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Last day at Starbase One.
The USS Vivien Thomas had docked for a scheduled resupply and to give the new warp core a thorough evaluation. Jimon, Tommy, and Tasía had been in the bowels of the cargo holds tasked with carefully going through the new stores and ensuring everything was labeled and serviceable. Raw feedstock for the replicators was ferried aboard or pumped into tanks. Looking out any port, the Thomas had a swarm of shuttles and small cargo ferries hovering about her hull, shimmering like bees at their hive.
Jimon leaned back into the arboretum floor and savored the feel of soft grass beneath his feet and between his toes. It wasn’t home, but it was as close as he would get for a while. Melok had tuned the false sun overhead to a balmy summer day. Jimon had learned over the months that Melok did not simply run Pana’s. He was a skilled botanist and like most of the crew who wore more than one hat, the whole of the arboretum was his domain and responsibility. He took immense pride in the health of the flora and fauna therein. It was just on the cusp of being too warm and Jimon had resisted the urge to undress as he had done so often in the taiga to feel the sweet kiss of northerly breezes that blew in across the mighty Tuloma River. Mama never saw him do that, though he was sure she wouldn’t have cared.
Tommy drew lazy circles in the palm of Jimon’s hand, pinching the skin gently after each circuit. Jimon had learned to accept these small phrases of Tommy’s love language. He was often clumsy in the broad strokes, yet so deft with the fine ones.
“Ensign Tasía Athena to the main shuttle bay,” chirped Tasía’s combadge.
“Shuttle bay? Well, that’s the end of vacation,” Tommy said dreamily from where he lay next to Jimon. “I’m sure…”
“Ensign Rozhenko to the main shuttle bay. Ensign Cooper to the main shuttle bay.”
“Yep, right on cue,” Tommy finished.
Feet slipped back into shoes and the trio made their way to the arboretum entry point. Others were also filtering their way back to duty stations. The Thomas was mustering her children.
“I was thinking about the shielding experiment you’re running for high radiation environments,” Tasía said. “What if we used leaded acrylic containers instead of aluminum oxynitride?”
“They’d be shatterproof, which the commander will like,” Jimon responded. “What if we laminated the containers, leaded acrylic on the outside for radiation absorption and durability, then aluminum oxynitride inside for the bio-neutrality? Do you think they would bond well?”
Tasía was intrigued. “We should talk to engineering…”
Tommy used both hands to comically pantomime too much talking.
“Ohmaigawd! Trees, grass, and the sun over our heads, and the two of you are still talking shop,” he observed in exasperation.
“Sorry,” said Tasía sarcastically. Then to Jimon: “But seriously, we should talk to engineering. If that can work, that’s a good idea.”
The Thomas was abuzz with activity. Every uniformed person in sight wore a mask of determination, each headed for an assigned destination, each assured of their purpose. A confident flow punctuated with the occasional excuse me or pardon me.
The summons to the shuttle bay was unusual for them. Tommy should be in the wards measuring the placement of every instrument to within a micron of tolerance. Commander Tendi was not the only one who liked discipline. Tommy had described Commander Paulson, the CMO, more than once as a Victorian butler charged with presenting his lord’s great house as the very soul of perfection, punctilio, and politesse. Jimon grinned at the memory because it was at such times that Tommy’s carefully curated veneer of roughness and contrived low brow slipped and the well-read son of academics shone through.
In the shuttle bay, a daunting cadre of the ship’s senior staff were all assembled in a huddle, including Captain Turpa who was the first to spot them.
“Oh, no,” Tommy said under his breath.
“Quickly,” urged the captain when they slowed their pace. “Come now. Don’t dawdle.”
It looked like they were in for a dressing down, but for what?
The captain - tall even for a Saurian - approached Tasía with a PADD in hand, which he passed to her. His huge black eyes reflected the shuttle bay in curved distortion.
“This document has your name on it, Ensign. Would you care to explain why that is?”
Tasía glanced at the PADD and looked genuinely taken aback.
“Sir, this is Commander Tendi’s journal article concerning her research. I have access to it for the purposes of updating data, but…”
“The last page, Ensign. That is what concerns me.”
She flipped through the screens until the end. She stood there for a long moment staring at the PADD, her eyes flicking up to Commander Tendi, back to the screen, then back to the captain.
“Sir, I… I would never do this. Never.”
“Of course not,” Commander Tendi said, taking a step forward. “I did that.”
Tommy could not hold back his curiosity and took the PADD from Tasía’s hands without resistance.
“Holy shit,” he exclaimed.
“Language,” cautioned the captain.
Tommy passed the PADD to Jimon. At the bottom of the last page was Commander Tendi’s name and other identifying data, then came Lieutenant Wonis’, and then Tasía’s.
Commander Tendi took another step forward and took Tasía’s hands gently into her own.
“You have worked so hard, Tasía. It would be a crime not to include you.”
The energy from the senior staff abruptly changed. They had all been doing their best to keep up the charade.
Tears streamed down Tasía’s cheeks. “Thank you so much, Commander. I don’t know what to say other than that you got my rank wrong.”
The captain took back the PADD and inspected the information carefully.
“No error here - Lieutenant,” he remarked.
The captain traded the PADD for a small velvet box Commander Paulson was hiding behind his back and popped the lid. There was a gold pip inside. Not a black one with a gold ring, but a solid gold pip.
“Tasía Athena, it is my genuine pleasure to promote you to the rank of full lieutenant.” He took the pip from its box and attached it to Tasía’s uniform next to the other one. “I have read your research and after the incident with the Baska, it was my duty to put together a full report for Starfleet concerning the actions of the crew, including your friends, Ensign Cooper, and Ensign Rozhenko. Now, you are certainly deserving of the jump-step, but there is another reason for it as well.” He turned and raised his voice, speaking to Chief Petty Officer Taylor who administered the shuttle bay. “If you would be so kind, Chief.”
The door shields shimmered and hummed to life and a deep structural thunk announced the opening of the main shuttle bay door. It slowly revealed the strangest Type 7 shuttle Jimon had ever seen floating just aft of the ship showing them its port side. It was stretched, more than three times longer than a standard Type 7, and wide in the middle. Nacelles splayed out on elegantly curved struts rather than the usual short ones tucked up underneath, and a pristine white paint job with the Starfleet caduceus in red set off by a bold red stripe running the length of the ship, and beneath the stripe, her name - the Nancy Caroline.
She slipped sedately into the shuttle bay and landed silently.
“Dr. Rutherford has outdone himself,” informed the captain. “An experimental hull. Certainly not the first medevac ship in the fleet, but her configuration, capacity, and speed make her unique. Where the Thomas is designed for large-scale medical situations, the Nancy Caroline is honed for smaller engagements, specifically distress calls. She can run on her own for long periods without the need for a larger ship as a home base. If you’re to have a crew, you needed to be at least a full lieutenant.”
Jimon’s ears perked up at the mention of Sam, and he watched Tasía go from wide-eyed to furrowed brow as the full impact of the matter sank in.
“But, sir. Commander Tendi’s research…”
“Isn’t going anywhere, Tasía,” the commander finished. “Distress calls don’t come in every day, or at least not near enough to make sense when other ships are closer. We’re still a team. We’re still working together. That doesn’t change. That’s why I wanted you to see your name where it belongs on that paper. But you need to get out of the lab. You need to have other experiences. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be an admiral one day if that’s what you want, but that won’t happen if your whole career is behind a desk.”
“The commander is correct, Lieutenant,” said the captain. “To begin with, we’ll play it by ear, as Humans are fond of saying.” There was soft laughter at the captain’s joke, given that his species has no outer ears. “It is an experiment, after all, so a bit of flexibility is called for. As a vessel attached to the Thomas’ mission, you will now report directly to me, Lieutenant. When you are on the Thomas, you will continue to work with the commander on her research. As for the rest of the crew, it’s my understanding that the three of you are thick as thieves, yes? It would seem you have chosen yourselves.”
Though it was out of sight, they could hear the rear hatch of the ambulance open. Ensign sh’Thas from engineering, the woman who had stayed with Mols Drasa nearly to the end, walked toward them.
“She handles very nicely, Captain,” said the Andorian ensign. “Hard to believe that’s a four hundred Cochrane warp drive. It’s like, this big,” she said, gesturing an improbably small size. “Can’t wait to open her up and let her do what she can do.”
“Excellent,” he replied. “Ensign Eudoxia sh’Thas will be your pilot and ship’s engineer.”
“Deedee,” said the ensign. “Just Deedee, please. And congratulations, Lieutenant.”
