The ambassador had no desire to remain standing in this office until that unfortunate event came to pass.
“Should I have my breakfast delivered here,” he asked after a moment, “or simply dispense with that and place an order for lunch?”
Cooper’s face went pale in response to the question, but Nogura seemed unperturbed by the verbal jab. His only reaction was to return his teacup to its saucer and clear his throat before leaning back in his chair. He said nothing at first, taking a moment to regard Cooper and Jetanien with bright, sharp eyes. Finally, a slim grin creased his weathered face.
“I have to say, Ambassador, you are as your reputation describes you. I’m sure that forthright demeanor of yours works for you most of the time.” He reached once more for his tea, taking a long sip before setting the cup down. “It might even have worked with Commodore Reyes, but it won’t do anything except annoy the hell out of me. Consider that free advice to apply toward our working relationship going forward. I trust I’m being clear on this point?”
Bristling at the rebuke, which he knew he had brought on himself, Jetanien nodded. “You are, Admiral. I apologize for my conduct. It will not be repeated.”
“Excellent,” Nogura said, picking up the data slate from which he had been reading. “Now, since this is the first time the three of us have been able to meet since my arrival, allow me to congratulate both of you. You’ve faced remarkable challenges these past weeks, particularly you, Commander Cooper, stepping into Commodore Reyes’s shoes and making it look easy.” Looking to Jetanien, he added, “Ambassador, your efforts not only with the Klingon and Tholian delegations but also with our resident Tholian guest also haven’t gone unnoticed. While it might go without saying that the success of this station and its mission is a direct result of your being here, I’m saying it anyway. Thank you both, and I can only hope such extraordinary work will continue.”
“Thank you, sir,” Cooper replied, offering a curt, formal nod.
Jetanien added, “My staff and I will pursue every diplomatic option available to us, and once those are exhausted, we will not stop until we find new avenues to explore.”
Nogura nodded in apparent satisfaction. “That’s good, because I’m afraid things are only going to be getting busier. As you already know, the Klingons are on the move throughout the Taurus Reach.”
“Indeed,” Jetanien said. “Despite the limited number of ships they’re able to spare, the empire seems determined to engage in wholesale land grabbing.”
Cooper added, “From a tactical perspective, it’s easy to see the lines being drawn. Klingon ship captains also seem hell-bent on testing us as they keep pushing through the region.”
“They want to see if we’re willing to challenge their claims on whichever planet they plant their flag,” Nogura replied. “With limited exceptions, they seem satisfied to stick to resource-rich worlds that are uninhabited.”
Jetanien chirped before saying, “That won’t always be the case. Sooner or later, they’ll begin subjugating populated planets and enslaving the indigenous inhabitants. The unfortunate reality of life under Klingon rule.”
“Both the Endeavourand the Sagittariushave been conducting patrol missions to planets claimed by the empire,” Cooper said. “According to Captain Nassir on the Sagittarius,they’ve already established a strip-mining operation on one planet in the Conana system.” He shrugged. “The whole planet isn’t much more than a giant dilithium crystal.”
“They’re not just causing problems here,” Nogura said, “but all along the border as well, and I’m afraid there’s more bad news.” He reached for another data slate on his desk. “It seems someone else has taken an active interest in the goings-on out here.” He held up the unit for Cooper and Jetanien to see. “This is a report I received just this morning from Starfleet Intelligence. It details an analysis of a collection of what looked to be spaceship wreckage recovered several weeks ago by the Lovelland her Corps of Engineers team. As you may recall, they were sent to the Palgrenax system to investigate the remains of the planet that we believe was destroyed by one of these Shedai global super-weapons I’ve been reading so much about.”
“Yes, sir,” Cooper responded. “We’d received briefings that the Klingons had claimed the system and subjugated the preindustrial civilization indigenous to the system’s only Class-M planet. The Lovellretrieved what it thought were remnants of a Klingon ship, but an on-site analysis followed by a more detailed inspection here on the station revealed that the hull plating we recovered didn’t match any known Klingon vessel configuration. In fact, it didn’t match anything in any of Starfleet’s recognition databases.”
“It does now,” Nogura countered, holding up the data slate in his hand for emphasis. “Last week, the U.S.S. Enterprisemade contact with and engaged a previously unknown type of vessel. That ship was also destroyed, and the Enterprisecollected pieces of the wreckage. Their science officer forwarded his own analysis of those samples to Starfleet Command, who found themselves with a mystery of their own, since the material from the ship they encountered matches that from the one apparently destroyed near Palgrenax. Both ships were Romulan.”
“Romulan?” Cooper said, his complexion growing pale. “Seriously? After all this time?”
Nogura nodded. “Looks that way. The report from the Enterpriseis alarming, to say the least.”
“To the best of my knowledge,” Jetanien said, “no contact with a Romulan ship has been recorded for more than a century, since the armistice after the war.”
Following that protracted conflict, and the signing of the tenuous peace treaty still enjoyed by both sides, Romulans had all but gone into total seclusion. Numerous theories abounded about the reason for the self-imposed isolation, most notable being shame at having been equaled or even bested by what the Romulans had perceived to be a vastly inferior foe. After his studies of the reclusive interstellar power, which admittedly were based largely on century-old intelligence briefings, battle reports and transcripts from the few diplomatic meetings that took place before the peace treaty’s enactment, Jetanien had come to another conclusion. He did not believe that embarrassment or wounded pride had anything to do with the Romulans’ choosing to absent themselves from the interstellar political stage. Rather, he was all but certain that they simply had been biding their time, refining the weapons and technology that had failed to serve them during the war and waiting for such time as their onetime adversary offered a weakness or other opening that might be exploited.
Had the Federation, after all these years, finally offered such an opportunity?
As though reading his mind, Nogura said, “The ship destroyed by the Enterprisehad been attacking observation outposts positioned on our side of the Neutral Zone. Three of those outposts were destroyed by this single vessel, which, according to the Enterprise’s captain, was carrying some form of high-energy plasma weapon.”
Leaning forward in his chair, the admiral tossed the data slate so that it landed on top of several of the others on his desk.
“And it gets better. It seems our old friends have improved on their cloaking technology, at least to some degree.”
“They’ve advanced to the point where their ships are undetectable?” Jetanien asked. From what he had read about the cloaking, or “stealth,” technology employed by the Romulans more than a century ago, the power requirements necessary to envelop an entire vessel in a dampening field that rendered them invisible not only to the eye but also to sensors were huge. It was an obstacle the Romulans had only partially overcome in the twenty-second century, and that incomplete success was but one of the reasons Earth and its allies had stood a fighting chance during the war.