Chapter 10: Anger

A shipwide search turned up nothing. The Suliban and the Klaang were gone. But where they weren't sure, but they know that neither the Suliban or Klang were onboard anymore.

Archer paced the bridge, agitated as Buffy watched him from his chair. "We've got state-of-the-art sensors," he complained angrily. "Why in hell didn't we detect them?"

"Malcom thought he detected something right before we lost power," Buffy said.

Archer whirled on Reed, who was working his tactical and security console. After a moment, the lieutenant offered, "The starboard sensor logs recorded a spatial disturbance."

Tucker leaned over Reed's shoulder. "Looks more like a glitch."

"Those weren't glitches in sickbay," Dawn noted.

Archer turned to Tucker. "I want a complete analysis of that disturbance."

Tucker responded by heading for the door, and Archer returned to Reed.

"Where do we stand on weapons?"

"I still have to tune the targeting sensors," Reed admitted unhappily.

"What're you waiting for?" Archer snapped at them.

Reed joined Tucker and hurried off the bridge to do the work that should've been done before they left Earth.

"Captain," T'Pol began, crossing toward him.

He ignored her and swung instead to Dawn and Hoshi. "The Klingon seemed to know who they were. See if you two can translate what he said."

"Right away," Hoshi said, and she and Dawn also turned to go.

"Captain," T'Pol attempted again.

"You and I will talk in a moment, Commander," Archer told Buffy as she spun to face T'Pol.

"There's no way you could have anticipated this. I'm sure Ambassador Soval will understand."

"You're the science officer," Archer blurted. "Why don't you help Tucker with that analysis?"

"The astrometric computer in San Francisco will be far more effective."

"We're not going to San Francisco, so make do with what we've got here."

"You've lost the Klingon," she said. "Your mission is over."

Buffy was instantly out of the chair and in T'Pol's face, the Slayer within her itching for a fight she had not had in a long time. "We didn't 'lose' the Klingon. He was taken. And we're going to find out who took him."

"How do you plan to do that?" she asked reasonably. "Space is very big, Commander. A shadow on your sensors won't help you find them. This is a foolish mission."

"Come with me," Archer said. He followed by Buffy and T'Pol stepped into his ready room and he almost instantly whirled on T'Pol.

"I'm not interested in what you think about this mission," Archer said. "So take your Vulcan cynicism and bury it along with your repressed emotions."

"Your reaction to this situation," T'Pol protested, "is a perfect example of why your species should remain in its own star system."

Buffy closed the small distance between her and T'Pol in an openly hostile manner. "I've been listening to you Vulcans for ninety years tell us what not to do all. I watched John's father, myself and Dawn work our asses off while your scientists held back just enough information to keep us from succeeding."

"Ninety years …?" T'Pol began.

"Contact Ambassador Soval, see if he will give you clearance for mine and Dawn's files," Buffy replied angrily. "Anyways John's father should have been standing beside me and Dawn to see that launch. Just as Dawn and I stood beside Zefram when your people made first contact."

T'Pol was affected by Buffy's words, perhaps more by her passion, but she didn't back down. "You two are going to be contacting Starfleet," she said, "to advise them of the situation."

"No, we're not," Archer said with a warning glower. "And the only thing you will contact them for is permission to see Buffy and Dawn's files; you will not contact them for anything else. Now get the hell out of here and make yourself useful."

With nothing more to say, she had no choice but to simply leave. Neither Buffy nor Archer could imagine Reed or Tucker welcoming her help or even her presence in their work. That was her problem, something she had set up for herself with her own lack of manners.

Archer stalked the ready room—which wasn't much of a stalking space at all, but only a tiny excuse for an office where the captain might be able to be alone once in a while. "Buffy," he said after a moment. "I know you're not a seasoned officer. But your part in this could have been handled better."

"John," Buffy said. "I know that, but you need to give me, Dawn and even Hoshi some latitude. Let us do our jobs and learn from our mistakes."

Archer sighed and nodded. "You are right of course." He moved to his desk and hit the com. " "Sickbay, Archer. Phlox, Buffy and I are coming down there and I want some answers ready when we arrive. Make them up if you have to, but give us something."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

"Yes, Ambassador," T'Pol said, she had contact Ambassador Soval. Something didn't seem right about either Commander Summers. "She acted outwardly hostile. And when she mentioned that she stood by Zefram Cochrane I became …"

"I doubt curious is the right word," Soval replied. "But I expect at least some curiousity on how either of the Summers sisters are over ninety years old. I met them fifty years ago. At that time Buffy was already 120 years old and Dawn was 114 years old."

"It is impossible that they are that old and yet look like they are in their early twenties."

