Malcolm and Hoshi: The Missing Scenes

Babel One

They’re gone.

They’re both gone, and we don’t know where.  The two of them – and without them the ship is as quiet as a tomb.

You’d think I had enough on my plate trying to hold two warring factions apart, each completely convinced the other is trying to sabotage peace talks that Starfleet desperately wants to see succeed.  Somebody sure is, but who or why is beyond me.  Both the Tellarites and the Andorians sound genuine enough in their indignation, but nobody gets to be an ambassador without learning to fake pretty well anything, and Shran has a hair-trigger at the best of times.  Finding out that the ship who rescued what’s left of his crew has a complement of Tellarite passengers was never going to sweeten his temper – not when he claims it was Tellarites who attacked the Kumari and blew it to hell.

So the only way to keep the peace is to lock all of them up, safely at a distance from each other, till we can get more information on what’s going on.  Getting Trip and Malcolm onto that ‘nautilus’ ship was a stroke of luck – at least, till it woke up to our presence and started knocking the hell out of us as well.  So, with our transporter down we had to run, leaving my two officers aboard it.  And now I’ve got the whole universe to search, looking for them.

Great.

I’ve come down to grab a coffee and stretch my legs.  I was going stir crazy up there in the Ready Room, going over and over the scanner logs and trying to find an explanation that fits all the facts. There are a couple of Engineering staff in the Mess, and I can feel their eyes on me.  Have we found him, sir?  Is he gonna be okay?  They don’t want to ask; maybe they’re afraid of the answers. 

God, I wish I had some answers.  Any answers.  Even to the question of will we ever see them again?  Two women up on the Bridge need an answer to that.  T’Pol hides a lot behind that Vulcan façade of hers, but she’s stiff with tension.  For all the times she and Trip have bickered like a pair of school kids, there’s something, some kind of understanding between them; you can see it with your eyes shut.  And I’ve never understood what happened about that marriage of hers.  I know Trip came back from the trip to Vulcan like he was sleepwalking and wanted to wake up, but couldn’t.  And now she’s had that message from Koss saying the marriage is officially over.  What’s going to happen there now, if we get Trip back?  I wish I knew.  Or perhaps I’m glad I don’t.

As for Hoshi, it’s like looking at a ghost sitting at the comm station, a ghost with constantly moving fingers, changing all the settings over and over, listening to every burst of static and every tiny flicker in the background radiation of the universe, listening for the smallest sound that might be a fragment of a cry for help.  The only time I’ve seen her anything like this was when we were racing towards Shuttlepod 1 that time the micro-singularities hit it, but this is worse.  If T’Pol’s theory is right, that ship could be heading towards Romulan space – and what little we know about the Romulans isn’t good.  If they get hold of two Starfleet officers with the technical and strategic knowledge that Trip and Malcolm have between them, the outlook is pretty damned bleak.  I’m sure that both of them know their duty, and that if it’s at all possible they won’t let it happen.  However, that particular line of thought isn’t pleasant.  Maybe they’ll be able to burrow into the nautilus’s command protocols enough to initiate a self-destruct.  If they don’t ... well, they’re both armed.

I want to talk to her about it.  I feel so responsible for her being here, for her being in this position.  I talked her into it, I’m the reason she’s here at all instead of being safely back home in South America with her students and her nice safe job at the university.  Maybe up till now she’s felt it’s had its compensations, but right now she’s paying in blood for being foolish enough to fall in love.

Maybe that’s partly my fault as well.  Maybe I should have done my damnedest to stop it as soon as I found out, though what a mere ship’s captain is supposed to do about two people falling in love when they see each other every day, I don’t know.  But I didn’t.  I wanted them to have a little happiness, because there was precious little to be happy about while we were in pursuit of that Xindi weapon, and now I have to sit here and watch Hoshi dying like a flower out of water right in front of me.

Uh, speak of the devil.  She’s probably here because T’Pol’s ordered her to take a break.  There’s a sort of frozen anger in the way she strides to the beverage dispenser.  Her shoulders as she waits for the drink to pour out are so stiff that I think if anyone touched them she’d shatter from the shock.

She turns around and looks to see who else is here, I assume more for the sake of avoiding anyone who’d try to engage her in small talk.  When you feel like Hoshi does now, you don’t want to listen to ship’s scuttlebutt about who cheated who at cards the night before.

