The Chaos Series - pt 2

THE CHAOS SERIES
An "Enterprise" story

By Alison M. DOBELL

RATING: PG-13.
ARCHIVE: Yes. Just let me know where.
FEEDBACK: Welcomed. SPOILERS: Last episode of Season 3.
EMAIL: AlisonMDobell@aol.com
WEBSITE: http://carlajane.50megs.com/Ali00.html

SUMMARY: "Commander Tucker seizes on Dr Phlox's news like a drowning man to a life raft. While the others are energized by his single minded determination to find the Captain, T'Pol is worried about what they might find."
DISCLAIMER: The usual disclaimers apply. The characters and ‘Enterprise’ are the property and gift of Paramount and part of the wonderful legacy of Gene Roddenberry. No infringement of copyright is intended.

Part Two

The Chaos Theory

* * * * *

T'Pol was worried. She thought her ashayam was making a terrible mistake. One his heart might not recover from. Trip naturally did not see it that way. Buoyed up on an unexpected wave of renewed purpose he was not inclined to consider anything that might urge greater caution. He was anxious, excited and impatient. T'Pol had requested a word with him in private. Now they were in her quarters and Commander Tucker was pacing. Agitated by her lack of enthusiasm for his plan. As if she were in some way being disloyal. "I don't understand you, T'Pol. I thought you'd be as anxious as me to get the Cap'n back."

"I am Trip but we must consider all possibilities. This may be a trap."

He stopped in his tracks, rooted to the spot. The look he gave her was incredulous. "Trap? T'Pol it was the Cap'n's transponder. How the hell could it be a trap unless you're suggestin' the Cap'n is deliberately trying to get us killed?"

"Ashayam," Said T'Pol in a quieter tone, not wanting to upset him any more than he was already. When the Commander was assailed by particularly strong emotions so was she. Though they were not yet fully bonded mates it would not be long now. When that time came she would be unable to keep him out of her mind any more than he would be able to keep her out of his. "We must of course investigate but I urge caution."

She was gratified to see him begin to calm. "I wasn't just gonna go bargin' in without looking, T'Pol. That's why I wanna take Malcolm with me."

The Vulcan shook her head. "I disagree. Exposing ourselves would be a mistake; we must not interfere with this timeline. We should use the transporter."

"In case you haven't noticed we've already interfered with it an' there's no guarantee we're the first."

"You mean Captain Archer?"

"Besides him. I was thinkin' of Daniels. Malcolm got me thinkin' an' he's right. This is the sort of stunt only someone like him could pull. We don't have the technology even if we had the will."

T'Pol looked discomfited. "Why would Daniels transport us back in time?"

Commander Tucker had lost the glitter of zeal from his eyes, now much calmer and more thoughtful. T'Pol approved the change, felt herself relax and recover her own equilibrium in direct response. Her ease filtered through to him surprising a tender smile on his face. "Did I do that?"

"Yes, ashayam."

He closed the distance between them. It physically hurt him when they were at odds and that was new too. Everything between them carrying a keener edge because of the depth of their relationship. It seeped into every aspect of their lives. The qualities that made their love making so intense also heightened every other area of contact.

"We must be careful ashayam that our new-found intimacy does not detract from our ability to work together. It would be unfortunate if the one impaired the other."

His lip twitched with the threat of a smile but he curbed his humour knowing she was being serious. "Agreed, though I have to say darlin' it's gonna be hard keepin' my libido in check."

She arched a brow at him. "Then perhaps I should call on Dr Phlox to give you something."

Trip laughed and closed the distance between them. They had only been a foot apart but it suddenly seemed as wide as the Grand Canyon to the Chief Engineer. And that absolutely would not do. He needed to inhale her fragrance, the very air she breathed, be able to touch her, to gaze deep into those dark liquid pools that captivated him heart and soul so completely. T'Pol felt his emotions intensifying, his thoughts brushing hers with the heat of a desire he was losing control over. She had not expected the bond to continue to strengthen so deeply even when they were not in intimate contact. This was unexpected but not unwelcome.

It was her sense of duty that brought her reluctantly back on track, knowing that in a few minutes time she would be beyond even that. His proximity was intoxicating and beginning to affect her ability to think clearly. "We should do nothing hasty, Commander."

He smiled at her attempt to ground him by use of his rank. Didn't she know how sexy it sounded coming from her lush and wanton lips? "I agree." He murmured, the warm breath of air from his mouth making her dizzy with desire for him. "What do you suggest, darlin'?"

