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"Calling All Friends"
Rating: PG Mother Nature’s Ill Humor (4) “Captain, I’m detecting an uncharted
planet eight thousand kilometers to port,” T’Pol said. Archer and Trip, who had been
quietly goading each other on a game of poker neither had won the night before,
looked up from the situation monitor they had been pretending to be working at.
T’Pol walked around the corner and stood at the top of the stairs. “And I’m detecting some unusual
readings from the planet, Captain,” T’Pol continued. “Unusual how?” “I cannot clearly say yet, but it
does appear to be completely surrounded by orbital satellites of some kind.” “You mean rings?” “No.” “Moons?” “No, Captain. It is neither. If I
knew what it was I was detecting, I could better explain the anomalies I’m
reading on my viewer.” Archer looked back at the situation
monitor. “Why don’t you put together a team and go check it out?” Archer looked
back at her. “I’m meeting with the Gangi ambassador in four hours and I don’t
want to be late.” “Yes, Captain. Commander, do you
wish to join us?” Trip looked at Archer. “That alright
with you?” “Sure. Go ahead.” Trip and T’Pol walked to the lift
and disappeared. Left alone, Archer returned to the work he was supposed to be
doing. Two Weeks Later
Archer sat alone in the meeting
room, staring out at the stars speeding past at warp three. Behind him a
handful of PADDs were scattered where he had been sitting. He didn’t turn when
the door opened. “You wanted to see me?” Trip asked. “Have a seat. You’re early.” Trip didn’t respond to Archer’s
comment. He sat down across from Archer, folding his hands on the table. He
glanced up when the door opened again. T’Pol and Ensign Cutler entered. “You requested to see us, Captain,”
T’Pol said. “Have a seat,” Archer said. T’Pol sat down next to Trip without
so much as a friendly glance. The couple had been fighting non-top for days
now, which, if Trip had thought about it, was not typical of T’Pol under any
circumstances. Doctor Phlox, Sista and Travis were
the last to enter and then Archer turned. He silently organized the PADDs
sitting on the table while the six waited in silence. “I’ve reviewed these reports about
the planet you six visited a week ago. Again. I was hoping that, in some way or
another, they might shed some light onto why the six of you have been on edge,
short tempered and otherwise impossible to get along with.” Archer looked at
each of them as he continued talking. “I gather that the planet wasn’t
hospitable, that it had once been a Menshara class planet, the occupants died quickly
and painfully, but oddly not a single one of you went into detail as to explain
how you know any of this. Frankly, team, there are a lot of holes in your
usually impeccable reports. I need to know what’s missing and why. I can’t send
these reports to Starfleet like this. There aren’t even any pictures other than
building exteriors included. What are you six hiding from me and from whoever
else might be looking at these reports?” Archer fell silent, waiting for one
of them to speak. “It, uh,” Trip started. “It all went
downhill faster than a snowball to hell after the car.” “What car?” The six looked at each other. T’Pol
cleared her throat and began retelling the events that transpired on their
mission. # Phlox, Ensign Cutler, Sista, T’Pol,
Trip were crowded around Travis near the window, watching the car they were
slowly approaching. Travis slowed the shuttle pod to a stop by it and turned on
the external lights. The six stared at the mummified faces of two adult aliens
and a baby. There was a long silence that followed. “Resume course, Mister Mayweather,”
T’Pol ordered Travis turned to the helm controls
and moved away. He didn’t ask the five to move, because he didn’t want to be
alone after that discovery. Ahead was a tool shed, the kind that
could have been found in the backyard of any suburban house in America. They
watched it pass before looking forward. Ahead were more vehicles, more unsecured
buildings, and more bodies. The mass of objects began to grow thicker as they came
closer to the planet and Travis had to drop to quarter impulse as he wove in
and out of the objects. “That’s a train!” Cutler said,
pointing. A seven-car train was floating in
space. Travis turned the shuttle pod toward it. “Who would put all of these objects
and dead people in space?” Cutler asked. “More importantly, how would they have?” T’Pol asked. They sidled up to the train and
Travis shone the exterior lights on the empty cars as they flew past it. “Get us to the planet, Ensign,”
T’Pol said. Travis turned back toward the planet
and made his way to it. “We should sit down,” T’Pol
suggested as they came closer. “In case there is turbulence upon entering the
planet’s atmosphere.” “What atmosphere?” Travis asked. “What?” Trip asked him. Travis was staring at a monitor on
the console. “According to these readings, this planet has no atmosphere. It
isn’t even rotating. There won’t be any turbulence.” T’Pol pushed between Phlox and Sista
and sat down at the science station. “This planet used to be similar to Earth.
