Disclaimer: Enterprise and its characters are copyrighted by Paramount Studios and Viacom. This is a fictional story, no copyright infringement intended. All stories and original characters belong to their respective author.
Warning: This story is rated R. It is NOT for the faint of heart. Several chapters of this work will be extremely graphic in nature and may contain violence and adult language and themes. Thanks to Saturn's Orbit for the idea. This is a response to Challenge #7.
Author's Note: I've rewritten parts of this story, so it's better if you start over again at the beginning. Everything inside the lines is flashback.
The Lost
Chapter 3
Living Under Fear
"And I wonder when we
are ever gonna change
Living under the fear,
till nothing else remains"
- We Don't Need Another Hero, by Tina Turner -
"Captain, we're being stalked by an alien vessel. It has countered every move we've made."
"Have you tried hailing them?"
"Yes, sir, and there has been no response. We used evasive maneuvers, however, still they follow."
"Sub-commander, do you recognize the hull configuration?"
"There is no hull configuration in the Vulcan database resembling the ship behind us."
"So, what? They're just following us?"
"Yes, sir," Mayweather responded.
"Have they attempted to charge weapons?"
"No, sir," Malcolm said.
"Should I polarize the hull plating, Captain?" Reed asked?
"Not yet, Malcolm. They may just be curious about us, and mean no harm. If we polarize the hull, they'll take defensive counter measures."
"What do you want us to do sir?"
"Just wait, Malcolm. Just wait." Archer sat back in his chair, and daydreamed back several months. It had been a time just like this, some unknown person, stalking the Enterprise, and the crew, unknowing whether it was friend or foe.
He had been sitting in the captain's chair for several minutes, when he noticed that it was unusually quiet. He walked back to Reed's seat, "Malcolm, you're awfully quiet today."
"Just have a lot of work to do, sir."
"What's that? Chief Engineers going on a drunken rampage?" Archer looked at Trip.
"Very funny."
"Come and give me your report in my ready room, then you two can go to lunch."
"Captain," said the Chief armory officer, "I've been getting several strange reports over the past two days. Ten reports of petty theft, and twelve reports of… hallucinations, sir."
"so, how are you feeling, Commander" Hoshi asked, as Malcolm and Jonathan moved into the Captain's ready room.
"Fine. I'm fine."
Malcolm handed the PADD to Archer, as he gave his report. "The first report was made by the ensign who was restocking the shuttle pod I took. She said she noticed that emergency rations, water and blankets were taken, and she asked if we had used any."
"Well?"
"No, sir. There wasn't time. The next report of missing items was two days later. Again, food was missing, but this time from the commissary. The chef said he noticed some ingredients for a pie were gone, but later reported that someone had… someone had made the pie, and left it to cool on a table in the mess hall."
"That's strange."
"Yes, sir."
"Malcolm, what is it?"
"Sir, remember when the engines were off line? Ensign Pierce said that warp engines were fixed, but she didn't do it. She didn't know how the repairs were made.?
"What's your point?"
"Sir, I think we have an elf on board."
"An elf. Malcolm, I think you and Trip need to spend less time together."
"No, sir. What I mean is… there's an old fairytale about a shoemaker who goes to bed, and awakens to find all of the shoes have been made. I think we have an elf, an intruder who is trying to help us, trying to get us back home."
"Okay, Malcolm. Do I need to relieve you of duty as well?"
"Sir, I'm going to keep looking into this, if you don't mind."
"Of course." The captain handed the PADD to his security officer. "Dismissed. Enjoy your lunch."
As Malcolm left his captain's office, the communicator beeped. "Lieutenant Reed, could you please report to sick bay at once."
Malcolm gave Trip a look, and hit a button. "On my way." He approached Trip and Hoshi. "Why don't you two go on without me. I'll catch up."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, and Hoshi, make sure it eats something, will you."
About twenty minutes later, Malcolm kept his promise, and met Trip and Hoshi in the mess hall. They had already gotten their food, and Hoshi was almost finished. Trip, who still had no appetite, was moving his food from one side of the plate to the other, while distracting Hoshi by talking happily.
"You are going to eat that."
"Now, Malcolm, when did you become my mother?"
"When I saved you ass from that ship and you decided to repay me for my heroic measures by slowly killing yourself."
"What did the doctor want?" Hoshi asked, changing the subject.
"Seems that five crewmen on the night shift reporting to sickbay this morning. They said they had some sort of hallucinations."
"What kind of hallucinations?"
