The fourth time felt like the worst yet. There was no war zone, no prison cell, no stench of turkeys in a shed too small for them. They weren't even away from the ship. There they were on the Enterprise, and Jim knew for a fact that there was a Christmas party going on several decks below. But here he was stuck in one of the larger reception rooms, a space milling with aliens from all areas of the Federation, a medley of species, skin tones, and costumes. His dress uniform felt like it was choking him, and the entire spread of food was vegetarian in deference to the strictly plant-eating Da'Ensheners. He missed his crew. He missed his turkey dinner. He missed Spock. God how he missed Spock. Even though his first officer and partner was in the same room as him, he might as well have been on another ship, so engrossed was he in conversation with the Vulcan delegates, an extremely handsome young man and an equally attractive woman.
Jim couldn't deny that he felt a little jealous. He also felt a little turned on as he imagined a menage with not only Spock, but also that cream-skinned twenty-something Vulcan woman and her dark, slightly older male companion. By god, all those lean Vulcan limbs, the woman's pert young breasts, the man's muscular physique...
'...as I'm sure you'll agree, Captain,' a sibilant voice broke into his thoughts.
Jim started, looking back to the pale blue skinned Andorian who had just spoken, his face going crimson as he was interrupted in his highly carnal thoughts.
'Oh – oh, yes, of course I agree, Thol,' he nodded, at which there was something akin to a small explosion to his left.
'You agree? You agree, Captain?'
The Tellarite ambassador was incensed, his own piggy complexion flushing even redder than Jim's own had gone.
'Oh, well, I – ' he began to backtrack, feeling acutely embarrassed and confused.
'You agree to the Andorian annexation of what is clearly Tellarite space?' the Tellarite continued to splutter, so exercised that spittle was forming on his pig-like muzzle.
'I'm sorry, Thol. Axan. I have to admit I wasn't giving you my full attention,' Jim stammered, but the Andorian Thol continued, smooth as a snake.
'But of course you agree, Captain, because that area of space should clearly fall under Andorian authority. Only the most dull minded shagneth would even consider – '
And the Tellarite pushed him with both hands, spilling the slight Andorian onto a table full of exotic vegetarian cuisine, which launched itself into the air around him and splattered back not only over Thol, but also over Jim's choking dress tunic and the Tellarite Axan's silver reflective jacket.
Jim stepped between the two as Thol regained his feet, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace, only to be barrelled into on one side by an Andorian absolutely covered in some kind of slimy yellow sauce, and by the not inconsiderable bulk of the Tellarite on the other. The breath was squeezed out of him as he became part of a kind of alien sandwich that was far from the menage he was imagining a few moments ago.
Somehow in the course of the next few minutes the collar of that restrictive dress tunic was ripped open and someone had struck him across the face with a soggy, sauce-soaked arm. His tunic was hanging off him, and his bare chest became smeared with remnants of the finest Da'Enshener food as he rolled on the floor with the Andorian and Tellarite delegates on either side of him, the Tellarite apparently trying to knock the Andorian's head off with his hooves and the Andorian fighting back with a snake-like intensity that Jim would have thought was beyond these slight, fragile seeming aliens.
His Christmas Day ended in a phaser strike on stun, which enveloped all three of the men rolling on the floor, and sent him into a dark oblivion.
