“Saying that’s a lot easier than doing it,” Fletcher said, folding her arms before her. “And a lot of the doing could depend on our using something faster than the Pony Express to get our after-action reports in front of Starfleet Command.”
Hernandez leaned against the command chair’s right arm as she considered Fletcher’s words—and her unspoken implication that embarrassed Vulcans might not be entirely forthcoming to Starfleet about a Romulan seizure of Vulcan vessels. As things stood now, until Columbia’s subspace radio was back in operation, those all-important classified after-action reports would reach Earth no faster than Hernandez herself could get there.
“Captain!” The sharp exclamation came from the forward portside communications station, where Ensign Sidra Valerian was feverishly working at her console. Hernandez rose from her seat and approached Valerian, and Fletcher followed at her side.
“What is it, Ensign?” Hernandez said. “Please tell me you have some good news for me for a change.”
A broad grin of triumph split the redheaded comm officer’s face as she answered in tones that evoked the scent of the Scottish highlands. “The subspace transceiver array’s finally back online, Captain.”
The comm officer’s grin went metastatic, cloning itself on the exec’s face. “I guess even we can’t roll snake eyes every time.”
Just four days earlier, Karl Graylock had described the charred remnants of the comm system as so much irreparable junk, commenting that a four-and-a-third-light-year-long spool of twine stretched tightly between two aluminum cans would have given Columbia a far better chance of raising Starfleet Command.
Hernandez took a couple of deep breaths, centering herself. Transports of joy weren’t any more appropriate on the bridge than was a display of despair. After all, the fickleness of luck was an integral part of life in the space service.
“Ensign, get me Admiral Gardner, and pipe the call into my ready room,” she said, then strode quickly toward the bridge’s starboard side. Before the damned thing frazzes out on us again, she appended silently as she opened the access hatch that led to her private office.
SIX
Sunday, July 27, 2155
Gamma Hydra sector, near Tezel-Oroko
THE LIGHT OF A PAIR of blazing red stars appeared very suddenly before him, searing his eyes like twin branding irons.
Several heartbeats later, Tucker became aware not only that he had eyes, but also that he was keeping them shut tightly against the remorseless illumination. And those facts, in turn, made him aware of the fact that he was aware.
Which probably means I’m still alive, he thought as his rebooting brain doggedly tried to follow the chain of logic that was emerging like the steps of some arcane geometric proof.
After several more indeterminately long moments passed, Trip discovered that he could open his eyes without squinting. Almost simultaneously, he found that the blazing binary star system that had forced them shut had fused into a single orb that next transformed itself into a lone, circular light fixture mounted on the ceiling almost directly over his head.
He found himself lying flat on his back in an austere stainless steel–lined room, while two dour-faced Vulcan women watched him intently. A third figure, apparently an armed male security guard, stood at rigid semiattention a few meters behind them.
Recollections of an interrupted meeting rushed back to him as he recognized one of the two women.
“Captain T’Vran,” Trip said as he struggled to get into a sitting position, stopping about halfway there by leaning on one arm. “Did I miss anything important?”
“You lost consciousness,” the captain said.
Trip pushed himself the rest of the way up, surprised to discover that he felt neither dizzy nor feverish, though his brain was still working a bit more sluggishly than he would have liked.
“That much I was able to figure out for myself,” he said. “How long was I out?”
“Nearly five full days have elapsed since you succumbed to your injuries and had to be brought to the Kiri-kin-tha’s infirmary,” T’Vran said. Nodding toward the somewhat gray-haired woman who stood beside her, she added, “You have been under the care of Doctor Sivath during your... indisposition.”
“Infirmary,” Trip said, turning his head to the left and the right to take in the half-dozen or so other diagnostic beds arranged around the room. All of them were unoccupied except for the one on the opposite side of the chamber.
His old “friend” Ch’uivh—who also sometimes went by the Vulcan name Sopek—lay on that one, apparently unconscious. Trip noticed only then that the woman who appeared to have been studying him so intently during his earlier meeting with T’Vran was seated in a chair near that bed.
Her eyes were riveted upon him, just as in their previous nonen-counter. Some sort of political officer? he wondered briefly before brushing the matter aside, at least for the moment.
“How is my... colleague doing?” Trip said, gesturing toward the man who lay motionless on the other bed.
The woman the captain had identified as Doctor Sivath spoke up, her tone surprisingly warm yet still businesslike. “He is unconscious, and might remain so for another several days, depending upon the rate of progress his own internal healing processes achieve. However, his condition has stabilized.”
The captain turned toward the security guard and dismissed him; after he had left the infirmary, she faced the doctor again. “Doctor Sivath, have you confirmed your initial findings regarding the origins of the unconscious man?”
Sivath hesitated, apparently not sure about how much she ought to reveal in Trip’s presence. Trip noticed that the woman observing him from Sopek’s bedside had likewise tensed, as though prepared to demand a little bit more discretion from the captain.
