—Chapter 03—

Two months later.

"Sir," said T'Pol from the Captain's Chair on the Ares, for she had hailed the Fleet Captain in his Ready Room, "we just dropped out of warp. We will assume orbit shortly."

"Andoria?"

"Unless you have changed our destination without my knowledge, sir," said T'Pol.

By StarFleet custom, if two or more captains were on board the same ship, the ship's captain retained the title, while the others were called sir: in any case, Trip was T'Pol's superior officer, so sir was appropriate on that score as well.

"Don't sass me, girl," said Trip softly enough for a Vulcan's ears, but the Andorian Comm officer heard his voice as well, and smiled: the working relationship of Fleet Captain Tucker and the Vulcan Captain of the Ares was atypical.

As Trip stepped on the Bridge, T'Pol just about slipped out of the Captain's Chair to take her station, then remembered that the Captain's Chair was her station now. Even a higher ranking officer would not sit in the Captain's Chair, while that ship's Captain was present, unless incapacitated.

The Ares's Tactical officer engaged the main video display, to give all a view of Andoria, an icy moon caught in the orbit of a beautifully ringed gas giant. They'd had to pass through a dozen Andorian patrols to get here, their identity verified not only by the Ares' transponder, but also by visual cues and verbal password checks. The Andorians took security seriously, with the Romulans still a threat.

The Comm officer requested permission from Ground Control to assume orbit around Andoria and it was shortly granted, along with an invitation that the Captain and his Vulcan mate should make their way to the Imperial Palace. Once there, they were shown to their rooms and then given the chance to refresh themselves, with a spa treatment. They declined.

"Very well," said their steward, "please let me know if I can be of service to you, Guardsman. His Highness will return to the palace tomorrow morning, but he asks that you enjoy his hospitality until then, Fleet Captain."

"Thank you," said Trip. "I understand that one of my shipmates, Lt-Commander Reed is staying here as well. Is he available?"

"He and Guardsman Talas are with his Highness, in Laikan. They've grown quite close. They will return with his Highness in the morning. Now, some food perhaps?"

—Hungry?, sent Trip to T'Pol through the Bond.

—No. Two, three hours?

"Could we hold off on that for a couple of hours?" said Trip.

"Certainly," said the Andorian. "You've been here before, so you must know that everything here is available around the clock. Let me know when you're ready, and I will see you taken care of properly, Guardsman."

After the man had left the room, T'Pol went to run a hot bath, while Trip poked around the well stocked liquor cabinet which came with the sumptuous room.

"I hope you'll join me for a bath," said T'Pol, poking her head into the room. "The tub is big enough for both of us. It is actually big enough for my entire Bridge crew, I think."

"Well, we're short the Bridge Crew, but we could squeeze some of the help in there, T'Pol. You could watch me diddle a chamber maid, while the maintenance man scrubs your back with a loufa."

The suggestion was ludicrous enough that T'Pol actually chuckled at it, then said, "Well? The bath?"

"What are you doing, T'Pol?"

"What do you mean, Captain?"

"Why are you just poking your head around the corner," said Trip with a smile, for he had his suspicions. "Come out from behind that wall, and ask me nicely."

"Very well," said T'Pol, and sure enough, she was nude, as he'd guessed: she assumed her at attention pose, and it was even better in the nude.

"Oh, yeah. You should walk around like that aboard the Ares, T'Pol. I believe it would improve crew morale. Let's make it a rule, Captain."

"Let's not, sir," said T'Pol. "I would catch my death of cold in short order. Now, will you join me?"

"Yes," said Trip, a bottle in his hand, as he walked towards T'Pol.

—What is that?

"I have no idea, T'Pol, but it smells great, and it's a bit thicker than normal liquor, which intrigues me."

"Why?"

—Because I'm going to baste you with it like a Thanksgiving turkey, sent Trip through the Bond.

"That seems like a waste of the Emperor's liquor, Trip."

"Not a drop will be wasted, my fine Vulcan Captain," said Trip, and sent a mental image to T'Pol, of her luscious breasts dripping with liquor, and him lapping it off her skin like a thirsty pup, causing T'Pol to blush.

—Oh my, sent T'Pol. You know, Captain, if you imbibed all your liquor like that, I wouldn't mind if you drank every night, even if I ended up an alcoholic by proxy.


"Trip!" said Malcolm, as Trip and T'Pol entered one of the smaller dining rooms. "Get over here, you bastard!"

Trip and Malcolm met in the middle of the room and gave each other a big hug, accompanied by some enthusiastic back slaps. This was the first time they'd seen each other since the start of their four month leave.

"Missed you, Malcolm," said Trip, pulling back to look Reed in the eye.

"Same here, Trip!"

Talas looked at the two men askance, then at T'Pol, and said, "I fear that we will each lose our man, Captain. Malcolm never gets that excited to see me."

Though T'Pol was privately amused by the spectacle, she said, "I was just thinking the same thing, Lieutenant."

"What are you two hens clucking about?" said Trip.

"Can't a man be glad to see a friend?" said Malcolm.

"Look at you, Malcolm," said Trip, looking at a well rested and well groomed Malcolm. "You're living the life of a pampered pooch!"

"You have that right," said Malcolm, smiling at Trip, then looking past him to Lieutenant Talas. "And I'm enjoying some other benefits as well, no Lieutenant Talas?"

Talas was just about to give Malcolm a tart reply, when Talrood entered the room, which ended things so far as Talas was concerned. Talrood walked up to Trip and they grasped forearms, in the manner of the Guards.

