"Captain! Three more ships approaching!"

Shit. When it rains…Archer discarded the useless thought as he fell back into his command chair, gripping the arms and preparing his orders. "ID them!" he barked out.

"Orion!" Verena answered heatedly. "On an intercept course!"

Across the bridge, Malcolm added his tactical report. "Two light cruisers, and a heavy cruiser."

Archer scowled. A single Orion cruiser was more than a match for the Enterprise. What would it take to escape three?"

"How long until we're in visual range?" he asked, taking stock of the tactical situation.

"Two minutes," Verena replied.

Very well, Archer thought to himself. It's a long shot, but let's give this a try. He turned to Lt. Sato at the comm panels. "Try to raise them, Hoshi," he said.

"They're hailing us," Hoshi reported promptly.

The captain squared his shoulders, and nodded to Hoshi. She opened a visual channel.

Archer groaned. The green, beefy face onscreen was covered in metallic studs and barbells.

…

"How curious to meet you here," Vatis'Kish observed slowly, leaning into the viewer as the the words trickled from his mouth. "First on one side of the hegemony, now on the other…what could you possibly be doing?" he asked with languid insouciance. It was a rhetorical question, really; he had viewed the battle on long-range sensors.

The human captain, Archer, squared his shoulders onscreen. "We were taking care of—an internal issue," he declared, somewhat grandiosely in the Orion's judgment. "I apologize for any transgression of Hegemony territory, but it was necessary. These—terrorists were planning to attack your colony on the planet below."

Vatis'Kish eased himself back into the plush cushioning of his command chair. "And who were these terrorists you speak of?" he replied, affecting a temporary air of blithe ignorance. "They couldn't possibly be Klingons, after all."

The human captain shifted uncomfortably. "They were a group of renegade humans. As I said, it was an internal issue. But we've taken care of it; there's no need to concern yourself."

Vatis'Kish smiled grimly. "I'm always concerned, Captain, when human genetic augments try to annihilate an Orion world."

…

Archer felt the blood drain from his face. "The important thing is that we stopped them," he replied, sputtering a bit as he scrambled for words. "That, if nothing else, should prove that our own presence here is benign."

"Yes, indeed." Menace flowed from the giant's face as he leaned forward, swelling to fill the screen. "And that is why I will allow you to leave alive."

"He's terminated the comm channel," Hoshi reported a moment later, and the Orion's face disappeared. The curved horizon of 267 Ceti, and the field of stars beyond, once again filled the fore of the bridge.

Resisting the urge to fall into his command chair in relief, Archer kept his shoulders taut. "Reverse course, Travis, and—"

"Captain!" Malcolm interrupted from behind with a tone of steel disquietude. As Archer glanced backward, the tactical chief continued. "Sir," he added, his voice lowering, "the destruction wasn't complete. The Orions will be able to recover…biological remains."

Sometimes, I'd rather simply fight the Orions, Archer thought grimly as a wave of discomfort beset him. They may have been augmented, but the crew of the Bird-of-Prey were still human…we do what has to be done. Archer repeated the mantra, once, twice, three times, feeling the eyes of Malcolm watching him the entire time.

"Fire," Archer ordered gruffly. He forced himself to watch as a single torpedo shot outward, plowing into the wreckage, and exploded with an irradiating bloom.

…

{June 8, 2154}

Porthos awoke a split second before Archer, startling the captain awake. "Medical alert!" The comm system blared. "Deck E-14!"

Deck E-14, Archer repeated in his mind, the cobwebs washing away in a torrent of adrenaline. E-14 was Arik Soong.

Shit. The curse leapt, unbidden, to Archer's mind as he staggered from his quarters, not bothering to toss on a robe for decency as he stumbled into the corridor. The running lights were dimmed for the night-shift hours, but he had little need for them; practice and experience guided the captain through the corridors of E-deck, on his way to—

Scarcely aware of it, Archer flattened himself into an alcove as a pair of medical technicians barreled past, guiding between them a hovering biobed that maintained uncanny balance despite its slalom-like trajectory. There was a body lying on it; he could only guess, only assume, that it was Soong who lay prone.

And Phlox, barking out orders, sat straddled across the patient, hands flying with surgical gear in untraceable speeds.

…

{June 10, 2154}

"Doctor, I've prepared the final investigative report."

Phlox's head moved up sharply in surprise, his thoughts recalled from some distant point of contemplation. What that point was, he did not know; but he had lost a patient, scarcely even had a chance to get his hands warm before Arik Soong had breathed his last. And with little else to do in the intervening days, Phlox had taken his time on the autopsy.

But now, he struggled to focus on work.

"Thank you, Commander," Phlox replied belatedly. His voice cracked slightly from the tenderness of unused vocal chords; the verbose Denobulan had been unusually silent, much like the artificial silence that seemed to hang heavy over the entire starship. There was none of the usual elation of returning home; none of the excitement or pride of a mission completed, none of the joy at returning to loved ones. The sense of despondency seemed to inflict every person on board, even casting a certain pall over Phlox's sickbay menagerie.

"What's the final verdict, Commander?" Phlox asked, and he shook his head in weariness; his hibernation cycle was still months away, but his cells were burdened with the heavy weight of ennui, the laggard listlessness of dejection.

"We combed Soong's quarters again," Malcolm replied. He stood in the doorway, apparently unwilling to enter. "We found no evidence of another person being in the room. Between that, and the lack of external marks on the body…I'm filing it as 'suspected suicide,' Doctor."

Drooping his eyes, Phlox nodded slowly. The verdict was expected, yet it still stung. "Is there anything else, Commander?"

