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By Root 487 0

himself, whose crash program to develop a warp-seven-capable stardrive still posed a direct and mounting threat, not only to the world of his birth, but also to its allies. Putting a definitive stop to that program was the reason he had come to this alien place. It was also the reason he had allowed all but a handful of the people in his life to believe the official reports of his death in the line of duty. His parents, his brother Bert, and Owen, the child that Bert and Miguel had adopted a few years backall of them believed what Starfleet had told them about his death in an apparent pirate raid.

He ached to finish his mission, to return home and see them all againto put his life and the lives of his loved ones back together. Thank God that at least TPol knows the truth, he thought, briefly wondering if he could ever mend that particular relationship. Ever since the death of their daughter Elizabeth a few months back, he tended to doubt that he and TPol would ever recapture whatever spark had once passed between them, even though their relationship had been headed that way very shortly before his “death.

The narrow street upon which Trip stood seemed to become even more constricted as the evening settled in, covering the sky like a bejeweled raven-colored canopy and bringing with it a chill, foggy breeze tinged with Apnex Sea brine and the faint but acrid scent of what might have been shore-dwelling mogai or neirhh, or perhaps some other kind of local predatory bird. Illuminated only dimly by the greenish glow of the lanterns that topped the districts widely spaced, age-pitted stone lampposts, his surroundings quickly began to suggest menace rather than beauty. Cinching his brown travel robe tightly against the rapidly falling temperature, he turned and began retracing the route hed taken from his apartment, hoping the terrain wouldnt appear too different in the baleful semidarkness.

The pavement beneath one of his feet suddenly became soft and yielding, and he nearly fell backward before regaining his balance. A stench, wholly alien yet also somehow distinctly familiar, assaulted his nostrils not half a heartbeat later.

“Ugh, he muttered as he leaned against a wall, squinting to get a good look at the semisolid foulness into which he had just stepped. Damn it. Theres one thing thats the same on any planet thats got cities on it, pointed ears and green blood notwithstanding. Doing his best to ignore the stink, Trip stepped over to the nearby brick-lined gutter, against which he scraped the bottom of his shoe until its sole once again looked reasonably clean. Then, after breathing a pungent Rihannsu curse upon those who failed to curb their pet setleth s, he resumed walking, quietly rounding a corner.

Trip suddenly found himself standing between a pair of youthful male Romulans, neither of whom appeared to be any older than perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Both teens distinguished themselves immediately from everyone else he had encountered so far this evening, and not merely because of their age.

They were smiling.

Maliciously.

The solitary streetlamp across the street shed just enough pale light to make the blade in the shorter teens hand gleam menacingly.

Trip offered them a sideways grin of his own. “ Jolantru, boys, he said in his best conversational Rihannsu, relying on the translator mounted inside his artificially pointed ear to smooth out whatever difficulties his persistent Alabama-Florida accent might pose. “Maybe Id better warn you up front: I left my wallet back at the hotel.

The kid holding the knife took a fateful step forward, evidently not about to take Trip at his word.

Trip sighed. This was shaping up to be a complicated evening.

“Youre twenty minutes late checking in, Commander, said a frowning Captain Stillwell, imaged on the little security-scrambled subspace transceiver that Trip had just retrieved from its strategic hiding place beneath one of his bedroom floorboards. Stillwell paused, blinking at his own screen as he studied the image there. “What the hell happened to you, anyway?

Trip