Surat approached the quarters Valek had been in for the last few months during his stay as a guest of his father. More than once the Centurion had attempted to beg off, to leave the house and find more suitable quartering as he felt he had transitioned into the stage of imposition. He could understand his subordinate's discomfort in the situation; he did not want to be perceived as taking advantage of the situation, of purposefully milking the situation. Surat actually found the presence of his more trusted subordinate reassuring, someone he could talk to honestly, someone who knew what he had been through. Surat's father, had been reticent about letting the Centurion leave, and had offered to find quartering for him in the Capitol but had eventually managed to talk Valek out of it each time. In his capacity as house-guest, the Centurion was providing a wealth of information about the humans based on his observations during the fighting on Vulcan as well as during their time as a prisoner. Indeed, Valek had gained a startling understanding of the enemy and the bountiful stream of information he had been supplying was beginning to affect the course of policy for the empire.

Of course Takal was getting the better of it all too, in addition to being privy to the debriefings and information sessions, she was also sleeping with Valek. He had half expected that after a week or two she would have used him up and cast him aside, instead he found that she had been carrying on the liaison almost since he had arrived at the home of Demek's clan months ago. If she wasn't pregnant yet they were either being extremely cautious or it was some sort of miracle. Surat was certain that his father knew…it was even possible that Terelisa had told him but he gave no indication of the fact, seeming to grow progressively more and more fond of the Centurion the longer time progressed. It was possible the idea of Takal finally finding someone to settle down with and give him grandchildren overrode any indignity or apprehension about her fornicating with a man so far below her station. Then again, it could simply be that father was different. Despite his station, he still liked to work with his hand, taking weeks at a time to toil in the family vineyards and inspecting their factories and other major holdings himself; dirty, boot-clad, hand cracked, hair bleached, and skin burned tan by the sun. Father had always said it was what kept him rooted, grounded in reality; it let him remember the burdens of the people whom he helped govern. Mother encouraged the affectation, often spending whole seasons overseeing the vineyards, the harvest, and the making of the wine. Mother had taken pains to trace their family lines back, charting every descendent since their respective ancestors left Vulcan. She had always said that their status was because of work and effort, and that the humble origins of their clans were something to find pride and strength in.

Surat himself had never known want, his sister had never know anything but favor, and in this he sometimes felt a thread of guilt he could not ameliorate. To him, the only option to remedy this was to serve the people of the Empire, he chose to do so by the sword and his sister had by the pen. Still, he couldn't help but feel like Valek had some anchor to the humble roots of their people that he would never have, and he secretly envied him for that.

As he drew close to the small set of room Valek inhabited, he heard loud generated noise, following a prescribed rhythm that made it seem like music, but like nothing he had ever heard. He cracked the door, looking into the room to see the Centurion leaning back in the chair next the large wood desk in front of the large bay windows, eyes closed as a roughly filmed video played on the screen, it was where the music was coming from. The image on the screen seemed to show personnel from the Marine contingent at Joint-Base Wehytan, they were all off duty, some clad in short pants and short sleeved shirts, some in athletic pants, nothing truly uniform beyond the fact that none of them had hair longer than a few centimeters and they were all athletic, though some were obviously a good bit more burly than the others. Some had obvious tattoos, others did not, some were barefooted, others wore shoes, some held beverage cans and cups, some held sporting implements, while others held nothing. Valek nodded his head in time with the "music" such as it was, everything having a peculiarly metallic quality from the strange stringed instruments to the heavy use of cymbals on the percussion instruments. Surat looked closely, thinking he recognized the drummer.

"Was that corporal Barnes?"

Valek's eyes opened but he didn't budge, almost as if he'd known his commander had entered the room, "Yes, it is. Before we left I asked if there was any way I could get a recording of the music they performed, and they allowed me to record their performances with a digital video capture device."

Surat knitted his brows, rubbing a hand through the hair he was still presently debating whether or not he should allow to grow out to its original length. "When did you have time for that?"

"When we were designated trustees then given our parole I was tasked with emptying waste disposal bins in their billeting area, I feel I got to know them quite well during that time."

Surat sat on the tea table a few feet away, "You never mentioned that before."

