This is a three-chapter short story (almost complete already) that insisted to be written. But I plan to get back to finishing The Forest.

xxx

New York City Police Department - December 10

Police officer: "Please state your name and address for the record."

ZefledOnne: "My name is ZefledOnne Williams, I live at 345 Ketass Street in Kensington Heights, Brooklyn."

Officer: "Can you go over the events of December 7."

ZefledOnne: "December 7?"

Second police officer, sighing: "The reason why you're here."

ZefledOnne: "You mean, the Vulcan?"

Police officer 1: "Yes, the Vulcan."

ZefledOnne: "Well, I told you already. Me and my posse, we walking down the street, looking for some excitement. You know. Someone nice to talk to or to spend the night with. So JoovahnTwo, he sees this chick walking on the other side of the street. So we figure we're gonna cross over, go talk to her, friendly-like, you see what I mean?"

Police officer 2: "Yeah. Yeah, we see."

Scraping of chair. ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man. And then ThreeOhJackson, he says "that's a Vulcan". And JoovahnTwo, he says "A Vulcan?", so we gonna to see."

Police officer 1: "So that's why you crossed the street?"

ZefledOnne: "Well we wanna see a Vulcan up close. Never seen one of them people. Be'er than some washed out pro who gives more lip than you want. And she was a looker too. But it wasn't like that."

Police officer 1: "What do you mean 'it wasn't like that'? It wasn't like what?"

ZefledOnne: "The woman part."

Police officer 1: "So what were you planning to do? Say hi and go on your way?"

ZefledOnne: "I dunno, man. We just lookin' to have some fun. Play with her, make her scared or some shit like that. Like we laugh about how scared she is later."

Police officer 2: "So you crossed the street."

Police officer 1: "Because she's a Vulcan. Then what happened?"

ZefledOnne: "Well we cross over and she just walks on. Like she ain't scared. So JoovahnTwo and ThreeOhJackson, they block her way, make her pay attention, show some respect."

Police officer 2: "And what do you do?"

ZefledOnne: "I ain't blocking nobody. I just standing there in the street."

Police officer 1: "You're standing in the street so she cant' step off the curb."

Silence.

Police officer 1: "Speak louder, I can't hear you."

ZefledOnne: "She could'a turn back."

Police officer 1: "Because there's nobody behind her? Of course there 's someone. Who's behind her?"

ZefledOnne: "SpoofyBoyOne. But I swear we ain't gonna hurt her."

Police officer 1, sarcastically: "You're just four guys surrounding a woman, nobody's gonna get hurt, right?"

Police officer 2: "So what happened?"

ZefledOnne: "She keeps walkin' like she ain' scared but we're in the way and then she says 'Please let me through.' That's when ThreeOhJackson, he ask 'You a Vulcan?' And she go 'Yes, am a Vulcan.' And then SpoofyBoyOne, he been hitting the bottle, he just gets up in her face and starts screaming 'You aliens killed my uncle in Florida! He was my uncle!' And she look at him, real calm, and she say 'These were Xindi, not Vulcans.' And SpoofyBoyOne, he goes 'Well, an alien's good as another, so long as they dead.' And he punches her real hard. Then she folds and I think she gonna fall for sure, but the next thing she grabs his leg and he on the ground. Then things go nuts."

Police officer 1: "Nuts how?"

ZefledOnne: "Like she attacks us."

Police office 1: "She attacks you?"

ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man. We just defendin' ourselves."

Police officer 2: "Against a woman half your size?"

ZefledOnne: "I know, that crazy, right? But you should'a seen it, man. We try'n keep her from hittin' us but we can't lay a punch on her."

Police officer 1: "You can't lay a punch on her? I though you were defending yourselves?"

ZefledOnne: "We was! Takes all of us. But then ThreeOhJackson he grab her and JoovahnTwo he hit her in the face."

Police officer 2: "Is that how she got hurt?"

ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man. Her face is all green and bloody. A freakin' nightmare."

Police officer 2: "Then what happened?"

ZefledOnne: "She put a knee and I think she down. But then she grab JoovahnTwo's foot and he start hollerin' like a baby."

Police officer 2: "And then what?"

ZefledOnne: "Nothing! This dude comes from across the street. So we split. "

Police officer 1: "You split? Just like that?"

ZefledOnne: "Yeah, man, we jus' leave. Two'f us have to help JoovahnTwo. He hurtin'. He holdin' his ankle and cussin' her out."

Police officer 2: "Well, that cor-ro-bo-rates what your friends told us."

Police officer 1: "Hear that ZefledOnne? It means it's the same thing."

ZefledOnne: "See, I ain't lying. Can I go now?"

Police officer 1: "Well, you're not going anyplace for a while there, buddy. Hate crime and stuff."

ZefledOnne: "Crime?! Ah didn't kill nobody! And she only an alien."

Police officer 1: "Yeah, that's what hate crime means. Your bad luck is she's one of those aliens who helped save Earth from the Xindi."

