Chapter Text
Prologue
Splendour Island Resort, Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet
Stardate 47984.3
Natasha Kinsen felt satisfied.
She flopped back into the cosseted luxury of the fine silk bed sheets and felt the subtle movement of the reaction-sensitive mattress as it immediately re-moulded itself underneath her body.
When the predictive ergonomic material had been explained to her by the talkative holographic concierge that had welcomed her to the suite several days ago, it had sounded a tad unnerving. But now, she wondered how she had survived for so long without this bed in her life. It felt like a perpetual hug, following her around throughout the night. She had already looked into whether it would be possible to replicate one for her quarters once she returned to duty.
Next to her, the equally pampered form of Salus Hadren lay on the same snug mattress, his chest rising up and down as he got his breath back, and his deep black eyes blinking quickly as he tried to fully process the experience of the last few minutes.
“Wow,” he said, “I mean…wow.”
Natasha stared up at the palatially-high ceiling and allowed herself a slightly proud smile. “Yep,” she replied knowingly.
Salus shook his head slightly, still clearing up the whirlwind of thoughts buffeting around in his head. “No, I mean, I told you yesterday how extra heightened a Betazoid’s senses get when we’re being this…intimate. And the thoughts I just sensed from you were…”
He paused, a little overwhelmed. Emboldened, she propped herself up on her arm and lazily draped the other one across his chest.
“Oh, I remember. That’s why I made my thoughts extra spicy this time. You’re welcome.”
He glanced back at her, still working on getting his breathing back to normal following the multiple sensory experiences his body and mind had just been through. For a moment, he struggled for an appropriate response. Eventually, he found it.
“Wow.”
“So, what now?” she asked with a mischievous look, “We have to start calling each other ‘Imzadi’?”
“Um, you know, that sort of bond is really only built up over time—”
The bewildered Salus Hadren stopped himself midway through his flustered reaction, as he saw the amused smile spreading across her face.
“—And you’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“You tell me,” she giggled, “You’re the telepath.”
He managed a laugh back and gently shook his head again for effect. “After all that, I think it’s gonna take a while before my senses are back where they should be.”
“Well, relax. I might not be a telepath, but I can recognise a holiday fling when I’m in one.”
She leaned over and kissed the still flustered Betazoid, before rolling back into the gentle embrace of the mattress and grabbing a padd emblazoned with the resort’s logo from the bedside table.
“Now,” she continued, flicking through the padd’s menu display, “I don’t know about you, but all this has made me super hungry. So how about we hit room service? Hard?”
She idly scrolled through the padd’s screen, before allowing her gaze to wander to the astonishing view through the window at the foot of the bed.
Natasha had arrived on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet four days earlier with three of her best friends from the USS Tripoli, after hitching a ride on a Federation transport from Starbase 27.
The timing of their trip was part of an unofficial tradition among Starfleet’s junior officers. Every year, each starship’s crew fought tooth and nail for any shore leave availability around the turn of a new Earth calendar year. It may have been meaningless superstition, but it was considered bad luck among the rank and file of the fleet to be onboard a starship at that time of year. Bad things seemed to have a way of happening around then.
Even on their trip over here, there had been reports on the UFP newswires about some trouble brewing around the Bajoran Wormhole.
Still, superstition or not, this year Natasha and her friends had struck the jackpot in the annual lottery, and had all secured two weeks of shore leave together. And what had always been planned as a girls-only vacation had been given extra meaning shortly before they had left the Tripoli when Ensign T’Vess had unexpectedly broken up with her long-term partner.
Now it was incumbent on them to show their friend a good time to get over her loss.
But Natasha had bumped into Salus Hadren almost immediately. Quite literally, as she’d been racing through the resort’s reception to meet T’Vess and the others at the outdoor wave pool with her head buried in a padd and he had been walking the other way, in conversation with a colleague.
