|
“Coitus Conceptus” Rating: NC-17 This story is a sequel to Coitus Experimentus. ((((((((((((((((((((((( Part 7 ))))))))))))))))))))))) Archer held the flat wooden case up to his face and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. Granddad. He could almost feel the tweed of the man’s coatsleeve against his face. He looked down at the odd, pasted-paper logo that the company still applied to their products. Tatuaje Cabinet Tainos. Archer realised the American cigars had been his grandfather’s only brand, always, and yet he’d never asked him for the story behind that preference. Now it was years too late, of course. A strange mixture of nostalgia and nervousness settled over the captain’s broad shoulders as he turbolifted his way to a particularly intense, strange sort of task that he hadn’t done more than two or three times yet in life. Professionally or privately. He was off to visit a newborn and its parents. The turbolift halted short of its destination to admit a second passenger along its route of travel. Ensign Hoshi Sato stepped into the tube, and the door swiftly sealed behind her. She turned deftly to face front, as was the age-old unconscious custom of humans travelling in lifts of any type. “Hello, Hoshi,” the captain said affably. “Hi, sir,” Hoshi replied, as always making it sound, somehow, like she was apologetically, but earnestly enough, addressing him as ‘Sir’. As if it was his name. Doglike. Archer didn’t mind somehow. He halfway seriously suspected it happened reflexively—since she was so much brainier than everyone else on board. The whole crew were a pack of phenoms, but Hoshi was special: a savant-like talent to memorize, reverse engineer, and utilise language she had spent less than five minutes listening to. And give the woman a week! Archer couldn’t take offence if Hoshi unconsciously considered her colleagues somewhat Porthos-like when it came to intelligence. Anyone who could swear in thirty different languages certainly had him beat. “What’s in the box?” Hoshi ventured somewhat interestedly. Archer smiled inwardly at her always-insatiable curiosity and passed the box over. Hoshi snapped the little latch open and lifted the lid. A row of thick, soldierly brown cigars stood at attention within the shallow depths of the container. A dry, tannic, spicy aroma wafted into the confines of the turbolift, and Hoshi sniffed deeply—closing her eyes and smiling almost sadly. She passed the box back to Archer as the lift came to a halt. “Reminds me of my JiJii,” Hoshi said, preceding Archer out of the lift and into the corridor. The door hissed shut, but they stood, talking. “Grandpa,” she clarified, in response to her captain’s slightly-confused look. “I remember,” Archer defended. Ages ago—before Enterprise—she’d made him learn a bunch of nouns in Japanese, after he lost a bet. “Sorry,” Hoshi apologized, smiling. “Actually, I’m lying,” he confessed. “I thought JiJii was your cat or something.” Hoshi laughed outright. “JiJii hated cats. He loved cigars. But Cubans only. He wouldn’t smoke anything else. Very stubborn, JiJii was.” “Really,” Archer replied in surprise. Grandfathers were all alike sometimes. He realized that they were still just standing in front of the long-gone turbolift, as each clearly was going in the opposite direction down the corridor. This seemed to happen to him a lot with Hoshi for some reason: their conversations always went on long enough that they had to consciously break them off. And it usually happened awkwardly. He lofted the cigar box in one hand and gestured with his other thumb over his shoulder. “Well, I better be—” But, “Who are the cigars for?” Hoshi asked, exactly as the captain spoke. “Oh, uh, no problem,” she immediately demurred, smiling. And she made to take a step away. “No, wait.” Archer stopped her with an outstretched arm. The captain thought quickly. Phlox had informed him that Trip and T’Pol had somehow just become parents and it had to do with their outing on the hull. That was all. The doctor had asked the captain to come to Sickbay so that he might elaborate, but he had also let him know that he was free to announce the happy news to the ship as soon as he saw fit. Apparently, the Tuckers, (he figured he could safely begin to call them that now) knowing how fast rumours on this ship flew, had specifically requested that the captain get it over with as soon as possible, in order that rampant speculation might be kept to a minimum. Rampant speculation about senior officers was never good for a ship. However, Jonathan wanted to be the first to congratulate his two friends, and he also wanted to find out what the hell was going on first. So he figured he’d wait ten more minutes, before getting on the horn and completely destroying the efficient running of his starship. This thought was what made him stop Ensign Hoshi Sato as she turned to leave. There was going to be enough of a gong show when he finally made the announcement. It perhaps wouldn’t be imprudent to have a few members of the crew already “in the know” so that not every hand would simultaneously freeze at its station. And if there was anyone who was good at efficaciously disseminating information, it was his language-expert. Archer put a serious hand on her shoulder and held up the cigars. “I’m going to tell you who these are for, but you have to promise to believe me right away, and also, I forbid you to squeal.” Hoshi narrowed her eyes at her Captain, her naturally-burning, good-natured, but rabid inner snoop scenting something afoot. “I do not squeal,” the young woman stated, crossing her arms, PADD and all, and waiting to see what the captain could possibly have on that order of magnitude. “Promise?” Archer asked, a smile hiding on his face. He was enjoying himself. “Yes,” Hoshi replied disinterestedly, rolling her eyes and scrolling boredly down her PADD as if it was the stupidest thing ever, but secretly on tenterhooks. “Now I don’t have all the details yet, but—” The captain looked around the deserted corridor, as if for eavesdroppers. “What?” Hoshi asked impatiently, within the mini-bubble of freedom-of-expression that she sporadically got to share with her commander when they happened to find themselves alone. It was spontaneous and never commented-upon, and for some totally inscrutable reason, it always made Hoshi feel strangely red-cheeked and impatient with herself afterward. Archer watched her face with enjoyment, as he relieved her suspense: “Trip and T’Pol just had a baby.” Hoshi, to her credit, only allowed the tiniest squeak to emit before both her hands had slapped up to her mouth: ten tense fingers covering the lower half of her face and pointing up toward the saucers of her shocked, dark eyes. The PADD dropped from her grasp as she moved and the captain, expecting this, caught it neatly. “That was pretty good,” Archer allowed of her mostly-mute reaction, handing the PADD back as she stared at him, one hand still to her mouth. “You have to admit,” he said, “from a purely anthropological standpoint, squealing does seem to be the standard baby-news response among women.” Hoshi, normally a strident feminist, only nodded in total agreement at this observation, before swallowing and finding her usually-reliable voice again. “How is that possible?” she started, before Archer held up a hand. “Details…right,” she breathlessly answered her own question. “Now, Hoshi, I need you to do something for me,” Archer said. “I know, I know,” she replied with a grin of self-reproach, “keep it to myself.” “Actually,” he replied, “I need you to go tell a few people.” “Really? Who?” “Oh just anyone you run into,” Archer said. “Really?” she asked, with the total delight of one being given the juiciest news in years to bear back to her fellows in the mess hall. “Well, I’ll be making a ship-wide announcement in a few minutes, at the request of the…the parents (he shook his head at the oddness of the situation), and I thought if a few knew already—” “You don’t want everyone jumping up and down at exactly the same time and crashing the ship into a planet?” she finished knowingly. “Kind of where I was going,” he agreed, “though I hadn’t really pictured it quite like that.” Hoshi smiled evilly and started to back away from him, down the corridor leading to the mess hall. “Then you have no idea what you are about to do,” she replied with devilish anticipation—before she impudently winked and spun, breaking into a little trot as she rounded the corner. “Walk please, Ensign,” the captain called out good-naturedly but warningly, as she vanished. He was gratified to hear her step slow slightly. Archer frowned inwardly for a moment, before tugging his tunic top a little to gather his wits about himself, and resuming his journey to Sickbay. At least