Chapter 8: Vulcan Geography

Malcolm sighed with relief when the shuttle lifted off. Even though Hoshi would by now already have arrived in Japan, he was still looking forward to getting back to the relative sanity of life aboard the ship. He was feeling utterly numb after trying to disentangle the utter mess that went by the euphemistic term 'The Reed Family'.

It was still not clear what had made his mother smell the cordite and finally divorce that rotten old scumbag, but in the end it didn't matter. That she did it was what counted in the end. He was more than happy to leave the sordid details of the actual divorce proceedings to his sister, who would have mum at her place for the time being.

Not leaving anything to chance he had left a generous sum of currency with his old colleague Falkner from the days in the section. Like himself, the Dutchman had walked out from the section when it started to become Harris' personal assassination service and he was now building up a business in the private security sector.

To make sure than not surprises would be sprung on his family, Maddy's house was now under constant surveillance, because at one point the old man would show up and make trouble. Not so much because he missed mum, but because a Reed, at least one as psychopathic as his father, would not accept the humiliation of being dumped by his wife. Well, there was a first time for everything, he thought with grim satisfaction.

A beer sounded like a good idea right now, and if Trip was up to it, a jolly good arse-thumping; some pain just to remind him he was still alive after the tedium of the last few days. But then he remembered that today was Friday, so unless she'd given up on being Vulcan, the schedule-obsessed science officer would show up for 'engaging in sexual relations', meaning that it wouldn't be his arse that was in for a jolly good shagging.

It was definitely not the most elegant contact with the launch bay grappler in the ship's history, but Malcolm was too frustrated to care right now. He started powering the systems down while the robotic arm hoisted the shuttle back into the belly of the ship.

Trip was alone on the deck when he walked up the stars.

"Welcome back, pal."

The engineer was entirely too chirpy for his frustrated mood, but he endured it.

"You look like hell, man. I guess it was the usual 'fun'?" the engineer asked, obviously sensing his glum mood.

"Just a little bit more ridiculous than usual this time," Malcolm snorted sarcastically. "I'm seriously starting to hope that they mixed up two babies in hospital and I'm actually not related to that utter pikey."

"That calls for a beer, twenty-hundred my place?"

"You're on," Malcolm confirmed and turned to go, but was held back. He looked at Trip win a mixture of annoyance and impatience.

"Malcolm, when you get to your quarters; there's a PADD on the desk. Read that before you do the paranoid thing and start checking security logs."

He waited a moment for any further explanation, but Trip just gave him a pat on the back and walked off.

Malcolm hoisted his duffel over his shoulder and walked out too.

The walk wasn't too long as most of the journey was done by turbo-lift. Upon entering Hoshi's quarters, which were unofficially actually their shared place he could pick up the faint smell of Hoshi's favorite perfume. He dropped the bag, closed his eyes and inhaled the scent. It was the first positive moment after days of frustration and anger and he enjoyed it for a while.

Remembering Trip's instruction, he looked for the ominous PADD and found it on Hoshi's desk. He sat down and started the device. He immediately furrowed his brow. Why had Hoshi taken the rating test for the EM39, the strongest weapon they had aboard this side of the plasma cannons? First he thought it was a joke, but he checked everything and each and every detail was filled-in. The rating test was perfectly valid.

There were two things that caught his attention though.

First of all, there was the result. He had spent a lot of time with Hoshi doing extra practice. That was how their relationship had really taken off around the time of the incident with the Klingons on that deuterium mining colony. But he had not realized that she had improved this much. He could think of at least five people in the security department who had scored substantially lower than Hoshi.

And another one who had scored lower was her examiner. Trip had passed the instructor rating about a year ago, so he was perfectly authorized to preside over Hoshi's rating test, but what was the urgency? She could have waited a few days more for him to return, or had she gone to visit her parents with a pulse rifle?

Suddenly he remembered Trip mentioning security logs and he hastily fired up the console, but when the screen sprang to life he dropped back against the backrest, his mouth hanging open.

