AN
Here's a nice long chapter for you all just before I go on holiday again for a week, and then the weekend after that for another week to my dad's…
I'll just answer some questions here, lets see… dennisud, always with the questions, always a good thing. I just figured Mum Archer never asked any questions 'cause that's her nature. Don't ask questions if they're not necessary. I know a few people like that, you see.
Kendra – Me, have a book out, I so very much wish. Actually I'm working on some original ideas, which is a main aim of mines, to have a book published. Seems an unlikely thing to happen though, but I'll let you know if it does. Maybe I could even do a book adaptation of Shadows of P'Jem or something, ooh, that be fun… And you don't always need constructive criticism for a review to be appreciated, what you said was lovely, thanks –smile–
And I'll say it again, all of the reviews have been brilliant, and so encouraging, and they're probably what make half the story, you don't know how much I appreciate them.
RJAG - Although I would still claim to say I know more about Enterprise (or at least T'Pol) than you, trust me, I'm always gonna need some help off you, with future projects at least I think. And it gives us something to talk about and drive DC and MW up the wall with, which is always an added bonus.
And now to the chapter.
. . . . . . .
I have been handling guns all my life, weaponry in general really. Ever since it had been decided rather indefinitely by my father that I would in some way be a man of the military it was made certain of by he and various uncles and a grandfather that I knew how to fire as well as I could walk and talk and breathe.
Some would call it a modern day barbarism, taking your six-year-old son out into a remote patch of English forestry to show him for the first time the basics of aiming and wielding a low yield plasma rifle. And by the time that son was eight he was doing it for himself very nearly blindfolded.
As far as I was concerned, I hadn't killed anything, not even laid harm to a lowly specimen of vermin, so we had done no one any harm, and not crossed into the realms of barbarism.
However my concerns in mastering such a practice on a daily basis went far beyond the silly ethics of other peoples that I saw I was not trampling over. Although my father made sure that I fell in love with combat and weapons, which I very much did, he did not control my sense of individuality well enough so that he could nudge me into the Navy as well, not after a second time anyway. He did not crush my own independent will enough so that he could bend me that far. And ever since he had mentioned working back on water for the rest of my hired life, after I eventually decided to quit, I put a solid foot down and refused by all means to go back and make that my life.
It is why I stand here now in Starfleet – instead of on one of Her Majesty's battleships – in one of the targeting rooms, shooting off endless rounds of the newest line of weaponry, and enjoying to the very extreme every last second of it.
Starfleet had become Trip and I's home again. We were back at work almost as soon as they knew we were not interested in taking time off. The thought of taking a month of absence from the job that was my life sat far too uneasy with me for many reasons. I knew for one that if I had a month of my own free time, then a visit to England would have to be in order, and that, I was not prepared for yet.
I was watched by a few as I indulged in the rare opportunity for some 'old-school' target practising. Many observers there saw a man retreated into his own private bliss, a man whose eyes and mind were focused only on the target in front, who cared for nothing else but to watch impact as it happened and who would rather be nowhere else for the next hour or so but where he already was. Some would call him a madman, but most would appreciate that this was only a man living his passion.
On every shot I took a little of the modern world, my personal modern world, temporarily disappeared. The phone call I received from my father that morning was battered to the back of my mind, my mother's pleads for me to return home vaporised in the narrowing of my focused eyes, the obligations that I owed to my life in England becoming nothing but worries of a distant and occupied subconscious.
I began to convince myself again that I was a big boy, a grown up, an individual and a man, with a life of his own, a life I fought every inch of the way for. I was my father's boy only in name and in blood now. I was not the other half of his life, what he leant on when he felt meek and insignificant, what he tried so desperately to live through.
My hair was not my mother's to obsess over and comb every morning anymore, my eating habits were my own, my wardrobe laced with the clothes I wanted to wear, and my nightlife made of the places I wanted to go to.
My bedroom was not my sister's to share, my friends were not for her fancies, or her amusement, and my social life was not hers to pry into. She was not there anymore to poison my goldfish, or to make me the victim of her next tantrum.
I was not there for them to ignore anymore.
My life was my own now, whether that sat in agreement with them or not, and as hard as it was for me to grasp the concept of that sometimes.
The target that sat seventy-five feet away from me exploded with one final contact of my plasma rifle into a tormented rainfall of scorched and scarred paper. The tall rifle-woman to my right who had been practicing with me shifted her slender shoulders somewhat uncomfortably, not daring to throw her quite brown gaze at me, but licking her parched and wary lips with a shaky tongue. I ignored her apprehension and unease though as I set up yet another target.
Growing bored of the bull's-eye targets I punched in to a small control panel on a metallic support beam to my left the code for a moving hologram. I needed a more formidable distraction.