She closed her eyes as he leaned in and nibbled her ear, his tongue gently teasing from the lobe to the lovely delicate point at the tip making her shudder with want and need. It took a mammoth effort to form words let alone think. "We should use the transporter. Minimalise any contact with the people of this timeline."

Trip mouthed the tip of her ear and huffed a long warm breath into the ear canal followed by his gently questing tongue, T'Pol swaying towards him as her breath caught. Only just hearing his words. "For some reason the transporter's off-line an' before you ask I did check it."

A sigh from her lips danced like a delicate veil across his face as he drew back to gaze on her. So close that the wonder was that they were not already joined at the hip. "Then we should wait until it is fixed."

He stared at her, hardly able to focus on conversation without having a heart attack. Didn't she know how every second they waited was killing him? But no, she was Vulcan. Patience wasn't her middle name it was her first, second and third. Hard on the heels of that uncharitable thought came the shadow that bore his name - regret. His need to find the Captain was at war with his desire for this woman. Both extremes were undermining his ability to think straight. To exercise the caution they both knew would be an essential requisite of any successful recovery mission. He breathed deeply and used some of the meditation techniques T'Pol had taught him to stop himself acting on his need to rip all T'Pol's clothes off and make love to her until she passed into a coma. The thought almost made him laugh out loud. Who was he kidding? She would be the one putting him in a coma not the other way around.

He was amused to see the slow cant of her brow as she correctly read his mind. Being Vulcan she accorded him the courtesy of letting him regain sufficient control to explain his plan. After all, you could only shoot someone down in flames if you let them get into your sights. And he had no doubt at all that T'Pol was a crack shot.

* * * * *

He was hovering on the edge of a vast ocean of pain. Not that the hurt was so deep it crucified him but it did interfere with his sense of what the hell was happening to him. Chaotic images flashed without rhyme or reason through his mind. Nothing connected, sense least of all. Something flapped above his head, dim light wavering like candle light but without the flame. He tried to focus, his vision slowly coalescing into some kind of stable image of hell. A tent. What was he doing in a tent? He turned his head and felt a wave of nausea grab at his gut. Eyes flickered, closed, then opened again in time to see a bending figure straighten and come towards him. As she drew nearer his eyes widened. Those clothes. What was going on? When she spoke he was convinced he had fallen down a rabbit hole.

"Guten tag."

He blinked, sure he had misheard. What had she said? Captain Archer tried to raise his head but could not. Dizzy and dehydrated he unconsciously licked lips that cracked. The oddly dressed woman seemed to be wearing something that resembled an old fashioned uniform but overlaid with a rough homespun apron which was grubby and smeared with red. Red? Blood? She leaned in closer but he was unable to retreat.

"Mochten sie etwas trinken?"

What? "What did you say? Who are you and where am I?"

Her brow furrowed slightly but she did not draw back. "Sind sie Englander?"

He shook his head sending swirls of foggy pain through his head, an echo of the deeper trauma in his body. "I'm sorry, I don't understand you."

She turned away briefly then offered him a beaker. He frowned, unable to see what was in it. She gave no smile but her tone sounded conciliatory not confrontational. "Wasser."

"W....wasser?"

She nodded, he frowned. Trying to remember some of his early schooling. "Are you, are you German?"

A flicker on her face. Not a smile. Not a trace of humour but something. Recognition? He was sure of it now. "You're German." He asserted. Now he got a cautious nod and the beaker was offered to him a second time. He wanted to sit up but the effort was beyond him. Seeing his difficulty the stocky woman put the beaker down and helped him into a semi-recumbent position.

"Look, I don't know who you are, where I am or what happened but I shouldn't be here. Do you understand?"

She was watching him closely now and it was hard to tell if anything he said made an impression. The Captain sighed and wished he had Hoshi with him. Hoshi! Memories began flooding back. The Xindi. They had done it, they had destroyed the weapon and saved Earth. His euphoria ended with a jolt. Daniels! Where was that scum sucking interfering annoyingly manipulative time travelling friend of his? This was his fault. He could feel it in every aching bone in his body. Then the beaker was tipped to his lips and without thinking he drank. Cool clear water sating a throat parched and aching with heat. He closed his eyes with the relief of it then looked up at the woman with the austere face but gentle touch. She was in her mid-forties, stocky and not too tall. He couldn't see her hair properly because it was pulled tightly back and hidden under a cap of some kind. Her hands were square and capable with short stubby fingers that were remarkably dexterous. In that solemn foreign face he saw eyes that took far more in than her tongue would ever tell. How he knew that he did not know but something told him he had nothing to fear from this woman. She was obviously a nurse of some kind, a helper. Her next words froze all the hope rising in his veins.

