Even by the standards of the average Vulcan, the Kapalis Wastes were inhospitable. The nearest city was hundreds of miles away, and there was no particular reason why anyone would ever come this far out into the equatorial desert belt. Relatively few people even knew there was a dwelling out here - but a dwelling there was, a small domed structure in a style typical of small homes in a thousand deserts around the galaxy, standing next to a wind-scoured sandstone bluff to take advantage of what little shade there was in this dry and torrid place.

Into this mean landscape a man came who was not himself mean. He arrived by transporter in a wash of orange light, wearing a loose-fitting long coat and a floppy-brimmed hat against the sun, materializing perhaps a half-mile from the little cliffside house. He could have arrived closer, of course, but he considered that that would have been rude, especially since he'd come unannounced. He had little choice in that regard, since the house had no communications equipment of any kind.

Squinting against the harsh Vulcan sun, Benjamin "Gryphon" Hutchins took a moment to note, for nothing like the first time, that it was always a little hotter, a little dryer, and a little higher-gravity on Vulcan than he remembered from the last time he was there. Then, with a resigned sigh, he took a drink from his canteen and set off toward the house.

He had come to within a hundred yards or so of the front door when a more-or-less humanoid figure in a shapeless, rough-spun, hooded grey robe emerged from the front door and seemed to regard him for a few moments. He raised a hand in greeting -

- then yanked it down again when the figure produced a blaster rifle and pumped a warning shot into the dust at his feet, making a little glassy pockmark in the desert floor.

"Come no closer," the robed figure ordered in a flat but carrying voice.

"Now that's a hell of a welcome for an old shipmate," Gryphon called back.

"You are not welcome." The muzzle of the rifle came up, steady and menacing. "Be on your way."

Gryphon didn't seem concerned. He kept his hands at his sides, his only concession to anything like surrender being to turn his open palms forward, and walked casually toward the weapon and its wielder.

"I've been cleared, you know," he said conversationally.

"I had heard. Despite my best efforts, I am not entirely out of touch with the outside world. If you take one more step, I will shoot you."

"Please," said Gryphon disbelievingly. "You will not." He took the next step. There was a pause while he and the robed figure regarded each other across the few paces of open space that remained between them.

With a small noise of frustration, the latter put up her weapon, then pulled back her hood, revealing herself to be a youngish Vulcan woman with the characteristic high cheekbones and sharply raked eyebrows of her people, her long brown hair drawn back into a surprisingly disordered sheaf. More unusually still, she glared at the Earthman with something not far from outright hostility.

Gryphon smiled. "Hello, T'Pol." Then, his tone still casual, he observed, "I don't think I've ever seen you epically pissed off before. It looks surprisingly good on you."

"You have twenty-three seconds to tell me what you are doing here," T'Pol replied flatly.

Gryphon frowned thoughtfully. "Twenty-three?"

"You wasted seven in a futile attempt to be charming. You have since wasted six more."

Gryphon considered this, then shrugged and said, "I'm putting the band back together."

T'Pol turned her back on him. "Go away."

"Can't. My ship won't be back overhead for three hours."

She looked back over her shoulder, skepticism and outright annoyance mingling on her face. "You arranged this deliberately."

He shrugged. "Maybe."

T'Pol turned back to face him, gave him a severe look for a few seconds, then said, "I should leave you out here. For a man of your... abilities... three hours in direct sunlight should pose no great hardship, even here."

Gryphon put his hands in his trouser pockets, pinning back the tails of his coat, and smiled cheerfully. "But you're not going to, because you were raised right."

"But I'm not going to," T'Pol went on as if he hadn't spoken, "because, improbable as it seems, someone might pass by and see you here."

"I'll take that," he said agreeably as he followed her inside.

"I trust you won't be attempting any of your old cheap moves," she said.

"No, no. I have all new cheap moves," he replied, but she ignored him, moving through what appeared to be a small sitting room and into the next room. Gryphon stopped, blinking in the sudden dimness, and as soon as he could make out the furniture, he put his hat down on a low table in the middle of the room, then sat down in a chair that proved to be as uncomfortable as it looked.

A few minutes later, T'Pol returned, having left her roughspun cloak in the kitchen, dressed only in simple desert robes that reminded Gryphon of the traditional garb of humanoid Jedi Knights. She carried a small tray, on which stood two teacups and a battered stainless steel pot. She put the tray on the table next to his hat, seated herself in another chair catercorner to the one he'd selected, and poured tea.

"I did not come out here to the center of Vulcan's most inhospitable desert in order to welcome casual visitors," she informed him.

Gryphon raised his cup in a silent toast. "And yet you still own more than one teacup."

"Do not presume to psychoanalyze me."

