By Ariel Klay and the Members of the Starship Asimov Fan Club

Word Count: Story in Progress, to be determined.

Rating: PG-13 for minor blood and sensual content

Summary: The Adventures of the Crew of Starfleet Science vessel USS Asimov. 

First officer’s log, Stardate 8891091.2, Commander Trevor Stevens, reporting: about ten minutes ago we received a general distress call from our sister ship, the Aurora, with a coded message for Captain McCoy which I sent to the holodeck where she was relaxing with Mr. Troi. She ordered that I put the ship on yellow alert, engage the cloaking device and head out to the Alkara Sector at maximum warp. She has ordered Lieutenant Commander Gallagar, Dr. Altara, Lieutenant Kahra and I to meet her and Mr. Troi in the galley for a briefing on the situation.

Having given Lieutenant Lewis, the Asimov‘s helmsmen, the conn, Stevens left the bridge with Lieutenant Kahra, the ship’s chief tactical officer, for the galley. Kahra was quiet, as she usually was before battle, Stevens noticed.

“Whatever is going on,” Stevens thought, “it must be important if we’re going there this fast cloaked“

As the two of them approached the galley, they spotted Gallagar, the chief engineer and Dr. Aquina Altara, the chief medical officer.

Turning to Trevor, Kahra said curtly, “I am going to speak to Commander Gallagar about our weapons status.”

Trevor nodded, then turned to Dr. Altara and said softly, “We got a distress call from the Aurora.”

“Oh, wow! That would explain us going to yellow alert,” said Aquina, “It’s been a while since we’ve responded to one of those, but Sickbay is ready for it!”

“I knew I could count on you,” smiled Trevor, “now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to speak to the captain.”

Aquina nodded and went in the galley as Amanda strode up with James at her side, both of them were soaking wet. They were both wearing shorts and a t-shirt, his with an “I heart NY” logo emblazoned on it.

“Boy, they look different in civvies,” thought Trevor, “Now I think about it, I hardly ever see Amanda out of uniform.” He then noticed a smudge on James face and wondered, “And what is that on James’ lips?”

“Pardon my appearance. There was some kind of malfunction on the holodeck,” explained Amanda, “and we got a rainstorm and then hail when I programmed a hot summer day and then it wouldn’t shut down the program, thankfully the exit door opened in time for the briefing. When you run the briefing, please order N’ka to check the holodeck to be sure the problem isn’t affecting other systems. May I see your padd?”

Trevor handed it to Amanda, who released the coded message from the Aurora, handed the padd back to Trevor, who read the message and slowly breathed out.

“Wow,” said Trevor, “this is serious stuff.”

“I know,” said the captain, “but we’re ready.”

“As always, Captain,” said Trevor, who then stared at James.

“Is something wrong?” asked James.

“Well, it’s your lips, James” he said and then looking at the captain, he said, “In fact, it’s both of your lips.”

Amanda and James stared at each other and she said softly, “Trevor, may I borrow your handkerchief?”

“Um, sure, Amanda,” said Trevor, and smiled as handed it over to Amanda, and he thought to himself, “Only Amanda knows I always keep my monogrammed handkerchiefs at all times, whether they be for tears or errant lipstick. Grandma always told me, ‘Trevor, Honey, a gentleman always keeps a handkerchief handy for ladies in distress.’”

Amanda carefully removed the smeared lipstick off her lips. Turning to James, she motioned for him to lean his face toward her and carefully wiped off the lipstick from his then turned to Trevor leaned in and whispered, “Please don’t say anything just yet.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Amanda,” he whispered back and thought, “I guess they had more than just a ‘friendly’ chess game. No wonder she looks so relaxed. Well, after all she’s been through, it’s about time she found some happiness. I hope James appreciates her and treats her like the lady she pretends not to be!”

The three of them entered the galley. N’ka, Aquina and Kahra had taken their seats, leaving three empty chairs at the head of the long table. The Amanda took her place at the head, with Trevor on her right and James on her left.

Trevor stood up and said, “Gentlemen, ladies, we just received word from the Aurora that she is under attack, possibly by Mari’Ma raiders who have been going after settlements in the region. We expect to arrive in the Alkara Sector in four hours. Other ships are on their way, but are twelve hours behind us. Now this isn’t our first rodeo, folks. N’ka, make sure the ship is prepped and while you are at it, check the holodeck. The captain and James got an unexpected shower of rain and hail on the holodeck and we want to be sure that whatever caused the hiccup hasn’t affected other systems.”

