A/N: Another chapter for setup purposes. Thanks Talaka.
Chapter Ten
I had never been to Section 31 and hadn't expected to find myself there now, but Malcolm had asked us to come to Harris's office for a debriefing.
Arriving early had forced us to entertain ourselves while waiting for Malcolm to call us in. I was uneasy even though I knew I had nothing to fear. I wasn't going to run into Ral; but it seemed that I was constantly being reminded of him.
Realizing I was uncomfortable, Jonathan came over and sat with me. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, truly Jonathan it is nothing. I'm just anxious, I know I'm over-reacting." Not wanting to address my uneasiness, I changed the subject. "Have you had anymore symptoms of morning sickness?"
"Not so far. Hey, T'Pol, what's your take on what Phlox said about my problem? I don't get this, Mother by Proxy, stuff he was trying to explain."
"Putting it simply, I believe he means you could experience everything that I do, including childbirth, Jonathan."
"No Shit." Jonathan's expression was one of astonishment. "Ah, yeah, well, is there anything that we can do to put things back the way they should be?"
"How should things be, Jonathan?" I watched him squirm in his seat and silently relished his discomfort. I was supposed to tolerate the discomfort of carrying our child for ten months, and, he believed he should contribute nothing more; as far as he was concerned he had already done his part during conception. 'I have news for you Jonathan, if the next few months are uncomfortable for me, they shall also be uncomfortable for you.'
I was suddenly jolted back to the present by Malcolm calling us to join him in the next room.
Jonathan pushed my wheelchair into their offices. I looked around at the darkness of the surroundings. It would be depressing to work here day in and day out. The lack of organization was also apparent; everywhere you looked, all you could see was clutter.
"Please excuse Harris's office and his disorderliness. Why, don't you two come on into my office, I guarantee it's neater." Ushering us in, he quickly pulled up an extra chair for Jonathan.
While Malcolm was collecting his files from Harris's office I looked around for the lack of anything better to do. Malcolm was definitely an organized man. Nothing was scattered around on top of the files and nothing seemed out of place. His desk was neat with organizers for everything from pencils to file folders. Most everything today was kept in the computer, but Malcolm appeared to still believe in paper, lots of paper.
On the wall behind his desk was a screen for viewing. He also had a computer but not on his desk, instead it was on a table that was much larger. Yes, his desk was indeed neatly organized, a sharp contrast to that of his superior officer's.
Malcolm returned with his arms full and slowly moved to the table and began sorting.
I watched as he sorted each and every piece of paper into neat little piles on his desk and table; then he sat down. "Admiral please." He gestured toward the seat across from him. Jonathan moved me up against the desk and sat down.
"Okay, Malcolm, why are we here?" Jonathan leaned forward in his seat, wasting no time getting to the point, and putting Malcolm on notice that his report had better be good.
"Sir, please relax, I just wanted the opportunity to talk to the two of you alone and in a more informal setting. I want to go over some things that the two of you have only recently become aware of, I also want you to look at some surveillance tapes that we have of the suspects in this case. Will you please bear with me for just a little longer, Admiral?"
"It had better not take long, T'Pol is tired. Phlox doesn't want her up longer than an hour at a time."
"Sir, I am well aware of T'Pol's condition. If you will let me get down to business, I assure you that I will have her back in bed within the hour.
"First, T'Pol, I owe you an explanation as to how all this started. As you recall, I told you that the Salanese Prime Minister came to us two years ago after the murder of his daughter. We didn't know anything about Ambassador Ral.
"The Prime Minister had marauders kidnapping and then selling Salanese women openly in the slave markets on Orion. But, they were also holding auctions underground where they kept women in S & M holding cells; these were their large moneymakers, they were sold into slavery for sex. We later learned that they could rent a slave so to speak or buy one outright to take with them.
"I know we need to go into more detail about all of this and how I got involved, but, since I want you to get back to your room I was hoping we could start with the surveillance tapes. Is that alright with you, T'Pol?"
"That will be fine Malcolm. We can work for an hour and then I'll return to rest. I'll come back at 1500 hours if that is agreeable and we can work for two more hours if you like."
His face lit up and he smiled, "T'Pol, that would be great. Let me turn the projector on." As he walked around he continued to talk. "These pictures were taken over a period of the last two months, I have several more, but I want you to see if you can identify any of these." Quickly he moved around the desk, darkened the room and turned on the projector.
"These pictures were taken here in San Francisco. I'm going to run this first segment through and then I'll run it again and pause so you can look at them up close."
My heart raced, I recognized four of them. Jonathan had also moved forward in his seat, I was sure he recognized them too, from our meld. My mouth had gone dry. "Malcolm do you happen to have any water?"
"Yes, of course, I'll be right back." He paused the film and left the room.
