Star Trek Outwardly Mobile
The Bombing
by
Jay P Hailey

My back hurt worse than anything else I'd ever experienced. It was hard to think. I kept yelling and every time I tried to get my head together and do something a new tidal wave of pain would wash me away.

I could smell smoke and see flames. I was near panicking. Was the hull intact? Were we about to loose atmosphere? People I didn't recognize were standing there or doing things. With effort I could recall that they were members of the peace delegations I was trying to negotiate with.

T'Sing approached me. "Captain. You're injured."

I laughed through clenched teeth "THANK YOU!" I thought I was being conversational.

She began to reach for my face. I batted her hands away "What are you doing?"

"I can relieve your pain."

I couldn't let her in. I couldn't subject her to this. She was a little pixie of a girl and I could not let her feel this. I couldn't tell exactly what was wrong but it was bad. Very bad. "No."

She reached again. I grabbed her wrists "I can't let you…"

She casually twisted out of my grip and reached for my neck.

Things got vague….

-*-

The pain floated away. I could feel my whole body sighing with relief. That was wonderful!

I felt her nearby, a solid, comforting presence, watching my reaction with gentle, implacable tolerance.

I looked carefully at her. T'Sing was a hell of a lot smarter than I was giving her credit for. I could see the depth of her knowledge and I was awed. "Wow." I felt.

Then an odd thing happened. I realized that T'Sing could see all of me. I had no defenses and no privacy. I'd once pictured her naked. I'd once had sexual fantasies about T'Sing. I felt like a creep, she seemed so young.

But my immediate fear of being caught out brought those images to the fore and they played for T'Sing while I did my best to stuff them down into a hole.

T'Sing greeted the barrage with amused tolerance. "It doesn't seem abnormal for you."

I wanted to die of embarrassment, but I caught something else, The faintest tinkling hint of laughter.

It was odd and I was curious. I looked at T'Sing again. This incredible edifice of logic and knowledge. But inside there was…

Emotion. It was faint, and subtle, but it was beautiful. T'Sing felt things, but not like me. My emotions were an unquiet ocean filled with huge waves and powerful currents. Her emotions were a pool, a fountain, but the patterns were so subtle and delicate. I could spot familiar things in her emotions, love, fear, affection, even resentment. But it was like a baby's hand so delicate and small.

"Captain." T'Sing said I caught a swirl of emotion. She was uncomfortable. Underneath that she was aroused. I was… touching her…. Intimately. Inappropriately, in a mental sense. I found myself metaphorically with my hands on her breasts and in her crotch.

With a blast of shame and embarrassment I fled. I withdrew from T'Sing. Christ, how could I be so… insensitive!? I moved into the darkness. Suddenly my back started hurting again. It was a deep burn. I could feel it slightly, and that told me things I just didn't want to know. I was in bad shape. Hating myself I stopped. I couldn't bring myself to enter the realm where the pain was raging.

"Jay." I heard behind me. T'Sing. I was still tied up in her mind. I couldn't flee to the pain, but I should have.

I turned and could feel tears of shame and anger on my face.

She was distant from me. Not letting me close. But I felt her reach out. "I am concerned."

Suddenly I could see myself through her eyes. I was hysterical. My emotions were in the driver's seat. I could feel myself being driven by pain, adrenaline, fear and all sort of hormonal responses.

"I'm out of it T'Sing." I said.

"Agreed. You are clearly not in your right mind."

"Give me a moment." I said. I mentally sat down and took deep breaths. I physically slowed myself down and got back to basics. Ignore everything else. Find and touch the truth. Breathe.

"Fascinating." T'Sing said.

"I'm working on it." I growled. I continued to breathe, just breathe. T'Sing's meld gave me the separation from the pain I needed to gather myself.

Eventually I started feeling something like normal, although the sick feeling of the injury was still there. "T'Sing, it feels like my back has been burned off."

"You have suffered severe burns. You may go into shock. I am stabilizing you until we can be rescued." T'Sing explained.

