=/\= Part IV =/\=
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, Docking Bay
Deck 3, Ready Room
0630 Hours
Captain Beddoes cleared his throat as his officers filed into the room, most of them disheveled and bleary-eyed after a rowdy night on the town. He was sympathetic to their plight--many a morning had he been dragged away from his comfortable bed--but there were always sacrifices in the line of duty. Finally, as Sarevok took his place near the front of the table, Beddoes closed and locked the doors and flicked a tiny switch on his chair.
The switch was of the many "improvements" secretly added during the Ffestinog's refit after the war against the Interstellar Concordium and was linked to a electromagnetic pulse emitter tuned to render any recording devices useless. A useful precaution, if nothing else.
"As most of you know, I usually don't do these things bright and early," he began, "but there are some things that just can't wait. What we're going to tell you right is top secret, you hear. And I want all of you to forget it the moment you leave this room. You good with me?"
His experienced officers merely nodded--they had gone through this routine many times already--but his cadets were breathless with excitement even in their sleep-deprived state. "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing," said his helm officer laconically.
"Okay. Sarevok, hit it."
The lights in the room darkened and the holoprojector in the middle of the table leapt to life.
"This is a rough rendering of the area where we conducted our sweep of the Kabrigati object," the Vulcan said. "If you recall, there was an asteroid field bearing zero-two-nine--" The computer formed a group of spinning rocks where he pointed. "--and one bearing two-zero-zero. There might be slight variations in position, but you will all agree that these are the respective positions of the fields, correct?"
Nods.
"Good. Now I want you to keep this projection in mind while I display the next set of points." The computer's carefully plotted asteroids dematerialized, replaced with analogous green lines. Meanwhile, another group of asteroids appeared, exactly where the original ones had been. "This is taken from an Intel report filed by Admiral Kieran Forester and myself not long after the incident at Vulcan. Declassified documents suggest that we were patrolling this sector. Those reports are correct--up to a point. In reality, we had been authorized to conduct a mission back to the past in order to retrieve...crucial files...from the log of the Peacekeeper, destroyed in action against the Imperials."
The officers began to whisper excitedly until Captain Beddoes slammed a very heavy book on the table.
"Thank you, Captain," the Vulcan said serenely. "Now, judging from the similarities between the first sector displayed and this one, I believe it is not unreasonable to say that the place where we found the Kabrigati object and the place where we went back in time are one and the same. During that operation, I recommended the use of phase cloak so that the standard timeline would not be as disturbed."
"So why wasn't the Hyperion destroyed?" All of this was news to the captain. "You saw what that energy vortex did to our ship."
"That was the reason I said that it was not as destructive as it might have seemed. I could not reveal details of the operation at the time."
"You couldn't reveal anything at the time," muttered Beddoes. As much as he appreciated the Vulcan overlooking his confidentiality agreements, he wasn't at all used to not being in the know. Fortunately, Sarevok either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him. After the incident in the admiral's quarters, he had realized that there was more to diplomacy than blunt statements of fact..
"Now as you all know, the Hyperion and all of the other ships in TacFleet were given countless improvements after a comprehensive evaluation of their performance during the war against the ISC. One of these was improved hull plating, developed to counteract the plasmatic pulsar device used by enemy commanders. Experience has shown that this new type of plating can withstand the impact of a fully charged plasma torpedo without breaking. It is not impenetrable, but it would be tremendously difficult to break into it. As expected, after the operation the Hyperion's hull was completely unscathed--with the exception of a small breach in Engineering close to the cloakfield generator. This was marked off as an unintended side effect of the phase cloak. However, now that I have experienced much the same phenomenon aboard the Ffestinog, I have a suspicion that this breach was much more than it seemed to me at the time. Somehow, radiation from the energy field managed to leak through the Hyperion's force fields and contaminate our bridge."
The captain was pleasantly surprised. Sarevok had just admitted that he had made a mistake, albeit in more than a hundred and fifty words. "So what do we do now?"
"What we are doing now is a direct violation of Starfleet protocol, Captain, and I hope you realize that." Beddoes groaned, waiting for the inevitable lecture. "However, considering the circumstances, I think that we ought to do everything in our power to discover what lies at the root of this, since we are, as you humans would put it, 'already in some deep shit.' "
"Even if that means hacking into Starfleet computer databases?"
