Xxx

Engineering

"These shitheads keep ramming the ship!" Hesse choked out between two fits of coughing. "Last one hit to the right of Bay Two. The shock ruptured tube 5. We've rerouted through 7." She finally stopped retching, her voide hoarse from the inhalation of coolant smoke.

Trip nodded, his eyes on the inner temp gauge. So that's what happened to Pantella. Poor guy. "Give me the readings on the calibrator!" That brought a memory of asking T'Pol to keep an eye on readings from the engines, he couldn't exactly place why or when.

"Eighty-five over 350," Hesse's voice faltered. "It's dropping!"

Trip swore. "The engine is shutting down." He was entering commands as fast as he could, swore again when nothing happened.

"Seventy-two over 350" Hesse called.

He didn't need her to, he knew already. T'Pol would have known not to distract him, he wished she was there by his side. "I'm going to try and interrupt the shutdown sequence, don't want to do a cold restart! Brace yourselves."

Hesse looked at him as of he had two heads. Trip couldn't believe he had said that. The memories came back with a jolt. The hike from the Columbia - how could he forget, T'Pol the first person he saw when he arrived in Engineering. His reproach, 'Someone has not been taking very good care of my engines' and her sassy comeback "Talk to the Klingons about it", how he'd restarted the reactor while she hunkered down for protection. And then, he'd lay a hand on her back. Protectively, it'd looked to outsiders, except he knew it was not protective at all. He just wanted to touch her, to feel her warmth under his hand. Thank god nobody saw it or they'd have known straight away. Who ever touched a Vulcan like that? Uninvited, no less?

He brought his attention back to the engine. "Hesse, I need you to keep an eye on the delta wavestream. Keep feeding me the readings!" Those, he needed to hear. If T'Pol was there, she'd be the one doing it.

Now that he'd done a cold restart once, the motions were familiar. He went through them in his head while he watched and waited as the commands finally reached the warp core. The reactor hesitated, the vibration of the competing orders shaking everyone to the roots of their teeth, then, right at the point Trip thought for sure it would quit, the engine came back on.

Trip palmed the intercom. "Bridge! We've contained the breach. Please keep them away from the reactor!"

xxx

Lead rebel ship

Poryk had his head between his knees, a physical feat in the already constrained space. It was illogical to be so positioned when there was a battle going on outside the skiff. It was just as illogical to be as uninterested as he currently was in the outcome of said battle. All he wished for was for the motion to end, for Jivak to bring the vessel back on an even course.

Spivac stared angrily at him from where the Romulan agent was trussed in his seat. Poryk envied the man's imperviousness to the roller coaster motion. It had started right at the beginning, when Jivak shouted at them to brace themselves, before sending the ship in a steep plunge and looping back to find a place in the pack pursuing Enterprise. From that point, it had been a continuous stream of fast jerks and abrupt changes of position that made Poryk so sick that nothing mattered any longer.

It didn't matter that Jivak had let go of the lead position or why. It didn't matter that he would no longer try and stop Jivak and Spivac, and most likely die trying. It didn't matter when Jivak told Spivac to activate the stealth explosive. Or when he walked over to Spivac, who was too focused on what he was doing to notice, and nerve-pinched him just as he finished entering the code. He'd thought Jivak would dispose of him also then, and even that had not mattered. But instead Jivak had gone back to piloting the ship as if nothing happened.

And it didn't matter when Jivak broke off from the pack with another handful of skiffs and dove straight down towards Enterprise, swooping below it, Poryk his eyes closed to focus on T'Agad's image, waiting to finally be free of the intense nausea.

But the impact never came.

Instead, the vessel had dipped sharply below Enterprise before coming back up at an angle that momentarily cut off the circulation of blood to Poryk's brain. When he finally chased the spots dancing before his eyes, Jivak had the skiff angled right between the engine and the body of the ship, in the blind spot of both sensors and cannons. Since then, he'd been following the movements of the ship like a shadow. And as the Enterprise bucked, slid, swerved, dropped, and looped to avoid the rebel ships, so was their skiff bucking, sliding, swerving, dropping, and looping and Poryk hanging for dear life as the floor under his feet periodically disappeared, listed right, listed left, and came back, without any warning, head between his knees and wishing for nothing else than a quick death and for the motion to stop.

He'd never felt seasick before. And Vulcan having no sizeable sea, he didn't even have a name for it.

xxx

Sickbay

"Where do you think you're going?!"

"You said I would be released today. I need a uniform." T'Pol didn't grace Phlox with further explanation. The doctor could see she was up and infer she was leaving. Trip needed her.

"Today as in twelve hours from now! You're hardly standing on your feet! And I still have to check that the infection is cleared."

T'Pol turned to face Phlox. "You can do so in twelve hours, as planned. Enterprise is under attack. I need a uniform." And Trip needed her.

Phlox just glared at her in response.

"If I do not have a uniform, in light of my medically compromised state, I will be more susceptible to ambient viruses." Trip needed her.

