by Andy Mangels
Maybe sometimes the powers that be really do need somebody guarding that back door for them,he thought. Whether they know about it or not.
He set aside his apprehensions, at least for the moment. Being able to believe that he truly was in the right place, doing the right thing—even briefly—was a small comfort after the maelstrom of a day he’d just had, and the cataclysmic changes he’d just introduced into his life.
But it was comfort nonetheless.
Now feeling relatively at ease, he began familiarizing himself with the layout of the Branson’s controls, which he recognized right away, thanks to his Starfleet training. The Bransonwas a small Rutan-class trading vessel, of a type that hadn’t been built since the late 2130s. Designed to support a maximum of six people and to carry several tons of cargo, the Rutans had a top range of perhaps fifteen light-years, and were notoriously slow.
Trip didn’t have to spend much time behind the controls before he realized that Phuong had apparently found retrofit remedies for both of those problems.
For the second since he’d come aboard, he smiled. Adigeon Prime, here we come.
Fifteen
Friday, February 14, 2155
EnterpriseNX-01
ARCHER CONSIDERED WAITING, hoping that some kind of glitch—or miracle—would scuttle Trip’s espionage mission. But the captain knew waiting could endanger not only the mission but also his friend’s life. He had to contact the Tuckers now. Trip had outlined his parents’ schedule for the captain, making certain not only that both his parents would be home, but also that his father would already have taken his daily medication.
Although he had first met Charles and Elaine Tucker some twenty years ago, his most memorable encounter with Trip’s parents had come in 2143, when they had come to visit the Academy following the successful—if illegal—flight of the NX-Beta. Gracie, as she preferred to be called, had pulled Archer aside by his arm, scolding him as if he were her own son.
“Don’t you get my boy involved in any moreof your wild schemes, Jonathan Archer,” she had said, waggling her finger in his face. “I don’t care whoyour daddy was, or how much Trip worships what he did. He needs to learn responsibility, not how to take joyrides across the solar system.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Archer had said guiltily.
A moment later, she had slapped him, lightly, as if to make certain she had his full attention. “Don’t you ‘yes, ma’am’ me as if I’m some tawdry Helena. I’m quite serious.. My boy looks up to you. You need to make sure you’re man enough to deserveit.”
Archer never had found out what a “tawdry Helena” was, but he had spent the better part of the next dozen years or so as Trip Tucker’s friend, confidant, and superior officer. And through it all, he had always tried his utmost to be certain he was man enough to deserve Trip’s respect and friendship.
He tapped the buttons on the padd on his desk, and the image on his screen changed from the white-on-blue symbol of Earth’s Starfleet to a darker hue with a moving sine wave superimposed, signifying that his signal was transmitting.
Several moments later, the screen brightened, and Charlie Tucker appeared. “Hello?”He peered into the screen, and his face was almost instantly split by a smile. “Jonathan Archer!”
“Hello, Charlie,” Archer said.
The older man put one hand up and turned to yell over his shoulder. “Gracie, it’s Jonny on the line.”A pause, and then he yelled, “Jonny Archer!”A few seconds later, a middle-aged woman pulling a housecoat around her shoulders appeared on the screen with Charlie.
“Lordy, you haven’t changed a bit!”Elaine said, smiling. “Must be some alien mojo working to keep you young.”
Archer struggled to keep his composure in the face of such a pleasant greeting. Besides, he knew a polite lie when he heard one, just as he knew how he really looked in the mirror. “Thank you, Gracie. You look as fantastic as always.”
Charlie Tucker craned his head from side to side, peering at Archer—or rather, aroundArcher. “Where’s our boy? He couldn’t make it to the call?”
Archer gulped, and blinked hard. “Mr. and Mrs. Tucker…there’s no easy way for me to tell you this, but earlier today, Trip—”
Elaine Tucker let out a shriek, her happy countenance crumbling. “No! Don’t tell me…”
Charlie put his arm around his wife’s shoulder, drawing her in, muttering something to her that the Tuckers’ audio pickup didn’t quite catch.
