“The hell you are,” Crusher said, pressing the hypo against the side of her neck. Seeing the older woman literally fall off her feet, Crusher had used a priority override and beamed directly into Uhura’s office, then ordered a backup team to escort the admiral home. “You’re this close to exhaustion. You’re to stay in bed and away from that desk for at least eight hours if I have to strap you down in order to enforce it.”
Annoyed at all the fuss, Uhura was sitting very straight with her arms folded, wearing The Look, by the time Crusher had sent the backup team on its way and returned to the bedroom. But The Look, she discovered, only worked on the male of the species. Damn!she thought. Either I’m losing my touch, or it’s whatever tranquilizer Crusher’s shot me with, but this evening is not going the way I’d planned!
“Doctor’s orders?” she managed, resting on her dignity amid the pillows of her queen-size bed.
“Bed rest. Watch a movie, listen to some music, read a good book,” Crusher said. “Anything but work.”
“May I answer some mail?” Uhura asked sweetly. If The Look didn’t work, maybe her best smile would.
“Only if it’s not work-related,” Crusher scolded, halfway out the door. “Want a cup of hot milk before I go?”
“Get the hell out of here!” Uhura snapped. If the smile wasn’t going to work, either, she’d save it for another occasion. “Go home to your son; I don’t need you here.”
“Good night to you, too,” Crusher said, and was gone.
As soon as the outer door slid shut and locked behind her, Uhura activated the beside console. Riffling through the usual office memos and notes from friends and family members she didn’t have the energy to answer, she found a message from Curzon. She unscrambled it.
“Called in on emergency diplomatic mission, effective immediately. Hush-hush, rush-rush, top secret. So I won’t tell you I’m aboardOkinawa. Will comm you when I get back. Thanks for the memories, Curzon.”
Ordinarily, if Curzon was off on a top secret mission, he kept it secret. By its very presence, his message bothered her. Following her refit, Okinawahad been scheduled to go on maneuvers in the Mutara sector awaiting a new assignment. Where had she been diverted on such short notice, and why would Curzon specifically want Uhura to know?
Memo to self,she thought sleepily as she turned off the bedside lamp and the combination of the sound of foghorns on the bay and whatever it was Crusher had given her took effect: AscertainOkinawa’ s official destination, then extrapolate.Tranquilizers or no, a familiar tingling at the back of her neck said it had something to do with Catalyst.
Chapter 17
Zetha backed away from the others until she reached the far wall, one hand covering her mouth, her eyes wide with terror. Thamnos was still smirking.
“Do we have a deal?” he demanded. “The vaccine and your lives in exchange for my freedom? I’d say you’ve got the better end of the bargain.”
Again a look passed between Sisko and Tuvok which was too quick for Thamnos to notice. The human let the Vulcan know he was about to create a diversion.
Sisko appeared to crumble while they watched. He clenched his fists against his temples and seemed to stagger. When he straightened up, tears welled in his eyes.
“I don’t want to die!” he cried with all the passion of a Shakespearean actor. “I’ve seen what this disease does to people!” He turned on Zetha. “If this—this Tal Shiar plant has infected us all, the only thing that matters is the vaccine! Tuvok, let him go.”
“But, Dr. Jacobs—” Tuvok interjected, playing along.
“I said let him go, dammit!” Sisko snapped. “Dr. Thamnos, we’ll agree to your terms. We need that vaccine.”
As if reluctantly, Tuvok released his hold. Thamnos was swaggering and smirking at the same time.
“Now, there’s a sensible man. Maybe once we get out of here, we can be business partners. We can sell hiloponto both sides. I’ll still want full credit for the research, of course, but—”
He never finished his sentence. The knife that severed his windpipe prevented it.
Admiral Tal got up from the command chair to pace the warbird’s bridge restlessly. Few realized how much of a warbird commander’s life was spent just sitting. Sometimes, especially times such as this, a person needed to stretch.
This place had been hard won, and over a long and storied lifetime. That incident when he was a subcommander had almost ended his career if not his life; the climb back up had been arduous, to put it mildly. Tal had gotten as far as commander without tarnishing his honor or his morals—no mean feat in the service of an Empire not always committed to either—only to find himself subordinate to that butcher Volskiar at Narendra III.
He still had nightmares about that, though it was sixteen years past. It made him wary of all orders from above, and intent on scrutinizing their origin and their purpose. As he’d tried to tell Jarok, the headstrong fool, the important thing—well, the next most important thing after honor and morality, was moderation.
The next most important thing after that was to stay offworld, and out of politics, as much as possible. Such caution had won him an admiralcy, but at the cost of rarely seeing sky above him. He had no doubt he would die someday within the confines of a ship, in the service of a world where it was not safe for the moderate to live.
Tal would fight when he believed the cause was just. But, after Narendra III, he would not fight unless he knew precisely what he was fighting for.
The admiral did a circuit of the bridge stations, communicating by a glance here, a nod or touch on the shoulder there, that he knew he could count on his crew to give him their best, for they never got less from him. As for his crew, their respect for him bordered on adulation.
Tal saw that all was in order, then settled back in the command chair.
“Well?” he demanded of Koval. “We’re almost there. What happens next?”
“There” was a world Tal had finally managed to correlate between their course and existing starcharts as Renaga, designated unallied and “to be observed.” It was the only thing in the vicinity even the Tal Shiar could possibly be interested in. Tal knew other ships passed this way occasionally in spite of the treaty; he suspected Federation ships did as well. Was that the point of this Tal Shiar effort, to provoke accusations of treaty violation and stir up trouble for no particular reason? Did the Empire not have enough else on its mind? Whatever happened, he and his crew would take the brunt of it, and Tal was not amused.
Koval had had ample opportunity to observe the admiral on their journey here as well as earlier. He knew Tal’s history, and knew from his own investigation that the admiral was politically beyond reproach. He had been seen more than once in the company of Alidar Jarok, who was under surveillance for reasons owing to a possible shift in orthodoxy, yet the content of their conversations, beyond talk of women, had never been substantiated.
Koval knew as well that Tal was no ordinary commander. Intelligent, patrician, fit and energetic despite his years, not quick to anger but, once there, implacable, this one would not be bullied. He had also reached an age where he was beyond fear.
Koval was forced to consider him a peer. Very well; it would be a challenge. Had he known how much Tal despised his soft-bellied self, he would have found the challenge all the more exciting.