TITLE: Dear Annie ("Precious Cargo")
AUTHOR: Mara Greengrass
AUTHOR'S E-MAIL: fishfolk@ix.netcom.com. Feedback is better than chocolate.
PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: Linguistics Database, yes, others, just let me know.
CATEGORY: Gen
RATINGS/WARNINGS: G (some T/S shippiness)
SUMMARY: Hoshi writes home after the events of "Precious Cargo."
DISCLAIMER: Enterprise and all its crew belong to Paramount and many other entities with expensive lawyers. I am making no profit from this story.
NOTES: I know, I know, I say I want to avoid shippiness, but c'mon...with an episode like this, how could I resist? Thanks to Taryn for the read-through.
DEDICATION: For my hard-working--and currently off-line--beta, Captain Average, the superhero who rocks. Come back to us soon; my punctuation needs you!
* * * * *
Dear Annie,
At least if Trip was going to have a one-night stand, he picked a beautiful woman. I don't know exactly why that makes it better, but it does. (I know it had the exact opposite effect when Eric slept with the oh-so-statuesque Nomali, but that was different. How? I don't know. It just was.)
I'm trying fairly hard not be jealous of Trip, considering my own behavior on Risa. How well I'm succeeding is strictly a matter of opinion, mind you.
Granted, I don't know for certain he had sex with this Kaitaama person, but from the look on his face...I'd say the evidence is mounting. (So to speak. Good grief, have you ever noticed how *anything* can be a double entendre in the wrong hands? What am I saying? Of course you have, and you're the one who taught me--so this is all your fault.)
More information, less whining, you say?
Okay, we stopped to answer a distress call from an alien cargo ship, which claimed they needed help with repairs. Trip went over to help fix a stasis pod they said carried a passenger. (More on that later.) Well, he realized pretty quickly that no matter how good his intuitive understanding of machinery, the project would go faster with a translation.
I brought over a UT programmed to translate the written language and found him staring into the pod. And she was certainly gorgeous, mostly human in appearance, with just a few spots on the sides of her head. Trip barely even looked at me, just said thanks.
"It's not polite to stare," I said, trying not to laugh at him as I left. (Of course, if I'd known he was going to sleep with her, I might not have been laughing.)
The Captain offered to give these aliens a lift to where they were supposed to drop off Kaitaama, but they said no; Malcolm found that rather suspicious when we discussed it on the bridge, I'll give him that. But the Captain shrugged it off and went to have dinner with them.
It wasn't long before the Captain was calling Malcolm to go check out what was going on, because Trip wasn't answering his comm, then the alien ship broke loose from the docking clamps...with Trip on board.
Turns out--did you not see this coming?--the stasis pod didn't hold a passenger, but a prisoner, on her way to be ransomed by her people. And when she woke up and Trip let her out of the pod, the alien captain panicked and took off.
We set out in pursuit, but the alien ship played a dirty trick, dropping these particles that clogged our engines. (I could practically *hear* Malcolm filing that trick away for later use.)
While we were limping our way along with no warp engine, Trip was taking a ride. (See? Everything I say comes out...twisted. Definitely all your fault.)
As Trip told the story, he and Kaitaama wormed their way through access tubes, jumped in an escape pod, and landed on an island, where they waited for rescue.
But the smirk on his face says they did something else while they were waiting, and somehow I don't think he was found in his underwear just because it was hot on the planet. Boy, Trip works pretty fast, and under difficult circumstances, too. You've almost got to admire that.
Of course, while he was, shall we say, otherwise engaged, (ha!) we were frantically worried about his safety. Engineering worked their behinds off to purge those intakes, the Captain nearly wore a hole in the deck pacing, and Malcolm swore to take out every bit of their engines next time we caught them. I even witnessed T'Pol sounding mildly concerned for his safety.
She pointed out that the remaining alien needed Trip to repair the stasis pod, but once that was done...ominous silence.
That's when the Captain decided to really lean on the alien we had--oh, did I mention one of the aliens got left behind? I suppose I was too caught up in describing Trip's sex life. (Say the word obsessed and we can have a little talk about one lovely lady whose name was...let's see, Nasreen, wasn't it? Mm-hmm, I thought you'd see reason.)
