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 4 Another Hero

"We don't need another hero We don't need to know the way home All we want is life beyond thunder dome."

- We Don't Need Another Hero, by Tina Turner -

"The Captain has experienced several traumatic events in the past few weeks. It is normal for an adjustment to be made in behavior at this time. However, I will note your concerns both in my daily log, as well as his personal file."

"I am afraid, Doctor that your note will not be sufficient." She turned so that she and Phlox were face to face. "He has completely mishandled this situation with the ship following us, he has lost focus. His judgment has become irreparably contaminated with his feeling for Anna and the members of this crew putting their lives in considerable danger." T'Pol words gave no reaction from the doctor. "If you refuse to examine the Captain, then I will have not choice but to report my findings to the Vulcan Council as well as Starfleet Command."

"That won't be necessary, Sub-commander." An inquisitive look came over T'Pol face, as the doctor explained.

Malcolm, T'Pol, Travis, and Hoshi were already at their posts when the captain entered the bridge from the turbo lift. The photonic weapons being fired at the ship blew conduits in consoles all around them. Archer stumbled to his chair.

"Polarize the hull. Malcolm, ready torpedoes."

"I can't, sir. Both torpedo tubes are offline."

"Travis, get us out of here."

"Engines are off line, sir."

"Well, what do we have left?"

"Impulse engines only."

"Sir," Hoshi interrupted, "they're hailing us."

"Put it through."

The voice on the other end screamed words unknown to any human. Stricken with fear, Hoshi hurriedly attempted to translate the language as the words spilled out of the bridge speakers.

"Cannoa speiak afege gegag."

"Hoshi?"

"Nothing yet, sir."

"Sub-commander?"

"They are a species known as the Candela, a nomadic species. They are an aggressive species, known for torturing their captives until death."

"Wonderful. Hoshi, how are those translations coming."

"He says give up the girl. He says they will let us go if we give her to them. He says she will be your death. She causes death to all those she goes... no comes into life with."

"Sir," Malcolm reported, "I'm detecting an unauthorized launch. The launch bay commands have been rerouted. I cannot close them."

"Who is it?"

"The intruder. It seems she is leading the Candela away from Enterprise. Photon torpedoes are back on line."

With great delight, Archer gave the command, "Fire

"In the blink of an eye, the ship was disabled. Their weapons and engines were off line, giving Enterprise time to gather the shuttle pod and escape into high warp. We were long gone by the time their systems were repaired, but I knew they would pursue. It was only a matter of time until they caught up with Enterprise again, and only one thing could save us; the truth."

"The shuttle pod had taken on some weapons fire in the battle, and minor damage was done. But by the time we retrieved it, the girl had fallen into a coma. We certainly weren't going to get any information from her anyway. So, we returned to the only other person who knew what was going on – Trip."

"I regret my actions from this point further. I had a mess on my hands, and to fix it, I made an even bigger mess – of my friendship and my command. For obvious reasons, Trip was hesitant to give any information up. For two days, we pressured him. Until it came time – time to break him."

"She's alien. The doctor's tests confirm it. She obviously belongs with them, so she has to go back."

"No, she doesn't." Trip turned to his captain, until they were standing face to face. Only nanometers separated Trip's face from his captains. The rage flowed unevenly. He didn't understand it, but Trip knew deep inside, that protecting her was the right thing to do. He stared Jonathan in the eye. "I'm not letting you send her back."

"Stand down, Commander." But Trip didn't move. "Stand down. That's an order."

"I'm not leaving this room until I get some answers."

Trip collapsed into a chair and began to cry. "You'll never send her back. You hear me? Never. Never." He looked up from his place, not as the witness being interrogated or the commander being reprimanded by his superior officer, but as a man, betrayed by a friend he once loved. "Why couldn't you just trust me on this? You've always trusted my judgment before."

"Lately, you're not the Trip Tucker I know. You've gotten drunk before duty shifts. You've..."

"Oh, that again? Are you gonna hold that over my head for the entire mission? Or should I just put my resignation in now?"

