Interference
by Setcheti
Disclaimer:
Author’s Note: This story is set late Season 2, and although it contains minor references to various episodes they really can’t be considered spoilers. It also contains mild slash content.
“Okay, let’s start off
simply.” Malcolm Reed, chief armory
officer of the starship
Archer hesitated. Like Reed and
Tucker, he was barefoot and dressed only in sweatpants and a t-shirt. “Just…come at you?” he asked.
“Yes, just…” Reed was suddenly
busy fending off a very fast and not at all unskilled attack. He evaded it in spite of his surprise, his
fighting instincts kicking in automatically, and put the older man flat on his
back on the mat before stepping back.
“Good,” he approved. “That’s a
good start.”
“Fell a bit harder than I intended to,” Archer said, rolling to his
feet and shrugging. “I apologize,
Lieutenant, I underestimated you.”
Likewise, Reed thought.
Then again, it could have been luck.
Only one way to find out. “All
right then, try it again now that you think you’ve got my measure.”
This time the attack was more deliberate, better planned…and
surprisingly successful. Reed found
himself looking up at his captain and an openmouthed chief engineer from the
position Archer had so recently been occupying on the mat. “That was… a move I’ve never seen before,” he
admitted slowly, climbing back to his feet and feeling a twinge in his hip from
the unexpected fall. What had surprised
him most was that it was a move he’d never seen Jonathan Archer use before, and
yet the man had just pulled it off in the flawless, near-instinctive manner of
long practice. “Try it again, if you
would; I’d like to see if I can counter it.”
Archer complied. This time Reed
was half-expecting the fall and controlled it better, but he still went
down. The captain was looking more than
a little smug. “Are you all right,
Lieutenant?”
“Oh, quite,” the armory officer answered, peeling himself off the mat
again. He saw Tucker try to hide what he
was sure was a giggle and his gray eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Perhaps I need to observe the move from a
different angle. Commander, would you
take my place for a moment, please?”
Tucker made a face at him. “Oh
sure, pick on the audience,” he grumbled, but he stepped up in front of Archer
when Reed stepped back and assumed a ready stance. “All right, Cap’n,
ready when you…”
Reed found it very difficult to restrain a very unprofessional giggle
of his own when the engineer hit the mat with a loud thud. “Oh yes, I think I see how it works now. But perhaps once more? And this time you could try to block it,
Commander?”
The look he got in return carried a blatant promise of retribution, but
Reed just smiled innocently at the other man and Tucker got back up
grumbling. Archer was smiling too. “When is Trip’s next evaluation due, just out
of curiosity?”
The armory officer’s smile widened, and he set his curiosity over the
captain’s sudden improvement aside for later; he would ask Tucker about it once
they were done here, perhaps the engineer would have some reason for the
inconsistency. “I’ll be sure to let you
know, sir. Now why don’t we move along
to the next part of your evaluation…”
The captain’s evaluation had been completed far more quickly than
expected, freeing Lieutenant Reed up to complete the work that he’d set aside
to fill the rest of his day and thereby leaving him with unexpected free time
that afternoon. Any plans he might have
been tempted to make, however, had been interrupted by a summons from the
ship’s chief engineer, which he was currently on his way to answer with a
little curiosity and a healthy amount of suspicion; after all, he had seen to
rather thoroughly embarrassing the man in front of the captain and he knew Tucker
well enough to be expecting eventual retribution. If he admitted it to himself, he was even
looking forward to it as an exercise in matching wits. He hit the buzzer at the door to Tucker’s
quarters and announced, “I’m here as requested, Commander.”
The door opened. “C’mon in,”
Tucker told him, not getting up from his seat.
His terminal was on but he wasn’t looking at it, he was just staring up
at the curve of the ceiling. “We’ve got
a problem.”
“Well, that is a mostly accurate assessment,” Reed agreed. “You have the problem of being below standard
in hand-to-hand combat and I have the problem of having to teach you better.” The engineer snorted softly at the ceiling
but didn’t otherwise respond and Reed tried again. “Did you just send for me so you wouldn’t
have to sulk alone, then?”
Blue eyes swung down to look at him, no trace of humor evident in their
tired depths. Tucker sighed and waved
the armory officer to take a seat. “What
you asked me after the captain’s evaluation, I found what we were lookin’ for. Or lookin’ at,
anyway. Earlier.”
Reed didn’t understand the reference but he stopped teasing his friend
and settled onto the only other chair in the room, looking curiously at the
image frozen on the small screen. “I
take it I’m not going to like this discovery?”
“I sure as hell didn’t.” The
engineer’s normally fluid drawl had a raw, strained edge to it that Reed had
never heard from him before. “You
remember this mornin’ when we were sparrin’ with the captain, that really fast takedown move
he has?”
“A highly effective fighting tactic,” the other man answered
affirmatively. “I was rather surprised…”
“And you’re about to be all over again,” Tucker said. He pushed a button and the frozen image
jerked back into motion. It was footage
of Archer facing off against several aliens whom Reed remembered from an
incident about a month previous, yet another embarrassingly ineffective
confrontation. He was just opening his
mouth to ask what it was he was supposed to be seeing…when he saw it, and his
mouth dropped open in shock. Tucker
froze the footage again, nodding tiredly.
“Yep.”
“He didn’t…he didn’t follow through.”
Reed was all but stammering. “It
was like he forgot what he was supposed to be doing halfway through the move!”
“Which is impossible,” Tucker said flatly. He rewound the record and played the sequence
again. “That move is ingrained in his
fighting style, it’s not somethin’ he thinks about
using. But you can see right there,” he
pointed, “he started to make his move and then froze like someone had flipped a
switch. It was only for a second…”
“But in battle a second is all it takes.” The security officer’s sharp eyes hadn’t left
the screen. “Could you back this up
frame by frame? I thought I saw
something.” Tucker poked at another
button and the action began to jerk backwards in miniscule increments. “There!
Right there, look at his face.”
The engineer squinted, and then his wide blue eyes jerked up to meet
Reed’s narrowing gray ones. The security
chief’s expression was grim. “Flipped a
switch, you said?”
“Hypnotic conditioning,” was Dr. Phlox’ matching conclusion not half an
hour later. He looked almost as grim as
Tucker and Reed, not a normal expression on his perpetually cheerful face. “I can’t be certain without testing him, of
course, but from the looks of that reaction an implanted command kicked in just
at that instant.”
“So now we just have to figure out who implanted it and why.” Tucker was caught somewhere between being
furious and being sickened, and Reed looked about the same. “Had to’ve been someone
tryin’ to get him killed, tyin’
his hands like that.”
Reed nodded slowly. “Precisely
what I was thinking. And it cannot have
been any of the alien races we’ve encountered so far on this mission, because
Captain Archer has been…ineffectual in hand to hand combat the entire time. Which means whatever has been done to him
took place before he took command of the
“Last time I saw him get into a dust-up before we got here the man
kicked ass and took names,” Tucker said, waving his hand dismissively. “And he didn’t have no problem sparrin’ with you and I this mornin’
either.”
“No, he showed no hesitation at all, did he?” The security chief looked thoughtful. “And it can’t be a fear reaction to the
aliens, if he were xenophobic he wouldn’t be out here.”
“No, we screen rather thoroughly for that,” Phlox agreed. “If anything, the captain errs rather too
much in the opposite direction, I would say.
And there is nothing in his medical records which would indicate this
sort of psychological tampering, nor does he possess any suicidal tendencies
which might account for his behavior.”
“Jon’s not the suicidal type,” Tucker agreed. “So what we’re lookin’
at is someone who…I don’t know, who’s out to get him and usin’
him as a weapon against himself?”
“Or against the exploration program.”
Reed’s suspicious mind had found another, more disturbing answer. “This is the flagship for Earth, the first of
its kind. And if we prove we can do this,
claim our place among the stars...there are those who will be none too
pleased.”
Phlox frowned. “Conspiracy
theories, Lieutenant?”
Reed ignored him. He locked eyes
with Tucker. “Where was Captain Archer
directly before he came aboard?”
The answer was immediate. “Starfleet Command, for two weeks. I was s’posed to go
with him but they ordered me off to check on somethin’
at the last minute.” The engineer
swallowed. “Had to have happened then;
he was fine before, just fine.”
“Can you break hypnotic conditioning, Doctor?” Reed demanded of the
still-frowning Denobulan. “If your tests
show that commands have been implanted in the captain’s mind, can you fix it?”
“If such a thing has happened,” Phlox spoke carefully, cautiously, “it
is possible that I could do something about it, yes. But that would depend on what was done and
how…”
“Or if it was done at all?” The
doctor made a face and Reed arched an eyebrow at him. “I know this sounds improbable, Doctor, but
as chief of security aboard this ship I cannot afford to ignore the
possibility. You can agree, I’m sure,
that the possibility someone has tampered with the captain’s mind represents a
grave risk to the entire crew?” Phlox
nodded slowly. “Who has done this is not
your concern, it’s mine. You repair the
damage, I will see to the task of identifying whoever caused it – and as our
suspicions are very broad at this point, I’m afraid I must insist that no one
else be appraised of what is transpiring lest the investigation be compromised.”
“In other words,” Phlox clarified with a slight grimace, “you do not
wish me to speak of this to Sub-Commander T’Pol.”
“Prob’ly wouldn’t be a good idea,” Tucker
said seriously. “Look at it this way,
Doc; if we bring her in on this she’s gonna have to
report it and then what’ll happen? The
only evidence we’ve got right now looks a whole lot like incompetence or somethin’ worse on the part of our captain, and that ain’t gonna go over real well back home – matter of fact, I’d say
that within an hour of them findin’ out we’ll be
recalled to Earth and this mission will be scratched, maybe for good. And I for one am not ready to just stand back
and let that happen, because that could very well be the reason this was done
to Jon in the first place.” He took a
deep breath. “I’m third in command of
Phlox nodded again, but his ever-present smile had returned. “Very well, Commander,” he agreed. “You are correct; ship’s security and command
issues are not my area of expertise, so I will leave that in your and
Lieutenant Reed’s capable hands.” He
made eye contact with both men, seeing their worry and knowing the burden the
situation was already putting on them – a burden that was only going to
increase. He knew how to ease some
slight part of that, however. “I trust
you both,” he said deliberately. “Now,
have you any suggestions for getting the captain in for an examination without
causing suspicion? He is not due for any
routine attention from me at present.”
Tucker and Reed looked at each other, and the armory officer shrugged. “Perhaps we could say he may have picked up
some virus or other on the last away mission?”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t the only one that went down there. If he’s sick then I should be too,” the
engineer protested. Reed raised an
eyebrow and an expression of denial flitted across Tucker’s face, which then
crumpled into resigned acceptance. “And
I suppose that me bein’ on the sick list will give us
a real good chance to do some off-duty snoopin’
around, right?” The other man just
grinned, and Tucker sighed and shook his head.
“You damn well better visit me every day – and not just so we can share
information.”
“Twice a day, perhaps even more,” Reed assured him, patting his slumped
shoulder. He winked at Phlox. “Now Doctor, I believe the Commander here is
in danger of eminent collapse – that was why the two of us came to see you,
after all. Do you have any idea what
horrendous ailment he is being stricken with?”
“I may at that, Lieutenant,” the doctor told him. A twinkle had appeared in his eye. “If you would assist Commander Tucker over to
one of the biobeds, I believe I can give you the
diagnosis you require.”
“Now why don’t I find that the least bit reassurin’?”
Tucker groused, but he allowed himself to be dragged across the room. “I just know I’m gonna
regret this…”
Archer was in his ready room working on a mission report when T’Pol came in. He
sighed but didn’t stop what he was doing; he’d left orders that he didn’t want
to be disturbed, so whatever it was must be important enough to have brought
her in to disturb him. “Something I can
help you with, Sub-Commander?”
“Dr. Phlox requests your presence in Sickbay at once,” she told him,
the barest touch of concern in her level voice; she knew the information she
had to impart would be upsetting to the captain. “Commander Tucker has apparently fallen ill,
and the doctor suspects that you may be similarly afflicted.”
“Trip is sick?” Archer was
already out of his chair. “Did Phlox say
how…”
“He seems to think the disease is treatable,” she answered. “Apparently Lieutenant Reed was with the
commander when he began to feel ill and took him to Sickbay just in time. The doctor suspects it may have been a virus
picked up on the last planet we visited.”
“Just in time? I don’t like the
sound of that,” was Archer’s reply. “All
right, I don’t feel sick but I’ll go down there and let him poke and prod me
just to make sure. You have the con.”
He said the last as he was crossing the bridge, heading for the lift,
and he saw several worried faces turn in his direction as the doors closed on
him. Archer’s own worry was writhing
inside him like a live thing. He and
Tucker had been friends for years, the best of friends. What nightmare was waiting for him in
Sickbay? Just
in time?
