Commander Selo was surprised when he learned who the other invited guest was. He successfully hid his reaction as Ambassador Spock strode into the room on the captain's arm like she was the ruler of the ship. That wasn't the end of the surprises, though. No, it was shocking to see the slight smile she had on her face. Her! One of the oldest living members of the Vulcan race that was still active in the Federation was smiling!

His own plans to invite himself along and to manipulate things needed to change if Spock had been brought along as well. This was the latest attempt by Starfleet to earn favor with the Romulan Empire and he would see it shot down, if he had to shoot the ambassador and his wife to achieve it.

“It's quite fortunate you did manage to bring some Romulan Ale along, Commander.” Velorum said magnanimously as he took a sip of it from his glass. “I've been in talks with my colleagues and we've come to a tentative agreement that the Federation have given the Romulans an unfair deal with the outright ban of the substance.”

Selo barely managed to keep his mouth from dropping open in shock. It took several seconds before he composed himself enough to talk without stuttering. “Excuse me?”

“Yes, it's gone on for far too long, hasn't it? It's almost a shock, really. In all this time, hundreds of years, no one has addressed it or even brought it up in casual conversation. It's remarkable!” Velorum stated and then continued on with composing a very limited and quite lucrative exception to the ban, so that certain distilleries that would be vetted later, would produce a limited run of a Federation approved brand of ale.

Selo couldn't speak after hearing that and sat there, barely tasting the surprisingly delicious Romulan food that their own modified replicators couldn't reproduce. Shock after shock kept him on the defensive for the entire evening, even during the after dinner gathering.

He had intended to needle Spock about her career and how she hadn't achieved much in the last decade, unlike him, and all he managed to do was solemnly nod at the old woman as she commiserated with him about the disgrace they both had to suffer for having a human parent.

In fact, he had been so distracted that he hadn't felt or noticed Spock pilfering everything out of his head as they talked. All his plans, schemes, and ideas to embarrass and ruin the Vulcan, Klingon, and Federation governments to leave only the Romulan Empire as the only dominant power in the galaxy.

Selo excused himself and claimed to be tired, then returned to his ship alone. The rest of his officers remained to gather intelligence and secretly enjoyed being the focus of attention for the evening. As the important officers on a ship with such an outstanding commander, they had little room to shine or gain renown on their own.

*

Tammy Paris tried to not moan too loudly as the strong Romulan railed into her from behind. She was bent over the bed in the guest quarters and was really enjoying her liaison with her counterpart. Her eyes went to her best friend on the bed as she was also railed, only Helen Kim was in the missionary position and cried out each and every time the Romulan OPS officer thrusted into her.

“I told you... I'd have... your back!” Tammy said between moans and grabbed Helen's hand to steady her.

“I told you... that's what... I was worried about!” Helen managed to get out, then she came so hard, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she briefly passed out.

“There she... goes again.” Tammy said.

The Romulan inside of Helen huffed and pulled out as he looked down at her soaked and gaping opening. “This is not as enjoyable if she is unconscious.”

Tammy laughed and pointed at her own mouth. “Then... get back... over here.”

The Romulan smiled and did as she asked, then he moaned as Tammy took him all the way in without trouble. He and his fellow Romulan officer spit-roasted the eager woman and advanced Romulan and Federation cooperation by several years.

Tammy Paris never expected to enjoy her job so much or that there were such great perks. As the man down her throat came, Helen let out a soft sound that let her know she was waking up. Instead of letting the one in front of her go, Tammy reached back and patted the man's hip that was inside of her. He took the hint and gave her one last thrust, making her come, and he pulled out and moved over to slip inside Helen Kim.

Since the Romulans looked nearly identical, Helen didn't know that the man that just entered her wasn't the one that knocked her out. She was a little beyond thinking rationally anyway, even if she did know. She wrapped her legs around him and begged him to go faster to make her pass out again.

Tammy stopped sucking long enough to laugh after hearing that and then pushed her Romulan onto his back and mounted him. The man moaned as she gripped him tightly down there and she whispered her thanks to both men for making this a night to remember... and all four of them would remember it for a very long time.

*

“Did you... get what you wanted?” Kevin Janeway asked as he took Spock from behind.

“More!” Spock said and pushed backwards to dig him just a little bit deeper into herself.

Kevin held in his laugh, because that one word had multiple meanings, which Spock was using. He thrust harder and she moaned, then shared what she had learned from Selo's mind. With all those plans and ideas, and how things were supposed to go, they would have an easy time making sure that none of those plans would ever be completed or the ideas implemented.

