Kobayashi Maru ste-12 Read online

  Although the temperature in her quarters was certainly high enough that she neednt have bothered with the blanket, its presence around her provided an immediate and undeniable sense of comfort. The feel of the finely woven synthetic fabric between her fingers evoked a vivid tactile memory of Trip and the time they had lain together on her bunk, the sweat cooling on their naked bodies after they had made love; Trip had pulled this same blanket up, over the pair of them, though hed smilingly lamented all the while having to remove any portion of her beauty from his vision.

  The Vulcan science officer and the human engineer, the High Command and Starfleet, a highly unlikely pair. “The ice princess and the good ol boy were among the nicknames she had heard whispered more than a few times, as they walked through the corridors of Enterprise, though she thought that the Starfleet and MACO personnel who had uttered them would have been both appalled and embarrassed had they known that she had heard them. And she sometimes wondered whether they might have been more appalled and embarrassed still had they known that she and Trip had actually consummated their now-undeniable mutual attraction.

  The self-absorbed direction of her own ruminations surprised her, though she couldnt deny having had similar thoughts before. But today she could identify no convenient infirmity or injury upon which she might blame this private lapse, no obvious reason behind her increasing fixation on the irrecoverable past. She knew that her emotions were always close to the surface, however deeply she had meditated last evening. She could only wonder whether that night with Trip had had a far more profound impact upon her than she could have known.

  Is this what humans experience when they “fall in love?she thought.

  Thanks to Trips protracted absence, her memories of their brief time together had become as irrepressible as they were bittersweet. And the fact that the last year had brought her more than enough reason to grieve apart from Trips departure hadnt helped; she had lost her mother, TLes, during a raid against the Syrrannite sect at Vulcans Takarath Sanctuary, then had faced the death of Elizabeth. It didnt matter that her infant offspring had been a cloned hybrid created with her and Tuckers DNA by the rogue geneticists of the Terra Prime separatist movement; little Elizabeth had nevertheless been theirchild. And now both TLes and Elizabeth were interred beneath the broiling sands of Vulcan, on the grounds of the rebuilt sanctuary.

  TPol had not been back to Vulcan since the funeral ceremonies for Elizabeth, only a few months ago. Trip had been with her then, his arm still immobilized in a neurotherapeutic sling to treat the wound hed received during the fight against the Terra Prime terrorists. TPol had pushed him away at first, fighting the pain that had threatened to bring all of her carefully suppressed emotions surging to the surface. But their mutual loss of little Elizabeth had eventually brought them closer together in spite of her reticence.

  What they had attempted to build between them afterward was torn asunder a short while later, when Trip had taken an assignment for a covert Earth intelligence agency that was connected in some remote fashion to Starfleet. In order for him to infiltrate the Romulan Empire, he had been forced to fake his own death, with the aid of Captain Archer, Doctor Phlox, and Lieutenant Reed. TPol had not been told the truth until later, when Trip visited her on Earth, just prior to Archers speech at the signing of the Coalition Compact.

  Trip had given Archer a note for her, and she had subsequently met him in a chamber underneath the stadium where the signing ceremony was being held. There, she had learned of his mission, and had seen that he had been surgically altered to resemble a Vulcan. It was only during their talk that she realized that if he was actually supposed to be a Romulan infiltrator, then the old stories of Romulans and Vulcans being kindred species must be true.

  Oddly, TPol found herself unsurprised by the revelation; from past experience, she knew that Vulcan history was teeming with secrets, and that the Romulans were not the only Vulcanoid race to have become separated from the ways of its forebears. The Syrrannite sect had had it easy compared to what she had learned about the Frislen decades agoand about other races, during the time since.

  That knowledge of the connection between the Romulans and the Vulcans carried with it an awful burden, however; if the secret connection between the Vulcans and the aggressive Romulans were ever made public, the distrust of other Coalition members toward Vulcan could split the fledgling alliance apart, thus rendering all of its members more vulnerable to dissension from within, attacks from without, and war from either direction.

