Chapter Two

Mission

Trip stared at the sight, unable to think. He had not realized when the point had come when horror gave way to numbness, to a point where he was so completely overwhelmed that his mind stopped taking it in. He saw it, heard it, felt it and could not accept it for the truth it was. He looked at Daniels standing silently before him, waiting.

"I'll never live to see this day." He said hollowly, unable to even consider the rationality of the words, but Daniels nodded.

"Actually, you're right."

He touched an almost invisibly small control in his hand, and before them the planetary scene started to reverse quickly, T'Pol undying and putting up a brave fight, Hoshi and Travis unriddled with bullets on the hill, Malcolm unexploding; the images coming so fast it was only because Trip would never be able to expunge them from his memory that he could resolve them now as they flashed backward. Tia came back to life again, now only covered in a spray of red blood, unfiring several shots including one on the hill high above before ducking behind the wall. The scene continued through dozens of bright searing flashes, and several brief glimpses of Tia again rising just high enough to point her pistol and fire over and over before the glaring lights stopped their mad strobing and the perspective changed slightly, this time as if Trip stood on the wall looking down into the 'safe' passage.

This time, when sight and sound resumed their normal passage, he saw himself with Tia. He was kneeling, working frantically on a silver cylindrical device about 30 centimeters tall, set upon a silver base studded with controls. There was a roar of an explosion and flash of blinding light. "Almost got it, honey."

Tia popped her head up enough to take a few fast shots, and then ducked back in time to avoid answering fire. "Keep your head down." He ordered her.

"Is all right am I." Tia assured him, brushing her now short hair from her eyes. "Is I am to this 'old hat'." He looked over his shoulder at her.

"Good to know I've an experienced 'Resistance Fighter' at my back." He grinned. "Now aren't you glad you came out of the closet?"

She shook her head, popping up briefly to take another fast pair of shots. "Know what you say not, but rather would I under the bed be!"

"Almost there, honey. Ring up the others, tell them its time to blow this popsicle stand." She looked back at him, mystified, but he grinned at her again. "Just do it, they'll know." He turned back to the silver device, and an instant later there was a loud crack high up above them and a hole appeared in the back of Trip's head.

Tia froze in horror as she was sprayed with a wash of red blood and Trip Tucker collapsed over the device he'd been working on.

She stared at his motionless body, unable to believe what she saw, nor the feel of warm red blood the covered her. Flashes of glaring light strobbed about her, but she saw none of it. She shrieked his name, a soul rending cry of agony. He did not move.

She felt the phase pistol still in her hand now covered with warm red blood, and something in her gave way. She pressed the power control on the device, trying to ignore the blood dripping from it, turned the control to maximum and stood up, aiming at the point high above. The beam leapt from the pistol and everything stopped.

Trip Tucker stared at the image of his beloved, trying to ignore that of his own dead body, but what he saw in her eyes was worse. "Turn it off, Daniels." The image remained. He whirled around, furiously. "I said 'turn it off'."

A moment later, only the featureless blue that he saw when he arrived was left. Even the multitude of … screens(?) … was off. Only the two men remained.

"What was that?" Trip asked when he was sure he could keep his voice steady. "Where? When?"

"We're not sure."

"What?" He'd meant to yell, but could only whisper it instead.

"History, true history, does not record the deaths of the Enterprise crew or the destruction of the ship. It doesn't even record the war you seem to have found yourselves in the middle of."

"What does it record?"

"This."

And he was back in the Mess Hall.

---

"Yes, Commander?" Elizabeth Cutler asked from her seat at the table before him. Both she and Hoshi Sato were looking up at him, curious. He'd just come up to their table, eyes closed in a personal 'experiment' a moment before. He looked at them, disoriented, shaken, feeling a fine trembling as he 'recovered' from watching the deaths of his friends, his mind still in a chaotic jumble through which he could sort only one thing. They were alone, and he realized they should not have been. "Where's Tia?" He was not surprised at how much his voice shook.

Liz and Hoshi exchanged looks, and each smiled. When she looked up at Trip, Liz was still smiling, a teasing expression on her face. "That's a surprise, Commander."

Trip felt as if he was watching himself do the unthinkable. He would never have believed that an instant later he was bent over the table, his hard tightly gripping Liz's shoulder. "Where's TIA?"

Astounded, Liz tried to back away as all motion in the room came to a halt at Trip's impassioned demand. She couldn't pull away from the grip which clamped on her shoulder. "S-she's at the b-beauty parlor!"

"Beauty parlor? We don't have a beauty parlor!"

"Is there a problem here, Trip?" Archer was suddenly at his side, his firm voice almost cutting through. Almost.

"D-D-Dina Samuels, remember? You guys call her the 'barber'; to us she's the 'beautician'. She -." She was talking to air. Trip had actually pushed Archer aside as he charged for the door.

The two Ensigns stared up at their Captain, none sure who was the more astounded.

xx

Trip Tucker dashed at breakneck speed down the corridors, ducking and weaving around crewmen who barely evaded him in time. Now that he knew where he was going, he knew he had to get there fast. Unfortunately, while it was on the same deck, it was all the way around the other side of the huge saucer, and he had to get there fast. He took the first right and charged across the diameter of the saucer.

Suddenly, a yell went up from behind him: "Alley Aye!" It was repeated in front of him as well and carried by crewmen in all directions and corridors; and the corridor in front of him, all corridors in fact, magically cleared, everyone pressing back against the bulkheads. It was then that he learned this below-decks codeword, which meant: 'If you see the Chief Engineer running, get the bleep out of his way!'

