Immune- Chapter 10

Immune

by Trinneergirl

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Chapter Ten

Trip came slowly back to consciousness with his mouth tasting like a bilge and his head thumping. He seemed to be rising and falling on waves of nausea, up and down, until his gorge rose. Although he was sweating, he was very cold. For a minute his brain was too befogged to figure out why, then he remembered. It took all he had, but he managed to turn his head and clear his vision. Kurt Wilkinson was still lying unconscious just across from him. As the violent nausea subsided and the pounding headache didn't, Trip fought back the desire to go back to sleep and rose shakily to his feet, using the empty stasis pod for support. Gripping the phase pistol he walked warily toward the prone madman. He was spread out on the cargo bay floor, the deuterium rod loosely gripped in his hand, totally motionless. Putting one hand to a head that felt spongy and was matted with hair and blood, Trip moved to where Wilkinson lay.

The phase pistol pointed toward the body, Trip stooped briefly and felt for the pulse in Kurt's neck. He blinked back faintness and tried to concentrate. He barely had time to comprehend the heartbeat was strong and regular, when Wilkinson's eyes snapped open and he brought the deuterium rod up to crunch into Trip's ribcage. The phase pistol was knocked out of Trip's hand and skittered away across the floor as the Commander fell, winded to the deck. Trip, aware of several ribs at least cracked, crawled towards the phase pistol. Kurt got to his feet and brought the rod down hard across Trip's back. Flattened by the impact, Trip lay in acute pain as Kurt walked past him and picked up the weapon. When Trip somehow found the strength to get to his knees and look up, he found he was staring into mad, hate-filled eyes up the phase pistol's barrel. His heart sank.

"Get up." Kurt ordered.

Gasping for breath and with unconsciousness threatening to take him any second, Trip slowly stood. He felt very scared. He was alone with an armed madman who wanted him dead more than anything. Trip had faced danger and death many times, but this was more than personal. Kurt hated him to beyond the point of sanity. Trip could see it in the sludgy, green-brown eyes. The boiling-hot, total loathing frightened Trip because he really didn't know why Wilkinson felt this way. What he'd done to garner this kind of rabid detestation. Trip was unarmed and badly injured. His best hope was that Kurt would want to draw out the agony to see him humiliated before he killed him and for Trip that was a very cold prospect indeed. Right now he was totally at Kurt's mercy and he had a strong feeling that was going to be extremely unpleasant. Trip waited, breathing hard and erratically, his hand holding the bruised ribs, his blue eyes filled with confusion and pain.

Kurt smiled at the sight. This was heaven for him. To have Trip Tucker broken and degraded in front of him like this. Time and to spare for some fun with Archer's Golden Boy, before the mercy of death came upon him. Swinging the rod around Kurt brought the metal shaft he was using as a club up between Trip's legs. Whacked in the balls, Trip staggered, the searing pain spreading through his loins. Kurt put the end of the rod under his victim's chin and pushed up the face so he could witness the tears of pain gather and fall down the pale cheeks. As the agony thankfully died back, Trip, who had just managed to stop himself from falling to his knees, gasped air in and helplessly waited for the next abuse. He didn't have to wait long. Kurt pulled back the rod then poked Trip hard in the chest, pushing him back. Again, then again. Knocked almost off kilter backward, Trip let go of his ribs to use both his hands for balance.

As quick as lightening, Kurt whacked Trip on the injured side of his ribcage. Crying out, Trip staggered back against a pile of cargo crates. He reached to the boxes and steadied himself upon them, fighting again to breathe through sobs of agony and the crushed ribs. He saw Kurt come at him and raised an arm instinctively, to protect himself. "No! Please, no!" he begged. Wilkinson stopped, covering Trip with the phase pistol and restlessly swinging the rod. "Why are you doing this?" Trip asked, plaintively. "Why do you hate me?" Kurt's petulant face turned ugly with loathing. "Because you got it all, didn't you?" he spat. His voice was light, almost effeminate and sulky sounding, like a small child. "Mister Good Looking. Mister Southern Charm. Mister sails through degree after degree without breaking a sweat." Trip blinked in shocked incomprehension at the sneering diatribe. "Is that it?" he asked in horror. "You loathe me because my genetics fell down well?" The Commander couldn't begin to believe it. All of this pain, all of this fear? Based upon nothing more than petty jealousy? Trip almost laughed that so much devastation and hurt had been triggered by something so small as envy. What a pathetic reason for trying to kill everyone on this ship. "Not just that!" derided Kurt. "Everyone on this ship knows you got your job through opening your ass to the Captain!" Trip went white, appalled by the accusation. "Just because of your good looks, your cute hillbilly ass, you've risen to become 'Commander'." Scorn dripped from Kurt's voice. "How old were you the first time you paid for it with your Southern charms, Trip? When did you first realise that all you had to do was part your ass cheeks?"

