“You should learn to laugh more, Rokan…” Harriman managed to say. “You’ll live longer.”
“Thank you for your advice, Captain,” said Rokan. “I shall give it the same weight and consideration that you have given mine.”
Harriman didn’t appear to be listening to him. Instead he was eyeing the device that Rokan had nearly finished setting up. “Nice chair … good … I needed … a trim … leave the sideburns … all right?”
Rokan sighed heavily. “Captain … I should salute your fortitude, I imagine. Praise you for your unwillingness to bend. You have resisted my efforts thus far, and for that alone, you should be commended. Were this a fairer universe … a universe where gallantry was always rewarded … then at this point you would be congratulated, freed, and permitted to go on your way without further incident. Unfortunately, that is not the universe in which we are living. I am giving you one last opportunity, Captain. It is insane for you to keep holding back as you have been. If you tell us what we wish to know, you have a chance at saving your mind.”
Harriman didn’t reply immediately, and Rokan realized that Harriman’s efforts at lucidity mere moments before had taken more out of him than Rokan had at first suspected. Despite his bravado, he was barely stringing himself together. The equipment would sever that string, and that would be unfortunate. “You can end this before it’s too late. Please … I am asking you, as one who has gained some measure of respect for you … cooperate. Now. There will be no more opportunities.”
“Harriman. John. Rank … Captain. Ser—”
“Oh, shut up,” Rokan said, his patience gone. He adjusted readings on the large chairlike device positioned next to Harriman. “Would you like to know what this is, Captain? Would you like to know what your stubbornness has earned you?”
Harriman said nothing. Rokan, without fear of any precipitous move on Harriman’s part, undid the restraints. For a moment, the dazed captain looked as if he was about to make some sort of strike against Rokan, clearly not willing to waste the unexpected opportunity that had been presented him. But he couldn’t move. The drugs had been far too devastating. He couldn’t so much as lift a hand against Rokan, as the Romulan had known would be the case. The Romulan, for his part, had considerable resources of strength of his own. With no effort at all, he hauled Harriman out of the chair into which he’d been bound and transferred him to the newly arrived equipment. Harriman managed a grunt of protest, but it did no good at all as Rokan strapped him in. As he did so, he said with no air of hurry, “This is actually a Klingon invention. We acquired it during our period of shared technology. They call it a mind-sifter … or mind-ripper, if you will. It will tell me what I desire to know. Unfortunately, if used at sufficient strength, it will empty your mind of everything presently in there. It will turn you into a vegetable. I would not like to see you turned into a vegetable.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Harriman told him defiantly, with as much strength as he could muster … which didn’t seem to be much.
“Unfortunately for you,” sighed Rokan, “whether you fear me or not, dear fellow, is entirely beside the point.” He touched a switch and the mind sifter hummed to life.
“Is this where you give me one more chance to tell you what you want to know?” asked Harriman.
“No. No, that time has passed, I fear. This is where you tell me everything. It won’t matter whether it’s relevant or not. You will tell me. You won’t be able to help yourself. You will empty your mind of its knowledge with such eagerness that you will not be able to contain it even if you want to.”
He activated the machine, setting it to the lowest level, and Harriman stiffened. His eyes widened, his jaw set, Harriman still appeared as if he was determined to try and keep resisting. “Fight if you wish, Captain. It doesn’t matter anymore what you do.”
Harriman snarled inarticulate defiance. The very air around his head began to glow as a surge of energy sent the mind-sifter stabbing more deeply into his mind. Pulling from the innermost depths of his will power, Harriman managed to say, “Why don’t … we see … how much you … can take … from this….”
“Are you suggesting I submit myself to the mind-sifter as well? See whether my stamina is on par with your own?”
Harriman managed a nod.
Rokan laughed. “Why, Captain … you truly are a funny fellow. Now … the troop movements…”
“Harriman … John … Rank … Capt—”
He brought it up to level two. Level two was enough to force an Orion into shrieks of agony.
