The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [25]
“Me?”
“You, Commander. So that someone could take some sort of action to recover my bondmates.”
A low growl was slowly building deep within Shran’s chest. “That’s how you justify abandoning Jhamel?”
“What could I have done against the attackers? What could any of us have done?” Theras paused, as though allowing Shran time to assimilate the pain that was clearly audible behind his words. “You know that we Aenar are all committed pacifists, Commander.”
Pacifists.
As much as he admired Jhamel’s commitment to peace, Shran doubted that he would ever fully succeed in getting his mind around the concept of pacifism. Sometimes the choice was between fighting and dying. Otherwise scum like the Orions would inherit the universe.
But now was not the time to stage a philosophical debate, or to dwell on blame. Jhamel had been captured, or worse. The best-case scenario was that she was being sped away from Andoria at multiples of the speed of light at this very moment.
“All right,” Shran said. “I will take action, starting now. First, I need to alert the Defense Force about what’s happened here, just in case the Orions covered their tracks thoroughly enough to completely avoid detection on their way to and from Andoria’s surface. Maybe the military can track down the slavers before they find buyers for their latest… acquisitions.”
Shran closed his eyes, pained and enraged at the thought of his sweet, trusting Jhamel being condemned to the cruel uses of slavery at the hands of uncouth outworlders, the way her late brother had been.
“I pray that that this can be done,” Theras said.
Shran took a tentative step forward, realizing that he would be as blind as the Aenar until they found their way out of the crevasse.
“Pray all you want,” Shran said, clenching his right fist and ignoring the flaring pain of the burn on the back of his hand. “After you help me find my way back to my ship.”
“What if the slavers have found your ship?”
Shran paused for a moment before replying. “Then I’ll pray, Theras.”
Six
Sunday, February 9, 2155
Shikahr, Vulcan
AS CAPTAIN JONATHAN ARCHER walked alongside Minister T’Pau through the corridors of the Vulcan High Command headquarters, he considered how very differently they had been received here today as compared to six months ago. The last time he’d been here, T’Pau was the fugitive leader of the Syrrannite political faction, and the High Command, led by the power-mad V’Las, was minutes away from starting an interstellar war with the Andorians.
After Archer had come into the Command chambers then, carrying not only the Kir’Shara artifact that contained within it the true teachings of Surak, but also holding the actual katra of Surak himself inside his head, things had changed radically for Vulcan and for its ruling body. V’Las was forcibly removed, and his Council disbanded. The new leader of Vulcan’s civilian government, and its military affairs, now walked beside Archer.
“Here we are,” Minister T’Pau said, coming to a halt and gesturing toward a chamber outside of which two large- and heavily armed- guards stood, their bare, muscular chests mostly exposed underneath wide silver tunics and sashes. She nodded to them, and their stances relaxed only slightly as they stepped farther apart.
“Does the Kir’Shara really require a clean room, Minister?” Archer asked as they stepped through a pair of pressure doors and into a large, brightly lit, circular chamber. In the center of it, on a table, sat the meter-high pyramidal artifact that Archer had carried with him from its tomb underneath the T’Karath Sanctuary. The table was circular, and was ringed by an array of computer banks. Seated at a station in front of each computer screen was a Vulcan in white robes. Each of them were studying the symbols on their screens intently, and sometimes tapping data onto padd controls nearby.
T’Pau turned to Archer, one eyebrow slightly raised. “I would think