Taking Wing

by Michael A. Martin

  “Look, Will, you were the one who pushed for the inclusion of the mess hall, and you did so for all the right reasons. Chief among those reasons was that it would provide a social atmosphere on a ship that had not been designed with social interaction as one of its top priorities. But how can you expect the crew to develop an appropriate relationship with their captain if you won’t even eat with them?”

  “I’m just concerned about it looking wrong,” Riker said, sitting down next to Troi. “I don’t want Akaar, or anyone else, to accuse me of being too familiar with my staff.”

  Troi’s eyes widened as she released another puff of air. “I promise not to ask you to sleep with any crew members other than me, Captain.”

  “Very funny. You know perfectly well what I mean about propriety. Besides, I thought we were talking about socializing in the mess hall.”

  Troi softened her tone. “Maybe we are, maybe we aren’t. What’s this really about, Will? Akaar? You can’t allow his presence to undermine your command. He is on this ship for one mission, and one mission alone.”

  “Sure,” Will said, his expression sour. “It just happens to be my very first mission.”

  “True. But once it’s over, he’ll be gone and you’ll have to live and work with everyone else on board for all the other missions that will follow. By then you and the crew need to have done some. . . bonding.”

  “Bonding.”

  She hated to compare captains, but felt he still needed some convincing. “Remember how your life was on the Enterprise? On two Enterprises? You played poker. You drank in Ten-Forward. You played in your jazz ensemble, with subordinates. You were a friend to the entire crew—or at least friendly to all of them. Captain Picard was almost never that way.”

  He smiled at that. “No. But he mellowed over time.”

  “But only up to a point. His command style was always very cool and reserved. Nobody on board doubted his leadership, his competence, and his genuine concern for every member of the crew. But only those of us who were closest to him saw him as a friend. To everyone else, he was only their captain, however exceptional. And his style can’t be your style.”

  “But I was a first officer then, Deanna. Not a captain. I may have to put a bit more distance between myself and the crew than I’m used to.”

  She took his hands in hers, and looked into his eyes. “Do you, Imzadi? Are you prepared to sacrifice the unique command style you’ve spent your entire career cultivating? I don’t think so. If you were, you wouldn’t have left so many of your fingerprints all over this ship already.”

  He frowned. “Fingerprints?”

  “Oh, please. A shuttlecraft named after Louis Armstrong?”

  The frown melted, and flowed into an appreciative smile. His emotions felt like a rainstorm receding before a rising sun.

  “Be their friend and their captain,” she continued. “Give them a chance to be loyal, and give yourself a chance to earn their loyalty. And their friendship. Not just their respect.” She smiled back at him, then said, “Don’t wait seven years to join the poker game, Will.”

  He suddenly leaned in and kissed her, then pulled her into a close embrace. Thank you, he thought, and she heard it in her mind, and felt his love fueling the sentiment.

  After several minutes, they disentangled themselves. He smiled. “Let’s head for the mess. Deal the cards, and see what happens.”

  They stood and walked toward her office door. He stopped and caressed her hair. Earlier today, she had gotten the ship’s stylist to braid her luxuriant, reddish-brown mane into a dozen or so rows, twisting it into a single mass at the back. She felt that this style—which she had worn briefly during her recent honeymoon with Will on Pelagia’s Opal Sea—gave her a sleek look, while still allowing her to maintain a wholly professional demeanor.

  “We would have had to go anyhow,” he said. “If for no other reason than to show off your quite alluring new hairstyle.”

  Troi chuckled, then pushed her husband closer to the door. “Flatterer,” she said.

  Entering the corridor, they walked the twenty paces or so that separated Troi’s office from the mess hall. Before they could step inside, the doors slid open, and two engineers quickly exited and made their way quickly to the turbolift. Neither had acknowledged the captain’s presence, and both had looked nauseated.

  “Wonder what’s wrong,” he said.

  “Perhaps they ate something that didn’t agree with them,” Troi said, keenly aware that something had truly bothered the engineers. She gestured toward the buffet. “It certainly all looks good.”