  Trip had assured her that the secret of the Romulan-Vulcan connection would be safe with him, and that as few others as possible would learn of it. Archer had since discussed the matter with TPol, having come to many of the same conclusions that she had. But they hadnt discussed it as much as they might have before Trips “death, even if Archer had taken obvious pains to leave both Phlox and Reed out of those particular discussions.

  Having once worked as an intelligence operative for the VShar, TPol fully understood the need for subterfuge and secrecy in espionage, but she nevertheless couldnt deny that her exclusion from the initial plan to fake Trips death had created a fracture in her relationship with Archer and the others. She had sacrificed everything to join the crew of Enterprise,even resigning her position in the Vulcan High Command. What more could she have done to prove her loyalty to Archer? Shed always admired the captain, even if she did sometimes disagree with his often emotion-laden decisions. He, however, apparently had felt that he could not trust her quite as fully, and therefore had initially denied her the peace of knowing that Trip wasnt, in fact, gone, but rather was simplyaway.

  Archer had tried to become more friendly with TPol since Trips “passing, but she felt that those efforts had sprung as much from his own lack of people close to himan innate loneliness that accompanied any command positionand from his feelings of personal guilt as they did from any specific desire for friendship. She couldnt deny that there was a certain logic to his actions, and she therefore allowed some degree of camaraderie to develop between them as they worked together. But until Trip returnedor she found a way to reconcile Archers betrayal of her trustshe knew that an emotional wall would continue to stand between her and Archer.

  That wall stood even higher between herself and both Phlox and Reed. It wasnt as if either of them had reached out very much to her socially anyway, and the distance they both kept from her was consistent with the fact that their spheres of daily responsibility aboard Enterpriseoverlapped either very little or not at all with her own. Only during briefings or interdepartmental meetings were they generally all in one place, and during those times, TPol put forth an extraordinary effort to keep herself on point and focused on ships business.

  TPol grasped at the IDIC symbol that she wore on a chain around her neck at all times, even under her Starfleet uniform. The pendant had been a gift from her mother, and it served as a constant reminder of the Vulcan credo, “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. TPol wasthat symbol aboard Enterprise. Certainly, humans of virtually every imaginable color and background served aboard this vessel, but besides herself and Phlox, no other nonhumans were present.

  It wasnt that she wanted to isolate herself from others, even taking into account her sometimes ambivalent feelings toward Archer, Phlox, and Reed. TPol had cultivated friends and companions when she had lived and worked on Vulcan. But they were like her, suppressing their emotions, putting logic at the forefront. Only with Trip had she found on Enterprisea human whom she felt accepted her Vulcan attitudes, even if he did not share or necessarily even understand them. To the others, she must have seemed inscrutably alien.

  The device attached to her desktop terminal let out three short beeps, pulling TPol out of her morose reverie. The irony behind the fact that she had been preparing to send a scrambled subspace transmission to Denak at the Vulcan Security Directorateand thereby covertly breaking Starfleets communications protocolswas not lost on her. In fact, it seemed somehow fitting, gi
ven that the last several years of her life aboard Enterprisehad brought her into multiple secret arrangements, clandestine and covert operations, governmental and religious subterfuges, and more. She hoped that one day in the future, Enterpriseand her crew might resume the pure exploration of the cosmos. Today, however, galactic politics in the known regions of space were simply too unstable to allow for that possibility, and Trips ongoing spy mission in Romulan territory stood as mute proof of that unhappy fact.

  She pulled out her chair and sat before the terminal on the desktop, composing her thoughts. She hoped that she could still trust Denak, but until she knew for certain, she remained determined not to give too much away. Tapping the viewscreen, she took note of the tiny digital countdown screen linked to the subspace com-scrambling device. She had approximately four minutes before her activities might be discovered by anyone monitoring outgoing signals from Enterprise.

