Chapter 4

The three, raptor shaped predatory space vessels closed in on their prey. Unlike the small Earth vessel in their sites, they paid little heed to all but the largest of the wreckage as they plowed through the space garbage; the energy shields surrounding the battle cruisers allowing them to smash through the debris unimpeded. Their disruptors and photonic torpedoes cutting through what the shields could not stop.

Archer stood next to his captain's chair watching all this helpless as Malcolm gave him constant updates, wishing in vain that the new energy based shield upgrades for Enterprise weren't scheduled for next month back in Earth's dry-dock. As it stood, Travis was doing his best, but unlike the Klingons, they couldn't take the chance of just bashing their way through everything (isn't that what Klingons always did?); not for another month, at least, if they survived today.

He felt a shudder run through the deck, one that felt all too familiar in his time as captain.

"Malcolm, Report!" He ordered.

"No damage to the hull sir. That was a piece of debris exploding behind us." Malcolm told him.

"Well it was pretty damned close!" Archer retorted.

"Aye, sir. Klingons are nearly within weapons range, sir." He said as professionally as he could maintain at the moment.

"Yeah, I gathered that." Archer said, a little cooler.

It wasn't Malcolm's fault. It wasn't Travis's fault either. Archer could see him concentrating as hard as he could, his eyes not moving from the helm's navigational sensors. He was already pulling off some maneuvers which Archer wouldn't have dared try as an experienced test pilot.

"T'Pol, time till we clear the debris field?" Archer asked.

"At this speed, thirty eight minutes and twenty four seconds." She responded from her station flatly.

Archer closed his eyes, running through every possible tactic in a debris or asteroid field he could think of. None of it would work. Even the ship's computer's couldn't plot a faster course through this. It was just too tightly packed together. He silently prayed to whatever benevolent deity might exist for a miracle.

"Some assistance I might be?" Came an aged, unassuming gravelly voice next to him.

Archer's eyes flew open and he looked in the direction of the voice but saw no one.

"What the…?" He exclaimed.

"Down here I am, Captain. In trouble your ship is. Of assistance I may be?" Came the voice again.

Archer's eyes shot towards the deck near his feet. There stood all two thirds of a meter of his doctor's new patient. A plethora of responses came to his mind, including calling ship's security, but he settled on the one which addressed the problem at hand, "How?" He asked.

"With your helmsman may I work, Captain?" Yoda asked with all gravity.

"Do it." Archer told him. "We'll discuss how you got up here later."

"Of course, Captain." Yoda replied cheerily in sharp contrast to the circumstances.

The little green elf like being calmly moved to stand next to Travis, who still had his eyes on his controls and sensors. He didn't move those eyes as he said in a tense, almost irritated voice, "I'm kind of busy right now. Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly."

Yoda studied Travis for less than a second, closing his eyes as he did so. Those over sized green eyes came open almost as quickly. "Only tell you so much ship's sensors and machines can. Deceive you your eyes can."

"Okay, so how does that help me pilot this ship any faster through this mess?" Travis responded sharply, again not taking his eyes off the control panel.

Yoda reached out a three fingered hand and placed it on the right side of Travis's uniform. It felt unusually calm and reassuring to the helmsman in spite of the circumstances. Travis felt a rush of peace flood through his entire being.

"Let go of them you must, young one." Yoda told him. "Your feelings you must stretch out and trust if any hope you will have."

"What?" Travis's mind began to protest, but the rush of peace flowing through him agreed with the strange little alien's words.

"Guide you I can, padawan, but trust me you must." Yoda insisted in his calm voice as yet another explosion, this one much closer, rocked the hull of the ship.

"I'll… I'll try." Travis finally conceded.

"No. No try or try not. Do or do not. There is no try." Yoda responded sharply.

"I..." Another part of him opened up at those words, and memories of feelings, good feelings came back to him. "I understand." He said as comprehension began to light up his face. He did understand.

"Yes, young one." Yoda nodded knowingly.

"Malcolm?!" Archer yelled for information.

"Directly to the stern Captain! Hostile vessels are now within weapons range!" Malcolm responded.

"Arm all weapons! Prepare to return fire!" Archer called out.

"Your weapons, they will not be needed." Yoda told the captain calmly, his eyes were now closed in almost a meditative state.

"What? Travis?!" Archer then turned to his helmsman.

Archer couldn't see it, but Travis had also closed his eyes as he followed the strange teacher's instructions. He couldn't explain it, but it just felt… right as he let go and reached out. It was like a whole new world opened up to him, one that felt familiar. It felt like coming home after being absent for a long, long time.

Immediately the Enterprise lurched forward faster as the thrusters and the impulse engines began to work together in a complicated series of starts and stops, rolls and spins, and relative to its pursuers went into a dive through the debris. The ship wove in and out of the debris as though it were performing a graceful dance coming as close as mere meters from chunks of dead vessels which could easily obliterate the ship upon impact.

"Forward view screen!" Archer ordered, and then almost regretted it as he watched his ship from the inside perform maneuvers which, though he couldn't feel the inertia, began to give him vertigo. It was a similar feeling to the constant loop de loop and corkscrew roller coaster ride he had been on once at an amusement park near San Francisco. It was only his pride and the attentions of Becky Swinson which had been riding on it then, not the lives of a hundred and fifty people under his command.

The captain's face began to turn slightly green as he found his way back into his captain's chair and watched as his ship performed maneuvers he was certain it was never designed to make. He couldn't make out what course his helmsman was following, and then he felt another jolt rock his ship from behind, though from a further distance away.

"Malcolm, report!" He managed to order.

"Sir, two Klingon ships just exploded. I think they fired on each other!" His tactical officer responded.

"What? How?" Archer asked.

