Islands
a post-Season
3 Star Trek:
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, more’s the
pity. And I hated Season 3 and refuse to
acknowledge 4 – like you didn’t know that already. So this story is AU, set after the
Stewart knew he’d find the boy down on the beach; it was where he would have gone, where he’d expected to find Malcolm going. He snorted softly and shook his head. He’d vastly underestimated his son, that he had. His son’s husband, though…
He walked right up and stiffly sat down on the sand beside the younger man, looking out at the waves himself. He’d sat like this a time or two, all sailors had; he supposed that on the sort of ship this one and his son took to they stared out at the stars instead. It didn’t matter, one ocean was as good as another for that. Although it had taken him long enough and the waste of seven million lives to see it – Stewart had never denied being pig-headed, and even if he had his wife wouldn’t have hesitated to correct him. He knew he’d been lucky to find a woman like that.
The man sitting beside him had been lucky that way too. Right now, though, what Charles Tucker-Reed needed was something Malcolm didn’t have to give him. Stewart had it, though. He’d thought it would be his son he’d be having this talk with, here on the beach, but it was his son-in-law instead and that was all right too – even better than that, in some ways, although it was selfish of him to think so and he knew it. “Well,” he said, not looking away from the waves. “Are you going to show it to me or do I have to show you mine first?”
Startled blue eyes looked down at him, and it took the younger man a moment to find his voice. “You…you know? But…”
“I haven’t seen it, you’ve been commendably careful,” Stewart told him. “But I know the signs. Now pull it out and let’s have a look at your trophy.”
Trip snorted. “Trophy, right.” He reached into the pocket of his loose beach shirt – looser than the knowing eye of a father or a commander thought it should be – and pulled out something scaly and green and twisted by desiccation. He held it up but didn’t offer it to the other man. “Somehow I don’t think you’ve got somethin’ like this stashed away, sir.”
“Not that color, no.” Stewart fished in his own pocket and pulled out something brownish and shriveled. “And mine’s older.”
The younger man stared at the object in shock. “That’s…”
“An ear, yes.” He used it to point to the remnant Trip was holding. “What was that?”
“A…just a piece, I don’t know. I blew one away and this part came off, landed right on my boot.” An almost imperceptible shudder. “I don’t even remember pickin’ it up, just found it in my pocket later. I dried it out so it would keep. Where did you…”
“I didn’t, my father did.” Stewart held up the dried ear, moving it closer to the piece the younger man had. “He didn’t want it, hated it even, but he couldn’t let go of it. On his deathbed he handed it to me and told me where it came from, how he got it.” He shrugged. “It ate him up inside, this thing, but he couldn’t let go. I couldn’t either.” Stewart cast a sidelong look at the younger man. “You know, the thing a man wishes for most isn’t that there won’t be war in his lifetime, but that there won’t be one in his son’s.”
Trip sighed. “Or maybe he just doesn’t expect his son to start one.”
“Rubbish!” Stewart’s sudden outburst made Trip jump. “I know you can’t be that stupid, young man – just because your piece moved doesn’t mean it started the game. It takes a lot more than one man to start a war, or even one ship.”
“I know that, I do.” The engineer’s voice was quiet, and he shook his head. “It’s just…”
“That some others don’t, I know.” Stewart turned the ear in his fingers. “I didn’t understand my father, until he gave me this. He didn’t want me in the Royal Navy, and I thought it was because he didn’t think I was capable of living up to the family name. Spent my whole life trying to show him different, spent half of Malcolm’s trying to force him to do the same – and punished him for the old man’s disapproval. By the time I understood what he’d really been disapproving of, it was far too late to fix things with my own son.” He sighed. “Luckily, Malcolm was stronger than I gave him credit for – I chased him right onto the front lines of the worst war I hope this planet ever sees.”
Trip smiled slightly, the waning light that shone iridescent on dried green scales also lending its glow to the gold ring gracing his left hand. “He’s the strongest person I know, sir.”
“I’d have to agree with you there,” Steward said, and smiled a bit himself. “Takes after his mother, thank God, not after my side of the family.” He kept his eyes on the waves. “Who do you take after, son?”
He saw the younger man wince out of the corner of his eye. “No one,” Trip said. “I don’t…I just don’t.”
Stewart nodded slowly; it was the sort of answer he’d expected. “I’d guess your mother. Which makes it all the worse when she won’t speak to you, doesn’t it?” Trip jumped, shooting him a look that screamed suspected betrayal, and Stewart shook his head. “Malcolm hasn’t said a word about it, he didn’t have to; the two of you came here straight after being released from duty, and you haven’t contacted anyone or been contacted by anyone since you got here. Did they disown you before you left, then? Say after the attack?”
The startled jump was smaller this time. “They blame me.” Trip shrugged, and his fingers clenched around the scaly piece of dead alien. “I can understand it – how they feel, I mean. For a while I blamed me too. And now…”
“Now you’ve found other things to blame yourself for, worse things,” Steward filled in, putting his free hand on his son-in-law’s shoulder. “Things a civilian couldn’t possibly fathom, or forgive. Unfortunately that’s the price of being in service; those you serve best only see the worst, because you sacrifice your own innocence to preserve theirs. It isn’t fair, but it’s not their fault…and it’s not yours either. It’s just the way things are, the way they’ve always been since the first men fought their first war.”
