Spock read the inscription on the bulkhead above
the force field. "This is designated as a
weapons
area."
"But Varth said that the Romulans hadn't completed
the base--that they didn't have attack capacity
yet."
Spock's tone was grim. "Apparently Varth's
information
is somewhat outdated. If it is true that the
Romulans have completed construction of their
weapons,"
Kirk finished for him. "Then we'll have to find a
way to stop them down here. The
Enterprise can't
obliterate the planet surface with photon
torpedoes in
an attempt to destroy an underground base."
"Agreed, sir. Therefore, it is logical that I
remain
behind and--"
Kirk held up his hand. "We'll discuss it when
it
happens, Spock. In any case you won't be
staying
behind."
"Sir--"
"End of discussion, Mister." Kirk looked down
the
seemingly endless row of doors. "I'll take the
ones on
the left, you take the ones on the right, and whoever
locates the cloaking device or the main
weapons room,
contacts the other."
"Yes, sir."
Kirk could not find the cloaking device, but he
located the weapons room on the third try.
Clearly,
Varth was right: the Romulans wanted far more than
Aritani. One wall was lined with defense
computers;
the console was manned for what Kirk assumed were
photon torpedoes and phasers capable of blowing
a
starship from its orbit.
He was reaching for his communicator when the
door slid open. He dropped his hand quickly.
Kirk recognized the ,uniform of a Romulan
subcommander
and saluted quickly, but the small female did
not return the courtesy. Next to her stood a
discouraging-looking
centurion who held a phaser that was not
quite pointed at Kirk; but it was neither the phaser
nor
the subcommander's failure to salute that made
Kirk
distinctly uncomfortable.
"Subcommander Tanirius," she said, with a
voice as
cold as her opaque black eyes.
The upswept eyebrows and delicately pointed
ears
added an exotic beauty to features Kirk had
once
thought of as almost plain. They suited her, as
nature
MINDSHADOW
had intended, but the cloaked eyes and cold manner
hid what had been most beautiful about her--her
openness, her warmth.
Emma, Kirk mouthed, but he did not say it
aloud.
She appeared not to notice. "A centurion was
injured
outside the high security area. I would like to see
your clearance."
"I don't have it with me."
She motioned to the centurion, who directed the
phaser at Kirk's head. "Then you will come with me
for questioning."
"It doesn't look as though I have a choice."
She did not smile. "You don't."
Chapter Twelve
TANIR-IUS ENTERED THE detention cell
alone, holding a
phaser tightly at chest level. When
the door closed
behind her, she lowered her arm and hung the phaser
on her belt. She looked up at Kirk again,
and face,
voice, and posture underwent a subtle
transformation
from cool to warm, from Romulan to human.
She gestured at Kirk's ears.
"Dr. McCoy's work?"
Kirk did not try to disguise the hatred in his
voice.
"And yours, Subcommander?"
He half expected her to tell him to call her
Emma,
but she did not. Her eyes smiled with controlled
amusement. "These are mine. Tell Leonard he
did a
good job."
"I don't see how I can do that,
Subcommander."
The muscle in Kirk's jaw twitched. "It's
my understanding
that I will shortly be executed for espionage.
That is what you Romulans do to spies, isn't
it?"
She answered by holding something out to him--his
communicator, but he stood back from her, stiff
with
MINDSHADOW
anger, and would not touch it. "Things are not always
as they appear, Captain. I told you that I was
on your
side."
"You'd like me to open up a channel to the
Enterprise here, wouldn't you?" He smiled
bitterly. "So
you could trace the transmission and destroy her with
your new weapons. I was gullible to fall for your
charms the first time, but you can't expect me to do it,
again."
She moved toward him, her face taut and
desperate,
Emma and not-Emma. "They are not monitoring us
now. I will try to explain, but there is not much time.
I
ask only that you listen."
Kirk leaned against the bare wall and folded his
arms. "Go ahead. The longer you talk, the longer
I
live. But don't expect me to believe anything
you
say."
"Very well." She lifted her head proudly.
"I am a
Romulan, Captain Kirk, but I do not serve
the Praetor."
"A pirate, then--"
"Let me speak!" Her urgency forced him
to silence;
he closed his mouth and listened. "Not a pirate.
