Tuvok shared her concern. “The Breen are not among the invitees.”
“I’m perfectly ready for shenanigans,” Riker said, “and from what I understand, our partners among the Klingons, Cardassians, and Ferengi will be on the lookout, too. Transport inhibitors aside, Christine’s already said Ranul Keru is planning sixteen ways to get me out of this place should trouble arise. And as far as the Breen being absent goes, would you really want the Breen anyplace you expected to sit down and talk for hours on end?”
More laughter. The Breen spoke in purposefully untranslatable squawks and had seldom been much of a presence at the negotiating table.
“I see both the threats, and the opportunity,” Tuvok said. “It is right to attend.”
“The Federation Council agrees,” Riker said. “And if it doesn’t amount to anything, we’re back to the regularly scheduled exploration mission. Out to the Genovous Pulsar, I believe it was.” He thumped the table surface once. “That’s everything. Dismissed.”
Everyone began to rise. Troi looked to him. “You really should rest a little before you go.”
He nodded. “And maybe I should eat. No idea what kind of cuisine they’ll be serving over—”
A high beep sounded. “Admiral, we have arrived at the nebula. Station is on our scanners. Other vessels are already here.”
Vale’s eyes narrowed. She spoke to the air. “Affiliation?”
“Klingon, Ferengi, Cardassian, and Tzenkethi. One vessel each,” Ensign Lavena reported. “They are sending shuttles to dock with the station. We haven’t seen the Gorn vessel, but its shuttle is here.”
“The Romulans and Tholians have not yet arrived,” Tuvok said.
“Fashionably late.” Riker smiled wanly. “Well, everyone’s playing by the rules so far.” He shot his wife an expression he knew she was familiar with: Here goes nothing.
Four
ROMULAN FRIGATE ACCIPITER
THE PAULSON NEBULA
Wearing his finest senatorial robe, Bretorius made his dignified walk onto the bridge of the diplomatic vessel. It was a small space, dimly lit; the eyes of the crew were on their work, not him. That was as it should be. Diligence came before fealty.
But now, the balding Romulan thought as he approached the seat beside his young and beautiful aide, it was time that they heard from their important passenger. He had always thrilled to that as a cadet in the Imperial Fleet. It made people feel valued, like an important part of things, when those in power deigned to speak with them.
He reached the command well and turned. Facing the others, he raised his hands. “Crew of the R.I.S. Accipiter,” he declared, “you are present for a most important occasion. The Khitomer powers have seen our superiority and sued for peace with the Typhon Pact. And so, I, Senator Bretorius, have been chosen to attend the summit. Now, the differences between our peoples are many, and the odds against resolution are great—”
“This is a complete waste of time—which is why he was selected for it,” muttered his dark-haired aide.
“Nerla,” he quietly chided, nervous eyes to the side. “Not so loud.”
Nerla grumbled something unintelligible. The senator continued. “The messages we and our allies received from the various powers came as a surprise. We must be on the lookout for deception.” He put his hand to his chest solemnly. “And since only one representative from each great power is permitted, the praetor felt that I would be the one most likely to be able to see through any ruse.”
“Or the one least likely to be missed if they blow the whole place up,” Nerla said.
Bretorius looked back at his dark-eyed assistant and hissed in anger. “I am a senator of the Romulan Star Empire, and I am owed respect!”
“And my family scrapes the scum off of mollusk collector drones for a living,” Nerla said, leaning back in her chair. “And I have a better sense of how to do your job than you do!”
Looking back and seeing none of the bridge crew was really listening anyway, Bretorius gave up and sat down beside Nerla. Lowering his voice, he appealed to her. “Nerla, this is a big assignment—I need to make a good impression. I know I’ve had some difficulties, but things are about to improve, I assure you—”
“That’s what you told me back on Beraldak Bay when you offered me the job—back when I was waiting your table. And may I say: it has been no seaside holiday!” Crossing her arms, the young woman looked around the glum shuttle. “Here I am, thinking I’m signing on for the big time as your attaché. Power meetings, the high life. Yet out of a hundred politicos that vacation there, I pick the one senator who’s never been invited to as much as a senatorial luncheon!”
