EMV Part IV. Chapter 2
EMV IV - Exiles - Chapter 2
Author’s notes: As it is obvious, I’ve used certain elements from the Voyager episode “Gravity” to create this very AU “Shuttlepod One” unit. Certain lines of dialogue are directly quoted from that episode. The technobabble concerning gravimetric shears and other subspace phenomena is quoted from the Memory Alpha website.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Crewman Walsh was still alive - albeit unconscious - when they returned to the shuttlepod, so Reed decided to take them over to the landing pad of the alien complex at once. That proved more challenging than expected, though.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered angrily, trying to keep the ‘pod in a straight flight line with all his considerable skills. “It is as if I'm constantly having to readjust to the surface gravity again and again.”
“That’s because we do have,” Hoshi replied, keeping a wary eye on the control screen. “The gravity increases gradually the closer we’re getting to the complex.”
“What?” He refrained from looking at her in the last moment; he really needed to focus on his controls. “That can by now means be a natural phenomenon!”
“Not very likely,” she agreed. “Perhaps it’s generated artificially to enable the people working in the complex - whoever they might be - to do so more comfortably.”
“Do you read any bio-signs inside the complex?”
“No; but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone. The complex could be shielded.”
“Try hailing them.”
She did as she was told, linking the universal translator to the comm system of the ‘pod but without results.
“No reply, sir,” she said after the fourth attempt. “Either there isn’t anyone home… or they don’t want to talk. I can’t even tell if our calls have been received at all.”
“Well, we’re almost there,” His tone was almost philosophical. “We’ll see if there’s going to be a welcoming committee or we’ll have to find a way inside on our own.”
“Forgive me if I hope for the later,” Hoshi murmured, more to herself than to him.
Approximately half an hour later - the increasing of surface gravity made their approach really complicated - Reed finally set down the ‘pod on the landing platform. From this angle the building complex looked huge and somewhat ominous, but so far there was no sign of any inhabitants.
“What now?” Hoshi asked, giving Crewman Walsh a worried glance. He was on the ‘pod floor, placed in the recovery position and with a blanket over him, but hadn’t so much as stirred.
The man was still breathing - barely - but showed no sign of regaining consciousness. Paired with the heavy concussion and the bleeding in the brain, that was a bad omen.
Reed answered dryly that he’d best go out and look for the doorbell.
She scanned their immediate surroundings and bit her lip. “I don’t think you’ll have to, sir. It seems we’re being pulled in.”
And indeed, a previously undetected turntable in the centre of the landing platform started slowly rotating under the ‘pod, sinking deeper and deeper with every rotation. Reed uttered a vile oath and tried to emergency-start the vehicle to escape, but the (presumably) automated docking system shut down his attempts rather successfully.
“Well,” he finally said, accepting the inevitable even as he went to the weapons locker and pulled out two phase pistols, “we wanted in, didn’t we?”
“Which only shows that we should be careful what we wish for,” Hoshi replied. “We might actually get it.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If Gerasen Gerasal was surprised being invited to the staff meeting, they didn’t show it. The arrived together with Doctor Phlox, who reported that all injured had been treated successfully and could return to duty, with the exception of Crewman Baird.
“I want to keep him under observation for another twenty-four hours,” he said. “If there are no complications, I’ll release him tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s one concern off my mind,” Archer said, relieved. “Let’s return to the main problem, people. First, tell me more about what we’re dealing with; preferably in very simple terms. Remember, I’m just a dumb pilot, not a scientist.”
Charlie Tucker summarized for the benefit of those who hadn’t been on the Bridge at the time. “Basically, we got caught in a gravimetric shear or spatial disturbance. We barely managed to escape the vortex, thanks to T’Pol’s quick thinkin’, and it’s obvious that the same happened to the ‘pod, which then got pulled in.”
“The anomaly is approximately six hundred metres in diameter,” the Vulcan added. “Also, it is out of phase with normal space. Even after recalibrating the sensors, it barely registers.”
The others digested this piece of information for a moment.
“Any sign of the ‘pod?” The captain finally asked.
T’Pol shook her head. “None. For any chance to find them we would need a multispatial probe.”
“Which we don’t have,” Charlie commented dryly. “Seein’ that this is the first time I even hear of such a thing.”
“Could you build one?”
“Sure, if I had the specifics; which I haven't. Cap’n, we’re talkin’ about technology that doesn't even exist on Earth. Not yet anyway.”
“But it does exist on Vulcan,” Gerasen Gerasal said quietly; then she looked at T’Pol. “Do you have the specifics?”
“Affirmative,” the Vulcan replied after a moment of hesitation.
“Then I suggest you give them to Commander Tucker,” the Viseeth said. “I know your people are reluctant to share advanced technology with less advanced people, and in principle I agree. However, it is crucial to get that shuttlepod out of the sinkhole and learn what is on that planetoid. If it is indeed in a subspace pocket, it might serve as another gateway for the Solanae to cross over into normal place, and that is not something we can risk.”
“Perhaps that explains the presence of the EM fields,” Tucker was clearly thinking aloud. “Last time we closed their gateway with a tightly bundled EM burst. What if somebody established those EM fields to prevent them from comin' over?”
“Unlikely but not impossible,” Gerasen Gerasal allowed. “If that is the case, though, it must have happened one hundred thousand of your years ago, give or take a few centuries. No-one has today the technology to do so, not even us.”
“What about the Antosians?” T’Pol asked.
“Gerasen Gerasal tilted their head to the side with that quick, lizard-like gesture of theirs.
“Theoretically, it is possible,” they said. “However, to our knowledge the Antosians never operated in this area of space.”
“Whoever it was, it doesn’t really matter right now,” Archer interrupted. “We need to get our people out of there, and for that we obviously need that… what was it again? A multispatial probe?” T’Pol nodded. “Well, give Trip the specifics, Subcommander. I want that thing built as soon as possible. In the meantime brush up on sinkholes, quantum singularities and the likes. We need to know what to expect.”
