Why Me?
(Act 3)
Trip, True and Spike where staring in front of the transporter platform, where a beam of light transformed itself into tube of water containing a girl floating inside, when the beam of light effect ceased Trip jumped to grab the lady before she hit the ground, the liquid flowed down watering Trip completely, also turned wet the ankles of engineer True, Spike was hit by the water, but plainly haven't got affected due his ghostly condition.
At the time Doctor Phlox was arriving near of the Transporter corridor, he was surprised by a small torrent of the water coming in his direction, when he finally reached there noticed that all this section of the ship was covered by water and then he sighted Trip that was already trying to do a CPR in a wet girl. "Let me do it!" Phlox took the control of the rescuing.
Trip straightened "Thanks, great idea." and said it to Spike
"Just thank me if she wakes up!" Spike was playing a little modesty by his brilliant idea "When I saw her there inside, the water hasn't filled all the room yet, I think we managed to transport her out in less than five minutes, there is a good chance to revive her."
"And you were right, we will have to revive the transporter system as well, it was not water proofed." Trip declared.
"Saving a life may worth Commander!" Phlox ducked at the wet floor, turned to him smiling, the girl was already wake and gasping. "Nice job of you!"
Spike did a shy smile. Tucker happily wanted to tap his arm but his hand passed into the vamp-ghost.
"What is happening here?" The captain arrived, well, a little late.
"Captain, we got a water leak from the swimming pool and invading in a small room of the lower deck, Ensign Gimpel got locked inside." Trip described slowly, avoiding to perspire the fact he was still mad after the struggle he have with the Captain earlier.
"And what is this all about? You haven't done that!?" Archer inquired, watching all this wet mess and a crazy blinking and sparkling transporter console malfunction.
"It was our only choice, Captain." Trip expressed it clearly, he was unconformed with that dumb-formal question from the Captain "We saved her!"
"Hmm, well, god job through. I am going to sleep, you will have to check it this new problem out too, verify if the other still working safety systems were operational, almost another causality would be ..." Archer shacked his head disapproving and implicitly accusing Trip of disqualification, turned his back and went out.
Trip waited until Archer turned the hallway's corner to unburden "What is wrong with this guy?" he said to Spike, the vampire was behind a console and kept unseen by the Captain.
"Hey do you have a pool inside the Enterprise?" Spike was amazed "Cool man, I've never seen it!"
Trip manifested a shhh sign, pointed to engineer True and murmured to Spike "This was a private pool, just high officers had access to it, please don't spread this secret."
"Don't you have a pool table in the ship, this is a shame!" Spike yelled, definitely lying aloud, and blinked to Trip, the vampire pointed at Trip's chest and said "You owe me one, forget it, you owe me two!" now pointing that the rescuing idea has came from him, then just smiled.
Archer wanted to go to his room, the first turbolift that he found was the number four, where early at that afternoon the deathly accident with soldier Watson happened, the elevator was sealed a similar gear that they used to lock Cook Daniel's room, so the Captain had to get a long turn to find another turbolift, he went into shadowy corridors that used to be quarters but then were abandoned since 20% of crew departed before entering into the Expanse Mission.
When he was crossing a junction of corridors, he noticed a movement, it could be an intruder or those damned Suliban again, he had to check. He went to a console and turned some lights on, he tried to ask for a sensor run over that section, but the intercoms of this section were disabled. "Halt there, here is the Captain." Walking slowly through the corners he finally impounded a beautiful girl at a dead end corridor.
She had a bright long blond hair winding from his head and a cute fringe, she was wearing civilian clothes, too civilian through, it was a Hawaiian flowered shirt, a black jeans bermuda and sandals, her young freckles face appeared to be a recent former teenager.
"Drop your weapon!" Archer ordered spotting that she was hiding her hand.
She sluggish showed what she was carrying, just a piece of bread.
"Who are you?"
"I'm A..."
Someone quickly knocked down Archer, hitting him with a hard object in the back of his neck.
Doctor Phlox entered in the sickbay, Malcolm was there getting restored from his catatonic attack. "Hey, you seem very better!"
"Yes, I feel better." Malcolm answered "Doctor, do you have expertise in psychiatry?"
"Sure, Lieutenant, do you want to talk?" he displayed that stretched Denobulan smile and sat besides him.
