Chapter 12: On A Short Leash

"T'Pol was looking at Phlox, digesting his diagnosis – acute exhaustion coupled to a case of post traumatic stress disorder of yet unknown severity. How was that possible? Yes, he had worked long hours, like he always did when his mind was in turmoil, but she had ordered Lieutenant-Commander Hess in no uncertain terms to make sure he did end his shift no longer than an hour or two later than expected - and it had worked. How could he still be so exhausted that he suffered an emotional breakdown? Currently the only chance to answer her question was whatever Malcolm was trying to find in the station's log. He had commandeered one of Phlox's consoles for the purpose.

"Well, doctor," she heard Malcolm say moments later, with no little amount of sarcasm. "I believe I have found our answer."

She looked at him expectantly, as did Phlox.

"T'Pol, I take it Trip's smart-arse quips that they can carry the furniture out of your quarters without you waking up is more than just a joke?" he asked her.

"I have a very deep REM sleep," she admitted.

"And since we are currently in a low stress environment, you sleep longer than usual in exchange for less necessity to meditate," he stated.

"Indeed," T'Pol answered and the likely answer to the mystery started to appear in her mind.

"Well," Malcolm said and pointed to the security log analysis. "They didn't carry out any of your belongings, but your dear husband was quite able to leave your quarters for a light spot of late-night working on more than one occasion. That explains why we are ahead of schedule despite the Kriosian interruption."

"And it explains why on several occasions he was awake before me, which is fairly uncommon. He served me breakfast in our quarters on those occasions, which I interpreted as just additional romantic effort to keep the equilibrium in our bond while our ... royal guest was still aboard."

"He didn't go to sleep in the first place in those cases. How can a brilliant engineer still be that stupid?" Malcolm said and she could sense the anger bottle up inside him by the way he drove his right fist in the palm of his left hand before asking her the next question. "Couldn't you have noticed his fatigue?"

"Captain Tucker is very adept at hiding such things," Phlox contributed. "It is almost invisible from the outside. To find such information, T'Pol would have had to perform quite a noticeable mental probing."

"One he would notice," she continued. "Such action would almost inevitably create distrust and disturbances in the bond and it is difficult enough to balance as it is."

"You have all gone without more than a day of shore leave since before Corridan, have you not?" Phlox asked.

"We had a few days on Vulcan after the Tolaris trial," Malcolm confirmed. "The crew takes turns for a few days off now and then, but for the line officers the opportunity never came up. Hoshi and I have been down to San Francisco twice for an evening."

"That means you have spent months in highly stressful operations. The horror on Corridan, rebuilding Salem One after cleaning out dozens of corpses, deadly fights with Romulans, the aftermath of the Jupiter station bombing. All within the space of a few months. For a space station we have most impressive recreational facilities, but none of them are designed to help you cope with the things you've seen. More than forty crew members sought therapeutic help after Corridan, but not a single line-officer except Lieutenant-Commander Sato," Phlox recounted.

"We weren't commissioned to be wussies," Malcolm snorted and for the first time in a long time T'Pol saw Phlox frown.

"With all due respect, Captain, but that is probably the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time. You were commissioned to be capable officers that might have to make live-and-death decisions, not some emotionless robots, who brush atrocities, like the ones you have seen, aside as mere details."

"He's right," Hoshi interrupted and now being alerted to it, T'Pol could hear the fatigue in Hoshi's voice. She was sitting next to Trip's biobed. "I could definitely use a few days off and a chance to talk about things somewhere where the air hasn't been recycled a few dozen times."

"Did you not say you are ahead of schedule?" Phlox asked.

"We are," Malcolm confirmed.

"In that case I would suggest the four of you leave the station for at least a week. Especially Captain Tucker will need a close friend to talk to, one who does not judge him for his extreme mood swings, which will occur frequently during the next few days. He will be depressive at some time and suddenly euphoric as if nothing happened."

"Will be quite difficult to find a place that's quiet enough at the height of snow season," Malcolm though aloud. "Maybe we should try the southern hemisphere then. You don't happen to own a remote tropical island somewhere, doctor?"

T'Pol began to see the wisdom of Phlox's suggestion. Hoshi sounded tired and Malcolm had expressed his biting sarcasm a lot more frequently lately. Trip's condition was obvious. But what surprised her most was the sudden unnaturally large grin on Phlox's face.

