After the Fall Read online

  Hiren was on his feet, and he raised a hand and said, “No one move!” His voice thundered across the room, demanding complete and immediate obedience. He was not disappointed.

  Soleta was carved from ice. She literally did not look as if she cared whether she lived or died in the next few moments.

  “What did you do to him?” demanded Hiren.

  “I used the Vulcan death grip.”

  “There’s no such thing as a Vulcan death grip.”

  She looked at the Praetor, looked at the guard whose face was a series of green blotches, and then looked back at the Praetor. “There is now,” she said calmly.

  “The Romulan blood in you no doubt inspired you.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Praetor!” one of the guards called out. His disruptor was still leveled upon Soleta, as were the weapons of all the other guards. Clearly he was looking for permission to annihilate the upstart half-breed.

  “Lower your weapons, Centurion,” said the Praetor mildly.

  “But Praetor—!”

  Hiren’s brow darkened. “ ‘But’ and ‘Praetor’ are two words joined at the speaker’s peril, Centurion.”

  Slowly the guard lowered his weapon, as did the others. For her part, Soleta didn’t react at all. Her death could have been a second away and she wouldn’t have acted any differently. The casual viciousness she had displayed boiled in her Romulan blood, but her pure inscrutability certainly came from her Vulcan aspect.

  “You were badly wounded.” He spoke as if nothing had happened in the intervening moments between when he’d last been speaking to her and now.

  “Yes.”

  “In the ground battle.”

  “Yes.”

  “And while they were putting you back together, the detailed tests they performed upon you revealed your Romulan heritage.”

  “Yes.”

  “A heritage you inherited through the fact that a Romulan became involved with your Vulcan mother.”

  “No,” and her lips thinned. “When a Romulan named Rajari raped my Vulcan mother.”

  “You have only your mother’s word that she was raped.”

  “ ‘Only’ and ‘your mother’s word’ are four words joined at the speaker’s peril, Praetor.”

  There were collective, barely stifled gasps from all around, and it seemed for a moment that the guards were once more about to open fire on her. A severe glance from Hiren was enough to keep them in place, albeit barely. “You, female, do not seem to have much regard for what could happen to you, due to that mouth of yours.”

  “You can only kill me once, Praetor.”

  “Don’t be so certain,” he told her. “We’re very inventive.”

  She inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of that possibility, but otherwise was silent.

  “So Starfleet confronted you about your background. And you admitted you knew of it and deliberately kept the information from them.” When she nodded, he continued, “And their response was…?”

  “The office of the Starfleet senior counselor decided I would be reduced in rank and reassigned to a job requiring lower-level security clearance.”

  “And your response was…?”

  “I left.”

  “I see.” He paused. “Your commanding officer. Did he have an opinion on this?”

  “He fought the Starfleet decision. He was prepared to resign over it. He did not do so only out of deference to my wishes.”

  “So he did nothing.”

  “No, he did something.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Put the Starfleet senior counselor in the hospital.”

  The response caught Hiren so off guard that he blurted out a laugh. Soleta, as always, remained impassive. The Praetor calmed himself and noted that the guards kept casting uneasy glances at the corpse of the fallen guard upon the floor. He did nothing about it. It pleased him on some level that they were discomfited.

  “Your commanding officer sounds like quite an individual.”

  “He was.”

  “How did you become so badly injured in the firefight?”

  “Saving the life of my commanding officer’s wife.”

  “I see. Very well. And you decided, after all that, that the best thing for you was to come here, the home of your mother’s rapist.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she said evenly, “I am someone who needs to feel a part of something. Once, it had been Starfleet. It no longer is. I cannot be part of the Vulcan race, for I am not one of them. So I reasoned that it would be the best course of action to endeavor to try and be part of the Romulan race.”

  “And you thought we would accept you, just like that.”

  “I did not know how you would react. I presented myself to your officials.”

  “You presented yourself,” said Hiren, allowing an edge of anger in his voice, “as partly responsible for a bombing that resulted in the deaths of many Romulan nobles.”

  “That is correct.”

  “A bombing you claim…” He glanced at the report in front of him. He had been looking at it from time to time surreptitiously, but now he made a great show of consulting it. “…was masterminded by your father, Rajari…even though he was dead at the time.”

  “I was his cat’s-paw, yes. I had no idea of the true nature of the mechanism I was setting into motion until I had already done so.”

  “Well,” said the Praetor levelly, “such gullibility on your part doesn’t do much to recommend you, does it.”

  “No, Praetor.”

  “And how would you react, I wonder, upon learning that my brother was in that building when it exploded.”

  “I would extend my condolences.”

  “Your condolences,” Hiren informed her, “will not bring him back.”

  “No, Praetor. A time machine or magic spell would be the only things that could do that, and I have access to neither. My condolences are all I have to offer.”

  “You could offer up your life.”

  Soleta’s gaze never flickered from his.

  “You could offer up your life,” he repeated, “as a sign of penance.”

