—Chapter 07—
The Enterprise had returned to Earth, just days past, and the footage of the ship's arrival was sobering sight for the people of Earth, for the videos and still photos of the ship's hull made it apparent that the Enterprise had gone through hell: phaser burns covered the hull, and in some sections the weapons had burned several decks into the hull, while in other places, gaping holes which went completely through the Enterprise had vented entire sections of the ship to the vacuum of space, and were indicative of photon torpedo damage, or perhaps some other cruel weapon of the Xindi. When all was said and done, the Enterprise would need a complete overhaul, months of repair work done round the clock, in order to be fit for duty again. It would have been cheaper to simply scrap her, but the ship had acquired symbolic status now, and so she would be rebuilt.
The entire planet had greeted the return of the Enterprise with cautious optimism, as no one believed that the Enterprise would have returned from the Delphic Expanse without completing its mission, for the Enterprise had been a ship crewed entirely by volunteers, each crew member resigned to the fact that this mission was most likely a suicide mission, and in fact, one third of the crew had fallen in the line of duty, and paid the ultimate price for Earth's safety. Still, despite the losses, the outroar of joy when StarFleet announced that Captain Archer had secured a peace treaty with the Xindi was unbelievable, with people literally dancing in the streets, and the celebration were still ongoing, a fact which the crew of the Enterprise had to watch from their video monitors, for the crew was placed on the top two floors of a first-class hotel near StarFleet's HQ, there to be debriefed and then attended to by a team of physicians, psychiatrists and StarFleet officers and the like, while their families were given passage through the crowds downstairs to visit with the crew, each and every one of them pampered shamelessly by the hotel's staff and caterers, regardless of their rank.
The adventures of the Enterprise were broken down on television for the public by StarFleet officers, and supplemented with data from the ship's video logs, and the entire matter followed avidly by the people of Earth, from the source of the conflict, the Guardians who had manipulated the Xindi into war with Earth, and then the defeat of the Guardians along with the schemes of the Xindi Reptilians and Insectoids by the combined actions of the Xindi Arboreals, Primates and Aquatics working in concert with Enterprise's crew. Speaking of the Enterprise's crew, it seemed that a beautiful Vulcan named T'Pol was counted among them now, a Vulcan of whom none of the people of Earth had heard of before, as she had not been a part of the initial crew which had departed Earth for the Delphic Expanse. When her story, and the story of the Seleya leaked out to the press, there was sympathy for T'Pol, as it did not take much work to vividly imagine the horrors of the Seleya's descent into hell, or the plight of the lovely Vulcan just barely hanging on to sanity, and life, in that environment.
And it was this Vulcan named T'Pol that now moved through the luxurious suite she'd been assigned by the hotel, in order to answer a knock at her door, only to find Ambassador Soval and Admiral Te'Lok of the High Command, standing there. Both men gave the ta'al, the Vulcan hand greeting which involved raising the hand, and splitting the fingers into a V, and T'Pol returned the gesture. She stood aside, to grant them access to her suite, then invited them to sit, and brought hot tea to the table, for the staff of the hotel was quite attentive to the crew's needs, and in T'Pol's case, that meant good tea on hand, and water constantly hot in a delicate cast iron tea pot made in Osaka.
"Mmmmm," said Soval, after sampling the tea, "this tea is quite good, T'Pol."
"It is Ceylon tea," said T'Pol. "Grown in the highlands of the Ceylon Dominion of Sri Lanka. I understand the altitude, climate and mineral rich soil are the main contributors to the excellent taste."
"Interesting, but I did not come here to speak of tea," said Te'Lok, not rudely, for it was Vulcan custom to get to the heart of the matter, save for purely social events.
"Than what brought you here, Admiral?" said T'Pol.
Once, T'Pol would have been intimidated by a man of Te'Lek's rank, though she might have been disciplined enough to hide that fact, but now, it truly did not faze her, for T'Pol had been changed by her ordeal aboard the Seleya, and the subsequent trials of the Enterprise in the Expanse which she shared, part and parcel with the crew, and in the process T'Pol had been forged into something as strong and flexible as a fine steel sword.
