Enterprise – The Maiden Voyage
by Soledad
Fandom: Star Trek – Enterprise
Genre: Action-adventure, Alternate Universe
Rating: T, for now
Series: None really, though this can be considered as the pilot to a couple of Alternate Enterprise stories.
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry, first and foremost, and secondly whoever happens to have the rights at the moment. It's hard to follow. I don't own anything, just a few secondary characters and the alternate plot idea.
Introduction
I came relatively late to Star Trek: in the late 1980s, if fact. It took TOS that long to find its way to us, behind the Iron Curtain. And though I was already familiar with other sci-fi series, namely the original Battlestar Galactica (the one and only for me), Space 1999 and The Time Tunnel, I was instantly hooked. And to the current day, TOS has remained and will always be my absolute favourite. Despite the cardboard sets, the silly costumes and the often less than stellar writing. Because the stories and the characters were awesome, even though I could never warm up to Captain Kirk.
I liked The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine on their own. I mourned Voyager's many wasted possibilities. I was ambivalent towards the TOS-movies and hated the TNG ones, especially what they did to Zefram Cochrane in "First Contact". I didn't even bother to watch "Nemesis". I'm only telling this so that you can understand where I come from.
When Enterprise was announced, at first I had high hopes. Those, however, didn't last beyond the pilot. I was terribly disappointed by the whole series. It took me four tries to actually watch all of it, though there were a few things that I really enjoyed. Very few of them.
So, if you intend to read this story (which would delight me no end), here are a few serious warnings:
This is a canon AU, meaning that I take TOS canon as my rule of orientation and adjust Enterprise events to that. Which means a different view on certain events, characters and species. Like Zefram Cochrane or the Vulcans, for example.
Although I've adopted some events and a certain amount of onscreen dialogue from the series pilot, this is not a novelization of "Broken Bow". That has already been done professionally. This is a different story that won't even include any Klingons. Because, let's be honest, Klingons have been done ad nauseam, and I wanted something new.
While I work with the canon command staff, I've made some background changes, and I've also recast Captain Archer. In this story, he's called Jack and is "played" by John Barrowman (because a hero ought to have a lot of charisma) and is a bit different personality-wise. Something between Jonathan Archer and Jack Harkness.
Crewman Daniels has been promoted to Petty Officer, is the quartermaster of the ship and "played" by Gareth David-Lloyd. Other Torchwood-inspired original characters will make short appearances, just for fun. If such changes are not to your liking, please do us both a favour and hit the Back button, now. Otherwise – enjoy!
Beta read by the wonderful and generous LoyaulteMeLie, whom I owe my gratitude. All remaining mistakes are exclusively mine.
Chapter 01 – Pre-Launch Complications
It was the Earth year 2151. The TSA – NX01* starship Enterprise, based off Terra, the third planet of the Sol system, was about to leave the orbital spacedock, preparing to become the first Earth ship that would reach – and hopefully exceed – warp 5. Careful preparations had been underway for the big test for quite some time.
The humans were ecstatic, of course, and who could have blamed them? They had been waiting for this moment for almost a century – practically since the day they had made official First Contact with the Vulcans. But not everyone was happy to see them boldly go out to the stars; and some of the naysayers were more powerful than any human might have suspected.
Nor were they necessarily the people whom the humans had suspected. Which did not make the work of the mediators any easier, to put it mildly.
In the voluntary isolation of his office in Sausalito, Ambassador Soval of Vulcan was looking out into the barren gardens of the compound, beautiful in their naked simplicity. This particular complex of buildings, which served both as the Vulcan embassy and the general headquarters of the large Vulcan contingent on Earth, was strongly reminiscent of an ancient Vulcan monastery.
A fortified one.
Only its gardens – well, some of them at least – had been inspired by a small slice of human culture, namely, Japanese stone gardens.
Many of the Vulcans dwelling on Earth in some official capacity found them well-suited for meditation purposes. That they also reminded them of their hot and arid home planet was something they never discussed. Homesickness was an emotion and therefore utterly illogical. No self-respecting Vulcan would ever admit indulging in it. Few of them would ever admit, even to themselves, that logic wasn't the ultimate answer to everything.
Soval himself was one of the few who – reluctantly – accepted that sometimes a different approach could be more efficient. Especially when dealing with other species that were not as devoted to logic as his fellow Vulcans. In his more than thirty years on Earth, and before them several decades as an intelligence officer, he had met many aliens who were steered by different motivations and still managed well enough.
It would have been illogical to expect them to give up their time-proved ways and follow the Vulcan path, even if it was vastly superior.
