A/N: After reading all of the bloody AMAZING reviews I got for chapter 20, I got the itch to write more. Thank you for the inspiration, you beautiful people with keyboards! :D

A rear admiral lower half is the very very lowest rank of admiral there is.

Talos IV is where the episodes 'The Menagerie' (parts one and two) take place. If you don't know what that is, then there is no hope for you: go watch those episodes now.

There is less than no information on the planet Andoria. It's icy, it's the moon of a gas giant, and the cities are underground. That is literally all I can find. If someone has any other information they can give to me, I would be so dweebishly happy that I'd embarrass myself. I named the city where Tishri's office used to be 'Shras' in chapter 2 of Without Direction, so I'm just going to stick with that.

Thraan is the most masculine of the four Andorian sexes. Thiir is like madam or sir, and is a title only used for those of the thraan gender.

.bdobd.

Jim had come to his quarters in the early morning and had attempted to inform him of various details that former Captain Tyr Dejan had revealed. The human was, unfortunately, too stimulated to formulate a coherent sentence, and Spock had been forced to shake him once, sharply, to get him to articulate entire thoughts.

"I want you," the blonde panted, "to look up the Excalibur II's blueprints and see if they mirror anything on the Enterprise. I think the Cardassians have copies of the Excalibur II's plans and I need to make sure the Enterprise isn't hurt. Okay?"

Spock had nodded blandly, agreed to the order, and then asked how he knew of the Cardassian inspections. Jim had gone off on a furious tangent about the late captain Mahor and his relation to Menthe and a possible Klingo-Federation alliance, and Spock had shaken him again.

Jim had promised to explain the entire story to him later, and had marched smartly across the hall to the captain's quarters, where he then requested Spock's help in getting the door open because it was stuck, a state that he assured Spock was not his fault.

They had discovered the door to be locked from the inside, and so Jim had slept three hours curled upon Spock's prayer rug. It was unlikely that the rather pungent smell of tired human male could ever be totally eliminated.

Spock decided that it would be prudent to exit the room before Jim did, so as to try and silence some of the more graphic rumors he had been overhearing in the mess hall. He made his way to the data computer banks, entered his identification number, and began to read.

.bdobd.

"We have to do WHAT?" Bones shrieked. Jim held up his hands in a poor attempt at placation.

"I don't like it either, and they aren't my orders, they're the admirals'. They just want to talk to her –,"

"Do you know what she's been through; what she's healing from?"

"Well, patient confidentiality says that I don't, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me right now."

"They hung her," Bones growled, "from a metal hook. For a week. I just finished her third reconstructive surgery to try to get her shoulders to work again! She is in no condition to sit in a hard chair with no supports for eight hours to talk to a bunch of people who don't want to hear what she has to say!"

"I'm not saying it's a good idea," Jim ground out, "I'm saying these are my orders. We're already in hot water for having picked her up in the first place; if I don't do what they want now I'm not sure I'll be able to keep everyone's jobs!"

"That's bullshit and you know it. You're the captain, you gave the order, you'll be in trouble. She's hurt, Jim. She can't do what they want her to, not right now. A week isn't enough to recover from months of abuse!"

"On any other ship that'd be true, yes, but the decision to go to the border was made by the entire bridge crew. Not just me. If we're court martialed I'll be in deep shit, yeah, but I'm pretty safe. They've been using me to recruit cadets for almost a year now; they can't really kick me out. But Uhura? And Martan? And Kipl'r and Uragna and Teran, they're not going to be saved."

"But Jim," Bones pleaded, "you've got to stop this. She can't go. She'll be hurt, and I don't know if I can fix that!"

Jim stared out of the one way window Bones had in his office. "I can slow us down," he said finally. "Not for long, but it'll be something."

"How long?"

"A week. I think. It depends on how hospitable the Andorians are feeling."

"The Andorians? What the hell are you talking about?"

"The new junior Councilman for Andoria," Jim explained. "Tishri's replacement. When she took the Starbase XI job the delegatory party from Andoria was one person short – some idiot assumed she'd be fine with a rear negotiator lower half sort of thing, but she wasn't interested."

Bones snorted and settled back in his chair, smiling evilly up at where Jim leaned on the edge of the desk. "Tishri? Take a lower position? Never. She's all or nothing, that one."

"No shit," Jim grinned. "There was a special election for the new junior Councilperson. I've been meaning to make nice with him for a while now; we can stop off at Andoria on our way to Starfleet HQ to pay him a special visit."