“I can help with that,” Gerasen Gerasal offered.
“I thought you were an intelligence officer, not a scientist,” he said in surprise.
The Viseeth smiled. “I am. But you must understand, Captain, that such things are common knowledge for the upper echelons of my people. We’ve been in this business for a very long time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After what seemed eternity but probably didn’t last longer than a minute and a half, the turntable finally stopped. They couldn’t see what was above them, of course, but the instruments indicated that the platform closed up again, showing a completely smooth, unbroken surface.
“Should we get out?” Hoshi asked uncertainly.
“In a moment,” Reed lifted the hand that wasn’t holding his phase pistol. “Let’s see first if there’ll be any reaction to our presence here, automated or otherwise.”
Before he could even finish speaking, a bright light swept the interior of the shuttlepod. Hoshi blinked furiously to regain her vision.
“Wasn’t that just…”
“… just like the bio-molecular probe the repair station scanned Enterprise with,” Reed finished for her.
“Oh,” she blinked some more. “That’s not very reassuring.”
“No. But if this is the same technology, at least we can hope for a breathable atmosphere and perhaps even help for Crewman Walsh.”
“Until the system gets the splendid idea of hooking us up to its computer core,” she muttered darkly. “We have no means to wear off their transporter beams.”
“We must keep very close, all the timethey are. But as it doesn’t look like they’re going to introduce themselves politely, are we getting out or not?”
“We don’t really have any other choice, do we?” He peered through the ‘pod window at what looked like an impenetrable, unmarked wall facing the front of the craft. “We’re well and truly trapped here; if this place is fully automated as well, we might be able to negotiate with the system… or outsmart it somehow.”
“And if there are actual people in here?” Hoshi asked doubtfully.
His eyes became ice cold. “That’s what phase pistols are for; unless you can talk to them and bring them to reason.”
Oh, geez, no pressure at all, is there? She thought angrily. But arguing with Reed in security mode was a hopeless endeavour; even Jack knew that. So she fetched her borrowed Vulcan scanner and followed the Englishman to the airlock.
Leaving the shuttlepod with the utmost caution, they found themselves in a long, barren corridor. It was white, illuminated by equally white light; the walls appeared completely smooth. Without any doors or other interruptions, in eerie resemblance to the repair station Enterprise had barely escaped from a short time ago.
The unsettling feeling of déja vu became even stronger when Hoshi’s borrowed scanner indicated breathable air behind the door at the end of the corridor. On the one hand, shedding the environmental suits would have been a blessing. On the other hand, it could have been a trap.
“Let’s keep on our helmets, just in case,” Reed said, “but right now the only possible way is forward.”
That was very true, of course, and thus they approached the door with caution. As soon as they stood right in front of it, it slid aside, letting them into a large, circular room. It looked similar, although not entirely identical to the diagnostic room of the repair station. The main difference being that the holographic screens and projectors all around seemed dead.
Hoshi consulted her scanner. “I can read energy flowing through the system, but the extensions appear to be dormant. Or dysfunctional.”
“Let’s hope it’s the former.” The Englishman approached one of the screens, holding to her with one hand in case the system would try transporting one of them off. “Otherwise we’ll have to grow old and die in this place.”
“I don’t think so,” She was still studying her readings, and didn’t much like what they told her. “Energy has just been transferred to this screen as we got closer. Perhaps it has proximity sensors.”
In the next moment the screen came alive; some sort of inscription appeared on it, written in symbols she’d never seen before, and an artificial voice started speaking in a previously unknown language.
“Odd,” Reed frowned. “The station communicated with us in English; both written and spoken.”
“Perhaps the system is running on low energy; or it is an earlier, less advanced version,” Hoshi guessed. “It is definitely the same technology, but it doesn’t work the same way; not entirely.”
“Can you decode the language?”
“Given enough time I probably could. I’m just not sure that we do have enough time, especially Crewman Walsh.”
“Give it your best try. This might be our only choice.”
“Yes, sir,” Hoshi managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice - barely and then got to work.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Using T’Pol’s data, it took Charlie Tucker and his team a little less than an hour to build a multispatial probe. They launched it without delay, and once again the senior officers gathered in the situation room to follow its progress on the main screen.
“What have you found out about sinkholes and the likes in the meantime?” Jack Archer asked T’Pol.
The Vulcan handed him a PADD. “As you can see, Captain, all available leads to the same conclusion. They're mono-directional phenomena.”
“Meaning?” Jack had a hard time to keep his impatience under control. Damn Vulcans that never give you a straight answer!
“What goes in doesnae come out,” Charlie summarized it for any idiots present. “Err… that ain’t exactly true. In fact, somethin' is comin’ out of that anomaly.”
“Namely?” Jack was close to exploding.
“Telemetry from our probe.” The engineer laid the readings on the screen. “We've located the ‘pod on the planet surface. Look at this!”
“Three human lifesigns; one of them fairly weak.” The captain frowned. “At least we know they're alive. But one of them is probably injured and might not have much time left.”
“He - or she - might have less time left than you probably think Captain,” Doctor Phlox said, his face uncharacteristically grim.
“What do you mean?”
“Keep reading,” Phlox pointed at something on the screen. See that?”
“What is that?”
“These are astronomical data, covering a two day period,” T’Pol explained.
Archer stared at her in shock. “How is that possible?”
The Vulcan didn’t exactly shrug - no Vulcan would ever do such a thing - but it was close. Very close.
“There appears to be some kind of temporal differential,” she replied.
“How big a differential?” He demanded.
“That is difficult to say without additional data. The closest I can come with my preliminary calculations is one to fifty-two.”
“Good grief!” Archer did some calculations in his head. “So, every day that passes for us could mean weeks, even months for them?”
“That is correct, Captain.”
“Months trying to survive in a Class-D environment,” Jack muttered. “They’ll think that we left them behind long ago.”
