The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [64]
“Travis, put us into a standard orbit.”
“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said as he deftly worked the controls.
As Archer continued to watch the screen, he saw bright lines intermittently lancing the turbulent indigo atmosphere with delicate and swiftly fading traceries of fire. Too regular and elliptically shaped to be lightning discharges, the brilliant streaks betrayed the ascent and descent of all manner of spacecraft, which must have been taking traders and customers of all sorts to and from the surface of Rigel X.
The captain recalled how he’d felt four years ago, that he didn’t want a Vulcan on his ship. Now, he couldn’t imagine Enterprise without T’Pol. His science officer, quiet, competent, and still able to surprise her captain. This morning he stepped out of his ready room and immediately noticed that something was off. Looking towards the science station, Archer saw T’Pol in a Starfleet uniform. Even now he had to suppress a smile. Turning toward the science station, Archer asked, “T’Pol, have you found any ships in the vicinity that might correspond to the warp trail we followed here?”
T’Pol shook her head gravely. “I’ve already begun running scans of the surface, and every ship within range of Enterprise’s sensors, whether on the surface, in the atmosphere, or in orbit. Nothing conclusive has emerged so far, although I have detected a number of Orion ships of various classes, all of them commercial transports and freighters. It is possible that the particular vessel we followed is indeed present on the planet, but has powered down temporarily so as to make itself undetectable.”
“What about Aenar life signs?”
“So far I’ve found no evidence of any Aenar or Andorian life-forms anywhere on the planet, or aboard any of the incoming vessels I have detected.”
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t here somewhere, Captain,” said Reed. “People who peddle flesh the way the Orions do would be highly motivated to keep their activities camouflaged. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.”
“Either way,” Archer said, “somebody down there must know the location and status of that Orion slave ship we tracked here. I’m taking a landing party down to the trade complex to find out.”
“Aye, sir.” Ensign Mayweather entered a command into his helm console, then rose from his seat to face the captain. “I’ll start preparing Shuttlepod One immediately.”
Archer raised a hand in a gentle “slow down” gesture. “Not this time, Travis. We’ll be using the transporter, since we need to get in quickly and may need to get out even more quickly.” Once again, he couldn’t escape the memory of the painful energy-pistol burn he’d received the last time he’d been in a rush to leave Rigel X.
Though Mayweather looked crestfallen as he returned to his station, Archer lacked the time and the patience at the moment to promise the junior officer more exciting piloting duty “next time.”
Archer turned back to face the aft portion of the bridge, where T’Pol and Hoshi manned the two stations at his right, while Malcolm looked on from the tactical station at the captain’s left. “Malcolm, you’re coming, too. I want a pair of MACOs along to watch our backs as well. T’Pol, you have the bridge.” He started toward the turbolift, motioning to Malcolm, who immediately followed.
“Shran has already made it abundantly clear that he intends to come along with any landing party we dispatch to the surface,” T’Pol said as Archer passed.
He stopped in the open turbolift entrance for a moment, considering. “All right, T’Pol,” he said finally. “Shran can come along. I suppose he’d be pretty hard for the rest of you to live with if I were to leave him here. But Theras is definitely staying aboard Enterprise.”
T’Pol raised an eyebrow. “I’m certain that Shran will be quite pleased by both