• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Bacco was speaking as Abrik entered the lounge. “—alk to the Romulans unless they actually come to the table, and they haven’t shown much interest in that since that Watraii business a couple years ago. Remember, these are the same people who closed their borders for over fifty years. If they don’t want to talk, they don’t want to talk, and there are limits as to what can be accomplished. Speaking for myself, I was hoping for more after our cooperation during the war, but I wasn’t really expecting anything other than what we got.”

Abrik shook his head at the completely truthful but wholly uninspired answer. Nail her, Fel.

“Special Emissary Pagro, you have one minute for rebuttal.”

Pagro gave the audience—and the camera recording the event—his most pleasant smile. “It’s easy to say, ‘They won’t come to the table.’ That saves you the trouble of having to do any work, and shifting the blame. But the Romulans are an enemy of the Federation, and have been for as long as there’s been a Federation. In fact, they’ve been an enemy of anyone who isn’t the Romulan Empire for as long as they’ve existed as a political entity. They only helped us during the war out of self-interest, and that self-interest is also keeping them from talking to us now. Lifting the trade embargo was good for people who want to drink Romulan ale without guilt, but it’s not really doing us any good right now. Furthermore, we can’t afford to sit around and wait for our enemies to make the first move. That’s what leads to things like Wolf 359—or the Gorn attack on Cestus III during the war.”

Now Abrik grinned. That was the perfect retort, and based on the brief look on Bacco’s face before she got herself under control, it hit close to home. That’s my guy, he thought proudly.

Satisfied that his candidate was wiping the floor with his opponent, Abrik approached the man he’d been looking for. “Ambassador Worf?”

Worf looked up at the prompt. “Yes?”

“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Jas Abrik—I’m running Special Emissary Pagro’s campaign. May we speak a moment?”

“I will be departing for the Crazy Horse in ten minutes. Be brief.”

Love that Klingon bluntness, Abrik thought as he sat in the chair that was sitting at a forty-five-degree angle to the ambassador’s own seat. “There’s something you need to know, Mr. Ambassador, something that the council probably didn’t tell you, and probably never will.”

“And that is?”

Most of the diplomats Abrik had encountered in his life—including the one whose campaign he was currently managing—had open, friendly demeanors, and always gave the impression that they were ready to talk. Even the ones from less—there was no other word for it—refined species, like the Tellarites or the Klingons, tended to be somewhat open and welcomed discussion.

Worf, however, fixed Abrik with a stare that didn’t say, I wish to have a conversation with you. Instead, it said, Speak quickly and I might not kill you for daring to intrude upon my life. Abrik found it at once refreshing and more than a little intimidating.

“Are you aware of what happened on Tezwa?”

“Yes.”

Abrik smiled. “Mr. Ambassador, I know for a fact that that is an incorrect response, because I know something you do not: those pulse cannons that wiped out the Klingon fleet and almost did the same to the Enterprise?”

“What of them?”

If Worf had any emotional reaction to Abrik’s comments, or his statements regarding Worf’s former shipmates, he kept it very well hidden. He’d have made a decent Vulcan, if not for that air of brutality he carries around. “They weren’t stolen from Starfleet. They were provided—by Koll Azernal.”

Worf leaned back in his chair. “An interesting theory.”

“It isn’t a theory,” Abrik snapped. “It is, however, a secret, one that we cannot afford to keep.”

“Had Azernal done what you accuse him of doing, Mr. Abrik—the Federation would be in violation of the Khitomer Accords. The likely next step would be war.”

“Not necessarily.”

Worf gave him the stare again.

“Hear me out,