Survivors - Jean Lorrah [51]
“So, Tasha,” Dare said at last, “you are still in Starfleet.”
“And you are still alive,” was the only response she could manage.
“I’m a survivor. What are you doing here?” he asked as he led her to a table that would seat a dozen people, although at the moment there were only four in the room.
“Don’t you get the news broadcasts?”
“For what they’re worth. Has Starfleet sent you and your pet robot to blow us to pieces?” Dare sat opposite her, studying her face.
“You are the warlord Nalavia wants us to dispose of?”
His laugh was without mirth. “No. I’m here to help the people of Treva throw off Nalavia’s oppression.”
“Oh,” she said with heavy sarcasm, “you’re a freedom fighter.”
He raised his eyebrows and a sardonic smile twitched at his lips. “You might say so. If I’m paid well enough.”
“Paid?”
“I’m a hired gun, Tasha-the best in the galaxy. Adrian Dareau is the name I go by these days.”
“The Silver Paladin? You?”
She had heard of him, but never connected his growing legend on the planets of the outer rim with the man she had once loved and lost. “I should have made the connection, but no one’s ever seen Dareau. So-now you’re wanted not only by the Federation but by the Ferengi, the Zertanians, and rumor has it by the Romulans as well.”
“Indeed? Sdan, have we done anything to stir up the Romulans?”
For the first time, Yar looked at the other two men, the ones who had so unceremoniously captured her. Dare’s best men, she assumed; they had to be good to take her so easily.
The one Dare addressed as Sdan looked vaguely Vulcan, as the name and the cramp in her neck suggested, but his black hair fell in untamed waves almost to shoulder length, and he quirked a grin as he replied, “That little episode with the Omani, prob’ly. The Roms weren’t too happy when they decided t’go Fed.”
“Nothin’ t’worry about,” said the third man, a rather nondescript human of medium height and build, with thinning medium-brown hair. He wore browns and tans that blended into the background. His only distinctive feature was that he wore glasses-actual frames that held lenses in front of his eyes. Yar had never seen an adult wear them; some children did until they were old enough to have the chemical treatment that gave everyone perfect vision.
“The Romulans rarely act; they prefer to react,” the man continued, taking the chair next to Yar. She looked through his lenses to see that he had another distinctive feature: lively brown eyes actually darker than Dare’s, sparkling with a keen intelligence that belied the first impression of his appearance. “A nice bit o’ tension, maybe a detente or even a cold war between the Feds and the Roms, and we’ll have so much business we won’t know where to turn next. Make a fortune-money’s the sinews of war.”
“Aren’t you rich enough yet, Poet?” asked Dare. “You could buy your own planet.”
“Gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich,” Poet replied with a twinkle. “However, pretty lady,” he added to Yar, “if you’ve a yen to be a rich man’s plaything-or have a rich man for a plaything-I’d be happy to oblige.”
Something in that knowing glance suggested he knew as many “multiple techniques of pleasuring” as Data-and was just as unthreatening. But Yar was in no mood for flirtation. “I hardly think that’s why you’ve brought me here,” she said harshly.
“No,” said Dare, “we brought you here to show you what’s really happening on Treva.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“Because Nalavia’s certainly not going to let you see it!” Dare replied angrily. “You’ve seen the news broadcasts?”
“Yes-and I agree, attacks by the ‘enemies of the people’ happen too conveniently in front of cameras. Nalavia claims that’s because she has installed surveillance cameras to locate terrorist activity and get her army there fast.”
“Haven’t succeeded very well, have they?” This from Sdan,