"Near as I can tell," Malcolm's hands flew over his display trying to keep track of his own ship's ever changing position, "They were attempting to target us with torpedoes as we flew right in between them!" He said in disbelief.

"Their shields didn't protect them?" Archer asked, just as incredulously.

"According to my data, the last vessel's energy shields are severely depleted as it is, probably from all the debris they didn't try to avoid." Came the lieutenant commander's response.

"What about the third?" The captain asked again, feeling far more hope for their survival than he had just a few minutes before.

"It's flying in an erratic pattern. I would guess it's trying to re-establish a weapons lock. Lieutenant Mayweather must be giving their captain fits." Malcolm couldn't suppress a slight chuckle.

Then another tremor was felt through the hull, this one far more slight than the last. Malcolm didn't wait for the captain to ask. "The last ship collided with a large piece of debris and exploded, sir."

"Travis, get us out of here as quickly as you can. Set course for friendly space, maximum warp." Archer commanded.

The helmsman complied, but as though in a trance as the ship continued to twist and roll through the debris field, but making time as though it were moving through completely clear space. Within minutes, the captain could feel the familiar lurch as the Enterprise jumped into warp.

Just after the ship entered warp, there came another familiar voice from the intercom. "Phlox to Captain Archer."

"Go ahead, doctor." Archer responded almost mechanically, his whole body exhausted from the adrenaline of the past half hour.

"You may want to notify security. I'm afraid my new patient has left sickbay without authorization." Phlox reported with grave seriousness.

In front of him, the aforementioned escapee was calmly sitting in the lotus position next to his helmsman's seat, eyes closed as though nothing in the world could touch him. Archer almost wanted to laugh, or cry, but instead responded as calmly as he could manage, "Yes, doctor. I'll keep that under advisement."

When Travis finally opened his eyes again, the Enterprise was cruising through space at warp five point two. According to his instruments, the veteran vessel had been doing so without incident for the last fifteen minutes. The stranger thing was, it hadn't really surprised him. After all, he had been the one who had set their course, hadn't he?

It took him a few seconds to process what had happened, and his final verbal approximation as it all came to him was "whoa." He had been in control the entire time, but it also felt like he had been cooperating with someone or something else guiding his actions as well as obeying his instructions. It had been a strange but fantastic partnership he had been privy to, and he sensed… no, he knew it hadn't been the first time.

"Indeed." Came the same aged voice, and Travis finally looked down towards the deck plating to see his diminutive "co-pilot" having opened his own eyes and risen from his seated position to stand next to him once again.

"What just happened?" He asked the small green alien in the tattered monk's robes. "What did you do to me?"

Yoda chuckled and said in a low voice. "Nothing to you did I do. Awakened to what was sleeping within, you were just now. A powerful ally is the Force; a great teacher and companion it can be."

"Helmsman, report." Came Travis's captain's voice, shaking him back to reality.

Travis quickly looked back at his instruments as though waking up out of a dream. "Yes, sir. We are cruising at warp five point two. Course is set for Tellarite controlled space. Estimated time of arrival, twelve hours, thirty three minutes present speed. Exit from borders of Klingon space in approximately thirty minutes."

"Captain Archer to Commander Tucker." Archer called out to the ship's intercom.

"Tucker here. Hey, Captain, how long are you going to burn my engines this hot for?" Came Trip's voice in an irritated southern accent.

"About another half an hour, Trip. Can we do that?" Archer asked.

"Uh, I'd rather not." Trip responded. "Can we back it off to four point five?"

"How about four point eight and we'll call it even." Archer replied.

"Yeah, we can manage that. Everything okay up there?" Commander Tucker asked.

"So far. I'll get back to you on that. Archer out." The Captain then turned his attention back to his helmsman.

"Are you okay, Travis?" He asked, the concern for his crewman in his voice genuine.

Travis turned his chair around to face his captain, "Yeah, I think so. It was… I'm not sure how to describe it, sir." He said, straining and failing to find words to put to his experience.

The captain then turned his attention to where their "guest" had been standing only to find the space empty. "Where…?" He asked and then stood up to look around for the small, old but not frail alien. He finally spotted him heading slowly but surely towards the turbolift.

"We need to talk." He said, addressing Yoda.

"Rest I need. Old I am. To your doctor I will return." He said, not turning around, sounding as old and frail as he appeared. "Appreciated a cane would be. Difficult walking this much is."

Archer didn't buy any of his "old man" routine but, given what Yoda had just done for them, he held his tongue and smiled politely. "Later then. I'll send someone to 'assist' you back to sickbay."

"Appreciated that is, Captain." Yoda replied sincerely as a young, strong looking male crewman wearing the blue and red lined uniform of the ship's security officers came to stand next to him. The appearance was almost comical as the two meter security officer stood next to the diminutive figure.

"Lean on you, I may?" He asked the soldier humbly.

The soldier, slightly uncomfortably looked back towards the captain, who smirked and nodded his go ahead.

"Yes, sir. After you." The security officer then replied.

Yoda then walked slowly and carefully into the turbolift door and it swished open with the security officer trailing behind. The last thing Archer saw before the lift door closed was the ancient alien standing next to his crewman, who was looking down at him with incredulity written all over his face.

"Are you certain one security officer will be enough, captain?" Malcolm asked.

Archer thought about it for a second before he answered, "Something tells me ten wouldn't be enough if he wanted to cause trouble, Malcolm. No, I think he'll do exactly what he said for now."

"For now." Malcolm repeated his captain's last words with some unease.

Turning back to Travis, Archer said, "Travis, back it off to warp four point eight. Maintain course towards and Andoria, and then it's time I think we had a talk," he then added after a second's hesitation, "in private."