The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [140]
The screen went black for a moment before the Starfleet logo reappeared.
Well, that didn’t go all that well, Archer thought, his ire up and his ego bruised. He wished for a moment that Porthos were here beside him, instead of in his quarters. He could use some nonjudgmental canine company right about now.
Although his mind whirled with emotions and questions, he seemed to fixate on one thing: No matter how much Coridan Prime might not want Enterprise’s assistance, Archer felt that they could stop the oncoming devastation threatened by the Romulan attack.
But it all depends on exactly how I decide to spend the next seventy-two hours, Archer thought. Gardner’s orders notwithstanding.
The door chime sounded, startling Archer out of his unhappy reverie. He pressed the comm button on his desk.
“Come in.”
The door slid open with a quiet hiss. T’Pol stood in the threshold, her hands behind her back and head tipped inquisitively. The intensity of her gaze, however, far exceeded mere curiosity.
She knows I’ve been keeping her out of the loop, Archer thought as she stepped inside the ready room as the door closed behind her. A frisson of guilt clutched at his heart as Archer considered how much he had kept from her. The fact that circumstances justified his secrecy made him feel a little better about having misled a first officer who had served him so loyally for the past nearly four years.
She raised an eyebrow. “’Lazarus,’ Captain?”
Archer rose from behind his desk. Deciding that she deserved to know as much of the truth as possible, he said, “It’s the code name of a covert intelligence source working inside Romulan space. One that I trust implicitly.”
“Indeed. And I presume from the raised voices I heard through the door that this source has just imparted some rather important information.”
Her remark rattled Archer, until he reminded himself of the uncanny acuteness of Vulcan hearing- and that her frankly inquisitive demeanor meant that she probably hadn’t actually heard any of the details of the exchanges he’d just shared with Legate Hanshev and Admiral Gardner.
Speaking in quiet, even tones, he brought her up to date about the doom that now hung suspended, like some cosmic sword of Damocles, over Cordian Prime.
T’Pol sat on the low sofa near his desk, her back ramrod-straight as she stared pensively through the ready room’s viewport at the warp-smeared stars beyond. Archer remained standing, watching her uneasily.
“Seventy-two hours,” she said finally, her gaze remaining light-years away as she continued to consider the ramifications.
He nodded. “More or less.”
“And neither Admiral Gardner nor Legate Hanshev will sanction our involvement in trying to prevent it.”
He chuckled, but without any real humor. “That’s a wonderfully understated Vulcan way of summing up the situation.”
Her only reaction to his good-natured jibe was to turn away from the stars and fix her gaze upon his.
“What are you planning to do, Captain?” she said.
He sighed. “That depends on what my exact options really are. How soon can we reach Cordian Prime at maximum warp?”
“Approximately forty-nine hours.” Her answer revealed that she, too, had been giving the subject of Coridan Prime a great deal of thought ever since it had first come up eleven days earlier.
“So I might actually be able to do something to stop this,” he said, cautiously allowing a small flame of hope to kindle itself in his breast. “Assuming that the Romulan attack arrives later rather than sooner, that is.”
“And also assuming that Enterprise can successfully locate and intercept the attacker. Of course, in order even to make the attempt you will have to violate Admiral Gardner’s direct orders. For the third time, I believe.”
“I wasn’t keeping score,” Archer said. He could see now that he really had no choice at all, or at least no good ones. Meekly following Gardner’s orders simply wasn’t an option. His career in Starfleet was important to him, but it couldn’t compare to the