Myriad Universes - Infinity's Prism Part 10

More chattering. "Please specify."

Kirk frowned. The Enterprise computer was not always very helpful unless one asked very focused questions. Rather than taking the time to try to rephrase his initial query, Kirk instead asked, "Is Captain Pike back aboard?"

"Negative."

"Then who's in command?"

"Lieutenant Lee Kelso."

Kirk grimaced. Lee was a good guy, but he tended to get a little nervous in crisis situations. Kirk switched off the computer interface and hesitated. Having been confined to quarters by his commanding officer, he was under a moral obligation to obey that order and stay put. At the same time, he was obligated not to blindly adhere to orders when doing so could put his ship and crewmates at risk.

A moment later, Kirk was in the turbolift, his knuckles white from his grip on the control throttle. After the slowest ride Kirk could remember, the turbolift doors opened onto the bridge.

"-and prepare to be boarded, or we will be forced to fire on you!"

Kirk stopped on the threshold of the turbolift as the image of the Coalition fleet commander from the reception-Rawgor-something-or-other-glared from the main viewscreen down at Lee Kelso. To his credit, Lee held himself steady and firmly answered, "We are not responsible for the destruction of your ship. The attackers have already left orbit-"

"Enough of your 'invisible ship,' Enterprise!" the alien shouted back. "You have sixty seconds to comply!" The wild-haired captain disappeared from the screen, replaced with the image of two Gral-cla.s.s ships targeting them.

"Sir, we have a response on the captain's frequency," Lieutenant Penda called out as soon as the ship-to-ship signal was broken. "But it's not the captain."

Lee called back over his shoulder, unable to tear his eyes from the threat bearing down on them. "On speaker, Lieutenant."

"...captain has been injured. Beam both him and myself aboard. Code V'Shar, kef-yet keh-kuh steh-kuh."

Kirk noticed the communications officer's eyes go wide at hearing that. "What? What's it mean?"

The young woman looked up at Kirk and hesitated. Kirk practically lunged at her, grasping both of her shoulders. "Lieutenant?!"

"'V'Shar' is the Vulcan Security Directorate," she blurted. "The code is security override for Babel's transporter screen." She grimaced, almost as if surrendering that bit of knowledge was physically painful to her. Kirk studied her face, wondering how this young lieutenant had come across such intelligence, though not for a moment doubting it.

"It's a trick!" Stiles yelled, his eyed glued to the screen. "They're trying to get us to lower our own shields!"

"And in half a minute, they're going to try to blow us out of the sky!" countered Leslie. Kelso looked from one man to the other, and then back to the two ships hovering on the viewscreen before him...

"Lower shields, Mister Stiles!" Kirk commanded, then reached over Penda's shoulder and stabbed a pair of controls. "Transporter room, lock onto the captain's communicator signal, two to beam up, authorization code being fed to your board. Stiles, raise shields again as soon as transport is complete," he ordered as he released the first two switches and thumbed a third. "Bridge to sickbay. Emergency team to the transporter room." He paused just long enough to hear the "ayes" coming back from all stations, then moved down into the command well. "What was the fleet commander talking about, an 'invisible ship'?" he asked Kelso.

Lee stared back at him. "Jim, you were relieved-"

"And the tribunal can add mutiny to the list of charges against me," Kirk snapped back. "Now, the ship?"

Lee faltered for a split second, then reported, "It was...invisible. Until the Kuvak fired at it. Then it fired this plasma weapon back-they destroyed a Sitar-cla.s.s ship with one shot, Jim!"

"Then it was visible?"

"Barely. Sensors only picked it up as an ion cloud. But we saw it."

"McCoy to bridge."

Kirk turned to the command chair and keyed a b.u.t.ton on the right arm. "Kirk here."

"Captain Pike has been stunned and concussed, but he should be all right. And there's also someone here who-"

McCoy was abruptly interrupted by a calm feminine voice. "Commander Kirk, open a subs.p.a.ce channel to Fleet Commander Ra-ghoratreii immediately."