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations – that was the principle Surak had taught his people; and personally, Soval thought that this principle should be followed when dealing with other species.
Needless to say, many other Vulcans did not agree with his opinions. His own diplomatic attaché, S'toss, was, unfortunately, rather narrow-minded and regarded humans with the deepest contempt.
Given that S'toss was quite new on Earth, Soval could not really blame him. Humans were everything Vulcans were not – loud, rude, illogical, highly emotional, quarrelsome and often shockingly violent. One had to spend much time with them – and keep an open mind – to realize that they could just as easily be generous, brave, curious, adventurous, loyal and occasionally surprisingly insightful. Sadly, there was little chance – about 9.63 per cent, in Soval's estimate – that S'toss would ever come to the same realization.
Sometimes Soval had the impression that he was fighting a war on two fronts. Dealing with the prejudices and self-proclaimed superiority of his diplomatic attaché was almost as exhausting as enduring the absurd accusations of Starfleet – the military branch of the Terran Space Agency – that Vulcans were deliberately hindering their deep space exploration program by holding back much-needed information.
If they only knew! If they had the slightest idea who was really behind all those hindrances and why! But, of course, the very reason for using Vulcan mediators was to keep the humans unaware of the true forces that had been struggling for dominance in the recent decades.
Ignorance was truly a blessing in this particular case, as it kept them uninvolved and therefore safe.
Unfortunately, ignorance also led to resentment. The humans wanted to leave their cradle behind, wanted to go out to the stars and see the wonders of the universe. It was in their nature to do so, and all they could see was that the Vulcans would not allow them to follow their dream.
As a result, Vulcans were not the most popular people on Earth; not that they would want to win such a ridiculous contest. Still, that resentful attitude did not make it easy to make the humans listen to reason. Not even for their own good.
And now they were about to launch their first warp 5 ship. Once they had done so, they would be unstoppable… unless one wanted to bomb them back to the Stone Age. They were quite the invincible species that thrived on challenges, and once on their chosen path they rarely backed off.
The Viseeth were not happy about it. But there was nigh to nothing they could have done to stop humankind.
His doorbell rang. He did not need to glance at the clock; his inner timer told him that T'Pol would be coming to fetch him for their shared evening meditation in the garden.
"Enter," he said, expecting his science attaché to walk in.
Instead, it was S'toss who stood on the threshold.
"Ambassador, we have a problem," he said without preamble, his deeply lined, ascetic face grim. "Gerasen Gerasal has returned – but the humans have them."
Soval blinked. Repeatedly. This was indeed unexpected – not to mention highly alarming. Humans were not supposed to have any contact with the Viseeth. Not yet. Not for a long time yet.
"Give me details," he ordered, sitting back at his desk.
With the usual Vulcan efficiency, S'toss did as he had been told, and the ambassador's mood would have hit rock bottom, had he allowed himself such frivolities. Being a Vulcan of spotless discipline, he merely closed his eyes for a moment before calling his aide and ordering a ground vehicle.
He would have to go to Starfleet Medical and try to make the Joint Chiefs of Staff to see reason – an undertaking the success of which he calculated a 34.7 per cent possibility.
And that was a very optimistic calculation.
In the orbital spacedock above Earth, the brand new starship Enterprise was undergoing the finishing touches before her maiden voyage. For Captain Jonathan Archer – Jack for his friends(1); a group that included ninety per cent of all people who knew him, unless they were Vulcans – it was a childhood dream come true.
His father, Henry Archer, had been the primary developer of the first warp engine capable of reaching warp 5 and one of the principal designers of the Enterprise-NX01. Jack had learned how to build model starships by the age of eight and had not lost the dream for the stars ever since.
Henry Archer, together with Dr Takasi and other scientists, had become a close co-worker of Zefram Cochrane in developing the warp 5 engine. When Cochrane, bitterly disappointed by the constant meddling of the Vulcans that had prevented him from making the dream of his life reality, had returned to Alpha Centauri VII on board a visiting Centaurian ship, Henry Archer took over the leading of the project. For years the two had exchanged messages, but then came the news that Cochrane had left his home planet, destination unknown. He was never seen again (3).
Henry Archer had died from advanced Clarke's Disease in 2124, robbed of the chance to actually construct his engine, as the Vulcans had continued to hold back the development of the warp 5 program. But now his son was finally on the verge of fulfilling their shared dreams.
Jack Archer was a tall, imposing man just beyond forty, with the right height and breadth to fill out a uniform – any uniform – most flatteringly, with boyish good looks, spiky brown hair, vibrant blue eyes and more even, blindingly white teeth than any man should legally be allowed to own. He also had the matching charm to go with those devastatingly good looks and was generally considered the 'poster boy' of Starfleet.