He hurried into Sickbay and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw
Tucker stretched out on one of the biobeds. Then engineer had been stripped down to his
regulation blues and his exposed skin was flushed and spotted with irregular livid
reddish-purple patches. A mask covered
his nose and mouth, the plastic fogging with each short, panted breath. Reed was standing beside the bed, and when
the armory officer looked up from the unconscious man Archer saw that his face
was lined with worry. “How bad?” he
demanded.
Phlox bustled around the corner at that moment, minus his smile, and
spoke before Reed could answer.
“Everything is under control, Captain,” he said briskly. “Commander Tucker will recover and should
have no lasting effects, but right now we need to make sure you do the
same. Now come with me…”
The doctor hustled Archer away, the captain looking back over his
shoulder worriedly at his unconscious friend as they left the room, and Reed
breathed a silent sigh of relief. He
patted Tucker’s head gently, the short dark blond hair softly damp under his
hand. If he himself didn’t know that the
engineer wasn’t really sick, he’d think the man was at death’s door. Reed smiled to himself. Phlox had really handled the whole thing very
neatly, even to the point of knocking Tucker out with a discretely applied hypo
before beginning the preparations for their little deception; the doctor had
said it would be easier that way as well as sparing the commander
embarrassment, and so it had on both counts. Reed had no doubt that Tucker wouldn’t have
taken their ‘preparations’ gracefully – he knew for damn sure he himself
wouldn’t have. Especially not the bit
with the slugs.
The armory officer kept one ear trained behind him, listening to the
doctor fill Archer’s ears with doubletalk and admiring the apparent ease with
which he did it. The story they’d
concocted was that the supposed virus first attacked the victim’s brain,
causing increasing discoordination and confusion
which would then be followed by physical collapse and the onset of the symptoms
Tucker was displaying so beautifully for Archer’s benefit. The doctor had been confident that he could
find and hopefully deactivate the implanted commands in the captain’s mind
under the guise of treating the effects of the nonexistent virus, and Reed
hoped for all their sakes he was right or the three of them were going to be
sharing a detention cell all the way back to Earth.
He leaned in close to Tucker, close enough to feel the warmth rising
off of the other man’s skin. “I’ll be
back, just like I promised,” he whispered.
One blue eye cracked open, conveyed acceptance of that and then closed
again as the engineer gave him a miniscule nod.
“We’ll catch the bastards, Trip, I swear it.” A final pat to his friend’s blond hair and
Reed forced himself to exit the room…although he couldn’t stop himself from
turning back for one last look. If he
didn’t know it wasn’t real…
Reed was busy the rest of that evening, relaying messages from Phlox,
enforcing a temporary quarantine of Sickbay and doing his best to deflect
Sub-Commander T’Pol’s questions about the ‘virus’
that had infected the captain and chief engineer. He then spent a large part of the night checking
records under the guise of looking for other instances of the same illness,
compiling a list of incidents that might have bearing on his
investigation. So far, the majority of
the crew was clear; no one except Archer had been at Starfleet Command for an
extended time just prior to
Well, at least no obviously inconsistent patterns – there were still a
few crew members that would require him to dig a little deeper, Sub-Commander T’Pol among them. He
was just crossing his fingers that Phlox was all right, not knowing enough
about Denobulans to tell for sure. But if he was wrong about Phlox…
Reed hurried through breakfast, telling himself the whole while that he
was just being paranoid and that everything was fine. Phlox was fine, Tucker was fine, the captain
would be fine. He almost managed to
convince himself of it, too. But if
anyone had asked him what he’d had for breakfast or if he’d finished it, he
wouldn’t have been able to tell them.
He forced himself to walk at a normal pace all the way down to Sickbay,
he even managed to respond appropriately to the crewmen he passed in the
corridors, but he was nonetheless relieved when he reached his destination and
keyed in his security clearance to open the quarantine lock. Phlox wasn’t in the front, but his voice
called out a greeting to which the armory officer responded with relief,
following it back to the patient area of Sickbay. Reed froze when he saw that Tucker was
strapped down to the biobed and all but writhing against the restraints, but
Phlox had a vaguely pleased expression on his face so the armory officer had to
assume this was all part of the game.
“And how is the captain this morning?” he asked the doctor.
“Oh fine, fine; the growth of the virus has been halted and he’ll
recover nicely once the treatment has been completed,” Phlox answered. “Commander Tucker proved a bit more
problematic, but once I managed to stop him from scratching it was all
right. Of course, the captain will be in
approximately the same state by tomorrow, but since we caught him before the
full onset of the virus I have hopes that his reaction will be minimal.”
“Glad to hear it,” Reed said, managing to sound sincere in spite of the
fact he’d already known Archer’s symptoms wouldn’t be mirroring Tucker’s
exactly. He stepped up beside the
engineer’s bed. “Well, Commander, I hear
you’re a troublesome patient today. Had
to be contained, did you?”
“Itches…” Tucker opened his eyes
and gave Reed a look that was a desperate plea for help. “Oh god, make it stop, I can’t stand it!”
Reed’s amused smile fell off and horror took its place. “This isn’t…”
Suddenly the restraints, the writhing, took on a whole new and terrible
meaning. And Tucker’s blue eyes actually
had tears in them. “Dr. Phlox!”
The doctor wandered over, seemingly not alarmed. “I assure you, Lieutenant, he is getting
better. I only restrained him to keep
him from scratching.”
“Exactly!” the armory officer hissed.
“Doctor, have you given him anything to ease the itch, anything at
all?” Phlox’ ‘why would I do that’ look
was answer enough and fury flooded through Reed. “Sir, perhaps you were not privy to this
little physiological tidbit, but intense itching can drive a human completely
mad – it’s a technique some torturers have been known to use, more effective
than pain by half. Now go get something
to fix this!”
“Oh dear, I didn’t know.” Phlox
was genuinely upset. “One moment, I’ll
be back with some topical analgesic ointment, that should do the trick.”
Reed jerked his head in acknowledgment and turned back to his friend,
his stomach twisting with roiling emotions.
How long had Tucker been suffering, an hour, three, half the night? Sometimes he cursed Starfleet for not sending
them along a human doctor – and were he ever to get the opportunity, he just
might do that cursing in person. Very
gently, he wiped the tears from the corners of Tucker’s eyes with his
fingertips and then cradled the engineer’s face in his hands. He spoke soothingly. “It’s all right, Trip, it’s going to be all
right. Phlox is getting something to
stop the itch, he’ll be right back.”
The anguished blue eyes blinked back open. “Mal?
Itch…”
“I know, we’ll get it taken care of.”
He began stroking Tucker’s hair again.
“Now do your best to relax, it will all be over momentarily.” He kept up the soothing litany and remained
where he was even after Phlox came back and began to apply the ointment to the
scaly red patches of rash the slugs had left, and soon the taut tension in the
engineer’s body began to melt into relieved trembling. Malcolm knew the captain was listening from
the next bed so he couldn’t apologize properly – or force Phlox to – but he
kept his gray eyes locked on the bloodshot, watery blue ones below him and did
his best to convey his feelings without words.
Doctor Phlox finished with the ointment and set it aside with a
sigh. “I am so sorry, Commander,” he
told the engineer quietly. “That was
absolutely inexcusable of me, to allow you to suffer like that. I assure you it won’t be allowed to happen again
while you’re here.” He pressed a hypospray against the side of Tucker’s neck and the
engineer went completely limp with a sigh of pure relief. “Mr. Reed, just help me remove these
restraints if you would. Oh, you will be
happy to know that the virus did not come from the planet, it was apparently a
dormant organism which the atmosphere of the planet activated.”
It was their agreed-upon cover story and Reed nodded. He still wasn’t happy, but he forced his
feelings out of the way for the time being; they had a job to do, and if he
botched it everything they were putting Tucker through was going to be
wasted. “That is good to know,
Doctor. Now that the commander is taken
care of,” he couldn’t quite keep the accusatory edge out of his voice on that statement,
“how goes your treatment of Captain Archer?”
“That’s a question I’d like answered too,” Archer said tiredly from where
he was sitting up in his own bed. Both
men turned to look at him, and he scowled.
“Come on now, Doc, I don’t like to be kept in the dark.”
“Oh, I am well aware of that, Captain,” Phlox said with a smile. He filed away for future reference the way
Reed hesitated over relinquishing physical contact with Tucker as the two of
them moved to stand beside Archer. “I
have just about completed my study of your neural scans, and what I have found
so far are several small areas in your brain tissue where the virus has set up
housekeeping. We can begin repairing
those immediately, but I will warn you that once they are eradicated you will
unfortunately develop physical symptoms similar to Commander Tucker’s.” He grimaced and shot a quick look at Reed,
whose gray eyes had narrowed again.
“This time, however, I will be more thorough in my treatment of the
symptoms. Lieutenant, if you would stay
here momentarily while I go fetch what I’ll need, I’d like to begin the
captain’s treatment right now.”
“Certainly, Doctor,” Reed agreed distractedly. The implications of Phlox’ carefully worded
explanation had shaken him: several areas
had been affected, i.e. more than one command had been implanted in Archer’s
mind. Could that be the reason the
captain often ignored basic security protocols and his chief security officer’s
recommendations, because he’d been ‘ordered’ not to take proper precautions? And what could the other areas possibly be? He could think of a few things that might
make sense in that light, like Archer’s apparent fascination with T’Pol, but it shook him to think that others might be
little time bombs which had not yet been triggered…or that could be set off by
tampering. He returned the frown Archer
was giving him but shook his head. “Just
thinking, Captain,” he explained.
“Wondering if this search and destroy mission the doctor is about to
embark on could be analogous to navigating a minefield.”
Archer didn’t look like he appreciated that analogy. “You would think of that, wouldn’t you?” he
observed, not quite accusingly.
Reed shrugged. “You are the
captain of this ship, sir, and anything that could affect your command is
necessarily a security issue. Attempting
to insure your personal safety is part of my job.” He just barely smiled. “Usually a damned difficult part, but I
haven’t given up yet. And as the doctor
has already overlooked the obvious once today I feel it necessary to keep an
eye on this situation.”
Archer sighed and closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “He didn’t know, Lieutenant,” he said. “How was he supposed to? Trip has a tendency to overreact to things;
Phlox just thought he was being a baby about it.”
Had the captain’s eyes been open he would have seen his chief armory
officer’s mouth drop open in shock, although Reed just as quickly contained the
reaction. Internally, however, he was
beyond horrified; he’d heard the click of another switch in the casually made
statement – as a matter of fact, it was because it had been made so casually
that he’d heard it at all. No, Phlox
hadn’t known about the itching…but Archer had been right here, wide awake, the
entire time. And he hadn’t said a word.
The captain’s insistence on taking Tucker with him to a bakingly hot desert planet suddenly made sickening sense,
as did the man’s apparent loss of common sense during the events that had
transpired there. Somewhere in Archer’s
mind a command had activated that day, an order mandating the death of one
Commander Charles Tucker III, chief engineer of
Malcolm forced his mind back on track.
“Well, it’s all taken care of now,” he responded to Archer’s statement
with forced detachment. He was saved
from having to continue by the doctor’s return, and he at once put forth his
concern. “Doctor, I was thinking…have
you checked the affected areas of the captain’s brain to see if they are at all
connected?”
“Connected?” Phlox looked
startled by the idea, and then thoughtful.
“I didn’t see any signs of that, but then I wasn’t specifically looking
for it either. You’re theorizing that
they could be interconnected and that attacking one might result in a reaction
by one or more of the others, is that it?”
“Like a string of explosive charges,” Reed said, nodding. “Tampering with the wrong one or in the wrong
order could set off the others.”
The doctor thought for a minute and then tapped on the padd he had with him.
“It is possible,” he replied.
“And I believe your analogy might hold the solution, Lieutenant. Were we dealing with explosives, how would
you expect to find a ‘trigger’ charge set?”
“Last,” the armory officer answered immediately and with certainty;
since they were in a manner of speaking dealing with bombs set by humans and
not a mindless virus, he was confident he was right. “It’s always the last charge, it has to be or
you couldn’t set up the others safely.
Is there any way to tell…”
“Yes, I can assess with some degree of certainty what order the
particular areas were affected in,” Phlox said carefully. The minefield analogy had shaken him a bit;
he had temporarily forgotten that they were dealing with strategy and not
biology. “And any steps we can take to
prevent possible brain damage are certainly worth investigating.”
“You could find out of the lieutenant’s theory is correct by checking
Trip first,” Archer suggested. “It might
be worthwhile to know if he’s got brain
damage before you start poking around in my head, don’t
you think?”
