A/N: Welcome back! Hope everyone's having an amazing week. Thanks for your continued support - it really warms my heart and keeps the muse going. Don't own them, don't make money from them. I promised a gratuitous end to Harris, and here we have it. Elsewhere, Trip makes the most morally ambiguous decision of them all. We also see the brave return of the universe's worst temporal agent, here to collect on a favor.
I've got to offer an apology; what with all the world building I've done for the Denobulans, from the Supreme Council to the Infantry to Special Ops, I realized that the last time our two resident Denobulans had a solo scene together was (checks notes) E5.10. That's unacceptable, if you ask me.
Next time: Sorry for the cliffhanger! I wound up splitting this episode into two for a huge tonal shift, so we'll be getting my own little twist on a pon farr story.
Season Seven
Episode Three: Embrace the Day Like Night
Enterprise Captain's Log, May 14th, 2160: We have arrived in the Deneva system to assist with rehabilitation of the mining facilities there. This time, we will have backup, and if the preliminary reports coming in from our scouts are accurate, we're going to need it.
Mere seconds after the sun crested over the horizon, Shuttlepod One breezed into the upper atmosphere of Deneva Prime, making a beeline for a small settlement in the shadow of a distant mountain range.
The colony had been leveled over the course of the war, wiping out one of United Earth's only natural sources of duranium. At first, the Romulans had come for the settlers, killing the ones that lingered in a calculated strike with their nuclear warheads. By the second battle, the settlers long gone and anything of value incinerated, it had become about strategic importance, with both sides fighting to a bloody draw. Finally, after three years of picking away at the enemy's defenses, they'd managed to drive them out and began terraforming the broken landscape, if only to provide a breathable atmosphere by the time the inhabitants returned.
But they hadn't been able to. At least not so far.
Archer was careful to keep their flight path on the straight and narrow, and not to deviate from the previously agreed-upon route. Though he couldn't see them from this height, he knew several particle cannons were aimed at them from the rooftops, that if he so much as let his hand slip on the joystick, they would be taken down once and for all.
The rightful landholders of Deneva Prime were currently housed on a nearby Vulcan starbase, having been shocked to return home and discover that a couple thousand Terra Prime loyalists had beaten them there, that they intended to build an alien-free society in their absence. This was likely under the assumption that they could mine enough materials and harvest enough food to be self-sustaining, though the Coalition had summarily refused to trade with or supply them. Gradually, they would starve them out, though to avoid a humanitarian crisis, they'd sent their flagship to negotiate.
And thus fed them directly into the belly of the beast.
T'Pol sat beside him, quiet and pensive, so tightly wound that he was fearful she'd fly apart. He'd insisted that she could remain aboard, that she didn't need to expose herself to harmful memories of the loss of her child, but she seemed determined to face her past. Phlox said this wasn't healthy, and Jon knew it couldn't possibly end well, no matter how much she mentally prepared herself, no matter how easily such brave and selfless acts came to her, as naturally as breathing.
Her pon farr was only a matter of days away, her emotions closer to the surface than ever. One false move, and the entire operation would go up in smoke.
It wasn't as if their odds were any better anyway.
They touched down in a small patch of dirt in the center of the village, which stood over the rubble of the former settlement. Jonathan briefly considered leaving the pod running so as to make a hasty exit, but seeing the extremists approach them from all sides, he decided against it. Malcolm exited first, sliding down to the ground, then rotating on his heels to survey the impending threat. The barest nod of his head, and the trio of MACOs they'd brought along followed him, forming a protective semicircle to shield them against the hull.
Never in his life did he think such precautions would be required for an encounter with his own people. Humans.
Monsters, T'Pol added silently through their bond, and his mind was flooded with images of her daughter Elizabeth, suffering the effects of a botched binary cloning procedure. Feebly, he attempted to send reassurance back her way, only to find it blocked by a wall of pure, unadulterated rage.
He had expected to find the Terra Primers weak and malnourished, but they seemed to be well equipped to weather the rough terrain, sporting the same haughty disdain that Paxton had all those years ago. A handful of them were engaged in taunting Malcolm, doing anything and everything to get a rise out of him.
"Stand back," he threatened, phase pistol trained on the nearest one. "Those were our terms."
"Easy there, cowboy. I'm afraid we don't feel obligated to listen to alien fornicators." The soldier placed his index finger on the muzzle of his weapon and redirected it to one side, causing his nostrils to flare in irritation.
"Hold on a minute. Do you know anything about that creature he took as his wife?"
"That's right! I'm pretty sure Denobulans are polyamorous, aren't they?" There was a chorus of agreement from around the circle, and he drew even closer, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. "Tell you what. Why don't you send her down here, and me and my boys will show her a good time."
"Keep talking, and I'll gladly rearrange your face."
"Well, since she's set on getting the entire human experience…"
For a split second, Archer was convinced he was about to witness a murder in broad daylight, but the confrontation was cut short by T'Pol shouldering her way between them, pinning the other man under a gaze he could only describe as lethal. They both stepped back, and she seized the opportunity to remove her PADD from her pocket, reading aloud in a steady, clear voice: "This is a notice informing you that your settlement is under violation of several United Earth extraterrestrial colonization statutes, not to mention impending charges of criminal trespass and willful breach of the third Vulcan addendum to the Tau Ceti Accords."
"I don't see what the problem is. We found this land unoccupied, and we moved in. Just in case you weren't aware, we've also got control of the ore processing units in the Kappa Fornacis asteroid belt, and the defensive satellite in orbit."
As if they could forget. Their weapons were pointed at the Enterprise now, and if they so much as shifted a meter to one side, the self-appointed stationmaster had threatened to fire. Incinerating them in turn was a worst-case scenario, mostly because Gardner had been hopeful they could resolve this peacefully.
Clearly, he'd never had to negotiate with terrorists.
"And in case you haven't noticed, you've got no supplies coming in. Half of this planet still isn't terraformed from the last nuclear attacks. Another few weeks, and you'll be starving to death," Archer threatened, determined to lay down the facts.
None of them seemed particularly intimidated by the prospect, which bewildered him. "You can't force us to leave."
"We've got two NXes and six Vissian cruisers en route, and we've been authorized to do exactly that."
"I'd like to see you try."
"You just might get your wish," he replied, then turned and climbed into the shuttlepod, effectively ending that conversation.
The rest of the delegation remained there for a beat too long, not quite registering what had just happened. At last, Malcolm stepped aside and motioned for T'Pol to climb aboard, holding her wrist for support and not failing to notice just how hard she was shaking.
It was then one of the other men spoke up: "Do you think that's the one who had Trip Tucker's baby?"
"Hell if I know, all Vulcans look the same to me," his companion replied, then he took several steps towards the craft, eventually laying a hand on the hull. Grinning shamelessly, he leaned forward until he caught a glimpse of her tense expression, whispering conspiratorially: "Terra Prime has eyes everywhere, Mrs. Archer. I'd watch your back if I were you. I might even…"
"Step aside," Malcolm hissed, sinking the barrel of his weapon into his chest and forcing him to stumble. He was greeted by the kind of smug satisfaction he'd rather like to beat out of him, but ignored it, following the MACOs in and shutting the hatch with finality.
The ride back to Enterprise was conducted in silence, though to the keen observer, the Captain was visibly trembling, her anger and confusion and sorrow morphing from a flickering light to a raging flame.
"I'm sorry, who am I looking at?"
