Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Star Trek : Enterprise)

by Michael A. Martin

  “Never underestimate the power of Vulcan stubbornness, Commander,” Archer said, grinning as he walked over to his desk and toggled open a channel on the comm unit.

  “Archer to bridge.”

  “O’Neill here, Captain.”

  “Please amend our course slightly, Lieutenant. Until further notice, I’m planning to make a quick stopover at Vulcan on our way back to Earth. Archer out.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  The meeting concluded, her course of action resolved, T’Pol bid the captain good night and stepped back out into the E deck corridor and began making her way through the nearly deserted, night-illuminated corridors toward the turbolift positioned nearest her quarters on B deck.

  What if T’Pau remains intractable? she thought as she entered the turbolift. In that event, she would have to leave the ship, regardless of how badly the captain needed her at his side.

  Could the Coalition go on if Vulcan’s estrangement became permanent? She was finding it difficult to remain positive in the face of such a grim scenario.

  Once back in her quarters, T’Pol stared out the large oval port at the distant, uncaring stars. She picked out a specific pinpoint of light that lay almost directly along Enterprise’s present heading now that Lieutenant O’Neill had evidently implemented the captain’s order for a course adjustment. The ship’s present speed, which the streak distortions of passing stars revealed to be approximately warp five, had blue-shifted the pinpoint from its normal orange to a hot, yellow-white brilliance.

  The ancient Vulcans had called this object Lanka-Garukh, after the Night Flyers, the sibling nocturnal birds of prey from some of Vulcan’s oldest myths. The humans knew the very same star—actually a visual binary pair as observed either from Vulcan or Earth, twin co-orbiting orange dwarfs rendered indistinguishable now by Enterprise’s current extremely distant vantage point—by such names as Bessel’s Star, Piazzi’s Flying Star, and, most recently and commonly, 61 Cygni.

  Cygni, in their constellation Cygnus. How ironic that the humans named those stars after a bird they consider both beautiful and graceful, she thought. She wondered if the porcine Tellarites who hailed from the binary system’s primary habitable world would find the comparison flattering or insulting, though she thought it likely that not many of them who worked outside the rarefied cloister of academia or diplomacy were even aware of it.

  But it didn’t matter. At the moment, T’Pol regarded the humans of Earth and the Centauri settlements, the Andorians—and, yes, even the Tellarites—as a good deal more graceful than her own countrymen.

  Perhaps the Coalition will ultimately lose Vulcan as a member, no matter what Captain Archer and I do to prevent it, T’Pol thought as she imagined herself floating freely amid the stark beauty of the silent, far-flung stellar fires that lay so far beyond the window. But whatever happens on Vulcan, the captain can still count on me. Just as Earth can still rely on the Alpha Centauri colonies, the Andorians, and even the decidedly unswanlike Tellarites.

  Assuming that Vulcan’s present course of action had not already damaged beyond all repair the very fabric of trust from which the Coalition Compact itself had been woven.

  EIGHT

  Vulcan Diplomatic Compound

  Sausalito, Earth

  FOREIGN MINISTER SOVAL MEDITATED while standing stock-still in the empty courtyard garden, watching the silver starlight as it spilled from an unusually cloudless, almost crystalline sky. His only complaint was that the season that residents of Earth’s San Francisco Bay area euphemistically called “summer” was so frigid, at least by Vulcan standards. That chill, as well as Earth’s excessive barometric pressure, had necessitated the subtle genetic modifications that the Vulcan Science Academy had introduced into the Vulcan plants that grew in the diplomatic compound’s sprawling garden. Cinching his diplomatic robes more tightly around his torso against the creeping chill, Soval put aside his discomfort and resumed concentrating on the boundless sky above the garden.

  Despite the cold, Soval enjoyed being out in the courtyard on Sausalito’s rare fog-free nights, long after the human staff had gone home and the Vulcan diplomats and aides had retired to the warmth of their quarters. On many such past solitary occasions, which he had arranged to occur sometimes as early as sunset and on other occasions as late as midnight, he particularly enjoyed watching the large natural satellite the humans called Luna as it made its stately transit across the sky.

  Unlike mighty T’Rukh, which dominated the sky of an entire Vulcan hemisphere—rather than a moon that circled a point near its primary world’s center, T’Rukh was a co-orbital world that was tidally locked, along with Vulcan itself, to a common center of gravity external to both bodies—Luna nevertheless presented an impressive face, both for its ancient natural scars and its artificial construction projects, particularly when it was at full phase and low over the horizon. The full moon seemed to grow fourfold on such occasions, an optical illusion that evoked memories of T’Rukh’s magenta-striated face covering nearly a third of the sky, shimmering over the ruddy, sun-baked plain of Vulcan’s Forge.

  Tonight, however, the relentless waxing and waning of Luna’s phases had reduced the body to a faint silver crescent, which had passed below the horizon more than four hours earlier. Luna’s current absence left the serene starscape overhead with only San Francisco’s nocturnal skyline, visible from the Vulcan diplomatic compound as a faint golden glow in the south just beyond the mouth of San Francisco Bay, to compete with it for visibility.