"I wasn't sure how to broach the subject." Valek turned to look back at the screen as the group of humans playing the instruments all started shouting a chorus in gruff growling voices, a two three two three syllabic grouping they repeated twice. At the bottom of the screen the words were translated into Romulan script; "Bone, grave, bone engraved. Stone, grave, stone engraved. Bone, grave, bone engraved. Stone, grave, stone engraved."

The lead began again, his voice just as gruff and the words just as growled as was the chorus.

"I know what you've said in some of the briefings, but what did you really think of them?" Surat inquired, expecting that the answer would be even more revealing of the nature of his subordinate he now considered a friend.

"I miss them. I felt as though I came to know them, and they were not what we believed they were, what they seemed to be on Vulcan. These are good people, more like us than we would probably be willing to acknowledge."

Surat nodded slowly, his contact with the humans had always been rigidly ensconced in protocol. As the de-facto leader of the single strongest and most intact group of prisoners, he was accorded the privilege of being privy to the developments in the prison and their disposition by the command staff there. The humans were polite to him, respectful, maybe even courteous, but never friendly or personable. Maybe Valek's experience had been different as he came to know the human jailors as individuals and fellow soldiers. "Which is probably why we'll never be able to extend the hand of friendship to them."

Valek turned to look at his superior, "We can't go to war with them again, we won't survive."

Surat chuckled, "I am relatively certain we're never going to get sent to war again."

"I mean our people, we can't survive another war with the humans. The philosophy of their military is just such an example. Just about everyone we fought on Vulcan, all the Marines at the camp…they're not career soldiers, they will do a few years, four, eight, twelve…some of them will make a career of it, but most of them do their term of enlistment then go their own way." Valek explained, seemingly taken aback by the concept, "It hasn't even been four years since we invaded Vulcan, and already thirty three percent of the humans we faced have left active duty service and returned to civilian lives."

Surat furrowed his brown, "I'm not sure I grasp the significance of that."

Valek sighed slightly, trying to determine how to best contextualize what he had come to see as its importance, how it informed on the nature of the humans, "I suppose you can say it shows that they are not inherently militaristic despite their proficiency. They don't have a war economy, a war culture, or a war government. Their level of military preparedness is rooted in the hope they will never have to use it. They're not conquerors, they're not imperialists. Foes in the past have managed to waken them, to elicit their anger, but it quickly subsides. For them, war is in the DNA, something they do naturally, but they don't seek it."

"It seems a bit contradictory."

Valek nodded, "Which is probably what makes it more terrifying. Do you remember the human we saw at the main gates of their fort, the one with the black helmet and vest?"

Surat felt a haunted chill go up his back, "Yes, I do…"

"He was an engineer. His position in their military was to run the maintenance and operations sections of a starship, he was not a ground commander, he wasn't even a Marine. He, physically, jumped out of a starship in the high atmosphere to knock out our dampening fields to allow the Vulcan government to be beamed out. He then took command of the entire planet's defense when the commander of the Marine detachment was injured."

Surat's expression shifted to muted horror, "How do you know this?"

"Corporal Barnes…the large human guard D'Vor often spoke with…he was at Shi'kahr during our invasion."

Surat felt another chill go up his spine, "And they let him act as our guard?"

"He didn't hate us…we…we romulans…killed many of his comrades, he wore their names tattooed into his skin, but he didn't hate us, didn't despise us. I would even say he saw some of us as friends. He treated me like a person, like a fellow soldier, he was a good man and he wasn't even the exception. But how many of us do you think he killed?"

Surat shook his head slowly, "Beyond count…dozens…hundreds maybe."

"And in less than two years he could put it all behind him and be our guard? He stood there six days a standard week with that weapon and never once trained it on any of us, he learned our language, our habits, he saw us at our worst and never once raised a hand against us. But, given the order, he could kill without hesitation or qualm, how do we make war with an enemy that can eradicated whole-sale without even doing so out of hate?"

Surat shook his head, having a hard time wrapping his mind around it. Truth be told, he had started to hate the humans during the assault. They had lost so many to the garrison force that he had started to take a sick pleasure in the thought that they had managed to kill a few of their number even as the Romulan and Reman bodies had to be stacked like split wood. When he had been informed that the garrisoning force of humans on Vulcan had numbered fewer than 3000 and that between those humans and a few hundred Vulcan commandos twenty seven thousand Romulan and Reman soldiers had died before the relief force had arrived has shocked him into numbness. He couldn't hate after that, it was like a prey animal hating an apex predator; it simply didn't matter, each was fulfilling a role mandated by nature.

