Disclaimer: Nope. Nada. Zip. Zero. I only claim the plot.
Reed woke with single-minded purpose. Was Tucker alive? Had he been restored by the reset? The resets had restored an entire dead crew, including Tucker, multiple times before. However, in none of these resets had Tucker been vaccinated against the temporal effects. And assuming he was alive and well, would Tucker remember what had happened? If he did, it was a twofold benefit. Reed would have an ally, and he'd also know for sure that it was the drug which protected him from the temporal anomaly. To add to the benefits, they now had a game plan. It was only the result of unfortunate coincidences that they'd failed the last time. Coincidences, and your fault. You should have been watching the energy readings. Reed brushed the thought away with minimal difficulty. Guilt was easier to ignore now that he had a specific, defined mission to execute.
He hurried from his quarters and nearly collided with an ashen-faced Tucker ten metres down the corridor. He'd never been so pleased to see the engineer. Tucker, on the other hand, looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"Malcolm!" the engineer stared openly at him, face written in clear lines of uncertainty and alarm.
"Do you remember?" Reed asked intently, although Tucker's presence and expression alone were enough to answer the question.
"Yew mean –" Tucker gaped. "How do you – I wasn't dreamin'? It was real?"
Blissful relief flooded through Reed. It didn't matter that the last image he had of Tucker was watching his mutilated friend writhe on the floor of an escape pod in unbearable pain; Tucker was alive and uninjured now, and he remembered. Reed was no longer alone in this horrific nightmare.
"Yes. It was real." He nearly hugged Tucker, but held himself back at the last moment with a firm reminder of what professional conduct was and was not. The engineer, however, was bound by no such inhibitions and clasped Reed's shoulder warmly.
"Malcolm, thank goodness. Are yew okay?"
"Am I?" Reed was genuinely startled by the question. "Trip, I wasn't hurt. Are you okay?"
"Fine." Tucker brushed off the query. "You were talkin' to me, weren't you? Yew sounded scared."
"I wasn't sure if it would be permanent," Reed admitted. "When you…died."
"I died?" Tucker's eyes widened.
"Yes," Reed said shortly. Tucker whistled and ran a hand through his hair.
"No shit."
"Yeah."
Tucker looked grave for a moment, then brushed off the tension. "Well, not anymore. What now?"
"Now," Reed said grimly, "we try to convince Captain Archer that his ship is in danger without giving him the impression that we are insane."
"But he…oh. He don't remember?"
"He doesn't know yet," Reed corrected. Tucker looked at him with newfound respect.
"How many times did yew do this?"
"It doesn't matter. Come on." Reed led the way to the turbolift. "Maybe I should explain," he hazarded. "I've had…practice."
"Yer the boss. I'll back yew up." Reed nodded approvingly as the elevator rose toward the bridge.
"Malcolm? Trip? What are you doing here? You're not on duty until tomorrow."
Reed registered out of the corner of his eye Tucker's startled falter at hearing Archer's familiar greeting as they stepped onto the bridge, but the novelty of repeating events had worn off for him.
"Captain," Reed said, "The Enterprise is in danger."
"30.39 percent, Commander."
There was no conversation this time, no distraction or levity. Reed watched the energy reading hawk-like despite his headache and exhaustion. For what seemed the first time in a long while, he felt real hope. This time they knew the traps to avoid. This time it could work, and if it did…he'd finally get to sleep. He pondered the thought wistfully without taking his eyes off the screen. Rest was a distant and surreal luxury. Reed caught himself fantasizing about sinking down onto his bunk and winced self-consciously.
"32.68 percent."
"I read you, Malcolm. I'm almost done."
Archer had been easier to persuade this time, both because Reed now knew the words to convince him and because he was backed up by Tucker. Predictably, T'Pol had insisted that there was no such thing as time travel despite the evidence provided by her own scans, but the Captain had overruled her and given his full support as soon as he was convinced of the reality of the danger.
On the computer screen, the reading flickered and jumped. Reed's adrenaline surged. This was the danger point that had destroyed them last time.
"53 percent and rising, Trip."
"I hear yew. I've got it. Jus' a few more seconds…"
"65 percent and still rising."
"C'mon, c'mon," Tucker panted at the conduit. "Almost there."
"76 percent, Trip! Hurry!" The armoury lights flickered worryingly. "It's over eighty, you'd better get out –"
"Yes!" Tucker gave a muted grunt of triumph. "Got it!"
The energy fluctuations dropped as soon as they had jumped. Reed slumped forward with relief and let out an involuntary sigh. He allowed himself a brief moment to rest his head in his hands. The next thing he knew, Tucker was at his shoulder, sweaty and greasy but victorious.
"Yew okay, Mal?"
It was an effort to raise his head. Reed's headache had increased and now that the momentary crisis had passed he felt limp with weariness.
"Yeah. Just tired." He stood slowly. "I'll be fine."
Tucker surveyed him critically. "Are yew gonna be able to handle the phase cannons? I'd rather have yew than anyone else, but if yer too tired…"
"No!" Reed did not intend to snap, but Tucker of all people questioning his competence was too much to bear. "I am quite competent to handle weapons, Commander, I assure you." The words came out bitingly sarcastic. Reed regretted it as soon as he spoke. Tucker drew back, hurt and angry.
