Chapter 9: Wrecked

The first thing they saw on their return from their visit to Trip’s parents was Commander Reed and two security crewmen escorting a young ensign. Trip immediately recognized him as Ensign Masaro, his hands shackled behind his back. Malcolm’s scowl, already dark, grew deeper when he saw his two friends.

“Commander?” T’Pol asked, puzzled by the scene. For her tactical officer and friend to find it necessary to apprehend a crew member, something bad must have happened.

“We are escorting Ensign Masaro to the brig, Captain. He was caught in sickbay attempting to steal the DNA profiles and tissue samples of two crew members. Doctor Phlox came back from his shore leave just in time to prevent the theft.”

“Whose samples?” Trip asked and T’Pol saw his features darken further. Since the ensign was one of Trip’s engineers, she knew that he would take it personally that one of his people was caught committing such a crime.

“Yours and Captain T’Pol’s,” Malcolm answered with a sigh. T’Pol noticed that Malcolm eyed Trip warily, obviously expecting a violent or at least highly emotional response, but her mate surprised her by staying outwardly calm. She did however sense that his blood was boiling inside.

“Bring him to my ready room and watch him,” she ordered, her own voice uncharacteristically thick with angry emotion. “As soon as we have changed into our uniforms, we will interrogate him.”

“As you are hopefully aware, Ensign, Vulcans are a race that puts a great deal of emphasis on personal privacy and the protection of an individual. By attempting to steal my DNA profile and tissue sample, you have not only violated my privacy, you have technically violated my body. Since I am a bonded female this will inevitably end with a death sentence.” T’Pol opened the interrogation, calmly.

“I- I’m an Earth citizen. Vulcan cannot prosecute me,” Masaro stammered and T’Pol realized that it would not be very difficult to intimidate the ensign.

“Is that so?” she asked and stared him down with the iciest glare. “I am a citizen of Vulcan and Starfleet has an extradition treaty with my government. You are a dead man, Mr. Masaro.”

T’Pol noticed Trip and Malcolm exchanging glances, unease showing on their features. It was obvious that both had not expected her to be so calm and calculating when telling someone that he was a dead man walking.

“You- you can’t kill me for stealing a data file and two vials,” Masaro whined and his shocked expression told T’Pol that she had almost broken his resistance.

“Do not worry, the death will be painless. Vulcans are not a cruel race,” she continued calmly.

“But- but-” Masaro was barely able to stutter, his face was a tortured grimace of sheer terror.

“As the violated female, I have the right to execute you personally. It will spare you the humiliation of a public tribunal,” T’Pol continued, still staring daggers at him and she saw Trip getting almost physically sick at the thought that his mate would execute a crew member. “Who are your next of kin? It will be necessary to inform them when we are done here.”

“They said it’s just an easy job!” Masaro cried and wailed in panic. “They didn’t even tell me what that is all about. They just told me to get your files and samples!”

“Who?” T’Pol asked and shot him a death stare – one she could clearly see frightened even Trip and Malcolm.

“Terra Prime. They- they recruited me after the Xindi attack. That’s why I signed up for the mission in the first place. I wanted to kill as many of the bastards as I could. They killed my whole family ... my parents ... my brother ... my baby sister ... my girlfriend. She was pregnant with our first child. They killed her one week before our wedding.” Masaro was now crying hysterically.

The three officers were taken aback momentarily, when they realized the sheer magnitude of Masaro’s tragedy. T’Pol watched out of the window, trying to give the impression of being in deep thought, while in reality she had to fight hard to regain control. Nothing could justify Masaro’s actions or his membership in a terrorist organization, but it made it at least somewhat understandable.

“I grieve with thee,” T’Pol replied after a while, now seeing the reason behind it. “There will be no prosecution, as long as you give us every single detail you know. We will protect you from those who recruited you, but you must be honest and tell us everything. Do you understand that, Ensign?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Masaro nodded, still sobbing. “When I heard that my family was gone, I- I hated all aliens. I hated Starfleet for going out there, telling everyone where Earth is, so that they could find and kill us all. That’s why I enrolled. I wanted to kill them before they could kill us. I was drinking ... a lot, everyday. One day I was approached by a man who introduced himself as Josiah. He said that there were more people who think like me and that they were preparing to get all aliens out of the solar system.”

