"Jonathan" Admiral Duprovski was not happy "You presented your science report to the Verklaevs over three weeks ago. There is no point delaying Enterprise departure anymore. Your excuses are getting to be both flimsier and more transparent."
Archer smiled though his eyes could have sliced through the figure talking to him on the vidscreen. "I have not been making excuses. Everything I have asked for has been in order to foment a positive relationship with the Dalgorts."
Duprovski sighed. He should have known Archer was going to make this difficult. He looked at the padd in front of him "Let's see, where do I start" he said. "'Request to remain in orbit until the Verklaevs present the report to the Overarching Council in case there are additional questions.' You know that Starfleet has no interest in the inner political workings of Dalgort. We were asked to provide a report, we did. If your officers had come back aboard as planned, you would have turned around and left." He raised a hand when he saw Archer looking like he was going to speak "Please, spare me the explanations. Starfleet was accommodating enough to grant you that request, in light of circumstances, on an exceptional basis." He looked up from his padd "That means once in a blue moon, not every time, in case you were wondering" he threw at Archer. He went back to his padd "What do we have next… ah, yes… 'request to remain in orbit while the Overarching Council reviews the report, in case there are questions'. You might as well have repeated the first request." He leaned into the vidscreen "If there are questions, the Council and the Verklaevs know how to call Starfleet, don't they?" He pushed back into his chair again "But Starfleet granted the request. So now the Council has reviewed the request, and what do we have" Duprovski made a show of reading the padd "'Request to remain in orbit in case the findings are disputed by the Nints'." He glared at Jonathan through the vidscreen "We know the Nints are going to dispute the report." He sighed" Starfleet has been very patient so far, but we only have a handful of NC-class starships flying around a huge galaxy and we can't have Enterprise parked around one planet because two of its officers disappeared during a mission. I'm sorry, Jonathan, but this is it, you have to let go. And don't bother presenting another request through channels, it will be automatically denied."
The two men glared at each other through the vidscreen. Archer's mouth was a thin line. He forced himself to speak levelly "Perhaps we can come back after our next mission."
Duprovski shook his head "I'm sorry to inform you that per Starfleet policies Commander T'Pol and Ensign Sato will be declared presumptively dead in another two weeks. Your next mission will last longer than that. Enterprise won't be coming back to Dalgort unless one of its people requests it and it is the closest ship around. I wouldn't count on coming back."
Archer briefly closed his eyes. He was well aware of Starfleet policy and didn't expect anything more – or less – from them. He had to ask the question that had been burning in his mind since the day T'Pol and Hoshi went missing. "Does Commander Tucker know?" he asked.
Duprovski looked blankly back at Archer "I don't see why Starfleet would inform a Commander of the disappearance of another Commander. Your new orders are on their way. Duprovski out" and he cut off the connection.
Archer sat looking at the dark screen. It took a few seconds for the full impact of what Duprovski had said to dawn on him. The dissembling bastard! Archer was filled with white hot anger for the bureaucrats at Starfleet. Not that he had ever much liked them, but this was taking it too far. So Starfleet was going to play both sides of that game, uh? Unofficially accept that Trip and T'Pol were a couple, and then when things went south, officially disclaim any knowledge and walk away. Of course, since they had never officially stamped the relationship, there was no trace in Starfleet records that it ever existed. And they were going to stick by that story. The bastards.
On the other hand, he couldn't deny part of him was relieved they were not going to tell Trip. If they did, he could well imagine the chief engineer temporarily dedicated to the warp seven project on the other side of the galaxy drop everything and find his way to Dalgort, to a diplomatic incident, and to a court martial, all at once. When Trip did find out in six months, when his mission was over, well… Archer could only hope the engineer would forgive him for not letting him know before. Granted, Trip's project was hush-hush and no communication was allowed with the rest of the galaxy, but they both would know that if Archer had truly wanted, he could have gotten a message across to the engineer. It seemed Starfleet was not the only coward here.
Archer had to remind himself that Starfleet's six-week 'presumed dead' policy was nothing else than a policy made up by deskbound bureaucrats who had no experience of space life. By the time Trip emerged from his secretive posting, T'Pol and Hoshi would be back on Enterprise. That's all there was to it.
He hoped.
Xx
The Nint doctor turn on his lightpad when he hear the ultrasonic buzz of an incoming message alert. He glared at the communication that opened up on the lightscreen. Building 5 in Section 1 needed a delivery of oxidize tridurite for an inmate complaining about cramps. How dare they actually send a request through channels. In the strict hierarchy of the camp, he was the doctor, above any of the Section overseers and didn't have to take orders from them. It would be unseemly for the doctor to deliver the medication himself. At least in his own eyes. He had been sitting stewing in silence for several minutes when he saw the alien walk by on the other side of the light curtain. He suddenly had an inspiration.
