Ruins of the T'Karath sanctuary, Vulcan, Feb 6th2155
Centurion Turius, once known as V'Nur of Vulcan pondered his situation. The time he could spend on Vulcan was limited. He had to come to an agreement with his daughter and her mate and still have enough time to get far enough from their current location to not be seen by them when he was transported out. It was not wise to give them more information than absolutely necessary, for now, after all he needed something to barter for his life should he somehow manage to surrender himself and Decurio Tavrus to the humans. For the time being it was prudent to let them believe he had crossed the Forge.
What he had not foreseen was that it was his daughter who had succumbed to the additional strain on their equilibrium. She was now sound asleep, her head resting in the lap of her chosen and the human was gently stroking her hair. It appeared that he would have to have his negotiation with the Terran, instead of T'Pol, as he had hoped.
His world considered the Terhassu weaklings, for their short lifespan and lower physical strength. Either the young man opposite of him was an exceptionally strong specimen, or, as on so many things, the Praetor was ill-informed. It would certainly not be a surprize, considering D'Deridexx was surrounded by sycophants and lickspittles, who preferred to tell him what he wanted to hear, rather than the truth, fearful of his infamous temper tantrums.
His glance fell back on the human, who continued the gentle caress of his mate.
A pang of regret filled his mind. Notwithstanding the insidious reasons to take V'Nur's place, he had grown to love T'Les with all his heart and it had always pained him that he had to adhere to the subdued way Vulcans expressed their affection. Envy and relief warred in his mind – envy of the fact that his daughter had the close contact of a mate that he had craved all his life, but also relief that she was not bound to live a life of shallow finger-kisses and boring mating practices.
"How did you do it?" the human asked, shaking him out of his philosophical ruminations.
"Did what?" he asked back.
"How did you take V'Nur's place? You said he was a youth. Surely the Romulans don't use child operatives?"
"Vulcan, and Romulan bodies mature much faster than the mind. We barely change our outward appearance between the ages of twenty and eighty years. The mind however takes much longer to mature. I was a young operative of forty years and I could easily pass as a twenty year old. Of course I had to be surgically altered to resemble V'Nur closely enough. But the changes were minimal. I was selected because I resembled his appearance from the start."
He could see that the human was pondering his explanation, and he wondered if the way he pushed his tongue against his cheek from the inside was typical of all Terhassu or just this one.
"So youdo look different?"
"Slightly," Turius admitted without going into much detail. "And although the necessary changes were minimal, they are now the bane of my life."
"They can't be reversed?"
"They could," the Romulan sighed. "If the Empire cared for such things. But for the Praetor such banalities as restoring the appearance of their operatives just needlessly takes away from the military budget. I have become a curiosity on my home world, something for the children to point and laugh at. Women give me a wide berth and not even the harlots at the bath house would willingly quench my desires."
"Whoa there, pops, I think you're telling me a bit too much detail there…"
Turius caught the tirade that was boiling up in his chest.
"So basically, you want to defect so people stop laughing at you and you can get a new wife?"
The Romulan shook his head.
"These are mere banalities, young man. Despite the distasteful ungratefulness of the Praetor and the Senate I do not wish for the youth of my world to be sent to senseless deaths in a war that will not be won and to fight over planets that will not be conquered."
"Yet, you have given us valuable information that will help us kill them."
Turius looked down at his lap and sighed.
"Hundreds of thousands will die in any case, of your people and mine. The war will last years, but I can at least try to prevent it from taking decades. I know my daughter, young man. She will not be deterred from fighting for her world and yours. What father would I be if I put her in harms way for 20 years if I can halve that time?"
"Helluva salvation that is. That sounds like you see no possible way to prevent this at all."
Turius laughed, with bitterness.
"Young human, my people thrive on conquest, and every lost battle has to be avenged by two that are won. A Praetor who cannot entertain the plebs with new tales of glorious conquest will be a dead Praetor in a very short amount of time."
"What were you then? A Legatus, a Decurio, a Centurio?"
Turius' head snapped up and he fixed the human with a surprised look.
"You know the Romulan military rank system?"
His surprise got even bigger when the human was apparently quite amused.
"Your lot left Vulcan 2000 years ago, didn't you?"
Turius nodded.
"Well at the time large parts of our world were dominated by the Imperium Romanum. Praetor, senate, Decurio, Centurio – these are all Roman concepts. I guess we don't get any points for guessing which planet your people ran into first. Does your history know two guys called Romulus and Remus?"
Turius wondered if it wasn't too early yet to answer that question, but then, it wouldn't help the humans much for now. He reminded himself to keep enough information to himself to leave leverage for negotiating his surrender.
"These are the names of our home world and the neighboring planet."
The human appeared to be largely unperturbed by this answer.
"Well, congratulations," the human remarked with audible sarcasm. "It seems your people have nicked the concept of their society from humans two thousand years ago."
