AN: Sorry, guys. This installment really sucks. I've been doing 12 hour
days five days a week for the past six weeks, and my computer at home
crashed, which is why its taken me so long to get this up. My writing
sucks right now, and I'd keep this installment back longer to work on it if
I thought it would do any good. But at this point I'm shot and this section
is shot, and it's kind of a transition section anyways, so I'm posting this
and moving on. Hopefully the next segment will be better. Sorry about the
wait.
Act II – Scenes 1 – 3
"So much for being done in a couple hours," I griped halfheartedly as the doors to the galley slid open. I let T'Pol enter first, following her in and flicking on the lights. "I think I set a new personal record for number of times blowing up a ship," I joked sourly, tossing a stack of padds onto the long table with a metal clang.
It was almost half past five in the morning, and so far no success. We had been compiling calculation after calculation, running test after test for hours on end, but no matter what we did they still came up red. I had never failed so many times consecutively, and I'd become more frustrated with each one. T'Pol had at last suggested going to the galley to get something to eat while the computer ran another long simulation, and after a couple more disastrous attempts I'd finally given in and agreed.
She opened the door to the industrial fridge and scanned the shelves. "We have made considerable progress."
"What progress? We have no answers, no solution to the equation."
"We have eliminated possibilities," she answered, taking a container from a shelf. She glanced at me coolly. "That is progress."
I sighed, too deflated to argue. Maybe, but it still didn't get us warp five.
I caught the door as she moved to the counter across the room, and scanned the shelves myself. I'd planned to fix myself a meal, having missed dinner and ignored most of lunch yesterday; but now the idea of actually standing on my feet that long was exhausting by itself. So I grabbed the first edible thing I saw – a slice of pecan pie left over from the evening before – and let the fridge fall shut.
I joined T'Pol at the counter where she was putting a bowl of plomeek soup into the microwave. Reaching up, I opened the cupboard and pulled out a plate, dumping the pie onto the dish as she reclosed her container and put it back in the fridge.
Her arm brushed against my back as she passed me, and my breath caught a little; I forced myself not to let my eyes follow her.
Keeping control of myself over the hours hadn't been as hard as I had first expected. The equations took my full concentration, and most of the time I had been at my own station with my back to her. But there had been times when we'd inadvertently touched, or we'd had to share a consol, working side by side so close to one another we were no more than centimeters apart... In those moments it had taken all of my self- control just to keep breathing, to hold in place the façade I'd begun to carefully construct.
She'd probably be proud of me, if she knew how hard it was.
I hadn't realized until tonight how often we touched. The way our bodies grazed as we passed; the way our fingers ran over each other as we handed things between us; how close we would stand to one another. We had never touched like this before a couple months ago, before we had started the neuropressure. We had never touched at all.
Her Vulcan rules had never allowed it. She had shrunk back from me, handed me things carefully to avoid the slightest encounter, and stood apart from me, her space definitely defined. I had quickly learned to do the same, though more out of resentment than a need for personal space.
And then over time it had just come to seem normal between us, and I didn't even think about it anymore. I hadn't even noticed when things had begun to change.
When had things changed? When had we forgotten the rules? What night had it been when we had become no longer taboo to each other?
The beeping of the microwave jerked me out of my thoughts, and I opened it, setting her steaming broth on the long metal table behind me and sticking my own food in. Looking for a distraction, I started talking. "Don't you ever get sick of eating that stuff?" I asked as she came up next to me for a glass.
"What 'stuff'?"
"That plomeek broth."
"No," she answered, getting herself water from the sink by the fridge. "It fulfills all of my nutritional requirements."
"But, all you ever eat is broth, salad, tea, and water," I said as she sat near the counter.
"I do eat more than that."
I pulled my food out of the microwave and came around the table to sit across from her. "Yeah, and its all just as bland," I badgered with a grin
She raised an eyebrow. "How would you know? Unless you've tried them..."
She caught me there. "Well, no..."
Turning on the stool, she reached for the drawer behind her and pulled out a spoon. Pushing her bowl across the table, she held out the utensil to me.
I hesitated warily. Her offer seemed a safe enough cultural exchange, and her face gave no hint that this was anything other than that; but for some reason that was exactly what worried me.
