SOMEONE LET OUT a long, low whistle.

Trip couldn’t tell if it was Malcolm or Travis. Both of whom stared up at the viewscreen with expressions halfway between shock and amazement.

They were looking at the Kresh, courtesy of Enterprise’s sensors, rigged for maximum magnification.

Not that the Kresh needed magnifying.

“I told you it was big,” Trip said.

“You, ah, weren’t kidding,” Travis replied.

“I’ve seen smaller planets,” Malcolm said. He glanced down at his sensors. “Five minutes till we’re in range.”

“Transporter range, you mean?” Trip asked.

“Yes. Four and a half minutes till firing range. Their firing range. We can reach them from here with torpedoes, though I doubt we’d be able to do so with any real accuracy.”

Trip nodded grimly. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Any word yet?” he asked, turning toward Carstairs.

“Nothing, sir. They had to have picked us up by now.”

“They have. They’re just not quite sure what to do about it, is my guess.” Trip had an image in his mind of the command center above the Kresh, dozens of black-clad soldiers scurrying about, scrambling to man the gun emplacements in the cap atop the massive structure.

No. Dozens of soldiers was wrong. Hundreds. And within the Kresh itself, even more.

“Does anyone else,” he said, shaking his head slowly, “think this is a really bad idea?”

 

Lee was still staring at him, just as he’d been from the instant the captain had joined him on the transporter platform.

“It’s me,” Archer said. “I promise.”

The boy shook his head. “You don’t—I mean, I can barely recognize you.”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” The captain smiled and turned to Ensign Duel, who was manning the transporter controls. And staring at him as well.

“You have our coordinates, Ensign?”

The man blinked and then looked quickly down at his console. “Yes, sir. Locked in, and waiting for a signal from the bridge.”

For a signal from Trip, who had been sitting with Duel and Lee for the last half hour, going through the layout of the Kresh based on his memory and the boy’s, and what sensor readings they’d been able to pick up from a distance. Enough information, his chief engineer felt, to enable them to beam in with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Archer, of course, had been elsewhere. With Doctor Phlox. Getting altered so that spotting a resemblance between him and Leeman Sadir would be well-nigh impossible. Now, if there was anyone on board Enterprise the captain looked like…

It was Sub-Commander T’Pol.

He felt the tips of his ears one more time. Strange. Archer had had prostheses before, but there was something about wearing this particular makeup…

He could swear it was affecting his thinking. He felt a little more…logical.

“Bridge to transporter room.”

That was Trip. The captain nodded to Duel, who opened the com.

“Archer here. Go ahead.”

“Just heard from the Kresh, sir. We have thirty seconds to turn around, or they will consider our intentions hostile and act accordingly.”

“And how long until we’re in transporter range?”

“Longer than that.”

“Prepare for evasive action, then.”

“Travis is on it already, sir. Got a few tricks up his sleeve. Modified version of Rackham’s back door that should buy us a couple minutes, at least.”

“Good.”

“Captain,” Trip said hesitantly. “Are you sure—”

Before Archer could tell him yet again that he was indeed quite committed to the plan they’d come up with, the ship shook suddenly, violently beneath him.

That was no modified Rackham’s back door.

That was weapons fire.

“Was that thirty seconds already?” Archer heard Trip yell. “Damn. Sir—”

“Go,” the captain said.

“Good luck,” Trip replied hurriedly, and then broke contact.

The captain turned to Lee, who was looking at him anxiously.

“They’re firing on us.”

“Nothing we can’t handle.” He felt the ship surge beneath him, and offered Lee what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

Modified Rackham’s back door, Archer thought. Maybe modified so they boomeranged around the orbital platform above the Kresh, and came right back in at their target. That’s how he would have done it anyway.

He thought about calling the bridge and suggesting it, and at that instant, T’Pol turned the corner and headed down the corridor directly toward them.

“Sub-Commander. Come to see what kind of Vulcan I make?” Archer asked, trying to lighten the mood.

As always, with T’Pol, it was wasted effort.

“No, sir.”

“You’re not going to try and talk me out of this again, because—”

The ship shuddered once more, not a weapons explosion but a different kind of stress altogether. Even with the inertial dampers on full, as Archer knew they were, he felt the hull strain to keep up with the maneuvers Travis was demanding of it.

“One minute,” Duel called out.

“Not that either, Captain,” T’Pol said. “I know that once you have set your mind on a course of action, your resolve is unshakable.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Archer said. “So why are you here?”

“To discuss certain…eventualities.”

“Oh?”

“Should you fail to return—”

“Oh no.” Archer shook his head. He did not want to talk about this sort of thing in front of the boy—Lee was nervous enough already. “I’m coming back. You can count on it.”