"All I want to know was what was going on, Trip. I just wanted someone to tell me that, and you couldn't. You said that I used to trust your judgment, but that's when we had on open communication between each other, before you started keeping things from me, like the fifteen year old girl you've been hiding in you quarters."

Jonathan knew right then and there that he had crossed the line, and there was no going back. Ever. At that point, Jonathan Archer lost his best friend. "Look," he reached over and put his hand on Trip's shoulder, "I'm on your side. We can get through this."

"Where is she?"

"Sickbay."

"NO," Trip screamed, as he pushed the guard away, but another came up behind him and caught his arm around Trip's throat.

"Trip, you're just making this harder than it has to be."

When the doors to Trip's quarters opened, Doctor Phlox was standing in waiting. "Ok, bring her here," he said.

"Wait, wait, you don't have to do this.

"Take car of him," Archer requested, as he left Trip's quarters. He stood outside the door, as Trip struggled against security's hold. Placing him face down on top of the table with his arms bent behind him, Trip had no choice but to surrender to the doctor's care.

"Just relax, Mr. Tucker. Everything's fine." He prepared a hypospray. "I want you to know," the doctor said loudly, 'that I am doing this against my better judgment."

"So noted," Arched cried behind the disguise of Trip's door. The doctor medicated Trip, and laid him out across the bed. It didn't take long for Trip to feel the effects of the medicine, and even in his delusional state, he knew that was no sedative the doctor gave him. It was truth serum. He was in for it – he was in for it now. Now the interrogations would really begin.

"In Sick Bay, Anna scratched, clawed and screamed, but it was no use. The overwhelming strength of the three security team members and two MAKO's holding her down would not release her. The doctor spoke to her calmly, but still she flinched when the hypospray pressed into her neck. With all our reassurances, Doctor Phlox scanned her once again. I went to sick bay to check up on our patient as soon as the tests were complete."

"The scans Phlox had completed earlier were correct. She had alien DNA in her. These organs were recently transplanted into her, about eight days ago prior to our discovery of her ship. Surgeries of this type are highly sophisticated. Specific medications afterwards are necessary to keep her body from rejecting the organs. Without those medications, the body will begin destroying the foreign tissue, and the patient will die. It's not a slow, painful death like the one we subjected her to. She would have been better off if we had just left her where we found her. She would have died without it."

"I needed information, and only person who knew well enough to answer these questions was Trip. So, I paid a visit to Trip. Malcolm said he would interrogate the commander, that it would have been easier for me, but I knew it would have been no easier for Malcolm, or T'Pol, or Hoshi for that matter, than it would have been for me to ask those hard questions – to do what had to be done in order to help this child." Jonathan paused for a moment, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I wish I had never entered that room. When I got there, the medication had already kicked in, and Trip was in a fit of rage, destroying his quarters. As I entered, a vase crashed into the wall just over my head. I sat in a chair in the corner of his room while he screamed his insanities, and once there was nothing more throw, no more vulgar language to spill, he calmed down. The first thing he asked about was the little girl lying on a biobed in sickbay."

"Trip, she's had some sort of surgery prior to boarding the ship, to transplant alien organs into her body. Now, her body is rejecting them. She needs medication to halt this process, but the doctor's attempts have failed. We were hoping you..."

"You were hoping I would give her up, and tell you everything you wanted to know," Trip said snidely. He was angry, and with remorse, he now let his anger show. How dare they drag her away, and forcing her to submit to medical examinations. How dare they...

"Look, I know thing between us have been less than civil lately, but this child's life hangs in the balance."

"I'm not gonna tell you anythin'. So you go back to your bridge, and do whatever you have to do." He, for the first time, turned his back on his captain, his former friend.

Jonathan stood up from his chair. For the past hour, he was sitting quietly, contemplating this move, this action he had to take. He didn't want to do this, but he knew it had to be done. Without warning, he reached his arm out, and punched Trip in the gut.

"All I wanted was to know the situation, Trip. I never meant her any harm." Grabbing trip the collar of his shirt, he hit him again. He hit Trip again and again. Every time Trip would fall down, Jonathan lifted him up, only to inflict more damage. First to his jaw, then to his eyes, then to his lips. With every punch, every slap, a new bruise appeared. His face was swollen with the marks he caused. The once handsome, young man stood there like a prize fighter, about to get beat in the fifteenth round.