“Not if we use the multispatial probe as a communications relay,” Charlie suggested.
Archer looked at T’Pol. “Can we do that?”
“I cannot tell for certain,” the Vulcan admitted. “It has never been tried.”
“Well, then it’s time to do so,” Jack turned back to Charlie. “How long?”
“No idea,” the engineer confessed. “We can't recall the probe to reconfigure it physically. We gotta do it remotely, and with all that interference…”
“Do your best, Trip. One of those three is probably running out of time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Two days later Hoshi was still working on unlocking the language the automated systems used… with very little success.
Well… make that no success at all. It was nothing she’d ever seen before; and she had seen her fair share of unusual languages, including Viseeth that she had only begun to learn.
“One thing is certain: it is not Iconian or any of its derivative languages,” she muttered.
“It doesn’t sound like the noises the Solanae made when experimenting on the Viseeth, either,” Reed offered. He was sitting at the table opposite her, clearly trying his hardest to think of some way to help with a science of which he had next to no understanding. “Perhaps both this place and the repair station are the relics of another long-gone ancient civilization. There were more than enough of those; most of which we’ve probably never heard.”
Hoshi shook her head. “A civilization that used living beings as part of a machine? I wouldn’t call that advanced.”
“Perhaps they volunteered,” Reed suggested. “Perhaps they had a symbiotic relationship with their technology, who knows?”
“Yeah, sure,” Hoshi muttered, realizing she was pushing the limit in addressing a superior officer with such disrespect. “Tell that Travis!"
Reed rolled his eyes. “Be reasonable, Ensign. We don’t know a thing about these people; we cannot judge them based on how their abandoned technology operated who knows how many centuries later.”
Hoshi empathically disagreed with that but chose not to answer.
They’d had this argument repeatedly in the last two days. At least the automated systems had reacted to their presence in a limited way: they had breathable air now and normal, Earth-standard gravity. One of the food dispensers in the adjoining room even produced some basic food items that while rather lacking any taste, at least were digestible for the human body. They reminded Hoshi of power bars (the solid ones) or completely unseasoned guacamole (the soft ones). The only drink they could get out of the dispensers was tepid water, but even that was a relief.
As reluctant as Reed was to leave Hoshi alone and unprotected, it seemed the station had no immediate intentions with regard to kidnapping them as spare parts. So he had done a bit of exploring while she was struggling with the language. In the course of this he had found something vaguely resembling a sick room, to where they moved the still comatose Crewman Walsh. Not that they would hope for help for him as long as they couldn’t make the system understand their need, but at least there the crewman had a proper bed.
The only thing the environmental controls didn’t seem to be able to produce was proper temperature. It was cold inside the complex; not so cold that it would hinder them doing their work, but cold enough that they were constantly freezing. The fact that the dispensers wouldn’t provide any hot dishes, and that the not-quite-guacamole was lukewarm at best, didn’t help things.
So far they had managed with the help of thermal blankets from the shuttlepod’s storage, but it was very unpleasant, especially for Hoshi who didn’t deal well with low temperatures.
“If we ever get back to Enterprise, I’ll move in with T’Pol,” she muttered, breathing on her fingers that had gone numb from the cold. Their fourth day on the planet was going to the end and she was running out of energy.
“We could return to the ‘pod to sleep,” Reed suggested.
She shook her head. “We should save that as the last resort. We cannot know how long we’re gonna be here; and we can’t leave Crewman Walsh alone. Comatose or not, he’s still our responsibility.”
“Then we should at least share body heat,” He gave her a look. “I know I’m the last man you’d want to slip under the blanket with, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Perhaps we can push two of those beds in the sick room together…”
Hoshi considered the idea for a moment; then she nodded. “Let’s give it a try.”
Figuring out how to move the beds that probably had been fixed in place for centuries took some tricks and effort - at least the efforts helped them to warm up a bit - but in the end they managed to fix them snugly next to each other. They stripped down to their underwear, since sharing body heat required skin to skin contact, and cuddled under several layers of thermal blankets with chattering teeth. Which, is Hoshi’s case, wasn’t causes by the cold alone. Getting this close up and personal with the man who had nearly killed her a few years previously - and in fact would have, had her heart not been situated slightly higher than the human norm - was not her idea of cosy times.
And yet…
“Can you feel it?” She murmured. “The bed under us… it is getting warmer.”
“Perhaps the system still can recognize basic needs by direct contact,” Reed guessed. “That’s good news for Crewman Walsh.”
“You hope,” she said doubtfully.
"If this one does, maybe his will too. Try to sleep now. We’ll have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
“Finding the local equivalent of a bathroom being one of them,” she suppressed a yawn. “I stink; and so do you.”
And with that, she drifted off to sleep in their moderately warm cocoon, disregarding his rather offended silence.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The following weeks were spent in a similar manner. Hoshi wrestled with the alien language, making tiny baby steps forward in-between frustrating setbacks. As a result, there were little adjustments in their environment, which they both welcomed thankfully.
They did find something akin to a bathroom, with a sonic shower and sanitary facilities, so that they no longer needed to return to the shuttlepod when they needed the loo. As an added bonus, the sonic waves helped to massage the cold-induced stiffness out of their limbs, which was a true blessing.
After several failed attempts Hoshi managed to interface the diagnostic room with the database of the shuttlepod. As a result, the food dispenser now produced a wider variety of dishes that were a little more palatable for human consumption, although still lukewarm at best.
Reed started exploring other parts of the complex, now that they could be reasonably certain that neither of them would be unexpectedly transported off and hooked up to the central computer to serve as a processing unit. He paid the three large, round outbuildings a visit and found nothing but complicated machinery there; machinery that still seemed to be working.
“I can’t be sure, but they appear to be extremely powerful gravitation generators,” he said, showing his companion the PADD with the readings on it. “They also seem to process the eysilium they extract from the rocks on which this complex is built and use it as an energy source.”
