The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [53]
He couldn’t allow that. How many times had he already put his life on the line for the ideals of Starfleet, for the future of his family and friends? How many times had he put everything on the line for her, Enterprise, his ship?
He felt her even now, in this claustrophobic enclosure, her engines humming almost imperceptibly, a vibration that was nearly always present but that had long ago become nearly as familiar to him as the sound of his own breathing. For the past four years, the warp drive’s gentle but ever-present oscillations had given him comfort, helping him drift off to sleep during most night cycles; the occasional absence of those vibrations frequently led to insomnia, and to extra late shifts in engineering until Trip felt things had finally been put right again.
Soon he would be very far away from the comfort of those engines. He would have to take reassurance instead in the knowledge that he was protecting all of this. For now, he thought. I’m coming back. I’ll be aboard Enterprise again. I’ll be with my family again. Laugh with my friends, tell her that I do want to find a way to make it work…
How can I not do this?
“No response, Doctor.” It was of the med techs, Garver this time.
I’m coming back, Trip told himself again. Back from the dead, once all this Romulan madness is finally over and done with.
If it could ever be over and done with.
“Phlox!” Archer again, just outside the chamber.
“I’m so sorry, Captain,” Phlox was saying in tones that dripped with grief. “He’s gone.”
A pause. Then Phlox spoke again: “Computer, record that death occurred at nineteen hundred and thirty-three hours, fourteen February, 2155.”
Feeling unaccountably calmed by the knowledge that the deed had finally been done, Trip opened his eyes. He looked up again at his reflection, which looked bizarre and funhouse-distorted in the curved, too-close metal ceiling of the chamber. He could see that the Denobulan physician had certainly managed to make him look gruesome, in spite of the haste with which he’d had to work. A large, livid burn snaked down his neck, and a profusion of other wounds and smudges covered both his flesh and his torn uniform.
So this is what it’s like to be dead, he thought, really trying on the idea for the first time. Funny. Doesn’t hurt quite as much as I thought it would.
Or maybe it hurt far worse; after all, he’d always assumed that dead people couldn’t feel pain, or anything else for that matter.
A ratcheting noise near his feet interrupted his reverie. The chamber door opened and sickbay’s bright lighting flooded into the relative darkness inside the tube. He shut his eyes quickly, and felt the pallet on which he lay slowly move out of the chamber. He held his breath, pretending to be dead, just incase someone other than Phlox, Malcolm, or the captain happened to be present. He wondered how long he could pull it off.
The pallet’s movement stopped.
“It’s all right to breathe now, Commander Tucker,” he heard Phlox say. “Everyone here knows the truth.”
Trip brought his hand up to shield his eyes from sickbay’s bright overhead lights, and moved to sit up. He felt someone place a hand behind his back, and knew it was Malcolm, just from the slight smell of his aftershave.
His eyes adjusting as he blinked, Trip saw that Archer was pacing in front of him. Malcolm was standing next to the table as Trip swung his legs down to stand on the deck.
Phlox put one hand on Trip’s shoulder, turning the engineer toward him. “This will hurt a little bit,” he said, reaching for the horrible fake burn at the side of Trip’s neck. He pulled it