TITLE: Dear Annie ("Stigma")
AUTHOR: Mara Greengrass
AUTHOR'S E-MAIL: fishfolk@ix.netcom.com. Feedback is better than chocolate.
PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know.
CATEGORY: Gen
RATINGS/WARNINGS: G
SUMMARY: Hoshi writes home after the events of "Stigma."
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: It was difficult to tell how much Hoshi knew, and when she knew it...to coin a phrase. So, this is a compromise. Thanks to ponygirl, allie, and Josephine for giving me their opinions. And thanks, as always, to Captain Average, the superhero who rocks :)
* * * * *
Dear Annie:
I can't remember the last time we had this much excitement without someone either shooting at us or threatening to shoot at us. (And isn't *that* a depressing commentary on my life.)
Unfortunately, much of the excitement involved T'Pol nearly being recalled to Vulcan. *Again*. That's getting to be nearly as commonplace as Trip and some alien babe. Speaking of which...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
There's a great deal I don't know about what's been happening, and I don't want to pry into T'Pol's personal life. Certainly a comm officer often has to do that whether she wants to or not, so I prefer to avoid it when I can. But it all comes down to the fact that I'm worried about her.
The Captain is nearly frantic, which tells me that whatever has happened, it's serious. And since all of this excitement has taken place at a conference of the Interspecies Medical Exchange, presumably it's over something medical.
Granted, that may be an unwarranted assumption. Perhaps T'Pol is fighting with the Vulcan Science Directorate over what brand of dilithium to use in the warp engines...
But I don't really think so. We came to this conference so Phlox could attend, and suddenly I received a stiff note from the conference organizers that he was no longer welcome as an attendee, and three Vulcan doctors descended on us to meet with T'Pol and Phlox.
I didn't find out about her being recalled until the Captain asked me to find a loophole, a way to delay the recall legally. "Tie 'em up with their own regulations" is how he put it. And I'm proud to say I did.
Turns out they had to give T'Pol a hearing before they yanked her back, so she and the Captain set out to convince these doctors to let her stay on Enterprise. The nosy part of me wishes I could have been a fly on the wall, but I suppose it doesn't really matter why they let her stay, just that she's staying.
As I said, I'm assuming it's something medical. And if she wants to stay here, then presumably she believes Phlox will be able to help her just as well as her own people. I'm sure he can, he's an amazing doctor.
Then there's Trip and the latest alien babe, except that this babe is a) Denobulan and b) married to Phlox. Yes, boys and girls, this time Trip was chased by our doctor's wife. How *does* he do it?
Phlox's wife Feezal came aboard to help install a neutron microscope in sickbay. I'm not exactly certain why it was necessary to have the chief engineer installing a piece of fairly standard equipment like that, but I suppose Trip just hates having new toys aboard unless he gets to play with them.
(And no, I didn't mean Feezal. Really.)
But Feezal apparently shares with *every other alien female in the entire universe* an attraction to our Mr. Tucker. According to what he, rather shamefacedly, told me at lunch, she was quite blatant in her regard. I think he would have preferred to not tell me, but I'd been pestering him to explain an odd meal he and I had the other day, and you know just how persistent I can be when something bothers me.
We were eating, and everything was perfectly normal until Feezal showed up. Trip was trying to convince me to stay aboard to watch the movie with him, but it was some horror film. Yuck. Do you remember what happened the time you made me watch that slasher movie? I thought Mark was going to faint when I jumped into his lap in fear.
In any case, from Trip's reaction, I honestly thought he'd slept with Feezal. (I suppose I owe him an apology, although he certainly looked embarrassed enough for that to be the case.) Apparently he was blushing because she was fondling his leg with her foot, and I can't really blame him for that, can I?
Although I do wonder why all the alien females seem to glom on to him. (I used "glom" the other day, and then I had to find it in the dictionary to prove to Liz it was a word. Ha! The linguist wins again.)
What other excitement did we have? Well, much of the crew got to take at least a brief shoreleave on the planet. I didn't have a chance to learn too much of the language, but enough that I was able to attend and enjoy a live theatrical performance. It reminded me a bit of pantomime, in the sense of humor that it showed.
In other news, Travis, our little boomer daredevil, managed...wait for it...to injure himself. I'm beginning to think he needs a keeper on shoreleave. This time, it was playing some kind of sport involving live animals, of all things. From his description it sounded like a greased pig contest, quite honestly, but Travis insists it was great fun.
The animals apparently got a bit overenthusiastic, however, and Travis ended up in sickbay. He was lucky the injury wasn't all that serious, and even luckier that Phlox's intended lecture on safety was cut short by all the other events. Travis swears he'll be more careful next time, but somehow I find that unlikely. Is there some reason I'm surrounded by men dedicated to getting themselves hurt? Is this some death wish that Starfleet imparts to the male cadets?
And on that cheerful note, I'm almost due for my next shift, so I should finish up this letter and get ready. I hope all is well on Earth.
