Chapter Twelve
When Malcolm cracked open the hatch of the Orion ship a sour aroma wafted from the interior. Archer could see T'Pol's nostrils flare at the scent, but she refrained from commenting. After nearly three days of chasing, they'd finally tracked down one of the small warships that had attacked Enterprise.
The ship had put up a token fight once they realised that Enterprise had broken the scattering code that had protected them in the initial encounter. Malcolm had spent fifteen minutes with two of Trip's engineers and a chemical torch. The hatch was no longer an obstacle.
"Are you sure about this T'Pol?" he checked with her yet again, she had insisted on being the point man for the boarding party, once again asserting that the pirates wouldn't hazard harming her.
"It would be illogical for another to assume the danger, Captain," she said in one of her 'Vulcan' tones, "They won't run the risk of firing on me."
"Really Sub-Commander, I think you overestimate the effect you have on these people." Malcolm stood up, taking off the heavy welding helm off his brow and wiping the beaded sweat, "Are you absolutely sure they won't fire on you?"
"No" she said, "but there is a high possibility that they will not, significantly higher than the likelihood that they would ignore you."
"At least take a phase pistol with ya'," Trip handed her one of the bulky human weapons for the locker that the armoury officers brought with them.
"I assure you Commander I can take care of myself."
"With what? Your sleeves?" she was wearing a full formal robe over her uniform, so no one would mistake her for one of the humans.
"Trip…" the Captain, said warningly, "I'm sure the Sub-Commander has a plan…" he was not too entirely sure about her 'plan' either.
"Yes" she watched dispassionately as Malcolm and the engineers finished punching through the solid door. As they backed up to give it a good running, shove she put out a hand. "Allow me"
"Sub-Commander…" he trailed off as she walked up to the door and gave it a heave, it fell open as though it weighed nothing.
A strangled shout emerged form the interior of the vessel as she deliberately flared out the sleeves and front panels of the robe to accentuate the 'Vulcan-ness' of her person. Trip muttered something about a 'flair for the dramatic'.
"Shield your eyes" she pulled the pin on some kind of grenade, Jon covered his face long enough to hear the muffled impact. A thick cloudy smoke poured out of the hatch as stifled thumps sounded just inside.
"What in blue blazes… that was an Antaran smoke grenade, Sub-Commander! Where on Earth did you get that? They're not standard compliment!" Leave it to Malcolm to focus on the details. It was a question, however, that Jon wanted answered as well.
"I spent ten years of my life working against Orion pirates in the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Cn625 nebulas for the Vulcan Ministry of Security. It has been…" she paused, and seemed almost surprised at the recollection, "Nearly thirty years, but I do believe I'm quite capable of handling an incursion into one small scout ship."
"That doesn't explain where you got the grenade"
"Standard issue for security operatives"
"You're no longer a security operative"
"I said it was standard issue," she paused, a certain smugness creeping into her voice, "If they never bothered to re-claim it, that is none of my concern"
"Just how much of this 'standard issue' did they never bother to re-claim?" he asked, sounding amused.
"Enough" the smoke ceased pouring out quite as thickly, he eyes focused back on the door, "Rest assured Mr. Reed, I am not going to mount an armed insurrection aboard Enterprise."
"Not me I worry about" The smoke cleared enough that they could see nearly a half dozen green skinned Orion's laying motionless on the deck, all armed.
"Don't bother checking life signs, they're all dead." She said it emotionlessly as she picked up the empty or presumably empty smoke grenade. She had a tone in her voice that was uncharacteristic. There was no remorse.
"I didn't think Vulcan's killed." Trip said cautiously, as if she was about to whirl around and turn on them as well.
"We've been in active war with the Orion pirates for nearly two millennia. We have liberated over thirty six inhabited systems, sixteen sectors of charted space, forty nebulae, and nearly a hundred asteroid belts." T'Pol accessed a panel in the wall, and began the patient process of hacking into the main computer system.
"That's insane; I can't believe they were ever that powerful. Even we can walk over one their warships." Malcolm stepped over the bodies, followed by his security team. "They traffic in narcotics and slaves mostly, not exactly a great empire if you ask me."
