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"Returned" by A. Rhea King
Rating: PG CHAPTER 1 2010 Gravity leaned on Commander Casey Reese and he had to use every scrap of strength he had to turn his head. Outside the shuttle, clouds quickly disappeared into the blackness of space. Beside him, co-pilot Lieutenant Ashley Grover was struggling to keep her finger poised over the thruster buttons. “In what part of our training did we cover this?” Doctor Frosty Wetzbarger yelled over Casey’s headphones, his German accent thickened by anxiety. “It was part of the G simulator, Doc. Hold on to your lunch or you’ll be snor’n it,” Casey replied. A hoot burst over their helmet radios. Lieutenant Kenneth Grey, with his Texan drawl, laughed, “Let’s do it again! Not even a Brahma is this exciting!” “Your enthusiasm overwhelms, Lieutenant,” Wetzbarger groaned. Their helmet radios crackled with static before the Com Operator at ground control told them, “You are ten seconds from clearing escape velocity, Arcadian. Prepare to cut thrusters at fourteen twenty-two hundred. Copy?” “Copy, Houston,” Ashley replied, looking down at the bold digital clock on the instrument panel. “I am reading fourteen twenty-one hundred and fifty-five seconds. Thrusters cutting in five... Four... Three... Two... One.” Ashley tapped the buttons and Arcadian II began losing momentum. They heard Wetzbarger breathe an audible sigh of relief. “Make attitude adjustments toward the lunar orbital station,” the COM Operator ordered. “Confirmed,” Casey replied. “I’ll even compensate for the liquid nitrogen someone loaded uneven.” Ashley chuckled, pulling her shoulder straps loose. She moved slowly in weightlessness as she began a systems check. Casey pulled out of his shoulder straps, looking at the back of the cockpit. A large Navajo sat in the very back seat, his eyes glued on the vast blackness outside. “Still alive, Gary?” “Yeah!” Doctor Gary Walking Eagle answered with an open grin. “Can we take off our helm--” Wetzbarger stopped when something hit the outer hull. “What was that?” His voice raised a quarter octave. Ashley and Casey exchange concerned looks when the noise happened again. “Get strapped back in, Ash,” Casey keyed his mic. “Houston?” “Go ahead, Arcadian.” “Are you showing our path clear?” Casey asked. Three more thumps resounded along the hull. Ashley moved to the window, looking out. “Path is not clear, Arcadian. SAT shows Gustuv is closer than initially anticipated. A meteor shower is headed straight for you. Fire thrusters and take a heading of two-niner mark eight five. Target re-entry sector Beta.” Ashley looked back at Casey. He pointed to her seat, looking down at the fuel readout. “Houston, has this mission been scrubbed?” “Affirmative. Get your butts out of there, Commander! It’s coming fast.” Ashley grabbed the back of her chair and pulled herself into her seat. She was buckling in when a bright light flashed all around them. “Houston, where is this light coming from?” Casey demanded. Something exploded in the payload area, throwing the ship into a tailspin. “HOUSTON!” Casey grabbed for the control stick, struggling to control the out of control shuttle. Earth flashed past the front window. When it passed again, it was much further away. An explosion bucked the shuttle, its force sending Arcadian II spinning tail over nose into deep space... 2154 Archer turned a wicked glare on the blue gas giant. He flexed his jaw, a sign his anger was threatening to take control. His glare moved to the door of his ready room when the doorbell beeped. “Come in,” Archer growled. Trip walked in, sitting down in the chair across the room. Archer turned back to the window. “Well?” Archer asked. “After T’Pol got the Reat calmed down, they agreed to another meeting on their planet. We probably shouldn’t wear blue to meet them this time.” “They fired on us because of a color!” Archer wanted to punch something. Instead he leaned into the window. Quiet and careful, Trip reminded him, “It was just a misunderstanding.” “It’s always just a misunderstanding of something small and stupid!” Trip smiled and tried to lighten the mood. “Sometimes they just shoot because they’re having a bad hair day, Cap’n.” Archer shot him a glare. Trip looked away. Archer looked back at the gas giant, resolving a debate he’d been mulling over two ‘misunderstandings’ ago. “We’re going home.” Trip’s head jerked up. “What?” They began to slowly break orbit from the gas giant. “We’re going home.” “Cap’n--” Archer’s desk companel beeped, interrupting Trip. Archer tapped the nearest companel. “Go ahead.” “Captain, the magnetic interference of the gas giant has diminished and sensors have detected a small craft two thousand kilometers from our position,” T’Pol told him. “It isn’t responding to hails. Should we see if they need assistance?” Archer wanted to say no. “Yes.” Archer tapped the companel, sinking into his desk chair. Trip looked at his hands. “What if the crew doesn’t want to go home?” “There will be other captains, other ships.” Trip leaned forward on his legs. “I know this was frustrating, but--” Archer’s companel beeped again. “What?” He didn’t hide his irritation. “Captain, you are needed on the bridge,” T’Pol said. “Just handle it, T’Pol,” Archer reached out to tap the companel. “I advise you to come to the bridge, sir.” Archer stood and stormed out. Trip quickly followed, not about to let this conversation end with them going back to Earth. # The depression and anger Archer had been wrestling with for a month dissolved at the sight on the view screen. A twenty-first century space shuttle hung before Enterprise. There was a gaping hole in the side, exposing the wall separating the payload bay from the rest of the ship and a large chunk of the wing