In any case, the Captain, in great desperation, hatched an odd, but effective, plan. On the theory that good cop/bad cop might be new to this sector, he and T'Pol threatened the alien we had in custody until he gave us the warp signature for his ship.
I would have given almost anything to see the ruse being carried out. I don't know exactly how it worked, but I saw T'Pol go by in full Vulcan robes, and Malcolm says the Captain was playing good cop. Vulcan bad cop--now *there's* something you don't get to see every day. I shudder to think what kind of threats they must have come up with--those two can be pretty dangerous when they're working together.
Whatever they threatened him with, it worked. He spit out the warp signature, and we took off at top speed for the location we pinpointed, expecting to find Trip's lifeless body somewhere along the way.
The ship was floating empty when we found it, no detectable life at all, which gave us a bit of a jolt, but then T'Pol found biosigns on a nearby planet (the only one with an atmosphere). That was when I caught a faint signal, possibly a homing beacon, but it cut off before I could pin it down precisely.
The Captain, Malcolm, and a security team went down, while the rest of us waited. I nearly bit Travis' head off for speculating about what they might find. (Must remember to go apologize to him later. I'm sure he understood, but still...)
Malcolm took great relish in describing the scene as they found it--especially Trip's state of partial undress--and from his description, I'd say I'm not the only one who thinks Trip was a busy busy boy.
Well, it was pretty anticlimactic, but there you go. Trip came back safe and sound, Kaitaama was returned to her people, and the villains were turned over to the proper authorities. (And boy, was *that* a diplomatic and linguistic mess: Kaitaama's people screaming about what happened to her, the villains' government screaming about our treatment of their people, and the Captain trying to do first contact in the middle of everything.)
But I've just woken up from the first full night's sleep in a few days, and things are looking brighter already. I hope all went well in Norway, and you now know everything there is to know about Norwegian eating habits. I'm still holding out for a package of smoked fish, you know.
Love,
Hoshi
AUTHOR: Mara Greengrass
AUTHOR'S E-MAIL: fishfolk@ix.netcom.com. Feedback is better than chocolate.
PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: Linguistics Database, yes, others, just let me know.
CATEGORY: Gen
RATINGS/WARNINGS: G (some T/S shippiness)
SUMMARY: Hoshi writes home after the events of "Precious Cargo."
DISCLAIMER: Enterprise and all its crew belong to Paramount and many other entities with expensive lawyers. I am making no profit from this story.
NOTES: I know, I know, I say I want to avoid shippiness, but c'mon...with an episode like this, how could I resist? Thanks to Taryn for the read-through.
DEDICATION: For my hard-working--and currently off-line--beta, Captain Average, the superhero who rocks. Come back to us soon; my punctuation needs you!
* * * * *
Dear Annie,
At least if Trip was going to have a one-night stand, he picked a beautiful woman. I don't know exactly why that makes it better, but it does. (I know it had the exact opposite effect when Eric slept with the oh-so-statuesque Nomali, but that was different. How? I don't know. It just was.)
I'm trying fairly hard not be jealous of Trip, considering my own behavior on Risa. How well I'm succeeding is strictly a matter of opinion, mind you.
Granted, I don't know for certain he had sex with this Kaitaama person, but from the look on his face...I'd say the evidence is mounting. (So to speak. Good grief, have you ever noticed how *anything* can be a double entendre in the wrong hands? What am I saying? Of course you have, and you're the one who taught me--so this is all your fault.)
More information, less whining, you say?
Okay, we stopped to answer a distress call from an alien cargo ship, which claimed they needed help with repairs. Trip went over to help fix a stasis pod they said carried a passenger. (More on that later.) Well, he realized pretty quickly that no matter how good his intuitive understanding of machinery, the project would go faster with a translation.
I brought over a UT programmed to translate the written language and found him staring into the pod. And she was certainly gorgeous, mostly human in appearance, with just a few spots on the sides of her head. Trip barely even looked at me, just said thanks.
