by Shards
"Neither my gratitude for your saving me nor my length of time aboard should have any impact on the simple truth. The Praetor, for all his quirks..."
"Quirks?" said Soleta. Her fists clenched and unclenched in anger. "That bastard was responsible for my father's death. And when this man"-she pointed at Mac-"was but a youth and in Hiren's power, Hiren banished him to the mines of Remus. There are scores to be settled, and if the Alliance is going to settle them for me, then I have no problem with that."
As if Soleta hadn't said a word, Thue said, "...could be a valuable ally. The Romulan fleet is formidable. Perhaps not formidable enough to stand up to that of the Alliance, but it would be a start. He could help you."
"We don't need help," said Mac.
"Oh?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Thue hesitated and then said, "Look, your activities are not unknown to me."
"Aha!" said Robin.
They looked at her. "Aha what?" said Thue.
Robin shrugged. "I...don't know. It just seemed like an 'aha' moment, that's all."
Thue shook her head as if dealing with an idiot and continued, "They are not unknown to many of us. Believe it or not, you have your admirers, even among Romulans. But the colony worlds you have helped have been of marginal interest to the Alliance at best. You are, thus far, merely an irritant. If you wish to accomplish more than that, then you will have to start thinking in grander terms. If, on the other hand, you are satisfied with the status quo, then you need do nothing different from what you already are doing. However, sooner or later, it is my suspicion that the Alliance will grow weary of your insect-sized bites and will decide to swat you-perhaps with whatever is being built for them on Romulus or perhaps with something else. It does not matter which. What matters is that you are one ship, and it does not matter how many strays, outcasts, or would-be warriors you've amassed on this vessel. If you fall into the Alliance's sights, as matters currently stand, you will be annihilated. I believe you know this on some level. So why not..."
"Why not what?" said Soleta. "Toss aside personal enmity? A sense of justice? If the Praetor gets what is sorely coming to him, we should intervene, because he might, or might not, be of use to us in a full-scale conflict with the Alliance?"
"Essentially, yes."
"That is the most ridiculous notion I have ever heard. Don't you agree, Mac?" said Soleta.
M'k'n'zy did not answer immediately.
His lack of response drew immediate curiosity from everyone on the bridge. Mac simply stood there, staring into the depths of space.
"Mac?"
He didn't reply to Soleta. Instead, he said, "McHenry. Set course for Romulus. Best possible speed."
Very well, Mac.
"Are you out of your mind?" Soleta shouted.
Everyone else began talking at the same time. M'k'n'zy of Calhoun silenced them all with a glance.
"If any of you," he said softly, "disagrees with me, that is acceptable. But I have made my decision. I will kill anyone who endeavors to interfere. Is that understood?" When no response was forthcoming, he repeated the question with a bit more force. This time, heads nodded in unison.
He stalked off the bridge then. He walked through the corridors, and various Xenexians and others whom the Excalibur had rescued smiled to him or saluted him, and a couple of the more fervent ones dropped to their knees and bowed their heads in submission. Those he merely patted on the backs of their heads and nodded.
Why do you say things like that?
"Like what, McHenry?"
Like that you'll kill anyone who tries to interfere. You know you would never do that.
"Yes, but they don't."
Considering what you are rebelling against, do you really think it wise to try to command the loyalty of others through fear and intimidation? How does that distinguish you from the Alliance?
Mac didn't respond to that immediately.
Mac?
"I'll get back to you on that."
All right. I'll wait.
And Mac knew that he would do exactly that, no matter how long it took.
Soleta finally heard what she was waiting for: slow, steady breathing that indicated Thue was sleeping.
McHenry, override the door lock.
Yes, Soleta.
The door to Thue's quarters slid open, and Soleta eased herself in. Just as her sensitive ears had informed her, Thue was on the bed that her stark quarters provided. Most of the quarters on the Excalibur had two or three occupants because of the considerable number of crewmembers the vessel had acquired, but they had cleared out space for Thue while she was recovering from her ordeal.
She lay stiffly, like one dead, her arms at her sides. It seemed an odd posture, but Soleta didn't devote much thought to it. She had other things on her mind: specifically, to discover just what it was that Thue was hiding. She didn't know what it was, nor did she have any concrete reason to believe that Thue had been less than candid. But she was positive that there was something, and was determined to discover precisely what it was.
