by Dave Stern
Reed was not as taken with the woman wearing it.
“I grow tired of having to repeat myself, Captain,” Valay said.
“Forgive me, Ambassador,” Archer said. “I’m afraid turning the prisoner over to you is not as simple a question as you make it out to be.”
“It is precisely that simple, Captain,” Valay said. “Our war is none of your concern.”
“It is now,” Archer said. “One of my crew is dead, and I’d like the chance to question this man about that.”
“You have my sympathies, Captain,” Valay interrupted, though her tone of voice suggested anything but compassion. She shook a long, thin finger at Archer. “But let me put the matter in perspective for you. You have one dead crewman. There were close to sixty people working in the facility below us, and every single one of them is now a body for me to bring back to their families. You are holding the person responsible for that outrage, and I want him.”
“You may see him,” Archer said. “But until I know exactly what went on down there—”
“Have you not heard what I’ve said? This man is responsible—for your crewman’s death, the death of our scientists, everything. There is no doubt.”
“There is in my mind,” Archer said. “The pictures you transmitted to us are not an exact likeness. Moreover—”
“He has most assuredly been using drugs to alter the pigmentation of his skin,” said the third member of the Sarkassian party. “Which is no doubt how he got onto the outpost in the first place.”
“I will provide you evidence, Captain,” the ambassador said. “He has used similar methods in the past. This man is a murderer many times over, a butcher, a—” The translator spluttered in a burst of static.
“I’m sorry. Could you say that again?” Hoshi said, stepping forward and holding the translator out in front of her.
The ambassador repeated the phrase and—as before—the translator spluttered.
Valay turned away, exasperated.
“We are wasting time!”
Hoshi exchanged a frustrated glance with Archer. At that instant, the captain caught sight of Reed.
“Excuse me, Captain,” Reed said, taking a step forward. “If you can spare a minute.”
Everyone on deck—including the Sarkassians—turned his way.
“This is Lieutenant Reed,” Archer said, motioning him closer. “Our armory officer. Lieutenant, this is Ambassador Valay.”
Reed inclined his head in greeting. The ambassador did the same.
“Lieutenant,” she said. “May I present Commodore Roan, and Dr. Natir.”
Reed nodded to each of them. They, in turn, bowed back. Both wore robes similar to Valay s, though of different colors—Natir’s a lighter purple than Valay’s, Roan’s a simple black. Natir was the man who had accused the prisoner of deliberately changing the pigmentation of his skin. And now that Reed was closer, he recognized Roan from their first contact with the Sarkassians. The commodore was older than Valay, his skin even paler than hers, save for a mottled patch of red and brown running all the way down one side of his face and neck. It looked like a very bad burn.
“Armory officer,” Roan said, nodding to himself. “I guessed right, then.”
“Sir?”
“The other day, when we first made contact? Before the translators were working?”
“I remember,” Reed said, images from those chaotic moments—rushing back from the planet’s surface, Phlox working on Ensign Hart, the few brief glimpses he’d had of the Sarkassian ship’s interior—flashing through his mind.
“I had my communications officer maintain visual contact with your ship. Which offered me a chance to see you all at work.”
“And in those few moments, you managed to pick me out as the armory officer?”
“I recognize the type,” Roan said. “Having been one myself for quite a long time.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I’d be interested to know what gave me away.”
“Perhaps if we have a few moments later, I can tell you.”
“I would like that,” Reed said.
“And I would like to get back to the business at hand,” Valay interrupted.
Roan turned and bowed to her. “Forgive me, Ambassador.”
“Your efforts at establishing relations are appreciated, Commodore,” Valay said, in a tone of voice that suggested just the opposite. “Please bear in mind, however, our primary duty is to those who perished on the outpost below.”
“Of course,” Roan said, tight-lipped.
Reed looked from one of them to the other, puzzled. He sensed a lot of hostility bubbling underneath the surface of their polite conversation, and wondered where it all came from. He caught the captains eye, and knew Archer was wondering the same thing.
“Though I am curious, Captain,” Valay continued, turning her attention to Archer again. “Your earlier statements led me to believe that Enterprise was primarily an exploratory vessel, not a warship.”
“We use our weapons in self-defense only,” Archer said.
“As do we,” Valay said. “All civilized species recognize self-defense as their fundamental right. Which is why you must allow us to take custody of this prisoner. He has committed multiple acts of war against my people!”
Archer smiled tightly. Reed rarely saw that smile. In his experience, it usually preceded one of the captain’s very infrequent outbursts of temper.
“Excuse me a moment, will you, Ambassador?” Archer put his hand on Reed’s arm. “We’ll be right back.”
The captain pulled Reed off to the far side of the shuttlebay.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the interruption—but if I had wanted you to be here, Malcolm ...”
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve found something.” Reed told the captain about the symbols. “I thought Hoshi would want to see them—see if they—”
“I can’t spare her right now,” Archer interrupted. “The situation here is too delicate. Carstairs has been doing a lot of the work on what we found down there. Use him.” The captain looked back toward the ambassador and her party. “If that’s all—”
“Yes, sir.” Reed tried not to let his disappointment show. “I’ll be back in the armory then—if you need me.”
