To Boldly Go Once Again-Ch 14

To Boldly Go Once Again

By Eratta

Rating and disclaimers in Chapter 1

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Chapter 14

Mayweather led T’Pol and Archer to another cavern behind the huge chamber holding Columbia’s crew. This one lay at the end of another small tunnel, much to Archer’s chagrin, and was about ten feet deep and utterly dark. It wasn’t until Travis turned on the lantern that the captain realized he was close to hyperventilating. They seated themselves around the cold glow, and Mayweather’s mouth opened first.

“So, Starfleet sent you to rescue us?” There was hope and relief in his voice, but caution as well. The boomer had been in the space business long enough to know better than to expect an easy solution to this colossal mess.

“I got a little visit from Daniels,” Archer said wryly, liking the grin that lit up the younger man’s face. “Columbia’s in orbit.”

“You said there was something we needed to know?” T’Pol prompted. Her voice was thin, but through discipline and good use of the shadows she was able to keep her shivering hidden. At least her teeth weren’t chattering.

Travis nodded. “The plan you outlined would have a better chance of working if we time it right. You remember that big black thing where we found you?”

Archer nodded. The memory of that light absorbing plane was a memorable one.

“It’s a shield generator,” Mayweather continued, “and a sensor array. They use it to keep tabs on us and on the space in general. Guess they’ve learned to be careful with humans,” He joked.

Archer got it, but T’Pol, as she had so many times before in their partnership, caught on to the less obvious part of the statement.

“There are no other species here?” she asked. From what Silik had told her, there should have been several.

“Not anymore.” Mayweather explained, his voice low. It occurred to T’Pol that he had brought them to this remote room because this was a conversation that should not involve a casual listener.

“The Suliban only keep POWs while they strip their ships, in case there’s something that gives them trouble and they need one of us to fix it, or break it, or what have you. Once they’re done, they kill that ship’s crew.”

He was silent for a moment, out of respect for the innocent dead, then went on,

“Just two days ago they terminated almost two hundred of these really peaceful humanoids. They shared their food with us, we gave them supplies to help patch up their wounded. And when the time came, they didn’t lift a finger to defend themselves.”

Archer realized his jaw hurt: he’d been clenching it unconsciously.

T’Pol brought them back to business. “And what have you learned about the generator?”

“It runs continuously, we think on a battery. Every third day it shuts down for seventeen minutes, probably to recharge.

“So that’ll be the best time to make out move.” Archer finished. “When’s the next cycle?”

“Two days. But there’s more.”

Archer glanced ruefully at his science officer. Oh, how the young had grown. Times were, Travis was the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed one of the senior staff, always being told what to do. Now not so bushy-tailed, but with eyes still bright, he was the one doing the de-briefing. His father would be proud, he thought.

“A few weeks back, we had our own time traveling visitor.”

That startled them.

“On Columbia?” T’Pol asked.

“He was only with us for a few hours, but since I knew about Daniels and all this Temporal Cold War stuff, Captain Ruiz called me in to help deal with the situation.”

Archer’s ears rang. “What kind of situation Travis?” he asked.

Mayweather shook his head in disbelief. “The guy was dying from some degenerative micro-cellular something-or-other. Painfully, too. All we could get out of him was that we needed to hold onto something of his. He died, and soon after we were caught in that Tholian web. The captain’s last orders were to hide the thing and guard it.

“Do you have it now? Here?” Archer demanded.

Travis gave him a small grin. “Actually, no. It’s still on Columbia, where it migrates every now and then.”

“Migrates,” T’Pol repeated. Archer glanced at her, confused and rather annoyed about it.

“Meaning someone onboard relocates it?” she finished.

“A team of three, actually: an engineer, an ensign in the science department and a lieutenant in security who doubles as a medic. They hide in the auxiliary catwalk of the port nacelle, where the scanners can’t penetrate, and in the 17-minute window, they do what needs to be done.”

Archer was baffled. “That’s suicide. Nacelle components are valuable; they’re bound to get up there sometime! And what if they actually fire them up?”

“They won’t, sir.” Travis said. “The team reports that everything is pretty poorly organized. They often scour the same areas over and over, while leaving whole decks alone. From the sound of what’s been overheard, it seems this is just the final round of pickings before going out to real war.”

Archer scrubbed his face with his hands. “Great. So we have two days.”