"I'm just making conversation."

"My obligation to shelter you until your ship returns does not extend to humoring your desire for conversation," T'Pol said coldly.

Somewhat to her surprise, Gryphon's response to this was to shrug, as if to say "fair enough," sip his tea, and then settle back into something like meditation. She looked at him for a few moments, then mirrored his posture, closed her eyes, and tried to ignore him.

Four days ago
Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyard
Zeta Cygni, Cygnus sector

Nearing the end of the third hour of their telephone conversation, they came back around - as his and Zoner's phone conversations often did - to the original topic of discussion.

"... so it's not the ships that are the problem," Gryphon said, "it's staffing them. Oh, sure, we can get recruits. Now that the Force's name is clear - well, as clear as the Federation court system and a concerted PR effort can make it - we don't lack for recruits. But we need officers with experience, and there just aren't that many willing to leave whatever jobs they're in now."

"What about the old gang?" Zoner said. "There were plenty of people in the outfit back in the day who were ready, or almost ready, to have commands of their own. We just didn't have the ships for them. They can't all be dead."

"I've found a few," Gryphon said. "So have Max and Miria, and Maia's outfit's scooped up more than one. But a lot of them are still hiding, and some just don't want anything to do with us."

"What about the Interservice Exchange?" Zoner mused. "We had dozens of officers from other services who spent time with us. Some must still be out there, and they all had a great time. Even our first Vulcan IE officer enjoyed herself."

Gryphon took the phone away from his head and gave the receiver a quizzical look, then put it back to his ear and said, "Are you talking about T'Pol?"

"Yeah. I think so," said Zoner. "Olive complexion, about so high, Moe Howard haircut, Lara Croft lips."

"Zoner, she had a psychotic episode."

"Well, yeah, but after that," Zoner explained helpfully.

Gryphon accepted this without comment, noting instead, "She was posted to Enterprise. She must be missing with the rest of them."

"No, she's on Vulcan," said Zoner positively. "I think she was on some kind of compassionate leave when the shit hit the fan. Anyway, I saw her there last year."

"What were you doing on Vulcan?"

"Workin'," replied Zoner vaguely.

An hour passed in silence before T'Pol opened one eye, looked at Gryphon, and felt a thoroughly irrational surge of annoyance at his silent placidity.

"Well?" she said.

His eyes opened immediately, dispelling any hope she'd had that he might have fallen asleep. "Well what?"

"Are you simply going to sit there?"

"You said you didn't want to talk."

T'Pol stewed in this remark for a few seconds, then asked sharply, "Why did you come here?"

"I told you. I'm putting the band back together." Seeing that she wasn't going to be satisfied with the metaphor, he elaborated, "The WDF needs experienced, capable officers who have experience with the original form of the outfit. As you can imagine, after nearly a century, there aren't that many left."

"I'm not interested," she said, though the look on her face contradicted her. "You have wasted your time."

"Why are you so mad at me?" he asked bluntly. "Last time we saw each other I came away thinking we were cool."

"Much has happened since then, little of it good," she told him, "and most of it predicated on your actions. Yours and those of the other command staff. Succinctly put, you failed the rest of us when we needed you most, and a great many of us paid for your frailties with our lives."

T'Pol looked away, aware that she'd said too much if she wanted simply to give him the cold shoulder and send him away. She still remembered his damnable compassion, and she knew she'd inadvertently given him a glimpse of the pain that dwelt within her. He was as pernicious as a Charismatic in his ability to sense such things, then tease them out into the open. She had no intention of letting him practice on her.

Gryphon got up, picked up his hat, and said, "Okay. I didn't come here to dredge up painful memories, though I suppose it was kind of inevitable. I'll wait outside. You're right, it's nothing I won't be able to handle." He stepped toward the door, then looked back at her with sadness on his face and said, "I'll leave you alone. You won't see me again. Goodbye, T'Pol."

His hand had almost reached the control that would open the door when she spoke. Her voice was low, monotonal, almost mechanical, and she wasn't looking at him, or anything else, really - just a spot on the adobe wall opposite her chair.

"Do you remember what you told me on Hoth?" she asked.

Gryphon blinked. "The thing from The Lion King?"

T'Pol shook her head. "No. It had to do with the benefit - indeed, by your standards, the necessity - of disregarding caution."

Wednesday, February 22, 2274
Hoth, Anoat sector

Bundled up heavily against the shark-toothed afternoon winds of the ice planet, Gryphon and T'Pol stood atop the ridgeline overlooking Echo Base and watched the planet's feeble sun dip toward the far horizon.

