So, anyway, yeah. Before I got myself shanghai'ed into working for a scar-faced Andorian screwdriver jockey, my boss - nominally - was Admiral Paul Hengest. Paul's a human male with dark skin and white hair - some of the white hair, I'm responsible for, I guess, but most of it's just age.
Turns out he knows Tylha Shohl, too, from some way back. Probably the two of them helped cook up this little plan to keep me safely out of the Delta Quadrant. And Tylha knows T'Laihhae, too, the Romulan intelligence hotshot - so-called - who's been yelling for a meetup. So it's quite a little family reunion that's taking place, now, in the conference room at Earth Spacedock.
The only person nobody seems to know already is the gargoyle in the iridescent purple and black uniform. She's sitting next to T'Laihhae and glowering, but the glower might just be built in. Some female Remans look almost like Romulans, except bald.... this one doesn't. Her skin is grey and rough, almost pebbly, in texture; her eyes glare out of blackened sockets, and the membranes over her temples are black, too. Her name is Heizis, and she doesn't look happy to be here.
"The Rehanissen Archive," Paul Hengest says thoughtfully. "I've heard of it, naturally -"
"I haven't," says Tylha. Neither have I, but you won't catch me admitting to it.
T'Laihhae responds with a very brief smile, the sort where you want to freeze-frame it so you can be sure it happened at all. "You will have heard of the Valtothi," she says.
"Minor neutral power," Tylha says thoughtfully, "invaded by the Klingons in the early days of that war, liberated as part of the reparations for Bercera IV -"
"Prior to that," says T'Laihhae, "an independent power that maintained its neutrality through careful exercise of a widespread and extremely competent intelligence agency. Gethrek Rehanissen maintained networks of agents across much of Federation, Klingon and Romulan space. Even now, we have no clear idea of just how far his operations extended. It is safe to say, though, that virtually nothing of importance happened in the Klingon Empire without Rehanissen knowing about it. The Klingons, naturally, were the priority target for Valtothi intelligence."
"It didn't stop them being invaded, though," Tylha says.
"By that time, Rehanissen himself had been dead three decades," T'Laihhae replies. "His organization had... decayed, significantly. Especially as so many of his secrets died with him, or were recorded only in his sealed personal archive."
"An intelligence agency boss who became a law unto himself?" Paul asks. "There are parallels, I suppose. Reinhard Gehlen, for instance -"
"But this archive," says Tylha. "If Rehanissen is long dead, surely it's only of historical importance by now?"
T'Laihhae and Paul exchange glances. "If what we suspect of the archive is true," T'Laihhae says, "then that... historical data... is still of considerable consequence. There are disputes, territorial and economic, between Federation and Empire, between the Gorn and the Klingons, among the Klingon Great Houses.... These disputes reach back a long way, and the people involved have long memories."
"She's right," Paul says. "If there's enough deep background in this archive, it could re-ignite border disputes all the way across the former neutral zone. And that's not even considering what it might do to the Empire. The Klingons know how to keep an old grudge going."
Tylha nods, slowly. Of course, she's Andorian. The Andorians were a warrior species, still are, a lot of the time. Tylha knows about clan-honour and vendettas. She may be all Starfleet and dedicated to the Federation on the outside, but she knows this stuff, deep in her bones. "So why hasn't this archive surfaced before?" she asks.
Another microsecond smile from T'Laihhae. "Complications arose," she says. "The archive itself was sold, by a venal Valtothi agent, to an Orion Syndicate operative. However, Rehanissen was nothing if not security conscious - the archival unit was secured with a unique quantum-entangled isolinear enciphering crystal. Without that crystal, the contents of the archive would be nothing more than indecipherable data noise -"
"Let me guess," says Tylha. "Another venal agent sold the key to someone else."
"Quite," says T'Laihhae. "To another Orion house within the Syndicate, in fact. I gather there were numerous attempts, at first, to bring the archive and the key together. All failed, as each house tried to deceive and double-cross the other. There is very little honour in the Orion Syndicate, I am afraid."
"So what's changed?" asks Tylha.
"Fifteen days ago, an Orion operative named Kalevar Thrang began circulating data records with Rehanissen's personal identification codes," T'Laihhae says. "Nothing of any particular interest - personnel records from the now defunct Valtothi intelligence headquarters - but definitely Rehanissen's files, and not material previously available. Thrang has - let it be known - that more substantial information may be purchased. Naturally, when Republic Intelligence learned of this, we set out to verify that the Rehanissen Archive was still in... the two places where it was kept." Another microsecond smile. "Neither of the two houses concerned will admit to any sort of security breach... but theirs is the sort of silence that speaks volumes."
"Kalevar Thrang. I know that name." Tylha's antennae are positively squirming in thought. T'Laihhae quirks an eyebrow at her. "Got it," Tylha says. "He was one of the possible suspects Klingon Intelligence came up with, back when Ronnie Grau got kidnapped during the Siohonin crisis. Independent operator -"
"Well," says Paul, "obviously, he's a front. A solo independent who tried to cross the Syndicate would be dead within hours. The question is, who's he fronting for?"
"He is bait." Miss Nosferatu 2300 speaks up for the first time. Her voice sounds like she's gargling gravel, kinda like what you'd expect. "Our best move, though, is to take him, and see where he leads."