With their bodies and minds linked, they were a formidable pair of intelligent people that could use their skills to help their people to the best of their abilities. It was almost unfair how well they fit together, both physically and mentally, with the both of them sharing similar experiences and outlooks on life.

Spock was so deep into Kevin's mind that she easily saw that he believed her unification plan between Vulcans and Romulans was gong to fail; but, he wasn't trying to discourage her, or told her the odds, or even mentioned how different they were, both biologically and religiously.

All Kevin did was support her decisions and he always would. Like he had told her before, he had no right to tell her that she couldn't do something or that she would fail. All he could do was tell her to try and to do what she believed was for the best.

Spock felt that spark of love for him grow and deepen. She knew that he would ensure she had access to many resources and as many chances as possible to do what she thought was right. That alone would have been enough for her, then their connection flared and reminded her that she would always have this intimate link with the man she loved and he would always be there for her.

*

Ambassador Velorum slapped his wife's ass and plunged back inside of her. “You were a right showhorse tonight, weren't you?”

“Yes!” She cried out and moaned as he dominated her like she wanted.

“All those alien eyes on you!” *slap!* “Undressing you in their minds!” *slap!* “Making me jealous!”

“Yes! YES!” She yelled and came.

Velorum pulled out and turned the woman around. She dove onto his erection like a starving woman and he continued to reach across her and lightly slapped her ass. She moaned every time and then they were both coming and collapsed onto the bed in a pile of sweat and panting breaths.

“I... love you.” His aide whispered and lightly kissed his chest.

“I love you, too.” He said and petted her damp hair. It had taken this trip for his eyes to be opened about his wife's motives and how he had been shortsighted about things. All she wanted was to gain his attention, and the only way for her to do that as a diplomatic aide that was always by his side, was to show him that others wanted her attention.

He secretly thanked Captain Janeway for the object lesson on what he had been doing to his wife for the last two years he had been an ambassador. It had really sunk in after that first formal dinner and he corrected his behavior after his wife had shouted at him about it.

The lesson had worked so well, it had helped him immensely tonight with the unexpected oversight by Commander Selo. He hadn't expected someone so lofty would have gotten involved so soon in the negotiation process, since the talks didn't start officially until they reached Romulus. Still, the crate of ale had done wonders for both ship crews and the evening had been a huge success.

“Spock was quite lovely in her Vulcan dress, wasn't she?” His wife asked.

“What dress?” Velorum asked, confused.

“Good answer.” She whispered and kissed him on the lips, then she was on him again and they had a little more fun before they went to sleep. They had a short trip across Romulan Space before they reached the alien's homeworld and then the real work would begin.

*

After the successful dinner and meeting between the Romulans and the Federation Envoy, all four ships flew at full Impulse speed across Romulan Space to Romulus. As they approached the planet, to everyone's surprise but the captain's and Spock's, Selo's command ship peeled off from the escort and flew off.

Since Voyager was the envoy's conveyance, they provided security and an escort for Ambassador Velorum and his aide. Commander Cavit and Lieutenant Stadi went along as high enough ranking offers to both honor the Romulans that the Federation saw this as important, and respectful enough to not make the officers too high ranked to make the Romulans nervous.

The mission was to last several weeks on the planet, since government negotiations always took time and wasn't hashed out overnight, Captain Janeway actually did put forth a request for a ship tour of one of the Romulan warbirds. It was granted, as was a reciprocal tour of Voyager afterwards.

Janeway agreed, with the stipulation that both ships would respect operational security and certain sections were off-limits. The Romulans laughed, as if they would be stupid enough to breach another ship's secured spaces so openly.

Spock didn't go along with him, however. She knew she could enjoy it from wherever she was or later when they were in private and she would tour the memories with him. Instead, she contacted one of the electoral colleges and asked to speak to a representative and to learn about their form of government. The military was a huge part of it and she was fascinated with how it worked.

Captain Janeway would have gone with her, except he didn't for the same reason. He could tag along inside her mind or he could relive the memories later instead. That way, they could cover twice as much ground and still experience it for themselves. It was an aspect of their bonding that Spock was delighted to have access to, and again she regretted not having access to it decades ago.

Janeway sent her a thought that he would have only been ten at the time and not anywhere near mature enough to handle the connection, let alone the mental weight they now shared. He nearly made Spock laugh out loud when he sent a mental image of him as a boy that followed her around like a worshipping monk.

