The 'lull' of sorts that follows allows me to do some thinking. I can watch the scanner readouts intently and still process past events, and if the exigencies of duty mean I can't possibly even make a start on facing the fallout from my unwitting part in a tragedy of this magnitude, I can still begin analysing events from the standpoint of the ship's Tactical Officer.
Some of what coalesces in my thinking will have to go into my official report. Some of it, however, will have to remain private – at least for the time being, though I'm uneasily aware that I may be guilty of withholding important information from Starfleet. After all, they need to analyse the captain's command style, and from my point of view at least, so far in this crisis it hasn't been particularly admirable.
Maybe later I'll be able to look at it all more objectively, and when that happens I may be able to think up a way of phrasing it diplomatically enough to be entered in a report. But right now, I'm too aware of the personal bitterness of finding exactly how much support I could expect from my captain if it appeared I'd fucked up, as well as the shock of seeing how little 'resilience and leadership' he displayed.
The old saying is 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going'. Well, on this occasion he got going all right. Straight off the Bridge and into his Ready Room or his quarters, where he presumably told Porthos all about what a careless twat he's got for a Tactical Officer, who goes around murdering thousands of people because he doesn't know how to flick two switches.
I've no idea what T'Pol thought when she was left effectively holding the baby. Maybe she occasionally went to him and told him he ought to be getting his arse back into gear and showing some leadership, some determination to find out what was really going on. If she did, it didn't work. If I know anything about anything, he was somewhere between a blue funk and a thundering tantrum, and incapable of finding his captainly way out of it. Not until Daniels intervened.
Yes. And about Daniels.
Maybe I'm being petty, but in addition to being very grateful, I'm conscious of the irony that after the rest of us had spent – what was it, a couple of days? – busting our arses to find the truth of the tragedy, Daniels chose to gift it to Archer in a box with a ribbon and a bow on top, along with instructions on how to obtain the proof. I wouldn't want it to be any harder than it already was, but did Archer have to be all Big Damn Hero saving the day about it? Especially when he himself hadn't done Sweet Fanny Adams so far to find that evidence and actually dismissed the one thing – the energy signature – I found that might have been pointing to the truth (and, as we now know, actually was)?
And if Daniels had the information and the capacity to time-travel (whether or not the Vulcan Science Academy has determined it isn't possible), mightn't it have been a teeny bit helpful to knock on the door of the Shuttlepod before we left for the visit to the colonists and mention that we might want to delay it, just on the off-chance there was a cloaked Suliban cruiser watching our every move? Yes, I understand that if it hadn't happened to us, it never would have been a part of his past and he'd never have known it was wrong; but paradox be damned! The moment it happened, it immediately became a part of his past, and he did know it was wrong. I don't see why he couldn't have warned us, prevented it, gone back to the future and forgot the whole bloody episode. How would that have been any worse than allowing something so wrong to happen and then just coming back to minimize the fallout?
I understand just enough warp theory to keep the ship going if something happens to put our entire engineering staff out of commission, but I don't have the RAM to contemplate the physics of time travel right now. I'm not even sure the questions I'm asking qualify as physics or if they belong to a science we don't yet have a name for, or maybe they're philosophical in nature. It just seems to me, based on the way things were handled, that those thirty-six hundred colonists were meaningless to the timeline. They not only died for nothing, they lived for nothing. They existed for bloody nothing. The colony they founded, the society they would have built, the things that could have been made from the ores they mined – none of it mattered to history.
Yet somehow our mission is vital to the Universe?
It's important to me, to all of us on this ship, and to a lot of people back home; I don't deny that. But I'd very much like Mr. Daniels to explain to me how the accomplishments of eighty-odd humans, a Vulcan, a Denobulan, and one small beagle could matter so much when three thousand six hundred lives apparently mean nothing at all.
Bastard. If I ever see him again, I'll punch him so hard he'll be smirking out of the back of his head.
=/\=
I'm just dwelling lovingly on this picture when for the umpteenth time the warp field fluctuates.
