Enterprise – The Maiden Voyage

by Soledad

For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction

For visuals: Ensign Soccorro is "played" by Gina Torres.


Chapter 05 – The Face of the Enemy

Sickbay was dimly lit, except for a single bright surgical lamp shining down on the dead intruder on the autopsy table. It looked largely humanoid: bipedal, with an unusual dappled texture to its skin, a bald head and reptilian eyes. Having donned a lab coat, Phlox now had his hands deeply inside the opened chest of the creature, enthusiastically picking through the entrails.

Hoshi had retreated to the farthest corner of the room, trying very hard not to become sick. Jack forced himself to look on. There was information to be had; information that they desperately needed if they wanted to find their passenger.

"What have you found, Doctor?" he urged.

"Our abducted patient was right about one thing," Phlox replied. "He is a Suliban. But unless I'm mistaken, he's no ordinary one."

Jack frowned. "Meaning?"

"His DNA is Suliban, but his anatomy has been altered," the doctor explained. "Look at this lung."

Jack peered into the open chest cavity but couldn't see a thing, except a lot of blood and gore and he said so. "What am I supposed to see, Doctor?"

"Five bronchial lobes, you see?" Phlox pointed at the head of the bio-bed, which showed an intricately complex biological diagram.

"And that's too much?" Jack still didn't have a clue.

"He should only have three," Phlox told him. "And look at the alveoli clusters. They've been modified to process different kinds of atmospheres."

"Are you saying he's some kind of mutant?" Jack clarified.

"Yes, I suppose I am. But this was no accident, no freak of nature," Phlox replied conversationally. "This man was the recipient of some very sophisticated genetic engineering."

Jack shuddered. For him, for every human, that term was forever associated with the horrors of the Eugenic Wars. Phlox, on the other hand, was like a kid in a candy store. He picked up a thin instrument and activated it. A deep red light came on. Phlox shone the light on the Suliban's dappled face. After a moment, he moved the light away.

"What do you see, Captain?"

"The skin has changed colour!" Jack realized. "It perfectly matches the hue and intensity of the light source! How is that possible? Even a chameleon needs time to adapt to its environment!"

"Subcutaneous pigment sacs," Phlox explained; but he clearly wasn't done yet. "Watch this."

He tapped a control on the instrument, and the colour of the light changed to blue. He turned the light onto the Suliban's clothing; when he moved it away, the clothing, too, had adapted to the colour.

"A bio-mimetic garment," he explained. "But the eyes are my favourite."

He lifted an eyelid, exposing a super-dilated pupil glowing with phosphorescence.

"Compound retinas. He most likely saw things even your sensors couldn't detect."

"It's not in their genome, though?" Jack asked.

"No, certainly not," the doctor said. "The Suliban are no more evolved than humans. It's very impressive work, though. I've never seen anything quite like it."

Jack couldn't truly share his chief medical officer's excitement about this discovery. On the contrary: it filled him with unease. It was bad enough that their passenger had been abducted. That she'd probably been abducted by genetically enhanced alien super-soldiers didn't make things any better.

"What do you know about them?" he asked. "Where do they come from?"

The bare facts would suffice at the moment. He could get the details from Hoshi later.

"They're nomadic, I believe," Phlox replied thoughtfully. "No homeworld that I'd know of. I examined two of them years ago... a mated couple... very forthcoming and cordial."

"Probably belonged to a different subspecies," Jack muttered. "Very well, Doctor, carry on. I want an extremely detailed list of all possible genetic modifications done to this guy, compared with what they're supposed to be like."

"Certainly, Captain," the Denobulan replied cheerfully. "This will be the most interesting examination I've done since I came to Earth."

"Good for you; at least somebody is going to have a field day," Jack looked at Hoshi. "Come with me. I think it's time to see what Trip and our resident Vulcan have found."


They found the chief engineer and T'Pol working at a station near the warp core. The screen displayed various sensor data. Tucker seemed eager to find something – anything – that could prove useful; the Vulcan was detached as always.

"How about this?" Tucker was pointing at some data when they were entering the room.

"It is just background noise," T'Pol replied coolly. "Your sensors are not capable of isolating plasma decay."

