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

by Michael A. Martin

  I’m losing her, he thought. Again. Or was it the other way around?

  “My mission has ended in failure,” she said, lowering her gaze. “I do not know whether I can face Captain Archer ever again. Not after failing him twice in as many years.”

  It took Trip a moment to realize that the previous failure to which she was alluding was the unauthorized rescue mission she had mounted last year. Though her plan had certainly been an ill-advised one, nobody could deny that she had prevented Terix from frying him with a disruptor pistol, with some help from Malcolm Reed. The ends might not justify the means, but results still had to count for something.

  He sat down next to her, reaching out for her hands, which had begun wringing each other in her lap in a curiously un-Vulcan way. “Hey. T’Pol. The captain didn’t expect you to fall on your sword for coming after me. And he’s not gonna expect you to do it now.”

  She looked at him. Her dark eyes had not only remained aflame, that flame had brightened to a roaring blaze.

  Oh, hell, he thought as he took her in his arms and let the conflagration consume them both.

  T’Pol could no longer deny the demands of the bond that linked her so inextricably to this emotional, illogical, noble Terran. And she no longer wanted even to try.

  They disrobed quickly, urgently, their bodies moving together with abandon, and she experienced it all with the vivid clarity of a lucid dream. Their connection, of course, went far beyond the physical level. It was far more profound than mere transactions of limbic and endocrine systems, hormones and nerve endings. The mind-link that still joined them was no longer stretched thin and taut across interstellar distances. They were together—mentally and spiritually as well as physically—joining and becoming one with a furious intensity that even their memorable Taugus III encounter last year had lacked.

  Although Trip had seemed resistant at first, demonstrating the inborn reticence natural to a member of an almost entirely nontelepathic species, her gentle insistence gradually persuaded him to lower his mental barriers as he had the physical ones. T’Pol knew that she lacked schooling in many of the intricacies of the Syrrannite discipline of the mind-meld—when she’d had to meld with Hoshi Sato two years earlier, she had required the guidance of Jonathan Archer, whose brief psionic encounter with Surak had made the captain more adept at the practice than his Vulcan first officer. But her desire to be with Trip, to reduce the space between them to a value of zero or less, to reach or surpass whatever Planck-scale distance might limit the proximity of their two living spirits, guided her.

  She knew that he could see, hear, feel, touch, and taste virtually everything in her mind. She felt his internal barriers teeter and fall one by one as he allowed her the very same access to his own awareness, his experiences, his memories, his innermost thoughts and fears and hopes.

  In a hailstorm of fast-moving and fragmentary imagery, she saw Trip’s family. His parents, Charles Junior and Elaine. His brother Albert, Bert’s husband Miguel, and their son Owen. His late sister Lizzie, slain by the Xindi. Baby Elizabeth, and the wrenching pain of losing her as well. T’Pol herself, a convergence of fascination and exasperation. Other friends and crewmates, living and dead. Doctor Ehrehin i’Ramnau tr’Avrak and Tinh Hoc Phuong, both of whom became hapless casualties of Romulan treachery. Terix, foe and friend, enemy and ally, a source of anxiety and danger even now.

  And Sopek—or was it Ch’uivh?—capturing Trip, Ych’a, and Terix aboard a Vulcan vessel that she knew, courtesy of Trip’s running memories, was moored at the Romulan shipbuilding complex deep in the Achernar system. Standing ghostlike on Sopek’s bridge, T’Pol saw the livid ball of fire and wreckage that had erupted from the exploding the Romulan shipyard.

  And then she was standing beside Trip on solid ground, on a Minshara-class world whose sere sky was dominated by a bloated, strangely flattened blue-white star—Achernar, from the look of it, which meant that the planet had to be Achernar II—with no apparent passage of time having followed the successful sabotage mission.

  More imagery and sound tumbled past, around, and through her, commingling with sensory inputs of every imaginable kind. It all came in an increasingly frenetic rush as their mutual sharing deepened and the pace of their physical lovemaking grew more urgent, finally building toward a blinding release that forced them both, instinctively, to narrow the bandwidth of their connection and slowly withdraw from each other.

  Afterward T’Pol gradually returned to her body, which she noted was slick with perspiration, hers and his both. Trip lay alongside her, in a similarly winded condition.

  “Wow,” she heard him whisper as he struggled to catch his breath. “Now I know what a supernova feels like up close and personal.”

  Trip’s offhand remark made T’Pol wonder what sort of future might lie ahead for them as a couple. Indeed, a supernova might indeed be an apt analogy for their unlikely relationship: preternaturally bright and hot, yet ultimately destructive and short-lived.

  Where could they go from here? And how long could they stay there?

  She decided it didn’t matter. We’ve crossed the Rubicon, let the bridge be burned behind me, come what may, she thought, borrowing the half-remembered phrase from a long-dead leader of an extinct empire from Trip’s homeworld. Or perhaps she had mentally “overheard” Trip thinking the very same thing during the meld.

  Setting aside her personal concerns, T’Pol decided to tend to an even more urgent issue to which the mind-meld had alerted her. Raising herself up onto one elbow, she looked him straight in the eye.

