CHAPTER 6

Trip imparted one last piece of information as Hoshi and Malcolm prepared to descend to the lower decks.

"I talked T'Pol into havin' somebody keep watch on that light," Trip said in a conspiratorial tone to Hoshi as she put on her holster. "I mean, what if it suddenly showed up right next to the ship?"

"That's exactly what I was thinking," said Hoshi. "If it is somebody out there, they aren't necessarily here to help us. We should be prepared."

With a jerk of his head toward Malcolm, Trip commented, "You been hangin' around this guy too long. He's supposed to be the paranoid one."

Hoshi's head shot up in displeasure at his words and she opened her mouth to tell him off. Then she saw his grin. He was teasing her.

She blew out a gust of air as she realized that Trip actually was right -- she was becoming paranoid. With a slight smile, she took the phase pistol he held out to her.

At least Malcolm hadn't taken offense. He was too wired on adrenaline at the moment to pay close attention to her conversation with Trip.

"Ready?" Malcolm asked her as he took the other pistol from Trip and holstered it.

She nodded and stood to the side as Malcolm unlocked the hatch and stepped onto the ladder. As soon as he had moved down far enough, Hoshi stepped onto the ladder and began climbing down. The hatch was slammed shut above her, and she stopped for a moment to allow her eyes to adjust to the lower light level.

"Malcolm!" she said, projecting her voice as much as possible while whispering. "Is it darker than usual down here?"

He had reached the bottom of the ladder and was looking from side to side, his phase pistol in hand. "I think you're right," he said softly as she finished climbing down the ladder. "Some of the light fixtures must be broken or burned out."

As they began moving cautiously down the corridor, he added, "If this keeps up, we're going to have to rely totally on hand torches when we come down here."

An involuntary shudder ran through Hoshi's body. It was spooky enough down here without having to depend on flashlights. Eventually, if the lighting got too bad, they'd have to replace some of the fixtures. It wouldn't be right to let the people who had to live down here stumble around in the dark.

They headed for the armory first. There were some targeting scanners there they might be able to cannibalize for parts to make the measuring-surveying devices. She took up position guarding Malcolm's back as he unlocked the door to his former domain.

Usually Hoshi would remain in the hall while Malcolm entered whatever compartment or cabin was their goal. This time, however, he was going to need help removing the scanner pieces. As soon as he had the door open and had slipped inside, Hoshi followed.

Together they pushed the door closed. If anyone did pass by, they might not realize the door had been tampered with. Rather than leave the big mag-lock on the deck in the corridor outside as a dead give-away that the door wasn't secured, Malcolm had brought it inside. Hoshi hoped that if anyone did wander by, they wouldn't notice the lock was gone.

Once the door was shut, they turned on their flashlights. The lighting in the armory had been disabled to discourage anyone who might break in. Not that there was much left in the armory -- Malcolm and his staff had pretty much cleaned it out when the decision was made to segregate the ship's crew.

Malcolm led the way across the room. Handing Hoshi his flashlight, he pulled at a panel and yanked it loose. She handed his flashlight back to him and he pointed it into the opening.

"Ah-hah," he said quietly. "There's something we can use."

He handed the flashlight to her again and, with her directing the beam into the opening, began detaching a component from the wiring.

Hoshi looked nervously over her shoulder. She could have sworn she'd heard something -- the faintest rustle of fabric as if pants legs had brushed together as someone was walking. But she didn't see anything. It was pitch black in the armory.

She had just turned her face back toward Malcolm when she heard it again.

"Malcolm!" she whispered harshly as she whirled to face the darkness, switching off both flashlights to help hide her and Malcolm. "There's someone in here with us."

Just as Hoshi had learned not to disregard Malcolm's directives during their below-deck excursions, he had learned to heed what her hearing told her. He, too, put his back to the open panel and reached blindly in the dark to take his flashlight from her. "Where?" he whispered.

"Main door, two meters to the left."

"On three, shine your torch on that spot," he told her sotto voce. "One. Two. Three!"

The beams of their flashlights flicked on and converged to the left of the door, catching the face of a startled man who froze in place. The features beneath the scraggly beard and longish hair were instantly recognizable.

