The phenomenon of ahhaid’rawn—time dilation—wasn’t an issue with which the Romulan Star Empire’s mature starfaring culture had to cope. The Romulans had possessed warp-drive technology for centuries and therefore had no contemporary experience with the temporal distortions inherent in star travel via high sublight speeds.
T’Luadh continued entering commands into her console at a frantic pace. “Stretching out the rations won’t do us much good if whoever’s out there blows us to pieces.”
Trip accessed the tactical systems on the console before him. “Guess I’m more of a theoretician than a practical, tool-using guy,” he said.
A quickly intensifying hum interrupted T’Luadh’s response. Before the sound crescendoed, a curtain of light impeded Trip’s vision.
Transporter, he thought as he felt a sensation roughly akin to countless insects crawling on his skin. He couldn’t help recalling how an Orion slaver had once spirited away nine of his Enterprise shipmates in the same manner.
The light faded, and Trip found himself deposited unceremoniously on his hindquarters on a three-meter-wide stage that resembled a scaled-up version of Enterprise’s transporter. It filled most of a square, metal-floored chamber that couldn’t have measured more than five meters on a side. Trip noted immediately that T’Luadh, her pride similarly wounded, sat across the stage from him.
A deep, familiar voice boomed from Trip’s left. “Allow me to apologize for my abruptness, Agent T’Luadh. But you weren’t answering our hails. Welcome aboard the Imperial Warbird Dabhae.”
Trip struggled to get his feet under him and succeeded at the task a moment after T’Luadh did. He turned toward the voice and saw the familiar face from which it had originated. That face bore a triumphant smile.
“Admiral Valdore,” T’Luadh said. “Thank you for your timely intervention. We’ve been having some…technical problems.”
“I see,” Valdore said with a nod. He fixed his gaze upon Trip, as did the pair of armed, uniformed uhlanu who flanked the admiral. Valdore’s eyes narrowed slightly but perceptibly as he spoke. “But I assume you would have had any such difficulties tamed sooner or later, Mister Cunaehr.”
“That’s pretty much all I’ve been doing lately, Admiral,” Trip said, bowing his head forward slightly to show respect. Though his guts seemed to be about to leap into his mouth, he hoped the admiral wouldn’t notice that anything was amiss. “After all, we still have to reconnoiter that Ejhoi Ormiin shipyard in the Carraya system.”
Valdore shook his head. “Not anymore.”
T’Luadh looked more than slightly bewildered. “Admiral?”
Valdore spread his large hands in a beneficent gesture. “We read the chronometer aboard your vessel remotely. So we know that a great deal more time has passed outside your vessel since its voyage to Carraya began than has passed within it.”
Trip’s eyebrows rose like the windshield wipers on an old-style internal-combustion automobile. “Sir?”
“The radicals have relocated their base to the second planet in the Gasko system. We have already seized the base there along with its entire complement of avaihh lli vastam starships.”
Trip’s insides abruptly went into freefall. If Valdore’s forces had seized the Ejhoi Ormiin shipbuilding facility, complete with the fruits of its labors, then his usefulness to Valdore had come to an abrupt end.
Judging from the intensity of the admiral’s stare, Trip decided that Valdore might well be thinking the very same thing.
“Agent T’Luadh,” Valdore said, his gaze still locked with Trip’s. “I want you to report to the ship’s infirmary immediately. Once Doctor Tivarh has cleared you, you will report to my office for a thorough debriefing before you’re returned to Romulus.”
T’Luadh hesitated momentarily, as though discomfited by the prospect of visiting the doctor. At length, she said, “Yes, Admiral,” and made the traditional Romulan salute. After favoring Trip with a final expressionless glance, she dismounted from the transporter stage and exited the room.
“I have somewhat different plans for you, Mister Cunaehr,” Valdore said.
No kidding, Trip thought, visions of airlocks and the deep dark of space dancing through his head. Of course, being excused from the scrutiny of Valdore’s medical staff wasn’t an altogether bad thing. If a body scan revealed him to be a red-blooded human, Trip had no doubt that his inevitable execution would be preceded by a lengthy and painful interrogation session.
