Chapter 4: Course Laid In
They left atmo, as prearranged, at 2200 hours. It was late in the evening shift for the port controllers, hopefully guaranteeing that their departure would be less than memorable. Sulu had had enough time to adequately familiarize himself with the propulsion and navigational controls by then, and took them out as smoothly as if he'd been flying the ship for years.
Once they were safely out of well-trafficked Federation shipping lanes and en route for the near edge of the Neutral Zone under cover of a mild ion storm, Bones shuttled the four of them set to masquerade as Romulans through his makeshift surgery, grumbling the entire time about inadequate sterilization and the lack of another pair of hands to assist him. Jim found the disgruntled background ranting almost soothing; they'd been doing this together a long time, and though he was confident in the skills of all his people, there was a certain amount of security in having his best friend along.
"You do know that this won't fool their scanners?" Bones said, handing Jim a mirror to inspect himself when the last of it was done.
Jim turned his head from side to side, admiring the new points on his ears, then touched one gently. It was still numbed from the local anesthetic, so all he felt from the ear itself was a vague pull at the surrounding skin, but the strange new angles of cartilage drew his fingertips anyway.
"Cut that out," Bones admonished him irritably, swatting at Jim's hand.
"I know, I know," Jim said, lowering the mirror to stare at his friend. "But according to Intelligence the Romulans' ship sensors are only set up to detect vital signs as vital signs; they'd have to specifically reprogram them to filter for species variations in order to detect any difference, and that's not the first thing any Romulan commander's going to be thinking of when they hail our ship."
He grinned appreciatively at that, gesturing with his chin up toward the bridge. Uhura was just as striking in her new disguise as he'd suspected she would be; the dark-glittering fabric and scarlet half-cloak of the uniform suited her coloring, and the very, very short skirt exposed even more of her legs than the equivalent Starfleet uniform did. The look on Spock's face when he'd first beheld his girlfriend's cosmetic alterations had been-- well. Something else to file away in the back corner of Jim's mind, where he stowed all data not to be used in future manipulations.
Bones rolled his eyes. "Yeah, she's something, all right. I think she's getting a kick out of the idea that she'll get to boss you around, if we come across any unfriendlies along the way."
"I know she is," Jim agreed, cheerily. "Ah, the things I do to keep my crew happy."
"The things I do for you, you mean," Bones riposted, but a smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth, too.
"C'mon Bones," he prompted his favorite partner in crime. "Let's go steal us back some Vulcans."
They'd been lucky to start their mission so close to Algeron and its nearby stretch of border in a fast ship; the tiptoeing trip through a swath of Neutral Zone plagued by subspace interference took days in their new, low-profile transport, rather than hours. On the way back out, they might be able to make a faster run of it; but on the way in, they were more concerned with evading the sensor satellites and patrols watching both sides of the Zone than with speed. They couldn't rescue anyone if they never made it to their destination. Chekov's talent for tactical route mapping definitely came in handy-- though what was a fascinating puzzle for him proved not nearly so engrossing for the rest of the crew.
All the momentum Jim had built up in the early, planning stages of the mission fizzled under the ensuing stretch of hurry-up-and-wait; he couldn't help but worry about the ship and crew he'd left behind, and wonder how the diplomatic conference was going in their absence. They couldn't break radio silence while they were still in the no-man's-land between empires, and though 872 Trianguli itself wasn't much farther beyond the Neutral Zone on the Romulan side than Algeron had been on the Federation side, they weren't exactly next door to one another along its length.
There were only five crew berths, intended for use in rotation when the crew complement was at its full capacity of ten; Jim made no comment when Spock and Uhura claimed the same one during their joint off-shifts. It wasn't as though the rest of them didn't spend most of their downtime keeping company with each other, anyway; Jim had never pretended to be a stickler for formal protocol or fraternization regulations, and as long as they were capable of being professional on duty he wasn't going to yank their chains over a relationship that had been an evident source of strength for both of them.