At the moment, though, he looked considerably less imposing, cramped as he was into the tiny cockpit of an orbital inspection pod, together with his closest friend and chief engineer, Commander Charles Tucker III – a Southerner in his early thirties, who was known to use his off-beat humour to disarm people.
Tucker, simply called Charlie by almost everyone, was a head or so shorter than Jack and more lightly built – a blue-eyed blond, with a slightly mischievous face, and the best engineer since Zefram Cochrane himself. Or so people said, and he agreed with that statement without false modesty. He might not have been part of the team that had constructed the warp 5 engine, but he certainly knew it inside out. Well enough to take it apart with his own hands, blindfolded, and put it together again.
This, however, did not prevent him – or Jack, for that matter – from exhibiting a sense of wonder and excitement as the orbital pod approached the spacedock, revealing thus a small section of what would soon be their ship.
The Enterprise. The first Earth-built starship that would go beyond the speed of warp 5; the speed necessary for real, honest-to-Earth deep space exploration. Their key card to the stars.
Tucker steered the pod so that it would fly along the underside of the hull, and they both looked up through the ceiling portal of the pod to admire the section they could see.
"Ventral plating team says they'll be done in about three days," Charlie commented softly.
Jack nodded. "Be sure they match the colour to the nacelle housings," he said. "I want a good-looking ship; a real beauty."
Charlie laughed. "You aiming to sit on the hull and pose for some postcards?"
Jack cut a heroic pose and grinned from ear to ear. "You think I couldn't pull it off?"
Charlie just shook his head and kept laughing. "You're so vain!" he said.
Jack shrugged. "What can I say? It's a gift." Then he became serious again, still looking upwards to inspect the hull once more, and his expression softened visibly. "God, she's beautiful!"
"And fast," Charlie added with a proud grin. "Warp four point five next Thursday…"
"Neptune and back in six minutes," Jack said, awed. "Assuming you're mad enough to go to warp inside a solar system.(4)"
"Zefram Cochrane did, with his first warp engine," Charlie pointed out.
Jack made a grimace. "Yeah, and nearly blew up the sun in the process," he reminded his friend. "He conveniently forgot that Earth is a lot closer to its sun than his home planet. And that was by warp 1! Let's just stick to impulse until we've cleared Jupiter; I'd prefer to leave both the ship and the planet intact."
"Where's your sense of adventure?" Charlie teased.
"I misplaced it on my fortieth birthday, apparently," Jack said. "Can we take a look at the lateral sensor array?"
"Give me a sec," Charlie whipped the control throttle to his left with flourish… with a little more flourish than strictly necessary. The orbital pod rolled steeply to a ninety-degree angle as it continued along the side of the hull.
Jack looked a little queasy – as a spaceship pilot he was used to larger cockpits where he could stretch his legs, at least, and could fly the vessel himself. He definitely didn't feel comfortable in such a tiny vessel. Charlie knew that, of course, and enjoyed his friend's slight discomfort. He wasn't a mean-natured man, but he liked to bring Jack's overconfidence down a peg from time to time.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were afraid of flying," he grinned.
Jack shot him a baleful look. "If I'm afraid of anything, it's the scrambled eggs I had for breakfast."
"Pretty soon you'll be dreaming about scrambled eggs," Charlie said darkly. "I hear the new resequenced protein isn't much of an improvement."
"Don't worry," Jack replied. "My number one staffing priority was finding the right chef. I think you'll be impressed by Crewman Williams. And I happen to know that our quartermaster brews the best coffee on the planet. It's a marvel."
Charlie rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "Your galley's more important to you than your warp core. That's a confidence-builder."
"A starship runs on its stomach, Charlie," Jack said absent-mindedly; something had caught his attention. "Slow down. There. Those are the ports that buckled during the last test. They need to be reinforced."
Charlie nodded, grabbed a stylus and a PADD and made a note. With his hands off the controls, the pod drifted slightly towards the Enterprise, until it bumped gently into the hull.
Charlie winced. "Sorry."
Jack craned his neck to inspect the point of impact.
"Great! You scratched the paint," he complained in the accusing tone of an automobile aficionado whose beloved oldtimer had just been damaged. Before Charlie could apologize again, however, the comm. unit chirped.
He tapped a control. "Orbital Six."
"Captain Archer, sir?" a comm. voice asked. A very nervous voice.
"Go ahead," Jack said, with the sinking feeling of impending doom.
He was soon proved right.
"Admiral Forrest needs you at Starfleet Medical right away, sir", the nameless voice told him, obviously relieved.
