ENTERPRISE READY ROOM
"Come in," Archer called from behind his desk. Anything had to be better than his paperwork. Paperwork was a bore but was something that every captain had to put up with. At least with an on going mission, he was guaranteed to be interrupted once in a while.
T'Pol came in and laid a PADD down on his desk. "I've analyzed the scans we took of the Tesnian ship. I believe they were hit by a micro singularity."
Archer shook his head, "Well no wonder things went to hell for them."
"Three also hit Enterprise, here, here and here."
Archer suddenly frowned, "Shuttlepod 1"
"Sir?" T'Pol asked, suppressing a sudden jolt of fear for her mate.
"I'm concerned about Trip and Malcolm. The shuttlepod doesn't have the hull plating we do. They could be in for a rough ride when they get back to the asteroid field. Better hail them and agree to a new rendezvous point."
"Yes sir," she said. She was in full agreement that Trip should not be anywhere near such dangerous phenomenon in just a shuttlepod. It was a bad combination.
SHUTTLEPOD 1
As it was now -5C, Malcolm and Trip were bundled up with baseball caps firmly on and their jackets zipped up as far as they would go. Once more static could be heard over the comm receiver and Malcolm turned to Trip. "A ship?" he asked.
"It's a little more modulated than the last one, but it could be just a random gamma-ray burst. You know, Travis and Hoshi couldn't have been more than 24 or 25 years old." Trip mused.
"If the Captain were here with us now I wonder if he'd feel guilty about bringing them on this mission," Malcolm said thoughtfully.
Trip shook his head. "Not for a minute. They died doing what they loved, if they died."
Reed snorted, "I don't remember Hoshi loving much about being in deep space."
Trip disagreed. "She was coming along. She saved our asses on more than one occasion. I plan on letting her family know just how essential she was."
"It sounds to me like you do have some letters to record," Malcolm pointed out.
Trip shook his head, "Nope, I'll wait to tell them in person."
"You know, you're endless optimism is beginning to get just a little bit tiresome," Malcolm snapped.
"Unlike your heartfelt letters of farewell to half the girls in San Francisco?" Trip snarked. "You know if I didn't know better I'd call you a Don Juan!"
"At least I'm capable of accepting our fate. We're going to be dead in about 33 hours. Whether our beards continue to grow or not is of no concern to me. We will be dead! And unless some ship happens across our path, our bearded bodies will be discovered in about three or four years. Is that optimistic enough for you?" Malcolm demanded.
"What is your problem with having a little hope? Even if we do die, at least the others will be found." Trip tried to point out the silver lining.
"What is your problem with facing the truth?" Malcolm wanted to know.
"You're a regular grim reaper, Malcolm. Anyone ever tell you that? Well, if this little trip is a death sentence, then it would seem to me we're entitled to a last meal. What'll it be? I'm afraid our selection is somewhat limited," Trip snarked.
"I'm not hungry," Malcolm said, his frustration pouring out of him and leaving him rather tired. "Is that how you really see me? The eternal pessimist? The grim reaper? I don't want to die, Trip. What makes you think I want to die?"
"Because ever since we saw Enterprise spread across that asteroid, you've done nothing but write your own obituary." Trip pointed out.
Malcolm winced. "You don't understand. I lost nearly everyone I cared about on that ship. Those girls I talked about; Rochelle, Deborah, Catelin. None of them worked out because I could never get very close to them. I never got very close to my family either, for that matter, not that it's any business of yours. But with the crew of the Enterprise, it was different. I was really starting to feel comfortable with most of the crew. The only real friends I had were on that ship and now the only one that's left thinks I'm the bloody angel of death."
"Damn it Malcolm, you're not listening! T'Pol is not dead! We're bondmates remember? We're telepathically bonded to each other. She's up here," Trip tapped the side of his head.
"After the Vulcan priest does his thing," Malcolm said. "I did my homework, or as much homework as I could get out the Vulcans."
"No, right now," Trip paused. "That's the difference between a chosen mate and a betrothal bond. You're right; a betrothal bond isn't strong enough to really make an impact until it is consummated in a mind meld. Chosen mates are different." He tried to find the words to explain something so very alien. "Chosen mates bind themselves, when the time is right. It's instinct to meld. For us, the priest thing is just going to be a formality. Once the bond started to form we were already married. That's the real reason T'Pol got so pissy when I got pregnant."