ZefledOnne: "Hey, I dunno that! Nobody did. We never see them dudes down by where I live."

Police officer 1: "Well, sorry, wrong time, wrong place, wrong victim."

ZefledOnne: "Come'n, man! Can we make a deal? I want a lawyer."

Polifce officer 2: "You already talked, Zefled. What d'you think a lawyer's gonna do for you?"

ZefledOnne: "I dunno. Make a deal?"

Police officer 1: "For that, you'd have to have something we want. And you don't."

xxx

Three days before. December 7.

Peter Kristoffson closed the office door behind him, stepped into the cold wind of December, briefly checked the time. Close to 2 am. Another long night in the office, too long by half, unless one counted the hours he had spent out at dinner with his friends before he came back to finish his work and look to his bosses like he had been up all night. Still, these days were too long, nobody should have to work that hard.

He could have taken a hovercar but decided to hoof it, the night was clear and it would be a welcome break from all those hours looking at a computer screen. He took his usual shortcuts towards his apartment, enjoying the sounds of his steps echoing through the empty streets.

The commotion on the other side of the street slowed him down somewhat, but he brushed it off as a drunken brawl. Still, as he got closer, the brawl looked somewhat one-sided. Pretty quickly, he figured that several large guys were attacking a single smaller one. It was only as he came near that he did a double-take. It was not a smaller man but a woman.

One of the men hollered. Peter was crossing the street at a diagonal before he even fully thought of it, calling on the fighters to stop what they were doing. The men started running down the street, the last one hobbling between two of them.

A lone figure remained on the sidewalk. Peter saw that it was the woman. He walked over to check on her. She had some paint on her face. "Are you okay?" As he asked, he realized it was blood tricking down her face, saw the ears, she was a Vulcan.

Peter had learned in school that one didn't touch Vulcans. In cany case he had a hunch that getting too close right then might endanger his physical integrity. He stopped where he was, close enough, but careful not to make a movement towards her. "Are you all right?" She looked at him as if she didn't see him. She blinked once, then said something in Vulcan. He looked at her in confusion, unsure what to do next.

"Are you all right?" He asked again. A cold burst of wind swept by them and she winced as if she had been struck. He noticed she was shivering. He also saw that her top was torn off on the side, from top to bottom. Without thinking, he took his coat off and put it around her shoulders, somehow managing to avoid contact.

She blinked again, nodded once. "Thank you." Perhaps she stopped shivering or he could no longer see it under the coat.

"I called 911." He said. He got the feeling perhaps he shouldn't have, that somehow she would have preferred he didn't. He felt vaguely guilty but he wasn't sure why.

His thoughts were interrupted by a police cruiser gliding to a stop next to them. Two officers came out, stopped short when they took in the scene of him next to a bleeding Vulcan. Another police glider slid in behind them and another two officers came out. Peter realized things might look like he was at fault, he quickly raised his hands. "Hey, I had nothing to do with it!"

The first officers converged on the Vulcan while the other ones took him aside, asking him questions about what happened. He saw one of the officers escort the woman to the waiting cruiser. She was limping.

"Hey, it's my coat!" He told the policeman who had been talking to him. The man looked behind at the woman gingerly getting in the police car. "Don't worry, we have your name and address, the coat will be returned to you."

Another brisk burst of wind accompanied his words. Peter stood there, in the cold, thinking that good deeds never went unpunished, ruing the overcoat he had just plunked a week's wages on.

xxx

T'Pol - December 7

The meeting had gone on a lot longer than planned and the city streets were mostly deserted, only a few shadows moving around. Most were long in bed or in their shelter. She tucked her neck lower inside the formal robe, the weather was above freezing for Humans and well below any acceptable average for Vulcans.

T'Pol turned the corner, she had mentally mapped the most efficient way to the shuttleport. She would get there just in time for the last daily shuttle to the Mississippi belt where Trip was visiting his parents. The temperature there would at least be acceptable and the ambient humidity within the Vulcan parameters.

Their first travel to that part of Earth to visit Trip's family had been in summer, when she had found the level-setting of the home conditioners unpleasantly cold and the pleasant outside high-summer temperatures came with a level of humidity that was unhealthy for a Vulcan. Since then Trip had been told that her visits to his family would only take place during the winter months, he was otherwise free to go spend time with them as often as he wished. Not that the opportunities abounded, they seldom found their way back to Earth or to Vulcan. She would get to the shuttleport in three minutes and forty-two seconds. There was no need to hurry her pace.

She saw the group of men across the street, shadows in the shadows of the night, she judged from their height and heft that these were men. It would take twenty seconds to walk past them, there was no need to adjust her projected route to avoid them.

She did register a modicum of surprise when they crossed the street to her side, loosened her limbs under her robe. Aliens were unpredictable.

Quickly they were in her way, blocking the sidewalk from all sides, one creeping behind her. From the voices, she judged them to be young males, by far the most dangerous age cohort among Humans. She shifted her weight slightly as she came to a resting stop in front of them, ready to call at a moment's notice on suus mahna defensive moves. She couldn't see their features very clearly in the dim light of the street lamps. They could have a rational reason to be barring her way and she politely asked them to give her passage.