"Tell him we're on our way." Jack broke the connection and looked at his friend and chief engineer unhappily. "What do you think this could mean, Charlie?"
"There's only one way to find out," Charlie replied philosophically.
Rhys Williams could barely believe his luck when the official note from Starfleet arrived, informing him that he'd been selected as Chef for the brand new, experimental warp 5 ship. Not that he wouldn't be up to it – on the contrary. He was a bloody gifted cook, if he might say so himself. And why shouldn't he? It was the truth, after all.
And that turned out to be a disadvantage. The brass wanted him at Headquarters all the time, to enjoy his excellent cooking themselves. Especially as he had established himself as an expert of alien cuisine early on. Even the Vulcans declared his cooking "acceptable", which was the greatest praise one could expect from them.
But Rhys Williams hadn't joined Starfleet, hadn't left his native Wales, hadn't resettled to bloody San Francisco to stay there. He wanted to see the stars, dammit, to see new worlds, meet aliens in their own environment, not just at diplomatic events on Earth.
Now it seemed that his long-nurtured dream would come true. His Tad and his Mam were excited about the news and very proud of him... though also a bit worried. Sadly, Charys – his long-time girlfriend – found this the last straw and broke up with him, saying that a long-distance relationship that counted in light years instead of miles was simply not her thing and she was fed up with his 'daft obsession' anyway.
Rhys didn't really mind. This meant he was free now, and no force on Earth could keep him grounded any longer.
He was undeniably nervous as he went down the corridor connecting the Enterprise with the spacedock. At the end of it he was stopped by an armed guard in a Starfleet uniform, who asked his name and his business there. Once he handed over his IDC, he was finally admitted into the ship.
"Quartermaster's office's on Deck D, Section 4," the guard told him, explaining the shortest way to get there.
On his way down he couldn't help noticing that the ship still made a somewhat unfinished impression. The walls were bare steel, no paint on them, the floors weren't carpeted at all... and Captain Archer wanted to launch in three days? Rhys sincerely hoped that the engines were in a better shape.
Reaching the quartermaster's office, he knocked and was called in. Behind the unmarked door was an almost claustrophobically small room with barely any furniture in it; unless once considered a fully computerized desk, a rolling chair and an old-fashioned coffee machine – the latter proudly displayed on its own small table, together with other coffee-making paraphernalia – as furniture.
A surprisingly young man with a round, friendly face, observant blue eyes and a slightly upturned nose sat behind the desk, his uniform as crisp as if it had just been freshly laundered and pressed, every single lock of his brown hair in neat order. Upon Rhys's entering, he put away the stylus he was working with on a touch-screen and rose.
"Crewman Williams, I presume," he said with a friendly smile and extended a hand. "Welcome aboard. I'm Petty Officer Ifan Daniels."
He had the same soft Welsh lilt in his voice as Rhys himself, which surprised the newly minted chef. In his four years in San Francisco he had never met a fellow Welshman.
"You're Welsh too?" he blurted out.
Petty Officer Daniels grinned. "Born and raised and damn proud of it, yeah. Lately from Cardiff but actually born in Newport. And you?"
"I hail from Bangor but lived in Cardiff for a long time, too," Rhys grinned right back. "Man, that's great! You're the first landsman I've ever met here. Are there more of us aboard?"
"Just Crewman Cooper from Maintenance, but she's from Swansea and doesn't actually speak Welsh; not much anyway," Daniels explained. "And then there is Lieutenant Reed, who's English to the marrow of his bones and nota particularly sociable bloke. Seeing that he's the chief of security that probably isn't a bad thing; though he does seem to have a stick up his arse. Or more likely an iron rod," he added with a grin.
"That's the English for you," Rhys nodded sagely. "I'll stick to my actual landsmen, then. I s'pose you and me'll get to work together a lot."
"Quite often, in fact," Daniels replied. "I'll be dubbing as the Captain's personal steward, too."
"How's that?" Rhys asked in surprise.
Daniels shrugged. "He likes my coffee. I offered him a cup, he called it 'orgasmic' and declared that my talents are wasted in this office. I think if commanding officers still had manservants he'd draft me for the job."
Rhys frowned. "He fancies you? Ain't there rules against that sort of thing in the 'Fleet?"
Daniels laughed. "I don't think he does. As far as I can tell, he flirts with everything that has a pulse; it's like breathing for him, but one doesn't need to take it seriously. I think he regularly drives the Vulcans mad with it,"
"That's hardly something we should worry about," Rhys said. "Not on this ship."
