Author Notes: Slightly worse language.

Chapter 15: Endgame

Alex fitted the small device with a chip of sorts. "Tilt you head slightly to the right please." She instructed Malcolm. He complied, and the chip was implanted into his system.

He sighed, rubbing his neck, "This is a bad plan."

Alex nodded, "I know, but it's all we've got. That chip is set on a timer. In four hours, it will release the drug that will counteract the anaesthetic. We should get going. We're on a schedule, remember?"

Malcolm nodded, and led the way towards the hanger bays. The whole base was a hive of activity. He and Katrina had only arrived back the previous night after their discussion with Vorik earlier that day. The plan was for all ships to approach the wormhole and processing stations. They would create a distraction for Katrina, who would be piloting the Eclipse. In the confusion, she would pilot the wormhole and, when she reached the other side, would activate the cloak which couldn't be in use during the transit.

Malcolm had been furious with the idea. The plan involved the rest of the Eclipse's crew to be under anaesthetic, but as no Pensari would ever join their cause, they had to use a human pilot. The risks were huge, and Katrina was in danger of receiving brain damage at the very least – if she managed to pilot the wormhole at all. But as she had pointed out, none of them knew how to destroy a wormhole, but the chances were that someone with a large brain on the Enterprise might have more luck. Malcolm's chip was designed to wake him up so that he could pilot and find his old ship using a warp tracking system Jamie and Trip had made as a possible way of finding the Enterprise. In truth, the engineer had just been humouring Trip, but now they needed the device.

Malcolm took one last look around the hanger bay, and then followed Alex into the Eclipse and up to their quarters where everyone else was waiting; including Sara, "What are you doing here? This mission is too dangerous-" Alex began.

Sara stubbornly folded her arms, "If you do this, there's no coming back; I ain't using the Linlr to get grabbed by a bunch of Klingons. I'm going."

Alex made to protest further, but Katrina stopped her, "We don't have time for this. Give everyone the drug."

Everyone moved into their quarters to lie down. While Alex dealt with the rest of the crew, Malcolm turned to Katrina to say something, but she stopped him, "Don't."

Malcolm nodded reluctantly, and moved into his quarters to allow Alex to administer the anaesthetic before Katrina did her. The drug took effect almost immediately.

"Screw, screw, screw, screw-" Katrina muttered as yet another missile shot past her ship, missing by inches.

She had yet to see the wormhole – the massive explosions were sort of occupying her attention. The distraction was working, no doubt, and with her cloak, no one saw her. This was of course a very big problem if you were in between a Covenant war ship and a rebel fighter. She wrenched the controls up, causing the Eclipse to shoot over the largest ship she had ever seen. And then she saw it. Despite herself, she had to gasp, "Wow."

The wormhole looked similar to a whirlpool, but with a myriad of colours all merging together in ripples. Light seemed to be both sucked into it and spat out simultaneously. She proceeded at full impulse head on and then, just before she engaged the propulsion on the wormhole's horizon, she disconnected the cloak.

Her eyes were bombarded with light so intense, it seemed to burn into her brain. Screwing her eyes up, Katrina tried to focus on a path, and only just managed to change course as she almost slammed into the wall of the tunnel-like structure. Her brain was overloading with information, and her reflexes were only a split second ahead of the ship's movement. She felt completely out of control. Blinking hard, she could feel the light inside her brain, as if it was trying to turn her head inside out. Vaguely, she was aware of a warm sensation trickling down her face from her nose and ears.

Then it was over. The Eclipse shot out into real space. Shaking, with her vision dimming, Katrina slid forwards and engaged the cloak before she was lost to darkness.

Malcolm shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts as he came around. He undid the straps that had held his body to the bed during transit, and surveyed the scene. Everything was everywhere. "Bloody hell." He rose, and quickly made his way down to the cockpit, "Katrina?"

He found his friend slumped in the pilot's chair. There was blood all over her face and matted into her hair. Frantically, Malcolm searched for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief when he found one, albeit weak and fast. Gently, he picked up his captain's limp body, and took her to the living quarters. Although he wanted to wake Alex up, he knew time was of the essence, so he ran back to the cockpit and strapped in.

For the first time, he saw the view out of the window. Orion and Covenant ships milled around, but there seemed to be no definite guard set up. Without any further thought, Malcolm simultaneously disengaged the cloak and entered Jumpstream. He was never the pilot that Katrina was, but he had absorbed her lessons. Flicking the controls, he exited the stream and activated the tracking device. Nothing. He hadn't expected anything first try, but this galaxy was big and they didn't have much time. Katrina needed a doctor, and in two days an armada was going to come through that wormhole. Keeping the device active, Malcolm engaged the drive once more, and began flitting from wave to wave, desperately searching for a signal.

