DISCLAIMERS, ETC. in Part I

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Real life has been keeping me horribly busy, but why grade papers when you can write another chapter?

Many thanks as always, reviewers. I know I've lost a few of you with the broad comedy here, but I'd like to finish this series on a much lighter note than the actual series did - even if it's just as implausible.

The lights did their dimming thing again and the scene changed, this time to a surprisingly drab, workaday framework of corridors constructed at a mid-level of what appeared to be a large, echoing building, its distant ceiling shrouded in darkness. Tucker on his knees was helping T'Pol get out from under the suspended grid from which hung the light tubes they had climbed up.

Once she was safely up, he turned his attention to a humming mechanical unit that sat over a portion of the chamber they'd been in.

"Trip?" she said with some concern, after quickly checking out both directions.

"This has got to be what's cooling the air."

"Our priority should be contacting Enterprise."

"It probably wouldn't take much to warm the place up."

"Changing any settings might alert the Mendrosans to our escape. Our window of opportunity to take action may be quite small."

"Exactly! And they're freezing down there."

"They will simply freeze again if we are recaptured because of your adjustments, Commander."

He scowled, though Deanna couldn't tell if it was annoyance at being curbed or at being called by his rank. "Yes, Ma'am," he said, with just a touch of sarcasm. He gestured. "Lead on."

T'Pol gave him a look that struck Deanna as pretty plainly irritated for a Vulcan, and headed off down the corridor. They turned, and turned again. Then she stopped dead.

Tucker almost bumped into her. "What is it?"

"We are being approached," T'Pol said. "From both sides."

They quickly sought a doorway or any other place to hide, but the corridor was strikingly bare of escape routes; there wasn't even any way to climb up into the darkness above them. Tucker abruptly pushed T'Pol up against the bare wall of the corridor. "Just follow me," he said, and started kissing her.

Her hands flailed a moment before relaxing and gripping the engineer's back.

"Oh, come on!" Deanna exclaimed. "I don't see how that old romance cliché can possibly work here."

Beverly merely smiled as two aliens, one from each direction, converged on the canoodling pair. "You!" one of them shouted. "What are you doing here?"

Tucker looked up from a rather breathless T'Pol. "Mating, obviously. Like you asked!"

"Why aren't you in your compartment?"

"Our cap'n told you we needed privacy and warmth before we could mate. So we found some, or at least we thought we did. What's the problem? I thought this is what you guys wanted."

The reptilian alien from the view screen walked up and one of the others relayed Tucker's explanation to him.

"They don't seem to be having the slightest trouble with translation anymore," Deanna noted.

Beverly sighed. "It would get rather tedious if they did at this point, don't you think? It's more dramatic license, obviously."

Crusher was perhaps finding Deanna's own comments a bit tedious at this point, so Deanna didn't bother sharing her conclusion that dramatic license was apparently a convenient excuse for all sorts of logical inconsistencies.

"You can't mate successfully with her," View Screen Alien said to Tucker. "You're not even the same species."

"Are you kidding me?" Tucker said, and Deanna noted that his Southern accent was suddenly much more pronounced. "Hybrid Vulcan-Humans are the most valuable, most sought-after hybrid species in the universe. When you cross Vulcans and Humans, what you get is always stronger, more beautiful, and more above-average in every way!"

One of the guards said, "I believe it is by definition impossible for all of any group to be above-average."

Tucker said, "Obviously, I'm talking about when you compare them to their parents. Vulcan-Human hybrids are almost always going to be stronger and smarter and have much cuter ears than Humans. And they'll be more creative and more fun at a party than Vulcans."

The aliens blinked. Even T'Pol raised an eyebrow.

Deanna said, "Okay, I know these aliens appear to be really quite…"

"Stupid?" Beverly said. "Yes, I believe that's often the case with the kidnappers in romantic comedies."

"Do you take us for fools?" View Screen Alien snarled at Tucker. "It would obviously require extensive genetic intervention for you to reproduce."

"Well, duh," Tucker said. "That's another reason our offspring are so valuable."

"If they are so sought after, why aren't there any among your crew?" View Screen alien said.

"Because they're too valuable to waste on deep space missions," Tucker said. "Someone might decide to capture them and … you know … leverage them!"

"Sir, shall I beam them back to their compartment?" one of the others asked, rather wearily.

