involvement in ending Shinzon’s coup, in light of my previous run-ins with Romulan politics, also involving Ambassador Spock, I assure you, Admiral Janeway, I am not the man for the job. Not on Romulus itself.”
“Funny,” Janeway huffed as she somehow found the resources to renew her assault, “those are all the reasons why Starfleet thinks you’re perfect for it.”
That’s it! Picard felt vindicated. It was just as he had suspected from the beginning. Janeway’s “invitation” to go to Romulus to help Jim Kirk investigate Spock’s assassination wasn’t just a favor to the Federation’s diplomatic corps, it was a plan hatched at Starfleet Command.
He abruptly departed from form and slashed the admiral’s epee to the side, leaving her in no position to execute a riposte as he scraped his blade around hers, then brought it back for the final lunge.
That’s when Janeway shouted “Jean-Luc!” and charged off the mat and past Picard to strike at—
A Vulcan!
Picard had only an instant to register that the Vulcan was attacking him from behind with an upraised dagger before Janeway’s hand dug into his padded shoulder and pulled him down and to the side.
Instinctively, Picard rolled to use the momentum to right himself, and by the time he regained his feet, he knew that his attacker had been one of the two Vulcans watching the banth bout so intently.
Two of them, Picard thought. He threw off his fencing helmet, certain that the Vulcan who had assaulted him would do so only if he thought his companion was targeting the admiral.
But the admiral was having no difficulty with Picard’s attacker, her blazing swordplay successfully preventing his deadly dagger from reaching her. Her skill told Picard all too clearly that Janeway had been toying with him on the piste—she obviously could have bested him five-nothing at any time of her choosing.
Even so, he sprang forward to help her, glancing as he did to the side, to see the second Vulcan five meters away, flat on his back and unmoving, a trickle of green blood running from his swollen split lip. Beside the Vulcan, a pale-legged human in the loud tropical flower shirt and floppy sunhat, now turning from the fallen body, to run toward the admiral.
Before Picard had covered half the distance to Janeway, the human was already behind her attacker. With a perfectly precise movement reminiscent of Data, the man grabbed the Vulcan’s forearm and locked it in place as firmly as if he had the strength of five Vulcans. He then dropped his other hand to the Vulcan’s shoulder and inflicted a nerve pinch.
An instant later, though, the Vulcan wrenched his forearm free, twisted from the pinch, and spun in a deadly arc to drive the dagger directly into the human’s flower-shirted chest.
Before Picard’s horror-struck eyes, the man stood motionless with an almost comical expression of puzzlement, then glanced down with mild curiosity as the Vulcan savagely twisted the dagger deeper into his chest. For a moment, the man frowned, then looked up at the by now equally puzzled Vulcan and employed a deft right hook to send him crashing to the ground.
Picard stared as the human took the dagger smoothly from his chest and examined its bloodless surface. And only then did he recognize the man’s uncanny resemblance to Doctor Lewis Zimmerman and realized what had happened, and who had saved him.
“Your holographic doctor,” Picard said to Janeway.
The Doctor looked up with a sudden expression of indignation. “I beg your pardon. I am not a possession.”
Picard smiled, approached the celebrated medical hero of the Voyager’s Delta Expedition. “Of course not, and I meant no disrespect. It’s just that…well, I have encountered other emergency medical holograms, but you, sir, stand apart from them all.” Picard saw the Doctor’s expression soften, decided he was on the right track, continued to lay on the compliments as he held out his hand. “It is a true pleasure to meet you, and to thank you for saving my life.” He looked at Janeway, who regarded him with a look that suggested he might be going too far with his praise. “Our lives,” he concluded, and left it at that.
“A pleasure to meet you as well,” the Doctor said as he shook Picard’s hand. “I’m sure.”
Picard was startled at the incredible sensation of contact with the holographic being. The flesh had just the right amount of give, the inner structure of the bones was solid, and there was even heat and a suggestion of sweat. Absolutely astounding.
“I’d been watching these two,” the Doctor went on. He removed a Starfleet medical tricorder from under his non-regulation shirt, pointed it at the unconscious Vulcan at his feet, frowned again. “Most curious. Despite his current condition, his life-sign readings are no different from when I scanned him ringside.”
Picard wasn’t certain he understood the Doctor’s point, but then the hologram knelt beside the fallen Vulcan. First, he ripped away the unconscious being’s tunic to reveal the armor on his shoulder that had protected him from the nerve pinch; then he found a small device hidden under his belt, and held it up for Picard’s inspection.
“Very clever,” the Doctor said. “Life-sign transmitter.” He pressed a control tab on the device, checked his tricorder again. “And very interesting.” He looked at Janeway and his smug attitude became serious. “This fellow’s Romulan.”
Janeway turned to Picard, and lightly tapped the button of her epee to his shoulder. “Touche,” she said, and Picard detected no sense that she was in any way enjoying what had just happened. “Looks like Starfleet’s not the only one who thinks you’re the right man for the job.”
Picard, at last, had run out of arguments to the contrary.
He was doomed, after all.
5
SOLTOTH CAVERNS, ROMULUS, STARDATE 57473.1
Even as the echoes of the distant explosion faded, even as the afterimage of the canteen’s extinguished lights remained burned into his eyes, Spock was up and moving with T’Vrel for the emergency equipment lockers on the far wall.
Neither Vulcan inadvertently collided with a bench or table. Their exact memory of the room’s layout, augmented by their sensitive hearing, made moving through the familiar area, even in total darkness, as unremarkable as if it had been well lit.
Spock heard running feet in the rock corridors outside the canteen, then the ionic hiss of an energy weapon he did not recognize. The sounds of one set of running footsteps ceased immediately, without the punctuation of a falling body.
To Spock, the logic of that was simple. The attackers’ weapons were set to full disintegration.
Spock heard T’Vrel open the locker, heard her hands move confidently, selecting the items they needed.
“Here,” she said, and that one whispered word was enough for Spock to pinpoint her, sweep his hand to meet hers, and take the first item that she offered him.
A thermal imager—Romulan fleet surplus.
He pulled the asymmetrical flat shield over his eyes, pressed the control switch at his temple and felt the restraint straps tighten in place. A moment later, a holographic image sprang to life before him, showing T’Vrel, the open locker, and the canteen in a blotchy smear of false colors, assembled from the emission of infrared radiation.
“Working,” Spock said quietly. That one word was enough to tell T’Vrel that he could see what she was doing, and that no more words were necessary.
But Spock knew that betraying their location by sound was the least of their worries. The invaders would also be wearing similar imaging devices to move through the darkened caverns.
Spock heard running footsteps again, this time much closer to the canteen. Two sets.
Both he and T’Vrel paused in their collection of equipment, but just for a moment. The footsteps were recognizable, not only from the familiar sound of Vulcan boot heels on the ribbed metal floor, but from the distinctive pace. Soral and T’Rem were approaching on the run, two of the team of sixteen Vulcans who were
