(By the way I need a betta reader if anyone is interested, email me at elmo_in_space@hotmail.com thanks so much…. oh and disclaimer…none of this is mine, only the story itself belongs to me.)





"What happened here?" Archer asked as he took in the scene before him. Maggie Clamies was in tears and practically hanging on an extremely flustered Trip. The look on Trips face screamed 'help me please'. Crying women where not something any man dealt well with. Hoshi on the other hand seemed to know exactly what she was supposed to do.

She walked right up to the woman and embraced her in a hug pushing her head to her shoulder. They had to be almost the same height.

"Its ok, whatever it is I'm sure we can figure it out." She lightly patted the woman's back and head.

Amazingly her sobs died down to sniffles. Trip and Archer shared a shrug before leaning in to hear what the women where saying to each other.

"I don't know what to do now. This was my life's work. It was going to take at least that long to get it to run correctly. But this is even beyond my dreams. They are so far ahead, why do they even keep me around, I don't understand."

"Maybe I can help. Lets get you back to sick bay and then we will get this all sorted out together."

Suddenly the woman seemed to go hard in Hoshi's arms. She pulled back to look at all of them in turn.

"I'm not crazy. And I'm not sick. And don't patronize me; I'm smart I know when a good thing is over. Just let me pull my stuff together. Ill just drop by my office first. Maybe I could even be of use to a maintenance team or something. But I don't need to see a doctor just for being naive." She was very emphatic though she never raised her voice and she started to back her way toward the door.

"Wait, please I just don't understand." Hoshi had her hand held out to her, begging her to explain herself.

Maggie just didn't understand. The Captain was standing right there, had he really taken the post so uninformed that he was unaware of her area of development. Or maybe he didn't know what he was looking at. She on the other hand could feel it in her bones. In the vibrations under her feet and the slight humming in her ears that she had never felt nor heard before yet recognized like her own heartbeat. This was her engine one hundred times bigger and more powerful. It was her theories working. It was hers. She thought of this. This was her design. Modified obviously but still hers.

Looking at it was almost painful. It was so beautiful, so simple, so familiar and yet so foreign. How could they not see how much it hurt to have a dream torn from you? It was like someone else had raised her child.

She looked back at the woman. She seemed sincere, maybe she just didn't know. Maybe Captain Talver had been the one to steal her hard work from under her. Maybe that was the reason for the current transfer.

She looked down and grabbed her temples, there was just too much to take in right now.

"Let me just go to my office for a little while and catch my thoughts. I really just…its just to much right now. I can't think straight." She looked up first at the woman and then at the Captain, pleading with her eyes that he except her request and just let her get away to think.

"Where is your office Ms.Claimes?" the Captain asked her.

It was a perfectly valid question too. After al l he was a new transfer, how could he be expected to know where every one worked. Why he asked in the first place, struck her a little funny, though.

"Sub level two, sir. If you'll just point me to the proper elevator, I'm sure

I'll be fine getting there on my own. I'm really fine, I'm not ill, I'm just startled is all." She was trying desperately to satisfy their obvious concerns over her health, mental and physical. The last thing she wanted was some stranger to follow her to her office. She planned on having a proper nervous breakdown the minute she was alone, and an audience was defiantly not welcome.

"sub level 2, underground, so then it is subterranean?" the man that she just realized she had cried on earlier, asked this question of the Captain.

"It would seem so. I wonder why we couldn't see it though."

"Could be cloaked, that's been known to be used against us before." The man answered with a shrug of his shoulders. Then they all turned their attention back in her direction.

"How many levels are there?" the Captain asked her. He had the most openly curious look on his face. Did they tell him nothing or was he really this ignorant. The other two didn't seem ready or willing to help her out. Surely they were aware of the lay out of the place most of them lived and worked in.

She decided to humor him.

"Between ten and twelve to the best of my knowledge. Which, as you can see, may not be all that great unfortunately."

"Is it cloaked?"

"I really have no idea what that means. But if it's a military answer you seek then just cause I don't know doesn't mean no, it just means no one has seen fit to tell me." She was really getting a bad feeling now. As if the engines weren't bad enough these people were the weirdest she had ever heard, none of them acted like they had any knowledge at all of where they were. They were all staring at her with open curiosity as if the Captain was voicing their inner questions as well. And they were all dressed in flight suits as if they expected to take off in an aircraft at any given moment. Defiantly not a good sign from the military.

