— Chapter 10 —
Two days later, right on schedule, the Enterprise led a squadron of ten Delus ships on a transit flight from Earth to Vulcan, with Archer in command of the squadron, which was fitting enough: the man had more real world experience in dealing with difficult situations outside the Sol system, more so than any other captain in Starfleet.
On her own, the Enterprise could make the journey from Earth to Vulcan in four days at Warp 5, but the lesser top-end speed of the Delus class meant that the squadron would take six days to reach Vulcan, and these six days were the last chance for the various crews to rest before the longer days and posture of higher readiness which would be required of all crews during the war games with the Vulcan Navy.
It was during the first day of their transit flight, in the Mess Hall of all places, that T'Pol purposely argued with Commander Tucker over the eventual integration of Vulcan shields with the Enterprises' powers systems, for every Human ship in this squadron would undergo this vital upgrade at the end of these war games, in Vulcan shipyards, courtesy of the High Command. It was a whopper of an argument too, between the commander & T'Pol, a thing of clipped words and sarcastic comments from the Vulcan, and an infuriating smugness and a shit eating grin on the commander's side, both of which seemed tailor made to annoy the Vulcan… that is, if she could even feel such emotions, for T'Pol had denied many times before, that she could ever experience such petty emotions.
Eventually, all good things must end, and that happened with this delightful argument as well, to the great disappointment of the crewmen seated closely enough to eavesdrop on the two verbal combatants, and it ended when T'Pol had said, "Vulcan technology is quite intricate, Commander Tucker. We will discuss this matter once again this evening, once you've had a chance to calm down and reflect on merits of my approach."
"Fine by me," had said Commander Tucker, and T'Pol was pleased, for she now had more than enough cover to see the man later that evening. "It's not a crime to be ignorant of what goes on in Engineering, SubCommander, but you should allow yourself to be guided by my expertise. Let me know when you're ready to discuss things rationally."
"When I'm ready to discuss things rationally?" had said T'Pol, inwardly annoyed at being accused of irrationality by this most irrational of all Humans, and with that she'd stood and left the Mess Hall with the grace of a swan: a swan seething at being accused of irrationality, no matter how graceful and unruffled an exit she made, but at least her goal had been accomplished: there were few secrets aboard a ship, and with this little bit of theater she'd cleared the way for spending time with Commander Tucker at will, under the guise of tutoring the man in the intricacies of Vulcan technology, without fear of the crew wagging their tongues over the matter.
"So I understand you and T'Pol disagree on the proper approach to integrating Vulcan shields with our ship's power systems," said Archer later that day, while facing Trip across his desk in the Ready Room.
"Listen, forget about T'Pol," said Trip. "I'm the ship's Chief Engineer, and I've just installed Vulcan shield emitters in the hull of one of their premiere new battlecruisers, so I'm telling you that she's wrong, all right?"
"You got it," said Jon, holding his hands up in a gesture meant to placate Trip, knowing better than to question the man's competence: he'd fought too hard to get Trip aboard his ship, when StarFleet had wanted to keep Trip back on Earth in their Research & Development Division. "It's your call."
"You're damned right it is," said Trip, viciously biting into a cinnamon roll, and well satisfied with the captain's support as well as the purpose behind that public argument, for Trip knew that T'Pol meant to use their dispute as cover for their get together this evening, though it seemed an unnecessary ruse: stealth would have accomplished the same ends with less trouble.
"All I'm saying, Trip," said Jon, "is that you just boarded the Enterprise, and you and T'Pol are already going at it."
"So what? Listen, it's not my fault. You know Polly, she's a royal pain in the ass and I'm not going to cater to—" said Trip, interrupting his tirade only when he took notice of Jon laughing. "What?"
"You called her Polly," said Jon, still laughing.
"Yeah," said Trip, "I guess I did, and maybe I'll keep doing it, cause I like it. It turns me on."
"Me too," said Jon.
"Hold! Please hold the elevator!"
Kessa pressed the proper button and the elevator doors reversed direction, opening silently to allow a couple to board the elevator, and to Kessa's surprise, they were both Vulcans, as she herself. Vulcans were here on Earth in fairly large numbers in quite a number of cities, San Francisco being one of them since that the city was the location of StarFleet's HQ infrastructure, but even so, Kessa was not used to running into a fellow Vulcans during the dull routines of her day. In any case, this was her first encounter with one of her kind at this particular shopping mall.
The Vulcan couple each took a moment to nod their gratitude to Kessa, as the elevator doors closed once more.
"What level?" said Kessa, finger hovering over the buttons which would deliver them all to their proper parking lot levels, in the multi-storied garage.
"Level five, please," said the Vulcan female in response to Kessa's question.
Kessa pressed the button, and then looked directly ahead, but the Vulcan female studied Kessa intently, and sensing her attention, Kessa turned slightly to make eye contact with her.
