Season Five

by EnlightenedSkye

Picking up six months after Terra Prime, the Enterprise attempts to hold the Coalition together while keeping an eye on the growing Romulan threat. Trip takes his own command and the war begins mid-season. [July 2155 to January 2157. 25 episodes. Fully episodic, so each chapter is a stand-alone story. ATP, Troshi, Malcolm/OC, P/C. Rated T throughout. Complete, S6 and S7 complete]

23. Episode 23: The Hybrid Plot

A/N: Welcome back! Thanks for the support. Still don't own anything. We're teasing more season six plotlines today, including the return of Kaitaama, an Orion Syndicate mission, a Ministry of Security flashback episode, and battles from the Romulan perspective. I figured that because I've been referring to T'Pol's predicament as the hybrid plot this entire season, we definitely needed a namesake episode!

One thing that always bothered me about how T'Pol was written is that they put her through all of these traumatic events, but it never really culminated or meant anything, if that makes sense. This episode was inspired by TNG 3x21 Hollow Pursuits (the B plot, not Barclay, unfortunately), as well as ENT 2x07 The Seventh and ENT 1x23 Fallen Hero. It's basically a T'Pol character study with everyone else bumbling around. There's also a tribute to my favorite scenes from ENT 1x25 Two Days and Two Nights. You've been warned.

Next time: the penultimate episode of the season. T'Pol's secret comes out. Our command team may / may not be in the midst of In the Pale Moonlight-ing someone.

Season Five

Episode Twenty-Three: The Hybrid Plot

"Will you be okay on your own?"

"Yes. During my time with the Ministry, I ran countless missions similar to this one."

"Are you sure you don't want to take a phase pistol?"

"I cannot bring anything that could possibly identify me as a Starfleet officer." T'Pol paused briefly, turning back towards the bathroom mirror. She was met by her own fraught expression, perfectly impassive as usual save for two worry lines settled in between her eyes.

There was no denying it. It had been a long time since she'd looked like this.

Her transformation began with her hair; over the years it had grown lighter and longer until it nearly teased her shoulders, but her latest assignment mandated that she shear it off again, back to the severe style characteristic of an officer of the High Command. She'd brought out her civvies and settled into a pair of worn boots that had seen more planets than likely all of her senior officers combined. The ensemble was reminiscent of another time, of another place, and even through the part of her memory that had been addled by the fullara, she could not forget the way it made her feel.

"And are you positive I can't come with you?" Jonathan's voice was growing closer, and a second later he emerged from the bedroom, stepping up behind her and wrapping his arms around her.

T'Pol stiffened slightly before relaxing into him, allowing his warmth to rush over her in waves. He had always been her counterpoint, her anchor, and her biggest supporter, and she had to admit, the idea was rather tempting. The last time they'd embarked on a clandestine mission together, he kept her centered, and kept her from control altogether as she questioned the circumstances that prevented her from apprehending Menos the first time.

Since then, a great deal of her memories had returned, some innocuous, but others deeply disturbing, and she'd meditated on them for months on end before realizing that simply speaking her trauma could be all the remediation she needed. It was safe to say that after five years together, and a full year as bondmates, Jonathan knew everything there was to know about her, her idiosyncrasies, her hopes and fears. At first, she'd been apprehensive at the idea of being so vulnerable with anyone, but he claimed he loved her all the more for it, and she knew, above all, just how sincere he was.

But the fact still remained; this mission was hers and hers alone to complete. The High Command had been abundantly clear about that, and regardless of where her allegiances currently lay, she didn't want to disappoint them.

"You cannot accompany me," she asserted, though she was sure he already knew that. Jonathan waited for a minute for her to offer some reason, some point he could argue against. Perhaps it was too dangerous, or too risky, or in a desolate region of space. They'd faced insurmountable odds together, and while he knew she was more than capable of handling everything that came her way, he would be remiss if he didn't at least try to convince her.

"I worry about you," he admitted, dropping a kiss into her hair. Her lips curled in the barest hint of a smirk, and he could sense her retort before she even said it.

"You have given me countless reasons to worry for your safety over the years, whether it be due to recklessness or incompetence. Seeing as we've always prevailed, I must conclude that you have no reason not to trust me." She'd spent almost a decade as an undercover operative, as a reconnaissance officer, and an agent provocateur, all the while doing things she wasn't proud of for the greater good. Now would be no different, and they would both need to cast their doubts aside for the sake of the alliance.

It had been seven days since Minister T'Pau was kidnapped by hybrid marauders from her guest quarters on the Varan, mere hours after she'd signed off on the charter for the wartime Coalition of Planets. The event in question had been a long time coming, and certainly historic; T'Pol had to admit to feeling a sense of relief that their agreement was solidified, knowing that the next time they wandered into a firefight, they would have the unequivocal support of their allies.

As a matter of fact, the moment her absence was discovered, all ships converged on the objective of rooting out her whereabouts. There was evidence of a struggle in her quarters; the bathroom hatch had been blown off its jamb, and every piece of furniture that wasn't bolted down to the deck plating had been knocked over or disturbed in some way. Her robe and boots lay unmoved in the bedroom, and the towel bar had somehow been pried off the wall, covered in a mismatch of bodily fluids and patches of hair. T'Pau's fight had apparently ended in the closet, where she'd tried to scrawl out a few shaky Vulcan characters on the wall in her own blood before losing consciousness.

Curiously, the bodyguards posted outside hadn't heard a thing. The bulkheads were mostly soundproof, and from what they could discern of the interior, she'd fought desperately to get away from her assailants, likely screaming all the way. Their ignorance of these events was suspicious to say in the least, but a thorough interrogation by Andorian Imperial Guardsmen and a biological examination by Dr. Phlox did not indicate hybrid affiliation.

This had led them to study the attempt on her life which had been made only days previously. As T'Pol expected, it had arrived anonymously, routed through so many subspace amplifiers and planetary beacons that its origin was indecipherable. Hoshi and Dita promised to get to the bottom of it, but they had yet to make any progress.

The fact that the hybrid's ship managed to linger just off the Varan's port bow, quite possibly listening in on the entire negotiation proceedings, also warranted some concern. None of the six delegations arriving to Paan Mokar had picked up on chroniton radiation signatures, indicating they could have been lying in wait for weeks. T'Pol had put in a polite request for the Denobulans and the Coridanites to join them in their search of nearby systems, but they had ungraciously bowed out, incurring the wrath of the Tellarites, who had to take on the brunt of the work.

The Cochrane sped away almost immediately to return the United Earth Council delegates to San Francisco; certainly, if the enemy could beam in and out of a heavily armored flagship without being detected, the Prime Minister and his aides were at risk. It was enough to make T'Pol believe they'd had additional help, that there was an inside man on the Varan who facilitated the minister's abduction.

Three Starfleet security brigades set in on a thorough questioning of the crew; Ensign Taxa had gone to great lengths to investigate the backgrounds and affiliations of each of them, and was reluctant to believe she'd missed anything, though recent events made her dive back into her work with a tenfold intensity.

Her admission of involvement in Section 31 had come as a surprise to Jonathan, but not to T'Pol; she'd had some reason to suspect her since Tellar Prime, and now that she knew the truth, she was honestly quite relieved it wasn't anything more severe.

Alira spun a tale as wide as the quadrant, starting at the beginning, not skipping over her father's death and the manipulation techniques the Supreme Council had employed to keep her in line. For years, she was a slave to her own grief, desperate to remedy the storm of emotion within her but powerless to change the circumstances of her fate. By the time Trip showed up, she was very close to tears, and shaking so hard Jonathan thought she might fall apart at any second.

She paused her retelling long enough for her CO to pour them two shot glasses of his family's moonshine, then downed it alongside him, forging through horrifying murders, harrowing missions, and the attempt on her life made on Barisa VI. She admitted to supplying the Section with information during her time on the Maelstrom and the Enterprise, but it had been mostly innocuous things, a few personal logs and course records, and they had all been before Kandar. In the aftermath of her mother's death, she had resolved to clean up her act, and was deeply sorry and tremendously regretful that it had taken this long for the truth to come out.

Mr. Reed kept his eyes trained on the deck plating, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. T'Pol could tell that it was taking everything within him not to comfort her, but for the sake of propriety he was avoiding it, waiting until they started in on the previous night before jumping in.

He very conspicuously glossed over what they'd been doing alone in his quarters at 0300 hours, but spared no detail explaining how his suspicion of Ensign Pascal turned out to be very much warranted. According to him, the Section had been deliberately collaborating with Captain Namara to plant tracking devices on the Tarali-class freighters she was selling to the enemy. T'Pol had read the report written by Hernandez and Pritchard, and knew all about how her brother had been called out by name as a co-conspirator. Seeing his name there for all to see had filled her with an irreparable sense of dread, one which was only compounding by the minute.

Malcolm was next to take a shot with Trip, before explaining the mission he'd just been assigned. Agent Long, who had been conspiring to smuggle spatial torpedoes through Starbase 1 for their nuclear effort, had explained to him in no uncertain detail that he had to reveal the Captain's ancestry or risk having (his words) a respected colleague burned and killed as a consequence of his inaction.

Trip appeared astonished once the true reason he'd been thrown in the brig during their encounter with the Klingons was revealed, but stayed silent, a state of affairs most unusual for him. Their first officer apologized profusely for not informing the Commodore of his continued involvement with the Section after Terra Prime; it had all been to save baby Elizabeth, a rescue attempt which was ultimately fruitless. Malcolm was so desperate to help his friends that when his former mentor revealed that the price of this information was his continued cooperation, he'd accepted it and just forged on with the next step of the plan. However, this was the first time they'd reached out to him since then, making their ultimatum all the more concerning.

T'Pol could tell that they were both terrified of being court martialed or imprisoned or worse. Alira reached out to Captain Tucker, taking both of his hands and looking into his eyes with a heartbreaking amount of sincerity. She asserted that she never wanted to hurt him or disappoint him or, quite possibly the worst outcome imaginable, lose his respect, but in several repeated moments of weakness, she felt like she had nothing else to do. Trip had looked at her, looked at Jonathan, gauging their expressions and reactions, then when he could wait no more, leaned forward and wrapped her in a tight hug.

That was when all the dams burst. T'Pol had spent years around humans and adjacent species, but she had never in her life seen someone cry that hard. She sobbed and wailed for what seemed like hours, most likely with a mixture of fear and relief, before attempting to swallow her emotion behind a series of hiccups and forced smiles. Jonathan was, of course, unspeakably angry at the two of them, something she could sense through their bond. At the same time, he felt some modicum of responsibility for forcing Malcolm back into the Section's grasp, and respected his former security chief for owning up to her mistakes after nearly twenty years of hiding. They couldn't put them on report or punish them in any way similar to that without letting the powers that be in on their predicament. Each of them knew what was at stake if T'Pol's ancestry were to be revealed, but at that moment, they realized they could not hold back the truth for much longer.

As Trip so astutely pointed out, Reed and Taxa couldn't stop working for the Section, but maybe, just maybe, they could make the Section work for them.

They spent the rest of the night plotting, forming an elaborate plan that would require the utmost precision from all of them. If they couldn't keep the information from getting out, they were bound and determined to control the narrative, and hopefully steer this capsizing ship to shore.

T'Pol had very little time to process it all: the disappearance of her colleague had certainly set her on edge, and try as she might, she felt as if the eyes of the ship were on her wherever she went. Two days after the fact, following a midnight visit to the mess hall for tea, she'd stepped into a turbolift alongside Ensign Pascal.

He met her gaze steadily, his expression perfectly even, and smiled as though he hadn't just committed an egregious act of treason, as though he wasn't actively involved in a plot to blackmail her first officer. After years of feeling like she didn't belong, that her emotions were much too volatile and close to the surface to ever truly fit in among her people, she'd finally found her home, her ashayam, the place where she belonged. And now this monster was threatening to take it all away.

They stood in silence for the entire ride, but she couldn't keep from clenching her fists at her sides, digging her fingernails into the flesh of her palms so hard she drew blood. By the time she returned to her quarters, Jonathan was awake, having been roused from his dream by the rage rippling through their bond. The details she offered were few, but his arms were warm and welcoming, and he'd held her through it all, until her breathing slowed and she settled into a fitful sleep.

Ambassador Soval and Administrator Kuvak called her to their makeshift situation room that next morning. There she'd met a handful of current Ministry of Security operatives, who seemed to all be very much well versed in the plan already. The current Chief Investigator had greeted her with a flawless ta'al and welcomed her back into their ranks, however temporary her alliance may be.

She'd spent her early career traversing the quadrant, at first with a mentor before being trusted with her own missions. Citing her strong analytical mind honed during her training at the Science Academy, she had been assigned to reconnaissance and retrieval. Unlike Infantry Special Ops, Ministry operatives only became violent as a last resort, and unlike Section 31, most of their dealings were strictly legitimate.

At least, that was what she always told herself.

She became used to moving in the shadows, to adapting her keen hearing to eavesdrop on conversations in crowded bars and markets. A Vulcan in most of these places - to adopt a phrase from her dear friend Trip - would stick out like a sore thumb, so she often wore a headscarf tucked into her jacket, and a slightly menacing adaptation on her normally impassive expression, one that warned anyone who would have normally been drawn to her by curiosity to stay away. It wasn't difficult to create the illusion that she had everything under control, even when she didn't; she openly carried her weapon and walked with a purpose, and it had served her well, keeping her alive in even the most treacherous of situations.

Soval explained, somewhat redundantly, that this mission was of a critical nature to the security of the Coalition. Admiral Gardner had signed off on it himself, because he trusted the High Command. Because he trusted her.

T'Pol couldn't help but wonder how that would change once they knew about her ancestry.

The day she'd been dreading for so long was coming on fast now. She could sense it, taste it, feel it in her bones. It filled her with unspeakable apprehension, the kind she could not shake away. If their plan failed, it would only arrive that much sooner.

She made one more effort to forget it anyway.

"I do trust you," Jonathan insisted, and without hesitation, she believed him. She knew his trepidation was mostly centered around the idea of losing her, of no longer sharing a life and a home with her. Also, there was the fear for the Minister's safety; while he didn't care much for her at first, he now respected T'Pau as a leader and as a skilled tactician, as evidenced by his repeated attempts to seek counsel from her. "And if you need help at any time, or you need an extraction…"

"By the time you reach me, I'll most likely be dead." She seemed awfully nonchalant about that, and the sudden surge of incredulity through their bond told her everything she needed to know. T'Pol decided to take an alternate approach. "The operatives of the Ministry will be much closer."

