Disclaimer: Enterprise and her crew belong to Paramount. I'm just borrowing them for a while.

Bottled Up – Part 4

Trip crept down the corridor, his flashlight held out in front of him. The power had been out for twenty minutes now, and he was anxious to get to Engineering and check on the status of his beloved engine. He had come across Crewmen Arthurs and Payne about five minutes back and sent them off to their stations, and now the corridors were deserted. Or at least, they seemed to be. But Trip had a nasty feeling that he wasn't alone. There were various skittering sounds coming out of the darkness that he was sure weren't being made by humans, and once or twice he had seen strange shadows in the beam of his flashlight.

"Hello?" he called. "Is there anyone there?"

The only response was more clicking and skittering, followed by a rasping sound that sounded suspiciously like metal scraping on metal.

"I should warn you that I'm armed," he added, knowing full well that he held nothing more dangerous than the torch, but hoping that whatever was out there wouldn't work that out.

Another shadow flashed across the wavering spot of light cast by the torch, and Trip started feeling a little nervous. He was alone and unarmed, and possibly surrounded by hostile intruders. He started looking around for a comm panel. This was definitely one of those times when he needed Malcolm and his team of security officers. Finally he found a comm panel, but when he pushed the button, nothing happened. Trip cursed, realising that the power outage had apparently affected more than just the lights.

"Damn! Can someone just give me a break, please!" In answer there was a renewal of the alien noises, much closer than before. With a sinking feeling, Trip turned slowly away from the panel. The beam of his flashlight picked out from the darkness a monstrous form – an alien eight feet tall, with a shiny black exoskeleton and two rather large claws. Trip felt a scream bubbling up in his throat, and it took all of his Starfleet training not to let rip. Slowly, he backed away down the corridor, only to come up against an obstruction behind him – and obstruction that he didn't have to see in order to know that it was another intruder. As the two creatures loomed over him, Trip closed his eyes, and prayed for the end to be quick.

Archer, Reed and a security team made their way down the darkened corridor, keeping their eyes peeled for intruders. Just before the power outage that had somehow been caused by the alien ship that had appeared off their port bow, T'Pol's sensors had detected the use of a transporting device to beam two life-forms on to Enterprise. But now the power was out, it was up to the humans on board the ship to find the intruders, and not the internal sensors. So far, Archer's team hadn't found anything, and they were nearing Engineering.

Suddenly, Reed motioned for the group to stop. Ahead, from around a corner, was coming a beam of light. Reed cautioned the Captain to stay back, and he and his team moved slowly forward. Seconds went by, and Archer held his breath.

"Captain!" came Reed's voice. "It's Commander Tucker. He's unconscious, Sir."

Archer's heart leapt into his throat. Trip! He was injured! No, this couldn't be happening. He had kept Trip on Enterprise to stop exactly this kind of thing from occurring. He rounded the corner at a run, and threw himself down by the man he secretly loved.

"Trip! Trip, can you hear me? Damn it, Trip!" At that moment the power flickered back on, illuminating the corridor, and throwing into stark relief the bruises that covered Trip's face. In the background, Archer could hear Reed contacting sickbay, asking Dr. Phlox to report to section 7, corridor 5B immediately. But Archer barely heard him. All he could focus on was Trip, lying unconscious in front of him, and he cursed himself for not taking better care of his friend.