CHAPTER FOUR: Revelations
14th December 2002 - 27th December 2002
Rating: PG

"All senior officers report to the bridge immediately," Jonathan announced over the intercom system. He straightened from his position in sickbay, and smoothed out his uniform before getting ready to head out. He cast a glance at Trip's figure lying on the other side of the room and shook his head determinedly. The things he had just finished reading were too pivotal to ignore, and he couldn't wait to hold a staff. "Don't worry, Trip, I'm going to get you out of this," he said under his breath. Then he turned, opened the doors to sickbay, and stalked out.
T'Pol met him on the bridge. Her hands were clasped tightly behind her back and her eyes were wide and inquiring. He ignored her because she was giving him the look that long ago he'd learned meant, 'What you are doing is illogical', and she didn't even know why he was calling the meeting. She was so apt at assuming he was reacting poorly to situations that she could not see to give him the benefit of the doubt. Right now he didn't have time to deal with her reservations. He saw Travis and Hoshi standing in front of the strategy console in the situation room at the back of the bridge, and nodded to them.
Archer immediately made his way over to the console and began pulling up the files he had previously accessed in sickbay. As he found the entry he wanted to cull information from, Malcolm arrived, looking a little flustered for being minimally late. "My apologies, Captain," the British officer muttered.
"Not a problem, Malcolm," Archer replied, aware that the hour was relatively late. He glanced at each of them for a moment before he nodded to the text displayed on the computer. "I ran across some very interesting information just now while reading over the Vulcan Database's account of the Jaar." Archer had neither the desire nor the time to dance around the subject and instead he cut the chase without any pleasantries. "It seems Tsul and his crew are actually outcasts of the Jaar. They're called Yuuli and they're something like space pirates. One of their common practices is slave trading, which we saw first hand earlier when Tsul tried to unload some of his women off on us in trade for Trip. Well, now we know it wasn't his corpse Tsul was after." Archer jabbed a few buttons until a new display came up. T'Pol looked almost anxious. She hadn't been previously debriefed and was as much in the dark as the rest of the senior staff. She found the circumstances uncomfortable.
"They call it Andar Mal," Archer said, glancing to Hoshi briefly, "and it's a process in which, through a series of physical applications, a person can be put into 'stasis' indefinitely, apparently to be sold to the highest bidder at a later date."
"So Commander Tucker isn't in a coma?" Hoshi asked hopefully.
Archer looked a little grim. "I'm not sure," he answered slowly. "While it seems that the Andar Mal worked on Trip, it's unclear whether or not the process will have any lasting effects on a human."
"Wasn't he out of oxygen for some time?" Travis asked hesitantly.
Archer nodded gravely as he spread his hands out over the situation console. "Yes, however it might not have been for as long as we had previously thought. If Trip had been put into a stasis chamber, he would have been hooked into a central feed of oxygen and nutrients that would have kept him alive and healthy until he was traded into slavery. If he was only taken off life support for the amount of time it took for Tsul's people to put him in the capsule and send him back to us, he might not suffer many repercussions." The way Archer spoke showed that he was struggling with the fact that he was the one who had demanded Tsul return Trip to him, and in doing so removed him from life support, which might have damaged him more.
"How does one awaken from Andar Mal?" T'Pol asked expressionlessly.
"I don't know," Archer answered, defeated. "It's a well-guarded Yuuli secret. The most I could find out was that it requires some sort of serum. I have Phlox looking into it as we speak, but on the chance he can't figure it out, I've got a locational lead for us to follow.
"This is a report that says a group of Yuuli attacked a colony of the Dem'angar on the planet Sunaz. The report says one of the Dem'angar was taken by the Yuuli and put into stasis, and that at a later date the Dem'angar were able to revive him. I'll admit it's not much of a lead, but it's all we've got to go on right now."
"Shouldn't we go back and see if Tsul isn't still stranded there?" Hoshi asked a little uncertainly. Archer glanced to Travis for an answer.
"Long ranges sensors didn't turn up anything," the helmsman reported.
