Despite his righteous anger over the cloaking device, Riker could feel the stress begin to pour out of his body like steam escaping from a volcanic fissure. He had expected Akaar to bellow angrily and pull rank on him, or perhaps even to threaten to strip him of his command for having taken such an insubordinate tone with him.
Instead, the Capellan seemed cordial and almost apologetic, even allowing Riker a glimpse of something akin to gentle humor. Riker felt that he was receiving something extraordinarily rare. With an almost stunning shock of recognition, he realized what that something was. It’s almost like getting praise from Dad.
Forcing his thoughts back to the present, Riker said, “Maybe I have allowed my perceptions of you to be colored by my own…apprehensions. And by the sensitive nature of this mission.”
Akaar extended a large hand. “I hope we have arrived at a mutual understanding, then. You should be satisfied that I am not a deskbound paper-pusher sent here for the express purpose of ‘busting your chops.’ And I will conclude, unless you give me reason later to further revise my opinion, that you are no neophyte in need of supervision. Now shall we move forward, Captain?”
Riker took Akaar’s hand and shook it firmly. “Agreed, Admiral.”
Akaar nodded his head curtly, his earlier grim smile now returned. “Before we break out into a Risan peace song, let me ask: Have you had any luck finding Vulcan life signs on Romulus?”
Riker withdrew his hand and frowned. “No, I’m sorry, sir. Not yet, at any rate. Scanning the Romulan homeworld for Vulcan life signs makes the naked-eye search for a needle in a haystack look pretty easy by comparison.”
“The biosigns we seek are more than likely in, under, or near Ki Baratan.”
“Ki Baratan and the surrounding area have come up dry so far,” Riker said, nodding. “I’ve had Commander Jaza and several of Commander Ledrah’s techs working on re-fining the resolution of the new sensor nets. But the central problem remains: distinguishing two Vulcan biosigns from those of several billion Romulans.”
Akaar’s brow furrowed, and he stared past Riker at the distant glowing limb of Romulus that was visible through the observation window to the left of the desk. “Your search may be complicated by the fact that one of those two Vulcans has been microsurgically modified to pass as a Romulan.”
“Your missing agent?” Riker asked. He remembered that Akaar had mentioned a missing intelligence operative during the first mission briefing, but the admiral hadn’t elaborated when he had later ordered the search for Vulcan life signs.
Akaar nodded, then looked Riker directly in the eyes. “Captain, it is very important to me that we find that agent, whatever fate may have befallen him. I must confess that I have a personal stake in the return of both Ambassador Spock and our operative.”
Akaar’s haunted expression explained why the admiral was willing to play so fast and loose with treaty law. He’s planning to run a surreptitious rescue raid down on Romulus, Riker thought, just in case we fail to arrange a quiet, unobtrusive rescue via transporter.
“Who is the agent you sent to track down Ambassador Spock?” Riker asked, already beginning to bristle again at the admiral’s apparently ingrained reticence about sharing information.
“The agent is Commander Tuvok,” said Akaar.
Riker’s eyebrows furrowed. “The name sounds familiar…”
“Tuvok is a career tactical specialist and intelligence operative, as well as having served aboard the U.S.S. Voyager during that vessel’s unplanned detour to the Delta Quadrant. Most recently, he was an instructor at Starfleet Academy. Admiral Janeway of Starfleet Command and Admiral Batanides of Starfleet Intelligence agreed with my assessment that he was the officer best qualified to infiltrate Romulus and make contact with Ambassador Spock for the purpose of persuading him to leave Romulus for a conference with the president and the Federation Council. So Tuvok was tapped for the job a few months ago.”
Once again, Akaar looked past Riker at the observation window and the planet that lay beyond it. “I first served with Tuvok long ago, back when we were both much, much younger. We were both assigned to Excelsior for a time, under Captain Hikaru Sulu.” A wry smile slowly spread across his lips. “I think you would have liked Captain Sulu. He, too, tended to favor unconventional command methodologies. And he probably would have reacted as you did when faced with a secretive, overbearing admiral. Hikaru was brought up on insubordination charges more than once, but he always managed to beat them somehow. Results count for more than protocol, after all.”
