In the blue of my oblivion

Malcolm came to. He had the urge to cough when his lungs filled with smoke, his ears ringing with the sound of sirens blaring. He tried to turn, disorientated, the world slowly spinning into view. There were red lights, and shadows in the corner. He stared at a wall, trying to make sense of everything. He turned his head, and he looked at the back of someone that seemed vaguely familiar.

He stared for a moment, unable to make his brain work. The ground was shuddering with movement, tremors shocking the whole place. There was more smoke now, the back of the room had now slowly disappeared in the black fogginess. He turned his attention from the figure towards the large glass window that was behind him. A view of green trees was spinning in front of it and coming more closer by the second. Suddenly something stirred in Malcolm's thoughts; Shuttelpod.

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Malcolm woke up. Water was dripping in his face and with a sudden alertness he shot up. A wave of dizziness swept over him as he did so, but it slowly disappeared. He felt the cold sogginess of his uniform, which was drenched. The only thing that seemed to work was a soft red light at the back of the pod, though it kept flickering on and off, but it was enough for him to see his surroundings. The front of the shuttlepod was pointing down and this had caused everything that hadn't been strapped tight to slip to the forward section. There were branches and leaves sticking through the front window, or what was left of it, and Malcolm realized that wind and rain were hammering away at the outside of the pod. The water was dripping into the pod from several cracks in the ceiling, and the Brit also was suddenly aware of how cold he was.

There was another thing, however, that seemed to demanding his attention. And no sooner had he looked around when he realized what it was. There was no one else in the shuttlepod. His heart began to race as he thought what this could mean.

He sat there when all the events up to the crash came rushing back to him. There had been others, he remembered. There had been Trip. And Travis! Travis had been sitting at the helm, he was sure of it. And Trip had been…Trip had been behind him.

Malcolm looked over his shoulder to check there was indeed no one there. There had been someone from his team, too. Ensign Tanner. He had been sitting back there with Trip. Before…

He stiffened when he thought back, trying to remember what happened and what could possibly explain the absence of his friends. He looked around once more and then his eyes rested on the front window again. It had an awfully big hole in it. Could they have been slung outside by the impact force? They could have…. But of course it was highly unlikely that all three of them had done so.

Malcolm stirred, deciding he should check outside and at least try to get a signal across to Enterprise, though every console in the pod looked quite dead. He tried to push himself up, but hissed in pain when he put his weight on his feet. A sharp painful stab shot up from his right feet towards his knee, and he let himself fall back as the feeling of nausea returned. The throbbing did not subside much, however, and soon enough he bent over again to see what had caused the agony. Leaning over his legs, he could see his uniform had been shred on the right side and a wound was clearly visible. Malcolm guessed it had been caused when something heavy had landed on it during the crash, and, looking at the front of the pod, it wasn't such a bad assumption, seeing that a lot of heavy objects were available.

The wound didn't look particularly bad, in any case it had long stopped bleeding, so Malcolm ignored the pain and pushed himself up once again. His legs shook with the sudden weight on them and the Lieutenant wondered how long he had been out of it.

He made his way to where he thought the hatch once, and soon enough he found it. His hands, numb from the cold, rested on the handle and he tried to get it to open. The hatch didn't seem to want to cooperate easily, and it only opened after Malcolm had pulled the handle back throwing his full weight into the process.

As soon as the opening was visible, rain swept into the shuttlepod and wind tucked at his uniform. Malcolm held his hand above his eyes and tried in vain to see through the darkness outside. He could barely make out the form of the tree which he suspected they had crashed into. It would be foolish to go outside without light nor a weapon of some kind, Malcolm thought. He quickly turned, ignoring the rain that now came pouring in. Grabbing hold onto one of the back seats he lowered himself towards the front of the pod. He crouched near the heap of objects and soon enough found what he was looking for. He opened the small case and looked at the equipment inside. It was obvious that they hadn't had a smooth ride. He grabbed the scanner first and turned it on, but noticed to his dismay the odd figures that appeared. He tried to punch in a command, but the screen flickered for a moment and then turned black.

"Shit." Murmered Malcolm. He tried to get it on again but was disappointed when the screen remained black. He sighed and returned the scanner to the case, hoping he would have time later to tinker with it. Next, he turned his attention to something he would normally always have close. A phase pistol. To his pleasure it still seemed fully functional and he left the setting on stun, though he did not holster it. He climbed back up to the back of the shuttle, phase pistol in hand, and opened the locker on the right side. Several things came rolling out but the armoury officer managed to stop all of them before they fell down. As anticipated, a flashlight was there as well and he quickly took it. After stuffing the rest of the things back into the locker, he sat down at the back and tried to figure out where the on switch was located. As soon as he had found it, a thing beam of yellow light fell onto the wall opposite to him and a feeling of triumph emerged inside of him. The feeling, however, was quickly squished by pure horror when he stared at the opposite wall.

It seemed someone had dumped a large glass of ice water into his insides as he took in the large blood smear which covered half of the wall, beginning high into the corner and gradually descending towards the hatch.

