Note: Thank you very much to everyone who reviewed. To guest: the idea is a very interesting one, but i have other plans for Ba'el.
His mother was in a meeting with the praetor when Asfast left his home and walked silently to his favorite park. He took the same path and entered the same maintenace hut as he regulary did, always ensuring no one watched him. He went down to the tunnels and moved around the familiar darkness, growing more nervous each step he took. The fear of being discovered could never go away. He found his group already gathered and the moment they spotted him, they neared and smiled and congratulated him. Asfsat felt grateful and proud and as he shared his last joyful days and they commented their own uneventful ones, the trepidation almost went away.
Their meetings were always short and this time nobody talked about new actions to be taken or last news their government had covered up. They were just friends and their conversation could have been had openly in the park above them.
When they were about to split up, the older man stopped him.
"Wait a moment, please," he said softly, and when the others were a distance away, he added, "there is someone who wants to meet you."
But he started to leave in his own direction too. When Asfast followed him, the man turned again. "Wait here," he insisted. Asfast was fearful again. The man noticed, even if their features were darknened in the tunnel's shadows. "It's someone I trust," he reassured him. "Someone important."
And then Asfast remembered the time he had spoken to Spock; certainly it had to be him. Since he, desperately, had asked for the Vulcan's help, some time had passed, but finally his mother was free. He wondered if Spock had truly helped him and that was the reason he wanted to see him.
He waited patiently. The minutes passed and he once again felt nervous. Every noise from the tunnels startled him, but when the three figures suddenly formed in front of him, he did not see them coming. They were wearing cloaks and hoods, but Asfast noticed quickly the one in the middle was shorter than Spock. Fear took control of him when the three incomers came closer and he realized that they were heavely armed, at least the ones in the flanks.
Asfast did not run away, but instintively took a step backwards and found himself touching the tunnel's slickery wall. He thought of the old man who had taught him so much about Vulcan and their common past and wondered if he had truly betrayed him. He had no doubt when he spotted the clothes under one of the men's cloak. He could recognize Tal Shiar's uniform anywhere, and he fought the panic that wanted to overcome him.
"You have nothing to fear," the one in the middle spoke up. Asfast thought he should recognize the voice, but could not place it. Certainly, it was not Spock.
They were now really close and the Tal Shiar officers had not drawn their guns yet; probably they knew he had no escape and would not fight back. The one in the middle raised his right hand and took off his hood. "I'm D'Tan", he introduced as he opened his arm,"you have probably heard of me."
Asfast gasped; everybody had heard of D'Tan by now. The other two persons followed suit and removed their hoods too; Asfast recognized the guards who had scorted D'Tan during Koval's trial. He wondered why he was so important now that the head of Tal Shiar wanted to aprehend him personally; he wondered why it had to be now. The only reason he found was that he probably wanted to take down his mother again, dishonor his mother through him; his heart sank.
"My mother is innocent," he blurted out before he knew he was speaking aloud,"she is loyal and—"
D'Tan silenced him with a softness he did not expect. "I know your mother doesn't share our views."
If Asfast were not so scared, he would have noticed the surprising use of the first person in the sentence, but he did not.
"But she is still useful to us, Asfast; she is important now."
D'Tan's words were lost to Asfast; he was already sweating profusely and desperately asked, "what do you want?"
"D'Tan, I think the boy doesn't know what you are talking about", the woman at his left, a scary scar crossing her already harsh features dared to speak up, and he thought he saw a flash of simpathy cross her otherwise cold eyes.
For an instant, the three agents only stared at him. He fidgetted nervously, but did not utter a word, and simply looked back at them, unable to read their expressions; he realized they hid under trained masks. He summoned all his courage and put on his own mask, remembering how he had been taught to control his emotions by the very man who now betrayed him to the Tal Shiar. He drew himself up defyingly.
D'Tan simply smiled at him, though. "You know me," he explained, "but you only know what I let others know." He paused. "Unification."
Asfast refused to aknowledge the word and gave a blank stare at him. D'Tan was taking something from the back of his cloak. Asfast struggled to not look intently at him and glanced at his guards instead. The one at his right, an imposing man who looked very much like Tal Shiar's poster boy was caressing his rifle idly as he watched him.
"Unification," D'Tan repeated and Asfast unwillingly returned his attention to him. The new chairman had a book in his hands, a very worn one written in Vulcan. Asfast could not actually read the language but could recognize it.