Harriman cried out, and then sunk his teeth into his lower lip with such ferocity that blood streamed down his chin, and then for no discernible reason started singing, at the top of his lungs, the “Whiffenpoof Song.” No information about troop movements or schedules or ships was forthcoming, however.
At level three, which was enough to reduce an adult Vulcan to racking sobs of anguish, Harriman screamed about the astrophysics exam that he had cheated on during his third year at the academy without ever having been caught, and he cried out the name of the first girl he had made love to, and he apologized for having killed Captain Kirk, and for wetting the bed until the age of eight, and he still didn’t tell Rokan what he wanted to know.
At level four, he cracked.
And Rokan had been right. Harriman didn’t simply come up with the information; he flung it from him as if it were cancerous cells devouring him alive. He screamed the names of the ships, he howled the rendezvous times, he vomited up (metaphorically) the number of crew members in the roster, he bellowed the amount of weaponry each ship was carrying right down to the last photon torpedo, he even sobbed about a torrid evening he’d spent with the first officer of one of the vessels after which he’d tried repeatedly to contact her again but she’d displayed no interest whatsoever….
His tears mixed with the blood on his face, and when Rokan turned off the machine, Harriman sagged like a reanimated corpse that had just had the life force sucked from it. It was as if the only thing keeping him going was the pain, and when that was gone, there was nothing for him. His head lolled to one side, and he uttered indistinct noises that might have been his father’s name or might simply have been little more than baby jabber.
Rokan sighed heavily as he finished powering down the mind-sifter. He barely glanced at the drool now trickling from Harriman’s mouth. “Believe it or not, Captain,” he said, not unkindly, “you were fortunate. One more level … and there would have been nothing left to you at all. At the moment, however, all you are feeling is loneliness … emptiness … but don’t worry. We’ve fixed others, as I told you. Sleeper agents, who are reprogrammed, made back into Starfleet officers … on the surface. But deep within their psyche, they are loyal Romulan agents. They do not know it, nor have we activated any such … yet. But we will at the right time … and you will be one of them, Harriman. We will have the chance to work together again, you and I….”
And that was the point where Harriman really, truly impressed him beyond anything he’d seen before. For Harriman apparently pulled upon reserves that Rokan wouldn’t have dreamed possible. He actually managed to turn glassy eyes and to whisper, with a voice like one already dead, “Lying … no … no agents…”
“Oh?” sneered Rokan. “Ask Admirals Wetzler and Pattison … and Captain Wills … and Commander Bridges. They might have very different stories to tell. Oh, but that’s right,” he said with mock solicitousness, “by the time we release you … you won’t remember any of this. What do you say to that, my dear, heroic Captain?”
“Two … words…” he said, as if calling from beyond the grave.
“Oh, really. And what would those two words be?”
“End program.”
But those words were not spoken like a dead man. Rather they were said in a strong, powerful, vibrant tone, and even as he spoke, Harriman sat up, and there was a blazing fire in his eyes.
Rokan took a step back, uncomprehending.
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And the interrogation room vanished around him.
The Romulan stared around in confusion. All around him was darkness, with glowing squares outlining the wall, floor, and ceiling.
“I … I don’t … what is…?” His mind had frozen up, unable to process the information that was being handed it.
Harriman was wiping the trickling blood from his chin, standing there and looking absolutely none the worse for wear. As he did so, the door hissed open behind him. Rokan was about to shout for help, when he saw four Starfleet security officers enter. The door itself was further back than the door to the interrogation room had been, and beyond it was not the corridor of a Romulan ship, but instead a white bulkhead with the logo of Starfleet etched upon it. Speechlessly, he looked back to Harriman.
“Brand new technology,” Harriman said, taking in the room with a gesture. “It’s called a holochamber. It generates hard-light computer images. Just places at the moment, although eventually it’ll be sophisticated enough to create simulacrums of sentient beings, so I’m told. We’ve got the prototype here on the Enterprise. Field-testing it, as it were. But they think that someday they’ll be standard issue on starships. What will they think of next, eh?”
