Текст книги "The Good That Men Do"

Автор книги: Andy Mangels

Соавторы: Michael Martin
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

And perhaps Trip’s death signified that the time had finally arrived to move past such impulses.

She started to fold Trip’s uniform, but found herself, without cause, pulling it close to her face. She inhaled deeply, directing the residual musky scent of her former lover on the garment.

Ever since she’d come on board Enterprise, she’d been tolerant of the assault of smells that swirled around her: the humans, Captain Archer’s dog, and even from the machinery that ran the vessel. But now, as she smelled the ghosts of Trip’s sweat, mixed with the slight ozone tang of the engine room, she found the odors comforting.

The door to Trip’s quarters slid open, but T’Pol didn’t turn to see who was entering.

“Need any help?” Captain Archer asked, leaning against the bulkhead beside the bed.

T’Pol began refolding the uniform, handling it as though it were a precision scientific instrument. “No, thank you.”

Archer gestured toward the case she had been preparing. “For his parents?”

Nodding listlessly, T’Pol asked, “Will they still be coming to the ceremony?”

“We didn’t talk long, but I’ll try to make sure that they do. I think they know that Trip wouldn’t want it any other way.”

He chuckled mirthlessly and reached forward, pulling a small Frankenstein monster figure from the shelf. “Don’t forget this,” he said, holding it out for her.

T’Pol took the figurine and studied it in silence, remembering the first time she and Trip had watched the original film version of Frankenstein. He had shown it to her as a thank‑you for the Vulcan neural pressure therapy sessions she had been performing on him to help him get over his insomnia. It was during the viewing that they had first touched in a far less formal–and decidedly nontherapeutic–manner. Just Trip’s hand over hers, but she had not pulled away, nor questioned his intentions as she might have just days earlier.

Aware that the captain was watching her expectantly, she said, “I’d like to meet them.”

“His parents?” asked Archer.

“Yes, I’d like to meet them.” T’Pol stared down at the figurine in her hands, stroking it.

Archer moved past her, toward the head. T’Pol could sense that he seemed nervous, as if afraid of saying the wrong thing. “They’re a little eccentric. I think you’ll see where Trip got his sense of humor.”

“My mother was somewhat eccentric, as well,” T’Pol said.

Archer stared away from her. “I wasn’t around her for very long, but I could see that.”

T’Pol placed the Frankenstein monster figure into the case. “Trip told me that as time went by, I would miss her less.” She sat down on the bed, feeling her mind clouding with unwanted emotions again. “Though she hasn’t yet been gone for a year, I think he was wrong. Because I find myself missing her more with each passing month. Why would he tell me that?”

Archer spread his hands awkwardly. “‘Time heals all wounds’…but ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ I guess it’s a little tricky.” He moved over toward her. “Emotions have a way of contradicting themselves.”

T’Pol could feel the pain rising again inside her, pushing against her eyes and her sinuses. “And you wonder why we suppress them?” She looked down, forcing herself not to give in to her feelings, pushing back against them as hard as they pushed to escape.

Archer sat on the bed and leaned toward her. “When I took command of Enterprisealmost four years ago, I saw myself as an explorer. I thought all the risks would be worth it…because just beyond the next planet, just beyond the next star, there would be something magnificent. Something…noble.”

He paused, as if searching for the right words. “And now, Trip is dead…and we’re out here chasing aliens who want to stop our exploration, who don’t care about noble ideals, and who never had the good fortune to know Trip.”

Archer turned and looked toward the viewport, and into the inky space beyond it. “In a few weeks, I have to go give that speech at the Coalition Compact signing ceremony. I have to talk about how all the risks were worth it, about how worthwhile it’s all been…”

“Trip would be the first to say it wasworthwhile,” T’Pol said, her voice barely wavering as she swallowed still more of her sorrow.

Archer looked at her and smiled, but his expression contained no joy or mirth. She could see in his eyes that he was conflicted, that something else, something deeper, was troubling him. It was a look of regret and uncertainty. He opened his mouth as if to say something further, then looked away, to the viewport and the warp‑distorted streaks of starlight beyond.

Finally, he stood and walked to the door. “I’ll leave you to finish here, T’Pol. But if you need to talk to me–even if you need to let down your famous Vulcan guard–you’re welcome to. I won’t tell.”

