Author's note: I've always been fascinated by paranormal experiences. I've had a few such experiences, as well as having had a number of what might be called precognitive dreams. I was watching a TV program the other day on the topic of haunted houses, and wondered -- what if something like that happened on Enterprise?

Thank you, Kylie Lee, for a great beta!

CHAPTER ONE

The bridge crew held its collective breath as details of the object on the main viewscreen became clearer. The small ship was old. The hull was pitted and streaked. In some places, the dull undercoat was visible. Not a light shone from the craft. It was as dark and cold and lifeless as the space around it.

Captain Jonathan Archer, seated in his command chair, was as mesmerized by the sight in front of him as were the rest of those on the bridge. "T'Pol?" he asked.

"It's a one-person Earth ship," the Vulcan first officer responded. She looked up from her science station. "It is of a type that was customarily used for courier duties between Earth and its fledgling colonies, or for private transportation."

"It's got to be at least sixty years old," Jon said.

"Wouldn't they have wanted bigger ships?" asked Ensign Hoshi Sato from communications. "If you had to travel long distances, you might as well make it worth your while and haul supplies while you're at it."

Jon nodded in agreement but said, "But there were some things that couldn't wait until a big shipment was ready. Vital medicines, for one thing. And subspace communication wasn't as reliable as it is today. They often carried important documents or other information." He spun his chair to the left to face T'Pol. "Can you tell what ship it is?"

"No. The area of the hull where the registry number would be displayed has corroded," she said. She pushed a few buttons on her console, and a portion of the ship's bow was magnified on the main screen. The hull in that area was badly pocked. Any identifying symbols that might have been there were no longer in evidence. "We will have to board the ship to find out."

Jon rose to his feet, an anticipatory gleam in his eye. "T'Pol and Malcolm, you're with me. Hoshi, tell Trip to meet us in the launch bay. We'll take a shuttlepod over."

As the most senior officers left the bridge, Hoshi paged the chief engineer and relayed the captain's order. That task accomplished, she looked once more at the viewscreen where the lifeless ship was displayed.

From his seat at the helm, Ensign Travis Mayweather said, "This would make a great ghost story."

Hoshi smiled tolerantly at his flight of fancy. "It's just an old ship. It probably broke down here and no one was around to help." She paused, considering the ship on the screen. "It's rather tragic."

"Most ghost stories are," Travis said. With an impudent smile, he added, "It's only the ones I tell around campfires that are scary."

Hoshi laughed and turned her attention back to her console. She saw the test signal from the shuttlepod. With the push of a button, she acknowledged that she could receive the 'pod's communications. That done, she returned her gaze to the viewscreen. It would be interesting to find out what the captain and the others learned about that ship. She was almost relieved that she hadn't been picked to be a member of the boarding party, for she knew there might be bodies on the old ship. Definitely not one of her favorite things to come across.

At his console, Travis was checking some readings. He would be excited about this, Hoshi realized. He had a fondness for space mysteries. Travis probably was wishing that he'd been asked to pilot the shuttlepod, but there was only so much room on a ship the size of the one they'd encountered. The captain had invoked his privilege as most senior officer to investigate, T'Pol would be needed for her scientific expertise as would be Trip for his engineering skills, and Malcolm -- well, Malcolm was along in case there were any boobytraps or other dangerous surprises.

Travis was probably just as bored as she was, and this unexpected discovery helped alleviate the tedium of their current mission of mapping an uncharted region of space. That didn't mean the area hadn't been traveled by humans, but neither Earth nor Vulcan had accurate star charts of the area. Now that the Xindi threat had been taken care of and the Terra Prime movement repressed, there was time to do such mundane activities such as space mapping. It provided a nice change of pace, but it eventually became boring. No wonder the discovery of a derelict vessel had piqued everyone's curiosity.

The old ship might be a relic of the time when people from Earth first started colonizing other worlds. Some of those colonies hadn't fared well. Terra Nova was a good example. During the first year after its launch, Enterprise had been sent to discover what had become of Earth's first colony outside the solar system, which long ago had ceased communications. Radiation had altered the colonists' physiology and forced them to live underground, where they'd lost most of the technology they'd brought with them and had to grub out an existence. To make the story even more tragic, the people on Terra Nova thought that their condition was the result of an attack by a second group of colonists; hence, the cessation of communications with Earth.

Hoshi wouldn't be surprised if the ship on the viewscreen had a similar history tied to a failed colony. If she remembered her history lessons correctly, there had been one or two early colonization efforts by private groups to this region. Or, it could have been an intrepid explorer who had struck off on his own and, encountering difficulties of some kind, had died alone in the vastness of space. Whatever the case, it seemed incredibly sad that someone had to die alone under such circumstances.

She shook herself. She didn't need to be thinking such depressing thoughts. The ship may simply have been abandoned, its crew rescued by another ship. They'd know for sure when the captain and the others returned.

Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, dressed in an EV suit, was the first to step from the shuttlepod's airlock to the other ship. Behind him, he knew T'Pol was taking atmospheric and life sign readings with her scanner. Even without the information she was gathering, he could tell from what he was seeing by the light of his hand torch that no living thing had been on this ship in a long time.

There was no gravity in the small compartment they'd entered, and a few small items drifted aimlessly out of the darkness as his movements disturbed the air. There were streaks of condensation on the bulkhead closest to him; the integrity of the ship's hull must still be intact, else the moisture would have been sucked out into space. Nowhere in the limited range of the beam of his torch could he see any equipment that had power. Everything looked dead.

He moved to one side, the solid anchoring of his magnetized boots to the deck reassuring, although each step was made awkward by the effort to pull his foot up with sufficient force to disrupt the magnetic attraction. The captain was the next to enter, followed by T'Pol, and then Trip, who let out a whistle as he saw the interior.

T'Pol's voice crackled over the speaker in Malcolm's helmet. "Oxygen content of the atmosphere is depleted."

"I haven't seen something like this since I visited the historical space flight museum at Starfleet in San Francisco," Trip said almost reverently.

Malcolm moved farther into the small compartment. They appeared to be in a combined engine and cargo area which also served as an airlock. Across the compartment was a hatch. They'd have to go through that to reach the rest of the ship.

"Come on," Jon said. "You can sightsee later, Trip. Let's find the the control center."

"Shouldn't be hard," Trip responded. "This ship isn't much more than twice the size of a shuttlepod."

Malcolm studied the hatch as he approached it. It had a rotary wheel similar to what was in use on some of Enterprise's hatches. Making sure he was securely anchored by his magnetized boots to the deck, he grasped the wheel and turned it. To his surprise, it moved easily. A few more turns, and the hatch opened with only a slight tug on his part. He cast a glance at Jon, who nodded for the tactical officer to go first.

Malcolm stepped through into another small compartment. This looked like a living area, albeit a very cramped one. A bunk, some built-in cabinets, a tiny kitchen area. After his cursory glance around the area, he moved toward another hatch on the far side of the compartment, his movements slow and ponderous under the effects of zero g and the bulk of the EV suit. He could hear the others behind him, their breathing sounding raspy in his helmet.

"Nobody home," he heard Trip say in a hushed tone as if he was unwilling to disturb the silence.

To judge from the size of the vessel, the next compartment had to be the last. They'd been working their way from the stern to the bow, and had found the engine and living quarters, so the next compartment had to be the cockpit; on a ship this small, it could hardly be called a bridge. Malcolm wouldn't be surprised if all four of the boarding party wouldn't be able to fit in it at the same time.

Normally not given to superstition, Malcolm mentally braced himself nonetheless. If they were to find the remains of anyone on board, this would be the place. If he had to die alone in space, he'd prefer to be in the pilot's chair where he could watch the stars as his life ebbed away. He shook his head to bannish the gloomy thought, and the discomfort of the movement in the heavy EV suit helped clear his mind. He opened the hatch, stepped in, and stopped. The cockpit was smaller than his cabin's bathroom back on Enterprise, with the chair for the pilot directly in front of him facing a large viewport.

Someone was in the pilot's chair.

A tangle of dark hair was visible above the headrest and, from his vantage point, Malcolm could see an arm lying on the chair's armrest. He took a deep breath, knowing when he moved farther into the small cockpit that he would see a sight that wouldn't be pleasant. He took one step and was as far forward as he could go in the suffocatingly small confines of the cockpit.

Over his helmet's speaker, Malcolm heard someone's breath catch. It was the captain's, for a quick glance at Jon showed he was staring at the pilot's chair.

"Poor bastard," Jon muttered.

T'Pol managed to squeeze into the compartment behind Jon. With three of them in there, it was a tight fit. A sudden sense of unease swept over Malcolm. The place reminded him of a tomb. If it would have been possible to move past Jon and T'Pol out of the cockpit, he would have. He'd been looking at the pilot -- a man dressed in an old-style flight suit topped by a jacket and whose features had dessicated to a mummy-like appearance with the ravages of time -- but he quickly shifted his gaze to the instrument panel as T'Pol used the scanner.

"Human," she reported.

"If you let me in there," came Trip's voice, "I'll see if any of the systems have any juice left. If not, we'll have to set up a portable generator to download any information from the ship's systems."

Malcolm looked up in time to see a strange expression flit across Jon's face. He realized the captain was as uncomfortable as he was being crowded in around this long-dead space traveller.

"I have a better idea," Jon said.

Jon motioned for T'Pol to exit the cockpit, and as soon as she stepped out, he followed. Malcolm took one last glance at the body in the chair and made his way to the hatch.

"This ship is small enough that it should fit in our launch bay," Jon said as the four of them stood grouped together in the living area. "We'll bring it on board. It will be easier that way to take a better look at it." He paused. "And we can make arrangements for the body."

No one said anything as they made their way back through the old ship to the shuttlepod.