To this day, few Federation citizens have even heard the word "Hellguard." The Vulcans continue to employ their considerable influence to ensure that access to the records of their unauthorized visit is restricted to those with a need to know--Starfleet Command, the Federation Council, assorted operatives and pundits whose job it is to keep track of past and present events in the Empire. But in their confidential reports to each other, these people even now use the word to connote the horrific conduct of a ruthless, conscienceless enemy. "Another Hellguard," they said of Setlik Three when the Cardassians laid waste to it. "Demonstrating a Hellguard-like disregard for life," they said of the rulers of Kornephoros, who secretly executed unconvicted prisoners for several decades after the planet's admission to the Federation. The word is so emotionally charged that it's come to signify any evil or perversion extreme enough to cause a collective shudder of revulsion in the Federation worlds. When copies of such reports fall into the hands of the Romulan Fleet's intelligence operatives, the calumny is taken as merely another example of the Federation's bigotry and willing disregard for the truth.
From the Federation's point of view, which means the Vulcans' point of view, any species that could perpetrate the kind of genocidal atrocity--as the Vulcans so redundantly put it--that had occurred on Hellguard was beyond all hope. No one questioned the Vulcans' account of Hellguard or indeed of the Romulan character. They were considered the de facto experts on our species, after all. And when the Empire itself was nearly torn apart in the aftermath of Hellguard by widespread colonial rebellion and civil unrest, it was taken as proof of the Vulcans' perspicacity. Some things were so disgusting that even the Romulans themselves couldn't stomach them.
Admittedly, the Vulcans got the story of Hellguard partly right. The indigenous sapient population was wiped out--not through genocide, but in the lethal crossfire of an atmospheric and ground-based battle between soldiers of the Romulan Fleet and a so-called liberation force from a neighboring colony world. On the other side of the planet, a large number of Romulan citizens perished in the volcanic eruptions and groundquakes that were occurring almost simultaneously with the colonists' attack. The commander-general of the nearest Fleet base had assumed tactical authority and ordered all Hellguard battalions--the only forces immediately available--into pitched orbital battle with the rebel colonists. Following his orders, the Hellguard detachment had then pursued the rebels far across the sector rather than evacuating the survivors, if any, of the volcanic disaster.
By the time the "failed" colony of Hellguard was officially interdicted, the worst of the political damage was already done. Other colony worlds, seeing what had happened to the rebels, had taken up the cry of independence on their behalf. Legion after legion of the Romulan Fleet was diverted to colonial "peacekeeping" duty, with predictable losses on both sides. The families of those Romulan citizens who had died on Hellguard demanded and received retribution for the abandonment of their relatives: Senate and High Command alike lost many senior people--most of them to suicide, so that their own families wouldn't be disgraced forever. Then, just when events seemed to be stabilizing, the praetor and his household decamped secretly and suddenly, leaving the imperial chair open for a distant, and astonished, cousin.
But the real truth of Hellguard, like that of so many other turning-points in history, was both more and less than the Federation guessed--or the Vulcans were willing to disclose.
* * *
A century ago the imperial praetor of the day was known for many things, but chiefly for his love of stealth and secrecy. It was that characteristic--overdeveloped even by Romulan standards--that had made him agree so readily to Ra-ghoratrei's unwritten codicil to the Treaty of Algeron, which would have kept me forever in the Federation. The idea of conspiring with his enemy behind the backs of the Federation Council and most of the Romulan Senate must have been irresistible, particularly when the Empire stood to benefit so disproportionately.
But the praetor's liking for intrigue and covert dealings went far beyond the ordinary backstabbing and subterfuge associated with interstellar politics. Rumors had long circulated of strange "deep black" projects sanctioned by him--so called, probably, for the metaphorical black hole down which billions in treasury cash were said to have disappeared without benefit of legislative authority. The Senate elders, who should have investigated the rumors, refused to do so, or at least to do so expeditiously: unencumbered by an activist head of state for the first time since Planetfall, they weren't eager to risk their newfound autonomy by diverting the praetor's attention from whatever private pastimes kept him out of their way. So the lurid rumors persisted, as did the bleeding away of public funds through mysterious, and unexamined, budgetary items that bore such meaningless labels as "imperial security" and "cultural unity."