Hoshi shrugged. “Well, there has to be a way to keep up and adjust the artificial gravity in here, I guess. I wish Crewman Walsh would wake up; he is a good engineer, perhaps he could make sense of these readings, because I can’t.”
Reed himself was no slouch as an engineer, but not in Walsh’s league. “Any change in his condition?”
“Not really. The bleeding in his brain has stopped and the area has cleaned up so these diagnostic machines must be doing something. But he’s still in a coma and shows no signs of waking up.”
“At least the sick bed keeps him above freezing temperatures,” Reed breathed on his fingers that were stiff with cold. “It would be ironic to recover from his injuries, only to die from hypothermia.”
“We all may die from hypothermia any time soon, unless the environmental system gets its act together and raises the temperature in here,” Hoshi replied, shivering and rubbing her arms to increase blood circulation.
Unfortunately, the environmental system refused to do so for the time being. So they had to live off tepid food, to keep themselves warm with physical exercises and to share body heat every night, clinging to each other like half-frozen limpets.
Until one morning Reed woke up sporting a hard-on of epic proportions.
They had spent roughly two months on the planetoid by then, all but giving up hope that they would be rescued. Enterprise had an important mission, after all; they could not expect Captain Archer to hover above their location, wasting time trying to rescue three people when the fate of entire planets and star systems was at stake. In these two months they slept in the same bed, keeping each other as warm as possible, every single night. It was a practice born of necessity, without any sexual undertones.
Until now.
Mortally embarrassed, he tried to withdraw from Hoshi, against whose back he was spooned up tightly, before she would wake up and realize what was happening. But she wasn't having it. Still asleep, she pressed her backside even tighter against his front, her body clearly enjoying the situation her conscious mind would have been shocked by.
Or so Reed thought. As it turned out, he was wrong.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she murmured, without opening her eyes. “This isn’t the first time you’ve gotten hard in your sleep.”
It might have been meant as reassuring, but only made him even more mortified. Not the first time?
“Ensign, I apologize deeply.” His face felt hot, hotter than ever since they had landed on this rock, and he was quite sure he had bright red spots on his cheeks… not that she’d see it, with her back to him.
“No need for that,” she replied. “It was to be expected. We’ve been sleeping, practically naked, wrapped around each other like two squids. The human body has its needs. When was the last time you had sex?”
He spluttered. “That’s a very personal question, Ensign!”
“Tell me anyway. In case you haven’t realized, I’m trying to make a point here. So. When?”
“Right before Enterprise launched,” Reed confessed reluctantly. “It was a… well, you can say a separation party. My then-girlfriend didn’t believe in long-distance relationships, and I wouldn’t have made her wait for me anyway. My previous… assignment was unpredictable at best; not good for long time commitments, but getting off to the great unknown aboard the first Warp 5 starship was magnitudes worse in that context.”
His previous job as a spy and an assassin. She understood it, perhaps better than anyone else aboard Enterprise.
“What about you?” He suddenly asked, because why should he be the only one to get embarrassed?
“Oh, for me it was a great deal longer,” she replied dryly. “I had my last boyfriend just before my imprisonment.”
Just before he nearly killed her. Just before he had marked her for life.
“And that bastard turned out to be a Terra Prime operative,” she added in a flat voice. “They set him on me with the explicit orders to make me a traitor. Have you ever wondered why they chose me to steal that information from the Warp 5 Complex?”
No, he had not. He had always assumed that it had been a random choice, though she had one talent that made her extremely useful. “I thought because you speak Vulcan and could find easier in their database what Terra Prime wanted.”
She turned around to look at him, her usually gentle face bitter and hard. “They didn’t really want the technical details. They chose me because I speak Vulcan, yes, and several other alien languages. In their eyes, I was a traitor because I was interested in alien cultures. So they made me a traitor in the eyes of Starfleet… and used your department to punish me.”
It was a death sentence, he realized with a shock. They knew we were all trained to shoot to kill without a conscious decision. They wanted her dead, with me as the killer.
She nodded, seeing the understanding form in his eyes. “And Starfleet Intelligence would have lost a skilled operative because you happen to have a conscience. It was a very clever and ruthless plan. They would never have left my mother alive, either. You know, the ironic truth is that she and I haven’t seen eye-to-eye for years. But I couldn’t let them just kill her. She’s my mother, after all. I had to at least try.”
“All the good that it brought you,” he said.
Another nod. “True. Without Jack, I’d be still rotting in Guantanamo, and I most likely won’t be completely free again, even if by some miracle we got rescued from here. But I decided to make the best of the chances I was given. So, should you wake up… err… ready again, don’t hesitate to go for it. We might spend the rest of our life here. We should make it at least resembling a life,” she slid out from under the thermal blankets and shivered. “Since we’re awake already, I’m gonna take a shower and return to my job.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It took Reed another month to take her up to her offer, but in the end he did. Because she had been right. Rescuing seemed more unlikely the more time went by, and they had very little in the means of recreation. Besides, it was still permanently cold inside the complex, and friction generated heat.
It was difficult at first. Intimacy called for trust, and he couldn’t help but be aware that trust still came very hard to Hoshi Sato where he was concerned. But she had her own needs, and he knew how to satisfy them; and eventually, they found a corner of the Universe where they could forget their sorry history for just a few hours.
They fell into a new routine afterwards. Hoshi kept struggling with the alien language, making painstakingly slow progress that led to tiny little improvements in their living conditions. Reed continued his exploring the complex, making detailed notes in his PADD. They checked regularly on Crewman Walsh’s condition, which remained unchanged. At least the sickbed woke up from its dormant status enough to attach some feeding tubes and sensor pads to his body and to keep him alive.
And they had sex on the semi-regular basis because they needed that little human warmth to remain sane. The days rolled into one long, unchanging process, an end of which was not foreseeable.
Until Reed found the device.
