Chapter 18: Hadrian

He desperately tried to maintain his stiff upper lip as his life came crashing down around him. Swaying slightly, like a willow tree in a stiff breeze, he listened with barely half an ear to the explanation of healer Lorat. It was infuriatingly calm, clinical and void of emotion.

"I don't believe you," he growled, beside himself with grief and rage. "There she is, completely uninjured except for the bump on the head when she slumped over. If this is some skulduggery here, rest assured, I'll find you, I'll hunt you, I'll make your life such a hell you'll be only too relieved to end it yourself. So get on with it, will you? Just fucking do something!"

Malcolm knew that accusing the Vulcan of deliberate wrong-doing was not entirely fair, but there was the detail that T'Pol had collapsed during their shower after a Suus Mahna training they had engaged in to take their minds off the fact that at the same time their loved ones were engaged in a deadly battle. Vulcans had a bit of a history of reacting irrationally if they were scandalized about one of their own. And T'Pol had scandalized her fellow Vulcans more than once. Taking a shower with a human or generally anyone who wasn't her mate certainly qualified.

"Threats of physical violence serve no purpose, Captain Reed," the Vulcan replied and calmly loaded a hypospray injector with a new vial, while the Brit eyed him suspiciously. "Captain T'Pol suffers from a severed tel. Her medical record states quite clearly that you are informed about it."

"So she'll just die and you stand by doing nothing?" he replied angrily.

"There is nothing I can do, Captain. In most cases a Vulcan, who loses a tel falls into a healing trance. Captain T'Pol, however, has had previous neurological injuries. She must have tried to hold on to her life quite hard as evidenced by her hyperstimulated neurological paths."

"She fights for her life. What's so unusual about that?" Malcolm snorted sarcastically, not taking his eyes off the hypospray.

"The neuropaths in question are located in the pre-frontal cortex, not in the primary telepathic gyrus as would be expected. She did not fight to re-establish the tel, she fought with her intellect."

"And that kills her?"

"Having failed in her fight – to use one of your metaphors – she has lost the will to live."

"And there is nothing you can do?" Malcolm asked again, but anger gave way to despair. "Maybe we can give her a chance to fight again? I know for a fact that her intellect is not exactly weak."

"She has at most two days to live," the doctor replied, and a nauseating wave of agony washed through Malcolm's mind. "If another Vulcan was to attempt a healing meld to share his or her life's energy, her life might be prolonged – a week, perhaps two – but I do not see what purpose that would serve."

It was over. The truth hit him and it hit him hard. Five years to build up a friendship so wonderful, he hadn't understood how utterly barren his life had been before it. But now he found himself facing the prospect of being thrust back into that former life as his two friends died or were dying. There was a glimmer of hope that Hoshi had survived, but realistically, if the ship was damaged badly enough for the captain to die, how good were the odds that someone else on the bridge survived? Maybe there wasn't even a ship any more.

The swaying returned as he teetered on the brink of consciousness, consumed by agony at the loss of his friends, at the horror of going back to being the shell of a man he'd been before. Out of the corner of his eyes, before they closed, he saw the enemy approach him with a hypospray ... time had been when he'd have reacted, but he was alone and would soon be utterly friendless. What point was there in resisting?

The voice moaned through his brain, cold and calculating. He hadn't heard it for so long, had never thought to hear it again, but he recognized and even welcomed the release from feeling it brought. Precious is down ... I must bring her home ... I'm alone ... I have to finish this mission on my own ... The enemy ... The drug...

His eyes flew open, every fiber in his body ready to mount a defensive attack. The assailant stopped, stunned into freezing by his piercing glance. Emotions securely locked, he pivoted and left sickbay in a purposeful stride as he started to plan his next step.

Hadrian was back!

-=/\=-

She wanted nothing more than abandon her post, run back down to the devastated battle bridge and dig him out with her bare hands, but her rank made that impossible. Lieutenant-Commander Hoshi Sato-Reed stood on the barely finished main bridge, overseeing their return to Salem One.

Anna Hess's domain - the engineering section under the ship's belly - and the battle bridge had been hit the hardest, and no less than fifteen engineers had lost their lives, but Trip's design had done its job. Engine and nacelles had survived the blast, and now the Hammer Of War was screaming back towards Coalition space at warp seven, overflowing with critically injured humans, Vulcans and Andorians from other ships. Every single one of them fought for his life and she wasn't going to lose this race.