"How much of this have you discussed with my father?"

Valek swallowed, a grimace on his face as he looked away, "None of it."

"Why?"

"I did not believe it was prudent to let him know that I actually admire them."

Surat put a hand on his subordinates shoulder, "Valek…we can't help but admire them, if not for the same reasons."

"Some of them became my friends, sir." He admitted, "Regardless of what they were to us, or what we were to them, I can't help but feel there were a kinship there."

"Talk to my father, be candid about it, we have to approach them with this level of understanding."

"It is hard to be anything but analytical in the debriefings." Valek groused, "There are so many other ears there, beyond just your father and Terelisa."

"Does she know how you feel about them?" Surat inquired; his face with a dour, almost critical set.

"I haven't been terribly open with her about them."

Surat cocked a brow at his subordinate, "She hasn't been able to pry that from you?"

Valek knew where that was going, "We have other things to talk about in those situations."

The sub-commander chuckled, "I suppose you two would."

Valek arched his brows but said nothing further, prompting Surat to speak again, "What do you think will come of you two?"

"You sure are putting me on the spot." Valek protested with amusement.

"Don't think of me as her brother right now."

"I think…" He paused, considering his words, what they meant, what lens they gave into his feelings, "I think I love her."

"Think…?"

"She's not what I am used to, not what I ever imagined I would have from a woman. The thought that I would eventually start a family had always been there, but now I find myself in a situation that I am not sure which way to move forward with."

Surat wasn't sure if he should say what he was thinking, but his subordinate had a right to know, "She has been something of a man-eater in the past."

Valek nodded, "I picked up on that right away, she knew what she wanted too much to be inexperienced. But…"

"But what?"

He looked at his commander, right in the eye, "She has told me she loves me."

Surat stifled a bit of a wry grin, "That's a first."

Valek frowned, feeling his was somehow on the spot and he didn't like it one bit, "I'm way to far below her station, below your family's station to ever be a suitable husband for her. She doesn't have a choice but to use me up and throw me away and I'm one hundred percent at fault."

Surat bobbed his brows, folding his arms across his chest, "Our family has humble origins. We were farmers, laborers, we didn't begin as aristocrats, we clawed our way up to the top of Romulan society from the bottom. Three generations ago we were still nothing but people tied to the land, farming, producing. There's no dishonor in that, it's a noble role, a noble profession."

"But now you're a family with some of the greatest sway in the empire. How would it be suitable for a senator to wed herself to a lowly centurion?"

"One servant of the people marrying another; undeniable proof that we have remembered our history, our past, our true position relative to that of the citizenry, how could this be anything but fittingly Romulan?"

Valek shrugged, fighting a grin of his own at the validation it gave him, "That's one way to look at it."

Surat stood, "I want to you to speak with my father about this."

Valek almost came out his chair, "About Terelisa?"

The sub-commander almost laughed at the alarm on Valek's face, "No, not about that, you two can broach the subject to him once you get her pregnant or ask for her hand. I mean about the humans, I think he needs this perspective."


"First contact…" Archer leaned back in the command couch, popping his knuckles as he did so, "and with a people that so little is known about."

Erika smirked, "Don't let your enthusiasm show too much, Jon."

"It's a bit deal, they specifically requested contact. The way I hear it they're a race of recluses."

"Wouldn't be the first, "She countered, "a lot of private people out there."

Jon shrugged, "It's one thing when it's a people that are more or less planet locked, these people had dozens of worlds, but they don't trade with much of anyone, nobody contests their borders, they don't have diplomatic relations with just about anyone."

"It might be grounds for caution, sir." Malcolm declared, ever the alarmist.

"I don't think we have anything to worry about except making a good first impression." Archer declared, knitting his brows, "They were straight forward, let us know the approximate location just outside their border, gave us IFF transponder codes, scans of the entire area, validated our initial long range scans. If they wanted to set us up, they'd have tried to make sure we didn't do our due diligence."

"I'd have felt a bit more comfortable if we knew more about them though." Hernandez added.