“I have,” Sivath said with an obvious unease. “His readings are a close match to the Romulan baseline figures from the intelligence files.”
“So he’s a Romulan,” T’Vran said, raising an eyebrow in Trip’s direction. “Not a Vulcan at all.”
“If the intelligence files are correct, yes,” said Sivath.
Trip could see now that T’Vran was watching him as carefully as was the scowling-but-still-silent observer who sat beside Sopek’s bed. The captain’s trying to shock me into letting slip just how much I know about Sivath’s other patient, he thought. He was well aware that T’Vran was treading on extremely sensitive ground.
“And what of the origin of your more recent patient, Doctor?” T’Vran said, her gaze still fixed upon Trip.
“As you suspected, Captain,” the doctor said, also looking at Trip, “this man is neither Vulcan nor Romulan.”
Uh-oh, Trip thought.
“Please explain, Doctor,” T’Vran said.
The physician nodded. “For one, his blood is red rather than green. Only the Cymbeline blood burn can produce such a symptom in a Vulcan, and only in the disease’s terminal stages. This patient exhibits no such sign of infection.”
Trip recalled the sulfatriptan drug he had been using to maintain his blood coloration artificially ever since he had started operating behind Romulan lines. The last time he had taken a booster had been a couple of weeks ago, shortly after the night those young punks had tried to jump him in downtown Dartha, the Romulan capital. He thought the drug shouldn’t have worn off so completely already, but that was obviously what had happened. I guess your mileage may vary, he thought.
T’Vran took a step toward Trip, who was beginning to feel more like the subject of an interrogation than a guest.
“Please explain to me how a red-blooded human got so far away from his home planet,” she said, her tone even though her eyes were cold and flinty. “And more importantly, Commander Tucker, why have you been operating in secret inside the Romulan sphere of influence?”
A feeling of vertigo seized Trip’s guts, as though the gravity plating had failed or a huge hole had suddenly opened beneath his bed, casting him into a limitless freef
all.
“Oh, shit,” was the only response Trip could formulate as the realization began to sink in that his cover was now well and truly blown. “How did you find out?”
“Besides the doctor’s examination of your body’s decidedly non-Vulcan internal arrangement?” T’Vran said, now sounding almost amused, at least for a Vulcan. “You told me your name just before you lost consciousness.”
Trip’s cheeks flushed hot with shame. I can’t believe I did that. Aloud, he said, “Must’ve gotten bonked on the head a lot harder than I realized.”
“I have repaired the subcranial trauma you suffered during whatever incident prompted you to take an escape pod into a cometary debris field,” said Sivath.
But not in time to keep me from making a stupid rookie mistake, Trip thought bitterly. “Thank you,” he croaked.
“Do not be distressed, Commander Tucker,” T’Vran said. “You became delirious and appear to have revealed your real name only inadvertently. It happened while you were explaining why I should believe your claim that a number of large-scale Romulan assaults are imminent.”
Maybe I wanted to blow my cover, Trip thought. After all, hadn’t he always hoped to put this Romulan spy business behind him as soon as possible? Hadn’t he always held out the hope, however slender, that he would eventually be allowed to go home, to reclaim his life?
“I must confess that I doubted you,” T’Vran continued. “Until you revealed that you knew the identity of the human who briefly carried the katra of Surak. After I had you taken to the infirmary, I checked your story about the Starfleet captain known as Jonathan Archer against the records of Vulcan’s V’Shar bureau.”
T’Vran paused as she nodded in the direction of the woman seated beside Sopek. The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, indicating clearly that the captain had just revealed significantly more about her than she would have preferred.
The exchange also confirmed Trip’s suspicion that the woman was some sort of intelligence spook or political officer.
“I have conveyed your warnings about the Romulans to my government,” T’Vran said. “Although I must admit that I am still not sanguine about our having found you in an escape pod, in the company of one of those selfsame Romulans.”
“Spying on ’em isn’t the same as working with ’em,” Trip said.
T’Vran nodded, looking almost weary. “Indeed, Commander. Perhaps I am merely approaching my tolerance for spying and subterfuge, necessary though they may be.”
The captain exchanged a quick but significant glance with the woman Trip was coming to think of as his V’Shar minder.
“Regardless of the merits of your... activities,” T’Vran said as she turned back toward Trip, “I do not wish to accept any further responsibility for your safety in this dangerous region of space than I already have. I have therefore decided to return you to Earth, or at least to the nearest Starfleet vessel or United Earth consular facility we encounter between the Gamma Hydra sector and your home planet.”
