Enterprise: The Measure of a Man

**DISCLAIMER: Fan fiction only. NO money is being made off this story and no infringement on copyrights is intended with respect to aired and theatrical Star Trek.

Enterprise: The Measure of a Man
Chapter 8
= = =

The long line of chained men stopped their work and looked up as two cloaked figures, their faces obscured by baggy hoods, clambered to the top of a large pile of rock and gazed down into the quarry. Their foreman, an eight-foot reptilian whose scales formed a natural suit of body armor, motioned with his club for them to resume their labors. The observers waited, motionless, for him to clamber up and approach them. When he drew close enough to see their faces through the gaps in their hoods, he quickly knelt and lowered his eyes.

“Tell me how I may serve you, Mistresses.”

The strangers glanced at each other and then down at him. “We have come from the mountains and wish to visit your city. Perhaps you could tell us the most efficient manner of reaching it.”

“I would be honored to provide you with a guide,” the reptilian answered. Still doubled over, he backed away and climbed back into the rock-strewn pit. Once again, the laborers had stopped swinging their picks and hammers and were looking up from their tasks. Their naked bodies were streaked with sweat and dirt, and blood of various colors oozed from the split calluses on their hands and feet.

“Look at them—I can’t believe this!” Hoshi finally recovered from her shock enough to whisper the words to T’Pol. “We have to do something to help them!”

“I agree that it is a most distressing spectacle,” T’Pol confirmed. “However, it would be unwise as well as diplomatically unsound to act precipitously. The captain and Commander Tucker do not seem to be among them. We should continue our search and remain as inconspicuous as possible.”

Shaking her head in amazement, Hoshi watched as the reptilian approached a vaguely humanoid man and unchained him from his place beside a steely-eyed Andorian. The newly freed man stumbled for a moment, as if he had grown unused to balancing himself on his own feet, and the reptilian assisted him by pushing him into the gravel and delivering a sound blow to his shoulders with the truncheon.

“That’s a taste of what you’ll get if you fail to guide them properly,” he snarled. “Do you understand?”

“Yes!” the pitiful creature wailed, rubbing his wounds and crawling off toward T’Pol and Hoshi, who stared in total disgust.

“Such violence is not necessary,” T’Pol said as they prepared to continue their journey. “We would prefer that no one be brutalized on our behalf.”

“You’ve obviously come from a great distance,” the reptilian said with a touch of scorn. “Otherwise you would know that beasts like this cannot be trusted to behave without proper motivation.”

“Come on,” Hoshi urged, tugging at the sleeve of T’Pol’s cloak. “We shouldn’t waste any more time here.”

“Very well.” T’Pol turned and fell into step behind Hoshi and their guide, who walked slowly, still rubbing his shoulder. As they moved across the rocky terrain, heading away from the quarry, Hoshi caught up to him and touched his arm. He jerked away, startled, as if he expected her to strike him.

“No, no,” she reassured him. “Look, I just wanted to tell you that as soon as we’re far enough away from them, you can leave. Run away—be free. We can go the rest of the way on our own.”

“Ensign.” T’Pol’s voice was stern. “A word with you.”

“I know what you’re going to say, but in this case I’m going to have to respectfully disagree. You can write me up when we get back to the ship if you want, but I refuse to participate in—in—well, in the kind of thing that obviously passes for normal around here. I’ve already set him free. I’d like to see you take that back with a clear conscience.”

The two women stared at each other, while the guide stopped and looked back at them nervously. His fingers still rubbed his shoulder, where a wide blue welt had appeared in the shape of the foreman’s club. T’Pol opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Her expression remained as stubborn as ever.

“I think interference of this sort is inadvisable and possibly dangerous. However, since you have already completed the action in question, we will simply have to endure the consequences. Once he has set us on the correct route, our guide may do as he pleases.”

Hoshi’s anger quickly gave way to a smile of genuine relief. “It’s the right thing to do, Commander. You’ll see.”


= = =


Work in the quarry finished at dusk, when the men threw their tools down almost in unison and shuffled together to the small encampment where they were fed and given straw pallets to sleep on. The long chain that bound all of them together was reattached to a gigantic stake to ensure that they kept their places during the night. Their freedom of movement was limited to a few yards backward and forward, the length of the bonds locked around their ankles.

As usual, Onarr of Andoria lay awake long after most of the others had sought the oblivion of sleep. Perhaps they dreamt that they were back on their home planets, he thought bitterly. He took no such comfort from dreams. Nothing less than the real thing would ever ease his fury at being so dishonorably captured and so cruelly used.

He grew even angrier when he looked at them empty shackles that lay on the dirty pallet beside him. Why could he not have been chosen to return to the city instead of that gutless fool?, he wondered. Any warrior worth his salt would have taken the first opportunity to get away, leaving the two women dead if need be. Normally, Onarr would not have approved of killing women, even those of less desirable skin types, but lately he had grown to despise the entire gender. He considered himself at war with them, after all, and in war there could be no room for leniency.

Unfortunately, he doubted that his former associate shared his ruthlessness. His eyes were burning with despair when he finally closed them to sleep.

He opened them some undetermined time later, sensing that someone was crouching over him.

“Onarr,” he heard a familiar voice whisper urgently. “Onarr, I’ve come back. They let me go. Now I can let all of you go, as well.”

Convinced that he was dreaming, Onarr sat up and looked around. He realized at once that he wasn’t dreaming. The man who had suffered alongside him in those hateful chains was indeed kneeling beside him—free.

Suddenly, another silhouette approached. “What’s going on over here?” The reptilian’s voice sounded as hateful as ever. Onarr saw the outline of the truncheon being brandished. “You know talking is not permitted!”

He swung the club once, aiming straight for Onarr’s midsection. Its arc was never completed, however. The truncheon hit the rocky ground with a thud, and the reptilian’s body followed, crumpling benignly next to it.

The next thing Onarr saw was his old friend, grinning at him. His hands still held the bloody pick he’d driven into their foreman’s scaly chest.

“Get the keys,” he whispered. “There are weapons enough for all of us in the pit.”


(To be continued)