Disclaimer: I don't own anything of ST:Enterprise, and am making nothing off this, just having fun.

Here's Part II! Sorry it took so long to get up, holidays and all. Please R&R and let me know what you think!

"You…don't know what she is?" Archer was stunned. Being in space was dangerous enough, and these were freighters! They perhaps knew best just what punches the unknown blackness could throw, and they had taken in a very big unknown! "How did you wind up with her, not knowing anything about her?"

"Well, not exactly nothing," Green corrected. He glanced back at Kesslyn, and she closed her eyes resignedly. Taking that as a sign of consent, Green continued. "I think you might want to sit down, Captain. It's kind of a long story."

Archer quickly sat on the bed next to Kesslyn, never taking his eyes off Green's face. Green paused a moment to gather his thoughts, and started.

"In Earth years, Kesslyn's about 17. We've had doctors check her cellular growth, and they say it's very close to human standard, maybe just a bit faster. Of course, only the docs who serve with us actually know where the samples come from. See, we didn't want to make a spectacle of Kesslyn, especially since we didn't get to a doctor until she had been with us almost 8 months, and by then the whole crew was in love with her. She was a very cute baby." He smiled at the memory, and then returned to his story.

"Almost 18 years ago we were traveling through a section of space that had until recently been host to a nasty civil war between two planets. It hadn't even been safe to try and go through until about 2 months before we got there. Going through that place…it was full of space debris, evidence of some pretty ugly battles. And the stories we heard from other traders…God, it gave most of us nightmares. Captain Kistral wasn't captain then; he was the first officer.

"Just a few hours after we left that area of space, we picked up a distress beacon. We were close enough to answer, and we found an escape pod drifting. We tried hailing, but no one answered. We took the pod in." At Archer's look of surprise, Green shook his head. "I know, it was dangerous, but what we'd been hearing was so awful, we had a sort of need to help someone, and that was it. Anyway, when we popped the hatch, an alien staggered out, clutching a little bundle.

"It wasn't until we heard the bundle start to wail that we realized he had a baby. I picked her up and smiled at her, and she immediately stopped crying. She had the biggest eyes I'd ever seen, such a lovely shade of gray. I could see that she wasn't the alien's child; they weren't at all similar in appearance. We got them down to our medical bay, and the alien confirmed that the baby wasn't his. Trinbel, that was his name, said that his ship had come across a slaver ship and fought them. His crew managed to get to some of the wounded, and he himself had promised the baby's mother that he would take care of her, just before the mother died.

"Trinbel was in pretty bad shape, and not only didn't we have a doctor on board who'd seen any aliens, we didn't even have a doctor. We treated him as best we could, but he died a few hours later. We checked the pod, but we didn't find much more than some clothes and personal effects he had. There was nothing to tell us anything about the baby. So…we kept her. One of our crew came up with Kesslyn, and it seemed to fit, so that's what she became. We got so used to her that it took a new person, a new crewman, to show us what had happened to her."

Archer looked at Kesslyn. She returned his gaze for just a moment before looking away. Green turned to Phlox and asked him to show them Kesslyn's skeletal scans, the ones of her skull first.

"We got a new doctor when Kessa was a little less than a year old, as best we could figure. The first thing he said was that she was a beautiful baby, and which one of ours she was. That surprised us, because when she first arrived, she was distinctly not a human baby. Then we took a good look at her, and realized that she looked very human. We had to tell the doc her story, and he did some scans on her, and found this." He pointed to some indentations in the scan, on certain areas of Kesslyn's skull. Archer looked at the scans, then back at Kesslyn. There was no evidence of them on her face. He looked back at Green, who continued.

"We had to check on a picture we took of her when she first came to us. We saw the ridges on her face in the picture pretty clearly, as well as the fact that her skin had been more silvery and her ears much larger. Those things had gone away so gradually that we hadn't noticed. We didn't know why then, and still don't. We figured that perhaps her species had some sort of adaptation skill." He pointed to other areas on the scan, showing other bone indentation not visible on her. "There were these, too, and our doc found some pigmentation cells that were dormant in her. That didn't matter to us. She was ours, and we would take care of her. We did search, but found nothing about any people like her. When the first captain was killed, Captain Kistral took over. Kesslyn's been a member of the crew since she was small. Captain, please, we need to know. What do you want to do with us?"

Archer glanced over at T'Pol, then at Phlox. He gestured to them, and they moved over to a corner of sickbay.

"What do you think?" Archer asked.

Phlox glanced over at the two refugees, then back at Archer. He smiled. "She is a fascinating case, Captain. Someone that looks like a human being, but isn't, and didn't look that way at birth. I think it would be wonderful to add to our knowledge of other races. Besides, it looks like they are in need of our help, very badly. And they seem to be good people."

Archer turned to T'Pol. "Your opinion?"

She also looked at the two, but when she turned back, she wasn't smiling. "While I agree that they need help, Captain, I must also point out that they bring a danger to us. We still haven't been told why those pirated were chasing them. In addition, the girl's origins must be investigated. What do you tell the crew about her?"

Archer shook his head. "I understand your concerns, T'Pol, I do. But like Phlox said, they need our help. Let's talk to Mr. Green about these pirates, and after that…we'll figure out what to do about Kesslyn. For now, we keep what she really is to ourselves. Doctor, is Mr. Green able to be briefed?"

"I believe so, Captain. What do you want me to do with the girl?"

"Let's get Hoshi down here to talk to her. It might be good for Kesslyn to talk to someone closer to her age. Just warn her not to tell Hoshi what she really is. T'Pol, could you get the senior staff to a briefing room? I'll bring Mr. Green down shortly."

T'Pol nodded and left. Phlox went over to Kesslyn and spoke quietly to her. A few minutes later, Hoshi came and took Kesslyn to a quiet area and began to speak to her. With a reassuring nod to her, Green left with Archer. They walked in silence to the briefing room. Archer paused in front of the doors.

"Are you ready, Mr. Green?"

"As I'll ever be, Captain. I want to make damn sure that what happened to us won't happen to you." With that, Green squared his shoulders and stepped into the room. Archer followed. His senior officers, plus Ensign Mayweather, were sitting around the table. He allowed Green to sit, then took a seat.

Green took a deep breath and began. "First, I want to thank you all for your coming to help us. Captain Archer wants me to tell you about the ship that attacked us. I want to give you every detail I can, 'cause if they come back, we need to be ready. The first thing you need to know about them is that they have shields like nothing I've seen before. The only reason they ran away was that we got a lucky hit, and had a lot more firepower than I think they expected. Second, I don't think they were really pirates. I think they just wanted to destroy our ship, and if they come back, I think they might want to do the same thing to yours."