"Oh my bloody word!"

Hoshi closed her eyes enjoying the sensation of the onsen's hot water. At least she didn't need to hear Miyuki's hue and cry as the hot spring was a fair amount from the house and the bath was sacrosanct. Not even her envious sister or her offended father would dare harassing her here as she enjoyed the first bath in two years in the family's most prized antique possession. Raising one's voice in here would be akin to breaking wind in a crowded elevator.

She opened her eyes when a second person slid into the bath – her mother Yuki. Acknowledging her arrival with a formal nod, Hoshi closed her eyes again and continued to enjoy the silence. She didn't know how long it went on like that, probably ten minutes, when a simple question from her mother grabbed her attention.

"Are you happy, Hoshi-chan?"

"If you ask about my decisions in life – yes," Hoshi said her voice calm and even as the place and deference to her mother demanded. "But I can't be happy that I cannot be here with the man, who means more to me than anyone else."

"Do not be too hard on your father. He has always sought shelter in the old ways for fear of the unknown. I have reminded him that even the old ways require that respect between children and their parents is not a one-sided affair."

"I apologize if I have offended any of you," Hoshi said and cast her eyes downward.

"The only one you have offended is your sister and she is offended by your very existence."

Hoshi looked up. Such strong words were not coming to her soft-spoken mother lightly.

"I have always known that you would find your own way in life, and if it is any consolation, you have my support for your decision to change your physique. Whoever performed the procedure is certainly a master of his art."

She had to do a double take. In her ways of hiding her true thoughts her mother could challenge T'Pol. Such a frank speech was close to being unheard of.

"Father is not as accepting of my decision," Hoshi said sadly. "I had actually deluded myself into believing he would appreciate that I am now entirely comfortable in my own skin."

"He speaks about his feeling no more lightly than I do," her mother replied in her typically soft voice. "And he might start to have problems with his memory."

Hoshi looked up and to her utter surprise she saw a gentle smile on her mother's face.

"He seems to forget that he was promised to Akiko Yakumatsu in his youth, but he defied his parents to marry me. Not exactly traditional, wouldn't you agree?"

Hoshi had to fight hard, not to splash the water in upset and desecrate the sacred tranquility of the onsen. Of all the bigotry in the world...

"Calm yourself here, Hoshi-chan," Yuki Sato said gently. "Your sister will not upset again and I will speak to your father."

Hoshi looked up, her eyes filling with tears. Her beloved mother's unexpected approval had moved her greatly.

"Thank you, mother," she said, her voice breaking slightly with emotion.

"Come!"

"Evening," Malcolm said as he entered. Trip chucked a bottle in Malcolm's direction and the Brit caught it easily with one hand. The swing tops flew open and after raising the bottles in each other's direction in salute they both took a healthy swig.

"So, how did you like your surprise?" the engineer asked with a grin.

"Well, since T'Pol showing up at exactly 1800 on a Friday to 'have her tensions eased' doesn't exactly qualify as a surprise, I would hazard a guess that you refer to the recent reconfiguration of my terminal's user interface?" Malcolm replied dryly and helped himself to one of the chairs while Trip flopped down on the bed.

"You're not pissed off about the armory stunt, are you?"

"Are you kidding me, Trip?" Malcolm asked with a rare chuckle. "A picture of Hoshi stark naked, hitting a class one target with an EM39? I nearly made a mess in my pants right away. Really creative way to do it within the rules, too. Although I'd suggest we keep it to a one-off performance?"

"No worries about that," Trip assured him. "What's your take on Phlox's job."

The Brit shook his head.

"It was never the most important thing to me how big her boobs were," Malcolm said. "But she's visibly happy with her herself, even a socially inept buffoon like me can see that. And bloody hell do they look splendid. I hadn't expected them to become that big!"

"They are a bit smaller than T'Pol's – firsthand experience," Trip said, making a kneading motion with his hands. "But Hoshi's almost on the skinny sight, so they look a bit bigger on her."