"They're reptilian, they're private, they have a rather blunt diplomatic style but it seems they grasp the core fundamentals of diplomacy. The language of the communique respectful but not florid and they provided extensive data about their language for purposes of the universal translators." Hoshi replied, her role as communications and electronic warfare officer meant he would be heavily involved in the process of facilitating the communications.

"Sir, I have detected their ship, three hundred fifty one thousand kilometers, eighteen degrees to starboard. Shields are powered, but I am detecting nothing indicating weapons are powered." Malcolm declared, eyes locked on his readouts.

"Can we get it up on long-range telescopy?" Archer inquired.

"Aye, sir, punching it up now."

The ship was long, and narrow, slab like with an angled nose and the engine module located in the back. It was utilitarian looking, lacking in stylistic flourish, but the plates and exposed components all looked precisely assembled, pristine and functional. It could be a warship or a freighter, it was impossible to tell. It was, however, possible to tell that it was quite large, about twice the size of Enterprise, but save for its relative size, it didn't look particularly belligerent.

"Sir, we are being hailed." Hoshi declared.

"Is there video?" Archer inquired.

"Not yet, sir, just audio and data."

Jon looked over to Erika then back to Sato, "Put it through, miss Sato."

"Aye, sir."

There was a crackle, and the screen showed a series of strange glyphs arranged around a central circle, almost reminding him of an old film synchronization clip as the glyphs changed indicating streaming text and a quadrant of the circle rotated around. There was a sound of growls, hisses, and almost roar-like sounds that made him think of a Crocodile or Alligator. The sounds abruptly changed to synthesized speech, "…-or synchronization occurs. Please stand-by while communicator synchronization occurs."

There was a pause.

"Synchronization successful, audio-video stream begins now."

The screen filled in with an image of two huge sauroid beings, long snouts full of sharp teeth, heavy ridges on their faces and skulls, small reptilian eyes facing partially forward indicating a species that had wide-angle stereoscopic vision. They were powerfully built, huge shoulders and powerful limbs and were garbed in simple toga-like clothing that bore a series of patterns that could indicated rank or station. The bridge was well lit, and simple, lacking ostentation but with a slightly yellowed glow from the lighting.

"Can we assume that we speak to Captain Jonathan Archer of the U.S.S. Enterprise, United Earth Nations' Military Command: Starfleet?" The creature on the right inquired.

Archer stood, moving to stand centered in front of the screen, "You assume correctly, I am Captain Archer, to whom do I have the privilege of speaking?"

The creature brought a clawed hand to its chest, "I am Colonel Krusth of the Gorn Hegemony cruiser Shir'thiss, I am tasked with providing transportation to Minister Thr'kiss for the purpose of opening initial dialogue between our peoples."

The hisses, clicks, and growls of the native language managed to filter through the sound of the universal translator's speech.

"It is our privilege to meet and speak with the minister, our initial contacts with the organs of your government that contacted ours recommended and exchange of representatives. As such I present my first officer, commander Erika Hernandez." Archer gestured back to his XO who rose from her seat.

"It will be my honor to participate in this cultural exchange." She intoned, feeling a few stabs of primal apprehension at the powerful looking reptiles.

The beastly officer raised his chin, showing his throat and the thick scales there, a sign that likely either meant confirmation or submission among their race, "How do you wish to conduct the transport of the representatives, Captain Archer? As a civilian, and per the initial communication with your government, we have tasked two individuals to provide for escort of our minister, do you have any objections to this?"

The tone of the universal translator was so even it was hard to grasp what mood the creature was exhibiting as their normal vocalizations sounded adequately intimidating.

"We cannot have objections to diplomatic discourse your people began in good faith, how would you prefer to conduct the exchange?" Archer replied with diplomatic aplomb.

"The minister is not positively disposed to molecular transportation and would, likely, find it agreeable if we were to dock to complete the exchange of persons for the duration of initial talks." The colonel replied, rubbing the back of one crooked clawed finger against his left cheek ridges.

Archer actually didn't have a problem with that, finding the idea of having actual contact with the ship during talks preferable as the Marine detail would have ready access to the ship if it turned out the Gorn weren't presenting at face value.

"That would be excellent, are there any other concessions we can make to facilitate the process?"

The creature turned to look off screen for a moment, then turned back, "If we could beam aboard our communications officer to ensure that all universal translator protocols are in place before the minister arrives, that would eliminate the time that would be wasted while proper synchronization occurs."

