Titan, Book One

by Michael A. Martin

  “If I may, Senator,” Troi said, tamping down her own rising apprehension. “Wasn’t Pardek supposed to represent your faction at this meeting?”

  Durjik fixed her with a glare as sharp as Donatra’s Honor Blade. She “felt” his answer before he spoke it aloud, and it confirmed her growing suspicion.

  “Surely you must know already, Commander Troi. Your people are on the short list of suspects, after all.”

  Troi felt Durjik’s hostility intensifying even more. Though Keru sat still and quiet, he was throwing off waves of caution and vigilance. Donatra’s emotional temperature was rising as well, while Suran seemed as intent on studying Donatra as he was on Durjik’s accusations. Though outwardly impassive, Akaar fumed quietly inside. And Tal’Aura and Tomalak, whose temperaments Troi thought were probably more alike than either would like to admit, both seemed alternatively appalled and amused by Durjik’s bitterness.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Will said.

  “Ah. Of course. The inevitable wide-eyed protestations of innocence. You would claim to be unaware that I discovered Pardek’s murdered corpse not four veraku ago.”

  Will nodded, keeping the shock he felt from reaching his face. Mostly. “I claim exactly that,” he said. “Because it’s true.”

  Troi wondered why Durjik was so certain the away team should know of Pardek’s death.

  “With respect, Praetor,” Keru said in a low but confident voice, “I wish we had been advised of Pardek’s murder prior to our arrival. Security is my responsibility, and the timing of Pardek’s death implies that none of the rest of us is safe until his murder is solved.”

  “We can discuss that later, Commander,” Will said to Keru, who immediately fell silent.

  Troi knew that Keru was rightly making this meeting’s security his highest priority. But she also knew that the Romulans, being driven in large part by pride, were famously loath to make themselves appear vulnerable before the Federation, about whose presence even the most liberal of Romulans harbored ambiguous feelings. She understood that for the Romulans to reveal Pardek’s assassination immediately prior to the start of negotiations as delicate as these would not only wound their pride, but would also aggravate their already heightened sense of vulnerability. This potential loss of face was more than any Romulan could bear—especially after their new, self-installed praetor had already accepted several tons of humanitarian aid supplies from the Titan convoy.

  “Only a fool would expect security here, where Shinzon slew the entire Senate,” Durjik said to Keru before turning his glare back upon Will. “And I would be equally foolish to expect you to provide it, Captain Riker. After all, you would no doubt say or do anything to suppress Pardek’s political viewpoint.” Durjik punctuated his words by jabbing an accusatory finger at Titan’s captain from across the expansive table.

  Remaining admirably calm, Will said, “Suppress? No. But I had hoped to convince him that there’s no longer any need for hostilities between our Federation and your Empire. Just as I hope to convince you that we can establish peace.”

  Durjik snorted dismissively. He leaned forward across the sherawood table, his beefy forearms supporting his considerable weight. “My congratulations, then, Captain. Whatever your other shortcomings might be, you have certainly succeeded in pacifying Pardek.”

  “Ahlh droppings, Senator,” Donatra said to Durjik. “Titan was several light-veraku away from Romulus when Pardek was killed.”

  “As were we,” Suran added, gesturing toward Donatra.

  Suran’s comment piqued Troi’s curiosity. Where had the Valdore been at the time of Pardek’s murder? The Titan convoy could move only as fast as its slowest ship; unlikely as it was, the Valdore might have made a high-speed diversion to Romulus while cloaked, its absence from the convoy undetected.

  True, you helped the Enterprise crew bring down Shinzon, Troi thought as she studied Donatra and considered her cautious, guarded emotional aura. But can we really trust you?

  “If so, that would seem to leave our esteemed praetor as our prime suspect, would it not?” Durjik said.

  Both Donatra and Suran immediately seemed to warm to the notion of Tal’Aura-as-murderer. Tomalak was just as quickly on his feet, a short curved sword appearing in his hand as if conjured by magic. Troi was suddenly at the center of an emotional whirlwind. Somehow, Will remained cool, though he was as taut as a coiled spring. Akaar held himself back, but only barely. Keru seemed about to throw himself between the two angry Romulans.

