The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [7]
But I should have found a way to save the Maru, too, Archer thought. You can’t convince me that everybody on Earth isn’t also saying that under their breath.
“Captain,” T’Pol said, “We all understand that if you had stayed to fight off the hostiles that were attacking the freighter, they would have used their new weapon to seize Enterprise by remote control.”
Malcolm nodded enthusiastically. “And nobody needs to tell you what would have happened after that.”
“That doesn’t change anything for the people aboard the Maru,” Archer said. Although he understood that a remotely hijacked Enterprise would almost certainly have become a deadly weapon in the hands of the freighter’s destroyers—people who could have used his ship to destroy countless other Earth vessels, and doubtless also would have reverse engineered Earth’s most advanced propulsion and weapons technologies—none of it made any difference to Archer, at least not emotionally.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the plaintive memory of the last words of the Kobayashi Maru’s Captain Kojiro Vance out of his head.
“Vance begged me to save his ship and his crew,” Archer said. “And I failed him.”
“You didn’t have a choice, sir,” Reed said.
“It was a no-win scenario, Jonathan,” said T’Pol. Her use of his first name was almost startling, a sign that his first officer was doing her utmost to reach him on a purely emotional level despite her devotion to her Vulcan principles.
Archer raised his hands in a gentle warding-off gesture, directed at his officers. “All right. Message received. Thank you. Like I said, I will bolster crew morale by walking the decks at my first opportunity.” He paused to rub his chin, and noticed for the first time just how scratchy his jawline had become over the past three days. Summoning up a smile that he hoped would convince them both that their work here was done, he added, “I’ll even shave first so as not to scare the horses. Now get back to work before I tell Phlox you’ve been working his side of the street.”
Reed returned Archer’s smile, albeit at somewhat lower wattage, before exiting the ready room and leaving Archer alone with T’Pol.
“That goes for you, too, T’Pol,” Archer said. “Really, I’m fine.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I believe I have lived among humans long enough to know when they are... shading the truth. You are still in turmoil.”
A tart rejoinder about minding one’s own business sprang to his lips, but he bit it back. She was his executive officer, and his business was hers as well—especially when so much of it was personal, and shared by them both.
“Trip,” he said at length.
T’Pol’s perplexed expression abruptly returned. “Pardon me, Captain?”
“I can’t help but wonder if I would have found a way to save both Enterprise and the Maru if Trip were still here.”
She nodded as understanding appeared to dawn on her. “I see.”
“If you weren’t a Vulcan, I probably wouldn’t have admitted that to you. The last person I’d want to offend is my exec.”
“But I am Vulcan, Captain. Therefore I take no offense. But I do understand how valuable the relationship is to you.”
Archer felt his eyebrows go aloft. “ ‘Is’? Present tense, T’Pol? I’d say there’s a pretty damned good chance that Trip is dead. For real this time, I mean.”
T’Pol shook her head. “I am confident that I would know it if Commander Tucker were dead.”
“Vulcan optimism?”
“It is an empirical fact. As is the fact that Trip’s absence is not the only thing distressing you.”
She nodded in the direction of the uneven stack of paperwork on his desk and the padd that lay across the top, its display still showing the document he had been reading when she and Malcolm had entered the ready room.
He reached across his desk, picked up the padd, and rose from his chair. “T’Pol, you and Malcolm have both put a lot of energy into vindicating my decision to leave the Maru