Daybreak - Chapter 9

Daybreak

by ShouldKnowBetter

Disclaimers in Chapter 1

~~~~~~~

Chapter 9 - False Start

“Mind if I join you?”

Cole glanced up from her mug of ersatz coffee with a grimace. “Is that wise, captain?”

“It’s not gonna make things any worse.” Tucker dropped into a chair at the Mess Hall table and took an assessing look at the MACO. “You look rough.”

“Thanks! So do you.”

“I’ve been sleeping in the captain’s cabin for the last three weeks. What’s your excuse?” Cole only shrugged, and Tucker sighed. “Rumour says you and Soval have split up.”

That produced a response as she glared fiercely back. “Rumour’s wrong! We weren’t together in the first place.”

Her former lover and very good friend gave a grunt of un-amused laughter. “I guess that makes two of us.”

She frowned at him, sloughing off her own self-pity. “You’re not really gonna give up on T’Pol, are you, Trip?”

He blew out his breath in a long sigh. “I don’t know her anymore, Amanda. Before I could always get her to talk. Now it’s as if,” he paused, searching for the right description, “she’s on a different planet to me. And she’s not willing to use the transporter.”

Cole didn’t smile at the attempt at humour. “But you still love her. Isn’t that worth fighting for?”

“Yeah.” He sounded tired. “But she won’t even let me get close enough to try.”

“Have you asked Soval to talk to her? She might be a rotten daughter, but he loves her.”

Tucker did a double take. “You know T’Pol’s Soval’s daughter?”

“Sure.”

“How come?”

“He told me.”

He gave her a bemused look. “D’you know how intimate it is for a Vulcan to share family details?”

Cole shrugged. “We were on Earth a long time, Trip. Even Vulcans get lonely. We talked a lot. Have you asked him?”

“Nah.” He shook his head to emphasis the point. “He’s not talking to me either.”

“What are you gonna do, Trip?”

“Damned if I know!” Responding to the depression in his tone, she reached a sympathetic hand across the table, squeezing his arm. He looked back for a moment, then forced a smile as he patted her hand briskly and stood up. “But in the short term – we’ve got a family reunion to look forward to.”

~

Malfor was already on the Bridge when Tucker arrived, the Xindi visibly nervous as Enterprise came within comm. range of the planet his family had last occupied. The captain gave him an encouraging wink and nodded to Sato. “Hail them, Hoshi.”

The delay was too long before she shook her head. “There’s no response, captain.”

Malfor frowned, but Tucker’s expression remained carefully neutral as he turned to T’Pol, although he was unable to keep his frustration with her out of his voice. “What have you got, sub-commander?”

She remained bent over her scanner for another few moments, then straightened slowly. Tucker felt his back tightened even before she spoke: more bad news. “I’m not detecting any life signs on the planet.”

“No!” The Arboreal hurried across, unable to remain a spectator any longer. “There were more than five hundred of us.”

T’Pol stepped back to allow him access to the scan results, her voice gentle as she added, “The visible structures appear to have been heavily damaged.”

Tucker shook his head, not in denial but in resigned acceptance of further loss. “Let’s go take a look. Malfor, it’s your call: you’re welcome to come, or you can stay on Enterprise.”

“I’ll come.” The engineer’s deep voice was even huskier than normal. “I must.”

“Okay. T’Pol.”

He was already heading for the lift when, from his accustomed place at the back of the Bridge, Soval said firmly, “I will accompany you.”

The captain shrugged. “If you want a trip, ambassador, that’s fine by me.”

The Vulcan moved after him, jerking his head for his daughter to return to the science station. “T’Pol will stay here.”

“Excuse me?”

“An intelligence officer will be of more use to you than a science officer.”

T’Pol hesitated, caught her father’s stern look, and inclined her head. “A fair point.” She addressed a point behind Tucker’s right shoulder. “I will remain on Enterprise. Commander Mayweather may go instead.”

For a moment Tucker considered arguing, then decided to concede the point. He wasn’t prepared for an acrimonious debate on his own Bridge – but later he’d pull the ears off both Vulcans for countermanding his orders in front of the rest of the Bridge crew.

~

The scene that greeted them when they stepped out of the shuttle pod was depressingly familiar. The settlement was a mass of smashed buildings and broken equipment, and an ominous silence hung over the place. Malfor took one look and turned his back, a hair-covered hand rising to cover his face. Only too well acquainted with the shock the Xindi was experiencing, Tucker stayed with him, while Mayweather and Soval began to survey the site, each with a MACO at their heels.

“Why?” the Arboreal asked after several minutes. “Why destroy us? We were no threat to the Reptiles.”

“I guess they didn’t know that.”

“But members of their own species! Wasn’t it enough that the Avians were lost? I thought we learnt from that.”