Anger flared. "Damnit. These people are *crazy*. We were trying to hold a damned peace conference!"

"You must not distract yourself with emotional reactions." T'Sing said.

"I apologize T'Sing. I really do." I said. The embarrassment was fainter now, but still ugly.

"No need." Her wall of amused tolerance was back. "The cause was sufficient."

I breathed some more.

"Jay. May I ask you a question?"

I was confused. Why did she need to ask me a question? Our minds were interwined.

"It is a personal matter." T'Sing explained. "If you do not wish to address it, then I will not intrude."

"Oh. Go ahead."

"Jay. Do you … love me?" T'Sing was honestly curious, but behind the curiosity there was fear, trepidation and a hint of giddy egotism.

I had to stay ruthlessly honest with myself. And with her.

"Come in." I said. I opened myself to her utterly.

T'Sing walked with me through the confused swirl of images

With a thought I guided us through my view of the female crew of the Discovery.

Kamaline , Cute and perky. Available. All I had to do would be to ask her if she was interested. But I knew she'd see it differently than I did. For her it would be a friendly hand shake, a fun game. And then something else…. I didn't know what. But it scared me.

That didn't stop me from looking and fantasizing. And T'Sing got to see all of it. Sometimes I realized what an idiot I was and got some separation. Sometimes it was all I could do not to drool at her on the bridge.

Then I thought of the woman who knew enough to keep up with almost every major science, and keep a grin on her face while she did it. She was smart and her mind moved so quickly. Idly I wondered what she looked like telepathically. Probably large like T'Sing, but Sparking and up, without T'Sings marvelous subtlety

Stephanie. She was athletic and her lines were so graceful. I knew to get into her pants would be an effort but probably worth it. I watched her ass sometimes, and that fed my fantasy life.

She was so tough with herself. Always pushing herself a little farther, a little higher. I could see how hard she worked to be the best Security officer ever. I wondered sometimes what made her drive herself so hard. If I got into the middle of it, could I help or hinder?

Marcella Burlington. She spent a lot of time being arch and frankly pissy with me. But her people, the Zalkonians had breasts and I looked at Burlington's. I wondered what she'd be like in bed.

I knew she was working hard to stay on the right side of the like between right and wrong. She mixed medical science with a irate moralizing that let me know. She'd been to the edge between them once or twice herself. Why didn't I listen to her more closely?

T'Sing watched my thought process calmly and carefully noting as it went.

T'Sing was as cute as a bug. Was she innocent? Was she naïve? Who was she? I saw that she had this natural acceptance of my testosterone crazed idiocy, but there wasn't much behind it. She didn't have a lot of experience with human men. I wondered if Vulcan men were as crazy I was.

"They are." T'Sing answered. She recalled a time in training when she melded with a fellow student. In her memories, he was tall and handsome. The logical considerations were there. He was from a good family. His intellect and physical health were clearly excellent. This was a neat cover for terribly faint shiver I got when I was near him.

So during the meld, I saw the Vulcan mind. The edifice of logic and intellect, underlaid by the soft swirling emotions. Let them loose and they would flood. Like Jay now, completely out of control.

I saw in the male mind an area covered in blackness. I didn’t know it then, but with the eyes of experience I saw denial, and careful walls of self delusion.

Curious, I pieced the veil. And was treated to an enflamed green penis of a man, who wanted nothing more than to rape me silly and declare his dominance over me. He was… Human inside. He had compassion, he loved his mother in a careful, logical way.

But the area that T'Sing pierced was as thuggish an expression of basic male drives as I have ever seen. And working with the Engineering gang I'd seen some real winners.

I was split. T'Sing listened to an all male stardock crew run their mouths and say moronic shit. T'Sing could see the bravado. She could see the false front. She could also see my uncertainty. Did these morons really look at the women in their lives that way?

I could see Sevel grab my arm. Oh, my goodness he was big and he was better trained in hand to hand combat than I was. I felt fear scramble through my mind as he stared at me with green burning eyes. I could almost smell the lust and aggression that came within a hair's breadth of launching themselves at me.