A good faith move to be sure, was it possible that duplicity was an alien concept to these people? "Certainly, we can provide you the coordinates to beam directly to the bridge."

The creature looked down a moment, "Do you have at least two hundred and eighty centimeters of ceiling clearance on your bridge?"

It was a strange question. "We do, right in the center where I am standing now."

"Very well." The creature made a hissing sound that the translator didn't catch and a matter stream appeared about four feet from where Archer stood.

When it finished materializing the creature was nearly seven feet tall and had to weigh nearly two hundred thirty kilograms. It wore the same kind of toga they had seen on the colonel with less ostentation and a pair of thick leather bracers covering most of the massive forearms. Its head darted around in a birdlike fashion as it took in its surroundings, then unclipped a rather plain looking cylindrical object from the belt it wore around the waist of the short half-shouldered jerkin.

It held up the device and made an almost chirping hiss, the device projected, "Please stand by for universal translator synchronization."

From where she sad Hoshi let out a throaty chopped growl, the sound ending in a pair of grunting sounds. The Gorn turned to look at her, its head cocking to the side then it began keying a series of keys on the cylinder with its claws. It then trilled back ending with a low rumbling growl. Hoshi in turn began pulling and swapping isolinear chips from the console in front of her and replied after a moment with a stretched hiss across her teeth.

The creature twisted the upper half of the cylinder an eighth turn, then depressed another key with its left thumb claw, this time what started as a hiss turned into language they could all understand, "..-chronization at sixty percent."

The mammoth reptilian pulled a box from the other side of the belt, swinging the device open on a hinge then examining the faintly glowing read out. The communicator began a split second after a growl started to roll from the creature's throat, "Please speak normally, this will speed synchronization."

"Welcome aboard the Enterprise."

The creature issued another series of growls, but the translator didn't pick them up as the sounds left its throat, through the low rumble they could make out three words, "Thank you, captain."

Hoshi couldn't suppress her delight at encountering another polyglot as a big grin stole the expression of quiet professionalism from her.

The creature spoke again as the communication device in its right claw blinked, "I am called spotted-egg, Captain Archer."

The vocal discipline to produce the sounds from vocal cords that were never intended to produce that kind of speech was amazing, and in this individual Archer saw Hoshi's obvious opposite number. "We're all pleased to make your acquaintance; we always look forward to meeting new peoples and learning about them."

The communication device beeped, "Synchronization complete."

"I apologize is I must continue to speak through this device captain, we lack the biological apparatus to speak your tongue without great effort."

Archer nodded with a smile, "We understand, there's probably nobody on the ship that could attempt to communicate with you in your native tongue save for our own miss Sato."

He nodded over to the communications officer, prompting the creature to turn to look at his counterpart, "Your ability to produce our speech is quite exceptional, miss Sato. I look forward to working with you."

Archer couldn't fight back the grin anymore, this was turning into textbook first contact, and with a species so entirely different from them. Even the Xindi reptilians had seemed more human than these Gorn did, it was fascinating to see a species so different from humans in so many ways yet somehow so similar.

"There is so little known about your people even from your immediate galactic neighbors that we couldn't resist the desire to meet you face to face after your communication to our government." Hernandez volunteered, taking a place next to Archer as the huge sauroid darted its head around, looking at everyone on the bridge in turn.

"We are, admittedly, not a terribly inquisitive people. Our way has always been to observe and rarely interact."

Archer nodded, the creature was candid but seemed polite, respectful, "Our hope is that after these next few days that might change."

The creature let out a screeching trill, loud and piercing that seemed to startle everyone on the bridge but Hoshi. The creature seemed to pick up on the alarm, "I apologize if my expression of mirth sounds alarming, we are not entirely accustomed with interacting with mammals of the primate variety, but I can say in this capacity that in the past we have avoided contact with other races deliberately, your people, though, are fascinating and we wish to learn more about you."

"So that was laughter, just now?" Archer inquired, his brown exhibiting a critical set.

"The sound I produced is what approximates that expression for your people."

"So that was a happy laugh and not a diabolical one, huh?" Archer posited with a wry grin, assuming that if the species could exhibit amusement, they might have a sense of humor.

