She slumped back in her chair, feeling defeated.
“Do not listen to him, Praetor,” Tomalak said. “Let him stir up the Remans. That might force the hands of Donatra and Suran. A new Reman uprising could reveal the actual extent of Donatra and Suran’s control over the Empire’s military forces. It might drive a wedge between the two commanders. It could even send a large proportion of their men and matériel over to our side.”
Tal’Aura shook her head and spoke in tones scarcely above a whisper. “But at what cost?”
Tomalak began an angry rejoinder, but she silenced the proconsul with a peremptory wave of her hand. His silence encouraged her; she knew he would not have relented so easily had he not known that she was right.
Rehaek held the advantage, at least for the moment.
“Very well,” Tal’Aura said, addressing the spymaster and his far-too-pleased-looking lackey.
But the unending struggle between the praetorship and the Tal Shiar is by no means resolved, she thought. It is merely postponed until more convenient circumstances arise.
Glancing down at the palm of his pudgy right hand, Pardek saw the time displayed on his chrono-ring, and noted that the meeting would not begin for nearly four full veraku. He loitered in the Hall of State’s vast library, alone except for a half-dozen extremely vigilant armed uhlans and a handful of nervous-looking scholars who were clearly trying to look completely intent upon their various academic research projects. The sun streamed in through windows high in the domed roof, casting long shadows across the towering ancient bookshelves and the lowslung modern computer terminals in the otherwise unlit chamber. Everything looked peaceful enough, though Pardek could hear the emergency vehicles, their echoing klaxons reminding him of the cries of distant seabirds. A slight ozone tang hung in the air, evidence of the fires that had raged for weeks across much of Ki Baratan’s South Quarter, and which still smoldered in the nearby ancient district known as the ira’sihaer.
During his first term in the Senate more than a century earlier, Pardek had developed the habit of arriving early for critical meetings such as the one scheduled for today, the better to size up his adversaries from some unobtrusive nearby waiting area before following them into the meeting chamber proper. He rose from the chair where he had sat beside one of the computer screens and deactivated his link to the newsnets. There was still ample time for another stroll around the spacious courtyard that surrounded the Hall of State. Within a few minutes, he had circled the courtyard and stepped into one of the secluded alcoves that led back inside the great domed building that held the praetor’s audience chamber.
“Senator,” a sharp voice intoned from a short distance ahead of him.
Pardek saw two men in civilian clothes approaching him from the direction of Tal’Aura’s audience chamber. He recognized the shorter of the pair immediately as Rehaek, the current leader of the Tal Shiar. This was the man who had killed the hated Koval, the Federation-tainted criminal who had slain Tai’lun and Talkath, Pardek’s wife and only daughter. As such, Rehaek could almost be considered an ally. Almost.
“Jolan’tru, Director Rehaek. I wasn’t aware you were to be present at the coming meeting.” Pardek was confident that Rehaek knew of the meeting, and that he was therefore revealing nothing that the clever young Tal Shiar chief hadn’t already discovered for himself.
After nodding to his impassive companion, Rehaek turned his gaze back upon Pardek. He smiled with surprising mildness. “I won’t be present…at least, not directly.”
Ah, Pardek thought. The Tal Shiar need not send a representative. They have eyes and ears everywhere, not all of them living ones. He shuddered involuntarily, recalling how casually Koval had thwarted his security system more than six years earlier, invading his home and threatening the life of his only child in an effort to intimidate him.
Pardek reminded himself not to allow the satisfaction he had taken in Koval’s recent death to lull him into lowering his guard. The Tal Shiar was still the Tal Shiar. And he had no assurance that Rehaek’s Tal Shiar was any less likely to get into bed with the Federation, or perhaps even other far more dangerous foes of the Empire.
“It appears you have the praetor’s ear, Director Rehaek,” the former senator said, choosing his words cautiously.
“All loyal Romulans should rally around our new praetor, particularly when the Empire is in jeopardy. Should we not?”
