by Dave Stern
Trip spoke up again.
“Seems to me that maybe your war council is a little premature, General. We’re on speaking terms with the Guild, after all. With Makandros. And you. If we can do it”—he smiled and locked eyes with Elson—“maybe you all can do it as well. Get together. Find a way to avoid this war.”
Elson shook his head. “The Guild would like that, wouldn’t they? If we stopped harassing their ships—gave them time to regroup, plan new, even deadlier attacks…”
“So you won’t negotiate with them?”
“I see no point.”
“General, perhaps…” Lee had found his voice and stepped forward now. “The Guild has asked to speak to me, sir. Let me do that at least, before you—”
“Lee.” Elson said, his eyes wide in what to Trip was clearly feigned surprise. “Talking to the Guild? What would your father say?”
The boy blinked, looking lost again.
Trip’s lips tightened in anger. “That’s a low blow, General.”
Elson turned back to Trip and for the first time allowed some of the anger he no doubt felt to seep into his voice.
“I fail to see what business this is of yours, Commander. Any of it.”
“I don’t like seeing people die for no good reason.”
“Noble sentiments,” Elson snapped. “But some things are worth fighting—and dying—for. Your father knew that, Lee.”
The general’s eyes fastened on the boy one final time.
“The Council meets in three hours. We’ll be waiting for you.”
Elson nodded, and the screen went dark.
Twenty-Six
“YOU KNOW what’s going to happen as well as I do, sir.” Trip shook his head and kept pacing. “The second Elson gets his hands on that boy, it’ll be the last time anyone ever sees Leeman Sadir.”
His chief engineer, who’d joined the captain in his ready room was worked up all over again.
Trip had good reason. The general may have talked a good game, but the captain’s assessment of the situation was pretty much the same as Trip’s: Elson had gone after Makandros and Dirsch because they threatened his position, and he was going to do exactly the same to Lee. If not to kill him, as Trip thought, then to neutralize him in some other way. They couldn’t deliver the boy into his hands.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what Lee wanted them to do.
“What if I do go? Take my father’s place. Elson has to listen to me then,” Lee had said, the instant Trip had brought him into the ready room.
“It’s not a good idea, Lee,” Archer had said.
“What do we lose by trying?”
“You, I suspect,” Trip interjected.
“He’s not going to do anything to me in front of the entire Council.”
“No,” Trip said. “He’ll find a nice, secluded area to kill you in.”
“Commander,” Archer said, a note of warning in his voice. “Let’s take a step back. Lee, who was that other man you were talking to? Maj—”
“Maj Wooler. Colonel Wooler. Another of my tutors—weapons, unarmed combat. I’ve known him my whole life.”
“He seems a little more trustworthy,” Trip said. “If a bit misguided in his allegiance.”
Lee shot the commander an angry look. But the captain agreed with Trip. Wooler’s feelings for the boy had seemed genuine.
“What’s his role in all this? Why’s he the one investigating what happened at Charest?”
“Colonel Wooler is—was—head of my father’s security force.”
Archer and Trip shared a glance.
“He’s got men under his command? His own men?” Trip asked.
“Some. A couple dozen.”
Enough to protect the boy, at least initially.
“Is there a way of contacting him without letting Elson know about it?”
The question had been meant for Lee, but Trip answered it.
“Doubtful, sir. I’ve been inside the Kresh. The way they have that place wired up…”
“Not that I know of,” Lee added.
Archer sighed. They couldn’t just send the boy in there willy-nilly. Trip was right. That was a suicide mission. And the captain did not think there were enough phase pistols aboard Enterprise to send down an adequate security detail—the chamber Elson had been broadcasting from was crammed full of soldiers. He was not going to put his people in the line of fire. Bottom line: as much as he wanted to help Lee—help the Denari avoid war…
This was not their fight.
“We need alternatives,” the captain said.
“We need more time,” Trip said.
“Let me go, sir. I’m willing to take the risk.”
Archer shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, Lee.”
“Captain—”
“It’s not just your life you risk by going. It’s your planet’s last chance to avoid war.”
The com buzzed.
“T’Pol to Archer.”
He opened the channel. “Go ahead.”
“We need to talk, sir.”
From the tone in her voice, she did not have good news.
“One minute, Sub-Commander.” The captain turned to Lee. “I want you to go back to your quarters with Ensign Yamani. I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
“Captain,” Lee said. “Maybe if I can get to Colonel Wooler first—”
“Not now, Lee. Please.”
“When? We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Lee, this ship can do warp five. That means we can get from here to Denari in about two seconds, all right? We have time.”
“It’s going to take more than two seconds to convince the Council not to attack.”
Archer sighed.
“You said you wouldn’t force me to do anything I don’t want,” Lee went on. “Well, I don’t want to stay here on this ship any longer. Not when there’s a chance that I could stop a war.”
“I understand. We’ll talk about it. Just not right now.”
“You can’t keep me here.”
Archer didn’t respond.
Without saying another word, the boy spun on his heel and left the ready room.