  Looking steeply upward, Soval focused on the confluence of northern summer constellations that the humans called the Summer Triangle, a figure made up of the bright stars that the humans had named Altair, Vega, and Deneb. He knew that Altair and Vega, the triangle’s southernmost points, were close enough to the core of Coalition space to be at serious risk from Romulan incursions sooner or later, and he wondered how much longer those two systems could afford to maintain their present state of blissful neutrality.

  Soval tried to draw strength from the permanence and placidity of the twinkling alien patterns overhead, using it to focus his thoughts on the coming meeting—a meeting for which he had begun to prepare late this afternoon, immediately after Administrator T’Pau had delivered her fateful address to the Coalition Council.

  He wondered momentarily whether his Andorian and Tellarite diplomatic counterparts, those with whom he was scheduled to meet tonight, were undertaking similar preparatory rituals of their own at this very moment. Or had Ambassador Gora bim Gral of Tellar already arrived at the nearby Andorian diplomatic compound, thereby rendering both himself and Andorian Foreign Minister Anlenthoris ch’Vhendreni too self-conscious to engage in such meditations?

  The realization suddenly struck him that he still did not know whether Minister Thoris or Ambassador Gral engaged in such activities, despite the close working relationship the three of them had begun to develop during the months that had preceded and followed the signing of the Coalition Compact.

  Soval hoped he would have an opportunity to rectify that lack, despite the tumultuous events of this day. Lowering his gaze from the stars, he saw that the time was fast approaching for him to leave for his late-night meeting.

  Then the minister heard something.

  As near as he could tell, the sound had come from somewhere in the darkness beyond the orderly ascending rows of low hla-meth herbs and rillan gourds, flowering favinit and plomeek plants, and alem-vedik desert salt weeds, and i’su’ke and g’teth berry bushes, towering gespar fruit trees, and ic’tan conifers that dominated the courtyard’s center.

  He heard it again, and he suddenly realized it was a footfall. Even though Soval was certain he had been the only one still moving about outside the compound’s main buildings.

  “Who’s there?” Soval called out, peering into the darkness at the garden’s center. Despite the diplomatic compound’s tight security, he still felt some apprehension, a justifiable concern that some angry, determined
human might make it past the detection systems and alarms in order to deliver some sort of reprisal because of Administrator T’Pau’s decision. The previous year’s troubles with the Terra Prime terrorist group, which had prospered briefly because of the distasteful human xenophobia that had arisen during the more than two Terranyear period that had elapsed since the Xindi sneak attack, remained green in his memory.

  “Do not be alarmed, Minister Soval,” a familiar voice answered. Administrator T’Pau, dressed in unadorned diplomatic robes, stepped out of the darkness on the walkway that bisected the garden, flanked by a pair of her aides. “On such a clear night, I thought I would find you out here.”

  Soval nodded, doing his best to conceal his surprise from his planet’s highest official. “You know me well, Administrator. I am honored by your visit. I thought you had already departed for Vulcan.”

  “I will be returning to my duties in ShiKahr very shortly,” T’Pau said as she came to a stop beside Soval on the garden’s periphery, followed by her aides. “But I wanted to speak with you before getting under way for Vulcan.”

  He glanced briefly at his chronometer. “I regret that I have little time to devote to such a meeting, Administrator. I must leave momentarily for an emergency conference with the Andorian and Tellarite delegations.”

  “I know,” she said with a nod. “I have made a point of learning in advance of any such meetings, since I suspect that my address to the Council was the proximate cause of the emergency.”

  Soval remained silent, though he made no move to deny the essential correctness of her assertion. Administrator T’Pau’s address to the Coalition Council earlier today had made his duties infinitely more complicated than they had been before.

  “In fact,” she continued, “your meeting tonight is the sole reason for my delaying my departure.”

  “You might have called me in advance so that I might have prepared a properly respectful reception,” Soval said, trying not to sound chiding, though without complete success.

  She shook her head emphatically. “The sensitive nature of what I must tell you now requires considerable discretion and obviates the need for such formalities. Walk with me, Minister Soval.”

  Other than the involuntary momentary elevation of both of his eyebrows, Soval succeeded in tamping down his surprise; it was highly unusual, after all, for the head of the Vulcan government to micromanage details that had already been delegated to diplomatic specialists. Surprise rooted his feet to the concrete-and-cobble walkway for a moment, during which T’Pau signaled her aides to remain where they were. She started to walk away from him along the pathway, forcing Soval to trot for a moment to catch up before falling into step beside her.

  “You have concerns about the content of my coming discussions with Thoris and Gral,” he said quietly as they walked, not asking a question.

  Even in the scant starlight, he could see that her eyes were hard and resolute, unusually so for one so young. “That remains to be seen, Minister. But I do have questions. The foremost of these concerns your objective tonight.”