Tucker and T'Pol shared quick looks of consternation. The removal of their transponders was about to become obvious, if it wasn't already.

"Let me communicate with our ship," Tucker suggested. "Maybe I can get them to share the genetic sequencing you have to do to get a healthy Vulcan-Human hybrid. Then you could have as many Vulcan-Human hybrids as you want. Hell, you just could let those other guys go – why waste your time with plain old Humans when you can have something that is so superior in every way?"

The three aliens looked at each other. View Screen Guy said, "We are not interested in letting any of you go. But if you can persuade your crewmen to give themselves up to us in a peaceable way, we will reward you with as much warmth, food and clothing as you wish … while we further explore this hybrid scenario you have proposed."

Tucker said, "What about privacy? I'm gonna need lots of privacy with my mate here."

View Screen Alien gave him a pitying look. "We will allow you enough privacy to mate as is required. You will cooperate?"

"I'll talk to them," Tucker said.

"Are you sure that's wise, Commander?" T'Pol said.

"I think it's worth a try," he said, and he and T'Pol were marched down the corridor.

x x x

Deanna and Beverly marched behind them, and squeezed in behind the group as they crowded into a tiny control room. Various mismatched monitors tracked a variety of data, including video feeds from a number of chambers like their own. Most were empty, but not all.

"There's Reed and Sato," Deanna murmured, pointing. If the two were not in fact mating, they were certainly giving an awfully convincing pantomime of it.

"Our tactical and communications officers appear to be … cooperating," T'Pol observed.

Tucker's face flushed quite pink. "You could say that again."

"I could, but there would be little point in doing so," T'Pol said.

"They will be allowed further food and warmth for their cooperation," View Screen Guy pointed out approvingly.

On another monitor, Archer and Mayweather were huddled against each other, their exhaled breaths visible in the cold air.

"It's hardly fair to punish them," Tucker said. "They couldn't 'mate' in the way you mean even if they wanted to. Both females are already taken."

"They will have an opportunity to their turn with the other female. As will you."

"That would not be acceptable," T'Pol declared.

"Yeah, believe me," Tucker said, "You'd totally mess up any chance of any valuable Human-Vulcan hybrids if you expected me to do that. And furthermore, if you want me to persuade the rest of our crew to come down here, you'd better be prepared to prove that I won't be condemning them to freezing to death."

"Your species can handle cold quite well," the alien said dismissively.

"Not sustained cold," Tucker said. "We'll get sick, it will spread, some or all of us will die. Heck, some of you might get sick, too. And what would you leverage then?"

T'Pol had been eyeing the other monitors. "Is that why our crew appears to be the only other beings currently in captivity here? Did you perhaps kill off all the others with a poor understanding of their basic requirements for life?"

The three aliens looked uncomfortably at each other. "That is none of your concern," View Screen Guy said brusquely. "You will contact your ship now," he said to Tucker.

"Sure," Tucker said. "Hey, is that a Tellarite communications console?" He gestured at their jury-rigged operations. "Seems to me I see a lot of different technologies represented here."

"We leverage equipment as well as life forms," the alien said, and thumbed a switch. "Enterprise, this is Mendrosa Prime."

"McKenzie here," they heard, and when the MACO major's grim face appeared on the screen, it was obvious that she was not particularly kindly inclined towards the Mendrosans.

"We have found one of your officers," the alien in charge said, and gestured to Tucker to approach him. "He will explain to you why there is no longer any reason to delay the arrival of another landing party."

McKenzie said, "Commander Tucker! Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said. "We're all fine, just … being held in a very secure location." He raised his eyebrows rather sardonically.

McKenzie's eyes narrowed. "You are out of uniform, sir."

"Yes, well…" Tucker coughed. "The Mendrosans relieved us of those … but you can easily avoid any trouble with that by just not wearing your uniforms when you come down. Heck, you can leave your shoes at home, too. And then they won't need to stun you in order to get your clothes, off. Right?" he said, turning to View Screen Guy.

View Screen Guy growled low in his throat.

McKenzie said, "Sir?"

View Screen guy flicked off the comm. "Order them to send another landing party."

"We only have two shuttle pods," Tucker said. "That would be the end of it, unless you send one back up."

"Then tell them they should also prepare to be boarded."

"Oh, you don't want to do that," Tucker said. "Enterprise has extremely robust counter-measures against unauthorized intruders."