"When shall we start?"
Captain Beddoes felt a small smile tug at his face. By God, the Vulcan was finally learning.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, En Route to System Vulcan
Holodeck
0630 Hours
Immediately after the death of Boris Kurchatov, Engineering had been cleared of nonessential personnel. Only people that were directly involved in the running of the warp core were to be allowed inside, and only if they were wearing anti-radiation bodysuits. All of the idle engineers found themselves inexorably drawn to Sickbay, where Caitlin Denning, unusually drained, stood in reverent silence in front of Kurchatov's corpse. They were followed by the rest of the crew, who, even though they had never known the chief engineer, felt it their duty to pay their respects to the fallen.
Which was why there was nobody to see Kieran crying silently in the library of the Iron Throne.
The admiral had seen death before. When he was young he had watched countless crewmembers killed countless ways, their faces frozen in a rictus of pain, images burning themselves into his mind and never letting him forget that their deaths had been partly due to his stupidity, his foolishness, his absofuckinglutely stubbornness in refusing to acknowledge the terrible responsibilities that had been accorded him when he accepted command of his ship. When he was young he didn't care as much. He hadn't been best friends with any of those crewmembers: He hadn't taken them out to dinner, he hadn't hosted them in his home on Dantar, he hadn't really had the chance to form a bond with them before they were cut down in wartime. It was wartime. People died in wartime. The only thing he could do was get over it.
Then some of his closest friends started dying in wartime and everything changed.
Kieran didn't feel young anymore. He had already seen more years than most humans had ever seen, and he had borne witness to an entire range of history, from the General War to the war against the Imperials. But before, there was always something in his spirit which had still tried to look for the good things in life. Now even that small consolation had been crushed by Fate. When it came down to it, Kieran realized, humanity at his best simply couldn't even compare to the overwhelming power of Time. Humanity could do everything in his power to reverse it, to slow it, or to ignore it, but Time still would tick onward no matter what had been invented. For Kieran, that was an amazingly depressing thought.
He didn't turn around when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. "Dane," the admiral said hollowly, aimlessly flipping through a copy of "A Tale of Two Cities." "What are you doing here?"
"To see how you were, first of all. And to ask for permission to scan the engine room personally."
"Permission denied." Kieran half-heartedly hoped that the order would work, but knowing Dane Kjolgaard, it probably wouldn't. And it didn't.
"As first officer of this ship, I have an obligation to safeguard it from any hazards--"
"And I have an obligation to safeguard the lives of my crewmembers. The radiation leak could be dangerous. Until our engineers detect it and patch it up, nobody can go in there. Is that clear?"
"Kieran, I know that--"
"Is that clear?"
Kjolgaard shook his head. "I can't have those inexperienced fools scanning for rad leaks in the warp core--they've never done anything of the sort since Starfleet decided to cut funding to the training program."
"You could die, you know that?"
"I know that."
"And you still want to do it? Even though you'll end up with all of your body melted into an unrecognizable pulp?"
"I will wear a radiation suit--"
"No!" "A Tale of Two Cities" fell to the floor with a dull thump. "You can't do that! You're one of the only people I have left, Dane. I can't let you die, Dane, I can't let you die--"
"You mean you won't let me die. You mean that because of your own selfish interests you want to sacrifice two bastards who aren't even married yet just to keep me alive. Isn't that right, Kieran? Isn't that what you want?"
The admiral didn't answer.
"We used to be like them," Kjolgaard said quietly, his hand never leaving his captain's shoulder. "Remember the time we snuck into Professor Fischer's lab and replaced the stuff in his test tubes with sugar water?" He chuckled. "Almost got us kicked out of the place, but we weren't. We were too good. But now, now, now...it's all different. Look at this around you." The first officer picked up the book and brushed some dust off of the cover. "If you had told Admiral Moore that a hundred years later people would be able to recreate the past he would have sent you to the funny bin."
Kjolgaard sighed. "It's past our time, Kieran. We can put on new uniforms and command new ships but you know as well as I do that they're just idle pretensions. Let the new generation take over now. Let them replace the stuff in your test tubes with sugar water. It'll almost get them kicked out of the place but they won't be. Since they're too good. We're just old graying relics of antiquity, my friend. Just let go."