the conversation had ended on an order, he mused, no matter how trivial, instead of that confounded wink she liked to throw at him when he least expected it. He knew he’d not allow such a thing from anyone else, male or female. No one else would try. But he also knew that he would never ask Hoshi to stop doing it. She was crafty, too, and somehow never, ever slipped in public. In fact, her little liberties almost seemed an acknowledgement of the fact that they were by themselves. As if she noticed. Which was ridiculous. He quickened his step, swinging his arms slightly to justify the irritating flush that always seemed to appear on the apples of his cheeks, if he exchanged too many non-work-related sentences with his youngest bridge officer. Other things. Other things to think about right now. The large Sickbay doors loomed, and he passed through them and entered the room. The imaging chamber was clearly in use and Phlox was speaking with Trip and pointing to the readout on the screen. Phlox raised his chin and his eyebrows at the captain’s arrival, indicating he should come over. “You see the scar tissue here, and here,” Phlox resumed, finishing his sentence. He was taking the commander through some of his wife’s potential medical issues. “You can see why it is unlikely that T’Pol will be able to successfully carry any future infants. I would recommend surrogacy if you choose to expand your, ah, family.” Trip glanced at Archer as he approached and included him in his reply: “Yeah, I doubt T’Pol will want any more, but if we do, can’t we just use the tank?” The tank, of course, Archer thought. Well, that makes a little more sense, I guess. He remembered the day he had appended his personal approval to Phlox’s request for the obscure piece of equipment. Using it to save his own dog, and then to gestate a seriously-ethically-dubious clone in order to save his best friend, had never done much to assuage the slight guilt Archer always felt in going over heads to allow Phlox to splurge on the cutting-edge technology. But, if it had now saved Trip’s child—especially a full sibling to the doomed, infamous Baby Elizabeth—then he could finally shrug away that particular niggling notion, and roundly defend his forward-looking decision to equip his Sickbay so conscientiously, to anyone who would ask. “Unfortunately, no,” Phlox replied to Trip’s question. “The risk of teratogenic effects would be unacceptably high if your offspring were to begin their lives within the tank: as the human, Sim, did. We certainly might conceive a child outside the womb, and the tank could indeed take over after only a few weeks. However, the hybrid children that you and T’Pol produce, though hardy enough after they reach a certain developmental point, will require a sensitivity of body-chemistry that simply could not be duplicated to sufficient exactitude during the critical first hours and days when neural tubes and other major structures are being formed. Adoption or a Vulcan surrogacy will be your best options. The fact that we had a successful outcome with this pregnancy is based on nothing less than a—a nilengro. A miracle,” he translated, for his non-Denobulan-speaking shipmates. “About this miracle,” Archer cut in. “What exactly happened here? And you said it was from going outside? I never heard of anyone getting pregnant while wearing a space-suit before.” He was using slight humour to deflect what he hoped was a massive miscommunication. How he would explain that one to headquarters…. “Ah, I see your confusion,” Phlox hastened to reassure the captain, “The commander was already a few hours into what she expected to be a nonviable pregnancy, when the radiation dosage she received upon going outdoors accelerated the fetal growth to an impossible level. “Due to severe abdominal trauma, I had to abort the pregnancy soon after she was brought inside, but the tank allowed us to save more than just the two commanders’ lives yesterday.” Phlox remembered something else. “Speaking of which, remind me later, I want to speak to you about recommending Amanda Cole for this year’s Millie Ruprecht Award. Astonishing performance. I can honestly say it is unlikely that any of my patients would have survived had I not had her quick-thinking assistance to rely upon.” “All right,” the captain allowed, bemused. He recalled the evening not so long ago, when Amanda Cole had beaten down the door of his quarters and refused to leave until he agreed to give her a chance as a non-com Starfleet crewman. It seemed now she’d known what she was talking about when she’d promised him he wouldn’t regret his decision. “And this whole thing had nothing to do with the transporter?” Archer confirmed, his own memory giving him a jog. Ensign Yarrow had been to see him immediately after he’d retrieved the spacewalking commanders—a huge goose-egg swelling on his forehead—and attempted to resign his commission. The poor fellow had tried to contact Sickbay, upon awakening from his faint (to see if his transport logs were needed) and had been given the busy, ‘only-if-it‘s-an-emergency’ signal by the computer. So he had torn directly up to the bridge and insisted on a private audience with the captain. Archer had already just been contacted by Phlox and given a terse update, in which no transport accident had been mentioned. The captain had calmed the hysterical ensign with this information, and used the medkit installed in his own ready-room to perform a basic scan of the young man’s bump. Finally, he’d given his man a quick shot of acetylsalicylinate and told him to go to bed and visit Phlox in the morning. Phlox looked somewhat non-plussed at the captain’s question, and shook his head. “No, nothing at all.” “Good,” Archer replied firmly. “You can expect a visit from young Ensign Yarrow sometime today. He hit his head while you were in the middle of surgery and so I sent him home to rest.” “That’s fine.” Phlox picked up a PADD and began tapping at both its screen and the control panel of the imaging chamber. “Now, while I finish up with Commander T’Pol’s scan, why don’t you take your captain to meet your offspring,” he suggested to the chief engineer, before recommencing his swift scan of the reticent lady who had only agreed to giving him five minutes—before she was going to let herself out via the internal patient emergency release. T’Pol never stated her reasons for her illogical distaste of the imaging chamber, but Phlox divined it was acute claustrophobia, triggered by the fact that she already felt uneasy enough within the confines of the medical bay. He would never dream of accusing the Vulcan of such a thing, however, but simply made-do with his five-minute compromise. He didn’t really need a 360° scanning-electron digital tomograph of every single crewmember who got into the large tube. He just found them useful for his ongoing, dead-intriguing study of human physiology. But, in deference to the recently-delivered woman’s request, he kept his scan to the essentials and finished with eighteen seconds to spare. * * * Archer glanced over at his quiet friend as they made their way together to the alcove at the end of the room. “So basically, what Phlox is saying is, I yelled at a pregnant lady and then sent her out into an ion storm?” “Yep, that pretty much describes it,” Trip affirmed. “Shit,” Archer said to himself. This mollified Trip somewhat: he hated it when Archer yelled at any of them. He thought it made the captain look bad. And it really burned him up when Jon was rude to T’Pol. It happened less and less as the years went on, but still… “Don’t beat yourself up,” Trip relented. “Phlox was serious. If she hadn’t been sent out, we wouldn’t have…well, see for yourself.” Trip allowed his friend to pass in front of him as they entered the dim area. Two chairs now sat in front of the glass tank, where the babies’ parents had already spent many hours in devoted worship. It really was amazing how fast you could fall in love with your children. Even when you weren’t expecting them. And especially if they forever melded your genes with the genes you cherished best in the world. Trip had earlier appreciated the physician’s skilful verbal-skirting of the fact that the offspring were plural, not singular. And now Trip simply stood to the side and watched his old friend Jon’s face as the captain approached the tank and unconsciously sank into one of the chairs before it. His hand went to the warm surface of the glass, as if to convince himself that it wasn’t, in fact, illusory. After a long, silent taking-in of the scene before his eyes, he stood up again and went over to where Trip still stood, arms folded, leaning against the counter, enjoying the first of many dumbfounded reactions to come. “Uh, Trip,” Archer said