“I of course anticipate your mission will be successful. But we must be realistic, sir. If something disastrous does occur—”

The ship, of course, chose that moment to shudder again, even more violently. More evasive maneuvers. Not explosions, thankfully, but the boy didn’t know that, and suddenly looked another shade paler to the captain.

“Thirty seconds,” Duel said.

“We can’t talk about this now,” the captain said, casting a meaningful glance toward Lee.

T’Pol frowned. “There is, obviously, no other time we can talk about it, sir. Now as I was saying…”

Archer sighed. There was no stopping her, clearly.

“If you do not return, and we do not recover the data we need, I wish your permission to proceed to the nearest Vulcan outpost and use their facilities to search for ways back to our own universe.”

The captain considered her request a moment.

“Sir?” she asked.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said.

“Later? Sir, as I said previously, there is no—”

Archer caught Duel’s eyes then. The ensign nodded.

“Later,” he said firmly, and then stood stock-still as the transporter beam took him.

To Archer’s satisfaction, they had successfully calculated to within a meter: they materialized in the very back of the huge hall Elson had spoken to them from earlier.

It was even bigger than the captain had thought, from his brief glimpse of it on Enterprise’s viewscreen. A vast dome, hidden somewhere inside the heart of the Kresh. Within it, several dozen rows of stepped horseshoe-shaped desks, each occupied by black-clad soldiers, Elson’s forces, and other men and women dressed in what he took for civilian clothes, the powerless delegates of the Presidium.

Those in power sat not in the hall, but at the very front of the chamber. Fourteen of them, on a raised dais, facing outward toward the others. The Council.

There was a fifteenth chair as well, at the center of the dais, that stood empty. Sadir’s old chair, Archer guessed.

Just in front of the dais was an elaborately carved wooden podium, visible as well on three huge video monitors, each easily twice the size of Enterprise’s main viewer, suspended high above the chamber floor.

As Archer and Lee watched, General Elson rose from one of the fourteen seats, stepped up to the podium, and began to speak.

“My fellow officers. Members of the Presidium,” he began. “You do me great honor by your presence here today. Your strength is my strength. Together, we will lead our planet to peace. As General Sadir would have wanted.”

Applause—muted, polite applause—greeted his words. Among those clapping, Archer saw Colonel Wooler at the far end of the dais. The man’s face was impassive—the captain couldn’t read him at all.

He hoped they’d judged him correctly, or he was going to wish he’d talked things out with T’Pol while he’d had the chance.

“Go,” the captain whispered to Lee.

Two soldiers flanked the aisle Lee had to walk down to reach the front of the chamber. At the sound of the captain’s voice, they turned.

“Who are you?” one said, stepping forward. “What are you doing…”

His voice trailed off as he recognized Lee.

“Go,” Archer said again, before the soldier had a chance to react.

The boy started to walk. He got a good four meters before the first head turned to look at him. Another meter before the whispers started.

By the time he was halfway down the aisle, the entire chamber was buzzing. On the screen, Elson faltered momentarily. He looked up, saw Lee, and for a split second, his expression darkened. Then he broke out into a broad smile.

“My friends,” he said. “A miracle. Leeman Sadir.”

The general threw his arms wide and stepped off the dais toward the boy.

He was the first—but not the only one—to embrace him. It seemed as if everyone in the chamber, soldiers and Council members and civilians alike, wanted to touch Lee, see him, assure themselves that the boy was really there with them. The boy himself was smiling, his eyes moist, as he accepted their greetings. Wooler had maneuvered himself next to Lee, was almost holding him up as the crowd continued to gather around him.

Archer’s eyes scanned the room, and he saw that Elson, who’d stepped back from the crowd, was now talking to one of his soldiers, his hand cupped over the man’s ear. Plotting.

The captain began to circle around the back of the huge hall, keeping his gaze fixed on the man Elson was talking to, trying at the same time not to draw attention to himself.

Elson resumed his position at the podium and raised his arms for quiet.

“Everyone, please,” he said, as the delegates took their seats. “I suggest that in light of Leeman’s return, we postpone our decision for at least—”

The boy, who was still standing just below the dais, engaged in conversation with Colonel Wooler, took a sudden step up. It put him right alongside Elson.

The general, all at once, looked uncomfortable. He tried to cover by embracing Lee again.

The boy stiffened and broke his hold.

Here we go, Archer thought, and opened his communicator.

“Archer to Enterprise.”

“Right here,” Trip’s voice shot back. “Captain, where the hell have you been? We’ve—”

“We cut it a little closer than we thought. You getting this?”

“Loud and clear, but—”

“Start transmitting,” Archer said. “Let’s hope they hear.”