  As they made their way over to the buffet, Troi saw that Will was making eye contact with everyone he could. Since this was his first meal there in two weeks, it made sense that most of the people present were surprised to see him. She was happy to note that several crew members were already feeling increased respect for their captain because of his appearance here.

  After serving themselves—she taking an Andorian tuber root salad with Betazoid oskoid fronds, he assembling something he described as an improvised Lycosan Reuben sandwich—they began looking about the room for seating. They saw several empty tables in one corner, although Akaar’s trio of Vulcan advisers was seated nearby. At another table only a little farther off, Dr. Ree squatted, his long, thick tail partially coiled beneath him, his chair pushed to the side to accommodate his long frame. His back was turned to everyone in the room.

  “Let’s sit with Dr. Ree,” Will said.

  Troi smiled, feeling a surge of triumph. Will had really warmed up to his CMO—as had many aboard Titan—though there were still some among the crew who remained almost viscerally troubled by his fearsome look.

  As they neared the table, Ree looked up at them, his nested double eyelids blinking in alternation, first vertically, then horizontally.

  “Mind if we join you, Doctor?” Will asked.

  “If you can stand the gruesome sight,” Ree said. As Will and Troi sat down, he added, “I seem to have scared a few of the more sensitive diners away.”

  “Nonsense,” Troi said, then cast her gaze onto the meal Ree was eating.

  On a large platter was a bloody pile of raw meat, still attached to a long, curved bone. Mottled, bile-colored gobbets of fat and gristle festooned the edges of his plate.

  “What is that you’re eating?” Will asked. Troi sensed no serious discomfort coming from Will; as a survivor of many a Klingon meal, very few things could turn his stomach.

  Ree gestured at his repast with a single long, sharp foreclaw. “Freshly-killed targ. The Klingons have been most hospitable in sharing their comestibles. I had to convince our chef that he should not cook it before serving it to me.”

  After lustily tearing off, chewing, and swallowing another large bite, Ree cocked his head to one side, then swiveled it to take in all the other faces in the mess hall. Troi did likewise.

  Though the people in the room were the products of perhaps a score of distinct worlds and cultures, they had achieved an unprecedented degree of emotional unanimity. Troi also noticed that most of them were looking in Ree’s direction.

  They were staring. Some were plainly horrified. But most were making a heroic effort not to let their revulsion show. Good. We’re making some real progress here.

  Ree looked back at Riker and Troi. “I believe that I shall finish this in my quarters later,” Ree said, standing. “Thank you for sitting with me.”

  Turning, Ree carried the platter of meat with him as he crossed the room and exited into the corridor. The room was utterly silent until the doors hissed closed behind him.

  Ree’s sadness hung in the room like a cloud of smoke. Clearly, he was becoming sensitive to those who had not succeeded in hiding their distaste.

  Maybe that constituted some sort of progress as well. Bridges, after all, had to be built on both sides of any biological or cultural divide.

  “Damn,” Will muttered.

  “What’s wrong?” Troi wanted to kno
w.

  “Looks like we picked this table for nothing,” he said, simultaneously radiating disappointment and mischief.

  “It’s all right, Will,” she said very quietly. “Integrating this crew is going to take work.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean at all.”

  She frowned, not at all sure where he was going. “Then what do you mean?”

  “Khegh didn’t serve targ tartare during the meal on his flagship. I was hoping Ree was going to leave a joint or two for me.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  * * *

  THE HALL OF STATE, KI BARATAN, ROMULUS

  The massive ruatinite-inlaid doors swung quickly inward, as though propelled by some implacable, irresistible force. The great doors crashed jarringly against the polished volcanic stone walls, casting a harsh echo throughout the praetor’s audience chamber.

  You will learn respect one day, Rehaek, Praetor Tal’Aura thought as two black-clad figures entered the wide doorway and resolutely approached her, their hnoiyika-leather boots clacking loudly on the gleaming black floor.

  Tomalak moved forward from Tal’Aura’s side to intercept the two interlopers.

