Daedalus's Children

by Dave Stern

  Trip suddenly realized that someone would not be at all welcoming. Not just because he’d sneaked aboard, but because—as he was all too aware of now, looking down at his clothes—he’d made a terrible mistake.

  He was wearing a Guild uniform.

  Either side was likely to see him and shoot first, probably with no questions for later.

  A leg stepped through the hatch.

  Trip turned around and ran.

  The lights came up around him as he went, almost as if they were chasing him down the corridor. He glanced left and right, looking for a place to stop and hide, even an alcove of some sort that he could duck into. But there was nothing.

  He came to a T and halted.

  Off in the distance behind him, he heard voices. Footsteps as well—several people, from the sound of it, had entered the platform behind him and were following at a brisk pace. No, following was the wrong word. They didn’t know he was here. Unfortunately, that didn’t make a bit of difference. He had to run anyway.

  Trip went left. Another T, and he went left again. And then again, a third time, making the way back as easy to remember as possible. The corridor took on a curve, as if he was looping out away from the central platform.

  And then all at once, it ended. Trip came up short.

  He was looking out on the stars.

  His view was courtesy of a long, curving, clear panel that dominated the front of the room the hall emptied into. A crescent-shaped room twice the size of Enterprise’s bridge. There were dozens of computer consoles laid out in curving rows that matched the shape of the room. In the back, a glassed-in control booth, and at the front, three much larger stations, one of which was instantly familiar. It was a weapons control station, exactly like the one back in Enterprise’s armory—the one they used to operate their phase cannons.

  This station, however, was nonfunctional, like the rest of the room, which was in a state of disarray. Conduit and optic cable lay loose everywhere.

  Trip’s heart sank just a little. He’d thought for a minute he’d stumbled across exactly what he’d been looking for—a computer station he could tie in to Kota’s central system and use to find out about Enterprise. But as he walked through the room, every station was dark.

  His eyes fell upon the glassed-in booth at the back of the room. In the darkness within it, a light glowed.

  Trip walked to the booth and stepped inside.

  He flipped open the communicator.

  “Hoshi?”

  “Right here.”

  “Put the professor on, will you? I might have something.”

  “Hold on.”

  “Trip?” Brodesser’s voice came back. “You found one?”

  “Yes, sir.” He looked down at the computer. Trip’s UT couldn’t help him navigate this machine. He needed to use the Denari language itself, which he didn’t know, but luckily, Brodesser did. “If you could guide me through this, maybe we can find what we’re—”

  He heard voices, then footsteps coming at a fast walk.

  He barely had time to shut the communicator and duck down behind the station before the footsteps were in the room with him.

  “—we’ll find out if you’ve been telling us the truth, Lieutenant.”

  That was a woman’s voice.

  “He’s lying, Major. He’s been lying all along.”

  A man.

  “We’ll see,” the woman—the major, Trip assumed—responded. “Down here.”

  More footsteps, and then a clatter of equipment. Something—someone—falling to the floor. A grunt, an exclamation of pain. From a third voice, Trip thought.

  “Get up.” The man again. “Before you make me angry.”

  A mutter in response. Definitely a third voice. Another man, but that was all Trip could tell from this far away.

  Trip drew his phase pistol. Three against one. He didn’t love those odds, but they were doable. Better than he’d expected, in some ways. And he had a hunch that this lieutenant—the third voice—just might welcome Trip’s intervention. So two against one.

  “Remove the targeting mechanism, please.” The woman again.

  “It’s not—”

  Another thump—the sound of someone being struck. Trip cocked his head, tried to move closer.

  That third voice—in the split-second it spoke clearly, it had suddenly sounded familiar.

  “You heard her,” the first man said. “Remove the targeting device.”

  There was a long silence. Then the sound of someone getting to his feet. More noise—equipment being moved. The targeting device being taken out, he assumed. Why?

  “You see!” That was the man again. “There. The device is incorrectly calibrated, just as the others were.”

  “I do see,” the woman said. “You’ve sabotaged our equipment, Lieutenant. Why?” Though her voice was calm, her tone even, Trip heard the menace in her words and shuddered involuntarily. This lieutenant was in a lot of trouble.

  “You think we’re idiots?” the woman asked. “Did you think we wouldn’t realize something was wrong?”

  “No. I knew you’d find out—sooner or later.” The third voice came clear again. “The thing is, you’re bloody thieves. Murderers as well. And I’m quite happy to have bollixed up your little plans.”

  Trip’s eyes widened. That voice…

  He risked a peek out from behind the console he was crouched under.

  Three people stood near the main weapons console. Facing Trip, a short, thick woman, medium-length brown hair. The major, no doubt. Beside her, hand on a phase pistol, a much younger man, his features contorted with rage.

  And between them, the lieutenant they’d both been yelling at. Who still held the phase cannon’s targeting module in his hand. Who, even though he had his back to Trip, was instantly recognizable.

  And who would most definitely welcome Trip’s intervention.

  Tucker stood and raised his weapon.

  “Don’t move,” he said, his pistol targeted on the younger man.

  He paid Trip no mind, and started to swing his weapon around to fire.