"Our people do not laugh when angry, captain." Something about the way the thick skin and spines contorted around its eyes and the drawing back of the lip from his hind-teeth seemed to almost resemble a grin to Archer.

"I'll take note of that then." He smirked back to the creature, "Is there any preparations we need to make for the minister and the escorts?"

The creature produced a small slip of plastics and silicon, "Here is some general information regarding our species, but in the interest of facilitating the process, if I could please see the general clearance dimensions of the ship and inquire about your dietary requirements. I was told your people were omnivorous, is that a correct representation?"

"Some of us more than others." Archer replied about the latter, promoting another trilling screech.

"We are almost exclusively carnivorous, will this present a dietary issue for the traditional shared meals?" The creature asked, something about the soft eloquence of the translator seeming out of place given the size and intimidating appearance of the beast.

"That depends; do your people consume flesh raw or cooked?"

"Either is acceptable, we simply request that herbivorous faire not be supplied to the minister, we can consume vegetal matter, but it is not optimal."

Archer smiled again, "I think we won't have any problems in that regard. Now, miss Sato, mister Reed, if you could see about showing our guest around the ship so…" Archer paused, "I'm sorry, I'm not sure how to address you in terms of pronouns."

The creature nodded, immediately looking back and forth between Archer, Hernandez, and back to Sato, "I am a male."

"Right, if you can show him around the ship so he can relay the information."

Hoshi stood from her station and approached the creature, feeling quite puny as Reed descended from his station, and taking a position flanking the Gorn gestured to the turbolift, "If you will follow me, sir, we can show you our facilities."

Archer turned back to look fully at the view screen, "I apologize if my subordinate was unusually frank, Captain Archer, our protocols for making contact with another race are limited."

Jon waved it off with a smile, "As someone who has made first contact more than once, I have to say I really appreciate the straight-forward honesty."

The Gorn colonel lifted its chin again, exposing the throat, "We similarly value honesty."

"I am looking forward to a fruitful meeting, colonel." Archer replied.


Erika settled into the weird nest-like bed surprised it would be so soft considering how big and tough the Gorn seemed. She had been shocked to find out that the males were actually smaller than the females, not that the males weren't large enough, but the females were big in a way no sentient being had a right to be. She suddenly understood why they had wanted to inspect facilities. The minister had towered over her guards, clearly weighting on the upper end of seven hundred pounds a muscle, scale, and bone. Even with her size, she had seemed somehow regal. Jon had insisted she go over first as a gesture of good faith and while she still had some apprehension she had not hesitated. The minister had been waiting at the other end with a detail of guards and the Gorn colonel commanding the ship. For all her size and spines, and claws, and teeth and scales…minister Krss'thiss had seemed so elegant in manner, gently taking her small human hands in her massive claws that were almost as big as Erika's chest and speaking in low hisses and rumbles that the translator worked into the kindest reassurances.

"You must let me know if there is anything that can be done to make you more comfortable commander, these hostage exchanges of the diplomatic process are so boorish."

She spoke like royalty, like a matriarch, like some grande dame of ages past, and Erika could almost see her fitting into some eighteenth century royal court on Earth as well as she could in a low-budget caveman movie.

Most of the time she had spent, thus far, on the Gorn ship had been spent touring it with the Colonel as he showed and explained everything he could without seriously compromising their general operational security. They were blunt, but not disrespectful or rude, and to their credit they were contrite when excessively blunt which Erika actually found endearing about them. The meal she had shared with their captain had been a rather amazing affair. When they had asked about raw meat she had been initially apprehensive, not so much that they planned on eating her, as she was that perhaps they preferred to take their meat raw. This had been the opposite case though. She realized when she entered their mess hall that they had a truly ingenious environmental control system when she witnessed large sides of meat being roasted over actual fires. The creatures they cooked were large, the limbs bound back with wire or ties and almost resembling a pig except for the fact that the limbs were longer and the back and spine more arched, something like a buffalo but with the light colored flesh of something porcine. These were, in turn, slavered in sauce and the drip pan the juice and fat ran into was filled with what looked like onions and peppers. The thing she found interesting was how few were actually in the mess hall which had prompted the colonel to explain they only ate once every three to five days but at that time, the could consume up to one eighth their total body weight, mostly in meat with some root and leaf vegetables to facilitate thorough digestion.

