—Chapter 10—
"Three months!" said Trip, to Kopek, while Malcolm merely looked on. "Are you kidding me, Kopek?"
"I am not kidding you, Commander Tucker," said Kopek. "Three months is the earliest period during which you can act to help T'Pol. If you act prematurely, you will likely fail."
"Lt. Reed is a wizard at bypassing security systems," said Trip. "I think we can do better than three months."
"For the sake of argument, I will grant that you could conceivably make your way on-planet and inside the mining complex, but I doubt you could elude the guards long enough to find and extract T'Pol," said Kopek. "There are eighty-six thousand prisoners in those mines, spread out over some four hundred miles of underground tunnels. Those statistics are not encouraging."
Trip sighed. Kopek's logic was sound.
"To find T'Pol in a reasonable time frame you will need computer access, and you will need the ability to use Kriosian computers to begin with," said Kopek. "You also have to move around freely, and that means you have to pass for a guard. You can not play a game of hide and seek with sixty-five hundred prison guards for long, and expect to win that game, Commander Tucker."
Trip thought. Sure, they could overpower a guard and force him to locate T'Pol, and they could still try to rescue her, but Kopek was right, the odds were a long shot at best. Better a rescue delayed three months, than a premature attempt made, and failed.
"Ok, you're right, Kopek," said Trip. "I appreciate your input. But why three months in particular?"
"The guards working in Kalen Tesar are rotated out twice a year," said Kopek. "One of those rotations happens in three months, and we will take advantage of the controlled chaos of that rotation, to spirit T'Pol away from Kalen Tesar. You can't just show up there on a whim, Commander."
"So we sneak in with the new guards?" said Trip.
"Better than that," said Kopek. "Our computer specialists will hack into the proper servers and create Kriosian identities for you and Lt. Reed, with full backup. Job history, school history, employment history, tax records, medical records, the whole works. Anyone checks up on you, you'll pass, unless they're suspicious enough of you to actually try to speak to people who know you. Do not make them that suspicious. We will also insert you and Lt. Reed into the employee database under your assumed Kriosian names, and work you into the next rotation for Kalen Tesar. And when it is all over with, my people will go back in and delete all your records."
"You've done this before, Kopek," said Malcolm, appreciating the craftsmanship.
"Once or twice, Lt. Reed," said Kopek.
"All right," said Trip. "So Malcolm and I are basement dwellers under the Vulcan Embassy for three months."
"We will keep you busy, Commander Tucker, never fear," said Kopek. "You will train with the weapons available to the Kriosian prison guards on Kalen Tesar, namely knife, baton, phaser pistol and rifle. We have liberated two prison guards outfits and two sets of riot gear, so that you and Lt. Reed might become completely familiar with them. In addition, you will become familiar with Kriosian computer systems, and most importantly if you mean to pass yourself off as prison guards, you will study the language. By the time you leave here, you will be fluent in Kriosian."
"We'll do our best," said Trip, and Malcolm nodded his agreement.
"You will do well, Commander Tucker," said Kopek, "and we will help, with more than language tutors. Some of the linguists working here at the embassy will mind meld with you two on a regular basis and that will make a great difference for the better, you will see."
"Fantastic," said Trip, uneasy about the prospect of a mind meld.
"Indeed," said Kopek, missing the irony in Trip's voice.
"When do we begin our preparations?" said Malcolm.
"Now," said Kopek.
T'Pol cursed aloud as she pushed a loaded mineral cart up an incline. Most women were given lighter tasks, but a Vulcan's strength was known to the Kriosians, and so T'Pol was assigned the hard tasks.
The main passages of the mines had initially been dug deep into the earth through the use of machines, and then expanded upon through the use of hand tools, so that while the machine dug passages were wide and well lit, the hand dug tunnels were cramped, barely adequate to accommodate the carts on their tracks, dimly lit, and a claustrophobic's worst nightmare.
Krios Prime's legal system did not coddle prisoners, and so they dug, day and night, in twelve hour shifts, though the vast majority had not seen either day or night for years, and many would never see them again, for a sentence to Kalen Tesar was often as good as a death sentence.
The one good thing was that the warden of the mines was a professional, and though this place was considered a shit assignment, the guards themselves were fair, if sometimes harsh, but T'Pol knew that harshness was needed to maintain discipline, and discipline was a must, for the mines themselves were a horror.
Besides the cramped tunnels, cold showers, lousy food and frequent outbursts of violence between the prisoners, there was also the bone chilling cold, the fine dust so thick that it hampered both breathing and visibility, and worst of all, the constant sensation of being watched from behind tinted glass windows, or from behind the tinted face masks of the guards, for they seemed as interchangeable as grains of sand on a beach behind those masks, faces hidden, voices distorted by the air filters built into the mask.
