The Forge

Part Two, Extreme Measures


Coming up on the transporter pad with Captain Archer, Commander Charles Tucker the Third unsuccessfully fought a smile at the sight of T'Pol and Soval, standing close together (for Vulcans) and talking quietly in their native tongue. It was nice, despite the circumstances, to see that someone from her homeworld wasn't treating her as a pariah. He'd never understand why she'd felt compelled to stay on Enterprise as long as she had, especially when she hadn't particularly seemed to like humans all that uch at first, but he was glad to see the Ambassador, at least, had stopped giving her flak for doing so. It gave him hope that there might actually be some Vulcans out there who weren't self-righteous bigots.

That thought upended his smile like no one's business. Trip had always held a dark view of the High Command – they were the ones, after all, who'd held back Earth's warp program, and, for a while, his own personal devil had been the director of the so-called Commission for Joint Research and Exchange – but it had surprised him how much worse T'Pol's own views of her government were. He'd been pissed more than once with the United Earth government, but he'd never-

Then again, the UE had never done anything quite along the lines of bombing an ally's embassy either.

"You know," he told her, taking the proffered data module from Soval, "if you'd told me this place was a such a hellhole earlier, I mightn't have thought it was such a good idea."

"It's a Vulcan desert, Mr. Tucker."

"It's also a post-nuclear wasteland left over from those pre-Surak wars you mentioned – what?" the engineer asked, catching her Look as she and Jon stepped onto the transporter pad.

"You'll never finish writing your manual on operational warp physics if you use your time researching ancient Vulcan history," she told him (which elicited a look of an entirely different sort from the captain – and, if he wasn't imagining things, the ambassador too), which was true. But searching the Vulcan database, looking up what was so special about this Forge, had been a lot easier and less frustrating than the stupid manual that no one at Jupiter Station would ever bother to read, negating his whole purpose for writing it.

Perhaps a little too smartly to be entirely business, "Yeah, well whose fault is that?" he retorted, not daring to meet her gaze for more than a moment. Instead, focused a little more intently than was strictly necessary on the unmarked data module. "Whatever this is, my guess the High Command'll throw a fit if they ever found out we had it."

"It shows the gaps in our satellite surveillance system, when beam-ins can't be detected."

Trip's smile returned somewhat darkly. In some way that would have bothered him if he'd given it much thought, it almost made his day. Still, business was business, and he inserted the module into the transporter controls, setting it to find the next gap near Vulcan's Gateway. "Right. Well, good luck. Try not to get yourselves killed."

"Always do," Jon agreed, not seeming to realize his statement had been directed mostly his first officer. Logically (to borrow a Vulcan expression), he knew she could take care of herself, probably substantially better than he could do for himself; even if she hadn't been a native of the planet below, she'd some pretty extensive training of the sort he'd never been able to think of a way to ask her about without sounding like he was accusing her of hiding things from him – which she probably was, but that wasn't the important part of the matter. Neither did it stop the feeling that, if he just tagged along, she'd be safer, though, honest to God, he knew that it would be better for everyone involved if he stayed out of the desert (for various, usually embarrassing, reasons) and in command of Enterprise (because, apparently, some Vulcans actually respected him for the business with Weytahn, despite the recent mess with the Security Directorate). It was the same nagging feeling Trip got whenever he was left for too long in one of these God-awful situations with too little to do and it bothered him to no end that, even now, he couldn't shake it. Well, that would end soon enough. "Energize."

And then they were gone.

He waited a moment, just to be sure nobody got caught in the buffers, and sighed deeply. Shortly, he remembered Soval's presence and, pulling out the module, turned to hand it back to the Vulcan ambassador. "You'll probably be wanting this back."

"What back, Commander? All I see is a Starfleet data module."

"Right," he drawled, pocketing the module, sure he'd find some future use for it. That would have to come later, though. Right now he was in command. It should have been a harrowing prospect given the situation on the planet but, somehow, it was, almost, a relief, as if, with Jon and T'Pol gone, he could be more certain than he would otherwise be that everything within his power was being done if worst came to worst... "Well, I've heard nothing from Phlox, so my guess is he's not found anything new yet about the DNA. I can have the quartermaster set you up in guest quarters if you feel like staying up here while the doctor works on it. If not, I can beam you down while we're here."

"It is doubtful that, were I to return to the surface, I would be allowed to return when your doctor does find the evidence you are searching for."

Motioning in the direction of the nearest turbo-lift, "Can't say I dislike the idea, but you may well end up being stuck up here with us for some time. Imagine you were looking forward to going home for a while and getting as far away from humans as you could."

