CHAPTER 7

ARCHER INSTANTLY CROSSED to the com booster and played with the controls, but all he could get was a ghost of the action on the bridge.

“T’Pol! Respond!” he attempted. “Tucker! Anybody?”

The com chittered, but there was no sense to it. “It might be the sensors going dark,” he muttered, thinking aloud. As he spoke, the sickbay went finally to total darkness. The Klingon raged on his bed. The security guard shambled about, though he didn’t know what to do. Archer heard them, sensed them, felt Hoshi’s rising fear, but couldn’t see a thing.

The com was completely dead. The ship was dark.

In his mind, he saw the action going on all over the ship—crew automatically going to stations, the procedures of emergency and safety snapping into place. He imagined them calling for him on the croaked com system. He felt the ship’s power depleting rapidly, felt the drag on his body as speed dropped. Around sickbay, Phlox’s zoo of pet alien organisms chirruped and whistled either in confusion or ecstasy.

“Where are the handheld lights?” he demanded. “Phlox!”

“I don’t know, Captain. I haven’t inventoried those yet.”

“They’ve got to be in a drawer or a cabinet. Feel around. We can’t do anything if we can’t see. Hoshi, look around for the beacons. Guard, you, too.”

“Aye, sir,” the guard rumbled.

Despite her fear, Hoshi started moving. He heard the clap of cabinets and drawers. A few moments later, she was the one who found them.

Instantly, sickbay glowed with red lights. Klaang continued to bellow his maddening protests.

Archer paused and forced himself to think. “Auxiliary power should’ve kicked in by now ...” When the Klingon growled and spat again, louder now that nobody was paying attention to him, Archer added, “Do you know how to tell him to shut up?”

More nervous by the second, Hoshi swung to Klaang. “Shut up!” she shouted.

But it didn’t work. Diplomacy just wasn’t the way today, was it?

“Sedate him if you have to,” he snapped to Phlox. “I need to get to the bridge!”

“Captain!”

He whirled at Hoshi’s shocked cry. She was moving her beacon across the lateral bulkhead.

Why was she doing that?

Without waiting for him to ask, she hissed, “There’s someone in here!”

Archer glanced around the poorly lit room. “Hoshi ...”

“I’m telling you, there’s someone—”

She stopped moving. Archer followed her beacon to the wall again—

A humanoid form!

Like a chameleon, the form had taken on the appearance of the background, complete with certificates and alien life-forms in jars on the shelves! It was barely visible, but now that he focused, there was no mistaking the intrusion.

Once discovered, the creature leaped from its hiding place back into the shadows.

On the biobed, Klaang fell to bizarre quiet. “Suliban!” he growled.

Archer spun, flashing his own beacon across the wall, trying to rediscover the—what was the word? Suliban ... well, he didn’t need any help translating that. Boogeyman.

Another one! Perched high on the wall like a spider! But this one wasn’t camouflaged like the other. This one had blotchy skin, almost tie-dyed, with eyes that were clearly evolved for some kind of night vision.

“Crewman!” Archer shouted.

The guard’s rifle snapped up just as the Suliban leaped to the ground and met a third one darting from the shadows!

The guard fired. Plasma bullets flashed through the room in quick stroboscopic flashes. Now the action turned to rapid cuts illuminated by the strobes. Klaang yanking around in frustration and shouting in Klingon ... Hoshi cowering low to avoid the gunfire, scanning erratically with her beacon ... the guard swinging around to take aim again at something he sensed behind him—

And one of the Suliban leaping onto the big boy. The guard hit the deck, and so did his plasma rifle. The weapon rattled and skidded away.

Archer lunged toward the weapon, hoping he was going in the right direction, but lost his handheld beacon as he struck the deck. Hoshi’s beacon was gone now, too. Was she hurt?

The rifle fell into his hands, like a warhorse seeking a rider, and he whirled it toward the nearest Suliban. Taking an instant to be sure he wasn’t shooting at his own people, he opened fire.

The Suliban was hit, and flew backward into the wall.

At Archer’s right elbow, Klaang stared upward and spat an accusation. Suliban directly overhead! The creature dropped from the ceiling! Archer felt the hard strike of a heavy body on the back of his head and neck. He was driven to the deck under a crushing weight, the plasma rifle trapped under his ribs.

The room went dark again—and very abruptly silent. The silence was scarier than the chaos and rifle shots had been.

Hoshi’s little tremor squeaked from under the biobed.

“Captain ... ?”

Archer tried to roll over. This time he felt no resistance. Whatever had been on top of him was now gone. As he got to his knees, a surge of power thrummed up through the skeleton of the ship under his knees and hands. One by one, the consoles began to flicker and light themselves.

Warp power! It was coming back!

Good boy, Trip ...

The guard was just sitting up, dazed. Phlox rushed to help him. Under the biobed, Hoshi found herself crouched beside the dead Suliban and squirmed suddenly away.

Archer staggered to his feet and looked around as the lights came back on all the way.

The biobed was empty. The Klingon was gone.

And so were the two Suliban interlopers who had survived the past few moments.

Violation. And kidnapping.

Not such a good day after all.

STAR TREK: Enterprise - Broken Bow
titlepage.xhtml
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_000.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_001.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_002.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_003.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_004.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_005.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_006.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_007.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_008.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_009.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_010.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_011.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_012.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_013.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_014.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_015.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_016.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_017.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_018.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_019.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_020.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_021.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_022.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_023.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_024.htm
STAR TREK - Enterprise - Broken Bow (Novelization by CAREY, Diane)_split_025.htm