Not a single one of them had left the carnage uninjured. Tholos was barely able to hold on to his console; his left antenna had to be amputated after it had been shredded by flying debris. Hoshi shivered as she remembered the agonized screams of the Andorian as he had the procedure done without anesthesia in a bid to remain at his post.

Travis was being treated aboard Challenger after his left arm had been severed by a falling ceiling panel. It had pained her to leave him behind, but the cynicism of war demanded that he make space for a critical case. At least he would live.

Trip ... The picture of her fallen friend haunted her. It had taken seven Vulcan males to lift the heavy support beam that had crushed him. Nausea hit her as she remembered the awkwardly twisted body, blood dripping out of nose, mouth and ears. It had been all too obvious that the lower half of his body had sustained terrible injuries. And there was no word yet on the chances of his survival.

Not that Phlox would have time to send a status report...

Soval helped the groaning matriarch into an armchair. He could plainly see that even the advanced Koh'linar techniques had almost failed to reestablish her equilibrium. As a pivotal node in a complex web of clan-wide parental bonds and tels the Eldest had been impacted with the full force of the disturbance in the clan. Dozens of mates and parents were now grieving for one of theirs.

We interrupt our program for breaking news...

Soval noticed that the human broadcast was still showing, and obeying the sign of the Eldest he raised the sound volume slightly.

"Charles," he heard the Eldest whisper and Soval shivered slightly at the pain in her voice.

"Shall I summon a healer?" he asked, trying to lend her some of his relative calm, even though he was greatly worried about T'Pol.

"Call T'Pau-kan," the matriarch ordered, still visibly still trying to regain her composure. "At this time she must be at the home of Charles's parents."

T'Para's eyebrow twitched ever so slightly when the connection was established. T'Pau's eyes were discolored, surrounded by bizarre dark green rings. The fresh wipe marks all over her face made it obvious that she had been crying. There was not much positive to say about the current situation, but the fact that the young one had allowed herself to grieve in a way that befit her young age was a glimmer of hope during very dark times.

"T'Pol is dying," T'Pau said in a voice full of sorrow, and without addressing the clan's matriarch as would ordinarily be befitting her position. The Eldest ignored this violation of protocol and only nodded gravely.

"T'Pol is unusual and the humans have not yet reported Charles's death. There are discrepancies in the facts provided. Seek permission to meld with T'Pol. Find out what happened in her last conscious moments. Pay attention to how and when the tel was severed."

"You believe him to be alive?" she heard the young one ask with hope in her voice.

"It is not impossible. A tel can be severed through other means than death. Find out, T'Pau-kan, and make haste. Time is of the essence!"

He navigated the corridor with long, loping strides, scanning each and every potential hiding place with the trained, pitiless eye of a predator. But all he could see were pitifully crying crew members, who jumped out of his way in time if they were fortunate. A group of people approached; they were on the ship without permission, but he didn't care. They were just the people he needed for the next step in his plan.

Forcefully and without a word of explanation he grabbed the foremost female Vulcan by her arm and manhandled her in the direction he wanted – away from her companions and towards sickbay.

Fortunately the doors hissed open as they arrived; he'd have kicked them down without a second thought.

"Meld!" he ordered and pointed at T'Pol's lifeless body. He saw the terror in her eyes, and didn't give a fuck. He was in control.

Before he could repeat his order he was spun around and his instinctive backhanded punch nearly flattened of one of the Vulcan's earlier companions – Cathryn Tucker. There were a couple of others behind him too, including Cathryn's husband Charles. This was evidently some kind of a rescue party.

"I don't care that you're Trip's friend," Charles growled in his face, clearly not understanding the mortal danger such an act placed him in. "If you touch that girl one more time, you won't like the answer. What the hell is wrong with you? Get a grip, boy, or get out."

Every instinct urged him to halt the verbal attack by grabbing the man's throat to silence him forever, but something in him, a nagging doubt that could cost him in a tight situation, stopped him. It was infuriating that he was going soft with age. 'Caesar' would have been appalled to see him so indecisive.

"Be quiet and let her meld!" Hadrian said, his voice low and soft and threatening, and stared them all into oblivion, ignoring the fact that he had made the woman cry. At least it gave her man something to think about, and distracted him from further intervention.