Kirk was not thrilled to learn Sarek's aide had beamed up with Pike. But, seeing as he'd already trusted her this far, he signaled to the communications officer to comply. "Hailing frequencies open," she said.

"Fleet Commander Ra-ghoratreii, this is Subcommander T'Pring. Hold your fire, and stand down."

It occurred to Kirk that, although he wasn't familiar with the Coalition's rank structure, a subcommander was probably out-ranked by a fleet commander. And yet, the previously fearsome s.p.a.ce Command leader responded with a simple, "Understood," and on the main viewing screen, both Coalition vessels broke off and moved away from the Enterprise.

As Kirk and the rest of the bridge crew watched in mild disbelief, T'Pring hailed the bridge again. "Commander Kirk, did you detect an unidentified vessel leaving orbit shortly after the destruction of the Kuvak?"

"We did."

"Evidence indicates both Lady T'Pol and Councillor Sarek's impersonator are both aboard that vessel. I suggest the Enterprise break orbit as well and set in pursuit."

Kirk took a moment to absorb that. Then, he looked around to find the entire bridge crew staring at him expectantly. "You heard the lady," he said. "Mister Leslie, take us out of orbit."

T'Pol took a long, deep breath, and then screamed as loud as she could.

She had been imprisoned in a small cell aboard a warp-capable ship, and was surely about to be executed. Fear and anger and frustration and self-pity welled deep in the well-guarded part of her psyche, ready to boil up and erupt violently. Letting it do so would accomplish nothing, but at the same time, repressing those feelings would be equally futile. What logic was there, she asked herself, in using the little energy left in her aged body to show the empty room her stolid Vulcan demeanor, when it would feel so much better to rant and scream and pound her fists against the cold metallic walls?

So she screamed and screamed, until the door opened and a helmeted Romulan guard entered, a handheld disruptor aimed at T'Pol's chest. Following directly behind him was the man who had posed as Sarek, now wearing the same uniform as the guard, with a red and black sash over his right shoulder to indicate command-level rank. "Are you all right?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

"What would it matter to you if I were not?" she asked, slightly winded. To her disappointment, she did not feel any better now than she had before.

"In fact, yes, it would," the Romulan answered. "I regret that we meet in this way. Our mission was only to disrupt the Coalition's talks with Earth, and prevent any unification. It was never my intention to bring any harm to you."

"And yet, you have," T'Pol said. "This entire ship and everyone on it is doomed."

"Empty threat," the helmeted soldier scoffed.

T'Pol fixed him with a withering look. "Even this deep inside the ship, I could tell when we were fired upon, and hit. The ship then went to high warp, sustained it for approximately two hours, eighteen minutes, and then came to a stop. Given the location of Babel, it would have been impossible for this ship to have reached its home territory. We are most likely then in a position of relative safety-inside a nebula or the magnetosphere of a large planet-where you hope to effect repairs before getting back under way."

The Romulan commander gave her a respectful nod. "The reports about you were not exaggerated."

"But," she added in conclusion, "it will all be too late."

The commander raised a single eyebrow as he considered T'Pol. Then he turned to the guard. "Leave us, Decius."

"But, Commander, the prisoner..."

"Kroiha!" the commander shouted impatiently. "Go, report to the chief engineer. You'll be of far more use on one of the repair crews than you are here."

The guard was not happy, but he put his fist to his breast in a show of deference to his superior. Once the door closed behind the guard, the commander considered T'Pol silently, then said, "We've detected the Earth ship, tracing our warp signature directly to this system. They will intercept us within two veraku, well before we'll have been able to finish repairs."

"At which time, you will destroy this ship in order to avoid capture."

The Romulan commander did not answer, but the sad, faraway look that overcame him confirmed her conjecture.

"Why?" she asked. "What was the point of all this subterfuge, of giving yourself Councillor Sarek's face?"

