“Is it from Stameris?”
“No, it came from . . . from Federation space. But it’s not Starfleet. It looks more like . . .” He trailed off in belated recognition. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?”
Before he could answer, he felt the all-over tingle of a transporter beam. He saw Devna’s lithe form start to shimmer before the beam engulfed them both.
Materializing to find himself and Devna held at gunpoint by two black-suited humans should have been intimidating. Instead, Tucker felt a rush of satisfaction at the sight. Their garb was Section 31 attire, and he recognized the compact, short-haired woman as a high-ranked operative who went by the name Ramirez. The man, an unfamiliar dark-skinned individual with a shaved head, gestured with his phase pistol, prompting the prisoners to descend from the transporter pad. Tucker obliged gladly, looking forward to the meeting about to occur.
As expected, the main room of the scout ship was occupied by several more blacksuits, a few of whom he had encountered over the years and had known or suspected to be core members of the Section 31 conspiracy. At the head of the group was Matthew Harris himself, gazing sternly at Tucker. The erstwhile engineer chuckled. “Well, well, well. Looks like you’re all on the run. That must smart. I only wish I could take the credit.”
Harris smirked. “Oh, I’m sure you had a hand in it. I appreciate your not wasting our time by pretending to be loyal. Some of the information that Admiral Archer and the JAG office now have in their possession could only have come from you. And from my old friend Malcolm Reed, I take it?”
“Do all the fishing you want, Harris—it isn’t gonna do you any good now. You may have given Starfleet the slip, but everyone’s hunting for you. They have the Section’s protocols, its records, its resources. Any escape routes or hideaways you might have had prepared are burned now. That’s something I’ll happily take credit for my part in.”
Turning his gaze to Devna, Harris asked, “And you, young lady? Are you as determined to bring down your own Syndicate? Or is the fact that our agency is in disarray while yours is still intact exactly what you wanted?”
“What I want,” Devna replied, “is a question that very few people have ever allowed me to consider.” She glanced at Tucker. “None so much as this man. All he has wanted is to be free. He thought to offer that freedom to me as well. I do not even know if I want it, but I am thankful to him for wishing me to have it. I wish the same for him in return.”
She began to sidle forward as she spoke, but Ramirez stepped in her path and pointed her pistol’s emitter at Devna’s heart. “No pheromonal tricks, Orion,” she advised. “You’re expendable.”
“No, she’s not,” Tucker insisted, interposing himself. “That’s the whole problem with all of you—thinking you have the right to decide who’s expendable.”
Harris shook his silvery head. “I thought we saw things the same way, Mister Tucker. We were trying to protect the Federation.”
“You were trying to protect your own self-interest. To look for excuses to break the law and do the unconscionable, so you could justify the existence of a conspiracy whose only purpose was to do those things. Give people power like that, and they’ll never be willing to give it up. It has to be taken from them.” He shook his head. “You all just can’t bear to face the fact that you’ve lost your power. If you were really patriots, you wouldn’t have run away. You wouldn’t have been ashamed to face the people and tell them what you’d done ‘on their behalf. ’ ”
“Some secrets still need to remain secret, Charles. Or were you planning on revealing yourself anytime soon?”
Tucker winced at that. But he felt Devna’s warm touch against his arm, and it strengthened his resolve. “I wouldn’t hesitate, if it were necessary to make sure your whole conspiracy was destroyed once and for all.”
“Oh, Charles.” Harris shook his head, looking disappointed. “Do you really imagine this is the end? Section Thirty-one is still in the charter. The Federation will always need the . . . flexibility to cope with the unpredictable. And that contingency has been prepared for.” He gestured at the agents around him. “You may have brought down our segment of the operation, but there’s a higher echelon that remains untouched. Who do you think recruited us in the first place?”
“Bull. I’ve seen the evidence. This operation started with you and it’ll end with you.”