"Move faster, Vulcan," said a guard watching T'Pol struggle with the cart, "if you want to eat tonight."
Normally T'Pol could not have cared less if she ever ate the slop that passed for food here, but she had to guard her health. Commander Tucker, that infuriating fool, that maddening Human, that, that illogical mate of hers, had not had severed their Bond yet. Perhaps the Enterprise had been diverted from Vulcan by some sort of emergency. Yes, that had to be it, she reasoned, though deep inside, she felt that Commander Tucker meant to defy her, meant to continue holding the Bond no matter the risk, and though she hated that he was foolish enough to take that risk under the current conditions, she was honest enough to admit that she took great comfort from her Bond to Commander Tucker. It was the only good thing in her life at the moment, and when she dared dream, she hoped that he might wait for her to get out, for her chances of escape were essentially zero.
"No, Lt. Reed," said the Vulcan linguist working with them. "You are placing too much stress on the second vowel."
Trip smirked, and the Vulcan turned her attention to the man. Trip wiped the smirk off his face instantly, for V'Tala was a tyrant.
"I will get to you soon enough, Commander Tucker," she said. "Your Kriosian needs work as well, though the mind melds are helping greatly. Now, try again, Lt. Reed."
T'Pol took her food tray and found a place on the periphery of the men in her work crew. They were a rough lot, often silent, but she preferred their grim resignation and their company, to the despair and misery of the women's quarters.
She studied the food in search of something edible for her. Since Surak's coming the Vulcan's had been vegetarians, which left half the tray unpalatable for her. She kept the rice, lentils and the three dried plums and pushed her tray, with about a pound of some kind of meat stew in a spicy pepper sauce towards the men in her work crew, and began eating. Moments later, her stew was partitioned out among the four men.
"T'Pol," said one of the men, sliding a plate towards her.
The plate contained six dried plums, a handful of rice, a small bowl of lentils, and a cookie from yesterday's meal which one of the men had obviously saved. These men had done this since T'Pol's first day here, when she'd pushed her meat away untouched, each man giving what he could spare in return for her meat, for they knew that given the nature of their work, T'Pol's meager vegetarian diet would not sustain her through the days of hard labor for long. T'Pol nodded her gratitude and ate silently, along with the rest of her crew.
"Try again, Commander Tucker," said Tallak, one of the Vulcan marines stationed at the embassy. "Lt. Reed did well. You need to do the same."
Trip, in full Kriosian prison guard riot gear drew his baton in a flash and swung at Tallak. The Vulcan jumped back, and Trip followed, fully aware that Tallak was looking for an opening to turn the tables on him. He swung again, and Tallak reached for him, but Trip rapped him smartly on the wrist, then allowed the baton to continue its trajectory to catch Tallak in the knee. Though Trip had held back much of the power of his strikes, Tallak still grunted in pain, and pulled back, drawing his own baton.
"Now you've made him mad, Trip," said Malcolm, smiling at Trip. "Now you're gonna pay."
Trip scowled at Malcolm in response, then turned his attention to the Vulcan, as Tallak closed the distance, the fixed, unblinking look of a bird of prey in his eyes.
Ah, crap! thought Trip, then drew the stiff rubber knife at his waist. If he was going down, he was going down fighting and he was dexterous enough to use two weapons effectively. He'd discovered that fact here, in this lousy Vulcan dungeon.
T'Pol looked at the ceiling of her cell from the top bunk. Kerra, her cell mate, had finally stopped crying into her pillow and as Vulcans needed less sleep than Humans, T'Pol now savored the only approximation of privacy which her circumstance allowed, the silence broken now and then by a guard opening or closing one or another of the metal doors on her floor.
She meditated for an hour or so, then her thoughts inevitably turned to Trip, turned to her mate, for their nascent Bond had still not been severed, and now she knew it would never be. Commander Tucker would simply allow the time to run out until the Bond was completed and unbreakable, and T'Pol could no longer find it in herself to blame the man. She'd felt her mate's emotions within hours of being Bonded to the man when in close proximity, but now she felt him even at a distance… wherever he was. She felt frustration and focus pouring from him at the moment, as he most likely faced a technical problem on the Enterprise, and those sensations were layered on the surface, but beneath that she felt his overwhelming desire for his mate. She suspected that he felt her as well, and wondered what emotions she gave off through the Bond.
Longing, most likely, thought T'Pol. Endless longing.
If the nature of the Bond held true even with a Human mate, soon enough they would be able to communicate telepathically through the Bond, and T'Pol looked forward to that day eagerly.
