A/N: I want to thank JadziaKathryn for catching a boo-boo in Ch. 3. She pointed out something that appeared to be a very messed up sentence, when actually it was a couple of paragraphs that were missing. I've corrected it so that it makes sense now. Thanks, JK!

CHAPTER 4

Very few people came to the bridge any more. There was no need to, as most of the operational functions for the ship were now handled through engineering.

The bridge was pretty much a dead hulk, Hoshi thought as she sat down at her console. Communications was the one thing that hadn't been totally switched to engineering.

She came to the bridge once a day to check the automatic distress beacon. Not once had it wavered in its programmed purpose, and not once had there been a reply. The weird space they were trapped in prevented the signal from traveling very far. But there was always a possibility, a freak chance, that the signal might get out.

Each time she came to the bridge, Hoshi also attempted to send a regular, wide-band hail on all frequencies. She'd learned the first time she'd tried it not to have the monitor in her ear, as the resultant feedback caused a horrendous squeal.

Over time, she'd become rather lackadaisical about sending the hail. She'd go to the bridge, check the distress signal, send the hail, and that would be that.

Until one time six months ago. She was running through all the frequencies when the feedback suddenly stopped. The transmission had found a clear channel. But almost as abruptly as the feedback had stopped, it started again, leaving Hoshi to wonder if she had imagined the whole thing.

With T'Pol's help, she had been able to ascertain that, indeed, the hail had gotten out. Whether someone had heard the hail was unknown. For all they knew, anyone who may have heard it and tried to come to their aid was stuck just as surely as they were.

Still, it gave the crew a tidbit of hope to cling to. They had managed to get a signal out. Maybe it would happen again.

That was six months ago, and it hadn't happened again. Hoshi was finding it hard to dredge up any enthusiasm for continuing the hails. Today's visit was turning out to be no different than any other visit to the bridge recently. She expected that she would check the distress beacon, send the hail, and leave.

But there was something different today, she realized with a start of guilty pleasure. For once, Malcolm hadn't accompanied her to the bridge. When he'd first starting doing it, she had been reassured by his presence. Then, when she realized how much jealousy of Trip played in Malcolm's desire to be with her constantly, she'd become annoyed.

Malcolm wasn't with her today because he and Travis were trying to figure out a way to increase the life of the power cells for the phase pistols. They were down to eleven of them, and those didn't always take well to being recharged any more.

So she felt relieved to be by herself, if only for a short time. Later she and Malcolm would make another foray to find the materials Trip wanted. But for now, she was on her own and she was going to enjoy it.

The bridge had to be one of the safest places on the ship. It was the farthest away from the lower decks. Anyone who could pose a danger, provided they managed to get into the secure sections, would have to come up several decks to get to the bridge.

Her work finished, she meandered around aimlessly. Memories cropped up as she gazed at the various stations -- Travis, a grin on his face as he put Enterprise through its paces; the captain, standing by his chair as he made the recording for some schoolchildren back on Earth; Malcolm, smirking as he input commands into the tactical console.

Her gaze slid past T'Pol's science station and came to rest on the door to the captain's ready room. Hoshi hadn't been in there in ages. No one had. There was no reason to.

She'd been as shocked as the rest of them when Jonathan had gone crazy, ordering all of Phlox's creatures to be killed. She'd never told anyone, but she believed that when Porthos had died, something in Jonathan had snapped. He'd loved that little dog so much that the grief he'd felt was too much for him to handle.

They had never figured out why Porthos had died, other than he seemed to succumb to the same madness affecting the humans. For canines, however, it was fatal, and that had struck her as being terribly unfair to both the dog and the man who cared so deeply for him.

It was only three days after Porthos died that Jonathan had gone berserk.

Hoshi wandered over to the ready room door. Amazingly, it opened at the touch of her finger on the button. As an energy-saving measure, Trip had cut power not only to the turbolifts but to all the doors, and had installed latches on them. He must have forgotten about this one, or maybe it had been too painful to work on something that reminded him of his friend.

She took a step into the room and looked around curiously. Everything was the same as she remembered it.

A fond smile crossed her face as she saw the coffee cup next to the computer screen on the desk. How many times had she come in here to talk to the captain, only to find him guzzling coffee and calling up information on the screen?

There were some books on a shelf by the short couch, and she idly read the titles before moving over to look at the representations of the various Enterprises on the wall. If they didn't get out of this, would there be another Enterprise, she wondered.

She shook her head, trying to erase the morbid thought. If she would have known coming in here would depress her, she wouldn't have done it.

She was turning away from the pictures when she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. No one else was supposed to be in here, and her heart pounded as she tried to figure out what she had seen.

Wide-eyed, she was gazing around apprehensively when the flicker came again, and she realized she had been mistaken. There was nothing in the ready room with her -- the movement was coming from outside. There was something outside the window.

She backed slowly toward the door, keeping her eyes on the view outside the window. Not that there was much to see -- a black field with only a very few distant stars. She stared unblinkingly until her eyes started to tear.

There it was again! The barest shimmer of light far away. It gleamed for a few moments and then faded.

She'd never seen anything like it in the two years they'd been stuck here. No one ever saw anything outside. It had gotten to the point that they'd closed most of the blast shields simply because the relentless sameness was so depressing. Since no one came in the ready room any more, they'd forgotten about this window, and its blast shield hadn't been lowered.

Her back up against the door jamb, she waited to see if the light would appear again. A lesson from her Starfleet communications training came back to her, and she became excited as she recalled the instructor emphasizing that audio signals weren't the only method of communication. Some species relied on visual languages.

Maybe there was someone else out there, someone who could navigate in this glue they were stuck in, someone who could help them. She conjectured that such aliens would use visual communications, since audio transmissions didn't work here.

Again the glimmer of light shone faintly in the distance. She stared at it transfixed until it faded again.

But what if the light was coming from an intelligent species that was hostile? The fear she'd felt when she first saw the light resurfaced.

She had to let the others know what she had seen but she'd have to go out on the bridge to do so. In the meantime, it would be just her luck that that light would disappear and no one but her would have seen it. Would the others think she'd been hallucinating or, even worse, falling victim to the madness?

Hoshi rushed to the internal comm unit on the main communications console on the bridge. Keying the button to open a line to the other parts of the ship, the irony of the situation struck her. What a time for Malcolm not to accompany her to the bridge! She'd been happy to have a little time alone without him. Now she regretted that he wasn't here to back up what she had seen.

T'Pol answered the comm and Hoshi told her about the light. There was a long pause before T'Pol said anything.

"Can Mr. Reed confirm this?" the Vulcan asked, knowing the habits of her officers and that Malcolm normally would be with Hoshi.

"He's not here right now," Hoshi said, her heart sinking, realizing T'Pol was going to doubt her.

There was another long pause. "Go back and monitor what you see outside," T'Pol said. "I will be there directly."

Hoshi cut the connection and went back into the ready room. She stood gazing out the window, hoping the light would continue to appear after T'Pol arrived.