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Well, as my dad would say, I'll be damned. Lieutenant T'Soni Sumner stopped inside the sickbay door, glanced around, and arched an upswept eyebrow. Haven't seen that particular type of Klingon in a few years.

Two of the beds were occupied by the male and the younger female, both of them large and quite imposing, while the older female spoke softly to the girl and held the hand of a human female in the adjacent bed. A human male stood on the other side of the woman's bed, staring at the bio-monitor on the wall, and a young male around the same age as the Klingon girl reached over to put a hand on his shoulder. They shared a glance, the man patted the kid's hand, and the kid walked around to the girl's bed. She sat up, let her legs dangle over the edge, and slipped her arm around his shoulders. He leaned over to rest his forehead against hers.

T'Soni's other eyebrow shot upward to join the first. She'd seen plenty of alien species getting along that well, though in this case, one of them being Klingon made it a first. In fact, the mere presence of Klingons in Federation space was cause for concern.

The sound of boots on the floor behind her caught her attention and she glanced over her shoulder as Captain Garrett strode in, took in the sight of the patients, and stopped in his tracks.

"Huh."

"Pretty much what I was thinking," T'Soni said softly. She'd encountered the almost completely human-looking Klingons a few times, and had seen records of the ones her dad called "walnut-heads." These three were the even more alien, bald ones with two sets of nostrils that she remembered from the war a decade ago. She'd wondered a few times if they were a genetic offshoot of the walnut-heads, or perhaps a different ethnicity. Or maybe they had been altered, somehow.

At any rate, these three were unsettling enough, but if she remembered correctly, the Klingons who held on to the more ancient traditions shaved their heads during times of war, and since all of these guys were bald …

Not only that, but the two adults were tall and muscular, and the teenager was -- as T'Soni's mother might've phrased it -- built like a brick shithouse.

Not that I have much right to comment on their appearance, being something of a freak of nature, myself. Standing at nearly two meters tall with broad shoulders and thick arms and legs, had she been of average height, she probably would've resembled the same type of antiquated structure. She'd been told on occasion that her face was quite lovely, but the rest of her seemed to intimidate people who hadn't taken the time to get to know her. And other Vulcans tended to keep their distance just because she'd been raised by humans, so all of that combined had stunted her social life considerably.

Garrett turned to the door to the CMO's office and waved. Dr. Tyler stepped through the doorway and walked over to him and T'Soni.

"How are they, Doctor?"

"They'll all recover." Tyler glanced at the monitors above their beds and waved her hand over them. "Just a lot of bumps and bruises, a couple of fractures that I've mended already, and those three had to be treated for smoke inhalation." She pointed at the Klingons and the human woman again. "The worst injuries were burns on their hands and arms, and several broken bones on Ms. Poots, but we've taken care of those, too."

"We're grateful, Doctor," the Klingon woman said.

"They got burned while saving us," the older human added. "We were trapped under a pile of debris when a bulkhead and part of a ceiling collapsed." He rested a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Brenda had the worst injuries. She will be okay, won't she, Doc?"

"I had to give her something for the pain, so she'll be out for a while, but she'll be back on her feet in no time."

He let a long breath rush out and leaned against the edge of her bed. "Thank you."

"Just doing my job." Tyler smiled and turned back to Garrett. "I'm keeping them overnight for observation. If you have any questions for them, go ahead, but go easy on 'em. They've been through a lot."

"I will. Thanks, Doctor." Garrett stepped closer to them. "I'm Captain Isaac Garrett. You're on the USS 'Oumuamua. Can you tell us what happened?"

"First of all, thanks for the rescue. I was certain we were all seconds away from a one-way trip to Sto'Vo'Kor." The Klingon woman extended her right hand and Garrett shook it after a split-second hesitation. She waved the other at the two other Klingons. "I'm K'Lara, this is my husband Korvo, and our daughter …" She paused, cleared her throat, nudged the girl's shoulder, and whispered, "Don't stare."

"Oh! Uh, sorry." She flicked a glance at her mother and back to T'Soni.

Was … was she staring at my boobs? She appears to be, now. T'Soni smirked, arched an eyebrow, and motioned at her face. "Eyes up here, please."

