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BEVERLY HAD NEVER BEEN SO APPRECIATIVE OF A hole in the ground as the one she stood contemplating now.
“As you can see,” said Faskher, the Kevrata who had helped her escape the centurion, “you have insulation and heaters to keep you warm.” He glanced back over his shoulder in the direction of his front door. “There is water down there as well, and some dried food. You may have to stay awhile.”
“I understand,” the doctor said.
Once Sela heard that a human female had turned up in the streets, she would send her men out searching door to door. But they wouldn’t think to look for an underground shelter, the entrance to which was covered by a rug and then a bed.
Faskher turned back to her. “I wish I could be more generous,” he said.
“You have been generous enough,” Beverly assured him.
“It is kind of you to say so.”
“How long,” she asked, as she lowered herself into the hole with the help of a wooden ladder, “will it take to get word to my comrades?”
On the way to Faskher’s house, he had informed her that there was a Federation team in the warrens below the old castle, and that it was close to producing a vaccine. However, not being in the warrens himself, he knew nothing more than that.
“It is difficult to say,” he replied. “No one on the outside knows exactly where in the warrens your team is hidden.”
By then, Beverly was looking up at him from the bottom of the hole. Something about being down there filled her with a great weariness. But then, it had been some time since she felt warm and well fed.
And safe.
“Just one other thing,” she said, as her host began replacing the rug that had concealed the hole. “What happened to your companion? The one in the black coat?”
Farkner made a sound of disgust. “He died in the tavern.”
Beverly was afraid he would say that. “I’m sorry.”
“He would have felt better if he knew his death had enabled you to survive.”
The doctor was touched by the sentiment—and regretful that she could no longer prove worthy of it. In the end, she had become nothing more than a liability.
But the Kevrata would get their vaccine. That was all that mattered.
Were I in Tal’aura’s place, Braeg reflected, I would never have let it go this far. I would have crushed an upstart like me before I could finish my first speech.
But then, he was used to thinking like a soldier. I would have struck quickly and decisively, and demonstrated my impatience with those who questioned my authority.
Fortunately for Braeg—and of course, the Empire—Tal’aura was not a soldier. She had yet to learn the difference between taking ground and holding it.
He looked out the window of the modest house in which he was hiding. Built on high ground just outside the capital, it had afforded him a clear view of the city the night before. This morning, however, a fog was obscuring the praetor’s palace and most of the buildings around it, and would continue to do so until the sun burned it away.
As I will burn away the praetor, he observed. It is almost time.
Just then, he heard the trill that told him someone was at the door. One of my lieutenants, the admiral thought. His guards would not have allowed anyone else to get so close to him.
“Come in,” he said, triggering the door mechanism.
As the door slid aside, it revealed Herran, one of the centurions Braeg had brought with him when he left the fleet. It was comforting to him to know he had surrounded himself with men he could trust.
“Good morning,” said Herran.
Braeg tilted his head, as if to get a better look at his lieutenant. “You have that look,” he noted, “the one that tells me you have good news.”
“I do,” Herran confirmed. “Eborion is dead. Hanged in the North Square.”
Braeg leaned forward in his chair. “Truly?”
“Truly. Apparently, Tal’aura believed he had betrayed her and made short work of him.”
The admiral stroked his chin. “Eborion came from a powerful family—one that must have been critical to the praetor’s bid for power. Surely, she has weakened herself by cutting away so large a pillar of support.”
“It would seem that way,” said Herran.
Braeg eyed him, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Which would make this a good time to strike.”
“I had a feeling you would say that.”
The admiral considered the matter a moment longer. Then he made up his mind. “Contact Donatra as soon as you can. I want to tell her the battle is on.”
Herran inclined his head. “With pleasure,” he said, and went to see to it.
“Captain Picard?” said one of the Kevrata.
The captain, who had been drifting off to sleep on one of the encampment’s extra cots, turned at the sound of his name and saw Hanafaejas kneeling beside him. The Kevrata’s facial fur was matted with melted snow, a sign that he had recently come from the city above.
“What is it?” the captain asked, propping himself up on an elbow.
“I have news for you.”
Picard felt his jaw muscles ripple. “Doctor Crusher?”
“Yes,” said Hanafaejas. “She is alive.”
The captain let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. He had never heard better news in all his life. “Where is she?”
“At the house of a rebel—one who has chosen to remain aboveground, and serve as our eyes and ears.”
“Will she be safe there?” Picard wondered.
Hanafaejas wrinkled the skin around his nose. “As safe as anywhere on Kevratas. If I were you, I would let her remain there until you leave us.”
Picard considered the option, then nodded. “Thank your associate for his help, and let him know that Doctor Crusher will be his guest a little longer.”
“I will see to it,” said the rebel, and went to make good on his promise.
And Picard got up to tell his team the news. Beverly was alive. Alive. And if she had ever been in the hands of the Romulans, she was there no longer.
