Chapter Text
Personal Log, Stardate 6347.6. I’m not sure what to feel right now. The Enterprise has intercepted a distress call from the Pride of Andor, my previous post, my first post as Chief of Security, and a ship I spent four standard years on. It’s really only been a few cycles since I said goodbye to Captain Zarath and the rest of the crew in the shuttle bay. When I got on the transfer shuttle to the Enterprise, the Pride started on an extended mineralogical and biological survey mission, a second-pass survey. Interesting but not exactly exciting. I’ve seen more action and adrenaline on Enterprise in the cycles since than in those four years, and I would have thought more than the crew of the Pride would see during the entire survey, but the ship has gone silent except for the repeating distress call.
A lot of people aboard Pride of Andor are like clan to me. It’s hard not to worry about what could have happened to them.
Lt. Commander Jharia Endilev pressed the switch to stop recording and leaned back just a little in her chair. Not quite contrary to the log entry she’d just made, she counted that it had been almost exactly eight cycles since the shuttle had carried her across a little bit of space from the Pride’s landing bay to rendezvous with the Enterprise. She tried to convert that through Stardates to the human calendar, something she really should be used to by now since she was serving with so many of them but couldn’t get closer than somewhere between five and six months. Stardate 5951.2 her official transcript would say, and she didn’t want to ask the computer for help with the conversion so her approximation would have to do. It was really only for practice, anyway. Stardates aside, she still marked time internally according to the standard calendar of Andor. She was certain most humans did the same with their own calendar.
So, eight cycles, or near enough. And now her new ship raced through warp as fast as it could to answer a distress signal from her old one. She thought about her former Captain, XO, the oddball Chief Engineer they’d had on board, a human surrounded by Andorians and seeming to enjoy it, plus eighty more familiar blue faces.
All of them silent behind that automated distress call.
She’d felt the Enterprise change course and accelerate to high warp almost in the same moment she’d answered Captain Kirk’s summons. Her familiarity with the Pride of Andor made her his first choice to lead the boarding party, a spot he often reserved for himself. Her close connection to the ship and its crew could make it a harder job for her than it needed to be, so he was giving her the option to refuse.
She couldn’t possibly refuse, and Kirk had certainly known that before he’d even pressed the button on the comm panel. Even just beyond the sheer weight of needing to know what happened, needing to help, it would feel like she was letting her previous crew down, and that was something she couldn’t live with.
The low-high-low sound of incoming communication took her away from her thoughts. With one slim finger, she reached out for the comm panel switch. “Endilev here.”
She didn’t recognize the slightly tinny male voice that came back and thought she should have after so long aboard. “This is the transporter room, Commander. You asked for a twenty-minute warning.”
In fact, she’d asked for a third of a point, which apparently was the same thing, or close. Standardized time keeping wasn’t quite as standard as the Starfleet mathematicians who’d come up with Stardates might have liked. Having already drawn the equipment she’d need, it wouldn’t take her twenty minutes to walk to the transporter room, but as the officer in charge it seemed reasonable to get there ahead of the rest of the assigned boarding party. “Thank you. On my way.”
Standing, Endilev caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she turned for the door. She paused long enough to inspect the reflection to ensure that there was no trace of anything running through her mind reaching her face. Not quite Vulcan level of impassive, but a century of social practice meant Andorians were no slouches at hiding their emotions behind what most other species seemed to consider stern features, and most humans didn’t get much from antennae movement, anyway. Her thoughts were safe.
And she’d find out what happened To Captain Zarath, Commanders Targalev and MacAuley, and the rest of her old crew, for better or for worse. She’d prefer a rescue of course, but what type of mission this was going to be was still beyond her control.
#
While still early to the Transporter room, Endilev had deliberately not arrived at the platform until the Enterprise had come out of warp, hoping for additional information regarding Pride of Andor. If there had been any, no one had seen fit to inform the boarding party commander as yet.
The door to the transporter room slid open and she found, without surprise, that Lieutenant Chekov had beaten her there. The young human always came across as eager to her, the exception to her having a harder time with human emotional expressions than she thought she should at this stage in her time on the Enterprise. He also tended towards being well-prepared and thoroughly-researched, and she walked in just as he took his hand from the comm panel on the transporter controls. “Any update?”
Looking up to meet her gaze, Chekov shook his head. “Nothing substantive, Commander. Sensors report minimal power levels, lack of life signs or activity. Cold weather gear recommended for most species.”
The last wasn’t as abnormal for an Andorian ship as it would be for a human, but the human definition of room temperature was a double handful of standard degrees higher on Enterprise than she found comfortable. On the Pride, MacAuley had complained constantly about the need for a sweater and kept a pair of light gloves tucked in his belt at all times. She noticed Chekov’s jacket sat on the transporter pad rather than around his shoulders, though, along with another.
Before she could verbalize an observation on that, the door slid open again to admit the rest of the boarding party: two security officers, a young Tellarite engineer, and, just as the door tried to slide closed again, Doctor McCoy, the Enterprise’s Chief Medical Officer. She acknowledged the younger officers quickly, but found more words for the CMO, whom she hadn’t expected to draw the duty. “Thank you for coming, Doctor. I appreciate your expertise on the mission.”
McCoy grunted as he accepted a heavy jacket and gloves from Chekov. “Not how I want to spend my afternoon, Commander. You’ll understand if I hope this is all one big joke.”
She’d long since decided he used the gruff persona to cover up very deep emotions rather than trying to control them. Very human. But she had to admit that her most fervent desire was to beam aboard the Pride to find everyone alive, well, and wondering what the problem was, remote as the possibility seemed at the moment. “That would be wonderful, Doctor, but you’ll pardon me if I keep my antenna up. Platform, everyone.” No reason to drag things out, and they did have an investigation to begin.
