Behind Blue Eyes

By Thalia Drogna

When I smile, tell me some bad news,
Before I laugh and act like a fool.

– Behind Blue Eyes, The Who

Trip woke up to find an arm draped over his waist. He was lying in a bed that wasn't his own wearing only his boxer shorts with a warm body beside him. It was pleasant and it took him a moment to remember how he had ended up in this position. The arm belonged to T'Pol and she had invited him to share her bed, albeit platonically. More importantly she hadn't freaked out completely at the revelation that Trip had been part of a black ops unit and had even indicated that she had some comparable past experiences. It was the first time since Colonel Darwin had contacted Enterprise that Trip had felt even vaguely happy. He just lay there enjoying the moment and then the spell was broken, the com sounded.

"Archer to T'Pol."

T'Pol was immediately alert and carefully climbed over Trip to reach the com. "T'Pol here, go ahead Captain."

"We've picked up a Klingon battle cruiser on out long range sensors," said Archer.

"I am on my way," said T'Pol, cutting the communication.

"Klingons," said Trip.

"Yes," replied T'Pol.

"We'd hoped that they wouldn't get wind of this," said Trip.

"You anticipated their involvement?" she asked.

"It was always a possibility," said Trip. "But I guess I thought we'd been careful enough that they hadn't worked it out."

"The Klingons have extensive spy networks," said T'Pol.

"I'd noticed," replied Trip.

"I must get to the bridge," said T'Pol.

"Me too," said Trip, he scrambled out of bed grabbing his overalls as he did so. "Better shower and put on some clean clothes first. I'll see you there." He pulled on his crumpled clothes rapidly. "Thanks for last night T'Pol, you have no idea how much I needed a good night's sleep." T'Pol inclined her head in acknowledgement. He gave her one of his trademark grins and with that he dashed out of T'Pol's quarters and towards his own.

It was only once he had showered and changed that he thought to call Colonel Darwin and inform him of the situation too. The guest quarters were on the way to the bridge so he decided to simply call in on the way.

Darwin opened the door at the first ring of the bell. "Come in Commander," he said.

"No time, sir. I just came by to report a long range sensor contact with a Klingon vessel," said Trip. "I don't have any further details but I'm on my way to the bridge."

They both knew what this meant. "Damn," said Darwin. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to deal with them this time. Lead the way, Commander. I'm joining you on the bridge."

They entered the bridge and Trip went to his station beside Reed. T'Pol was already sitting at her science station looking intently at the readings that she was receiving. Archer half turned in his seat to look at Darwin, before looking over at T'Pol.

"What does the Vulcan database say, T'Pol?" he asked.

"It is a D5 class Klingon battle cruiser. Usually they carry a crew of twenty and are capable of warp six. It is armed with disrupter cannons," said T'Pol.

"Colonel, perhaps you can shed some light on why a Klingon battle cruiser is on a heading for Deneb IV," said Archer.

"They're going there for the same reason that we are. The ship that the ESS Venture found," said Darwin.

"Mr Mayweather, drop us out of warp," said Archer, calmly. Mayweather looked a little perplexed but he obeyed the command.

"Captain, what are you doing? We have to reach Deneb before the Klingons," said Darwin urgently. Trip looked over at Archer but kept quiet. He hadn't expected Archer to play this card and given his current record with Archer he'd be better off letting Darwin handle this.

"We're not going anywhere until someone tells me what's going on," said Archer. "I'm not taking Enterprise into a shooting match with the Klingons without a good reason."

"Captain, you have your orders from Admiral Forest," said Darwin. "We are to proceed to Deneb IV with all possible haste."

"Those orders also state that I am in charge of this mission until we reach Deneb IV," said Archer. "We haven't reached Deneb IV yet and that means I still decide what we do. I'm not ordering this ship anywhere until I have a better idea of what we're getting ourselves into. I've got some idea of the way that you ran Special Projects and I will not allow you to carry that same gung-ho attitude over to my ship," said Archer. "You have a decision to make, Colonel."

"Colonel," said Trip. "We have to tell him." Hoshi and Travis exchanged confused glances.

"You leave me no choice, Captain," said Darwin. "Let's discuss this in your ready room."

"T'Pol, Commander Tucker," said Archer indicating that they should join them. Trip didn't fail to notice the formal way that the Captain addressed him.

"Not the Sub-commander," said Darwin.

"She's my first officer, I won't leave her out of this," said Archer.

"She's also a Vulcan," said Darwin.

"My ship, my terms," said Archer. Darwin sighed but indicated for Archer to lead the way to his ready room.

