“Please tell me everything you’re sensing, Shran,” T’Pol said.
“Nothing so far,” Shran said. “Perhaps you need to increase the gain.” T’Pol sincerely hoped she wouldn’t have to run much more power through the apparatus than it was already accepting.
“Do you understand,” Phlox said, addressing Shran, “that your nervous system will be at progressively greater risk as the power levels increase?”
“Of course, Doctor,” Shran said, and sounded irritated that Phlox would even ask that question. “But I want Commander T’Pol to use as much power as it takes to find Jhamel.”
Though T’Pol wasn’t prepared to go quite that far, she inputted the command to bring the power levels up higher still. She looked up from the indicators and saw that Theras’s chalk-white face was a study in anxiety, while Shran simply seemed to be growing increasingly impatient. Phlox stood by, observing the proceedings in silence, reminding T’Pol of a vigilant ferravat bird of the Vulcan deserts.
“I’ve increased the power by ten percent,” T’Pol said.
The whine of the telepresence unit ascended a halfstep in pitch, and T’Pol thought she could smell something burning. A lengthy beat elapsed, after which Shran said, “Still noth—”
“Shran?” T’Pol said, moving closer to the Andorian. A combination of trepidation and anticipation swirled behind her brow, though a lifetime of Vulcan training kept it safely invisible.
Phlox had begun running a small medical scanner through the air above Shran’s head. “I’m reading some synaptic instability, Commander. It’s intensifying.”
“Understood, Doctor,” T’Pol said.
“I’m sensing… something,” Shran whispered.
“Jhamel?” T’Pol prompted.
Shran appeared to try to nod his head, but the helmet and the cables attached to it restricted his movements. “Yes,” he said finally.
“Can you tell where Jhamel is?” T’Pol said.
“A ship. Perhaps a cargo hold. So much… fear. Despair….”
“Can you tell us the ship’s location?”
“No. Light-years away from here, at least. No.” Tears of frustration and pain were beginning to roll down Shran’s azure cheeks.
“His synaptic connections are in extreme danger, Commander,” Phlox said tersely as he continued to scan the Andorian. “He can’t sustain much more of this.”
“Acknowledged, Doctor.” T’Pol realized that Shran’s intense emotions were becoming increasingly difficult for him to rein in, which wasn’t a surprising phenomenon in such a violently passionate race as the Andorians. Keep the questions specific and to the point, she reminded herself.
“Can you estimate the ship’s range from our current position?” T’Pol asked, speaking slowly and with exaggerated patience.
“Raise… raise the power levels,” Shran said, now openly weeping. His body was beginning to shake, almost convulsing. “Then I might… might be able to…” His voice trailed off, as though he was in too much pain to continue speaking.
“That could very well damage you permanently, Shran,” Phlox said.
“The loss… of Jhamel… would damage me more, Doctor. Do it, Commander!”
“Very well.” T’Pol leaned across the console and deftly entered another command.
“Commander, I must advise against this,” Phlox said, his tone uncharacteristically prickly.
“Noted,” T’Pol said, choosing to ignore Phlox’s warning as Shran had demanded. “I have increased power levels another ten percent.”
The whine of the apparatus was rising inexorably into a frantic shriek. Alarm lights flashed on the console, and the acrid scent of ozone from the overheating power leads intensified.
“Jhamel!” Shran cried out, his shaking body tensing in the chair as though absorbing a lethal jolt of electrical current.
“Commander!” Phlox shouted, sounding utterly appalled.
T’Pol was about to cut the power back when Shran added, “I can see her!”
T’Pol’s attention was suddenly drawn to yet another alarm that had begun flashing on the console, this one warning of imminent neurological trauma, as well as the impending burnout of several key circuits in the telepresence system.
“He’s killing himself, Commander,” Theras said, his voice taut with fear.
“You have to stop this now, Commander!” Phlox said.
“Tell us Jhamel’s range and direction, Shran,” T’Pol said, working hard to keep her own rising anxiety levels out of her voice.