"They are what are called Millennials. The word is human in origin; it means a person or persons that will live for one thousand of their years. When I first learned they were Millennials, Sub-Commander. I did not believe any more than you did. But since they were part of the team working on the human's warp drive, I was around them. I watched as their colleagues around them grew older and yet they did not. One day there was a mishap in the complex, and humans were trapped by a wall of electricity. Dawn walked into the corridor and absorbed the energy into her own body. It was then I realized what I had been told was true. That Dawn herself was born to live the span of a thousand years, experiencing the weight of the world's emotions. That's what Dawn said a Millennial does, that they are the human embodiment of what happens around them."

"That's why they are on this ship?" T'Pol asked already knowing the answer. "To see if she still felt the weight of the emotions of the world of if she was simply an empath with the ability to sense only those around her."

"Correct," Soval said. "Now Sub-Commander, you know the truth. This information is classified at the highest levels of Starfleet as well as the Vulcan High Command. The only people you may talk to about this is myself, Buffy, Dawn, Captain Archer and anyone else they themselves have given clearance too. I believe Dawn and Buffy did give the ship's physician, Phlox access to their files. I am transmitting the codes for you to access those same files. Read up on them."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Dimly lit except for the surgical lamp shining down on the dead intruder, sickbay was almost like it had been during those moments of attack. Phlox's gloved hands were busy inside the opened chest of the dead creature. He picked enthusiastically through the entrails as Archer and Buffy watched.

"Mr. Klaang was right about one thing," the doctor said. "He's a Suliban. But unless I'm mistaken, he's not an ordinary one."

Archer's throat tightened. How could he tell that this Suliban was special if he had no experience with what an ordinary Suliban was? And he didn't feel much like taking biology lessons. Were there short answers? "Meaning?"

"His DNA is Suliban ... but his anatomy has been altered. Look at this lung. Five bronchial tubes. It should only have three. And look at the alveoli clusters. They've been modified to process different kinds of atmospheres."

"Are you saying he might be a demon?" Buffy asked.

If Phlox hadn't seen her and Dawn's files he might have questioned her use of the word. "Yes, I suppose I am. But this is no vampire or other supernatural creature you fought back in the late twentieth century. This man was the recipient of some very sophisticated genetic engineering."

Like a kid in a candy store, Phlox almost giggled with delight at his discovery. He activated a tiny instrument with a thin red beam and shined the light on the Suliban's dappled face.

"Watch this."

He moved the light, revealing that the skin had changed color, perfectly matching the hue and intensity of the red light.

"Subcutaneous pigment sacs."

"He's a chameleon," Buffy said.

"Correct," he said as he tapped a control on the little instrument and the color of the light changed to blue. He shined it on the Suliban's clothing this time, instead of its face. The clothing also adapted to the new color. The clothing?

"A biomimetic garment!" Phlox piped, delighted.

Archer didn't even bother trying to control his amazement.

"The eyes are my favorite," Phlox went on. He lifted an eyelid on the corpse, exposing a superdilated pupil that glowed nearly phosphorescent. "Compound retinas. He most likely saw things even your sensors couldn't detect."

"It's not in their genome?" Archer asked.

"Certainly not. The Suliban are no more evolved than humans. Very impressive work, though ... I've never seen anything quite like it."

"What do you know about them?" Buffy wondered. "Where do they come from?"

"They're nomadic, I believe," Phlox said. "No homeworld. I examined two of them years ago. A husband and wife. Very cordial."

"Look, Doctor," Archer began tersely, "I'm not in a pleasant mood. I don't want to hear about anything nice or cordial or even intriguing right now. I want to know where the Klingon went, how the Suliban got onto this ship, and how they got off it. Something tells me they didn't jump out a space hatch and go for a random free-float. They went someplace. I mean to find out where. None of the answers to those questions is bound to be nice, so you don't have to feel obliged to smile or twinkle at me anymore." He jabbed a finger at the body on the bed. "You have the only piece of concrete evidence we own. I'm giving you my permission to get ugly. If you have to set up candles and a Ouija board and bring this corpse back to life, I want to know how they did what they did today on my ship. Do I have to say any of that a second time? Good."

As Buffy and Archer left she glanced at her friend. "John, I know why you're angry that this happened on your ship. But you need to stop taking it out on the crew. They are just doing their jobs."

Archer looked toward Buffy and let out sigh. He knew she was right. And as his first officer he couldn't fault her for saying it, was after all her responsibility to do so. In fact he knew as well as she that she had the right to relieve him of duty should he be a detriment to the crew or the ship.

"I know," he said. "But tell me you yourself would not be reacting the same way if you were in my position."

"You know I would be," Buffy said. "But that is more because of what I am. Half-Millennial, Half-Slayer. The Slayer half of me is itching for a fight right now. And during my next shift off, I will be in my quarters punching a punching bag in hopes of appeasing the Slayer half of me."