  “Jolan’tru, Director Rehaek,” the proconsul said in even tones. “I do wish you had called ahead. We would have prepared some appropriate. . . hospitality for you.”

  Rehaek came to a stop less than a single dhat’drih from Tomalak, and perhaps only four times that distance from the praetor’s chair. The man who had entered beside Rehaek stopped obediently alongside his master, glowering at Tomalak with undisguised contempt. Rehaek’s vulpine features, however, bore an almost neutral expression that would not have looked out of place on a Vulcan.

  Until he favored both Tomalak and Tal’Aura with a singularly lubricious smile.

  Then the man who stood beside Rehaek spoke for his master, as though Rehaek himself did not wish to sully himself by directly addressing those he regarded as his inferiors. “Unnecessary, Proconsul,” said Torath, Rehaek’s adjutant, his hard gaze focused squarely upon Tomalak. “We did not wish to take up much of the praetor’s valuable time.”

  Tal’Aura had always particularly detested Torath, perhaps even more than she disliked and distrusted Rehaek himself. The proconsul’s obviously laborious effort at restraint made it apparent that Tomalak shared the praetor’s antipathy. Oddly, Tomalak and Torath looked enough alike to be first cousins, or perhaps even half siblings. Both were tall, pale, and broad in the shoulders, with thick black hair cut in a severe fashion that emphasized both men’s prominent brow ridges. Tal’Aura knew that they were of an age as well, each man rapidly nearing the midpoint of his second century. Perhaps their mutual enmity had arisen organically, cultivated by both of them over the last several decades. Or maybe it had materialized abruptly, the way Torath’s master had so suddenly appeared within—and had almost as quickly conquered—much of the Romulan Empire’s military intelligence apparatus.

  Of course, Tal’Aura thought with no small amount of bitterness, the destruction and disorder loosed by Shinzon no doubt helped you seize control of the Tal Shiar itself.

  She hated the fact that Shinzon’s unprecedented disruption of the Romulan political system had elevated someone as unworthy as Rehaek to such power and prominence. She hated that nearly as much as she loathed facing the unpleasant reality that her own claim to the praetorship had arisen from those selfsame catastrophic circumstances.

  As usual, thoughts of Shinzon threatened to send her into a tailspin of regret. Four years earlier when she’d served in the Senate, she had tried to have the surface of Goloroth laid waste before Shinzon and his savage Remans could escape into space with an all but omnipotent thalaron weapon in their possession. She had failed, and that failure had forced her into an unholy alliance with Shinzon during his recent brief tenure in the praetorship. While that alliance had allowed her to avoid being turned to thalaron ash along with the rest of the Senate, it had caused the weight of a crumbling Empire to settle squarely on her shoulders.

  If only those shapeless hhwai’il in the Gamma Quadrant had crushed the Tal Shiar a bit more thoroughly during that ill-conceived joint venture with the Obsidian Order eight years ago. Had that occurred, there might never have been a thalaron weapon for Shinzon and his barbarian hordes to steal.

  “Praetor?” Torath said sharply, shattering Tal’Aura’s almost penitent reverie.

  Not deigning to rise from her chair, Tal’Aura ignored Torath, instead locking her gaze with that of Rehaek. “Since you are so concerned with my schedule, Director Rehaek, allow me to help you expedite your business here. After all, I know well how very valuable your time is.”

  Rehaek made a perfunctory bow to Tal’Aura, coming perilously close to mocking the rituals and protocols that had surrounded the praetorship for centuries. Those rituals and protocols had, sadly, fallen increasingly into disuse during the five years that had passed since the craven assassination of Emperor Shiarkiek.

  “Then I shall be brief, my Praetor,” Rehaek said. “I have come because I know you are about to conduct a. . . private preliminary meeting with Starfleet personnel, Romulan military leaders, and former Senator Pardek.”

  Tal’Aura was not the least bit surprised by the extent of the young Tal Shiar director’s knowledge of her plans. Indeed, she would have been nonplussed had he failed to catch wind of it. “I suppose it won’t be such a private gathering after all, then.”