-=/\=-
Starfleet Headquarters, Feb. 8th
Jonathan Archer shifted in his seat, bored by waiting for Admiral Gardner. The fact that he had been ordered to be in Gardner's office at 0900, and yet twenty minutes later he was still staring at an empty desk, could only mean that something had gone wrong. Why wouldn't things ever be easy whenever Enterprise made a house call?
Finally Gardner strode in, loudly slammed a pack of PADDs on his desk and sat down, sighing.
"I better be prepared for bad news?" the Captain ventured, carefully.
"Well, as Mark is so fond of saying: Die Kacke is am Dampfen. The shit is steaming, my friend, and it is also quite airborne on a collision course with the fan."
"I'm used to ducking flying turds, fire away," Archer replied sarcastically. Something must be afoot if Richard resorted to cussing a blue-streak, and in different languages at that.
"First, the only bit of good news is, you'll get the promotions for your officers. Rostov, Sato, Mayweather and Rao will all be bumped up to Lieutenant. And Starfleet reintroduces the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, so Reed will fall up the ladder too."
"I'm sure they'll be delighted, Admiral."
"There's a caveat though," Gardner said. "Hiram Black has thrown his toys out of the pram again. He informed me that Starfleet security thought some of your people where overly familiar with each other during the memorial service for the child and has ordered an inquiry into the adherence to the ban on fraternization. And even I could see that Reed and Sato, as well as your two senior officers were not mere colleagues. They could end up losing their new ranks before they ever got them."
The Captain shook his head and took a deep breath. A rant seemed quite an appropriate reply, but he had to tread lightly.
"Permission to speak freely, Sir."
"Since when do you need my permission, Jon? And stop Sir'ing me when we're alone in the office. We joined Starfleet together for Pete's sake. We ate the same dirt. The only reason why they parked me behind a desk and slapped a flag rank on me is because I was too useless to command a ship, compared to you and A.G. Here I can only break paper clips instead of warp nacelles."
Jon couldn't help but snicker. Gardner was of course completely full of it. The reason why he sat where he sat was because he was the only one with a cat's chance in hell to fill the shoes of the late Admiral Forest.
"Rich, you bloody well know that you can't keep people apart for four years. Right now I have at least six committed couples on the ship, and one couple is actually married. I didn't enforce the no-frats because it would have been insane to even try. If Black has a beef with it, he'll have to go through me, and if he insists, you'll have my pips and my phase pistol on your desk when I'm done with him."
"Easy, Jon," Gardner said and Jon saw him shake his head as if to work though all the information he had just given him.
"I think we can sort of get away with you not enforcing the no-frats, but you married two people on your ship? I know you are technically authorized to do so, but that's ancient maritime law. Nobody thought anyone would actually do so."
"I didn't marry anyone. Trip and T'Pol are married by Vulcan tradition, but not yet legally recognized on either planet."
"You're not helping, Jon. How the hell did that came about? Is that why their DNA was stolen by Masaro?"
"Stands to reason," Jon agreed. "Masaro was on Trip's team and everyone with half a brain saw that the two of them had gotten closer and closer over the years."
"Great, now I don't only have Black gunning for my hide, but the Vulcans too. Dammit, Jon."
"You have nothing to fear from the Vulcans, unless you try to break them up. In that case you can expect holy hell being raised. They have after all the blessing of First Minister T'Pau herself."
Jon knew he had taken a dangerous turn when Gardner narrowed his eyes.
"You have reported that to the Vulcans before coming to me?"
Jon raised his hands in surrender.
"Rich, I didn't need to, in fact we had to work it out ourselves. It was a meeting that took Hoshi, Malcom, Travis and me a whole hour, so I'm not going to regurgitate all the details. You'll get a written report about it. According to Hoshi any Vulcan will see or know within seconds that the two of them are married, so T'Pau found it out herself. I merely got a strongly worded communique that I must not separate them under any circumstances, unless we want to have a diplomatic incident at hand."
"My day just keeps getting better and better," Gardner groaned. "Is that why they're hotfooting it back here?"
"Pardon?"
"Tucker and T'Pol were supposed to stay on Vulcan for twelve days, as was Soval. But right this minute they're coming here at maximum warp on Soval's ship and they have requested a highest classification meeting with me, you and Soval in attendance."
"Do you have some of that Andorian ale left I gave you?"
"I think we could both use a stiff drink right now," Gardner agreed.
-=/\=-
NX-01 Enterprise, conference room, Feb. 10th2155
"Perimeter is secured, Captain," Lieutenant-Commander Reed reported and left the room, leaving only the five attendees in it.
"The information we are about to give you are of a highly sensitive nature," T'Pol began and looked at her mate, who tried to remain as impassive as possible.
"During our stay on Vulcan we were approached by a man, who claims to be a Romulan."