“Almost have it,” Shran said, his voice weak and strained. “I can… feel it!”
“Shran, I’m going to have to cut power soon.” Although recovering the Aenar captives was a vitally important military objective, T’Pol knew she couldn’t allow Shran to die, or be made a vegetable, in pursuit of it.
“No! Let me—”
Shran’s plea was interrupted by a sudden rush of sparks and flame, erupting simultaneously from both the console and the cables that trailed from Shran’s scalp. The Andorian screamed as T’Pol slammed the abort button with the bottom of her fist, abruptly engaging the breakers that cut the telepresence unit off from the ship’s power. The pyrotechnics instantly ceased, and Shran slumped forward in the chair, restrained from tumbling onto the sickbay deck only by the helmet and its attached cables. His eyes were rolled up into his head, displaying only a disconcerting blue against the more ashen hue his usually cerulean skin had begun to take on.
T’Pol and Phlox quickly unsnapped the helmet’s straps, pulled Shran free of the apparatus, and carefully carried him onto one of Phlox’s diagnostic beds, with some assistance from a very jittery Theras.
“He’s alive,” Theras said from behind T’Pol, his voice sounding very small and fearful. A moment later, the readouts above the bed confirmed Theras’s blind observation while Phlox busied himself injecting various neurological agents into Shran’s neck.
T’Pol was surprised a moment later when Shran’s eyes fluttered open and focused upon her. Amazingly, he now seemed none the worse for wear, other than some prominent singe marks on his clothing and a few white hairs that were curled and scorched.
As Phlox continued working over him, Shran began speaking to T’Pol in a weak voice. “You… shut down the telepresence unit, Commander. Why?”
“She was attempting to save your life,” Phlox said acidly, running a scanner over Shran’s chest. The doctor paused long enough to turn and cast a critical eye in T’Pol’s direction. “Though not quite as quickly as I would have liked.”
“I nearly had Jhamel’s location,” Shran snarled before T’Pol could respond to Phlox’s barb.
“Perhaps we can make another attempt soon,” T’Pol said, addressing Shran. “Once Doctor Phlox confirms that you are medically fit to do so, of course.” She gestured toward the various seared electronic components that now lay strewn about the sickbay deck. “And once Lieutenant Burch and I effect whatever repairs the telepresence unit now requires.” If that’s even possible now, she thought, her nostrils recoiling from the pungent ozone smell that now filled the room.
Shran simply glowered at her in hostile silence, and she met his stare with a wall of Vulcan impassivity. His passions may get him killed, she thought. As well as Jhamel.
Phlox intervened a moment later, ending the nonverbal showdown by stepping between T’Pol and the bed on which Shran lay. “If you don’t mind, Commander, I’d like my patient to have an opportunity to rest for a while.”
T’Pol nodded, picking up immediately on the Denobulan’s none-too-subtle hint, and gestured toward the wreckage of the telepresence apparatus. “Very well, Doctor. I will send Lieutenant Burch down shortly to collect our equipment.”
Phlox smiled solicitously, as though trying to make amends for his earlier display of brusqueness, however justified it might have been. “Thank you, T’Pol. I would very much appreciate that.”
With that, T’Pol turned and exited the sickbay. A moment after
entering the corridor, she realized that she wasn’t alone when a shaky voice spoke from directly behind her.
“Why do you suppose the device failed?”
She turned to face Theras, somewhat surprised that the faint-hearted Aenar had the presence of mind to ask such a probing question. “It is difficult to say,” she said. “There could be some unforeseeable difficulty on Jhamel’s end of the mind-link. Or perhaps the problem is that Shran possesses no innate telepathic abilities of his own, in spite of the psionic link that Jhamel established with him.”
Perhaps, she thought, we could adjust the device so that it can be used in tandem by both Shran and Theras—
“T’Pol.” It was another familiar voice. She turned again and saw a somber Captain Archer standing behind her, evidently having just exited a nearby turbolift.
“Captain.”
“I was on my way to sickbay to check on your telepresence experiment,” he said.
