In the morning, a few days later, there were two messages on Jay's PADD. He read the one from the captain first, about a breakfast meeting. The other was from Lili, which just said – I'll try to be respectful and undemonstrative during breakfast. He responded in the affirmative to the first one and then, to the second, he wrote – I'll try, too, Sparrow, but I've missed you. Wear something comfortable tonight.
=/\=
It was Jonathan, Malcolm, Jay and Hoshi at the meeting. Lili, as promised, did her best to stay in the back with Craig and remain unobtrusive, there to do her job and nothing more. Jonathan spoke. "We'll need to do something about the prisoners, and about the entire Socorro matter. We have evidence of another conspirator."
"What kind of evidence?" asked Hoshi. Jay clicked his PADD against hers in order to transfer the data. She skimmed it quickly. "Is this reliable?"
"There's no good way to tell," said the captain. "We need some sort of a litmus test. Frankly, what we really need is for Haynem to come clean and just confess."
"If I know Brooks Haynem," Malcolm said, "he won't. He'll do what he can in order to make it as difficult to prove anything against him as possible."
"And at least some of that would be within his rights," Hoshi said, "Or, well, that's how I understand it all. I mean, he's got the right to remain silent, right? And he doesn't have the burden of proving anything – we do. Isn't he innocent until proven guilty?"
"Our ideals and our values," Malcolm mused, "I'd like to think they continue to apply."
They all sat there in silence, only broken by Craig asking if anyone wanted more coffee. Unbidden, Lili poured more hot water into a little teapot that she'd placed in front of Malcolm earlier. He looked at her as she worked, thinking of her hands on his face rather than on the kettle.
"We have no lawyers," said Captain Archer, "and there really isn't anyone who could act as an impartial judge."
"Begging your pardon, sir," Craig ventured, "but that's not strictly true."
"Come again?" asked Jay.
"There are the Ikaarans, sir. They don't really know too much about what happened, right? Maybe they should decide things."
"Who would decide on a punishment?" Hoshi asked.
"Maybe we could all vote on it," Jay suggested. They all looked at him strangely, so he added, "We voted on naming Paradise and Amity, right?"
"That was different," Malcolm insisted.
"Of course it was, but hear me out, okay?" Jay downed a cup of coffee, fast, before he continued speaking. Lili poured him another cup, gazing into his eyes briefly. He tore himself away, fighting the distraction. "What I'm trying to say is this – voting on planetary names was, well, it was something we did as a community. And the, the chess tournament, and the parties and the weddings, and, and celebrating kids' birthdays and their births, all of that is, it's all community stuff. As a community, we saw Sandra Sloane put into the Brig, and we've even seen her hooking."
"Plying her trade," Malcolm said absently.
"Right," Jay continued, "and we saw Ethan Shapiro almost die, and we saw his rehab. And we had the baseball game, and Meredith's singing and Chip's movie discussions, and it's all, really, the same thing, underneath. It's all of us acting not like a ship, but like a small town. For the good stuff and the bad, we have to, we have to pull together. It's, it's like the Enterprise is some big fishing boat. We've all gotta pull on that same net – regardless of what's actually in that net."
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The Three of Us
FanfictionDuring the Xindi War, the Enterprise was thrown back in time, to 2037. The male to female ratio was uneven. How did people cope, and adjust their expectations? Star Trek fan fiction starring Captain Jonathan Archer, First Officer T'Pol, Chief Engine...