What Does Not Kill Us - Chapter 9

What Does Not Kill Us

by Thalia Drogna

Rating: R
Genre: Action/Adventury, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters, I’m just borrowing them

~~~

Chapter 9

Phlox and T’Pol moved Trip back to Sick Bay so that they could use the scanner. The medical tricorder had not picked up anything unusual so they had made the decision to use the more powerful scanner. Trip was still sedated and unaware of what was going on, they hoped that they could get him back to his quarters before he woke up and realised where he was.

Lieutenant Reed had tracked down Archer in the situation room. They were still on a course towards the Xindi outpost that Reed had located in his search for Trip and Archer was reviewing the information that they had obtained from the Jorgan merchant. It had seemed as if that outpost might provide them with more information about the Xindi weapon and they were still short on leads so Archer had grabbed at this one. In some small way perhaps the universe was paying him back for taking Trip away from him.

Archer had listened patiently while Reed went through exactly what had happened with the padds, tricorder and alarm clock. Archer had sighed, shaken his head and suggested that they should go and see if Phlox had been able to find anything out. They hadn’t spoken on the way down to sick bay, Reed suspected that Archer was cursing the Xindi silently in the same way that he was. Hadn’t they put Trip through enough? Reed knew that as far as the Xindi were concerned Trip was merely a tool to use against their enemy but there was a human being in there too. A human being who was being slowly torn apart.

“What do we know, Doctor?” asked Archer as he entered sick bay, not waiting even for the door to close behind him.

“The scanner has detected something of interest,” said Phlox. Trip was still inside the imaging chamber being scanned, the monitor showing various layers of his internal anatomy, from his nerve network to his bone structure. “I will let T’Pol explain, since this is more in her field than mine,” said Phlox.

“We believe that the Commander may have been infected with nanoprobes,” said T’Pol.

“Nanoprobes? Like the ones that Dr Phlox was infected by?” asked Archer.

“No, these are not the same design,” said T’Pol, “they are considerably more crude. They have a similar metallic composition to the Xindi probe.”

“Why didn’t we detect them before?” asked Lieutenant Reed.

“Because they weren’t present in such great numbers in the Commander’s body when we first scanned him,” said Phlox. “If we had been able to keep him in sick bay and I could have performed more scans we may have picked them up, but unfortunately the standard medical tricorder is not sensitive enough to discern them.”

“Then where did they come from?” asked Archer.

“They are what humans refer to as von Neuman machines, self-replicating constructs. The Xindi only needed to infect him with a single nanoprobe which then took materials from the Commander’s body in order to replicate itself. The scanner could not detect the small number of nanoprobes which the Xindi probably used,” said T’Pol. “The number of nanoprobes have been steadily increasing since we brought the Commander to Sick Bay, but the population now appears to have stabilised.”

“Is there any danger of anyone else becoming infected?” asked Archer, looking concerned. The last thing he wanted to do was put Trip in quarantine, who knows what being locked in a small room might do to his recovery but if the safety of Enterprise was at stake then he might have no choice.

“I do not believe the probes are capable of infecting other living beings, they seem to have been designed to accomplish only two tasks, to replicate and to seek out electronic circuitry and disable it. They are very simple machines,” said T’Pol. “If we do not allow the Commander to come into contact with any technology then we should not have a problem.”

“Why would they do this? It doesn’t make any sense,” said Archer.

“I don’t know,” said Reed, “if Commander Tucker had touched any of our core systems we could have been in real trouble. Even if he’d just logged onto the terminal in his quarters. That’s networked and the whole ship could have been infected.”

“But they must have known we’d take him straight to sick bay,” said Archer.

“Perhaps they expected him to come into contact with technology during treatment for his injuries,” said T’Pol. “Or they hoped that we would not detect the problem until he returned to work. They would have been well aware of his position as Chief Engineer.”

“I can’t imagine the Xindi understanding the concept of bringing one of their wounded a movie to watch,” said Reed.

“Me neither,” said Archer. “How do we get rid of nanoprobes? Can we blast them with radiation like we did before?”

“I do not think that Commander Tucker’s body could withstand the required doses of radiation, he is still weak from his ordeal and doesn’t have the Denobulan resistance to radiation that I do,” said Phlox.

“I doubt that radiation would be sufficient to impair their functioning in this case,” added T’Pol. “As they are less complex than the nanoprobes we dealt with previously they are less susceptible to internal malfunctions.”

“There must be a way,” said Archer.

“I am sure that there is, Captain,” said T’Pol, “however, Dr. Phlox and myself will need time in order to explore the possibilities. The Commander’s condition is not life threatening.”

“Try telling that to Trip,” said Archer, unhappily.

The scanner finished its work and Phlox opened the machine to retrieve Trip. “I think we should get Commander Tucker back to his quarters before he awakes,” said Phlox. “The sedative I gave him won’t last for much longer and I would prefer not to have to give him a second dose.”

