Missing Scenes from Season Three - Rajiin

SPOILERS: "The Expanse" and it may not make sense without it.

DISCLAIMER: Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount.  "Rajiin" was written by Brent V. Friedman and Chris Black from as story by Brent V. Friedman and Paul Brown and Brent V. Friedman.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Not a lot of romance here; there were questions I had about this episode that I figured they might have too.

Thank you as always, reviewers and beta jT. 

Reptilians were ugly sons of bitches.  Trip liked to think he was fairly open-minded about differences in alien physiology, but as he stared down at the corpse of this particular Xindi, there was just no getting around it.  Of course, being dead probably didn't help the guy's looks.

He still hadn't seen a live Reptilian himself, but that wasn't true of a good chunk of the crew, now.  It was pretty unnerving that they had been out here looking for Xindi, and instead the Xindi had found them.

Trip looked up from the dead alien on the examining table and looked around.  Except for Phlox and this dead Xindi, sickbay was empty.  "Where's T'Pol?" 

Phlox didn't turn his attention away from the scan he was studying.  "She's about as easy to keep in sickbay as you are, Commander."

"Then she's okay." 

"She'll be fine."

That implied she wasn't fine yet.  The last time Trip had seen her, she had still been out cold on a bio-bed, hands curled limply at her side.  But that had been hours ago, when Phlox had dismissed him to get some rest in his own quarters.  Clearly Phlox wasn't particularly worried, though. 

"Cap'n asked me to meet him here," Trip said.  He was a little irritated that the captain himself, however, was not there.  Enterprise had taken enough minor damage to keep Engineering busy for days; Trip had things to do.

Phlox grunted, still intent on his scans.  "No doubt he wants to me to share my autopsy results.  I expect him momentarily."

The sickbay doors opened.  Trip looked up, expecting Jon, and felt his stomach give a little nervous flutter as T'Pol entered instead, dressed in her orange cat suit.  Whatever this was, it was getting really bad if he was actually having adolescent palpitations just because she'd walked in the door when he wasn't expecting her. 

But that was a minor issue, really.  To his keen eye, she looked a little fragile, maybe even shaky.

"I thought I told you to rest," Phlox said.

"The captain asked me to meet him here," she countered.

"And how does that qualify as resting?"  Phlox sounded annoyed, but perhaps realized it was a lost cause, since he turned back to his scans.

T'Pol looked, blinking, at the dead alien on the table, but didn't approach it.

"Maybe you should follow the doc's orders," Trip said softly.

"I believe we may have more important priorities at the moment."  She looked around.  "I was expecting to see more patients here."

Phlox said, "I discharged the last one an hour ago.  There were no major injuries except for Private Money's, and hers will heal.  We were lucky."

Trip frowned at T'Pol, who also looked a bit perplexed.  "I don't get it," he said.  "They have no compunction about killing seven million innocent Humans on Earth, but they don't use deadly force when they board a hostile starship full of the same Humans?"

T'Pol said, "Perhaps this is a different group of Xindis.  Or perhaps extracting their operative was their only goal."

"So maybe these Xindis are unusually single-minded?" Trip said.  "Or maybe they're just kind of stupid?   Because frankly I still don't get the point of attacking Earth the way they did.  If I set out to destroy a planet, I wouldn't send a weapon that has no hope of doing the job and can be traced back to me."

The doors opened again and Archer entered, looking grim.  He had an unfamiliar weapon with him, which he deposited on a counter before he moved over to the Xindi corpse.  "She said they're working on a bio-weapon.  That she was here to get information about us for their weapon.  So my question is, did she manage to get it?"  He moved closer to T'Pol, and his tone softened.  "Do you remember anything?"

"I do," T'Pol said, clearly uncomfortable.  "I believe she scanned my body . . . somehow." She swallowed.  "It was . . . extremely difficult to resist.  She possessed formidable mental abilities."  Trip could swear she had paled as she spoke, and he noticed that Phlox had narrowed his gaze at the Vulcan.

Trip bit his lip.  "But why even bother with T'Pol?  I thought they wanted to destroy Earth, not Vulcan."

Archer said, "I don't know, but I don't think T'Pol was her only victim.  She came to my quarters last night, too, and when she left I had a definite sense of confusion about what had just happened.  And Hoshi described the same kind of encounter with her."  He turned to T'Pol.  "Do you suppose the threat of a bio-weapon that can kill Vulcans too might finally get your people off the fence?"

T'Pol said nothing, just lifted an eyebrow.

Archer said, "We still don't know if she actually got that information to the Xindi.  Security only found a simple comm device when they searched her.  Nothing that could hold or transmit large amounts of data."

"Remember what I said about her unusual eye structure," Phlox said.  "It's possible she used her own brain, or perhaps a device embedded in it, to store any information she collected.   Of course, without knowing more, it is hard to say for certain. In any case, I don't see how anyone can target a bio-weapon effectively without actual genetic samples to work from."

T'Pol said, "You wouldn't need a full genetic profile if you designed a weapon so pernicious in its effects that it could destroy all life it comes in contact with."

"But that would pose a serious risk to one's own people," Phlox pointed out.

Archer stalked the one end of the room, then turned and stalked back. "Maybe you don't have to kill them all.  Maybe you could just transform them.  We've seen that ourselves, with the Loque'eque."  He suddenly paled and turned to Phlox.  "She didn't get her hands on any of that, did she?"

Phlox went over to a box, which he opened and checked.  "The seal hasn't been broken, Captain."

Trip looked on in some confusion.  That terrible virus was still hanging around sickbay?

Archer sighed.  "What I said before?  Never mind.  Destroy it."

"Happily," Phlox said.  "Though, again, I doubt they could have used this successfully without great risk of infecting themselves."

Trip scowled.  "Maybe they really are just kind of stupid."  So was anyone who would keep that virus around.  But maybe for the captain it was a hangover from having been Loque'eque . . . he really hadn't had very long to recover from that yet.  Malcolm was still asking Chef for sunflower seeds.

He looked back at T'Pol.  She'd had a rough time on that planet, too.  And now this. 

"Have you had a chance to inventory our genetic material yet?" Archer asked Phlox.

Phlox frowned.   "No.  I assumed the autopsy was a higher priority.  But it won't take long, if you'd like me to do so now."  He moved to a cabinet and pulled down a stasis unit, while Archer hovered over him.  Trip moved next to T'Pol.  "You look a little under the weather."

"The experience with Rajiin was . . . disturbing."  She swallowed.  "I have recovered, but I am still somewhat fatigued."

He lowered his voice to a near-whisper.  "Would neuropressure help?"

She turned her lovely dark eyes on him for a moment.  "Perhaps, when time allows."

"When time allows, then," Trip said, and turned back to wait for the captain and Phlox to finish what they were doing and get this meeting over with. 

He was buoyed by the thought that whatever else he had to deal with today, or the next few days, some quiet time with T'Pol would come eventually.

And to think he'd actually suggested to her that they should stop.  But then, he'd always been taught that a gentleman never did anything that might damage a lady's good reputation.

It had been such a relief that the lady didn't share his concern.

A relief, and also kind of interesting.