"Forgive me," said the Vulcan female. "I did not mean to be rude, but you seemed familiar. You are Kessa, no? Attached to the Agricultural Trade detachment at our embassy."
"Yes," said Kessa, for she was quite competent to discuss such things, though that identity was just a cover: she was actually an intelligence analyst, tasked to Earth to make certain that any problems which might affect relations between Earth and Vulcan might be discovered early on, and resolved successfully. "And you are?"
"Lifi," said the Vulcan female. "I work in the IT department. Just started a few weeks ago, actually. It is not an glamorous job, but it is-"
"An important one," said Kessa. "What you do is valuable, Lifi."
Lifi was about to reply, but then her companion's comm unit buzzed, and the man moved to answer the unit's electronic summons, with a soft, "Apologies" which drew Kessa's attention to the man, for it was the first word he'd spoken.
Just then Lifi slammed her forehead into Kessa, stunning the Vulcan for a moment, just as the male brought his comm unit to make contact with Kessa's torso, and revealed that comm unit to actually be a stunner which quickly robbed Kessa of consciousness. The male Vulcan swiftly grabbed hold of Kessa in order to keep her from collapsing to the floor, and then addressed the Vulcan female, and he did so in a strange tongue.
A Vulcan linguist would have recognized that the roots of this strange language were to be found in Old Vulcan, and he would have realized that this language had aged along a different path than modern Vulcan, almost as if these people had split off from Old Vulcan and had gone their own way since then, the Old Vulcan tongue long isolated from the main stream and remaining a unique dialect, and after hundreds and thousands of years, becoming a unique and different language, just as on Earth you might have unique languages like Portuguese and Romanian, yet both with roots in Latin.
"Sha'lia telfor e'alors, Rhizen," said the male, tossing Kessa over his shoulder: "Scout the way, Rhizen."
"Je'let, Kelfor," said Rhizen, Lifi's true name: "I will, Kelfor."
Just then the elevator door opened, and Rhizen stepped out. Nothing and no one stood out to Rhizen, save for the third member of their team, who had waited alertly, and now backed the vehicle he was driving right up to the elevator door. It took just seconds for Kelfor to toss Kessa into the back of the van, after which the two 'Vulcans' jumped in behind her, and the van made a speedy exit from the parking garage.
Hours after Kessa's abduction, that same parking garage swarmed with security personnel, both Human and Vulcan, all looking for the slightest bit of evidence, while others of their vocation first viewed the security footage, and then departed, taking that security footage with them. Not that any of it helped Kessa now. Worst of all, she had not been the only kidnapping victim. Within half an hour of Kessa's kidnapping, some 82 Vulcans of some importance had been kidnapped from various places across the face of the Earth, and another 191 assassinated, many of them publicly. Nothing, not even Vulcan discretion could keep this silent, though the numbers were concealed to great extent… still, the Human press would loudly demand answers in the coming days, until suddenly, they all came out with similar pat stories to lay the matter to rest, and though many Humans were not buying the abrupt change in tone for they were already cynical of the media, the Vulcans weren't talking, and neither were the various police departments, so there wasn't a whole lot to go on at this time.
Later that day, round 1500 hours, T'Pol caught Trip's eye from her station as the man left the captain's Ready Room, and sensing that she wanted to have a word with him, Trip swung by the Science station on the Bridge
"What's up, T'Pol?"
"I was just wondering if you might be willing to calmly discuss the matter of integrating Vulcan shields generators into the Enterprise, this evening," said T'Pol.
T'Pol knew that Hoshi, the ship's gossip queen, would hear her request of Commander Tucker from the Comm station, but the ensign would be well informed by her various spies by now, and she would know that it was a technical matter which required that she & Commander Tucker hammer this out, even if it took all night.
"Sure, T'Pol," said Trip.
"Swing by my quarters then, Commander," said T'Pol. "I have some schematics on my computer which you might find pertinent to our discussion."
"Ok," said Trip. "1900 hours?"
"That is agreeable," said T'Pol, "and bring a pot of coffee. We are not ending our conversation until you have reviewed all of the data, no matter how long it takes you to see the light of reason."
"You got it, SubCommander," said Trip, amused by T'Pol's theatrics, though they were nicely executed.
With four hours to kill before his 'discussion' with T'Pol, Trip swung by Engineering, turned things over to Kelby, then took a sauna, a shower, and a nap, and then finally he gobbled up a hot fudge brownie, and drank two espresso cups of coffee, all in preparation for the yeoman's work he'd agreed to tackle this evening.
That last hour of waiting was the longest, the worst, and Trip was reduced to watching the clock 'till the appointed time, and then a few minutes past that time, as he didn't want to show up embarrassingly early, but eventually, his time had come. A last breath check, a look in the mirror, finger pistols aimed at the mirror as Trip winked at his own image like a dork, and then he was off to the races, scooping up a thermos he'd picked up from the Mess Hall, and which he'd already filled with something other than coffee.