Station Salem Four:
Captain Esek Hrelle looked out at the line of recruits behind the flimsy wall of their fortress, all fresh faces eager to please, and thought: Mother's Cubs, I have boots older than some of them. Was I ever that young?
He already knew the answer: of course he'd been, and even younger, barely able to keep his tail under control, and as eager to prove himself as all these humans who now looked to him for leadership. And though he may have a few strands of grey fur in his mane, and his sense of smell wasn't as keen as it once was, he made up for it with what his wife's people called chutzpah, or what his own people called sheeris.
He preferred a cruder term, but didn't dare use it in front of these troops of his. "Remember to set your phasers to Level 5. Any level less and the beams won't pierce the Gorns' ugly hides."
That made some of his troops giggle, before they quickly stifled themselves. But beside him, his trusted second in command, a short Terran with honey blonde hair, a pert nose and almond-shaped, almond-coloured eyes, tugged at the sleeve of his brick-red, double-breasted Starfleet jacket. When he knelt down closer to her, she reminded him, "We shouldn't judge how others look by our own standards. What is ugly to one can be beautiful to another."
Hrelle kept a straight face, allowing only his muzzle to twitch and his bronze, gimlet eyes to narrow further, though he knew from experience that this attempt at intimidation would not work on Lieutenant Sasha; despite her youth, she was as stubborn as they came. "You're right as always. What does your tricorder say?"
She looked down at the unit in her hand, pursing her lips as she read the output on the screen. "I'm still picking up one of them. Female."
He nodded, peering over the top of the wall. "The Gorn Commander." He sniffed the air. "1.5 metres in height, 85 kilograms in weight, unarmed. Am I right, Lieutenant?"
Sasha checked her tricorder again. "Yes, Sir!"
His correct assessment, despite the impossibility of his having worked it out by his sense of smell - he snuck a peek at the readings when she wasn't looking - elicited gasps of awe among the troops, and a smirk from himself. It was said that every Caitian could track a mouse across a hundred kilometres, but it was no more true than the notion that every Vulcan could calculate Pi to a gazillionth decimal, or that every Klingon could fight off an army with only a toothpick.
But there was always something to be said for a good reputation. Especially if it helped avoid arguments.
He looked to his troops again. "Keep your phasers raised, but do not fire without my orders. The Gorn Commander is unarmed. She may be coming to negotiate a ceasefire. We always try for a peaceful solution. Isn't that right, Lieutenant?"
The apple-cheeked girl beside him grinned. "Yes, sir!"
He heard noises and tensed. "Stand by... Here she comes..."
The kitchen door swung open, as Hannah Hrelle walked in with a huge tray of freshly-replicated snacks. "Everybody ready for seconds?"
The children cheered as one and charged forward, bringing down the blanket wall of the fortress as they surrounded Sasha's mother, leaving behind the ten-year-old girl in her replica Starfleet uniform, and her stepfather in his real one.
Hrelle shook his head. "No discipline."
"No, Sir." But her eyes were glazing over with gastronomic longing at the collection of cakes and other pastries being devoured by her party guests. Still, she remained faithfully at his side.
Until he finally relented and said, "Dismissed."
Sasha handed him her toy tricorder and raced to catch up with the others, as he helped himself up, set the tricorder down on a table and plopped himself down onto the couch, wincing as he crimped his tail, before lifting himself up and adjusting his seated position.
There wasn't enough furniture in the station apartment to accommodate his particular needs, though to be fair his wife had offered to obtain more for him. At least his Captain's Chair on the bridge of the USS Furyk had a space in its lower back, even if his real First Officer often threatened to take advantage of this to tie a bell to the top of his tail-
"Thirsty, Little Papa?"
He glanced up to see Hannah standing there. "For some of that Coca-Coola concoction?" Sometime ago, someone on the Station had managed to replicate an ancient Terran non-alcoholic beverage of sugary carbonated water flavoured with coca leaves. He tried some and nearly gagged at the sweetness of it - not to mention the fact that it hissed at him. But the children seemed to love it. "No, thank you. That's Nightmare Fuel."
She smiled and held out a glass, one that was identical to the one in her other hand. "This is more adult."
He smelled it appreciatively before he took it in his hand, raising it to her. "Mazel Tov."
She slumped down beside him, sweat beading her forehead beneath her mass of curly black hair. "I should never have taught you Yiddish. What are you congratulating me for?"
He sipped, his nostrils flaring wide. "A successful birthday for the Little One."
Hannah smirked. "I stay out of the way and appear only long enough to keep the monsters fed. You're the schmuck who keeps them amused. Don't know where you get the energy from."
He glanced behind, at the gaggle of children from Sasha's class, filling up on more food before inevitably returning to enlist him in another game. "Beats chasing Tholians out of our territory."