I was putting human motives into the situation, I decided. If it had been Malcolm or Jon or anyone else for that matter I might have had something to suspect. But this was T'Pol. And it was only soup. "Okay," I shrugged, and took the spoon from her. Dipping it into the red-brown broth, I brought it to my mouth and tasted it.
Almost immediately my eyes went wide, and I swallowed quickly. Dropping the spoon, I grabbed her glass of water, half draining it before I stopped for air.
Damn, it was spicy!!! "You could have warned me!" I exclaimed.
Her features were tinted with a definite amusement. "I could have," she said, taking her bowl back.
"I haven't had anything that spicy since I ate Cuban food back in Florida. How do you eat that stuff?"
"I'm used to it," she answered, casually sipping a spoonful. I shook my head, and took a bite of my soothing, creamy pie.
She ate, sipping thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. "If this last simulation does not produce the desired results, I think we need to look for the possibility of a third variable."
I looked up at her, trying not to show the feeling of defeat that was settling in the pit of my stomach, and let my gaze fall back to my plate. I shook my head. "No, T'Pol. If this one doesn't work, I think that's it."
"You plan to abandon the idea?"
I slouched, resting my elbows on the tabletop and poking at the nuts with my fork. "I don't know what else to do at this point," I answered honestly. "I've been working on this for four days straight with no real results to show for it. Unless I get an epiphany or accidentally run across the answer again, I'm stuck. It's not fair to my teams to leave them for so long. I have to leave it."
She studied me a moment. "For now," she added.
I looked up at her in surprise. I was honestly ready to toss everything in a drawer and forget about it; but if she wouldn't encourage the idea if she didn't think it was possible. "Yeah," I decided, "for now."
She took a sip of her water and glanced at me surreptitiously over the rim of her glass. "7 o'clock tomorrow night?"
I couldn't help the grin that broke on my face. "Definitely."
"That's what you said this afternoon," she said, reminding me of my broken agreement to the night's neuropressure session; but I could tell she wasn't really serious.
"Do you want me to grovel?" I played, reaching down the table to pull the stack of padds between us and taking one off the top. She took one of her own. "Please don't." I chuckled, and an exhausted but comfortable silence fell between us as she turned to analyzing the data on her padd. I started to do the same, then stole a glance at her. She didn't notice or look up, and furtively I dared to watch her.
I had never let myself study her before. Her copper skin, the way she glowed in the low lighting, the gentle flush of her cheek and the gracile lines of her body. The calming repose that suffused from her, the surety of her presence that at the same time stole my breath. The aching I'd thought I'd dispelled rushed through me, my guard breaking. In that moment I realized I was looking at a woman I had never seen before. I had looked, but I had always seen a Vulcan, an officer, and eventually someone I could trust. But I had never seen /her/, disrobed of all the labels and titles I had known her by. For the first time I looked at her and saw a woman. A woman I had never met. How could I feel like this for someone I'd never let myself see before, someone I didn't know? For a moment I felt my heart sink. I was fooling myself. How could this be anything more than a corporeal attraction, anything more than almost every man on the ship had fantasized about at one time or another? I guess I'd just been so busy with the engines and the mission I hadn't seen it creeping up on me, seen myself giving in. Something Mal had said a couple weeks ago when I'd been working with him popped into my head. "You can't get her off your mind, can you?"
"What are you talking about?" I had asked, chuckling. "Who?"
"You know very well who I'm talking about. Don't play stupid."
"Mal, I think if I had a woman on my mind I'd know."
"Don't think you can lie to me," he said, crossing his arms. "I know you better than that."
"Oh, yeah? What even makes you think I'm thinking about someone?"
"You've got that look. And you've mentioned her in one way or another five times in the past half hour."
I'd laughed. "Who the hell are you talking about?"
He'd looked at me in exasperation. "Do I really have to spell it out for you?"
"I guess so!"
