Zero Hour 23

Heizis

The alarm shrills two hours into my sleep period, because of course it does. I roll out of bed and seize the communicator. "Heizis."

"Sir. This is Centurion Jeroth. We have a sighting in the Vault. Maximum priority, for your immediate attention." I am dressing as this Romulan nuisance speaks. His next words chill me. "Kalevar Thrang is here. Section 771 East."

"What?" Thrang? Here?

"Positive ID from facial recognition systems. We have implemented full security lockdown -"

"Not enough," I snarl, as I pull on my uniform trousers. "Seal that section. Close all doors, all access panels, jam transporters - open the surrounding sections to vacuum if you have to. Scramble internal Scorpion flights."

"Which squadrons -?"

"All of them. My authority." I shrug on my jacket. "Put the Vault on war footing. From this moment onwards, nothing exits our controlled space. And I mean nothing. Anyone who permits any tricks with satellites or nearby asteroids will answer to me for it." I seize my tricorder in one hand, my plasma pistol in the other. "Get me all the details we have on that sighting. Transmit along data subchannels, I will review it as I move."

And move is what I do, hurrying along the echoing corridors of the Vault as I review the situation in my mind. I do not know section 771 - the ancient space station is vast, as big as a small moon, and it has many, many component sections. I am worried. Security has improved since the early days, when enemy shuttlecraft could sneak aboard by whatever routes they pleased... but the Vault has not decreased in size, and it has many nooks and crannies which a canny enemy might exploit.

"Commence full systems sweep and virus scans." I snap out more orders as I run. "Upload Thrang's genetic profile to all active Scorpions, and make sure it is Thrang's profile. We must be constantly alert for data warfare attacks."

"Yes, sir. General Xerek is within the affected section -" Jeroth's voice breaks off for a moment. "He requests a secure link-up, sir, urgently."

I am at a T-junction in the corridor, and to one side of me is a door. I duck through it, find myself in an unused office. "I have a data terminal." I sit down and slam the activation and override codes into the console, awakening it from its slumber. How long since this thing was last used? Perhaps years.... We are thinly spread, throughout the Vault, and we have not used a hundredth of its full capacity. Perhaps we are too thinly spread to contain Thrang. I connect my tricorder to the console. An image forms on the screen; another room, another anonymous workspace, somewhere in the station - except the man sitting at a console there is human, and even in quarter-profile from behind I can see who he is. He is dressed in a leather coat, in Reman style, but the head is not concealed, and it is Thrang, without doubt.

Then the image is wiped away, replaced by an aged and glowering face. "Sir."

"I am here," says Xerek. "Perhaps within metres of Thrang, who knows? I am coordinating search efforts inside the section. Tell me what you have done."

"Full lockdown, all Vault crew at war alert status -" Breathlessly, I run through the measures I have taken so far.

Xerek's mouth twists into an ugly shape - disapproval, or merely deep thought? I do not know. "You are devoting much of our resources," he says.

"Thrang must be caught. He is too dangerous to be permitted escape."

"True," says Xerek. "Still, technically, you are exceeding your authority -"

"But not mine," says a deep and resonant voice from behind me.

I turn my head - and then rise to my feet and stand stiffly at attention. The voice is instantly recognizable, as is the face, lantern-jawed, horribly scarred across the right cheek - no Reman alive does not recognize those scars, or that voice, or the brooding blue eyes that now focus on Xerek's image. Obisek. The man who succeeded where Shinzon failed, the one who raised the first alarm of Iconian incursion... the man who led the Reman people to a hard-won freedom. No, here in the Vault, nothing is beyond Obisek's authority.

"In this matter," the leader of our people says, "her voice is as mine." I keep my stance and my face rigidly disciplined, concealing the swell of pride I feel at that. "Kalevar Thrang is too important, and too dangerous, for us to take any chances. We will do all that we can to take him."

"Of course." Xerek, too, has come to full attention. "I have security troops within the sealed section. I will commence a search with those."

"Yes," says Obisek. "And the Scorpions will sweep the adjacent area with their sensors, and the rest of the Vault's troops will guard every exit." He glances at me. "You have done well," he says, and my heart swells further. "Normally, I like light no more than the rest of us - but in this case, we will shine lights into every dark corner of the Vault, until we find Kalevar Thrang."

---

But we do not.

Thrang tripped a facial recognition package in the security monitors... but that is all. Xerek's teams sweep every millimetre of section 771 East; I have a list of the microbes they find, but they do not find Thrang. The Scorpion fighters howl along the passageways of the Vault, sensors at maximum, but Thrang's biometrics and genetic profile fail to register. The security force fields glow across each access point, and troops stand taut and ready before each one, waiting for Thrang to emerge, waiting in vain.

I do not know how many hours have passed. "The terminal is at an interior location," I mutter to myself. "Deep inside the section. Less than two minutes elapsed between the initial alarm and Centurion Jeroth imposing the first lockdown. My additional measures were in place no more than five minutes after that. Even an augment cannot have moved that quickly."

I was muttering to myself, but Obisek heard. If he is feeling fatigued, it does not show on his face. "Transporter logs and sensor records show nothing in that interval. He was not beamed out. But Xerek's teams have found nothing. Nothing...."

I nerve myself to address him directly. "What do you think happened, sir?"

"I wish I knew," says Obisek. "There is something at work here, some deception we have not seen through." He sighs, closes his eyes, rubs his brow with his hand. For that one moment, even the mighty Obisek looks mortal. "There is not even genetic residue from Thrang at the site in question," he says. "Xerek's forensic team could probably name every person who has sat in that chair, but Thrang was not among them. Even though we saw him." He shakes his head. "We must face facts, unpleasant though they are. Thrang has eluded us. Stand down from general alert. We cannot maintain this security level much longer - there is too much else to do at the Vault."

"Yes, sir." I take a deep breath. "Sir, I -"

"You have not failed me," says Obisek. "You were fast, and effective. You did everything, took every necessary measure. It is not your fault that Thrang has done the impossible." His tone softens a little. "Get some rest. You need it. And we need our best people in their best condition."

I salute him. "Yes, sir."

And I turn and make my weary way back to my quarters, because one does not disobey Obisek.

But before I crawl back into my bed, I replay the brief footage from the security camera, the one which shows Kalevar Thrang. The viewing angle does not permit me to see what he is working on. The records should be preserved in the terminal, but that was blanked. And there is only one visual record of Thrang - no footage of him arriving, or departing. All I see is the man working at the terminal for a brief time - seconds, no more - and then he stands, stoops to pick up something from the floor - a long, thin object - and then he walks out of the camera's field of view, and he is gone.

I cannot make out what the object is. I cannot imagine where Thrang has gone. Eventually, the scene starts to blur before my tired eyes, and I shut off the projection and go back to bed.