He paused, letting the words sink in a bit before continuing. “So can we count on you for just one more mission among the Romulans, Commander? And more importantly: Can Earth and the rest of the Coalition count on you?”

“You need me to stay dead,” Trip stated. The idea was very nearly unbearable.

“Only for a while, Commander. A year or two, perhaps. Our most pessimistic experts foresee perhaps five years of Romulan conflict at the very outside.”

Five years of my life, if my life lasts that long,Trip thought grimly. Against the safety of my planet, and everyone I love.

Trip wanted nothing more than to go back to his family. To T’Pol. To his old life aboard Enterprise. To reassure everyone he cared about that he was all right. And to remain for the rest of his days out of the shadows where he now dwelled.

But he also knew that he couldn’t escape his duty to his home planet. His duty to his dead sister, and to the millions of others who had been summarily slain because nobody had seen an alien threat coming out of the clear blue sky until after it was too late.

His duty to all the teeming billions of innocents on Vulcan, on Tellar, on Andoria–and on Earth–who could die just as those slain by the Xindi had died. Just as innumerable Coridanites had been murdered by the Romulans.

If he were to fail to act.

“All right,” Trip said at length.

The spymaster smiled and shook his hand, then placed another data rod squarely in Trip’s palm. “Outstanding, Commander. Here are the mission details, biometrically coded so that only you can read the data. You will, of course, have access to all of the bureau’s resources while you are in our sphere of influence. But you will also, of course, be entirely on your own if you should be captured while operating within Romulan space.”

Trip nodded, feeling as though he had just signed a pact with the devil himself. Maybe he had. But what was his alternative?

“I know the drill, Harris.”

“You’ll be leaving on a civilian transport bound for Vulcan on Thursday morning. Once on Vulcan, you’ll catch a Rigelian freighter for the next leg of your voyage. The details, along with the documents and background you’ll need to support your new undercover identities, are all provided on the data rod.”

Before melting back into the shadows, Harris added, “Make the most of the time between now and your departure date, Commander.”

As he exited the alley and began retracing his steps along Grant Avenue’s fog‑slicked sidewalks back toward his hotel, Trip decided that he would do precisely what Harris had suggested. Though maybe not quite in the way he anticipated.

Forty‑Nine

Wednesday, March 5, 2155

Candlestick Park, San Francisco

ARCHER DIDN’T MUCH LIKE the small dressing room that Nathan Samuels’ people had issued him. Located near the open‑air center of the ancient public auditorium, the little chamber had walls constructed of what appeared to be old cinder blocks that had been repainted countless times over the centuries, and the room felt paradoxically cold and drafty in spite of the alleged presence of one of the finest environmental control systems currently available. According to local legend, the entire stadium had alwaysbeen cold and drafty, even in the dog days of summer nearly two centuries ago when one of the facility’s main uses had been for the exhibition of the now sadly defunct sport of baseball.

The cursor on the padd he’d set down on the dressing room table blinked at him mockingly, as though the device were aware that he was having an extraordinarily difficult time making the final revisions to his speech. He knew, of course, that he should have ceasedtinkering with it at least a day or two ago, but he felt insecure enough as a public speaker–in spite of Malcolm’s having sung the praises of his extemporaneous speechifying–to feel a continuous need to edit and revise the words he’d already written and rewritten.

Those words were, after all, going to be delivered live before an audience of nearly one hundred thousand humans and assorted other sentients from across the sector and beyond, to say nothing of the billions who would view the day’s ceremonies remotely from their various homeworlds. All of them expected to see history made when the Coalition Compact was finally signed later this afternoon by the assembled representatives of four diverse worlds.

Archer started when he heard a sharp knock against the dressing room door, then forced his jangled nerves back under control. Rising from his seat once he felt reasonably composed, he turned to face the door.

“Come.”

The old‑fashioned door, doubtless centuries old, swung open on its steel hinges and admitted a characteristically stoic T’Pol. Archer glanced down at her right hand, from which dangled a small suitcase; he knew it contained a small cache of personal effects that was bound for Trip’s parents. Like T’Pol, they had been given no alternative to believing the lie to which Archer had been a party. Once again, guilt clutched at his heart, though he knew he had no choice other than to endure it in silence. He noted that T’Pol was holding the case’s handle gingerly rather than squeezing it in a death grip that might have shattered it. Not for the first time, he envied her Vulcan composure, though he couldn’t help but wonder how much the effort was costing her.

T’Pol quickly looked him up and down, then raised a critical eyebrow. “I’m gratified to see that you are already wearing your dress uniform, Captain. However, I would have recommended that you don it while the room’s lights were activated.”

Archer sighed and tugged at the buttons that fastened the uniform’s somewhat constricting white collar. “Very funny, T’Pol.” He turned toward the mirror, from which a very tired and nervous‑looking man stared back. “It’s not like I wear one of these every day, you know.”

“Indeed.”

“Does it reallylook that bad?” He turned back toward her.

She set the suitcase down and approached him. “Stand still,” she said as he silently endured the indignity of allowing her to finish straightening his slightly skewed collar. Just as she finished, her communicator beeped, and she backed up a few paces to take the incoming message.

Archer retrieved his padd and returned his attention to its display while fervently wishing that he’d stayed in his quarters aboard Enterpriseto finish preparing his speech. The comforting presence of Porthos, as well as the absence of a multitude of hero‑worshipers just outside his door, would have gone a long way toward calming his frayed nerves. And the ever‑loyal beagle wouldn’t have even consideredoffering him any unsolicited sartorial critiques.

He doubly regretted having left the ship after he heard T’Pol’s next utterance: “Captain, Commander Tucker’s parents have just arrived.”

Charles Anthony Tucker, Jr., had always been tall and broad in the shoulders, not at all given to putting on excess weight. But after Lizzie’s unexpected death nearly two years earlier, his frame had become much sparer, almost gaunt. Since he hadn’t wanted to look as though his apparel had come from a tent and awning company, he’d had to buy all new clothes a few months after the Xindi attack.

Today he felt certain that he’d soon have to replace his entire wardrobe yet again.

During their nearly four decades of marriage, Charles’s wife, Elaine, frequently told him that he had the face of a man who loved to laugh. He wished he could still be that man, if only for her. If he could, then perhaps he might be able to do something about the deep lines of pain and stress that stood out in sharp relief across Elaine’s once smooth and porcelain‑like features.

But Charles had never felt less like laughing than he did today. He and Elaine had come to Candlestick Auditorium, after all, essentially to bury the younger of their two sons–even though there was, of course, no actual body to bury, thanks to the “burial in space” clause Trip had written into his will.