The Four-Pips Club

Part 1 of 2

["Kathryn," the young Bolian ensign whispered hoarsely. "I've dreamt of your luscious, luminescent goddess-flesh quivering in my manly arms since first we encountered the Caretaker, lo these many years ago."]

Kathryn Janeway stared open-mouthed at the padd in her hand--bemused, bothered, and undeniably bewildered by what she read. "What the hell...." she muttered to herself.
 

["Kathryn, pleeeaaassse," he pleaded. The feel of his floccus rubbing against the fabric of his uniform made his engorged members flutter in desperate want for this Alpha she-captain.

"Ohhhhh, Ennnnsssign," the captain hissed seductively. "Do it!"]

"That's it!" she declared. She tapped her combadge. "Janeway to Chakotay."

"Chakotay here."

"Report to my Ready Room!" she barked.

"On my way, Captain," the commander responded sharply.

Within moments, Janeway heard the chortle of her office door. "Come," she growled.

The First Officer entered and nodded a silent greeting.

"Have a seat, Chakotay."

"Problem?" he asked as he made himself comfortable.

"I should say so! I seem to have stumbled onto some sort of pornography ring on my own ship, and apparently I'm the star!"

Janeway handed Chakotay the padd and watched him read a few lines. Much to her chagrin, he looked entirely too amused.

"You think it's funny?" she asked with a hint of warning in her tone.

"Sorry Captain. I just didn't know Bolians had floccuses. I thought they were bald all over," he quipped.

"It's flocci," Janeway corrected, "and I certainly didn't call you in here to discuss Bolian body parts, bald or otherwise!" She took an exasperated breath before continuing. "That's the fifth story like that I've found so far, and all of them have me indulging in some sort of passionate exchange with everything from a Borg to a...." she lowered her voice. "To a bulkhead!"

Chakotay coughed back a laugh.

Janeway studied him, suddenly suspicious. "You don't seem surprised," she said carefully. "Do you know something about this?"

"Well, uh, actually...." he began.

"Did you write these, Chakotay? Is it some sort of prank?"

"Me? No!"

"Come on, Commander," she insisted as she grabbed the padd back and began scrolling through the list of files. "I know I saw a story featuring the two of us....Here it is!" She began reading aloud.
 

[The virile, dark-haired First Officer approached his restless captain. When obsidian met indigo, he could see the surrender in her eyes.]

"'When obsidian met indigo'?" Janeway repeated skeptically. "Honestly, Chakotay!"

He raised his hands in supplication. "Hey, I didn't write that, Kathryn! Believe me!"

"Well then who did?"

Chakotay took a breath, surrender evident in his eyes now. "The crew wrote those stories."

"The crew? What--you don't mean all of them, do you?"

"No, not all of them. Only about half of the crew are members."

Janeway felt the start of a headache sprout between her eyes and tendril its way across her forehead.

"Members?" she asked meekly.

"Well, uh, it's sort of an informal group, really."

"'An informal group'," she repeated sardonically. "Does this 'group' have a name?"

"The Four-Pips Club," Chakotay replied, wincing slightly.

"'The Four' what?"

"Four Pips," he answered, trying to make the response sound almost commonplace.

Janeway wasn't fooled by the tone. "I take it this is a secret society?"

"Oh, it's no secret....." Chakotay saw his mistake immediately. "Uhm, except from you," he admitted.

"Well I suppose that explains why this section of the database was encrypted."

"Yes, Kathryn," he admitted. "How did you find it, by the way?"

"I was purging some personal files and accidentally tagged someone else's data block for deletion. When I went in to check the integrity of those logs, I inadvertently caught a reference to my.....well, to my private anatomy! Needless to say, I felt compelled to investigate further," she finished off hotly. Janeway took a breath before continuing. "Chakotay, there are thousands of files in that database. How many of those stories involve me?"

The commander gulped audibly. "All of them."

"'All of them'?" she croaked.

"Uhm, yes, Captain. That's why it's called the 'Four-Pips Club'."

Janeway folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. "Let's take it from the top, shall we?"

