Disclaimer: All rights to Star Trek Enterprise, the characters and situations except as noted below are reserved by Paramount Studios.
Tia Anlor (Tee-ah Ahn'-lor) is my own creation.
This is the 12th story in this series, the others being 'Golden Girl'; 'A Few Words'; 'Glistni'; 'Small Time'; 'Acquisition'; 'What Do I Do Now?'; 'For Want of Kilyiis'; 'Daasii'; 'Noblesse Oblige', 'Roses and Thorny' and 'Time and Again'. This story takes place about 1 day after 'Time and Again', and continues the events of that story. Tia has been on the Enterprise for about five months.
Rating: G
House of Cards
By JMK758
Prologue
Commander Charles Tucker opened his eyes from a deep sleep, surprised to find that he was not alone. Resting enfolded in his arms was the warm body of a young woman, her long golden hair spread out over her bare body like an extra blanket. Her flesh, for what could be seen in the dim light, was just as golden. She lay huddled in his arms, her body pressed to his in an effort to find security more than warmth under the light sheet.
He vaguely remembered her coming to him not long after oh-three-hundred, after having avoided him for more than a day. She had said not a word, had not responded to his whispered words, but had just gotten into bed with him, pressing close as he put his arms about her, holding her as she fell asleep, her breath warm against his chest. She had not left her quarters at any time during that day, had spoken to no one, and even now as she lay in his arms, hands huddled to her chest as if trying to protect herself, he found himself becoming deeply disturbed.
It was the same feeling he had when he had fallen asleep again minutes after awakening at her unexpected presence in his room and her silent seeking out of his presence and comfort. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and it had only a little to do with what had happened to her.
But whatever it was, he simply did not want to think about it.
---
Malcolm Reed, yesterday afternoon, had had no problem at all thinking about it, however. "It doesn't add up. I'm sorry, it just doesn't." Reed had told him in the Mess Hall that afternoon over lunch.
"What doesn't?"
"Tia. She was assaulted, or so I'm told. But this is the same young woman, about three quarters my size, who knocked me bum over teakettle not two months ago, taking me out in less than half a second flat and leaving me unable to move for over half an hour."
"What are you saying?" Tucker had demanded, feeling his anger mounting.
"I'm not 'saying' anything," the man had insisted, recognizing his friend's outrage, "I'm only wondering how someone who can handle herself as well as she obviously can, can be assaulted like I hear she was."
"You haven't seen her!"
"No; and neither has anyone else, not even Phlox. You said she won't see anyone after that night. I just wonder -."
"You said then that it was reflex – that if she thought about what she was doing she couldn't have done it."
"Yes, and the more I think of it the more I'm not sure I wasn't wrong. Maybe it was 'reflex', but who taught her the reflex?"
Tucker had thrown down his napkin in disgust and stalked out. He told himself that it was to keep from hitting the man; but the truth was that he had wondered the same things himself. Too often. And he really didn't want to know. But the more he allowed himself to think on it, the more things he couldn't answer, and the less he really wanted those answers.
---
Now he held the young woman in his arms, and as he moved slightly, drawing her closer, his hands on her bare back, she stirred, looking up at him. In the dimness he could still make out the burnished gold coloring about her right eye; and against his chest he could feel the large medicated pad adhered to the right side of her left breast, which was all the treatment she had been willing to accept. "Dampris ilinta." She whispered.
"Good morning." He enunciated pointedly. She looked away, unable to maintain eye contact.
He ran his hand down her side to rest upon her bare hip, but she moaned apprehensively. "I won't touch you." He promised. "It still hurts." It was not a question – he knew how much pain she was in.
"Ealyiis, um, 'thank you'. Hurts terribly it does." It was worse, by far, than she had expected. She had not wanted to view the damage; but when she had, she was appalled at how bad it had been.
"Phlox could heal you. Why won't you see him?"
"Nyas. Can not." He wished feelingly that he could understand her reluctance. He had done everything he could for her, which was precious little, before she had shut him out yesterday. She would not see him after the initial time in her quarters, and so he had been surprised she had come to him in the late night. He had done nothing that might drive her away, but only held her as she fell asleep.