T'Pol could feel that all eyes were on her. The humans, except for her mate, looked shocked and even Soval was visibly struggling to keep a neutral expression. The way he rubbed his thumbs against each other, hidden behind his clasped hands had always been a sign that her En'ahr'at was forced to deal with a substantial amount of emotional turmoil.
"You were attacked?" Captain Archer asked.
"No. This individual approached us with peaceful intentions. He was aware of our identities and claims to be a retired operative and military officer."
They had decided not to disclose that he was also her father. Knowledge that T'Pol was half-Romulan, no matter how genetically insignificant, would have a devastating effect on the fledgling and still brittle coalition.
"And he just came along and told you all that? What for?"
The question of Admiral Gardner had been foreseeable, and in a way, logical as well.
"He offered this information as a down payment for our assistance to defect," T'Pol reported.
"If he was indeed planning to defect, and was who he claimed to be, surely this individual left you some more tangible proof of his intentions and motives?" Ambassador Soval asked, having seemingly regained his equilibrium.
"The motives sounded quite plausible to me," her mate said. "They had to alter his appearance to make him look Vulcan and infiltrate Vulcan society. They just don't give a rat's end about reversing the process, so he's now like the big hero back there, but his looks make him a freak that kids point and laugh at."
T'Pol felt his hand on hers, normally a grave misstep in full view of their superiors, but right now she needed the contact as her mind was filled with conflicting emotions – anger about the deception that had been the life of V'Nur, but also the affection she had always had for her father, and still had, despite the knowledge of his past.
"So he looked Vulcan and you didn't get to see what a Romulan looks like?" Gardner asked for clarification.
She saw her mate nod.
"He omitted any details, only that he was surgically altered. The Cap'n will back me up on it. Half the alien races we ran into looked basically like us, just with a few ridges here and there or a different kind of skin. He also said the modifications were minor, which is probably why he's so peeved that his people don't reverse even that bit. And if I can throw in my 2 credits. Romulans must be quite xenophobic if minor differences in appearance make him a freak back home."
"What you call 'a few ridges here and there' can make a substantial difference to some species, Commander," Soval supplied. "I have studied the reports about your encounter with the Klingon augments. The loss of their cranial ridges made them outcasts in Klingon society, despite the fact that it is little more than a minor disfigurement."
"As for the proof," T'Pol took over. "He supplied us with this data chip of Romulan origin. We would like to request that we be allowed to recruit the assistance of Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Sato to assess its authenticity and decrypt the contents. Ensign Sato has prior experience with the Romulan language."
"They're Lieutenant Sato and Lieutenant-Commander Reed now, T'Pol."
"Was about time," her mate dryly commented the Captain's correction.
"So you believe this guy is for real?" Admiral Gardner asked.
"We cannot make a judgment unless we had the opportunity to assess the data provided. The individual claims that the Romulans have infiltrated and abetted 'Terra Prime' and that the data provided would allow us to decapitate and dismantle the organization, as a way of proving his sincerity in wishing to help Earth."
"Getting rid of 'Terra Prime' would be more than a little help," Gardner agreed. "Even now that Paxton is dead, they are still causing trouble wherever we go."
"He died?" T'Pol asked.
"Yes, two days ago," Gardner replied with a grim look. "We didn't quite see the logic in supplying Rigellian gene therapy to someone whose life's work it was to get rid of all aliens."
"A distasteful, but somewhat logical decision," Soval said, much to T'Pol's surprise. It reminded her of the many morally questionable decisions she had had to make in her former occupation as an operative.
"Alright," Gardner said. "I want this knowledge kept to an absolute minimum of people. Tucker, T'Pol, you can have Reed and Sato, but that's it. If you need more people we'll have to involve Starfleet security. Do you need an office or something?"
"No," her mate answered, shaking his head. "We'll go somewhere where nobody's looking for us."
"You don't happen to have genetic material for us to analyze? A lost hair or something?" Gardner asked.
"No. If he is, as he claims, a former operative, he most likely wore fake hair and would otherwise make sure that we would not be able to find any material to analyze, or only material that would be too contaminated to yield conclusive results. As it were we didn't find even a single hair after he left."
She did of course leave unspoken that any genetic analysis would have given away his identity, and hers. So she conveniently omitted that they had not found any hair, because they had not looked for any to begin with.
"Alright, Commanders," Admiral Gardner said, standing up. "Everything said in here is highly classified. I will consult with Ambassador Soval. Captain Archer, you and your officers get that show on the road. If we really have the data to kill off 'Terra Prime', I want it done sooner rather than later. You have carte blanche, on my authority."
"Aye, Sir."
"Well, aren't you always bringing the good news," the Captain said after Soval and Admiral Gardner had left.
"Captain, we should not waste any time," T'Pol said, ignoring the Captain's attempt at idle smalltalk. "Our answer is expected in three weeks time. We wish to request your permission for Lieutenant-Commander Reed to contact is former intelligence contacts in Section 31."