Ruanek stared at the screen. “I know where that is!” he exclaimed. “Really know, I mean, specifically. My patro—my former patron had a file of . . . well . . . routes that are not exactly public knowledge in and out of the whole complex. He never let me know the entire file, of course; didn’t trust me—ha, didn’t trust any of his security that much, but I do know that one.”
“Could you get in?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Uh-oh,” Kerit cut in. “On to us. Bailing out, now! No, dammit, can’t, they’ve locked on to us, can’t get out—”
“We can.” Spock calmly ripped the console from its connections in a flurry of sparks, and every screen in the room went dead. “Did they have time to get the coordinates?” he asked the sharp-eyed Kerit.
Staring, she shook her head.
“Excellent.” Putting down the dead console, he added, “Someone may be here shortly to investigate the sudden surge, then drop, of power, so I would advise moving from here to the main room.”
That sounded, Spock thought, quite logical. At least I trust that it did. Coherent thought was coming and going in maddening, ever-widening waves. Let me but see this mission through.
As they hurried back into Room 235, blocking up the telltale hole in the wall with the heavy cabinet, Spock warned Ruanek, “We cannot wait. Complete evidence or not, we must attack before the remnants of Volskiar’s fleet return. Dralath must not have the propaganda value of a military victory, even if—”
They all froze at the sudden sound of a wary knock. Ruanek, stalking noiselessly forward, dropped his hand to a disruptor he wasn’t wearing, and swore softly, closing his hand about the hilt of his Honor Blade instead. At a nod from Spock, Jarrin opened the door. A tall figure entered, shrouded in a scholar’s dark, hooded cloak.
Ruanek shot forward to block the figure’s path, Honor Blade glinting in his hand. “No civilian carries himself like that!”
“Stand aside!” a crisp male voice ordered.
“Not a chance in all the hells!”
Spock hastily moved between the two Romulans. “Sheathe that blade,” he snapped at Ruanek.
“But—”
“Sheathe it!”
The hooded stranger, brought face-to-face with Spock, drew in his breath in a sharp hiss. “You!”
For one brief, illogical moment, Spock wanted to react to that instant hatred with an attack of his own. I will not blindly strike at someone I do not even know! Rigidly controlling himself, he began, “I am—”
“I know who you are. And what you did to me and my commander.” The stranger pushed back his hood, revealing a lean, strong, cold Romulan face—and eyes that burned with utter hatred as he stared straight at Spock. “Do you not recognize me?”
Spock, clinging to precarious self-control, said, “I fear not.”
“I am Commander Tal, Fleet Second. I was Subcommander Tal back then. When you betrayed my commander, Noble Born Charvanek, to the Federation.”
Memory flashed to life: a much younger Tal, staring at Charvanek—she whom Spock had betrayed—with astonished, angry eyes as though unable to accept that his commander might, after all, prove fallible.
“That was as it was,” Spock said coldly. “Times and people change. Right now it is your commander we seek to help—as well as all the Romulan people!”
“True,” Ruanek added, moving to stand shoulder to shoulder with Spock and glaring at the newcomer. “And you may be a commander, you may be the secret Master of the Empire for all I know—but right now, all you are is a nuisance!”
Tal ignored him utterly. “I swore an oath to Commander Charvanek,” he said to Spock. “When she was taken prisoner after Narendra III for being the only warrior there to protest turning honorable war into a massacre, I swore an oath as though she were still my own commanding officer. I returned to Romulus to meet with Admiral Narviat—only to be told that he’d been arrested on charges of high treason. I went from there to his Imperial kinsman—only to be told that Emperor Shiarkiek had suffered a relapse and been taken into protective custody by the praetor.
“I thought my trail had gone cold. But even as I was hurried out, a servant whispered to me that yet another kinsman existed, the Academician Symakhos, and told me where he might be found. And what I find now is you, and even more treachery!”
Ruanek snarled an oath at that, and Tal turned sharply to him. “And you, are you to be another warrior who loses his honor, his home, his life because he has listened to this man’s lies?”
