Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [44]
Besides, she thought, I have to believe that I’m here for a reason. There are far too many similarities to my own life for this to be a coincidence.
She resolved to accept Torrna’s offer first thing in the morning.
Within minutes of making that resolution, she fell into a deep, peaceful slumber, unbothered by the breathing and snoring around her.
Chapter 5
“Look, Torrna’s not going to bite your head off if you take this complaint to him.”
“Are you sure?” The merchant looked dubious. More than that, he looked scared to death. “I’ve heard about how he drove off the Lerrit Army by breathing fire into their camp and setting them alight!”
Kira tried not to laugh, but she did at least keep an encouraging smile on her face. “I can assure you that his days of breathing fire are long in the past. Just go to him and tell him that you object to the inspections. I can’t guarantee that he’ll do what you ask, but he will listen. Just give him a chance.”
The dubiousness did not leave the merchant’s face. “If you say so.”
“I say so. He should be back in the next day or two, and I’ll make sure you get to see him, all right?”
“Fine. Thank you, ma’am.”
Nodding, Kira excused herself from the merchant, leaving his quarters and going out onto the deck of the docked merchant trawler. It never failed to amuse her, this fear that people had of Torrna. Mainly because she knew that his bluster was worse than his bite.
She also had to wonder, though, if this was what people thought of her after the Cardassian withdrawal. Did people fear that she would breathe fire? Was that why she had been sent to Deep Space 9? After all, she’d been assigned as first officer and Bajoran liaison before the discovery of the wormhole turned the station into a major port of call. She’d never had any illusions that it had been done to get her out of the way of the provisional government, who found her intemperate ways to be too much for them to handle at least nearby. So they sent her into orbit.
Natlar had all but done the same to Torrna. The disruptive influence he could have in the council chambers as evidenced by the way he all but took over the meeting shortly after the Lerrit Army’s final retreat was probably seen by the prefect as an impediment to actually getting anything done.
Kira walked down the gangplank of the merchant’s ship to the marina and took a deep breath of the sea air. She’d lost track of how long she’d been serving as Torrna’s adjutant at the Natlar Port, but she’d been enjoying it immensely particularly now that the weather was warmer, the sun was shining, the Korvale Ocean was a clear green, and a lovely breeze was pretty much her constant companion every time she walked outside. She hadn’t spent much time near the sea prior to this, and when she did, it was during her days in the resistance. She had other things on her mind, then.
She nodded to the assorted dockworkers who passed her by, then whirled around when someone cried, “Look!”
The Perikian Peninsula jutted out into the Korvale Ocean along the southern end of the coast of the continent. Any ship that came down the coastline from the west would have to, in essence, come around a corner and therefore would not come into sight from the marina until it was almost ready to dock.
Right now, one of the largest and most impressive ships that could be found on the planet was coming into view around that bend. It stood at ten meters above the surface of the ocean, with the green-and-black flag of Endtree whipping in the breeze from the mast.
Kira peered more closely and noticed that there was a second flag under it: the flag of the Perikian Republic. Interesting, Kira thought. That wasn’t there when they left.
The ship was Admiral Inna’s flagship, the Haeys, returning a day early from their investigation of the reports of pirate activity.
Several people on the marina stopped what they were doing to seethe flagship approach the dock. As it settled into port, a cheer started to break out, which spread all the way across the marina. Kira