Tomorrow is Yesterday - Chapter 2

Tomorrow is Yesterday

by Mctrip7

Rating: PG-13, a little cussin’
Genre: Suspense, Angst
Archive: Trip/Archer
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Paramount and will not be sold.
Summary: A beginning

~~~~~~~

Chapter 2

The intercom buzzed.

“Engineering, Tucker here.”

“Trip, I’m sending Crewman Kirk down to you. Put him to work. I told him you were in charge of checking the debris field. As you recover the remains, see if you can find any pieces of the warp core assembly. Kirk thinks it might have been sabotaged.”

“I’m on it, Capt’n. Trip out.”

As the door slid open, Trip turned to face Kirk. “Welcome to Engineering, Ty. I have some things to finish up and then we’ll head for the transporter room.”

“I’ll be ready when you are, Commander. Can I give you a hand?”

“No, I don’t think so. These components are ‘state of the art’ . . .”

“I’ve been an Engineer for 20 years and I’ve seen most everything . . . can I watch, then?”

“Sure, just don’t touch!” Trip turned to the screen with the ship’s image. “Here, Adams. Looks like this circuit packet is weak. Let’s replace it.”

Kirk was taking it all in. “I’ve heard about these kinds of diagnostics. Don’t you ever have to do any “hands on” repair of the warp engines?”

“Oh, yeah. A real problem and we have to shut down the core and take it all apart. Major damage takes days to fix. Most times it’s something minor, and I’m on it right away; so it never becomes major!”

Trip finished punching buttons and turned to Adams. “Need to check these, too,” he said as he handed the pad to Adams.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Okay, Kirk, let’s head for the Transporter Room.”

As they were nearing the Transporter Room, Crewman Davis stood up. “Sorry, Commander, we were upgrading the circuitry and it overloaded. It’s all fused now, but I hope to have it back on line by 08:00 hours.”

“Get Adams to help you and get it back on line as soon as you can. We’re gonna need it.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Come on, Kirk, we’ll take the shuttle pod.”

Trip hit the intercom switch. “Travis, meet us in Shuttle Bay 2. We’re going to take the pod – the transporter is off line.”

“Yes, sir, on my way.” Travis loved flying, so any chance he got was ‘great’.

As they left Enterprise, Kirk was taking in the mechanics of the shuttle pod. “Looks like a miniature engineering section. Are all those packets and circuits on here, too?”

“Yep, that’s what makes her go,” Trip smiled.

“We’re approaching the debris field, Commander.”

“Do our sensors read any human remains Travis?” Trip asked.

Before Travis could answer, Kirk spoke up. “How do I read this?”

Trip moved back to the science station. Turning the screen on, he pointed to the images, some dark, some all different colors and some gray and dull.

“Each color means something different”, Trip began explaining. “The gases are yellow and orange, the pulsating red objects are of human origin. Different minerals have different colors. Core pieces are black with bits of color on them.”

“And you can tell this just by looking at this picture as we move along?” Kirk was dismayed.

“Our sensors send out an impulse and when it meets something, it bounces an image back to us, telling us what it is,” Trip was explaining when the console beeped.

“Look here, Kirk. In those orange and yellow swirls there’s pulsating red along with pieces of metal covered with blue”.

“Travis, let’s bring the red material aboard first. If we have extra room, we’ll pick up the metal.” Trip turned to the transporter pad as things began to materialize. “Get a body bag out of that compartment, Kirk. This isn’t going to be easy, but it has to be done.”

Kirk was staring at the things on the transporter pad. “We shouldn’t be doing this, Commander. Let them rest in peace. Only the metal needs to be picked up.”

Trip realized the effect this was having on Kirk. He and Travis could do it later, because the families should be notified and receive anything belonging to their loved ones. Responding to Kirk’s comments, Trip agreed and flipped the switch to Enterprise.

“Archer here.”

“Capt’n., permission to leave the remains of the Crew here.”

“What’s the problem, Trip? It’s your call.”

“It’s pretty bad, sir. We’ll pick up what metal pieces Kirk thinks might be helpful and return to Enterprise.”

‘Understood.” was Archer’s only comment.

~~~~

Back aboard Enterprise, they laid out all the pieces in sections. Kirk couldn’t wait to examine the warp core, though there were very few pieces of any size

“These look like some of the gauges, Kirk. Maybe that’ll help.” Trip held up some badly twisted metal. “I think your work is cut out for you. I’ll check back with you later. I have to get that transporter back on line.”

“Thanks for your help, Commander.” Kirk hardly looked up. His jaw was set. This was going to be difficult. Each piece he picked up brought a face to mind. He owed them a commitment to do the best he could to find out what went wrong and “by damned” he’d do it!

~~~~~~~~~

On the Bridge, Captain Archer was having Hoshi check her tapes to see if there was any record of an explosion or a distress call.

T’Pol was also checking their sensor records to see if they had picked up anything.

“Captain, you might want to hear this,” Hoshi cut in. “Our beacon wasn’t pointed in that direction, but there is definitely a distant transmission. I’ll try to isolate it.”

“I’m picking up two large objects, but they are very far away. I can’t make out if they are ships or not, Captain,” T’Pol commented.

“Bring up your tape, Hoshi. Compare the time with T’Pol’s sensor reading. We may be able to piece something together!”

Through the garbled crackling of the transmission there was a few seconds of sustained high level noise, then a faint ‘beep, beep, beep’ that gradually faded away as they apparently moved on.

“What do your sensors show next, T’Pol?”

“One large object, one very small one, Captain.”

“How do the times coordinate?”

“The transmission was at 08:15, Captain.”

“Sensor readings were at 08:13. It is definitely the same event!”

“Keep checking ahead to see if we pick up the big object again; or if there are any more transmissions. We may cross paths with them again,” Archer said.

TBC

Continue to Chapter 3

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Two folks have made comments

Nice, must know what happened out there!

can't w8 to find out how this goes :)