"The face of pure evil," Hoshi intoned with a touch of irony, passing over the PADD she'd been holding. The powers that be had been keen to schedule this meeting in a lesser used hall on the campus of Starfleet Training Command, but the chamber was still standing room only, the space illuminated by ancient fluorescent lighting panels overhead. The holographic projector was up and running, though sputtering slightly, the silhouette of the Vulcan Consulate barely visible in its half-repaired state. As instructors, their presence at such proceedings weren't necessarily warranted, but seeing as they had the most experience with Terra Prime out of anyone on the ground, Gardner had insisted.
There were about a million other places Trip would rather be. Now that they had a child of their own, he could scarcely bear to think about his first daughter, how she'd been born to die in Paxton's image, how her short life had mostly been spent in an incubator. He'd lost little Elizabeth's ashes in the destruction of the Maelstrom, and he still mourned her every day, even as the months lapsed into years.
"He looks sixteen," he noted with disdain, studying the mug shot of the man who had led the charge to blast through the Consulate's walls. Due to some quick thinking by their former tactical officer and Minister T'Pau, they'd ultimately failed in their gambit to blow the rest of the Vulcan neighborhood in Sausalito to high heaven. Following an hour-long lockdown of the city, most of the suspects had been apprehended, and with any luck, the lot of them would spend the next several decades in prison.
And yet, it wasn't enough. Trip wasn't a violent man - he never had been - but given the opportunity, he wouldn't hesitate to make every single one of those punks suffer.
"He is sixteen."
Trip cursed, stashing the PADD in his pocket and leaning far back in his chair, tenting his hands over his eyes. The resurgence of Terra Prime wasn't necessarily surprising - the news of the impending permanence of the Coalition in the form of the Federation had everyone on edge. In San Francisco proper it wasn't much of a problem, but if Trip ventured into the suburbs with his goddaughter and fiancee, he found himself on the receiving end of his fair share of dirty looks. After a time, they became difficult to ignore.
He almost didn't hear Hoshi's warning, but glanced up just in time to see Ensign Nguyen stride into the room, one eye on his tricorder and the other furtively scanning the room. These days, he stood a little taller and walked with a renewed sense of purpose, and the impetus behind his confidence was obvious - it was all due to the formidable woman that strolled in after him, face impassive, hands tucked into the sleeves of her voluminous robe.
Jimmy's reassignment to a post where he was effectively Minister T'Pau's bodyguard had come as a surprise to all of them, but according to Lieutenant Novakovich, he'd practically thrown himself on the sword in order to protect her during the raid. Over the past few weeks, he'd noticed them out and about more and more, their excursions across campus not strictly businesslike in nature. T'Pau was terse and matter-of-fact in the way most Vulcans were, but she seemed to at least tolerate his company, and he returned the favor by gazing at her as though she were the only woman in the universe.
As they approached the table, the crowd parted like the Red Sea, and Jimmy briefly glanced underneath it, if only to confirm that no surprises awaited them. Nodding, he pulled out her chair and then held onto the back as she settled into it, pushing forward. T'Pau looked back at him, and he was surprised to see the very corners of her lips quirk up in a passable facsimile of a smile.
Hoshi nudged him ever so slightly, drawing his gaze to the opposite side of the room where Ethan was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. He tilted his head to one side, as if to say, I told you so.
He didn't have time to contemplate exactly how long that had been going on, for in the next moment Admiral Gardner was banging his gavel, drawing attention from all across the room. Naturally, he was joined by Prime Minister Samuels, whose presence was appreciated, albeit a little suspicious. Trip was of the opinion that while he was charming, he was utterly soulless, as he possessed an intense friendliness with absolutely nothing behind his eyes.
Gardner moved quickly, settling into the head of the table and surveying the crowd. With a press of a button, an electric tone chimed, indicating that the proceedings were being recorded, and if the silence wasn't oppressive before, now it was downright suffocating.
"Welcome to this special session of the Coalition of Planets governing assembly, pursuant to our action plan surrounding the Terra Prime incident at the Vulcan Consulate last month. Let's start with Andoria."
"Present," the ambassador said, followed shortly by the head of the Coridanite armed forces, sitting just off to one side.
"Denobula."
"Present," Ambassador Mareth chimed in, then treated them all to a warm smile, ensuring he made eye contact with as many people as he could. Next to him was General Lexora, the Supreme Commander of the Denobulan Infantry, who didn't look the least pleased to be there under such dire circumstances. The first time he'd met her had been the first round of Coalition talks some six years ago, before the untimely death of her predecessor caused a sudden shift in their roles. Alira's little brother was just as blonde and blue-eyed as she, and every bit as opportunistic - Trip happened to know that he'd had a hand in General Vesena's death, that he'd seized the chance to rise through the ranks from a lowly regional delegate to the second highest posting on the council. The fact that he was saving his sister's life by doing so was only an added bonus.
Gardner continued down the line, calling out the Kriosians and the Tellarites, the humans and the Vissians, before finally arriving at the end of the list, and received Ambassador Soval's reassurance that they were all in one place. Satisfied, he reached forward and shifted the image, to an endless grid of mug shots that ran the length of the table. "Let's move right into business. I'm happy to inform everyone that we've finally managed to round up the last of them. The wheels of bureaucracy are moving slowly over at the DA's office, but with any luck, we'll be looking at a ten year sentence for each and every co-conspirator, even the juveniles."
Their attendees didn't seem impressed, and the Vulcans even looked affronted. Trip couldn't say he blamed them; after all, they'd all been on high alert since the attack, hiring additional security and closing their embassies to visitors. For a week after, Hoshi had surprised him by taking her phase pistol from the safe in the closet and holstering it, thoroughly unashamed to go to work exactly like that. Though they hadn't been at home at the time of the attack, their condo had been within the lockdown zone, and he knew it could've been so much worse.
He was grateful that the teachers at Katie's preschool had had the good sense to lock the doors and lower the shades when the time came.
"They'll just be back after that to attack us again," the Kriosian ambassador interjected, having shut down her consulate some time ago and pulled her diplomatic staff back to her ship hovering in a low orbit.
"You're wrong, madam," Gral rasped, slamming his fist down onto the table. "This kind of extremism is very attractive to the youth of this planet. Others will come, and they will flood San Francisco in droves."
For once, the Andorian representative seemed to agree with his Tellarite counterpart. "This is the least of our concerns. How do you intend to explain to us the fact that they were in possession of Starfleet regulation stun grenades and tricobalt charges? That isn't even to mention the photonic torpedoes…"
"We can't," Samuels admitted, ever the peacemaker. "But we are in the process of interviewing every member of staff at the Alameda Arsenal across the bay. The serial numbers on the detonators we recovered match stock that's only kept there."
"So it was one of your own," Mareth challenged. His demeanor was tense, though accommodating, and his smile never moved. "How disgraceful."
And there it was, that characteristic Denobulan lack of tact. Trip almost laughed. "Listen, folks. These people are very capable of infiltration. Back in the day, we…"
He trailed off, knowing he'd spoken out of turn, and just like that, the memories came flooding back. Hoshi grabbed his hand under the table and squeezed it hard.
"Go on, Captain. Is this consistent with what you've seen before?" At long last, Gardner's intent for inviting them there was clear, and Ethan studied him from across the room, shaking his head.
