"Looks like another romantic evening blown," I comment, as I pick up the PADD. D'tranus and Charkha both grin at me; Storl, still unused to dealing with emotional people, merely looks blank. Outside, a half-assembled cruiser drifts slowly past the viewport, being towed to some other part of the orbital shipyard.
"You should give up," Charkha says, without much sympathy. "She's never going to sleep with you, especially if you keep taking work home with you."
"Well, all right, it's a setback," I say, slipping the PADD into my kitbag. "But all setbacks yield to the disciplined mind, right?" It gets a laugh from Charkha, but D'tranus, the other Romulan refugee, is fresher from the transit camps and their indoctrination - he still takes the Bresarite maxims seriously. Storl, nominally in charge of our work shift, is nonplussed as usual.
I've cultivated the idea of my pursuing Dellis romantically - it's useful. Most people have room for only one question in their heads at a time; if the question they have about us is will they or won't they?, it inevitably displaces ones like are they Republic spies? At least, that's the theory, and so far it has held up.
So has my habit of taking extra reading home with me; the security trooper just waves me through to the transporter. The PADD has been taken for random spot checks three times, and each time it has held nothing but unclassified material. And it will never hold anything else. But it is a useful cover for any minor EM emissions from the kitbag... whose passive sensors, built into the lining and the buckles, have been recording a substantial amount of data that's distinctly not unclassified.
I step onto the pad, and the transporter beam takes me; the world shimmers, and Vulcan appears around me. The original homeworld of my species... it should feel familiar, comfortable, but somehow it does not. The red sky seems too bright, the thin air too harsh.... Or, perhaps, the discomfort is purely psychological; the inevitable tensions on a spy deep behind enemy lines.
Like many of our fellow refugees, Dellis and I have been assigned to apartment housing at the fringe of ShiKahr city. By Vulcan standards, I suspect it is a slum - to most refugees, it is a minor paradise. I make my way from the beam-down point to the apartment block, climb the six flights of stairs, and I am home.
Dellis is already there; our work shifts move gradually in and out of phase, and at the moment she leaves the shipyards four hours before I do. She stands in the bedroom doorway and growls a greeting at me. There is only one bedroom, only one bed; in accordance with the masquerade, I sleep on a couch in the sitting room.
"One of your holovids came today," she tells me. She points to a package on the table by the couch.
"Oh, that's nice," I say. "I'll have a look at it before we eat."
"Put the headset on," Dellis says. "I don't want to have to listen to another antique melodrama. You and your hobbies...." She retreats into the bedroom and closes the door.
So far, so ordinary and domestic. I drop the kitbag on the floor, pick up the package, and settle down on the couch. The holovid chip is a historical recording, an entertainment first produced some three centuries ago. The recording is imperfect, containing noise on several data channels. I reach under the couch for the headset, settle it on my head, slip the record into the slot....
The headset looks like a normal commercial model, but it has some extra features - most notably, a set of filters that read the extraneous "random noise" on the recording and decode the instructions from Republic Intelligence. I wasn't expecting fresh orders so soon - a crisis must be in the offing. Another crisis.
I watch the holovid for about half an hour - or, at least, that's what any observer would see me doing. At the end of that time, I pause the playback, take off the headset, and rub my eyes. This will require rapid action....
Dellis is moving about in the tiny kitchen. I get off the couch and go to the kitchen door. She has her back to me, so it looks completely normal - within the context of our demonstrated relationship - for me to jump suddenly on her back, wrap my arms around her, and whisper sweet nothings in her ear.
"We're being activated. We have to make pickup on a Vulcan with a piece of intel, then head direct to Earth for a rendezvous with Starfleet."
"Get off," Dellis shouts, shaking me loose. She turns to me and, in an undertone, asks, "When?"
"Now." I resume my normal speaking tones. "I'm bored. Come for a walk with me in the park."
And she sighs loudly, and she picks up her kitbag - a copy of mine, and hopefully with contents just as interesting - and she comes with me towards the door. I pause for a moment, pick up the holovid headset, and touch a control in a certain way. The headset will now perform two last functions; it will transmit a sequence of coded pulses on a subspace channel, and it will then... erase itself. Vulcan forensic computer experts are very good: they would be able, given time, to reconstruct all the wiped data on a blank isolinear chip. A chip that's been dissolved by a tiny vial of molecular acid, though, should prove beyond even their competence.
I don't know how many of these precautions are necessary. I have no reason to believe we are being watched, that we have been suspected of anything. But there is never a sound reason not to take precautions.
As we walk down the stairs of the apartment block, we both adjust the emblems worn on our belts: a red seven-pointed star on a black background, indicating that both of us have passed the Hegemony's citizenship test. It allows us to move freely about some parts of the city, at least. The public information nets have made excuses about "unsettled situation" and "danger of Reman terrorists", but the fact is, Hegemony martial law is clamping down, slowly but firmly, on the Vulcan capital.