  Damn! Everything was about to come apart, right before her eyes. Her first outing as Titan’s diplomatic officer seemed unavoidably headed toward outright violence.

  “Kroiha!” Tal’Aura shouted in Romulan, filling the room with her voice without so much as rising from her chair. “Tharon!”

  Tomalak froze, as he had been commanded. “Forgive me, my Praetor.” Sheathing his sword, he returned to his seat, though with evident reluctance. And he continued to glare at the former senator, never letting his hand venture far from his blade.

  “My apologies,” Durjik said, bowing his head slightly. Troi sensed not a shred of sincerity behind his words, and she seriously doubted he was fooling anyone else either.

  Will broke the ensuing silence, clearly eager to get the meeting back on track. “Does anyone here seriously believe that anybody present at this meeting was involved with Pardek’s death?”

  “We shall see,” Durjik said, scowling at Donatra and Suran.

  “I suspect what we’ll see,” Troi said, “is that Pardek probably ran afoul of one of the factions not represented here today.”

  Tal’Aura chuckled humorlessly. “As brutal as Pardek’s murder was, it was far too subtle an act to have been carried out by the Remans.”

  “I’m not talking about the Remans. I’m referring to the Tal Shiar.”

  Troi immediately sensed an almost reflexive wave of apprehension radiating from the praetor’s hindbrain. That was understandable, given the fear that the Romulan Star Empire’s semi-independent military intelligence bureau had so carefully cultivated for so many years. But something else lurked beneath Tal’Aura’s apprehension as well, a secret she was holding more closely than one of Christine Vale’s poker hands.

  The praetor was hiding something critical. And it was related to the Tal Shiar.

  Tomalak spoke up, his tone and manner insincerely patronizing. “And what special expertise might you possess regarding the Tal Shiar, Commander Troi?”

  Should I come right out and tell him? Troi thought. Focusing her gaze for a moment onto the chamber’s high ceiling, she decided on forthrightness. “I used to be in the Tal Shiar.”

  All the Romulans in the room seemed greatly amused by this. Good. At least they’re less likely to kill one another now that they’ve shared a joke at the expense of an old adversary.

  She saw then that Will was flashing a warning glare in her direction. “Commander.”

  “Forgive me, Captain,” she said in her most professional tone. She was determined to continue. “Let me be more precise. Ten years ago, I posed as a Tal Shiar agent in order to help a high-ranking Romulan senator defect to the Federation.”

  The captain’s eyes looked like dinner plates, and she met his incredulous stare with a warning glare of her own. I know what I’m doing here, Will. If these people don’t start focusing their hostility onto targets other than each other, this entire mission is doomed before it even starts.

  Troi looked at Donatra, who was regarding her with hard, appraising eyes. Though her countenance concealed it well, she was clearly revising her opinion of the Starfleet contingent. Troi sensed that her frank admission of espionage—performed during an entirely different astro-political era—was beginning to generate some real respect from Donatra.

  “Vice-Proconsul M’ret,” Suran said to Troi. In sharp contrast to Donatra, his voice and manner were frosted with anger and contempt. “M’ret the traitor. You were one of those who helped him betray th
e Empire’s security.”

  Because of Suran’s intense negativity, Troi found she had to work harder than she’d expected to keep her own rising pique from coloring her reply. “During the decade since his defection, M’ret has helped prevent a tremendous amount of bloodshed between your people and ours. If the talks we are beginning now succeed in making further progress toward peace—if they build upon M’ret’s work—then your histories may make a far kinder appraisal of him someday.”

  “The sun will grow dark and cool long before that day arrives,” Suran said, as stonily as any Vulcan. “M’ret is a traitor, now and forever.”

  Durjik guffawed almost explosively. “Such steadfastness is ironic indeed, coming from you, Suran—a man who once believed, as Pardek did, that the best way to secure peace with the Federation is to conquer it while it sleeps.”

