“Simple, right?”
“That’s a mighty tall order, Captain. The security at Beta Nairobi is tighter than a drum. Believe me, I know. You can’t get within a parsec of that place without some sort of alarm going off. Not to mention the patrols they have.”
“Beta Nairobi?” Archer shook his head. “Trip, they moved her from Beta Nairobi a long time ago. Don’t you remember?”
Tucker frowned. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t remember that at all.”
A drooling, raving mess.
Was it happening already?
“Nobunaga is at Vulcan now,” Archer said. “Showing the flag. Cowing the locals.”
“Wait a minute.” Tucker shook his head. “The Empress—the Empire—Vulcan is an ally. Hell, half the army these days is Vulcan, they—”
“Propaganda. Believe me. Most of the people on Vulcan are very dissatisfied with the present state of affairs. A lot of them have been helping us—directly, indirectly. You’d be surprised at who.”
Tucker waved a hand. “I don’t doubt it. But still…getting to Vulcan isn’t going to be easy either.”
The captain smiled again. “Like I said…we have a plan.”
Tucker frowned. “Yeah. I heard. Only…”
Steal Nobunaga.
His head began to pound.
The room wavered.
He was back in his quarters. On Defiant.
The message light was blinking.
“You can’t let it happen, Trip,” Archer said. “You can’t let her have that much power.”
“Delete,” he said. “Delete, delete, delete.”
But the message kept playing.
“Remember Bozeman?” Archer said. “Everything we talked about? Everything the space program stood for, once upon a time?”
“Delete!” Tucker screamed.
“How many digits is it?” Reed asked, and now he was someplace else, Tucker realized. The agonizer. Reed’s home-built torture chamber.
“How many digits?” Reed asked again. “Surely, if you simply give me that number, it’s not the same as telling me outright. No one could blame you for just giving me a clue…”
Tucker shook his head.
Reed smiled, showing all his teeth. He pressed a button.
Tucker opened his mouth to scream.
T’Pol put a finger to his lips.
“Shhh,” she said, but her lips didn’t move. “Be strong.”
She was wearing the dress she had taken from the Defiant’s stores, the blue one, the one that let her long legs show, that left the curve of her neck bare. Her long hair brushed against his face.
He leaned forward to kiss her…
Restraints held him back.
He was in a hospital bed. Bound hand and foot. Dim lighting in the room, a small room, no windows, a door at the foot of his bed, ventilators humming…
He was back in Kyoto.
The same hospital room he’d escaped from earlier.
“No,” he said, starting to shiver. “Oh, no.”
The door opened. Phlox entered, pushing a cart before him. A cart with all sorts of gleaming metal instruments on top of it. Sharp edges, shiny surfaces…
The doctor rubbed his hands together. “Shall we get started?” he asked.
Tucker blinked.
He was back on Ulysses. Not in the mess but in the room he’d first been taken to. His bedroom.
Archer leaned over him. The captain held Phlox’s data chip in his hand.
“How long has this been going on?” Archer asked.
“Since the accident. However long that’s been.” Tucker sighed and shook his head. “It’s getting worse.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“When I had to.”
“When you had to.” Archer cursed. “Come on, Trip. How long have we known each other? Why didn’t—”
“Because what’s the point? There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do.”
The captain went to one of the walls, leaned against it. He was silent for a moment.
“I want to help,” Tucker said. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I was afraid that if I wasn’t a hundred percent, you wouldn’t—”
The comm sounded.
“Bridge to Captain Archer.”
The voice came from a comm unit on the wall; Archer crossed to it and pressed a button.
“Archer here.”
“Our visitors, sir. They’ve arrived.”
“Good. I’ll be right there. Tell them to…” He looked at Tucker. “No. On second thought, send them down here. Commander Tucker’s quarters.”
“Aye, Captain. Commander Tucker’s quarters.”
“Good. Archer out.”
The captain closed the channel.
“Visitors?” Tucker asked.
“That’s right. Allies. People who are going to help make this possible.”
“Stealing the ship.”
“That’s right.”
“So—you going to tell me what the plan is?”
“I’ll wait. Till they come. Part of the plan is theirs. They should get the chance to explain it.”
“I’m all ears,” Tucker said.
Archer laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’ll see.”
A minute later, he did. The visitors walked into his cabin.
They were Vulcans. The first two were male, one older, one younger.
The third was T’Pol.
Tucker was utterly flummoxed.
He got to his feet. He looked from T’Pol to Archer, and back again, and shook his head.
“No. She’s—” He pointed at T’Pol and looked at Archer once more. “She’s the Regent, for God’s sake. She runs the government, more than Hoshi does. She’s the one who—”
“You’re wrong, Trip.” Archer stepped up next to him. “She’s one of us. On the side of the angels.”
Tucker shook his head. He wanted to believe, but…
He looked at T’Pol.
She looked exactly as she had in his dream. The blue dress. The long hair, the eyes—
“Commander,” she said. “It is agreeable to see you again.”