"Ah, Jim," Bones shook his head with mock horror, "buttering up Councilmen? You're not turning into a politician on me, are you?"

"Trying my best not, to," Jim said with a shrug, "but I'm definitely beginning to see why it's useful.

"Think about it. With Tishri and this new guy on my side, the Enterprise has got a guaranteed supportive base in Andoria. Earth likes us already, and Vulcan II feels like it owes us: that's three of the four founding planets right there. I'm friends with Pike, who's got roots in the Talos VI region and with the Starfleet old brass. Spock's – well, he's Spock, he's got ties everywhere. He and his father made a lot of diplomatic trips when he was young; he knows more people than he thinks he does.

"All of that means shore leave and docking locations available 24/7 across the Federation. And it frees up supplies for us. I bet you I can even get those vaccinations you wanted – anti-inflammation after venomous bites, right?"

Bones nodded.

"Tishri's got connections to a pharmaceutical supply company," Jim continued. "And that company's got outlets all over Andoria. I'll have Uhura talk to them and see if I can get you the shots. But I couldn't do that if I wasn't connected to Tishri!"

"But ya didn't get friendly with her because of her connections," Bones pointed out. "Ya did it because of geography and necessity. The stuff that's happening now isn't because of any particularly good move on your part, it's because of luck. I don't think it's right to bug this poor little guy because of his friends."

"Bones, he expects me to," Jim said flatly. "He'll be confused if I don't ask him for something."

Bones considered this for a moment before shrugging nonchalantly. "And?" he asked. "What, you gonna start living up to other people's expectations, all of a sudden?"

.bdobd.

Jim was in his quarters, chewing over the problem about the Andorian Councilman, when Spock pressed for entry. "Come in!" Jim shouted from the bed.

He heard the door open and Spock pause as the Vulcan took in the great swaths of bedding Jim had managed to cover with his determined sprawl. "You are troubled."

"I'm thinking deeply. That's not automatically distressing. I'm not that stupid."

"I did not accuse you of such," Spock pointed out as he sat on the side of the bed. "You are reacting defensively to statements that you know are not motivated by negative impulses."

Jim sighed and rolled onto his side to face his Vulcan. "I'm trying to slow down the ship to let Bones have more time to heal Tyr Dejan, and it's thrown me into a place that I really don't want to be in."

He kind of hoped that Spock would take this as a cue to lie down next to him, but the hybrid just laid a warm hand on his upper arm. "Is there any assistance I can offer?"

"At what point is making a social connection with a person considered an unethical action?"

Spock took a moment to think before answering. "… If the action is motivated by greed, avarice, or malicious intent, than it is never ethical," he said finally.

"Alright." Jim propped himself up on one elbow. "I was considering speaking with the junior Councilman from Andoria for the sole purpose of using that connection later to obtain goods or favors for the ship. Now, I understand that he is also probably going to use his connections to me for his own personal gain, and I'm fine with that. Is forging a social connection with someone, just so you can tell others about said connection, unethical if the person you're forging with is going to turn around and do the exact same goddamn thing the moment you're gone?"

He could see Spock working to unravel the convoluted sentence in his head. "The most important factor," he answered slowly, "appears to be whether or not both parties are cognizant of the intentions behind the visit in question."

"… Yes," Jim said with a nod, "I agree."

"There is no way, in Standard, to ask the intentions of another without bestowing considerable insult, is there."

"… Not in this instance, no."

Spock narrowed his eyes at the wall above Jim's head. "I will consider the matter. Two days must pass before we reach Andoria. We have some time."

"I guess." Jim gently nosed the hand that was on his arm. "I know you didn't come here for that, though. What's up?"

"… I am going to assume the latter query was rhetorical."

"That'd be a good idea. What were your original reasons for coming to see me?"

"You requested a report on the diagnostics of the Excalibur II as compared to the Enterprise."

"Oh, yes!" Jim sat up and reached for the PADD that Spock had brought in. "Lemme see."

Spock looked terribly amused, but didn't say anything. "The Excalibur II, you will recall, has a shape dissimilar from the Enterprise." A simple flat drawing appeared on the PADD's small holoscreen. The Enterprise's nacelles extended straight back from her body, which was connected to the large control disk by a vertical torpedo bank. The Excalibur II's control disk sat on top of its body like a frog on a stick; the body was turned 90º so that it was horizontal, and its nacelles tacked onto the sides of the body.

The Enterprise really was the prettier ship.

