T’Pol approached Trip and studied his face. She was relieved to note that his expression was one of benign concern and bore none of the savagery that the undead had demonstrated in those all-but-unwatchable Earth films.
“Trip, why have you come here?” T’Pol said. He answered with another low moan, though the fact that the sound had overlapped slightly with her question made her suspect that he might not be able to hear her.
It was almost as though something was interfering with the psionic bond they shared, the way a comm signal could be jammed by a complementary transmission occupying the same part of the subspace band.
“Trip, is something wrong?” T’Pol said. “Is there anything I can do?”
She reached toward his face, placing her fingers at his temple. Although she had never taken the training required to reliably initiate a mind-meld, she had experienced melds on several occasions.
“My mind to your mind,” she said.
He moaned, and the sound made a bizarre upward glissando that terminated in something that resembled a bosun’s whistle. The white space that enfolded them both grew suddenly brighter, prompting her outer and inner eyelids to close.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself back in her quarters on B Deck, and alone. Her now-extinguished meditation candle was upended and on its side, and it had left scorch marks on the supposedly fire-resistant carpet. She knelt beside the mess, recovered the candle, and began cleaning up the debris that surrounded its crash site.
“Commander T’Pol, respond, please.” It took her a moment to recognize Captain Archer’s voice, though she heard immediately the note of concern that it carried.
Leaving the wreckage of her meditation area where it lay, she moved quickly to the companel on the wall. “I apologize, Captain. I was momentarily…preoccupied.”
“Please meet me in the observation gallery,” the captain said. “I’ve just received some news. You need to be briefed on it right away.”
Judging from Archer’s grave tone, she decided that asking whether the news was favorable would be illogical. “I’m on my way, Captain.”
Jonathan Archer stood before the observation gallery’s wide viewport, which presented a view of the aft portion of Enterprise’s primary hull as well as most of the length of both warp nacelles. The bright blue-and-white expanse of Earth, which turned serenely some four hundred kilometers below, served as the backdrop. The latticework of struts and armatures that composed Earth Station McKinley, which now bore the burden of nursing the flagship of Starfleet and United Earth back to health, obstructed his vision in places.
Archer noted with relief that the various support gantries and umbilicals obscured his view of some of the vessel’s most severe war wounds.
The door chime sounded, right on schedule. “Come,” Archer said without averting his gaze from either his injured vessel or the planet he was sworn to protect.
The entry hatch hissed open, then closed a moment later. T’Pol spoke from almost directly behind him. “Captain.”
“Commander,” he said. A tiny workpod caught his eye as it maneuvered, mosquitolike, between Enterprise’s warp nacelles; on the open cargo bed behind it lay a pair of bulky generators whose purpose was to power the deflector-shield system that was due to be installed next week. For a fleeting moment he wished he could change places with the little vehicle’s pilot; as extensive as Enterprise’s damage-repair and retrofit schedule was, the many weeks of drydock work she was enduring would be simplicity itself compared to the task that lay before him now.
“You said that I needed to be briefed,” T’Pol said.
He nodded as the door chime sounded again. “Come,” he repeated.
Once more, the hatch opened and closed. Archer turned away from the window and saw that T’Pol had been joined by Malcolm Reed and Dr. Phlox.
“Captain,” the new arrivals said, speaking in a near unison as they stood in uneasy anticipation.
“I assume there has been a significant new development in the war since Enterprise went into drydock,” T’Pol said, her bearing military-straight.
Archer nodded. “You might say that. But I suppose that depends on your point of view.”
“Captain, at the risk of seeming hopelessly overoptimistic,” Phlox said, his somber expression belying his overtly lighthearted tone, “I’m still holding out some hope that you’ve called us here to deliver a bit of good news. Something like, say, an announcement that Vulcan has reconsidered its decision to sit out this war.”
The only reaction that Archer could see in T’Pol to Phlox’s doubtless innocent comment was a slight deepening of the coloration of her skin. Although Administrator T’Pau continued to keep Vulcan on the sidelines, no one aboard Enterprise had worked harder to change that fact than Commander T’Pol.
Focusing back upon Phlox, Archer could suppress neither a wry smile nor a humorless chuckle. “Doctor, I’d do just about anything to justify your optimism.” His smile fell away. “Unfortunately, I can’t.”
“Don’t tell me the Romulans have just chased Starfleet out of yet another major forward operating base,” Malcolm said.
Archer really couldn’t blame the phlegmatic Englishman for his bleak expectations, given that it was the tactical officer’s job to anticipate worst-case scenarios—and especially given all that had been happening lately. During the three months since the inconclusive Battle of Vorkado, Archer had all but lost count of the engagements that had ended with the Romulans on top—and with Starfleet continually being forced to move the war’s scrimmage line ever closer to Sol. After Starfleet’s reversals at Altair and Deneva—battles in which Starfleet had been overmatched by the Romulans’ sheer numbers—the entire war effort seemed to have devolved into a slow pageant of inevitable, incremental retreat. Since before the New Year, the war had become an unbroken streak of large and small failures and fallbacks that girdled the sky from Beta Virginis to Delta Pavonis.