  “I cannot do that, Praetor.”

  “Because you are afraid,” he said triumphantly.

  “No. Because I am surrounded by armed guards who are ready to annihilate me the moment you give permission. My life, and the disposition thereof, is not in my control, and has not been since the moment I set foot on this planet. I can’t offer up something that is not mine to give…although, obviously, it is yours to take.”

  “So you admit I can take your life.”

  “If I make any sort of threatening move, Praetor, your people will turn me into a small pile of gelatin. To deny that you can take my life would be insanity.”

  Slowly he began to walk around the table, his arms folded across his barrel chest. “You knew that you would be given a skeptical reaction, and to exacerbate your situation, you admitted involvement in the bombing. Why in the stars would you do such a thing?”

  “Because I lived for years with a secret that I was worried would eventually come out…and it did, to my detriment. If I am to start over again, as I’m seeking to do, I do not wish to repeat the same mistake. I want to live with my conscience clear, not fear what will happen if the truth of a secret suddenly becomes common knowledge. Accept me for my mistakes, or…”

  “Or kill you?”

  “I have nowhere else to go, Praetor,” she said. “If I am rejected here… I may well decide simply to end matters myself, rather than have to cope with the reality of being alone in the galaxy.”

  “How maudlin.”

  “Perhaps. It is, however, how I feel.”

  “All right,” he said after a moment’s consideration, “I admit you present certain…possibilities. However, we have grave doubts about your loyalty to the Romulan Empire.”

  “Doubts.”

  “Grave ones,” he said, noddi
ng. “Our interrogators asked you questions about Starfleet. You refused to answer. Questions about assignment of Starfleet forces. Crew complements in both your ships and your deep-space stations. Possible weaknesses in planetary defense grids…”

  “I refused to answer those, yes.”

  “So then we began interrogating you with escalating degrees of severity. And still you refused to cooperate.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you, in fact, a Federation spy?”

  “No, I am not.”

  “If you were,” Hiren demanded challengingly, “would you admit to it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why should I believe you?”

  “You shouldn’t. If you do, you’re a fool. You know nothing of me.”

  “I know this much,” said the Praetor. “My very efficient gatherers of information have subjected you to all manner of incentive in order to learn what you know of the Starfleet matters I just asked you about.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you told them nothing.”

  “I know. I was there.”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, leaning forward, his hands resting on the edge of the table. “You were forced out of Starfleet. You owe them nothing. It is the height of absurdity to allow yourself to be treated this way in order to protect an organization that tossed you aside.”

  “They didn’t toss me aside,” she told him. “I was…”

  For the first time she appeared to hesitate. Her attitude of almost infinite self-confidence and glibness failed her for the moment. She looked down, licked her swollen lips, then faced the Praetor’s stare once more. “I was not candid with them when I first learned of my…my nature. For every moment that I served with the knowledge locked within me, I was false to them. They deserved better than that, and I was not…strong enough to give it to them. Their actions were entirely appropriate.”

  “Yet you were not so sanguine about their actions that you opted to stay.”

  “I had known the freedom of the galaxy on a starship, Praetor. To be bound behind a desk, to never walk the decks of a…to never serve…”

  She started to choke. Hiren was certain she was about to burst into sobs. He would not have blamed her. He had seen far stronger individuals become slobbering wrecks after far shorter periods of interrogation than she’d endured. But then she took a deep breath and composed herself once more. “I…couldn’t stay,” she said simply. “But I can’t betray them now.”

  “If we continue to interrogate you as we have, you will eventually die if you don’t cooperate,” he told her. “Your mind, your body, will not be able to withstand it. One or the other will give up. If it is your mind, then your body will be a husk, and of no use, so we will destroy it. If it is your body, then obviously the mind is moot. Why subject yourself to that? Tell us what we want to know.”

  “No.”

  “You dare say ‘no’ to me?”

  “I have no choice in the matter.”

  “You do.”

  “Would that I did,” she said with obvious sadness.

  “Then I have no choice either.”

  He pulled a disruptor from his side. It was larger than the weaponry of his guards. His master-at-arms swore that it was capable of putting a hole in a starship while firing from the planet’s surface. Hiren had never had the opportunity to test the veracity of this claim, but there was no denying the power the disruptor generated. If he fired it at Soleta, what was left of her would wind up in the next room.

  “A harsh solution,” she sighed.

  “Or merciful, depending upon your point of view.”

  “Since my point of view is your weapon’s muzzle…”

  “Yes,” agreed the Praetor, “and it will be your last point of view. Tell my people what they wish to know. Tell us everything you can about Starfleet, and I will be merciful.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Then you will die.”

  “That I can do.”

  He held the weapon steady, pointed at her face. Any guard who was remotely within range of the blast area backed out of the way.

  “Cooperate,” he urged her.

  “No.”