Mahor had had a great time of accusing her of being 'cocky', though: all those vertical diagonal angles had convinced him that the designer was trying to compensate for something. Jim had told him that at least his 'compensation' looked good; at the end of the day the Excalibur II (or the Illustrious, really) still looked like an amphibian trying to curl itself into a fetal position.

"Because of the difference in hull structure, much of the interior of the ship has no relation to any of the Enterprise's floor plans." And interior sketch of the ships was layered over the hull shot: the Enterprise had dozens of kilometers of nearly vertical Jefferies tubing, while the Excalibur II (or the Illustrious) had a pretty simple tube-and-turbolift setup.

"So, we're fine?" Jim asked.

"I believe so," Spock said with a nod. "The only similarity that exists between the two ships is the placement of the shield generators; both have them along the rim of the control disk. But the Enterprise also has shield generators along the body of the ship and on the ends of her nacelles; both modifications are changes that you ordered, and so are not a fleet wide standard."

"That's good," Jim sighed. Even the Medical bays were in different spots. "I was worried."

"Why?"

"Ah. Right." Jim flushed as the memory of his desperately incomprehensible babblings at five o'clock in the morning resurfaced. "Okay, so, I went to talk to Captain Tyr Dejan, right?"

"You informed me of this, yes."

"She said that when the Cardassians went after Mahor and Pachek in the Illustrious and the Eureka, the Eureka was somehow destroyed and the Illustrious's engines were roasted. The Empire then had access to the Illustrious for about two months before they pushed it back into our space. What happens next isn't quite clear, but it looks like the Admiralty somehow found the Illustrious, renamed her the Excalibur II, and gave her to Douglas Menthe as fast as they could."

Spock's eyes had gone wide. "… I… That would significantly reduce the amount of credits required to build a new ship, yes."

"Exactly. But I don't think they changed the internal design at all."

"They did not. I was a professor at the time the Illustrious was launched; I inspected her laboratories beforehand. The laboratories of the Excalibur II were in the same area and contained the same equipment as the Illustrious did."

"'Were'?" Jim asked. "Do you know something I don't?"

"If the Cardassian Empire somehow captured the Excalibur II, they would declare it property returned to them by the Federation. It is one of the main reasons every captured ship must later be refitted; there are a variety of cultures that feel that once captured, a ship actually belongs to them, that they only return the craft out of good faith afterwards."

"So, they think that we gave them the Excalibur II back?"

"Negative. They realize that we wish to retain our vessels. They probably feel that that particular craft is at least partially theirs, and that they will not be as badly punished for taking that ship instead of another Starfleet vessel."

"Oh god," Jim groaned. "They'll never give it back."

"I doubt that they would, yes," Spock said with a shrug. "However, the capture of that ship guarantees that its replacement will at least actually be a different craft."

.bdobd.

The new junior Councilman of Andoria was very happy that Jim could make it.

"I'm so happy you could make it," he gushed happily. "I know you're very busy."

Jim's hands were stuffed firmly in his pockets. He watched with a vague amusement as the thin man bustled around the office trying to clear off a horizontal surface to sit on.

The office wasn't large, but it did have a great view, which was really difficult on Andoria. All of the cities were underground – the surface of the planet was just too cold to support life – and so most windows looked out onto other people's windows. The junior Councilman had nabbed a room with a panoramic view of Shras, the Andorian's capitol city.

"Here we are!" the junior Councilman cheerfully declared. Jim took one of the offered horizontal areas; it was doubtful that the spot he was on was originally designed for sitting. The Andorian hadn't given himself a very good spot either, though, so it was fine.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

"Oh, it was no problem!" the Councilman beamed. "I've gotten few visitors here; Thras deals with most of the foreign – I'm sorry, non-native people who want to talk to us."

Thras must be the senior Councilman. Jim started to feel really terrible for coming in with an agenda; this guy seemed genuinely nice. "Why doesn't he send any to you, for practice?"

"If any non-Andorian wants to talk to us," the man said with a wince, "you know that they're furious about something. I just got in here, and I'm still learning about the bills that passed twenty or thirty years ago. People don't like to talk to someone who doesn't know what they want him to."

Jim flinched sympathetically. "I'm lucky; I've got a first officer and a chief of Security that know the regulations like the backs of their hands. It would suck to have to go it alone."

"I've got good staff. It's just that they're all from –,"

"Thras's collection, and they tell you to just let him take care of everything."

