22. Chapter 22 (1/2)

— chapter 22 —

for trip, boarding the vulcan liner tu'lus held a whiff of deja-vu, for it felt so similar to boarding the t'lek sor and being suddenly surrounded by vulcans. this ship carried some thirty-five hundred passengers, of which some nine hundred were humans returning to earth, while the rest of the passengers were vulcans headed to earth for work, business, or pleasure. that last reason for visiting earth, pleasure, might seem odd given the romulan attacks occurring regularly on earth, but such things were happening on vulcan as well, and thus they were a fact of life.

as a first class passenger, trip's way was made easier as he'd pre-boarded early, after which he'd been guided to his cabin by a helpful member of the vulcan crew, and once behind the closed door of his cabin, trip sighed with relief.

it was finally over. he was finally done with that whole mess with t'pol, the tension between him and jon… now it was time to move on to a new challenge and a fresh start. this would be a five day flight to earth, and although trip was curious to see the ship and it's workings, he'd take this first night to decompress.

the suite was a good start towards that end, and compared to his former quarters aboard the enterprise, this suite was palatial. a king sized bed with a pleasantly firm mattress, a beautiful bathroom with both shower and a deep soaking tub, and a small, but quite serviceable, living room with a sweet multi-media center, and the entire suite decorated in the restrained but beautiful design which characterized vulcan sensibilities.

satisfied with his quarters, trip drew a bottle of tequila from his duffel bag, even as the tub was filling up with hot water. the bottle had been a going away present from dillard, and in view of that trip knew that the booze would be a damned fine tequila… and indeed it was. ten minutes later, trip climbed into the tub of hot water, and allowed the heat, and the tequila to leech the last traces of tension from his body.

"this is the life," said trip a few shots later, then laughed aloud, buzzed and happy: it was good to let go of the past.

the morning after his meeting with admiral forrest and his introduction to the two diplomats he'd be ferrying to andoria, archer woke in a lousy mood, for he'd found out about trip's transfer off the enterprise upon returning to the ship, and giving the logbook a quick once over. hoping that the log entry had been a mistake, archer had double-checked that entry with acting captain orram, but no dice. trip was gone, and a

ief email from the man wishing archer well was clearly nothing more than a gesture motivated by courtesy, rather than genuine desire.

dressing quickly, archer headed for the captain's mess and

eakfast with t'pol, as the pattern of working meals they'd fallen into allowed them to hit the ground running each day and function more efficiently, so jon was resolved to keep them going, despite trip's absence.

"good morning, t'pol," said archer as he stepped into the captain's mess.

"good morning, captain," said t'pol, and eyed archer as the man took his seat.

the captain's steward returned just then with some blueberry tea for t'pol, and said, "coffee, captain?"

"please," said archer, and waited for the coffee in silence.

once the captain had taken his first sip of coffee and sighed aloud, t'pol said, "i understand we have a new chief engineer."

"yes," said archer, and left it at that.

"may i ask why?" said t'pol, for though she knew commander tucker was gone, she could think of no good reason to justify the man's absence. "i find starfleet's actions of pilfering your crew to be most illogical. surely the fleet has more than one engineer."

archer's first instinct was to reply sarcastically, or say nothing at all, but he quelled that instinct. t'pol was still his executive officer, she was a good officer, and as his xo she deserved a civil response, despite the fact that archer privately held her responsible for trip's departure.

"starfleet has been plagued with problems and delays in getting ships out of space dock in time," said archer. "it's a matter of shortages in some of the critical components, due to the romulan attacks, as well as shortages in qualified personnel. but more than that, trip is the lead engineer on the nx project. if anyone can get the columbia out of dock in record time, it's him."

t'pol nodded in understanding, just as the captain's steward came to take their

eakfast order. minutes later, captain and subcommander returned to their discussion.

"anyway, earthgov is

inging other facilities online," said archer, "to fix the shortage problems, and starfleet has ramped up recruitment. after the

utal romulan attack on starfleet's hq campus we have more volunteers than we need, but it still takes time to put those people through the training and work them through the system."

"i see," said t'pol. "in any case, i am surprised that we had no advance notice of this transfer."

"admiral ryan contacted him yesterday, asked trip's opinion on some possible candidates to take over the columbia's engineering department," said archer, "and trip volunteered for the task of seeing the columbia combat ready, and launched out of space dock."

"after which he will return to the enterprise?" said t'pol, noting that the captain had diplomatically left out any personal comments speculating on the possible reasons which might have motivated commander tucker to volunteer, so eagerly, to leave the enterprise.

"no," said archer, finding the thought painful. "trip's taking a position as the columbia's executive officer, the xo, what you vulcans call a first officer."

"i see," said t'pol, seemingly unfazed by the captain's words, though she felt a dull pain in her heart, as well as the onset of what felt like a nasty headache, all at the thought of commander tucker's departure. "well, commander tucker has always spoken well of dillard, and the man's record shows that he is a competent engineer."

"dillard's a good man," said archer. "not as good as trip, but he's been trained by trip, and hopefully he'll grow quickly into the role of chief engineer."

t'pol nodded in agreement with the captain's sentiments, just as the steward entered the room once more and served t'pol, and then archer, their

eakfasts: a sweet avocado smoothie and a fruit platter for the vulcan, a whey protein and espresso coffee shake, two

eakfast burritos and some hash

owns for archer.

"anything else, sirs?" said the steward.

t'pol shook her head and murmured a thanks, and archer said, "we're good. thank you."

"in addition to trip's transfer," said archer, "we've got a list of ten promotions, mostly among the crew, save for dillard and reed, both of whom are promoted from lieutenant, to lt-commander."