Stillwell considered the matter in thoughtful silence for several moments. Then with a sigh and a nod he said, “For whatever it’s worth, I’ve always found it damned difficult to get toothpaste to go back into the tube. But I’m forced to agree that you have to at least try. Good luck.”
Trip wondered what Stillwell would say if he told him he’d planned on going on the mission anyway, regardless of the bureau’s input. “I appreciate that, Captain.”
“I do have another concern, Commander,” Stillwell said.
I’m all alone on Romulus, the center of a hostile galactic nation-state, a place where I don’t dare trust anybody, Trip thought. What the hell is there to be concerned about beyond that?
“And what’s that, sir?” he said aloud.
“I have to consider the possibility that the Romulan intelligence apparatus has compromised your disguise, and is deliberately allowing you to continue to operate.”
Trip frowned. “Why would they do that?”
“To feed you disinformation to report back to us, of course. You must have considered the possibility that something other than good luck intervened on your behalf.”
“Of course I have. I just seriously doubt that Admiral Valdore thinks I’m stupid enough to fall for a gag like that. Especially when you can test at least some of the information from my mission briefing independently.”
“What kind of information?” Stillwell said, raising an eyebrow.
“Okay, why don’t you take a close look at a detail from the written report I’m about to file?”
“All right, Commander. But give me the short version now.”
Trip nodded. “A Romulan outpost recently observed what appeared to be an Earth Cargo Service freighter being attacked and destroyed by a Klingon battle cruiser. The attack occurred somewhere in the Gamma Hydra sector, where the ECS probably doesn’t have very many ships operating at any one time. It shouldn’t be too hard to check this out, or at least get confirmation if any freighters in Gamma Hydra are overdue or missing.”
“My people here will run that down immediately, Commander,” Stillwell said. “I’ll transmit our findings via a subspace burst as soon as possible. In the meantime, let me wish you Godspeed on your mission.
“Stillwell out.”
Trip continued staring into the screen for long, uncounted moments after the display had faded to black. All he could do at this point was hope that Stillwell could verify the data he’d been given before the time came to embark on an extremely hazardous mission.
A mission that would be dangerous enough if it were completely on the level, rather than merely part of some hypothetical trap set for him by a wily Romulan admiral.
“I am ready to begin the next sequence of real-time tests, Admiral,” Nijil said, gesturing toward the lab’s central holo-projector, which had created a free-floating three-dimensional representation of one of the three Klingon battle cruisers his long khaidoa of continuous effort had finally succeeded in acquiring for the illustrious Praetor’s fleet. “The remote-control tactical system should be ready for practical operation very shortly thereafter, should everything go according to plan during the next round of trials.”
Valdore watched the virtual ship as it slowly turned through every conceivable degree of pitch, roll, and yaw, and silently thanked all the gods of Erebus for the coming culmination of his painstaking work. Both Praetor D’deridex and First Consul T’Leikha had lately been applying an uncomfortable amount of pressure on him to produce results.
They would soon see results beyond their wildest expectations. Valdore was beginning to feel sure of it, even though years of finely honing his instincts gave him a general distrust of such complacent certainties.
“Very good, Nijil,” he said, nodding appreciatively at his chief technologist. “But remember, both the klivam vessels and the personnel we captured along with them are to be considered expendable should anything go wrong after we launch the attack.”
“Of course, Admiral,” Nijil said, fist clenched and elbow bent in a crisp salute. “I will see to it that their brutish lives are spent profitably in the defense of our Empire. And that theirs are the only identifiable fresh corpses anyone will be able to recover from the wreckage.”
Soon, Earth and her Coalition partners would have all the proof they might need that the slope-browed ahlh who infested the Klingon Empire represented a far more imminent danger than did the Romulan Star Empire. Despite his ingrained, pragmatic aversion to wish-fulfillment fantasies and his hesitancy to believe in best-case scenarios, Valdore grinned as he considered what was to come.
Particularly once the Coalition weaklings set their vigilant eyes upon the wrong part of the sky and became preoccupied with the phantoms that would shortly be planted in their distracted field of view.
With a little help, he thought, from my newest loyal servant, Cunaehr.
TWELVE
Thursday, July 17, 2155
Enterprise NX-01
ALTHOUGH SHE HAD APPEARED on the bridge during the alpha watch just long enough to request that Captain Archer excuse her from her duties for unspecified personal reasons, T’Pol had really done so to show Ensign Sato that the captain had no issues with her earlier unauthorized transmissions. As she had anticipated, he had honored her request that he refrain from prying into the specifics that lay behind it. That was perhaps for the best, since T’Pol knew she had never mastered the fine art of lying. Misdirection seemed more credible, at least in theory, but had proved only marginally easier in practice.
Though he didn’t insist on it, Archer nevertheless seemed to wish to discuss the matter further; T’Pol ignored the instinct that impelled her toward forthrightness and duty and walked away from him. He had already made it abundantly clear in sickbay that he had no intention of rescuing Trip, which meant that her plans simply didn’t fall into line with the captain’s.