A faded flickering image of a small red ball began to bounce back and forth seventy-five feet away from me. Kept contained in the perimeter of my target box it had little space to manoeuvre in and so was quicker off the mark in pounding from wall to wall. It was hardly the challenge that shooting upset Klingon warriors was, but it was better than destroying stationary pieces of paper with almost insultingly easy target rings penned onto them.
I handled a new weapon now, disowning the basic plasma rifle on the bench before me. This sleek, metallic green surfaced gun rather fascinated me, to the point where it was able to take the scorn away from my eyes.
It was plasma based, as most weapons of the decade seemed to be, but it held to it a dangerous and ingenious edge above anything I had yielded before. Its inventor had boasted to me that it could pass through a contained jolt of electricity with every shot of plasma fired. The voltage was in perfect synch with the plasma, not enough to kill, unless set as so, but enough to critically stun, or ever temporarily paralyse a said target.
It seemed a waste almost that I was firing it at a hologram, and not a live target that could show to me what true potential I was holding here.
I began to forget slightly, as I inspected the grooves and curves of the gun, its weight and balance in my hand and its several settings as well. I found it such a wonderful thing, that I could forget through such simple amusements as this. Of course it was not enough to render me amnesic to the phone call I had had to sit through this morning, but it was enough to numb the hot rage that had been tearing painfully through me.
The nuzzle of the new weapon was raised. The little red ball ahead was still playing its game back and forth and up and down against the walls of the target box. I made waste of time no more and aimed with much anticipation.
"Hey there."
The hand that fell upon my shoulder shot a nerve of shock and surprise through my system and the lethal nose of the gun was raised high to the ceiling before my index finger tensed on the trigger of its own free will and I fired without consent.
It was Trip who stood back meekly, like a little boy scorned, with me as we both watched the angry crimson flare with a lashing of brilliant blue electricity around its circumference quite literally hit the roof in one all mighty smack. The tall rifle-woman too stood back her distance of a few long strides.
The room fell to a shuddering silence as the roof shook and complained in a grinding moan, but did no more than settle again, keeping itself neatly in one piece above our heads.
I turned on Trip with all wholly dumbfounded disbelief.
"And is that the first time you've snuck up on an armed tactical officer whilst he's shooting potentially deadly weapons or is it a hobby of yours?"
Trip's small but widening grin suggested he could only see the more amusing side to this, although I would perhaps be worried if he did not.
"Well, if y' don't count the ten or so times ah've done it to you already on some of our more 'successful' first-contacts, then yes, it's ma first time."
Still being armed I had to confess I was sorely tempted, but I put the weapon down and tried with all failing success to keep the sternness locked in my cold blue eyes as I observed the dancing smile on Trip's face.
"Can I help you?"
Trip was offering the tall rifle-woman a quick glance, who looked upon him with an ever deepening frown, one that said she knew his face just not his name, before I dragged him back to the less fancied reality with my question. He continued to smile in that annoyingly catchy way of his, although his eyes held some saving grace of maturity in them.
"Ah just wondered where y'd gotten to. When the runner came t' tell you y' had a phone call, y' didn't come back, remember?"
He tilted his head in a mock chide and I turned back to my energetic target, which was still alive and well. It had become all the more tempting to shoot.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know I was to check in with you every time I made changes to my day's timetable. Now if you will excuse me."
I would be lying if I said that it didn't sting to see the injury I caused with the insult in the thicket of Trip's frowning features.
"Sorry for treadin' on yer toes there Malcolm."
His tone was divided, half as a genuine apology, and half as a spiteful comeback. He did not move his shadow from my back however.
"Ah take it you don't wanna talk then?"
I picked up the gun, and felt my fingers tense slightly, the action sending an involuntary shiver down the core of my back.
"No I don't actually."
His tall grey shadow moved, but only to my left, where his feet came up to my heals.
"Was it your folks callin'?"
I had never known Trip to pry. I took him as the kind of character who appreciated when it was time to let things lie until the next hour or the next day. I had been betting on all prayers that he would do the same for me, but as I also knew of Trip, he knew when prying was appropriate.
"Well it wasn't the Captain was it?"
Trip's back leant gently up against the metal post to our left, his arms crossing over his chest and his eyes smiling carefully and respectfully with his pale lips. I often resented his ability to bend a stubborn will into talking.
"Yes it was my parents, who else would it be."
Resentfully, but of my own free will I put the prototype gun down with the rifle and pressed my palms down on the bench, using it as support for my weight and stress.
"My father says he's sick. He wants me to come back to England to see him."
Trip's smiling eyes just as quickly turned to an expression of quiet pity.
"Ah'm sorry."
Very barely I managed to place a twist of amusement on my lips.
