Chapter 2: Repairs and Revelations

If it wasn't so sad, Malcolm would have laughed out loud in cynical amusement. Not even a month had gone by since he had left Salem One to take Buran out on her maiden voyage and now he was back already with a ship that looked very second-hand. Granted, in between the two events he had killed about six hundred Romulans and saved about three times as many Betazoids from annihilation, but no captain in the universe liked to see his ship in the state his new ship was in. Thankfully Starfleet had recalled Enterprise to Salem One, too, so his ship would be repaired under the observation of Charles Tucker III himself – one couldn't hope for more than that. He had no doubt and complete confidence in T'Len's expertise, but two brilliant minds on the job were better than one.

Following the battle in orbit of Betazed, and due to latest reports from the V'Shar and Section 31, Starfleet had decided to assemble the whole first offensive fleet around Salem One and space surely got crowded. Stabilized and powered by two D'Kyr class vessels, each docked on either side of Buran's battered saucer section, the wounded ship weaved through a venerable sea of nine fully armed NX class ships, about twenty Andorian Kumari class cruisers, at least thirty Vulcan D'Kyr class frigates and an eclectic mix of Starfleet Baikal and Olympus Mons class frigates. There was even the odd Aesculapius class hospital ship here and there. This was the biggest fleet the alpha quadrant had seen in a very long while.

"None of your ships?" Tholos asked in Grev's direction, but before the Tellarite could deliver a riposte, Malcolm intervened before the Tellarite would have too much fun in an exchange of insults.

"The Tellarite fleet has taken on the task of planetary defense of all coalition planets, Lieutenant," he explained with a look that would make sure Tholos understood that he wasn't expected to have any further 'questions' afterwards. "If you call home, you'll find that Andoria is orbited by more Tellarite Nork class cruisers than you would have been comfortable with a year ago."

"I apologize," Tholos said, but in his Captain's direction.

"No need to apologize," Malcolm said with a smirk. "Grev fancies a good insult now and then. But you certainly need to update your tactical knowledge, Lieutenant. I expect my tactical officer to know that Tellarite vessels are better used defensively than offensively. See that you bring yourself up-to-date. There'll be a quiz afterwards."

Even a still bandaged Sonos, manning the communications console, raised an amused eyebrow about Malcolm's ribbing of Tholos.

As the big doors to the hospital wing of Salem One opened, the first Malcolm noticed was the eerie silence. Having spent five years in space now, he had come to associate sickbay with a cacophony of chirping, trilling and squeaking coming from a veritable zoo of alien animals. Both Phlox on Enterprise and his wife Feezal on Buran preferred natural therapies over chemical or surgical measures if applicable.

Unlike back home on Buran he didn't walk into a single large chamber full of biobeds. This was a huge chamber, the walls of which were lined with dozens of currently not activated monitors, above them a lineup of at least a hundred folding gurneys in their wall mounts, which could quickly be unfolded and used to carry in the wounded. Unfolding the legs underneath them would transform them into makeshift biobeds. This particular addition was a result of their search and rescue mission on Corridan Prime, where Trip's engineering crew had made dozens of makeshift biobeds from gurneys.

Having been involved in the reconstruction planning and design after seizing the station from the Romulans he knew that this chamber would become the ER unit of the hospital. It would be here where the incoming wounded would be assessed and presorted for further treatment. He shuddered at the thought that this was a full blown hospital with 12 operating theaters, two independent intensive care units, three prosthetics workshops and biobeds for up to 750 patients. Three docked Aesculapius class hospital ships provided three additional operating theaters and further space for up to 210 patients.

Malcolm shuddered again. In a pinch this monstrous unit could house over a thousand wounded and 15 surgeries could be performed simultaneously. What made him grim was, that from his time as a Section 31 operative, who had seen conflicts between races which Earth hadn't officially encountered yet, he knew that the day when this facility would be forced to operate at over 100% capacity was already on the calendar.

This was what made those Romulans so menacing. Klingons, Cardassians, Gorn – he had seen a lot of warrior races some of which Earth officially didn't yet know about, but even the Section did not have the faintest clue about what or who the Romulans were. He couldn't know that, of all people, his former Captain and now fleet commander had much more information about the Romulans than Harris's shady bunch.

