Disclaimer: I still don't own a lot of these characters. And more are running out of control by the second.
For those of you who read the last chapter (pt 1), sorry about the repetition. For those of you who didn't… I won't say you didn't miss much, but it shouldn't affect too heavily your understanding of the narrative.
Okay, for everyone who missed it. This arc takes place in season TWO, about two weeks (or so) after Life Support. So if it doesn't follow the Season three storyline, well that's why. Think of it as an ep between eps. (After all, they don't show you everything… right?)
Chapter 3 Imperfect Reflections (pt 2):
Distortion (n) di-'stor-sh&n: (1) the quality or state of being distorted. 2: a product of distorting 3: a lack of proportionality in an image resulting from defects in the optical system 4: falsified reproduction of an audio or video signal caused by change in the wave form of the original signal
--Mirriam-Webster Dictionary
It's Life's illusions I recall; I really don't know Life at all…
-- Joni Mitchell
{Trip. Trip. Wake up. Wake UP, Trip.} Someone shook him, not hard, but enough to be annoying. He opened his eyes, and found himself blind.
Oh, God. What had he just been dreaming? "Lights." Nothing happened. Right. Power was out, which meant… Suddenly he became aware of how cold it had grown. No matter how well insulated Enterprise was, she couldn't hold on to heat forever. First law of enthalpy: the universe tended towards minimum heat. Law of osmosis: the universe tended towards a balanced state between objects. Law of thermodynamics: there is no such thing as cold, only lack of heat. Thus, Enterprise crept closer to absolute zero with every second her systems remained down. And to think I fell asleep for it.
He reached out carefully towards the shaker, not sure what (or whom) he would find.
{It's that girl. The one you were in the turbolift with.}
Oh, right. DiLorenza. How could he forget that? He withdrew his hand before making contact. Way his luck was going he would've connected with something that would get him deservedly slapped. "Okay. First thing we've got to do is get life support back on. Otherwise all they're going to find here when they get back is some – to quote Malcolm – well preserved corpses." A scene from one of his favourite movies played in his head. A frozen body floated in the gravity-less, atmosphere drained starship, until someone turned the systems on, and it hit the floor and shattered, pieces scattering everywhere.[1] Not a pretty picture.
Before we do anything, we're going to need light. The glowstrip had died completely sometime while he slept, which explained the blindness. The nearest star system lay three days away at warp five; very little light reached them here, less than on Earth during a night with a new moon. Well, if their one little luminescent was gone, so were the rest of them. While he could find his way to engineering and his emergency flashlights in the dark, he didn't feel like trying it, not without knowing what further damage had been done to his ship. Something closer to hand, then.
Your diving lights. With an implied "you idiot". Of course. He'd brought his diving gear with him, the modern stuff, not the antique suit he kept as decoration. When he thought he'd use it, he hadn't known at the time, but was suddenly glad of the impulse. Designed to illuminate murky water, the lamps had powerful beams, and – most importantly – heavy-duty, long-life batteries.
"Don't move." He instructed, and stood up, closing his eyes even though it wasn't necessary. He stood still for a moment, centring, orienting himself. Bed, here. Desk there, closet there, bathroom there. And storage cabinet there. He crossed the floor quickly but carefully and swung open the drawer of the built-in storage bin, another thing he'd fought for, and won.
Blue light arced into the room as he switched one on. His eyes adjusted faster than they would have had it been the traditional white light of most flashlights. Sharp shadows leapt from the furniture and from DiLorenza as he swung the light around. He grabbed the second one, held it out to her. "Here. These ought to help."
She came over and collected the one he offered and he showed her where the switch was. He used the clip to attach his to his belt, then slid the reflector to allow it to be used more as a lantern than a spotlight.
"Careful, they're a little heavy." Semi-buoyant in water, they were dead heavy on land. They did, however, provide more light than the glowstrip had even at its brightest. And in a pinch, they could be used as a weapon. Expecting trouble?
"At this point, always." Something that had been nagging at him from the beginning finally made itself clear. If things had been bad enough for Archer to give the order to abandon ship -- the ship Henry Archer died broken-hearted over, the ship Jonathan Archer loved more than life itself – then it shouldn't be here, it should be a billion, trillion particles scattered across half the galaxy. Yet the undeniable truth was that it was here, or he and DiLorenza wouldn't be heading back to the turbo-lift for a relatively short climb up to the bridge. So where was everybody else? When the ship didn't annihilate on schedule, they should have sent back at least a skeleton crew to figure out why. There must have been plenty of time while he slept for them to get life-support going which meant that something kept them away. The only question was what?
