Opportunities

In the spring of 2147, Starfleet is growing fast, and that's creating challenges for young Lieutenant Trip Tucker. He just needs to remember what his granddad used to say… Every challenge is just an opportunity you haven't recognized yet.

Disclaimers

Star Trek: Enterprise and its characters are copyright CBS/Paramount. No copyright infringement is intended by me. This work is solely for the purpose of entertainment and is not for profit.

Acknowledgements

The idea that Trip made a name for himself by redesigning the plasma injector system is borrowed from the story Three Months on Vulcan by startraveller776 at .

Once again tremendous thanks to Artisticmom2 at Delphic Expanse for her extremely helpful Beta reading.

All dates used in the timing of events or the ages of characters for this story are taken from Memory Alpha where available.

Chapter 1: Challenges

Midmorning, Wednesday, April 5th, 2147

Starfleet Headquarters (Main Facility) San Francisco, Earth

Trip headed down the hallway to Archer's office at a quick pace. This must be bad, he thought. Things had been going really well, and that made Archer very relaxed, so a call out of the blue to the Engineering Campus for Trip to come to his office right away was bad. Stay calm, if it were something really huge, you'd know about it already.

Finally, he reached the door and stopped for a moment to read the plaque on the wall just above the door activator: J. Archer, Commander, NX-01. Trip always liked the clever way Archer did things. Using his rank as a position title for a ship that had no official captain and was still just an engineering pipe dream at this point was just the kind of thing Archer could always think up and get away with. Trip smiled a bit and nodded to himself; No matter how bad this is Archer will figure a way out of it. Then he took a slow, deep breath and pressed the access request button for Archer's door.

Trip heard Archer's cheerful voice call "Come in." That was odd. Something didn't make sense. He activated the door and waked through, seeing Archer sitting behind his desk with a smile on his face. Trip grimaced, totally confused at this point. "Hey Capt'n. What's up?"

Archer looked at his friend from his desk with a sympathetic expression and said, "Well Trip, I've got some good news, and some bad news."

Trip stood, almost frozen in place for a moment trying to figure out what Archer was talking about. Whatever Archer had commed him to talk about was starting to sound more personal, than project related, and Trip couldn't think of anything in his personal life or situation that had changed. In fact, he didn't really have a personal life at the moment with all the hours he was putting in on the design of the NX-01. Trip was wracking his brain trying to come up with anything that Archer might need to talk to him about.

Finally, Jon said, "Take a seat Trip." Trip took a seat on the couch against the wall of Archer's office, but still looked slightly confused. Once Trip was seated Archer continued with a smile. "First, you've got to stop calling me Captain. I'm just the Project Officer for Crew Development on the NX project," Archer winked as he finished. They both knew Jon wanted this command with all his heart, and he'd make it happen one way or another. "And it's in that capacity I've called you here", Archer continued his tone getting a little more serious. "Admiral Forrest called this morning. They're publishing the results of the promotion board later today, but he wanted me to be aware of a couple of, let's just say, unusual situations."

Trip suddenly remembered the entire issue of the promotion board. It was the first one Starfleet had ever run. Up until now, things had been a lot more casual. Everyone pretty much got promoted every six years, unless one of the admirals had a problem with you. Of course, there were exceptions to that too, like himself. He'd been given a "merit promotion" to lieutenant at age 21 with only three years in service, and now that he'd been tagged to be on the NX-01 project, his chances of getting the Chief Engineer slot at such a young age had caused a lot of grumbling from some people. Of course, they were mostly people who wanted the post of Chief Engineer on the NX-01. Trip rolled his tongue into his cheek as he considered the implications of what Archer was telling him.

The worst part of the entire situation was Trip didn't think he should have been promoted that early himself. If Stanford hadn't awarded him a doctorate to claim some credit for his plasma injector design he'd have been promoted at six years, just like everyone else. But back then Starfleet was getting a lot of flak for not being "academic" enough for an organization that was supposed to be about scientific exploration, so they had a policy that if you completed a PhD, you got promoted immediately. Thinking about the entire situation still put Trip in a foul mood five years later.