For years, people had whispered that more than a few of the praetor's black projects were continuing in deep secrecy on the colony world of Hellguard.
* * *
The healer Pallon had been reluctant to release me from the Kharsalen infirmary after the shuttle crash. My physical injuries had mended as expected, and I was ready to resume my command on the other side of the world. But she would not let me go.
"Why?" I demanded. "I feel fine, I promise you."
She leaned forward across the desk, gazing at me intently, as if she could persuade me with her earnest demeanor. "Your psychological profile suggests otherwise. You've sustained a severe shock, Commander, and I still think it would be wise for us to look into the mind-altering techniques the Federation used on you--"
"We've been all through this, Healer. I won't submit to a mindscan, and that's the end of it. Now may I please be released?" I didn't really feel the anger I was projecting: Pallon was a kind and conscientious physician, and I knew she was genuinely concerned for my welfare. The fact that Tal would remain in Kharsalen as long as I did was certainly only an incidental factor in her decision-making.
"One more day," she said. "Humor me."
"All right," I said wearily, unwilling to continue the argument. "But I'm leaving tomorrow. I mean it." I didn't dare imagine what condition my ragtag battalion might be in after having gone more than half a tenday without its commanding officer.
"Agreed," she said with a smile. "It's a beautiful day, Commander. Why not explore the compound before lunchtime? Some fresh air will do you good."
Clearly Pallon's tour of duty on Hellguard had altered her definitions of "beautiful" and "fresh." The best that could be said for the day was that the sulfurous reek of the surrounding geysers penetrated the sealed windows a little less than usual, and the sky was a little less polluted with gritty particulate from the sleeping but always restless volcanoes that loomed over Kharsalen. Still, a walk might satisfy my curiosity--and, at least for a little while, distract me from the constant ache of loss and despair.
* * *
The Kharsalen compound looked like nothing more than what it purported to be: a large scientific complex whose equipment and furnishings were, unlike those of my own base, very much state of the art. The prefabricated buildings bore signs that identified them by function or area of research: library, communications, biochemistry, biology.
My Fleet uniform and commander's insignia provided me with unexpectedly easy entry to most of the buildings. I was greeted with courteous expressions of concern for my health by administrators and workers alike, which meant that reports of the shuttle crash must have made the gossip circuit. If more personal medical information had been revealed by Pallon, no one gave any sign. People seemed eager enough to show me around the facility: interested visitors were a rarity here. By the time I reached the building designated "Biology," I was almost convinced that the disturbing rumors I'd heard were untrue.
Not being a scientist myself, I listened with half an ear to the researchers' explanations of various projects and experiments. It was clear that they were most concerned with aspects of the life sciences, but my understanding didn't go much beyond that simple fact. While the elderly civilian geneticist who was my current tour guide rambled on about adaptive recombinant DNA and augmented speciation, my attention was caught by something else.
"What is that?" I asked.
"What?"
"That music." A low-frequency rhythm was escaping, just barely, from behind a closed door. "What's in that room?"
"Oh," he said. "Oh, that room? It's, it's a laboratory."
His sudden unease was enough to trigger my curiosity. "May I see it?"
"Oh," he repeated. "Well, I'm not sure--" I could almost hear his debate with himself. This laboratory was off limits to outsiders. But a Fleet commander was demanding access. Should he let her in? Should he ask a higher authority for permission? Or should he refuse the request altogether and risk retribution for incurring an officer's displeasure? "Well," he said. "Well." With obvious reluctance, he led me to the door and opened it.
A group of boys and girls, all between seven and ten years of age and all dressed in brightly colored tunics and trousers, were seated at individual study carrels. A music synthesizer was playing at moderate volume a well-known symphony by Traudit of Remus. A man and a woman, both wearing the green jumpsuits favored by civilian scientists, sat behind a console in a glassed-in cubicle at the front of the room, silent observers. The children, who were following a score on their monitors, took almost no notice when my guide and I entered the room.