He rubbed his tattoo, partly for comfort and partly for luck. "Well, you see, Kathryn," he began, "it all started a couple of years back when we were going through the void. As you probably remember, everyone was bored, and some of the crew were missing you."

Janeway swallowed remembering how she had indulged her own depression by hiding in her cabin. She refused to feel guilty, however, even if her willful isolation was somehow indirectly responsible for this 'Club'.

"Go on," she prompted sternly, suddenly sure that Chakotay had been studying her for a reaction.

"Well, about the fourth week into the void, a story started circulating anonymously through the crew's recreational message board. It was called 'Captain Janeway Takes a Holiday'. It, uh....well, it suggested that the reason you were keeping to yourself was because you were 'entertaining' a delegation of alien ambassadors that you had agreed to ferry across the void. A number of people thought the story was pretty funny and that sort of got the ball rolling. Within a day, other crew members, also anonymously, began posting their own explanations of what you were doing in your cabin."

"And all of these 'explanations' tended toward the ribald?" Janeway asked.

"Yes, Kathryn."

"I see. And you discovered all this exactly when?" she asked with mock casual curiosity.

"It wasn't until awhile after several of the crew had already read the story...."

"Which story?"

Chakotay lowered his eyes. "The holiday story."

"You mean you knew the first day," Janeway translated.

"Yes, Captain," he replied, eyes still downcast.

"And you didn't stop it."

"No, Captain."

"Why not?!"

Obsidian met....well, it should have been indigo, but when Chakotay reconnected with Janeway's eyes, they were leaning more toward the red part of the spectrum--a blazing, fiery red. He swallowed some courage and began cautiously laying down his defense.

"Kathryn, please try to understand. It wasn't just that the crew was bored. Morale was at an all-time low. The holodecks were working overtime as it was, and the crew needed a diversion. They also needed some kind of resolution for why you weren't around. Frankly, I was relieved that they turned to humor for both. It seemed healthy to me."

"It's obscene, Chakotay! I'm their captain. This borders on insubordination!"

"No one's doing it out of disrespect," Chakotay explained delicately. "In fact, I think they mean it as a show of affection. You know as well as I do that about half the crewmembers on a starship fall a little bit in love with their captain."

"Yes, and Starfleet teaches us to channel that adoration into loyalty and dedication. Not into adolescent sex fantasies!"

"The handbooks don't apply anymore for what we're going through, Kathryn."

The comment was said gently and without malice, but it cut Janeway to the quick, and she found she couldn't argue the point.

"Maybe 'round about the fifth year out in the middle of nowhere, loyalty does turn into fantasy," she conceded, "but it just doesn't seem right, Chakotay."

"It's just a harmless outlet."

"So what do you propose I do about it?"

"Nothing," he said, the surprise evident in his tone.

"Chakotay, I can't just pretend I don't know."

"That's exactly what you have to do." He took a breath thoughtfully. "Kathryn," he began again after a moment, "if you censure the crew for writing these stories, it's going to embarrass them and you, it's going to make them frustrated and restless again, and it'll probably make them bitter and even angry at you for denying them an activity that's been bringing them a lot of pleasure."

"You're serious," she said incredulously.

"Absolutely. Please don't underestimate how important this has been to the crew's mental health." On a hunch, he went for Janeway's tender spot to plead his case. "Even Seven of Nine has improved dramatically because of these stories."

That got her attention. "Improved?!" Janeway asked. "I'm not sure I want to know how you mean that."

Chakotay smiled at the overprotectiveness in the tone. "I mean her social skills, Kathryn."

"That's what I was afraid of," she quipped humorlessly.

He grinned. "Her platonic social skills."

Kathryn quirked her head curiously. "Has Seven written any of these stories?" she asked a bit too softly. She hated herself immediately for the obvious change in her tone, especially when Chakotay's dimples deepened.

"I don't know," he admitted. "All the stories are posted anonymously, so there's no way of telling who's doing the writing. But most of the crew read them regularly and discuss the finer points when they get together."

"Oh, God," Janeway groaned.

