Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice Read Online Free PDF Page A

varying sizes were neatly stacked. The room was sparse, lacking any touches of individuality save for a couple of generic-looking potted Aldebaran ferns and a painting on one wall of an old Mann -class starship chasing the wake of a comet.
    Suddenly the office felt very small, despite the fact that it was almost twice the size of his ready room back on the Titan . Riker sat in the chair behind the desk and surveyed the piles of files Ssura had dutifully prepared for him.
    â€œIs this going to be my center seat from now on?” he said to the air. An ember of resentment stirred in his chest, and with a grimace, Riker snatched the first padd off the top of the pile, resolving that he would get back to his ship in the shortest possible order, even if that meant docking Titan permanently in geostationary orbit.
    When he looked up at the chronograph on the wall, two hours had passed and the pile of padds hadn’t dwindled, only moved into smaller groupings spread out over the desktop. Tasking orders for shipsand crews, re-supply authorizations, mission logs for review, transfer requests, scientific reports . . . The list went on and on. A landslide of paperwork threatened to bury Riker on his first day on the job, and if anything, that frustrated him even more.
    Akaar pulled me out of the captain’s chair to be his damned file clerk? He thought back to his earlier fears that he had been called back to Starfleet Command to be reprimanded for something, and for a moment, Riker wondered if that was in fact what had happened. The promotion to admiral wasn’t a reward, it was a punishment. I still have more to do out there, he told himself, his gaze slipping back toward the painting of the starship.
    A ping from the intercom on his desk interrupted Riker’s morose train of thought, and Ssura’s voice issued out, even as the door to the office was opening. “Sir, I’m sorry, but he insisted on coming straight in—”
    The grim-faced Tellarite who had been at the promotion ceremony filled the doorway, and over his shoulder Riker saw Ssura bobbing up from his desk in the anteroom beyond, eyes wide.
    â€œIt’s okay, Lieutenant. Carry on.”
    The door slid shut behind the Tellarite, and he cocked his porcine head, his dark, deep-set eyes studying the office. “Don’t get up,” he said, walking slowly across the room. “I can see you are busy.”
    â€œMister Velk, isn’t it?” Riker knew exactly who the civilian was. In a moment snatched between his endless briefings, he had searched the public databases for information on the men and women who had watched Akaar give him the new rank. Galif jav Velk had been hard to miss.
    He didn’t grace Riker with a reply as he helpedhimself to a glass of water from a carafe on a nearby side table. According to the sparse biography that was a matter of public record, Velk had originally been a representative for one of Tellar’s largest mining and mercantile concerns before a transition into the political arena in the 2360s. At some point in the last decade or so, Velk had come into alignment with Ishan Anjar, an ambitious councillor from post-occupation Bajor—the very man who now held the transitory office of president pro tempore following Nan Bacco’s death. According to the Federation charter, Ishan would maintain the role as interim president for sixty days, until a special election could be called to determine who would take the office on a permanent basis.
    Both Ishan and Velk were unabashed hawks, champions of a strong and well-armed Starfleet and a proactive military stance; but while the Bajoran leavened his views with a good amount of fatherly charisma, Velk was simply blunt and forthright. A hard-eyed and uncompromising figure from a race of beings who practically made stubbornness a virtue, Velk now served at Ishan’s pleasure as his chief of staff.
    There were other, less flattering names