Cargo Ship Sparrow

Now he was dressed like 1950, half drunk and hollow-eyed... And I knew there was something strange about this ride.

~"The Ride" by David Allen Coe

Chapter 1

Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III was in the shuttle pod on his way to rendezvous with Enterprise.

He had been on a week long exchange conference, and even though he had a good time, learned some valuable information, and made a few friends, he was still looking forward to getting home.

The conference was much like Phlox's medical exchange, but for engineers. Trip hadn't known about this conference until about a year ago when Enterprise had ran into a new group of aliens from a planet called Zaadenarr.

~ooOoo~

Enterprise had entered a small system where a phenomenon occurred once every hundred years or so. An electro-static pulse string would surge through the system, lasting for about 2 weeks, creating a dazzling light display, before dissipating. The "static string," as it had been known as, was harmless, but the colors it created were spectacular to say the least.

There had been a few other alien ships that had gathered to watch the show and collect data, but they pretty much ignored the newcomers...Enterprise. The Zaadenarrians were the only ones who took the time to go beyond the formalities of "hello" and actually interact with the humans.

During the 2 weeks, Archer had invited the Captain, L'Kahdi, and some of her crew over to Enterprise for tours and dinners, and she returned the favor in the same. On one of these tours, Trip was showing Ph'Erthd, the chief engineer, Enterprise's warp core.

While the core wasn't as advanced as the one on the Dracardé, Ph'Erthd was still impressed with the design and with Trip's modifications, commenting that Trip was a talented engineer.

He had asked Trip if he would be attending the annual Engineers Alliance Conference the following year, as Trip had missed the one for that year, and Trip had to admit that he didn't know about an annual conference.

Once Ph'Erthd explained to Trip about the various species exchanging ideas, and sometimes technology, Trip was over the moon to attend. His joy quickly turned to frustration when Archer told him "no," even getting T'Pol on his side to argue the point that the conference hosts too many species that are more advanced than humans, and to obtain such technology at the human's early stages of deep space exploration, could be disastrous.

Trip, in turn, got Phlox on his side to argue that the way for humans to grow and learn would be to interact with a multitude of species of varying levels of development.

There had been a divide amongst the ship's crew for a period of time, some taking Jon's side, and others taking Trip's. Finally, 2 months before this year's conference, Jon agreed to let Trip attend as a trial, but warned not to divulge too much information about Enterprise's engines, and definitely forbidden to share any information with species less advanced.

Trip didn't want to screw up his one shot, so he heeded Jon's warning when he spoke to an engineer whose species had only attained warp 2. Trip was polite and had a pleasant conversation with the...well he really couldn't tell what gender the engineer was, but really hoped female, with the way...it...was hitting on him.

Trip put an end to that real fast with a simple "I'm married." A lie, he knew, but then again with his bond to T'Pol, there could be some sort of interpretation of marriage...right?

While he was there, he met with his friend, Ph'Erthd. The pair spoke excitedly about the details of a trade alliance between Earth and Zaadenarr. Of course technology information and weapons was off the table, but trade of bulk material such as cloth, minerals, medicines, and information about planets they had visited and their cultures were definitely a positive.

The thing that got the pair most excited was the trade of each of the planets food. Trip had tried several of the Zaadenarrian cuisine, but his favorite was a fruit, the size of a small cantaloupe, that had a whiteish fuzz on its pink and grey rind. When cut, its flesh was a deep blue color, very juicy, with a floral scent and the taste was somewhere between a watermelon and kiwi.

Ph'Erthd fell in love with the fried catfish that Trip introduced him to, and the pungent Stilton cheese that Malcolm shared. They each made a pact that they would lobby their leaders for these particular foods to be included in the trade deals.

~ooOoo~

The shuttle was about 45 minutes from the rendezvous when Trip heard a small pop and the pod began losing power. He pulled a panel to find that a relay coupler had overloaded and the pod's power was draining quickly.

Trip rushed to get a signal to Enterprise, dreading that he would be stuck adrift in space...again. He soon realized that the power wasn't strong enough to contact Enterprise, so he settled on a general distress call for any one nearby that could help.

Trip gave out a sigh of relief when a few short moments later, a cargo vessel suddenly pulled along side of the shuttle and the comm beeped at him.

"This is Captain Greystone of the Earth cargo vessel, 'Sparrow' do you need assistance?"

"Yeah. Commander Charles Tucker the third of Enterprise here. Seems there's been an overload to one of my relays. Think I could dock so I can get it fixed?" Trip responded.

"Of course, Commander. Bay 3 is available. Can you maneuver the shuttle in, or do we need to hook you?"

"No. I think I got enough power to maneuver in on my own. Thanks for coming for me."

"No problem, Commander. We would never leave anyone stranded. I'll meet you in bay 3 when you dock. Greystone out."

Trip made an uneventful dock and was exiting the pod when he looked up at the Captain. Trip gave a good look at him, and found his appearance a little odd.

The Captain, who was slender and about as tall as Trip, looked to be in his early to mid fifties, a bit pale, but Trip shrugged it off that the Captain didn't get out into the sun very often, dark circles under his sunken eyes, short salt and pepper hair, and a short cut beard with grey streaks.

