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"Final Graduation" Part IV Author - bat400 | Main Story Sequel to: Final
Graduation (Part 3). Summary: The full measure of devotion. Alternate ending of the Xindi Arc. A shorter version of this story appeared under the title, "Graduation Day." Disclaimer: Characters, places, and various incidents belong to Paramount. No monies were requested or received for this fiction. Header quotations from the works of Dickinson. ++++++ Heart! We will forget him! +++++ Part 4. At first they hadn't called it anything. It was just a series of incidents: a missing cargo ship, mysterious radio signals, wreckage in space. Strange incidents that happened outside of the area where the Enterprise had stumbled into the alien minefield. Starships were sent to investigate. Listening posts were established. People and craft went missing. But before very long they were calling it the Romulan War. To those back on Earth and in the Colony Worlds it had a certain antiseptic aspect to it, like watching chess pieces on a board. It was soon a sideways dance of moves and counter-moves, the establishment of buffer zones and the caching of nuclear weapons. Weapons used at great distances, outside the range of energy weapons and projected where the accuracy of photonic torpedoes was inadequate. Ah, Reed thought, but nukes. Well, they're still very big bangs, aren't they? He could appreciate the tactical movements, serving a strategy to keep the Romulans from claiming areas for themselves, to keep them from sowing lanes of shipping and travel with mines. But watching from a distance was all he could do. It ate at him, as did other things. Reed was glad to get a message from Mayweather saying that he would be able to take a week's leave on Earth while the Enterprise was being serviced at Jupiter Station. The Enterprise was returning after its first mission, largely uneventful, into the War Zone. Travis said that he wanted to visit Malcolm before flying down to Arizona, where the helmsman planned to meet with an outfitter and explore Kartchner Caverns, near Benson. It was over two years since the ship's refit following the Xindi War, with Captain Greenberg in command. Almost six years after the NX-01 had first shipped out. About three years since Reed had nearly died on the Xindi Hive World. Three years, two months, thirteen days since Reed had watched the sensors monitoring the alien ship go active and take off with Commander Tucker on board. Three years, two months, thirteen days since Archer's initial refusal to allow Reed to fire torpedoes into the alien ship's engines at close range before it picked up enough speed to make it difficult to safely disable. Three years, two months, thirteen days, at the beginning of beta shift, when Archer had walked past Reed without speaking, his face set in a terrible stare. And Reed had gone into the shuttle bay where Mayweather watched the Captain's retreating back and knelt next to Trip's body. Kneeling next to Trip's dead body where Archer had left it laying face down on the deck plating. +++++ Mayweather met Reed at the gymnasium on the Starfleet campus. Malcolm had asked him, "Do you still play handball?" when they made the arrangement. "This time we can play in a real court." It was good to see Malcolm, Travis thought, even though he didn't really know what to say. But then Travis didn't always feel you had to have a long conversation with someone to enjoy their company. They didn't speak while they played. Mayweather had never played on a regulation court and needed to pay attention. And he soon realized that Reed hardly had enough breath to play, let alone talk while he did it. Reed still played a hard game. He had on the Enterprise, even with arguments about which seams in the deck plating signified the boundaries. But after losing the first set, Travis knew he would win the rest. Once they had to stop play completely -- Malcolm had seemed about to collapse, breathing hard, trying to get enough air. Then they started again and Malcolm harrassed him each time he tried to set a slower pace, or break between sets. Once Malcolm would have beaten him handily, most sets, but not now. "That's two out of three, Malcolm," Mayweather said. "We're going to have to give up the court soon." "One more," Reed gasped, red-faced, sweating. "Come on, Malcolm. You know full gravity is tough on me." Reed gave him a snorting grimace. "Unfair to an old man; no chance - of a comeback." The twist in Reed's walk was noticeable as they went to the showers. Travis was surprised, but didn't say anything when he saw that Reed hadn't had the skin grafts necessary to get rid of the scars the Xindi surgery had left on him. You didn't see scars like that much anymore. Travis saw two other men in the locker room start, and then turn away. They were going to stop by Reed's apartment, before going to supper. Mayweather had a room at the Starfleet BOQ that night and the next. On the short walk to Reed's apartment, they chatted superficially about Captain Greenberg - how he was different than and similar to Captain Archer. Reed wanted to know how careful he was - did he pay attention to security issues - did he have a good grasp of tactics? Reed fidgeted. Maybe he was in pain, Travis thought. Reed still fiddled with his hand occasionally, the way he had started to back in the Expanse. He looked a good ten or twelve years older than when Travis had first met him. The apartment was in a new building, one thrown up recently to help the housing shortage Starfleet's expansion had triggered. Plain, utilitarian. It didn't look like