“Two days.” Mayweather agreed.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You’ve got that twitchy look on your face.” Trip said over his shoulder. He was knee deep in fried relays, taking over for one of the ensigns just so he could keep his hands busy. Back in the good old days, Reed would come down to engineering when he finally got paranoid enough. Whatever conversation that followed would either make him laugh or make him furious—no matter what, the Brit was guaranteed a little distraction from the impending disaster of the day.

“You can’t even see my face.” Malcolm retorted as he handed Trip the spanner he was reaching for, “All this cursed plastic. How much longer do you plan to wait before doing something?”

Trip bit back a sigh. Taking out his temper on Malcolm wouldn’t do anybody any good.

Forming the words deliberately and slowly around the mini-flashlight in his teeth, he said. “Well, I can’t exactly do anything ‘til I hear from ‘em. And as for how long I’ll wait for them t’ contact us…I’ll give ‘em another two hours.”

Trip didn’t need eyes in the back of his head to see his friend was about ready to tear his own hair out. It made Trip irrationally angry.

“Look, we’re all under quite a bit of stress, ‘case you haven’t noticed. You know how away missions go. Things go wrong, hostile aliens show up and try to kill you, yadda yadda…”

He pressed his aching head against the cool casing of the warp reactor. I need a new job, he thought. One that doesn’t involve so much imminent death and worry over a woman who treats me with as much affection as a wooden spoon.

“I know.” Malcolm said. He came over to Trip’s side and held a cluster of wires out of his way. “To think, up until a few weeks ago, I actually missed this. From time to time.”

That got a cheeky grin out of Trip.

“I’ll bet, now that you’re whipped and all but settled down.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“I am not whipped, and you can keep those quaint American euphemisms to yourself, thank you.” He declared. But Trip’s teasing had always been infectious, and before he knew it, Malcolm was relaxing. Damn that man, if we could clone him he’d make me and my job obsolete. We could ‘Trip’ the enemy into submission.

“So, speaking of women…”he began, his face too neutral. Trip saw it coming a mile away. He pointed a warning finger at his friend.

“Oh, no. Don’t you say a word. It’s bad enough I’ve got people talking about the Big Three, and then those whispers behind my back.” He turned away, muttering, “Can’t believe they lasted all these years.”

“You’re just being paranoid.” Malcolm said.

Trip fixed him with a sour look. “Coming from you, I can’t take that seriously.” He was silent for a bit, then, with a furtive glance around the area, he mumbled, “I think I can finally get over it now.”

If he didn’t know better, Trip wouldn’t pegged Malcolm’s expression as ‘alarmed’.

“What do you mean?”

Trip shrugged, his voice carefully neutral. “I guess I was holding onto that torch so hard I couldn’t see how things had changed.”

“Nothing’s changed.” Reed deadpanned.

Trip’s grip on the grav coils in his hands tightened, getting his fingerprints on the smooth titanium casing. “Everything’s changed, Malcolm.” He said quietly. “Thank God I can finally see it. Now hand me that coupler.” He pointed, and Reed obeyed.

They spoke no more on the subject. What was there left to be said? Trip wondered. Two hours. Just two hours of this damned waiting and thinking. Then, they could start to get the hell out of here.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

T’Pol lay awake on the damp floor of the main cavern, listening to the sounds of breathing echoing all around her. It was an eerie sound, and was not helping the state of her nerves. She shifted, trying to get more comfortable but stay in the spot on ground that her body had warmed, but it was no use. She needed space.

The Vulcan say up carefully, eyes wide and pupils fully dilated to take in the room. She mapped a route through the bodies that lay between her and the entrance side of the chamber, and started to move. It took concentration to move silently and quickly through the throng, so much so that she nearly yelped in surprise when a voice floated past her shoulder.

“Where’re you going?”

She bit back the equivalent of a Vulcan oath. He was going to accompany her now. So much for solitude, she thought. What was it with humans and their need to always be in groups?

“Outside. I need some air.” She whispered back. As predicted, the scuffling sounds of Archer rising followed. Without another word, T’Pol continued on her way with Archer following on her heels. Once outside, she breathed deeply of the dank, faintly pungent air. It was hardly better than being inside the cave, but at least here she could stretch out and her eyes didn’t ache from the dimmed florescent lantern light.

She cleared off a spot near the base of the generator and sat in meditation position, her back resting against it. The huge machine faintly thrummed and was warm to the touch, sending relaxing tremors up and down her back. It was…pleasant, she decided. Archer stood next to her, looking out into the jungle. Like he’s protecting me, she thought wryly. Surely she was the last person in that jungle to need protection.