"I do not own such an island," he said. "But apparently Starfleet does, courtesy of the take-over of Advanced Propulsion Inc."

"That's a joke right?" Malcolm asked and his disbelief was obvious.

"It is not, Captain," Phlox said. "When the assets of the company and the personal wealth of the tragically deceased owner were transferred to Starfleet, it included a personally owned island in the – I believe the name is 'the Caribbean' – and two company owned island resorts in the Southern Hemisphere, apparently used to provide vacationing opportunities for the work-force. A larger one, capable of hosting up to three-hundred visitors and a small one for a single family are located in a region called Micronesia. Although the latter is reserved for flag officers and their families, I believe I can make a good case for you to be allowed to stay there for some time."

"Would you look at that!?" she heard Malcolm's surprised exclamation and joined him to look at the picture Phlox had called up on a PADD. What she saw was a small green Island with a broad beach of impeccably colored white sand. If there would be any environment where Trip could find peace, it was this. The sky was clear and blue and the ocean's water was so clean it was barely visible.

"It must cost a fortune to run three of those," Malcolm remarked.

"Little over a year ago Captain Archer needed help to overcome the strains put on him by commanding a ship. Captains Tucker and T'Pol have run into problems before. If our most experienced can't cope too well, how will it affect younger personnel, hm?" Phlox challenged him. "Starfleet is preparing for that. The larger island is currently being converted to a sanatorium. The existence of these retreats was only recently disclosed to all Starfleet medical personnel – and I think it was for a reason. The costs should not be the deciding factor here."

"We try not to think too often about what our job does to us, because we are thoroughly sick of it," T'Pol admitted so openly, she could see it affected Phlox. "I find the doctor's suggestion sound. We shall prepare for temporary transfer of command. Even if our stay on the island is not permitted, we shall find accommodation of our own. I don't give a damn about Surak's teachings at the moment. The need of the one – my Adun – is more important to me than the need of the many at this time."

"May I suggest that you let me escort you to the meditation chamber right now," Malcolm demanded calmly, but with a stern voice and T'Pol realized what a shameful and vulgar statement she had just delivered in the heat of the moment. Malcolm looked severely shocked. She hung her head slightly in shame and nodded.

"Doctor, I'll take care of T'Pol. Would you please take care of the formalities? I think we all need a break," she heard Malcolm request while he directed her towards the exit.

"Excellent," Phlox reacted quite enthusiastically in her opinion. "I will send my request to Starfleet."

"Hoshi, will you stay with Trip?" T'Pol asked and after acknowledging the affirmative answer, she left with Malcolm who had grabbed her arm, not willing to let her go unattended.

"Thirty years and he still hasn't learned his damn lesson."

Hoshi looked up to see Trip's father standing at the foot of the biobed. She looked at him questioningly.

"He's been like that since he was a lil' boy," he explained and Hoshi could see the pain in his eyes. "When his first girlfriend cheated on him, he worked himself to shreds. After a week our backyard looked as if we had paid a million bucks for it, all my tools were in perfect order and the old hover car that I had planned to sell for scrap was spit and polished and ran better than when it came out of the showroom."

Hoshi looked at him as he took a deep breath

"We found the boy unconscious in the shed when we came home from work. It's not the first time Cath and I work on a station together y'know. Back then we worked on Utopia Planitia station. We came back for the weekend and our boy was lyin' there out cold."

"He did the same in the Expanse," Hoshi said softly. "If it wasn't for T'Pol..."

"I wish I could hug her every time I see her, just for what she's done for him. You look a bit shaky yourself, honey," he said and put a callused hand on her shoulder.

"We all do," she admitted, remembering how T'Pol had blown a gasket two or maybe three hours ago. She fought to keep out the exhaustion from her voice. "Phlox all but kicked us off the station for a week."

"Not the worst idea," he said. "Best is you go somewhere with a beach. Nothing can fix Trip better than lyin' on a beach and even T'Pol hid on our little beach when she was beaten up after Corridan. Put the two together and you might fix him in record time."

"Except for Malcolm we're all beach rats," she said with a tired smile.

"Well, I'll need to talk with T'Pol. There is another – freshly converted – beach rat that could use a lil' bit of consolation."

"T'Pau? What's wrong with her?" Hoshi asked.

"Love sickness," Charles said. "Remember the Andorians she went to the antarctic with?"

"She seemed quite smitten with one of them," Hoshi realized.