hesitantly, confidentially. His brows were deeply furrowed into a heavy, concerned line, and he leaned in to speak, though there was no one around to overhear. “Yeah, Jon?” Trip asked helpfully, as if nothing were amiss. “There are three babies in that tank.” This: frightened, but with some sense of waiting for the punch line. “Only three?” Trip asked in some alarm, leaning slightly to look around his captain’s bulk, as if re-checking the tank. “Crap! Phlox Jr. must have escaped again.” Trip nearly regretted the joke, his haggard commander’s face contracted so abruptly as he spoke. Clearly the man would believe just about anything right about now. “I’m just kiddin’, Jon,” he said humorously. And he put an arm around his friend’s shoulders and steered him back into one of the chairs, joining him in the other one. “Look here, now.” Trip pointed at the topmost baby. “This is Elsie-Sue, and down here, we got her sister Minnie-Mae-Clementine, and on the bottom here, we have Rip Van Winkle, also known as Billy-Bob Byron.” Archer held his head, and Trip laughed. It felt good to laugh out loud, after the harrowing couple of days he’d just been through. “Nah, we haven’t named them yet.” Archer rubbed his face slowly for a moment, before looked back up at the babies through the blinds of his fingers. He let his hands drop. “But Phlox said ‘baby’, didn’t he? I could have sworn…” the captain trailed off, realising that insisting wouldn’t change anything. “No, actually, he didn’t,” Trip said. “He was actually pretty crafty about using words like progeny and offspring and you should have seen the look on your face. I knew I should have gotten my camera.” Archer shook his head. “Do you know what you want to name them yet?” “Nope,” Trip responded. “Lots of ideas floating around, but nothing quite right. Any suggestions?” Archer examined the babies. Three names. That was daunting enough, let alone raising three children. “How about Charles Tucker IV?” he started. “‘The Fourth’, huh?” Trip repeated. “I dunno. What with me and Dad and Grandpa, we’re startin’ to sound like a bunch of freakin’ royalty.” “No,” Archer agreed, smiling. “You’re right. Give the kid his own name. Lord knows, he’s gonna be unique in the universe.” Both men silently acknowledged the truth of that statement by again looking at the unprecedented children—dozing in their futuristic womb. Only one of them, the captain noticed—top-most girl—had pointed ears. The brood’s human ancestry was keenly apparent in the round, Earthish ears of the other two. It was too early to tell much about eyebrows. Archer couldn’t even begin to imagine what the Terra Prime types were going to think of this. Glancing over at his distracted, euphoric, haggard engineer, Archer mused that Trip and T’Pol between them had done more in one night, to fundamentally change race-relations in the quadrant, than he would likely do over his entire career. Suddenly something randomly occurred to him and he spoke up. “I think you’ve gotta call one Amanda.” Trip looked sideways at Archer, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped loosely in front of him as he leaned forward and watched his son kick. “Yeah, actually, the thought had crossed my mind. T’Pol might not like it though.” Archer didn’t want to ask why. Trip continued, his voice heavy with self-reproach. “I guess Phlox told you—Cole, uh, well…‘resurrected’ me.” “He actually didn’t go into much detail,” Archer said, surprised at the word ‘resurrected’. “Oh,” Trip replied. Crap, he thought. Well, he may as well hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, Trip thought and he stated the facts baldly: “I, uh, accidentally stalled the old ticker with a self-administered shot of tranzaline.” “Really.” Archer replied neutrally. He waited for more. “It wasn’t the best idea, I admit.” “No, not your finest work,” the captain agreed. “I had to see, though,” Trip insisted. “I had to see if she was okay.” “Kind of backfired, huh?” Archer replied. “She probably wouldn’t have thanked you for killing yourself.” “No, she probably wouldn’t have,” Trip allowed. “And putting yourself and your crewmates in danger, in order to take a stupid risk doesn’t sound like you, Trip. That’s a court-martial offence, you realise. Involving a drug, of all things. Not something you want on your record.” “I know; Phlox gave me the rundown already,” Trip said humbly. “That’s why I assumed he’d told you.” “What does T’Pol think of this?” “She doesn’t know yet.” “I’m guessing you’re going to tell her?” Archer said, thinking of the letter they’d accidentally found so many years ago. Trip nodded glumly. “You’re an honourable guy, Trip. Even if you are a glutton for punishment. And until Phlox officially reports you, I didn’t hear it. But, don‘t do it again.” Archer knew the offence was hardly something Trip would be likely to repeat. And besides, the man had plenty of career-altering accountability to be handling right now anyhow. “Thanks, Cap’n,” Trip replied. “I won’t. And I don’t know how much of my honesty is honour. She’d find out anyway.” “What, you think Phlox’d tell her?” “No,” Trip replied, suddenly realising that he had just inadvertently hinted at a chain of uncomfortable information with his one innocent, self-effacing remark. He attempted to explain. “We’re…well…because of the fact that we had…that we, we—” “Had physical relations?” Archer supplied, in caricature of a serious old ethics professor they‘d both known at Starfleet. “Thank you, yes,” Trip replied swiftly, “Because of that, we have a mate—, a marriage bond.” Trip was certain the amused-looking Jon was baiting him, but he was too weary to sleuth out the double meanings and implications and bother with it all. Whatever. “So, you’re married?” Archer paraphrased. “No. Well, sort of. Bonded,” Trip explained. “It’s a psychic thing. We already kind of were bonded from before, but this is different.” “Why were you bonded before?” Archer asked. “Well,” Trip started, cursing his sleep-deprived brain for its lack of tact, “Uh…” “Because of the neuropressure?” “Yep. Yep.” Trip nodded his head in agreement. “Because of that. Strong stuff.” After an odd moment, Archer looked again at the children of the man he used to consider his best friend. He needed a moment to digest. The chain of command had distanced them somewhat, and the traumas they had all been through together—the things they had all been forced to do in the odd world of war—had widened the gap extensively. Malcolm and T’Pol were closer to Trip than he was. He knew that for certain now. Jonathan Archer had been privy to all the seamy, sordid details of Natalie From Pensacola. Her favourite salad dressing (Thousand Island), her crazy earrings, her sudden shyness around strangers, her propensity for dares, on and on and on. About T’Pol, he had heard nothing. While the three of them had sat around that dinner table every night in the Captain‘s Mess, while he had chattered away about the day’s doings, Chef’s latest offerings, or some serious, dull bit of ship’s business—the two of them had been mentally linked. The implications of this new piece of information about his universe chugged steadily and irrevocably backward through all the memory files of Jonathan Archer’s brain, colouring every single interaction he’d shared with either of them over the past two years into something uncertain and grey. “Jon, it’s not like that,” Trip snapped suddenly, at the dawning betrayed look on his commanding officer’s face. Archer turned in some surprise. “What, you can read my mind too, now?” “No,” Trip said strongly. “That outback training was many years ago, my friend. I don’t need to be a Vulcan to read you.” “Oh, really?” the captain said, a bit miffed at the fact that Trip seemed so sure of himself, all of a sudden. “Really.” Trip replied, not deigning to look away from the tank. “So, Mr. Expert,” challenged the irked captain, “what am I thinking?” Trip took a breath. “You’re thinking, how long’s this been going on for? How come this is the first I get to hear of it? You’re thinkin’ we’ve been double-teaming you all this time. And if your life’s anything like I imagine it to be, you’re wonderin’ how come you’re the last person to hear about everything on this ship.” Trip voice softened, as he put himself in his friend’s shoes. “I mean its gotta be tough, being the foreman every day for years. You can’t really have buddies the same way you did when you were a commander.” Trip spread his hands. “I’m just guessin’ though. I’m not the only one who doesn’t volunteer much about his inside world.” Trip didn’t look at his friend as he spoke, but simply kept his eyes on his children, thus easily grounding himself in the world of what was important. The captain’s face was immobile throughout Trip’s little speech, and for