Title: Thursday's Child

Author: Sita Z

Rating: T

AN: Thank you for letting me know what you think!

JadziaKathryn (thank you, I hope the waiting wasn't too bad ;)... and yes, you're certainly going to get more information on the conspiracy), firebirdgirl (well, we'll see about Enterprise getting there... happy reading ;)!), Emiliana Keladry (No, probably not... thank you for reviewing!), RoaringMice (exactly ;) ), Salhawke (thank you! I loved both of your stories, wish there were sequels to them (hinthint) ;)... Wow, you went to see DK, wish I could've been there),

stage manager (sorry about the cliffie... hey, you know me, I can't help it ;) ), Exploded Pen (how was the surprise? You like it ;)?), Trips Girl (actually you're quite right about someone helping them... BTW, -my- cat helped me write this story just by being there as a model for Malcolm's character ;) ), Luna (thank you - you'll learn more about Singer and the rest of the gang in one of the chapters to come... can't quite remember at the moment, but I think it's Chapter 17), Maraschino (hope I didn't leave you hanging for too long ;)...), Parisfan ( yes, I guess it would have been hard for Susan, with all those memories coming back... and I agree with you about Trip and Deborah)

Chapter 14

Malcolm pulled the blanket over his shoulders, trying to find a comfortable position on the narrow bench. Thinking of his - comparatively - large bed back on Enterprise, he let out a small sigh. Sleeping on a hard, cramped cot wasn't the only thing that was beginning to get on his nerves. Truth be told, after two weeks of sharing thirteen square meters of living space Malcolm wouldn't have cared if he never saw another shuttle in his entire life. Eating heated-up food rations had lost its novelty after a few days, and no matter how sophisticated the air-recycler was supposed to be, Malcolm couldn't get rid of the impression that the shuttle was beginning to smell. Several times (and mostly for lack of anything better to do), Trip and he had scrubbed down the entire pod, washed the dirty laundry in the shuttle's small shower stall and hung it up to dry, but the stale, unpleasant smell remained. Malcolm thanked all the gods there were that this was a Type-B shuttle, not Type-A, which didn't have any bathroom or toilet facilities. He tried not to think of how a Type-A shuttle might look like after two people had lived in it for several weeks.

Malcolm had given up wearing his uniform in the second week, after finding that it was rather difficult to wash. It wasn't his usual style to wear civilian clothes while technically on duty, but these days, Malcolm couldn't really bring himself to care about Starfleet protocol. Anything that brought even the slightest change was rather welcome at the moment.

All circumstances considered, however, they could have been doing worse. There had been surprisingly few disagreements (if it had been Hoshi, Malcolm doubted they would have survived the first week without killing each other), and no arguments at all. Malcolm knew he could not have started one even if he had wanted to. Trip seemed to find it natural that things were done Malcolm's way, or at least saw no reason to start a discussion. There were times when Malcolm almost wished they could bicker a little; it would help vent some of the pent-up energy and might even make for a fun few hours. For some reason, Trip seemed like the ideal person to have a long, entertaining discussion with. But maybe he was expecting too much too early. After all, it was only a few months ago that Trip had been insisting on still calling him "sir".

Malcolm rolled onto his back and glanced over at the other bunk. As he had expected, Trip was still awake and staring at his padd with a concentrated frown. A writing pad lay in front of him on the bunk, and from time to time Trip propped himself up on one elbow in order to write down another word after quietly reading it to himself. The pencil made a soft scraping noise on the paper.

When he became aware of Malcolm's eyes on him, Trip lowered his padd. "Did I wake you up?"

Malcolm shook his head. "I wasn't sleeping anyway." He sat up, his back feeling as though it had been turned into a pretzel by that rack passing for a shuttle bunk. "Whoever designed these things should try sleeping on them himself. They're worse than the beds back at the Vulcan school."

Trip smiled slightly, then sobered again. "You went to a Vulcan school?"

"Yes, I..." Malcolm trailed off. He felt uncomfortable, talking about himself winning the scholarship. "It was decided after my last year of primary school that I could start at the San Francisco Kahr'nat, a Vulcan boarding school where all the diplomat children go."