He would have preferred to have her join him in the warrens, but he trusted Hanafaejas’s judgment. Besides, it would have been a risk to take her through the streets with Sela’s men on the lookout for her—not only to Beverly, but to the rebels as well.
Better to exercise patience, he thought, as he set out to look for Pug. Now that he knew Beverly was alive, he could endure anything.
Commander Sela squinted against the blast of wind-driven snow, aimed her disruptor at the fist-sized stone sitting on the ancient wall, and squeezed the trigger.
A beam no wider than one of her pupils leaped across the intervening fifty meters and vaporized the stone, leaving nothing but a puff of smoke in its place. Sela admired her work for a moment. Then she took aim at the next stone, a meter to the right of the first one.
Aim. Squeeze. Poof. Like its predecessor, the stone was gone but for a faint twist of gray.
It was a game to which Sela had challenged herself, up there on the roof of her borrowed fortress, every day since her arrival on Kevratas. She had missed her target only once in all that time—just after she learned of Doctor Crusher’s escape.
She had been angry then, frustrated by her underlings’ ineptitude. Little did she know how much more frustrated she would become—when her centurions began showing symptoms of the Kevrata’s disease. Suddenly, it was no longer merely a local problem. It was one that might affect the rest of the Empire as well.
And the praetor would have read Sela’s latest report by then, so she would know about Crusher’s capture. It would only be natural for her to ask why the commander hadn’t extracted the cure from her prisoner before matters got out of hand.
Sela took aim at another stone. A moment later, it was but a wisp of molecular debris.
Strangely, there were no indications that she had contracted the disease herself. Not even a single bump. One of
the few benefits of mixed parentage, she supposed.
But other Romulans were not so fortunate. It was of the utmost importance to get her hands on a vaccine, or someone who could produce one. Someone like Doctor Crusher. Or perhaps the other physician, who had come to Kevratas with Captain Picard.
Sela smiled to herself. No doubt the captain believed he was safe from her scrutiny. But he was mistaken. She knew exactly where he was—he and those who had come to this world with him.
They were in the warrens under the old castle, hiding like rodents. The physician among them had set up a laboratory there to provide the Kevrata with a cure.
As a matter of fact, he was making great progress. Before long, his work would be complete.
And how did Sela know all this? How was she able to divine the insurrectionists’ intentions? She knew because she had a spy whose job was to keep an eye on the rebels for her—and the spy’s name was Jellekh.
He wasn’t a traitor by nature. However, he had a family that he loved very much, and that had made him vulnerable. One night, while Jellekh was away on insurrectionist business, Sela and a handful of centurions paid his family a visit.
When Jellekh returned to his house, the commander was there waiting for him—and his family was not. And she couldn’t guarantee they would ever be back.
After all, as Sela was quick to point out, even she wasn’t perfect. Despite her best efforts to “protect” Jellekh’s wife and sons, there was no telling what kinds of accidents were liable to befall them.
It was a tactic that had worked for Sela in similar situations. It came as no surprise to her that it worked on Jellekh as well.
From that point on, he would have done anything she asked of him. But as it happened, Sela didn’t ask very much—the occasional update on Hanafaejas and little more.
After all, Jellekh was a game piece she could play once and once only. She had preferred to wait for the time when playing him made the most sense.
That time was now.
With Jellekh’s help, Sela would capture not only the Kevratan insurrectionists, but their Starfleet allies as well—Doctor Crusher included. And as a bonus, Sela would have the vaccine the other Federation physician had come up with—which, with a little work on the part of the Empire’s best researchers, would help the Romulans who had contracted the disease.
All she had to do was wait for Picard and his people to leave the tunnels below the castle, and then follow them to Crusher’s hiding place. At that point, it would be a relatively simple matter to seize them and end their adventure on Kevratas.
Then the furor on the colony world would die down and it would become just another Romulan possession again. And Sela, by virtue of her victory there, would again be catapulted back into the light.
She remembered what her father had told her when she was young: Patience is an asset—spend it wisely. Sela was proud to say she had done just that.
Pretending she was firing at Picard, she took aim and vaporized another stone.
Like a great many other species, the Kevrata were partial to gambling. However, the object of their game—which involved three four-sided dice—wasn’t to see who could amass the most wealth. It was to see who could give it away the quickest.
As Picard and his old colleague Pug Joseph looked on, the Kevrata named Kito finished wiping himself out—much to the chagrin of the other players. Grudgingly, they clapped him on the back.
“So,” said Joseph, “I guess we didn’t need it after all.”
The captain looked at him. “It?”
“You know—my lucky marble.”
“Ah,” said Picard, “that.”
“Of course,” said Joseph, “we’re not out of the woods yet. But it’s looking pretty good right now.”
“Better than it did before,” the captain conceded.
“So what happens to him now? Greyhorse, I mean?”
Picard shrugged. “I don’t know. Technically, he is still a resident of the penal settlement.”
“You know,” said Joseph, “I don’t think he’s right yet, and I don’t think you do either. But I think he’s probably right enough to get out of that place.”