Archer shook his head and pressed a few buttons on the console. A star system displayed on the monitor, along with several technical readouts. "Sunaz is only six days away from here at warp four. Travis, I want you to lay in a course. See if you can't shave off some time by working with Lieutenant Hess and operating as much as you can at warp five.
"Hoshi, see if you can't find any information on the Dem'angar language; I'm not interested in wasting time waiting for translations when we find them. Malcolm, when you get the chance, see that the weapons and the hull plating are both at optimal efficiency in case we run into Tsul or some other problems along the way. We took some damage back there from Tsul, and I want to make sure everything is working." He nodded to each of them and then sighed. "Dismissed."
The three young officers all turned and started off towards their duties. Jonathan watched the stars zoom past on the viewing screen for several seconds before he finally acknowledged that T'Pol was still standing by his side, watching him. "I know what you're thinking," he said under his breath. "And I don't want to hear it."
T'Pol remained a moment, and then she nodded and departed.

"Come in," the tactical officer called as the chime to his door sounded. He looked up as the captain entered. Surprise registered on Reed's face. He got to his feet instantly and stood rigidly. "Captain?"
"You're off duty, Malcolm, no need to be so sharp," Archer said fruitlessly. Malcolm's tenseness did not lessen, and Jonathan had to look away from him to focus on his task. "I wanted to apologize for earlier," he began.
Malcolm stiffened a little and then tilted his head curiously. "Sir?"
"I intruded on your personal reflection with Trip and possibly saw or overheard something you're uncomfortable with me having witnessed." Malcolm didn't move a muscle, but Archer was sure the Englishman had locked his jaw. He sighed a little and looked around Malcolm's sparse quarters absently. "I just wanted to assure you that nothing that happened back in sickbay has any influence over how I think of you as a man or as an officer. As your captain, I feel there should be no misunderstandings like this between us. Your personal life is your personal life." He paused as his words seemed to make Malcolm tense up even further.
"I hope I'm not making this any worse," Archer added after a moment's hesitation. "I just didn't want you thinking that I had lost respect for you."
"I understand completely, sir," Malcolm clipped his reply.
Archer looked at him sternly from the corner of his eye and wished the armoury officer wouldn't be so standoffish and militaristic with him. "Trip means a lot to me as well, Malcolm," he started again, moving until he was in front of the younger man. "I haven't had the chance to grieve properly for him yet, and I'm hoping I won't have to, but I assure you that I will make no less a scene than you did should it come to that. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, sir," Malcolm replied stoically.
Archer stood there for several more moments, wondering why he was having such an impossible time getting Malcolm to accept his apology. He knew the tactical officer wasn't entirely impressed with his way of running the ship or the fact that as captain he insisted they were not a war ship, while Malcolm kept encouraging him to stock more artillery. Still, it was almost infuriating that even off duty Malcolm refused to socialize even a little with him. It was amazing a man as uptight as Malcolm could have become such a good friend of Trip's.
"Oh," Archer said as he reached to unzip one of his pockets, "I forgot to give this back to you earlier. I found it in sickbay after you left." He handed over Malcolm's datapad containing Chaucer and Superman.
Malcolm took the pad and momentarily broke his rigid posture as he looked it over before nodding. "Thank you, sir."
"It was very nice of you to read something like that to him," Archer commented. He had found a niche and was going to try to crawl in to explore it. "I don't think Trip has ever read any of the Superman novels."
"He seemed to be quite a fan of the story to me," Malcolm finally said, but his eyes did not move to look at his captain and instead stared ahead, at military attention.
"Well I'm sure he grew up reading the comics if not watching the movies," Archer replied with a smile. Malcolm seemed to dislike the idea of both.
"That would seem fitting of him," the tactical officer finally agreed. Archer nodded and looked over to Malcolm absently.
"I think it's a nice metaphor," Jonathan stated.
Malcolm raised an eyebrow at the comment and actually turned his head to look at his captain for once. "What is, sir?"
"Superman," Archer replied.
"I don't follow."
