Red Rain
By Thalia Drogna
AN: Red herrings? Me? Well maybe just a few pink ones…
In the generator room on Water's Edge Kanatova looked at Trip.
"You saved that little girl's life," said Kanatova. "If she'd been left behind, they would have killed her, or she would have died when the Loyalists attacked."
"Don't try to persuade me that we did a good thing, Anna, because nothing about that mission was good," said Trip.
"New Copenhagen was a bad one," said Kanatova.
"They were all bad. But why am I still having bad dreams about it more than ten years later?" asked Trip, in despair.
"Trip, a ten year old girl was killed in front of you and the svinoi made her sister watch," said Kanatova.
"Yeah but there was something else as well," said Trip. "She reminded me of Lizzie when she was that age. The long blonde hair and blue eyes, I kept seeing Lizzie in her place. Eventually it was as if I couldn't see anything else. Ever since we docked at Jupiter station, Kaira's been back in my dreams, swapping places with Lizzie. My two worst nightmares decided to move in together."
"Sounds like you've had it tough," said Kanatova. "You went back on the sleeping pills?"
"For a bit," said Trip, "but Phlox wasn't too keen on me taking them for an extended period of time so I ended up trying Vulcan neuropressure."
Kanatova raised an eyebrow.
"Don't knock it, it worked. Slept like a baby after every session," said Trip. "Well except the one where I fell asleep in the middle."
"The reason I asked about your sleep was because you're not the only one getting bad dreams," said Kanatova. "Have you been dreaming about Karavia?"
"Yeah, last night," said Trip. "How did you know?"
"I have been too. Your birthday party and then the mission. We're not the only ones either, Rush, Fenner and Hathaway both came to see me about insomnia today," said Kanatova. "When I asked them what they'd been dreaming about they all said the same."
"What does that mean?" asked Trip. "It can't just be a coincidence that we're dreaming about the same things."
"I don't know," said Kanatova. "We all went through the same experiences, it could be that something about our current situation is triggering our memories and that's feeding our dreams."
"So it could be coincidence?" asked Trip.
"Maybe, but perhaps we should start looking at that mission to Karavia," said Kanatova.
Hoshi knocked on the door of the Captain's Ready Room. She entered and saw Archer hard at work examining some files that Lieutenant Reed had given him.
"I brought you the communications log, sir," said Hoshi. "There's not much here, just a couple of conversations between Trip and Major Hathaway. They don't give much away."
"Thanks, Hoshi," said Archer, accepting the padd that Hoshi gave him. He hadn't expected Trip to give anything away that might be confidential he was too smart and well trained for that.
"Captain, I wanted to talk to you. What is it Malcolm would say in a situation like this? Permission to speak freely?" asked Hoshi.
Archer was caught slightly off guard, it was unusual for Hoshi to want to talk to him like this. "Go ahead, Hoshi."
"Are we sure that we're doing the right thing, going after Trip like this?" asked Hoshi. "I mean he did have a point when he said he was placing us all in danger by being on board. Wouldn't we be better just letting the MACOs handle this in their own way? If Trip's anything to go by, then they seem to have a pretty comprehensive plan."
"For starters we don't know what they're up against. They could be placing themselves in danger and no matter what Trip says, I won't stand by while people attack my officers. Secondly, whoever these people are, they've already murdered over a hundred people on Earth, we need to find them before they kill again. You're also forgetting the fact that Trip broke a number of regulations when he left Enterprise and he has to answer for that. And now we have a lead on a stolen ship, the NX-Theta. I've got more than enough reasons to pursue this," said Archer.
"Yes, sir, but at the moment we're looking for Trip, not the people who blew up the Mars shuttle or killed Arroya and Didier. I suppose I know that when we catch up with him, he's going to be in a lot of trouble and I just wish there was some other way," said Hoshi.
"Unfortunately it looks as if it's Trip who'll lead us to the bad guys," said Archer. "You know the rules as well as I do, Hoshi, and Trip knew them too. He understood the consequences of what he did and he will just have to accept the penalties when we find him. I don't want to drag him back here for a court-martial either, but I don't have any other options. It's better to bring him back safe to face a court-martial, than to let him get himself killed."
"But you haven't called Admiral Forrest yet to tell him," said Hoshi.
"I know. I'm putting it off," said Archer. "I'm hoping that something will come out of this that I can use to help Trip's case. So far I'm drawing a blank."