"T'Pol!" I'd rolled my eyes and debated him. Yeah I had mentioned her, in connection to data she'd given us on the phase cannon we were fixing. I had almost forgotten the conversation. But hearing the argument over in my head, I saw Malcolm had recognized what I hadn't even been aware of: this had been a long time coming, and I'd been completely oblivious. So why did everything in me tell me it was more than that? Suddenly she stood, and, startled, I quickly looked down to my padd. Taking her bowl, she moved around the table to the sink behind me and began rinsing it. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief and let my padd drop to the table. She hadn't noticed, but it had been too close. I couldn't do that again. I leaned an elbow on the tabletop exhaustedly and rubbed the back of my neck. I was sore with fatigue all over, and the stubble on my cheeks scratched my palm as I ran a hand over my face. I definitely needed a shave. I closed my eyes, starting to doze off on the spot. I didn't even hear T'Pol turn off the water, or come up behind me, and jumped when I felt her fingers on my shoulders. I tried to turn, but she stopped me. "T'Pol-" "Hold still," she said gently, and before I could protest pressed her fingers into the nodes on my back. I drew a quick involuntary breath, and slipped off the stool and out of her grasp, turning to stop her.
"Thanks, but I'm okay, really," I lied as she stepped in front of me.
She didn't believe me for a second. "You're obviously exhausted. You haven't eaten," she gestured to my barely-touched pie. "The neuropressure will help," she said taking a step closer.
"I'm fine," I started, but she reached up for my shoulders. I pushed her hands down. "Thank you, but- No," I said adamantly, pulling away as she tried again. "I'm fine. Please." She looked at me, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. I knew my behavior must seem strange to her, but I didn't trust myself.
"...Is there something wrong?" she asked uncertainly, scrutinizing me.
I sighed. "No, sorry," I lied, "it's just that... I'm just sore. I think I need to sleep first. Can we do this another time?" She nodded. "Tomorrow night, after we work on the project." "Yeah, okay," I agreed; it bought me some time, about a day and a half to come up with another excuse. I glanced over at the chronometer over the galley door. "That test's probably done by now. We should get back," I said as I picked up the pie and dumped it into the waste container, tossing the plate into the sink. "You still haven't eaten." "I'll grab something before my shift starts," I said absently as I picked up the padds and we headed for the door.
"There's no way that's the third variable, if there is one," I said as the turbo lift doors opened onto our deck and we stepped out.
"Why not?"
"Because the plasma conduits are connected through primary and secondary manifolds, both of which are completely internalized," I brainstormed as we made our way to the command center. "There's no reason that I can think of that the warp field stability would have any direct effect back on the plasma flow."
"It's not possible?"
I grinned a little. "Well, I'm not going to damn myself and say that. As soon as I did something would blow up just to prove me wrong. But if it is possible, it's not probable. We haven't seen any problems thus far."
"...Could there be a way of regulating the power flow to compensate for the increased MGCs?"
I thought for a moment. "Maybe," I said as we reached the doors, and T'Pol hit the controls to open them. "We'd probably have to adjust the EGC flow reg..."
She had stopped listening to me. I could see it on her face, her expression alert and aware. I looked around the room, trying to find what had caught her attention.
And then I heard it.
The consol across the room was chirping. Not beeping, as it had been all night. Chirping.
We glanced at each other, as though to confirm we were both really hearing the same thing, and rushed around the control table in the center of the room. She stood at my shoulder as I breathlessly pulled up the results from the last test and looked up.
Green. A steady warp five for 15 minutes before the computer had automatically ended the simulation.
"We did it," I murmured in astonishment, almost afraid to say it out loud. I looked back at her, her lips parted slightly with the same bewilderment as she ran over the results again and again. She met my gaze, the same excitement in her eyes, and didn't need to nod. "We did it!" I exclaimed, an ecstatic smile breaking on my face. Whooping for joy I grabbed her in my arms and swung her around off her feet, provoking an alarmed, "Commander!!!" and she threw her arms around my neck, afraid I would drop her.
I set her down, grinning like an idiot and giddy. We pulled back from each other some, and she looked up at me. "We still have tests we need to run before we can show this to the captain," she reminded me, but I couldn't stop grinning. I nodded and let her go. "How fast do you think we can get them done?"
The eggs are cold. I push through them with my fork and a couple pieces tumble towards the pancakes I haven't touched.
I left Engineering needing food, but now that I'm here I can't eat. Repairs are going too slowly. Every time we try to fix something we find something else that's wrong. And the situation outside keeps getting worse. The buildup of particles on the ship's hull has started to cloud the mess windows, and I sit with my back to them, not needing the constant reminder of a situation I can't come up with an answer to.
Spearing a couple small pieces on the tines of my fork, I put the egg in my mouth and try to chew. It's dry and spongy, and swallowing takes more effort than it's worth. The padds in front of my eyes blur.