T’Pol regarded her captain for a moment. She wondered what he would think if she revealed that one of the last things she had told her mother before her death was that she didn’t want anything further to do with her. How would Archer feel if he were to learn that when she had first learned of little Elizabeth’s mixed parentage, she had wanted nothing more than for the child to disappear?

What would his reaction be if he knew that Trip and T’Pol had decided to break off their relationship completely on Vulcan, but that she had found among his belongings an undelivered letter written aftertheir journey to Vulcan–a letter in which Trip had described his deep and full love for her, and the pain their separation was causing him?

And worst of all were her own traitorous thoughts, full of love and other emotions as well, all of which brought her anguish every time she considered life without Trip.

And now, she had no choice but to forge ahead alone. Her mother, her child, her lover. All gone.

She swallowed and blinked, masking her shame behind what she hoped was an impassive Vulcan mask. “Thank you for your offer, Captain. But I believe I can deal with such things on my own.”

The words seemed to echo in the air after Archer exited.

On my own.

T’Pol lay her head down on one of Trip’s pillows. Then, silently, agonizingly, before she could halt them, tears rolled down her cheeks.

Sixteen

Saturday, February 15, 2155

Deep space

“ADIGEON PRIME,” Trip said as he idly studied the image of the blue‑green planet displayed on Phuong’s secondary library‑computer monitor. According to the Branson’s navigational computer, their destination lay some eighteen hours away at their current speed. “Don’t know a lot about the place.”

Seated in a relaxed fashion in the pilot’s seat, Phuong cast a grin in Trip’s direction. “That may be because the Adigeons don’t like to call a lot of attention to themselves. They’re businessmen.”

Trip shifted in the copilot’s seat, struggling vainly to get comfortable as he turned to face Phuong. “Don’t businessmen need to advertise?”

“Not when so much of their business depends on…discretion,” Phuong said.

Trip nodded, understanding. “So they’re criminals.”

“That’s oversimplifying things quite a bit, Commander,” Phuong said, shaking his head. “Let’s just say they often act as third‑party brokers to many interstellar business entities who value their privacy. Including the Romulans, who are notoriously secretive about their military and civil affairs and their strengths and weaknesses. You might describe the Adigeons as a sort of cultural and intelligence membrane between the Romulans and the other societies with whom they sometimes have to do business. Sort of like the old Swiss banking firms back on Earth.”

“So our plan is to use the Romulans’ own Adigeon Prime business agents to infiltrate them,” Trip said. “I guess the Adigeons’ discretion must come with a price, and that it’s a price the bureau was able to pay.”

Phuong offered Trip a lopsided smile. “Very astute, Commander. The Adigeons also have other talents that we’re going to need.”

“Ah. Our Romulan disguises.”

Phuong nodded. “The Adigeons can provide medical procedures ranging from simple plastic surgeries to genetic alterations that haven’t been available on Earth since the Eugenics Wars ended.”

“So far, no human has ever seen what a Romulan looks like,” Trip said. “So I take it that the Adigeons know a lot more about that subject than we do.”

“That’s correct, although the Adigeons have been well paid to keep such secrets to themselves. But thanks to a highly bribable Adigeon plastic surgeon, you and I will be going under the knife. We’ll not only receive all the appropriate surgical alterations, we’ll also be fitted with ear‑implanted translation devices to help us communicate with any Romulans we encounter. By this time tomorrow, our own mothers probably won’t recognize us.”

The thought of his grieving mother almost made Trip wince. But the image also reminded him that the sooner this mission was completed, the sooner he’d be able to return home to comfort her in person.

“And is this process reversible?” Trip said.

“So I’ve been told.”

Trip wished Phuong had sounded a little more confident about that, but decided to table that particular question for now. “So what happens once we’re in disguise, Tinh?”

“We will meet with members of a Romulan dissident faction known as the Ejhoi Ormiin.”

Trip tried to get his lips around the name and failed utterly. “The what?”

“ Ejhoi Ormiin. According to my intelligence sources, the phrase roughly translates from the Romulan Rihannsulanguage as ‘to decide with finality on the best of several options.’ It’s the name of a group that opposes the Romulan Star Empire’s current ethic of expansion and conquest.”

Hope warred with suspicion deep in Trip’s gut. “And you trust them.”

“We have to make our leaps of faith somewhere,Commander, or else we’ll never get anywhere.At any rate, the Ejhoi Ormiinalready know we are coming to meet with them. They are presently harboring an important Romulan warp scientist, a man named Ehrehin.”