Just a bit.
It's done this a dozen times in the last hour and, while it happens now and then even in ordinary circumstances and it's not like it's hard to correct, It Should Not Happen This Often.
Something May Be Up.
The captain is in his Ready Room with T'Pol, presumably arguing whether the Vulcan Science Directorate is correct in maintaining that time travel is impossible, but if they are, that will have to wait. I comm him with the news that we're getting some strange readings on my scanner and he ought to get out here pretty damn quick, though naturally I don't use those exact terms.
Protocol, and all that.
I also summon a certain Commander Tucker from his lair, though the way things are going around here he'll probably think I'm responsible for the warp field playing silly buggers too.
Actually, even though it was more a snipe at Fate in general than any serious supposition that he'd do any such thing, I feel a slight pang of shame for thinking it, given his actions when we were inspecting the shuttlepod. Consciously or not, until recently Travis and Hoshi have avoided me like Vulcans shunning a turd, and while T'Pol may have listened objectively to my findings and duly reported them to the captain, that's no more than one would expect of a Vulcan. Of my closest colleagues, Trip is the only one who has been actively supportive.
While we're waiting for him to arrive, I explain to the captain and our XO what the problem is.
Yes, Captain, I know the warp field looks OK at the moment. But it didn't look fine before I realigned it again, after realigning it again five minutes ago, and if you hang around a bit you'll almost certainly find it doesn't look OK any more sometime in the next few minutes.
Naturally I don't say this either, though I do explain the situation in the appropriately concise and polite manner.
Enter Commander Tucker from turbo-lift left, waxing indignant. "What are you guys doin' to my engines?"
T'Pol might or might not be glad to see him, but she maintains a cool front as she informs him that the auto-stabilisers aren't functioning properly.
My, nobody has blamed them on me…
…Yet.
"The computer ran its last diagnostic on them less than ten minutes ago. They look fine."
I try – not entirely successfully – to keep the acerbic note from my voice. "Well, they're not. We've had to realign the field a dozen times over the last hour."
Possibly the captain has another split-second mystic visitation from Daniels, or maybe he just remembers he's supposed to do the captaining. At any rate he orders me to load torpedoes (Hurrah! Proactive action!) and stand by all weapons, which needless to say I'm more than happy to do, though I wonder sourly if he'll put it in his report – if we live to make any about all this – that I should have done it on my own initiative as soon as the warp field fluctuated the first time.
Not that I'm cynical, or anything.
Travis gets his orders to deploy the beacons, modify the viewscreen and aim the beacons aft.
I suppose it's not as much of a surprise as it should be when the bloody beacons duly reveal a neat formation of six cloaked cell-ships racing along behind us, just beyond the nacelles. This, without a doubt, was why the warp field has been fluctuating; just as the Xyrillian ship did, they've been disrupting the exhaust flow and interfering with the engine efficiency.
The dipping beacons show another six. Fabulous.
We're outnumbered twelve to one and for all their small size, I don't suppose those cell ships are unarmed.
"It looks like we're in a swarm of cloaked bees," Trip mutters.
Not a bad analogy. Though perhaps 'hornets' would have been a better choice, because these bastards can almost certainly sting us to death.
Almost as the captain orders me to charge the phase cannons – which I already have, by the bye – Hoshi tells us we're being hailed.
I have to wonder why they've tailed us for nearly an hour without letting on they were there. None of the reasons I can come up with are particularly reassuring.
And sure enough, when Silik's ugly face appears on the screen, I know a gloat when I clap eyes on it.
"I wouldn't advise using your weapons, Jonathan," he drawls. Even his voice makes me want to smack him one. "Perhaps if we decloak, you'll understand why."
He suits the word to the deed. The beacon's limited range showed us twelve cell-ships; there are actually dozens of the bastard things.
At a look from the captain, Hoshi suspends the transmission. Then he looks at me, but I've already summed up the situation with one glance at the scanners which can now see exactly what armaments those pods contain. And it's not good news for us; it's not good news at all. "They're all armed with high-yield particle weapons, sir."
