by Diane Carey
“Care to explain why?” Tucker asked. He really meant how.
“When I was a kid, we called it the ‘sweet spot.’ Every ship’s got one.”
“ ‘Sweet spot’?”
“It’s usually halfway between the grav-generator and the bow plate.” He pointed to a thin conduit crossing below them. “Grab hold of that conduit. Now swing your legs up.”
Tucker took a grip on the conduit, but couldn’t quite muster the nerve to jump off the ladder, the only stability between him and three decks looming below.
“Swing your legs,” Mayweather encouraged.
“Wow …” Tucker gulped as an unseen force took hold of him with the slightest encouragement and gave him support as he twirled in sudden zero-G. He still had a grip on the conduit, just in case.
“Now, let go,” Mayweather said.
One hand, then the other … he laughed at the sensation. Just like basic training! He spun and pirouetted merrily, tucking his legs and stretching them out again.
Then he bumped his head on the ceiling next to where the helmsman sat.
“Takes practice.” Mayweather reached for him and helped him find a stable sitting position. “Ever slept in zero-G?”
“Slept?”
“Like being back in the womb.”
Tucker paused and eyed him. “Captain tells me you’ve been to Trillius Prime.”
Mayweather nodded. “Took the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades to get there. I’ve also been to Draylax, and both the Teneebian Moons.”
“Mm …I’ve only been to one other inhabited planet besides Earth. Nothing there but dust-dwelling ticks. I’ve heard the women on Draylax have …”
The helmsman nodded drably. “Three. It’s true.”
“You know that firsthand?”
“Firsthand, secondhand, and thirdhand.”
Uh-huh, sailor stories already. Tucker offered a shrug and made no further comment about their slipping back into a pointlessly prepubescent moment. Officers and gentlemen, right?
“Guess growing up a boomer has it advantages,” he said, avoiding a comment about how a cow has four. They shared a silly smile.
“The Grand Canyon?”
“No.”
“Big Sur Aquarium?”
“Sightseeing was not one of my assignments.”
“All work and no play … everyone should get out for a little R and R now and then.”
“All our recreational needs are provided at the compound.”
Well, wasn’t this rather like having a dinner conversation with a block of granite.
What was it about Vulcans and common courtesy? Maybe humans should just cut their losses and learn to be stiff and rude.
Little blessings … the door chimed and got Archer off the hook of making small talk with a person with whom he should have an awful lot to talk about. He’d known captains and science officers who talked nonstop for the first five watch rotations, just to get to know each other.
Not this time.
“Come in,” he said thankfully.
Charlie Tucker strode from the mess hall into the captain’s private mess chamber. It was a pleasantly appointed room with a table for four, six if they squished, warmly lit by two candles provided by the captain’s steward as a first-meal gift. There was no food yet, but only a basket of breadsticks between the candles. Tucker came all the way in to let the door close and declared, “You should’ve started without me.”
“Sit down,” Archer said, afraid he might get away.
Tucker clumped into a chair beside Archer and snatched up a breadstick. Noisily he began to gnaw, paying special attention to the sesame seeds.
T’Pol raised her chin and looked down her nose at him—literally and figuratively—in clear disapproval of the eating habits. Archer smiled. How else was there to eat a breadstick except with some noise and breakage? You had to burn a few dilithium crystals to get power, after all.
Archer extended the basket of breadsticks to T’Pol. She obligingly took one and placed it dead center on her plate, then looked at it as if expecting it to explain its intentions.
“T’Pol tells me she’s been living at the Vulcan Compound in Sausalito,” Archer attempted.
“No kidding,” Tucker blurted. “I lived a few blocks from there when I first joined Starfleet. Great parties at the Vulcan Compound.”
T’Pol didn’t respond, but picked up her knife and fork and began dutifully sawing at the breadstick on her plate. It crumbled almost immediately, and sprayed the tablecloth with crumbs.
“It might be a little easier,” Archer suggested, “using your fingers.”
