Amazingly, as if a holographic curtain were in place, a sharp line appeared in the wall, then grew wider—a hidden door opening.
The intruder jumped through, Picard and La Forge right behind him.
There was another, narrower corridor on the other side of the hidden door. The intruder moved to close the door behind them.
More like an engineering passage than a corridor, Picard thought as he checked out their surroundings with some difficulty. The glow here was even duller than in the main corridor. One wall was completely covered with pipes and conduits—nothing labeled, everything the same drab green-gray color.
He found La Forge watching the door close as both sides came together to form a single vertical line, and then the line vanished as if the door had never existed.
It was then that Picard noticed the intruder had not just used his hand to control the door. He was holding a small mechanism. And right now, he was looking down at his equipment belt, opening a small pouch, apparently trying to put the device back inside.
Picard had worn enough environmental suits to know how difficult it was to look directly down in a helmet. For precisely that reason, most critical controls were placed on a suit’s forearms.
For just these few moments, their captor was vulnerable, distracted, especially since he would not expect his two captives to offer any more resistance.
Surprise, Picard thought.
He brought both fists down on the back of the intruder’s helmet, counting on the impact doubling as the force of the helmet struck the back of the skull, and the faceplate rebounded to slam into the intruder’s nose.
La Forge jumped to help, snapping the intruder’s disruptor from its adhesion patch.
The intruder sagged to the floor, and for a moment, Picard heard an odd hissing noise, almost as if he had broken an air-pressure seal on the intruder’s suit.
He had a moment of panic as he suddenly feared the intruder might require a different atmosphere. But there was no way to predict how long the intruder might remain stunned. He had to act now.
“Quickly,” Picard said, and together he and La Forge rolled the intruder onto his back, propping him against the wall.
Picard felt a twinge of unease. The intruder seemed too light, almost as if he weighed little more than his armor.
La Forge popped the seal on the helmet, Picard pulled it free, and both of them gasped in shock as they saw nothing within the helmet—nothing past the shadow of the helmet’s pressure-seal ring—nothing as the suit slowly settled like a deflating balloon, completely, inexplicably, empty.
“All right,” La Forge said as he got to his feet. “Now I’m worried.”
Picard’s mind raced as he sought rational explanations for what they’d just seen. Had the occupant of the suit been beamed away by a silent, instantaneous transporter? Was the suit somehow equipped with miniature forcefields and actuators to create the illusion of an occupant? Could it contain a holoemitter, and a holographic being like the Voyager’s doctor, who had simply switched himself off?
Or were he and La Forge somehow still captives, held prisoner in a holodeck in which reality could be effortlessly controlled?
The answer came to him in the form of the sweetest voice he had ever heard.
“Jean-Luc…Geordi…honestly…I’m so disappointed in the both of you, I don’t know what to say.”
Picard and La Forge slowly turned to the source of that voice.
“Leah…?” La Forge whispered.
“Jenice…?” Picard said.
For in the pale glow of the passageway, a woman approached them.
Picard didn’t understand why his stomach fluttered, his pulse quickened. But then he realized what his subconscious must have already known: the woman was un-clothed in the half-light, her body so familiar, so alluring.
Beside him, La Forge took a half-step forward, as enraptured by the vision of what approached as he was.
That realization broke through the enchantment of the moment for Picard. No vision of his own lost love could similarly affect La Forge.
Vision…illusion…whatever they saw, none of it…of her…was real.
But she kept moving toward them, and Picard knew he’d been mistaken. This wasn’t Jenice, his first true desperate love at the Academy, merely someone who resembled her. Or rather someone who had resembled her in the shadows.
And neither was she without clothing, another misperception. Easily explained, Picard realized, given the extreme formfitting clothing the woman was wearing.
Beside him, Picard heard La Forge give a sigh of what sounded like relief. “I thought it was…but how could it be?”
Then the woman was before him, and she no more resembled Jenice than she did Beverly. She was Romulan, though her forehead was not as prominent as most, and the graceful sweep of her pointed ears was halfway between the straight line of a Romulan and the curve of a Vulcan.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” the woman asked. Her voice was like a teasing song.
“No.” Picard resisted the desire to sweep her into his arms, having no awareness of where such an inappropriate thought had come from.
La Forge cleared his throat, as if he struggled with the same impulse.
The woman smiled at the engineer as if she had waited all her life to meet him, “How about you, Geordi?”
La Forge was reduced to shaking his head.
“Good,” the woman said with a small clap of her hands. “I would have been worried if you’d said yes, because we have never met. Until now, of course.”
She held out her hand, and to Picard it was exquisite. Delicately small, a precious object to be protected from all harm.
“I am Norinda,” she said.
The name seemed familiar to Picard, though he found it difficult to think, to remember where he had heard it. If he had heard it.
“And I have come to save you,” she said.
15
U.S.S. TITAN, LATIUM IV, STARDATE 57486.9
“Evacuate?” Will Riker said, astounded.
On the small screen on his ready room desk, Admiral Janeway looked ten years older than he had last seen her. She was no more pleased with the order she had given than Riker was to receive it.