"You said you were from England," Trip said. "Isn't San Francisco a city in the USA?"

The way Trip said the names, Malcolm realized that to him, those places were only alien sounds strung together in a word, facts he had picked up in one of Hoshi's geography lessons. There was nothing he associated with them.

"That's right," Malcolm said. "I got quite the culture shock when I first came to San Francisco." He smiled. "I remember I sometimes found the Americans to be more alien than the Vulcans back at school."

"And your family?" Trip asked - rather carefully, as if he were afraid of crossing a line if he inquired further. "Didn't they miss you?"

Malcolm lowered his eyes. He never spoke of his family unless he had to. Except for Archer and T'Pol, no one on Enterprise knew that he had grown up in a foster residence. It was none of their business, and Malcolm hated the awkwardness that always accompanied those occasions when he was forced to talk about his "unhappy" childhood. People never failed to give him that look, their thoughts written on their faces: Oh well, the poor guy. But then, it explains a lot of things.

"I didn't mean to-" Trip began, but Malcolm shook his head. So maybe his past was something he didn't like to talk about, but for some reason he didn't feel the same reluctance with Trip. In a way, he felt almost obliged to tell him, after all the things the man had confided in him.

"It's alright," he said. "It's just that... it wasn't that easy, you know. My mother..." He took a deep breath. "She disappeared when I was two years old. She was visiting her sister in Kuantan when the Orions Raided Malaysia. My father never found out what had happened to her. If she had been Lost, or killed. She was seven months pregnant at the time. My father... just couldn't cope with the fact that she was gone. Not dead, you know; I think if she had died he could have dealt with it, eventually. But she was just gone, and he couldn't understand that. He started to drink when I was three. I believe it wasn't so bad at first, but then he quit his job at the Royal Navy Headquarters, and it got a lot worse after that. He... he'd just drink and drink until he started to cry, and then he'd drink some more until he passed out. He never hurt me or anything, but... I was only three, you see, and couldn't understand what was going on. I was just so afraid when he got like that. Then..."

Malcolm trailed off. That was one thing he couldn't talk about, not even to Trip. Yes, there was a perfectly good explanation for what had happened to his father, why he had lost control in such a way. Sometimes Malcolm even believed that he understood. That he could, eventually, forgive him. But in a less rational part of his mind he knew that even if he told himself that he bore no grudge against his father, he would never forget those three rainy days in November, that feeling of abandonment and terror forced on a child too young to understand. A feeling that would still surface in his nightmares from time to time, and leave him shaking and unable to go back to sleep. Maybe that was the worst part, the way those memories would sneak up and pounce on him when he expected it the least.

"When I was four, they decided that my father was no longer fit to be my guardian. The doctors sent him to a rehabilitation center where he died a few years later. Suicide."

"And you?" Trip asked. "Did you have any relatives that could take you in?"

Malcolm thought of his grandparents, who had wanted nothing to do with the small, shy boy their son-in-law was unable to take care of.

"No," he said. "I lived in a foster home until I went away to school."

Trip remained silent for a while. "You must hate him," he said then, quietly, but it still startled Malcolm. Trip's words hit closer to home than he cared to admit.

"No," he said quickly. "No, I don't hate him. Not anymore. I... I realize that he was sick. He couldn't help himself."

Trip said nothing, but Malcolm saw in his eyes that he realized this wasn't quite the truth. Stuart Reed had been sick because he had wanted to be sick enough to forget about everything. Including his son.

"I..." He hesitated. "When I was a boy, I always wondered what had become of my mother. And my brother or sister. When I met you, I realized that they might still be alive and..." He broke off.

"And that they're slaves," Trip finished quietly. "Like I used to be."

Malcolm nodded, unable to meet the other man's eyes. "I... I can't remember my mother, and I've never met my brother or sister," he said. "But they're my family. And there's nothing I can do." He shook his head. "It's just... sometimes I feel so helpless."

"I know what you mean."

Malcolm raised his eyes. Coming from anyone else, it would have been a platitude, something people said because they needed a phrase to fill the awkward silence. But with Trip it was different. Trip did know what it meant to feel helpless, and how it felt if there was nothing you could do to protect your family.