“ Howimportant?”

Phuong’s mien quickly took on a more sober cast. “How important was Henry Archer? Or Zefram Cochrane?”

Trip felt a chill of apprehension slowly ascend the length of his spine. That important,he thought.

Phuong continued, his tone growing progressively grimmer: “This Doctor Ehrehin’s expertise could very well spell the difference between victory and defeat in the coming conflict, depending upon which side gains sole access to him. Imagine what will happen to Earth if the Romulans succeed in building whole fleets of warp seven‑capable ships before we can. Ehrehin is the key to the whole thing.”

Trip sat in silence, processing what Phuong had told him, imagining one doomsday scenario after another and finding each of them uncomfortably believable. He could feel the forces of history and contingency already in motion all around him, like the faint buzzing of warp‑field lines against his skin when he tended Enterprise’s engines. How many times before had catastrophes such as the coming one happened, or nearly happened, in human history? He recalled that just prior to Earth’s first space age, the finest rocket scientists of the day had been employed by Nazi Germany. Had the United States failed to recruit Wernher von Braun just after the Second World War, the Soviets might well have added his talents to those of Sergei Korolev, thus completely changing the outcome of the U.S.‑Soviet space race and the Cold War that had spawned it.

Onlythis is evenmore serious,Trip thought. Because the safety of the Earth and all her allies is at stake.

Still, Trip had to cling to the hope that an all‑out war with the Romulans was still somehow avoidable. “There’s no way around this thing, is there?” he asked Phuong at length.

“A way around war with the Romulans?” Phuong’s expression became grave, and he shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve come to understand the Romulans a little too well to believe that’s possible.”

That’s saying a lot, considering the fact that he’s never evenseen a Romulan,Trip thought. Aloud, he said, “Don’t you think Romulan dissidents–like these Ejhoi Ormiinpeople–might have anything to say?”

Phuong chuckled, but it was a dry, humorless sound. “Passion isn’t the same thing as power, Commander. Unfortunately, the Ejhoi Ormiinaren’t in charge, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.”

Trip sat back in silence, staring straight ahead at the starfield through which the Bransonwas headed. He was suddenly struck by the sheer immensity of the implacable forces arrayed against Earth and her allies–and by the Coalition’s remote chance of survival, given its apparent blindness to the very real dangers that lay directly in its path.

“Why is it that only a few people can see what ought to be obvious?” he said a few moments later, once he’d found his voice again.

Phuong answered in soothing, encouraging tones. “Maybe certain people can’t help but see it–especially if they’re trained problem solvers.”

That seemed to Trip entirely too facile an answer, and he turned to cast a skeptical eye upon the other man. “There are lots of ‘problem solvers’ on Earth who have bigger brains than either of us do, Tinh.”

“Granted. But a lot of those ‘big brains’ are pursuing other agendas, too–like struggling to hang onto a high political office or an admiral’s pips. Public controversy and fear can work against those sort of agendas, and people like Nathan Samuels and Admiral Gardner damned well know it, especially now that they need to put the Terra Prime attacks behind them in order to keep the public calm and the Coalition together.”

“What about the other Coalition worlds?” Trip asked. “Aren’t any of them willing to listen and help?”

“Our bureau–Section 31, as you call it–is a secret organization based on Earth, Commander. And it would be a lot tougher for us to staysecret if we were to tip our hand to Earth’s allies–to say nothing of the damage we might do to interstellar relations if our allies ever got the notion that Earth is either an active or an unwitting host to what some might call a rogue spy network. Not that they don’t use similar means and methods themselves, mind you.”

Trip nodded. “Like the Vulcan agents who spied on the Andorians while posing as monks on P’Jem.”

“Exactly. Besides, I wouldn’t count on a lot of help from the allied planets right now anyway. They’ve each got their hands full. The Andorians and Vulcans are stillbusy spying on each other, even now. Minister T’Pau is still in the process of purging the Vulcan High Command of V’Las loyalists, which has hamstrung Vulcan’s military response capabilities, at least for a while. The Coridan worlds have been so close to civil war over the past few years that I doubt Coridan Prime would share its warp‑seven technology with Earth in time to provide any tactical advantage over the Romulans. And the Tellarites never seem to get tired of arguing among themselves, or with anyone else, for that matter.”

Trip sighed, not sure how to respond, though he was certain that Phuong’s analysis was pretty much spot‑on, if a bit cynical. “Sounds like you don’t have a lot of faith in the Coalition.”

