A/N: I seemed to be having some kind of problem in Ch. 3 and 4. Several paragraphs near the beginning of each chapter were dropped out. I've reposted them, and they seem to be ok, and am hoping it doesn't occur with this chapter. If there seems to be a sentence that doesn't make sense (because of missing words or misspellings), please let me know. I'd appreciate it.

CHAPTER 5

T'Pol peered intently at the bright spot in the otherwise dark vastness of space. On either side of her, Trip and Malcolm did the same.

"How often does it appear?" T'Pol asked Hoshi after the light faded.

Hoshi's face scrunched up as she thought. "I don't know. Every two and a half minutes or so, I think."

"Does it appear to be coming closer?"

"I've only seen it something like nine or ten times," Hoshi said rather huffily. "It's looked pretty much the same every time."

Hoshi had been relieved when the light appeared after the others had arrived in the ready room. She hadn't been seeing things. But the vindication of her mental stability was rapidly giving way to annoyance as T'Pol continued to question her about things for which she had no answers. All she'd done was discover the darned thing.

Malcolm picked up on Hoshi's mood and took a supportive step toward her.

"What were you doing in here, Ensign?" T'Pol asked.

Hoshi glanced at Malcolm, then looked away. She still felt a little guilty about enjoying being away from him for a brief time.

"I don't know what I was doing in here," she admitted. "Just curious, I guess, to see if it was still the same as it used to be when...the captain was..."

As her voice trailed off, she saw understanding cross T'Pol's usually unchanging features. T'Pol missed the captain, too. Despite T'Pol's Vulcan steadfastness, Hoshi realized it must be terribly difficult to be the one in charge, especially given these circumstances.

Hoshi had always thought the captain and T'Pol would get together some day. She flicked her gaze to Trip to find him staring at T'Pol. He must know he hadn't been T'Pol's first choice. They hadn't gotten together until after the captain had gone mad.

Hoshi felt sorry for Trip, but she had her own problems to deal with, one of which was him hitting on her.

"We must study this phenomenon," T'Pol was saying, bringing Hoshi's wandering attention back to the ready room. "First, we must determine if it is in motion or is stationary."

All business now in the face of this new project, Trip and Malcolm looked at each other.

"We're gonna have to do it the old-fashioned way, since sensors don't work," Trip said.

Malcolm nodded and rubbed his chin. "I don't think we have a sextant or even land-surveying equipment on board," he said. "I'll check the inventory lists to make sure. If we don't, I suppose we could fashion something rudimentary. The few stars out there should be enough to use for triangulation."

"We will need to set up rotating shifts of crewmembers once we have the equipment," T'Pol stated. "I'll check the crew roster to determine if anyone has such experience."

"Shouldn't someone stay here and keep an eye on it until we get the schedule set up?" Hoshi asked.

T'Pol looked at her unblinkingly. "I see no purpose to it. The phenomenon will either continue or it won't. Having someone 'keep an eye' on it until we set up the monitoring schedule will make no difference." She started for the door, only to stop and turn back to Hoshi. "Unless, for lack of anything better to do, you are volunteering to watch it?"

Malcolm, catching Hoshi's eye and shaking his head, answered before she could. "We still have to go after the solder for Trip and the ration packs. We'll do that after I know whether we need to scavenge materials to make the surveying equipment."

Hoshi's stomach clenched into a tight knot. In the excitement over her discovery, she'd almost forgotten they had to go back to the lower decks again.

Noticing her downcast expression, Malcolm said, "Let's get something to eat. I can look over the inventory lists at the same time."

Following him out of the ready room, Hoshi reflected that Malcolm's interest in food was another area in which he'd changed. He used to ignore eating, like it wasn't important. Now he often seemed to use mealtime as a way to bond with her.

Maybe that whack on the head had changed him just as much as the madness was trying to. It was after that incident that he had become so clingy and protective of her.

As he led the way to the mess hall, the memory of how he'd received the scar on his temple rose unbidden in her mind.

They had been on one of their first missions below-decks shortly after the ship had been divided into sections. She couldn't remember exactly what they had been looking for but she recalled that they didn't find it. What they had found was a group of three crewmen sitting on the deck in one of the corridors.

Malcolm had wanted to backtrack and use another corridor instead of trying to go past them. Hoshi thought the crewmen looked docile and had disagreed, and had walked toward them before Malcolm could stop her.

