“I must also confess that the consequences of redeploying from the Haakonan border region have been significantly less dire than I had predicted. With K’Feria in our hands and the Haakonan supply lines apparently interrupted, fortune has chosen to favor the Romulan Star Empire in both our current theaters of war.”
“You’re too kind, Vice Admiral,” said Valdore, sensing that his subordinate had concluded the lhiet-polishing phase of his communication. “But...” He trailed off, encouraging Khazara to continue, and to venture into less complimentary territory.
“But we cannot count on such happy circumstances continuing forever, Admiral,” Khazara said. “The Haakonans are extremely clever people, as well as extraordinarily patient. We haven’t isolated them permanently from their offworld supplies of war matériel. They still have ample potential to cause us grave trouble—unless we deal with them the way you dealt with the Coridans.”
Valdore sat back in his chair, stunned but trying hard not to show it. As blunt as he had come to expect Khazara to be, he hadn’t expected him to invoke the ghosts of Coridan Prime, a world Valdore had essentially destroyed, merely to constrict the enemy’s dilithium supplies.
It wasn’t that Valdore was shy about causing destruction; such things were part and parcel of war. He had no problem trading the lives of some for the lives of many, particularly when the losses were among military personnel who understood the hazards of the job and the cold iron of the chain of command. He even recognized the need to execute the relatively small, mostly civilian populations of the hevam outposts his forces took, in the interests of Romulan state security.
But the indiscriminate destruction of enemy worlds, the wholesale slaying of hundreds of millions of noncombatant inhabitants, was another thing entirely.
“ ‘It is far better to conquer than to exterminate,’” Valdore said, quoting the great Commander Amarcan, whose Axioms was still required reading at the Romulan Military Academy.
Khazara responded at once with his own Amarcan quote. “‘It is no dishonor to admit exhaustion of the heart.’”
“Do you believe I have become... exhausted?” Valdore said, scowling. Khazara had just become entirely too candid.
“No, Admiral. But I know about the enormous energies the Haakonans have learned to tame since our occupation of their homeworld ended—and I have seen but a fraction of the Haakona intelligence reports that you have. You know better than I do that we cannot rely upon continued good fortune when it comes to such a powerful and patient adversary.”
And vengeful, Valdore thought, recalling the recent Haakonan reprisals at Uaenn Ei’krih and Artaleirh. You mustn’t forget vengeful.
Momentarily putting aside his personal revulsion at the thought of creating another Coridan Prime, Valdore said, “I am not in the habit of leaning upon luck, whether it be in my dealings with the hevam or with the Haakonans.
“Therefore I shall consider your suggestion, Khazara, very carefully indeed. Valdore out.”
EIGHTY-ONE
Early in the month of ta’Krat, YS 8765
Monday, June 21, 2156
Government district, ShiKahr, Vulcan
HIS HANDS FOLDED TOGETHER before him, lost in the long, bulky sleeves of his diplomatic robe, Foreign Minister Soval addressed the small woman who sat behind the heavy desk and the gray-haired, gravemannered man who stood facing him beside her. Being posted on Earth, Soval did not visit this austere yet august chamber very often.
“Thank you,” Soval said, speaking in his most deferential tones, “for agreeing to meet with me, Administrator T’Pau. Minister Kuvak.”
Dressed in robes similar to Soval’s, T’Pau rose from behind the desk and began to pace her office’s stone floor. “Not at all, Minister,” she said. She came to a stop a short distance from Soval. “My apologies for having allowed myself to become so... preoccupied of late.”
“No apologies are necessary, Administrator, I assure you,” Soval said.
“Please state the reason for your visit, Minister,” Kuvak said, his tone unemotional yet somehow peremptory as well. “The administrator is extremely busy.”
“Of course,” Soval said, nodding to acknowledge Kuvak. There would be no logic in making this meeting last any longer than was strictly necessary. “I have come at the behest of Captain Jonathan Archer and Commander T’Pol.”
“I see,” T’Pau said, making it clear that she had his full attention.
“I find myself in agreement with their assessment that Vulcan should apply its military power to the cause of Earth’s war effort against the Romulans.”
“You have mentioned this to me before, Soval, a number of times. Have I not explained my logic adequately?”
“Respectfully, Administrator, your logic may bear reexamination in light of the catastrophic fall of Kaferia yesterday.”
“Mind your place, Mister Foreign Minister,” Kuvak warned smoothly.
“I speak only as a servant of Vulcan,” Soval said to Kuvak, maintaining his poised deference without yielding any ground. Addressing T’Pau, he said, “I entreat you to reconsider your decision to maintain Vulcan’s neutrality vis-à-vis the Romulans. The mutual defense clause of the Coalition Compact—”
“Is always subject to renegotiation and amendment,” Kuvak said, interrupting.
T’Pau raised a hand toward Kuvak, who subsided into silence.