Thankfully, the Romulan woman escorting Spock saw the smile and assumed it was because she just showed the much older woman the elaborate main offices where they did the most planning for the empire.

Janeway brought Chief Engineer Santos along for the tour and they both had a great time talking to the Romulan's chief engineer. There were a few things they weren't allowed to talk about and neither of them complained when the Romulan claimed state secrets, especially when it came to discussing the ship's warp core.

“I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable about bringing it up.” Janeway said as he peered at the main assembly for the warp core. “I was just wondering how you manage the gravitational sheer at the event horizon of the micro black hole you use as a fuel source.”

Gasps came from everyone in the engine room and they all stared at him as two of them drew their guns.

“How do you know about that?” The Romulan Chief Engineer asked in a deadly voice.

“Hmm? Oh, Captain Kirk of the first Enterprise encountered a Romulan Warbird and had to regretfully destroy it using its self-destruct. Observational data in the report and the bridge recordings show the engine room being consumed by a gravitational phenomenon not observed in normal space.”

Everyone kept staring at me, even Chief Engineer Santos. It was a relief that the two with guns stopped pointing them at me and put them back in their holsters on their hips.

I gave Santos a dry look back. “I like tinkering when I have spare time and I read a lot.”

That was a huge understatement, because I had read everything I could as I integrated the caretaker's technology with Voyager's systems. The theories alone were fascinating and the practical applications of some of the technology interacting with each other, kept me up at night researching the possibilities.

“I... I need to talk to my captain.” The Romulan engineer said.

I had the immediate urge to laugh, because it brought to my mind about someone in an uncomfortable situation calling for an adult. “Give him my respects and thank him for allowing me to visit.” I said and moved off to the side of the room and looked at a wall panel marked with danger symbols. No one stopped me as I reached out and popped it off. I whistled at what was inside. “You're running a two stage plasma manifold?”

Santos gasped and ran over to me. “I heard about those at the last tech conference on Betazed! They refine the plasma to purify it and then refine it again to increase the efficiency in the warp engines.”

I nodded and we discussed the energy cost to output ratio, then the dangers of using it on anything smaller than a Romulan Warbird. We soon had three other engineers around us and they joined in, giving us insights and personal experiences working on the thing. One even handed me a datapad with the proper numbers on it and I thanked him as we continued talking.

The chief engineer gave us a look before he walked away to enter his office. He had a call to make and some news to share about state secrets being out that they didn't know were out. I was tempted to say I didn't know how they created their artificial black holes, and mentally shrugged.

If they asked me about it, I would tell them I could make actual black holes and I didn't need to figure out or use their method at all. Why? Because in Worm, the villain named Bakuda could easily make black hole bombs. Tinker powers really were bullshit.

About an hour later, several Romulan agents showed up in the engine room dressed as their special police named Tal Shiar. They tried to arrest me for espionage and I laughed in their faces, which didn't endear me to them. So, I handed them a datapad with the information on it that anyone in Starfleet could access from the archives, because it wasn't restricted information.

They still tried to intimidate me about it, even as one of them read the datapad and then ran off to send it to whomever. I just shrugged at them and said it was only a mental exercise for me anyway. I wasn't learning how to make them or was going to introduce the engine type into the federation, because we didn't need it.

There was a reason our tech usually conflicted when it was used by another race or tried to integrated it with their own. Our base technologies were fundamentally different and the principles they functioned on were usually not compatible.

The agent ran back into the engine room and whispered to the lead investigator, only to make him frown. He scowled at me as the other man kept whispering, then he made a scoff sound and walked away. The others took the blatant clue and quickly followed him.

“They didn't even apologize.” Santos whispered.

“Like the Vulcans, their culture doesn't have sorry as part of their vocabulary. That's a purely human response.” I whispered back and she looked surprised. “Again, I like to read.” I said and turned to the engineers still gathered around me, even after that altercation. “All right! Now that that's over, who wants to learn how to fix the programming of your replicators to make your food taste right?”

Every single hand in the whole department raised up.

I laughed and pointed to the main console. “Get me a viewscreen about three feet long and two high and set it up there.”

Two minutes later, I was giving an in-depth lecture about programming techniques in their own language, and all of them were taking notes, even their chief engineer. Santos stood off to the side and was recording the event for posterity's sake, or so she said. I was pretty sure she was going to use it as bribing material or to share as a joke with the rest of her department when we went back to the ship.