"Right, I want the full story and I want it now," said Archer when the door had shut behind them.

"It was the final mission before the unit was disbanded," said Darwin. "We took the Thak Tikh to a planet called Faranor."

"Thak Tikh?" asked Archer.

"The name of the Andorian ship, means Storm Bringer," said Trip, his eyes on the floor.

"I am not familiar with any planets named Faranor," said T'Pol.

"It was what the locals called it," replied Trip. "That isn't really the beginning of the story though." He sighed and began the tale of something that he would rather forget. Something which he'd desperately been trying to get past for the last ten years.

Darwin had called Trip into his ready room on board the Thak Tikh. "We've got a new mission, Lieutenant," he said.

"What's on the cards this time? If you're talking to me then I guess it's something technical that your guys can't cope with," said Trip.

"Trip, you've been with us three years, you even salute like a MACO, you're one of the guys now," said Darwin.

"Never thought of it like that before," said Trip.

"We're going back to Earth," said Darwin. "Briefly anyway. We're picking up an addition to the team for this mission. She's a civilian archaeologist."

"Civilian archaeologist? There are two parts of that that I don't like, civilian and archaeologist. Why do we need her?" asked Trip.

"This is the mission," he handed Trip a padd.

Trip read for a moment. The padd detailed an ancient alien city which now lay ruined and had lots of points of interest for their archaeologist. "This isn't a mission, it's a dig site," said Trip. "Major, we're Special Projects not a science team."

"Scroll down to the readings that we picked up," said Darwin.

"What the hell?" said Trip. "These readings... I thought the civilisation on the planet was primitive, pre-warp."

"It is. We think there's a cache of alien technology down there, just waiting for someone to come and get it," said Darwin.

Trip smiled. "You sure know how to cheer me up, Major."

"I want you to study that data and learn as much as you can about what's down there before we go planet-side," said Darwin.

"Yes, sir," replied Trip with enthusiasm. "So who's this archaeologist?"

"Her name is Antonia Karasta, her family are military and she was a member of the British Territorial Army. She knows how to keep her mouth shut and she understands military discipline. She's also one of the top xeno- archaeologists on Earth," said Darwin.

Trip nodded. "If we need an Archaeologist it sounds like she's the right one for the job," said Trip.

"Glad you approve, Lieutenant," said the Major with a smile, taking the sting out of what could have been seen as a reprimand. "How's the engine? All looking good down there?"

"Purring like a kitten," replied Trip, "if Andoria had kittens, which I'm pretty sure it doesn't." A few more pleasantries were exchanged and they set course for Earth for the first time in over a year.

Antonia Karasta had coffee coloured skin and flowing long black hair which she kept tied back in a neat pony tail. She was a small woman in both height and build, in her late twenties and with piercing brown eyes. Being the only non-MACO in the unit, which Darwin seemed to think would help put their new member at ease, Trip had been despatched to collect Antonia and take her to the ship. They had hit it off immediately, she had a sparkle about her that Trip loved. By the time they had got back to the Thak Tikh they had formed the beginnings of a serious friendship. After two months travel to Faranor they had got to know each other pretty well.

Trip still couldn't forget the look on Antonia's face as he had shown her around the Thak Tikh for the first time. She asked all the right questions. When Trip had shown her the engine she had been duly impressed and wanted to know how it worked. He had taken her down to the Armoury and Carter had been overjoyed when she asked him what the blast yield of the cannons was. She talked martial arts with Hathaway and suggested that maybe the Captain could help her brush up on her kick boxing. Even though the MACOs tried to call her Ma'am she insisted on Antonia, reasoning that she didn't have a rank, having left the TA some years earlier to concentrate on her academic career and being called Ma'am made her feel old. It reminded Trip of his battle to get the MACOs to use his nickname.

She was first and foremost an archaeologist though, and she didn't have the level of combat training that the other MACOs had. It wasn't expected that she would need it for this mission though so Darwin made the decision that she would be better spending her time studying the information that they had on the ruined city than in intensive combat training like Trip had been through. Hathaway didn't like that, she didn't want to take someone down to an alien planet if they couldn't defend themselves, but as Darwin pointed out, Antonia could defend herself. She just wasn't a trained killer like Hathaway. Besides the MACOs would be there to protect her if necessary. The natives of the planet were supposedly friendly and they wouldn't be landing anywhere near their settlements anyway.