Or who.
That was the big one. Who indeed? He held out a hand, signalling DiLorenza to halt.
"I want to float an idea past you. Stop me if I start to sound too crazy".
{Stop.}
He didn't even bother to look at Toby. "I wasn't asking you. I already know your opinion on the matter." Oddly, DiLorenza didn't seem bothered by the comment as if she knew it couldn't have been addressed to her.
{Hey. At least I do talk. I mean you want to test your theory out with her, but what's the likelihood you'll get any feedback?} Like most teenagers, Toby could be remarkably insensitive at times, especially if she was jealous. Which right now she seemed to be. {I on the other hand know you and know the way your mind works. And don't forget that I'm the smart one here? That I usually find the details you miss,} he rolled his eyes at that one but otherwise let the comment pass, {that I…}
"Your friend is very pretty."
"Huh?" The shock of hearing a new voice blanked Trip's mind for a moment. Then he realised it was DiLorenza who had spoken. It took a few more moments for the words themselves to align into a recognisable order.
"You can see her?"
{She can see me?} It came out as a chorus, Trip in wide-eyed surprise and Toby looking around wildly for a place to hide. {Can she hear me too?}
"Ask her." He fell back into the old routine of childhood banter. "Aren't you the one capable of speech?"
"Yes." The simple word came as a relief to Trip. Either DiLorenza had tapped into his delusions or Toby was real, a point he'd never been absolutely sure on. I've certainly had enough reasons to doubt it. But if it was the first, at least he wasn't going crazy alone.
And if it was the second… "Just call me Horatio."
{Hor who?}
"A little less Poe, a little more Shakespeare." Trip grinned, thinking how a comment like that defied the conventional view held of him. But of all the 'literature' shoved down his throat at school, Shakespeare had caught his attention. Maybe it was the subject matter, much more in tune with a teenage boy's mentality – sex and revenge – than so many of the others. "There are more things…"
Gratifyingly DiLorenza's lips curled into a hint of a smile at their repartee. So there was someone under that shell. "Sir? You said you had a theory?"
He realised suddenly, how quiet and musical her voice was. Maybe that was why she didn't tend to talk. A voice like that could garner a lot of unwanted attention.
Including yours?
Oh, hush. "How well hooked up are you into the grapevine?" He didn't pose it as an idle question. In Trip's experience, often the ghosts heard more than anybody else, simply because no one censored what they said in front of them.
She shrugged. Either I don't know or I've never cared. Given that it was DiLorenza (and what little he'd come to know of her), he guessed at the latter.
Great. How much confidential information should he give out at this time to someone who's security clearance was probably somewhere around non-existent? He started to rub his nose – a nervous habit picked up years ago, a sign that he wasn't sure he was making the right decision. First contact confirmed that habit was the wrong choice. "Ow."
Toby giggled, and DiLorenza seemed to thaw a little more. Keep making a fool of yourself and you'll turn her into the most outgoing person on the ship.
Well, Dead Girl did it for you. Which was one of the many reasons Trip had never considered an exorcism. He smiled sheepishly and continued. "Do you remember Crewman Daniels?" Start small and work up from there.
If you're right, we may not have time to work up.
If I'm right, then time is what we do have, in a manner of speaking. And you hate flying blind.
No, I just hate what happens when you act without thinking. Which you seem to make your SOP.
DiLorenza nodded, but her expression clearly stated that she wasn't sure how a vanished crewmember linked into their current situation.
"Apparently," How to put this so she'd believe it. Hell, he only half believed it himself, and he'd seen a good portion of it. "What happened…" Saying it out loud, the whole thing seemed ludicrous. "Daniels is from the future." He blurted it out, unable to think of anything else.
Her eyebrows rose in an insinuation of scepticism fit to rival any Vulcan's. And you know this how?
"I know, it sounds insane, but bear with me here for a moment. You're maintenance, which means you have a good idea of how the systems around here work, how they're linked together, all that? Now is there any one single incident that could shut down all the systems and their backups and restore them in the way we've seen? If all systems were down, we shouldn't have gravity, right? The containment should've gone in the engine, and if that happened, we'd be little winks of energy rocketing around in no discernable form. I keep thinking it's viral, but it's so selective. And I know we've been well shielded against those kind of attacks, I wrote a lot of the firewall software myself."
