Rating: PG-13
Genres: humour missing scene romance
Keywords:
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This story is number 2 in the series Missing Scenes from Season Three
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SPOILERS: “Anomaly,” and it may not make sense without it.
DISCLAIMER: Star Trek belongs to CBS/Paramount. “Anomaly” was written by Mike Sussman.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: It’s a little heavy on the techno-babble here, but hang on and things get more, ahem, elemental towards the end.
If the Cochrane Equation was not a constant in this part of the universe, and none of his adjustments to the quantum variables worked without throwing off the spatial gradients, then … what? Either his adjustments were the wrong adjustments, or they were now hopelessly marooned in the Expanse … all because he was a warp engineer who couldn’t get his warp engines to start, let alone run.
Not that it necessarily mattered, since they had next to nothing to run them with.
And if he hadn’t had extra sets of plasma injectors and deuterium injectors safely hidden away, there wouldn’t be any point in bothering now, anyway. If something happened to these now …
He sighed. At least those bastards hadn’t taken their antimatter injectors. Maybe they could tell they were crap.
Trip stared balefully at the calculations he had spread across the mess hall table. Malcolm had already told him to get some sleep … and suggested he was getting unduly cynical.
Malcolm had called him cynical. Everything was backwards in the Expanse.
He heard the door slide open behind him but didn’t bother to look. He had achieved a fugue state of fatigue and disgust, a kind of in-the-zone level of exhaustion, and actually moving his body might disturb it.
“You didn’t show up for neuro-pressure again.”
Trip sighed. “I did send you a message. Kinda busy here.” There was a long silence. Reluctantly, he turned around. She was sipping her tea and looking at him with absolutely no expression on her face. “I’m sorry, T’Pol, but I thought that being able to have warp drive functioning again someday took precedence over my personal comfort.”
She stared appraisingly at him, and the hard set of her shoulders relaxed just slightly. “Can I assist you?”
They’d long maintained an unspoken agreement never to discuss technology the Vulcans considered classified if they could avoid it, but if ever a situation called out for an exception, it was this. “How’s your warp theory?”
“Cursory. However, I am a strong mathematician. And you appear to be working with equations.”
“That I am,” he said, and explained the problem to her.
“Is there any way for you to accurately determine the variations you are encountering?” she asked, looking curiously at the part of Cochrane’s Equation that had become his own personal nightmare.
“It seems to correspond to the strength of the gravimetric waves we encounter in the anomalies,” Tucker said. “In theory, we could take data from our forward scans to determine when and even how much it needs to change. But then, this part of the equation – the part that helps us tune antimatter injection – I also need a way to adjust that instantaneously according to the conditions we’re actually experiencing. I’ve tried doing it by feel, and also by inputting just about any factor I can think of out of this scan data, but it’s not working – not in the engine room, and not in my simulations. Frankly, it’s beginning to look like it’s just an impossibility.”
“This is the data from your scans?” she asked, picking up a Padd.
“Yep.”
“And these were obtained while we were at warp 4?”
“No, they were obtained while we’re sitting here like, well, like a sitting duck. I also have readings from just before the engines went ca-ca, when we were still at warp, right here.” He called up the file and gave it to her.
She stared down at the data, brow furrowed. Trip decided to get more coffee and hope she could come up with a more encouraging conclusion than he had.
He ran his hands over his face and felt the rasp of incipient beard. “I don’t think that’s the answer the captain is looking for.”
T’Pol said, “If he insists on heading further into areas of intense spatial disturbance, we must redouble our efforts to obtain Trellium-D for the hull.”
“You think there’s any chance he’ll agree to go around them?”
“If we can have more success in predicting their location, yes. I will continue working on that problem. These waves occur in a complex pattern that suggests more than one source. It might be possible to build a detailed predictive model. And perhaps if he realizes we can go around them much faster and more reliably than we can go through them…”
Trip shook his head, discouraged. “If he thought there was any chance the Xindi were in it, I think he’d take us into a black hole.”
“As his senior officers, it is our job to advise him about the best interests of crew, ship, and mission.”
Trip sighed and said nothing. He didn’t get the feeling Jon was interested in hearing anything he had to say lately, unless it was, “Yes sir.”
“I believe our current course will take us out of the worst of this gravimetric field soon. It should be possible to achieve warp again then. You should get some sleep, Commander.”