And these badges won't carry us all the way.... "Take a look at the guy," I say to Dellis, handing her my PADD. I've downloaded an image of Stileg from the headset already.
"Not my type," she says, "too academic-looking for me...."
"This is Vulcan," I say with a quick smile, "you'd have to look hard to find one who wasn't academic." No one is in earshot to hear our conversation, but we keep up the charade anyway. I'm lucky to have found Dellis, she is almost a natural at this.
Vulcan's sun is setting, the red sky deepening to the colour of molten gold, as we walk towards the public park, a little spot of greenery on the desert world. A few transport vehicles whisper overhead; air traffic is being restricted, too, for security reasons. Aircraft will soon be limited entirely to the military or to high Hegemony officials... I think of Vorkov, and school myself not to betray my feelings in my face.
We walk together along an avenue lined with trees, some species unknown to me, an off-world import with thin trunks and many whip-like branches. The sussuration of the breeze in their leaves is enough, I think, to drown out the noise of low conversation from any casual snooper.
"We need to get to Stileg's residence, pick him up, and get him to an extraction point - our pickup team will home in on our wrist beacons as soon as we activate them," I say to Dellis.
"Hopefully," she comments.
By now, the shuttlecraft has either received my signal or it hasn't; if it has, it will be cloaked and on its way to ShiKahr, will be hovering invisibly overhead within the hour. If it hasn't... we have a problem. I will deal with that if the need arises. "The only issue," I continue, "is that his residence is in a security controlled zone."
"How are we going to get in, then?"
"Oh, getting in is never the problem." There are a couple of random strollers coming within earshot, now, so I fall silent. The two Vulcans pass us with a courteous greeting. Harmless. Probably.
At least, I reflect, ShiKahr is like most Vulcan cities - well-planned, well-regulated, and not very big. Stileg's residential area is within easy walking distance, and I have hopes that the iron heel of repression has not - yet - come down hard enough to stop us from doing our job.
We leave the park, pass through a pleasant commercial area, and set off up a gentle slope towards the residential zone. So far, we have yet to attract comment, let alone an actual challenge. Romulans are, perhaps, not yet a common sight on Vulcan, but there are enough people around wearing the Hegemony emblem... we blend in. So far.
And the iron heel is not yet complete. No checkpoints, no armed and armoured guards... it is only my own nerves that tell me, as we stroll up a quiet suburban street, that we are being watched, that our presence is known. But I feel the scrutiny, deep down, in my bones, and I know it is there.
The sun has set, but streetlamps provide more than adequate illumination. I see the man as we round a corner; a tall Vulcan male wearing the discreet dark grey uniform of the security police, a Hegemony emblem at his waist. He comes to meet us, and I tell myself, inwardly, to remain calm.
"Greetings," he says, calmly enough.
"Shaoi kon," I answer, the deferential greeting appropriate to the situation.
"You are in a controlled zone. I must ask your reasons for being here."
"Naturally," I say. "My companion and I are warp technicians; we have been requested to assist an Academician Sunuk with a problem." I caught the name as I read the background information on Stileg's location; I have no idea what this Sunuk's speciality is, but the name at least is real.
"I have not been informed of this," the security guard says. His hand is not on his weapon, yet. The weapon at his waist is a modified medical injector, firing darts of anaesthetic crystal - not as threatening as a phaser, yet every bit as effective in many circumstances.
"I gather it's some problem that's just come up," I say. "The Academician is presenting a paper tomorrow, and he has some issue with his data that needs a last-minute check. So, we've been detailed to help him out."
"I see. Nonetheless, it seems correct procedures have not been followed."
"Procedures adapt to the realities of the situation." One of Bresar's helpful maxims, that.
"That is true. Very well. I shall contact my headquarters, and verify the Academician's request. You two will accompany me while I do so. We will not delay you long."
"Naturally." Innocent citizens cooperate with the state: another maxim.
"Please accompany me." And he leads the way across the street. He is professional, polite, doing his job efficiently and discreetly. He is not, however, quite alert enough.
I have already judged the spacing of the streetlights. At the dark mid-point between two of them, I reach out silently, pluck his weapon from its holster, and shoot. The injector makes only the faintest clicking sound. He turns towards me, eyes accusing; then they glaze as the fast-acting dart takes effect. I take him in my arms as he falls. One of the dwellings nearby has a low ornamental wall around it; Dellis and I roll the unconscious man over it.
"That won't hold him more than half an hour," Dellis mutters.
"Not that long. They'll run checks - they may be monitoring his movements or his vital signs right now. Move." I point. "That way. About three hundred metres."