“Vulcans don’t touch food with their hands.”
Where had she made up that one? Archer had seen, with his own eyes, Ambassador Soval eating finger food at a reception. Maybe it was a regional thing. Vulcans always talked in generalizations, he was beginning to realize.
“Can’t wait to see you tackle the spareribs,” Trip Tucker commented as T’Pol changed her approach to the bread-stick.
She held it down with the fork, and began to deliberately saw at it with the butter knife, but she glanced forbiddingly at Tucker.
“Don’t worry,” Archer said. “We know you’re a vegetarian.”
As if conjured, the steward entered from the galley passage with three plates of food. Two meat, one grilled vegetables. Archer was suddenly glad he’d remembered that little detail at the last minute. Vegetarians on ships had caused complications for ship’s cooks for centuries, not to mention allergies and other special needs. Plain baked beans instead of pork ’n’ beans. Having aliens aboard would certainly change even more galley plans. T’Pol was all of those.
“Looks delicious,” Tucker commented. “Tell the chef I said thanks.”
The steward nodded and simply exited.
Archer and Tucker began to eat enthusiastically, but T’Pol ignored her food and continued methodically sawing at the breadstick.
“You humans claim to be enlightened,” she said, “yet you still consume the flesh of animals.”
Archer caught Tucker’s annoyed glance, but got the idea the engineer was enjoying something about this predicament.
“Grandma taught me never to judge a species by their eating habits,” Tucker mentioned.
Ah, yes, infinite diversity,Vulcan style.
“‘Enlightened’ may be too strong a word,” Archer pushed on, “but if you’d been on Earth fifty years ago, I think you’d be impressed by what we’ve gotten done.”
“You’ve yet to embrace either patience or logic,” T’Pol accused. “You remain impulsive carnivores.”
“Yeah?” Tucker blurted. “How about war? Disease? Hunger? Pretty much wiped ’em out in less than two generations. I wouldn’t call that small potatoes.”
“It remains to be seen whether humanity will revert to its baser instincts.”
“We used to have cannibals on Earth.” Tucker leaned closer to her and wagged his eyebrows. “Who knows how far we’ll revert? Lucky for you this isn’t a long mission.”
“Human instinct is pretty strong,” Archer supported.
“You can’t expect us to change overnight.”
At this special moment in their relationship, T’Pol succeeded in snapping the breadstick with a rather tidy final cut. She slid the piece onto her fork. “With proper discipline, anything’s possible.”
She then ate the piece, as if that were really something worth showing off.
Archer managed not to groan. If this turned out to be the only level on which they could converse, then the whole ship was in trouble. Couldn’t they be more honest? Talk about important things? Treat each other like intellectual equals instead of zoo animals gaping at each other’s quirks over insurmountable gates?
This seemed so unproductive … and it really wasn’t why he had asked her here, or Tucker either. Wasn’t there some way to break through to her?
They ate in silence, which seemed to suit T’Pol perfectly well. Apparently Vulcans didn’t
take meals as social lubrication. This was more like church. It even had the nasty glances from the naughty kid.
Just when Archer thought his head would blow off, Tucker shifted on his seat and asked, “So, Miss TeePol, how long you been on Earth?”
“A few weeks, this occasion. I am not permanently living there.”
“Yeah? Where’d you go to school?”
“At which level?”
“Well … the latest level.”
“I am Ambassador Soval’s apprentice in interplanetary sociopolitical studies.”
“Really? Got any military training? Like, ever piloted a ship before?”
“Trip,” Archer cut off. “She doesn’t have to pilot the ship. We have helmsmen for that. She’ll get through the next eight days just fine with our support system.”
Don’t badger. Tucker got the message and fell silent again.
T’Pol finished her vegetables and immediately stood up. “Thank you for inviting me to your meeting. I shall return to my post. I have many studies. I must acquaint myself with the vessel in order to be an effective senior officer.”
