"Captain Archer."

The Vulcan captain looked as he always had, showing no signs that he was annoyed in the slightest manner. But this time Archer noticed something slightly different about Soljark. Perhaps it was in the tautness of the skin around the eyes or the lines that seemed to underline them and that reminded him of T'Pol in the Expanse. These very subtle changes would be beyond the notice of most. He looked at T'Pol and realized why he had been reminded of her. She was showing the same subtle signs of strain. Archer made a mental note to talk to Phlox at the first opportunity. Perhaps he should tell T'Pol to leave the bridge and go to her quarters. He actually considered it but realized he had no logical reason to do so, none anyway that would survive her pointed questioning. And arbitrarily sending her to her quarters would only add to her stress. Not a good idea.

He looked back at the screen "Captain Soljark."

Suddenly, Archer had a sense of disorientation, as if he were back on the Selaya and Soljark was one of the crazed officers thinking about how they were going to corner him and kill him in a magnificent orgy of blood. The sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving him unsettled. This was the third time so far, perhaps he was the one who Phlox needed to look at.

But the Vulcan captain and everyone else on the bridge didn't seem to have noticed his lapse. Not so much a lapse, but the feeling he had temporarily dipped into another dimension.

"I trust Commander Kyres has reached out to you. I wanted to talk to both of you about collaborating in a joint action against the terrorists." Archer let the words sink in, waiting.

Those were the orders of the Federation. The Followers had not responded to any communication until the Empress personally reached out to them. Which meant two things. First, that communications were actually going through and that the terrorists were simply not responding, and second, that they would respond to the Empress.

The Federation, Vulcan and Andoria were now trying to expand this first contact into an open channel of communications, through the Empress if they had to and to the extent she was willing to lower herself that way. It was most unusual, unacceptable according to Andorian customs, that the Empress converse with anyone who had not been duly introduced, or was meritorious. And here Rel, the Leader of the Followers was a common criminal, however uncommon his crimes.

Even without these difficulties, all three worlds were all too wise and established to rely on a talking cure. While the diplomats negotiated, or attempted to, the men of action would be planning an attack, or a rescue mission, whatever one chose to call it. And since odds were that the Vulcans were already well advanced in making such plans, the admiralty's hopes were that Enterprise could jump in and inject a measure of restraint in the process, perhaps not end up with everyone dead. And Andoria's participation aimed to ensure there would be no ramifications on its homeworld.

xx

"T'Pol!" Trip caught to her in the corridor. He had tried leaving the bridge in the same turbolift but she had been faster, had pretty much flown out of there at the end of their shift. He knew that she had been holding on by the slimmest of thread all day and he had to act fast. Vulcan emotions were so much more powerful than Humans' and her control was somewhat erratic, would always be so because of the damage in the Expanse.

The Humans who watched the mother being murdered in front of her son were shocked, horrified, sad, angry and subject to so many other shades of emotions, all to be swiftly and nimbly processed on the basis of past experiences, childhood fears, personality quirks and everything that it took to be human. But a Vulcan's emotions first ran to rage, white hot anger that needed to be suppressed lest it was expressed, sweeping everything else aside. Vulcans didn't have the delicate emotional architecture to measure, quantify, feel, ordinate, build perspective or process and without suppression or meditation the anger and rage took over and hijacked the neurolytic system through a self-feeding loop that quickly led to paranoia and homicidal rage. He had to stop the loop before it built up, or it would take so much more time to bring back under control. If her neurolytic system was involved, it could bring her whole physiological system crashing down. They had already had to deal with that a couple of times, and it was a terrifying ordeal.

He reached her just as she was putting her hand on the thumbpad to her cabin, grabbed her and brought her inside, mindless of any passing crewmember, knowing already that she was hurting, blinded by anger. She stood shuddering as he quickly wrapped her in a bear hug. "Hey, it's okay, it's okay" He would be her ears and eyes and brain while she fought to attain suppression, his Human ability to deal with emotions the cool beacon that she could always come back to.

He sat down by the bed, with her still wrapped in his embrace, just being, allowing her to use his inner connectedness to process the emotions into manageable chunks and move beyond the anger.

xx

The insistent beep wrapped itself around her senses, penetrating her hearing, finally awaking her from the deep slumber she had fallen into after Trip had helped her vanquish the emotional maelstrom and reach a meditative plane. He had left her alone afterwards, unable to block his own emotional upset and not wanting to drain her reserves.