"It's not polite to stare," I said, trying not to laugh at him as I left. (Of course, if I'd known he was going to sleep with her, I might not have been laughing.)
The Captain offered to give these aliens a lift to where they were supposed to drop off Kaitaama, but they said no; Malcolm found that rather suspicious when we discussed it on the bridge, I'll give him that. But the Captain shrugged it off and went to have dinner with them.
It wasn't long before the Captain was calling Malcolm to go check out what was going on, because Trip wasn't answering his comm, then the alien ship broke loose from the docking clamps...with Trip on board.
Turns out--did you not see this coming?--the stasis pod didn't hold a passenger, but a prisoner, on her way to be ransomed by her people. And when she woke up and Trip let her out of the pod, the alien captain panicked and took off.
We set out in pursuit, but the alien ship played a dirty trick, dropping these particles that clogged our engines. (I could practically *hear* Malcolm filing that trick away for later use.)
While we were limping our way along with no warp engine, Trip was taking a ride. (See? Everything I say comes out...twisted. Definitely all your fault.)
As Trip told the story, he and Kaitaama wormed their way through access tubes, jumped in an escape pod, and landed on an island, where they waited for rescue.
But the smirk on his face says they did something else while they were waiting, and somehow I don't think he was found in his underwear just because it was hot on the planet. Boy, Trip works pretty fast, and under difficult circumstances, too. You've almost got to admire that.
Of course, while he was, shall we say, otherwise engaged, (ha!) we were frantically worried about his safety. Engineering worked their behinds off to purge those intakes, the Captain nearly wore a hole in the deck pacing, and Malcolm swore to take out every bit of their engines next time we caught them. I even witnessed T'Pol sounding mildly concerned for his safety.
She pointed out that the remaining alien needed Trip to repair the stasis pod, but once that was done...ominous silence.
That's when the Captain decided to really lean on the alien we had--oh, did I mention one of the aliens got left behind? I suppose I was too caught up in describing Trip's sex life. (Say the word obsessed and we can have a little talk about one lovely lady whose name was...let's see, Nasreen, wasn't it? Mm-hmm, I thought you'd see reason.)
In any case, the Captain, in great desperation, hatched an odd, but effective, plan. On the theory that good cop/bad cop might be new to this sector, he and T'Pol threatened the alien we had in custody until he gave us the warp signature for his ship.
I would have given almost anything to see the ruse being carried out. I don't know exactly how it worked, but I saw T'Pol go by in full Vulcan robes, and Malcolm says the Captain was playing good cop. Vulcan bad cop--now *there's* something you don't get to see every day. I shudder to think what kind of threats they must have come up with--those two can be pretty dangerous when they're working together.
Whatever they threatened him with, it worked. He spit out the warp signature, and we took off at top speed for the location we pinpointed, expecting to find Trip's lifeless body somewhere along the way.
The ship was floating empty when we found it, no detectable life at all, which gave us a bit of a jolt, but then T'Pol found biosigns on a nearby planet (the only one with an atmosphere). That was when I caught a faint signal, possibly a homing beacon, but it cut off before I could pin it down precisely.
The Captain, Malcolm, and a security team went down, while the rest of us waited. I nearly bit Travis' head off for speculating about what they might find. (Must remember to go apologize to him later. I'm sure he understood, but still...)
Malcolm took great relish in describing the scene as they found it--especially Trip's state of partial undress--and from his description, I'd say I'm not the only one who thinks Trip was a busy busy boy.
Well, it was pretty anticlimactic, but there you go. Trip came back safe and sound, Kaitaama was returned to her people, and the villains were turned over to the proper authorities. (And boy, was *that* a diplomatic and linguistic mess: Kaitaama's people screaming about what happened to her, the villains' government screaming about our treatment of their people, and the Captain trying to do first contact in the middle of everything.)
But I've just woken up from the first full night's sleep in a few days, and things are looking brighter already. I hope all went well in Norway, and you now know everything there is to know about Norwegian eating habits. I'm still holding out for a package of smoked fish, you know.
Love,
Hoshi