much more than "daily min" housing, the guaranteed level of protection offered by Earth Government. Daily Min was mostly used by students, older people without savings or family, and those who had never quite fit into society and found or kept a paying career. Reed seemed to realize what Mayweather was thinking. "It's close," he said. The apartment itself was nearly bare. The front room had a table for eating and a couple of folding chairs. Some storage boxes were neatly stacked along one wall and a shelf unit, the kind you'd normally see in a work room, was set against another wall, with smaller boxes and containers. The apartment must have come with the walls prepped for painting or covering by the occupant to suit his taste, but they were still unfinished. Everything was very neat and clean. Malcolm took his gym bag with him to put away his things. "I bought some pilsner. That's the kind of beer you like, isn't it? It's in the fridge," he said over his shoulder as he went into another room. Travis walked into the kitchen, very small, just enough room for the appliances and the built-in cabinets. He opened the refrigerator and saw - nothing. Well, nearly nothing. A six pack of a good pilsner. A small open carton of whole milk - maybe for tea. A half-eaten jar of mango chutney with lime. Seeing a case of bottled ale in an inside corner of the kitchen, Travis called out, "Malcolm. You want a Tetley?" and got one when he heard a muffled, "Yes, thanks," from the back. Travis was curious. He opened a cupboard, and then another. The only food in the place was a box of tea (the kettle was on the counter), seven boxes of irradiated "Mister Eats: Egg, Bacon, Sausage (real English-style Banger) Breakfast," and five boxes of irradiated "Mister Eats: Broiled Tilapia with Couscous and Mixed Vegetables." There was also a large tub of some sort of combo fiber and nutritional mix with a Starfleet Medical prescription tag on it. "Oh, Malcolm," Travis muttered. He came out with the beers about the same time Malcolm came out. Travis said, "The head back here?" "To the left." Malcolm answered. The bathroom was as clean and bare as one might expect in a hospital, Travis thought. As he came out he paused for just a moment looking into what had to be the bedroom. A single bed, made up, military style. A work table with tool chests, the computer, one chair. Spartan. Travis had hoped that Reed would get over the Xindi mission. Could anyone ever get over such a thing? The months of nervous tension, the ship falling apart, the deaths of crewmates. And for Reed and a few others, infection with an alien virus, capture by the enemy, torture. He'd hoped the work would help get Malcolm squared away. Hoped too much, he guessed. They sat at the table (it was a folding one, Travis noted, the same design as the one in the bedroom) and drank their beers and talked, just a bit, about the situation in the War Zone. Reed was obviously wishing he was out there. Remembering recent gossip on the Enterprise, Mayweather asked, “Do you ever see Captain, I mean, Admiral Archer?” There was a pause and Malcolm took another drink. “No,” he finally said, “the Warp Seven research offices are on the other side of the campus from the Weapons Department. Our paths don’t really cross.” “He sent us wedding announcements last year. Hoshi guessed he'd decided to make up for lost time, since he wouldn't have a command. It was kinda surprising just four months after he was reassigned to Earth. She -- Missus Archer -- looks nice.” “I heard that they'd known each other from before Enterprise's commission. From what I’ve heard, she’s a lovely woman. I wouldn’t have – well it’s none of my business.” Travis nodded, “The baby, you mean? Yeah, Hoshi told me. It’s too bad. He, well, if it was me, I don’t think I would have let anyone know right away, about the baby. Not everybody knew what a long shot it was.” "You heard that they named it 'Charles,' didn't you?" Malcolm said tonelessly without looking at Travis. "The gesture might have been at bit more appropriate if they'd waited to see if it would live more than a few days." Travis said softly, "I think Admiral Archer was trying to do something … something …" "Nice? A nice gesture?" Malcolm got a hard scowl on his face. “Well, maybe they’ll be lucky next time,” he said, disgust dripping off his words, “Archer always did trust luck. I wouldn’t hang the health of my wife and child on it. I don't think the odds are in his favor; certainly weren't in the baby's favor.” There was a long silence. Idiot, Travis thought. Hoshi had told him about the after-effects of the virus. She seemed to have come to some sort of peace with it. She, too, had wondered if Archer and his wife had made the right decision to try to have kids, but she wasn’t so bitter about the whole thing. Travis tried to ask him about the force field work, but Reed seemed dismissive of it. "We got the schematics for your new force field generator," Travis said. "They're outfitting the ship now." "The team's." Reed shrugged slightly. "It's better than what I was able to do on the first mission," Reed said. "It doesn't contain the extraneous harmonics; it's actually stable, but it's not much." "Not much. Yeah, right. You can actually use it as a portable anti-grav, on ship indefinitely and with landing parties for sixteen hours. Shipboard you can set up an area of a 200 cubic meters for security, safety. Yeah, not much!" Reed shrugged again. "I could have done it on the Enterprise, too, with a bit more help, a few analysis tools. The important thing is how it's used. I wish I could see how it's going to