"How can you be so damn sure what our sensors can do?" Tucker demanded, insulted on his ship's behalf.

T'Pol gave him the superior Vulcan eyebrow. "Science attaché, remember? Vulcan children play with toys that are more sophisticated."

Hoshi, this being her first time in Engineering, looked around intrigued, but she got a little hesitant as they approached the pulsing warp core.

"Are you sure it's safe to stand so close to that?" she asked, only half-jokingly.

Lieutenant Hess, sweaty and smeared with dust and oil and other unidentifiable substances from the top of her white-blond head to the point where her open zipper allowed unhindered view at her generous cleavage, looked up with a wicked grin.

"Don't worry, girl," she winked at Hoshi. "Granted, it's very… phallic, but it won't attack you. We've trained it properly."

Hoshi became beet read with embarrassment. Anna Hess was ship-wide known for her rather dirty mouth, but she would not have expected her to talk like this in the presence of the captain – and of her immediate superior.

"Having any luck?" Jack asked before the argument between the chief engineer and the science officer could have escalated.

Tucker gave the blank-faced Vulcan a poisonous glare. "Not really."

"My analysis of the spatial disturbance Mister Reed saw indicates a stealth vessel with a tricyclic plasma drive," T'Pol replied with scientific precision.

"If we can figure out the decay rate of their plasma, we'll be able to find their warp trail," Tucker added.

T'Pol shook her head. "Unfortunately, your sensors weren't designed to measure plasma decay," she pointed out.

Jack gave her a baleful look. "Anything you can do to rectify that?"

"I am not certain…" T'Pol began but Jack interrupted her.

"Anything you'd be inclined to do about it?"

"As I said, Captain: I am not certain," she replied evenly. "I can try modifying the sensors but I cannot guarantee that it will work."

"There are no guarantees in space; I may be new to deep space exploration, but even I know that much," Jack returned. "But we don't have many alternatives. Give it your best try. Trip, give her a hand."

"Aye, Captain," Tucker replied dutifully - he didn't look happy.

"And keep me informed," Jack added, striding out of Engineering with Hoshi in tow barely able to keep up with him.


He led her directly to his ready room and gestured her to sit. She obeyed, looking nervous.

"I'm sorry, Captain, I'm still trying to get a grip on the language of the Viseeth," she began without preamble. "It's so little what the Vulcans could provide on data and I'm… well, not really at my best yet. Perhaps won't be ever again."

"You will," Jack replied encouragingly. "I know how brilliant you are, Hoshi; I've seen it often enough. Just give yourself some time."

"Time is not something we have right now," she reminded him. "I don't want to let you down, sir."

"You won't," he said confidently. "But you will need time to get your footing," he gave her a piercing look. "How are you holding out, Hoshi? Be honest with me."

"I'm doing well enough, all things considered," she answered slowly. "It's good to work with you and Charlie Tucker again; and T'Pol is not as bad as she seems, either. Granted, Dr Phlox is a little creepy, but…"

"What about Lieutenant Reed?" Jack asked quietly.

Hoshi froze. "I don't have much to do with Lieutenant Reed," she replied.

"I know," Jack said; he recognized an evasive answer when he was given one. "You avoid him like the plague whenever you can. If you still have to be in the same room, you act like a frightened rabbit."

"I always act like a frightened rabbit, ever since… well, since," she added a bit lamely. Jack shook his head.

"No, you don't. You are wary around people and obviously traumatized, which is not surprising after all that you've gone through in recent years. But with Reed it's different; I'd go as far as to say personal – and I want to know what it is. Where do you know him from and what has he done to you?"

Hoshi curled about herself in the seat. "I… I don't think I can talk about that, sir."

"Jack," he corrected gently. "You can, Hoshi. You must. You'll never be able to focus on your job around him otherwise, and that could get you killed. It could get us all killed."

"No pressure, eh?" she murmured.

Jack leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "I can't afford the luxury. I need you at your best. We can battle your demons together, but only if you tell me the truth. Friends, remember?"

"Friends," she agreed. That was what they used to be before… well, before. Before everything in her life would go to hell. She didn't doubt that he honestly wanted to help her. She was just not sure that he could. Not any more than he already had by saving her from prison, that is.

