Uhura leaned against the cold, metal wall, listening to the faint hum of the shuttle's engines. It was a miracle that the shuttle hadn't been broken to a thousand pieces already. Its shields were in no way strong enough to withstand any direct bombardment from the large asteroids. If it wasn't for the uncanny expertise of the man flying the ship, they would have been dead already.

She couldn't stay here forever, she would have to escape eventually. In her head, she went through a hundred different scenarios, but without the man piloting the shuttle, she doubted she could ever manage navigating back to the Enterprise on her own. Lieutenant Nyota Uhura was an excellent pilot, but she doubted even Sulu could do as well as the man who had stolen the shuttle

The communications channel chimed, alerting that someone was hailing them. Uhura sat up straight, her numb fingers twitching as she instinctively readied herself to answer it.

The man leaned over to the screen and opened the channel. A harsh voice began spitting a torrent of angry words through the speakers.

"It's from a Klingon vessel," Uhura said, translating the words. It was an old dialect that very few used, however it was similar enough to translate. "They say this shuttle now belongs to them."

The man looked back at the lieutenant in surprise as she translated the short,  guttural speech coming from over the channel.

"They're warning us to surrender ourselves now, or else they will attack."

The man said nothing, but he kept the channel open. The Klingons repeated the words again and again in a loop. The voice suddenly stopped for a moment before it continued again, this time furious.

"He's demanding that we respond immediately," Uhura stressed. She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks as she became infuriated at the man. "Aren't you going to do anything?

"I wasn't planning on it."

"He says we must respond or else they will fire," Uhura translated. She moved, pulling as far as her bound hands would let her. "Let me speak with them."

"You've spent the past two hours screaming about what you'll do once you get lose. Why should I suddenly trust you?"

Uhura ground her teeth in frustration. "Because if you don't let me do my damn job we could both die."

The man turned back to her. For the first time since their departure from the Enterprise, he turned the shuttle on autopilot. He unfastened the shoulder straps and stood. Uhura saw just how large the man was, as he had to crouch to get to the back of the shuttle. He leaned over and took her arm, his large hands wrapped roughly around the red fabric of her uniform.

"You are a smart woman, Lieutenant Uhura," He said, pulling a deadly looking knife from his vest. "I can trust you won't do anything we'll both regret." He leaned over and sliced through the cord.

Uhura pulled her hands away and quickly moved. Her legs were numb from where they had fallen asleep, but she managed to keep her footing as she backed away, her eyes darting around the shuttle, looking for anything to use as a weapon. The man calmly put the knife away. A large shudder ran through the ship, almost throwing them to the ground. The man looked up at the metal ceiling above. It had been a warning shot.

The man turned and headed back to the console. Uhura remained in the back of the shuttle for another moment, still trying to work out an escape plan.

The metal ship gave another violent shake, nearly knocking her off her feet. Straightening her shoulders, she swallowed her frustration and walked to the front of the ship. She shoved the bag with the artifact off of the copilot's seat and dropped it on the floor. She sat down and reopened the communication's channel, grabbing the small metal earpiece from its place in the console. The Klingon was still yelling orders at the other end.

"They are saying this is the last warning. They will kill us if we do not surrender," Uhura translated before opening up the shuttle's channel and replying. "maH Qoy soH' Qumpln. maH vaj qang je soH ghaH yu' che."

The Klingon was silent for a moment before spitting out more words. Uhura listened carefully, her eyes instinctively darting back and forth as she translated, as if she was reading invisible lines of text.  "He says that you have done them a great dishonor by ignoring their demands. If they do not kill us, we will become their prisoners..." The Klingon stopped talking and the channel was cut off. Uhura slipped the metal earpiece from her ear. "They're preparing to fire again."

The man disengaged autopilot and began to switch the controls to auxiliary power. "Then lets be damn sure we're not an easy target for them," He said, the shuttle making a sudden turn as it shot forward into the asteroid field.

Uhura fastened the shoulder straps on her seat, her eyes growing wide and her chest sinking as the speeding shuttle weaved through the masses of drifting rock. Unable to say anything, she sunk against the chair, her eyes wide as the rocks began to blur around them.        

The console in front of her began to beep.  She looked down at the flashing display. "They're following us," She reported. She looked at the proximity readouts. There was a blur of a Klingon vessel just behind them.

The man pulled up on the controls, bringing the shuttle up milliseconds before it slammed into the side of an enormous piece of rock. The shuttle skirted across the top of it, turning left towards the oncoming asteroids. Uhura flinched as the shuttle jerked to the side, sliding through the slowly diminishing space between the two rocks. The display alert suddenly ceased, indicating the Klingon vessel had crashed.

The shuttle continued through the field at a high speed until something slammed into its side. They were thrown off course, spinning wildly through space. The giant hoovering rocks smeared together outside the display window. Uhura couldn't even tell what was supposed to be up or down anymore as the shuttle spun through space.

The man deactivated the starboard thrusters and then put full power on forward movement. The shuttle jerked to a stop, slamming into a chunk of orbiting rock. The man quickly reactivated power and the shuttle began to move forward once again. Or at least Uhura thought it was forward. Everything was so turned around at that moment she wasn't even sure what was happening.

The shuttle dipped down and suddenly a pale white planet filled the display window. The man couldn't help but grin in relief.

It looked so small, hanging in the dark sky by itself. There was nothing else Uhura could see from the small display window, and the scanners were malfunctioning. The planet was small from that distance. It looked like glistening porcelain marble. Wispy clouds seemed to smear around it. The faint halo of an atmosphere covered the rest.

An alarm began to blare throughout the shuttle. The man double checked the various display readouts.

"We're losing forward engines," Uhura reported. "Wait, what are you doing?"

The man adjusted the controls, inputting several different settings. "Making the most of them before they're gone completely."

"You're going to get us both killed!"

The man finished and turned back to the main control panel. "Only if we're not careful," He replied, setting engines to full power.

A large burst of power tossed the shuttle forward. Seconds later there was a large explosion and a shudder ran through the metal hull. Uhura looked at her display. "We've lost the forward engines."

"Won't need them anymore," The man said. The white planet looked to be the same distance as before, but it was obvious from the asteroids around them that they were moving quickly forward. The last bit of momentum from the forward engines had propelled them just enough. It would still take at least an hour to reach it, but that wasn't the main concern.

"We'll never be able to maintain orbit," Uhura told the man.

"We won't need to."

"Shields are at sixty-three percent and dropping. Hull integrity thirty-eight percent. If we try to get to the planet we'll burn up in the atmosphere."

The man grinned."Trust me."

"Trust you?" Uhura repeated in disbelief. "Because that's something you've definitely earned." She muttered sarcastically as she turned her attention back to the display.