Star Trek: Rihannsu: My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane

Author:Diane Duane
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fiction
ISBN: 9780671704216
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1989-11-01T07:00:00+00:00

Very strange, it felt, to sit there in that soft chair at the heart of airy openness, staring at the big screen and waiting. Ael's heart pounded and her hands were sweating, as they always did before an engagement. She cursed them, as she always did, and rubbed them on her breeches. Around her, her own people failed to notice this business, as usual, and made themselves useful at strange consoles and odd instruments. The only thing missing was Tafv, but he was on Bloodwing, lying low for the moment; after all, Cuirass was not a place where he belonged. Aidoann was on Bloodwing, pretending to be commanding it in Ael's absence; the Commander, Aidoann would be telling Javelin, was aboard Enterprise making it secure and supervising the tapping and recording of its computer library. Hvaid and N'alae sat at the helm console; Khoal manned the science station, and Lhian the communications board. How cool they all looked, how very competent… a shadow of the look they had been wearing down in the Recreation deck, while the Enterprise people had been watching them. And how I sit here and twitch like a broody hlai, Ael thought. Fire burn it, we can build a device that can cloak a whole starship, but we can't find a way to keep people's hands from sweating—

"Communication from Javelin, khre'Riov," said Lhian, exactly as if they were back on Bloodwing.

"Accept it," Ael said.

The screen wavered and settled down, and Ael took a long breath and relaxed. Oh, that bland, round, foolish, familiar face. It was LLunih tr'Raedheol, and the Elements had been kind to her after all, for if anyone in space needed killing, it was this one. A coward and a fool, and one who thought everyone else was just like him, too lazy to do more than exhibit just enough energy to keep Command off his back. "Commander tr'Raedheol," Ael said, companionably enough, "welcome to the Outmarches. You see we have found something rather interesting floating around out here…"

"Yes," LLunih said, and the greed, jealousy and hate distilling behind LLunih's eyes should have killed the man on the spot. Unfortunately, he was immune to his own venom, like the nei'rrh he was. "So Command said. I should appreciate the opportunity to beam over and examine this tremendous prize for myself."

And try to figure out a way to cheat me out of it, you mean, Ael thought. "Oh, LLunih—may I call you LLunih?"

"Do," said the repulsive creature, and smiled.

Ael kept herself from shuddering in loathing. "I couldn't allow that as yet. We are still in the process of learning to handle the command systems aboard this ship. Its officers are understandably annoyed with us, and they have not been as cooperative as would have been wise. These screens, for example; we were working with raising and lowering them, this morning, and we thought they were down—but in an evil moment someone from Cuirass tried to beam over and hit a 'phantom' screen of which our intelligence had failed to warn us.

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