Star Trek Prometheus: Fire with Fire by Bernd Perplies & Christian Humberg

Author:Bernd Perplies & Christian Humberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books

19

NOVEMBER 10, 2385

Ki Baratan, Romulus

Dark storm clouds hung above the Romulan capital city. Thunder rolled. Above the Apnex Sea nearby, where Ki Baratan’s founders had once settled, lightning brightened the dark skies.

Thokal pulled his cloak’s hood deeper over his face, walking faster. The city’s streets quickly emptied, especially the area where Thokal was heading.

The Chalandru neighborhood was old, older than most other neighborhoods in the city, and it showed. It was full of multistory buildings with blind glass window panes and dirty façades. Abandoned small stores with poorly covered windows and doors probably housed entire populations of Nhaidhs and other vermin that bred in there. The resident holoemitters probably hadn’t projected their three-dimensional adverts onto the perma-concrete sidewalks for longer than anyone could remember.

There wasn’t a location in this coastal metropolis where you could feel further away from the government district with its huge palaces made from rodinium, stone, and transparent aluminum, and the impressive state hall where the senate sat. This was the very last location where you would expect to meet a member of this elitist circle.

That was precisely the reason why Thokal lived here, and had done so for decades. The old Romulan with his white hair, bulging forehead, and paunch had settled down here shortly after his arrival in Ki Baratan. Back then, Chalandru hadn’t been this dilapidated, but its future had been easily predictable. Thokal had seized the opportunity and had bought a three-story, narrow house in a side alley. Since then he had hardly spent a night elsewhere—although his duty had sometimes forced him to do so. But these days were also long past.

The Romulan hadn’t set foot in his old office in the city center for years. He didn’t have any intention of doing so, either. Quite the contrary—he sometimes thought that there wasn’t anyone in the whole of Ki Baratan who enjoyed his retirement more than he did. Not a day went by when Thokal didn’t thank the gods of Vorta Vor that he wouldn’t have to deal with diplomats, rulers, and the never-changing scheming in the government district ever again.

Thokal was happy. And he intended to stay happy. With a grateful sigh he walked up the four steps leading to his front door. He took off his hood to allow the scanner that was embedded in the wall to read his wrinkled face and his iris, before comparing the scan with the databanks in the house computer. The door recognized him and opened.

Ignoring the wailing sirens that seemed to draw closer from parallel streets, Thokal entered his home. He was an experienced inhabitant of Chalandru and as such was well used to those kinds of background noises. They were part of the everyday routine and just as normal as the adolescents lurking at every corner or the derelicts inside the former parking lot near the transit station.

He closed the door and set his luggage down.

Silence. Finally, silence.

“Computer, dim the window panes,” he said into the void. The house technology, which boasted quite remarkable features, followed that order instantly.

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