Title: Lost In Darkness

Authors: Sita/T'eyla

Genre: Angst/Drama

Rating: R

Summary: When an away mission goes wrong, Trip and Malcolm find themselves in a situation that puts their friendship to the test...

Disclaimer: We don't own, we don't own, we REALLY don't own! Please don't sue... but well... oh, go ahead, we don't have any money anyway!

AN: Warning: Very angsty fic, and some violence in it, too, so if you don't like that, please don't read any further. By the way, this is no slash. Please R&R!

________

Chapter 1

Sticky liquid trickled into his eyes, blurring his vision. Malcolm raised his hand to wipe off the blood, and a moment later almost lost his balance as the guard yanked on his arm, pushing him forward.

"Move!"

Blinking furiously, Malcolm stumbled on, the sound of their boots on the concrete floor of the corridor echoing in his ears. The cut on his brow was throbbing painfully, and his head felt like it was going to burst. The sharp white light in the interrogation room had triggered a stinging pain behind his forehead, and as they came to a halt in front of the cell door, Malcolm swayed a little, a wave of dizzyness washing over him.

The guard pushed a combination of buttons on the panel beside the door and it slid open. For a moment he paused, looking Malcolm up and down, his features devoid of any expression. When Malcolm met his gaze, he had the impression of staring into a blank space, the strange pale eyes of the man blending in almost completely with his pallid white skin. It was like looking at a negative of a photo, the usual patterns of black and white reversed.

The guard released his arm, giving him a hard shove, and Malcolm stumbled into the cell, dizzyness clouding up his vision once again. The door slid shut.

"Malcolm!"

He felt a steadying hand on his arm and managed to regain his balance. Straightening up, he looked into Trip's face and almost startled at how haggard the Commander's features looked in the odd blue light of the ceiling lamp.

"What happened?"

Trip's grip was firm on his arm as he guided him over to a corner of their bare cell, helping him sit down on the cold concrete floor. Malcolm leaned back against the wall, not trusting himself to speak until the worst of the nausea had passed. Trip sat down beside him, studying him with a worried expression on his face.

"You okay?"

Malcolm nodded and swallowed, trying to get rid of the vile taste on his tongue. "I'm all right."

Trip did not seem convinced, but didn't pursue the matter any further. He shifted, leaning against the wall beside Malcolm.

"What is this place?"

Malcolm let his eyes wander over the dimly lit room. His memories of the last few hours were strangely vague, only consisting of incoherent fragments and images. He remembered walking into that bar, V'neran patrons sitting at crude wooden tables, raising indifferent eyes as they entered. This image was pretty clear to him; he even remembered some detailed features of the smoky bar room, but at that point his memory seemed to have been cut off, simply erased. The only thing he remembered afterwards was waking up in this cell, finding Trip lying unconscious on the floor beside him, their face appliances gone. And the interrogation, of course.

He shook his head slightly. "I don't know. I don't know who those people are, either, but they're not V'neran. They..."

He paused, the image of the tall, hooded figures that had surrounded him in that brightly lit room coming to his mind. They'd been talking to him, but he hadn't been able to get a glimpse of their faces, and he'd had the distinct impression they were using speaking devices, for their voices had sounded hollow and impersonal.

"... they were hiding their faces, but their build is different. They're taller."

Trip frowned. "Like the one who took you back?"

Malcolm thought of the guard's blank white face, the only one not hidden behind layers of cloth, and shook his head.

"I don't know. Maybe."

He felt something warm trickle down his brow and, raising a hand he noticed the cut on his forehead had started bleeding again. Dabbing it off with the cuff of his shirt, he saw Trip eyeing him concernedly.

"It's okay," he said, but Trip kept watching him closely, his features hardening as he took a good look at his friend for the first time since Reed had entered the cell. Malcolm realized he must be looking quite a sight, his hands and face smeared with blood, his left eye puffy and swollen shut.

"I'm okay, really."