N’ka shook his head and said, “I think I have an idea what went wrong. When I was ‘escorting’ Twig off the holodeck, he mumbled something about hoping the captain and James would enjoy their rainbow.”

Amanda rolled her eyes and then Trevor said, “I hope he’s sober enough to fix the problem, N’ka!”

“I took him to sickbay as soon as the ship went on yellow alert,” N’ka assured him.

Trevor shook his head at this and continued, “Kahra, run battle drills. Captain, since this is James’ first potential combat mission with us, what are your orders for him?”

“After you get a chance to change into some dry clothes, James,” said Amanda, “I want you to go over all known intelligence on the Mari’Ma, then report to my ready room and help me formulate possible battle scenarios.”

“I don’t know, Captain,” said Trevor, “I have always found people in ‘I love New York’ t-shirts particularly scary. Maybe he should wear it into battle.”

“Is that what this means?” asked James, pointing to the words to his shirt.

“Thank you, for lightening the mood, gentlemen,” Amanda said dryly, “You all have your orders, dismissed!”

Everyone stood and as they filed out the room, Aquina turned toward Amanda who was scratching the back of her neck. The doctor looked intently at her and then at James and said jokingly, “Are you itching to get back into combat, Amanda?”

“Yes, but it’s also these wet clothes, Aquina. I use sonic showers so much I forget what it’s like to actually be wet,” said Amanda, “How soon can you get Twig sobered up? I want all ‘hands on deck.’”

“I started him on an infusion as soon as N’ka brought him in. He should be ‘sober as a judge’ in an hour!”

“Good!” said Amanda and left the galley.

Aquina turned to James in the empty room, placed her hand on his shoulder and thought to him, “Be prepared James to see a whole other side of the captain. You haven’t seen her in combat and conquest mode before.“

As their minds touched, Aquina felt James seem to almost blush at this comment and he thought, “Um, actually it won’t be the first time I’ve seen her in conquest mode,” and Aquina sensed something in James’ mind and thought to him, “No, it’s not something, it’s someone! Amanda is in his mind! James, what happened on the holodeck?”

“Oh, it was just some unusual weather phenomena, Aquina.”

“Unusual weather, James?”

“Lightning has struck in the same place twice, emotionally speaking.”

“Oh, James! I am so happy for you, happy for you both!”

“So are we, but I must hurry, the captain needs that report.”

“Well go then, you mustn’t keep her waiting!”

oooOOOooo

Forty-five minutes later, James arrived in the Amanda’s ready room and was pleasantly surprised to see a plate of cucumber sandwiches, cream scones with jam, a few cookies, a pot of hot tea and two mugs on her desk. Amanda looked up at James, smiled and said, “Seeing our picnic lunch was interrupted, I thought afternoon tea would be just the thing for a working lunch.”

“Why thank you, Amanda,” he said as he sat down, “I’m glad to see you’re taking regular meals.”

“Hm, something my therapist reminded me to do,” smiled Amanda, “Do you take lemon or milk.”

“Milk with two lumps of sugar,” said James, “I’m impressed, you really know your English tea.”

“Hey, you’re not the only one who knows how to do research,” said Amanda grinning as she put sugar in James’ mug, poured in the milk, filled it with fragrant tea and poured a cup for her.

“Nicely done,” nodded James approvingly, took a sip, and then said “Very good tea.”

Amanda sighed with satisfaction, “All right, to work. What do you know about the Mari’Ma?”

“They were only recently discovered by the Federation,” he said, “they live on the edge of the Alkara Sector and have only recently achieved warp technology.”

“Which they are using to exploit their neighbors,” concluded Amanda, “charming.”

“Exactly,” he said, “Their home planet is rich in material resources, but their society is so war-like, their population has not been allowed to flourish to create a work force, so they raid other peoples for slave labor.”

“And they are suspected of attacking the Aurora,” said Amanda grumbling, “Lovely, the Aurora has a crew complement of one hundred and fifty, not including civilians and the children aboard.”

“Which makes the possible involvement of the Mari’Ma that much more disturbing,” said James.

“Has there been any discernable pattern to their attacks?” asked Amanda.