“Is it true? You’re with the rebels, you’re not—”
“I am allied with the rebellion,” she said. “But I do also run the government. The two are not mutually exclusive propositions.”
Archer smiled. Everyone smiled. Tucker smiled, too.
“That is the best news I’ve heard in years,” he said.
“Many happy reunions,” Archer said. “For all of us. But if we want to get that ship, we ought to talk it through now, people. So, if you all don’t mind following me…”
Tucker’s room was too small to meet in; Archer took them down the corridor, heading for the mess. He watched T’Pol, a step in front of him. The Regent, a rebel. It all made sense now; no wonder the rebellion always seemed to be a step ahead of the Empire. No wonder Defiant could never find, much less catch, Enterprise. T’Pol, one of them.
She turned at the doorway to the mess. Her hair turned with her. Her long hair, cascading down her back. How had it gotten so long so quickly? The last time he had seen her—
He frowned. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her.
“Is something the matter?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”
They entered the mess. The tables had all been pushed together, the chairs arranged in a rough horseshoe shape around them. Everyone sat, everyone except Archer, who stood in front of a viewscreen, three feet square, that hung on one wall of the room. A star chart was projected on it, a map of the space in Vulcan’s immediate orbit. The moons, the space stations, the orbiting weapons platforms.
Nobunaga.
“This is how we’re going to do it,” the captain said.
Tucker listened as Archer outlined his plan.
A manufactured emergency on one of Vulca
n’s moons that would siphon off security personnel. An automated maintenance shuttle sent shortly thereafter to resupply Nobunaga’s food synthesizers, a shuttle that would contain not raw foodstuffs but live people.
A Trojan horse kind of thing. Everyone discussed the details; as they talked, Tucker saw a flaw in the plan.
“They’ll have shields up,” he said. “Nobunaga. It’s standard operating procedure on all Imperial ships. You sure they’ll lower them for your shuttle?”
“They have in the past,” Archer said.
Tucker shook his head. He still didn’t like it.
His uncertainty must have shown.
“You have a better idea?” Archer asked. “Another way to get those shields down?”
His head began to ache. He tried to fight past it.
Another way to get those shields down.
There was something there…something in the back of his mind…
“Any thoughts?” T’Pol asked. “Commander?”
She looked at him. Everyone was looking at him.
Nobunaga.
Nobunaga.
His heart hammered in his chest. His head was pounding.
“Lower their shields,” he said.
Archer nodded. “Yes. That’s the point.”
He blinked.
Everyone was still staring at him.
“I don’t know,” he managed. “I guess that’ll have to work. The maintenance shuttle. I can’t think of anything else.”
Which was the truth. His head was pounding so hard he could barely think of anything at all.
The meeting broke up. T’Pol left with the other Vulcans. Tucker managed a quick good-bye but no more. All of the things that had been in his head so long, the things he wanted to say to her, they were suddenly gone. All he wanted to do was go lie down, stop the pain.
He found himself back in his quarters, without even knowing how he’d gotten there.
Leandra leaned over him. She smiled. “You should rest,” she said.
She smelled nice. A familiar smell. He couldn’t place it.
He looked over her shoulder, at the mirror on the wall, and realized the whole time he’d been on this ship, he had yet to see the stars. Had yet to see anything other than this tiny room and the bigger one down the hall.
“How long till we reach Vulcan?” he asked.
“Soon enough.”
“You’ll wake me. I want to be there. I want to help.”
“Of course. I’ll wake you.” She smiled again.
Tucker closed his eyes.
Images flashed through his mind. The hospital room and Phlox leaning over him. Reed and his agonizer. The Empress.
“You are a gentle lover, Commander.”
He was in her bedchamber. In the palace in Kyoto.
She propped herself up on one elbow. “Tell me again, what you were saying before…”
“They built it into all their ships,” he said. “I found a reference in Defiant’s computer banks.”
The Empress’s eyes flashed. The Federation—the mirror universe—these were dangerous topics of conversation. She’d wiped Defiant’s computers clean long ago, had only made the old records accessible to Tucker and his staff recently, for them to refer to during Nobunaga’s construction.
He hurried on with his explanation. “It lets one ship’s computer take control of multiple vessels. So you can have split-second battlefield coordination—attack runs, that sort of thing. We build it into Nobunaga; it would enable you always to have ultimate control of the vessel.”
Her eyes flashed again, this time with pleasure. “I begin to see your point, Commander.”
“Of course, it only works over relatively short distances. But still—”
“Still.” She smiled. He felt as if he could read her mind, for a second.
What happened long ago with Archer, and Enterprise, would never happen again.
“You are a gentle lover, Commander.”
He smiled. “You said that already.”
“I, however…”
She raised herself above him. Straddled him.
He couldn’t move.
He was in the hospital again, in Kyoto. Strapped to his bed.
The door opened. Phlox entered with his cart.
