If it wasn't so sad, Malcolm would have laughed out loud. Not even a month had gone by since he had left Salem One to take Buran out on her maiden voyage and now he was back already with a ship that looked very second-hand. Granted, in between the two events he had killed about four hundred Romulans and saved about three times as many Betazoids, but no captain in the universe liked to see his ship in the state Buran was in. Thankfully Starfleet had recalled Enterprise to Salem One, too, so his ship would be repaired under the guidance of Charles Tucker III himself – one couldn't hope for more than that. He had no doubt in T'Len's expertise, but two brilliant minds on the job were better than one.
Following the battle around Betazed and due to latest reports from the V'Shar and Section 31 Starfleet had decided to assemble the whole first offensive fleet around Salem One and space surely got crowded. Stabilized and powered by two D'Kyr class vessels, each docked on either side of Buran's battered saucer section, the wounded ship weaved through a venerable sea of nine fully armed NX class ships, about twenty Andorian Kumari class cruisers, at least thirty D'Kyr frigates and an eclectic mix of Baikal, Marconi and Olympus Mons class frigates. This was the biggest fleet the alpha quadrant had seen in a while.
"None of your ships?" Tholos asked in Grev's direction, but before the Tellarite could deliver a riposte, Malcolm butted in.
"The Tellarite fleet has taken on the task of planetary defense of all coalition planets," he explained with a look that would make sure Tholos didn't have any 'questions' afterward. "If you call home, you'll find that Andoria is orbited by more Nork class cruisers than you would have been comfortable with a year ago."
"I apologize," Tholos said.
"No need to," Malcolm said with a smirk. "Grev fancies a good insult now and then. But you certainly need to update your tactical knowledge. I expect my tactical officer to know that Tellarite vessels are better used defensively than offensively. See that you get up-to-date. There'll be a quiz afterward."
Even a still bandaged Sonos, manning the communications console raised an amused eyebrow about Malcolm's ribbing of Tholos.
=/\=
As the big doors to the hospital wing of Salem One opened, the first Malcolm noticed was the eerie silence. Having spent five years in space now, he had come to associate sickbay with a cacophony of chirping, trilling and squeaking coming from a veritable zoo of alien animals. Both Phlox on Enterprise and his wife Feezal on Buran preferred natural therapies to chemical measures.
Unlike back home on Buran he didn't walk into a single large chamber full of biobeds. This was a huge chamber, the walls of which were lined with dozens of currently not activated monitors, above them a lineup of at least a hundred folding gurneys in their wall mounts, which could quickly be unfolded and used to carry in the wounded. Unfolding the legs underneath them would transform them into makeshift biobeds. This particular addition was a result of their rescue mission on Corridan Prime, where Trip's engineering crew had made dozens of makeshift biobeds from gurneys.
Having been involved in the reconstruction planning after seizing the station from the Romulans he knew that this chamber would become the ER unit of the hospital. It would be here where the incoming wounded would be assessed and assigned for further treatment. He shuddered at the thought that this was a full blown hospital with 12 operating theaters, two independent intensive care units, three prosthetic workshops and biobeds for up to 750 patients. Three docked Aesclepius class hospital ships provided three additional operating theaters and further space for up to 210 patients.
Malcolm shuddered again. In a pinch this monstrous unit could house a thousand wounded and 15 surgeries could be performed simultaneously. What made him grim was, that from his time as a Section 31 operative, who had seen conflicts between races which Earth hadn't officially encountered yet, he knew that the day when this facility was forced to operate at over 100% capacity was already on the calendar.
This was what made those Romulans so menacing. Klingons, Cardassians, Gorn – he had seen a lot of warrior races that Earth officially didn't yet know about, but even the Section had not the faintest clue about what or who the Romulans were. He couldn't know that, of all people, his former Captain and now fleet commander had much more information about the Romulans than Harris's shady bunch.
"Dr. Lukas?" Malcolm called out in surprise as a stout man with a white lab coat walked into the chamber.
"Captain Reed," the doctor answered and walked towards him. "I've been waiting for you. If you would follow me?"
After a handshake Malcolm followed the Doctor along the long corridors until they arrived at one of the smaller examination rooms, where the Doctor called up two images on adjacent screens without much of a preamble. One of them was Hoshi's Starfleet record. When he saw that no date of death had been registered yet, Malcolm relaxed slightly.