“Every Federation mission and consulate on Latium,” Janeway said, continuing her orders from her office at Starfleet Headquarters. “Their respective governments will transmit directly to them the proper instructions for the destruction of all sensitive data and equipment. The diplomatic corps will have special baggage allowances for the removal of cultural artifacts. But consular personnel and support staff will be strictly limited to a single piece of luggage—basically, whatever they can hold in their arms when you beam them aboard.”
Riker still couldn’t believe what she had told him. “Admiral, is it really that bad? To have us abandon all the progress we’ve made with the empire these past six months?”
Janeway had the grace to look apologetic. “I know how close you are to what’s been going on there. I know half the Romulan initiatives we’ve developed since the coup are because of your efforts—your special relationship with the Romulan Fleet commanders. But we’ve lost them, Will. Do you understand? Jean-Luc and Kirk and everyone with them. Because of Kirk’s child.”
Riker sat back in his chair. He had brought it from his cabin on the Enterprise, as he had most of the decorations and mementos in this room, including Data’s idiosyncratic painting of Spot, the cat. He looked at that painting, remembering Data, the word Janeway had just used resonating within him: Everyone…
That meant she had lost the holographic Doctor, too, and Riker had no doubt the loss to Janeway was as great as Data’s loss had been to those who knew him.
“How did Starfleet Intelligence miss that?” Riker asked. He wasn’t really expecting an answer, but still, the simple, inconsequential presence of a child seemed such an unlikely detail to have derailed the Federation’s last-ditch effort to prevent a Romulan civil war.
Janeway rubbed the side of her face and Riker guessed she hadn’t slept for days. “We have so little available data on Remus. But the one thing we do know is that there are no families. Do you believe that? The way the Romulans…’manage’ the Remans—breed them is more like it—they don’t keep familial records. At one time, Kirk’s wife was a Federation representative for her colony world. We have a complete diplomatic dossier on her. But there’s nothing in it that connects her to Remus. Nothing.”
Nothing ventured, Riker thought. He leaned forward, folded his hands on his desktop, tried to sound causal. “It will take a few days for the personnel on Latium to prepare for evacuation, so why don’t—”
Janeway interrupted, smiling wryly through her exhaustion. “So why don’t you just take a joyride into the Romulan home system and poke around?”
“At this point,” Riker said, trying to sound completely neutral and reasonable, though he was neither, “with all reports saying war is inevitable, would it hurt?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Will. From the reports we’re getting out of Romulus, we could probably send in the Seventh Fleet and the Romulans would be too distracted to notice. But what you must keep in mind, and why you must follow these orders, is that you’re the only lifeline the people on Latium have. Without the Titan, they have no way home. So when hostilities start, they’ll be trapped behind enemy lines, to become prisoners, political hostages, or…victims. There’s a strong xenophobic streak in Romulans, and we can’t rule out an attack on the diplomatic quarter by a vengeful mob. The Titan has to stay put.”
But Riker felt there was something missing from Janeway’s insistence that the Titan stay at Latium. “Admiral, I understand the importance of giving our people a way home, but if the Titan is in no danger in the Romulan system—”
Janeway didn’t let him finish. “No danger as far as we can tell, Will. But we missed Kirk’s connection to Remus, and Starfleet’s not willing to risk your ship on the assumption that we haven’t missed anything else.”
“With respect, ma’am. The Titan and her crew can handle themselves, even against the Romulan fleet. And if we’re delayed in our return to Latium—”
“You want me to say it?” Janeway jumped in. “Because I’ll say it. The Titan is the only ship in the sector capable of handling the evacuation of so many people.”
Riker felt his face register his confusion. “Admiral…we’re talking about a star system a stone’s throw from the Neutral Zone. There is a constant Starfleet presence along the boundary. Five starships at least.”
Janeway sighed. “You didn’t hear this from me, but something else has come up. There’s some emergency meeting being convened at Starbase Four Ninety-Nine.”
Riker didn’t see the relevance. Starbase 499 was essentially a subspace relay station, part of Starfleet’s communications net, but by no means one of the most critical components. “That’s almost the other side of the quadrant.”
Janeway nodded. “As far as I can tell, it doesn’t have anything to do with the Romulan situation. But Meugniot and half the admiralty are heading out there at warp nine-point-nine. And they’ve taken the fastest ships we have available this close to home. So the Titan is it.”
There was only one other option Riker could think of, and he decided to keep it to himself.
Janeway noticed his silence, guessed the reason for it, and fortunately for Riker, guessed wrong.
“I know what Jean-Luc means to you, Will. He’s the finest captain in the Fleet, and the only reason he’s not back here running the show is because he’s too damn valuable out there, facing the things that…no one has ever faced before. But in the end, our duty as Starfleet officers has to take precedence over our obligations to our friends. There are twelve hundred women, men, and children on Latium, counting on you to take them home. You know you can’t put their lives at risk for only one man.”
“Understood, Admiral. The Titan will not leave orbit of Latium, as ordered.”
