Immune - Chapter 8

Immune

by Trinneergirl

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

Chapter Eight

*Acting Captain's Log. Commander Charles Tucker III. November 24th, 2154.

For the past couple of days I have been dealing with the problems caused by the sabotage of the scrubbers. There can be no doubt that it was sabotage. Not only are all the systems damaged, but also the alarms systems were switched off. I haven't slept in nearly forty-eight hours and, come to think of it, haven't eaten either. This is the first chance I've had to make a report. Since discovering that my hallucinations were caused by a nearly fatal build up of carbon dioxide in Enterprise 's atmosphere, I have been able to deal with the demons of those terrifying hours a lot better. I suspect even my bad dreams before were part of the slowly deteriorating situation on board.

I made my way to the EVA locker and got a suit. Once I was suited up, I went to the environmental controls. They still showed no sign of anything being wrong. That was my first clue that nothing that was happening was an accident. I went back to the areas that held the scrubbers. I have to say, for a moment there, I felt like crying. All the CO2 scrubbing units were sabotaged. I realised my plan was the only one left. I am now in a shuttlepod. Every time I go to check the crew, or the Bridge, or Engineering, I have to don an EVA suit. I've rigged a link to everything essential, attaching it to the shuttlepod's systems. What with that and the EVA suit, my food and other stuff, the room left for me every day is less than 50cm by 2m by 2m.

I've fixed all the scrubbers and they are up and running. I bled all of the bad air on Enterprise into space. We are now at 30% air and I'll be able to leave my mod cons coffin tomorrow. It's a good job too. I'm glad no one else is here with me. I'm beginning to smell a little ripe to myself. Of course what worries me isn't my lack of personal hygiene facilities. Someone sabotaged Enterprise and that sabotage may have been meant to kill us all or just me. I can't work out why and I can't help wondering who did this and what other surprises I have in store.

I really could have done without the extra stress right now.

End log*

Trip finished his log and shuffled back along his narrow corridor of space. The thought of his unnoticed fast had only occurred to him as he made the log entry. No wonder he felt a little weak. He turned to the shuttlepod's emergency rations and found some chicken and rice. He had just enough room to fit the plate into the reconstituter. When it came out he peeled back the lid, got a fork and ate. It wasn't bad, though not eating for two days probably made him more appreciative. He finished and put the plate and cutlery into the resequencing draw. He made himself some coffee and sat back to think for the first time since he saw the state of the CO2 scrubbers.

When he'd seen what had been done, Trip was devastated. There were over two hundred scrubbing units aboard Enterprise and all of them were damaged in some way. After standing nerveless for a minute, appalled by the job he had to do, Trip typically got on with it. The scrubbers he could salvage he repaired, the ones that were too badly damaged he replaced from stores. Back and forward with a cart he brought them, six at a time, battling with the heavy cylinders and the weight of an EVA suit that was made for outside work and very heavy. Breaking off every six hours to check the crew and change his oxygen pack, Trip worked day and night to repair the atmospheric cleansers.

Thirty-five hours later, he was able to bleed all the poisonous atmosphere and start the scrubbers with a burst of oxygen. With life support at minimum the oxygen/nitrogen buildup would take twelve hours. Six hours of that had already passed and everything was going well. Even the coffee couldn't save Trip now, he needed sleep. He set his alarm for three hours, hoping nothing would happen in his slumber, covered himself with a light blanket, settled down, and closed his exhausted eyes. Ten seconds later he was fast asleep.

Standing next to the bowl window, Trip looked out at the view. The halogen lights of the biosphere were illuminating the otherwise ink-black water. Anemic white crabs scuttled across the black volcanic rocks. Similarly pale shrimps kept low, long 'whiskers' skimming the surface and finding food. Everything was blind down here. It was a mile and a half up before any sunlight could pierce the water. The other side of the biosphere was near a 'black smoker' and the life that tended this volcanic phenomenon also swirled around the tiny oasis of human life. The biosphere had two functions. First and foremost was to prove that humans could live and work down on the seabed. The site had been chosen as one of the most hostile on Earth. If they could survive down here for six months they could survive anywhere for much longer periods.

The population of Earth had topped out at nine billion and the climate had worsened. Great strides in controlling the weather had been made, working with chaos and probability to successively reduce the El Niño and La Niña effects. Far more efficient forms of energy were pulling the planet back from the brink. But new forms of food production were needed. There were plankton and algae that kilo for kilo, were able to produce food that was more nutritious than meat or vegetables. The new resequencers could take this seafloor green and turn it into anything: meats, vegetables, fish, fruit. Greening the seafloor and harvesting this new food source was going to help feed millions. IF people could live and work for long periods, farming the sea.