  The mans face that appeared on-screen looked significantly more haggard than the one in TPols memory, and sometime in the last several years, Denak had apparently lost an eye and part of an ear. He was standing outdoors on a balcony of some sort, the shifting red sands of their homeworld visible in the distance behind him.

  “I am surprised to hear from you, TPol,Denak said. “It has been twenty years since theKishaltriq celebration, has it not?

  TPol nodded, knowing that it had, in fact, been longer. But the fact that Denak had mentioned Kishaltriqmeant that he was in a safe position to talk. “I hope you and your wife are faring well, she said. That was her verification response, since they both knew that Denak was not only a widower at present, but was also fast approaching the age when not even the fierce hormonal firestorms of Pon farrcould furnish any real impetus to seek a mate. TPol understood his insistence that she adhere to such time-honored security protocols whenever they communicated; if either of them were under duress, or not in a safe zone, the personal banter would have seemed innocuous enough to anyone who might be listening in.

  Denak nodded curtly, his expression bland. “I truly am surprised to hear from you. Once you resigned your commission, I expected you would sever ties to

  “I am Vulcan, Denak, TPol said, interrupting her erstwhile superior. “And I have only a brief time to communicate with you. Speaking plainly, I need to know about any anomalous military or intelligence activity that Vulcan may be undertaking within the Romulan Star Empire.

  Raising an eyebrow, Denak shook his head slightly. “Such things are somewhat out of my immediate area of knowledge, TPol, though it is not an entirely unknown subject to me. Ido know that we have taken Captain Archers theories about imminent Romulan aggressionfar more seriously than has the Coalition Council. With this in mind, we have agents investigating all the various acts of interstellar piracy, as well as every recent outworld attack.

  TPol nodded, choosing her next words with extreme care. She didnt know whether or not Denak knew about the relationship between the Vulcan and Romulan peoples, nor did she want to jeopardize any mission that Trip was currently involved in during his covert tenure inside the Romulan sphere of influence.

  “Are your agents working fromwithin Romulan circlesor are they investigating only in a defensive sense?

  Denaks eyes narrowedhis ocular implant made for a fair approximation of his missing eyeand he seemed to study her closely for a moment. “We are engaging in purely defensive maneuvers is the answer most anyone in the Vulcan intelligence hierarchy would give you, TPol. But because youve saved my life on more than one occasion, I shall simply say that it would be illogical for us not to attempt to understand the goals and capabilities of the Romulan Star Empire by studying them from within. Precisely how that is being done is a matter somewhat beyond my clearance level, but I know that such operations are indeed under way. And that they are being done at tremendous personal risk to the individuals involved.

  “Could you enlighten me as to whichindividuals may be involved? she said.

  He paused for a moment, then added, “You might look into associates of Captain Sopek of the Vulcan High Command.

  She frowned. “Dont you mean the lateCaptain Sopek, Denak?

  Something that almost resembled a small smile came to the older mans lips. “Reports of Sopeks death may have beengreatly exaggerated.

  “I appreciate the information, Denak, she said, wondering precisely how Sopek might be involved in Romulan espionage; only two years ago, following the Andorian attack on PJem, Sopek had used his influence with the Vulcan High Command to keep TPol aboard Enterprise. She resolved to investigate Sopek whenever time and duty permitted it.

  “I only have a few moments more before the subspace scrambler may be detected, she added quickly. “Please contact me again at this frequency should you discover anything further that you think would be helpful. She tapped the screen, sending him a specific frequency graph.

  “I will expect you to do the same, TPol,Denak said. “As I noted, many of us believe that the Romulan threat issignificantly more dire than even Vulcans government officials and representatives seem to understand. Or will admit. If you learn anything that might help raise awareness within the new administration, you have my word that I will contin

  The screen went blank as the timer reached zero, and TPol knew that the scrambling device was already erasing any trace of the transmission from the ships com logs and computer backup subroutines. She wished that she had been able to speak to Denak for just a little longer. But for now, she had some slim threads to follow.

