Title: Caught in the Act
Author: Ginny Powell
Act I - Trip
Scene 1
“I’ve never seen her species before,” Dr. Phlox was saying as he bustled around the newcomer. In the bright lights of Sickbay, she had proved to be blue from the tips of her bare feet to the top of her bare head. She appeared to be hairless, though the Doctor hadn’t yet gotten around to that complete of an examination. She wore a long gown of a shimmery blue material that matched her skin, and clung to her curves enough to show that she was definitely a humanoid female. “Though she does appear to have some of the characteristics of the Minatonkans, and…”
He went on, but no one was really listening. Hoshi was trying to stay out of the Doctor’s way and wondering if the woman was ever going to wake up so she could hear her language and try to translate it, or if she was going to spend the day standing around uselessly in Sickbay as opposed to sitting around uselessly on the bridge. Archer was talking to the com panel by the door.
“But how did it get on our port bow without you seeing it?” he was demanding.
“The ship must have utilized a cloaking device of some sort,” T’Pol’s calm voice came through the speaker. “We are recalibrating the scanners and enlarging our frequency range. We are also looking for traces of known explosive elements to determine the cause of the explosion. I expect to know something within the hour.”
“Well, keep me posted,” Archer ordered.
“Of course, Captain.” The transmission ended.
Captain Archer poked a button. “Trip, how are those repairs coming?”
“Pretty good, Cap’n!” came the Chief Engineer’s reply. His voice was slightly distorted, as he was yelling to be heard over the whir of machinery in the background. “We got the hull breach patched and main power up.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Good work. How long will the rest of the repairs take?”
“Oh, a few hours ‘til we’re up and runnin’, a few days and she’ll be like new again.”
“Good. Keep me posted.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
That conversation ended, Archer stood at the com, apparently trying to decide who to call next. Hoshi reflected that his job was very much the same in times of peace or chaos – he just kept asking everybody for progress reports. The difference was that now everyone had something to report. He had just raised his finger to make the next call when a sound from the visitor garnered everyone’s attention.
“Oo, breize mox ba?” she whispered, her hands moving weakly as though she wanted to sit up. The Doctor was immediately at her side, holding a glass of water to her lips. She smiled blearily at him and drank gratefully. When she was done, she looked around and seemed to notice the others in the room for the first time. “Obe mig dan?” she asked, her voice stronger, as she tried to sit up again.
“Now, now, you’re not quite ready to get up just yet,” the Doctor said soothingly, hoping his tone if not his words would get through to her, as he gently pushed her back down.
“What’s wrong with her, Doc?” Archer asked. “Is she gonna be okay?” He couldn’t stand the idea of someone appearing on his bridge and then dying before they had the chance to even introduce themselves.
“Oh, yes, she should be fine. A simple case of oxygen poisoning. You see, her respiratory system is set up to take in 8% oxygen, but our atmosphere is approximately twice that. I’ve given her an injection that should enable her system to handle the overflow.”
“Should?”
“I’ll need to run a few tests over the next couple of hours, perhaps change the dosage, but I expect it will work just fine,” the Doctor answered in his usual jovial tone.
“Good, good,” Archer replied, looking back at the woman, who had lain quietly, watching them, throughout the exchange. “I’m Captain Jonathan Archer,” he intoned in his best First Contact voice, touching his fingers to his chest in what he hoped was the universal symbol of identification. “And you are?”
“Ba aproba gabreefa colan macona,” the woman answered. Then she began a long torrent of words in her as yet untranslated language. As she spoke, she grabbed hold of Archer’s arm and her face took on a pleading look. The Captain found himself moved by the look in her eyes, which he suddenly noticed were a lovely, deep sapphire blue. He broke away from the desperate gaze just long enough to glance at Hoshi.
But Ensign Sato wasn’t looking at him. Instead she was furiously punching buttons on her pad, trying to work out this new and, for her, exciting language. Her efforts were rewarded when, a few minutes later, their visitor still yammering away, the pad suddenly began translating a word: “Help!”