Lab Two had gained more than a bit of fame during the Baska mission, but so had engineering, and these days, there wasn’t a soul on the ship who did not know of Ensign sh’Thas.
“If you would prefer a different arrangement?” the captain asked of Tasía. “Before you agree to the mission, of course.”
“No. No, sir. I…” Tasía stammered. “It’s a lot to take in, sir. Thank you.”
The captain closed the gap between them and the normally austere, formal Saurian took Tasía’s hand and said, “May you have fair winds and following seas, Lieutenant. The Thomas has a few stops to make here in Sol system that should keep us busy enough with administrative matters for a fortnight. So, go,” he said, gesturing to the open bay doors. “Go out there and help those who are in need.”
He gave her a curt nod and took his leave.
“Come’ere, Cooper,” said Commander Paulson. He still had a puckered scar that ran angrily down the side of his neck, evidence of how deeply the nanites had attacked him. “I signed off on this because, frankly, you’ve been a different person since the Baska mission and since you started palling around with these guys.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tommy replied without a trace of his usual loose take on decorum.
“But I also know that, other than the captain, these three have the cleanest noses on the ship. Don’t do anything to mess that up, you hear?”
“Yes, sir. I hear you.”
“Good. It’s the same deal. When you’re out there, you answer to the lieutenant. When you’re here, you’re mine. Understood?”
He closed it with a wide grin to soften his words.
“Understood, sir,” Tommy said, taking the hand the commander offered.
When Commander Tendi pulled Jimon aside, before she could speak he said, “I don’t think I deserve this?”
“When Dr. T’Ana put me up for senior science officer training on the Cerritos, I felt the same way,” she said. “I was like, I just got here and all these people are so badass, and that guy over there has a crazy cybernetic implant and can probably run circles around all of us, and that chick over there, Beckett Mariner, I mean, who’s gonna compete with her??”
“Okay, but…”
“Just listen to me. I was so sure I didn’t deserve it that I talked myself into believing I was getting booted out of the fleet. When I had gotten myself into a panic and told Dr. T’Ana, she said that if I was the kind of person who already thought she deserved it, then I wasn’t the kind of person she would be recommending.” She put a hand on Timon’s shoulder. “Trust me. This will be good for you. Go do what the captain said. Go help people.”
The remainder of the senior staff filtered out and they boarded the ship like children on Christmas morning.
“I’m guessing the cockpit and tail were married to the frame of a Danube Class runabout,” Deedee observed from near one of the biobeds. “But it’s just the frame. She’s been completely re-skinned outside and the overhead assembly is missing. I’ve never seen nacelles like those and the curvy struts are obviously custom. Anybody know who she’s named for?”
“Dr. Nancy Caroline was a pioneer in emergency services in the twentieth century,” Tommy replied. “She ran a place called Freedom House in Pittsburgh that ran ambulances to parts of the city where other services wouldn’t go. Freedom House set the standard for emergency care at the time. Later, she set up Israel’s Red Cross Society.”
They all stared silently at Tommy.
“What?” he said. “I do know how to read, you know.”
“Sounds like she’s well-named,” Deedee remarked.
There were three compact biobeds, one of which had a fully automated surgical collar. Monitor screens for the beds ran down each side of the inner bulkhead beneath small lozenge-shaped viewports. Beneath the screens along the port bulkhead was a shallow work counter over storage cabinets; along the starboard side was a fold-down bench with a battery of medical ports every meter that would be useful for patients with less serious injuries. The cabin interior was deep gray lower down and shifted to a soothing eggplant color overhead. Moving forward in the ship, there were two fold-down bunks on each side. Tommy brought one down and the monitor that hid behind it lit up.
Dr. Rutherford’s amicable face filled the screen.
“Hey, guys!” he said, waving at them. “Surprise! I hope you like her. This project was on the back-back burner in a different department, so I sorta commandeered it. You’ll be coordinating with Captain Turpa about how the mission itself will roll out. She’s pretty straightforward. I had a lot of help from Starfleet Medical, especially the lower ranks, the guys who actually have to use this stuff. The three biobeds in the back shouldn’t need an explanation. That little walled-off area between the beds and the drive assembly is a small but fully functional latrine with a sonic shower and a sterilization station for surgical work. The fold-down bunks are meant for the crew, but they all have monitors and there are medical ports in the bulkheads that separate them from the forward crew cabin, so they can be used for patients too. She’s got a transfigurable docking collar aft, but the main reason I chose a runabout for the central frame was that it came complete with a standard transporter. Whoever you pick for your engineer will find a file in the ship’s main directory for her structural and power specs. The transporter takes a lot of juice, but so do those beds, so pay attention to whatever else is running when you use it. She’ll hold warp six without too much complaint, but if you push her harder and she starts to vent nitrogen coolant, you need to back off the accelerator.”
Deedee tapped the screen to pause the playback and searched the ship’s directory, passing the file she found there to a PADD.
“Sorry,” she said. “But did you see the drive unit? That thing doesn’t even look real!”
It had looked like a miniature mockup when they entered the ship.
Deedee tapped the screen to start the recording again.
“Everything in the ship that administers medication has been standardized to use hypospray cartridges, the main beds and the fold-downs included. That way you’re not going back and forth between formats, and there’s less to carry and store if it’s all standard. Plug-and-play. You’ll find plenty of cartridges in the cabinets along with everything else the medics told me would be useful. I kept nearly the whole Type 7 frame up front because they’re roomie, easy to widen, and they were over-engineered for structural integrity, but the hatch is in the back now, as you already know. You’ll find space up there for the crew. There’s a small table, lockers for your stuff, all that action. Lastly, congratulations on your promotion, Lieutenant Athena. It wasn’t easy keeping all this under wraps. Stay on top of your logs and make sure they’re by the book. Copies are being routed directly to Starfleet Medical to monitor the mission. Your engineer needs to do the same, but those logs are coming to me.”
“Sweet,” said Deedee.
“Oh, and I know Jimon and Tommy are with you, so, fellahs, make the most of it. She’s one of a kind, but if this mission goes well and proves to be useful, you could be test-bedding a whole new class of medical ship for the fleet. Okie dokie, that’s enough from me. Have fun.”
The recording ended and the screen dimmed.
“Permission to board?” came a man’s voice from the aft hatch. It was CPO Taylor.
“Permission granted, Chief,” Tasía said with a Mona Lisa smile.
“Ooo, she is a beaut!” exclaimed the man with a pronounced southern accent. “Just came to say y’all are cleared for takeoff, but I wasn’t given an itinerary, which - and I don’t mean to speak out of turn - is standard protocol, Lieutenant. She’s your ship, but it’s my bay, and I like my eyes dotted and my tees crossed, sir.”
“That makes two of us, Chief, but we don’t really have an itinerary yet.”
“Okay, understood,” he replied, scrubbing his hands together in thought. “She’s an ambulance ship, right? Mind if I make a suggestion?”
“Please,” Tasía said, gesturing for him to continue.
The chief fumbled through a few screens until he found the star charts.
“Between Tellar and Vulcan there’s a heavy shipping lane with Bracas V as the provisioning point for smaller vessels. Lots of unregistered ships, lots’a ships that haven’t seen maintenance in a real long time, and a few you ain’t getting me to step aboard without being in an EV suit. I worked that lane on a frigate that was repurposed as a cargo transport when I was just a boot greener’n any Orion. It’s pretty much in our own backyard, and if you’re looking for distress calls to answer, you’ll be spoiled for choice. If it were up to me, I’d pick the Tellar leg of the route. The Vulcans are pretty quick about answering distress calls in their neighborhood. It’s a lot spottier on the other leg.”
“No fewer than six distress calls on that leg in the last two weeks,” Deedee confirmed, holding up her PADD for all to see.
“Sounds about right. Ain’t changed a lick.”
“Well,” said Tasía. “I think we have our itinerary, Chief. Do I need to fill something out?”
“No, sir. I’ll take it from here,” he replied with a jaunty anachronistic salute. “Captain told me not to get too fussy, but if you’re out for a while, just make sure to touch base daily so I don’t have to send a shuttle to come lookin for ya’.”
“Will do, Chief,” she replied.
The chief departed and there was a pregnant silence in the ship.
“Do we just go?” Tasía asked.
“They’ve done everything but push us out the door,” Tommy replied. “So, yeah. Let’s go!”
“Do you guys need to get anything? This is all really fast.”
“I was in on the plan beforehand,” said Deedee with a shrug. “I took the liberty of checking your replicator files and there’s a change of uniform for each of us, and everything that’s fillable is filled. I’m ready and waiting, sir.”