The vertiginous, queasy sensation that had grabbed Trip by the viscera earlier suddenly abated, replaced by a feeling of liberation that bordered on elation. It surprised him, since he understood, intellectually at least, that the dynamics of his situation had not changed at all during the past few moments. The secret of his human identity was blown. And his primary handler during his operations behind Romulan lines, Tinh Hoc Phuong, remained dead, as did Doctor Ehrehin i’Ramnau tr’Avrak, the premier Romulan warp scientist, upon whom he had been assigned to spy when he had first arrived in Romulan space, months ago. His primary mission, which was to contain, subvert, and/or steal the warp-seven drive the Romulans were even now still in the process of developing, had ended in ostensible failure.
Nevertheless, he felt supremely relieved.
Failure or not, I’m finally at the mission’s finish line, Trip thought. And I didn’t have to die to limp across it in last place. I’m finally going home. I can get my life started again, see my family, finally let my parents and my brother and my nephew know that I’m alive. Maybe I can even see T’Pol again for more than half an hour at a time.
From the beginning of what amounted to his exile on Romulus, he’d tried to tell his superiors in Section 31, mainly Harris and Stillwell, that he was a far better engineer than he was a spy. Now, just maybe, he could afford to relish the prospect of resuming his suspended career in Starfleet, which needed his services in the former capacity much more than the latter, thanks to the current Romulan hostilities.
“Captain T’Vran,” said a voice from the far side of the room. Trip noticed only then that the woman who had been sitting near Sopek’s bed was now on her feet and walking quickly toward the captain and the doctor.
“Yes, Sub-Commander Ych’a?” T’Vran said as the doctor seemed to retreat a few steps, evidently at least as uncomfortable in the spy’s presence as was the captain.
“I must speak with you, Captain,” said the spy. “In private.”
After a moment’s consideration, T’Vran nodded, then activated a communications device to call security back into the room.
As T’Vran and Ych’a exited the infirmary, leaving Trip to the ministrations of Sivath and the same lone male security officer whom the captain had dismissed a few minutes earlier, he wished to continue his spy mission just a little bit longer—but only as a fly on the wall in whichever compartment T’Vran and Ych’a were planning to use for their conversation.
T’Vran knew that Ych’a had requested a private meeting mainly to vent her displeasure at the revelations the captain had made in front of the human in Sivath’s infirmary. She neither cared about that nor felt inclined to listen to the V’Shar officer’s complaints.
While the hatch was closing behind them as they both stepped inside the captain’s quarters, T’Vran turned on Ych’a before she could utter so much as a syllable of recrimination.
“Sub-Commander, please explain why you have altered the Kiri-kintha’s official log,” T’Vran demanded, her voice uncolored by any emotion save resolve, at least in her own ears.
T’Vran suppressed any appearance of having enjoyed Ych’a’s fleeting display of discomfiture. It was obvious that the V’Shar agent had expected her tampering to go undetected. Just as it was obvious that no one aboard the cargo ship, other than Ych’a and T’Vran herself, possessed the clearance codes necessary to engage in such alterations of official ship’s data.
As was her wont, Ych’a seemed to simply sidestep T’Vran’s question. “We cannot afford to send Commander Tucker back to his home planet,” she said. “Both your report to the civilian shipping ministry and your official log clearly indicated your intention to do just that. Therefore I redacted any such references in those documents prior to their transmission to Vulcan.”
T’Vran paused for several seconds to center herself before responding. “I see. And precisely why is it, in your judgment, that we ‘cannot afford’ to repatriate the commander?”
Ych’a appeared slightly surprised, as though the captain were demonstrating a disappointingly poor grasp of the intuitively obvious. “Because he is entirely too valuable as an intelligence asset.”
Such is ever the way with those who live by means of subterfuge—and even worse tactics, T’Vran thought, keeping the disgust she was feeling out of sight. Aloud, she said, “I trust that I need not remind you that no matter what intelligence Mister Tucker may have gathered about the Romulans, any V’Shar coercion that you may be contemplating would constitute a gross violation of the Coalition Compact. I will not tolerate any such activity aboard this vessel.”
“I require no such reminders, Captain,” Ych’a said, shaking her head slowly as she took a seat on one of the low chairs arranged in front of the captain’s desk. “It is clear that we have misunderstood each other once again.”
Although the captain thought, I believe we understand each other well enough, Sub-Commander, only a single word came to her lips as she sat behind her desk.
“Indeed.”
“My purpose,” Ych’a continued, “is not to wring information from the Terran. Rather, I wish to persuade him to employ his already proven skills voluntarily in the gathering of new information.”
T’Vran allowed one of her eyebrows to rise. “What sort of information, specifically?”
“I am speaking of information pertaining to the intrigues presently taking place within and around Administrator T’Pau’s new government.”
T’Vran placed her hands together, her index fingers raised in opposition to one another as she considered Ych’a’s words. That intrigues of some sort might be occurring within the new reformist Syrrannite government came as no surprise, given the fundamental nature of the changes the new leadership had to make in order to transition successfully away from the dark, warmongering days of the ousted and exiled V’Las’s reactionary administration.
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Star Trek : Enterprise) Page 7