The man ahead to her left spoke first, asking her if she was a Vulcan. When she affirmed she was, the man behind her became agitated. She turned to him to explain the Xindi had destroyed the Floridian peninsula, with the inference that she being a Vulcan was not a Xindi and that therefore she was not one of the ones who assaulted their planet. She had not expected the ensuing blow, low and to the left, that left her short of breath and doubled over. She almost fell but she quickly surmised that falling would make her vulnerable and that the people around her would not hold their blows for vulnerability. Instead, she grabbed the man's leg in an Ahn-Swarn-Marek move and flipped him to the ground.

There was a moment of surprise as the men saw their companion hit the ground. Unfortunately, her fighting back had enraged them and they converged on her. She left the empty robe in the hands of the second man, deftly rolled down and away while kicking the third one back. They all made to grab her and she pushed them back in a flurry of chops and kicks. The one she had thrown first had crept back behind her. Her thermal suit ripped as she escaped his hold. The next man got a hold of her arm and for a few seconds she was kept immobile. Long enough for the first man to strike her hard across the face. The blow landed right on her eye and a field of stars invaded her vision. She went down hard on one knee. They let go of her in reaction to the downward motion and she grabbed the ankle of the one who struck her, lifting and twisting hard.

He howled as the ligaments in his ankle strained at an unnatural angle. In the next moments of confusion she got back to her feet, breathing hard. Suddenly there was a call from across the street. "Hey, wha'ts going on?" The men looked up, realized they were no longer alone, and fled, helping the one still bent over his ankle.

The other man approached from across the street, she could only guess at his shape, dots of lights were obscuring her vision. He said something incomprehensible. "Stay where you are." She warned him. She raised a palm outward to let him know not to come to near, especially not to touch her, aware she was that the Vulcan adrenaline coursing through her body would lead her to attack if he did.

Somehow, either because he knew about Vulcans or because the sight of green blood shocked him, the man kept his distance. "Are you all right?" He asked.

"I will be fine." She carefully allowed for the fact this Human many not be with the other men. A gust of wind blew past them and she shivered, the rip in her thermal suit had destroyed its temperature controls. All of a sudden the man took off his overcoat, put it on her shoulders. "Here this will keep you warm." She would have protested but the comfort of the harsh wind being cut off from her skin silenced her.

"Thank you."

"I called the police." She looked up sharply at him, even though she could hardly see him. Her preference would have been not to. She quickly calculated how much time the fight had lasted, she could still have been at the shuttleport in time. The intervention of the police would delay her arrival at Trip's parents'. Any thoughts of requesting a corrective call were shuttered by the police cruiser who pulled alongside the curb. Two patrolmen pulled out of the vehicle, coming over to her.

"What happened?" That was addressed to the man standing next to her, the tone suspicious.

"I have no idea." The man replied. "I was going home when I saw people fighting in the street."

"M'am?" The other patrolman asked her.

"Four men tried to block my way. They became violent when I told them I was a Vulcan."

"I'm sorry about that, m'am. We need to take you to the emergency room." The second patrolmen opened the back door of the cruiser. T'Pol knew once she stepped inside and they ran her ID chip through the system, alert messages would automatically go out to Enterprise in orbit around Earth and to the Vulcan embassy. There would be investigations, depositions and reports. She would miss the flight. She would have to alert Trip as soon as she her vision fully came back.

T'Pol walked towards the cruiser, limping from the pain in her side. She gingerly lowered herself into the backseat. She suddenly looked at the coatless man on the street, made a move to get out again. "The coat..."

"Not to worry," the policeman stopped her. "We'll take his information and you can send it to him."

The patrolman closed the door, walked over to the other side and sat in the back with her. The Vulcan synaptic system screamed to her that they planned to kill her, drive to a deserted place and dispose of her body. It took all her rational mind to prevent her from attacking the policeman.

The sound of the doors locking almost overwhelmed her synaptic framework. She saw the policeman lean towards her, a chloroform-soaked handkerchief in his hand. Before she could snap his neck, her rational mind adjusted that he was handing her a tissue. "Here, m'am. You're bleeding." He motioned to his mouth with his hand. She dabbed the handkerchief on her lips, looked down at the green smudges on the white fabric. She hadn't realized she was bleeding. She looked over at the man again. Her synaptic system had already laid out how she would disable him with a blow to the jugular, pull his weapon and shoot the control panel, open the door and jump through traffic to safety. The stress of trying to maintain control gave her a splitting headache.

She handed her IDchip to the other policeman and he ran it through Central Computer. Almost immediately two discrete alerts went out, one to the Vulcan embassy and the other to the Enterprise emergency intervention list. The policeman in the front seat turned to her. "My apologies for what happened, Mrs. Tucker. We're taking you to the Interspecies Emergency Room right now." He turned on the siren, swiftly making an about-turn in the street.