The woman leaned in close, fixing TPol with her dark, predatory eyes. “They would tell how wewere once you.

In that moment, TPol allowed her entire being to suffuse itself with every bit of energy she had kept in reserve. Flashing her arms out, she pulled the broken sehlatribs out from where she had concealed them inside her sleeves, tight against her forearms. With a quick slashing motion, she used the jagged tips of the bones to cut the throat of the woman, rolling herself aside even as the ichorous green blood began to spray.

As the dying Frislen woman clutched at her throat, TPol drew the short tricheqfrom the boot where she had hidden it and threw it at one of the other creatures in the cavern. It pierced his forehead, dropping him instantly.

TPol had barely managed to regain her footing before one of the remaining Frislen roared toward her, on the attack. She swiped her foot out in a wide kick, hoping that her second makeshift weapon would work as well as the first. The sehlattusk she had strapped to the side of her boot sliced through her attackers torso, and before his forward momentum had entirely spent itself, the Frislens innards were spilling out upon the rough cavern floor.

A keening sound swiftly filled the chamber, and TPol whirled again, expecting to be attacked by the other two creatures. But the one making the sound was exiting the room through a tunnel, his body slipping effortlessly into the darkness. The other one, the creature atop Vekkr, seemed neither alarmed nor particularly conscious of what had just transpired nearby.

TPol noticed only now that she could hear the voices of Denak and Ycha calling out to her. Pushing aside the still bleeding body of the Frislen woman whose throat she had cut, TPol looked down into the pit below the grate. Despite the darkness that enfolded the pit, she could see her comrades, at least in silhouette. She quickly cut through the improvised twine that held the grate in place, moved it aside, then reached down to grasp the hand of Ycha.

The green blood that still rained down on them from the dying Frislen woman made getting a grip difficult, but within a minute, TPol had finished extracting both her fellow agent and her mission leader.

Denak quickly counted the corpses, and listened as TPol told him about the Frislen that had escaped into the adjoining chambers. “There are many more of them than weve seen so far, Denak said gravely, pointing toward numerous cavelike openings that could have served as berths for sleeping or hibernation. “We probably dont have much time before were beset again. And theyll be angrythis time, instead of merely hungry.

He pointed to some fabric remains that still clothed skeletons in a shady corner. “Get some torches going with those scraps.

As Ycha scrambled to comply, TPol retrieved her tricheqfrom the Frislens forehead. A quick scouting of the cavern revealed several of their partys other fallen weapons: both the useless depowered component devices and a few other tricheqs and bladed weapons.

As she returned Denaks weapon to him, she saw him holding one of the sharpened sehlatbones over the back of the Frislen who lay atop Vekkr. The creature hadnt even noticed that anyone else was nearby, much less the danger that loomed above. Under its form, a bloodied Vekkr lay unconscious, or worse.

Denak stabbed the weapon down through both figures, piercing through their hearts almost simultaneously. The creature atop Vekkr thrashed for a moment, then twitched in its death throes; TPols ravaged comrade hadnt moved at all.

“Even had Vekkr lived, he would have been infected, Denak said simply to TPol. “He would have become one of them.

Ycha came over with torches, and the dry fabrics ignited quickly.

Weapons in hand and torches held aloft, the trio swiftly plunged into the caves and, TPol hoped, toward their freedom. Should they make it, TPol knew that Denak would probably call in a military air strike on the region, to bombard the caves with some kind of contained plasma fire. Nothing that lived down here would survive such an attack, nor would any trace of the Frislenor their crimesremain.

Sparing one final glance backward as they departed, TPol pondered exactly what the cryptic words of the Frislen woman had meant.

“They would tell howwe were onceyou.

How different was the statement from Denak?

“He would have become one ofthem.

Even from her brief time in the Vulcan Security Directorate, TPol knew that the Vulcan people had buried many dark secrets in their past. As they moved through the blackness, she understood with perfect clarity that the Frislen woman had believed herself to number among those secrets.

What other secrets have we hidden? And when will another one come out of the darkness to consume us?

TPol shivered, telling herself that she might never discover the answer to that question if she didnt concentrate on getting out of this place, now.

Sunday, July 13, 2155 Enterprise NX‑01

Though she knew it was illogical, TPol shivered slightly. She finally moved over to her bed and pulled the neatly folded gray blanket from the end of it, wrapping it around her shoulders. She returned to stand near the viewport, outside of which the blackness of space and the bright streaks of stars had become almost monotonous in their constancy.

Although the temperature in her quarters was certainly high enough that she neednt have bothered with the blanket, its presence around her provided an immediate and undeniable sense of comfort. The feel of the finely woven synthetic fabric between her fingers evoked a vivid tactile memory of Trip and the time they had lain together on her bunk, the sweat cooling on their naked bodies after they had made love; Trip had pulled this same blanket up, over the pair of them, though hed smilingly lamented all the while having to remove any portion of her beauty from his vision.

The Vulcan science officer and the human engineer, the High Command and Starfleet, a highly unlikely pair. “The ice princess and the good ol boy were among the nicknames she had heard whispered more than a few times, as they walked through the corridors of Enterprise, though she thought that the Starfleet and MACO personnel who had uttered them would have been both appalled and embarrassed had they known that she had heard them. And she sometimes wondered whether they might have been more appalled and embarrassed still had they known that she and Trip had actually consummated their now‑undeniable mutual attraction.

The self‑absorbed direction of her own ruminations surprised her, though she couldnt deny having had similar thoughts before. But today she could identify no convenient infirmity or injury upon which she might blame this private lapse, no obvious reason behind her increasing fixation on the irrecoverable past. She knew that her emotions were always close to the surface, however deeply she had meditated last evening. She could only wonder whether that night with Trip had had a far more profound impact upon her than she could have known.

Is this what humans experience when they “fall in love?she thought.

Thanks to Trips protracted absence, her memories of their brief time together had become as irrepressible as they were bittersweet. And the fact that the last year had brought her more than enough reason to grieve apart from Trips departure hadnt helped; she had lost her mother, TLes, during a raid against the Syrrannite sect at Vulcans Takarath Sanctuary, then had faced the death of Elizabeth. It didnt matter that her infant offspring had been a cloned hybrid created with her and Tuckers DNA by the rogue geneticists of the Terra Prime separatist movement; little Elizabeth had nevertheless been theirchild. And now both TLes and Elizabeth were interred beneath the broiling sands of Vulcan, on the grounds of the rebuilt sanctuary.