~TBC~
Author’s notes: As it is obvious, I’ve used certain elements from the Voyager episode “Gravity” to create this very AU “Shuttlepod One” unit. Certain lines of dialogue are directly quoted from that episode. The technobabble concerning gravimetric shears and other subspace phenomena is quoted from the Memory Alpha website.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Crewman Walsh was still alive - albeit unconscious - when they returned to the shuttlepod, so Reed decided to take them over to the landing pad of the alien complex at once. That proved more challenging than expected, though.
“I don’t understand,” he muttered angrily, trying to keep the ‘pod in a straight flight line with all his considerable skills. “It is as if I'm constantly having to readjust to the surface gravity again and again.”
“That’s because we do have,” Hoshi replied, keeping a wary eye on the control screen. “The gravity increases gradually the closer we’re getting to the complex.”
“What?” He refrained from looking at her in the last moment; he really needed to focus on his controls. “That can by now means be a natural phenomenon!”
“Not very likely,” she agreed. “Perhaps it’s generated artificially to enable the people working in the complex - whoever they might be - to do so more comfortably.”
“Do you read any bio-signs inside the complex?”
“No; but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone. The complex could be shielded.”
“Try hailing them.”
She did as she was told, linking the universal translator to the comm system of the ‘pod but without results.
“No reply, sir,” she said after the fourth attempt. “Either there isn’t anyone home… or they don’t want to talk. I can’t even tell if our calls have been received at all.”
“Well, we’re almost there,” His tone was almost philosophical. “We’ll see if there’s going to be a welcoming committee or we’ll have to find a way inside on our own.”
“Forgive me if I hope for the later,” Hoshi murmured, more to herself than to him.
Approximately half an hour later - the increasing of surface gravity made their approach really complicated - Reed finally set down the ‘pod on the landing platform. From this angle the building complex looked huge and somewhat ominous, but so far there was no sign of any inhabitants.
“What now?” Hoshi asked, giving Crewman Walsh a worried glance. He was on the ‘pod floor, placed in the recovery position and with a blanket over him, but hadn’t so much as stirred.
The man was still breathing - barely - but showed no sign of regaining consciousness. Paired with the heavy concussion and the bleeding in the brain, that was a bad omen.
Reed answered dryly that he’d best go out and look for the doorbell.
She scanned their immediate surroundings and bit her lip. “I don’t think you’ll have to, sir. It seems we’re being pulled in.”
And indeed, a previously undetected turntable in the centre of the landing platform started slowly rotating under the ‘pod, sinking deeper and deeper with every rotation. Reed uttered a vile oath and tried to emergency-start the vehicle to escape, but the (presumably) automated docking system shut down his attempts rather successfully.
“Well,” he finally said, accepting the inevitable even as he went to the weapons locker and pulled out two phase pistols, “we wanted in, didn’t we?”
“Which only shows that we should be careful what we wish for,” Hoshi replied. “We might actually get it.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
If Gerasen Gerasal was surprised being invited to the staff meeting, they didn’t show it. The arrived together with Doctor Phlox, who reported that all injured had been treated successfully and could return to duty, with the exception of Crewman Baird.
“I want to keep him under observation for another twenty-four hours,” he said. “If there are no complications, I’ll release him tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s one concern off my mind,” Archer said, relieved. “Let’s return to the main problem, people. First, tell me more about what we’re dealing with; preferably in very simple terms. Remember, I’m just a dumb pilot, not a scientist.”
Charlie Tucker summarized for the benefit of those who hadn’t been on the Bridge at the time. “Basically, we got caught in a gravimetric shear or spatial disturbance. We barely managed to escape the vortex, thanks to T’Pol’s quick thinkin’, and it’s obvious that the same happened to the ‘pod, which then got pulled in.”
“The anomaly is approximately six hundred metres in diameter,” the Vulcan added. “Also, it is out of phase with normal space. Even after recalibrating the sensors, it barely registers.”
The others digested this piece of information for a moment.
“Any sign of the ‘pod?” The captain finally asked.
T’Pol shook her head. “None. For any chance to find them we would need a multispatial probe.”
“Which we don’t have,” Charlie commented dryly. “Seein’ that this is the first time I even hear of such a thing.”
“Could you build one?”
“Sure, if I had the specifics; which I haven't. Cap’n, we’re talkin’ about technology that doesn't even exist on Earth. Not yet anyway.”
“But it does exist on Vulcan,” Gerasen Gerasal said quietly; then she looked at T’Pol. “Do you have the specifics?”
“Affirmative,” the Vulcan replied after a moment of hesitation.
“Then I suggest you give them to Commander Tucker,” the Viseeth said. “I know your people are reluctant to share advanced technology with less advanced people, and in principle I agree. However, it is crucial to get that shuttlepod out of the sinkhole and learn what is on that planetoid. If it is indeed in a subspace pocket, it might serve as another gateway for the Solanae to cross over into normal place, and that is not something we can risk.”
“Perhaps that explains the presence of the EM fields,” Tucker was clearly thinking aloud. “Last time we closed their gateway with a tightly bundled EM burst. What if somebody established those EM fields to prevent them from comin' over?”
“Unlikely but not impossible,” Gerasen Gerasal allowed. “If that is the case, though, it must have happened one hundred thousand of your years ago, give or take a few centuries. No-one has today the technology to do so, not even us.”
“What about the Antosians?” T’Pol asked.
“Gerasen Gerasal tilted their head to the side with that quick, lizard-like gesture of theirs.
“Theoretically, it is possible,” they said. “However, to our knowledge the Antosians never operated in this area of space.”
“Whoever it was, it doesn’t really matter right now,” Archer interrupted. “We need to get our people out of there, and for that we obviously need that… what was it again? A multispatial probe?” T’Pol nodded. “Well, give Trip the specifics, Subcommander. I want that thing built as soon as possible. In the meantime brush up on sinkholes, quantum singularities and the likes. We need to know what to expect.”