"Yes," he said at last, meeting his gaze and not daring to look away. "Paxton managed to convince one of our own to sabotage our rescue mission. Ensign Masaro was a part of my crew for years. We never suspected him."
He was shaking now, trembling with every fiber of his being, though his jaw was clenched tight. After one long, endless moment, Gardner disengaged, addressing the Vulcans directly. "To answer the question you're probably thinking, Ambassador, we have not yet cross-examined the brass. The tactical officers who would've had access to those weapons are considered top priority."
"Is it not the practice of Starfleet officers to follow orders from their superiors unquestioningly, even if it conflicts with their ethics?"
"Not specifically, but…"
"So it's not outside the realm of extreme possibility," Soval pressed, having nearly been killed at the United Earth Embassy on Vulcan due to planted evidence that had almost convicted thousands of innocents.
"We're still unsure how this new branch of Terra Prime operates. They might have a hierarchy, or their own established communication system…"
"Why don't you ask Prime Minister Samuels?" T'Pau interrupted, her tone firm and obstinate. From somewhere behind him, someone inhaled sharply, and it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The High Command's youngest minister had just dared to acknowledge something they all knew to be true - that in his youth, the leader of their planet had been briefly involved with them, after his father had died in the crash of a shuttle that was piloted by a Denobulan. Those days were long behind him, or so he claimed.
"Your concern is both warranted and appreciated, Minister," he began, agonizingly slowly. "I assure you I know as little as most of the people in this room."
Most, not all. It didn't take a master linguist to pick up the difference, and Hoshi immediately began to drum her fingertips on the table. Trip knew she wasn't alone - surprisingly, both T'Pau and Jimmy glanced his way, the latter standing behind her at a distance, eyebrows knit together in concern.
Mareth was quick to redirect, to salvage what remained of the meeting before it careened off the rails. He made a swiping motion with his hand in midair, causing the holographic screen between them to shift. "What's this about heightened security measures for embassies moving forward?"
Trip took this as his cue to leave, and Hoshi very nearly followed him, before realizing that now wasn't the proper time to cause a scene. As he exited the wardroom and continued up the hall, his PADD trilled, but he ignored it. Most of the halls of HQ were needlessly illuminated, the floors and walls the same brilliant, blinding white, but here there was still linoleum and peeling paint, like a warm hug from the not so distant past. Through the window at the end of the corridor, the sky had clouded over, betraying an impending storm.
That's appropriate, he thought, and ducked into the restroom, making a beeline for the sink.
His mind was spinning, and try as he might, he couldn't make sense of any of it. Fundamentally, Samuels' involvement with Terra Prime didn't parse - no one was dumb enough to carry on with a well-known extremist organization while holding United Earth's highest office. Besides, he was pioneering this grandiose idea of the Federation. Nevertheless, there was still the question of what he knew and when.
Sighing wearily, he bent down to splash some water on his face, only to be startled by the smallest creak of the stall door behind him.
For a good solid ten seconds, he remained bent over, not daring to look. Already he knew who it was, and that their confrontation was happening here only made the situation worse.
"Really, Bran? Are we appearing to people in the can now?" Slowly, he righted himself, making eye contact with the man in the mirror. The Betazoid temporal agent was exactly how he remembered him, tall and curly-haired with the darkest, most soul-searing eyes he'd ever seen. "What happened to your showmanship?"
He wasn't deterred in the slightest. "You knew this day would come, Tucker. I've got a favor to ask of you."
"Do I have a choice?"
"As a matter of fact, you don't." He stowed his temporal observatory in his pocket, then stepped forward until they were nearly toe to toe. Trip knew the entirety of his mind was laid bare to him, and for once he let him look, so he could understand just how very little he was looking forward to this. "We had a deal. I promise, you're going to get just as much out of it as I will."
Between the Enterprise and the former Maelstrom, their past with Bran Audet was incredibly rocky. He'd gone rogue from the same agency that once managed Daniels, traveling back in time to prevent his people from being destroyed by a neurogenic virus the Romulans were employing to make them docile enough to pilot their telepresence units. One temporal incursion eventually spiraled out into many, with Ensign Singh finally discovering who he was, and taking the evidence of the Fifth House's impending demise for herself. Finally understanding he needed to cooperate with them, he saved the Enterprise from certain destruction at Barisa VI, before growing tired with their inaction and dragging the lot of them into court martial for the incident at Haakona Prime. His plot to get rid of them and handle the crisis himself failed, but considering they'd managed to free the Betazoids ahead of the Battle of Cheron, Trip didn't think he had much reason to be upset.
Then again, he did have him over a barrel - back on Bajor, where Hoshi was inadvertently shot and killed by the First Minister, Bran had stolen a version of her from a parallel quantum reality. Dropping her into their own universe, he'd promised that they would get to live out their lives together, if only he could call upon him in his hour of need.
If only.
"I'm listening," he said tersely, though he wasn't really.
Bran immediately went and locked the door, then rejoined him by the sink. "I know what you're thinking, Tucker. Literally. Hasn't this guy had enough? Why is he so obsessed with the twenty-second century, anyways?"
He let a particularly violent thought fly, plus a derogatory speculation about the man's mother, and he startled, treating him to a look of pure consternation.
"Look, love me or hate me, I'm still out here trying to correct the timeline. You're probably picked up on this, but Travis wasn't supposed to die at Cheron."
"Of course he wasn't," he whispered incredulously, causing him to shake his head.
"That's not what I mean. Travis wasn't supposed to be the one to make that sacrifice. He had an illustrious career ahead of him, but as fate would have it, none of that gets to happen now."
Trip thought about asking whether he returned to the ECS, or married Jules, or got his own ship one day, but decided he'd rather not know. "Just get on with it."
"I'm getting there. All that matters is that someone is alive currently who isn't supposed to be."
"Will you tell me who?"
"Of course not."
"Then what are you trying to tell me?"
"That there's a traitor in your midst," he said somewhat ominously. "And you've got to make sure he gets away with it."
"Thank you for doing this," Alira whispered, one hand hovering over the door controls, the other gripping the handle of a travel bassinet. Her voice was deliberately hushed, though the expression in her eyes did more than enough to convey her gratitude.
"It's no problem," Phlox assured her, then reached down to retrieve his half-granddaughter, doing his best not to disturb her as she slept. "I've told you before, it doesn't need to be a scheduling conflict or extenuating circumstances. Miri is always welcome with Elizabeth and I."
Alira nodded furiously, glancing back down the corridor as the roar of a conversation reached them at a distance. Swiftly, she stepped inside, allowing the doors to slide shut behind her. "Malcolm is on beta shift conn, so he'll be around to pick her up at midnight. The Commodore's asked me to perform some diagnostics on the forward targeting array. What with all the issues we had this morning…"
"I understand," he interjected. Liz was presently holed up in the situation room running through various contingencies ahead of their attack, and he was glad not to be involved. Though the death threats she received from Terra Prime as the spouse of a non-human arrived at a much lower frequency than her counterparts, each one still struck fear into his heart. Deftly, knowingly, he changed the subject. "When was the last time you two had an evening to yourselves, anyway?"
She laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth, leaning forward to confirm that she hadn't woken the baby. Satisfied, she turned towards the exit, but not before dealing him a look, as if to say, we are not having this conversation.
It was true that caring for their daughter occupied most of their free time - really, they hadn't managed much more than a frantic makeout session on the couch over the past five months, but she supposed that was par for the course. Whenever they could parse together a minute or two, it was zero to one hundred in nothing flat, lest they get interrupted by a squalling infant or a tactical alert or the ship flying apart all around them.