The captain sighed.
“Kid’s right, sir. We can’t keep him here forever.”
“I know that. One thing at a time, though.” Archer keyed open the circuit to the science lab. T’Pol’s face filled the screen.
“Sorry about that, Sub-Commander. Go ahead.”
“We are aborting the project, sir.”
Archer let out an exclamation of disgust. More good news.
“What’s the problem?” Trip asked, leaning over the captain’s shoulder.
“Further analysis of the gravitational flux within the anomaly reveals far more powerful EM distortion than we’d previously detected. We will be unable to maintain the carrier signal’s integrity long enough for it to transit the dimensional gateway.”
“What about redundant carriers?”
“You could have a shipful of carriers and not get a signal through that beast.” Brodesser had stepped forward and now stood just behind T’Pol. “It’s not going to work, Trip.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it,” Brodesser said. “For what it’s worth, we’re using the signal to map out the strength of the gravitational flux within the anomaly. That may be of some help to you.”
“The professor is being unreasonably optimistic,” T’Pol said. “Such a map will not prove useful.”
“And your Vulcan is being a tad too pessimistic,” Brodesser said. “That map will enable your ship to pass through the flux without being torn to pieces.”
“As a practical matter, we will still be unable to return to our own universe, sir.”
Archer nodded. “All right. Thank you both for your efforts, in any case.”
“You’re welcome,” Brodesser said. “And we’ll get you that map, Captain.”
“And I will join you on the bridge, sir. With your permission.”
“Of course. We’ll see you in a minute. Archer out.”
The screen went dark.
The captain spun in his chair to face Trip.
“Got any more ideas?”
“I’m fresh out at the moment. Captain, don’t you think it’s time you let the rest of the crew in on what’s happening?”
“Yes. Probably past time.” And speaking of time…
Archer glanced back at the status bar.
Less than three hours to the Council meeting.
Lee was right, they didn’t have that long to act. Not if they wanted to stop the war. Makandros had said it too: once the generals were all in the Council chamber, they were effectively under Elson’s control. It would be close to impossible for them to go against him.
“Where are they?”
“Sir?” Trip asked.
“Makandros and Kairn—where are they?”
“I wish I could tell you. Carstairs can’t seem to find them.”
“Where’s Hoshi?”
“Still confined to quarters. I don’t know that she could be doing anything more, sir.”
“Well, let’s find out.” He keyed open a channel. A second later Hoshi’s face filled the screen. She looked about a million times better than she had the last time the captain had seen her—still thinner than usual, but there was color in her cheeks now, life on her face.
And a fork in her hand. He’d caught her in the middle of eating.
“Ensign, sorry for the interruption.”
“That’s all right, sir. Were my suggestions of any help?”
Archer frowned.
“Suggestions?”
“Ensign Carstairs had contacted me about alternative signaling methods—to try and locate Eclipse?”
“Ah.” Archer nodded. Of course he had. “No, I’m afraid not. Still no sign of either vessel.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. If I think of anything else, I’ll be sure and let him know.” She frowned. “Why were you calling, sir?”
“Just checking in,” the captain replied quickly. “When are you back on the duty schedule?”
“Tomorrow, hopefully. Doctor Phlox wants to see me get back another few pounds before he clears me.” She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know how much more I can eat, though. Not without getting sick all over again.”
The captain saw a stack of dishes behind her and what looked like the bone from a very thick porterhouse.
“I didn’t know you ate steak,” he said.
“I don’t, usually. Doctor’s orders.”
“Well, we’ll let you get back to it then.”
Hoshi nodded. “Good luck, Captain. Commander.”
Archer closed the channel.
“Okay,” Trip said. “They don’t want to talk to us. But can we find them somehow? Force the issue?”
“What are you thinking?”
“Modify the sensors. I can take a pretty good guess at Eclipse’s hull composition. Feed that data in…”
Archer nodded. “Sounds like it’s worth a try. Let’s check status with Malcolm.” The captain opened a channel. “Reed, status on sensors.”
“Another hour or so till all units are on-line again, and at full strength,” Reed said. “We can try the modification then, sir, although, if they’re deep inside the Belt, we still might not have much luck.”
“An hour or so.” Archer shook his head. “That’s cutting it too close.”
“Sir?” Reed asked.
Archer filled Malcolm in on everything that had happened. In the middle of his explanation, T’Pol entered. The captain started over, and got her up to speed as well.
“I hesitate to point out the obvious, Captain,” she said the instant he’d finished. “But—”
“This is not our war. I know that.”
“Our safest course of action is to do as the boy asks. Let him join the Council. That was our original intent.”
“We thought he’d have Makandros and Kairn with him, though,” Archer pointed out.
“Captain, I don’t know that I’m comfortable bringing us that close to the Kresh anyway,” Reed said. “I’ve seen specifications on the armament they have on that building. For us to approach the planet, with Elson in control of those weapons—it doesn’t strike me as the most prudent maneuver.”
