Fic: ENT "Damn Morals" 1/?
Title: Damn Morals [working title]
Author: Scifijunkie
Fandom: Star Trek: Enterprise
Spoilers: Up to Cogenitor, second season.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Paramount does.
Summary: “He defied my orders, he lied to the Vissians, he lied to me!”
Thanks to Katie for being the coolest beta evah. You totally rock.
Feedback is loved. This is the first part of I don't know how many.
-- Tucker --
Personal Log, March 15, 2153, Commander Charles Tucker, Starship Enterprise, NX-01.
Well, shit.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Trip, what the fuck were you thinking? Were you thinking?”
I stood silently, waiting for him to finish, watching him pace back and forth, letting his anger out. Other people didn’t ever see him like this. To them, he was polished, composed, the very picture of a starship captain.
Not now.
His tone was getting violent, his words designed to shred my self worth and dignity.
What’s more, it was working.
“I can’t believe one of my own officers could be so mind-numbingly stupid! Honestly, Trip, I thought after the pregnancy debacle, you’d know better than to stick your nose in other species’ business!”
He paused, hands on his hips, and looking everywhere but at me as he sighed heavily. Licking his lips, he turned towards the window and continued his tirade.
I didn’t say a word.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Mashed potatoes and congealed gravy don’t really mix well.
I stared at my plate, trying to get the gravy to stay put long enough to actually get a decent amount of food on my fork while not entirely paying attention to some new protocol or regulation that Malcolm was prattling on about.
“--since, after all, it was proven in The People v. Captain Stefan Häagen that in the case of weapon failure due to local ambient radiation during a battle, the captain can’t be -- are you even listening?”
This gravy was being damn stubborn.
“Commander!”
“What?!” I looked up at him, mildly annoyed at him for causing the gravy to fall off my fork yet again.
“You weren’t even listening.”
I waved him off. “Ambient radiation, Häagen-daaz protocol, yadda yadda….” I bent back to my plate, determined to get the gravy to mix.
He sighed and did that little eye rolling thing that he does and muttered something under his breath.
“My mother is not a watermelon, thank you.”
“I did not say that! I said that she was--“
I looked at him over my fork. “Said she was a what?”
“Nothing.” He developed a rather pressing interest in his pasta marinara and didn’t look up for quite some time.
I continued in my quest to conquer the gravy and we ate in silence for a while, until Malcolm started fidgeting in his seat, just itching to say something. I ignored him for as long as I possibly could, but the movement was starting to grate.
“For the love, just say it.”
“You don’t have to take it out on me just because you got reamed by the Captain.”
I paused in my gravy mission to look up at him in disbelief.
“Take what out on you? I haven’t said a thing --“
“That’s exactly it. You haven’t said anything. You’ve been surly and moody and just plain rude ever since you got out of the ready room a half hour ago. You completely ignored three members of your staff in the corridor and have barely said three words to me. I usually can’t shut you up.”
I stared, willing my mouth to move and say something, but all I was getting was my jaw going up and down. He tossed his fork down and shoved back from the table.
“I’ll see you later then, Commander.”
I watched him leave, tossing his tray into the alcove and walking out the door.
I looked down at my own tray.
I didn’t know gravy had a solid form.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
--Archer--
Personal Log, March 15, 2153, Captain Jonathan Archer, Starship Enterprise, NX-01
For God’s sake, it’s like he’s two.
You know, I thought I could trust him to behave. I thought his intellectual curiosity would win out over his moral code. I thought my orders would be enough. I thought that he would listen to me, his captain and his friend.
I guess I thought wrong.
We don’t have the right to meddle in the affairs and traditions of another species. We can’t apply the ‘standards’ of human rights to them because they’re not human. He just couldn’t see past his own ideas of right and wrong to get that they’re not always the same with other species’.
Because we’re not the same.
Is it not obvious?
The differences are written all over our faces, our mannerisms, our patterns of speech. The technology, the culture, the traditions. Everything is different, nothing’s the same, wherever you go, one thing is constant.
Difference.
Difference, Trip. Just as humans are different from one another, other species are different from us. That one thing will be the same wherever you are, wherever you end up. Technology will be based on different principles, the stars will look different, the language won’t sound right to your ears, your looks will draw the stares.
Everything is different, it’s part of why we’re out here, to discover all those differences. But we can’t do that if you try to make them all human.