As he turned to go, Archer put a hand on his shoulder.
“Malcolm, wait.”
Reed spun back around to see the captain looking at him with concern. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
“A little. I think.”
“You think?”
Reed shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
In fact, he was pretty sure that he hadn’t, that the few dreamlike hours he’d spent lying in his bunk had been just that—dreamlike, not actual sleep at all. But he didn’t need rest—that could come later.
What he needed now were answers.
“We’re going to find out what happened. I give you my word,” Archer said, as if reading his mind. “Why don’t you take the rest of today off, let Trip and Lieutenant Hess cover the armory—”
“Not necessary, sir.”
“Malcolm, there’s only so much you can do.”
Reed nodded. The captain was right about that. In fact, right now there was absolutely nothing for him to do—except wait.
Which, given his state of mind, was simply unacceptable.
He glanced back toward the ambassador and the other Sarkassians, and an idea popped into his head.
“Captain,” he began. “Forgive me for speaking plainly, but Ambassador Valay—is she as difficult to talk to as she seems?”
“More so,” Archer said. “But she’s who we’ve got to deal with.”
“That you have to deal with.”
Archer eyed him curiously. “Malcolm?”
“I might be able to speak more freely to Commodore Roan.”
“I take it you’re volunteering to accompany us.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain frowned. “I
don’t know. This is a first contact. A very delicate one. I don’t want Starfleet to be speaking with two different voices to the Sarkassians.”
“The point is for him to talk, sir. Not me.”
Archer thought for a moment. “All right,” he said finally. “Why don’t you join us, and see what you can find out about that outpost.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll try and find out more about the prisoner as well. This—” Reed struggled to remember his name.
“Goridian.”
“Goridian. Yes.” Reed hesitated. “Are you going to let the ambassador take him?”
“Eventually, I suppose. But not before I find out what was going on down there. If it had something to do with what happened to Ensign Hart.”
“Yes, sir,” Reed said. His voice took on an edge. “Hard to see how it couldn’t have.”
“I agree.” The captain put a hand on Reed’s shoulder. “No one blames you, Malcolm.”
“I know that,” Reed said.
But his hands were fists. His heart was hammering. He blamed himself.
All night long, that was all he’d been doing. Thinking about the past, about what he’d done, and what he hadn’t. Thinking about Alana, her voice so clear and vivid in his head it was as if she were right there with him, as if the past had suddenly come back to life.
His vision blurred for a second, and he remembered.
Two
CORRIDOR, E-DECK
12/31/2150 2127 HOURS
IT WAS NEW YEAR’S EVE, and Reed was on his way from one party to another. Holding a champagne glass in his left hand, as he studied the padd in his right. Lieutenant Hess in engineering had a relative who worked in one of the vineyards in the Champagne region. She’d arranged to have a magnum brought aboard, and Reed intended to savor every drop. He wasn’t sure how good the bubbly would be at the captain’s party later that evening.
He glanced down at the padd as he walked, noting with satisfaction that he’d taken care of almost everything on his list today, and the things that he hadn’t done could all wait until—
He stopped short.
“Oh, damn,” he said, looking at the last item on his list, which read “TB1 FR Time?” How he’d forgotten about it all day was beyond him. TB1 was torpedo bay one, and FR was fire response, and the note was meant to remind him that there was a problem with bay one’s launch mechanism. Fire-response time was up by almost five percent, and every nanosecond in a combat situation was critical.
Earlier in the day he’d asked Ensign Santini, who had pulled the duty shift in the armory tonight, to check the firing relays for mechanical defects, though the lieutenant suspected the problem was in software, not hardware. Whatever it was, Reed was certain it wouldn’t take him long to find and fix, and then it would be off to his quarters, and then the captain’s mess, and a Happy New Year to one and all.
He took the turbolift down to F-deck, then headed toward the armory. The door slid open, Reed walked in, and to his surprise he saw not Santini but Ensign Hart—Alana Hart—on duty. She stood next to a monitor in the back of the room, studying something on the screen. Reed couldn’t tell what from where he stood.
He took the opportunity to study her for a moment.
Hart was something of an enigma to him—they’d served together for a year now, and in all that time, he couldn’t recall exchanging more than two dozen words with her. Every attempt at a conversation he’d made had been—well, rebuffed was the wrong word, because she’d answered his questions (if “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” and “It was fine, sir” counted as answers)—tolerated, and not much more. He was her superior officer, so it never got close to rudeness with him, but he’d heard rumblings from some of the other crew about a certain ... prickliness to her manner.
At first, Reed thought it was just her way of coping with a new situation. Especially after coming over from the Achilles, she was bound to be both closemouthed and a little defensive—about herself, and about the past. Add into the mix the fact that Hart was an attractive woman (“easy on the eyes” was how Diaz had put it, and Reed couldn’t dispute that, though of course with him being her superior any sort of romance between them was forbidden by regulations) and Reed thought he had a handle on the reasons for her behavior. So he hadn’t made an issue of it, thinking that time would mellow her.
