"Posturings"

[Guest TParek]

Lost again.

 

T'Parek wondered if there could be a shortcut home. After all, there were almost always alternatives to making long, winding journeys across the cosmos, weren't there? Wormholes and distortions, perhaps, or some method of utilizing subspace mechanics for one's own use. Though, she had to admit, a shortcut involving that sort of thing would require working with the science department, and the nerdlings tended to speak in strange, incomprehensible tongues that the majority of people were incapable of understanding. Initiating a project which would involve them would remind her that she was, indeed, one of those people who did understand the scientists, and that was not something that she liked to be reminded of.

 

Ahhh, the old days, when their first officer was the Chief Nerdling, and they were a nice little collective of geekish entities that tended more towards collaboration on particle accelerators and less on species-oriented slurs (usually regarding races with pointed ears). Days before the Xindi; days before the the formation of the Coalition lended itself towards resuming old cultural-differential-feuds. And then there was always the fact that back in the days when she first joined Challenger, she had no one to report to at the High Command, she wasn't at the whim of the Consulate, and she tended towards forgetting the more encompassing responsibilities that she had: to watch out for the less advanced beings she worked with, and keep them out of Major Trouble that the Vulcans would have to bail them out of.

 

That was the main thing, wasn't it? Becoming reacquainted with old colleagues in the Vulcan government and re-establishing the ties that had developed her as a working officer in the Vulcan fleet to begin with had reminded her of her place -- as the watchful entity who kept an ever-watchful eye on her human coworkers. Therefore, she'd reacted to the change in her placing on the ship and in Starfleet accordingly.

 

But humanity, having seeming to have gotten on its own two feet without the assistance of they-who-had-pointed-ears, had gotten downright cocky. Did they need Vulcans as caretakers and watchers any longer? Of course not. But what was to happen if and when the humans went up against an enemy or situation that wasn't to be swayed by their grand talk of righteous emotion and nobility of character? "We're explorers!" would only last so long in a quadrant of military expansion, behind-the-scenes intrigue and growing political posturing on the side of the Coalition members. Caitian navy-ers were being assigned to vessels, Andorians were gaining more and more prominence in the fleet; she'd heard rumors of Kreetassan and Tellarite executive officers on a boat or two, and of course the hog-like ones alone had gained enough of a good reputation to call several of the big shots in the Coalition now and then. Every species wanted fingers in every pot, and right there in Starfleet was evidence enough for the intrigue and posturing. Every species had voices throughout the fleet now, and while it had that nice democratic aura to it, something generally made her uneasy.

 

What would happen when the humans did "meet their match", so to speak? They may have had already, considering the ever-growing, ever-present threat of the Romulans. And where would T'Parek figure into the equation if it did come down to all-out war? Stuck in the middle of it all, if her government could easily react in a way that was less than supportive of the rest of the Coalition, and even less supportive of Earth in particular.

 

She'd already heard the snickered nicknames they gave to her behind her back (and for that matter, right in front of her). 'T'Pork' wasn't going anywhere, and then there was 'The Snooty Vulcan'. It took her a little while to understand that one -- after all, it was simply the way she behaved, and leave it to the humans to take it personally. They should have simply listened to her advice and run with it... though, that wasn't the way those damned stubborn Terrans acted.

 

She sat back, and started a scan of the bandwidths. They were a confusing species, and there wasn't much she could do with it. But with luck, they'd learn to appreciate their Vulcan comrade a bit more in the near future.

 

One could always hope, couldn't they?