“I have sent a team aboard your vessel,” said the admiral. “They are at present securing it in preparation for bringing it aboard the Dabhae for inspection and repairs.”
“Thanks,” Trip muttered.
“Once your ship is aboard,” Valdore said, “the Dabhae will proceed to Gasko II.”
Trip wondered why the admiral was sharing this information with him after implying that he wasn’t likely to live much longer. Maybe his plan is to monologue me to death.
“Gasko II,” Trip repeated. “The location of the Ejhoi Ormiin starship factory you say you just captured.”
Valdore nodded. “The same.”
“And once we get there?”
“When we arrive, Mister Cunaehr, you will help us ascertain exactly how to operate the seven avaihh lli vastam starships we have seized from the radicals.”
Trip’s confusion only deepened. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Admiral.”
“The vessels we took weren’t flight ready when we found them, Mister Cunaehr. Certain critical command-and-control hardware and software components were missing.”
Of course, Trip thought. If the people who built those ships had them completely ready to go before Valdore’s raid, then each one of ’em would have made its own individual beeline out of the Gasko system. At warp seven.
“You want me to figure out what’s missing and replace it,” Trip said.
And, in essence, arm Valdore with a blade capable of slitting humanity’s throat. The acquisition of a warp-seven-capable fleet could enable the Romulan Star Empire to annex most of the key worlds in Coalition space in very little time.
“You are the late Doctor Ehrehin’s protégé, Mister Cunaehr,” Valdore said. “I can think of no mind better suited to solving this problem.”
“What about Chief Technologist Nijil?” Trip asked. “His qualifications are light-years ahead of mine. Why don’t you talk to him about this?”
Baring his large, white teeth, Valdore said, “To do that, I would have to consult with a spiritual medium, or some other type of mystic. Unfortunately, I have never placed much stock in such things.”
“Nijil is dead?” Trip kept forgetting how long he had been out of circulation, thanks to the effects of the time dilation he had experienced over the past hundred or so days of subjective time.
Trip shook his head, raising his hands in a warding-off gesture. “You might be expecting a little too much of me, Admiral. Doctor Ehrehin was always the brains behind the avaihh lli vastam program. I was a glorified apprentice.”
Valdore’s visage hardened, as did his stare. “False modesty is ill-advised. Particularly in your case, Mister Cunaehr.”
Trip studied the bigger man in silence and saw no indication that he was anything other than sincere and resolute. He thinks I’m a Vulcan spy, he reminded himself. Even if he believes I’m not fit to carry Ehrehin’s padd, he might be assuming that I’m privy to a lot of knowledge of Vulcan warp technology.
“No, Admiral,” Trip said after a seeming eternity. “I will sit this one out. I respectfully decline.”
Valdore nodded to the vigilant troopers who still bookended him. The two uhlanu drew their weapons and stepped menacingly toward Trip.
“You will reconsider,” the admiral said as his men grabbed and pinned his arms at his sides, then none too gently frog-marched him out of the room.
The next several hours passed in a haze of rage and pain.
Trip awakened, very slowly, in a tiny, overly illuminated detention cell
that seemed to have been molded out of a single block of gleaming stainless steel. A hard bench, an equally unyielding cot, a sink, and a malodorous squat toilet built into the cell’s slightly slanted floor were the room’s only amenities.
“Not exactly five-star accommodations,” Trip said, eyeing the place in groggy disgust from the vantage point of the cot.
With a start, he caught a glimpse of himself in one of the room’s many reflective surfaces. He rolled painfully off the cot and moved closer to the wall to get a better look at his injuries.
Both temples bore livid green welts. Something had dug into the flesh there in multiple places, ripping and tearing, probably worsening as his interrogation delirium had deepened and his struggles had intensified. His head throbbed as he recalled what little he could of the interrogation he had just endured, which was next to nothing.