"Strange, like people seeing a ghost. Crewman Hioto described it as a ghostly image of a girl, about fifteen years old. " Trip's face lit up. Could it be her?
"The doctor said he needed to run a few more tests, but physically, each of the crewmen seemed to be in perfect health. We must have an intruded on board. And now, after lunch, I get to crawl through several miles of Jeffery's tubes to fid them."
"How do you know that they're there?" Hoshi and Malcolm looked at Trip like a comatose patient who just woke up. There was a spark, a life in his voice that had been missing since the accident. "I mean, why don't you just use the sensors to find the intruder?"
"Don't you think we've already thought of that idea? After all, I am the Chief of something around here. What was that title again?"
"Chief drunk catcher, I think," Trip laughed, making fun of himself.
"Yes, I'm sure that's it. Now eat."
"After six hours of searching, security teams found nothing." A beep interrupted his train of thought. "What is it?" Archer said abruptly.
"Captain," T'Pol said, "may I speak to you?"
"Is there any news on the ship following us?"
"No, sir. They haven't changed course, despite Enterprise's change in trajectory."
"Illogical, isn't it Sub-commander. Keep me informed. Archer out."
"Captain…"
"Later, Sub-commander." Much later, he mumbled. "Computer, play back that last part." After the computer complied with his order, he began recording again. "Hoshi said that the stowaway was simply walking down the corridor towards Main Engineering when she saw her. It was safe to assume that it was this stowaway that repaired the Engineering systems. Over the next two days, she eluded several attempts to make first contact. She did, however, manage to steal more food out of the mess hall, and some medications out of Sick Bay. The doctor said it was odd, the combination of drugs that were taken. They had nothing in common, no disease or illness that he could think of that these drugs were to cure. I made it a priority of the senior staff, especially Malcolm, to find this stowaway, and on several occasions almost caught her, but she always managed to escape, like she knew every hatch by heart. It was almost as if she was intimately familiar with the ship's specifications, the way she handled the maintenance of the ship's systems, as well as her escape routes."
"I had a bad feeling, however, that one of my senior staff wasn't participating in the apprehension of this stowaway. Trip tried to buck me from the start. I never knew he would betray me like he did. I suspected Trip knew more than he let on about our stowaway, and he was keeping it from us. We'd have to find this person without his help."
He walked to the closet, and pulled out a suitcase, as he spoke. "Malcolm, T'Pol and I had an idea. We would set a trap. The engineering department offered us the most opportunity to arouse our stowaway's attention. She won't come out until late at night, so we set the trap for twenty-three hundred hours."
"When the plasma coils blew, the whole ship shook violently. Walls filled with crewman's personal items and supplies were emptied to the floor. The trap was set, and the mouse was about to spring it."
The convulsive ship threw Trip from his warm, comfortable bed to the ground. "Tucker to Engineering, what the hell was that?"
"Sir, the plasma coils just overloaded. The effect is cascading through all of the ship's systems. We had to shut down the Warp Core."
"On my way."
It only took Trip five minutes to dress and get to Engineering. He knew she would be down quickly as well, so he'd have to get rid of the staff on duty. He gave each person a task in separate parts of the ship, none of which corresponded to the current crisis. However, each crewmember picked up an equipment case, and headed off, as ordered.
Trip then proceeded to lock Engineering down. He secured the Main Engineering doors, and went to work.
"Why won't the doors open?"
"He's got the doors secured from the inside. I can override his security codes, but it'll take a moment, sir." Malcolm went to work. He opened the panel on the outside of the door, and pressing sequential buttons, made the doors open at his command.
Inside engineering, Trip was half way under the Warp Plasma manifolds, talking to someone outside of their sight. "Try it now," Trip called.
"It's working," Trip responded, just as the Warp reactor came back on line with a steady hum. Lights flickered, and Trip celebrated. The girl walked out to see she wasn't alone.
"Sir, I can explain."
"I certainly hope you can, Trip." His gaze left Tucker, and fixated on the young figure to his right. She was wearing a Starfleet jumpsuit, the regulation blue. Her blond hair was tucked into a ponytail. Although smudges of dirt masked her skin, Archer figured she couldn't be more than fifteen years old. "I don't believe we've been introduced." The young woman placed herself behind Commander Tucker. "Malcolm, take her into custody."
"Wait, Captain." Trip put out his hand, and stopped Malcolm in his tracks. "Please, don't do this."
"She's an intruder. Besides, it's Starfleet regulation that all parties boarding a Federation ship submit to decontamination and physical exam by the ship's doctor."
