A/N: If there any typos in this chapter, it's because a cat is sitting on my computer desk with his paw on my mouse hand.

CHAPTER 11

"Where did it go?" Foster asked, his eyes darting up and down the corridor.

Hoshi didn't know. Still holding Warp Core, she edged over to a com panel. Torpedo, she noticed, was sitting in the middle of the corridor where Foster had dropped him. Both cats' attention was riveted on the section of bulkhead where the shimmering had occurred.

She shifted Warp Core so that she could hold him with one arm -- no easy task, given his considerable weight -- and pressed the button to open a channel on the intercom. "Sato to the bridge. We have an intruder on E deck."

The response from the bridge was immediate. "Hoshi? What's going on?" came Jon's voice.

Both cats' heads swiveled as they looked down the corridor toward engineering. Taking his cue from the cats, Foster, his phase pistol in his hand, cautiously moved in that direction.

"Sir, Foster and I are in the corridor leading to the main entrance to engineering," Hoshi said into the com. "Both of us saw what appears to be a Suliban who has chameleon abilities."

There was a moment while Hoshi heard Jon issuing orders. Then his voice came back. "Stay where you are. More security is on its way."

"Yes, sir." Hoshi pressed her back up against the bulkhead. If she had to stay here, there was no way she was going to let a Suliban get behind her. If it really was a Suliban, she told herself, but she knew hoping it wasn't was in vain. There was nothing else that she knew of that could make that odd shifting, almost like a piece of the bulkhead shaped like a person was moving.

Both cats' heads abruptly swung back toward a spot directly across the corridor from her. Her own gaze locked on the spot the cats were watching. "Foster!" she said. "Get over here!"

"I don't see anything like whatever it was we saw before," Foster said as he hurried back toward her.

"Neither do I," said Hoshi, "but I think the cats can."

Foster glanced at Torpedo, who chose that moment to begin stealthily moving toward the turbolift at the far end of the corridor from engineering. The cat was crouched low to the deck, his tail swishing, tracking something only he could detect. The security officer followed behind Torpedo in much the same manner -- slow, careful steps, every sense alert, his pistol held out before him.

When the captain had allowed Malcolm to initiate a series of new security protocols, Hoshi had thought he was being overzealous when she'd heard that even off-duty security personnel were to carry weapons during certain situations. The engine going offline for no reason had prompted such an alert. Caught up in the sudden appearance of an intruder, Hoshi decided she agreed whole-heartedly with Malcolm's hyper-cautiousness.

Warp Core suddenly began writhing in her grasp. Try as she might, she couldn't hang onto him. "Ow!" she cried involuntarily as he clawed her arm as he twisted away, breaking her hold and dropping heavily on all four paws to the deck.

Warp Core didn't pause to groom after the rough landing. With an inquisitive meow, he padded quickly over to Torpedo and took up a position behind and to one side of the gray cat. He, too, became engrossed in the hunt. In fits and starts, the pair of felines moved down the corridor toward the turbolift, their gazes following something only they could see.

The cats were about ten meters from the turbolift, Foster trailing cautiously behind the cats and Hoshi still flush up against the bulkhead, when the 'lift door slid open. Malcolm, phase pistol at the ready, stepped into the corridor. Hoshi could see him assessing the situation. He looked at Foster who was frantically scanning the area, then at the cats, who were staring fixedly at a point on the corridor's wall. Without hesitation, Malcolm aimed his phase pistol at the same spot at which the cats were staring, and fired.

At the brilliant glare of the phase pistol discharge and its corresponding high-pitched waspish sound, Warp Core took off running for engineering. Hoshi tackled the frightened cat as he tried to dash by her. Instead of fighting her, he snuggled up close where she lay on the deck, burrowing his head into the crook of her neck, as if by not being able to see what was going on, he'd be safe.

Torpedo, on the other hand, appeared not the least bit afraid. Quite the contrary. If anything, he was angry. His back was arched, his tail was bushed out, and a growl that went up and down in pitch came from his throat as he did a strange dance around what was now visible in the middle of the corridor. The body on the deck was indeed that of a Suliban.

"Stun him again if he shows the slightest sign of waking up," Malcolm told Foster.

Foster nodded and trained his phase pistol on the motionless Suliban.

Malcolm went to help Hoshi where she was sprawled in the corridor with Warp Core wrapped protectively in her arms. "Are you all right?" Malcolm asked her.

"I think so," she managed to say. The quickness of what had happened had been unsettling. With Malcolm's hand at her elbow, she was able to stand without letting go of Warp Core. She looked at the Suliban, then at the place on the wall at which Malcolm had fired.

Following her gaze, Malcolm explained, "I shot at what the cats obviously could detect. And if the Suliban wasn't there, no real damage would have been done to the bulkhead by a phase pistol set on stun." There was a touch of smugness in his voice as he added, "It seemed the most expedient thing to do."

Hoshi nodded. "That makes sense," she agreed.

The sound of running footsteps came from the intersecting corridor nearest engineering. Two more of Malcolm's security staff rounded the corner. Their steps slowed as they saw that the intruder had been captured.

"Just in time," Malcolm said. "Get this--" He gestured toward the Suliban. "--to sickbay, where Phlox can keep him sedated. I don't want him coming round and disappearing again before we figure out how to keep him detained."

