Chapter 9: Dead in Space

Archer, Buffy and Dawn were on the bridge, with the primary crew mustered. Malcolm Reed was already on the bridge for some reason. Hoshi showed up a little groggy—she'd been asleep—and Mayweather appeared only a moment after her.

The on-deck bridge crew was uneasy with the appearance of the primary watch, but seemed reassured when all they had to do was stand aside for a few minutes. Any irritation was quickly swallowed in the anticipation of going to warp four point five so many hours early. They could massage their egos later—at higher warp—and enjoy it a lot more.

"Let's all check our readouts," Archer ordered as he took the command chair. "Sing out if you see any irregularities. How have the ratios been?"

"Steady as a stone, sir," Dawn reported, checking her tie-in to the engineering deck. If anything went wrong down there, she'd be the first to see it on her console, with T'Pol a fast second.

At the science station, T'Pol said nothing.

"Everything seems okay to me," Archer said, and looked at Mayweather. "Why don't you try four-three?"

Mayweather's shoulders tightened as he worked his helm controls. The sound of the ship made a slight change in pitch—the engines, increasing everything on an incremental level, across the board.

No calls from Tucker ... so far, so good.

"Warp four point three, sir," Mayweather reported.

They waited and listened. Would something happen?

Or had it just happened, and this was it? This was the sound of success.

"Not much of a change," Reed observed.

"I don't know," Hoshi spoke up. "Does anybody feel that?"

Archer looked at her. "Feel what?"

"Those vibrations ... like little tremors."

T'Pol cast Hoshi a cool glance. "You're imagining it."

"Number One," Archer said as he looked at Buffy who stood beside Mayweather.

"Seems all is fine," Buffy said. "Ensign, warp four point four."

This time the ship shuddered, and everybody felt it. Sounds thrummed from deep places with the new acceleration. Vibrations racked the deck under their feet.

Hoshi grabbed the sides of her seat. "There! What do you call that!"

"The warp reactor is recalibrating," T'Pol explained coldly. "It shouldn't happen again."

But an alarm went off at Reed's tactical station.

Hoshi jumped. "Now what?"

"The deflector's resequencing," Reed told her. "It's perfectly normal."

T'Pol eyed her own board, but said, "Perhaps you'd like to go to your quarters and lie down."

"Sub-Commander," Buffy said as she spun on T'Pol. "If Hoshi felt that, it meant that there could have been something wrong. And she did right by mentioning it."

"My apologies, Commander, you are correct," T'Pol said.

"Still," Archer added, "It's easy to get a little jumpy when you're traveling at thirty million kilometers a second. Should be old hat in a week's time."

Another alarm tone broke over his words, causing Hoshi to flinch again, but Archer just struck the com panel. "Archer."

"This is Dr. Phlox, Captain. Our patient is regaining consciousness."

"On my way," he said. "Dawn."

Dawn moved to Hoshi's station and snatched up Hoshi's translator padd and joined him as he headed for the lift.

Buffy moved and sat down in the command seat. "Steady as she goes."

"Ma'am, can I have a word with you?" Hoshi asked. "In private."

Buffy nodded, "T'Pol you have the conn," she said as she and Hoshi exited the bridge to Archer's ready room.

Hoshi scowled, "I don't like her."

"Why not?" Buffy asked.

"Mostly because she doesn't like me."

"You are not alone," Buffy said with a sigh. "She's not really very approachable. Of course, she doesn't care whether she's liked. She likely won't be here that long anyways."

"She wouldn't care anyway."

"You need to relax, Hoshi," Buffy said. "This ship is on the cusp of exploration. If you want to speak to aliens and learn new languages, this is the place to be. You'll like it after a while."

"I've just never felt anything like that before. There were vibrations that didn't feel right."

"That doesn't surprise me," Buffy said. "I remember my first time in space. It just didn't seem real to me. Besides this is supposed to be the shakedown cruise, which means we can iron out the problems and not have the things that don't feel right happen anymore."

Hoshi sighed and looked like a lost puppy. "Why do all the interesting things have to happen so far from solid ground?"

Buffy smiled. "Just take things a little slower. Take cues from the people around you instead of the machinery you don't understand."

