Chapter 8
A/N: I wasn't planning on updating so soon but Bones and Pink made a request so who am I to turn them down?
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"We're finally here," Trip said as she stepped off the lift.
"Thank god," Erika whispered to herself. If she was going to be cooped up on a ship for days with nothing to do, why couldn't it have been Columbia?
"You want to do the honors?" Trip asked, glancing at the viewscreen.
"Um no. This is your ship."
"Fine," Trip grumbled and gestured to his communications officer. "Open a channel to the station."
"Channel open, sir."
"Starbase 2, this is Captain Tucker of Enterprise declaring arrival and requesting docking coordinates." He clicked off the mic and turned to Erika. "Now why is that even my job?" he sighed. "Shouldn't the comm officer handle that sort of thing? Or a docking coordinator?"
"Jon always thought it was best for the captain to handle the first communication with any starbase or station," Erika shrugged as she looked over the comm officer's shoulder at the incoming and outgoing traffic. The poor kid had enough to deal with as it was.
"Yeah, well Jon isn't here now is he?"
"No, he's there," Erika pointed out the viewport at the starbase. Jon was on the base in high orbit over Andoria. It was the newest part of Starfleet's exploratory bases and currently was the one furthest from Earth. The design was something Erika had never seen before, a round sphere in the center surrounded by spokes which each ended in a docking ring that could support up to five ships each. It looked like it had the capacity of every current space station combined, which was probably not a bad idea considering how many different ships were going to be coming here in the next few days.
"Enterprise, this is operations control on Starbase 2. We've got a bit of a hold up at the docks right now. If you'd remain in orbit for a few minutes we should have things cleared up soon."
The voice on the other end of the transmission sounded harried. Erika couldn't blame them. When it was time for the Andorians to host their portion of the conference, the Vulcans and the Tellerites had balked at actually holding it on the surface of that frozen world. The starbase was chosen as a compromise location since it was currently being jointly administered by the Andorian Guard and Starfleet. The only problem was the base wasn't yet completed. So Jon had taken several of his staff and a couple ships full of corpsmen almost a month ago to make sure everything would be ready in time.
To Erika, it seemed like it had only been yesterday that Jon was rushing off to the first of the conferences on Vulcan. Frankie's hair had grown out a lot since then and you could barely tell that her sister had hacked almost all of it off only three months earlier. Their lives had become a complicated mess, the kind that they had hoped to avoid by giving up their ships all those years ago. But with the federation talks going on it seemed that Jon was needed everywhere but Earth. Ironically, the administration of the fleet would run perfectly fine without the chief of staff. The conferences on the other hand would not.
The whole situation had left Jon incredibly frustrated. He felt like he was neglecting his duty to Starfleet but at the same time he wanted desperately to be a part of the negotiations. The talks got him more energized than starship design ever had. When he was away, he would call her almost every night to tell her what had happened that day. Erika didn't really care. She would have taken starship design over diplomacy any day but it made her smile to see how happy Jon was.
Because Jon had left for the base so early, it had been Erika's job as one of the highest-ranking officers in the fleet to ferry the rest of the United Earth delegation to Andoria and so she called Trip. Veronica had been conveniently out on a deep space patrol and had flat out told her that she would rather die than surve as a diplomatic tugboat. Trip hadn't been able to say no to her. She hadn't exactly played fair with him though. She had told Trip that Ben had something to ask him. As usual, Trip's face lit up and he eagerly scooped up the toddler in his arms. Without missing a beat, Ben said, "go see Daddy?" and pointed at his mother. Trip's heart had melted and he had agreed before Erika could even brief him on the mission.
Much to Ben's shock and disappointment, he and his sisters weren't allowed to come along. Jon had begged but Erika insisted that the kids stay with Simon and Maria. After all, they were going to an under construction space station. A space station in fact whose officers probably weren't even sure how to handle a basic docking procedure.
"I see four maybe five ships out there," Trip said looking out the viewscreen. " Two Agronas, a Hellenic, and a couple of Legorsas. Addie could've had them in by now. What the hell is going on out there?"
"I'll be someone just screwed up and missed their departure slot. One foul up like that and the whole line goes down," Erika sighed as she slipped into the captain's chair. Trip gave her a funny look.
"And what do you think you're doing?"
"What do you think you're doing….." she prompted.
"… Admiral," he grumbled. She gave him a smile. She and Jon had teased Trip mercilessly when he struggled with their promotions, insisted that he just call them by their names the way he always had. Unfortunately, this bad habit had stuck and Trip often completely forgot that he couldn't just shout 'hey, you in the hat' and expect the Starfleet Chief of Staff to respond. On the other hand, Jon usually did respond to that one.
"I forgot how uncomfortable these chairs are," she sighed as Trip came over to stand beside her. "There is nowhere on these things for an admiral to stand without being in the way."
"Maybe that is because admirals aren't supposed to be on these things." Trip checked his watch. "They are supposed to stay in the VIP quarters with the rest of the delegation. Okay, that's it. I'm pulling rank." He signaled to the comm officer again who nodded. "Operations control, this is Enterprise actual."
"Go ahead, Enterprise."
"Ops, I've got priority one clearance so why don't you just tell us where to park."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I've got Admiral Hernandez on board. Do you know who she is?" Trip winked at Erika.
"Y-yes sir…"
"Good. Now, why don't we start again." Trip cleared his throat, "Starbase 2 this is Enterprise requesting docking coordinates."
"Yes sir, right away sir. Proceed to bay 6b."
"Thank you," he closed the channel and turned to his pilot. "You heard the man, punch it."
Erika watched as the pilot, the comm officer and the docking chief all began to work to bring the large starship in to port. She had seen the procedure a hundred times and commanded it a hundred more but it never failed to fill her with awe. Running lights at their dock flickered on in the darkness, illuminating their way. As they got closer, umbilicals and fuel lines began to creep towards them waiting. Finally the clamps and moorings came in and with a definite thud, Enterprise was docked.
Erika gave Trip a pat on the back. "I'm going to go find my husband and undo whatever damage you just did."
"Wait," he turned as she headed off the bridge. "You aren't leaving me alone with these people are you?"
"I'm sure you'll be able to get them to their suites onboard the station without my help," she gave him a reassuring smile.
"And what if the quartermaster is just as clueless as the operations officer?" Trip groaned as he sunk into his chair.
"Then I suppose you'll have to pull rank again."
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