Then he brought it back inside. A Herculean effort of control, and he got on top of it. He let my bruised arm go and said. "I apologize."

I gaped like a fish. If I hadn't been Vulcan I'd have bawled at him right there. And maybe screamed a little. Then I stepped back turned and walked away before anyone could see me melt down.

T'Sing watched me living her memory with a stern disapproval.

I looked at her. "I'm sorry."

"See the rest."

I was in the room of a trusted professor. I had just finished telling her the story. And I did cry, tears rolling down my cheeks.

"T'Sing," T'Zalan said. "He is not unusual, except that he was terribly unwise to let you touch him in that way."

I boggled at her. All men? All the boys in my class? All the men in government? Daddy?

She said "Most of them have more control. And most of them have one of us to help them."

"Help them?" I all but climbed into my chair and curled into a fetal ball.

"That aggression, that lust, that arrogant demand for control is all of them, but being pair bonded and experience with women moderates it. Without time and experience it's it unformed and undirected. But it has its purposes both in evolution and in modern life, believe it or not."

I didn't believe it. I wanted no part of that.

T'Zalan reached for me. "Give me your thoughts."

I trusted the woman implicitly so I did so.

She showed me the very faintest view of that energy put into lust in a healthy way. That lust was returned and I realized I was acting out similar … emotions.

T'Zalan showed me a husband who'd mind was motivated by affection for T'Zalan, and who's undercurrents of aggression were channeled not into conquering her but lifting her higher. I saw a protective urge that found expression not with weapons and blood but with tools and creativity.

As T'Zalan finished showing me her own marriage, she said "Sevel will some day find his own expression of this. Your father and all adult Vulcan men have."

Then she twisted the knife. "So how do you feel about Sevel and Males now?"

I blushed a furious green.

I felt T'sing and I start to unravel from each other. "Thank you." I said.

She felt a touch wry. "The cause was sufficient."

I wanted to lift T'Sing up, too. Not in a sexual or romantic way. It seemed like that would feel as good with T'Sing as humanly possible and not feel icky and wrong.

T'Sing saw the urge and noted it. "The medics are here."

"How long…"

"You should focus on more immediate concerns." T'Sing said. She was drifting away

I held on "One more thing. I do love you. But.. not like…"

T'Sing nodded "I know."

As the meld fell apart, I drifted away, The last thought I caught from T'Sing's mind was that a heavy dose of something resembling morphine but more complex was a logical step.

-*-

I woke up in Sickbay, with several part of my body missing. I remembered the feeling. A neural inhibitor was blocking pain signals. I wanted to kiss it and say thank you.

T'Sing approached. "Captain. What is your condition?"

"I can't feel most of my back and pieces of my arms and legs. And I like it that way." I answered.

"You have been severely burned. We are treating you with healing gel and regeneration treatments now. Unfortunately, there will be skin grafts, and some adjustment. Perhaps discomfort." T'Sing reported.

I breathed out heavily. "Thank you. It beats the alternative."

She raised her eyebrow. "Indeed."

"What's happening? Can you tell Commander Mendez I'd like a report?" I asked.

"As soon as you are able I will summon him." T'Sing said.

"How's the peace making going?"

"It was not successful. The Kigali moved a task force into proximity of the station and unilaterally withdrew following the bombing." T'Sing said

"Well, damn." I said.

"You were not successful at lifting them higher." T'Sing observed

I peered at her. "Yeah, I guess so."

"But that was your intent." She said.

"Maybe some ego in there. Behold the great peacemaker." I said.

"That is a beneficial quality of yours." She said. Then she leaned down and planted a whisper of a kiss on my cheek. It was the most sincere yet platonic kiss I'd ever gotten.

I blinked and then grinned. "I like you, too, kid."

T'Sing quirked her eyebrow at me and continued about her business.

-end-

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.

This story posted by permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Jay P. Hailey

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