Now alone, Sarek considered T’Pol silently, with an air of what, in a human, she would have termed exhilaration. “I must admit, I have often imagined meeting and speaking with the infamous T’Pol, whose actions sparked so much upheaval and debate on Vulcan. It is quite fascinating now to find those imaginings made a reality.”
T’Pol fought to keep any hint of emotion from her voice as she said, “And yet, you forfeited all opportunity to do so yesterday evening.”
He shook his head. “I had no interest in being one of the throng of curious admirers. It must have been quite agreeable to have been so enthusiastically received.”
“Though not by any of my own people.”
The man raised a surprised eyebrow at T’Pol’s unveiled animosity. “You may have forgotten, in your long absence, how politics is waged on Vulcan. As one who helped bring down V’Las and the High Command, you know how much is kept hidden in such matters.”
“Indeed, I am familiar with V’Las’s methods,” T’Pol said. “Just as I am familiar with the reforms T’Pau put in place once the extent of his mendacity and lies was discovered.”
“Yet secrets do remain secret, usually for good cause.”
“And lies?” T’Pol asked. “What good cause do you have for those?”
There was only the slightest tightening of muscles at the corners of the man’s eyes. “What lies do you believe I have told?”
“Presenting yourself as Councillor Sarek, for one.”
His reaction was restrained, but enough to tell T’Pol that her suspicion was correct. Vulcans were very low level telepaths, and T’Pol’s own talents were never more than average. But she had received a specific mental impression of Sarek during their initial meeting. The sense she got of the man before her now, despite the physical resemblance, was different. At first she conjectured the difference was in the new openness he was now willing to show her, but she then realized that this mind was in fact more closed off than the councillor’s had been.
The faux Vulcan shrugged as a smile slowly pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Ah, well. I should have preferred the fiction of a cordial encounter between fellow countrymen had persisted a bit longer, but no matter. Come,” he said, reaching for T’Pol’s elbow, “let’s find someplace more comfortable to continue our conversation.”
T’Pol tried to pull away and avoid the imposter’s grasp, but the effort was futile. The heaviness of his grip sent a bolt of pain up her arm, and she was forced to accompany him through the maze of machinery. Through the pain and near irrepressible anger roiling up inside her, she asked, “Who are you?”
“My name is hardly of any importance” was the response. “Just know that, for the time being, you are an honored guest of the Romulan Star Empire.”
Captain Pike’s morning coffee went cold in the cup before him as he became more and more engrossed in his reading. He didn’t do much recreational reading, but given the prime minister’s personal recommendation, Pike decided to pick up John Gill’s biography of Nathan Samuels. He was up to the section on Samuels’s college years, following the death of his father, when he first joined Terra Prime, and then, only after being fully drawn into the group, began to realize the full extent of what they represented. It was a fascinating look at the mindset of the early twenty-second century, as Earth finally emerged from the Post-Atomic Horror with the help of the Vulcans, and then started to lash back at their benefactors.
Those who fail to remember history…
The captain was interrupted by an electronic whistle over the comm, followed by the voice of Lieutenant Ed Leslie: “Bridge to Captain Pike.”
He put his slate down and tapped his comm panel. “Pike here.”
“Captain, it seems T’Pol has gone missing.”
“What?!”
“She wasn’t in her cabin when Ambassador Hedford went to wake her this morning. I had security run a phase-one search of the ship, and they came up empty.”
“What about internal sensors?” the captain asked. “She’s the only Vulcan aboard; you should—”
“Already done so, sir,” Leslie interrupted. “Results were still negative.”
Pike’s mind raced. How could a one-hundred-plus-year-old Vulcan woman simply disappear? “Could she have gone down to the planet already?”
“All shuttles are accounted for, and there’s no record of any transporter activity.”
Pike quickly drained his coffee and set it with the rest of his breakfast dishes for Yeoman Rhoodie to retrieve later. “Where are Hedford and Tarses?”
