14The Vissian cogenitor died, the Captain's words echoed through Commander Tucker's head, along with a maelstrom of emotions that just couldn't be contained.
Sitting on his bunk, head in hands, elbow on his knees, the tears of shame ran freely down his face as self-loathing, guilt and grief threatened to overwhelm Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker III. "This is my fault," he reminded himself for perhaps the thousandth time since leaving the Ready Room a quarter of an hour earlier. The Captain's anger and disappointment was no match for the Commander's feelings of abhorrence and revulsion at his actions, and more especially the result.
Suicide, Trip. She killed herself, Archer had told him in a tightly controlled voice dripping with contempt. Unspoken was the accusation, you may as well have killed her.
Initially, the shock hit him like a punch to the solar plexus, almost sending Trip reeling to his knees. A horrified expression covered his face as the words slowly sank in. Stupefied, incredulous, Tucker's mind immediately asked why? Why an individual with their life before them, a life they'd only just started to live, filled with possibilities would kill themselves? The answer came just a quickly. He'd opened the cogenitor's mind, expanded its horizons, given hope where none existed. He'd offered a glimpse into what was possible, what the male and female Vissian's took for granted and their culture refused to allow it. Left with nothing, no anticipation, no expectation, no chance for optimism, no hope for the future, the cogenitor had chosen to end its life instead of returning to the status of mindless 'thing'.
Rising, Tucker looked up to the ceiling of his cabin with closed, red rimmed eyes. Hands going automatically to his hips, he strode the seven paces across his small quarters to alleviate some of his pent-up feelings. It didn't work in the slightest. Head coming to rest on the opposite wall, the tears started once again as he recalled the Captain's biting words, berating him for his well-meant but disastrous inference.
You're damn right you're to blame. It's time you learned to weigh the possible repercussions of your actions. You've always been impulsive. Maybe this will teach you a lesson.
"A lesson," Trip cried, although no one heard his plea. "God dammit, my actions killed it as surely as the contempt of its culture. They kept the cogenitor a virtual slave. What the hell was I supposed to do? Sit by and watch as those people treated it as a pet or worse? Use it and then discard it like so much rubbish? Couldn't Charles have taken the knowledge and given it to other cogenitor's? Maybe started a revolution in their cultural thinking? Offered hope for the future to others of its kind?"
Turning, his back to the wall, Tucker's legs refused to carry the weight of his abject sorrow, torturing his mind and sending his body into spasms of heartache and misery. Depressed, hopeless, remorseful, the negative emotions swirled in a never-ending stream of self-disgust and desolation. Sliding to the ground, Tucker wrapped his arms around his knees, laying his head on them, almost siting in a foetal position and allowed his feelings physical expression. The tears continued to leak from his red rimmed eyes, rolling down his cheeks and creating wet patches on the leg of his jumpsuit. The emotional storm played out, ignored by the engineer as he lay crumpled and disillusioned within the only private space Enterprise allowed him.
"You didn't think I understood the ramifications of my actions," Trip mumbled, the sound lost in the eerily quiet room. "I understand just fine!"
You knew you had no business interfering with those people, but you just couldn't let it alone. I guess I haven't been very successful at getting through to you. If I had, you would have thought a lot harder before doing what you did.
Commander Charles Tucker recalled the Captain, his Captain and best friend turning his back and dismissing him. Trip wondered if the relationship between them could ever be the same. He'd disappointed Jonathon Archer. More, Trip realised, while satisfying his morality, ultimately, he'd gone against everything he'd been brought up to believe, in the worse possible way. The cogenitor's death was on his hands and he'd never forgive himself.
"I'm responsible," the cry issued as his exhausted and guilt racked body lost the fight with consciousness.
