The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [39]
“Someone who’ll probably listen to your warnings very attentively. And might even be able to act on them.”
Even though it is somebody I swore I’d never deal with again if I could help it, Reed thought. But desperate times need desperate deeds.
Trip pushed both the bottle and his half-consumed drink away again. “I’m listening, Malcolm.”
Reed nodded, drew a deep breath, settled back into his chair, and told him.
And hoped all the while that he hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of his entire life.
Taking a seat behind the desk in his quarters, Trip looked blearily up at the wall chronometer over the door to his quarters. His shift was to start in just under three hours.
He adjusted the angle of the data terminal before him so that he faced it directly, activated it, and inserted the data card Malcolm had given him. Time stretched for several seconds as the black screen briefly turned sky blue while the ship’s com system followed the data card’s protocols for establishing a secure connection with the particular subspace frequency the tactical officer had provided.
A dark-haired, middle-aged man appeared on the screen, apparently seated in a perfectly ordinary office. Trip could see the man clearly only from the chest up, noting that he wore a tailored deep brown jacket made of a leatherlike fabric. The man appeared far too rested to be completely believable, prompting Trip to wonder which Earth time zone the other man called home.
The face on the screen displayed a look of mildly surprised recognition upon seeing Trip’s face. “Commander Tucker.”
Trip nodded. “Harris, I presume?”
“The very same, Commander. What can I do for you? And why are you contacting me?”
“As opposed to Malcolm, you mean.”
“Lieutenant Reed and I have had a long relationship. Since you’re on this frequency, I’m assuming he’s taken you into his confidence about me.”
“According to Malcolm, that ‘relationship’ is strictly past tense, Harris.”
Harris’s lips curved upward slightly in an ironic smile. “I’ve heard that from him on more than one occasion. It’s become quite a familiar refrain by now.” Then his dark eyes narrowed and focused on Trip as though he could see him directly, without the intermediary of a subspace transceiver. “But I’m sure you aren’t contacting me in the middle of your ship’s night just to talk about the past. In fact, I happen to know that you’re a great deal more concerned about the future.”
“Concerned” is a nice understatement, Trip thought. Aloud, he said, “It’s about the Romulans.”
Harris’s expression turned grave as Trip struggled to organize his thoughts. “Go on, Commander.”
Here goes, Trip thought, taking a deep breath. “Earth and all the other Coalition planets are in serious danger. The Romulans are planning to move against us in a big way. And soon.”
Harris displayed a degree of emotional control that T’Pol probably would have admired. “Do your colleagues aboard Enterprise concur with your opinion?”
“Malcolm is with me on this. And so’s Captain Archer.”
“But not Starfleet Command, I gather.”
“You must have been eavesdropping on us, Harris.”
Harris smiled benignly. “You’re quite the flatterer, Commander. But it isn’t all that hard to guess that the brass hats might not want to look too closely at any inconvenient truths for the next few weeks. At least not until the Coalition Compact is finalized and signed. I’m sure Admiral Gardner doesn’t want to be responsible for spooking the various Coalition delegations.”
“That’s my take on things, too,” Trip said, nodding. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Harris had never explicitly denied his charge of eavesdropping- and the idea was making all the small hairs on the back of his neck slowly rise to attention even as he continued speaking. “Are you aware of the mass kidnapping of Aenar telepaths from Andoria last week?”
“We are, Commander. And we clearly see a Romulan hand in that action, even though they tried very hard to cover their tracks