Despite Earth’s having achieved some spectacular, if costly, victories during earlier years, Archer could no longer escape the truth: Earth’s war fortunes were very grim indeed.
Shaking his head, Archer said, “No, Malcolm.”
Archer noticed T’Pol’s eyes suddenly widening, as though she had just come to a realization. “This is about Trip…Commander Tucker.”
Archer nodded. “How did you know?”
She turned momentarily to look at Malcolm and Phlox before focusing her gaze back on Archer. “Captain, everyone in this room knows that the death of Commander Charles Tucker five years ago was merely an official fiction designed to cover up his ongoing activities behind the Romulan lines.”
“That’s right,” Archer said. “All of you know that Trip’s death was faked. As far as I know, the four of us are the only ones who are aware of that, at least besides whoever Trip’s been working for ever since…” He trailed off.
“Captain?” Malcolm prodded.
Archer took a deep breath as he steeled himself. “I just received a message from Harris.”
“Harris?” Phlox said, bewildered.
“My former section leader,” Malcolm said with a scowl, no doubt precipitated by unpleasant memories. “Back when I worked in intelligence. Before I came aboard Enterprise.”
“Trip went to work for Harris’s bureau after he…left us,” Archer said.
“And what did this Harris have to say?” Phlox asked.
Archer could avoid the inevitable no longer. “He called to tell me that his people haven’t heard anything from Trip in more than two years. So they’ve declared him dead.”
“I assume you mean for real, this time,” Malcolm said quietly.
Archer nodded. His breath caught in his throat. “I’m afraid so, Malcolm. Killed in action, according to Harris. He thought I…ought to know.”
“Quite magnanimous of him,” Malcolm said, his craggy face becoming a mask of grief and anger. “Harris uses people—sometimes he uses them up entirely—and then the man gi
ves everyone they knew his most oh-so-sincere condolences.”
Archer had no strong feelings about Harris, despite the many complications he had created; after all, both Malcolm and Trip had made conscious decisions to work for the spymaster.
“Trip knew the job was dangerous when he took it,” Archer said. “He did his duty. Just as you did when you cooperated with Harris during the Terra Prime crisis.”
Malcolm nodded, his gaze downcast.
“I just thought all of you should know,” Archer said. “I didn’t want to hide the truth from any of you.”
Malcolm and Phlox both looked funereal as they muttered their desultory thanks.
“Dismissed,” Archer said quietly.
Then he turned and resumed gazing out the broad observation port at the machinery that tended his injured ship. The hatchway behind him once again hissed open and closed.
Although the captain had just issued a general dismissal order, T’Pol’s feet remained motionless, as though rooted in place. A few moments after the hatch had closed behind Commander Reed and Dr. Phlox, she gently cleared her throat to let Archer know she hadn’t exited with the others. “Captain, perhaps everything is not so grim as you believe.”
“You’d have a hard time convincing me of that right now, Commander,” he said, still facing the port.
“Perhaps you should take the Draylaxians into account,” she said. “They dispatched a sizable contingent of ships to the engagement at Tenebia two weeks ago.”
“After making us jump through bureaucratic hoops for years. But Tenebia is in Draylax’s backyard. And the Draylaxians took such a terrible beating at Tenebia that I’m hearing that they might scale back their involvement—particularly when it comes to battles that are a lot farther afield from home.”
“That would be contrary to the mutual-defense provisions of the Coalition Compact,” T’Pol said.
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Which we’ve already seen aren’t worth a damn.”
Her face burned with shame. Administrator T’Pau’s intransigent insistence that Vulcan sit out the conflict doubtless lay at the core of Captain Archer’s bitter sentiment.
He turned to face her. “Was there something else, Commander?”
“Only one other item,” T’Pol said as a rush of conflicting emotions threatened to overwhelm her. “I’m…troubled by what Harris told you.”
“You and me both. But I guess I don’t have any choice other than accepting it.”
“I’m not certain that’s true, Captain.”
“I know how much this hurts, T’Pol,” Archer said, his tone mild yet insistent. “But denial doesn’t strike me as very logical.”
Her back stiffened. “I am not in denial.”
He approached her and laid his hands gently on her shoulders. “I know how much he meant to you. Trip was my best friend, too. Losing him—again—is almost too much. And with the Romulans ramping up so much that it’s only a matter of time before they overwhelm us, I’ve lost more than a friend—I’ve lost any hope that Trip might turn out to be the wild card that lets us pull off a last-minute victory.”
She wavered for a moment, assailed by doubts. Was she simply denying reality to provide herself a temporary respite from her pain? She pushed the matter aside. Something more was happening here.
“Perhaps losing that hope is premature,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t believe Harris.”
“Do you think he’s lying?” He frowned quizzically as his arms fell to his sides.
“I don’t know, Captain.” She shook her head. “Perhaps he is merely mistaken.”
“Do you know something he doesn’t?” Archer asked. “Something I don’t?”
The Vulcan debated how much she ought to tell him. Though she trusted him implicitly, he was still an outworlder. In spite of the fact that Archer had once briefly served as the keeper of Surak’s katra, she still felt an ingrained Vulcan reticence about discussing very intimate matters.