  He would have thought that his objective should have been obvious. “I will attempt to persuade the governments of both Andoria and Tellar to do their utmost to help Earth defend itself from the Romulans,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back as he continued forward at her side.

  “In order to make up for Vulcan’s absence from the front lines at Calder and other potential Romulan beachheads,” she said, articulating his purpose at least as well as he could have done.

  “Yes,” he said, gratified by her evidently clear understanding of the many obstacles and difficulties that his task would almost certainly entail.

  “Then it is indeed fortunate that I managed to reach you prior to the start of your meeting,” she said, coming to a stop. “Because you must argue precisely the opposite proposition.”

  Soval came to a halt as well. This time he couldn’t have been more surprised if Earth’s yellow star had suddenly begun to rise in the west, or if the local gravitational field had abruptly reversed itself.

  “I do not understand,” he said. “The Romulans pose a danger to the entire Coalition, but most particularly to Earth and Alpha Centauri. The humans’ technological and military infrastructure is nowhere near as ready for a full Romulan assault as are Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar. Since we are opting out of the fight that we all know is coming, it will be incumbent upon the other Coalition members to compensate for our absence.”

  “No,” she said, and resumed walking.

  Once again, he trotted to catch up and continued forward at her side. “I do not understand.”

  After a pause to look over her shoulder, T’Pau began talking as she walked. “I must speak of something that I cannot allow even my closest aides to overhear.”

  “And that is?” Soval’s surprise and curiosity was beginning to give way to frustration, which he pushed firmly down.

  “The relationship, both genetic and cultural, that Vulcan shares with the Romulans,” she said. “I know that you are among the few who are aware of this fact.”

  A mind-meld decades ago with one of his diplomatic mentors—a man who had seen much of the closing phases of the century-long Vulcan-Romulan War—had given him personal knowledge of the intimate connection between the two peoples. Ever since experiencing this revelation, Soval had regarded it as a source of terrible embarrassment. He had always been vigilant about keeping it quiet, but never more than he did at the moment; should it ever get out, the fact of the Vulcan-Romulan connection could only strain Vulcan’s Coalition relationships further, very likely past their breaking point.

  “It is entirely possible that I am the only one currently working in Vulcan’s diplomatic service that knows,” he said, keeping his voice low. He assumed that T’Pau became aware of Vulcan’s Romulan connection only after her ascension to the office of administrator, which would have given her instant access to the classified files that V’Las and his predecessors had left behind.

  “The knowledge of Vulcan’s common ancestry with a people as violent and passion-bound as the Romulans is a terrible burden for those of us who carry it,” T’Pau said.

  “Agreed,” Soval said.

  “And the burden has grown more profound for me personally as I have continued advancing along the path of Kolinahr attainment since I took office.”

  Having spent so much of his life learning to empathize and deal with often over-emotional aliens, Soval had never seen the discipline of the Kolinahr to completion. Nevertheless, he found it all but impossible to imagine anyone successfully achieving the Kolinahr—and its attendant abandonment of every last vestige of emotion in the pursuit of the Syrrannite ideal of pure Surakian logic and peace—while bearing the weight of the massive emotional millstone that the administrator carried.

  “I believe I understand, Administrator,” he said.

  “Good,” she said as she brought them both to a stop again. “But there is another matter that you might not understand at the moment. It is the reason you must act contrary to your instincts and urge Andoria and Tellar not to engage the Romulans directly.”

  “I am listening,” Soval said, still highly doubtful but willing to be convinced, if only out of respect for T’Pau’s office.

  “I trust you are aware of the new Romulan weapon that can take control of other vessels remotely.”

  “I am.”

  “Then you may or may not also be aware of the Vulcan fleet’s high degree of vulnerability to this Romulan weapon.”

  He nodded. “I presume this vulnerability is a technological analog of the close genetic and cultural relationships we share with the Romulans. Similar genes and memes giving rise to similar technologies, and therefore similar technological vulnerabilities.” He was keenly aware that this issue was as charged as that of the Romulan connection itself; were outworlders, even Vulcan’s Coalition partners, to discover the strange similarities between Vulcan and Romulan technologies, they mig
ht begin to ask questions that would inevitably lead to other embarrassing revelations of Vulcan-Romulan relatedness— and do far more damage to Vulcan’s alliances than T’Pau’s address to the Council had inflicted.

  “Exactly right,” said T’Pau, resuming her forward motion. “There is a good deal more you need to know about the Romulan weapon, however—specifically the differing degree to which our Coalition partners are vulnerable to it. For example, the Andorian and Tellarite fleets share much of our vulnerability, no doubt because of reverse engineering both societies have sponsored over the years in order to duplicate Vulcan technological refinements.”

  Keeping pace alongside T’Pau’s slow, stately stride, Soval was beginning to see where she was heading. “And we cannot warn them of this with complete candor without inviting... unwelcome lines of questioning.”

  “Correct. And conversely, ships from Earth and Alpha Centauri have so far proved far less vulnerable to remote-control attacks than those of any other Coalition world.”