"He's a kid with a lot of really great skills and because of them, he keeps getting himself into a lot of trouble," Archer explained, smiling softly to the other man. "But despite it, he always manages to defeat the odds and come out on top. Just like a certain engineer friend of ours," he finished.
Malcolm swallowed once and met Archer's eyes for a moment, but he was too stumped to reply further. The captain's eyes seemed to twinkle as he looked at Malcolm. Then he turned, opened the door and departed.
Malcolm exhaled as soon as the door shut behind Archer, letting his shoulders drop out of weariness. He shook his head, reflecting over what the captain had just said about comparing Trip to Superman. Having never read the story himself, Malcolm was more than a little unfamiliar with the plot, but he liked the outcome of it Archer gave. He moved backwards a little and sat down on his bed as he cued up the datapad.
"I could use a happy ending right about now," he softly murmured to himself, and began to read.

Archer sat down at his breakfast table, trying to keep his mind off the events that were likely to transpire when they reached Sunaz. Phlox had been unable to find documentation of any sort of serum that could wake Trip from his comatose stasis. As all Jonathan had to rely on were the Dem'angar people. The problem was he wasn't even sure if the colony would still be there. But it was their only lead, so he'd laid in a course. Lieutenant Hess had gotten the engines to run safely at warp four-point-nine for a good part of the journey, so it was only a matter of hours before they would be arriving at the Sunaz solar system.
The door to his private mess opened, and Hoshi entered. He looked up and smiled at her, then got to his feet. "Good morning, Ensign," he said almost cheerfully.
Hoshi looked around, a little confused, and then nodded back to him. "Good morning, Captain," she replied.
Archer gestured to the empty chair to his left. "Please, join me," he offered with a smile. Hoshi looked absently at what he was eating, and took a seat.
"I thought you could use a little break from the hustle and bustle of the mess hall, and I wouldn't mind getting a chance to talk with you before we arrive at Sunaz," the captain explained. Hoshi seemed to relax a little at his words.
A crewman entered the room with a plate for Hoshi and set it before her. Archer passed her the salt and pepper. "I've done all the research on the Dem'angar that I could, sir, but without voice samples I can't be certain that the syntaxes will align on first contact," she reported, taking the salt shaker and waving some granules onto her food.
"I'm actually not that interested in the linguistic part of your life right now," Archer said as he took a bite of his omelet. He chewed and swallowed before continuing. "I've noticed Trip's absence has seemed to be particularly difficult for you."
Hoshi paused with her fork in the air and looked right at him. She set the fork down and shook her head. "I assure you, Captain, Commander Tucker's injuries are not affecting the quality of my work."
"I'm certain they're not," Archer agreed with a nod. "All the same, I wanted to talk to you about it a bit, one on one." Hoshi studied his face curiously for a moment, and Archer had to stop eating while he explained. "I don't mean to be presumptuous or overly analytical, but I noticed that you seemed to be grieving much more than the others since it happened."
Hoshi bowed her head slightly, looking at her food. "I feel like I knew him well. He was like a brother to me, and losing him is hard. Losing anyone is hard. I suppose I just let it show more than most," she explained.
"Trip means a lot to many people on this ship. He's my best friend," Archer sympathized. Hoshi bobbed her head in acknowledgement, and a silence graced the room for several long seconds.
"I sometimes almost feel empathic," Hoshi said quietly. These were feelings she had taken for granted long ago, but never before had she tried to put voice to them. "Its like . . . some of the others feel such deep loss and pain, but they don't know how to express it, so they bottle it up. But because of my intuition with reading body language, I pick up on it. It can be a little overwhelming."
"Body language?" Archer inquired a little quizzically. He knew the term, but wasn't quite certain how it applied to the situation.
Hoshi took a moment to ponder her words before saying, "It's part of the whole 'language thing', I guess." She shrugged self-deprecatingly. "It helps me understand what people mean or feel, even if I don't understand their language yet." She lifted her eyes to look at her captain, as if gauging his reaction to this admission. "Almost all people have body language you can read, if you know how."
Archer smiled softly. "Like how I can tell you're nervous about telling me this, just by the tilt of your head?"
