9 - Finding allies

Jim wandered up the corridor, drinking a glass of coke as he looked at the PADD in his hand. He was on his way to Stellar Cartography, having arranged to meet Captain Aldous and Duo there. The information on the PADD concerned some of the upgrades to the Scorpion, that Aldous had supplied him with. Fascinating stuff, he was thinking. Nano technology to assist the ship in repairing itself, which he could see coming in quite handy with the ablative armour that replaced some of the outer hull.

The phase cloak, of course, was probably the most fascinating. Unfortunately, that upgrade had been done by the Sernaix Ship Mind some months previous, and he had ensured that no information about it was left on the ship's computers. Trying to reverse engineer it would be next to impossible, and so understanding how it actually worked didn't seem likely. Jim was happy, however, that the navigational sensors were also modified so that they could continue to navigate effectively while being out of phase with the universe.

He nodded in satisfaction when he saw that a whole aspect of the nano-repair facilities were devoted to the phase cloak. It could be repaired and maintained without any of the crew needing to do anything., which was essential considering their circumstances.

That reminded him. The crew. He stopped, and looked up. The corridor was bare. There was only the faint sound of the ship humming to itself. He shook his head, and kept walking, pocketing the PADD and taking another mouthful of his drink. It was still hard to accept that this ship which normally had a crew of over 800, was running fine with only two physical bodies on board, and a holographic captain.

He turned a corner in the corridor and entered the door that opened into Stellar Cartography, seeing Duo already there and talking to Captain Aldous.

"It's actually got the same kinda nano-regeneration that th' ship's got," Duo said exitedly, clearly enthusiastic about whatever he was talking about. Aldous was listening patiently, with a mixture of amusement and mild interest.

"Th' Berserker's never been as powerful as it is now, 'course it's still no match for anythin' more than Scouts an' fighters an' stuff like that, but with some of th' technology you've got here I could make a lot of improvements, ya know?"

"And just how are you going to do that without a maintenance crew to help?" Aldous asked, nodding a greeting at Jim and then looking back at Duo.

Duo looked stumped for a few seconds, he hadn't thought about actually doing any upgrades, the simple concept of them had kept his imagination far too busy for that. "You can help me," He eventually said lightly, shooting a grin at Jim, "an' th' nano-bots can be programmed t' lend a hand, too."

Jim gave him a pained look. "I can help you? Sorry, I've got other things to do. If you can't rig up the systems yourself, you'll have to shelve the idea."

"I'll find a way, don't you worry 'bout that." Duo replied, turning to look at the map displayed three-dimensionally in front of them. "So, as I was sayin' before I got distracted," He highlighted a small system located on the edge of Klingon space, "th' third planet in this system is th' last place I saw Hetfield. It'd make sense t' start searchin' there."

Jim frowned, and moved over to the console. "Computer, run a search against all Federation communications logs for any mention of Major James Hetfield over the past 12 months."

"Acknowledged," the computer replied, and began its search.

"He might have popped up somewhere since then," Jim explained, glancing at Duo.

"I wouldn't be suprised," Duo agreed, then frowned. "Ya know it could take months t' find him, out here. He could've gone anywhere by now, if he's even still alive an' active."

The computer beeped, finishing its search. Jim pressed some buttons on the console, and three star systems were shown in front of them. They were shown in 3D, courtesy of the holographic systems in the room that was used to generate star fields and planetary systems from the databases. One of the systems subtly flashed three times. "That's where Hetfield was last noted, two months ago. Narendra III." Jim frowned. "Narendra III?" He looked at Aldous, who also looked surprised.

"What's on Narendra III?" Duo asked, he'd never heard of it but by the looks on Aldous and Jim's faces, it probably wasn't a good place to be.

They both looked at Duo in surprise. Jim grinned. "I always knew you slept through your Starfleet Academy training," he said. "Narendra III is a Klingon outpost. In 2344 it was destroyed by four Romulan Warbirds - the Battle of Nirandra III. The Enterprise-C had responded to its' distress signal, but was also destroyed in the battle."

"Due to the Enterprise's sacrifice," Aldous said, continuing Duo's impromptu history lesson, "The Klingons considered it an act of honour and signed a new peace treaty with the Federation."

"Oh," Duo replied, a vague recollection of a boring lecture hall somewhere filtering into his mind, "I remember now... but why would he wanna go there? It's kinda high-profile for a hidin' place."

"Well, it's not really that high profile," Jim said. "It's been abandoned for the past 40 years, ever since it was destroyed by the Romulans. Its significance is only historical." He frowned again, having thought of something else. "For Hetfield to be within the Klingon Empire though, he's probably receiving Klingon support."

"That's not suprisin'," Duo nodded, "I bet there's lots of Klingons that're pretty upset about not fightin' th' EGR."

