It Takes Two to Tangle

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

They were very careful indeed, and they got away with it for just over a month before somebody noticed.

Their duty rosters didn’t allow them many nights in the week where they could meet up, and naturally they had to avoid it being noticeable that Hoshi disappeared from the social scene every evening when their free time coincided (this wasn’t as much of a problem for Malcolm, but even he had to show up for movie nights occasionally). Their duties were sometimes so demanding that even when both of them were off duty one or the other of them couldn’t make it or was just too tired for the degree of concentration required. But at least Lieutenant Reed had sat through the vid-recording without changing his mind, even if he’d looked somewhat pale by the end of it. And on each occasion that offered thereafter, Hoshi had slipped along to his quarters, checked carefully that the coast was clear, and slid inside. Owing to his rank, his cabin was the larger of the two and thus more suitable for their purposes. To begin with, at least until they achieved a measure of ease with each other and what they were doing, they wouldn’t need much room: and they had already agreed that it would be wise not to take the risk of sneaking off to one of the cargo bays until they had to.

For quite a while they were lucky. They took the obvious measures to keep the noise level as low as possible. Nobody had seen the ensign arrive on this particular evening, and there seemed no reason to fear that their luck was about to change, but a passing crewman was startled to hear an unmistakably female voice from Lieutenant Reed’s quarters. Human nature being what it is, he could hardly be blamed for hesitating; it was simply so unexpected that he stopped before realising it. He was then almost felled by hearing the lieutenant’s voice saying with disastrous clarity: "No, Hoshi, your legs are too far apart!”

Being one of the more principled members of the armoury staff, he hurried on again before he could overhear anything else that his senior officer certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be made general knowledge. He said nothing for several days, until it so happened that the group at his table in the mess began rather avidly discussing the latest rumour. Someone, it seemed, had seen Ensign Sato slipping away from the direction of Lieutenant Reed’s quarters at an advanced hour, and she had looked somewhat dishevelled and flushed. Furthermore, to judge by her expression whatever she had been doing to make her so had been most enjoyable. It would have been an act of almost saintly self-restraint in these circumstances to have refrained from adding his tit-bit of information to the mix, and there were no saints in the ship’s crew. Within moments a litre of petroleum had been flung on to the fires of speculation, and within twenty four hours Enterprise was ablaze.

* * *

Malcolm picked it up almost immediately. His years of training had given him a highly developed sixth sense for eyes boring into his back. As he entered the armoury for duty the next morning he realised that for some reason he was an object of considerable if furtive interest, and although he maintained an expression of chilly composure, his heart sank. He’d have to get word to Hoshi that they’d been rumbled; from this point onwards they’d have to be twice as careful. The unfortunate thing was that they were pretty well at the stage where his quarters would no longer provide the space they needed. Very soon they were going to have to meet in one of the cargo bays, and that meant that both of them would be having their off-duty movements made the subject of interested observation on all sides. For a moment he contemplated calling the whole thing off altogether, but then it occurred to him that evading detection could be viewed as a useful training exercise. On his part, at least – it being unlikely in the extreme that linguistic training would have been particularly strong on stealth techniques. He hid a smile at the thought of Hoshi being taught to use camouflage and terrain to creep up behind chatting aliens and eavesdrop on their conversations.

Somewhat to his surprise, when his co-conspirator was apprised over a closed com-link that their secret assignations were no longer a secret, she responded with delighted defiance. She’d already noticed that one or two conversations stopped when she got within range, so she wasn’t entirely surprised by the news.

"Someone’s going to pick up on this,” he warned, thinking of the one senior officer who was all too likely to be the first. To do him credit, Trip wasn’t likely to go running to the captain telling tales, but if T'Pol got wind of it she’d almost certainly think it her duty to investigate. Not being in the same chain of command, she might well think it appropriate to refer it to Captain Archer and then the fat really would be in the fire.

"Well, what are we doing wrong?” asked Hoshi. "And isn’t what we do in our spare time our own business?”

"Not if we were doing what everyone bloody well thinks we are,” he said drily.

"Well we’re not, are we?”

"Hmm.” She had a point, but it was hardly one that he could shout out to the crew if they were to keep their secret. "You do realise that we’re going to have our work cut out to stop people tracking us down.”

"You’re Chief of Security. This is just up your alley, isn’t it?”

"It might be mine. I didn’t think it was yours.”

"You’ve already found I’m a quick learner.”

"You’re going to have to be even quicker from here on in.”

* * *

Malcolm was sitting alone in a corner of the mess a few days later, reading a book in between bites of his lunch and trying to ignore the fact that his usual ability to achieve invisibility seemed to have deserted him. That said, it was the first time that he’d pitted his wits against the rest of the ship’s crew, and perhaps they were feasting their eyes on him while they could. The previous night he’d had to resort to scrambling down an access chute to get to the lower decks because every time he went near the turbo lifts someone else seemed to be there first. The fact that nobody ever looked at him directly was a dead give-away. It had suddenly turned into a great big game of Hunt the Lieutenant. Every time he quitted the bridge he half expected the people there to start chanting, ‘Ten, nine, eight... Ready or not, here we come!’

He was by no means tired of the game just yet, nor was he in danger of running out of options. He had an excellent working knowledge of the ship’s crawl-ways and ventilation shafts. He’d even created a programme that fooled the ship’s computer into thinking he was in his quarters when he wasn’t – though of course he had not included enquiries from his senior officers to be routed through it, and any activation of the alert system would override it instantly. Hoshi, to her credit, was bearing up better than he’d expected; she too was having to become familiar with the crawl-ways and to ducking behind bulkheads and into storage cupboards to let people go past. So the eyes that he could feel on him weren’t entirely a source of irritation. He was also conscious of a grim amusement. On the last movie night, the film selected had been somewhat different from the usual horror flick. He could still hear the significant line playing in the back of his mind. "Come out, come out, wherever you are...” He’d had to sit there pretending to be utterly unaware that virtually every eye in the place had swivelled in his direction. Commander Tucker was sometimes as subtle as an impact with an asteroid.

"Mind if I join ya?”

Talk of the devil and he turns up with a tray. "Commander.” He gestured politely to one of the empty chairs.

Trip put the tray on the table and took a seat. His blue eyes were bright and assessing, while a grin was tugging hard at a mouth that was trying to look solemn. "You’re lookin’ well today, Malc.”

"I feel fine, thank you.” He took a sip of tea and feigned interest in his book.

"Gettin’ some extra workouts in, I hear,” pursued his friend, carefully cutting a section of pecan pie with his fork.

"You know I keep fit. It’s part of my job description.” Long experience had taught him the art of keeping his face as informative as a sheet of duratanium. His grey gaze was innocently bland. "But yes, I’ve found a new way to improve my stamina.”

"Oh. Sure.” Trip appeared to choke slightly on a pastry crumb. He muttered something into his napkin that sounded suspiciously like, 'It’s the first time I’ve heard it called that.’

TBC