“I’m so sorry to have to tell you,” Archer said, his voice low.
Charlie looked toward him across the monitor, his lower lip trembling. “Is he gone, or just injured?”
Archer felt his own eyes welling up with tears. “He’s…gone, sir.”
Charlie looked away, his lips tightening inward and outward. “Was he doing something heroic?”
“Yes, he was,” Archer said. “He was saving me, and the ship. And quite possibly a lot more than that.” This felt less like a lie than the rest of it, but Enterprise’s captain still felt his stomach tying itself into knots over having to deceive the Tuckers.
Elaine let out a deep sob, then shouted something unintelligible through her crying. Charlie pulled her in tighter, and looked back toward the screen.
“All right, Jonny,”he said, his voice quavering. “We…we, um…we need some time to make some sense out of this. Please…uh…forward the details to us, and we’ll be in touch.”
“I understand, and I will,” Archer said. “I want you to know that he was the bravest and best friend I’ve—”
The screen abruptly went black before he could finish. Even though he had lost his father when he was young, and as Enterprise’s captain had lost both Starfleet crew members and MACO troopers, Archer could only imagine the grief the Tuckers must be experiencing now. First their daughter Elizabeth had been killed in the Xindi attack on Earth two years ago, and then, only a couple of weeks ago, their sole grandchild—Trip and T’Pol’s daughter, also named Elizabeth—had died.
And now, as far as they know,Trip is gone, too. But their pain is a lie this time…a lie made necessary by other lies and secrets and subterfuge.He hated the Romulans for driving them to this. More than he had ever hated anything, even the Xindi, he hated them, these faceless creatures from the other side of space.
Archer struggled to regain his composure and tamp down his feelings. He still had to call Trip’s brother Albert. He recalled that Albert and his husband Miguel also lived in Alabama, not far from Charlie and Elaine. He hoped they’d be able to help the Tuckers cope with their latest dose of grief.
Grief caused by the lie of Trip’s death, which we designed and executed so very carefully.Archer wondered what Trip would do once he was free again to resume his old life, if that were ever to happen. Would he find the emotional barriers erected by Section 31’s lies as easy to break down as they’d been to construct?
T’Pol reached for the small framed photograph on Trip’s desk. The image was of him scuba-diving in Earth’s Caribbean Sea. Below him was a manta ray, its flat form belying the danger posed by its venom-tipped tail.
She studied the picture for a moment, recalling Trip’s talk of taking her diving. Having grown up on arid Vulcan, T’Pol had had little experience even with swimming, much less underwater sightseeing and adventuring.
She felt sadness welling up inside her again like a towering wave, and stopped to concentrate, willing the emotion to be suppressed. She put the photograph down on top of an open suitcase on the bed. Many more of Trip’s small possessions were in the padded enclosure, including other photographs and the harmonica he’d played from time to time.
T’Pol turned and picked up one of Trip’s royal blue uniform jumpsuits. After the Vulcan High Command had cashiered her, Starfleet had granted her a commission. Yet she had never donned their uniform. Perhaps the Vulcan uniform she still wore—a garment that now bore Starfleet commander’s pips—represented an illogical attachment to the past.
And perhaps T
rip’s death signified that the time had finally arrived to move past such impulses.
She started to fold Trip’s uniform, but found herself, without cause, pulling it close to her face. She inhaled deeply, directing the residual musky scent of her former lover on the garment.
Ever since she’d come on board Enterprise, she’d been tolerant of the assault of smells that swirled around her: the humans, Captain Archer’s dog, and even from the machinery that ran the vessel. But now, as she smelled the ghosts of Trip’s sweat, mixed with the slight ozone tang of the engine room, she found the odors comforting.
The door to Trip’s quarters slid open, but T’Pol didn’t turn to see who was entering.
“Need any help?” Captain Archer asked, leaning against the bulkhead beside the bed.