They turned and entered Engineering and found Tucker and T'Pol going over the scans. "Any luck," Archer asked.

Tucker glanced at the Vulcan. "Not really."

T'Pol had a longer version. "My analysis of the spatial disturbance Mr. Reed saw indicates a stealth vessel with a tricyclic plasma drive."

"If we can figure out the decay rate of their plasma," Tucker said, "we'll be able to find their warp trail."

"Unfortunately your sensors weren't designed to measure plasma decay."

Both men looked at T'Pol with varying degrees of resentment. She didn't mean the unfortunately part.

Tucker didn't make any comment.

Dawn walked in behind Archer and Buffy and instantly stopped short at what she felt from Archer. "John," she said as he looked to her.

Archer let out a sigh, sometimes he hated that Dawn could feel what others felt. "What've you and Hoshi got?" Archer asked.

"We've managed to translate most of what Klaang said. But none of it makes any sense." She handed him a padd.

Archer took it and read the screen before handing it to Buffy who did the same. "Nothing about the Suliban?"

"Nope."

Buffy looked to T'Pol. "That name ring a bell to you?"

"They're a somewhat primitive species from Sector 3641. But they've never posed a threat."

"Well, they have now," Archer stated before turning back to Dawn. "Did he say anything about Earth?"

Dawn shrugged. "The word's not even in their database."

Archer eyed the padd still held in Buffy's hands.

"It's all there," Dawn said. "Between Hoshi and I there were only four words we couldn't translate ... probably just proper nouns."

Buffy looked again at the padd. "Jelik ... Sarin ... Rigel ... Tholia ... Anything sound familiar?"

T'Pol hesitated, uneasy.

"T'Pol?" Archer sternly pressed.

She paused again, glanced at Tucker, who was careful to give her one of those get-cracking looks.

"Rigel," she finally began, "is a planetary system approximately fifteen light-years from our present position."

"Why the hesitation?" Archer challenged.

Realizing she was about to knock the stick off his shoulder again, she decided to shell out. "According to the navigational logs salvaged from Klaang's ship, Rigel Ten was the last place he stopped before crashing on your planet."

Though Archer's face flushed with new anger, he plainly wasn't surprised. "Why do I get the feeling you weren't going to share that little piece of information?"

"I wasn't authorized to reveal the details of our findings."

"On this ship, you don't answer to the Vulcan High Command," Buffy said. "You are under John's command. You answer to him and myself as we are your superior officers. If we find out you are withholding information again, you're going to spend the rest of this voyage confined to too your quarters. Understood?"

T'Pol's expression was hard to read, but she didn't have any snotty remarks. In fact she said nothing at all.

Archer hit the wall com. "Archer to helm."

"Aye, sir," Mayweather responded from the bridge.

"Go into the Vulcan star charts and find a system called Rigel. Then set a course for the tenth planet."

"Aye, Captain, right away."

Turning to T'Pol, Archer strictly said, "You're going to be working with us from now on."

She paled a little, but owned up to her reasons. "I'm sorry you feel slighted. But I agree with Ambassador Soval's restraint in giving Earth too much information. Perhaps the last thing we need is another volatile race in space with warp power. You may easily go out and get yourselves killed. It may be a mistake to have helped you so much, to give you so much before you are ready."

"So much?" Archer barked. "You'd better use the next portion of your long lifetime to go back over the records and see just how much we've done on our own, in spite of your cultural cowardice."

"Cowardice?" Her eyes widened.

Archer closed the step between him and her. "I've been thinking about Vulcans all my life. You've been in space a long time, and suddenly the game is complex. Vulcans are logical, but it won't be enough. You've been advanced for a thousand years, and suddenly you're being overrun by us rabbits. The clock is ticking. All sorts of species are moving out into the galaxy. Maybe you don't need another volatile race out there, but guess what—they're everywhere. The galaxy will be driven by passion, not prudence. You haven't been holding back because you think we're so primitive—if you thought that, you wouldn't be bothering with humanity at all. Being logical allows you to say, that is a new idea; therefore it hasn't been proven; therefore I don't have to pay any attention to it."

"Shall we give you the knowledge to rush out into the galaxy and cause chaos?" she gulped. "Humans claim some right to know that which has been earned by others—"

"We never said that," Dawn said. "You offered. On the galactic scale, ninety years this way or that is nothing. When you see somebody is ready to walk, why hold back? There's more going on with you people."

"You're not the cutting edge anymore, are you?" Archer badgered. "In a thousand years, why has Vulcan progress been so slow? And here comes Earth, making wild advances in less than two hundred years. You're dragging behind, and now you need us more than we need you. Why else would you want to come and teach the apes how to sew? I think all this is happening because you're plain scared of being out there alone anymore."