"It's not as bad as you think. Seven and the others seem to like the stories and have had interesting things to say about them."

"I can't imagine Seven would consider these stories an efficient use of her time, or anyone else's, for that matter."

"On the contrary, she was one of the first to comment on the benefit of these stories for the crew's morale. And she's gone on to become a very good critic, particularly on anything that isn't true to your character." He smiled a little too knowingly. "I think she considers herself an expert on you."

Janeway ignored the last comment. "Well, if they've got me wailing like a banshee at some ensign's puerile advances, I suspect most of the stories fall short of Seven's standards."

Chakotay shook his head slightly, obviously amused by something in the captain's last statement, but he didn't comment. Kathryn caught the expression and found herself inwardly resenting Chakotay for pretending to know Seven better than she did.

"What about the stories that have me paired off with a 'former Borg' that looks, acts and sounds suspiciously like Seven? You can't tell me she's not offended and embarrassed by those!" Kathryn insisted.

He shrugged. "Seven isn't exactly the shy type when it comes to 'copulation', as she puts it."

"Well what about you? Aren't you embarrassed to find yourself in some of these stories?"

Chakotay considered the question for a moment and then shook his head. "I guess I'm not the shy type either."

"Well then maybe the crew should start writing stories about you and Seven!" she blurted exasperatedly.

"Come on, Kathryn. Can you really see me and Seven together?"

He began chuckling at the notion and then laughing outright. The humor infected the captain, too, who joined in after a moment and even let out a little snort.

"OK, that idea is pretty silly," she conceded as their laughter subsided. "But can you honestly see me and Seven together?!" she rejoined.

"Is that a rhetorical question, because I do have an answer?"

"Chakotay...." Kathryn growled in mock warning.

The First Officer held his hands up again in surrender. "OK, OK. I was just asking."

Kathryn took a calming breath. "I just don't know if I can turn the other way."

"The stories aren't really about you as much as they're about the crew's image of you. You might be pleasantly surprised by how they see their captain.....assuming you intend to read any more of these stories, which you don't really have to. Just try to forget about them."

Kathryn sighed heavily, doubting she would be able to do what Chakotay recommended.

*****
 

[Seven's cries and shudders and scent and wetness all combined and overwhelmed Kathryn, heightening her appetites beyond all comprehension. And this time, her hunger could not be sated with Seven's breast milk alone.]

"Oh, my," Janeway said, fanning herself lightly.

She was reading yet another Four-Pips story, probably the hundredth she'd read over the last week. She had already deciphered that the coding system--a series of mostly asterisks and slashes--referred to the romantic pairing of the story, the asterisks apparently representing pips and therefore a reference to rank. A "****/***" story, for example, meant that the story revolved around the captain and one of her commanders, usually Chakotay, although the Vulcan pon farr was such an obvious plot device for a bodice ripper (or tunic ripper, as the case may be) that it was inevitable Tuvok would figure in a few of these tales.

The story Kathryn was reading at the moment was a "****/0"--four "pips" and a zero, indicating that the story involved the captain and someone with no rank, Seven being the most popular of the non-Starfleet paramours with which the captain was paired.

The premise of this particular story of the captain and her Borg crew member was totally implausible--she and Seven get stuck on a planet with no food and Seven has to breast-feed Janeway. Preposterous! Kathryn thought. Furthermore, she didn't much care for the use of the word "suckle" in the story, which seemed to her archaic and somewhat.....well, bovine. Even so, she had to admit that she liked the touching representation of Seven. Much to her surprise, she was also beginning to enjoy the provocative direction the story had just taken.

She read on.
 

[.....with a groan of anticipation announcing her intent, she possessively held the younger woman's legs astride her own face and fastened her mouth hungrily onto her sex, lapping Seven's more savory juices and finding a different kind of sustenance there.]

"God!" Kathryn exclaimed, wiping the moisture that dotted her brow and shifting in her seat against another kind of moisture, both counterpoints to her suddenly dry lips. She licked them involuntarily as she continued reading.
 

