Chapter Three

It turned out that Captain Kirk was among the first members of his crew to transport over to the NX-01. But the first one off the transporter pad was neither the Captain nor a repair tech. He was a doctor if Archer was to guess as the first thing out of the Human man's mouth was a demand to know where the sickbay was. He was loaded down with equipment and the man and woman who followed him (both Human and wearing the same color blue tunics as part of their uniform as the doctor was) were loaded down with large boxes. "Malcolm," Archer snapped out and ordered him to take the man down to sickbay with a toss of his head. There was no way that he was going to turn down medical help, especially medical help that was much more advanced than what was available to Phlox.

"This way sir," Malcolm wasted no time. He too understood what a difference a doctor from a hundred years in the future could do. And right now Phlox needed the help. Although they did not have heavy casualties, there were several crewmen who had been seriously injured when bulkheads had crumpled with the impact. That part of the ship was sealed off now and had most of the engineering crew working on repairs.

While Archer and Malcolm were busy, another man came directly up to Trip. "Commander Tucker, I'm Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer. You can call me Scotty. Our scans showed that your engines are off line as well as the damage we did to your lass's hull. The next group over are hull specialists. They'll have her hull fixed as fast as is mortally possible."

"Call me Trip," he said as he shook hands with the other engineer. "Are you sure your ship is going to be alright without you? Not that I don't welcome the help, but I don't want to pull you away if your ship needs you." He was going through the motions even as he made the offer because he already knew the answer. He knew that look on a man or woman's face. The man was itching to get his hands on Trip's engines. His mother might have raised him as a gentleman, but his father was the one who had raised the engineer.

"Ach," Scotty waved the politeness aside. "All we've got to do over on my lass are a few run of the mill repairs. Now, an off line engine from another universe, that's a challenge!" Grinning in complete understanding the two left the transporter room and Archer heard Trip call down to Engineering for a guide for the repair crews that would be transporting momentarily.

Shaking his head at how quickly the room had been emptied of four of the six people transported, Archer turned back to the two men who were left. Both wore the black boots and pants that seemed to be the standard for the uniforms these people wore but while one wore a blue tunic similar to the doctor and his two people, the other wore one in a gold color. The one in gold was Human; the one in blue was Vulcan. Archer wondered who they were. "I'm Captain Archer," he said as he held out his hand to the Human.

"I'm Captain Kirk and this is my First and Science Officer, Mr. Spock," Kirk said as he shook Archer's hand.

"Welcome on board," Archer said and nodded to Mr. Spock. He never could get his hand around the sign native Vulcans used to greet and say good bye to one another, but he had learned that a polite nod could work as well.

As they greeted each other, the engineering ensign assigned as a guide to the 1701's repair crew entered the room. Just after the woman entered the room at a run, the first repair crew transported over. The inevitable shuffling happened, the repair crews heading for the damaged decks and Archer taking Kirk and Spock up to the situation room. None of the men were surprised to find T'Pol there and waiting with both the casualty and damage reports.

While Kirk and Archer were prepared to settle down and go over the reports, Spock did something that surprised the rest of the group. He greeted T'Pol as a member of his immediate family. Although she was surprised at his actions, T'Pol returned the greeting, crossing her hands at the wrist and pressing her palms to his. The contact was enough for both telepaths to learn that they were of the same family, within the same bloodlines and clan. It also gave Spock information that T'Pol would need to know if she was to survive. It only took a moment for him to share the information with his bondmate. Kirk gave Spock the faintest nod to tell him that he would come up with something before the small group dove into learning as much as they could about the current situation.

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While their scientific and engineering crews were so busy, Captains Kirk and Archer were sitting in the Federation's Enterprise mess hall having lunch. They knew better than to get in their officers' way. "A federation of different planets structured in a similar manner to the old United States," Archer said as he shook his head. "That sounds a lot like something I'd like to see happen here." He glanced one more time around the mess hall, checking out the crew members. While only two members of his crew were alien, here the numbers were far higher. They even had an alien that looked like nothing more than a giant pan pizza made out of rock to him!

Jim Kirk grinned, knowing what he was thinking as he looked at the Horta Ensign who was currently dipping a burnt out something or other into something that Jim didn't want to look at too closely. It wasn't that he was squeamish, just that he tended to wonder what things aliens were eating tasted like. Scotty had a deal with the medical department that oversaw the crew's diets. Any metal or alloy parts that he couldn't salvage went to the Ensign. His diet was made up of metals and lacked certain elements that couldn't be replicated. "His name can't be pronounced by humans so we call him Jake. He thinks it's funny."

Archer shook his head. "And T'Pol says that our universes are so close that the only difference she can find is that I have a different cook on board my ship than the one your Captain Archer did?"

Kirk nodded as he took another bite of his sandwich. "That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. We know that we aren't in our own past. We also know that certain things are going to happen in your future because the events that led up to those events haven't changed from our universe to yours." Kirk sighed, this wasn't easy to talk about both because of Vulcan rules of privacy and because he was meddling. If the consequences weren't so dire he wouldn't have said a word. But he and Spock couldn't sentence T'Pol or Commander Tucker to death because of information that they didn't have, information that the men from the Federation did have. McCoy also had the necessary skills to correct the upcoming situation.

