|
"The Forgotten Time"
Rating: PG Chapter 3
Daniels didn’t seem to hear. “Damn it, they’re here already. I have to go.” He turned to Trip and gripped his shoulder. “She is going to need your help, Trip. You two can do this, but you’ll have to work together. That’s why I want both of you. Your future self will be less stubborn about believing your story if T’Pol is there.” Trip nodded at the other man slowly as two stark white spacecraft like none he’d ever seen before suddenly streamed into view among the stars behind Daniels’ head. Daniels gave him and T’Pol each a last burning glance and then activated a device on his belt and melted silently from view. Trip and T’Pol watched as the two ships hung twinkling among the stars for a brief moment before they too melted away as silently as Daniels himself had. Trip looked down into T’Pol’s disturbed gaze and promised himself he would help her get through this. Her eyes and lips held a vulnerable expression that laid her heart open and she was looking into his face as if searching for something to shore up her courage. He reached for her hand. Instantly remembering, both pairs of eyes snapped wide and they whirled just in time to see Archer decisively finish standing up, some fifteen minutes after he started. “Daniels…,” Archer started to finish speaking his thought from earlier and then stopped suddenly, noticing Daniels’ absence and the fact that Trip and T’Pol had instantly jumped halfway across the room. He cast about wildly for one moment, before finally setting eyes on the floor behind him. “What the hell happened to my chair?” he asked somewhat irrelevantly. Ignoring T’Pol’s sudden exasperated glare, Trip hurried the misplaced chair back over to the desk. “Uh, right here sir. Boy, that Daniels, huh? You sure told him. Beat it like a bat outta hell. I guess he’s not going to bother us for awhile.” Trip laughed a little nervously. Archer eyed his two senior officers and closest friends. Something was up, he could tell. But he was having trouble pinpointing exactly what that might be. In fact, he was having trouble even remembering what exactly he had called them in to discuss. “Daniels?” he asked Trip somewhat vaguely, and he looked back at his chair carefully for a second as if to make sure it was still there before sitting in it heavily. T’Pol had managed to calm herself during the captain’s bewilderment. Now she spoke with professional composure: “Captain, you don’t seem particularly well this morning. May I offer to escort you to sick bay? Perhaps Phlox should have a look at you.” “I think I’ll take you up on that T’Pol.” The captain accepted her arm as he stood, still obviously a little shaky after unknowingly spending a quarter hour on the outside of the timeline, looking in. “How are the repairs?” Archer inquired of Trip as he made his way to the door. “Great. Fine,” Trip assured him. “We’ll be done sooner than we thought.” “Good man.” Archer approved as T’Pol helped him out the door. After the door hissed shut, Trip leaned against the wall with sagging knees and closed eyes for a moment. He and T’Pol had five days to save the world again. Frankly, he was getting tired of pulling that off over and over. She is going to need your help, Trip. You two can do this, but you’ll have to work together. Daniels’ last words rang in Trip’s ears. Concern for T’Pol drowned out any feelings of resentment over the unusual assignment. No matter what else happened, he had to make sure T’Pol got through the next few days… in one, sane piece. He sighed and, picking up the PADD and case of equipment Daniels had left behind for them, departed for his quarters and an emergency cram session on 33rd-century technology. *** T’Pol dropped the captain off with Phlox and made a hasty retreat. By the time the pair had reached sickbay, the captain had seemed to forget everything about Daniels. He simply told Phlox he felt lightheaded. Good enough, thought T’Pol. She was in no mood to discuss the upcoming mission with Archer. Avoiding the eyes of the few crew she passed in the corridors, she made it to her quarters. The door slid quietly open and shut to admit her, and she simply stood for a moment, absorbing the peace and quiet of the pitch-black room. T’Pol knelt gracefully on the carpet and lit a candle by blind touch. She gazed at the flame for a few moments, trying to quiet her tumultuous thoughts enough to meditate. Her eyes kept straying to the black wristband she wore. Daniels. Time travel. After age 60, T’Pol really hadn’t thought her life would change much. She was educated, established in her career, and ready for a mate and children. Ready to take her place in the rigid, formal, and safe tapestry of Vulcan life. Now here she was, a few short years later, flying around on a human ship filled with a human crew half her age in a universe that suddenly seemed to consider time travel as ordinary as eating and sleeping, considering the startling frequency with which it was occurring lately. It seemed every other week she was again reminded of her people’s dogmatic attitudes, as this exceptional team of humans turned over one scientific stone after another in their explorations of territory Vulcans had long thought themselves masters of. Brilliant but stubbornly obstinate, the scientists of