“Damn,” Trip said a few quiet, sober minutes later. Thanks to the Takret pirates that had tried to board the Kilhra’en nearly two weeks ago, the port plasma vent bore noticeable damage—a ten-centimeter-long, larger-than-hairline crack. Surviving a landing, or even a high-speed passage through a substantial planetary atmosphere, would be a distinctly risky proposition. If the valves behind that vent let go when the hull’s getting bombarded by ionized gases during atmospheric entry, he thought, then getting discovered by the Romulans dirtside will be the very least of my problems.
Hoping he’d be able to make do with the tools and spare parts the Kilhra’en carried—he would cannibalize nonessential pieces from the cockpit and crew compartments, but only if he had to—Trip activated his suit’s thrusters again, propelling himself back toward the scout ship’s starboard airlock. The back of the suit pressed against his spine as his weightless body began to accelerate forward.
Only halfway back, Trip saw a dark, menacing shape rising up from behind the Kilhra’en on a steeply rising parabolic approach vector. His blood froze in his veins at the sight of it, as though his suit had suddenly failed. The size of whatever was approaching from Cheron’s surface was indeterminate, as was the thing’s distance. All he could tell was that it was closing on the little scout ship, and quickly. He tapped his thrusters again, forgetting to decelerate in his haste to reach the relative safety of the Kilhra’en’s interior. Though his gauntleted hands grabbed at the outer edges of the open airlock hatch, his body struck the sides forcefully enough to make his teeth rattle.
Before he could haul himself fully inside the lock, Trip experienced an unpleasantly familiar sensation—a tingling almost-itch, as though thousands of ants were crawling over his bare skin. A wash of orange light swept across his helmet’s field of vision, and his view of the Kilhra’en faded, then vanished.
Trip nearly stumbled when the sensations of gravity and solidity abruptly returned, along with his vision. Below the raised dais that now supported his boots stood a trio of armed men dressed in Romulan military uniforms, their gleaming silver helmets doing little to conceal their unvaryingly hostile glares. Two of the soldiers already had their extremely dangerous-looking sidearms drawn and trained on him. The remaining man seemed to be speaking into the narrow console that stood before him; he was leaning forward, which made his face difficult to see and therefore unreadable.
Trip couldn’t hear anything the man was saying.
Moving very slowly, Trip unscrewed his helmet from his suit’s neck ring. The pressure differential between the suit and its new surroundings equalized with a brief serpentine hiss, and the warning voices of the uniformed Romulans suddenly became almost too audible as the two armed men stepped menacingly forward, their weapons leveled and ready.
Trip tucked his helmet under his left arm while raising his right in what he hoped was a clear gesture of surrender. With a slightly crooked smile, he said, “Permission to come aboard?”
The man behind the console approached the transporter dais, doffing his helmet as he allowed Trip to get his first close look at his face.
With a start, Trip realized that his nine-month search had finally panned out, if not quite in the way he’d hoped. “Tevik,” he said in a near whisper.
“Terix,” the other man corrected, his face a mask of barely contained fury. “You will address me as Centurion Terix. Do we understand one another, Cunaehr of Iuruth City?
“Or should I say, Sodok of Vulcan?”
Romulan Attack Raptor Ra’kholh
After nearly a full duty shift of fruitless interrogation of the prisoner, Terix Val’Danadex Trel t’Llweii felt extremely vexed at his inability simply to kill the interloper on sight. Erebus only knew how badly he’d wanted to do the deed—almost from the moment the man had materialized aboard the Ra’kholh—but the old conflicting memories had intervened. Along with the bedrock conviction that his prisoner—the man who had been instrumental in helping a treacherous nest of thaessu spies telepathically steal his identity—was also a close colleague, and perhaps even a friend.
Had Terix simply acted immediately and without hesitation, at least the deed would have been done. Sodok of Vulcan would now be dead, and Terix would have presented the spy’s demise to Admiral Valdore as an unfortunate fait accompli.
Instead, Terix had balked. With his initial interrogation report filed, Valdore’s flagship, the Imperial Warbird Dabhae, was on its way to take possession of the prisoner. Terix’s moment of opportunity had forever passed.