The two scientists motioned us into the cubicle. My guide performed the introductions, and agreed with D'Aenar, a pleasant-looking man of about my own age, that there was probably no harm in my viewing the experiment, since I was bound by oath not to reveal state secrets.
Looking out at the children, I found it hard to imagine that any state secrets could be at risk here. The only mystery was what these youngsters were doing on such a dismal outpost so far from the homeworld.
"Is this a crèche?" I asked my guide. "For the families of the scientists stationed here?"
"No," he replied, and again I sensed his discomfort. "These children are" --he glanced towards his colleagues-- "they're, ah, participants in a research project."
"What kind of research?"
"A series of longitudinal genetic studies," said Kerith, the female scientist. "These particular subjects are hybrids, Commander."
"Hybrids?" To my eyes, the children looked entirely Romulan. "Of what stock? Not Klingon, surely." Massive amounts of money had been spent by certain noble families, including the imperial praetor's, in the engineering of politically useful Romulan-Klingon crosses. But those offspring invariably bore the dominant crested forehead that was characteristic of the Klingon parent.
"Oh, no," said D'Aenar. "No, these are Romulan-Vulcan hybrids, conceived in vitro, every one of them without intervention." Then, evidently realizing that his casual assertion contravened some twenty centuries of accepted scientific wisdom, he fell silent.
Not possible ... But I knew better now. I thought briefly of Leonard McCoy, and of how I had dismissed his genetic theories as bizarre beyond belief. "Vulcan DNA isn't something you can requisition from a scientific supply house," I said evenly, as if the import of what he'd said had gone over my head. "How are you able to carry out these--these experiments? Is the genetic material cloned?"
"No, our research protocol doesn't permit it. If you'd like to view the cloning trials, though, I can take you to the fourth floor--"
"Then how do you obtain the DNA?" I asked, keeping my face and voice expressionless.
"The Romulan DNA is taken from volunteers on the homeworld," said Kerith. "Most of the donors are medical students. It would be inappropriate for researchers to provide genetic material for use in one of their own projects."
"How do you obtain the Vulcan DNA?" I persisted. "Surely not from volunteer donors."
The barb went unnoticed, or at least unresponded to. "It's sourced through the homeworld as well," she said quickly. "Would you care to visit our tissue-regeneration facilities, Commander? They're in the next building. We're making very substantial progress in smooth-muscle restoration techniques--"
I'd never met anyone quite so inept at avoiding a subject she didn't wish to discuss. "The children seem to be flourishing," I said, hoping she would think me satisfied with her answer.
"They are indeed," said D'Aenar. "Their Lorsan-Mal'thek scores are already quite impressive. Perhaps you'd like to meet one of them?"
In my fragile emotional state, meeting a Romulan-Vulcan hybrid child was the very last thing I wanted to do. And to judge from Kerith's expression, she was no more eager than I for any contact to be made. But D'Aenar was proud of his accomplishment, and before I could demur he was fetching a little girl from the nearest carrel and propelling her towards me.
"This child is called Saavik," he said.
* * *
In retrospect, it's easy to imagine that I saw something special in Saavik right from the start, something that set her apart from all the other intelligent and highly adaptive children in that room. But in fact she was simply the one whose carrel was closest to the researchers' cubicle, convenient empirical evidence--as if I needed any--of a bizarre theory that should have been rejected outright by any reputable scientist. In memory, I could hear McCoy's gruff voice: No material difference ... I'm not talking similar, I'm talking identical! There isn't any damned genetic drift! What would McCoy give, I wondered, for a look at this child, living vindication of his and Doctor M'Benga's hypothesis? Or, come to that, for a look at my own recent medical dossier?
"Saavik," D'Aenar said, "please welcome the commander on behalf of your groupmates."
"Amsetri tre, Khisan," Saavik said in a high, clear voice. "Your presence honors us." The greeting was phrased in the formal mode and delivered without a trace of shyness. Evidently this child was accustomed to being closely scrutinized by adults.