I catch her eye, more by accident than anything else.  I try to keep my expression just a bit inviting, so she doesn’t feel pressured; as close as I can make it to, “I’m here if you want to talk”.  Though it could be that I’m the last person she wants to talk to.  I sent Trip and Malcolm to that ship.  I gave the order to get our butts away from it.  Now I’m the man in charge of a Starfleet ship who can’t find the missing officers who may be half way to Romulus now, who may have had to shoot each other to protect Starfleet’s interests.  ‘Just peachy,’ as Trip would say.

She definitely hesitates.  I suppose I should count my blessings that she doesn’t turn and walk out of the Mess altogether.  But after that long hesitation she walks across and puts her drink down on the table opposite me.

“Sir, do you think we’re going to find them?” she asks.  And there’s no inflection in her tone at all; none.

Oh, how I long to lie; I long to give her some comfort, some hope.  But right now I don’t have any for myself, let alone for anyone else.  We’re back into Xindi territory as far as optimism goes; and on top of the constant fear for my missing officers, my missing friends, I have a seemingly impossible mission to complete – to try, somehow, to reconcile two species who’ve feared and distrusted each other for over a century.  Not that that’s a responsibility, of course.  Piece of cake for Jonathan Archer, the guy who can walk on water.  Yeah, sure.

“We’re doing our best, Hoshi.”  I make my voice as gentle as I can.  Like I’m telling her something she might not already have noticed.

Did it get through, achieve anything?  I can’t tell.  Her face is blank, like she’s still got her earpiece in and is listening to something I can’t hear.  I’m not sure if she’s looking at me or through me.

“I need to get back on duty,” she says flatly.

“You need to rest.”  She’s pulled a double shift already.  Adrenaline can only carry you so far.  If she doesn’t give herself a break, her brain might get so punch-drunk she actually might not hear that one tiny sound she’s waiting for.

“I can’t.”

“Then go to Phlox and get him to give you something to help you sleep.  That’s an order, Ensign.”  I point to her untasted green tea.  “As soon as you drink that.”

Her eyes flare resentfully at me, but she sits down and starts sipping at the tea.  She doesn’t look at me again.

After a silence that endures for the couple of minutes it takes her to finish, she puts down her cup and stands up.  I don’t waste my time asking if she’s eaten.  I know she hasn’t.  Nor will she, I’m pretty sure, till there’s some resolution – one way or the other.  For an undoubtedly lovely woman, she looks pale and hollow-eyed, almost as bad as she did when Hayes brought her back from the Reptilian ship; Malcolm wouldn’t thank me for looking after her so poorly, though what the heck I could do to change things I don’t know.

“Sickbay,” I remind her levelly.  “You need at least four hours’ sleep before you set foot on the Bridge again.”

“Yes, sir.”  She moves to walk past me, but I catch her hand, almost without intending to.  I don’t even know what I want to say, just that I want to reach out somehow across that gulf between us.

And now she’s so close, I catch just a trace of a scent I don’t normally associate with Hoshi.  It’s spicy, like pine needles.  I wouldn’t even have known until now that it’s Malcolm’s aftershave, a scent that I’ve caught without really noticing it on any of a hundred occasions when we’ve been in close proximity here or there around the ship.  The realization that she’s wearing it instead of her own perfume brings a lump to my throat; it’s too easy to predict that after she’s had her shot from Phlox she’ll curl up on her bunk with something Malcolm’s worn and fall asleep cuddling it.  I’m ashamed to realize that I’m actually envious of him; envious of one of my officers who may not even be alive by now. 

“Don’t give up on them, Hoshi.”  I force words past the lump. “They’re remarkable men.  Starfleet’s best.”

“I already knew that, sir.”  She disengages gently but firmly.  “I’ll see you in four hours.”

And she will – four hours and as long as it takes her to shower and dress.  Not eat.   She’ll eat when they’re back.  Not before; not unless.  If it goes on too long then Phlox and I will have to take matters in hand, but right now I know that coercion isn’t an option if I don’t want her to break in my hands.

I watch her walk out.  She turns left, towards Sickbay, with a military resolution that’s like an echo.  She’ll cope, because he’d want her to stay professional, and because she’s matured into a strong, brave woman as well as a beautiful one.  Yes, I do envy him.  I envy anyone who’s so obviously loved.  But the full cost of that singular privilege has yet to be revealed.

It could be higher than I want to imagine.