Archer turned back to the woman. “Yes,” he said calmly, and nodded, trying to get her to stop long enough to hear him. “We will help you.” At the sound of a word she understood being repeated back to her, she ceased her spiel and her eyes grew wide.
“Help?” she asked incredulously.
“Help,” the Captain repeated, patting the hand that still clung to him reassuringly. The woman’s face broke into a smile that seemed to captivate him
Then the com buzzed.
“T’Pol to the Captain.”
Hoshi didn’t look up from her work at first. But after a moment, she realized the Captain was still standing there, holding the woman’s hand and gazing into her eyes, and the com was still buzzing.
“T’Pol to Captain Archer. Please respond.”
“Captain?” Hoshi ventured, taking a step towards Archer. The movement seemed to rouse him from his stupor. His expression changed to apologetic as he gently disentangled himself from their guest and stepped to the com panel. Behind him, Hoshi stifled a giggle and went back to her work.
“Archer.”
“Captain, we have discovered the cause of the explosion. I also may know how the ship approached us undetected.”
Archer sighed, glanced back at the woman and Hoshi. When his Communications Officer didn’t notice his questioning glance, he spoke. “Ensign?”
“Oh, uh, this is gonna take a while, Captain.” Hoshi glanced down at the complicated syntax she was attempting to work through. “I’ll contact you as soon as I have something.”
Archer sighed again, turned back to the com. “I’ll be right there, Sub-Commander.” He turned back to Hoshi. “Keep me posted.” And with one last lingering glance at the woman, he left.
Hoshi looked up at the closing door and muttered “Didn’t I just say that?” before returning her attention once more to the pad in her hands.
Scene 2
“Whatcha got?” Archer asked as he stepped onto the bridge. T’Pol, who had been seated in the Captain’s chair, rose and looked to Lieutenant Reed.
“The debris shows traces of trichloroganite and manganese,” Malcolm began as the two senior officers approached. “Both are fairly commonly found in trace amounts in various liquids, but they are never found together.”
“Why?” asked the Captain.
“Because they are highly explosive when mixed,” answered Reed. “Exhibit A.” He gestured to the view screen, where a small ship was shown exploding in slow motion. As he watched it repeat, Archer walked closer to the screen to get a good look at the whole craft. It was of an unfamiliar type, unsurprisingly, with a pointed nose and tail and covered in brown overlapping plates like scales. It looked like nothing so much as a weird alien egg.
“Back it up 4.7 seconds,” T’Pol requested. The image changed to show clear space as seen through the port sensors. Then something shimmered, and the ship was suddenly there. A moment later, it exploded again.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Archer said, turning back to his crew. “How’d it do that?”
“We are not sure yet,” T’Pol replied, stepping back to her own station. “But I theorize that it was the same phenomenon which brought our visitor on board.”
“A transporter? Like ours?” Archer clarified.
“No, not like yours. If I am correct, it would have to be much more powerful. The small ship is not capable of transporting itself. There must be a larger craft somewhere.”
“But we aren’t detecting anything. Not even on long-range scans,” Archer said, thinking out loud.
T’Pol nodded in confirmation. “Though that may be the fault of our scanners. The phenomenon seems to have created blind spots in our sensor logs. We are working to correct them.”
“Good, good.” For a minute, Archer stood looking over T’Pol’s shoulder. Then he crossed over and stood near Malcolm. When he finally said “I’ll be in my Ready Room” and disappeared through the door, the entire Bridge seemed to heave a sigh of relief.
Scene 3
Alone in his ready room, Captain Archer paced, unable to alight anywhere. He picked up a pad to read some reports, but found himself unable to concentrate; he could have sworn the face he saw reflected back at him had glowing sapphire eyes. When he banged his head on an overhead beam, forgetting to duck, he knew it was time to sit. But staring at the menus on the monitor at his desk was unsatisfying. When the com panel buzzed, he nearly pounced on it.
“Sato to the Captain.”
“Archer here. Whatcha got, Hoshi?”