"Good morning, Saavik," I replied. "I am honored to be here." And then, on an impulse: "Ha'tha ti'iu, Saavikam."
"They don't speak Vulcan," Kerith said brusquely.
"What does that mean?" Saavik asked me, undeterred by the woman's disapproval.
"It means 'Good morning, Saavik' in the Vulcan language."
"But you said 'Sah-vee-kahm.' My name is Saavik." She articulated the last words very slowly and carefully, as if I might be somewhat less bright than she had first suspected.
"It's pronounced a little differently in Vulcan. And when adults speak to children in that language, they use a diminutive." At her puzzled look, I added: "That's a special syllable that goes at the end of your name. 'Saavikam.'"
"'Saavikam,'" Saavik repeated, mimicking my inflection perfectly. "Ha'tha ti'iu, Khisan," she said.
"'Ha'tha ti'iu, s'thora,'" I corrected. "S'thora is the Vulcan word for 'starship commander.' Nerien is 'first officer.' Ot'hlan is--well, 'centurion,' or something like it." I hoped she would be satisfied with those three examples; my Vulcan lexicon, virtually unused since my schooldays, was rudimentary at best. And I didn't want to dwell on the fact that in any language I was now s'thora in name only.
"How do you spell my name in Vulcan?" Saavik asked.
"Well ... the Vulcan alphabet is different from ours. So the letters that make up 'Saavikam' are different from the letters that make up 'Saavik.'" Inspiration struck suddenly; I reached into my pocket and unsealed the small warrant-pouch that had survived the shuttle crash intact. Ignoring Kerith's frown and D'Aenar's smile, I withdrew a few of the pyramidal solids Spock had given me to use as a meditation tool. "These are Vulcan letters," I said, "but they're very old. The modern ones are based on these."
Saavik took the little pyramids and studied them intently. "They are? Do you know how to write them?"
"Yes. I learned how to read and write them when I was a little older than you are now."
"Can I learn how to read and write them too?"
This interrogation was beginning to get out of hand. I could feel Kerith's tension; the sooner I terminated the conversation, the better for all of us--except, perhaps, Saavik, whose questions might or might not ever be answered. But before I could think of a way to extricate myself, D'Aenar intervened.
"Would you like to learn the Vulcan letters for your name, Saavik?" he asked.
Saavik, who had just expressed that very desire, regarded him tolerantly. "Yes," she said.
"This is a laboratory, not a lyceum," said Kerith, frowning at D'Aenar.
"It's true we don't offer enrichment," D'Aenar said, addressing me. "But given the demonstrated abilities of this group--" He turned to Kerith: "Second-language training could be made to fit within the music and mathematics assessment subprotocol. It might be worthwhile designing a small pilot project. We could even submit preliminary results by allocation time if we began immediately."
"How many languages are there?" Saavik's question was clearly directed at me.
"Why, there are several tens of common languages in the Empire," I said. "And in the rest of the quadrant, oh, maybe several hundreds more than that--"
"Then after I finish second-language training do I get to learn the third and fourth and all the rest?"
D'Aenar's eyes met mine over Saavik's head. "Not much gets by them," he said, smiling.
Kerith, however, had plainly had enough. "Bid our visitor farewell now, Saavik," she said in a tone that was the next thing to snappish, "and return to your carrel."
The child obeyed instantly. "Go safely, Commander," she said, reverting to the formal mode. "We are grateful for your visit." She tilted her head, as if about to ask another question. Then she held out the small pyramids on the palm of her hand.
"You may keep them for as long as you like, Saavik," I said. "Perhaps they'll help you learn your Vulcan letters."
She smiled at me, and though I had nothing in this world to smile about I couldn't stop myself from responding in kind. "When you come back," she said, "I'll say something to you in Vulcan."
