"Malcolm! Don't you do this! Don't you dare!"
Archer wasted no time. Pinching Reed's nose closed, he tilted the younger man's head back, and blew hard into his mouth, once, twice, and then began chest compressions, counting rapidly to thirty in his head, before he repeated the breathing exercises. He was about halfway through when Reed suddenly arched beneath his hands, and choked, drawing in a ragged breath of his own. Archer sagged with relief even as he grasped Reed's shoulders, gently supporting him.
"Easy, Malcolm, easy," Archer warned him, "just breathe..."
Reed clutched at his chest, dragging in a couple of harsh, rasping breaths, and Archer could feel him trembling horribly. For one moment, Reed's eyes met Archer's worried gaze, and he tried to speak. However, a terrible shudder ran through him, his eyes rolled back, and he went limp in Archer's arms. With a gasp, Archer quickly felt for a pulse, and sighed with relief when he found one. Though unconscious, the lieutenant was, at least, still breathing. Getting to his feet, he pulled Reed upright and lifted him in a fireman's carry; his priority had to be getting them back to the shuttlepod. He glanced around; their encounter with the alien apparition had left him bewildered and disorientated. His eye caught an imprint on the ground and he recognised the impression as that of a Starfleet boot print. He managed a grim smile; he might not have earned as many scout merit badges as his tactical officer, and his tracking skills were obviously rusty in comparison, but he was determined to make it back to the shuttle. With Malcolm a dead weight over his shoulder, he lowered his head, and set off.
Archer had never been as relieved as he was at the moment the mist parted slightly and he recognised the hulking outline of the shuttlepod. The hatch stood open and he stumbled towards it, calling out as he did so.
"Trip! Trip, are you there?"
"Captain!" the relief in the engineer's voice was evident as he stepped out of the hatch, "what's going on? There was some kind of EM pulse; all of the pod systems are dead..."
He trailed off, his eyes widening as Archer approached, and Trip suddenly saw the burden he was carrying.
"Malcolm?" Trip exclaimed, stepping forward to help, "What the hell happened?"
"We need to get inside, Trip," Archer said, breathlessly, stepping up the ramp, "I'll explain everything in a minute, but we may have been exposed to a massive dose of radiation... Then Malcolm was attacked by this... this thing..."
He broke off and shook his head. Trip was frowning; he could see that the captain was exhausted and clearly quite bewildered by whatever he had seen. Unusually, Trip decided he would have to take charge for the moment.
"Come on – let's get you guys inside," he said, firmly.
Easing Reed down from Archer's shoulder, Trip carried the unconscious lieutenant into the shuttle.
"Close the door would you, Jon?" he prompted, gently, as he laid Reed down on the deck.
Archer nodded and pressed the door control, but frowned when nothing happened. Trip shot him an apologetic look.
"Sorry, cap'n," he murmured, reaching for a medical case as he spoke, "somethin' weird's been goin' on over here while you've been gone. There was a massive electromagnetic surge, it knocked out all of our electrical systems – you'll have to use the manual override..."
"The surge – it reached here?"
"You knew about it?"
"We may have caused it," Archer said, grimly, as he opened the override hatch, pumping the lever and slowly drawing the hatch closed, "look, I'll explain everything in a minute – are any of the medical scanners working? Our tricorders got cooked in the blast."
"They were offline and in the storage case – that should have protected them," Trip nodded, as he began pulling out supplies, "but pretty much everything else is offline – propulsion, navigation, communication, sensors, life support – you name it; it's toast."
"Damn," Archer swore softly, as Trip quickly passed the medical scanner over Reed, "how's he doing?"
"I'm no doctor," Trip frowned, "I don't understand most of these readings – it looks like he's suffered a massive neurological shock – he's hypothermic too. There's no sign of that radiation you mentioned though, cap'n."
"Scan me," Archer ordered; Trip obeyed and shrugged.
"Same again," the engineer replied, "no sign of radiation."
Archer knelt down beside Reed and gently pressed his hand to the lieutenant's face. He was ice cold to the touch. There was a rustling noise behind him, and he turned to find Trip unfolding one of the emergency blankets.
"Jon, do you want to tell me exactly what happened out there?" Trip asked, as he began to gently wrap Malcolm in a blanket.
