The BLTS Archive - Worthless
#8: Becalmed
by miera (mierac72@yahoo.com)

---

ARCHIVE: Entslash & Tim can go ahead, anyone else please ask first!

FEEDBACK: Makes me all happy and squirmy.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Sequel to "Natural Order" and all that came before
that. I started working on this well before "The Crossing" so any
similarities are a coincidence. I have no idea if this is
technologically plausible, so please don't lecture me on the nature
of the warp drive and starship construction. Consider it technobabble
and just roll with it.

WARNINGS: None

DISCLAIMER: Everything here is owned by the almighty Paramount.

---

*Bloody hell,* Malcolm swore to himself, clawing his way back into
his chair. He noticed from the corner of his eye that he was the only
person on the Bridge who had lost his seat in the impact. *Great,
nice way to fall on your arse, idiot.* He regained his seat, noting
that the ship had gone to tactical alert status.

Archer twisted in his chair, looking at T'Pol. "Report? What hit us?"

"I am not certain it was the impact of a collision," T'Pol replied,
eyes on her instruments.

Malcolm's eyes scanned over his panel. "Weapons are online, and the
hull plating is fully polarized. Something tripped the tactical
alert."

"Sensors aren't reading anything for us to have hit, sir," Hoshi said.

"We've dropped out of warp," Travis put in. "Looks like the warp
engine is offline, but we still have impulse power."

Archer waited as T'Pol turned and looked into her viewscope. "There
appears to be nothing present, Captain," she observed.

"Packed quite a punch for nothing," Archer grumbled rather pointedly.

"Minor damage to the ship, sir," Malcolm told him. "No serious
injuries."

The lights began to flicker. "Now what?" Archer muttered.

The comm opened. "Tucker to the Bridge. What's going on up there?"
Trip's voice sounded strained.

"We're not sure, Trip. How's the warp engine?"

"Reactor's offline. I'm getting weird readings from the plasma vents."

Archer's eyebrows went up at T'Pol, but she was already checking
sensors. With a snap, the lights went off and the consoles under
their hands died and then came back as the emergency power kicked in.

"We just lost the impulse engines. There's barely any response from
the maneuvering thrusters," Travis said.

"Something is draining all the power from the ship," T'Pol reported,
her voice containing the barest hint of disturbance.

"How?" Archer frowned.

"I do not know. But the power drain appears to be most prominent
along the warp nacelles."

Archer looked at Hoshi, who was already working to bring the image up
on the viewscreen. When the nacelles appeared, everything looked
normal, at first.

"Captain," Travis pointed, his voice worried. "There, in the shadow
at the bottom of the connector."

Hoshi tapped out several commands and the image magnified until the
tiny glint that had caught Travis' eye was visible to them all.

Archer stared, mesmerized. "What are they?"

"They look like...fireflies."

Revealed only due to the darkness cast by the nacelle's shadow, the
tiny spots of light appeared to be crawling over the surface of the
ship. The movements reminded Malcolm of a swarm of insects. His hands
darted over the console. "Some sort of charged particles, sir.
They're gaining electrical charge at an exponential rate."

He looked over at T'Pol, who gave the minutest nod. "It appears we've
run into some kind of cloud of particles which are being drawn to the
energy output of the ship."

Archer was still watching. "But they look like they're moving."

"Are you suggesting they're sentient, Captain?" T'Pol asked quietly.

Archer's staring was interrupted as the ship lurched again, less
violently. The lights began to flicker again.

"Tucker to Bridge. We can't maintain emergency power with this drain.
It'd be helpful if you could tell me what exactly is sucking us dry."

*Trip must be pretty furious to be that flippant* Malcolm thought to
himself.

"There's some kind of particle cloud outside. It's been drawn to our
energy outputs. It's like a feeding frenzy out there."

"I hope you're not suggesting we're the main course," Trip asked over
the comm..

Archer looked from Travis to Malcolm to T'Pol. "I'm open to
suggestions."

"We need to shut down all power on board, including emergency and
backups." T'Pol's statement was flat, toneless.

Malcolm's stomach did a somersault. Shutting down all the power,
including life support, would leave the ship completely defenseless.
Not to mention, what if they couldn't turn the lights back on? "I
agree, sir. If these...things are being drawn to our power output-"

"We need to cut off the food supply," Archer finished. He closed his
eyes briefly. "Trip, did you hear that?"

"I heard it. I'm not quite sure I believe it."

"How long to power everything down?"

"A couple minutes."

Another flicker, another lurch. "We might not have that long," Archer
pointed out.

