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The following story takes place after "Needs of the Many"

Star Trek: Maximillian

Strength In Darkness

Chapter IV

The easy lights of the Maximillian's sickbay shone down upon the still body of Lieutenant Commander Tamak. After the incident in the mess hall, he had not moved nor shone any signs of life, seemingly preferring to lay comatose first on the floor, and now on one of the free beds. The bio-bed delivered his vitals and other information directly to the various stations around the bay, including the one that Commander Jaydin now sat out. Looking over the results of the last battery of tests that had run, she frowned, turning to her assistant, Commander Abraham Cottle.

"I still don't get it. Physically, there's nothing wrong with him. As far as we can tell, mentally he's fine too." She crossed back over to Tamak's body, peering at him. Cottle followed, muttering.

"I don't think mentally he was ever 'fine'." He tapped his own padd. Jaydin glanced at him.

"I wasn't aware you knew him."

"Only by reputation. Captain dumps an Admiral, gets demoted a few times, but moving back up like nothing ever happened."

"There's a long story to Tamak, Commander."

He sighed. "There always is."

"And it's weird, he's been fine for years, even before I joined the ship. Now what happened at the planet, and this."?

"Some kind of untold Vulcan nuttiness? He's not exactly young…"

"For a Vulcan he's fairly middle aged. No family history, at least from what he's told us, of any disease. And regardless, there are no signs of anything. Brain patterns normal."

As the two doctors mulled over Tamak's condition, the Vulcan himself showed no signs of hearing or comprehension. Somewhere, deep in his brain, the words registered, as though they were still being registered. Somewhere else, the signal was sent to keep him in his current state. And the Maximillian computers picked none of this up as they worked away, oblivious to the dire events that were happening right underneath them.

It occurred to Critch, as he sat in a very uncomfortable position, sitting up on the floor, that he had no idea what to expect from this dinner. There were very few records about Reman cuisine in the Federation databanks, and what they ate, even how they ate, was unknown. "I'm sure some braincase is going to write a hundred-page paper on this." He thought as he leaned back, not quite able to arch his back to reveal his lack of comfort. A quick glance around the central area revealed no such discomfort.

He realized that some Remans, most famously Shinzon's Viceroy, had rudimentary telepathic abilities, and with that in mind the others had slipped as far into character as they could go. Even Overload was displaying the pose and look of a formal Romulan officer. "Thank God she didn't bring Databit along." He thought. "Imagine having to explain him to the Remans." For T'Kill and Kelvok, the ruse came easily, considering their shared Romulan heritage. Keeping a watch on his crewmates out of the corner of one eye, Critch turned and appraised his Reman hosts, settling themselves around the hard floor in a circle, each placing themselves in between the 'Romulans', undoubtedly to prevent any secret conversations. Their leader trusted them, but they were taking no chances.

Kimir cracked his knuckles, and called loudly to his cook. "WE ARE PREPARED!" Then he turned his attention back to his guests. "You have not eaten food until you have eaten Reman food!" He said with an unclean grin, and gestured towards the small bowls that were quickly being brought out. "Delicacies, prepared for our last meal. But as you say, there is no need for it to be our last any longer!"

T'Kill, a glass of blue liquid having just been prepared for him, took a sip, swishing it around in his mouth. "One of the greatest things about the new order is that the Kali-Fal now is free to be drank throughout the quadrant." He was careful to use the Romulan name for what was more commonly referred to as the long-illegal Romulan Ale. If Kimir or his officers were impressed by the use of the word, they did not show it, instead beginning to serve themselves from the bowls.

Critch glanced down, and immediately turned off his ability to taste. Not one of his proudest abilities, but one that he was surely glad to have right now. In the bowls in front of him sat, or more accurately crawled, some sort of bug with twelve legs, a large number of eyes that spread all over it's shell, and a red underbelly. There were two in each bowl, and crawled around with no apparently comprehension for what was to become of it. Joining the two bowls was another in the center, this one with a leafy substance, almost like a salad. With a start he realized that the leaves were moving too. With recent experiences in mind, he made a mental note to stay far, far away from the salad. He glanced to Overload, who had already taken a bite out of the salad. Before he could warn her, she squealed as she felt it moving inside of her mouth.

The Remans burst out laughing. "It takes a delicate stomach to handle the Krep-tac leavings first! You should train your crew better, Commander!"

"Tell me about it." Critch muttered, and tried not to ponder what he meant by 'leavings'.