Faranor was a sparsely inhabited planet, with less than ten thousand people living on it. It was full of dry deserts and open grass plains. The ruins were located in one of the desert stretches. The ancient city was modest by modern standards but it was large enough that it would take a few days to survey and get what they had come for. The buildings were in various states of decay and the sand had blown in drifts around them. The buildings were sand coloured and blended in with the desert. The bare, ruined spires of the city looked like the bones of a picked clean skeleton, poking into the sky. The architecture was distinctly alien in appearance with strange curves and unusually shaped doorways. The MACOs broke into pairs to start scanning the area.

"Why the hell are we on this goddamned dust ball?" said Rush as he scanned the ruins. He hated the desert, dust got into their weapons and everything else. He looked over at his partner, Arroya, in her desert gear in muted shades of beige and brown to blend in with the environment. People thought that deserts were hot places but the wind was making this one very cold. "We're MACOs not the Survey Corps."

"You were at the mission briefing the same as the rest of us," said Arroya.

"I can understand why they need Antonia here and Trip, even Didier has stuff to do translating those marks on the wall, but us, we're just here to map the place. There aren't any threats, no infiltration, nothing to blow up," said Rush. "We're in the middle of the desert, there's nothing but us around for miles."

"Why do you always want to blow stuff up?" asked Arroya.

"It's what I signed on to do," said Rush. "I can't help being a pyromaniac."

"Sure you can't. Whatever it is we're here to get has to be important," said Arroya. "The readings that Trip had were pretty wild."

"What would you know?" asked Rush.

"Hey, if you paid attention you'd have picked that up at the briefing too," said Arroya. "There's some serious alien technology down here."

"Yeah, but what? I mean is it weapons or are we just talking alien dishwashers?" asked Rush, semi-seriously.

"Power readings like we were getting, it has to be something more than a dishwasher," said Arroya, looking at her scanner. "Hang on, I'm getting something interesting. Trip will want to see this." She fumbled in her top pocket for her communicator. "Arroya to Tucker," she said into her communicator.

"Trip here, what you got Corporal?" came the southern drawl.

"We're getting some interesting readings here, Trip. You should come over and have a look," said Arroya.

"Well it's got to be more interesting than what we've got," said Trip. "We're on our way. Get hold of the Major and tell him and Antonia to meet us at your location."

"Affirmative, Lieutenant. We'll be waiting for you," she replied.

Trip and his partner, Dempsey, took a few minutes to get from their area to Rush and Arroya's position, by which point Major Darwin and Antonia had already arrived. They stood in front of a sand coloured building that was mostly rubble but had obviously been fairly impressive before it had been ruined.

"What we got?" asked Trip. Arroya passed him her scanner and showed him the readings she'd been taking. Trip whistled.

"That's some serious energy output," he said.

"Any ideas as to what it might be, Lieutenant?" asked Darwin.

"None at all," said Trip. "I think we just hit the jackpot though, this is the same thing that we picked up from orbit, just stronger. It's a weird radiation signature, looks kind of familiar but I can't place it. I need to get in and have a look at it."

"We'll see what we can do about that," said Darwin.

"Looks as if the structure extends under the ground, quite some distance from the geophysics," said Antonia. "This is just amazing."

"Ain't it just," said Trip, intently gazing at the readings he was getting.

"What do you call geophysics anyway when you're on an alien planet?" said Antonia.

"You'd better ask Didier that one," said Trip.

"It looks like this was some type of municipal building," said Antonia, "judging by its placement in the city and this courtyard in front of it. I suppose this is what you could call the business district."

"This is all very interesting," said Darwin, "but perhaps we should actually go and take a look at what we've found."

"Yes, sir," said Trip, enthusiastically. He reminded Darwin of a kid with a new toy. In fact so did Antonia, she'd been voraciously absorbing any information that she could find ever since they had been on the planet's surface. Trip led the way into the building, picking his way over the debris from the fallen ceiling and the random bits of masonry that lay around. After making their way a fair distance into the building they found what looked like some sort of control room.

"Computer consoles," said Trip as he uncovered some metal table structures. "Look pretty sophisticated." He brushed the dust off one of them. "And they still have power. How old did you say this city was?" he asked Antonia.

"Over four thousand years. They can't possibly still have power," said Antonia and she went to stand beside him to verify what he'd said. "The metal would have degraded by now if nothing else..." and she trailed off, Trip was right the consoles did still have power.

"I think we need Didier's help with this," said Trip. "I won't be able to make head or tail of this unless we can translate some of the labels."

Darwin called Didier, Carter and Kanatova to come and join them while Trip continued his examination of the various control stations.

"This can't have been built by the people on this planet, can it?" asked Arroya as she looked around her. Her torch traced out the patterns of an alien design on the walls that could have been writing or simply decoration.

"No," said Antonia. "It's not even the same style of architecture and the languages are completely different. I think we're dealing with an outpost of an entirely different alien civilisation."