Pardek sniffed, allowing the other men a glimpse of the political outrage he usually kept tightly wrapped, except perhaps in Tal’Aura’s presence. “The legitimacy of Tal’Aura’s praetorship is still open to debate, Director. In fact, I find her automatic inclusion in today’s Federation-mediated talks to be highly questionable. Prior to the assassinations of Praetor Hiren and the Senate, Tal’Aura was merely yet another senator. Her claim to the praetorship is therefore no better than that of any other senator.”
“Except that she is alive, whereas almost all of those other senators are not, including the entire Continuing Committee. That fact alone gives Tal’Aura a decided advantage over her erstwhile peers, I should think.”
Pardek tried to ignore Rehaek’s smirk. “Regardless, I am surprised to see that you’ve embraced Tal’Aura’s claim to the praetorship—especially before the debate over its very legitimacy has even truly begun.”
“I see,” Rehaek said, a look of inexplicable sadness crossing his sharp features. “But one of the essential functions of the Tal Shiar is to prevent such debates from becoming dangerous distractions from our Empire’s larger objectives. Therefore such debates must sometimes be settled preemptively.”
Pardek noticed only then that no uhlans were visible from the alcove in which he and the two spies stood. That was strange indeed; ever since Shinzon’s attack on the Senate, it had seemed that not a single square dhat’drih of downtown Ki Baratan was left unguarded by the praetor’s uhlans.
A violent shiver slowly climbed the rungs of Pardek’s spine. The former senator took an instinctive step backward.
“Do it now, Torath,” the spymaster said quietly, sounding weary and far older than his years.
Pardek turned, tried to run, but the man called Torath was faster, stronger, and perhaps an entire century younger. A slightly curved length of gleaming metal appeared in the younger man’s hand as though conjured by a sorcerer out of Romulan myth. Before Pardek could raise his arms to defend himself, Torath had inscribed a deep horizontal furrow across the older man’s throat.
His legs suddenly too weak to support his weight, Pardek tumbled to his knees, then sprawled onto his side on the alcove’s gleaming floor.
His vision quickly turning green-tinged and hazy, Pardek watched with a peculiar sense of detachment as Rehaek approached, then crouched beside him. “The humans your faction plots against would describe you as a ‘hawk,’ Senator. Rather like the late, unlamented Shinzon. But the time for reflexive aggression has passed. It represents an unacceptable variable. That makes the future impermissibly chaotic, and thus far more difficult to predict than it needs to be.”
You don’t care about the future, Pardek thought. You only care about power. Just like Koval. He tried to speak the words aloud, but succeeded only in making moist gurgling noises.
Rehaek adopted a curiously beneficent-looking smile. “Therefore I need to send the other members of your faction a very clear and unambiguous message. You will be that message, Senator.”
Pardek knew with utter certainty that he was mortally wounded. He felt his blood flowing in a hot, emerald torrent from the gash across his neck, rapidly cooling as it pooled on the floor all around him. He looked directly up at his killers through rheumy, dimming eyes.
“That was untidy, Torath, but necessary,” he heard Rehaek say to his associate. “Have the senator’s body transported back to his own office. His like-minded associates are sure to find it quickly there.”
“Immediately, sir,” said Torath, who then spoke a few terse commands into the communications
device that was evidently hidden in his lapel.
Darkness enfolded Pardek at the same time the transporter beam came. Though he knew it wasn’t a rescue, he still rejoiced at its cold embrace.
For he would soon walk the Halls of Erebus, where his wife and daughter were surely awaiting his arrival.
Chapter Twelve
U.S.S. TITAN
Christine Vale arrived on the bridge for her shift early, as was her habit. The extra time gave her a chance to be fully briefed by the gamma shift bridge commander, who, in this case, was Lieutenant Commander Fo Hachesa, a Kobliad with an infectiously pleasant personality—as well as a sometimes offputting propensity either to drop suffixes from gerunds and adverbs, or to add superfluous ones.
“Not much to report, Commander,” Hachesa said. “Perhaps their heavy drink has render them unable to bother us.”
