Chapter 7: New Challenges

"Nah, always wanted to be an engineer. If it was for the top brass, I'd probably be a Captain by now and would be looking forward to spending the rest of my career behind a desk at R&D."

"So this whole good ol' boy routine is just a ploy to stay out of the spot-light on the promotion list?"

"Now you got it, Malcolm. But after our stunt yesterday, I'd say promotion is the least of our worries right now."

Hoshi didn't believe her ears. The very same men who'd beaten the raw stuffing out of each other the day before were now sitting on their bunks in the brig, exchanging stories. Well, at least it looked as if they had gotten their problems out of the way, even if she didn't care much for the methods of how this change had come along.

She and T'Pol handed over the PADDs with Captain Archer's orders and the guard opened the doors to let them in.

"Ensign, Subcommander," the men offered their greetings to the women and each of them looked at their respective visitor with visible apprehension and embarrassment.

"We've come to do our Florence Nightingale bit, but if you think we're doing it because we've become pub brawl groupies, forget it," Hoshi said. She was still disappointed in Malcolm and Trip, but a good night of sleep and seeing them talk quite civilly started to dissipate her anger. But it was to too early to show that. "The Captain wants to keep the number of people who see you like that to a minimum."

She carefully pushed the Lieutenant back until he was lying on the bunk looking up at her. Even though he was technically a superior officer, he seemed willing to let her take the initiative and strictly speaking he didn't really have much choice as being in the brig meant that he was temporarily suspended and his rank meant nothing. His swollen lip made it hard to guess if he was smiling or in pain, but Hoshi couldn't shake the impression that he even enjoyed being mothered a bit.

The swelling of his face had receded to a degree, but he still looked rather shabby with his skewed mouth due to the remaining swelling of his lip. She carefully applied an ice spray and some balm to his lip and the cut on his eyebrow. After that the young officer started to feel along his jaw to see if there were any swellings or painful spots. The lack of reaction indicated that this was not the case.

"I'm awfully sorry, Ens ... Hoshi," he said and she could easily see the sincerity of his words in his eyes. For the first time a fleeting smile returned to her face when he used her name for the first time.

"You should be, but it's in the past now," she returned softly, feeling for other hidden injuries without it being strictly necessary. It was obvious that Trip had not landed too many successful punches. T'Pol would have a much larger task icing up and applying the gel to all the damaged bits on the other man's face.

"How does the Commander look?" she asked T'Pol in Vulcan.

"Fairly comfortable, but heavily damaged," came the reply, but not from T'Pol, but Trip.

Hoshi's head snapped up and she saw T'Pol looking at her with a raised eyebrow through the glass wall that separated the two cells.

"Are there any other hidden linguistic talents we need to know about, Commander?" Malcolm asked and for the first time Hoshi heard the man chuckle. She decided that it was a very nice sound.

"Standard, Russian, Spanish, Gaelic and Vulcan," the inhabitant of the neighboring cell reported. "Well, Vulcan's probably the least fluent on the list, but I can hold my own in a conversation, especially if it's about engineering topics."

"Why did you learn Vulcan?" T'Pol asked, carefully applying some more of the cooling gel to his discolored and still swollen eye with her index finger.

"I've been part of the engineering corps since the warp 3 program and that meant we had your people constantly looking over our shoulders. One thing that always drove me mad was that they – of course – always spoke in Vulcan among themselves and I hated being left out. There was one professor though – a guy named Solan. We really got along well and, bless his patience, he taught me some Vulcan so I would know when our 'friends' plotted something I didn't like."

"You have met Professor Solan?" T'Pol asked, following Hoshi's example by running her fingers lightly along his jaw to check for hidden injuries.

"I'm not sure I was supposed to meet him, but yeah, I did. He was the only one remotely interested in actually helping us instead of just slowing things down. One day he sort of disappeared and I guess since the meeting yesterday we know why."