"Anything I can do to help?" asked Hoshi.
"Not at the moment," said Archer, "but I'll let you know if I need you."
Kanatova and Trip made their way up to the War Room. As they came down the corridor, they could hear Hathaway, Fenner and Rush talking about the various missions that they'd been on while they went through the mission files.
"There's no shortage of candidates," said Fenner. "We sure pissed off a lot of people over the years."
"What about the Kellarins? They didn't like Trip very much," said Rush.
"We need someone that wants us all dead, not just Trip," said Hathaway.
"Yeah, there's plenty of them out there," said Trip. He wondered if he could now add Jonathan Archer to that list.
"Hey, buddy," said Rush, enthusiastically, "how are the repairs going?"
"Slowly, but I should have all the major stuff done by tomorrow," said Trip.
"So what are you two doing up here?" asked Hathaway.
"We wanted to talk to you about your insomnia," said Kanatova.
"Kanatova, we're a bit busy here," said Hathaway. "Can't it wait?"
"I think it might be what we're looking for," said Trip. "All five of us have had dreams or memories of our mission to Karavia over the last week or so. What do you three remember about Karavia?"
"Not much," said Hathaway. "I remember your birthday party on the way there."
"Man, you should have seen your face when that drinks dispenser gave you beer instead of coffee…" said Rush, laughing at the memory.
"It was priceless. That was a damn good party," added Fenner, laughing along with Rush.
Hathaway gave them both a look which silenced them.
"And after the party?" asked Trip.
"Not much, I guess," said Rush.
"Yeah, I remember getting the shuttle ready to leave but I don't remember much else," said Fenner.
"I suppose it was just a routine mission or we'd remember more about it," said Hathaway.
"That's just it," said Trip. "I don't remember anything about it either. I remember my party and then I've got bits of memory from the surface of Karavia, running through streets with the rest of the Unit, but that's it. I don't remember why we were there, how we got there or how we got back."
"It was ten years ago," said Hathaway, "I certainly don't remember every single mission we went on in detail."
"Call up the file," said Trip.
"Okay, we know it was after your birthday, so that gives us a good date range," said Hathway.
Carter and Darwin came into the War Room at that point. They were engrossed in weapons specifications, but when they noticed that the rest of the team was gathered around Hathaway, they stopped in their tracks.
"What's up, Major?" asked the Colonel.
"We think we might have a lead," said Hathaway.
"What do you remember about Karavia?" asked Trip.
"Erm, small planet in the Varga system I think, we went there for a mission at some point," said Darwin.
"What do you remember about Kellaris?" asked Trip.
Darwin looked at Trip. "A lot of things that I'd rather forget," said Darwin.
"But you remember the mission?" said Trip.
"Of course, but there were a lot of missions," said Darwin.
"Yeah but why don't any of us remember that one?" asked Trip.
"Passage of time?" asked Carter.
"All of us?" asked Trip. "It doesn't make sense."
"I can't find the mission file," said Hathaway. "There's a gap in the time line as well. We finished our mission on Rigel VII and then there should be a file on Karavia but there isn't, the next file is Nausicaan Raider outpost at Jovus. The Karavia file has been deleted."
"Those files are classified," said Carter. "Only a very few people have access to them. Top brass at MACO HQ and the members of Special Projects."
"Whose delete code is it?" asked Trip. Every file had a log of who had modified it previously and there should be a delete code attached to a defunct file.
"It's the Colonel's command code," said Hathaway.
"Could something have been that secret that we had to keep it from ourselves?" asked Kanatova.
"I don't remember deleting it," said Darwin.
"What if someone broke into that file and deleted it?" asked Hathaway.
"That explains why I don't remember deleting the file, but it doesn't explain why none of us remember what happened on Karavia," said Darwin.
"What if the file wasn't the only thing that was deleted," said Kanatova.
"What are you saying? That someone deleted our memories of Karavia?" said Hathaway. "We might delete a file to hide it, but I wouldn't know where to begin with wiping memories of an event."
"It's more likely than we suddenly all got a case of amnesia," said Trip.
"Kanatova, I want you to take scans of everyone and see what you can find out," said Darwin.
"Yes, sir," said Kanatova.
"Hathaway, I want you to take a good look at that deleted file and see if you can get any of it back," said Darwin.
