T’Pol shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I believe I may even have failed to achieve a meld. I was never trained in the Syrrannite fashion.”
Ych’a nodded, though T’Pol’s lie did not appear to have entirely satisfied her curiosity. “We should leave you to rest,” she said, then moved toward the door. Denak and Tevik followed suit.
Apparently eager to speak to her alone, Trip remained beside the sofa. “I’ll stay with her,” he said. “In case she needs any help.”
Pausing on the room’s threshold, the others nodded, then took their leave.
Once he was alone with T’Pol, Trip said, “All right. What really happened?”
Signaling for quiet, T’Pol rose unsteadily to her feet, shooing away his attempt to help her stand. Trip waited with unconcealed concern while she found her scanner and made another sweep for listening devices. As before, none turned up.
“You lied to her,” Trip said. “I thought Vulcans didn’t do that.”
“I thought that your association with a clandestine Vulcan intelligence agency might have disabused you of that notion by now.”
“All right. So you Vulcans are just bad at lying. And you’re such a bad liar that you telegraphed the fact that you learned something important during your mental ménage-a-four—something that nearly did you in.”
She nodded. “Some of what I saw is still fragmentary in my mind. I am still processing much of what I encountered. But I believe I can already state a number of things conclusively.”
“Such as?”
“You and Tevik. Or Terix. The two of you have something fundamental in common.”
“Besides the ears?”
She smiled, uncharastically. “Both of you have the same gap in your memory concerning your Achernar mission. Specifically, with regard to what happened in between the time Sopek captured you and when you found yourselves safely delivered back to Achernar II.”
“Ych’a was there, too. Do you suppose she remembers anything we don’t?”
“Unfortunately,” T’Pol said, “I wasn’t able to tell for certain during the meld; Ych’a has an extremely disciplined mind.” Nevertheless, she was beginning to suspect that the answer to Trip’s question was “yes.”
“I seriously doubt that Sopek would have let us go without a fight,” Trip said. “And he’s never been bashful about killing people in cold blood. Ych’a must have found a way to turn the tables on Sopek and rescue us.”
“Or else she simply persuaded him that you would all be more valuable to him alive than dead,” T’Pol said.
“Are you saying you think Sopek and Ych’a are in cahoots?” After she raised a questioning eyebrow, he added, “Do you think they’re working together?”
T’Pol bit back a tart response. “Ych’a is one of my oldest friends, Trip. I am making no such accusation. I merely find it strange that neither you nor Terix are presently able to access your memories of a recent shared experience.”
Trip stroked his chin thoughtfully, a peculiar mannerism for one who looked so Vulcan. “The therapeutic mind-melds are all about memory suppression. Ych’a has had to do them for months to keep Terix’s Romulan identity pushed down—to keep him convinced that he’s really one of the good guys, and that Terix’s memories are just stray odds and ends left over from one of Tevik’s old V’Shar cover identities.”
T’Pol nodded, though the notion appalled her. Romulan or not, Terix was still a sentient being with a basic right to the integrity of his identity. Violating that right was anathema to her. Still, she was pragmatic enough to understand that Terix could be an invaluable Romulan intelligence source going forward—he had already proved indispensable to Ych’a and Trip in their Achernar operation—and allowing his Romulan identity to come to the fore while he was on Vulcan would be irresponsible. But what of his future? The logic of practicality argued against his repatriation to Romulus, and the logic of ethics forbade simply killing him once his usefulness was at an end.
She wondered how Surak might have squared this particular ethical circle—and acknowledged with no small amount of relief that the matter was well above her pay grade; responsibility for such questions lay in Administrator T’Pau’s lap, not in T’Pol’s.
“Memory suppression,” T’Pol repeated, trying to remain on topic. “From what I’ve observed, Terix’s Romulan memories have not been easy to keep subjugated. His real identity continues trying to reassert itself, even now. Ych’a expended considerable effort to force the Terix persona to yield to the synthetic identity of Tevik. That appears to be why she nearly failed to extricate herself from the meld.”
“You mean our meek, mild-mannered Tevik might suddenly ‘go Romulan’ on us?”
“The danger may not be imminent at the moment. But without a continued regime of frequent melds to keep his memory blocks firmly in place, I would judge that outcome to be an eventual certainty.”
Trip rose and began pacing beside the sofa. “Crap. I really hate being right all the time. I knew this whole memory suppression thing was a good, old-fashioned bad idea right from the start.”
“Perhaps it is,” T’Pol said. “But I can certainly understand why Ych’a perceived the need to suppress much of Terix’s memory, given the use to which she, or the V’Shar, has decided to put him. But I must question the need to suppress your memories, however.”
“How do we know that’s what really happened?” Trip said, coming to a stop. “I mean, I expect Ych’a not to be entirely candid, or even to tell lies; she’s a spy, after all. But the thought that she might have tampered with my memories...” He trailed off, perhaps having difficulty digesting the idea that he may have suffered such a deep, fundamental violation without even knowing about it.