She reached the platform first and waited for the team to find their own places on the lit circles, listening for the humans to seal their jackets as well. Andorian, she didn’t have the same aversion to cold as most species and hadn’t taken a jacket from stores.
Ensign Kyle, whose voice she really should have recognized even if he didn’t spend much time in the transporter room, made eye contact. “Commander, I’m obligated to remind you that emergency protocols are in effect.”
Meaning that until they knew what was happening on the other ship, they should expect quarantine and decontamination on return to Enterprise. A gentle reminder that was still worth making. “Understood. Energize please, Mr. Kyle.”
With a nod, Kyle barely looked at the board as he moved one hand across it and pushed up the power controls with the other. “Energizing now.”
The transporter room faded out around her in a shower of sparkling gold.
#
Endilev didn’t allow herself to be distracted by the familiarity of the corridor they materialized in, similar in structure yet different in a dozen tiny, subtle ways from those on her new ship, from the shade of the wall paint to the ceiling, higher by the width of her thumb than on the Enterprise. Those tiny details, along with the temperature, made her feel at home.
The junction label told her exactly where they were on the Pride, as close to the edge of the saucer on Deck 6 as Kyle could manage on the Enterprise side. But that label immediately put half a dozen memories in the front of her mind and that wasn’t what she needed at the moment.
“Ensign Marik.”
“Ma’am?” A cloud of breath puffed out from his lips.
“Please accompany Dr. McCoy to sick bay.”
“Aye, Ma’am.”
“Lieutenant Mar-Kren, see if you can get something more than these emergency lights up and running from Engineering. It’s well below what it should be on board even an Andorian-crewed ship. A little heat would probably be nice for the non-Andorians in our party.” Matching the base sensor readings she’d been given, the temperature was less than a dozen standard degrees below frozen water, but she knew that was well outside comfort zones for most andorioid species. “Ensign Suarez, stay with her. Mr. Chekov, you’re with me.”
Several voices acknowledged the orders, and she watched the other pairs of officers move the same direction down the corridor a few steps before turning to her own partner on the boarding party.
Lieutenant Chekov wore an innocuous smile, both eyebrows lifted a bit in what she was sure was an attempt to appear friendly. “I assume we’re bound for the bridge, Commander.”
Endilev nodded. “An excellent assumption, Lieutenant. I hope you’ve been keeping up with your fitness regime lately because I don’t think we’re going to have any luck with the turbo lifts or doors between here and there.
“I will persevere, Commander. The Jeffries tubes will be accessible, I think, and I believe my fitness level is adequate to climbing five decks at need.”
She nodded as she gestured down a branch of corridor that would lead to the central access tubes as well as the certainly unpowered turbolift. “I’m sure you will manage effectively.”
They’d covered half the distance in silence, heels clicking on the deck in offset time, when Chekov cleared his throat. “May I ask you something, Commander?”
Suspecting it would be something related to her time on Pride of Andor and how it felt walking the strangely empty corridors of the ship in its powered down state, she nodded, but felt both her back and antennae stiffen. Her response tried to lighten the mood a little, hers if not his. “Please feel free, Lieutenant. I may even answer.”
He grinned at the miniscule joke. A perceptive human, perhaps. “What is it like serving on a ship where you are… an obvious minority?”
And that question caught her a bit by surprise. “By which you mean the Enterprise.”
“Da, I mean, yes, ma’am.” He glanced over at her as they walked. “Enterprise is the only ship I’ve served any appreciable amount of time on, and I know Starfleet is much bigger. It is a mixed ship, but the crew is mostly human. I hope to not be giving offense, but I’ve been curious. You’ve been both majority and minority in your career. I’ve yet to see the other side of the coin.”
Taking the request at face value, she answered it as best she could, which wasn’t very well, even though it was something she’d given a great deal of thought. “It’s different, certainly, though that’s a big part of why I applied for the post. Pride of Andor is wonderful ship and very Andorian, very culturally comfortable. In fact, the Pride had exactly one non-Andorian aboard when I served on it.” All those cycles ago. “A rather cantankerous human engineer by the name of MacAuley, who spoke Andorii well enough, though he had a horrible accent. And, yes, I’m one of the few non-humans serving aboard Enterprise at the moment.” She’d actually stopped to count at one point, coming up with just over five percent of the crew. Not exactly well mixed after a century of trying, and it could be considered the flagship, certainly the most storied of the flagship Constitution-class cruisers. One out of eighty-four wasn’t exactly a good ratio for the Pride, either. “So now the glove is on the other hand as it were.” And while interesting, not as comfortable as she’d hoped for after so long.
“Do you find Enterprise different?”
“Yes and no. I—” She shook her head, not liking where her mind was taking her in answering the line of questions. Nostalgia needed to be left aside during the mission. “Lieutenant, I appreciate the effort to distract me from wondering where my former crewmates are as we walk an empty corridor, but I think I’d rather just get to the bridge.”
“It is not an effort to distract, Commander.” The smile disappeared as he apparently considered his own motivations. “At least not only an effort to distract. As I said, Enterprise is the only vessel I have spent… significant time on. There is more to Starfleet than one vessel and I hope to have a long career ahead of me yet.”
“I understand, Lieutenant.” She tried a smile of her own, a part of her noting that was one thing that had gotten easier with time spent among humans. “Maybe let it go for now and ask me again the next time we’re both on the rec deck.”
“I can certainly do that, Commander.”
“And hope for a happy ending to this mission.”
“I can do that as well.”
Looking ahead, Endilev could see the access to the upper half of the central Jeffries tube, red in the emergency lighting instead of the dimmer than usual Andorian standard of the corridors so far, which made it time for a little exercise. Five decks up would mean a certain amount of effort, but she had no doubts regarding her own current fitness level, either.