"I'm not. He's done this before, told me he was sick when he just wanted me home. Last time he very nearly physically pushed me back into joining the Navy again. As funny as it sounds, it wasn't."
Trip nodded. He seemed to understand awfully well for a man who had a good relationship with his own father, from what I have seen.
"You don't know whether he's kiddin' or not this time then?"
Apparently he did.
"No… But he is old, and he's got arthritis and diabetes, and my mum's hardly the champion swimmer she used to be either."
"What about yer sister?"
"What about her?"
Trip eyed me expectantly, obviously wishing for more than that.
"Oh, right, she stayed in Malaysia when my parents moved back to England last year."
The smile returned, only with its more characteristic cheek now back in place.
"She aint any closer to home than you are Malcolm, an' she's gonna be a lot closer when we got back out in ta space."
My fingers traced over the deep green of the gun's polished finish, almost wistful in their trails around and over the bumps and markings of the weapon.
"I can't believe how much I miss being on Enterprise."
Whereas my features had dropped to a sad remembering of the recent past, Trip kept well in shape his bright and wonderful smile.
"Y' know there's a reason why ah'm down here, an' it's not just t' round up your emotions. So feel free t' ask me any time soon."
I looked up at him sceptically, my expression reflecting well my frame of mind. There were many times when Trip did not make an inch of sense. And there was never a time when I cared much for this more cryptic side of his.
"Alright, why are you down here?"
If it kept the peace by humouring him though, I often would.
"Aw, how nice of you to ask Malcolm. Well the Admiral paid me a visit in engineering when ah decided to take a visit up there this morning. He had a proposal. Wants us to be on the first flight of the NX-02 when it finally leaves space dock on Wednesday. Ah said yes, but ah said ah couldn't speak for you."
His words did not quite register at first. They glided from one eardrum to another, swimming through the grey brain matter in between at a rather languid pace, waiting patiently with a yawn for me to catch up as I stood with my eyes slowly widening and my brow rising.
"After all the delays she's finally flying?"
I felt it was too good a proposal, and saw it necessary to be careful and keep my hopes at bay. But this also seemed like the very single answer I had been praying so desperately for.
"Yup. They finally figured out the solutions to the last of problems of why the engines kept bucklin' an' life-support kept collapsin' at Warp 6.5. So they fixed it an' she's finally got the all clear for three days times. Ah take it you might be interested in joinin' me?"
I didn't want to – for fear that this ray of spectacular hope would be massacred if I became excited about it – but I allowed myself to break the tension on my face with a modest smile.
"Of course I'm bloody well interested."
Trip, I feared, only just fell short of rejoicing in dance.
"Well you've got an Admiral to report to then, an' a couple o' parents to wean off yer back then."
In such a crude way he said it so well.
. . . . . . .
Perhaps it was my imagination, or perhaps it was just easiest to blame it on my imagination, to dull the pain of the truth slightly, but the apartment felt heavy, groggy almost. From the physical air that floated in and out of every dusty corner to the atmosphere that was conjured by the imagination it felt as though the rooms were being tugged down with some brute force into the lull of a strange dread.
I had to admit my part in the weights that pinned down my home, as I felt a churning in my stomach that all too well reflected my apprehension, but I was not the bulk of the problem. The Vulcan who shared residency with me was.
It was, however, entirely unfair to blame her for anything today, and when truth be dragged out and told, it pained me somewhat greatly to see her like this.
T'Pol would not want my sympathy. She is a strong character and so in so many ways and rights of logic she does not need it. But I am only human, with human compassion and a human need to hurt when I see those I care for hurting, so I sympathised.
The sympathy became so much worse when I finally saw her ready and composed for the day ahead.
It was eight o'clock in the morning, where outside the air was cold but the rising sun fresh and serene, welcoming even to anyone who was paying attention to its commute across the silky white skies of the early hour. The High Commanded had requested T'Pol's presence for eleven o'clock. Since most transport flew or hovered in some fashion these days, and I had only a standard road-by-wheel vehicle to call my own, I figured traffic on the roads to Sausalito would be minimal at worst. Atop that I figured we would be in the presence of hoards of… a respectful Vulcan elder and other superiors in no less than two hours from departure time, with little stress or strain about it.
The only stress in fact that seemed to come to existence for this entire nonsense set-up came from my stubborn insistence that I physically accompany T'Pol for as far as the way possible through the trial today. Not simply drop her off and then ride down to Starfleet to visit Trip as she had suggested, but actually make foot-on-concrete-floor contact with the Compound and keep it as so until the trial was called to a close.
No, this did not please T'Pol.
"I still fail to see any reason for you joining me in a matter you cannot hope to assist in. It will be a simple waste of your time, when there are far more productive things you could do."