And went behind Starfleet's back to a private contractor for much of the rest, work paid for out of his own pocket. I don't see her missing much, or messing with us like this. "No, this is not a conventional type attack. It almost seems like someone's controlling it." Or someone with seriously advanced programming experience had written the code. And if that was the case, then the older machines of Enterprise shouldn't be able to process it, unless it had been directly targeted to Enterprise herself. Meaning, still, that it was a controlled attack, with a distinct purpose. And that pisses me right off. Attacking his ship, making her sick like this… it seemed like an attack on family. Sure, Enterprise was just a thing, a machine, but tonnes of his own blood, sweat, and tears embedded themselves in her very make-up over the years of her construction, and in the time they'd been out here. She carried his DNA as much as any child, and the fact that someone out there was deliberately trying to hurt her… well, they'd be paying in kind if he got any say in the matter.
Down, boy. We've got to find them first, and that's assuming that you're right.
He took a deep breath, then another, calming himself down, making himself focus. "Now, I know we've made our own share of enemies in the here and now, but I don't see Klingons as the subtle type. And frankly, I don't see them or any of the others having the necessary knowledge of our systems and our codes to screw us up this much. It has to be someone with a solid working understanding of Starfleet, and Starfleet procedures."
{And this means someone from the future, how?}
"I can't think of anyone else we've been a big enough thorn in the side of." To every other race out here, humans were interesting neophytes in the annals of space travel, but hardly all that dangerous. On the other hand, if Daniels was to be believed, then Enterprise played a very pivotal point in the formation of the future.
{Well, how do you plan to stop them, then? Every time you do, it just means they have to come back again and try something else.}
Trust Toby to come up with the paradox. Now to find an answer. "Then maybe we'll frustrate the hell out of them so much they quit. Realise that their little quest is futile."
{Well, Fate certainly picked the right guy for that.} Both of them grinned, despite the seriousness of things. If there was one thing Trip could do without even trying, it was proving himself a source of frustration for all those around him. Even T'Pol -- icy, emotion-suppressed T'Pol – had more than once shown signs of wanting to knock him through the nearest bulkhead. He'd driven Captain Jeffries to tears once, simply by doing his job. In fact, the only high ranking Starfleet official who didn't have him on their 'avoid at all costs' list was Admiral Forrest. Forrest somehow seemed to grasp that none of it was intentional; that it was just the result of a turbo-charged mind temporarily out of its owner's full control, and running without benefit of filters.
Do and say first, think about it later. Get it done while you still understand it. Another thing Forrest seemed to grasp (and that so few others did) was that Trip himself was more than a little scared of that side, of that potential. You know where that can go.
No. If that were going to happen, it would have already happened. It's not the same thing. But close enough, close enough to be a threat.
He shook his head, forcing his reflections into the background. "All I'm saying is that I still don't think we're alone, here. At least not all the time."
DiLorenza nodded. "There's something else wrong, too. I don't know, just something. Out of place."
The dream. So his sub-conscious had been trying to tell him something. David screaming because something was wrong. Something so subtle, that no one could see it, but it was definitely out of place. So what? What could possibly be affecting… no, not affecting, it was an effect. What had Gina been saying? It's your fault, now fix it?
His eyes drifted to the window, and it hit. "We're stopped." Not just drifting, but stopped. Even on slow impulse, the stars outside should be changing position slightly. But they hung frozen, meaning Enterprise had to a complete and utter halt. That's impossible. Space, true space, was a vacuum; there should be no resistance factor to slow her down. Whatever speed she'd been going at should be the speed they travelled now. I didn't imagine that turbulence earlier. Even if the ship had been stopped during the evacuation, the launch of the pods themselves would have provided enough reverse thrust to start her moving again, however slowly.
You can't stop a starship without seriously trying at it. It took a delicate balance of thrust and reverse thrust, each cancelling the other out perfectly. Few people could manage it completely, which served as one reason why top helmsmen could pretty much demand their own billet. Captain would probably give me up before Travis. Archer was a pretty good pilot himself – okay, damn good – but he nonetheless acquiesced to Travis' skill in times of trouble. And even those two had trouble pulling off the perfect full stop.
{Um. That's not good, is it.} If Toby was sticking to short sentences about the obvious, then she was definitely feeling more than a little scared. And when you considered how little the dead had to fear…
"No it's not." A chill that had nothing to do with the dropping temperature rushed through him. DiLorenza stood absolutely still, her eyes closed, the clouds that now formed with each exhalation almost non-existent.