"You are going to lose T'Pol and Tucker," Kirk decided to just stick to the facts and let Archer think what he would. "Their deaths seriously undermined the effort to establish our Federation. It took a valiant effort on the parts of the respective diplomats to correct the damage done. They died because they are bondmates. That is; they are married in the Vulcan fashion by a permanent mental bond. When one half of a bonded pair dies, quite often the other dies as well from the shock."

"Are you sure that this is going to happen to my T'Pol and Trip?" Archer interrupted urgently. They were both friends of his and he didn't want to lose them. He didn't want to lose any of his crew period.

Kirk nodded. "Spock is not only one of the strongest telepaths on my ship he's also one of the strongest to ever leave Vulcan. He's also T'Pol's great grand nephew, her older sister T'Pau's grandson. He's more aware of the history between those two than most people. He personally checked to see if your two were bonded and they are." Kirk waved off the objection he could see forming. "He didn't have to invade their minds or privacy to check. Bonded couples give off a kind of resonance in their mental signature. He picked up on it when he and T'Pol greeted each other."

"Now, they don't know about it because this is the first time a non-Vulcan has ever formed a spontaneous bond with a Vulcan. It is very rare but it does happen. There are less than a handful of bondmates in the current Vulcan population that I am aware of that have bonded due to spontaneous bonds. T'Pol and Tucker need to go and see a Vulcan healer as soon as you can get them to one. He or she will be able to establish that the bond is a spontaneous one and not one that T'Pol established deliberately. That is the one piece of information that needs to get back to Vulcan and to Earth; that it was something that happened because their minds are especially attuned to each other."

Archer shuddered. He didn't want to think about what would happen if anyone thought that T'Pol had deliberately bonded with Trip. She was in enough trouble with her people for just wanting to stay on the Enterprise instead of leaving to get married. "There are still so many bigots out there," he whispered. He knew that there were as many Vulcans that didn't approve of Humans as there were Humans that didn't approve of Vulcans. Oh they said it differently, couching their bigotry in isolationism and other such political stances, but it came down to the fact that they just didn't like the fact that the other existed. It wouldn't surprise him a bit to find out that someone of either race had killed both Kirk's Trip and T'Pol for daring to get married.

Kirk wasn't surprised that was the conclusion that Archer had jumped to. He remembered what the political climate was in this time from his history classes at the academy. As long as Archer was thinking about the political reasons he wouldn't bother to ask about Vulcan biology which had been the cause of his Commander Tucker and SubCommander T'Pol's deaths. Separated by the distance between their two home planets and unable to get to each other, T'Pol had died from an unconsummated Pon Farr, the Vulcan mating cycle. Not that it would have helped if they were in the same house either, as a Vulcan female could not complete the Pon Farr until she conceived a child.

According to McCoy, that was not an option with the state of this universe's current medical technology. Vulcan/Human hybrids, such as Spock, had to be genetically engineered in a lab. McCoy not only had access to the necessary technology, he also had the necessary skills as he had consulted frequently with the doctors who had made Spock possible. As the first Vulcan/Human hybrid to reach physical maturity, Spock was considered to be the first success of the genetic engineering of hybrid offspring.

"How am I going to lose them?" Archer wanted to know.

Kirk shook his head. That was something he didn't want Archer to be thinking about. "I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to tell Commander Tucker myself. Spock is telling T'Pol right now. The only reason you were included at all is that you are their Captain. They need to hear this from us. As I said, Spock is family and as I'm Spock's bondmate I can talk to Tucker about what it means to be bonded to a Vulcan better than they can."

Archer started in surprise. "The two of you are bondmates?" While he had noticed that the two men had an exceptional rapport, something he envied, he hadn't thought that either man was involved with the other.

Kirk smiled, that was a frequent reaction when he had to explain his and Spock's status. "It was something quite similar to the situation that T'Pol and Tucker find themselves in. Spock and I had to mind meld too many times in the line of duty. When his betrothal bond was broken our bond took over. As it saved Spock's life and I spend more time with him than I do anyone I might have married I don't think it is that bad a situation. The difference is that T'Pol and Tucker haven't melded and that the spontaneous bond took precedence over her betrothal bond naturally.

"Now, since my CMO has the skills they'll need, he's volunteered to do a check up on them to make sure that nothing is going wrong with the physical aspects of their bonding. That isn't really a primary concern but he can also take some samples and genetically engineer some children for them before we leave, as long as there aren't any unforeseen complications."

Archer was stunned. "He can do that?"

Kirk nodded. "The medical technology wasn't available in our universe until fifty years ago but in the last decade it has become quite common for starbases and the larger starships to have such medical tech on board, especially if there are people of mixed heritage serving in the crew."

"By mixed heritage, you mean people whose parents aren't the same species?" Archer asked as they got up to turn their trays in.

"Yes, it isn't common but statistically people of mixed heritage are more likely to go into space and even more likely to end up in Starfleet." Kirk placed his tray into the recycler and then led the way out of the mess hall. "Because of both their unique medical needs and the difficulty in meeting the various medical needs of more than a few species on any one given ship, Starfleet tries to make sure that our sickbays are as up to date as possible. Our doctors have also had to use the tech for other things such as engineering cures for alien viruses and the like."

"Well, I know that Trip would want to have a family if it was an option," Archer admitted. He also knew just how much in love his Chief Engineer was with his First Officer. What he didn't know was how much that love was returned. Would T'Pol reject Trip even with this Vulcan bond thing?