"Solan is of our clan," T'Pol confirmed, looking down at her charge. He appeared inordinately content with her touch, a feeling that to her surprise was fairly mutual. Since the light touch gave her an insight to the Commander's emotional condition, she sensed a chaotic mix of remorse about his fight with Lieutenant Reed, gratitude for her gentle touch, but also anger and sadness about losing contact to the Vulcan Professor he seemed to hold in high esteem.

"To think that they probably offed the man or locked him up somewhere makes me want to launch immediately and let Malcolm test his weapons on the High Command," he said, and she could easily sense his anger simmering close to the surface. Even without any touch-telepathic contact his emotion was clearly visible and the badly discolored eye made his mien even more menacing.

"Violence will lead to nothing," she tried to soothe him. "Solan is safe for now. He has neither been terminated, nor deported, but this is not the time to speak of it."

Jon walked toward the brig, having just returned from his meeting with Admiral Forest. Unsurprisingly he had preached to the choir. Maxwell wasn't the problem, not even most of the other Starfleet bigwigs. The problem had a name – Black – Hiram Black, Admiral.

If it was down to this ultra-conservative zealot, all unmarried female personnel would have to undergo a virginity test before enrolling in Starfleet. But apparently the damn bigot hadn't had a problem with visiting Hoshi's gambling bashes every other weekend, watching her step out of her clothing to entertain her crowd. And he had it on good authority that Black always came specifically to watch Hoshi strip. What a two-faced scumbag.

Thankfully they had worked out a solution that did not require Black's approval and would make life somewhat palatable on a ship light years from home for a very long time. Since Forest had the final authority as far as mission specific orders were concerned, they had simply worked out a lengthy standing order. It was perfectly within Starfleet regulations, although perhaps not perfectly in the spirit of them. Now it was just a case of implementing the compromise without turning his ship into a flying high school, and if the conduct of his two senior bridge officers was anything to go by, the project didn't exactly start promisingly.

When he arrived at the brig he found his two prisoners chatting amicably. That was something new, as he had barely heard Reed speak so far except during the meeting with Forest and Soval. Both men went silent when they noticed his arrival.

After ordering the guard to open the cells, he ordered him to report back to security and the crewman left quickly. With a curt 'come out' gesture with each hand, he ordered his two rogue officers out of their cells. Both came to stand to attention before him. T'Pol and Hoshi seemed to have done a good job as assistant nurses, as except for the cut above Reed's eyebrow and the monstrous shiner on Trip's face, they were almost looking human again.

"You will be relieved that Starfleet will not press charges of assault on a fellow officer," he started without preamble. He could see that both would like nothing more than to sigh in relief, but he shot them a stern glance to make sure they continued to stand to attention. "Technically you were engaged in a legal sports activity, even if it got somewhat out of hand. You will, however, have the distinction of being the first crew members of this ship who earned themselves a reprimand for both violating fairness in sport and failure to observe mandatory safety precautions during a sports activity. Neither of you was wearing the mandatory head protector nor were you wearing cups to protect the family jewels."

He continued to pace up and down before them slowly, now and then checking their reactions. Even Trip had managed to set up a face that showed little of what was going on in his mind.

"Needless to say, that reprimand will remain in your file for three years and that means you're out of the running when it comes to promotions for that duration," he lectured and caught the fleeting smile on the engineer's face.

"I know, Commander, for you that's not even a punishment," he said ironically. "But to make sure you will learn your lesson, I have decided that the extra energy you seem to possess will need to be channeled into more productive activities."

"You, Lieutenant Reed, have a certain non-approved foreign object up your rear end, according to a theory of our communications officer that I overheard yesterday," he decreed, relishing the distinct look of uneasiness on Reed's face. "It is therefore decided that you will bear the responsibility of a morale officer on this ship. You will oversee cultural and recreational activities of the crew in order to keep the crew's morale as high as possible."

"W-with all due respect, Sir," the Brit stammered. His look of unease had given way for one of horror.