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"Returned" by A. Rhea King
Rating: PG CHAPTER 2 Archer rubbed his eyes. He’d spent two days sifting through information on the Arcadian II but none of it helped to identify the mystery girl. His doorbell beeped and Porthos ran to greet the visitor. “Come in,” Archer called. Phlox walked in, smiling at Porthos. “Hello, Porthos.” Archer didn’t turn away from his reading. “Was she cryogenically frozen?” Archer asked. “Perfectly. How did you know that?” “A disappearing stranger told me she would be.” “Daniels?” “No. I’ve never seen him before.” “What do you want me to do with her?” Archer turned to him, sitting back in his chair. “Could she be revived?” “I don’t know what the outcome would be if I tried. The longest time someone has been in cryogenic stasis and successfully revived was after thirty years. At first the individual appeared to be all right, but within five years, the person’s body began deteriorating rapidly. She is at least 140 years old; there’s no telling what will happen.” Archer smiled. “I remember this movie about a man put into cryogenic stasis and revived thirty years later. He began growing old after a few days. I guess your saying that could happen to her?” “The possibilities of what could happen are regretfully limitless.” “What would you do if the decision were left up to you?” “Embalm her and give her a proper burial.” Archer half expected that to be Phlox’s answer, but he couldn’t make his decision so hastily. He needed more information. “Keep her in stasis for now. I need some time to see if Starfleet can find anything. Did you transmit photographs of her?” “Yes. I’ll be in Sickbay if you need me.” Phlox left Archer’s quarters. Archer leaned forward on his legs, trying to think this situation through. Archer scrubbed his face with his hands, wishing for the answer to come soon. He rose, called Porthos and headed for the Captain’s mess to meet T’Pol and Trip for supper. # Archer didn’t notice Trip or T’Pol had fallen silent and were staring at him, because he was lost mulling over the mystery girl and The Stranger. “Cap’n,” Trip said. Archer looked at him. “What?” “I said I had something strange happened to me today.” Archer looked up at him. “What?” “I was working at the shuttle’s mission station and turned around and there was this crewman I’d never seen before standing there. I asked him who he was and he asked if I was curious about the girl found in the bench. I told him yeah, curious as hell. Then he said I should implore you to revive her because she’ll help convince you not to turn back. Then someone called me and when I turned back, he was gone. Like a ghost.” Archer looked down at his plate. “Did he have brown hair and eyes, a long, oblong face, and was wearing a science uniform?” T’Pol asked. “Yeah. How’d you know?” “He visited me as well,” she told them. “He came to my quarters and asked the same of me. He said that she was a living specimen of human history. He departed and when I went into the hall to ask him what he meant, he was gone.” “Why not revive her, Cap’n?” Trip asked him. Archer frowned. “He’s concerned with the future, and everyone else who’s been concerned with the future has led us into some dark territory. Until I know who she is and what he wants, I’m not having her revived.” “I’d like to know what she could tell us about the last moments of the Arcadian.” “You are assuming she wasn’t already frozen by then, Trip,” T’Pol pointed out. Trip grinned at T’Pol. “You wanna know what she has to say, too.” “I do not believe the girl was an astronaut. I would like to know what her purpose aboard the craft was and why she appeared to be hiding.” Archer smiled at his plate. “What?” Trip asked. “Even people who haven’t talked to this alien have asked to have her revived. Everyone is curious about her.” “So then why not do it?” Trip asked. “She’s from our past, not our future. How could she possibly affect us?” Trip had a good point. Archer leaned back and tapped the companel behind him. “Archer to Doctor Phlox.” “Go ahead, Captain.” “Proceed with reviving the girl.” “Are you certain?” “Yes. How long will this take?” “Tentatively, three days.” “Keep me informed throughout the process.” “Yes, Captain.” “And so it begins,” Archer quietly told them as he stood. “See you two in the morning.” Archer called Porthos and left. # Archer walked up to the stasis chamber, staring through the frosty window at the girl. She looked like she was sleeping. “Her vitals are stable,” Doctor Phlox said, joining Archer. “How much longer before she’s out of here?” “Another day and a half in the stasis chamber. I can’t say how long before she regains consciousness once she’s out.” “So she’s going to live?” “Perhaps. As I said before, Captain, what happens after she revives is still unknown. I don’t want to be overly optimistic.” Phlox turned, walking over to a box sitting on the counter and laying a hand on it. “Once I was able to remove her clothes, I was rather disturbed by what she had on her.” Phlox picked up a clear box