But he’d been wrong. Nearly a year into the mission, and she showed no signs of coming out of her shell.
Now, perhaps, was a chance for him to address the issue.
Except, he considered, that it was New Year’s Eve, and the middle of the armory didn’t necessarily strike him as the appropriate place for a private conversation. Some point over the next few days, though—for certain.
“Ensign,” he said, clearing his throat.
Hart spun around, surprise on her face. “Sir.”
She stood ramrod-straight, eyes front, not moving a muscle, as if Reed were about to give her and her uniform a thorough inspection.
“At ease,” Reed said. “Relax.”
“Yes, sir.” She clasped her hands behind her back and shifted position, relaxing not a single inch. Reed sighed. Another thing about Hart—she was a stickler for regulations. True, Starfleet was a military organization, and Reed, coming from a long line of naval officers, appreciated the tradition as much as anyone, but ...
It was New Year’s Eve, for pity’s sake.
“What are you doing here?”
“Ensign Santini asked me to check on the firing mechanism, sir.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Reed said. “Where is Ensign Santini?”
“Oh. I took his shift. He wanted to go to the engineering party.”
“Ah.” Reed nodded. “That was very considerate of you, Ensign. I hope Mister Santini will return the favor at some point.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, in such a way that Reed got the impression that it didn’t matter to her one bit if Santini reciprocated or not.
“Did he talk to you about the firing-response lag in bay one?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, crossing quickly to the starboard launch tube. “I was able to find the problem, I believe.”
“Really?” Reed asked.
“Yes, sir. Come see here.” She crossed to the starboard launch tube, and crouched down next to it, flashlight in hand. Reed came around the far side of the tube, setting his padd and the glass of champagne down on the firing console behind the bay, and crouched down across from her. She’d opened up the inside access panel. A tangle of cable and logic boards lay spread out across the bottom of the tube, next to the firing mechanism.
“Well, first I thought that it couldn’t be a mechanical problem. I thought the problem was in software, since we’ve made so many modifications to the basic system since we left spacedock.”
Reed nodded. “My thinking exactly.”
“But I was wrong,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yes.” She pointed the flashlight into the empty bay. “Look there.”
Reed looked where the light was pointing, and saw immediately what she meant. A half-meter length of cable—one of the power conduits, Reed guessed, judging from its thickness—lay curled up next to the side of the bay. One side of it was burned black.
“Good lord,” he said. “How did we miss that?”
“It looks worse than it is,” Hart said. “Electron flow is only inhibited point zero five percent in the circuit.”
“Hang the electron flow. A cable in that condition could have done some serious damage down the road. Good work, Ensign. Above and beyond,” Reed said.
“Yes, sir,” Hart said. “Thank you, sir.”
Reed braced his hand on the console behind him, stood up—
And knocked over his glass of champagne. He watched it tumble, as if in slow motion, and spill into the torpedo bay, splashing all over the exposed wiring. Sparks fizzled. He heard a crackling sound.
He reached for the emergency shutdown switch underneath the console�
��and brushed against Hart’s hand as she got there first, and pulled it.
The room promptly went dark, except for the emergency lights.
Reed stood stock-still for a split second.
“That was the single stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said finally.
“It was an accident, sir,” Hart said. “Accidents happen.”
“Not to me they don’t. Damn stupid. Totally against protocol, bringing that champagne in here.” Reed sighed. “All right. Let’s see how bad the damage is.”
He crossed to the back of the room and accessed the emergency panel. He brought the overhead lights back online. Hart, he saw, already had her tools out and was pulling the rest of the bay’s access panel off.
“It’s all right, Ensign,” he called. “You don’t have to help with that. It’s my fault. I’ll handle the cleanup.”
“Partially my fault too, sir. I distracted you. If you hadn’t stopped to see what I was doing ...”
“That’s stretching it a bit, but ... all right. I appreciate the help. Thank you.”
He started back across the room. Halfway there, the com sounded.
“Bridge to armory. Weapons systems just went offline. Report.”
That was T’Pol. Reed went to the com.
“Reed here, Sub-Commander. We’ve had an accident. Nothing serious.”
“Very well. When do you estimate having weapons back online?”
Reed looked over at Hart, who was scanning the interior of the bay with a flashlight. She shrugged at his unspoken question.
“Not long,” Reed said. “Will advise.”
“Very well. Bridge out.”
Reed shut the com, and came the rest of the way across the room. “How bad does it look? Can you—”
The com sounded again.
“Engineering to armory. Primary weapons systems are offline, do you copy? Over.”
Reed sighed, and turned around again.
“I copy. This is Lieutenant Reed in the armory. We’ve had an accident. I’ll keep you posted on our progress. Out.”
He looked back across the room at Hart. “Maybe I should just stand here until everyone aboard checks in.”
“If you think best, sir,” Hart replied, without looking up.
