Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [68]
“Except that she is alive, whereas almost all of those other senators are not, including the entire Continuing Committee. That fact alone gives Tal’Aura a decided advantage over her erstwhile peers, I should think.”
Pardek tried to ignore Rehaek’s smirk. “Regardless, I am surprised to see that you’ve embraced Tal’Aura’s claim to the praetorship—especially before the debate over its very legitimacy has even truly begun.”
“I see,” Rehaek said, a look of inexplicable sadness crossing his sharp features. “But one of the essential functions of the Tal Shiar is to prevent such debates from becoming dangerous distractions from our Empire’s larger objectives. Therefore such debates must sometimes be settled preemptively.”
Pardek noticed only then that no uhlans were visible from the alcove in which he and the two spies stood. That was strange indeed; ever since Shinzon’s attack on the Senate, it had seemed that not a single square dhat’drih of downtown Ki Baratan was left unguarded by the praetor’s uhlans.
A violent shiver slowly climbed the rungs of Pardek’s spine. The former senator took an instinctive step backward.
“Do it now, Torath,” the spymaster said quietly, sounding weary and far older than his years.
Pardek turned, tried to run, but the man called Torath was faster, stronger, and perhaps an entire century younger. A slightly curved length of gleaming metal appeared in the younger man’s hand as though conjured by a sorcerer out of Romulan myth. Before Pardek could raise his arms to defend himself, Torath had inscribed a deep horizontal furrow across the older man’s throat.
His legs suddenly too weak to support his weight, Pardek tumbled to his knees, then sprawled onto his side on the alcove’s gleaming floor.
His vision quickly turning green-tinged and hazy, Pardek watched with a peculiar sense of detachment as Rehaek approached, then crouched beside him. “The humans your faction plots against would describe you as a ‘hawk,’ Senator. Rather like the late, unlamented Shinzon. But the time for reflexive aggression has passed. It represents an unacceptable variable. That makes the future impermissibly chaotic, and thus far more difficult to predict than it needs to be.”
You don’t care about the future, Pardek thought. You only care about power. Just like Koval. He tried to speak the words aloud, but succeeded only in making moist gurgling noises.
Rehaek adopted a curiously beneficent-looking smile. “Therefore I need to send the other members of your faction a very clear and unambiguous message. You will be that message, Senator.”
Pardek knew with utter certainty that he was mortally wounded. He felt his blood flowing in a hot, emerald torrent from the gash across his neck, rapidly cooling as it pooled on the floor all around him. He looked directly up at his killers through rheumy, dimming eyes.
“That was untidy, Torath, but necessary,” he heard Rehaek say to his associate. “Have the senator’s body transported back to his own office. His like-minded associates are sure to find it quickly there.”
“Immediately, sir,” said Torath, who then spoke a few terse commands into the communications device that was evidently hidden in his lapel.
Darkness enfolded Pardek at the same time the transporter beam came. Though he knew it wasn’t a rescue, he still rejoiced at its cold embrace.
For he would soon walk the Halls of Erebus, where his wife and daughter were surely awaiting his arrival.
Chapter Twelve
U.S.S. TITAN
Christine Vale arrived on the bridge for her shift early, as was her habit. The extra time gave her a chance to be fully briefed by the gamma shift bridge commander, who, in this case, was Lieutenant Commander Fo Hachesa, a Kobliad with an infectiously pleasant personality—as well as a sometimes offputting propensity either to drop suffixes from gerunds and adverbs, or to add superfluous ones.
“Not