a moment or two afterward. Then he spoke, and when he did, his voice had changed from the hard, bright, brittle tone he’d just been using into a softer one. More human. “You’re actually—pretty insightful, Trip. And I don’t think it’s cause you can read my mind.” Archer turned and looked at the other man. “Because if you could hear half the things I’ve been saying about you and your ancestry for the last minute and a half, there’s no way you’d still be just sitting there like that.” At this, Trip laughed once, sharply, as he watched his swimming kids. He glanced over at Archer to find him smiling properly for the first time since he’d walked into Sickbay. “Y’know, I think she’s been good for you,” the captain said thoughtfully, as he regarded his friend of many years. He laughed quietly, “I’ll never forget the look on your face when you attempted to introduce yourself. I’ll have to tell the story at your wedding.” “Oh yeah, we’re gettin’ married,” Trip said, suddenly remembering. “Ah, quit looking so betrayed,” he scoffed at his commander’s newly-crestfallen air. “You’ve been spending too much time with that cheese-begging beagle of yours. She asked me last night. You’re the first to know, okay?” He looked at his friend with a reconciliatory note in his voice. “And you and Malcolm both get to be my best man. Except you also have to officiate, so we’ll tell Malcolm he’s the only best man, otherwise he’ll get all put out, and with three kids, I’m just not going to have as much time to jolly Mal along as I used to.” Laughing outright at logic of this, Archer shook his head in defeat. “I thought I was the captain. What’s with the constant cheek around this place today?” he marvelled rhetorically. He didn’t really mind. It helped cut some of that loneliness Trip had been one hundred percent correct about. “Why? Who else has been giving you grief?” Trip asked with interest. “Oh, no one,” the captain replied, thinking of Hoshi. “Yeah, Malcolm?” Trip guessed. “Huh. I know. Getting a bit ‘big for his britches’ lately, if you ask me.” He imitated the British man’s clipped tone as he finished his sentence. “That’s actually pretty good.” Archer regarded his chief engineer with surprise. “You don’t do an impression of me do you?” Trip just looked at him. A moment later, he deftly deflected the subject: “Actually you want a good impression of Captain Jonathan Archer, you ask Miss Hoshi Sato.” Archer’s eyebrows shot up at this unexpected invocation of Ensign Sato’s name. Why should her name startle him? “And when you do,” Trip added, “you can tell her that we’re even.” “For what?” Archer asked curiously. “Oh, she knows,” Trip assured him, momentarily lowering dark brows. That would teach her to April Fool a starship engineer in November. He’d sworn that day that he’d exact his revenge, and she’d just laughed at him. However, the last laugh truly was the sweetest. “All right, I will,” the captain said, attempting to hide the anticipation in his voice. He wondered if Trip could somehow hear what he was thinking about Hoshi and changed the subject: “You’re wrong about one thing, though.” “What’s that?” Trip asked, trying to remember what he’d said before. His brain felt like it was running on fumes. “I am not the last person to hear about everything,” Archer said. “That dubious honour has to go to Travis Mayweather.” “True,” Trip grinned, “that boy does seem to live in a world of his own. All right. Second-to-last.” “Thanks. I can live with that.” “No problem,” Trip replied, smiling. The two men sat for a few moments, in what had become a comfortable silence. But a burning curiosity started to nag at the captain’s mind, and he suddenly had a notion of what it was like to be Hoshi. “Do you, uh, d’you mind if I ask?” Archer hesitated. “What?” “No telepathic pebbles this time? No time travel? No stolen DNA? I mean, usually when you have children you don’t need to stoop to anything as base as physical relations. You’re losing your touch.” Trip grinned. “Yeah, it was the old-fashioned way this time. I guess y’get older, and you just start to get lazy.” “I, uh, didn’t know realise you and T’Pol were thinking of starting a family.” Jonathan Archer’s voice betrayed the confusion he always felt when he watched his chief engineer at work on his own life and career. The decisions the man made were often strange, to say the least; however, no one else grabbed life by the horns quite like Trip did. “We weren’t,” Trip replied. “I’m as shocked as you are, believe me.” This revelation had the effect of making Archer feel slightly better. He wasn’t the only one thrown off-balance here. “So, is this okay for you guys? I mean, had you discussed the possibility at all?” Trip ran his tongue around the inside of his lip, wondering how much to tell the captain. On the one hand, sordid details were none of his business, and on the other, he didn’t want his captain and his friend to think two of his top staff had been holding out on him for God knew how long. He decided to be direct, but succinct. “Jon, Monday morning, I was as single as you are. Like I said, other than some occasional weird daydreams, T’Pol and I weren’t spending much time together.” “That’s kind of what I thought, too,” Archer agreed. “So what the hell happened?” Trip blew his breath out in a long sigh. “How much do you know about…the Vulcan mating cycle?” “Not much. They aren’t exactly forthcoming about—well, anything, really.” Archer thought about the things he had heard. Wherever humans found a lack of reliable information, they tended to enthusiastically fill the void with whatever guesswork and conjecture could possibly be entertained as credible. “I do remember hearing someone say they don’t mate very often. Only every several years.” “Seven, actually,” Trip confirmed. “Seven? Wow.” Archer considered this momentarily. “But, if you two didn’t want children, why…uh…mate…in the first place?” Neither man commented on the vivid verb, but both noticed it. “They don’t really get a choice in the matter,” Trip clarified. There. That was all he really needed to know. “I see,” Archer said slowly. The deep lines on his face formed a pattern of incomprehension that he didn’t really want enlightened much further. But one grave thing occurred, and he voiced it: “Do you mind if I ask, in all seriousness, as the commanding officer of this vessel, what would have happened to T’Pol if she were unable to…fulfill the…” he made motions with his hand to indicate the rest of the sentence. “Uh, death, apparently,” Trip said. The captain of the ship did have a right to know. He sipped a cup of water he’d poured from a nearby pitcher. “That’s what she said anyhow. I couldn’t really tell if she was kidding or not.” “‘Kidding’? ” Archer repeated sceptically. “Yeah,” Trip replied, “kidding.” He looked at his captain, as if daring him to argue. Archer put his hands and eyebrows up in resignation. “I guess I’m just amazed at the fact that you can have probably fifteen hundred dinners with two people and not know the some of the most important things about them.” That one point still felt creepy to him. “C’mon,” Trip entreated. “You must have a few secrets up your sleeve. Everyone does.” The captain didn’t answer him. “Anyhow,” Trip went on, “that’s what happened. The rest was purely gravy. Totally unexpected gravy.” Archer nodded slowly for a moment, digesting the logical arguments of his friend. “You don’t have to answer this,” he began, after it started to settle, “but, uh, did you intend to end up properly-bonded to one another?” “Not really,” Trip admitted. “Whew,” Archer whistled. “You two really have been tossed into the deep end of the pool.” He couldn’t imagine. “How are you doing? I mean, are you okay?” Trip raised sandy, fatigued eyes to the face of the guy who used to be his closest friend. “Jon,” he said sincerely, “I’m over the moon.” “Now out of all the weirdness since I walked in here, that somehow doesn’t surprise me,” Archer said. “And I guess your record still stands.” “What’s that?” “Obligatory Vulcan lifesaving sex. That is not ‘the old-fashioned way’. These kids are as weird as the rest of them.” “Hey, my kids are not weird,” Trip retorted, but he was smiling. He did have an odd knack for original procreation. Something suddenly occurred to him. “Yeah, and by the way Jon, if I were you, I’d never ever mention anything…about all this “every-seven-years” stuff in T’Pol’s hearing. Or mine either, really. Unless you want your shoulder nerves crushed. She can be a pretty private person.” “Yeah, I’d noticed. So, I guess she can hear what you hear, huh?” “Sometimes,” Trip said. “It depends.” “You realise you two are a bit of a security concern now,” Archer said. There were several unpleasant ways a mental link like that could be exploited, even against