I’m reading dead plants on the surface and an infrared scan reveals terrain
that used to be under water.” “How recently?” Trip asked. “I cannot tell from space. I would
have to get closer to the surface to tell that.” “So…” Trip looked back at her. “This
planet may have been like earth?” “Yes.” “How’d all this stuff get into
space, T’Pol?” “I do not know, yet.” “Could it have drifted into space
once the planet stopped turning?” Cutler asked. “I do not know. To my knowledge no
one has encountered a planet that stopped rotating. This is a new discovery.” “Morbid discover, you mean,” Cutler
muttered. “Flock of birds,” Travis said. The five looked up as Travis steered
clear of a flock of frozen birds. They looked like seagulls with brown and black
mottled feathers “Ensign, there is a large city to
port twelve degrees. It has a large street near the center that is wide enough
for you to land on.” Travis maneuvered the shuttle pod
over the city and landed on the street. The shuttle pod sat on the ground for a
few seconds and then began to slowly rise without signifigant gravity to hold
it down. “We’ll have to tether the shuttle
pod down or it’ll float off,” Trip said. “I help do that,” Sista said. The two walked to the back and
pulled EV suits down from the top hatch. # In EV suits the six stood in a group
outside, looking at the dark city around them. The large windows of the
storefronts looked ominous and intimidating. Their helmet lights and
flashlights cast shadows off of familiar city street objects like benches and
light poles. “I need to see if I can find any
kind record as to what happened to this planet,” T’Pol said. “Vardee will
assist me. The four of you should split into two groups and see if you can find
anything as well.” “Like what?” Travis asked. “You’ll know when you find it,
Ensign. We should not go beyond radio communication range. Everyone will check
in every five minutes and we will return here in,” T’Pol looked at the monitor
on her suit arm, “three hours.” “We have six hours of oxygen in our
suits, Sub-Commander,” Travis argued. “There is no sense putting ourselves
at risk,” T’Pol argued. “We have a lot of territory to explore given that the
buildings around us are two stories or more. We will return in three hours, eat
and then resume searching again. Agreed?” They others muttered yes. T’Pol and
Sista, with the aid of their jet packs, started down the street. “See you in three hours,” Trip told
Travis and Cutler. The two Ensigns headed across the
street and entered a building. “That structure looks like it may
have been a building of worship.” Phlox pointed to a building down the street. “Let’s check it out,” Trip said. The two men headed down the street
to a stone building with ornate architecture. Phlox tried to open the door but
without leverage, he couldn’t open it. Trip helped him and together they were
able to pull the door open. A pile of bodies floated out the door and the two
moved out of the way. “That…was gross,” Trip muttered. “I’m surprised you’re just now
stating that fact,” Phlox said. They went inside, passing through
three entryways into a large chamber reminiscent of a Catholic church. Anything
that wasn’t fastened down was floating on the ceiling, including parishioners;
all who had dressed in what looked like their best clothes. Phlox pulled a
scanner off his belt and moved to several of the lower corpses, scanning them. “They died fast,” Phlox reported to
the team, “from asphyxiation it appears.” Cutler suddenly screamed, “TRAVIS!
TRAVIS GET IN HERE! GET IN HERE, TRAVIS!” “Liz?” Trip said, turning to look
back toward the door. She didn’t reply. “Elizabeth?” Trip asked again. “We…uh…we’ll be in the shuttle pod,”
Travis said to the others. “What’s wrong?” Trip asked. Neither replied. “Ensigns, what has happened?” T’Pol
asked. “I…uh…you’ll have to look for
yourself. We’ve gotta outta here!” Trip looked at Phlox. Phlox rejoined
him and the two headed back toward the door. They came out in time to see
Travis shutting the outer hatch of the shuttle pod behind him. “Which building were you in,
Travis?” Trip asked. “The one with the red sign over the
door, four buildings to your right.” Trip and Phlox headed toward the
building. They entered and could tell right away it was a hospital judging from
the types of equipment floating overhead. “Travis, where are we going here?” There was a pause before he replied.