A sharp denial of the foul slurs died on Trip's lips. With a start of intelligence that broke through the numbness of the awful lies Kurt was telling, Trip realised his only chance to survive this was to play along. "Fourteen," he made himself say. "I was fourteen." The naked hunger in Kurt's eyes showed Trip he had hit the nail on the head. This twisted bastard wanted, needed him to be a whore! "Tell me!" Kurt demanded. Hating this, feeling his skin crawling with having to make up stuff so disgusting, Trip forced himself to concentrate on making his story salacious enough for Kurt's needs. "I was failing history at school," he seemed to admit. "The teacher, he was a lonely bachelor. I had grown to realise that I was a looker. I tried my chances. Got an A." He shrugged, trying not to show that saying this was boiling him alive. "I paid with my body, got nothin' but a sore ass for a couple of days, received what I wanted and never looked back."

The look on Wilkinson's face was an amalgam of hate and lust, with lust winning. Trip forced his body to respond to his play-acting, leaning nonchalantly against the cargo crates.

"Wanna try me out?" he asked enticingly. "If you’re gonna kill me anyway, you might as well take a ride. Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to screw the Captain's whore?" There was no mistaking the desire congesting Kurt's face in a livid hue, his bulging eyes and salivation making him ugly enough that Trip had to repress a shudder of revulsion. Wilkinson dropped the rod and stepped forward stiffly, his breathing uneven with desire. The crewman licked his dry lips.

"You're a slut, Trip," he asserted hoarsely. Trip smiled slowly, every ounce of his charm in the sexy look.

"Always was," he agreed, honey in his deep voice. He raised one hand to the long zipper of his uniform and took hold of the tab. The light brown brows lifted. "I know you've seen me in my quarters. Touching myself. Are you happy just looking, or would you like a taste?"

Kurt looked about ready to come then and there. Trip had realised by now that this man had learned to hate him because the Commander was everything Kurt was not. Without even knowing of Wilkinson's existence, Trip, who was smart, assured, outgoing, good-looking, and driven, had raised the insane jealousy of a man who, though certainly not dumb, was limited in thinking and ability. Unable to get on the first rung of the command ladder, Kurt watched in envy as Trip climbed it effortlessly. Lonely but standoffish, he curled his lip at Trip's open, gregarious ways, whilst secretly wishing he had the same nature. He ignored Trip's bravery, diligence, and hard work, choosing to believe he'd paid for every advance in his life with his body. Kurt loathed Trip. Conversely the Chief Engineer was also everything the exobiologist yearned to be and a kind of perverse hero anti-worship had set in. Make-believing he was dashing and heroic and handsome in his dreams, Kurt had been brought crashing down on Enterprise by being twice rejected for officer training, then meeting Commander Tucker, who was every dream Kurt had, made real in someone else. Here was the handsome, dashing, brave Starfleet officer, saving his crewmates, commanding his department with effortless skill and brilliance, partaking of alien beauties then sauntering away his heart unscathed, leaving the lady more than satisfied. Kurt saw himself as he really was, a clown, playing the part of hero in the shadows of the wings, whilst Trip was the hero made real under the lead spotlight.