He looked up, wondering if she would offer him neuro-pressure, even at this ungodly hour. But she didn’t. He looked down and swallowed, both disappointed and relieved. It would have helped, and he was tired enough now that he doubted he needed to worry about being unduly – or too obviously – distracted by her luscious body right there next to him.
But who was he kidding? T’Pol’s half-clothed body was about as easy to ignore as a warp core breach, and his reactions to it were as awkward and embarrassing as anything he could remember from adolescence.
Perhaps most of all, he was haunted by that sound she’d made when he’d managed to press on the right spot on her back. He wanted to hear that sound again … and more. Perhaps it was a symptom of his fatigue, or his general sense that everything had turned upside down, but ever since that session he couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to make hot, passionate love to their first officer until she screamed from helpless pleasure – which was about as likely as obtaining warp 5 in the midst of major gravimetric flux.
Of course, fantasizing about T’Pol was not something new for him, so you’d think he could get a grip. But now she’d furnished his imaginings with so much more detail: those silky pajamas … that soft, hot skin … the curve of her ass right there just in front of him … that tiny little sound of release.
Damn it. Now he couldn’t even get up from the table safely. “Okay. I’ll try to get a few hours in. I promise. Um … I’m just going to make sure I’ve saved all our work here before I go.”
She raised an eyebrow skeptically, but accepted his delay. “Then I will say good night, Commander.”
“Good night, T’Pol. Thank you for your help.”
She left, and Trip let his head drop to the table with a clunk.
It was official: The universe was out to torture him.
Magnificent!
Trip's obsession with solving the warp drive problem is absolutely in character, and T'Pol the science genius tackling the maths head on catches her perfectly. Nice to see them trying to figure out how to deal with the captain, too. They really do work well together.
I'm glad to see that the 'neuropressure' scene made as much of an impression on Trip as it did on every other red-blooded male who watched it. Those silky pajamas … that soft, hot skin … the curve …
Trip's reaction is completely understandable, but how embarassing for him to have this every time he meets her!
That last line actually made me laugh out loud. As always, this fit perfectly with the episode.
Trip musing about his desire to make love to T'Pol and being haunted by the image of her in silk pj's was perfect.
He is so exhausted that it's perfectly logical that all he can think of is his desire to hear her sigh of release again.
After all, man cannot live by coffee and calculations alone.
loved it . i wondered about that sound and how it effected him in the epi Trip looked kind of surprised. maybe you could find time to write a lonnnnnnger story hmmmm?
Thanks, all. Yes, BAD Alelou! All those damged injectors he has to deal with got me thinking in a rather rude direction... :p
I don't think this series will go NC17. If it does, I'll do a 'clean' version too. (If you can call this clean....)
As always, wonderful. "...he couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to make hot, passionate love to their first officer..." well, better than dreaming about his dead sister... and that looks like it came out wrong when I wrote it...
And of course, keep up the good work. ;)
I have nothing profound to say. I'm just getting a kick out of this! BAD Alelou!!! The universe isn't the only one torturing Trip, lol . . .
Your "missing scenes" are like crack to me, you know that.
Anyway, I reall admire how you write technical stuff. Even is you are pulling it out of.......er.....the air, it sounds like you know what you're writing about.
Trip's musing are awesome. Tension, tension and more tension.
Nice to see them working together - things were intense in the Expanse, but during those times of heavy workload is when other kinds of tension get harder to control. All that is captured well here.
I loved his lame excuse for not standing. Close call I'd say because if she'd told him that she'd already saved everything, he would have been SOL. This missing scene gives us a clue of how his mind was so preoccupied with the ship, and T'Pol, that he really didn't have (or allow himself) time to grieve until he tried to unwind for sleep.
Why to skip Harbinger? The promises are good (probably will be rated NC-17). But it is a nice story, I never had imaginated something similar. Hope for more.
Great technobabble! Trip's got a hell of a memory, not to mention imagination ;) I'll have to scat over to your other missing scenes from this season if you skip Harbinger ;)
Wow. Trips imaginings are very imaginative (blush blush). Also a very nice starting point, it makes Harbinger more then an initiative from T'Pols side. And a great funny last line. :p The science bit was a bit hard to read through, but when you did, it was fascinating. I like when you make them professional and good at their job. Nice touch with the Trellium-D for the hull.