"They're really more of a nuisance than anything now," Archer said softly, realising how much the Vulcans had to do with the reduction.
"We lost nearly fifty thousand Vulcans, not including our allies and the slaves that died before they could be freed. I should hope they are little more than a nuisance." she frowned; the encoding was apparently harder than she had anticipated.
"Why?" Trip asked, "I mean it's not like they ever bothered you? You said they don't even attack Vulcan ships. Seems kinda pre-emptive ta' me."
"There's a reason for that" she gave a slight head tilt of satisfaction as she broke into the Orion system. "My people do not tolerate slavery. We never have, even in the time before the Great Reformation. The Orion's long ago learned that, to borrow a phrase, we will move heaven and earth to eradicate slavery from the galaxy."
Trip opened his mouth to contest that humans didn't tolerate it either but Archer caught him. T'Pol would know better and there was no need to drag up the dirty laundry of human history. Malcolm came up to T'Pol's panel and began to download the specs for the ship.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the screen.
"The interrogation room," she identified, drawing up slightly and stiffening, "You probably don't want to go in there, it won't be pleasant."
Jon was sure he was the only one who heard the tension in her voice as she mentioned the 'interrogation' chamber, he'd found, after that night they spent in his quarters, that he could read her moods and voice a lot better. He'd become a lot more familiar with Vulcan body language. It no longer surprised him when she drew up to her full, albeit slight, stature in offence or hurt. He understood how, if not entirely why, she reacted the way she did.
He came up behind them, pretending to look at the interface. He whispered, softly, so softly that he couldn't really hear it himself. "You don't have to do this"
His hand was on the small of her back, but it was hardly necessary, another more interesting side effect of him spending that much time in her head was her sudden ability to read his thoughts at a distance. Not a great distance, only a few inches, but they no longer needed to touch skin to skin.
I had hoped you would understand why I do, the voice between his ears, he'd become more used to that too, and you must realise by now that you don't need to speak aloud
"Alright Malcolm, Trip, let's get this show on the road, I want answers" as the armoury officer prepared his team to search the ship, he let his hand slide up to T'Pol's shoulder and 'thought' "It feels funny"
"I concur," she said aloud, "Lt. you need to take extra caution, there should be anywhere from four to eight more crew members and they will not submit alive."
"I understand" and began to slow, steady search of the deck. Door by door the armoury team blasted through and secured the engine room, the Orion armoury, and several of the crew quarters.
They worked circularly around the core of the ship, the interrogation room, and the bridge. As they got closer and closer, T'Pol became more and more agitated, until Trip, of all people, noticed.
"Hey you ok?"
"There is a Betazed in the interrogation room. She is in considerable…distress" T'Pol's voice was strained enough for everyone to hear the tension; Malcolm came back from his forward position as the armoury officer and looked concerned.
"What kind of 'distress'? Malcolm asked, calling his team to a halt.
"Considerable" she replied, bringing her brows together in the characteristic Vulcan gesture of concentration.
"Can you home in on it?" he asked eagerly, wanting desperately to find the hostages. Everyone was hoping and praying that Chief Spencer was going to be captive on the ship. That they'd find him alive and well.
"Certainly" she moved again to the head of the column, and they followed T'Pol's mental lead until they heard a bloodcurdling scream. She suddenly swayed at the knees, pointing to the bulkhead on her right, "They're torturing her, blow the panel. BLOW THE PANEL MALCOLM!"
He didn't hesitate, grabbling a penetration grenade, he stuck it to the bulkhead and yanked T'Pol out of the blast radius. The whole floor of the ship bucked, and debris flew all over the corridor. In a flash T'Pol was in the room, green plasma bursts sounding in her wake.
Jon's heart dropped like a stone. Heedless of the danger, and very much like the woman already in there, he shouldered through the security personnel to bull his way into the ragged hole in the bulkhead.
The shooting had stopped. T'Pol was standing there, covered in plasma burns, holding one hand to her jaw and the other to the head of the Betazed woman strapped a table in the middle of the room. Jon knew a mind touch when he saw it.