“We do not have the time to discuss morality,” Spock interrupted before Ruanek could reply. “What happened those years ago was a ruse of war—and do not think it did not cost me my own honor. But I was then under orders from my own commander. Now, if you will not believe me, here are all these others who will state that we work for the good of Romulus against a praetor who would destroy all honor. And if you will not believe them,” Spock added, “then we must see that you tell no one of this meeting.”
That startled Tal into the slightest of steps back. He fell into an instinctive crouch, ready to fight, and once again, Spock felt an answering surge of anger—
“We haven’t got time for this!” Ruanek cut in. “Hear me, Commander. I’ll put my life in your hands if that will speed this along and get you out of here: I was Subcommander Ruanek of House Minor Strevon, in service to my patron, Senator Avrak. You could take that knowledge, and the knowledge that I am here, with these folks, report it to the right people, and I’d be condemned to death for treason. Along with Admiral Narviat. And Commander Charvanek, to whom you boast of having such loyalty.”
Tal’s glance flicked from Spock to Ruanek to Spock again. “What are you,” Tal murmured, “to command such loyalty in those who should be your foes?”
“My foe,” Spock said, “is Dralath. Commander Tal, this place is no longer safe—and your presence has added to our danger. If you have proof of what actually occurred at Narendra III, let us see it. If not, let us all leave before Dralath finds us!”
A great shudder racked Tal’s lean frame. “I have spent too many years hating you to forgive the careers you destroyed. Hers. Mine. But . . . for Commander Charvanek’s sake . . .” He pulled a small golden amulet from the folds of his cloak. “The commander gave this to me. In it is a complete record of what truly happened at Narendra III. Use it honorably, or I swear I will see your lifeblood drip from my Honor Blade.”
He looked very much as though he wanted to say more. But without another word, the commander pulled the hood back up to hide his face, and strode away.
Ruanek let out his breath in a great sigh of relief. “Wasn’t sure how it was going to go. And with this arm, I didn’t know if I could take him. I . . . didn’t really want to fight him, not over his loyalty to Commander Charvanek.”
“Neither did I,” Spock admitted softly. Ignoring the other Romulans, who were whispering together, he glanced at the wide-eyed Kerit. “How efficient are you at hacking into information broadcast systems?”
She grinned, eyes sparkling with the challenge. “I’m good. I’m really good.” She glanced at the others. “Remember that spot, in the middle of the news, other day or so? The bit about—”
“That was you?” Ruanek exclaimed. “That, ah, really explicit—”
“Explicit is not what we need,” Spock cut in. “But stand ready, Kerit.” He closed his hand about the little amulet. “First, we must make a precise copy of what this contains. Then, if all succeeds, we will need a sudden and quite satisfyingly illicit broadcast at any time.”
“Can do. Got friends to help.”
Ruanek grinned at her. “Do it, and I bet you get a good spot in the new administration.”
“Honest? Could you put in a word for me?”
Spock cut in dryly, “I doubt Narviat would dare risk not having you on his side.”
He handed the amulet to Kerit. “I can also take out some of those security devices,” she added, almost shyly, “the
ones around the admiral’s cell, I mean.”
“Without leaving any evidence that the systems have gone offline?”
After a second’s hesitation, she nodded.
“You must be certain of that,” Spock warned. “Our lives may depend on your skill.”
She nodded again, wide-eyed. Turning to Ruanek, Spock said, “The same holds true for you. Assuming that your knowledge is accurate and you can find Narviat’s cell, you and I are about to commit what the Terrans call a ‘jail break.’ ”
TWENTY-SEVEN
KI BARATAN, ROMULUS, DAY 9, SECOND WEEK OF TASMEEN, YEAR 2344
Their jail break, Spock thought, almost stopped before it began. They heard an officer’s barked command to the clerk in the atrium to stand aside, followed by the heavy footsteps of armed guards.
Ruanek had time only for a quick “Damn!”
“We are scholars, going about our business,” Spock murmured. “This does not concern us.”