"According to her record, your wife was born on July 9th in 2129. Is that correct?" Dr. Lucas asked.
"Of course, Doctor," Malcolm said in a puzzled tone. "We had to register our birth certificates for our wedding license not too long ago. I've seen hers. How is Hoshi?"
"She is fine, but still unconscious, we'll talk about that soon. Now, what you see here," the Doctor said and pointed to the slowly rotating helix on the second read-out. "Is a genetic profile of your wife, taken by the Vulcans before she was delivered here. As the medics on Soval's ship did not have access to her Starfleet medical record, they made a complete genetic scan. According to the cellular decay rate, your wife was born on March 30th or April 1st in 2130. Peculiar, isn't it?"
Malcolm stared at the display, unable to say anything, but his brooding was interrupted by the metallic computer voice of the PA system.
"Two incoming emergencies. Two incoming emergencies. Human One, Vulcan One. Severety Two."
Malcolm observed the Doctor as he calmly called up the duty roster and the screen showed a selection of human, Andorian and Vulcan medics.
"Dr. Turis, Dr. Tral, report to the ER unit," Dr. Lukas ordered after keying the door com unit to the PA system.
A short time later Malcolm heard the swish of an opening door nearby and an Andorian and a Vulcan, clad in white lab coats, jogged past their door down the corridor. Who would have thought a year ago that a Vulcan and an Andorian would work together in a hospital unit that was led by a human chief physician.
"Where were we?" the Dr. asked Malcolm.
"You were trying to tell me that Hoshi's been celebrating her birthday on the wrong day for over 20 years," Malcolm snorted.
"Ah, yes. Well Captain, can you remember any unusual medical episodes of your wife or exposure to alien influences? It would make it easier than to trawl the complete medical history."
"There are so many," Malcolm said. "The radiation on the Akaali planet, the transporter incident, the L'oqueqe virus, abducted by the telepathic alien and the Xindi-Reptilians, her unexplained resurrection after her death..."
"Resurrection?" Lucas asked with an astonished look.
"About 14 months ago she and Commander Tucker were infected by an alien virus. Both died, but somehow came back from the dead. Phlox and Feezal have been trying to find out about what happened, but they are still clueless," Malcolm explained.
"Fourteen months," the Dr. muttered and Malcolm saw a myriad of numbers flash over the screen on the wall until a metallic voice announced "record found."
Malcolm observed how the Doctor rushed through several on-screen menus, before the computer voice announced "calculating."
"Now, we just need to wait a moment," the doctor said idly.
"Calculation finished. Species human, female, approximate date of birth: Year twenty one twenty nine, month six, week two," the computer voice droned monotonously.
"Well that sounds a bit closer to what we've believed so far," Malcolm stated the obvious. "So what does that mean? Obviously a birth can only happen once. Could it be some of this time line malarkey?"
"That is what we need to find out, Captain Reed. Didn't you say Commander Tucker was affected as well?"
"Yes."
"Excellent," the doctor said. "Since he's currently watching over your wife, we can take a scan of him immediately. But first you'll be scanned. Please remove your uniform and make yourself comfortable in the imaging chamber."
"You have a strange idea of 'comfortable', Doctor," Malcolm said and started removing his flight suit."
"Commander Tucker, please join us in room E-15," the doctor announced over the PA system.
"Hands at your side, Captain," Dr. Lucas instructed before he shoved the platform with Malcolm on it into the chamber's inner tube and closed it. Malcolm closed his eyes, while the monotonous hum of the scan made him feel the exhaustion of the last few days.
=/\=
Malcolm awoke and the first he saw was a white ceiling. He shook off the drowsiness and looked around. After a few moments he looked into the face of T'Pol, who was sitting next to his bio bed, with Hoshi positioned on the bed on her other side.
"Hey T'Pol," he muttered and swung his feet over the side of the bed. "What happened."
"You fell asleep in the chamber," she explained and pointed to the lower end of his bed, where a folded fresh uniform was.
After donning the fresh uniform – Trip or T'Pol must have brought it here – he went around the biobed, offering T'Pol a friendly handshake. To his utter surprise she gently drew him in and gave him a hug, which he returned somewhat stiffly.
"What was that all about?" he asked slowly gravitating toward Hoshi's bed.