Bones had brought along a few of his journals-- primarily focused on Romulan and Vulcan physiology, which he'd been brushing up on since discovering that the number of Vulcans joining Starfleet had increased in the wake of Nero's attacks-- but was easily distractible with the offer of a game of chess and a bottle of the ale Jim had picked up in the market on Algeron. When it was Sulu he shared an off shift with, they investigated the hold-- still full of the agricultural equipment it had contained when he'd bought the ship, stock and all, out from under its previous operators-- and designed a sort of exercise/obstacle course with the stranger items of machinery. Constructing it took far longer than actually running the thing, but it kept them occupied and out of trouble, at least until Sulu got out his collapsible swords and offered to teach Jim a few new tricks.
It was a good thing Bones had brought his portable dermal regenerator; he rather thought the Romulans would catch on if the cargo haulers they intercepted had scabs and bruises in shades of red and purple, rather than dark green and bronze.
His shifts on the tiny bridge were even less exciting, filled with a great deal of staring out, watching the stars stream by, and picking up linguistic tips from Uhura. He still wouldn't be even close to fluent in Romulan by the time they came back from the mission, but at least he'd be able to navigate, order a beer, and insult someone's mother in the most common of the dialects, which was more than Chekov seemed able to manage.
Jim had spent a memorable week in old Russia once, and hadn't met anyone during the whole trip with half so much trouble pronouncing their Standard V's and W's; he was starting to suspect that the Ensign had some kind of speech impediment. Well, either that, or like Jim with his frat boy routine, was really exaggerating the accent to offset his otherwise intimidating genius. Jim wouldn't be surprised either way.
The first hint of trouble came when they left the shelter of the last spatial disturbance, two hours' distance at Warp Three from the edge of the Neutral Zone nearest their destination. Passive sensor scans had picked up a disturbance at the far side of the ion storm, almost at the edge of their detection range, about where Jim would have expected a ship if one were patrolling the sector. Visual scans continued to read clear, but something about the timing and placement of the blip on the sensors nagged at him, and he sent Chekov back below to keep Bones company in one of the shielded smugglers' holds. Then he settled into the chair in front of the console the Ensign had been running tactical simulations on, and bellowed down the corridor for Uhura. She'd probably look down her nose at him for it, but he'd rather come off as rude than use the intercoms and risk their intraship transmissions being picked up by the enemy.
In their search for information on other secret Romulan projects, 'Fleet Intelligence had recently turned up evidence that the Empire had begun working on practical cloaking technology again, and may in fact have already put units into production. According to the Yorktown's data, no one had yet seen one in operation, but the data 'Fleet had stolen on ship movements showed irregularities and apparent vulnerabilities best explained by the introduction of such technology. It was possible that there was a warbird shadowing them right that minute, even though the sector appeared completely empty.
"Ease us on out, Lieutenant," he murmured to Sulu as Uhura came pelting up the corridor, dressed in her informal Romulan outfit. Jim debated sending her back for the uniform version, then decided against it; they could hold that option in reserve. If there was a ship out there, it would definitely be military, and the last thing they wanted was to have its commander giving Uhura orders.
"We might have company," he announced, nodding to Spock as he followed Uhura onto the bridge, the four of them a close fit in the small space. "If they're here, they've probably already seen us; there's no point trying to hide, so we'll make a straight run for the edge of the Zone. If they are here, though, I fully expect them to stop us within the next few minutes. It'll be up to you then, erei'Riov."
Uhura blinked at the Romulan word for 'subcommander', then nodded, chin up and eyes hard.
"Here goes nothing," Sulu murmured, and stroked his fingers over the warp controls, goosing them up to the cargo ship's maximum of Warp Five.
"Captain," Spock said sharply not thirty seconds later, bent over the sensor control panel at his station. "Detecting a subspace disturbance ahead of us."
"How much farther to the border?" Jim asked, intently.
"Several minutes, sir," Sulu replied, tensely.
"Damn. All right, drop out of warp; we don't want to look like we're trying to run."