was missing. Painted below the cockpit windows was ARCADIAN II with an American flag under it. “Wow!” Trip laughed. “This is like finding a king’s ransom.” Archer walked closer to the view monitor. “Guess we’ll have to hang out here for a few days to figure out what happened to her, won’t we Cap’n?” Trip asked with a hint of bait in his voice. Archer didn’t reply, but he smiled at the question. Not even the depression could overcome the awe. Arcadian II was a holy grail; one that even his father had been anxious to find once his warp drive was installed in a ship. “Yes we do,” Archer finally said. “Get a shuttle pod out there and pull her in, Trip. Let’s find out what happened to the old girl.” # Archer entered the cargo bay and grinned. The Arcadian II took up half the bay and crewmen from every area of the ship were working on it. Archer walked up to the nose, laying his hand on the black cone. Up close he could see the fine lines between the hull plates. They were thin in comparison to Enterprise’s hull plating. It made him wondered how the astronauts had ever felt safe in this craft. “We think it was the meteor shower,” he heard Trip say. Archer turned, finding Trip standing behind him. He held a Petri dish out to Archer. Archer took it, tilting it back and forth to move the meteor granules inside around. “T’Pol is analyzing the samples to see if it did come from Gustuv. She’s hypothesizes that the shower put holes in her, but didn’t cause the big one. She thinks the rocks punctured the liquid oxygen or liquid nitrogen tanks in the science lab and they exploded, rupturing the hull.” Trip turned to look at the Arcadian. “But we’ll know more once we can get to the black box in the cockpit.” “Phlox hasn’t removed the bodies yet?” Trip shook his head. He smiled at Archer, but Archer could see a hint of sadness in it. “I know what it must have been like for them to die freezing to death.” “You don’t think they suffocated first?” “Hard to say. He said he’d know more after the autopsies.” Someone called for Trip. Archer handed the Petri dish back. “Why don’t you look in on her?” Trip said, motioning into the Arcadian as he passed the hole. Archer didn’t have to be encouraged; that was why he’d come down. He walked inside, smiling at his crew. Like giddy, eager archeologists just uncovering a new pharaoh’s tomb, they were working with a lot of talking. Archer wandered in, eavesdropping as he passed some. He turned when someone laid a hand on his shoulder and stared at the man behind him. He was only a few centimeters shorter than Archer, had a long face and nose, sculptured lips, and short brown hair. He wore a strange smile on his face, as if he knew every secret of the universe. Archer knew there were crewmen on his ship he barely knew, but he was sure he at least knew their faces and he’d never seen this man’s face. “Captain Archer,” he said. His voice was silky smooth, full of cunning and dark humor. “I’ve found something you should see.” “What?” “It’s over here, sir.” The crewman walked over a pile of liquid oxygen and nitrogen tanks, watching Archer expectantly. Archer’s guard was creeping toward red alert. He was beginning to believe that this was not one of his crewmen. So then who was it? And why was he here? The man pointed to the pile of tanks. “I picked up unusual readings from under these tanks. Shouldn’t we see what’s under them?” Archer’s guard hit red alert. The question was meant to entice Archer into moving the canisters. “Who are you?” The Stranger turned to the canisters, picking one up and moving it. “These contained liquid nitrogen. Do you know how quickly liquid nitrogen can freeze a carbon based cell?” The crewman continued working while he waited for an answer. “I asked who are you?” As if not hearing the question, The Stranger continued, “All of these tanks probably exploded at once. If all that nitrogen was released onto a living being, that being would have gone straight into cryogenic stasis.” He looked back at Archer as he removed the last canister, adding, “And if you know anything about cryogenic stasis, Captain, many people have been successfully revived from it in the last 140 years.” The Stranger motioned down. Archer glanced at the closed bench. “Were you to revive her, you wouldn’t want to go home,” the Stranger told him. Only Trip knew about that decision. “Who are you?” The crewman leaned to the side, opening the bench. Archer’s eyes followed his hand down and his breath caught as the seat was pulled up. He couldn’t stop himself from moving closer, and he didn’t notice The Stranger move behind him with a satisfied grin. A girl in her late teens with shoulder length brown hair lay inside. Her eyes were fogged from being cryogenically frozen and fixed on a device in her hand. She wore a wireless earpiece. Fastened to her thigh was a holster from which the black matte handle of a gun poked out. A slender bladed knife was strapped to her opposite calf. “Order Phlox to revive her, Jonathan,” The Stranger told him. “She wants to live.” Archer spun around, asking, “Who are--” His question died when he found that The Stranger was nowhere in sight. Archer looked back down at the girl and then yelled over the din of the crew, “PHLOX!” Everyone dropped what they were doing and crowded around the bench. Phlox pushed through the crowd, standing next to Archer. “I have reason to believe she’s in cryogenic stasis,” Archer told Phlox. “Get her to Sickbay immediately and prove it one way or the other.” “If she was frozen like the others--” Phlox said. “Verify it.” Phlox hesitated. “Right away, Captain.” Archer pushed through the crowd. He had to contact Starfleet and figure out what other secrets the Arcadian II held. |
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