Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [87]
Troi wondered if Suran was going to reply to Durjik with cold steel, as Tomalak had nearly done moments earlier. Then she felt Donatra’s patience shatter like a dam blown apart by the inexorable pressure of some great sea.
“Akhh! Durjik, you act as though you have never erred, learned from the error, and then changed your ways!”
Durjik responded without so much as a pause for breath, exhibiting debating skills he had no doubt honed over countless years of service in the Senate. “Like Suran, error is evidently the major focus of your expertise, Commander Donatra. You and Suran both sided with Shinzon, whose plans of conquest came to naught.”
“As did our noble praetor,” Donatra said coldly, turning her angry gaze on Tal’Aura.
The praetor bristled, but remained silent, as did the increasingly angry Tomalak.
“You have argued Commander Donatra’s point well, Durjik,” Suran said evenly, though his outrage was limned in Troi’s empathy as brightly as a disruptor bank being fired. “You and Pardek weren’t always bent on preemptive war. Time and circumstance have changed you both greatly. Why, Pardek even once supported that ridiculous Vulcan Unification movement, until Neral drove it back into the hole from which it crawled.”
“Whatever errors you may impute to our praetor, Commander Donatra, you will note that she still lives, Shinzon notwithstanding,” Tomalak growled. Turning to Durjik, he added, “Unlike your beloved Pardek, whose own errors have made him kllhe fodder at long last, and deservedly so.”
Durjik rose, throwing his chair backward. Tomalak mirrored Durjik’s sudden movement, despite another sharp protestation from Tal’Aura. Supercritical tempers detonated. Steel blades flashed. Troi had missed the precise instant when the two antagonists had lost control, so overloaded had her empathy become by their relentless emotional “heat.” Will, Akaar, and Keru were already rising in an effort to intercede, but it was clear that none of them could act in time to prevent a second act of murder.
Time stretched. Drawing on her decade-old experience living among Romulans as a Romulan—as well as on the past several weeks, during which she’d acted as the primary social lubricant among Titan’s highly varied crew—she quickly grasped the last diplomatic arrow in her quiver.
Troi shouted with a vehemence and volume that would have impressed even her mother. “The Remans will tear the flesh from your bones!”
Tomalak and Durjik hesitated, then slowly lowered their blades. As one, they both turned to face Troi. She noticed then that every eye in the chamber was upon her. I’d better keep this going, now that I finally have their attention.
“The Remans won’t care about your political differences!” she said, maintaining a commanding tone that she somehow kept just a few decibels short of shrillness. “They won’t care about who served Shinzon and who opposed him! They won’t care about your internal grudges and petty feuds! All they will care about is what you represent to them: oppression! You show them this kind of weakness and disunity, and they will scoop out your brains and eat them! If you expect to make long-term peace with them instead of more war, then you’d better start setting aside your differences. Now. Sit. Down.”
Her words hung in the air. The room was quiet, though Troi’s empathic senses were numbed beneath a deluge of conflicting reactions.
“Please,” Will said gently, breaking the silence. He gestured toward the empty chairs that lay upended and scattered on the floor. Despite the empathic “noise” that still crowded the room, Troi found his sense of relief unmistakable. She noticed then that something else lay beneath that emotion as well.
Admiration. He was greatly impressed with her performance. She had to force herself not to smile, though she felt both relief and cool satisfaction.
Tal’Aura had remained seated. Her face impassive