Malcolm nodded slowly. "Yes," he said. "I know you do."

They sat in silence for a while, Malcolm watching the stars outside and letting his thoughts drift. It was a long time since he had talked to anyone about his family. And maybe the first time he had done so without hearing the words "I'm sorry" at some point, that expression of helplessness people always used when confronted with something they didn't understand. But unlike everybody else, Trip did understand. He had been out there himself, and knew that "I'm sorry" wouldn't help Mary Reed and her son or daughter. If they were still alive.

"Are you alright?"

Malcolm looked back at Trip, and saw that the other man was watching him. "Yes," he said and smiled slightly. "I'm fine. Just thinking about things."

Trip held his gaze for another moment, then leaned back against the wall and returned his attention to his padd. Malcolm listened to the sound of Trip's pencil scratching on the paper for a while, and had just decided to dig under the bench for his novel when a soft bleeping came from the front of the shuttle.

He got up, aware of Trip's eyes on him as he walked over to the helm.

"Another asteroid field?"

"No," Malcolm answered, frowning down at the signature on the scanner's display. "It seems that there's a ship approaching our position."

There was a soft rustling as Trip laid his writing pad aside and came to join him at the helm. "Do you know what kind of ship?"

"No," Malcolm said. "I'm still scanning their signature. It's-"

He stopped in mid-sentence when the monitor in front of him changed, a small identification label replacing the former image. However, it was not the "Unknown Alien Vessel" Malcolm had expected.

"What is it?" Trip stared at him. "Are they-"

"It's the Joint Forces," Malcolm said, almost stumbling as he went for the helm seat. "A scout vessel. They're coming for us."

Trip asked no further questions, sitting down in the seat behind the pilot chair. His face was pale.

"We'll have to try and outrun them," Malcolm said. He knew that they didn't have a chance; even the smallest scout ship could go ten times as fast as their shuttle. But he wasn't going to sit quietly and wait for them to activate their tractor beam. "They're still several thousand kilometers away. If we-"

Another beep from the console behind him interrupted him. He glanced quickly over his shoulder. "They're hailing us."

Trip stared at the flashing light on the control board. "Shouldn't we answer their call?"

Malcolm shook his head, powering up the shuttle's engines to their full capacity. "That'd only give them time."

He accelerated the pod to maximum speed, and ignored the red flashing that indicated they were coming dangerously close to a system overload. On the display in front of him, the scout vessel was picking up speed and closing in on the small blue dot that represented the shuttle.

Malcolm's hands were sweaty, and the controls felt slippery under his fingers. They were holding speed, but barely. It wouldn't be long until the shuttle's engines were going to give in to the strain.

"Trip," he said, not daring to take his eyes off the console.

"Yes?" Trip's voice was strained, but steady enough.

"There's a storage compartment in the rear, right next to your bunk," Malcolm said. "Inside there's an equipment box with two phase pistols. You need to-"

The shuttle shook and Malcolm had to grab the console to stay in his seat. "Bloody hell!"

The scout vessel fired again, missing this time. Malcolm saw the thin orange phaser beam whizzing past outside and swerved to avoid their next shot which followed a second later.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Trip had found the weapons.

"You need to insert the power cells!" he shouted, holding onto his seat when another beam hit the shuttle. "They're in the-"

"I've got them!"

Malcolm saw Trip snap the weapons shut, and a moment later the display next to him exploded in a burst of flames, filling the shuttle with the searing stink of charred plastic.

Trip was at his side in a single stride.

"Are you alright?"

Malcolm nodded, taking one of the phase pistols. He gripped it hard so it wouldn't slip out of his sweaty fingers. No use, he thought. It was going to be two men against a ship full of trained soldiers. But at the same time he wanted to be armed when they encountered the enemy. Security rule number one, and he wasn't going to ignore it now, of all times.

"There's a fire extinguisher in the back," he said. "If you..."

Smoke got in his throat and he coughed, frantically waving his free hand to clear the air in front of his eyes. Through the smoke he saw Trip stumbling into the back, phase pistol gripped tightly in his hand. For one second he wondered if Trip had ever fired a weapon in his life, then his attention was diverted by another bleep from the comm console.

