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"An Ounce of Patience" by A. Rhea King
Rating: PG CHAPTER 1 The planet was an amazing sight. Unlike other planets, this one spun vertically on its axis at twice the speed of a normal planet. From space it looked like a gas planet with bands of orange and yellow-orange clouds banding around it. The discovery of the planet would have been cause for weeks of study if Shuttle Pod Two’s homing signal weren’t coming from the planet. “Can you get a fix on the signal? What hemisphere is it in?” Archer asked T’Pol. “I am having difficulty keeping track of the signal due to the speed of the planet’s rotation,” she answered. “What about biosigns?” Archer looked away from the view screen to T’Pol. “Human or otherwise?” “I’m picking massive amounts of bio-signs, but I can’t distinguish if any of them are human.” “Try hailing them, Ensign,” Archer said, walking over to the railing around the communication station. The crewman sitting in Hoshi’s seat tried and shook his head. “No response, sir.” Archer turned back to T’Pol. “Have the probes sent back any data on the atmosphere.” T’Pol turned to another monitor. She looked back at Archer. “The probes never made it into the atmosphere, Captain. One ricocheted off the atmosphere and is going into deep space; the other two aren’t emitting any readings. It’s safe to assume they were destroyed before they made it past the top of the ionosphere.” “Do you have any idea what the atmosphere is like?” “No, Captain. Nothing that I can confirm.” “Maybe once we’re in the atmosphere we could pinpoint where the shuttle pod went down. Trip, can we get a shuttle pod into the atmosphere without killing ourselves?” Archer looked across the bridge at Trip. “In theory, if we went at top speed, but we’d have to slow down as soon as we entered the atmosphere or we’d crash. Getting out of the atmosphere is going to be trickier. The gravity on that planet has to be double or more what it is on Earth. It’s going to take some fancy flying. Cap’n.” “I can do the fancy flying. T’Pol, you have the bridge. Trip, you’re with me.” Archer walked over to the lift. Trip trotted across the bridge and stepped on the lift beside Archer. The door closed and Archer shook his head. “Why did I think Hoshi was ready to command a mission alone? What the hell was I thinking?” “Cap’n, you heard the mayday message too,” Trip said. “They were fired on. This could have happened to you or me or anyone one of us. Hoshi has plenty of experience to command a science expedition and you know it.” Archer shook his head. “Cap’n, you, me and T’Pol all agreed to send her and Travis to collect data on the nebula. This isn’t your fault. It’s no one’s fault except the aliens that fired on ‘em.” Archer didn’t comment. # Travis heard someone calling his name. He opened his eyes to slits and closed them against the bright light that flooded them. “Travis,” Hoshi’s voice said. Travis opened his eyes all the way, staring at the aliens standing around him. They were short and stout, with an orbicular shaped head and cob noses. Their eyes were squinty in proportion to their faces, but in actuality, they were large, bright eyes as black as a starless night. They wore simple clothing and many had tufts of hair sticking up from the tops of their heads like spouts of water. They had little ears with slightly protruding cartilage to set them apart from the skull. Their lips were bulgy and irregular shaped. They all had burnt brown skin, but some had grainy textured skin, while others were nothing but worn wrinkles. Beyond them he saw hundreds of tents and more aliens. Travis sat up and they all made a sound like a chorus of tenors tuning up before a song. Travis started when he felt something on his shoulder, spinning around into a crouch. Hoshi held up her hands. “It’s me. It’s just me,” she said. Travis looked at the aliens around them. “Wha--” Hoshi smiled. “You’ve been out for a few days. The aliens have been brining us food and water.” Hoshi motioned to bowls and water skins sitting on the ground. Travis got to his feet, letting Hoshi help him. He turned and saw the shuttle pod in the distance, still burning with smoke pouring out of it. The land around them was a steppe with thin, pinnacle plateaus that rose hundreds of meters. There was a considerable difference in gravity and it made Travis feel like he had bench weights tied all over his body. Above them the sky was crimson, streaked with orange and yellow-orange clouds that looked more like paint smears than clouds. “The shuttle pod’s gone?” Travis asked Hoshi. “Yeah. They must have pulled us out because when I woke up it engulfed in flames.” Travis looked down at the aliens around him. He noticed that several of them were carrying what looked like musical instruments. One walked up to Travis, holding his hand up. His hand was thick with three sausage fingers on it -- a thumb and two fingers. The palm was light colored and smooth. There was a small opening on his wrist and from the opening there was a thin bulge that tapered off half way down the arm. The alien made a sound like singing. “That’s their language,” Hoshi said. “It’s fascinating, but I can’t make heads or tails of it.” Humans and aliens looked up when a shuttle pod flew overhead. It circled over the shuttle pod and then came back their direction. It flew past again and sat down several meters from them. Travis looked down, finding all the aliens and tents gone. “Hoshi, they’re all gone.” Hoshi looked down. There wasn’t a single alien in sight. She looked back at the shuttle pod, seeing the hatch opening. “Come on,” Hoshi said, leading the way. Travis followed her. Archer and Trip walked out of the shuttle pod, looking relieved. “I saw that shuttle pod and I thought I’d lost my two best crewmen,” Archer told them. Hoshi smiled. “We’re tough, sir.” “It’s good to see you two got away from there before it blew.” Trip looked back at the shuttle pod. “What happened, Travis?” “The engine overheated on entry. I was too shallow,” Travis explained. “I lost aft control and then port. It was a rough landing.” “We were almost too shallow. Getting out of here ought to be fun,” Archer