Serpents Among the Ruins

by David R. George III

  “I loved him too,” he said, his voice now a whisper. He moved forward, back into his friend’s embrace. He hugged her for a long time, holding tightly to what he had not lost.

  Epilogue: Designs

  Elias Vaughn gazed through the viewing port in the conference room, his eyes drawn to the line of shimmering objects that had once been Algeron III. Though strikingly beautiful, the polychromatic fragments, born of a devastated world, reminded him of Foxtrot Sector, its thirteen asteroids smashed into oblivion. And like one domino toppling another, the memory of Foxtrot Sector forced him to recall that last moment with Renka Linavil. Two months afterward, Vaughn could still feel her flesh yield as he thrust the knife into her body.

  Behind him, he heard the murmur of excited conversation as people arrived in the conference room. In his mind, though, he heard the flat thud that the subcommander’s body had made when it had fallen, lifeless, to the deck. He automatically tried to bury the memory, but then fought the instinct, knowing that he had to deal with this in order to overcome it.

  Vaughn turned and scanned the room. Commander Gravenor and Captain Harriman talked with each other over in a corner, he saw; Vaughn and the commander had assumed their roles as envoys again, and the captain had been invited to the treaty signing by Federation Ambassador Paulo Endara. In addition to Endara, Vaughn recognized several of the dignitaries present—including Ambassador Kage, General Kaarg, and Senator Vorex Ontken—as well as a couple of the functionaries who’d recently begun to appear in intelligence briefs—Merken Vreenak and Ditagh.

  It had been in such a brief, one from six years ago, that Vaughn had learned the name of the woman he had killed aboard Tomed. After returning from the mission, he had found numerous reasons to review old intel, refusing to admit to himself his true motivation. The tagged photograph he had located had originally arrived at special ops from an Yridian operative, from images captured at a military summit. Younger, and with her face not contorted by rage, Linavil cut an attractive figure.

  From there, Vaughn had sought other information about her. More recent intelligence had revealed that she had been instrumental in promoting and then carrying out the occupation of the Koltaari, and that, like Vokar, she had favored war with the Federation. But he had also learned that Linavil had graduated at the top of her class from the prestigious R’Mala Military Academy, that she had competed and placed in voraant competitions on Romulus, and that she had a sister and niece living on Terix II. When he had discovered that her parents had died a decade ago, he’d been pleased to know that they would not experience the misery of dealing with their eldest daughter’s death, or at least with her disappearance.

  It had been at that point, when Vaughn had practically rejoiced that Linavil’s parents were no longer alive, that he’d realized his emotional state had veered significantly off course. He had gone to Commander Gravenor, asking to be relieved of his field duties, but she’d encouraged him instead to see one of the counselors assigned to special ops. Vaughn had agreed, and in the month since then, he had grown more able to cope with having taken a life, and even with the likelihood of having to do so again. He no longer obsessed over finding out the details of Renka Linavil’s life, but tried to bear in mind the wrongs that she had wrought in the universe. Vaughn would have preferred to have brought her to justice—rather than having killed her—for whatever crimes she had committed, but naïve as it might be, he still believed in doing battle against evil.

  What remained most troublesome now were the visceral memories of the confrontation: the sound Linavil’s flesh had made when he’d torn off the tip of her ear, the resistance to the knife entering her body, the heat of her blood on his hands. Vaughn knew that he could overcome his fixation on these terrible recollections, and the distress they caused him. But he also knew that it would take time for that to happen—far longer than it had taken for his physical injuries to be treated and to mend.

  “Elias,” somebody said, and Vaughn looked to his left to see Captain Harriman approaching.

  “Captain,” Vaughn said, and he clasped Harriman’s outstretched hand.

  “John, please,” Harriman said.

  “John.”

  “It’s good to see you again,” Harriman said. They had not seen each other since their return to Space Station KR-3 from Algeron almost two months ago—and since the captain’s father had died, the result of the injuries the admiral had sustained aboard Ad Astra. Vaughn considered the unexpected death of the elder Harriman a tragedy, particularly for the captain.