[Seven opened herself completely to Kathryn's appetite amazed at how thoroughly it was satisfying her own hunger for an intimate kind of touch she had never known existed nor could have guessed how much she wanted. She thought, too, that she had become familiar with all of the nuances of Kathryn's mouth, with all of its shapes and gestures and tempos. But Kathryn sucking her nipples had a very different kind of feel to it from the lapping and suction and nips she felt acutely now in and around the ultra-sensitive area between her legs.]

TWEEDLE-LEE!

Janeway fumbled the padd and sent it thumping against the carpeted deck of her living room as she reacted to the sudden shriek of her door chime.

"Come," she croaked weakly as she reached down to retrieve the padd. She could hear the door whisk open and shut, and then she caught sight of an elegantly booted foot that she immediately recognized as belonging to Seven of Nine. The unexpected appearance of the lovely young woman she'd been reading salacious things about unnerved the typically composed captain, as if she'd been caught drooling over dirty pictures of the Borg. As a result of the surprise visit, she lost her balance in her effort to retrieve the padd. And then, startled for the third time in less than a minute, Janeway gave a little yelp as she felt here butt cheeks sliding irrevocably off the edge of her chair, landing with an audible thump next to the errant padd on the floor.

"Captain!" Seven called with evident alarm. Within a blink of her luscious lash, she was next to the fallen woman and fussing over her like a maiden aunt. "Are you hurt? Shall I call the Doctor?"

"I'm fine, Seven," Janeway mumbled.

"But you fell impressively," the young woman persisted as she helped the captain to her feet. "I'm sure you've contused your gluteal area."

"Really, Seven, the only thing I've 'contused' is my ego," Janeway admitted, still flushing.

"Very well, Captain, if you are certain you are undamaged."

"I'm certain," she assured, unaccountably warmed by Seven's concern, which helped take the edge off her embarrassment. "What brings you here this time of night, Seven?"

"In my routine diagnostics of the Astrometrics computers this afternoon, I discovered a .0027 variance in the navigational subroutines that invalidate all the projections in my weekly departmental report. I recalibrated the computers to correct the error and just finished recalculating the projections you requested. Here is the corrected report."

"For a .0027 variance? That hardly warrants redoing your entire report."

"But it was inaccurate, Captain," Seven protested.

"The variance is within acceptable limits. Aren't there other activities you'd rather be doing when you're off-duty, Seven," Kathryn asked, suddenly curious about the young woman's involvement in the Four-Pips Club. "For example, when I'm off-duty, I like to relax by reading. Do you like to read?"

Kathryn had to bite back a triumphant grin when she spotted Seven's subtle twitch at the question.

"Yes, Captain. I do read on occasion."

Kathryn licked her lips in anticipation. "What sorts of things do you like to read," she asked in feigned innocence.

Seven swallowed apprehensively and blinked once before answering. "Research materials regarding social relationships," Seven answered, temporizing....or euphemizing. Kathryn wasn't sure which.

"Such as?" she pressed.

The young woman bit her lip. "Psycho-somatic studies on humanoid sexuality (homo sapiens and xeno-bio)....anthropological analyses of the mating rituals of various Alpha- and Beta-quadrant natives....dating how-to's...."

Now it was Kathryn's turn to twitch. "I see a pattern in your reading choices," she quipped more light-heartedly than she actually felt.

"These research materials serve to improve my social skills, a project I undertook at your insistence." Seven's voice softened perceptively as she explained further. "I admit that I initially resisted your request, but I have come to learn that being more human is...desirable."

"Oh, Seven," Kathryn called warmly, "you're already more human than most people I know."

The young woman smiled, pleased by the sentiment....even if she didn't feel it was entirely accurate.
 

*******

The day after the encounter with Seven, Kathryn discovered an intriguing set of tales by a crewmember using the alias "AH!" At first, she considered the use of the expletive as a pen name a little boastful; but after the first story, she thought it understated. By the fifth story, she was a fan, unabashedly uttering ooo's and ah's and several other sounds in-between in noisy reaction to the emotions the stories elicited from her.

