by Andy Mangels
As if from a great distance, he heard MoulMa’s, but he wasn’t even sure if the carver was talking to him or to the others.
“Not that we expect to actually perform the latercarving,” MoulMa’s said, his voice distorted. “Our work today will be utterly flawless and discreet, of course, as compelled by our agreement with your superiors. But we expect that the two of you will never return once you pass the borders of the Romulan Star Empire.”
Too groggy to be alarmed, or even to comprehend what he’d just heard, Trip felt himself sinking into darkness. In his last moments of consciousness, he reverted almost reflexively to the prayers he had learned as a child.
Nineteen
Monday, February 17, 2155
Rigel X
THE HUGE MALE ORION the team had waylaid wore a uniform that marked him as a fairly high-ranking logistics clerk, an Orion Syndicate underling charged with responsibility for many of the comings and goings of captives as they wended their way through the slave market’s complex and circuitous vending process.
Among the things Shran expected this man to know were the comings and goings of the many ships that picked up and delivered the market’s countless sentient cargoes.
Luckily enough, the fellow hadn’t raised a hue and cry when Shran, flanked by Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed, had confronted him while a trio of MACOs cut off any possible avenue of escape. The team had caught the Orion walking alone through a darkened and empty side passage, and gently “encouraged” him—with the muzzles of their energy weapons—to enter a small nearby storeroom that both Shran and Archer had already agreed would be ideal for conducting interviews with some of the less forthcoming locals.
Once the team had escorted the Orion into the poorly illuminated and ventilated room, safely out of sight of the slave market’s roving security troopers, Archer and Reed began inquiring about the present whereabouts of the ship that had recently come to Rigel X to take custody of a large contingent of Aenar captives.
The Orion had only laughed. After repeated questioning, and after several suggestions that the human soldiers might soon take stern measures to loosen the clerk’s tongue, he actually spatat Archer. Again, the greenskin laughed.
Because heknows where that ship is,Shran thought, fuming in silence. So far, he had bowed to Archer’s earlier insistence that his participation in this mission was to be contingent upon his, Shran’s, restraint.
But now he could restrain himself no longer. The Orion’s intransigence, along with his dismissive laughter, sparked an icy blue rage within Shran’s breast, a passion so intense that he could think of nothing other than beating the man to a bloody, senseless green pulp.
The fact that the Orion was nearly twice Shran’s size mattered to him not at all.
Shran charged, hitting the Orion hard in his thick midsection, knocking the flabbergasted slaver onto his back, slamming him to the concrete floor with a nearly bone-shattering impact. Shran landed on top of the supine Orion, wedging a knee tightly into the hollow of the big man’s throat while pressing down with all his weight.
“You know where the ship carrying the Aenar was headed,” Shran snarled into the Orion’s face, his uneven antennae lashing forward like a pair of hungry vipers. “Now you’re going to shareyour knowledge.”
The Orion coughed and sputtered as he grabbed for Shran’s throat with his huge, spatulate hands. The Andorian slammed both of his fists into the other man’s face in quick succession, and the large green hands faltered.
“Shran.” Archer’s voice, behind him, urgent. Shran ignored it and continued bearing down on the slaver’s throat.
“Talk to me!” Shran said. He pummeled the Orion again, left-right-left.
“Shran!” Lieutenant Reed this time.
Shran felt hands grabbing him roughly, two pairs of arms on either side of him. He turned, snarling, and saw that the intrusive arms and hands belonged to Archer and Reed. They dragged him off the stunned Orion, around whom now stood the three MACOs, their weapons poised to counter any surprise move the slaver might make.
Shran didn’t think the Orion would be doing a lot of moving in the foreseeable future, however. But he believed that the green giant was probably still able to speak.
“Release me, pinkskins!” Shran bellowed, shaking off Reed and spinning toward Archer, who did indeed release him. Archer stood his ground, facing Shran—who had instinctively adopted a half-crouching combat stance, without showing any trace of fear.
“Why did you interrupt my interrogation?” Shran demanded.