Although the volume in her voice was murdered somewhat by the wall that divided us there was little denying the impatience painted into every well-pronounced syllable from her tongue. I had heard that tone a hundred times before and almost a hundred times now it had made me smile teasingly. I very well knew that it shouldn't have, but it did.
"Any time you're ready T'Pol we'll be leaving."
The apartment's heavy weight fell upon an elegant hush, where the woolly silence was cancelled only by the commotion of material in T'Pol's room and the clatter of Porthose's claws in the kitchen. It was her way of telling me she would only be a minute.
On this day I had the patience of my father's, one of the rather more attractive features of his personality that I had failed to inherited naturally.
The disturbance of material grew louder and then the hush dismissed as the bedroom door in front of my couch opened and there she stood.
Something hit me, something mental that felt as merciless as a physical backhand against my cheekbone. In an instance as I took in the sight in front of me I felt I owed the woman a hundred apologies for being so narrow-minded, so blind – so human.
She stood straight and tall, so well composed and orderly that she could have been royalty. Her chin was tilted so she looked confident, but not ignorant, and her still, tranquil eyes were dark, almost narrow, but not angry. Her mouth was tight and her fingers loose at her side, every muscle aware but not tense.
I had seen this stance before, not often, it was incredibly rarely sported, but enough that this was not what took me aback and made me check myself.
For all the time I had known T'Pol, and known her well for the last several years, I had never seen her look so… Vulcan.
She was clad in traditional Vulcan attire, something I had seen her dressed in once, when I first met her. From shoulder to ankle she donned a spectacular run of rough bronze and silver silks, fashioned elegantly and loosely around her body in roles of robes and sleeves. There were piles of the outfit, hiding her lithe figure well so as her limbs could only be seen when she was moving them and her torso sported only if she were to be sitting down.
Through this costume alone she had become just that little more powerful, bolder, louder, and appeared ever more the Captain she could always have been if not for she was placed on a human Starship and had abandoned her status with her people to stay there.
I dare said if we had had an objective observer standing by he would have said her stance well outstripped mines in authority and supremacy.
Her dark eyes were wisely wary and alert and she was ready for what subtly abuse would be thrown her way. The slight limp she had been trying to hide was now gone and the bruise on her face, although as obvious as it had been, seemed insignificant, almost deliberate in fact, there as a trophy of some sorts.
Yes, this woman was very much Vulcan, and it seemed I had forgotten that…
"Your hair."
It was the first small pathetic sentence I could string together after I realised she had suffered in my silence long enough. She raised a brow.
"It is simply seen as polite to tie back your hair if it is long enough to do so."
Somehow I managed a small smile and that small smile brought me back to a more sensible reality.
"I know woman who would destroy heaven and earth to get their hair tied back that well when it's that short."
The brow remained high and I even received a head tilt this time.
"That seems unlikely."
A Vulcan with a Vulcan need for logic. Why was it that I seemed to have forgotten this?
"Never mind. You look… good, with it back. Shows off more of your face."
It was the God-damn truth as well, but T'Pol only blinked and I believe I blushed around the neck slightly. I eventually put it down to suffering from a little more stress than I had thought. Quite naturally T'Pol seemed fine.
"Shall we then?"
It was quite simply the most sensible thing to be said since she had exited that door. I nodded and smiled again, unsure but composed, for her sake. She did not need someone to fret for as I did right now, but it felt right to be the done thing.
Porthos whimpered at my feet. I no more than jumped when I felt his tender wet nose at my ankle, through my tailored trousers. He had gotten stealthy in his elder years.
"If you are insistent in coming then I will have to accept that, but he," she looked down at my beloved beagle for a brief moment, "must stay."
I looked back up at T'Pol, almost upset, and said in a meek voice, "I know."
She nodded what I could only interpret to be a small and silent 'thank you' before she made her way towards the doorway herself. I followed at heal, after making sure Porthos would not trail behind. He knew he was not to come, but made it no less difficult to leave him by watering his eyes and opening his maw up to a small whimper. On T'Pol it fell on deaf ears.
"Nervous?"
As we began to tread the length of the corridor to the lift I felt a strange stirring in my heart, a quickening of pace in the beats for some reason.
"It is illogical to be 'nervous'. I have prepared myself as best I can and whatever the outcome may be, my being nervous will not change it."
She looked back at me briefly before I came to her side. In her eyes was one of those curious quirks that she would often express to Trip, or Hoshi.
"Are you?"
For being one of a race whose greatest achievement has been drying themselves of any emotion, T'Pol was often almost too keen in picking up on how others around her were feeling. I smiled half-heartedly.
"How about I be nervous for the both of us?"
She said nothing to that but turned her gaze straight.
