A/N: Everyone leaving reviews -- you are great. I love your comments!

CHAPTER 8

Hoshi's warning prompted Malcolm to act. The last thing he wanted was to be floating around blind, something which was sure to make him lose his sense of direction. If that happened, he would be hopelessly confused.

He reached out as his feet lost contact with the deck in the armory and, by sheer luck, grabbed the edge of the work table with both hands. The table was anchored to the deck and should hold him in place.

Something hard and metallic lightly grazed his cheek. Having the presence of mind to hook one of his legs around a table leg, Malcolm lifted a hand, its motion feeling eerily languid in zero g, and groped around in the air for the object that had touched his face. He managed to snag it, the shape and size familiar in his palm. It was one of the tools he'd been using on the phase pistols.

"Hoshi?" he called out.

"I'm up here," came the answer from somewhere above his head.

"Are you okay?"

After a moment, she said in a strained voice, "At least I don't have to worry about being in an EV suit if I toss my cookies."

"Work you way over to a bulkhead," he instructed her calmly, seeing a picture in his mind of her floating high above the armory's main floor. "Then try to 'climb' down to the deck. That way you won't fall if the grav plating comes back on suddenly."

"Good idea," came her breathless reply, following by grunting and groaning.

He listened to the sounds she was making, turning his head as he tracked her progress. A breeze that caressed the skin on his face and hands heralded the arrival of another body in his vicinity.

"The internal comm system is down, sir," Foster said from next to him. "I can't contact anyone."

"Was there any indication this was going to happen?" Malcolm asked, still listening to Hoshi. From the sounds of things, she'd made it over to the torpedo racks and was moving "down."

"No, sir."

"This might be just a localized occurrence, but from the magnitude of that bump right before the grav plating went out, it's more likely a ship-wide event," Malcolm said. "Get to Engineering. It's closer than the bridge. Find out what's going on and report back here."

"Aye, sir," Foster replied, a gentle swish in the air signifying his departure.

Heavy breathing came to Malcolm's ears as Hoshi, most likely using tabletops and consoles to pull herself hand over hand, arrived where he was holding position at the work table.

"I should get to the bridge," she said raggedly.

"Are you able?" he asked.

He heard her gulp. "I think so," she said. "I usually have to psych myself up before I do any weightless activity. It's not one of my favorite things. This caught me by surprise."

"You want me to go with you?" he asked.

A laugh which quickly changed to a moan came from Hoshi. "I should be the one asking you that," she said miserably.

With a start, he realized he hadn't considered his blindness. When the grav plating had gone out, he had reacted without thinking, even to the extent that he'd issued orders which -- wonder of wonders -- Foster had followed without question. His training had asserted itself, leaving him no time to worry about how his lack of sight might hamper him. He'd just done what needed to be done.

"I'll be okay," Hoshi said. "What about you? I can help you to your cabin before I go to the bridge."

Before he could answer, he felt himself falling. Perhaps having one leg wrapped around a table leg hadn't been the best position to be in when the grav plating started working again. He wound up sitting on his rump on the deck, his legs stretched out in front of him.

Amidst all the clanks, thuds, and tinklings of unsecured items dropping to the deck, he heard something much heavier crash down nearby. "Hoshi?" he asked in concern.

"I hate it when that happens," he heard her mutter. In a louder voice, she said, "At least I'm not sick to my stomach any more."

Hoshi retrieved his cane from where it had landed and gave it to him, then took off for the bridge, but not before he had extracted a promise from her to tell him what she found out. He remained in the armory, gathering up the pieces of equipment and tools that had scattered about under the effect of zero g.

Instituting a grid search pattern, he slowly walked back and forth across the area, his cane swinging before him to encounter anything out of place. Most of the items he found were small and identifiable by touch. Pliers, microcalipers, cleaning rag, the power cell from the phase pistol he'd been working on. He knew he probably hadn't found everything, but he'd gotten a good start on cleaning up the armory by the time Foster returned.

"I appreciate it, sir," Foster said, "but you really didn't need to do this."

Malcolm dismissed his statement with a wave of his hand. "What did you find out in Engineering?"

"According to Commander Tucker, the ship was struck by some sort of subspace wave. It affected the grav plating, internal communications, and a few other systems like helm control."

"That's odd," Malcolm mused out loud. "Why some systems and not the others?"

