AN: Thanks everyone who read and reviewed the other chapters! :D I love you! KaliedescopeCat: That could be true. I started this story a while ago, but never finished it.

Chapter 4: What to do.

"Okay..." There was a small pause. The rope creaked."Okay...This is definitely new."

The British armory officer hung about 20 feet above the ground. Up side down. This was indeed, new. The walls were gray, though some parts of it showed rust. He couldn't see the ceiling. There was a grunt from his companion who hung behind him.

"Will ya keep your voice down... Ah've got a killer headache." He mumbled.

Malcolm, who had actually just woken up a second earlier, was very surprised to hear Trip's voice. He tried to turn around, but only succeeded in turning the commander with him. He noticed they were bound back to back.

"Wha..whastat?" Trip said, and slowly opened his eyes. A second and a shriek later, informed Malcolm that the commander had also noticed their situation.

"Where are we?" Trip hissed, seemingly wide awake now. Malcolm sighed when he heard the stupid question.

"I wouldn't know commander, but what I do know is that I want to get away from here. The real question is, however, what are you doing here?"

There was a moment of silence behind him, before Trip answered. "Well, when ya didn' come back, we came lookin' for ya, of course."

"Of course..And you two got yourself captured." However, before Trip could point out that if Malcolm hadn't been captured that they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, another thought occurred by the armory officer.

"Where's Hoshi?" He said, trying to look over his shoulder but only succeeding in slowly spinning them around again. The question was followed by silence. When the commander finally decided to answer, there was panic in his voice.

"Ah don't know! Where's Hoshi, Malcolm? Where are we?" Judging by the sudden swinging of the chain-like rope Malcolm knew that Trip was trying to squirm out of his bounds. "What are we goin' to do?"

"Oh for crying out loud!" Malcolm said. He wanted to calm the commander down because the swinging had worsened his headache, and the wall now came uncomfortably close. He closed his eyes when he zoomed towards the wall again, certain that he would make contact with it. When there wasn't a 'splat' however, Malcolm opened them again and found that Trip had stopped swinging.

"Ah'm stuck." Was the only thing he said after a moment or two. Malcolm rolled his eyes.

"Well, you really are a genius aren't you." He said sarcastically. However, he felt that Trip hadn't stopped squirming with his hands. When the chief engineer didn't answer, he frowned.

"What are you doing?" He asked. When no answer came he again tried to look over his shoulder, with the same effect as before. This did get a reaction out of the commander.

"Please, Mal. Could ya just shut up and hang still for a while."

Malcolm raised his eyebrows. "I say -"

He was cut off by Trip, who pushed something in his hands, it seemed to be part of the mechanism that bound there hands. It reminded Malcolm of old fashioned handcuffs back on earth.

"Hold that, will ya?" Trip said, and Malcolm thought better to comply, suddenly noticing what he was trying to do. There were a few soft clicks as Trip tried to get the handcuffs off.

"There's a window on my side, about 3 meters higher than we are. If we get our hands lose, maybe one of us can climb up and take a look?" Malcolm said, studying the wall on his side of the room.

"No problem." Trip said, and there was a loud click. The handcuffs let go and Malcolm could feel the blood returning in his hands. For the tiniest of moments they just hung there. Then it all happened really fast.

Because Trip weighted a lot more than the small armory officer, he zoomed down, thus causing the rope to pull on Malcolm's legs, who zoomed up.

"AAARGH!" There were two identical screams of terror in the room.

"There went the window!" Malcolm said as he zoomed passed the small glass window in the middle of the wall. He wasn't stopping and now he could see the ceiling.

"Triiiiiip, this is way too high! TOO HIGH!" He yelled as the ceiling came closer and closer.

"Maaaal, do somethin'!!" Trip yelled as he fell towards the floor. Malcolm suddenly noticed he still had the handcuffs in his hands. He now only hoped they were like the ones on the earth. He pulled himself up enough so that he could click it around his rope. It worked, and the next moment he clicked it around Trip's part of the rope, which was a lot longer than his now. The ropes stopped abruptly and the shock shuddered through them. Not a moment to early, too. The next moment was filled with heavy breathing as the two Starfleet officers tried to calm down.

"Okay, change of plan. We stay together." Malcolm said, as he slowly corrected there balance and climbed down, using the handcuffs as support, but making sure they never left the ropes. His hands still trembled from the sudden rush of adrenalin in his veins.

"Ah won't argue with that." Trip answered as he was slowly pulled back up.

Hoshi looked up, her black hair hung loosely in her face. She glared at the alien who stared at her expectantly. A small padd lay on the desk in front her. The room was cold and quite bright.

"Well?" The alien asked, tapping one of his long finger impatiently against his cheek.

"I don't know. I can't read it." She answered, almost hissing the words.

"She's lying." Squeaked the small green alien in the corner of the room behind her. He had, until now, gone unnoticed by the linguist. He stepped forward and looked at her. The small headache returned as Hoshi looked at him. She wanted to avert her eyes, but couldn't.

"The code is 4683. She knew it 10 minutes ago." He said and the other nodded. Hoshi gasped.

"Very good. Faster than I expected." The first one said. He looked at Hoshi, who wondered how they could possibly have known that.

"Luckily for you, this was just a test. But, Hoshi. I don't like it when you play dumb. You will translate or decode everything I put in front of you." He rammed the padd back down on the desk, causing the small Asian woman to look up in fright.

These aliens seemed to know a lot about her. Her name, her rank, her job on Enterprise. Enterprise... She squinted her eyes, willing to see how serious they were.

"And what if I don't?" She asked, causing the alien to raise his eyebrows, suddenly reminding her of T'pol.

"Then your friends will suffer the consequences, easy as that." He answered and Hoshi blinked.

So Malcolm and Trip were still here, and alive! This thought caused a wave of relief inside of her.

"Speaking of which, they shouldn't be left waiting...I have a little job for them, too." The alien continued and with that, he turned and left Hoshi alone at the desk. Who wondered how long Enterprise would take to find them. She didn't know what these aliens were up too, but whatever it was, she didn't want to be part of it.

Please review!!