"So you're my KDF liaison," I say.
The green face on my viewscreen, the colour of old bronze, smiles without humour. "We have cooperated in the past," says the rasping, whispering voice.
"Cooperated? Apart from you trying to kill me, yes, I suppose we did."
"Ah." She looks, momentarily, crestfallen. And the bony process on her skull would be quite some crest to fall. "Yes, I gathered Rrueo told you about that. You were still the enemy. At the time." Her silvery eyes narrow at me. "And do not attempt to convince me that you would not use a similar stratagem yourself, if the opportunity arose."
"Possibly," I concede. "Just possibly."
The woman on the screen is a high-ranking mercenary commander, nominally under the aegis of the KDF. Her species has an incredibly complex vocal tract; her name is a rasp, a squelch and a series of clicks that transliterates most exactly as R'j Bl'k'. She is intelligent, proud, highly capable, and I do not trust her one single millimetre. The fact that she tried to lure me into the destructive radius of the Tiaza Zephora rift entity is only one sound reason not to.
"So," says R'j, and settles herself comfortably on the command couch of her ship, a monstrous Elachi Monbosh battleship that is very nearly the same shape as the crest on her skull. "How may the glorious Klingon military assist its noble allies on this occasion?"
"You mean you haven't been briefed already?" I say. "How inefficient."
"S-s-s-s-s. Yes. You have lost Ronnie Grau. Careless of you."
"We haven't lost her. She was taken."
"Quite. But by whom? And how anxious are you to make sure they retain her?"
"All we're sure of is that it was a Klingon-style transporter beam," I say patiently. "We detected an unfamiliar warp signature in the Delta Gracilis system... our best analysis points it in the direction of Imperial space."
R'j nods. Her face is difficult to read, but I think it has turned serious. "To search the whole of Imperial space for one person - a formidable task. And, of course, it will go better for you if you have a KDF escort. Very few people are disposed to argue with the Goroke."
"Nor with King Estmere or Tapiola, come to that."
"Oh, quite," says R'j. "You are both terrifying, I concede this. S-s-s-s-s." She turns businesslike again. "Transmit the data you have on this warp signature. If it is a Klingon or allied vessel, it is possible that Goroke's database may be able to provide a match."
"I'll get Vice Admiral T'Pia to transmit all our available data."
"S-s-s-s-s. I recall her from Tiaza Zephora. She struck me as reasonably competent." High praise, indeed.
"Whoever they were," I say, "they got into the Delta Gracilis system unobserved, got close to the Falcon under battle conditions, beamed Ronnie off her own bridge through shields, and escaped still undetected. They're good."
"Yes," says R'j thoughtfully. "This narrows down the field of possible suspects, I suppose. There are elements of the Orion Syndicate which specialize in such... operations. And they would seem a likely suspect for other reasons, too."
"Such as what?"
"My first conjecture, on reading the briefing material," says R'j, "was that someone had... stolen... Ronnie Grau for personal profit. If the Siohonin would pay Ssurt so handsomely for her, they might be inclined to pay another vendor equally handsomely. Of course, dealing with the Siohonin from within the Empire, just now, presents problems. The Siohonin themselves are a problem."
"How much of a problem can they be?" I ask. "They're one star system...."
"Currently, they appear to be rather more than one," said R'j. "Their military expansion is rapid, and disturbingly unopposed. They have considerable material resources and immense reserves of manpower... and weapons whose full nature we have yet to understand. Oh, I am confident enough that they will be defeated, in the long run... but for now, they are a problem."
R'j isn't Klingon and doesn't have the typical Klingon braggadocio - but she, like the rest of her obscure species, has her pride, and conceding that the Siohonin are a "problem" can't be easy for her. "So," I say, "they're a problem... and they want Ronnie Grau."
"Indeed," says R'j.
"So a question that springs to my mind -"
"Why do they want her? Quite."
"It might have something to do with Q. And the Stygmalian Rift. But I don't see how."
"Q claimed that the Tiaza Zephora situation was all about her. I quote," says R'j. "I am not entirely convinced, though. The Q entity is unreliable, its words cannot be taken at face value."
"It's something to think about, though." I scratch moodily at the base of one of my antennae. "We have very little to go on."
"Well, there is one thing that should give us heart," says R'j. "Wherever Ronnie Grau is, now, it is extremely unlikely that she will keep quiet about it."
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