“Perhaps we could locate an alternative drop-off point, another Denari outpost nearer our present position, to leave the boy at.”
“We’re not abandoning him—or our effort to stop the war,” Archer said. “Not just yet, anyway.”
The com buzzed.
“Bridge to the captain.”
That was Carstairs.
“Archer here. Go ahead.”
“I’ve got them sir. Marshal Kairn and General Makandros.”
For the first time in what felt like forever, the captain smiled.
“Good work, Ensign.”
“Not my doing, sir. They contacted us.”
“In any case, we’ll be right there.”
He closed the channel and turned to Trip.
“Let them know the boy’s ready to talk. Tell them what we learned from Elson, and see if they know this Colonel Wooler. Malcolm, you get hold of Yamani, tell him to get Lee back up here right away. T’Pol, let’s get one of the shuttle pods prepped and ready to go. If there’s going to be a meeting between these people, it needs to happen soon.”
His command staff hustled through the door. Trip stopped on his way out and turned back with a smile.
“Think we might just pull this off, sir?”
“We might at that. On your way now.”
Archer watched the door close behind them, then went back to his workstation and activated the bridge monitor. He saw Trip enter the bridge and gesture to Carstairs. The viewscreen filled with the side-by-side images of Makandros, transmitting from what looked like the pilot’s seat of one of the Stingers, and Kairn, standing on Eclipse’s bridge.
“Commander Tucker,” Kairn said. “We need to talk.”
The marshal held up something in one of his hands—gleaming metal, about the size of an old-fashioned hardcover book. Archer didn’t recognize it.
Trip did.
“That’s Doctor Trant’s scanner,” his chief engineer said.
The captain felt the blood drain suddenly from his face.
“That’s right,” Kairn replied. “Would you like to know what information we’ve just discovered on it?”
“Sure,” Trip said, his voice sounding surprisingly, unnaturally calm to Archer, whose own heart was racing. “I’m listening.”
Twenty-Seven
“THE BOY IS A FRAUD,” Makandros said, speaking up for the first time. “Not Sadir’s son at all. Human.”
Trip had a split second to decide how to play it. Lie, or admit the truth. He wished that he and the captain had covered this eventuality in their discussions, that Archer was here instead of him right now, and then decided there was no point in lying. They were all on the same side here.
He hoped.
“That’s something,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “that we recently discovered ourselves.”
“Really?” The expression on Kairn’s face was cold enough to freeze coffee. “And were you intending to share this information with us?”
“We were talking about that as well.”
“And were you going to decide before or after we installed a human as ruler of our world?”
“Like I said, we were talking. And that was not our intention at all. Our intentions are the same as yours. Stop the war.”
“I would have hoped,” Kairn said, “that the time we’d served together would have counted for something with you, Tucker. That you would have decided you owed us the truth.”
“I’m sorry, Marshal. I really am.” Trip paused a second. “Of course, it would have been impossible for us to contact you if we had decided to share that information. Considering that we had no idea where you’d gone off to.”
&
nbsp; Makandros spoke up. “We had plans of our own to make, Tucker. As I informed you earlier.”
“Well, now that we are talking”—Trip didn’t know if he shouldn’t suggest this or not, considering that it would be precisely the worst-case scenario he and the captain had discussed earlier, but he was flying by the seat of his pants here—“why don’t I go get the boy, and you talk to him as well?”
Makandros snorted in disgust. “The boy is useless to us now.”
“He’s still the only way you have to get Elson to stand down.”
“We’re finished here,” Makandros said. “Good-bye, Tucker.”
He turned his head to the side. Trip knew he was about to give the order to break contact.
“Wait.”
Both men turned to look at him.
Trip’s thoughts raced frantically, trying to find something else to say.
Meanwhile, Archer had Yamani on the com.
“Keep the boy in his quarters,” he told the ensign.
“Sir?” Yamani replied. “I just spoke to Lieutenant Reed, and he said—”
“These orders take precedence.”
“He’s a little restless.”
“Walk him around the ship, then. Just don’t let him up here.”
In the background, Archer heard Porthos barking and suddenly had an idea. “In fact, Ensign, take them both for a walk. Cargo Bay D-2.”
“D-2. Yes, sir.”
Archer closed the channel. Yamani had been to D-2 with Porthos before. He should be able to keep the boy occupied there for at least the next few minutes.
Until the captain could figure what they were supposed to do now.
On the viewscreen, Trip was doing the best he could, trying to convince Kairn and Makandros to reconsider their decision. Archer had mixed feelings about his chief engineer’s argument, mostly because of his concern about the boy. Lee really had no place safe to go now.
And a very, very hard truth to face.
The com buzzed.
“Captain.”
That was Malcolm.
“Go,” Archer replied, trying to divide his attention between Reed and the scene still unfolding on the bridge.
“Makandros and Kairn. I’ve fixed their positions, sir. They’re leading twinned battle groups, just outside the Belt. And, Captain, extrapolating their trajectories, relative velocities—I think I know what they’re planning.”