Stunned, T'Pol parted her lips again. Nothing came out this time. She never blinked, as if staring at a flashing billboard declaring their words to the known galaxy. They were saying the Vulcans were doomed.

Nobody had the guts to say that to their faces.

Archer pointed at T'Pol with a determined finger. "You get on that warp trail. And you'd better find something or be able to explain why not in very clear terms. Dismissed."

T'Pol blinked almost as if he'd slapped her. She turned on her heel and exited without a word, taking a cloud of confusion along on her shoulders.

"Hoshi and I will keep learning Klingon," Dawn offered. "But, John, you and I need to talk."

Archer let out a sigh and as he flexed his shoulders, took a deep breath, and let his arms sag. "I know, Dawn. By the way I think you've found our answers on your gifts."

"I know," Dawn replied. She had not been away from Earth more than a day and already she had realized the only emotions she felt were those of the crew. She had gotten away from the overwhelming weight of everyone on Earth's emotions.

"Maybe now we know why we had so many quirks and misdirections with the last three days before launch," Archer contemplated. He turned to lean on the console that had provided such little information.

"You think they infiltrated before we left Earth?" Tucker said.

Archer shrugged. "I don't know. It's a possibility. Getting off the ship is far less problematic than getting on, but where they went presents us with a goading mystery. I don't like goading mysteries."

"Yes, you do," Buffy said as a smile graced her lips. "They had a ship following us, and they went over there."

"If we can find the trail, we'll follow them. If not, I'll go to Qo'noS anyway and start there. Klaang's mother might know something."

Tucker shook his head in worried respect for the sheer gall of that plan. "Why would these Sulibans want to blow our chances to make nice with the Klingons?"

"Permission to speak freely," Dawn said as Archer nodded in understanding. She wanted official permission to discuss her Millennial gifts in front of Tucker. "What I sensed from them was not about them blowing our chances. I got the impression they were not trying to stop us. I got the feeling this had something to do with Klaang."

"What is she talking about?" Tucker asked.

"I have gifts," Dawn said. "One of them is empathic in nature. I can sense emotions from those around me. When I was on Earth I could feel everything that everyone on the planet felt."

"It's true, Trip." Archer said. "It's in part why both hers and Buffy's files are classified at the highest levels of Starfleet."

"Wow," Tucker said. "Still it is possible they might want to ruin our chances to make nice with the Klingons, also."

Archer smiled cannily. "We're not dismissing that possibility, Trip, believe me. Just because Dawn could sense what they were feeling. Doesn't mean they didn't have larger goals in mind also."

Tucker shifted on his feet as he looked at Buffy and Dawn. "You two were pretty hard on Lady Jane."

"We mean to be harder on her," Buffy said. "It was inexcusable that she withheld vital information. Something I intend to discuss with Soval when she is transferred back to his command after our mission. Till then she's about to discover what the term short leash means."

Appreciatively Tucker nodded and bobbed his brows. "Probably smart, now we know for sure she's been hiding information from us on purpose."

"She'd better knock it off, too." Abruptly, Archer turned grim. "She's my science officer now, not Soval's patsy. She'll learn that lesson over the next week if I have to tattoo it on her tongue."

"Good thing it was you guys chewing her out instead of me. I'd have punched her in the nose."

"She'd hit me back," Archer said. "And she'd probably break my jaw. Out of all of Buffy is the only one who could physically take her."

Tucker looked at Buffy surprised at that remark. He opened his mouth to ask how, but the question never left his lips.

"It's classified, Trip," Buffy said. "Technically you aren't cleared to know about Dawn's empathic gift, It's why she asked for John's permission to reveal it t you. We'll work on getting you full clearance, I promise. You after all have been, like John, a good friend."

Tucker nodded and then grinned, though rather drably. "T'Pol, uh ... she came on the ship about the same time as all our little troubles started ..." He broached the subject, then let it hang there. He didn't seem to have quite the conviction for a direct accusation.

"While she suppresses her emotions like all Vulcans," Dawn said. "Something like that I don't think she could suppress. Still …"

"We'll wait and see," Archer finished for Dawn. "Besides she's just learning about us. As Vulcans go, she's very young. I get the feeling she's as much in the middle as we are. She could be just echoing what she's been taught all her life, and doing what she was told to do. Just a feeling, though. Anyway, I won't ignore your concerns or Dawn's empathic gifts." He looked to Buffy. "In the meantime, organize a landing party. Make T'Pol part of it."

Buffy nodded. "Aye, sir. Trip, Dawn I want the both of you also and I want Malcom."

"Do I have to go along with her?" Tucker asked meaning T'Pol.

"It'll show her which team she's on," Archer said. "And Buffy take Mayweather, he's spent his whole life in space dealing with merchants and travelers. Let's use what we have and get this done."