"Are you okay?" Stupid question, were any of them okay? What about this whole entire fucked up situation was okay?
She shook her head. Slowly her eyes opened and held – for the first time he'd ever seen – fear.
"All right. Well, we better get going, or we're going to be even less than okay within a couple of hours." At least when he and Malcolm had been trapped on Shuttlepod One there'd been some heat, even if it was near freezing. Zero Celsius is a hell of a lot warmer than absolute zero. Quickly he grabbed a jacket to put on over his T-shirt, and another one for DiLorenza. He could see her about to protest, and forestalled it by slipping the garment on her -- it nearly reached her knees -- feeling a little like a parent. "No arguments. You'll catch your death without it." He wasn't sure which was worse – heatstroke or hypothermia – but the cold was easier to stave off. And if she didn't like the prevention, she certainly wouldn't be happy with the cure. "If you start getting even the slightest bit sleepy, let me know. Okay?"
He waited until she nodded, making sure he had an answer. He felt safer for himself now; rest tended to solve most of his emotional breakdowns. You get upset, you can't sleep. You can't sleep, you get more upset. That was his typical cycle, right up until the point where his body gave out.
You are so lucky Archer likes you so much. Wasn't that the truth. Given all his problems, all the clashes he'd had with authorities over the years, there was no way he should be allowed on this crew at all, let alone as chief engineer. Sure, he was good at the job, but the number of… well… grey spots on his record could easily have held him back.
Still, Archer wasn't the only reason. No, Forrest had a bit to do with it too, didn't he? Hunting Trip down after that 'incident' with the NX prototype, for a conversation. A conversation that could have, should have ended with Trip being cashiered, but instead ended with a thank you.
"I've been worried about Archer," the Admiral had told him, warning Trip that if one word of the conversation were breathed to anyone else he would find himself on the wrong side of the brig, "He's a great pilot, but he's never unbent enough to make a good commanding officer. This little escapade of yours," -- Archer and Robinson had flown the ship, but only an engineer could have arranged the planning and execution -- "has given him a chance to do just that."
Trip had nodded; astounded that he wasn't buried deep, head downwards.
"But," Forrest continued, "If you ever pull a stunt like that again, you will be wishing that your parents had never met. Understood?"
All Trip had been able to do was nod, mutely. For the first time in his life, someone had left him completely and entirely speechless.
Okay, thanks for the memory session, now let's get a move on before we become one ourselves. Annoyingly, Inner-Charles had a point. Trip hated it when he did, because at those times he was generally, inarguably right. He finished collecting what he thought he'd need from bits and pieces lying around his quarters. Amazing what an engineer can accomplish on a budget. A bit of wire here, a spare battery here, and the ultimate secret weapons right here in my boots.
The climb to the bridge was easier, if only because of the shorter distance, and the lack of disturbance. He let DiLorenza take the lead again, and was hardly surprised that Toby decided not to accompany them. I guess being dead does have its advantages. Not ones he wanted to take up at this moment, but…
Don't even go there.
Fortunately, they reached the bridge doors before he had to answer himself. Because he knew he wouldn't like the truth, and would spot a lie before he could even come up with it.
"Stuck solid. Shit." And all his tools lay inaccessible on D-Deck. He supposed they could go back and use another turbolift, but that would mean lost time, time he wasn't sure they had any more. He could feel his fingers cramping from the cold, wished he'd thought to grab gloves while he'd been at it.
From where? Isn't stuff like that handled by the quartermaster? Jackets, yes he had, but gloves weren't generally required, tended to be classified as 'special stores'. He could guess why the doors were stuck, the same reason his skin was beginning to stick to the ladder: moisture from the air had condensed onto the mechanisms, and then froze there. And ice was a bitch to move once it had a good grip.
{Hang on. I've got an idea.}
"Oh, God." Those words were among the most frightening in the Trip Tucker lexicon. I've got an idea, from Toby Howard usually meant that something was going to go completely and disastrously wrong. I've got an idea, and Trip found himself waist deep in a swamp, staring at snakes. I've got an idea, and Trip found himself trying to explain to the biology teacher why there were no lab samples, while Toby disappeared out the classroom window. I've got an idea, and Trip found himself thankful for the strength of his shoelaces, because they were the only thing between him and a fall he'd rather not contemplate.
{Oh, ye of little faith.}
"Damn straight. I've seen the disaster your plans turn into." He saw DiLorenza turn away. Trying to smother a laugh?
