Hoshi sat at the communications console, staring glumly at the Universal Translator program she had just updated. She had been pleased with the work, eager to end her shift so she could share it with the other linguists and communication specialists. All the joy in the accomplishment had disappeared fifteen minutes ago when Captain Archer had ordered a new course. He hadn't even had to tell the bridge crew where the new heading would take them; they all knew the coordinates for Earth. Now he stood. "Hoshi, get me Admiral Forrest." Archer threw the order over his shoulder as he stalked towards his ready room.

Although Hoshi had no way of knowing the content of the conversation—although it wasn't hard to guess— part of her job required her to monitor the transmission to make sure there were no technical difficulties. So she knew the conversation had lasted only seven minutes. Seven minutes, she mused. How could the captain possibly explain the situation, in all it's complexity, in just seven minutes? Six really, when you took out time for greetings. It seemed sad to her that the decision had been made so quickly. Six minutes just didn't seem a long enough for their fate to be determined.

Hoshi shook her head. It wasn't true of course. Everything was not decided. There would be numerous discussions and meetings once they returned to Earth, and if they could fix this problem, Enterprise would resume her mission. Or so Hoshi hoped. This would be a perfect opportunity for their detractors to point out that all sorts of untoward things could happen in space. And the Vulcans would probably shake their collective pointy-eared heads and manage to communicate "I told you so" without ever saying the actual words. The thought made Hoshi smile a little. There had been a time when she would have whole heartedly agreed with the detractors. Now, though, it was hard to imagine being Earth-bound.

With the exception of the captain and T'Pol, who seemed unaffected by the epidemic, Hoshi knew she had been the least affected. Ironically, while she could easily become the communications officer of another ship, the rest of the crew would not be so fortunate. There were still multiple languages used on Earth, and despite the ready availability of translating devices that were highly refined for the Earth languages, many people did not like them. People liked to converse in their native tongues. In the worst-case scenario, she could go back into teaching or work on perfecting the UT. There would always be a job for a good linguist. And Hoshi was a very good linguist.

And yet…. while it was reassuring to know that she was eminently employable, it did nothing to lift her mood. She didn't want to return to Earth. She wanted to stay on Enterprise, with her friends. If they were forced back to Earth, what would become of them, her new family? Their skills were badly affected. While they could remain in Starfleet, they couldn't return to their current positions. They would need time to re-master their lost skills. How long would that take? Mayweather had been piloting literally since he was a child. Was all that lost? How long would it take for him to even be good enough to pilot a cargo ship with confidence? And what about Trip? How long before he regained the "art" of engineering? How long before he could stand in an engine room and know by the hum of the engine exactly how the ship was faring. And what about Malcolm? While he was as educated as Trip or Hoshi, his field relied the least on "book knowledge" and depended instead on things like the ability to predict, based on experience, what an opponent was likely to do, what tactics might work best against them, and how to exploit a weakness. It wasn't education that let him hit a target dead center more times than not—it was years of practice. How long would it take him to regain those skills? And what could he do in the meantime? Of all the senior officers, Malcolm's skills were the most affected. What about the doctor? And Cutler? What would Chef do? The fact that her own career was secure did little to comfort Hoshi.

She knew Starfleet would take care of her friends. They would not be thrown out on the streets, unemployable. They would be retrained, or given jobs they could do adequately, if not with the brilliance they had displayed in their areas of expertise. But how happy would they be those jobs, knowing what they had lost? Settling for second best? It was no way to live.

Preoccupied with these thoughts, it took Hoshi an extra second to realize that she was receiving a communication. She quickly realized it was not coming from Starfleet; the frequency was wrong. She made a quick adjustment to clear up the background noise. As the static disappeared, she recognized the language. It was Actuarian. Pleased that she would be able to test the refinements she had made to the UT, she prepared to reply, then belatedly realised that the message was not being directed at Enterprise. She was picking up a stray transmission. Curious, she increased the signal strength, and made sure the message was being recorded. What she heard brought her fully alert. Her morose musings were forgotten as in her haste she fumbled for intercom button to summon the captain to the bridge.