“I can help with that,” Gerasen Gerasal offered.
“I thought you were an intelligence officer, not a scientist,” he said in surprise.
The Viseeth smiled. “I am. But you must understand, Captain, that such things are common knowledge for the upper echelons of my people. We’ve been in this business for a very long time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After what seemed eternity but probably didn’t last longer than a minute and a half, the turntable finally stopped. They couldn’t see what was above them, of course, but the instruments indicated that the platform closed up again, showing a completely smooth, unbroken surface.
“Should we get out?” Hoshi asked uncertainly.
“In a moment,” Reed lifted the hand that wasn’t holding his phase pistol. “Let’s see first if there’ll be any reaction to our presence here, automated or otherwise.”
Before he could even finish speaking, a bright light swept the interior of the shuttlepod. Hoshi blinked furiously to regain her vision.
“Wasn’t that just…”
“… just like the bio-molecular probe the repair station scanned Enterprise with,” Reed finished for her.
“Oh,” she blinked some more. “That’s not very reassuring.”
“No. But if this is the same technology, at least we can hope for a breathable atmosphere and perhaps even help for Crewman Walsh.”
“Until the system gets the splendid idea of hooking us up to its computer core,” she muttered darkly. “We have no means to wear off their transporter beams.”
“We must keep very close, all the timethey are. But as it doesn’t look like they’re going to introduce themselves politely, are we getting out or not?”
“We don’t really have any other choice, do we?” He peered through the ‘pod window at what looked like an impenetrable, unmarked wall facing the front of the craft. “We’re well and truly trapped here; if this place is fully automated as well, we might be able to negotiate with the system… or outsmart it somehow.”
“And if there are actual people in here?” Hoshi asked doubtfully.
His eyes became ice cold. “That’s what phase pistols are for; unless you can talk to them and bring them to reason.”
Oh, geez, no pressure at all, is there? She thought angrily. But arguing with Reed in security mode was a hopeless endeavour; even Jack knew that. So she fetched her borrowed Vulcan scanner and followed the Englishman to the airlock.
Leaving the shuttlepod with the utmost caution, they found themselves in a long, barren corridor. It was white, illuminated by equally white light; the walls appeared completely smooth. Without any doors or other interruptions, in eerie resemblance to the repair station Enterprise had barely escaped from a short time ago.
The unsettling feeling of déja vu became even stronger when Hoshi’s borrowed scanner indicated breathable air behind the door at the end of the corridor. On the one hand, shedding the environmental suits would have been a blessing. On the other hand, it could have been a trap.
“Let’s keep on our helmets, just in case,” Reed said, “but right now the only possible way is forward.”
That was very true, of course, and thus they approached the door with caution. As soon as they stood right in front of it, it slid aside, letting them into a large, circular room. It looked similar, although not entirely identical to the diagnostic room of the repair station. The main difference being that the holographic screens and projectors all around seemed dead.
Hoshi consulted her scanner. “I can read energy flowing through the system, but the extensions appear to be dormant. Or dysfunctional.”
“Let’s hope it’s the former.” The Englishman approached one of the screens, holding to her with one hand in case the system would try transporting one of them off. “Otherwise we’ll have to grow old and die in this place.”
“I don’t think so,” She was still studying her readings, and didn’t much like what they told her. “Energy has just been transferred to this screen as we got closer. Perhaps it has proximity sensors.”
In the next moment the screen came alive; some sort of inscription appeared on it, written in symbols she’d never seen before, and an artificial voice started speaking in a previously unknown language.
“Odd,” Reed frowned. “The station communicated with us in English; both written and spoken.”
“Perhaps the system is running on low energy; or it is an earlier, less advanced version,” Hoshi guessed. “It is definitely the same technology, but it doesn’t work the same way; not entirely.”
“Can you decode the language?”
“Given enough time I probably could. I’m just not sure that we do have enough time, especially Crewman Walsh.”
“Give it your best try. This might be our only choice.”
“Yes, sir,” Hoshi managed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice - barely and then got to work.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Using T’Pol’s data, it took Charlie Tucker and his team a little less than an hour to build a multispatial probe. They launched it without delay, and once again the senior officers gathered in the situation room to follow its progress on the main screen.
“What have you found out about sinkholes and the likes in the meantime?” Jack Archer asked T’Pol.
The Vulcan handed him a PADD. “As you can see, Captain, all available leads to the same conclusion. They're mono-directional phenomena.”
“Meaning?” Jack had a hard time to keep his impatience under control. Damn Vulcans that never give you a straight answer!
“What goes in doesnae come out,” Charlie summarized it for any idiots present. “Err… that ain’t exactly true. In fact, somethin' is comin’ out of that anomaly.”
“Namely?” Jack was close to exploding.
“Telemetry from our probe.” The engineer laid the readings on the screen. “We've located the ‘pod on the planet surface. Look at this!”
“Three human lifesigns; one of them fairly weak.” The captain frowned. “At least we know they're alive. But one of them is probably injured and might not have much time left.”
“He - or she - might have less time left than you probably think Captain,” Doctor Phlox said, his face uncharacteristically grim.
“What do you mean?”
“Keep reading,” Phlox pointed at something on the screen. See that?”
“What is that?”
“These are astronomical data, covering a two day period,” T’Pol explained.
Archer stared at her in shock. “How is that possible?”
The Vulcan didn’t exactly shrug - no Vulcan would ever do such a thing - but it was close. Very close.
“There appears to be some kind of temporal differential,” she replied.
“How big a differential?” He demanded.
“That is difficult to say without additional data. The closest I can come with my preliminary calculations is one to fifty-two.”
“Good grief!” Archer did some calculations in his head. “So, every day that passes for us could mean weeks, even months for them?”
“That is correct, Captain.”
“Months trying to survive in a Class-D environment,” Jack muttered. “They’ll think that we left them behind long ago.”