She digressed. Once the initial learning curve had been surpassed, Alira discovered that motherhood was one of the greatest joys of her life so far. Overall, Mirella was a very happy baby. She was rolling over and holding her head up, and her hair was already taking on that signature Denobulan curl, though it was as dark as her father's and unruly to boot. She was a perfect amalgamation of the two of them, a testament to their triumph and pain, and she wanted nothing more than to be by her side every moment as she discovered the wild and wonderful world around her.
If only she didn't have to put out little fires in the armory first.
"I'd focus on yourself," she said at last. "What's this I hear about you being offered a commission?"
He sighed wearily, stepping back to place Miri on the counter. She shifted around in her blankets, but did not wake. "Yuris tells me that every doctor assigned to deep space has got to have one. I'm afraid the Interspecies Medical Exchange is being absorbed into the Federation, and me along with it."
"So which rank do they want to give you?"
"Lieutenant Commander," he said sheepishly, and she shook her head, knowing full well that Liz must have teased him about that. She definitely had, after congratulating him and embracing him and dropping kisses all over his cheeks. Her voice still rang out in his mind, ever present: Same tenure aboard this rust bucket, and you get to come in a rank ahead of me, huh? Where's the fairness in that?
"You ought to take it," Alira advised. "I'm not just saying that for my own benefit."
It was true that they had enjoyed being there for the Reeds as Miri grew; as a matter of fact, after the death of Alira's parents and two of Phlox's wives and their own child, it had been therapeutic for the both of them to be surrounded by loved ones as everything else seemed so uncertain. He knew one thing for sure - though they could never tell them what had transpired with the three time traveling interlopers from the future, they intended to go wherever the Reeds went in the next stage of their journey, which just so happened to be the Poseidon, to be commissioned in less than two years as Enterprise was mothballed and sent to some fleet museum.
"I'm not a soldier, Alira."
"Neither was I," she reminded him, and his mind was filled by an afterimage of her several decades younger, getting ready to teach her first class in military history at the central university in the capital. Feezal had still been alive, and he'd held the holo-camera while she fussed over her eldest daughter, fixing her hair and straightening her coat. He'd taken a picture of them there, laughing and beaming, and wished them well as they headed off to their shared workplace, understanding that the moment that was could never truly be again.
"Could you imagine," he said quietly, throwing his arms wide. "Me in Starfleet coveralls?"
As a matter of fact, she couldn't - Phlox's colorful patterned jackets were characteristic to him, as much as his menagerie or gravity-defying smile. All the same, they'd both chosen to make their home among the humans, and she knew the transition would come naturally.
"About as much as I could imagine myself a United Earth citizen," she replied, leaving the rest unsaid. Following the destruction of her ancestral home during the eponymous battle over their homeworld, the legal battle over her mother's estate had been called off, but Alira had little desire to remain head of the family, seeing as two of her siblings were dead. Her paperwork and references were already filed, and all she had left to do was take a comprehensive, hour-long exam about pivotal moments in the past two thousand years of human history. It didn't even seem like much of a challenge at all, seeing as the earliest written records of Denobulan society were some ten million years old.
Phlox paused, clearly mustering up the courage to say what was on his mind, then forged dead ahead: "We don't really have a choice, do we?"
"We never did." Her PADD chimed again, three times in rapid succession, and she faltered, knowing full well there could be only one person on the other end of the line. Just as she had before, she was determined to ignore it, to let things come as they may, perhaps to her detriment.
"I'll be here," Phlox said softly, picking up on the introspective shift in her. With a start, Alira snapped back to reality, greeting his reassurance with a nod. She leaned over to drop a kiss on her daughter's forehead, then stole one last look at her sweet little face before disappearing into the night.
Following his encounter with Bran, Trip moved fervently through the grounds of headquarters, not daring to slow down, not daring to look anyone in the eye.
He knew exactly what he had to do, and with just a little sweet talking of the guards at Logistics Command, he managed to worm his way into the computer core. To his immense relief, the biosign recorders were up and running. After a few wild guesses, he zeroed in on a location and sped through the past few weeks of data until he found a blip on the monitor, and the reality of what they were dealing with hit him like a punch to the gut. Mumbling something about finally figuring out where he set down his personal PADD in the mess of the faculty lounge, he transferred the evidence to an isolinear chip and then hurried outside, into the rain and to the construction zone at the far end of campus.
The Tasaki Memorial Engineering Wing, including his office and the experimental warp core laboratory, was far from complete. It was this reason he'd been crashing in Commander Hammond's office for weeks, making lesson plans and writing syllabi when he should have been organizing his domain ahead of the first class of Starfleet Academy cadets that next fall. All the same, the base structure was there, even though plasma and EPS conduits still ran exposed along the length of the ceiling, and only half the overhead lights were installed. The crew was in a different part of the building for the day, so he felt perfectly comfortable meeting Hoshi in a storage closet on the first floor, closing and barricading the door behind them.
Her eyes were impossibly wide, her concern evident. When she reached for him, Trip went willingly into her arms, placing a hand on the back of her head and drawing her to his chest. It was heartening to know that while she had no idea where he'd been over the past few hours, or what exactly had made him storm out of the briefing in the first place, that she was there to support him, unquestioningly. She mumbled something, likely what's all this about or are you okay or what's going on, but he forged right on ahead, jumping into his explanation before he could talk himself out of it.
"Bran found me," he said without preamble, causing her to startle. As she pulled away, he cupped her cheek, silently willing her to understand. "He's collecting on that favor back from when he saved your life."
There was a beat wherein she seemed to process this, then her characteristic response: "You don't have to listen to him. What is he going to do, take me back to my own quantum reality?"
"He might," Trip whispered back, lending credence to his deepest fears. Still, if what Bran had told him were true, there was so much more at stake. "Listen, he could be just giving us half the facts, but from what he told us and what we know, it looks like Prime Minister Samuels is in league with Harris."
"Harris," she repeated, somewhat incredulously. "That guy from Section 31?"
Trip released her, and she stepped back, using a nearby cargo container as counterbalance to lift herself atop another. Out of necessity, she'd only found out about the Reeds' former alliances part of the way through the war, even though it always killed him to keep secrets from her. Hoshi had been shocked to hear that Malcolm had been involved with Starfleet's black ops underbelly for over a decade, but she still knew she could trust him. Even now, her cautious altruism was admirable.
"The very same. Look, if I was a politician hellbent on being elected the first president of the diplomatic institution I designed, who would I turn to in order to make that happen?"
"Samuels isn't a Starfleet officer." Though he sure acted like one, Hoshi added silently, remembering how he'd attempted to force her to fire on her own superiors some six years prior.
"Doesn't matter. He needs to make sure the other worlds fall in line, and he's not afraid to use a little bit of manipulation to do it." In the corridor, they heard someone making their way towards the exit, and momentarily paused, waiting for it to dissipate. Once he was sure they were gone, Trip closed the distance between them, tilting his head down to whisper into her ear: "Now, I ask you, exactly how did the delegates get united behind a common goal at the first round of Coalition talks?"
"No," she intoned automatically, covering her mouth with her hand and leaning heavily into the wall behind her. Trip nodded, but she purposefully avoided looking towards him, if only to avoid recognizing the inevitable.
"Yes."