Jim chuckled. "I think that's a bit of an understatement."

"I'll set course for Narendra III then," Aldous said. Jim nodded, and Aldous's holographic image disappeared as he returned to the virtual representation of the Scorpion, inside the ship's computers.

Duo frowned at where Aldous had been standing for a moment, then turned to Jim. "If we find Hetfield there, where d' we go next?" He asked lightly, "three people, two minds, a ship an' a mech isn't exactly an armada. We're gonna need a lot more power than this, really, a lot more."

"Well, according to one of these reports," Jim said, looking at one of the communications logs, "Hetfield is likely to be leading a small mercenary group, with two modified Runabouts." He looked back up at Duo. "That gives us some extra men, probably marines like him."

He looked back down at the console and pressed a few other buttons, bringing up another display in front of them. It was the head and torso of a woman wearing a Starfleet Intelligence uniform. She was blonde, with her long hair tied back in a pony tail, and with her startling blue eyes, could be considered by most humans to be very attractive. "Know her?" Jim asked.

"Sutor, Sumon, Sutton, somethin' like that..." Duo said, frowning, "I remember that I don't like her very much."

Jim grinned again. "Alexi Sutton. And not many do like her. In fact, I think the only ones that probably would are the ones who think she's dead." He pressed another button and parts of her record scrolled past next to her picture. "She was the sector chief for Starfleet Intelligence, based at Starbase Praetor. Scorpion Fleet. You remember the fleet?"

"Yeah," Duo nodded, it seemed like years ago that they had been based at Starbase Praetor, in Scorpion fleet. "I don' really see why we need her. If ya need an Inteligence officer I'm pretty sure we could get someone that's way less of a pain in th' ass," He said lightly.

"It's not that we need an Intel officer," Jim replied. "She's on the run as well, and her resourcefulness - and resources - could be of use to us."

"Mmm," Duo said, "I guess any help is good help, when it comes down t' it. D' we know where she is?"

"The most recent information is 8 months old," Jim said. "She was talking to a known member of the Orion Syndicate. Since then, she's disappeared."

"Orions?" Duo frowned, "so we can prob'ly buy any information they've got about her, but dealin' with them is gonna be like advertisin' where we are an' what we're doin'." He paused, running a hand through his hair and sighing softly. "They're sure t' sell information 'bout us t' anyone who'll pay for it, It's a pretty big risk t' take."

"A risk I'm not that interested in taking," Jim said, nodding his head. "Come on, let's go do something worthwhile. Like eat."

"Sounds like a plan t' me," Duo grinned, he still hadn't quite recovered from his many months on ration packs and consequently, he spent half his time eating. "I think I wanna try somethin' new t'day, somethin' spicy."

Pressing a button to shut down the holo-displays of starmaps and planetary systems, they left the now darkened room.

To be continued...

8 - Late Departures

Gevran stared out of the window at the expanse of gardens below, a verdant wonder maintained even in the press of summer heat by devoted gardeners and maintenance workers, the sculpture displays changed regularly every weekend.

He hated it. Hated the heat, hated the humidity, hated the constant press of reports and paperwork and the stress. Day after day he had to condense the accumulated scientific work of the Federation into single page notifications for the President and the council; all the wonders, all the struggles and discoveries passing him by as he tried to translate the cutting edge of the wonders of sentient discovery into a two paragraph sound-bite for desk-bound former fighter pilots and ex-lawyers to try and digest.

“You appear harried today, Mr Torm.” President Spock’s quiet tone cut through the open space of the Council chamber easily, turning him slowly away from the vista.

“Why should today be any different, Mr President?” He asked, with as much of a wry smile as he could managed. Somewhere deep in his stomach something flared – it happened too often these days – but apart from the slight wince he ignored it, and handed across the PADD. “The science report, sir. I direct your attention, particularly, to the agricultural advances listed from Starbase Nineteen. It would appear to offer a solution to some of the problems on the Carolis cluster colony worlds – the high solar activity there shows no signs of abating.”

Spock nodded, accepting the PADD – Gevran had no doubts it would be read thoroughly at some later point in time.

“And other occurrences, Mr Torm? Is all well.” Gevran sighed, slumping as much as leaning against the wall. “You understand the need for this, Gevran.” Spock told him – he knew he must be showing the strain if the President was resorting to calling him by his first name.

And he was right – logical as always. That the EGR had spies and plants and moles in the Federation was given, and that they should be targeting the Intelligence infrastructure was a logical supposition.

So the President had turned other minds to the same task. Certainly, the science departments had their own leaks, but spies in science departments were looking for scientific information to divulge, not political, socio-economic… not Intelligence.