"Well you didn't have to tell me you could be expelled from living on Earth."
I called the lift.
"Would you rather have found out first if that were to be the verdict of the trial?"
The lift opened and we stepped into its musky insides carefully. I saved a frown from crossing my brow.
"Well, no, but is that likely to happen?"
"Yes."
She said it so frankly that it felt like another of those metaphoric slaps turn punch. She said it so flatly that I was inclined to believe she did not care much for if that were the case. This stung, although again I was not sure why.
"And would you fight it if that's what happened?"
Very carefully she looked at me again, hardly turning her head and more looking from the corner of a steady eye.
"The verdict of the High Command will be final, there is no room for an appeal, unless they grant one."
She fell quite but I felt in her more was to come.
"Besides,"
We had very nearly reached our destination. I knew that what she had to say next I did not want to hear.
"There are far worse verdicts than being sent back home."
. . . . . . .
"Would you just hear me out?"
She trotted behind at his heal, trying desperately to keep up, but it was like chasing a wild storm. He thundered down corridor after corridor, turning bends sharply and barely restraining himself from running away down straights. As the soles of his feet came crashing down to the ground step by vengeful step the echoes of an angry man could clearly be heard, by those in the corridor with them and those locked safely in their dorms, behind solid steel doors.
"Please Travis, you're being unreasonable."
She had caught him in mid-commute between the library at the back of floor six and his own dormitory on floor three. It was the first she had seen of him since he had shut the door on her in the midst of his putrid upset and anger. Little of his mood had changed.
It was merely three days now until he would be reporting back to Admiral Forrest with his resignation and packing his Earthly belongings for space again, back to his real home, the Horizon. So he was now busying himself with tying up loose ends, such as returning disks of star charts and graphs back to the library.
If things had gone right, Hoshi could have been packing with him.
"Travis where are you going?"
And she did not mean his dorm. She had seen the suitcases the other day as well, lad out across the back wall, although they had skipped her full attention until later that day, when she had begun to contemplate Travis and his current status. She did not receive an answer. She would have been more surprised though if she had.
They reached floor three. Travis's dorm was three doors down on the left in a wide arching blue corridor. His pace sharpened up once again as he reached for a silent homerun.
Hoshi very closely beat him to it.
"Travis, stop acting like the ass I know you're not and tell me what the hell is the matter with you."
She stood bravely in front of his doorway, her back over the digital lock and her eyes wrestling to grab contact with his own narrowed pupils. His fists were tight and his muscles on edge. His kindly nature had been pushed into a hostile and tiresome territory and his mood was far from the realms of wishing to talk.
But the little linguist prodigy gave him utterly no choice in the matter, and he had not being pushed to a temper of physical aggression, yet.
"Why didn't you turn up the other day, when I asked to meet you in the gardens?"
Hoshi felt a shot of impatience run up her own spine, but she kept her temper and reason.
"I tried to explain that the other day, but you wouldn't listen."
Travis looked irritably at his watch, for no reason other than to put his eyes somewhere.
"Well I'm listening now."
"Good, 'cause if you'd been listening before then you'd know I was only with Phlox's son who is a very excitable Denobulan who insisted that I help feed his… creatures, because Phlox had told him that I had often been keen to help him out in the past on Enterprise. Unfortunately he failed to mention to his son that I wasn't keen on creatures of the ten-legged variety and I threw up and passed out in the lab when one of his escaped. And by the time that my mess had been cleaned up and his… ten-legged spider creature thing caught and caged again, I realised I was late and so I tried to catch up with you."
Hoshi took a deep resurfacing breath, and Travis blinked quietly, uttering an almost inaudible 'Oh…'
"So where are you going?"
Travis blinked a few more times. He reached for the digital lock, brushing Hoshi to the side gently to open his dorm door.
"Give me a second, I have to flush my head down the toilet…"
He entered into the small and warm quarters, Hoshi trailing in behind hesitantly.
"Why?"
"For being such an ass."
At first her face was blank, as truthfully there were very few comebacks she could conjure for such an idea and statement, and then she pursed and curled her lips inwards, forcing them unsuccessfully not to curl into a greatly amused smile. Then she laughed and Travis blushed, turning back round to face his friend as he stood in position over his bed rather meekly.
"The toilet's down the hall Travis, remember?"
He looked tempted to follow her pointing finger, but he was more tempted to smile with her, which he did shyly after calming the blush across his nose slightly.
Then he said it suddenly, the question he had been burning to ask for days now.
"Will you come back with me to the Horizon?"
The smiled quickly slipped off her face. Her eyes blurred in confusion and she opened her mouth to speak, but nothing save a surprised whimper of air came out.