  “Trip, why didn’t you say anything earlier about your encounter with Sopek at Achernar?”

  He turned and looked at her strangely. Then a look of discomfited realization crossed his face. “I don’t know. I guess it must have slipped my mind somehow. Funny.”

  T’Pol knew from their meld what he meant, but she also knew that he knew something wasn’t right.

  “You thought only of us.” she said. “But you do remember your encounter with Sopek now?”

  “Sure. I’ve been at the business end of that guy’s disruptor too many times to forget about him for very long. This time he took all three of us prisoner, me, Ych’a, and Terix.”

  As before, she sensed no willful evasion on Trip’s part. “And do you recall precisely how you freed yourselves, and reached Achernar II afterward?”

  He appeared to consider her question for a moment. Then his eyes grew large with evident alarm, ratcheting up her suspicion to a nearly palpable certainty.

  Something was indeed very, very wrong.

  Once again, Tevik closed his eyes. Long, delicate fingers touched his face, probed his temples. And moments thereafter he floated in a cool, dark void, a familiar place that both comforted and smothered him. He tried to relax, as Ych’a advised. Tevik sought peace.

  No. Not Tevik. Not the spy. The soldier.

  I am Terix. Centurion of Admiral Valdore’s Fifth Legion, in the service of our glorious Praetor D’deridex. Centurion Terix!

  Then he began remembering things. Or rather, things were being forced into his memory. Tevik’s first bowl of plomeek soup, and his pet sehlat. Tevik’s kahs-wan ordeal. His abortive first term at the Vulcan Science Academy. Tevik’s perilous ascent of the L-langon Mountains during his Vulcan basic military training—

  —and as he neared the summit, a gleaming dathe’anofv-sen, a traditional Romulan Honor Blade, appeared in his hand. He thrust it into the mountainside, to no effect. He clung to the blade, even after he lost his footing and fell off the slope. He tumbled back into the embrace of the void, at which he slashed ineffectually with his blade.

  Perhaps he could not slay the corrupting influence of the void with a sword. But he could shout his name into it.

  I am Centurion Terix!

  The sound of a brief, pained shout instantly snapped Trip out of the afterglow and into a state of total alertness.

  “Did you hear that, or did I dream it?” he said as he
rolled out of bed and began searching the floor for his hastily discarded trousers and traveling robe.

  “I heard it as well,” T’Pol said. She rose from the tangle of bedsheets and quickly recovered her own clothing.

  Moments later, Trip stood disheveled but decent beside a much tidier-looking T’Pol in the house’s broad central living area. Terix— Trip still had trouble thinking of him as Tevik of Vulcan—sat on the low sofa, flanked by Ych’a and Denak, each of whom had applied both hands to one of Terix’s temples, their digits splayed like crab legs on either side of the centurion’s head. The trio seemed to be frozen in place, Denak and Ych’a transformed into matching bookends of focus and concentration. They sandwiched Terix, whose expression was locked in an attitude of distress, if not outright agony.

  “A double-team mind-meld,” Trip said. “That’s not something you see every day.”

  “What is wrong with Tevik?” T’Pol asked, addressing Denak, Ych’a, or both. Neither Vulcan responded.

  But a few moments later, motion began to return to Denak as he slowly disengaged from Terix/Tevik, leaving the Romulan and Ych’a frozen in a meld that had clearly gone terribly awry.

  “I do not know for certain,” Denak said after T’Pol had repeated her question. “A complication... has arisen.”

  And water is wet, too, Trip thought. Aloud, he said, “What kind of complication?”

  Denak seemed at last to rouse himself fully into ordinary consciousness. Turning to face Trip, he said, “As Ych’a explained it to me, Tevik requires therapeutic mind-melds periodically. She was in the midst of administering one, as is her habit when they work together in the field.”

  “I was not aware that Ych’a had become a credentialed mind-meld therapist,” T’Pol said, a not-very-subtle tone of judgment underlying her words.

  Denak raised an eyebrow, apparently displeased by T’Pol’s implication. “As long-practicing Syrrannites, both Ych’a and myself are qualified.”

  “Granted,” T’Pol said. “But why did both of you participate in this particular meld?”

  “Ych’a initiated the procedure, per Tevik’s treatment schedule. Tevik’s condition apparently worsened in the midst of the meld, however. She required my assistance.”

  “What exactly is... Tevik supposed to be suffering from?” Trip asked. Though he was well aware of the real reasons behind the ongoing mind-meld treatment regime, he wondered how much of the plain truth Ych’a had opted to share with her husband.

  “Ych’a explained that he suffers from the chronic aftereffects of an old bout of Pa’nar Syndrome. He contracted it decades ago during a botched V’Shar mind-meld intended to introduce false memories in support of an undercover identity.”

  Good cover story, Trip thought, though he wondered how she expected to continue to keep the truth concealed from a husband who appeared to be just as skilled a telepath as she was—and who had apparently just emerged from a meld with both Ych’a and Terix.

