INVASION EVASION

AN: In lieu of a new Scorpion episode, here's a new chapter just for you. Happy Monday! A million thanks to those who leave comments and reviews. They mean the world!

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"How 'bout you shut your filthy mouths!"

The two South American mechanical experts, who were running engine diagnostics, stopped talking and peered up at Paige, their protective goggles making them resemble Bubble Eye fish.

"That's right. I'm American and I'm fluent in two languages. Unfortunately for you, one of them is Espanol."

While they looked at her in astonishment, she switched to Spanish and said, "What you're suggesting is not possible with your equipment. Trust me. Size matters."

The mechanics scurried away shoving at each other, snickering and leering back at her over their shoulders like a couple of adolescent boys. Happy passed them coming into the bay as they were leaving.

"Are those two giving you a hard time?" She asked, sounding casual. However, Paige could see her friend was morphing into protective, crouching-tiger mode.

"I guess sexual harassment is the same in all languages. Who knew?" Paige shrugged, trying to play down the disgusting comments and diffuse the tension. She'd heard worse when she was a waitress, after all, and she needed Happy's undivided attention. "I'm fine. I handled it."

"You need a hand?" Happy grabbed the last case of protein supplement bars and lifted them up the stepladder to her.

"Perfect time to ask," Paige jested, "I'm almost done here."

She'd been inventorying rations and stocking dispensers in the rover for most of the afternoon. After carefully arranging the rest of the bars in place, she tossed the box to the ground and stepped down.

"Then what'd you call me for? I'm kinda busy what with the whole achieving orbit and sending this lander to the lunar surface thing."

"I get it. Everybody is busy and on edge. But Walter asked me to report stuff that doesn't seem right. And I saw something."

"So why isn't O'Brien's butt down here checking it out?"

Paige chose to ignore the comment, because she'd recently resolved not to think or say things like 'check it out' and 'O'Brien's butt' in the same sentence. It wasn't easy. Maybe there was a support group she could join or something.

She moved the ladder a few feet to the left and unlocked the hatch used for refilling the water dispenser. She motioned for Happy to climb up beside her and she pointed her penlight down the chute. "Do you see what I mean?"

"I don't see jack…" Jostling a bit for position, the little engineer snatched the light out of Paige's hand and, standing on tiptoes, stuck her head farther inside. Her surprised "What the hell?!" reverberated loudly around their ears.

"The wall of the rocket fuel reservoir is warped and bulging into this hatch. Look at it! It's thinned to the point, if it survived through the first burn during landing at all, it would burst and we'd never be able to take off and re-dock with the shuttle in orbit. And that's best case. Worst case? Kaboom! Holy shit!"

Happy stood back up and scrambled down the ladder. She sprinted over, tapped the intercom on the wall and yelled, "O'Brien! Get your ass down here, pronto! We got big problems!"

oOoOoOoOoOo

For a while, Paige let the geek speak drift over her head only catching the urgent tones and occasional snatches of words that her normal brain could translate.

"Yes, I could fix it. If I had access to an industrial lathe and a week to dismantle and reassemble it…"

"Could you possibly shore up the weak spot with the materials on hand enough to increase the odds of a successful initial landing?"

"In theory? Yes. But you do realize it would be a one way trip," Happy cautioned.

That comment caused Paige to become fully aware, as did Walter's reply.

"No reason I couldn't go alone," he said, "I could do all the testing myself and send the data back to the respective experts for analyzing. They could tell me what to test for…"

"Excuse me? And after that? What? You just stay down there while we head for home without you?" Paige butted in, hoping Walter wasn't implying what it sounded like.

Two geniuses' heads simultaneously swiveled in her direction. They'd probably forgotten she was even there.

Happy readily agreed with Paige, however. "What you're purposing is insane."

"It's the most efficient method," Walter replied as if stating a random fact like 'the Earth is round'.

"No. Walter, no. Think of something else." Paige argued, a feeling of panic rising in her chest.