"Please," he took hold of her hand and gently forced her to sit with him on the bed, just after he shoved his hand sketched star charts from off the mattress and pillows.
"She's coming in three days, to pick me up. I know you want to go back out into space, and this is the perfect opportunity. They need a linguist, for when they do surplus trades. The last time they tried they almost lost half their engines 'cause Paul, well Paul got some words mixed up and he ended up insulting all their sisters, and their dress sense… somehow. And I promised them you would never find a better linguist than Hoshi Sato, and they said they'd give you a trial period of a month, and if you make the grade you get to stay aboard for as long as you can manage."
He forced a calm into his excitement with an encouraging smile. Hoshi's face was still rather blank.
"And I'd really love it if you could join me, because of all the people on Enterprise I never really got to know anyone better than I did you. And I don't want to leave Earth knowing fine well I'll probably never see anyone from Enterprise again, especially you."
He had to stop himself there, because he felt he was giving Hoshi nothing in terms of time and space to answer. She blinked at him quietly.
"It's not too late to make all the arrangements on time either."
She blinked, again, and then finally she spoke with success.
"Really?"
It was neither a yes nor a no, and slanted towards neither answer yet. Travis felt some strange flicker of hope arise in his stomach, but he held it tight at bay.
"Really. It's a great ship. It's where I grew up, my home. Like Enterprise, only you know everyone's name on the Horizon."
He kept the longing from his voice, just.
Hoshi kept herself quiet for a long time. Her gaze eventually left Travis's and she scanned the floors, where his star charts lay askew. She was caught slightly by the beauty of his work, and remembered through them the beauty that she had woken up to every day for the past seven years of her life now. The beauty that she had adapted so well to, and eventually adopted as a second home. The beauty she missed with a passion and a hunger.
"Three days?"
Travis's back straightened and he smiled slightly, nodding eagerly.
"Three days. Wednesday."
"Well… that doesn't leave much time to pack, does it?"
. . . . . . .
It has been estimated that there are now around three million Vulcan inhabitants on Earth, their distribution patterns most commonly spread out over Western North America and Central Africa. Their numbers also continue to grow healthily in Southern Europe.
Jonathan looked around the Compound, and felt himself sinking deep into the epicentre of this ever-expanding and blossoming Vulcan community. He found it nothing short of a harrowing experience.
For a man in proud possession of such a high-ranking position in Starfleet to only have crossed into the borders of the Sausalito Compound once in his entire career and life was a very rare thing, but Captain Archer had rather successfully managed just that, until now. Now he treaded through there wholly voluntarily, with a close Vulcan companion at his side who he considered as much a valuable friend to him as Trip was.
Yes, a lot had managed to change in seven years.
He followed her as they walked down a magnificent entrance hall, hardly decorated or fashioned, but built to an enormous size, with absolute symmetry and perfect right angles in every shaded corner. Although thousands worked and lived here, moving in and out this opening constantly, it was never crowded or busy, as if the flooring had been calculated for such a result.
The place held to it a gentle hush. Footsteps rang clear through the warm air, and rustling robes rose to a volume all of their own, but to hear a voice skip through the hall was rare, as business and work were discussed where business and work were meant to be discussed, in offices and conference rooms. And if a voice were dare to open up, it was at the reception desk, where even there it was quite as most Vulcans had the sense to know where they were going and who they were meeting with before they had even arrived.
Jonathan carried on walking, at the heal of T'Pol, who was as silent and calm as any other soul in the hallway. As they continued to move forward towards a crystal glass elevator, he stemmed the slightest edge of a genuine courage to move his neck to the left and the right. They were being watched.
Whether T'Pol noticed or not was unknown to Jonathan, as he felt himself wade through a thick sea of sharp grey and dull brown eyes, the predominate colour of Vulcan orbs. Breaths were held and second glances commonplace as those around confirmed the sights of the rogue in their midst.
Former Sub Commander T'Pol, once promised future Captain of the Starship Silvan, daughter of none other than Ambassador Taron and a prodigy Ambassador Soval had once highly regarded, had finally returned back into the presence of her brethren, in no less than disgrace.
She was aware of this.
Jonathan was no more looked upon than the specks of dirt he brought in on the soles of his polished black shoes. Any prolonged stares went straight to T'Pol. And the stares were everywhere.
The glass elevator cut through the middle of twenty-two rows of stone balconies, which behind them were the twenty-one corridors that led to four hundred and thirty rooms of residency in the North wing of the Compound, and the one top corridor that led to the Ranking Conference room.
It was here in a room that so resembled a more serene and sky blue coloured version of a human courtroom that T'Pol's trial would be held and dealt with. It was here that Ambassador Soval watched the two banes of his life enter into the lift in the same ruled silence that swept the gist of the Compound.
