. “Good Samaritans!”
Now that his concern about their health had been filed away, the Lieutenant’s face hardened in ill-repressed irritation.
“I told you we shouldn’t have trusted them,” he spat out.
“And I followed your recommendations,” Trip countered, a bit too loud. A lancing pain split his head, and he grabbed it, pressing on his throbbing temples. “It looks like they fixed the engine problem, though,” he added, through gritted teeth.
“A lot of good that has done us!”
“Guys, please!” Hoshi begged once more. “We should start thinking of what to do.”
It sounded disturbingly familiar. Trip saw that Malcolm was thinking the same thing, that he too had been transported by the words to their previous nearly deadly mission. He captured his friend’s gaze, in a silent offering of peace. Malcolm acknowledged it and fell silent.
“We don’t have many options,” the Lieutenant said, after a moment. “Unless we try and fly off in that… oversized bullet, we’ll have to wait for Enterprise to find us.”
“Why not?” Travis wondered. He had slowly picked himself up to a sitting position, and looked suddenly more awake.
“Well, I don’t really fancy the Captain finding us stranded here,” Malcolm said darkly.
Travis shook his head. “No, I mean: why not?” His swollen face was gradually becoming more animated, that mad Mayweather glint entering his eyes.
“Why not what?” Trip asked warily.
“I bet I can fly A Shot In The Quadrant,” Travis said, visibly repressing a grimace as he tried to sit straighter.
“You can barely stand, Travis,” Trip made him notice.
“I won’t have to: I’m counting on the fact that even that ship might have a pilot’s seat, Sir.”
Hoshi bit her lip. “I vote for waiting for Enterprise,” she said, eyes silently pleading.
As he opened and closed his right hand to try and get some feeling back into it, Malcolm’s gaze narrowed in thought. “They took the Shuttlepod because it was obviously in better condition than that rusted bathtub they left behind,” he reasoned. “But their ship ought to have warp drive, while our pod hasn’t.”
“They probably mean to outfit it with a warp engine as a next step,” Trip said. “What are you gettin’ at?” he enquired, with a puzzled frown.
The smile that appeared on Malcolm’s lips was somewhat feral.
“We’ll get A Shot In The Quadrant to fly, catch up with them, and re-conquer our pod,” he said resolutely.
Trip shook his head, unconvinced. “Aren’t ya forgetting those - and I quote - brilliant upgrades to the weapons’ system that you made? I doubt A Shot In The Quadrant has very good shielding.”
“We have the best pilot in Starfleet to keep us out of range. Besides,” Malcolm added with a mysterious dance of the eyebrows, “Remember that idea of yours? The upgrades to the weapons aren’t the only ones I made.”
Trip’s eyes went wide. In sickbay, after they had nearly frozen to death, he had told Malcolm in jest that... No, Malcolm would have told him if he had... He would have, wouldn’t he?
He tilted his head. “Ya don’t mean to tell me that you actually...” He didn’t need to finish the sentence; the answer was written all over Malcolm’s face.
Narrowing his eyes, the Lieutenant challenged, “Do you prefer that the Captain finds us here, like this?”
Trip had to admit; that, once again, was a rather convincing argument.
§ 6 §
A Shot was even drabber inside than outside. Hoshi couldn’t repress a grimace of disgust as they passed a small room which nobody, alas, could ever doubt was the ship’s mess. Hygiene apparently wasn’t something Felons cultivated.
Taking a hobbling step inside it, Travis picked up a plate - one of many left dirty on the tables - containing the leftovers of a red gooey substance. “Wow, alien jell-o,” he stated with child-like awe, his face lighting up. He tilted the plate but the food remained cemented in place. “Not something for delicate stomachs,” he said with a wince.
“Probably what they used to fix the coil,” was Trip’s flat comment.
Malcolm darted a glance, before returning to the readings on his scanner. “I’d put it down, Ensign, if I were you,” he calmly interjected. “Might be hazardous.”
Travis quickly replaced the plate on the table and wiped his hands clean on his pants.
As they proceeded towards the front of the ship, Hoshi was struck by a thought. “Those Felons certainly got themselves a newer vessel,” she reasoned, taking in the squalid surroundings. “But our pod isn’t exactly designed for long voyages. It has no mess hall, for example; no galley.”
“Wait until they realise they have no toilet either,” Trip shot back over his shoulder.
“Oh, dear.” Hoshi’s eyes went wide. “Are we sure we want to get our pod back?”
Malcolm’s head came up abruptly. “Let’s get a move on,” he urged, obviously struck by the implications. “Toilet - definitely the next upgrade,” he muttered to himself.
“Along with the crystal ball?” Trip suggested.
One of his charming hundred-watts smiles took the sting out of the words, and Hoshi was glad to see the hint of a smile cross also Malcolm’s face. It seemed those two had signed a truce.
There was something to say for A Shot In The Quadrant - Hoshi mused: its space was well-organised. It might not be a large or particularly nice ship, but everything was there and, especially, things where one expected to find them.
As Trip disappeared in what was quite unmistakably the engine room, the rest of them proceeded to the bridge, which they found on the top of the vessel’s two decks, right in the centre of it. It was small and cramped, and not very state-of-the-art-looking, but the moment Travis set foot on it, he seemed to have no doubts as to which direction to take. He plonked himself down with a grunt on a chair right up front and let his fingers hover over the levers and buttons within easy reach. His face once again lit up, with anticipation.