"How are you?"
"Cusla." She whispered, but he pressed his other hand a bit harder into her back, and she sighed. "'Well'. I well am, Shar-les."
"You can't draw away." He said softly. "Not if you're going to reach out." Yesterday she had not said anything to him in English, not speaking anything but Auran, even after she seemed to recover from her distress. It was such a departure from her months of struggling to learn and keep to English, to communicate in their language, that he had been concerned. He had not pressed her yesterday; she had been too fragile. But today, he felt he should remind her of her determined stand, lest she withdraw from all of them.
"I want to talk about it not." She whispered so softly he could barely hear her. "I want to talk about it never. Li vaz ti minya edal!" She caught the look in his eyes and sighed in frustration. "'I it want over to be.'" He didn't answer, remembering his conversations with Hoshi and Malcolm, so different yet agreeing on one point between them. It would not be over soon.
Chapter One
Caldis III
"Captain's Log, supplemental: We have settled into orbit about the planet Caldis III, which up until two days ago had been merely a notation on a Vulcan Star Chart and a possible potential source of some of the elements needed to produce deuterium.
"However, the evening before last the crew was subject to an attempted assault by an agent of the Temporal Cold War, whose mission had been to assassinate all the female members of the Enterprise crew. It was reported that this mission had been significantly successful with the deaths of six officers: Ensigns Dina Samuels, Ann Anderson, Jennifer Farber, Elizabeth Cutler, Sub-Commander T'Pol, as well as our ship's Chief Medical Officer before the assassin was stopped prior to beginning his work by the combined efforts of our Linguist Hoshi Sato and Exobiologist Tia Anlor.
"I do not pretend to understand any of the convoluted aspects of temporal mechanics, and our resident 'expert' Crewman Daniels is notable in his absence. Therefore I can only stand by the fact that the deaths did not happen. However, there were only two casualties of the incident, Ensign Sato and Crewwoman Anlor. Ensign Sato's injuries were minor and she has made a full recovery. Miss Anlor's injuries, however, are more severe and for reasons unknown, she has refused medical assistance.
"Not having any firm information about what awaits us on the planet, which sensors report to be Minshara Class but uninhabited, I have decided to go ahead with the survey, but at a high security alert and full precautions."
Both Shuttles, he had decided, would be used to ferry a full scientific party of Geologists, Biologists and Security Personnel to the planet, starting at 1000 hours that morning. Now, with three hours to go, he could only sit back and wait. In the meantime, all the ship's sensors, both short and long range, were examining the planet and all space to the prodigious reach of those instruments. So far, there was nothing to report.
Archer was waiting for the moment when that would change.
When the time came for the launchings of the Shuttle Pods, he had already decided that he was not going to be waiting on the bridge when whatever was going to happen did so. Whatever was going to happen might be in space or on the supposedly uninhabited planet, but the message had been that no woman was to reach, read 'land on', Caldis III. Therefore, he decided, whatever it was had a better likelihood of happening on the planet, and he would have better chance of dealing with it in person rather than working off site.
Therefore, he was in the first Shuttle to launch.
xxx
Ensign Elizabeth Cutler finished stowing the last of her gear aboard Shuttle Pod One and stepped out of the small ship in time to see Tia Anlor, clad in her uniform jumpsuit with the light blue sciences piping, enter the deck, carrying her own packet. She sighed quietly, seeing the girl's face. 'It's cosmically unjust', she thought, looking at the burnished gold surrounding Tia's right eye, 'that even her bruises are attractive.'
But that thought had nothing to do with why she had sighed, nor why she stepped in front of the Auran. "Where are you going?"
"Caldis III." Tia replied, surprised at the question when the answer was so self-evident.
"And what does Phlox say?" Liz hated to ask. One look at Tia's eye and that answer was self-evident as well. Tia did not even try to answer. "Come on, honey, you know the rules." She said, pitching her voice too low for anyone else to hear. "It's not that I'm unsympathetic, or that I don't appreciate what you've been through. But no Medical Bill of Health; no leaving the ship. That's that."
Tia also whispered as quietly as she could. "I to Phlox go can not."