"I can't! I've lost too much, I've given up too much--"
"Fuck you!" Anger exploded within the first officer like a volcano. "When will you stop being so goddamn selfish? You're supposed to be thinking about your crew, not about yourself! But that's all right. That's all right." Dane stepped away from his captain. "You do what you think is best and I'll do what I think is best. I'm going to go to the warp core. And there's nothing you can do to stop me."
"Commodore Kjolgaard! I order you to come back! That's a direct--"
Dane Kjolgaard turned back towards his friend, his steely blue eyes glinting in the pale light of the library. "Go to hell," he said simply and walked out the door.
Holodeck
0758 Hours
Kieran tapped his communicator again. "Kieran to Caitlin. Are you there?"
And this time, she finally responded. "You can stop that now." The CMO sounded weak and drained. "He's dead."
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, Docking Bay
Deck 3, Ready Room
0800 Hours
An hour and a half later, Sarevok hadn't even managed to crack the first passcode guarding entrance to Starfleet's classified files and Captain Beddoes was beginning to doubt those who said that being a slicer was a glamorous job. Definitely not James Bond, he thought wryly as the Vulcan punched in another command that was (like the previous six thousand four hundred and fifty) rejected. As usual.
"Perhaps we must try another permutation," Sarevok muttered to himself. "If the alpha-delta sequence can be considered to be analogous to..." His voice trailed away as he punched his complex calculations into the computer. "That should do it."
"Pardon me for asking but..." Beddoes tapped the Vulcan on the shoulder hesitantly. "If this one doesn't work how many more permutations are there?"
The Vulcan stared at him levelly. "I do not have a precise figure, but a reasonable approximation would be somewhere in the hundred thousands. If I had to give you a 'ballpark,' however, I would say that we could be finished in the next four days."
"Four days. You told me four minutes, you lying bastard!"
"The system is considerably more complicated than I expected, Captain. I hope you do not expect Starfleet to guard its secrets with passwords Ittulian hackers eat for breakfast."
"Well, I'm not going to wait four days. If this one doesn't work, then we do things my way."
"This one will work."
"If it doesn't."
"It will."
"It won't."
"It will."
"It won't."
"It will."
The computer beeped and two words appeared on the screen, written in boldface script: "Access Denied." It didn't.
Beddoes grinned. "My way."
Administration Deck
0810 Hours
"You see," said Beddoes as they walked side by side in the busy corridors, "almost every human female I've known has an affinity for exotic things, if you know what I mean, and from my experience that means Vulcans. So this is what we're going to do. We can't access the databases from our ship's computer since we don't have the access codes. And although it's normal Starfleet procedure to make sure that this information is available only to people who rank high enough, I'm pretty sure that Admiral Sanzei--like most admirals--will be too impatient to stick all the codes into the computer himself. If my guess is right, he's got a few lackeys to do it for him. All we need to do is to convince one of them to get our file."
The Vulcan nodded. "I see. So while you distract his 'lackeys' I go into his office and recover the information we need. A very elegant plan, Captain. Very impressive."
"That's not the plan. I know Admiral Sanzei--he presided at the christening of the Ffestinog, after all--and I think we both know what will happen if he catches you anywhere near his office again."
"I must say that I am confused. If I am not going to access the file, then what is the point of my being here?"
"I checked the duty roster today and the same yeoman who let you two days ago is there. A female yeoman." Beddoes whistled suggestively. "Nice stuff, if you ask me."
"And are you implying, Captain, that I make an attempt to retrieve this information by telling this yeoman that I would be willing to engage in various physical activities with her?"
"That's the gist of it, yeah."
The Vulcan looked absolutely horrified. "Might I suggest that we return to our quarters to test the other permutations before we resort to such desperate forms of persuasion?"
"A deal's a deal, right?" He winked. "Good luck, Pointy. I'll see you back at the ship." The captain walked away into the crowd and soon disappeared in the crush of bodies.
Sarevok began regretting that he hadn't punched Jason Beddoes when he had the chance.
Administration Deck
0815 Hours
If the Vulcan had bothered to look, he might have realized that the yeoman on duty really was quite attractive. In fact, in other circumstances, his mind would have registered the fact long ago even though he probably wouldn't have admitted it. However, Sarevok was so nervous that he didn't even notice that she was talking to him.
"I said, what do you want?" she asked again. Her voice had a charming Irish lilt, and it was currently tinged with obvious impatience.