Leaning over his shoulder, Hoshi studied the alien commands. “I think that means ‘thrusters’,” she said, pointing to the writing near a knob. Sometimes she didn’t know herself how she could tell; things just seemed to click in her mind. The more alien languages she learned, the easier it got, anyway; Felon, as it happened, bore a faint resemblance to Nausicaan.
“And this should be navigation,” Travis added, switching a display on. “Yeah. Got it.”
His seat creaked quite ominously under his weight as he shifted. Malcolm, who was looking around with a critical eye, grimaced. “Let’s hope they’ve kept the engine more oiled than the chairs,” he commented. Just then his communicator chirped. He reached into his arm pocket and retrieved it, flicking it open with practised ease.
“Engine room to Bridge,” Trip’s voice paged; it had an uplifting ring to it. “I think I know how to get this old iron off this rock,” the Engineer said. “Tell Travis to give a whistle when he feels ready to fly it, and I’ll give him engine power.”
A satisfied smile appeared on the helmsman’s lips. “Understood, Commander,” he called back. “Just a few more minutes.”
“I’ll need a hand here, Hoshi.”
Hoshi joined Malcolm, who was studying a console with a concentrated frown.
“This is clearly the tactical station,” he said.
“Uhm, if you say so, Sir.”
“Now, though,” Malcolm continued, holding his chin. His grey eyes had become mere slots. “I can’t decide if that button is to bring the phaser weapons online and this to launch torpedoes, or the other way round. Any idea, Ensign?”
When she had taken up a career as a linguist, Hoshi would have never thought she’d have to translate the commands of an alien spaceship’s tactical station. But the answer was actually quite easy.
“This word,” - she pointed to a writing - “Has the same root as the one that means ‘thrusters’: I suppose it might indicate ‘expulsion’, ‘launch’.”
“Torpedoes,” Malcolm concluded with a sharp nod. “Thank you, Hoshi. I think I can figure the rest out myself.”
“You’re not going to shoot on our Shuttlepod, are you, Sir?” Hoshi felt the need to ask.
Malcolm gave her a weird look. “Of course not. Shields... shields...” he continued, totally focussed on the console again.
“That word has a vague resemblance to the Nausicaan for ‘cover’,” Hoshi offered with a shrug.
“Nausicaan?” Travis turned abruptly.
Hoshi shrugged. “Different as they look, Felons and Nausicaans seem to have something in common,” she said.
“Bloody hell, yes,” Malcolm spat out. “Pirates, both of them.” He studied the switch. “Shields, then,” he muttered to himself.
“Ah - actually...” Hoshi bit her lip, suddenly uncertain. There were too many knobs and levers and switches, and way too many ways she could interpret them wrongly. “That knob,” she said, pointing to a switch close to the previous one, “Is marked something like...” She paused, looking for the right word. “Insulation.”
“Marvellous,” was the sighed comment.
§§§ - §§§
When they finally lifted off the planet’s surface, it was with a couple of embarrassing bounces. Under his dark complexion and his bruises, Travis was probably blushing with shame.
“Trying to put your personal signature on the hull, Ensign?” Malcolm teased him, cutting the tense silence.
“Sorry,” Travis muttered self-consciously. “I need to get a feel for these commands.”
Malcolm eyed his own series of buttons and levers with perplexion. “Indeed,” he said, with a lift of his eyebrows.
Leaving the planet’s atmosphere was an interesting experience - of the kind Hoshi hoped she’d never have to live again. The vessel’s helm was - Travis swore - very sensitive. So was Hoshi, in various parts of her body, after the umpteenth time she was knocked about. At some point she just dropped to sit on the floor and wedged herself into a corner, hugging her drawn-up legs. Her only comfort was that she was in good company, for Malcolm was holding on for dear life to a pole that stood in the middle of the Bridge; the turbulence had made him go very pale.
The ship vibrated and rang with a low hum, as if the strain was too much for her battered hull, and it would come apart any time. Hoshi blocked her ears and closed her eyes, wishing this was only a bad dream.
“Warp 2 is her top speed,” Trip announced, staggering onto the Bridge like a drunk. “But she’s not such a bad little ship, engine-wise.”
He looked totally unconcerned about the shuddering, or Travis’s unsteady piloting. A sudden tilt sent him crashing against the bulkhead, eliciting a grunt when his previously banged-up shoulder connected with it.
“Touchy commands,” Travis said, wincing apologetically.
Finally they left the atmosphere, and things got a bit smoother. Hoshi accepted Trip’s help and got to her feet. “See if you can figure out how to use the transceiver,” the Commander said, with an encouraging smile. “I wanna give those Felons a---”
“Aha!” Malcolm exclaimed, interrupting him. “I’ve got long-range sensors.” A tight giggle escaped his throat. It was a sound of triumph. “I see them. Bearing nine, five, seven, mark three, Ensign.” With a knowing glance at Trip he added, “And they don’t seem to be moving. They can’t escape us now.” The colour had returned to his cheeks.
Trip leaned over Travis’s shoulder. “Go, Ensign. Engage the warp drive. Let’s get what’s ours back.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Travis input the coordinates; his hand hesitated just one moment over a couple of levers. Then it dropped on them and pulled. A Shot In The Quadrant responded… Just not the way they had expected.