"I'm not so sure," Daniels said thoughtfully. "If I've learned anything about Vulcans, they're nothing if not persistent; and sneaky. I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to put one of them on the ship. So you better freshen up your vegetarian recipes; you might end up preparing veggies on a daily basis."
"Are there other vegetarians among the crew?"
"A few that I know of. But unlike Vulcans, they're willing to eat fish. I'll give you a list."
"Do Vulcans require a completely vegan diet all the time?"
"Yes. They refuse to kill other living things to eat; or so they say."
"But plants are living things, too," Rhys pointed out. "What's the logic in that?"
"Apparently, Vulcan logic draws the line at life forms that can run away or fight back," Daniels commented dryly. "Don't ask me."
"I won't," Rhys said agreeably. "I'd like to know about galley staff, though."
"Crewman Cunningham will be your full-time aide," Daniels told him. "He isn't the gifted cook you are but has worked both on ship's galleys and in planetary barracks for six years and has managed to get on with everybody and not to poison anyone. The rest of your staff will rotate between the stewards and maintenance; menial tasks don't require trained personnel."
Rhys nodded in agreement. "All right. I'll settle in my quarters, which will take about ten minutes; then I'll take a look at the galley. Doing the inventory and stuff."
"Inventory lists have already been transferred to the galley terminal," Daniels said. "I'll send you the list of vegetarians and other specific requirements, like known food allergies, shortly."
"Known favourites would be helpful, too," Rhys said.
"I'll look into it," Daniels promised. "Right now I can only tell you that Commander Tucker is very fond of pecan pie."
"That's a beginning," Rhys promised. "Thanks, Petty Officer."
"The name's Ifan," Daniel corrected, smiling. "Or Ianto, if that's what you prefer. We're Welsh; we ought to stick together."
"That's hardly appropriate towards a superior officer," Rhys said, concerned.
Daniels shrugged. "I'm a non-comm, just like you. There's no need to stand on ceremony." He handed Rhys a PADD. "Here's everything you'll need for the first time. For anything else, just ask me. I know everything. That's my job," he added with a wink.
When Jack reached Starfleet Medical, an aide took him immediately to an ICU anteroom: a dimly-lit chamber with a large window looking into an IC room of the highest technical level the institution had to offer.
On the biobed the most unusual creature was lying, unconscious, with countless tubes and monitoring devices attached to its slender body. Despite not wearing any clothes, it didn't appear naked, because its dark mahogany skin was covered with an elaborate pattern of meandering white lines and patches. Besides, it did not have any visible external genitalia. A small team of doctors and nurses were busily tending to it while two armed security guards in Starfleet uniforms stood watch.
In the anteroom, a heated discussion was taking place upon Jack's arrival, between three Starfleet officers and three alien dignitaries. A fourth alien – startlingly similar in appearance to the patient in the ICU room, but wearing some kind of uniform – was standing in the background, as if it were a mere observer.
Jack recognized the three officers as Admiral Maxwell Forrest, Admiral Daniel Leonard and Commander Williams (not even remotely related to his newly hired galley chef, of course). The flowing robes, pale skin and pointed ears of the three dignitaries revealed them as Vulcans. One of them was Ambassador Soval, a well-known fixture at Starfleet Headquarters whom Jack had known since childhood, and he had already met the ambassador's new aide, a completely humourless guy named S'toss. The third one, a coldly attractive woman, was unknown to him.
And he had never seen one of these unusual people before, with their strangely flecked and patterned skin. They looked like they were covered in giraffe hide... or cow, more accurately.
Jack entered the observation room just in time to hear Commander Williams, a handsome, middle-aged, olive-skinned man with jet-black hair, demanding angrily:
"Who was chasing him... her... whatever?"
"We do not know." Soval, like most Vulcans, could have been of any age between forty and a hundred and eighty, but his iron grey hair revealed that he had most likely passed two hundred already. Vulcans rarely started greying before hitting their second century.
Unless it was a premature effect, caused by the stress of his current assignment, that is.
"They were incinerated in the methane explosion, and the farmer's description was vague at best," he added.
Admiral Leonard found that answer less than satisfactory, if the redness of his round face was any indication.
"How did they get here?" he insisted. "What kind of ship?"
"They were using some kind of stealth technology." S'toss, the ambassador's aide, had a hollow, deeply-lined face and looked, in fact, older than Soval, despite his still black hair. "We're still analyzing our sensor logs."
"I'd like to see those logs," Commander Williams said with deceptive calmness. Jack knew better, though. Williams represented Starfleet Intelligence and counted as one of the most dangerous people on the planet.
Ambassador Soval seemed mildly agitated by the idea, shooting the quiet observer in the background an uneasy glance.