She shook her head. “The results of the first attempt left much to be desired. However, I am confident that we will be able to try again soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow. Once Phlox declares Shran medically fit, and after our equipment undergoes some repairs.”
Archer nodded sadly. “I see. Well, I suppose that means you can afford to put it aside for a while.”
T’Pol found that she was having difficulty suppressing a scowl. “I would prefer not to do that, Captain. It is vitally important that we prevent the Romulans from gaining access to any more Aenar pilots.”
“Of course it is, T’Pol. I’m only asking you to set it aside an hour so.” The captain paused momentarily before continuing in a quiet, strained voice. “It’s almost time for Commander Tucker’s memorial service.”
Twenty-Four
Thursday, February 20, 2155
Romulan Space
“ITS LIKE I ALWAYS SAY, COMMANDER,” Phuong said, “nothing says ‘my ship was completely destroyed’ better than a cargo module blown to tiny pieces across an asteroid field.”
Trip watched the cloud of metallic debris slowly expand as its millions of constituent parts- all of which had been essentially a single piece bolted to the Branson’s belly only minutes earlier- drifted and tumbled through space, occasionally colliding anew with each other and the multitudes of irregularly shaped rocky bodies that called this region of space home.
“Let’s just hope that those Romulan bird-of-prey captains are in the mood to buy what you’re selling,” Trip said, his throat dry with apprehension. Otherwise, pretty soon we won’t need a ship to fly through space.
“Don’t worry,” Phuong said in a voice that brimmed with so much confidence that Trip wondered if his associate wasn’t a better actor than a tactician. “This is the same tactic we used to cover the escape of your ‘assas-sins’ from Enterprise.”
Trip could only shake his head at that, since he preferred to believe that the main reason that the maneuver had worked when employed against Enterprise’s crew was the fact that Captain Archer and Malcolm Reed were both in on Section 31’s plot to fake his death in the first place.
An hour passed with agonizing sluggishness while the Branson continued to cling to the deep shadows of one of the larger bodies in the system’s extensive asteroid field. While Phuong effected repairs to the ship’s various damaged systems- he’d insisted that he knew the ship better than anyone, including its many one-off modifications, and therefore declined Trip’s offer of assistance- Trip continuously checked the passive scanning devices, only to find no evidence that any Romulans were still present. But he knew that there was no guarantee that a bird-of-prey wasn’t simply hanging out there somewhere, using yet another asteroid for cover as it patiently waited for its prey to reappear….
It was Phuong’s patience that wore out first. “Well, we can’t stay here forever, Commander,” he said, breaking the near total silence that had engulfed the cramped cockpit for more than an hour. “Let’s move out.”
Trip nodded, and the two men began silently entering commands into their respective sections of the conn and navigational consoles, quickly powering up the little Rutan-class ship and getting her back under way through the asteroid field and into the emptier spaces that lay beyond its orbit.
Trip was tempted to use the Branson’s active sensors to determine whether or not the Romulan patrol vessel was still lingering nearby, but decided against it. Such a move might risk giving away their position, even if the other vessel had already moved on but was still near enough to detect the Branson’s presence.
“See any sign of sensor contact?” Phuong asked.
Trip studied his console readouts yet again and shook his head. “Nobody seems to be scanning us.”
“Then it’s Rator II or bust,” Phuong said, laying a new heading into the navigational computer with quick, practiced motions.
It occurred to Trip that Phuong was once again taking him to a destination that he knew next to nothing about. I hope I don’t start getting used to this, he thought as the little ship shuddered and lurched into warp.
Fortunately, Rator II wasn’t far away from where the Branson had been waylaid by the Romulan patrol; it took only the better part of a day to reach at the Branson’s maximum speed of warp 4.5.
On the other hand, the fact that this obscure Romulan colony world was so easy to get to filled Trip with worry that the very patrols they thought they’d eluded were quietly following, just waiting to pounce on them as well as on Phuong’s local Ejhoi Ormiin contacts, whom he assumed would be harboring the much sought-after Doctor Ehrehin.