Jonathan's fingers worked the knots that had just formed at the base of my skull. "Are you okay, T'Pol? You don't look so good and I can feel your heart poundin', you're nearly hyperventilating. Maybe it's to soon to do this."
I looked up. Jonathan was staring at one of them intensely. I was about to ask him if he recognized one of them when Malcolm came back into the office with the water.
"Here T'Pol, and I brought one for you too, Jonathan. Do you recognize any of them?"
Jonathan got up and walked behind Malcolm's desk, picked up a pointer and aimed it at the man standing on the far right, almost out of the picture. "Can you bring this one in closer? He looks like someone I saw in T'Pol's hospital wing. Do you recognize him, T'Pol?"
We watched as Malcolm brought the men in closer, and focused the picture again. I studied him closely and then shook my head, "No, I'm afraid not." "But, I recognize the other four. Whitock is the one in the center and the other three were workers in Ral's factory."
"Malcolm, what make's you think Ral is mixed up with the marauders? All you have is DNA connecting him to T'Pol and this daughter of the Prime Minister. Doesn't seem very substantial to me." Jonathan was frowning as he continued to look at the men on the screen.
Standing, Malcolm took the pointer from Jonathan and motioned for him to sit down. "T'Pol just gave me the corroborating proof that I need. We've seen Whitock with Ral. We've seen the one you pointed to on the end with both Whitock and Ral. And all of these men have been seen as far back as a year ago in the company of other slavery merchants on Orion.
"We believe that Ral is the silent partner. Whitock runs the show. After you've rested we'll go into more detail about what we think is going on. I would like to show you some more pictures right now if you think you're up to it, T'Pol. I'd like to go back to the beginning and show you pictures from our earliest surveillance. Do you think you can hang in here for just a few more minutes? I'll let you go then I promise, this is important."
We spent another hour going forward and backward on the tapes. We quickly became familiar with the main players. What was more interesting, however, were the contacts Ral had made while on Andoria. He definitely was up to something and it was politically motivated.
"Malcolm, I'm going to take T'Pol back to her room to rest now. Would you check right away on the guy I'm sure I saw on T'Pol's floor? If I remember right, he was hanging out around the nurses station, but he wasn't dressed in scrubs."
"Sure, I was going to do it just as soon as you left, anyway. Keep your eyes peeled, Jonathan, I'd hate to think we'd messed up again. I'll get back with you within the hour I'm going to get a picture of him out to all the stations immediately.
ooooo
"I'm hungry Jonathan, can we stop by the Cafeteria? Plomeek soup sounds exceptionally tantalizing to me with perhaps a piece of pecan pie for dessert, and maybe the chef could warm it and put a dip of chocolate ice cream on top with chocolate syrup." My mouth watered.
"T'Pol that sounds disgust…..ingly good, now that I think about it. Sure, lets make a beeline for the Cafeteria."
We sat toward the back of the Cafeteria where we could see everyone coming and going. It didn't take long for us to clean our plates and we began discussing Jonathan's uneasiness about the unidentified man he was certain was roaming the halls of my wing. We heard a message come over the Intercom for Jonathan.
Remaining where I was, I watched him cross to the other side of the room and pick up the house phone for more privacy. His eyes darted back to me and he immediately hung up and quickly crossed the distance to my side.
"We've got to get you out of here and into a more secured area. They've identified our stranger, he wasn't part of the medical team, he was there going over the electrical outlets, said there was a short he'd been told to check out, near your room!"
"Where are we going, Jonathan? Phlox won't let me leave the complex." I was full of anxiety again and I could feel my chest tightening.
"Malcolm said to come back to Section 31 and that he'd move us into the secured medical wing. Only authorized personnel can enter, its been reinforced and it's very heavily guarded."
Suddenly the building shook, the floor moved under our feet as fear engulfed me. Jonathan grabbed my chair and quickly wheeled me to the nearest exit and down the corridor toward the entrance to Section 31.
MACO'S met us halfway and took me from Jonathan, running quickly and covering their backs as they went, we wormed our way through the halls until we safely entered Harris's office again.
Malcolm's face was ashen; he had been talking to someone but stopped when they brought me into the room. He lowered his eyes and then shook his head. "I'm sorry, it looks like a bomb went off near your room, T'Pol. It completely blew out the end unit next to yours and nearly took out your entire room, too."
"What about Phlox?" My hands trembled. "Is he all right?"
"We don't know yet, communications are going down everywhere. My line had just gone dead when you walked in. Thank heaven some of our MACO'S are on their way over now with their own communication systems. But for right now, lets get you out of here and over to a more secure area." Malcolm pulled out his phaser and motioned for Jonathan to follow him. With three MACO'S bringing up the rear we followed Malcolm out the other side of their offices.
TBC