It doesn’t work like that.
Nothing works like that, nothing’s that simple. You can’t just apply your own morals and virtues to every situation you come across. They don’t work out here, not all the time. Yeah, they keep us grounded, they keep us ‘human’, I suppose, but you can’t force them onto other people.
It’s bound to have consequences.
Like here.
You taught someone something they weren’t supposed to know, you showed them a world beyond what they knew, and they paid for with their life. You knew what you were doing was wrong, you knew it, and you still did it.
Your damn morals.
You expect the rest of us to pay for your morals? Your vision of human rights across the galaxy? You don’t get to make those decisions. That’s not your job.
I do, and it’s mine.
You don’t have the right to tell people what’s right for them. You don’t have the right to go behind their backs, and mine, and subvert their ways.
You took their child from them. Their child.
How could you not know better? How could Starfleet’s prized engineer not know better?
How could my friend not know better?
This whole situation makes me sick. Someone killed themselves because of you, because they couldn’t go back to their life, because of you. You. You did this. We’ve lost a potentially great ally, and you’ve got nothing to say for it. No defense, no apology, nothing. You wrote them a form letter, and only because I made you.
Where were your morals then, Trip?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I sat in my quarters, listening to my log on repeat, realizing just how much I sounded like T’Pol. When had that happened? When did her damn non-interference bullshit become my mantra too?
There was something inherently wrong with that.
I couldn’t take the sound of my own voice anymore, so I flicked the speakers off and left my quarters, wanting a little solitude to go with the late hour. I found myself walking the corridors at random, not having a direction or destination. It was nice, while it lasted.
The obs deck was in front of me, door wide open, just waiting for me to cross it. I stepped in, and walked over to a couch in front of one of the wide wall to wall windows. I sat down and leaned against the arm of the couch, watching the stars go by.
I didn’t hear her soft footfalls as she walked from the door to the couch, and leaned over the back a little, cocking her head and observing me in that detached Vulcan way.
“Captain?”
I looked up at her, startled out of my reverie, and sat up slowly.
“T’Pol? What are you doing up at this hour?”
“I have been reviewing the scans, Captain.” She moved gracefully around the couch to sit next to me.
“Oh.” I’d forgotten that in the excitement of this latest scientific discovery, she’d taken to forgoing the meditation candle in favor of data readouts and PADDs.
“If I may ask, what bring you to the observation deck at 0200?”
“Just… couldn’t take my quarters. Needed a new place to sit and think.”
She nodded and we sat for a while in silence, both of us watching the stars streak past. One of Trip’s explanations for this effect floated up in my head, and I heard his voice as sure as if he was sitting next to me instead of T’Pol. The excitement in his voice as he explained his favorite bit of warp theory brought a small smile to my face, before I remembered just why I couldn’t stand my quarters.
“And just what prompted this reaction?” She spoke softly, keeping to the human tendency of ‘not breaking the mood’.
“What else? This whole cogenitor mess.”
She nodded, slowly, not saying anything.
“It’s just…. How could he be so stupid? How could he think what he was doing could have any kind of a good outcome? Did he think he was going to start a cultural revolution? A civil rights movement? Those don’t happen from without, they happen from within. I’d thought he’d learned not to mess with people he doesn’t understand.”
I sighed and leaned my head back, staring at the ceiling.
“You know, I thought he’d listen to me. Just this once. This one time, actually follow my orders to the letter. Not just because I’m his captain, but because I’m his friend. His friend. It’s like it doesn’t mean anything to him… the last eight years… nothing.”
“Perhaps you do not understand his intentions correctly.”
“I know what his intentions were! He thought that he was giving that thing a chance at a better life, but he ended up taking that life away. It’s just the same as if he’d pulled the trigger himself. He’s the cause. He’s the root problem, and he’s not even sorry. He hasn’t offered a defense or a reason. Just stands there thinking he did right. Well, he didn’t. He hasn’t done a damn thing right since we started this. He defied my orders, he lied to the Vissians, he lied to me!”
I closed my eyes, trying not to think about how much it hurt to know that he lied to me, he betrayed me, and wasn’t sorry about it.
“Maybe… our friendship doesn’t mean that much to him anymore.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps his belief in what he was doing meant more that friendship.”
