Chapter 3

Backchannel

Stardate 2366.016

In an old storage room of a shack used by the Academy's groundskeepers, a forgotten comm terminal blinked on, sending a feeble blue light into the absolute dark. A hand passed through the glow, revealing the cuffs of a Starfleet uniform. A data chip slid into a slot beside the terminal, and after a series of faint, musical beeps, the impassive feminine voice of the station's computer announced: "Computer secure."

A male voice spoke into the darkness: "Run encryption program alpha omega three-five-nine."

The computer processed for several long moments, before finally demanding: "Password."

"Encrypt sequence one, code one-dash-one-A," came the reply.

"Awaiting final code," the computer prompted.

"Code zero-zero-zero, encrypt zero," the man stated, then chuckled at his own joke.

"Communication secure."

"Initiate link," the man instructed.

A Starfleet insignia flashed across the terminal screen. After a few minutes, it was replaced by a computer-generated image of a beautiful young woman with glossy black hair and pointed ears. For a moment, her sketched face was frozen and emotionless, but then the animated lips broke into a smile.

"Old friend," the avatar said with affectionate tones, "it has been a long time."

The avatar of a handsome young Starfleet Officer with sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes popped up in the corner of the screen. "Too long, old friend," the Starfleet avatar replied fondly. "You have not aged a day."

The two computer-generated images chuckled.

"Excuse me if I forgo the pleasantries, old friend," the woman said, "but this is quite a risk we are taking. To what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

There was a long pause, and then the male avatar spoke solemnly.

"Old friend. I think I have finally found the opportunity we have been looking for."

Her head tilted, "I'm listening."

"On Beta Virginis 3."

"I remember the planet. The ruins looked promising but the nebula interfered with our sensors, and you would not allow us to take a shuttle down to the surface."

Hiro kept his eyes glued to the indicator in the top left of his screen. The wiggling line stayed in the green. He wasn't sure if the device would work on a Romulan even though his intelligence people had assured him it would. There was only one way to know for sure and that was a risk in and of itself. The problem was that there was very little verified information about his "old friend" that he could ask her about.

"Old friend. Forgive me, but do you mind if I ask you something?"

By mutual agreement, as an added level of security, they never used their true names when speaking with one another.

"Of course."

"Do you love me?"

The avatar paused for a few moments. The primary line remained steady because she was not speaking, but another beneath it, which measured emotional state, starting rising. Her tone, if not the answer itself, did not betray her rising agitation.

"Hiro, I am not sure that question is relevant to any 'opportunities' on Beta Virginis 3."

Well, she didn't lie. The other line however shot upward. That and the fact that she had inadvertently used his real name told him volumes. It was a lot, but not sufficient to allay his concerns about any hidden motives.

"I am taking a big risk just to speak with you Admiral. If you only contacted me only to ask silly questions, then I would rather not talk at all."

The Starfleet insignia abruptly reasserted itself; she had cut the connection. Hiro looked at the indicators and saw that the first one had gone even higher. That indicated clearly that she had not thought it a silly question at all. What really told him what he needed to know was that she had abruptly terminated their communication. If she was truly only interested in what was to be found on Beta Virginis 3, she needed his help and would have tried to maintain the connection. Wouldn't she? He'd try to talk to her again tomorrow.

Three days later.

This was his fourth time trying to reach her. His plan was a good one but was a non-starter if he could not get her to agree to it. She had never failed to respond before, even if it was just the code they had agreed upon indicating that now was not the best time to talk. He did not anticipate that asking her the question would make her this angry. He was running out of time. If she did not accept his call with this attempt, he might have to scrap the whole idea.

The Starfleet insignia seemed to be taunting him. His other attempts had not elicited any response, and after forty minutes, he had given up. He was about to hit the fifty-five-minute mark this time. Just a few more minutes. When the timer hit sixty, he would terminate the call. He knew she could tell he was waiting; the contacting protocol was programmed to ping the recipient's personal communication device every few minutes. He imagined that she was seriously thinking about responding this time. There was no way for him to know for sure. She could just as easily be in a location where there was no easy communication available. Maybe she was out hiking through what passed as wilderness on Romulus. They had really enjoyed their time together in the forest simulation. Did they have forests on Romulus? He needed to look that up. Or she could be in a meeting where she could not take the risk of acknowledging his comm. But she had always been able to respond before, so that was probably not it. She was most likely hoping that if she ignored him, he would just go away again. After sixty-five minutes he was about to give up when the familiar avatar popped up.