Caught in the complex mix of wanting to be like Trip while hating everything the Chief Engineer was, the crewman's weak mind began to brood on the Commander to an unhealthy degree. Finally the fractures of this disturbed psyche opened up to howling insanity. Just by being himself, Trip had unknowingly fanned the flames of the fires of hatred. Desiring to be Trip, and unacknowledged to himself, really also desiring Trip, this fixation had led Kurt to stalk him, putting cameras in his room, finding out everything about him, even going so far to hire a private detective. Hating Trip had led him to try to destroy the young Chief Engineer; maybe somehow he figured that once Trip's life and career were wrecked he'd get his hands on the slender, handsome Commander. He'd been driven over the edge with jealousy and the kink in his make-up had made him insanely consumed by the innocent Trip Tucker.

His expression a twisted mixture of desire and hatred, Kurt's eyes ran hotly up and down Trip's body, remembering the footage of the masturbation. Footage he'd played back again and again in his lonely room, joining in. Guessing what he was thinking about, Trip flushed slightly in shame, feeling that the cotton uniform was suddenly far too thin as the burning gaze seemed to see through it with no trouble. Knowing why this was happening was one thing. Doing something about it was something else. Praying he was making the right decision here, he waited until Kurt's eyes met his, then parted his lips to reveal his perfect, white teeth in a seductive smile.

"Well?" he asked teasingly. Kurt took another half-step forward, he jiggled the phase pistol.

"Strip for me, whore," he half begged, half commanded. Trip acknowledged the order with a smile and half-nod, then realised Kurt would like to be deferred to.

"Yes, sir," he replied, as subserviently as he could.

Pulling the long zipper down, Trip eased the jumpsuit off his shoulders, pulling until his arms were free. Crossing them, the young officer pulled his black undershirt over his head and discarded it. The electric-blue singlet followed, leaving the broad chest and narrow waist naked. He kept his eyes on Kurt the whole time, trying to make his movements titillating, hoping for his life's sake that he didn't make a complete mull of it. Wilkinson was literally drooling at the sight of the semi-naked Commander, a dribble of saliva seeping down his chin. He wanted this, yearning for the whole body to be stripped. Suddenly he couldn't wait any more. He stepped forward and grabbed Trip's balls through his uniform, squeezing them painfully. Trip threw back his head and pretended to moan in pleasure. When the Commander was certain Kurt's attention was far more on his nuts than the phase pistol he grabbed the arm holding the weapon and knocked the weapon away, hearing it slithering into the bank of stasis modules.

Kurt, taken aback, rudely awakened from his erotic fantasy, turned instantly to baleful anger. Seeing the dull, red light in the crewman's eyes, Trip knew if he lost this one, he'd be raped and killed, no question. Stooping, Kurt snatched up the deuterium rod and wildly slashed at Trip. The Commander dodged the weapon, then, as it was raised again, he closed with his assailant. The two men swayed, vying for supremacy. Trip was taller, faster, better trained, and stronger, but his head and rib-cage ached and he was fast losing his strength to his injuries. Kurt punched Trip's injured ribs and pushed the agonised man back against the crates. Gasping in pain, Trip blinked back tears as Kurt moved towards him with the metal rod raised. Trip leapt forward, holding the wrist of the raised arm. With every ounce of the fear, humiliation, anger, pain, and torment Kurt Wilkinson had caused him, Trip punched the bastard in the face. Whirling round and dropping the rod, Kurt crumpled to the ground unconscious, a look of almost ludicrous surprise on his face.

Sobbing with agony, Trip grabbed his ribcage and bent over. He fought for and slowly gained his breath back, standing as the pain in his head became too much for the stooping position. Trip crouched down and picked up his clothes, re-donning them onto his shivering body. Whether the shaking was the adrenaline, his weakened condition, or the cold, he couldn't have said. A mixture of all three, probably. Once dressed Trip retrieved the phase pistol and holstered it. He unclasped the stasis pod from its base and pulled it to the floor. With difficulty the blond man managed to haul the inert body of Kurt Wilkinson into the module and to wire up the life-support systems. He re-wired the circuitry so that the life support could be on or off, no timers, no more hidden nightmares. Trip slammed down the lid and engaged the power. Once he was sure Wilkinson was in deep hibernation, Trip picked up the deuterium rod and slid it through the gap between the lid and the unit, locking it shut. Now if he woke up, the bastard would suffocate. Like Trip cared.

