He Who Fights With Monsters
By Thalia Drogna
T'Pol sat beside the sleeping Engineer. She had been baffled by his inexplicable attempt to take his own life. The Captain had said that he hadn't understood it either, and if even the humans didn't understand it then how would she stand a chance of comprehending. Why would someone as intelligent as the Commander feel the need to commit suicide, she did not understand how any emotion could be so powerful that he would not realise how illogical it was to take his own life. If you were dead then outcomes could not be affected, work could not be completed and nothing could be changed, it was an end not a beginning. Death was to be fought against, not embraced willingly.
However, she knew what he had been through. He had endured more pain and suffering than she would have believed possible for a human. She had no doubt that when she had heard the screams of the dying Tien, Trip had felt them all as part of the Rel Sevanne. She knew how attractive that connection to the living ship had been for him, how tempting it must have been to forget the pain of the Xindi attack and his sister's death.
Phlox entered the cell for his patient's hourly check-up. Trip stirred in his sleep. Phlox had given him a mild sedative to help him sleep but he seemed to be fighting it.
"Has he awoken at all?" asked Phlox as he scanned his patient.
"No, although he has been restless," said T'Pol.
"I seem to remember you saying that the Commander had confided his feelings about the nanites to you," said Phlox.
"Yes, he told me that he was concerned that he had been having nightmares about being controlled by the nanites. Although he realised on a conscious level that this was now impossible, his unconscious mind kept raising this possibility. He asked me if I still believed that he was human now that the nanites were a part of him," said T'Pol.
"And what did you say to him?" asked Phlox.
"I told him that the addition of technology did not make him any less human," said T'Pol. "He is still the same person that he was before the nanites were introduced into his body."
"That was the right thing to say," said Phlox.
"When Commander Tucker was recovered from the Xindi I reviewed a considerable amount of research on human psychology. However, although it was the right thing to say in the circumstances, I also believe it to be correct, he is no less human," said T'Pol.
"You are the only person that he has spoken about these feelings to," said Phlox. "He did not wish to discuss them with me or the Captain. I think that you may have formed a particular bond with him, he feels that he is able to confide in you," said Phlox.
"Perhaps it is because I confided in him," said T'Pol.
"Perhaps," replied Phlox, "but I am asking you to make use of that relationship now to help him. He obviously feels that he can talk to you when he cannot talk to us. If we are to help him recover, we must break the conditioning that the Rel Sevanne's computer imposed on him, and in order to do that someone he trusts will have to show him the errors in the beliefs he currently holds."
"You are talking about deprogramming," said T'Pol.
"Precisely," said Phlox. "And with your logic skills you should be perfect for the task, however I will warn you now that he may not be very receptive to your arguments no matter how logical they are, at least to begin with."
"Doctor, perhaps it would be better if the Captain were to attempt this. He knows the Commander and has the added advantage of being human. I am not a psychologist and I could harm the Commander further if I do not correctly carry out the task," said T'Pol.
"I have no doubt that it will be difficult, but you are the one that he confided in, T'Pol. You do not need to be a psychologist to argue with him, you're already very practised at that and, in any case, I will be monitoring all your sessions and I will be on hand to give advice if necessary," said Phlox.
"Very well," said T'Pol. "If you believe that I can help then I will attempt to do so."
"Of course the whole process will be greatly complicated by Mr Tucker's difficulties with communication, but I hope that Hoshi will at least be able to make some difference in that area."
"I understand, doctor," said T'Pol. "It will not be an easy task."
Trip continued to sleep restlessly and T'Pol did the only thing to comfort him that she could think of. She reached out and took his hand in her own, hoping that he would respond to her touch. Phlox knew that Vulcans were not a naturally tactile race and realised that this was something T'Pol had to steel herself to do. He had thought that the Commander's nerves were too badly damaged to be able to feel someone hold his hand but Trip did seem to quieten at the contact. It seemed his decision to ask T'Pol for help had been the correct one.
Once again both women stood in front of Archer in his ready room.
"We know that one of you gave Commander Tucker that knife and now we have a way to prove it," said Archer. "I don't know what laws you had on the Rel Sevanne or the Vor Devrees, but on Enterprise assisting in a suicide attempt is a crime."
"We spoke to Commader Tucker earlier," said Lieutenant Reed. "He told us that Shar Jen had been to see him and given him the knife."
"But I didn't," said Shar Jen, "I couldn't..."
Archer held up a hand to stop her. "I'm not interested in hearing either of your denials," he said. "We know it was one of you. Show them," he added to Reed.
