Disclaimer: If I owned them, I probably would not be posting on ff.net. I would be writing in Hollywood and enjoying the money which at the moment I am not making for this story.

A/N: Just to let you know, this isn't going to be a romance. They're friends, that's all. My mind works in too much of a practical way so any romance I write turns out bad and either dry or really mushy. Not good!

JUST A DREAM


"We are approaching the planet, Captain," T'Pol said into the comm. There was a brief pause, and then an answering, "Thanks, Sub-Commander," and a muffled yip from Porthos. She shut the comm off and looked up at the viewscreen.

"Enter standard orbit, Ensign," she told Mayweather. He nodded and tapped at the controls.

"We're in stable orbit," he said after a moment. "So when do we start going down for shore leave?"

"As soon as the captain deems it safe," said T'Pol.

"Oh, so right away then," said Mayweather under his breath. T'Pol cocked an eyebrow at him and chose not to comment.

"Are you in the first group to go down?" she asked him. Travis nodded.

"Yeah, Trip and I are going scuba diving. I've never been before."

"It should be an interesting experience," T'Pol said.

"What are you going to do?"

She raised the eyebrow again. "I plan to explore several of the desert areas. This planet is very similar to Vulcan, and I am intrigued to do a comparative study."

The corner of his mouth quirked. "Sounds very... interesting," he said. "Have fun."

The turbolift doors opened, spilling out the captain and Trip. "So, ready to go diving?" Trip said, grinning at Travis. "T'Pol, you should come. It'll be a riot."

"Thank you, but I have already made plans."

"Which is her way of saying, I'd rather be on the other side of the planet from you, Charles Tucker," said Trip in an undertone to the helmsman. T'Pol did not think he intended her to hear and wondered once again if these humans knew she had superior auditory abilities.

"It looks great," said Archer. He pressed the comm button. "First shore leave, get to the shuttlepods in one hour!"

T'Pol nodded as he grinned at her, giddy as a little boy, and began to do a last check of her station before she let the second-shift shore leave officer take over.

"Captain!" she said sharply. "Someone has just activated the transporters."

"Maybe someone couldn't wait," said Archer, but he was not smiling anymore. "Who was it?"

She ran through the internal sensors. "I cannot tell, sir. The sensors are blanked out around the transporter pad."

"Get someone down there," said Archer, automatically looking over at the empty tactical station. T'Pol raised an eyebrow and gave the order herself.

"There it is again," he said, looking over her shoulder. "Two people beamed down? Why? They couldn't wait for the shuttles?"

"Rostov to Captain Archer," said a voice from the comm.

"Go ahead, Rostov," said Archer.

"We just got down here, and caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Reed just as he disappeared. There's no one else."

"Who transported him?"

"He set it to delay five seconds while he got into position, sir. The settings are still on the console. But we can't tell where he went. It's all scrambled."

"Someone else went, too," Archer replied. "Any ideas who it--damn. I know who it was." He pressed the comm again. "Archer to Ensign Sato."

Silence. The captain hit the wall with a fist and ran into the turbolift. "Shore leave is cancelled until further notice," he said just as the doors closed.

T'Pol, sitting down again, quickly scanned the ensign's quarters. No one was there, but she was expecting that. "Please return to your stations, gentlemen," she told Trip and Travis, both standing up and ready to follow the captain.

"What the hell is going on?" Trip said, and privately T'Pol echoed the sentiment. Perhaps this planet was not as innocuous as it first appeared.

*****************

"Doctor?"

"Captain? Can I help you?"

Archer glanced around Sickbay. "Did you find anything in the scans you took of Malcolm and Hoshi?"

The doctor raised his eyebrows. "Why?"

"They just used the transporter to go down to the planet. I need to know what's wrong, Doctor. I don't give a damn about patient confidentiality when my crew is in trouble."

The doctor reddened slightly. "I can't help you, sir. I'm afraid that Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Sato came in and both told me they were feeling fine again. I couldn't find a thing in the scans so I took their word for it."

"There's nothing there? Nothing at all?"

"Nothing, Captain." The doctor shook his head, mouth agape, and pulled up the scans on the monitors. "Absolutely nothing. That in itself is odd, because their bodies both completely rejected the REM suppressant that I gave them in order to try and prevent these nightmares."

"Damn it, Phlox, I wish you had told me what was going on from the start," said Archer, hitting the wall in frustration.

