A Short History of Isha - Part 4

Posted on 13 Jun 2009 @ 1:42am by

1,905 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: M2: Aggressive Negotiations
Location: Isha's Quarters
Timeline: After leaving DS5

I found it increasingly difficult to spend time in Nniol’s company even with others present. There were already tensions between he and Nveid, I did not know the extent of them until much later but I did learn that Nniol had been attempting to undermine me, a task made somewhat easier as my relationship with my husband had suffered. We maintained a solid front but our lives had become largely separate after the birth of our daughter, Aidoann. I occupied my time with senate business and accommodating the ever growing demands of Latasalaem’s ambition. Eventually, in 2370 my husband summoned me for an interview … Nniol had been working very hard at eroding his trust in me, I think he was confident that I would say nothing against him. It was quite a horrible conversation and through it I saw what had been happening and how far I had allowed everything to fall; Nveid’s House was breaking apart anyway, the poor thing looked so worn and it was all my fault. There might be nothing I could do to rebuild our relationship, but I could at least stop him from tearing himself apart. I did what I should have done years before that, I trusted myself to my husband’s mercy and told him the entire story.â€

Elek understood the passions that must have been involved at that meeting. A crumbling marriage, two personalities struggling with their own secrets, and a House that seemed to be falling apart ... he would have hated to have been involved in that meeting. The psychic energy would have been destructive.

"How did Nveid take it?" he asked.

Isha pulled her feet up onto the seat once again, “He listened, I don’t know how he could stand to hear it – that was the first time I had told anyone and it would make this telling look like a practiced recital. I discovered then that I had never actually seen my husband lose his temper. Frustrated, irritated, stressed, angry … all the things that one usually mistakes for loss of control, I’d seen that, I can be a difficult woman to live with. Nveid had a reputation in the fleet for having an evil temper, his officers went to great lengths to ensure that it was not directed at them. I never understood the reputation until he looked at me that way, he was so brutally cold as he got to his feet. I was frozen, I had always thought of rage as a physical thing – but- it was not that way – he could have torn me apart, I feared for a moment that he might, and nobody would have blamed him. He simply stood up and left the room.â€

[tag]

“He had me taken away. It was an experience which has left me with an absolute horror of the uniform of the Tal’Shiar. My entire history was examined and re-examined the most salient and salacious parts of my story scrutinised – ironically it was the very sort of interrogation that Nniol had wanted me to endure after my abduction, only he had thought that the result would be for me to be exposed as a treacherous whore.

Nveid spent the rest of his life trying to make up for having doubted me – it turns out that he insisted on observing every moment of my … anyway … I did not blame him. Fveirrolh was proved to be Nniol’s son but we agreed that he should not be told and that he would remain ours – we told nobody else., Nveid disinherited his brother and settled the House on me to be held in trust for Hexce or Aidoann though was still unable to bring himself to expel Nniol from the House though he insisted that he leave the compound and only return if expressly requested to.

So, a little bit of truth and threat of torture is all it took to rebuild a marriage.â€

A mirthless laugh came from Elek. "If you'd have met my fifth wife, you'd most definately agree with that statement."

He rubbed his chin as he processed all that Isha had told him, and he knew it would take him an age to fully understand it all. Even with his knowledge of Romulan culture, it all seemed like high politics ... and high cruelty. Nniol truly was the Machiavellian politician, willing to go to *any* length to achieve his goal.

"So Nniol then somehow got to your son and told him the truth ... or so you suspect, anyway? It certainly would explain your son's attitude."

Elek sighed. "If you were currently head of the House in Nveid's stead, how would you want to deal with Nniol?"