"Mind if I join you?"
I look up at Malcolm standing next to the table, a tray in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, and gesture at the chair. He sets his food down and pulls it out.
"How's it going?" he asks as he sits.
I only shake my head.
"That bad?"
I lean back in the chair, my eyes bleary. "Engineerin's a mess. We don't even have what we need to fix everything, and of what we can fix half of it we need to get out of here first to do, stop the power drain before we can patch it up. Everything's haywire; we've bypassed so many things at this point we're runnin' on minimum systems. And I can't find a way out of this hell hole," I say through my teeth, tossing a padd onto the table. It skids past Malcolm's plate, and he watches it slide to a halt.
"What about you?" he asks after a moment. I glance at him, but don't answer. "When's the last time you slept?"
At least this I can answer truthfully. "I got a few hours last night."
"You look like shit."
Probably.
He stays silent a minute, eating. "Don't blame yourself. She didn't catch it either. Hell, the bloody computer didn't catch it."
"I'm fine."
"Like hell you are." He sets down his fork and leans forward. "Look, I don't know what was going on between you two, but, whatever it was, you lost your sister and now T'Pol's lying in sickbay and you're loosing her." I close my eyes, bile rising in my throat. "You're not fine, Trip."
I open my eyes, sitting forward, and spit sharply at him, "I'm the engineer, Malcolm! Not her, and not that damn computer!" I rise to my feet and gather my padds. "She shouldn't even have been there. So don't tell me there was nothing I could've done."
Leaving my plate on the table with Malcolm, I desert the mess for the turbo lift, slamming the button for C-Deck as the doors slide closed.
The doors to the turbo lift parted, and I squeezed between them before they had opened all the way, bursting out onto the bridge and almost dumping my stack of padds onto the floor as T'Pol followed close behind me.
"You guys are late-"Jon started with surprise, turning in his chair as we rushed down to the command well, but stopped abruptly upon seeing us, breathless and flushed from our dash up here. "Trip, I know I don't run that tight of a ship here, but I at least expect you to show up in your uniform."
"What?" I glanced down. "Oh. You don't care right now."
Jon looked incredulous. "What??"
"Wait till you've seen this!" I said, aware the attention of everyone on the bridge had turned on us now, and handed him a handful of padds. "We've been working on it all night."
"We found the answer a couple hours ago," T'Pol jumped in, "but we wanted to run the necessary tests before we showed you."
"What am I looking at?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed as he switched back and forth between padds, trying to make sense of the numerous graphs and charts.
"Modifications," I answered eagerly. "It'd take most of the day to do it, but my teams should be able to complete them by 1700 hours-"
"Wait! Slow down," the captain said. "Modifications to what? For what?"
"Warp five," T'Pol and I answered simultaneously.
"What?"
I glanced over to the unoccupied science station and grabbed Jon's arm, dragging him out of the chair. "Come see this!" He followed me uncertainly, and stood behind me, arms crossed, while I pulled up the simulation T'Pol and I had walked in to two hours earlier. Comprehension dawned on Jon's face as he watched. "With these modifications, we can fly at a steady warp five as efficiently as we now do at warp 3," I told him. "We could cut our travel time by almost half."
"What about malfunctions?" Malcolm asked from across the room. He was wary, but I could see the idea excited him.
"We've already run a multitude of simulations," T'Pol answered. "Some modifications will have to be made to emergency and back-up systems, but they have all tested successfully."
"How far will we have to dip into our resources?" the captain asked.
"Hardly at all," I replied. "We'll need to pull out a couple new flow modulators to adapt, some wiring and the spare plasma compressor and reshape that, but most of this is modifying already existing systems."
Jon wavered. "We only have the one compressor."
"Worse case scenario, the modified compressor gets broken in an emergency somehow and we plug the old one back in. We'll just be where we are now."
Jon nodded, finally letting a satisfied grin spread slowly across his face. "Get your teams on it, Commander."
I jumped up from the science chair, beaming. "Will do, Cap'n."
"Captain," T'Pol asked, "permission to assist Commander Tucker in engineering?"
Jon hesitated. "I could really use her help, Cap'n. And we won't be going anywhere while modifications are being made."
"Permission granted."