“Where did this Josiah take you?”

“To Mars. I was snuck in with a team of civilian engineers doing work on the Orpheus mining facility. I was brought to the boss of the complex. He gave me the order to steal your files and your samples as a sort of initiation test for the organization.”

“What is the name of the leader? Is he the leader of this ‘Terra Prime’ group?”

“His name is Paxton. I don’t know if he’s the leader of Terra Prime, but, even if he isn’t he must be someone important because everyone seemed to be falling over themselves to do what he wanted, including Josiah.”

Depressing the button for the comm on her desk, “T’Pol to sickbay.”

“This is Phlox.”

“Doctor, please report to my ready room.”

“On my way.”

“Doctor,” she began when the portly Denobulan had arrived. “Ensign Masaro appears to be traumatized by the loss of his family to the Xindi attack. I want you to examine his psychological condition before transferring him to Starfleet Medical for additional treatment. Inform them that he is in danger of retaliatory action by a radical terrorist group so that appropriate security measures can be taken.”

“As you wish, Captain,” the Doctor replied and left with Masaro and two of Malcolm’s security guards.

“Did you really plan to kill him?” Trip asked after the doctor had left, still unsettled by her display.

“No. Most of what I said was grossly exaggerated. It was merely meant to eradicate his resolve to protect those who ordered him to do what he attempted. This ... scheme has worked successfully before when we deceived the abductors of Princess Kaitaama.”

“Didn’t know that,” Trip muttered.

“I recall that you were somewhat ... occupied with other things at the time,” T’Pol answered dryly and Trip frowned, when he saw that Malcolm found it hard to fight the laughter about his blush.

“Commander Reed,” she continued and Malcolm immediately assumed an all-business stance again. “Captain Archer’s log was somewhat ambiguous on the issue, but it mentioned that you had prior contact with a semi-official faction of Starfleet Security during the time of Doctor Phlox’s abduction. Do you have ways to contact these sources again?”

“I’d rather not,” Malcolm replied and Trip wondered what sort of contacts that must be if it was able to paint such an expression of distaste on his friends face.

“I understand, but I must ask you to do it nonetheless,” T’Pol answered, “not as your captain, but as a friend. Someone has targeted Trip and myself. We must use all means available to uncover the reasons behind all this.”

“I’ll do it,” Malcolm agreed with a nod and a sigh. “I need about three hours and I’ll report back, once I have something. I also need permission to have Hoshi establish an encrypted channel.”

“Thank you, Malcolm, you have my authorization,” T’Pol answered and Reed left the room.

“What ya planning?” Trip asked, when Malcolm had left.

“We will assault the Orpheus mining facility and take Paxton into custody,” T’Pol answered and Trip wondered about the visible anger on her face. She either was close to losing control or no longer bothered to hide it since he was the only one who could see it. Trip desperately hoped for the latter.

“You can’t just go off half-cocked and ransack the place,” he tried to reason.

“I will clear it with Starfleet Command. Whatever this Paxton was planning, he was planning to target us personally. Therefore we shall deal with it personally. Now, unless you intend to stay behind, report to Major Flannigan and get us two sets of MACO gear and body armor. You know my size.”

“There’re days when you really scare the raw crap outta me, darlin’,” he muttered and left, confused and intimidated by T’Pol’s sudden gung-ho attitude.

“T’Pol to Sato.”

“Sato here.”

“Establish a connection to Admiral Gardner and put it through to my ready room.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Malcolm Reed was the last to arrive at the situation room, where T’Pol, Trip and a team of MACO’s under command of Sergeant Cole were already waiting. He was taken aback when he saw his two friends. Both wore body armor and a full MACO suit without rank insignia.

“Did you gain any useful information?” T’Pol asked as soon as he had taken position at the table. He called up an overhead view of the mining facility and its immediate surroundings and started his report.