"If we do this any faster, there's no way to guarantee we can get her
started again, Captain."

"Fast as you can Trip." He turned to T'Pol. "How long can we go
without life support running?"

She thought for a moment. "Not longer than one hour, Captain."

Archer nodded and turned to Hoshi. "Get me the ship-wide channel."

---

Approximately 30 seconds after Archer's announcement, Trip fiercely
wiped at his face. "Tucker to Bridge. We're ready. I'm gonna cut
everything but the secondary auxiliary battery."

Archer's voice came back instantly. "Trip, we need to shut off
everything-"

Trip glared in the direction of the comm, continuing to work. "Unless
you want to be alone in the dark, floating in zero gee, and blind as
a bat, we're gonna need to keep the battery online."

He could just picture Archer's frown. "Understood. We're ready."

Trip nodded over his shoulder. A series of loud clicks preceded the
systems shutting down. He punched in a command and the emergency
lights shut off. Engineering was engulfed in an unnerving silence and
total darkness.

"Well, here we are."

---

The lights on the Bridge shut off. Despite knowing it was coming,
Malcolm heard Hoshi gasp as the darkness fell. He couldn't help but
feel a surge of instinctive panic himself, as his eyes tried futilely
to focus on something.

"Malcolm?" Archer's voice came through the black.

"Yes sir?"

"Flashlights might be a good idea right about now."

At least in the dark no one could see him blushing in  embarrassment.
"Yes sir." Carefully using his hands to guide him,  Malcolm got up and
felt his way along the side of the Bridge to the  emergency kit.

A thud and a grunt of pain came from somewhere near the front of the
Bridge.

"Travis?" Hoshi's voice queried.

"I'm fine."

"What did you do?"

There was a pause. Although the humming of the engines was never
loud, the absence of the underlying sound was conspicuous. "I just
tried to get up to help Malcolm with the flashlights."

Hoshi's quiet giggle made Travis instinctively turn to glare at her,
but of course she couldn't see it.

"Let's everyone stay seated until we get some light in here," Archer
said mildly. His voice sounded like he was repressing a laugh.

Malcolm was reaching for the cover to the emergency kit when
something bumped into him. He gasped, startled, and pulled back. A
click preceded a light flickering on. He winced, his eyes trying to
readjust yet again.

T'Pol stood in front of him, flashlight pointed down at the floor.
She said nothing, only raised one eyebrow, and handed him another
flashlight.

---

Malcolm walked into Engineering, trying not to pant from the long
climb down the Jeffries tubes from the Bridge. The lifts were off
line, of course, along with almost everything else. All that was left
was the gravity plating and one sensor array. He weaved in between
crewmembers, all shining flashlights at the floor as they prepared
for turning the power back on. He heard Trip's voice and made his way
in the direction of the sound. The chief engineer had requested
Malcolm's help in Engineering as they waited to try and restart the
ship's engines.

"I want you to be right there over that access panel as soon as the
first electron crosses the wires," Trip ordered someone. A "yes, sir"
was followed by Malcolm's grunt and a loud "Oops! Sorry, Lieutenant."

"That's alright." The crewman hustled away before he could even
register a face. Malcolm's flashlight flickered up over Trip and he
felt his heart clench in his chest.

"Dammit, Malcolm point that thing somewhere else will you?" Trip
growled, shielding his eyes.

Malcolm didn't move. Trip's face was covered in blood, which was
still oozing from a large cut on his head. His neck and uniform were
stained with it, suggesting he'd been bleeding for a while.

"Sir?" Malcolm said uncertainly, lowering the flashlight to the other
man's torso.

Trip knew immediately what Malcolm was thinking. Hess had already
tried unsuccessfully to get him to see Phlox. He waved the other man
off. "It's nothing. Just a cut."

"You're still bleeding." Malcolm's voice was low, anxious.

"Yeah, but it'll stop eventually." Trip pressed a bandage to the
wound momentarily, then dropped it again as he barked out new orders
to another pair of engineers. Malcolm shook himself and walked over
and grabbed Trip's chin, forcing the taller man to look him in the
eye.

"You could have a concussion," he said, examining Trip's pupils. "You
should go see Phlox."

Trip pulled away, annoyed by both the touch and the concern evident
in Malcolm's face. "I just got a headache, that's all. And we've got
to be ready for when the power comes back on. Can you handle
rerouting the EPS grid for me?" He started to walk away.

Malcolm barred his path. "Commander, I think you should go to
Sickbay."

He sighed, trying a different tack. "I'm fine, Malcolm."

"You look like you're about to pass out. You are not fine."

