The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [57]
“Thanks,” was all Trip could think of to say.
But Phuong apparently wasn’t yet finished dispensing praise. “Having you along on this assignment- a trained engineer who’s already seen Romulan tech up close- makes me think we stand a real chance of putting the Romulans’ warp seven program out of business. Or maybe even of grabbing it for the Coalition.”
Despite himself, Trip felt a small smile break across his lips. Whether Phuong’s words were mere flattery or were sincere, the fact that Section 31 had paid so much attention to his warnings reassured him that they did indeed take the Romulan threat seriously- unlike Admiral Gardner, who couldn’t even be bothered to lock his own back door against the coming hordes.
Maybe sometimes the powers that be really do need somebody guarding that back door for them, he thought. Whether they know about it or not.
He set aside his apprehensions, at least for the moment. Being able to believe that he truly was in the right place, doing the right thing- even briefly- was a small comfort after the maelstrom of a day he’d just had, and the cataclysmic changes he’d just introduced into his life.
But it was comfort nonetheless.
Now feeling relatively at ease, he began familiarizing himself with the layout of the Branson’s controls, which he recognized right away, thanks to his Starfleet training. The Branson was a small Rutan-class trading vessel, of a type that hadn’t been built since the late 2130s. Designed to support a maximum of six people and to carry several tons of cargo, the Rutan s had a top range of perhaps fifteen light-years, and were notoriously slow.
Trip didn’t have to spend much time behind the controls before he realized that Phuong had apparently found retrofit remedies for both of those problems.
For the second since he’d come aboard, he smiled. Adigeon Prime, here we come.
Fifteen
Friday, February 14, 2155
Enterprise Nx-01
ARCHER CONSIDERED WAITING, hoping that some kind of glitch- or miracle- would scuttle Trip’s espionage mission. But the captain knew waiting could endanger not only the mission but also his friend’s life. He had to contact the Tuckers now. Trip had outlined his parents’ schedule for the captain, making certain not only that both his parents would be home, but also that his father would already have taken his daily medication.
Although he had first met Charles and Elaine Tucker some twenty years ago, his most memorable encounter with Trip’s parents had come in 2143, when they had come to visit the Academy following the successful- if illegal- flight of the NX-Beta. Gracie, as she preferred to be called, had pulled Archer aside by his arm, scolding him as if he were her own son.
“Don’t you get my boy involved in any more of your wild schemes, Jonathan Archer,” she had said, waggling her finger in his face. “I don’t care who your daddy was, or how much Trip worships what he did. He needs to learn responsibility, not how to take joyrides across the solar system.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Archer had said guiltily.
A moment later, she had slapped him, lightly, as if to make certain she had his full attention. “Don’t you ‘yes, ma’am’ me as if I’m some tawdry Helena. I’m quite serious.. My boy looks up to you. You need to make sure you’re man enough to deserve it.”
Archer never had found out what a “tawdry Helena” was, but he had spent the better part of the next dozen years or so as Trip Tucker’s friend, confidant, and superior officer. And through it all, he had always tried his utmost to be certain he was man enough to deserve Trip’s respect and friendship.
He tapped the buttons on the padd on his desk, and the image on his screen changed from the white-on-blue symbol of Earth’s Starfleet to a darker hue with a moving sine wave superimposed, signifying that his signal was transmitting.
Several moments later, the screen