Chapter 16

Point Counterpoint

Stardate 2366.090

The Enterprise had been in the Beta Virginis system for a week. Jordi and Data had transferred over to the two science vessels that were already there, to help with their operations, and be in a position to take command if things went sideways. Suddenly the sensor station noticed something.

"Captain, I'm picking up some anomalous readings."

"What are you seeing ensign?"

"I don't know sir. It looks like…"

Suddenly a Romulan war bird de-cloaked right in front of the Enterprise. There was a brief moment when the bridge was too surprised to do anything. Riker was the first to react.

"Shields!"

"Red Alert! Warf, target that ship!"

"Phasers armed and locked Captain.

Sir, the Romulans have raised their shields, but have not armed their weapons."

"We are being hailed captain."

"On screen."

A Romulan appeared on the screen, along with three subordinates behind and to her sides. She was calmly holding a cup with a steaming beverage in it. She smiled at Picard with amusement.

"Captain Picard. A pleasure to finally meet you."

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage madam. To whom do I have the privilege?"

"My apologies Captain. Admiral Khallianen T'Lyret E'Vor Ruwon, commander of the origins fleet, Pid Kom of the Ruwon clan, leader of the five families, keeper of the sacred mission, at your service."

"Admiral, although you have not exhibited any overt hostile intent, your presence in Federation space could be construed by some as provocative to say the least. May I inquire as to your intentions?"

She chuckled, "Certainly Captain. I would like to speak with Admiral Mifune."

Picard and the rest of the bridge could not help but be surprised by this matter of fact request. Everyone on the bridge was under the assumption this mission was secret, yet here was a Romulan no less, who obviously knew the Enterprise would be here.

Before Picard could give voice to any of his concerns, the aforementioned Admiral entered the bridge and spoke to the Romulan.

"It seems you cannot resist making an entrance old friend."

"Yes, a character flaw I freely admit to."

Even though she was smiling when she said this, her answer nevertheless made Hiro uneasy.

"Am I to assume you came here alone Ruwon?"

The Admiral gestured behind her and three other ships de-cloaked around the Enterprise.

"No."

He rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Ruwon you haven't changed a bit."

Admiral Ruwon was thoroughly enjoying her moment. It was obvious she and Admiral Mifune were very familiar with one another, and had been playing this game for quite a while.

"And how is your son Hiro?"

"He's doing fine Ruwon. As a matter of fact he should be along shortly. Speak of the devil."

Commander Sanderson entered the bridge closely followed by the twins from Vulcan, Sahrafel and Ugaya, each wearing their customary terseht. Ruwon's attention was on the Commander. She had not seen Hiro's adopted son since he was a little boy amongst the ruins of the war-torn planet Spica. Her first indication there was something amiss was when one of her officers uttered a curse, and the others gasped. Ruwon turned in annoyance to see all of them, eyes wide in shock.

"What is the matter with all of you!" she said quietly. She was very annoyed her officers were not acting in their usual professional manner. In answer, one of them just pointed at the viewing screen. Ruwon could not imagine how Hiro's son could have gotten them so worked up. She turned and only then saw the Vulcan twins and more importantly, the headdresses they were wearing. Headdresses, which were nearly identical to the ones adorning her and her officers' heads. She immediately dropped her hot drink and the cup shattered on the floor. She did a little dance to get out of the way of the hot liquid that splashed over her lower legs.

"Faelirh ch'susse-thrai!" She exclaimed and stared angrily at Admiral Mifune.

Hiro could not stop laughing. He looked directly at Ruwon and said quietly the equivalent of "Payback's a bitch" in Romulan. He stopped laughing but continued to look like the cat that had just got the canary.

"Hiroshi! I have come much too far for you to be making jokes at my expense, especially in matters of such importance! Explain yourself immediately or I swear I'll open fire on your ship!"

"Admiral Mifune," said Picard. "I think now would be an excellent time for you to tell us all what the hell is going on."

The twins for their part, were just as shocked as the Romulan Admiral, they just hid it better. Almost without thinking they simultaneously steepled their fingers, bowed, and invoked the traditional family greeting.

"May you and your day be in harmony sisters."

The Romulan Admiral blinked in surprise and didn't move for half a second. Realization dawned that there was no way Hiro could have known what the traditional greeting between members of the five families was. As one she and her Commanders returned the greeting.

"And to you as well my sisters."

Admiral Ruwon continued to glare daggers at Hiro and remarked deadpan.

"It seems like I'm not the only one who likes to make an entrance Admiral. Now, if we are finished with the surprises, there are obviously some things that we urgently need to discuss."

Hiro responded with a slight smirk.

"I agree Admiral. May I suggest you come aboard immediately and we can bring each other up to date.

When the screen went blank, Picard immediately addressed Hiro.