Another thing that had surprised her more than anything was how clean everything was. She hadn't been surprised when she boarded to the ship that it was hot and humid, almost uncomfortably so and given their reptilian nature they had not seemed to think it strange at all when she unzipped her jumpsuit to the waist. Save for size, there was no sexual dimorphism between male and female Gorn as best as she could tell so they did not seem to register it from humans. Everything on the ship was pristine, clean, devoid of blemish. Their preferred lighting was in yellowy shades and they eschewed carpet, upholstery, where it existed, seemed to be of a leathery substance that was immune to the humidity, which, in its own right, was another testament to their environmental control system as water did not seem to condense anywhere despite the humidity approaching 80%. They were clearly a brilliant people, more so than one would expect to look at them. Their technology was solid, well developed, rudimentary where it needed to be and hiding its complexity. She had realized this when she noticed there was no visible lighting on the ship, rather they had underlays of light emitting diodes that actually served to light the very panels of the corridor. They used a holographic overlay that could be used to call up console interface on any surface on the ship if need be. It had not been visible from Enterprise, but the system actually placed name and rank designation glyphs directly on the slightly reflective patch of cloth on the shoulder of their jerkins for all to see.

The quarters she was currently occupying was clearly designed for a Gorn female, the ceiling topped out just shy of three and a half meters and the nest-bed seemed to be big enough to accommodate a car. The bathing facility had been a bit confusing at first; it was basically a water-fall that cut on once you placed yourself beneath it. The water had been rather cold, but it felt good compared to the hot room. It had taken a while but she had figured out the environmental controls for the room after bathing and currently had cool air blowing into the cavernous set of quarters. The nest was made of the same leathery substance which seemed to absorb moisture without getting soggy and didn't stick to her skin, which was a plus since she was currently lounging but nothing but a pair of bikini-bottom underwear and a towel around her shoulders and resting on her breasts. The room seemed to have dimmed as the embedded lighting registered she was lying down. She wanted to talk to Jon, maybe indulge in a little comm naughtiness and resolved herself to try to contact him. If she could figure out the environmental controls, surely she could devise the proper use for the comm interface, right? She had noticed that the Gorn always seemed to tap a small orange circle that seemed to be present on all surfaces to bring up the computer interface and rolling onto her stomach she saw one on the corner of a wall panel adjacent to the bed. Tapping it the holo-interface popped up, showing Gorn glyphs and the strange quadrilateral GUI. It blinked a moment, then the Gorn script was all replaced with Terran Standard English…the wording of some of the prompts was peculiar, but she was impressed by the effort and the way the system had seemed to recognize her as something other than Gorn. It took her a few minutes to adequately navigate the operating system and locate the protocol to connect her to Enterprise but once she had connected, entered her access credentials and selected his quarters she was rewarded to see him sitting down in front of the console.

"Hey you!" she exalted as his eyes went wide.

"Uhhh…" He looked her over; shocked but liking the teasing eyeful he was getting as the ends of the towel draped suggestively in front of her breasts. "You look comfortable."

"Wanna see if you can sneak over and we can fool around?"

He frowned, "You are an unrepentant tease, you know that?"

She faux-frowned, then rolled on her back, "We could always give each other a show."

"And what if they record all outgoing transmissions?"

She smiled as she reached down, hooking her thumbs into the sides of her panties and lifting her hips pulled them down and off, "Then they'll already have a primer on human mating rituals for their records."


She stared up at the ceiling, looking at the overlay of stars projected on the panels from the holographic projector arrayed next to Trip's personal computer console. She reflected idly that she hadn't put on a single piece of clothing in just over four days now, and while she thought it might be an interesting change from being naked as long as she had been, she still was experiencing enough skin sensitivity that she found being nude pleasant. Her faculties had more or less returned, even though she still found it difficult to conversing in English they were actually having conversations again, and Trip seemed to be able to slip into Vulcan without any issue when speaking in English started to throw her. By his own accounting of events she was sleeping more now, a fact that had seemed to be of some relief to her as he seemed to be quite sore from the previous three and a half days of protracted sexual encounters and her, apparent, willingness to harm him.

