Chapter 4

"Get Hoshi up here, now!" Jonathan ordered, his voice filled with anger and worry. I nodded my head slowly as I was still feeling a bit dazed from the stun, and judging by everyone else's movements, they were too. "T'Pol, I want those ships located now!"

"Luckily their warp trail has not fully disintegrated. It shouldn't be too hard to find out where they have gone."

Within minutes, Hoshi entered the bridge from the turbolift. Switching places, she took over on tactical and I hesitantly moved to the tactical console and sat down in Malcolm's seat. It didn't feel right. He should be the one here. I looked to Captain Archer for some sort of comfort, but he was too busy focussing on the situation. His chief of Security had just been kidnapped and he was going to do whatever he could to get him back. His officer… his friend.

T'Pol was able to project an image of the warp trail onto the view screen in front of everyone. With the information on display, Travis set a course. Hopefully our vessel was faster than the Nausicaans and we'd catch up with them in no time, try negotiating and we'd have Malcolm back in time for tea. That was what I was hoping for anyway. But I knew that it would never be that simple.

For three hours we followed the warp trail, and the further we got, the clearer the signal came from the trail. We were gaining on them. I kept my eyes on our long range scanners, looking for any ships. Looking for their ships. I finally spotted three blips on the scanners. It had to be them, it just had to be. "I've got them!" I announced, feeling more hopeful, even though I didn't actually know if it was the Nausicaans or not. But I had to be… they were travelling in the same direction, there were three of them… what more confirmation did I need?

After gaining a bit more on them, T'Pol's sensors were able to give us more information. "I am detecting one human bio sign on the starboard ship."

"Take out their engines!" Archer ordered and I nodded my head. His voice was full of anger, and he was ready to get his revenge on the aliens. Firing the torpedoes and plasma cannons at the three ships was answered back with retaliation, though their fire power was only with low yield particle cannons, this wasn't going to be too difficult. For several seconds everyone was watching the view screen as I continued to fire. Small explosions could be seen erupting on the three ships as each one lost their own weapons and engines.

"They've all lost weapons and engines." I reported, knowing the Captain would also want me to knock out the enemy's fire power.

"T'Pol. Tucker. Reller." Archer ordered and headed for the turbolift. I knew what that meant, he wanted me with them on the mission and so I followed, joining the other three in the turbolift.

"Cap'n, shouldn't we try and contact them first?"

Archer glared at Trip "I highly doubt they will just hand Malcolm over!"

"Aye sir." He nodded and the doors closed as we headed for the Armoury. I grabbed several Phase pistols and plasma rifles, handing them out so that we each had two weapons. We then silently, but with a purposeful stride made our way to the transporter. Hoshi had already set the co-ordinates down to a crewman who was ready and waiting to activate the machine. Standing on the pad, Archer nodded his head.

"I can get you within twenty meters of the target, sir."

"Energise."

With that the transporter was activated and after just a brief second or two we found ourselves along a corridor on the Nausicaan ship. We all took up a defensive stance, expecting to meet resistance, but there was none.

"Trip. Take T'Pol and go Starboard. We'll take port."

"Aye sir." Trip looked at T'Pol and with a nod from both of them they moved off along the corridor and disappeared around a corner. I looked at Archer and we moved off carefully. I kept checking my scanner to see which direction we needed to go. I looked at him and indicated with my hand which way Lieutenant Reed was, and we moved off. Silently.