"We were worried about the two of you," T'Pol admitted. "We all know how to read a tactical display. We were not convinced that we would arrive in time."
"Well thankfully Soval did," Malcolm said, sending her a small smile, while he took Hoshi's limp hand.
"Hoshi regained consciousness about three hours ago," T'Pol explained, coming up beside him and looked down at her sleeping friend. "Dr. Lucas administered a sedative to allow her to rest. The surgery and the artificial coma have cost her a great amount of energy."
"Could you talk to her?"
"Indirectly," T'Pol answered. "The doctor didn't want her to be awake for a long period before she hasn't rested properly and the swelling of her brain tissue has subsided properly. He allowed me to perform a mind-meld though. Her mind is intact and it was Hoshi, who asked me to embrace you in her stead."
"You surprised me," Malcolm said with a smile.
"I would have probably done so nonetheless," T'Pol explored drily. "I understand it is not an inappropriate gesture among friends."
"It isn't," Malcolm agreed, still smiling. He felt that the sleep had invigorated him. "How long have I been out?"
"Twelve hours and 24 minutes," T'Pol said. "When you passed out in the imaging chamber, the doctor decided to administer a sedative to allow you uninterrupted sleep. You were severely exhausted."
"Well, I wasn't exactly on a pleasure cruise," Malcolm sighed and gently continued to caress Hoshi's hand.
=/\=
Legatus Tavrus, who was once Major Talok walked the long corridors towards the Praetors chamber, where an emergency meeting was scheduled with him and Admiral Valdore. One would die today in dishonor, either Valdore or Fleet Admiral Verax, who had refused to remove the silly cloaking devices from their ships.
We could just as well go into battle with the self-destruct sequence already counting down, Tavrus thought grimly.
The defeat at Betazed was already the second in a short time and the Preator was not known to be a man of composure and patience. Initial satisfaction that the coalition vessel they encountered in battle was not the much hated, but also somewhat dreaded Enterprise, was soon supplanted by confusion that a coalition ship had been encountered in the first place. Tal'Shiar reconnaissance ships had not found any coalition ships within more than 2 hours range, which should have given them more than enough time to finish the laughable Betazoid runabouts that passed for ships on this planet of puny, hapless people.
What was more worrying was that a biosign scan had revealed that the ship was populated by six different species. All their efforts to divide the races in that quadrant had failed miserably. On the contrary – the Terrhasu, the most short-lived and weakest species of them all had managed to bind them into a coalition that presented the biggest obstacle the Empire had encountered in centuries of conquest. Of course admitting that publicly was a stupid and potentially lethal idea.
"FOUR! We lost four of our best ships!" Praetor D'Deridex hollered without preamble, once Tavrus had entered the chamber and taken a military stance next to the Admiral. "Valdore, I told you I don't accept any more failures."
"I'm afraid you are talking to the wrong man, Excellency," Legatus Tavrus interrupted. "Admiral Valdore wanted to follow my advice to remove the experimental cloaking devices, but Fleet Admiral Verax denied that request categorically."
"Why is this cloaking device to blame?" the Praetor demanded staring at him. "It has served us well in recent conflicts."
"It has served well against races, who haven't found out about its weakness," Valdore disagreed. "The Terrhasu know that we cannot keep it operational without connecting it directly to the warp core. The two officers that infiltrated our drone ship saw the installation. One direct hit in the holographic emitters and a whole warbird is destroyed instantly due to a warpcore breach. And the Terrhasu have freely shared that knowledge with other races."
"These hevam are beginning to annoy me!" the Praetor screamed and hammered his fists on his ancient desk. "Valdore, I want that device taken out of every ship, except the Tal'Shiar vessels. To Remus with the advantage! And bring me Verax – and a firing squad."
=/\=
When Malcolm entered the gym on Salem One, he couldn't believe his eyes. The MACOs, who were supposed to be engaged in combat training, were sitting around in little groups, some playing cards, others chatting or just sleeping on the floor.
Several looked at him dismissively, but only a few made lazy attempts at getting on their feet. Most seemed to completely ignore the entrance of the ship's Captain. With a swift movement, he drew his pulse rifle, flicked the switch to stun and let go a salvo of shots, only narrowly missing the groups of people.
