The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [49]
At his signal, the aliens all backed away slightly, getting safely out of harm’s way. Trip jumped down and out of the access hatchway, counting the few seconds that remained.
Gotta have some famous last words, he thought. “There’s just one other thing I need to tell you,” he said, making certain that he spoke loudly and clearly, so that the ship’s computer would pick up every word. “You can all go straight to hell.”
Trip felt his skin itch, experienced a bizarre, disjointed feeling, and then he was pulled away. In that nanosecond when he was still corporeal, he hoped that the small plasma explosion he’d set up would go off without a hitch- and without blowing a huge hole in the hull on the starboard side of E deck.
As a slightly disoriented Trip lay on one of sickbay’s biobeds, Phlox quickly applied convincing facsimiles of all the appropriate wounds to the engineer’s face and chest. Only minutes remained now before Archer was due to call and raise the medical alert, and before the med techs arrived. Phlox had let them go off shift early, but since they all bunked on E deck- the same deck where sickbay was located- they would doubtless arrive quickly once called.
“You will need to breathe as though you’re having an extremely difficult time doing so,” Phlox said to Trip, who looked quite gory at the moment. Even though he knew it was his own harmless handiwork, the sight of the apparently mortally wounded man- his friend- made the Denobulan physician shudder inwardly.
“I faked being sick at school a whole bunch of times, Doc,” Trip said, smiling wanly up at Phlox.
“Yes, well, but this is considerably different,” Phlox said, grimacing. He thought the whole plan was outlandish, and felt certain that it would never hold up to close scrutiny. But as long as it was under way, he was determined to do his best; Commander Tucker’s scheme wasn’t going to fall apart because of his actions.
Archer stood by the doorway, rubbing the side of his head and wincing. He’d apparently actually been injured, however slightly, during the subterfuge, but there was no time to treat him now. Suddenly, the captain’s communicator beeped. “We’re out of time, Doctor.”
The captain flipped the communicator’s grid open. “We need help in sickbay,” he said, his voice now sounding strained. “Trip’s been hurt.”
“Alerting sickbay personnel now,” T’Pol said, her voice issuing from the device. “What has happened?” Phlox could hear the concern in her tone as he moved to a nearby com panel to enter the command that would summon his emergency med tech staff.
“The intruders were trying to get to Shran and Theras,” Archer said to T’Pol. “Trip tried to stop them. He got caught in some kind of plasma explosion.”
Two of Phlox’s medical technicians- Garver and Stepanczyk- rushed into the chamber, even as T’Pol’s voice issued from the communicator. “The intruders are no longer aboard Enterprise . Their ship is pulling away.”
“What about Shran and Theras?” Archer asked, although he already knew the answer. After all, the reason the “pirates” had come aboard had absolutely nothing to do with Enterprise’s two guests from Andoria.
“Still aboard, Captain. Commander Tucker’s gambit appears to have succeeded in discouraging them.” Had her voiced quavered ever so slightly when she’d said Trip’s name?
“Pursue them, but do not engage,” Archer shouted. “Archer out.”
Phlox began barking orders to his med techs, even as Trip put on an award-winning performance for their benefit. He really did seem to be in great pain, as well as unable to breathe properly.
“The plasma was superheated,” Phlox said to Archer, counterfeiting a sense of rapidly rising alarm. “It thermalized his lungs.” He turned urgently to one of the techs. “Initialize the hyperbaric chamber.”
Archer approached the side of Trip’s biobed. Between gasps, the engineer said, “Sorry about the rifle butt…” He trailed off, his breath apparently beginning to fail him.