“Go to the end of the hall, turn right, second door on your left. And take a
deep breath before you go in.” Phlox and Trip went to the end of
the hall, turned right and went through the second door on the left. Both
stopped and stared. They had walked into the nursery and — like the church —
everything not tied down was floating over their heads. In enclosed baby cribs
the dead of eyes of mummified babies stared at them. “Dear God,” Trip whispered. “There
has to be a hundred or more kids in here.” “They were trying to protect these
children from whatever event occurred here,” Phlox said. “How can you tell?” “All the open cribs are in the room
over there.” Phlox shone his light through the window of the room to his right. Trip went to the window and looked
inside. There weren’t any corpses inside, only open baby cribs. “We have found some paraphernalia
from their government,” T’Pol said over the COM. “What’s it say?” Trip looked down at
the floor. “It does not explain what was
happening, but apparently they knew that their planet was dying. It says that…
‘Our world is spinning to its death. Soon there will not be enough food, water,
and more importantly, air. We cannot keep this from happening. We must work
together as a planet to make this time easy. As of this day forward there will
be no taxes. All prices on everything will be lowered twenty percent and
frozen. There will be no hording. Punishment for crimes against person and
property will be dealt with swiftly and by death. There will be a curfew from
sunset to sunrise. Any persons caught outside their homes during this time will
be shot on sight.” T’Pol hesitated and her voice sounded strange when she read.
“Pray to our saviors to rescue us.” “How…how do you deal with death when
you know it’s coming like that?” Cutler asked on the COM. “When there’s nowhere
to run? They didn’t even have enough technology to save themselves. If we had
been here even a year earlier, if we hadn’t been held back from leaving Earth,
then we could have helped these people.” “There are more people here than any
starship could carry, Ensign,” T’Pol said. “But we could have helped some of them survive.” “Elizabeth,” Phlox said, “I share
your pity and your empathy, but this event has long since passed. We cannot
pass blame and we cannot accuse. All we can do is say our peace over the
deceased. What you and Ensign Mayweather need to do now is pull yourselves
together and start searching again.” “Why? Everyone’s dead.” “Because, Ensign,” Phlox explained,
“if something could make this world stop rotating, it could happen to any of
our home worlds just as easily. We must find the answer to spare our species
from suffering the same fate. Surely they have some kind of record as to what
events transpired prior to this.” There was a long silence on their
communication. “We’ll go back out. We’ll keep
looking,” Cutler said. “We should do the same, Commander
Tucker.” Trip nodded. He cast his eyes to the
floor as he turned and followed Phlox out of the room. Trip closed the door
behind him, looking down the hall to keep from looking back into the room. # There was a long silence among the
seven. Archer sat back in his chair. “That’s all we kept finding,” Cutler
said. “Dead bodies, mummified dead bodies, decaying dead bodies. All dead.” “So the nursery and church weren’t
the only places with corpses?” The six shook their heads. “In other cities,” Trip said,
adjusting in his chair, “it was mostly the churches. They were the worst.
Someone once told me that people gather in churches in time of death. They
weren’t lyin’.” “We did find several caves on many
of the continents that had stores of animals, plants, art and books,” T’Pol
continued. “There were masses of corpses in them as well. My guess is they had
hoped that if they were underground, they’d be safe. Apparently no one gave
much thought to the fact that if there is no air above ground, there is none
below either.” “Why didn’t you head back sooner?
You didn’t have to stay there, it was a voluntary mission,” Archer asked them. “We were curious, as morbid as that
sounds,” Phlox answered. “We wanted to know why they died, what stopped the
planet rotating, what killed it.” “And did you find out?” Archer
patted the PADDs with his fingers. “There’s no information in here about it.” There was a silence. “We brought back some computers from
the planet.” Trip said. “T’Pol and Lieutenant Nolan have been working on them.
I don’t know if they’ve found anything yet.” “T’Pol?” “I have not discovered any answers,
Captain.” T’Pol said. “Did you collect anything from the
caves?” “Some.” “I want to see it.” “We took it back,” Trip said. “Why?” “We felt we were robbing a grave.
The computers were enough.” “And there is information about the
race on several of them,” T’Pol said. “We buried a bunch, too.” Travis
added. “You did?” Archer asked. “A lot.” Cutler said. “The babies.
We buried as many of them as we could.” Archer looked down at the PADDs. He
realized that he truly didn’t comprehend what it had been like for them, and
he’d gotten the information he needed. Archer stood and gathered the PADDs. “Take your time, guys. Don’t worry
about getting right back to your shifts today,” Archer told them. He left the room. The six sat in
silence for almost an hour before Phlox spoke up. “I felt most for the family of
twenty. In the house. Pictures of them were all over the house.” “I’m glad we buried as many as we
could,” T’Pol said. Trip slid his arm around her
shoulders. T’Pol turned her head, pressing a cheek to his shoulder. They six
fell silent again. |
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