§ 7 §

Trip cracked his eyes open and watched as the top of a building and a section of grey sky slowly came into focus. It wasn't long before his brain had figured out that he was lying on his back in a stinking side street. He jerked his head up; then, grunting, he slowly managed to get to a sitting position, back against the wall.

The world spun for a minute or two. When it finally stopped, Trip checked himself over: no injuries, but his counterfeit money was gone, as were his communicator, scanner, U.T. and phase pistol. Memories came rushing in, one on top of the other, and with them guilt so heavy that it made him gasp for air, stifling any emotion that might have been lingering from before. Breathing raggedly and grimacing against a budding headache, Trip pushed to his feet. If something had happened to Malcolm because of his damn stupidity… His body reacted to the thought of its own accord, and he took off at a run, saying a fervent prayer that he might still be in time.

Trip knew things were bad when, still at a distance, he saw people running out of the bar he and Malcolm had kept under surveillance. His lungs were burning, but he willed his legs to go faster: he could hear shots being fired from a projectile weapon, by the sound of it. At least he could hope it meant Malcolm was still alive.

As he approached the place's door Trip gradually slowed down, finally stopping in a crouch just outside it. "Malcolm," he shouted, finding barely enough breath in his lungs to do so. He passed a hand over his sweaty brow.

"Watch out, Commander," Malcolm's voice shouted back after a beat. "One man down; one armed in the far corner, left; and I lost sight of the Ferendellian, though I don't think he's..." The words were cut off abruptly by a crashing noise as of furniture being upturned, followed by sounds of fighting.

Dammit! Malcolm had probably given away his position with that warning. Trip dared a peek. A fat man lay in a pool of blood in the middle of the room, but right now all he cared for was his friend, who was engaged in hand-to-hand with someone - the alien, but the looks of him.

Trip cursed himself once more for letting himself be duped, which now left him without a weapon. He was about to jerk his head back to safety when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the bar owner stand up from behind the counter, a weapon of sorts trained on the two men fighting. Trip didn't need to think twice. He jumped up and flew in, leaping down the few steps. In a flash he was on him, just in time to divert his shot to the ceiling. With a well-landed punch, he sent the man crashing against the bottles lined on the shelves behind him; then, jumping over the counter, Trip placed a couple more hard blows, and the burly man slid to the floor, unconscious.

As he picked up the barman's weapon - it couldn't be so difficult to figure out - Trip heard Malcolm grunt. He cast a careful glance over the counter and saw his friend, on the floor, receive a hard kick to the ribs. Malcolm rolled away and took the legs from under his opponent, but he looked in trouble. Archer had told them Ferendellians were skilled fighters: it seemed no exaggeration. Reed was no beginner, but the alien was strong and seemed to be having the better of him. Trip pointed his stolen weapon; then, grimacing, lowered it again. The two were grappling now, and even if he'd had a more comfortable shot… he had never used this pistol; he'd be risking too much.

Hearing shifting on his left, Trip fired blindly in that direction; just to get the message across that no one would leave the bar without his consent. A beam of yellow light snaked out and hit a lamp, shattering it in a thousand pieces. Suddenly, Archer's voice echoed in his mind.

…T'Pol also tells me they are said to turn virtually blind in dark conditions …

Hell, he might not want to risk shooting at the Ferendellian for fear of injuring Malcolm, but there would be no harm in trying to give his friend an advantage by doing some target hitting.

It took him a few shots to get used to the weapon's drift, but in a few minutes Trip was making good progress in shooting the lights out, one by one. Just as he hit the last one, a shadow took off on the left, from behind an upturned table. The man who had cowered in the far corner was trying to take advantage of the sudden darkness to make his escape. Trip instinctively stood up and pointed the weapon, firing.

Strange, his weapon had not made this much noise before.

The man tottered and Trip wondered why it was that he was swaggering as well. There was a dull pain in his chest: But he had shot first, and hit the man… Then why…? He took a few steps towards the light coming in from the open door, looked down at himself, and gagged: that stain on his chest … he put a hand to it and it came away wet. Trip's eyes went wide. It was getting hard to breathe. A moment later things got more than a bit hazy, and he collapsed to the floor.