“Five billion died on Earth.” Tucker kept his voice quiet, to disguise the anger that would never fade. “Maybe they got a taste for genocide.”

“We don’t forget what you lost.” Malfor turned to face the Human, usually soft brown eyes hard. “We know why you seal us in our cabins at night.”

“Because Xindi-Arboreals mined the kemocite that went into the weapons that devastated Earth? Yeah, that’s why I have you locked in, Malfor. I can’t ensure your safety any other way.”

“Even though we share your goals?”

“Even though I’m grateful for the help you’ve given us. But that doesn’t mean that, some day, one of my crew wouldn’t crack and come after you. We’ve lost too much, Malfor. Sometimes I don’t think any of us are particularly sane any more.”

“That accounts for much!” Tucker scowled at Soval’s pointed observation, as the Vulcan joined them. “It would appear that the settlement was subjected to aerial bombardment, then assaulted on two fronts by ground troops.”

Tucker had his mouth open to ask how the hell Soval deduced that, but stopped himself. No doubt Vulcan intelligence officers knew that sort of thing, and he definitely seemed to be dealing with that incarnation of Soval. The Vulcan had left off his robes in favour of a tight-fitting variant of a High Command uniform, although he didn’t seem any better tempered for the change of roles. “Survivors?”

“Perhaps.” Malfor looked hopeful, while Tucker scowled doubtfully. Soval noted his reaction and continued, as if to an idiot, “There are no bodies. I doubt that the Xindi-Reptiles would have taken the trouble to dispose of the dead, but someone did.”

“Maybe a ship came along afterwards.” Tucker felt the need to suggest an alternative, but nodded reassuringly in the face of Malfor’s concern. “But we’ll take a look around. Still no life signs, I guess?”

“None.”

“Let’s spread out. Rendezvous back here in …” He broke off when, from within the ruins of the settlement, Mayweather’s voice rose in a shout. “Damn it!” He was already running, phase pistol in hand, the others at his heels, reaching the spot only seconds later. “What is it?”

“I saw someone.” Mayweather’s head was bent over his scanner. “But they disappeared.”

“Reptile?”

“No.” He looked up. “Nothing’s registering.”

Soval was also scanning the area, one of T’Pol’s devices in his hand. “Soval?” The Vulcan was frowning as he adjusted the settings, then began to walk slowly away. “Soval!”

The man took notice and Tucker muttered something disrespectful under his breath and followed, to where the Vulcan had halted perhaps fifty metres away. “It’s customary to report your findings, sub-commander.”

“My commission has been suspended again.” Soval crouched down to brush away a covering of dust, revealing a straight line in the surface below. “It would appear to be an entrance to a subterranean facility.”

“This is where Travis’ missing person went?”

“I would prefer not to speculate. But this warrants investigation.”

“Yeah. But I think we’ll let Malfor go first.”

~

It was a good thing that there were Humans around to advice caution, or Malfor would have died when the trapdoor opened. The beam of an energy weapon passed through the space where his head should have been, but he was safely crouched to one side. Tucker glanced a little grimly at him, remembering his assertion that Arboreals weren’t aggressive – but then few Humans had been either, until their planet was attacked. “You’d better tell them who you are, Malfor, before they start throwing grenades.”

Looking anxious again, the Arboreal engineer raised his voice. “Hold your fire. It’s me, Malfor.”

There was a pause, then another deep voice answered him. “Who’s with you? They’re not Xindi.”

Malfor looked briefly at Tucker, who nodded. “They’re Human.” One of Soval’s eyebrows rose, but he kept quiet. “They’re my friends.”

“Human!” The disgust was clear. “The enemies of the Xindi. How dare you bring them here?”

“They’re not!” Never at his best under pressure, Malfor was becoming ruffled. “We came to speak with the council.”

“Then go find them! We have enough troubles of our own.”

The hatch started to lower, and Tucker shouted hastily, “We know it was Reptiles who attacked you. Doesn’t that give us a common enemy?” There was no reply, but the hatch stopped moving. “Won’t you at least hear us out?”

“Who are you?”

“Captain Tucker, of the starship Enterprise.”

“Enterprise?” The surprise was clear. “Archer’s ship?”

Tucker felt his jaw clench, and hastily unlocked it. “You know of him?”

“I met him.” Slowly a white-maned head rose through the hatch, peering cautiously around. Tucker immediately indicated for the MACOs to lower their weapons. “My name is Gralik.”

“You were in charge of the kemocite mine that supplied the weapon construction facility.” Soval’s statement earned him a grateful look from Tucker, who hadn’t had as much time as the Vulcan to study Enterprise’s old logs, and a doubtful one from the Arboreal.

“Are you Human?”