The Commander left the cargo bay and made his weary way to Engineering. He checked on the systems, and accessed the Bridge to make sure he wasn't needed elsewhere. Once he'd reassured himself that all of Enterprise 's many major systems hadn't degraded badly whilst he was out cold, he moved to purge the intake manifolds. This was a job that couldn't wait as the dust of the Vort Cloud could block them, despite the deflector dish, if they weren't regularly cleared. If that happened a warp core breach would occur and Trip didn't need to think twice to know he wouldn't be able to pull this ship back from catastrophic failure in time. Not on his own. Naturally, with Trip aching from head to toe and needing an analgesic, the anti-matter injector chose that precise moment to play up. He dealt with it only for the fusion conduction systems and coolant compressors to go off-line. Sighing with forced patience, Trip dealt swiftly and efficiently with those too. He looked around for a moment, waiting for the next thing to go wrong, but, for now, that seemed all.

Staggering slightly with exhaustion, he wandered through the ship's darkened corridors to Sickbay where he did his best to tend to his injuries. After scanning himself, Trip ascertained that, to the best of his limited medical knowledge, he had not broken his head. He had a nasty lump and a hairline fracture. Some mild concussion. He also had two broken and four cracked ribs. The internal bleeding was minimal and there was no sign either of the broken ribs had pierced anything inside. Trip taped the ribs, often yelling out in pain. When he was done he took a strong analgesic and breathed a sigh of relief as the demon of hurting let him go. For now.

Loading more pain killer into the hypospray, he pocketed it and went back to the Bridge. He moved from post to post, double-checking every system. He stared for a time at the bio-display in T'Pol's science station that showed 83 people on board. 82 in stasis and one on the Bridge. Trip pulled his zipper a little higher and put his hand flat across the tab as the humiliating ordeal he'd been through came back into his mind. It had been awful, painful, disgusting. Knowing space was a frontier like any other, Starfleet had trained its first crew to deal with situations like that. Sexual attack. Rape. Trip had passed the course with flying colours. The real-life experience was nowhere near so cut and dried. He could still feel the hand on his balls. Touching him intimately. Abusing him in the worst way. If he had the time, Trip felt like going to his quarters, stepping into the shower, and scrubbing every bit of him that Kurt had looked at or touched until the water going down the plughole ran red with his blood. Just to try to feel clean again.

But he didn't have time to fall apart. Not now. So he went on round the Bridge, making sure the ship and crew he'd been entrusted with were safe as he could make them. Only when he was sure that every major systems diagnostic he could carry out hadn't revealed anything new, did he sit in the Captain's chair and try to collect his thoughts as his slightly dilated cerulean eyes stared at the nothingness of dust on the viewscreen. He cleared his throat, the sound almost shocking as it broke the prolonged silence and pressed a panel on the arm of the chair.

"Computer, begin recording," he ordered. The computer beeped.

*Acting Captain's log. Supplemental. Commander Charles Tucker III. 25th November 2154. No, wait, it's four am. 26th November 2154.*

As Trip tried to bring into focus all that had happened, his emotions began to break free. "Computer, pause recording," he said softly. He started to shake again as his ordeal hit him. Raising his legs up onto the seat with a wince of pain, Trip wrapped his arms around them and let the tears spring into his eyes. He cried, sobbing openly, feeling no shame for loosing the emotions of the awful things Kurt Wilkinson had put him through. Letting out the pent up feelings did him the world of good. When he was done he felt very much better. He wiped his pale face on his sleeve and sniffed.

"Computer, resume recording," he commanded in a much stronger tone. The beep told him the order had been fulfilled.

*I'm gonna try to recount to you the events of the last twelve hours...

I went down to Crewman Wilkinson's quarters to see if I could find anything that would help me understand why he'd want to kill me...

Having secured the engineering systems, it occurred to me that Crewman Kurt Wilkinson, who'd already tried to kill me and destroy Enterprise, had access to the computer in the bio-labs.... *

When he'd finished, Trip got into the truckle bed on the Bridge, allowed himself four hours sleep, set the alarm and was out cold before his head hit the pillow. Enterprise sped on with its cargo of mortally-ill people in stasis and its only guardian an unconscious mass of bruises and cracked bones. She was safer now, relatively. Whether anyone aboard would live to know why, was for now, still in the lap of the Gods.

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