I grinned at T'Pol as we both eagerly headed to the turbo lift. "Oh, one other thing, Commander," the captain called after us. We stopped and looked back. "Uniform," he chided me.
I smiled as the lift opened. "I'll think about it," I joked, and T'Pol shot me a look of mock exasperation.
Act II – Scenes 1 – 3
"So much for being done in a couple hours," I griped halfheartedly as the doors to the galley slid open. I let T'Pol enter first, following her in and flicking on the lights. "I think I set a new personal record for number of times blowing up a ship," I joked sourly, tossing a stack of padds onto the long table with a metal clang.
It was almost half past five in the morning, and so far no success. We had been compiling calculation after calculation, running test after test for hours on end, but no matter what we did they still came up red. I had never failed so many times consecutively, and I'd become more frustrated with each one. T'Pol had at last suggested going to the galley to get something to eat while the computer ran another long simulation, and after a couple more disastrous attempts I'd finally given in and agreed.
She opened the door to the industrial fridge and scanned the shelves. "We have made considerable progress."
"What progress? We have no answers, no solution to the equation."
"We have eliminated possibilities," she answered, taking a container from a shelf. She glanced at me coolly. "That is progress."
I sighed, too deflated to argue. Maybe, but it still didn't get us warp five.
I caught the door as she moved to the counter across the room, and scanned the shelves myself. I'd planned to fix myself a meal, having missed dinner and ignored most of lunch yesterday; but now the idea of actually standing on my feet that long was exhausting by itself. So I grabbed the first edible thing I saw – a slice of pecan pie left over from the evening before – and let the fridge fall shut.
I joined T'Pol at the counter where she was putting a bowl of plomeek soup into the microwave. Reaching up, I opened the cupboard and pulled out a plate, dumping the pie onto the dish as she reclosed her container and put it back in the fridge.
Her arm brushed against my back as she passed me, and my breath caught a little; I forced myself not to let my eyes follow her.
Keeping control of myself over the hours hadn't been as hard as I had first expected. The equations took my full concentration, and most of the time I had been at my own station with my back to her. But there had been times when we'd inadvertently touched, or we'd had to share a consol, working side by side so close to one another we were no more than centimeters apart... In those moments it had taken all of my self- control just to keep breathing, to hold in place the façade I'd begun to carefully construct.
She'd probably be proud of me, if she knew how hard it was.
I hadn't realized until tonight how often we touched. The way our bodies grazed as we passed; the way our fingers ran over each other as we handed things between us; how close we would stand to one another. We had never touched like this before a couple months ago, before we had started the neuropressure. We had never touched at all.
Her Vulcan rules had never allowed it. She had shrunk back from me, handed me things carefully to avoid the slightest encounter, and stood apart from me, her space definitely defined. I had quickly learned to do the same, though more out of resentment than a need for personal space.
And then over time it had just come to seem normal between us, and I didn't even think about it anymore. I hadn't even noticed when things had begun to change.
When had things changed? When had we forgotten the rules? What night had it been when we had become no longer taboo to each other?
The beeping of the microwave jerked me out of my thoughts, and I opened it, setting her steaming broth on the long metal table behind me and sticking my own food in. Looking for a distraction, I started talking. "Don't you ever get sick of eating that stuff?" I asked as she came up next to me for a glass.
"What 'stuff'?"
"That plomeek broth."
"No," she answered, getting herself water from the sink by the fridge. "It fulfills all of my nutritional requirements."
"But, all you ever eat is broth, salad, tea, and water," I said as she sat near the counter.
"I do eat more than that."
I pulled my food out of the microwave and came around the table to sit across from her. "Yeah, and its all just as bland," I badgered with a grin
She raised an eyebrow. "How would you know? Unless you've tried them..."
She caught me there. "Well, no..."
Turning on the stool, she reached for the drawer behind her and pulled out a spoon. Pushing her bowl across the table, she held out the utensil to me.
I hesitated warily. Her offer seemed a safe enough cultural exchange, and her face gave no hint that this was anything other than that; but for some reason that was exactly what worried me.
I was putting human motives into the situation, I decided. If it had been Malcolm or Jon or anyone else for that matter I might have had something to suspect. But this was T'Pol. And it was only soup. "Okay," I shrugged, and took the spoon from her. Dipping it into the red-brown broth, I brought it to my mouth and tasted it.