“Let’s do this!” said Tommy, already heading to the crew area to see what there was. “I bet I can pilot this thing.”
Deedee’s eyes went wide. “Not while I’m the engineer.”
She followed Tommy forward.
“You’re really quiet,” Tasía said, looking at Jimon.
Jimon shrugged, unsure what to say.
“I overheard what the commander said to you,” she admitted. “And if it means anything, I agree with her. I think this will be good for you. For all of us. I certainly want you here if that’s a question in your head.”
“No!” came Deedee’s parental voice from the cockpit. “That’s the lieutenant’s chair.”
“I mean, who’s gonna keep Tommy in check if not you?” she said, her eyes bright with humor.
Jimon let out a long sigh, releasing tension. “I’m proud of you, Lieutenant,” he said glancing at her new pip.
Her hand came up to touch it at her collar.
“Thank you, Jimon. That means the world to me.”
The Nancy Caroline was cruising at her advertised warp six, the stars through the small viewports stretching into rainbow streaks. Tasía and Deedee were at the helm. Jimon and Tommy were in the center portion, which they had decided to simply call the sickbay. Tommy had an arm draped across one of the biobeds, letting it run a test cycle on him. Jimon was methodically going through cabinets to familiarize himself with the location of supplies. There were indeed several cases of hypospray cartridges, more than seemed remotely necessary, but then again, everything in sickbay would make use of them. There were four medkits in charging bays complete with the latest model of tricorder and medical attachments. Cellular regeneration wands. Burn kits. Cortical stimulators. Portable imaging devices of several kinds. Every kind of bandage imaginable.
The latrine was tiny. Jimon couldn’t stretch his arms completely before touching opposing walls. The sterilization station was first, then the sonic shower, then the toilet to the rear, without division.
He squatted to admire the drive assembly. His warp core theory was no more than the basic instruction received by all Academy cadets, but the minuscule size of the drive was not lost on him. The design was squat, heavy, and utilitarian. It lacked the large translucent areas of the core on the Thomas, instead only showing thin windows. He imagined it was to make the unit sturdier, but that was only a guess. He would ask Deedee later.
Tommy joined him in the drive section and when he stood, pushed Jimon gently against the bulkhead out of sight of the cockpit, placed his hands to Jimon’s sides, wrapped around him, pulled him close and kissed him slowly, deeply, languidly. The scent of Tommy’s arousal washed over Jimon’s antennae thick and heavy as molasses. He was always generous with Jimon in their quarters, always attentive. He would write words on Jimon’s skin to see if he could read them - snuggle and spoon him like he wanted to wrap Jimon entirely within his embrace - recite the different shades of blue beneath his lips.
“What was that for?” Jimon asked when Tommy pulled back.
“The first thing that ever happened on this ship was that I kissed you, beautiful little chan with the softest antennae of any chan that ever was. That’s what,” he answered, glancing to the front of the ship, then making a show of recomposing himself and his uniform.
“How would you know?” Jimon said with a grin. “How many chans have you been with?”
“Just the one,” he replied. “You nervous? You look nervous. You’re doing that little silent-as-a-mouse thing of yours.”
“It’s just a big change,” he replied. “And all the changes that ever happen to me are big ones.”
The past months aboard the Thomas had been comfortably consistent. The first weeks after the mission had been made of delivering care to the crew, tending to their wounds and the fallout of the nanite invasion. A hospital ship does not go to a medical facility. When her crew is ill, everything that’s needed is within her. Only two crew members had to be fitted with VISORS, the chief engineer being one of them. He had taken a leave of absence when the bone regeneration had not helped the way it should. His replacement had been the chief engineer before him, a Benzite man named Sloccum, who, notably, did not wear the typical Benzite breathing apparatus. Jimon had meant to find out how that was possible, but his duties had been a strong current and he was only too happy to let it take him and distract him. Many had needed rehabilitation, so everyone picked up extra work, of which there was no end. Even Tommy bore scars, and though he had never said it, Jimon was sure at least part of why he had refused to have them healed completely was because they were his badge of honor, his irrefutable proof that he had been in the thick of it.
Though the captain’s description of the next couple of weeks for the Thomas had made it sound tedious and boring, Jimon had wanted that little extension of calm.
Now this.
And how could he complain? His friend Tasía had just received long-overdue recognition for her hard work and they flew within a ship made by the hands of someone else who was all too dear to him - Sam.
Tommy hugged him tight and Jimon rested his head on his chest. They swayed gently before Tommy broke the moment by sticking the tip of his tongue into the opening of Jimon’s right antenna.
Jimon pushed him away instinctively. Tommy giggled.
“Don’t do that!” Jimon warned though he was nearly laughing himself.
“You liked it last time.”
Jimon rubbed his antenna. “That’s different. Not when…”
Someone cleared their throat in the sick bay.
“You guys gonna force the lieutenant to lay down house rules, or are you gonna behave like grownups?” Deedee said, crossing her arms in front of her and leaning on one leg.
“I don’t know too many kids who like to lick antennae,” Tommy said.
Deedee’s jaw dropped in feigned shock. She shook her head, then made a face that said she was unimpressed. She seemed to be cut from the same cloth as Tommy and the game was already afoot.
“The lieutenant called for a meeting,” she said. “And you’re getting boy cooties all over my brand-spanking-new warp drive.”
The table in the crew section was a small booth with seating permanently fixed to the floor. Tasía had her hands wrapped around a mug of what looked and smelled like tea. Tommy replicated coffee for himself and Jimon. Deedee waved off the offer, not wanting anything.
“We’ll be at Bracas V in a little over two days,” Tasía informed. “Deedee, I want you to use the time to run tests on the full battery of ship systems, stem to stern. Main drive, impulse, replicator, even the bathroom plumbing. There’s plenty of time, so be detailed. Jimon, I want you helping Deedee with whatever she needs. Tommy, you and I are going to do the same with the medical systems and equipment. If it can be calibrated, we’re calibrating it. Understood?”
“I ran a cursory check on one of the beds. Seems to be fine,” he said.
“Good, but let’s make sure that’s true about everything,” she replied.
Tommy nodded his assent.
Deedee tapped the screen adjacent to the table and brought up the history of recent distress calls in the area - a list of ships, their configurations, registrations, and affiliations.
“I was looking through these from the past two weeks and then also from the past two months,” she said. More than half of the ships listed on the screen blinked red. “These are the calls that came from ships with either questionable or no registration at all. The chief wasn’t kidding when he soft-shoed that this stretch is rough, and I’m not talking about gravimetric anomalies. For what it’s worth, I suggest we not advertise our presence or purpose and just wait to see what comes up.”
“We may end up waiting for a while,” Tasía said.
“She’s got type four phasers, Lieutenant,” Deedee said. “But I would rather not put them to the test. This ship is very pretty, very new, and very filled with valuable medical equipment.”
“What do you guys think?” Tasía asked of him and Tommy.
“I agree,” Jimon said. “Maybe slip into the shipping lane at Bracas V and just run it like the rest of the ships. If something comes up, we answer, and according to what Deedee found, something’s gonna come up. We just have to be patient.”
“Can you contact Chief Taylor and see if we can get a full history of ships in the lane from the past few weeks? Not just the distress calls. I want to know how many fully registered friendlies are in that lane at any given time along with the rest.”
“Will do,” Deedee assured.
“Good,” Tasía said, seemingly satisfied with the plan. “Let’s talk about us for a minute.”
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Deedee replied, staring daggers at Tommy.
“I don’t want things to get too confusing with what happens here versus what happens on the Thomas. It’s just the four of us and I value all of your input. If everyone does what they’re supposed to do, no one needs to be in anyone else’s hair. Like Lieutenant Wonis does. Right, Jimon?”
Before he could answer, Deedee did: “Sounds good. Out of each other’s hair. And antennae,” she added, pegging Tommy again with what promised to be a ready supply of piercing glares.
Tommy replied with his own comic mug.
The time passed more quickly than Jimon had expected. Tasía was both meticulous and rigorous. The replicator was put through its paces synthesizing different compounds that were then subjected to spectral analysis for accuracy, purity, dosage, and efficacy. Deedee volunteered as an Andorian test patient under several different scenarios where the biobed ran through the motions and queried the medics as to its findings. Tommy volunteered next as the Human patient. Tasía’s own physiology was interesting in how closely it paralleled that of Humans until you got to the neurotransmitters that were wildly different. Jimon assumed incorrectly that Deedee’s initial turn had been enough for Andorian physiology, but Tasía’s recount of events in Lab Two during the nanite invasion had him hopping up into the bed because there were anatomical differences that should not be ignored or conflated.