"Yeah, Trok," he confirmed. "Actually quite a nice guy and really wants to be friends with her, but he had noticed she, well, she was probably a bit deeper into it – T'Pau beein' so young and inexperienced and all."

"Ouch," Hoshi said and felt bad for the young one she had taught to swim.

"I got the impression that he wouldn't even be averse to there bein' more. He really likes the gal. But Andorians need four in a relationship and you know how Trip and T'Pol's bonding makes them react to intimate advances of a third person, let alone a fourth. You and Malcolm don't count - you just belong with them anyway."

"Poor girl," Hoshi said. "How does she take it?"

"She doesn't show it of course, but Cath knew something was up less than an hour after we had collected her at the space port yesterday."

"You both missed a calling as counselors," she said and afforded him a bright smile, even if it was a bit forced.

"We both had a lot of people to fix after the Xindi attack. It's not a talent we acquired by choice. And you probably know how badly I broke down after it. Don't make the same mistake."

Hoshi saw him become pensive.

"Nonetheless, you're good at it."

"Well, guess I better get back home to my 'patient', before she takes on some bad habits, now that this goof is her godfather. Keep an eye on him, honey, will ya?"

"I'll let you know where we are and when you can send T'Pau. We'd love to have her for a few days."

She saw his thankful nod and watched him walk away.

Romulus

"We need solutions, warriors," the praetor demanded.

Legatus Tavrus, who once was Talok, thought that the praetor was in an almost benevolent mood, considering the first attempt at hit-and-run tactics was a miserable failure.

"Legatus, what is your assessment of the situation?"

He thought for a moment before answering the question.

"We are stuck until our shipyards are able to produce enough ships. Our fleet is one-sided. We have birds-of-pray and war birds with more fire power than anything this coalition has. A fleet of four can annihilate a colony, but colonies rarely shoot back. Our enemy has a balanced fleet. They have nimble and fast ships that are more maneuverable and are hard to hit by our ships. Our only chance is to overwhelm them in numbers and by fire power."

"Why do we not develop these nimble and fast ships ourselves?"

"Because we do not have the time," Tavrus explained, his patience with the proceedings severely challenged. "By the time we have the first prototype, this coalition will have built hundreds of them. All their shipyards are working on full capacity and we cannot reach them with the limited amount of ships we have. Their combined population numbers 40 billion individuals, more than twice our numbers. And they are not troubled by staffing ships and stations with members of different species. We will run out of personnel before they do."

"You sound like a coward, who wants to make us change our mind," he heard Valdore growl with false bravado."

"And you sound like the veruul, who allowed them to become that strong by underestimating them. With all due 'respect' of course," Tavrus shot back, properly tired of this man.

"Silence!" the praetor demanded. "Valdore, if you want to live to see the birth of your second child, I suggest you find ways to improve our chances. Legatus Travrus might be overly cautious, but your record as of late is nothing that showers you with honor. You have taken a great many civilian lives, but whenever the enemy's military got involved, you came home with nothing but defeats!"

Tavrus watched Valdore storm out of the room, followed by his aides. He enjoyed seeing the backs of them. They provided so much space to shoot into. The praetor left without another word, too. He smashed his fist on his desk. Why was he surrounded by idiots? Didn't they see that Romulus could end up colonized by the terhassu if they went on with this foolish endeavor? Why was the Tal'Shiar even trying to gather information when they were summarily ignored anyway?

Angrily he left his office. A hunting trip was in order to calm down and sate the killing rage he felt boiling inside.

Trip stirred and Hoshi was wide awake with a start. She had been dozing off after Charles had left, but the stirring on the biobed had woken her up. She took his face in her hands as he tried to find out where he was. She could almost see how he was trying to put the pieces into the puzzle. She kissed him lightly to direct the little attention span he seemed to have, to herself.

"Hey there, buddy," she said. "How are you?"

"I'm in trouble, aren't I?" he whispered sleepily.

"Oh, you are," she confirmed. "I'm not sure who'll give you more of an earful – T'Pol or Malcolm."

"Damn it."

"Well, first of all we'll fix you stubborn mule, but trust me T'Pol will lay down some ground rules. I think she's not very fond of having to nerve-pinch you because you've done something stupid again."

"You sound like Malcolm," he mumbled and after she had continued stroking his hair in silence for a minute or two, he drifted back to sleep.

Jon impatiently punched the connection button once the green light came on. The frowning face of Gardner appeared on the screen.