Now Terix was obliged by Valdore’s explicit orders to see to it that the faux-Romulan once known as Cunaehr, a man who had insinuated himself into the Romulan military’s warp-seven stardrive program, remained uninjured by the grueling questioning process. This precluded the use of mind probes. However, the admiral had not placed any limitations on either the duration or number of interrogations to which the spy could be subjected.
As he traversed the attack raptor’s long corridors on his way back to the detention area, Terix considered the eolh iarr’voi—a roughly palm-sized musical instrument played by drawing and expelling breath along a long but narrow reed—he had confiscated from the quarters of the scout ship. He wondered whether the guards had left it with the prisoner, or if they’d taken the precaution of removing it from his cell. With his engineering background, the wily Vulcan spy might fashion a crude weapon out of almost anything.
The din that met Terix’s sensitive ears definitively settled the matter of the eolh iarr’voi’s whereabouts the moment the detention area’s outer door hissed open.
“What in the name Akraana’s divine teat is that?” he said, addressing the pair of helpless-looking uhlan guards who stood outside the prisoner’s cell.
“He’s, ah, playing the ’voi, Centurion,” one of them said, unnecessarily.
“And neither of you cared to stop him?”
Both uhlanu flushed a deep Apnex Sea green. “Centurion, he told us that we could pry the ’voi out of his ‘cold, dead fingers,’” said the uhlan who hadn’t spoken previously.
“You ordered us to refrain from harming him, Centurion,” said the other.
Terix angrily shouldered past the guards, banged on the keypad, and entered the cell.
Seated on one of the cell’s two chairs, his eyes closed tightly, the Vulcan played a rapid-fire fusillade of alien motifs, from arpeggiating giant steps to unpleasant yet almost-recognizable scalar runs to unsonorous sequences of chords that might have dragged the classical Romulan composer Frenchotte back from the surcease of death.
“Enough!” Terix shouted.
The prisoner abruptly stopped, opened his eyes, and favored his visitor with an infuriating raised eyebrow. “Terix. Nice of you to drop in on me again. And thanks for leaving this with me.” He waved the small musical instrument in the air between them. “It’s been a big help in whiling away the time between these interrogation sessions.”
His anger getting the better him, Terix lashed out with his left hand, sending the eolh iarr’voi flying. He didn’t see where it ended up, but he heard the very satisfying crunch it made against at least one of the walls before it struck the deck plates in multiple pieces.
The prisoner did not appear pleased, but at least he had the apparent good sense to remain seated. “Great. That was the closest thing to a harmonica I’ve been able to find since I left Vulcan.”
“When Admiral Valdore is finished with you, you will no longer have any need of such things,” Terix said. “That damnable noise sounded even worse than the monks’ chanting at the T’Panit monastery.”
Sodok leaned back in his chair and gave off an air of insouciance that seemed uncharacteristic for a Vulcan. “The ancient Vulcans called that piece ‘Crossroad Blues.’ According to legend, the composer sold his soul to Shariel, the death god.” He rubbed an index finger over one of his ears. “Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t done exactly the same thing.”
Not for the first time, Terix won
dered if the Vulcan spy might not be going mad. Since he had no idea what the man was talking about, he allowed his remark to pass unacknowledged as he seated himself in the cell’s other chair.
“Why did you come back into Romulan space, Mister Sodok?” Terix asked, schooling his voice into a fair approximation of the authoritative equanimity of a professional interrogator.
“We’ve already been through this a dozen times,” the spy said, frowning heavily. “I came to help carry out a Vulcan intelligence operation.”
“And you insist you’re operating alone?”
Sodok nodded. “This time, yes.”
“And this…operation’s goal?”
“Two main things, just like I told you before.”
“Tell me again,” Terix said, suppressing a scowl.
“I’ll try to go a little slower this time, so you can keep up.”
Terix’s rage swiftly escalated toward the boiling point. Fists clenched in spite of himself, he rose from his chair. In the space of a heartbeat, he grabbed the front of the prisoner’s shirt with both hands, and hoisted him into the air as though he weighed no more than a medium-sized Apnex longfish.