"Vampires, sir, I have a primal fear of vampires, there was a legend that my older cousins used to tell me when I was a small kid there scared a lot, I grew up but something here inside still fears them. Was this man real?" He still wasn't believing in his own eyes have seen earlier.
"Mr. Reed, I still don't know what this man is, even if he is real, but I hardly think he is going to leave the ship any sooner. He had already helped in a rescuing mission."
"Really?" Malcolm was confused.
"Yes, a girl was rescued from water tank, she is alright now, and I put her to sleep in her quarters."
"Doctor, do you have any medicine that could help me with this reactions?"
"Let me see!" Phlox opened one of his storage systems, he took two tubes, one red and one blue, he looked both showing a dubious face. He came back with a futuristic syringe and planted it on Malcolm's arm. "It should work!"
"What is it?"
"It is a Denobulan adrenalin stopper, when your brain reacts to the image that trigger you fear, it would swap adrenalin to an innocuous substance. Do you want to try now?" The alien asked.
"Yes, how?"
"I have some images of him here, I recorded it earlier." Phlox took a portable camera and tried to find some images of Spike.
Malcolm went to look the screen from over the doctor's shoulder. When the image of the vampire appeared on the screen, Malcolm simply collapsed, fainted totally on the ground.
"Damn!" The doctor vowed to himself. "Finally I find the substance that I should gave to Mr. Tucker, the sleeping triggered formula! Damn!"
Spike entered in Hoshi's room, he would knock if he could "Excuse..." He noticed that she was already sleeping "Sorry pet!" he murmured, she was still wearing uniform, she probably has fallen asleep. Spike also noticed that something would have changed in his state, he was entering into her room without getting invited, disobeying an ancient vampire rule, or he was different now or this rule won't apply in space, anyway he was intrigued. Spike would not stay all night haunting Hoshi's dreams.
He went to the cafeteria room, where was completely empty and dark, he sat over a table, one that he could sigh the stars. Well, his life have changed a lot, he felt like he was really centuries away from the ones that he loved "Well Buffy and Dawn, the other ones were cool, but I don't love them!" he whispered to himself. Whatever fate reserved to him, bringing him to this universe, he would take it! He was glad that he helped to save someone's life, his existence there was not already in vain. But he was lonely.
He stayed there all night long, thinking, meditating about life and death. He just noticed that it was morning already, when ensign Mayweather entered there to have a pre-breakfast meal.
Spike left by the door quiet, where Mayweather was standing immobile marveling about that strange man that was not wearing uniform, they glanced at each other without say a word.
Hoshi scheduled a meeting with all big officers, 10 AM at the cafeteria, with main subject of discussing the safety malfunctions that happened, they came punctually. The group found out that Captain had a forced sleeping at one corridor's floor after being attacked by night, he came holding his crick that was a literally a pain in the neck. Malcolm was pretty lucid, he has never slept so well in his life. TPol was static as ever, just wearing a new light green catsuit that no one has seen before (Did she renewed his wardrobe when the Enterprise went back to Earth?). Trip was a pile of nerves, he did not sleep at all, he got already addicted to TPol's massages, and she spent the night analyzing the turbolift where the accident occurred. Phlox was well, but Hoshi noticed that he was a little more electric than normal.
With the main group united, Hoshi had to confess the real meaning of that meeting: Spike's collective interview.
"Captain, may I start?" The communication officer asked, apprehensive that the crew would not react well to Spike.
"Please Hoshi" Archer replied.
She stood up "We have to ..." and waited for the vampire's entrance.
Spike passed through the door waving his hand "Guess what, I'm still here!" Ironically, but not necessarily smiling.
When Malcolm spotted Spike, he immediately fainted, falling out from his chair, hitting hard the floor.
Phlox managed to help laying Malcolm back to his chair, "Captain, Mr. Reed is reacting to a treatment I'm implying, but because I was without my personal database, due that endless maintenance..." he did a frozen glance to Trip expressing dissatisfaction "...so I prepared a mistaken formula, instead of release a harmless substance, I replaced with a sleeping inductor. So when Mr. Reed sees what he most fears, vampires, he will got into deep sleep."
The Captain stood up, no words, just a what-a-heck face, what a mess was happening in his ship?