Archer tapped the 'Send' button on his communication console as he finished the communiqué to Admiral Forest, elaborating on what they had discussed in person. The Admiral had needed to attend another meeting, one that couldn't be put off even for a medical emergency on the fleet's flagship, but he had wanted more information to pass to the medical community so they could be as prepared as possible for the arrival of the Enterprise. The Admiral's greatest concern had been the possibility that the ailment was contagious. The fact that neither Archer nor T'Pol seemed affected had not reassured him, since the ailment was somewhat nebulous and they had not conclusively pinpointed a cause. Perhaps Archer and T'Pol were just unaware of areas they were affected in, having not yet been tested, he pointed out. The admiral had even suggested that Archer and T'Pol might have a natural immunity to whatever caused the ailment. The scans Cutler had finally found time to conduct on Archer and T'Pol had none of the abnormalities that appeared on the scans of the rest of the crew. The possibility that the problem was contagious seemed far-fetched to Archer, but he couldn't argue with the admiral's need for caution. Reluctantly, he pulled up the protocols for quarantining a ship. He had just opened the file when the intercom sputtered to life.

"Captain? Could you please come to the bridge? As soon as possible, sir." Hoshi's voice was tight with tension. She had remained calm and professional throughout the last several days, so her taut tone raised a red flag in Archer's mind. Pushing aside the quarantine protocols, he rose.

"I'll be right there."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"I only caught a few words," Hoshi admitted to the gathered senior officers. Trip and T'Pol had been summoned to the bridge, too. Mayweather was sitting nervously at the helm, wishing Archer would let him go back to the science station, where he couldn't do much damage, and could even be of some help. The captain had promised that he would take over the helm in an emergency, but Mayweather had a deep suspicion that in the heat of the moment, the captain would be too busy being the captain to remember that his helmsman couldn't really handle the big ship. Sure, he'd gotten in some practice, but straight and level flight and gentle turns were a world away from evasive maneuvers. Maybe he could convince the captain to let Trip take the helm, and he could go supervise the armory. The problem with that being he had virtually no experience in that area, and if they got in trouble, it was critical that the armory function at top efficiency—or as close as they could manage in the present circumstances. Unhappily, Mayweather realized he would just have to hope Archer did, in fact, remember to take over the helm. The ensign resolved to remind the captain forcefully, should the need arise. Lacking other alternatives, he turned his attention back to the conversation taking place to his left at the communications station.

"Here is what I've got… the new upgrades to the UT helped… here it is." Hoshi began playing back the recording. They had to strain to hear through the static. After several seconds when nothing intelligible had come over the speaker Archer opened his mouth to ask Hoshi what she thought she had heard, but then he heard a distinct word. And then another. Isolated words, but in combination they were chilling.

"Well, I guess we can rule out having them over for dinner," Trip commented. Archer shot him a look designed to quell him.

"Hoshi, play it one more time," the captain instructed.

Hoshi's fingers danced over the controls and the static began again. Archer again strained to hear, hoping to pick out a few more words, but to no avail. He heard only the few words and phrases they'd detected before: "Enterprise", "effective weapon", "defenseless" and what might have been "tactical strike", but just as easily could have been static.

"Hoshi, can you tell from where it came from?"

Hoshi shook her head. "No, with just us as the receiving station, I can't triangulate. I can give you a basic heading, but I can't tell how far away they are."

Archer nodded, pacing and thinking out loud. "Mr. Mayweather? Have you detected any other ships in the vicinity?"

The helmsman shook his head, confident in his ability to provide this information. "No, sir. We seem to be out here alone. But sir, they could easily be just out of sensor range."

Hoshi was nodding her agreement. "Our communication system has much better range than the sensors, sir, but they have to be somewhere relatively near, or I couldn't have picked them up. My guess would be that they are just outside of our ability to detect them."

"It is likely their sensors are better than our own," T'Pol added, "which would allow them to keep us under surveillance without our being aware of it. If they hadn't been a little careless with their communications, we would never have known they were in the vicinity."

Archer considered all the information they had provided him. "Battle stations," he ordered. Turning to Hoshi he added, "Good job, Ensign."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"We're at Battle Stations! You have to release me!" Malcolm had been off the biobed and moving toward the door before Phlox had physically blocked the way. Glaring at his patient, he pointed wordlessly back at the bed. Malcolm crossed his arms over his chest and returned the glare, showing no inclination to listen to the doctor's orders. For a moment neither spoke. When they did, it was in near unison.