"The Viseeth made it very clear that they want us to expedite this."
"It happened on our soil!" Admiral Leonard's already flushed face became an alarming shade of red, and his moustache trembled with ill- concealed anger.
"That is irrelevant," S'toss replied stiffly.
Admiral Forrest, who had listened to the debate with a certain level of resignation, found it prudent to intervene before his colleague completely lost it and wrung the Vulcan aide's scrawny neck... or something like that. Not that it would have been such a great loss, but it would have led to all sorts of diplomatic problems.
"Ambassador, with all due respect, we have a right to know what's going on here," he said in a calm, even voice. "This is still supposed to be our planet. We need to be able to protect ourselves from a possible invasion."
"You'll be apprised of all pertinent information," Soval said, looking vaguely offended.
Commander Williams gave him a thin, wintry smile.
"And just who gets to decide what's 'pertinent' information?" he asked mildly.
Jack chose this moment to stroll into the observation room and nodded at Admiral Forrest in greeting. "Admiral…"
The conversation stopped and everyone turned to him.
"Jack." Forrest nodded back in obvious relief. "I think you know everyone."
"Not everyone." Jack walked to the window and looked down at the intricately patterned creature on the biobed. Then he looked at the similar being in the background, and finally at the Vulcan woman. "Care to make the introductions, Admiral?"
"Subcommander T'Pol is a science attaché to the Vulcan contingent headquartered in San Francisco," Forrest explained.
The Vulcan woman nodded in greeting, which Jack simply returned. There was no use wasting his charm on one of the pointy-eared icicles. He'd learned that the hard way long ago.
"And the… patient?" he asked.
"It's a Wisent," Admiral Leonard said, making a face as if the word left a bad aftertaste in his mouth.
"A Viseeth," S'toss corrected with an ill-concealed sneer.
Leonard shrugged in indifference. Jack looked from the patient to the alien in the background, then back at the admiral, questioningly.
"Where'd they come from?"
"Oklahoma," Commander Williams replied laconically.
Jack's jaw hit the floor with an almost audible thud.
"At least our patient here does," Admiral Forrest explained. "A corn farmer named Moore shot her with a plasma rifle. Says it was an accident."
Jack looked down at the patient again. "Her? That's a woman?"
If it was, she certainly lacked some significant bits of female anatomy.
"Man… woman… neither, actually… or both," Commander Williams said. "It's all the same with them. We decided to refer to them as she; it's easier that way."
Jack whirled around and glared at the commander in suspicion. "You've met these people before?"
"Not directly." Williams shot the quiet observer in the background a glare of unabashed disdain. "They're not the most forthcoming people. They prefer using Vulcan mediators in their dealings with other species. We've heard of them, yes, but this is the first time I've actually seen one."
"Be grateful that Ambassador Soval and I have maintained close contact with Berengaria VIII since the incident occurred," S'toss said haughtily.
"Berengaria VIII?" Jack echoed. The name sounded vaguely familiar, though he was quite sure that no Earth ship had ever been there.
"Apparently, it's the Viseeth homeworld," Williams told him.
"This gentleman… lady… whatever… is some sort of courier," Forrest added. "Evidently, she was carrying crucial information back to her people."
"When she was nearly killed by your farmer," Soval commented pointedly.
There was a short, uncomfortable silence, then Admiral Forrest cleared his throat. "Ambassador Soval thinks it would be best if we put off your launch until we've cleared this up," he said carefully.
"Well, isn't that a surprise?" Jack drawled with a wide, unpleasant smile. "You'd think they'd've come up with something a little more imaginative this time. After all, they've been playing this game all my life."
Soval did that… thing with his eyebrow Vulcans usually do; that thing that suggested an eyeroll without actually rolling his eyes.
"Sarcasm aside, Captain, the last thing your people need is to make an enemy of the Viseeth Assembly," he warned.
Jack had the impression that he meant it.
"If we hadn't convinced them to let us take the corpse of their courier back to Berengaria VIII, Earth would have much bigger problems to face than our so-called 'meddling'," S'toss added nastily.
"Corpse?" Jack repeated with a frown. "Is she dead?"
He didn't wait for an answer, walking to the door leading to the ICU instead. He opened it and signalled to one of the doctors, who approached readily enough.
"Excuse me," Jack said to the doctor, a humanoid alien in hospital garb, with a high forehead and ridges running up from the outside of his eye sockets. Is this… creature dead?"
The alien doctor shrugged, not questioning his security clearance in the matter.
"Her autonomic system was disrupted by the blast but his redundant neural functions are still intact, which…" he began with a slight, distinctive accent, but Jack interrupted him.
