Death in Winter - Michael Jan Friedman [23]
But Tomalak had nearly a hundred ships under his command, and only a third of them were dispersed throughout the Empire. That left him with a fleet at least equal to the rogues’.
He laughed softly to himself. All he had ever needed in the past was a fighting chance. For someone as skilled as Tomalak, equal odds were a rare and heady luxury.
One that would, in due course, prove the undoing of Donatra and old Suran.
And so it goes, Tomalak mused, around and around like a child’s spinning toy. The great became the least and the least became the great, over and over again, so quickly sometimes that it made him dizzy to contemplate it.
Only Tomalak always kept his place in the firmament, because he knew better than to reach for something as high as a throne. Instead, he identified the favorite of the moment-Tal’aura today, someone else tomorrow-and inured himself to them.
Naturally, he had political preferences. One of them was that the Empire stay as far away from the Federation as possible-a policy from which Tal’aura seemed increasingly ready to diverge. But that didn’t mean Tomalak would stint one iota in his support of the praetor or her regime.
Until another one came along.
That was what it meant to be a rock in a tempest. That was the price one paid to remain a survivor.
He would never have done anything so rash as to stand in defiance of authority, like the swarm of warbirds on his monitor screen. And he would certainly never have laid his sword at the feet of anyone as politically inexperienced as Braeg.
Without question, the fellow had been a great military commander in his day, a hero of the Empire. But leading a fleet into battle wasn’t nearly as difficult as marshalling the loyalty of a senate, or manipulating a congress of merchants, or holding sway over the backstabbing, bickering Hundred.
Unfortunately for Braeg, he would never have the opportunity to learn that lesson firsthand. Depressing a button with his forefinger, Tomalak called up a different image-that of his own powerful, well-prepared fleet.
The one that would defend Romulus when the rebels came. The one that would, in the end, prevail.
If Donatra and the others wanted a fight, he would give them one-and remind Tal’aura that, of all those who served her, no one was more valuable than Tomalak.
Carter Greyhorse’s life had become much fuller since the head of his penal settlement retired and was replaced by a new, more liberal administrator.
The woman’s name was Esperanza. She had been in charge for only a couple of days when she granted Greyhorse access to a series of monographs published by Starfleet Medical.
Her predecessor, a fellow named Dupont, had repeatedly refused Greyhorse that privilege. It wasn’t that there was anything in the monographs he could have used to hurt anyone-not even himself. But Dupont had denied them to Greyhorse all the same.
It had seemed unnecessarily cruel. Greyhorse had, after all, been a doctor. Despite everything that had happened, his mind still moved in that direction.
But he was a prisoner these days, at the mercy of others in every way. There was little he could have done about the administrator’s stubbornness except continue to make his requests, and hope that Dupont changed his mind.
He hadn’t, of course. But he had removed himself from the equation, which was even better.
Now Greyhorse could read a monograph whenever he wanted. In fact, he was poring over one of them at that very moment, following the research of a Doctor Bashir who had done groundbreaking work in the field of biomimetics.
Intriguing, he thought-as the door to his quarters slid open, revealing his guard. In actuality, McGovern-a hatchet-faced man with a shock of red hair-was but one of the guards who worked at the penal settlement. However, Greyhorse had come to think of McGovern as his own.
“Yes?” said the doctor.
“It seems,” said McGovern, “that you have a visitor.”
A visitor? the doctor thought. “There must be some mistake. I’m not expecting anyone.”
“Nonetheless,” said