When they arrived at Bracas V, entry into the shipping lanes was a disquietingly loose affair. Jimon was in the navigation seat next to Deedee in the pilot’s seat. The corridor of traffic was informal and organic, no one directing traffic, no one even taking account of what ships entered and left. Jimon wondered what Chief Taylor would think of all these eyes and tees missing dots and crosses. Tasía and Tommy were in the sick bay going over patient protocols for the umpteenth time, who to tend where and when and how. Tasía was in charge, but Tommy had the experience in these matters. She was relying on his oft-praised bedside manner.
Deedee signed off with CPO Taylor, having performed her daily check-in as requested.
“What do you think of Taylor?” she asked unexpectedly.
Jimon wasn’t sure of the intent of the question. “I like that he’s orderly. He pays attention to details.”
“I was asking more along the lines of whether you think he’s attractive or not.”
Jimon glanced over to find her smiling.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” he replied. “Though, when Dr. Rutherford was on the Thomas, he and I took a trip down to the planet and Taylor grilled him before handing over one of the shuttles.”
“So, he’s not afraid of someone outranking him?”
“Probably not. Are you interested in him?”
She shrugged. “Seems like someone who knows where they are and what they’re doing. I appreciate that.”
A minute of silence went by.
“Is Tommy someone who knows where he is and what he’s doing?” she asked.
“Not always, but me neither, so that’s okay.”
“You two seem like an odd couple. He’s loud, you’re quiet. He’s a goof, and you’re… well, you’re quiet.”
“You know how I grew up, right? Before I was taken to Earth?” he asked, gently stroking his hair clasp. He’d been reminded of his quietness too many times today.
“Everyone knows.”
“You have to be quiet when that’s your life,” he said. He didn’t mean to shock, but the conversation was uncomfortable. “When bad things happen, if you’re quiet, they’re less likely to happen to you.”
“Sorry,” she replied. “Did bad things happen to you?”
He shrugged. “Not really, but yeah.” And a small dam broke. “When I was really little, I didn’t know that the older slaves hadn’t always been slaves like me. I worried that when I got older, I would forget to be quiet and I would get in trouble, like them. I practiced all the time, how to answer without saying anything and not making them mad. The first time I got sold, the guy who bought me thought I was mute for a while.”
Her hand went to her chest.
“That’s not my life anymore, Deedee. But if you want to know me, that’s part of me,” he said, and then, because it was unfair to leave it hanging so grotesquely, “What about you? How did you grow up?”
“Mmm…” she mulled. “My story feels like nothing compared to yours, but clan Thas is very small. And poor. Making good marriage arrangements was all anyone cared about.”
“Lieutenant zh’Raviq told me something similar.”
“Mm-hm,” she said. “Clan Raviq is also small. I know them well. Small clans care about keeping up appearances. Chans do this, thaans do that, shens this, zhens that. It’s all very choreographed, and if you don’t dance the dance just right, you get put to the side.”
Jimon thought about her words for a moment, and realized there was a thread of continuity.
“I say quiet and you say dance, but I think we’re talking about the same thing.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “Yeah, maybe we are.”
“Do you ever miss Andoria? Do you want to see it again?”
“I miss it, but I wouldn’t go back, no,” she said, pulling a grimace. “I said some things when I left that aren’t the kinds of things you can take back.”
“Like what?”
“Little shens in my clan are encouraged to do artwork and sculpting,” she said. “When I was twelve, I entered and won a contest for an abstract ice sculpture I made that would be displayed in the main plaza. It was large and well-received if I do say so myself. I used that to argue my way into structural engineering, so I could make bigger, more complex sculptures that wouldn’t collapse, and they let me, but there was a lot of grumbling and the students were nearly all chans and thaans. When I applied to the Academy and got a spot specializing in material sciences, the clan said no, that I couldn’t do that, so I told them to bite me in a place no proper shen would ever mention in mixed company and I left.”
Jimon chuckled softly, imagining Deedee laying into a roomful of elder Andorians.
“How about clan Thochenek?” Jimon asked. “Are they a big clan or a small one? Norto tells me things, but never anything specific about himself.”
“Oof. Norto. Now there’s a thaan,” she replied with a saucy swing to her voice. “He’ll tell you his story when he’s ready.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Nope, but I’m sure he’s got one.”
“Zyle said it was weird that someone who looks like that wasn’t living a more traditional life.”
“She’s right. It is weird. But don’t let his appearance fool you or let yourself believe that he’s got less right to his privacy just because he’s sexy.”
The forward view screen was an unusual affair. Most of it was a screen that gave a digital version of the view ahead seamlessly integrated into the genuinely transparent port that ran around it. Jimon noticed a growing spot in the distance. Deedee spotted it as well and tapped the screen, which brought up its configuration.
“That’s a big freighter,” Deedee commented. “Five of our ships would fit into just one of their holds, and they’ve got twenty holds. Tellarite. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of them.”
“Plenty’o what?” Tommy asked from behind them.
Deedee indicated the freighter that was now quite visible, no longer just a dot.
Tasía instead pointed to the ship’s chronometer. “It’s almost twenty-two hundred hours on the Thomas. How about you take a break and get some rack time, Deedee.”
“Actually, I’m wide awake, Lieutenant. I’m just gonna be staring at the ceiling.”
“Yeah, me too,” Tasía said. “Tommy, Jimon, you guys are up first. Try and get a few hours of sleep. I’ll need you to relieve Deedee later, Tommy.”
“Roger wilco,” Tommy said.
Jimon gave the nav chair to Tasía and made his way back. Tommy dimmed the lights in the rear as far as they would go, which was pretty far for a medical venue, Tommy noted. If there was one thing patients universally complained about in sickbay, it was the difficulty in finding sleep with all the lights, sounds, and constant circulation of medical staff.
On the first night, he’d quickly deduced that the optimal sleeping position in the fold-downs was with his head to the dividing bulkheads, and facing the outer bulkhead. Tommy was gracious and gave over the lower bunk to Jimon. With the lights down, it afforded almost as much darkness as his own bunk on the Thomas with the privacy door slid shut.
He was out before he knew it.
“Wake up,” Tommy urged. His eyes were puffy with sleep that had been too short.
Jimon shook the fog from his head. The sick bay lights were still dimmed. The stars in the viewports were mere points, no longer stretched. They’d dropped out of warp. Tommy grabbed the edge of the bulkhead, twisted, and popped his back dramatically. They made their way to the cockpit.
“Tagran transport, please respond,” Deedee said, her head turned slightly to the side, listening intently for a reply. “Tagran transport, this is the USS Nancy Caroline. We are a Starfleet medical ship. What is your status?”
Tommy pointed through the side viewport, showing Jimon the cause for their stop. The transport in the distance was not large and certainly not new. She was adrift and dark, her dorsal side facing the direction of travel, her belly facing toward them.
“Tagran?” Jimon said quietly. “What are they doing way out here?”
“Try again,” Tasía urged.
“Tagran transport, this is the USS Nancy Caroline…”
Static popped and crackled over the com, then a weak voice said, “Please… CO2 scrubbers burned… Reactor offline… Please help.”
“How many life signs?”
“Five.”
Tasía took the com. “Tagran transport, we’re on our way. Deedee, can you match their direction and attitude?”
“On it, sir.”
“Tommy, make sure oxygen masks are everywhere they can plug in. And get me five of the portables. Jimon, suit up. You and I are beaming over as soon as Deedee gets the ships lined up.”
Tommy already had a case open and was pulling brand-new masks from their packaging and plugging them into the medical ports along the fold-down bench. Jimon followed Tasía to the rear of the ship where the EV suits were folded and stored in cabinets over the drive assembly. The helmets hung from the opposite wall. Only now did he notice that two were designed for Andorians, and two were standard. He wondered how much of their crew makeup had been known to Sam ahead of time. Perhaps he had just erred to the side of caution. Helmets for Andorians could easily be used by those without antennae.
Tommy approached with a clear transport case with portable oxygen tanks and masks as well as one of the medkits.
“Course and attitude matched, sir,” Deedee called from the front of the ship. “Powering down auxiliary systems and bringing the transporter online.”
“Put us where the majority of the life signs are.”
“Understood.”
The Nancy Caroline swirled out of existence, replaced by the dim interior of the Tagran ship’s bridge. The sensor display cuff on his forearm gave more than one strident warning. Two Tagrans lay strewn across their workstations, and a third was on the deck, all of them lifeless as rag dolls.