He didn't seem to be pleased with that answer either. Slowly, he turned her around in his arms, until he could place his hands on her shoulders, squeezing softly.

It was a gesture reminiscent of any of the countless disagreements they'd had in the past. Jonathan only did this when he was really trying to drive home a point, but now, he didn't have to use words to let her know what he was feeling.

Suddenly, being in each other's heads wasn't enough. He leaned forward until he could press his forehead against hers, and she reached up to grab his wrist, before shifting her grasp and intertwining their fingers together. Eyes closed, she drank her fill of his strength, his loyalty, and his adoration, until she could take no more and broke away.

The transport was already docked, and there was very little time to waste.

She made it all the way to the hatch before she heard her name. T'Pol turned on her heels just in time for him to reach her, wrap both arms protectively around her waist, and draw her close, all but lifting her off the ground.

The kiss was searing, passionate, and she allowed herself to get lost in it for one perfect, endless moment. She did not breathe.

She didn't need to.

It was over much too fast, and then she was gone, the door closing swiftly behind her. Jonathan could still feel her in his mind, her presence thrumming over and over again in the part of his brain that signified warmth and safety. He clung onto it, for he had no idea just how long and how far the limits of their bond could be stretched without breaking irrevocably.

Regardless, he suspected he would soon find out.

Captain V'Nara, proprietor of the Vulcan transport Saral, met her at the starboard docking port. The corridors were mercifully silent, and the crewmen she encountered knew better than to pay her any mind. Her departure was swift and seamless, and within minutes they were underway.

The last time she saw her former colleague, the Enterprise was investigating a telepresence attack on two dozen scientists bound for a listening post near enemy territory. There they also met the Betazoids, who were determined to help, if only to acquire the data they needed to chase down the marauder themselves. Pomona and Chandra had each dealt their share of idle threats, but at the end of the day, it had been Bran holding her communications officer hostage in the cargo hold, claiming that the war could only end in disaster if they decided to pursue their mission to completion.

V'Nara had come to Ensign Singh's rescue, shooting the temporal agent through the chest and sending him back whence he came. She claimed the sensor logs were now a gift from the Ministry of Security, and T'Pol couldn't help but wonder how she could have served alongside her for so long on the Seleya without knowing she was an operative.

As a matter of fact, she also had no idea how they knew anything about Starfleet's adventures with Daniels' band of time jumping interlopers, and made a point to ask about it the second they were alone.

"Vulcan has seen its fair share of temporal agents," she admitted. "Some more trustworthy than the others. For my specific set of orders, Ambassador Soval thought it necessary to afford me access to all records involving the cold war."

If he had done that, T'Pol reached the natural conclusion that the Science Directorate had changed their tone on time travel. She, of course, had been skeptical herself, but after being faced with nearly insurmountable evidence, her opinion had well and truly changed.

"And Mr. Audet?"

"Singularly focused on the protection of the Betazoid people. I understand and share his concern about the neurogenic virus, but his own ethics and moral code should have prevented him from seeking out its destruction, if the preservation of the timeline is truly paramount in his mind."

The doors of the turbolift opened, and they proceeded to her quarters, where they were met by her husband, Tannis. He too was involved in the Ministry, one of the more experienced agents in this sector. As T'Pol understood it, they were bound as children and trained as operatives together, ensuring they would remain a matched set for the duration of their tenure.

"Who are the passengers on this ship?" She knew she was asking too many questions, but couldn't stop. Outside the window, the stars were streaking by, and under their feet, the deck plating shook, indicative of their rapidly increasing speed.

Tannis briefly turned towards the wall and bent down over a table; she soon realized he was brewing tea the old fashioned way, a familiar blend that her mother had been fond of.

Clearly, they'd done their homework.

"Some of them are scientists," V'Nara confirmed with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Most of them are operatives, like us."

She wanted to correct them, to say that that period of her life was over, that she was now solely dedicated to Starfleet and her crew, but kept her mouth shut.

"I believe you'll find that a majority of telepresence attacks have been conducted on targets housing a large number of scientists, agents, or government officials." He passed a cup into her hands, and she gratefully accepted. "Like us, our distant brothers value efficiency above all. It's almost respectable."

As he moved away from her, she caught the barest twitch of his upper lip, and briefly wondered if they knew the truth about her.

V'Nara was seemingly determined not to give her a moment to think.

"I question the High Command's decision to only send one operative on this mission," she said bluntly, staring her down over the rim of her cup. She took a long sip, then set it aside on her desk, crossing her arms as if daring her to protest. Clearly, she thought someone else was better suited for the job.

Her, perhaps?

"We received the same training," T'Pol reminded her. If what Soval told her was true, they were even assigned to the same division. It was a wonder they never crossed paths during that time, and an even bigger surprise their lives would intersect so cosmically decades later.

"With all due respect, Captain, you have been out of the game a very long time." Her expression was neutral, but her words were hard as stone.

She knew that was true, but didn't want to think about what exactly her former brothers and sisters in arms had to do to keep the hybrid threat at bay. There were more sleeper agents than she could count; her ordeal with Sub-Commander Tovin was enough to prove that. Every single field operative had been required to prove their loyalty in one way or another, and she suspected they were all assignments worthy of the fullara in their own right.

"Let us hope you are not too out of practice," Tannis said, and she shared his concern.

They traveled for what seemed like months, but was actually a matter of eight days. She read, she meditated, she reviewed the mission briefing over and over. All the while, she felt Jonathan in the back of her mind, though its intensity dulled significantly, until by the time they reached their destination it was all but a whisper. That development was utterly terrifying, and while she tried her best to send love and reassurance, she couldn't help that some unease slipped through.

The Saral seemed to make a beeline for a rugged, nondescript looking asteroid in the middle of an uninhabited region of space; T'Pol balked, wondering if there had been some kind of malfunction, but the moment before they crash landed, the rocky surface seemed to shimmer before splitting in two, revealing a great open space illuminated with beacons deep within. She counted dozens of transports there, and even an entire Suurok class battle cruiser, all idling and seemingly waiting instructions. As soon as the holographic doorway closed behind them, they found themselves in near darkness, and coasted the rest of the way to the docking clamps purely on momentum.

The inner sanctum for the Romulan front of the Ministry was housed somewhere near the Arloff system - Starfleet had preemptively mapped and claimed it, and she wondered if Admiral Gardner knew that their conquest also came with a few thousand Vulcan operatives and an asteroid field full of long-range sensor beacons.

V'Nara and Tannis accompanied her through the station, deeper and deeper into its underbelly until she lost track of the route back to the Saral. Curiously, they scarcely encountered anyone, just a few agents in civilian clothes who skittered away the moment they appeared, into one of the hundreds of doorways lining the corridor. They didn't say anything, and she didn't ask questions.

After a few dozen turns, they reached the end of the corridor before a small, circular hatch. As one, they turned on their heels and retreated, leaving her quite alone and a little bit confused. T'Pol took a deep breath to steady herself, then reached for the chime, pressing the button tentatively.

The hatch slid open immediately, revealing a small, dimly lit room lined with schematics displayed on various computer modules on the walls. At a glance, she identified a map of the Barisa system, a diagram of the Varan, and T'Pau's service record, all seemingly frozen in place, as though they would be reexamined at a moment's notice.

At the far end of the chamber lay a table and two chairs, both wooden and unvarnished, reminiscent of another era. Her host sat with her back to her, her robes pooling at her feet, though her gaze was trained directly ahead, as though she were deep in thought.

Though it had been five years since their last encounter, T'Pol recognized her instantly.

"Ambassador," she called out, surprised by the tremor in her own voice. She was no longer able to control her pace, and advanced on her quickly.

V'Lar rose and turned to face her, her eyes twinkling with mirth. It seemed to be her permanent state, just on the far side of emotional control from disorder, in on the joke, entertained by anything and everything around her. T'Pol had wondered, following her ordeal rescuing her from Mazarite pirates, if that was something that would also happen to her with age, but now she suspected it was due to something quite different.

"T'Pol." It was only her name, but it conveyed magnitudes. Her gratitude, her trust, her maternal nature - all of which instantly set her at ease. When she made the overture of a handshake, she even reciprocated it, and together they sat at the table.

It seemed like ages before either spoke. Because she couldn't think of a better way to put it, T'Pol went for the direct approach: "What are you doing here?"

The older woman cast a meaningful glance around the room to the displays, to the PADDs lining the table, to the half-written page in a notebook sitting close at hand. She waited for her to reach the natural conclusion herself, and when she said nothing, decided to fill in the blanks.

"After my brush with death on your ship, the High Command decided that a change of pace was warranted." She leaned back and crossed her arms inside her sleeves, and T'Pol was slightly irritated that she thought that was sufficient enough of an explanation.

"Have you been here this entire time?"

"Largely," she admitted. "I have dealt with the Ministry of Security for years, even accepted protection from them, but I never imagined..."

"You are in control." The realization struck her like a speeding hover train, and the surprise was very much written all over her face.

"Of the Romulan front, at least. If I may be so bold as to say it, there's no one else with as much experience with the inner political workings of the quadrant." She paused, and nearly reached for her, but stopped short. "You and I have something in common, T'Pol."

It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. When she spoke, her whisper was barely audible. "How long have you known?"

"About as long as you have. It seems that I was among the first in a long string of hybrids. My father was a sleeper agent, as was yours. I am sure you can imagine, it came as quite the surprise to me."

And to her. All her life, with the shortest blip in the middle surrounding their ordeal on Mazar, she'd revered and looked up to V'Lar. Years ago, during her early schooling, she'd traveled a great distance to hear her speak, to listen to her describe the circumstances surrounding their negotiations of the Treaty of Ka'Tann. There, she'd listened with rapt attention as the ambassador expounded on the fact that some were called above and beyond to serve the people of Vulcan, and in a room of thousands, it had felt like she was only talking to her.

It had ultimately brought her to her new home and her true calling. Truthfully, she was tremendously grateful for her counsel, and for planting the seeds in her mind of the strength of her bond with Jonathan. Her words had fundamentally changed the course of her life, and had the potential to do so again.

She took a deep, measured breath before wading deeper into the waters. "I take it you know where they are holding the Minister?"

"In the Devron system," she replied, reaching for the PADD at the very top of the pile and pushing it into her line of sight. "Devron II, to be more precise. Our scans indicate that the hybrid battalion has established a temporary dispatch point there, undoubtedly for the upcoming incursion on Galorndon Core. We've detected her biosign there, but it is very faint."

"Is a ship prepared?"

"A small civilian transport, capable of warp three. It will get the two of you there in ten days."

Her phrasing absolutely caught her off guard, and she raised an eyebrow, prepared to question that statement to the fullest extent. V'Lar, indicating time was of the essence, reached underneath the table to activate an unseen beacon.

Behind her, a hidden hatch slid open along the wall, and before she even turned around, she could hear the distinctive sound of boots on the deck plating. Her blood immediately turned to ice, and her heart skipped a beat.

Every suspicion was confirmed the moment their guest rounded the corner to join them.

"T'Sana," she said reverently, and then, before she could stop herself, pressed on: "I thought you were-"

"As did I." Her former mentor was exactly as she remembered her, from the expressive eyes to the impractically long hair to the slightly unkempt way she dressed and presented herself. She was always an unusual Vulcan, finding some sort of illicit thrill in the work they did, indulging in the frivolities of each culture they encountered, and challenging her upbringing at every turn. Her emotions were always tremendously close to the surface, and when she greeted her with an understated, lopsided smile, she knew that much hadn't changed.

One thing was also for certain: the last time she'd seen her, they were pursuing a smuggling ring on an anonymous desert world. While in the midst of a firefight, she'd been wounded, and begged T'Pol to run, to save herself. She was barely six months out of training, and had never seen that much blood before, and had desperately wanted to save her friend. But in the end she was still very much strict, protocol driven, the consummate officer. She'd left her to die.

Her appearance now, therefore, came as a tremendous shock.

"How did you-"

"I understand the two of you have much to discuss. Fortunately, there will be plenty of time to do so." V'Lar quickly added several more PADDs to her stack, trying her best to ignore the way they were sizing one another up.

T'Pol found herself thinking of an exercise new recruits were forced to complete to ensure they were ready for a career in the field. One by one, they were led into a dark room and blindfolded. Slowly, assassins with daggers emerged from the shadows, and they were tasked with disarming every last one of them using the tal-shaya or the suus mahna, or whatever scrap of advantage their wits provided. She'd emerged from the exercise covered in scrapes and bruises, but in the end, she had trusted her abilities, her sense of right and wrong, the deep, ingrained belief in her own instincts.

As she would have to trust T'Sana now.

"It will be just like old times," V'Lar said, her amusement evident and a bit misplaced. The space between them seemed to constrict, and she was drawn to her feet, studying her former mentor with unbelievable intensity.

She did not yield. "Just like old times," T'Sana agreed, and reached for the PADDs behind her.

---

SIX WEEKS LATER…

---

Maelstrom Captain's Log, October 28th, 2156: We're holding in place at a defensive position in the Galorndon system. No reports of Romulan sightings yet, but if they do happen to show up, we'll be ready.

---

"I'm telling you, all we need to do is lower life support under the detection threshold. We could get through in just under thirty seconds." Ethan sounded so sure of his latest solution, so confident, that for a brief moment Travis almost considered going along with it.

Almost.

"Sounds great," he said, his words dripping with sarcasm. "Do you have any ideas that won't suffocate us or freeze us solid?"

"Yes, but they've all failed so far." Lest he forget the strenuous nature of their experimentation that morning, Ethan turned his PADD around so he could see the screen, and all seventeen of the schemes they'd tested out through trial and error.

When they'd boarded Shuttlepod Two at the start of alpha shift, they'd been laughing and carrying on, but now, they were fairly close to killing one another. Somewhat melodramatically, Ethan wondered if this was the one mission that would end their friendship.

Alira's taunting on the other end of the comm certainly wasn't helping to deescalate the situation. After more than a month of experimentation, she and Commander Reed had developed a prototype of a new variety of sensor network, a modification of the warp detection grid they'd gone to great lengths to steal during the Battle of Barisa VI. They'd managed to extend the scanning capabilities to detect life support, environmental controls, and even internal light sources, all things that couldn't be switched off entirely as engines could. Seeing as they currently had very little company in the system, Romulan or otherwise, they'd deployed several experimental beacons around Galorndon II and set to trying to break the system by any means necessary.

