Outside House tr'Khellian...
It's truely amazing how surviving one of your greatest fears can improve your outlook. Of course, not surviving your greatest fear has much the opposite affect. Well, I suppose that would depend on whether or not you actually believe in an afterlife in which you would still have an outlook. But, nevertheless, Naraht's attitude had improved to the point of cautious optimism once he actually made contact with Dr. McCoy.
Damned considerate of the Romulans to have a liking for rock gardens, he thought wryly as he waited, half-buried in the leaves apparently one rock among many. It was a drizzly day, promising to turn into full rain soon, but Naraht didn't think it would keep the Doctor from coming out to touch base. So far, things were going right. McCoy had been taken to the House where Terise Haleakala-LoBrutto (now known as Arrhae ir-Mnaeha t'Khellian) was employed as hur'hfe.
Now if things will just keep going right, Naraht thought as he spotted Bones wandering down the pathway to his position. "Good afternoon, Doctor," Naraht whispered when he got close. "Care to take a load off?"
"I still say it's insulting for me to use you as a bench, Naraht," McCoy subvocalized as he sat down on the lieutenant's carapace.
"Come now, Doctor. One should always be willing to support one's crewmates," Naraht chided. The drizzle stepped up to a shower. "I just finished the tunnel, by the way. Sorry it took so long, but..."
"Don't worry about it, Naraht. All the escape tunnels in the world won't do me much good if the servants call the exterminators because they think the mice...,or whatever Godforsaken rodent the Romulans have here are being unusually loud."
"Well...it will be done tonight," Naraht said. "Just in case anyone decides to execute your sentence prematurely."
Naraht supressed a surge of rage. The moment McCoy had identified himself to the Romulans, he was a dead man from their point of view. The "trial" he was to undergo had a predetermined vertict. This was just going to be spectacle before the slow, torturous execution of the doctor for 'crimes against the Empire'...And Naraht was going to have to let him undergo it. The trial part at least. If Naraht had anything to say about it, the Romulans would find actually executing McCoy to be problematic.
"Well, I hope they don't," the doctor said. "Yes, you could get me out quick, but meeting up with Ael would be a mite difficult if we weren't where we were supposed to be."
"Better than experiencing the darker side of Romulan hospitality," Naraht countered. "Speaking of which...what do you think of your hostess. Has she...gone over?"
"Gone native, you mean?" McCoy asked. "Haven't seen enough to tell yet. It's always a danger with these deep-cover agents, they can sometimes get so far into their cover persona that the original person gets lost. I'll push her a little tonight when she gets back." He looked up at the clouds who had decided it was time for a downpour and opened up the floodgates. "I think finding me out here will push her enough off balance to get my wedge in."
"So that's why you're courting pneumonia," Naraht said wryly. "And here I thought it was just another example of doctors making the worst patients."
"None of your sass, youngster," Bones shot back. "After what you put yourself through getting here, I can put up with a little soaking to get the mission done." With the hand that was hidden from the house by his body, McCoy reached down to touch Naraht's back. "Don't think I didn't see how damned terrified you were when you read that part of the briefing. Perry might not know your kinesthetics that well, but I do."
"And I thought I'd done a good job covering," Naraht said with chagrin.
"You did...for anyone but your doctor. But I wanted you to know that I do understand what you did, and I appreciate it." McCoy snorted. "And I appreciate what you're going to do. It's one hell of a long marathon you'll be running once the balloon goes up."
"I can handle it," Naraht whispered. "After skydiving from low orbit, what's a little subterranian sprinting?"
Movement at the edge of the garden caught his attention. "Don't look now, Doctor, but here she comes...and she's not happy."
"Good," McCoy muttered as Arrhae ran up. "That makes three of us."