  “It’s good to see you,” Vaughn said. They could say nothing more right now, and they didn’t have to. The captain turned and headed toward the Federation ambassador.

  On the other side of the room, the door slid open and Romulan Ambassador Gell Kamemor entered. Vaughn took note of her purposeful stride, several black, hardbound folios clutched to her breast. She made her way around the conference table, to the empty chair at its center. Her aides seated on either side of her, Kamemor stood there rigidly, waiting, her demeanor not what Vaughn would have expected for such a momentous occasion as a treaty signing.

  By degrees, conversation stopped. Silence settled in the room, and all eyes turned toward the Romulan ambassador. Vaughn watched as several smiles faded, clearly indicating that he had not been the only one to notice Kamemor’s bleak mien.

  “May we begin?” she said flatly. Her words might have formed a question, but there seemed little choice in the answer. As though previously choreographed, people gravitated toward their places. The Romulan aides seated at the table, along with one of Endara’s staff, rose and moved to chairs ringing the room; the other aides and staff members and minor officials—including Gravenor and Vaughn himself—retreated to the perimeter as well. At the table sat Ambassador Endara and Captain Harriman, Ambassador Kage and General Kaarg, and Senator Ontken. Ambassador Kamemor continued to stand.

  When everybody had stilled, Kamemor reached forward and set the top folio in the center of the table. Even from his vantage at the side of the room, the volume seemed to Vaughn to have some weight to it, measuring at least a couple of centimeters thick. “This,” Kamemor said without inflection, “is the trilateral treaty document negotiated for many months, and finalized in the past two.” Vaughn saw stealthy smiles blossom around the room. An accord to which the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Empire were all signatories would be historic.

  If, Vaughn thought. If. He perceived some quality, some…restraint?…in the Romulan ambassador that made him think that this conference would not proceed as originally intended by all involved—including Gell Kamemor. The ambassador confirmed Vaughn’s suspicions with her next sentence.

  “The Romulan Star Empire will not sign it,” she said.

  Where there had first been conversations, and then smiles, there now came the mutter of confusion. Even Ontken, a member of the Romulan Senate, peered up at Kamemor bewilderedly. “Ambassador, I don’t understand,” he said. “The Senate voted to authorize the praetor to—”

  “The praetor contacted me early this morning,” she said. Vaughn found it surprising that a woman so skilled in the means of diplomacy would interrupt a Senator, especially in front of others. It reinforced his observations that things were not right. “The praetor expressed to me his absolute condemnation of the attack on the United Federation of Planets perpetrated by Aventeer Vokar. An order for the arrest and trial of the admiral, should he still be alive, has been issued throughout the Empire, and the praetor is considering trying him in absentia.”

  “And for that reason,” Ambassador Endara asked, confused, “you won’t sign the treaty?”

  “Yes,” Kamemor said. “The praetor feels that, because of the odious acts driven by one man and committed by him and his associates, the Empire has been asked to concede too much, and has also been willing to concede too much.”

  Slowly, as though trying to contain his emotions, Ambassador Endara rose from his chair, his hands on
the edge of the table. “After the tremendous efforts that we’ve all put in—that you’ve put in, Gell—the praetor is going to undermine the peace process because the Federation and the Klingon Empire think that what Vokar did was wrong?” His words climbed in volume as he spoke, his agitation plain. Seated beside him, Vaughn saw, Captain Harriman maintained a stoic expression.

  “No,” Kamemor said, “the praetor is not going to undermine peace.” She set down on the table the other folios she carried, all three of them the same size, and with not nearly as many pages as the first volume she’d set down. She lifted the top folio from the pile and handed it across the table to Ambassador Kage, then picked up the second and walked it down to the end of the table and gave it to Endara. As she returned to stand in front of her chair, she said, “This is a revised version of the treaty, greatly simplified.”