They'd tried nearly every trick in the book. While that was good news for them and even worse news for the enemy, the suggestions their own brigades made hadn't even worked. Captain Tucker encouraged them to read up on past skirmishes and telepresence attacks, to learn to think like the enemy, but so far nothing had come even close to breaking through the subspace barricade. More often than not, they'd hear her voice before they were even halfway through the detection zone, and be forced to turn around to give it another go. Admiral Gardner and the Commodore were already overjoyed with their progress, having made plans to deploy the technology to all Coalition worlds and protected colonies by the end of the month. It was a stunning victory for the alliance, but for Ethan and Travis, it almost definitely spelled disaster.

They'd each bet a laundry list of favors and niceties to the winning party of their little contest, and right now things were not looking good for them.

"Do we have enough reserve power for another cloak pulse?" Ethan didn't even up before shaking his head no, which annoyed Travis to no end. While the real cloaking device from the T'Versa turned out to be an incendiary bomb that damn near tore the ship in two, they'd managed to take extensive scans and sensor readings to figure out the basic framework of how it operated. It would have been a miracle if they were able to reproduce a working cloak, but as it was, the instrument was a tremendous drain on their power reserves, and they could really only sustain it for brief bursts at a time.

"How about another flare through the plasma exhaust manifold?" Novakovich leaned forward over his console, squinting into the display.

Travis shook his head incredulously. "Not unless you want to fly in ass first."

"You know what?" Ethan slumped down in the co-pilot's seat, throwing his hands up in frustration. "Why don't we? At this point, we know it's not going to work. Face it, Travis. We're both going to be getting that woman cappuccinos for the rest of the weekend. Do you have any idea how much coffee she drinks?"

"Don't even go there," Travis said with a formidable amount of reverence. "That's quitter's talk. We could initiate a venting cascade, but we'd need…"

"To invert the drive signature, so there's a big enough wake to ride out ahead of us," Ethan concluded. Already, he was performing rapid fire calculations on his PADD, his stylus dancing across the screen.

"This is just crazy enough to work."

"Don't jinx it!" His voice grew muffled as he detached the paneling from underneath their console and crawled inside, the lower half of his body sticking out over the deck plating.

He was about to say something to the effect of if this doesn't work, I'm dropping you off at the nearest habitable planet and leaving there to die, but was interrupted by the sound of the comm overhead.

"Come on, you two. Simulated daylight's burning." It was Commander Hammond, and she sounded much too amused for her own good.

Her teasing was compounded by their tactical officer, who sounded like she was pacing back and forth behind the conn. "You've got to concede eventually. There's no time like the present."

"Don't speak so soon." Already, dilithium residue was starting to build up in their impulse drive, a sign that things were starting to go their way. "Give us one more shot, and then we'll come in for lunch."

"Sounds like a plan. Kelby's been telling me his brigade's come up with a dozen more ideas."

Ethan stifled a groan, closing his eyes momentarily.

"Don't lose hope, Mr. Mayweather. Maybe the eighteenth time's the charm."

All they needed was a few more minutes, and Travis was determined to barrel across the detection grid and take the Maelstrom by surprise. He could see them off in the distance now, so tantalizingly close, that he almost wanted to reach out and touch them. To afford them a little extra time and spare them the brunt of their teasing for now, he decided to change the subject.

"Have you all decided what you'll be wearing to Hoshi's Halloween party?"

Their communications officer was their resident party planner extraordinaire; she had everyone's birthday memorized, as well as the distribution of major holidays throughout the year. She was known for organizing extravagant bashes on extremely limited budgets, for ensuring everyone had a good time, and for making sure they had the opportunity to forget the perils of war all around them.

That was another issue entirely - though Captain Namara had explicitly told Shran and his Starfleet companions that the Romulan invasion would soon begin at Galorndon Core, almost two months later, there was no trace of any lingering incursion. Their best guess was that the plan had changed due to her capture and subsequent criminal charge, or that this was the trap that had been set for an incoming attack somewhere else. Because of this, the Columbia was sent back out for patrol, leaving just the Enterprise and the Maelstrom to wander the system in search of trouble.

Or, in this case, to conduct much needed weapons testing.

"Perhaps you should think about going as a miserable failure." Alira's characteristically rough reply came a second later, and though he could tell she was joking, Travis winced, clutching his heart.

"I would, but I've already dusted off my costume. You know the ladies can't resist a vampire."

"He's worn that getup five years in a row. Just once, I'd like some competition for the costume contest." Ethan was notorious for his ensembles, which grew increasingly absurd the longer he served in deep space. Last year, he'd gone for the subtle approach, dressing up as the Commodore with a water polo ball under one arm and a plush stuffed beagle under the other. Even Hoshi and Trip got in on the fun by going as one another, the former wearing all the cowboy gear she could get her hands on and the latter sporting a headset over one ear, loudly pretending to answer a transmission every time someone approached him.

"You may have it anyway," Julia warned, cutting a glance towards her partner in crime. "Hoshi wants the three of us to go as mermaids."

Alira stopped in her tracks and turned on her heels, speaking directly into the comm. She hadn't known very much about the creatures when Hoshi brought it up over breakfast the day before, but the more she read about them in the human cultural database, the more concerned she became. "You know, in British folklore, they were considered bad omens, foretelling disaster and provoking it. They lure men to their deaths. They could even wreck ships."

"Ensign, it's really just a-"

"Most so-called confirmed sightings were probably manatees," she concluded. "And yet Terran culture has persisted in romanticizing them for years. I'm sorry, I just fail to see the appeal."

Julia laughed, then reached over to cover the speaker with her hand. She beckoned her closer, whispering: "We're really just leaning into the idealization. It'll be a bonding experience for us girls."

Alira supposed she was right; they'd seldom had time to enjoy one another's company, even with the downtime between battles and patrols. Work always kept them busy, day in and day out, and by the time they got off duty, they scarcely had the energy to gossip or watch movies or go for a run together like they used to. Still, Denobulan fashion was decidedly modest and understated, perfectly at odds with their social behavior, and it certainly would be a step outside her comfort zone.

"Besides…" Hammond leaned in, her eyes twinkling conspiratorially. "I don't know about you, but these days, I basically go from my uniform to pajamas and back again. When was the last time you got to look in the mirror and feel good about yourself?"

"Every day of my life," she answered plainly, and Julia had to resist the urge to laugh. Her natural confidence, after all this time, still surprised her. She was about to say something complimentary to that effect when Alira suddenly faltered and nearly tumbled into her chair.

Before she could say anything, Julia stood, clutching both of her arms and attempting to provide some support. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she replied, all the while attempting to plaster a smile on her face, her words slurred with drowsiness. They knew she had been trying her hardest to stay awake, even though she was past due on her hibernation cycle and purely relying on stimulants to maintain consciousness at this point. Alira argued that with the threat of a Romulan incursion ever present, they couldn't even spare her for the requisite forty-eight hours. Yuris was at the end of his rope, claiming that she could suffer permanent brain damage, and Trip was damn close to ordering her to just take the sedative and lay down already.

Julia was silent for a moment, contemplating whether it was truly time for her to pull rank on the situation, when the comm chimed.

It was Travis, and he sounded awfully proud of himself. "Maelstrom, this is Shuttlepod Two. Seeking permission to dock."

They both startled, and Alira surged forward to the tactical console, nearly tripping over the step as she did so. Her eyes flew across the console, and she shook her head, pulling an exaggerated grimace. Even from a distance, Julia could see that she was utterly bewildered. "There's no way. What did you do?"

"You're about to find out," he replied, and from somewhere in the cabin, they heard him engage the thrusters and start to maneuver the pod into the docking berths.

Ethan was having a hard time hiding his laughter. "We'll meet you in the armory in about ten minutes. Just so you know, I take my coffee iced, with extra cream and vanilla."

The transmission ended there, but both knew they were far from finished. Alira had been counting on a positive outcome from that morning's troubleshooting; Gardner was on them from the moment they fled Barisa VI, telling them how critical the vessel detection grid was for the security of the Coalition, expecting miracles but scarcely giving them time to produce a competent prototype. She was already anticipating double shifts until the matter was resolved.

She rounded the curve of the bridge towards the captain's ready room, most likely to solicit his engineering expertise. "You can reach me in my office for the rest of the shift. Enterprise is going to need to double back and rejoin us. We're going to need both brigades on this, for as long as possible until the issue is-" Her hand reached out to hit the door chime, and her entire upper body followed it, toppling forward and avoiding striking her chin on the wall by a fraction of a centimeter.

Julia turned just in time to see her tactical officer fall face first into the deck plating, arms and legs akimbo. Rather than pain or frustration, she saw tranquility there, and perhaps, at least subconsciously, relief. She wondered if she'd fallen asleep before she even hit the ground.

"Dr. Yuris to the bridge." Her own voice surprised her, and she dipped her head, shaking it ruefully. "We need medical assistance."

---

Mere minutes later, Travis and Ethan found themselves hurrying down the corridor from the shuttlebay with an added spring in their steps. Their heads were bent together, and they were chattering furtively, desperately attempting to form some sort of timeline on how to milk their win for all it was worth.

"This doesn't happen very often," Ethan said, turning in his instep to avoid an approaching crewman.

"That's because Taxa doesn't make bets that she isn't absolutely certain she can't win," Travis reminded him. Their friendship, now that he thought about it, was basically built around a series of pranks, bets, and drunken mishaps. Their antics were silly, irreverent, and over-the-top at times, but truthfully, he wouldn't have it any other way. "So this is definitely an anomaly. We've got to rub it in."

"I can't wait to see the look on her face." What their success truly meant was hours of additional work for them both, the navigation and science and armory brigades banding together to meet some arbitrary deadline set forth by the Admiral, but right now, he didn't care to think too much about it.

"I wonder how she would feel about picking up my dry cleaning."

"About as good as she's going to feel conducting all of the midnight feedings for the xenobiology specimens in the science lab."

His head whipped around, his expression incredulous. "Really? Even the Arkarian horn fowl?"

"Especially the Arkarian horn fowl."

The animal in question was less than a half meter long with scraggly, distended wings and a vulture-like face; it seemed oddly perceptive, its eyes vaguely humanoid, enough to where it gave Travis the creeps every time he walked past it, and he didn't mind saying so. "Didn't it take off two of Ensign Bhaduri's fingertips?"

"Yes, but they were able to reattach them, no harm done. Remind me to tell her to-"

That second, they both nearly ran headlong into Dr. Yuris as they rounded a corner into the junction of two corridors. He'd been mid-conversation with one of his field medics, and from what they could decipher out of his nearly impassive expression, he was frustrated to no end. In his arms he carried their tactical officer, casually so, as though she weighed no more to him than a bunch of grapes.

"Doctor, what-"

"I told her two weeks ago that she could not wait any longer, and she actively decided not to heed my advice." He huffed, shifting his weight and his patient. Alira was seemingly dead to the world, her eyelids twitching as she traversed the landscape of her dreamworld. She was utterly limp in his arms, a state of affairs he was having trouble managing. "Crewman, does the record not indicate that I described the risk factors of sleep deprivation on Denobulan physiology?"

"Yes, sir." They didn't recognize his assistant, though he seemed nervous, as though he was ready to be scolded at any time. He was frantically scrolling through her medical records, nodding intermittently, pouring over the details of their last consultation.

"And did I not remind her that she is over a month past due for her sleep cycle?"

"You did, sir, right here in your notes."

"I fail to understand why certain members of the crew persist in seeking my medical advice if they refuse to follow it." Yuris suddenly seemed to remember where he was and what company he was in, and the veneer of emotional control came crashing down again, his expression forcefully neutralizing. "If you require Ensign Taxa's expertise for further repairs-"

"And we do-"

"You shall have it," he concluded, pushing past them and around the corner towards the lift. The doors opened, and they stepped inside, turning on their heels to face him. Yuris raised an eyebrow and leaned over slightly, long enough for him to catch the chronometer reading at the top of his assistant's PADD. "In forty-seven hours and fifty one minutes."

The doors closed between them, effectively ending their conversation and descending the hallway into silence.

They both stood there for a beat, processing what they'd just seen, then Ethan turned to him, his brows knit together in concern.

"How long is this bet supposed to last, Travis?"

"Seventy-two hours."

"Damn." He dipped his head and heaved a massive sigh, propping his hands on his hips. Ethan realized his hope of good-naturedly tormenting his friend were all but dashed. "Anyway…"

A second later, they resumed their journey down the corridor, intending to beat their brigades there without a moment to spare.

---

Jonathan thought it must be some kind of cosmic joke that the moment T'Pol left the ship, things started to go wrong.

It all began with the engines. Following the signing of the Coalition charter, they were dispatched with all haste to Galorndon Core, where a Romulan incursion was said to be imminent. Within the day, they lost two plasma injectors, affording an irreparable tremor to the deck plating that forced them down to impulse as the situation deteriorated. The Columbia and the Maelstrom continued on, and Anna's brigade had pulled double shifts for over a week trying to remedy the situation. Finally, they called in a favor from a nearby Tellarite battle cruiser, who expedited a hardware delivery from Starbase 1 out to the middle of nowhere.

Then came the petty arguments - as first officer, that was Malcolm's cross to bear, and he had to intervene multiple times to prevent fistfights from breaking out in the science non-comm blocks. Lieutenant Cutler threatened to confine her team to quarters, toss them into the brig, or push them out the airlock if the disagreements continued, to mixed success.

It was like there was something in the air, or in the water. Captain Tucker's weekly report called out repeated discrepancies with their inertial dampeners and environmental controls. One such glitch quite literally caused it to snow in the mess hall, all the while the gym was as humid and sweltering as the Amazon rainforest. By the time they caught up with them, the problem worsened, and Commander Kelby had taken to wearing his cold weather parka as he sat at his desk in engineering. Curiously, Columbia seemed immune to these issues, and Erika refused Jonathan's offer to come to dinner multiple times, on the assumption that she would bring bad energy back to her own ship.

None of it made any sense. He'd been the Captain for over four years by the time he handed over command, and he was very much familiar with his ship and the types of issues they usually faced. Within days, he was forced to come to terms with the fact that as Commodore, he was much more detached from daily operations than he once was. From then on, he made a conscious effort to be more involved, to help with daily repairs and diagnostics, to invite random members of the crew to their table for every meal. Malcolm entertained his attempts at small talk even though he could tell it pained him, and in turn, he graciously ignored the fact that he was receiving an overnight guest from the Maelstrom two or three days a week.