"The bond's not real strong now. She's just a presence in the back of my mind. But the bond is growing stronger every day. We don't know how strong it will be when it finishes binding us together. At the very least we'll be able to speak to each other telepathically when we're in line of sight. At the most we'll be able to communicate across light years. T'Pol is alive! And if she's alive, then some of the rest of the crew had to make it too!"
Malcolm took a deep breath. It seemed that once more the Vulcan need for privacy had him working on a misassumption. "If T'Pol made it, then something probably went wrong long before the crash," he said, trying to work it out. "They must have abandoned ship and Enterprise crashed later. That would explain why we couldn't see any lifeboats."
Trip nodded and pulled out the bottle of Bourbon, "Here's to the crew of the starship Enterprise, may those who didn't make it ride the wind between the stars forever."
"Here, here," Malcolm said and with that toast they started sharing the bottle.
ENTERPRISE BRIDGE
T'Pol was cold. A cold so deep it was settling into her bones. She paused in her calculations of the micro singularities' positions to check the bridge temperature once more. It had not changed from the last time she had looked. 'Why am I so cold?' she wondered. Even at the lower temperatures that Humans preferred she should not have been experiencing more than a slight numbness in her extremities. But she was so cold her bones were beginning to ache.
"Nasty little buggers," Archer said, leaning over her shoulder. "I really hope Trip and Malcolm didn't run into one of them."
"They have!" T'Pol exclaimed. That was the explanation. It wasn't she that was cold, it was Trip. He was so cold it was a threat to his life. "We have to find them immediately. They are in need of medical care!" She began a detailed scan, following the 'feeling' of cold and Trip.
"What?" Archer asked confused. "How do you know?"
"I am freezing. The temperature on the bridge is not low enough to cause it. When one bondmate is in a life threatening situation, regardless of how weak their bond is, the other will feel it. They may not recognize it but they feel it. Trip is freezing, therefore something is terribly wrong. We have to find them now!" T'Pol didn't stop to give her explanation. She had to find her mate.
SHUTTLEPOD 1
Malcolm asked drunkenly, "Does that sound modulated enough for you?" He pointed at the comm.
"Modulated?" Trip asked.
"The radio; or is it just the galaxy giggling at us again?" Malcolm said before he took another drink.
"It can giggle all it wants, but the galaxy's not getting any of our bourbon!"
This brought a snort/chuckle from both men. Then Malcolm decided that since they were dead anyway, he would ask a question that had been bothering him for a while. "Hey," he nudged Trip who was huddled beside him. "I know you're married to T'Pol and all but, hmmm? I think she's pretty. Do you think she's pretty?"
"T'Pol? Are you serious? She's gorgeous and my wife so hands off!"
"Yes but you were so prim and proper at the wedding I'm beginning to wonder."
Trip didn't want to know what Malcolm was wondering so he interrupted. "Mal, you've had too much to drink."
"Of course I've had too much to drink! That doesn't stop me from wondering."
"Oh God," Trip moaned.
"You ever noticed her bum?" Malcolm asked, trying to look Trip in the face.
"What?" Trip yelped. He could not believe that Malcolm, Mr. Rules and Regs had actually asked him that drunk or not!
"Her bum. She's got an awfully nice bum."
Trip shook his head. There was no getting out of this conversation now. 'Well if you can't beat 'em, join 'em,' he thought. "To SubCommander T'Pol Tucker, the most beautiful woman in the universe and you keep your eyes off her bum. That's mine just as soon as she finally lets me have it."
Malcolm snorted, "All that and you're not even getting any? You poor sap you really do love her! Awfully nice though." He glanced over at the comm as it crackles again. "It's probably nothing, right?"
Trip scrambled for the pilot's seat, "That's definitely not nothing!"
Malcolm drunkenly rambled, "Well then, that means it's something. What is it? Well, is it something or someone, because if it's someone,"
"Shh!"
"Sorry," Malcolm muttered.
"Definitely someone."
Malcolm continued, "We have no way to respond, do we? This is like the plane flying over the desert island in a lost at sea movie."
"Malcolm!" Trip snapped.
"Sorry, happy endings, I must think happy endings."
Trip made an adjustment and suddenly they could hear Hoshi's voice over the comm. "We know you're in trouble and we're trying to find you. Please respond."
"It's Hoshi!" they both cried in delight.
"Commander and Lieutenant, please respond."
"We need to get their attention," Trip said, struggling to figure a way to signal Hoshi and whatever ship she was on.
"Can they see us on their sensors?" Malcolm asked.