"Don't touch her," he threw an arm across Trip's chest as he made a move to go to T'Pol. The younger man looked puzzled but held his position. Jon now got a good look at the room, and decided that the Suliban had been taking a few notes from the Orion's on how to treat prisoners.
It was ugly, there were two other women chained to the wall, Malcolm, and the security team were helping to free them. The room was full of vials, of hyposprays, of different kinds of bladed instruments that Jon didn't even hazard a guess at their purpose, but it all looked sinister.
"She needs a mind-healer" T'Pol's voice jarred him out of contemplation. She was still holding her jaw, green blood welling up between her fingers. She seemed a bit shocked, and he now noticed the many plasma burns across her front.
"You need a doctor," Malcolm came up to her holding an auto-suture, "Those plasma burs are nasty."
"Actually they don't hurt at all," she sounded somewhat surprised, but Jon realised that the adrenaline surge, or whatever Vulcan's had that passed for adrenaline, was still running strongly enough that she wasn't feeling anything.
"Hey" Trip's voice cut through the deck, "I think I found the hatch to the bridge"
"Allow me" T'Pol was still trailing a substantial bit of green blood, but she paid it no heed, climbing the ladder and he heard the distinctive sound of a plasma weapon when T'Pol pushed the circular grate up.
She grunted but gave no other indication that the shot had hit. Someone from within the room gave a very feminine gasp of surprise. Malcolm insisted this time that he and the security team go first, so by the time Archer made it to the Orion Bridge, T'Pol was speaking animatedly with a very scantily clad Orion female.
The bridge resembled more of a frat house party room than a starship bridge; there were bottles shattered all over the place. A pole welded to the ceiling, with a chain attached, that apparently was wrenched off the collar of the green-skinned woman.
After a few seconds, the translator kicked in and the language the Orion woman and T'Pol were speaking became understood to all.
"Yes lady," the dancer said, "I remember the incident. My master fought bravely, the Leader presented him with several of the captured slaves, the females. I've never seen pink-skins like them before. The rest were put on the transport and taken to the depot, I never saw any of the males."
"Do have any idea where this depot is?"
"I have better than an idea," the woman sounded triumphant, "They thought I was ignorant, but I have been learning. I know some of the command codes, the stations, and my masters were careless. I even got one of their plasma weapons."
"I realise" T'Pol said wryly, and the green skinned woman flushed darker, "You're a fair shot for never having used it before"
"A thousand apologies my master," the woman dropped to the deck in an unmistakable posture of submission and supplication, "if I had known…"
"I am not your master, nor is my Captain, nor is anyone but yourself. Take charge of your own fate, little sister, any one of this crew would have done what I did in my place" T'Pol pulled the woman up from the deck and placed her hands on her shoulders as she spoke.
"But you have freed me… my life is yours to command" the woman sounded confused.
"Then my command is thus: take your life, and for every wrong that has been inflicted on you, give back to the galaxy long life, happiness, and prosperity." T'Pol sounded weary, as if the events of the day were finally starting to catch up to her, "You are superior in every way to the animals that have kept you in bondage. Never believe any different."
"Yes my lady" T'Pol was beginning to breathe heavily, the shock starting to catch up with her. The Orion wound an arm around her and supported the Vulcan, Jon moved to help, but T'Pol waved him off with a shake of her head.
"Uh…Sub-commander?" Malcolm sounded uncertain and looked a little green around the gills, no pun intended.
"Yes Mr. Reed?"
"You might want to look at this," he moved away from a panel in the bulkhead, revealing a glass display case. A close look made Jon's stomach turn. The case was a display of ears. Pointy ears.
"I know Mr. Reed," she sounded even wearier, "They are considered trophies. If you wouldn't mind, I'm sure there are many families on Vulcan that would appreciate the remains"
"Ah… no I, I don't mind at all" he tried to sound professional, but it was hard.
Jon went over and wrapped T'Pol's other arm around he shoulders, and made eye contact with the Orion, "Let's get her to sickbay"
"Sick bay?"
"The doctor" Understanding dawned behind the golden yellow eyes and she helped him haul the increasingly unresponsive Sub-Commander to sickbay.