"Kimir, tell me, what are your plans now that the war is over?" T'Kill looked at him with interest. Mulling it over, the Romulan Commander looked back thoughtfully, or at least as thoughtfully as a Reman could look.

"Hopefully, my skills at destroying my ship will not be needed!" He paused as his crew chuckled, then continued. "We shall return to Romulus and await further orders."

Overload squinted her eyes. "That's all?"

"What else is there? We are soldiers, after all."

"Yes, a race bred for war and conquest. But there is peace now. Perhaps Shinzon will attempt to maintain that." Kelvok said, as he placed one of the insects carefully in his mouth, and bit down with a gooey crunch.

"You are in a far better position to say what Shinzon will or will not do. It has been years since we have seen him. In the history of both our cultures, peace has only come at the point of a weapon, whether by knife or gun or sword."

Critch nodded. "But none of those has ever made a lasting peace."

"There is no such thing. There is not a world in the stars that maintains peace for long. Eventually there will be jealousy, cruelty, some act of violence that compels the multitudes to go against their better natures, and then peace ends." He stopped, and a Reman to Overload's left picked up where Kimir left off.

"This is where Remans begin!" There was a general cheering and banging on the floor, as another Reman across the way continued.

"We are made for conflict! We are the deciders, the conquerors. We will never give in, no matter the cost!"

Another cheer, and then Kimir raised a hand, and the room instantly grew silent, as he looked again upon T'Kill. "Please, do not misunderstand me or any of us. I, as much as any of us, wish for peace, for wars to end and for there to be no more need of our race. But you know as well as I do that there is still need. The humans will rise again, they tend to do that, and Shinzon still has human in his blood as much as Reman. He will not wipe them out, they will return. And for that I think we are glad."

"Glad?" Skrit asked.

"Glad because then there is a chance of dying for something again, whether it be for Shinzon's benefit, or for the cause of another side's peace." It remained silent as he finished, as his crew was unsure how to take his final statement. Critch exchanged a worried glance with T'Kill, which was not caught by any of the Remans.

"But enough of this harshness!" Kimir recovered his boisterousness. "Tell us stories of the great wars!" He grinned and leaned forward towards his new friends.

As Critch and his crew began to tell their carefully constructed lies to the Remans, S'rka watched them closely on several monitors from the bridge of the Llaihr III. Unlike the other Remans, he had caught the small looks and gestures between the Romulans, and his distrust had only grown, especially since it almost seemed like they were questioning the mission! His anger was shared with his Commander, who now more than ever seemed less like a great leader and instead just another tired, burned-out warrior, unfit for command. He kept one eye on the great Scimitar warship, still facing them, wondering what the next move would be.

Night had fallen on the Maximillian, and despite the high alert status, many stations had been nearly deserted or shut down completely. A skeleton crew was manning the low-priority stations, though many were on call. However, since the situation seemed to be well in hand, little worry was being paid anywhere else but on the bridge and in engineering where Skrit's sensors were being maintained and backed up with extra power conduits. This did mean that several sections were operating on emergency power only, and lights were dimmed throughout the ship.

The same was true even in sickbay, the dim lights shining down on the lifeless body of Tamak. His section was completely deserted, the nurses in their office, going over charts, preparing treatments. So no one was paying any attention to the patient with the unknown illness.

The medical stations registered nothing out of the ordinary, even when Tamak suddenly sat straight up in bed, his eyes open, but not seeing or acknowledging anything. He deftly pulled the few cables that were attached to his skin out, and then stood up completely, still not being detected by anyone in sickbay. As far as the medical stations were concerned, he was still laying in bed. It had been hours since anyone had last checked on him. It would still be hours before the next scheduled look-in. So no one noticed when Tamak, dressed only in his medical garb, walked out onto the empty floors of the hallway. He glanced around, still in a daze, his eyes never blinking. He crossed decks deftly, far more quickly than should be expected of him even if he was conscious to his actions. Eventually he reached his quarters, which had not been locked or tampered with in any way, making it far too easy for him to enter, again undetected.

Once inside, it was child's play for him to access the ships computer, his voice a low baritone, and give it commands, all the while working on his own engineering station. The buttons were tapped far faster than anyone but an android could do, and certainly beyond his normal abilities, but right now the last thing that Tamak was, was normal.