  It seemed clear that at least someVulcan military or intelligence operatives were working covertly within the boundaries of the Romulan Star Empire, which meant that at least some knowledge existed on Vulcan of the connection between the two long-sundered peoples. She had no reason to believe that Denak was aware of that connection, however; nor did she feel that he was holding back any important information.

  Which meant that he also didnt have any information concerning Trip, or the specifics of his mission for the covert Earth-based intel bureau. TPol cared intensely about the future of Vulcan, as well as that of the Coalition of Planets and the safety of the Starship Enterprise. But she also knew that deep within her, no matter how much she tried to repress her emotions, her actions were being guided, illogically, by fear.

  And by loss.

  Where is Trip now, and what kind of danger is he facing right at this moment? And when will he be back?

  TPol knew she couldnt rest until she found the answers.

  FOUR

  Day Twenty-nine, Month of KriBrax Romulus

  W ITH MORE THAN AN HOURto spare before his next scheduled check-in with Captain Eric Stillwell, Charles “Trip Tucker III left his small suite of rented rooms for a brisk sunset walk downtown.

  Of course, downtown Dartha wasnt just anydowntown. Even by the standards of the Romulan capitals venerable Government Quarterwhich had been built, and was even today continuously being rebuilt, over the bones of one of the oldest settlements on the planetthe ancient streets seemed absurdly narrow. Moving with a confidence instilled by having lived here continuously for the past several weeks, Trip wended his way along the tightly packed warren of constricted roads and footpaths, all of which curved gently to conform to the generally round, concentric style that characterized even the oldest Romulan urban planning. As he walked, the remnant of the neighborhoods daily throng of assorted shopkeepers, clerks, laborers, and retail customers moved past, either ignoring him entirely or favoring him with wordless nods or perfunctory greetings of “Jolantru,the local equivalent of “Have a nice day.

  He turned sideways to allow a middle-aged man and woman to pass him on a narrow sidewalk. These people dont smile much more than the Vulcans do,Trip thought, suppressing an ironic grin so as not to attract any unwanted attention; he knew from firsthand experience just how dramatically the sometimes explosively passionate Romulans differed from their more contemplativeif sometimes equally standoffishcousins on Vulcan.

  The slow trickle of p
assersby inexorably slowed further, dying off entirely as the yellow Romulan sun finally completed its long horizonward arc, its present low angle giving it the hue of human blood. Trip paused to take in the spectacle of the bloated, ruddy orb as it settled behind the phalanx of centuries-old structures that comprised the squat Old City skyline. Caught between the waning rays and lengthening shadows, the venerable illuminated spires of the kilometers-distant Hall of State rose belligerently, war pikes poised over the Romulan capital, the anthracite-black waters of the Apnex Sea at their backs. It told Trip a tale of the fearsome martial past that TPols people shared with the Romulans, a way of life that could return to the presently peace-loving Vulcan people should the star-spanning empires dreams of conquest ever reach fruition. The tableau could have been the work of a painter determined to limn the contradictory streaks of beauty and savagery of the galactic civilization that radiated from this very city.

  A civilization, he reminded himself, whose crash program to develop a warp-seven-capable stardrive still posed a direct and mounting threat, not only to the world of his birth, but also to its allies. Putting a definitive stop to that program was the reason he had come to this alien place. It was also the reason he had allowed all but a handful of the people in his life to believe the official reports of his death in the line of duty. His parents, his brother Bert, and Owen, the child that Bert and Miguel had adopted a few years backall of them believed what Starfleet had told them about his death in an apparent pirate raid.

  He ached to finish his mission, to return home and see them all againto put his life and the lives of his loved ones back together. Thank God that at least TPol knows the truth,he thought, briefly wondering if he could ever mend that particular relationship. Ever since the death of their daughter Elizabeth a few months back, he tended to doubt that he and TPol would ever recapture whatever spark had once passed between them, even though their relationship had been headed that way very shortly before his “death.