All in all, they were pretty subtle about it. He seemed to go straight from dinner back to the armory, where she'd be waiting for him. Archer heard rumblings that they would work for hours putting the finishing touches on the vessel detection grid before retiring to his quarters. Their rooms shared a wall, and he would occasionally hear them laughing, their jokes subsequently smothered by a cascade of shushes and whispers. He was never able to catch her in the morning; she would vanish like a ghost, leaving their first officer in remarkably high spirits for the rest of the day.

The effect she had on him was nothing short of incredible. Archer knew they'd been carrying on for well over a year now, and kept waiting for them to come to him seeking official clearance for their relationship. He knew Alira was much too proud for that, and it would likely embarrass Malcolm to no end, so he let it slide. They couldn't possibly be more different, but they came from the same stock, devoted to their crew, endlessly fixated on their objectives, and, unfortunately, vulnerable to Harris's manipulation.

Taxa's revelation had fundamentally altered his opinion of her, and for some time, he'd stewed in his own anger, disbelieving that she'd managed to funnel ship's information to intelligence for months under his nose. But she seemed genuinely remorseful, even more so than Malcolm, and when she promised to fully devote herself to the plan, he believed her.

Against his better judgment.

Malcolm knew he was on this ice. It took weeks before he was able to look him in the eye again, but when he did, he threw himself into preparations, carefully aligning and realigning their next steps to the changing circumstances around them. Their plot was like a dance, or perhaps a high-wire tightrope act, where there was no room for error and each subsequent misstep meant almost certain death.

He couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, that they were missing something, that some bit of information had escaped them. If there was one false move, it would spell disaster for all of them, so they'd pulled multiple all-nighters in T'Pol's quarters, mapping out the plan and spelling out all the contingencies time and time again. Trip was adamant that this would work, that they would all come out on top.

Jonathan wasn't so sure.

Maybe it was the fact that he could no longer feel his bondmate in his head. She'd warned him that this could happen the farther she ventured into enemy territory, but this was even more unsettling than their ordeal with her past self, because he had no idea whether she was in danger or not.

Even her cat was distressed by her absence. T'Pol had left painstakingly detailed instructions on what dietary supplements Lady consumed, where she preferred to sleep, and how long to play with her every single day. However, every time he interacted with her, she skittered away, even hissed once or twice. Porthos would sniff at her, only to find himself on the receiving end of a mean right hook. When she wasn't angry, Lady was perfectly detached and aloof, just like someone else he knew.

Admittedly, he'd gotten used to being surrounded by her thoughts at all times. To mentally hear the snide little comments she made during morning briefings and subspace calls with the brass. To sense her sing old songs from her childhood, accompanied by the barest tap of a foot. To wake up every morning with a pointed ear laid on his chest.

God, he missed her.

He couldn't dwell on that now.

Shortly after lunch on alpha shift, he found himself traversing the halls with his first officer, smiling and nodding at everyone who crossed their path. It was a ritual he'd only recently resumed in a bid to meet more of the crew, to hear their concerns, and most importantly, to give the impression that everything was under control.

Which it was. For the most part.

They'd already encountered more than enough adventure for the day in the science laboratories - once again, Crewman Marceline's Aldebaran cephalopod had escaped from his cage, though this time, it seemed that it had very little to do with anyone's inattention. Ensign Starks had joined the fray, dancing around in an attempt to avoid the creature. As he saw them come in, he attempted to hide the truth from them, but there was little else that could cause a dozen well-trained, battle-hardened scientists to run away like that.

They could see its enclosure had a massive hole in it. This didn't look like it could have possibly been done by Sparky, even though Malcolm knew from experience just how powerful its electrocution abilities were. It was perfectly circular, with a little bit of warping on the sides, as if it had been hit by a small, concentrated energy blast. The wall behind the enclosure was studded with various power relays connected to the EPS grid, but nothing more. All of this was very curious, and they'd stood there for a moment pondering the issue while Cutler's brigade ran around with a strange assortment of implements in an attempt to capture the creature.

Finally Liz returned, brandishing the net that Phlox normally used to wrangle his Pyrithian bat whenever it escaped in sickbay. Advising everyone else to stand back, she valiantly advanced on the creature, attempting to scoop it up but finding herself locked in a tug of war with every one of the hundreds of suckers on the Sparky's legs. Malcolm wrapped his arms around her and desperately attempted to anchor them to the nearest lab bench; Archer followed, then Starks and Carvalho, until damn near every person in the room had joined the chain.

At last they managed to overpower Sparky, and they all fell into a laughing, breathless heap. None of them could really help it - the situation was much too ridiculous to be taken seriously anyway. Liz finally wrestled the creature into a nearby cage. For a second Jonathan thought she was going to join them, but she only turned to Marceline and told her to lock that thing up tight, because this was the seventh time in a month this had happened.

Continuing on their journey, they encountered a few more minor emergencies, scrapes and bruises and sparking panels, before Malcolm mused that he hoped they didn't have to put out any more fires that afternoon.

His words turned out to be prophetic.

Seconds later, Crewman Galloway emerged from the galley, toting a ceramic dish filled with the blazing remains of what appeared to be a pot roast. He held it out at arm's length, attempting to keep his composure as the flames licked at his oven mitts, but still managed to afford them an uneasy smile as she rounded the corner into the next section. Two more stewards followed him, toting fire extinguishers but not seeming the least bit keen on using them.

Jonathan stopped at the bulkhead and crossed his arms, watching as he set his bounty on the ground, removed the unit from the wall, and blasted it with suppressant foam multiple times. When he was good and sure that the fire was cooled and the surrounding deck plating was thoroughly stained, he holstered the device and leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees.

Ensign Singh appeared in that moment, carrying two armfuls of PADDs. When she spoke, she sounded curious, though a bit nervous as to what the answer might be. "Everything alright down here?"

"I've never seen anything like it. The extinguishers in the galley malfunctioned, all four of them, and the oven's been acting up all day." He slowly righted himself, shaking his head ruefully. "Dinner's going to be a little late tonight, sir."

"That's quite alright, Crewman. Stay safe." Archer was moving again, and Dita and Malcolm followed, rounding the corner into the armory's domain.

"Any updates from the Maelstrom?" For the sake of their impending deadline from Admiral Gardner, Jonathan was hoping the answer would be no.

"Mayweather and Novakovich managed to break through the vessel detection barrier. They're requesting our presence as Galorndon II to work on the problem. Hammond seems to think it's going to be another all-nighter."

If he was disappointed, he hid it well. "I've got no complaints. Is your team up for it, Commander?"

"Of course. Let Miss Taxa know that Ensign Tanner will be starting in on the infrared scattering array first thing."

Dita suddenly stopped in her tracks, and when he turned to look back at her, he couldn't miss the slight grimace adorning her features. "About that…"

"Yes?"

"She's hibernating, and will be for the next forty-eight hours. Seems that she passed out on the bridge."

He made a quiet sort of noise in the back of his throat, maybe a sigh or a scoff, then looked down at his feet. "I told her."

"What was that?"

"Tell Trip we'll be there in an hour. Have Pascal lay in a course." Jonathan resumed his path, only to be stopped by a tentative hand on his arm.

"I'll tell his second. He hasn't returned from lunch yet, something about a very important communique which required his immediate response." She paused, shuffling around her PADDs until she located the right one and passed it into his hands. "If you see him, could you pass this along? I suspect he might be in the armory, it's certification day for those new Romulan disruptors you want us to use."

"What is it?"

"He made some corrections to last month's trajectory logs. I just need his final signature. There's a few transmissions from his family on there too," Dita explained, then at the Commodore's slight nod, offered them a smile and turned to leave.

He knew his companion recognized this for what it was.

The opportunity they'd been waiting for.

The moment she was out of sight, Archer passed it to Malcolm, and he made quick work of guiding it into the opposite hand, revealing a memory chip tucked into his sleeve with a flick of the wrist and tucking it into the interface port. The entire motion took less than three seconds, and in twice that amount of time, the data transfer was complete. He slipped it into his pocket and they resumed their path, arriving in his domain almost immediately.

A cluster of senior staff stood within, gathered in a semicircle around Crewman Bennett, who was walking them through the various features of the disruptor she was holding. They'd managed to steal a veritable mountain of them during their different encounters with the enemy, and now that there was enough to go around, it was a requirement for each member of future away teams and boarding parties.

Like the phase pistol, there were selections for stun and kill, but there was also a vaporize setting, one which Jonathan dearly hoped they wouldn't need to use in the near future. If things got any worse, however…

"I fail to see why I need to be present for this exercise," Phlox complained, leaning into the console before him. "Sickbay is undoubtedly the most heavily shielded part of the ship, and in the event of a tactical alert-"

"You need to know how to defend yourself," Liz asserted. She was turning her own weapon over and over in her hand, not looking the least bit confident with it, but remaining resolute nonetheless.

"Well, if you insist."

"I do." They locked eyes, and she smiled, a gesture which wasn't without its own dose of apprehension.

"As do I." Shelby activated the holographic beacons, causing them to dance against the far wall, then began to aim at them one by one. "The targeting sensor is much more sophisticated in one of these smaller pistols. Trust your instincts, and don't let your finger tense over the trigger. Simply follow them with your eyes."

Within thirty seconds, the projection terminated, and a computerized voice heralded her score. She turned to them and all but beamed, not being able to hide how proud of herself she was for a moment.

"Excellent work, Crewman." Malcolm slowly approached them, ensuring eye contact was made with each and every officer, lingering for a split second over Pascal. He then bent over to retrieve a heavier rifle from an open case, green as old American currency, as long as his arm, and heavy like a ten-ton weight. "If you ever get dispatched on a mission with the MACOs, you may be lucky enough to handle one of these. Sergeant Kemper's brigade is training with them on the Maelstrom right now, but if you're feeling lucky…"

"Ooh, gimme!" Lieutenant Commander Hess reached for it, and he passed the weapon into her hands, watching as she flipped it over to study the power cell and energy circuits within. Like a true engineer, she was one track minded, but still shouldered it, aiming it into the wall far above everyone's heads. "I challenge any evildoer around to approach me and receive three hundred thousand volts of pure justice."

"Not so fast. You'll need at least level ten mastery to get anywhere close to using this in close quarters." One of their MACOs had learned that lesson the hard way just a few weeks prior, and was only just recovering from a broken arm.

"I've got level twelve," Pascal said, a bit boastfully. "May I?"

"By all means." Shelby stepped up behind him and helped him balance it on his shoulder, adjusting the sights and hooking the strap around his elbow. "Prepare yourself. The kickback is a little much."

"I can handle it." He offered her a reassuring smile, and she shrugged, knowing full well what was about to happen but already having done her due diligence to warn him. She and Malcolm exchanged a wary glance, but she forged on, activating the beacons.

Simon missed the first target, then the second. Liz was closest to him, and could see his eyes wandering over the sights, counting, thinking, waiting for the right moment.

He fired, and the recoil forced him off his feet and into the cabinet behind him. The sound was sharp and thunderous, and they could tell he was in pain.

Anna reacted immediately, clapping a hand over her mouth, studying him with wide eyes. Phlox reached for him, but he leaned away from his touch and stumbled to his feet. "Well, Crewman, you weren't wrong."

"Try a wider stance next time," she suggested, and Malcolm realized she was a much nicer person than he could ever hope to be. Admittedly, he'd felt a surge of satisfaction watching him get hurt, almost as strong as when he'd nearly beat him to a pulp on the landing platform back on Paan Mokar.

How desperately he wanted to do it again.

The need was unspeakable, and more than a little terrifying.

"Give it a few minutes and we'll try again." Malcolm removed the PADD he'd been carrying from his pocket and took a step closer, extending it out to him over the console. He met his gaze and latched on with laser focus, his intensity frightening.

The moment they made contact, the lights overhead flickered off.

The ensuing blackout was total, absolute, and the emergency beacons didn't even come on. There was a moment of shocked, prescient silence, then Jonathan reached for the comm in the darkness. Fortunately, secondary systems still appeared to be online. "Archer to the bridge."

"Bridge here. We've lost main power, Commodore."

He ducked his head, hearing the shock and surprise in Dita's voice. He knew that she had just about a good idea of what was going on as he did. "Start a level one diagnostic. We're on our way to the bridge."

"I recommend you go via the access tubes, sir. The lifts are down, and we're getting reports of people trapped all over the ship."

"Acknowledged. Archer out."

Anna was moving around in a cabinet, and when she finally located her prize, she switched on her flashlight and trained it at the far wall. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but she was soon greeted by the senior officers, a mountain of weapons cases, and further still, several bewildered members of the armory brigade.

"Are we ready?"

"Ready as we'll ever be," Malcolm mumbled, and led the way into the unknown.

---

The journey to the Devron system took much longer than either of them anticipated.

The craft the ambassador had provided them was small, but manageable, with three main chambers: a bridge, a sleeping berth, and an engine room. The corridors were scarcely tall enough to stand up in, and the dining area was made up of a single replicator and a chair, which they graciously took turns in, if only to avoid sitting next to each other at the conn for longer than absolutely necessary.

Every bit of the interior was Vulcan in origin, the brutalist architecture, the consoles and lettering, and the thoughts spared toward comfort in favor of efficiency. Though Enterprise was small and claustrophobic, it wasn't without its charms, and she had to admit that she missed it even when surrounded by emblems of her past.

The external hull was Romulan, and would appear to every sensor to be a small enemy transport. Apparently, several Ministry operatives had been sent out to retrieve one for mass reproduction, and only one had come back alive. V'Lar seemed perfectly nonchalant telling her this, noting how honorable their sacrifice had been, how it would be of tremendous advantage to the Vulcan cause. She wondered why this information hadn't yet been shared with the other members of the Coalition, but knew it had something to do with who the High Command trusted to put the information to good use.

Before they allowed the humans or Andorians or Tellarites to blow their cover, they wanted to have their turn at the metaphorical helm.

She felt some guilt at buying into the previous regime's hesitation to allow the humans out into deep space, and their distaste for the telepathic minority; knowing what she did now about V'Las's administration, this was undoubtedly a Romulan attitude perpetuated by their sleeper agents to ensure their supremacy over the quadrant for as long as possible. Knowing for so long that she had been prejudiced against the minorities on her homeworld, against the people who deviated even the least little bit from the norm, shook her to the core.

Because she now exemplified everything that polite society stood against, as T'Sana once had to her.