"Dr. Lukas?" Malcolm called out in surprise as a stout man with a white lab coat walked into the chamber.

"Captain Reed," the doctor answered and walked towards him, his hand stretched out for a greeting. "I've been waiting for you. If you would follow me?"

After a handshake Malcolm followed the Doctor along the long corridors until they arrived at one of the smaller examination rooms, where the Doctor called up two images on adjacent screens without much of a preamble. One of them was Hoshi's Starfleet medical record. When he saw that no date of death had been registered yet, Malcolm relaxed slightly.

"According to her record, your wife was born on July 9th in 2129. Is that correctm Captain?" Dr. Lucas asked.

"Of course, Doctor," Malcolm said in a puzzled tone. "We had to register our birth certificates for our wedding license not too long ago. I've seen hers. How is Hoshi, can I see her?"

"She is fine, but still unconscious, we'll talk about that soon. Now, if you would take a look here," the Doctor said and pointed to the slowly rotating helix on the second read-out. "This is a genetic profile of your wife, taken by the Vulcans before she was delivered here. Since the medics on Soval's ship did not have access to her Starfleet medical records, they made a complete genetic scan. According to the cellular decay rate, your wife was born on March 30th or April 1st in 2130. Peculiar, isn't it?"

Malcolm stared at the display, unable to say anything, but his brooding was interrupted by the metallic computer voice of the PA system.

"Two incoming emergencies. Two incoming emergencies. Human One, Vulcan One. Severity Two."

Malcolm observed the Doctor as he calmly called up the duty roster and the screen showed a selection of human, Andorian and Vulcan medics.

"Dr. Turis, Dr. Tral, report to the ER unit," Dr. Lukas ordered after keying the door-side com-unit to the PA system.

A short time later Malcolm heard the swish of an opening door nearby and an Andorian and a Vulcan, clad in white lab coats, jogged past their door down the corridor. Who would have thought a year ago that a Vulcan and an Andorian would work together in a hospital unit that was led by a human chief physician.

"Where were we?" the Dr. asked Malcolm.

"You were trying to tell me that Hoshi has been celebrating her birthday on the wrong day for over 20 years," Malcolm snorted.

"Ah, yes. Well Captain, can you remember any unusual medical episodes of your wife or exposure to alien influences? It would make it easier than to read the complete medical history."

"There are so many," Malcolm said. "The radiation on the Akaali planet, the transporter incident, the L'oqueqe virus, abduction by the telepathic alien and the Xindi-Reptilians, the nanovirus infection, her unexplained resurrection after her death..."

"Resurrection?" Lucas asked with an astonished look.

"About fifteen months ago she and Commander Tucker were infected by an alien virus. Both died according to Phlox's scans, but somehow came back from the dead. Phlox and Feezal have been trying to find out about what happened, but they are still absolutely clueless," Malcolm explained.

"Fifteen months," the Dr. muttered and Malcolm saw a myriad of numbers flash over the screen on the wall until a metallic voice announced "record found."

Malcolm observed restlessly how the Doctor rushed through several on-screen menus, before the computer voice announced "calculating."

"Now, we just need to wait a moment," the doctor said idly.

"Calculation finished. Species human, female, approximate date of birth: Year twenty one twenty nine, month six, week two," the computer voice droned monotonously.

"Well that sounds a bit closer to what we've believed so far," Malcolm stated the obvious. "So what does that mean? Obviously a birth can only happen once. Could it be some of this temporal war malarkey that's been giving us headaches since the first time we shipped out?"

"That is what we need to find out, Captain Reed. Didn't you say Commander Tucker was affected as well?"

"Yes."

"Excellent," the doctor said. "Since he's currently watching over your wife, we can take a scan of him immediately. But first you'll be scanned to find out if you were effected as well. Please remove your uniform and make yourself comfortable in the imaging chamber."

"You have a strange idea of 'comfortable', Doctor," Malcolm replied sarcastically and started removing his flight suit.

"Commander Tucker, please join us in room E-15," the doctor announced over the PA system.