{This one's really simple.}
Even worse. The problem was he couldn't see any other options. Closing his eyes, he got a good grip on the ladder and said the words he hated to hear from himself in these circumstances, and the ones he almost inevitably said. "Go for it." Maybe if he didn't ask what her plan was it wouldn't be so bad. At least he wouldn't be able to see it coming.
Popping and cracking sounded behind the wall, then he could hear the doors beginning to slide back. Holy shit, it worked. Then he caught the smell of smoke. "Well, mostly worked." He allowed himself a slightly opened eye, and saw that the space was just wide enough to fit through, if he didn't mind shedding the jacket and losing a bit of skin.
{Oh, come on. I got it wide enough for your fat head.}
He made a face but didn't say anything. Sometimes it felt good to regress to the level of ten-years-old. It took his mind of the deadliness of the situation, allowed him to function.
He tossed the jacket through first, knowing he'd need it on the other side. There were a couple of tricky moments removing it, but he finally succeeded with DiLorenza hanging onto one arm while he shook the other one free. I owe her big time for this. She seemed to have no problem with his fear, simply accepted it as a piece of him. More than most people would.
The bridge seemed eerie, deserted and dark as it was. Normally, even at high alert, there would be emergency systems functioning, but – as Trip finally realised – even they were computer controlled to an extent, it shouldn't be too hard to convince them that everything was fine, and there was no need for the back-ups to kick in. Another design flaw we didn't think of. Instead, the only light came from the lamps Trip and DiLorenza carried, and while the illumination provided had seemed more than adequate in the confined spaces of his quarters, hallway and lift-shaft, it was inequal to the task in this much larger area. Shadows moved as they did, creating the illusion that something lurked within the darkness.
Too many horror movies, not enough common sense. He was surprised that Inner-Charles hadn't already chided him on this point. But his inner cynic seemed to have withdrawn even deeper. Not a good sign. It usually meant that he'd missed something else, something his sub-conscious considered important and worth the time for contemplation. Let's just hope the answer shows up before I need it.
He pointed out a panel to DiLorenza and she nodded. They'd already gone over the procedure during the climb, another little trick he'd learned to distract himself. I just hope everything's not too badly damaged. Working as quickly as he could in the growing cold, he disconnected his own panel completely from the ship's systems, then removed the shielding. Now for the fun part. He picked up the boot he'd grabbed from his closet floor and placed it on top of the unshielded panel. He pressed the small switch on the heel, the one that activated the magnetic soles. Within seconds, the panel lost every piece of data that had ever been stored on it; this trick was more effective than any virus. Annihilation.
Such a simple solution, really, but there were times when Trip like simple. Simple things were the ones everybody tended to overlook, often on the basis that 'nobody does that anymore'. Well, somebody does.
Now, with a blank slate, he could set up the framework for a counter-infection. Attacking my own computer. He hadn't told DiLorenza the details of this part – he wasn't sure why, but wanted to keep as much of it as he could locked inside his own head for now.
Not paranoid at all, are we? Well, if someone else did have control of the systems like he suspected, then what was to stop them from listening in on any conversation Trip might have? No sense giving yourself away to a better-armed enemy.
{Can I help?}
Wordlessly, Trip held up a datapad, let Toby read it.
{Gotcha. Sounds like something I shouldn't have any problems with, but are you sure you want me to do that, I mean that'll take a ton of work to fix when I'm through…}
He scribbled a note on the datapad, held it up for her to see: 'YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER MADE IT IN STARFLEET, CHATTERBOX'.
She stuck her tongue out at him and disappeared. Now that was an ally they couldn't have accounted for, whoever these guys were. Hell, when she was alive she couldn't be predicted. Now… well she should certainly be capable of throwing a few wrenches into the mechanisms. And even if they knew she existed (and what were the chances of that?) he'd taken care to make it tough for them to guess what he was up to. He smiled a little, thinking of the last two words on his list.
HAVE FUN.
So long as she stopped short of shutting down the containment field…No. These bastards want, NEED my ship. Otherwise they would have destroyed her a long time ago. They were waiting, for something, the question was, what?
You can figure that out later. Right now, he needed to begin the re-programming process. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he extracted a wafer thin piece of silicon. Embedded in the strip was a ring of tiny chips, each one barely visible to the naked eye. Removing a similar strip from the board, he inserted his own. Now to make things interesting.
Carefully he connected the spare lamp battery he'd brought to the panel's power system, using the wiring from his desktop console. Gonna be one hell of a requisition order when I'm through.
