Chapter Two - She's NOT the 'Captain's Woman'!

Lieutenant Commander Kalinara Price was not one for attending celebrations. However, as she was third-in-command of the ship, she knew her presence was required. She'd met Commander Solak soon after coming on board, and was pleased to see that one of her two direct superiors was a Vulcan. No emotions meant no problems...no attachments. She was uncertain about the Captain, though; as she hadn't yet made his acquaintance, she didn't know what group to place him in. There was the "no need to fear" group (which all Vulcan crewmembers had been categorized in, as well as those crewmembers who were married and/or had families), then the "lovesick puppy" group (which consisted mainly of newly-minted Ensigns and the sixteen-year-old enlistees who got tongue-tied and stuttery at the mere sight of a beautiful young woman, no matter what her rank), or finally the "Mother may I" group (which was those crewmembers whom she thought would be prone to make lewd remarks and such about her behind her back, and who (off-duty) saw her nothing more than a sexual fantasy.

She'd grown to accept the countless appreciative looks that many of the male crewmembers bestowed upon her; she knew she was what they would consider, in old-Earth terms, a "looker", or, as she'd heard one crewmember put it, "extremely fine". Love was illogical; she'd decided long time ago...or so she kept telling herself over and over.

All that changed the moment she was introduced to Captain Jethro Thomas. He was maybe two or three years older than she, maybe six or seven inches taller, with brown hair and eyes the color of a storm-tossed sea. A flare of something she'd never felt before began in her abdomen, a warm, tingling sensation that spread into her chest and which seemed to make her heart beat faster...fascinating. She extended her right hand to her new Commanding Officer.

"Captain."

He took her hand delicately, as if he were treating a fragile piece of glass and he thought it might break, and shook it lightly, not like some of the other crewmembers of some of the other ships she'd served on, those who grasped her hand tightly in theirs and stroked the palm lewdly, all the while giving her gestures they thought were provocative, when she just termed them illogical and meaningless.

"Commander."

His voice sent a chill up her spine...not a chill of fear, a chill of something else. What it was, she had no clue, but whatever it was, it had been extremely...pleasant. His voice was soft, and had a certain accent to it; she was finally able to place it as that of the Southern United States.

For his part, just her saying that one word was enough to make Jett's knees weak. She looked like an angel, yet her voice spoke of calm, firm authority that he knew was not to be taken lightly. When he managed to regain control of his senses, she was staring at him, a human eyebrow raised in a Vulcan-like expression of 'this-human-is-behaving-in-a-highly-illogical-manner'. Before he could say anything, she spoke once more.

"If you'll excuse me, Admiral, Captains...I must return to my quarters and change. My bridge shift begins in twenty-three standard minutes."

Before Jett could say anything, she was gone. He turned to find Picard and also Captain Riker watching him. Picard's eyebrow was quirked, as if trying to determine Jett's reaction. Riker, on the other hand, had apparently already formulated his opinion of the situation, and was looking back and forth from Jett to the departing Kalinara with an ever-widening grin on his face.

Picard was about to say something when Beverly called his name and he rushed over to her. Both Jett and Riker watched, amused, as the normally stoic Admiral hovered over his pregnant wife like an anxious mother hen. Riker then turned away from the amusing scene and looked at Jett.

"Amazing, isn't it?"

Jett turned, confused.

"Sir?"

Riker grinned.

"That you could know someone for five minutes - not even that, in your case - and end up so enraptured by them it's incredible."

Jett looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're referring to, sir."

Riker's grin became a full-blown smile and he laughed at Jett's response.

"Sure you don't, Captain...sure you don't."

Jett rolled his eyes in defeat.

"All right, fine. Of course I know what you're talking about! But what can I do? I'm the Captain, she's my Second Officer! If we started a relationship (which I doubt she'd even be interested in to begin with), people might start referring to her as 'the Captain's woman', and I refuse to allow that to happen."

Riker seemed to concede that point, until Jett heard him say,

"You said she probably wasn't interested in a relationship. Well, what if she was?"

Jett rolled his eyes.

"Oh, please...she's at least part Vulcan. I'm not xenophobic at all, but I want a relationship with a woman who'd at least let me see her emotions."

Riker grinned.

"That's where you're wrong. She's not Vulcan. 'Kalinara' is a Romulan name."

With that, Riker walked off, leaving Jett with a lot to think about. He pondered over what Riker had said, and departed the reception as soon as command courtesy would allow, choosing to spend the rest of the evening in his spacious quarters thinking.

'Would I want a relationship with a subordinate?' he asked himself, as he gazed out his viewports into the construction spacedock.

'What choice do you have? It's not like anyone else on this ship wears four pips on their collar! You're the Captain...you have no equal on board!' a little voice in his head replied.

'Then again, would you not want someone like her?' a second voice piped up.

'Both of you shut up! I don't even know her!'

'But you'd like to know her...' both voices taunted him.

'ARRRGH!' Defeated, Jett got up and walked into his bedroom to change for bed. 'No,' he decided. 'I'm not going to pursue a romantic entanglement with her. She's my Second Officer...no more, no less.'

'Suuurrre she is...'

'Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!!!'

Jett flopped down on his bed and picked up a PADD with a 21st-century naval history book on it. It was one he'd been wanting to read for some time, but he'd never been able to find it in the database until now.

'Shattered Sun: The Untold Stories of the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf,' Jett read to himself. 'This should calm my mind for a brief period.'

With that thought, he immersed himself in the past, for he knew that sleep would be a long time coming this night.