“Well, given that Shran didn’t have a daughter at this point, I’d say that’s probably a ‘yes,”’ Nog said. “But it might also be some sort of amalgamation of other events. After all, for years we’ve been watching some holodeck programmer’s version of these people’s lives, based on records and logs; things we now know have been tampered with.” He paused and grinned at Jake. “Maybe something interesting happens in the Rigel system in thisversion as well.”

Jake regarded his friend with a suspicious eye. “Just how far ahead didyou watch this?”

Nog grinned and leaned forward, his nimble fingers moving toward the holo‑imager controls he’d left sitting on Jake’s ancient wooden desk. “Not much further. So, let’s see what happens next.”

Fourteen

Friday, February 14, 2155

Enterprise NX‑01

WHEN CHARLES ANTHONY TUCKER III was a teenager, he and his friends had dared each other repeatedly to open a hatch door on a grain silo, but Trip had actually been the one who had taken the challenge. He hadn’t been paying close enough attention in science class to judge the pressure such materials in a container of that size might be under, and was thus half buried by the flood of grain that spilled out before he could even retreat three steps. If his brother Bert and their friend Bill Hunt hadn’t been quick to pull him out, he might well have been entombed on that long‑ago day.

Since that time, Trip had been in more than a few tight spots, but none of those had been quite as suffocating as the grain incident.

Until now.

After the pallet on which he lay finished retracting into the hyperbaric chamber, the oval‑shaped, airtight door near his feet closed. Its motion was silent, yet forceful enough to make his ears pop. He resumed his normal respiration then, relieved to relinquish the burden of showmanship to Phlox and the captain. Other than his own breathing and the gentle whispering susurration of the chamber’s independent ventilation system, he was blanketed in utter silence. Then the cylindrical hyperbaric chamber began to thrum around him, just as the light panels built into its walls began throwing off just enough illumination to call attention to the chamber’s disquieting smallness.

Trip fought down incipient claustrophobia by closing his eyes and by trying to regulate his breathing. Beyond the chamber’s confines, he could hear muffled voices, though he couldn’t quite make out the words.

A com speaker near his head–which allowed sickbay personnel to communicate with patients inside the otherwise sound‑opaque hyperbaric chamber–suddenly came to life. Now he could hear what was going on beyond the confines of the hyperbaric chamber, in sickbay, where Phlox and his medical technicians were frantically continuing to respond to a preprogrammed sequence of ever‑declining vital signs.

My vital signs,Trip thought, swallowing hard. He opened his eyes again, though he studiously tried to avoid staring at his own ghastly reflection.

Of all the personnel now present in sickbay, only Phlox’s assistants would not have known that those life readings were utterly counterfeit, mere electronic simulations designed to allow Charles Tucker to die, officially and on the record.

“What’s happening in there, Phlox?”the captain said through the chamber’s speaker, still playing his part to the hilt.

“He may have inhaled too much of the plasma during the explosion,”came the Denobulan’s precise, professional response, his voice laced with concern and a convincing tinge of fear. “His lungs are failing.”

“Vital signs crashing, Doctor,”said Crewman Stepanczyk, one of the medical technicians.

Archer: “Do something!”

“I’m afraid, Captain, that there is very little that wecan do,”Phlox said. “We’re losing him.”

Trip listened quietly to the sounds of his own death. A chill slowly navigated the length of his spine, reminding him of how his mother described that very sensation: “Somebody just walked across your grave.”

And now here he was, entombed in a space not much larger than a casket. For better or worse, a chain of events had led him ineluctably into this tiny tube, pretending to be dead, while three of his friends lied to all his other friends and family for him. He thought of how T’Pol would react, especially after the loss of their daughter and their emotionally wrenching journey to Vulcan. And his family, barely over their grieving after the loss of his sister Lizzie, now forced to mourn another death. He hoped that Albert, the final “living” Tucker sibling, would take care of their parents better than he, Trip, had after Lizzie had been killed by the Xindi.

He closed his eyes again, and in the resulting darkness he saw a slow parade of faces.

His mother, Elaine. His father, Charles. His brother, Albert.

T’Pol.

The pain came then, like a barbed lance piercing his heart.

How can I do this to them?The regret was almost overwhelming, nearly swallowing him from the inside.

A part of him wanted to kick his feet out at the chamber door, yelling to them that it was all a mistake, that he wasn’t dead, that the whole thing had been a setup. He considered for a moment what the ramifications might be, both for himself and for his coconspirators. I guess it depends on whether the news got off the ship or not,he thought. If everybody who’s in the loop agreed to keep quiet, the logs could be fixed or “lost,” and we could write ourown version of history.

But there in the back of his mind, brooding and snarling like the monster that lived in his childhood closet, was the fear of what would happen if he didn’tgo through with this covert mission. In his mind’s eyes, his loved ones’ faces were replaced by fleets of Aenar‑piloted remote‑control drone warships. Each vessel was painted garishly to resemble a hungry, carnivorous bird with talons outstretched, and was equipped with exotic weapons and warp seven‑capable engines. He imagined the Romulan fleets arriving in an eyeblink at Earth and Mars, tearing open the vulnerable underbelly of an unprepared Starfleet, destroying the shipyard and space‑dock facilities that orbited both worlds. He imagined the invaders laying waste to Starfleet’s headquarters on Earth, setting mankind’s dreams of exploring the galaxy back centuries, if not destroying them forever.

He couldn’t allow that. How many times had he already put his life on the line for the ideals of Starfleet, for the future of his family and friends? How many times had he put everything on the line for her, Enterprise, his ship?

He felt her even now, in this claustrophobic enclosure, her engines humming almost imperceptibly, a vibration that was nearly always present but that had long ago become nearly as familiar to him as the sound of his own breathing. For the past four years, the warp drive’s gentle but ever‑present oscillations had given him comfort, helping him drift off to sleep during most night cycles; the occasional absence of those vibrations frequently led to insomnia, and to extra late shifts in engineering until Trip felt things had finally been put right again.

Soon he would be very far away from the comfort of those engines. He would have to take reassurance instead in the knowledge that he was protecting allof this. For now,he thought. I’m coming back. I’ll be aboardEnterprise again. I’ll be with my family again. Laugh with my friends, tell her that Ido want to find a way to make it work…

How can Inot do this?

“No response, Doctor.”It was of the med techs, Garver this time.

I’m coming back,Trip told himself again. Back from the dead, once all this Romulan madness is finally over and done with.