"I have lived on Earth for more than thirty years, Commander. In that time, I developed a certain affinity for your world and its people. Though you are correct in one aspect: I was indeed anticipating seeing my family. It was pleasing to see Commander T'Pol, however."

"You know, I always rather got the impression you didn't care for humans much, or T'Pol for paling around with us for as long as she has."

"On the contrary," Soval said, looking quite surprised for a Vulcan as they entered the lift and Trip pressed the button for A Deck, "I have always found her ease around different species to be quite admirable, especially from such a young woman. Since our first meeting, shortly before my posting to Earth, I have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to convince her to to join the Foreign Ministry. It had been my hope that she would one day replace me as ambassador to your planet. If one could convince her to settle down, I feel that her skills would have made her a highly capable diplomat."

"You've obviously never seen me and her when we get into an argument then."

"You," the ambassador's eyebrow rose as the lift slowed, "are the exception in all things where Commander T'Pol is concerned."

With a snort, Trip stepped out onto the bridge, taking a quick survey to see if there was anything immediate requiring his attention. There wasn't (which he supposed must be a good thing), and so, Soval following, he joined Lt. Reed in the situation room. The tactical officer was leaning over the main systems display console, a deep, almost dark, look of intense concentration upon his face as he handed a padd to a fresh-faced young crewmen they must have taken on after the Expanse. As the young man scampered off, Commander Tucker wondered who he was and which of the dead men or women he had replaced before forcing away the thought with the question, "Any news?"

"Sensors aren't picking up any unusual activity near the beam-in point – at least, what the sensors can pick up through the geomagnetic interference, – so we can only assume that the captain and Commander T'Pol weren't detected by the Vulcans. Now we just have to hope we can keep the High Command distracted long enough to keep them from going after the Syrranites."

"I think our being in orbit is going to be enough to keep them from doing anything stupid – at least, for a while. Now that they've claimed the bombing was an internal matter, they want us out of their system as soon as possible."

"Can we claim some sort of malfunction, something that would keep us here?"

"Nothing serious enough to warrant staying in orbit without actually damaging one of the ship's systems, and I don't want to have to do that in case we have to make a quick break after the cap'n and T'Pol make it to the extraction point."

"We'll have to think of something," Mal told him, which was entirely true but maddeningly obvious. "We've no idea how long it will take them to get to the Syrranites, let alone convince them to help us."

"T'Pol thinks they'll be more then willing to cooperate, provided we do everything peacefully."

"Bloody Vulcan pacifism. I frankly can't see a way out of this that doesn't involve a fire-fight – no offence meant, Ambassador."

"There is no offence where none is taken, Lieutenant. The situation will most likely come to violent culmination if your captain and first officer cannot return quickly enough. However, Commander T'Pol will likely be able to elicit the Syrranites' aide quickly; any delay they may have will likely be caused by sand-fire storms, which are quite strong at this time of year."

Groaning, "Electrical sandstorms, geomagnetic instabilities bad enough to knock out anything you can't power by hand, and temperatures in the shade in excess of forty-five degrees Celsius. I understand they wanted to keep hidden, but couldn't the Syrranites chosen a place less likely to kill them?"

"The Forge has many challenges, but it is as sacred to Vulcans as Mount Seleya," Soval explained. "That alone gives the location much importance to the Syrranites, though undoubtedly there are other reasons, unknown to us, why this place was chosen as their sanctuary. As for The Forge itself, any skilled traveller would be able to traverse the desert, provided he or she was alert and prepared. Your mate is quite competent, Commander; I would not worry over-much for their safety."

Trip caught Malcolm's snort at the final comment. Though he and T'Pol made no attempt to hide their relationship during off-duty hours, no one had ever actually come out and said anything about it either – well, excepting Jon, but that was different. Jon hadn't used the distinctly unambiguous word 'mates' to describe them either. He was sure he'd turned as red as the stripes on his uniform before he'd recovered enough from the shock of it to nod in agreement. One of these days someone – certainly not him – was going to have to explain to the Vulcans why 'mate' was an inappropriate term to refer to human couples by...

..but maybe not Vulcan ones. From what he could gather, Vulcans only married for one reason: to have kids. Maybe there were other reasons, but from the gist of T'Pol's discussion with her mom, that seemed to be the main one...

But now was not the time to get caught up in those sorts of thoughts and Trip looked up to discover his tactical officer had saved him, turning the discussion back towards its purpose, which was trying to figure out who really bombed the embassy.

"...over the security footage and it's clear that the guard recognized whoever it was, so I've been trying to compare a list of frequent visitors to the Embassy against who we know was there that day."