“According to my sources, the mining facility is far more than what it seems to be. Although it is a civilian facility, far more armed guards than are outwardly necessary have been reported at the facility, particularly here, here, here and here,” he explained and pointed at the appropriate access points on the schematic. “Their business dealings have been quite questionable, as their income from selling minerals and ore would not nearly be enough to cover the running costs of the facility. Over the last five weeks, the operator of the facility, a company called ‘Paxton Mining Corp’, ordered a large amount of medical and laboratory equipment. I have acquired a partial list and, according to Doctor Phlox, many of those items are usually needed for genetic research and – most peculiarly – postnatal medical care.”

“They wanted to do genetic experiments with our DNA?” Trip hissed and Malcolm saw T’Pol putting a hand on his shoulder in order to calm him down.

“My sources weren’t quite sure what to make of it. In light of Dr. Phlox’s information, there are a number of possible options,” Malcolm analyzed further. “They could plan to create bio-agents that specifically target you or they could use your DNA to plant it on any scene of a crime to implicate you. Doctor Phlox thinks that with the equipment they have they could theoretically create clones like Sim if they had access to Lyssarian Desert Larvae.”

Malcolm jumped when he saw the utter distaste and shock on his friends faces – mainly on Trip’s face – when he mentioned Sim.

“I have acquired permission from Starfleet Command to mount an attack in order to apprehend Paxton and his co-conspirators,” T’Pol informed and pointed at a remote location near the mining facility. “A task-force of Starfleet security will be standing by here and shall engage as soon as we give the signal.

Malcolm noticed all eyes being cast on him and he raised his hand in an unspoken request to give him a few minutes to analyze the situation. Usually, as the ships security officer, he should advise against sending the Captain and the third in command on such a hazardous mission, but especially with the personal and emotional component of the threat, he knew that the Vulcan captain and her mate would be even more intransigent than Captain Archer had ever been. Scrolling through several different displays in rapid succession, he formulated a preliminary plan.

“Alright,” Malcolm started after several minutes of contemplation. “There is some sort of gorge here that is deep enough to hide the shuttle-pod from visual scans. About 100 minutes from now, a small comet will be deflected by the Verteron array to impact near the north pole. If we stay close behind it we can exploit its wake to hide the shuttle-pod from the sensors until we’re ten meters above the ground. Below that altitude the sensors of Mars colony are completely blind. Once you’re below ten meters altitude, you have exactly eight seconds to get far enough away to evade the brunt of the impact shockwave. You’ll need to reach the gorge at an extremely low altitude, but, if you stay within the valleys and gorges on the surface, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, provided you’re on the ball.”

“I am trained in extremely low altitude flying,” T’Pol noted. “I will pilot the shuttle.”

Nodding towards her Malcolm continued his explanation. “Once you’ve landed in the gorge you can enter the facility here. It’s an air vent in a blind spot of their sensors. If you follow the duct you will arrive here in corridor J near the brig.”

“We should check out the brig,” Amanda Cole interrupted. “I doubt that they have the personnel to run a genetics lab so we must consider the possibility that they have abducted medics or scientists to run the lab for them.”

“A logical conclusion,” T’Pol agreed. “You will see to that. We will regroup here. Resulting from the placement of the observation cameras, this spot near the conveyor belt should be a blind spot.”

“You would make one hell of a MACO, Captain,” Amanda returned with a smile.

“You will not require EV suits,” Malcolm continued. “but the atmospheric buildup around Mars as a part of the terraforming effort is still in an early stage. The G-suits and the breathing masks are sufficient, however, you might experience an uncomfortable pain in the ears and eyes while outside, due to the low atmospheric pressure.”

“How do we get through the duct? There must be some sort of seal, considering the pressure difference?” Trip asked.

“There is a seal inside the duct here,” Malcolm explained and pointed towards the schematics. It is opened periodically every ten minutes to release exhaust air into the atmosphere. You’ll have to wait until such a cycle is complete. Once the cycle is through, you have ten minutes to open the vent, get into the duct and seal it with a portable force-field generator. When the next cycle starts you have to crawl through the open seal and the last one to crawl through must manage to disable the force-field remotely without getting blown out by the rapid decompression.”

“I’ll do that,” Amanda volunteered. “We can secure ourselves on the duct wall with magnetic clamps.”