"Look around you, Subcommander," Gryphon said. "There's more to see than can ever be seen; more to do than - hang on, sorry, that's The Lion King." He shook his head. "All I'm trying to say is that it's not the end of the world. In fact, you may find that it opens up whole new continua of experience for you." He put an arm over her thickly padded shoulders and gestured expansively with his free hand. "Sometimes you just have to say... 'What the fuck.'" Warming to his topic, he went on to explain, "'What the fuck' gives you freedom. Freedom leads to opportunity. And opportunity gives you a future."

"I took that advice to heart," T'Pol went on quietly, "as I had never taken any before. I threw myself into a great experiment, body and soul, adopting the mantra you proposed and using it as my guide. Four years later, I joined Enterprise at your recommendation and my fate was truly sealed. In the end, I cast aside millennia of tradition and decades of training outright in order to embrace my shipmates' human experiences with both arms." She stood slowly up, turning to face him. "I wept. I laughed. I explored every forbidden corner of the ancient passions - I even permitted myself to love. I adopted the Wedge Defender spirit to an extent rarely seen even in the Force's most human members... and in the end, what did it profit me?"

Stalking toward him, her eyes fixed on his, she said in a rapidly gathering tone of savage anger, "My shipmates dead. My reputation destroyed. My life in ruins. Unwelcome on my homeworld and hunted everywhere else, I found that there was nowhere left in the cosmos where I could belong." T'Pol jabbed a fingertip into his chest. "You made me unfit to live among my own kind and then permitted the only society in which I could survive to collapse." Toe to toe, nearly nose to nose, with him, she all but snarled up into his face (for she was not a particularly tall woman), "Do you not therefore think I might have reason to be angry with you?"

Gryphon looked into her furious face for a few seconds, his own expression faintly mournful. He slowly raised his hands, running them gently up her arms, and then closed them over her slim shoulders; she tensed, as if preparing to pull away, but didn't move.

"I'm sorry," he said. When she didn't reply, he bowed his head, his forehead nearly touching hers, and went on, "I'm sorry you had to go through all that. I'm sorry for the part I played. And I'm sorry... so, so sorry... that you feel it was all for nothing now."

His hands slipped off her shoulders, across her back; she stiffened in surprise and reflexive discomfort, but again - though it would have been a trivial task to do so - didn't break away from him as he enfolded her in a firm embrace.

"You're right," he said, and she could tell from the break in his voice that he was weeping - genuinely weeping - oddly cool human tears dripping onto her shoulder and soaking slowly into the fabric of her tunic. "I failed you. We failed everybody."

T'Pol stood where she was for a moment, her anger completely disintegrated, feeling vaguely foolish. Then, her movements awkward with long lack of practice, she cautiously worked her arms around him as well, under his coat, and returned his embrace. They stood there together for several long, silent, motionless minutes, just... holding on.

"Giving you another chance," she observed quietly, "would be illogical."

"Yes," Gryphon agreed.

"The cost if you failed me again would be appalling," she went on. "It seems unlikely that I would be able to go on at all."

"I know," he whispered.

The moment stretched taut, then parted.

"Well... what the fuck," said T'Pol.

Wednesday, October 12, 2388
Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyard
Zeta Cygni, Cygnus sector

The new Wedge Defense Force was on full alert, in the midst of a fast and deft transition from fleet-in-waiting to fleet in action, and Benjamin Hutchins was in the midst of a transition of his own. As he strode down one of the shipyard corridors toward one of the last of the new ships to get underway, he was halfway out of one persona - Master Engineer of the Yard - and halfway into another - rear admiral commanding the fleet's Blue squadron in the impending action against the GENOM Corporation's mammoth navy. But that was all right, since the errand he was on now called for him to wear both hats, as it were.

He wasn't wearing any hat as he stepped through the airlock into the entry port of the newly completed ship, one of a hundred putting to space for the second time - the first having been fleet acceptance trials - for this battle. The bosun's mate on duty in said entry port saluted and piped him aboard; he declined her offer of an escort to the bridge. He'd designed the ship, after all. He knew where to find it.

Gryphon emerged onto the bridge after six full seconds in the turbolift (just long enough to appreciate the placard inside the car reading "WELCOME TO THE GARDEN STATE PARKWAY"). The ship, in the throes of preparing for launch and combat simultaneously, was a hive of activity, nowhere more so than the bridge; but the whole thing was calmly furious activity, administered by a steady hand.

"Admiral on the bridge," said the captain, standing erect next to her conn, hands folded behind her back.

"As you were," Gryphon said before anyone else could get up. He stepped down into the bullseye and faced the ship's captain, a smile stealing onto his face despite the incredible pressure he found himself under on this, the most hectic in a long series of hectic days.