It was all Reed could do not to wince, but Phlox appeared not to notice
the callous edge to the captain’s sarcasm.
“I will need to do a more thorough scan on him, certainly,” the doctor
said. Like Reed, he was being very
careful to maintain the cover story they’d concocted – and he’d already
explained his need to hold off on ‘curing’ Archer by citing that the need for
expediency in Tucker’s case had forced him to act blindly against the virus without
having time to study it properly. “But I
don’t see any need to delay your treatment, Captain – after all, the longer we
let it go, the worse your symptoms will be when your body begins to rid itself
of the dead virus.” He helped Archer to
get off the biobed and then led him into the main part of Sickbay where the
more sophisticated diagnostic scanners were located. Reed lent a hand getting his captain into
position, eyeing the restraining straps on the sides of the bed and wondering
if they were going to need them. They
didn’t; Archer had just barely gotten situated when Phlox hit him with a loaded
hypo and put him down for the count.
“There,” he said, sounding tired.
“I certainly hope you didn’t want to ask him anything else, Lieutenant.”
“No, I’d heard quite enough,” Reed assured him, grimacing. “Should we strap him in just to be on the
safe side?”
“Yes,” Phlox said immediately, surprising him. “I have no way of knowing what is going to
happen once I begin eradicating the commands, and to use your minefield analogy
any of them could ‘go off’ at any time.
And having the captain regain consciousness and attempt to escape during
the procedure would not be a good idea for a multitude of reasons.” He picked up the straps on his side of the
bed and passed them to the armory officer to be secured. “I have him very heavily sedated, but it’s
better to be on the safe side just in case.
Were you planning to stay and watch, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, just tell me where to stand so I’ll be out of your way – but I
need to be able to see everything you’re doing,” Reed told him. “And having an audio record might not be a
bad idea either.”
The doctor raised an eyebrow. “Concerned
about repercussions, are we? Bit late
for that, don’t you think?”
“For me yes, but not for you,” Reed informed him. “Someone needs to be able to back you up when
you tell what happened, especially if something goes wrong.”
“I appreciate the thought, but let’s hope nothing does,” Phlox replied
with a grimace of his own. “All right then,
move up just a step to the left and you’ll be able to watch me and the monitors
at the same time. And I’ll dictate every
step of the procedure as I go, but feel free to add your own comments to the
record as well.” He began to bustle
around with his equipment, attaching things and making adjustments, and after
about five minutes all was ready.
All in all, the whole procedure took about half an hour, and then Phlox
performed a thorough scan of the still-sleeping engineer and Malcolm himself
just to be sure neither of them had been tampered with the way the captain
had. “A very professional job,” Phlox
told Reed once he was finished, frowning over the data while noting out of the
corner of his eye that the armory officer had managed to get back in physical
contact with Tucker again, this time with a hand resting lightly on his
arm. “Interconnected, just like you
theorized, Lieutenant, and done with enough subtlety to prevent the tampering
from showing up on a normal evaluation.
I shudder to think what might have happened if yourself and Commander
Tucker hadn’t noticed the discrepancy and reported it to me.”
“What already has happened is quite bad enough,” Reed rebutted
quietly. He was thinking about the
desert planet again, about the harsh, panting rasp of Tucker’s labored
breathing in the close confines of the shuttle as they escaped the planet’s
grasp, about how his own heart had almost stopped when the noise had abruptly
ceased – it was because T’Pol had fitted an oxygen
mask on the stricken man, but Malcolm hadn’t known that until later. He still didn’t know how Tucker was going to
take the realization that his ‘best friend’ had tried to kill him – if he
hadn’t figured it out already. Malcolm
hoped he hadn’t. “Have you checked
yourself?” he asked the doctor. “Or can Denobulans…”
“No, not like that,” Phlox reassured him, not taking offense. “My brain operates on a different frequency
than yours, the procedure that was used on the captain would have no effect on
me at all.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you have asked me that question
yesterday, before you left the captain and Mr. Tucker in my care?”
Reed shrugged. “There really
wasn’t anything else I could do, Doctor – and since we weren’t sure of the
exact nature of the problem yesterday, I didn’t really have a question I could ask you.” He
cocked an eyebrow of his own. “Not to
mention that if you had been affected, the fact that we’d told you would have
already put the commander and I in jeopardy anyway. And I did take precautions.” He hadn’t, of course, because there hadn’t
been any he could take, but Phlox didn’t need to
know that. “When would you say Commander
Tucker will be ready to leave Sickbay, then?
He and I need to go over some things before you spring the captain, I’m
going to have to find a reason to go over the logs again and I’d like him to
help me.”
Phlox smiled. “I believe I can
concoct an appropriate reason for you – for the benefit of the captain’s ears,
of course, and perhaps the sub-commander’s as well?”
“Perhaps.” The armory officer
shrugged again. “But it’s best to have
an official reason for poking around. My
excuse yesterday was looking for more incidences of the ‘virus’ by checking
crew records and evaluations for documented erratic behavior, so we can’t use
that one again.”
“No, but I believe I have a solution that will suit yours and Mr.
Tucker’s needs.” The doctor’s smile
widened, not only from the idea he’d concocted but also because he’d seen
Reed’s hand tighten on the sleeping engineer’s arm in what was almost an
affectionate – or perhaps possessive? – squeeze. Human mating behavior, fascinating
stuff. Phlox didn’t think the lieutenant
was aware of what he was doing, however, so he kept his observation to
himself. “You can come back to fetch him
in approximately four hours, he should be more than ready to leave by
then. I will apprise him of the role he
needs to play to provide your excuse, so all you’ll have to do is just play
along for the captain. Who will also
most likely be recovered enough to return to his quarters at that time.”
Reed shook his head. “About
that, Doctor…”
The next four hours dragged by like each one was coated in syrup, and
it was all Reed could do not to bound up out of his seat on the bridge at the
end of his shift – actually, it had been all he could do during
his shift not to stare at Sub-Commander T’Pol in
hopes that she’d do something odd to confirm his suspicions about her. But if his suspicions were right and he
stared…well, honestly he wasn’t sure what would happen then and at the time he
hadn’t much wanted to find out. He’d
have no proof to clear himself with if she made accusations, for one thing. And for another…he was supposed to retrieve
Tucker from Sickbay, and he couldn’t do that if he were confined to his
quarters or locked up someplace under guard.
And Tucker probably wasn’t going to be up to defending himself
immediately, nor would Archer know the truth and be able to help them.
Of course, there was always the possibility that Archer wouldn’t be
willing to help them even after he did know the
truth, but the armory officer was trying not to think about that one at the moment. There’d be time for borrowing trouble later;
finding the trouble they already had was the priority now. That, and making sure Tucker was all right.
Reed felt a little stirring of apprehension deep in his gut as he
approached Sickbay, remembering what he had walked into the last time, but he
was both surprised and relieved when he entered to find Tucker sitting up on
the side of his bed and tugging a t-shirt over his rumpled blond head. “Hey Mal,” he greeted the armory officer,
sounding a little tired but otherwise normal.
“Are you here to spring me?”
“You look like you’re capable of springing yourself,” Reed observed with
a smile.
“That’s what I told him, but he won’t listen to me,” Tucker
snorted. “Ain’t that right, Cap’n?”
Archer chuckled from his own bed, trying not to scratch at a scaly
patch. “At least he’s letting you leave; I have to stay another twelve hours.”
“I’m sure that’s just a precaution, Captain,” Reed told him. He sounded sympathetic, but he wasn’t. As chief of security he really didn’t feel
it was a good idea to give the captain free run of the ship until they were
sure all the damage had been undone, or at least identified. Archer’s extra half day of observation had
been the answer to that; Malcolm had wanted a full 24 hours but the doctor had
thought that would be too long, so they’d compromised. “But as for you,” he addressed Tucker
again. “I have better things to do with
my time than escort your sorry arse to your room –
I’ve spent enough time lugging you around lately, don’t you think?”
The engineer made a face at him.
“Hey, it wasn’t my idea – complain to the mother-henning
Denobulan.”
He hopped lightly off the bed…and would have hit the floor when his
knees buckled if Reed hadn’t been quick to catch him. “And that’s what you get for questioning your
doctor’s orders, Mr. Tucker,” Phlox said pleasantly from the doorway. The doctor nodded at Reed and smiled
reassuringly. “He’s fine, Lieutenant,
just a bit unsteady. One of the
after-effects of the virus, but it will pass.”
Reed pushed Tucker back onto the edge of the biobed and held him there
with one hand wrapped firmly around his bicep.
Now that he was close he could see that the engineer’s blue eyes were
dilated slightly and knew that the doctor must have given him something to make
it look good for Archer. “And what of
the others?”
Phlox frowned, but Tucker answered before he could. “Aw don’t listen to him, he seems to think
the virus messed up my mind somehow. I’m
fine…”
Reed pushed him back down when he tried to stand up again. “Oh yes, I know your ‘fine’,” he
scolded. “You were ‘fine’ after the Canamar incident as well until you damn near collapsed in
the captain’s ready room, as I recall.”
“Hey, I ain’t the only one who don’t…” Tucker began, and then trailed
off, looking puzzled. “Canamar?”
The armory officer’s eyes widened; he knew this had to be a setup, but
damned if he could see anything other than blank confusion in the engineer’s
face. He shot a look back at Phlox, who
was shaking his head. “Brain damage?”
“Some memory loss, but it doesn’t appear to be too severe,” the doctor
temporized, with a pointed look at Archer, who was watching worriedly. “More than the captain will experience due to
the extra precautions we took, but nothing that should affect his ability to do
his job. He can most likely fill in the
gaps on his own in time.”
Reed nodded slowly. “I see.” And he did – he could see the opening the
doctor was giving him very plainly now.
“Have you determined how much memory loss there is, or over what time
period?”
Phlox shrugged. “It appears to
be only his more recent memories that have been affected.”
“Hmm.” The armory officer
pretended to think about it; internally, however, he was crowing triumphantly. “I could go through the ships logs with him,
see what’s missing,” he suggested. “I’m
afraid I don’t agree with you about his ability as a senior officer being
affected, Doctor; we’ve encountered some real nasties
since we’ve been out here and it could pose a grave security risk to the ship
if we came up against some of the same again and the commander didn’t know what
was going on.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” the doctor agreed. “And perhaps when I deem the captain fit, you
could do the same for him as well?”
“Oh most definitely.” There was
no doubt in Reed’s mind that a thorough debriefing of his captain was going to
be necessary at the end of all this, none at all. He just hoped it wasn’t going to end badly.
Tucker wanted to go back to his own quarters – to his own bed, he
insisted – so that was where they went.
Once inside the engineer flopped down on his bunk and shut his eyes,
groaning. “I don’t know what that was
that he slipped me, but it’s got the room spinnin’
like a damned merry go round.”
Now that they were behind closed doors, Reed was full of sympathy. “Starfleet owes you a commendation for this,
Trip.”
“Hell, there’s a good chance Starfleet would have me court-martialed if
they knew what’s been goin’ on,” was the engineer’s
tired reply. He opened up one eye, the
other being covered by his upflung arm. “An’ they might still, if this diggin’ goes where we think it will.”
“I haven’t yet found evidence to suggest it might do otherwise,” Reed
told him quietly. He dropped down on the
side of the bunk and rubbed at his face with his hands. “I suppose I’d better bring you up to speed
before we start digging through the logs. Phlox found seven implanted commands, all
interconnected to prevent tampering. We
have a suspicion that setting them off might have driven the captain mad,
possibly even to suicide – we already know that at least one of them incited
him to attempt murder.”
The blue eye closed again, and Tucker sighed. “Zobral’s planet.”
“Yes.” Malcolm lifted his head
and stared at nothing. “I’m sorry,
Trip.”
“I…knew somethin’ was wrong,” Tucker said
after a long pause. “You don’t think
he’ll…remember, do you?”
The softly drawled question was almost plaintive, and Reed sighed
himself. “I don’t know, I certainly hope
not. But the rest…we’re going to have to
tell him the rest and he might figure it out anyway.”
“Yeah.” More silence, each man
wading through his own feelings of despair at the situation they were facing,
and then Tucker sat up with another groan and opened his eyes. “We need to get to work.”
Reed turned slightly, looking him in the eye. “You should…”
“Rest? Couldn’t if I wanted to,
which I don’t,” Tucker told him dismissively.
“I want to figure out what’s goin’ on here and
what we need to do to fix it.”
“If it can be fixed.” But the
armory officer was already getting up, moving over to Tucker’s desk. “No, you stay put,” he ordered when the engineer
made to get off the bed. “You said
yourself Phlox gave you something, so you might as well stay put and be
comfortable until it wears off. I’ll
access the logs and play them on audio – you can discuss them with me just as
easily lying down as sitting up.”