  You are an idiot, Trip thought, and shot him.

  The blast caught the man square in the chest. He flew backwards through the air, slammed into the glass panel, and slid to the floor, unconscious.

  Trip turned back and saw the major reaching for her weapon. She was fast.

  But the lieutenant was faster.

  He drew back a fist and clocked her on the jaw.

  Her eyes rolled back in her head and she too fell to the ground, out like a light.

  Trip holstered his weapon and stepped forward.

  “Thank you,” the lieutenant said. “I was in a bit of a spot there.”

  “I could see.” Trip smiled. The lieutenant didn’t know who he was. Understandable, he supposed. The beard, the uniform, all the weight he’d lost…

  “Still, hitting a woman. What would the captain say?”

  The man frowned. “The captain?”

  “Archer. You remember Captain Archer, don’t you?”

  The lieutenant stared at him a second longer…

  And then Malcolm Reed’s jaw dropped.

  “Bloody hell.” He blinked, shook his head, and smiled. “Trip.”

  Twelve

  THE STINGER DREW up alongside Eclipse and docked. Leaving Yamani in charge, Archer and T’Pol proceeded to the airlock.

  When it opened, the woman he’d seen on the viewscreen was standing in front of them.

  “Captain, I’m Doctor Trant. Please, put these on.” She handed Archer and T’Pol what looked like old-fashioned gas masks.

  “These are for…”

  “Your protection. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but…”

  She explained the reason for the masks: the discoveries she had made—stereoisomers, the basic protein incompatibility Trip and Hoshi had displayed—and Trip’s own realization that Enterprise had traveled into a parallel universe.

  Then it was Tra
nt’s turn to listen. Archer let his first officer do the talking, as the doctor led them through the corridors of the Guild vessel.

  As they walked, Archer couldn’t help but contrast what he was seeing now—Eclipse’s crowded, dirty, interior, with people living practically on top of one another—with the pristine shine of Makandros’s ship, inside and out. If the condition of this vessel was anything to go by, the Guild was losing this war—had been losing it for some time now. Every face he passed looked worn and tired—on the edge of defeat.

  Just ahead of them, a steel door connected to a two-meter-long tunnel of thick gray-black fabric stuck out into the corridor. The tunnel’s other end, Archer saw, ran up against a door frame on the corridor’s interior wall.

  “Homemade decontamination chamber,” Trant said, opening the steel door. “Hoshi’s quarters the last week she was here. She was extremely sensitive to the proteins I was telling you about.”

  They followed her into the chamber. She shut the door behind them, and then squeezed past to the other end of the tunnel and opened the door there. They emerged into a room about half again as big as Archer’s quarters aboard Enterprise.

  As they entered, a man rose from a table set in the middle of the room. Marshal Kairn.

  He and Archer shook hands.

  “Captain. Thank you for coming aboard.”

  “Thank you for holding your fire,” Archer replied, his voice distorted by the mask.

  “You can remove those now,” Trant said. “This room is sterile.”

  Archer and T’Pol both took off the masks.

  “Marshal, this is Sub-Commander T’Pol, my science officer.”

  Kairn nodded. “Sub-Commander, Captain, you’ll forgive me if I skip the usual pleasantries and get right to the heart of the matter. You said you had a proposal of truce from General Makandros.”

  “I do. The general wishes to call off hostilities between you, to focus on the enemy you now have in common.”

  “And who might that be?”

  “I believe he’s referring to a General Elson.”

  “General Elson?” Kairn shook his head. “Does he take me for a fool? Captain,” Kairn looked Archer square in the eye. “Commander Tucker told me more than once that you were an intelligent man. Makandros and Elson are members of the governing council. They share a history of broken promises and surprise attacks. It is beyond belief that—”

  “Sir,” Archer interrupted. “Forgive me. But the general thought you might suspect something like that. Which is why he gave me this.” The captain held up a memory chip in his hand.

  “What is that?”

  “Current battle positions of the Expeditionary Force in the Belt.”

  Kairn did a double take. “What?”

  “These are the current battle positions of his forces.” He held out the chip to Kairn. “Go on—take it.”

  The marshal frowned. “Is he serious?”

  Archer shrugged. “Why not see for yourself?”

  Kairn’s eyes went from Archer to the chip, then back again. He looked uncertain, as if he thought the module might explode if he touched it.

  “Very well,” he said finally, and removed it from Archer’s grasp.

  “Doctor Trant,” Kairn said. “Will you give this chip to Lieutenant Royce and have him correlate the information on it with our own intelligence?”

  “Of course.” Trant took the chip and turned to go.

  She was halfway to the door when Kairn frowned and raised his hand.

  “Wait, please.”

  Trant stopped in her tracks.

  Kairn leaned forward in his chair. “I should have asked this earlier. Captain, why are you here? Why are you acting as Makandros’s ambassador?”

  “It wasn’t my idea, frankly.” Archer explained the circumstances of their capture, and Makandros’s promise to help them find Enterprise.

  Kairn nodded thoughtfully when he’d finished.

  “Which means you are nothing to him. A game piece to be sacrificed. Excuse me a moment.” He crossed to a com panel on the wall.

