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Things That Come in the Night- pt 2

Author - The Watch Stander
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Things That Come in the Night

By The Watch Stander

Rating: PG13, Drama/friendship etc
Disclaimer:Paramount Owns Enterprise and all of its crew. The wonderful interpretation of these characters is owned by the cast of Enterprise. The fun of writing this story about these characters is owned by me and is no way intended to infringe on any of these rights and is done without payment or profit on my part.

A.N.: Thanks to all that reviewed and yes, the entity is a central part of the story as you will find out.

A.N.:I really have a problem with Archer’s new attitude towards Trip and wish that he would still show his friendship even though he’s so obsessed with this mission. Anyhow, I thought I would explore that as well in this story.

Part Two

*******************

Trip & Malcolm left the mess together.

“Thanks for Lunch, Malcolm, I’ll catch ya later,” Trip said as turned and went down the hall.

Reed nodded and watched as Trip headed toward engineering. The Commander seemed in better spirits and must have been feeling better. Realizing that he’d done all he could for now, Malcolm left for the armory.

Trip wasn’t really looking forward to the rest of his shift, but it was necessary in order to finish the maintenance for the week. It was not going to go away any time soon. He also remembered the Captain’s order and knew the two things would be at odds with each other.

Of all the times for the Capt’n to take an interest in my health, it has to be now! I gotta get this stuff done, order or no order!

Fortunately, when he arrived in engineering he found that Lt Hess had reassigned a lot of the work to various engineers while Trip had been in Archer’s meeting.

Bless her!

Now he only had one task on his list to finish and that meant crawling into the Jeffries tube. Grabbing up his tools he went into the tubes and found the area he needed to repair. It was a blown conduit valve that would need to be soldered as well.

After replacing the valve, he lit up the torch to solder the parts in place. It meant being on his hands and knees as well as being hot and uncomfortable. As he soldered, the heat from the torch made the area warm causing his nose to start running as well as perspiration to drip into his eyes.

“Son of a bitch!” he shouted as he dropped the torch and burnt his fingers in doing so.

He was however, able to wipe his nose with his hanky, and then the perspiration off his forehead using his sleeve. When he reached for the torch, he had a sudden dizzy spell and quickly made a grab for a hold on anything. His hand grabbed hold of a metal relay that was hanging in front of him and held onto it as the dizziness passed.

Maybe I better just take a few minutes rest.

When he removed his hand from the relay, it came away bloody having been cut on the sharp metal edges. Trip was too tired to care as he found his eyelids becoming heavy from the closed atmosphere in the Jeffries tube and the heat that remained from the torch. He leaned back against the wall and before he knew it, was dozing off.

Everything was quiet until the ship wide alarm went off. Then he found himself running back to engineering and hitting the wall comm button.

“Tucker to bridge!”

“Commander we need you up here,” was the reply from Hoshi,” We’re under attack!”

“On my way!”

His heart started to race, but he found the weapons locker that Reed had insisted they install in engineering after the event with the Ossirians. Taking out a phase pistol he headed for the lift. It only took minutes to get to the bridge, but when he arrived there, it was in chaos. The ship shook with the pounding from weapons fire and Trip grabbed hold of the railing near the tactical station.

“What’s happening?” he shouted out loud.

Reed answered him between firing the plasma cannons. “Someone really doesn’t like us,” he replied in that clipped British tone he used when under stress.

Trip didn’t have time to reply. The sudden sound of a transporter caught his attention. An alien figure suddenly materialized on the upper bridge and fired at them. The shot went wild, but the alien was soon joined by a few more.

“We’re being boarded!,” someone yelled.

Trip took cover, drew his weapon, and was soon joined by Malcolm in firing at the new threat. As it developed into a firefight Enterprise shook suddenly from another round of hits from the attacking vessel, causing everyone to lose their footing including the alien boarders.

Archer was just starting to get to his feet by his chair. Trip saw the head of one of the invaders peering up from behind a consol in the back bridge area. The invader’s interest was focused on the captain and the only way Trip could get a clear shot at the alien, was to step out in the open.

It only took Trip a second to position himself in front of Archer and fire at the same time as the alien did. Trip’s shot was dead on, but so was the alien’s and Trip felt the impact of the blast on his chest. His head snapped back as his whole body lost control and his legs collapsed under him.

He would have crashed to the floor if it hadn’t been for Archer catching him from behind and breaking his fall. As Trip lie on the floor held by Archer, a strange noise suddenly came into his head, similar to what you her in a seashell that is held up to the ear. Taking a deep breath he didn’t feel any pain, but he knew he had been hit, for Archer was looking down at him and had a shocked look on his face.

Trip lifted his hand from his chest and it was covered with blood. A lot of blood.

Dozens of things he wanted to say to Jon flashed through his mind, but there was no time! He seemed to be falling into a bottomless pit with Archer’s voice calling to him as he fell into the darkness....

“Trip!”

Someone was shaking him and once more, he came back from the darkness and opened his eyes, only to see a very worried look on Jon’s face once more.

“Are you all right?” Archer asked with concern.

Trip wasn’t sure what was going on when he saw where he was,

Why am I back in the Jeffries tube?

He looked at his hand and it was still covered with blood! It made no sense.

“What’s happened?” was all Trip could manage with confusion written all over his face.

Archer had watched Trip groggily lifted his hand and look at the blood on it.

“ You must have cut your hand, “ Jon offered in way of an explanation as he put his own hand on Trip’s shoulder. “ You gave me a bad moment when I came in here and saw all that blood on your uniform.”

Jon’s voice became softer, “ I thought you were badly hurt.”

Trip remembered cutting his hand before falling asleep.

It was just another nightmare!

He breathed a sigh of relief as he leaned back against the wall. Finally it all made sense, and he suddenly realized he was probably in trouble with Archer for falling asleep again.
Jon was serious once more as he decided that Trip wasn’t badly hurt. “Let’s get you to sickbay and take care of that hand.”

Trip looked embarrassed, he didn’t want to ask, but he had to.

Might as well face the music and get it over with.

“Why are you here, Capt’n?” He said it sadly, somehow knowing he was about to be chewed out even though Archer seemed more like his old self.

Archer looked at him for a moment, “It’s movie night, Remember? I thought you might like to join T’Pol and I.”

The two men were unaware that they were being watched by an alien entity hovering just beyond them in the shadows. It was the same one from the night before. She had come looking for Trip, who while sleeping would be vulnerable to her entering his dreams. Unfortunately, the other human had shown up and awakened Trip before she could get to him.

Quickly she sped away unseen, there would be another time.



Continue to Part Three

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