"Admiral…"

"Yes I know Jean Luc. Why don't you and commander Riker join me in your ready room and I'll bring you both up to speed.

"Mr. Warf, can you welcome our visitors? Bring the Admiral to my quarters and the rest of her people to my conference room. I will be at my quarters shortly. Please let me know the minute they are on board.

Picard led the Admiral and Riker to his ready room.

"Admiral, you mind telling us what this is all about? The last I checked, the Romulans were our enemy."

"I understand your concern Jean Luc, but I can assure you that Admiral Ruwon is on our side at this moment.

"We first met on a diplomatic mission over twenty years ago. She is the highest placed intelligence asset we have in the empire, and her information has been invaluable in helping maintain the fragile peace we have between our two peoples. She is the "Romulans" I was telling you about who had been looking for their origin planet. About a year ago, I arranged for her to visit BV3 and another planet in Federation space as a reward for a particularly valuable piece of information she had passed our way."

"And Starfleet got wind of it."

"Yes unfortunately, and as I said before it created quite a brouhaha amongst our fearless leaders. The silver lining was that it is the reason I stumbled upon the fact that BV3 is definitely Vorta Vor. There's a better than even chance there is a Tantalus Device down there, and other game changing technology, although I must emphasize that the Admiral is unaware of any tech, and is only interested in studying the ruins. She was quite excited when I told her I had confirmed BV3 as the origin planet."

"Tantalus Device?" asked Riker.

"I'll brief you when we're done with the Admiral number one.

"And you are sure Admiral that she knows nothing about any tech?"

"Her singular quest Jean Luc, has been to discover Vorta Vor and then reunite with the lost Vulcan branch of the five families. After more than two-thousand years, since before the Time of Awakening, she is the one who has finally succeeded. She is sufficiently happy about that, and will not be concerned about any technology."

Jean Luc was not buying it.

"So to be clear, we are on a top-secret mission to find a technology that can change the balance of power between us and the Romulans, and you decided to invite said Romulans to the party so they can do a little site seeing?" Picard did not try to hide his skepticism.

"Yea, that about covers it. At least that's what I'm going with at this time. Remember, I've told you quite a bit more than I was authorized already. You'll just have to be satisfied with that for now." When they did not say anything he continued.

"Let me give you some context about the Admiral. She's the leader of the four founding families on Romulus and as such, is in a position to know much of the goings on within the high council.

"At the Time of Awakening, a man named Sarak proposed the Vulcans embrace logic as a way of mitigating the perpetual conflict that was consuming the planet. At the time, there were a number of Vulcans who did not agree with Sarak's philosophy and left the planet to colonize Romulus and found the Romulan Empire. The five families all disagreed with Sarak themselves, but felt, as leaders, that at least one family needed to stay on Vulcan. So four of them went to Romulus and one stayed behind."

"The one that the twins are a member of."

Yes. Their matriarch, or Pid-Kom as she is called, is L'Vor Ka Ree. You may have heard of her?"

"The leader of the Vulcan high council?"

"The same Jean Luc. She is their grandmother."

"The twins and the Romulans seemed surprised to see each other though."

"Well yes. Until a few minutes ago, neither knew the other still existed.

You see, after the split from Vulcan, the families lost touch with one another. The Vulcan family assumed the empire had subsumed the other four. The Romulans are not known, after all, for tolerating competing power bases. The Vulcans also kept a very low profile, so the Romulan families just did not know the Vulcans had survived the upheaval that was the Awakening. Remember, the family that remained on Vulcan was originally in opposition to Sarak's message. Each however, ever since, has been obsessed with uncovering their origins before Vulcan. I knew about the myths of the five families from some research I had done a number of years ago. That was common knowledge among historians who follow such things. What was not well known was if any remnant of the families was still around. Ruwon had mentioned to me that she belonged to one of the four Romulan families when we met on a diplomatic mission years ago. Before that, like everyone else, I had no idea they still existed."

"Please don't tell me you brought four Romulan warbirds into Federation space just to prank an old friend Admiral."

"Well it was one of my best efforts, but no Commander, obviously not," Hiro smiled relishing again the moment.

"How did you find the Vulcan family?"

"An interesting story that. It was quite by accident. I never actually went looking for them. I too assumed that as an entity, they no longer existed. And it's not as if they advertised their presence. In fact, very few Vulcans know of their existence, even if they had heard of the myths.