Almost immediately my eyes went wide, and I swallowed quickly. Dropping the spoon, I grabbed her glass of water, half draining it before I stopped for air.
Damn, it was spicy!!! "You could have warned me!" I exclaimed.
Her features were tinted with a definite amusement. "I could have," she said, taking her bowl back.
"I haven't had anything that spicy since I ate Cuban food back in Florida. How do you eat that stuff?"
"I'm used to it," she answered, casually sipping a spoonful. I shook my head, and took a bite of my soothing, creamy pie.
She ate, sipping thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. "If this last simulation does not produce the desired results, I think we need to look for the possibility of a third variable."
I looked up at her, trying not to show the feeling of defeat that was settling in the pit of my stomach, and let my gaze fall back to my plate. I shook my head. "No, T'Pol. If this one doesn't work, I think that's it."
"You plan to abandon the idea?"
I slouched, resting my elbows on the tabletop and poking at the nuts with my fork. "I don't know what else to do at this point," I answered honestly. "I've been working on this for four days straight with no real results to show for it. Unless I get an epiphany or accidentally run across the answer again, I'm stuck. It's not fair to my teams to leave them for so long. I have to leave it."
She studied me a moment. "For now," she added.
I looked up at her in surprise. I was honestly ready to toss everything in a drawer and forget about it; but if she wouldn't encourage the idea if she didn't think it was possible. "Yeah," I decided, "for now."
She took a sip of her water and glanced at me surreptitiously over the rim of her glass. "7 o'clock tomorrow night?"
I couldn't help the grin that broke on my face. "Definitely."
"That's what you said this afternoon," she said, reminding me of my broken agreement to the night's neuropressure session; but I could tell she wasn't really serious.
"Do you want me to grovel?" I played, reaching down the table to pull the stack of padds between us and taking one off the top. She took one of her own. "Please don't." I chuckled, and an exhausted but comfortable silence fell between us as she turned to analyzing the data on her padd. I started to do the same, then stole a glance at her. She didn't notice or look up, and furtively I dared to watch her.
I had never let myself study her before. Her copper skin, the way she glowed in the low lighting, the gentle flush of her cheek and the gracile lines of her body. The calming repose that suffused from her, the surety of her presence that at the same time stole my breath. The aching I'd thought I'd dispelled rushed through me, my guard breaking. In that moment I realized I was looking at a woman I had never seen before. I had looked, but I had always seen a Vulcan, an officer, and eventually someone I could trust. But I had never seen /her/, disrobed of all the labels and titles I had known her by. For the first time I looked at her and saw a woman. A woman I had never met. How could I feel like this for someone I'd never let myself see before, someone I didn't know? For a moment I felt my heart sink. I was fooling myself. How could this be anything more than a corporeal attraction, anything more than almost every man on the ship had fantasized about at one time or another? I guess I'd just been so busy with the engines and the mission I hadn't seen it creeping up on me, seen myself giving in. Something Mal had said a couple weeks ago when I'd been working with him popped into my head. "You can't get her off your mind, can you?"
"What are you talking about?" I had asked, chuckling. "Who?"
"You know very well who I'm talking about. Don't play stupid."
"Mal, I think if I had a woman on my mind I'd know."
"Don't think you can lie to me," he said, crossing his arms. "I know you better than that."
"Oh, yeah? What even makes you think I'm thinking about someone?"
"You've got that look. And you've mentioned her in one way or another five times in the past half hour."
I'd laughed. "Who the hell are you talking about?"
He'd looked at me in exasperation. "Do I really have to spell it out for you?"
"I guess so!"
"T'Pol!" I'd rolled my eyes and debated him. Yeah I had mentioned her, in connection to data she'd given us on the phase cannon we were fixing. I had almost forgotten the conversation. But hearing the argument over in my head, I saw Malcolm had recognized what I hadn't even been aware of: this had been a long time coming, and I'd been completely oblivious. So why did everything in me tell me it was more than that? Suddenly she stood, and, startled, I quickly looked down to my padd. Taking her bowl, she moved around the table to the sink behind me and began rinsing it. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief and let my padd drop to the table. She hadn't noticed, but it had been too close. I couldn't do that again. I leaned an elbow on the tabletop exhaustedly and rubbed the back of my neck. I was sore with fatigue all over, and the stubble on my cheeks scratched my palm as I ran a hand over my face. I definitely needed a shave. I closed my eyes, starting to doze off on the spot. I didn't even hear T'Pol turn off the water, or come up behind me, and jumped when I felt her fingers on my shoulders. I tried to turn, but she stopped me. "T'Pol-" "Hold still," she said gently, and before I could protest pressed her fingers into the nodes on my back. I drew a quick involuntary breath, and slipped off the stool and out of her grasp, turning to stop her.