Soval took this as a signal to press on. “The Coalition Compact is no longer the only matter at issue. Now that the Romulans control the Tau Ceti system, they are in a strong position to conquer Earth itself. Can Vulcan really afford to risk the possibility of the Romulan Star Empire creating a stronghold a mere sixteen light-years away?”
Kuvak interposed himself again. “A better question,” he said, “might be this one: Can Vulcan actively make war and still remain Vulcan?”
Soval had wrestled with that very question. “I do not know,” he conceded.
T’Pau was staring off into the middle distance as she seemed to contemplate the latest wrinkle in an old argument.
“ ‘Where fear walks, anger is its companion,’” she said at length. Kuvak nodded and made noises of agreement.
Soval recognized the ancient, hallowed words of Surak immediately—and just as quickly understood the irony of the stance that both T’Pau and Kuvak had taken. But although pointing that irony out was surely logical, he did not know if doing so would be prudent.
A small, still voice in the back of his mind whispered to him, quoting another one of the great Vulcan philosopher’s many aphorisms: “What is, is.”
His decision made, Soval said, “Respectfully, it is the two of you who walk in fear,” he said. “It is the fear that Vulcan will forever lose its best self in the maelstrom of war. And I must further ask you to consider the fear that will soon sweep across Earth once news of the fall of Kaferia becomes known—the blind panic that could spread among billions of emotional humans who lack the discipline of Vulcan logic.”
Kuvak began to deliver what doubtless would have been a sharp retort, but T’Pau once again restrained him with a gesture before returning her full attention to Soval.
“You have given us much to consider, Mister Foreign Minister,” she said. “Please leave us now. We must seek... guidance.”
Soval nodded, then turned and exited the chamber. There was little to do now other than to await word from the administrator’s office, and begin making arrangements to return to his post on Earth.
Several weeks ago he had told Jonathan Archer that Administrator T’Pau’s absolutist stance on matters of war and peace was outside his power to change.
Now Soval permitted himself to grasp at a slender reed of hope that he had been wrong.
Outer ShiKahr, Vulcan
The crackles and hisses on the audio channel were a distraction, but they were also an unavoidable artifact of the security-scrambling process.
“I have a new task for you,” said the muffled, distant-sounding voice. “It is terrible, but it
is also necessary.”
Necessary, the assassin thought dispassionately. More dirty work that the high and the mighty lack the courage to perform themselves. And over which they will no doubt experience considerable guilt, even though they will not wield the blade themselves.
Guilt was something that the assassin considered illogical in the extreme.
“I am listening,” he said, and awaited the instructions for his latest assignment.
EIGHTY-TWO
Mount Seleya, Vulcan
BREATHING DEEPLY of the rarefied air as he stood at the base of the great stone steps, the assassin took care to keep his voluminous, drab pilgrim’s robe gathered loosely about his body; it wouldn’t do for a chance encounter with a passing Kolinahr adept to reveal the presence of the tools of his grim trade in this ancient place.
Of course, he would have preferred at least a full day’s notice before beginning this job—that would have afforded him the option of preparing the terrain under the cover of darkness—but his employer had been very specific: the deed had to be done immediately, and orders were orders.
Surveying the ground in anticipation of his target’s arrival turned out to be a matter that was both simple and quickly handled; his actions were concealed by his robe, as well as by his apparent act of kneeling in meditational devotion on the broadest of the great stone steps. The scant handful of other robed, devout Vulcans he saw in the vicinity appeared to have taken no notice of him.
Not wishing to attract their attention, he completed his ascent of the steps and paid the expected obeisance before he descended into the shadows of a cave entrance at the great mountain’s base. The rocky concavity lay several mat’drih distant from the tactical center point of today’s operation.
The wait until evening was a lengthy one, but he was a professional, long accustomed to the giddying oscillations between rushing and abiding. Sitting cross-legged on the cave’s secluded threshold, he went into a meditational state. He used his subspace connection to the planetary satellite network to maintain constant real-time observation of the section of rocky ground he had prepared on the well-worn side of Mount Seleya.
The ruddy light from bloated, sinking sun spread across the section of the horizon that was visible from the cave’s verge before disappearing entirely, replaced by blackness, a few stars, and T’Rukh’s comforting glow.
The assassin continued to wait, watching the screen on his remote device as he pondered some of the more perplexing aspects of his current assignment. Prime of these was the motivation behind it. Vulcans—even those of the ousted Administrator V’Las’s ilk—claimed to revere their culture’s ancient traditions. Even if one did not believe, no one would set out to destroy a katra—the spirit of a deceased Vulcan— particularly the one carried by the assassin’s present target.
No one except, evidently, his employer.
The assassin had plied his trade long enough, of course, to understand that Vulcans were not monolithic in their views. The assassin knew that his actions today could bring down the fledgling Syrrannite government. The assassin did not regard himself as political, but he could tell when the political winds were about to start blowing in his direction.