Phlox studied her closely, and suddenly seemed to make up his mind. "Oh all right! Don't use your logic on me!" He went to the chute, came back with a wrapped parcel. "I had the quartermaster prepare one of your unisuits already. No point having you suffer fron thermal shock." There may have been sarcasm in there, but she didn't pick it up.

Phlox turned to her with a hypo. "Here, this will give you a boost. Trust me, you need it. And I want to see you back here in six hours! Or else I am forcibly re-admitting you."

"Six hours, Doctor." T'Pol presented an elegant neck to Phlox's ministrations. Then she was off.

Her first thought on stepping into the corridor was that Phlox was right, she was not fit for duty. Fortunately, the contents of the hypo kicked in at about the same time and she started trotting down the corridors towards Engineering.

xxx

Engineering

"You've got to keep them off, Captain!" Trip was short of breath, pleading needlessly into the intercom.

The doors opened and he nodded at the new arrival, did a double-take and looked again. He'd seen right. It was T'Pol. The terrible noises reverberating in the engine room as the ship tried to evade the barrage of diving ships could have been the songs of angels.

"I need you." He realized he'd cut himself off, started again. "I need you to keep an eye on the inflow calibration panel. Then maybe I can yield more power." It would beat the back and forth shuttle from the upper engine bridge. Not enough personnel, a few dead crew members and the others busy putting out fires.

He was sweating, clear rivulets making their way down his face, taking down some of the ambient soot with them. Everyone in Engineering looked like a blackened ghost, all uniforms the same shade of grit. T'Pol could feel the soot depositing all over her, as if she had walked in a cloud of dust. The stench of burning chemicals was overpowering. She almost stumbled, regained her composure, went to position herself by the inflow panel, ready to call the readings out to him at regular intervals.

The ship shook again, then another more pronounced jolt sent her reeling against the panel. The shock dazed her. She managed not to fall, bracing herself against the nearest steel column with one hand. She couldn't lose sight of the calibration. "Seventy-three percent!"

"Seventy-three percent?! Let me know when we're at sixty-six percent!" Trip's voice rose behind her, then over the intercom. "Captain! We're losing power! We need to get out of here!"

xxx

Bridge

Archer's heart skipped a beat. Trip's voice had more anxiety than he'd ever want to hear.

A hard shock sent him halfway off his chair. "Travis! Do what you can!" He knew the helmsman was doing everything he could. They were coming at them from all angles. "Reed! How many left?" He half-turned towards Reed, holding on to the chair as Travis sent the Enterprise into yet another barely controlled buck and spin, throwing the ship on yet another escape route. At most, it would give them a couple of minutes respite before the skiffs caught up.

"There's too many of them!" The chief of security shouted back, ashen with tension. They'd shot over fifty, and there were still more.

"Captain!" Hoshi's call cut through the din and the smoke. "I'm getting something!"

Archer looked up. "Getting what?! Travis, how about a loop-de-loop?" It had worked once, it may work again. At least allow them to hit a few more targets before they were right back where they started from.

Travis shook his head. "They're too nimble, Captain. We can't hide what we're doing. They'll intercept us halfway." He didn't need to finish. That's when Enterprise would be at its most vulnerable...

Hoshi put a hand out to shush both of them. She was hunched over her headphones as if they were the most precious thing in the universe. "I can't... There's too much static." She looked up at Archer, incredulous, "It sounds like letters and numbers..."

"Coordinates?" Travis supplied, holding on to his console as Enterprise shook again.

"Shields at 23%." Reed commented. "They're coming back."

"Engineering -" Archer started, stopped himself. Trip had enough trouble already. "Travis, try to keep them off as long as you can."

"Not coordinates," Hoshi was still listening. "Numbers... delzert234..." She listened again. "...alphomaJntk199..." she looked up in frustration. "The communication shorted out."

Archer looked interrogatively at Seagull. If there was a time when a science officer should be useful, that was now. But Seagull was not looking up from his viewer. "They're back!" he announced.

"Travis, keep the ship facing them! Protect Trip!" They couldn't let one of those ships hit anywhere close to Engineering. Any abrupt shake there could screw things up for Trip. And for all of them.

The cannons picked up another couple of the smaller ships. All of a sudden Travis looked up. "Ship numbers! Theyre registry numbers!" He quicly went back to keeping Enterprise facing the swarm. The ship shuddered again as another attack vessel evaded the defensive barrage.

"Shields at 16%." Travis wished Reed would shut up. Like this was helping.

"Ship numbers" Archer repeated to himself. Of course, it was logical, Vulcan rebels would register their ships, who else. The next second found him almost out of his seat. "Seagull, find out which of these ships they are! Reed, get ready to blast them to outer space!"

They were already in outer space, but Reed decided not to mention it. "Gladly, Captain!" As if he wasn't already blasting everything he could.

xxx

Engineering

"Hesse, how are we doing with Tube 7?" That was an emergency bypass, not meant for protracted use. Spit and bandaids. That's how he was holding everything together.