“Aye, sir,” Trip said.

Leaving the channel open, Archer looked to the podium again. Lee had started to speak.

“With all due respect, General,” the boy said, “I believe it imperative that the Council continue this session. That we take up the issue of war—or peace—immediately.”

It was Elson’s turn to stiffen.

“Lee,” he said, trying to maintain the smile on his face. “I can only guess what you’ve been through these last few days. Let us postpone the session—postpone only, mind you—and give you a chance to recuperate. A few hours. That’s all.”

A few hours, during which Leeman Sadir would no doubt meet with some sort of accident. Or simply vanish into the vastness of the Kresh, never to be heard from again.

Lee shook his head. “No, sir. With all due respect, we have a brief window of time here—a chance to make peace. We have to seize it.”

Elson sighed. “Lee, we talked about this before. After Charest, there is no making peace with the Guild.”

“I don’t believe the Guild was necessarily responsible for what happened there.”

“I have evidence.” That was Wooler, who was approaching the podium. “I’ve told you this, Leeman.”

“I’d like to see it. I’d like to know what kind of evidence it is. Hard evidence or someone’s word?”

Archer smiled, hearing his own words come back to him.

He smiled a second time at the obvious discomfort he saw on both Wooler’s and Elson’s faces as they listened to the boy.

“Before we start a war on someone’s word, we should talk to them. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Talk to the Guild?” Elson almost spat out the words. “Never. They are not to be trusted.”

“What about General Makandros? Is he not to be trusted as well?”

“This is not what your father would have wanted, Lee.”

“All due respect—no one can know what my father would have wanted, General. He’s dead. The rest of us—we just have to carry on as best we can.”

The hall fell suddenly, eerily silent as the two—General Elson and Leeman Sadir—faced off at each other, the empty fifteenth seat on the dais behind them.

“I have every confidence in General Makandros,” the boy said. “In the Guild as well, for that matter. They, above all else, desire peace. I place my fate in their hands gladly.”

More of Archer’s words, coming back to him. Words that were hopefully reaching other ears at this moment.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Elson said. He nodded toward the soldier he’d spoken to earlier, who stepped forward now and took Lee’s arm.

That answered the only remaining question Archer had about Elson.

If the general couldn’t achieve his desired goal peacefully, he had no qualms about using whatever force was necessary to get what he wanted. Whatever mess resulted from that force…

He’d clean it up later. Or not.

Archer walked forward calmly then, drawing his weapon and talking into the communicator at the same instant.

“Trip,” he said.

“Sir?”

“The nearest Vulcan outpost,” the captain said. “That’s where you need to go if we can’t get that sensor data. T’Pol—”

Archer stopped in mid-sentence, because on the screen, he saw Lee try to shrug free of the soldier’s grasp. The man grasped his arm harder and began to drag him physically away from the podium.

Wooler stepped in front of him.

“Release the boy,” the colonel said. “Now.”

“Hold him.” Elson stepped between the two men, drawing his own weapon then.

Wooler looked from the General to Leeman Sadir, and then at the soldier holding the boy.

At that instant, static crackled over the assembly hall’s com system.

“This is General Makandros,” a voice sounded, from everywhere and nowhere at once. “I wish to address the Council—immediately.”

Archer smiled as the excited buzz of conversation broke out once more in the chamber. Trip had done it—managed to reach the Guild/DEF fleet and broadcast what was happening down here to them, courtesy of his communicator.

Elson’s face, up until that second the image of stoicism, cracked.

“Leeman Sadir is right to trust the Guild,” Makandros’s voice boomed out. “Because—”

Who moved first then, Archer could never be sure.

Elson, realizing that all his plans were about to come to naught, or the soldier he’d tasked with dragging Leeman Sadir away from the assembly. Both men, all at once, had their weapons pointed directly at Leeman Sadir.

There was no question, though, about who moved fastest.

Wooler was a blur on the dais.

He drew not one, but two weapons, and fired.

Elson and his lackey both crumpled to the ground.

So much for last-second rescues, Archer thought, and holstered his own weapons again.

“Is anyone there?” Makandros’s voice filled the chamber again. “What’s going on?”

Wooler stepped to the podium, and pressed a button there.

“One moment, General.”

Wooler turned to Leeman Sadir then, and exchanged a look with the boy. Then he walked to the empty fifteenth chair, and pulled it out for him.

As Leeman Sadir sat, the Council first, and then the entire assembly, broke out into applause.

“Sir?” Trip’s voice came over the communicator. “Everything all right down there?”

Archer’s eyes sought out—and found—those of Duvall’s son. For a second, the two shared a smile.

“Right as rain, Commander,” Archer said.