"Right," Jack continued to apply gentle pressure. "Friends are supposed to be honest with each other. So tell me: what has Malcolm Reed done to you?"

Hoshi still hesitated. It wasn't that she wouldn't trust him; she just didn't want to get him in trouble by sharing her knowledge about their armoury officer.

"Perhaps it will help if I tell you what I already know," Jack continued. "I know that Malcolm Reed used to be with Starfleet Intelligence. Presumably with one of the Black Ops units, since practically his entire career is classified. I also know he's been manipulated into his current position with the express orders to watch you; at least that was the partial reason. Commander Williams admitted that much, and I'm not naïve enough to believe he told me the whole truth. But you know Reed from before, don't you?"

Hoshi nodded.

"Where from?" Jack insisted.

To his shocked surprise, instead of answering, Hoshi pulled down the zipper of her uniform jacket and hitched up her top to reveal an ugly wound on the left side of her chest. It had clearly been caused by an energy weapon; the shot had presumably burned through her entire torso and scarred badly. It was also a mere inch from where her heart would have been hit.

Jack was appalled. "Reed did this? When?"

Hoshi nodded. "When I was arrested. He led the unit that stormed the Terra Prime hideout. I… I was there to deliver the information they wanted in exchange of my mother's life. The cell leader used me as a living shield… but you know as well as I do that Starfleet Intelligence doesn't negotiate with terrorists…"

"He shot the leader through you," Jack realised, feeling sick to his stomach.

Hoshi nodded and covered the wound again.

"They did their best to save my life afterwards, though," she said with bitter irony. "They needed somebody to make an example of, after all."

"But the scarring…" Jack said. "Surely, 22nd medical technology could do better than that?"

"You don't really expect them to waste a tank full of expensive, experimental regeneration gel on a terrorist, do you?" Hoshi returned dryly. "I guess it was part of teaching me a lesson; the lesson that I no longer counted as a human being with human rights."

Jack shook his head in dismay, unable to say anything for a while, which was a first for him.

"You had a great deal of luck," he finally said. "That shot could have burned right through your heart."

"It would have," Hoshi agreed, "if I didn't have a little anatomical anomaly; my heart is positioned an inch or so higher than the human norm."

"Oh God!" Jack stared at her in open-mouthed shock. "He was trying to kill you, to really kill you!"

"I'm sure it was nothing personal," Hoshi said dryly. "People like him are trained to aim to kill. It's part of their job, I suppose. It's just hard to run into him every day."

"No kidding!" Jack said with a mirthless bark. "Listen, Hoshi, if he tries to harass you, if he gets too close to you, if he as much as looks at you the wrong way, you come to me. Immediately."

"And you could do what exactly about it?" Hoshi asked doubtfully.

Jack gave her a grin that would have made a shark proud. "Not about the issue… about him. If he hurts you again, I'll kill him. Slowly and very, very painfully."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Hoshi laughed but couldn't help being touched. "Even if you had a snowball's chance in Hell against a Special Ops agent, which you don't, you can't risk the mission just for me."

Jack shook his head. "You don't understand, Hoshi. You're a friend. I'd put you before anything or anyone. Especially before a spy that has been smuggled aboard my ship under false pretences."

"How that?" Hoshi asked. "You picked him yourself, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I thought I was picking a capable security officer," Jack replied. "A good one; but not a killer and a spy."

"He must be good at what he does if he was chosen for Black Ops," pointed out Hoshi reasonably.

Jack nodded. "I'm sure he is. I'm just not comfortable having somebody like him on board. Especially not somebody who tried to kill a friend of mine, no matter the reasons."

"I'm not very comfortable with that part, either," Hoshi admitted. "But for better or worse, you're stuck with him, at least until this mission is completed. And who knows? He might prove useful… for things no other member of the crew would be willing to do."

Jack frowned. "You mean dirty work."

"It might become necessary," Hoshi replied with a shrug. "And if it does, why shouldn't you assign the man to the task who's been specially trained to deal with it?"

"True," Jack admitted. "I don't have to like it, though… or him."

"No, but you must treat him civilly," Hoshi said. "He's not your enemy… not yet. Don't turn him into one."

