“Khegh’s flagship is already on its way here, Donatra. His people will be scanning your ships. They’ll know that half your fleet has been crippled.”
Donatra allowed a tiny smile to escape onto her lips. Shaking her head, she said, “No, Captain. All they’ll see are the false warp singularity-core readings being projected along our fleetwide internal subspace comm network from those of my ships that remain warp-capable. Khegh will learn only what I wishhim to learn.”
“UnlessI decide differently, you mean.”
“Consider your best interests, Captain. Your diplomatic mission to Romulus would be undone if anything were to add significantly to the antagonism the Klingons and their Reman clients already have for my people.”
“True.”
“And you still have to ferry the Neyel asteroid colony to the Neutral Zone so that Starfleet can tow it into Federation space. Titancannot perform that task unaided. You need my cooperation and goodwill. Consider that.”
He glared at her, his blue eyes flashing like a pair of disruptor tubes. But she met his gaze without flinching.
“All right, Commander. You win this one. But you’d better understand something: Whatever ‘honor debts’ you might think I owe you, I hereby consider them all canceled.Titan out.”He vanished from the screen without saying another word.
But his sour, disappointed expression seemed to leave a peculiar afterimage on the monitor screen. Focused, perhaps, through the lens of her conscience.
U.S.S. TITAN,STARDATE 57047.7
Vale woke up and immediately experienced a moment of extreme disorientation.
She began to remember where she was just as Jaza rolled toward her on the bed. She sat up, covering herself with a sheet as she rested her elbows on a heap of pillows, crumpled sheets, and bits and pieces of both of their uniforms. He smiled at her, apparently unfazed by their mutual nakedness.
They had ended up in Jaza’s quarters, not hers, she recalled. It was the first place she had gone after reporting back to Captain Riker following her time aboard Vanguard.
“So. Hi there. Oh, boy,” she said, stopping just short of addressing him as “Commander.” She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so awkward. What the hell have I just done?
But she was also still intensely glad to see him, considering how close they both had come these past few days to never being able to see one another ever again.
“Are you all right, Christine?”
She laughed. “I’m good. Really good. Really.”
Very gently, almost prayerfully, he took her hands between his own. Somehow, the sheet she had draped over herself remained in place; she suddenly felt embarrassed by her obvious attack of shyness.
“You seem uncomfortable,” he said.
“Well, this does potentially change things between us, doesn’t it?”
“How?”
“Well, for one thing, you aren’t calling me ‘Commander’ anymore.”
He chuckled. “Would you like me to?”
She answered with a laugh of her own, and the tension began to drain from her body. “Not at the moment. Maybe we can agree to leave Starfleet protocol on the bridge.”
“Agreed. But seriously, do you have any regrets?” Jaza asked. “I don’t. But I can certainly understand if you do. We’re supposed to be officers, after all.”
Vale nodded as she considered his question. Then she decided that her regrets would have been far worse had she not been honest with him about her feelings after her return from Vanguard. Who knew when some future emergency might separate them again, perhaps forever?
“If it’s a problem—”
She placed a finger over his lips, interrupting him. “If it’s not a problem for our captain and our chief diplomatic officer, then I suppose it doesn’t have to be for us.” Then she kissed him.
After they withdrew from the kiss, they remained reclining on his bed, regarding each other in expectant silence.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said finally.
She grinned in response. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Of course.” Another one of his beatific smiles was slowly spreading across his face.
“All right. I was wondering what we’re going to do for the next hour until we’re both due on the bridge.”
“I could make a suggestion or two,” Jaza said. “Anything else?”
She grinned. “Yes. I was also thinking what a wonderful surprise it was to find that Bajoran men have ridges in places other than their noses.”
She rose back onto her elbows and let the sheet drop away from her. Then she put her hands on his shoulders, and pushed him onto his back.
Standing just out of the sight lines of the comm system’s visual pickup, Deanna Troi sensed her husband’s barely contained frustration. It felt like a tightly coiled spring that might let loose at any moment, lashing out at everything in its path.
To his credit—or perhaps to his detriment, Troi thought—not a trace of any such emotion was reaching Will Riker’s face as the dour, gray-haired Klingon dressed him down from the computer screen sitting atop the ready room’s Elaminite wood desk.
“I still don’t think you’ve told meeverything you know, Riker.”Khegh, general in the Klingon Defense Force and governor-administrator of both the Romulan continent of Ehrief’vil and the newly brokered Klingon-Reman Protectorate, snarled from the small desktop monitor screen.
Will leaned forward across his desk, placing his elbows on either side of the ancient leather-bound book that lay open there. “Governor, all I can tell you is that the Dughdid indeed make it to the other side of the rift, in the Small Magellanic Cloud. She was heavily damaged during the transit, though, and apparently didn’t survive the return trip. If you want more of the particulars, why don’t you ask Commander Donatra?”
“Bah!”Khegh waved a large, gauntleted hand in front of the screen, momentarily throwing the picture out of focus. The plenitude of medals that crowded the front of the governor’s ornate diplomatic vestments clattered noisily against one another. “With all the trouble I’ve had these past few days dodging Rehaek’s Tal Shiar assassins and trying to keep Praetor Tal’Aura from coming to blows with Colonel Xiomek and the rest of the Reman leadership, I have had a bellyful of ambitious Romulans. Let the diplomats deal with Donatra and her ilk from now on.”
Same old Khegh,Troi thought, shaking her head in silent amusement. Never mind that he’s the closest thing to a diplomat his government has in the entire Romulan Empire.
“Governor, I regret the Dugh’s destruction nearly as much as you do,” Will said, his manner suffused with a degree of empathy that would have done credit to an experienced ship’s counselor. “Captain Tchev and his crew were fine officers.”
According to Troi’s recollections of the past several days, Tchev and his people had been anything but helpful during the Red King affair. But she also knew that there was no percentage in pointing that fact out to Khegh.
The hefty old warrior leaned back in a chair that looked nearly as heavily padded as he was. “Nonsense, Riker. Tchev was an idiot. After all, he allowed those RomulanpetaQ to kill him and destroy his vessel without a battle. None of theDugh ’s crew deserve a place in either the Hall of Heroes orSto-Vo-Kor . Khegh out.”
As the governor’s snarling face was replaced by the familiar starscape-and-laurel-leaf symbol of the Federation, Troi sensed that her husband’s frustration had suddenly grown acute once again. Sothat’s what this is about. He not only regrets not being able to come clean about what Donatra did to theDugh , he also wishes he could embellish the truth a bit so that Tchev and his crew would at least get a shot at the Klingon afterlife.