"I have no idea what that ship's capabilities are Mal," Trip said. "We need to do something that no one can ignore."
"What if we fired off our weapons?"
"Nah, not big enough," Trip said. He knew what he was going to have to do and he didn't like it. 'Think about T'Pol,' he told himself. 'Do you want her to die because you did?" That of course had been his real motivation for finding any way possible to survive. If he died, so did his wife. "I'm going to have to eject our engine."
"What good will that do?" Malcolm asked.
"If I blow it up it'll make one heck of an explosion." They looked at each other grimly but moved to jettison the impulse drive. Reed attached the micro-detonators that Trip had stashed in the shuttle for some reason. Then Trip said a prayer as he ejected the drive.
"How does it feel to be slower than a snail?" Malcolm asked
"I saw this great cartoon once," Trip said as they huddled together once more. "There were these two snails sitting on the back of a big old turtle and one snail turns to the others and says 'Hold on Fred. Here we go.'" Slowly the two men drifted off into unconsciousness.
ENTERPRISE SICKBAY
T'Pol and Archer hurried to sickbay to see the two recovered officers. "Phlox?" Archer asked seeing him bounce from Trip to Malcolm and back.
"They are both hypothermic, have higher levels of carbon dioxide than I'd like and," Phlox turned around and handed Archer a bottle, "completely intoxicated. I don't know where they got the alcohol or why they were drinking it. It wasn't a good choice considering their position."
"It is if they thought they were dying doctor," Archer said. "They only had a few hours of oxygen left."
"They were drinking before the SubCommander sent us after them," Phlox said.
T'Pol was holding Trip's hand carefully. "He is still very cold," she said.
"I have to be careful warming them up," Phlox said. "They will recover but I do believe a small lecture on the dangers of freezing temperatures and alcohol are in order."
"Phlox, give it a rest. Hess gave me a report on the damage to the shuttlepod. They had no navigation, the comm could only receive and that barely, no distress beacon, as far as she could tell the impulse drive was working but they blew it up to signal us as to their location and they lost most of their oxygen supply. The reason they were freezing was to feed more power into the air scrubbers. Hess says that gave them an extra twelve hours," Archer paused, "which we used ten of to find them." Phlox flinched at the grim count down of damaged systems.
Just then Malcolm groaned. Archer leaned over so that he would be able to see without straining. "We're on Enterprise? But how?"
"Easy Malcolm," Archer said. "You two had a nice little bout with hypothermia."
"The Commander,"
"He's going to be fine," Archer grinned and nodded his head over at the other biobed.
Phlox moved over to Malcolm. "You both have a way to go before I'll release you from sickbay though."
"You're supposed to be dead. We saw Enterprise, what was left. How?"
"I'll tell you about it in the morning, for now you need to sleep and warm up some more," Archer said. He walked over to Trip who was just beginning to wake up.
"SubCommander," Malcolm called.
T'Pol left Trip for a moment, moving only far enough away to get to Malcolm's side. Her attention never left Trip. "Yes."
"The Commander never thought you were dead. He knew you were still alive." Malcolm tried to get her to understand.
T'Pol did not understand why this was supposed to be such a revelation. "Of course, we're bondmates."
"Maybe someday that will make sense to me," Malcolm slurred.
"Good night, Lieutenant," T'Pol said and she walked back to Trip. She could still hear Malcolm.
"Good night, still got a nice bum." he muttered.
T'Pol paused only slightly before returning to Trip's side. She would ask him later what the Lieutenant had meant.
"Told him you weren't dead," Trip said with a smile.
"No but another group nearly was," Archer said. "You know as much as I want all of my officers to get field and command experience I'm not too sure I should send you off the ship again."
"Hey! It's not my fault we ran into a couple of mini black holes!" Trip protested.
"Oh I'm not talking about your away team record Trip. That's bad enough but I just can't take any more of her pouting," Archer laughed as he tilted his head at T'Pol. "We had three of the things hit Enterprise and she didn't say anything more than they hit here and walked off!"
"Vulcans do not pout Captain," T'Pol asserted.
"Ah huh," Archer agreed. Then he turned to Trip. "I just can't take it any more. Just about the only thing she hasn't done is to try and out do Porthos in the puppy eye department."
"Only one way to stop it Captain," Trip pointed out.
"I know, make her stop please?" he whined. The two Human males began laughing at the confused look on T'Pol's face. 'It's nice being able to tease my best friend again,' Archer thought, 'and this time I get to include T'Pol as well.'