“I’ve worked out a preliminary translation matrix, but-”
“I’ll be right there.”
As Archer headed through the Bridge to the turbo-lift, Malcolm fell into step beside him. “They’ve brought some of the debris into Launch Bay 2. Thought I’d go check it out,” the Armory Officer explained. Archer just nodded, and the two men rode down to E Deck in silence.
When the turbolift doors opened, Archer stepped out and headed straight for Sickbay, while Reed turned right. But they had barely gone two steps when Trip called out from their left.
“Hey, Cap’n! Comin’ to see me? Hi, Malcolm.”
Lieutenant Reed turned toward his fellow officer and smiled cordially, unsure whether he was included in the conversation.
“Actually, I was on my way to Sickbay,” Archer was saying. “Hoshi has worked out enough of our visitor’s language that we can hopefully get some answers.”
“So, uh, is it true what they say?” Trip asked, taking on a secretive air. “Is she really blue?”
Archer chuckled. “Yes, Trip, she is blue.”
“All the way down?” the engineer continued, pointing up and down with his hands.
“I don’t know about that,” Malcolm put in, finally feeling he had something to add. “But she is definitely bald.”
“Bald? Really?” Trip responded incredulously, with a guffaw. “This I gotta see.”
Archer sighed and rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you both come gawk at her now and get it out of your system.” And he waved for them to follow him.
“Are you coming from the Torpedo Bay?” Reed asked as they approached the Sickbay doors. The Port Torpedo Bay had been damaged in the explosion. Tucker nodded. “How is she?” Malcolm asked, a bit too much concern coming through in his voice.
“Don’t worry, your baby will be up and shooting at the bad guys in- Whoa, mama!”
They had entered Sickbay as they talked, and now found themselves face to face with their guest. She was apparently feeling better, sitting up on the edge of her bed. If her skin tone had been pleasing before, it was now luminous. And when she spied Archer, her face lit up with a brilliant smile that made her eyes sparkle.
Malcolm and Trip had stopped just inside the door, transfixed. Trip’s mouth was still open from his outburst, which Malcolm might have teased him about if he had been able to take his eyes off the visitor. Archer, however, didn’t seem to notice the other men’s reactions, but walked right up to the woman and took the hands she held out to him.
“Feeling better, I see,” the Captain said amiably.
“Yes, thanks to your Doctor,” the woman beamed.
“And thanks to Hoshi, the translator’s working great.” He turned his radiant smile on Hoshi for just a moment, then went right back to gazing on the visitor. “So, now we can do this right. I’m Captain Jonathan Archer.”
“My name is Gabreefa, of the clan Macona.”
Malcolm and Trip both silently mouthed the word “Gabreefa” with something like reverence in their expressions. Hoshi, catching this out of the corner of her eye, stared at them as though they were insane.
“I come from a planet called Harac,” Gabreefa continued. “For centuries, my people have been in a decline. It started with war, and became famine and disease. Now we have lost much of our technology, so that we cannot repair equipment when it breaks. Our population is dwindling. In our desperate need, we sent scouts in all our remaining ships, hoping against hope that some would find help. And I found you.”
“And we will help you and your people in any way we can,” Archer replied. “Can you give us the coordinates of Harac?”
“Yes, I have star charts in my ship. I- What’s wrong?”
Archer had broken their locked gaze at mention of her ship, as he realized that she didn’t know. “Your ship, it, um, blew up.”
“It- No! The leak! Oh!” And she buried her face in Archer’s chest, her shoulders shaking. Archer, somewhat at a loss, patted her back and looked around to find them being watched by two rather unhappy looking men and one rather bemused Communications Officer. Gently, he urged Gabreefa to sit back up.
“There, there, you’re safe now,” he murmured. “You say there was a leak that might have caused the explosion?”
“Yes, a klabisto leak,” Gabreefa answered, composing herself quickly. Archer looked to Hoshi, but she just shrugged; the translator was still having trouble with a few words. “I thought I had fixed it,” Gabreefa continued, “but I guess I tlamag it up.”