The other man sank back down again, but this time he pushed up the
pillow behind his head so he could see, tucking the arm that had previously
been over his eyes behind his head as well.
“You realize we’re gonna have to start at the
very beginning, right?”
“We don’t have to go through all of them,” Reed reassured him. “It’s incidents we’re looking for, if anyone
had been acting strange when things were quiet we’d have noticed already. What we’re really looking for is a pattern of
behavior similar to the captain’s, a culmination of odd reactions or bad
judgments that dovetail with his. And
I’ve already ruled out most of the crew on that, there were only about half a
dozen who I thought deserved a closer look.”
“Was Crewman O’Malley one of the ones that tripped your radar?” Tucker
wanted to know. When Reed raised an
eyebrow the engineer smiled slightly and shook his head. “He’s actin’ weird,
yeah, but he has a reason; his wife waited until after we’d shipped out to tell
him she was pregnant and he don’t think it’s his. So you
can cross him off your list.”
“Yes, I suppose so – that would be enough to throw anyone off.” The armory officer scrolled through another
screen, frowning. “We know someone has
to be watching the captain, though; in spite of what Phlox thinks of it, the
planning that had to be involved to pull this off smacks of a conspiracy. And a conspiracy is not going to rest their
entire program on a single man, no matter who he is or what he’s programmed to
do. I’m just hoping we’ll be able to
find a clear enough sign in the logs to tell us who…”
Trip sat up abruptly, and the movement had Reed’s attention in a
heartbeat. “What is it?”
“I know who’s watchin’ him,” Tucker
breathed. He looked absolutely
sickened. “It was somethin’
I didn’t think much about at the time except to be ticked off about it. You remember when the Suliban
got the run of the ship that time?”
Reed winced. “I don’t think I
could forget a beating like that,” he said.
“I don’t think there was any part of me anywhere that didn’t hurt.”
“Yeah, I know.” And it looked
like it bothered him, too, although he shook it off. “But do you remember when I came down to
Sickbay, how shocked I was at how bad they’d messed you up? And how the cap’n
never did come down to see you?” When
Reed nodded, mystified, Tucker’s blue eyes locked with his. “Well that’s because T’Pol
reported that you just had ‘minor injuries’, Mal. She had the doc’s report, she’d been down to
Sickbay…an’ she lied to him about what went on.
And with the Xyrillians, she was the one that
blamed me right off the bat for what happened, for not controllin’
myself; she had Jon lookin’ at it like it was my
fault. You see a pattern here?”
“I believe I do, yes,” the armory officer agreed unhappily. “And at the same time she has been
insinuating herself into his confidence – among other things. I’ve been privy to a comment or two she’s
made to the captain that struck me as rather…intimate coming from a
Vulcan. She’s been trying to distance
him from us as well as to command some part of his affections.” His gray eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Of course, there is also the possibility
that she is just as much a pawn as he is.
I wonder if hypnotic suggestion works on Vulcans?”
“Might if a Vulcan had a hand in doin’
it.” Tucker sank back down, covering his
eyes again. “He was at Starfleet Command
two weeks before he came on board, Mal.
How long do you think it takes to turn someone into a tickin’ time bomb?”
“Phlox says around forty-eight hours, for a human.” Reed slumped back in the chair. “Or at least four days, if some form of
torture isn’t involved.”
The engineer twitched. “Wish I’d
tried to contact him after they sent me up here, then we’d know.”
“I’m not sure knowing would help – and either way, he won’t consciously
remember that part of it.”
“Hope you’re right.” Another
twitch. “Hopin’
he won’t remember a bunch of things.”
Reed made an affirmative noise, but secretly he was hoping just the
opposite. Not just because they needed
Archer to remember in order to keep himself, Tucker and Phlox from being court martialed…but because the one who’d suffered most from this
was the captain’s best friend, and that man deserved an apology.
They’d compiled a neat list summarizing T’Pol’s
suspicious behavior over the past two years, backing it up with excerpts from
the ship’s logs and official reports whenever possible, and Malcolm was taking
yet another run at eliminating more names from his own list of suspects when he
realized that Trip had fallen asleep.
The armory officer abandoned his project for a moment and went to make
sure sleep was all it was, sitting gingerly on the side of the bed and brushing
a careful hand across his friend’s forehead.
He was overreacting, he knew, but the itching incident had shaken him;
having a ship’s physician who wasn’t bound by the Hippocratic Oath might be
useful at times, but the implications of it were frightening as well, moreso than he’d previously considered. If he hadn’t gone down to Sickbay this
morning, if Phlox had refused to listen to him…
He suddenly became aware that Trip’s eyes were open and staring at him,
studying him, and Malcolm realized that he’d gone off woolgathering at a very
inopportune time – and that his hand had somehow gotten tangled in the
engineer’s short blond hair. He
extracted it slowly, unable to look away from his friend’s increasingly
questioning gaze. “I was…checking to
make sure you’re all right.”
“I’m all right.” Trip matched
his slow movements, pushing himself up to a sitting position, his blue eyes
never leaving Malcolm’s gray ones. He
caught the armory officer’s hand before it could be withdrawn completely out of
his reach and gently held it captive.
His thumb, callus-roughened, stroked thoughtfully across Malcolm’s palm. “Tell me.”
Malcolm blinked. “Phlox,” he
said. “He isn’t part of what’s going on,
but in a way he’s worse. What if he’d
been part of this? We’d never have
known, we’d just chalk the incidents up to his not fully understanding
humans. We have to rely on him, trust
him…and he hurt you, Trip.”
Trip smiled crookedly. “Yeah,
but he did it because we asked him to, right?
And when you came chargin’ in to the rescue,
he fixed things.” He raised a very
tentative hand to lightly touch Malcolm’s cheek. “My hero.”
The moment seemed to stretch on for an eternity, but before anything
more could happen the silence – and with it the moment – was broken by a chirp
from Trip’s terminal. Malcolm made a
face. “My search is done, apparently.”
“Apparently.” Trip dared one
more caress before letting his hand drop.
“Guess we’d better get back to it, huh?”
“Yes.” It was Malcolm’s turn to
smile, wryly, as he pulled away and stood up.
“But perhaps later…?”
Trip’s own smile became a grin, and he scooted back so he could lean
against the head of the bed. “There’ll
be a better time, I’m sure. An’ this way
we’ll have somethin’ to look forward to, no matter
what else happens.”
Phlox released Archer the next morning and cleared him for light duties
– meaning paperwork – for the day, and he was in his ready room grudgingly
doing just that when Reed commed him about their
promised meeting. The captain was
surprised, however, when Tucker came in with Reed. “I thought you were off duty today?”
“I am.” The engineer didn’t look
happy. “But I…needed to be here.”
“This does involve him too, Captain,” Reed added, not quite
apologetically. “We have to debrief
you.”
“Debrief?” Archer frowned;
something was up, and he didn’t like not knowing what it was. “I thought we were just going to go over some
things, make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything important.” He raised an eyebrow. “Mind letting me in on the secret,
gentlemen?”
Tucker swallowed. “That’s why
we’re here.”
“I’ve brought all our research, sir, and our unofficial report.” Reed held out a padd. “I couldn’t make an official report on the
situation, for reasons that will become obvious to you shortly.”
“They’d better.” Archer took the
padd, but he’d barely glanced at it before he noticed
something else that narrowed his eyes. “Lieutenant,
why are you wearing a phase pistol?”
Reed met his gaze unflinchingly.
“Security reasons, Captain,” he answered. “You will understand once we begin, I assure
you.”
“It’s necessary, Cap’n,” Trip added, looking
unhappier than ever. “Trust us, please.”
Archer threw himself backward in his chair, clearly frustrated. “All right then, get on with it,” he
ordered. “But I’m about two more cryptic
excuses from tossing you both in the brig.”
“Understood, sir,” Reed said. He
took a deep breath. “This all began the
day I had you come down to the gym for your unarmed combat assessment. I noticed some…inconsistencies in your
fighting style, as did Commander Tucker, and he took it upon himself to look
more deeply into the matter. What he
discovered and then brought to my attention was that you appeared to be
somewhat inhibited in actual combat.”
“I can show you the tapes,” Tucker added, seeing the suspicious
disbelief on the captain’s face. “It’s
there, plain as day, like somebody was flippin’
a switch and turnin’
you off during a fight. So Mal and I
took it to Phlox, and he confirmed that it looked like a hypnotically implanted
command was kickin’ in.” It was the engineer’s turn to take a deep
breath; this was the part that could land them in real trouble. “Problem was, all we had was guesses and what
we needed was evidence. And we needed to
figure a way to get you into Sickbay so Phlox could try to fix things, but
without tippin’ you off. So…I arranged to get sick.”
The captain sat bolt upright in his chair. “That was faked?! But you were…I saw…”
“Phlox and I did that part,” Reed told him, resisting the urge to shift
nervously as he, too, felt how shaky the ground under their feet was at this
point. “We had to convince you to submit
yourself for treatment without letting on the actual reason for it; it was
highly probable that more than one command had been implanted and we couldn’t
risk setting one off. Especially
considering that the purpose of the one we were already aware of seemed to be
to cause your death.”
Archer just looked at him. “We
couldn’t take the risk, Cap’n,” Tucker said. “No tellin’ what
could have happened if you’d known that we knew.”
“So you initiated this…conspiracy out of supposed concern for my safety
and that of the rest of the crew, is that your explanation?” Archer ground
out. It was obvious that he was working
hard to control his fury. “You actually
thought I was a danger to someone on this ship?
That I would hurt a member of my own crew?” Tucker looked away, unable to meet his eyes,
and the older man’s mouth dropped open.
“My god, you did, didn’t you?
With no evidence, nothing but some groundless suspicions, you turned
your back on everything you know about me…”
“He didn’t.” Reed was not about
to let that go any farther; Tucker was already looking positively ill. “We couldn’t predict exactly what you might
have been programmed for, so we were taking no chances. And if you’ll remember, the doctor found
seven interconnected areas of tampering in your brain – and only a few of them
had been activated, the others were little time bombs waiting for the right
trigger to set them off.” He patted his
sidearm meaningfully. “Nor could we be
entirely positive he’d found them all.”
Archer snorted. “So what you’re
saying is that even after all that you still don’t trust me, may never trust me
again.” He settled back in his chair and
glared – mostly at Tucker, the armory officer noticed. “Well, gentlemen, the feeling is mutual.”
The engineer paled. “Cap’n, are you sayin’…”
“Exactly what it sounded like I said, Commander.” The captain didn’t soften at all. “It’s not like I’ll ever be able to trust you
again after this.”
Tucker staggered like he’d been struck and went from pale to dead
white; he looked like he was about to faint.
Reed was in front of him in a heartbeat, bracing him with a firm grip on
his upper arms and capturing wide blue eyes with his own serious gray
ones. “Commander, I believe we should
not be keeping you from your rest,” he said firmly. “Go to your quarters, I’ll come check on you
when I’m done here.”
To Archer’s surprise, Tucker accepted the order with hardly a blink –
and it had been an order, no question about that. Reed didn’t speak again until he’d left the
room, and even then it was through clenched teeth. “You’ll pardon me saying this, Captain, but
that was low of you.” He crossed to the
com panel and punched the button. “Reed
to Phlox.”
“Phlox here,” came the doctor’s voice, and the captain was certain he
detected more than a hint of unease in the Denobulan’s
normally pleasantly even tone. “Is there
a problem, Lieutenant?”
“It’s Commander Tucker,” Reed replied.
“I’ve sent him to his quarters but I believe he’s somewhat in shock and
I can’t get away myself just now to see to him.”
“You’re with the captain, I take it?” Phlox asked, and then sighed when
the answer was affirmative. “I
understand, Lieutenant. I will go do
what I can to ease the commander’s…difficulties. Phlox out.”
The armory officer seemed to gather himself, and then he straightened
and faced Archer again. “Now I believe
we were discussing trust, were we not?
Or were those comments merely for the purpose of hurting Commander
Tucker?”
Archer grimaced, still clearly holding on to his grudge. “What the two of you did was conspiracy to
commit mutiny,” he snapped.
“And what you did was attempted murder,” Reed returned coolly, although
there was an edge to his voice. “And you
just accused your intended victim of betraying you in spite of the fact that
he’s been trying to save you through this whole bloody mess.”
“What do you mean my ‘intended victim’?!” Archer demanded. “I’ve never tried to kill anyone on this
ship, and especially not someone who I thought was my
best friend!”
“Intended victim,” Reed repeated evenly, jaw clenching again and his
hands curling into fists at his sides.