Archer got to his feet—something he really didn’t have to do as?commanding officer—and escorted her to the door. “I hope this is only the first,” he said graciously. “Thank you for coming, Sub-Commander.”
“Yes, Captain. Enjoy your evening.”
And she was gone. Archer stared for a moment at the closed door.
“Not bad,” Tucker commented, “for an ‘impulsive carnivore’ such as yourself, Captain.”
Archer shook his head in wonderment at all this. “But you notice how forgiving they are of anything the Klingons do, no matter how savage. Humans are unenlightened, but Klingons are ‘diverse.’ ”
“Uppity hypocrites. What a surprise.”
“Hey, don’t underestimate her. She did, after all, conquer that primitive breadstick with superior discipline.”
Tucker laughed.
“Oh, give her some credit,” Archer allowed. “At least she knows she’s not familiar enough with the ship to be effective yet, and she admitted it. That’s not all bad.”
“You’re bending,” Tucker warned. “No bending allowed. Vulcans never bend for us, remember?”
“Are you ready to go to warp four point five?” Archer asked, changing the subject to something they both liked much better than Vulcans.
“Already?” Tucker sat bolt upright. “It’s only been—what?—ten hours!”
Archer gave him a sly look and a dangerous grin. “What are we waiting for?”
Tucker seemed to be stricken numb. “I don’t know … I guess I’m used to bureaucrats and sleepy admirals making the progressive decisions. Twenty memos and a month of means testing, feasibility studies, and role definition.”
“We don’t define roles here anymore, Trip. We make a list, cut it in thirds, and give everybody a piece. Let’s gather the operative minds and take the bridge.”
“Delta Watch’ll be disappointed.”
“They can stay on duty. We’re not dismissing them. We’re just horning in.”
Archer put down his suffering chicken leg. “Come on. I’ve had it with sitting around being socially unacceptable. Let’s do some serious shaking down.”
Ten minutes later they were on the bridge, with the primary crew mustered. Malcolm Reed was already on the bridge for some reason. Hoshi showed up a little groggy—she’d been asleep—and Mayweather appeared only a moment after her.
The on-deck bridge crew was uneasy with the appearance of the primary watch, but seemed reassured when all they had to do was stand aside for a few minutes. Any irritation was quickly swallowed in the anticipation of going to warp four point five so many hours early. They could massage their egos later—at higher warp—and enjoy it a lot more.
“Let’s all check our readouts,” Archer ordered as he took the command chair. “Sing out if you see any irregularities. How have the ratios been?”
“Steady as a stone, sir,” Mayweather reported, checking his tie-in to the engineering deck. If anything went wrong down there, he’d be the first to see it on his console, with T’Pol a fast second.
At the science station, she said nothing. Archer could tell, even so, that she disapproved of this early risk.
Well, it wasn’t too early for her to have a dose of what made humans tick, other than fresh meat. Archer paused a few moments and listened to the ship. The bleeps and whirrs, the soft hum of warp drive, the twinkle of systems constantly diagnosing themselves. He wanted to memorize those sounds as they were now, doing the right things, feeling the right amounts of energy flow, so he could tell when they didn’t sound right.
“Everything seems okay to me,” he said, and looked at Mayweather. “Why don’t you try four-three?”
Mayweather’s shoulders tightened as he worked his helm controls. The sound of the ship made a slight change in pitch—the engines, increasing everything on an incremental level, across the board.
No calls from Tucker … so far, so good.
“Warp four point three, sir,” Mayweather reported.
They waited and listened. Would something happen?
Or had it just happened, and this was it? This was the sound of success.
“Not much of a change,” Reed observed.
“I don’t know,” Hoshi spoke up. “Does anybody feel that?”
Archer looked at her. “Feel what?”
“Those vibrations … like little tremors.”
T’Pol cast her a cool glance. “You’re imagining it.”
Archer thought about what they had said. His science officer neither saw nor felt anything, but his motion-sensor super-ear did.