"Rob, I'm not a computer expert, I don't know how much use I'll be," said Hathaway.
"Do your best," said Darwin. "Carter, did you get anywhere with analysing the data from the attacks."
"The data is patchy but I've been able to put together a fair bit of information, and I think I have something interesting," said Carter. "This is the telemetry from the sensors in Bluebird II and the NX-Theta."
Carter put up the telemetry on the screen with a small video playing in the corner of the screen that showed what the black fighters were doing in relation to the readings.
"There," said Carter and he froze the image. "It's too precise and too fast. No human pilot could do that. Fenner, you told me that they seemed too good to be true?"
"Yeah, they matched me move for move. Everyone makes mistakes, even me, but not these guys. I've never seen anything like it," said Fenner.
"Then there's the report on Arroya's death," said Carter. "She landed on the ground about five feet from where she should have done if she'd been pushed."
"Yeah, I've read the report. Enterprise's Armoury Officer thought it meant she was attacked by an alien. Someone stronger than a human," said Trip.
"It's a possibility but I don't think it's the right conclusion to draw from this," said Carter. "Kanatova's encounter makes me think that we're dealing with something else. You said you fired four times and it didn't harm them?"
"That's correct. But they looked human to me," said Kanatova.
Carter nodded. "I also looked at the NX-Theta's sensor data of the accretion disk. Even when Trip and Fenner were dodging the fighters, the NX-Theta only detected two life signs, from Bluebird II. I don't think we're up against humans or aliens, I think they're robots, androids."
"Androids?" asked Darwin.
"It would make sense," said Fenner. "A machine could pull tight turns at high speed without any mistakes."
"And would be strong enough to throw Arroya out of a window," said Hathaway.
"And could take four direct phaser hits and keep walking," added Kanatova.
"Hold on a minute there," said Trip, "what you're talking about isn't even possible. The technology just isn't there. Even the Vulcans don't have the knowledge to do that, and I don't think we've come across anyone who has."
"What about the Builders? They have the level of technology," said Darwin.
"Not their style," said Trip. "If they wanted to kill us then they wouldn't send out a bunch of robotic hit men. You saw what Antonia could do."
"And why would they want to?" asked Hathaway. "We didn't do anything to harm them."
"Apart from try to steal their technology," said Trip, wryly.
"There are a lot of other people out there that we stole technology from," said Fenner.
"Okay, not the Builders," said Darwin.
"Then who?" asked Hathaway.
"Klingons, Andorians, Kellarins, Nausicaans, Builders, Faranoans, Tellarites, Karavians, Rigellians," said Trip, counting them off on his fingers, "we've met so many alien species that I've lost count."
"What about the Nausicaans? We destroyed a lot of their raiding outposts," said Rush.
"Oh please," said Fenner, "those pirates wouldn't even know where to begin. And why would they leave it more than ten years to come after us?"
"You know maybe that's the key to all of this," said Trip. "There has to be a reason why they're coming after us now."
"Maybe it's just open season on MACOs," said Rush.
"Trip's right, there has to be a reason why they waited this long," said Darwin.
"None of this fits together," said Hathaway. "We have three dead people, missing mission files, bad dreams, missing memories, and no idea who's after us."
"We need to know what happened on Karavia," said Carter.
"Yeah, but how, we don't have the file and none of us remember," said Fenner.
"There may be a way," said Kanatova. "It is not a technique that I usually recommend but perhaps in this situation it is the only way."
"At the moment, Doctor, I'm open to any ideas that you have," said Darwin.
"My theory is that our memories have somehow been blocked. The unconscious mind may be able to gain access to those memories where the conscious mind can't," said Kanatova. "That's why we have been having dreams and remembering incidents when something else triggers them."
"That's not something that we can tap into, though," said Hathaway. "How do you get access to the unconscious mind?"
"Hypnotism," said Kanatova. "I need a volunteer."
T'Pol was in the Command Centre working on the sensor data with two of her Science team, when Captain Archer came to find her.
"Have you found anything?" asked Archer. They had been orbiting the brown dwarf now for some time and he knew that the longer they waited the colder the trail was likely to grow.
"I believe that we may have an algorithm that can discern any patterns in the background radiation of this system and therefore detect a possibly hidden warp signature. However the programme will take some time to run," said T'Pol.