"Argh, sorry." The girl covered her face with her hands for a moment. "Teenage hormones. Can't help myself. When it first started, I thought I might have a weird genetic disorder, but then I found out I was just horny." She put her arm back around the young human. "We've been helping each other out with our mutual 'hormonal issues.'" She turned back to T'Soni and made a groping gesture with her hands. "Sorry, didn't mean to stare. They're just magnificent!"

Uh … okay. Can't say I've ever been told that before, but I'll take it. "I've always thought they were less than impressive, but thank you anyway."

"I think they're just the right size. More than a handful is a waste."

Dr. Tyler rolled her eyes. "A little excess never hurt anyone."

T'Soni grinned, thankful that these Klingons appeared to be so amicable. She put on an expression of exaggerated innocence, nodded at the CMO, and said, "Well, there's a reason people back in our Academy days called her 'Tits Tyler.'"

Dr. Tyler smirked and gave her the finger. "Ha-ha, that's hilarious, Beanstalk."

T'Soni snickered.

"Huh. You're nothing like any Vulcan I've ever encountered." The girl stared with an almost enraptured smile.

"I was raised by human parents on Earth. Never achieved the level of discipline of the average Vulcan. I'm okay with it, though. Everyone must forge their own path."

"Very true." The girl appeared to put great effort into turning her gaze away. "Sorry again for staring. You're hotter than hell."

Huh. Okay. T'Soni smiled and inclined her head. "Thank you."

The human teenager leaned closer to her and muttered, "If you're trying to make me jealous, it's totally working."

She laughed and clasped his hand. T'Soni shook her head slowly.

Well, I do believe this is the weirdest conversation I've ever been a part of.

K'Lara cleared her throat again. "If you're going to continue flirting, perhaps you should introduce yourself first."

"Oh! Right. Sorry, I get sidetracked easily. My name's K'Uhnt."

"Uh, what?" Captain Garrett stared at her and shook his head. "I'm not going to call you that!"

"Yeah, I get that a lot." She grinned and shrugged. "For us, it's just a name. We had no idea a variation on the spelling meant something vulgar until we started interacting with humans. Our friends here decided to call me 'Lucille.' And my boyfriend is Ronnie. Which is short for Veronica."

Garrett stared and blinked a few times.

"It's their fault." Ronnie pointed at his parents.

"There was a mix-up before he was born," his father said. "The doctor told us we were having a girl, and by the time we found the error, the paperwork was all filed. Would've been a pain in the ass to change."

"Well, if there's one thing humans excel at, it's labyrinthine paperwork," T'Soni said.

Garrett nodded impatiently and K'Lara laughed.

"Right, we were going to tell you what happened." She motioned at the two humans. "Rodney and Brenda Poots, owners of the freighter which is now the cloud of debris you rescued us from." She sighed. "We've worked with them for nearly a decade. They were the first Federation citizens who gave us a chance after we left Klingon space, and we're eternally grateful to them for that. Everyone else we met here was suspicious and hostile, back then, and who can blame them? When they looked at us, they saw the people who started the war that claimed thousands of lives."

"You weren't involved in the war?" T'Soni cocked her head. "You said you left Klingon space around the time it happened?"

"A few months after the war started, yeah." K'Lara shook her head and sneered. "Korvo and I didn't see things the way most of our people did. We thought T'Kuvma was a fanatic, and when he kicked off the war just so he could unite all the Houses -- with him in charge, conveniently -- he proved himself a terrorist. He had no understanding of honor. Nothing is honorable about luring your ships in with talk of negotiation and then attacking them when their guard is down."

"Ah. I'm guessing your opinion wasn't very popular?"

"That's like saying a bat'leth through the heart is just a flesh wound. We spoke out against T'Kuvma and his supporters, and the backlash would've been fatal if we hadn't fled." She nodded at her daughter. "Lucille was only a child. We didn't think voicing our opinions would've put us all in such danger, but some of T'Kuvma's more rabid followers were out for our blood. So we ran like hell and didn't look back. They would've killed Lucille along with us."

"I'm sorry you went through that."