The panel lay stubbornly dead for what seemed like an eternity, then lit up. The display colour shifted from the standard blue on blue to…
Hot pink, and candyfloss? Ouch. It hurt his eyes just looking at it. On the other hand, this represented his last best chance of getting his baby back. No one steals my girl, and gets away with it. On this point, Trip Tucker was prepared to fight very dirty indeed.
"Please enter the code for your emergency." The voice that emerged from the speakers carried more than a hint of malevolent lisp. "If this is not an emergency, you may wish that it was. You are about to loose the ultimate evil on your pathetic little universe. Are you certain you wish to travel this route? Y/N."
Y.
"Then enter the code, sweetheart. We're waiting… we're always waiting."
Code. What had she said the code was again? You expect me to remember a code after two years? Unfortunately, part of the deal was that he never write it down, never store it in any database, simply commit it to memory.
This is Gina. Trick question. What was it she said once? About conspiracy theorists assuming that a hidden code lurked within certain books?
"Of course there's a code. Problem is the silly bastards can't recognise it because it's right there in front of them." Written language, a code for the spoken, which in turn was a code for thought. Could it be that simple?
Only for you. Well, thank heavens for some small graces. At least he was still sane enough to be hearing voices. Geen knew all about simple. She knew you.
"Okay, so what's the damn code then?" He didn't really care if anyone heard that part, they'd probably still figure he was working with one of the programs installed on the system.
1-101. Trip's fingers moved almost of their own accord to enter the code. He almost groaned when he realised what it was. 1-5. 1 MAY. MAYDAY. Originally from the French, but anglicized for so long that most people wouldn't know the difference. Not only that… but 101 just happened to be a first level, often the first course taken in a subject.
"Do you want us to search and destroy, or invoke special measures? Special measures are always fun. We like special measures. Special Measures, Y/N."
God and Gina only knew what special measures comprised. He reached to press N, and connected with Y instead. Oh, shit.
"Excellent. We are liking this. Please remember us when you need us to stop, only by naming us can you stop us. Please connect us to system now."
He took a deep breath, then activated the connection. A high pitched scream now came out of the speakers, multi-tonal as though a billion strong army had let loose with a battle cry. He winced as it pierced his ears, Thank god T'Pol's not here, she'd kill me, then watched as the panel died. With a single final message: BYE, BYE 'LEVIN.
I was on good terms with her when I left, right?
"I can't believe I'm doing this." Back inside the turbolift shaft, this time heading down. He'd spent so much time on ladders in the past twenty-four hours that he was beginning to forget that there was a lift system at all. "Good thing I'm not claustrophobic, like Hoshi." Claustrophobic and acrophobic; that would be a very bad combination for these circumstances all right.
"So, Crewman, tell me about yourself." Silence came back from beneath him. "Just trying to keep my mind occupied, here, that's all. Can I call you Kaci? It's quicker than DiLorenza, at least." Not to mention a lot less formal, and he figured he was well passed the formal stage. Hell, you've already had her in your bed.
"If you wish, sir." Not exactly the answer he'd been hoping for, but close enough.
"Look, as long as this is going on, I think it's Trip. Near as I can tell I just handed over my ship to… someone I hope I can trust, but I don't think I'm in charge. And you've been more useful in the current situation than I have, so if anybody should be considered in command…"
"You can't help your fear, sir."
"Trip." They'd reached B-Deck and climbed aboard; he said it more firmly, and grasped her arm to emphasise the point. "I'm not in uniform, and I'm pretty damn sure I went off duty a long time ago. And to be honest, I'm running out of ideas here, and could use your input. I'd rather we went at this on equal footing." Letting her go, he cracked a knuckle, nervously. "I'm not so sure I'm entirely cut out for the officer business anyway. I only took it because it meant I could play with bigger toys. So…" The truth was, he was scared and tired, and needed a real live friend. "I'm asking. As a favour, one human being to another, okay?"
She nodded. Okay. She looked uncertain though, as if she were entering alien territory without a Universal Translator.
"Look, if that's going to be a problem, then go with 'Levin. It's another moniker I picked up along the way, only one -- well, I guess maybe two now -- other people have ever used it." He didn't bother to explain where it came from. If she wanted to know, she could ask.
She nodded again, this time a little more surely. Maybe just because she got an answer to a question that had to have been nagging her since the bridge, but at least it was something.