"Thanks, but I'm okay, really," I lied as she stepped in front of me.
She didn't believe me for a second. "You're obviously exhausted. You haven't eaten," she gestured to my barely-touched pie. "The neuropressure will help," she said taking a step closer.
"I'm fine," I started, but she reached up for my shoulders. I pushed her hands down. "Thank you, but- No," I said adamantly, pulling away as she tried again. "I'm fine. Please." She looked at me, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. I knew my behavior must seem strange to her, but I didn't trust myself.
"...Is there something wrong?" she asked uncertainly, scrutinizing me.
I sighed. "No, sorry," I lied, "it's just that... I'm just sore. I think I need to sleep first. Can we do this another time?" She nodded. "Tomorrow night, after we work on the project." "Yeah, okay," I agreed; it bought me some time, about a day and a half to come up with another excuse. I glanced over at the chronometer over the galley door. "That test's probably done by now. We should get back," I said as I picked up the pie and dumped it into the waste container, tossing the plate into the sink. "You still haven't eaten." "I'll grab something before my shift starts," I said absently as I picked up the padds and we headed for the door.
"There's no way that's the third variable, if there is one," I said as the turbo lift doors opened onto our deck and we stepped out.
"Why not?"
"Because the plasma conduits are connected through primary and secondary manifolds, both of which are completely internalized," I brainstormed as we made our way to the command center. "There's no reason that I can think of that the warp field stability would have any direct effect back on the plasma flow."
"It's not possible?"
I grinned a little. "Well, I'm not going to damn myself and say that. As soon as I did something would blow up just to prove me wrong. But if it is possible, it's not probable. We haven't seen any problems thus far."
"...Could there be a way of regulating the power flow to compensate for the increased MGCs?"
I thought for a moment. "Maybe," I said as we reached the doors, and T'Pol hit the controls to open them. "We'd probably have to adjust the EGC flow reg..."
She had stopped listening to me. I could see it on her face, her expression alert and aware. I looked around the room, trying to find what had caught her attention.
And then I heard it.
The consol across the room was chirping. Not beeping, as it had been all night. Chirping.
We glanced at each other, as though to confirm we were both really hearing the same thing, and rushed around the control table in the center of the room. She stood at my shoulder as I breathlessly pulled up the results from the last test and looked up.
Green. A steady warp five for 15 minutes before the computer had automatically ended the simulation.
"We did it," I murmured in astonishment, almost afraid to say it out loud. I looked back at her, her lips parted slightly with the same bewilderment as she ran over the results again and again. She met my gaze, the same excitement in her eyes, and didn't need to nod. "We did it!" I exclaimed, an ecstatic smile breaking on my face. Whooping for joy I grabbed her in my arms and swung her around off her feet, provoking an alarmed, "Commander!!!" and she threw her arms around my neck, afraid I would drop her.
I set her down, grinning like an idiot and giddy. We pulled back from each other some, and she looked up at me. "We still have tests we need to run before we can show this to the captain," she reminded me, but I couldn't stop grinning. I nodded and let her go. "How fast do you think we can get them done?"
The eggs are cold. I push through them with my fork and a couple pieces tumble towards the pancakes I haven't touched.
I left Engineering needing food, but now that I'm here I can't eat. Repairs are going too slowly. Every time we try to fix something we find something else that's wrong. And the situation outside keeps getting worse. The buildup of particles on the ship's hull has started to cloud the mess windows, and I sit with my back to them, not needing the constant reminder of a situation I can't come up with an answer to.
Spearing a couple small pieces on the tines of my fork, I put the egg in my mouth and try to chew. It's dry and spongy, and swallowing takes more effort than it's worth. The padds in front of my eyes blur.
"Mind if I join you?"
I look up at Malcolm standing next to the table, a tray in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, and gesture at the chair. He sets his food down and pulls it out.
"How's it going?" he asks as he sits.
