1. The Admiral
The debrief concluded, Gardner sent everyone out, motioning that Archer himself should stay. So Archer sat back down across the table from the Admiral, and waited to see what it was that Gardner wanted now.
"Jon, I need to know. Is there any truth to the rumors?"
Archer had no idea what Gardner was talking about. "What rumors?"
"The rumors that your first officer and your chief engineer are … romantically involved?"
Archer shrugged and shook his head. "Those rumors have been floating around since the Expanse," he said, feeling mildly annoyed to be dealing with this again. Still.
"But is there any truth to them?" Gardner insisted. To Archer's vexed expression, he said "Terra Prime may not have destroyed Starfleet Headquarters, but they did succeed in one thing: they drew a lot of attention to us, and have put us under a very uncomfortable media microscope. I very much doubt that you follow the tabloids, but we have people who do, and the stories about Starfleet's 'sexcapades' and speculation about exactly why the prim and prudish Vulcans disapprove so strongly of both Starfleet generally, and personnel exchanges like T'Pol's specifically, are … well, they're quite salacious," Gardner took up a PADD, and handed it to Archer. "Just one example."
Archer took the PADD. On it was the latest cover of the most well-known of Earth's tabloids, Untold Stories — redundantly taglined, "the stories no one else will tell!" A silhouette of Enterprise was overlaid with a badly mocked-up image of Trip and T'Pol in a ridiculously compromising clinch. T'Pol was arched backwards over Trip's arm with half-closed eyes, showing a disturbing amount of exaggerated cleavage, over which Tucker was leaning with a hungry expression. Archer was sickened to think that stoic and reserved T'Pol and good-natured Trip — both of them professionals, who had gone well above and beyond any reasonable call of duty many times, could be portrayed so. Underneath, the garish headline read "Aboard the Starship Intercourse!"
Archer shuddered. Why would anybody read something like that?
"We need to be able to make some kind of definitive statement on this," Gardner said, as Archer shoved the PADD and its offensive display across the table at him. "If there's any truth to the rumors, we may need to take some sort of disciplinary action against your officers. Something to address the lingering disapproval of Starfleet and our operations."
Archer just stared. Disapproval of Starfleet? By people who would be dead now, if not for his crew and their sacrifices? It was a good thing Paxton was in custody; Archer was suddenly angry enough to beat the man senseless. Maybe worse. And disciplinary action? Against Trip and T'pol — both of whom had received an assortment of commendations and medals as a result of their actions in the Xindi war, the incidents with the Augments at Cold Station 12, and later in dealing with the Klingons and their "plague," and in their respective actions that had prevented a war between Vulcan and Earth, and another between Vulcan and Andoria, not to mention bringing down the corrupt Vulcan High Command? Gardner was going to discipline those two officers over unsubstantiated gossip?
"Admiral," he began — and had to pause because his voice was shaking so badly — "Without Starfleet, specifically without Enterprise, and Commander T'Pol, and Commander Tucker, Earth and its tabloids would probably no longer exist! Moreover, those same two highly decorated officers have just been — in fact, they are still going through a horrific and very public ordeal engineered by a man vicious enough to suggest that that beautiful child — who was a clone, that neither of my officers had any role in creating — was an abomination? Do you really intend to pile on to those two people, right this minute over what are quite literally tabloid rumors?" Archer was trembling and spitting with fury. He was half-inclined, in the absence of any more suitable target, to knock Gardner on his ass. Which would likely entail some disciplinary action of its own. He gripped the table so hard that his fingers ached.
Gardner's expression softened, and he nodded sympathetically. "I'll take that as my answer," he said, rising. Archer stood up, too, stiff and abrupt. "Jon," Gardner said gently, "I had to ask. And I thought it better to ask you than either of them."
Archer was not placated. "Please tell me that you have no intention of burdening Trip or T'pol with these tabloid insinuations."
"Oh, they've done far more than insinuate," Gardner observed with a sigh. "But no, I do not intend to take the matter up directly with either Commander Tucker or Commander T'Pol at the present time. For now, I'll accept your word as their commanding officer that nothing untoward is going on. And I will deal with the media on that basis."
"Good," Archer said curtly. He turned on his heel and stalked out without being dismissed. He headed at first for the 602 club, before checking himself. It would not do Starfleet any good for its most celebrated officer to start a brawl in a bar, and he genuinely felt in danger of it right now. He turned instead for the nearest gym.
He needed very badly to punch something.