Scampering on his hands and feet out of the way while the Ferendellian groped blindly about, Malcolm chanced upon the phase pistol that had been kicked out of his hand and blessed his luck. The red beam sliced the darkness like a bolt of lightning in the night and hit the alien squarely on one shoulder. A moment later all was silence, except for Malcolm's ragged breathing.

There just wasn't enough air in his lungs to move a finger. Malcolm wanted to collapse in a heap, and it took a gigantic effort to pick himself up from the floor and stagger towards the fallen Ferendellian. There was no doubt that 'stun' worked well on this species' physiology, as the alien was out cold. Grimacing against the pains and aches that sliced through his body with every breath, Malcolm bent to search the alien's pockets. It wasn't' long before he had found what he was looking for: a padd. which Trip would undoubtedly find very interesting. He turned to the door, looking for his friend. What he saw made his pounding heart miss a couple of beats: a familiar form was lying on his side at the foot of the stairs.

Malcolm managed somehow to take those few steps and drop on his knees near the fallen man, too spent and shaken to utter a sound. Breathless as he was, he felt like screaming. This couldn't be happening. With a hand that was trembling both from worry and exertion, he felt for a pulse, finding an unsteady one. He gently rolled Trip onto his back, and he fell limply. The light from the open door wasn't much, but more than enough to show Trip's heavily blood-stained front. Malcolm quickly raised Trip's sweatshirt, and bit down on his already cracked and bleeding lower lip. He hurried to place a hand over the wound, pressing down hard to try and staunch the bleeding. He was no doctor, but by the look of it there was no way the bullet could have missed the left lung.

"Trip," he choked out in worry and despair. To his surprise, Trip's eyes cracked open.

"Sorry," he mumbled, in a hardly understandable wheeze.

"Shut up, just shut up," Malcolm gasped out, as he himself fought to draw enough oxygen to keep his brain working. It wasn't easy, after the hell of a fight he had just sustained. And the warm blood seeping through his fingers was threatening to make him lose his hold on the few strands of clear thinking he still had.

"That strange… character… I…" Trip rasped. Unable to finish, he coughed and grimaced, blood trickling out of a corner of his mouth.

"Don't talk," Malcolm ordered darkly. But Trip's eyes went wide with the effort to speak instead.

"No... He… took advantage… stripped me clean... So damn... stupid…"

Malcolm clenched his jaw, hardly aware of the pain that lanced through it, and fumbled for his communicator.

"Reed to Enterprise."

"Archer," the Captain's tense voice immediately replied.

"The Commander is seriously injured. Requested his immediate transport," Malcolm croaked out in one breath. The voice could not be his, it sounded too calm and he was anything but that.

"Stand by."

Archer's voice was equally collected.

How could they both be so bloody professional, with a friend about to... No, he wouldn't go there.

"What about you, Lieutenant?"

Malcolm swallowed. "I'm staying, Sir. The blueprints are retrieved, but I still have some unfinished business to attend to." Before Archer could question him, he found enough breath to add, "There are two humans in this room. I'm afraid they are both dead. Lock on to their biosigns and transport them out as well. Reed out."

"Wh… what business?" Trip managed to mumble.

"Don't talk," Malcolm repeated, softly pleading this time, as he put away the communicator and placed the padd. with the W6 blueprints in Trip's hand.

He could no longer hold Trip's pained gaze; it was hard enough to feel him struggle to breathe under the hand he kept pressed on his wound. Silently hoping his friend would understand, he shut him out, closing his eyes to the blue ones that wouldn't leave him, and fired a muttered volley of foul words. Hopefully they wouldn't be the last thing Trip heard from him, but he had to blow out some steam or his thumping heart would likely explode.

At the last moment his befuddled brain remembered that he had to remove his hand from Trip's wound and move away. Just in time: a moment later, Trip de-materialised. Malcolm turned his bloodied palm up and looked at it unblinkingly.

It took him a moment before he found enough determination to move. Pushing with both hands on his knees, he staggered to a standing position and cast a look around. The Ferendellian was still unconscious. Well, he couldn't care less about him; let him go his own way. And he'd better leave too, before the bar owner came round and made good on his promise to break his neck: right now he didn't have enough strength for another fight. He climbed the stairs, groaning as every bone in his body complained, and stepped outside, a gritty look on his face.

He was sure he looked like hell, bloodied, bruised and dishevelled; people gave him a wide berth as they hurried on to attend their own business, barely sparing him a glance.

What a lovely place.

TBC