“There’s a plasma leak,” he said. “I’m guessing somewhere aft.”
“That’s not good,” Tasía observed.
Tasía went to the Tagran woman who was in what appeared to be the captain’s chair and read her vitals with the tricorder. She shook her, trying to rouse her. The woman finally came awake and nearly fell from her chair to the deck.
“We read two more life signs. Where are they?” she asked.
The woman pointed weakly to the rear of the bridge where there was a doorway.
“I’ll find them,” Jimon said, sparing Tasía the decision. “Get them back to the ship. I’m right behind you.”
She nodded, handing Jimon the remaining oxygen and the tricorder.
She said, “Deedee, on my signal, four to beam out,” and they phased out of view.
The transport was arranged shotgun style, a direct line from the bridge to the rear where a baleful red ribbon of light outlined the entry to engineering, pulsing its universal warning. Doors lined the walls to either side of a long corridor. The plasma leak warning from his suit was ramping up. He punched the control to each door and was greeted with storage containers and mostly empty cargo holds. Halfway down the corridor, a door to the left opened to reveal two people, a man and a woman, apparently Human, in pale lavender and white robes. He tried to rouse them but got no response. They were breathing, but the tricorder indicated dangerously low blood-oxygen levels and the beginnings of cellular corrosion from trace plasma in the air. He slipped masks over each of their faces and secured them.
Tapping the com on his suit’s cuff, he said, “I found the other two. Three to beam out.”
Materializing into the rear of the sickbay, Tommy had already gotten two of the Tagrans into the fold-down beds and was supplying them with oxygen from the bulkhead ports. The third Tagran, the man who’d been on the floor, was being attended by Tasía in the main bed nearest the fold-downs. Jimon removed his helmet and placed it on the bench.
Tasía turned to acknowledge him and stood frozen, staring at the robed people on the deck. Her breathing came deep and heavy.
“The plasma was worse where I found these Humans,” Jimon stated, assuming her reaction was because of their state. “They have pulmonary burns from the plasma.”
She continued to stare at the two figures, saying nothing.
Tommy took note and came to Jimon. He opened one of their eyes to check for pupillary light reflex.
“Not Human - Betazoid. Come on,” he said. “Help me get them in the beds.”
It was a struggle. They were deadweight and floppy, but they finally wrestled each of them into a bed. The sensor collars closed over each of their chests and scanned them.
“Yep, plasma contamination,” Tommy confirmed. “I need two cartridges with four milligrams each of molinazine in aqueous solution.”
“I need one too,” Tasía added.
Jimon grabbed three empty cartridges and went to the replicator, sliding each tube into the specially designed slot next to the standard replicator tray. The solution was requested and the cartridges filled with a pale pink liquid. Tommy had the applicator cuffs already in place around the wrist of the respective patients. Jimon handed him and Tasía the cartridges and busied himself replacing the portable oxygen masks with the ones tied to the beds, then stowing the portables back in their charging stations.
“How’s your guy?” Tommy asked Tasía.
“Blood oxygen is still too low, I’m guessing from the plasma burns. And he’s got a blunt force injury to the left parietal region. Looks like he hit it when he fell.”
Deedee came from the forward section.
“There’s gotta be something I can do, guys,” she said. “The ships are drifting in sync. Put me to work.”
“Grab some absorbent pads from that cabinet,” Tasía answered, pointing with one foot. “There are gloves in there too. Put them on and hold the pads to his head to staunch the bleeding.”
Deedee did as instructed with the professional detachment of someone realigning an EPS panel.
The Tagran woman stirred and tried to remove her mask. Jimon went to her.
“Where are we?” the woman asked when Jimon kneeled to eye level.
“We answered your distress call. We’re Starfleet medics,” he replied, reading the vitals on the screen behind her. She continued trying to remove the mask. “You need to keep that on. Your oxygen is very low and you were breathing concentrated levels of carbon dioxide and trace plasma.”
“My children…” she said.
“There were only the three of you on the bridge and the two passengers farther back. There was no one else.”
“The two… on the bridge… my sons.”
He’d misunderstood. Her crew was made up of her adult children. They were a family.
“They’re here,” he said moving to the side so she could see the man laying in the bunk across from her. “The lieutenant is with your other son. He hit head.”
“Is he going to be alright?”
“The wound isn’t bad,” Tasía said. “But head wounds bleed a lot. I need to suture it. Do your people have any objections to that?”
“Whatever you can do,” she croaked. “I beg you, help him.”
Jimon assured her they would do everything in their power. He gently refit the mask over her mouth and nose, though the ridges of her facial features made it less than an ideal fit. He turned up the oxygen a couple of points to compensate.
Tasía got the Tagran’s bleeding under control and continued to monitor his blood oxygen. Within an hour, he had regained consciousness and the Tagran woman and her other son were sitting up, though Tasía insisted they continue receiving oxygen. Plasma contamination was minimal compared to the two in robes, whom she allowed Jimon and Tommy to monitor, and though she requested updates every few minutes, it was clear that she refused to even look at them. They remained unconscious. It was as unlike Tasía as Jimon had ever experienced, and whatever it was remained unmentioned, though somehow Tommy seemed to know and was quietly allowing her to continue.
The Tagran woman, who told them her name was Inata, had regained her strength sufficiently to explain what had happened. A power surge had ruptured the manifold causing a high-pressure jet of plasma to burn out the carbon dioxide scrubbers before they managed to shut the core down. Her eldest son Vonn, who was the ship’s engineer, had gone to assess the damage and run back to the bridge, warning them not to go into engineering. He’d collapsed to the floor, hitting his head on the edge of the engineering console when he fell. Wendo, her younger son at the helm, had initiated the distress call before they all succumbed.
“I can’t believe no one stopped,” Deedee said, in shock.
“We have nothing with which to pay,” said Inata.
“Pay?” said Tasía. “That’s horrible. You owe us nothing.”
“That will bring you trouble,” Inata replied. “Someone did respond. A Mazarite ship. There is help, but only if you can pay, and they won’t take kindly to you helping for free. I assume it must be well known in this lane because no one else stopped until you did.”
“Your homeworld in the Argolis Cluster is four sectors away,” Jimon observed. “What brings you this far out?”
“There is a lien on the ship with the Bank of Bolias,” she replied. “Those Betazoids are on some kind of pilgrimage. They paid enough to lift the lien. My sons are hard working men, but them and the ship - it’s all I have.”
“You and your sons will be fine,” advised Tasía. “The mask isn’t very comfortable, I know, but you must keep it on. Jimon, check on the other two and then come up to the crew section and let these people rest.”
She went forward and was followed by Deedee.
Jimon shrugged a silent question at Tommy.
What gives?
Tommy said nothing and also went forward.
The Betazoid woman was rousing.
“What... What’s going on?” she mumbled thickly.
Jimon placed a hand gently on her shoulder to announce his presence without startling her. Her eyes opened revealing the same large dark irises Tasía had. She eyed him from tip to as far down as the bed allowed her to see.
“Andorian? Starfleet. Where are we?” she asked.
“You’re on a medical ship. The transport you were on suffered a plasma leak.”
“Where is she?”
“The captain of the transport is here,” Jimon answered, gesturing to the fold-down in which Inata now lay with the oxygen mask.
“No, the Betazoid woman. I can feel her,” she rasped. “Where is she?”
“You need to rest,” Jimon replied. “You shouldn’t speak yet. There’s damage to your lungs and also the man who’s with you. But you’re receiving treatment.”
“My husband, Ion.” She craned her neck trying to find him.
“He’s here, on the bed behind and to your right. He’s still unconscious.”
“Please ask her to come speak with me,” the woman insisted. “Her barriers are very strong. I cannot communicate with her mind.”
“I’ll let her know you’re awake,” Jimon said, not wishing to commit to more than that.
Jimon left her and joined the rest of the crew forward in the ship.
Tasía was in the nav seat.
“Even if I had what I needed, there’s no working in there until the plasma is dealt with. The carbon dioxide is the least of it,” Deedee said.
“What if we vent the ship?”
“Yeah, that’s the obvious solution - vent and repressurize - assuming there’s nothing in their cargo that’ll get damaged by hard vacuum. Plasma is insidious and corrosive, so we’d need to open every nook and cranny. But our ship is designed to fix broken bodies, not broken plasma manifolds. We either ferry them to Tellar or we call for an assist.”
“I’d rather get them back on their ship and on their way,” Tasía said gravely.