"Oh." Sarevok mentally chastised himself at his lack of attention. "My captain has asked me to ask you for a favor."
"And that would be what?"
"He has need of access to classified data regarding the Kabrigati phenomenon--Every instance it was observed and recorded. And he also informed me that human females were extremely susceptible to a sort of 'Vulcan charm.' As such, I was instructed to ask if you wish to partake in an intimate exchange of bodily fluids if you happen to be unwilling to divulge this information."
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa...slow down, slow down. What did you say you need?"
"It is not I who has need of the information, it is my captain. He has need of access to classified data--"
"Got it. I meant the next half."
"If you were unwilling to divulge the information I was to ask you whether you wanted to partake in an intimate exchange of bodily fluids."
The yeoman looked at him for a second and then burst into laughter. "You mean--that?"
"I do not know of the 'that' which you're referring to."
She shook her head as if to some secret joke. "Never mind. So I've heard that Vulcans are incapable of lying. Is that true?"
"That is a correct statement."
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "It's a risk, but you look pretty harmless. Listen, I'll see what I can do. Wait here for a second--I'll be right back." The yeoman put her notepad down on a desk and went into the office. If Sarevok hadn't been so relieved, he would have noticed that her face was tinged a bright pink.
A few minutes later, the yeoman emerged from the admiral's office holding a PADD in her hand. "That's all I could dig up," she said. "Not much, but it's the only stuff in the database I have access to."
Sarevok glanced at the information. "That will be quite sufficient," he finally said. "I take it, then, that you do not wish to partake in an intimate exchange of bodily fluids at this time?"
"Maybe I'll call you up on that offer later." The yeoman grinned and gave the embarrassed Vulcan a light peck on the cheek. "Talk to you soon." Still looking rather red, she disappeared into the admiral's office.
As Sarevok stood there stupefied, a gaggle of young engineers walked past him murmuring enviously. "Damn, that's one lucky bastard," one of them said. "Why do all the pretty girls have to go for the pointy ears? It's enough to make me want to get plastic surgery."
When the Vulcan arrived back on board the Ffestinog it was with just the faintest hint of a smile on his face.
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, Docking Bay
Deck 3, Ready Room
0630 Hours
Captain Beddoes cleared his throat as his officers filed into the room, most of them disheveled and bleary-eyed after a rowdy night on the town. He was sympathetic to their plight--many a morning had he been dragged away from his comfortable bed--but there were always sacrifices in the line of duty. Finally, as Sarevok took his place near the front of the table, Beddoes closed and locked the doors and flicked a tiny switch on his chair.
The switch was of the many "improvements" secretly added during the Ffestinog's refit after the war against the Interstellar Concordium and was linked to a electromagnetic pulse emitter tuned to render any recording devices useless. A useful precaution, if nothing else.
"As most of you know, I usually don't do these things bright and early," he began, "but there are some things that just can't wait. What we're going to tell you right is top secret, you hear. And I want all of you to forget it the moment you leave this room. You good with me?"
His experienced officers merely nodded--they had gone through this routine many times already--but his cadets were breathless with excitement even in their sleep-deprived state. "See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing," said his helm officer laconically.
"Okay. Sarevok, hit it."
The lights in the room darkened and the holoprojector in the middle of the table leapt to life.
"This is a rough rendering of the area where we conducted our sweep of the Kabrigati object," the Vulcan said. "If you recall, there was an asteroid field bearing zero-two-nine--" The computer formed a group of spinning rocks where he pointed. "--and one bearing two-zero-zero. There might be slight variations in position, but you will all agree that these are the respective positions of the fields, correct?"
Nods.
"Good. Now I want you to keep this projection in mind while I display the next set of points." The computer's carefully plotted asteroids dematerialized, replaced with analogous green lines. Meanwhile, another group of asteroids appeared, exactly where the original ones had been. "This is taken from an Intel report filed by Admiral Kieran Forester and myself not long after the incident at Vulcan. Declassified documents suggest that we were patrolling this sector. Those reports are correct--up to a point. In reality, we had been authorized to conduct a mission back to the past in order to retrieve...crucial files...from the log of the Peacekeeper, destroyed in action against the Imperials."
The officers began to whisper excitedly until Captain Beddoes slammed a very heavy book on the table.