the wishes of the two owners. Especially against the wishes of the two owners. What if one were captured? Trip cut into his grim musings. “Uh, Cap‘n, I think we’re going to have more than a few career-altering issues here, above and beyond the fact that we can spy on each other‘s paperwork.” Archer looked at Trip’s litter of premature babies. “That’s true enough,” he admitted. A sudden wave of strange nostalgia washed over him. “I’m happy for you Trip, and I really mean that.” He looked up. “But damn we’ve had some times together, haven’t we?” He didn’t say ‘good times’; he just said ‘times’. But the sentiment was as intense as if it had been based upon the most golden of eras. “You got that straight,” Trip granted, with the odd, strong, non-demonstrative affection that you only found between two longtime male buddies. “But don’t go getting’ all choked up just yet. You won’t be rid of me so easily as that.” “C’mon, Trip,” Archer said pragmatically. “One baby’d get you a desk in San Francisco. Three? You’ll be lucky if they let me fly you home.” He didn’t like it, but it was the plain truth. “Now,” Trip reasoned, “just cause I’m a mommy, doesn’t mean I have to live in the kitchen all of a sudden. This is the twenty-second century after all,” Trip said with the tone of one who had something up his sleeve. “I’ve just spent the last forty hours or days—or whatever it’s been since these ankle biters showed up—scheming. Reeling and scheming. I’m going to have to make a phone call to Earth anyhow. May as well have a few creative suggestions ready when I’m on with the Admiral.” “Feel like filling me in?” Archer asked, curious. “Not just yet,” Trip replied. “But as soon as anything sounds halfway viable, you’ll be the first to know.” They stood up. The babies were sleeping and the two men made their way back towards the main bay. “Actually, you should tell Travis first. Poor guy never gets to hear anything first,” commiserated Archer. He knew how it felt. Trip laughed and followed his captain out into the comparative brightness of Sickbay. Phlox had finished his scan, and T’Pol had been tucked back into her narrow bed, and sedated. She slept peacefully, her colour much improved over the day previous, but still pale in comparison to her usual healthy, emerald glow. The two men watched her sleep for a moment. Her breaths were slow and measured, and her eyes were still beneath their lids. Trip could sense his mate’s mind as a deeply-slowed, healing force that was currently intensely focussed upon repairing her exhausted body. Trip kept his own mind carefully apart from her—in order that his thoughts shouldn’t waken her and distract her katra from its task. “You’re a lucky man, Trip,” Archer commented quietly, as he watched his officer sleep. He reflected that, if he was honest with himself, his heart would have been somewhat badly-bruised, not so long ago, by the fact that his intriguing, young-old science officer was no longer a possibility in his own life. He idly wondered what had happened to change that. “I really am,” Trip replied truthfully. He didn’t look up as he said it, as he’d resumed the standard vigil he was falling into every time he found himself watching her sleep. However, he was warmed by the blessing in his friend’s voice. Trip had never really been sure if he’d had an opponent in Jonathan Archer, or not. However, the captain clearly approved of the relationship now, and that was all that really mattered. Phlox came over and glanced at the sleeping woman’s rapidly-improving readings. “Commander T’Pol is doing much better,” he said, with the aura of one gladly bearing good news. “Seems it was worth the effort of cajoling her into the imaging chamber.” He looked significantly at Trip as he said so. “Small comfort,” Trip replied cryptically, with a roll of the eyes. Archer recalled the twisted femur T’Pol had sustained a while back—when her rope had snapped while rappelling down a subterranean rock face. He’d actually had to use the words ‘court-martial’ to get her into the tube once they made it up to Sickbay. “How’d you persuade her?” he asked with real fascination, watching the still face of the enigmatic woman he’d been trying to figure out since the moment she’d first arrived in his ready-room. “Ah, it was pretty easy,” Trip protested. “I just put a little trail of Reese’s Pieces in there. Couldn’t help herself.” Archer prevented himself from doing a double-take, as he was nearly certain Trip was jerking his chain. He was making reference to an old movie from last week in which a human boy living on pre-warp Earth had met and befriended a young, stranded alien—feeding it with chocolate candies and beer. However, Archer’s personal reality had fractured into a Kilgore Trout-ish leak since he’d entered the Sickbay, and from now on, he feared he would be capable of trusting anything. It was going to make the upcoming April the worst yet, he suspected. The captain was left wondering, as Phlox didn’t confirm or deny the strange allegation of candied bait, and simply continued: “Her electrolyte and other chemical and hormonal levels are stabilizing under the tonic injections I have administered and under the stimulating effects of the chamber, her bone marrow has already replaced more than half of the blood cells she lost. I think after she wakes up from this last nap, you two can go home.” “Home?” Trip asked, startled. “Yes, ‘home’,” Phlox reminded his patient patiently. “Remember? It’s that place you live when you’re not here in Sickbay.” “Yeah, but what about—” Trip turned and looked back at his out-of-sight kids and then over to the doctor again. “Ah, no, they’ll have to stay with me for a little bit longer,” Phlox explained. “I‘ll expect daily visits from you, of course. But there’s no reason you and T’Pol shouldn’t go home for a few hours; get some rest. It’ll be the last sleep of your youths, actually. You should cherish it.” Trip put his hands on his hips. “Doc, y’keep sayin’ stuff like that, and frankly you’re startin’ to freak me out a bit.” “Ah. Good,” Phlox said, with a sense of something like relief. He made his way to his desk to continue uploading the articles and information the two new parents would need in order to prepare to bring their newborns home. Trip turned to his captain and thumbed over his shoulder at the physician. “He thinks I’m going to be surprised or something. He doesn’t really have to worry. I’m already imagining the worst.” His face tensed as he did some rapid calculations. “They say a newborn does nine to eleven diapers a day, Jon. I’ve got three of the things. That’s thirty, Jon. Thirty!” He peered into his commander’s face so as to ensure that the man grasped the enormity of the diapers. “A DAY!” “And that’ll be a good day,” Phlox’s voice floated quietly over. Trip ignored him. “But seriously,” he said with determined conviction. “It’s going to be okay.” He swallowed. “It’s gonna be okay right? I mean, they won’t be newborn for long, right?” He was mostly pretty sure of that. “You’re right,” Archer agreed. “It is going to be fine. It’s going to fly by. Soon they’ll be walking. Then talking. Then you’re going to have two good-looking daughters to keep the boys away from. And a good-looking son to keep the girls away from. And then they‘ll get their first aircars—” A muscle was twitching in Trip’s cheek, and the older man laughed. “Calm down. It is going to be fine; I meant that part. And you don’t have to do it more than one day at a time, I can promise you that. Now, here.” He finally held up the flat box of cigars he’d been clutching since he’d entered the twilight zone. Trip’s breath hissed in through his teeth. “Pre-cut Cabinet Tainos?” In his muzzy state, he hadn’t even noticed the captain had a gift with him. “Not exactly regulation,” the captain said with a bit of the devil in his voice, as they moved a little ways off from the sleeping Vulcan. Archer placed the box on a nearby stand and reverently snapped the latch open. “But a little something to take the edge off. They’re for you. Just—try not to smoke the whole box at once this time, huh?” He opened the lid. “You are never going to let me forget that, are you?” Trip asked, selecting a cigar with a smile and lifting it horizontally to his nose. He inhaled the spicy aroma with his eyes closed, trying to place the strong, flickering memories it invoked. “By the way, has she been able to hear everything we’ve been saying?” asked Archer with a curious, apprehensive glance over his shoulder. He’d been wondering for some time. “Hm?” Trip asked, coming out of his reverie. “Through your bond,” Archer clarified as he extracted the matches from inside the box. “Like about the Reese’s Pieces and all?” Trip could feel T‘Pol‘s mind. It had transitioned into an REM state and