In the next instant, guards came rushing down the gray-walled corridor, hands on disruptor butts and heading straight at Spock and Ruanek. For a wild instant, the Fires blazed up in Spock: Enemy males, a challenge—
“Out of the way,” an officer snarled as he raced by. “Praetor’s business.”
Spock and Ruanek obediently flattened themselves against a wall, the hoods of their drab scholars’ cloaks hiding their faces as the rest of the troop clattered past them. As the guards disappeared down the corridor, Ruanek muttered, “Guess where they’re going in such a hurry.”
“Guessing is illogical.” The guards were, without a doubt, headed toward Corridor B, Room 235. “They will be disappointed.”
“We hope. Yes, yes, I know, hope is illogical, too.”
But if the praetor’s guards seized Kerit, Jarrin, Ridda, any of the others, they had lost before they even started.
“Not completely. Go on now. The way is clear.”
He had to bite the words off to keep his voice steady. Spock’s heart was still racing with alarm, the Fires blazing in his mind. Logic, he thought with all his will. Logic is sanity . . . logic is control . . . logic.
And gradually, his sudden fury died to embers. Spock frowned, suddenly aware of Ruanek’s uneasy sideways glance. Not surprising that the Romulan should have noticed behavioral changes.
“Ruanek, hear me. What is happening to me is nothing contagious, nothing to endanger you. More,” he added truthfully, “than you are already endangered.” The Fires burned, whispering, No more. Tell no more. “Do not ask anything further.” It came out as a harsh croak.
“But—”
“No further!”
But Ruanek, who was after all, a warrior unafraid of threats, continued, “I have heard rumors about Vulcans, and . . . ah . . . certain matters. Is that—” He stopped, tried again, “Can that be what—” Ruanek broke off with an exasperated, “Akhh! I’m not sure what I am trying to ask. Romulans do not—”
“Romulans,” Spock snapped, “do not know when to stop prying!”
That startled two clerks and, more alarmingly, a guard. Dropping his voice, struggling to fall back into Symakhos’ controlled cadences, Spock asked, “Where is this shorter route that you promised me?”
“This way,” Ruanek said curtly. Spock could not tell from his deliberately impassive face what he was thinking. So long as the Romulan was loyal, Spock decided he did not wish to know.
Narviat stirred, shivering. Even through eyelids squeezed shut against the oppressive light in his cell, he thought it had diminished. Worth a try. He moved his arm away from his face, and peered about his cell. The noise and those damnable subsonics had actually stopped for the moment. He cautioned himself not to get used to it: All the crueler, to give a prisoner a taste of hope before it all began again. Definitely something Dralath would do.
Damnably chilly in here. Nothing to see: No window, of course, not even in the door, although air filtered in from tiny vents in the ceiling. The only furnishings were the bare shelf-bed on which he sat, and the less-than-civilized waste-disposal unit. Floor, walls, and ceiling were of the seamless composite used to coat warbird hulls: nothing short of a disruptor blast would make a mark on them. The shelf-bed was another seamless slab, with nothing he could break off or unscrew; the waste disposal was equally seamless. Daring, noisome escapes were hardly in his style, but if the waste disposal had not been too narrow, he really thought he would have had to at least try to break free, like a trapped h’vart that gnaws off its own paw and limps to freedom.
Melodrama is not in your style either, he scolded himself, and returned to scrutinizing his cell. How many times did this make?
Do you truly expect, in your current condition, to see something you missed before? he asked himself, and knew it was just another question for which he had no answer.
The door was the one weak point, since it must open and close, but whoever had designed this cell had been shrewd enough to put the hinges on the outside, where an ambitious prisoner couldn’t get at them.
At least it was a door, and not a transparent forcefield such as one found in a warbird’s brig; at least he had the illusion of privacy.
Illusion, indeed. Narviat glanced up. Must be a surveillance camera up there—he certainly would have included one—but he couldn’t find any sign of the lens. He fought down the urge to make an obscene gesture at whoever was watching. He also fought down any movement that might have been taken for despair.