She had recognized all three, and she had put a pleasant smile on her face as she approached them. She was just opening her mouth to say hello when Crewman Dillard, formerly of engineering, jumped up and grabbed her by the throat.

Malcolm had pulled Dillard off her and shoved him aside. As Malcolm had pushed her behind him, one of the other crewmen swung a club, striking him in the temple and knocking him to the deck.

Hoshi had gotten her phase pistol unholstered by then and stunned Malcolm's attacker before turning it on the other two.

She'd wound up dragging Malcolm to the ladder at the access hatch, no mean feat since it was on the other side of the ship from where they were. She still occasionally had dreams about it, seeing the trail of blood left by his dripping six-centimeter wound on the side of his forehead. But in her nightmares, a pack of crazed crewmen were following them, baying like hounds scenting a trail.

Unable to lift Malcolm up the ladder by herself, she'd had to leave him when she went for help. The minute it took to climb the ladder and punch in the access code on the hatch lock was the longest she had ever experienced. All the while, she was terrified someone would come along and kill Malcolm.

As soon as the hatch had popped open and Travis had seen the look on her face, he'd hopped down past her. Between the two of them, they'd managed to get Malcolm up the ladder and to sickbay.

Luckily that had happened before the captain, in the onset of his madness, had hurt Phlox. The doctor was able to stop the bleeding. He could even have removed the scar, but for some perverse reason Hoshi couldn't understand, Malcolm had wanted to keep it.

A question from Malcolm as they entered the mess hall intruded upon her recollections.

"Worried about going after supplies?" he asked as they walked through the mess hall to the galley. Chef no longer set up a serving line or filled the self-serve food cabinets; everyone helped themselves from whatever was cooking on the stove or was set out on one of the countertops in the galley.

"A little," she admitted, picking up a bowl. "I was actually thinking about Doctor Phlox."

"Oh?" Malcolm said as he ladled thick vegetable soup into her bowl and filled another for himself.

"Yes. I haven't been to see him for some time. I ought to go visit."

Malcolm didn't say anything more until they'd each picked up some bread to go with the soup and found a place to sit in the mess hall. As they started to eat, he remarked, "Phlox probably doesn't hear you, you know."

Hoshi made a face. They'd had this discussion before.

"There's a chance he might," she said. "Sometimes unconscious people can hear what's going on around them. Stasis can't be that much different."

Malcolm made a noncommittal murmur as he ate.

"Besides," Hoshi continued undeterred, "I want to tell him about the light I saw. It might give him some hope about getting out of here and getting help for him."

Phlox's brain had been damaged when the captain had attacked him. He'd never regained consciousness afterward, and keeping him in sickbay, caring for him in a coma, wasn't an option. No one on board had the expertise to keep him alive in such a state.

Trip, working with breakthroughs that had occurred on Earth about the time Enterprise was launched, had devised a stasis chamber in which to put Phlox. It was just off sickbay, and one of Liz Cutler's duties was to check on Phlox every day.

Hoshi didn't know how Liz could do it. She and the doctor had been close friends. It must hurt horribly to have to take care of him the way he was now.

Malcolm and Hoshi lapsed into silence as they ate their meal. Hoshi was lost in memories of what had been, and Malcolm was checking over the quartermaster's PADD with the inventory list. Too bad the quartermaster was one of the crew who was now below-decks. The man used to know where every item on board could be found, most of the time without checking the files.

"Well," Malcolm said as he finished his soup and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. "No sextant. Not that I was expecting to find one."

"What about that other stuff?" Hoshi asked. "The surveying equipment?"

"No, not that, either," he said. "We're going to have to find some optical lenses. We'll need to check with Trip on that."

Hoshi watched Malcolm's face closely. She didn't see any resentment on his part about having to work with Trip. Not that she expected to right now. Malcolm got jazzed before going below decks. Must be something to do with the anticipation of the danger they'd be facing or perhaps the challenge of the mission, she thought.

Whatever the reason, while she became tense and scared, he'd be almost giddy as if he were experiencing a chemically induced high. They'd become the perfect foils for each other, she thought as they picked up their dishes and took them back to be washed in the galley. Maybe that's what had kept them alive through so many dangerous excursions below decks.

She prayed their luck continued.