"Couldn't their civilisation have collapsed back to the level of technology that they have now?" asked Darwin.

"Unlikely," said Antonia. "It's just too different to the native civilisation. I won't rule anything out until I've had more time to study the city but all my instincts are telling me that we're dealing with a different group completely. The people that built this city had space travel and were warp capable. The native Faranoans don't show any signs of ever having got that far. I've read the Vulcan database files on this planet."

"How did you get hold of the Vulcan database files?" asked Dempsey. "I've been trying to get access to those for Special Projects for the past three years."

"I've got some contacts," said Antonia. "Our pointy eared friends are much more prepared to hand out information to science establishments than they are to the military. You'd be surprised what you can find out if you know the right people."

"I thought I did know the right people," replied Dempsey.

Darwin's com chirped and he thumbed it open, it was Hathaway who had been left on board the Thak Tikh to hold the fort while they conducted their exploration. "What is it Captain?" asked Darwin.

"This may be nothing but we just picked up a Klingon ship on the long range sensors," said Hathaway.

"Any indication that they're coming in our direction?" asked Darwin.

"They are on a heading towards this sector of space. No indication that they've spotted us yet but I would feel a lot happier if we could get out of here before they get any closer," said Hathaway. "They aren't known for their tolerance of other races and they've had a couple of incidents with the Andorians recently. They might decide to come over and exact some retribution."

"Noted, Captain. We need another day or so down here. Have we got that sort of time?" asked Darwin.

"It's cutting it fine. It's only because the Andorians made such damn good sensors that we've got this early warning," said Hathaway. "If the Klingons decide to come this direction then they'll be here by tomorrow afternoon. Maybe sooner if it's one of those D5s we keep hearing about."

"Last intelligence was that they're capable of warp six," said Dempsey.

"Understood, Captain," said Darwin. "We'll be as quick as we can. Keep me informed of their movements. Darwin out." He looked around at the members of his unit. "You heard her, we're working to a deadline so let's make this as quick as possible."

There was a chorus of "yes sir" from around the room. Everyone got their heads down.

"We need to get down to wherever those weird readings are coming from," said Trip. "We're still only scratching the surface of what's in this building."

"Well let's get to it, Lieutenant," said Darwin. "How do we get down there?"

Arroya took out her scanner again. "There's a staircase down to the lower levels in that direction," she said pointing towards the back of the building.

They made their way to the staircase and Trip looked down into the bowels of the building. "Lights are still on," he said.

"That must be one hell of a power supply to still be going after four thousand years," said Rush.

It took them the best part of an hour to make their way to the source of the strange readings which Trip had detected. They finally turned a corner and found the room that they were looking for. It was protected by a heavy steel door which was locked. Arroya and Trip managed to crack the lock using Trip's electronic lock pick and Arroya's knowledge of how to circumvent locks but it took them over an hour. Trip had the distinct impression that they weren't meant to go into that room.

Trip was the first to enter the chamber. It was lit by a bright white oval of light about two metres in height in the corner of the room. The light was bizarre and it hurt Trip's eyes to look at it and if he turned his head too quickly it sort of disappeared or followed him, he wasn't exactly sure which. It was almost as if the light wasn't really there at all. The light was strange enough but in the centre of the room was a spherical black metal box. It was held in place by thin metal supports that jutted out from the floor and ceiling. It was the black metal box that was the source of the readings Trip had been getting. Around the edges of the room were more computer consoles and what seemed to be readouts monitoring something.

"This could take a while," said Trip.

"We don't have a while," replied Darwin looking around himself in wonder. "We'll just have to do the best that we can with the time available. Sorry Trip, I know this is an Engineering paradise. Maybe we can come back once the Klingons have moved on."

They worked solidly trying to decipher the alien computer readouts and the scans that they took for the next few hours until Major Darwin called a halt. Everyone needed to rest, not least himself. He knew that Trip and Antonia would work through the night if he gave them the chance but he didn't need them worn out through over work. He needed them fresh to be able to work out the problem in front of them. They climbed back out of the structure and set up the tents just outside the building.

Trip settled down in his tent with a stack of padds, he wanted to look up some additional information that he thought might shed some light on the readings that he was getting. He fed in his readings into the padd and set it to search for anything similar in it's database. He was asleep when the padd beeped at him to let him know that it had returned his results. It was sufficiently loud that it woke him out of the light doze he'd fallen into. He read through it in complete disbelief.

"Hawking radiation," he said quietly, in awe. "It's a goddamned black hole. They're using a goddamned black hole to power this city."