—Chapter 25—
At 07:50, the day after Malcolm and Trip had arrived at their destination, they filed into the large room in which the briefing was to be held shortly. They looked around at the people assembled in the room, for the composition of these people would tell the discerning viewer something. A dozen Vulcans were present, and by the looks of the uniforms, Trip made out a Rear-Admiral, a dozen ship's captains, which was not surprising given the number of ships at this asteroid. He did not recognize the uniforms of three Vulcans sitting behind the Admiral, and made mention of it to Malcolm.
"They're from the Vulcan Security Directorate," said Malcolm.
Trip nodded, and looked to the last two Vulcans. One he recognized as Seelat, a member of Ambassador Soval's diplomatic mission and said to be his right hand on Earth, the other, seemed to be her assistant.
Among the humans gathered here, Trip recognized Commodore Elkins of StarFleet. He recognized the uniforms of the eight MACOs, a Major, a Captain and six Sergeants, all members of the Military Assault Command Operations group. The MACOs were not associated with StarFleet, so it was curious to see them here. A StarFleet Commander named Patwa, which Trip had met once, but didn't really know very well. Three Lieutenant-Commanders, all good men, and last of all, Erika Hernandez, the StarFleet Captain slated to take command of the Columbia, once she left dry-dock. That she was here, when there were a thousand and one things to oversee during the construction of her own ship was telling. Whatever this was, it was something big. Without preamble, Commodore Elkins stood and began the briefing.
"Welcome to Krwi'ss'ont Tenattr Ka," said Elkins, "which we will refer to as Echo One for the duration of our stay, for the sake of simplicity. We are all here, because it has been decided that together we have the skill and determination to carry through our present mission. As you look around, you are looking at the command structure of this mission. This is a very short briefing, and you'll be given printed material as you leave this room that covers this information in much more detail. The enlisted men will be brought up to speed by each of you in the coming days, and we have printed handouts for them as well. But let's begin with introductions. As I point at you, please stand, state your name, rank and specialty."
The next fifteen minutes were spent on introductions, first by the Vulcans, led by Rear-Admiral Topek, followed by the MACOs, led by Major MacLeod and second, Captain Hayes, followed by the StarFleet cadre, led, of course, by Commodore Elkins, down the last man. When introductions were complete, Elkins spoke again.
"Before we begin the discussion on the topic of our current meeting, we will get some background information, so we will begin with Commander Tucker and Lieutenant Reed of the Enterprise. Gentlemen, take the podium and describe the mission, during the course of which, the Enterprise responded to a distress call, rescued the survivors of the merchant ship Sultara, and the rescued hundreds of Orion captives."
Trip did so, in a concise manner, aided by Malcolm in the particulars of which he was better informed, especially during the time that Trip was mingling with the captives.
"Thank you," said Elkins, dismissing the duo from the podium. "Now, Major Vilara, of the Vulcan Security Directorate."
The Major took the podium and she spoke briefly of the interrogation of the Orion captives taken during that mission and of the information that had come to light, that certain Vulcan captives were in high demand in Orion market places, while other were ignored, by the apparent buyers, a mysterious group of Vulcans calling themselves Happa.
"Oh, fuck me," thought Trip, at the mention of the Happa, that name bringing up painful memories of Ke'Relle.
Trip then took the podium again, and described the mission into Syndicate space which he, Travis, Malcolm, Hoshi and T'Pol had undertaken to discover the identity of the Happa. He spoke of linking Ke'Relle to the Happa by the insignia on the medallion she'd given him, to the same insignia found on the ring on the Happa they'd captured, temporarily, on their ship.
Major Vilara then briefed them on the course of the hunt for Ke'Relle on Earth and her acts of assassination and attempted large scale act of industrial sabotage stopped by the brave Commander Tucker. During the entire time the Major had spoken of Ke'Relle and of the Commander's bravery in stopping her, Trip had stared, stone-faced, at the ground.
The Major moved on, and stated that Earth's security services, working in concert with the Vulcan security services on Earth, had then reviewed all the deaths and accidental destruction of any facilities and data relevant to defense, space platforms and space ship construction and had come up with hundreds of suspicious facts. The consensus of the security forces was that that an undeclared war was now being waged against Earth, as a preamble to an open war.
The Major then said that the Vulcan security teams had managed to capture a handful of Happa, alive, when they were wounded badly enough to stop them from resisting, but not badly enough to kill them. The rest fought to the death, or committed suicide in order to avoid capture. Most of these prisoners had provided some limited information, but one of them, a high-ranking Happa, had provided something more valuable. He had provided the coordinates of an L Class planetoid, where all the Vulcans bought, were taken.
"Our primary mission," said Commodore Elkins, "is to rescue these Vulcans and capture as many Happa as possible alive, after which we will destroy that base, in order to send a message to the other Happa that the course they've chosen is not wise. Our secondary mission will be to gather as much intelligence as possible before we destroy the base, in addition to any novel weapons or technology the Happa might possess."
