6. Chapter 6 (1/2)

— chapter 06 —

some five hours after his unexpected conversation with t'pol in the mess hall, malcolm was busy, as the enterprise had reached denobula and no time was wasted by anyone in the process of refitting the ship's weapons arrays. archer left t'pol in charge in order to pay a visit to earth's embassy to denobula, as the man had orders to personally deliver some sensitive information to earth's ambassador to denobula, and even as the captain left the ship, a dozen large denobulan shuttles began arriving aboard the enterprise, one after another, and soon departing after unloading their payload, at which point the men and women of tactical, aided by denobulan engineers from the planet below, wheeled the various technological payloads to their pre-determined positions.

two hours to carefully unpack the denobulan equipment, another hour to clean and discard the packing refuse, and then the work began in earnest, tearing apart weapons arrays and replacing lessor, human engineered components and systems, with their higher quality, vulcan engineered and denobulan built components and systems, and although neither the denobulans, nor the crew of the enterprise, understood the reason for the urgency of the timetable to which they'd been ordered to adhere, all felt the pressure to get the job done.

t'lis, the current head of the v'shar, the vulcan security directorate, stepped into her office to find her aide, seftek, already there and awaiting her.

"good morning, director," said seftek.

t'lis nodded her greeting to the man, and said, "i know that look on your face, seftek. what is it?"

"we've lost contact with two more of our officers," said seftek. "assuming the worst, that leaves us with seventeen people still in place on romulus."

seftek was speaking of the specially trained and surgically altered vulcan operatives which had slipped into the romulan empire alone, or in pairs, all in service to vulcan. some two hundred operatives had slipped into the empire during the past two years, and now they were down to seventeen, for the romulan officers of the tal shiar, the secretive intelligence service of the romulan star empire, were fiendishly clever, painstakingly thorough, and quite ruthless in their pursuit of traitors and spies.

"how long?" said t'lis, meaning how long since those officers had last checked in with their contacts.

"sellak missed his third check-in in a row," said seftek, "and la'kana was apprehended, in view of another one of our people. we will not hear from her again, and if we do, it means that the romulans have turned her. she is now being forcefully interrogated, or she is dead."

t'lis, sighed, for the logic of seftek's words was sound. unfortunately, service to vulcan often carried a heavy price for the men and women of the v'shar.

"schedule a meeting so that i might speak with their families, and deliver this sad news personally," said t'lis.

"yes, director."

"mmmm. looks good," said trip, nodding his appreciation to administrator volok's acting steward as the vulcan set a plate before trip. "thank you, ensign."

"you are welcome, commander tucker," said ensign liat, officially an ensign, biologically a female, undeniably cute, and a temporary fill-in for the administrator's normal steward who had been accidentally injured a day earlier, when he'd slipped down some stairs.

trip looked down at his plate with appreciation. vulcans might all be vegetarians now, and had been so since surak's time, but they were accomplished cooks who knew precisely how to

ing out the best in every vegetable dish, and this night's dinner plate was no different. a bed of royal blue risan rice, circled by a good number of nicely caramelized cauliflower florets which had been spiced and then pan fried in butter to give them a beautiful color, after which they'd been finished in a hot oven, some nice cubes of a deep fried, orange, vulcan gourd which had the light texture of spongecake, and the sweet taste of a yam, some type of steamed

occoli, and the inevitable dish of curried legumes. without further ado, trip began eating with gusto, while administrator volok took a moment to watch trip dive into his food, and give a slight smile.

"you seem to have adjusted yourself to a vulcan diet well enough," said volok. "were you a vegetarian before coming here?"

"no," said trip, after swallowing a mouthful of cauliflower, "i eat meat, volok. my favorite type is seafood, and as good as i find your chef's food and vulcan cooking in general, i'd kill for some seafood right about now."

"well, we can accommodate you, without requiring that you turn to cold blooded murder, trip," said volok with a straight face. "delta vega, the planet below, boasts a great variety of fish and shellfish in its icy waters."

"i'm going fishing!" said trip.

"i am afraid that our schedule will not allow you to idle away your days in such pursuits," said volok, "but i will have some seafood

ought up for you from the planet."

"i don't want to put you out," said trip.

"it is no trouble at all," said volok. "we harvest several types of seaweeds from the icy waters below."

"in that case, i'd appreciate that, volok," said trip, "but won't that violate your ethics?"

"not if the animals flesh is treated respectfully in order to sustain life," said volok. "small fish eat plankton, larger fish eat the smaller, and so on, until we get to you. perhaps one day, something will eat you. circle of life."

trip laughed a bit at the grim thought of being eaten in his turn, then said, "vol tevar."

"ke'sok," said volok: you're welcome.

the pain was over now, the screaming long done, the questions answered, and what was left of lieutenant la'kana of the v'shar, was moaning in agony now in a clinically

ight torture chamber on romulus, her suffering disregarded by her questioner, v'trelle, whose attention was focused on a higher ranking officer, a tribune of the tal shiar, who had entered the room a few minutes earlier.

"you are certain she is of no further use to us, v'trelle?" said the tribune, h'daen, looking contemptuously at the vulcan.

the tribune's cultured accent marked him as a scion of a noble house, and it was telling of the man that neither the vulcan's admittedly attractive nude body, nor the cruel marks which she bore now as a result of her interrogation, affected the tribune's poise. he'd been privy to such sights many, many times before.

"yes, tribune," said v'trelle. "the vulcans kept things on a need-to-know basis, just as we ourselves would do, but i drew all that i could from this vulcan, concerning her purpose here."

v'trelle held out a memory card, which held the audio/visual record of the entire interrogation, towards the tribune.

"i also covered a number of other topics with our cousin," said v'trelle, "and the tal shiar might find those topics of some interest."