Although all of AH!'s stories were sexually explicit and oftentimes quite inventive, they were also complex romances depicting either a first-time affair or an on-going relationship in installments of a much longer series. In fact, what intrigued Kathryn was that the graphic sex seldom seemed gratuitous because it was so filled with emotional resonance. The physicality was finely balanced by moments of compassion and friendship, subtle insights, and an often gripping poignancy as if what mattered to the author most was finding new ways to describe her feelings for her captain. She guessed from the depth of emotion displayed in the stories that whoever penned them might possibly have genuine feelings for her. Normally, Kathryn wouldn't have given the matter much thought. As Chakotay had noted several days earlier, it was common for members of a crew to develop crushes on their captain. But in this instance, she was drawn into those sentiments from the perspective of the person feeling them, and she knew they ran deeper than a mere crush.

What made the situation even more poignant was the almost crippling sense of inadequacy the author conveyed through her protagonist, usually called "Anne." She was always described the same way: as a "young, inexperienced ensign with very plain features" who always marveled that someone of the captain's stature would even notice her, let alone come to love her. Obviously this was someone with very low self-esteem, possibly not very attractive by her own culture's standards.

Kathryn wracked her brain trying to think who that might be, but she admitted to herself that although she knew all the members of her crew well enough to call them by name, she truly knew very few of them, spending most of her off-duty hours with her command crew. But as she sat in her quarters now, rereading a favorite passage from one of AH!'s stories, her compassion for the person behind the words smothered her heart and made fresh tears course down her cheeks.
 

[With the intruder subdued, Captain Janeway turned her attention again to the trembling body she held in her arms. Discerning the wince of pain that briefly animated the young woman's plain features, the captain pulled back a little from the pressure she was applying to the seeping chest wound. She then winced herself, dismayed that she couldn't remember the name of the crewmember who had just saved her life.

"Why did you do that, Ensign? Why did you step into the line of fire?" she asked softly.

"I....I couldn't let you get hurt," she explained haltingly.

"Why? Because I'm the captain?" Janeway asked, genuinely perplexed.

The young woman seemed to panic as she considered how to answer. Then she grimaced as another spasm of pain seized her.

"Tuvok! Where are those transporters?" Janeway called.

"One moment more, Captain."

Janeway swept a platinum strand of hair off the ensign's forehead. The unintentional caress seemed to soothe her. "Hold on," the captain whispered tenderly.

The young woman gripped Janeway's hand and brought it to her lips, looking up at her as tears welled in her eyes.

The tears seemed oddly joyful to the captain, who frowned curiously at the reaction as transporter sparkles filled the air.]

Kathryn took a deep, shuddering breath and swiped at the wet spots on her face. Then she smirked at herself for getting so emotional. Self-sacrifice was not uncommon for Starfleet officers, but she had always experienced that from her own perspective, as someone ready to commit herself, life and limb, for the sake of others. She was unprepared, however, for the experience of being the object of someone else's dedication and sacrifice, and someone, moreover, who wanted nothing more in return than just to be noticed and treated with a little tenderness. Her compassion made her want to reach out to the person behind the words: to find her and hold her. To tell her, "I see you."

Kathryn started to reach up for her combadge, intending to contact Chakotay for more information about the members of the club, and then she quickly brought her hand back down. "What am I doing?" she asked herself. "He'll think I'm nuts! After he laughs in my face for letting myself get so affected by a piece of fiction!" She huffed in self-disgust. "Get a grip, Kathryn."

She stood abruptly and began prowling her living area, thinking fiercely. She considered that she should perhaps give up this new pastime. No matter what Chakotay said, the stories really were, in a sense, about her, and that made them too personal, too close-to-home for her to avoid getting drawn into them. Actually, she could ignore most of the more puerile ones. They were just too silly to be taken seriously. But AH!'s stories were different. There had to be a way of discovering who she was.

Kathryn rushed over to her workstation and brought up the encrypted database. Keying in a few commands, she began the arduous task of studying the access codes and directory tree structure, looking for some way to trace a story to its source.

*****