Trip watched the pleasantly blue world as it grew in the forward viewports until the warm radiance of its cloud-dappled sunlit side dominated his view. The planet seemed extraordinarily Earth-like, although its ocean-dominated surface was punctuated by long chains of volcanic islands rather than large continental masses. The view became distorted for several minutes as Phuong guided his vessel into the atmosphere on a landing trajectory, atmospheric friction superheating the air around the craft until it ionized and gave off an almost blinding orange glow. Then, almost like a light turning off, the inferno dissipated, replaced by a view of a steadily approaching ocean, replete with a chain of black, mountainous, and vegetation-rich islands.
Following an apparently preprogrammed approach path, Phuong set the Branson down on a relatively flat stretch of obsidian-like rock, only a few hundred meters from what appeared to be a concrete Quonset hut-type structure that seemed almost to have been extruded directly from the glassy stone that surrounded it.
“The local Ejhoi Ormiin union hall, I presume?” Trip asked wryly, gesturing through the front viewport toward the nearby structure.
“So say our best intelligence files,” Phuong said, nodding.
Trip powered down the console in front of him and rose from his copilot’s chair. “Let’s hope your best turns out to be good enough.” Instinctively, Trip moved aft toward the weapons locker Phuong had showed him shortly after he’d first come aboard and opened it.
“We won’t be needing those,” Phuong said.
Trip turned toward the other man and scowled. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“No, Commander, I mean it. We’re talking about the Ejhoi Ormiin here. They may be trustworthy, but they’re also extremely careful and more than a little justifiably paranoid. The best we can hope for is that they’ll politely relieve us of any weapons we’re carrying while we’re here. The worst is that you’ll panic them and get us both shot.”
Trip had to concede that Phuong had a point. He clearly had a lot to learn about the world of espionage, and suspected that Phuong’s diplomatic background had served him well. After another moment’s hesitation, he closed the locker.
Without any further conversation, the two men each ran a quick systems check on the special travel garments they’d picked up on Adigeon Prime. Once they were satisfied that everything was as it should be, they exited the Branson through the port hatch and descended to the dark, glassy-looki
ng surface, which turned out not to be anywhere near as slick and slippery as it had appeared from the air. Trip supposed this surface must have been laid down countless millennia ago, and had since been subject to various weathering processes that had roughened it up over the eons. They began crossing the ancient lava field, which Trip thought smelled vaguely like gunpowder, and moved steadily toward the Quonset hut; Trip tried to take the lava’s apparent great age as a hopeful sign that they probably wouldn’t have to contend with a volcanic eruption during their stay here, which he sincerely hoped would be brief. I like a tropical island paradise as much as the next guy, he thought. But I can do without the constant worry about Romulan patrols popping up. Or whether or not we can really trust these Ejhoi Ormiin characters.
When they were still perhaps fifty or so paces away from the hut, a door slid open in the structure’s side, and a trio of dour-looking, paramilitary-clad figures stepped out into the white afternoon sun.
Romulans, Trip guessed, judging by their distinctly Vulcanoid appearance. They were all males, and he could see at once that at least two of them were armed with heavy pistols of some sort. Whether these weapons turned out to fire directed energy beams or ballistic metal pellets, he had no choice other than to assume that they were lethal. Following Phuong’s lead, Trip stopped in his tracks and raised his arms high over his head, keeping his hands open to demonstrate that he posed no threat.
As one of the trio of Romulans- the one that wasn’t carrying any visible weaponry- stepped ahead of the other two, Trip thought, Let’s hope we get our money’s worth out of these Adigeon translation devices.
“Jolan’tru, Ch’uihv of Saith,” Phuong said. “I am Terha of Talvath, from the Devoras cell.” Thanks to their implanted translators, both Phuong and Trip could converse fluently in the language they now knew was called Rihannsu.
When Trip got a close look at the face of the man whom Phuong had addressed as Ch’uihv, he experienced a sharp, undeniable sensation of deja vu. All at once he was convinced that he had seen this man before, although the precise context of that previous encounter eluded him.
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