"Have you had any luck?" Commander Tucker asked, forcing himself to focus on the moment. No matter how tangled his personal life was in the events of this day, he could not think of them now. T'Pol would not want him to.

"To be honest, no. Most people at the Embassy were regulars and Corporal Askwith had held his post for seventeen months. Only eight or nine people that day were first time visitors. And, since we can't see the bomber's face, that leaves us a total of two hundred and eight possible suspects."

"Damn. The Doc say anything about when he expects this corporal to be able to talk to us?"

"That's the thing, Commander: Phlox doesn't expect him to recover."

After a moment, in which all three stared at the display on the console, which was paused at a still-frame from the security footage, showing the back of a Vulcan-robed head, "At least we know one thing."

"That it's a Vulcan? I doubt it; it could be an Andorian under those robes for all we know from the angles of the video feeds."

"No, not that – but whoever it was was either incredibly lucky or knew what they were doing to a T. There can't be many people on Vulcan," he continued slowly, not at all liking the direction of his thinking, "with the kind of training to get a bomb into an embassy without setting off any alarms or being picked up by any of the cameras."

"You're thinking someone from the Vulcan Security Directorate did this?" utterly aghast. "Why would the Vulcan government want to bomb their ally's embassy?"

"I wish I knew, Mal. It might've been a dissident who used to be a member of the Security Directorate, but a thing like this has to have taken more planning than even a single Vulcan could do – and, if the Security Directorate is anything like secret police on old Earth were, I'm betting there are very few former members who are still around and able to do something like this." Trip looked up at the Ambassador, who did not disagree with his assessment. "So it is a conspiracy. Damn."


"Phlox tells me that what I'm about to ask you is incredibly rude, highly illegal, and quite possibly immoral, but I'm going to ask you it anyway."

From a meditative posture in the middle of the guest quarters he'd been assigned, Soval asked without moving, "And what question could be so necessary as to require you behave in such a matter?"

"The DNA on the bomb was planted: it was T'Pau's alright, but the sample was about thirty years old."

"You can prove this?"

"Phlox can," the commander assured, taking a seat opposite the ambassador on the floor. He held a padd in one hand and tapped it against the other, only realizing this motion when Soval narrowed his eyes slightly at the the sound. With an apologetic grin that quickly faded as he continued, "Sorry. Just kinda worried. I don't know what kinda pull it takes to mess with DNA records on Vulcan, but I'm guessing it's a hell of a lot. Which means we're looking at governmental bigwigs and their henchmen, and that means this has to go farther than just the Syrranites."

"While it is a logical conclusion that the High Command would have to have been complacent in an act of this magnitude, you have just told me that the only proof we have is doctored evidence that eliminates the only suspect we had," Soval noted, features schooled as a hint of raw emotion crept into his eyes. In the flickering of candlelight that was the room's only illumination, it made Trip remember the brief glimpse he'd had of T'Pol after her exposure to trellium-D aboard her old posting, the Seleya.

"The one piece of evidence we have left that the Security Directorate – or the Syrranites – or whoever – hasn't tampered with is the guard."

"Who, if I remember Doctor Phlox's prognosis correctly, is comatose, brain-damaged, and not expected to survive the return journey."

"Which brings me to my question: I know there aren't a lot of Vulcans who can do this sort of thing, but you've got to know someone who might be able to preform a mind-meld on Corporal Askwith and find out who he saw. It's the only proof we have."

"Telepathic proof is inadmissible in courts."

"Well, I don't see us as having many other options."

"I imagine Commander T'Pol has told you very little of mind-melds if you believe one to be the best course of action here. They are dangerous under the best of circumstances and, with a human, may well be impossible." Soval gave him a look he could not read, but assumed was some sort of query based off of what he'd discovered over time about Vulcans and their eyebrows. "Unless...?"

Ah. It was a question. "She's not told me a thing about them. Left behind the stuff she had on the Syrranites, though, and I ran it through the translation matrix – figured I might as well learn something about the people we're trying to keep from persecution," that, and it was either do something quasi-useful like that or work on the warp manual T'Pol had got him started on. It wasn't particularly difficult (though explaining every step of his reasoning was becoming quite tedious), just boring and becoming more and more of a chore.