"Captain!" Hoshi said in surprise.

Next to her, Malcolm muttered under his breath. "How did he get in here?"

Hoshi shook her head. She had no idea how the captain could have gotten in the armory without them knowing. If he'd come through the main door, they would have seen the light from the corridor. And she would have heard his movements if he'd come in through a ventilation duct.

Taking in the captain's disheveled appearance, she noticed something else. "He's got a stick or club of some sort," she said to Malcolm out of the corner of her mouth.

As if her words had broken a spell, Jonathan began advancing on them, a metal chair leg clutched in one of his hands.

"Malcolm, do something!" Hoshi said in alarm.

Aiming his pistol at their erstwhile leader, Malcolm said loudly, "Stop where you are, sir."

Instead of stopping, Jonathan walked toward them even more quickly, raising the club above his head.

Malcolm had no choice. He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Assuming a defensive stance, Malcolm yelled at Hoshi, "Shoot him!"

He had no sooner spoken than Jonathan was upon him. Malcolm ducked the swing of the club, giving Hoshi a clean shot, but nothing happened when she pulled the trigger of her pistol.

"It's not working!" she shouted, keeping her flashlight trained on the two men but taking a step back as the fight moved in her direction.

Malcolm, unable to get in any blows of his own, was dodging the club as Jonathan swung it back and forth. He dropped both his flashlight and the useless phase pistol, and reached out and grabbed the club as it swung by him yet again, trying to yank it away from the bigger man.

Hoshi watched in fascinated horror as Jonathan kept his grip on the club and slammed Malcolm, who was holding onto the other end, into one of the empty torpedo racks. Malcolm's head hit the rack hard and he crumpled to the deck.

Hoshi screamed out Malcolm's name, but her outburst only drew Jonathan's attention to her. She backed up, holding the light on him, until she came up against a bulkhead.

"Hoshi?" Jonathan whispered, reaching out as he slowly walked toward her.

Trying to repress a whimper, Hoshi waited for what was to happen. The people who were down here had violent tendencies. The captain had already hurt Malcolm. Was it her turn next?

As if reading her mind, Jonathan said soothingly, "Don't be afraid, Hoshi. I won't hurt you. Trip told me not to."

The captain had to be delusional. Trip didn't have any contact with the people living down here. Nobody did.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

Jonathan tilted his head as he looked at her. "Trip. My friend, Trip," he said as if she weren't very bright. "He told me you were coming down here."

Hoshi was afraid, but a tiny spark of suspicion flared up at this information. "Why would Trip do that?" she asked.

Jonathan looked down at the still form of the tactical officer on the floor. "He doesn't like Malcolm," he said simply. Then his face twisted in anger, and his voice dropped to a hoarse, gravelly whisper. "I don't like Malcolm, either. He shot me and put me down here. I'm not the captain any more because of him." Looking back at Hoshi, his eyes glazed with madness, he continued, "Trip likes you. He said if I took care of Malcolm and took you to him, he'd make me captain again."

He bent over and retrieved Malcolm's flashlight from where it had fallen on the deck. Hoshi caught a glimpse of Malcolm as the light swept over his body. She thought she saw his chest rise with his breathing.

"You're too good for him," Jonathan said, following her gaze. "That's what Trip says."

Hoshi's mind was beset with the implications of the things Jonathan had said. Surely they were the ramblings of a deranged mind. He wasn't sane.

But it made an awful sense. Someone had to have told Jonathan they were coming. Somehow he'd gotten into the locked armory before they'd arrived. She hadn't heard Jonathan enter the armory because he had gotten there before them and was waiting.

And he'd been offered a powerful motivation -- do what Trip said, and he'd be the captain again.

The captaincy was a bribe to get Jonathan to do what Trip wanted. The only reason she could think of for Trip wanting Malcolm out of the way was that she would have no excuse to turn down his advances any more. Trip had made it clear he wanted an intimate relationship with her.

But no one in their right mind would agree to allow Jonathan Archer to command in his current mental state.

No one in their right mind, a little voice in her head mocked her. As Jonathan grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the door, she realized Trip must have succumbed to the madness as well.