The Vulcan returned Terix’s hard gaze without any evident fear. “There’s an old saying,” the prisoner said. “‘You can’t kid a kidder.’”
“What?” Terix asked, flummoxed by yet another non sequitur.
“Something tells me you’re not going to go beyond putting on a show.”
Despite the orders he’d received to the contrary, Terix felt an all but irresistible urge to punch the prisoner squarely in the face. He suppressed it, willing his hands not to shake. “Why do you say that, thaessu?”
“Because your guards didn’t punish my little harmonica jam with anything stronger than gripes and complaints. When I realized that somebody must have ordered ’em not to rough me up, I just turned the volume higher.”
“Don’t make the mistake of believing I will treat you with the same deference, Vulcan,” Terix said, shaking the man slightly. “I am no mere uhlan to be trifled with.”
The prisoner acted as though he hadn’t heard Terix’s warning. “No offense, but those two outside the door seem to be more afraid of somebody a little higher up in the pecking order than a lowly centurion like yourself.”
To avoid being blamed for an underling’s possible indiscretion, Terix had indeed made the guards aware of Admiral Valdore’s orders. While both of the uhlanu understood that Terix would bear primary responsibility if anything happened to their prisoner, they were also aware that Terix would not face Admiral Valdore’s Honor Blade alone if Sodok died or became injured while in their care.
Unceremoniously dropping the thaessu back into his chair, Terix said, “Tell me about the goals of the reformist regime on Vulcan.”
Quickly shaking off the shock of his abrupt hard landing, the prisoner sighed and shook his head. “All right. You won’t get anything out of me that I haven’t already told you. One of my mission’s goals was to find and neutralize a secret shipbuilding and research facility being run by a faction that opposes the Romulan government. They have a special disdain for the military. You know them as the Ejhoi Ormiin. Their leader was a man named Sopek—at least until the Tal Shiar vaporized him.”
“Ch’uivh,” Terix corrected, using Sopek’s Romulan name. Not having seen the man’s body, he wasn’t about to take it on anyone’s word that the wily Ch’uivh was, indeed, dead. He was, however, impressed by the level of knowledge the Vulcans evidently had about the Romulan Star Empire’s internal dissident problems.
Infuriatingly, Sodok just sat there, waiting.
Although Terix had yet to discover any discrepancies in Sodok’s story from telling to telling, he nevertheless continued to find it difficult to accept. “And why would the Vulcans want to do us the service of bringing down the Ejhoi Ormiin?”
“I don’t think the V’Shar ever intended to do you any favors, Tevik.”
Terix growled. “Terix. Tevik was a construct of artificial memories created by your treacherous Vulcan friend Ych’a.”
“Terix. Sorry. The Ejhoi Ormiin radicals have stolen advanced Vulcan technology. Either they’ll use it to destabilize the Romulan Empire and start a civil war that will spill out across Coalition space, or the technology will be confiscated by the Romulan government—and enable you to intensify your war against the Coalition worlds.”
“Logical,” Terix said with a nod. “You mentioned having two goals, Vulcan. You’ve explained the first one. What is the second?”
The thaessu spy regarded him with a quizzical expression. “You ran from Vulcan during the confusion that followed the terror attack on Mount Seleya.”
Terix’s voice deepened to a near growl. “I’ve never run away from anything in my life, Vulcan.”
Sodok shrugged. “You disappeared from Vulcan right after the attack. That made you into a major loose end in need of tying up.”
“Why?”
“Are you serious? We were business partners, Tev—Terix. Friends.”
Terix’s eyes narrowed almost to slits. “Friends don’t sit idly by while others force their way into your mind to alter your memories.”
The Vulcan surprised him by appearing to be sincerely regretful. His eyes downcast, he said, “Maybe not. Maybe no reason can be good enough to excuse what was done to you. Not even the security of the entire Coalition.” He looked up and met Terix’s gaze directly. “But I couldn’t just sit around after you suddenly ‘went Romulan’ on me and disappeared. Especially not with the whole planet grieving the destruction of the immortal soul of Vulcan’s most revered ancient philosopher.”