be used." As they talked Travis saw that Malcolm often stole a glance to the shelving unit. And just as often, flicked his fingers across his hand in that nervous tic he seemed to have. While they spoke, Travis had gotten up and walked over to the window, glancing out at the glow the setting sun had left on the horizon. He turned, and looked back across the room. No, there was one piece of decoration in the room. Just one. Travis hadn't seen it because his back had been to it. Reed had a photograph of Commander Tucker in a frame, up on a shelf. It was nicely framed, with a black banded matte. It wasn't a snapshot. It might have been a service photograph. Travis' mother had told him what the black band meant. An old fashioned gesture. Dividing the quick and the dead. It hurt to see Malcolm so - injured. It certainly wasn't fair, if anything could be fair or unfair. But it seemed like Malcolm wasn't doing things that might help him do better. This bare apartment. Driving himself at exercise. Not getting rid of those scars. Like he was punishing himself. Travis himself had a photo with Tucker in it - a snap-shot taken on a planet they'd visited. In it Commander Tucker was smiling and examining a ground car the locals used. Why did Reed have this sort of picture? A formal sitting. It must have been one of the posed pictures Captain Archer had them make for the first New Year's Day they'd spent on the Enterprise. That was it. He could remember Crewman Dischmann, the zoologist; she was a great photographer. She set up a sheet of cloth for a backdrop, two shaded spots, and a reflector. She really enjoyed that party; posing them, making them sit just so. "Ja, now. Head UP, chin DOWN." She died back there, in the Expanse. Oh, no. Travis now knew he'd been wrong. Malcolm wasn't trying to prove anything on the handball court. He was just his competitive self. Malcolm wasn't trying to prove anything by not having the scars removed. He just didn't care, not about his looks, anyway. Malcolm wasn't trying to get over his own capture, his own debility. Malcolm wanted to save someone who was past saving. Maybe save all forty-eight someones. Damn. He'd never be able to do it. He could do all the applied research in the world and he'd never be confident that commanding officers would use the tools he was making correctly. He'd mull and fret and grieve over decisions he wouldn't ever be able to countermand or argue against. It made Travis sad. It made him want to cry. It made him angry enough to want to grab Malcolm by the scruff of his neck and shake him. "How are the people you work with? Made any friends?" Travis asked. Malcolm answered in a hollow tone, "I'm pretty independent. I'm the senior officer to my team." That was clear enough. Travis did want to shake him by the neck, good and hard. "Malcolm," he said, "Are you satisfied?" "No," said Reed very seriously, "I wish I was getting better results with the force field generation, long range. We ought to be able to produce a beam to pull objects, like the ones we've seen other species use. If I -" "That's not what I meant," said Travis with the irritation he felt edging his voice. "I mean, are you satisfied with yourself? Not your work, you." Defensiveness in every word, Malcolm answered, "I was satisfied on the Enterprise. I was even, sometimes, happy on the Enterprise!" I wish if I slapped you up the side of your head, I could knock some sense into you, Travis thought. He burst out with, "And you'll make sure that you're never happy again, won't you? Don't let a feeling of achievement creep in! Don't let any new friends in. And if someone ever comes up to this apartment you've been camping out in for the last two years, you've got that picture of Trip to help get rid of them - like a watch dog." Oh, God. The look on Malcolm's face. Shock and now, uh, oh. Reed was clutching the beer bottle as if he was about to break it into pieces. "What do you mean by that, Travis?" All cold and nasty. A way Malcolm had never spoken to him before. And Travis answered as he'd never spoken to his friend before. "I mean that you're using your mourning for Trip, for all of them, to lock up yourself away from everything. I've asked about you, Malcolm. I've tried to find out how you are when every letter you send says, 'I'm fine,' in some flat, dead tone. People say you're a cold, hard person, now. You were never that way with me, before. Can't you imagine making a friend again?" Rancor oozed out of his voice when Malcolm replied, "Well, Travis, I thought you were my friend. Before. I thought you understood what it's like to lose people you - you - were close to!" Reed jumped out of the chair and stalked away from the table, the tiny room hemming him in. "Dammit, Travis! You were there! You know what happened!" "I was. I know. I know it was awful. I know how badly it hurt for you to lose him that way -" "That? Him? What do you mean? Why do you keep throwing Trip back at -- I don't know what you're implying - but I think you better watch that smart boomer mouth of yours, Travis!" Travis backed up a step and felt the curtains against his back. "I'm not trying to imply anything. Trip was my friend, too, but everybody knew how close you felt to him. "But it's unfair to you, to put that part of your life up in a box like miser's gold and say that nothing will ever be good again." "Oh, is that what you think, Counselor Mayweather? I'm in some sort of hysterical mourning? 'Stop all the clocks?' 