said. “Are we leaving right away?” Hoshi asked. “That was the plan.” “Can’t we stay for a little bit, sir?” Archer looked down at her. “Why?” “There are hundreds of aliens here, sir. I’d really like to see if I can communicate with them. Their language is amazing. It sounds like singing.” Archer looked around him. “I don’t see any aliens, Hoshi.” Archer looked at her. “Are you sure you saw them?” “I saw them too, sir,” Travis told Archer. “That doesn’t mean much. I’ve been under the influence of stuff on other planets that made me see things,” Trip reminded them. Hoshi looked around her and then back at them. “No offense, Commander, but what could cause that here? There’s nothing but sagebrush and plateaus.” “We need to get back. It was hard enough getting down here.” “Enterprise will still be there in a couple days, Captain. Please, just a couple of days. Their language is beautiful. I think they were just scared off by the shuttle pod landing. They don’t look very advanced.” “Hoshi, you made a good point that there’s only sagebrush and plateaus. The nearest plateau looks to be a half-kilometer away, and hardly wide enough for a hundred or so aliens to hide behind. If there were aliens here when we landed, where are they now?” Hoshi frowned. Both of her commanding officers were making very good and logical arguments that she couldn’t rebuttal. She looked down. “Let’s go,” Archer said. The men started back, but Hoshi stared back where the aliens had been. “Hoshi,” Archer said. Hoshi looked at him. “They were just here, sir. I swear to you they were. We really should stay.” Archer smiled. He laid his hand on her shoulder, gently guiding her into the shuttle pod. Hoshi sat down on a bench, staring at the floor. Archer shut the hatch behind him and sat down in the front seat. He initiated the engine and lifted off, working to gain enough speed for escape velocity from the planet’s gravity. With a sonic boom, the shuttle pod shot through the atmosphere. The city of tents and the aliens ‘shimmered’ back into view, the aliens watching where the shuttle pod had disappeared. They turned to each other, their song-like language rising from tenor to alto. # The shuttle pod cleared the atmosphere and turned back toward Enterprise. Archer reached forward to open a COM channel, but it beeped before he could press it. He tapped the controls. “Go ahead,” he said. “Were you unable to locate the crewman, Captain?” T’Pol asked. “We found them. Lost a shuttle pod, though.” “How did you find them so quickly? I thought you’d have to search more.” “We did. We searched for almost ten hours.” “You’ve only been gone for thirty minutes.” Archer looked back at the three. “By our clock, it’s been ten hours, T’Pol.” “We can discuss it when you return. Enterprise out.” Archer smiled. He had no doubt she would. # Archer stopped talking, watching Hoshi walk around the corner and joined Trip and T’Pol. She smiled. “Did Phlox clear you?” “Yes. I was tired, but nothing else. Travis had a sprang wrist and was dehydrated.” “Alright.” Archer smiled at her. “It’s good to have you back.” Hoshi offered a weak smile in return. “So what you’re saying, T’Pol, is that this planet is in the future?” Archer asked, looking down at the situation monitor. It displayed a three-dimensional representation of the planet. “I’m saying it’s spinning so fast that time on the planet is sped up. This is an extraordinary phenomenon. I would like to stay for a couple more days to study this planet in greater detail, Captain.” “But you said you can’t study it because it spins so fast,” Archer said. “With the data collected from the shuttle pod’s sensors, I’ve been able to make adjustments to the probes. I believe I can get them into the atmosphere.” “Will you be able to find out more about the aliens on the planet?” Hoshi asked. Archer and Trip looked at each other. T’Pol looked intrigued. “What aliens are you referring to, Ensign?” she asked Hoshi. “There are aliens down there. They’re about this high.” Hoshi held her hand up at the top of her thigh, just below her hip. “They looked like little dolls, with these round noses. They pulled Travis and I out of the shuttle pod before it exploded.” T’Pol looked at Archer. “There were aliens on the surface and you did not stay?” “They weren’t there when we were,” Archer said. “It’s possible Hoshi and Travis imagined them.” “From what you’ve described of the surface, I find that easy to believe. It sounds as though the surface was extremely hostile.” “Yeah. We thought that too,” Trip said. “I swear they exist!” Hoshi argued. Archer frowned, sighing. “Hoshi, I want to believe--I really do--but neither Trip nor I saw any aliens.” Hoshi frowned, looking down at the monitor. Archer glanced at Trip. Trip shrugged his eyebrows. “Perhaps, once I get the probes into the atmosphere, we can clear up this controversy,” T’Pol said. Hoshi didn’t comment, so Archer decided to let it alone. “Report any findings to all three of us,” Archer said. “Yes, Captain.” “Dismissed. Hoshi, can I see you in my ready room?” Archer said, walking around to his ready room door. Hoshi followed him into his room, watching him sit down at his desk. He looked up at her. “Do you know who the aliens were that attacked you?” She shook her head. “I was in the back monitoring sensory readings when they fired on us. I got to navigation and weapons just as we lost all sensors.” “Why did they leave you two alone?” “They crippled us. That isn’t necessarily leaving us alone.” “No. Not really. Hoshi, about the aliens on the planet--” “With all due respect, sir, if you aren’t going to believe me, then there’s not point in discussing it further. I know what I saw and felt and heard. I was on that planet for eight days and they gave me food and water.” “You were only missing for a day and a half, Ensign.” “And you were searching for us for ten hours, yet it was only thirty minutes on Enterprise.” Archer smiled. “I stand corrected on that. We’ll see what the probes turn up.” Hoshi didn’t reply. Archer’s smile dropped. “That’ll be all. You’re dismissed,” Archer told her. Hoshi turned and left. Archer let out a soft sigh. |
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