“You’ve seen what you and Malcolm Reed wanted to believe. I’m happy to let the authorities believe it too, but the truth is that when I left Starfleet, I had to burn so many assets to avoid arrest that I no longer had the resources to accomplish anything like this—until I was enlisted by others of like mind and superior means. Just as all of us were, based on our demonstrated willingness to place what was right above what was legal. And there will always be more . . . volunteers . . . to take our place as the need arises.”
Tucker crossed his arms. “If this so-called higher echelon exists, I’m sure the judge advocate will be happy to hear all about it once you’re in custody.”
“Oh, it exists. I know very few specifics, but I know it’s there. And it’s more pervasive, more deeply woven into the fabric of our society, than you can begin to imagine.”
Now the ex-engineer was laughing outright. “Do you think this is some spy movie? You’re the one who kept reminding me that we needed to keep our heads down to avoid being discovered. You know as well as I do that if Section Thirty-one were as huge and all-encompassing as you’re saying, it couldn’t avoid exposure for long.”
“That’s actually quite true,” Harris riposted. “Which is why the organization stays small by periodically casting off anyone proven to be a liability.”
Tucker looked around at the weapon emitters pointing his way. “Like me?”
The older man’s expression became wistful. Taking in his colleagues with his gaze, he sighed. “Like all of us here, I’m afraid. The sad fact is, you were right about me, Charles. Despite all my smug lectures on the need to stay small and subtle, I fell prey to the very temptation you just described. I intervened too much, too often, in order to justify my role. After the Vertian affair, after Sauria, I should have made sure we laid low for a while. Several of my colleagues here recommended as much. We didn’t think we had a choice but to act when the Klingon invasion loomed, and we probably didn’t, but I’d already taken too many chances before then.” He winced. “And, yes, I went too far. To save our civilization, I knowingly set off the annihilation of another. I won’t give you the satisfaction of describing how that’s affected my ability to sleep and eat, but I will confess that it was a bad strategic move, an act of overkill that made reactions like yours and Marcus Williams’s inevitable. I’ve made too many bad decisions too close together, and that has made me the greatest liability of all.”
“Not you alone, Matt,” said the shaven-headed man. “We all shared in the decisions.”
Harris looked back at him with gratitude. “I know, Karim. It brings me no pleasure, but we all stand together.”
Tucker exchanged a look with Devna. He didn’t like the growing sense of grim resolution among the group.
Harris shifted his attention to Tucker once again. “That is the danger of a small, insular cabal. It’s necessary for what we must do, but it tends to isolate us from consequences, and that can make us reckless. Which is why it’s probably best to close down operations for a while—to trim the excess and regroup before starting over.
“That’s why the higher echelon allowed your plan to go forward in the first place, Charles—although they didn’t inform me of it until afterward,” he added with regret. “Oh, yes, naturally they knew about it from the start. Don’t flatter yourself by thinking you could’ve outsmarted them. In fact, I have to tell you, it was a fairly clumsy undertaking. Far too complicated. Too reliant on factors—and people—you couldn’t control. It was bound to go wrong. But the higher echelon calculated that it would help to trigger the events that were needed to purge our
greatest liabilities—including all of us.”
Karim moved to enter instructions into a console while Harris continued speaking. “The Federation will believe a conspiracy has been exposed and ended forever. I expect the organization will remain dormant for a generation or two, barring extreme emergencies. But sooner or later, someone will recognize the potential implied in Section Thirty-one of Article 14, and will ask the right questions of Starfleet’s database. And when the right keywords are entered, they will find the information and resources they need to start again. But for now . . . the board must be cleared. I am sorry, Charles. Ma’am,” he added to Devna.
But the Orion woman was gazing at Tucker in alarm, clutching his arm as she realized what he already had: that Karim was shutting down the safeguards on the scout’s antimatter containment, one by one.
“I wish there had been a better way,” Harris went on as Tucker clenched his teeth hard and pulled Devna against him. “But everything I’ve ever done is for the greater good of the Federation.”
