Past Rewards, Future Torment

Past Rewards, Future Torment

by Hoshissis

Rated: PG-13
Genre: Friendship/humor, some implications of slash in later chapters

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Paramount, and the author is making no profit at all from this story.

This story is set between Cogenitor and Bounty.
I always wondered at the speed Trip became a Commander – Trip says in Unexpected that he has been in Starfleet for 12 years and in First Flight, which is set 8 years in their past, Trip is already a Lieutenant. In four years he has jumped up 2 ranks, so this story is my attempt at filling in the blanks. With this in mind, I have based my story on the idea that Trip was rewarded an early promotion for a heroic deed in his past, which unfortunately will come back to haunt him thirteen years later.

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Chapter One

Thirteen years previously
Warp 5 Development Complex

Ensign Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker was having a bad day. Having gone to bed very late the previous night, due to extra curricular research on the developmental Warp 5 engine, he had forgotten to set his alarm and as a result arrived twenty minutes late. Consequently he spent half the morning spent scrubbing the plasma manifolds of each of the NX Alpha & Beta ships until they shined. Normally Trip wouldn’t have minded since he was eager and grateful for any chance to get a look at these beauties, but today he was pissed off – Captain Jeffries was explaining the nuts/bolts and nitty gritty of these two prototypes to his batch of virgin Ensigns before giving them actual hands on engineering experience.

Trip had worked damn hard to get on this team and had spent the last two months researching the prototype engine designed by his hero Henry Archer. He was ready to ask loads of questions and put forward theories of his own regarding solutions to some of the troubling technical problems. Captain Jeffries knew this, but as usual he was reluctant to let the young man get away with his minor transgression and came down on Trip like a ton of bricks. With any other of the Ensigns on his team it would have overlooked, but Trip was different. He was naturally talented, gifted with being able to fix or put together any machine and a sheer genius at plucking solutions to just about any technical problem out of thin air. Trip’s problem though was that he was often rash, outspoken, easily led astray and a magnet for trouble. If he was going to succeed then Captain Jeffries would have to be as hard as possible on the young man and not give him any leeway. He didn’t like this, since he genuinely liked Charles Tucker and found their debates over engine theories challenging, but he had to be cruel to be kind and he was determined not to let this young man fall by the wayside.

// Damn Jeffries, // thought Trip as he spied his friends enjoying themselves exploring the engines of the NX Alpha & Beta, // Son of a bitch has been a burr up ma ass ever since the first week when I won that argument over the design specs. I’m sick to death of being his whipping boy. // With a deep sigh of disappointment, he tuned back to focus on his task, scrubbing these bloody manifolds spotless.

“Tucker!”, shouted Captain Jeffries walking over to the young man, “pack that stuff away and go and join the rest. You’ve done enough for one day. Pull that late stuff in future with me again and I’ll have you scrubbing these manifolds for the rest of your career. Do I make myself clear, boy?”

“Yes sir, it won’t happen again. Thank you sir,” smiled Tucker as he bundled everything up in record time and raced off to get his hands on those engines.

Captain Jeffries chuckled to himself. He knew exactly what Tucker had been doing last night, it was the same thing he did almost every night – research, research and more research. He commended the ensign’s studious attitude, but he had to teach Tucker not to let it interfere with his work. That’s what the punishment had been for, but seeing the longing look of crushed disappointment on Tucker’s face made his heart ache. It was one thing to give someone an attitude adjustment, but it was another thing entirely to kill off spirit and enthusiasm. With any luck Tucker was well on the well to doing the former. Anyway Jeffries was reluctant to admit it to anyone but he was looking forward to the argument he was bound to have with Tucker later over whether or how much a modification theory/idea of his could improve performance.

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Later that night Trip was back in the Warp 5 complex going over the design specs for the engines he had been lucky enough to view and touch earlier. He couldn’t remember having enjoyed himself so much before or been as happy. One of the scientists had explained to him a problem they were having with a component in the intermix tubular junction assembly, and since there was nothing better in Trip’s book than a good problem solving exercise, he was going over the specs with renewed determination in the hope of finding a solution.

The building was nearly deserted, with only a few engineers or scientists going about their business. Trip was pretty much left to his own devices. Suddenly he heard an alarm go off in the control centre, which was situated in the main complex off to the left. Getting up to investigate, he walked over to the control panel monitoring both the new prototype engines. There were numerous buttons flashing in the top right corner, which recorded the internal pressure within the intermix tubular junction. According to the readings, internal pressure was too high and it was slowly building up to extreme levels. If unstopped it would cause an overload in the assembly unit. This would result in an explosion that would destroy both prototypes and set Starfleet’s work back decades, something Trip was not prepared to accept. Trip ran a quick diagnostic to confirm the readings were correct before sounding general quarters to evacuate the building and comm the heads of the program to let them know of the problem.