The girl looked panic struck at Trip. "Please, I'll take her, myself. You can follow."
"That's quite considerate of you, Commander, but you're relieved of duty by your own request, remember? As of this moment, until further notice, you are confined to quarters. I want a security detail posted outside his door. If one toe comes out of Trips quarters, throw him in the brig."
"Captain…"
"Malcolm, take her down to sick bay, and then to the brig, until we get some answers."
"Asian monish wash games," she spoke.
"What did she say, looking at Malcolm and Trip."
"Got me," Malcolm said.
"She said…. She said 'take your damn hands off me.'"
"Is that right?" Archer said smugly. Nobody told him what to do on his ship.
"Sir, please, let me take her down to sick bay. Then I'll tell you all everythin' you want to know."
"To sick bay, Mr. Reed."
"Yes, sir." Malcolm took the girl and lead her off, as she protested in an alien language. She struggled against him, but she was no match for his strength.
"I remember questioning Trip in his quarters later that evening. To every question, his only answer was, I cannot disclose that information. He would offer little information about her name, or where she was from. One thing we did know. She came from that ship, the one we found floating in space, with thirty dead bodies on it. Realizing I would get no more information from Trip, I headed down to sick bay to interrogate our intruder, but I got no further with her than I did with Trip."
"On my way to sick bay got a com signal from Security. There was a disturbance, and my presence was requested. When we got there, the girl was gone. She had outsmarted the doctor, and escaped the custody of the security officers posted at the Sickbay doors."
Archer grabbed a few sweaters, and folding them neatly, began to pack them into the suitcases. "We spent the better part of that night tracking her down. Eventually, she found her way to Trip's quarters. It became apparent that she was the only person on the ship that she trusted, so I sent both of them to Sickbay." Archer returned to the closet for more sweaters.
"The examination was brief."
"Doctor…" Archer said, as he walked through the Sickbay doors.
"I do not believe that she is carrying any contagious pathogens. However, I would like to performs some more tests. In the meantime," Phlox walked to a different console, and pressed several buttons, "I am getting some intriguing information from these scans."
"Is she human?"
"At least partly."
"Partly?"
"Some of these scans indicate completely human DNA, others show completely alien DNA, and still others a hybrid of both."
"How is that possible?"
"I don't know, Captain, but I won't be able to give you any answers without further tests."
"Let me know when you're done."
"Sir, she will not permit me to do any further testing. Seems our young guest has suffers from iatrophobia, the fear of doctors."
"I see." The doctor nodded, as Archer walked towards the young guest. "I'm Captain Jonathan Archer from the starship Enterprise. Welcome aboard."
The girl said nothing as she got off the bio-bed, and stood at attention in front of him. She was wearing a regulation sleeveless tee shirt and shorts. On her left shoulder was a huge tattoo; a blue Starfleet insignia, with the number 31 in the middle.
"Look, we mean you no harm."
"Captain, may I show you something?" Phlox removed the straps on her tee shirt, revealing a large scar across the back of her left shoulder. "This looks like a surgical scar, and it's relatively new from the red edges."
"What's that tattoo on her other shoulder? It looks like the Starfleet insignia. Are you a Starfleet officer?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I cannot disclose that information," she said, still standing at attention
Without an answer to his question from the girl, Archer turned to his Chief Engineer. "Trip? Is she Starfleet?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I cannot disclose that information," he said, standing at attention.
"That's odd. Each of you gave me the same answer. And Trip gave me the same answer in his quarters, before the two of you would have had a chance to cooperate your stories. Something's going on here. Well, there's an old saying we have on Earth. There's more than one way to skin a cat. Do you know what that means?" he said, patronizing his young guest.
"Of course I do."
Archer was stunned that she spoke. "Are you a Starfleet officer?"
"I cannot disclose that information."
Malcolm, who as present during the entire interrogation, interjected. "I can't believe this. Look, kid. All I have to do is download your name into the Federation database to get all of your information, so why don't you save us the trouble."
"In time, Captain, you will know more than you want to. In time, you'll wish that you didn't know. Just give it time."
The ground shook beneath them, knocking Archer off his feet. "Bridge, report."
"We are being attacked by an unknown alien vessel," T'Pol said.
"Sub-commander, I was surprised that you contacted me this late. What seems to be the problem?" Phlox was his normal, cheery self, even in the early hours of the morning.
"I believe there is a problem with Captain Archer. He may not be fit for command."
To be Continued…