I'm not gonna lie- I suck for not updating. Forgive me? Please?

Unfortunately, this chapter is a short one, and it has to set up a lot. Next chapter is a moving-along-in-the-plot chapter. …Not necessarily that this chapter is NOT, but I wouldn't outright call it progression. Enjoy anyway!

Chapter 3

Answers Far From Reach

The doors to the brig opened with a swish, and Captain Archer entered, his eyes set and serious, his face dropped into a disappointed frown, the usual trace of anger finding its way to fit in with his expression. He took in a breath and at once hated the smell, the taste, the feel of it. What it was that made the air so stale was a mystery to him. He knew it wasn't the oxygen recyclers... or maybe it was. The brig's lack of use up until this point in time may have meant that such a thing went unattended. Then again, it may have just been the utter contempt for this man that sickened him just to breathe the same air.

Archer saw him there, sitting slouched forward with his elbows on his thighs and his hands hanging loosely in front of him. His face had not changed since Archer's entrance, and he didn't show a sign of awareness or care. His only expression was a blank solemnity. Even as Archer reached the door and stared at him through the slightly obstructed windows, the man did not look up. Archer was incensed even more by this, disliking that the man had no respect for authority, no bother to express understanding for the situation he was in. But then again, Archer thought with unencumbered venom, why should he expect the man who showed no concern for the lives of this crew to show any concern for its captain, or his own life for that matter?

As he awaited the right time to begin speaking to this disgrace of a being, he found that he was grateful that Hoshi had been able to compile his species's language into the UT database solely from the logs that were stored in the pod's computer; he knew he wouldn't have had the patience to sit and wait until they could understand one another. Archer jabbed the button to the comm., staring at the alien with the spark of a growing fire behind his hazel eyes. At first he couldn't find the words to speak, any way to say as eloquently as possible: "You bastard, you'll be lucky if I don't kill you for what you did!"

Keeping his gaze from meeting even the slightest sight of the detained alien, Archer was able to keep some of his anger in check. "You endangered one of my crew," he stated simply, but venomously nonetheless.

The alien said nothing, his only response that same blank, distant frown that remained on his face. He barely acknowledged that he was being spoken to.

"For that you don't deserve this much," Archer further stated, knowing that he truly would rather decompress the room and let this man that than keep him contained in the brig until questions were answered.

The man didn't even move, and Archer felt the flames growing in intensity and causing his blood to boil.

"You may as well speak now, because I don't intend to give up," Archer informed him hatefully.

Again, nothing but the hum of the warp engines far off in the distance.

Archer turned to the man, becoming sick of this tiring game of questions and then silence. "You have nothing to say?"

The man stared down at the floor. "What is there to say?" he growled.

Archer approached the partition in one angry step. "An explanation might be in order."

The man sneered, but then returned to being silent.

Archer shook his head, then turned and left the room, sensing the futility of his interrogation. It was far from over, and he was far from resigning his attempts, but all the determination in the universe wouldn't force someone with the same strength of resolve to speak. He would just have to wait for another time.

>>>>>>>>>>

Hoshi hesitated. The corridor was empty, but she couldn't know for sure how long she could remain unseen. There was no guarantee that no guards stood inside the room, even if none were on duty outside. She peered around cautiously, her hand raising slowly through the chilly air and the grayness of the lighting that submerged everything beneath a haze. She felt her heart flutter nervously as her fingers reached the button on the wall.

She stood a moment, waiting guiltily. She would be snooping... But could she just turn away? When she was the only one who knew?

She pressed the button down, watching the door slide open with a hushed exhale and the room fade into focus, stretching toward her in an ivy blur and then reaching out like vines to take her.

She found herself beside the shuttlepod, its odd metallic shimmer so eminent it became a smell and a taste that poisoned her mouth. She fought against the sick feeling in her stomach and opened the hatch.

It's here, she thought, It's here. I have to find it...

She climbed through the door and threw aside the pilot's chair so that it spun to the other end of its track, her eyes darting over every inch of the floor.

It's in here, I just know it.

She looked up to the compartments above her head and began tearing through them, prying open the doors and scooping every item inside onto the floor. Not there, not there, not there...

Her eyes shot over to the other side of the pod. It had to be.

She took hold of the lid of the crate, still stained with silver blood from which a new caustic smell rose, and heaved it off. She searched fervently through the bin, throwing item after item out onto the floor. Her arms burned and prickled with the sudden exertion and her growing fatigue, but she could not stop. No matter how late it was, no matter how much she had to destroy, she needed to find it.

"What are you doing here?" a voice from behind demanded hatefully.

Hoshi gasped and snapped around, looking up to see golden yellow eyes burning through the darkness. The shadow to which they belonged loomed above her like a part of the blackness incarnate. She struggled to sink into the crate and into the floor, now covered in the things she had thrown there, but she could not get away.

