by Andy Mangels
All of it trained squarely upon him,like some mass-media firing squad.
Archer scowled involuntarily when he noticed Travis’s old flame, the covert Starfleet Intelligence operative Gannet Brooks, sitting among the ranks of the journalists. The press—including the estimable Ms. Brooks—had picked up and run with certain unauthorized remarks made off the record by someone in Nathan Samuels’ office concerning Archer’s Monday conversation with the prime minister about the Coalition delegates’ reluctance to take military action against the Romulans, despite their having attacked Coridan Prime. Although both Archer and Samuels had been ducking interview requests ever since the story had broken—Archer had offered only a neutral but calculatedly surly “no comment” in response to every question the press had hurled his way in public—many among the press seemed convinced that Archer intended to bang the drums of war from the lectern today.
He remained just as convinced as ever that the Romulan threat simply wasn’t going to go away, at least not without a great deal of military “encouragement.” But a declaration of war was the last thing he wanted this day to be about.
Though he couldn’t see any members of his crew, Archer tried to draw strength from the knowledge that Malcolm, Travis, Hoshi, and Phlox were here somewhere pulling for him, probably along with anyone else from Enterprisefor whom Lieutenant O’Neill had authorized shore leave.
Of course, his crew would expect eloquence from him, too. It’s too damned bad Starfleet Academy doesn’treally offer elocution classes for captains,he thought, recalling the observation Malcolm had made a couple of days earlier.
His gaze swept over the nearby Vulcan contingent, settling quickly on Soval, who was watching him with his usual reserved expression, though Archer thought he spied a fair amount of curiosity on the diplomat’s face as well. How could he flounder on the dais right in front of Soval? For years, the Vulcan ambassador had considered Archer an unworthy failure, until he’d finally won Soval over following the Terra Prime crisis.
Archer closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reaching more deeply into his inner resources than he could ever remember having done before. He recalled having briefly carried the disembodied katraof the long-dead Vulcan philosopher Surak around in his head when he had helped T’Pau gain control of Vulcan’s government last year. Some of Surak’s knowledge seemed to have stayed with him for a short while afterward, such as the ability to use the paralyzing Vulcan nerve-pinch that T’Pol had never succeeded in teaching him.
Surak, old friend, if there’s any trace of you still left in my brain, I hope you’ll let me use it to calm myself the hell down.
Archer opened his eyes, offered the crowd a gentle smile, and began to speak.
Fifty-One
Day Eight, Month of Havreen
Dartha City, Romulus
CENTURION TERIX, once again charged with conducting Admiral Valdore’s briefing, finally appeared to be winding down his presentation. “Coridan Prime has suffered what can only be described as a mortal wound, Admiral.”
Ah, to be so young and optimistic,Valdore thought. He allowed the barest trace of a smile to cross his broad lips as he recalled his own stint as a callow young centurion.
Valdore sat behind the heavy sherawood desk in his office in the Romulan Hall of State, scowling up at the semitransparent holographic image that hovered in the air between himself and Terix.
“There are wounds,” Valdore said, “and there are wounds.I myself have recovered from many injuries that others had declared mortal. In a century or so, the Coridanites could well experience just such a healing themselves.”
The centurion seemed taken aback by Valdore’s reaction. “They lost more than half a billion people in the initial attack alone, Admiral. Along with fully half of their planetary dilithium reserves.”
“Which leaves them with a remaining population of upwards of two billion. As well as around half of their planetary dilithium reserves.”
“May I point out, Admiral, that Coridan Prime has withdrawn from the Earth alliance?” Terix said. “The so-called Coalition of Planets has been more than correspondingly weakened, not only by Coridan’s departure, but also by the sudden and precipitous diminishment of locally available dilithium.”
Valdore nodded. “Indeed. But our incomplete destruction of Coridan seems to have made the worlds that have opted to remainwithin that alliance more steadfast about maintaining it.”
The centurion’s face was flushing a florid, coppery green. “Permission to speak freely, sir?” he said.
“I fear no man’s perception of the truth, Centurion. Speak.”
“Forgive me, Admiral, but if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were determined to wrest defeat from the bhathof victory.”
Valdore chuckled at that. “I am merely attempting to see the likely consequences of the Coridan attack through the same lens through which First Consul T’Leikha is likely to view them. And likewise, the Praetor. You may do well to think of such exercises as a survival skill.” As he made this last comment, he bared his even, white teeth in a manner that could never be confused with a smile. And while his teeth bore scant resemblance to the curved, serrated bhathof the mountain-dwelling, fiercely predatory hnoiyikarto which the centurion had referred, Valdore could see that the younger man had taken his meaning instantly.
Terix swallowed hard as he offered the traditional elbow-against-the-heart military salute. “Of course, Admiral. I beg forgiveness.”
“Dismissed.”
After the young officer had turned on his heel and exited, Valdore remained alone in his office, staring silently at the image of a devastated Coridan that the centurion had neglected to deactivate.
Despite its superficial resemblance to a military victory, the sight brought him no joy. Indeed, the suicide mission had been planned by First Consul T’Leikha and the interim military commanders who had been in charge of the Romulan Star Empire’s defense and war making during the time of Valdore’s recent imprisonment following the unfortunate drone-ship affair.