"Two things brought me here," said Te'Lok. "I have reviewed the Enterprise's data of the Seleya…"
By this Te'Lok meant not just the sensor data of the Enterprise and the two shuttles which had surveyed the Seleya, but also the video feed from shuttles which had clearly revealed the extent to which the Seleya was damaged, and the video feed from the lapel cameras worn by the Human boarding parties as they fought their way through the Seleya, confronted by creatures that no longer seemed Vulcan to Te'Lok, and finally, video footage of the last few seconds of the Seleya, as she was torn apart, atom by atom, by the explosion which T'Pol had initiated.
"And so?" said T'Pol, calmly, as she'd long since made her peace with the decision to scuttle the Seleya.
"I have forwarded a copy of all that data to the High Command, along with my highest commendation for your actions," said Te'Lok. "You acted properly, and logically, under the most trying of circumstances, T'Pol."
T'Pol nodded, and left it at that.
"I have also recommended a promotion to captain for you, T'Pol," said Te'Lok, "so imagine my surprise when I was informed that you had resigned your commission with the High Command, in order to serve StarFleet. I understand you have already petitioned the Admiralty Commission to induct you into StarFleet."
"I thank you for your commendation, nevertheless, Te'Lok," said T'Pol. "The fate of the Seleya weighed on me, and it is humbling to hear my actions vindicated by a man of your experience."
"So why resign from the High Command, T'Pol?" said Te'Lok. "Why join StarFleet, when you have a bright future with the High Command? On the surface, your actions seem… illogical."
"It is not a matter of logic, or illogic, Te'Lok," said T'Pol. "It is a matter of honor, and duty, for the aid which the Enterprise attempted to render the Seleya. The Enterprise spent valuable time in making that effort to aid us, the boarding parties risked their lives and gave me my life in return, and their doctor gave me sanity, at least in part. In view of those sacrifices, my career is nothing in the balance."
"Your words are honorable, T'Pol," said Te'Lok, "but you have served aboard their ship, quite well I am told, and in the process, you have played a part in saving their planet. You have more than repaid that debt."
"The debt I owe the Enterprise, and StarFleet by extension, can never be fully repaid, Te'Lok," said T'Pol, "though I aim to repay at least a small part of that debt with my service, Admiral."
Te'Lok saw the finality of T'Pol's words reflected in her eyes, and stood. T'Pol stood as well, and then Te'Lok gave the ta'al.
"You bring honor to your people," said Te'Lok, "and your people honor you, T'Pol."
"I live to serve," said T'Pol, and walked Te'Lok to the door, then took her seat again, facing Soval.
"Do you realize," said Soval, as he topped off their cups of tea with hot tea from the teapot, "that you have done more for our diplomatic relations with Humans, given your service onboard the Enterprise, than I have done in the past ten years?"
"You exaggerate beyond all reason, Soval," said T'Pol.
"And yet I tell you truly that I do not exaggerate, T'Pol," said Soval. "Although the Humans have been grateful for the assistance we've given them in the past, relations between us have always been somewhat distant, and sometime strained, but now Humans smile at us, and go out of their way to be helpful and associate with us, where before they often held us at arm's length, either put off by our supposed lack of emotions, or intimidated by our physical advantages, or scornful that we did not aid them when their planet was in danger, yet all that, wiped away, by the fact that you shared the Enterprise's suffering and helped complete their mission."
"Well, I can not answer to that, Soval," said T'Pol. "I did what was right, and if it benefited our two peoples, so much the better."
"Indeed," said Soval. "I hope that you and I can continue our association through the years, T'Pol. I find you quite interesting."
"We have met before, Soval," said T'Pol, with a wry turn of her lips, "so if you do not remember me, I could not have been all that interesting."
"I remember meeting the prim and proper Deputy Science Officer of the Seleya, T'Pol," said Soval, "when I was transported to Risa by the Seleya. You had just received your promotion, I believe."
"I see," said T'Pol.
"Yes, T'Pol," said Soval. "You impressed me, as being a proper Vulcan. Now you interest me, as being something more. Your suffering in the Expanse, and your time with the Humans have changed you, T'Pol, possibly for the better, I think."
The ambassador's slight smile made T'Pol gape at the man.
"Was that a joke, Ambassador?"
"You are imagining things, T'Pol."
"Perhaps," said T'Pol, resolved now to keep her eye on Soval: it might be that his time on Earth had changed the ambassador, just as her time in the Expanse had changed her.