"Exactly," the man grinned. "But I've been able to do a bit with the Cardassian issues we've been having; Thras is a bit confused by them."

"Cardassians?"

The Councilman nodded. "They're not an issue, really. They just call at weird times, asking about people we've never heard of."

Jim blinked. "What? They've never done that with me."

"… You've talked to them?"

"Yeah. You didn't know? I'm sort of the field expert in the Fleet."

"Really?" the man sounded very intrigued. "And you've never had that happen?"

"Not once," Jim answered with a shake of the head. "It's not prank calling, you can be certain of that: the Empire doesn't let civilians have comm units. Anyone who has the recourses to call you is a government worker of some kind."

"Well, there goes that idea," the man said wryly. "We haven't had much success in tracking the calls, but we think they're coming from the same people over and over again. I was thinking bored rich kids, but…"

"No, that's definitely not it." Jim crossed his arms and went to lean back in his seat, only to be rudely reminded that he wasn't actually sitting in a chair. He flailed a bit in an attempt to get upright, then tried to pretend that he had not been doing so.

The Councilman repressed a smile, but didn't laugh outright, which Jim was grateful for. "Do border guards have access to free comm units?"

"Oh yeah, they have loads of them so that they have no reason to miss reporting someone breaking their borders."

"Because, come to think of it, they might've just been listing ships that'd come too close to their line."

"I'll bet you that's it," Jim agreed with a nod. "They're actually pretty decent people – their government is fucked up, but they're good people. And they know they won't win a war with us. They're probably trying to warn you without pissing you off."

The man shuffled under one of the many piles of paper for a comm link. He seemed to find what he was looking for, because in a few seconds he was orating to the messy 'stack': "Shree, could you check up on those Cardassian name lists again? Match them to the names of travel and merchant crafts, this time."

There was some inarticulate grumbling before a wan, "Yes, Thiir Anjrew."

Aha! The man's name was Anjrew! And he was thraan. Facsinating.

Anjrew squirmed slightly as he turned back to Jim. "They're usually pretty well behaved," he said apologetically, apparently talking about his staff, "but I've been hounding them about this Cardassian thing."

"My crew can get the same way without a shore leave," Jim grinned. "People are people."

Anjrew nodded with a pleasant hum. "True. Now," he smiled, "I know you didn't come here to talk to me about Cardassians. If you had, you would've just ordered us around from space, not popped down here to talk to me. What's going on?"

Jim and Spock had exhausted the list of things to say at this particular moment, but Jim didn't really feel like lying to the man. "Honestly? I know Tishri, and I don't know Thras, and you seemed like a nicer guy to talk to."

Anjrew's eyes widened and he burst out laughing. "Oh praise the gods it's not just me!" he chuckled. "I was so worried you were here about that damned tax bill."

"Tax bill? What tax bill?"

"Andoria just voted on a bill to increase taxes on the highest five percent of the income bracket," he explained. "That just barely includes the Commodore and the head Admiral. I thought they'd sent you down here to yell at me!"

"No, no," Jim grinned. "That's Barnett and Archer, not Pike. And what do I care what their taxes are? It's not like it'll affect me."

"True, true, but you never know." Anjrew got up to ruffle around the innards of a cabinet. "Alcohol?"

"That sounds great, actually." Jim took another look around the office while Anjrew shuffled about for glasses. "This is a really nice office, now that I look at it."

Anjrew snorted. "When you clear off the piles of papers, yeah, it's a good room."

"It only looks like a bomb went off in a little library," Jim argued glibly. "You should see my chief Medical officer's. It's like someone threw a grenade into the Tellaritian Records Facility."

"Great gods," Anjrew said with mock horror. "There'd be bindings everywhere."

"And glue, paper glue dust over everything. Mm, thank you." The drink was amber and small, so it had the potential to be everything from brandy to a badly mixed Cardassian Sunrise. Jim downed it in a gulp.

Anjrew stared at him. "… Did you just do that in one –?"

"I'm solid," Jim thumped his chest once for emphasis. "And dense. I can take a lot of intoxicants before I collapse."

Anjrew raised a very Spockish brow. "Clearly."

Jim beamed and tried and failed to lean back again. "What's up with the whole no-chairs thing?"

Anjrew shrugged. "They just become more space to stack things. I've got tables and benches scattered around; I figure if someone pops over here for a visit chances are they'll know me well enough not to get offended."

"And how's that been working out for you?"

"Well enough. It makes the reporters laugh."

"Oh, you poor thing," Jim looked upon him with genuine pity. "I'm so sorry."