It had taken T'Pol considerably longer than expected to put together the equations and simulation that she needed. After realising that she had taken on too much work for one Vulcan alone to cope with, she enlisted the help of Ensign O'Connell and Ensign Lauritsen. O'Connell specialised in radio astronomy so was a logical choice, and Lauritsen was an outstanding mathematician and computer programmer. She had reflected that if Commander Tucker had been available to help her then she might not have needed to ask for either of the two Ensigns' help. The irony of this was not lost on her.
She had been particularly pleased with the Ensigns' work on this, they had both worked long hours to get it done. The two young women had earned their place on the Science team easily today. Both Ensigns were part of the new batch of recruits that were brought on board at Jupiter station after their return to Earth. T'Pol had appointed all the replacements needed for the Science team herself, going through tens of service records to find the right people to fill the vacant positions. She had yet to get to know all of her new team on a personal level however. Whereas she knew Commander Tucker would have been able to tell her for all of his new Engineering crew their first names and what month they had their birthdays in.
She sighed mentally. He'd only been gone a few days and she was already noticing his absence. She hadn't realised how often she consulted him on such little things as crew interaction or how much she enjoyed their conversations. Not only that, she was now experiencing an emotion that she was finding hard to control, which she thought might be concern for the Commander's safety. Considering he had stunned her with a phase pistol she certainly had not expected to be worried about him. Anger, she could have understood. Betrayal, almost certainly would have been logical, but this was completely inexplicable. Her emotional control was still difficult at times of stress, although she had increased her meditation time in order to compensate. What threw her most was how illogical emotions were and how unexpected they could be, especially in their strength of feeling.
Archer's voice jerked her from her thoughts. "How long before you have something for us to go on?"
"Finding order in chaos is not an easy task," said T'Pol. "It will be several hours."
Archer nodded. "Do you need anymore no help?"
"No sir, Ensigns O'Connell and Lauritsen will be sufficient. They have been of great assistance," said T'Pol, she caught Lauritsen and O'Connell exchange a smile.
"Find him, T'Pol. Just find him," said Archer and left them to their work.
Rather than one of them volunteering they had drawn straws to see who should be the one to be hypnotised. Trip's luck had been on top form again and he'd ended up being the "volunteer". Kanatova, Darwin and Trip had decamped to the station's sick bay while the other MACOs finished up the repair work and tried to see if they could recover the deleted mission file.
"So how's this going to work then?" asked Trip, sitting on a biobed, "you going to wave a watch in front of me?"
"You've been watching too many movies I think," said Kanatova. "This is not Hollywood. Clinical hypnosis is a recognised psychiatric tool for recovering repressed memories. I'm just going to get you to relax and help you focus your mind on the memories we want to retrieve."
"I sure hope you know what you're doing," said Trip.
"Don't worry, Trip, I'll be monitoring you through out the whole process," said Kanatova.
"You don't have to do this, Trip," said Darwin. "I won't think any less of you if you'd rather back out."
"No, I'll be fine. I guess I'm just a little nervous. No one's ever hypnotised me before," said Trip. "Am I going to remember what happens?"
"It varies from patient to patient," said Kanatova, "some remember and hear every word, others experience a sort of amnesia of the whole session. Lie down and try to relax. Colonel, please turn down the lights a bit."
Kanatova took Trip through some relaxation exercises and he didn't even notice when he began to drift. He could still hear the calming thread of Kanatova's voice as she spoke softly but now it seemed to be coming from further and further away. Finally it was as if he was listening to her talk to someone else in a room down the corridor.
"I want you to imagine a beach for me. It's calm, safe and quiet there. If something gets too much for you I want you to go back there," said Kanatova. "Just think about lying on the beach with the sun on your face listening to the waves."
"Okay," said Trip quietly.
"Where are you?" asked Kanatova.
"On the beach," replied Trip. "It's kinda nice here."
"Good, now, Trip, tell me about what happened the day after your birthday party," said Kanatova. "We were on our way to Karavia."
"Major Darwin called everyone together for a briefing. We knew we were going to Karavia but we hadn't been told why yet. The Major had been on subspace most of the morning getting the details of the mission," said Trip, dreamily.
Darwin had stood in his usual place at the head of the table in the briefing room of the Thak Tikh. The members of the unit had gathered around the table, Hathaway to the right of the Major as was traditional.
