A Time for War, a Time for Peace - Keith R. A. DeCandido [69]
“Yes, ma’am, that was all I needed.”
“Good for you. Bacco out.” She angrily stabbed at the com unit’s control panel, cutting off the image of Piers Renault, the governor’s press liaison. “I don’t know who’s worse, Piers or Gari. Neither one of ‘em seems to be able to go to the bathroom unless I sign off on it.”
“If they do ask, I’d say let them.”
“It’d be a welcome change for Piers.” Bacco chuckled as she sat in her chair and indicated that Pińiero should take the guest chair. “So how’d that thing go in San Francisco? What was it, a reception?”
“A birthday party for Admiral Nechayev. I served with her on the U.S.S. Gorkon.”
Frowning, Bacco said, “There’s a U.S.S. Gorkon?”
Pińiero nodded.
“Wasn’t Gorkon a Klingon chancellor?”
“Yes, but he was the one who was instrumental in getting the Khitomer—”
Bacco waved her hand back and forth across her face. “Yeah, I know who he is, I’m just wondering why Starfleet named a ship after him.”
“Because he—”
“—was instrumental in getting the Khitomer Accords moving, and Starfleet’ll name a ship after any damn thing. Don’t the Klingons have a ship named after him?”
“Yeah, they do.”
“That must get confusing as hell.” Bacco grabbed a coffee mug, moved to sip from it, and discovered that it was empty. She got up and went to the replicator in the side wall. “Fine. So how was the party?”
“Not bad. I talked to some people. Ross’s support is definitely helping.”
“Coffee, black, unsweetened.” The replicator hummed. “You want anything?”
Pińiero shook her head. “Look, Governor, you and I need to have a conversation.”
“As opposed to what we’re doing right now?”
“I mean about something specific.”
Bacco took a sip from her coffee, then sat back down. “Is the conversation going to get more interesting? Because, I have to tell you, so far, you’re boring the living hell out of me.”
Pińiero hesitated. “The thing is—I’m not sure we should be having this conversation.”
“That makes two of us. Can you make up your mind in the next thirty seconds or so? I’ve got about four hundred calls to make—calls, I might add, that you said I should make while we were on Earth and before the debate tonight, so—”
“I had an interesting conversation with Admiral Upton.”
“Was it more interesting than this one?”
Nodding emphatically, Pińiero said, “Oh yeah, it was. See, Upton was working with Azernal on a few projects, and he had some interesting things to say to me.”
“Like what?”
Pińiero started to talk, then stopped. “How familiar are you with Tezwa?”
Bacco frowned, though a moment, then said, “Independent world near the Klingon border. They just had a rather bloody change in power.”
“Prime Minister Kinchawn threatened the Klingon colony of Qi’Vol. He eventually abdicated, then led an unsuccessful coup until Starfleet—barely—contained the situation.”
“Right, I got all this from FNS.”
Pińiero fidgeted, then stopped herself.
“Esperanza, what’s wrong? You don’t fidget.”
Damn, but that woman knows me too well. “Everyone assumed that Kinchawn’s threat against the Klingons was the last act of a madman who needed to be removed from power—right up until he used Federation pulse cannons on the Enterprise and its Klingon escort. The Enterprise assumed that they were stolen and sold on the black market by the Orions.” Pińiero started to fidget again, and finally sat on her hands. “What Upton told me was that—” She took a breath. “Governor—Upton told me that Azernal armed the Tezwans with those cannons through the Orions.”
Bacco stood up. “What!?”
“Governor—”
“You mean to tell me that the chief of staff of the Federation president armed an entire planet run by a nutcase—and nobody knew about it?”
Pińiero sighed. “Governor, if you’ll let me—”
“Wait a minute.” Bacco waved her arms again. She got a look on her face that Pińiero recognized. It was when she was working