He watched the Vulcan go about her job and gasp loudly twice in the process. Good – whatever it was, she had found something. He listened with indifference to the hitch of panic in her breathing.

"I must confer with the Eldest Mother," he heard the Vulcan report as she broke off the meld, looking appropriately fearfully at him. He knew the look well: it was that of a being that had resigned itself to its fate. It was difficult to bring a Vulcan to that point. He would feel satisfied, but feelings were not in his creed. They just made things complicated.

"Go to your quarters, talk to her and report back. Within the hour," he ordered curtly and watched the Vulcan leave in a hurry, her robes flapping.

"Now, just a moment, here," the annoying old man started.

"You should retire to your quarters as well," Hadrian interrupted him coldly. "And if you'd prefer to remain unharmed, I'd suggest you stay there."

At last they saw reason and left.

He was left standing beside the bio-bed. Still. And waiting. If he'd looked into the mirror opposite him he would have seen eyes that had forgotten humanity, but he'd taught himself long ago never to look, never to see, never to care.

"You appear disturbed, child." The Eldest stated the obvious as T'Pau's face appeared on the screen.

"Her bond faded as you suspected. Without fluctuation, it faded over a time of approximately seven point three-five seconds."

"It is then as I thought," the Eldest said gravely. "His mind is damaged, but alive. There is but one solution. We must bring T'Pol and myself to him. Only if I can reconnect the children, even if only shortly, she can be saved from the darkness.

"What else upsets you, child?" she asked, while flicking a finger which set Soval in motion to arrange transport.

"It's Malcolm," T'Pau admitted. "I sense a complete absence of empathy. His look, it is unlike any I have ever seen..."

The image of T'Pau disappeared and the Eldest sat back ever so slightly as the image of Malcolm appeared on her screen.

"That will quite be enough," she heard him say in a lifeless voice, staring at her with the dead eyes that had so unnerved T'Pau. "We will arrive in seventy-two hours. You could spare yourself quite some inconvenience if you made yourself available. You are to bring no more than one companion, to attend to your needs."

His image went as fast as it had intruded. For the first time in one hundred and seventy-nine years, her hands shook.

"Tehvar mugl'au... " she muttered in shock. "Dangerous darkness hath befallen thee."

"I need to speak with Solan," she ordered as Soval returned. "He is on their station."

"I told you captain, I cannot allow you on a wild goose chase," Gardner said, irritated, not quite understanding what Reed had in mind or why he was looking as if he was drugged. "And who the hell is 'Precious'?"

"She is down and if you don't get her back to the base, I will take her there."

"Captain or 'Hadrian' or whatever you like to call yourself," Gardner said and pressed a button under the table. "I don't know what you took or who you are. I have alerted Starfleet Security and you will surrender yourself to them at once."

"You've made your decision. Hadrian out."

The view screen went silent.

"I have a working theory and we shall be in no danger from him," Solan addressed the little group. "But we must leave him in the belief that he is in complete control. Only the Eldest can save him."

The little group was huddled together in a recycling depot, one of the very few places on Jupiter station without surveillance cameras.

"We don't even know what the hell he needs savin' from in the first place," Charles Tucker snorted. "For all we know, he just went bat-shit crazy."

"Captain Reed appears to be suffering from something called 'dangerous darkness'," the Vulcan professor explained, and T'Pau gasped audibly before hiding her mouth in shame at her lapse. "It appears that he is a victim of one of the most unspeakable crimes imaginable. He is a former operative for an organization that itself is shrouded in mystery is he not?"

He saw T'Pau nod. As the former First Minister she possessed a great deal of information that was not widely available. "Even the V'Shar has less than complete knowledge of them," she said almost inaudibly. "They name themselves 'Section 31'."

"The old V'Las administration was suspected of inducing the dangerous darkness to condition operatives. It appears that this organization has acquired this technique."

"He's been brainwashed?" Feezal asked, and Solan saw a look of genuine concern for her captain in the alien female's face.

"Brainwashing does not begin to describe the unspeakable atrocity that has been done to Captain Reed."

"So what does it mean, fully?" the human woman demanded.

"He was given a second katra, a satanic soul, as humans would say. It is triggered by certain conditions and void of emotion."

"How can you know all that?" the other female's mate asked.

"Mr. Tucker, Vulcans are a long-lived species. Before I became an engineer I had a long career with the V'Shar until I resigned in disgust at the methods that were developed under the V'Las administration."