“I am,†Isha replied, “and I don’t know. If the last days had not left me so frustratingly fragile I wouldn’t even have had to resort to telling you any of this, I could have dealt with him. But he knows that when he had me on the Vrelnec I was quite willing to let the ship be destroyed – I’d given in, I couldn’t fight him any more. Nniol tends to push, and if you don’t push back he’ll come back and push you harder,â€

Isha laughed softly to herself. “You know, Elek, I have a very volatile and occasionally violent temper but I’ve never actually hurt anyone – not unless they were too slow or too stupid to move out of the way of whatever object I threw at them, anyway – but there is a part of me that would like nothing better than to ram that sword down his throat and watch him choke on it. I could walk away from all of this, disinherit my daughter – Aidoann doesn’t want the burden of a House, she has a very promising Galae career ahead of her that she has achieved without her family calling in any favours for her – all I would have to do is go home and sign the relevant documents. I could do what Nniol asked, marry him which would affirm his position, provide a legitimate heir and live out my life quietly but there is a little more to the story. It is not just my promise to my husband that I would never let the House fall to his brother.â€

Isha picked up the small round seal from the centre of the table, “this is something else that you shouldn’t know about,†she said. “If you claim to have seen one before I’ll not believe you. Aside from providing a ream of highly classified reading for highly classified eyes the fact that Nveid had me throughoughly investigated had one more impact. One does not enter that building expecting to come out alive,†Isha said, “They deconstructed me to find out what the truth was and in the process discovered that I possess the sort of mind that their deepest agents destroy themselves trying to achieve by articifical. You may have noticed that I am remarkably objective, Lieutenant Elek, that’s not something I have to struggle for, its just the way I am. As soon as I put all this information back it will cease to concern me … I very suddenly and unexpectedly became a very valuable resource to my government.â€

Elek nodded. "Well, you're right - I've never seen that seal before."

Isha held out the cold silvery seal to him, “rather more than most ambassadors, when I say I speak for my government, I really do. I understand that if you need to do so after I have told you this you may have me arrested as a spy but that is an oversimplification; I have no training, no resources, and I answer directly and only to the Continuing Committee, I would hope that you will accept and return the trust that I have shown to you.â€

Elek swallowed. *My son,* he thought.

“Chin’toka almost destroyed me, and suddenly Nniol was back, welcome for once because I couldn’t handle my responsibilities myself then, not after losing both Nveid and Hexce …

I shut myself away but my Auethnen was very patient, he was unfailingly loyal to my husband. He also listened to me, which is not something that can be said for many advisors – he sent for Rh’vaurek, who stayed with me until I had myself in order again. After that, after Nniol had been sent away I found a number of disturbing items in my husband’s journal – the first was the outline of his suspicions over his first wife’s death, she was pregnant and whilst making the jump between the ship and the planet her shuttle broke apart in the atmosphere. Nveid suffered dreadfully but his ever loyal brother Nniol was there to take the weight of responsibility from his shoulders and to encourage him to divert his energies to the fleet rather than the House. Forty years before that I had thought that Nveid’s insistence on a bodyguard was because of an external threat. A later entry mentioned my abduction – he thought that he had been too lax and that Nniol had somehow been able to try again … there were several such entries, documented and supported by other records, references to communication logs. I shared this all with Rh’vaurek who began an investigation of his own. This led somewhere most unexpected.â€

An eyebrow was Elek's only response.

“It took us ten years but very recently I acquired unredacted copies of communications that show that Nniol among others in the Empire and at least one party from each of the Federation and the Klingon empire had knowledge of the outcome of the attack at Chin’toka before the battle began – the parties in question are still in power and still prominent citizens. Among those same unredacted records is evidence from the Federation salvage operation that demonstrates that the Vrelnec itself was disabled even before the Breen weapon struck. It can be no coincidence that Nniol chose to attack DS5 at this point, he needs to have control of me not only because I can legitimise his claim on the House but because if he holds me then he can also bind Rh’vaurek’s hands; but if I die, Rh’vaurek can still bring our evidence against him and the other conspirators. I have to bring Nniol home and hope that he has not somehow managed to make it appear that I was the one responsible for that treachery.

Elek leaned forward, intent on the disk. "Madam Ambassador, I'm sure you understand the significance of what you're saying? Some sort of conspiracy, where senior members of the main galactic alliances were previously aware of Chin'toka's outcome? That is ... phenomenal news. Were that to get out -"

Isha shrugged, “You see why I cannot let this go, and why I am so reluctant to discuss it? On its own my story sounds rather far fetched … but in this context … well, those who make conspiracies generally keep their fingers upon their webs – they know what I have uncovered and they are mobilising to stop me.â€

"Would you be willing to let me see the evidence? Or at the very least name names? We can do this subtly, under the radar, so that your name is kept as far away as possible from the leak."

To be continued ...

 

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