I already know what's coming next. Almost as well as I know what the result would be if I tried.
"How many could you take out?"
There's a time for optimism and a time for realism. However bleak realism may be, it's better than getting us all blown to Kingdom Come on the basis of me not being able to work miracles. "Before they open fire? Not enough, sir."
Silik has waited for us to find out we don't have any options. His gloating expression isn't any more attractive when you're looking at it again. "One of my ships is approaching your starboard docking port. I'd like you to board it immediately."
Presumably he only means the captain. Ordinarily this would be a Good Thing, leaving the rest of us free to plot, but looking at the odds, I rather doubt we'll have any more options in his absence than we do in his presence.
"What do you want with me?" I don't blame the captain for asking, but I know as well as he does and indeed as well as Silik does that he's playing for time. And it doesn't work.
"You have five minutes. If you don't comply I have permission to destroy Enterprise."
Archer hesitates. "How do I know you won't destroy Enterprise either way?"
"You have my word, Captain. And you also have four and a half minutes left." And with that, he ends the transmission – as well as my illogical but nearly overwhelming compulsion to take one of my boots off and throw it at the screen.
I'm probably not the only one who'd prefer to have something to hurl in that direction but the regulations are very strict about officers on the Bridge being properly dressed at all times, and I don't suppose they'd make an exception for venting your feelings by throwing footwear about, however satisfactory it might feel at the time.
At any rate, the captain clearly knows when to hold and when to fold. He places T'Pol in command, ordering her to maintain course and speed (doable, unless the Suliban have any objection, that is) and rather more oddly, to keep an open mind, especially when it comes to things the Vulcan Science Directorate says are impossible. I think he may be asking a bit much there, and I can't imagine why he should make that request in particular anyway, but rather to my surprise, she says she'll try.
It may be startling that a Vulcan seems to be perilously close to sentimentality at his departure, but Trip's reaction is entirely predictable. "Captain, this is crazy. How do you know what they're going to do?"
Of course, he doesn't – unless Daniels has given him some intel about that too, which is a possibility that can't be discounted; though if so, it might have been nice if he'd shared it with us as well. And of course, he has no choice. "T'Pol's in command now, Trip. Do whatever you can to help her. That goes for all of you." He glances at Hoshi. "Keep an eye on Porthos for me, would you? Remember, no cheese."
He steps into the turbo-lift and the doors close.
There's a few minutes of what I'd describe as a pregnant silence while we all look at those cell ships and wonder what's coming next.
Then – and the view's no better a third time – Silik's ugly mug appears on viewscreen again. At least this time he's not gloating, but he's definitely not very happy. "Your captain's playing a very dangerous game, Sub-Commander."
T'Pol gives him the polite Vulcan blank. "Game?"
"He has thirty seconds left. Did he think I wasn't serious?"
Hoshi pauses transmission again while Trip checks the ship's internal scanners and looks up with an expression of bewilderment. "The turbo-lift's on E deck. It's empty."
T'Pol is nearly concerned enough to raise both eyebrows. "Where is he?"
"I'm not readin' his biosigns. He must be on the Suliban ship."
Back to Silik, whose temper doesn't seem to have been significantly improved by the hiatus. "Captain Archer is no longer aboard Enterprise. Perhaps you should check with the vessel you sent for him."
It doesn't seem likely he'll comply with this polite suggestion, or maybe he already did. Clearly planning to close the transmission and orders his minions to open fire, he speaks through his teeth. "I thought he was smarter than this. He could have saved all your lives. What a waste."
"The docked ship is moving away," Travis reports.
On the whole, I'm not surprised. It would be a bit of a tactful move on the part of its crew, considering what my scanners are now showing me about Silik's ship.
My mouth is perfectly dry, but duty still drives me. If it's the last report I'm ever going to make, I'd like it to sound professional – even if I can't absolutely excise a note of some apprehension. "It's targeting our warp core. They're all targeting the warp core."
Oh, bugger.