sitting next to the case. It was filled with a suspension gel and six small square bricks of what looked like clay. “I would like Lieutenant Reed to look at this. I doubt this is sculpting clay.” Archer nodded, looking back at the girl. “You seem unsettled, Captain. You have been since you found her.” “This Stranger, this alien, wanted her brought back to life and was very persistent about it. And then he seems to have suddenly lost interest. I’m worried about what’s going to happen once she comes to.” “If she comes to.” “I’ll send Malcolm down for the clay or whatever it is. And I’ll have T’Pol pick a team to go through her personal effects.” Archer walked toward the door. # Archer entered the commons room carrying a PADD. The girl’s possessions were strewn across a table. Trip, Malcolm, Hoshi, and two more crewmen were scanning the items. T’Pol stood apart from the group with a book she was reading. “Figure out what most of it is?” Archer asked. “She had all the components she needed to make a bomb,” Malcolm told Archer. He picked up a device, showing it to Archer. “This is a remote detonator and it has an eighty kilometer range so she could have detonated it from a safe distance. The clay bricks are C-4 explosives. There was enough there to completely destroy the Arcadian. I searched the database for information on the gun she carried. It was a special issue .45 with a silencer.” “Her headset was linked to a receiver,” Hoshi added, “and the receiver was set to the same frequency that the shuttle was communicating with Houston on.” “She had a device in her hand. What was it?” Archer asked. “It may have been some kind of tracking device,” Trip said, “I got it to turn on, but whatever it used as a reference, we’re no where near it.” Archer looked down the table at T’Pol. “Did you find anything, T’Pol?” She looked up at him, closing the book. “Nothing of significance, Captain.” Archer nodded. “I found out who she is.” Archer walked to the monitor on the wall and pulled up a file with the girl’s photo. She stood against a height marker that was marked off in feet and inches, wearing an orange jumpsuit and holding a number in front of her. She was wide-eyed with fear. Archer turned back to the crew, waiting for them to move closer. “The information Starfleet found was declassified sixty years ago. Her name is Rachel Dawson, born in 1990 in Peoria, Illinois. Her family moved to Boulder, Colorado after her mother died in 2001. In 2005 she was in a warehouse when drug enforcement agents raided it. Rachel was found unconscious with a gun in her hand and the crime scene investigators linked the gun to bullets that killed three policemen at point blank. Rachel was tried as an adult, convicted of the murders and sentenced to lethal injection on March 20, 2007.” “After two failed appeals, her execution was carried out a month later and she was pronounced dead at fifteen and twelve hundred hours. However, she wasn’t executed that day. Instead she was drafted into a nameless organization that was a branch of America’s Central Intelligence Agency. Everything after that is sketchy or missing. We do know her expertise were explosives, fire arms, foreign languages, and hand to hand combat tactics, and that she assassinated at least two people. We don’t know why she was onboard the Arcadian.” “Who were the two people she killed?” Hoshi asked. “An ambassador in Nigeria and a diplomat in Mexico City.” Archer waited for his crew to talk, realizing this was a lot for them to take in. He had taken four hours to digest it before bringing it to them. “Maybe she shouldn’t have been revived after all,” Hoshi said. “Too late for that,” Trip told her. “Yes it is,” Archer commented. “Malcolm.” Malcolm looked away from the screen to him. “Yes, sir?” “I want the C-4 destroyed. Also post security at her bedside. Have all phasers that aren’t being worn by security personnel locked in the armory cabinet and recode the lock. Only you will know the combination for the time being.” “Why do you want the security team, sir?” Archer rested a hand on the ledge of the monitor. “Let’s imagine you’re a trained assassin and you wake up in a Sickbay you’ve never seen before, surrounded by people you don’t know, and a doctor who is alien in both appearance and familiarity. What would be your first reaction?” “Get away. Fast,” Malcolm answered. “With her training she is a weapon and I don’t want anyone hurt. As for her belongings, recycle everything you can, and then pack everything else up.” “Aye, sir,” they replied. Archer left the room. T’Pol looked at the monitor. She looked down at a book in her hand. The cover was made of rough handmade paper that had leaves and flowers pressed into it. The pages were smooth handmade paper with bits of plant leaves and seeds showing through. It was bound by a piece of nearly brittle leather that creaked at T’Pol’s lightest touch. It was recyclable, but she couldn’t destroy it. She had to finish reading it first. T’Pol left the room with the book. |
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