“Interrogation?” Archer said, his expression one of incredulousness. “It looked more like an attempted grudge killing to me. We can’t learn anything from dead men, Shran.”
“When yourloved ones are those whose lives hang in the balance, I’ll play by your rules.”
“Shran, when you’re part of mylanding party, you’ll play by myrules. Regardlessof whose lives hang in the balance. Now stand down, before you force me to take off your otherantenna.”
Why did he have to bringthat up?Shran thought, his rage now almost entirely redirected from the greenskin to the pinkskin. The still incompletely healed stump of his left antenna throbbed to the beat of his racing pulse.
“I’ve already been down this path a time or two myself, Shran, during the Xindi crisis,” Archer said. “All it ever got me was blood on my hands, and stains on my conscience.”
“Until Jhamel is safely returned to me, a conscience is a luxury I can’t afford.”
“Can you imagine what Jhamelwould have to say about that?”
Shran didimagine it then, and his cheeks burned with sudden shame. As suddenly as the fury had come upon him, it dissipated.
He stood staring at Archer, abashed.
“So, what’s youridea for making him cooperate with us?” Shran said at length. “Do we prepare him dinner?”
Archer smiled that cursedly reasonable smile of his. “Let’s start by asking him a few more polite questions.”
“Polite. Wonderful. This should be veryenlightening.”
Shran took a step back, allowing Archer to approach the man who lay sprawled and in pain on the concrete floor. The Orion seemed to be whispering, trying to speak, though his swollen, bloodied lips and damaged windpipe were obviously giving him no small amount of difficulty.
“What’s he saying?” asked Reed, who stood at the captain’s side, far closer to the Orion than was Shran.
“‘Adigeon Prime,”’ said Archer. “The slavers rendezvoused with a ship bound for Adigeon Prime. Looks like the Aenar captives were to be delivered to their…buyers through an Adigeon business agent.”
“The Adigeons are nonaligned,” Reed said. “They could act as a third-party broker between anybody and just about anybody else.”
“Including the Romulans,” Shran said, his anger stoked anew, but not yet to the point of frenzy. “Who better for the Romulans to use to cover their traces than both the Orion slavers andAdigeon Prime’s paper-pushers?”
“Let’s get back to Enterprise,” Archer said, nodding in agreement. “We’ll head straight for Adigeon Prime, and there we can—”
Archer was interrupted by an amplified, mechanically augmented voice that rattled the storeroom’s steel-and-concrete walls. “Freeze right where you are!”
Shran glanced at the Orion, who was trying to sit up. Although Shran’s blows had evidently cured the clerk of his laughter, he was smiling triumphantly, his outsize white teeth smeared liberally with his own green blood. It occurred to Shran then that choosing an empty storeroom equipped with only one way in or out had been a spectacularly bad idea.
No wonder the Orion showed so little fear,he thought. He must have summoned help with a concealed transmitter of some kind.
“Throw down your weapons,”said the voice from beyond the storeroom’s closed door. “Come out of the room with your hands raised, and kneel in the outer corridor. You are in violation of Orion Syndicate Economic Protocols, and are t
herefore subject to immediate arrest and confiscation.”
Shran quickly took up a low defensive position along the wall beside the door, while Archer, Reed, and the dark-clad MACOs spread out across the small room, taking cover behind the various crates and boxes. None of those objects amounted to any serious protection, though they might serve to obscure everyone’s position for the few crucial moments the team would need to effect their escape.
Archer pulled his com device from his belt and flipped its grid open. “Archer to Enterprise. Emergency beam-out. Now.”
“Commander T’Pol here, Captain,”came the Vulcan woman’s crisp response. “Request acknowledged. Stand by for emergency beam-out.”
“‘Confiscation,’” Shran said to Archer. “Do you understand what that means?”
He nodded. “I think so, unless something’s gone hay-wire with our translators. Sounds like they’re looking to add to their slave inventory.”
“When aren’tthey?” Shran said.