The shoulder under his hand trembled. “It sucks.”
“I agree, son, I agree.” Stewart squeezed the shoulder his hand was resting on, and held up the ear again with his other hand. “I imagine this fellow thought so as well.”
Trip blinked and clutched his piece a little tighter. “I don’t know what…what the Xindi thought.”
Stewart shook his head again. “No way for you to, son. It’s hard enough to try to get inside another man’s head, much less some vicious alien’s.”
“They weren’t all vicious.” The denial came out quickly, and the shoulder under Stewart’s hand straightened a little. “There was this one guy…he really tried to help us. I didn’t want anything to do with him and the cap’n really tore into me for it, but he said he understood.” Trip took a deep breath. “He said he didn’t blame me for hating him. He had family of his own.” Stewart waited. “His own people killed him for helpin’ us. These people.” He held up the green scaly piece again. “They weren’t all like this.”
“Glad to hear it – and glad you can remember the difference.” Stewart smiled and let go his hold on the younger man. “Some men never do. They either demonize the enemy…or canonize them. Either way destroys the man who does it, just eats him up on the inside.”
Trip blinked again. “Your father…he hated himself for it, didn’t he?”
“Oh yes, very much so. Over the years they all became sainted victims to him, and he became a murderer in his own mind.” Stewart frowned at the ear. “For quite some time I thought he was too.” He took another look, turned it over again in his fingers…and then drew back his arm and threw the it out into the waves. “I know better now. And I won’t carry his misplaced guilt any longer. Let the fish eat it.”
“The fish…” Trip had clutched his trophy to him when Stewart had pitched his toward the sunset, but slowly he loosened his hold and held it up again, turning it this way and that in the orange-gold light of the tropical setting sun. Stewart saw the exact moment when he let go…a full minute before the younger man threw the scrap of desiccated flesh farther and harder than an old man’s arm had been able to. It arced toward the waves with one final sparkle of iridescent green and then vanished. “Hope they like lizard.”
“Fish will eat anything.” They sat there in silence for a little longer, watching the sunset, and when Stewart made to get to his feet Trip stood up too. Stewart smiled to himself as they started to trudge back up the beach in the direction of the house, relieved that he’d been able to help release part of the burden that had been weighing so heavily on this second son Malcolm had brought home to them. There was still plenty left to be dealt with, he knew, but lightening the load by even this little bit was a good start and they had all the time in the world to work on the rest. His smile became just a bit wicked. He’d seen to that – retired or not, he wasn’t the highest ranking naval officer on the still sovereign-ruled island for nothing. What Stewart Reed wanted around here, Stewart Reed got handed to him with a smart ‘yes, sir!’ and a snappy salute, no matter what it was or what it took to get it. And what he’d last wanted was for his boys to be left alone by Starfleet in general and lunatic unfit captains in particular.
Because the thing Stewart had wanted before that…was all available information
regarding the missions, status and personnel of the Starfleet ship
Far off the coast, a small boat cutting purposefully through the gold-kissed waves throttled to an abrupt halt as a marker buoy just ahead of it began to flash a red warning. The boat’s comm unit crackled to life. “Seacraft 8112-A, you are nearing sovereign waters, please identify yourself and state your business.”
The boat’s sole occupant put down the binoculars he’d been using and thumbed his end of the connection open with a scowl. “Requesting permission to enter sovereign waters,” he snapped. “This is Captain Jonathan Archer, Starfleet Command. I’m trying to contact two guests on your island…”
“No guests are present on the island at this time, only residents,” the disembodied voice of authority interrupted him. “Sorry, Captain, but entrance into sovereign waters is denied. Only terrestrial naval ranks confer authorization, you know that.”
“But my men…”
“Only residents are on the island at this time, Captain.” The voice became less friendly. “You have five seconds to turn your craft around and head away from the buoy line, or we will be forced to pursue and detain you. Please comply.”
Archer hesitated…and then turned the little craft away with a sigh that was more anger than disappointment. He knew that Malcolm and Trip were on that little colonial island, even if he couldn’t verify it, but his every effort to contact them had been stopped cold. Admiral Forrest had finally forbidden him from using Starfleet channels to try to get to them, stating that the two officers had resigned – and gotten married – immediately after being released from duty, therefore taking them out from under the ‘Fleet’s authority. Trying to go through Trip’s parents had been an even bigger mistake. This had been his last option, renting a small boat and just heading over to the little island from an international open port on the mainland…and that hadn’t worked either. Admiral Reed was obviously a much more important man than Archer had thought he was.
At least, he was obviously more important than Archer happened to
be. He knew the Port Authority would be
waiting for him when he docked, and that they’d probably already put in a call
to Starfleet Command to find out what he was doing out there trying to sneak
into sovereign waters. Forrest was going
to love that. The soon-to-be former
captain of