Defensive, Bretorius put up his hand. “I told you, I had some problems with the cook staff a few years ago. But that’s all forgotten. I simply have to grease the right palms to get my dining privileges back, and then we can—”
“Another promise. What about that house you promised me? The one down on the beach?”
“The vacation home? My wife’s brother is staying there. Just for a while.”
“The while that never ends. And what about those luxury apartments we were supposed to have across from the capital? Are your sisters-in-law still using them for their revels?” She pointed her finger at him. “I’ll tell you, Senator, if you renege on one more thing, the Tal Shiar won’t be able to hide you from me.”
At the mention of the dreaded Romulan intelligence agency, Bretorius turned away to face the viewport and clasped his hands together in thought. Nerla was right, as always. About his prospects, yes, but also about the mission. The Empire could have sent anyone to this so-called Summit of Eight: they’d sent Bretorius precisely because he wasn’t anyone.
A good politician always knew which way the winds were blowing: a better politician made the weather himself. Bretorius had been caught in the doldrums for years, and he was completely out of breath trying to make something happen. Something good, anyway.
Other senators paid biographers to write glowing accounts of their careers. Bretorius had hired three so far, each of which had given up after a few months, claiming nothing could be done to make the former warbird commander’s life appealing. Bretorius suspected two of the writers would have quit sooner if they weren’t having affairs with his wife.
The early chapters were never the problem. He had come from a line of honored warriors, several of whom had served in the senate. It was only natural to expect that Bretorius, too, would amount to something. His mother had pushed him into an arranged marriage and the Imperial Fleet on consecutive days, figuring that even a mediocre individual with his family name could advance.
Unfortunately, Bretorius had found mediocrity too high a bar. He had advanced in the fleet the old-fashioned way: he’d stuck around so long they had to give him a command, or muster him out. He’d commanded a vessel that had managed to miss every major engagement the Romulan Star Empire had participated in during his tenure. The critical battle of the Dominion War was waged without Bretorius’s ship, when his entire crew came down with food poisoning after an ill-advised prebattle celebration. And during the time that Shinzon was courting allies in the Imperial Fleet for his eventual coup, Bretorius was never contacted once. It wasn’t that Bretorius wanted to overthrow the government, but it would’ve been nice to have been asked. What did it take to be invited into a secret cabal?
He had always been at the wrong place at the wrong time—but he’d never cost the Empire enough at any one moment to make anyone care, and so Bretorius had always slipped past. He was the man with that famous name, a placeholder for a family that had known greater glory. His appointment to senator, six years earlier, was the essence of a compromise: battling factions reconstituting the Romulan senate had arrived at a deadlock and needed a compromise candidate no one would object to.
He’d thought that an opportunity at the time, figuring people on all sides would be trying to court his favor. His instincts were wrong again. Every time Bretorius took a half
-step in any faction’s direction—even to cast a vote—he instantly lost whatever committee post he had. He wasn’t supposed to figure in the electoral math. It was hard to have visions of becoming praetor or proconsul when one was the junior senator on the committee for public works maintenance.
Even his hopes of financial gain had been thwarted. Where the other officials were on the receiving end of bribes aplenty, Bretorius had never been very good at asking for them. He’d always ended up paying somehow. And while he’d been pushed to marry for money, it wasn’t long before he discovered his wife’s fortune was more of a phantom than his was. Yet instead of doing him the favor of divorce, she had heaped one indignity after another upon him, carrying on with whichever artist or musician was in fashion. Bretorius figured he had personally funded half the unfinished sculptures in the capital city of Ki Baratan.
And the less he thought about his sponging in-laws, the better.