The starlines wavered, then reformed into steady, pinprick sparks of light. Seconds later, a distortion crossed the screen in front of them, gradually resolving into the shape of a Romulan warbird; his instincts had been right. He hoped someone else had been sent to steal one of those cloaking devices; the Federation definitely didn't want to leave that kind of technology unopposed in enemy hands.
"We are being hailed," Spock announced, grimly.
"You're on, Uhura," Jim said, and nodded at his first officer to activate the video channel.
The image of the warbird vanished, replaced by a window into the enemy ship. From the center of the screen, a Romulan woman with a firm chin, long brown hair, and hard eyes stared back at them, wearing a subcommander's uniform. Around her, nondescript gray panels gave away no secrets. "Unknown vessel," she said, eyeing them all speculatively. "This is the cruiser Khellian. You are in violation of the Outmarches. Identify yourselves."
Jim was able to follow most of her command, though he had to guess the meaning of a few of the words due to context, not content; the translator software had been deliberately left inactive.
"We are the cargo vessel Lehe'jhme," Uhura replied, flawlessly matching the subcommander's dialect and posture as she embarked on their pre-rehearsed explanation. "Our navigational controls were damaged in an ion storm; we were not aware that we had crossed the border. We will correct the error and return to Rihannsu space at once."
The Romulan narrowed her eyes, then lifted a hand to touch the silver audio wand nestled in her right ear. When she lowered her hand again, her expression had shifted to something a little less wary, and a little more smug. "Lehe'jhme, our sensors show no sign of any such damage to your vessel. What is your cargo and destination?"
"We carry a shipment of agricultural equipment for the colony on Chetzia III," Uhura replied, not giving an inch.
The subcommander touched a hand to the earpiece again, then nodded. "Then you will not mind if we insist on examining your cargo in person," she said, coolly. "You understand, we must be certain that there are no Federation spies hidden aboard your vessel."
"I assure you, there are no spies amongst our cargo," Uhura declared, then unbent a little. "Though perhaps there might be a few delicacies-- obtained through, shall we say, less traveled channels."
"Indeed," the subcommander said, the corners of her mouth curling slightly at Uhura's reply. "If you could provide a few samples when I arrive to inspect your hold? Perhaps we may discover that it is simply a matter of a misadjusted navigational computer, after all."
Yes, Jim thought, struggling not to grin as he deciphered the gist of the exchange. The Romulan commander had taken the bait; he-- or she-- would send the junior officer aboard to take a cursory glance at the equipment in the cargo bay, then take a cut of the suspected smugglers' valuables, and finally-- in all likehood-- let them go with a warning, without taking a deeper look.
"I am certain that can be arranged," Uhura conceded, graciously.
The subcommander smiled. "Khellian out."
Sulu blew out an explosive breath the moment the screen cleared. "Whew, that was close," he said. "What now?"
"Now Uhura and I go down to show the subcommander around and ply her with Alpha quadrant delicacies," he said. "If all goes well, we'll be clear of them in thirty minutes."
Sulu swallowed, but nodded affirmation. "Aye, sir."
"You'd probably better stay up here too, Spock," Jim said next. "I know you're the only actually green-blooded one among us, but your face was pretty widely broadcast after the Nero thing, and it would be just our luck she'd recognize you if she saw you up close."
"And your face wasn't that widely broadcast?" Uhura frowned at him.
"Not this face," Jim smirked, fingering the altered tip of one ear. He was kind of getting used to the cosmetic alterations, though the eyebrows were still pretty damn startling when he looked in the mirror. "I'm less of a risk than Spock, anyway, and one of us should be there to back you up."
"I concur," Spock said, inclining his head. Then he reached out to Uhura, setting his hands on her shoulders. "You are performing admirably," he told her, in all seriousness.
Whatever he meant by that, it drew a smile from Uhura; she reached up to grasp his hands where they rested, then drew away to lead Jim down the corridor to the transporter room. They arrived just as two sparkling columns of light-- disconcertingly unlike the usual Federation technology's pearlescent swirls-- took shape, heralding the arrival of the subcommander and a centurion guard.
