Chapter Text
It was a rather pleasant feeling, Mallos mused, to walk through Hell knowing the underlings bowing were bowing to you. He felt a smirk cross his lips, his sharp teeth showing as he strolled down the corridors lit by what the humans would call old-fashioned torches. Oh, how he’d missed this. He’d missed being able to do whatever he liked. Answering to someone else as he’d done before on… on… he couldn’t even remember the ship’s name—it had been tiring. The human world had too many rules he cared not to follow. How had he stood it for so long?
This was who he truly was. A ruler. A bringer of pain and chaos. Above perhaps even Satan himself—not that he’d say that to His face. No, he’d rather keep all his limbs, thank you very much. That was one being he dared not mess with.
Mallos walked through the halls, every underling stopping to bow in his presence, until he reached the Throne. He stopped before it, smiling. He ran one hand across the gold-plated armrest, before turning around and seating himself almost reverently in the seat. It was just as he remembered.
He revelled in it.
“What are you all gawking at?” he barked to the staring underlings. “Get back to work!”
The underlings averted their gazes and scattered, leaving Mallos with one elbow on the armrest of his Throne, resting his chin on his fist. He hummed an unfamiliar tune as he watched them mill about.
But it still felt like something was missing. No, someone…
He couldn’t put his finger on what—or who.
Mallos shook his head and straightened up. This was who he was. He was a ruler alone. He didn’t nothing, nobody.
This was how it had always been.
“Trip, you can’t keep this up.”
Trip picked at his food, not looking up at his captain who sat across from him. He didn’t respond.
Archer sighed. “You’re only hurting yourself. Your team is worried about you.”
Trip only hummed.
It had been just under a month since Malcolm had vanished into that glowing orange portal along with the guy Archer had identified as Harris, a member of some kind of secret division of Starfleet that Malcolm had once been involved in. Apparently, Malcolm had quite literally sold his soul in order to gain information that had saved Trip and T’Pol’s lives.
Trip honestly thought he’d rather still be trapped in that compound than have Malcolm be gone like this. But, he realised, Malcolm would have hated that. Which was exactly why the man—demon—had done it.
Trip sighed and dropped his fork. “I’m done.”
“You barely touched your catfish,” Archer said.
“Not hungry. Anyway, I have some work to do.”
“Trip, stop.”
With another slow exhale, Trip turned back around, preparing himself for the inevitable lecture.
Archer stood up. “You can’t keep going on like this. You’re like a zombie. You hardly eat, and I doubt you’re sleeping either.”
“The man I called my boyfriend is gone, Cap’n,” Trip said, his voice deceptively even. “He was dragged god-knows-where because of something you ordered him to do. We don’t even know where he is. How am I supposed to go on after that?”
Archer grew silent. He looked away, uncomfortable.
Trip lifted his chin slightly. “That’s what I thought,” he said quietly, then he turned and left the captain’s mess.
Archer watched Trip go, mouth working soundlessly until the engineer had disappeared from sight, then he sighed and sat back down heavily. A part of him wanted to refute Trip’s accusations, but he couldn’t, could he? It was his orders that put Malcolm Reed in the situation he found himself in now—whatever that situation was. In his defence, he hadn’t known Malcolm or Harris would go that far. He hadn’t even realised it was possible.
Harris… The man was virtually impossible to track down. Archer had tried, but had come up with only outdated, vague records that told him absolutely nothing about the man. He was undoubtedly someone who knew of Malcolm’s true nature, perhaps even a demon himself, but Archer couldn’t be sure. Regardless, it seemed Harris had disappeared along with Malcolm, and now they had no leads.
The rest of the ship was missing Malcolm as well. Hoshi, Travis, and the entire armoury crew was without a head of department. It wasn’t just Trip who was moping about. Archer supposed it was worse for the ones who had no clue why their Chief Security Officer had abruptly up and disappeared. He hadn’t given a formal explanation yet. What was he supposed to say?
Archer leaned his elbows on the table and pressed his forehead to his arms.
The comm. chimed a few moments later. Reluctantly lifting his head, Archer stood up and reached up to press it. “Archer.”
“Pardon me for interrupting your meal, sir,” came T’Pol’s voice. “We’ve detected a ship approaching at warp two. They’re hailing us.”
“I’ll be right there.” Archer got up from the table.
He was on the bridge not two minutes later. Travis greeted him with barely a nod, and Hoshi didn’t even look in his direction. Archer had long suspected that Trip had told them the truth—they had, after all, learned Malcolm was a demon during the mission in the Expanse.
“What have we got?” he asked T’Pol, the one member of the senior staff who seemed unaffected by Malcolm’s disappearance.
“The ship appears to be Andorian, sir,” T’Pol said. “Shall we answer their hails?”
Archer nodded.
Still not looking up, Hoshi’s fingers flew across her console, and a moment later a familiar face popped up on the viewscreen.
Archer took a deep breath. “Shran,” he greeted. “What do you want?”