The alien's eyelids flicked. "Your shuttle pod didn't."

Tucker said, "Well, we don't have a warp engine in the shuttle pod to power the disintegrating energy beams, do we? You'd have to get authorized to safely board Enterprise."

"Then get us authorized."

Tucker exchanged a look with T'Pol, who said, "That would require the individual members of your boarding party to have a unique identity chip transponder code Enterprise could add to its personnel identification system. Can you provide this?"

"That would be a significant security risk," the alien said. "That is unacceptable. Order your crew to transport down to the surface, then."

"The whole crew?" Tucker said.

"Yes, but only six at a time. We will need approximately an hour between each party for proper processing of our new stock."

"I see," Tucker said, glancing at T'Pol. "To these coordinates?"

"No, to the field where you landed. These coordinates are shielded."

"Of course. But aren't you worried that our crew might be a little suspicious about an order like that?"

"Tell them it's for recreation."

"That'll never work," Tucker said. "We only allow shore leave for six crewmen at a time. You'd have to send we six back up to get any more…"

"Order them to make an exception in this case."

"Well, I'll try," Tucker said grudgingly. "But you have no idea how tight-assed MACOs can get about regulations."

"Commander?" McKenzie asked darkly, when the Mendrosans opened the channel again and Tucker explained, without the slightest attempt at guile, what they wanted. "How do we know you aren't being held against your will and forced to say all this?"

"Gosh, I guess you'd just have to take that on faith," Tucker said. "Can I assume the ship is not in any immediate danger?"

"The Mendrosan's weapons – and tactics" – she said this with a note of disgust "– are no match for us. Our only concern is the safety of our landing party."

"Well … you can check on all of us … even Travis … if you start beaming down the entire crew for some much-needed shore leave at one hour intervals to allow for the Mendrosans to process new arrivals. Apparently they're a little undermanned down here."

The alien hissed, "Kindly confine yourself to the matter we have discussed."

Deanna turned to Beverly. "What's was that 'even Travis' crack about?"

"Probably an allusion to the eventual marriage of Mayweather and McKenzie."

"Really?"

"Yes, really," Crusher said, with a smile. "That's one relationship that's extremely well-documented."

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot," Tucker said. "There's another thing. Ask Phlox and Baird to send down our top-secret specs on creating Vulcan-Hybrid Humans for fun and profit. Make sure it's a format that all the computers down here can read. Something very simple and effective. These guys are using a bunch of different systems cobbled together from different species, so they probably need all the help they can get." He turned to View Screen alien. "That's what you wanted, right?"

The alien's crest had risen threateningly, but he said nothing.

McKenzie said carefully, "It may take us a few minutes to prepare that, sir,"

"Of course," Tucker said to her. "You do that, and get another shuttle pod ready to go in the meantime, and set up a roster for transport. And then, of course, just continue to send down the whole crew at one hour intervals until Enterprise is completely unmanned. That's an order, Major. Do you understand?"

"I believe so, sir," McKenzie said, looking bemused.

The Mendrosans closed the comm. link.

Tucker said, "You're going to feed us now, right? I think you'll agree that I just cooperated like there's no tomorrow."

The alien's crest laid back. "I'm not certain your cooperation was as helpful as we might have hoped."

"Hey, we made a deal," Tucker said. "I can always try again for you, but only if I haven't died of starvation in the meantime."

The alien stared at his two comrades for a moment, and finally flicked a long clawed digit towards the door. "Take them back to their holding chamber and feed them," he said.

"What about that privacy you promised?" Tucker complained.

"You can have your privacy once your crew has arrived."

"Damn. You drive an awfully hard bargain," Tucker said, and glanced at T'Pol, who merely raised an eyebrow.

Deanna huffed. "Oh come on. I wish all hostile aliens were this stupid."

"Me, too," Beverly said. "Then again, more intelligent hostile aliens might have processed them all up into the next month's rations by now, and I don't think that's a story either of us would enjoy."

Deanna supposed she had a point there. "Let's see how they get out of this, then." She shook her head. "You realize that killing off poor Archer's dog doesn't fit this genre at all, don't you?"

"It's not over 'til it's over," Beverly said.

What did that mean? Deanna eyed her friend with suspicion even as the lights dipped once again.

If anyone else gets eaten in this thing, I'm bailing, she decided.

TO BE CONTINUED