Uhura took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders again, then stepped forward to greet the other woman, Jim a steady presence two steps behind her.
True to Jim's prediction, the subcommander's inspection was very cursory; she did a simple visual examination of the crew quarters, bridge, and hold, with only brief glances at the hand scanner she'd brought, and smiled again when an obvious smuggler's cavity in one of the cargo bulkheads was opened to reveal several high-priced items of obvious Federation make. She chose a bottle of Saurian brandy, a small statuette of apparent Vulcan origin Spock had picked out, and the small wooden crate Jim had chosen on a whim full of entertainment data chips. He was amused by her selections, but not surprised.
She was remarkably personable for a Romulan, at least in Jim's experience, almost cuddly in comparison to the only other members of her species he had ever met. She was sharp-tongued, but wry rather than hostile; petite of form and feature, but strong and graceful in her movements; and the owner of a killer pair of legs that made the most of the extremely short-skirted uniform. She gave her surname as t'Rllaillieu, but did not offer a forename-- and Jim suspected that even if it had been in character for him to ask, she wouldn't have offered it, just like another strong-willed female officer of his acquaintance. He almost hoped they'd run into one another again in future, when he was properly back aboard the Enterprise, just to see the look on her face when she recognized him.
Still, both officers breathed a sigh of relief when they beamed the Romulan officer and her guard back to the Khellian at last, after weathering one last carefully-couched lecture on the costs of attempting to evade detection of illegal cargo by skimming through forbidden space. Uhura said all the right things in reply, repeated anything said to Jim in simple terminology as though barking orders to a simpleton, and in short totally sold the role until the last quantum sparkles faded and she stumbled back against the wall, raising a trembling hand to her temple.
Jim smirked at her. "The next time I need someone to play the boss of me, I definitely know who I'm choosing," he said. "Think Spock'll get annoyed if I promote you to First Officer over his head?"
She rolled her eyes at him, laughing as much out of released tension as amusement. "I think I'd have to complete the command track qualifications before Starfleet would let you do that," she said, sighing in mock regret.
"Damn it, foiled again," Jim pouted, then held out a hand.
She took it, and he used it to tug her away from the wall. "C'mon, let's see what Spock and Sulu are up to, and tell Bones and Chekov they can come out of hiding," he said.
"Next stop, 872 Trianguli," Sulu said, grinning, as they reconvened on the bridge. "By way of a short detour toward Chetzia III; we'll change course an hour out, once I'm sure we're past detection range of the Khellian. We should arrive in the system in about-- seven hours, at maximum warp."
Almost there, Jim thought, grinning back. "Punch it, Lieutenant."
The final leg of the journey seemed to crawl, the tension mounting with every lightyear covered toward their destination. They detoured twice more en route to take advantage of spacial disruptions that would confuse their trail and evade postulated Romulan patrol routes, and saw no other ships; by the time the cargo ship dropped out of warp, the crew had long since passed through tense and into hyperfocused calm.
They approached from above the plane of the ecliptic, intending to avoid immediate notice from any in-system ships, but saw no one and nothing bar a few fading ion trails. The system's sun burned fierce and hot, with a twin that would be visible as a tiny, malevolent eye to anyone standing on the surface of one of the systems' worlds-- though any visitor to the four innermost planets would have to wear full protection gear, as they had been baked to bare cinders long ago. The fifth world, Hellguard itself, would be barely tolerable to the physiology of a Vulcan or Romulan. Any Humans transporting down to its surface would need a shot of tri-ox compounds, at the very least.
"Are we picking up any signals?" Jim asked, brow furrowed, as they slid closer to the planet under impulse power.
The sensors had detected evidence of a colony near a rim of mountains on the day side of the planet. The mountains themselves read as a complete blank to the cargo ship's unsophisticated scanners-- though somehow Jim doubted that even the science equipment aboard Enterprise would get any more out of it. They'd found what they were looking for, all right; it all matched Selek's descriptions pretty closely. There was only one thing lacking: people. The colony buildings all showed as intact, but stood empty; there was no sign of life anywhere they could detect.
