Chapter Text
"Sonofabitch!"
His cry overlaid by the hiss and sizzle of a dozen angry cobras erupting from the damaged circuits around his hand, Commander Charles Tucker III jerked back so far he almost tumbled back out the cockpit's hatch . "Fuckin' time travellers. Can't even design a decent fuckin' workspace," he growled, giving his tingling fingers an experimental shake.
The wounded circuits, determined to prove there was life left in them despite their rough journey back 900 years, pulsed fluorescent green, casting ghoulish patterns through the compact vessel. Cautiously probing into their depths with a pair of micro-tweezers Tucker gave himself a mental pat on the back. If nothing else he'd just proved the damn things could be useful: always assuming he could ever figure a way of detaching them from the mother ship.
Malcolm Reed's wry words came back to him, so real he thought they were echoing around his confined workspace. "Maybe we should get Phlox to come down and take a look."
In spite of the frustration bubbling through his chest, Trip Tucker had to stifle a snort. The doctor had almost fainted with excitement when "organic circuitry" had been mentioned in his presence. If they weren't careful he'd be adding another cage to the Sickbay Zoo: whatever these things were, he'd be sure to find some kind of medicinal reason to keep them.
"C'mon, little guy. Just be nice to me now an' we'll getcha home safe to the thirty-first fuckin' century."
Dammit!
Now he was hearing his English colleague's mocking laughter at his well-meaning attempt to sweet-talk the uncomprehending vessel. It had worked on the broken-down old scooter Grandpa Johnson had given him at fourteen: and pretty much every engine-powered device he'd encountered since.
Maybe by the thirty-first century they've lost the knack of making nice with these babies.
Gingerly prodding the loosened circuitry again he allowed himself a mental harrumph. One more reason not to be curious about the future. He'd have to remember it next time Malcolm talked about building himself a time machine. Goddamn future. Daniels can keep it. He never brings us nothing but trouble, either.
Preoccupied by his internal grumbling he snagged a nail against the underside of one spongy greenish strand.
An eerie hissing sound echoed through the cabin. Bright light flashed across Tucker's field of vision, disorientating him as he staggered backward from a crystal-clear holographic screen that solidified, hanging right over the pilot's seat.
"Aw shit, now what've you done?"
The screen shimmered impertinently back at him, and to Trip Tucker it felt as if a few phrases from the tightly-packed block of data were crawling out of the flat image. "So Johnny made it to admiral," he breathed, momentarily stunned beyond the enormity of what he was doing. "Sonofabitch, he's got planets named after him, too! Boy, he's gonna love that when I..."
His voice struck the hologram and dissolved. What had he said to Malcolm about checking out the last page of the book before reading it? "Now how does a guy turn this thing off?" he growled, twisting awkwardly in his limited space to glare into the guilty muddle of pulsing filaments.
He was trying not to see. Really, Tucker assured himself, it wasn't his fault that a few words halfway down the text suddenly decided to just jump right out and smack him upside the head. Admiral Charles Tucker III.
It wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to know any of this. He had to find the deactivation sequence.
As he ducked to pull the malleable threads again something else sprang out which, having hit him smack between the eyes then whipped around to whack him from behind with the force of a Klingon right hook. Married: Malcolm Reed.
"Oh, no." Business forgotten Tucker backed out of the vessel, still staring at the offending words so hard it seemed everything else was blotted out, leaving them blood-red and defiant. "No way. I'm straight."
He uncurled from the hatch into the challenging brightness of the quiet launch bay, one hand clutched at his rolling stomach while the room swam from focus around him. "So help me," he grated. "I'm straight!"