It was more than just frustration that was driving Hoshi Sato insane.

Splitting her attention between jamming incoming missiles and trying to decipher how the Romulans were communicating with each other was bad enough; adding in the extra complication of being within minutes of possible death while only mere meters from Malcolm just made things worse. Captain Archer's constant pacing - despite the fact that Enterprise shook and lurched like a spastic jackrabbit on a caffeine high - was the icing on the cake. She wished he would just sit down and issue orders from the command chair like T'Pol did.

"Hull breach on C-Deck!" Chief Petty Officer Rostov announced from the Engineering station and Hoshi sensed rather than saw Captain Archer shoot the CPO a questioning glance. As the captain pressed for further details, her attention was elsewhere; three more warheads were en route and she had mere seconds to analyze their targeting frequencies, calculate the best way to disable them, and then implement the plan.

She wished T'Pol were here. The Vulcan could do all of that while calculating pi to the thousandth place and flirting with Commander Tucker at the same time.

Hoshi's fingers flew across the Science console, striking keys in rapid succession, and she focused a concentrated microwave pulse at the torpedoes, frying their onboard computers with the burst. She didn't even have to let Travis know that the incoming warheads were now little more than dumb-fire missiles; the Boomer helmsman seemed to instinctively be able to tell which torpedoes were active threats and which ones were so much stellar debris to be dodged or eluded. Enterprise rolled and the warheads streaked by, exploding in the distance. The moment they flashed by, Hoshi renewed her frequency hunt; through trial-and-error, she'd discovered a forty-two second gap between the next wave of missile attacks. It was always forty-two seconds which seemed to indicate an autoloader of some kind; such a thing would never have occurred to her four years ago and now she factored it into her job without even thinking about it. Malcolm, she decided abruptly, would be proud.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't even be her job - she was a trained linguist, not a scientist or sensor operator - but O'Connor's injury from an exploding junction box had left the sensors unmanned and, in a space battle, that was suicide. And now, O'Connor's relief was stranded in the nonfunctional turbolift...

"Hull plating down to 70," Malcolm declared in the same tone he used when ordering that disgusting tea he drank and she felt herself unaccountably cheered over that fact. Despite the fact that they could be facing imminent death, she wondered if he was actually enjoying himself. How she ever fell in love with such a dour and seemingly unemotional man continued to elude her. Love was truly blind. Or stupid, she wasn't quite sure which yet.

"Hoshi, I need that frequency!" Captain Archer urged and she fought the urge to shoot him a glare. Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven.

"Little busy, sir," she almost snapped, her eyes riveted to the board in front of her. If T'Pol were here, Hoshi would already have the damned frequency. If there even was one. For all she knew, these Romulans could be telepathic and coordinating their attacks with sheer brainpower. Thirty-nine. Forty. There's something I'm missing! Forty-two. She set aside the thought, concentrated on the incoming torpedoes.

They came from different angles this time, as the Romulans split apart and assaulted from unique vectors, maximizing the possibility of at least one torpedo getting through. One was fired at the saucer section, a second at the aft of the ship and clearly targeting the already damaged port nacelle, the third aimed amidships. It was perfect placement, forcing Hoshi to deal with each warhead individually. Another focused microwave burst fried the nacelle threat first but only barely in time; it wobbled on by the nacelle, would have still struck it if Travis hadn't applied a burst from the maneuvering jets at just the right moment. The amidships torpedo was the next target and she spent precious seconds struggling to track the fast-moving object; less than fifty meters from the hull, it suddenly careened off into the darkness.

She couldn't find the third torpedo.

Panic nearly set in for the extended heartbeat it took for her to realize that Travis had somehow managed to dodge it when he had fired the jets to avoid the nacelle threat; it was unnatural, his skill at the helm, and she doubted anyone - even Captain Archer who had something of a reputation as a pilot - could have convinced Enterprise to move like Travis did.

"Hoshi!" The captain's voice was strained and this time, she did shoot him a glare. More than anything, she wanted to remind him that she wasn't even officially trained to operate this board, that, if she hadn't expressed an interest in it to Commander T'Pol during a particularly boring midshift a couple of months ago, she would be completely lost.

"I'm not detecting any sort of subspace communication between them," she replied instead. Her tone bordered on insubordination and she knew it but doubted he would say anything. The captain would put it down as combat-related stress. At least she hoped he would.

"Sir, they might be using less advanced technology," Malcolm commented from his board. He didn't even look up and she could hear - no, she could feel the steady hum of discharging phase cannons. The Romulans pulled back, regrouped. They hovered just outside of effective weapons range; knowing from the opening salvos that Enterprise outgunned them, they seemed to prefer hit-and-fade attacks. It had to be frustrating the hell out of Reed; he so preferred a 'stand-up' fight.

"Like what?" Captain Archer asked, still frowning. All at once, Hoshi knew: Malcolm was right!

"Tightbeams!" she interjected excitedly, quickly warming to the subject. "Laser, neutrino, something like that! We can't detect those unless we're in the way of the beam!" She grinned at Malcolm and, even though his eyes remained glued on his board, he returned her smile. Gone was the tenseness between them - at least temporarily. Why didn't I say yes? she asked herself in that moment. It wasn't that she didn't love him, she had figured out her feelings for Malcolm long before they officially began dating. When Phlox told her of the pregnancy, though, she panicked; she knew that Malcolm, who considered himself a proper English gentleman, would feel pressured into proposing and she didn't want to marry him if he didn't actually want it himself. It would only eventually destroy them; she'd seen too many marriages - including her parents, she glumly admitted - break apart because one party was pressured into it. Despite that, the memory of the pain that flashed across face when she hesitated still caused her stomach to contract. Maybe he had been thinking about it all along. That thought caused her no small amount of consternation. We'll clear this up later, she promised herself.

"Then they need line-of-sight," Archer mused aloud. He glanced at Malcolm again. "We'll need a way to fight that."

"Asteroid belt, sir," Travis piped up and both senior officers shot him an approving look. Hoshi grinned; Mayweather couldn't even see it. Captain Archer nodded, once more dropped his hand onto Travis' shoulder. His face was set, grim, and Hoshi knew he was worried about Trip and T'Pol.

"Take us in, Travis."