Which meant either they were too late, or the Romulans had taken their prisoners to another planet in their timeline, or the Vulcans had been moved to the one place on-planet that they couldn't be detected. Jim could do nothing to verify either of the first two possibilities, which left only the third as an actionable option. He didn't like it, but he liked the idea of simply blowing the place up without a thorough investigation even less. Besides, the further underground they could set the gravitational bomb, the better; and that meant scouting the theoretical caverns under the mountains regardless.
If there were ever a time to use the uniforms he'd stolen, that was it. Odds were, there was only one way down, and there'd be no chance of a timely transporter rescue from Chekov even with the subcutaneous transponders Bones had injected them all with before clearing them for the mission. Once they were under the edge of the umbrella of shielding, they'd be on their own until they retraced their path. Anything that might give them an edge in dealing with any Romulans present in the caverns would be invaluable.
"None," Uhura informed him gravely, shaking her head as she pressed still-lacquered fingertips to her earpiece. With Jim back in the center seat, she was at the communications console, working her own particular brand of magic. "No subspace transmissions; nothing on standard communicator frequencies; no old-style radio beacons. No messages of any kind. If there is any type of long-range communication taking place down there, it's either purely visual or under the shielded area where I can't detect it."
Jim furrowed his brow. "What about up here? Would you know if there were any cloaked ships in communication with the Romulan fleet?" he had to ask.
She pressed a few buttons on the console, her expression abstracted as she shifted the range of channels and frequencies she was listening to. "The observed effects of the cloak seem to indicate that the device bends a significant range of the electromagnetic spectrum around the concealed volume. That renders it undetectable to any sensors calibrated for those frequencies, including the visible spectrum and most methods of audio transmission," she mused aloud. "If they sent a signal on a narrow bandwidth aimed directly away from us, it might also be concealed from our sensors by the distorting effect, but I can't be certain."
"Then we'd better plan for that eventuality," Jim said, grimly. That was a motto he'd learned long ago: plan for the worst, and it would be a pleasant surprise when you came out the other side of what life actually dealt you in one piece. "Spock, is there any chance we might be able to come up with a method of piercing that cloaking technology in the next few hours? They can't have completely disguised all emissions; that would be impossible unless they shut down all power sources aboard their vessel, which would kind of negate the purpose of putting the cloak on a ship in the first place."
Spock looked up from his console long enough to shake his head slightly. "Not with the time and equipment available, Captain," he said. "It might indeed be possible to track the exhaust of a cloaked ship, or detect the minute gravitic disturbances produced by its passage, but this vessel is not equipped for such fine control of its sensors."
Jim leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, scowling determinedly at the screen. Well, nobody had said it was going to be easy; and he still had a trick or two in reserve. "Understood. All right, then; here's what we're going to do, people." He looked around at his five teammates, all of whom had crowded into the small room for the approach, and was gratified to see the same assurance-- or resignation, in Bones' case-- in the posture and expression of each one of them.
"Uhura, make a couple of perfunctory hails to whatever's supposed to be the communications center down there. We already know there's not going to be an answer, but make like we're just a confused cargo delivery vessel for their recording system, all right?"
He nodded next to Sulu and Chekov. "Take us down on a careful approach to the colony buildings; it doesn't look like there's a designated landing area, so just park it near an empty warehouse on the mountain side. There's got to be at least one storage space with room to spare if they've been here for any length of time. Secrecy always ties the supply line in knots for secret projects like this; no way to tell what they'd be expecting a shipment of, but there's got to be something. Once down, start beaming the agricultural equipment out of the main hold."
Finally, he turned to Spock and Bones. "We're going to pretend we're still the Lehe'jhme, en route to Chetzia III," he said. "No one's going to take the navigational malfunction story seriously, any more than the border patrol who stopped us-- this clearly isn't a colony world capable of growing much of anything, even if our computers were messed up enough not to know where we were from a simple glance at the star charts, but it'll work as a delaying tactic, at least. No one will expect spies or pirates to actually leave valuable goods behind, and we'll need the hold emptied anyway.