“I think tlamag means-” Hoshi started to say, but Archer cut her off.
“I can figure that one out myself, thanks.” The Captain looked at Malcolm, who took a moment to acknowledge, but then nodded. He would look into the leak and its possible connection to the incident. “Well then, Gabreefa, if I could get you to look at some star charts, maybe we can figure out where your home planet is. That is, if you feel up to it?”
“Oh, yes, I feel fine.” And as though to illustrate, she slipped off the bed and stood, her body right up against Archer’s. There was a noticeable pause before he stepped back.
The Captain had just called up the current star maps of the area on a nearby monitor when the com buzzed.
“T’Pol to Archer.”
With a sigh, Archer excused himself. “Archer,” he said into the panel.
“Captain, I have a new theory about the appearance of the ship.”
Archer sighed again, glanced at Gabreefa. Only he couldn’t see her, as Trip and Malcolm had surrounded her and were both talking at once. “I’ll be right there,” Archer growled into the com panel before crossing to the monitor in one stride and jerking his two officers back by their collars. This also served to shut them up, a welcome byproduct.
“Mr. Tucker, will you please assist Gabreefa in searching the star charts for her home planet.” He hated to do it, especially when he saw the smirk Trip sent Malcolm’s way at the announcement, but Trip was the only person in the room qualified. “Mr. Reed, I believe you were on your way to Launch Bay 2?” he asked rhetorically, in his best command voice. The Lieutenant, to his credit, merely nodded, straightened his uniform with a firm tug, and went on his way.
Hoshi, who had watched the whole thing and was now red with the effort of holding in her laughter, was next on Archer’s agenda.
“Ensign Sato, will you require more time to interview our guest?”
“No, sir, it’s all in here,” Hoshi waved her pad. “I just need to sit down and work it out.”
“Then I suggest you do so.” And Archer gestured for her to precede him through the door. Thus the Captain and a somewhat chastened Communications Officer left Sickbay.
“Well, Miss Gabreefa,” Trip began, with a smile that could have melted ice. “I don’t believe we were properly introduced. Commander Charles Tucker.” He held out a hand. She looked at for a long moment before taking it. When she did, he shook her hand warmly. “But you can call me Trip.”
“Trip,” she repeated, and turned her dazzling smile on him for the first time. It was as though he had been living in a cave and was coming out into the sunlight. Trip merely basked in it for a minute before finally shaking himself.
“Um, so, yeah, this is where we are right now.” And he pointed at the star chart on the screen.
Scene 4
“Wait, so you’re saying the ship wasn’t transported after all?” Captain Archer was leaning over T’Pol, who sat at her station.
“I am saying that there were two different phenomenon involved. Whether one of them was what we think of as a transporter remains to be discovered. However, of the two, the phenomenon which brought the female onto the Bridge is more similar to a transporter beam.”
“And the other phenomenon? The one that brought her ship right up under our nose without us noticing?”
“A cloaking device of some kind.”
“You said that before, but then you changed your mind.”
“That is because it is unlike any cloaking device I have seen before,” T’Pol responded, ignoring the note of annoyance in her Captain’s voice. “I was attempting to force it into a category that I understood. That effort has failed. I am now attempting to determine a way to trace a ship cloaked with such a device.”
“Ah, go at it from the other side. If you can trace it, it must have been cloaked. Interesting. Oh, it might help you to know that Gabreefa said she had a leak from her ship.”
“What was her ship leaking?”
“We’re not sure,” Archer shrugged. “Malcolm is looking into it.”
“Yes, I’m sure that will prove quite helpful,” quipped T’Pol as she turned back to her viewer.
Scene 5
“I’m sorry, Trip, I just don’t recognize anything,” Gabreefa said, shaking her head sadly. “I’ve never seen charts like this before. This is the only time I’ve ever been in space, I-”
“It’s okay, really,” Trip soothed, rubbing her back. He couldn’t stand to see her upset. “Hey, I know, why don’t we take a break, I could show ya around the ship. Whadda ya say?”
