Part 2 - Slow Fade
"If sanity is not good enough, what is there that is saner than sanity?"
-G.K. Chesterton (Eugenics & Other Evils)
For the first time in days, the sound of the warp engine eased. Trip had spent most of those days listening anxiously for the slightest bad element in that sound. They had gone on a long, fast run, which was concerning enough under the best of circumstances. Malcolm's persistent and trivial fiddling had made things much worse. The power fluctuations remained small, barely a blip, but they didn't go away, and this was no time to be fooling around with stuff like that. One miscalculation and you had a cascade of hiccups that might go straight to the engine and blow them all to Kingdom Come.
Admittedly, this was a small possibility, but Malcolm the eternal pessimist ought to have been taking it seriously. Instead, he'd kept on, just doing what he was doing, as though he and Trip hadn't had several conversations about it. Malcolm kept playing his passive avoidance of the issue game, never outright refusing to give up his little Armory experiment. He'd say they were working on it, or nearing a solution or any one of a dozen identical excuses. If Trip really cornered him, Malcolm would play the same card he did the first time, reminding Trip of his rank and all but daring him to pull it.
Trip had given some serious consideration to doing just that. The one thing that stopped him was the worry that he'd create a rift between Engineering and the Armory, which had always worked closely together. So closely that some of Trip's engineers doubled as Malcolm's security officers when the need arose. Ultimately, the entire ship was one great beast, whose every operation affected every other operation. But none were more similar or closely linked beneath the surface than the Armory and Engineering. Whatever affected one almost invariably affected the other. And that was never more true than with the personnel. Pulling rank on Malcolm under the circumstances would create bad feeling.
Actually, Trip had put that out of mind a couple of times and been about ready to go to war over it, only to be talked down by Captain Archer. But he was about out of patience, and he could tell the Captain was too. More importantly, the feeling in the Armory seemed to be shifting in Trip's favor. The crewmen in there all knew as well as Trip did that Malcolm had an agenda that differed from their own. His priorities were mixed, and his attitude sucked, and they were about done putting up with it too.
Patting the housing for the warp reactor, Trip called to his team, "That's it, we're here."
They all knew that, of course. They'd been counting the distance, the minutes, the seconds, ever since the Captain had marked this course. They'd been monitoring panels and systems, all of which told them how long they'd been traveling, how far and how fast without their ever needing to see a star chart. They even had a pretty good idea of what kind of space debris they'd passed through or come near. Engineers spoke a different language, the language of the ship herself, and she told them where they were and where they'd been, if not also where they were going; all without them having to check in with the Bridge (though that happened frequently enough).
But knowing they'd arrived and hearing it from their commander were too different things. There arose a celebratory cheer. It was just a short one; they hadn't done the impossible or anything. But when you'd spent so much time being tense, worrying about the thousand and one things that could go wrong, fixing little errors with flying hands, praying none of those tiny corrections would cause any problems of their own… just having arrived was enough of a thing to cheer about. Especially when you were on the first warp five vessel and had used as much speed as could be safely managed to get there.
"Shift change in five," called a crewman somewhere in the back.
Trip checked the time, even though he knew the kid was right. Captain Archer wasn't going to be happy about this little detail. They'd arrived as swiftly as they could, but they'd arrived just in time for the night shift to get started. Everyone was tired, including Captain Archer. They wanted to go off shift, get their dinner and turn in for the night. Which meant another few hours before they'd be able to get down to that planet and make contact with its residents. Another few hours before they could begin the real work of getting more of the spice on board.
Captain Archer was not known for his patience. But T'Pol would doubtless insist, and Malcolm would back her on it, albeit for his own reasons. The two of them were always allied when it came to slowness and caution and doing things by the book. What they hadn't seemed to realize was that, in a lot of areas, the book hadn't been written yet. Enterprise and her crew were busy outlining the first draft.
Undoubtedly, however, that tag team upstairs would win out one way or another, which meant that dinner would be served as usual. Captain Archer was more of a stickler for breakfast with his first and second officer, but at least once a week they had dinner with him as well. And this was the usual day for it. Trip didn't mind that. Chef always had something special in mind for the Captain's Mess, and that was usually better than the buffet fair. The last bit of spice that Chef had almost certainly been squirreling away would probably go into it, which meant Trip almost didn't care what it was.