Hoshi looked at Buffy. "What do you mean by that? What about the people?"

"Most of us have been on ships a lot more than you have," Buffy said. "One of the oldest secrets of success onboard is to do what the old-timers do. If we sleep, you sleep. If we take a shower, you go take a shower. Eat when we eat. And when things seem scary, take cues from those who've been through scary things before. Stand back and stand by."

"Stand back and stand by," she repeated, tasting the precious advice.

"Right," she said. "In time, you'll be the one the rookies are watching for cues. No matter what the legends say, nobody's born to this."

"Can I ask you something, why did the Captain take Dawn instead of me? Dawn's supposed to be my assistant. Shouldn't she have been replacing me on the bridge while I went with the Captain?"

"Normally, yes," Buffy said. "But Dawn and I both have some experience with Klingons, the one in the medical bay is not the first we've met."

"When …"

"Sorry, Hoshi, that's classified."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

As Archer and Dawn stepped into the medical bay they could hear the loud growling of the Klingon, like a werewolf on the prowl.

The Klingon was imposing. Sitting up now, he was absolutely huge. If he stood he would top seven feet. Even sitting he was eye to eye with Archer. Wisely, the doctor had tied him down.

Klaang barked and snapped furiously. "Pung ghap HoS!"

Archer flinched at the rage of a strong warrior only inches from him, and was suddenly glad of the security guard, very nearly six-foot-five himself, armed with a plasma rifle and eyeing the delirious Klingon with a hungry glower.

Dawn was picking and poking at her translator padd, frowning at the information on the tiny screen.

"What's wrong?" Archer asked.

"The translator's not locking onto his dialect. The syntax won't align."

"DujDaj Hegh!"

"Tell him we're taking him home," Archer said simply.

Dawn glanced at Archer with a frown. "If you wanted flawless Klingon, you should have chosen Hoshi. Remember Buffy and I are more cultural experts since we met Worf."

Archer sighed, "Dawn."

Dawn nodded. "Ingan ... Hoch ... juH."

"Tujpa'qul Dun?"

"He wants to know who we are," Dawn said. "Well I hope anyways. I only started learning the language since we agreed to take him home."

"That's okay, Dawn. I know you wouldn't be perfect."

Dawn turned to the Klingon. "Qu'ghewmey Enterprise. PuqloD."

"Nentay lupHom!"

Dawn repeated one of the words for her own benefit, then concluded, "Ship. He's asking for his ship back."

"Say it was destroyed."

"SonchIy."

Klaang erupted in a raving protest and roared, "Vengen Sto'vo'kor Dos!"

"I know Sto'vo'kor has something to do with the Klingon afterlife. It's where their honored dead go. The rest I'm not sure."

"Try the translator again." Frustrated, Archer tried to contain his impatience.

Dawn worked with the padd. It didn't help.

"I'm going to help Hoshi run what we've got through the phonetic processor."

"MajOa blmoHqu!"

Archer turned to her again, but Dawn could only offer, "He says his wife has grown ugly. And I'm not even sure that's what he said. Hoshi and I will find out."

"Excuse me," the doctor butted in as he took a scan of the Klingon. "His prefrontal cortex is hyperstimulated. I doubt he has any idea what he's saying."

"Hljol OaOqu'nay!"

"I think Phlox is right," Dawn said. "Unless stinky boots has something to do with all this."

The ship shuddered under them, sending Dawn wobbling against the Klingon's bed. Archer caught her arm and pulled her from the bed. The guy had spiked leg bands, after all.

"OaOqu'nay!"

Archer hurried to the nearest wall com. "Bridge, report on that."

"We've dropped out of warp, sir," Buffy's voice announced with a shiver of electrical static. "Main power is—"

A burst of static. The com went dead. The lights flickered suddenly—then, consoles all around sickbay began to go dark, one by one!

Archer instantly crossed to the com booster and played with the controls, but all he could get was a ghost of the action on the bridge. "Buffy! Respond!" he attempted. "Tucker! Anybody?"

The com chittered, but there was no sense to it. "It might be the sensors going dark," Dawn suggested.

The sickbay went finally to total darkness. The Klingon raged on his bed.