"Old friend." The "safe to talk" code, delivered with no warmth at all.

"Old friend, I am so sorry. I did not mean to…"

"I do not think we should communicate any more. It is too risky if you just want to talk trivialities."

"Wait, what?!" Hiro felt suspiciously like he was back in grade school and a girl was breaking up with him. But they were not together that way. Not really. Her words seemed a bit drastic given their collaboration had greatly benefitted both of their peoples.

"Old friend. Please forgive me and at least let me explain."

If he had any further concerns about whether he could trust her or not, her willingness to end their relationship put those doubts to rest. If her motive was to obtain secret alien technology that could assure the Empire's dominance in the galaxy (and if Hiro was right, it probably could), she would have done anything to continue the conversation and definitely not, at this very moment, be moving her hand to cut off communications.

"Lyret wait!"

She stopped.

"I have definitively confirmed that Beta Virginis 3 is the ancient planet of Vorta Vor.

She paused, but did not move her finger.

"No more jokes at my expense old friend." She made it sound like an insult.

"No, never! Please, just move away from the termination key and allow me to explain. If you don't like what I have to say, then I promise I will never bother you again."

The avatars were pretty good at duplicating the emotional context of the users behind them, and Hiro thought he briefly saw a look of regret on her face. She quickly recovered and said.

"I'm listening. Why do you think BV3 is indeed Vorta Vor?" She was not ready to take his word for it just yet.

"The writings." As quickly as he could he explained how Starfleet had independently found out that Romulans had visited the planet and had formed a high priority task force to investigate. They wanted to know what could possibly be there that would motivate the Romulans to risk such a mission. He told her he had been assigned to look at the ruins, but he could not very well admit that he was the one who had arranged her little excursion. Since he knew there was nothing to the whole thing, he had used his time to surreptitiously take a peek at the secret Kirk archives that had been denied him up to this time. "When I looked further, I found old surveys showing the hieroglyphs on some of the ruins. No one at the time of their discovery knew how to read them, and we still can't today. I couldn't read them either, but I did note their similarity to some of the characters on the hairpiece you had shown me many years ago. That and the fact that you thought BV3 was a potential candidate for Vorta Vor sealed the deal. There were some very interesting things in the archives and I got an idea. It's very risky, but if we pull it off, I can guarantee we will be signing a peace treaty between our two peoples within the year."

Was that a smile he saw? If it was, it quickly disappeared.

"And if we fail?"

"Interstellar war until one of us is annihilated. But hear me out. We can think about failure another day."

She listened patiently for the better part of an hour until he was finished. When she didn't say anything, he asked.

"I cannot do this alone Lyret, what do you think?"

"Why did you ask me that ridiculous question?"

That gave him pause. He would have thought she would want to know more about his plan, or maybe the technology he suspected might be found on the planet.

"I needed to know if I my trust in you was warranted old friend. When I discovered there might be alien technology on BV3, the same planet you were so keen on visiting, it was too much of a coincidence. I had to know for sure before I embarked on a plan that would likely result in a war between our peoples if your motives were not honorable."

She considered for a moment.

"And you thought asking me that particular question would put your mind at ease?"

"Well, to be honest, I was using a device that could tell me whether you were telling the truth or not."

She considered again. Apparently deciding whether she should be angry all over again.

"And what did the device tell you?"

"Not much. You wouldn't answer the question. It was more the not wanting to talk to me ever again that told me what I needed to know."

She laughed.

"OK old friend. Let's talk details. What do you need me to do?"

Hiro didn't bother to hide the relief he felt.

"Well first, you need to gather a fleet of warships within the next thirty days, and send it to BV3."