T’Pol’s world did not tend to embrace new ideas willingly. In fact, she had proudly grouped herself among them until recently. Cautious to a fault, never jumping to conclusions; T’Pol had had to reevaluate her methods to fit in among the human members of this crew. Their childlike readiness to embrace innovative concepts still bemused her at times, but all in all, she had to admit it was liberating. After a lifetime of training, T’Pol was starting to throw off her self-imposed yoke of Vulcan control. She was taking risks she never would have dreamed of in her early years. And now here was this Daniels person again. Now she would have to face the results of her foolhardiness. Many humans carried the misconception that Vulcans were cold and dispassionate by nature. Nothing could be farther from the truth, reflected T’Pol. Only millennia of fanatical, hot-blooded warring had taught her people to reign in their dangerously powerful emotions and cultivate logic instead as a weapon. Every Vulcan child was strictly warned of the consequences should Vulcan society revert to its old hedonistic ways. Anything other than total compliance was not only illogical, it was treasonous. Those who defied the system were simply outcast. As she nearly had been, at least twice. T’Pol had blocked out thoughts of her disapproving family as she experimented with the giddy sensations of newfelt emotion. And now she was going to pay for it. She knew that there was no way she would manage for five days without the tattered mental control she relied on to get through each day. Trellium-D had diminished it, but it still served to cover her most powerful emotions. But not all. T’Pol’s face heated as she remembered several separate emotional outbursts she had experienced over the last few months as a result of the Trellium incident. Her crewmates didn’t know what to make of her these days. She certainly couldn’t tell them about her addiction, so she endured their curiosity and ignored the rumors. Her thoughts went to Trip. She was going to be spending the next five days with him, most likely in a state of emotional uproar anyway since she and Trip always managed to quarrel over something. She wondered if he was going to be able to stand the sight of her by the time they got back to the ship. If they got back. T’Pol’s thoughts swarmed thick and fast as she gazed into the soft yellow light. Meditation did not come. *** Commander Trip Tucker feared little in this life. He had faced hostile aliens, certain death, and personal tragedy with a pretty well-balanced mixture of skill and composure. So why had his stomach felt like a basket of snakes ever since Daniels had disappeared, leaving him to finagle some sort of Captain Universe solution out of his back pocket with a hysterical Vulcan by his side? Trip stared into space, literally, with his chin on his fist. The mess hall lights were dim and did not reflect on the curved windows. Each square was a velvety sheet of crystalline stars. The majestic view would have sent his child-self into conniptions, he mused. It reminded him of the fact that no matter what Daniels was putting him through this week, he still wouldn’t trade a life in space with any job planetside. Feeling a little better, he turned to his pie with interest. Trip was scraping up the last crumbs of crust with his fork and the help of a surreptitious thumb, when he glanced up to see Malcolm standing there with the bent mouth of someone trying not to laugh. “You know, in the time it took me to walk over here from the coffeepot, you ate that entire slice of pie,” Malcolm observed in his proper voice. He took the seat opposite Trip, put down his coffee and a stack of five PADDs, folded his hands, and leaned in confidentially. “You only eat like that when you’re seriously happy, seriously upset, or seriously drunk. So which is it?” Trip rolled his eyes and wiped his mouth nicely with his napkin. “None of ‘em. I’m fine. I’m just hungry. What are you doin’ with all these?” He gestured at Malcolm’s stack of work and then yawned and rubbed his eyes with his palms. Ignoring the question, Malcolm took a sip of his coffee and said solicitously, “You seem tired. Should get some neuropressure from T’Pol.” He grinned suddenly, and unable to help himself, asked, “Something the matter in paradise?” “No,” Trip made a face at Malcolm. “Don’t you have anything else to do right now?” “Captain’s on me about finishing my final reports over the Xindi. I need the coffee to stay awake.” Malcolm changed the subject abruptly. “Speaking of the captain, what was the matter with him today on the bridge? T’Pol was practically carrying him away. And we didn’t see hide nor hair of you three again all day. That’s why I’m behind on these reports… I spent the whole day in the captain’s chair.” Trip pushed his pie crumbs around the plate moodily with his fork. “Something came up.” “‘Something came up?’,” Malcolm repeated. “I’ll say. What was it that kept the three of you squirreled away?” “Sorry about leavin’ you up there. I had some — schematics — to brush up on. For the repairs in Engineering. Cap’n probably forgot you were the only senior staff left on the bridge.” Trip pushed his plate away and stretched. Malcolm gave Trip a funny look. “It’s not like the captain to forget about