She'd always been a quiet, reserved child when it mattered, but inside she experienced a storm of emotions that could never be calmed. It lead to frequent outbursts and fits of rage and tears, and she had distinct memories of her father - her Tal Shiar sleeper agent father - striking her across the face and telling her no proper Vulcan acted that way, before sending her to bed early.

All things considered, he kept his cover well. He had to, because even after her husband was replaced by a complete imposter, T'Les still continued on as normal, as though she couldn't tell the difference at all. Two parents who loved one another was a concept entirely foreign to T'Pol; she knew they were a good team and they cherished her and presented a unified front, but at the end of the day, she supposed they never really spent much time together, or with her. Especially as she grew older, Venek kept her at arm's length, until the fateful day everything changed.

She keenly remembered coming home from school one day to find the capitol police in front of their home. Her mother was shaking, trembling to her core, saying there had been an accident but offering no further details. Her aunt arrived and spirited her away, and she neither saw nor heard from her for weeks.

Apparently, in that time, her mother had gone to Soval, one of her father's old colleagues in the Ministry, begging for help because she didn't know where else to turn. Venek told her everything only a few days before he'd been murdered, telling her how he could no longer live this lie. He was going back to Romulus, and neither of them could accompany him.

Soval acted quickly, bringing her into the fold, ensuring she got placed in the program of her choice at the Science Academy and eventually talking her into an assignment with the Ministry. She was sure V'Lar's influence had something to do with it, but at the end of the day, her mentor's encouragement to seek out a life of service had less to do with what she was capable of and more to do with making sure she could defend herself for the inevitable day the Tal Shiar came after her.

Vulcans weren't known for being boisterous, fun-loving, or affectionate, but her first undercover partner was all of those things. T'Sana claimed to behave this way to maintain their cover, but she knew better than that. T'Pol followed her lead, though somewhat less enthusiastically, still carrying the burden of a stern and humorless upbringing. And because they were two young women traveling alone, many transport captains and barkeeps told them exactly what they needed to know. For some time, they traversed the quadrant like that and gained quite the reputation for themselves, gaining more and more responsibility.

As time went on, T'Pol realized she was reluctant to leave her company and set out on her own. One evening as they drifted through an uninhabited region of space, T'Sana brought out a bottle of Ktarian merlot and coaxed her into taking a drink. Vulcans typically didn't indulge, but she decided to take a chance, and soon she was pleasantly buzzed, the alcohol doing wonders to relax her emotional suppression better than anything else ever had.

They sat in the galley together that night, and T'Pol told her everything, about growing up alone in the mountains with few friends and parents who thought it best to leave her to her own devices. She told her about the games she'd play all by herself, her imaginary friends, her dreams of traveling among the stars, and how she'd eventually found refuge in protocol and duty and forgotten all of that. The truth was, after all of her accomplishments, she felt unfulfilled. There had to be more to life than logic and reason, she was sure of it.

She realized, not without a tremendous amount of trepidation about what this meant for her reputation and career, that she wanted to experience all of it with her.

After that ordeal on Sanexa, T'Pol had all but purged her from her memory. She wished the fullara had done away with the sight of her dear and treasured friend bleeding out upon the ground, but it didn't. So she doubled down on her meditation in an attempt to forget, and for the most part had been successful.

The memories came roaring back almost five years ago when Tolaris asked her point-blank if she ever dreamed of life outside of the Vulcan ideal, and she said she had once, but not anytime recently. Her mind was once again a storm of anger and regret, and the traumatic event that followed their meeting only exacerbated it.

She tried to heal the only way she knew how, but hiding from others didn't seem to help any longer. It had been her catalyst towards opening up towards the crew, to discovering what lay beyond what she knew. Her life had been full of orders and propriety and the intermittent tragedy, but that didn't mean she couldn't learn how other species lived, how they flourished and thrived.

And maybe she could find happiness. Not the Surakian ideals of peace and harmony and accord with the universe. Happiness. It might just be what she'd been needing all along.

For the entirety of the first day, they hardly spoke. T'Pol could tell that T'Sana was holding back on her behalf - their silence was companionable, as it always once was, and by the time she retired for the evening, she had started to warm up to the idea that she would be conducting this mission with a ghost from her past. The memories were coming back to her now, and she would do her best to face them head on.

It seemed that she had no other choice.

She thought it was understood that they would alternate throughout the night to keep watch, but clearly, her friend had other plans. After an hour or two, T'Sana entered the berth, shed her boots and outer jacket and crawled into the bunk beside her. She rolled over onto her side and studied her, her pupils enormous. It was a long time before either said anything, but when T'Pol finally spoke up, it was exactly what she'd been wondering all day.

"Where did you go?"

"After that mission on Sanexa?"

"When else?"

Her breath caught in her throat, and she visibly fought an emotional response, though after many years of infrequent meditation, her defenses were clearly not what they used to be. "I was assigned a top secret reconnaissance mission. I needed out, and I couldn't tell you where I was going."

"So you let me believe you were dead."

"You would have done the same."

T'Pol started to protest, but knew she was right. Her image had appeared to her during her ordeal with the Arena on Tellar Prime, and that was when she knew that the memory would never leave her, that she would have to confront the issue head on.

Perhaps V'Lar really knew what she was doing after all.

"It is of no consequence," she replied, but the look in her eyes conveyed that it absolutely was. "They sent me out on my own after that."

"And you served valiantly in the Ministry for years. Tell me, why did you leave?"

"You must have read my personnel files."

"No, but V'Lar told me what I needed to know." A smile was teasing the corners of her lips now, but T'Pol couldn't bring herself to return it. "Did the High Command really extend that compelling of an offer?"

They most certainly did not. T'Pol had avoided discussing the circumstances that led her to tracking Menos and Jossen in a Risian rainforest for years. She'd certainly come to terms with the fact that she'd killed a man since then, but for decades she'd hidden it away, and when it finally came out, it had all but broken her.

She really shouldn't have told her anything. But something within her pushed her onward, told her she could trust her and believe her and confide in her, so she did.

She told her everything. From her time working alone to her stint on Ambassador Soval's staff to her assignment on Enterprise to her growing affinity for her human crewmates to her ill-fated romance with Captain Tucker and her mother's death and the circumstances which had lead to her becoming bonded, to a human nonetheless, something the old T'Pol would have never done. T'Sana listened to it all with rapt attention, and when it was over, reached out and took her hand, conveying her admiration where words failed her.

"I never would have thought of you as a maverick."

"People change. You know that."

"Better than anyone."

And T'Pol knew that was true. After all, she'd grown up an orphan, the victim of a series of horrible events that left her alone in the universe with no one to depend on but herself. Come to find out, she'd also been a hybrid all along, and circumstance had forced her to join the service as early as she could. Her adult life had been shaped by the other species they met, of the nefarious characters she conducted business with. Once, she'd asked her how she called herself a Vulcan when she indulged and caroused and reveled to her heart's content, and she replied that she had no living relatives to disgrace.

The idea was interesting, tempting, and momentarily diverting, but her assumed death had put a stop to all of her flights of fancy. She'd gone from the fringes of Vulcan society to back into the fold and then out again, and even with all the struggles she'd faced along the way, she was glad she'd been through it. It had allowed her to return to this moment, to be reunited with a treasured friend when she needed her the most.

"I have missed your companionship," she confessed, and meant it with all her heart.

"And I yours." T'Sana had been alone now for three decades, save for the occasional company of a few trainee operatives, and she had to admit it was comforting to be around someone who knew her so well. It felt like coming home, although she had never really had one.

It felt safe, even though they most certainly were not.

Eventually, T'Pol fell into a fitful sleep, and when she awoke, T'Sana was gone. She met her on the bridge with a cup of tea in hand, and together they fell into a routine which kept them sane over the duration of their two week journey.

In between reviewing the plan and maintaining the ship, they told stories. T'Pol was of the opinion that her friend had lived the most fascinating life imaginable. T'Sana filled in the blanks where she could about the many years they hadn't seen each other, describing tracking a Klingon smuggler through the subterranean cities on Terrell V, conducting reconnaissance disguised as a member of First Monarch Kaitaama's household staff on Krios Prime, and running freight with the highest ranking mob boss in the entire Orion Syndicate, a fearsome warrior named Jelora Tendi.

T'Pol was reluctant to believe that the High Command would officially sanction cooperation with a pirate organization, but given how the double-crossed loyalties of those around her had been revealed recently, she decided not to question it. In turn, she supplied her with stories of wisps desperate to initiate a crossing, religious zealots keen on taking over Enterprise, and Soong's Augments, taking great care to leave nothing out.

Eventually, they joined a convoy of cloaked vessels all heading towards the dispatch center on Devron II. It seemed they were calling in loyalists from all over the quadrant, from every colony they had. Although they couldn't see how many of their fellow Vulcans had abandoned their homes to heed the call of unification and domination, from subspace chatter they estimated there were dozens of ships, hundreds even. Immediately, a sinking sense of dread clutched T'Pol's stomach.

As they drew closer, T'Sana helped her alter her appearance, shaving her eyebrows into a perfect diagonal swoop, and she cut her hair, doing away with months of travel and hard living that had settled into it like the lines of her face. There was no guarantee they wouldn't be immediately recognized, but they surely resembled the hybrids whose identities they'd stolen. Her friend had wondered aloud what exactly had happened to them, but they knew they were likely being held in some detention center somewhere by other operatives, being tortured for what they knew of the hybrid plot.

The Ministry could certainly claim to have the moral high ground over the Section and Special Ops, but in certain areas, they were much worse.

At last they arrived at their destination, a small, grubby nondescript little planet with only a few patches of green. It was woefully desolate, utterly inhospitable, and for a moment, T'Pol wondered if they were in the right place.

One moment, there was nothing there, not even a transport hanging in low orbit, then the next, a bright flash of light heralded their passage through the cloaked barrier. Soon they were surrounded by thousands of ships, and one by one, the convoy ahead of them shimmered into existence, adding to the fray and leading towards the largest World Ender she'd ever seen.

It was simply massive, and there was no way to overstate its size. At their angle, it looked to be the same shape as the previous marauders that had attacked the alliance during the Babel Crisis, but much bigger, as big as a dozen Suurok class battlecruisers combined. It was studded with alternating green and yellow beacons and boasted hundreds of docking ports, most of which seemed to be in use. Subspace was filled with indecipherable chatter, a thunderous chorus, and not for the first time, T'Pol found herself wishing she'd been able to bring any kind of scanning equipment along with her.

She was now certain that this was the device meant to lay waste to Galorndon Core.

T'Sana seemed curiously calm for the current state of affairs. She guided them easily into the docking berths, then took a deep breath, studying the great expanse of the hull before them.

"Are you ready?" It was a foolish, wasteful, impulsive question, but T'Pol had to know.

Because she definitely wasn't.

"Of course." She stood swiftly and began to move towards the hatch, pausing with her hand over the guardrail. T'Pol heard her voice, and knew she was looking at her, but in the moment couldn't muster eye contact. "Do you trust me?"

"Unquestionably," she answered automatically, though that couldn't be farther than the truth. She could count on one hand the number of people she trusted unconditionally, mostly limited to her bondmate and the rest of the senior officers, Mr. Pascal excluded. Experience had taught her to keep her circle small, but now, she couldn't help but wonder if it was time to broaden her horizons.

Together they stepped out into a narrow corridor, clad in dark blue deck plating with many alternating lights lining the consoles on the walls. The dull roar of conversation was deafening, bone-rattling, and she realized it was coming from all around them, as well as from many consecutive decks and overhead.

Clandestinely, she switched on the Vulcan UT strapped to her wrist, and listened carefully as the deep, booming voice on the intercom became decipherable.

"-and when one day we are unified and we all march underneath the raptor's wing, you will be held in a place of honor among our armies, riches and rank bestowed upon your families and your close relations. When our enemies' homes finally lay in ashes is the only moment we will know peace. Keep this in your heart, let it fuel you, let it drive you in your-"

She stepped over a bulkhead into another section, and the voice immediately died. A tall officer passed by them, his face covered, wearing a strange sort of broad-shouldered overcoat made up of many patchworked squares. Quick as a flash, T'Pol reached out and pulled the PADD from his pocket, slipping it into her jacket before anyone could be the wiser.

It soon occurred to her that they were standing in the middle of the dispatch center; everyone seemed to know where they were going except for them, and all around them hybrids were receiving their weapons and marching orders before dashing off into many interlocking hallways, their expressions a storm of anger and determination.

They soon broke off from the crowd and stepped into a smaller corridor, then another, until they were able to locate a maintenance hatch and crawl inside. It was dark, but manageable, and T'Pol soon revealed her bounty, removing the UT and setting to deciphering the Romulan script written there.

She was able to make out several decks for weapons storage, telepresence unit maintenance, and curiously, an entire half of one level dedicated to strategic maneuvers. All of that fell by the wayside, however, when she located where the political prisoners were being held and zoomed in, showing her companion with an outstretched hand.

"I very much doubt that hybrid soldiers are allowed on these decks. We're going to have to blend in." Already, she was anticipating jumping the next two Romulans she saw and shaking them down for their uniforms and maybe unmasking them to see what they looked like face to face.

"There's no time. We'll need to go in through the back door, then escape right out the front. We can take one of their vessels all the way back to the Enterprise."

That idea was incredulous, foolhardy, and more than a little over the top. It was the kind of thing she'd grown to expect from her. "And just how do you expect to break in? Even if we could steal some weapons, we will be caught almost immediately."

T'Sana suddenly produced a handful of biometric access keys, a disruptor pistol, and some restraints. She'd forgotten just how honed her pickpocketing skills were.

"These units can only be unlocked by the retinal scans of three different individuals. We've got them here." And, if they were lucky enough, DNA scans to further scout out their weaknesses. "I haul you in as my prisoner, show them my credentials, and they don't think anything of it."

"This holding cell area looks immense. There's no guarantee we'll be able to find Minister T'Pau in time."

"Then we'd better move fast," T'Sana asserted, and before she could even agree to the plan, swept back into the corridor.

---

By the time they got to the bridge, Malcolm was ready to kill each and every one of his coworkers.

He supposed it had something to do with crawling through conduits; he'd done it a hundred times before, whether it be conducting repairs, upgrading the torpedo launchers, or hiding from some dastardly villain-of-the-week. The last time he'd had the occasion to do so, they were fighting to regain control of the ship from the enemy on Berengaria VII - the rest of the crew had been knocked out by a psionic energy pulse, and it had been up to him, the doctor, Simon, and Dita to save the day. Privately, he thought there couldn't have formed a more mismatched collection of officers if they tried.

