A/N Disclaimer: see chapter 1.
In this story, MU T'Pol and Tucker are called T'Pol and Charles. RU T'Pol and Trip are called Ko-Kai T'Pol and Trip.
Music: Hey Brother by Avicii
Thanks to my wonderful beta Cap'n Frances. Thank you all for your kind reviews.
Charles waited until Trip was back to sabotage the shuttle.
After they departed from Velusius IV, their next stop was Enterprise. As the shuttle pod landed in the shuttle bay, Trip stood on the platform, waiting for them to arrive.
He stepped into the shuttle, bringing with him a distinct odor indicating he needed a good shower. His coveralls were stained with what looked like mud. His hair was moist and plastered around his face, his eyes wide and dark. His face looked worn out.
"Good to see you," Trip said, a wan smile on his face, his voice rough and dry. "When will we be back at the Defiant?"
"Within a couple of hours," Charles said.
Trip collapsed into one of the shuttle seats and happily accepted the water T'Pol offered him. A look of distaste flashed over her face–Trip simply reeked–before it became neutral again. Trip gulped down the water and gave the cup back to T'Pol.
"Get some rest," Charles advised him.
"Will do," Trip murmured, getting comfortable in his chair, closing his eyes, and breathing slowly in and out. Within minutes, he was asleep.
As the shuttle took off, Charles looked at his PADD. They would reach Pardoxa, a small uninhabited M-class planet, in 45 minutes. Before they had departed, he had set a new return route, taking them near this planet. It was a slight detour, but necessary for his plan.
Minutes ticked away slowly as he waited to make his move. Ensign Gustav Hess was focused on flying the shuttle and wouldn't notice what Charles was about to do. He walked to one of the panels near the replicator, took out his screwdriver, and loosened a screw on one of the panels.
T'Pol saw him get up and moved beside him. He handed her the detached panel, and she placed it on the floor. He needed to go further, opening another panel inside the console. T'Pol tapped him on his shoulder. Gracefully, she moved in front of him and pressed down the alarms on the side of the console. They would reset themselves in 60 seconds, but it gave him time to complete his sabotage without being detected. He loosened three relays in the console. T'Pol handed him the panel. He put it back in place and fastened it securely.
As they returned to their seats, he thought about the irony of his life. He was sabotaging a shuttle as part of his plan, and T'Pol was helping him. T'Pol—whose last attempt at sabotage had gotten him in the agony booth.
An alarm blared, and lights flickered on the pilot's console. The shuttle began to shake and vibrate. Trip was rudely awakened from his nap.
"Commander!" Hess screamed.
Charles rushed toward Hess. Using the pilot's console, he checked the sensors. "There's a malfunction in the port thrusters." He checked the cartographic map. "We need to get this shuttle on the ground. There's a small M-class planet nearby. I'm laying in a course."
He looked at the young man. "Are you up to this?"
Hess's face was flushed, but he answered without hesitation. "Absolutely, sir." Charles had no doubt about it. Despite his young age, Gustav was a great pilot, just like his father had been.
The shuttle shook and rattled all the way, swinging from one side to the other. Grey smoke filled the shuttle. For a moment, Charles doubted the wisdom of sabotaging the port thrusters—but Hess landed the shuttle safely and in one piece.
They unstrapped themselves from their seats. "Hess, Trip, go check the damage outside," Charles commanded. "T'Pol and I will do the same here."
When Hess and Trip were gone, he turned to T'Pol. "I need your help," he said, lowering his voice. Taking her by the elbow, he led her to the pilot's console. "Can you disable the surveillance camera and delete all the images from this journey on the way to Velusius IV and back?"
She frowned slightly. "I will try if you give me the codes."
"You only have to ask," he said and implemented the codes. The irony of the moment didn't pass him by.
T'Pol's fingers flew over the console. He heard Gustav and Trip talking outside the shuttle, discussing the damage to the shuttle. They would be checking on them soon. Calmly, T'Pol continued meddling with the surveillance program before she softly said, "The already recorded files have been degraded, and the sound distorted. The new recordings will only show crackles and static like the program had been malfunctioning."
He was hoping for a sunny tropical planet, but as they stepped out, he could see it was none of it. The planet was grey. Under the soft green sky, the only thing he could hear was the blowing of the wind. There was no other sound. It was like all life had vanished. The grey-black ground was covered with small rocks and pebbles. No vegetation was to be seen. The air had a strange smell, like melted iron, that he couldn't place. It was as cold as Velusius IV but without the snow and piercing wind.
Hess gave him a puzzled look but didn't comment on the delay of T'Pol and him.