"Well, you might have noticed that the Romulans all had distinctive headdresses. These serve as a signifier of their family and rank, and incidentally, can be used as a weapon; one they are all very skilled with by the way if the twins are any indication. Anyway, Sahrafel and Ugaya had been sent to the academy by their family and while there, took an interest in Jon. One day he brought them by to meet me and I immediately recognized the headdresses. When I asked them about it, they told me they were a member of the Vulcan origin family. I knew about the myths already as I said, so they brought me up to date about the history of their particular family. I have to tell you Jean Luc, the story was fascinating! For a long time after the Time of Awakening, the family had to go into hiding because they still advocated the old warrior ways. They even changed their root family name from E'Vor T'Kari to just Ka Ree. By that time I knew of the lost Romulan families from the Admiral, but could not tell the twins anything as my relationship with Ruwon is a secret known to only a few within Starfleet's intelligence division as I mentioned before."

"But you didn't tell her either."

Hiro smiled.

"Well no, but that was more like payback for a particularly devious trick she played on me a few years ago than anything else. I figured a day would come when I could spring the news on her. Today was that day, and I must say it was so worth the wait!"

Picard didn't share the Admiral's enthusiasm.

"Admiral, saying this situation is irregular does not begin to describe what's going on here."

Will spoke up.

"Let me be more direct than the Captain Admiral. Your explanation is flimsy at best."

"Both of you are correct of course and I understand your concerns, but I can assure you this mission is approved at the highest levels. Ruwon has a power base, her group of families, which the current regime is hostile to. She is in a position, given the right help, to expand that base. To the extent we can weaken a regime that is hostile and potentially replace it with one that is friendlier to us, I personally think we should encourage that, don't you? Especially considering all we have to do is let them explore some old, worthless ruins."

The Admiral's comm unit beeped.

"Go ahead."

"Admiral, our guests have arrived and Admiral Ruwon is waiting in your quarters. Her commanders are conferring with Commander Sanderson and the twins in your conference room."

"Thank you Warf; Mifune out."

Will was not quite ready to let it go however.

"But didn't you just imply that the families on Romulus are not that well thought of? Ruwon may be in a position to hear things, but that is a far cry from having the ability to effect any kind of change, especially given the power held by the people in charge there."

"And let's not forget Admiral. Given what you told me about the Tantalus Device, I am concerned about it getting into the wrong hands. Are you positive Admiral Ruwon doesn't know about any of the technologies rumored to be on the planet?"

The Admiral started to get exasperated. Ruwon had indicated to him through an agreed upon recognition code that there was a serious problem with the plan they had put together and he was anxious to find out what additional thing seemed to be going wrong. The nearby nebula was wreaking havoc with nearly all of their systems so communication with the planet was extremely difficult at best. In addition, his science team was having trouble excavating the device for some reason, and since they could not talk to him, he had no idea why.

"Both of you, I've known Ruwon for years, and am very familiar with the families' traditions. What they are really interested in is studying those ruins, and uncovering the secrets of their origins. Ancient technologies, advanced or otherwise, have no part in that particular mission."

Picard knew the Admiral well enough to know he was being evasive.

"With respect Admiral, that does not answer Will's question."

"Captain, I have made my guest wait too long as it is and I don't want to be any ruder than I have already been. Your concerns have been noted. May I suggest you and Will meet with the Romulan commanders as well? I would like both of you to be as familiar as possible with our guests' mission and the motives behind it."

"Will, go on ahead, I'll be along in a minute. Admiral, a word?"

"Follow me Jean Luc. You have the time it takes me to get to my quarters so make it quick."

The Admiral left the ready room and walked briskly into the lift.

"Admiral, I am afraid I have to echo Will's concerns here. Given the historic hostility the Romulans have exhibited towards us, are you sure this is the wisest course of action?"

Mifune had the greatest respect for Captain Picard; he mentored him at the academy after all, but sometimes he was just too smart for his own good.

"Are you questioning Starfleet's orders Captain? Feel free to contact Admiral Lucas Brown yourself, and express those concerns to him personally."

"Admiral, both of us know there is no way for anyone to contact Starfleet with that nebula out there."

"Then I suggest you carry out your orders and follow Commander Riker to the conference room."

The Admiral turned his back on Picard and entered his quarters. Ruwon was sitting at his desk waiting, concern written all over her still beautiful face. They looked at each other for a moment, each remembering the last time they had been in each other's company in the teahouse some twenty years ago. Both of them realized at the same time that more important events were overtaking them and there was no time to reminisce.

"Do you have the specs for me?"

Ruwon handed him the data chip and said.

"Did you find the Tantalus Device?"

"Yes. You indicated it was urgent for us to talk."

"Well, thank the powers for that at least. May I see it?"

"It's still on the planet."

"Hiroshi, we need to get our hands on that device as soon as possible."

The Admiral remembered with affection that she only used his full name when she was really worried about something.

"I know that Lyret. You indicated there was a problem."

"The second fleet is due at any moment."

"We knew they were coming. This may be a bit earlier than expected, but why the concern? Is your son ok?"

"As far as I know he's fine. That's not the issue."

"Then what is?"