T'Pol and Soval spoke for another two hours for the professional chemistry between them was notable, and T'Pol thought that she would have done well with Soval as her mentor, had her career progressed along different channels. Ah, well…
Soon after Soval had departed, T'Pol opened her suite's door, exercising stealth where none was necessary, and peeked out into the hallway, first one way, and then the other, before moving with the stealth of a feline two doors down from her suite, and once there, she tapped the card which Commander Tucker had given her against his doorknob, and was granted access, only to find Commander Tucker in kitchen, fiddling around with a blender. He was bumming around in t-shirt, shorts and socks, and yet T'Pol found him ravishing.
"Who are you, and what are you doing in my suite?" said Trip, smiling at T'Pol through the large pass-through window in the kitchen wall. "I asked the service for a Laotian woman with a limp."
"You know very well who I am, Commander Tucker," said T'Pol, taking a seat on a barstool just outside the pass-through window, "and what I'm doing here."
"Well, I'll have to ask you to leave just the same, T'Pol," said Trip. "I was kidding about the Laotian woman, but Hoshi is coming by any minute, and I've promised her a hot oil massage."
"You must have grown weary of your life, to make such jokes, Commander Tucker."
Trip just grinned at her, and if T'Pol's implied threat fazed him, it did not show on his face.
"Mango smoothie?" said Trip. "Or avocado?"
"Avocado, please," said T'Pol. "After you apologize."
"For what?" said Trip, an innocent look on his face.
"Apologize," said T'Pol blandly.
To Trip, the very neutrality with which T'Pol had requested an apology was as much a warning as the sound of a rattler shaking it's tail! He might not be able to read all Vulcans, though he'd gotten much better at it since meeting T'Pol, but he could read her like a book, and she was not going to let his wisecrack about rubbing Hoshi down pass, ever, unless he apologized.
"I apologize," said Trip, a winning smile on his face, then proceeded to make the smoothies.
An avocado smoothie would have sounded strange to him, before he'd started haunting Vietnamese sandwich shops, but now he had an insatiable thirst for them, as did T'Pol, so he doubled up on the portions. Water, avocados, a touch of sugar, and then he reached for his secret ingredients. A half teaspoon of guar gum, and a quarter teaspoon of xanthan gum. The guar gum made the smoothies creamy and silky by trapping and incorporating tiny pockets of air in the smoothie, while the xanthan gum gave it a bit of body, so the air molecules would not be quickly broken down, and the guar's creaminess lost.
After pouring the smoothies into two glasses, Trip dusted them both with a bit of cardamom powder and a touch of coconut sugar. T'Pol watched this entire ritual with mild amusement. To a logical Vulcan, food was a matter of nutritional intake, and though Vulcans took care with aesthetics and presentation, Commander Tucker raised both of those factors to an art, and a fetish. It was unnatural, the care which this man lavished on food… Still, he showed the same devotion, the same obsession, in other aspects of life, aspects of life which benefited her quite directly behind closed doors, so perhaps it would be best not to rock this boat by teasing the man, lest he take her criticism personally, and allow this aspect of his personality to fall into neglect. T'Pol did not wish to think of that happening, for the consequences would be terrible where her pleasure was concerned, so much so that she would rather be torn to bits by an Alaskan brown bear, than think of that… Tasting the smoothie, and sighing appreciatively, T'Pol wisely kept her mouth shut.
"You like?" said Trip.
"Yes," said T'Pol.
They finished their shakes, while making small talk, then Commander Tucker came round the kitchen to answer his comm unit. He spoke briefly to Captain Archer, then turned to T'Pol.
"So what's up, T'Pol?" said Trip. "Did you come by to watch another wildlife documentary?"
They'd watched a 'Wildlife of Alaska' documentary the previous night, and then Commander Tucker had insisted on showing T'Pol how an Alaskan brown bear brought down elk by nibbling on her ears, pulling her hair, and rolling her onto her back, before pouncing atop T'Pol, and nuzzling her neck to indicate the bear's savage attack, and then pulling off her clothes to indicate, something… T'Pol forgot what. All in all, the bear's attack as demonstrated by Commander Tucker had seemed to be an inefficient process for a predator to take in pursuit of prey, to T'Pol at least, who was used to the brutal efficiency of Vulcan predators, but still, she had no complaints over the demonstration. None at all.
