Watson and Hedley had worked overnight to fix the communications systems on USS Pennine to no avail. The subspace signals could not escape the strong magnetic fields of the planet, in the same way sensor scans had difficulty penetrating it. Stone sat looking at the now functional computer terminal in the aft section, studying the sensor logs of the atmosphere to find a route out for the signal.
Behind him, at the table Hedley was sat 'messing' with a tricorder, Stone believed it was for entertainment more than a feasible purpose, but Hedley had argued that the sensor relays could be used to some effect, along with the emitters to produce a distress beacon of some type.
"Sir," he burst out, in a worried, but excited tone.
"What is it?" Stone asked, not taking his eyes away from the terminal.
"I'm detecting lifesigns, three hundred meters and closing," Hedley replied.
Stone spun around on the chair and stood up at the same time. He stumbled slightly from the nausea but hurriedly walked over to the table to see the tricorder.
"I've enhanced the tricorder sensors, they are lifesigns, species unknown, four of them, heading this way at walking pace," he said.
As he was speaking Jan Fisher and Rich Watson entered the rear compartment and heard the conversation, Jan quickly took the tricorder from Marc to see the sensor results.
"Yes, no doubt they are," she said after a moments study of the more technical graphs displayed by the tricorder.
"Rich, weapons," Stone said quickly.
Watson was already inside the weapons locker and had produced two phaser rifles. He threw one to Stone and one to Hedley and produced another two for his own and Fisher's use.
Stone and Hedley exited the craft and through the fog and snow could see a number of figures approaching.
"Lieutenant Stone!" a voice called out.
The wind howled around them and Stone barely made out his own name, as the figures drew nearer he recognized the thermal jackets worn by Starfleet personnel.
"Lieutenant!" the voice called again.
Stone waved his rifle to the side acknowledging he had heard, he realized that with the current wind and conditions there was no way his voice would be heard.
Stone and Hedley began walking towards the group. One of the group moved away from the rest and met Stone.
"I'm Lieutenant Peters, USS Khitomer," the man spoke. "We received your distress call, our ship is ready to take you out."
"Distress call?!" Stone said, slightly bemused. "I didn't think it had worked."
"Well we received one, and to be honest I'd like to get out of here as soon as possible if you don't mind sir," the Lieutenant replied.
"What about our ship?" Stone asked.
The other man shook his head. "We have no way to recover it, we've only managed to get one of our Type 11's in due to it's uprated nav system and dampeners."
Stone sighed. "Very well, we'll be ready in minutes."
He turned to Hedley and indicated towards the ship. Within a couple of minutes the four personnel emerged and walked into the fog towards the rescue team's shuttle.
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