Now was no different. He could tell environmental controls were down before they even arrived, because he was sweating profusely, and it really was getting quite uncomfortable in the maintenance shafts. Pascal seemed especially eager to get to his post, and he wasn't sure why; if the lack of the steady thrum of the engines all around them was any indication, they were positively dead in the water.

They emerged into the chamber from a hatch two meters above the ground. He turned and slid out feet first, and was almost immediately blinded. The owner apologized and averted the flashlight, and the rest of the crewmen in the situation room scattered in unreasoning group panic. Dita was the only member of senior staff on the bridge, and from what he could see in the low light, she was just as bewildered as they were.

"It happened the moment we reached the Maelstrom. Short-range is down, but I was able to reach Commander Hammond on her communicator. Their power is down too." She stepped up to the science station and peered into the electrical housing beneath the console, her brows knit together with concern.

"Range?"

"Two hundred kilometers. If the viewscreen was up, we could see them clear as day."

"My tricorder isn't showing any evidence of subspace disturbances. No subspace anomalies, no chroniton radiation signatures…" Liz was holding the device mere centimeters from her face, squinting at the tiny readout but coming up short.

Without pause, Anna fell down to her knees and rolled onto her back, sliding underneath the conn and yanking out a handful of optical cables. The area sparked, and the floor was briefly illuminated in a flash of light. She cursed, but bit back the full stream of expletives, taking manual readings with her hyperspanner. "We've got life support and secondary power. Without getting main back online, I couldn't even begin to give you an estimate for the rest."

"Pascal-" Before Jonathan could even get out the rest of that command, he skittered away, producing a bag of tools from a panel in the floor and joining her underneath the captain's chair.

In the near darkness, Malcolm cut him a wayward glance, and he knew exactly what he was thinking. "Could this be sabotage?"

"I can't pick up any Romulan biosigns at this distance," Liz said, and he assumed hybrid biosigns were implied with that. Then again, the enemy was known to move in the shadows, and be more clever than they could possibly imagine.

"Ensign, get in touch with the remaining department heads. We need to initiate search pattern beta alpha." Dita nodded and ducked behind her console, hurriedly punching the codes into her communicator manually.

"Tucker to the Enterprise."

His friend's voice took him by surprise; Jonathan reached into his pocket and produced his communicator, silently congratulating himself for heeding his bondmate's continual warnings to be more prepared. He flipped it open and held it up between them, calling out into the unknown: "Archer here."

"We've got a little problem down here, sir." At the very least, he was glad to hear that Trip's flair for the dramatic hadn't been damaged. "There's been a few secondary explosions in the armory from shorts in the starboard EPS grid. Nguyen's got a firefight on his hand down there. We're looking at the imminent loss of containment from at least half a dozen different warheads."

Archer's head whipped around, and Liz's fraught expression taught him everything she needed to know. Widening the scope of her scans, she could see their predicament now - the dilithium deuteride concentration was rapidly approaching critical, and the area around the Maelstrom's armory was lit up bright red on her thermal scans. She estimated they had half an hour, perhaps even less, to get the deflagration under control.

"Can you jettison them out into space?"

"Primary power's down, and we've lost about eighty percent of secondary. There's not enough energy to even deploy the phase cannons. Maybe if we-"

"Say no more." Malcolm was moving now, gathering an armful of diagnostic tools from a drawer underneath his console. "Cutler and I are on our way."

There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line, then a rush of conversation as he consulted with Ethan and Julia. "Unless you want to get out in your EV suits and swim on over, I don't see how. Our transporters are dead and gone."

"Hess?" Underneath the conn, Anna grimaced and briefly closed her eyes. In a crisis, it was often only a matter of time before she was called upon to perform a miracle, and now was no exception.

"We've got enough reserve power to get you over there, but not enough to get you back."

The subtext there was obvious, but Malcolm was undeterred. "That's fine. We'll meet you on the bridge."

"Acknowledged." They could hear Trip inhale deeply on the other end of the line, then he added: "Send Phlox over too."

Liz wondered just how many casualties they were expecting, but kept that question to herself. She was feeling that small surge of adrenaline now that accompanied any life or death mission, and wished that she could keep a smile plastered on her face throughout the entire thing like the doctor could. His eyes told a different story, and she knew that he'd already mentally calculated the casualities that could result from the detonation of six different nuclear warheads at close range.

The Commodore didn't even give them time to think. He and Malcolm exchanged a meaningful look, rich with meaning, then he leaned over the railing, affording them a reassuring nod. "We'll move off to a safe distance. If you need an emergency extraction, we'll try our best."

The thought was well and truly appreciated, but at this point, he was sure their fate was already sealed. Before he could talk himself out of it, he gave Anna the signal, and they soon materialized on the bridge of the Maelstrom to a flurry of activity.

Julia crossed paths with them on her way to the situation room, roughly grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him the rest of the way to the console, which had been partially illuminated by some minor act of magic on her part.

There they met Ethan, Hoshi, and Trip, the latter of which was turned to the wall, raptly focused on a conversation he was having with the armory's second. He didn't even seem to hear him approach, but the rest of them did, and the looks on their faces foretold their anxiety and then some.

"What about the safety interlocks?"

"Offline. The last round of explosions knocked them all out. The control panel's nothing but smoke and cinders." All around Jimmy, they could hear the armory crew shouting and running around, their words drowned out with their desperation.

"Any idea what could have caused this?"

"With all due respect, sir, if I did we wouldn't be having this conversation." He was thundering up the stairs next, and his voice sounded tinny and far away. "There's nothing wrong with the power transfer systems or computer control scheme. Travis and Kelby are here on the upper level trying to reconnect secondary power. It happened so fast. You'd think we would've been able to sense something like this days beforehand."

"You don't think…" Ethan trailed off, shaking his head. Julia nudged him, offering him a bit of silent encouragement, and he pressed on. "The signal relays for the environmental controls on the lower decks run through the maintenance hatch above the armory, if I'm not mistaken."

"You're not," Liz said, leaning far over the console. The lights there were flickering, the schematic of the warhead containment chamber barely visible, and she kept having to hit it with her fist to keep it illuminated. "And the EPS grid runs through the floor. The design's the same as on the Enterprise."

"Are you saying all of these things could be related?"

Trip shook his head. "We run weekly diagnostics on those systems. If something was causing all of these completely disparate incidents, we would have picked it up by now."

"Unless we can't pick it up on internal scans." Julia nudged him aside and bent to her work, her fingers dancing across the screen. The scientists in the room, including Phlox, huddled around her, studying the console with nearly identical mystified expressions. Malcolm handed over his flashlight, and Hoshi held it high overhead, watching as the search results came back with over twenty thousand entries.

"They'll need to exist in an oxygen atmosphere," Malcolm added, somewhat obviously.

She punched in the parameters. "Still over a thousand."

"And could create negative feedback loop interactions with EPS plasma?"

It seemed like a hundred years before she came back with the results, but when she did, he could see a small, triumphant smile adorning her features. "Seven."

"On screen at this station." The moment it appeared on the display behind them, Trip stepped up to it, squinting at the diagram before them. "We keep looking for an explanation for every single one of these malfunctions individually, but maybe there isn't one. It could be systemic, spreading all over the ship."

"You mean traveling by air? Half of those compounds are toxic, we'd all be dead by now," Liz said, rapidly eliminating them from the lineup.

Ethan broke free of their huddle and started to pace back and forth along the length of the situation room, rubbing his hands together. "It'll have to be something that can exist in a gaseous and plasma state, considering it's causing structural failures in both the containment chamber and backup isolation field."

That eliminated all but one, and Julia wasn't too pleased with the outcome. "We don't use millastrium anymore, it's been banned on United Earth for directly contributing to greenhouse gas emissions."

"Does it have matter altering properties?"

"I should say so. It mutates oxygen into ozone at four times the rate of-" Realization struck her like a lightning bolt, and she all but shoved Phlox aside on her way towards the screen. "Lieutenant, have we taken on any materials since Paan Mokar?"

"We made a rendezvous with a Ktarian freighter about four days out." Hoshi paused, racking her memory with rapid precision. "They supplied us with rations, medical supplies, and-"

"Nuclear stabilizers!" Nguyen's exclamation nearly caused them all to jump, as most of them had forgotten he was on the other end of the line. "The Corsettis recommended we flood the containment chamber with an inert gas to guard against the kind of malfunction, but if it's contaminated, the effects would ramp up over the course of several weeks. The molecule is so tiny, it could easily diffuse through walls and floors."

And they'd only just implemented the same materials on the Enterprise. Malcolm fumbled for his communicator, preparing to warn the crew, but was interrupted by Trip's vicelike hold on his arm.

"Is there a gaseous discharge port built into the chamber?"

"Of course, it's looped into primary and secondary power. I don't know if there's enough energy stored in reserves to pop the seal."

"There's not," Jimmy confirmed, and they could hear him frantically pressing buttons and pulling levers. "It's possible we can do it manually. If I could just…"

As soon as he trailed off, everyone in the room knew their hopes were dashed. He cursed quietly, and threw his fist into the bulkhead.

"I don't recognize these subroutines. Taxa's been busy."

"What do you mean? Didn't she brief you on the changes?"

"She meant to, she told me she would, but then the vessel detection grid tests took hours, and-"

"We understand." Trip pitched forward, burying his face in his hands. "Can you break through her personal encryption codes?"

"It's going to take time." That was something they had very little of, considering the ship was going to tear itself apart in a matter of minutes, and they all knew it.

He suddenly turned to Phlox, his intention evident. "I need you to pick up the emergency med kit from the corridor in the senior officers' block and wake her up."

"Captain, I don't think that's such a good idea." He'd had his own mortifying ordeal with prematurely interrupted hibernation years ago, and knew it could really only end one way, and she wasn't likely to be of any use to them in her state of exhaustion.

"We've got no other choice," Trip asserted and turned back towards the screen, eyes trained towards the countdown.

---

T'Pau was adrift in the rivers of her memory, floating from place to place, flashback to flashback, aware of what was happening to her but powerless to stop it.

She had been drugged the moment the marauders managed to overpower her and force her onto their ship. It was dark and freezing cold, and the interrogations started immediately. One by one, they'd come in, their faces covered and words pointed, and ask about their fleet size, their troop deployment, and what exactly they'd agreed to with the humans. When she refused to say anything, they beat her mercilessly, and after a solid week, she gave up fighting. What's more, once they stopped bringing her food and water altogether, she curled up on the floor of her cell and begged for death.

In the midst of her struggles with the Syrrannites and the sleeper agent infested High Command, she'd had more than a few close calls, but none as harrowing as this. She maneuvered around the room on her hands and knees, searching for a hatch and a means of escape, and nearly succeeded twice. Both times she was recaptured and dealt another hypospray, which felt like pure ice sluicing through her veins. She would scream and cry and tremble, but nothing could have prepared her for what awaited her at the secondary location.

She vaguely remembered being dragged by the elbows, so weak she was unable to stand, feeling her knees scrape against the floor. The deck plating was different here, and she desperately tried to place it, but came up short. They left her in another room, and soon a masked man was approaching, the only visible part of his face being the white of his eyes and his pupils, narrowed with menace. He secured a device to her forehead and walked away; soon she was greeted by the apparition of her brother, who hadn't spoken to her since before the Forge, a loss of contact she deeply regretted.

A small part of her wanted him to be real, but knew it was impossible. When he spoke, it wasn't his voice, and he was welcoming her to someplace called the Arena, where he could break her down piece by piece until she was nothing. In the far reaches of her memory, she found a recollection of Captain T'Pol's ordeal back on Tellar Prime and latched onto it, using that thought to make it through the first few rounds.

Every time she deflected their questions, the setting on the instrument would increase, and her emotional threshold threatened to be destroyed from within. She would seethe and screech and hiss, desperately trying to hold onto the least bit of control, and succeeded for quite some time.

They were determined to stretch out the torture for as long as possible. There were great stretches of time where no one came to speak to her, but every time she looked up she saw a room full of former colleagues and acquaintances and friends, all staring at her impassively, all of them willing her to acknowledge them by any means necessary.

She found a water source in the far corner of the room, a dripping control valve behind a loose panel. Laying on her belly, she drank greedily this heretofore unknown elixir of life, until her belly felt full and she could at last attempt to fall into a fitful sleep. The moment she closed her eyes, the hallucinations were back, reminding her of all the people she'd forsaken, betrayed, and left behind in her quest to bring Surak's teachings to the masses.

Weeks passed. Sometimes an unseen door would open and they'd throw something at her, something she devoured with both hands before she could even assess if it was edible. Most of the time it would be palatable, but other times it made her violently ill, and she would vomit and weep amidst the endless rounds of interrogation. But still she was able to remember that this was all an illusion, that the Ministry was most likely looking for her and she would be rescued shortly if Soval had anything to do with it. She was still mostly there. She was sane.

It was the illusion of T'Les that broke her.

Part of her knew that the woman had always respected her, that she was devoted to their cause, that her sacrifice had been tragic and needless but ultimately noble. T'Pol had forgiven her, but this facsimile seemed to think otherwise, berating her for ruining her life and breaking her control and taking away every last bit of happiness she had. She wasn't sure if it was the length of time she'd been beaten and starved and tortured, or the tremendous guilt she still carried, but she finally broke down, screaming and crying and begging for mercy.

The enemy had apparently given up on extracting information out of her, and was content to let her wallow in her own misery. All at once, every traumatic memory she'd oppressed from childhood came crashing down on her, and the voices of the people all around her were thunderous, shouting and calling out and reminding her of her shortcomings, of her failures, of her own inherent inability to lead her people selflessly and with pure intent. Her entire life had been a sham, and they were only too quick to remind her of it.

She was lost somewhere in between her formal schooling and her first posting with the High Command when the door opened and she reflexively curled in on herself, expecting another beating which never came. Instead, she heard two voices chattering quietly in Vulcan, and they were remarkably close, as though they were standing directly over her.

"Minister, are you alright?" She recognized that voice; it had come to her multiple times over the past few weeks, and she found herself wishing they'd just get it over with already.

When she opened her mouth to say something, nothing came out. Her words were spirited away by the agonizing sear of a migraine tearing through her skull, and she could focus on nothing else. One set of hands touched her, then another, and they were forcing her to her feet.

"Can you walk?"

"Don't touch me," she finally managed to gasp, much too late, unaware of the feral look in her eyes. T'Pau vaguely recognized the other woman from one of the many weekly reports being fed to her from Ministry headquarters, but couldn't for the life of her remember her name. She leaned away from her and slipped from her grasp, falling to her knees.