Archer could see exactly where Trip's mind was going. Jon figured Trip was the only person in Starfleet who would feel bad about a merit promotion. "It's air through the engine Trip. There's no point brooding about it. But it does put you in kind of an odd situation with all the new, formal rules they're putting down." Trip seemed to remain impassive, so Archer pressed on. "The good news is you're on the promotion list for commander."

Trips eyebrows went up and he leaned forward, with his forearms on his knees. "And the bad news?"

Archer lost his smile, not sure how Trip was going to take the next part. "They're going to make you wait a while to pin it on."

Trip narrowed his eyes and scrunched up his face. "How long?"

Archer tensed up for a second and his eyes slid away from Trip's face as he tried to find a way to soften the news a little. The bluntness of Trip's question gave him little room to maneuver though, so he simply answered him. "About four years."

Trip sat straight up and his head pulled back like he was absorbing a blow, then he slowly slumped forward with his elbows on his knees. "Four years?" Trips face contorted into a mix of shock and pain. Up until this, promotions had been immediate. They announce you were getting promoted and you pinned it on. Trip had always told himself the rank and the pay didn't matter to him. It was the work and the chance to be one of Earth's first deep space explorers that he cared about. But this hurt his pride, he couldn't deny it. Maybe he had been promoted too early before, but he'd busted his butt for the last five years to prove he deserved it. This felt like a slap in the face after all that hard work.

Jon could see his friend was trying to sort through it all, and tried to give him some moral support. "I know exactly how you feel Trip, they're holding back my promotion date too." Archer had been recruited for the test pilot program, and one of the incentives had been accelerated promotion. He'd made lieutenant in four years, and commander four years after that.

Trip looked surprised by that news. But he still hadn't recovered from hearing about how long they were going to make him wait to pin on his new rank. Finally Trip managed to ask in a quiet voice "How long? When are they promoting you?"

Archer shrugged his shoulders. "April, 2150, just before they make the announcement about who the captain of the first NX is going to be. So, in about three years." Trip was still sitting silent and virtually motionless, which worried Archer. He'd been prepared for Trip to fly off the handle, but not for him to shut down like this.

Jon pressed on, trying to find a way to minimize the impact. "Trip, you were one of the last people to come into Starfleet directly. Everyone has to go through the Schoolhouse now, a minimum of three years for a commission, even if you've got an advanced degree. This just puts you on track with everyone who's coming in now. Well, technically, you'll still be ahead, just not quite as far."

Trips body relaxed slightly, and his eyes narrowed a little. But whatever he was thinking, he wasn't willing to share.

Archer tried again to get Trip to put things in perspective. "I know it's disappointing, but just imagine if you'd decided to go get your doctorate instead of signing on with Starfleet when you did. If it took you four years, you'd have graduated in '43. If you'd come into Starfleet then, they'd have made you do the three year program at the Schoolhouse, and you'd have graduated last year as an ensign. You'd make it onto the NX crew, no problem, but you wouldn't be in line to be Chief Engineer."

Trip finally nodded and seemed to come back to life a little. Archer took a deep breath, and let it out slowly to cover his sigh of mixed relief and exasperation. If this part the conversation had been this rough, Jon was really concerned how Trip was going to take the next part. "There's something else we need to talk about Trip." Seeing Trip stiffen up again, Jon decided to just drive ahead and get through it as fast as possible. "The primary engineering work is basically done. Actual construction doesn't start for a year. So, you've got some time to fill, and Admiral Forrest wants you to go to Command College."

Trip sat bolt upright and scrunched his face up in confusion. "Why do I need to go to Command College? There's still lots of work left to do. Sub-component designs need to be finalized and reliability testing is just starting. And we've still got the entire model testing process on the primary design to complete. Command College is six months. I'll never get caught up."