“Ych’a has tampered with Terix’s memories,” T’Pol pointed out. “Do you honestly believe it impossible that she might have decided it had become necessary to do the same to you? She certainly has the ability.”
“Maybe. But judging from my own, um, limited direct experience with this stuff, a mind-meld seems sort of like a huge fun-house mirror for the mind, or a kind of dreamscape. You can never be entirely sure what you’re looking at. Maybe you just misinterpreted something you saw.”
“Perhaps. However, that would not explain the gap in your memory.”
“No. But it might account for your thinking you saw something inside Terix’s head right after you caught a glimpse of what you think was the exact same thing in mine. I can remember everything important that happened on that mission, including the finish—the explosion that wiped out the Romulan warp-seven prototype starship and the stolen Vulcan ship.”
T’Pol nodded. Via Trip’s memories, she had witnessed the same sequence of events, though she hadn’t actually seen the explosion consume the vessels that Trip had described; both ships were supposed to have been moored inside the enclosed shipyard when its reactor core went critical and tore the entire facility apart, and thus wouldn’t have been visible to outside eyes at the time.
“As far as you know,” T’Pol pointed out.
It had struck her that Trip and Terix could indeed have shared an experience that Ych’a might wish to see suppressed—the knowledge that they only appeared to have accomplished their mission objective. But what end would such a betrayal on Ych’a’s part serve? Still, T’Pol had been dealing with a government that appeared rife with both foolish idealism and corruption, and perhaps other failings that she had yet to bring to light. She had to concede that anything was possible. Including the prospect that there was no one, other than Trip, whom she could afford to trust implicitly, even among the ranks of her oldest friends.
“Of course it’s as far as I know, T’Pol,” Trip said, looking perplexed. “What are you trying to say? That you don’t trust me to remember what I saw?”
“I was merely beginning to wonder,” she said, “whether Ych’a and Sopek know the same things that you and I do—but also know them somewhat... differently.”
SEV
ENTY-TWO
Sunday, April 4, 2156
Columbia, near Tellar
“THE LEAD SHIP in the convoy confirms receipt of the pergium consignment, Captain,” Ensign Valerian reported from the comm station.
It’s about damned time, Erika Hernandez thought. As vital as pergium could be to the life-support systems employed by the civilian and military outposts Earth had established in some of the galaxy’s unfriendlier reaches, the dilithium, uridium, gallicite, and other warrelated matériel this convoy carried might prove even more crucial, at least in the short term.
Besides, she’d been getting damned antsy from all the waiting around she’d been doing of late.
“Very good, Sidra,” she said, nodding to the comm officer before turning toward the helm. “Reiko, lay in a course for the Onias sector. Keep pace with the convoy’s lead ship.” Addressing the whole bridge, she added, “And keep your eyes peeled for Romulans.”
“Aye, Captain,” Lieutenant Reiko Akagi said, working the helm with a surgeon’s precision.
“Onias or bust,” said Commander Veronica Fletcher, who stood beside Hernandez’s chair as she watched the convoy’s lead ship on the main viewer.
“I’ll try to go easy on the ‘bust’ part,” Lieutenant Thayer said from tactical. “But some of that could be up to the Romulans.”
The possibility of running into a Romulan sneak attack was a very real one, particularly after the convoy reached its destination. Once there, Columbia would be expected to escort a second group of ships, a mining convoy, out of the Onias sector and back toward the Coalition’s core worlds. At the farthest extremity of her route, Columbia would be at the crossroads of both the Romulan and Klingon Empires, not to mention about as far from Earth as Hernandez had ever ventured.
To say that Columbia and her charges would be vulnerable at that point struck Hernandez as an understatement; it was at such times that she drew genuine comfort from the presence aboard Columbia of Major Foyle and the three-dozen-strong company of MACO troopers under his command.
Columbia surged forward, her latest convoy escort mission under way at long last. But Hernandez remained restless. The convoy’s progress would be slow, and she ached to get back into the fight against the Romulans. Unfortunately, Starfleet had decided that the safety of the convoy’s cargo was worth sidelining one of its best-armed vessels, at least for a while. Antsy though she was, the captain had to concede that Admiral Gardner’s tactical reasoning was sound.
As the fleet sped toward Onias, she thought of Jonathan Archer, who was even now gathering a reconstituted assault force around Enterprise. She was determined that Columbia would be part of that force before it moved on to its next big planned engagement. Hernandez hoped that the inevitable all-out war wouldn’t reach full throttle before Columbia was able to join it.
Maybe I missed Berengaria on account of babysitting duty, Jon, she thought. But you’d better not even think about trying to liberate Deneva without me.