“Lieutenant,” Jimon said, trying to call her attention.
“She’s awake. I know. You’ve told me,” she said in an uncharacteristic clipped tone. “Thank you.”
“They mentioned profiteering in this lane,” Tommy said, returning to the subject at hand. “If we call for an assist, won’t that alert whoever these profiteers are?”
Deedee was staring at the spot between Jimon, Tommy, and Tasía where the unspoken tension concerning the patients hung.
“Hold on,” she said. “Lieutenant, the fellahs are clearly not going to ask, so I’m asking, what’s the deal with those two in the robes? Why are you being so weird?”
She exhaled a long breath through her nose, staring at the table.
In a low voice: “They belong to a small but loud political faction called Katharoti. They’ll tell you that it means clarity, and it does. But it also means purity. Betazed has nothing remotely like Starfleet, and no military power to speak of, so they believe that Betazed’s place in the Federation is directly tied to our telepathic and empathic abilities. They’ll tell you that what they care about is pride in our abilities, that those who are stronger should be esteemed. What they won’t tell you is that they run centers for people whose abilities are only dim or absent. If you know about the centers and press them, they’ll say they’re helping the unfortunate. But you don’t ever hear from those people again. When I was ten, my abilities flowered, which is right around the same age for most people. My friend Letha waited and waited and prayed but it didn’t happen for her. When she turned twelve, her parents sent her to one of the centers. She was the smartest and the prettiest and I have no idea what happened to her. That’s my deal.” She wiped away stubborn tears made of anger. “Their pilgrimage the captain mentioned? They call themselves shepherds, the ones who wear those robes. They look for Betazoids with strong psionic ratings to coerce them to return home. Betazoids like me.”
“Did you already know that?” Jimon asked Tommy.
“Yeah, I knew about them,” he said. “She told me about her friend Letha a while back, but it’s not my story to tell.”
Tasía exhaled noisily. “The man is also awake now,” she reported.
“I’ll go check on them,” Tommy said, sliding out of the booth.
“I’ll get the call out for the assist,” Deedee said.
“Wait. The concern is valid,” Tasía countered. “What if we draw attention we can’t handle?”
“I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve, Lieutenant,” she replied opening a channel. “To any Starfleet vessels in the vicinity, this is the USS Nancy Caroline. We have an excess of impulse drive coolant to trade for feedstock if anyone is in need. I repeat - we have an excess of impulse drive coolant if anyone is in need.”
“Impulse drive coolant?” Jimon asked when she’d closed the channel.
“If there’s any Starfleet near, let’s hope there’s an engineer on the horn,” she said. “They’ll know what it means. It’s old boomer code for a warp core that’s having serious issues.”
“How do you know that?”
“You’re not the only one who paid attention in class,” she said.
“Come on,” Tasía said to Jimon. “Let’s go talk to the captain about venting that ship.”
“I’ll do it if you don’t want to go back there.”
“No,” she replied. “Thank you, but no. I’m not going to hide from them on our ship.”
Still, Jimon took the lead.
As Tasía had informed, both of the Betazoids were now conscious, though the man’s chest still rattled when he coughed. Tommy kept the woman occupied while Tasía spoke to the Tagran captain.
“No, most of the storage containers are empty,” the captain said. “Just our personal effects and I don’t think there’s anything there that would be a problem.”
“There’s no point going back aboard with the manifold compromised,” said Wendo, the younger of the two male Tagrans. “And last I checked, there’s no spare.”
“He’s right,” said the other man, Vonn. “We have no way of fabricating a new one.”
“We can take you the rest of the way to Tellar,” Tommy offered.
“And have someone take our ship for scrap and salvage?” said Wendo.
“My pilot has issued a request for assistance from any Starfleet vessels that are nearby,” Tasía assured. “It was a coded message, so we shouldn’t run into trouble.”
“Tasía, if I could have a moment of your time,” said the Betazoid woman.
No one had said Tasía’s name in her presence as of yet. She could not have heard it out loud.
Tasía adopted a stiff expression and turned her attention to the Betazoid woman for the first time.
“How are you feeling?” she asked her, keeping the conversation under her control. “Does your chest feel too tight? Ensign Cooper can give you something to help you relax.”
“There is tightness when I breathe,” she replied. “But I wish to speak to you, sister.”
“Perhaps later,” Tasía said, as taut as the strings of his mother’s balalaika. “When you are feeling better.”
“You are lost, sister.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Tasía said. “But I can assure you that I am anything but lost.”
“Then why do you hide behind those walls?” asked the man, the first words he had spoken.
Tasía’s face was turning red.
“As a courtesy to my shipmates,” she said. “Their privacy is important to them, so it’s important to me. Ensign Cooper, how is his blood oxygen?”
“Still low, but it’s rising now that he’s awake.”
“You would not have to do that with us,” he continued. “You would be free. Your mind would be free to open as wide as it can. You would not be trapped, like this one here.”
He pointed to Jimon.
“You’re strong. You must sense it,” he pressed. “Many Andorians are latent. It’s right there, just beneath the surface, and sadly, that’s all it will ever be. There’s no way for him to pierce the shell. It’s cruel that nature does this to them, yet you choose to do it to yourself.”
“Leave him alone,” she said, glancing at Jimon. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“But I do,” he replied. “He would have freed himself if he could do what you can. He would have taken control of his captors easily and never have lived that life.”
Jimon’s antennae laid so flatly against his head, the airflow through them was cut off. Tasía lived under constant fear that someone would accuse her of what this man had just done.
“How dare you? How dare you go into his mind and take what’s not yours?” The shock bleached the redness from her face. “If you had even a hint of what happened to him, how could you violate him like that? You would know about cruelty, wouldn’t you?” she spat. “You took my best friend from me when I was a child. She just disappeared. Where is she? Where is Letha?”
“That must have been long ago, sister. I can feel how strong you are,” he insisted. “Barriers like yours are no mean feat.”
“I’m not your sister.”
Tasía’s gaze turned inward. She frowned, then winced. Sweat broke out on her upper lip and forehead. Something was happening between the three of them, something with no sound or smell or anything he could detect other than Tasía’s pained expression.
“Stop!” Jimon shouted.
The woman’s eyes moved to him, then through him. Like wind through trees, she slipped through the spaces in his mind. He hadn’t felt the man in his head, but he felt the woman. She took his limbs from him. They could move, but they would not. He tried to speak, but there was an impasse somewhere between mind and tongue.
“Yes. Very strong,” said the woman.
Tasía suddenly inhaled great lungfuls of air and crumpled to the deck. The invisible hand that held Jimon as efficiently as an Orion restraining device released him.
Tommy came from behind Tasía with a hypospray in hand and teeth bared.
“Wait, no…” but Tommy had already injected the woman.
Tommy paused mid-step toward the man. His lips trembled. His eyes danced wildly in their sockets. Vonn shot up from the bench, pulled the hypospray from Tommy’s death grip, and injected the man in the neck with it.
They lost consciousness in seconds.
Tommy gasped, then kneeled to help Tasía up off the floor.
“You okay?” he said, scanning her eyes.
“I’m okay,” she assured him. “They were working together, trying to get past my barriers. They almost did, Tommy.”
“When you said coerce, I didn’t think you meant that.”
“I didn’t,” she admitted. “It’s unthinkable.”
“Put that away, Vonn,” warned Inata.
They turned to see the Tagran man pointing a phase pistol at the Betazoids, the hypospray discarded on the floor.
“I had no idea they could do that. What if they do it again? To us?” he said.
“They’re sedated,” Tommy replied using his soft voice. “They won’t be able to do anything for a while.”
Jimon approached him slowly, his hand extended.
“It’s a small ship,” he said, and then, stretching the truth, “If you pierce the hull, we’re doomed. There aren’t enough EV suits for everyone.”
Tasía said, “Some species are very hard or impossible to read. Yours is one of them. I don’t think they could do that to you.”
Vonn’s hand trembled, but he gave the pistol to Jimon who then passed it to Inata.
“We got a reply!” Deedee said, coming into the sick bay, her tone dropping instantly when she saw the situation. “And what is going on here?”
“They did something to your lieutenant,” said Inata.
“Take her up front, Tommy,” said Jimon. “Deedee, can you help me?”
“Uh… why is there a pistol?” she asked.
“Just hand me that kit.” He turned to Vonn. “You’re bleeding again. Let me fix that.”
While he sutured the edge of the wound closed, he gave Deedee the quick and dirty version of events.
“Well,” she said when he was done. “That’s thanks for ya’.”