"Just don't ever call me that in front of anybody else, okay?" It was a side of him he didn't give to anybody; one he hadn't known (until it was named) that he had. "Ever? Not only will it confuse the hell out of them, but it's a secret, anyway." It felt strange divulging that identity – even Archer didn't know that nickname. Then again, it was hard enough explaining Trip. Some things you didn't even try. That's what you get, living with tech-heads and artists…
He saw her frown for a moment, concentrating. Then she looked up and nodded again.
Did she figure it out? He wouldn't classify much as being beyond her abilities now, maybe she had. Good on her if she did, it had taken him almost four months.
"Bye, bye?"
He smiled, relieved. At least she was still talking. "I only hope that it's simply 'for now'. Otherwise we may wish we had stuck with the disease." He shifted his shoulders; the weight in his pockets was – now – even more considerable.
"So, I'm sure you've heard a lot about me… so tell me a bit about yourself. Where are you from? Why'd you join Starfleet? Got any family back home?" He figured that if someone was watching, silence would make them suspicious. Idle conversation might do the same thing, but it would reinforce the scatterbrain image he was trying to project.
Image? What the hell you talking about image? According to Inner-Charles Trip was normally an overly impulsive fool anyway. Not to mention naïve, trusting, and slow to catch on. Thoughts shared, actually, by Gina. Another one of her reasons for refusing to use his nickname.
"I joined Starfleet because I had nowhere else. To my family I do not exist."
He nearly tripped over his feet when she said that, so simply, blandly. "They what?" Okay, he thought he'd had it bad, until he met Malcolm whose parents occasionally forgot about him. But they still acknowledged a son when reminded of the fact. "Not exist?"
She didn't sigh, as he would have, merely explained, matter-of-factly. "I am assuming you have heard of the term 'Luddite?'"
He nodded. Anti-techs, okay.
"And of apocalyptic beliefs?"
Oh. There were occasional news reports of post-war cults who felt that mankind's increasing dependence on technology had led to the war in the first place. As long as they kept to themselves and remained non-violent, the authorities weren't inclined to do much about them. "So your family didn't take too well to your becoming an engineer, I guess."
She shook her head. "They believe in the movement. Until I was seventeen the only major technology I was exposed to was when the government agents or the news organisations came to check up on us, or do profiles. We didn't even have electricity. I chose a different path, one they could not accept, but one I wished to follow. So, I am no longer."
Why did he always find himself surrounded by people who made him feel inadequate? No tech exposure until seventeen? An education that probably de-emphasised the skills she'd need to pursue this kind of a career? What kind of genius level was that? As for her family problems… "To think I though I had it bad when I was kid. Boy, was I kidding myself."
{Hormones.} Toby popped up beside him, grinning.
"Chemical imbalance." Kaci said it at almost exactly the same time.
"Are you two going to gang up on me now?" That was the other person Kaci reminded him of: himself before he'd met Toby. Shy, withdrawn, a nice kid, but not much into the world around him. "And anyway, how do you know what I'm talking about?"
{She's worked with you, moron. You know, I feel sorry for her, having to do that. I mean you want to talk about doing hard time, which incidentally, now that it's come up is something…}
He extended his middle finger, smiling.
{Oh yeah, sure. Y'know 15'll still getcha 20, and we never had that kind of a relationship anyway. I mean the very thought of it makes me want to puke, if I could puke, what with being dead and all, I think that's considered even worse than 15, come to think of it…}
He changed his gesture: outstretched hands ready to throttle her.
She laughed and skipped away. {Like I said, already dead.} She faded, then vanished entirely.
"Sorry about that." Now that he had Kaci talking, he wanted to keep it that way. However, whenever Toby showed up, serious conversation proved difficult. "Does it bother you, what your family did to you?" He couldn't imagine a life without family. Sure, they were a pain in the ass at times, and he'd had days where he'd even said he wished they didn't exist, but he'd never actually meant it. It was more like Toby said: teenage life. Hormones and rebellion and all that shit. He'd had his trouble, but it could have been worse. Good or bad, they're still my family.
"It was their choice. I made mine, knowing what the consequences would be, and they made theirs according to the dictates of their own consciences, the same as I did." Again, so calmly, as though it didn't matter.
"But don't you ever wish it could be different? They're your family. They raised you, they were there for you growing up, weren't they?"
"Yes, they were. However, you can't change what is done."
"I think our guests would beg to differ." He said it quietly, a little bitterly. One of the things that annoyed him about the whole 'Temporal Cold War' concept was that people looking at the past thought that they could make better decisions than the people that were there.