"What the fuck?!" one of the MACOs yelled, while taking cover behind one of the weight racks.
"That's what I want to know!" Malcolm growled back. "Get on your feet and in formation you bloody scumbags."
The soldiers scrambled and quickly were standing in front of him in formation.
"Does this look like combat training to you?" Malcolm asked angrily and looked at the lazy bunch in front of him. Several uniforms looked less that pristine. The late Major Hayes would have eaten this lot raw. For all the initial problems he had with the fallen MACO, he had learned to respect him as an excellent military leader.
"We were waiting for Staff Sergeant Willis, Sir," one of the MACOs, a Sergeant, answered lamely.
"And you will continue waiting, because he's on his way back to Earth and involuntary early retirement." Malcolm growled, walking up and down the front line of soldiers. Without prior warning he socked one of them, who wore a particularly untidy uniform, sending him crashing into a nearby bulkhead.
"I'm at least three inch shorter than you, Corporal. How can I attack you without you showing as much as a reaction?" he yelled after the soldier, who scrambled back to his feet. He faced the others again.
"You lot don't impress me. In case you've missed the signs, we're heading into a war. I'm not going to watch how good men and women get their arses shot off, because you didn't do your bloody job. Your new platoon leader will expect a group of people ready to kick arse and trust me, you will be ready, when Sergeant Cole is done with you. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Sir," the bewildered soldiers answered in unison.
"Strip off those jackets and get ready for combat practice. I'll be leading the training today."
=/\=
Trip came out of the bathroom to find T'Pol and Malcolm already seated in their quarters on Enterprise. After a very long day trying to patch up Malcolm's ship the shower had felt like a second birth, but all the invigorating effects of the shower would probably not keep him on his feet much longer than another two or three hours.
"Hey Mal," he greeted giving his friend a pat on the back.
"You look like hell," Malcolm said. "Any reason why I'm not allowed on my ship? I've been inundated with reports, but I'm not allowed to verify them?"
"Just," Trip said, gesturing him to wait a moment while he opened the door for the steward.
After the crewman had served the dishes and taken his leave Malcolm looked at Trip expectantly.
"It's just too crowded," Trip explained. "There are currently about 160 people running around on your ship. T'Len's crew, station personnel and two damage control teams from the Vulcans. You'd constantly be in the way of someone. And that doesn't even count for the risk of accidents. We had 8 injuries and that's just today."
"Is she so badly damaged," Malcolm asked back with a worried glance.
"Let's eat first," T'Pol suggested. "We can review the day's events after dinner."
Both men nodded their agreement and the meal proceeded in silence.
"So, how does it look?" Malcolm asked, once the steward had left with the dirty dishes and Trip had served them two beers and a tea for T'Pol.
"We're running three shifts round the clock," Trip explained. "Will take about a week and she's as good as new. And don't worry about the reports. They go all through me or T'Len. Trust me, before they reach you, we've checked them."
"I forgot to ask," Malcolm said looking at T'Pol after acknowledging Trips explanation with a nod. "What did the scans of the doctor bring about? Did he find out what's wrong with Hoshi?"
"It appears there is nothing wrong with Hoshi," she explained. "Since we don't know what happened, while Trip and Hoshi were infected, we can only speculate, but what the doctor found out is, that both Trip's and Hoshi's genetic makeup has been 'optimized'."
"I'm afraid you've lost me," Malcolm said and put the mug back on the table as if the beer was responsible for his state of confusion.
"Older scans of Trip have shown that he had a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's disease. This genetic predisposition is no longer present in the scan Doctor Lucas performed today. Hoshi carried a genetic defect that exposed your future offspring to a 37.3 % chance of being born with Down's syndrome. This defect is no longer present either."
"So whatever they were infected with sort of cleaned up their genetic makeup?" Malcolm asked for further clarification.
"It appears to be the case," T'Pol confirmed. "It also had an effect on their aging process, which explains the mismatch in their date of birth."
"My birthday was off my 7 months, too," Trip provided, seeing Malcolm's confused look.
"Trip's date of birth was seemingly miscalculated by the same number of days as Hoshi's," T'Pol continued. "I have calculated that their aging process has slowed down by 49.761%. In short – over the last fourteen months since the unexplained infection both Trip and Hoshi have aged by only 7 months."