He looked up and shook his head.
“She’s not happy with you,” the doctor said. “The Empress. Not happy at all.”
Phlox came closer; metal gleamed. He flipped switches; electricity sparked.
An alarm sounded. All quarters.
Tucker sat up in his bed. In his room, on Ulysses.
The door opened.
A figure stood in the light from the hall. A woman. She moved into the room; her features came into focus.
T’Pol.
“Come with me,” she said. “Hurry.”
“What’s going on?” Tucker sat up, still disoriented.
“Hurry,” she said again.
She took him by the hand, pulled him out of his quarters, down the corridor into the mess.
The two older Vulcans were there. So were Robin and Tuck from the bar, back in Kyoto. They had all been staring at the viewscreen.
They all turned to stare at him now.
“Your concern was justified, Commander,” Leandra said. “Nobunaga is not lowering her shields.”
Tucker sat, trying to get his bearings. “So, what do we do?”
The hawk-nosed man—Robin—stepped forward.
“Whatever we decide, we have to do it quickly. They’re sending over a boarding party, to check out the ship. To make sure it’s safe.”
“If they board that shuttle, they’ll find the captain. And the others. They’ll kill them,” Leandra said. “T’Pol will die.”
Tucker frowned. “But—” He looked over at T’Pol. “T’Pol’s here.”
“Of course.” Leandra smiled. “I misspoke.”
There was silence.
“So, what do we do?” Tucker asked again.
Leandra stepped forward. “I have an idea,” she said. “What about the prefix code?”
Tucker blinked.
The prefix code.
“Right,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Leandra smiled. “The point is, with the code, we can lower the shields ourselves. We can take over the whole ship.”
“That’s right.” Tucker nodded. That’s how it worked—the prefix code. He’d programmed it into Nobunaga at the Empress’s command. So that she would have ultimate control of the vessel, in case…
He frowned.
“Tell it to me, quickly,” Leandra said. “They’re on the way.”
“They’re almost there.” The older Vulcan stood next to the viewscreen and pointed at it. “See?”
Tucker followed the man’s arm, looked where he was pointing.
For a second, the wall itself seemed to waver. Instead of the viewscreen, he saw—he thought he saw—a mirror.
And then the star chart appeared and gave him a view of the tactical situation. The shuttle and the starship. Nobunaga.
Nobunaga.
The message light was blinking.
“I hear you’re building a ship,” the captain said. “As powerful as Defiant.”
“How did you hear that?”
“You can’t do it, Trip. You can’t let her have that much power.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“The right thing,” Archer said.
“Destroy it?”
“Unless you have a better idea.”
Tucker frowned.
No, he was about to say.
And then he remembered.
The code.
“Tell it to me.” Leandra gritted her teeth. “So we can transmit it.”
She was on the verge of losing her temper, Tucker saw. He should tell her the code. There was no reason not to tell her the code.
Was there?
He looked
up at the viewscreen and frowned.
“Why aren’t we on the bridge?”
Leandra walked around in front of him, put both her hands on his shoulders, leaned into his face.
“What does it matter where we are? We can transmit from anywhere. Now tell me the code! Before it’s too late.”
“We were fired on.” The hawk-nosed man stepped forward. “Some structural damage. That’s why the all-quarters alarm.”
“Ah.” Tucker nodded. That made sense.
“Access to the bridge is temporarily blocked,” the man continued.
“So tell me.” Leandra’s eyes blazed fire. “The prefix code.”
He inhaled her scent. It was so familiar…
His head began to pound. Harder than ever before.
He looked up at her again, and something stirred at the back of his mind.
The truth.
“No,” he said. “Oh God no.”
The room around him began to waver.
The hawk-nosed man cursed.
“Look at him,” he said. “Look at his eyes. He’s coming out of it.”
The fat man nodded. “Without a doubt.”
“The code!” Leandra screamed. “Tell me the code!”
Her hands were still on his shoulders; she shook him. Tucker felt something snap.
The pain there, though, was nothing compared to the pain in his head. The pounding in his skull.
He screamed too then.
His head felt like it was going to explode.
T’Pol stepped forward. “Let me,” she said, and put her hands on his forehead.
The pain stopped.
She looked him in the eye.
And then her voice was in his head.
Courage. Be strong.
She stepped back, which was when Trip became aware that everything around him had changed.
He was no longer aboard Ulysses. He was in his hospital room, at Kyoto.
He had never left.
The hawk-nosed man was Reed.
The fat man, Phlox.
And Leandra…
“What did you do?” the Empress demanded, glaring at T’Pol.
“His mind was breaking down. The image projectors, the consistent mental intrusions. I feared we would lose him entirely.”
“I don’t care about him!” Hoshi screamed. “I want my ship. Where is my ship?”
Tucker watched her rant and barely—just barely—kept himself from smiling.
He remembered everything now.
Star Trek®: Mirror Universe: Shards and Shadows Page 3