Shran tried to adjust the setting on his phase pistol, but found that it had been locked into a stun setting. He shook his head in disgust. Coddling slavers such as these made no sense to him whatsoever. Pinkskins,he thought. I hope this Coalition they’re trying so hard to build doesn’t fall victim to their own timid natures.
“T’Pol already tried a stint as an Orion slave, Captain,” Reed said dryly. “I don’t think she enjoyed it all that much.”
“It’s not a job I’d recommend, either,” said Archer. Addressing T’Pol again through the com device, he said, “T’Pol, where’s that beam-out I asked for?”
“Please stand by, Captain. Lieutenant Burch is presently trying to establish a positive transporter lock. However, the Orions appear to be attempting to deploy some sort of scattering field to prevent it.”
“Then tell Burch he’d better hurry it the hell up,” Archer said.
“Unless you present yourself for confiscation within the nextalik , we will use lethal force,”intoned the harsh voice from outside the storeroom.
“It would be a shame if they damaged otherwise perfectly salable stock that way,” Reed said. “Think they mean business, Captain?”
Archer shrugged. “I don’t intend to stay here long enough to find out, Malcolm.”
“Then let’s just hope we don’t discover exactly how long an ‘alik’lasts,” Reed said.
Wearying of the battlefield banter, Shran raised his weapon with one hand and held it pointed directly toward the door. With his other hand, he reached into his sash and withdrew the gleaming Ushaan-Torblade he reserved for occasions such as this.
“If I am to be enslaved, then the slavers will purchase my servitude with large volumes of their own blood.”
“They won’t want you,” Archer said, scowling at the blade. Gesturing with his com device toward Shran’s truncated left antenna, he added, “After all, you’re still damaged goods.”
Shran’s angry response was interrupted by the roar of an explosion. The blast broke the door into several neat pieces and swiftly began to fill the room with thick, black smoke. Fortunately, the initial blast had caused no one any apparent injuries, which confirmed Shran’s belief that the Orions were more intent on capturing than on killing—at least for now.
Through the choking haze of smoke, Shran saw a pair of armed Orions dash in via the suddenly open doorway. Before Shran could fire, the pinkskin soldiers mowed them down, apparently stunning them rather than killing them outright. Though Shran was sorely tempted to finish the slavers off with his Ushaanblade, he concentrated instead on remaining vigilant for the next wave of intruders.
The hum and shimmering light of Enterprise’s transporter cheated him of even that small satisfaction. After a brief moment of disorientation, he was standing on the narrow, circular transporter stage along with the other five members of the landing party, all of whom had been begrimed at least to some degree by their close call.
Shran’s eyes swept the transporter stage while everyone else stepped off into the small corridor alcove that housed it. He approached Archer, who had walked to a com panel in the corridor to instruct his bridge crew about the ship’s new course and heading. The tension in the deck plates beneath Shran’s boots changed immediately, signaling that Enterprisewas already on its way toward Adigeon Prime.
And Jhamel.
“You should have brought along the Orion,” Shran said to Archer as he walked beside him toward the turbolift, with Reed following along behind. “In case he lied to us.”
“I don’t abduct people, Shran. I’ll leave that sort of thing to the Orions.”
“Your softness will be your undoing one day, pinkskin.”
Archer nodded. “That’s entirely possible, Shran.”
“I don’t think the Orion was lying to us,” Reed said.
Shran stopped and turned to face Reed, his antenna undulating forward in curiosity. “Why do you say that, Lieutenant?”
“Because I think you really frightened him. I’m quite certain I heard him say, ‘Keep that blue lunatic away from me’ right before he broke and told Captain Archer about Adigeon Prime. I believe on Earth the interview technique is known as ‘good cop, bad cop.”’
Or perhaps it’s ‘good captain, bad captain,’Shran thought.
The trio resumed walking, then entered the turbolift, which immediately began making its swift ascent toward the bridge. Shran beamed triumphantly at Archer. “It seems that my preferred interrogation method has been vindicated after all.”