“Here on the bridge, sir.”
“Good. I’m on my way,” he said. “Get Number One and Scotty up there as well. Pike out.”
The captain rushed out of his cabin and to the nearby turbolift. As his knuckles turned white from his death grip on the control wand, one question caromed around in his mind.
“Captain, how could something like this be allowed to happen?” Nancy Hedford’s shrill voice cut across the bridge the moment the turbolift doors opened. Tarses, the more seasoned of the two diplomats, managed to keep the expression of his anger toward Pike nonverbal.
“I damned well intend to find out,” Pike answered them both through his clenched jaw. He headed not for the command chair but for the aft port engineering station. He called up the most recent ship status report, and then the results of the Vulcan lifesigns scan. “When was the last time anyone saw her?” he asked as he studied the readouts.
“Last night, after the reception,” Hedford said. “We went straight from the shuttle bay to our own cabins.”
“But she could have left her cabin sometime in the night?”
“We don’t lock her in, if that’s what you’re getting at, Captain.”
“It wasn’t, but thanks for the reassurance.” Pike studied the station screen before him and confirmed what Leslie had reported: there was no sign of a Vulcan biosignature anywhere on the ship. It was possible that she could be in one of the more heavily shielded sections of the engineering deck, where her life signs would be masked, though he couldn’t conceive of any reason she would be there. All the same…“Leslie,” Pike called. “I want a second search of engineering, concentrating on sections…18-Y through 23-D. Tell them search subject may be incapacitated or…” Pike hesitated, then continued, “…otherwise unable to make herself found.”
Pike heard Hedford gasp softly behind him. “Captain, you don’t think…?”
“I don’t think anything just yet,” the captain replied, “but I need to consider all possibilities.”
The turbolift doors slid open again, this time delivering Kirk and Scott to the bridge. “Gentlemen,” Pike said, standing up from the bridge station, “we have a situation. Lady T’Pol is missing, and may no longer be aboard Enterprise.”
“Captain—” Number One said.
Pike continued talking right over him. “Scotty, I need you to tell me if some other ship used their transporter to abduct her off this ship.”
“Dear heaven,” the engineering chief said. “Do we know when this would’ve happened?”
“Between 2330 last night and—”
“She wasn’t abducted.”
Pike stopped in mid-thought and turned to Kirk. “Number One?”
“She’s down on Babel,” Kirk continued. “I escorted her myself.”
“You did what?” Hedford shouted. “On whose authority?”
“My own,” Kirk answered.
“Number One, you had better have a damned good explanation why—not to mention how—you smuggled our guest of honor off the ship in the middle of the night without letting anyone know about it.”
“The Vulcan Councillor, Sarek, asked that T’Pol meet with him privately.”
“Sarek approached you?” Hedford frowned. “I find that difficult to believe.”
“Do you believe Commander Kirk is lying, Ambassador?” Pike asked pointedly. He too was more than surprised that Kirk and Sarek had spoken last night, let alone that
he would have agreed to assist in arranging a meeting between the two Vulcans. If not for the lingering adrenaline from the perceived crisis situation still pumping through his system, Pike would have been quite proud of his first officer’s ability to cooperate with the aliens he’d borne so much animosity toward.
“Of course not,” Hedford said, in a tone that suggested she wouldn’t at all put such a thing past Kirk. “But, as the leader of this mission, any such requests should have come through me or Ambassador Tarses. Councillor Sarek knows this.”
“Councillor Sarek had his reasons for circumventing protocol,” Kirk said.
“I’m sure he did,” Tarses muttered.
Hedford pulled her glare from Kirk and fixed it on the communications officer. “Contact Councillor Sarek’s suite on Babel. I want to hear this directly from him.”
The lieutenant looked from Hedford to Pike, who was surprised to see it was the same newly transferred, dark-skinned woman who’d been there over twelve hours earlier. He gave her a nod, and she turned back to her board to fulfill Hedford’s request. Moments later, she announced, “I have the councillor’s aide, Subcommander T’Pring.”