  “Dammit, female!” he thundered, and the air of affability he’d displayed so well dissolved. “Enough games! Enough banter! You may tell me all you wish that you care not whether you live or die, but know you now that your death is imminent! Imminent and woefully unnecessary! Cooperate with my interrogators and you will be permitted to live. Not only live, but live well.” His tone altered slightly to a blend of cajoling and threatening. “You desire to take up residence on this world? That can be arranged. You will live, not like a lord, but well. Quite well. And comfortably. An honored guest, if you wish, for the rest of your long life.” Then his voice hardened and there was clearly no bargaining with it. “But this is your only opportunity to take advantage of that offer. It has a life span of exactly twenty seconds. After that, I will save both my interrogators and you much wasted time. Twenty seconds, female. Nineteen…eight—”

  She raised a hand. “You don’t need to do that.”

  A thin smile appeared on his face. “So you submit?”

  “No. It’s just that I have a fairly accurate time sense, and so know when twenty seconds are up. If you would like, I can simply inform you when the time’s elapsed.”

  He stared at her, incredulous. This slip of a female, unblinking, uncaring, retaining loyalty to an organization that had displayed no loyalty to her. In the face of certain death, her attitude was madness…suicide…

  “That’s twenty,” she said matter-of-factly. Her gaze never wavered. It wasn’t as if she were daring him to shoot her. She wasn’t that crazy. She had simply made up her mind and was willing to live, or die, with the consequences.

  “You’re a fool.”

  “Then I will die as I have lived.”

  For a long moment, so long that it seemed as if time itself had slowed to a crawl, nothing happened.

  And then the Praetor slowly lowered his weapon. If the guards looked surprised, or disgusted, or if they disapproved, they were wise enough not to show it.

  “In addition to being a fool, Soleta…you are also very loyal.”

  “Yes.”

  “Had you told me all you knew of Starfleet, once you were done, I would have killed you since you would have been of no further use to me.”

  “I suspected that might be the case,” she admitted. “But either way, my suspicions had no bearing on my actions.”

  “I did not think so. So tell me, Soleta…if I were to find a use for you…would I warrant that same brand of loyalty?”

  “No matter how long I were in your employ, I would still never answer the sort of questions you demanded about Starfleet….”

  “To hell with Starfleet,” he said contemptuously. “Do you seriously believe Starfleet has any true secrets from us? We know what they are up to, they know what we are up to. There’s no knowledge that a former Starfleet lieutenant would have possessed that we do not already have. I am asking if the situation were reversed, could you be trusted to sustain the same degree of discretion for any…assignments…that I might dispense to you.”

  “Yes, Praetor.”

  “Even if those assignments ran contrary to Starfleet interests?”

  That brought her up short. As unlikely as it seemed, apparently she had not considered that. She gave it some thought. Hiren waited. Finally she said, “My loyalty to Starfleet, Praetor, extends to all that has gone before…but not all that is to come. If I am to be part of something else…then I cannot do it in half-measures. I won’t betray my old life…but my new life would start now, if you would have me.”

  “Is that the Romulan within you talking? Or the Vulcan?”

  “The Vulcan, most definitely.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because,” she said, “I do not know the rightness or the wrongness of it…but it is most definitely the logical
thing to do.”

  AFTER…

  New Thallon

  i.

  Prime Minister Si Cwan could feel it in his bones: This was going to be a good day.

  At that moment he was busy stretching not only his bones, but his muscles. It was the first thing he always did when he awoke each morning. He was very much the creature of habit, most methodical. First he would simply lie there a moment, staring up at the ceiling. At that point he was already fully awake; if someone were coming at him with a knife, he would be up and out of bed in a heartbeat, ready to take on and destroy his assailant. Barring such an extraordinary need for alacrity, however, he was content to allow the reality of a new day to creep upon him rather than reaching out, seizing it, and strangling it.

  After lying there silently for a time, he would work his muscles. He began with his feet, turning them at the ankles, then drew his legs up and down, flexing his knees. Eventually he worked his way up to his arms, where he would bring his palms together and push them against each other, working the muscles until he was satisfied they were good and loose. Then he would rotate his head, freeing up his neck.

  After that, he would make love to his wife.

  Not always. But more often than not.

  Making love to her was always the first confirmation for him that the day was going to be as good a day as he hoped.

  Thoroughly relaxed, his muscles tingling as the blood flowed through them, he reached over to his wife’s naked back. He never failed to be impressed by how clearly delineated her spine was; he could see practically every bone. It was probably because she was so slender. His red hand was a stark contrast to the paleness of her own skin. He rested one finger at the top of her spine, just below her hair, and started to run it down her back. She trembled slightly at the touch, indicating her first signs of wakefulness, and his hand made its way toward the top of her bare buttocks.

  At which point, to Si Cwan’s surprise, she reached back and batted his hand away.

  He looked at his own hand in surprise, as if it had let him down somehow. His wife, meantime, was fighting her way toward wakefulness. She gazed at him through bleary eyes, as if trying to remember who she was, who he was, and what the hell they were doing in bed together.