Janeway’s weary smile was tinged by sadness. “Thank you, Captain. I know what that means. And what it’s cost you.”
Riker nodded, nothing more to say about the matter. But he did have one last question. “Admiral, if I may, a point of clarification.”
Janeway took on a slightly defensive posture, as if she were uneasy about whatever topic he might raise next.
“Is there truly no chance that the civil war can be averted? Is Starfleet Intelligence convinced that they missed nothing that might offer hope?”
Janeway relaxed. It was a reasonable question, and apparently not the one she’d expected. “All right, Will. By my authority, I’m letting you into the circle. And this is not to be shared with any other member of your crew.”
Riker couldn’t resist smiling. “Uh, I do have a Class Four security exception.”
Janeway hesitated, then smiled in return. “Of course, Deanna. You’re married to a Betazoid. Very well, the exception is noted. You and your wife are forbidden to share the following information with the rest of your crew.”
“Thank you, Admiral.” Riker declined to point out that Troi was half-Betazoid, and that her empathic abilities were limited to sensing emotional moods, and not full telepathy. But Starfleet Intelligence had ruled that was grounds enough for the Class Four exception, so Riker was comfortable he was abiding by the rules.
Janeway took a moment to collect her thoughts, and when she began to speak, Riker heard the cadence of an experienced Academy lecturer.
“A lot of this you already know, because you were at the forefront of the Federation’s initial diplomatic contact with the Romulans, after the coup. You’re aware of all the different groups vying for political power in whatever new government arises from the current chaos.”
“Very much aware,” Riker said. At times, some of the diplomatic meetings he had chaired had reminded him of refereeing a crowd of unruly children fighting over who got the best slice of birthday cake.
“What you might not have known is that one of the groups working behind the scenes is the Tal Shiar.”
Riker felt as if a jolt of transtator current had flashed through him. The Romulan Tal Shiar had been among the most brutal secret police organizations in the galaxy, eclipsing even the hated Cardassian Obsidian Order. Romulan citizens lived in fear of ever speaking against the Tal Shiar, because those who did often ceased to exist, along with their families. Even the Romulan Senate had not dared to act against them, and so the Tal Shiar had operated outside even Romulan dictates of honor and tradition.
Several years before the outbreak of the Dominion War, a disastrous attempt to launch a preemptive strike against the Founders resulted in the near-collapse of the organization, and the almost total loss of their influence and power. So little had been heard from them in the years since that most intelligence reports concluded they had been effectively disbanded, left to the trash pile of history where they belonged.
Given all that, Riker had never sensed any indication that the Tal Shiar were among the power brokers striving for a say in the formation of a new Romulan government, and he had never seen any report, formal or otherwise, that had suggested the same.
“I see you’re as surprised as we were,” the admiral observed.
“Incredibly so,” Riker agreed.
“Starfleet was understandably worried. If the Tal Shiar were to gain control of the new Senate, within a decade, we would be facing an expansionist Romulan Empire armed with cloaked, Scimitar-class warships and thalaron weapons, with absolutely no moral reservations about using them. It would be as if a nest of Borg had sprung up in our midst, intent on destruction instead of assimilation.”
“That is a frightening scenario,” Riker said, and he meant it.
“So as we watched the chaos continue to spread throughout the Romulan power structure, it became more and more apparent that what we were seeing was not predictable political confusion, but the result of someone deliberately spreading dissent. As com
bative as the Romulans are, they also have a pragmatic side. You’ve seen that in their Fleet commanders.”
“I have,” Riker said. Romulans were tough negotiators, no question. But Riker had learned to respect them because at some point they would always concede that the other side needed a reason to accept an agreement, and so, eventually, would make concessions—something that Klingons rarely did, and Andorians, never.
“Eventually, it became obvious to Intelligence what was going on. The Tal Shiar knew it could never legitimately take power in the Senate. So the only path open to it was to create even more chaos.”
“A civil war,” Riker said.
“Romulus against Remus. Two thousand years of racial hatred deliberately inflamed, then unleashed.”
“I don’t understand why they would take the risk,” Riker said. “They had to know the destruction would be devastating.”
“To Remus, yes. But the Imperial Fleet is dependent on singularity drives, not dilithium. The empire’s balance of trade would take a substantial loss, but it wouldn’t affect their military preparedness. And if they needed trade credits, they could always license mining rights to any interested party willing to rebuild the Reman mining communities. Then, once reestablished, those communities could be nationalized again.”
“That sounds…very Romulan,” Riker said.
“Doesn’t it, though.”
“So, knowing this, doesn’t that put us in a position to tell the admirals what the Tal Shiar has planned?”
“Which admirals?” Janeway asked in return. “Can you say which ones aren’t already working for the Tal Shiar?”
“So…we just stand back and let this happen?”
“No, Will! Not at all. At least, we were working to ensure that that was what we wouldn’t do.”
Riker could see the emotional toll of this for Janeway. Since her triumphant return from the Delta Quadrant, she had been hailed as a miracle worker—the admiral to go to when the problem was insoluble, when there was no hope and no way out. Because Janeway would always bring her people home, would always find a way to win.
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