I woke up warm. I was confused. I didn't know where I was. I thought I might be dead. I heard voices around me. All male. That was strange... I imagined the first people to greet me in death would be my mother and my brother. Who were these guys?
"She's waking up."
"Can she hear us yet? Hey, Emily, can you hear me?"
"Give her a moment, Commander Tucker, she's recovering from frostbite."
I peeled my eyelids open. The light stabbed painfully at my eyes. I could see three blurry figures standing over me. Once my vision cleared, I recognized them.
Trip, the Denobulan Doctor Phlox, and my father.
"Dad?" I asked softly, my voice raspy.
Instantly, there was rejoicing around me. My father reached out and laid a hand on my cheek. "Yeah, it's me, Emily."
"How...?"
"Trip managed to reach the subspace amplifier and contact us an hour before the oxygen ran out. When we arrived, you were both passed out on the ground."
"You gave us quite the scare, Ms. Archer," Dr. Phlox smiled down at me. "Glad to see you awake."
"Ah, and I am ever-glad to see your smiling face, Doctor," I frowned. "That still doesn't explain the debris we saw."
"Ah, that was due to some Tesnians we picked up. There were some microsingularities in the area that caused them to lose control when they were trying to dock with us. It didn't affect us because of our polarized hull plating, but they damaged the second launch bay door. Commander Tucker and I have decided that's probably where you saw the debris with the writing."
"Interesting... So--" I tried to sit up.
Immediately, my crowd began to move into action.
"Captain," Phlox protested.
My father moved to stop me. "That's not a good idea," he laid a hand on my shoulder, pushing me back down gently.
"I want to get up," I sighed, but laid back down anyways. "I don't want to lay in a bed, I'm already useless enough."
Trip, who had been silent until now, spoke up. "Hardly. Remember all the tritanium you got us? You're quite the ambassador."
"And to think. You didn't even want me on that trip," I laughed.
"Yeah, and who's lying in a hospital bed?" he put his hands on his hips.
"It was your idea to turn off the heaters," I shrugged innocently.
"You two should leave, my patient needs some rest," the doctor began ushering them away. My father left first, Trip right behind him.
"Wait," I called. Trip stopped and turned around.
I smiled. "Thank you, Trip."
He grinned widely, seeming to catch that I called him Trip. "Anytime."
I laid back down, smiling to myself, feeling giddy for the first time in a long time.