I will
not tell you by what name we call ourselves, lest the
secret somehow reach the Praetor's ears. We
are a
group more than two hundred years old, who
despise
the atrocities of both the pirates and our
Praetor. Our
hope is to throw off the yoke of our military
government
and coexist peacefully with the Federation. Like
our Vulcan brothers, we are weary of constant
warring
and its toll upon our population. We
seek peace.
"Many of us have risen to high positions within the
military. We profess allegiance to the
Praetor, but
serve our group as best we can within our position.
I
was chosen as a young girl to serve in Intelligence.
They sent me away to Earth, to receive medical
training and to infiltrate Star Fleet
Intelligence. Their plan worked so well that, as you
saw, I was trusted by and
took my orders directly from Admiral
Komack. And
the Praetor, of course.
"But my true aim was to serve my brothers and
sisters in the underground . . . by destroying this
military outpost. The government has been working
on this project for years, Captain, and now it
has the
capability to dissolve the Enterprise and any
other
/>
Federation vessel to atoms and spread the
Praetor's
tyranny to every populated planet in this sector.
That
has always been its purpose."
"You speak of peace," Kirk said hotly, "but you
tried to kill Spock--not once, but several
times, just as
you killed the Cygnusian and the pirate, and tried
to
kill the Saurian ambassador. What kind of
people talk
of peace while using murder to achieve their
goals?"
He stopped at the sight of the pain on her face.
"An unhappy people, Captain," Tanirius
answered.
"Do you think I welcome the Praetor's
assignments?
But if I do not carry any of them out, I
endanger my
position and the help I can give my people. I am
forced
to do what I despise."
"You gave Spock the neodopazine--you lied to
McCoy, convinced him it would help--"
"It did. It bought Spock time. The Empire
wanted
him killed immediately. I was here, at the
base, when
they sent me to the Enterprise. I wanted
to remain, to
find a way to stop construction of the base, but I
had
the medical credentials, the appropriate
cover. When I
realized what Spock meant to Leonard... and
to you
..." she lowered her eyes, "I did what I
could. The
medication was the only way to appease the Empire.
If
Spock were incapacitated, could not remember what
he had seen, then that was as good as death." She
MINDSHADOW
looked up again. "Do you think I enjoyed what I
had
to do?"
"Enlisting the forces of evil," Kirk said
slowly,
remembering, "... in order to do good." He shook
his
head. "If it is true, then why
didn't you stay on the Enterprise... explain who
and what you are"
"No, No one could know. The Romulans had to
believe I came back because I had been
uncovered,
not because I feared they had completed their base and
would soon make their move. If they had thought
otherwise--"
"Then it was you." Kirk understood suddenly.
"You were the one who gave Varth the beamdown
code--"
"And the description of the fighter controls and the
layout of the base. I left the scrambling
device in his
cabin so that I could tell the Romulans I
framed a Star
Fleet Intelligence officer. Once the vote
on Vulcan had
been taken, Varth would have told you of the military
base, but Spock recovered his memory sooner
than we
anticipated--"
"But Varth didn't tell us you would be here."
"The arm of the Romulans is very long," she said,
and Kirk started. She smiled, but her
expression darkened
as she continued. "If you had known, and been
caught and questioned--if there had been any hint of
complicity with Star Fleet on my part, I would have
been killed immediately. We couldn't risk it."
"What of McCoy?" Kirk asked softly.
"Were you
merely following orders with him?"
She winced visibly and turned away. "Would you
believe me, Captain, if I said I was not?
And that I was
not following orders when I tried to seduce you, as
well?"
Kirk remained silent.
Tanirius reached for her phaser and motioned with it
toward the door. "Enough. Whether you believe me
or
not doesn't matter. I'm still going to help you."
"Where are you taking me?"
"To the cloaking device."
"It doesn't look like I have a choice."
qanirius grinned, and looked so much like Emma
that Kirk drew in his breath. "You don't."
Spock stood next to the cloaking device and was
preparing to signal the Enterprise when the
door
opened; he froze at the sight of the phaser
Tanirius
held at the captain's back. Kirk could not
see Tanurius's
face, but the look on the Vulcan's was one of
cold recognition.
Tanirius put the phaser on the console and
moved to
Kirk's side. Spock still did not move.