Terix nodded. “Surak.” Though he was a Romulan, how could he not know of Surak? Terix had been thoroughly exposed to Vulcan culture, perhaps more so than any other living Romulan. Ych’a’s intricate telepathic ministrations—which included a complex webwork of altered, embellished, and wholly synthetic memories—had misled him into believing himself to be a Vulcan intelligence agent rather than a loyal member of the Romulan Star Empire’s proud military hierarchy.
Speaking into the silence that followed, Terix said, “Continue.”
The thaessu nodded. “Since I knew you were actually a disguised Romulan soldier, I had to assume that you had something to do with the Seleya bombing. You have to admit, in my place you’d probably do the math the same way I did. So I kept my ear to the ground until I found out you were stationed at the Cheron garrison.”
Terix nodded again slowly as he suppressed the anguished grimace that always threatened to surface whenever he thought about the Seleya attack. Although he carried no conscious recollection of the incident, he couldn’t deny the distinct possibility that he’d either carried out the bombing himself or had abetted it in some manner. Given the terrible expertise Ych’a had demonstrated in altering the fabric of both mind and memory, he had to cope with the painful knowledge that the truth of the matter lay beyond his grasp, perhaps forever.
“So your mission’s other goal,” Terix said, “was to find me?”
Sodok flashed an impertinent grin that Terix—to his great annoyance—remembered almost fondly. “Mission accomplished,” the prisoner said.
As though acting of its own volition, Terix’s right hand fell to his holster. He drew his disruptor and took aim straight at the Vulcan’s forehead. How simple it would be to resolve all the conflicting emotions he was experiencing now, the hatred, the friendship, the fear, and the camaraderie, just by squeezing the trigger.
Maddeningly, the smile on the other man’s face wavered only slightly.
Terix’s finger tightened on the firing stud, which he noted had become slick with perspiration. What was wrong with him?
He had wanted to kill this man ever since his suppressed Romulan memories and loyalties had burst free from their long confinement. But it wasn’t quite that easy. Maybe I owe this man some measure of gratitude, he thought, recalling the long hours both he and Sodok had put i
nto sabotaging the illicit ordnance shipments the Vulcan government had been covertly sending deep into Romulan territory. Rather than accomplishing their intended goal of crippling the Romulan war effort, those guerrilla interdictions had weakened the aggressive capacity of Haakona, an old enemy that had long threatened Romulus from the Empire’s opposite flank.
Thank you for doing so much of our work for us, Mister Sodok, Terix thought as he struggled to quell the slight tremor in his pistol hand. Whether you intended it or not.
A shrill rising-and-falling whistle interrupted Terix’s ruminations. An incoming communication. Without lowering his weapon, Terix raised the comm device from his belt and spoke into it.
“Centurion Terix,” he said, trying without complete success to keep his voice free of irritation. “Go ahead.”
“Uhlan Shianek, Centurion.”
Terix put his pique fully on display. “Why are you interrupting my interrogation session, Uhlan?”
“Apologies, Centurion. You asked to be informed when the Warbird Dabhae arrived. She has just come out of warp and is making her docking approach at Airlock Kre. Admiral Valdore demands immediate access to the prisoner.”
“Whew,” said the prisoner. “Looks like the cavalry still arrives in the proverbial nick sometimes.”
“Be silent, thaessu,” Terix snapped, keeping his disruptor leveled at the other man’s head.
“Centurion?”
Terix holstered his weapon and spoke into his comm unit with exaggerated distinctness. “Inform Captain S’Ten that I will greet the admiral at Airlock Kre. Terix out.”
Returning the comm device to his belt, he addressed the prisoner again. “Place your hands behind your back, Mister Sodok. You will come with me.”
Standing silently beside Terix, Trip watched the imposing form of Admiral Valdore emerge from the Ra’kholh’s airlock and step into the corridor. Accompanying the admiral was a striking black-garbed Romulan woman who looked no older than T’Pol, a fact that rendered her actual age effectively unguessable.
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War Page 11