the bridge.” “Yeah, well, he had a bad mornin’,” Trip replied shortly, “Anyways, I better hit the sack early tonight… lotta work to do in Engineering these days.” He stood up. Malcolm picked up one of his PADDs and scrolled nonchalantly through the text as he swallowed more coffee. “Movie night tonight. You and T’Pol coming? It’s supposed to be some old romance Hoshi picked.” Trip gritted his teeth as he replied, “What makes you think I’d wanna see a romance with T’Pol? Y’know, I swear you must start ninety percent of the rumors about the two of us on this ship.” Malcolm kept his face serious. “Oh no, I’d say it’s more like sixty, seventy percent.” Trip gave Malcolm’s grin a withering stare as he pushed his seat in. “G’night, Mal.” “Sweet dreams,” Malcolm replied jauntily, getting down to work. *** The chime sounded in T’Pol’s ears. She savoured a last second of solitude before answering. “Come in.” Trip entered the room carrying Daniels’ silver case. T’Pol gestured to the floor next to her low table. The candles still burned, bathing the room in a dark flickering light. Trip joined her on the carpet. He said nothing for a moment, just gazed into the steady flames with his chin on his knees. T’Pol quietly broke the silence. “Have you finished reading Daniels’’ briefing?” she asked. “Yeah. The jump forward will put us on a shuttle three days from Earth. Daniels doesn’t want to risk anyone detecting our entry into the timeline in proximity to the planet. He doesn’t say much about it in the briefing, but you can read between the lines. There are definitely some folks out there monitoring the situation who don’t want him to succeed. Once on Earth we have two days to complete the mission before the temporal envelope expires and we appear back here. To everyone else, it’ll be like we never left. Course, then Daniels will be right along to erase our memories, so it’ll really be like we never left.” Trip still clearly chafed at the thought. After a moment, he focused on T’Pol. “How’re you holdin’ up?” T’Pol met Trip’s eyes and she steadied herself. “I will be fine.” She lacquered her tone with calm and nearly convinced even herself. “Yeah, you’ll be okay.” Trip smiled encouragingly. They gazed at each other for a tense moment. They both knew how tough this was going to be. Trip took her hands and pulled her to her feet as he stood up. “I’m ready to go whenever you are.” T’Pol went to the panel next to the door and raised the lights. She blew out the candles and picked up a small case of equipment. “Shall we?” she enquired, arching one brow. Trip retrieved a small black device from Daniels’ kit that matched the wristbands he had given them earlier, closed the case and picked it up. Pressing a button, both bands responded identically by beeping. He took one last look around T’Pol’s quarters and activated the jump. *** T’Pol’s head jerked back. For a moment she felt almost as if she was in the transporter stream, and then… nothing. She floated in inky blackness for a second before her vision cleared and she found herself on her back on the hard carpeted floor of a shuttlecraft. She raised herself slowly and looked around. Trip was lying next to her, unconscious. She pulled herself to his side and shook him lightly. “Commander. Trip. Can you hear me?” Trip scrunched his face up as if it the dim shuttle interior was too bright; then he pulled himself to a sitting position and held his head. “Real smooth trip, Daniels,” he muttered under his breath. T’Pol agreed. “These devices do not seem to work as efficiently as the technology Daniels himself uses.” “Maybe he’s just used to it.” “Perhaps.” Having used up everything there was to say about that, they just sat for a moment and took in their surroundings. T’Pol finally stood up, went to the pilot’s seat and checked the shuttle over. “This shuttle is identical to the ones we use on Enterprise,” T’Pol remarked with a note of interest in her voice. “Wonder when Daniels borrowed it off us,” Trip speculated dryly. “Seems like that guy shows up every other week tryin’ to sponge something.” “Indeed.” T’Pol remarked as she plotted a course for Earth. The engines engaged, and the little craft sped off. As he took the seat next to T’Pol, Trip’s face registered disbelief. “That’s new,” he said, and he pointed to a flashing message on the console. Cloak Engaged. “That will certainly make it easier for us to land undetected once we reach Earth,” T’Pol observed. “It seems that Crewman Daniels has thought of everything.” Hands behind his head, Trip leaned back in his seat and looked out reflectively at the stars flying smoothly past. “Yeah… ‘Crewman’ Daniels. Man he really pulled one over on all of us, huh? I mean I used to talk to the guy in the gym. He seemed so … I dunno… normal.” “He is ‘normal’,” T’Pol reminded him logically. “Except for the fact that he won’t be born for nine hundred years.” “Yeah. Except for that.” Sometimes Trip wondered if T’Pol secretly had a sense of humour. A strange thought floated past. “You know, any one of us could be pulling the same scam. You’re not some fugitive from another century are you?” Trip joked. His laughter faded and his heart skipped the teeniest bit when T’Pol simply regarded him silently for a moment, but then she turned to her console and answered him with