“You’re quiet.” She murmured. Archer twisted to look her at. The petite woman looked more serene than he’d seen her in days. He hoped it was a sign that she was stabilizing.

“So are you.” He returned. When she opened one eye, he smiled at her. “Feeling better?”

She closed the eye again, and was silent a long time before she spoke again.

“I’ve never fully recovered.”

A simple statement, more honest and easily extracted than he’d thought possible from a Vulcan, even T’Pol. She must really be tired, he mused, to let her guard down this much. Then again, maybe she just couldn’t stand to keep it hidden away any longer. Certainly, the physical stress seemed to have diminished, now that she was opening up. Her skin didn’t look so slack, the bags under her eyes were fading, and the faint lines around her mouth and temples had smoothed. It was a very welcome sight

It was his turn to say something, Archer knew. And yet, this didn’t feel right. As close as he’d been—still was—to T’Pol, this was a not a conversation she should be having with him. This was something to talk about with Trip.

“I take it you’re referring to that ‘something’ that happened in the Expanse?” he asked. He turned and sat against the generator, mirroring her position, but several feet away. T’Pol said nothing, nor did she nod her head ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

They sat for a time, silent companions in the dusky light the filtered down to the leaf-littered ground as time stood still in the early hours before dawn.

Finally T’Pol said, “I’ve been trying to remember—what it was to be me, before I was assigned to Enterprise. Trying to return to it, to regain the objectivity, stability, of my culture.”

“But you can’t.” Archer finished. “Not after him.”

T’Pol looked sharply at the Commodore. What had he just said? Was he implying that Tr—Captain Tucker was the root of her perpetual displacement? The questions built up furiously in her mind, growing angrier at his presumption, his intuition, his entirely human understanding. The understanding that was so natural to him, made so much sense to his race, and would never really be hers.

But T’Pol did not voice her anger. I don’t have to, she realized, assessing the manner in which the man was gazing at her. She had long suspected that Archer knew of the romantic nature of her and Tucker’s relationship; this confirmation was not the shocker it might have been. Impossibly, she was –relieved—in the knowledge.

Archer interrupted her cascade of thoughts. “There’s only one thing to do, you know.”

She blinked, and wondered not for the first time at the change in Archer. She did not think she would ever get used to the brash, impatient man she remembered possessing such uncanny wisdom.

“Yes,” she heard herself agreeing. He was right. There was only one thing to do. No choice at all. And it was the closest she had ever, and would ever come to returning to the single-minded certainty of her life before Enterprise.

Chapter 15

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A whole mess of folks have made comments

Brrr, I'm to scared to think what that "only choice" will be. I hope this time T'Pol won't do something stupid. Like run away. Or tell something untrue and hurtful to Trip. Poor guy deserves some good things in his life.

Veddy veddy eenteresteenk. Now I have to go back and re-read this to remember where we are! Great stuff, though! :)

Taste the angst ... just when it appears (to me, anyway) that T'Pol is starting to realize that being with Trip isn't something terrifying, Tucker is finally prepared to move on ... or at least try to. Wonder how sad Reed was to see and hear Trip make that "everything's changed" comment ...

Very good chapter, Eratta, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter.

I'm with Rigil. I think that last paragraph was more likely to be a good thing. She's tried life without Trip and as she termed it she's endured "perpetual displacement". And I can't imagine Archer advocating that she stay away from Trip.

As for Trip, that's more the area of concern.

And now my stomach's in a knot and I'll have to wait what feels like FOREVER to find out if they're gonna be stupid AGAIN and push each other away, or if they're FINALLY gonna come to their senses. Sigh. What a cliffhanger.

So... when's the next chapter... huh? Huh? : )

Hopefully soon. Sometimes I just can't sit down to write this stuff down, even though it's (mostly) in my head!

Glad you're all enjoying it though.

I bow to the Queen of Cliffhangers!!!!!! It's very annoying.:) I'm really enjoying it. Hopefully, you won't make us suffer through an entire month again.

I've skimmed the story, but am holding off reading it until complete. I have noticed one thing. In chapter 2, Travis is referred to as a Lt. Commander. In the other chapters, he's a Lieutenant.

Considering the number of years that have passed, he could be either. Which one is it?

This story has been in the works so long I sometimes make mistakes. In the event of inconsistencies like that, usually go with the first mentioning.

Meaning, I guess he's a Lieutenant Commander!

Damn those temporal anomalies...

Aagghhhhh...the agony of suspense!