Archer scowled, shaking his head ruefully. “No, Shran. It hasn’t. You would have killed him.”
“It would have been no less than he deserved, Captain. But I know I wouldn’t have killed him,” Shran answered with certainty. “You see, I may lack Jhamel’s kindly instincts, but I always know my limitations.”
“I saw blood in your eye, Shran. How can you be so sure you would have stopped short of killing him?”
“Because you were with me.” Shran smiled. “And I know that you would never have permitted it.”
Twenty
Tuesday, February 18, 2155
Somewhere in Romulan space
TRIP AWAKENED TO A SENSE of mounting panic.
For starters, he seemed to be blind. He struggled to get into a sitting position from the hard yet yielding surface on which he lay in the darkness, and began clawing at his eyes. He calmed slightly when he realized that they were covered with some sort of cloth or gauze.
A hand gently clasped his shoulder, and he tried to shove it away. “Easy, Commander,” a voice said. Soothing. Familiar.
Trip stopped trying to pull at whatever it was that was covering his eyes, and fell back onto his elbows. “Phuong? Where am I?” And why does my voice sound so different?
“We’re both back on the Branson,Commander,” Trip heard Phuong say. “We left Adigeon Prime a couple of hours ago. We’re already headed for Romulan space.”
“I hope that means that the surgery was a success,” said Trip, his bare feet finding the deck plates as he worked himself into a sitting position. He realized he must be sitting on one of the narrow cots in one of the Branson’s small aft sleeping areas.
“One thing’s for sure, Commander; their anesthetics are certainly effective. Evidently more on you than on me. Let me help you get this bandage off your face.”
Trip felt Phuong’s hands gently set about doing just that. “Why’d they have to cover up my eyes?”
“The Adigeons said something about having to install a protective inner eyelid. Something unique to Romulans, apparently. They wanted it left covered for at least an hour after they gave us the last of the tissue regeneration treatments.”
The bandages abruptly fell away from Trip’s eyes and he suddenly found himself blinking against a swirl of harsh light. Although the light fixture in the sleeping area seemed a little too bright to his dilated pupils, his eyes seemed to adjust very quickly to the abrupt disappearance of the darkness into which he’d awakened.
“Looks like the Adigeons do pretty good inner-eyelid work,” Trip said, his gaze lighting on the face from which Phuong’s voice had evidently come.
While the face in question was still clearly humanoid in appearance, it was one that Trip almost didn’t recognize—but for certain unexpectedly familiar features. One of these was Phuong’s thick black hair, which had been severely shorn down to a stark bowl cut. Another was his dark eyebrows, which swept sharply upward at their outer edges.
But the most striking change visited upon Phuong was to the tips of his ears, which now tapered gracefully upward into points. Except for the presence of a subtle but clearly noticeable brow ridge, Trip could have sworn he was staring into the face of a Vulcan.
Trip rose to his feet, and his words came out in a hoarse whisper. “Tinh, are you sure the Adigeons got your order right?”
Phuong’s right eyebrow rose and he grinned in a decidedly un-Vulcan way. “We’d both better hope so, Commander.” He placed a hand on Trip’s shoulder and steered him toward the head at the rear of the cabin.
Trip saw his reflection in the mirror over the gun-metal gray washbasin and came to an abrupt stop. He raised his hands to a face that he doubted his own mother would have recognized.
He couldn’t tear his gaze away from his own set of distinctly Vulcanoid ears, which were accented by a prominent brow ridge, a thick mane of dark brown hair, and nearly black eyebrows canted at a steep angle that reminded Trip of the windshield-wipers on some of the old gasoline-powered ground vehicles his grandfather used to spend his summers restoring and repairing.
If only T’Pol could see menow, he thought, approaching the mirror more closely in order to study his new face in greater detail. After concluding that he looked like a Vulcan with a forehead concussion, he examined the rest of his face with an intensity he usually reserved for complex technical diagrams. His eye color had been darkened almost to black, the width of his nose and mouth had increased slightly, and even his skin color had subtly changed, taking on an almost pale green cast.