“You said we got a reply?”
“The Escondido. She’ll be here in less than an hour.”
“That’s a Cali class ship,” he said turning to Inata. “They’ll be able to fabricate the manifold and repair the scrubbers. We’ll get your ship back underway.”
“I don’t want them back on the ship,” said Vonn. “They lied and they are dangerous.”
“Neither do I,” his brother agreed, then began coughing again and had difficulty stopping.
Jimon finished the suture and said, “We should wait until the Escondido arrives to discuss what happens next. You need to rest now. All of you.”
Inata brought the full weight of both mother and captain to bear on her crew. The two men grumbled, but they fell in line.
Tasía sat silently with Tommy at the table in the crew section. Her mug of tea sat ignored in front of her. Tommy looked like a dark storm rolling in.
“The Tagrans don’t want those two on their ship,” Deedee informed.
“I don’t blame them,” Tommy said acidly. “I thought Betazoids had rules about that kind of thing.”
“We have more than rules,” Tasía said. “We have laws.”
“Good!” Tommy replied. “How does that work?”
“Inconveniently,” she said. “It would mean going back to Betazed and pressing charges and there would be a trial and I would have to open myself to examination and… my life would be derailed. Katharoti are political. They have friends in high places.”
“Okay, but they can’t just get away with that,” Tommy said, his anger mounting.
“They’re counting on it. In order to get that close to me, they had to let me get just as close to them. I saw it. I heard it. This far from home, they think they’re untouchable, that no one would bother to report them. They don’t care. They don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.”
“So much for idyllic Betazed,” Tommy said. “I sorta figured it was one big park where everyone was happy and sunshiny.”
“Far from it,” Tasía said.
After a moment, Deedee added, “There’s a saying on Andoria. There are always three stories. The one you tell about yourself, the one others tell about you, and then what actually happened. Does anyone ever live up to their ideals? I’m sure you Humans have a few bugs under the bed.”
“Lots,” Tommy said.
“See?” she replied. “The story Humans usually tell about themselves is the one about how heroic Starfleet is and how you were founding members of the Federation, and, wow, these uniforms are so crisp. The story others tell about you is that you’ve been warp-capable for all of ten minutes and you enjoy acting like the alpha quadrant is your personal property. No one’s perfect.”
“What about you?” he shot back with an unimpressed expression.
“That’s easy,” she said. “Did you think I was going to backpedal? Andorians say our culture is ancient, rich, and complex - filled with highly nuanced facets no other race could possibly understand. The truth is that we’re stubborn, we worship tradition and form over reason and logic - which the Vulcans made sure we would always regard as suspicious - and for the past millennia or so, our population has been on the cusp of collapse but no one is willing to budge to fix it. Not remotely perfect.”
There were more than three stories, Jimon thought to himself. The stories he’d heard in the slave camps about the different species were far worse. In those stories, Humans were gullible, soft, and stank - Klingons were barely functional idiots - Andorians were feeble in both body and mind - Vulcans were obtuse to the point of blindness about anything that fell outside their sense of logic - Romulans were just Vulcans with bad table manners, and Orions - the irony was that though the camps were run by Orions, the stories they told about themselves were the very worst of all.
The com chirped from the cockpit.
“USS Nancy Caroline, this is the Escondido off your port side. Please respond.”
“That was fast,” Deedee noted, getting up to answer the hail. From the cockpit, she said, “USS Escondido, we’re glad to see you. The Tagran transport is in need of repairs and we’ve had an incident. I’ll let Lieutenant Athena fill you in. She’s in command of the ship.”
There was a long pause and then a new voice came over the com.
“Lieutenant Athena? Tasía Athena?”
That voice rocketed Jimon nine years into the past. It was older, and more mature, but still the same.
“Uh… yes?” Deedee replied.
Tasía went to the com.
“This is Lieutenant Athena. With whom am I speaking?”
“Captain Bradward Boimler at your service,” he replied. “That’s a sharp-looking little sled, Lieutenant. Bet I know who put her together.”
The situation with the Betazoids was momentarily forgotten as all eyes were on Jimon.
“There’s someone else here I think you know, sir. Ensign Rozhenko is part of the crew.”
Another moment of silence and then, “Permission to beam over, Lieutenant?”
There was no mistaking that his voice had nearly broken.
“Of course, sir. We’ve been waiting for you.”
A few minutes later, two people were transported over. One was a muscular red-headed Human man, and the other, also Human, was a string bean with a lavender stripe running from the part in his greying hair and across his forehead. Like Commander Tendi, he seemed smaller somehow, though Jimon was sure he himself had simply grown and the memories he had of these people had grown with him to immense proportions.
Yes, there were definitely more than just three stories.
He had been thrilled to reunite with Commander Tendi and Dr. Rutherford. And Beckett had always been in his life. But seeing Brad - Captain Boimler now, he would have to remember - filled him with apprehension. Jimon had curled his skinny, sixteen-year-old arm into that man’s chest on the dusty ground beneath a ripped and stained tarp trying to stay warm. He had hidden cold food for him so he could eat.
What if I hadn’t spoken to him, where would I be today? Jimon asked himself for the millionth time across the years.
They stared at one another. Jimon watched his Adam’s apple bob when he swallowed his emotion.
“Captain Boimler, thank you so much for answering so quickly,” Tasía said, popping the bubble that contained them.
Clearing his throat, he said, “Of course, Lieutenant. This is my chief of security, Lieutenant Jenkins. You said there was an incident?”
But his eyes never left Jimon.
“Yes, Captain. We can discuss that in a minute. The situation with the Tagran transport is more pressing. There’s a plasma leak in engineering that fried part of their life support - the CO2 scrubbers.”
“We should be able to deal with that,” he replied. “And your patients? My sick bay is at your disposal. The ship’s doctor wanted to beam over with me, but I didn’t want to undermine what you’re doing here.”
Inata replied, “I am the captain of that transport. These medics have been very good to us. My son is alive because of them. But these two-” She pointed at the unconscious forms. “They are - or were - my passengers. They attacked the lieutenant. They are no longer welcome on my ship.”
Captain Boimler’s eyes made their way back to Tasía. “I assume that’s the incident in question. They don’t look capable of attacking anyone.”
“They’re Betazoid, Captain,” Deedee supplied. “They attacked her the way only another Betazoid could.”
His eyes went wide and round.
“I see,” he replied. “That’s… Wow.”
“Yep,” Tommy agreed. “I mean, yes, sir. Wow.”
Captain Boimler thought for a moment. “Okay. Lieutenant, you feel comfortable beaming over with my chief of security and giving a statement?”
She nodded.
“Who’s your engineer, Captain?” he asked Inata who indicated it was Vonn. “You go with them and give my guys the specs on your ship so we get it right the first time.”
“I would also like to give a statement,” Vonn added. “We all saw what happened. It should not be just the lieutenant’s word against theirs. If they lied to us, they’ll lie again.”
“Can they be moved?” Brad asked, looking at the two Betazoids.
“Shouldn’t be a problem, Captain,” Tommy replied. “They’re gonna have one heck of a headache, though. I didn’t really have time to be precise with the dose. They should probably go directly to sick bay to monitor them. Besides what happened here, they have plasma burns to their lungs.”
“You used a hypospray as a weapon on patients?” he said, his voice taking on a note of concern.
Tommy blanched.
“He had no choice, Captain,” Inata said. “If you need my statement as well, you may have it. That boy is blameless.”
“I may need that statement,” Captain Boimler replied. “We have medical rules of ethics by which we must abide.”
“He only injected the woman,” Vonn said. “I injected the man. If there had been no hypospray, I would have shot them dead. Your man spared their lives. The young Andorian took my pistol from me.”
Captain Boimler let out a loud, lip-flappy breath.
“Okay, Jenkins, you got it from here, right?”
“Yes, sir.” Tapping his combadge: “Escondido, on my signal, four to beam directly to sick bay.”
Tasía, Jenkins, and the two Betazoids swirled out of the ship and Jimon was relieved their troublesome patients were gone but worried about what it might mean for Tommy.
And there was Captain Boimler, the final and most difficult reunion. In the first years with the Rozhenkos, Jimon had unwittingly made an imaginary friend out of his memory, having whispered conversations with him in his room or out in the woods. This was before Boris and Vera had transformed into brother and sister. Tasía had rebuked the epithet of sister from the two interlopers, but he had sought it with his new family. And after a time, he’d stopped speaking to no one in empty rooms and fields.
