The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner

Author:William Shatner [Shatner, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Fiction, Science Fiction, Adventure, Kirk; James T. (Fictitious character), McCoy; Leonard (Fictitious character), Space Opera, Interplanetary voyages, American fiction, Spock (Fictitious character)
ISBN: 9780671520366
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 1996-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

Even as the door to Drake's study sealed itself behind its forcefield, another door had opened. An inner door.

Hidden behind the display case that held the uniform of a Fourth World Mercenary.

As Chekov and his crewmates signed their security oaths in an anteroom, a woman had stepped through that hidden door.

She was compact, attractive, with finely drawn features and dark complexion, a strong intelligence in her eyes. But her mouth was not used to smiling.

She still wore the flight suit and tight-fitting hood she had worn on Dark Range Platform.

Drake rose to greet her.

"You heard?" he asked.

The woman pulled off her flight hood, shaking loose her dark hair.

A streak of white blazed through it.

The starkness of the color made the resemblance between Drake and the woman more striking.

Her code name had been Jade. But her real name was Ariadne.

Drake.

Father and daughter.

"I should have disintegrated them in the cargo bay when I had the chance," Ariadne said. "Or ejected them from the airlock when I got rid of Kort."

Then she kissed her father's cheek. His eyes kindled with pride. For her and all she had done. "No," he told her. "You did the right thing. If Chekov and Uhura had disappeared altogether, Intelligence would have launched a full investigation."

Drake's daughter made a playful face. "You're saying they're not going to investigate my disappearance from their ranks?"

She went to a small cabinet against the wall, pressed a hidden switch. The cabinet unfolded into a bar.

Drake joined her there, gloating. "No one even knows you've disappeared, my dear. Kirk created such a paranoid group ofofficers that they actually came to me first, convinced no one else could be trusted. So the situation is contained. Intelligence doesn't know any of you are back on Earth. They think you're all still deep under cover, hunting Klingon generals who've gone into business for themselves."

The woman gave her father a snifter of brandy, poured the same for herself, then lifted her glass in a toast to her father's Success.

"What if Kirk goes into business for himself?." She closed her eyes, savoring the brandy's aroma. "We've been after the Chalchaj mey for years. That pathetic Klingon on Dark Range finally gave us the connection to Chal that we needed. But now we're tossing a potential superweapon into Kirk's lap."

Drake sipped his brandy, unconcerned. "Kirk is a man of the moment. He has no vision. So he'll do exactly what we want him to do. Lead us to Chal. And to the Children of Heaven. Then, one way or another, he'll be... superseded."

Ariadne drank the contents of her glass in one quick toss. "I still think torturing Teilani would have been simpler."

Drake put down his snifter and rubbed at his face. He'd been working twenty-hour days since obtaining his new position.

"That wouldn't have been wise. Or profitable. We tried interrogating some of her compatriots right after Khitomer. When the Chal first started inquiring about membership in the Federation. No matter what we did to them, we learned nothing to indicate any of them knew what their world is sitting on.

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