"But Terra Prime is trying to kill our allies, to take out the very signatories that would make the Federation charter possible."
"I know that, too."
"Are you saying that the prime minister of the United Earth Council is working with a xenophobic extremist group to stage threats on the lives of his coworkers, just to make them believe that the only thing that will protect them is a complex interplanetary alliance?" She was skeptical, understandably so.
"See, that's the thing. I don't think Samuels knows exactly what Harris is doing, but I do know that they met just a few weeks ago." Trip reached into his pocket and held up the data rod, his intensity reaching new and fervent heights. "Malcolm told me about how Section agents disguise their biosigns in the field, with these subdermal emitters. That's how Pascal hid out with the enemy for all those years, and that's how Harris gets in and out of HQ undetected."
"So he made his biosign appear like someone else."
"Not quite. It looks like he inverted the signal so he appeared invisible, however, when he beamed back out, he was picked up as a blip through the electromagnetic security barrier around the administrative building." According to the timestamp, it had taken place shortly after the briefing for the NX fleet, just before the Enterprise took to the skies. He'd been able to triangulate his starting position from a handful of sensors back to within five meters of Samuels, but couldn't for the life of him determine where he'd been heading. It didn't matter - he had all the proof he needed, and he intended to put it to good use.
"Do you think Samuels would support the lengths the Section is going to?" The second it was out of her mouth, Hoshi realized she didn't want to know. "The more important thing is, does Terra Prime know that the Section is helping them out, that they're a branch of Starfleet?"
"My best guess is Harris is using a cadet over at the Alameda Arsenal. Someone young and impressionable." Like Malcolm had been, all those years ago.
"So what about Gardner?"
"What about him?"
"He's got to know about this, right? He's the head of operations for all of Starfleet, even the stuff that's under the table."
Trip opened his mouth to reply, then closed it tight once again, as he came to a horrific realization. Gardner had been the first person that the Archers had told about T'Pol's ancestry, and he'd willingly accepted it, even praising her for being so forthcoming. At first, he'd chalked it up to the fact that they had much more pressing matter to attend to, but now…
"He's the one that made Pascal go undercover." His mind immediately leapt to their ordeal on Starbase 1, the political turmoil on Xantoras, and the concerted effort to keep the Reed apart - was it possible? Had it all been him?
Hoshi didn't seem convinced. "Let's say for the sake of the argument that you're right. What are you planning to do with that information?"
"I've got to take it to Samuels, let him know that we're aware of what's going on…"
"And just what exactly would that accomplish? He's not going to stop, Trip."
"I know that."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"Because I've got to make sure he's not discovered," he hissed. "Hoshi, the longer we were out in space, the more I realized - it may have been all about exploration in the good old days, but now, it's leaning more towards making everyone just like us. We don't live in a utopia. There's always going to be men like Harris, and even ones like Samuels and Gardner on the borderline."
"If we don't stop them, we'll have more to lose than a few names on a charter."
"I could lose you," Trip interjected, and the emotion in his voice tore her soul anew. "I've already lost one daughter to Terra Prime. I can't lose anyone else. I can't…"
"You don't have to," she assured him, snatching the data rod out of his hand and placing it out of sight. The moment thoroughly disrupted, she jumped down and fell into him, hoping and praying her words rang true.
"Orion."
"Taken down with one shot."
"Klingon?"
"Knocked unconscious in a puddle of his own bloodwine."
"Nausicaan."
"I've got tusks that I keep as trophies in my desk," Tejal admitted, stepping aside to let him enter the lift first. "From three different targets."
He whistled, and their navigator cut him a curious look, clearly unsure what to do with that particular human gesture. Nodding to indicate he was impressed, he punched the button for D Deck, and the cabin began to move.
"I had no idea the Imperial Guard was so dangerous, Ensign. Especially for a helm officer."
"We face our enemies head on. We…" She paused, seeming to remember where she was and what uniform she presently wore. "They never back down from a challenge."
"Can you say the same about Starfleet?"
"No," she admitted without hesitation, antennae curling inward. "You are much more adept at picking and choosing your battles."
"That sounded like a compliment to me."
"You must be mistaken, sir," Tejal corrected him, grinning broadly, sharp teeth and bluish gums on display. The lift opened to the corridor, and they stepped out in tandem, descending into companionable silence as they proceeded towards their destination.
Though she was more than a little rough around the edges, Malcolm found that he quite enjoyed the company of Starfleet's first Andorian officer, no matter how much of an adversarial relationship she had with his wife. Alira admitted to the fact that Tejal reminded her a lot of herself, back before she had morals or values of any kind, that she was holding her at arm's length just as she would any reminder of her past. Now, with the Section closer than ever, he could sympathize with that, and tried his best to not let his guard down around her or anyone else.
Besides, even though the war was long since over, he had no idea who they could really trust.
But a walk from the bridge down to sickbay was certainly harmless, especially because they were seizing an opportunity to finish an earlier conversation. Tejal had just an extensive list of misadventures as any of them, and he found her fascinating, especially the breadth of species she'd managed to take down with her bare hands. All he had to do was sit back and listen, and the stories would come to him.
And he would just keep to himself the fact that Alira kept a severed Andorian antenna in their closet, the spoils of a long ago bar fight. It was only natural.
They were still deep in conversation by the time they reached sickbay, and both noticed that the lights were dimmed. Malcolm halfway expected Phlox to meet them at the door, to pass over his daughter and leave in pursuit of a midnight snack, but he did nothing of the sort. They soon opened the hatch to a truly horrifying scene.
Phlox was laying face down, sprawled out on the ground, bleeding profusely. It was immediately clear that he'd fallen forward and struck the side of the cabinet, but the wound on the back of his head told him it couldn't be an accident. Reflexively, he took one step towards him, then rapidly scanned the room, looking towards the counter next to his computer console.
Empty.
Next, he moved to the far corner of the room and threw the curtain back, finding the makeshift playpen he'd constructed vacated as well. Frantic now, he began to tear at drawers and sheets and access panels, looking into every nook and cranny, deaf to everything else but the roar of blood in his ears. Clutching his chest, Malcolm stumbled towards the nearest comm, only to find Tejal standing there, whispering furtively into the speaker.
"Two Denobulan biosigns? Are you sure?" With one hand, she fumbled for her tricorder, setting the scanning vector to maximum radius. She showed him the readout, but Malcolm was already light years away, head pounding, heart racing, effuse with absolute mortal terror the likes of which he'd never felt before.
His daughter was gone. Kidnapped. Dead or worse, and it was all his fault.
Alira was there before he knew it, as well as the captain and the commodore, the latter of which was desperately trying to calm his wife down before she descended into hysterics. Shrieking and sobbing, she flew into his arms, and it was all he could do to hold on and not shatter into a thousand pieces.
T'Pol was on her knees, feeling for a pulse on Phlox's wrist. The overhead lights came on, and they felt positively blinding, especially because they were both beyond sense, beyond salvation.
"Start scanning the surface. Alert the other patrols, have them stand guard at the fringes of the system. No one gets in or out," Archer ordered, earning an acknowledgement through the comm. It was then Malcolm found the strength to speak, and his voice sounded so tremulous he scarcely recognized it.
"She's going to look like a weak Denobulan biosign," he mumbled. "Outside of ten thousand kilometers, it may shift to human. Check for those fluctuations."