"Figures that you couldn't resist doing the practical test," Malcolm snorted with amusement and took another swig from his beer. But Trip looked rather serious at him.

"Malcolm, actually, it was Hoshi who asked me to check them. She wasn't really convinced until I assured her that they weren't only looking right, but also felt real from a man's perspective. Frankly, from where I'm sitting there is more to this than just her being upset about her size. I think she's been made fun of about them and for a long time if you ask me."

He could see Malcolm nod knowingly.

"Her own sister," he explained. "Hoshi is a genius and her sister Mayumi has always been a beer short of a six pack in the intelligence department so she picked on Hoshi ever since she had bigger boobs at thirteen than Hoshi at sixteen. How puerile is that?"

"Probably the only thing she could beat Hoshi at," Trip snorted. "Hell, she's certainly in for a surprise."

Malcolm chuckled at that remark.

Hoshi pushed against the restraints, but she couldn't even move the tiniest bit. Resisting the overpowering urge to scream in terror she looked around and noticed she was in a window-less room, most likely a basement of some kind and it was tiled from floor to ceiling. She realized she was strapped firmly to a biobed, only clad in her underwear.

She thought hard about 'Malcolm's tenets' the rules of survival in an abduction scenario. He had hammered it into every officer's brain from the early days of their mission.

If you ever wake up in an unknown place, number one priority: collect as many details as possible about your surroundings. Eyes, ears, fingers – in that order.

Malcolm's voice was crystal clear in her mind. She had done the visual check and closed her eyes to concentrate on the sounds. A faint whisper could be heard and the more she concentrated on it, it became clearer.

... is this truly the correct female? ... does not fit with the body dimensions in the human database...

Vulcans, Hoshi realized, in fact all except one spoke with a pronounced Xir'tan accent, an island continent in one of the two oceans on the planet. The odd man out was addressed as doctor Korat, Na'Nam accent, most likely from Ta'Raan city. Currently they were debating whether she could really be the Hoshi Sato they had been looking for as obviously her new boobs didn't fit the description they had been going by.

Thank you, new tits, she thought sarcastically, but her thoughts were overridden by Malcolm's voice in her mind.

Remember: Eyes, ears, fingers – in that order.

Too bad the range was limited. The bloody strap was fixed not far above her wrists. She forced herself not to groan in pain as she had to bend her wrists close to breaking point when her finger tips reached around the edges of the biobed.

There was nothing on the left side, but she could sense what felt like a small metal plaque on the right side. Vulcans were obsessed with order, maybe it would be a manufacturer's plaque? Tears welled up in her eyes as she willed her wrist past the point where it really started to hurt. "Bingo!" She thought – it was an inventory embossment. Concentrating on an upside-down Vulcan symbol while fighting excruciating pain wasn't easy, but she finally worked it out:

VS detach UEA – V'Shar detachment, United Earth Embassy

How obsessed does one have to be to label the inventory of the secret service?

Second priority: Try to remember how you got there.

Somehow hearing Malcolm's voice in her mind calmed it. There was little to remember about how she got here. She remembered kneeling in the dojo, listening to her father grumpily apologizing for Mayumi's misconduct, conveniently omitting his own and suddenly ... she knew that horrible feeling...

She closed her eyes and concentrated hard. Her eyes sprang open as she realized what had happened. Matter transport!

A horrible whine from the terminal nearly deafened them and Malcolm tipped his bottle over as he ran to the desk. A priority one communication to his private coms address – only Hoshi had the necessary key code.

The screen came alive and an old Japanese man was bowing deep, in fact his face was touching the ground. Not bad for someone who looked like he had served under Emperor Hirohito. The Brit shoved these sarcastic thoughts aside when the man righted himself and he saw that he was in tears. For a Japanese man to show emotion this openly something bad must have had happened. He didn't like the premonition the least bit.

"She was taken ... Hoshi-chan disappeared before my eyes. I found the message in her room," the man said, well, wailed to be brutally honest, but if he was who Malcolm thought he was, he had just watched his daughter being abducted.