CHAPTER 12
Hoshi ran through the mess hall to the comm panel by the door. Keying a button, she paged Malcolm.
Looking back at the captain's mess, she saw Trip standing in the doorway. He was hunched over slightly and panting, but he made no move to come after her.
She hoped he was in pain, but she had no delusions. It wasn't her self-defense skills that stopped him from approaching her -- it was the presence of several crewmen at one of the tables in the mess hall.
When Malcolm didn't respond to her repeated calls, she dashed for the mess hall's exit and ran smack into Travis' chest as the door opened.
"Whoa, Hoshi!" he said, grabbing her by the shoulders to steady her. "Where's the fire?"
"Travis!" she cried, never more glad to see her friend than at this moment. "I think Malcolm's in danger. We've got to help him!"
"What?" he asked incredulously as he let go of her arms.
"Come on, Travis," she said, looking over her shoulder at Trip. "There's no time to lose."
Following her gaze, he asked, "Shouldn't we tell Commander Tucker?"
"No. He's the last one to tell," she said vehemently, bouncing on the balls of her feet and tugging at Travis' arm. "Come on."
Hoshi took off at a run down the corridor, Travis right behind going as fast as his bad leg would allow. He caught up to her as she began climbing a ladder.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"My quarters on C deck," she said. "Malcolm was supposed to be there looking over the information from the Blaniats."
"Why do you think he's in trouble?"
"It's too complicated to explain right now," she said. "Please, just trust me on this, Travis."
Grunting at the strain on his bad leg, he said, "OK, but I want to know everything when this is over."
She agreed breathlessly, panic urging her to quicken her pace. She could easily outdistance Travis with his bad leg.
"I'm going on ahead," she told him. "Catch up as quickly as you can."
She didn't look back as she reached the top of the ladder and sprinted down the hall to the next ladder she had to climb. She was breathing hard now, more from fear of what might be happening to Malcolm than from her own exertion. She prayed she wasn't too late.
Dashing up the ladder, she found the corridor deserted when she reached the top. She ran down the corridor, turning at the corner. There was her door, not ten meters ahead. In her haste, she stumbled, and only her outthrust arm grazing a bulkhead kept her from falling to the deck.
The fear she would find Malcolm dead when she opened the door increased as chill fingers of dread ran up her spine when the door refused to open to her access code. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead as she tried to still the trembling in her hand and re-enter the code. She finished inputting the code a second time, and again the door would not open.
She screamed out her frustration, knowing now for sure that something was wrong, and banged on the door with her fist.
"Hoshi!" Travis called as he limped down the corridor toward her. "What's wrong?"
"I can't get in!" she cried, hysteria threatening to overwhelm her as she continued to pound on the door. "My code isn't working!"
Hoshi was barely aware of Travis hurrying toward her. Malcolm could be dying as she stood helplessly outside their cabin. Tears began to stream down her face, and she dashed them away with one hand as she continued to strike uselessly at the door with the other.
Reaching her side, Travis said, "Stand back," and pushed her to the side.
He ripped the cover plate off the control panel and stuck his hand inside. Grasping several wires, he yanked hard, pulling them loose. There was an audible click as the locking mechanism disengaged.
With a hopeful cry, Hoshi flung herself at the door, pushing and clawing, trying to open it. Travis added his strength to the attempt and the door moved a fraction, giving way with a loud pop.
Hoshi could hear the sound of air rushing past her into the room through the tiny slit of an opening and, putting her hand up to the crack, she could feel a current of air moving forcefully past.
"Oh my God!" she said. "There's no air in the cabin!"
Travis gave the door another yank and it flew open so easily that it bounced in its track. Once the air pressure had equalized, the resistance had evaporated.
"Malcolm!" Hoshi called out fearfully as she stepped through the doorway. She didn't see him, and for a brief moment she thought perhaps he hadn't been in their cabin.
But then she saw a booted foot sticking out from beyond the desk, and she rushed over, falling to her knees beside Malcolm. He was stretched out on his stomach, one arm on the floor above his head as if he had been trying to reach for something.
"Malcolm," she sobbed as she placed her fingers on his neck trying to find a pulse.
"Is he...?" Travis asked.
"I don't know!" she cried. "I can't find a pulse."
Travis dropped down to the floor on the other side of Malcolm, rolled him onto his back, and picked up one of his hands. He felt for a pulse at the wrist. After a moment he said, "I think his heart is beating, but it's not very strong."
Travis got back to his feet and leaned over the desk to use its comm panel to contact sickbay and request medical assistance.
"He's breathing!" Hoshi said, hope in her shaking voice. As Travis moved back to her, she added with a tremulous smile, "The blue around his lips is going away!"
Squatting down next to them, Travis said, "If he's breathing, he'll probably be OK. But, Hoshi, what happened to the air in here? How did you know something was wrong?"
Hoshi was grasping Malcolm's hand as if it were a lifeline. She shuddered once before speaking. "I don't know what happened to the air, but I knew Malcolm was in danger." Looking Travis straight in the eye, she said evenly, "This is the second time, maybe the third, that Trip has tried to kill Malcolm. Trip said something to me right before you came to the mess hall that made me realize Malcolm was in danger."
It was to Travis' credit that he didn't try to defend the chief engineer immediately. He and Hoshi had both seen a number of other crew members act irrationally in the last two years. What swayed Travis to believe Hoshi's accusation rather than think she was ready to join the ranks of those below decks was unconscious on the deck between them. Hoshi's quick action had saved Malcolm's life.
Travis blew out a breath, about to ask for more details, when Liz Cutler and a med tech rushed through the open door. Travis got out of the way, giving them room to work. He listened as Liz asked questions about Malcolm's condition, and Hoshi answered, her voice unsteady again.
When Sub-commander T'Pol appeared in the doorway, Travis motioned her to remain in the corridor. He joined her in the hall and told her in a low voice what had happened.
Well aware of her Vulcan control, he was nevertheless surprised by her lack of reaction to the news that Trip had possibly tried to commit murder several times. He, too, was aware of T'Pol's relationship with the engineer. If anything, that ought to make her react somehow, Travis thought, but all he saw was her usual steely demeanor.
"Come with me, Ensign," she said. Noticing his anxious glance back at Hoshi and Malcolm's cabin, she added, "This will only take a few moments."
T'Pol led him around the bend in the corridor to one of the maintenance access panels. She removed it and stepped in, Travis following her. They worked their way along the narrow accessway until they came to the ventilation cut-offs. T'Pol methodically counted the number of switches until she came to the one for Hoshi and Malcolm's cabin -- it was in the vent position, its safety override disengaged.
"Someone did that on purpose," Travis said, his jaw tightening.
"And the speed of the venting has been tampered with as well," T'Pol noted, checking a gauge. "It has been set at a low speed."
Looking at T'Pol, Travis added, "Slow enough that a person in the room being vented might not notice until it's too late."
Straightening as much as possible in the confines of the maintenance accessway, T'Pol said, "There is no doubt. This was a deliberate attempt on Lieutenant Reed's life. Someone tried to asphyxiate him."
Travis held his tongue as T'Pol reset the switches to the correct position before they left the accessway. They both needed to hear what Hoshi had to say before action -- if any -- could be taken.