The Dolizet homeworld looked deceptively ordinary. Smaller oceans than usual, perhaps. A few more major rivers. Slightly more land masses than Jonathan was used to seeing. But it pretty much looked like a fair, green Minshara-class planet. One they'd just come up on the daylight side of. Travis always aimed for the day side of planets, even though Star Fleet didn't have an official protocol on the matter. Like Jonathan, Travis wanted to see the features of the planet, not just scan them.
"Not much to look at, is there?" Malcolm asked, as if he were trying to ruin the moment.
There was plenty to see, even from here. The contours of the land, the mountain ranges, the probable jungles, the winding rivers… but… Malcolm did have a point. Not a lot in the way of architecture. Nothing like satellites orbiting the planet. Like the lights were on, but nobody was home.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" Jonathan asked, turning to T'Pol.
T'Pol checked her panels and then gradually looked up to meet his gaze as she spoke, "Scans indicate technological achievement comparable to that which is found aboard Enterprise."
"Confirmed," Malcolm reported from his station, sounding surprised, "Energy readings indicate artificial power sources similar to those found on Earth," he looked up, anticipating when Jonathan would turn in his direction, "They're there, Captain. We're just not seeing them."
Jonathan turned back to the view screen, fascinated. A warp capable culture that you couldn't even catch a glimpse of from space? Even under other circumstances that begged to be investigated. At present, given the unmet needs aboard, it demanded to be.
"Could they all be on the other side of the planet?" Travis dared wonder aloud.
"Negative," T'Pol replied, "All major land masses are significantly populated," she paused, but in that way which indicated she wasn't done, "Captain, it might be wise to establish orbit on the other side of the planet."
"Why? You just said this side was inhabited," Jonathan pointed out.
"Our shift has just ended. The night shift crew will be arriving momentarily," T'Pol said, "So unless you would prefer for them to make First Contact with this culture, I suggest we align with the night side of the planet and wait until morning to make our presence known."
"Agreed," Malcolm chimed in cautiously, "It would give us more time to run scans, and be sure of exactly what kind of people we should expect to find down there."
"If they're as advanced as you said they were," Jonathan said, directing the remark to Malcolm rather than T'Pol, "They've probably already noticed we're here. If we keep lurking around up here, they might mistake our intentions as hostile."
Hoshi offered a solution, "I could transmit a standby greeting. Assuming they can translate it, it would tell them that we have friendly intentions but aren't quite ready for direct conversation yet."
"Would that work?" Jonathan asked.
"Many species do not wish to speak face to face at once upon meeting," T'Pol supplied, "And it is not unheard of for a ship's malfunction to make an automated message transmission necessary while system repairs are being conducted. If the Dolizet are accustomed to meeting other species, they should accept the message at face value."
Jonathan didn't like the idea of waiting. And he especially didn't trust Malcolm's motivations here. But he knew he wasn't at his best after a long day of sitting around, effectively doing nothing but signing off on reports. And T'Pol seemed to agree with Malcolm for the first time in almost a week. And, well… quite frankly it was almost dinnertime, and he was hungry.
"Alright," Jonathan sighed, "Mr. Mayweather, take us to the other side and put us in orbit above a nice mainland. Hoshi, set up a recorded message. Make sure we sound extra friendly. I don't want to offend these people before I've even met them."
There were 'aye sir' responses all around, but Jonathan found himself looking particularly at Malcolm, who of course had no reason to say anything at all. Malcolm was looking at his instruments, setting up the scans he'd want the guy on night-shift to run. It occurred to Jonathan that Malcolm hadn't looked directly at the view screen once since the planet first came into view.
Almost like he didn't want it to be there, and if he didn't look at it, it wouldn't be real. But it was real, and there was nothing Malcolm could do about it.
"You know, I never was fond of grits," Captain Archer admitted, "But the spice really makes it for me."