Hoshi smiled, slightly embarrassed, and nodded her head. "Yes. But I can pick it up even when it's not meant to be obvious, or intended to even be read."
Archer was silent a moment as he thought about what Hoshi had said. "Have you considered discussing this with Doctor Phlox? It might do you some, and I'm sure he could help," he suggested.
Hoshi shook her head negatively. "I don't think that's necessary. I should just get it over with and talk to Malcolm." Her eyes instantly widened as she caught her verbal slip up.
"Malcolm?" Archer asked, curious as to why she brought him up.
"I mean . . . that is . . . not that Malcolm has anything to do with . . ." But she sighed, knowing any lie she made up would be easily seen through. And this was her captain -- someone she could not lie to.
Archer raised his eyebrows. "Are you and Malcolm . . . ?" He gestured with his fork, his tone slightly suggestive. Hoshi stared at him with incredulous surprise.
"What?" she breathed in disbelief. "No! No! It's not like . . . That's not what I meant."
Archer sat back and leveled a flat stare at her, as if he didn't believe her.
She sighed, and her shoulders drooped a little. "It's not what you think. I just think Malcolm and Trip became really good friends and that since the accident Malcolm hasn't been . . . letting himself . . ." She trailed off and sighed. "He hasn't been coping well."
"He seemed fine to me," Archer said simply, although he knew Malcolm had been under a lot of stress. He just wanted to hear Hoshi's side of the equation.
"He hides it well. Or he tries to, anyway."
"Is there something you're not telling me, Hoshi?" Archer asked, honestly curious. He was sensing something in Hoshi that wanted to come out but she wasn't letting it show.
She looked down at her plate of food and then took a deep breath. "I probably shouldn't say anything . . . It's none of my business."
"If it affects the well-being of members of my crew, I should know about it."
"I know," Hoshi retorted, sounding a little exasperated. "That's why I'm trying to phrase it better." Archer nodded and sat back again while the comm. officer studied her eggs in great detail, trying to think of the right words. It seemed unfair that despite all the languages she had learned over her life it was still so difficult to find a way to phrase something in English! "I think . . . Lieutenant Reed has . . . feelings for Commander Tucker." She didn't look up, almost afraid of what she might see in her captain's eyes.
Archer tilted his head. "I think most of the crew has feelings for Trip," he started.
She looked anxious and leaned closer, but still didn't look at him directly. "No, I mean feelings."
A moment of silence filled the room as Archer realized the significance of her meaning and compared it to what he had seen and overheard in sickbay earlier. It took a moment for the two dialogues to congeal into that outcome, but once it did he found it relatively easy to come to the same conclusion. "What makes you . . . think so?" he replied at last, his voice suddenly quiet, as if Malcolm might be standing on the other side of the door, privy to their conversation.
Hoshi straightened and at last took a stab at her omelet with her fork. "Do you remember when you had me researching everything I could about Malcolm for his birthday our first year out here?" she inquired in a more conversational tone.
Archer looked a little taken aback at the change of topic. "Yes. You had Chef make him a pineapple cake that he really enjoyed, if I recall?"
Hoshi nodded and took a bite of her meal while she pondered her words. "Well, I did a lot of research while looking for something he likes."
Archer looked at her a little sternly. "So you couldn't find out his favourite food, but you discovered his sexual preference?"
"I wouldn't say it's his preference, really, just that . . . he's a bit more liberal with that sort of thing," she suggested, and then focused on her meal again.
"Liberal? Malcolm?"
"Maybe it's a British thing?" she offered.
Archer gave her a sharp glance and then looked back down to his food. Hoshi ate a few more bites of her meal before the captain looked up at her. "Does he know you know?" he asked finally.
Hoshi took a drink of her juice before replying. "I'm not sure. I think so," she replied hesitantly. The communications officer glanced at Archer, who was studying her inquiringly. She set her fork down as she sighed and once more thought of the way to explain things. "The day after his party, he pulled me aside. He said you had told him that I was the one to thank for getting together the cake for him. He thanked me, and then he asked me how I'd found out pineapple was his favourite food." She paused to take a deep breath and shook her head, looking chagrined. "In my over-enthusiasm, I told him everything. That I'd looked through a lot of files, asked around on the ship, called his parents, his sister . . . his old roommate.