"Thank you, Captain," the Vulcan said serenely. "Now, judging from the similarities between the first sector displayed and this one, I believe it is not unreasonable to say that the place where we found the Kabrigati object and the place where we went back in time are one and the same. During that operation, I recommended the use of phase cloak so that the standard timeline would not be as disturbed."
"So why wasn't the Hyperion destroyed?" All of this was news to the captain. "You saw what that energy vortex did to our ship."
"That was the reason I said that it was not as destructive as it might have seemed. I could not reveal details of the operation at the time."
"You couldn't reveal anything at the time," muttered Beddoes. As much as he appreciated the Vulcan overlooking his confidentiality agreements, he wasn't at all used to not being in the know. Fortunately, Sarevok either didn't hear him or chose to ignore him. After the incident in the admiral's quarters, he had realized that there was more to diplomacy than blunt statements of fact..
"Now as you all know, the Hyperion and all of the other ships in TacFleet were given countless improvements after a comprehensive evaluation of their performance during the war against the ISC. One of these was improved hull plating, developed to counteract the plasmatic pulsar device used by enemy commanders. Experience has shown that this new type of plating can withstand the impact of a fully charged plasma torpedo without breaking. It is not impenetrable, but it would be tremendously difficult to break into it. As expected, after the operation the Hyperion's hull was completely unscathed--with the exception of a small breach in Engineering close to the cloakfield generator. This was marked off as an unintended side effect of the phase cloak. However, now that I have experienced much the same phenomenon aboard the Ffestinog, I have a suspicion that this breach was much more than it seemed to me at the time. Somehow, radiation from the energy field managed to leak through the Hyperion's force fields and contaminate our bridge."
The captain was pleasantly surprised. Sarevok had just admitted that he had made a mistake, albeit in more than a hundred and fifty words. "So what do we do now?"
"What we are doing now is a direct violation of Starfleet protocol, Captain, and I hope you realize that." Beddoes groaned, waiting for the inevitable lecture. "However, considering the circumstances, I think that we ought to do everything in our power to discover what lies at the root of this, since we are, as you humans would put it, 'already in some deep shit.' "
"Even if that means hacking into Starfleet computer databases?"
"When shall we start?"
Captain Beddoes felt a small smile tug at his face. By God, the Vulcan was finally learning.
---------------------------------------------
USS Hyperion-C, En Route to System Vulcan
Holodeck
0630 Hours
Immediately after the death of Boris Kurchatov, Engineering had been cleared of nonessential personnel. Only people that were directly involved in the running of the warp core were to be allowed inside, and only if they were wearing anti-radiation bodysuits. All of the idle engineers found themselves inexorably drawn to Sickbay, where Caitlin Denning, unusually drained, stood in reverent silence in front of Kurchatov's corpse. They were followed by the rest of the crew, who, even though they had never known the chief engineer, felt it their duty to pay their respects to the fallen.
Which was why there was nobody to see Kieran crying silently in the library of the Iron Throne.
The admiral had seen death before. When he was young he had watched countless crewmembers killed countless ways, their faces frozen in a rictus of pain, images burning themselves into his mind and never letting him forget that their deaths had been partly due to his stupidity, his foolishness, his absofuckinglutely stubbornness in refusing to acknowledge the terrible responsibilities that had been accorded him when he accepted command of his ship. When he was young he didn't care as much. He hadn't been best friends with any of those crewmembers: He hadn't taken them out to dinner, he hadn't hosted them in his home on Dantar, he hadn't really had the chance to form a bond with them before they were cut down in wartime. It was wartime. People died in wartime. The only thing he could do was get over it.
Then some of his closest friends started dying in wartime and everything changed.
Kieran didn't feel young anymore. He had already seen more years than most humans had ever seen, and he had borne witness to an entire range of history, from the General War to the war against the Imperials. But before, there was always something in his spirit which had still tried to look for the good things in life. Now even that small consolation had been crushed by Fate. When it came down to it, Kieran realized, humanity at his best simply couldn't even compare to the overwhelming power of Time. Humanity could do everything in his power to reverse it, to slow it, or to ignore it, but Time still would tick onward no matter what had been invented. For Kieran, that was an amazingly depressing thought.
He didn't turn around when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. "Dane," the admiral said hollowly, aimlessly flipping through a copy of "A Tale of Two Cities." "What are you doing here?"