Gabreefa brightened up immediately. “Oh, that sounds wonderful.” Then she leaned closer and added in a whisper “Anything to get me out of Sickbay.”
“I’m with ya there,” Trip replied. They both glanced a little guiltily at Dr. Phlox, who was busily synthesizing more of the drug Gabreefa would need as long as she stayed on the ship. “Hey, Doc!” Trip called. When the Doctor turned, he went on. “Does she check out? I mean, can she get outta here?”
Phlox put down what he was doing and came toward them, wiping his hands on a towel. “Oh, yes, tests show the drug is working just fine. She’s the picture of Haracian health, at least as far as I can tell. Now, if you feel any dizziness, nausea, or shortness of breath, contact me immediately. Other than that, you’re free to do anything the rest of the crew does.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“Yes, thank you so much, Doctor Phlox.”
“Any time.”
As the pair headed out the Sickbay doors, Trip asked, “So where do ya wanna go?”
“I think I’d like to see where your people congregate,” Gabreefa answered. “I’ve never seen your species before, and I find you quite…intriguing.”
“I can assure you that the feelin’ is quite mutual,” Trip replied, offering her his arm. “This way.”
As it was meal time, there were many people in the mess hall when they arrived. Every one of them turned to blatantly stare at their new passenger. Trip broke the heavy silence.
“Everyone, this is Gabreefa, from the planet Harac.”
Like a dam bursting, the room suddenly went from unsettling quiet to a cheerful din as everybody tried to shake Gabreefa’s hand first. Trip kept his hold on her left arm as the crew filed by. For her part, Gabreefa seemed as fascinated with them as they were with her. She was especially drawn to touch the hair of several of the people who passed, and judiciously allowed them to touch her head. When the novelty had passed, and before a new wave of people could enter, Trip asked if there was anything else in particular that she would like to see.
“Where do you work?” she replied with a question of her own.
“In Main Engineering, mostly. Although I’ve probably crawled around every inch of this ship at one time or another.”
“Could I see it? Main Engineering?”
“Uh, well, I’d probably have to clear that with the Cap’n. You know, security reasons and all that.”
“I understand,” said Gabreefa, though she looked a little disappointed. “Then how about where you live?”
“Uh…” Trip felt like there was a reason not to go there, either, but for the life of him he just couldn’t remember what it might be. And he sure didn’t want to disappoint her again. Where the hell else was there to go on the ship, anyway? “Okay. Right this way.”
Officers’ quarters being right next to the mess hall, they hadn’t far to go, and Trip soon found himself ushering Gabreefa into his room. As she entered in front of him, he noticed for the first time that the back of her neck was a darker blue than the rest of the skin he could see, and he began to wonder if there were other color variations hidden under that gown. He was jarred back from that pleasant but inappropriate chain of thought by the sight of Gabreefa holding up a piece of dirty laundry he’d left lying around.
“Uh, let me get that. And this, and this,” he muttered as he hurriedly cleared his one chair of debris. When he turned around to invite her to sit, she was standing a lot closer than he had thought. “Would you like to sit?” he managed to get out of his suddenly dry mouth.
Ignoring the question, Gabreefa reached out and ran her hand through his hair. “I was wondering, do you have fur anywhere else?”
“Uh, well, yeah, but-”
“May I see?” she asked, stepping even closer, her hands going to his chest.
“Well, um,” he stammered, taking a step backward, which only put him up against the wall. She stayed with him, her hands roaming now.
“And are you this color everywhere?” she whispered near his ear.
“Funny, I was just wonderin’ the same thing about you,” he answered with a forced laugh, trying not to sound flustered and failing miserably.
“Then wonder no more,” she said, and in one smooth motion she stepped back and pulled her gown off over her head.