Trip didn't seem to believe him, though. "What did they do? Did they say what they want?"

Malcolm shrugged. "Not really. The only question I fully understood was when they asked me where we're from."

Trip raised his eyebrows. "What d'ya mean, the only one you fully understood?"

"They kept asking these strange questions. Or maybe their translator didn't work right. They seemed to make no sense."

"Their translator was able to handle English?"

Malcolm frowned. He hadn't realized this before, but come to think of it, it was rather strange.

"Yes... it was able to translate their language even before I said anything. Don't know how they would have got the UT matrix, though."

Trip stared at him for a moment, thinking. "Maybe... maybe they picked up our transmission. When Enterprise contacted us, I mean."

Malcolm felt his hands grow even colder. "Then they know they've left."

He met Trip's eyes and saw his own feelings mirrored on the Commander's face. When Archer had contacted them yesterday, telling them Enterprise had received a distress call and would be leaving for a nearby system soon, they both had been reluctant to end their observation mission early, pleading with Archer to leave them behind. Archer had refused at first, but when Malcolm had assured him there was no security risk whatsoever, the V'nerans being an extraordinarily gentle and peaceful people, the Captain had reluctantly agreed.

Enterprise would be back in about ten days, of course, but at the moment it made no difference whether Enterprise was going to be back in a week or in a year. If their mysterious captors had really picked up the transmission, they knew no one was going to come for their rescue anytime soon.

"There's no other way they coulda gotten the UT matrix," Trip said finally. "They must've picked up that transmission."

Malcolm nodded. "It's no surprise either. The V'nerans haven't even developed radio yet. The transmission must have shown up on their scanners like a beacon."

Trip sat back against the wall, shaking his head. "But who are they? What're they doin' on this planet?"

"I don't know." Malcolm leaned back as well. "I don't think they're up to any good, though."

Gingerly, he touched the bruising on his cheekbone and winced as a sharp twinge of pain seared through his head. It hadn't been that bad before, but by now his left eye had started throbbing painfully, and the cut on his forehead was burning like hell. Trip looked at him, the worried expression back on his face.

"You sure nothing's broken?" he asked, and Malcolm shook his head.

"I'm fine," he repeated, forcing a reassuring smile. Trip was not to be fooled, though.

"Yeah, sure. You look like it, too." He paused. "What the hell did they do this for, anyway? You said they didn't ask any real questions, didn't you?"

Malcolm shrugged again. "Guess they were just demonstrating a bit. Trying to frighten me into doing what they want, or something. They were talking about 'cooperation' all the time, but I don't really know what they need our cooperation for."

"I don't think I want to know," Trip muttered, drawing his knees up to his chest. For a while they sat in silence, and Malcolm felt the cold radiating from the concrete floor creep into his arms and legs. He shivered, feeling the pain stinging behind his forehead worsen. The cold blue light of the ceiling lamp hurt his eyes, and he shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. Wearily he leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, letting his mind drift.

A few minutes later Malcolm was fast asleep, and he never noticed when he shifted in his sleep, his head coming to rest on Trip's shoulder. Trip made no move to push him away, but simply sat there with his arms wrapped around his knees, staring into nothingness.

-###-

When the Researchers had told him it would be his job to document the subjects' activities, the Guard had given a curt affirmative as usual, not letting any of his personal sentiments show through. But he had not been very impressed.

It was not his responsibility as a guard to do this. He had never wanted to be part of their research project, not even as an observer of test subjects. His job was Security, and he didn't want to do anything else. He'd never been part of their research project before either, but now they had apparently decided they needed his services in this, and it was not his place to object to their orders.

Now, sitting in this crammed observation chamber where the only source of light was the small monitor in front of him, he felt strangely restless. He was used to being active throughout most of the day, patrolling the corridors of the Base, going through his daily Security checks that were so very familiar to him after such a long time. Being confined to this room with nothing to do made him nervous, and he wished he could be out there, doing what he was used to.