The eyes flared with anger at what she had done and what she was going to do. "I won't allow it!" he thundered, and with arms outstretched to her neck, Hoshi watched in terror as he crashed down upon her.

Hoshi awoke violently, kicking and swinging her fists at the air where she was still imagining her attacker to be. Eventually her struggle faded into terrible shaking, and though her heart was pounding so badly she wasn't sure if it would burst through her chest, she managed to quickly turn on her lamp and push the darkness away.

She curled up in bed and struggled for breath, but her mouth and lungs didn't seem to want the air. Every swallow sickened her stomach, for she could still taste the bitter flavor of metal in her mouth.

Hoshi entered sickbay, her eyes heavy with sleep and her limbs shaky with fright. She saw Phlox checking on the two unconscious aliens and felt her blood drain from her body. Yet Phlox smiled as usual when he saw her enter (it were as though he never looked at his patients' faces when they first arrived), and asked over the hum of his medical scanner, "What's troubling you, Ensign?"

She sat down on a biobed as far away from the aliens as was possible and murmured, "I just need a sedative to get to sleep."

Phlox pocketed the scanner and stole a glance at her before shuffling to gather a hypospray and setting it to the correct dosage. But as he returned, he noticed the young woman looked more ragged and distraught than one who simply hadn't slept. "...Is there anything you'd like to speak with me about?"

She shook her head softly and pulled a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "It was just a stupid nightmare."

He gave her a skeptical look, friendly as it was. "If you truly believed that, then you would have had no trouble getting back to sleep without this sedative."

Hoshi looked off at the unconscious aliens and felt that weakness in her once again. She supposed it would do her good to get her dream out to another person, and maybe then to analyze it with his help. After all, if she could just understand it, break it apart and then put it back together like she did with every new language she encountered, the dream would frighten her much less. ...Or maybe the message within the dream would reveal itself to be more frightening. If that were the case... well... she didn't know what exactly that would mean for her.

Despite her worries, she settled upon attempting an understanding. She told Phlox her dream, and wasn't surprised to see him listening to her as though he were listening to a patient's symptoms. She watched him take in and analyze every occurrence like it all added up to something sensible, and when she finished, she decided to end quietly on a thought that had bristled in the back of her mind since she awoke.

"I don't know what I was looking for... but my subconscious seemed to."

Phlox nodded, then unfolded to the ensign a building notion in his mind. "Have you considered the idea that what you were searching for was rather a... a representation?"

Hoshi tried not to be impolite or allow her body language to show the great obviousness of that statement, for whenever Phlox made a comment as well-known that one, he tended to follow it up with something more challenging to wrap one's mind around. However, she managed to give her thoughts away with some look she couldn't manage to stifle.

"I do realize that it is well-known that dreams are only symbols- rarely ever anything but," he explained, sensing her disappointment in his lacking words. "My statement was merely addressing that you so far have taken the events of your dream very literally. And proposing that you may be searching for not an item but an answer."

Hoshi blinked. "An answer?"

Phlox nodded once. "Isn't there something you have been questioning? Something on your mind that has been distressing?"

A flash went through Hoshi's mind, then her thoughts fell into nothingness. Her eyes dropped to the floor. For a moment she had been certain she knew exactly what it was she was trying to find in her dream, but it was smudged out by her own mind. "...For a second I almost had it..." she admitted.

Phlox waited patiently for her to either make progress in discovering what it is that was just beyond her grasp, or speak once again in search of another push towards the answer.

Hoshi then shook her head. "But it's more than just that." She looked up at Phlox and sighed. "I know I was looking for an actual THING. ...What it was, I don't know. But it's real."

Phlox slowly got up from the biobed. "...Unfortunately, Ensign... that I cannot help you with. All I can suggest is that you know what it is you're looking for before you attempt to find it."

Hoshi nodded. That went without saying. She and even her subconscious knew that unauthorized snooping would lead to some big trouble.

She followed the doctor in standing as well, and walked over to where he stood checking the remaining two aliens' vitals on the screens behind them. "...How long before they wake up?" she asked cautiously.

"Within twenty-four hours."

She wasn't sure whether that would be a good thing or something dangerous, but she kept those thoughts to herself. If Phlox was so certain of the calm awakening of the next two aliens that he had Reed remove all posted armory crew from Sickbay- had that much assurance that he would not be putting himself in danger- then Hoshi could have some faith in her own safety. Then again... the two armed guards OUTSIDE sickbay returned that fear to her.

She could only hope Phlox knew what he was doing.

>>>>>>>>>>

Let's go back to the Jedi thing. That seemed to work, so maybe now when everyone's angry at me for taking so long…. clears throat …You see the review button…. …You suddenly forget that you hate me for not updating…. …"I would LOVE to say something nice about this chapter" you think….