But Trip was never one to give up. "No, like turning her over to aliens who were known to torture and kill their hostages? That's not meaning any harm, sir? Cause if that's not meaning any harm, I'd like to know what is, huh? Torturing her yourself? Spilling her blood all over sickbay? Would that be enough for you?"

His calmness had turned to pain and anger. Jonathan turned to violent words instead of violent hands. He screamed at the younger officer, hoping to incite Trip into a verbal argument, resulting in the divulgence of the information he needed. "You didn't leave me any choice, Trip. You wouldn't tell me about her. All I knew was that she was an intruder. I was trying to protect the crew."

"You didn't know anything about her, but you were ready to have her killed to protect yourself, you sorry coward," Trip was screaming, but Archer stood his ground.

"All I wanted was the truth."

"The truth? That's all you want? Well, here's the truth, sir. First of all, the she you keep referring to is a person, a really human being. Yes, that's right, she's human, and her name is Grace. By the way, she's nineteen, not fifteen. Second, she hasn't been sleeping in my quarters; she's been staying with Hoshi. That girl out there ran away from those aliens. Yeah, that's right. She ran away from them because they tortured her. They slaughtered her friends in front of her as they screamed for mercy. They slaughtered her friends in front of her as the begged her to tell them whatever they wanted to know, just to make the pain stop. And when they stopped breathing... They replaced her organs with those of their victims, so she'd never forget the pain that she caused them, that's what they said. They replaced her organs with those of their victims, so she'd never forget how much power they have over her, but still, she managed to go on. Gracie escaped. She took a shuttle pod and escaped. she was starving, slowly dying on that derelict vessel, but she didn't give up hope. After she saved my like, I promised that I would return the favor. You want to know what's been going on between us? I'll tell you. I love her. I love her so deep down inside that I can't stand to be away from her." His words became softer, more loving, more peaceful the more the thought about her, and how much Trip wanted her near him. "Is that enough for you, Captain, or would you like more?"

The screaming, the fighting, the agony of not knowing the truth was over, and yet somehow, for some reason, Archer wished he had never known. Right then and there, panting hard, and sweating, with his best friends blood all over his hands and his shirt, he wished he had never entered this dark place. There was just no going back now.

"My God, Trip. I didn't know."

"That's right, you didn't. But now you do." Trip stumbled towards the bed, and laid down. His broken body ached all over, but the entirety of the pain came not from his wounds. They came from his heart. What little truth he gave his captain was no more than breadcrumbs compared to what was to come. He thought about Gracie, and fell asleep with the memories of the times they shared back in San Francisco.

Jonathan left Trips quarters, greeted by security and the doctor.

"Sir are you alright," the guard asked him.

Still in complete shock, he ignored the question, and spoke to Phlox, "Do what you can for him. When he feels better, take to sick bay to visit..." God, she had a name now. She was real. Now she was a person, not just another victim that he couldn't save. The guilt and pain came at Jonathan like a tidal wave. "When he feels better, take him to sickbay to visit Grace."

"So, she has a name," Phlox joked, but Jonathan was not amused. He was rather offended by the insensitivity of the comment.

"His words kept echoing in my ears, words like torture and death. I was never there. I don't have the horror of seeing what Grace, and Malcolm and Trip saw, but I do see it, every night in my nightmares. I admit, I've started to drink a little before I go to sleep, if for nothing more than to pass out into a deep and dreamless sleep, but even the alcohol hasn't helped me lately. I'm so torn by my guilt and pain... I just don't know what to do anymore. What had I done to this poor child?" The doorbell rang once. "Computer, pause recording." The doorbell rang again, as Jonathan reached for the clock at his bedside. "Enter," Archer said, as his doorbell rang yet again.

"Good evening, Captain."

"Good evening, Doctor. What can I do for you?"

"I thought you should know," Phlox said, noticing the semi packed suitcase on the bed, "that I had an interesting conversation with Sub-commander T'Pol."

"Really? Come in."

To be continued....