He had apologised immediately, even though even her most conservative estimate put at least seventy percent of the blame on her shoulders, and had introduced himself as he helped her gather up her things that had gone flying across the floor as they had collided. And before she knew it, three days had passed, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen any of her friends.
Salus, she had learned, was part of an independent delegation from Betazed, who had been here for several days already for talks with the resort’s owner about opening a new meditation facility along the white sand beaches of Splendour Island’s north shore.
She really hoped he hadn’t been a critical part of the delegation’s pitch. Because if he was, the facility was never going to happen. He had barely left her suite since they had met.
Still, she didn’t feel guilty about that. Or about abandoning T’Vess and the others. As she watched the crimson sun setting across the clear waters of the bay through the window, she just smiled.
She really had never felt more satisfied.
Eventually, a rumble from her stomach tore her away from the view and back to the extensive room service menu in front of her.
“You got any recommendations?” she asked as she scanned down the list of options.
“Actually,” Salus replied, “I’ve mostly just been using the replicator.”
She paused in her interrogation of the menu to turn and stare at him, not quite believing what she was hearing. “The replicator? This place will cook up almost anything you want, on demand, and deliver it right to your suite? And you’re using the replicator?”
The food was undeniably one of Splendour Island’s biggest selling points, front and centre of every promotional leaflet she’d seen. An army of chefs and caterers working tirelessly to prepare hundreds of different hand-made dishes that were then brought to you by an infantry of waiting staff.
And while anything prepared by a replicator would be superior in nutritional content, and undeniably faster to get to them, Natasha knew there was always something special about eating real food. Especially when you were on vacation.
Salus offered a slightly apologetic shrug back to her. “I was just grabbing meals here and there,” he pointed out, “Technically, I’m here to work, after all.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourself,” she countered as she returned her attention to the menu, “Speaking of which, I’ve been told the Elaysian salads are to die for. Melt in the mouth, apparently.”
She dropped the padd down to her stomach and screwed up her face in a moment of thoughtful contemplation.
“But I kinda fancy pizza. Is it weird that I fancy pizza?”
“Whatever you want,” Salus replied, stifling a tired yawn.
She couldn’t help but turn to him again, an impish smile returning to her face. “Pretty sure you can tell what I want…”
His dark eyes opened a little wider as he sensed a fresh flood of thoughts coming from her.
“Pizza’s fine,” he managed.
“Suit yourself,” she shrugged, “Spoilsport.”
She turned back to the bedside table and reached out to activate the comms unit that was built into the design. As she did so, her hand brushed past her silver and gold Starfleet combadge. “Ok, one extra large ham and pineapple coming right up. And if you say a word about my choice of toppings, you can kiss goodbye to any chance of me—”
She stopped herself, her finger hovering over the comms panel. A flicker of something in the back of her mind started to trouble her.
Something wasn’t right about all of this.
It didn’t feel real.
She stared down at the combadge again, picking up the tiny object and turning it around in her hand to study it curiously. The silver delta symbol on the golden oval backdrop was so familiar, and yet there was something oddly eerie about it. It was a sensation that she couldn’t quite place. Her mind seemed to go fuzzy even as she tried to focus on precisely what the problem was.
And then it dawned on her.
Starfleet.
For some reason, she was sure that she wasn’t in Starfleet any more. Even though she was definitely in Starfleet, on shore leave from her posting the USS Tripoli. And she was equally sure that she wasn’t visiting the Splendour Island Resort on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet right now. Even though she was clearly visiting the Splendour Island Resort on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet right now.
She shook her head in confusion and turned back to the man lying alongside her in bed. And she gasped in shock.
Salus Hadren’s body was still lying next to her. After all this time together, she’d have recognised that chest anywhere. But now, instead of the familiar chiselled features of the Betazoid’s face staring back at her, she saw a completely different face altogether.
A face that she instantly recognised. Even though, from her perspective, she hadn’t met him yet.
The face of a smiling Vulcan.
“Welp,” Sunek offered, “I guess this is gonna take some explaining.”