He hadn't noticed it before with only the red light. But in the bright yellow beam of his flashlight it was unmistakably red blood. For a moment he was unable to thing straight but then scrambled up as he followed the blood smear's progress. He directed his flashlight towards the hatch and saw another, smaller, smear which most likely had been created by a hand.

At least one of them had been bleeding, and they seemed to have gone out for some reason. The thought of one of his friends, hurt and outside in this storm, caused him to get panicky. He moved over to the hatch and once again stared outside through the opening, shining the flashlight into the darkness. The light danced across the branches of the trees, which were moving aggressively in the wind.

Malcolm turned his attention to the ground. It was about half a meter below him and he noticed small debris scattered around the sight. He stepped outside, one of his arms in front of his face to shield his eyes against the rain. The wind howled and tried to get a grab on his uniform. He let his flashlight move around, shining through the openings between the trees, which were all around him. He swallowed hard, and then opened his mouth to yell for his crewmates, but stopped at the last second, hesitating. He knew that if the rest of the away team had been attacked, it was unwise to go into the woods, screaming his head off and making sure that every living creature in the area knew where he was located.

Malcolm took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down, which was very hard under the circumstances. His wiped the water from his eyes and moved away from the shuttlepod, trying to find anything out of the ordinary (except the obvious crash landed pod) to give him a clue where his crewmates might have gone. He searched the ground, which was muddy and slippery, first walking around the shuttlepod, and then towards the closest pair of trees. He shone his flashlight up towards the branches closest to the ground, damage was visible where the pod had most likely hit it with the side. He concentrated back to the ground and his heart skipped a beat when he recognized, barely, the footprint of a boot half covered under the thick brown mud. The armoury officer grabbed his phasepistol a bit tighter and moved forward, between the trees, making sure he didn't forget the shuttlepod's position. After a minute he found another bootprint and a bit further, yet again close to a tree, he noticed a different kind of print in the mud, as if someone had kneeled here. He studied the tree, but saw nothing that would explain why someone might have stopped here.

The Brit was just about to continue when he heard something else than the creaking of the trees and the howling of the wind, he whipped around, his phasepistol in his outstretched arm, and directed the bundle of light on the trees about 3 meters away. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest, and he tried to see clearly through the rain and darkness.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed his shoulder from behind and Malcolm felt as if he had just gotten a heart attack. With a yelp he turned around and stared right in the face of one of his lost crewmates.

"Trip!" He gasped, noticing that the chief engineer's face was twisted into a grin. The grin wasn't helping Malcolm to relax, however, and he noticed that it was unsettling him.

"Trip…what happened? Where are the others?" The armoury officer asked his friend with concern.

"Ah dunno, Ah thought they were with you." Trip answered, whispering, and Malcolm had to strain to hear the words. Malcolm frowned, confused by this answer.

"Why would they be with me?" Malcolm asked, speaking loud so he was sure his friend could clearly hear him. Looking at Trip's appearance he noticed that his uniform was shredded near his shoulder, and some of the fabric looked dark with blood. "You're hurt." He said, and reached out to take a look at it but Trip grabbed his hand before he could touch him. Shocked, Malcolm returned his attention to Trip's face and saw that the grin had disappeared and that the man was now glaring at him.

"What if ah am?" The chief engineer sneered, not letting go of Malcolm's arm.

"Trip, I-" Malcolm began, taken aback by this sudden outburst of hostility towards him, but he was interrupted by Trip.

"It's all your fault, anyway!" He yelled, his eyes full of raw emotion. Malcolm felt Trip's grasp on his arm increase, almost painful.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Malcolm said in defence, totally lost by the southerner's change of mood. Trip laughed, long and unpleasantly. He stopped suddenly, glaring back at Malcolm, who flinched away from his stare.

"Don't play with me, Malcolm. Of course ya know what Ah mean." Trip hissed, coming eye to eye with the armoury officer.

The man is mad! Malcolm thought. Completely and utterly mad. Traumatized, delirious, whatever Phlox would call it.

"I really don't, Trip." Malcolm said carefully, trying to decide how he needed to deal with the situation. "But, why don't we…Why don't we go back to the shuttlepod, and we can get you dry, figure out what happened and contact Enterprise to pick us up?" He started, hoping Trip would just come with him. He was really worried about his friend's behaviour. Trip face twitched and for a second Malcolm thought he had succeeded in convincing his friend. But his hope was crushed when Trip looked down on him with a new expression, disgust this time.

"No!" The engineer screamed, and pushed the armoury officer back violently. Malcolm, surprised by the sudden attack and the strength that had gone in it, lost his balance and landed in the mud, his head hitting the ground hard. An immense feeling of nausea overwhelmed him. He rolled on his side, gagging, and tried to sit up. He franticly looked around, but noticed in the dim light of his lantern, which had rolled away from him, that Trip was nowhere to be seen.

"Trip!" He screamed, getting up wile suppressing his nausea, but his call received no answer. He grabbed his flashlight and turned around, searching for any sign of the engineer.

"Trip!" He yelled again, panic overtaking him, but the scream was lost in the sounds of the storm.

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