“So you and Tuvok are friends,” Riker said.
“We were friends, once,” Akaar said quietly. “But we had a…disagreement many years ago. We have said scarcely a word to each other over the past three decades.”
Riker didn’t need Deanna with him to conclude that Akaar was rehashing old regrets. The admiral’s need to search for Vulcan life signs was not purely professional, but also deeply personal. Riker was already aware that Spock had known the admiral since the day of his birth; the rightful hereditary leader of Capella had been named “Leonard James Akaar,” after two of Spock’s closest friends, the chief medical officer and captain, respectively, of the old Constitution-class U.S.S. Enterprise. And now that he was aware that the missing Tuvok also had a personal connection to the admiral, Riker empathized. Not only had he recently lost one of his closest friends, Data—right here in Romulan space—but Riker also had to acknowledge, if only to himself, that his own father’s recent violent death remained a painful, unhealed wound.
“Whatever we do, we must make contact with Ambassador Spock,” Akaar said. “He may provide indispensable assistance in stabilizing the political situation on Romulus—Sorok’s low opinion of the Unificationist movement notwithstanding.”
“I agree,” Riker said, his voice strong and steady. Still, he wondered what else about this mission Akaar might still be holding back from him. Not twenty minutes earlier, Deanna had reiterated yet again her opinion that the admiral was being less than forthright concerning Spock. “We’ll find them, sir.”
But even as Riker made this assurance, a chill of dread entered his mind.
How do I know we’ll find them? They may both already be dead.
And he was sure he saw the same misgivings reflected in Akaar’s dark, downcast eyes.
Chapter Fifteen
THE HALL OF STATE, KI BARATAN, ROMULUS
Deanna Troi kept her eyes open as the familiar sparkling blaze of light intensified and engulfed her, before rapidly dimming to twilight levels. The eager Lieutenant Radowski and the worry-radiating Commander Vale, along with the rest of Titan’s compact transporter room four, were abruptly replaced by the cavernous, vaulted spaces of the Romulan Hall of State. Radial, crescent-shaped windows set high into the domed ceiling admitted the waning sunlight into the otherwise unlit room, obscuring the chamber’s periphery with curved, inky shadows.
Hello, again, Troi thought, forcing down a shudder of foreboding as she looked around the spacious room. Thanks to her still-green memories of Shinzon—and his viceroy Vkruk—she couldn’t help but feel foreboding in this place that Shinzon had so recently occupied.
Yet no matter how uncomfortable this chamber made her feel, she knew this was no time to allow herself to become distracted.
She noticed then that both Will and Admiral Akaar were watching her, their emotional auras blazing brightly with concern for her even though their faces remained impassive. The only other member of the four-person away team who wasn’t studying her was Security Chief Keru, who had eyes only for the large empty chamber in which they had materialized. Though Keru hadn’t produced a weapon—Will and the admiral had agreed that it wouldn’t be wise to do anything to make the Romulans any more nervous than they already were—he was clearly ready for anything.
She could see that he had good reason. The dark wood and stone walls, though resplendent with ornate red tapestries and elegant green statues of predatory birds set into high scon
ces, cast shadows that could have hidden a dozen snipers.
Will stepped to Troi’s side, straightening his white dress-uniform jacket as he moved. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said, a bit more tartly than she had intended. She was sensing a great deal of apprehension and confusion coming from beyond the room from just about every direction, almost like a pall of smoke rising above a fire. She found the emotions difficult to sort out, and had to focus her attention very tightly to prevent them from getting in the way of the business at hand. The confused intensity that she sensed reminded her that the city of Ki Baratan had been experiencing social upheavals of various kinds ever since Shinzon had killed the Senate.
“Where are the Romulans?” Will asked, looking around the empty room.
