Disclaimer: Star Trek (plus all its intellectual property) is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.
Dedicated to Serit, who gave me the idea for it!
Beta'd by BookQ36 and MizJoely, to whom all due thanks as always!
"Welcome to the team, Lieutenant."
Malcolm stepped through the door of the well-appointed Starfleet office and accepted the proffered hand of Captain Jonathan Archer, noting the additional gesture of the free hand lightly and briefly clasping his shoulder, adding extra warmth to the reception. It tallied with his expectations of the man, formed from extensive research beforehand and also during the last round of interviews for the post of Tactical and Weapons Officer on board USS Enterprise, the newest flagship of the fleet. It was entirely natural that the ship's captain should take the opportunity to gain an opinion of the final few candidates before making his choice from among them; but it also allowed them to gain an opinion of him.
He was careful to keep his own gaze absolutely neutral. Not that that took much doing – it was an expression he'd pretty well grown into over the last few years. "I'm happy to be here, sir." There was more he could have said, like 'Thank you for choosing me as your Tactical Officer', but it hardly tallied with the persona he now had to project; Americans expected Brits to be reserved, undemonstrative. And that suited him perfectly.
"Come on in. I've got to bring you up to speed with the latest progress reports on our weaponry, and then I'll hand everything over to you. If you run into any serious problems, you'll report to your senior officer or to my XO. Or if you feel you need to, you know where my office is."
"Sir." Reed silently resolved that Hell would freeze over before he went running to his superiors with his problems. He was already aware, via strictly unofficial channels, that he was going to have his work cut out to get the ship's weapons ready in time for launch. Any people in R&D who imagined he was going to just sit back and accept bullshit excuses over the problems involved would very promptly learn their error the hard way.
Captain Archer was turning away, gesturing to the other man whom Malcolm had already observed seated very much at his ease at the sunlit desk in the middle of the room. His voice took on even more warmth. "And here is your senior officer. Allow me to introduce our Chief Engineer, Commander Charles Tucker III. Trip, this is Lieutenant Malcolm Reed."
Recognition hit as the fair-haired, blue-eyed Southerner rose smiling from his chair and also extended a welcoming hand. "Loo-tenant." The soft drawl was familiar, and Malcolm's heart skipped a beat.
The years rolled back. The alley, and the beating; and the impulsive Good Samaritan racing to his rescue. Jag recoiled in horror, dreading to have that episode recounted to his new captain in glorious detail: the poor unfortunate Brit, beaten half to a pulp, and hell, isn't this a coincidence? Still, not a muscle of Malcolm Reed's face moved in anything but the required half-smile in return. "Commander Tucker."
He noted with approval that the commander's handshake was also firm. He instinctively disliked weak handshakes, and found it difficult to trust anyone who delivered them. Not that he trusted anybody all that far, and certainly not anyone who hadn't earned it the hard way.
A slight frown sank a groove between the other man's eyebrows. The vivid blue eyes were searching. It was all too plain that he had encountered a face that was unexpectedly familiar, and was now engaged in trying to place the resemblance.
Useless, to hope that he might fail; a man who'd made Chief Engineer of the fleet's newest starship at his age had to be extraordinarily intelligent. It would be disarming to acknowledge the facts first, thus obviating any suggestion that he had anything to hide. This was anything but the truth, of course, but sometimes the best place to hide anything is out in the open.
"Rescued any more street-crime casualties lately, Commander?" he asked, with a faint and appropriately rueful smile, and just the hint of informality that their previous acquaintance justified.
The delighted smile of comprehension on the handsome face opposite him was quickly shadowed a little by remembrance of the way that a proffered friendship had been spurned. Nevertheless the shadow passed, like that of a small cloud chased away by a westerly wind. It seemed that Charles Tucker was willing to let bygones be bygones, and it was a fair bet that he still impulsively held out the hand of friendship to passing strangers. "Hey, how're you doin'?" he asked warmly. "Did they ever catch those guys?"
"I never saw anything about it on the news, sir." This was perfectly true; what had happened to at least some of his assailants had never featured on any news report. The Section was far too subtle for that.
Malcolm had remembered by now that Tucker had made a passing reference to 'Jon' during his visit to him in hospital. Taking a calculated risk that 'Jon' and his new commanding officer were one and the same person, he glanced aside to Captain Archer, who was wearing an expression of interested surmise on his lean face. "I believe you were aware that Commander Tucker here came charging to my rescue when I was attacked some years ago, sir."
"I remember it. So that was you, hey? I hope they didn't hurt you too badly."
"I was only in hospital for a few days." He turned back to his new senior officer and carefully assumed an expression that mingled apology and friendliness. "I believe I didn't express my appreciation as fully as I should have done, sir. By the time I was out of sedation you'd gone, and I wasn't in a position to trace you to make good the omission."
The half-truth evidently completed the restoration of Commander Tucker's good humour, and banished even the memory of what had in all likelihood been a fairly fleeting sense of ill-feeling over the Brit's curmudgeonly ingratitude. Provided with a plausible excuse, he was more than ready to forgive and forget – a fact demonstrated by the readiness with which he pulled out the chair next to his and invited the new arrival to sit in it.
Time had been when Malcolm would have felt some mild sense of shame for having taken advantage of the Southerner's readiness to believe the best of others; life in the Section, however, had done much to blunt that particular facet of his conscience, among others. He'd learned that concealment was the way to survive, and if he was to establish himself here in this new environment he couldn't neglect anything that would help him to create bonds of trust between himself and his superior officers – trust on their part, anyway, if not on his. It would probably be some time until his new persona felt natural to him, since it had been so long since he thought or spoke or acted in this way; until then he would have to feel his way cautiously, still as much an undercover agent as he had ever been in the Section.
"Here, this is probably the best place to start." The commander pulled the top PADD from a heap of them – the desk was piled high with PADDs and schematics. "Take a look through these and see what you think."
It was set up ready for his security thumbprint to be registered; obviously what it contained was highly sensitive material. As he pressed his thumb to it and saw the thin green lines pass quickly across it, a spark of genuine excitement lit in him. This was the first step, the first sign of acceptance, the first small nudge of his prow towards a new voyage. He looked at the captain, waiting with a smile for him to begin reading, and at the chief engineer, already absorbed in another PADD of what looked like warp field calculations. For better or worse, he was now a part of the crew of the USS Enterprise.
And who knew where she would carry him?
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