She stared at the darkness for a little while, calling the lights when the soft dual-tone rang again, bringing with it memories long forgotten. V'Shar. She sat bold upright in her bed, finally crossing the divide to her desk and answering the hail.

Captain Soljark was on the screen. He didn't beg forgiveness for having awakened her. They were all on duty until the crisis on Sterth Vega III resolved itself, in whatever form.

"We are recalling all V'Shar operatives. You are number ten." was all he said.

She was V'Shar once and always. Once taken, the oath could never be untaken. She noted the anxiety that crept up on her, balanced by the fact she had all her memories even the ones that had been suppressed so long ago. There was nothing to fear but fear itself.

"When?"

"A shuttle will come pick you up tomorrow." Soljark didn't give an order of time. He didn't have to. She was V'Shar and that meant she would be ready no matter when.

She surmised that calls first had to be made to the Federation and Starfleet, authorizations sought and received. A courtesy from Vulcan to the Federation. It would be a small matter for T'Pau to request her presence and whenever she beckoned the Federation obeyed. She knew that Captain Soljark and the others had not even entertained a possible refusal by the Federation as a variable in their plans. As if it would stop Vulcan.

She sat staring at the dark screen for several minutes. He had said nothing about the mission they were recalling her for. She had not been an agent for over twenty years, and her training was stale. She would never be selected for an operation if there were a choice. Which made her perfectly expendable. The conclusion was self-evident. She thought about Trip, what it would do to him, what it would do to both of them.

But she had no choice. Actually, if her assumptions as to what the upcoming mission were correct, even if a choice had been provided she would have volunteered to go. That was not something she needed to disclose to Trip or anyone else. It might bring them to question her loyalty when it was not a question of loyalty. It just happened that V'Shar was doing what she herself wanted to do.

xx

"Come in" Archer looked up and saw T'Pol come in, wondering what called her to his quarters so early in the morning. Something in the way she stood awoke a distant memory and something in him already knew why she came to see him. But he needed her to say it herself. "Yes?" he opened.

"Captain Soljark is recalling all V'Shar operatives. They will be sending a shuttle over at some point today."

"That is somewhat unexpected" Archer drily retorted "but I should have known". Part of him was yelling he should have seen it coming. He knew better than to trust the Vulcans. They were probably the ones behind the disorienting feeling he had felt on the bridge, messing with his brain. They had been messing with his family since the first time he set eyes on one. The whole thing reminded him of Pernaia Prime, and not in a good way. He glared at T'Pol, realizing she was caught between conflicting loyalties and not giving a damn.

But obviously she had learned a lot since Pernaia Prime. She did not repeat the same canned statement about being recalled, opting instead to explain "I am a V'Shar operative, Captain. It is not something that one can shed as befits one. I am oath-bound to respond."

Archer nodded softly. He understood that T'Pol's loyalty was to Starfleet ahead of Vulcan and he didn't think he would have to deal with the V'Shar question after Pernaia Prime. He should have known. It was like Section 31 and Malcolm, except that with Malcolm the people he was dealing with were still human and he had half a shot at figuring out what made them tick.

"I guess I'm about to hear from Starfleet then" he sounded pissy even to his own ears.

"The Federation has delegated all powers regarding the hostage situation to Vulcan" slight stress on the word Federation. Archer pursed his mouth. Yeah, well, she was letting him know a bigger entity than Starfleet was calling the shots. So that was it, then. The Federation had passed the hot potato to Vulcan, the good of Archer and the Enterprise be damned. He was going to be one bridge officer short, one science officer short, and without his XO, and good luck to him. Great going.

"Did they call you back specifically?" Perhaps she didn't want to go, and perhaps there was a loophole between Starfleet, the Federation and Vulcan that would allow her to gracefully and politely decline the summons. Perhaps a case of mistaken identity...?

"The Vulcan starship has recalled all V'Shar operatives in the sector" T'Pol repeated, trying to make him understand there was no way to avoid the summons.

Archer winced. She had already said that. Was she going to start repeating the same over and over again, to try and avoid answering? Unless… Perhaps there was something that was crystal clear to her that he was not getting. And then it dawned on him. How many other V'Shar operatives would there be in the sector when there were only the Vulcan starships, Enterprise, the Andorian terrorists and the Vulcan hostages. She had been specifically summoned, as directly as Vulcan could do without identifying her too openly. Which of course they wouldn't want to do if she was V'Shar.

He sighed, a muscle working in his jaw. This was not good in so many ways.