"He demanded in an alarmed and somewhat irritated tone what his roommate had said. When I told him it was just a simple conversation about food he seemed relieved, but that made me wonder what he'd been so upset about. He explained that he and his roommate had left on bad terms and that he didn't want me to be subjected to any 'exaggerated truths'," she explained, adopting a temporary British accent. "I had caught a glimpse of a write-up in his old room transfer records about . . ." She lowered her voice a touch. " . . . 'conduct with a man unbecoming an officer', and admit the idea first occurred to me then."
"'Unbecoming' . . . ?" echoed Archer, incredulous. "What records were these? I hand picked all my personal, and read over everything."
Hoshi was getting more and more uncomfortable with the conversation. "They were old records -- from before he joined Starfleet. He was in the Navy then, I think." She shrugged noncommittally. "It doesn't really matter, does it?"
Archer's brows beetled. "The source doesn't bother me, but the unbecoming behavior concerns me."
"He obviously doesn't want it coming to light," Hoshi countered.
"That's what concerns me," Archer interjected.
She sighed a little and shook her head. "He's been avoiding me ever since. Every time I try to get a little close to him, he gets all flustered and nervous and hurries to find something else to do. I feel bad for knowing, because I think he avoids me because he's afraid I'll use it against him. I'm not even sure what I know is right! And even if it is what I think it is, you know I would never exploit it, Captain!" she added in her defense.
"I know." Archer rubbed his chin thoughtfully and shook his head. "I'm the only one you've told this to, right?" he asked, and Hoshi nodded seriously. "Malcolm needs to know that whatever happened in his past doesn't matter on this ship. I cannot have members of my crew avoiding each other over misunderstandings like this -- whether the events in question are in the past or the present."
"He's never done it while he's been on duty, sir," Hoshi defended, almost rising out of her seat as she felt so strongly about protecting Malcolm. "He's had a hard enough time without having his captain pry into his personal life."
"I'm not trying to pry into his personal life, Hoshi, but . . ." He spread his hands out over the tabletop. " . . . he's been avoiding me as well for having overheard part of something he was saying to Trip down in sickbay. I understand the need for privacy, but when an officer starts avoiding his captain because of overheard conversations, then the issue needs to be addressed point blank."
"Maybe you should just try to apologize to him, and tell him what you heard doesn't make a difference," Hoshi began.
"I did! He still wouldn't budge! As if he didn't hate me enough before, now I've got all this to deal with."
"He doesn't hate you, Captain. He respects you a lot," Hoshi assured him. Archer gave her a sharp, disbelieving look. "You're a different sort of captain, but I know he respects you. He's just not comfortable with his past. We should respect that, and let it be."
"I do respect it, but I still think he needs to know that I'm respecting it. If I don't tell him so, he may think I harbour ill feelings towards him. And if he has feelings for Trip, then everything is going to have to come out in the end anyway."
Hoshi gently pushed her plate away from her as she sat back. "I don't like it."
"Neither do I, but sometimes you have to face things you don't like," he replied and looked at her directly then offered a smile. "You're not the only one on board with fears to overcome."
Hoshi didn't reply for a few moments as she let her captain's words sink in. Archer pushed back his own plate silently and looked back to Hoshi as she shook her head. "I just want Trip to recover," she finally murmured.
Archer gave her a soft, reassuring smile. "He will. Keep faith."

To be continued . . .

A super duper special thanks to DNash for tearing apart this chapter and reconstructing it the way I wanted it to be done. Thanks! You are the best beta ever!!

Also, Merry Christmas / Winter Holiday of Your Choice to all my readers and a Happy New Year!! Consider this chapter a slightly belated present to all of you. Oh yes, and a slight plug for myself, feel free to check out my author's bio for the link to my LiveJournal, where I regularly post updates on the stories I'm working on.