"Commander Heizis is one of our KDF liaison officers, and ideally placed to cooperate with Klingon Intelligence in this matter." T'Laihhae's voice is completely level, but there is something about the way she says "Commander" that - if I had antennae like Tylha's - would be making them stand up straight. It's sort of like the same way people call me "Captain". My rank, on paper, is quite a bit higher than that - has to be, to command the resources I might need - but "Captain" will do, for anyone who doesn't need to know any better. "Commander" Heizis, now, sounds the same way in my ears. So. Gravel-features over there is a player, is she? Then I reflect that, being Reman, she's also a telepath, so I try to shut my brain down and think happy thoughts for a bit.
"Thrang approached Republic Intelligence directly with his offer?" Paul asks.
"He did. We have reason to believe he also contacted several other agencies - the new Valtothi intelligence service among them." Microsecond smile. "Sound business sense - one cannot start a bidding war unless one's customers know there are other bidders. The emphasis seems to be on newer agencies - organizations that lack the deep historical background that comes with continuity of operations -"
"People who would benefit from gaining a huge dose of deep historical background out of the Rehanissen Archive," says Tylha. It's at this point that I get an idea.
"Hey," I say, "I've had a thought."
"That a Delta Quadrant operator would be very interested in acquiring Alpha Quadrant deep background material?" asks Paul. Damn him. He always could think a couple of steps ahead of me. Guess that's why he got to be my boss.
"Kinda," I mutter.
"It's a thought," says Tylha. "Pexlini could play that role... and another potential customer could draw Thrang out, maybe to a place where someone could - take the bait."
"One question," says Paul, and he looks hard at T'Laihhae. "Why us? Why are you coming to us, specifically, with this?"
"The information is being disseminated along a number of informal channels," T'Laihhae replies. "President Okeg and Chancellor J'mpok are both being privately informed. For the present, Republic Intelligence hopes to act - informally - as a clearing house for the coordination of responses. I recalled the level of cooperation I received during the Hegemony affair, both formally from your department of Starfleet Intelligence, and -" she glances sidelong at Tylha "- informally. I believe both of you to be reliable." Her cool gaze rests on me for a moment. "I am inclined to trust your associate on that basis."
"So, we tell you what we're doing, and you let us know if we're treading on anyone else's toes?" asks Paul.
"For the present. Until a more formal coordinated response can be set up. The important thing is to move." T'Laihhae leans forward, sudden motion emphasizing her words. "We cannot afford to wait on the formation of a joint intelligence committee. We need to deal with this problem now. Ideally, track down Thrang's backers and obtain the Archive for ourselves; at a minimum, identify their aims and goals, and neutralize whatever damage they can do. Our response needs to be immediate."
Tylha is wearing a sour face. Paul nods slowly. "Very well. Let's talk specifics," he says.
---
Tylha still has her sour face on later, as we walk back towards Experimental Engineering's offices. "I don't like any part of this," she says.
We talked specifics. Specifically, I've got some recognition codes that might work, and that I might plausibly have got hold of, if I were some kind of Delta Quadrant operative. Now, I have to head out to Eta Meridia, an obscure system out near Japori, and try to contact Thrang from there. If I find him - we get to find out just how plausible these codes are, I guess. And Heizis will be shadowing me along the way, which is enough to give me a nice warm itch, right between the shoulder blades. So I'm kinda not feeling too cheerful myself, really. "What's bothering you?" I ask.
Tylha sighs. "Secrets," she says. "I've never liked secrets."
"Well, look on the bright side," I say. "At least we're in on these ones."
It seems to be the wrong thing to say. Tylha glares. Which is kinda not something you want to see, from a forbidding-looking Andorian who's a head taller than you are. "That's part of the problem," she says. "We're in on these ones. Who decides that? Who's to say there isn't some other T'Laihhae, somewhere, making decisions about stuff we don't get to know about?" She shakes her head. "Who gets to decide? Us? The President? Gethrek Rehanissen? What right has anyone got to decide what I do or don't know about?"
"Well," I say, "yeah... see your point, kinda... but...."
"But?"
"Well,OK, secrets are bad, right, information wants to be free, I can see that. But sometimes not keeping 'em's, well, worse."
Tylha snorts. "Like protomatter research?"
"Yeah. I mean, OK, we can't sit on it forever, but if some of this stuff gets out in the public domain... well, the business with Ge'Sirn's gizmo got kinda messy, right?"
"I suppose so." She is not like me, she is too mature to kick moodily at the bottoms of consoles as we walk past. I can tell she wants to, though. "That's another thing that bothers me. This Thrang, and whoever's running him, are in a position to turn over a whole lot of rocks and see what comes creeping out."
"And that's bad?"
"It could be." She glances suspiciously from side to side. You can tell she's not in Intelligence. Her voice drops a bit as she says, "You've been around long enough to have heard about a man calling himself Franklin Drake...."
"Oh," I say. "Yeah. Him."
Tylha scowls. "He and the - organization - he claims to represent - they've been around a long time. I'm worried about how much of their stuff is part of Rehanissen's deep historical background."
"Bits of Section 31 scurrying out from under rocks? Yeah, I can see that could be a problem."
"Yes. And Drake and his organization have no scruples worth thinking about. If they think they're in danger - well." She shrugs. "I think what I'm trying to say is, don't trust anyone, even if they're supposed to be on your side. Watch your back."
"Hey," I assure her, "I always do. It's the only one I've got."
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