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Chapter Six

Two months later

"Strutt, I take it you have realigned the targeting sensors?"

The young man, who was just digging into what looked like his first morsel of chicken marsala, straightened his shoulders, and gave his SIC a groan accompanied by a couple of deep nods.

"Good," Malcolm said.

Strutt had come out of his coma, but the brain haemorrhage he had suffered had left some aftereffects. Talking still proved difficult, though the young man at least had recovered all his other functions. Phlox was helping him out with speech therapy, and he had been granted a return to light duty.

"Aren't ya a bit rough with the guy?" Trip asked, as they headed with their laden trays to a free table.

"On the contrary," Malcolm replied testily, as he put his tray down and slid into a chair, "I'm trying to make him feel normal. If I treated him with kid's gloves it would certainly be worse."

"Huh," Trip muttered unconvincingly, "If you say so…"

Malcolm noisily put down the fork he had just picked up and pinned him with a steely gaze. "What do you mean if I say so?"

Since the accident in the caves, Malcolm had not been himself. He had buried himself in work and been more irritable, avoiding any extra-professional contact, and Trip knew that although he had recovered from his concussion, he was not well. Today it was the first time he had managed to cajole the man into joining him for a meal, and maybe it was time he made him face reality.

"I guess what I mean is," Trip said, holding the cutting gaze, "that any way you look at it, he isn't normal. Yet," he added at the last moment, for he trusted that with time and treatment Strutt would also recover fully.

Trip braced for some angry verbal reaction, but Malcolm instead fell against the back of his seat, looking spent. He watched him rake a hand through his hair, face averted.

"Why did the Captain order me to take a man with me?" he spat out in a despondent voice. "I could've done the job myself, and with my eyes closed, for heaven's sake!"

"Look at me, Malcolm," Trip said. And when, reticently, Malcolm did so, he continued, articulating every word, "You saved that man's life, down there. So, stop feelin' responsible for something that was out of your control."

"I'm afraid that's not entirely correct, Commander," Malcolm countered glumly. "I was going to use two charges. Strutt suggested three, and I let him." In a spikier accent than usual he added, "That's what you get when you want to be accommodating with your subordinates."

Trip pinned him with determined eyes. He knew the two of them had different ways to run their departments and he respected Malcolm's way, but this was too much. "You've got to be kiddin'," he said, leaning forward the better to drive the point home. "Two charges, three charges… what difference could it have made? With that amount of water pressing behind the rock face, once a breach was made, we would've been in trouble regardless of how many charges you'd placed."

"Ah, I don't know…"

It was disturbing to see Malcolm, usually so self-assured, look uncertain. The man picked up his fork again and moved the food around his plate, absorbed in thought.

Trip heaved an inner sigh. He felt for his friend. "I think what you did was amazing," he said in earnest, "and I don't tell you this to make you feel better." He shook his head. "That water was freezing, and despite bein' concussed and exhausted you kept Strutt afloat for as long as it was necessary. You saved his life. You oughta concentrate on that thought."

Malcolm looked at him, as if something had just struck him.

"Actually… I haven't even thanked you for what you did, Commander," he said uneasily. "It's you who saved both our lives."

Trip broke into a smile. "Really? I thought I'd saved a certain Lieutenant Robert." He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. "Care to tell me about him?"

He could tell Malcolm wasn't too keen by the hooded glance he shot him. Trip immediately regretted his big mouth, but Malcolm licked his lips in that way of his, when he was about to say something in confidence, and revealed, "Robert Peterson was the Lieutenant of my great-uncle, who was Chief Engineer on the HMS Clement, a Royal Navy submarine."

"So…" Trip frowned, adding two plus two. "You thought I was your great-uncle, and you his Lieutenant?"

Malcolm abandoned his fork again and shifted on his seat. "The Clement hit a mine in the Arctic sea and began to sink. My great-uncle locked himself in the engine room and kept the engine going to allow the crew to get to the escape pods. He went down with the ship."

"One hell of a story," Trip breathed out. He studied his friend. "I can see why you relived that accident, in your confused state of mind," he said. "All the elements were there: an explosion, flooding, freezing water, a chief engineer behind an inaccessible partition…"

"Bloody coincidences," Malcolm agreed with an ironic lift of the eyebrows, "but there it was… I thought we were in the sinking HMS Clement."

Trip mulled over the words. "Well, now I know where your guts come from, Lieutenant," he said, with a grin that took nothing away from the respect he felt for what Malcolm had done, "it's a family trait."

To Trip's surprise, Malcolm tightened his jaw, and his eyes got almost pained. "You don't know what you're saying, Commander," he spat out in a hoarse voice, "I was terrified down there."

It wasn't every day that Malcolm showed you his weak side. It had happened in Shuttlepod One, that time, and that's when their friendship had been forged. Trip was glad that the man now considered him a close-enough friend to be trusted with such an uncomfortable revelation.

"Hell, anyone would've been," Trip said. Engaging the man's eyes, he went on, "Come on, Malcolm, you don't measure a man's courage by his fear, but by the way he faces it." He nodded. "I think you passed the test, Lieutenant. Come hell or high water, I know you will handle it."

Malcolm pressed his lips together, and Trip drove a playful punch to his friend's arm. "How about diggin' into our food, it's getting' cold and I'm starved."

They ate in silence for a while.

"Worst away mission in history," Malcolm blurted out at some point. "We risked the lives of – what – five people, counting the rescue party, and didn't even get one dilithium crystal."

"Oh yeah? And what d'you call the ore we found in the pockets of your uniform?" Trip said tilting his head to one side.

Malcolm blinked, flabbergasted. "You don't mean to say…"

Trip chuckled. "I don't know what Lieutenant Peterson would've done, but Lieutenant Reed, true to his disciplined self, didn't come back empty handed." He shook his head, still chuckling. "Somehow you managed to find the time to put quite a few rocks in your pockets."

"I don't remember," Malcolm huffed out. Then he groaned. "Great idea, given that I had to keep myself and another man afloat."

"Really? And how about me, having to carry you and the ore on my shoulders all the way back to the Shuttlepod?"

"Well, you only did yourself a favour," Malcolm countered, while a grin finally appeared on his face, "it's you who needed that dilithium."

Trip shook his head, glad to see his friend in a better mood.

"Was it at least up to your specs?" Malcolm wondered, putting his napkin on the table.

"Better."

Malcolm rose and Trip leaned back and looked up at him. He was turning once again into the proper Armoury Officer, ready to go back on duty, but it seemed to him that he had chased some of his ghosts away.

"Too bad for those hidden reservoirs of spring water," Trip wondered out loud, "that place is a veritable goldmine – and by 'gold' I mean dilithium."

"Well, I hope those crystals last you a long time," Malcolm replied, "for I have no intention to go back there." After a moment of silence, he cast Trip and awkward glance. "Thanks, Commander," he said deep in his chest.

Trip knew what he meant. "Anytime, Lieutenant."

He watched Malcolm walk away. At Strutt's table, the man stopped and grabbed his subordinate's shoulder. He said a few words to him, and Strutt smiled.

"Is everything okay with Malcolm?" a voice suddenly asked.

Trip turned to see Archer behind him, looking at his Armoury Officer with a frown on his face.

"I'm a bit worried," Jon said, "he's been quite withdrawn since that accident."

Trip got up and stood by his CO. "All's peachy, Capt'n, all's peachy."