the note of mixed sarcasm and delicate distaste that all Vulcans seemed to have a command of. “I assure you, Commander, that were I a temporal fugitive, I would not waste my time trying pull any ‘scam’ on a slow ship full of human explorers.” Trip glanced sidewise at the slim woman’s profile. Her mouth twitched ever so slightly as she scrutinized her readouts. He knew it. Sense of humour. *** The rest of the afternoon went by fairly smoothly. Though both Trip and T’Pol were waiting on tenterhooks for any symptoms of Vulcan furor, neither of them mentioned a thing about it. For this small mercy, T’Pol was grateful. If she was going to have to try and reign in her potentially ferocious emotions, she didn’t want to also have to give him a report every twenty minutes on her state of mental health. Trip seemed to understand and was behaving as normally as possible under the circumstances. The two of them read through Daniels’ briefing again and discussed their strategy. To keep her mind and hands busy, T’Pol spent a pointless hour meticulously mapping the area they were traveling through. Trip noticed but didn’t comment. They passed an Andorian freighter and a Klingon battle cruiser. Their cloak remained effective and neither ship picked them up on sensors. As the massive alien ships sailed past their own small, ghostly presence, T’Pol felt a feather of fear whisper through the corners of her mind. She brushed it away, but it hovered almost silently behind her consciousness until dinnertime. *** With a flourish, Trip passed T’Pol a water bottle and a square packet. “Ration Pack Number Six. Vegetable stew.” T’Pol opened the water and took a sip. She made a face. It tasted stalely of the plastic bottle. She finished it quickly and turned back to the schematic of the temporal weapon she had been studying. Trip wandered over to sit next to her, his mouth full of stew. Swallowing, he noticed her unopened ration pack and held it out. “Aren’t you going to eat?” T’Pol glanced at the proffered food and went back to the diagram. “No, thank you. Water is enough.” Trip lifted his eyebrows dubiously. “Water isn’t going to last you the two days till we get to Earth. You need to eat.” T’Pol raised her eyes again and looked steadily into his. “Perhaps later,” she responded, her voice tight with patience. She held the eye contact for a brief moment and then deliberately went back to her reading. Trip didn’t let it go. “Look, you need to keep your strength up—” “I said I DON’T WANT IT!” T’Pol shouted. Slapping the ration pack away, she flung herself to her feet and paced the rear of the cabin liked a caged animal, fists and teeth clenched. Trip stared and then relaxed, realizing that it had started. He waited quietly for her to come back. After a few minutes, T’Pol fought down the rage rising irrationally in her chest. She breathed the dry recycled cabin air deeply and imagined a calm whiteness. Her heart rate slowed and she turned to face Trip. He was still sitting where she had left him, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. His face showed a heartfelt mixture of concern and acceptance: no judgement. He was waiting for her to collect herself and come back. T’Pol felt a loud burning shame pour over her for an instant and moisten her eyes before she muscled that too into a hard painful ball in the pit of her stomach. Painful, but easier to manage. Over the last hour, feelings had silently started to pummel her, groundlessly appearing out of nowhere and battering her control as they crackled past like meteor fragments. She moved carefully back to her chair and sat, her eyes downcast. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Trip left his chair and moved to kneel in front of her so he could better see into her face. “We knew it would happen, T’Pol. You’re doing fine,” he reassured her encouragingly. Panic kicked in the back of her mind. He had no idea. How could she have let herself get into this situation in her weakened state? How could she have put them both at risk with her stubbornness and pride? She had naively begun to hope that her experience with Trellium might help her cope with the lessened natural control, but it was having the opposite effect. It had left the back door of her thinking mind wide open to any thoughts and feelings gushing from the flayed-open heart of her subconscious. They had been in the temporal field for 20 hours. She didn’t see how she could possibly make it through the next four days. Trying to comfort the torment he saw in her eyes, Trip gripped her hand and stroked her cheek tenderly. A sudden strong sense of déjà vu stretched the moment out like an elastic band. Her dream of the night before hastened to her mind and she felt that this was the pivotal moment to which it pointed. She had to trust this man. Not only for the success of the mission, but for herself too. She had to tell him about the Trellium.
|
Like it? Hate it? Just want to point out a typo? Join the discussion now.
Disclaimer: Star Trek in all its various forms and its characters are the property of CBS/Paramount. No copyright infringement is intended by the authors of this site, which is solely for the purpose of entertainment and is not for profit. This site is owned by CX and was opened to the public in February 2008.