SEV #1
Commander Trip Tucker walked into the crew lavatory located two decks away from the Mess Hall where the Arconians were being feted; he'd gone down an access tube, and was pretty sure that none of the visitors had followed. At least he hoped that none of the purple and blue skinned aliens had followed him.
Normally he liked a party – greeting new people – getting to be friendly and telling an audience all about the planet Earth, and how the Enterprise was 'out exploring'. But this crowd of people was 'too much' – fawning even, almost bowing at every word he said . . . laughing in that high squeaky noise at anything even mildly funny that he said . . . pushing and shoving each other in order to get within speaking distance. It was creepy, and he had no idea why he was so 'interestin''.
The Capt'n didn't seem to have that problem – sure some of the elder officials were politely hanging around, but no one was actively trying to be 'best friends'. No one – absolutely no one – was hanging around sub-Commander T'Pol. Point of fact, they were trying to avoid her . . . he seemed to be the lucky bastard that everyone had to get to know.
He'd even gone so far as to hide in one of the stalls – not wanting to have to talk with anyone, even his fellow crewmates. This was impossible; Trip decided that he had to get his head together and return to the party. At least that was what he was thinking as the door to the restroom opened.
At this point most everyone he knew would have said something like, 'You in there, Trip?' or maybe – 'You in there, Commander?' Not exactly the most polite thing, but what do you say to someone hiding out in the john? Then he heard the person washing their hands. He dared to hope that a certain British person might be there, so he said very tentatively, "Malcolm?"
"Commander," the voice said evenly, a couple seconds went by. "I take it that you found the attention of our guests a bit overwhelming . . ." Trip laughed nervously, "Overwhelming!" He opened the door, and found Malcolm Reed regarding him with a smile. "You'd think I was the person that everyone HAD to meet. Maybe they think I'm a famous person or somethin'. Hell, they were fightin' just to get close!" Trip shrugged his shoulders, expecting that his friend would find his problem 'amusing'; instead, the lieutenant frowned, "I don't know why I bother writing security reports! Did you read any of the material I sent you?" Malcolm pulled out a tablet from his pocket, and typed some text, then sent it.
"There," he said with the air of someone taking care of a problem – both finally, and of being exasperated – "You shouldn't have any problem from now on. Oh, and you need to change . . . wear your most worn daily uniform, with visible grease stains and some hand tools sticking out of your pockets. Pretend that you have been working on some 'engineering' problem at the behest of the captain."
"What?" replied Trip, "I don't understand." "Next time I send you a security report about a new planet – read it! You can't just depend on your charm and good looks, commander," and with that the armory officer strode out of the small room and prepared to meet the aliens as their 'new best friend'.
OOOOOO
Commander Tucker made it into the Mess Hall expecting the mass of aliens to be still in attendance; while there still were a few almost decrepit-looking types still politely listening to Captain Archer (and ignoring sub-Commander T'Pol), the main group who had been following him around were nowhere to be seen. And now these Arconians were totally ignoring him also, like a switch had been thrown or somethin'. It was just odd.
"Uh, sub-Commander," he started to say since she was not talking to anyone, "where did everyone go?" "I believe," she replied, looking oddly bored and grateful at the same time, "that they are in Cargo Bay Two watching Lieutenant Reed conducting an armory drill." With that she turned her head back in the direction of Captain Archer, clearly having finished speaking with Trip, who exited the Mess Hall and made his way over to the cargo bay. Malcolm generally wasn't in the habit of ordering him around, but when he did – well, he had to find out what was going on . . .
Trip missed the subtle signal that Jonathan Archer gave T'Pol; made reference to her PADD that she carried – said in Vulcan, 'Reed had a good point about reading security reports', or words to that effect. The Arconian officials left in the Mess Hall were of little consequence . . .
OOOOOO
Several months before, Trip had helped Malcolm and a couple of his staff set up a practice range so that the security personnel could maintain their proficiency with small arms, generally phase pistols and rifles, though it could be used with small projectile armaments. (Reed had a few of the older style weapons – more of a hobby – but occasionally useful in special circumstances – after all, torpedoes were projectiles albeit of a very large 'caliber'.)
Trip entered the cargo bay with nary a glance from the assembled aliens; all their eyes were fixed in fact, not on the armory personnel who were even in the midst of training, noticing that he had entered the area, but rather on the form of the solitary Brit who was merely directing the exercise and not even participating. The fawning behavior of the Arconians was extreme to the point of almost nauseating. 'What the hell was going on?' thought the commander, pretending to work on some such mechanical device 'off to the side'.
There had been a 'sexist element' to the Arconians' behavior – that Trip could tell given that T'Pol had been totally ignored as if she didn't matter . . . and an elitist also – once he had 'dressed down' as it were – as though he were merely a functionary – an engineer who ran the ship, he didn't count either. But the Capt'n apparently didn't count much to their eyes as well. He was currently being bored to death by 'honored elders', trying to set up diplomatic relations . . .
So what was it? Tucker decided that he'd had enough of mysterious aliens and since he was dressed to pretend he was 'engineering', decided to leave and do some of the real version. Leaving the cargo bay, he brought out a PADD which had his current work list and determined to get something accomplished. No doubt later Malcolm would be more than happy to explain what happened . . .
OOOOOO
It finally dawned on him as he was trying to 'suss out' a tangle of wires that had been installed by some contractors at a repair facility, not Starfleet affiliated – rather than color-coding they used patterns on the similarly colored tubing. Normally the plain wiring carried the most current, and one stripe indicated a 'step-down', but if you wiped the casing with a particular chemical it would remove the stripe, indicating that the current had been increased. So the one stripe type had the 'potential for being more powerful' and actually potentiality made that more important – in effect Malcolm had 'potential power' as did formerly he did – at least obviously before . . . the captain had 'reached' the limit of his power in the Arconians' minds.
All depended on what was more important – what was, or what could be . . .
OOOOOO