"It's stressed but it's handling the flow!"

"Any more capacity?"

"Not unless you want it to split in two!"

"Repairs on 5?"

"With what army?!"

Count on Hesse to get to the point quickly. Trip looked around, chasing the sweat from his eyes with the back of one hand. Everyone in Engineering was manning a console, all covered with a thin sheet of soot. He couldn't even tell which one was T'Pol. But he knew where she was through the bond. "Eighty-five percent!" she announced, as if she'd heard his thoughts. Well, perhaps she had.

The ship shook again, a closer hit this time, and they all looked up and around, checking that the hull held. A rupture of the reactor envelope would be catastrophic, Enterprise stripped of its engines, and with them life support.

"Come on, Travis," Trip muttered, "just keep the ship facing them."

xxx

Bridge

"Got one." Reed clinically announced as there was an explosion in the back of the swarm of attackers. "Travis, I can't lock onto the other if you keep moving!"

Enterprise was moving as swiftly as Travis could direct it, trying to shake the skiffs. He sent the ship down in a diagonal, cutting away from the string of pursuers. Behind him, Enterprise's cannons were finding their mark, the closest attackers being methodically blown into puffs. Travis turned the ship around, its nacelle facing the smaller vessels, protecting Engineering. So long as they didn't lose power, they had a shot. "Engineering -" he started to explain.

"- We can't let them hit Engineering again." Archer interrupted. "Reed, do the best you can."

Another explosion shook the ship. "Shields still at 23%," Reed intoned. Trip had boosted the power when they got away from the attackers for a couple of minutes. "There's the other one..." Reed said to no one in particular. "Got it!" The ships were so close together that the explosion spread to three vessels at once. He leaned back with an expression of satisfaction.

"Im getting more coordinates!" Hoshi shouted out over the bridge. She went back to hunching over her station, listening intently to the next string of letters and numbers, calling them out as she picked them out from the ambient static.

"I can't find them!" Seagull announced. A consterned silence fell on the bridge. Seagull was bent over his viewer, scanning all the numbers of the remaining hundred or so fleet vessels.

Travis was the one who broke the silence. "Perhaps we already got them..."

Everyone looked up at the same time. Waiting. But the constant onslaught seemed to have stopped.

"Whats going on?" Travis asked.

Archer was looking at the ceiling, waiting, listening. "They lost their command!" He suddenly said. "The ships we hit. They were the command center."

"But they planned this ahead of time, they should still be trying to hit us." Reed was listening as well.

Archer shot him a look. "Count your blessings." He went on to listening. "They've lost half the attackers. If the command is no longer there, some of those guys may not feel so interested in being part of the suicide squad. Vulcans are logical, remember." He kept on looking at the ceiling. "Probably figuring out the odds have turned against them."

"They're leaving!" Travis called out excitedly. On the main screen, they could see the small ships recede in the distance, farther and farther away, back to Romulan space.

"What's the matter, Reed, you don't seem happy?" Archer called out to the security chief.

Reed was scowling. "The next generation of rebel commanders is in those ships," he finally said.

Archer nodded in understanding. "It will take a while before they can regroup or get new members. Agreed it would have been better to take all of them out, but we don't control all the variables. The next generation may be the one seeking out peace."

Reed shot a look at Hoshi. She knew he found Archer's constant optimism to be grating.

xxx

Vulcan

"Sphelt." T'Pau greeted the man on her doorstep. It was late, well past official hours. For her minister of security to be there in person meant the news could not wait.

She unconsciously squared herself in the doorway, preventing Sphelt from coming in, and more importantly preventing him from looking past her into her inner chambers. Even if Soval had already retreated to the eating room the moment the door chimed, from where he could not be seen. An unbounded male and unbounded female in close quarters would lead to only one conclusion, one she was not keen on anyone making.

"The Enterprise starship has recovered T'Pol and the Starfleet commander." Sphelt inclined his head as a signal the message was complete.

T'Pau looked at him closely. The message could have waited until the morning. It was not of prime importance. Sphelt had come to her rooms in the middle of the night at the time Soval was there. He was letting her know he knew. If he knew, it meant her chief of security had her under surveillance.

"Borde Mara jus received the information." Sphelt added.

T'Pau nodded. He would have everyone under surveillance. She could try and set him aside, but the other Council members would strenuously object because Sphelt was the one who had uncovered the Romulan listening device.

And Sphelt was an ally. He may be a dangerous ally but someone less threatening would also more likely be less capable. The two of them together could bring Vulcan to the vision Surak had described. She had been Arev's ears and eyes among the Syrannites. Now Sphelt would be her ears and eyes.

She nodded at Sphelt. "Do thy bidding as you see fit." She would accept his counsel.

She watched as he crossed the courtyard, then bid the street door open and close on him.

She turned back towards her inner chambers and other thoughts. Soval might spend the night. Or he might not. If she stepped out of her robes, an unbounded male Vulcan would have very little say in the matter. Very little.