  Archer exchanged a quick glance with T’Pol.

  He had the sense that nothing Makandros could do or say was going to convince Kairn of his good intentions. Must be quite a history between the two of them—maybe even something personal, he decided.

  He wondered briefly if they were a pawn in some larger game here between the two men. The two sides. But the general had been so convincing…

  “Kairn to Royce.”

  “Right here, sir.”

  “Doctor Trant is bringing you something. A memory chip that supposedly contains some very critical information.”

  “I understand.”

  “Royce, I want you to be very careful with this chip. Have it tested—rigorously—before it interfaces with our systems.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It may contain a computer virus. It may be programmed to transmit a signal with our location on being scanned. It may be an explosive. Anything and everything you or the others can think of—check it. All ships stay on full alert for the time being as well. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “Good. Trant will be along shortly. Out.”

  With a nod, he sent the doctor on her way.

  Kairn sat back down at the table.

  “I’d offer you something to eat or drink, but—”

  “Doctor Trant explained it to us already. Thank you, though. Marshal, while we wait, you said Trip and Hoshi had been here.”

  “That’s correct,” Kairn said, and then went on to fill Archer in on what his two crew members had been doing for the last few weeks. Trying to find Enterprise. Trying to find the captain and their shipmates. Helping out the Guild, within certain limits. In short, doing pretty much what Archer himself would have done in their shoes.

  After what happened with the cogenitor, and the Xyrillians, the captain would have thought Trip would be a little more…cautious about inserting himself into alien affairs. He could tell T’Pol was thinking the same thing, from the way she’d straightened in her chair when Kairn told them how Trip had piloted the Suliban cell-ship for their failed kidnap mission.

  That was in the past, as far as Archer was concerned. He wouldn’t concern himself with it.

  “But they’re gone now, you said? In search of Enterprise?”

  “That’s right. They left yesterday.”

  Archer sighed in frustration. To have missed them by less than twenty-four hours…

  “Headed where?”

  “The next star system over. Kota.”

  The com buzzed. “Marshal?”

  “Royce. You have news for me?”

  “It checks out, sir. We sent ships to verify several of the positions encoded in the chip. Makandros’s ships are there.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” He closed the channel.

  Archer leaned forward in his chair. “Seems like he was telling the truth, doesn’t it?”

  Kairn took a long time to respond. “I suppose,” he said finally. “We’ll have to find out. You said Makandros gave you a channel to transmit on?”

  The captain nodded.

  Kairn stood. “Well then. If you’ll accompany me to the command deck, we’ll see what the general has to say.”

  Archer and T’Pol flanked Kairn at his command chair.

  Makandros’s image filled the viewscreen.

  “It’s been a long time, Marshal. You’re looking well.”

  Archer could tell by the way Kairn reacted to Makandros that he’d been right—the two men did know each other.

  A fact that Kairn clearly didn’t care to dwell on.

  “General. Say what you have to say.”

  Makandros smiled. “Never one for the social niceties, were you, Kairn? All right. What I have to say is simple. I propose an alliance between our forces. An end to the war between us.”

  “After ten years of hounding our ships, killing our people, destroying our bases…I have to
say I find your change of heart puzzling. Difficult to believe, in fact.”

  “You’ve seen the information I sent?”

  “Yes.”

  “It checked out, I presume.”

  “It did. Which is the only reason I’m speaking with you.”

  “I have some more information for you, Marshal.”

  And then Makandros told Kairn about the trap Elson had set for him, the ships and the men he’d lost.

  Kairn was silent for a moment after he’d finished.

  “I see,” the marshal finally said. “Your change of heart is not without cause, then.”

  “No. And I believe you have reason to distrust General Elson as well, Marshal. The rumors about Charest I’ve been hearing blame the Guild for those explosions. That strikes me as…uncharacteristic of your actions over the last decade, to say the least. As much as we have been at odds, you have never attacked civilian targets.”

  Archer frowned. Most of what Makandros had just said made little sense to him—the reference to recent actions, the war gone past…. The captain knew he was not going to catch up on fifteen years of history all at once. The general’s words had an effect on Kairn, however.

  For the first time since the conversation between the two men had started, the marshal was—be it ever so slightly—smiling.

  “Much as it pains me to admit it, General, you’re entirely correct. We had nothing to do with Charest. But I certainly never expected you to believe that.”

  “Times have changed,” Makandros said.

  “I can see that. So what, exactly, do you propose?”

  “We meet. Face to face. I want Lind there, as well.”

  Kairn laughed out loud. “The Guildsman will shoot you on sight.”

  “Tell him if he still wants to, he can shoot me after the meeting.”

  “It might be easier to arrange if I knew what you were offering.”

  “Besides your lives, you mean?”

  “We started this war for a reason,” Kairn said. “To overthrow a dictator. To restore the presidium.”

  “Noble goals. Impossible goals, for the moment.”

  “Then we have nothing to talk about, General.”

  “I think we do,” Makandros said. “Hear me out. I said those were impossible goals for the moment. You cannot deny that truth, Marshal. The Council—the military—will not accept a complete dismissal from power. They’ve grown too accustomed to it.”