Twenty-twenty hindsight, bullshit. Twenty-twenty only means normal and that's not the greatest measure in the universe. You can't see the whole picture if all you've got is a history book. History had been another one of his weak spots at school, if only because he didn't always take the standard viewpoint. History classes only taught one side of the issue, the one the teachers thought you should believe. But it's always more complicated than that. Every action, good or bad had its mitigating features. Few people were fully good or fully evil, and there were secrets, always secrets. It was a question he wanted to ask Daniels, had wanted ask since he'd first revealed his little secret. "How do you identify the pivot points in history?" followed by "How can you tell the past is changed if it changes? How would you know -- if that change would end up changing the future? Which future is the right future? How do you know this?" Questions that probably formed the answer as to why he never got picked to do the time-travel stuff.
Maybe you're not that important. A sobering thought, but one that made sense. After all, didn't Daniels say that Captain Archer was the important one? The obvious meaning to that was that Trip Tucker was just along for the ride. A bystander in history, just lucky to be here. Which, come to think of it, put him in good company with just about everyone else in the universe. Replaceable parts. A good invention, but kind of depressing to be one.
{Horseshoe nails, Trip.}
How did she, why did she do that? Appearing out of nowhere with an apparent non-sequiteur that when you got time to think about it actually did apply to the situation. She would never muck with history, because – according to the Toby Howard Horseshoe Nail Theory of the Universe – you could never tell which small detail was actually the important one that if you missed it could change everything. Like dropping a single digit in a line of code, buried deep within hundreds of other lines, in a seemingly innocuous place, but which altered the entire outcome of the program.
Kaci simply looked at him and shrugged, he could tell she didn't care what someone from the future might think about the matter. She – he gathered – was more fatalist than he. "What happens, happens." he'd once heard it described as, and couldn't disagree with it more, or so he'd thought at the time. Now…
Could you really have chosen to end up in a situation like this? No, but he could chose what to do with it.
And who's really making the choice? Would a different Charles Tucker go about it differently?
"Possibly." At least Kaci wasn't unnerved about him talking to himself, even if she knew Toby wasn't around. "I guess I'll never know, will I."
They reached the second turbolift shaft, pulled open the doors. "Shit." He stared down at the lift, trapped partway between B and C Decks. Until they fixed things, that lift wasn't moving, and they couldn't get down to engineering through the first shaft.
Kaci looked at the lift, then back at him. We could always go through it.
"Uh-uh." He replied to her unspoken comment. "Climbing on top of the lift you've got something underneath your feet. Climbing out the bottom…" He didn't finish the statement, just shook his head emphatically.
Kaci shook her head back at him, then began climbing down to the top of the lift.
She's insane. Unfortunately upbringing and Starfleet instilled responsibility wouldn't let him stay behind. You were saying about choices?
The roof panel proved easier to pull from the top than it had been from underneath. Setting it to the side, Trip shone his lamp down into the darkness of the lift compartment itself. Someone lay on the floor, unconscious.
"Oh, migod." He leapt down, not concerned at all about the distance, his whole attention focused on the outstretched figure before him. Carefully Trip rolled the victim onto his back, making sure that skin hadn't stuck to metal. Only when he could fully see who it was did his heart begin to race. "Captain." Archer's eyes stayed closed, his flesh was too cold, but he breathed. Barely, but he breathed.
"I need your help!" Without waiting for an answer he began to strip down, get Archer's clothes off as well. Keeping the victim warm is paramount. Often, shared body heat is the most effective method available… While the clothing would help keep him warm, it would also keep the heat away from the one who needed it most.
Kaci scrambled down, took in the situation and followed Trip's suit. If Archer's consciousness had only slipped away recently, they might stand a chance. She laid some of the discarded clothing out as a insulating layer, then helped Trip use the remainder to cover the three of them, Archer in the middle.
Please don't get the wrong impression when you wake up, sir. Trip prayed that they were in time, that his captain, his friend was going to make it, would be okay. "You better be okay." He said aloud, " 'Cause I don't think I can handle this ship of yours without you." He wished they had power, had access to sickbay. And that he knew how to work the equipment there while he was at it. As it was, all he had was a maintenance tech, a dead girl, and an argumentative brain. A miracle would be nice.
[1] For those wondering, the movie is Event Horizon. Don't think of it as a sci-fi flick, think of it as a haunted house movie in space. Trust me, in that context it works.