  Troi wondered if Suran was going to reply to Durjik with cold steel, as Tomalak had nearly done moments earlier. Then she felt Donatra’s patience shatter like a dam blown apart by the inexorable pressure of some great sea.

  “Akhh! Durjik, you act as though you have never erred, learned from the error, and then changed your ways!”

  Durjik responded without so much as a pause for breath, exhibiting debating skills he had no doubt honed over countless years of service in the Senate. “Like Suran, error is evidently the major focus of your expertise, Commander Donatra. You and Suran both sided with Shinzon, whose plans of conquest came to naught.”

  “As did our noble praetor,” Donatra said coldly, turning her angry gaze on Tal’Aura.

  The praetor bristled, but remained silent, as did the increasingly angry Tomalak.

  “You have argued Commander Donatra’s point well, Durjik,” Suran said evenly, though his outrage was limned in Troi’s empathy as brightly as a disruptor bank being fired. “You and Pardek weren’t always bent on preemptive war. Time and circumstance have changed you both greatly. Why, Pardek even once supported that ridiculous Vulcan Unification movement, until Neral drove it back into the hole from which it crawled.”

  “Whatever errors you may impute to our praetor, Commander Donatra, you will note that she still lives, Shinzon notwithstanding,” Tomalak growled. Turning to Durjik, he added, “Unlike your beloved Pardek, whose own errors have made him kllhe fodder at long last, and deservedly so.”

  Durjik rose, throwing his chair backward. Tomalak mirrored Durjik’s sudden movement, despite another sharp protestation from Tal’Aura. Supercritical tempers detonated. Steel blades flashed. Troi had missed the precise instant when the two antagonists had lost control, so overloaded had her empathy become by their relentless emotional “heat.” Will, Akaar, and Keru were already rising in an effort to intercede, but it was clear that none of them could act in time to prevent a second act of murder.

  Time stretched. Drawing on her decade-old experience living among Romulans as a Romulan—as well as on the past several weeks, during which she’d acted as the primary social lubricant among Titan’s highly varied crew—she quickly grasped the last diplomatic arrow in her quiver.

  Troi shouted with a vehemence and volume that would have impressed even her mother. “The Remans will tear the flesh from your bones!”

  Tomalak and Durjik hesitated, then slowly lowered their blades. As one, they both turned to face Troi. She noticed then that every eye in the chamber was upon her. I’d better keep this going, now that I finally have their attention.

  “The Remans won’t care about your political differences!” she said, maintaining a commanding tone that she somehow kept just a few decibels short of shrillness. “They won’t care about who served Shinzon and who opposed him! They won’t care about your internal grudges and petty feuds! All they will care about is what you represent to them: oppression! You show them this kind of weakness and disunity, and they will scoop out your brains and eat them! If you expect to make long-term peace with them instead of more war, then you’d better start setting aside your differences. Now. Sit. Down.”

  Her words hung in the air. The room was quiet, though Troi’s empathic senses were numbed beneath a deluge of conflicting reactions.

  “Please,” Will said gently, breaking the silence. He gestured toward the empty chairs that lay upended and scattered on the floor. Despite the empathic “noise” that still crowded the room, Troi found his sense of relief unmistakable. She noticed then that something else lay beneath that emotion as well.

  Admiration. He was greatly impressed with her performance. She had to force herself not to smile, though she felt both relief and cool satisfaction.

  Tal’Aura had remained seated. Her face impassive despite her distraught emotional state, she chose that moment to rise and address the room. “We shall adjourn for now.”

  The praetor turned to face Troi. “You have pointed out some of our most critical weaknesses, Commander Troi, and for that I thank you. Those weaknesses will be addressed prior to the first full conference among all the factions.” Next, she faced Tomalak. “Come, Proconsul. You and I have much to discuss.” It was obvious to Troi that their discussion was likely to be quite loud and one-sided; Tal’Aura no doubt took a dim view of mortal combat in the Hall of State, and demanded better self-control from her subordinates.

  After Tal’Aura and the chastened yet still-angry Tomalak exited the chamber, Durjik, Donatra, and Suran did likewise, escorted to separate exits by the small group of armed uhlans who had been discreetly guarding the room’s perimeter during the meeting.