"We kept our daughter safe, so it turned out well enough. We learned to fit in, gradually, which means we had to … I guess you could say we 'reprogrammed' ourselves. We were just as hostile and belligerent as any other Klingon in those days, but we worked very hard to become friendly and easygoing just so we wouldn't start a fight every ten minutes. Lucille grew up in that kind of atmosphere, so it was much easier for her." K'Lara waved a hand at Ronnie's parents. "We're from House Mo'Kai, which is packed with spies and played a major part in the war, so we stayed well away from any government or military installations. Our friends here accepted us without question, so we stayed with them and made a decent living hauling cargo."

"Until the Orions blew our ship up," Ronnie said. "Goddamn pirates are always an occupational hazard, but this was the first time in my life we actually ran into any." He glanced up at T'Soni and Captain Garrett. "From what I heard on the way to your sickbay, none of it can be salvaged?"

"I'm afraid not," T'Soni said. "You were beamed out mere seconds before the warp core blew. I'm sorry."

"Damn." Rodney let a breath rush out. "We put a lot of years into that ship. It was our home."

"For whatever it's worth," K'Lara said, "'home' is wherever we are. We'll get another ship, somehow, and get back to work."

"Focus on recovering first." T'Soni glanced at Garrett and cocked her head at his expression. "Not buying it?"

"I don't want to look like I'm disbelieving you just because you're Klingons." Garrett raised his hands. "It's just … well, not taking things at face value kind of comes with the job."

"Oh, I understand, don't worry." K'Lara shrugged and grinned. "Administer any test you want to verify what we said."

"Hmm." Lucille turned to T'Soni and smiled. "A mind meld would get the job done."

"It's rude to ask a Vulcan for that," K'Lara said. "For them, it's an intimate experience. She'd see your entire life, and you'd see hers, if I'm understanding it correctly. We should respect her privacy."

"I've never had any formal training, so I doubt I could go that deep. I meld with my parents occasionally and I'm only able to do a surface scan. I could probably experience specific memories if you concentrated hard enough, and I'm pretty sure I could sense whether you're being honest." T'Soni turned back to Garrett and shrugged. "Your call, sir."

Garrett furrowed his brow, and she could guess what he was thinking. This could be an opportunity to glimpse some of the goings-on in the Klingon Empire, even though it would be a decade out of date … which could be a reason why K'Lara balked at the idea, not to mention failing to volunteer herself. She may have fled her own people, but that didn't guarantee she was ready to give away their secrets. Her daughter probably didn't know nearly as much, but the chance of getting any info at all might be worth a shot.

"If you feel comfortable with this," the captain finally said, "go ahead and try it."

"Cool." Lucille turned, sat cross-legged on the bed, and leaned forward slightly. "Let 'er rip."

---

"Huh. Dunno what I was expecting, but it wasn't this." Lucille found herself floating in the room she'd shared with Ronnie, moments before the pirates attacked -- watching both of them as if sitting in front of a holo-projection. The images became ethereal, solidified, blurred, focused again. She didn't want to relive the next few minutes, but it was the best way to show T'Soni what had happened, so she concentrated on letting it play out exactly as she remembered it.

Somehow, she knew T'Soni was pointing at the memory of her and Ronnie on the sofa, kissing and letting their hands explore each other, even though neither she nor T'Soni had a physical body here. In front of Lucille, she and Ronnie were about to start removing their clothes, but all hell had broken loose just a few seconds later.

"It seems we've arrived at a bad time," T'Soni's ghostly "voice" whispered.

"This is right before the Orions rudely interrupted us. Just wait for it."

The floor dropped out from under them and jolted back up, sending them tumbling off the sofa and landing in a tangle as a klaxon blared.

"And here we go."

The whole room slammed sideways as they tried to pick themselves up, eyes wide and mouths gaping in panic as they smashed into the wall and crumpled to the floor. Her father's voice came over the comm system.

"Shit, that was a bad one! Impulse engines and RCS thrusters are offline."

"The starboard hull's been blown wide open," Ronnie's mother added -- then screamed as another impact lifted Lucille and Ronnie almost to the ceiling and dropped them back to the floor. "The warp core's been damaged. It's going critical!"