“You have attempted to kill him at least once since this mission began,
sir. Think back a bit. You knew very well before you insisted that
the commander go with you down to Zobral’s planet
that he is prone to heatstroke. And yet
you dragged him all over the desert, sick and injured as he was, and didn’t do
half for him that you knew to do. If we
hadn’t shown up when we did, your programmer would have accomplished one of his
objectives then and there.”
Archer opened his mouth to say something…but nothing came out. He looked absolutely staggered, completely
horrified, and the armory officer deduced in a second that the man had just bridged
one of the gaps in his memory to put two and two together. Reed relaxed his stance slightly. “It wasn’t your doing, sir. Trip knows that, he holds nothing against
you.”
“He…oh god.” Archer slumped
against the wall, staring at nothing. “I
almost killed him.”
“Almost, but not quite,” Reed emphasized. This part was going to be even trickier,
because they couldn’t afford to have Archer paralyzed with guilt over what had
happened and now the armory officer was going to have to carefully push him
past that point. “You couldn’t kill him, I think – had you been able to, it would
have been easy enough in that particular situation. And the convenient bombs dropping all ‘round
you both would have been more than sufficient to dispose of the commander’s
body and therefore conceal the exact cause of his death. Instead, though, you fought the command and
managed to keep him alive until rescue arrived.”
“Barely alive,” the captain snorted softly. “You said it, I didn’t do everything I should
have, or even could have. Phlox said
another hour or two and we would have lost him.”
“But we didn’t.” The armory
officer’s voice was as strong, even commanding.
“Dwelling on should-haves and could-haves is a fool’s game, sir, and
therefore one no officer worth his salt participates in willingly for more than
one go-round.”
Archer raised an eyebrow at the obvious quote. “Who said that?”
“My father, actually.” Just
mentioning the retired naval officer who was his father made Reed stiffen. “It’s part of the code he lives by, and something
they drum into young naval officers. One
round of self-pity and second-guessing is all a man is entitled to, if even
that.” He fixed his captain with a very
firm look. “And if proof of Commander
Tucker’s feelings toward you is what you’re thinking you require, sir, just
remember that he let Dr. Phlox and I make him sick as a dog to get you into
Sickbay. Do you think a man who resented
you would have lain there strapped to a bed and driven half mad by unrelieved itching
just so you could safely get medical treatment?”
The captain blanched, another realization hitting home. All those comments he’d made yesterday… “I know how sensitive his skin it, but I told
you and Phlox both that he was just being a baby about it.” He rubbed a hand over his face, as though
trying to wipe the disbelief off his features.
“I…I laughed at him, Malcolm. And he never said a word.”
“Would you have?” the armory officer asked pointedly. Sympathy wasn’t what was required here. “Were the situation, God forbid, to be
reversed, would you have jeopardized Trip’s well-being in the interest of your
own comfort?”
“No.” Hazel-green eyes lifted,
and Reed saw acceptance of the situation reluctantly setting in. “But I would have before, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes sir, without question,” he answered. “But that decision would also not have been
yours; it would have been the decision of those who programmed you.” He straightened back to near-attention. “They apparently made quite a lot of
decisions regarding this mission, Captain.
If you don’t wish to go into the rest of it right now I will understand,
but even though they are outlined in our report,” he gestured to the padd on Archer’s desk, “we do need talk about them sooner
and not later. Perhaps this evening when Commander Tucker is…feeling
better?”
Archer got an unusual expression on his face. “Will he be, Malcolm?”
The armory officer nodded. “Yes
sir, I guarantee it. He knows how
important this is.”
“Obviously – but he’s important too.”
Archer straightened himself, not quite mirroring Reed’s posture but
almost. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Tell Commander Tucker that I’ll meet with the
two of you in my quarters at 1600 hours, dismissed.”
“Yes sir, thank you sir.” Reed
turned at once and left the room, and Archer sealed the door behind him. He went back to his desk and dropped into his
chair, saving the report he’d been working on and calling up
The door to Archer’s quarters buzzed at precisely 1600 hours – the sort
of punctuality he’d grown to expect from Reed – and the captain squashed one
last flare of nerves to answer it. He
waved the two younger men in with a frown deepened by new worry; his engineer’s
blue eyes were dilated and slightly glassy, and Reed was all but hovering over
him. “Trip?”
Tucker blinked at him – or rather, past him; their eyes didn’t quite
meet. “Cap’n?”
“Sit down before you fall down,” Archer told him, careful not to let it
sound like an order. Reed steered the
taller man to the nearest chair and pushed him down into it, then stationed
himself stiffly in front of the chair next to it. “You too, Malcolm.”
Reed hesitated until Archer moved to his own seat and then did as he
was told. Trip had slumped almost bonelessly into his and was staring at the ceiling. “Captain…”
“I can guess,” Archer interrupted him.
“Phlox…must have gotten a little carried away with the sedatives.” It was all he could do not to cringe when
Reed’s shuttered expression clearly told him Phlox hadn’t gotten carried away
at all. “Trip, if you’d rather we did
this some other time…”
“No time like the present,” Tucker drawled. “Have to get this debriefin’
over, Jon. It can’t wait.”
“He’s right, it can’t,” Reed agreed unhappily. “Have you read our report, sir?”
“Yes, I have. And it was good
work, both of you.” Jonathan Archer, in
spite of what some might have thought due to recent events, was a formidable
force once his mind was made up about something. After reading the report and going over the
evidence he’d gone through every log, picked apart his own memories and dug
into the senior staff reports that went with every incident. And he’d found the pattern that had eluded
Reed and Tucker. “Whoever they are, they
don’t just want us to go home with our tails between our legs; they want to
make sure Earth’s reputation is sullied enough that we won’t venture out of our
own system again for generations.”
Reed caught on quickly. “Not
just backing up the Vulcan agenda for keeping humans Earthbound, then, but
making sure the rest of the galaxy has no reason to respect us. But don’t they realize that makes Earth a
target?”
“Doubt they’ve thought that far ahead, Mal,” Tucker said softly. The engineer was still staring tiredly at the
ceiling. “If they’re isolationists, then
all they can see is Earth. The big
picture for them ends at the stratosphere, or maybe Pluto if we’re lucky.”
Archer decided that was as good an opening as he was going to get to
bring up the unspeakable. “And that
would give them a damned good reason to kill the man who knows more about the
Warp 5 engine than anyone else, wouldn’t it?”
The blue gaze drifted down to meet his, flat and carefully blank. “Little details, Cap’n. Not really important to the big picture. You shouldn’t be worryin’
about stuff like that.”
It was an offer of blameless absolution if he wanted it. He didn’t.
“They made me try to kill you, Trip.”
“I think the operative word there is ‘try’,” Tucker told him. His eyes swung upward again. “You could have, more’n
once, and you didn’t. End of story. I think what we’re goin’
to do next is the important thing right now.
We should really figure out a way for Phlox to test the whole command
staff, make sure no one else is programmed.”
“He already tested Trip and I both, and we’re clear,” Reed told the
captain, cutting in before Archer could pursue the previous topic of
discussion; the engineer clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it, might never be
ready to discuss it with Archer, and Malcolm wasn’t going to let the man be
pushed. “I went over the records of
other key crew members and didn’t find any overt behavioral discrepancies that
couldn’t be explained…except for one.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Archer said, giving in to the forced
subject change – for the time being, anyway.
“Sub Commander T’Pol, right? Once I thought about it I noticed it too. What do you have other than her flirting with
me?”
“She’s been trying to come between you and the rest of your senior
staff,” Reed answered. “There have been
several incidents which can have no other explanation.” At Archer’s questioning look he
shrugged. “Some of them aren’t the sort
of things that would appear in a log. The
specific details aren’t really…”
“Okay, that’s it!” Archer
slapped his hand down on the desk and stood up, glowering down at his two
officers. He was pleased to see that
he’d gotten Tucker’s wandering attention, although the apprehension that briefly
flickered in the blue eyes worried him. “This
isn’t the time for talking out the personal details of what went on, I know
that,” he stated firmly. “But let’s
clear one thing up right now: what I did, even though it wasn’t my choice to do
it, is not unimportant. So quit pretending that it is! There have been enough lies and enough
deceptions going on over the past two years without us adding to them. It happened and eventually we’re going to
have to deal with it – eventually we will deal with
it, because I’m not going to let it go.”
He fixed his openmouthed armory officer with a hard look. “Now tell me what else T’Pol
has done, Lieutenant.”
“She falsified verbal reports to you,” Tucker answered before Reed
could. There was no way he was going to
make Malcolm tell the captain that particular story. “More than once. When you came back from wherever Daniels had
taken you, after we’d got rid of the Suliban, she
told you that Mal only had minor injuries when they’d actually beat him half to
death right here on the bridge. And
without him doin’ what he did to distract them, we
never could have retaken the ship.”
Reed stiffened. “I was just
following orders.”
“Yeah, mine,” Tucker shot back. “Don’t think I don’t wake up in the middle of
the night thinkin’ about that one, Mal. And what you did should have got you a
commendation or maybe even a promotion, instead you got one lousy day off to
recuperate and I know damn good and well I’m the only one on board who thanked
you!”
“I was doing my duty,” Reed reiterated harshly. “And at least they didn’t rape me, now did they?
What about the black mark on your service record that you ‘earned’ by
being sent alone into an unpredictable situation with aliens who violated your
body and your mind, hmm? What sort of consideration did you earn for that lovely experience except censure and ridicule, Trip?” Tucker actually flinched, and the armory
officer tossed himself back in his seat with a snort that wasn’t entirely
unsympathetic. “Don’t talk to me about
guilt, Commander; I stood by and let that happen
to you, and don’t think I don’t bloody well kick myself every time some idiot
of a crew member makes a joke about the incident and I see that look in your
eyes.”
Archer gaped at them both, very slowly sinking back down into his
seat. The situation was much, much worse
than he’d thought. A captain does more
than lead his crew, he guides them too; he’s a teacher, a mentor, even a father
figure if necessary. But his officers
had been denied that, left to struggle through one impossible situation after
another with only their own incomplete resources to rely on. They’d done well, no question about that, but
they’d had to do it alone and now he was seeing part of what it had cost them. And now it was his job to pay some of that
back, if he could. “You’re both right,”
he said slowly. “Trip, you were in
command and you made a command decision; you don’t have to feel good about the
personal cost to Malcolm, but you did the right thing with the welfare of the
whole ship in mind and he was doing his
duty by following your orders.” He
grimaced. “I’m sorry I wasn’t…aware of
the situation, or I would have helped you come to terms with it sooner. And as for the other…” Archer sighed. “Malcolm, if you’ll recall you did everything
in your power to convince me that Trip shouldn’t go over to the Xyrillian ship by himself, and the reasons you cited
unfortunately turned out to be exactly what happened. That was my fault, not yours, even if programming
was involved – and if you’ll think about it logically, that was most likely
when the command to kill him first activated because I know better than to send
one of the most indispensable crewmembers on the ship into a situation like
that without any backup. And yes,” he
continued ruthlessly, “I went along with T’Pol’s
assessment of the situation and I shouldn’t have, and Trip is still paying the
price. That black mark on his record is
a mark I put there myself.” His gaze
swung back to his best friend – and it humbled him to realize that the man
still was his best friend, even after all this.
“Trip, did Phlox ever get you any kind of rape counseling over the Xyrillian incident?”
Tucker wouldn’t meet his eyes, and Archer felt a weight settle in his
stomach. “Did he…agree with T’Pol and I?”
Trip shrugged. “I had to go in
for mandatory birth-control counseling, and he put me through some real embarrassin’ tests to see if I had a problem with
promiscuity or xenophilia that could impact my
performance as a Starfleet officer, that was all.” Blue eyes flicked up when Malcolm gasped,
then quickly looked away again. “Was T’Pol who insisted on the tests, Mal, not Phlox. He was just doin’
his job.”
Malcolm’s jaw set. “Perhaps,” he
ground out in a tight, controlled voice.
“But it seems a shame that he always seems to fall a little short of the
mark ‘doing his job’ when it comes to you.”
The engineer sighed. “He didn’t
know about the itchin’, Mal.”
“I am aware of that, but it doesn’t make me any happier about it,”
Malcolm returned just as quietly. “I knew
there was no way I could verify that Phlox wasn’t in on it. I should have checked on things sooner, not
waited for the next morning after breakfast.”
“And I shouldn’t have lied to Phlox,” Archer put in before Trip could respond. “But it happened and we can’t change it, so
let’s move on for the moment, shall we?”
He shook his head. “This is a
mess, isn’t it? If the Vulcans could see
us now…”
Malcolm became all business again.
“I’m not sure they can’t, sir.”