"While that's going on, the four of us with disguises will head for the caverns mentioned in Ambassador Selek's report," he continued. "We'll pretend to be part of the entourage of one of the other members of their little Alliance, sent to check up on their progress. That should at least get us in to assess the situation before we run into any serious roadblocks. We'll have to improvise from there, but I've got some ideas about how to accomplish that. Bones, while Chekov continues transporting the equipment, I'll need you to stay up here on the bridge and monitor for transmissions. You'll have to risk turning on the translator and claim the screen's broken if any Romulans call, so stick close to the story. I'd leave you Uhura to handle it, but I have a feeling we'll need her more."
Bones scowled. "Which means you should probably be worrying about your own skin, not mine," he said. "God knows what kind of trouble you'll run into without me."
Jim nodded. "The minute-- the exact second-- we get out from under the mountains again and call, you'll need to open the external airlock to the cargo section; if we manage to rescue even a fraction of the missing crews, there'll be too many of them for the transporter to handle. You might need to lift the ship again and pilot it in closer for the pickup, too. Any remaining cargo can simply be dumped at that point. I'll slap transponder patches on any seriously injured for immediate transport, and send Sulu with them to take over for you so you can get to your primary job."
"I knew I'd regret letting you talk me into that piloting course," Bones grumbled, but nodded in reluctant agreement. The elective class had originally been part of Jim's campaign to relieve Bones' fear of flying, had morphed into a side project on some of their missions for Mallory, and finally had become a convenient excuse to draft the doctor as part of Jim's makeshift bridge crew for his attempts at the Kobayashi Maru simulation. Now, it might end up helping them save lives.
"Any concerns?" Jim asked, glancing around at the others again.
"Any concerns?" Uhura echoed him, slanted eyebrows reaching for her hairline.
Jim flashed a wry grin at her. "Maybe I should rephrase that; apologies, Lieutenant," he said. "Any specific recommendations or critical emendations regarding the plan?"
She pursed her lips at him in frustration-- at him, at the situation, or at her own inability to offer more assistance, he couldn't tell which-- but shook her head. "None at this time, Captain."
"Feel free to chime in anytime," he said. "We're not exactly on the bridge of a starship right now."
"Make sure y'all come to me for tri-ox shots before you leave the ship," Bones reminded him.
Sulu grimaced. "I suppose rebreathers would look a little out of place," he said. "What else is the environment like down there?"
"The air is dry, thinner than the atmosphere of Vulcan, and contains a high volume of native soil," Spock replied. "The dust is corrosive and sulfuric, but should not pose any significant danger to Humans in limited amounts. The likelihood of sunburn and dehydration is significantly higher; I recommend application of a topical barrier and sufficient water supplies for a twenty-four-hour period for all members of the away team."
Jim nodded. "Anything else?"
"Sir..." Chekov began, hesitantly. "If they are hiding under the mountains, they must know someone is coming to rescue the Wulcans. Vhat if they shoot you on sight?"
"That's always a risk," Jim acknowledged. "But if they're expecting anyone, they're probably expecting a full expedition-- another Vulcan vessel, or a Constitution-class starship, not a small covert group. That's why they sent us. If Uhura and Sulu can get us through their perimeter, Mr. Spock will be able to even the odds." He paused to glance at his first officer then, and raised an eyebrow in imitation of Spock's favorite gesture. "That is, provided he wasn't blowing smoke up my ass when he said he'd be able to hack Romulan computer systems. He never did get a chance to demonstrate that for me the last time."
As expected, Spock stiffened his spine at that, looking disdainful. "My skills will be more than adequate to the task," he said firmly, while the others smirked amongst themselves, worried tension broken.
"Good," Jim said, cheerfully. "Now, if there's nothing else? Sulu, take us on down."
"Aye, sir," Sulu nodded, and turned back to his controls.
On the viewscreen, the red-brown wasteland of Hellguard loomed larger. The time for calculations was over; the time to act was at hand.
-(4/6)-