"T'Pol…"

"We need to go," she asserted, seizing her by the collar and attempting to pull her up. She knew it was a fruitless exercise; the minister had visibly lost weight, her eyes sunken back into her skull. When her hands gripped her trousers, she could see the bones sticking out at odd angles, and fear gripped her chest.

"I am sorry." T'Pau dipped her head, all but burying her face into her boots. "I am sorry for-"

"For what?"

"For everything," she sobbed, and the sight of tears running down her face was disturbing enough. The hallucinatory version of her had repeatedly asked why she didn't tell her about her father sooner, and looking back on the set of circumstances, she regretted it immensely. For the moment she couldn't put it into words, but prayed she would understand.

A moment later, the other woman lifted her off the ground and into her arms, and she reflexively settled into her, her instincts telling her that this was a friend, not a foe. Soon they were moving, stepping into a wide cell block with containment fields set up on both sides of the wall.

There were other Vulcans there, as well as dark-haired aliens with enormous black eyes, banging on the walls, screaming bloody murder, begging for deliverance from their almost certain fate. They were creating quite the commotion, and they soon broke into a run, bursting into a larger corridor filled with hybrid soldiers.

T'Pol led the way with a stolen disruptor pistol, suddenly determined to blast her way through the barricade on the way to the launch bay. Adrenaline took over, and she easily slipped into her combat training, taking down one hybrid and then another. Overhead, an alarm was sounding, but T'Pau was powerless to do anything about it, clinging onto her rescuer for dear life.

They ducked into multiple adjoining corridors and maintenance hatches, moving in the shadows and between patrols, until they at least found themselves in a long hallway studded with docking hatches on either side. There were countless places for the enemy to hide, and T'Pol kept pausing, turning this way and that, her finger tensing over the trigger.

The other woman surged ahead until they finally located their target. She fumbled for some biometric access keys in her pocket and inserted them one by one into the panel in the wall, breathing an audible sigh of relief when the hatch slid open.

The internal architecture was unfamiliar; somehow, T'Pau knew she'd just been delivered to a Romulan ship only to be set down unceremoniously at the back of the cockpit.

Her caretaker was sitting at the helm, perhaps adjusting their transponder signature, shifting the cloaking frequency to make them undetectable. They likely had only seconds to escape, but T'Pol was nowhere to be found.

Carefully, with the utmost amount of care, she sat up. Every motion felt like a herculean effort, and her head was spinning, but she finally managed to lean against the bulkhead, studying the form of the unfamiliar woman before her. Her posture was ramrod straight, though she seemed tense, as though she was running through the contingencies in her head and already anticipating disaster.

"Who are you?" The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.

She slowly swiveled around to face her, and when she spoke, she knew without a shadow of a doubt she believed it to be true. "No one important."

Seconds earlier, T'Pol had heeded her instincts and continued down the corridor, guided by her beating heart and keen hearing. The voices grew louder by the meter, until she paused in front of another open doorway and stepped inside.

Two shadowy figures stood at the juncture of the hallway perhaps ten meters away. She stepped behind a maintenance hatch just out of sight and flattened her back against the wall, listening, waiting.

"Trusting the Andorian woman was a mistake." Someone was speaking slowly, dangerously, all in an attempt to get their point across. She recognized it from their earlier traversal of the World Ender, and it stirred something deep and primeval in the far reaches of her memory. "They exposed her, and if she talks, the entire operation will come crumbling down."

"Patience, Admiral. Our time will come. The invasion is imminent, and this time they will have no choice but to succumb."

This time, she inhaled sharply, dearly hoping they weren't able to hear it. She would have recognized that voice anywhere as Solan, her half-brother, the Romulan who had tortured her on Vulcan and Tellar Prime and pursued her from one corner of the quadrant to the other. He had promised her she would know no peace until she defected, and he had fulfilled his vow time and time again.

And now he was here, in the flesh, standing so close it was utterly terrifying.

"For your sake and mine, I hope that will be the case." He paused, measuring his words carefully. "Praetor D'Deridex is a fool. The more he obsesses about this second front, the more I question his state of mind."

"His health is failing. And when it does..."

"We will all get what we deserve."

"As will the First Consul. If T'Leikha decides to stage a coup, I swear to you that she will know the meaning of swift and decisive justice."

"She knows better than to challenge you." She heard him shift into the wall. "As do I."

"You will have your prize one day, Chairman. I will see to that."

"I will only be satisfied when Earth is destroyed and every one of their colonies is burned."

"It is only a matter of time," he replied, and a quick scuff of his boot on the deck plating told her it was now or never.

T'Pol counted to five, then slipped into the doorway and into the corridor. At the last possible second, she glanced over her shoulder, and peered into the shadows.

Out of the darkness, her brother's eyes emerged, wide and menacing, the essence of evil.

---

By the time they made it down one deck, Liz could tell their situation was deteriorating.

The grav plating was starting to fail; after spending so long in space, she'd gotten used to feeling slightly heavy on her feet whenever she returned planetside, but now she felt like she would simply float away if she didn't hold onto something. She clung onto Phlox's arm for dear life, counting her steps and feeling her heart drop every time her boots didn't connect with the ground.

He'd slipped back into his old routine of forced optimism - many times, during the most treacherous parts of their mission, she often found him retreating within himself and going about his day as if nothing was wrong, even if the Xindi had just pumped the ship full of holes, even if he'd just been kidnapped and forced to cure a Klingon metagenic virus, even if he'd just lost his wife in the most horrific way possible. He was so good at listening and counseling others, but when it came to compartmentalizing his own feelings, he fell woefully short.

"It's going to be alright," he was saying, though she didn't believe him for a second. "All in all, I doubt she should need to be awake more than a couple of minutes. It shouldn't cause any permanent damage."

"I don't know, beloved." She'd been there the last time they'd had to wake him up in the middle of a hibernation cycle, and had watched him bumble around, narrowly stopping him from inadvertently hurting himself or poor Mr. Mayweather in the process. Looking back on it, the entire situation had been pretty funny, and it was her go-to story to tell in an attempt to embarrass him during social gatherings, a gambit which rarely succeeded. "Maybe Jimmy will be able to crack her access codes, or me and Ethan can come up with something else…"

"The Captain was adamant." They paused in front of her quarters, and Phlox entered his emergency medical override, revealing the interior of the room and their slumbering half-daughter curled up in the fetal position facing them, her face a perfect mask of unmitigated bliss.

Liz hated to think they would have to disturb that peace, especially considering she so needed this respite, but supposed they had no other choice. Carefully, she approached her, gently moving the blankets to one side and stroking her arm with the softest of touches.

Yuris had at least managed to get her boots off and let her hair down before dropping her into bed, but she was still in yesterday's uniform. Her eyes were darting rapidly behind her lids, and she was smiling, her fingers twitching slightly over the sheets. She wondered what she was dreaming about, but scarcely had the time to give it much thought as Phlox knelt by her bedside, double checked the dosage, and pressed the hypospray to her neck without a second of pause.

There was a moment of expectant silence; preemptively, Liz took a giant step back, expecting her previous experience to repeat itself. Alira slowly tensed up, coiling in on herself like a viper about to strike, and Phlox leaned forward, studying her rapidly souring expression.

She reacted suddenly, sitting bolt upright in bed and screaming bloody murder. The doctor was much too close and found himself on the receiving end of a swift uppercut. He fell backwards onto the deck plating, and Liz surged forward, attempting to calm her down by whatever means necessary.

She was much too late. Alira fell backwards onto the pillow and shut her eyes again, appearing tremendously upset as Liz began to shake her arm to keep her conscious. Her face morphed into a strange alternating series of grimaces and frowns and scowls. She was sighing and mumbling and exhaling through pursed lips, as though she wanted to say something but couldn't get the words out.

"Time to wake up!" Liz called out in a sing-song manner, hoping their interruption of her sleep cycle would be graciously forgiven once she understood what was going on. "There's a tactical emergency."

"What? Are we being attacked?"

"No, but…"

"Then Nguyen can handle it." Eyes still closed, she reached for a pillow and covered her face. The room was still dark, but the illumination from Liz's flashlight felt unbearably bright. When she spoke again, her words were extremely muffled. "Wake me up when it's something I need to care about."

Phlox managed to right himself, and struggled to his feet. He took her torch and aimed it directly in her face, suddenly not in the mood for playing games. "The Captain has asked for your presence on the bridge."

"Who?"

"The Captain. Captain Tucker?"

"Oh, him." She didn't sound impressed. "Tell him I'm hibernating. Dead to the world." Alira made a series of exaggerated fake snoring noises, then rolled over to her side, blocking them all out. "You see? Sleeping."

"I'm afraid that's not an option right now." Liz forcibly removed the pillow, then grabbed both her wrists, trying and failing to pull her out of bed. Unfortunately, she was much stronger, and remained thoroughly planted to the mattress.

Phlox leaned over her, determined to take a different approach. In the low light, she could see him smiling, which seemed awfully inappropriate for their current situation. "It seems that Mr. Reed needs your help."

"He does?" Her entire demeanor changed, and instantly she was struggling to her feet, balancing herself on unsteady legs. "Well, why didn't you say so?"

The moment she took a step forward, she began to tip over, but Liz was there, preventing her from taking a tumble into the deck plating by a fraction of a second. Phlox reached for her, and quickly took her other arm, guiding her out of the room and into the corridor.

Liz thanked their lucky stars that the turbolifts on the Maelstrom were still functional; she couldn't imagine trying to haul a half-asleep tactical officer through the maintenance tunnels. By the time they made it to the bridge, she was more steady, and could at least shuffle a few steps before looking like she was about to keel over.

Once the doors opened, a broad, dopey grin began to spread across her features, one which she'd only ever seen a couple of times before. To her exhaustion-addled brain, this appeared to be a normal briefing, and she sauntered towards the situation room, struggling to maintain her balance the entire way.

She breezed past Julia and Trip and located her target with razor sharp precision. Malcolm realized it was coming much too late, and couldn't move away fast enough. She stepped up and threw her arms around him, squeezing with all her might.

"Hello, handsome! I see what's going on here." He was already trying to extricate himself from her grasp, to no avail. "You couldn't do without me for even forty-eight hours, could you?"

Leaning back, she pointed one finger and attempted to bop him on the nose, but her aim was incredibly off and she wound up poking him in the eye. Liz caught his long-suffering expression a second before he managed to escape, seizing both her wrists and pressing them into the console.

"Miss Taxa," he said firmly, and none of them could miss the blush spreading across his cheeks. He looked at her, then gestured towards Trip multiple times before she finally got the hint.

"Oh!" Quickly, she snapped to attention, though everyone could see that she was wobbling from side to side. "What seems to be the problem, Ensign?"

"Well, it looks like-"

"Wait!" She pitched forward onto the display, and her words were all but lost in raucous laughter. "You're not an Ensign, I'm the Ensign!"

Julia reached for her, pulling her upright and leaning in until their foreheads almost touched. "I need you to listen to me. There's an imminent containment loss in the nuclear warhead chamber. We need to vent all of the gas out of there. Jimmy says you were working on some subroutines this morning before we started testing the vessel detection grid."

The wheels were turning in her head, and she was having trouble holding onto a coherent thought. Something, she realized, was happening. Something significant.

"We can initiate the manual expulsion, but first we'll need to trigger a surge in the-" She trailed off, snapping her fingers repeatedly, looking towards Ethan as if trying to drag the words out of him.

They all threw out a couple of suggestions, none of which seemed to be correct. Trip was seconds away from pulling up the schematics and forcing her to point it out on the diagram, but he wasn't sure that would help in her state. Finally, Hoshi made the correct recommendation, and she all but jumped for joy, pulling out of Julia's grasp.

"So what do we do? We can probably access the transfer coils from the armory, if they've got enough secondary power to-"

"No Hoshi, my wonderful, beautiful, amazing, flawless companion." Alira leaned across the table, and they all bowed forward, expecting her to say something profound but receiving nothing of the sort. She seized her hand, and was suddenly intensely sincere. "Seriously, you're my best friend and I love you, and I need you to know-"

"Focus," she reminded her, and she nodded, jabbing her pointer finger into the diagram below her.

"If there's no secondary power, you've got to deliver a thermal shock to the relays in the starboard catwalk. It shouldn't take more than a couple of seconds."

Trip was already reaching for his communicator. "All available armory hands, this is the Captain. Dispatch immediately to the containment field transfer coils in the starboard catwalk. Thermal shock and reevaluate the condition afterwards."

There was a flurry of activity on the other end of the line, followed by several panicked shouts. "That may be difficult, sir. The secondary explosions triggered a few of the emergency bulkheads. They're most likely trapped."

He dealt Ethan a long-suffering look, as if to say, now you tell me. Trip turned and reached for his phase pistol at the end of the table, but was beat to it by a fraction of a second.

"I've got this," Alira asserted, lifting her weapon and turning on her heels, causing a cascade of ducking officers around the room. Malcolm grabbed hold of the barrel and yanked it away from her before she could get very far, tucking it into his holster.

"Alright, time for bed."

Phlox took the hint, and began to move towards her, reaching for the hypospray in his pocket.

"Really? Right now?" She sounded incredulous, though the twinkle in her eyes had returned, and she took a step closer, lowering her voice considerably. "Sir, you're on duty…"

For a split second, Malcolm looked like he might just die of embarrassment. If they were in any other situation, Trip just might have laughed about it, but as for now, he mentally filed that expression away in his mind for ammunition later.

"Let's go!" Liz crowed, hooking her elbow through hers and all but dragging her towards the turbolift. "I'll meet you down there. This shouldn't take but a minute."

Alira was protesting loudly, something about needing to be at her post, when a little bit of secondary power returned, causing emergency lights to flicker along the floor, as well as the alarm, which began to blare loudly overhead.

"Phlox, we're on tactical alert," she said reverently, her tone rich with concern. "That's not good."

His reply was swiftly cut off by the doors closing, then the bridge descended into a flurry of activity. Julia was pulling weapons and diagnostic tools out of nowhere, and Malcolm briefly wondered just how much they had stashed in hidden panels.

"How are we doing on time?"

The display was almost opaque now, and Ethan had to bring his face within a few centimeters to read what was written there. "Six minutes, sir."

"What?" He turned on him, then came around the table altogether. "We were still at half an hour just a little bit ago."

