The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [203]
“What if Valdore turns out to be right?” Nijil asked, hoping to use a larger truth to distract her from what he wished to keep concealed. “What if the Coalition really does pose as grave a threat to the Empire as Valdore believed?” After all, the Ejhoi Ormiin’s aspirations to seize power on Romulus would be trouble enough without an aggressive external foe to fight off as well.
T’Leikha looked askance at him. “Of course Valdore was right. Coalition habitations have been expanding at an alarming rate for tens of fvheisen—particularly those of the hevam.”
“Granted,” Nijil said, though privately he maintained the same doubts he always had. “And yet you just killed a military leader who seemed to appreciate that fact better than most.”
“No,” she said, aiming such a hard scowl at him that he nearly flinched. “We quietly removed a dangerous obstacle from our paths. Other military leaders can rise to the Coalition threat more than adequately, particularly now that D’deridex’s madness has ended. Leaders such as Admiral D’soria.”
“D’soria has far less practical experience than Valdore did.”
She shrugged. “That can be said of most anyone. But D’soria also lacks Valdore’s capacity for vindictiveness. I am well aware that Valdore always held me responsible for his recent imprisonment.”
“Yet you were instrumental in setting him free.”
“In order to make use of Valdore’s talents. I have no further need of them now.”
Nijil thought he understood. Freeing Valdore had never been about his ability to win the war against the Coalition and the hevam—at least not entirely. But by freeing Valdore, T’Leikha had acquired a means of removing D’deridex from the praetorate, and with that purpose accomplished there was now no longer a reason for T’Leikha to delay replacing Valdore with someone less ambitious, and therefore less dangerous.
Admiral D’soria bore no grudges against the first consul of which Nijil was aware, and he was certain to be far easier to manage— and far less likely to make an eventual bid for Senate power—than Valdore, a former senator, would have been. Nijil wouldn’t have believed that Valdore had been plotting to rebuild his old power base in the Senate—at least not before the new praetor had freed the disgraced Senator Vrax from indefinite confinement in the Hall of State’s dungeons.
Vrax’s family now stood to regain much of the standing it had lost under D’deridex’s rule, a development that could be extremely disruptive of the delicate balance of senatorial power that T’Leikha had crafted so carefully. Vrax would place much of the blame for his imprisonment on T’Leikha, who had almost literally stepped over Vrax in order to free Valdore.
Nijil could only hope that Vrax and T’Leikha would quietly destroy each other with mutual assassination schemes, canceling each other out like a particle/antiparticle pair, preferably without causing excessive collateral damage.
As he considered what might happen in the meantime, a new thought chilled Nijil to his core: If T’Leikha could find Valdore dispensable, then when might she make a similar determination concerning the newly deceased admiral’s chief technologist?
“I trust that my services will remain useful for the foreseeable future,” he said cautiously. “Both to you and to Admiral D’soria.”
She smiled indulgently, in obvious response to his transparent unease. “Relax, Doctor. You still have a high-warp stardrive project to rebuild. Valdore has paid the price for the catastrophic failure of the avaihh lli vastam project at Atlai’fehill Stelai.”
Nijil nodded, resisting only barely the urge to smile. The apparent debacle at Atlai’fehill Stelai was indeed a setback for the Romulan military. Fortunately for him and his Ejhoi Ormiin allies,