An hour into his search, just as his reflexes were starting to flag, the consoles started beeping to indicate a match on a warp signature in normal space. Immediately, Malcolm pulled the ship out of Jump, and laughed out loud as he saw the ship he hadn't seen in two and a half years.

"Commander," The ensign at the science post called out to Commander Tucker who was on bridge duty at the time, "Scans have just detected a ship exiting…something."

Trip raised an eyebrow, "'Something'?"

"I don't know sir. It seems to be some kind of alternative way of travelling, but it's nothing like warp."

Trip frowned, "Show me."

The ensign flicked the image onto the main screen. "No way!" Trip couldn't help himself. The last thing he'd been expecting was the Eclipse.

"Sir?" Everyone on the bridge was looking at him strangely.

"We're receiving a hail." Hoshi called out.

"Open a channel."

Malcolm's face came on screen, causing everyone on the bridge to stare in shock. His presence in the other galaxy had been omitted from the official report; Captain Archer hadn't wanted to bring up old history. Trip frowned. Something was wrong. That Malcolm was piloting was alone a bad thing, but the exhausted look on his face and the slight blood smears on his hands just made Trip even more worried. "Malcolm?"

"Please. Permission to dock with Enterprise. Katrina needs immediate medical attention, and the others are all unconscious."

Trip didn't question him. "Permission granted." The channel cut. "Contact the Captain and tell him. Also have a medical team down there. Richmond, you have the bridge."

"Aye, sir." Hoshi murmured weakly as Trip practically ran to the turbolift.

By the time Trip made it, the crew of the Eclipse were already being loaded onto gurneys. Archer and T'Pol were going to meet him in sickbay, but Trip had had to come and find his friend first. It took him only a second to find Malcolm. He was leaning against a bulkhead looking entirely lost as he watched his friends get wheeled away. Trip looked his friend over critically. He looked awful, even worse than he had when he had last seen him. He had his arms wrapped around himself again, and his eyes were far away. He was scrubbing absently at the dried blood on his hands, "Malcolm?"

The ex-Lieutenant jumped slightly, before looking at Trip. His eyes said it all. Trip couldn't think of doing anything else. Throwing away any thought that he was on the Enterprise, Trip walked over to his friend and hugged him. The old Malcolm would have pulled away immediately, but this one just sank into the human contact. "Welcome back, Mal. Welcome home."

Phlox walked out to a small gaggle of people in his sickbay. It was clear that his Captain had wanted to keep things quiet, but on a ship such as this one, that goal had been impossible. Hoshi and Travis had joined Archer, Trip and T'Pol. In addition, quite a few members of the armoury had come down with mysterious ailments in a very short space of time. "Well?" The Captain was the first to speak.

"All but the captain – I believe you called her Katrina? – are fine. Lieutenant Reed is suffering from exhaustion, but is refusing treatment, and with the remainder of the crew, all it took was to find an antidote of their mild anaesthetic."

"Thank you doctor, anything else?"

"Yes." Malcolm appeared from behind the Denobulan.

The doctor looked annoyed with his patient, "What part of 'rest' do you not understand?"

"You think we came here for a social visit? Katrina didn't risk her life to see what it would be like to pilot a wormhole you know!" Malcolm spat.

"Mal…" Trip said warningly, "Why don't you explain."

"The Covenant are coming." He answered simply.

Archer's head snapped up, "What?"

"They've got so pissed off with Fall Throughs that they've decided that their home planets need to be dealt with. They want to enslave this galaxy. They arrive in just under two days."

Everyone blanched. "Travis, how far are we from the Borderlands? Can we make it?"

"We'd have to push engines to the full, sir. Well beyond the safety margins. If we did that, we might just beat them."

"Set a course. Everyone get to their posts. Send out a message on all frequencies and languages telling everyone what's coming. Hopefully someone will answer. Trip, get to Engineering."

"Wait Captain." Malcolm caused him to pause. "A friend of ours, he's the one who gave us this information, he told us that there's no stopping this force by arms."

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

"We have to destroy the wormhole."

Archer looked momentarily shocked, and then nodded, "Trip, T'Pol, work on it with the Eclipse's crew."