He took Archer’s raised eyebrow as permission to continue. “Honestly, I’m not convinced that humans
could implant such controls into a Vulcan – and neither is Dr. Phlox. And the sub-commander couldn’t have gone four
days out of touch with her people without it being noticed; that’s how long the
doctor believes it would have taken to do what they did to you, using the
methods he’s familiar with and eliminating torture as a possibility.” He correctly read Archer’s expression
again. “With torture, as little as 48
hours, Captain. But they had you two
weeks, so it seems unlikely they’d employ a method that could leave evidence
that would expose their actions.”
“We don’t know all the Vulcans are capable of, though.” Trip didn’t look happy to be suggesting
it. “They’ve got more technology than we
do, and now we know some of them are telepathic too. Maybe we need to see if Phlox knows how long
it would take to implant those commands that way.”
“I doubt he does; they’re as secretive with the Denobulans
as they are with everyone else.” Archer
shrugged and managed a half-grin. “Even
though the Denobulans are a lot nosier than we are.”
That got a chuckle out of Trip, but Malcolm just shook his head. “It really isn’t important now anyway, begging
your pardon, sir,” the armory officer said.
“What’s done is done, and what we really need to focus on now is dealing
with the problem on board
“You’re right.” Archer pretended
not to notice how surprised the younger man was to get his agreement, filing it
away as yet another thing he was going to have to deal with after this was all
over. “So did Phlox have any ideas about
how to get T’Pol into Sickbay?”
“None that are…safe, Captain.”
Malcolm shrugged. He, Trip and
Phlox had talked about this and hadn’t been able to come up with anything
satisfactory. “Our biggest problem right
now is that we don’t know what in your behavior the sub-commander might be
responding to, so therefore we don’t know what might trigger her or to what
action.”
“In other words, some little thing you don’t
do might trigger her to send an urgent message to the High Command, or to
Starfleet.” Trip grimaced. “Or she might suddenly feel the need to kill
you.”
“Or to destroy the ship entirely.”
Malcolm made a face. “All of
which means that we must act quickly, whatever we decide to do, as any
appreciable delay might very well prove fatal to us all.”
Archer had to agree with that too, much as he didn’t want to. If T’Pol had been
programmed she was just as much a victim as he’d been, and hadn’t Malcolm said
before that one of his own implanted commands might have been suicidal in
nature, or even driven him insane? But
he also had his ship and crew to think of, not to mention the fate of the
entire exploration program that was riding on this one extended mission. “We won’t delay, then,” he said decisively,
and almost winced when he saw another flash of surprised relief in his armory
officer’s face – he didn’t want to interpret what he was seeing in Trip’s. “What if I contact her, ask her to meet me
down at the shuttlebay. I’ll tell her Phlox is concerned about this
‘dormant organism’ thing with the shuttlepods and
that you two are working on a possible solution – I’ll play into the
programming by implying that I want her to oversee what you’re doing, like I
don’t quite trust the two of you.”
That time it was Trip who winced, but all he said was, “That’ll work.” He dredged up a smile and started pushing
himself up out of his chair. “I guess we
should be gettin’ down to the shuttlebay,
make sure nobody’s around. Sooner we get
this over with, the sooner we can start figurin’ out
how much damage has already been done and what we’re gonna
have to do to fix it.”
“If we can fix it – we’ll have to go
carefully on that score, if we don’t want to tip whoever’s behind this off and
risk having them retaliate in a way we can’t counter.” Malcolm stood up and hauled Trip the rest of
the way up with him. “Dr. Phlox says he
can legitimately order every crewman in for a check-over if someone other than
yourself and the commander comes down with the ‘virus,’ and that way we’ll know
for certain if anyone else has been tampered with. And I can ‘accidentally’ disable
communications during that time so that no one can report back about what’s
going on.”
“He means he’s gonna pretend he was sneakin’ around on some project in the armory and messed
things up,” Trip explained. “I already
told him that wasn’t necessary, since I can do the same thing and not get into trouble for it.”
“He’s got a point, Lieutenant,” Archer agreed, but he said it with a
smile. “I appreciate your willingness to
make a sacrifice on your record for the good of the ship, but let’s not do it
unless it’s necessary, all right?”
Malcolm dipped his head. “As you
wish, sir,” he replied. “We’ll see you
down in the shuttlebay. And I’ll make sure there’s a weapon to hand
in the shuttle, just in case – I’ll put it under the pilot’s seat, we don’t
want the Sub-Commander to lay hands on it before one of us can.”
“No, we certainly don’t. Now you
two get out of here, I’ll bring T’Pol down in half an
hour.” Archer watched the two men leave
with mixed feelings. He was amazingly
proud of them, humbled to think that after all this they were still loyal, and
a little unsure about asking any more from Tucker, especially right now when
the man wasn’t exactly at his best.
Phlox wasn’t prone to overdoing things when he was administering
drugs…the captain stood up abruptly, a determined look on his face. He could just as well summon T’Pol from Sickbay, it might even look better that way, and
she could meet him in the corridor outside the shuttlebay. He needed to talk to Phlox.
Twenty-five minutes later Archer was waiting in his appointed place
with a grim expression on his face that wasn’t even partially faked. His short talk with Phlox had cleared some
things up, and although what he’d found out hadn’t made him happy at least now
he had a somewhat better idea of what was going on with his chief
engineer. How they were going to fix
what was going on was something else entirely, but that would have to
wait. He could hear measured footsteps
on the deck plating; T’Pol was coming. Hopefully she’d mistake the look on his face
for something else.
She did. “Captain,” she greeted
him, inclining her head slightly. “It
appears we have a very serious situation with regards to sterilization and
quarantine procedures. I am concerned
that it has escaped Commander Tucker’s notice for so long.”
Archer wanted to wince and didn’t, knowing that a week ago he would
have bought right into that. “I’m not
sure there was anything for him to notice,” he temporized with a shrug. “That’s what Phlox says, anyway. But I’m sure that if Trip doesn’t find the problem
Lieutenant Reed will.”
“I am not certain of that,” was T’Pol’s
disapproving reply. “The lieutenant may
be very detail-oriented, but he has been guilty of overlooking very serious
mechanical problems in the past – especially, if you will recall, where the
shuttlecraft are concerned.”
Archer knew which incident she was referring to – and knew that by no
stretch of the imagination had it been Reed’s fault – but he nodded anyway,
feeling sickened by even that small sign of agreement. He pushed the button to open the shuttlebay doors and ushered her inside, making sure the
doors closed behind them. “We’ll get to
the bottom of this,” he promised.
Looking back later, neither he nor Tucker or Reed could ever pinpoint
exactly what it had been that tipped T’Pol off, but
they knew it was something so minor as to have been unnoticeable, some
miniscule reaction that she’d been expecting from the captain and hadn’t
gotten. They’d just barely begun their
false discussion of the imaginary shuttlepod decontamination
problem when she’d glanced over at Archer and then all hell had broken
loose. In T’Pol’s
case all their speculation about what sort of command might be set off if the
person being influenced became aware that someone had figured out they were
programmed fell far short of what Tucker and Reed might have expected from
Archer. The normally placid Vulcan went
from civilized to feral in the space of a breath.
And a feral Vulcan was…well, beyond anything the three of them might
have imagined. She leapt for Archer with
a roar and would have probably had him by the throat if Reed hadn’t knocked her aside. She slid on the smooth deck plates but didn’t
entirely lose her balance, and when she growled at them from her defensive
crouch Archer actually felt himself pale.
She was between them and the shuttle – between them and the gun. “There’s a weapons locker just opposite the
stairs,” the armory officer said in a low voice, his grey eyes never leaving T’Pol even as he addressed his captain. “I’ll distract her, you circle around and get
a phase pistol. We’ll never take her
down without one.”
Archer didn’t think they could either, but he wasn’t sure he liked the
idea of leaving Reed and Tucker to face T’Pol. Especially since he wasn’t sure Tucker was
capable of backing Reed up effectively at the moment. “Trip, you go…”
“No.” Reed was implacable. “Sir, the commander is right behind me, if he
tries to move away she’s going to attack him.
But you’re not close to us, if you move very slowly while we’re the
focus of her attention you’ll be able to make it. And I’ve got the best chance of holding her
off until you can take her down.” T’Pol was tensing
visibly, as though the talking was agitating her; if she’d had a tail Archer
was sure it would have been lashing back and forth, like a cat getting ready to
pounce. “Go, sir!” Reed hissed.
Archer went. He slid one foot
back slowly, then the other, and kept sliding until the bulk of the second
shuttle blocked T’Pol’s view of him. Even then he didn’t dare turn and run, not
wanting the sound of his boots on the deckplates to
draw her after him, but when an animal scream rang out he knew she’d pounced
and he left off stealth to make a dash for the far wall. The locker proved surprisingly resistant to
open, and it took him a very long moment to realize the control mechanism had
been jammed. A chill went down his
spine; she’d suspected something, or someone had. Frantically he looked around for a tool that
could break the locker open, and not finding one was forced to try for the gun
in the shuttle instead.
Luckily T’Pol had moved away from the
shuttle, but what he could see of the fight going on froze Archer in his tracks
and wasted precious seconds. Reed was
holding her off, all right, and he’d probably lasted longer than anyone else on
board would have, but while the captain was watching T’Pol
got through the armory officer’s guard with a blow that impacted the center of
his chest and sent him crashing backwards into the nearest bulkhead where he
slid down into a motionless heap on the deck.
Tucker, who had been half-crumpled against a worktable, threw himself
protectively in front of the downed man to keep T’Pol
from attacking him again, and Archer likewise threw himself into the shuttle to
find the gun. Reed might be able to hold
T’Pol off, but there was no way Trip could.
He jumped out of the shuttle just in time to see that T’Pol had caught Tucker’s right arm and was viciously using
the advantage to rain crushing blows down on him. Archer raised the pistol and aimed just as
she gave a harsh twist to the arm she was holding, and the crack of snapping
bones punctuated the engineer’s strangled scream just before he joined the man
he’d been trying to shield in merciful oblivion. Archer fired just as it looked like she might
be trying to twist off the now-limp arm she was still holding.
To his shock, she didn’t go down.
T’Pol turned and looked at him – or growled at
him, rather – but she did drop the man she was holding and began to stalk this
new threat instead. There was no trace
of sentience left in her face or posture, and Archer realized he was facing a
killing machine. Was this what Vulcans
were without their control, or had the programming created this animal? He didn’t have time to think about it before
she pounced again and his second shot caught her in mid-leap. T’Pol went down
hard and didn’t get back up, but she was still twitching and Archer kept the
pistol trained on her just in case while he raced to comm
Sickbay. “Dr. Phlox, medical emergency
in the shuttlebay!”
Archer had his hands full after that.
He’d wanted to follow the doctor and his two badly injured men down to
Sickbay, but there were explanations to make and a communications system to
disable and quite a bit of damage control to put into place. He felt for the first time just how much
strain Reed and Tucker had been under since they’d discovered the tampering,
knowing there was literally no one on board – no one conscious, anyway – who he
could trust completely at the moment. But finally it was all done, and he’d ordered
Travis to hold their position exactly where they were. Hoshi had wanted to know why they wouldn’t be
broadcasting a quarantine warning in case any other ships showed up, but Archer
had dealt with that by asking her scathingly if she thought being blown out of
the sky as a possible source of contagion was a good idea and she’d subsided.
He definitely owed Hoshi an apology after this was over, definitely.
Phlox called for Archer to come observe T’Pol’s
treatment two hours later. The captain
left Travis nominally in command, warning the young man that if anyone were to
start showing signs of instability he was to report it without delay, and then he
nervously left the bridge. Phlox hadn’t
mentioned Reed and Tucker and the omission sat someplace around the captain’s
stomach like a ball of lead…but when he entered Sickbay the first thing he saw
were the two breathing but still bodies stretched out on biobeds
right beside each other. Each of the
blanket-covered men sported one of the doctor’s mechanical ‘spiders’ strapped across
his bare chest, and Archer almost cringed to see how damaged they both looked. Was that a handprint
on Reed’s chest? He couldn’t see it
clearly because of the device, but it certainly looked like a handprint. “I have them both heavily sedated,” Phlox
said from just over his shoulder, startling him. “Lieutenant Reed was suffering from a fractured
sternum, seven broken ribs and a punctured lung; he’s lucky the blow didn’t
crush his chest completely, which it may have if the sub commander had hit him
with a closed fist instead of an open hand.”
Okay, that explained the handprint, then. “And Commander Tucker has a broken collarbone,
three ribs and a punctured lung of his own, his right arm is badly fractured,
his shoulder was dislocated, and he suffered significant muscle damage as well.”
“She was…I think she was trying to twist his arm off.” Archer cringed again, remembering the way
Tucker had screamed. “Are they going to
be okay?”
“They would both be in an immense amount of pain were I to allow them
to awaken at this point,” was Phlox’ reply.