“Not true,” Phuong said, waving a hand as though to dismiss Trip’s words. “I’m just realistic enough not to expect it to solve every problem overnight. The Coalition is only a starting point for Earth’s future. It’s going to need quite a bit of time to prove itself truly useful to all the parties involved.”

“But it won’t get that time if the Romulans move before we’re ready for them,” Trip said.

“Precisely.” Phuong nodded and smiled, evidently delighted at Trip’s insight. “It’s crucial that we prevent the Romulans from completing Doctor Ehrehin’s new stardrive prototypes. If we miss on this, there’ll be nothing to stop the Romulans from invading Earth itself.”

Phuong’s dark eyes seemed almost to glow with an inner fervor as he continued: “During the eleven years I served in Earth’s diplomatic service, wishful thinkers have treated my take on the Romulans like the ravings of a delusional paranoid. But the bureau saw the Romulan threat with clear eyes. Its directorate was willing to listen–and more importantly, was willing to dosomething. The Xindi attack taught us the importance of being out here, of being proactive. That’s why our role in keeping Earth safe will become even more critical as the Coalition moves forward and Earth comes into contact with God only knows how many more new potential adversaries in the years ahead.”

Phuong’s impassioned speech gave Trip a momentary chill of recognition. And despite his current extreme vulnerability–being in deep space with a spy who would no doubt kill him if he perceived him as dangerous to his mission–Trip realized that he simply couldn’t let it pass without comment.

“The last time I saw anybody look as intense as you do right now was the time I nearly got killed by John Frederick Paxton.”

Trip half expected an extremely angry response. But instead, Phuong laughed, the sound coming from deep in his belly.

“Stick with the bureau long enough, Commander, and there’s no way you could mistake us for Terra Prime,” Phuong finally said once his laughter finally died down. “The bureau doesn’t want humanity to shy away from alien contact. Or to expand through the galaxy as exploiters or conquerors. We only want the human race to face whatever’s out there with open eyes, open minds, and a pragmatic attitude.”

Trip absorbed Phuong’s apparently heartfelt sentiments with no small amount of relief. Turning back toward the ever‑unfolding starfield that lay before him, Trip resumed studying the image of Adigeon Prime. Although his apprehensions about what lay ahead–particularly about what awaited him in the Adigeons’ surgical facilities–hadn’t entirely abated, they had at least receded somewhat.

Maybe I reallydid make the best decision I could have by agreeing to come out here,he thought. And the sooner we get the deed done, the sooner I’ll be able to tell my folks and T’Pol that “the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

That was assuming, of course, that he’d find a way to survive a sojourn in entirely unknown space, while hiding and spying among deadly adversaries, people that no one from his planet had ever even laid eyes on before….

Seventeen

Monday, February 17, 2155

Enterprise NX‑01

THE PALE BLUE DOT on Enterprise’s bridge viewer gradually resolved itself into a disk, then grew still further until it became recognizable as the frigid, perpetually snow‑blown desert that was Rigel X–the planet where the Orion’s slave ship’s trail had abruptly ended.

Jonathan Archer had been here before, on his very first mission aboard Enterprise, in fact, and the recollection wasn’t a pleasant one. Since he had hurriedly departed from this place in the midst of a running firefight–and gotten shot while doing so–Rigel X wasn’t high on the list of locales he wanted to revisit anytime soon.

“Delightful planet, Captain,” Malcolm Reed said, with no small amount of irony. Sitting at the tactical station that faced the bridge’s center from starboard, he seemed to have read Archer’s mind better than even Theras could have.

“I suppose ending up at Risa was too much to hope for,” Archer said dryly as he rose from his command chair and strode toward the image of the dark, frigid world that now lay only a few hundred kilometers beneath Enterprise’s ventral hull. Had the star Rigel, visible beyond its tenth planet’s limb as a small but bright disk, not been a blue supergiant, this world would have been as thoroughly frozen and uninhabitable as Pluto. Though quite distant from its primary star, Rigel X provided a marginally livable environment that supported a large population of itinerant traders and permanent residents, sentients from at least a dozen worlds spread throughout the several sectors of space–all of whom worked, played, and lived in an enormous, thirty‑six‑level commercial habitat complex built right into the planet’s living rock.

“Travis, put us into a standard orbit.”

“Aye, sir,” the helmsman said as he deftly worked the controls.