Hedford nodded curtly and turned expectantly toward the main viewscreen. Pike gave the lieutenant another gesture, then also turned to face the image of the young Vulcan woman. “Captain. Ambassadors. Why do you wish to speak with the councillor only hours before the scheduled start of the formal session?”
“Actually, we were wondering why the councillor needed to speak alone with T’Pol before the formal session,” Pike said.
T’Pring’s left eyebrow lifted. “I cannot answer that question, as Councillor Sarek has no need to speak with T’Pol.”
Pike gave Kirk a sideways glance before again addressing T’Pring. “Where is T’Pol right now?”
“I would assume she is aboard your ship, Captain. Is that not the case?”
“No,” Kirk blurted. “She’s with Sarek.”
T’Pring’s eyes shifted to Kirk. “That is a mistaken assertion.”
“No, it’s not!” Kirk shot back. “I beamed down with her three hours ago. I left her with Sarek.”
“You beamed down?” There was a subtle change in the Vulcan woman’s voice. “How did you do that without triggering the security alarms?”
Pike turned to his first officer, also curious about that point. The commander didn’t bat an eye as he responded, “Sarek gave me the bypass codes.”
“That’s quite impossible,” a male voice responded, and Councillor Sarek, dressed in formal Vulcan diplomat’s robes, moved into position beside T’Pring on the viewscreen. “No members of the diplomatic parties have Babel Security’s access codes.”
Kirk stared speechless for a second, and then muttered, “You double-crossing—”
Before he could finish his thought, Ambassador Tarses stepped forward. “Councillor, is T’Pol on Babel with you?”
“She is not,” Sarek said. “Nor did I request any special audience with her.”
“Captain Pike,” T’Pring interjected, “if your first officer claims to have breached Babel’s security, it must be reported immediately.”
“I haven’t breached anything!” Kirk exploded. “I was given the access codes by that man.”
“Indeed?” Sarek said, his left eyebrow twitching upward. Then he turned to T’Pring and said, “When you make your report to Babel’s security division, you should also report the suspected presence of an imposter.”
“Imposter?” Hedford asked.
“Certainly,” Sarek answered. “It would not be logical for Commander Kirk to continue to claim I provided him with security codes unless he was wholly convinced it was I who did so. And as I did not, it is most likely that another individual assumed my identity and was able to convince him thus.”
“No,” Kirk whispered, not in denial, but in unwillingness to believe he had been so duped.
T’Pring gave Kirk a piercing glare. “Perhaps we all look alike to you?” she suggested.
Pike put both hands up in the air to stop things from going any further. “Councillor, Subcommander, I apologize for this…situation. We will contact Babel Security immediately, and hopefully have all of this resolved quickly.”
“That would be the most preferable outcome,” Sarek said, then nodded just before the transmission terminated on his end, leaving the view of the planetoid below them on-screen.
Pike stayed facing the screen, his back to the rest of the bridge as he took a long, deep breath, trying to maintain a hold on his temper. Behind him, Hedford and Tarses resumed their outraged harangues, berating Pike, Kirk, and the entire United Earth military for its incompetence. Finally, he spun around, and in a tone that silenced the rest of the bridge, said, “Mister Leslie, contact Babel Security Division. Inform them of our missing passenger, and of the suspected breach in their security. Mister Scott, get to the transporter room. Confirm whether the transporter was or wasn’t used last night, and if it was, why that’s not reflected in the ship’s logs. Kirk—” he then said, fixing the first officer with a vicious glare, “with me.”
Pike entered the turbolift, with Kirk a couple of hesitant steps behind him. “This is not the way I like to start my mornings, Number One,” the captain said once the doors had slid closed. Kirk wisely kept silent as the car descended, and remained so as they reached deck three and moved to the privacy of Kirk’s own cabin. “All right then,” Pike said once they were inside and alone, “from the beginning: what is this story about Sarek and T’Pol?”