“Same damn thing, ain’t it?”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
~Finis part one~
Author: Scifijunkie
Fandom: Star Trek: Enterprise
Spoilers: Up to Cogenitor, second season.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Paramount does.
Summary: “He defied my orders, he lied to the Vissians, he lied to me!”
Thanks to Katie for being the coolest beta evah. You totally rock.
Feedback is loved. This is the first part of I don't know how many.
-- Tucker --
Personal Log, March 15, 2153, Commander Charles Tucker, Starship Enterprise, NX-01.
Well, shit.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
“Trip, what the fuck were you thinking? Were you thinking?”
I stood silently, waiting for him to finish, watching him pace back and forth, letting his anger out. Other people didn’t ever see him like this. To them, he was polished, composed, the very picture of a starship captain.
Not now.
His tone was getting violent, his words designed to shred my self worth and dignity.
What’s more, it was working.
“I can’t believe one of my own officers could be so mind-numbingly stupid! Honestly, Trip, I thought after the pregnancy debacle, you’d know better than to stick your nose in other species’ business!”
He paused, hands on his hips, and looking everywhere but at me as he sighed heavily. Licking his lips, he turned towards the window and continued his tirade.
I didn’t say a word.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Mashed potatoes and congealed gravy don’t really mix well.
I stared at my plate, trying to get the gravy to stay put long enough to actually get a decent amount of food on my fork while not entirely paying attention to some new protocol or regulation that Malcolm was prattling on about.
“--since, after all, it was proven in The People v. Captain Stefan Häagen that in the case of weapon failure due to local ambient radiation during a battle, the captain can’t be -- are you even listening?”
This gravy was being damn stubborn.
“Commander!”
“What?!” I looked up at him, mildly annoyed at him for causing the gravy to fall off my fork yet again.
“You weren’t even listening.”
I waved him off. “Ambient radiation, Häagen-daaz protocol, yadda yadda….” I bent back to my plate, determined to get the gravy to mix.
He sighed and did that little eye rolling thing that he does and muttered something under his breath.
“My mother is not a watermelon, thank you.”
“I did not say that! I said that she was--“
I looked at him over my fork. “Said she was a what?”
“Nothing.” He developed a rather pressing interest in his pasta marinara and didn’t look up for quite some time.
I continued in my quest to conquer the gravy and we ate in silence for a while, until Malcolm started fidgeting in his seat, just itching to say something. I ignored him for as long as I possibly could, but the movement was starting to grate.
“For the love, just say it.”
“You don’t have to take it out on me just because you got reamed by the Captain.”
I paused in my gravy mission to look up at him in disbelief.
“Take what out on you? I haven’t said a thing --“
“That’s exactly it. You haven’t said anything. You’ve been surly and moody and just plain rude ever since you got out of the ready room a half hour ago. You completely ignored three members of your staff in the corridor and have barely said three words to me. I usually can’t shut you up.”
I stared, willing my mouth to move and say something, but all I was getting was my jaw going up and down. He tossed his fork down and shoved back from the table.
“I’ll see you later then, Commander.”
I watched him leave, tossing his tray into the alcove and walking out the door.
I looked down at my own tray.
I didn’t know gravy had a solid form.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
--Archer--
Personal Log, March 15, 2153, Captain Jonathan Archer, Starship Enterprise, NX-01
For God’s sake, it’s like he’s two.
You know, I thought I could trust him to behave. I thought his intellectual curiosity would win out over his moral code. I thought my orders would be enough. I thought that he would listen to me, his captain and his friend.
I guess I thought wrong.
We don’t have the right to meddle in the affairs and traditions of another species. We can’t apply the ‘standards’ of human rights to them because they’re not human. He just couldn’t see past his own ideas of right and wrong to get that they’re not always the same with other species’.
Because we’re not the same.
Is it not obvious?
The differences are written all over our faces, our mannerisms, our patterns of speech. The technology, the culture, the traditions. Everything is different, nothing’s the same, wherever you go, one thing is constant.
Difference.
Difference, Trip. Just as humans are different from one another, other species are different from us. That one thing will be the same wherever you are, wherever you end up. Technology will be based on different principles, the stars will look different, the language won’t sound right to your ears, your looks will draw the stares.
Everything is different, it’s part of why we’re out here, to discover all those differences. But we can’t do that if you try to make them all human.