Anjrew snorted into his cup. "She's the same one you had, I think. Z-something Nowmi."

"Zarabeth?" Jim asked with considerable surprise. "What's she doing here? She's on the French political beat."

"She got upstaged by her Vulcan assistant when your Commander was caught spilling confidential information in a French bar."

Jim winced. "Ah. Yeah."

"Sorry."

He sighed and stared at his empty glass. "No, no, it's fine. We're past it." He took a deep breath. "So, seriously, what's she trying to cover here?"

"The taxes thing. It affects some Council members, but not all of them, so she was looking for tension between Thras and me because I'm not hit by the rule but he is. She hasn't found anything yet."

"Classy."

"It's not like she wants to be doing it," Anjrew pointed out. "The company she works for made her come."

"That's too bad, she's good at her job."

"You want to talk to her? She should be right down the hall."

Jim blinked. "What? No."

Anjrew laughed. "That bad?"

"I have a habit of saying things I shouldn't on live television."

"Ah, but she doesn't have a camera, you see."

"Really?" Jim perked up. "Where'd they send Stevens?"

"He's off at Thras's, annoying the shit out of him."

"You hope."

"I do. It's bad of me, but I do."

"So much for no tension."

"Oh, shut up," Anjrew said affectionately. "He's an asshole, I'm allowed to hate assholes."

"You know what you should do?" Jim asked rhetorically.

"What?"

"Buddy up with Ambassador Prime from Vulcan. He's really cool, and I bet he'll sponsor a lot of bills that you otherwise might not get passed."

"Humm." Anjrew stared into middle distance for a while. "Would it be alright if I used your name?"

"Yeah, sure, I don't care. So long as I can use yours to get onto Andorian bases."

"Oh, that's no problem," Anjrew promised. "You wouldn't trash a base. If you need anything easy like that, call me. I'll take care of it."

"Excellent!" Jim beamed. "Same goes for you and the Cardassians or the Vulcans. They're easy enough once you get to know them."

The Councilman winced. "I'll take your word for it."

"I know what I'm talking about. You'll be fine."

Something rang from one of the deeper bits of the abyss that existed on Anjrew's desk. He sighed and started to toss things off haphazardly until he found the blue comm link button. "Yes?"

"Nowmi to see you, Thiir."

Jim sighed dramatically and braced for impact. Anjrew laughed softly. "Send her in."

A blur shot through the door at top speed and nearly tripped over a bench concealed by wood products. "It's that impossible to pick up a floor?" Nowmi asked as she hopped slightly, holding one shin gingerly.

Anjrew tried not to snicker as Jim attempted to melt into the wall. "Apparently," he said chipperly. "Ms. Nowmi, I think you've met Captain Kirk before?"

Nowmi turned huge gray eyes to Jim's slumped form. "Captain! What are you doing here?"

"Talking to Councilman Anjrew, what else?"

She cocked her head to the side. Jim realized that at some point he'd opened his knees a bit more than strictly necessary, and rushed to correct his posture. He cleared his throat. "Yes?" He demanded. "What is it?"

His Captain's Voice didn't work on her. She just blinked at him. "… I was wondering if I could hitch a ride," she answered finally.

"What?"

"Can. I. Get. A ride. To Earth?" She asked again, slowly.

"Why? Don't companies have travel options any more?"

"My boss hates me and won't arrange anything. I don't like public transit."

Jim blinked at her. "You're a reporter. You're not supposed to care what kind of train you're taking."

"I'm on the French political beat. I'm expected to be at least a little snobby."

"What's wrong with our trains?" Anjrew asked with obvious confusion.

"Nothing, she's crazy," Jim said quickly. Nowmi huffed at him. "Listen. You can come along IF," he paused here for emphasis, "IF you do not film anything or interview anyone without written permission from me first. Okay?"

"Fine. When do I get to go home?"

"Now, I think." Jim looked back to Anjrew, who had recovered from the comment about the trains and now just looked amused. "Sorry, I've gotta get going. I've used up about as much capitol as I have left, and the Admirals are getting pissy."

"It was nice to meet you," Anjrew bowed.

"And to you, Thiir," Jim bowed back.

Nowmi waited until they'd exited the office to begin demanding information from him. "What do you mean, capitol?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe you."

"Congratulations."

She huffed again and went off to find Stevens so that they could be beamed up to the ship. Jim wondered if Bones had gotten any more migraine meds out of Tishri's drug company.

.bdobd.