"Is she going to die from these injuries?"
The doctor shrugged again. "Not necessarily."
"Thank you, that's all I needed to know," Jack turned back to the observation room to challenge the Vulcans directly. "Let me get this straight... you're going to disconnect this… person from life support... even though she could recover. Now, where's the logic in that?"
"We're doing no such thing," Soval replied coldly. "The Viseeth need the information this person is carrying. A member of the Assembly has come to extract that information telepathically. In the circumstances, there is a ninety-six point seven probability that the process will have a lethal effect on the courier. Unfortunately."
"And you'd let them do it?" Jack asked in shocked disbelief.
"We do not condone it," Soval said tonelessly. "But it is their decision. If you understood the complexities of interstellar diplomacy you would…"
"So that's your diplomatic solution?" Jack interrupted, his temper rising. "To close both eyes and let them do what they want? Allow this other one to take the patient's mind apart and throw the rest of her away like a broken, empty shell?"
Unlike Soval, who seemed decidedly uncomfortable with the solution, S'toss remained completely unfazed. "Your metaphor is crude, but accurate."
Jack gave him a smile full of teeth – the unveiled threat in it would have made a Klingon flinch.
"We may be crude, but at least we don't condone murder!" He turned to the Starfleet brass. "You're not going to let them do this, are you?"
"The Viseeth demand immediate access to the courier's mind," Soval said. "They also want the body back, without delay."
Jack ignored him, glaring at Forrest instead. "Admiral?"
"We… may need to defer to their judgement," replied the admiral carefully. "They've been dealing with the Viseeth for a long time and know them better than we do."
"We've been deferring to their judgement for a hundred years!" Jack snapped. "They've held back our space exploration with flimsy excuses from the start."
"Jack!" Forrest tried to soothe him, but Jack had had enough. He knew he was crossing the line but he couldn't help himself.
"How much longer?" he demanded. "How much longer are we letting them dictate us what we may or may not do on our own damn planet?"
The Vulcan science attaché gave him a cold, judgemental look. "Until you've proven you're ready," she said.
Jack bit back his usual reply 'I've been born ready' as the Vulcan probably wouldn't have understood the innuendo anyway. The pointy-eared clowns had no sense of humour.
"Ready to what?" he asked with an unpleasant smile.
She looked up to him through her impossibly long eyelashes. For a supposedly unemotional Vulcan it was an almost sensual gesture. Almost.
"To look beyond your provincial attitudes and volatile nature," she replied in a condescending manner.
"Volatile?" Jack laughed. He stepped closer, deliberately violating her comfort zone and took unashamed delight in her discomposure. "Sweetheart, you have no idea how much I'm restraining myself from knocking you on your pretty ass." He enjoyed her discomfort a moment longer, then he turned back to the admirals. "These… cow people are anxious to get their courier back? Fine. I can have my ship ready to go in three days. We'll take her home... alive. What the others do with her afterwards is their decision."
Soval gave him a glare that was, surprisingly enough, more worried than condescending. "This is no time to be imposing your ethical beliefs, Captain Archer."
"At least we still have some," Jack retorted, "despite being all barbarians in your eyes."
Forrest, ignoring them both, turned to Admiral Leonard. "What do you think, Dan?"
Leonard, too, seemed more than a bit unsure.
"What about your crew, Jack?" he asked. "Your communications officer has to be replaced. You haven't even selected a science officer or a CMO yet".
"Three days, that's all I need," Jack said confidently.
The Vulcans seemed fairly alarmed by this; Soval particularly did not seem to believe what he was hearing.
"Admiral..." he began to protest, but Forrest was very obviously fed up with all that Vulcan interference.
"We've been waiting nearly a century, Ambassador," he said. "This seems as good a time as any to get started."
"Listen to me!" Soval insisted, a bit more agitated than it would be strictly acceptable for a Vulcan. "You're making a mistake!"
Jack couldn't hold back any longer. The laughter simply bubbled out of him. Actually, it was more than just laughter; it was, in fact, a high-pitched, fairly embarrassing giggle.
"When your logic doesn't work, you raise your voice?" he taunted the Vulcan. "Obviously, you've been on Earth too long."
As the Vulcans left with annoyed huffs – well, the blank-faced Vulcan equivalent of it anyway – and with their silent observer in tow, Admiral Forrest turned to Jack with a gleam in his eye that had not been there before.
"I had a feeling their approach wouldn't sit too well with you," he said with a crooked smile.
"You did it deliberately," Jack realized, his wide, white grin reaching his eyes for the first time. "You counted on this result, that's why you called me in!"