T'Pol said something, and Tejal moved quickly, emerging from the medicine cabinet with a hypospray. She double checked the dosage, then injected it into the side of his neck, causing the doctor to come to, slowly, then all at once. He thrashed against her, cried out, and reflexively covered his head as he dodged a long-gone assailant. Rolling to one side, he glanced up towards the countertop and made a wild grab for it, only to be restrained and pressed into the floor.
"How long…"
"We don't know," Archer interrupted. "What were you doing when you were hit?"
"Recording a reply to my latest letter from Dr. Lucas. It's up there, on my console…"
Alira suddenly shot out of her husband's arms, staggered across the room and all but crashed into the keyboard. They all crowded around her, Phlox leaning heavily into the Commodore, and together they cued up the playback.
"My dear Jeremy - I'm very happy to hear that you've settled into your new assignment at Cold Station 7. If I remember correctly, they've got the most fascinating collection of…" A soft, high-pitched giggle interrupted him. "Excuse me. I'm babysitting for my half-daughter. She and her husband have had the most adorable little girl, and I'm going to convince them to let me introduce her to other members of the menagerie. So far she's only seen a tribble, but in due time, we might be able to work our way up to…"
There was a sudden flash of movement, then Phlox cried out, knocking his head against the countertop and slumping toward the ground. Just out of the fringe of the frame, someone surged forward, seized the bassinet, and disappeared in a shifting column of light, the transporter beam carrying them away a split second later. Alira rewound the recording and enhanced it several times over, attempting several brightening filters before they caught the scruff of a beard, the arch of an eyebrow, the curve of an ear.
"It's not…"
"That can't be…"
"It can be," T'Pol interjected, flush with realization. "Why do you think Harris knew so much about Terra Prime the first time?"
Somewhere, Tejal was practically begging for an explanation, wanting to know exactly who Harris was and how he factored into all this, but no one was giving her the satisfaction. Malcolm broke away and doubled over, resting his hands on his knees.
For one long moment, no one spoke, blinked, or breathed. Alira approached him tentatively, and the instant she laid a hand on him, he righted himself, turned, and regarded them with such unbearable intensity that they had no choice but to believe him.
"I'm going to kill him," he hissed. "I'm going to kill him, and I don't care if it's with a phase rifle, or my bare hands…"
"Malcolm…"
"He will have had it coming," Tejal said. Though she hadn't fully respected their first officer when she first came aboard, she knew a man burdened by conviction when she saw it, and was eager to throw her support behind his cause.
"Listen to me," Jonathan began slowly, seizing his shoulders and squeezing. His eyes were flashing with rage, chest heaving, and he knew that in the decade they'd known each other, he'd never been so furious. "We're going to wake the MACOs and get a landing party together. Whatever it takes, we're going to get her back."
Taxa stood behind him, fists curling at her sides. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks, though her voice was impassive, obstinate. "That's fine. We're coming with you."
Truthfully, he was about to call out the compromising position they found themselves in, but his words died in his throat with a particularly strong push through their bond. T'Pol was there to remind him that when little Elizabeth Tucker was in danger, he'd let her go willingly.
And so he couldn't say no.
"We leave in ten minutes," he said, and dashed towards the exit.
Prime Minister Samuels' office was well off the beaten path within the United Earth Council headquarters and behind several successive security checkpoints, but fortunately, Trip had never been one to hesitate over anything.
At first he tried sending him a direct message through the Starfleet intranet, only to receive an automated reply that indicated he wasn't available. At the first inspection station, he slipped past with ease while the guard's back was turned, and at the second, he claimed to have been dispatched from uptown with an urgent message from the commandant of STC. When that didn't work, he backtracked around through a service entrance, at last arriving before a set of heavy oaken doors sparsely illuminated by the lights overhead. The corridor was empty and silent, so he took the time to run his fingertips over the names engraved in the doorframe, from the initial signatories of the charter of United Earth to the first standing members of the Martian Assembly and the Alpha Centaurian Parliament. Samuels himself had joined the previous prime ministers in carving his initials on the panel adjacent to the handles, but he consciously avoided those, shouldering open the door and bursting into the receiving chamber of his office, treating his secretary to a great, beaming smile.
She rose from her console instantly, bracing her hands on the desk. "I'm very sorry, sir. The Prime Minister isn't in this afternoon. He's…"
"Unavailable," he finished, then extended an overture of a handshake, which she readily ignored. "Nice to meet you. Tell him Captain Tucker's in to see him, and I've got some feedback about the first draft of the Federation charter he sent out. Starting with the thirty-first section."
The words which specifically authorized Harris' department were included in the Starfleet charter, but to Trip, that didn't amount to a hill of beans. They stood there in silence for a good minute, sizing each other up and daring the other to give in, before she sighed and reached for her PADD.
Predictably, Trip was shown into Samuels' office less than thirty seconds later, and he was momentarily taken aback by the finery on display there. While the chambers of Starfleet HQ were sterile and modern and bare, the prime minister's office was lush and opulent, from red carpet and velvet drapes, the plush furniture, and the wall covered with reproductions of the flags of former sovereign countries, the United Earth emblem in the center. His computer was powered down, the only other decoration on his desk being a binder filled with copies of centuries-old constitutions and bills of rights, and a family photo, facing inward.
Bingo.
"Captain Tucker," he greeted him warmly, crossing the room in five even strides. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"The pleasure is all mine," Trip assured him. They both nodded curtly, smiles unmoving, until he broke free and approached the window without being prompted, studying the hovertrain platform far below with interest.
Samuels seemed taken aback that he wouldn't immediately say what was on his mind, and that was well and good enough. Let him sweat it out, he thought.
"The Federation could do a lot of people a lot of good," he began carefully. "Some more than others."
"I'm afraid that I'm not sure what you mean."
"Aren't you?" Though he remained turned towards the glass, he met his gaze in the reflection. "I just found out today that the Kriosian ambassador is being faced with a recall election based on her support of the measure. Even First Monarch Kaitaama can't help her out."
"It's a pity, though I'm sure her name will go down on the right side of history."
"Not everyone can say the same." Trip could see it; the words hit their intended target with all the subtlety of a stun grenade, and Samuels' expression fell precipitously, revealing his true colors at last.
"Pardon?"
It came out loudly and forcefully and without the normal finesse of a trained diplomat, and that was when he knew he had him. Inhaling slowly, he forced the air out, and carefully weighed his words in the hands of fate.
"You should know you can't trust Harris. He might have taken down Terra Prime the first time, but we have reason to believe he's using them this time around to manipulate the Coalition delegates to his whims. Believe me, though it certainly didn't make it into our logs, he's been after the Reeds for years. The Archers, too."
"Mr. Tucker…"
"Don't even bother. I've got proof you met with him, and if I get into the auditory sensor on your UT, I bet we can rewind far enough to your conversation."
He reflexively reached for the tiny device clipped to his lapel, so common to his daily wardrobe that it was practically a part of him. Unfastening the clasp, he tossed it much too hard in the direction of the desk, causing it to slide off the opposite edge, clattering to the floor with a satisfying pop. Samuels very nearly reached up to nervously thread his fingers through his hair, but stopped a fraction of a centimeter short. Instantly, his demeanor clouded, turning dark. "He's doing exactly as I told him. We've gotten a dozen more signatures just this week."
"And you don't care how you get them, especially if their decisions are driven by fear?"
"Call me crazy, but I don't," Samuels replied evenly. "I'm not Starfleet. He can't touch me."