Liz shrugged. "Sorry. I hate to lose you. I can really use you on this one, but orders are orders. We need you on Caldis III, and you know how to get there. It's up to you."
Tia turned with a disgusted sigh, heading for the exit. As she did, she passed one of the other biologists just entering the bay. "What's wrong?" The man asked. "Where are you going?"
"Li kraanstat gendlerrs duplendi seia." She muttered bitterly before the door shushed closed. Liz, who had learned quite a few phrases over the past five months, was left wondering just why Tia would consider herself so (expletive) immensely stupid.
xxx
About an hour later, long after the last teams had departed, Tia was sitting in her quarters, trying to think of how to solve this problem. She had made a perfect mess of things, and her short-sighted solution had only made things worse. Now she was stranded aboard the ship, with the only alternative for returning to duty being to undergo a medical examination she could not possibly pass.
Over and over again she rehearsed in her mind the events leading up to this fiasco, wondering what she could have done differently, but could find nothing. It had all happened so fast. She had had to get the information she needed quickly in order to save the lives of her friends, and now had to live with the consequences of her mistakes.
What could she have done differently? Had she had more time, maybe a lot; but there had not been the time. She'd had to act quickly, and was now stuck with the choices she had made. All she could do was to try not to make things get any worse; but they seemed to manage to do that very well without her continued help.
She didn't know what to do.
She had tried to avoid seeing anyone, because if she did not see anyone, and did not have to answer any questions, she would not have to dig herself in any deeper. She could not go back now on what she had done, but to keep to the same 'story' was just to make things worse. She had managed to avoid actually lying outright about what had happened by not saying anything, but the longer things went the harder it would be to avoid it. She could limit herself to Auran, knowing no one would compel her to use the UT against her will – not even the Captain would turn it on without her permission – but that was no permanent solution. Hoshi was fluent in Auran, and while no one else was she could barely avoid direct questions by answering in a language they did not understand. It was too much like lying and she did not want to do that either.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the chime at the door. Getting off her bunk, she went to open the door, vastly surprised at who was on the other side. "Shar-les!"
"Tia, why are you here? Why aren't you on the planet with everyone else?"
"Refused I was." She admitted, embarrassed. It was her own stupidity that had led to it, and admitting it was even worse.
"Nonsense. You're needed. Come on; get your gear. I'll take you down myself."
Ecstatic, not trusting herself to say anything, she grabbed the bundle from the bunk where she had tossed it an hour before and hurried after him. He strode with her down the corridor, not speaking as she hurried to keep up with his longer strides. She didn't know what had led to this, but she was not about to say anything to ruin it.
On board Shuttle Pod Two, she secured her pack and buckled herself in just in time for his launch. As they left the ship, she watched out the front port as the small craft angled toward the planet and began its descent.
xx
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Lt. Malcolm Reed monitored the path of the tiny vessel as it entered the atmosphere, and as it made its final approach to set down on the planet he frowned in consternation. He looked up across the bridge to the Communications Officer. "Hoshi, please contact Shuttle Pod Two." When his board showed the channel open, he touched a button. "Reed to Shuttle Pod Two. Our sensors show you are one half degree off course. Please correct heading one half degree to port."
"Malcolm, its Trip. It's all right; I'm just taking a little detour." Malcolm's eyes met those of Sato and Mayweather, the only other two officers presently on the bridge, and his lips mouthed the final word in silent disbelief. He spoke into the channel.
"Commander, you're off course. I say again, you're off course. You are going to miss the landing coordinates by over forty kilometers."
"I know what I'm doing. Your concern is noted, Lieutenant." Malcolm's surprise mounted quickly into astonishment, but there was no recourse from this.
"Understood, Commander." He closed the channel.
The three officers exchanged silent looks, each feeling slightly stunned. A moment later, Hoshi's board beeped. "It's the shuttle." Malcolm nodded.
"Malcolm?"
"I'm here, Commander." He answered carefully, keeping his voice level.
"It's also appreciated. But this is something I have to do. Mind the store until I get back."
"Aye, sir." The channel had no sooner closed again when he looked up at Hoshi. "Contact the Captain."