“If so, that would seem to leave our esteemed praetor as our prime suspect, would it not?” Durjik said.
Both Donatra and Suran immediately seemed to warm to the notion of Tal’Aura-as-murderer. Tomalak was just as quickly on his feet, a short curved sword appearing in his hand as if conjured by magic. Troi was suddenly at the center of an emotional whirlwind. Somehow, Will remained cool, though he was as taut as a coiled spring. Akaar held himself back, but only barely. Keru seemed about to throw himself between the two angry Romulans.
Damn!Everything was about to come apart, right before her eyes. Her first outing as Titan’s diplomatic officer seemed unavoidably headed toward outright violence.
“Kroiha!”Tal’Aura shouted in Romulan, filling the room with her voice without so much as rising from her chair. “Tharon!”
Tomalak froze, as he had been commanded. “Forgive me, my Praetor.” Sheathing his sword, he returned to his seat, though with evident reluctance. And he continued to glare at the former senator, never letting his hand venture far from his blade.
“My apologies,” Durjik said, bowing his head slightly. Troi sensed not a shred of sincerity behind his words, and she seriously doubted he was fooling anyone else either.
Will broke the ensuing silence, clearly eager to get the meeting back on track. “Does anyone here seriously believe that anybody present at this meeting was involved with Pardek’s death?”
“We shall see,” Durjik said, scowling at Donatra and Suran.
“I suspect what we’ll see,” Troi said, “is that Pardek probably ran afoul of one of the factions not represented here today.”
Tal’Aura chuckled humorlessly. “As brutal as Pardek’s murder was, it was far too subtle an act to have been carried out by the Remans.”
“I’m not talking about the Remans. I’m referring to the Tal Shiar.”
Troi immediately sensed an almost reflexive wave of apprehension radiating from the praetor’s hindbrain. That was understandable, given the fear that the Romulan Star Empire’s semi-independent military intelligence bureau had so carefully cultivated for so many years. But something else lurked beneath Tal’Aura’s apprehension as well, a secret she was holding more closely than one of Christine Vale’s poker hands.
The praetor was hiding something critical. And it was related to the Tal Shiar.
Tomalak spoke up, his tone and manner insincerely patronizing. “And what special expertise might you possess regarding the Tal Shiar, Commander Troi?”
Should I come right out and tell him?Troi thought. Focusing her gaze for a moment onto the chamber’s high ceiling, she decided on forthrightness. “I used to bein the Tal Shiar.”
All the Romulans in the room seemed greatly amused by this. Good. At least they’re less likely to kill one another now that they’ve shared a joke at the expense of an old adversary.
She saw then that Will was flashing a warning glare in her direction. “Commander.”
“Forgive me, Captain,” she said in her most professional tone. She was determined to continue. “Let me be more precise. Ten years ago, I posed as a Tal Shiar agent in order to help a high-ranking Romulan senator defect to the Federation.”
The captain’s eyes looked like dinner plates, and she met his incredulous stare with a warning glare of her own. I know what I’m doing here, Will. If these people don’t start focusing their hostility onto targets other than each other, this entire mission is doomed before it even starts.
Troi looked at Donatra, who was regarding her with hard, appraising eyes. Though her countenance concealed it well, she was clearly revising her opinion of the Starfleet contingent. Troi sensed that her frank admission of espionage—performed during an entirely different astro-political era—was beginning to generate some real respect from Donatra.
“Vice-Proconsul M’ret,” Suran said to Troi. In sharp contrast to Donatra, his voice and manner were frosted with anger and contempt. “M’ret the traitor. You were one of those who helped him betray the Empire’s security.”
Because of Suran’s intense negativity, Troi found she had to work harder than she’d expected to keep her own rising pique from coloring her reply. “During the decade since his defection, M’ret has helped prevent a tremendous amount of bloodshed between your people and ours. If the talks we are beginning now succeed in making further progress toward peace—if they build upon M’ret’s work—then your histories may make a far kinder appraisal of him someday.”
“The sun will grow dark and cool long before that day arrives,” Suran said, as stonily as any Vulcan. “M’ret is a traitor, now and forever.”
Durjik guffawed almost explosively. “Such steadfastness is ironic indeed, coming from you, Suran—a man who once believed, as Pardek did, that the best way to secure peace with the Federation is to conquer it while it sleeps.”
Troi wondered if Suran was going to reply to Durjik with cold steel, as Tomalak had nearly done moments earlier. Then she felt Donatra’s patience shatter like a dam blown apart by the inexorable pressure of some great sea.
“Akhh!Durjik, you act as though you have never erred, learned from the error, and then changed your ways!”
Durjik responded without so much as a pause for breath, exhibiting debating skills he had no doubt honed over countless years of service in the Senate. “Like Suran, error is evidently the major focus of yourexpertise, Commander Donatra. You and Suran both sided with Shinzon, whose plans of conquest came to naught.”
“As did our noble praetor,” Donatra said coldly, turning her angry gaze on Tal’Aura.
The praetor bristled, but remained silent, as did the increasingly angry Tomalak.
“You have argued Commander Donatra’s point well, Durjik,” Suran said evenly, though his outrage was limned in Troi’s empathy as brightly as a disruptor bank being fired. “You and Pardek weren’t always bent on preemptive war. Time and circumstance have changed you both greatly. Why, Pardek even once supported that ridiculous Vulcan Unification movement, until Neral drove it back into the hole from which it crawled.”
“Whatever errors you may impute to our praetor, Commander Donatra, you will note that she still lives, Shinzon notwithstanding,” Tomalak growled. Turning to Durjik, he added, “Unlike your beloved Pardek, whose own errors have made him kllhefodder at long last, and deservedly so.”
Durjik rose, throwing his chair backward. Tomalak mirrored Durjik’s sudden movement, despite another sharp protestation from Tal’Aura. Supercritical tempers detonated. Steel blades flashed. Troi had missed the precise instant when the two antagonists had lost control, so overloaded had her empathy become by their relentless emotional “heat.” Will, Akaar, and Keru were already rising in an effort to intercede, but it was clear that none of them could act in time to prevent a second act of murder.
Time stretched. Drawing on her decade-old experience living among Romulans asa Romulan—as well as on the past several weeks, during which she’d acted as the primary social lubricant among Titan’s highly varied crew—she quickly grasped the last diplomatic arrow in her quiver.
Troi shouted with a vehemence and volume that would have impressed even her mother. “The Remans will tear the flesh from your bones!”
Tomalak and Durjik hesitated, then slowly lowered their blades. As one, they both turned to face Troi. She noticed then that every eye in the chamber was upon her. I’d better keep this going, now that I finally have their attention.
“The Remans won’t care about your political differences!” she said, maintaining a commanding tone that she somehow kept just a few decibels short of shrillness. “They won’t care about who served Shinzon and who opposed him! They won’t care about your internal grudges and petty feuds! All they will care about is what you represent to them: oppression! You show them this kind of weakness and disunity, and they will scoop out your brains and eat them! If you expect to make long-term peace with them instead of more war, then you’d better start setting aside your differences. Now. Sit. Down.”