Striking a Deal

Posted on 05 May 2024 @ 12:08pm by Lieutenant Commander Maurice Rubens

Mission: M4 - Falling Out
Location: Free State capitol, Vvalti
Timeline: MD24, Evening (After Nothing is Free)
1223 words - 2.4 OF Standard Post Measure

Inimik pulled at the edges of her deep purple hood, fighting the wind the whipped up with the storm crackling overhead. Behind her, she could hear Reven’s boots slapping into the puddles that had formed in the low spots of the undulating walkway that led deeper into the Kal-toi neighborhood of the capitol city. Why the opposition, filled with the old aristocracy of the Romulan Empire, called this rundown area of the city home, she’d never know. Almost all of them lived in palaces on the far side of town with smooth streets and buildings that glistened. That was nothing like Kal-toi, with it’s broken streets and dingy buildings one puff of strong wind away from collapsing.

The sheet of rain coming down on them made seeing the landmarks difficult. Although she’d been this way twice before, the club she needed was tucked into an alley and difficult to find in the sunshine. She plunged through an ankle deep puddle. Cursing her waterlogged boots, she suddenly spied the alleyway she needed and picked up speed. At the end of the skinny alleyway, she found the place she wanted: the Knife Club.
The opposition’s headquarters was a high-rise building a few blocks from the Senate Building, but the Knife Club was it’s true center of power. Deals and plots were all hatched within its confines; it’s why she was here after all.

The guard at the door had already known she was coming and only stared at her while she trudged past. He didn’t even stop to scan Reven. Maybe he didn’t believe anyone was actually stupid enough to assassinate a member on the club’s grounds. Although she was inside and clear of the weather, Inimik didn’t lower the hood while she trudged through the loud, obnoxious interior with its young bureaucrats and aides sipping high-end ale and off-world drinks. A few looked at her and Reven – who was also buried deep in a blood red hood – with curiousity, but knew better than to ask questions.

It wasn’t until Inimik and Reven had entered the inner sanctum of the club – through a small door in the back and two more guards – that she lowered her hood. Mercifully, the large garish room with its gold and silver furniture were empty. Inimik mused that most of the self-important party leaders would stay home during a storm, lest their expensive tailored clothes get wet. She found Radak sitting in front of a brasier, orange flames licking at the silver contraptions vents, with a cup of what looked like bloodwine in his hand. He thought imbibing the favored drink of a sworn enemy made him look strong: she thought it just showcased his lack of taste. Awful stuff.

Radak was a fat Romulan, with multiple chins that pillowed around his neck. His gray suit was so stretched that Inimik always considered a violent explosion mere minutes away. He barely glanced at Inimik as she sat down on the seat to his left; he held up his hand to his assistant – who doubled as his bodyguard – to take away his empty cup and leave another in its place. “Is our Federation friend going to get me the location of that family?”

“Not from this one, I think. He sounded suspicious.”

“Clumsy of you.”

“Not at all,” Inimik’s gaze settled on Radak even as he never looked at here. Although she’d done her own intelligence work, she asked, “What’s this family to you? Surely you’re not actually concerned about their well-being.”

Radak sipped his bloodwine without answer. “If you can’t get me the information on them I want, I don’t see what else we have to talk about.”

“Nonsense.”

“And even you did get the information, I won’t support an alliance with the Federation. I think I can safely speak for the majority in that regard. We won’t be their pets.”

“If I thought the Federation was serious in its offer, I would’ve gone to the Prime Minister.”

Radak glanced at her now. “What do you mean?”

She sighed. “I keep saying you live too much in the past. Twenty years ago maybe the Federation would’ve seriously considered going to war to protect a single species. But their stomach for lost causes vanished along with our Empire. Who knew that all we had to do to destroy the Federation’s ideals was to invite them to help us.”

“Then why are you here?”

Suddenly, Radak’s posture changed as his suspicious mind screamed a warning. He went from lazily staring at the fire to sitting straight, his gaze swept over to Reven. Inimik heard a whisper of a weapon leaving its holster from Radak’s bodyguard, she held up her hand quickly, “Oh, please. If we wanted to assassinate you, do you think I would have come myself. How many times must I say it? This isn’t the Empire.”

The Romulan senator, his posture still rigid, demanded, “I repeat then: if you knew the Federation wasn’t going to help us with the family, then why are you here?”

“Because there’s still an opportunity for you to get something you want and me to get something I want. If this Federation ambassador won’t see if the family is on Loki III, then his opponent might.”

“Explain.”

“I looked into it. Gordon Stillwell is on Obsidian Command, that much is true, but so is Admiral Brigid Harshman. Do you know the name?”

Inimik shook the urge to roll her eyes when Radak shook his head. He’d never bothered himself with the specifics of the Federation. They may come in different colors and sizes, but in the end they were all inferior creatures. How did he expect to defeat the Federation when he knew nothing about them? Perhaps the fat had gone to his brain.

“She’s an idealist, if in the exact opposite way of Ambassador Stillwell. If she thinks it likely that we would go into an alliance with the Federation, then I believe she may give the family up to me.”

“And?”

Inimik shrugged and decided to let Radak know what she knew already, “The family. I know who they are. With them captured or dead you could bring a whole planet’s resistance to heel in a moment. Once you control the planet, you can put whoever you want in charge and wield considerably more influence in the Senate.”

Radak’s eyes narrowed. He clearly wasn’t pleased that she’d deduced all of that, but he also wanted to know if she really did know. “Capturing or killing them helps me how, exactly?”

“Capturing them, you can use blackmail. Killing them you could proclaim them martyrs and rally popular support behind you,” she examined him for a moment. “You want to kill them. Capturing them would create too many strings that can be linked back to you. Too many people would know the truth of your involvement. But killing them...easy to distance yourself from that.”

“And you’d provide me that...distance?”

“Of course. For a price.”

“And what price is that?”

Inimik’s sharp, angular smile slit her face. “I want what we all want. More power.”