Haltingly, Archer recounted the tale of their journey through the swamp; the strange stone circle, the mysterious column, the single skeleton, the explosion and the apparition that had attacked Reed. Trip listened in mute astonishment, until Archer trailed off, saying, "... and I had to carry Malcolm back the rest of the way. When he stopped breathing... I thought..."
"Yeah," Trip did not need to finish that thought, "well, cap'n, the news don't get any better on this end. Like I said, every system on the shuttle is shot. I've been trying to get the engines restarted; if I can get power to the main systems we might get the communicator online; or even better, we might be able to get off this forsaken rock. Hopefully Enterprise was out of range of the EMP... even if they weren't, they'd have had time to polarise the hull plating – shouldn't have affected them, at any rate."
"Do you think you can get the engines rebooted?" Archer asked, scrubbing a hand over his face exhaustedly.
"I can keep trying," Trip shrugged, "a few of the components overloaded and burned out, but I should be able to replace them from non-essential systems. Do you want me to focus on communications, or getting us out of here?"
"Get us out of here, Trip," Archer replied, in a heartfelt way, "we've got to get Malcolm back to Enterprise. Whatever that thing was, I don't want it to make a return visit."
"Understood, cap'n..."
Archer awoke with a start, not even realising that he had fallen asleep. He shivered; the deck plating of the shuttle was cold, and the air carried a distinct chill. He had dozed off, sitting on the floor, leaning against the bulkhead. He glanced around, wondering what had awoken him. Somewhere in the back of the shuttle, Trip was ripping apart one of the shuttle's systems, no doubt attempting to cannibalise some of the components in an effort to get the engines, navigation and life support systems working. A small noise distracted him, and he glanced down, hope flaring in him for the first time in several hours. On the deck, wrapped in several blankets and his head pillowed on another, Reed was stirring.
"Malcolm?" Archer leaned forward, reaching out and gently grasping the lieutenant's arm, "Malcolm, can you hear me?"
Reed groaned, and shifted slightly, taking in a small, sharp gasp of breath. Archer reached for the medical tricorder, but he could make no more sense of the readings than Trip had been able to; the bizarre readouts needed the eye of a skilled physician. He needed Phlox...
"C... captain...?" Reed's voice was thin, weak, almost gasping.
"I'm here, Malcolm – are you alright?"
"Ah..." Reed screwed his eyes shut, wincing, bringing his hands up to his head, "...hurts..."
"Here," Archer reached into the medical kit, and withdrew a hypospray, "this should help..."
The captain injected the analgesic straight into Reed's neck; the medication took effect almost instantly. Reed relaxed slightly, his breathing evened out, and he cracked his eyes slightly open, still wheezing a little. Archer found himself wondering exactly what damage the ghostly creature had done to the armoury officer.
"Sir," Reed's voice sounded pained and raspy, "what happened?"
"What do you remember, Malcolm?"
Reed frowned slightly, smothering a cough; "That... that thing... like a bird... or, or a ghost... what was it?"
"I don't know," Archer confessed, "and the bad news is the EMP disabled most of the shuttle systems. Trip's working to fix it now..."
"Actually," said a familiar Southern drawl, "Trip's in need of a break and some coffee. Good to see you awake, Mal – how're you feelin'?"
"I'm... I'm fine, Commander..." the tremble in Reed's voice belied his words, but he nonetheless began to sit up.
Archer shared a knowing glance with Trip; they could both see how pale he was and how his hands shook. Wordlessly, Archer took Reed's arm and supported him, helping to lean back against the bulkhead. Archer then picked up one of the blankets and draped it around Reed's shoulder. Malcolm took it gratefully with a murmur of thanks. Archer grabbed a blanket for himself, and Trip followed suit; the temperature was dropping rapidly as night approached, and without life support systems, Archer knew they were in trouble. Already he could see his breath misting in the air, and in his damp uniform he could really feel the cold. However, the captain knew Reed was faring much worse, already hypothermic and injured, Archer feared for the lieutenant the most.
Trip had begun rooting through another supply crate, and produced three ration packs, along with a thermos.
"Lucky for us, I packed coffee – wasn't sure how long we were going to be down here," the engineer smiled, as he poured out three cops of the steaming hot drink, "Sorry, Malcolm – I know you prefer tea but I've no idea how to make the stuff."
Archer picked up one of the cups and pressed it into Reed's shaking hands; "Here – you need to drink this – you need to get warm."