"I don't want to," Jack assured her. "It's just… I can't really trust him and I keep asking myself: if Starfleet Intelligence has managed to smuggle one spy aboard, how many others may there be?"


"He's very perceptive," commented Ensign Soccorro in Reed's tiny security office, where she was watching the live feed from the captain's ready room.

She was a tall, athletic woman with dark skin and short-cropped back curls, with enough sex-appeal to make a convent of Tibetan monks dazed with lust. How she'd ended up doing security work was everybody's guess.

They'd have been even more baffled had they known that she was actually Black Ops; but fortunately, only Reed knew that.

And T'Pol, of course, but neither of them suspected that. Starfleet Intelligence tended to underestimate Vulcans because of their generally non-violent attitude, which was a mistake, but not even intelligence officers were perfect.

"And fiercely protective about those he considers his," Reed answered to Soccorro's comment. "Like every good leader."

"It could become a problem, though," Soccorro warned him. "What if he has to choose between his crew and his mission one day?"

"Oh, he'll choose the mission, no doubt about hat,' Reed replied dismissively. "He's been obsessing about making his father's dream true all his life. He won't endanger it for personal reasons."

"That didn't sound like that just now," Soccorro pointed out.

"What people say and what they really do are often two very different things," Reed said. "The captain has a short temper, especially if people he cares for are threatened. But he also has an analytical mind and a strong sense of duty; he'll do what he has to do, personal feeling notwithstanding."

"It's still a case of divided loyalties," Soccorro insisted.

Reed shrugged. "Which is why we have to pussyfoot around Ensign Sato. She's one of the captain's pressure points. Commander Tucker is the other one."

"And he already hates your guts," Soccorro added dryly.

Reed shrugged again. "Nobody likes spies, Ensign. Not even the ones in their own rows. They'd gladly roll off the dirty work onto our shoulders but they still don't like us. We are deceiving them, after all, so it is understandable, I'm afraid."

"Was that the reason why you requested to transfer back to basic Security?" Soccorro asked with an ironic eyebrow. "Did you want to become 'one of the boys' again?"

"I know it was naïve of me," Reed answered with another shrug. "I should have known that once they've laid hand on you there would be no way back. I was a fool, clearly."

"Do you regret it?" Soccorro asked. She didn't need to explain what.

Reed nodded. "I do. But it's too late for that. We have a job to do and we're going to do it, whether we personally like it or not."

"I have no problems with the job," Soccorro said. "And you should come clear with yourself about your loyalties, sir, or else you won't be able to do your jobs – either of them."

"I know," Reid said grimly. "Very well, Ensign; carry on watching Sato while I keep an eye on the Vulcan. This is a delicate mission; the future of Starfleet depends on it. We can't afford any mistakes. Not on our end; or on that of the captain's."


"That damned lyin', backstabbin' son of a bitch!" Charlie Tucker wasn't a man prone to swearing, especially not in female company – even if said female was a Vulcan and therefore indifferent to his foul mood.

What he had just seen made his blood boil, though.

"I doubt that Lieutenant Reed's ancestry would play any role in the manner he carries out his duty," T'Pol replied, completely unfazed by the chief engineer's outburst. "Besides, to my knowledge he is the legitimate child of an old and respected English family."

"And your knowledge about us is fairly extensive, huh?" Tucker grinned, despite his anger. Vulcans could be unintentionally funny, taking everything for face value.

"Of course," she replied. "I, too, was an intelligence officer once. And even as a diplomatic attaché, I did have my sources."

"I bet you did," Tucker muttered. "You've managed to bug Reed's office, after all, and he's one paranoid son-of-a-bitch where security is concerned."

"Human males are often very arrogant," T'Pol replied simply. "That leads to the tactical error of underestimating females – human or otherwise."

"Probably, yeah," Tucker allowed. "I'm still wonderin' how you've managed to enter his office unnoticed… unless you'd manipulated the internal sensors in advance."

"There was no need to do so," T'Pol told him. "I never actually entered the office."

"So you had help," Tucker realised.

"In a manner of speaking," the Vulcan admitted. "Although I seriously doubt that Crewman Cooper was aware of the true nature of some of the repair work she had to do in the security office."