"Don't you have a place to sit down?" D'Tan asked, looking around.
Surprised by the question, Asfast just replied the truth, "We sat at the floor. This side is clean." And pointed to an area at their left.
D'Tan and the officer flanking that position casually moved toward where he indicated. The other guard waited for him to do the same, and he did. The Tal Shiar agents were settling themselves at the floor and he awkwardly did the same. He had heard of the treatment the captured members of the movement were given by the Tal Shiar and certainly this was not the procedure. He wondered with fear what kind of game the new chairman was playing.
"My parents gave me this book, they taught me to read it when I was a young boy." D'Tan was telling him, his voice soft, almost dreamly, but his features still unreadable. "I have come to these gatherings, here in the tunnels since I was born. So has Sajela here," he said nodding towards the woman. "Lonfast joined us when he was already a man, just like you," he informed, refering this time to the other guard. "It's never too late, and as you have changed, so can our society. We won't be here if we thought otherwise, don't you think?"
There was kindness in D'Tan's eyes, or so Asfast saw. Unable to understand what was going on, he again spat, "What do you want?"
His voice was fierce, and he found the guard named Lonfast speaking for the first time. "Easy boy," he warned, but his voice once more lacked the aggressiveness he expected.
"I want you to understand," D'Tan explained patiently, caressing his book, the book he had taken from one of his former prisoners, Asfast imagined, the one whose secrets he had exposed by torture.
"My parents gave it to me," he repeated; Asfast knew it was a lie, "before they were killed. It's my most cherished possesion."
The Tal Shiar leader was opening the book and taking a document from it. "Here they are," he said as a small holographic projection was displayed. "And this is when they were executed." The image of a smiling wealthy couple was changed to one of pain. It only lasted an instant. D'Tan promtly turned it off. "My family's dishonorable past is not a secret. You can check that up," he informed Asfast, and a flicker of grief crossed his eyes. "But I was adoped by Koval and everything changed." There was a brief silence. "Everything but this." He tapped the book. "I still remember who I am and where my loyalties stand."
Asfast glanced back at the alien book and shook his head, "That's a lie," he whispered.
"It is not!" the woman replied harshly, their tone sounding menacingly for the first time.
"Sajela, relax," D'Tan reprimanded mildly, and the officer inmediately quietened.
"I understand you have difficulty believing my words," he went on. "We have lived a double life all our time and for what you know, we are the sickening Tal Shiar." The chairman sighed; actually, he shivered. "And we are. We have been for a long time. But we are on your side."
"Haven't you wondered why there have been so little detentions in the last years? And many of them, they were faked," the other guard supplied as a smirk formed in his lips.
"Lonfast," D'Tan was giving a warning again.
The Tal Shiar commanding officer was still tracing the book with his fingers as he tilted his head, deep in thought.
"My parents died for Unification," he resumed. "Many have died trying to fulfill this dream. For generations, we have tried to convey the powerful to our movement and we have always failed. At the end, we have always been betrayed. And we, even with our increasing members, keep meeting here in the shadows."
He stopped caressing the book to look intently at Asfast, his eyes piercing him. "It's time for a change, Asfast, and you can help. We won't fail again."
If Asfast would have been able to take his eyes away from the chairman, he would have noticed his guards nodding aprovingly.
"I gave you the set'leth, remember, the one that helped you expose Koval, as you wanted, and free your mother." Asfast's eyes widened; he wondered if that was true, or if all was a very well orchestated play. D'Tan was Tal Shiar, after all. "I helped you, now you have to help me." He paused only for the brieftest of moment. "To help us. The Unification movement and all the Romulan people. The Empire has to change. You meet here because you want it to change."
Asfast just stared at him in shock, trying to digest what was going on.
"You mother is taking her seat back in the Senate, isn't she?" D'Tan did not wait for an answer. "I want you to be always by her side. You are her heir and when she is gone, you will take her place."
Chairman D'Tan spoke with a confidence Asfast could never muster.
"For generations we have tried to convince the powerful to join the movement and failed miserabily," he repeated. "It's time to change strategies. It's time for us to become the powerful ones." He was still drilling his gaze at Asfast, conveying forcefully his words. "I am already chairman of the Tal Shiar; others are taking their places. You will become senator. Soon we won't meet in the shadows because Unification would be discussed openly in the streets. We'll see to it."