The feeling was odd. She had defied authority before, but usually in the service of the needs of the many. This time, however, she knew that she was acting largely to satisfy her own deeply personal needs, no matter how she might seek to justify them using arguments about the urgency of the encroaching Romulan menace.
Life calls to Life, she thought, using the immortal words of the Third Analects of Surak to validate her all but irresistible compulsion to come to Trip’s aid. In doing so, she knew she was brushing aside one of the ancient Vulcan philosopher’s even more fundamental axioms: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. She didn’t care.
Once safely within her quarters again, T’Pol triggered a subspace signal burst to Denak, who had signaled already during the brief time she had been on the bridge. Even with the knowledge of her transmissions shared now by Archer and Sato, T’Pol still took the precaution of activating the scrambling device as Denak’s incoming signal announced itself with a series of beeps on her desktop computer terminal. It’s preferable for them to think I’m discussing personal medical issues with a doctor on Vulcan than to learn what I’m really doing, she thought.
Denak appeared on the screen, his eyes tinged with green and his skin visibly ashen even across the many light-years that separated them; he clearly had not been sleeping well. “I’ve succeeded in getting you a ship, T’Pol, but it has not been easy. Let’s just say that you’ve exhausted every debt I’ve ever owed you.”
T’Pol nodded slowly, acknowledging her old friend’s implied warning without allowing herself to appear intimidated by it. “Will the ship be capable of getting me into Romulan space?”
“It can get you in, but not out,” Denak said ominously. “You will need to rendezvous with this vessel using a ship of your own near the periphery of Romulan space. I presume you will not be using Enterprise to do this.”
“I feel certain that I will be able to find some kind of craft,” T’Pol said, ignoring Denak’s sarcasm as her mind quickly worked the problem of acquiring a small auxiliary craft on short notice.
“The ship I have secure
d for you can take both you and whatever small craft you arrive in well past the Romulan Star Empire’s borders. As long as you don’t encounter any Romulan patrol vessels along the way, you should be fine.”
“Where should I rendezvous with the ship, and when?”
“I’ve arranged for the vessel to be diverted from its regular course and mission,” Denak said. “Neither of which is known to anyone outside the V’Shar…and even then, it is known only to a handful. I am transmitting to you the rendezvous coordinates and timetable, along with a brief profile of the ship. You will have one contact on board, and you will be required to remain confined to whatever sections of the ship she specifies.”
T’Pol stared at him inquisitively. “Why?”
“The vessel carries…sensitive matériel to which you have not been granted access.”
T’Pol saw a file open in the corner of her screen and was surprised to see that it was the image of a familiar face, even if it was noticeably older than the last time she had seen it. “Ych’a? She is my contact?”
“We both risk much with this, T’Pol,” Denak said.
“I appreciate the trust you have placed in me, Denak,” T’Pol said.
Denak raised an eyebrow, giving her the look that had made her feel so very uncomfortable during her years as his underling in the V’Shar. “I wish you would extend me the same courtesy. I know that you are hiding things from me about the true purpose of this mission. But I also sense that you are acting…outside the purview of both Starfleet and the Coalition of Planets. Perhaps even against direct orders.”
He paused, leaning slightly closer to his own com unit. “Before you were even born, a wise woman once told me that sometimes it takes those who will travel past the boundaries—without regard to arbitrary rules—to discover what truly lies beyond the horizon.”
T’Pol had heard her mother express the same sentiments before, and suspected that it was she to whom Denak was referring. She offered him a slight nod of acknowledgment. “Whatever I must do, I have no intention of causing any harm either to the Coalition or its member worlds. I act to preserve life, and to protect our people. You have my word on that.”
Denak settled back in his chair again and steepled his hands and fingers underneath his chin. T’Pol saw that the thumb and forefingers were still missing from his right hand; he had lost them during a mission years ago, and had been unable to receive appropriate medical attention in time to save the nerves that would have allowed them to be regrown successfully.
“While you might not harm the Coalition, T’Pol, remember that your actions may have consequences for those who have placed their trust in you. You must be prepared for that eventuality.” Denak held up his good hand, splitting his fingers into a salute. “Live long and prosper, T’Pol.”
T’Pol returned the salute as her viewscreen went black.
Denak’s words stung her, but she still felt certain that her mission was absolutely necessary, even if it might not be entirely logical. Assuming, of course, that the encounters she had experienced with Trip in her mindscape were not, in fact, hallucinations.
Launch Bay Two seemed unnaturally quiet as T’Pol quickly went about her work. Her fingers moved smoothly over the computer panel as she input data and observed the results. The subroutines she had accessed were complicated, and one wrong keystroke could signal her actions to someone on the bridge, or elsewhere.
The gamma watch commander, Lieutenant O’Neill, and those on her shift were used to quiet “nights” aboard ship, and T’Pol knew from experience that this would be the best time to set her plan into motion—not because O’Neill’s bridge crew was any less capable than the alpha watch team, but because nobody would even suspect the borderline sabotage she was engaged in at such a late hour. With the likely exception of Doctor Phlox, all of those aboard Enterprise who were closest to her would have been asleep for hours by now.