"Yes." Malcolm hesitated, as if in discomfort, before continuing. "I noticed in your mission report that you said…you'd seen the full Augment genome." Malcolm paused to lick his lips. "I took that out. Just some…friendly advice, Doctor, but I wouldn't let anyone know that you saw that genome."

Without another word, Malcolm turned and departed.

…

The starfield seemed unusually dark today.

There were few places of silence on a starship. True quiet, true solitude, rarely existed. Beyond the sound of the ship itself, the nearly organic murmur of the engines, the hum of energy conduits and the soft tweets and blaring whistles that sang in abject harmony, beyond the sensation—less a sound, and more a sensation—of the vibrations of the universe itself, so close and yet so far beyond reach, there were the people.

The constant movement. The deluge of voices, sometimes agreeable, sometimes strident. The highs and the lows of human emotion, the torrents of feeling, the palpable waves of hope and despair. It was inescapable.

Every so often, once in a cosmic eclipse, Jonathan Archer had to escape it all; get away from the responsibility, the burden, the expectations, the never-ending need to carry the crew and fulfill their mission, the demands of duty and honor and all things good and proper.

Deep in the recesses of the ship, accessible only by a slim chute descending from above, was a little nook at the aft end of deck F. Several meters behind the launch bay doors, it was a slender bubble, scarcely noticeable in anything but the closest of inspections; it was an afterthought, a late addition in drydock, that resembled nothing more than a tiny, transparent bubble on the ass of the starship.

But down here—in the rear observation deck—Jonathan Archer could escape the ship. Above him, if he cared to look, he could see the belly of the Enterprise; the launch bay doors stretching out, before giving way to the gentle curve of the lower saucer.

But he cared not to look that way. Instead, he sat and stared aft, underneath the sensor pod and beyond. Encased within the transparent globe, it gave him the sensation of sitting in space.

The view usually improved his mood. But today…the starfield seemed unusually dark today. Cold, silent, foreboding; a sense of danger overriding the beckoning call of adventure. The little alcove was warm, heated fully by the starship, but he felt as though the frozen stillness permeated within, casting icicles in his blood and permafrost in his chest.

"Captain? Are you in there?"

Archer groaned, but reproached himself silently; he trusted the voice, the discretion of its master. If there was anyone on the ship who valued privacy, it was Malcolm; and the stand-in first officer would not be bothering the captain without reason.

"Yes, Malcolm?" Archer answered, tilting his head back to look overhead. Malcolm's face hovered above, looking down the chute from the deck above; framed by darkness, lit by the faint, eerie glow of natural starlight diminished in the despondency of endless cold.

"I have the final investigative report on Doctor Soong's death, sir." He lowered a data padd into the chute, expecting the captain to take it.

Archer waved it off. "Just summarize it for me, Malcolm."

"Yes, sir…cause of death was poisoning by hydrocyanic acid. No hypospray or needle marks were found, indicating that the poison was ingested. No physical trauma was present, and no indication that anyone else was present. Manner of death is being reported as 'suspected suicide.'"

Archer barely stirred at the words. "Why 'suspected'?" he asked, his thoughts processing the information slowly.

Malcolm seemed to shake his head. "We can't explain how Soong would have gotten his hands on the pill," he answered. "We double-checked everything: he had no equipment to synthesize it, and when Soong was brought back onboard, we did a comprehensive scan of him. There was nothing secreted on—or in—his body."

Archer let his head roll backward sluggishly. "So…"

"There is no evidence of a second party being involved," Malcolm added. "And the only way to manufacture the poison is Phlox's pharmaceutical synthesizer. I checked it myself—no raw material is missing."

"So what we have is a mystery," Archer replied slowly. On another day—any other day—it would have tantalized him, demanded answers, invigorated him with a new wind.

But today, he found that he no longer cared.

"Thank you, Malcolm," the captain answered, and one last thought struck him. "You said something about a cost for borrowing the Black Prince—"

"I already took care of it, sir," Malcolm affirmed.

Archer nodded. "Good work, Malcolm."

"Yes, sir. Will that be all, sir?"

"Yes, thank you, Malcolm. You're dismissed."

Archer returned his focus to the emptiness of frozen space.

…

As Malcolm turned to leave, the words of his mentor ran through his mind.

Malcolm, it takes exceptional people to do what we do. People who can sublimate their own interests to the best interests of Earth. We deal with threats to Earth that jeopardize its very survival. If you knew how many lives we've saved, I think you'd agree that the ends do justify the means. I'm not afraid of bending the rules every once in a while if the situation warrants it, and I don't think you are either.

What, do you really think these—augments—are capable of conquering all of humanity? Of course not, Malcolm. Twenty augments against the world? The real danger is this: that baseline humans will follow the augments of their own free will. Humanity never changes: stir up a little threat, tell people that their way of life is in danger, and a quarter of Earth will immediately flock to the augments for protection and salvation. And Soong understands that.

Humanity itself is the greatest danger, Malcolm. Not the Klingons, not the Orions, not the Vulcans or Andorians, and definitely not the augments.

You know I'm right.

As he departed down the corridor, Malcolm's shoulders hung heavy with the weight of shattered wings.

-finis-

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Author's note: Yes, this story ends on a negative tone, and I hesitate to leave it there. However, as readers and viewers, we know that the Harris-Reed-Archer triangle concludes with Malcolm choosing Archer's developing new-world ideals over Harris' old-world cynicism. Harris may claim that he's "right," but Malcolm does ultimately reject that.