As if cued by the captain’s words, a quartet of hard-faced, uniformed uhlans appeared, each soldier entering the chamber from a different cardinal direction. The disruptor pistols in their hands told everyone that they didn’t share Keru’s reticence about openly brandishing weaponry.
“You will accompany us directly to the Senate Chamber,” said one of the uhlans before turning on his heel and leading the way into and through a branching corridor.
Moments later, the group was standing beneath a gigantic silver sculpture fashioned in the shape of a hawklike avian that loomed over the curved tiers of desks and chairs where the late Romulan Senate had done its deliberations for centuries. Surrounded by blue pillars and abstract, rust-colored wall hangings, the room’s expansive stone floor was dominated by a circular mosaic of smooth marble, half blue and half green, and inlaid with lines and circlets of gold. A wavy ribbon of turquoise bisected the mosaic, at once separating and joining the two halves together. Golden icons faced one another across the length of the divide, arrayed like chess pieces.
On the green side, far off-center and larger than every other element on the mosaic, was the stylized image of a star and two nearby planets.
To Troi, the symbolism was both obvious and shocking…and perhaps indicative of a disturbing cultural mindset. Here, at the very heart of their power, was the Romulan worldview: an image not of the Empire entire, with Romulus at its center, but rather, a symbol of enmity, of its centuries-old antagonism with its old foe, the Federation.
And it dominated the very floor of the Senate Chamber.
Is this how they see themselves? Troi wondered. Always on the verge of war with us? Or does the central placement of the Neutral Zone speak more to a feeling of confinement? A reminder of thwarted ambition? What does this say about a civilization, that it defines itself by its relationship to its longtime adversary?
Troi looked up from the star map, forcing herself once again to focus on the immediate—and on the two high-ranking Romulans who now strode to the room’s center, stopping at the precise spot from which Romulan senators had delivered their orations for more than two centuries. She noted that the dull gray floor was spotless, showing no evidence of the potent thalaron radiation that she knew Shinzon had used to obliterate all life within this august chamber.
“Welcome to Ki Baratan,” said Praetor Tal’Aura with a beneficent smile that incompletely concealed a world-weary mixture of ambition and caution. Her dark gray raiment was simple and unprepossessing, not unlike that of a junior member of the Senate. “I thank you all for coming.”
Troi returned the smile as best she could, managing to do so only by sheer force of will. And thank you so much for the enthusiastic welcoming committee.
“We’re happy to assist you in any way we can, Madam Praetor,” Will said, sounding utterly self-assured as he introduced the away team, beginning with the admiral and ending with Keru. The captain’s carefully managed feelings of apprehension spiked momentarily when he exchanged bows with Proconsul Tomalak, the tall, wide-shouldered man who stood at the praetor’s side.
“You have already gone a long way toward demonstrating the truth of your words, Captain,” Tal’Aura said. “The medical supplies and industrial replicators your convoy ships have delivered will relieve untold suffering among my people. I thank you on behalf of the entire Romulan Star Empire.”
Though the praetor’s outward expression had not changed, Troi noticed an emotional turbulence roiling beneath her words. It is costing this woman a great deal to be forced to accept our help, she thought. And she knows as well as we do that she can’t really do or say anything “on behalf of the entire Romulan Star Empire.” At least not unless and until things get a lot better for ordinary Romulans, and soon.
A door on the east side of the room slowly opened, interrupting Troi’s reverie. She watched as three other Romulan civilians and a pair of high-ranking military officers entered the room, accompanied by yet another small contingent of armed, stern-visaged uhlans. Troi noticed immediately that former Senator Pardek was not among this group, and she exchanged a silent yet significant glance with Will, who had clearly made the same observation.
“Allow me to introduce the other participants in this conference,” Tomalak said, gesturing toward the newly arrived Romulans, all of whom were already taking seats around what was clearly a newly installed conference table set a few meters back from the circular room’s center.
As Tomalak completed the introductions, Troi quietly surveyed the other negotiating parties, “reading” their emotional states even as she studied their uniformly guarded facial expressions. She and Will were already acquainted with the tall, dark-haired female military officer, Commander Donatra.
