The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [34]
“Our intermediaries are blaming the Orions, sir. They are evidently the procurers whom the Adigeons have retained to acquire the… commodity in question. And the Orions seem to be making numerous other stops and connections on their way to the delivery point for our cargo.”
“I now need those telepaths sooner rather than later, Subcommander,” Valdore said in a low growl. “They could well turn out to be our only hope of tracking down Ehrehin and his captors.” The time had come to take a few drastic measures.
“Subcommander,” Valdore continued, “I want you to explain to our ‘esteemed intermediaries’ on Adigeon that their continued safe passage through Romulan space depends greatly upon my continued patience and goodwill. And have them expedite the arrival of those telepaths any way they can.”
“Immediately, sir,” the subcommander said, then snapped off a smart salute and exited the office.
Valdore stood alone in the room for a protracted moment, then walked to the wall at the rear of his office where he kept his many edged weapons on display, now that he had retrieved them from the locker where they had been so haphazardly stored during his long confinement. With care and reverence, he took down his dathe’anofv-sen- his Honor Blade- which gleamed brightly again now that he had finally found the time to remove the faint patina of tarnish it had picked up in the dank, subterranean storage room. He placed the blade and its scabbard carefully on his uniform belt, straightened his posture, then exited the office to report the latest developments to T’Leikha.
He wondered how much more would be permitted to go wrong before the First Consul required him to allow the Honor Blade to drink deep of his lifeblood.
Nine
Sunday, February 9, 2155
Enterprise Nx-01
THE SILVER-HAIRED EMINENCE stared impassively from across the approximately sixteen light-years that separated him from Archer’s ready room aboard Enterprise.
“That’s essentially what happened, sir,” Archer said to Admiral Sam Gardner. “Based, of course, on what Shran and Theras told us.”
His tie slightly askew, the admiral folded his arms in front of himself, displaying the heavily braided sleeves on his dark uniform jacket. “Captain, it sounds to me that you aren’t entirely convinced by Commander Shran’s assertion that the Orion slavers’ action against the Aenar represents a prelude to a large-scale Romulan military incursion.”
Seated behind the cramped ready room’s small desk, Archer continued to stare straight into his computer monitor, despite the distraction of his chief engineer’s fidgeting; Trip was standing just inside the admiral’s line of sight, alongside a far more tranquil, but no less serious-visaged T’Pol. Trip had already made it clear that he vehemently agreed with Shran’s assessment, and Archer couldn’t fault him for that, so long as he maintained respect for the chain of command. And, truth be told, Archer felt no small amount of guilt for allowing his upcoming diplomatic duties to keep him from simply rushing into the breach on Shran’s behalf.
Whether or not the Romulans really are about to attack us, Shran is definitely right about at least one thing, Archer thought. I do owe him. After all, he hadn’t forgotten the rescue on Coridan, or the Andorian’s invaluable help against both the Xindi and the Romulans, or Shran’s admirable restraint when V’Las had tried to start a Vulcan-Andorian war.
On top of all that, Archer still felt a small pang of regret for having sliced off one of Shran’s antennae with an Ushaan blade. The incident had occurred at the time of last November’s Babel conference and the previous Romulan crisis- so recently, in fact, that Shran’s missing antenna had still only partially grown back. Though he knew that the truncated antenna would probably finish regenerating itself within another month or two, Archer would always suspect that the humiliation associated with the loss would take a good deal longer to heal.
Archer nodded tentatively