It had all seemed so sensible when he’d said it – it still did – but the reality of day after day of subterfuge and sneaking, lying to people and hiding truths took its toll on Gevran. Experience had taught him that his actions could mean life or death for people in war – he’d never leant to choose between a few deaths and many, though. He’d been passed over for his own command for reasons such as that, and slowly drifted towards the diplomatic core where he could justify all his actions with the understanding that he was always trying to avert conflict, always trying to save lives.

A prominent time on the Federation Ethics Commission had followed, a rewarding placement, and then the call to be the President’s Scientific Advisor to the Federation Council. It was as high a calling as a science officer could hope to achieve, or so he’d thought.

Closet promotion to the President’s Personal Advisor on Federation Security hadn’t been what he’d expected.

He just nodded, acquiescing to the President’s comments.

“We lost the Tsiolkovsky.” He managed, handing over another PADD with the details of the cloaked scout vessel. “Captain Donat initiated the self-destruct mechanism before the vessel was captured. There were no survivors.”

“Not an unexpected event.” What more could you expect from a Vulcan?

“They were able to convey a few pieces of information – it would appear that Admiral Pe’chenza is seeking information on the Q-continuum.”

“A general enquiry, or a response.”

“Unclear, so far.”

“Very well.”

“And… Argolis Seven has decided to declare its independence… the planetary Governors mean to announce their intent to stand against the Republic.” This time the President’s face did flicker, for a moment: a planet of dead Federation citizens disturbed even the most tranquil of minds.

“I was aware of this through... regular channels. You have made arrangements?”

“Yes, Sir. The Charybdis has been despatched to watch the Republic’s response…”

“We can do nothing.” The President reassured him, as much as he could.

“Again.”

“You would act, Mr Torm? You have a plan you wish to table?”

“No.” he admitted, passing the second PADD across. “No plan. Just frustrations and anxieties.”

“You should consider taking a sabbatical, I found mine particular reaffirming.”

“Indeed.” The comment struck Gevran as slightly odd, but the conversation moved on before he could remark upon it.

“Has there been any luck with tracing Captain Aldous or the Scorpion?”

“One unconfirmed report from Delvin seven that seems unlikely – the ship isn’t completely refitted yet, and it seems unlikely they’d approach Republic territory so closely before they’ve finished preparations.” The President nodded, not revealing anything.

“If there’s nothing else, Mr Torm?”

”No, Mr President, that’s all for now.”

“Thank you.”

Gevran slipped away out the back of the chamber, returning to his office with a deep frown. Slipping into his seat he called up his itinerary, but something about the conversation was confusing.

A reaffirming sabbatical? Four days was hardly a sabbatical, and the President didn’t need affirmation – logic simply was.

“Computer, call up the record of the President’s visit to the Martian and Jovian construction yards.” It took time, trawling through the information, reconciling system accesses with the slight evidence of tampering – there were perhaps three people in the Federation who knew their systems well enough to know there had been any tampering at all. By midnight he had something approximating the truth: The President had left, boarded a Delta Flyer to meet with person or persons unknown, and then returned, all in the cloak of the asteroid belt.

Whom did he meet? Is he selling us out? Gevran felt guilty even thinking it, realising how far he’d fallen in his time working as an intelligence officer. But if he was selling us out… why did he give me such a clear clue?

And it was a clear clue, obviously. Other Vulcans would have seen it as a glaring commentary, though most others would have missed it. Gevran’s heritage didn’t help him here, despite the pointed Vulcan ears, but his frequent exposure to the people did – it was a hint of something.

Expanding the search, drawing on information that wasn’t available to others – even to the President’s Chief Scientific Advisor – he pulled in the list of possibilities, and finally decided on the most likely course of events. There were suppositions in there, guesstimates and probabilities, but it made sense: it felt right.

For the first time in a long, long time, Gevran felt a slight smile on his face as he considered the implications.

“Miss Conrad,” he called out to his assistant, “would you please arrange for a long-range shuttle to be prepared. I need to make a visit to the Jupiter shipyard, and then out of system.”

“Certainly, sir,” came the quick reply. “Do you have any idea how long you’ll be gone? Will I need to rearrange Friday’s meeting with the Bolian University Admissions Directorate?”

”Probably best. Give them my most sincere apologies, and see if we can reschedulel before they depart next… Wednesday, wasn’t it?”

“Thursday, sir, early hours. They’ll be available to meet until Wednesday. Will you be needing a pilot, or... or..."

"No, thank you. I can fly myself, and I know your anniversary is this weekend, I wouldn't dream of dragging you away from Thomas right now."

"Thank you, Sir. I'll get right on it."

”Excellent, thank you Sarah.”

He began uploading his files to portable media, even dragging in some of his old research that hadn’t been touched in years – real science work - knowing that he'd have to sweep his system clean. The only question left now was, after the Jupiter Shipyards… where would they have gone?