"There is no escape. Expect no help and you may survive."

"You... you speak English?"

Her caution returned and her tongue stilled. Those eyes holding his as if berating him for questioning her. He frowned then realised something. She was afraid. Of him? His answer came when a male voice in the background said something he could not interpret as anything other than some kind of command. The tension on the woman's face filled in the blanks. Whoever the man was he petrified this woman. Instinct told him this was not a good omen.

* * * * *

Anger. There was no other word for the crackling atmosphere on the bridge of the Andorian ship. Shran was pacing, his blue face paler than normal, his eyes flashing. His second watched him with ill concealed disrespect. Only as he turned to glare at her did she damp down any signs of outright insubordination. But he knew her so well. Lieutenant Tarah was easily a head taller than Shran and that haughty look in her eyes used every inch to her advantage but she could not cow him nor shame him no matter how fiercely she insisted he was wrong. And that she respected. This was his ship, his command. He was a strong and vibrant leader and despite her own misgivings he was not always wrong. Through such ties was her loyalty bound to him. "How could this happen?"

She knew it was a rhetorical question but answered anyway. Enjoying the occasions when she could get under his skin and make him flush a darker shade of blue. It was... enlightening. "It happened because you trusted the Humans."

He turned and snapped at her. "The Humans had nothing to do with this!"

"How can you be so sure?" Tara modified her harsh accusatory tone. It sounded as if she were soothing him and putting any blame where it truly belonged. On the Humans. "Your fascination with the pink skins has blinded you."

He shook his head, not looking at her now as he sat in the command chair. Thinking. His voice now sounding thoughtful. "No. They don't have this kind of technology."

Lieutenant Tara frowned slightly. "Then who?"

His head came up, eyes glittering with realisation. "There is someone else out here."

A pause. His second tamped down a flicker of unease. "The Xindi?"

He shook his head slightly. "No."

"The Guardians?"

An odd laugh erupted from Shran's throat. "We sent them back to their own dimension."

She savoured those words. Turning them over and over in her mind so she could examine them from all angles. 'We' not 'they'. She would have to watch her superior more closely. He was getting too enamoured of these Humans.

"Do another sweep of the sensors. I want to know if there is anything, and I mean *anything*, that should not be out here."

"What are you looking for?"

He looked at her without blinking. Not blinking at all. "Answers."

* * * * *

Lt Malcolm Reed had a definite sense of deja vu. "This is too dangerous."

"Malcolm, we don't have much in the way of choices an' I'm not gonna leave the Cap'n down there a minute longer than I have to."

"You don't know if he is in any immediate danger. Going down without sufficient information may put him in peril, have you thought of that?"

The Chief Engineer's eyes flashed. Before he could snap off an angry retort T'Pol's cool voice intervened. "Lt Reed is right." She hesitated and that unusual circumstance drew the eyes of the command staff to her face as they stood in the situation room trying to formulate a workable plan. "But Commander Tucker is also right. We must retrieve the Captain as soon as possible." She paused to look at Dr Phlox. "What can you tell us doctor?"

"I have been able to determine that the Captain is in Germany. And if um the Commander's assertion about the war is correct, he would appear to be in enemy hands."

"But you don't know that for certain?" Asked the Armoury Officer.

"No, not for certain."

"Well I'm not gonna stand here arguin' about it until some jack booted Gestapo riddle the Cap'n full of holes for bein' a spy!"

T'Pol's eyebrows rose. "Jack booted?"

Travis elaborated. He had been doing research on the second world war for the Commander. "A term for the Germans implying a harsh uncompromising regime. The Gestapo were an elite military arm with the most feared reputation both for their ruthless commitment to their leader Adolf Hitler and their methods of interrogation and intelligence gathering."

"He means torture." Trip added with distaste, hardly able to keep still. The delay in doing something was twisting him up inside which in turn was making T'Pol feel increasingly edgy.

The Vulcan knew she would have to think of something fast. Before the Commander took it into his head to do something suitably rash and heroic himself. Surak help them all if that happened. With a sigh she realised there really was only one thing they could do. The transporter was still off-line and was likely to take several days to fix. They did not have several days. The Commander was right but that did not mean she had to like it. "Very well. We will send a retrieval team down to the surface..."

Lt Reed's eyes widened, his mouth opening to offer a protest. Then he saw the look on his friends' faces and realised he had already made his point. Time to accept the decision with the professionalism of his rank. Shying away from the hard decisions would solve nothing. And maybe, just maybe, they would not get themselves or the Captain killed.