Shutting off the lightpad screen with an abrupt flick of the wrist, he called to the alien "You! Here!" It turned around and respectfully came to stand in sight, behind the light curtain. It had only taken a few corrections for it to learn how to behave with the camp leadership. "I have an errand for you to run." Let the section manager feel the full extent of the doctor's contempt when the meds he requested were delivered not even by a despised Arumid, but by a lower lifeform.
Xx
T'Pol blinked as she stepped outside, waiting by the first light gateway until her nictitating eyelids had retracted. It was the first time she had stepped outside since their arrival and the sun offered a welcome warmth. The Nint liked their surrounding temperature slightly warmer than Humans, which was a boon, but the absence of her thermal uniforms or unisuits meant that she was constantly cold. Fortunately, the doctor had insisted she be provided with a smock of sorts for lab work, more for show of his importance than for any useful purpose, she suspected, which was a welcome second layer whenever she worked. Only the nights were spent huddled under an overly thin blanket, trying to sleep or meditate in spite of the insistent distraction of the low ambient temperature. Actually, from that perspective only, it was a good thing that the doctor insisted she be in the lab at all times except during the obligatory rest period, when she was brought back to a holding cell in the squat building. A cell that only had cold water, of course.
As she approached the curtain of light demarcating Section 1, the pass in her smock pocket buzzed and the light went off, allowing her safe passage, to go back up again behind her. As the doctor had delegated the errand to her without any kind of directive, she had chosen to go during the lunch period. If there were questions, she planned to explain, since the section director had never sent the request for additional medication, that the meds were provided as part of a general distribution. Based on her observations from the last four weeks, she knew the doctor would never socialize with the section directors, which he deemed to be beneath him, and in any event should the topic ever come up, nobody would be arguing about who had sent what. Word would be that the meds had been delivered, and that would be the end of it.
T'Pol stepped into the food hall and waited unobtrusively. The smock marked her as someone of a different status than the other inmates and nobody came to ask her what she was doing there. The lunch signal had already been given and she could see a long line of Arumids snaking down the stairs and grabbing their rucksack from the delivery platform. The line of Arumids then snaked back upstairs so they would eat alone in their cells. Isolation was a big concern of the Nints, who seemed to be afraid out of any proportion that the Arumids would start talking to each other. Then again, isolation was an effective way of quelling any possible revolt or concerted action.
She knew that each rucksack would contain a thick and circular grain cake, a tasteless and coarse pack with the taste of sawdust, designed to deliver, on a customized basis, the exact amount of nutrients necessary to prevent death from starvation. She had read about tack biscuits in old Earth history, and imagined they had about the same gustatory appeal. Every time she painstakingly ate through hers, she would think about her and Archer being detained on Coridan and his direct order to eat to keep her strength up.
T'Pol saw Hoshi walking down the stairs among the Arumids. The ensign was looking down but must have felt something because she suddenly looked up. A grin spread across her face when she saw T'Pol, which she quickly tried to suppress. Her whole face was illuminated in spite of her pallor, emphasized by the dark circles under her eyes. She was drawn and tired-looking. T'Pol knew from her diplomatic training that Humans required interaction with others for optimal mental health and that early initiatives to isolate Human prisoners in order for them to establish a better connection with a deity had almost universally resulted in cases of mental illness. Fortunately, it was only four weeks since she had last seen Hoshi and she was pretty certain, knowing the ensign's personality, that she must have already found ways to talk to the Arumids around her, if only in the lunch line. But that was speculation.
She brought her attention back to Hoshi, who seemed to be nervously touching her ears and her face in random places. T'Pol responded in kind. It would have been overly dangerous for the two of them to try and talk. They were reduced to discrete hand signals that the other inmates would not recognize as such. Fortunately, Starfleet had anticipated the need for silent communication in times of danger and they were able to relay a fair amount of information. Unfortunately, hand signals were designed for minimalist communication, and there was no sign for "artificial insemination". T'Pol understood that Hoshi had gone out, but wasn't sure what that meant. Based on her own experience, it may simply have been out of the building where she was being held. When Hoshi passed by where T'Pol was standing, her face was devoid of any expression. Nobody saw the two women exchange a meaningful glance.
Hoshi had just walked past when T'Pol's head whipped around. The working of the muscles in the Vulcan's jaw was the only sign of her deep agitation. She had been too late. Probably by a couple of days only, but that didn't alter the end result. As crew members aboard Enterprise kept forgetting, Vulcan females had highly sensitive olfactory nerves. And Hoshi's pheromones had just told T'Pol she was pregnant. A fact that Hoshi didn't seem to know based on her body language and silent exchange with T'Pol.
T'Pol's brow furrowed. That was going to complicate things.