Trip glared. "Sorry, but that's kind of ironic coming from you."

Activity in Engineering began to slow. The rest of the crew were
watching the confrontation nervously. Malcolm resolutely stood his
ground. "Sir, you need medical attention."

Trip was already tense. Malcolm's stubbornness, as always, shattered
the final restraint on his temper. Particularly since Malcolm was the
last person who should ever order anyone else to Sickbay. "I'll go to
the doctor when I damn well feel like it, Lieutenant. Now get out of
my way."

He looked once again at the blood still trickling down Trip's  face.
"No."

"Malcolm-" he said warningly.

"Goddamnit, Trip!" Malcolm shouted into Trip's stunned face, all
pretense of politeness and control gone. "You're bleeding heavily.
You could have fractured your skull. We can survive for twenty
minutes while you get Phlox to look at you and make sure you're
alright!"

Trip froze. The rest of the crew flinched away, not sure what to
expect. No one ever raised their voice to Commander Tucker.

Malcolm was too angry to count costs yet. All he knew was that he had
to get Trip to go to Sickbay and get checked over. This wasn't
something that was open for negotiation. "Besides, if you keep
dripping blood all over the consoles, you might cause a short-
circuit."

For several heartbeats the two men remained face to face, glaring,
something silently passing between them. The whole room seemed to
hold its breath.

Trip's lips finally twitched slightly. "What if I'm gone for thirty
minutes?"

His voice was still carrying an edge, but Malcolm could see amusement
in the blue eyes. "I guess we'd just have to think for ourselves."

Another twitch. "Fine. I'll go. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic," Malcolm said drily. He turned and headed for the console
Trip had pointed him to.

Trip walked out of Engineering to go see Phlox, avoiding the stunned
glances being shot in his direction. It was several minutes later,
picking his way along the corridor outside Sickbay, that he realized
this was the first time in weeks that Malcolm had called him by his
nickname.


---

"I'm going to sleep with the lights on for a week," Hoshi grumbled.

Trip and Travis chuckled. They were eating dinner, rather late, in
the Mess Hall. Forty-eight minutes had passed while the ship remained
shut down, motionless in the pitch blackness of deep space, before
their one functioning sensor confirmed that the particle swarm had
moved on. Trip, back from Sickbay with a big bandage on his head, and
the engineering crew got the main systems up and running enough to
get life support back online. But there had been multiple problems
with the secondary and backup systems, not to mention some damage to
the warp engine from being shut down so abruptly. Trip would've been
down in engineering still, working on his baby, but Archer had
directly ordered him off duty for an hour to eat and see Phlox.

Apparently Hoshi hadn't taken too well to the dark. She glared at
Trip and Travis. "Oh please, like you weren't both as unnerved as I
was."

Travis shook his head in denial but Trip shrugged somewhat
uncomfortably. "It was kinda creepy, crawling through the Jeffries
tube on my way to Sickbay. Like the ship had become a ghost."

"There," Hoshi pointed to Trip, frowning at Travis. "See? I'm not
being paranoid."

"I thought that was my job," a wry voice said behind Hoshi. Malcolm
was standing there, carrying a sandwich. He looked as tired as Trip
felt.

Malcolm didn't sit down right away. Instead he looked at Trip
nervously. Now that the immediate danger was over, he was feeling the
guilt of his outburst in engineering. It wasn't like him to raise his
voice to a superior officer. But then, rank had never stopped him
from yelling at Trip in the past.

Trip remembered Malcolm getting in his face, screaming at him to go
to Sickbay. It had pissed him off pretty good, even though he knew
Malcolm had been right.

The two men stared at each other for a moment, Malcolm's expression
unsure, Trip's unreadable. Hoshi looked at Travis, who shrugged and
shook his head mutely.

Finally, Trip rolled his eyes. "Sit down, Mal. You look like hell."

Malcolm saw the blonde's eyebrows go up, and a taunting expression
came into the blue eyes. Trip was daring him to make a comment, he
realized. Never bait a Reed, he thought darkly.

"You should know, Trip," he said pointedly, looking at Trip's
uniform. The blood stains were still everywhere, along with plenty of
dirt and who knew what else. Malcolm sat down next to Hoshi and took
a bite of his dinner. He shot a look across the table at the other
man.

Trip chuckled and then caught hold of Malcolm's eyes. He felt the
familiar twist in his belly, but decided for the moment to ignore it.
What mattered right now was that he and Malcolm were finally okay
again. Trip wanted to bask in that sense of things being alright for
a little while.

Plenty of time to worry tomorrow.

---

The End