T’Pol began refolding the uniform, handling it as though it were a precision scientific instrument. “No, thank you.”
Archer gestured toward the case she had been preparing. “For his parents?”
Nodding listlessly, T’Pol asked, “Will they still be coming to the ceremony?”
“We didn’t talk long, but I’ll try to make sure that they do. I think they know that Trip wouldn’t want it any other way.”
He chuckled mirthlessly and reached forward, pulling a small Frankenstein monster figure from the shelf. “Don’t forget this,” he said, holding it out for her.
T’Pol took the figurine and studied it in silence, remembering the first time she and Trip had watched the original film version of Frankenstein. He had shown it to her as a thank-you for the Vulcan neural pressure therapy sessions she had been performing on him to help him get over his insomnia. It was during the viewing that they had first touched in a far less formal—and decidedly nontherapeutic—manner. Just Trip’s hand over hers, but she had not pulled away, nor questioned his intentions as she might have just days earlier.
Aware that the captain was watching her expectantly, she said, “I’d like to meet them.”
“His parents?” asked Archer.
“Yes, I’d like to meet them.” T’Pol stared down at the figurine in her hands, stroking it.
Archer moved past her, toward the head. T’Pol could sense that he seemed nervous, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing. “They’re a little eccentric. I think you’ll see where Trip got his sense of humor.”
“My mother was somewhat eccentric, as well,” T’Pol said.
Archer stared away from her. “I wasn’t around her for very long, but I could see that.”
T’Pol placed the Frankenstein monster figure into the case. “Trip told me that as time went by, I would miss her less.” She sat down on the bed, feeling her mind clouding with unwanted emotions again. “Though she hasn’t yet been gone for a year, I think he was wrong. Because I find myself missing her more with each passing month. Why would he tell me that?”
Archer spread his hands awkwardly. “‘Time heals all wounds’…but ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I guess it’s a little tricky.” He moved over toward her. “Emotions have a way of contradicting themselves.”
T’Pol could feel the pain rising again inside her, pushing against her eyes and her sinuses. “And you wonder why we suppress them?” She looked down, forcing herself not to give in to her feelings, pushing back against them as hard as they pushed to escape.
Archer sat on the bed and leaned toward her. “When I took command of Enterprisealmost four years ago, I saw myself as an explorer. I thought all the risks would be worth it…because just beyond the next planet, just beyond the next star, there would be something magnificent. Something…noble.”
He paused, as if searching for the right words. “And now, Trip is dead…and we’re out here chasing aliens who want to stop our exploration, who don’t care about noble ideals, and who never had the good fortune to know Trip.”
Archer turned and looked toward the viewport, and into the inky space beyond it. “In a few weeks, I have to go give that speech at the Coalition Compact signing ceremony. I have to talk about how all the risks were worth it, about how worthwhile it’s all been…”
“Trip would be the first to say it wasworthwhile,” T’Pol said, her voice barely wavering as she swallowed still more of her sorrow.
Archer looked at her and smiled, but his expression contained no joy or mirth. She could see in his eyes that he was conflicted, that something else, something deeper, was troubling him. It was a look of regret and uncertainty. He opened his mouth as if to say something further, then looked away, to the viewport and the warp-distorted streaks of starlight beyond.
Finally, he stood and walked to the door. “I’ll leave you to finish here, T’Pol. But if you need to talk to me—even if you need to let down your famous Vulcan guard—you’re welcome to. I won’t tell.”
T’Pol regarded her captain for a moment. She wondered what he would think if she revealed that one of the last things she had told her mother before her death was that she didn’t want anything further to do with her. How would Archer feel if he were to learn that when she had first learned of little Elizabeth’s mixed parentage, she had wanted nothing more than for the child to disappear?
What would his reaction be if he knew that Trip and T’Pol had decided to break off their relationship completely on Vulcan, but that she had found among his belongings an undelivered letter written aftertheir journey to Vulcan—a letter in which Trip had described his deep and full love for her, and the pain their separation was causing him?