“Not if we use the multispatial probe as a communications relay,” Charlie suggested.
Archer looked at T’Pol. “Can we do that?”
“I cannot tell for certain,” the Vulcan admitted. “It has never been tried.”
“Well, then it’s time to do so,” Jack turned back to Charlie. “How long?”
“No idea,” the engineer confessed. “We can't recall the probe to reconfigure it physically. We gotta do it remotely, and with all that interference…”
“Do your best, Trip. One of those three is probably running out of time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Two days later Hoshi was still working on unlocking the language the automated systems used… with very little success.
Well… make that no success at all. It was nothing she’d ever seen before; and she had seen her fair share of unusual languages, including Viseeth that she had only begun to learn.
“One thing is certain: it is not Iconian or any of its derivative languages,” she muttered.
“It doesn’t sound like the noises the Solanae made when experimenting on the Viseeth, either,” Reed offered. He was sitting at the table opposite her, clearly trying his hardest to think of some way to help with a science of which he had next to no understanding. “Perhaps both this place and the repair station are the relics of another long-gone ancient civilization. There were more than enough of those; most of which we’ve probably never heard.”
Hoshi shook her head. “A civilization that used living beings as part of a machine? I wouldn’t call that advanced.”
“Perhaps they volunteered,” Reed suggested. “Perhaps they had a symbiotic relationship with their technology, who knows?”
“Yeah, sure,” Hoshi muttered, realizing she was pushing the limit in addressing a superior officer with such disrespect. “Tell that Travis!"
Reed rolled his eyes. “Be reasonable, Ensign. We don’t know a thing about these people; we cannot judge them based on how their abandoned technology operated who knows how many centuries later.”
Hoshi empathically disagreed with that but chose not to answer.
They’d had this argument repeatedly in the last two days. At least the automated systems had reacted to their presence in a limited way: they had breathable air now and normal, Earth-standard gravity. One of the food dispensers in the adjoining room even produced some basic food items that while rather lacking any taste, at least were digestible for the human body. They reminded Hoshi of power bars (the solid ones) or completely unseasoned guacamole (the soft ones). The only drink they could get out of the dispensers was tepid water, but even that was a relief.
As reluctant as Reed was to leave Hoshi alone and unprotected, it seemed the station had no immediate intentions with regard to kidnapping them as spare parts. So he had done a bit of exploring while she was struggling with the language. In the course of this he had found something vaguely resembling a sick room, to where they moved the still comatose Crewman Walsh. Not that they would hope for help for him as long as they couldn’t make the system understand their need, but at least there the crewman had a proper bed.
The only thing the environmental controls didn’t seem to be able to produce was proper temperature. It was cold inside the complex; not so cold that it would hinder them doing their work, but cold enough that they were constantly freezing. The fact that the dispensers wouldn’t provide any hot dishes, and that the not-quite-guacamole was lukewarm at best, didn’t help things.
So far they had managed with the help of thermal blankets from the shuttlepod’s storage, but it was very unpleasant, especially for Hoshi who didn’t deal well with low temperatures.
“If we ever get back to Enterprise, I’ll move in with T’Pol,” she muttered, breathing on her fingers that had gone numb from the cold. Their fourth day on the planet was going to the end and she was running out of energy.
“We could return to the ‘pod to sleep,” Reed suggested.
She shook her head. “We should save that as the last resort. We cannot know how long we’re gonna be here; and we can’t leave Crewman Walsh alone. Comatose or not, he’s still our responsibility.”
“Then we should at least share body heat,” He gave her a look. “I know I’m the last man you’d want to slip under the blanket with, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Perhaps we can push two of those beds in the sick room together…”
Hoshi considered the idea for a moment; then she nodded. “Let’s give it a try.”
Figuring out how to move the beds that probably had been fixed in place for centuries took some tricks and effort - at least the efforts helped them to warm up a bit - but in the end they managed to fix them snugly next to each other. They stripped down to their underwear, since sharing body heat required skin to skin contact, and cuddled under several layers of thermal blankets with chattering teeth. Which, is Hoshi’s case, wasn’t causes by the cold alone. Getting this close up and personal with the man who had nearly killed her a few years previously - and in fact would have, had her heart not been situated slightly higher than the human norm - was not her idea of cosy times.
And yet…
“Can you feel it?” She murmured. “The bed under us… it is getting warmer.”
“Perhaps the system still can recognize basic needs by direct contact,” Reed guessed. “That’s good news for Crewman Walsh.”
“You hope,” she said doubtfully.
"If this one does, maybe his will too. Try to sleep now. We’ll have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”
“Finding the local equivalent of a bathroom being one of them,” she suppressed a yawn. “I stink; and so do you.”
And with that, she drifted off to sleep in their moderately warm cocoon, disregarding his rather offended silence.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The following weeks were spent in a similar manner. Hoshi wrestled with the alien language, making tiny baby steps forward in-between frustrating setbacks. As a result, there were little adjustments in their environment, which they both welcomed thankfully.
They did find something akin to a bathroom, with a sonic shower and sanitary facilities, so that they no longer needed to return to the shuttlepod when they needed the loo. As an added bonus, the sonic waves helped to massage the cold-induced stiffness out of their limbs, which was a true blessing.
After several failed attempts Hoshi managed to interface the diagnostic room with the database of the shuttlepod. As a result, the food dispenser now produced a wider variety of dishes that were a little more palatable for human consumption, although still lukewarm at best.
Reed started exploring other parts of the complex, now that they could be reasonably certain that neither of them would be unexpectedly transported off and hooked up to the central computer to serve as a processing unit. He paid the three large, round outbuildings a visit and found nothing but complicated machinery there; machinery that still seemed to be working.
“I can’t be sure, but they appear to be extremely powerful gravitation generators,” he said, showing his companion the PADD with the readings on it. “They also seem to process the eysilium they extract from the rocks on which this complex is built and use it as an energy source.”