she was too thoroughly distracted by her baby-filled, Trip-filled dreams to notice what anyone else was doing. “Oh yeah, she heard everything,” Trip deadpanned. “Oh,” the Captain said. “Um, is she okay?” “Oh yeah, she‘s fine,” Trip said reassuringly, “No, she’s got my sense of humour now.” “Really?” the captain asked, hopefully. “Noooooooo,” Trip replied, and his tone implied that there would be hell to pay later. “We’re both in big, big trouble. You especially.” “Why me especially?” the captain fretted. “You’re the one with all the Reese’s Pieces. I didn‘t say anything.” “Cap’n, I once sent my pregnant sister-in-law to the store for some olive oil when it was my turn to cook Thanksgiving. It was a nice day, in sunny Florida, and she had an aircar. The kid is nine now. I still haven’t heard the end of it.” “Dammit,” the captain said. But his face betrayed real remorse along with all the self-pity, and Trip mostly forgave him. Nevertheless, he still didn’t let on that T’Pol was sawing it off mentally as well as physically. A little part of him still thought it was good for Jonathan Archer to squirm every now and again. Besides he got a kick out of it. Finally, the captain struck a match and lit a cigar, pocketing the little box of wooden sticks once it was going. He puffed momentarily and handed it to Trip once it was well-stoked up. Trip placed the unlit one he’d selected between his teeth and enthusiastically sucked the flame from the glowing end of captain’s lit cigar into the tip of his own. After a moment, blue smoke puffed out in a cloud around him and he handed the captain’s cigar back. The two men puffed and sucked sagaciously for a time, contentedly remembering their various roistering over the years in cities dotted all over the planet Earth. “Y’know, say what you will about the atmosphere of a starship,” Archer opined, holding his long, fuming stogie aloft. “It is the perfect thing for keeping a cigar.” “Like flying around in a humidor,” Trip agreed. A nearby console beeped stridently at the presence of carbon particulate smoke in sufficient quantities to excite its unsleeping, electric nose. Trip hesitated for a caught-out moment, a lungful of smoke charring his insides as he looked at Archer. But the captain just grinned and hit the noisy, flashing signal with his thumb, overriding the safety alarm with his lofty authority. “One of the perks of being Captain,” he confided wickedly to the now-slightly-greenish Trip, who laughed, expelling the smoke all at once, and setting off a hacking, tear-jerking coughing spell. Phlox sat at his desk, where he was trying to catch up on what English-speaking humans called ‘paperwork’. English really made no sense at all. ‘Flatwork’, Denobulans called it, and ‘scribework’, the Vulcans. Logical enough. But paperwork? Paper hadn’t been in use for ages, even on Earth. The humans had nearly run out of trees: it was the only thing that finally stopped the book-loving race in their prolific madness. Making everything out of paper even after they’d had electric screen technology for dozens of decades. At the hacking cough and the strident alarm immediately preceding it, Phlox jumped up from his seat and bustled over to see what was afoot. Another strange, persistent human custom at work! Bluish, smelly smoke hazed the area immediately surrounding the captain and the chief engineer. It was those blasted things! Those cigars! The humans and their endless cigars in the maternity ward! The interspecies medical exchange never failed to pepper his career with odd occurrences and curious, local customs. But nothing—nothing—would allow him to understand the human obsession with igniting poisonous sticks of dried herbal matter—and, after inhaling the carcinogens and flaming micro particles into their silly, pink, dead-end lungs, blowing it outward into the faces of everyone else present. A self-destructive custom on the order of Klingon pain sticks. “Out, out, OUT!” near-shrieked Phlox, running towards the two suicidal humans and waving stiff arms as if to waft the pollutants toward the air intake vent near the ceiling. “Go stink up your own ship!” Archer, who had been frozen along with Trip at the yells of their physician, paused further at the man’s choice of words. Holding the cigar like a fat dart, and glancing at Trip for support, ventured, “It is my ship.“ But his words lacked conviction in the face of the swelling Phlox. “Hey,” Trip croaked as he took another surreptitious puff, “If it’s anyone’s ship, it’s my ship. I’m the chief engineer.” “Well, cross that threshold, and you’ve entered my ship,” Phlox snapped as he snatched the two smouldering sticks from his colleagues’ stunned fingers. “And on my ship, I outrank the lot of you.” Stuffing the cigars into a clear, glassex sample tube, he corked it with its silicone stopper. And, thrusting this smoke-filled vessel at the captain, he herded them towards the main doors like an angry mother duck. “Befoul your corridors, if you must,” Phlox decreed as he pushed them over the threshold. “Sickbay’s mine!” The doors swished shut on the view of his scowling face. Both men exchanged a rueful glance and tried not to laugh, as Archer pried open the stopper of the tube. He extracted one of the cigars. It had extinguished itself in the airless atmosphere. He clamped it in his teeth again and rummaged in his pocket for the funny old wooden matches, feeling like a character from an old film. Smoking was a rarity among humans now, except at the obvious occasions, such as births, graduations, and whatnot. However, nicotine having been ruled a highly illegal, immoral addictant almost century ago, modern cigars just didn’t have the kick they used to. According to grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and great-great grandfathers everywhere. Archer selected a match and slid the paper box shut again. He scraped it skillfully enough against the striking surface (a knack that not everyone possessed these days). But a flaw in the wood caused the stick to snap as it flared and the captain dropped it instinctively, his fingers flinching back from fire as intuitively as his forefathers’ had, fifty-thousand generations ago. The lit match hit the carpet and bounced slightly before Trip stamped it flat with his boot. Trip looked up at the captain. The captain looked up at him. They looked down at Trip‘s boot. Trip lifted his foot carefully straight up, as if somehow, being ginger this late in the game might help. The stick lay where it had fallen, bent in a V-shape, the top half withered and spent, the bottom a piney off-white. Archer bent and picked up the little object. Both men studied the centimetre-wide impact crater that now marred the otherwise unblemished dark grey carpet that covered the last four metres of the corridor decking leading to Sickbay. “We had to stand on the carpet,” Archer observed. “We better get out of here,” Trip replied. They quick marched away down the hall together, swiftly rounding the corner and trying not to look back. “I feel like we just melted the principal’s welcome mat,” Archer said, fighting an insane urge to giggle like a schoolchild. “Call Amanda,” Trip said on sudden inspiration. “Get her to ask Crewman Kenter to sneak up here. Those guys down in sanitation handling can clean anything off of anything and anything out of anything. They’re a force.” “You can’t clean ‘melt’,” Archer said glumly, the high of escape wearing off quickly. “They’ll have to put a patch in.” “Maybe Phlox won’t notice.” This with hopeful optimism. “Oh, he’ll notice,” Archer said sourly. “He notices everything. That’s why I hired him.” “But maybe—he won’t think it was us,” Trip suggested. He didn’t really care either way. No one would be giving him any grief for awhile now. He had new babies. He was immune. Of course, that immunity was only because he was now the custodian of three squalling people who would be more than happy to make any and all grievances known at every opportunity. Ah, well, Trip philosophized. Lemons. Lemonade. Feeling momentarily wise, (and thus staving off the snakes that kept creeping into his belly whenever he imagined the sound of three intermingled wails), he idly wondered how small they could make baseball caps. “Yeah, I think he’ll know it was us, Trip,” the captain replied. “Who else would light things on fire? Other than T’Pol and her candles—nobody. I’m really not even supposed to.” “Well, I can see the sense in that,” Trip scoffed. “You’re clearly as bad with matches as you ever were.” “I’m not bad with matches,” Archer said, stopping short and looking at Trip. “Yes y’are,” Trip contradicted. “Um, y’just set Phlox’s carpet on fire? And I don’t even want to rehash the time…” He stopped. “Why are we standing here?” he asked. “I don’t know,” Archer