"There remains the question of my personal fee." Assessor Prant's tiny eyes glitter in the dim light. "I suggest... two hundred bars of gold-pressed latinum."
"Agreed," I say. It is an outrageous sum, and he evidently expects me to haggle - but we have the latinum, and by this point, I would pay more than that simply to be rid of him.
He bares his disgusting Ferengi teeth in what is possibly a smile. "That will be satisfactory, then," he croaks. "I am pleased that you have refrained from making difficulties. Usually, Ree-maan self-righteousness is worse even than the hew-mons...."
I have no idea why General Xerek assigned me to this task. I am no diplomat - true, I am not nearly as bad a diplomat as Assessor Prant, but to say that is to say nothing. But, he is a senior officer of the Ferengi Commerce Authority's External Auditing division. External Auditing keeps track of assets belonging to organizations outside the FCA - military assets, generally. It is the Ferengi's military intelligence agency, and it is effective.
"As agreed, then. Immediate subspace transfer of your data files concerning trilithium and trilithium-precursor manufacturing sites in non-aligned space adjoining the Ferengi Alliance." I force a thin smile. "This will plug important holes in our and the Federation's coverage of these installations."
"Subject to verification of payment - agreed, then. Beam the latinum directly to my ship. I want to look at it," says Prant, in alarmingly lubricious tones. I pull out my datapad, begin to authorize the transfers of currency. Prant tinkers with his communicator. Eventually, we are finished.
"I cannot interest you in a supply of beetle snuff? Or a holiday retreat on Segmura Alpha? No? Then we are done." Prant rises to his feet. "And I will return to my ship. I find this dark and dreary station of yours extremely depressing, Ree-maan."
"I will escort you to the transporter room." I resist the urge to turn him upside down and shake him, to see what valuables might fall out of his pockets.
"Much simpler just to let me beam out," Prant grumbles as we walk down the gloomy corridors to the transporter room. "You Ree-maans take your security too seriously."
"We have had to. I suppose a direct transport could be arranged, though it would violate a great many security protocols." I cannot resist needling him. "Quite a number of people would have to be adequately recompensed." Prant says something under his breath that the universal translator cannot, or will not, process.
"Set coordinates for the transporter room of Nandi-class warship Prelgar, in docking bay 5207-Uruz," I tell the transporter chief. Prant stamps his way onto the pad. "Goodbye, Assessor Prant. It has been a pleasure to do business with you," I lie. And I turn away and stalk out of the room before he can answer -
And the world turns very bright and shatteringly loud, and something enormous shoves me from behind, and I spin through the air and raise my arms to fend off the wall that is coming at me, and I feel the bone in my arm snap, and then there is a tremendous blow to my head and everything is blessedly dark.
---
General Xerek glowers down at me as I lie on the bio-bed. "A pyrexite demolitions charge, apparently beamed onto the pad as it energized to transport Assessor Prant. Source unknown. Another transporter beam, heterodyned on the Ferengi ship's signal. The forensic trail, in the computer and sensor logs, is fogged and partially obliterated."
"The computer virus at work," I mutter. My head hurts. Actually, all of me hurts.
"Quite. It was mere luck that you survived." Xerek's expression suggests he does not consider it good luck.
"What of the others?"
"The transporter chief caught the full force of the blast in his head and upper torso. He did not survive. As for Assessor Prant...." Xerek grunts. "We have found enough DNA to make a positive identification. We will probably be cleaning bits of him out of the transporter room for some time." He pauses, then adds, "He had a countdown running."
I frown. It hurts. Dermal regeneration has taken care of the flash burns, but the deep-tissue muscle injuries - and the compound fracture of my left arm - will take longer to heal. "And he still chose that moment to step into a transporter?"
"It is possible he was disregarding it. Many do, it seems."
"No," I say, thinking, "no.... Prant was an intelligence officer, aware of the situation, aware of the risks. If he had a countdown, he would have taken precautions, surely...."
"He might not have known of it. We found it in his ship's files; an officious underling - or an ambitious one, eager for promotion - might have hidden it from him. Or, of course -" Xerek's expression darkens "- he might have believed that here, at the Vault, he was safe from harm. This is the second time that Thrang has penetrated our security with ease. I cannot but believe that it is a deliberate affront. An insult, aimed at us."
"Quite possibly. Reman Intelligence has a well-deserved good reputation. If Thrang can damage our image, our standing...." I am thinking. I let my head fall back onto the pillow. "I must rest."
Xerek makes a disapproving noise. "Very well, you must rest. Resume your duties as soon as you are able." And he turns and goes, his stick making sharp clicking sounds on the deck.
I am resting. I am also thinking. Someone killed Prant - well, the Ferengi was a viable enough target. And they breached the Vault's security to do it - and the propaganda value of that is obvious. But whoever it was, they would have know that someone else would be in that transporter room - a Reman agent, come out of simple politeness to speed Prant on his way. I have to acknowledge the possibility that the bomb was aimed at Prant, and at Reman credibility... and at me.
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