The admiral laughed. "Guilty as charged."
"You're a sneaky bastard, sir," Jack declared with pure admiration.
"I am," Forrest admitted readily. "I'm as fed up with this constant Vulcan meddling as you are. But Jack… this is probably the most important mission in the history of Starfleet. The first time we really get out to the stars on our own. Don't screw this up."
"I won't," Jack said simply.
"Good," Forrest nodded. "Now, off with you and get ready; you've got an awful lot to do and only three days to get it done. We'll keep the… err… patient safe for you."
"May I ask, Captain, who's your current choice as a communications officer?" Commander Williams asked softly in the last moment.
Jack, nearly out of the door, turned back, his jaw set. "Hoshi Sato," he replied promptly.
The intelligence officer shook his head. "Impossible. Choose somebody else. There are plenty of good linguists in Starfleet."
"Yeah, but none of them is an exolinguist who speaks thirty-two languages, including several Vulcan dialects," Jack pointed out.
"None of them sits in prison for high treason, either," Williams reminded him.
Jack shrugged. "There were extenuating circumstances. They had her mother!"
"You can't have a felon as a member of your senior staff, Jack!" Admiral Leonard said, frustrated.
"Yes, I can," Jack returned. "If you folks had her records wiped clean."
"Why would we want to do that?" Williams asked reasonably.
"Because she's the best," Jack argued. "She can instinctively understand the syntax of the oddest alien languages and has an ear more sensitive than the best instruments. I need her."
Forrest shook his head. "It won't work, Jack. Not even if we pulled all strings we can. According to reports, she's developed severe claustrophobia in prison."
"Being shut into a windowless two by three metre cell for an indefinite time could do that to a person," Jack commented dryly.
"And you think she'll be able to endure shut into a spaceship for years?" the admiral asked doubtfully.
Jack shrugged again. "A spaceship is a helluva lot bigger than a prison cell."
"It won't be easy to pull those strings," Williams warned. "Starfleet Intelligence doesn't take high treason lightly. My superiors may have their problems with the very idea."
"And rightly so," Jack allowed. "In this particular case, however, you can use the Vulcans as a pressure tool. Soval has worked with her during the Klingon crisis and was impressed by her abilities… well, as impressed as a Vulcan could ever be by a lowly human."
"I doubt Ambassador Soval would lie for us, saying he requested Sato as part of the mission," Forrest commented dryly.
"That's not necessary," Jack said. "The point is, she's used to working with Vulcans. She speaks their main dialects; and should they plant a spy on board for our first mission somehow, if this person tries to send secret messages to the Vulcan High Command, Hoshi will find and decrypt them. We'll need that advantage."
"She's not a decryption specialist," Williams said.
"Not officially, she isn't," Jack agreed. "But her grandfather used to be one, and he taught her and her brothers a good deal. Against her extraordinary hearing, not even a Vulcan will have a chance. And she worked on the updated version of the universal translator for a long time, and can work around any bugs the thing might still have."
The admirals knew that Jack was right. That still didn't mean it would be easy to haul Hoshi Sato out of prison. High treason was a serious offence, no matter the motivation. Still, a compromise should have been possible here.
"If we do this, she won't get back her rank," Forrest said. "She'll have to start from the bottom again, as a lowly Ensign."
"I think that will be the last of her concerns," Jack said dryly.
"And she'll have her freedom restricted," the intelligence officer added. "To the ship and wherever else duty calls her. Nowhere alone. And no contact with her family, especially with her mother, except recorded messages that will be thoroughly examined before sending them."
"By whom?" Jack asked.
"By the intelligence officer we've already assigned to this mission." At Jack's attempt to protest, Williams raised a hand to stop him. "Be reasonable, Captain. Due to the fairly delicate nature of this mission you will need an intelligence officer on board."
"And you just happen to have a candidate," Jack said bitterly.
"We do," Williams admitted, indicating that he was speaking for his superiors, too. "One who's a trained security officer, an excellent marksman and knows more about the weapons systems of your ship than the engineers who've built it. You've chosen well, Captain."
Jack stared at him in confusion – until realization hit like a brick wall. "Lieutenant Reed? He's one of you?"
Williams nodded. "We all started at Starfleet Security. He'll do a good job."
Jack hesitated for a moment, but he knew that in the end he'd have to give in. Besides, an intelligence officer he knew was better than any spies they might plant on his ship without his knowledge.
"All right, I understand," he finally said. "And I'm sure Hoshi will, too."
"I still can't promise anything for certain," Williams clarified. "Section 31 will have their concerns; and rightly so. But I'll do what I can. You'll have my answer within two hours."
~TBC~