“No.” Despite the lack of robes, it was clear that Soval had stepped back into his ambassadorial role: he even managed not to sound irritable. “I represent the other Alpha Quadrant species who believe themselves under threat from Xindi-Reptile aggression.” He left a carefully judged pause before asking mildly, “May we talk?”

Gralik looked doubtfully from Vulcan to Human, but finally nodded reluctant acquiescence. “Very well.”

~

Gralik wouldn’t allow them to enter the underground facility where the surviving Arboreals were hiding, so they talked amidst the wreckage of the settlement, a strangely appropriate setting when they were attempting to avoid a war that would reduce whole planets to a similar state. But while Tucker and Soval were open about their reasons for being in the Delphic Expanse, it was clear that Gralik was not playing by the same rules. Belatedly remembering that Archer had succeeded in winning the Arboreal’s confidence to such an extent that he had added a tracking isotope to a kemocite shipment, Tucker again experienced the bitter taste of inadequacy. If Enterprise’s former captain had been leading this mission, they’d have been on their way to a meeting with the Xindi council by now. But because all the Free Humans could offer was an alcoholic engineer turned captain, they were starting from scratch, and the intervening years hadn’t inspired the Xindi with a desire to trust. Although Soval was handling Gralik with a tact that surprised Tucker, the Vulcan wasn’t achieving much. They could have guessed that there was a resistance movement that was attempting to oppose Reptilian domination. And given the state of this settlement, the Xindi resistance was being stamped on as firmly as the Free Humans.

His communicator bleeped, and he rose from the dust to answer it, with a muttered apology to the other two. “Tucker.”

“Captain,” T’Pol’s voice was flat, “a ship has entered the system. It is approaching this planet.”

“What’s its configuration?”

“If our data is still valid, Xindi-Humanoid.”

Tucker gritted his teeth, not sure whether to be pleased or not, and returned to where Soval and Gralik were still talking quietly. “Are you expecting anyone?”

“No.”

“Captain!” The demand from his communicator was more urgent this time. “The Xindi ship is powering weapons.”

“Go to tactical alert.” The response was instinctive. “Hail them and patch me through.” He waited for confirmation that the link had been made. “This is Captain Charles Tucker of the starship Enterprise. We’re not a threat to you. Power down your weapons.”

“Human!” Even with the distortion from the small device, the voice was angry. “You attack a peaceful colony and claim you’re no threat?”

“We didn’t do this! Check your scanners. The weapon signatures are Reptilian. We’re here to negotiate.”

“Negotiate what? Your species is finished. I’m trying to save what’s left of ours. Now leave before I destroy you.”

Infuriated, Tucker glanced over at Gralik, who shrugged, perhaps slightly apologetic. “You’d best do as he says.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Vonah, a Humanoid. He once sat on the Xindi council with Degra.”

Before Tucker had a chance to reply, T’Pol cut in again. “Captain, Enterprise is under attack. Should I return fire?”

“Damage report.”

Slight confusion was audible in her voice. “None. They appear to be targeting non-critical areas on the ship.”

“A warning,” Soval said quietly, and Tucker nodded.

“Yeah.” He shook his head in frustration, but the need to get back to his ship took precedence over any progress they might be able to make on the planet. “Gralik, it’s been nice meeting you. I’m sorry we can’t stay longer. If you change your mind about us,” he shrugged, “we’ll be around for a while.” He glanced around, catching Malfor’s eye. “Will you be staying here, Malfor?”

The Arboreal hesitated, clearly tempted, but finally shook his head firmly. “I believe that you are doing the right thing, captain, and you need us. We will stay with Enterprise.”

“Thanks.” Tucker silently collected up the rest of his people. “Let’s go.”

~

The Xindi-Humanoid ship broke off its carefully calculated attack as soon as Enterprise’s shuttle pod left the surface, although it continued to shadow the Human vessel, weapons fully charged. It was still there when Tucker reached the Bridge, and asked for a channel to be opened. The dark-skinned man wasn’t someone he recalled seeing before, but the physiology clearly confirmed the man’s species as Xindi-Humanoid. “Vonah?”

“I’ve been patient.” There was no hint of concession in the hard voice. “Now leave.”

“Don’t you want to know why we’re here?”

“No.”

Tucker swallowed his impatience, glancing at Soval, who shook his head, confirming the captain’s opinion that the situation was hopeless. “Okay. But if you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll ask Gralik what we had to say for ourselves.” He drew a deep breath and let it out sharply. “Good luck in your struggle against the Reptiles. If you ever want a hand, just give us a shout. Enterprise out.” Sato cut the connection and Tucker slumped into the command chair. “Take us out of orbit, Mr Graveney. Warp 2.”

The silence stretched out, but Tucker couldn’t bring himself to break it: not when the only thing he could think to say was, ‘what the hell do we do now?’

~

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