The captain knew what he meant. “Perhaps his performance here will be a factor in that decision.”
“I sure hope so.” Joseph smiled to himself. “Remember the time he was treating the Irhennian ambassador?”
Picard smiled too. “Yes. The one who insisted he had suffered internal injuries during the battle with the Gadraaghi? When all the while it was a—”
He stopped at the sight of Greyhorse coming down the corridor. The doctor looked vaguely discomfited, as if he had eaten something that didn’t agree with him. Suddenly, the captain wished he had brought the marble after all.
“Doctor?” he said. “What is it?”
Greyhorse turned to him as if he had never seen him before in his life. He stared for a moment, then said, in a voice full of disbelief, “It’s done.”
Picard looked at him. “You mean…you have a vaccine?” he asked hopefully.
The doctor hesitated for a moment, then said, “Yes. And a splitting headache. I forgot how difficult it could be staring into a scanner for hours on end.”
“I am sorry to hear about your headache,” the captain said, “but it was sustained in a very good cause.”
Greyhorse blinked a couple of times. “You used to say things like that when we were on the Stargazer.”
Did I? “I am sorry I am not more original these days.”
“It’s all right,” said the doctor. “I like hearing it. Those were good days, even if I didn’t know it at the time.”
They were good days. Greyhorse had been a trusted member of Picard’s command staff then, and a respected medical officer—not someone trying to put his past behind him.
Not for the first time, the captain wished he had seen some sign of the doctor’s transformation in time to do something about it. But like everyone else, he had missed it until it was almost too late.
“There will be good days again,” Picard said. “I promise. In the meantime, we need to get your vaccine to the Kevrata.”
Braeg looked out across majestic Victory Square, with its soaring fountains and its venerable statuary, where thousands of Romulans had assembled to hear him speak.
When he began his campaign against Tal’aura, he had been fortunate to draw an audience of even a hundred. Clearly, his popularity had grown, and that of his cause along with it.
Braeg smiled to himself as he ascended the sun-drenched stair before a statue of Pontilus, the Empire’s revered first praetor. It was Herran who had suggested that, at this critical juncture, the admiral align himself with Pontilus in the people’s minds. Judging from the enthusiasm of the crowd, the suggestion had been a good one.
But he wouldn’t speak quite yet. Wait another moment or two. Let their eagerness build to a crescendo.
And it did, much to his delight.
The admiral had known this feeling on other occasions, after some long, carefully planned series of maneuvers had given him a strategic advantage over a formidable enemy. But then, he was going to fight a battle here, wasn’t he?
A battle for the soul of Romulus. But he had plotted and deployed and maneuvered enough. It was time to attack.
“We have met in this square before,” he said, his first words quieting the crowd. “We have shared our concerns about the waves of unrest threatening Romulus’s stake in the outworlds. And we have talked about what this portends for the future of the Empire.
“When I commanded a fleet of warbirds against the Dominion, I took responsibility for my actions. After all, the decisions were mine. If they went awry, I looked to blame no one but myself. That is how a leader leads—by putting his pride and ambition aside and doing what benefits the Empire.
“Shinzon showed us what happens to those who put pride above all else. And yet Tal’aura insists on making the same mistake. She sees the numbers in which we g
ather, and she cannot ignore the strength we represent. But in her overwhelming pride, she continues down the path of ruin, and she takes us with her.”
Suddenly, he raised his voice, lashing the crowd with his discontent. “No more! Let us show Tal’aura, once and for all, that the people are disgusted with her inadequacies! Let us tell her unmistakably that we have had enough of her failures!
“Let us act,” he said, “in the name of our ancestors, who built what we have with their blood and their toil. Let us act in the name of our descendants, who deserve an Empire proud and strong. But most of all, let us act in the name of what is right—and tear this praetor down!”
Braeg had expected a cheer of approval. What he got was a storm of sound, so thunderous and sustained that after a while he feared for his hearing.
Clearly, he had the molten material he had hoped for. It was then a matter of forging it into a weapon that could pierce the heart of Tal’aura’s regime.
And with his next words, he did just that.
Praetor Tal’aura stood before her viewscreen, icewater collecting in the small of her back, and watched Braeg whip the crowd in Victory Square into a frenzy.
She saw now that she had made a grave mistake. She had been so careful not to make a martyr out of Braeg, and so confident that she could quell the uprisings on the outworlds, that she had allowed his affrontery to go too far.
Now he was calling for the people to oust her. Unacceptable, Tal’aura thought, to say the least. While she had eschewed the use of force to that point, she would now have to use force such as the capital had seldom seen.
Abruptly, the com device in her hand began chiming. She pressed a stud on it and said, “Yes?”
It was the commander of her troops in the capital. He asked her if she was monitoring Braeg’s speech. She said that she was.
“I beg you, Praetor, allow me to cut him and his movement to pieces, while I still can.”
Tal’aura gazed some more at the image of Braeg on the viewscreen. He was leaving her no choice but to eliminate him.
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