Such as the nature of the strangely attenuated mind-link that she and Trip shared.
It was clear to her that something was amiss with Trip. But it seemed just as obvious that the problem wasn’t death—at least, not death per se.
“I don’t know,” she said at length. “But I am certain of one thing.”
“And what’s that?”
“Charles Tucker is still alive.”
TWENTY-ONE
Monday, April 19, 2160
Scout Ship Kilhra’en
Carraya sector, Romulan space
ONCE AGAIN, HE FOUND himself standing, all at once and unaccountably, in a featureless white space that seemed to stretch out into infinity all around him in every direction.
Or am I just dreaming again? Charles Tucker thought as he turned in a circle, his boots somehow finding purchase against the apparent insubstantiality of this place that actually wasn’t a real place at all. I might even be day dreaming, he thought, hoping that he hadn’t been in the midst of some hazardous, mission-critical task when the daydream had seized him.
After pausing to examine the up and down dimensions—which appeared no more or less infinite than any other direction in which he had looked—Trip decided that what he was experiencing was no mere hallucination, fantasy, or dream. As in all the many other occasions when his mind had been drawn here, the blankness of this place seemed as brilliantly vivid as reality itself.
It’s just too bad that this mindspace T’Pol creates when she meditates is so damned homogeneous, he thought. Not for the first time, he wished she had generated a more interesting backdrop for her contemplations—like the fiery caldera of Vulcan’s Mount Tarhana, or maybe the Dantean red-and-ocher beauty of the Forge.
A nice dip in the Voroth Sea would be even better, he thought. Since the seas and lakes of Carraya IV still lay frustratingly distant from the Kilhra’en’s present position, Trip wondered idly whether any of Vulcan’s few small bodies of water produced anything that resembled either marlin or catfish.
Despite the mind-link he still shared with T’Pol, Trip doubted he would hear an answer to that question today. The link had manifested itself many times over the years since his errands of espionage in Romulan space had begun, but ever since the damaged scout ship had been limited to high sub-c velocities, his encounters with T’Pol had changed in a disturbing way.
Something seemed to buzz past his ear, accompanied by a brief, high-pitched insectlike whine. He saw something out of the corner of his eye, a flash of motion that felt somehow familiar except for its extreme speed. When he turned toward whatever had sped past him, it was either gone or had become indistinguishable from the featureless whiteness all around him.
He thought he understood what was happening, though he still had no way to prove or disprove the notion.
“T’Pol!” he cried. “It might look like we’re having some trouble with the mind-link. Like maybe distance is screwing up the connection, or putting a crimp in the bandwidth to keep us from communicating on this channel of our brains.” He winced, pausing momentarily as he heard how ridiculous he sounded.
“You’re still here with me, aren’t you, T’Pol?” he said, pressing on despite the clumsiness of his words. “The problem isn’t the distance between us, is it? We’ve been farther apart before and still could reach across—”
The rush of motion in his peripheral vision interrupted him again, followed by a strange, rippling distortion that hovered directly in front of him for the span of several heartbeats, a wavering blue zone that dissipated almost as quickly as it had formed. A high, buglike buzzing whine accompanied the visual effects, as though a swarm of invisible insects had suddenly dive-bombed his head, then just as suddenly flown away.
“This problem is as old as Einstein, isn’t it?” Trip said. “What’s happening to us is all about relativity. You’re still trying to talk to me, T’Pol. But the flow of time here and the flow of time where you are aren’t compatible. You and
I are out of sync by a factor of seven or better. That’s like squeezing two whole years into a little more than three months. The ship I’m on is stuck at more than ninety-eight percent of warp one, so time has slowed way down for me. From my frame of reference, time dilation has turned you into a gnat. And from yours, it’s probably turned me into a marble sculpture.”
The whine returned, accompanied by an abrupt intensification of the whiteness that surrounded him. Reflexively, he closed his eyes and raised his hands to his face.
Trip heard T’Luadh calling out to him. “Sodok! Are you all right?”
He brought his hands down from before his eyes and discovered that the all-white universe was gone, replaced in a twinkling by the Kilhra’en’s small but equipment-crammed cockpit. He was strapped into the starboard flight seat, while T’Luadh piloted the little scout vessel from behind the portside flight console.
The ship rocked and shook.
“You went away for a while,” she said as she put the ship through what his gut interpreted as a quick succession of evasive maneuvers. “I was starting to think that you were having a seizure.”
Trip shook his head. “Forget about that. What’s going on?”
“A ship just came out of warp. It’s trying to grab us with a tractor beam.”
Damn, Trip thought. “More Orion slavers?” he asked.
“I can’t tell. Maybe if you’d managed to get the sensor grid back up, or the comm system, we’d be able to find out.”
Sure, Trip thought. But if I’d accomplished either of those things, then maybe you’d have arranged for the Romulan fleet to pick us up by now. And there’s a good chance I’d already be sucking vacuum.
He smiled sheepishly as the ship bounced and rocked again. “Sorry, T’Luadh. I thought keeping the impulse drive going at speeds that maximize the ahhaid’rawn was a higher priority. Slowing down subjective time by a factor of seven might keep us from starving.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War Page 19