  And more importantly, why did she think she needed to conceal such a thing from Denak? He was, after all, not only her husband, but also a veteran V’Shar operative who was ostensibly on the same side she was.

  “May I ask which identity?” T’Pol asked.

  Denak apparently saw no reason to try to conceal anything from his old colleague. “That of Centurion Terix, of course.”

  So Ych’a’s been feeding Denak the same line of cowpucky we’ve been serving up to Terix, Trip thought. Terix thinks his real life as a Romulan is a lie, and now so does Denak. Though he bore no love for the Romulans in general—or for Centurion Terix in particular—Trip felt soiled by the role he had played, and continued to play. Why couldn’t Ych’a have told Denak the truth? He couldn’t help but speculate about how many other lies and half-truths she might have sold Denak, not to mention T’Pol, concerning her V’Shar assignments over the years.

  And I also have to wonder what sort of crap she’s been feeding me to get my help when all I’ve wanted to do for the past year is just go home and put all this spy stuff behind me.

  But the only way to answer those questions was to confront Ych’a directly. Addressing Denak, Trip said, “When do you expect her to come out of this?”

  Now it was Denak’s turn to look distressed, at least for a Vulcan. “She should have broken from the meld when I did. Something has gone wrong.”

  T’Pol wasn’t entirely certain what she should do. But she knew she had to do something.

  Seeing no alternative, she began to place the fingers of both hands on the qui’lari—the natural bioelectrical focal points for Vulcan touchtelepathy—located at Ych’a’s temples.

  “My mind to your mind,” she said. “My thoughts—”

  “Exactly what do you think you’re doing?” Trip said, interrupting as he stepped in close to her. He seemed to be considering grabbing her by the wrists, restraining her. She discouraged him with a cold, hard glare.

  “Ych’a is in need of assistance,” she said. “Her vital signs are declining, as are Tevik’s.”

  “Indeed,” Denak said. “But I was not aware that you possessed sufficient training in the Syrrannite disciplines to render aid.”

  T’Pol did not withdraw her hands, but merely spread her fingers in an effort to access Ych’a’s mind. “She is my friend. I cannot stand by and do nothing.”

  “This meld has become dangerous,” Denak said. “I cannot allow you to attempt to interpose yourself alone.”

  “Then help me,” T’Pol said.

  “Why don’t we just call a medic?” Trip said.

  T’Pol glared again at Trip, who seemed to grasp her meaning immediately; despite the close genetic relationship between Vulcans and Romulans—a linkage of which most Vulcans were unaware—any medical scan of Terix would be all but certain to raise some very ticklish questions.

  “Do what you have to do, T’Pol,” Trip said, backing away slightly. “Both of you.”

  “It is true that I do not possess your training, Denak,” T’Pol said. She tried to focus all of her attention on joining in on the already initiated meld, but it felt as though some barrier stood in her way. “Therefore I require your help.”

  “Very well,” Denak said, apparently unfazed by his recent ejection from the very same meld. He placed one hand on Ych’a’s forehead, and the other on Terix’s.

  “My mind to your mind,” T’Pol intoned. “My thoughts to your thoughts.”

  Behind her, she heard Trip mutter, “My God, it’s a telepathic orgy.” She ignored him, concentrating.

  And the barrier that had stood between her and the meld abruptly vanished, dropping her headlong into infinity.

  The images had come faster and in even more of a free-form, disassociated jumble than they had during her mating with Trip. The chaotic, hypersensory experience was a veritable high-pressure fire hose of thought and emotion, far more intense and vibrant than she had anticipated. Whether this was because so many individuals had attempted to link together simultaneously, or because one of the participants was a highly emotional Romulan, or because of her own shortcomings in the psionic disciplines—or perhaps a mixture of all of those reasons—the experience had left her by turns confused, exhilarated, and enervated.

  Although T’Pol’s mind had all but shut itself down in what was doubtless an instinctual act of neurological self-preservation, consciousness slowly began to return to her, like a hla’meth leaf adrift on the relentless currents of the Voroth Sea.

  She heard a voice that sounded impossibly distant. “She’s coming around.”

  T’Pol opened her eyes. Trip’s face hovered before her. She was back in her mother’s home—her home—and it was morning, not long after dawn.

  She tried to speak, but could barely muster a whisper. “Trip.”

  Trip was kneeling beside the low sofa on which she lay, holding her hand gently. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “That’s Sodok, sweetie. Remember?”

  She sat upright suddenly, as if jolted by
a strong high-voltage current; she had momentarily forgotten that neither Denak nor Terix were supposed to be privy to Trip’s real name, nor even the fact that he wasn’t Vulcan.

  “Relax,” Trip said. “Don’t strain yourself.”

  She settled back on the sofa and saw that Ych’a and Denak, as well as the man called Tevik, now stood around her, each of them regarding her with apparent concern.

  “You were very nearly lost to us during that mind-meld,” Denak said.

  “I will recover,” she said. Casting her gaze toward Ych’a and Tevik/Terix, she said, “And I am gratified to see that neither of you seem to have suffered any ill effects either.”

  “What do you recall from the meld?” Ych’a asked.