"Yes, sir," replied Reed and brought up the footage from the corridor camera on Archer's view screen. They watched as a blonde haired woman exited the brig and disappeared around the corner. "The strange thing is that the camera around the corner was disabled," said Reed. "It doesn't seem to make sense to disable one camera and leave the other intact. Unless of course you want to be seen, but only long enough for us to identify that it is one of two identical people."
"Unfortunately you made a mistake," said Archer, "and took the deception one step too far. You kissed Trip."
"How could you?" shouted Shar Jen to Sharien.
"Why are you looking at me? You're the one who loves him," said Sharien to Shar Jen.
"Stop!" said Archer to the two women. "Lieutenant, if you wouldn't mind finishing this once and for all. Scan Shar Jen first."
"Yes, sir," said Reed and picked up T'Pol's modified nanite scanner. He scanned Shar Jen first as instructed. "She's clean," he said, as they'd expected. He moved on to scan Sharien and detected what they were looking for. "It was Sharien," he confirmed.
Shar Jen said some uncomplimentary things about her double in Tien, only some of which the translator was able to pick up. From what they heard it was obvious that she wasn't happy with Sharien.
"How did you work it out?" asked Sharien, completely calm.
"When you kissed Trip some of his nanites rubbed off on you. They're dead now but still in your bloodstream," said Reed.
"Of course," said Sharien. "A miscalculation. I was playing a part and felt it was what Shar Jen would have done."
"Why?" asked Shar Jen. "He could have died."
"I didn't expect him to scramble the door code, I thought the doctor would detect his condition and save his life in plenty of time. I needed him to live to make sure that he told everyone that it was Shar Jen," said Sharien.
"I don't understand why you needed them to believe it was me. If you had really wanted to you could have circumvented all their security measures and no one would have known you were there," said Shar Jen.
"Because I was trying to discredit you and the Tien. I needed their help to give the Kriel the upper hand when we arrive at our new home. If you were their enemy then it was more likely that I would be considered their friend," said Sharien. "I already knew that the Vor Devrees patriarch had committed suicide and Commander Tucker would most likely as well. It was a small matter to bring him a knife which I knew could be linked to you."
"It wouldn't have changed my answer to you," said Archer, but he wondered if he would have been so pleased to have been right about Shar Jen's intentions towards Trip that he would have helped Sharien.
"I know that you think that I'm your enemy, but I'm not. Everything I have done, I did for my people. We are at war and that means that there will be casualties. I'm all that the Kriel have to protect them," said Sharien.
"That isn't an excuse," said Reed. "Why did you pick on Trip? He's been through more than enough."
"I saw the way that you were desperate to reach him and make sure that he was okay. Then when we returned to the ship everyone was so anxious for his wellbeing I knew that he was your greatest weakness. As a Weapons Master I am trained to find an enemy's weaknesses and exploit them. I knew that if I made it seem that Shar Jen had attacked Commander Tucker, you would hate her as much as you now hate me."
"Lieutenant, please escort Sharien back to her quarters and this time place a guard inside the room," said Archer.
"Yes, sir," said Reed and drew his phase pistol, indicating that Sharien should move.
After they had left, Shar Jen looked at Archer. "What will you do with her?" asked the Tien Artificer.
"I don't know, I'll need some time to think," said Archer. "Maybe I should make her your problem, not mine. We can't take prisoners and I'm not prepared to get mixed up in your war any longer. So far your squabbles have caused me to lose valuable time in our search for the Xindi weapon and have twice almost cost me the life of my Chief Engineer."
"What about when we land on the planet? The Tien and the Kriel will be at each other's throats. It will only make matters worse if we try their Weapons Master for helping a human to commit suicide, especially when he is not dead," said Shar Jen.
"Then don't," said Archer. "Talk to her. There must be common ground between your two races. You two could lead your two peoples into a new future of peace and co-operation. I don't understand how you can't see that this is your only option, neither Tien nor Kriel can survive on their own on that planet. You need each other."
"You may be correct, Captain, but it will take more than words to end this war. I will return to my research if I may?" asked Shar Jen.
"You're dismissed," said Archer. "T'Pol will escort you to the Command Centre when she is ready to resume your research."
It was early morning when Hoshi came down to the brig to find Phlox changing Trip's bandages and the Engineer staring miserably up at the ceiling. She carried a pile of padds (none of which were networked to the main computer) and hoped that what she had planned for their first session would at least make the Commander realise there was hope.
"Hi Commander, Doctor," she said brightly, smiling.
"Hello Hoshi," said Phlox, returning the grin. "Just let me finish changing these bandages and then he's all yours." Trip hadn't said anything but gave her a weak smile that didn't reach his eyes. He was saying to himself over and over that her name was Hoshi, that was what the doctor had just called her. But Hoshi what? In his experience people usually had more than one name.