The security guard shambled about, though he didn't know what to do.

The com was completely dead. The ship was dark.

"Dawn, talk to me," Archer said.

"I sense panic and fear," Dawn said. "I also sense something else, something with a malicious intent.

The ship's power depleted rapidly as it came to a grinding halt.

"Where are the handheld lights?" Archer demanded. "Phlox!"

"I don't know, Captain. I haven't inventoried those yet."

"They've got to be in a drawer or a cabinet. Feel around. We can't do anything if we can't see. Dawn, look around for the beacons. Guard, you, too."

"Aye, sir," the guard rumbled.

Dawn started moving. She searched through cabinets and drawers. A few moments later, she was the one who found them.

Instantly, sickbay glowed with red lights. Klaang continued to bellow his maddening protests.

Archer paused and forced himself to think. "Auxiliary power should've kicked in by now ..."

When the Klingon growled and spat again, louder now that nobody was paying attention to him, Archer added, "Do you know how to tell him to shut up?"

Dawn shook her head. "Not offhand."

"Sedate him if you have to," Archer snapped to Phlox. "I need to get to the bridge!"

"Captain!"

Archer whirled at Dawn's shocked cry. What could have shocked her so much to make her cry out like that, he had to wonder. He knew there had to be very little that could shock her given what she had seen in the last hundred and fifty years. He turned and saw she was moving her beacon across the lateral bulkhead.

Without waiting for him to ask, she said, "The malicious intent, is in here."

Archer glanced around the poorly lit room. "Dawn, speak to me."

"I can sense him," Dawn said as she stopped moving.

Archer followed her beacon to the wall again—A humanoid form!

Like a chameleon, the form had taken on the appearance of the background, complete with certificates and alien life-forms in jars on the shelves! It was barely visible, but now that they focused, there was no mistaking the intrusion.

Once discovered, the creature leaped from its hiding place back into the shadows.

On the biobed, Klaang fell to bizarre quiet. "Suliban!" he growled.

Archer spun, flashing his own beacon across the wall, trying to rediscover the—what was the word? Suliban ... well, he didn't need any help translating that. Boogeyman.

Another one! Perched high on the wall like a spider! But this one wasn't camouflaged like the other.

This one had blotchy skin, almost tie-dyed, with eyes that were clearly evolved for some kind of night vision.

"Crewman!" Archer shouted.

The guard's rifle snapped up just as the Suliban leaped to the ground and met a third one darting from the shadows!

The guard fired. Plasma bullets flashed through the room in quick stroboscopic flashes. Now the action turned to rapid cuts illuminated by the strobes. Klaang yanking around in frustration and shouting in Klingon ... the guard swinging around to take aim again at something he sensed behind him—

And one of the Suliban leaping onto the big boy. The guard hit the deck, and so did his plasma rifle.

The weapon rattled and skidded away.

Archer lunged toward the weapon, hoping he was going in the right direction, but lost his handheld beacon as he struck the deck. Dawn's beacon was gone now, too. "Was she hurt?" he wondered.

The rifle fell into his hands, like a warhorse seeking a rider, and he whirled it toward the nearest Suliban. Taking an instant to be sure he wasn't shooting at his own people, he opened fire.

The Suliban was hit, and flew backward into the wall.

At Archer's right elbow, Klaang stared upward and spat an accusation. Suliban directly overhead!

The creature dropped from the ceiling! Archer felt the hard strike of a heavy body on the back of his head and neck. He was driven to the deck under a crushing weight, the plasma rifle trapped under his ribs.

The room went dark again—and very abruptly silent.

"John ...?" Dawn spoke.

Archer tried to roll over. This time he felt no resistance. Whatever had been on top of him was now gone. As he got to his knees, a surge of power thrummed up through the skeleton of the ship under his knees and hands. One by one, the consoles began to flicker and light themselves.

Warp power! It was coming back!

The guard was just sitting up, dazed. Phlox rushed to help him. Dawn found herself crouched beside the dead Suliban. "Definitely not something I recognize," she said.

Archer staggered to his feet and looked around as the lights came back on all the way.

The biobed was empty. The Klingon was gone.

And so were the two Suliban interlopers who had survived the past few moments.