Malcolm brought his fist down hard on the controls, shutting down the noise. The engines were creaking with the strain, a shrill alarm announcing the impending overload. With trembling fingers, Malcolm diverted power to the hull plating, realizing that it wasn't going to be any use. Nothing he did now was going to be of any use.

The smoke was getting thicker, and Malcolm could hardly see anything anymore except for the various flashing lights that announced the damage they had taken. Suddenly Trip was back, extinguishing the flames with a white cloud of foam. At the same time another display exploded, filling the air with more heat and smoke.

"There's another extinguisher... in the rear compartment," Malcolm coughed. "We... need to..."

Something on the console in front of him caught his attention, and Malcolm raised a hand to wipe his tearing eyes. Another display had lit up... was flashing, a bright, orange color...

"Get away from there!"

Using both hands, Malcolm pushed Trip as hard as he could. Trip stumbled and fell against one of the benches, and a second later the console behind Malcolm exploded, lifting him off his feet and hurling him through the air.

It was as if someone had suddenly slowed down the wild flurry of the last ten minutes, allowing Malcolm to experience his fall in slow motion. He saw pieces of burning metal fly past him, saw Trip's sooty face and eyes that were wide with terror, and his own hands, flailing through empty space as he fell. Then, for a brief moment, Malcolm got a glimpse of the deck he was going to hit a split second later. He was surprised to find that there was no pain at all.

The second Malcolm hit the floor, Trip was sure that he was dead. There was a dull crack and Malcolm immediately went limp, giving no cry of pain, not even a small whimper. Trip scrambled over to where he had fallen, ignoring the burning helm and the pain in his knee, which had hit the bench when Malcolm had pushed him.

Malcolm lay on the deck in a crumpled heap, his left arm bent at an unnatural angle. There was a puddle of blood forming around his head, soaking his dark hair. His face was gray, almost white.

Trip's hands shook so hard that he could hardly feel the pulse. He had to try twice before he finally detected a weak throbbing beneath his fingertips, faint but still there. He checked again to make sure he wasn't mistaken, closing his eyes in relief when he found that he wasn't. Malcolm was alive. Badly hurt, but still alive.

Very carefully, he ran a finger over the nape of Malcolm's neck, dreading to find a break in the bone. He knew that a person could still live if their neck was broken; Kher'lan back at the farm had lived another hour after he had fallen off the roof while changing broken tiles. Malcolm's neck, however, was intact, even though his skin felt clammy and cold.

Trip threw a quick glance around. The console in the front was still burning, the flickering flames the only thing he could see through the billows of black smoke. Smoke that was going to choke them if he didn't do something soon.

Forcing his hands to remain steady, Trip tore a piece of fabric out of his tee-shirt and wet it with water from an open bottle. After he had secured the makeshift mask at the back of his head, he grabbed the fire extinguisher which he had dropped earlier and ventured forward into the black cloud that surrounded the helm. Smoke wafted into his face, and his eyes stung as if they had been splashed with acid. He could hardly make out the fire anymore, grabbing the extinguisher with both hands and allowing the white foam to spray everywhere. A loud hissing told him that he had found what he was looking for. Trip needed all his strength to keep the jet of foam steady. His protection mask had slipped, forcing him to inhale the unfiltered smoke. A light, floating feeling took possession of his senses, and for a terrible second he was sure he was going to pass out. His grip on the extinguisher slackened but there was nothing he could do about it, his fingers having lost their ability to grasp things, and he was floating, his view narrowing down to a black tunnel that seemed to lead into nowhere...

A shudder ran through the shuttle and brought him back. The helm was a white mess, foam dripping off the controls and sizzling on the charred displays. Slowly, the smoke cleared away, and Trip saw that the stars outside the front window were no longer moving. The pod had come to a halt.

He set the fire extinguisher down. His mouth still tasted of the smoke he had inhaled, and for a moment Trip thought he was going to be sick. Resting his hands on his knees, he took a few deep breaths of clean air and waited for the feeling to pass. When he felt safe to move again, he stumbled to the back of the shuttle, remembering the box with medical equipment that was stored away under one of the benches. Malcolm had shown it to him on the first day of their journey when he had explained about the shuttle's basic functions and equipment.