The other job the biosphere did was to study the black smokers. The geothermal vent had the potential for producing tremendous energy. If and how that energy could be tapped was the job the biosphere was asked to do. And the fact was that this was the only place on Earth where life didn't need sunlight to survive. Even with the emergence of humans into space, there were lessons to be learned in this extraordinary truth. There were five people on the biosphere. Heading the mission was Commander Lisa Braun. Five foot five and petite, the pretty oceanographer had a backbone of steel and ran her team with the proverbial iron hand in a velvet glove. The two scientists, Dr. Lang Chiun, a Chinese cerubiologist, and Professor Sandra Jagilka, a geothermic expert, did the work on the black smokers. Commander Braun and a hard-bitten Aussie, Dr. Mike 'Dogger' Roberts, did the biosphere testing.

At least that was the theory. The environment was so extreme that the team needed to help each other out in order to survive. Even the general engineer, Charles 'Trip' Tucker III was completing a Doctorate in Theoretical Physics and also Honours degrees in Biology, Geology, and Engineering. Lisa Braun was wary about taking on someone so young, in his early twenties, to the bottom of the ocean. Also with a list of theses like that to complete she doubted he'd find the time to do any work. After a year on her team, she wondered what she'd have done without him. After two years work at the Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institute, Trip was more than able to carry his workload and work in cramped conditions. When she'd met the tall, lanky, restless young man she thought he would drive them all crazy.

She found the boundless energy that manifested itself on the surface as a restlessness became, in the confines of a sub or the biosphere, a controlled concentration and the ability to work like a Trojan for long periods. Young Trip was by no means a walkover, but he did all the nastiest jobs without complaint, was helpful and positive, and a good listener to people's problems. In his spare time he finished his academic work and got his doctorate and three honours in the first year. He was also a gifted engineer able to pull rabbits out of hats at the most dire moments. He'd earned the affection, trust, and admiration of his colleagues and under Dogger's expert tuition, he had become such a good pilot that he undertook a lot of the tiresome geological surveying that was necessary but dull work, leaving the dedicated scientists to their different lodestones. Trip loved taking the sub out on his own, flying underwater through pitch blackness, taking readings of the Atlantic rift valley via sophisticated imaging sensors

The occasional seaquakes made piloting dangerous as rock falls were a frequent occurrence. The somnolent inky dark could come alive in a second with danger and death. Trip never forgot Dogger's advice, to remember always that this was where EuroAsia and America were ripping apart. Mighty continents in a tug of war that neither could win or lose. Cautious but brave, open but contained, the Everyman genius the biosphere had as its engineer made everybody's lives easier. Especially Lisa Braun’s. For she and Trip became lovers. Dr. Chiun and Dogger were both married men in their late fifties. Professor Jagilka was a recent widow, her husband, Professor Hans Jagilka, having been killed in a submarine implosion accident. Lisa was also married. He was a mid-western farmer and, although she loved him, he had no real understanding of what she did or why she did it. Even so, messing with a boy nearly twenty years younger than she was not on her agenda.

Not that there could be any doubt about it, she seduced him. Trip was a stunning looking man and she had no doubt he would only get more handsome as time went on. He gave her deference without subservience and she found herself, like everyone else, telling Trip her troubles. For eighteen months Trip had been doing workouts in the tiny gym and losing the lankiness of youth to fill out and harden into a man. Once the Commander had made up her mind to ease the frustrations of her job with Trip, she wasted no time. Trip accepted her conditions that this was an affair, nothing more, and the two of them became sexual partners. Trip, hitherto only ever having a few light flings with girls his age, was transported to the world of the experienced older woman. She did things to him that he'd never even dreamed of, became a much better lover for having known her, and because of his willingness and determination to give as much pleasure as he got during their lovemaking, Lisa fared well too. The two of them were discreet, but you can't really shag on a biosphere without everyone knowing.

The shuttlepod alarm startled Trip back to consciousness. He sat up to kill the alarm and instantly realised what his dreaming had done. He blinked in surprise at the unmistakable staining. He hadn't had a wet dream in years. He supposed it shouldn't unduly shock him. It had been a long time between princesses. Pleasantness in any form, dreams included, should be savoured right now. And his year in Lisa's arms was one of the most pleasant interludes of his young life. They had parted with no hard feelings, his one and only; every other woman he'd been intimate with for any length of time had dumped him. He had nothing but happy memories of his time with Lisa Braun and if his manhood remembered it the same way, who was he to argue? Shrugging, Trip cleaned himself up as best he could, went to the bathroom, checked the systems of the ship from the jerry-rigged interfaces on the pod and got into his EVA suit. If the oxygen flood and the scrubbers had done their work this was the last day he'd have to live in a coffin and walk about the ship with an eight-kilo bucket on his head.

