Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [77]
Now this ghost, this Voice, came to him when he no longer needed it. Orsova knew in his gut that this speaking person was an alien.
“Why would the Federation come again after all these years?” he asked. “What do they want here? We have no Federation people in Red Sector.”
“They have their reasons. You will have to be prepared to stop them. Crash their ship, destroy it, or drive them off. Kill them if you can.” “But why are they coming?”
“Can your planetary defense destroy a Starfleet ship? This is not a starship, but a utility vessel-“
“You don’t know why they’re coming, do you?” Suddenly emboldened, Orsova blurted his revelation. “You don’t know, do you, Voice?” “Information is diaphanous. It changes.” “Means, you don’t know why they’re coming.” “When I need you again, I will beam you to me.” “In space?” “Wherever I must be.” “Means, you have to hide from them.”
“Go back now. Go now, and get ready to face the Federation. Make them go from here, and there will be even bigger rewards for you.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Imperial Palace, Romulan Star Empire
“MY NAME IS BEVERLY CRUSHER, Commander, Medical Corps, Starfleet. I’m here to treat the empress.”
“Yes, Dr. Crusher, we have agreed to give you cooperation. I am Sentinel Iavo.” “Sentinel? Not Centurion?”
“I am a member of the Royal Civil Attach~ to the Imperial Court, not pan of the Imperial Space Fleet. We discovered long ago that military titles for our civil officials only caused dangerous confusion. Where is your ship docked? At the municipal spaceport?”
“No. We were dropped off. The ship has left. It’s just the two of us now.” “The two of you? No guards? No Starfleet security?” “I don’t need them, do I? We have an agreement… don’t we?”
Standing before Beverly Crusher, Sentinel Iavo was a very handsome Romulan with typically dark brown hair but remarkably large and pale green eyes. He wore his Imperial Court uniform with a certain casualness, and his clothing indeed was not like that of the military guards stationed in the hallways they’d passed through. She couldn’t guess his age-that was tricky with Romulans-though he didn’t strike her as particularly young. He stood in the expected Vulcanlike posture, straight and contrived, the only clue to any nervousness his constant rubbing of the fingernails of one hand against the palm of the other hand.
The palace was a four-century-old monolith, its stone walls dressed in tapestries and heavy draperies like any Austrian castle, except the rooms and corridors were lit by modern fixtures-not a torch in sight. Funny-she’d expected torches.
And there was music playing. Harp-like music, backed sometimes by the hollow beat of a tenor drum and a hint of something similar to a cello in the background. No musicians visible-nope, it was a sound system. She smelled incense, too, faintly. Or dinner.
The Sentinel gave her a moment to look around, then asked, “What would you like first?”
“I want you to close up the palace completely,” she began. ‘Total security. Nobody in or out without high clearance, nobody at all. You’re the highest advisor?”
“Correct, Doctor, I am the empress’s senior civil authority. I have held this post since before the emperor died, and my brother before me, and our father before him.”
“Oh, isn’t that nice… then you have the authority to enact my terms. No changes of personnel from now on. Whoever’s in the kitchen will stay there and keep working. The same maids, the stone servants, the same everybody. These same guards will stay on duty here. They can sleep here if they have to, but I don’t want to see anybody new. When you have your security in place, I’d like everything and everybody cleared through my lovely assistant here.”
Crusher made what she hoped was a graceful half-turn and held out a hand. At her side and a polite couple of steps behind, Data offered her the medical tricorder. He also held their two duffel bags and Crusher’s hospital-in a-bag medical satchel, full of all the instruments, medications, and a computer with both an immunological