"You should listen to the waitress, boss," Happy threw in.

"I'm no longer your boss. And it's the only logical way," he explained as if they were both being deliberately slow.

"NO! I won't let you do this! You don't get to do everything in your power to save the ones you care about and try to stop us from doing the same thing! We've had this discussion before! You aren't only important to Earth and to this mission, you know. You can't do this to Ralph! He needs you! You matter to him. To us… to-to me." Paige blinked back a surge of blinding tears when they blurred her view of his face. She took a shuddering breath.

His brow furrowed in confusion. Her eyes were fixed on his until she forgot anyone else was in the room. Or in the universe. It was only him. And her. And the abject terror at the thought of him sacrificing himself for the greater good while she would be forced to go back and live in a world without him in it.

"From now on…" her voice broke. Paige cleared her throat then continued bravely, "From now on, it's all of us or none of us. Got it?"

"Okay," he said in a small voice, still staring as if trying to decipher her.

"Technically we could land this whole sucker on the moon," Happy stated from the sidelines, breaking the spell. "There are plenty of empty areas for a decent runway."

"If we could find a place big enough and near enough to the alien structure but far enough away it doesn't risk contamination. And if the area we found was almost consistently flat without any craters. That's a lot of factors to consider."

"We've done more with less," Paige pointed out and Happy nodded in agreement.

"True. But once we're down there, how do you propose we lift off again? It would take more fuel than we have. Not to mention, we don't have a retractable launch pad large enough to raise the whole shuttle into a vertical position like the rover has. Unless you could devise something," Walter countered.

"Since it looks like 'Plan B' is drying up about as fast as most of the plant life in the botany lab, especially now with this lander set back, I could use the biodome materials to make some kind of launch pad. It may not be pretty, but I think I could make it work. And we could use the extra fuel we've reserved for the rover to launch the shuttle," Walter opened his mouth to protest, but Happy kept talking, "Keep in mind it won't require as much for lift off because the gravitational pull of the moon is so much less."

"It's a risk, but you do have a point. Both of you," he acknowledged. "The only thing is, you should understand, I'm not in charge here. I have to run all viable options by the captain. Ultimately, it's her decision."

oOoOoOoOoOo

Paige paced the hall outside of Captain Huang's office where Happy and Walter had disappeared twenty minutes before. It felt more like twenty hours. It was agony waiting to hear the decision.

Not to mention she wasn't accustomed to being closed out of important meetings. Since joining Scorpion years ago, she'd always been in the thick of it when things got real. Her opinions counted. Suddenly her input was considered immaterial? She wasn't even being allowed to present her side.

Surely the woman wouldn't send Walter by himself to the surface of the moon to be left with little hope of rescue. Neither option was a particularly good one, but what kind of person would send a man to die alone if there was a chance, no matter how small, to save everyone? Scorpion saves everyone.

But this wasn't Scorpion.

The idea of Walter left alone, isolated from everybody he cares about, watching while his stores of air, food and water slowly dwindle was more than Paige could stand.

Surely the captain wouldn't go that direction. Surely.

Her mind refused to entertain the possibility of losing Walter, because she knew her heart wouldn't survive it. Yes, they'd had problems. Yes, she'd been frustrated with him. Yes, she'd broken up with him, left him. But as long as he was breathing, as long as he was alive, she was too. And there was hope.

The door burst open. Walter and Happy came out wearing grave expressions.

Without a word or even a glance, Walter stalked away.

"What?" Paige caught Happy by the arm, frantic to end the suspense, but dreading the answer. "What did she say?"

Happy was definitely unhappy and visibly grinding her teeth in frustration. "The captain is weighing the options and she's going to consult a few other 'expert' opinions before making her final decision. In the meantime, we're supposed to twiddle our thumbs until she makes up her damn mind. She also got on every last one of Walt's nerves."

Paige smiled archly. "He's never been great with authority figures."