An alert light blinked on the computer viewscreen, prompting T’Pol to curse under her breath. She realized she must have run afoul of a security subroutine for which she had not prepared; perhaps Lieutenant Reed had installed a new code. She wondered briefly if he had done so because he’d anticipated her present course of action and felt the need to preempt it. Illogical, she told herself. There was no way Reed could have anticipated her plan. The captain, maybe the doctor…
Her fingers hovered over the keypad as her mind raced. She could back out of the subroutine, but that would mean taking care to erase every step she had already taken. Worse, her failure to beat Enterprise’s security measures tonight would force her to miss the rendezvous that Denak had so painstakingly arranged.
“Enter code alpha-two-epsilon-seven-niner-ninertau-nu,” said a voice from the shadows behind her in distinctively accented English.
Malcolm Reed’s voice, to be precise.
“And what will happen then?” T’Pol asked, not turning around to face him. Despite her lifelong Vulcan training, she felt fear turn her spine to ice.
“That command will reroute the new security subroutine,” Reed said. “Once that’s out of the way, you can finish carrying out your plan to bypass the entire security system and commandeer one of our shuttlepods,” Reed said. She heard his footsteps as he approached her. “That is what you intended, isn’t it?”
T’Pol tensed, then ducked, sweeping her leg out quickly in a low, wide arc. She felt it connect with Reed’s calves, and as she spun around she saw him collapse backward, a look of intense surprise on his face.
He’s not carrying a phase pistol, she thought with a start. And he’s not even in uniform. In fact, Reed was wearing what appeared to be a dark robe, similar to the attire of a civilian Vulcan merchant.
Reed quickly rolled backward, regaining his footing and springing to a crouching defensive stance. “Do you want to fight me, T’Pol, or do you want my help? Because Vulcan or not, I’ll kick your ass, plus you’ll miss your chance to input the code I just gave you. If you don’t do that in the next twenty seconds, the security alarms will go off and we’ll both have some heavy explaining to do.”
T’Pol’s mind raced, but her decision came quickly. She tapped the code into the datapad, and was rewarded with a green light.
“Now, we have ten minutes of safe time to get away from Enterprise before the system stops running the redundant program I wrote to conceal our little act of piracy,” Reed said, cautiously moving closer.
T’Pol turned to him, reflexively raising an eyebrow. “Our?”
“Whatever your plan is, I’m coming with you,” Reed said.
“Why?”
“I’d rather save the detailed explanation for after we’ve gotten safely under way,” Reed replied, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Suffice it to say that I know your intention is to rescue Trip. And he wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for me.”
T’Pol knew that Reed had worked in the past for the same secretive Starfleet organization for which Trip had since become an agent. She also knew that after Reed had told them he would no longer work for them, they had recruited Trip. She didn’t know how or why they had convinced Trip he could be an effective spy—she hoped he’d tell her after they extracted him from Romulan space—but she assumed they had their reasons. She was surprised, however, to learn that Reed felt so guilty about Trip’s recruitment.
“Did Captain Archer put you up to this, Lieutenant?” T’Pol asked. Had the captain’s reticence about helping her merely been another secret maneuver, a tactic akin to the deliberate disinformation that still concealed, from most people, the fact that Trip wasn’t really dead? Were Archer’s earlier protestations simply an official gesture intended, as Trip might have put it, to “cover his ass”?
“I’m afraid not, Commander,” Reed said, looking a bit crestfallen. “In fact, I suspect this may be my final straw with the captain. I’ve had to lie to him before because of my relationship with the bureau, and he believed me afterward when I told him I was through with all of that.”
“That’s a great hope,” Reed said. “We can also hope for ticker-tape parades, commendations from our superiors, and free hot fudge sundaes for life. But I suspect that even if we’re successful, most of those wishes won’t be coming true.”
“Then why come with me?” T’Pol asked, fixing Reed with an inquisitive gaze.
He offered a wan smile. “Because you’re not the only one who cares about Trip, Commander. We didn’t start out as friends when this whole journey began, but there are few men I’ve met before or since whom I hold in higher esteem.”
He pointed toward the viewscreen on the console where T’Pol had been working. “We have four minutes left before our departure window closes. Time to get packing.”
T’Pol pointed toward a small traveling case she’d left leaning against a nearby bulkhead. “I have already packed.”
Reed shook his head. “It’s a human expression, T’Pol. Don’t take it literally.”
“Like ‘kicking my ass’?” T’Pol asked, grabbing the case and heading toward Shuttlepod Two. “Why are humans so fixated on the gluteal muscles?” she said.
Reed fell into step beside her, snorting slightly. “Perhaps it’s because we’ve all got ’em, Commander. Even Vulcans, I suppose.” He reddened visibly as he moved to open the shuttlepod’s hatch. “Not that I take much notice of such things.”
“Indeed,” T’Pol said in the most frostily polite tone she could muster. “And just so we’re clear, Lieutenant, you could not have kicked mine.”
THIRTEEN
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