I just don't ken it at all, Doctor. Why can every busybody fra the' Captain doon to the ship's bloody barber go on away missions, but never me?" Scotty knocked back his whiskey and then used the back of his sleeve to wipe his bristly chin with a nasty sounding rasp.
McCoy regarded him sardonically, then emptied his shot glass of fine bourbon. "Don't know, Scotty. Maybe Star Fleet Command figures that most aliens just aren't ready for a Scotsman."
Scotty, when called upon to take command, tended to do his negotiating with the ship's phasers. The tactic was very effective.
Scotty frowned morosely. "Tis not the case at all. Bloody Nabobs dinna seem want ta let a chief engineer off the ship. I love the old girl dearly, but a man needs a change of scenery now and then!"
McCoy shrugged. "I've been in the fleet, must be thirty years now, and I can't remember ever seeing an engineer on an initial landing party. They must be worried about someone grabbing you and squeezing out all our warp technology."
"But that makes no kind of sense, man! Are ye sayin' tha' Mr. Spock and the Captain Himself dinna have a good skull-full o' knowledge to attract the alien beasties? Yet there they go, swanning about dirtside without a thought! I'm telln ye, there's some sort ae conspiracy afoot! A conspiracy against the Chief Engineers ae the fleet!" Scotty filled his glass and emptied it again even faster. "I'll get to the bottom of it!"
McCoy laughed. "Well, Kirk does seem to attract his share of aliens, but I wouldn't call them beasties. It looks to me like you already got to the bottom of that scotch. Like to try some of this fine Kentucky bourbon instead? Nectar of the gods."
Scotty shuddered and produced another bottle from a small tool bag. "Nae thank you, Doctor. A man must have his standards." Scotty only drank single malts and considered bourbon an abomination. "Aye, the captain is indeed a man o' wide experience, but my point is that an engineer could add valuable-
"Ha! You just want a crack at the alien women yourself." McCoy leaned forward, leering. "I'm tellin' Uhuru."
Scotty straightened in the chair, hiding his wide-eyed alarm behind a façade of massive dignity. "Doctor! What officers choose to do on their off duty time is nae business of yours!"
McCoy grinned. "I knew it."
Scotty deflated, beaten. "Ye' have it all wrong! 'Tis nothing to do with alien women at all! The simple fact is that-
"You are the one that 'has it wrong,' Mr. Scott." Spock approached their table. "The fact that Starfleet will not allow its Chief Engineers to beam down during first contact missions has everything to do with alien women."
"Oh, now this I've got to hear." McCoy tipped out an empty chair with his foot. "Siddown and order yourself a carrot juice, Spock. Talkin' is dry work."
Unfazed, Spock sat and followed McCoy's suggestion to the letter.
"So why is it then?" inquired Scotty impatiently, after waiting politely until Spock had sampled his juice.
Spock drank again, letting the tension build. "Your assertion of a conspiracy was entirely correct."
"Ha! I knew it!" Vindicated, Scotty drank.
"Commander Charles Tucker the Third is at fault, but the true conspiracy was between Captain Jonathan Archer and his first officer, Commander T'Pol Tucker." Spock looked up to catch their reaction to this juxtaposition of Human and Vulcan names.
McCoy's brow wrinkled. "I thought that you were the first Vulcan-Human hybrid, as well as the first Vulcan in Starfleet."
"I am indeed the first officer of mixed Human and Vulcan descent to serve in the Federation Starfleet as it is now constituted. This was the Starfleet of the USSOCM, one of our predecessor organizations. There are actually twelve known Vulcan-Human hybrids. Mine was merely the first hybridization to be carried out on Vulcan under the direct supervision of the Healers Guild." Spock was highly gratified at McCoy's goggling amazement. "The previous outcrosses were carried out under Human and Deneboulan supervision."
"Archer… Wasna that Enterprise?" Scotty was fascinated by this history lesson. It seemed that Spock wasn't the first Vulcan officer to serve an Enterprise.
Spock nodded. "Commander T'Pol married the Chief Engineer, Charles Tucker the Third. She also wrote an away team policy that was such a brilliant masterpiece of logical misdirection that it is still used today to teach young Vulcans how to avoid falling into cunning traps of specious logic."
"She married a Human!" Scotty choked on his drink. "But… why the deception?"
Spock carefully prepared himself to enjoy the looks on their faces. "She didn't want her husband getting hurt."
"Ha! I bloody knew it!" Scotty wrinkled his brow. "If it was such a put-up job, then why has Starfleet never repealed this monstrous policy?"
Spock didn't smile, but McCoy could have sworn that he was grinning like a monkey, somewhere deep inside.
"Commander T'Pol was very, verycreative in her specious logic and Starfleet Command is only Human."
