The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [216]
She’d brushed him off. He’d persisted. They had repeated the pattern as necessary. Then she had appeared to relent, promising to think about it before ultimately going her own way. (She was amazed that this should have surprised him, even a little bit. What did he expect? Hadn’t he been paying attention all these years?)
She had begun to avoid taking his real-time subspace calls, stretching out the intervals between her receipt of his many messages— mostly of the “C’mon, Gannet, Starfleet is really riding my ass about you!” variety—and her ever more belated return calls.
He’d finally lowered the boom on her, making good on a threat that she’d always assumed to be an idle one born more of frustration than of practicality. She had never really believed he’d do it.
Despite the praise she’d recently heaped on Starfleet for the triumph at Berengaria VII, Nash had temporarily rescinded her Newstime credit chit—a fact that she had discovered while trying to use the chit to pay a restaurant tab. The maneuver had forced her to call him in real-time, right then and there, in order to sort things out with the annoyed restaurateur.
Now Nash wants me to do some nice, safe puff pieces about the Martian terraforming project, she thought, both discouraged and disgusted by the prospect. Even though the Romulans are coming.
The public address system finally announced that her transport was about to begin boarding. She allowed her ticket to dangle from between her index and middle fingers over the upper gallery’s railing. It would be so easy to just let go.
Snatching the ticket with her other hand, she shoved it into her pocket, and hated herself for her powerlessness. She straightened her duffel and wended her way through the crowd in the direction of her departure gate. As she walked, she tried to find something positive to focus on about the dreary homeward voyage that lay ahead.
A full ten minutes later, as she presented her ticket to the young woman at the departures desk, she thought she’d finally come up with something.
Credit chit or no credit chit, Brooks thought, there probably won’t be any shortage of trouble spots for me to point a lens at between here and Mars.
SEVENTY-FOUR
Day Thirteen, Month of T’ke’Tas
Wednesday, May 19, 2156
The Hall of State, Dartha, Romulus
VALDORE BRACED HIMSELF the moment he saw the centurion cross the threshold of his office. It was obvious, both from his graver-than-usual countenance and from the bone-whiteness of his complexion, that he was burdened with bad tidings.
“Go ahead, Centurion,” Valdore said, rising from behind his massive desk. He did not wish to be trapped behind it.
“Artaleirh has been attacked, Admiral,” the centurion said. “Early reports indicate that the Trilakis settlement has been razed. Admiral Dagarth’s vessel, the Nel Trenco, responded, but is now out of contact and presumed lost. The agricultural world of Virinat is on high alert, but remains unmolested at the moment.”
Valdore almost wished he had remained seated. This was a stunning blow. He had recently promoted Dagarth, rewarding both her brilliant performance in last year’s test deployments of the arrenhe’hwiua telecapture device and her key contributions to the most recent modifications Nijil had made to that weapon. Dagarth’s efforts had greatly increased the telecapture system’s resistance to the recent Coalition countermeasures and solved certain production problems, enabling a substantial increase in the speed of the weapon’s manufacturing process. This had greatly increased the device’s availability to the Empire’s ships of the line, including many that were already bound for Coalition space.
But even more alarming was the matter of the location of the hostiles’ latest target: the Artaleirh