A low beep signaled that the remote sensors he had planted under Seleya’s steps had acquired the target. A glance at the display confirmed that a small group of monks was approaching, heading down the mountain after the completion of one of their rites.
Clearing his mind, the assassin waited, holding the remote monitoring device gingerly as he continued to study its small display. A tactical overlay, created by the telemetry from the biometric sensor devices he had planted along with the explosives, confirmed that his specific target was in the center of the moving formation, his fellow adepts grouped around him.
The assassin continued to wait and watch as the leading edge of the procession stepped across ground zero. Heartbeats later the entire ring of monks had surrounded the tactical hot spot. He pressed DETONATE and was gratified by a brief flash, which was followed immediately by coarse static as the conflagration he had unleashed indiscriminately consumed both hardware and flesh.
Enterprise, near Deneva
The voice spoke to him from what seemed a very long way away.
“Captain, are you all right?”
T’Pol. He realized that T’Pol was speaking to him, leaning over his command chair in the center of the bridge. His blurred vision began to clear, and he saw lines of concern etched across her Vulcan features.
“I’m fine,” Archer said, pulling himself up into an upright position in his command chair. “I think.”
He belatedly realized that Hoshi and Malcolm had crowded around his chair as well, their worry plain on their faces. Ensign Leydon had turned away from the helm, apparently ready to spring toward him, as though he might topple forward at any moment.
“What happened, Captain?” Reed said. “Should I call Doctor Phlox?”
“I’m not sure what happened, Malcolm.” Just somebody walking on my grave.
I hope.
EIGHTY-THREE
Monday, June 21, 2156
Sol 5 of Martian Month of Capricorn
Popé Pueblo (“Canyontown”), Mars
WITH SEVERAL UNEVEN STACKS of battered metal cargo crates visible behind her, Gannet Brooks was speaking from the ancient flatscreen monitor over the bar. But nobody was listening. This had as much to do with the sound being turned all the way down as it did with the fact that every person in the room, with the lone exception of the Coalition of Planets Martian Representative Qaletaqu, was seated facing in the opposite direction, toward the makeshift speaker’s lectern in the tavern.
Qaletaqu stood at the lectern and regarded the dour gathering in silence. Never before had he seen such quiet prevail at a tribal leadership meeting. Ahota’s Public House, Canyontown’s only watering hole, was utterly still, its usual rough, back-slapping camaraderie replaced by a tension that could have crushed one of Shaman Cheveyo’s ceremonial medicine drums.
The usuals had come tonight to partake of Canyontown’s unique form of direct democracy. Ahota, the establishment’s proprietor, was keeping his radical political musings to himself tonight. The tavern-keeper had shoved his manifesto into a jacket pocket, from which a bulky, battered padd protruded. Both Cheveyo, shaman of the local habak, and Powaqa the undertaker seemed uncharacteristically disinclined at the moment to crack crude jokes about the indispensability of their respective professions. Even the usually incorrigible Kolichiyaw, chief executive of the grandiosely named Dytallix-Barsoom Resource Extraction Corporation, was behaving himself.
There was no joy here. Only worry, fear, and an inchoate anger at the growing likelihood that Canyontown’s twenty thousand–strong Hopi/Pueblo population might be displaced by an invader—the very same fate their ancestors had suffered.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that happen to us again, Qaletaqu thought, even as he relinquished the floor to his father.
“Kaferia has fallen,” white-haired Katowa intoned. “A merciless and lethal enemy besets us now, my people. An enemy that has exterminated whole human populations whose settlements were in their way. Now this enemy has set up camp a mere spear’s throw away from us.”
Qaletaqu thought his father was being hyperbolic, as was his wont. Twelve light-years, the rough distance that separated the Tau Ceti system from Sol, was a hell of a lot farther away than a “spear’s throw.” Tau Ceti did lay about one-third closer to Sol than Vulcan did, however, which he had to admit was a sobering fact to consider.
Still, Qaletaqu saw it as no reason to cut and run.
“What happened at Tau Ceti only vindicates what all of you have heard me say here many times before,” Katowa continued, spreading his hands before him. “It is only a matter of time before these Romulans come here. And do not make the mistake of believing that they will overlook us. Earth will be their prime target, to be sure, but they must trample over us in order to get there.”
>
Qaletaqu found his father’s poor understanding of planetary positions and orbital mechanics frustrating; there was no reason to assume that a Romulan invader would necessarily approach Earth on a trajectory that would first take it past Mars, or even across Mars’s orbit. But trying to explain that to Katowa would be an exercise in futility.
“The tribe must relocate to a place of safety,” Katowa said. “We must find a new home, far from the Romulan threat.”
Although Qaletaqu knew how deeply everyone here respected his father as a wise tribal elder, no one appeared happy to hear his words, even in light of the fall of Kaferia.
“Of course,” Qaletaqu said, no longer able to contain himself, “such a home would also be far from the star that warms the bones of our ancestors.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Star Trek : Enterprise) Page 56