  Endara opened the folio and began paging through it, his gaze moving swiftly over its few pages. The Klingon ambassador placed his copy on the table in front of him without opening it. “Pardon me,” Kage said, “but it is not reasonable to expect us to begin negotiating a new agreement after we have already finalized a previous one.”

  “By order of the praetor,” Kamemor said, “Romulus will no longer negotiate. What is contained in these documents are the only terms to which we will agree. They can be amended in no way. They must be signed and ratified within ten days.”

  “Or?” Endara asked, looking up from his copy of the treaty.

  “Or there will be no accord,” Kamemor said. Vaughn did not think that she necessarily agreed with what she had been ordered to do and say.

  “Allowing ten days for full consideration by the Federation Council is unrealistic,” Endara said, now seeming resigned that there would be no treaty signed today.

  “Even the Klingon High Council requires some time to battle their way to concurrence,” Kage added.

  “The terms of the treaty are simple enough to warrant agreement within the prescribed time frame,” Kamemor said, apparently not willing—or not permitted—to cooperate in any way. “The Neutral Zone currently established between the Romulan Star Empire and the Klingon Empire will be reaffirmed, and any violation whatsoever of the Zone will be deemed an act of war. The identical reaffirmation of our borders will occur with the Federation. Finally, the Federation will agree to ban the research and development of cloaking technology in exchange for the Empire leaving the world of the Koltaari.”

  And there it is, Vaughn thought: the final result of Captain Harriman’s plan. The failed trial of Universe’s so-called hyperwarp drive had been intended to draw the Romulans’ disapprobation, and a concomitant accusation that the Federation was seeking a first-strike capability through the development of a vastly improved engine system. That, in turn, would force the Klingon chancellor to move toward choosing an allegiance.

  Although the Romulans had believed the destruction of Universe to be due to the testing of a metaweapon and not a drive system, the outcome had been the same. Starfleet had handed over the hyperwarp specifications to both the Romulans and the Klingons in order to demonstrate that the Federation did not possess a first-strike capability, if for no other reason than that hyperwarp did not work. The “development” of the “new” drive had merely been the introduction of cloaking technology into the field configuration of a transwarp engine.

  And transwarp was simply a failed technology of the past.

  Hyperwarp would never work. But the Romulans would note the Federation use of cloaking technology, and they would want to stop it in order to maintain that particular military advantage. It would not matter that Starfleet had always declared its aversion to the use of cloaking devices, because the Romulans had never believed that. And so when it came time to negotiate a treaty, the Federation would be able to give up what it never had and never wanted, placating the Romulans and getting something from them in return—in this case, the freedom of the Koltaari.

  “If the treaty is signed and ratified within ten days by both the Klingons and the Federation,” Kamemor continued, and then she paused, and it seemed obvious to Vaughn that she did not like the orders she had been given. “If the treaty is signed and ratified, then we will withdraw.”

  Nobody responded for several seconds, and then Ambassador Endara said, “‘Withdraw’?”

  “We will close our borders,” Kamemor declared.

  Endara paged through the treaty again. “That does not seem to be in here,” he said.

  “It is not,” Kamemor said, “because we of course wish to control our own space. But the praetor has chosen this direction, and he has the support of a majority of the Senate.” From Senator Ontken’s raised eyebrow, it seemed to Vaughn that he was likely not among that majority.

  “Ambassador,” Endara said, “we do not seek to isolate Romulus. We would choose peace. We would choose friendship.”

  “You will have one of those,” Kamemor said. “It is for you to decide if it is enough.” She leaned forward and reached for her copy of the treaty. She paged to its end, then pulled a writing implement from her sleeve and signed the document. “I have already signed your copies,” she told Kage and Endara. Then she hurried around the table, headed for the door. “N’Mest, Vreenak,” she said along the way, and her two aides followed her out.

  In her wake, Kamemor left shock and uncertainty. But as much as what Ambassador Endara had said was true—that the Federation did seek friendship with the Romulans—Vaughn knew that the treaty would be signed, and that there would be peace.