There was a very easy way to go about it.
Soleta had never used her abilities to probe a sleeping mind or manipulate it in any way. How hard could it be, though? After all, if she'd been able to ease her way into the conscious minds of various Romulans, certainly she wouldn't have any difficulties penetrating an unconscious one.
She approached the sleeping Thue. Her hand hovered over the woman's head for a few moments as she composed herself, and then she touched either side of Thue's head. She felt the steady pulse in Thue's temples against her fingers and then slowly, carefully, eased her thoughts into Thue's mind.
To her shock, she encountered resistance.
What the hell? Soleta thought, as even as she did, she endeavored to push through the mental block.
Thue's eyes snapped open and bored straight into her. Soleta's instinct was to pull back, but she was too deeply committed. Tossing aside the subtlety of a scalpel, she went for the force of a bludgeon as she tried to push her way past the mental blocks that Thue was inexplicably producing.
Get...out...of my head!
The voice was irresistible and yet oddly emotionless-more of a cold order than an impassioned outburst. Soleta tried to resist the impulse and made one final determined thrust.
And she found something just before she was jolted out of the woman's head.
Soleta fell back and hit the floor, landing hard on her rump. Thue was upright in the bed, and there was a fearsome glare in her eyes. "How dare you? You had no right-"
"No right!" An infuriated Soleta cut her off. She got to her feet, and there was pure venom in her voice. "You would dare lecture me? You, who came aboard this ship hiding her name? Her very race?" Then, silently, she called out, McHenry!
Yes, Soleta? McHenry's voice came to her in response to her summons.
Why the hell couldn't you determine she was a Vulcan?
I knew she was a Vulcan.
You said she was a Romulan!
No. I said she appeared to be a Romulan. The surface genetic manipulation she had done created that appearance.
And you didn't see fit to mention that?
You had just finished complaining about my tendency to provide unasked-for details and how you found it irritating. So I waited for you to ask. You never did.
She closed her eyes a moment in irritation and then composed herself. Then she turned her attention back to the woman standing before her. "Selar. Your name is Selar. And you're a Vulcan."
"There is no logical reason to deny that which you have already, and rudely, discerned."
"But why? Why hide what you are?"
Selar hesitated but then clearly decided that there was no point in prevaricating. "I am part of an underground group," she said. "Spies, for lack of a better word. Since Romulans are nominally allies of the Alliance, I have more latitude for movement within the Alliance, and on Romulus, as one of...you."
"Vulca
ns spying on the Alliance? Why?"
"I see no reason to give you the full particulars of my endeavors. This should, however, prompt you to put aside any paranoia you may have that there is some manner of trap involved. There is no love lost between my people and the Alliance."
"If you're asking me to completely trust someone who came aboard this ship under false name and hidden race, then you're requesting more than I have to offer." She looked at her askance. "You blocked my mental probe. How did you do it?"
"How do you have such abilities?" countered Selar.
Soleta realized that her secret was already in the hands of this woman. "My mother," she said slowly, "was a Vulcan. I never knew her. Never had the opportunity to ask her. But I always wondered if..." Her voice trailed off.
"If you received your abilities from her?"
There was a deathly silence for a long moment.
"My God," said Soleta.
"You must tell no one..."
"My God, you all have..."
Selar took a step toward her, and when she spoke, her voice was low and intense and not at all dispassionate. "You hold the future of my people in your hand, halfbreed. If the Alliance knew what we were capable of, we would be rounded up, experimented on, or perhaps simply annihilated outright because of the threat we would present. Do you want genocide on your conscience?"
"You acknowledge I even have a conscience? I know what Vulcans say about Romulans and in what low regard you hold us."
"This is no time for racial division. The stakes are too high."
"If that is the case, then the first thing I suggest you do is never call me 'halfbreed' again."
Selar inclined her head slightly. "Very well...Soleta. But I need to emphasize-"
"No. What you need to do is shut up." She sat in the nearest chair, staring dazed into space. "So many questions I've had, for so long, and never anyone to ask, until now. Rest assured that I've no more interest in having my secrets exposed than you do with yours. I need time to-"
"Take all the time you require, but I need your word now."