"I came because I wished to see you, Commander Tucker," said T'Pol, standing, and then stepping well inside Trip's personal space: their faces were only separated by 6.4 inches, estimated, and she expected a kiss for her trouble.
"It's always a pleasure to see you, T'Pol," said Trip with a smile, and then stepped back from T'Pol, increasing the distance to some two feet.
Mmm, hmmmm, thought T'Pol, so it is going to be like that, is it?
The man had a thousand ways to torture her, and this was his earliest maneuver. After she had scuttled the Seleya and ended the lives of ninety-six Vulcans, T'Pol had frankly been a mess. She did her duty to the Enterprise, then retreated to her room to meditate for hours, the only bright spots in her day and night, being the time she spent in Engineering and her meal times with Commander Tucker, or late in the night, when she inevitably made her way to his quarters in order to slip into bed with the man. After the third night in a row that she'd showed up at his door, he'd simply added her to the room's security settings, allowing the Vulcan to enter his room day or night with just the imprint of her thumb on a electronic reader, and that gesture gratified T'Pol.
What most definitely did not gratify T'Pol, came after a month or so, when through meditation, she moved into acceptance that what had to be with the Seleya, simply had to be, and no purpose was served in suffering over that fact any longer. So, that very night, T'Pol had come into the Commander's quarters to find the man listening to music, as he dried his hair with a towel, and she reacted instinctively, stepping well inside the commander's personal space and looking up at him, wide eyed and innocent, and yet nothing happened. Thinking that perhaps she was expressing her interest in a manner which he did not understand, T'Pol rested her hands on his bare chest, stood on her tip toes, and brushed his lips, with hers, and then it all went sideways from there. The commander grasped her wrists and stepped back, even though T'Pol saw that his face was flushed, and her sensitive sense of smell picked up the pheromones which accompanied the commander's sexual excitement.
Confused, T'Pol had looked at the man, and said, "What? What is wrong?"
That was a good question, so far as T'Pol was concerned. For the past thirty some days, at least, she'd crawled into this man's bed each night. He'd held her, comforted her, he'd spoken to her in gentle tones when she'd awoken screaming in the dark from nightmares in which she was still trapped aboard the Seleya, or in which she destroyed the Seleya once again… he'd done all that and more, and now, when she had something good to offer the man as partial repayment for his kindness, now, he stepped back!? It was not right! More so, it was not logical!
"What is it?" she'd said.
"It's too soon, T'Pol," had said the commander. "You'll do something you'll regret, and it will ruin us."
"I do not believe a simple kiss will 'ruin us', Commander Tucker."
"Let's wait."
That unpleasant game had gone of for several days, until T'Pol had resolved to take matters into her own hands, and slipped into Commander Tucker's quarters one night, stripped naked and slipped onto the bed with the man, and then proceeded to gain his attention. He woke quickly enough, and noticed T'Pol laying naked atop the covers, the hint of a smile on her face, brow raised in a challenge. Shaking the sleep from his eyes, and taking note of what T'Pol's hands were doing to him, Trip's eyes narrowed.
"Uh, huh. Ok. All right, T'Pol. If this is what you want, fine," said Trip, a fire in his eyes now, "but you're going to regret this."
"I do not think that I will, Commander Tucker," she'd said, and she'd been right: she had not regretted a single moment since then.
Snapping back to the present, T'Pol said, "Do not be like that, Commander Tucker. We are friends. Special friends. Do you not want to be my friend?"
"Sure," said Trip, then stepped aside when T'Pol stepped forward once again, only to find himself trapped between his desk, and T'Pol. "I have lots of friends. Jon, Malcolm, Hoshi, Trav—"
T'Pol silenced him by locking lips with Trip, then said, "You really should stop teasing me like that, Trip. It's cruel."
"You know you like it," said Trip. "Say it!"
"No."
"Say it!"
"I like it! There, are you happy now?"
"Yes, I am," said Trip, with a smile. "Are you?"
"Yes."
***I meant to end this story with chapter 6, but some people indicated that this AU setting still had some life to it, so here goes. Rishooter, Bri, Snowman and Turner, I'll extend the story line, and hopefully answer some questions for Belen in the process, who keeps me honest through the most stringent reviews of my plot lines, along with the analytical focus and detachment of a Kolinahr master. I hope you guys enjoy the story's extension.