said, suddenly feeling oddly defensive. “You were the one who said we should get out of there. I was following you.” “Huh. I was following you.” “Huh,” Archer echoed. “Weird.” Trip looked at him. His semi-demented, new-father brain couldn‘t tell if it was just his sleep-deprived neurons misfiring, but he was pretty sure this wasn‘t a normal conversation. He shook his head. “Anyway, I can’t stand around here all day, arguing about your lack of match skill, I have to go to the Mess Hall and get some real food for me and T’Pol. Phlox’s nutritional supplements really aren’t doing it for us. Hey, Hoshi,” he added as the ensign walked by and stopped a few metres away. “Captain…Commander,” she acknowledged amiably with a little nod of the head. She hit the door entry in front of her and disappeared into her quarters. “Y’know,” mused Trip tangentially, once the doors were tightly closed, “nothing against Hoshi. I mean, she’s easily the politest one of the crew—but somehow, even though she always properly addresses me by my rank, and certainly she’s no flirt and all that…I almost get the feelin’ that—” he trailed off, squinting at her door, trying to formulate his nebulous impression into words that wouldn’t sound crazy. “That…?” Archer prompted. This was interesting. “Well, that it’s almost like—like—it’s your stripper name or something when she says it.” Darn it, that did sound crazy. Archer blinked at him. “Like—we’re all just here in fun,” Trip explained with effort, “only no one’s sayin’ anything about it. Like ‘Captain’ is your character’s name. Like a murder-mystery dinner party.” “I know exactly what you mean,” Archer said, thinking of ‘Sir’ the dog. He smiled and glanced over at the door also. “Y’do?” Trip asked somewhat sceptically. He’d folded his arms and looked as if he didn’t know exactly what he meant. “Yeah, I do,” Archer said. “In fact, I think it’s probably one of the nicest things about her.” “Huh,” Trip reflected. “Y’know…I think I agree with you there,” he replied in some surprise. He shook his head free of the trivial gossip. “I’m gonna go get something to eat,” he said, gesturing back over his shoulder. “Coming?” “Uh, no, I’ve got some stuff to do. Thanks.” “Oh yeah, your public announcement,” Trip remembered. “You gotta go do that right away. Tell you what: make it good, and I’ll see if I can’t manage to frame Malcolm for your butterfingers. He likes a good cigar.” “Deal,” Archer said, smiling. It felt good to be on the dishing end of a petty scheme for once, rather than stalwartly suffering the opposite pole. He marvelled inwardly at the fact that, though you could shoot the place through space and decorate it with as many Vulcans, crew-quarters, and dilithium-crystals as you liked, the office was—always and forever—the office. “And try to keep it short,” Trip recommended of the captain’s address. “Okay.” “But not too short,” he warned. It couldn’t be too short. “All right.” “And don’t give them too much detail,” Trip said strongly, thinking of T’Pol’s reserved nature. “It’s none of their damn business.” “I wouldn’t dream of details,” Archer reassured him gravely. “Well, but, you have to give some detail,” Trip explained reasonably. “Otherwise, we run up against the speculation again, and it’s a whole thing…” his arms rotated largely in demonstration. “The whole speculation thing,” Archer repeated. “I know, Trip. Y’explained it to me real good in Sickbay.” Archer put a comradely hand on the suddenly-jumpy engineer’s shoulder, who raised a finger and opened his mouth again. “And don’t forget—” “Trip.” “Yeah?” “Do you want to do the announcement?” “No way!” The fact of his recent incoherence made the concept of public speaking unthinkable. “Then, just… let me do it.” Archer took on a soothing tone as he tried to calm his nervous man. He actually understood. Trip had good reason to be jittery. They were about to set loose the wolves. “All right,” Trip finally sighed. “Just get it over with.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “I gotta go eat, or I‘m gonna be sick. Just don‘t make it too long. Or too short,” he repeated, as he walked swiftly away. “And I’ll frame Malcolm for you real good, I promise!” Trip shouted over his shoulder as he broke into a jog and rounded the corner. He bumped straight into Reed. “Frame me for what?” Malcolm asked in some surprise. “Uh, nothing,” Trip answered, slowing his pace slightly, but continuing on past Reed toward the Mess Hall. He was starving now. “Different Malcolm,” he tossed back. “Really?” Malcolm asked, doing an about-face and falling into step next to his friend. “I wasn’t aware we had another Malcolm. What’s his surname then?” “Flander…son,” Trip lied. Shit! Flanderson?! What the hell kind of crap surname was that? “Malcolm Flanderson,” Malcolm repeated musingly. “And what—what um, section does he work in again?” “Uh, y’know, the uh, main lower section,” Trip replied vaguely. “All around that whole general area. Big area. Part of that, uh, the new floating team, of,” he finished with a sort of winding finger-motion, like he just couldn’t think of a word. “Of…” Malcolm prompted. “You know. It’s new,” Trip prevaricated. Malcolm looked at him in total scepticism. “Geez, Mal,” Trip said, finally shooting for the moon and trying to turn the line of questioning around. “You really should know this stuff. I mean, you are the security chief. And anyhow,” he snapped, suddenly irritable, “quit grilling me. I’m not a walking crew-roster! I’m dead beat. I haven’t slept well.” “Mm, really?” Malcolm sympathised as they approached the doors of the Mess Hall. “Probably has something to do with the many cares of fatherhood.” Trip didn’t have time to stop or even think of what Malcolm had just said, as the doors swished open. The usual trickle of non-rush-hour diners had been replaced by a chattering crowd of crewpersons, several of which he was certain were currently scheduled for duty elsewhere. All of them, upon sighting the man of the hour, threw their hands up into the air and spontaneously cheered. Trip tried not to let his heart skip into immobility as he took in the thrilled, grinning, deadly-curious faces—and twice that number of clapping hands. He looked at Malcolm. He opened his mouth. No sound came out. How did they always manage to find everything out so fast? Just then, the thin flute of an omniscient tri-note whistle sounded from above, hearkening them all subconsciously back to an earlier time: when ships crawled the seas and a captain addressed his men out-of-doors in the cuffing wind. They hushed instantly, their ears pricked for whatever was so important that the captain had to speak to them simultaneously and to a man. “All hands, may I please have your divided attention,” came Archer’s serious voice over the comm. “If you are at your station, please remain there and keeping doing your job. If you should be at your station and are for some reason not, by all means make your way to your post at your earliest possible leisure.” Here he paused and waited for a suspenseful two-point-eight seconds to tick past. Expectancy was his favourite ingredient to weave into dramatic speeches, and he was certain that this was the high point of his toastmaster’s career. When again could he ever expect subject matter to rival it? “As your captain,” Jonathan Archer began soberly, “it is my obligation—and my very great pleasure—to announce the birth of Enterprise’s first native citizen.” He paused here to let the odd words sink in. “Last night—under the expert care of Doctor Phlox—and our newest medic, Amanda Cole…” he paused again, to the extreme excruciation of everyone not cottoned-in, and then finally delivered the first bombshell: “Commander Tucker and Commander T’Pol became the proud parents of a baby daughter.” He stopped momentarily, allowing time for the inevitable shipwide hubbub. To Hoshi’s credit, and that of the steady hands of the crew, the ship itself didn’t bat an eyelash, but simply sailed silently and expertly along, whilst most of its passengers whooped it up within. Trip heard several muffled shrieks from sections clearly outside the Mess Hall; however, most of the crew within the mess itself were simply grinning ear to ear and (a few of them—mostly younger women and Travis and Chef) hopping up and down and hugging themselves. Clearly they had somehow already heard the news. How did they do it? Archer continued, wondering if he dared press his luck any further, but knowing the information had to surface soon. “It is also my very great pleasure to welcome into the fold the second and third children to be born aboard ship. These would, of course, be their son and second daughter, who were also born last night, shortly after their sister came into the world.” Here he waited again for a good bit: as even the ones ‘in-the-know’ hadn‘t had any idea of that part. Due to equal-rights opportunities, there were always a few carefully-selected, non-critical crewpersons on board who had their well-monitored cardiovascular concerns and whatnot. He hoped he hadn‘t shaken any of them significantly with his bolt from the blue. Here we go, he thought, as someone’s startled finger clearly slipped and a warning flashed on the column of indicators along the screen’s right side. Grav plating on E-deck had flickered for three seconds. Remembering his own severely bruised hip after falling in his suddenly weightless/suddenly weighty shower, he waited, semi-breathless for the casualty icon on the lower right to light up with reported injuries—before he noticed with surprise that the casualty-report icon wasn’t even present. Of course. This wasn’t his computer screen. Different settings. He continued speaking, hoping that he could say what was in his heart without fumbling it. His audience of one stood in for the audience of dozens that he blindly addressed. A faint, but nagging concern rose almost unbidden to his lips, and he found himself smiling as he warned the listeners. “To my extreme…hesitation…Mr. Tucker also made mention of a fourth child—already mobile, AWOL, and going by the name of ‘Phlox Jr.’ I sincerely hope this is only a ruthless joke on an old captain; but, if it is not, please apprehend the suspect on sight. Ask nicely, and it is likely that his parents may let you keep him.” His smile as he spoke had come clearly through the audio, but now his voice sobered just as clearly as he made mention of a pressing issue: “This is not your normal birth announcement. But these are not your normal babies. These children will inevitably, by their birthright, and likely against their wish, become symbols for the new era we are all entering into. By their very nature—by their very existence—these babies embody the sprit of what we in Starfleet, and what others like us in the galaxy want to achieve: a peaceful union of species, with an eye to the greater good and happiness of all.” He paused. “But these children also bring to my mind others, very like them, who were not so fortunate. I would ask on behalf of the Tuckers (and I think we can safely begin to call them that now), that in this time of celebration, you spare a thought or a prayer, whatever your custom provides, for those who have gone before—in order that we might all find ourselves at this auspicious point.” All over the ship, the excited crew quieted, and spontaneously, organically, it became a moment of silence for the fallen baby and the never-conceived man—whose siblings rested now, thriving, in Sickbay. Moved, Trip nodded to himself in the mess hall, meeting the strong, supportive eyes of several people in the room, and feeling good about how well he was—in fact—holding himself together. Many eyes and noses in the room, both male and female, were receiving surreptitious wipes and tweaks. Malcolm’s face undid him though, as soon as he looked back at him—with its tender empathy, and quiet gladness. And Trip put a brusque arm around his friend and squeezed his shoulder as he knuckled dampness from his own eyes. He wasn’t bothered that he was standing in front of what looked to be an eighth of the crew, all eyes upon him as he wept. Considering the nature of the speech, he could hardly blame himself. And he had plenty of company. Darn Archer and his speeches. He kept a firm arm around Malcolm’s shoulder, giving himself something to do with his helplessly hanging hands. Trip looked down at the rug—thus allowing his reserved friend to efficiently check his own eye for dust motes under a veil of semi-metaphorical privacy—as the captain quietly cleared his throat and prepared to deliver his final thoughts. “However, we must not forget that these babies are also just very simply: very tiny, very new beings. Babies like any other. And so I welcome them warmly into our family aboard Enterprise. May they always think of it as one of their many homes.” The sincerity of Jonathan Archer’s words vividly reminded each of his crew of the basic, decent, skilled leader that their peculiar, mercurial captain was at his core. In fact, it was his power to inspire that caused him always to be loved or loathed. Indifference was never a sentiment applied to the captain of the Enterprise. “And I hope you will take the time to do the same,” he finished on a logistical note. “However, to avoid crowds and jammed fingers and the like, I will be having a schedule sent out later today that will detail which surnames may bombard the helpless couple first. We will proceed in orderly alphabetical fashion. Anyone guilty of harassment will be put on colic duty in the evenings. That is all. Thank you for your attention.” A short squeal of laughter pealed across his last syllable before the transmission cut, causing an immediate babble of inquisitive voices. “Who was that?” “It sounded like Hoshi.” “She’s not on the bridge, I was just up there.” “That’s weird.” Trip watched in total fascination as the rabid, chattering crowd quickly dispersed, many already latching onto the interesting giggle they’d heard over the comm. Most contriving to poke him in the shoulder or mess up his hair or (in the case of several female crewmembers) squeeze his arm affectionately and forlornly as they brushed past—almost as if for one last time. Malcolm watched in amusement as his friend was not-so-gently buffeted, grappled, and groped as he phased involuntarily through a swiftly flowing informal receiving queue that left him breathless and boggled by the time the last straggler—a quiet crewman whose name he couldn’t remember—gave him a mighty high-five (with extra, ‘round the side), and the two men finally found themselves mostly alone. “Well,” said Malcolm briskly. “That was fun. Shall we get a table?” “I have to get back; T’Pol’s waiting,” Trip said as he grabbed a tray and began loading it up. “Very good. Already on the lead,“ smirked Malcolm. “So you and she are….?” he left the sentence dangling. “Man and wife,” Trip said. He added a big slice of pecan pie to the top of his tray and got two cups for their drinks. “She tied that up pretty quick,” Malcolm observed ironically and with some surprise. “She did, actually,” Trip mused contentedly as he activated the beverage dispenser. “Made it look pretty easy, too. I don’t know what took me so long.” He snapped lids onto the cups. “Kind of embarrassing actually.” “Well how were you to know the woman’s sanity was so deranged that she’d actually have you? It’s mystifying. It must be that bloody ‘Southern drawl’ of yours. The ladies all swoon for an accent.” “Huh,” Trip scoffed, trying to balance his tray’s load so he could successfully carry it all the way back to Sickbay. “You’re the one with the accent, Mr. Bangers-and-Mash.” “I believe it all depends on one’s point of view,” Malcolm countered, watching the other man‘s contortions. “And from the point of view of one born within sight of Buckingham Palace, you sound like a confirmed cow-herding, cow-roping cowboy.” “Really.” “Really.” “Say, Mal,” Trip said amiably, “you don’t want that lousy Malcolm Flanderson to see the babies before you, do you? With a name like Reed, you’re going to have to wait days. Tell you what: help me carry some of this food, and I’ll give you the back stage pass to the hottest show in town. You can come check ‘em out right now.” “All right,” agreed Malcolm. “Let’s ‘mosey on down there’, shall we?” He worked a thick movie accent into the second phrase, his eyes twinkling. “After you,” replied Trip in his normal voice, as always the gracious, sporting butt of Malcolm’s witty, witty humour. He followed the darker man out into the corridor. He remembered his promise. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to fancy a bit of a cigar would you, guv‘na?” Trip asked suddenly, mimicking Reed’s accent atrociously in his own turn. “On’y the Captain’s given me ‘is box of Tainos.” Malcolm forgot to be indignant at the hideous Cockney accent Trip always provided for him. “Really?” he asked, excited. “Really.” Trip replied generously. “And I can have one?” “’Course y’can, Malcolm. What are friends for?” They continued down the hallway towards Sickbay. THE END To be continued in the form of another sequel: Coitus Infrequentus. Coming soon to an NC-17 page near you. |
Like it? Hate it? Just want to point out a typo? Join the discussion now.
Disclaimer: Star Trek in all its various forms and its characters are the property of CBS/Paramount. No copyright infringement is intended by the authors of this site, which is solely for the purpose of entertainment and is not for profit. This site is owned by CX and was opened to the public in February 2008.