Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [134]
“So, some benefit may accrue to the Empire after all,” Pardek said noncommittally.
Koval nodded. “I would regard your public recognition of those benefits as a boon to the Praetor, to the Empire… and to the Tal Shiar.”
“The disappearance of a strategically invaluable subspace phenomenon notwithstanding,” Pardek said coolly.
“That is a minor thing, in the overall tapestry of history,” Koval said with a slight shrug. “Not nearly so important, really, as what is to come.”
“And just what is to come, Mr. Chairman?”
Koval looked thoughtful. He paused for a protracted moment, as though deciding just how much it was safe to reveal. “War,” he said finally. “War on such a scale that I doubt you can imagine. And with that war will no doubt come efforts on the part of some to make… questionable alliances.”
“Efforts by whom?” Pardek said, frowning.
Koval brushed the question aside. “The Empire will need the guidance of a firm hand if it is to survive its immediate future. Therefore the Tal Shiar must not be compromised. None of us, Senator, can afford to relax our vigilance.”
Smiling beneficently, Koval gestured toward Talkath. The girl was now sitting on the atrium floor and engaging in some stretching exercises. “She really is a lovely child, Senator. You would do well to do everything in your power to protect her from harm.”
With that, Koval touched his right wrist with his left hand, and an almost-inaudible chiming sound gently suffused the room. As a shimmering curtain of energy enveloped the spymaster, Pardek surmised that he had activated a site-to-site transporter unit. In the span of a few heartbeats, the dreaded Tal Shiar Chairman was gone.
Alone in the breakfast nook, Pardek sank back into his chair and looked into the atrium at his daughter, who was still intent on her workout. She was so young and innocent, so blissfully unaware of the evil that men did so casually. Koval’s meaning could not have been plainer: He wanted Pardek to understand that he could spirit her away as easily as he had broken the villa’s security protocols. Pardek realized only then that his hands were shaking like the spindly legs of a newborn set’leth.
For Talkath truly was all he had. She represented the future, a future he was determined to safeguard, regardless of the cost. A future that meant far more to him than any cause, any law, any principle.
EPILOGUE
Mars, Stardate 50915.5
Jean-Luc Picard hadn’t been to Mars for quite some time; usually, it was to visit the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, where his current starship’s predecessor, the EnterpriseD, had been built. During his departures from the shipyards’ orbiting drydocks and hangars, he had often glimpsed Cydonia, a region located in the windswept northern lowlands, the site of a pair of human settlements-as well as the alleged location of the infamous “Martian face” formation, according to the myths of centuries past.
Now, he was on his way to Bradbury City with Lieutenant Commander Ranul Keru, in a shuttlecraft. It had been three days since the Enterprise-E had returned to McKinley Station, following its excursion into Earth’s past, where the crew had fought the Borg and helped Zefram Cochrane make humanity’s first warp-powered flight. During his time on McKinley, Picard had met with engineers, dealt with the well-being of his surviving crewmembers, and spent an interminable amount of time being debriefed by Starfleet’s higher echelons-both from Starfleet Command and Starfleet Intelligence. He had even had to endure a protracted grilling by a pair of officers from the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations. Picard understood that Agent Dulmer and his junior partner, Lucsly, had genuine concerns about the inadvertent creation of temporal anomalies; after all, such effects could be every bit as dangerous to history’s fragile tapestry as an incursion