Ducking behind the corner to avoid the weapons fire was getting a little tiring for Malcolm Reed, he really wanted to shoot something, but his opponent hiding the other end of the corridor was proving to be a difficult target for the British Armoury Officer. There was a short pause in the firing. Malcolm risked looking round and couldn't see the Suliban anywhere.

"Careful Malcolm." Trip warned, watching his friend carefully. Trip noted that Malcolm nodded slightly, meaning he had heard his friend.

Malcolm's eyes scanned the corridor. He then saw a slight disturbance and fired his weapon. After a few seconds there was a thud and the Suliban fell on the floor. Malcolm moved over to check he was down. He then moved back to Trip and Trix. "We'd better get back to the ship!"

Trip nodded his head. He opened up the pocket on his sleeve and took out his communicator flipping it open he began to speak. "Tucker to Enterprise. Lock onto my position. There's three of us."

Within seconds the three of them were transported out. They materialised on the transporter pad along a corridor on their ship. Trip jumped up and moved over to a COMM panel. "Tucker to the bridge." There was silence for a few seconds. "Tucker to Cap'n Archer." There was still silence. He looked at Malcolm who nodded his head and all three entered the turbolift. Trip pressed the button for the bridge, the doors closed and the lift moved up.

When the doors reopened revealing the bridge all they could see was Travis, Hoshi, T'Pol, Archer and a couple of other crewman lying on the floor, or in their seats, unconscious. Carefully Reed moved out, his weapon armed and ready to fire. Trip followed his weapon also poised, he had also got Trix by the wrist, carefully bringing her onto the bridge. She was still in a state of shock.

There seemed to be nothing. If the Suliban were still on the bridge then they would have attacked by now.

T'Pol was lying half on the floor and her legs caught around her chair. Trip smiled a little at seeing the position she was in, slightly wishing he had a camera, but he knew there were more important things than trying to make Sub-Commander T'Pol look like an idiot.

"Cap'n?" Trip asked moving over to the man slumped in his chair, hoping to wake him up. But he didn't move. Trip pressed two fingers on Archer's neck to find a pulse, and found a strong one.

"Commander!" The voice from the Englishman sounded concerned and worried.

Trip looked up to see Reed by a computer screen. The display on the screen was not a good sight.

It was a countdown. The Suliban had started the Auto destruct sequence. Quickly Trip rushed over and inputted his code to stop it.

"Now yours Malcolm!"

Malcolm did the same. "We still need one more sir, preferably the captains!" they looked at Archer, but he was still unconscious, there was no way they would be able to wake him up and get him to give the code in the amount of time they had left. Trix was sitting on the floor next to the chair. Trip looked back at the screen.

45 seconds.

45 seconds left till the ship would be destroyed.

"Trix!"

The young girl didn't move. Trip went over to her and bent down in front of her. "Trix? We need the captain's code to stop the sequence."

"I've become a murderer!" She cried looking in the blue eyes of Commander Tucker.

"You'll be even more of a murderer if you don't give us the code! You're the only chance we have to stop it!" Trip placed both his hands on her shoulders to try and calm her down, but it wasn't working very much.

"I didn't mean to kill them!" Trix's tears fell from her cheek and splashed on the floor.

Trip shook her violently a couple of times. "Trix!" Trip's voice scared her as he shouted. " Please, forget the Suliban for now and give us the code!"

"I don't remember it."

"30 seconds left!" Malcolm called looking over his shoulder.

"Trix please, hurry!"

Trix began to frantically search her mind for the code to save the lives of everyone on board. "Alpha six, four Charlie nine…" She stopped for a second. After typing in most of the code Malcolm looked back at her waiting for the last one. "I don't remember the last number!"

It was at that moment the Suliban decided to show themselves. "And you never will!" they said as they prepared to fire, but Lieutenant Reed was ready for them.

Malcolm quickly picked up his weapon and fired at two of them, but in the process Malcolm was hit and fell on the floor unconscious. Trip then attacked and engaged in a hand to hand battle with the last standing of the Cabal intruders.

"Trix hurry!" Trip called and he desperately tried to win his battle. But against the Suliban it wasn't easy. Punches were thrown left and right from the engineer and the Suliban.

"One!" Trix called triumphantly as she managed to remember the last number.

"Get to the computer!" Trip cried and he was punched round the face.

Instantly Trix forgot her fears and focused more on the objective… to save the ship.

She scrambled to her feet to save the ship. The Suliban turned to fire his weapon, leaving his back undefended. Trip saw what he was doing and jumped on him, pulling the weapon out of line from Trix. The weapon was fired. Trix jumped to get out of the way, and narrowly missed the plasma bullet as it came hurtling towards her.

She heavily landed on the floor, sliding a few centimetres, but quickly gained her senses.

5 seconds

As fast as she could Trix got up…

3 seconds

Pressed the last digit…

2 seconds

And hit enter…

1 second

Trix watched waiting for it to change, either to zero, or to something different. Nothing happened. She was breathing heavily, her hand still hovering over the keyboard.

Trip managed to give one blow to the head of the Suliban and he fell on the floor unconscious. He breathed heavily watching the screen. "Talk about close endings." He wiped away sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

Trix turned to face him and let out a huge sigh. Trip moved to stand next to her and brought her into a hug. He also gave a light kiss on her forehead. "I knew you could do it."

The ship was saved.

Only Trip and Trix were ever going to know how it felt to be so close to dying like that.