Title: Losing Their Bearings

Author: Kathy Rose

Rating: PG-13

Category: Drama/suspense

Warning: Not an AU. It's more a "what-if" scenario.

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to someone else, etc., etc., etc. I'm not making any money, I'm just having fun with the characters. Wish I'd thought of them first.

Summary: Enterprise is trapped in a strange area of space that is causing the crew to go mad, and Hoshi is Malcolm's only anchor to sanity

Beta: Thanks to PJ for betaing as well as for some ideas when I got stumped.

CHAPTER 1

The illumination in the corridor was more feeble than the last time Hoshi had been here. She gulped nervously and kept close to Malcolm as they moved along cautiously. The only sounds were the shuffling of their feet on the dusty deckplating and her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

They arrived at the cargo bay door. Malcolm looked in both directions before holstering his phase pistol.

"Keep an eye out," he said softly as he entered the access code at the jury-rigged panel.

Hoshi nodded, wiping a sweaty hand on her threadbare uniform before gripping her own pistol more tightly. The last time they had come here, they'd been attacked as they'd opened this same door. She shifted her gaze from left to right and back again, trying not to leave either end of the corridor unwatched for more than a few seconds.

She heard the hiss as the lock disengaged, and Malcolm grunting as he put his weight against the door to force it open. The hydraulics that moved the bigger doors like this one had long ago quit working.

Malcolm slipped inside. Hoshi maintained her lookout, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. She could hear Malcolm moving around in the cargo bay. The lighting in there must be bad, too, she realized as she heard him swear. From the sounds of it, he must have bumped into something.

A small smile curved her lips. A few years ago she never would have expected to hear him utter a profanity worse than his trademark "Bloody hell!" At least not within the range of her hearing.

Trip had recently observed that, the more Malcolm cursed, the worse things were getting. Hoshi had found Malcolm's profane verbalizations to be an accurate barometer of the state of things.

Her smile faded. Malcolm had been cursing more than usual lately.

Within minutes, he had returned and was closing the cargo bay door.

"Did you get anything?" she whispered anxiously. Looking down at the bag by his feet, she was disappointed to see that it didn't appear to have much in it.

"A little," he replied breathlessly as he did something to the door. "There. It's locked. Let's go."

They hustled to the ladder leading up to the next deck. Malcolm stepped to one side, looking in the direction from which they'd just come. He held the bag over his shoulder, pistol in his hand, as Hoshi grabbed the rails and put her foot on the first rung.

She glanced up as she began to climb. That action saved her from getting kicked in the face.

"Malcolm!" she cried out, ducking as a booted foot swung by her head with so much force that she could hear the swish of displaced air.

The flash of a blast from Malcolm's phase pistol seared over her head and she heard a grunt as it hit its target. She squeezed up against the ladder, but even so, was struck on the shoulder by the falling body. Gasping at the impact, she kept her gaze riveted upward, peering into the darkness.

She didn't see anyone else. Either their attacker was alone, or any would-be accomplices had decided not to mess with them. Most of the lower-deck inhabitants didn't have any weapons other than clubs, and phase pistols were a strong deterrent. Unfortunately, the lure of obtaining a phase pistol sometimes outweighed its effectiveness.

"He's OK," Malcolm said from where he was squatting to check their assailant's pulse.

Hoshi's nose wrinkled at the smell coming from the unkempt, bearded man. Her clothes might be shabby, but at least she kept them -- and herself -- clean.

"Come on!" she urged, the need to get moving gnawing at her, outweighing any compassion she might have felt for a former crewmate.

Malcolm stood up, grabbed the sack, and followed her up the ladder. "Rostov," he said quietly.

"I couldn't tell," she said truthfully.

She deliberately kept from looking too closely at any of the people they ran into on these forays. She'd rather not know who they were. It was easier that way.

Reaching the top of the ladder at the next deck, she stepped off and to the side, keeping a wary eye out for anyone who might be lurking around. Malcolm clambered up quickly and joined her in looking up and down the corridor.

He motioned her toward their next destination. She took a few steps toward what used to be the armory before she heard his soft footfalls following her. Something about how he was walking sounded wrong. Taking a quick glance behind, she saw that he was walking backwards, staring into the darkness at the other end of the corridor.

"Skip the armory!" he whispered loudly over his shoulder to her. "Head for the next ladder!"

She'd been to the lower decks enough times not to question Malcolm when he made a change in plans. The angry scar marring his temple was a strong reminder of what could happen if they couldn't deviate from their plans when the need arose.

As she altered course for the corridor that contained the ladder, she whispered, "I didn't hear anything."

"Me, neither," he said as he hurried her along. "But I saw some shadows that shouldn't have been there. There's more than one this time."

They moved quickly down the corridor. Halfway along, Malcolm suddenly gave her a shove that propelled her into running. Seeing the ladder ahead, she knew safety was only moments away, and she put on a burst of speed.

She leaped onto the ladder, not bothering to holster her pistol. Scrambling as fast as she could, she made it to the top, Malcolm bumping into her legs in his haste.

"Move it, Hoshi!" he cried. "They're right behind us!"

Her hands fumbled with the mechanism on the latch at the top of this ladder, and she almost screamed in frustration and fear as she tried to tap in the recognition code. At last the lock on the other side disengaged and the hatch popped upward.

She blinked in the glare of light from the opening. Several anxious faces peered down at her, and a hand reached out for her.

With a strangled cry of relief, she grasped the offered hand and was yanked up and out of the way. Malcolm scurried up behind her and slammed the hatch shut, dogging it down just as it reverberated with the sound of metal hitting metal from the other side.

Hoshi gave Malcolm a weak smile. They'd made it out just in time.

Trip and T'Pol, both dressed in uniforms in the same sorry, worn-out state as hers and Malcolm's, were inspecting the contents of the sack. "Didn't get much, did ya?" Trip remarked, pulling out several strips of thin metal.

"I'd like to see you do better," Malcolm said angrily.

"I'm not criticizin', just statin' a fact," Trip said.

Hoshi wished Trip would keep quiet. No matter what he said, or how he said it, Malcolm seemed to take offense. It wasn't Trip's fault; it's just the way things were nowadays. Had been for some time.

Hoshi closed her eyes as she leaned against the bulkhead trying to calm down. She and Malcolm had the best record of scavenging of all the able-bodied crew. That's why they were so often the ones picked to go down into the bowels of the ship. She didn't like it, but that's the way things were.

She pushed herself away from the bulkhead as she resigned herself to something she couldn't change.

"Come on," she said to Malcolm as she gave T'Pol her pistol. "Let's go back to our quarters. I'm beat."

Malcolm tore his resentful glare away from Trip and gave her a nod. Handing over his pistol to one of the crew stationed at the hatch, he followed Hoshi down the corridor toward yet another ladder to begin the climb to the living area.

(Author's Note: Explanations are coming in the next chapter.)