And Kirk told it all. The Vulcan aide and the secret assignation in the pantry. The Vulcan separatist movement and the threat of war with the Klingons. The late-night visit to T’Pol’s quarters and Sarek’s claim of friendship with him. “I swear on my eyes, sir, it was the same man we just talked to on the screen,” Kirk insisted. “If it was an imposter, well, he was a better actor than Anton Karidian.”
Pike paced the room slowly, avoiding having to look at the other man. “If I understand you correctly, Number One, your main reason for going along with any of this was your concern about war with the Klingons if these talks with the Coalition went forward.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pike then turned to face him directly. “And yet, you whispered not a word of this to me, to Hedford or Tarses. You just took it upon yourself to take T’Pol off this ship, handing her over to some stranger lurking in shadows…”
“Sir, I thought he—”
Pike slammed his palm on top of Kirk’s desk. “It doesn’t matter who you thought he was! Just because he called you ‘friend’ doesn’t make him any less an unknown quantity! If T’Pol had accepted those override codes herself and snuck down to meet whoever, that would have been one thing. But we were charged with her safety. You were obligated to use an overabundance of caution. But because she’s—” Pike cut himself off then, before the conversation veered in a direction he didn’t really want it to go.
But Kirk knew where he had been going, and engaged all thrusters. “Because she’s a Vulcan, sir?”
Pike considered his first officer, then nodded. “I have to believe that affected your judgment, yes.” Pike recalled Phil Boyce’s chiding speech to him, and quickly willed the old doctor’s face away.
Kirk dropped his head and seemed to lose himself in thought. Pointedly, he did not make any denial. Pike waited, letting the man fully examine his conscience, before saying, “As of right now, you’re relieved of duty, and confined to quarters until further notice.”
Kirk’s head snapped back up again. “Sir!”
“Dammit, Jim, do you understand the seriousness of what’s happening?” Pike snapped back. “At best, we can expect that Babel Security will demand your hide for compromising security during the biggest summit they’ve ever hosted. And if, God forbid, we find out your Sarek impersonator wanted to do more with T’Pol than just talk to her…” He let the rest of that supposition hang in the air over Kirk’s head, before finally turning
and leaving the cabin.
In the corridor, Pike paused to run a hand over his face, just as the comm whistled for attention again. “Bridge to captain.”
With no small degree of dread, Pike moved to the nearest wall-mounted communicator. “Go ahead.”
“Sir, Babel Security is shuttling a team up, requesting permission to come aboard and begin their investigation.”
Pike’s eyes clamped shut. “Yes, of course, permission granted. We will do everything we can to assist in this matter. Pike out.”
The captain hit the disconnect switch on the panel entirely too hard before starting back for the bridge, wondering if there was any way he’d be able to salvage anything from this fiasco.
8
Subcommander T’Pring could not help but reflect that, had Councillor Sarek deigned to attend last night’s reception, despite having deemed it “illogical,” the current situation would not have come to pass. While T’Pring could understand the view that the informal event was frivolous and extraneous, it did at the very least offer the opportunity to learn more about the humans. Even if Sarek had wanted to avoid T’Pol (which he strongly denied, in a manner that, were he not her mentor and a most honored elder, would have been unconvincing), their presence would have averted the hoax being carried out against Commander Kirk.
“And what makes you so certain this Kirk is a victim rather than a perpetrator?” Colonel Tharlas, the Andorian officer in command of Babel Security for this summit, asked as they together examined the Enterprise transporter logs. The young human transporter operator had provided them with the data card Kirk claimed to have received from Sarek, which indeed contained Babel’s security codes, as well as a subroutine that prevented the recording of the transport to the main computer. “This could have all been engineered by him, to create new mistrust between Earth and Vulcan.”
“Perhaps,” T’Pring admitted, “though he would have needed a confederate to obtain these codes for him; he’s had no direct access to such information since the Enterprise’s arrival.”
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