When Donatra’s warbird had vanished from the Titan convoy’s Romulan escort squadron, Troi couldn’t help but wonder what the commander had been up to. Had she kept the warbird Valdore cloaked nearby, to keep watch over the convoy? Or had she left the area on some urgent errand? Because Jaza’s new sensor net had failed to detect the slightest trace of Donatra’s cloaked vessel, Troi had made the latter assumption, as had Will. Though she still sensed, unsurprisingly enough, that the commander was hiding something significant, Troi hoped that Donatra could be counted on as an ally, someone who would help keep this meeting from becoming overly contentious.
At Donatra’s side sat Commander Suran, an older man whose hair was the color of duranium deck plating. Both he and Donatra wore medal-bedecked dress uniforms that included medium-length ceremonial swords that Troi immediately recognized as Honor Blades; though both Suran and Donatra displayed some degree of apprehension at being in the presence of both the praetor and a contingent of former adversaries from the Federation, they bore themselves with a quiet pride and dignity that matched their exterior martial decorations quite well.
But Donatra’s every glance at Tal’Aura was freighted with a hatred so pure and terrible that Troi experienced it almost as physical pain. Troi could sense that Suran harbored a strong antipathy toward the new praetor as well.
The third member of the newly arrived party took up a position on the other side of the wide sherawood table. And though soft-spoken, the man whom Tomalak had introduced as a former senator named Durjik radiated anger the way a fast-spinning neutron star gave off X-rays.
“So,” Durjik said without waiting for Tal’Aura’s formal leave to begin speaking. He paused to stare appraisingly around the table at each member of Titan’s away team, who had taken their seats moments after the Romulans had. Then he allowed his contemptuous gaze to settle on Akaar. “We meet the enemy face to face at last.”
Will spared a quick glance at Troi. She nodded almost imperceptibly, thereby telling him that Durjik wasn’t speaking hyperbolically; as a member of Pardek’s “attack-the-Federation-preemptively” faction, he seemed utterly sincere in his fear and hatred of the Federation.
And why isn’t Pardek himself here?
Her attention suddenly drawn to the smoldering anger whose fires Akaar was keeping prudently banked, Troi began watching the admiral closely.
“When I look at you, Senator,” Akaar said slowly and deliberately, “I do not see an
enemy.”
“Then you are a liar or a fool, human. Which is it?” Deanna felt haughtiness, with a sprinkling of surprise.
The admiral allowed a small smile to emerge. “I am no more human than you are.”
“Immaterial. Whatever your species, you are of the Federation. One of its many mongrel races, no doubt.” Durjik pointed aggressively toward the admiral’s dress-white tunic and the two small rows of decorations that crossed its front. “You wear the Federation’s uniform, and those bangles tell me that you will do anything to defend it. Just as I would do anything to preserve the Romulan Star Empire.”
Including going to war against the Federation for no reason, even if that means there’ll be no Empire left to preserve afterward. The former senator’s increasingly palpable anger was beginning to make her head throb. And yet she felt a pang of sympathy for him as she studied his craggy, careworn face. Had he, like Pardek, developed his penchant for belligerence only recently, because of some grievous personal loss? It struck her then that counseling and diplomacy might be two sides of the same coin.
Will leaned forward, asserting a degree of quiet control over the meeting that Troi found soothing. “In fact, the admiral’s homeworld is not yet a member of the Federation,” he said. “But I think we all agree with you in one very important respect, Senator. There is very little that Admiral Akaar, or any of us, wouldn’t do to defend and preserve the Federation. We’ll even risk coming open-handed before people who hate us—if that’s what it takes to build a peace that both our civilizations can live with.”
Troi noticed immediately that the net level of tension in the room was noticeably decreasing, at least among Donatra, Suran, and Tal’Aura, as well as among the Starfleet contingent.
Durjik’s outrage, however, now blazed even more brightly than it had before. Something besides our presence here is bothering him, Troi thought.
Titan, Book One Page 19