  And that, he knew, was something that he could definitely live with.

  Chancellor Azetbur emerged from her private study into the large main room of her office. She skirted the dais situated just outside the door, and upon which sat the great chair that she occasionally used to receive official guests. Overlooking the conference table in the center of the room, the old throne had been passed down through a long line of chancellors, who had draped its wide back with various trinkets: a gold ceremonial sash, a scabbard, an ornamental chain, and other personal items. No matter where she stood in her office, her eyes always seemed drawn to a silver medallion her father had for years worn.

  As she came out from behind the dais, Azetbur noted the chill in the room. A cold snap, unexpected at this time of year, had enveloped the city as the sun had set. The wintery air invigorated her, though it had grown too frosty now even for her tastes, her breath puffing out in front of her in a pale cloud. Rinla, her assistant, had already closed the dozen tall, peaked windows in the outer wall, she saw.

  A hammering sound, three loud knocks, filled the room, the noise echoing off of the stone blocks of the walls. Azetbur looked to the timepiece standing beside the great chair and saw that her visitor had arrived late. She presumed the disrespect to be deliberate. How could she have believed otherwise of this man who wanted her dead, who might even have requested this meeting to in some way further that end?

  With calm and deliberate movements, Azetbur stepped up onto the dais, turned, and assumed her place on the great chair, various of the mementos there rattling as she sat. She waited until the knocks came again. “Enter,” she called.

  The doors to her office opened, each of the pair of floor-to-ceiling panels pushed inward by a guard. Kaarg’s officers, she thought. She had taken his point about the uncertain trustworthiness of the members of Klingon Internal Security who normally protected the Great Hall and the chancellor. For now, Azetbur had reassigned those officers elsewhere.

  General Gorak walked forward into the room, his strapping form impressive in his military uniform. As he advanced toward Azetbur, she saw a sheathed ritual sword lashed to his side, as well as a horde of medals adorning his chest plate. Her right hand found and gripped the top of her walking stick, which leaned against the side of the throne; it galled her to be in the presence of a man considered a hero of the Empire, but who she knew wanted to betray her. She did not fear him, especially not at this moment, with Kaarg’s office
rs just outside; Gorak had kept his designs in the shadows, demonstrating his cowardice, no matter his military record. He would not act against her right now with reprisal just beyond the doors—although Azetbur had not been averse to the other precaution that Kaarg had suggested.

  But while she did not fear Gorak, she had tired of his continual, concealed threat. When Kaarg had informed her of the traitor’s request for a meeting, she had concurred with his counsel to grant that request, in the hope that she could learn more of Gorak’s intentions. With the Romulan menace sufficiently defused, and relations with the Federation stabilized, she wanted to focus now on securing her position and addressing domestic issues.

  Azetbur waited for the general to stop in front of her before she spoke. “Gorak,” she said, choosing to deliver the minor dishonor of omitting his rank.

  “Chancellor,” the general said, his breath blowing out in front of his face in gray wisps. Then he actually bowed his head. His fraudulence turned her stomach. She had to defy the urge to heft her walking stick and pound his head with it.

  “You appear…rested, General,” she said, an oblique reference to the month of peace they’d experienced since the Romulans had pulled back into their space and closed their borders. She did not know how long that would last, of course, but she had begun lobbying the High Council to begin applying Klingon resources elsewhere than at the edge of Romulan space. Gorak had publicly supported such a shift in policy, but Kaarg had informed her that such was not the case in private.

  “I am rested,” he said readily, not appearing to perceive her veiled insult.

  No one can be insulted less, her father used to tell her, than those who deserve insult most. “Your wing departs Qo’noS tomorrow,” Azetbur said, her voice rising at the end, not as a question, but to invite comment. She typically did not track the movements of the Klingon Defense Force closely enough to know where individual officers would be—not in peacetime, anyway. Gorak would know that, and so her awareness of his coming assignment would send him a message that she was watching him carefully.