As Archer continued to watch the screen, he saw bright lines intermittently lancing the turbulent indigo atmosphere with delicate and swiftly fading traceries of fire. Too regular and elliptically shaped to be lightning discharges, the brilliant streaks betrayed the ascent and descent of all manner of spacecraft, which must have been taking traders and customers of all sorts to and from the surface of Rigel X.

The captain recalled how he’d felt four years ago, that he didn’t want a Vulcan on his ship. Now, he couldn’t imagine Enterprisewithout T’Pol. His science officer, quiet, competent, and still able to surprise her captain. This morning he stepped out of his ready room and immediately noticed that something was off. Looking towards the science station, Archer saw T’Pol in a Starfleet uniform. Even now he had to suppress a smile. Turning toward the science station, Archer asked, “T’Pol, have you found any ships in the vicinity that might correspond to the warp trail we followed here?”

T’Pol shook her head gravely. “I’ve already begun running scans of the surface, and every ship within range of Enterprise’s sensors, whether on the surface, in the atmosphere, or in orbit. Nothing conclusive has emerged so far, although I havedetected a number of Orion ships of various classes, all of them commercial transports and freighters. It is possible that the particular vessel we followed is indeed present on the planet, but has powered down temporarily so as to make itself undetectable.”

“What about Aenar life signs?”

“So far I’ve found no evidence of any Aenar or Andorian life‑forms anywhere on the planet, or aboard any of the incoming vessels I have detected.”

“But that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t here somewhere, Captain,” said Reed. “People who peddle flesh the way the Orions do would be highly motivated to keep their activities camouflaged. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.”

“Either way,” Archer said, “somebody down there must know the location and status of that Orion slave ship we tracked here. I’m taking a landing party down to the trade complex to find out.”

“Aye, sir.” Ensign Mayweather entered a command into his helm console, then rose from his seat to face the captain. “I’ll start preparing Shuttlepod One immediately.”

Archer raised a hand in a gentle “slow down” gesture. “Not this time, Travis. We’ll be using the transporter, since we need to get in quickly and may need to get out even more quickly.” Once again, he couldn’t escape the memory of the painful energy‑pistol burn he’d received the last time he’d been in a rush to leave Rigel X.

Though Mayweather looked crestfallen as he returned to his station, Archer lacked the time and the patience at the moment to promise the junior officer more exciting piloting duty “next time.”

Archer turned back to face the aft portion of the bridge, where T’Pol and Hoshi manned the two stations at his right, while Malcolm looked on from the tactical station at the captain’s left. “Malcolm, you’re coming, too. I want a pair of MACOs along to watch our backs as well. T’Pol, you have the bridge.” He started toward the turbolift, motioning to Malcolm, who immediately followed.

“Shran has already made it abundantly clear that he intends to come along with any landing party we dispatch to the surface,” T’Pol said as Archer passed.

He stopped in the open turbolift entrance for a moment, considering. “All right, T’Pol,” he said finally. “Shran can come along. I suppose he’d be pretty hard for the rest of you to live with if I were to leave him here. But Theras is definitely staying aboard Enterprise.”

T’Pol raised an eyebrow. “I’m certain that Shran will be quite pleased by bothof those decisions, Captain,” she said just before the turbolift doors closed.

“Captain, are you certain it’s wise to bring Shran along on this mission?” Malcolm asked as the turbolift began its descent toward D deck, where the transporter was located. “If you don’t mind my saying so, I’ve always found him rather lacking in…restraint.”

“Really, Malcolm. I hadn’t noticed.”

Malcolm continued, ignoring Archer’s jest. “And he’s been particularly touchy since he first brought this Orion slaver business to our attention.”

“I suppose I’ll have to take him aside before we beam down and give him a gentle lecture on restraint,” Archer said.

“Good idea, sir. I’d also recommend taking along a third MACO.”

“Why?”

Malcolm grinned sheepishly. “Just in case Shran needs a little additional babysitting.”

The landing party materialized in near darkness, standing in a tight, back‑to‑back circle. Archer’s eyes weren’t yet adjusted to the dim light, but he could feel the penetrating cold of the trade complex’s poorer quarters immediately. He could see the flicker of the fires that Rigel X’s homeless, hopeless transients were burning to cook their meals, or perhaps merely to stay warm. He could smell the pungent mixture of smoke and sweat, despair and greed that swirled in the chill air. He could feel the harsh solidity of the metal floor beneath his boots. And in the middle distance, he could hear the roar of a crowd, punctuated by the fast, terse vocalizations of a humanoid speaking into a public address system of some sort, announcing what sounded like quantities and prices in various alien currencies.