“Hence the sedation and the special monitoring,” he waved at the spiderish devices, “instead of my usual methods.”
“How long will they be out of commission?”
“Lieutenant Reed should be able to leave Sickbay within two days and
may return to light duties within a week,” the doctor told him. “But I will have to keep Commander Tucker on
the sick list a bit longer than that. His breaks were more severe, and it will take
some time for them to heal sufficiently for him to be able to move without
significant discomfort. He is also going
to require physiotherapy, and due to the physical and emotional stresses he’s
already had prior to this I want to make sure he is completely recovered before
he returns to full duty.” Phlox gave
Archer a speculative look. “And what of
you, Captain? You have also experienced
significant trauma over the course of the past week.”
“I’m fine.” Archer waved his hand
dismissively at the doctor’s frown. “I
mean that in a relative way – I’m fine compared to most of my command staff
right now.”
“Very true,” Phlox agreed, nodding.
“If you’d follow me then, we’ll take care of Sub Commander T’Pol’s programming with you standing as witness to the
procedure, just in case anything goes wrong, you understand.” He correctly interpreted Archer’s expression
and smiled slightly. “Lieutenant Reed
stood witness to yours, Captain – insisted on it, as a matter of fact.”
Archer looked back over his shoulder at Reed and smiled slightly
himself. “I guess I should have expected
that,” he observed softly, and then followed Phlox out of the room.
Trip woke up and blinked at the ceiling; he was reasonably certain that
moving any more than that would be a mistake.
His memories seemed a little disjointed, but he remembered that they’d
set T’Pol off in the shuttlebay
and she’d attacked them. And he
definitely remembered her breaking his arm.
That made him shudder, and the resultant pain drew him to a new level of
awareness of his surroundings.
T’Pol. She was
standing right there…
Standing over Malcolm.
Trip surged up in the biobed and the entire right side of his body
exploded with pain; he winced when an annoying noise went off above his head
but didn’t allow it to distract him.
“Get away from him!”
The Vulcan spun around, looking surprised, but Trip was prevented from
clambering off the bed by strong, cool hands that appeared out of nowhere and
tried to push him back down. He fought
them, ignoring the soothing voice at his ear.
“No, let me go, she’ll kill him!”
Something bit him and he flinched away from it, and then Jon appeared
in front of him; Trip struggled even harder with his view of Malcolm blocked,
but the captain added his hands to the doctor’s and gently held him in
place. “Trip, listen to me!” Archer
ordered. “It’s all right, Phlox took
care of it. T’Pol
isn’t a threat any more.”
Trip didn’t believe him, but a warm lassitude had begun to spread
through his body and suddenly he was flat on his back again and helpless to do
anything about it. Defeated, he flung
out his left hand in a despairing, futile reach for the armory officer’s
bed. A tear rolled down his cheek. “Malcolm…”
Archer caught the reaching hand and pinned it back against the
engineer’s heaving chest. “Trip, listen
to me,” he enunciated carefully. “Dr.
Phlox deactivated the implanted commands yesterday, do you understand? T’Pol isn’t going
to hurt Malcolm, she isn’t going to hurt anybody.”
By this time the commotion had awakened Reed, who also tried to sit up
but with much less success than Tucker.
“Trip!”
Phlox got an odd expression on his face. “Captain, let go of the commander’s hand, if
you would,” he requested, moving between the beds to stand beside Reed. He then extended the armory officer’s arm in
Tucker’s direction. “Now help him make
contact, support his arm so he doesn’t strain and hurt himself, that’s right.”
Archer followed his instructions, mystified. Tucker’s fingers met Reed’s, twining with
them until their hands were clasped tightly…and then both men stopped
struggling and relaxed. Tucker blinked
up at his captain drowsily. “Had to be
sure he was okay, Cap’n.”
“Is Trip all right?” Malcolm queried weakly from his own bed. “Trip?”
“I’m okay, Mal – thought T’Pol was goin’ after you again, that’s all.” Tucker’s eyes slid shut. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“Not a problem, appreciate the warning.” Malcolm squeezed the hand he was holding and
then released it, allowing Phlox to put his arm back on the bed and watching as
Archer did the same for Trip. “Doctor,
is he all right?”
“He is mending,” Phlox said soothingly, patting his hand. “And so are you. Now why don’t you go back to sleep,
Lieutenant, and when you wake up again perhaps you’ll be hungry, yes?”
“Perhaps.” Reed sounded
argumentative, but his eyes closed and he was asleep again between one breath
and the next.
Archer was just staring between his two officers, eyes wide. “Doctor…”
“I believe the…situation has caused Misters Reed and Tucker to bond,”
Phlox informed him placidly. “A fairly
normal occurrence under such circumstances, although from the depth of their
mutual reaction I would have to assume that an emotional connection of some
sort was already forming between them prior to this.”
“They were friends,” Archer said, a little defensively. He looked for a way out of continuing the
conversation and spotted T’Pol standing back from the
little tableau with a slightly shocked look on her face. “T’Pol, are you all
right?”
“Fine, Captain,” she answered at once, and only someone who knew her
well could have heard the faint tremor in her voice. “I…did not mean to cause the commander
distress.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Phlox assured her. He frowned.
“But I believe I told you to remain in bed, did I not? This might have been avoided had you followed
my instructions.”
“My apologies, Doctor.” Her eyes
were still on Tucker, though. “Why…why
did he think I would hurt Lieutenant Reed?”
Archer looked at Phlox, who shrugged.
“Well,” the captain began carefully.
“You did attack him in the cargo bay, you tried to go after him after
you’d already knocked him down and Trip jumped in to stop you.”
Her eyes swung up to him, an unreadable expression in them. “I broke his arm.”
“Yes, you did.” Archer decided
that matter-of-fact was the best approach.
“I’m not sure how much you remember, but once you figured out that we
knew an implanted command kicked in and you were basically insane from that
point forward. Trip kept you from killing
Malcolm, he held you off until I could stun you.”
“I have some vague recollection of those events,” she said flatly. “I felt a driving need to destroy, to
kill. It is…disquieting to recall.”
“I know.” And he did. Archer took T’Pol’s
arm and guided her back to her own bed.
“But they know that wasn’t us.”
“Intellectually they both know,” Phlox corrected. He was frowning again. “Emotionally may be another story. Captain, Sub-Commander…this is not going to
‘blow over’, as humans put it, all by itself.
And as I cannot appeal to Starfleet Command for the assistance of a
psychological expert, I’m afraid we will have to muddle through on our own and
hope for the best.”
Archer cocked an eyebrow. “Just
what are you saying, Doctor?”
Phlox straightened. “I’m saying
that the four of you are going to need assistance in dealing with the aftermath
of all this, and that I will have to provide it in lieu of a more qualified psychiatric
professional. And it can’t wait, because
the longer it does the more difficult it will be to fix.”
It was T’Pol’s turn to arch an eyebrow. “What do you recommend?”
The Denobulan smiled at her.
“We’ll start the day after tomorrow.”
In spite of his reservations – and the gaps in his knowledge of humans
– Dr. Phlox proved to be more than adequate at counseling. The first session had limped along
uncomfortably at first. Phlox had placed
chairs around Trip’s bed in Sickbay and had propped the engineer up so that he
could see everyone easily. Malcolm was
already out of bed and able to take a chair next to Archer, moving very carefully
in deference to his still-healing ribs…or at least he was until T’Pol, obeying an earlier instruction from the doctor, had
reached out and grasped Trip’s arm. It
hadn’t been his injured arm, but the engineer had still sucked in a sharp
breath and turned dead white, and an alarm connected to the sensor array above
his bed had begun to beep warningly. T’Pol had turned almost as pale herself and yanked her hand
away, and if Archer hadn’t caught Malcolm the armory officer would have attacked
her, injury or no injury. Not that
Archer hadn’t felt a twinge of his own, especially since Trip was still pretty
much helpless to defend himself. But
frightening as it had been, it had broken the ice.
It also brought home to Archer what Phlox had been trying to tell him
two days ago. Trip and Malcolm were
still afraid of T’Pol…and Malcolm still didn’t entirely
trust Archer. The armory officer had
been forced to finish out their first session back in his own biobed, asleep
under the influence of a strong dose of painkiller. Trip had fallen back to sleep too, his spider
device having sedated him again when his stress levels had gone too high, and
so T’Pol, Archer and Phlox had finished up by themselves.
When Archer brought up the trust issue, however, Phlox shook his
head. “No, Captain,” the doctor
corrected. “I believe you misread Mr.
Reed’s action – a sign of your own doubts regarding your past influenced
behavior. It isn’t that he doesn’t trust
you, it’s simply that he has been conditioned by past occurrences not to wait
for you to react.”
“Great, just great.” Archer
threw himself back in his chair with a snort.
“So how do we retrain him?”
Phlox gave him a long look, and didn’t speak until Archer shifted
uncomfortably in his seat. “You make it
sound as though the lieutenant were doing something wrong.”
“Such an attitude is inherently insubordinate,” T’Pol
put in, but immediately followed up with, “But under the circumstances, it is
unarguably logical. There is no fault to
be found with Lieutenant Reed’s actions.”
Archer sighed. “No, I suppose
there isn’t – and I guess I can’t expect everyone just to suddenly start
reacting like I was in my right mind, since most of them have never known me
when I was. But it isn’t going to be
easy.”
“No, it isn’t.” Phlox smiled at
him. “But most of the crew will come
around fairly quickly. They are all very
intelligent, resourceful men and women, hand-picked for this mission.”
“It’s who may have hand-picked some of them that worries me.” Archer snorted again. “This conspiracy was powerful enough to
suborn me and T’Pol without anyone noticing, who
knows how many ticking time bombs are on board right now?”
“So far in my testing I’ve found no one else who has been tampered
with,” was the doctor’s reply. “And I’ve
cleared two-thirds of the crew. There
are two crewmen from Mr. Reed’s list of suspects who I still have to examine,
but so far there have been no reports of suspicious activity and no incidents
which might indicate a triggered individual.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m hoping you don’t find anything,” the captain
told him. “I just don’t like not knowing
for sure whether someone in my crew thinks blowing up the ship would be a good
idea.”
“Were such a command to have been placed with someone, in order for it
to have been effective the conditioned individual would had to have been
Commander Tucker,” T’Pol said. “And he has already been cleared.” She looked down at her hands where they were
clasped in her lap. “I admit to
being…disturbed by the fear the commander displayed when I touched him.”
“I would be concerned if you weren’t,” Phlox answered. “His reaction was disturbing, as was Mr.
Reed’s.” The doctor frowned slightly and
glanced over at the far biobed with its sleeping occupant. “I had not anticipated the violence of Mr.
Reed’s reaction, at that. I expected him
to attempt to interfere, but I did not expect him to re-injure himself in doing
so. An oversight on my part, I won’t
make such a mistake with him again.”
“I think we all have a lot of mistakes to make up for,” Archer told
him. He was looking at Tucker, though,
not Reed. “A lot of mistakes.”
The next day they had another session – Phlox had insisted on having
one every day until he was satisfied with everyone’s progress – and the group
dynamics were definitely different than the first time. Trip was watching T’Pol
warily, and when Malcolm had come in he’d disdained the provided chair and
planted himself on the end of Trip’s bed with a look on his face that dared
anyone to make him move. He obviously
felt as though he needed to protect the engineer, and once he’d gingerly settled
himself into place Trip’s decreasing stress levels had reflected that he felt
more secure with the armory officer there.
Archer had only been able to refrain from commenting on that for half
the session; he’d had the feeling that Phlox was timing him to see how long
he’d last, and so he’d held out as long as he could. “Feeling a little protective are we, Mr.
Reed?”
Malcolm stiffened all over.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” he replied with a cold little nod, “but I
don’t think the commander relishes the idea of being used as an object lesson
again.”
“You got that right.” Archer was
startled by the harsh edge to his friend’s voice. “I didn’t appreciate you doin’
that , Doc, not one little bit.”
“I don’t imagine you did, Mr. Tucker.”
Phlox shrugged, sympathetic but not apologetic. “It was necessary, though, to show the
captain and the sub-commander what the true nature of the problem was. We can’t have the ship’s command staff unable
to work together comfortably.”
“I can work with T’Pol just fine,” Trip
snapped back at him. “She doesn’t
usually sneak up on me at work, and she for damn sure doesn’t reach out and
grab me like that.”
“She usually doesn’t come down our way at all, unless there’s something
to find fault with or orders to be passed along,” Malcolm added, very
matter-of-factly. “And when we’re any of
us on the bridge together it shouldn’t be an issue either. I don’t think either the commander or myself
have ever given you cause to doubt our professionalism, Captain.”
Okay, now Archer got it – and Phlox was all but grinning, damn
him. “No, you haven’t,” he replied
immediately. “But T’Pol
and I have given the two of you plenty of reason to doubt ours.”