She tried to not think about the last part, it was part of the process so to agonize over hurting her mate was illogical, what did bother her was she couldn't really remember it, beyond snatches of recollection of rage or indignation. She was more lucid now, but her compulsion control was limited and she realized she was still behaving in an animated fashion as was evidenced by the way she would launch into conversations that required her to sit up and gesture with her hands, speaking faster than she ever did and having to try to force herself not to speak Vulcan which she, invariably, failed at. She rolled onto her stomach, the cool sheets bringing momentarily relief to the hot skin and she felt her nipples perk at how good it felt in the moment. She rolled back to her back, having migrated most of the way across the bed in the process letting those cooled sheets work on her back and bottom. It felt similarly good, and she looked idly down her body to the obvious delineation of where garments covered her when sunbathing and she smiled to herself when she recalled how much those pale areas of flesh seemed to drive Trip wild. How long would he be away? The clock said he had left the quarters twenty minutes ago but right now it felt like hours as she felt the subtle temptation to reach down between her legs and begin attending to reawakened want that seemed centered there.

The phenomena of the Vulcan Love Slave fiction suddenly seemed to be so much more adequately contextualized now. Any other race that witnessed a female Vulcan in pon-farr would likely draw the conclusion that this was a race of borderline nymphomania tamped under rigid social custom and she had to seriously wonder now if given the proper partner and contact if this would not be the case. If Trip gave into his own sexual wants and allowed them to project, would she possibly always be in a state of sexual insatiability? It was mildly unfair, it struck her, that this was all exclusively on her schedule and his desire had to conform to hers. She wondered if, in the interest of fairness, if she would not, in the future, be able to transfer her fever, at least mentally, to him so that he might dictate the process and the course in which it occurred. She looked back at the stars, noting at least some of them appeared to be slightly out of place and she wondered if these were not old or obsolete charts.

She tried to located him in the bond, to get an idea where he was and what he was doing, but she was being blocked, which might be necessary as her thoughts tended towards the hypererotic the second she wasn't thinking about something else. It was peculiar but the mental barriers he had seemed to erect had their own sense of humor to them. She projected again just to hear it.

Come back here, I want it.

Trip Tucker is not available at this time, if you'd like to leave a message…too bad, because I haven't figured out precisely how that would work.

The door slip open and he stepped in, dropping a pile of firmware chips on his desk as he began unbuttoning the blouse jacket. He started whistling to himself, a few slow simple notes which would then drop off. He glanced over to her then back to the desk, "Somebody's heiny…is crowdin' my icebox.."

He whistled a few more notes and he folded the jacket and placed it over the chair at his desk and slipped his feet out of his boots. She could see the flush in his neck and ears, he was playing hard to get, or perhaps, was trying to fight off a physical desire that his battered body did not want to engage in. "Somebody's cold one, is givin' me chills…"

She sat up, reaching over to the bedside table to the bottle of water sitting there and opening it, drained the contents. He glanced back over as she rose to her knees, ready to climb off the bed and over to him, his eyes said something she couldn't quite figure, but there was a thread of physical lust there but before she could fully contact those eyes he looked back away, whistling a few more notes to himself, "Say it ain't so…your drug is a heart breaker."

The undershirt and pants came off next, followed by the socks, but rather than divesting himself of the boxer shorts he turned back to the desk, looking at the firmware chips, still whistling to himself. She saw as he turned away, the moment of profile, obvious tumescence which indicated he was at least at some level prepared for intercourse but his behavior didn't conform to this, so either he was playing a game or his biology was at war with his actual desire. He had complained that more than anything else, his erections had become painful from repeated and lengthy overuse. Last night he had joked that the amount of semen he had produced would be enough to account for actual physical weight loss at this point. So this was apparently a waiting game, a game to see who would act first, who would give first, who wouldn't be able to stifle the desire longest. Okay, fine, she could beat this game…and she could beat it by not playing, breaking the rules. She got off the bed, crossing over to where he sat, using a PADD to check program integrity on the chips, still whistling but seemingly a different song now. "Oh no, it go, it gone, bye bye. Who I, I think, I sink and I die."

She moved to straddle him, and he moved his arms clear to allow it, she sat down across his lap, feeling the tumescence pushing at her through the underwear, his expression was a strange mixture of acceptance, defeat, resignation, amusement, and maybe just a little confusion. "Yes'm?"

"Put a baby in me."

He grinned, his expression inches from a laugh at this point, "You think you don't already have one in you?"

"Be certain."