Archer nodded and watched while Lieutenant Reed and Dr. Phlox carefully moved Trip onto a gurney so that they could wheel him back to his quarters. Archer noticed once again how ill Trip still looked, his skin was pale, except for where the fading red blotches of rash showed and he hadn’t put on much weight since his return. He’d been doing a little better these last couple of days, he seemed to be opening up more and had started eating. He hoped that this wasn’t going to put Trip back to square one, but he feared the worst.

****

Trip awoke in his quarters to see Archer sitting beside the bed. “Damn, it must be bad news if they sent you to break it,” said Trip, groggily. He manoeuvred himself into a sitting position with a little help from Archer.

“You’re going to be fine,” said Archer. He didn’t really know what else to say, he couldn’t just blurt out what Phlox and T’Pol had discovered, but Trip had to be told.

“But…” said Trip, knowing that Archer was building up to something.

“We think the Xindi infected you with nanoprobes,” began Archer, trying to find the right words, he didn’t get any further.

“Nanoprobes!” said Trip alarmed, “am I going to turn into one of those machine things?” He was remembering the way the nanoprobes had changed the Tarkaleans into cybernetic monsters.

“No, no, you’re not, you’re going to be fine,” said Archer, a little too quickly.

“You still haven’t given me the full story, have you? You know I’m not going to like it,” said Trip, looking at his Captain with worry in his eyes.

“The nanoprobes are designed to disable technology. We think the Xindi intended to use you as a weapon against us. They expected the nanoprobes to infect our systems and disable Enterprise, but because you never came into contact with any networked technology, we’ve got the jump on them. We know what they’ve done and we can get rid of them before they do any damage,” said Archer.

“Why don’t I think you’ve worked out how to do that, though?” asked Trip.

“Phlox and T’Pol are working on it,” said Archer.

“I thought as much,” said Trip. “I guess I don’t need to worry about not being an Engineer anymore, I’m not going to be able to do anything at all!” If he couldn’t even pick up a padd how was he ever going to be able to serve on board a starship. If he even touched one of the networked systems he’d infect the whole ship. When Archer had told him that he didn’t have to work in Engineering it had been a great weight off his mind, he wasn’t sure how he could ever bring himself to go back there, but he hadn’t wanted to leave Enterprise. Now, he couldn’t see any way that he’d ever work anywhere ever again, every facet of existence involved technology, everywhere used computers.

“Trip, it’s going to be okay,” said Archer, putting his hand on Trip’s shoulder gently. Trip flinched and Archer felt his heart sink, just yesterday he’d done the same thing and Trip had been fine.

“Why does everyone keep saying that to me, it’s not going to be okay!” shouted Trip. “The Xindi have turned me into a weapon against my own people!”

“Trip, you just have to give T’Pol and Phlox some time,” said Archer, but he didn’t think Trip even heard him.

“Leave me alone!” shouted Trip.

And there were those words again, Archer had heard them a lot recently and he knew it meant Trip was shutting him out again. Trip was in a lot of pain and he was falling back onto what he’d learned on the Xindi ship, being alone was not being hurt.

“We’re going to fix this, Trip,” said Archer, calmly in an even tone. Trip had to believe what he was saying even if Archer didn’t yet believe it himself. “I promise you that we won’t stop looking until we find a way to get rid of the nanoprobes.”

“Just leave me alone,” said Trip in a miserable voice and he did his best to curl himself up into a ball even though his injuries still made it difficult.

“Okay, this time you get to be alone, but you’re not getting rid of me that easily,” said Archer, standing to go.

“That’s what Hoshi said about our Mah Jongg game,” said Trip, his voice muffled by the pillow. “I didn’t see her again for two months.”

Archer stood looking down at the crumpled form of his friend for a moment before he left quietly. Trip tried to curl in on himself, hoping that the dark hopeless feeling which had returned so suddenly would go soon. He shivered and pulled the blanket closer around him.

Phlox and T’Pol waited for Archer in the corridor. They had both agreed that Archer should be the one to break the news to Trip but Phlox had insisted on being near by in case Trip became agitated again.

“How did he react to the new information?” asked T’Pol.

“Badly,” said Archer. “Everything we managed to achieve over the past weeks just went out the window. He told me to leave him alone and he was afraid when I touched him.”

Phlox sighed loudly and looked down at the padd he was holding. “I thought we had managed to get rid of that particular response,” said Phlox. “Evidently it was more deeply rooted than we thought. I’m sorry, Captain.”

“There must be something that we can do?” asked Archer desperately.

“All we can do is make him feel safe and comfortable,” said Phlox. “He needs time to heal and adjust to the new situation.”

“And the nanoprobes?” asked Archer.

“T’Pol and I are pursuing a number of lines of research, we will let you know as soon as we have anything,” said Phlox. “If you’ll excuse me I need to see my patient.”

Lieutenant Reed’s voice came over the com “Bridge to Captain Archer.”

“What is it, Lieutenant?” said Archer, going to the com panel.

“Sir, we need you and the Sub-commander on the bridge, we’ve detected a ship approaching,” said Reed.

“On our way,” said Archer.

Continue to Chapter 10

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