"I do hope we won't need it, though," he had said, shoving it back under the bunk. "It's just in case."

Trip pulled out the small box and opened the lid. A feeling of despair took hold of him when he saw the closely printed labels that came with the numerous injection devices. He supposed that, if given enough time, he would be able to read and understand at least a few of them, but that would not do. Malcolm needed his help now.

Trip decided not to waste any precious minutes trying to decipher the injectors' labels and grabbed several rolls of gauze bandages instead. He had applied more than a few bandages in the past, and knew enough of the basics not to hurt Malcolm when he tended to the injury.

Kneeling down next to the unconscious man, Trip felt a flutter of panic at the back of his throat. The puddle around Malcolm's head was growing at an alarming speed, forming a halo of dark red blood on the deck. Malcolm's lips had taken on a pale blue tinge, and even though Trip didn't know the medical implications he realized that this couldn't mean any good. If Malcolm lost any more blood, his chances of survival were going to be very slim.

Carefully, Trip slid a hand under Malcolm's shoulder and rolled him over so he came to lie on his side. Malcolm's hair was dripping, and it took Trip a moment until he spotted the wound between the dark strands. Blood was welling from inside the red gap, preventing a closer look at the injury. Trip applied one of the gauze pads he had found among the medical equipment, and added another one when a dark red spot appeared on the first pad only seconds after he had pressed it against the wound. Holding the pads firmly in place, he wrapped the bandage around Malcolm's head, careful not to jostle him any more than absolutely necessary. Trip wasn't so sure if moving him at all had been a good idea, but the blood flow needed to be stopped or Malcolm would bleed to death right here on the shuttle floor.

When he was done, Trip carefully lowered Malcolm back onto the floor and sat back on his heels. His stomach was still churning, and he had to grit his teeth to keep his rising panic in check. He had no idea what he was going to do, how Malcolm expected him to handle the situation. There was no way he could start the shuttle again, not with the helm console lying scattered all over the deck. Not to mention the fact that he had never piloted any kind of vessel before, let alone a space shuttle.

Suddenly another tremor ran through the pod, forcing him to grab onto a nearby bench so as not to lose his balance. This time, however, the tremor would not subside but intensified instead, as if someone had tied a rope to the shuttle and was jerking it with all their might. Trip threw a frantic look around, trying to detect the source of the strange shaking. Not that he would be able to do anything about it, but if another console was going to explode into his face then he at least wanted to know before it happened. A second later, however, he realized that the tremor was not being caused by something within the pod. There was a strange blue light outside the front window, and Trip noticed that the shuttle was moving again... or rather being moved, pulled upwards by an unknown source of power.

So the scout ship was taking them aboard. Trip clenched his hands to fists, forcing himself to stay calm and think. Malcolm was hurt and badly so, possibly dying. And it was he who was going to have to deal with these people.

He crouched down on the floor next to the unconscious man. There was no way these people were going to help Malcolm, not if they were presented with the clean and easy possibility of letting Lieutenant Reed die in a freak accident. This was exactly the sort of situation they were hoping for, and maybe the reason why they had fired on the shuttle in the first place.

No, the Joint Forces weren't going to help Lieutenant Malcolm Reed. But maybe - and Trip realized that it was a very small maybe - they were going to help Charles Tucker III.

Again, a shudder ran through the shuttle, and Trip saw that the stars outside had been replaced by the gray interior of a hangar bay. A minute or two passed in silence, and Trip waited. Finally, he heard the sounds of voices outside, steps approaching the shuttle. He got to his feet.

Someone barked an order outside, and a second later the hatch sprang open, two armed security guards in dark green uniforms pointing their weapons at him. Slowly, Trip raised his hands to show them that he was unarmed. One of the guards nodded at someone on his right, and another man in uniform stepped in front of the open hatch, the insignia on his shoulder indicating that he belonged to the senior crew. The guards took a step backwards as the tall man approached the shuttle.

"Lieutenant Malcolm Reed?" he asked.

Trip hesitated, but only for a second. Then he nodded. "Yes," he said. "That's me."

TBC...

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