In Engineering, Squirrelly was giving his equipment an once-over, making sure that the projectors were receiving enough power for their task, when he noticed it. One by one, power couplers and stabilizers were going down all around the ship, all in areas directly surrounding the projectors. More and more energy was being fed directly into the conduits, overloading them. Quickly he barked orders to his staff, his hands and even his tail working as many controls as he could. But whatever he could do was being outmatched by Tamak's years of experience, and as knowledgeable as Squirrelly was, Tamak had been a chief Engineer of the Maximillian for far longer, and he knew his craft. Beyond even that, Tamak was seemingly possessed with power far beyond what he should have. So the results were clear even from the onset.

Before the bridge could react, before anyone on the ship could do anything about it, the projectors began to overload, and one by one shorted out. Jaydin, within the minutes that this began to happen, had arrived on the bridge, but by then all she could do is watch.

S'rka glanced up at the Scimitar, growled under his breath, glanced down at the continuing dinner, and then quickly looked back up. The large ship had begun to shimmer, almost as if it was going to cloak. What reason would they have to cloak? They had the superior position, and their senior staff was on board!

Then the shimmering stopped, and from right to left the Scimitar seemed to almost dissolve, until it was completely gone, replaced by…

S'rka growled in triumph. There was no Scimitar. The ruse was revealed.

By the time red alert was signaled, Tamak had quickly returned to his bed in sickbay. No one would notice he had ever left. Not that his whereabouts were a priority at this point. Instead, the dormant ship had come to life, all hands to their stations, and Jaydin had ordered all weapons trained on the Warbird.

"Squirrelly! What's going on?" Jaydin called to engineering, after being satisfied that the Warbird was not about to take off with their crew.

"I…don't know! The whole system just overloaded!"

"Commander! Shields are down!" T'Purr's eyes widened as Jaydin balled up her fists, "Squirrelly, get our shields back up, forget about the projectors. Our covers blown! Xan!"

The Trill in charge of Communications swiveled in her chair. "Aye!"

"Hail them!"

A tense moment passed. "No response!"

There were no forward facing windows where the dinner was taking place, so it was a surprise when four armed Remans came out of seemingly nowhere, moving stealthily despite their size, and trained their weapons on the away team. Critch quickly sprung to his feet, joined by the others, ready to take on the group. T'Kill, still trying to salvage their lie, spoke. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Oh, you know full well the meaning, Admiral Turock T'Kill, traitor." S'rka came out of a darkened corridor.

"Explain yourself, Sub-Commander!" Kimir's rage grew with the very sight of his officer.

"As I suspected, we have been fooled, Commander, look out the windows, see their deception! They are not of Romulus, they are Federation spies!" The Remans looked to the windows, and saw the Maximillian, proudly holding its position.

"How?" Kimir shook his head in disbelief.

"Their vaunted technology has failed them, and we have been the recipients of a great gift." He held up a padd of Romulan design. "Information!" He passed by the away team, guns still trained on them, not allowing them a single movement. "Captain Critch Starblade. Marconian android. Admiral Turock T'Kill, Romulan and a traitor. Lieutenant Commander Overload Soong-Maddox…ahh, another Soongian android! Captain Kelvok, Vulcan…and Lieutenant Commander Skrit, an energy being…my my, what shall we do with you…" He snapped his fingers, and one of the guns fired, striking Skrit directly on his carefully concealed projection emitter. In an instant, Skrit disappeared. Overload cried out, and Critch moved forward in anger.

"Relax! That shot merely overloaded the emitter, I'm sure his energy is still safe inside…though I only know what this tells me." He waved the padd in the air.

"But…What of Shinzon? What of the War?"

S'rka shook his head, and moved close to T'Kill, angrily staring him in the eyes. "The war never happened, Commander. Shinzon was killed."

The wailing was great, and Kimir's anger greater.

"Commander, they're answering our hail!"

"Finally." Jaydin muttered, and drew herself up. She had never sought command, only taking the first officer position as a favor to Critch. But now it seemed that she'd have to do something after all. She started to speak as the face of S'rka appeared on the screen. "Reman Warship, this is…"

"Federation starship Maximillian. Commander Jaydin Aleya, Bajoran. Yes, we know all about you and your capabilities, your crew. You will leave."

"I will not leave our crew, I'd sooner destroy your ship. You can't outlast our weapons."

"If you fire upon our ship we will execute your crewmembers as painfully as possible. If you leave us we will place them on a habitable planet. You have five minutes to decide. We know all of your crew, we can detect them, do not test us, do not try and fool us again." As quickly as the short conversation began it ended. Jaydin stood silently, mulling over the impossible decision that she had placed before her.