Malcolm sat with Katrina in sick bay. Phlox had given her a course of treatment, which she was grudgingly taking. Her final diagnosis had been that, although she had received no immediate brain damage from her experiences, there was a high probability that she would be affected in later life. "So, how are Trip and Jamie getting along?"

Malcolm shifted uncomfortably, "Nothing yet."

Katrina's eyes narrowed, "Malcolm…"

Her friend tried to look innocent, but gave in, "They believe that if they overloaded the Eclipse's Jumpdrive on the event horizon, the Oribium would create an explosion with enough force to destabilise the wormhole and cause it to collapse."

"They want to blow up my ship!"

"Calm down! They're still looking at other options."

"Mal, I'm not dumb. We get there in three hours and it's all you guys have got."

Malcolm looked away. Katrina, meanwhile, swung her feet around and jumped to the floor, "What are you doing?"

Katrina fixed him with a piercing glare, "If anyone is going to blow up that ship, it will be me. You can't do something like that on auto pilot. It's a suicide mission."

"No, you don't understand, we just don't want to blow up a Jumpdrive." Katrina looked blank, "Uh, well, remember you talking about a magical teleportation device? We, sort of, might, have one on this ship?"

"You're kidding." Katrina grinned, and then forcibly turned Malcolm around, "Wait a sec while I get dressed."

Malcolm folded his arms, but didn't turn around, "You can barely stand." He winced as a muffled thump came from behind him, "My point exactly."

"Oh, shut up." Five minutes later, Katrina was dragging Malcolm out of sick bay without so much as a word to the doctor.

"These devices will allow the transporter to lock onto your position through the Oribium in the hull. One per lifesign" Trip handed her two small black pieces of metal.

"Two?"

"Like you said Katrina, I can't get rid of you, and you can't get rid of me."

Katrina looked like she was going to argue, but then handed Malcolm one of the devices, "Yay! We both get to have our bodies broken down into particles!"

T'Pol opened her mouth, but Katrina stopped her, "You go into one more spiel about wormhole theory, and I swear…"

Malcolm smiled, "We should get going. And you should probably prepare. To be in transporter range, you'll make great target practice for the Orions."

"Good luck." Trip nodded.

Before anything could get awkward, Katrina took Malcolm's wrist, and guided him to the Eclipse. As they detached from the Enterprise and activated the cloak, Katrina twisted around to regard Malcolm, "You should get down to the engine room. Got your magic box?" Malcolm rolled his eyes, and made to leave, but Katrina's voice continued, "We can do this, right?" There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

Malcolm smiled, "Sure."

Katrina winched as she saw the Enterprise take another hit. Getting close to the wormhole had become a problem due to some preliminary scouts coming through in the form of fighters. "Mal? How's it going down there?"

Malcolm's voice came back, fraught with static, but she got the gist; not good.

"What the..?" Sensors started bleeping, and then four ships exited warp. From the communications she was monitoring, Katrina grinned, "We've got three Andorian ships and a Vulcan ship come to join the party, Mal!"

The new arrivals brought enough of a distraction to the fight for some enemy ships to move away from the wormhole, giving Katrina an opening. She manoeuvred her ship until it was millimetres away from touching the event horizon. Footsteps behind her indicated that Malcolm had set the drive to overload and had come up to join her. Suddenly, the whole ship tipped violently to one side, "Shit! What was that?"

Malcolm groaned, and picked himself up from the floor, "We must be showing up in the wormhole's light. They're firing on us."

"Yeah? Well let's not stick around long enough to find out."

Katrina got up, and ran over to Malcolm, pulling her device out of her pocket. Malcolm's face suddenly drained of all colour, "I think I dropped mine when we were hit just then!"

He whirled around, scanning the floor, but even if it had been in full view, it was perfectly camouflaged. Katrina shrugged, "We can both use mine."

Malcolm shook his head, pushing Katrina's hands back, "They transport one. You go, I'll find mine."

Katrina blinked. The sirens that reverberated around the ship indicated that the drive was moments from overloaded. Panic flowed into her voice, "Fuck that Malcolm!"

"Katrina, go!" The sirens stopped, and the ship shook. Malcolm pushed her away.

Katrina shook her head, "You saved my life in the mines. And you did change things."

"What?"

He didn't get to consider the odd comment, as Katrina landed a harsh kick to the side of his head. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Activating the device, Katrina curled Malcolm's hand around in and watched as he disappeared, "A life for a life."

To Be Continued…

Author Notes: Please give me your opinions! There will be one last chapter after this just to tie everything up.