They better not be crazy, is all she could think. That was the last thing this day needed, crazy military personnel in charge of a secret research base, which obviously contained highly advanced technology.

Oh god she had to get out of here.

"Um if that will be all, I'll just get going. I'm sure I can find the elevator on my own. How hard can it be really? Its not like its going anywhere." She started to back toward the door again, hopping to get there undeterred.

"What do you call that planet down there?" the man in back asked this question. She didn't quite understand at first.

Then it all came screaming back to her at a hundred miles per hour. The cold the planet, the two moons, the voice…Mark and his weird purple light and bubbles. Of course it was real. And that would mean she wasn't on her base. She wasn't near her base. And she was alone. It hadn't been a dream. Oh god she wanted it to be a dream. It was easier to handle that way. To much take out Chinese and to little sleep, there it was explained away. But this, how could she handle this? What was she supposed to do now? How could it ever get back, and back from where, and back from when?

She sank to the floor shaking her head.

"The little idiot. He just had to get something right when I was in the way didn't he. The little genius." She could just kill him. She just might if she ever found a way back.

Wait if she wasn't still on that planet, where was she?

"Where am I?" She asked the three who were now looking at her with as much warmth as one uses when looking at a flailing live wire. She forced herself to stand and again look them in the eyes, visibly straightening her shoulders, determined to be brave just this once.

Nope that didn't work either.

"If I'm not still on the planet where am I?" She tried again.

"Your aboard the starship Enterprise." The woman answered her a little hesitantly.

"A starship, which would explain the need for my engine. At least I got it right." They were looking at her funny. She was tempted to yell at them, 'stop it I'm trying to be logical and objective here, and your not helping!' It was all she could do not to run around screaming and pulling her hair out.

"Ok I'm on a starship now and I was on that really cold planet with two moons. Alright, so what happened to get me here?" At this point she was really not expecting a response; she got one anyway of course.

"We detected you on the surface and kind of figured you could use a hand. You weren't exactly dressed to explore." The man in back answered again.

"What year is it?" she asked it all of a sudden taking them off guard. They nearly visibly backed up.

"2152."

"150 I can live with that, that's not so big a number. I mean I'm an engineer not a mathematician but I should be able to work with those kinds of numbers. I already know it starts with purple and bubbles… that's probably half the battle right there." She was talking to herself again. Yea they defiantly thought she was crazy, she could tell.

"Are you alright?" This had to be the third time this same man had asked this same question. It was nice of him really but no matter what she answered she knew they wouldn't accept it. They would still look at her like an alien.

Alien. There was an alien in the medical ward. She was sure she saw an alien, Or an extremely deformed man. Either way it just wasn't what she had expected to see.

"Ok. I need to start again. I'm sorry. My name is Maggie Claimes and you are?" she held her hand out to the woman. She was short, but still about Maggie's height. She had beautiful black hair and an obviously Asian heritage.

She hesitantly put her hand in Maggie's.

"I'm Hoshi Sato."

"That's a very beautiful name. Its nice to meet you." The woman smiled. Well at least they hadn't shot her, maybe polite was the way to go.

She now held her hand out to the man and cocked her head.

"Charles Tucker III, but everyone calls me Trip." He shook her hand with the charm of a southern gentleman and smiled kindly at her.

She turned to the captain.

" And your Captain Archer. So this is your ship, right?"

He nodded as he shook her hand as well.

"I don't suppose you have any scientists on board, cause that would just be to easy."

"We have a science officer on board." Hoshi sounded so hopeful, like she wanted nothing more then to make things easier for Maggie.

"Well maybe he can help me then. May I speak with him?"

"It's a she and yes of course, if it will help us get some answers." The Captain indicated she should go through the doors she had earlier intended to escape from.

She looked longingly at the engines again before she started to turn toward the doors.

"They'll still be here later." Trip said with a smile as if he read her mind.

She smiled back and let the captain take the lead. She sure hoped this science officer, whoever she was, had a vivid imagination to go with her PHD.

To Be Continued…