Tucker closed his eyes as a blinding light engulfed him.
Spacecraft Merlin
Interstellar space
“Where are we?”
Tucker opened his eyes to find himself and Devna standing on an unusual-looking transporter platform, the machinery around them sparking and smoking. “Come on,” he said, taking the Orion’s hand and leading her off the pad. Reaching the console, he activated the ventilation system and shut down power to the unit, though it continued to smolder.
“This was my last-ditch escape route,” he explained. “Courtesy of an ally I made last year. A man who’s lived a very, very long time and managed to get his hands on some exotic forms of technology. Like a transporter powerful enough to beam us across parsecs—though it could only do it once before burning out. The beacon was implanted in my tooth, and I just triggered it.” He took in a gasping breath. “I’m lucky it didn’t go off by accident during those torture sessions.”
“We both are,” Devna said. “Thank you.”
He led her from the transporter chamber into the main room beyond. “So we’re on a ship?” the Orion asked. “Is anyone else here?”
“No—it was waiting here for my use when I was ready. I needed a way to fake my death and disappear so thoroughly even Harris’s people couldn’t find me. There’s no way any known technology could track the beam here, and the Merlin—that’s the name of the ship—has no connection to me except through my friend.” Akharin had claimed Merlin to be one of the identities he’d adopted during his thousands of years on Earth, but Tucker had suspected he was padding his résumé. “And he’s an old hand at making himself disappear.”
Devna looked around, impressed at the well-appointed lounge area they had entered. “So this was your escape. Your path to freedom.”
He studied her. “You don’t look convinced.”
“Harris spoke of a higher echelon. What if their resources are greater than you realize?”
“I think he was bluffing. One last mind game so I’d die without being sure I’d really beaten him. If there is anyone higher, why did he say the whole thing would be dormant for a generation or more? It doesn’t add up.” He shrugged. “Still, just in case, we’re probably better off playing dead for a while. Keeping away from the Federation—and from the Syndicate.”
She held his gaze intently. “Then you would have me come with you?”
“If you like. As far as anyone knows, we’re both dead. Your life as a slave is over, just like my life as a spy. It can be a fresh start for both of us.” He fidgeted. “It doesn’t have to be together. Not in the long run, certainly. But just to start out . . . well, who else do we have?”
Devna continued to contemplate him. “What of the woman you love? The one who gave you reason to hope? Do you not wish to contact her?”
A renewed wave of shame overtook him. How could he face T’Pol again? How could he be worthy of her now? “Maybe in time,” he said, hiding in equivocation. “Once I’m sure it’s safe. Once I settle on a new identity. Once I . . . figure some things out.”
Settling into an armchair, Devna pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “To leave one’s whole life behind . . . maybe never to return. To become something new. It would be hard. I fear it.”
“You can’t mean you’re nostalgic for the life you had!”
She met his eyes without embarrassment. “It’s the only life I’ve ever known. And it wasn’t all bad. I had friends. Sisters, in bondage and in blood. And Orion is a beautiful world. The spectacular mountains . . . the luminous forests . . . the soothing song of the emerald finches. I found peace there . . . when I was permitted to be alone. If I never saw it again . . . never heard the finches sing . . . I would miss it deeply.”
She lowered her head, shimmering coils of obsidian hair falling forward to hide her lovely face. Hesitantly, Tucker sat on the arm of the chair and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Sometimes we have to leave the past behind to move forward. We have a new beginning now, Devna. Neither of us knows what that holds, and that’s scary.
“But . . . having no idea what to do next . . . having no plans, no program, no path laid out for us by anyone else . . . doesn’t it feel . . . free?”
She looked up at him, and watching the wide-eyed smile slowly form on her face as his words sank in was like watching a newborn bird break free of its shell.
Epilogue
March 18, 2166
U.S.S. Endeavour
“SO THERE IS STILL no sign,” T’Pol asked with care, “of the anonymous informant?”