And worst of all were her own traitorous thoughts, full of love and other emotions as well, all of which brought her anguish every time she considered life without Trip.
And now, she had no choice but to forge ahead alone. Her mother, her child, her lover. All gone.
She swallowed and blinked, masking her shame behind what she hoped was an impassive Vulcan mask. “Thank you for your offer, Captain. But I believe I can deal with such things on my own.”
The words seemed to echo in the air after Archer exited.
On my own.
T’Pol lay her head down on one of Trip’s pillows. Then, silently, agonizingly, before she could halt them, tears rolled down her cheeks.
Sixteen
Saturday, February 15, 2155
Deep space
“ADIGEON PRIME,” Trip said as he idly studied the image of the blue-green planet displayed on Phuong’s secondary library-computer monitor. According to the Branson’s navigational computer, their destination lay some eighteen hours away at their current speed. “Don’t know a lot about the place.”
Seated in a relaxed fashion in the pilot’s seat, Phuong cast a grin in Trip’s direction. “That may be because the Adigeons don’t like to call a lot of attention to themselves. They’re businessmen.”
Trip shifted in the copilot’s seat, struggling vainly to get comfortable as he turned to face Phuong. “Don’t businessmen need to advertise?”
“Not when so much of their business depends on…discretion,” Phuong said.
Trip nodded, understanding. “So they’re criminals.”
“That’s oversimplifying things quite a bit, Commander,” Phuong said, shaking his head. “Let’s just say they often act as third-party brokers to many interstellar business entities who value their privacy. Including the Romulans, who are notoriously secretive about their military and civil affairs and their strengths and weaknesses. You might describe the Adigeons as a sort of cultural and intelligence membrane between the Romulans and the other societies with whom they sometimes have to do business. Sort of like the old Swiss banking firms back on Earth.”
“So our plan is to use the Romulans’ own Adigeon Prime business agents to infiltrate them,” Trip said. “I guess the Adigeons’ discretion must come with a price, and that it’s a price the bureau was able to pay.”
Phuong offered Trip a lopsided smile. “Very astute, Commander. The Adigeons also have other talents that we’re going to need.”
“Ah. Our Romulan disguises.”<
br />
Phuong nodded. “The Adigeons can provide medical procedures ranging from simple plastic surgeries to genetic alterations that haven’t been available on Earth since the Eugenics Wars ended.”
“So far, no human has ever seen what a Romulan looks like,” Trip said. “So I take it that the Adigeons know a lot more about that subject than we do.”
“That’s correct, although the Adigeons have been well paid to keep such secrets to themselves. But thanks to a highly bribable Adigeon plastic surgeon, you and I will be going under the knife. We’ll not only receive all the appropriate surgical alterations, we’ll also be fitted with ear-implanted translation devices to help us communicate with any Romulans we encounter. By this time tomorrow, our own mothers probably won’t recognize us.”
The thought of his grieving mother almost made Trip wince. But the image also reminded him that the sooner this mission was completed, the sooner he’d be able to return home to comfort her in person.
“And is this process reversible?” Trip said.
“So I’ve been told.”
Trip wished Phuong had sounded a little more confident about that, but decided to table that particular question for now. “So what happens once we’re in disguise, Tinh?”
“We will meet with members of a Romulan dissident faction known as the Ejhoi Ormiin.”
Trip tried to get his lips around the name and failed utterly. “The what?”
“ Ejhoi Ormiin. According to my intelligence sources, the phrase roughly translates from the Romulan Rihannsulanguage as ‘to decide with finality on the best of several options.’ It’s the name of a group that opposes the Romulan Star Empire’s current ethic of expansion and conquest.”
Hope warred with suspicion deep in Trip’s gut. “And you trust them.”
“We have to make our leaps of faith somewhere,Commander, or else we’ll never get anywhere.At any rate, the Ejhoi Ormiinalready know we are coming to meet with them. They are presently harboring an important Romulan warp scientist, a man named Ehrehin.”