The blazing lights and the subsonics, Fires take them and Dralath too, came back on in a nauseating surge. Far worse to give a man an instant’s relief, then torment him again, and Dralath knew it. Narviat swallowed hard, squeezed his eyes shut, and gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to curl up, rejecting the world.
If he didn’t have an Empire to fight for, he could easily think of despairing under these conditions. Far too easily.
This is not a trap, Spock told himself firmly. It is merely a . . . maintenance tunnel. Farther underground than one might prefer. But merely a tunnel.
It was a long, dank corridor smelling faintly of mold, dingy gray paint peeling from the walls. No Romulan, Spock thought, was going to waste time or money in upgrading anything so far from public sight. Widely spaced ceiling fixtures of archaic design gave off a miserly amount of ghastly blue-white light. Some even more archaic instinct whispered to Spock of the caves, the World of Ever-Dark—
No! It is a tunnel, nothing worse.
Ironic: Had Dralath put Narviat into a high-security prison, they would have had little hope of a rescue. But such a move could never have been kept secret, and Dralath could hardly afford any negative publicity.
There will still be guards down here, though, and security devices . . . although if Kerit has done her job, few of those devices will be functioning.
He had loaded an appalling amount of responsibility on the shoulders of a child, even one whom his companion trusted. If she failed—
Worrying about what cannot be altered is the height of illogic.
“We are now,” Ruanek whispered, “directly underneath the bureaucratic complex. Told you: semi-secret maintenance tunnel. And,” he added with a fierce grin, “it connects with each and every one of the buildings—including, if one but knows the proper way in, the one containing Admiral Narviat’s prison cell!”
“And Praetor Dralath’s office?” Spock murmured. “How very illogical of the designers!”
“Well, maybe not all that illogical. Depends on who designed this thing. Wait . . . yes, this way. You have to squeeze through this doorway, and watch the low-hanging pipes . . . right. You couldn’t actually get up to the praetor’s office,” Ruanek continued softly as they continued down the dingy gray corridor, “try your hand at assassination or anything like that. But as for the rest of this . . .” He shrugged. “Makes it easier for workers to get back and forth without interrupting government affairs. Bureaucrats think of convenience first and foremost, not of defense or—”
Spoc
k silenced him with a sharp glance: two cold-eyed guards stood directly ahead, blocking the corridor.
“Halt,” one snapped.
Arms out to show his lack of weapons, Spock began, “We were merely attempting a shortcut—”
“No one allowed down here right now. Question of security.”
“Of course.”
Spock and Ruanek exchanged a quick glance. They lunged, Ruanek to the right, Spock to the left. Spock caught his guard in a quick nerve pinch, then whirled to see Ruanek straightening, face gone gray. “Forgot about my arm,” he muttered. “Should have just stabbed him. Hells, never mind; I’ve suffered worse. Let’s get going before these two wake up.”
Spock fiercely suppressed a surge of distaste: Ruanek was, after all, a Romulan warrior used to casual violence. That he should, despite that background, be so honorable—
Spock stopped short. Fire suddenly blazed along his nerves, stabbing through his head. A sane corner of his mind recognized, Subsonics, to wear down Narviat. We’ve entered the range.
But sanity had no bearing here. Four guards patrolled ahead, faces hidden by protective, sonic-muffling helms, and Spock—
—could not remember what prisoner they were guarding. Saavik—
Why he should think that—but it was Saavik, Saavik because the subsonics were tearing at him and the Fires were rousing—
Saavik! It was Saavik they held captive, it was Saavik they would dishonor, it was Saavik—
The Fires blinded him, deafened him. There was nothing but Saavik and flame all around him, flame—
Flame—
Flame . . .
Someone was touching him. Someone was daring to catch his arm, risking calling him by name: “Spock! Stop it! Spock!”
He savagely backhanded that someone, heard a startled cry of pain, whirled and saw:
“Ruanek!”
Ruanek was huddled against a wall, clutching his injured arm once more, this time with green blood staining his fingers. His breath hissed between clenched teeth.
I did that. I hurled him aside so roughly his wounds reopened. An ally . . . a friend, and I . . .
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