"To see how you were, first of all. And to ask for permission to scan the engine room personally."
"Permission denied." Kieran half-heartedly hoped that the order would work, but knowing Dane Kjolgaard, it probably wouldn't. And it didn't.
"As first officer of this ship, I have an obligation to safeguard it from any hazards--"
"And I have an obligation to safeguard the lives of my crewmembers. The radiation leak could be dangerous. Until our engineers detect it and patch it up, nobody can go in there. Is that clear?"
"Kieran, I know that--"
"Is that clear?"
Kjolgaard shook his head. "I can't have those inexperienced fools scanning for rad leaks in the warp core--they've never done anything of the sort since Starfleet decided to cut funding to the training program."
"You could die, you know that?"
"I know that."
"And you still want to do it? Even though you'll end up with all of your body melted into an unrecognizable pulp?"
"I will wear a radiation suit--"
"No!" "A Tale of Two Cities" fell to the floor with a dull thump. "You can't do that! You're one of the only people I have left, Dane. I can't let you die, Dane, I can't let you die--"
"You mean you won't let me die. You mean that because of your own selfish interests you want to sacrifice two bastards who aren't even married yet just to keep me alive. Isn't that right, Kieran? Isn't that what you want?"
The admiral didn't answer.
"We used to be like them," Kjolgaard said quietly, his hand never leaving his captain's shoulder. "Remember the time we snuck into Professor Fischer's lab and replaced the stuff in his test tubes with sugar water?" He chuckled. "Almost got us kicked out of the place, but we weren't. We were too good. But now, now, now...it's all different. Look at this around you." The first officer picked up the book and brushed some dust off of the cover. "If you had told Admiral Moore that a hundred years later people would be able to recreate the past he would have sent you to the funny bin."
Kjolgaard sighed. "It's past our time, Kieran. We can put on new uniforms and command new ships but you know as well as I do that they're just idle pretensions. Let the new generation take over now. Let them replace the stuff in your test tubes with sugar water. It'll almost get them kicked out of the place but they won't be. Since they're too good. We're just old graying relics of antiquity, my friend. Just let go."
"I can't! I've lost too much, I've given up too much--"
"Fuck you!" Anger exploded within the first officer like a volcano. "When will you stop being so goddamn selfish? You're supposed to be thinking about your crew, not about yourself! But that's all right. That's all right." Dane stepped away from his captain. "You do what you think is best and I'll do what I think is best. I'm going to go to the warp core. And there's nothing you can do to stop me."
"Commodore Kjolgaard! I order you to come back! That's a direct--"
Dane Kjolgaard turned back towards his friend, his steely blue eyes glinting in the pale light of the library. "Go to hell," he said simply and walked out the door.
Holodeck
0758 Hours
Kieran tapped his communicator again. "Kieran to Caitlin. Are you there?"
And this time, she finally responded. "You can stop that now." The CMO sounded weak and drained. "He's dead."
---------------------------------------------
USS Ffestinog, Docking Bay
Deck 3, Ready Room
0800 Hours
An hour and a half later, Sarevok hadn't even managed to crack the first passcode guarding entrance to Starfleet's classified files and Captain Beddoes was beginning to doubt those who said that being a slicer was a glamorous job. Definitely not James Bond, he thought wryly as the Vulcan punched in another command that was (like the previous six thousand four hundred and fifty) rejected. As usual.
"Perhaps we must try another permutation," Sarevok muttered to himself. "If the alpha-delta sequence can be considered to be analogous to..." His voice trailed away as he punched his complex calculations into the computer. "That should do it."
"Pardon me for asking but..." Beddoes tapped the Vulcan on the shoulder hesitantly. "If this one doesn't work how many more permutations are there?"
The Vulcan stared at him levelly. "I do not have a precise figure, but a reasonable approximation would be somewhere in the hundred thousands. If I had to give you a 'ballpark,' however, I would say that we could be finished in the next four days."
"Four days. You told me four minutes, you lying bastard!"
"The system is considerably more complicated than I expected, Captain. I hope you do not expect Starfleet to guard its secrets with passwords Ittulian hackers eat for breakfast."
"Well, I'm not going to wait four days. If this one doesn't work, then we do things my way."
"This one will work."
"If it doesn't."
"It will."
"It won't."
"It will."
"It won't."
"It will."