What Trip had thought of as 'odd' was the clothes he was wearing. It wasn't unusual for a cargo crew to wear civilian clothes, most cargo crews did, and the only one's he had ever seen that wore any type of uniforms were either Starfleet cargo crew or crew of large corporation companies. The shirt that Greystone had on was a tight fitting, olive green, pullover shirt with a zipper at the neck, that Greystone had opened. His pants were a dark grey that were somewhere between slacks and khakis, with a black leather belt around his waist.

The clothes style kind of reminded Trip of some of the pictures he had seen of his father when he was a kid in high school...long before his dad and mother had met and long before him and his siblings had come along. It made him chuckle a little, thinking about how many times Malcolm had teased Trip about his Hawaiian shirts. What can one say? When you find a style you like...you stick with it, even if it is outdated.

The man smiled at Trip, extending his hand. "I'm Captain Greystone, welcome to the Sparrow, Commander."

Trip shook the man's hand, and noticed how cold it felt...in fact, the bay itself was cold and he shivered a little. "Thank you, Cap'n. Permission to come aborad, sir."

Greystone chuckled. "Yes, yes. We don't stand on ceremony here, just call me Sam. Charles...do you go by Chuck, Charlie, Chaz?"

He shook his head as he chuckled. "'Trip', actually."

Sam gave him a questioning look. "Because you're accident prone?"

Trip smirked while shaking his head. He had heard many theories as to his nickname in his life, but that one was his favorite. "Actually, because I'm the third Charles Tucker. 'Trip'...short for triple."

"Oh. I get it. Well, Trip, would you like to relax a little? I have extra rooms available, you're more than welcomed to one."

Trip rubbed at the back of his neck. "I don't mean to sound impolite, but I'm supposed to meet up with my ship in about 30 minutes. My Cap'n will worry if I'm not there on time. If you have a J-390 relay to spare, it should only take a few minutes to replace and I can be on my way?"

Sam crinkled his brows together. "A J...? No, I'm sorry, I don't think we have those. I can have my manifest officer provide you a list of what we have available. Maybe there is something else that would serve your needs, just to get you back to your ship until you can get the shuttle fixed proper?"

Trip nodded. "I guess a PQ-1260 would be compatible. I'd have to cut back power to some of the console systems, but that wouldn't matter for the short term."

Sam smiled at him. "Well...it sounds like you know what you're doing. When my manifest officer gets the list together, just pick out what you need."

Trip shivered and pulled his jacket tighter around him. "It's a little chilly in here. Are your temperature controls on the fritz?"

"Oh! Sorry about that, I guess it's been so long, I don't notice it anymore. We've had to conserve power and keep the temperature low. I'll have someone turn the heat up for you."

Trip held up a hand. "No, that's ok, I just thought maybe...why do you need to conserve power?"

Sam shifted a moment. "We had some issues with our injectors. We had to cut power to several of the systems, environmental control being one of them, lighting another."

"I see. Well...um...I'm an engineer, I could take a look at your injectors for you...if you like."

Sam smiled. "That would be very helpful. My head engineer...he uh...he was injured, fell from a platform and died from his injuries. The doctor did what she could, but it was too severe. The only other person I have isn't really an engineer, he knows how to fix things, but..."

Trip chuckled in understanding. "Yeah, I get it. We got a boomer on our ship. He told me once that people on a cargo ship are pretty much 'jacks of all trades.' Sorry about losing your engineer like that, but whatever I can do to help y'all out..."

"That would be appreciated, Trip. Thank you."

Just then a young woman walked up and handed Trip a PADD as Sam continued. "Ah, Trip! This is my manifest officer, Kelly. Anything you need, just ask her and she'll get it for you. She knows where everything is stored on this ship, right down to the smallest screw."

Trip nodded. "Thank you." He looked at the PADD and noted that it was a bigger size, chunky and required the use of a stylus rather than a touch screen. "Wow! I haven't used one of these since I was in the 4th grade. Kinda...nostalgic, huh?"

Sam glanced down. "Yeah, well, um...its a small cargo ship and I can't exactly afford to purchase some of the more updated equipment, but we make due with what we have."

Trip's cheeks turned a shade of pink. "I'm sorry...I didn't mean to say..."

Sam chuckled as he put a hand up to Trip. "It's alright, I know you didn't mean any offense by it. I'm sure you'll be surprised at a lot of the old equipment we have around here. Is there anything you see there that can help repair your shuttle?"

Trip looked through the list and crinkled his brows together as he noticed the items were outdated models and wondered who the cargo was for, and what would they do with so much old technology. "No...none of these are compatible with the pod, in fact, they would most likely explode from a power surge if I put any of these in there." He blew out a breath. "Looks like I'm stuck here for the time being. Could I use your comm to contact Enterprise? It shouldn't take too long for them to get here and pick me up."

Sam shook his head. "I'm sorry Commander, our long range comm systems have been down, but perhaps we can give you a lift to where you need to rendezvous? It may take a day or so, since we're not exactly a starship. When we get close enough to your ship, you can signal then to let them know you're on board."

Trip nodded. "Sounds like a plan...uh...I'm not keeping you from a delivery schedule, am I?"

Sam chuckled. "No, we're not on a schedule anymore. We were heading for a drop off, but we don't have any kind of deadline. We'll get there when we get there."

Trip gave Sam the coordinates to where he was supposed to meet Enterprise, and his scheduled flight path, figuring that when he wasn't there, Jon would come looking for him and they'd end up meeting halfway.