"I guess the stupid bastards got carried away," Lucille said to T'Soni. "I thought the point of attacking a freighter was to steal its cargo, not blow it up."

"Sending out a distress call," her father shouted. "Everyone to the escape pods! Go, go, go!"

The memory-images of Lucille and Ronnie scrambled out the door and through the corridors until they met up with their parents. All of them bolted toward the hatch at the end of the corridor -- and then the ceiling and walls imploded on them. Hands lifted flaming debris off her and Ronnie, her father groaning through clenched teeth as he pried it up enough for the rest of their parents to drag them out from under it.

Another blast hit the ship and knocked the power out, leaving everyone floating in silence and blackness, aside from faint flickering light from burning debris. Lucille let the memory fade.

"I don't know how much time passed after that, but your ship must've picked up our call for help. Next thing I knew, we were in your transporter room."

"I'm sorry to put you through this again."

"It's okay. You needed to know we were telling the truth." Something that had been prodding at the back of Lucille's mind suddenly clicked into place. "Oh! I'd been wondering why your name seemed familiar. I just now figured it out."

Another memory filled the darkness, this one from a day when she and Ronnie were ten or maybe eleven. They'd found some old video games in an archive and spent several weeks playing through them. She felt T'Soni's amusement.

"My mom and dad fell in love with a variety of entertainment media from a couple hundred years ago. Books, vids, games, music. I ended up getting hooked on some of them, myself. They managed to name me after a character in one of them and give me a Vulcan-sounding name at the same time."

"Brilliant! They sound like fun people."

"They are." T'Soni's smile filled Lucille's mind and wrapped around it like a blanket. "They're the best."

"I hope I get to meet them someday. Maybe when you're off-duty, you can hang out with me and Ronnie sometime, since we seem to have similar hobbies." Lucille's thoughts shifted a bit and more memories of gaming with him flitted past her and T'Soni. Those shifted to old vids they'd watched together, books they'd discovered as they grew up, times when they played together as children, times they'd helped each other out of a jam. Gradually, the memories became more romantic as their attachment to each other grew stronger. Lucille hadn't intended it, but now that T'Soni had seen, heard, and felt them holding hands while gazing out a viewport at a nebula, cuddling on a back porch and watching a sunset, having their first kiss …

"One thing Ronnie and I run into a lot is people refusing to believe we really love each other. Part of it is because, to humans, I'm ugly as all hell. Part is because we're young. People dismiss it as a crush or puppy love -- which is goddamn insulting, by the way. And a big part is because I'm Klingon and my family is from House Mo'Kai, so they assume I'm just using him for an agenda. But since we're drifting into my relationship with him, here, I'd like you to know it's genuine."

"Yes … the way you feel about him … I can feel it, too. It just sort of washed over my mind. Kinda hard to avoid."

"Didn't mean to flood you with it, but I'm glad you understand. People give us a lot of crap about it and most don't listen when I try to convince them with words. It's a relief to know there's at least one person I've met who actually gets it."

Another memory drifted before them … the first time she and Ronnie had sex … on a beach, beside a campfire …

"Ahem. This bit here is a little more personal. Mind if we skip it?"

"Interesting." T'Soni kept her focus on the memory.

"Oh. Okay, uh, yeah, you're just gonna keep watching? Okay, then." Lucille laughed and shrugged it off. "Fuckin' pervert."

"I've always heard Klingons get violent when they have sex, but this is surprisingly tender."

"Most Klingons like it rough, but there's a tiny minority who are the opposite. What turns us on is tenderness, gentleness, holding hands and cuddling and so on. The rest of their society finds it disgusting. I found this out a few months before my parents had to grab me and haul ass outta Klingon space. There was a girl I had a crush on, though I was too young to really understand it. I tried to hold her hand one day, and she lost it. She and her friends beat the living shit out of me."

"That's horrible. I'm so sorry."