"I apologize for the wait," said Talrood, gesturing towards the table, "but I'll make up for it with a good brunch. It's good to see you and your mate again, Brother."

"Thank you," said Trip.

T'Pol said, "Likewise, Highness."

"Congratulations on your promotion, T'Pol," said Talrood. "You are without a doubt the loveliest captain aboard any of my cruisers."

T'Pol gave a slight bow to acknowledge the compliment and Lt-Commander Reed said, "Well deserved, Captain. I hope you've decided to retain me aboard the Ares. It would be an honor to serve under your command."

T'Pol nodded in a manner which Malcolm took as her agreement with his request.

"Will Elarann be joining us?" said Malcolm, turning to the Emperor.

"No," said Talrood, "so let's eat."

The food was served and for the next hour they ate, peppering their food with friendly conversation. When the plates were cleared and a last dish placed before them, Trip was taken aback its appearance, a deep purple block of some kind of cake, covered in marble sized black balls, and leaking a thick white sauce. Malcolm showed no such hesitation, and tucked into the dish with the gusto of a greedy pig digging for truffles.

"Malcolm?" said Trip.

"It's scrummy," said Malcolm.

"I don't know what that means, you British bastard! Should I put this shit in my mouth, or not?"

"Yes, yes, yes," said Malcolm.

Trip understood Malcolm's piggishness when he took a tentative bite, for an explosion of sweet fruit flavor saturated his taste buds, only to be cleansed and refreshed by the pleasantly bitter taste of the black balls, and then the bitterness soothed by the rich, sweet, cream sauce which reminded him of vanilla, coconuts and brandy.

Talrood smiled. Maybe a hundred chefs on all of Andoria could build this dish properly, and his was the best. Ten minutes later, the table was cleared, coffee, tea or wine was offered and then Talrood wordlessly passed a PADD to Trip.

Trip read through the particulars over the course of a minute, then said, "This is madness!"

"No, Brother," said Talrood, "this is your mission."

"I'm sure that everyone involved in this decision realizes what happens," said Trip, "if we screw this up, no?"

"It would be best not to do so," said Talrood, "but in any case, I don't believe we'll be any worse off, than doing nothing. So, to use your vernacular, we're throwing a Hail Mary."

"May I?" said T'Pol, reaching for the PADD.

"Don't bother reading it, T'Pol," said Trip, pulling back the PADD. "I'm sure that I'm being punked."

"Punked, Captain?" said T'Pol.

"Someone is playing a prank on me, kitten," said T'Pol, looking at both Malcolm and Talrood with a jaded eye. "I just don't know which of them is the mastermind behind this thing."

"I can see why you would think that," said Talrood, standing. "Come, let me show you."


"The Battle of Vulcan was really a treasure trove for us all," said Talrood, now seated in a conference room aboard the Andorian battlecruiser Slij-Te-Ka, the large wall monitor showing the ship's progress through space.

"I mean, here we had the best technology of the Romulans and the Xindi delivered to us personally in the form of hundreds of ships, blasted to pieces, sure, but many of them suffered damage which killed the crew, yet left some large enough parts of the ship intact," said Talrood. "I'm discounting the Orions and the Nausicaans here, for that criminal filth had nothing to teach us."

"While the Black Wind was off on its seven month pleasure cruise through the Romulan sector," said Talrood, "thousands of Vulcan, Andorian and Human workers were working round the clock, gathering in every bit of useful wreckage aboard large cargo ships, where the wreckage was evaluated and the juicy parts of their technology was transported back to Vulcan to be replicated, and then dispersed to the Humans and the Andorians. Sure, most of it was in pieces, but we found dozens of complete, if not working examples of almost anything we needed, or recovered enough pieces to put something together. We already had a Romulan cloaking device from that ship the Volares captured in its tractor beam when the Black Wind destroyed that Romulan shipyard with towed asteroids, but now we have new metal alloys, new weapon designs, new starship drives, and one more thing. Can you guess what it is?"

No one spoke up, so Talrood said, "In the wreckage of the Xindi ships, we found a new form of faster than light propulsion, a subspace vortex technology which allows the Xindi travel great distances, at much faster speed than even our best warp drives. That's why the Black Wind did not come across any Xindi on the way to the Romulan sector. The Xindi out sprinted you once they decided the fight was no longer in their interest, and a trip to the Delphic Expanse that would take us three months or so, was completed by the Xindi in a matter of hours."

"And we have that drive now?" said T'Pol.

"Yes, T'Pol. We are all producing them now, mostly for our first tier battlecruisers, but they'll eventually filter down to our second tier, the frigates, and perhaps even our third tier, the destroyers, eventually. There's even talk of producing full fledged battleships if this war goes on long enough, which will put our battlecruisers to shame."

"I'd love to be part of that,"said Trip, "from a professional standpoint. The engineering going into something like that would be challenging. But I'm sure the engineers told you that if you want battleships you'll have to start them now. It would take two to three years to build something like that."

"It's a shame you turned out to be such a good Fleet Captain," said Talrood with a smile, twisting the knife in Trip's back, "or you'd no doubt be one of StarFleet's technical representative on a project like that."

"Yeah," said Trip, depressed now.

"Cheer up, Guardsman," said Talrood, and commed the ship's Bridge.

"Yes, Highness?" said the captain of the Slij-Te-Ka.

"Engage the subspace vortex drive and take us to our destination," said Talrood, and motioned that Trip should turn his attention to the wall monitor, "and then let's give our guests an overview of the situation."

"Yes, Highness," said the captain, and a moment later, a subspace vortex opened up and the Slij-Te-Ka entered subspace in order to reach a far off destination.