Oh, how little he knew. Trip understood he could never tell him about his meeting with Bran, how the Betazoid had made his case that Samuels' survival was essential to the Federation, and how that was necessary to the survival of all species in the quadrant. As much as he hated him, despised him down to the depths of his soul, he was consumed by the burning need to put the matter to bed, to give Terra Prime a taste of their own medicine.
"Listen, we can make this go away. All you need to do is say the word." To emphasize his point, he produced the isolinear chip, then tapped his phase pistol.
"What's in it for me?"
"That's the golden question, isn't it? Let's just say we've got a good idea where the weapons leak came from."
"The Alameda Arsenal - Gardner said as much." He paused, narrowing his gaze. "Who's we?"
"Most of the former Maelstrom senior staff," he said, because it wasn't exactly a lie.
"What makes you think I won't turn you into the admiral?"
"Because he's in on it too, and either one of you could be replaced. Harris could see to it in a heartbeat." There was certainly an added insinuation there. Trip briefly wondered when exactly he'd taken to threatening heads of state, and realized it must have been somewhere between Xantoras and Bajor. "And because you have the same amount to lose as I do. Perhaps more."
His gaze followed Trip's over to the holo-pic on his desk, and finally he understood.
"What if I don't accept your terms?"
"Then I suppose you'll have to take a good, long look at yourself afterwards," he said, allowing his smile to return. "And ask yourself if it was all worth it."
"Steady on," Archer cautioned, dipping his head towards the main console. The co-pilot's seat was tighter than he remembered, but then again, it had been awhile since he'd been shotgun for anything. Though there was plenty of room in the pod, the cabin felt frigid and airless, the officers sitting in tense silence behind him notwithstanding.
Alira was petrified, and no amount of tightening her tactical vest or adjusting the sights on her phase rifle could hide that. She'd been that way since sickbay, once the reality sunk in that her daughter had been kidnapped and the race was on to make sure no harm befell her. They knew who, but not when or why, though as they flew low over the shantytown of Deneva Prime, the where was becoming just a little bit more clearer.
"There," Malcolm croaked, then cleared his throat forcefully, trying his best to keep the emotion out of his voice. By contrast, he was boiling with rage, and all he could think of was making Harris pay, making him suffer, making his scream and plead for mercy. Over the past decade, he'd put up with plenty from him, from brutal takedowns to impossible assignments, and he'd had enough. This time, like so many times before it, he'd gone too far.
As usual, Tejal was right on the money. "I see it!"
The craft suddenly lurched to one side, and Jon reached out, bracing himself against the far wall. So as not to be detected by the colonists, they'd decided to coast in on minimal thruster power, turning all the lights off and flying in blind. Their only means of discerning their surroundings were Malcolm's hand scanner and Tejal's keen eye, which he was growing more grateful for by the second.
They touched down a little roughly, though mostly soundlessly, in a patch of grass just within the treeline, less than a hundred meters from the nearest home. For the longest time, they sat there motionless in the darkness, waiting and listening for any signs of movement, before Alira finally popped the hatch, climbing down to the soft earth below.
Outside, the night was warm, breezy and calm - perfectly at odds with their mission, and what they were likely about to do. T'Pol had nearly put her foot down about him accompanying them on their mission, but seeing as they were venturing into the most densely populated region of the settlement, they couldn't bring any MACOs along. It had been his special arrangement which required Malcolm and Alira to tow the line with the Section, to remain in Harris's good graces all the while hoping he wouldn't lash out for trying to take down his operation from the inside. He'd been impulsive, foolish, and more than a little idealistic; once again, it had come back to bite him, and if something happened to Mirella Reed, he would never forgive himself.
Scanners recalibrated, they crept silently through the underbrush, approaching the road, careful not to stray into the path of the floodlights. Here, gravity was slightly stronger than Earth, and Malcolm felt his entire being pushed downward from above, as if his heart wasn't already in his stomach. Beside him, Alira was breathing heavily, trying her best to control her runaway pulse, and he reached for her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles for a fraction of a second before pulling away.
She nodded, acknowledging the gesture, before reaching down and drawing her sleeves further down her arms. They were each dressed in the dark, form fitting stealth suits so often worn by officers of Starfleet Intelligence, and it felt like she was being compressed from the inside out. Alira had been slowly regaining her strength, but there was no hiding from the fact that it had been well over a year since she'd had to run full pelt with fifty pounds of gear strapped to her back.
All the while, she listened intently for any sound that was out of place, a keen sense she'd developed over many restless nights. She could only hope that she was asleep, that she was perfectly oblivious and that she wasn't afraid. If something had happened to her firstborn, she was positive she wouldn't be able to go on, that her entire universe would shrink in on her until she was crushed under the weight of her grief.
A split second before she stepped out onto the dirt path, Tejal lurched forward and grabbed the back of her vest, holding her steady as a hovercar went lumbering past. Blinking slowly in an attempt to regain her center, she glanced back at her, only to find her expression tense and pensive as she'd never seen it before.
Alira wondered just how many stealth revenge missions she'd conducted in the dead of night, but decided she didn't want to know the answer.
The commodore took ownership of the scanner, anchoring the back of the line as they charged across the street and into the alleyway. From within the nearest lean-to, they heard a flurry of movement, and flattened themselves against the fence, dearly hoping the mission wouldn't be over before it even began.
If they caught a Coalition crew here without permission, let alone a Denobulan…
The rustling noise stopped, and they all breathed a sigh of relief before hurrying through several consecutive backyards. Behind the nearest garbage incinerator, Archer sunk down to his haunches and conducted a broad-range sensor sweep, dismayed to find that the faint hybrid biosign he'd been tracking was on the move.
Malcolm caught onto the changing objective almost immediately, hunching over and charging across the main thoroughfare without hesitation. Somewhere, a local equivalent to a cricket was trilling, and it only grew louder and they crossed over into the industrial sector. The streetlights were practically blinding, so they stayed close to the wall, nearly reaching the far fringes of the village before he heard something that made his skin crawl.
It was small, plaintive, almost inaudible, but it was certainly there. Behind him, Alira's breath hitched in her throat, and she seized his arm, sinking her nails into his wrist. Both of them could have recognized that noise underwater, distorted, scaled up or scaled down in a million different settings.
Their baby was alive, and from the sound of it, she was in pain.
This time, they didn't wait for the next order, dashing into the street and heading straight for the source. Sure enough, her cries grew even louder, and with every ragged breath his anxiety grew, up until they found the right building and Archer had to hide his scanner in the folds of his jacket to keep the proximity alarm from sounding. They were within a hundred meters now, shockingly, horrifyingly close, and the only thing standing between them and their child were two men sitting on the stoop on their break from standing guard, completely oblivious to the world.
For a moment, Malcolm was prepared to rush them, but he was swiftly interrupted by his wife settling into his side, clicking off the safety of her rifle and aiming the barrel up and to the left.
It was then he saw it - a deflector dish, tilted to pick up the communications satellite in orbit. The curved, silvery surface was perfectly concave, and was angled just so to suit their needs. Holding up his index finger, he watched as the distorted mirror image of the men shuffled back and forth, helping her adjust her sights. At last, when he was positive he couldn't take anymore, she made her shot, and they heard a muffled cry as the phase blast ricocheted off the dish and connected with the abdomen of the one closest to them. Swiveling on her heels, Alira rose up and took out the other one, listening intently for any signs that they'd been spotted.
