Malcolm and Hoshi: The Missing Scenes

Affliction Part 1

The scanner must be wrong.

Hoshi re-set the controls and examined the results again; but stare as she might, she couldn’t make the results make any more sense.

“This has been deliberately wiped,” she said, puzzled.  “Since it came on board.”

“That is not possible.”  T’Pol looked across at her.  “Lieutenant Reed handed it to me himself.  There was no reason for him to have entrusted it to anyone else since he brought it aboard.”

“Well, it’s definitely recent.” She checked the results for a third time.  “The last modification was about an hour before we introduced the algorithm.”

The two women looked at each other.  It had taken them just under an hour to create the appropriate algorithm; not only had it required a certain amount of trial and error, but they’d had to carry out minor repairs to the electronics of the black box to allow it to function.  The damage it had sustained was a little surprising, given that it had been securely protected inside the freighter, but Malcolm had said a lucky shot must have caught the circuits.

T’Pol reached over and took the scanner.  Wordlessly she repeated the test, frowned, and re-calibrated the device.  “It has been wiped by a microdyne coupler.”  More key adjustments.  “The signature is unmistakable.  If I access the ship’s internal scanners, we can find out where the coupler itself is now, and that may give us some guidance as to who was responsible.”

“Why don’t we just ask Lieutenant Reed who else could have had access to ...”  Hoshi’s voice trailed off at T’Pol’s expression.  “Wait, you...”

“I would prefer to discover the whereabouts of the coupler before speculating,” said T’Pol gently after a long moment.

Hoshi stood up, although it felt as though her knees were trembling too hard to hold her steady.  “You don’t think Malcolm...?”

“If the coupler is still on the ship, its location will be informative.  It may even have DNA traces on it that may,” the Vulcan took a deep breath, “may reveal who handled it last.”  She hadn’t used theword exonerate, but it echoed around the small room where they’d been working on the black box from the Rigelian freighter.

“He didn’t.  I won’t believe it.” Her voice was shaking too, and it was too loud.

“Ensign.”  The brown eyes were compassionate.  “We need to investigate properly.  I would be reluctant to accuse anyone on board, and certainly not an officer who has given the ship such loyal service as Mister Reed, without incontrovertible proof.  But no matter who is guilty, we need to discover his or her identity without delay.”  She reactivated the computer screen that was at the side of the desk where they’d been working, and keyed in her command codes.

Hoshi sat down again, mainly because now her knees certainly wouldn’t hold her up.  A maelstrom of terrified thoughts whirled around and around in her head.  Malcolm?  Interfere with an investigation?  Lie to the captain?  Falsify information?  Betray Phlox in the Denobulan’s hour of greatest need?

He wouldn’t do it, her thoughts screamed.  Not Malcolm.  He’s the last man on the ship who’d do a thing like that.  A score of memories darted through her mind: Malcolm taken aback when she’d first kissed him in the turbo-lift, Malcolm eating oden rather than offend her by telling her he hated it, Malcolm eating pineapple cake in Sickbay, Malcolm making love to her in the Observation Lounge; Malcolm and Trip bickering over extra power for the Armory, Malcolm teasing Travis in the Mess, Malcolm mangling Spanish curses Em had tried to teach him, Malcolm complaining in Sickbay that Phlox was treating him like a six-year-old, Malcolm pinned to the hull by a Romulan mine while Captain Archer struggled to save him, Malcolm smirking when the chess knight went click into place opposite her beleaguered king, Malcolm snarling at the mere mention of Major Hayes, Malcolm slipping the ring on to her finger and looking down at it... Malcolm, in bed with her the night Captain Archer shot and killed the last Augment.  Hearing her say ‘perhaps you were good in a previous life.’ The look on his face.  ‘I think we can rule that out.’

“I have located it in Storage Locker C-14.”  T’Pol’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.  “We should retrieve it at once.”

“Does it say who accessed it last?” she whispered.  But she already knew.  I think we can rule that out.

The very lack of an answer was answer in itself.  The ship’s Executive Officer simply looked at her steadily.

The microdyne coupler was still in Storage Locker C-14, small and innocuous, lying there as though shoved into hiding by someone in too much panic haste to be rid of it.  There was no DNA on it.  He was the ship’s Tactical Officer.  He would never have made such an elementary error.

“Can I ... can I go to the Bridge?” I have to see him.  I have to.

“You must not speak to him, Ensign.  This is now a matter for the captain.”

“I know.  I won’t.”  She drew a deep, steadying breath.  “We can ... we can pretend we’re checking something on the comm station.  Please.”

She expected a refusal, but after a moment T’Pol nodded. Of course, any reaction from the suspect could be useful.  Strictly speaking there was no reason for Hoshi to return to the Bridge, since her shift was about to officially finish, but they were pursuing an important matter; she might well have decided that the hunt for the truth was too important to abandon.  Especially given what it now appeared to have turned up.

They took the coupler with them.  Just in case it might mysteriously ‘disappear.’

The journey in the turbo-lift was utterly unreal; she could see him opposite her, submitting in pleased embarrassment to Trip’s congratulatory hug.  ‘You don’t know anything, sir.’

Hoshi stepped out into the Bridge as though trying to remember how to walk.  She got herself somehow to her station.  Her fingers did something to the keys, though she had no idea what it was; she could have sent out a transmission declaring war on the Klingon Empire, for all she knew.  T’Pol stood behind her silently.

She had to look.  Her eyes were dragged across the Bridge as though on chains.

He was at the Tactical Station.  Seated there exactly as usual, cool and collected.  But he wasn’t watching her.  He was watching T’Pol, and there was a shadow on his face she’d never seen before.

“Analysis confirmed, Sub-commander,” said Hoshi in a voice that didn’t seem to belong to her at all.

“Then I suggest we inform the captain of our findings without delay,” answered T’Pol.  “He is waiting for our report in his Ready Room.”

The short walk across the Bridge to the Ready Room was a hundred kilometers long.  She couldn’t look at him.  She couldn’t even feel the pain.  She was just numb, dazed, disbelieving.  Malcolm wasn’t a traitor.  There had to be an explanation; there had to be!

But she could feel his eyes on her every step of the way, and as she drew level with him she couldn’t help it.  She looked.

He just looked back at her.  His face was a marble mask.  Only the eyes in it were alive, and full of horror.

She thought of Phlox, being brutally attacked in that San Francisco street; the kindest, most harmless man she’d ever known.  Where was he now?  What was happening to him?  Malcolm, what have you done?

T’Pol’s fingers hit the chime.

Captain Archer responded immediately.  He’d want anything that could give them a lead; anything.

Anything at all.