"Mr. Reed expressed a wish that I tell you nothing," Phlox said. "I cannot go against protocol like that, Captain, not unless I feel something is life threatening, and it did not seem a cause for that much concern."

Archer shook his head and walked out of Sickbay, calling over his shoulder, "Go over those scans and make sure you haven't missed anything. I want to know what's going on this time." Phlox nodded but Archer did not answer as the doors hissed shut.

What were those dreams about? thought Archer as he strode down the hall towards the transporter platform. Maybe there's a clue there; I'll go back and talk to Phlox again later and see if we can find anything. Why wasn't I more concerned earlier? Seems like everything I've done over the past few days is a little foggy, like I didn't really know what I was doing.

"Any luck unscrambling the coordinates, Rostov?" asked Archer as he approached them. He shook his head. The other three officers looked up, stopping what they were doing.

"We've been able to turn the sensors back on around here, but the only way we can think to find the Lieutenant is to send someone down in the same place. The coordinates haven't changed, they're just scrambled so we can't get a reading that we can understand."

"I didn't know that was even possible, sir," put in Ensign Jamison, the engineer in charge of transport maintenance. "The time delay shouldn't be possible, either. He modified the system somehow."

"Well, do you gentlemen fancy a little trip to the surface?" said Archer grimly. "Let's see where they went."

Rostov and the two security personnel all gulped. Only Jamison nodded, to all appearances completely comfortable with the transporter.

"Ensign, prepare to beam us down," said Archer, beckoning to the security team. They stepped up, looking uncomfortable. "Energize," he ordered, and the warm sparkles of demolecularization washed over them all. Archer caught a glimpse of Jamison's face and thought wryly that the ensign looked almost disappointed at not going.

The landscape around them slowly came into view: rose-red desert, hot and bright under the gleaming sun, hardly a shadow to be seen. Two pairs of footprints headed off into the distance, towards a towering rock formation.

"Sir," said Rostov, tapping Archer on the elbow. "I beamed down right on top of this." He handed the captain a crumpled napkin. Archer looked from it to Rostov, and smoothed it out.

"It's just a scribble," said Archer, turning the drawing every which way to see if there was anything else.

"I thought... I thought maybe it was where they were going," said Rostov.

Archer looked out over the desert around them. "Okay. Then let's go there too." He tapped on his communicator. "We've found their trail, Enterprise. Beam down desert gear and supplies. We're going after them." A twinge of worry settled itself in Archer's chest. Only two people had beamed down, without any water at all. How long could they survive out there? He only hoped that the two would survive. He hoped Malcolm and Hoshi could take care of themselves long enough for Enterprise to find them.

**************

Reed, at the moment, however, was not taking care of anyone, least of all himself. He could not remember where he was, nor how he had gotten there. He'd apparently fallen during his mysterious journey, because the knee of his jumpsuit was ripped open and the skin painfully scraped. If there had been any light, it would have been easy for him to determine where he was. He didn't think it was Enterprise, even if the power had gone out, because the ground felt like rock, and it was far too cold. And there wasn't any space on Enterprise big enough for him to crawl without hitting any sort of walls.

"Hello?" he called once again. "Hello?" He had no idea how long he'd been here, but he knew that he'd called at least six times since he'd woken up. No one had answered. He sat down again, shivering with cold, and wondered morosely how long it would take him to die of thirst.

"Malcolm Reed," said a voice, soft but forceful, and it was so completely unexpected that Reed tried to stand up and tripped ungracefully over his own feet.

"Hello? Who's there?" cried Malcolm.

"You have come to us, Malcolm. Let yourself go." A tiny sigh swept through the cavern, echoing back and forth for an eternity. Malcolm's legs went limp and he tumbled onto his back, the cold of the rock beneath him seeping through his jacket.

"Please, who are you?" Malcolm begged; he knew he sounded pathetic but he didn't care. His head pulsed and he was not sure whether it was pain or pleasure. Stars burst in front of his eyes, startling against the darkness, and he trembled convulsively.

"Relax." His muscles abandoned him, rebelling against the controlling mind until he felt even his heart begin to slow and shudder and his mind go blank. His lungs strained and he knew that he was dying, but he could do nothing.

"Now. Now reach out, Malcolm, reach out to us and find us in the darkness. Come out of there, come out of the confines of flesh and join us in the light!"

And he felt himself float away, up through the unseen ceiling and into the light of the world above.

*******************

Okay, a little more explanation shall be forthcoming in the next chapter. Review!!