"The degradation is accelerating because of the breakdown of the environmental controls down there. Looks like it's damn near a hundred degrees in the containment chamber." Ethan broke free and retreated towards the science console, noticing with dismay that it had yet to be restored. He struck the screen with frustration, then turned back to them, hands on his hips. "Does the Enterprise know about this?"

"They're busy trying to get their own power back online." Trip hustled towards the lift, head bent towards the deck plating. He knew they were in no position to help, and that they were on their own. "Sato, you've got the conn. Get the Commodore on the comm, let him know what he needs to do."

"Aye, sir." Hoshi turned back towards the display on the wall of the situation room and watched in silence as the millastrium concentration continued to rise.

---

The ride down to D Deck was nothing short of agonizing. Malcolm and Julia joined him, and the silence between them was tense, expectant, as though they were wondering what else could possibly go wrong.

"Look, Malcolm-"

"I don't want to talk about it." The persistent blush he'd been sporting for several minutes now made that abundantly clear.

Julia shifted behind him, cutting furtive glances at the backs of their heads. She tried to bite her tongue, but the words came out anyway. "For what it's worth, that's exactly what she's like when she's drunk."

Fortunately, the doors opened a second later, saving him the indignity of affording that remark a response. Then they were running, forcing their way past countless crewmen hard at work on any number of panels in the wall, welding, cleaning up debris, trying their best to work around the alarm blaring overhead.

En route, Trip tried in vain to reach engineering or the armory, or any department stationed on that deck for that matter, to no avail. He was so frustrated he almost threw his communicator as hard as he could. Grabbing onto a handrail, he banked hard into a righthand turn, calling out: "Remind me to never do business with the Ktarians again!"

"Maybe they didn't know the nuclear stabilizers were contaminated." To their credit, even after giving it a cursory scan with the internal sensors, they didn't even pick up on the problem. Julia was more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"Jules," he cautioned. They were coming up on the circular hatch, and Trip realized much too late that they might have to pry it open with their bare hands. "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice-"

"Destroy my ship, and take the whole crew with me," Malcolm interrupted, gesturing for him to step aside. A quick blast to the door panel disabled the security override, but the door remained firmly closed, confirming his worst fears.

Julia was already rooting around in the bundle of wiring behind the wall, pulling it this way and that. An errant spark jumped out and made contact with her sleeve, but she slapped it away before it could catch fire. The panel before them moved by a fraction of a centimeter, then they all had their hands in the gap, pulling with all their might.

It didn't escape Malcolm that the first opportunity he and Trip had to work together in months involved the near aversion of a disaster. This was perfectly on brand for the two of them, and he was sure that one day in the future they'd be laughing about it.

One day in the very, very distant future.

They only managed to get the hatch about halfway open; the subsequent rush of heat was oppressive, nearly bowling them over with its intensity. The engines hadn't been offline for that long, and Trip knew from experience that when everything was at full power, the middle of the catwalk was hot enough to melt the flesh off a person's bones.

Unfortunately for them, that was about where they needed to be to initiate a thermal shock in the transfer coils.

Julia didn't waste any time. Grabbing the phase pistol from his hands, she forged into the darkness, holding her flashlight at eye level. She could hear her companions shouting, then running after her, their boots thudding across the metal grating, but she didn't stop for a second. The heat instantly dried out her skin, turning every zipper on her uniform red-hot and threatening to boil her eyeballs out of her skull. She kept telling herself that it would be over before she knew it, that she could fight through the tightness in her limbs, power through the scorching heat tearing its way through her lungs. She might burn up reaching the diagnostic panel, but she would get there, and instantly resolved to run faster.

Her target was only just in sight when the grav plating failed completely.

All time was momentarily lost. They'd lost track of it somewhere between the bridge and here, but the ambient temperature was now agonizing, and she all but screamed in pain when she was lifted off the ground and thrown into the ceiling. Her weapon went flying. She instantly reached out for a metal pipe running the length of the wall and came away with a red stripe of a burn across her hand, hissing through her teeth to avoid crying out.

Digging her heels into the bulkhead, she pushed off and began to desperately fight her way down the gangway, moving her arms and legs in a swimming motion. Underneath her, the ground was shaking and pipes were hissing and everything else seemed to be vibrating, building up to a catastrophic loss of containment. In that moment, she resigned to her fate, and decided that if she was going to die like this, she might as well make one final, desperate grab for prize.

Julia threw herself into the guardrail and used it to propel her over the opposite side and into the workspace underneath. The air felt like a thick soup, and every breath was excruciating. Already, her vision was blurring; her hands fumbled with the controls, and for a minute she wasn't sure if she was doing any good. She wasn't sure exactly how far behind her companions were, but she knew that speech was now far beyond them, as it was for her.

Eventually, all coherent thought left her mind, and she found herself pounding on the controls in frustration, until the last bit of strength left her, and she slumped forward, pressing her forehead into the display.

She'd never been particularly religious, but in that moment, it seemed that someone out there was listening. There was a great rumble followed by a distant rush of air, and Julia knew she'd done it, wanting to celebrate but not having the wherewithal to do so.

She wasn't sure just how long she'd lost consciousness, but the next thing she remembered was being hoisted out of the crawlspace inch by inch and carried along the gangway, safe and protected in someone's capable hands.

---

Even with the advanced speed of the Romulan shuttle, it still took them three weeks to reach the headquarters of the Ministry.

It seemed that every available bird-of-prey and stolen cruiser was on the lookout for them; T'Pol found herself thanking their lucky stars that this craft had a working cloaking device that rendered them invisible to sensors. They encountered two different blockades, one around Iconia and the other near Canopus, with enemy vessels lined up for hundreds of thousands of kilometers in either direction with nary a space to sneak through between them. She suspected they were using some kind of advanced scanning array, but T'Sana still pressed forward, slowing to almost a complete stop and skirting their bows by only a few meters.

The Minister recovered slowly, improving by the day, having taken up residence in their bunk. At first all she could keep down was protein concentrate and water, before eventually progressing to broth and a little fruit. Her control was completely obliterated - they both afforded her privacy to get her affairs in order, but in the middle of the night as she stood watch, she would often hear her screaming and crying in their bunk, an unsettling enough development for a woman who was known for her stoicism just as much as she was known for her fortitude.

It became apparent to T'Pol, without being explicitly told, that T'Pau had been the unfortunate victim of the Arena, the neuro-synaptic field generator that her own half-brother had used in an attempt to extract information out of her all those months ago. In her weakest moments, T'Pau would reach out to them, screaming that she hadn't told them anything and she hadn't betrayed their people for a second, and in her best moments, she would simply stare at the wall ahead of her, her brows knit together with concern and her hands clasped in her lap.

The moment she suggested they return to the Enterprise for immediate treatment by Dr. Phlox was when she knew something was dreadfully wrong.

T'Sana informed her that once they reached headquarters, her mission was over. V'Lar's doctors would treat the ambassador before returning her to Vulcan, and this was enough subtext to let her know that they were not the only two officials to experience the Arena, that there were perhaps hundreds or even thousands more, and the hybrid plot was much larger than she could have possibly imagined.

She couldn't take the Romulan shuttle with her, let alone generate a working copy of the cloaking device. V'Lar was adamant that they keep this knowledge to themselves for the time being, though she knew how much it would benefit the rest of the Coalition. That thought was enough to force T'Pol to action, and she spent hours next to the cloak in the engine room, taking detailed handwritten notes and studying the readouts until the letters swam before her eyes.

This warp core was different than anything she'd ever seen. Rather than generating a subspace bubble through interactions between matter and antimatter, this device seemed to create an artificial gravity well that physically bent space-time around them. T'Pol was initially bewildered by this, having had her fair share of harrowing experiences around singularities, but after days of careful study, she thought she might have a general idea of how it worked. Already, she was looking forward to handing her notebook over to Captain Tucker, and anticipating seeing his eyes light up with excitement at the idea of having a new scientific concept to experiment with.

One night T'Pau located her there, having finally found it within herself to get out of bed and investigate her surroundings. She was wrapped in a blanket and appeared incredibly weary, which was perfectly at odds with how she normally chose to present herself. Her control was back at least superficially, but there was still a smoldering fire or a profound sadness in her eyes. She said nothing, only settling into the floor beside her and studying the engine core as though it was a heretofore unknown primeval creature from time immemorial.

They sat there in silence for some time. T'Pol was expecting to be reprimanded for deliberately stealing information from the Ministry, but she seemed to be too exhausted to offer anything of the sort. Finally, she spoke, and her voice wavered immensely.

"I understand you left the Enterprise to go on this mission."

"That is correct," she replied, closing her notebook and tucking it into her pocket. With members of the High Command, and even Vulcans at large, it was all about implication, and right now, the Minister was practically screaming out her true feelings on the matter.

"I am gratified for your sacrifice."

"The sentiment is mutual." It didn't escape her that only a few months ago she'd been in a similar predicament; without treatment, T'Pau's recovery was taking much longer, and she suspected, would alter the course of her life in ways she could never anticipate.

She inhaled deeply, then shakily exhaled, her fingers clenching the blanket. "The enemy fleet is much larger than previously believed."

That was perhaps the understatement of the century. "And the extent of the problem?"

"Also beyond our estimates."

"How many?"

"Hundreds of thousands. Perhaps millions." The end of that last word was warped with emotion, and before she knew it, there were tears trailing down the Minister's cheeks.

"I'm sure you have done what you can," T'Pol reassured her, though at that point she wasn't so sure.

"It is not enough," T'Pau asserted with a heartbreaking amount of sincerity. "We must alter the playing field, introduce another variable, go about it another way-"

"The information you provide the High Command will be extremely valuable to adapting our strategy. We will have the advantage for our next move." She meant for it to be encouraging, but she could see it had the opposite effect.

"I've failed them," she cried, dropping her face into her hands. "I have failed them all."

T'Pol knew that this was correct in some respects. They hadn't acted quickly or decisively enough to put a stop to the hybrid plot, and now they were suffering the consequences. She would tell the Minister that one day, but now was not the time.

"Your composure in the face of adversity is admirable."

She laughed, honestly laughed, and the sound was so dispassionate it gave her pause. "When all of this is over and we find ourselves subjugated by our distant brothers, I would like to know how your mind has changed."

So the High Command was no longer focused on winning the war, but on postponing the inevitable. The realization hit her fast and strong, and before she could stop herself, she leaned over and took her colleague's hand, hoping to afford her some comfort where words failed.

T'Pau stiffened, then settled into her, and the sheer wave of emotion that crashed over her in that moment was nothing short of agonizing.

They remained there for some time, in an unfamiliar vessel hurtling towards an unfamiliar place, with the foregoing knowledge of a world forever changed.

---

Their arrival was abrupt and unceremonious. A veritable herd of aides met them at the airlock, and just like that, Minister T'Pau was gone, surrounded on all sides by doctors scanning and talking over her in quiet, intense voices.

T'Pol knew, even before she was told, that this was the end. In a brief flight of fancy, she'd asked T'Sana if they might be able to correspond in the future, but the nature of her work made this impossible. She'd taken her hand once again, and she felt her regret, her fondness, and above all, her fear about what was to come. As far as she knew, her next mission would take her all the way to Tesnia, where she would be required to maintain a deep cover. It was very likely she wouldn't return to Vulcan for years.

The Ambassador arrived to take her back to the Saral, thoroughly breaking the moment. T'Pol left her friend standing there, and felt her eyes on her as she walked away, experiencing an overwhelming sense of crushing sadness she could not suppress.

To her credit, V'Lar didn't ask how the mission went, nor did she appear affected in any way by what was happening around her. T'Pol wondered if she'd been desensitized, or perhaps she was trying to minimize the situation; at any rate, they traversed the length of the station in silence, and when they at last arrived at their destination, she only said: "Give my regards to the Commodore."

She left her then, staring out of the viewport onto the docking ring and contemplating the past, present, and future. Her next steps and lost opportunities, the loss of a friend and her brother's cold, voracious, dispassionate eyes. Alone.

At that point, she was quite used to it.

The journey back to the Enterprise was remarkably uneventful. V'Nara and Tannis went to great lengths to avoid her, and for that she was grateful. She meditated, she studied her notes, and she pored over the stolen schematics to the World Ender, the one PADD they'd neglected to take away from her.

At some point she reached out to Jonathan through their bond, and was tremendously relieved to feel him answer in kind. She told him everything, though she knew some details were lost in translation. He could only really respond in feelings and sensations, but she could feel his love even at a distance.

It was a constant in her life, the only one she'd had for years.

He met her at the starboard docking port along with their first officer. Jonathan took one good look at her, really looked at her slumped posture and sunken eyes and none-to-obvious frown, and resisted the urge reach out to her. Her words were flat and emotionless, which was not atypical for her, but her weariness rippled through the bond like water, and he wondered if she'd even slept for weeks.

"Routine operations as usual?" She accepted the mission report from Malcolm and spent a few seconds scrolling through the document, all the while watching as his expression fell and he treated her to a slight grimace.

"Yes and no. We're no worse for wear," he assured her, and for the most part it was true. Commander Hammond had suffered the worst injuries in the form of second and third degree burns on her hands, while the rest of the crew had sustained minor scrapes and bruises. Really, the only other remaining damage was to his pride.

"I am gratified to hear that. Where is the rest of the fleet?"

Straight to the point, as usual. She began her journey towards the turbolift, and they fell into step with her. "Columbia will be here in three days, Tempest in seven. Everyone else is way far out there."

"We must inform them that their presence is imminently necessary." Her notebook and the stolen Romulan PADD changed hands, and it only took Malcolm a second to realize what it was.

"Ma'am-" He was excited, already anticipating spending the next few days tearing through the material and developing their battle plan.

"I will expect your preliminary findings by the end of the day." They paused at the hatch, and she glanced back over her shoulder. "Thank you, Mr. Reed."

He took the hint, nodding briskly and rounding the corner away from them. The moment he was gone, they stepped into the turbolift, and paused as the doors slid shut in front of them.

The cabin was only moving for a matter of seconds before Jonathan reached out and hit the all-stop. Immediately, the lights dimmed and they slowed to a halt, but she was determined not to wait any longer.

In the near darkness, she pitched forward and buried her face in the fabric of his uniform, breathing in his proximity, relishing in his closeness and affection. It made her feel safe.

It made her feel that even in the chaos and tumult and peril of war, she still had a home.

End of Episode Twenty-Three

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Next time on Enterprise…

Episode Twenty-Four: Battle of Galorndon Core

The Captains are forced to challenge their morals for the sake of victory. Travis makes a bold play to strike the enemy where it hurts.