The Red King - Michael A. Martin [108]
“Just share whatever you know.” Suran swung his legs over the edge of the bed, cautiously tested his weight against the deck, and then rose. “And help me find my uniform.”
Alone in her ready room, Donatra leaned back in the chair, her booted feet up on her dark sherawood desk. Now that she had finally taken a few long-postponed moments to rest and gather her thoughts, she began to notice just how much pain her battle-scarred body had been suppressing over the past several eisae. Her side, festooned with old wounds that she charged to the account of the fraudulent praetor Tal’Aura, felt as though it had been plunged straight into a live volcano.
But at least the worst of this mission is finally over, she told herself, silently kneading her prominently ridged brow with the long fingers of both hands. Soon the fleet will be at warp. Two days from now, my ships will be safely back in Romulan space, along with their crews.
Of course, the passage home would not be without its costs, she reflected. But she was determined that no more of her vessels would share the fate of the Imperial warbird S’harien, which had already succumbed to the same forces that had erased the planet Oghen from existence.
“Commander Donatra!” The abrasive voice that issued from her desk’s comm unit was half an octave higher than Donatra had ever heard it before. Nevertheless, she recognized it immediately. Her reverie blown apart like a dust cloud in a solar wind, she swung her feet onto the deck, leaned forward, and slapped a button on the comm.
“Go ahead, Venora.”
“I’ve just beamed back aboard the Valdore from the alien asteroid-habitat, Commander.”
Donatra knew that the transferal of hundreds of thousands of individuals from the planet’s surface to the asteroid’s vast interior space had strained the logistical and medical resources of the Valdore, Titan, and the entire fleet very nearly to the breaking point. She hadn’t wanted to spare her chief medical officer during the intensive, lengthy evacuation mission, but had finally relented at Venora’s vehement insistence.
“It’s good to have you back with us,” Donatra said. Whatever relaxation she had expected to experience abruptly fled. “What’s wrong, Doctor?”
“Suran is gone , Donatra,” Venora said, her voice colored a rare shade of panic.
“Did he regain consciousness somehow?” Donatra said, realizing at once just how stupid her question sounded; she had merely been thinking out loud.
“That may be a safe assumption, Commander, considering that he isn’t in my infirmary any longer.”
“All right, Doctor. I’ll see what I can find out. In the meantime, watch your back, Venora. Suran must have henchmen among the crew acting directly on his behalf. Donatra out.”
If only I could have placed guards around him, Donatra thought, closing the channel. Or simply confined him in a holding cell.
But she knew that such measures would have been overly provocative, as well as destructive to the already strained morale of the Valdore’s crew. She could not have afforded to undermine her personal authority—or risk enhancing Suran’s—by making it appear that she felt in any way threatened by him. Especially now that Suran had confirmed that she did indeed have excellent reasons to perceive him as dangerous. He had, after all, just demonstrated that someone aboard the Valdore was willing and able to intercede on his behalf, most likely by working to interrupt or counteract the drugs Dr. Venora had relied upon to keep Suran out of action during the current crisis.
Donatra reached across her desktop again and activated another comm channel. “Computer, locate Commander Suran.”
The door chime to the ready room sounded, startling her. Acting on instinct, she reached with her right hand for the small disruptor she kept in her tunic.
The computer responded in a flat, passionless male voice. “Commander Suran is on the bridge.”
Of course, she thought as she used her left hand to enter a single command into the computer on her desk.
“Enter,” she said a moment later.
The door hissed open, revealing Suran. His face was