Archer smiled a little and shook his head slightly. Trip Tucker was a force of nature all by himself. Officially, his position was the NX project's liaison to Commodore Jeffries' design team, and AG Robinson was his boss as the Project Officer for Design and Construction. It had made perfect sense to bring Trip in on the final design process for the Warp 5 Engine, and then once he was working on the Engineering Campus every day, no one could make him stop. If there was one thing people who knew Trip understood, it was that once he got an idea into his head to do something, he never let anything get in his way. And now Admiral Forest had given Jon exactly that job: get Trip to stop working on the biggest engineering project of his life, maybe the biggest engineering project in Earth's history.

"Actually, Command College is eight months now. Look Trip, Forest is playing the long game here. He's afraid someone is going to propose making Command College a requirement to be a Division Chief on NX ships, so some of the other candidates will be qualified for Chief Engineer, and you won't be." It wasn't un-true; it just wasn't exactly the whole truth.

Trip nodded his head slowly and responded, "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. And I can always come in on the weekends to keep caught up on what's going on at the Engineering Campus."

Jon sagged in his chair at those words. There wasn't going to be any way around this, so he was just going to have to lay it out there. "Trip, consider this an intervention."

Trip shot Archer a clearly confused look. "Intervention?"

"Trip, Forrest called all of us together, me, Jeffries, AG. He's afraid you're working too hard. You're going to burn yourself out on this project. You've been going at it 20 hours a day, 7 days a week for most of the last year. You have to be alive and sane when the ship launches to be its Chief Engineer." Jon paused a moment to see how Trip was going to take all of this.

Trip looked confused. "Why was AG there?"

"Because technically, he's your boss right now," Jon reminded him.

"Oh, yeah, right," Trip responded in a flat tone.

"Look, you've done a hell of a lot of amazing work. But it's time to take a break. Command College will give you a chance to learn some new things and relax a little." But Jon didn't think he was getting through to Trip yet.

"But I can still come in on the weekends and catch up on what's going on, right?" Trip asked hopefully, his southern drawl gaining strength as his stress built up again.

"No Trip. No coming in on weekends. Just relax, head down the coast and hit the beach on your days off." Jon hesitated before he spoke again, but went ahead and said what was on his mind. "Find yourself a girlfriend, enjoy life a little."

Trip winced a little at that. He was still hurting over how things had crashed and burned with Lisa last year. Archer had told him most flight school romances ended up that way, but it didn't take the sting away. Besides, they'd still been going out for more than two years after he finished flight school, so he figured they'd beaten the odds. Trip decided he needed to move the conversation off if his personal life. "So, what about you Capt'n. What's Forrest gonna have you do? You know you're not making any friends sitting in that chair."

Jon shot Trip a disapproving look over his use of "captain" again, but he knew Trip was right. Admiral Forrest's decision to openly recruit civilians for the NX crew had sent shock waves through Starfleet when the word hit the street. Lots of people had dedicated their lives to Starfleet, waiting for this opportunity. Most of Jon's peers now saw him as Forrest's hatchet man. Every bright young person Archer recruited into Starfleet meant it was going to be that much harder for the old hands to find a slot on the crew manifest, especially if they were officers. Jon felt for his friends and colleagues. He knew exactly what it felt like to not make the cut after coming in second for the NX Alpha flight. But ultimately, Forrest was right. These ships needed Earth's best and brightest. "I'm not going anywhere Trip. This job keeps me busy enough to stay out of trouble, and there's still a lot of talent out there to find."

Trip got a wry little smile on his face as he spotted his opening. There weren't many ways to get an advantage on Archer in a conversation, but he'd discovered in the last few weeks this was one of them. "So, more trips down to Brazil I take it," Trip said in an even tone, as if it was just an innocent observation. But he had to work to suppress an impish grin as he said it.

Archer's eyes narrowed a little in anger, but he was put on defensive. "I've only been down there three times in the last two month, and it's purely business."