Vale gave him a slight smile, remembering the meal aboard the Vaj. She saw some of the other bridge crew members grinning at his statement as well, indicating that scuttlebutt about Khegh and his crew must already have traveled far and wide throughout the ship.
“We have also receiving a request from Commander Donatra that the captain contacting her at 0900,” Hachesa said. “It wasn’t appearing urgent, merely a query into the details of our delivering of aid supplies. But you know how hard it is to judging these shifty Romulans.”
That’s two racist slurs he’s made in one minute, Vale thought. While she hated to call such an otherwise competent and eager young officer on the carpet, she couldn’t allow such behavior to continue. She debated whether to speak to him about it now versus waiting until after she’d consulted either Captain Riker or Commander Troi about the problem.
“Other than that, Lieutenant Rager said she needed to visiting sickbay, so I’ve asked Chief Bolaji to take over ops until she returning to duty.” Hachesa handed her a padd. “That’s all, Commander. Have an enjoy shift.”
Vale made a quick decision. “Hold on just a moment, Fo. May I see you in the ready room, please?”
He looked puzzled. “Certain.”
They stepped into the captain’s empty ready room, the doors sliding closed behind them. Despite the fact that she was specifically authorized to use the room when she had control of the bridge, this was the first time she had been in the room without Riker. She immediately felt uncomfortable. But rather than appear indecisive—and I do have the right to be in here, she reminded herself—she decided to just sit on the edge of the desk instead of in the large chair behind it.
She looked Hachesa squarely in the eyes. “Commander, I noticed that you made two references that were denigrating to other species just now. First the Klingons, then the Romulans.”
He looked wounded. “I didn’t meaning anything negative by it, sir. I was just try to be humorous.”
“I realize that,” Vale said, “but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable. When you are in command of the bridge, especially in the absence of any immediate provocation, species-related slurs set a bad example for the crew. It would be one thing if a drunken Klingon had just hailed us, but to cast all Klingons as drunkards undermines the trust this crew needs to have in them during this mission. The same with the Romulans. We’re in their space, and Donatra represents one of our few allies here. We need to be supportive of her.”
“I understanding, Commander,” Hachesa said, though his eyes narrowed a bit, giving him a defiant, sullen aspect.
Vale wasn’t certain that he did understand, but pressing the point further seemed futile. If interspecies amity was indeed a big part of Titan’s ongoing mission, she knew she had to lead by example. With a tolerant smile, she said, “Good. I don’t expect it will be an issue any longer, then. Thank you, Commander.”
“Am I dismiss?”
“Yes. Go get some sack time or some grub.”
“Yes, sir.” Hachesa spun on his heels and stepped toward the door.
Vale watched him leave. He needs to learn to handle criticism a bit better, too, she thought. Otherwise he’s not going to do well on the command track, no matter how many other crew members actually seem to enjoy his kidding around. Again she considered making Troi aware of the situation.
Stepping through the ready room doorway and back onto the bridge, Vale saw that the gamma-to-alpha shift change was under way, though there were still several minutes left until the gamma shift officially ended.
She approached Science Officer Jaza, who was working at his station on the bridge’s starboard side.
“How goes the deployment of the new sensor nets, Mister Jaza?” she asked. Although Titan’s current mission was one of interstellar diplomacy, there was no reason the science staff had to sit on its hands. Romulan space was filled with objects and phenomena about which Starfleet wanted to gather information.
“Most of the work was done by Ensign Ichi on the gamma shift,” he said, “though it appears that K’chak’!’op was an invaluable aid as well.” Jaza pronounced the name crisply as “Chaka.”
“K’chak’!’op was on the bridge?” Vale asked in wonder. The Pak’shree computer specialist so rarely left her quarters.
“No,” Jaza said with a smile. “She worked from her den, as usual. I truly think she feels a lot less clumsy there, without us bipedal humanoid types around to distract her.”
“So, what do the new sensors tell us?”