In fact, Valdore’s direct involvement in Coridan’s devastation had extended only to giving the plan’s final “execute” order, lest he balk and face the wrath of both T’Leikha and the Praetor, and end up either executed himself, or find himself dwelling again in a dim, dank cell like the one the former Senator Vrax now occupied. Valdore had seen no alternative to authorizing the attack, though he felt confident that he never would have conceived such a plan had all the decisions been left up to him.
But these facts did little to expiate the guilt Valdore felt as he watched the image of Coridan’s wreckage continue in its slow, stately rotation through the glare of its virtual sun. Was this really a mission for a military man?he thought. Or was it simply the slaughter of innocent women and children and elders in their beds?
Though he was far too loyal a soldier to speak his misgivings aloud, the part of him that had decades earlier served as a senator alongside Vrax couldn’t help but wonder if the Coridan attack was truly worthy of the un-sheathing of even a single fighter’s Honor Blade.
And the guilt he carried was exacerbated by the realization that the destruction he’d sanctioned had failed to achieve its intended political effect: the abortion of the signing of the official Earth alliance agreement, which was to have crippled the so-called Coalition’s ability to defend itself.
But the official papers hadbeen signed, according to the Coalition worlds’ own public newsnets, which the Empire’s intelligence services had long made a habit of monitoring as closely as possible. Now the four remaining Coalition of Planets partners were apparently cleaving together more closely than ever before, and their civilian media were loudly asking when their governments intended to do something about “the Romulan threat.” Therefore Valdore’s hopes for a campaign of relatively resistance-free—and therefore largely blood-less—conquest now lay dashed at his feet.
There would be war, realwar rather than the mere subjugation of demoralize
d and therefore already half-conquered worlds. And it would certainly come soon, despite the Coalition’s relative paucity of dilithium to power its ships.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Thanks to a recent extremely poor run of luck, Valdore lacked access to the new Aenar telepaths he’d need if the fleet’s newest telepresence-piloted warships were to fly effectively and on schedule. He was also beginning to lose faith that the recently recovered and bizarrely incoherent Ehrehin was really capable of delivering a working singularity-powered stardrive prototype any time in the foreseeable future. What had those dissidents done to him before he’d been picked up by the fleet, alone and nearly catatonic in a small escape pod? Of course, the hope always remained that Ehrehin would one day become lucid enough again to carry the project to fruition, but Valdore had long made it a practice never to rely overmuch upon hope as a tactical weapon. If Ehrehin’s revolutionary new stardrive remained an unrealized dream, then the destruction of all that Coridan dilithium—and the carnage associated with it—would all have been for naught.
With a weary sigh, Valdore reached across his desk and thumbed a control toggle, which caused the battered and charred remains of Coridan to vanish abruptly. Touching a button beside the toggle, he said, “Valdore to Nijil.”
“Nijil here, Admiral.”The chief technologist’s voice sounded logy and rough-edged. Since Valdore knew that the abstemious scientist had never acquired the habit of drinking to excess, he chose to regard that as a good sign: Nijil also understood that war loomed near, and was therefore pushing himself as close to exhaustion as he dared in order to steer the inevitable conflict toward its most favorable possible outcome.
“Nijil, how is development progressing on the new generation of weaponry?” Valdore asked.
“So far, Admiral, all the development and testing have progressed exactly according to the Senate-approved schedules.”
“Very good, Nijil. But it’s not quite good enough. I need you to expedite the project….”
After dismissing the harried engineer, Valdore considered the practicalities yet again. All previous attempts to create a practical invisibility cloak for the concealment of large, manned vessels had always resulted in the test ship’s destruction after a few brief siure.Despite the many failed trials he had authorized over the years, Valdore remained convinced that such a device could be the key to Romulan military supremacy.
They cannot fight what they cannot see,he thought, smiling a predator’s smile.
Fifty-Two
Friday, March 21, 2155
Deep space
CHARLES TUCKER LEANED AGAINST the thick transparent aluminum observation port, watching as the ship’s warp field distorted the shapes and colors of the stars beyond far more slowly than seemed right. The private Rigelian passenger transport was by no means new, but Trip could at least be thankful that it wasn’t so ancient that it had to stay below warp three to keep from blowing itself up. Still, he found it difficult to get used to traveling across so many light-years at such a leisurely pace.
He also found it hard to prevent that impatience from showing, though he knew that he needed to keep that emotion reined in—along with all the rest of his emotions, for that matter—for however many weeks or months remained in this voyage. He still appeared to be a Vulcan, and would pose as a kevas and trillium merchant from that world for the duration of his passage out to the galactic hinterlands, from which he planned to take a prearranged yet discreet ride on an Adigeon freighter back into Romulan space.
Once there, he would begin his next assignment on behalf of Section 31, the Coalition of Planets, and the people of the planet Earth.
And the great state of Florida,he thought, trying to picture the faces of his parents and his brother. He was dismayed at how difficult it was for him to imagine those faces smiling, rather than contorted with grief.