Hoshi and Malcolm stepped aside as the men moved to obey. The two newcomers picked up the body and, slinging it between them with the Suliban's arms around their shoulders, moved off toward sickbay. Malcolm smiled in sardonic approval as Foster fell in behind them, his phase pistol aimed at the back of the Suliban on the chance the intruder should regain consciousness.

The unofficial mascot of the armory appeared to want to provide an escort for the group.

"Come here," Malcolm said as he scooped up Torpedo before the gray cat could trot after the trio of security personnel taking the prisoner away. He rubbed the top of the cat's head. "I think you've done more than your share for the day."

Torpedo blinked once up at him and purred.

In Hoshi's arms, Warp Core finally pulled his head away from her to look around and emit a quavery, high-pitched squeak.


The captain immediately called a meeting of the senior staff. Hoshi and Malcolm had just enough time to put Warp Core and Torpedo in her cabin before they had to be back on the bridge. Even though the cats had helped find the intruder, Hoshi wasn't about to push her luck. She'd been ordered to get Torpedo and Warp Core out of engineering, and she wanted to be able to assure the captain, in case he asked, that they were in a secure place where they couldn't cause any more problems.

Hoshi had been hard pressed to keep up with Malcolm as they'd hurried first to her cabin, then to the turbolift. She appreciated that he'd taken the time to help her with the cats, but she knew he was probably wishing he had gone directly back to the bridge. Then again, her cabin was only one deck below the bridge, so maybe he thought it was quicker just to help her than to wait until someone else could be called to assist her.

His face was set in hard lines as they boarded the turbolift for the brief ride to the bridge.

"What's the matter?" she asked him. "We caught the Suliban."

"Yes, we did," he agreed tersely. He looked like he wanted to say more, but the turbolift door opened, and he clamped his mouth shut as they walked out onto the bridge.

One look at the viewscreen was enough to tell Hoshi that Enterprise was still dead in the water. The stars were glittering points of light, not elongated streaks that were typical of warp, and the pilot's seat at the helm was empty. The captain, along with T'Pol and Travis, was waiting for them at the situation table at the back of the bridge.

Jon wasted no time starting the meeting. As soon as Hoshi and Malcolm joined them, he said, "A Suliban's on board and the engine quit working. I'm going to assume the two are connected. Trip's still in engineering, trying to figure out what the Suliban did."

At a glance from Jon, T'Pol said, "Doctor Phlox reports that he is keeping the Suliban sedated until he can run tests to determine if he can shape change. If the Suliban does have shape-shifting abilities, nothing short of a sealed, airtight compartment will be able to confine him. Maybe not even that."

"Since he's sedated," Malcolm put in, "that means he can't be questioned."

"Not that he'd tell us anything if we could talk to him," Jon said, "but we have a bigger problem here than one Suliban taking up a bed in sickbay."

For Hoshi, Malcolm's next words explained his tense mood. "Where there's one Suliban, there's bound to be more."

Jon nodded curtly. "They usually operate in groups."

"You think there are more of them on board, sir?" Travis asked.

"Internal scans reveal no biosigns other than the expected crew complement," T'Pol said, "but Suliban can be genetically enhanced so as to be undetectable by current Starfleet technology. It might--"

She was interrupted by a page for the captain. Jon took a step over to a com panel set into the wall behind the situation table. "Archer here."

"Cap'n, I think I know what caused the warp engine to go offline," came Trip's voice. "Somebody rigged a bypass loop with the warp controls down here. Then they used a cutoff switch in one of the junction panels to shut down the engine. With the bypass, all the readings indicated nothing was wrong."

"Can you fix it?" Jon asked.

"No problem, now that we know what caused it. The warp engine should be coming back on line any moment."

Jon looked at Travis and jerked his head toward the helm. The young man immediately strode to the console, sat down, and began entering commands. After a few moments, he turned in his chair to tell the captain, "We're good to go, sir."

"Resume our previous heading at warp four, Travis," Jon ordered. A hard smile crossed his face as he turned back to the remaining officers at the situation table. "We're moving again, but I don't expect it to last for long. Something else is bound to happen."

"I doubt any other Suliban on board will attempt disabling the engine again," Malcolm said. "It will probably be some other type of attack."

"I agree," Jon said. He thought for a moment. "We need to know how they got on board, and if there is one of their ships nearby. In addition to standard exterior scans, I want those quantum beacons reinstalled on the grappler arms."

Standard scans wouldn't reveal any Suliban ships that were cloaked. But data that had been given to them by Crewman Daniels, the time-traveling agent from the future, that had enabled them to build beacons that could detect Suliban stealth cruisers.

Jon turned to T'Pol. "I want you and Hoshi to conduct the scans as soon as the beacons are in place. In the meantime," he said, looking at Malcolm, "we need to find any Suliban still on board besides our 'guest' in sickbay. But how?"

Hoshi saw a smirk appear on Malcolm's face. "I have an idea about that, sir."

A few minutes later, after Malcolm had outlined his unorthodox plan and the captain had agreed to it, Hoshi wondered why they'd bothered to put Torpedo and Warp Core back in her cabin before they'd come to the bridge.