Hoshi shrugged. “Well, there has to be a way to keep up and adjust the artificial gravity in here, I guess. I wish Crewman Walsh would wake up; he is a good engineer, perhaps he could make sense of these readings, because I can’t.”
Reed himself was no slouch as an engineer, but not in Walsh’s league. “Any change in his condition?”
“Not really. The bleeding in his brain has stopped and the area has cleaned up so these diagnostic machines must be doing something. But he’s still in a coma and shows no signs of waking up.”
“At least the sick bed keeps him above freezing temperatures,” Reed breathed on his fingers that were stiff with cold. “It would be ironic to recover from his injuries, only to die from hypothermia.”
“We all may die from hypothermia any time soon, unless the environmental system gets its act together and raises the temperature in here,” Hoshi replied, shivering and rubbing her arms to increase blood circulation.
Unfortunately, the environmental system refused to do so for the time being. So they had to live off tepid food, to keep themselves warm with physical exercises and to share body heat every night, clinging to each other like half-frozen limpets.
Until one morning Reed woke up sporting a hard-on of epic proportions.
They had spent roughly two months on the planetoid by then, all but giving up hope that they would be rescued. Enterprise had an important mission, after all; they could not expect Captain Archer to hover above their location, wasting time trying to rescue three people when the fate of entire planets and star systems was at stake. In these two months they slept in the same bed, keeping each other as warm as possible, every single night. It was a practice born of necessity, without any sexual undertones.
Until now.
Mortally embarrassed, he tried to withdraw from Hoshi, against whose back he was spooned up tightly, before she would wake up and realize what was happening. But she wasn't having it. Still asleep, she pressed her backside even tighter against his front, her body clearly enjoying the situation her conscious mind would have been shocked by.
Or so Reed thought. As it turned out, he was wrong.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she murmured, without opening her eyes. “This isn’t the first time you’ve gotten hard in your sleep.”
It might have been meant as reassuring, but only made him even more mortified. Not the first time?
“Ensign, I apologize deeply.” His face felt hot, hotter than ever since they had landed on this rock, and he was quite sure he had bright red spots on his cheeks… not that she’d see it, with her back to him.
“No need for that,” she replied. “It was to be expected. We’ve been sleeping, practically naked, wrapped around each other like two squids. The human body has its needs. When was the last time you had sex?”
He spluttered. “That’s a very personal question, Ensign!”
“Tell me anyway. In case you haven’t realized, I’m trying to make a point here. So. When?”
“Right before Enterprise launched,” Reed confessed reluctantly. “It was a… well, you can say a separation party. My then-girlfriend didn’t believe in long-distance relationships, and I wouldn’t have made her wait for me anyway. My previous… assignment was unpredictable at best; not good for long time commitments, but getting off to the great unknown aboard the first Warp 5 starship was magnitudes worse in that context.”
His previous job as a spy and an assassin. She understood it, perhaps better than anyone else aboard Enterprise.
“What about you?” He suddenly asked, because why should he be the only one to get embarrassed?
“Oh, for me it was a great deal longer,” she replied dryly. “I had my last boyfriend just before my imprisonment.”
Just before he nearly killed her. Just before he had marked her for life.
“And that bastard turned out to be a Terra Prime operative,” she added in a flat voice. “They set him on me with the explicit orders to make me a traitor. Have you ever wondered why they chose me to steal that information from the Warp 5 Complex?”
No, he had not. He had always assumed that it had been a random choice, though she had one talent that made her extremely useful. “I thought because you speak Vulcan and could find easier in their database what Terra Prime wanted.”
She turned around to look at him, her usually gentle face bitter and hard. “They didn’t really want the technical details. They chose me because I speak Vulcan, yes, and several other alien languages. In their eyes, I was a traitor because I was interested in alien cultures. So they made me a traitor in the eyes of Starfleet… and used your department to punish me.”
It was a death sentence, he realized with a shock. They knew we were all trained to shoot to kill without a conscious decision. They wanted her dead, with me as the killer.
She nodded, seeing the understanding form in his eyes. “And Starfleet Intelligence would have lost a skilled operative because you happen to have a conscience. It was a very clever and ruthless plan. They would never have left my mother alive, either. You know, the ironic truth is that she and I haven’t seen eye-to-eye for years. But I couldn’t let them just kill her. She’s my mother, after all. I had to at least try.”
“All the good that it brought you,” he said.
Another nod. “True. Without Jack, I’d be still rotting in Guantanamo, and I most likely won’t be completely free again, even if by some miracle we got rescued from here. But I decided to make the best of the chances I was given. So, should you wake up… err… ready again, don’t hesitate to go for it. We might spend the rest of our life here. We should make it at least resembling a life,” she slid out from under the thermal blankets and shivered. “Since we’re awake already, I’m gonna take a shower and return to my job.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It took Reed another month to take her up to her offer, but in the end he did. Because she had been right. Rescuing seemed more unlikely the more time went by, and they had very little in the means of recreation. Besides, it was still permanently cold inside the complex, and friction generated heat.
It was difficult at first. Intimacy called for trust, and he couldn’t help but be aware that trust still came very hard to Hoshi Sato where he was concerned. But she had her own needs, and he knew how to satisfy them; and eventually, they found a corner of the Universe where they could forget their sorry history for just a few hours.
They fell into a new routine afterwards. Hoshi kept struggling with the alien language, making painstakingly slow progress that led to tiny little improvements in their living conditions. Reed continued his exploring the complex, making detailed notes in his PADD. They checked regularly on Crewman Walsh’s condition, which remained unchanged. At least the sickbed woke up from its dormant status enough to attach some feeding tubes and sensor pads to his body and to keep him alive.
And they had sex on the semi-regular basis because they needed that little human warmth to remain sane. The days rolled into one long, unchanging process, an end of which was not foreseeable.
Until Reed found the device.
~TBC~