"As you all know, we're on our way to a planet called Karavia in the Varga system. I've got intelligence from Earth that they have a weapons programme that we might like to take a look at. We don't have a specific target this time, we're just after anything that we can find that might be helpful to the guys back home," said Darwin.
"Standard smash and grab?" asked Rush.
"Grab, but no smash," said Darwin, "this needs to be done quietly. Dempsey, you've got the intelligence on Karavia, tell us about the situation there."
"Yes, sir," replied Dempsey. "Karavia is a heavily industrialised planet that has a cold war going on with the neighbouring system, Jarna. Which is the reason Karavia has an extensive weapons research programme that is run by the planet's government. The government itself is a totalitarian regime. The people have been under martial law for over fifty years now and there is some resentment of this. The political situation is definitely what you might call charged. There is an overall fear of the Secret Police, which is one reason why the Karavians haven't risen up against their government. The Secret Police are ruthless in stamping out resistance to the government and have almost unlimited powers to do so.
They have a cadre of scientists working night and day on their weapons programme. Some of the weapons are only at the ideas stage, some of them are further along than that. We're most interested in their computer core which contains every project that they're working on and a few that they stole from the Jarnans. In short it's a one stop arms shop."
"What about security?" asked Arroya.
"It's tight," said Dempsey. "We're going to need to bypass the external security measures before we can even get into the building. Then there are guards and further electronic security systems inside."
"Which is why we're all going," said Darwin.
"We're not leaving anyone to mind the shop?" asked Hathaway.
"Not this time, Captain. This is going to need all of us," said Darwin. "We'll split into two teams. Trip, Arroya, Rush, Didier, you're with me. Everyone else is with Hathaway. You'll cover our backs while we infiltrate the complex and get what we've come for. If we can avoid harming the scientists working in the complex then that's what we'll do but we're here to carry out a mission. This is a big prize, boys and girls."
Kanatova's voice intruded upon Trip's recollection. "So the entire team went down to Karavia. What happened on Karavia, Trip?"
"Fenner piloted the shuttle down to the surface," said Trip, dreamily as he recalled. "We hid the shuttle outside the capital city. We hiked into the city, it was a couple of miles away."
"What happened then?" asked Kanatova.
Trip shook his head vigorously. Kanatova watched as Trip's pulse and heartbeat rose. "Trip, what happened when you went into the city?" asked Kanatova again.
Trip shook his head again and his brow creased as if he were remembering something unpleasant. "No" he murmured quietly. "Hunters," he said and became even more restless. His breathing quickened.
"Okay, Trip, come back to the beach," said Kanatova. "Remember it's safe there, nothing can happen to you while you're on the beach. The sun is shining down on you and you're warm and calm."
Trip's breathing slowed and his pulse and heart rate normalised again.
"What did that mean?" asked Darwin.
"He doesn't want to remember or he doesn't want to tell us, or there's a more substantial block to those memories that he can't get past," said Kanatova. "At least we know what we were doing there now and we know we can unlock at least some of the memories about that mission."
"Can we try to get him to remember more?" asked Darwin.
"If I'm careful and we go about this in the right way, but we may need a couple more sessions before we get to the heart of this," said Kanatova. "If he gets too agitated by a memory he may simply refuse to talk about it or wake himself out of the trance. I think he's had enough for one day anyway. We'll give it another go tomorrow."
Darwin nodded.
"Trip, I want you to wake up for me when I count to ten. On ten you will be completely awake," said Kanatova. She started at one and slowly counted to ten. On ten Trip's eyes flew open and he blinked at the lights in the sick bay, even turned down as they were.
"How do you feel?" asked Kanatova.
"Fine," said Trip, slightly surprised. He had expected to feel drained or as if he'd had some sort of emotional experience but instead he just felt rested.
"Do you remember what you told us?" said Darwin.
"Yeah, pretty much, although it all gets a bit fuzzy towards the end," said Trip.
"You seemed to be having trouble with what went on down on the planet. If you don't mind, I'd like to try again tomorrow and see what else we can unlock," said Kanatova.
"Sure, if it's working then we might as well give it another go," said Trip.
"I'll take brain scans of everyone as well," said Kanatova. "See if I can spot any anomalies. Of course they'd have to be pretty small to have gone undetected this long."
Darwin nodded. "Get going, Kanatova. It may be all we have to go on."
"Since you're here, Trip…" said Kanatova indicating the scanner.
"I thought you might say that," said Trip, resignedly.