He looked back at Nerla. She was half his age and had twice the sense of anyone in his wife’s family. She could be a powerful spouse, a cunning partner in politics. It was partially why he had offered her a job. But she hadn’t shown an interest in him as a mentor or anything else in a long time, and now she was leaning against her armrest, idly counting the malfunctioning lights on the control panels of the battered Lanora-class vessel. His stomach began to hurt, and he struggled to find something to say. He had to do something to improve his station—both in the political world and with Nerla.
Why was she being so openly derisive? Why now?
Without looking back at him, she somehow felt his stare. “What?” she asked, exasperated.
“You know something, don’t you?” He looked around the room, making sure no one else was listening. “The Proconsul’s going to have me replaced when I return.”
“You’re the last to know, as always,” Nerla said. “Your seat’s a valuable commodity to all the factions. Just not with you in it. Not anymore.”
Bretorius shook his head. “I have to do something. Something that would prove my worth to them.”
Nerla looked back at him, incredulous. “Bret—you can’t really think that, can you?” She counted off his flaws on her fingertips. “You’re the least assertive, least imaginative, most predictable person ever to set foot in the senate chamber. They are not expecting you to come back with a full surrender from the Federation, with Klingons carrying your luggage. They’re sending you on a fool’s errand for a week while they change the name on your office door.”
Bretorius frowned. “There’s still time. I can change that.”
She stared at him. “Oh yeah? Show me.” Then she turned away.
Bretorius watched her for a moment—and then turned back to face the window. There, outside the viewport, was the strange drumlike station named in the invitation as the Far Embassy. Far from Romulus, certainly. There were Federation elements to the design—or were they Ferengi? He’d never been any good at recognizing that sort of thing.
He just knew that that place held his last chance. And if it was in there, he was going to grab it. He would show Nerla—and everyone else.
Five
FAR EMBASSY
PAULSON NEBULA
The thing about peace negotiations, Riker thought, is that they can be held just about anywhere. He had attended several held in great capitals and lavish retreats; those had always seemed discordant to him, given how removed they were from the pain and squalor of the battlefield. Truce sessions held directly on the plain of battle lacked for amenities and promises of personal safety, but they felt a lot more honest.
The Summit of Eight, meanwhile, had looked for a moment as if it might be the first interstellar peace meeting held inside a piece of luggage. That was how cramped he’d felt in the airlock after exiting his shuttle. While the Federation portal was designed specifically for a bipedal humanoid as Ra-Havreii’s reconnaissance imagery suggested, it was sized to admit exactly one inside.
And once the door had shut behind him, he’d realized the pressurized compartment wasn’t actually an airlock, but a turbolift car of sorts. He’d felt motion, jerky at first but soon smoothing out—a pneumatic tube to . . . somewhere. Titan’s sensors had been unable to penetrate the interior of the station, and seeing the Far Embassy up close hadn’t even given Ra-Havreii and his specialists many clues as to which faction had built the place. There was evidently a betting pool in engineering as to the answer: Tzenkethi manufacture was the favorite at three to one.
Emerging from the cramped compartment, Riker didn’t know if he’d be able to make any bettors happy. The wide domed atrium was completely featureless save for seven other portals lining its circumference. Ambience-free, but at least the air was cool and circulating.
Riker tapped his combadge. “I’m inside,” he said. Vale acknowledged. That was exactly all he was allowed to transmit under the protocols he’d received. There wasn’t much else to say, anyway. He couldn’t tell where the light in the place was coming from, but there was plenty of it. Enough that he could see several other arrivals milling around.
A golden-skinned Tzenkethi stood against the wall at the far opposite site, her wide oval eyes darting from doorway to doorway. A reptilian Gorn was stalking about, apparently trying to take the lay of the land: since there was nothing at all to see here, Riker hadn’t the slightest idea what the green-skinned female was looking for. He looked up uncomfortably. This had better not be a damned gladiatorial arena, he thought.