He tucked his arms into the opposing sleeves and stood more stiffly at the glass door to the room behind him. He did not speak at first to the grey shadow on his immediate left, but he was spoken to.
"She is to return back to Vulcan, there is no leeway about that. Here she is a menace, she is in the company of those she is begin to become too much like, there is too much influence, and if she is to run amok anymore than she is sure to have others following her example in time. The last thing we want is another V'Lar staining the race."
For a moment there was a hush between the two, and Soval contemplated. Then he nodded.
"It will be done Ambassador, I can assure you."
Scepticism hung in the air, lingering on the ashen lips of the shadow, although no words were ever spoken. Soval opened for him the door and a weak trail of sickly blue light tumbled out, eliminating a brilliant pair of crystal grey eyes.
"She will be here any second, I suggest you take your seat."
The suggestion was taken with a curt nod and the shadow became a clear-cut figure before he took his place with the common audience in the auditorium.
Soval shivered with distaste as he remained waiting at the doorway, standing in a far less comfortable silence with his robes brushing the lino floor in gentle strokes as he continued to cross his arms anew every few moments in unrest.
He did not have to wait long as his own words had been correct and the elevator opened at its peak stop for the Captain and the Vulcan to set foot outside the conference room.
Although Soval had spotted Jonathan in the entrance, he acted no less surprised to see him, of which he was when he watched the audacious man stride down the corridor.
"Captain Archer, I do not remember stating that your presence was required at this hearing."
It was beyond the elder Vulcan, but Jonathan smiled, tightly.
"He has a right to serve with the witnessing audience."
T'Pol's eyes flirted with the ground for a brief moment before she raised them behind her and caught hold of Jonathan's own silent hazel gaze.
"Thank you, for coming."
Neither offered up any further words before they strode past Soval and into the Ranking Conference room.
Amidst the circumstances Jonathan found it a fantastic sight, the room he then walked in to. As with the entrance hall it was no small feat of architecture. The room, which was stained in this serene blue hue, expanded over an entire floor with high roofs and no decor or detail as before, but perfect symmetry and right angles.
On the centre of the East wall was a podium and to its right a smaller platform, and so in this respect it was given the appearance of a courtroom. The tens of rows of white seats before it, arranged in a wide arch no less depicted this image, and the stand off bench on the North wall holding a number of no less than ten high-ranking High Command Respectfuls could only forgive you for tricking you into think that a human courtroom was where you were.
Although the room had been cast in silence before T'Pol had entered, some whisper of a numbing hush seemed to sweep the attended fifty or so that took up the first few rows of seats. She ignored them though, as she had ignored the stares below.
An escort came and ushered T'Pol to the smaller platform, leaving Jonathan to fend for himself. He took hold of his initiative and sat awkwardly on a chair to the end of a half filled row. No one stared, but he felt a burning attention focused on him.
The silence continued to blare, and was interrupted only by an automatic standing of the audience, of which Jonathan looked around hastily before he too stood with them.
Then a voice uttered itself from the South wall and Jonathan could not help but start, as he had not seen the Vulcan with his PADD standing near the entrance door before.
"This Assembly has been gathered to witness the judgment of a one T'Pol, former Sub Commander for the High Command, later self-relieved of her position on the twenty-fourth of April, 2153. She stands accused of third degree mutiny and disregard of her superiors. This session will be carried out in English, for the sake of our Starfleet counterparts."
Jonathan's neck jerked on that closing sentence, and as his eyes searched in a confused scan through the small crowd he caught sight of Admiral Forrest to his far left, with two other Starfleet officers. If the Admiral knew he was there though, he made no signs to acknowledge it.
A door opened to the left of the main podium and yet another Vulcan made an appearance. He was an elder. His face was mapped by fine wrinkles and his hair was a distinct silvery grey. He walked with grace and an alien youth and his eyes were as alive and dark as T'Pol's. So although he was an elder, it seemed it was only by name and by a date that he was burdened with this title.
He offered her a look and almost instantly T'Pol's hand rose up in the distinct Vulcan greeting that Jonathan had only ever seen her execute a rare few times now.
His eyes only skimmed over her though, before he addressed the audience too with a look. They sat, and in haste again Jonathan followed.
"I have spent a week reviewing your case T'Pol." He kept his eyes front, and his eyes down at a PADD. "A record was started by Ambassador Soval to trace your movements and status with the Starship Enterprise NX-01. It appears that in the last five years you have made no attempt to entwine yourself back into the High Command and your former position there, but instead have stayed willingly with your post as First Officer and Science Officer to a one Captain Jonathan Archer on the said ship Enterprise, is that correct?"
"Yes."
"And do you wish to return with your former ranking position as Sub Commander in the High Command?"
