Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [5]
Kyle turned away, suddenly. That was not why he’d come in here, he knew. He had to figure out why someone would want to kill him, not lose himself in a past that could never be reclaimed.
Starfleet was primarily a scientific, exploratory, and diplomatic agency, not a military one, but there were always conflicts brewing at various points around known space, and therefore always something to which Kyle should be paying attention. Recently, the U.S.S. Stargazer had found itself in some difficulty in the Maxia Zeta System, for instance. The ship had been nearly destroyed, but her crew had survived, drifting in a shuttlecraft for a few weeks until being rescued. Kyle was trying to draw together all the information he could on the attack in hopes of learning who had done it, and what its captain, one Jean-Luc Picard, might have done differently in its defense.
Could the attack have had something to do with that? Kyle wondered. The Stargazer’s assailants were still unknown, and maybe they preferred to stay that way. Of course, Kyle Riker wasn’t the only person working on that mystery, not by a long shot. He wasn’t even the most high-profile. Why would they come after me? he asked himself. I’m the least of their worries.
Well, not the least, he mentally amended. He was good at what he did, and if-when- he found out who was behind the attack on the Stargazer, whoever had done it would be sorry they had survived. But even granting that, it still seemed unlikely that Yeoman Hall had been responsible for an attack so far away, or would have any connection to the mystery attackers.
Still, he noted “Maxia Zeta,” down on his padd, and then turned his mind toward his next priority. But before he could continue, his office door tweedled at him.
“Come in,” he said.
The door opened and two security officers-not Lieutenant Dugan-stood outside. Chief Petty Officer Maxwell Hsu, an aide to Admiral Owen Paris, stepped in, looking more than a little uncomfortable. “Mr. Riker, sir… the admiral would like to see you,” he said haltingly.
“He normally just calls when he wants to see me. What makes this time different?” Kyle knew his directness would take the aide off guard, which was why he did it.
Maxwell cleared his throat and examined his feet. “I… I don’t know the answer to that, sir,” he said. “I just know that he asked me-” here he raised his hands slightly, as if to indicate the security officers waiting in the corridor. “- us… to come and escort you to him.”
Kyle pushed his chair back, pressed his palms flat against the surface of his desk, and rose to his feet. “Well, then,” he said with forced affability, “I guess we’d better find out what he wants.”
They walked briskly through the halls, the security officers a couple of strides behind Kyle at all times, as if they thought he might make a break for it. He didn’t know what it was about, but he knew he didn’t like the feeling. First, that someone had tried to kill him, compounded by the fact that he had actually, albeit in self-defense, killed his assailant. And now this, being escorted through Starfleet Headquarters as if he were little more than a common criminal. It was infuriating.
And not a little terrifying.
Instead of Admiral Paris’s office, they led him to a nearby conference room. Hsu motioned for Kyle to stay put while he poked his head inside. A moment later, he emerged and gestured Kyle in with a halfhearted smile. Kyle walked in, completely at a loss as to what he should expect.
If he’d had hours to think about it, he still would not have expected what he saw.
At the end of a long, oval table polished to a high gloss, Admiral Owen Paris sat rigidly upright, giving him an avuncular, sympathetic smile. To his right, on the table’s side, Vice Admiral Bonner eyed him appraisingly. To Bonner’s right, an assortment of Starfleet brass, human and non-, most known at least in passing to Kyle. Charlie Bender, F’lo’kith Smeth, Teresa Santangelo, and two others Kyle couldn’t put names to.
Admiral Paris half-rose from his chair and swept his arm toward an empty