On Riker’s orders, Vale had tasked the crew with deploying a series of wide-band, high-resolution sensor nets, specially calibrated to detect cloaked Romulan ships as well as other dangers. While these instruments couldn’t locate or track such ships directly, they could, at least in theory, detect anomalies such as the moving “blank spaces” created by their warp fields, or the telltale gravitons that leaked from even the most heavily shielded cloaking systems.
Unfortunately, the energy required to sustain such a heightened state of sensor acuity placed significant demands on Titan’s power output, effectively compromising her shields and weaponry. Another reason to be thankful for Klingon escorts, Vale thought. Though the idea of lowering Titan’s defenses while moving ever deeper into Romulan space didn’t sit well with her, she had to agree that the security trade-off Captain Riker had made was a wise one, under the circumstances; Titan would spot any approaching dangers, advise the Klingons, and then let them do what they did best, should the need arise.
Vale knew that Dr. Ra-Havreii, Titan’s designer, was even now working with Lieutenant Commander Ledrah and several members of her crack engineering staff on reducing the sensor net’s energy cost, though they had failed to tumble onto any significant breakthroughs since Titan had left Utopia Planitia. Still, as far as she knew, Titan was the only Starfleet vessel currently using this experimental technology.
Jaza interrupted her thoughts, pointing out several multicolored graphics that were scrolling by on the wall-mounted monitor screen. “So far, we haven’t detected any ships other than those of our convoy. We’re mostly encountering dust, rock, and ice particles, ranging from microscopic to about the size of your head. Nothing much different than the flotsam that appears in the Denorios Belt whenever the Celestial Temple burps.”
Jaza’s casual reference to the home of his people’s alleged gods reminded Vale momentarily that he was one of the Bajoran faithful. Not that it wasn’t obvious—he did wear the traditional Bajoran earring on his right ear—but she wasn’t particularly religious herself, so she tended not to dwell on such things.
“Only this flotsam is a little less, um, sacred,” Vale teased.
Jaza shrugged. “Flotsam is flotsam. It’s no different when the Prophets sweep it out of the Temple than it is when it’s carried off of an asteroid by the stellar winds. Are the contents of the trash cans in human churches, mosques, or temples touched by some Terran or Izarian deity?”
“I’ve never had much time for gods or goddesses myself,” Vale said. She wasn’t certain why she was admitting this right on the bridge. But Jaza’s serene presence made her fe
el utterly at ease.
“Understandable,” he said, nodding. “Many who work in the sciences feel similarly.” He placed his hands upon his heart. “I try instead to integrate my faith in science with my faith in the Prophets. Truth is truth, whether spiritual or scientific. As long as I seek truth in either sphere, I will continue to grow and evolve, as does the universe itself.”
Vale smiled, touched by his sincerity. How very Zen he is, she thought. Not to mention attractive and single. Perhaps when they weren’t preoccupied with an urgent mission she could arrange to spend some time with him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone on a date.
She forced the thought aside. Jaza wasn’t just a colleague—he was a subordinate. Dating him would therefore be absolutely inappropriate.
As inappropriate as marrying him? asked a peevish voice in the back of her head—the same voice that had raised her initial objections to Captain Riker’s decision to make his wife a member of his senior staff.
She noticed then that Jaza was staring at her curiously. Had he been having any of the same thoughts?
Before the awkwardly silent moment could stretch further, the computer let out a staccato series of beeps. New blocks of text and graphics began scrolling in columns onto Jaza’s monitor.
“Hmm, this is odd,” he said, frowning as he studied the emerging data. “Our long-range scans are picking up some kind of spatial anomaly. It appears to be located inside Romulan space only a few hours away from Romulus itself at high warp.”
“What kind of spatial anomaly?” Vale asked, resisting the urge to immediately tap the combadge on her chest and call the captain to the bridge. It was the kind of move she would have made without hesitation while serving as security chief aboard the Enterprise. But she was in command in Riker’s absence, and he was probably on his way up to check in with the newly arrived alpha shift anyhow.
“Readings are all over the place right now,” Jaza said. “I’m picking up spatial and gravimetric distortions. Also intermittent signatures of duranium, tritanium, and polyduranium.”
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