And here was where T'Pol fell on a prolonged wind of silence. She neither moved nor attempted to speak. Her eyes were sat front but they were not focused on what was there to focus on.
Jonathan found himself slipping forward on his chair, his muscles tensing and his fists clenching.
"T'Pol, the session needs an answer."
Her eyes snapped into focus on Jonathan suddenly, and he jerked upright again, taken aback.
"No."
The audience could no longer keep on their hands. A small murmur rolled over their heads, hustling through the fifty so on a small breeze of apprehension.
It was insane for a Vulcan to be giving up her position in the High Command, insane to throw a lifetime's work away for a career with humans that was only to last her those seven years. It was unheard of, and utterly unreasonable. Not a trace of logic sat over this.
"Then I understand you will hand in an official resignation to me?"
T'Pol moved one sweeping robe sleeve with her arm under it, and from amongst the folds of material across her chest she took out a PADD and handed it over to the elder.
"Then let it be known T'Pol that you no longer belong in rank to the High Command and that you have permanently been banished from taking up a position there again for the duration of your lifetime."
There was a small pause, in which the elder tucked away the PADD in his own folds before he turned to the audience.
"And has anything to be added to this session by the witnessing audience?"
For a few seconds there was a familiar silence. Nothing was said and nothing was attempted to be said. The audience simply wanted this act of barbarism to be over with, and for the rogue to be gone from their sights.
A glance and a nod passed between Soval and the elder. T'Pol caught it, but made no fuss of it. She knew well what it meant, and understood already what the elder's next words would be.
Jonathan was back leaning forward on his seat again.
"Then your sentence is thus: you will return to Vulcan,"
The blood of Jonathan's veins froze,
"and under order of the Ranking Circle of Ambassadors you will not be allocated Visa for Earth again, lest you serve time in prison. Session dismissed."
And that was all there was to be of it. So that was why he spoke up as so.
"What? No! You can't do that, that's bull!"
The elder's muscles sharpened and his eyes flashed. T'Pol's eyes in turn widened, and she poured her sights onto Jonathan, almost begging him to silence himself. She had at least justification now though for not forewarning Jonathan about how inevitable this outcome actually was two hours ago.
He was on his feet though, aware that he had become a magnet for all eyes and attention, including Admiral Forrest's, and caring little for this fact anyway.
"An escort will be here in three days to assure your safe return to Vulcan T'Pol. If you wish to argue your case then you will do so on Vulcan. Session," his grey eyes glanced over Jonathan, "dismissed."
"No!"
The audience began to grow restless and curious. They positioned their angels so that they sat to view Jonathan's sceptical, and he growled with his eyes and all the scorn a human could possibly possess as he faced the elder.
"T'Pol hasn't done anything wrong. If anyone should be punished it should be me. I was her acting captain, I was the one who encouraged her to believe in time travel and go into the Expanse, and do what she felt was right, even if it meant turning on her own kind. You can't banish her from Earth if that's where she wants to live."
The elder gave Jonathan a long-suffering stare, to which after a harsh sixteen seconds he drew breath to speak again and said in a stronger tone, "Session dismissed."
T'Pol left the podium. She walked with graceful speed and did well to ignore the continuing stares around her. She made a far better job of gripping onto Jonathan's upper right arm though, with a hand that went white across the knuckles as she did. If he insisted on an argument, then it would be outside, with her.
No one else was given the pleasure of her attention as she made her exit, except one.
He stared with hard grey eyes, the colour of weather-beaten rock, but brilliantly bright, and tight pale lips that seemed almost sewn together in some strange hidden smile. And he was an entirely satisfied looking Vulcan, who T'Pol knew she would see again soon.
"Can I ask what you were doing in there, or were your actions too irrational to have a justification?"
They stood just outside the Ranking Conference room's solid oak door, where there was a different silence in the corridor now, a bitter, electric silence between two commanding officers, who right now both saw they had the highest authority to be angry in their own ways and rights with.
"What, you're just going to accept what was said in there?"
His eyes were burning, there was a hatred and a scorn in them that seemed capable of torching through anything he laid his hot sights on. But there was also a horrible sadness behind this raw emotion, and he looked upon T'Pol with it.
"I have already told you, the elder's decision is final. If I am to debate my case further it will have to be on Vulcan. Vulcan law is far more concrete than human. There will be no leeway."
On any other occasion he might have felt patronised and insulted, but the anger and the sadness overwhelmed him enough that he was numb to any other sentiment for the time.
"And are you going to fight it?"
T'Pol did something very rare and rather unsettling then. She broke away from the tight eye contact they shared and spoke with her gaze to the floor.
"I do not know yet."
Jonathan let the silence evoke. She had just told him no.