Trip, even restless and acting zombie-like, noticed that the doctor had a sleeping inductor substance that seemed to work perfectly and the he haven't got one of this yet, he nervously walked to Phlox spot to ask for explanations "Why the hell is he is sleeping and I am not!?" pointing and yelling.
"It is your own fault! These computers databases never worked!" Phlox got face to face with Trip "Sometimes I got surprised that this ship hasn't exploded itself yet!"
Trip's blood boiled up "Oh yes, if a least you played more medicine instead of being witchdoctor with your bloodsucking worms, it would help!" The situation was really hot now.
"Hey, pay attention at me! This is my scene now!" Spike tried to rob the focus gesturing awkwardly, but all officers went to part out the struggle, so no one looked to the vampire.
"You two stay quiet! Stopping acting like children, sit down now!" Archer finally intervene almost as furious as the yellers, they sat one at opposite side of the room just displaying killer looks to each other. Captain continued "We have lots of occurring crisis already, I will not tolerate any other fight like this! We are dealing here with the probably the most important mission of the history, trying to save the humankind, and what do you have in your minds?" he was displaying a disappointed and mad face, Spike was behind him nodding sarcastically. Archer turned to him "And who are you!?" When Spike started answering, Captain interrupted "Don't answer!" turning back to the officers again "Who of you are going to explain me why I am the last to know that he was still here?"
Hoshi, Trip and Phlox dodged their eyesight away from Captain's. TPol replied: "I didn't sir!". Malcolm snored higher.
"I just can't believe in this crew!" Archer exhaled deeply, holding putting his hands in his hips.
"Don't be mad at them, Johnny Boy, I asked them to keep the secret for a while." Spike entered in front of the Captain.
"What are you doing here? And why don't you leave?" Archer won't let his guard down.
"I'm part of your crew now, Cap, liking or not!"
The vampire's reply informed Archer about what he already knew "We are damned!"
"I am going to be a loyal soldier, I will try to help things around, well at least mentally, since I can not..." He showed that he could not touch anything, instead of saying. "I can bogus with those bloody Klingons for you!"
"There are no Klingons, here at the Expanse." TPol informed him.
"Wow, well, surely some ugly alien will be knocking out our door, sooner or later."
"We got the... still uncountable... number of variety species of Xindi." The Vulcan completed.
"See, I wasn't wrong." He pointed out happily "Now that the heat of the discussion has over, sit down Captain, I have a little tale to tell you all."
Archer obeyed, Spike sat over the center table, and started a lecture:
"I will try to be succinct enough. Long time ago, I used to be called William, I was a poet, at the nineteen century, a bloody good writer through. I was turned a vampire by my first real love, Drusilla, even being a soulless creature of the night, a damn good one too, killing thousands of people from England to California for a hundred of years, getting number two on the ranking of the vampires, loosing only to Peaches (Angel), but I killed two slayers that should get me extra points, but unfairly they never those girls." He paused "Hmm, strangely I still got emotions that always took me out from a regular demonic life, first my love to Dru, then when she was gone I started to love my main mortal enemy, the actual vampire slayer, Buffy Summers, happened a lot of cool stuff, blah, blah, blah. For love again, I did the unthinkable, I found a way to get my soul back, I still was a vampire but I have conscience, from that time on I will not kill just for pleasure. More stuff happened, at the end when I and the slayer were getting together, the world was going to end, and I had the marvelous idea of playing the hero of the season and died saving the world." He got impressed with himself "This was a damn good summary! Now, I was wearing that amulet, the one that you found on the space, somehow I got connected to it, forever, I probably became a shadow of my existence."
"Too Sci-Fi, even for space explorers" Trip judged "But why would you lie?"
"He could be a hologram, send by the Xindi, to spy us!" TPol said a logic explanation.
"Your Captain here is who already worked with holograms, don't you? But you will not remember, never mind!" He could not avoid at least one quantum-leap joke "Why would I help save that girl then?" Spike inquired.
Trip nodded positively "It is true Captain, was his idea to use the transporter to beam out the girl from the waterlogged room."
Phlox take a small device from his pocket and turned on, pointing to Spike, the object sent an electrical discharge that hit the vampire throwing him out of the room passing spectrally by the wall.
(End of Act 3)