“Agreed,” T’Pol nodded, indicating Malcolm to continue.

“When the seal closes, a second seal here at the exit opens to neutralize the pressure. You’ll have three minutes to get out, so I advise you to just jump out and stun any personnel in the corridor on sight. There won’t be enough time to decide whether they’re hostile or not.”

“How do we avoid being detected?” Trip asked. “It’s not like a pulse rifle shot is especially quiet. You don’t need any sensors to hear that racket.”

“My team will modify your pulse rifles,” Malcolm explained. “We’ll lower the energy output. It will just be enough to stun someone for three to five minutes, depending on size and weight, but it’ll be barely audible. That should give you enough time to secure them anyway. If you try to use the rifle at the kill setting, it will amount to a full stun blast, so use it only when absolutely necessary as it will set off their weapon discharge alarm. If deadly force is needed you’ll have to use the phase pistols.”

“Do we know, where Paxton’s office is located?” T’Pol inquired.

“Masaro’s information was fairly vague but it must be one of these three rooms. Since they don’t expect intrusions and have to keep up a facade of being a normal civilian facility I would assume that there is a sign on the door.”

“What about their internal sensors? All those modifications are somewhat useless if they have an intruder alarm,” Amanda asked.

Malcolm fished a small device from his pocket. “You will wear these. They are still in development, but they should be able to mask your biosigns from all but the most sophisticated sensors. My team has been working on those for quite a while and they are immune to all but a full-scale bio-sweep. I doubt they have such sophisticated technology down there, or the power reserves to do so. But you need to take them off if you need to be trasported out.”

“Have someone of your team load the devices and the modified rifles into shuttle-pod one,” T’Pol ordered. “Sergeant Cole, as the highest ranking MACO, you will be in command of this mission.”

“Your rank supersedes mine,” Amanda replied and Malcolm noticed her confused look.

“Do you see any rank insignia?” T’Pol replied dryly, while pointing at her MACO outfit.

“Understood,” Amanda agreed.

“One last thing,” Malcolm added. “We should check that everyone of you can cope with the rapid pressure changes that you’ll encounter in the duct. If we start immediately, you’ll have about twenty to thirty minutes of practice time left.”

“Do we have a pressure chamber?” Amanda asked.

“Since you will only encounter either normal or low-pressure, we can use the airlock,” Malcolm explained.

“Ok, let’s go get the pressure suits and get started,” Amanda ordered and the MACO’s as well as the ship’s Captain and Chief engineer replied in unison: “Aye, Ma’am.”

Trip donned the tight fitting hood of his pressure suit, which reminded him of a combination overall and diving suit. Since he was an experienced diver, Amanda had tasked him with explaining what to do.

“Ok, when the pressure changes, you’ll notice an uncomfortable pressure or light pain in the ears ‘n eyes,” he explained. “There’s two methods of equalizing the pressure change. You can either just swallow while holding your breath or you press your breathing mask into your face until the clamp inside pushes your nostrils shut and then try breathing air into your nose. In either case, you’ll notice a clicking sound in your ears and the pressure on your ears will lessen. Repeat the procedure whenever the pressure on them builds up again.”

“Which one is more effective?” Amanda asked.

“That depends on the person,” Trip explained. “In the first test run we’ll lower the pressure slowly, so everyone can figure out which method works better for them. Afterwards, we’ll increase the speed in pressure changes, so you can practice that, too. Let’s go.”

The small assault commando filed into airlock seven, where recently promoted Ensign Rostov waited at the controls.

“Rostov, you’ll keep an eye on anybody. You’re a diver yourself, as soon as you see someone struggling, stop the run immediately,” Trip ordered and saw his engineer answer with a thumbs-up. “Aye Chief.”

As soon as the airlock seal was secure, Rostov started to lower the pressure and Trip eyed the MACOs and T’Pol in order to catch anyone, who might have trouble. Watching Amanda, he saw that she preferred the nose option, while T’Pol’s frequently twitching neck muscles hinted at her preferring the swallow method. A thumbs-up signaled Rostov to raise the pressure again. Once the pressure was back to normal, he checked everybody.