"Eh, yeah, but that was the moment I understood pain is not foreplay. There's nothing enjoyable about it, nothing 'erotic' about it at all. I just wanted it to stop and never happen again. So in a twisted way, I guess it served a purpose." Lucille motioned at the image of her and Ronnie in a gentle yet passionate embrace. "When this happened, it was everything I thought it should be. The way he holds my hands or keeps his arms around me when we make love … the way he rubs his cheek against mine or rests his forehead on mine, the way he kisses me … the way he gazes into my eyes and whispers, 'I love you,' when he blows his wad in me …"

She felt T'Soni's raised eyebrow and shrugged.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to keep watching, so don't get bent out of shape when my descriptions are just as graphic as what you're seeing."

"Hah, fair enough." T'Soni watched for a moment longer. "This really is beautiful."

The two figures tightened their embrace, touched their foreheads together, and grinned while staring intently into each other's eyes. Knowing what was about to happen, Lucille turned back to T'Soni and giggled.

"Hey, in a few seconds, he made me come so hard, I couldn't even remember where I was. You might wanna find something to grab on to."

---

"Whoa!" The lieutenant staggered back abruptly and bumped into Captain Garrett. He grasped her arms and held her upright.

"T'Soni, are you okay?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry." She straightened up, nodded her thanks to him, walked across to a vacant bed, leaned against it, and broke into a huge grin. "Gimme a sec."

Ronnie's heart pounded as he rushed back to Lucille's side. She opened her eyes and sat there with an impish smile.

"You okay, babe?"

She nodded and clasped his hand, then she glanced over at the lieutenant and laughed. "I warned ya, T'Soni."

"So you did." T'Soni tugged on her uniform collar and released a slow breath. "I'm gonna need a cold shower."

"What the hell'd you do to her?" Ronnie stared at Lucille and then turned back to the lieutenant.

"It's not what I did to her. It's what you did to me. She was just along for the ride."

"What?"

"One of the memories she experienced was our first time."

Ronnie's face turned red and he grimaced. "Why'd you show her that?"

"I didn't plan to. It just kinda came up naturally and I rolled with it." Lucille shrugged. "I just wanted her to understand my feelings for you are genuine."

"They are," T'Soni said. She glanced away with an expression that indicated she was blushing, but her ebony skin made it hard to detect. "Very much so."

Well … in that case, I guess I can't be too upset. Ronnie smiled and slipped an arm around Lucille's shoulders as T'Soni turned back to the captain.

"They told us the truth, sir. I relived the moments after the pirates attacked them -- something I hope never to experience in my own life, I might add. I'm probably going to have nightmares for the next week or two." She took a quick breath and rushed onward. "Also, I saw her growing up in the Federation and the relationship she developed with Ronnie and his parents. It's all completely true."

"That's … good to know." Garrett kept watching her with an arched eyebrow as she fully regained her composure over the next few seconds. "Dr. Tyler, would you run some tests to be sure the lieutenant doesn't suffer any long-term effects?"

"I'm fine, sir," T'Soni said, then shrugged. "Never hurts to take precautions, though. Whenever you're ready, Doc."

"On it, sir," Tyler said to the captain. She motioned at the bed behind T'Soni. "Let's get started."

Garrett turned back to Ronnie and the others. "In the meantime, we've got some spare quarters you can use while we search the wreckage for the black box and recover your personal effects, assuming any survived at all."

"Thank you, Captain," K'Lara said. "We'll need the black box for the insurance claim, but anything else would be just a bonus. I'm happy enough that no one was killed in the explosion." She glanced at Ronnie and Lucille. "You go on ahead. Rod and I will stay with our partners for a while longer."

Garrett nodded and walked over to a comm panel on the wall. "I'll have someone show you to your quarters."

"The kids will want their own quarters, if we can spare the room," T'Soni said. "Since … they're, um …"

Lucille grinned. "Yeah, if it's at all possible, we'd like our own room. We'll take the smallest one you've got, if that helps. We just don't need our parents nearby when we're humping it out."

"Of course." Somehow, the inner ends of Garrett's eyebrows rose while the outer ends lowered.

Ronnie shook his head. "Lucille, you really showed her our first …?"

"Again, it wasn't intentional, but she felt everything I felt. Don't worry, though, you gave her as good a time as you gave me."

"Oh." Ronnie's face heated up again. "Hooray, I guess."

Garrett turned slowly and reached out to activate the comm panel, and the look on his face telegraphed exactly what he must've been thinking.

This is gonna be … interesting.