"Or what?"
Selar's face was unreadable, but there was a look in her eyes that suggested the level of the stakes and the lengths to which Selar would go to protect her race.
"You have my word," Soleta said. "But in exchange, you will immediately tell the others your true nature and real name. Protecting the fate of the Vulcan race is a sufficient show of good faith on my part. I don't need to be worrying that I'll slip and call you by your true name, calling my own loyalties into question. I'm not interested in keeping secrets from Mac."
Selar hesitated and then nodded. "Your terms are acceptable. I simply hope that your M'k'n'zy of Calhoun doesn't overreact and kill me."
Soleta rolled her eyes. "You can't take him seriously when he says things like that."
"Would you bet your life on that?" When Soleta didn't respond, Selar simply inclined her head slightly and said, "I thought as much."
It was two hours later when McHenry reported that the ion trails had diverged. The larger vessel, the one from the Alliance, had broken off, leaving the smaller transport ship to continue to Romulus on its own. Without hesitation, Mac ordered McHenry to keep the ship on the trail of the transport ship. He ignored Soleta's protests that it could be another form of trap, nor did he particularly care why the larger ship had veered off. "Perhaps they had some other mission they had to undertake," he said, and that was sufficient for him. It was less than inspiring for the others, but they didn't see the point of going up against Mac. Not when he was in this sort of mood.
Forty-seven minutes later, they overtook the transport ship.
The battle was short. The transport was armed, but the Excalibur deftly outmaneuvered it, and pinpoint assaults from the Excalibur's big guns managed to disable the transport's offensive capabilities while leaving the rest of the ship intact. They then steadily battered the shields, punching a hole through them sufficient for a strike team, composed entirely of Xenexians, to beam aboard.
Mac, naturally, was at the head of the strike team. He wouldn't have it any other way, despite Soleta and Jellico both asserting that he had a responsibility to the ship to keep himself as safe as possible. "How would my people respect me," he had said, "if they thought that I was afraid to face the perils to which I would subject them?"
Now Soleta, Selar, and Jellico made their way through the corridors of the captured transport. Any Xenexians they encountered bowed deeply upon seeing them, as was their custom. The three of them also had to step carefully over fallen bodies-Cardassian, for the most part. It had been a ferocious battle, and Jellico almost slipped more than once in pools of blood that had not yet been cleaned up.
They met up with Mac in the cargo hold. Soleta noticed that his long hair was flecked with blood. He either didn't notice or else didn't seem to care. "All right, Selar," he said sarcastically. He had not been at all pleased when she had confessed her deception to him, although he hadn't seemed inclined to kill her. At least, Soleta didn't think he had been; it wasn't always easy to tell. "What are we dealing with?"
Selar entered the cargo hold and cracked open one of the crates. She studied the contents and then nodded. "It appears to be canisters of C-170."
Mac exchanged confused looks with the others. "What is that?"
"It's a radioactive isotope," Jellico said promptly. "Used in the manufacture of weapons."
"What sort of weapon?" said Soleta.
It was Selar who responded. "Weapons involving Thalaron radiation."
"So you're a spy and a scientist?" said Jellico. If he had been suspicious of her when she was "Thue" and a Romulan, he was even more so now that he knew she had been less than candid from the very beginning.
"A scientist by training; a spy by necessity," said Selar, and then went on, "To be specific, C-170 is a triggering agent required to instigate a cascading biogenic pulse."
"How significant a pulse?" said Mac.
Selar fixed him with a look. "It could generate a pulse sufficient to destroy an entire world."
"My God," said Jellico. Mac let out a low whistle. Soleta said nothing.
"The Romulans likely have the rest of the materials already in place or are receiving delivery from other sources," said Selar. "But there is no substitute for C-170. Without it, whatever device they've created would be useless. Obviously, the Alliance wanted to have possession of the C-170 so that the device-"
"Bomb," said Jellico. "Let's call it what it is."
"So that the bomb," said Selar without hesitation, "would be created on the Alliance's timetable. They wanted to hold the final piece."
"And now we hold it," said Mac.
"Let's go."
"Go?" said Mac to Jellico, who had just spoken. "Go where?"
"Back to the Excalibur, obviously. So we can blow this damned ship to bits and its cargo along with it."