He cut right at the appropriate concentric corridor, charging back toward the rear of the ship.

It had been true, what he'd said to Liz Cutler. Enterprise did not sport a 'barber shop' or 'beauty parlor'; but Ensign Dina Samuels from Life Sciences had some skills and practice, and a small room in which to work by appointment. Left to their own devices, the planners who designed the Enterprise had, fortunately, provided for rest room facilities other than in private quarters, but had done little on an extended voyage to keep half the crew from winding up like scruffy 'beatnicks' while the other half…

Fortunately, Dina had stepped in to volunteer to fill a rather significant and unfortunate gap, and the small room set aside for that purpose was just forty meters away; twenty; five – the door opened too slowly; he shoved it aside.

Tia was seated in the room's only chair facing a large mirror, a pale blue cloth draped over her, her golden hair behind her long enough to reach past the seat. Ensign Samuels stood behind her, raising a pair of sheers. "Stop!" Tucker strode in on the startled women and grabbed Tia's shoulders, literally dragging the astonished girl out of the seat as Samuels jumped back, shocked. "Don't you do it." He demanded, gripping her shoulders so tightly it hurt as he almost picked her up off the floor. "Don't you ever get your hair cut."

"Daai! Nyasi! Cuura li kir!" ('Yes. Not. Promise I do.') She exclaimed, her voice trembling with fright. It was that flood of terror that stopped him.

Suddenly, as if a switch were thrown, he could see again, but what he saw filled him with shame. Tia was staring at him, eyes wide in mortal dread, while Samuels was still holding the sharp sheers, but this time held closed in a tight grip and ready for use if this maniac hurt the smaller girl. Ranks be damned; she'd stop the Commander and let Security sort it out later. "Qualsia. Quilwaz ri nyas!" ('Please. Hurt me not!) Tia begged in a small voice, unable to understand what had happened to turn her gentle lover into… "Qualsia, cuura li kir!" Her words, even in Auran, broke through on her pleading tone. (Please, promise I do.')

Trip eased his grip on her, letting Tia down to the floor as she continued promising, and he pulled the astonished girl into his arms. "Oh, Tia, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." She didn't know whether to pull away or not, but was afraid to try, standing very, very still in his arms. She could not conceive of fighting him, any more than she could ever have conceived before this moment of his manhandling her.

He looked past her to Samuels. "Don't worry, I'm not a maniac." She didn't look too convinced.

He let go of Tia, letting her back away. "I swear, I'm not crazy. I know I came on like a madman, but I'm not. I really do have a very good explanation for this."

"Good," came an annoyed voice from the open door. They all looked back to see Jonathan Archer framed in the doorway, "because I want to hear it."

---

Archer stared at his friend from his place by the mirror in the small room as the man's narrative wound to a close. The problem was that he believed every word of it. "I'm sorry I went off the deep end like that."

"I can understand, Trip, seeing all that happen and knowing there's a better than even chance of it coming true. Besides, I'm not the one you have to apologize to." He said pointedly, looking at the women.

"I am sorry." He assured them, looking more to Tia.

"Yes, well," Dina said, "I'm sorry I thought about poking your eye out." She looked at the sheers she'd forgotten she was still holding. "That's a hell of a thing. I guess I should thank you for saving my life as well. Whoever thought that getting a haircut or not would mean anything like this?" She looked at the two men, who each shook his head. "I knew it. Damnation!"

"That's just one insignificant aspect."

"I know, but you'll excuse me please if I get really pissed off for a minute or so? Last time there was a temporal incursion I got stabbed to death, and the next time I get blown to hell? What happens next?"

"You get pregnant." Trip told her with a deadpan expression.

"WHAT?" He waved her off.

"I'm just kidding; you haven't even gotten blown up yet."

"Great!" She slapped the sheers down on the table with a ringing report. "Just farging great!"

"Ensign." Archer said warningly, but she turned on Trip.

"How can you sit there and make jokes?"

"It's called 'gallows humor', Dina. I just watched 6 people I care more than anything about get murdered, 7 if you count me, and everyone else get blown to bits. It's for when the alternative is to go nuts."

"I think I've already gone nuts – and I'm not all that sure about you!"

"Ensign." There was far more ominous warning in Archer's tone this time.

"I'm sorry, sir, but doesn't it just piss you off? These … people … they have no concern for us. They're just playing their little chess game, they don't give a farg about us. They kill us, they bring us back, they kill us again, they bring us back, only to figure out how to kill us again! They don't care; they've never cared. They just want to win, but there is no farging winner, just us, the farging losers! And –."

"Are you through, Ensign?" She stopped, winding down, breathless. After a couple of deep breaths, she admitted,

"Yes, sir. I guess I am through." Her tone carried all her meanings, but he shook his head.

"No, Miss Samuels, you're just saying what the entire crew would say if they could."

"If they got pissed off enough, you mean."

"That too, I suppose. Miss Sam – Dina, I know how you feel, more than you expect. As Captain I would very much like to see this over, as Captain I should be in a position to do something about it for my crew, and as Captain I have to live with the fact that we don't have it in us to do a blessed thing about it. We're caught in something bigger than we are, bigger than we ever thought we could be in when we signed on for this mission. I know nerves are shot … and if it's what you want I'll approve a transfer, but –." He watched the woman's eyes grow harder than diamonds as she stepped up to him, and while her voice was very quiet it could have cut those diamonds.

"No, Sir. I am not a runner! I'll stand up to them; I'll kick them in the balls if I get the chance. But I do … not … run!"

"In that case, I'm glad you're with us. And if I can arrange it I'll see you get that chance."

"Thank you, Sir!"