Reed mumbled an obedient affirmation and sipped at the coffee. They drank in silence for a moment, as Archer and Trip also chewed on the contents of a ration pack each. Reed declined to eat, if possible going even paler at the thought as his hand twitched uncomfortably to his chest. Realising the armoury officer was obviously feeling sick and pained; Archer did not press the issue.
"Any luck with the repairs, Trip?" Archer asked, breaking the silence at last.
The engineer gave a small shrug as he finished his ration pack and took a sip of the rapidly cooling coffee.
"I'm short on a few relays; I'll rip them out of the least essential systems but we may have to sacrifice a few of the aft stabilisers – our journey up to Enterprise might be rougher than our landing but once we're clear of the atmosphere we'll be fine. I'll have to bypass a few of the safety systems so we'll have to keep an eye on power flow, we don't want to risk any blowouts. We'll need to conserve as much power as possible; I can't risk powering up life support yet or we won't have enough reserves to bring the engines online, and if we stall it out we're stuck here."
"And we already know Enterprise can't fully penetrate the atmosphere with her scanners, so we've little hope of them finding us," Archer added, grimly, "and with communications down, they've no way of knowing we're in trouble..."
"Captain!" Reed gasped, his voice laced with horror.
Archer and Trip both whipped around; Reed was staring, transfixed, at the shuttlepod hatch.
"Oh my..." Trip's eyes widened as he backed away quickly, scrambling to his feet and assuming a defensive position.
Archer similarly shot up to standing; taking a deep breath – there was something coming through the hatch. The hatch remained firmly closed, but the thing – whatever it was – was a white mist, sparkling slightly, drifting through the hatch as if the barrier simply did not exist. It began to coalesce into a figure, and Archer felt a deep, primal fear seize his throat.
Trip clearly felt the same, as he whispered, stunned; "Is this the creature you saw outside? The one that attacked Malcolm?"
"Yes," Archer nodded, his voice low, as the figure continued to take shape, "whatever you do, don't let it touch you..."
The same hawk-like face was forming, the eerie clawed hands and the feathery, shapeless body, hanging in the air like a ghostly apparition. The face turned to Archer and then to Trip, and then turned to focus on Reed. It raised a hand, and drifted towards the ashen-faced lieutenant.
"Stop!" Archer held up a hand in protest, but the creature flicked a claw at him, and he found himself paralysed, frozen to the spot.
"Don't touch him!" Trip protested, taking a step forward, but with another flick of the claw, the engineer, too, was locked in place, unable to move.
Floating in the air, the misty figure drew closer to Reed, who was still sitting, transfixed, on the deck plates. A clawed hand reached for the lieutenant, resting in the air just above his head. Reed stared up at the creature, his hand pressed to his chest, his breathing rough and ragged.
"Captain..." Reed's voice sounded pained, but steady, "it... it's in my head... I... I can... I can feel it..."
Pinned to the spot and unable to speak, Archer's mind screamed in frustration at his inability to act. The apparition turned its head towards him, briefly, as if it could sense his anger, and was amused. It then turned back to Reed, and gestured. In one fluid motion, the lieutenant was on his feet, pulled upright by the same invisible forces that compelled Archer and Trip to remain motionless. The captain and the engineer could only watch as the hawk-like face surveyed Reed, curiously. It reached out, as if to touch him, but then in an instant the mist shimmered and melted into a shapeless cloud. It hung in the air for only a second, and then suddenly accelerated forwards. It shot straight through Reed, and into the bulkhead, disappearing from view.
As soon as it was gone, Archer gasped in a deep breath, abruptly able to move again. Trip inhaled similarly and shook his head, confused and shocked by what he had just seen. Both of them, however, lunged forward as Malcolm staggered, lost his balance, and collapsed to the deck.
"No! Not again!" Archer hissed, as he grasped Reed's shoulder and rolled him onto his back.
Reed gasped and reached up, grabbing Archer's wrist. Relief flashed through the captain to see that the armoury officer was, at least, still breathing and semi-conscious. The hand clasped around his wrist felt like ice; Reed's face was pale beyond measure, his lips blue, and his eyes... Archer gasped and glanced at Trip. The engineer gave him a horrified look, he had seen it too. Reed's eyes, once grey and clear, were now covered by a misty film.