Charles scanned the area. "Ensigns Hess and Snow," he called them, using T'Pol code name for this mission. "Crashing here isn't a setback—it's an opportunity. This could be a good planet to colonize for the Terran Empire. Oxygen levels are acceptable, and the sensors have indicated a sufficient amount of water. Take your phasers and communicators with you and follow the directions on this PADD. Check to see if the water is drinkable for Terrans. Trip and I will repair the shuttle."
"We could also help with the repairs." Gustav Hess was clearly uncomfortable with his assignment. Charles could understand his hesitation. The planet didn't look very habitable for Terrans, but he needed Hess out of the way.
T'Pol, in her role as Ensign Snow, responded, "You heard the Commander. We have a mission to do."
As soon as T'Pol and Gustav were out of sight, Trip turned to him. He looked more rested and relaxed after his short nap. "This shuttle crash was no accident. My instructor at the training told me I am going to be transferred to Earth tomorrow. Is this part of your plan to escape?"
He nodded. "We have to escape tomorrow. Ko-Kai T'Pol is safe for now at the Defiant behind sealed doors. She will not be safe when you leave for Earth." He wanted to tell Trip the Empire wanted Ko-Kai T'Pol dead, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
"I don't think about leaving her behind," Trip said, almost annoyed that he would suggest such a thing.
"Me neither. We are going to rebuild this shuttle and use it to escape with cloaks and advanced shields. Remember your design for a cloaked shuttle? This is going to be your prototype."
He explained more details of the plan to Trip. In theory, it sounded good, but there was this nagging thought in the back of his mind that everything could go wrong. Surveillance was everywhere and not easy to avoid. For all he knew, Sato and Reed were just watching him to make their move, laughing their heads off.
"You said we are going to use the shuttle transporter during the escape and to get the other T'Pol back with Ko-Kai T'Pol in the supply room on the Defiant today. Usually, shuttles don't have transporters."
"This one has. I used it as a test module for the inter-universe transporter, using the advanced technology of the Defiant," Charles explained.
Trip started with the cloaking device. Charles repaired the outer part of the shuttle and then removed the damaged console to replace the loosened relays. The console turned out a bigger mess than he had expected. He worked feverishly to get to job done before he rejoined Trip. They finished the cloaking device together.
After they enhanced the shields at a frantic pace, they moved outside. Despite the pressure of getting things done in so short a time, Trip had clearly enjoyed the work, as had he.
Charles contacted Hess and T'Pol. They said they had investigated a small part of the planet and were heading back to the shuttle.
"This is a new record." Trip smiled, wiping the sweat off his forehead. "To get this done in so little time. Every muscle in my body is aching."
"That's probably also from the training. When we are back, feel free to use the shower in my quarters."
"Hot streaming water." Trip smiled widely. "I can't wait. The training instructor told me his uncle was part of my family. He went by the name of Laci."
Charles recognized the name at once. "After my father died, my mother remarried a man called William Laci." Laci was the reason he had hardly any contact with his mother.
"How was your training?" he asked Trip, wanting to change the subject.
Trip got the hint. "I crawled for hours through weird smelling stuff during the exercises on the surface. Enterprise was in orbit of the planet where the training was held. Every second we had to scream the slogans of the Terran Empire. My throat still hurts."
"I will serve with my whole heart for the glory of the Empire," he recalled the slogan he was raised with. He realized he was mocking the whole idea of the Terran Empire. He wanted out. But for Lizzy's sake, it wasn't possible.
"The physical part of this day was brutal, but I survived," Trip said, with a tinge of triumph in his voice. "For the rest of the day, we got instructions we had to learn by heart. Most of my classmates were young, almost boys."
"The Empire has lowered the age of service to fifteen. With all our wars, we need more soldiers. And teenagers are more easily molded into Terran soldiers. Take Hess—he's only seventeen."
He'd always liked Gustav, who was Anna Hess and Paul Mayweather's son. Paul had died when Gustav was five years old.
"In my class, we had Harold. He was maybe fifteen, sixteen years old. He made a remark about a battle of Necozia."
"Nedjozia," Charles corrected. "An old Tellarite colony. We almost lost that battle—it was a close call."
"That's what he said. But Laci got furious. Harold was dragged in front of the class, made to wear a sign, and had to hold his arms forward. His classmates hit him with sticks, screaming 'liar' and 'great is the empire,' " Trip said with horror in his voice, "Harold was humiliated and screamed at for hours. The scariest thing was, it was so easy to be caught up in the madness."