SEVENTY-THREE
Sunday, April 4, 2156
Alaraph Central Spaceport, Zavijava V
Beta Virginis Colony
THE DUFFEL THAT CONTAINED her clothing and imaging equipment slung over her shoulder, Gannet Brooks watched the frantic press of humanity from one of the gallery’s upper levels. The bright yellow light of the star, after which both the colony and its spaceport were named, streamed in behind the frantic prospective travelers, suffusing them with an appropriately unearthly glow.
Brooks judged that comparatively few of these people had come merely to bid farewell to friends and loved ones; just about everyone she saw was laden down with baggage of some sort. These people meant to get off the planet, and quickly. She wondered what percentage of the multitude that crowded the departure gates had booked passage in advance, as opposed to the proportion that had decided to flee at the spur of the moment.
She reached into her pocket to extract the printed plastic flimsy that would get her aboard the transport scheduled for departure at 1430, local time. Nash McEvoy had just narrowed her options down to exactly one: boarding the transport when the time arrived to do so and returning to the Sol system. Her desire to remain here, to continue covering the war’s unfolding drama, had apparently counted for next to nothing.
In retrospect, she supposed this day was inevitable. Nash had been gently cajoling her for the past three weeks, first asking her to tone down her critiques of Starfleet’s conduct of the war, then suggesting that he might have to reassign her if she wouldn’t agree to be a little more “even-handed.”
She’d brushed him off. He’d persisted. They had repeated the pattern as necessary. Then she had appeared to relent, promising to think about it before ultimately going her own way. (She was amazed that this should have surprised him, even a little bit. What did he expect? Hadn’t he been paying attention all these years?)
She had begun to avoid taking his real-time subspace calls, stretching out the intervals between her receipt of his many messages— mostly of the “C’mon, Gannet, Starfleet is really riding my ass about you!” variety—and her ever more belated return calls.
He’d finally lowered the boom on her, making good on a threat that she’d always assumed to be an idle one born more of frustration than of practicality. She had never really believed he’d do it.
Despite the praise she’d recently heaped on Starfleet for the triumph at Berengaria VII, Nash had temporarily rescinded her Newstime credit chit—a fact that she had discovered while trying to use the chit to pay a restaurant tab. The maneuver had forced her to call him in real-time, right then and there, in order to sort things out with the annoyed restaurateur.
Now Nash wants me to do some nice, safe puff pieces about the Martian terraforming project, she thought, both discouraged and disgusted by the prospect. Even though the Romulans are coming.
The public address system finally announced that her transport was about to begin boarding. She allowed her ticket to dangle from between her index and middle fingers over the upper gallery’s railing. It would be so easy to just let go.
Snatching the ticket with her other hand, she shoved it into her pocket, and hated herself for her powerlessness. She straightened her duffel and wended her way through the crowd in the direction of her departure gate. As she walked, she tried to find something positive to focus on about the dreary homeward voyage that lay ahead.
A full ten minutes later, as she presented her ticket to the young woman at the departures desk, she thought she’d finally come up with something.
Credit chit or no credit chit, Brooks thought, there probably won’t be any shortage of trouble spots for me to point a lens at between here and Mars.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Day Thirteen, Month of T’ke’Tas
Wednesday, May 19, 2156
The Hall of State, Dartha, Romulus
VALDORE BRACED HIMSELF the moment he saw the centurion cross the threshold of his office. It was obvious, both from his graver-than-usual countenance and from the bone-whiteness of his complexion, that he was burdened with bad tidings.
“Go ahead, Centurion,” Valdore said, rising from behind his massive desk. He did not wish to be trapped behind it.
“Artaleirh has been attacked, Admiral,” the centurion said. “Early reports indicate that the Trilakis settlement has been razed. Admiral Dagarth’s vessel, the Nel Trenco, responded, but is now out of contact and presumed lost. The agricultural world of Virinat is on high alert, but remains unmolested at the moment.”
Valdore almost wished he had remained seated. This was a stunning blow. He had recently promoted Dagarth, rewarding both her brilliant performance in last year’s test deployments of the arrenhe’hwiua telecapture device and her key contributions to the most recent modifications Nijil had made to that weapon. Dagarth’s efforts had greatly increased the telecapture system’s resistance to the recent Coalition countermeasures and solved certain production problems, enabling a substantial increase in the speed of the we
apon’s manufacturing process. This had greatly increased the device’s availability to the Empire’s ships of the line, including many that were already bound for Coalition space.
But even more alarming was the matter of the location of the hostiles’ latest target: the Artaleirh system lay deep inside Romulan territory, nowhere near any of the fleet’s recent engagements, as did Virinat. And, possibly worst of all, the Trilakis settlement was intimately linked to a new military shipbuilding facility that Valdore had hoped to make fully operational in the very near future.
“How did the hevam manage to penetrate so deeply into our territory?” he said, processing his shock by thinking aloud.
“It was not the Earthers, Admiral,” the centurion said. “The attackers came from the Empire’s other flank—from Haakona.”
Valdore returned to his desk and settled heavily into his chair.
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Star Trek : Enterprise) Page 52