His gaze drifted away with his mind, recalling the last mission for the Furyk, and the resulting casualties. It was a difficult time for the Federation, what with the Cardassian incursions and the Galen Border Wars; other powers were taking advantage of the conflicts to test Starfleet's remaining forces. He supposed they should consider themselves lucky the Klingons and Romulans were currently too busy fighting each other yet again to try their luck.
He returned to the here and now with a touch on his hand, and a look from Hannah, and those wide, pleasing hazel eyes. "Hey, stay with me. You're away in the flesh too much as it is."
He encircled his fingers in hers. "Sorry." It ached sometimes, how much he loved her. They had met by chance, when he visited the station's onboard diagnostic team to demand that they pull their heads out of their orifices and get his ship back into working order following a cybernetic attack on the Furyk's computer.
Hannah, temporarily covering for her ill supervisor, was not intimidated by the Caitian's size and legendary glare, and told him in no uncertain terms that the cleansing operation would take as long as it would take, and if he didn't like it, he could stick his own head up his own kiester, and she'd come along, tap him on the rear end and let him know when they were done.
Their relationship blossomed from that point.
And though he never expected himself to be attracted to humans - the scent, the furless skin, flat faces and lack of a tail could be off-putting - here he found himself looking forward to his ship returning to the station to see her again.
A squeal drew him from his reverie to see Sasha leading a landing party chasing after some other children being... something strange.
They all leapt over Hrelle's outstretched legs, when it would have been easier to run around them - just less fun. Sasha led the landing party with her tricorder, nearly tripping over his feet.
Hannah frowned. "Watch what you're doing, sweetie."
The girl nodded. "Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad."
Hrelle made a sound in his throat. He had heard her call him that a thousand times, but even now it never failed to make his heart race just a little faster. It had seemed like only yesterday, when he had first met the girl when she was six, and she had made it clear to him from the start that he wasn't welcome, that she and her mother were perfectly happy by themselves, thank you very much.
In subsequent visits, Sasha produced an amazing number of elaborate stories in an effort to dissuade him from returning, including: the claim that her mother was really a Romulan agent; that they had contracted Rigellian fever and were under quarantine; and best of all, that Sasha hadn't always been an only child, but had eaten her brothers and sisters when they displeased her, so he'd better watch out...
When he proved resistant to her attempts at intimidation, Sasha finally came out and informed him that he would never replace her father, a Starfleet chief petty officer who had died fighting the Tzenkethi years before. Hrelle knew she would have been far too young to even remember him, but had obviously fashioned together this perfect image of the man. And no one would ever take over from him.
Hrelle understood her, and how she felt, and told her so. And he assured her that it wasn't his intention to be her father... but he'd be honoured to be her friend.
It was a gradual, grudging breaking of the ice - helped with the chance for her to be able to call upon a real starship captain to show off to her friends, and even arrange a visit to the Furyk and sit in his chair on the bridge.
And happily, very happily, they became far closer than he could ever hope or deserve. And then one night two years ago, and as year after Hannah and he had wed, as Sasha kissed him and her mother good night, she called him Daddy, Hannah later admitting that the girl had approached her earlier, asking if she thought he'd mind.
Would he mind? Would he mind?
He couldn't stop smiling or crying for the rest of the night. And Hannah couldn't stop teasing him for getting so verklempt.
Life couldn't get better.
"Hey, Little Papa, you might like to know that while you were in here defending the Federation, I got word from the Geno-Obstetrician."
His ears twitched, and his heart raced, as he read her scent and expression. "They think it's possible?"
Her hint of a smile grew. "I could carry a child of ours to six months, or the full term if they adjust the genes to delay development of the baby's - the cub's? - claws until after I deliver. It'll have my brains, but your looks. Still, you can't have everything, can you?"
A child of ours... He never dared consider it until recently, as he reached a certain age. His clan on Cait lived in an archipelago where they ran a successful fishing fleet, but had grown estranged from him following his desire to leave their homeworld and join Starfleet. Of all his proud, stubborn clan members who refused to answer his letters to them, only his grandmother chose to stay in contact, keeping him up to date on all the various bondings and births within the clan.
Grandmother even left Cait to visit following his marriage to Hannah, and while she took a delight with Sasha, treating the child as kin, she assured her grandson that she would also love any children Hannah and he produced. Hrelle had been embarrassed by the less than subtle hint dropped, though Hannah took it in stride, suggesting Grandmother must have been Jewish in another life. His wife never fully let it go over the subsequent years, sometimes bringing it up again in discussions about Caitian childrearing and naming.
Still, it wasn't a certainty that it could be done. Children of different races were known, of course, had been since before the birth of the Federation, and sometimes even occurred naturally. But it was risky, for obvious reasons, and usually required medical advice and intervention to prevent injury or worse to mother and child.