Archer ordered the team to move out, taking the point while a pair of MACO troopers–their company leader, the petite and dark‑haired Sergeant Fiona McKenzie, and the eagle‑eyed Corporal Hideaki Chang–flanked him, their phase pistols holstered to avoid provoking anyone, yet still within easy reach. Reed, Shran, and the remaining MACO, a small, wiry, shaved‑headed corporal named David McCammon, watched the rear as the group moved quickly through a twisting maze of causeways, alleys, and ramshackle galleries, toward the source of the sounds.

Although Archer had visited this trading facility before, what he saw when the team finally reached the large, crowded gallery‑cum‑amphitheater truly shocked him.

Of course, it wasn’t as though he’d never seen a slave auction before. Nine months earlier, T’Pol and several other members of his crew had briefly become trapped in just the sort of nightmare that now lay spread before him. Now as then, helpless, shackled people of every imaginable species, and members of more than a few he didn’t recognize, were being herded by armed, green‑skinned overseers toward a raised dais, where a large, bejeweled, and lightly armored Orion male vended his wares to an equally diverse group of much more finely attired sentients. These obviously well‑heeled buyers probably originated from points all over known space, if not from considerably beyond as well.

As his team insinuated itself close enough to the stage to get a clear look at the seemingly endless pageant of chained and nearly naked flesh from countless worlds, the fact that there were no humans among the captives being sold gave Archer only cold comfort. After all, no species had a monopoly on fear; in Archer’s experience, all sentient beings experienced that emotion in pretty much the same way. The stage presently abounded with ample evidence that fear was as universal as life was cheap.

At least in places like this, where those who thought that their wealth entitled them to purchase peopleseemed to be as common as hydrogen.

“There are no Aenar here, Captain,” said Shran, who was standing at Archer’s left. He, too, was studying the stage intently. Archer could see that the Andorian was as disgusted as he was by the flesh market before them.

“I haven’t seen any, either,” Archer said. The two men had to shout to hear one another over the all‑enveloping white noise made by the bidding crowd around them.

Malcolm, who had sidled up to Archer’s immediate right, consulted the scanning device in his hand. “Even at close range, I’ve found no Aenar life signs so far.”

“Perhaps they’re being sold at another slave market elsewhere on the planet,” said Shran.

“Look at the size of this operation, Shran,” Archer said. “Do you think there could be another market here capable of competing with this? Besides, Rigel X only has onecentral trade complex.”

“It’s one too many, if you ask me,” Reed said. His face was a study in distaste.

“I can certainly agree with you on that, pinkskin,” Shran said.

“My guess,” said Archer, trying to keep the team focused, “is that the slave ship we tracked here made a wholesale transfer of all the captured Aenar onto a second ship.”

“Makes sense,” Reed said. “They could have bypassed the auction block altogether if they already had a single buyer lined up.”

A buyer like the Romulan military,Archer thought with a chill.

Shran’s antennae flattened against his scalp in a clear display of anger and frustration. “If that’s true, then we’re not leaving this planet until I find out where that slave ship is now, and exactlywhat became of its…cargo.”

“Someone in charge of logistics around here would have to be able to shed some light on the matter,” Reed said.

“Then let’s not waste any more time,” Archer said, motioning to Sergeant McKenzie that it was time for the landing party to move on. Chang and McCammon immediately took up protective positions on the team’s flank as Archer directed it away from the densest section of the roiling crowd of slave bidders.

Archer stopped when he noticed that Shran was hanging back, and motioned the others to halt as he wended through a small cluster of buyers, making his way back to Shran’s side.

“Come on, Shran,” Archer said, shouting almost directly into Shran’s ear to make himself heard. “We can’t stay here.”

“We can’t let an abomination like this continue, either,” said the Andorian, a faraway, almost fanatical look in his icy blue eyes.

Although he could certainly sympathize, Archer didn’t like what he was seeing and hearing. “Remember the little chat about restraint we had earlier, Shran?”

“No one should be treated this way,” Shran said. He either hadn’t heard Archer’s words or had chosen to ignore them.

Archer noted that the Andorian’s hand was on the holster of the phase pistol that Malcolm had issued him.

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