Tired of viewing the gently shifting starfield, and just as tired of the distinctly unfriendly stink-eye he was receiving from the towering, fanged purser who apparently didn’t much like passengers getting handprints on his tidy observation ports, Trip began walking through one of the narrow guest corridors toward his modest stateroom.
Once the door was securely shut behind him, he kicked off his boots, then carried them to a small closet, where he stowed them neatly. He would have preferred either canvas deck shoes—which would have been conspicuously out of place on a Vulcan, even way out in the middle of nowhere—or at least something that felt more like real leather than his boots did. Unfortunately, he had to content himself with footwear made from vegetable fiber in order to continue passing himself off as a Vulcan, who were all essentially against the killing of animals, either for food or for apparel.
Trip stepped back to the stateroom’s desk, where he had left a small data padd beside the sample case that contained the gemstones that were part of his merchant cover-identity. Raising the padd, he inserted the encryption-protected data rod. He’d been carrying the rod since shortly after he’d recovered consciousness in a stolen Ejhoi Ormiinscout ship moving at high warp through Coalition space, very close to regions claimed by the Romulan Star Empire. He had already lost count of the number of times he’d played the rod’s message—a message that had clearly been recorded in haste while Trip had been lying insensate on the cockpit’s deck plates.
He keyed the start command, and the lined and surprisingly kindly-looking face of Doctor Ehrehin—partially obscured by the environmental suit helmet he’d been wearing at the time—appeared yet again on the padd’s small display.
“I hope you will have the opportunity to view this message in safety, Cunaehr.” The old man closed his eyes, pausing momentarily as though about to correct his small name gaffe. Then he went on, perhaps in deference to Trip’s undercover anonymity.
“I truly regret the necessity of having to render you unconscious, my young friend. However, I needed to drop this vessel out of warp—but only long enough to exit in an escape pod that I will aim toward the four Romulan military vessels that still pursue us. I’ve programmed the helm to return the engines automatically to maximum warp once my pod has departed. My hope is that Valdore’s ships will fail to catch up with you, or perhaps even give up the pursuit once their crews realize that they’ve recovered me, which was their primary objective anyway.”
As on each previous occasion when Trip had listened to Ehrehin’s unexpectedly candid words, he marveled at the old man’s courage, which actually bordered on the foolhardy. After all, Valdore’s forces might well have caught up to the fleeing scout ship without destroying it, even after Ehrehin had returned to them. Had that happened, they probably would have found the scientist’s recorded message, which surely would have damned him as a traitor. Ehrehin couldn’t have believed himself so indispensable to his Empire’s war machine that he could have avoided imprisonment—or even outright execution—as a consequence. Trip could only wonder if the scientist had embedded programming inside the message designed to erase it should the wrong parties try to view it, perhaps by using the scout vessel’s internal sensors to warn the shipboard computer of the presence of other Romulan personnel.
Trip continued staring at the padd as old man continued: “As you’ve no doubt guessed already, I must decline your invitation to live among your people. I ama Romulan, after all, and I am loyal to the traditions that have always made our civilization great, going back to the time of the Sundering. But because I am an ethical student of science, I also deplore the reflexive militarism that has lately corrupted the Empire to the point that it would allow a Praetor to attempt planetary genocide. So while I will return to my people, I cannot in good conscience complete my work on the avaihh lli vastamengine, which I now know our Praetor would put to the meanest, basest imaginable use. Your words, as much as the disaster I visualize befalling Coridan, have opened my eyes.
“Good fortune, my young friend, in all your…future endeavors.” The old man paused and smiled ironically, having just declared his patriotism
while wishing Trip “happy spying” almost in the same breath. “Though we are creatures of very different worlds, I believe we both work for the same end. Perhaps our efforts will eventually help to bring about peace—or at least make a war that now appears inevitable somewhat less destructive than it would have been otherwise, had neither of us acted.
“Let that be our mutual legacy, whatever good two men can do. And I hope that whatever good we both do in the years to come will live on after us, long past the time when we are both dust.
“Farewell.”
Ehrehin’s image vanished from the padd, and Trip dropped it onto the desktop.
Stretching out on the stateroom’s narrow bed, Trip looked up at the simple duranium grillwork of the cabin’s ceiling, behind which he could hear the worn aircirculation fans of the ship’s life-support system chugging away tirelessly.
He considered the mission, another voyage deep into Romulan space, that lay ahead. With a little luck, the files and contacts he’d copied from the memory rod he’d recovered from the slain Tinh Hoc Phuong, along with the new information he’d just received from Harris, would help him alter the trajectory of Romulan society, at least incrementally.
“‘Just one more mission,’” Trip said to the empty cabin, as he recalled his most recent meeting with Harris back on Earth.
And thought wistfully once more about home, and everyone he’d yet again left behind.
Epilogue
The early twenty-fifth century
Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana
“WOW. IT STILL SEEMS pretty damned unbelievable, Nog.” Jake moved his wineglass to the table beside his antique chair. The low fire crackled occasionally in the background, though the sound of rain pattering against the roof and the windows mostly drowned it out.