I only shake my head.
"That bad?"
I lean back in the chair, my eyes bleary. "Engineerin's a mess. We don't even have what we need to fix everything, and of what we can fix half of it we need to get out of here first to do, stop the power drain before we can patch it up. Everything's haywire; we've bypassed so many things at this point we're runnin' on minimum systems. And I can't find a way out of this hell hole," I say through my teeth, tossing a padd onto the table. It skids past Malcolm's plate, and he watches it slide to a halt.
"What about you?" he asks after a moment. I glance at him, but don't answer. "When's the last time you slept?"
At least this I can answer truthfully. "I got a few hours last night."
"You look like shit."
Probably.
He stays silent a minute, eating. "Don't blame yourself. She didn't catch it either. Hell, the bloody computer didn't catch it."
"I'm fine."
"Like hell you are." He sets down his fork and leans forward. "Look, I don't know what was going on between you two, but, whatever it was, you lost your sister and now T'Pol's lying in sickbay and you're loosing her." I close my eyes, bile rising in my throat. "You're not fine, Trip."
I open my eyes, sitting forward, and spit sharply at him, "I'm the engineer, Malcolm! Not her, and not that damn computer!" I rise to my feet and gather my padds. "She shouldn't even have been there. So don't tell me there was nothing I could've done."
Leaving my plate on the table with Malcolm, I desert the mess for the turbo lift, slamming the button for C-Deck as the doors slide closed.
The doors to the turbo lift parted, and I squeezed between them before they had opened all the way, bursting out onto the bridge and almost dumping my stack of padds onto the floor as T'Pol followed close behind me.
"You guys are late-"Jon started with surprise, turning in his chair as we rushed down to the command well, but stopped abruptly upon seeing us, breathless and flushed from our dash up here. "Trip, I know I don't run that tight of a ship here, but I at least expect you to show up in your uniform."
"What?" I glanced down. "Oh. You don't care right now."
Jon looked incredulous. "What??"
"Wait till you've seen this!" I said, aware the attention of everyone on the bridge had turned on us now, and handed him a handful of padds. "We've been working on it all night."
"We found the answer a couple hours ago," T'Pol jumped in, "but we wanted to run the necessary tests before we showed you."
"What am I looking at?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed as he switched back and forth between padds, trying to make sense of the numerous graphs and charts.
"Modifications," I answered eagerly. "It'd take most of the day to do it, but my teams should be able to complete them by 1700 hours-"
"Wait! Slow down," the captain said. "Modifications to what? For what?"
"Warp five," T'Pol and I answered simultaneously.
"What?"
I glanced over to the unoccupied science station and grabbed Jon's arm, dragging him out of the chair. "Come see this!" He followed me uncertainly, and stood behind me, arms crossed, while I pulled up the simulation T'Pol and I had walked in to two hours earlier. Comprehension dawned on Jon's face as he watched. "With these modifications, we can fly at a steady warp five as efficiently as we now do at warp 3," I told him. "We could cut our travel time by almost half."
"What about malfunctions?" Malcolm asked from across the room. He was wary, but I could see the idea excited him.
"We've already run a multitude of simulations," T'Pol answered. "Some modifications will have to be made to emergency and back-up systems, but they have all tested successfully."
"How far will we have to dip into our resources?" the captain asked.
"Hardly at all," I replied. "We'll need to pull out a couple new flow modulators to adapt, some wiring and the spare plasma compressor and reshape that, but most of this is modifying already existing systems."
Jon wavered. "We only have the one compressor."
"Worse case scenario, the modified compressor gets broken in an emergency somehow and we plug the old one back in. We'll just be where we are now."
Jon nodded, finally letting a satisfied grin spread slowly across his face. "Get your teams on it, Commander."
I jumped up from the science chair, beaming. "Will do, Cap'n."
"Captain," T'Pol asked, "permission to assist Commander Tucker in engineering?"
Jon hesitated. "I could really use her help, Cap'n. And we won't be going anywhere while modifications are being made."
"Permission granted."
I grinned at T'Pol as we both eagerly headed to the turbo lift. "Oh, one other thing, Commander," the captain called after us. We stopped and looked back. "Uniform," he chided me.
I smiled as the lift opened. "I'll think about it," I joked, and T'Pol shot me a look of mock exasperation.