  Now the away team stood alone in the Senate Chamber, at least for the moment.

  “Well,” Will said, heaving a sigh of relief. “I suppose that could have gone a lot worse.”

  “Your diplomacy was inspired,” Akaar said to Troi, a small appreciative smile crossing his normally dour features. She could tell that he, too, was sincerely impressed. “If more than a little dangerous.”

  “Betazoid empathy can help a negotiator avoid pushing too hard,” she said. Sometimes, anyway. Empathy or no, she still felt as though she’d just made a successful bluff while holding only threes and deuces, beating the odds because of blind chance as much as skill. “Maybe it was just a lucky gamble.”

  “I’m not sure what you did was a gamble at all,” Keru said. “It’s almost as though you switched your empathic abilities into ‘offensive’ mode.”

  She frowned slightly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “I mean,” Will said, grinning, “that you were giving off what a jazz musician would call a very strong ‘vibe.’ ”

  “It’s not something I like to do very often,” she said quietly. She recalled the extremely unpleasant ordeal that she had shared with her mother five years earlier. They had been part of a large group of Betazoid telepaths that had used a highly dangerous invasive empathy technique against the Dominion forces that had invaded and occupied Betazed. Use of the technique had ultimately freed Betazed, at the cost of too many Betazoid lives. She shuddered at the memory.

  “Perhaps,” the admiral said, “you should speak to the Lesser Teers of Capella’s Ten Tribes after this mission concludes. You might speed my homeworld’s admission to the Federation by a generation or more.”

  Troi noticed then that Keru had taken his tricorder out and was once again slowly scanning the room, obviously taking advantage of the peculiar absence of armed guards. After turning once in a full circle, he scowled and breathed an inaudible curse.

  “Find anything?” Will wanted to know.

  The big Trill nodded. “Something very interesting, Captain. Evidently one of the excluded power factions did find a way to attend this meeting after all.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning this place is crawling with tiny listening devices. Literally. I want to scan everybody closely before we beam back aboard Titan.”

  Will gave Keru a crisp nod. “Do it.” Keru immediately got busy, beginning with Troi.

  A moment later the security chief reached between the braided rows of her hair a
nd grasped something there. He took a step back and revealed that he was holding something tiny between his thumb and forefinger. “Could you hold this thing so I can scan it?” he asked her. She nodded, and he dropped it into her open hands.

  She found she had to grab the pinhead-size, hard-shelled object quickly between her own thumb and forefinger. The thing was made of metal, and its dozen or so legs were trying frantically to carry it away, no doubt back to its secretive masters. She handed the squirming “bug” to Will and silently mouthed the words “Tal Shiar.” Then she shuddered, unnerved by this new violation of her person. Their eyes and ears really are everywhere.

  A few minutes later, after some careful scanning and grooming, the away team materialized back in Titan’s transporter room four, where the group underwent a second series of scans, which turned up negative.

  “Interesting that we were left unguarded just long enough to find and disable those Tal Shiar ‘bugs,’ ” Will said after they had all been certified “bug-free.”

  “Did Tal’Aura know they were there?” Keru wondered aloud as he tucked his tricorder away. He placed it beside the shielded sample vial in which he had stored the captured listening device in the hope that Titan’s science and engineering staff could use it to develop enhanced tactical countermeasures.

  “Perhaps this little discovery makes the Tal Shiar a likelier culprit in Pardek’s murder than Tal’Aura or Tomalak,” Will said.

  Troi nodded in agreement. “Or Donatra.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Will said.

  The group left the transporter room and entered the adjoining corridor, whereupon Akaar and Keru went one way—presumably intent on getting the captured Tal Shiar bug to Jaza and Ledrah—while Troi followed Will the other way into a turbolift she knew would take them straight to the bridge. Despite the reassuring arm he placed around her shoulders after the doors closed and the lift began to move, a wave of sadness swept over her. “Vibe” or no “vibe,” building trust among such hardened, suspicious, and cynical people as these Romulan leaders could very well prove to be the single biggest challenge of her Starfleet career.