Leafing through the pages of the observation log, he re-read what he'd taken down so far and felt a surge of irritation as he contemplated the futility of what he was doing. He could not see what use these log entries would be to the Researchers, or why they would need the activities of the subjects so meticulously documented.

As he read through the entries again, he could not find one single piece of information that might be useful to the Researchers in any way.

Time: 34776

Subject 1 taken back to cell. Subject 2 seems agitated.

Conversation between Subject 1 and Subject 2:

- come to the conclusion that they are not being held by inhabitants of this planet

- Subject 2 questions Subject 1 about interrogation

- Subject 2 states that the translator matrix was probably extracted from recorded

transmission

- further conversation about irrelevant matters

Time: 34783

End conversation.

Time: 34795

Subject 1 falls asleep.

The Guard raised his head and looked back up at the screen. There hadn't been any changes since he'd last checked the monitor. Subject 1 was still sleeping, leaning against Subject 2, who sat huddled up against the wall, staring blankly into space. His face was partly turned away from the hidden camera, but all the same the Guard thought he looked worried. Frightened, maybe. He couldn't tell for sure, though; the aliens' features were so different. Their skin was of a strange hue, something between pink and light brown, and their scalps were covered in some kind of fur, which in a way made them look like V'nerans. They hadn't had any problems to pass as V'nerans either, using those face appliances the Researchers had found so fascinating. They were still wearing V'neran clothing, too.

Watching them on the monitor, the Guard wondered what these aliens had been doing on V'nera, anyway. The planet had no natural resources worth mentioning and since most of the planet's surface was covered in solid ice, mining was made almost impossible. They couldn't possibly have been spying for technology, either, since they were obviously a lot more advanced than the V'nerans. He'd done a few security scans of their ship before it had left, and had found it to be quite interesting, if not overly impressive. He couldn't see why they would mingle with the planet's population, disguising themselves as V'nerans, and he could certainly see no reason for their ship to leave them behind. But then, these people might have motivations so different that they were beyond him to understand.

A movement on the screen caught his attention. Subject 2 was pulling off his jacket, and once he had removed it, he carefully spread it over the sleeping one, then leaned back against the wall so that the other's head came to rest on his shoulder again. The Guard watched him, frowning. He'd noticed earlier that the temperature in the cell seemed to be uncomfortably low to the aliens, and now without his jacket that one must be even colder. Sure enough, a moment later the Guard saw him shiver and wondered why he would be doing such a thing, if it only meant more inconveniences for him. The Guard remembered that he'd been acting quite strangely before, asking over and over again whether the other one was "okay", clearly referring to the other alien's injuries he'd sustained during the interrogation. Apparently this species was acting on very different codes of conduct, and the Guard resigned to the fact that he probably wouldn't be able to understand them, anyway.

But it had often been that way with all the different subjects he'd seen over the years. They'd been from various species, and many of them had displayed odd behaviour of this or that kind when first captured, but when the tests began, he'd found they all reacted quite the same way in the end. It wouldn't be a lot different with these two, either, he thought, glancing back at the screen. To his surprise, he found that he was actually feeling some kind of regret at the thought of them going through the same ordeal the many others had gone through before. He did not know why he would feel that way concerning these two aliens, in particular. The tests, however, were something he had never approved of. He didn't know what kind of information exactly the Researchers were after, and although he had never asked, the tests didn't seem to lead to any enlightening results. The only result he'd ever seen were another one or two bodies for him to get rid of, but of course it was not his place to question the Researchers' motivations.

Still, watching those two sitting on the floor of the holding cell while he was fully aware of the fact that both of them would be dead in six days at the most, he felt that strange pang of regret.

He picked up his log to put down what Subject 2 had just done, then paused. Thinking about it, he doubted this particular piece of information would be of any interest to the Researchers. Putting his log back down, he leaned back in his chair and resumed watching the screen, where the two aliens sat next to each other, not moving or speaking a single word.

TBC...

Please let us know what you think!