Tucker shook his head in reluctant amazement. "You're a sneaky girl and no mistake! How did you do it? Have you manipulated Anna's maintenance roster?"

"Nothing so crude," T'Pol said serenely. "I merely added a few slight modifications to the regular maintenance list regarding internal communications. It helped that Lieutenant Reed had ordered a feed from his own office to his quarters. Establishing a parallel link was child's play."

Tucker could barely hide his amusement over the paranoid Englishman falling into his own trap. Then a thought occurred to him.

"Why are you tellin' me this?"

"Because you are the executive officer of this ship, aside from being its chief engineer," T'Pol replied simply. "You need to know what is going on behind the captain's back; even if he does not know."

Knowing that Vulcans phrased their statements very carefully as a rule, Tucker thought about the whole issue for a moment – and came to an unexpected conclusion.

"So you don't want me to warn the captain just yet?" he asked.

It wasn't really a question but T'Pol answered it nonetheless. It was a Vulcan thing as Tucker had long learned, thanks to him having worked with Vulcan engineers for years.

"Not yet," she said. "Captain Archer has many impressive qualities but being a good actor is not among them. It is better if you and I watch Lieutenant Reed and his helper… or helpers, should there be more than just one."

"How likely is that?" Tucker asked.

"Roughly ten point two three per cent," she answered without hesitation. "Such missions are usually the more successful the less people are involved. But it is not entirely impossible that there are more. We must be thorough and very careful."

"Oh, I will be thorough, don't worry," Tucker said through gritted teeth. "So thorough that they won't even know what's hit them, once I'm done with them."

T'Pol regarded him with the clinical look of a doctor who wanted to make the correct diagnosis.

"You are unproportionally upset about this," she stated. "Why? Captain Archer was told in advance that Ensign Sato would be under constant surveillance, was he not?"

"He was informed about Reed… long after he'd picked him, believin' him to be a simple, down-to-Earth security officer," Tucker answered grimly. "No-one bothered to tell him about Soccorro – or any additional spies that might or might not be hidin' among us."

"Of course not," T'Pol said matter-of-factly. "That would negate the reason of their very presence."

Tucker shook his head angrily. "You don't understand, do you? These are our own people, spyin' on us!"

"And that upsets you," T'Pol said. It wasn't a question.

"Of course it friggin' upsets me!" Tucker exclaimed, his exasperation obvious. "They're our people. They're supposed to be on our side!"

"What makes you believe that they are not?" T'Pol asked calmly. "Ambassador Soval does not doubt that Starfleet Intelligence is very much behind this mission of yours. Our analysis has proved their sincerity."

"They've got a funny way showin' it," Tucker muttered angrily.

"They are trying to ensure the success of the mission with all the methods at their disposal," pointed out T'Pol. "And the fact is, intelligence services tend to have more efficient methods to deal with adversaries than regular security."

"I don't see them dealin' with anythin' at the moment," Tucker replied. "It's us they're spyin' on: you, Hoshi, the captain. You've just told me to be careful, haven't you?"

"And you should be," she said. "Intelligence officers – spies as you call them – can be ruthless when they think they have to, in order to get the job done. I know what I am talking about; I used to be one."

"So you think Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Soccorro could be a threat to us?" Tucker asked. "To Hoshi or you? To the rest of us?"

"I have reasonable doubts where Lieutenant Reed is concerned," T'Pol replied thoughtfully. "He officially requested to be transferred back to regular security; presumably because he found the demands of intelligence service incompatible with his conscience. I found no such records about Ensign Soccorro."

"And yet Reed was pushed into Jack's way by Starfleet Intelligence," Tucker said.

T'Pol nodded. "True. But Intelligence generally outranks regular security in such matters. Lieutenant Reed might not have had a choice."

"And they dare to accuse Jack of divided loyalties!" Tucker muttered angrily. "By the way, are you sure they couldn't have watched us watchin' them watch the captain? God, this is worse than a 20th century spy movie!"

"Quite sure," T'Pol said calmly. "I have established a scattering field around your office. If they tried to listen to us, all they would get would have been a highly technical conversation beyond their understanding. Now, I believe we should give our sensor modifications a final check and then bring them back online. Time is of an issue if we want to find Gerasen Gerasal while they are still alive."

~TBC~