* * *
It seemed unlikely that I would return to Kharsalen any time soon. My command was half a world away, on a defensive military base that also served as as a clearinghouse for the exporting of minerals mined by the indigenes and the importing of supplies from the homeworld. The workers at the Kharsalen science center, even those who were Fleet personnel, didn't report to me or anyone else on Hellguard: their orders came from Romulus, presumably straight from the praetor's palace.
I spent the next months--the months of Spock's exile on the plains of Gol--establishing order and discipline among the sullen but ultimately malleable wretches who passed for my troops. That task left me little time and strength to think of Kharsalen or Saavik or much of anything else. For that last small mercy I thanked the gods of Remus.
When things were finally running more or less smoothly, I ordered Tal to take a long-overdue personal leave. "You look awful," I informed him. "You eat most of your meals at your desk, and do you even sleep ten hours out of fifty?"
"Mend your own ways before criticizing those of others," he replied amiably. "You don't look very lively yourself, and I haven't noticed you making regular trips to the commissary."
"Why not accept Pallon's invitation and go to Kharsalen? She'll make sure you come back well rested. Or perhaps not."
I was rewarded with a scowl and a dark green flush that crept from his neck to the tips of his ears. Pallon and Tal had been corresponding ever since we'd left Kharsalen. So far Tal had declined her invitations to visit, and had issued none of his own. But no man could resist forever the blandishments of a beautiful woman. He just needed a little push.
"I'll go if you come with me," he said. "The break will do you good. First-rate food and billets, remember?"
"And leave all our layabouts and revolutionaries to their own devices? No, thank you. Pallon wouldn't thank you either. She doesn't want an uninvited guest." Besides, I had no particular desire to awaken memories of my first and only sojourn in Kharsalen.
"Medra will take care of things here. You've trained her well. No shipments are due for a tenday, and the mines won't reopen until the dust storms settle, if they ever do. She'll call if she needs us."
"You think Medra can handle the responsibility of administering nothing?" In fact, my second officer was one of a handful of Hellguard soldiers who actually showed a smidgen of promise.
"I know she can. And don't talk to me about Pallon. That beakerhead D'Aenar will make sure that no one but himself enjoys a moment of your company."
It was true that D'Aenar's messages to me had flowed in at approximately the same rate as Pallon's to Tal, but with a very different intent. For some reason D'Aenar had decided that I needed to be kept abreast of his progress in teaching second-language skills to his hybrid subjects. In Tal's opinion, that was nothing more than a lonely man's pathetic pretext for maintaining contact with a woman he was attracted to. But I could detect no trace of any romantic interest on D'Aenar's part. His genuine enthusiasm for his work shone through the scholarly jargon. And like everyone else on Hellguard, he was isolated from the social and intellectual life of Empire and homeworld: he only wanted an audience that didn't consist of his too-familiar colleagues.
* * *
As it happened, I couldn't resist the promise of two days of no stress and much sleep. Tal and I traveled together to Kharsalen. We parted at the shuttleport, and I settled myself into the billet organized for me by D'Aenar. The accommodations were a far cry from my own barracks: upholstered furniture, reliable temperature controls, a decent library of tapes and vids, and a working food dispenser. I wondered briefly what one might have to do to obtain a post at the science center.
D'Aenar came to escort me to his lab. Although he was pleased to see me, he didn't spare much time for the traditional courtesies; he was too full of news about his pilot project and the special research grant he'd managed to obtain. I missed a good deal of what he was saying, for linguistics theory is never couched in plain language. But it was clear that the five children who had been chosen for the project were performing far beyond anyone's expectations.
"It wasn't hard to persuade the review committee that our mandate covered this project," D'Aenar said. "This is just the kind of thing they like. It meets all their research parameters." I was on the verge of asking exactly what those parameters were when he opened a door and led me inside.
I recognized Saavik immediately. She was taller, of course, and her face had lost a little of its childlike roundness. But the wide intelligent eyes were the same, and so was the smile.
"Greet the commander, Saavik," D'Aenar said. "On behalf of your groupmates."
"Good morning, Commander," Saavik said in precisely inflected Vulcan.
"Good morning, Saavikam," I said, returning her smile.