"You'd've been proud of him, though. He only smarted off a few times and only got accused of insubordination once. I think I might've acted worse. We needed you in there to keep it civil."

The cold dread returned, clenching in Paige's stomach. "When will we know?"

"She's supposed to tell us some time after we've safely established orbit. Walter went to find Sly and Ralph. While he's waiting to hear, she tasked him with analyzing pictures to locate some potential places for the shuttle to land and calculating trajectory and coordinates. Her stupid delay is costing us valuable time and, by sending us in separate directions, wasting manpower too. We need to get down to that base and inspect it sooner rather than later." Happy's mouth tightened into a grim line, "For now, I'm supposed to find a way to strengthen the bulging fuel tank wall using the equivalent of cardboard, duct tape and bubble gum."

"Can I help?" Paige inquired hopefully. She seriously needed to stay busy.

"Nah. It's a one woman job."

With that, Happy left her standing in the hallway feeling even more superfluous than ever.

oOoOoOoOoOo

"Ralph, it's been three days. Four if you count the first evening in orbit," Paige whined to her son, begging for answers. "Is there any word yet?"

Paige had spent the majority of those three days scrubbing tubs and hoses in the hydroponics lab as well as testing and recording PH and chlorine levels in water. Florence told her in passing that Dr. Kristjanssen in botany was overwhelmed with attempts to salvage what was left of the plant life. He'd grudgingly accepted her offer to help and she was very grateful. The work was the only thing keeping her out of a straight jacket locked in a room with memory foam walls. White was never her color.

She knew she was driving all of her friends nuts too, but she couldn't seem to stop herself from asking for news. It was like waiting while a jury deliberated. Would Walter be condemned or would his sentence be commuted?

"Technically there are no 'days' in space, Mom. Or hours or minutes or even nanoseconds for that matter. Time is a construct based on the rotation of the Earth and its position to the sun. Since we're no longer on the Earth…"

"Thank you for that unsolicited science lesson, smartie pants, but that wasn't what I was asking." Paige tore the packaging off the end of a protein bar and handed it to Ralph along with a pouch of water.

"I know," he bit a sizable chunk out of the bar and chewed, making a face when he swallowed, "but don't you think I would've told you if I'd heard something? Everyone is really frustrated. We're wasting valuable time while the captain stalls."

"I thought time didn't exist," Paige wore a teasing smirk and nudged him with an elbow.

The teen rolled his eyes. "It does back on Earth where it matters how soon we find and eliminate this threat. We can't very well neutralize it unless we identify it first."

She took a bite of her own bar. The vaguely sweet, gluey mass lodged in her throat. She washed it down with water. "I'd give my right tonsil for a salad or some fresh fruit right about now," she sighed.

"I'd give both of mine plus my appendix for just one slice of pizza."

"Ohhhhh. With green peppers and olives and mushrooms." Paige forced another bite down, dreaming of something tastier.

Ralph wrinkled up his nose. "Nope. Double pepperoni. With an ice cream sundae for dessert."

Mother and son shared a grin.

Paige grabbed both wrappers and placed them in the recycler. "Well, doing the dishes is certainly easier. And at least the meal supplement bars are way better than Walter's fermented fish. Am I right? I guess we should consider ourselves lucky he wasn't in charge of stocking the ship with provisions."

"I wish I had some fermented fish for him," Ralph said sadly. His tone gave Paige pause.

"Ralph? Is everything okay with Walter? Have you talked to him?" She hadn't seen hide nor hair since that day by the captain's office. She was steadily growing more and more concerned.

The boy shrugged nonchalantly, but Paige could see the worry in his eyes when he answered. "I talk to him all the time. We work together. He says he's fine. But that's what he always says. Even when he's not. I know he's tired. He's been working nonstop since liftoff. And I can tell something is bugging him."

"Do you want me to try talking to him?"

Taking less than a moment to consider, Ralph nodded solemnly.