Of course she did, right? There were bound to be tiny increases in everything. They had just gone from really fast to really-really fast. They had just shortened their trip by several hours, even on the galactic scale. That was a lot of change.
Sure she felt something.
Mayweather was looking at him.
Archer nodded. “Bring us to four-four, Ensign.”
This time the ship shuddered, and everybody felt it. Sounds thrummed from deep places with the new acceleration. Vibrations racked the deck under their feet.
Hoshi grabbed the sides of her seat. “There! What do you call that!”
“The warp reactor is recalibrating,” T’Pol explained coldly. “It shouldn’t happen again.”
But an alarm went off at Reed’s tactical station.
Hoshi jumped. “Now what?”
“The deflector’s resequencing,” Reed told her. “It’s perfectly normal.”
T’Pol eyed her own board, but said, “Perhaps you’d like to go to your quarters and lie down.”
Hoshi cast her a provoked glance. “Ponfo mirann,” she said. Vulcan for “butt out”?
Archer watched the women. They were, more or less, a microcosm of the whole crew and all his problems.
“I was instructed,” T’Pol responded, “to speak English during this mission. I’d appreciate your respecting that.”
Archer interrupted, “It’s easy to get a little jumpy when you’re traveling at thirty million kilometers a second. Should be old hat in a week’s time.”
Another alarm tone broke over his words, causing Hoshi to flinch again, but Archer just struck the com panel. “Archer.”
“This is Dr. Phlox, Captain. Our patient is regaining consciousness.”
“On my way,” he said. “Hoshi.”
She snatched up her translator padd and joined him eagerly as he headed for the lift. Once the doors had closed and the lift rushed downward into the body of the ship, Hoshi scowled, “I don’t like her.”
“Why not?” Archer asked.
“Mostly because she doesn’t like me.”
“Good judgment. You—not her. Besides, I don’t think anybody likes her much. Of course, she doesn’t care whether she’s liked. She won’t be here that long.”
“She wouldn’t care anyway.”
/> “You need to relax, Hoshi. This ship is on the cusp of exploration. If you want to speak to aliens and learn new languages, this is the place to be. You’ll like it after a while.”
“I’ve just never felt anything like that before. There were vibrations that didn’t feel right.”
“I don’t have a doubt of it,” Archer offered passively.
“The ship’s bound to have plenty of instabilities. It’ll be our job to track them down, one by one. That’s why they call it a ‘shakedown.’ But you have to do some shaking to get the optimal results.”
She sighed and looked like a lost puppy. “Why do all the interesting things have to happen so far from solid ground?”
Archer smiled. Her statement had an ancient ring of truth about it and set his mind to imaginings.
He took her arm gently and squeezed it. “Now, just take things a little slower. Take cues from the people around you instead of the machinery you don’t understand.”
She looked up at him. “What do you mean by that? What about the people?”
“Most of us have been on ships a lot more than you have. One of the oldest secrets of success on board is to do what the old-timers do. If we sleep, you sleep. If we take a shower, you go take a shower. Eat when we eat. And when things seem scary, take cues from those who’ve been through scary things before. Stand back and stand by.”
“Stand back and stand by,” she repeated, tasting the precious advice.
“Right,” he said. “In time, you’ll be the one the rookies are watching for cues. No matter what the legends say, nobody’s born to this.”
Though she still appeared doubtful, she did step out of the lift with more confidence. In fact, she led the way to sickbay. Archer took that as a step up.
Even before the door opened to the medical area they could hear the loud growling of the Klingon, like some kind of werewolf on the prowl.
The alien was even more imposing in person than he was just listening in the corridor. Sitting up now, he was absolutely huge. If he stood he would top seven feet. Even sitting he was eye to eye with Archer. Wisely, the doctor had tied him down.
Klaang barked and snapped furiously. “Pung ghap HoS!”
Archer flinched at the rage of a strong warrior only inches from him, and was suddenly glad of the security guard, very nearly six-foot-five himself, armed with a plasma rifle and eyeing the delirious Klingon with a hungry glower.