It doesn’t work like that.
Nothing works like that, nothing’s that simple. You can’t just apply your own morals and virtues to every situation you come across. They don’t work out here, not all the time. Yeah, they keep us grounded, they keep us ‘human’, I suppose, but you can’t force them onto other people.
It’s bound to have consequences.
Like here.
You taught someone something they weren’t supposed to know, you showed them a world beyond what they knew, and they paid for with their life. You knew what you were doing was wrong, you knew it, and you still did it.
Your damn morals.
You expect the rest of us to pay for your morals? Your vision of human rights across the galaxy? You don’t get to make those decisions. That’s not your job.
I do, and it’s mine.
You don’t have the right to tell people what’s right for them. You don’t have the right to go behind their backs, and mine, and subvert their ways.
You took their child from them. Their child.
How could you not know better? How could Starfleet’s prized engineer not know better?
How could my friend not know better?
This whole situation makes me sick. Someone killed themselves because of you, because they couldn’t go back to their life, because of you. You. You did this. We’ve lost a potentially great ally, and you’ve got nothing to say for it. No defense, no apology, nothing. You wrote them a form letter, and only because I made you.
Where were your morals then, Trip?
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I sat in my quarters, listening to my log on repeat, realizing just how much I sounded like T’Pol. When had that happened? When did her damn non-interference bullshit become my mantra too?
There was something inherently wrong with that.
I couldn’t take the sound of my own voice anymore, so I flicked the speakers off and left my quarters, wanting a little solitude to go with the late hour. I found myself walking the corridors at random, not having a direction or destination. It was nice, while it lasted.
The obs deck was in front of me, door wide open, just waiting for me to cross it. I stepped in, and walked over to a couch in front of one of the wide wall to wall windows. I sat down and leaned against the arm of the couch, watching the stars go by.
I didn’t hear her soft footfalls as she walked from the door to the couch, and leaned over the back a little, cocking her head and observing me in that detached Vulcan way.
“Captain?”
I looked up at her, startled out of my reverie, and sat up slowly.
“T’Pol? What are you doing up at this hour?”
“I have been reviewing the scans, Captain.” She moved gracefully around the couch to sit next to me.
“Oh.” I’d forgotten that in the excitement of this latest scientific discovery, she’d taken to forgoing the meditation candle in favor of data readouts and PADDs.
“If I may ask, what bring you to the observation deck at 0200?”
“Just… couldn’t take my quarters. Needed a new place to sit and think.”
She nodded and we sat for a while in silence, both of us watching the stars streak past. One of Trip’s explanations for this effect floated up in my head, and I heard his voice as sure as if he was sitting next to me instead of T’Pol. The excitement in his voice as he explained his favorite bit of warp theory brought a small smile to my face, before I remembered just why I couldn’t stand my quarters.
“And just what prompted this reaction?” She spoke softly, keeping to the human tendency of ‘not breaking the mood’.
“What else? This whole cogenitor mess.”
She nodded, slowly, not saying anything.
“It’s just…. How could he be so stupid? How could he think what he was doing could have any kind of a good outcome? Did he think he was going to start a cultural revolution? A civil rights movement? Those don’t happen from without, they happen from within. I’d thought he’d learned not to mess with people he doesn’t understand.”
I sighed and leaned my head back, staring at the ceiling.
“You know, I thought he’d listen to me. Just this once. This one time, actually follow my orders to the letter. Not just because I’m his captain, but because I’m his friend. His friend. It’s like it doesn’t mean anything to him… the last eight years… nothing.”
“Perhaps you do not understand his intentions correctly.”
“I know what his intentions were! He thought that he was giving that thing a chance at a better life, but he ended up taking that life away. It’s just the same as if he’d pulled the trigger himself. He’s the cause. He’s the root problem, and he’s not even sorry. He hasn’t offered a defense or a reason. Just stands there thinking he did right. Well, he didn’t. He hasn’t done a damn thing right since we started this. He defied my orders, he lied to the Vissians, he lied to me!”
I closed my eyes, trying not to think about how much it hurt to know that he lied to me, he betrayed me, and wasn’t sorry about it.
“Maybe… our friendship doesn’t mean that much to him anymore.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps his belief in what he was doing meant more that friendship.”
“Same damn thing, ain’t it?”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
~Finis part one~