To have him reappear was like the fairytales his mother told him of magical folk who live in rivers, caves, and trees, stepping out from mossy grottos as people.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, and it breached a membrane behind which Jimon had kept the first sixteen years of his life. It poured out like a flood, things he’d forgotten, names he had not uttered in years, people whose whereabouts he no longer knew.
“We should go… to the cockpit… and see what’s going on with the Tagran transport, Deedee,” Tommy said in his clumsy, ham-fisted way.
“Uh, yes. That’s a good idea,” she replied, equally devoid of guile.
“Don’t go,” he said. To Jimon: “Is he the fellah they told me about?”
Jimon nodded.
“Relax,” he said to Tommy. “Taking it all in at face value, you did what you had to. I’m not planning on pressing that point. But if the two patients do, we may have no choice but to deal with it.”
“It’s okay, Captain,” Tommy said. “Not my first rodeo. When you pull up my record, you’ll see more than a few dents and scrapes.”
“Yeah, mine too,” Brad answered. “This guy right here is one of them. I’m sure he’s told you the story.”
“What I could,” Jimon agreed.
“Ah! About that,” he said in surprise. “And here I thought I had nothing to give you. Sam finally got that mission declassified. You don’t have to lie about that anymore.”
He gestured for them to sit at the table where Tasía’s mug of cold tea still sat.
“You want to tell them, or should I?” Brad asked, sliding into the booth.
“It was your mission, sir,” Jimon replied. “You guys did a good job of keeping me out of it.”
“Long story short, there was more than an Orion slave camp on that planet. They’d found a Slaver stasis box with a living Tnuctip inside. That’s what we’re calling them, anyway. Seems like they were a technologically very advanced species subjugated by the Slavers. The Orions forced the being to construct a mass transporter that could transmit from the far end of the Delta Quadrant. We were there to shut that down, infiltrating in disguise as slaves, and the skinniest, grubbiest little Andorian kid you ever saw starts talking to me while we’re in line to get restraining devices implanted in our necks. He was all, hey, I’m Jimon, don’t worry, you’ll do fine, like it was just a Tuesday for him and I’m practically crapping myself in nothing but a little leather speedo and gladiator sandals.”
“So, you weren’t there to break up the slave camp?” Deedee asked.
“Unfortunately, no. That was just the cover,” he replied. “Beckett and Worf are still fighting that fight as best they can, though. It’s more complicated than you’d think. Anyway, Jimon makes a little safe spot for us in among some crates and hides some food for us.”
“So you saved him,” Deedee finished.
Brad squeezed Jimon’s hand across the table. “I don’t think I saved him. I think he saved me. Like I said, you’re not the only one with a colorful record, Ensign Cooper. You’ve heard of the Boimler Effect? How many Boimlers do you think there are in Starfleet?”
To hear the captain speak it so plainly, the weight of that secret lifting from Jimon’s chest was breathtaking.
“That feel better?” he asked. “Sam said it was getting in your way. He’s been petitioning for months to get it lifted. They’re working on a joint project with the VSA. Very similar technology.”
“That’s it?” Tommy asked, perplexed. “A tricked-out transporter? That was the big secret?”
Captain Boimler counted off on his fingers. “And an antique Section 31 Nimrod Class that I’m sure Worf still has stashed away somewhere, a billion-year-old alien taken out of stasis, and the Borg Queen doing a respectable job of getting into my husband’s head.”
“Oh,” was Tommy’s monosyllabic reply.
“Sam did a good job of keeping this little ship a secret, though.”
“I’m supposed to send him copies of my logs,” said Deedee. “First thing I’m going to mention is that we didn’t take security into account. And we could use a door between this section and the sickbay.”
“Any of you have more than basic self-defense?”
They all shook their heads.
“Five would be an uncomfortable fit in here. One of you should think about cross-training. Maybe a couple of you. And you’re right about it being one continuous compartment. Are there at least shields to section it off?”
“Just the emergency shields in case of a hull breach,” Deedee answered. “But I think with a little time in the shuttle bay, I should be able to rig them manually as well.”
“Captain Boimler,” chirped Brad’s combadge. “We’ll be venting the Tagran ship in a moment to begin repairs. The arrangement of the manifold and carbon dioxide scrubbers in engineering is pretty tight, so we fabricated replacements that test well above the original specs. With regular maintenance, it shouldn’t be a problem again. The engineer from their ship seems real pleased.”
“Excellent,” he replied. “How about our two guests? What’s the situation?”
“That’s where it gets interesting, sir. Calista and Ion Trelos, husband and wife. They’re wanted by officials on Betazed for several allegations very similar to what Lieutenant Athena and the Tagran engineer report. They’re sending a ship and asked that we detain them.”
“That’s you off the hook,” he said softly to Tommy.
“Good,” said Wendo from behind them.
“Let them know they have our full cooperation,” Captain Boimler replied. “Have the doctor keep them in sick bay and post security. Make sure Ensign Froura is one of them. I want a Betazoid on hand in case they try anything else. And when Lieutenant Athena returns to her ship, I want you to supply her with four phasers and a compression phaser rifle.”
“Understood, Captain. The engineering team just launched, sir. You should be able to see them from there.”
Deedee tuned the forward center screen to give a close-up of the work. A Type 6a shuttle docked with the Tagran ship. Nothing happened for several minutes as they watched, then puffs of vapor suddenly sprouted from several points on the ship and dissipated into the void as the interior was opened to the vacuum. The team made short work of replacing the damaged equipment with Vonn’s help.
“Captain.” This time it was Vonn over Inata’s communicator. “The Starfleet ship has supplied us with several pressurized canisters of O2 to replace what was lost to space with plenty to spare. Bringing systems back online now, but we should be ready to continue very soon.”
“Acknowledged,” Inata said. “I can offer nothing in return but my thanks to you and these young people. I could not help but overhear the tale of how you met this boy. You are brave, good people.” She glanced at Tommy. “Even if there are dents and scratches. If our paths ever cross again, it will be as friends.”
“Yes,” said Wendo. “As friends.”
The entire repair job had taken close to three hours. The Tagran ship was a living thing once again, no longer a floating hulk. Inata and Wendo were beamed back aboard with a continued course of treatment for the injuries they’d sustained. Tasía had returned armed to the teeth with weaponry that Tommy stowed away temporarily until Tasía decided where they would be kept.
He and Captain Boimler were alone in the back now that all the patients had either been released or were currently in custody.
“I really wish I had been there with Sam and Beckett,” he said.
“I’m glad you weren’t,” Jimon replied, making Brad’s brow furrow. “I don’t think I could have handled it all at one time. You, Sam, the nanite invasion.”
Captain Boimler chuckled. “I wasn’t just being sentimental when I said that you saved me. You did. I didn’t really have a path and all I knew as an ensign was that I was never going to be as smart or buff or good-looking or fight as well as all the people around me. And then I met you and I found a path and I stopped worrying about all that crap and just paid attention to what I was doing.”
“Finding a path isn’t easy, is it?” Jimon observed.
“No, it sure as heck isn’t, but I’m looking and I see that you found yours, which I’m sure you’ve already heard from D’Vana and Beckett and Sam and even Worf. This is a good little crew in here. If I were a medic, I would think this was a dream assignment.”
“It is pretty cool,” Jimon agreed.
“All right,” he said. “I need to let you all continue your mission. If you hug me or anything, I’m gonna fall into a million little pieces, and…”
That was exactly what Jimon did, what he’d wanted to do for going on ten years. He doubted there would ever be a time when he could fully put aside his life before they’d met, but now he could move forward. As the Escondido had repaired the Tagran transport, meeting Captain Boimler again had repaired a part of him, a main gear that connected to many other gears that could now turn and do their work.
“All of us. Vacation. At the vineyard. Plan on it,” he said as he phased out of the ship.
“I never get used to it,” Tommy said. “I keep waiting for Picard or Riker to just pop into our lives like no big deal.”
“Sam’s pretty tight with Geordi La Forge. Wanna meet him?”
“Ooo! I do!” said Deedee. “But first, I wanna hear what went down on the Escondido. What kinds of lies did they tell?”
“They didn’t get the chance,” Tasía replied. “They brought in a Batazoid from security, and this time, with my consent, I let her see what had happened. Along with the prior allegations hanging over them, that was enough to shut them up.”
“There were revelations here too,” Tommy said in a comically mysterious voice. “Jimon Rozhenko’s secret mission is no longer a secret.”
“Wait… what?” Tasía blurted.
They all sat at the table and Jimon recounted every detail he could remember, every word he’d been forbidden to say to his friends.
He told them all of it.
The End