And off to the left in a gaggle, Riker recognized the other leaders of the Khitomer signatory powers from his Federation briefing. There was Charlak, the Klingon general: she had been recently demoted by the Defense Forces for having broken the nose of a member of the Council who had denied her a promotion. No peacemaker, she—and the giant woman looked none too pleased to be here. Riker decided to give her a wide berth.
She was ranting about something to Igel, a DaiMon of the Ferengi Alliance. According to Riker’s notes, the Ferengi was so thoroughly old-school that he was still obsessed with his finances. He had reportedly sold the dilithium crystals out of his own starship once to cover a margin call on the Ferengi Futures Exchange. Never mind that he had left his crew stranded for three weeks: Igel had priorities.
Finally, there was Gul Rodrek, who may well have been the oldest Cardassian he’d ever seen. Rodrek had some experience with diplomacy that Riker was aware of: during the discussion of the Federation-Cardassian treaty of 2370, he had demonstrated that his people were not to be trifled with by staging and winning drinking contests—some unopposed.
How Rodrek kept his job under Castellan Garak was a mystery; it frankly didn’t matter to Riker. The leaders of the Federation’s allies were certainly showing their faith in the proceedings by the people they’d sent.
“Ah, the United Federation of Planets,” Charlak snarled. “How kind to grace us with your presence.”
Riker shrugged and stepped forward. There wasn’t much chance of blending into the woodwork when there wasn’t any woodwork—and if he couldn’t talk to the Federation’s ostensible friends, he wasn’t going to get far with its adversaries.
He bowed, and Charlak responded with a Klingon salute. “It’s three against two,” she said. “Should we begin the beatings now?”
“I don’t know what protocols say about beatings,” Riker said, smiling. He was glad that the invitation hadn’t included the Kinshaya, a people who virulently hated the Klingons.
The Ferengi forced a hand into his. “You are William T. Riker, of Enterprise?” Igel asked.
“Once upon a time.”
“I’ve heard of you. Very glad to make your acquaintance.” Igel shook Riker’s hand vigorously and smiled with all his many teeth. He eyed Riker’s collar. “You are now an admiral?”
“Just recently.”
“Fine, fine,” Igel said, still not releasing Riker’s hand. He pulled the human closer and put his other hand around his shoulder. “I imagine they pay admirals pretty
well,” Igel whispered. “Tell me, are you in the market for a new luxury home? Because I have some property in development that may just interest you.”
Riker didn’t know what to say—and couldn’t for the life of him imagine why the Ferengi was whispering. The Klingon was hardly a buyer—and a quick glance at Gul Rodrek told him the Cardassian was fully fortified before he set foot aboard the Far Embassy. “I’ll think about it,” Riker said, pulling himself away.
“Don’t miss this chance,” Igel said. “Starships are fun to fly around in, but they’re no place to entertain.”
“I’ll say,” Rodrek said, pulling a flask from his vest. “This is the worst party I’ve ever been to.”
Riker wasn’t about to argue. Nor did he intend to stand in the way when the Klingon woman took up the old Cardassian on his offer of libations. The admiral looked around awkwardly for a moment. The Tzenkethi and Gorn representatives had no evident desire to talk, and he wasn’t about to engage the Cardassian if he could help it. What was the idea behind this place—simply putting representatives in the same room until they drove each other mad?
Igel was approaching Riker with another sales pitch when a door opened off to the right. Riker’s face brightened. Thank God, it’s the Romulan!
He chuckled to himself as he walked across the atrium, having realized that they were strange words for a Starfleet officer. But it didn’t matter. He could count on the Romulans to be serious—usually, too serious—about whatever was going on. With the Romulan representative on the scene, odds were they’d get to the point of this thing quickly, provided it had a point.
“Admiral William T. Riker of Starfleet, representing the Federation.” He offered his hand.
The Romulan didn’t take it, drawing his hands back into the sleeves of his robe. “I am Senator Bretorius.” He looked around, sniffed at the air, and wandered past, as if Riker wasn’t there.
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