The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [206]
Which was why he had sent Darule, Vela, and Vool away to one of his most remote safe houses just yesterday, shortly after Tal Shiar operative T’Luadh had initially apprised him of the First Consul’s plot—a scheme that his own Commander Khazara had not only corroborated, using discreetly intercepted comm traffic, but which he had also successfully backtraced through Chief Technologist Nijil’s office. Thanks either to skill or blind luck, a number of communications between Nijil and known associates of the antigovernment Ejhoi Ormiin dissident faction had turned up. It appeared that Nijil had used his dissident connections to engineer last year’s assassination of Doctor Ehrehin, the original developer of the still uncompleted avaihh lli vastam stardrive project.
Using the dissidents to arrange Ehrehin’s murder may simply have been Nijil’s most expeditious means of poaching the most prestigious undertaking of Ehrehin’s long career. Or it might have been indicative of a deeper, far more dangerous ideological bent. It left Valdore wondering whether Nijil’s slow progress on the high warp project came from the difficulties of the physics or from a desire to confound the Empire’s efforts. Whatever Nijil’s agenda might ultimately prove to be, Valdore was certain of at least two things: first, Khazara was now in line for a promotion; and second, Valdore had something quite different in mind for both Nijil and T’Leikha.
“How is your family adjusting to their present... low profile?” T’Leikha said as she helped herself to another osol twist from the platter. Judging from her lean proportions, he doubted she ate such trifles very often. Valdore himself had never developed a taste for the damned things—they were far too sour—but his servants often left heaps of them out for his visitors, perhaps guided by the knowledge that the confections wouldn’t tempt him to overindulge.
“Darule says that Gal Gath’thong is lovely this time of year,” he said. “Vela and Vool haven’t seen the firefalls since they were in secondary school.”
T’Luadh answered with a knowing nod. “Gal Gath’thong. Good choice.”
Of course, Valdore had sequestered his family nowhere near Gal Gath’thong. As trusted an adviser and ally as T’Luadh had become, he never allowed himself to forget that she was attached to the Tal Shiar, which commanded her primary loyalty. And he was not about to reveal his family’s present whereabouts to the Tal Shiar. Let them unearth the truth themselves, if they really considered it worth discovering. For all he knew, T’Luadh already knew that his family was actually elsewhere in the Krocton Segment’s southeast district this very moment, and she was simply humoring him.
“Are you pleased with the progress your Haakonan-front forces are making in redeploying to Coalition space?” she said, adroitly changing the subject between bites of her osol twist. “Commander Khazara’s report on the subject indicated that the redeployment was proceeding more quickly than even some of the most optimistic logistical projections.”
Valdore wondered how T’Luadh, or her Tal Shiar puppet masters, had gotten hold of Khazara’s report, which was intended for his own eyes alone. Her personal interest in the fleet’s redeployment was probably perfunctory at best; he knew that she was really delivering a subtle reminder that he’d be hard pressed to keep anything truly secret from her.
“I think the fleet still needs some serious shoring up at our Coalition lines,” he said, deliberately sticking to safe generalities.
“Yes. The loss of D’caernu’mneani Lli was an alarming development. But our new praetor trusts it will not be repeated elsewhere.”
“Thanks to the redeployment, I will not only avoid repeating it, I will undo it.”
She raised her glass of kali-fal in a salute. “The praetor will be delighted when I report that to him. I drink to your making good on that promise, and to