"I'm sure yew are, Loo-tenant. Tell the Cap'n I'll be in engineerin'." He left without giving Reed a chance to answer. Feeling wretched, Reed went up to the bridge to take his station at the tactical console.
"Report, Lieutenant?"
"Targeting scanners online, Captain. We're ready."
Archer nodded tightly. "Very well. Prepare to break orbit, Ensign Mayweather. We may as well try for a peaceful exit."
Reed would as soon have taken the remaining quarter of an hour until 2344 to sleep rather than to attempt a fruitless escape, but orders were orders. He focused all his attention on the console in front of him, poised to react as soon as the targeting scanners found a radiation surge.
"All ready, Trip?"
"Aye aye, Cap'n."
Reed felt another twinge of regret at the harsh words he'd spoken to the engineer. He'd make it up to him when this was all over.
"Take us out, Mr. Mayweather."
"Twenty thousand kilometres, sir."
The grey ship bore down on them in ominous communications silence. Reed watched it growing steadily closer through unaccountably cloudy vision. He performed a quick self-assessment which turned up nothing worse than the same bad headache he'd been nursing for the last few days…hours…for some time, anyway. Tiredness, then. It would soon be alleviated by adrenaline.
The targeting sensors detected the first radiation flare a split second before Reed saw it. He pounced on the phase cannon controls and fired, with no time to alert the rest of the bridge crew.
The energy blast that he unleashed was so strong and so sudden that it rocked the entire ship and almost knocked him from his seat. Archer gripped the back of his seat to remain standing. Reed perused his sensors frantically, unsure whether the Enterprise had been hit or if the jolt had been the feedback of their own upgraded weapon.
"Report!" Archer demanded. Reed did not have time to answer before he had to react to the next burst of enemy fire. The ship shook once more, but there was no sear of energy weapons on her hull, no crashing debris and sparks. The lights flickered slightly but Reed knew the answer before his sensors confirmed it.
"It's working, Captain! If we can hold them off –"
Something seemed to break loose in Reed's head and a wave of pain stabbed through his skull. Concentrate. Forget talking; he had a job to do and it was all he could do to remember how to do that job. He looked down at the console in front of him and saw a checkerboard of black and red. A distant static buzz clogged his ears.
Focus.
Sharp pain exploded in Reed's face as something slammed into it. A hot, sticky liquid trickled over his upper lip. Dazed and disoriented, he opened his eyes to find the control panel pressing against his face.
Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him aside with unintentional roughness. Reed barely caught himself with his hands on the deck as Archer forced him out of the way. He sat up dizzily, unsure what had happened. One minute he'd been fine and the next he couldn't see or hear anything but red and black and a crackling roar. He wiped a hand across his face and it came away smeared with dark blood. He must have blacked out momentarily and bloodied his face on the controls.
Sparks fountained from a conduit in the bulkhead. Reed was knocked back to the floor by the shock of a weapon blast. Archer shouted something that no one heard as the bridge came apart. The power died but the room was lit by an electric fire bursting to life. Above Reed, something snapped and fell.
With a tremendous crash, the support beam over the tactical station gave way and dropped, its jagged broken end swinging a lethal half-parabola to crush the tactical console like a wrecking ball. As it fell, Archer half-turned in time to catch much of the blow straight in the chest. It smashed him flat to the floor and sank into his crushed ribcage.
"Captain!" Reed screamed. Everything was too loud, too fast, too hot and bright and bloody. He crawled on hands and knees to Archer's side. The Captain's eyes were wide and glazed with shock. Across the wreckage of what had been the bridge, someone was screaming for help. The Enterprise jerked again. In the chaos and dizziness, Reed did not know how bad the hit had been. He struggled to hold onto consciousness, which was persistently trying to escape.
"Malcolm!" Sato was at his elbow. Reed hadn't seen her coming through the pandemonium both inside and outside of his own mind. "Come with me!" She pulled as much as helped him away from the dying Captain, away from the bridge, away to the safety of a small metal capsule, a feeble refuge from the blinding blue shockwave of the ship's death.
"It's my fault," Reed choked. "I'm so sorry. It's my fault." Archer was dead. The crew was dead. It was his fault directly this time. He'd signed their death warrants.
Sato shook Reed firmly by the shoulders. "Malcolm. Look at me. You've got to keep it together. Look at me."
He obeyed automatically through a fog of guilt and self-recrimination. Sato's face was white and set.
"You're our only hope. You have to do this again, and you have to keep doing it whatever it takes. Okay? Promise me, Malcolm. Promise."
"I'm sorry, Hoshi." He couldn't do it. No matter how many times he tried, it would only end this way – with him fleeing the glittering remnants of the demolished Enterprise, leaving behind his dead crew.
"No." Sato shook him again, her voice urgent. "You must keep trying. Promise me, Malcolm." She leaned close into him and touched her forehead to his. "You have to save us. All of us. Don't give up. Do you understand?"
Reed nodded speechlessly.