She wore nothing under it, and as the clingy fabric had promised, her body was well-proportioned in the humanoid manner. But the coloration was the most magnificent part. Her head, arms, and breasts were the light blue he’d seen already. But starting just beneath her breasts, the blue darkened to a deeper sapphire, covering her like a corset, and rippling into an iridescent purple across her hips. Her thighs were of a paler lilac, which blended back into light blue on her lower legs. The effect was erotic, as though she were wearing form-fitting lingerie. Combined with the exotic look her hairlessness gave her, she was a captivating sight. Trip couldn’t seem to keep himself from reaching out to touch her skin. She stepped right into his open arms.
“You’re beautiful,” Trip whispered.
“Your turn,” she murmured. And her hands began to help him divest himself of his cumbersome clothing. As he shrugged out of the sleeves of his coveralls, she was pulling up the shirt underneath, marveling at the hairs on his chest. The shirt off over his head, she followed the line of hair she found on his belly downward until she was kneeling before him, pulling down his pants, and finally exposing his groin.
Not surprisingly, by this time Trip found himself quite aroused, his cock standing at attention. But Gabreefa seemed more interested in the nest from which it protruded, running her fingertips through the curly hairs, pulling on them gently. Trip let his head fall back against the wall, trying to convince himself that it was okay if, a minute from now, she simply got up and put her clothes back on with a cheerful “Thanks for sharing!” And really, he continued telling himself, it would be better that way, because having sex with aliens is really not the ethical, upstanding, Starfleet Officer type thing to do.
Then he felt her take his cock in her mouth, and he quit lying to himself. He wanted her, it was gonna happen, and fuck protocol.
Lifting his head from the wall, he looked down and watched as she nibbled down one side of his cock and up the other. When she caught his eye, she gave his erection one last kiss and stood up. For a long moment they just gazed into each other’s eyes. Then they were in a passionate embrace, their arms enveloping, their lips seeking.
Trip felt as though he were floating. It all seemed too impossibly perfect to be real. Her skin was impossibly smooth, and seemed to thrum under his touch. Her mouth tasted impossibly sweet, different from any human woman he’d ever kissed. A part of his mind, a very small part, realized that this had to do with her differing body chemistry, but most of his mind was thinking only “Oh, yeah.”
Blindly, he guided them toward his cot, which was after all only a few steps away. They fell onto the sheets together. When he finally came up for breath, he found himself wondering what the rest of her felt and tasted like, and began a, if not slow, at least thorough exploration. The sounds she made as he went were familiar to him, though peppered with untranslatable words. He let himself believe that they were all good things, and went on with his ministrations.
When he reached her groin, giving the impossibly soft, smooth, purple skin of her mound a thorough licking, and she spread her legs eagerly for him, there was a moment of panic in which he wondered if he might finally uncover some great difference between their species. But no, here, too, she was similar to human women. On such familiar ground, Trip deftly elicited even more moans and untranslatable exclamations. One such exclamation Gabreefa had to repeat before he understood. And still it took her hands pulling none too gently on his hair to bring him up to lay atop her.
Trip was slowly aligning their bodies and trying to catch his breath enough to ask the obligatory “Are you sure this is what you want?” when Gabreefa made it a moot point by wrapping her legs around his hips and thrusting, impaling herself on his shaft.
Trip let out a deep moan as he felt himself enveloped. She was impossibly tight, impossibly hot, and if he had let himself, he would have come right then and there. But valiantly he held back, letting her set the pace. And what a pace it was. As she bucked and moaned beneath him, it was all Trip could do to stay on. It was with great relief that he finally felt her spasming around him and let himself go. This only seemed to incite her to new heights of pleasure, and it was some time before they were still, resting in each other’s arms as their breathing returned to normal.
Trip was just starting to be capable of coherent thought again, and the first such thought to cross his mind was that the second time was generally even better than the first, when the com panel buzzed.
“Archer to Tucker. Where are ya Trip?”
“Oh, hell,” Trip muttered, as he slid off Gabreefa and scrambled frantically for the com button. “Tucker here. I took Gabreefa for a dime tour o’ the ship. She just had to get outta Sickbay.”
“Understood. Make your next attraction the Bridge. We think we know how to find Harac.”
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