That never came, and in short order, they were pulling their victims into a nearby alleyway. Miri's cries had reached a fever pitch, so he didn't even bother to look before he crashed into the warehouse, moving in and among the stacks of cargo containers as he closed in on the sound.
Jonathan couldn't help but slow down to read some of the labels, immensely taken aback by the stacks of emergency rations and stun grenades and phase pistols. One thing was abundantly clear.
Someone or something was supplying these extremists, and they were preparing for war.
By the time they reached the back of the cavernous chamber, the light had been all but filtered out, and his eyes were having trouble adjusting to the darkness. He was aware, however, when Malcolm charged towards a nearby storage locker, blasted off the lock, and forged in, weapons held at the ready.
In the space of seconds, he heard Alira shriek and drop her weapon, then a flurry of incomprehensible shouts. Tejal seemed to know better than to stand in his way, so she stepped into the shadows as he drew closer, letting him take her place at the threshold.
Harris was on the ground, dressed in the same nondescript civilian clothing of a Section agent on duty, clutching a rapidly growing bloom of blood on his forehead. His former protegee held him at gunpoint, jaw set and eyes wild, all the while Taxa reached the far wall, fell to her knees, and gathered the screaming bundle in her arms, attempting to offer comforting terms of endearment that came out as choking sobs.
"It's okay sweet girl, mummy's here," she cooed, dropping kisses all over her brow and into her hair. Even from a distance, he could see the tears running down her cheeks, her entire face scrunched up and red. In between cries, she gasped for air, kicking desperately against her mother's chest. Understandably enraged, she demanded: "What did you do?"
"I couldn't get her to stop crying...all the way from the transporter pad, down to…"
"Malcolm, she's shaking," she cried, her expression warped and indecipherable. He saw everything there, horror and pain and sheer terror, and the strain in her voice broke his heart anew. "She's terrified, she's so scared…"
He didn't hesitate, taking several steps forward and seizing a handful of his collar. Pulling him off the ground so he could look him in the eye, he demanded: "Did you hurt her?"
"I didn't touch her, I told you she wouldn't…"
"Did you hurt her?" His voice was halting, tremulous, utterly marred with poorly constrained rage. It damn near bordered a scream, and sent shivers rushing up his spine. For what felt like hours but was actually seconds, all he could hear was Malcolm's ragged breathing and Miri's mournful cries as she wept in her mother's arms. Harris tensed up as though he were about to strike, then relaxed, allowing his limbs to hang slack towards the ground. In the low light, he looked several decades older than when he'd seen him last, on the computer display in Malcolm's quarters after he'd confronted him about his involvement the first time. In a sense, they'd all been worn down by the trials of war, though in his case, he really looked like he'd been put through the ringer.
"No," he said at last, and only just maintained his composure as he was shoved roughly into the wall. "I wouldn't dream of it."
"Don't patronize me," Malcolm ground out, holding him in place with the muzzle of his rifle pressed into his sternum. He glanced over his shoulder, and Alira took the hint, getting the hell out of dodge. Miri's screams quieted to whimpers, and as they rushed past him, Jonathan gestured towards his helm officer, with the silent order that they get to the shuttlepod as fast as possible.
The door shut behind them, and in the new and relatively unsettling silence of the tiny room, it sounded deafening.
"You were ignoring my messages," Harris grumbled, blinking the blood out of his eyes. It was plain to see he was dizzy and struggling to focus on anything. "We've been over this before. It's a simple exchange, you do what I ask, and I keep you safe. I expect you to…"
"So you kidnap my daughter?"
"I did what it took to get your attention. There's a job to do."
"Winston and Lazuli are retired. We're not running jobs for you anymore."
"The only way out of the Section is death! You know this!"
"Mine…" He shifted his rifle and pressed it into the notch at the base of his throat, tone rising archly. "...or yours?"
"Listen, this is a mission of critical importance to the Federation. You've got to stop him before it's too late!" His finger tensed over the trigger, and Harris flinched. "Please, your commodore is going to want to hear this."
He didn't have to say it, because he already knew who it was. His name only haunted him every single waking moment, because they weren't sure if he was living or dead or out for the rest of them.
Pascal.
Malcolm suddenly seemed to notice that Jonathan was still in the room, and when he looked back, he scarcely recognized him. Gone was the steadfast officer, friend, and father, replaced with a vengeful man consumed by fury.
The worst part was, he couldn't blame him in the slightest.
"You tell me what I want to know first."
"I can't recall a time I ever took orders from you."
"There's a first time for everything." Malcolm paused, inhaling slowly. "Now tell me why you took her, when you could have taken any one of us, appeared on the Enterprise, sent us a sign…"
"Do you want me to admit to not having morals? To letting my ambition cloud my judgment?"
"I want to know the truth," he rasped, voice once again creeping up in volume. "This wasn't your only plan, was it?" There was a moment of tense silence, then Harris grinned, starting to chuckle maliciously.
Years later, Jonathan would go on to recognize this as his last chance to intervene, but he was instead concerned with how he was going to explain this to Tejal, how they were going to need to catalogue the warehouse and arrest everyone involved and call for a transport to round up everyone else. It was all too much and not enough, so he didn't recognize his cue to act until it was much too late.
"If all else failed…" He trailed off, choosing his words carefully. "You have no idea what an organization like Terra Prime would pay to meet a child like her."
The next few seconds seemed to stretch on for an eternity, all the while Malcolm looked for all the world as though he was going to explode. His mind was buzzing with memories and sensations, and he only saw a darkened street in San Francisco, a warp-capable mining facility, and little Elizabeth Tucker, wasting away as her parents looked on helplessly.
And he snapped, finally and completely.
He fired once into his chest, then twice, and as Harris slumped forward, he followed the motion with his foot, delivering several swift kicks to his abdomen. His superior officer was saying something, but he could only think of a young officer in way over his head, and how the Section had taken everything from him, from his first love to his sanity to very nearly his family. At least partially, he was aware that it was too much, but he couldn't stop, seething and rasping until Harris rolled over and held his hands up, no doubt begging for mercy.
As his boot descended and met its mark, he knew that at long last his decade-long nightmare was over.
Or perhaps it was just beginning.
The following silence was tense and oppressive, soul-crushing in a way it hadn't been before. Malcolm took one good look at the head of Section 31, at his blood stained shoes, then at his hands, bruised from gripping his rifle too hard. It didn't matter how many targets he'd handled in his time undercover, or how many Romulans he'd taken down to preserve the war effort - each takedown still felt like the very first time, and he could feel the shock reverberating straight down to his bones.
He'd killed someone. He'd killed someone with his daughter only a few hundred meters away.
Archer was there, and his expression was so fraught he was momentarily terrified he'd get thrown in the brig or court martialed or worse. But the man he'd met so long ago, the very same who had stood by him in the Romulan minefield and on the Xindi weapon and damn near everywhere else, was nowhere to be found. He stooped down, sizing up their next task in an instant.
"Grab his legs," Jonathan ordered, and he couldn't bring himself to disobey.
End of Episode Three
Next time on Enterprise…
Episode Four: The Captain and the Commodore
T'Pol's pon farr arrives at the most inconvenient time imaginable. Malcolm struggles to drive the Terra Primers out of the Deneva System with the help of the Vissians. Elsewhere, the Maelstrom senior staff reunites to drive out corruption from within.