Trip smile grew as he knew he had hit his target. "I don't know. That seems like a lot of effort for one prospective Starfleet officer. She must be pretty special. What's her name again?" He could see the twinkle grow in Archer's eyes as his mind drifted to her.

Jon answered before even thinking, "Hoshi. Hoshi Sato. And yes, she's amazing. She's finishing up her doctorate in Xeno-Linguistics at the best language institute in the world, and she's only 17. You give her 100 words and a dozen sentences, and she can speak a simplified version of the language in a few minutes. It's the most astonishing thing you've ever seen."

Trip nodded as he imagined it was pretty damned impressive to see someone do that. "So, sounds like you're gonna be spending a lot of time south of the equator."

Archer shook his head. "No need. She's already applied and been accepted. She starts the three year program at the Schoolhouse in August."

Trip nodded again. Now he really was impressed. It had taken Jeffries and his crew almost 6 months to talk him into joining Starfleet at that age, and they hadn't had to sell him on spending three or four years just going to classes to earn the right to actually start working.

Jon had a pretty good idea he knew what Trip was thinking. "I can be very persuasive," he said while he smiled and nodded.

Now Trip was genuinely curios about this girl. "Starfleet doesn't have a linguistics program. What's she gonna study for the next three years?"

Jon was beaming now as he talked about Hoshi. "I recommended she do computer work, so she could help develop some new translation technology and algorithms for improving our auto-translation systems. So she decided to do a dual major in computer engineering, hardware and software."

Trip was getting seriously impressed himself by this person. He continued to smile as he thought about whether it was a good idea or not to tease Archer a little. "So she's a real prodigy then. Maybe I should spend some time with her once she gets to San Francisco. You know, help her make the transition. I've got a lot of experience being someone like that hitting the real world at that age."

Archer's demeanor turned sour instantaneously. "You know the regs. No fraternization between active duty and cadets."

That's rich, Trip thought. Jon Archer and Erika Hernandez were half the reason there were formal regs against 'fraternization' at all now. No one talked about it, especially them, and Trip wasn't really sure exactly what had happened. But something had definitely happened when she was his XO a couple of years ago. Archer's reaction told him he'd hit a nerve though, so he pressed on. "Who said anything about socializing? I could volunteer to be her active duty mentor while she's going through the program."

Jon's eyes narrowed. "That's already taken care of." Then he saw Trip starting to chuckle under his breath and he realized exactly what Trip was doing. "Look, we can talk about all this over a drink at the 602 Club later. Back to the issue at hand."

Trip deflated immediately, and his shoulders sagged as he ran his tongue into his cheek, trying to think of a way out of this. But he really didn't see one. If Admiral Forrest wanted this, then it was going to happen. Maybe he could just play along for a while, then start to work his way back into the engineering teams after a couple of months. "So, when does Command College start up?"

Sensing he was finally on glide path for this part of the conversation, Jon relaxed a little. "August. The timing is perfect. You spend eight months there, and then you're back on the NX program by April of next year when construction starts at Space Dock One."

Trip perked up a little and nodded at the thought of being part of the construction process from the beginning. Then the obvious finally hit him. "August is four months from now. Why are you making it sound like I've got to wrap up stuff at the Engineering Campus right away?"

Jon steeled himself. Now was the really hard sell. "Well, there's this temporary duty assignment that requires an engineer who's familiar with the NX Beta that's come down from Starfleet Headquarters. You're the perfect choice to fill it, and it starts on Monday."

"A temp duty gig? For what section?" Trip asked incredulously.

Jon braced himself for the reaction he knew was coming and said in a matter of fact tone, "Protocol and Public Relations."

Author's Notes: This is the product of me getting stuck on another project, and realizing I needed to develop a lot of background for the characters before I could move forward. It's an effort to make sense of a lot of little things that just don't add up unless you put some effort into explaining them, such as how Trip is a Lieutenant at the age of 22 after only four years in Starfleet in the episode First Flight.