Ever since he'd made the mistake of telling R&D he was working on it in one of his frequent exchanges with them (they were still insisting he transfer to Columbia, at least long enough to get the ship up and running), they'd been riding him to get it finished. It had taken a while, but the funding that had been approved in the immediate aftermath of the Xindi attack had finally made its way to Starfleet's Department of Ships – the brass there, at least, saw the sense in having more than one operational NX-class in fleet – and they wanted Columbia out of spacedock by the end of the year, whether she had a capable engineering team to man her or not. Now, as soon as he was done it with the manual, Kelby or Williams should be perfectly able to get the warp core working without his presence being needed, but the brass was finally beginning to tire of the months-long delay on the NX-02 and, with keel being laid down for the NX-03 Challenger this very week, his writing speed was just not fitting into their breakneck schedule, which had Challenger in space by this time next year and the NX-04 Discovery in the works by '56.

Needless to say, Trip should be doing everything in his power to finish the manual if he wanted to stay on Enterprise – which he most certainly did – but the pressure of it had led him to finish nearly every project he'd ever started on the ship except for the damn manual.

And now he'd resorted to reading translations of quasi-religious Vulcan texts to keep from working on it. "Anyway," Trip continued, "T'Pol'd flagged the part on mind-melds, though, and it's either this or we hope she and Jon find all the proof we need on the surface." He'd a vague idea how dangerous they could be, though he'd frankly found that most of it had made about as much sense to him as Earth religions must to Vulcans. "And even if they do, I'm thinking we should try this anyway, if you can find someone who can do it, 'cause politicians are the same regardless of species: they're not going to do something this risky without the biggest pay-off they can get, and the sooner we find out who exactly it is and what exactly it is they're playing at, the better for all of us."

The ambassador's pensive look remained as he rose (Trip, somewhat less gracefully, quickly stood as well), with a sigh, "Forty-three lives have already been lost to these political machinations..."

"Then you know someone who'd do it? 'Cause Lieutenant Reed and I have been working on a plan to get them off the surface-"

"That will not be necessary: I can preform the meld."


"You know, if I had known you'd be putting your job at risk to do this, I wouldn't have asked you to do the meld. Well, I wouldn't have pushed you so hard at least. No offence, but I'd rather have you as ambassador to Earth than someone as dedicated to keeping humans back as the last guy."

"We are all bound by our duties. Solkar was only doing his."

"Duty or no, you can't go back down there."

"I am not a fool, Commander. V'Las was involved with the attack on your embassy. He is responsible for blaming it on the Syrranites."

"Then why are you turning yourself over to him? Now that he knows we know Stel placed the bomb, he's probably already had him fingered as a Syrranite, if not outright disappeared."

"It's the only chance we have to reach the rest of the High Command."

Pausing in front of the airlock, Trip asked, "What if they're all in on it?" He held off pressing the door controls for a moment, hoping against hope he could convince Soval to stay, sure that if if he allowed the ambassador to return to the planet, he'd be disappeared as untold other dissenters had been. But, as the silence dragged, the engineer realized that asking Soval to stay was pointless. Vulcans were bound by their duties and expecting them to behave otherwise was stupid considering everything he knew about them. Finally pressing the airlock controls, "If you really want humans and Vulcans to work together someday, you might start thinking about trusting us."

Already entering the airlock, Soval paused for a moment and turned. "It is probable that the majority of the High Command is loyal to the administrator. He has held various postings throughout the ministry over the last century-and-a-half and has likely filled the other directorates with his followers as well – Subaltern Sopel, who I believe you are familiar with, is one of his mate's nephews and wields far more power than is usual for one of his rank – though Minister Kuvak, of the Science Directorate, will likely be receptive to my arguments, and, if I can convince him, his voice should be enough to keep V'Las from the most extreme actions.

"V'Las, however, is not the only one with influence. My elder son, Solan, is an altern in the Security Directorate and should be able to confirm my suspicions on the ultimate goal behind the bombing. With what information I hope to receive from him, we shall be able to derail the administrator's plans. Peace and long life, Commander." And with that, the ambassador pressed the door controls on the other side of the airlock.

"Well I'll be damned," Trip swore, shaking his head as he made for the bridge, almost forgetting the seriousness which had brought on the situation. But only almost. Something was going terribly wrong on Vulcan and T'Pol was caught up in the middle of it; no matter what else happened, he'd not be able to forget that.


a/n: a shorter chapter, in large part preperation for later ones. But don't worry, Trip should have more to do in the next couple chappies. Promises to be another crazy week though, and so there may be some delay in getting "Awakening" out, especially if I have another insane I-know-what-I-want-but-not-how-to-put-it bout of writer's block like I did today. But hopefully not. Reveiws may make it come out quicker (hint, hint, hint); they make me happy, anyway.

BTW, "Chrysalis" was the 5th episode of season 7 of DS9. "Extreme Measures" was 23rd in that same season.