Trip nodded, working on a mouthful and thus unable to politely offer a reply. Chef had been working on trying to make acceptable grits for about a year now, using Trip and some other southern crewmen as guinea pigs while he tried to get it right. You could say what you liked about how united Earth was these days, but southern cooking still prevailed, and Chef had taken it as a challenge to master.
With reluctant, unadmitted curiosity (it was a human trait after all), T'Pol had consented to at least try the grits; which Trip considered a major step for Vulcan kind. T'Pol wasn't fond of human food, and tended to stick to Chef's best approximation of Vulcan dishes wherever possible. According to Chef, Vulcan food was easier than southern cuisine. Trip couldn't see how southern cooking was anything but natural, though he was obviously a little bit biased on the matter… especially considering it was all he knew how to cook.
"You're sure you can't delay the work on the phase cannons?" Archer asked, changing the subject.
Trip shook his head vehemently, "Cap'n, Malcolm's already been delayin' it for weeks, and the problem's gettin' worse. When we're runnin' at warp, I've got my hands full in the engine room. Now we're stopped here, it's time I got to work on fixin' the problem."
"The problem," T'Pol supplied neutrally, "Would appear to be Lt. Reed. At least according to your description."
"That's a different problem," Trip told her, "But damn if he ain't the source of a lot of trouble lately."
"And you want me to leave him in charge of Enterprise," Archer said.
"No, not really. But I don't see a way around it, 'less you wanna leave T'Pol up here," Trip replied, "Sir, those cannons have got to be fixed, before they start doin' damage to related systems. If that means leavin' the Bridge to Malcolm for a couple of hours, so be it. What harm can he do up there anyhow? He's just keepin' the chair warm for ya, and anyway it'll keep him outta my hair."
"I need T'Pol down on the planet with me. She's got more important things to do than moderate your dispute with Malcolm," Archer insisted, raising a hand against Trip's objection, "Just try to play nice for a change. Malcolm may be a little irritating at times, but he means well."
Well that used to be true, but Trip was no longer convinced of it. And Captain Archer didn't really sound like it either. In fact, he sounded rather like he was telling himself more than Trip.
As for Trip, he was getting a little tired of hearing the pacifying words and then turning around and finding Malcolm in his way again. Besides, he knew perfectly well that Captain Archer had laid into the tactical officer a time or two, and it didn't seem to be doing much good. That wasn't the sort of thing you could keep quiet for long, or that you should put up with. If the Captain's wrath wasn't enough to get your attention and make you shape up right quick, then you didn't have much business being around.
Malcolm might be a technically fine tactical officer, but he'd been growing ornery lately, and disrespectful while he was at it. The best tactician in the world was no good if he couldn't follow instruction and help work for the common good.
"You know what they say about good intentions..." Trip grumbled.
"I know, Trip," Archer said, "But we don't seem to have much choice, do we?"
"No sir, I don't suppose we do."
Jonathan tried to put Malcolm out of mind, but it wasn't as easy as all that.
Malcolm had been quiet since he'd been chewed out, and to all appearances seemed to be accepting the mission and willing to continue doing his job. But Malcolm really wasn't with the rest of them on it, Jonathan could feel it. He didn't believe in the mission, and so couldn't really be trusted.
But, at the same time, Jonathan was forced to do just that. Obviously Jonathan himself would be making First Contact, and he needed T'Pol along due to the specifically scientific purpose behind their visit. Meanwhile, Trip said there was a long overdue problem in Engineering and the Armory (something about phase cannon power relays that Malcolm should have fixed a week ago or something; Jonathan hadn't really been paying attention) that he needed to fix while they were stopped here, and that left Malcolm in charge of Enterprise while the landing party was down on the planet.
Jonathan didn't like his options. He'd tried talking Trip into delaying the work on the phase cannons, but that had pretty much sent the chief engineer into a frothing rage about how it had already been delayed and delayed and delayed by Malcolm and it was about damn time somebody did something about it. And Jonathan wasn't about to put off his own visit to the spice planet, it was far too important.
Other than by pulling Malcolm off his shift for no real reason, there wasn't any way around leaving him in charge of Enterprise. But Jonathan did leave Trip with the admonishment to take over just as soon as he got the phase cannons back in order. He wished that put his mind at ease, but it didn't.