Malcolm looked uncomfortable, and Trip tried to wave it off with his
good hand. “That wasn’t your fault, we
know that…”
“You also know that I seriously injured you just five days ago,” T’Pol interrupted placidly, making a gesture of her own
toward the heavy sling and strap arrangement that was immobilizing multiple
mending bones. “And that I have done my
best during the time I have served here to discredit both yourself and Lieutenant
Reed.”
“And I backed her up, every time.”
Archer could be ruthless when he wanted to, even if he was directing it
at himself. “I gave her your job, Trip,
remember? Starfleet was ready to pull
her out after that first mission, but I told them I wanted her to stay on as my
first officer. And how many times did I
try to get you killed in the past two years?”
Trip’s bed beeped, and Malcolm reached back to find and pat the
engineer’s hand while glaring at the captain.
“Sir…”
“We have also damaged your career, Mr. Reed,” T’Pol
cut him off. “And put you in harm’s way
on more than one occasion, not to mention undermining your authority on board
the ship by repeatedly and publicly disregarding your recommendations.”
“We screwed you both over, royally,” Archer said bluntly, before either
of the shocked younger men could find a response. “And there’s not a damned thing we can do to
fix it, for either of you. And you know
it.”
Reed swallowed. “If you attempt
to apprise Starfleet of the situation, they’ll recall us immediately.”
“And we’ll all lose our commissions,” Trip added. “Don’t know what the Vulcans would do to you,
T’Pol.”
She dipped her head. “As it is
entirely possible that at least some high-ranking Vulcans on Earth are part of
the conspiracy, my account of what has transpired would most likely be
rejected. I would be stripped of my rank
and privileges and sent back to Vulcan in disgrace.”
“See? You said it, Captain,
there ain’t nothin’ we can do about any of it.” Trip shrugged one-sidedly and just managed
not to wince. “So I don’t understand why
we’re beatin’ this dead horse.”
“It’s over,” Malcolm agreed. “We
need to find out who was behind this if we can, but as we can’t risk tipping
them off it’s going to be a slow process.
And even once we know, we’ll likely only be able to use the information
to safeguard ourselves.”
He was right, even though Archer didn’t like it. “I wish I could disagree with you, Mr. Reed,”
he said, nodding. “But you’re right, as
usual.” Reed winced, and the captain
smiled slightly. “You are usually right,
Malcolm. And you know it.”
“Yes sir, but it isn’t politic to say so to a superior officer.”
Reed said it with a perfectly straight face, and it took Archer a
moment – and took seeing Trip trying not to laugh – to make the captain realize
he was being teased. He grinned; he’d
heard Reed had a wicked sense of humor, but he’d never really gotten to see it
firsthand. “Probably not,” he
agreed. “But just this once I’ll allow
it.”
The younger man smiled, and so did Trip, and after that things eased
up. They talked about what they’d have
to do, where they should investigate first, where they shouldn’t poke in at
all…and somewhere along the way a certain tension smoothed itself out. When Phlox finally called a halt, Archer had
been shocked to realize they’d all been talking, working together, for nearly
two hours. He’d been pretty happy about
that, but the doctor had warned him about being overly optimistic behind closed
doors in his office afterwards. “The
four of you have worked together for two years, Captain,” Phlox told him
firmly. “Yes, it is a good sign that you
were briefly able to regain that professional rapport, but that does not mean
everything is fine now or that your problems are mostly solved.” He’d seen that Archer wasn’t quite buying it
and folded his arms across his chest.
“All right then, tell me what you think would have happened had the
sub-commander made a sudden movement toward Mr. Tucker during your nice, normal
discussion?”
Archer hadn’t had to answer him; they both knew. He’d sighed and slumped in his chair. “This is going to be a long haul, isn’t it?”
Phlox had just nodded. They both
knew the answer to that, too.
Archer hadn’t been sure what to expect on the third day. When he and T’Pol
arrived in Sickbay Malcolm was already there, perched on the side of Trip’s bed,
and the first thing the captain noticed was that his friend was looking pale
and tired, much more so than he had the day before. The second thing he noticed was that the two
men were holding hands. He decided to
ignore the second and focus on the first.
“Trip, you don’t look so good.”
“He started his physical therapy
today,” Reed answered before the other man could – not that Trip had looked
like he was going to try. “It absolutely
wiped him out.”
“You c’n say that again.” Trip blinked red-rimmed eyes at Archer as he
drew closer. “It’ll be easier tomorrah, Doc promised.”
Archer saw Malcolm squeeze the hand he was holding reassuringly and
understood. “You were here, Malcolm?”
“I didn’t want him to be alone,” the armory officer answered
simply. “I haven’t forgotten my own last
go at one of the doctor’s torture sessions.”
Trip squeezed back and smiled.
“It helped, havin’ you here. Even if I was a big baby about it.”
“On the contrary, you did very well.”
Phlox was there bustling around with chairs. “And I didn’t lie, it will be easier
tomorrow. Now are your painkillers
kicking in, Mr. Tucker?”
“Yeah, finally.” This time the
smile was wider. “We’d better get this
show on the road before they knock me out, though.”
“My thoughts exactly.” The
doctor was smiling too. “All right,
everyone, you heard him; let’s ‘get this show on the road’.”
It was a short session. Trip was
falling asleep, Malcolm was distracted…hell, Archer was distracted too. Phlox worked around it all, getting T’Pol to talk about how disturbed she was by what she
remembered of the incident in the shuttlebay and of
other incidents in the past in which she could now recall acting
illogically. Archer was amazed to find
out that she could remember the ‘switch’ being flipped prior to each incident
and had even tried to correct the problem with meditation. “It was not effective,” she told him when he
asked if it had helped. “I only knew
that I felt something was wrong, but it was a very generalized impression and I
had no clear memories with which to direct my efforts.”
“At least you noticed
something was wrong,” Archer snorted. “I
didn’t even know that much, as far as I was concerned everything was rosy.”
She inclined her head to him.
“You are only human, Captain.”
It wasn’t an insult, just a plain statement of fact, and that got
Malcolm’s attention. “And you don’t hold
that against us, Sub Commander?” he wanted to know.
“To do so would be illogical,” was her unruffled reply. “Although I am aware that I have given that
impression in the past, it was not my choice to act in such a manner.” She cut a glance at Archer and suddenly
looked uncomfortable. “Much of my
behavior since I have come to serve on board
“You aren’t alone there,” Archer told her, coloring slightly. He had some embarrassing memories of his
own. “But at least your uncharacteristic
behavior isn’t logged into all the reports.”
She nodded assent, but Trip started to giggle and Archer lifted an
eyebrow at him. “Problem, Commander?”
“N-no sir.” It was obvious he
couldn’t stop laughing, even though it appeared to be hurting him. “But I’d…kind of forgot about that p-part of
it.”
Archer wanted to look stern, he really did…but he couldn’t, it was too
soon. It was going to be a while before
he could even pretend to be angry at Trip.
Which was another problem he was going to have to deal with, later. Much later.
For right now he just made a face at his friend and watched Malcolm try
not to dissolve into laughter right along with him.
They were still holding hands.
He didn’t think it was a good time to mention it during the session,
but as soon as Phlox called a halt for the day and T’Pol
left Archer pulled the doctor aside and waved a hand at Malcolm still sitting
on Trip’s bed. “I can understand why you
aren’t bringing that up with everyone, Doctor, but what I want to know is how
long you’re going to let them go on that way before you do something about
it.” Phlox just looked at him. “You know what I’m talking about,” Archer
hissed. “They’ve been traumatized,
they’ve only had each other to rely on – I’ve been getting my own taste of that
and it’s rough, I can understand why they’re overreacting. But aren’t you supposed to be helping them
get over it?”
Phlox turned and looked back at the two men…and he smiled. “They are helping each other, I believe,” he
said. Then he took Archer’s arm and led
him out of the room, out of earshot.
“You have not been in a position to observe the two of them closely,
Captain – I have. And I can assure you
that what you see developing between Misters Tucker and Reed is not unhealthy
in the least. Quite the opposite, in
fact.” He arched an eyebrow at the
captain. “I do not believe Starfleet
regulations prohibit duty officers from becoming romantically involved.”
“They don’t.” Starfleet had
understood that prohibiting fraternization on a long mission was not only bad
for morale but also for ship’s security.
It was practically impossible, too, and so the regulations were
deliberately vague in that area and authority to decide what did or did not constitute
acceptable conduct mainly rested with the captain. And Archer was that captain. “But I’m not sure about this…situation I see
developing between two of my officers,” he continued. “So explain to me why you’re right and I’m
wrong, Doctor, because I’m just not seeing it.”
Another long look, and then to Archer’s surprise the doctor turned him
back around so that he could see into the room they’d just left. “Watch and listen,” was all he said.
Malcolm had been worried about much the same thing Archer had, and
knowing that his captain was disapproving of a relationship between himself and
Tucker was bothering him. Archer hadn’t
exactly been too quiet to be heard before Phlox had extracted him from the
room. “Trip, are you sure?” he asked
quietly.
Trip had been just on the edge of letting the painkillers pull him
under, but the quiet, serious question had him not only alert but trying to sit
up so he could reach the other man.
“Mal, no…”
“I’m just asking, because the captain did. I want to be sure, I want us both to be
sure. Do you think this is just a
reaction to trauma?” Malcolm wanted to know.
He held the worried blue eyes with his own sharp gray ones, searching
for the least little flicker of uncertainty.
“Do you think we’re just overreacting to the closeness inflicted upon us
by the situation?”
Trip didn’t look away; his eyes were clear and honest. “I don’t think so, Mal.”
Malcolm smiled. “I don’t think
so either.” And then he leaned forward
and essayed a kiss. It was a gentle,
chaste kiss that lingered between them briefly and then ended gracefully as
Trip sank back into his pillows. Malcolm
ran a hand through his hair and the engineer’s eyes flickered back open as he
licked his lips, tasting the kiss again.
“Liked that, did you?”
“Yep, I sure did.” Trip blinked
at him. “Don’t suppose you want to do it
again?”
“Repeatedly,” the armory officer assured him, suiting his actions to
the word, his fingers still tangled in the dark blond hair on the back of
Trip’s head. This time he flicked at the
pliant lips with the tip of his tongue and was granted entrance, deepening the
kiss, delicately exploring the new territory and losing himself in it
completely. And this time Malcolm was
the one who pulled back. “We’ve plenty
of time, but I don’t want to waste any more of it than we can help.”
“I’ll be outta here in two or three more
days,” Trip told him, lifting his right shoulder slightly and then dropping it
with a wince. He licked his lips
again. “That promise you made to come
visit me still hold?”
“Always. Every chance I
get. I’ll make a bloody nuisance of
myself,” Malcolm assured him, punctuating each sentiment with another kiss. “Phlox will get so sick of seeing me he’ll be
forced to let you go ahead of schedule.”
“Now there’s a theory I’ll look forward to testin’,”
the engineer chuckled, wincing again as even that slight movement pulled at
half-healed muscles. “Kind of afraid I
won’t be up for testin’ too much else for a while,
though.”
“We’ve all the time in the world for that – it’s just being together
that I want right now.” Malcolm had gone
back to stroking his fingers through the engineer’s hair, and Tucker’s eyes
slid closed again as a contented sigh escaped his slightly parted lips. The armory officer kissed those lips again, sharing
a breath between them. “Sleep, luv. Like I said,
we’ve all the time in the world.”
Archer might have stood there staring until Malcolm turned around and
caught him at it if Phlox hadn’t pulled him back around the corner. “I guess…I guess you were right,” he
stammered. “I just didn’t realize that
Trip…I didn’t know he swung both ways. And
I knew they were friends, but the way they bicker all the time…”
“I believe even in your culture that is considered a trait common to
close couples.” Phlox raised an
eyebrow. “Do you have a problem with it,
Captain?”
“No,” was Archer’s immediate reply.
He shook his head as though he were trying to resettle the contents. Which he was.
“I’m just…surprised, although I guess I shouldn’t be after what happened
before. You tried to tell me, I just…I
just couldn’t see it. But now I can’t
see how I missed it.”
The doctor nodded. “You aren’t
going to interfere with this budding relationship, then?”
“No.” The captain grimaced. He couldn’t give Trip his career back, but
there were other kinds of future a man could build for himself. And if turning a blind eye now and again
would help facilitate that…well, it was the least he owed his friend, the very
least. It was the least he could do for
Reed too, for the same reason. “I won’t
do anything,” he stated, looking the Denobulan in the eye. “It’s their business, not Starfleet’s or the
Vulcans’ or anyone else’s. And anyway, I
think there’s been enough interference around here to last us all for a while.”