* * * * *

Captain Archer had thought the worst part about being in a German field hospital was being unable to move, to get up and get the hell out of there. But he was wrong. The worst thing was finding out that the scenario he had painted inside his head about the second world war bore only a passing resemblance to the mayhem and slaughter being re-enacted all around him. For a piece of theatre it was damn compelling. Too brutal and realistic to ignore. A tableau that caused instant reactions before the brain could kick into gear and add a timely warning. Everything he thought he knew and understood was finally blown to pieces when the nurse backed off to allow the officer to approach.

Captain Archer looked up and froze. The eyes that gazed back at him were not Human though the uniform it wore was. He saw the smug self-satisfied sneer on the alien's face, a brief flirtation with confusion forming a slight detour from one painful thought to the next as the Captain realised what must be happening. "You!"

"It is always gratifying to be recognised, Captain."

"What are you doing here?"

A harsh laugh echoed away into wry amusement. "You have upset enough of my plan. Now it is time for me to upset yours."

Captain Archer frowned. He did not like the sound of that. "What are you going to do?"

"Teach you a lesson. You think you were very clever destroying the weapon. That the Guardians once gone would pose no more threat."

"What do you mean?"

"The Guardians did not build the spheres, Captain."

"I know." He whispered.

Surprised the alien gave him a keen look, something deep and unpleasant reflected in those eyes that chilled the Captain through and through. Not that he had any intention of saying so. "How do you know?"

He shrugged and acted off-hand, as if it were old news. "Call it a hunch."

The word puzzled the alien. "Explain."

For a moment they just stared at each other, the tension rising until Captain Archer spoke. "No."

"I can make you tell me."

"Why is it so important to you? I thought you ruled the universe? Or was that another lie to cow us back into the Stone Age? Are you afraid we'll find out you're not so omnipotent after all?"

"I don't have to be omnipotent." The alien sneered, his bad breath wafting across the Captain's face as he leaned closer. "I just have to be better than you."

"I suppose I should feel flattered."

"That is not the term I would use."

"Why do we pose such a threat to you?"

The Captain's quietly spoken words lit a fuse of ire in the alien's eyes. Something deeply malevolent glaring back at him. "You altered the lines of probability."

"What?" The Captain frowned. Was he talking about the timeline? Or...?

"The universe is a complex balance of cause and effect. Remove *your* cause and effect and our position is established. Fixed. The lines of favourable outcome become *ours*."

For a long minute the Captain said nothing. Stunned by what he had heard and knowing with complete certainty that the alien was entirely serious. "You're crazy."

A malicious gleam mixed with dark humour. "And you, Captain Archer, are soon to be very dead."

Before he could stop himself, his thoughts blurted out into words. Curiosity running away with his common sense. "Why wait?"

The alien tilted his head slightly as he looked at the Human. "Your species has a term - 'revenge is a dish best served cold'. I had not understood it before now. I wish to savour this last meal."

A tremor of fear raced through the Captain's veins but he tried to think through the rapid rise of his heartbeat, get his mind working through the pain where he had been injured. Sluggish though his thoughts were he managed to wonder how the alien knew that phrase. How could he appear so familiar with Humans? Or, was this more than a slip back in time? An aberration in the timeline? Could it be something more perverse? An alternate timeline, parallel universe? One of the Creator's little cosmic jokes with the Enterprise paying the brunt of it? The officer left him to his unpleasant thoughts but the nurse did not return and for that he was grateful. He closed his eyes and tried to work out what the hell had happened but every thought grew darker than the one preceding it. He could not see his way out of this dilemma if he didn't know how he had got into it in the first place. A single thought surfaced. A return to the intermittent constant that both irritated and gave him hope. His eyes opened, staring up at the flapping canvas like a flag of truce. There was one man who could change all this if he hadn't already. Daniels. Though it hurt to admit it he needed him.

* * * * *

Part 3

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Half a dozen of you have made comments

Great as always. I can't wait for more!

Getting exciting...

Great stuff, Ali! Waiting for more....

Fantastic, as ever. Since more is inevitable, I will model T'Pol's example and be patient.

Oops, I don´t know how I´ve missed this chapter! (Bangs head against the table!) And once again oh so beautiful T/T-moments. Please continue soon!

This is a great start, Ali, I like the story very much so far! Please continue soon, I am really looking forward to the next chapter. One thing that fascinates me in all your texts is your ability to write rather explicit intimate moments in graphic detail, yet they *never* come across as vulgar or cheap. I have no idea how you do it, but it's really hot. After reading the comfort sex scenes in the the first chapter, it was quite an effort to focus on boringly mundane things such as the "plot". :-)

Thank you.