"Well, Captain T'Pol," he said. "How do you find your ship today?"

"All systems operational, all personnel prepared," T'Pol replied at once. "New Jersey is ready for sea, Admiral."

He stood and took her in for a moment, in her trimly cut, double-breasted, brass-buttoned, long-tailed jacket of royal blue, her razor-creased white serge trousers, her sturdy black shoes, and her precisely angled white captain's cap with its black leather bill shined to a mirror-like finish, and his smile broadened.

"And you?" he asked in a quieter, more personal tone of voice, as the members of her bridge crew tended to their business all around them and tried to pretend that they weren't listening intently to every word that passed between their captain and the admiral.

T'Pol raised a hand and brushed a lock of her neatly trimmed hair behind one pointed ear, smiling very slightly.

"I'm right where I belong," she said.

"Good to hear." He handed her the packet of sailcloth-wrapped papers he had under his arm. "Your orders, Captain. New Jersey is officially transferred out of Construction Command and into Blue Squadron. You'll be under battle orders from the commencement of today's engagement until the GENOM fleet is defeated. After that... I have another little job for you."

She looked at the packet, then restrained the urge to open it immediately, tucked it under her own arm, and saluted him. "Admiral," she said.

He returned the salute, shook her hand, then said, "Good luck today, T'Pol."

"And to you, Benjamin," she replied. "May the Force be with you."

Smiling, he departed, bound for the last of his errands - to finish shrugging off his engineer's mantle and fully take up command of the Blue and of Concordia. In just minutes, the fleet would deploy from the sphere that had nurtured it all these months. In a few minutes more, battle would be joined, all-out battle against the Wedge Defense Force's oldest, most deadly enemies.

In the meantime, though, Captain T'Pol sat down, cracked the seal, and read her orders. The first few paragraphs were as she had expected, dealing with the coming battle. But after that...

At the conclusion of the engagement with GENOM, and upon release from Blue Squadron service by the admiral commanding, you are hereby requested and required to take the vessel under your command and proceed to the Galactic Standard Coordinates encrypted herewithin. There you will commence a search for the Wedge Defense Force starship Enterprise (NX-01), last reported at those coordinates on Sept. 10, 2288. This search will be open-ended and you will conduct it according to your instincts guided by your experience, as per Regulation 128.29c governing independent search and exploration missions.

T'Pol read it three times, then folded the packet and tucked it inside the flap of her jacket with a very faint but fully satisfied smile. The man had his faults - had, arguably, more than his share of them - but in some matters he had unfailingly perfect pitch. Could be... relied upon.

"Signal from Concordia to all ships of the squadron, Captain," her communications officer reported. "'Weigh anchor and form up for sphere departure.'"

"Acknowledge," she said crisply. "Mr. Stuvek, clear all moorings. Maneuvering thrusters, all ahead one-half."

The battleship New Jersey slid smoothly from her berth and moved off to join the rest of the fleet.

"Second Chances Are Illogical" - a Crossroads mini-story by Benjamin D. Hutchins
Special to the Eyrie Productions Discussion Forum
© 2009 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Never saw Enterprise, so T'pol is brand new to me, but somehow the idea of a Vulcan letting her hair down like that has a certain appeal.

I like it, if this was a mojo regaining piece, I think you managed it.

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We pray for mercy because we would be fools to pray for justice.

Hope it becomes important enough to share sooner rather than later... Till then I'll just be sitting over here in the courner enjoying my RCW fix.

Aside from that though, this story shows a little something I've always wanted to see. Namely, even after restoring the WDFs name and reputation, there would be people from the old days still carrying a totally justifiable grudge, either against the old WDF commanders, like with T'Pol, or with the United Galactia/Federation for turning on them. T'Pol worked though it, but I have to wonder how many old Wedge Defenders just went 'Fuck you and fuck the galaxy, I'm not being back-stabbed again'.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

On the uniform, am I right in thinking that the WDF was using RDF/UNDF style uniforms at the time of Crossroads? If so, did that ever change, or is that the standard from the First Founding (so to speak) until the 'present' (Symphony era)?

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

Augh! Earworm! EARWORM!

Zoner, she had a psychotic episode - Zoner and I sketched out this conversation years before we had any practical use for it.

Hoth, Anoat sector - I have no idea why the Golden Age WDF had a base on Hoth, if indeed Echo Base did belong to them and not some other outfit they were there to help out.

WELCOME TO THE GARDEN STATE PARKWAY - That's the portside turboshaft. The starboard one is called the New Jersey Turnpike.

Mr. Stuvek, clear all moorings - Yes, that is the same Stuvek who goes on, after his naval career, to teach Vulcan literature at WPI and Satori Mandeville Memorial.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.