"Hands at your side, Captain," Dr. Lucas instructed before he shoved the platform with Malcolm on it into the chamber's inner tube and closed it. Malcolm closed his eyes, while the monotonous hum of the scan made him feel the exhaustion of the last few days. The world around him faded out and he fell asleep.

T'Pol sat between two biobeds in Salem One's new hospital unit, splitting her attention evenly between Malcolm and Hoshi. The young linguist had woken up for a short time, giving her the time to perform a short, shallow mind-meld with the doctor's permission, verifying that Hoshi's mind was intact. Both were now sedated and sleeping.

The prospect of losing Hoshi had made her acutely aware of how much she would grieve the loss of either friend and that the relationship between herself, her Adun, Hoshi and Malcolm had transcended the closeness and comfort of what humans defined as friendship. T'Pol was not the least bit inconvenienced sharing even most intimate details with Hoshi and Malcolm.

While Hoshi and herself had initially a rather antagonistic relationship, their friendship had developed around the time of the incident with the Romulan mine field and if it wasn't for Hoshi's frequent help through explaining the intricacies of her mate's often confusing behavior the the seemingly endless repertoire of colorful metaphors, the bond between herself and Trip might have perhaps never developed.

The initiation of a friendship with Malcolm had been born in logic. Once she and her mate had helped Malcolm and Hoshi enter a romantic relationship, keeping a distance from Malcolm had become illogical as he was the closest friend of her mate. The dynamic had changed during their time on Vulcan, especially during the Tolaris trial when Malcolm had proven what sacrifices he was willing to make for her sake.

These events and the almost daily joint dinners, whenever their two ships were in the same place had brought them so close together, there remained little to distinguish their interpersonal relationships from those between close family members. Losing either of them was an almost agonizing thought.

Malcolm woke up and the first he saw was a white ceiling. He shook off the drowsiness and looked around. After a few moments he looked into the face of T'Pol, who was sitting next to his bio bed, with Hoshi positioned on the bed on her other side.

"Hey T'Pol," he muttered and swung his feet over the side of the bed. "What happened."

"You fell asleep in the imaging chamber," she explained and pointed to the lower end of his bed, where a folded fresh uniform had been deposited for him.

After donning the fresh uniform – Trip or T'Pol must have brought it here – he went around the biobed, offering T'Pol a friendly handshake. To his utter surprise she gently drew him in and gave him a hug, which he returned somewhat stiffly.

"What was that all about?" he asked slowly gravitating toward Hoshi's bed.

"We were worried about the two of you," T'Pol admitted. "We all know how to read a tactical display and were not convinced that we would arrive in time."

"Well thankfully Soval did," Malcolm said, sending her a small smile, while he took Hoshi's limp hand.

"Hoshi regained consciousness about three hours ago," T'Pol explained, coming up beside him and looked down at her sleeping friend. "Dr. Lucas administered a sedative to allow her to rest. The surgery and the artificial coma have cost her a great amount of energy."

"Could you talk to her?"

"Indirectly," T'Pol answered. "The doctor didn't want her to be awake for a long period before she has rested properly and the remaining swelling of her brain tissue has subsided completely. He allowed me to perform a shallow mind-meld though. Her mind is intact and it was Hoshi, who asked me to embrace you in her stead."

"You surprised me with that," Malcolm said with a light blush.

"I would have probably done so nonetheless," T'Pol explored dryly. "I understand it is not an inappropriate gesture among friends."

"It isn't," Malcolm agreed, still smiling. He felt that the sleep had invigorated him. "How long have I been out?"

"Twelve hours and twenty-seven minutes," T'Pol recalled. "When you passed out in the imaging chamber, the doctor decided to administer a sedative to afford you uninterrupted sleep. You were severely exhausted."

"Well, I wasn't exactly on a pleasure cruise," Malcolm sighed and gently continued to caress Hoshi's hand.

Legatus Tavrus, who was once Major Talok walked the long corridors towards the Praetors chamber, where an emergency meeting was scheduled with him and Admiral Valdore in attendance. One would die today in dishonor, either Valdore or Fleet Admiral Verax, who had refused to remove the vulnerable cloaking devices from their ships.

We could just as well go into battle with the self-destruct sequence already counting down, Tavrus thought grimly.