Sometime during the night T'Pol fell asleep, only to be awakened at dawn by the sirens. Rolling out of her bunk with a groan, T'Pol braced herself for another day.
"You both have an appointment with a surgeon in our Medical Bay," said Kopek. "As I've said, minor alterations only."
Though Kriosians held to the common humanoid template in this galaxy, there were some subtle differences between Humans and Kriosians, which a Vulcan surgeon would iron out.
"You've got a couple of weeks to spare, which will allow the slight swelling will go down," said Kopek, "and then we fit you for some proper contact lenses, Commander Tucker. No Kriosian has eyes that shade of blue."
"I'll need you to take the water jet tomorrow, T'Pol," said Bran, the unofficial leader of her work group, while waiting for the guards to herd them to the showers at the end of another long shift. "Tem's shoulder is still screwed up."
T'Pol nodded her agreement.
"You're losing weight T'Pol," said Bran, looking at the Vulcan. "If you won't eat meat I'll speak to the guards, see if we can add some nuts to your diet. The fats and protein will do you good, help you maintain weight instead of wasting away."
"I would appreciate that, Bran," said T'Pol, "if you think it will do any good to ask. I've heard that Kriosian almonds are quite tasty."
"Leave it to me," said Bran. "I'll make a case for it under the guise of boosting your efficiency."
T'Pol suspected that she would get her almonds. Bran got things done, and no one knew quite how, though it was rumored that he was a member of the Kriosian criminal underworld. If true, that would explain Bran's untoward power even in this place, for even prison guards had families and friends back on Krios Prime, and Kriosian criminals knew well how to make use of such leverage.
"Well, Commander Tucker, it is almost time," said Kopek. "I think you are both ready."
"You're damned right we are," said Trip. "When do we leave?"
"Five days from now," said Kopek, passing two PADDs to Trip. "These are your cover identities. Memorize them."
"Will do," said Malcolm.
"Thanks, Kopek," said Trip.
T'Pol grunted as the larger of the Klingons struck her once, then again, in the ribs, though she kept her eyes on the smaller Klingon, who was approaching with a shiv in hand. These two had recently been brought into the women's cell block in which T'Pol was stationed, and although they'd left her alone until now, they'd finally decided to take offense at the Vulcan's lack of respect, as they saw it, for T'Pol refused to kowtow to the Klingons, though she'd never antagonized them either.
As hard as these particular Klingons considered themselves, they were no a match for a V'Shar trained operative. Without a wasted motion, T'Pol drove her foot into the side of the larger Klingon's knee, breaking it with an audible crunch, and then charged the smaller Klingon to relieve her of the shiv, only to return it shortly by burying it into her shoulder. The guards responded to the incident just in time to order T'Pol to her knees.
"Fighting is forbidden, Vulcan," said the sergeant in charge of this squad, taking note of the screaming Klingon with a broken knee, and the silent Klingon with a knife in her shoulder.
"I was defending myself," said T'Pol, her voice cool.
"I believe you, Vulcan, and the video feed will show us the truth in any case," said the sergeant. "Still, you still need to cool off a bit."
The sergeant looked at two of his men, and one of them said, "Sergeant?"
"Take the Vulcan to solitary," said the sergeant.
It took the three men just a few minutes to walk from the Vulcan Embassy's basement to its roof, and another twenty minutes worth of flight time for the embassy's shuttle to drop Trip and Malcolm on the roof of the building which housed the prison guards processing center, where Trip and Malcolm would check in and then pick up their assigned gear, in preparation for their departure .
"Give my best to your mate, Commander Tucker," said Kopek, holding his hand out in the human manner.
Trip shook the Vulcan's hand, though surprised at the gesture, then Malcolm did the same, along with a friendly nod for the Vulcan. Malcolm knew how valuable, the Vulcan's aid.
Kopek looked at the Humans, appreciatively. The High Command had sent another mind-priest to Krios Prime as soon as they had found out that Commander Tucker had Bonded T'Pol in an effort to aid her, and strongly suggested that Kopek pressure the man into severing the Bond, though they could not order it outright, for the Bond was a sacred thing amongst Vulcans. Kopek had sounded the man out and discovered that Commander Tucker had no intention of severing his Bond to SubCommander T'Pol under any circumstance. Kopek found that sentiment agreeable, for Commander Tucker's devotion to his mate was admirable, and in defiance of the High Command's orders, Kopek made no further attempts to press Commander Tucker into ending that Bond.
"Thanks for everything, Kopek," said Trip.
"Good luck, Commander Tucker," said Kopek. "Remember all the pieces we still have in play."