“I … I don’t understand….” Rokan stammered. Then, stepping in behind the guards came a man with a very familiar face. “Berza—!” he called out.
Berza just smiled and shook his head.
“Ah. You mean Lieutenant Patrick O’Shea. Lieutenant, take a bow.” O’Shea obediently bowed as Harriman continued, “O’Shea’s one of our better spies. He looks rather good as a Romulan, wouldn’t you say? Most cooperative in getting us word of your ship’s location and disabling your vessel so that we were able to capture it, quickly and painlessly … all while you slumbered peacefully away, since—apparently—you’re not much of a morning person. So you were captured unaware. Then we kept you unconscious in sickbay until we decided what to do with you. O’Shea had caught wind of your ‘sleeper agent’ program but couldn’t get any specifics on it. So we arranged this little show,” and he gestured around him once more, “to get the information out of you.”
“You … you were in control all the time!” said an infuriated Rokan. “The entire time you were simply toying with me! A cheap, insidious Federation trick!”
Harriman smiled thinly and said, “I warned you, Rokan, did I not? In Starfleet, we play fair. Remember what I said? ‘One should not always take things at face value. They are not always what they appear to be.’” Harriman’s smile widened and he said, “I like to think that even the late Captain Kirk would have approved. Besides, that wasn’t toying with you, Rokan. That wasn’t a cheap trick. That was … style. I thought you would appreciate it. Well, Rokan? You’ve had a good deal to say until now. At a loss for words?”
And Rokan, with a snarl, spat out, “Rokan. Rank: High Examiner. Imperial registration number 257—”
He was still rattling it off as Harriman walked out of the room, laughing softly to himself.
Captain Rachel Garrett
U.S.S. Enterprise-C
“For a ship and crew to function well, it always starts with the captain. You set the tone.”
Minuet, Star Trek: The Next Generation
ROBERT GREENBERGER
As with John Harriman, little is known about Rachel Garrett. Her one appearance was in the now-classic “Yesterday’s Enterprise” episode of The Next Generation. It should be noted that at the time Garrett commanded the Enterprise-C, Jean-Luc Picard was commanding the Stargazer, and it appears they had never previously met, a sign of how large the Federation and Starfleet had grown.
Some biographical material showed up in the Star Trek: Starship Creator program, and Bob, wanting to he neat like his colleagues, appended some of those details here. What’s clear is that Garrett must have been quite the captain to command a crew loyal enough that they were willing to go back through the rift and face certain death. How did she treat them, was the question Bob first posed for himself when sitting to write this story.
By the time you read this, Bob will be a Producer at Gist Communications, after sixteen years at DC Comics. However, as time passed, he added to his freelance credits, which include several well-received collaborations in the Star Trek universe, and the solo novel The Romulan Stratagem. He has penned a few short stories set outside of Star Trek and will next contribute to a collection of spacefaring stories, due within the next year.
A bigger Mets fans than Peter David, Bob also serves as the Statistician to the Federal League, a fantasy baseball team he shares with Mike Friedman.
Bob wants to acknowledge the contributions of Inge Heyer, data analyst at the Space Telescope Science Institute, in making sure the science is right.
Hour of Fire
“We plan to honeymoon on Risa. I don’t know how Mike swung it, but he’s gotten us this wee cottage right on the shore.” Aine McAvennie, a young blonde woman, was just taking her seat in the rec room when the captain entered. Leaning over toward her friend David Vinson, a dark man with white hair and ready grin, she added, “He can be such a romantic.”
“Romantics are a nice breed,” Vinson agreed.
In another corner of the room, Engineer’s Mate Fletcher Chu-Fong listened as his taller partner, Ivan Cohen, completed a story. They stood to leave the room, spotted their commanding officer, and nodded in greeting. Chu-Fong, burly yet handsome, shook his head in confusion. “You can breed romantics?”