Many years later, Selok, by then operating under deep cover on Vulcan and known as T'Pel, would finally manage to liberate and forward to the homeworld the secret mission logs of the Vulcans who had rescued the "abandoned" children of Hellguard. The landing party's accounts of barbarism, starvation, killings, and worse--at once clinically detached and sickeningly, obscenely graphic--seemed to have no connection with the children I'd seen at Kharsalen, who at that time, in that place, had appeared healthy and well cared for and, if their smiles were any indication, happy. Or so I told myself when I woke, crying and shaking, from recurrent nightmares filled with images too repellent, too unspeakable, to persist long in waking memory.
At the time, though, I had no premonition of what was to come. As any adult would do, I simply spoke to Saavik and the other children about their lessons and their interests. D'Aenar made it clear that we should converse in Vulcan; since my vocabulary and grammar were about at the level of a nine-year-old's, we got on rather well. By the time my visit ended, both Saavik and D'Aenar had extracted from me a promise that I would return soon.
* * *
And I did return, again and again, even when it was difficult or inconvenient to do so. The plain truth--veiled then, but so clear in retrospect--is that I was far more vulnerable than I believed myself to be, and therefore seriously lacking in judgment. The loss of Spock and our child was still a fresh, raw wound, its pain dulled only superficially by work and denial. Unsurprising, then, that in the dark-haired, dark-eyed, gravely attentive Saavik I saw a reflection of the daughter that Spock and I might have loved and raised together.
If Tal, who sometimes accompanied me to Kharsalen to visit Pallon, noticed that I was forming an attachment to the child, he said nothing. He teased me gently about D'Aenar, whose attentions never once exceeded the bounds of collegiality, but he didn't ask about my visits to Saavik.
What Saavik thought of me I never knew. She was always happy to see me, and always willing to talk for as long as I cared to stay with her. But she was surrounded by many other adults who paid careful attention to everything she said and did. That their interest was sparked by scientific curiosity rather than natural emotion seemed not to trouble her. Her affective ties were to the other children; they lived together in a dormitory-like environment and appeared to relate to one another much as biological siblings would.
I thought I could understand why the researchers might be interested in the emotional and intellectual development of children raised from conception outside a conventional social and family structure. What I couldn't grasp was the purpose of endowing those children with a genetic profile that was half-Vulcan. Where had the Vulcan genetic material come from? And what of the children's future? They couldn't stay on Hellguard forever, and if their origins were known they would never be accepted into Romulan society.
In the clarity of hindsight, those questions are pointless. The imperial praetor, along with his affinity for secrecy, had possessed that other defining characteristic of the Romulan mind: curiosity. In addition, he had public funds at his disposal and endless queues of people willing to help him spend it. Given all that, and given Romulans' enduring and conflicted obsession with Vulcans--a subject worthy of study in itself--it's not surprising that someone had eventually asked, What if? and then set about answering the question.
Leonard McCoy, who had accidentally stumbled upon the same truth that the scientists at Kharsalen had proved, had been beside himself with eagerness to publish the results of his tests. He had looked forward to overturning centuries of accepted scientific doctrine, and to poking his fingers in the Vulcans' eyes in the process. Damned equivocating Vulcans who couldn't say shit if they had a mouthful. No doubt the Kharsalen scientists shared both his sentiment and his disregard for the potential consequences of the revelation. But McCoy's paper never saw the light of day. And in the end Hellguard was regarded by the Federation as nothing more than further evidence, as if any were needed, of Romulan perfidy.
* * *
The end came unexpectedly. The rebel colonists arrived in multimodal ships that had been procured, I later learned, with far too little difficulty from the Orions. At first it looked as if they would be easily contained; long-range sensors tracked them early, and I had plenty of time in which to scramble flights of warp-capable fighter-interceptors. No one expected the rebels to take their offensive to realspace at all, much less immediately. But even as our fighters were dropping out of warp, the invaders--in smaller and more maneuverable ships--were strafing the ground and atmosphere with a primitive array of chemical weapons and incendiary particle bombs. Ignoring Kharsalen--why, no one could fathom--they concentrated on the planet's other two population centers and its only military targets: the mining base where I was stationed and a much smaller coastal base.