"She tells an interesting story, Mr.
Spock. She
keeps insisting she's on our side."
Spock was unconvinced. "Captain, I
respectfully
submit that the subcommander not be trusted, considering
her actions..."
"Gentlemen," Tanirius said, "the time for
explanations
has passed. I would like to warn Mr. Spock that
the instant he removes the cloaking device from the
console, an alarm will sound."
"I see. And what do you propose we do?"
Spock
asked with as much sarcasm as Kirk had
ever heard
him muster.
Kirk made a sudden move to grab
Tanirius; surprised,
she moved instinctively to defend herself. The
phaser was already in Spock's hand when she turned
toward him.
"Then shoot me, Spock," she said quietly.
"But
then one of you will have to stay behind to see the base
destroyed. Which one of you knows how to do it?"
MINDSHADOW
Spock was silent.
"Your cloaking device is inferior to ours,"
Tanirius
said. "You'll have to lower it in order to beam up. And
when you do, the sensors on this base will locate your
ship and lock in the automatic phasers.
Blanket
beams, wide range--and they won't stop firing
until
they're manually overridden or the sensors pick
up
debris."
She handed Kirk his communicator. "G."
He caught her arm. "You could come with us."
She shook her head. "Someone has to stay and stop
the phasers before the Enterprise is destroyed--and
it's time I completed my mission and destroyed this
base."
Kirk fought to keep the concern from showing in his
voice. "With you on it?"
She almost smiled. "That is most certainly not my
intention." She went to the door and paused. "One
thingm"
Kirk looked at her.
She bit her lip. "Tell Leonard I love
him."
And she was gone.
"Captain," Spock said as Kirk flipped
open his
communicator, "I am not at all sure it's
wise to trust
her."
Kirk looked pointedly at the cloaking device
and
back at his first officer. "Would you prefer I go
back to
the detention cell, Mr. Spock?"
They materialized on the transporter platform
just
in time for the first blast, which swept them off the
&nbs
p; platform and against the console. Tanirius had been
telling the truth about the phasers, at least.
Kirk dragged himself to the nearest intercom and
called Engineering. "Scotty, get the
deflector shields
up!"
"I'll do what I can, Captain, but they won't
hold
long," Scott lamented. "That bleedin' cloakin'
device
has just about taken all our power. There's barely
anythin' left for the shields."
"Any chance you could get us out of here?"
"A wee bit of impulse power is all we've
got left, sir,
but nothin' fast enough to pull us out of range of those
phasers before the shields buckle."
"Sorry, Scotty. I guess I was wrong
when I said we
wouldn't be needing the warp drive--or divine
intervention.
Just get those deflectors up. Kirk
out."
The fact that Kirk and Spock appeared on the
bridge
in full pirate regalia, including Kirk's
new ears, failed
to produce even mildly curious stares from the
bridge
crew; under conditions other than red alert, there
might have been more time for double takes. McCoy
moved to the side of Kirk's chair.
"I take it the ears fooled "em."
Kirk knew there was no time for polite
exchanges.
"Bones, I saw her."
"WhO?"
"Emma. She helped us escape. She might be
on our
side--comMr. Varth!"
Varth had already vacated the con to assist Spock
in
scanning the newly revealed Romulan base.
"Sir," the
Radun said excitedly, "beside the network of mining
tunnels beneath the main continent, the military base
itself houses more than five hundred
personnel."
"There isn't time, Varth. I have to know about
her--"
Varth straightened from the scanner abruptly.
"Tanirius."
"Then what she said was true?"
"I'm fairly sure we can trust her to help
us, sir."
"Fairly sure?"
MINDSHADOW
"Nothing's sure, Captain, until those phaser
blasts
stop."
As if on cue, there was the rumbling thunder of an
explosion as the bridge pitched forward and crewmen
went flying. Kirk slid from the con and bounced
off the back of Sulu's chair; the helmsman's
forehead
struck the navigation console with a resounding
thud.
The room slowly righted itself to the background
chatter of damage reports coming from Uhura's
station.
Scott's voice came from the arm of
Kirk's chair;
it had taken on the darkness of a Gaelic
prophet of
doom.
Star Trek-TOS-027-Mindshadow Page 27