There was silence, during which Malcolm imagined Foster was shrugging. Then the man said, "If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll finish putting everything back where it belongs."

Malcolm nodded absently, caught up in trying to figure out what had happened.

"Damnedest thing I ever saw," Trip said. "One minute everything's hummin' along like usual, and the next -- bam!"

Malcolm was in the mess hall with Trip and Hoshi for dinner. He'd been surprised when the engineer had joined them. He'd assumed that Trip would still be tied up in Engineering with repair work, but that turned out not to be the case. There wasn't anything to repair.

"And then a few minutes later, everything's workin' again," Trip continued. "We didn't have to fix a thing, other than to pick up everything that had been floatin' around in the air. We ran all the diagnostics afterward, and everything checked out okay."

"How's Crewman Kelly doing?" Hoshi asked, her words interspersed with the clinking of cutlery.

Malcolm heard Trip grunt before answering. "Just a bad sprain," Trip said. "She's lucky she was only a meter or so above the deck when the grav plating came back on, or she might have wound up with a broken leg."

"I could have been in sickbay if it hadn't been for Malcolm," Hoshi said. "We were in the armory when the grav plating went out. He reminded me of one of the basic rules of unexpected weightlessness -- get somewhere where you won't hurt yourself when gravity returns."

Malcolm smiled wickedly. "I just didn't want you falling on me," he said.

The feather-light touch of a napkin slapped against the arm on his side closest to Hoshi. "I would have yelled, 'Catch,'" she said.

"Before or after you tossed your cookies?" Malcolm asked with feigned politeness.

"Uh, guys?" Trip said. "Could we drop this part of the conversation? I'm tryin' to eat here."

"Sorry," Malcolm said, but he wasn't. The easy banter was going a long way toward making him relax. He hadn't felt this at ease since before he'd lost his sight.

As he ate his goulash, Malcolm reviewed the unexplained outages that morning. He wished he could look over the reports that had been filed from the various departments about the incident. Turning his head in Trip's direction, he said, "Foster told me there was a subspace wave of some sort."

"Yeah," Trip said. "Sensors lost contact with it after we passed through it. And the weird thing about it was that there was no damage. It's almost like a giant interrupter switch was thrown, cuttin' off some systems. Once we got by the wave, everything came back online."

"An interruption should have caused some damage," Malcolm said, "if only because some circuits aren't designed to operate that way."

"Definitely weird," Trip said.

"T'Pol couldn't find anything like it in the Vulcan database," Hoshi said. "She theorized it was a random natural phenomenon."

"That means she doesn't know," Trip put in. Malcolm heard the engineer sigh before he continued. "Let's just hope it doesn't happen again. ... So, what were you doin' in the armory when the grav plating went out?"

Malcolm's mouth was full and he couldn't respond immediately. He swallowed, but before he could answer, Hoshi said, "Malcolm was cleaning phase pistols."

"You're kiddin'!" the engineer said. Malcolm didn't need to see to be able to know Trip was looking at him in disbelief.

Malcolm put his best smirk on his face and said, "Tomorrow I'm going to do some target practice."

"Aw, come on, Malcolm!" Trip said. "Audible basketball is one thing, but the idea of you takin' potshots with a phase pistol and not bein' able to see what you're aimin' at--"

Trip broke off abruptly. Malcolm knew his friend was worried that he'd taken offense at his blunt reference to his blindness. Malcolm couldn't blame him. If, a few weeks ago, someone had told him that a blind person was going to be target shooting with a phase pistol, he would have had reservations, too. And only last week, if Trip had questioned his ability to shoot something he couldn't see, he would have agreed.

"I'll have one of the armory staff with me," Malcolm said reasonably. "And the target will make a noise of some sort -- I haven't decided what yet -- that will give me something to aim at."

"You're serious about this, aren't ya?" Trip asked.

Continuing to eat, Malcolm nodded.

After a few moments, Trip said thoughtfully, "Ya know, it could work. Of course, it would have to be a pretty big target."

Malcolm's aim, whether through skill or blind luck, was dead on when he flipped a forkful of goulash. It hit Trip right between the eyes.

(A/N: Just thought you might like to know that the scene at the end of the last chapter where Malcolm is cleaning the phase pistols was the original inspiration for this entire story. One of those "what if's" ... what if Malcolm couldn't see? I bet he could still take apart a phase pistol and put it back together. One thought led to another, and now you're reading this story!)