James brought up a navigational chart of the Alkara Sector, “The Mari’Ma attacked a small settlement on Alkara IV in the middle of the sector six weeks ago, the transport vessel Galon’hi on the other side of the sector three weeks ago and then attacked a large terraform colony on Alkara XV two weeks ago. No other attacks have happened since.”

“So there is not much in a way of an attack pattern,” said Amanda, “Did they take the same thing every time?”

“No,” James shook his head, “sometimes they took people, sometimes they took weapons, and sometimes they took food.”

“Puzzling,” she said as she took a sandwich and bit into it, “not bad.”

James smiled as he picked up a scone, which he liberally spread with cream and jam, handed it to Amanda and prepared one for himself. James smiled with pleasure as he bit into his scone and watched intently as Amanda ate hers.

“Mmmm, this is delicious,” she said.

“I’m glad you like them,” he smiled and took another bite of his scone.

“I bet they would be wonderful with honey and butter,” she speculated.

James sputtered, started to choke at this last comment and he struggled to breath. Amanda quickly came up behind him and performed the Heimlich maneuver. Just as the bit of scone popped out of his mouth and bounced across the desk, a hatch in the floor of the ready room opened and Twig’s head popped up like a gopher coming out of his hole.

“Haven’t you heard of knocking, Twig?” demanded Captain McCoy.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Twig, “but Gallagar deemanded I come up and apawlogiize fer messin’ with yer hollerdeck program and tell y’all it’s fixed.”

“Fine, apology accepted, dismissed!” barked McCoy.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Twig meekly and then looked noticed Amanda’s arms around James’ waist and said, “Saaay, am I interruptin’ somethin’?”

Amanda McCoy stood up and growled, “I was performing the Heimlich maneuver on Mr. Troi.”

“All right, all right,” said Twig, “Jest remembers Mr. Troi, my cousin is a lady, ya’ll better treat her like one, ye hear!”

Still coughing and sputtering, James couldn’t say anything. So Twig glared at him and went back down, slamming the hatch behind him. Amanda patted James’ back and asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

James nodded, continued to cough, took a long sip of tea and said, “Yes, I will. You just gave me a bit of a shock.”

“How?” she asked.

“You suggested putting butter and honey on a scone!” said James.

“Well, yes, I love hot biscuits with butter and honey,” she said, “and that’s what these things remind me of, my Grandma Joanna’s buttermilk biscuits.”

James picked up a cookie and holding it out to her, he asked, “Wait, you mean scones remind you of biscuits!?”

“Where I come from, that’s a cookie, Jim,” said Amanda patiently and turning to the replicator she said, “Computer, buttermilk biscuits, hot, with butter and honey on the side.”

The replicator hummed and produced a plate of steaming biscuits with plate of butter and a pot of honey. Amanda picked up a biscuit, split it open, slathered on butter and honey, and then handed it to James, who looked at it dubiously. Amanda quickly prepared a biscuit for herself, took a generous bite and chewed luxuriously, her eyes closed in rapture. She swallowed then said, “Scrumptious! Almost as good as Grandma’s!”

James continued to stare at the biscuit in his hand, which was now covered in melted butter and warm honey. Amanda looked at the biscuit greedily and asked, “Are you going to eat that?”

James handed it over to Amanda and at that moment, the ship rocked violently, the food and tableware fell off the desk and onto James, Amanda and the floor. Amanda stood up, said, “What the-?” and she and James rushed onto the bridge, their uniforms covered with the remnants of tea, cookies, biscuits, sandwiches and scones.

Trevor tapped his comm badge and said, “Stevens to Gallagar, report!”

“There was an explosion in the torpedo bay, sir,” N’ka’s panted on the comm system, “I’m on my way there.”

“Keep me advised,” ordered Trevor, “I’m sending medical teams to assist.”

“Understood,” said N’ka.

“Stevens,” said Amanda, “Keep me advised, meanwhile, Mr. Troi and I will change our clothes, again.”

“Yes, Captain,” said Trevor, then Amanda and James exited the bridge.

Kahra looked at Trevor, clearly puzzled and asked, “Have you noticed that every time the captain and Mr. Troi are together, they end up either wet or messy?”

“Yes,” said Trevor, “it goes with her wet and messy personality.”

N’ka’s voice crackled over the comm system, “Medical emergency in the torpedo bay.”

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