Chapter 4

When Captain Rogers finally opened his eyes, he had an aching sensation on the side of his head. He groaned a bit as he tried to get up, but sat back down as he started to get a bit dizzy from the effort. There was no doubt about it, he had sustained a pretty impressive concussion. As Rogers inspected his head, there was dried blood, which was likely the source of the concussion. The old man took a moment to focus and when his eyes were working well again, he notices that the ship was sitting in a diagonal slope and that told him two things. The first being that the landing gears were not used, which led to his second conclusion: they had crashed. He didn't remember what had happened, which was likely also caused by the head trauma, so he was going to have to rely on the memory of is rookie, if she didn't knock herself out either.

"O'Brien!" he called out, but there was no response.

Rogers huffed as he struggled to get to his feet. He started to get dizzy again, but this time he grabbed something to hold onto as he started to make his way to the back of the ship. He got about halfway when O'Brien noticed he was walking and ran over to grab Rogers before he fell over. He let out a groan as she grabbed onto him.

"Ouch," he softly said, "That hurts just a bit."

"You shouldn't be standing," O'Brien said, helping his sit down in one of the more comfortable chairs in the middle of the ship.

"What the hell happened?" Rogers demanded.

"You mean besides the fact that we crashed?" O'Brien countered with her own question.

"Well, I gathered that much." Rogers said, holding his head as it ached. "Any idea where we are and when during our route we went down?"

"I'm afraid I'm not sure, Captain." O'Brien answered, "I was flying the ship while you napped and suddenly I blacked out and woke up after the crash as well."

"You fell asleep?" Rogers said, sounding rather concerned.

"No," O'Brien denied, "I was not tired. I just blacked out. There's a difference."

"Odd," Rogers said, "But I believe you. It wouldn't be the first time someone took out the cockpit to provoke a crash."

"But why?" O'Brien asked, "Why would someone want to crash us?"

"That's the big question," Rogers replied, as he tried to get up but crashed back down on his arse as he failed to do so. "We haven't got anything of value, not yet at least."

"What do we do now?" O'Brien asked, hoping her Captain had all the answers.

Rogers took one last try, and heaved himself up to his feet with a loud huff. He groaned for a bit as he started to walk back to the rear of the ship.

"We need to find out where we are," Rogers answered, "Are scanners working?"

"No," O'Brien answered, "I was trying to fix then when you woke up."

"Well, one way to find out is to look outside," Rogers suggested.

"Not yet," O'Brien said, pointing to the main windows. "There's a storm out there, we should wait till it dies down."

"Good idea," Rogers said, "I'll fix the sensors while we wait. If the replicators are down, let's be thankful we picked up something on our way out. We might have to ration that."

"I understand," O'Brien said, not relishing the idea, "But the replicators are functional for now. I already used them and made several jars of water in case they went down later."

"Smart girl," Rogers said, "Make a few more and some food to go with them while I work on the sensors. There's no telling how long we'll be down here, or how long that storm will last."

"I can't see it lasting more than a day or two," O'Brien said, not thinking much of it.

"Don't be so sure," Rogers countered, "I've seen some storms last over a week or two. We have no idea what kind of weather systems this planet has, so let's prepare for a long haul rather than a short one."

"Yes, Sir," O'Brien said, "I understand."

While Rogers spend a few hours working on the sensors, O'Brien used the replicators to create crates of patrol rations. She hoped to never used them, but it was the best to used as they took several months to expire. Rogers took a break and they created a meal since the machine was still working and sat down to eat. There was a lot of rumbling going on outside the ship, as the vessel shook from the vibrations.

"That bolt was very close," O'Brien said, looking up from her meal.

"Not that close," Rogers disagreed, "We'll be fine anyway. This ship is well grounded. It can take a full tactical EMP and keep on ticking."

"At least the replicators are still up," O'Brien said, rather thankful for it. She didn't want to ration her purchased supper and was happy to have options.

"We should be fine, but it was good to make a back up." Rogers agreed, "Once the storm lets up, we can take a look around."

As if the weather had heard the statement, the winds and rain eased up and the sun started to shine through one of the windows. Rogers slowly got up and took a look out to see that the storm had indeed stopped.

"Open the door slowly," Rogers told her, "Make sure it doesn't jam in case we need to close it up again real fast."

"Why would we need to do that?" his co-pilot asked.

"I don't know," Rogers answered, "In case a big creature tries to have us for supper?"

The door had no trouble opening and didn't appear to be damaged, as they both stepped out and started to look around. They were in what appeared to be a small forest, with tall trees and bushes all about. The leaves of the trees were all kinds of colors that made the area look a rather beautiful. There were some well sized puddles but Rogers stopped O'Brien from walking into it.

"Get a PH tester," Rogers ordered, "I want to know how acidic this storm was."

While O'Brien was testing the puddles, Rogers moved a little further away from the ship looking for anything that might be a clue to where they were. He didn't recognize a damn thing. He looked up into the sky and noticed two suns up above.

"This is the Echo quadrant, I'd bet my salary on it." Rogers called out.

"Are you sure about that?" O'Brien asked.

"About as sure as I can be," Rogers answered, "This is the only system with two sons. Now all we have to do is figure out which planet in there we are..."

Rogers stopped talking and just stood there in silence for a moment, and he was so quiet that O'Brien couldn't help but notice.

"Are you alright, Sir?" She called out.

"We're not," Rogers replied, "Get back to the ship, right now."

"What?" O'Brien said as she put away the test kit. "What's going on?"

"Look over there," Rogers said, pointing to something. "What do you see?"

"The storm," O'Brien said, "The one that just passed."

"No," Roger said, pointing the other way, "According to the direction of the wind, that's the storm that just passed."

"Two storms?" O'Brien said, laughing. "How likely is that?"

"Not likely at all," Rogers agreed, "It's not two storms; it's the same storm!"

"What?" O'Brien cried, "What do you mean?"

"Get back to the ship!" Roger repeated, this time a little louder. "This is the eye of the storm! We're about to get walloped again!"