As we break into a run, conflicting emotions flood through my body; urgent fear, yes, but also a strange sense of relief, as the relentless need for caution and precaution drops away at last. I no longer have to fear discovery - that constant burden of paranoia is over. Now, all I need to worry about is capture and death.
No sound yet of alarms or of running feet behind us. They will come. We reach a building, one more unpretentious single dwelling among many, and we charge up the smooth stone path to the front entrance. My pulse is hammering as I punch the comms unit at the door. It seems to take an age before a mild Vulcan voice asks, "Who is there?"
I suppose we should have some code phrase, replete with enigmatic significance. "I'm T'Laihhae. You should be expecting me," I pant. "We don't have much time. Open up."
Another agonizingly long pause, and then the door slides open and he stands there, framed with the light behind him. It is, at least, the right man. "I don't know you," he says slowly.
"Come with us, or you'll never get the chance to," I tell him. Dellis says nothing, just pants. She is not as good a sprinter as I am.
"I -" Stileg looks at me, at Dellis, at me again. Finally, logic tells him that two out-of-breath Romulans on his doorstep must be something unusual, and there can only be one unusual thing he is expecting. "I will fetch the data chips. They must reach the Federation." He turns and goes back into the house. The space between my shoulders is itching, in anticipation of an anaesthetic dart or a phaser blast.
It feels like forever before Stileg reappears, clutching something in his hand. "These records are the important thing," he says. "I do not know how you propose to take them to Starfleet. The authorities have imposed transporter restrictions -"
"That's not how we're getting out. Move." I grab him by the arm and hustle him out of the door.
"Where are we going?" he asks - not unreasonably, I suppose.
"Anywhere reasonably open," I answer. Dellis is already reaching for her wrist communicator. Two signals will only cause danger of confusion - I decide not to activate my beacon, unless Dellis falls. "That way." I point. "Where they've cleared the ground for that statue of Valikra."
"Oh," says Stileg, "I can see how that might appeal to your sense of irony." Actually, it appeals to nothing more than my sense of open space above me - the huge square plinth is empty, while an artistic committee decides which heroic pose the late Hegemon should be displayed in. I don't give Stileg a chance to say anything more, but hustle him rapidly down the street.
There is surely no way we can avoid attention, now - Motion catches my eye. A patrol groundcar, approaching rapidly. The plinth is in sight, now, a big blocky thing at the edge of my vision. Dellis and I hurry the Vulcan towards it.
"Citizens. Halt," says a voice behind us. I swear under my breath and pick up the pace. I hear the whine of the groundcar's engine as it speeds towards us -
- and there is a sudden burst of light from above, and brilliant blue-green beams slice through the night. An open doorway is hanging in the air above our heads, and in that doorway Subcommander Ril'ell is holding a disruptor rifle that looks almost as big as she is, blazing away at our pursuers.
There is a terrible crash and a shrieking sound from just behind us. The pursuing groundcar slides past us, on its roof, the wheels on one side blasted away. I jump, my hand reaching for a hatch that's still covered by the cloaking field. I grip something invisible, hang on for dear life with one hand while dragging Stileg up with the other. Screaming curses, Ril'ell throws the rifle back into the compartment, and seizes hold of us both.
Somehow - it isn't quite clear how - Stileg and I are both through the hatchway, and I turn and reach out for Dellis. Our hands meet, clasp together in a death grip, and I pull with all my strength. She is heavy... but I lock my muscles and I refuse to let go. Ril'ell is with me, now, still cursing fluently and inventively, and together we haul the big blonde technician through the hatchway, and we collapse in a heap on the floor as the hatch slams shut.
"Welcome aboard, sir," says Aitra dryly from the helm console.
I stagger to my feet. "Steer due north, keep us in atmosphere. Security will have tachyon detection grids out as soon as they get their act together - but the Ministry of Science has requested the north polar region be kept clear of energetic particles while they do some studies on the ionosphere. We can sneak the gig out through the gaps there." Fast, nimble, and above all stealthy, my commander's gig is a very useful tool for situations like these. Especially with Aitra's skill at both flight and cloak.
"Well." A sad half-smile tugs at one corner of Aitra's mouth. "That sounds like a plan," he says. "If it doesn't work - it was nice knowing you all."
I turn to Stileg. The Vulcan scientist looks stunned. One hand is still clenched into a fist, holding on to his data chips. Well, that was a big help when it came to getting aboard.
"Mr. Stileg," I say. "You're safe, and on your way to the Federation. I hope whatever you're bringing us is... important enough to warrant all this."
He doesn't speak. He just unclenches his hand, slowly and carefully, and offers me the data chips. There is a whole world of hurt and confusion in his eyes.
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