'Pour out the ocean, and sweep up the wood?' That sort of thing?" And Travis knew his own face was saying, yes, yes, kind of like that, Malcolm. Reed rushed at him and Travis put up one hand, but Malcolm passed him and grabbed the door knob, flinging the door open. "Travis, get out of here now, before - before -"and Reed didn't finish it. "Malcolm -" "Right now. Before things change any more." Malcolm didn't look straight at him. Travis picked up his gym bag. In the doorway he stopped. "Malcolm I've screwed this up. I -" "No. Not now. I'll see you next time. Watch yourself." And the look on Reed's face said, don't make me lose you completely, too. So Travis left. What can I do, he thought as he went down the stairs. I wish, I wish I knew what to do. +++++ When Mayweather was gone, Reed pounded his fists against the jamb, gritted his teeth and tried to keep from screaming. He could see Travis' face, all sunk down, as he knelt by Trip's dead body. Then Reed had cut the bindings off Trip's wrists and they had both rolled the body over into the stretcher, to hide the clotted mat of blood on the back of his head. And Reed was clenching his left hand into knots. And Trip was sitting next to him in the Shuttlepod, reaching for the bourbon, their hands ice cold on the bottle, brushing together, and they lived through that one, but Trip was still dead. And he had to stop thinking about it. He was rushing through the tiny room, shoving the table back. Kicking the chairs into the walls. And Trip's photo on the shelf, just a little smile on the face. His face was dried and discolored from the vacuum. And he smacked the black bordered frame off the shelf and into the wall. And he was out the door and down the stairs, and out into the damp cool night air, wishing he hadn't thrown Travis out of the flat. He walked, and walked, and got cold and tired. He wasn't entirely sure where he was and he stopped changing directions and just started to walk to the east until he recognized a street. He finally did, just as a group of young people, probably in their twenties, wearing Starfleet training uniforms, came toward him. He wasn't in uniform, but they moved to one side of the walkway to help let them all pass each other. Reed imagined, not in an angry way, but in a sad, sad way, of all of them dying. Some would be in compartments that would be decompressed to vacuum, and some would be killed by aliens boarding their ships, and some by diseases unnamed. There was nothing he could do about it. Their young handsome faces would fade away; to their families, to their friends and then they'd just be faces in picture frames. No one would remember even what they had looked like. What they had looked like. What had they looked like? Once he'd been very good at that; seeing something, someone, recalling them later. He couldn't remember what those trainees had looked like and he'd seen their faces in the road lights just now. He couldn't remember what he looked like. And then he picked up his pace, hurrying back as fast as he could. He couldn't remember at all, and he'd seen him nearly every day for three and a half years. A rise of panic. I don't remember what he looked like. Malcolm's breath was failing him, and his muscles aching as he staggered up the stairs and let himself in. He got down and scrabbled on the floor among the pieces of the broken frame and the black matte and the shards of glass. He was sucking in air like a bellows, and then he found the photo. Yes, he did remember, of course he did remember, and he ran the fingertips of one hand over the face in the photo. He sat on the floor and caught his breath. I'm ill, he thought. I'm as bollixed up as I can get. I knew Trip for three years and argued with him half that time and I miss him so, and I am so sick of him and I don't know what to do. If he was alive, he'd help me. Malcolm cleaned up the room and went to bed, and when he was asleep tears leaked out of his eyes onto the pillow. +++++ When Reed tried to call Mayweather the next day, he had already left San Francisco, and Reed could not bring himself to contact his personal COM code. Reed sent a message to the Enterprise instead, asking Travis to call him. He was too embarrassed to call Hoshi, although she had left him a message recently, asking how he was. Reed really didn't know. He knew he had to do something. He had to. Five days later he was working in the lab and got a message. It wasn't left on his COM code, the call had gone to the building reception area and an intercom message asked him to pick up. "Malcolm," cried Mayweather from his end of the line, "I've got to talk to you for a minute. I thought about it and thought about it. I'm at the port waiting for the shuttle to Jupiter Station; I didn't have the guts to call you right away." "Travis," Reed said, "I am sorry. You were trying to help -" "Malcolm, I will talk to you about all of this, but I have to tell you, it's important. T'Pol's in Arizona." It was as if Travis had said, "Admiral Forest is in a drag act on Titan." Malcolm simply held the COM in front of his face and stared into it. He finally said, "Arizona?" "Yes. Yes. She's down there working for a mining company, living out in the desert by herself. And Malcolm, something is wrong with her. Some kind of brain or nerve or muscle disease. I saw her and she wouldn't speak to me. The folks down here say she's like a hermit. I can't do it, I've got to get back to the Enterprise, but Malcolm you've got to go find out what's wrong and see if someone can help her." "I - yes. Yes, of course I will. Tell me how to find her." "There's a town called Chinle near the New Mexico border -"
Final Graduation (Part 5) is a continuation of this story.
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