Having finished her tea, T'Pol stood up and walked to her wardrobe.
"That means...," Malcolm stammered, but got stuck mid-sentence.
"Yep," Tripped quipped. "T'Pol is stuck with me for another hundred twenty or hundred forty years."
"And Hoshi, too?" Malcolm asked.
Trip nodded.
"I'm lost for words," Malcolm said in amazement. He left unexplained if that condition was caused by realizing that he would have a youthful wife for most of his life or the fact that T'Pol had quietly undressed and walked naked into the bathroom for a shower.
=/\=
"Mattes!" Trip hollered coming into Buran's battered engineering section the next day and the lanky German dropped out of a Jeffries tube. "Here!"
"How's the status?" he asked.
"The hull is patched up," Mattes explained. "But the EPS grid is a mess. They've taken a direct hit into junction J17. Whoever thought that placing a major EPS junction that close to the outer hull was a good idea, should be taken outside and shot."
"Didn't we correct that on Enterprise, when we installed the phase cannons?" Trip asked.
"We did," Mattes confirmed. "But it looks like they've sent the prototype data to the Aquarians. They've built the Buran exactly like Enterprise was when she shipped out for the first time."
"Damn, that means we have 4 years worth of upgrades to install," Trip groaned.
"Exactly, Chief; But don't worry, we're already on it. And while we're at it T'Len can learn about them first hand. Problem is, it'll delay us by at least a day."
"You have a day, so assemble a team and get cracking on it, but make sure to run your modifications past T'Len first," Trip said, poking away at a PADD. "This ship and its crew nuked four Rommies. I want it ready to add to that tally."
"How are they?" Mattes asked. "The Reeds, I mean."
"They're fine," Trip answered with a smile. "Worried about losing your customers?"
"Unsinn!" the German replied. "If it were for customers, we've got no shortage of those. Apparently the Andorians are growing fond of our beer. Our stash is running low with so many Kumari cruisers around. Maybe you didn't notice, but not only the human crews are quite impressed by what Captain Reed has done. He's a damn hero."
"I'm not gonna argue with that," Trip agreed. "If you wanna pay them a visit, go ahead. Hoshi's still in the hospital. I'm sure she will appreciate it. Oh... and before you give everything away to the Andorians, make sure our keg is replaced."
"Wouldn't hear of it, Commander," Mattes said with a laugh and crawled back into the Jeffries tube.
=/\=
The monotonous whine of the treadmill in Enterprise's gym would have drowned out all thoughts for most people, but not those of a former Section 31 operative, who was trained not to lose concentration under any circumstances.
Having spent most of the day before out cold in the hospital, he felt quite refreshed. The fact that Hoshi had woken up in the morning had helped this a lot, too and for the first time since the battle he had had the chance to talk to her and reassure himself of her continued presence in his life.
Most of the day he had been torn. One half of him was hell-bent on leaving Starfleet and not to send Hoshi into harms way again, but his other half would not allow him to abandon his friends and colleagues in this time of battle. As a former operative, who still had good contacts to the section, thanks to T'Pol's taming of Harris, he was a vital asset to Starfleet. He simply couldn't take himself out of the line of fire.
Thinking about T'Pol kicking Harris' arse back in line led inevitably to thoughts about the Vulcan. She had utterly surprised him twice. First by hugging him in the hospital and later by undressing for her shower as if it was the most normal thing in the world that he was still in the room at the time. Of course Trip had gotten another laugh about his obvious bafflement, but the longer he thought about it, the more he realized that it was indeed a normal thing. The only thing making it not normal was his own social awkwardness.
Both women had been tanning in the nude on Vulcan for most of the time and the only person discomforted by it was himself. On the other hand, Malcolm cackled mentally, two or three years ago he would have run screaming had Hoshi or T'Pol decided to jump out of their clothes.
Life without Hoshi and the Tuckers became increasingly unimaginable. Having severed almost all ties to his own family, Trip and his wife had become his family and more or less his only true friends. As an operative one did not have friends by necessity and his rotten social skills didn't make him an outgoing character either. Of course this closeness to other people that he felt for the first time in his life also meant that losing anyone of them to the horrors of the war would mean pain and grief that he had never felt before. That was the price for finding a family after such a long time as a lone wolf.
He forced himself to abandon that thought. It was just too painful to dwell on it.