Love,
Hoshi
AUTHOR: Mara Greengrass
AUTHOR'S E-MAIL: fishfolk@ix.netcom.com. Feedback is better than chocolate.
PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: Yes, just let me know.
CATEGORY: Gen
RATINGS/WARNINGS: G
SUMMARY: Hoshi writes home after the events of "Stigma."
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: It was difficult to tell how much Hoshi knew, and when she knew it...to coin a phrase. So, this is a compromise. Thanks to ponygirl, allie, and Josephine for giving me their opinions. And thanks, as always, to Captain Average, the superhero who rocks :)
* * * * *
Dear Annie:
I can't remember the last time we had this much excitement without someone either shooting at us or threatening to shoot at us. (And isn't *that* a depressing commentary on my life.)
Unfortunately, much of the excitement involved T'Pol nearly being recalled to Vulcan. *Again*. That's getting to be nearly as commonplace as Trip and some alien babe. Speaking of which...but I'm getting ahead of myself.
There's a great deal I don't know about what's been happening, and I don't want to pry into T'Pol's personal life. Certainly a comm officer often has to do that whether she wants to or not, so I prefer to avoid it when I can. But it all comes down to the fact that I'm worried about her.
The Captain is nearly frantic, which tells me that whatever has happened, it's serious. And since all of this excitement has taken place at a conference of the Interspecies Medical Exchange, presumably it's over something medical.
Granted, that may be an unwarranted assumption. Perhaps T'Pol is fighting with the Vulcan Science Directorate over what brand of dilithium to use in the warp engines...
But I don't really think so. We came to this conference so Phlox could attend, and suddenly I received a stiff note from the conference organizers that he was no longer welcome as an attendee, and three Vulcan doctors descended on us to meet with T'Pol and Phlox.
I didn't find out about her being recalled until the Captain asked me to find a loophole, a way to delay the recall legally. "Tie 'em up with their own regulations" is how he put it. And I'm proud to say I did.
Turns out they had to give T'Pol a hearing before they yanked her back, so she and the Captain set out to convince these doctors to let her stay on Enterprise. The nosy part of me wishes I could have been a fly on the wall, but I suppose it doesn't really matter why they let her stay, just that she's staying.
As I said, I'm assuming it's something medical. And if she wants to stay here, then presumably she believes Phlox will be able to help her just as well as her own people. I'm sure he can, he's an amazing doctor.
Then there's Trip and the latest alien babe, except that this babe is a) Denobulan and b) married to Phlox. Yes, boys and girls, this time Trip was chased by our doctor's wife. How *does* he do it?
Phlox's wife Feezal came aboard to help install a neutron microscope in sickbay. I'm not exactly certain why it was necessary to have the chief engineer installing a piece of fairly standard equipment like that, but I suppose Trip just hates having new toys aboard unless he gets to play with them.
(And no, I didn't mean Feezal. Really.)
But Feezal apparently shares with *every other alien female in the entire universe* an attraction to our Mr. Tucker. According to what he, rather shamefacedly, told me at lunch, she was quite blatant in her regard. I think he would have preferred to not tell me, but I'd been pestering him to explain an odd meal he and I had the other day, and you know just how persistent I can be when something bothers me.
We were eating, and everything was perfectly normal until Feezal showed up. Trip was trying to convince me to stay aboard to watch the movie with him, but it was some horror film. Yuck. Do you remember what happened the time you made me watch that slasher movie? I thought Mark was going to faint when I jumped into his lap in fear.
In any case, from Trip's reaction, I honestly thought he'd slept with Feezal. (I suppose I owe him an apology, although he certainly looked embarrassed enough for that to be the case.) Apparently he was blushing because she was fondling his leg with her foot, and I can't really blame him for that, can I?
Although I do wonder why all the alien females seem to glom on to him. (I used "glom" the other day, and then I had to find it in the dictionary to prove to Liz it was a word. Ha! The linguist wins again.)
What other excitement did we have? Well, much of the crew got to take at least a brief shoreleave on the planet. I didn't have a chance to learn too much of the language, but enough that I was able to attend and enjoy a live theatrical performance. It reminded me a bit of pantomime, in the sense of humor that it showed.
In other news, Travis, our little boomer daredevil, managed...wait for it...to injure himself. I'm beginning to think he needs a keeper on shoreleave. This time, it was playing some kind of sport involving live animals, of all things. From his description it sounded like a greased pig contest, quite honestly, but Travis insists it was great fun.
The animals apparently got a bit overenthusiastic, however, and Travis ended up in sickbay. He was lucky the injury wasn't all that serious, and even luckier that Phlox's intended lecture on safety was cut short by all the other events. Travis swears he'll be more careful next time, but somehow I find that unlikely. Is there some reason I'm surrounded by men dedicated to getting themselves hurt? Is this some death wish that Starfleet imparts to the male cadets?
And on that cheerful note, I'm almost due for my next shift, so I should finish up this letter and get ready. I hope all is well on Earth.
Love,
Hoshi