"Listen to me!" "You need to listen-" Both stopped, and then Phlox continued.

"Lieutenant, you're in no condition to leave sickbay!"

"Not an hour ago you commented on how well I was doing," Malcolm retorted.

"Yes… and I was referring to the fact that you were able to walk to the head by yourself. A journey of, oh, fifteen feet each way. And you needed a nap afterwards to recover."

"I didn't need a nap to recover," Malcolm snapped. "I'm still sleeping off that awful stuff you insist on giving me that makes me so bloody sleepy. I'm not going to take anymore of it, so there won't be any problem. Now, doctor, I am going to my battle station!"

"And where might that be?" Phlox asked, and Malcolm ground his teeth together in frustration.

"I'm sure I—" Malcolm was cut off as the ship suddenly rocked, and sickbay went dark.

On the bridge the emergency lighting flickered, and then became steady, casting the bridge in an eerie glow. Mayweather, who had been at the helm, leapt out of his seat, gesturing for Archer to take his place, and moved swiftly to take his position at the science station. Tucker had moved to the tactical station. T'Pol remained on the bridge, watching over Mayweather's shoulder.

"Report," Archer barked. "Trip?"

"Captain, I don't know what hit us. I'm still not reading any—wait. There's something. Travis, you picking anything up?"

"Yes! There it is. An energy distortion. Right at the edge of our sensors. There it is again!" The words were barely out of Mayweather's mouth when the ship rocked again.

"Trip! What is that doing to us?"

Trip didn't speak for a moment. He was intent on his console. "I've polarized the hull plating, Captain. I don't know if it will help, because I've NO idea what we're being hit with."

"Focused energy waves."

"Sound waves," Hoshi said at nearly the same time.

Archer looked at both of them. "Sound waves?"

"No, Ensign," T'pol spoke. "Not sound waves. Sound waves can't propagate in space. However, conceptually, you can think of them in much the same way. However, this is a generated energy wave that is propagated through subspace. It is a very old technology."

"So," Hoshi mused, "They're 'pinging' us with energy…. sort of like sonar that they used to use on submarines. But it's much more powerful, and focused. I don't know what that could tell them, though."

T'Pol opened her mouth to argue the point, and then reconsidered. "While not scientifically accurate, it is an adequate analogy, for the time being. The purpose and intent of such a technology would be the same as sonar. A means of detecting objects that one can't see, using minimal energy, and giving away little information about them."

Archer shook his head. This was a tactic he'd never heard of before. "Why would they want to hit us with subspace energy waves?" he asked, the question rhetorical. Mayweather answered anyway.

"Well, we used to do it when we couldn't trust our sensors," he said. "If there was a lot of electromagnetic interference, and we were in crowded space, or in an asteroid field. Just to see if there was something there we were missing. Doesn't tell you much, except that you better stop if you detect something that you didn't know was there."

Archer considered this. "Could this be someone's way of confirming our location from a distance? Trying to avoid putting out any electromagnetic radiation that we would detect? Maybe trying to do the equivalent of the old submariner's 'silent running'?

"It they were undertaking such a tactic, it would explain why we can't detect them on our sensors. We would still be able to pick up their communications. It is consistent." T'Pol confirmed.

"The big question is why," Archer mused. "Why is someone stalking us, for lack of a better term?" As he spoke, the main lights abruptly came back on, causing everyone on the bridge to squint for a moment.

"I think it's pretty clear someone is planning some sort of attack, Captain, and the Acturians are the most likely suspects," Trip said. "I guess right now all we can do is be ready, since we can't pinpoint their location, and they clearly know where we are."

"Could we do the same thing? Could we 'ping' them back, and try to locate them that way?"

Trip shook his head. "We don't have the equipment to do that. The fact that they do, despite their otherwise advanced technology means they do something like this regularly. It must be part of their tactics." Trip sighed. He knew that rigging up such a simple device would not be difficult—normally. Now though, while he knew it was theoretically possible, he simply didn't know how to get started. If he had schematics to follow he was confident he would be able to build it. Building such a device from scratch now was out of the question.