Six hours later, Trip took another reading, rechecked the ppm and thankfully broke the seals on his EVA suit helmet. The smell of the fresh air was wonderful and would be even better once he'd had a shower. He made his way to his quarters, and removing the EVA suit and the underwear he'd been in for three days and nights, he went into his bathroom and stepped under a shower cascading with hot water. He generously soaped himself, making sure every bit of him was clean, then after rinsing, he stood to let the water pour across his shoulders and down his naked body, dribbling quickly over the golden skin until he was relaxed. Shutting off the flow, he exited the shower and grabbing a towel, he dried himself off vigorously. Going back into his room he got fresh underwear and a fresh uniform, once again transferring the new pip over. Trying not to cast a longing look at his own bed, he left to check on his colleagues.

Although he had reasons for his hallucinating, Trip had still continually worn a phase pistol ever since the incident. He felt safer. Whoever had sabotaged the scrubbers was either in stasis or dead, but he felt safer with the pistol strapped to his side. He entered the Mess Hall and found a meal, running a diagnostic scanner over his choice of pork chops, applesauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans. The necessity of checking what he ate for poison depressed him, but someone had already tried to kill him and he couldn't take any chances. No toxins being detected, Trip heated and ate the meal at a table in the Mess Hall. The Captain's table was closed down. God knew it was bad enough trying to cope alone here in one of the social hubs of the ship, the thought of going into the room where he and Jon had spent so many companionable hours just talking together was too painful.

Having no choice but to conduct an investigation as well as run the ship, the young Commander finished his meal and returned to the Bridge. He checked on the bioreadout recordings of everyone who had been Environmental before the end. There were a lot of comings and goings but there was only one person who had checked the scrubbers. Crewman Kurt Wilkinson. Not recalling the name, Trip called up the roster. A picture of a sensitive looking man with dark eyes, light-brown hair and a petulant looking mouth met his gaze. He was wearing a uniform with a blue stripe, so he was medical, science, or communications. Checking the data, Trip found the man was an exobotanist, which would explain why Trip didn't recognise him. Although the face was so bland it was unlikely anyone would retain him in the memory for long. The man's service record was good, if not spectacular and he'd gone for officer's rank but hadn't passed. Twice.

Trip simply couldn't see why this guy would try to kill him or the rest of the crew, including himself. Frowning, Trip decided to go to Crewman Wilkinson's quarters and snoop around. Hating the necessity of rifling through a fellow crewmate's personal things, Trip knew that he had no choice. For the survival of Enterprise, he had to find out why Wilkinson had done what he'd done and whether he'd done anything else.

Entering the codes and opening the door, Trip found Wilkinson shared his cabin with no one. This in itself was odd. Space was at a premium on Enterprise and most of the crew shared with one other. If no one wanted to share with Kurt, that said a lot about the man. Trip searched round for a while, finally opening a closet and stumbling upon a scrapbook. When Trip opened it, he felt himself go very cold. Page after page of the scrapbook had pictures of him in it. From hard copies of his time on the biosphere to a print taken from the bridge cameras of him getting his command pip, there were hundreds of pictures of Charles Tucker III.

And by each one were foul imprecations. 'Bastard', 'Jumped up Hillbilly F**ker', 'we all know you take the Captain up the ass'. Trip closed and dropped the book, trying to make sense of the hatred Kurt obviously felt for him. He was shocked and disgusted at the loathing this man had for him. As far as Trip could recall he'd never even spoken to the crewman, yet here was proof that Wilkinson harboured a frightening antipathy to the ship's Chief Engineer. Why? For what reason? Trip sat on the bunk, blinking in bewilderment. For the first time in his life, Trip had to face the thought that someone hated him enough to try to kill him. Even if it meant the loss of his own life, Wilkinson was prepared to make that sacrifice and that of all his fellow crewmen, if it meant killing Trip Tucker. It made the Commander feel very cold and he trembled inside. Picking up the scrapbook as evidence, Trip saw there was something else under where it had lain in the closet. Trip picked up the container and looked inside.

Hidden in a welter of cotton-wool, there was a broken glass phial containing soil. Trip paled to white as he realised what he was looking at.

"Son of a bitch!" he breathed incredulously. Until the tests could be done, Trip couldn't prove anything, but in his mind he was sure. This was Dryalian soil. Trip hadn't failed with the air filter in the biolab, Crewman Wilkinson had quite deliberately brought this out into the ship to infect them all.

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