This time, both of them heard clearly the steps that neared their hiding place. Hakun froze, and next quivered, and glanced nervously at Spock, waiting his reaction. None came. The Vulcan man stayed as calm as before, his head tilted slightly as he probably assessed the situation and weighted their options. D'Tan always carried at least his Honor Blade with him and usually hid a disruptor pistol under his robes. Hakun knew Spock had been a Starfleet officer prior to becoming an ambassador, but he had never seen him take a weapon with him; today was no exception. The young servant was also unarmed; besides, he had always feared guns; he doubted he would be able to fire one even in such desperate circumstances.
A single person was approaching; the revelation hardly made him feel any better. The intruder stopped at the door and pressed the keys on the control panel outside. An instant later, The door was being opened before his eyes. It was pitch black outside. Only the faint light coming from the stove illuminated the silhouette of the incoming person. His frightened eyes glued to it, trying to discern a uniform or a known face. A dark robe, with a long hood covering all the features, was the only thing he was able to see.
"Spock," a woman's soft voice called out in a whisper.
She had taken a step forward, and now stayed at the threshold, both her hands low. She hardly spared a look at Hakum; he could tell she looked at him for the subtle way her hood moved towards his direction.
Spock got up slowly, folding his arms on his back as he did so often, and greeted the incoming in the same hushed way. "Jendara," he acknowledged. Hakun could not remember that name and was unsure if they had met before.
The woman did not move, nor removed her hood so she would be recognizable. If she was scowling or smiling he could only guess. "It's safe," she announced. "You can leave the tunnels now."
Hakun shagged in relief, his hands relaxing around the book he had been gripping so forcefully before. He noticed then the sweaty marks his fingers had imprinted on its covers. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, about D'Tan, about what had happened with the praetor. But Spock did not utter a word, and he feared to speak to their unknown liaison.
The woman disappeared as she had come, no light guiding her way through the engulfing darkness of the underground, her light footsteps getting further and further away from them.
Spock was already packing his firepot and bedroll, and Hakun hurried to do the same. His hands trembled slightly as he readied himself to leave. He had found out he was not a very brave man, and living as a fugitive was just too hard to bear.
The sun was already rising over the lake when they arrived at D'Tan's house. They headed for the backyard gate as they had done to get out, but did not cross it. About a hundred paces from the fence there was a hidden entrance. The evergreen forest that grew around the west side of the manor made it easy to conceal. The main doors also lead to the woods, but a wide road connected it with the nearest town only a few miles away. The only other way to access the house was by an old wooden dock that laid at the beach were D'Tan lingered so very often. The east side of his domains was surrounded by the long lake Grewen. As the rest of the entrances it was closely guarded. D'Tan, being a high ranking Tal Shiar official had many enemies; his secret affiliations only increased the number. The route they took to enter was one designed for escape in case the worst happened. In spite of the message telling them everything was ok, Spock took the safest road. He preferred not to be seen by a possible even if improbable by-stander.
Another tunnel welcomed them and guided them under the forest's and garden's soil. There was light in the white- painted corridor and a tilting green led told them they were being monitored, or at least recorded. Hakun rushed behind Spock's long strides, he was feeling confident again. A few narrow stairs that mirrored the ones they had taken to get in lead them outside. They opened the hatch and their eyes struggled for a second to get accustomed again to the gloom outside. The point of a disruptor rifle was the first thing they saw as they took the last steps to get out. This time, even Spock halted suddenly, almost throwing Hakun back as he collided with him. Next, however, a helping hand was outstretched towards them and the grinning face of a well known man was welcoming them. Lonfast, a bulky man wearing the Tal Shiar uniform, had served as one of D'Tan's personal guards for years, and was also an active member of Unification; all those who worked closely for D'Tan were. Spock took his hand out of decorum, even if he did not need it at all. Hakun, his heart racing again, grasped it and kept holding it even once outside.
"Sorry to spook you," the guard said, chuckling.
Lonfast, a violent boy from a poor working-class family, could have easily become a thug, but the recruiting officer that so often visited his school made of him the perfect grunt instead. For more than two decades he had terrorized less fortunate citizens in the name of the emblazoned eagle with the twin words in its talons; many times he had taken pleasure torturing them. He had never questioned his actions; he had always considered that all those people he was ordered to arrest truly deserved all they got from him or his comrades.
"D'Tan ordered us to mount guard in every access," he lightly explained them. "Everythin' went well, but he's still on alert."
Then he learnt of the death of Talarn. She had been his girlfriend when they were teenagers and even if she married another man, they still saw each other from time to time. She had always feared the Tal Shiar, and he suspected that the fact he was one of them had weighted heavily in her decision to trust them that first and last time. She worked at their town's space dock and found a box full of pamphlets half-hidden in the store room where she was unloading her cargo. She took them to the Tal Shiar, but the fool who attended her thought she could be involved too and detained her. Lonfast knew he was not very smart himself, and that he had also driven his own prisoners quite hard; some of them had died in his hands too. He had just not expected a person close to him to suffer the same fate, and much less one that was so obviously innocent to him.
When he learned of her arrest, he was already late. He had been utterly enraged, but oddly enough, he had not blamed his comrades, he had placed his anger in the ones who had published the pamphlets instead. He had not doubted then who the bad guys were. The offending leaflets talked about Unification.
"You know? Koval had been arrested!" he told them with excitement; he was again brightly smiling at them. "And D'Tan is now chairman!"