Mind probes, he thought, chilled to the marrow. He remembered having seen this very same pattern of laceration on Ehrehin, whom the Ejhoi Ormiin had subjected to endless rounds of merciless questioning in their own quest to break the warp-seven barrier.
An almost inaudible electronic hum sounded, distracting Trip from his musings. A heavy metal hatch less than a meter away swung open. Knowing he was in no condition to put up a physical fight, Trip backed away and tried to appear as nonthreatening as possible.
T’Luadh stepped into the cell as a pair of armed uhlanu watched her back from out in the corridor.
“You may close it until I call for you,” T’Luadh said, facing Trip as she spoke over her shoulder to the guards.
One of them answered her with undisguised trepidation. “I don’t think that—”
“I didn’t order you to think,” T’Luadh snapped. “Close it!”
Trip heard a sigh in the corridor, then a muttered curse, before the heavy door moved back into place with a resounding metallic slam.
“Let me guess, T’Luadh,” Trip said, rubbing the scabs at his right temple. “You’ve come to start my next interrogation session.”
After a few moments’ apparent hesitation, she said, “I am not here to question you further. I have, however, persuaded Admiral Valdore to place me in charge of you for the duration.”
Which means until the goddamned mind probes finally kill me, he thought. With an incongruous smile spreading across his artificially Vulcan features, he said, “T’Luadh! I didn’t know you cared.”
She favored him with a frosty scowl. “You still sound delirious. I hope Valdore’s people did not damage you severely.”
Trip shrugged. “I have to admit, I’ve felt better. And frankly, I’ve looked better, too. Were you there when Valdore’s people interrogated me?”
She nodded. “I was present during your…debriefing.”
“So that’s what they’re calling it these days.” He pointed at his skull. “I thought it didn’t count as a debriefing if it left a mark.”
“Semantics.”
“Pretty damned painful semantics,” he said. “So, what did I tell ’em?”
“Surprisingly little.”
Trip hoped he could take her at her word. Nevertheless, he felt an enormous sense of relief, which he did his best to conceal.
“If that surprises you, T’Luadh,” he said, “then you must have assumed that I know a little bit more than I’ve been letting on.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’d almost have to.”
Trip wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “That was uncalled for. Brutal interrogations are one thing, but gratuitous insults? Seems beneath you.”
Ignoring his comment, she continued. “Throughout your…questioning, you kept refusing to perform the work required to make the Ejhoi Ormiin ships operational. Why?”
He shrugged, and his temples throbbed painfully in response. With a wince, he said, “Because I’m not the right man for the job.”
“Seikkea kllhe,” T’Luadh said, employing a bit of scatological Romulan vernacular. “You’re the best man for the task—in ways that Valdore probably doesn’t even expect.”
Trip frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Sit down,” she said.
He took a seat on the edge of the cot as she withdrew a small, round metal device from a pocket inside her uniform jacket.
He recognized it immediately. “That’s a mind probe! I thought you said you weren’t here to interrogate me!” He tried to stand, but she grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back down.
Before he could do anything about it, she had the mind probe pressed against his right temple. Her right hand supported the left side of his skull, her fingers splayed in a spiderlike fashion.
“I know that you aren’t precisely who you seem to be,” she said.
Her voice made a strange transition, as though her words were now passing through some medium other than the air on their way to his ears and brain.
I know who you really are.
Recalling the many “white room” encounters he had shared with T’Pol, he realized that she was speaking directly inside his mind. Maybe she was using the probe as a way to conceal their conversation from any listening devices Valdore’s crew had hidden in the cell.
I know that the Romulan warp scientist named Cunaehr is a fictitious identity, she continued. He existed once, but years ago became a casualty of Doctor Cunaehr’s pursuit of the avaihh lli vastam program. Your alternate persona of Sodok of Vulcan evidently has a similar history.
Trip was impressed in spite of himself. How do you know this?