The computer beeped and two words appeared on the screen, written in boldface script: "Access Denied." It didn't.
Beddoes grinned. "My way."
Administration Deck
0810 Hours
"You see," said Beddoes as they walked side by side in the busy corridors, "almost every human female I've known has an affinity for exotic things, if you know what I mean, and from my experience that means Vulcans. So this is what we're going to do. We can't access the databases from our ship's computer since we don't have the access codes. And although it's normal Starfleet procedure to make sure that this information is available only to people who rank high enough, I'm pretty sure that Admiral Sanzei--like most admirals--will be too impatient to stick all the codes into the computer himself. If my guess is right, he's got a few lackeys to do it for him. All we need to do is to convince one of them to get our file."
The Vulcan nodded. "I see. So while you distract his 'lackeys' I go into his office and recover the information we need. A very elegant plan, Captain. Very impressive."
"That's not the plan. I know Admiral Sanzei--he presided at the christening of the Ffestinog, after all--and I think we both know what will happen if he catches you anywhere near his office again."
"I must say that I am confused. If I am not going to access the file, then what is the point of my being here?"
"I checked the duty roster today and the same yeoman who let you two days ago is there. A female yeoman." Beddoes whistled suggestively. "Nice stuff, if you ask me."
"And are you implying, Captain, that I make an attempt to retrieve this information by telling this yeoman that I would be willing to engage in various physical activities with her?"
"That's the gist of it, yeah."
The Vulcan looked absolutely horrified. "Might I suggest that we return to our quarters to test the other permutations before we resort to such desperate forms of persuasion?"
"A deal's a deal, right?" He winked. "Good luck, Pointy. I'll see you back at the ship." The captain walked away into the crowd and soon disappeared in the crush of bodies.
Sarevok began regretting that he hadn't punched Jason Beddoes when he had the chance.
Administration Deck
0815 Hours
If the Vulcan had bothered to look, he might have realized that the yeoman on duty really was quite attractive. In fact, in other circumstances, his mind would have registered the fact long ago even though he probably wouldn't have admitted it. However, Sarevok was so nervous that he didn't even notice that she was talking to him.
"I said, what do you want?" she asked again. Her voice had a charming Irish lilt, and it was currently tinged with obvious impatience.
"Oh." Sarevok mentally chastised himself at his lack of attention. "My captain has asked me to ask you for a favor."
"And that would be what?"
"He has need of access to classified data regarding the Kabrigati phenomenon--Every instance it was observed and recorded. And he also informed me that human females were extremely susceptible to a sort of 'Vulcan charm.' As such, I was instructed to ask if you wish to partake in an intimate exchange of bodily fluids if you happen to be unwilling to divulge this information."
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa...slow down, slow down. What did you say you need?"
"It is not I who has need of the information, it is my captain. He has need of access to classified data--"
"Got it. I meant the next half."
"If you were unwilling to divulge the information I was to ask you whether you wanted to partake in an intimate exchange of bodily fluids."
The yeoman looked at him for a second and then burst into laughter. "You mean--that?"
"I do not know of the 'that' which you're referring to."
She shook her head as if to some secret joke. "Never mind. So I've heard that Vulcans are incapable of lying. Is that true?"
"That is a correct statement."
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "It's a risk, but you look pretty harmless. Listen, I'll see what I can do. Wait here for a second--I'll be right back." The yeoman put her notepad down on a desk and went into the office. If Sarevok hadn't been so relieved, he would have noticed that her face was tinged a bright pink.
A few minutes later, the yeoman emerged from the admiral's office holding a PADD in her hand. "That's all I could dig up," she said. "Not much, but it's the only stuff in the database I have access to."
Sarevok glanced at the information. "That will be quite sufficient," he finally said. "I take it, then, that you do not wish to partake in an intimate exchange of bodily fluids at this time?"
"Maybe I'll call you up on that offer later." The yeoman grinned and gave the embarrassed Vulcan a light peck on the cheek. "Talk to you soon." Still looking rather red, she disappeared into the admiral's office.
As Sarevok stood there stupefied, a gaggle of young engineers walked past him murmuring enviously. "Damn, that's one lucky bastard," one of them said. "Why do all the pretty girls have to go for the pointy ears? It's enough to make me want to get plastic surgery."
When the Vulcan arrived back on board the Ffestinog it was with just the faintest hint of a smile on his face.