His enthusiasm was a stark contrast to the hatred and rage he had felt towards Unification and its supporters back then. He had volunteered to work as an infiltrated operative to bring all them down; he had pressed his superiors to get that post, but the intelligence agency had refused him; he had been told he did not meet the profile. He was disappointed, but he was not ready to give in so easily. He started to investigate the subversive organization on his own. He spied on the space dock every time he was not on duty and finally discovered the pamphlets' owner. He approached him and offered to join him, but the man denied everything; he had lived in his own neighborhood all his life and he knew well he was Tal Shiar. In spite of the refusal, he did not denounce him. He still wanted to crush the movement and that man was the only member he knew. He did not even realize the slight change, but he already did not trust his fellow Tal Shiar agents as he did before.
"We're gonna have a huge party tonight!" he announced them as he friendly clasped Hakun's back. The thin servant recoiled though, his well-intentioned hand hitting too hard on his weaker body. He soon recovered and bleakly returned the guard's smile.
Lonfast had always been tough; that made him good at his job. Lonfast had always been quite insensitive too, and never had had any interest in studying. He truly disregarded the scholars' work. That's why when he learned about Unification, their ideas never interested him. He certainly thought they were just a bunch of fools. They were a bunch of fools who threatened the Empire with their stupid ideas and who had wronged him by killing his former girlfriend, thought, so he kept spying on them.
That's when he learned of the other less academic opinions they shared; when he heard them talk about the lack of freedom, and even the lack of honor, in their society; when he read once and once again in their leaflets about the brutality the civilian population suffered in the hands of the security forces, especially the Tal Shiar. There were many faces and names written down in those papers, each a dead person, or a missing one.
Lonfast could not actually remember the moment he had finally made up his mind, that day some inner switch had been clicked in his brain and he had seen everything from a very different perspective. One day, he had been reading one of those pamphlets and instead of thinking, as he always did, that they were all lies uttered by relived traitors, he came to the conclusion that they said the truth. That time, finally, he saw Talarn's name printed on those same papers and his own actions denounced on them. He was appalled, and for the first time in his life he could not hide under the name of duty to justify his violence. A day came when his uniform made him feel sick, and those who had been his friends seemed now his enemies, the enemies of the Empire; without realizing it, he was embracing Unification's cause.
Spock was already leaving towards the house. Hakun started to follow him but looked back at him; he licked his lips with certain trepidation as he asked him, "So everything is over? Everything is going to be ok now?" There was hope in his still young eyes.
In the past, Lonfast would have laughed at Hakun's unhidden fear; he would have not commiserated him. But after his unexpected realization, he suffered every time a detainee suffered. The job he once had taken so much pleasure and pride in had suddenly become unbearable. For years he had been an example for the new recruits, but now he was unmotivated and sloppy. His immediate superior called him to his office and berated him for his derelict attitude; he menaced to demote him. Next week, he signed his resignation.
He took a job as security guard in the same space dock where Dalarn had worked. He still got to wear a uniform and had the chance to beat up some punks from time to time. He should have conformed to that life, but he still heard all those speeches in his head. Again, he approached his neighbor; again, he refused him. Only three weeks after their short talk, the man was arrested by the Tal Shiar and executed. All the members in his cell were. Lonfast guessed his neighbor had blamed him. His fate only infuriated him more.
His neighbor's cell, whose members were all blue-collar workers, was an exception. Lonfast knew most of the followers of Unification were scholars. So, after their downfall, during his free time he went around the different campus, trying to get in contact with other possible members. Again, he was not very successful; nobody trusted him. So, isolated as he was, Lonfast started to print and spread his own leaflets around Ki Baratan's universities. They were crude and badly-written in comparison with those he had taken from the movement, but still he knew many cases of abuse and one by one, condemned them in his illegal publications. The students took them and, surprisingly, no one reported on him. Soon he had groups of young people who listened to him and helped him spread his pamphlets eagerly. None of them knew of Unification, though, and every passing day he feared for his life. He looked back when he walked, his hands always gripping his concealed weapons, very aware that at any moment his former comrades would take him down.
So Lonfast also knew well what was to be frightened; some nights, distressed, he had cursed himself for ever wanting to know about Unification, for ever having discovered the cruelty of his world and having decided to fight it, he, who had been happy to be a tool.
"Yeah, everythin' gonna be over," he lied to the servant. He seemed content with the answer and tagged along Spock. Lonfast turned to watch over the entrance, tall and proud again on his military uniform.
For more than a year, he had been the leader of his own subversive organization, supported by the idealist students. When they gathered, their own leaflets mixed with those of Unification and other critics to the government. He had settled up with that way of life. One day, however, a group of professors neared to hear him; when he finished, they invited him to come with them to another meeting. They talked about Unification.
He had to wait for three years to meet D'Tan. He was one of its most influent leaders, but one who truly needed to remain in the shadows; the majority of the members had never heard of him. D'Tan had watched him from the beginning, since he first went to the campus with his forbidden pamphlets. He had actually been reported but D'Tan had managed to cover him. D'Tan was a promising Tal Shiar officer; he realized how important it was to infiltrate the agency to ensure the safety of his fellow followers of Unification. D'Tan asked him to join the Tal Shiar again and fight alongside him. He arranged his papers so he would serve in his unit. Finally, Lonfast was working undercover, but now he was a rebel infiltrated in the intelligence agency, not the other way around. Lonfast had faithfully served D'Tan since then; he truly admired the man.
Lonfast grasped his rifle as he swept his gaze over his surroundings; the sun was already lighting the sky. He still did not have any interest in Vulcan culture and their common bonds; he actually did not want to change the world. But his chest swelled with pride when he thought he served a good cause and finally, they were prevailing.