"He's not leading the second expedition."

This was beginning to sound bad. The Admiral was almost afraid to ask.

"Then who is?"

"General Ralaa."

"You're kidding! The head of the military council?"

"The same. It gets worse. There are ten ships in the fleet."

"Yes. We knew that. Your son was supposed to be leading them. But we should still be able to accomplish our goal as long as your people are still running things…"

Ruwon's look told him otherwise. If her son did not have effective control of the second fleet… well, the old saw about the best laid plans going to hell seemed to be coming true here. The intellectual side of him reflected that one day in the future, his experience here would make a very good case study at the academy. All he could think to say was:

"No!"

"Yes. Despite my son's protestations, Ralaa insisted on leading the mission himself. He obviously felt the opportunity for glory was too good to pass up. He also brought along Admiral's Sarine and Valdran to helm two of the other ships."

"Wait. Three ships against seven. Not insurmountable odds. Nothing to panic about."

"He also mostly replaced our crews on nine of the ships. Only one of those has a small contingent from the families. S'Talla commands the tenth one. It at least, is crewed by my people."

"Damn! There was nothing you could do?"

"To maintain security, we had decided to not contact each other at all until he got to the planet. S'Talla felt I needed to know what we were up against and risked a short message to me shortly before we entered the system."

"I see. How much time do we have before that fleet shows up?"

"No way to know for sure. S'Talla was supposed to arrive in about three days, but Ralaa may have other plans. He could be here in much less time than that if he wanted to."

"We have to get the device on board as soon as possible!"

"I thought you said you had the device already Hiroshi?"

"I do have it; sort of."

"I'm starting to have a bad feeling about this Hiroshi. What do you mean by 'sort of'?"

"It's still being excavated from a cave complex in the mountains about six hours from the main camp."

"So you've not been able to test it at all. Why don't you have a shuttle pick him up at the site?"

"A shuttle cannot land there; too rugged. And there is no way to communicate with him where he is now. The nebula prevents that with conventional communicators. He can talk to us, but he has to use the high-power array we've set up back at his base camp."

"So to summarize if I may. The device our whole plan hinges on, the alien technology I bet our families' survival on, and without which, we have virtually no chance of winning the inevitable battle to come, is not yet in your hands. In addition, you have not tested it, so for all you know it may not work at all, and even if it does,, it's effective range may be too short to do us any good. Is there anything else you need to tell me?"

"Well, we don't know exactly how it works," he said defensively.

"I mean we have a general idea of course from the Kirk diary. But since we haven't figured out how to turn it on exactly, we…"

"Hiroshi! Is there anything else, I mean exactly, we need to worry about?"

The Admiral pondered for a moment.

"No, I think that about covers it."

They both sat in silence for a moment. They are under no illusions that the next twenty-four hours were going to be difficult to say the least.

"Hiroshi. There's a good chance I may not survive the next day. There is something I need to tell you. My son…"

The Admiral took her hand and looked into her eyes.

"Lyret. Don't talk like that. I fell in love with you twenty years ago and there has never been anyone else. I promise I will never let you or your son come to any harm."

"You did?"

"Did what?"

"Fall in love with me?"

"Yes I did my love. Lock stock and barrel."

Lyret had no idea what a lock, stock, or barrel was, but if she was about to go to her death, she was getting in one more kiss from the man who had stolen her heart twenty years ago. The kiss was strong and gentle at the same time. Neither wanted to end this perfect moment. Finally, Hiro pulled away and looked into her eyes.

"Lyret, if we are going to survive the next few days, we both need to get to work."

He hit his communicator.

"Mifune to Captain Picard!"

"Go ahead Admiral."

"Captain, could you join me in my quarters? I've got some additional information I would like to share with you."

"What's the emergency Admiral..."

The Admiral cut communication and turned to Ruwon.

"You need to make yourself scarce."

"You haven't told Picard the plan?"

"No, not all of it. I need to tell him now. I was hoping I could avoid bringing him into this but given what you just told me, I don't see as I have any choice. If we want to salvage what remains of our plan, we are going to need every asset we can get our hands on, especially Jean-Luc and the Enterprise."

"One of our famous actresses once remarked 'Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be bumpy ride.' Seems that doubly applies here. Given the circumstances, I would recommend you allow me to stay though. The Captain needs to be convinced I am not a threat, and only I can do that."

"Point taken", the Admiral smiled. "Just let me talk first and they you can jump in."

Once again Hiro wondered at how similar life could be sometimes to a chess game. He had multiple pieces in play, any one of which could determine the ultimate outcome of the match. Although the stakes he was playing for right now involved many more pieces, and nothing less than control of the Romulan Empire.

Oh, and then there was the part that if he lost, he and Lyret would probably die a pretty horrible death.

Enough. Time to make his next move.