Assuming that everyone had heard the evacuation alarm, Trip ran to the main bus board to see if he could divert some of the pressure himself. He knew he was no where near qualified to tackle the problem himself, but he had a vague idea of what was needed from all of his previous research. Disregarding the danger to himself and not willing to wait for reinforcements to arrive, since an overload was dangerously close, he began to close off adjoining junctions that would shunt off the excess power. He had nearly completed his task when a huge explosion occurred in the adjacent control panel that propelled him across the room, slamming him in to the opposite wall. Surrendering to the agonising pain and darkness he quickly lost consciousness, praying that his efforts to save the prototypes had not all been for nothing.

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Slowly becoming aware of reality, he opened his eyes, blinking from the dazzling overhead light and cringing from the pounding in his head. As his vision adjusted and he became more aware of his surroundings, he realised he was lying on a bio bed in a private room inside Starfleet Medical centre. Sitting down next to him asleep in a chair was Captain Jeffries. A monitor over his bed must have alerted the medics that Tucker was stirring, because a Doctor Harris immediately walked through the door.

“How are you feeling Ensign?”

“Errrmm… a little sore, acky an confused.”

This little banter woke up Captain Jeffries,

“Ensign, it’s good to see you finally awake. You gave us quite a scare there.”

“What happened sir and how did I get here?”

“Do you remember going to the Warp 5 complex to do some late night research after our long debate in class?”

“Vaguely, but how did I get hurt.”

Pulling up his chair Captain Jeffries proceeded to bring Tucker up-to-date on what had happened. Unbeknown to Ensign Tucker thought, he missed out some vital information that would have huge ramifications for his future.

Alerted by the alarm sounding general quarters, Captain Jeffries and various other personnel entered the Warp 5 building. The main complex and five adjacent corridors were ablaze from an explosion, caused by the excess energy pressure shunted away by Tucker. Although the NX prototypes suffered series damage from both the fire and subsequent explosions that would take months to repair, they were thankfully far from write off’s. Unknown to Trip who had assumed that the complex was empty; two crewmen had become trapped in one of the offices adjoining the corridors attached to the main complex. Due to a malfunction, their alarm had not gone off and the fire and subsequent explosions had unfortunately caused their door to close and lock, trapping them inside where they both suffocated from smoke inhalation.

Trip was found in the control centre unconscious and badly hurt. He was rushed immediately to Medical Headquarters where he was diagnosed with a broken leg, arm, three cracked ribs and a serious head injury that kept him unconscious for four days. He was labelled a hero and awarded a commendation for bravery by his superiors for saving the program. This deed along with extremely hard work over the next twelve months earned him an early promotion to Lieutenant and a permanent place as one of the head engineers supervising the rebuild and upgrade of both the NX Alpha and NX Beta. In the following two years after a momentary halt, subsequent action taken by Commander Archer, Commander Robinson and Lieutenant Tucker would put the test program completely back on track and allow Starfleet to break the Warp 3 barrier, thus laying the groundwork for Enterprise.

To avoid any distress that might jeopardise the services of this young promising and gifted engineer, Starfleet withheld the knowledge of the two deaths from Ensign Tucker and did not include this information in his official file. Despite numerous backroom prompting and calls from the families of the two dead crewmen for an official enquiry into the explosion and for charges to be brought against Ensign Charles Tucker, the incident was soon hushed over and forgotten. Till now that is.

TBC

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Please review Opinions and Critisms are appreciated

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Four of you have made comments

Oh this sounds a bit familiar has it been posted elsewhere before? If it has I don't recall the ending or the middle just a bit of this beginning.

Oh this sounds like some major Trip angst coming ;-)

Oooh! Sounds really good! Can't wait to see what happens next to poor Trip...

I read this already on fannet, but anyhow. will surely hang around to see what will happen. ALthough the possiblity that Trip wouldn't someone had died doesn't seem very big to me.

Yes I have put this on fannet under JM9.

The mystery, which will be revealed more under future chapters, is that he will meet someone who is related to the men who died, who holds a grudge and wants some payback. I'm going to try and make this into a kind of who donnit.