The shields around the military installations failed completely; it was almost as though command codes had been used to lower them, though no proof of that was ever found or even sought. And of course the enclaves of indigenous villages and marketplaces that surrounded the bases were destroyed virtually within minutes. Those indigenes not burnt to death in the villages were trapped in the mines and buried under tons of rubble in the quarries.
On the other side of the world, in Kharsalen, the seismographic data--routinely monitored and, for all the years of the colony's existence, routinely stable--took a sudden and ominous turn.
Kharsalen, with its sensors and transporters, its antigrav pylons and quakeproof superstructures, should have survived. And even if all the systems had failed, I still should have had time to get everyone to safety. But neither I nor my troops were where we were meant to be. We were streaking across the sector in pursuit of the raiders when news of the Kharsalen disaster reached us--delivered with a kind of distracted indifference by the same commander-general who'd sent us off to intercept and destroy the rebel ships.
My subsequent conversation with that senior officer should have been enough to earn me an appearance before a court-martial. Instead, it earned me a mild rebuke from High Command and the gratitude of the Kharsalen scientists' families. It earned my commander-general the right to swallow a capsule of poison.
One hundred two Romulan citizens and an undetermined number of indigenes were entombed beneath the pyroclastic flow. And with them two tens of Romulan-Vulcan children, whose strange, brief lives would never be recited or mourned, for there was no one left in Kharsalen--not Pallon, not Kerith, not D'Aenar or anyone else--to mark their passing.
I was the only one who would ever grieve for Saavik.
* * *
The story of Hellguard should have ended there. The scandal--and the suspicion--was of such proportions that the planet was swiftly interdicted in the hope that it would never be visited or even mentioned again. A string of sensor buoys was put in place, more for form's sake than function's: the planet was dead, after all, and no longer of interest to anyone.
No one, that is, except the salvors, those odd beings of all species who roamed interstellar space in rebuilt freighters and scavenged the leavings of others. Some three years after the colony was abandoned, they went to Hellguard and, as they later said, "slipped through a crack" in the grid. Perhaps they thought some equipment might still be intact, or that some valuable minerals might have been disgorged from the ground after the quakes and bombardment. Regardless, they set about their business. And while they were in low orbit preparing to beam down a few surveyor probes, they happened to detect some lifesigns--weak but viable--on the surface.
That information never reached the Romulan people. The Senate and the Fleet were deeply embroiled in old scandals and new rebellions, and the news that the late commander-general who had taken charge of the defense of Hellguard hadn't bothered to make a final check for lifesigns would simply have been too much. When the salvors sent an urgent message to the Romulan government, they were told that the matter would be dealt with. Then they were ordered to leave Hellguard straightaway, or face arrest and trial on charges that were left menacingly vague.
Like so much else connected with Hellguard, the discovery of survivors seemed fated to happen at a certain time and in a certain way. If the Fleet's entire senior staff council hadn't been closeted in an emergency strategy session, if my old friend Ranen Devor hadn't been in charge of Fleet deployment, if I hadn't arrived fifteen minutes early at his office to join him and his wife and daughter for a dinner engagement--
If, if, if. But there were no ifs that night. I was there. I heard the order issued from headquarters: Find out what's going on and take care of it! I demanded a scoutship and a crew. Devor, who was only too glad to be relieved of an awkward decision, agreed that I was the logical person to go. Less than five hours later I was on my way to Hellguard.
Five days after that, back on the homeworld, I took personal advantage of my diplomatic status and arranged to route a confidential message through an anonymous hub on a server in orbit around a neutral planet. I sent the message to the only person who stood a chance of acting swiftly upon the information contained therein: Sarek, the Vulcan ambassador to the United Federation of Planets.
The rest, as the Terrans are so fond of saying, is history.
© 1999, 2000 Kathleen Dailey. All rights reserved.