"Captain, I think it's clear that an attack is imminent. Given that my current responsibility is engineering, and I have nothing more to add here, I'd like to return to the engine room, and prepare," T'Pol said.

"Me, too, Captain," Trip said. "To the armory, I mean."

"Go. I'll be in contact."

"Aye, sir." Both officers hurried off the bridge, a sense of urgency to their actions. Archer moved to the helm and sat there. He transferred his command functions to the helm console, and began mentally reviewing the evasive patterns he would need. He really hated not having his officers in their accustomed positions, but had to admit they had performed admirably in their current jobs, and considerably better than he would have anticipated. The speed with which the fill-in engineering crew had restored power had been heartening. He hoped the substitute armory crew would perform as well.

They didn't have to wait long. Trip had barely had time to brief his crew about the situation when the captain's voice came over the intercom. "Trip, Travis has detected the Actuarian vessel again, headed toward us. They're close, Trip. They'll intercept us in about five minutes. I'm starting evasive actions, but get ready."

Trip quickly checked the torpedoes and phasers. All appeared to be in order.

"Get out the phase pistols," he instructed his crew. "And the rifles. I want one person to take weapons to engineering first, and then to the other sections. Don't forget sickbay."

"I'm on it, sir," Rostov replied. Within minutes he had loaded a cart with weapons and was leaving the armory. Everyone else was holding either a phase pistol or a phase rifle.

They didn't have long to wait. At the console, Trip monitored the Actuarian ship's progress. It was still a good distance away when he saw them preparing to fire.

"Load torpedoes, and target their weapons," he ordered.

"Sir, they're still out of our range," the crewman at the torpedo control called.

"I know," Trip replied grimly. "Unfortunately, we're not out of theirs. I want you to fire the instant they're in range. We may only get one shot at this." He grabbed his console as the ship was again rocked, and noted with dismay that something near the torpedo launcher was smoking.

"Sir! They're in range!" Crewman Simon, manning the torpedoes, called, while a female crewman, whose name Tucker could not remember in the heat of the moment, used an extinguisher on the smoking console.

"Fire!" Trip called. "And then let's try the phase cannons. Target their weapons and engines first." Trip shook his head. "That first torpedo missed their weapons array, but it looks like it caused some structural damage."

The crewman did not reply, a breech in protocol Trip was perfectly willing to overlook. The young man was focused on his job, and in a few seconds another torpedo was launched. Meanwhile, the female crewman—Melissa Cortez, Trip remembered now—was working frantically to repair the mess of smoking wires and metal that had been the phase cannon console a moment earlier. She looked up at him. "Sir, I'm going to have to bypass this, I think. And until I do, we don't have phase cannons. But I… I'm not sure I know how."

In an instant, Trip was at her side. He wasn't sure he knew what to do about it either. It was not a system he was terribly familiar with; Malcolm and the regular armory crew tended to do most of the engineering type repairs in the armory. Still, normally he would have been able to fix it. Now, though, he wasn't certain.

"Well," he said, "We're going to have to improvise. We've still got our brains, so we're just going to work this out." Trip slid under the console, and began studying the connections.

On the bridge, Archer was putting the ship through all sorts of maneuvers in a vain attempt to shake the Actuarian ship. While he couldn't lose their pursuer, he was pretty certain he had at least avoided a few of the torpedoes that had been sent their way. He was pleased to see a torpedo hit the Actuarian ship, although it didn't seem to do much damage. As he concentrated on his task, he saw yet another torpedo make contact with the bigger ship, and he inwardly cheered. Even as he did so, though, he knew they were losing this battle. The torpedoes were coming at too slow a pace, and for some reason Enterprise was not using her phase cannons.

"Trip? What's going on down there?" he called over the intercom.

"Not a good time to talk, Captain. I'm trying to make repairs…"

"Phase cannons?"

"They're down." He heard the last in stereo as both Trip and Mayweather replied.

"Captain!" Hoshi called a warning. He didn't have time to see what she was trying to alert him to before he felt a terrible pain in his head, and everything went dark.

(TBC)