The Romulan chuckled without humor. "As unlikely as it may seem, it was nature that gave me this face. Perhaps he and I share a common forefather from back before the Time of the Sundering."

Somehow, T'Pol managed to hide her emotional response to that unexpected revelation. It had long been speculated that the Romulans were the descendants of those who left Vulcan during the Age of Surak, but there had never been anything more than circ.u.mstantial evidence pointing to that conclusion. Her captor, however, spoke of his racial connection to her people as established fact-something she found vaguely distressing. "Still," she finally said aloud, "what is it that makes me so important, that you had to go to these lengths to capture me?"

"I would have thought Vulcans would eschew modesty just as they did pride."

"I am not modest, only curious."

"You are surely aware of what you represent-what you symbolize-to the cause of uniting Earth with the Interstellar Coalition?"

"Too aware," T'Pol said with a sigh. "But why would that concern Romulus?"

"The Earthers are a very consternating people," the commander explained. "The Empire began to take an interest in them when they started launching their first primitive interplanetary probes, using the same chemical rockets they employed to threaten each other with atomic fission weaponry. Then, mere years after they finally did launch those weapons against themselves, they'd broken the light barrier. Fortunately, your people were there to hold them back for a time."

T'Pol bristled slightly, remembering how long it had taken her Enterprise crewmates to overcome that unjust perception and put aside their initial suspicions of her. "But they eventually managed to reach warp five," the Romulan continued, "and quickly became the power brokers in this part of s.p.a.ce, imposing peace between Vulcan and Andoria, Andoria and Tellar, then attempting to position themselves as founders of a multispecies Coalition..."

T'Pol nodded, recalling the holographic ship that had nearly scuttled one of those early missions. "Their goal was peace," T'Pol said. "Did Romulus so fear peace?"

"Not at all," the commander said, shaking his head. "My people have seen far too little of it down through the generations. What they feared was that, once a part of this Coalition, the Earthers would revert to their baser instincts. Fortunately, this degeneration happened before any treaties could be finalized and signed."

"Not so fortunate for the millions murdered in the attack on San Francisco," T'Pol said.

"Fortunate compared to what might have been instead," the commander countered. "Had the humans continued their expansionism unabated, rather than pulling back from their unexplored frontier, war with the Romulan Star Empire would have been inevitable. Tens of millions of lives would have been lost, on both sides."

T'Pol had to admit, given what she knew about the Romulans and their territorialism, that this was a logical conclusion. Such a war would have undoubtedly dragged on for years, and Enterprise would have certainly been at the vanguard. She could well have ended up one of those casualties, right along with Trip...

"It is pointless to imagine what might have been in a different reality," she told her captor, pushing all other thoughts and memories aside. "And I question your claim that the Romulans desire peace, when this plot of yours will almost certainly spark a conflict not only with Earth, but with the full Coalition."

"Yes," the commander nodded bitterly. "My gift to the home-land: another glorious war for the praetor."

The Romulan turned away from her then, almost as if, T'Pol thought, he were ashamed to have voiced such a disloyal thought aloud. "But I am a creature of duty," he continued, to himself as much as to his prisoner. "I have lived my life by it. And if we are to die for it..." He turned back again and looked her in the eye. "I envy and admire you greatly, T'Pol of Vulcan."

T'Pol didn't bother to hide her surprise at that claim. "Why do you say that?"

"I studied your record as I prepared for this mission. How you defied the Vulcan High Command in order to join the Earthers in pursuit of the Xindi, and then defied the humans by remaining on Archer's crew after Earth cut off its relations with all alien worlds. You have, throughout your life, acted on what you believe to be right, regardless of your orders or-if you'll forgive me-of logic."

T'Pol raised an eyebrow, but could not immediately offer a response. "He got you on that one," Trip's voice mocked her.

"Why should you envy me in doing what I think is right, rather than doing what you believe to be right yourself?" T'Pol finally asked him.