Elkins waved to a tech, and an image of the Happa base was displayed on a large wall monitor.
"In service of this mission, the Vulcan Navy sent a small probe to the coordinates of the Happa base and took extensive optical and energetic surveys of this base. This data will be shared with you all in the coming days, but know that we have built an exact copy of this base inside this asteroid which will be invaluable in training for this mission. All together, we have an impressive strike force assembled here. Three Vulcan battle-cruisers, three hundred MACOs, three hundred Vulcan Marines, along with support staff, two hundred medical staff which will look after the wounded, etc…"
"Jesus Christ," said one of the Lieutenant-Commanders. "It sounds like we're storming Omaha beach, sir."
"Close to it," said Elkins. "That base is no joke. These Happa have received military training, and they have heavy weapons emplacements in the camp. All this, even though they're relying mostly on secrecy for protection. If the Vulcans had not gotten lucky in capturing the one Happa that had this base's coordinates, we'd never have found it. It's in a desolate region, off the trade routes.. "Lastly, all the support staff going down to the planetoid, medics, engineering, electronics and computer techs, all of you, will undergo twelve hour days of physical conditioning and combat training by baddest of MACO and Vulcan Marine instructors. You'll be expected to play a role in your own defense so that the front line forces can engage the Happa at will, and if things go bad and something unexpected happens down there, you will be called upon to support the main line combat units. Fun time's over, ladies. Hardship and misery is your lot until this mission is completed successfully. Now, this briefing is over. You'll all be shown around Echo One and its facilities. Dismissed."
After a two-hour tour of Echo One, both Malcolm and Commander Tucker were officially impressed. Set aside the fact that the asteroid was easily the size of some of the island nations back on Earth, set aside the fact that the Vulcans had built an impressive naval hangar that could hold more than a hundred Enterprises in one of the huge caverns which they'd found and which they had further extended, set aside even the strike force of close to a thousand, when all personnel due to land on the planetoid were accounted for, no, what impressed them both, especially Trip, was that Echo One would host, for the duration of this mission, a genuine human run izakaya - a late night Japanese pub, where one could relax, eat, drink and unwind after a hard day's work. He could smell, just in passing, the delicious scents of yakitori, grilled chicken skewers, and saw a man pull out some karaage, bite sized pieces of fried chicken, while another man sliced fish for sashimi, nearby.
"Ok, we are so coming here tonight," said Trip and Malcolm had agreed.
Thing is, they'd been coming here every night, thought Malcolm ten days later, and Trip couldn't hold his sake as well as he thought he could. In short, the Commander got emotional, when he got drunk.
"I hate you, Malcolm, I really, really, hate you!"
Malcolm laughed. Trip had some cause to be sore with him, for Malcolm had breezed through the physical conditioning part of their regimen, while Trip wheezed like a broken toy. Oh, he wasn't as bad as that, but after a mile's run thorough Echo One, Trip, along with the majority of the support personnel were huffing and puffing, while Malcolm was talking up a storm. At the three mile marker, Trip looked like he was having a stroke, combined with an epileptic attack, while Malcolm was just warming up and laughing as he looked at his shipmate. Accordingly, Malcolm had gotten an impromptu promotion to PT instructor and seemed to take a special delight in busting Trip's balls with extreme prejudice. He didn't have the heart to tell Trip yet that things would just get harder and harder each day – he'd seen the schedule, and strength training was next, followed by plyometrics, followed by unarmed combat training, followed by…
"Do you know how much I hate you, Malcolm? Can you feel it?"
"Look, mate," said Malcolm, throwing arm around Trip's shoulders, slightly emotional himself, for they were in their third bottle of sake, "I do what I do out of love. I love you, man!"
"Stow that shit, Lieutenant! You take pleasure in what you do to me!"
"You're wrong, Trip. I do what I do out of fear, because if I return to the Enterprise without you, T'Pol will spill my guts on the floor, before I can explain that it wasn't my fault!"
"T'Pol?!," said Trip, slurring his words. "What does the SubCommander have to do with me, or your guts on the floor?"
"Oh, please, mate! Every single fucking person aboard the Enterprise knows that you and T'Pol are definitely dating, probably lovers, and maybe even engaged to be married. As a matter of fact, Hoshi and I heard the two of you going at it while passing your door one morning and—"
"Oh, yeah, let's talk about Hoshi! Maybe there's something going on with you and Hoshi? Maybe I'm suspicious of what's going on with you two! Did you ever think of that, Malcolm?"
"There's nothing to discuss, Commander Tucker. For your information, Hoshi and I are openly dating, and we're not ashamed of it – ashamed of some of the things we do, sure, but not of admitting that we are dating, unlike you and T'Pol. Now if you want to keep lying to me, that's fine."
"Oh, Malcolm," said Trip, teary eyed now, "I'm sorry, man. I don't know why I do the things I do. You and Jon are my best friends, and here I'm, I'm… lying to you."
"Forget it, mate," said Malcolm, gesturing to the proprietor, that he should bring another bottle of sake: he was about to hear Trip's confession.