I am a colonel in the Tal Shiar, Mister Cunaehr. It is my business to know such things. Just as it is my business to know that you are really neither Romulan nor Vulcan—and that your real name is Tucker.
Trip felt as though he’d just been gut-punched, hard. The jig, as it were, was finally up. Had he somehow given himself away? Or had she come into possession of recordings of the brief audio exchanges he and Malcolm Reed had shared with Valdore before the Romulan War began, on that remote-piloted drone vessel that had nearly set Andoria and Tellar at each other’s throats?
It didn’t matter, he decided. His cover was blown, and knowing exactly how the cat had got out of the bag couldn’t do him any good now.
If you knew my real name, he thought to her, then you didn’t need to ask me why I can’t fix those ships for Valdore. He’d just use ’em to slaughter my people.
I know, Mister Tucker. Which is why I want you to tell Valdore that I have persuaded you to get started working on the problem immediately. I want you to tell him that you will give it your most diligent effort, even if it takes the rest of the war to make those vessels operational.
He reached up to his right temple and felt for the smooth edges of the mind probe. Ignoring the pain of tearing skin, he dug his fingernails under it and ripped the thing loose.
“Why would I agree to do that, T’Luadh?” he said aloud. He threw the probe hard, and it smashed against one of the walls in an impressive shower of broken circuitry.
Inexplicably, T’Luadh’s voice continued speaking in his mind, despite the disruption to the probe.
Because he will kill you if you continue to refuse, she said. And because appearing to acquiesce to the admiral’s demands may be the only way to buy enough time to enable both our worlds to survive what is to come.
TWENTY-TWO
Day Forty-Three, Romulan Month of Khuti, 1184 YD’E
Saturday, May 1, 2160
Bird-of-Prey Terrh’Dhael
Outside the Draylax system
COMMANDER T’MET looked anxiously at the command deck’s wide forward viewer, which displayed an indistinct blue-green crescent that seemed to be no bigger than the palm of her hand.
“Such a waste,” she muttered, not bothering to conceal her feelings about today’s mission from her executive officer, Subcommander Genorex.
Genorex shrugged but otherwise maintained his customary impassive mien. “Admiral Valdore has conveyed Praetor Karzan’s warnings to the Dray’laxu,” he said
. “Repeatedly. We are therefore without any option gentler than the one we must employ presently.”
T’Met nodded. “Of course we are. I am merely surprised that the Dray’laxu failed to choose the wiser part of valor over sheer obstinacy.”
“They are renowned for being slow to make substantive decisions,” said Genorex, “as well as for living up to the smallest letter of their agreements, regardless of the consequences.”
“That is truly regrettable,” T’Met said. “It is as though they have no memory of the damage that Commander Chulak inflicted upon Galorn’don Cor. Or what became of the Cor’i’danu homeworld prior to that.”
Genorex shrugged again. “We all must live with the choices we make. Or die with them.”
“But to throw away so many lives, Genorex.” She shook her head in both sadness and disgust. “How do their leaders live with themselves?”
“I surmise that many of them will not have such worries for much longer, Commander. They have, after all, opted for suicide.”
“But suicide is a waste unless the deed can be made to serve a higher purpose, Subcommander.”
A flashing light on a nearby operations console caught T’Met’s attention, as well as that of Genorex, who moved closer to the display in order to study it.
“Centurion Khazara reports that his scout ship is ready for launch,” Genorex said, his voice uninflected by irony—as though any conversation undertaken moments before Khazara’s last flight wasn’t automatically freighted with irony.
There had been a time when Khazara had been one of Admiral Valdore’s most favored officers, as well as one of T’Met’s lovers. There were many, T’Met herself included, who had thought him destined to become Valdore’s replacement.
But the Battle of Vor’ka’do had radically changed his fortunes. Khazara had held the rank of captain prior to that engagement, during which he had managed to disable two hevam warships, despite the severely damaged condition of his own vessel.
But he had failed to capture either of those ships, and a military tribunal subsequently decided that victory should have been well within his grasp.
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War Page 20