He shook his head in remorse as he stared at the deck. "It is not our way."

"And illogic is not our way," T'Pol answered. "But if there is a way to save your people from a war, would not both logic and duty demand you do everything within your power to do so?"

The Romulan commander said nothing for a long time. Nor did he make any move to leave her cell. Eventually T'Pol turned away and settled onto the cell's small hard cot. Since screaming had not helped in the face of impending death, she decided to attempt meditation again...

"Yes."

T'Pol's head snapped around toward the Romulan, and as their eyes met, she realized that he had answered her question. "But how?" he asked.

T'Pol rose again from her bunk, keeping her eyes on his, and offered the words of a cla.s.sic literary work she had read, at Jonathan's persistent urging, a lifetime ago: "Let me help."

9.

Pike gradually returned to consciousness and became aware of the padded bed underneath him and the dull rhythmic tones repeating above his head. His eyelids fluttered, then opened a crack against the bright light of the sickbay.

"You're awake," a gruff voice said, as a blue-clad figure moved to the edge of his vision. "How do you feel?"

"Like I was shot in the back," Pike answered with a voice like sandpaper. He put his hands on either side of the bed and started to push himself up.

"None of that, Captain," the voice said, as a firm hand fell on his shoulder and pressed him down flat on his back again.

Pike grabbed the doctor's wrist and tried to pull the restraining hand off. "Dammit, Phil, I don't need to be mollycoddled," he growled in annoyance.

"Who?"

Pike jerked his head to the side and forced his eyes fully open. "Sorry, McCoy," he said, suddenly remembering. "Old habit."

"Yeah, well, old habit or new concussion, you don't leave my sickbay until I say you're ready," McCoy told him.

"Aye aye, sir," Pike surrendered. He settled back into the pillow at the back of his head, but then quickly snapped back up as the circ.u.mstances around his being shot came back to him. "The Vulcan ship! What happened?"

"Easy!" McCoy scolded, his hand back on Pike's shoulder, but the sudden burst of adrenaline helped the captain remain upright. "Their vessel was lost with all hands. They were attacked by some kind of stealth ship, with light-bending shields that made them invisible. That pushy young Vulcan lady with you, she says Lady T'Pol was being held by Romulans on that ship, and we're chasing after them now."

"Oh, h.e.l.l," Pike muttered, and swung his legs off the edge of the pallet. He stood up, testing his weight and pausing just long enough to let the dizziness subside.

That gave McCoy the time to circle the bed and try to block his way. "Were you not listening to me just a minute ago? You're staying put!"

Pike narrowed his eyes at the new sawbones. For a man who had never served in Starfleet before, he had certainly taken to the idea of hurling orders around, even toward his commanding officer. From Phil, he might have taken this, but not from a virtual plebe like this fellow. "Doctor, my ship is heading into a potentially hostile situation, my crew is at risk, and I need to be on the bridge, making sure we don't end up sending a h.e.l.l of a lot more people here for you to patch up."

Having matters put that way for him, McCoy backed down. "I don't like this; that was a pretty bad blow you took. Let me just give you a shot of this..." He turned to a nearby cabinet, selected an amber vial and loaded it into his hypospray. "I guess it's better you're on the bridge than that Kirk kid..." he said as he raised the hypo to Pike's neck.

The captain turned his head before the doctor could administer the drug. "What about Kirk?"

"Well, no disrespect, sir," McCoy answered as he pressed the instrument's cold nozzle to his neck, "but all things considered, I don't think he should be in command right now."

Pike hid both his surprise at learning Kirk was in command and his irritation toward the plainspoken doctor. Pike had never refused a request from any of his officers for permission to speak freely, but he still liked to be asked.

"Obviously, I don't know him near as well as you do," McCoy continued, "but he strikes me as a bit of a hothead. Honestly, I don't know that I'd feel comfortable serving under him on more than a temporary basis."