  His smile broadened, though his eyes retained the patient intensity of a mountain sseikea that had scented its prey and hungrily awaited an opportunity to strike. It was no wonder he’d succeeded in outmaneuvering and disposing of Koval, his ailing predecessor.

  “That is entirely up to you, my Praetor,” Rehaek said. “I merely wish to assist all parties concerned in achieving a mutually acceptable. . . political understanding. One that we can all build upon for the future—and that will ensure that the Empire will even have a future.”

  Tal’Aura nodded. From the moment he had entered the chamber, she’d expected something like this. “That is a generous offer indeed, Director. But I presume that it does not come without a steep price.”

  “Your many decades on the Senate Intelligence Committee were well spent, my Praetor. However, my price is hardly what I would call ‘steep.’ ”

  She was beginning to grow weary of Rehaek’s circumlocutions. “Speak plainly. What exactly is it you want?” She saw that her blunt tone had garnered a glare from the insufferable Torath. She ignored it, and continued to focus her concentration on the Tal Shiar leader’s sharp gaze.

  “I wish only to forge a mutually cooperative relationship with you, my Praetor, and your regime. Openly, and in public. I am certain I can help you moderate the aggressive predilections of Pardek’s faction, as well as those of the unruly elements within the military. You know that Pardek would attack Earth and the Federation, had he the opportunity. Commander Suran might even be inclined to provide him with the military support he requires.”

  Pardek, Tal’Aura thought ruefully. Such a sad, bitter man. She had always believed that the machinations of Koval, Rehaek’s immediate predecessor as Tal Shiar director, deserved the blame for Pardek’s rage at least as much as did the Federation’s spies.

  Tal’Aura nodded in bleak acknowledgment of Rehaek’s assessment. She considered what a disaster another rogue Romulan attack against Earth would be, so soon after Shinzon had tried to destroy that planet. Such a thing could well seal the doom of an Empire that was already well on its way to tearing itself asunder.

  Aloud, she said, “But why would you support my praetorship in such an overt manner? After all, you have never been. . . appropriately deferential to the office of the praetor.”

  “I have always had only the highest esteem for the office, my Praetor.”

  Tomalak reacted to that insult by taking a single angry step toward Rehaek. Tal’Aura instantly halted the proconsul with a sharp command and a frosty glare. There was nothing to be gained by
allowing the current face of Tal Shiar treachery and terror to goad her. Despite the throne she now occupied and the resources she now controlled, she knew that her position was far too tenuous to risk tempting the fates. Besides, she wasn’t at all certain that Tomalak would survive an encounter with Torath. Tomalak was too valuable to her praetorship to place him at risk. At least for now.

  Despite the still-incensed proximity of Tomalak, Rehaek didn’t flinch. Nor did he need to use more than a glance to restrain Torath’s evident desire to take some aggressive action of his own against the proconsul.

  Rehaek looked to Tal’Aura, as though the other two men no longer even existed. “Surely, my Praetor, you can appreciate the grave danger that Pardek’s faction poses to the Empire.”

  After a pause she smiled, having come to a realization. “Yes. And I don’t imagine a hard-liner war against the Federation would be good for you, either, Director.” There is such a thing as too much chaos. Even for one who often depends upon it to keep his adversaries confused in order to maintain his own power and position.

  The spymaster nodded. “Then we understand each other well, my Praetor.”

  “I understand that you need me, Director Rehaek. Perhaps more than I need you.” Triumph surged within her breast, as it rarely ever did in the presence of senior Tal Shiar officials. He feels the need to flex his muscle visibly, right in front of the leaders of the other factions. Perhaps he thinks they are losing their ingrained fear of the Tal Shiar. He needs to demonstrate the length of his reach. And that the Tal Shiar still wields power to be reckoned with, Koval or no Koval.

  “I wish to help you contain the threat that Pardek represents, my Praetor,” Rehaek said, not rising to her jab. “And I think you’ll agree that the intelligence support I can provide will be invaluable to you in maintaining your. . .authority.”