"It's not the physical pain of a beating I was afraid of," Trip mused. "It was the look of fanaticism in their eyes. That scared the hell out of me. You'd said to focus on something else, so I focused on Ko-Kai T'Pol. That helped."
"You're one lucky guy, having such a perfect relationship with Ko-Kai T'Pol."
Trip looked at him intently. "T'Pol and I don't have a perfect relationship. We're not perfect."
"Ko-Kai T'Pol seems like a nice Vulcan woman," he said, trying hard to suppress his envy of Trip. Trip was a great guy. He deserved his happiness with Ko-Kai T'Pol.
"In the beginning, I didn't think she was nice. I just loved arguing with her." Trip gave a genuine smile that reached his eyes. "She is a gorgeous woman, brave, smart, intelligent, passionate, humorous, loyal. I trust her with my life, and she helped me through the dark times. It took a while, but finally, we realized we love each other."
"That's great for you," Charles muttered.
"But that's not the whole story. Only a short time ago, we separated."
Charles was surprised. "I thought you and Ko-Kai T'Pol served on the same ship."
"We did." For a moment, pain washed over Trip's face. "I couldn't bear being on the same ship she was. I had to leave, so I asked for a transfer to another ship. But after the transfer, I felt even more miserable because she wasn't there. I kept it to myself. I never told anyone, certainly not her."
"You're telling me," Charles said. "Until a week ago, you didn't know I existed."
"I see you as my older brother," Trip said with amusement in his eyes. "The one I never had."
"Like a twin brother mother never told me about," Charles joked.
Trip grinned. "We can call ourselves the Tucker Twins."
"We do look alike," Charles said. "And we both have the same talent as engineers."
"A combination of intelligence and imagination with surprising results," Trip said, "according to Ko-Kai T'Pol. That was in her report to Soval, the Vulcan ambassador, early in our mission. Then he warned her about liking me too much. But more recently, he helped us a great deal."
Charles was surprised to hear the name Soval. He wondered if it was the same Soval who had served on Enterprise, S'Vai's father. "The qualities you describe for her also apply to you. Except for the gorgeous part," Charles said.
They both laughed. As their laughter died out, Trip said, "I never saw it that way. I was more focused on the differences between us. T'Pol is not only a woman, which is difficult from our point of view, but she is also Vulcan. Vulcans and Humans come from such a different culture, background, thinking, and biology."
Trip smiled tightly. "I always thought Vulcan thinking was an obstacle in the way for Ko-Kai T'Pol and me to come together." Emotion crept in his voice. "She chose a path away from me. The needs of the many outweighed her own desires and needs."
He straightened his back and looked at Charles. "But in the end, it helped us. We found each other again. We promised each other that we would make it work, that we love each other. Commitment, for better and for worse. We had this painful conversation about our relationship and cleared up our misunderstandings and assumptions. It was hard, but it had to be done. No more lies, no more protecting me for all those good Vulcan reasons. The bottom line is, I am her bond mate, and she is mine, connected in more ways than I have been to anyone else. And we're in this together."
Ko-Kai T'Pol had mentioned the bond as well. "What's a bond mate?"
"Vulcans are touch telepaths, and between mates, husband and wife, a bond can develop. I can feel Ko-Kai T'Pol's emotions, sometimes hear her thoughts, and she mine. It's great for understanding each other and when it comes with positive feelings. With negative ones, it's hard."
Sadness entered his voice. "Try being connected to a mother grieving her daughter, to feel her rage and hurt, on top of your own grief and pain. Not that I wanted it any other way. I am happy with T'Pol, despite the turmoil of our life."
"Even in this rotten universe?"
"I'll be happy to leave, Charles. This is not a good place for us. Working together on our escape gives us something to focus on." Trip's eyes became clouded, and he said in a soft voice, "Not that I don't think about our daughter every day. And so does she."
Charles swallowed long and hard. He always had wanted children. He would give anything for such an adorable child as Trip's daughter had been. He couldn't imagine the loss.
Their talk had given him lots to think about. Love had been the key for Trip and Ko-Kai T'Pol. But he didn't love T'Pol, and she wasn't his.
Miserably, he kicked a pebble near his foot with great force. He followed its path until it landed in the rocky surroundings. Dust sprang up, was taken by the wind, and then disappeared.
Trip slapped him on his shoulder. "The one thing I've learned in this universe, it's all about making choices. I hope our visit to your universe helps you to make good ones, Charles. You sure deserve it."
He heard a sound and looked up. At the horizon, he saw Hess and T'Pol walking back to the shuttle. It was time to go home to the Defiant and the Terran Empire.