"This would probably be easier if you can sit up, Commander," said Hoshi, and she and Phlox helped him sit up. He still hadn't said anything. "Okay let's see what you can do. I am going to hold up some pictures and you are going to tell me what they are." Hoshi spoke slowly and clearly in precise English.
"You have...to be kidding me," said Trip, searching for the words that he wanted to say. He really didn't want to talk to anyone, he'd just get it wrong or not be able to find the right words. Then there would be that pitying look and he hated that.
"No, I need to find out how much you are able to do," said Hoshi. "Please just humour me. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Trip and noticed that Hoshi didn't look like she was pitying him at all. She looked very serious and as if she had a job to do.
"Okay," said Hoshi and she began the test. It wasn't nearly as bad as she had feared, Trip identified about seventy percent of the pictures. When he got stuck he got frustrated though, and Hoshi was worried by that. Being under pressure, even of his own making, would just make it harder for him. As a linguist she couldn't think of anything worse than having one's ability to communicate impaired, so she had at least an inkling of what he felt. The reading test went better and Trip only had slight difficulties with some of the words. His writing wasn't quite so good as he had trouble retrieving his vocabulary, but writing seemed to be easier for him than talking.
"Right, last test," she said. "I need to see how much of what I say you understand. I will say a sentence and then you have to answer a question about what I said." The same thing she had just told Trip was written on the padd she had given him as well and he nodded his understanding. Hoshi spoke slowly and repeated the sentence twice to give Trip as much time as possible to understand her. She knew that patience was the only way to approach this. She then got Trip to read the question on the padd. It was plain that Trip hadn't understood the sentence though and after she'd gone through five sentences which Trip had understood to varying degrees, but mostly not at all, she knew he was getting angry at his own inability to comprehend. The final result was Trip throwing the padd across the cell, which smashed into shards against the wall.
"Okay, I think that we've both had enough for today," said Hoshi, going to pick up the pieces of the broken padd. Phlox had told her not to leave anything sharp lying around and the broken padd had some nasty jagged edges.
"Damn...straight," said Trip, fury evident in his voice. Trust Trip to have his speech centres scrambled and still remember how to swear, thought Hoshi.
"More tomorrow," said Hoshi. "You're not getting out of it."
"Hoshi," said Trip. "How bad...?" he didn't have the right words to finish the sentence and he wasn't even sure that he wanted to ask it.
Hoshi took a new padd, switched it into dictation mode and dictated Trip's scores for him and then an explanation of what that meant. "It could be a lot worse," said Hoshi. "You can make yourself understood mostly, but you have problems with retrieving your vocabulary. I can help you relearn what you've lost. Phlox tells me that you have more healing to do and it's likely that with some help your brain will find its own routes around the damaged areas."
Trip read the information. Everything took him so long at the moment, forming sentences, reading, writing and the hardest of them all was listening and understanding. He could see everything and form concepts in his head perfectly, the difficulty was getting those concepts out of his head. Hoshi's slow speech and methodical, perfectly correct English was helping, but he knew he couldn't follow a normal speed conversation at the moment.
"Am I..." said Trip, and he was stuck again. He was getting annoyingly used to having to rephrase his questions. "Is this forever?"
"It will get better, but I can't guarantee you'll make a full recovery. We'll just have to see how it goes," said Hoshi. The padd displayed what she'd just said and Trip nodded. He laid the padd down on the bed and lay back against the pillows.
"Should have...should have succeeded," he said.
"Commander, don't say that!" said Hoshi, suddenly very worried. She knew that he was talking about his suicide attempt. "If you ever pull anything like that ever again, you'll have me to answer to."
"You're..., well you're..." said Trip, not only lost for vocabulary but very aware that he was just about to stick his foot in his mouth. Quite a feat for someone who was having trouble talking, but he'd always been good at saying the wrong thing, why should it be any better now, just because he couldn't think of the words.
"I've taught Vulcan to ten year olds, after that I can cope with anything," said Hoshi, smiling. "You might want to remember that I've been teaching alien languages to students for years and no one has ever failed one of my courses. I shouldn't have any trouble teaching you English. We're not starting from scratch anyway, this is re-learning stuff that you can't get to at the moment. Maybe some of it will come back while we're working at it." Trip read what Hoshi had said, he'd only got about half of it the first time round, he had more trouble with long sentences, but he got most of the rest from reading it.
"Did you understand me?" asked Hoshi. "I will get you through this." She put a hand on his chin and pulled his head up from reading the padd so that he could see the sincerity in her eyes.
"And...work?" he asked.
"You mean when can you get back to Engineering?" asked Hoshi.
"Yes," said Trip.
"Let's take this one step at a time," said Hoshi.