Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [22]
Batanides tilted her head to the side as though weighing her options. Then she favored Picard with a slightly mischievous smile.
Picard felt awkward in the extreme. “Marta, I completely understand if you’re too busy-“
Tabor interrupted him. “Please, Captain. I insist.” Then he walked to the door and was gone. Picard and Batanides stood alone together, looking out onto a stunning vista of stars.
“I think I can spare a few hours of my time,” she said brightly. “Let’s see if you still know how to show a girl a good time, Johnny. How about a holographic jaunt to the Bonestell Recreation Facility and a few quick games of dom-jot before dinner?”
He smiled sheepishly, then said, “All right. But let’s ask the maître d’ to hold the Nausicaans this time, shall we?”
She grinned and took his arm.
Whatever am I going to tell Beverly tomorrow morning at breakfast? he thought, as they exited the lounge together.
Chapter Three
Aubin Tabor stepped into the quarters to which he and Marta had been assigned. As the door hissed closed behind him, he spoke into the air. “Computer. Dim lights. Blue illumination.”
As the computer adjusted the room’s lights, Tabor moved to a sleek case lying on a side table. Opening it, he removed a small sculpture, a representation of two entwined water nymphs, sea foam gathered at their ankles. The nymphs were facing away from each other, though their arms were interlinked behind them; each a part of the other, but watching vigilantly to either side. He had bought it for Marta on a trip to Crete a few years ago, when they were still newly discovering each other. So many secrets were shared in those early days, so much revealed. Marta had recently broken up from another relationship, and her mind was guarded. Aubin had promised her from the start that he would not use his telepathic powers on her-that he would never use them on her-and it had helped to forge the bond that had grown between them since then.
Still, each of them hid secrets from the other. All couples do. Tabor knew that. When he wanted to, he could see their secrets. It had aided him as a diplomat, and elsewhere. Marta kept secrets from him that usually had to do with cases being investigated by Starfleet Intelligence, but he also knew about her occasional indulgences with Andeluvian chocolate, and of her secret love for a distractingly loud form of 22nd-century Earth music known as “splitter.” Aptly named.
And he knew that Marta still harbored feelings for Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of this starship. She hadn’t spoken of him more than twice in the time she had been Tabor’s lover, but he knew-long before she had told him-that she had intentionally chosen the Enterprise as the ship to transport them to Chiaros IV. He didn’t begrudge her these feelings. In fact, they made his tasks easier. So much to prepare.
He pulled the communicator from his sleeve pocket, pressing his thumb into a recess on its underside. It began to vibrate, almost imperceptibly. He wedged it in between the backs of the two nymphs that made up the statue. It clicked into place smoothly, and the sculpture emitted three short light-bursts. Those flashes signified that the circuitry that had been specially built into the communicator and the sculpture-neither of which could work without the other-was active now. Tabor’s quarters were now completely shielded from all sensor scans and computer surveillance. No matter what he did within these rooms, no one would be able to track him.
The shield was most useful whenever he had to access protected Starfleet records. It was one of the many devices that made Aubin Tabor’s covert work with Section 31 easier.
Half an hour later, Tabor had narrowed his choices down to three potentials. Their personnel dossiers were all open on a computer screen in