On the desk screen in her quarters, Admiral Archer shook his head. She could see in his eyes that he sensed her concern for Trip, but they were both still constrained to be circumspect. Until and unless Tucker emerged on his own, they would respect his wish to remain dead in the eyes of the world.
Although T’Pol’s current concern was that his death might no longer be illusory.
“The Andorian cruiser th’Rejjal confirmed that the ion trail of the fugitives’ ship terminated at the site of the warp reactor explosion they registered two days ago,” Archer told her in a grim tone. “Their analysis of the debris cloud indicates that the vessel had several living beings aboard. There’s wreckage from a smaller scout ship that must have been nearby—probably under tow. It was apparently vacant at the time of the blast, but the radiation and vacuum exposure have destroyed any DNA evidence. There’s a possible ion trail that seems to backtrack in the approximate direction of Sauria. But there’s no way to be sure.”
“I see,” T’Pol replied after a moment. “Thank you, Admiral.”
He nodded in silent understanding, though even he could only suspect what she was experiencing now. She had believed Tucker to be dead several times before, but on prior occasions, the awareness of their telepathic bond had remained on at least a subliminal level, so there had never been a complete sense of loss. Now she sensed nothing. The long-range telepathic connection that had been suppressed or broken during her ordeal at Administrator V’Las’s orders last year had never recovered. While T’Pol was aware that Trip had planned to falsify his demise once again as a way of eluding any residual Section 31 assets, that did not guarantee that he had succeeded in doing so. The evidence from th’Rejjal pointed toward the possibility that Harris had captured Tucker and killed him in the same conflagration through which Section 31’s senior echelon had inexplicably sacrificed themselves.
T’Pol schooled herself to calm. Tucker might well have good reason to maintain a low profile until he was confident he could contact her safely. It had been mere days, not even enough time to reach a Federation world or other safe port. It was premature to write off his chances of survival at this point, despite what the evidence said.
Yet the illogical, emotional side that she had always found difficult to contain offered up an unexpectedly logical point: Given her importance to him, surely making some form of contact with her would have been Trip’s firs
t priority upon leaving Sauria, or at least upon receiving the news of the Section’s exposure. If he were still alive and well, why would he not have let her know in some way?
Perhaps sensing her need for something positive to contemplate, Archer assayed a shift of topic. “Speaking of Sauria, Maltuvis may have managed to dodge the blame for nearly causing a disaster, but at least he no longer has Orion backing for his conquest plans. If he does intend to expand his empire to other worlds, it’ll be slower going without their support. And hopefully the resistance is unified enough now to bring him down before that happens.”
“Yes,” T’Pol said. “It is odd, though, that Maltuvis would so decisively terminate his alliance with the Orions. For all his rhetoric of Saurian superiority, he clearly recognizes that he needs outside assistance if he hopes to achieve his ambition of interstellar conquest within his lifetime. It is difficult to believe he has abandoned that ambition.”
“He may have had no choice. It was either that or get blamed by the people for risking millions of their lives. They would’ve turned on him en masse. This way, he still controls Sauria, at least. For now, he’ll just have to settle for that.”
“Perhaps. But he still has the second-generation warp ships he managed to build previously, and probably a substantial supply of photonic weaponry. Further vigilance will be required. Further intervention may be as well.”
Archer sighed. “Intervention. That leads us right into a whole other can of worms.”
She quirked her brows at the convoluted metaphor. “That requires clarification.”
Her stern tone affected the release of tension she had intended, but his laugh was minimal and brief. “It’s just as I feared,” he went on. “The investigation into Harris’s conspiracy has exposed their knowledge of the Orions’ plan to stage the Saurian disaster—and Harris’s willingness to let it happen. The knowledge that both those groups wanted us to adopt a nonintervention policy is damning. Shran has seized on it like—well, you know how he gets.”
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