Cohen sauntered by, replying, “Check down in hydroponics, I think they’re on special this week.”
At the food processor, Polly Luttrull considered her options. Behind her, lab technician Coron fidgeted impatiently. The Bolian hated waiting behind Luttrull, who could never make up her mind. “Try the fish,” he suggested through gritted teeth, his blue skin darkening.
“Fish might be good,” Luttrull considered. “Of course, the processors don’t always get it right. Braised or broiled?”
“Dead,” the Bolian snapped. He then realized who was behind him in line, noted her relaxed composure, and quickly changed from consternation to something placid. “Good afternoon, Captain.”
“Good afternoon, Ensign,” she replied without much inflection.
“Would you prefer to go ahead of us?” Coron asked, not so gently pushing Luttrull before him. The tactical officer began to protest but recognized the voice declining the invitation. Blushing, she quickly ordered the fish—broiled with Martian spices.
Rachel Garrett, captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise-C, patiently waited for Coron to make his own selection before it was her turn. Her deep brown eyes scanned the room carefully, trying not to stare. Her ears were straining to grab pieces of conversations in the rec room.
“Can’t believe Alfonzo won the parrises squares match.”
“And then I slapped him and walked home.”
“I’m telling you, the elections were fixed.”
“Swap shifts with me so I can see the presentation with Katie?”
Garrett settled for a sandwich, salad, and rich coffee. It was becoming her routine midday meal, but that fact had not registered with her.
Taking her seat at an empty table, near the room’s rear, Garrett absently picked up the coffee and took a sip. She never noticed the person joining her until the trim form settled into the seat.
“You’ve got that look again.”
Garrett looked over at Chief Engineer Cat Singh, perhaps the only member of the command crew perpetually on the move. With a belated gesture, she belatedly invited the younger woman to join her and together they looked around the room.
“And what look is that, Cat?” Garrett ran a hand through her thick, shoulder-length hair. It forced her to refocus and pay attention to her closest friend among the crew.
“The one that says you’re never satisfied. I see it often enough during inspection,” the engineer good-naturedly grumbled. She started in on her hot and sour soup.
Garrett narrowe
d her eyes a bit, focusing on her closest comrade aboard the starship. “Well, Luttrull is right, the food processors can’t make a decent fish.” The captain let out a deep sigh. “Listen to them.” She paused a moment, letting the ambient noise wash over them. People gossiping about relationships, someone complaining about being caught in an error, someone else missing home.
“No one’s anxious. We’ve been together for six months already. I’ll admit, Starfleet keeps us doing these milk runs, all worthwhile duties I grant you, but no one seems ready to be challenged. They’re … complacent.” She frowned before attacking her sandwich.
“You make that sound like a bad thing.”
Garrett frowned a moment and replied, “It might be. Shouldn’t they want something … more?”
“Does their captain show that same desire?” Singh looked at her with bright eyes and a bit of a smile. Garrett looked at her blankly.
“You’re the leader,” the engineer continued. “You act complacent, they act complacent. Trust me, when I’m in action down below, my crew hops to it. Try it sometime.”
The captain nodded in thought.
“I like being among the crew. I want them at ease when I’m present, but maybe they … maybe I … have been too at ease.”
Singh grinned. “And as chief engineer I thank you for that. After what some captains put their ships through, I like this. I can modify the engines until they whisper. I’ve gotten warp efficiency past the 100 percent mark more than once.”
Garrett nodded in appreciation, finishing her salad. “Good. Never know when I’ll need it. Think the crew is over 100 percent?” All she got in reply was a roll of Singh’s shoulders.
After another sip, the captain shook her head as if to clear her dark thoughts and then asked, “Any trouble from that nearby binary?”
“Okay, we’ll change the subject,” Singh said agreeably. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Usual fluctuations along the electromagnetic spectrum, but it hasn’t hurt the engines. Really think we’ll find a usable world out this way?”
Star Trek: Enterprise Logs Page 24
