Star Trek: Brinkmanship by Una McCormack

large double doors at the far end of the chamber swung open. Even the Venetans went quiet as Rusht swept into the room.
    Rusht was on the very imposing end of the Venetanheight spectrum, nearly two meters tall. Crusher checked immediately for high heels but couldn’t see below the hem of Rusht’s long pale-green gown. Nor was her hair adding any extra height: it was pulled back sharply from her brow to give the effect of a dark peaked cap. In fact, Rusht’s whole style was unornamented to the point of severe, as if dressing up was something that took attention away from more serious business, something that children might do. Ilka murmured under her breath and reached up to touch one of her earrings in an almost nervous gesture. Not for the first time in her career, Crusher was grateful for the low-pressure anonymity of a uniform.
    Another Venetan, smaller and covered with beautiful gold fur with darker stripes along her arms and temples, followed Rusht into the room. Rusht’s aide, perhaps? Did the Venetans have aides? How was this going to work? But Crusher’s attempts to guess how this already bewildering meeting would play out stopped when the third figure entered the room and her startling beauty nearly took Crusher’s breath away. This tall, glowing woman, fluid in movement and yet clearly very strong, was surely a Tzenkethi.
    Crusher exhaled slowly. She had never seen one in person before. The aesthetic effect was remarkable, and the inclusion of a Tzenkethi in the Venetan diplomatic team sent about as strong a signal as possible about the strengthening ties between their world and the bigger, more powerful empire at their border. The Venetans really were angry.
    What’s behind that? Crusher wondered. Why such depth of feeling? We were careless, perhaps, but we were also preoccupied. We were at war, for heaven’s sake! Surely our lack of attention was understandable. So why was the snub felt so deeply?
    “Well, Beverly,” murmured Ilka, “I believe we are outclassed—visually, at least.”
    Rusht and her companion spoke quietly to the Tzenkethi for a few moments. The Tzenkethi moved to one end of the table and, with infinite grace, rearranged her body so that she was comfortably seated on the floor. Her face was a mask, unreadable. Rusht took a seat near her at the end of the same curved table. Her colleague sat beside her.
    “I am Rusht,” she said simply. Her voice was low, but it carried. She gestured to her companion. “This is Vitig. We’ve decided that we’ll be the ones to speak to you.” She looked around the room at the confusion of delegates, sighed, and said, “Sit wherever you like. We should begin.”
    The chaos among the delegates, which had subsided when Rusht entered the room, did not pick up again. The members of the three delegations, much subdued, quickly organized themselves around three points across the two tables, with Jeyn and Picard diagonally opposite Rusht and Vitig, and Detrek and the Cardassians along the curve to their right. Dygan, sitting behind Detrek, was making an effort not to look anxious and instead ready and eager to respond to any request his government’s representative madeof him. The Ferengi took their place to the left of the Federation representatives, around from the Venetans on their table. Ilka put down her glass and went to join her delegation. As she moved away, she murmured to Crusher, “First point to Rusht.”
    But Crusher wasn’t too sure. Yes, on the surface it seemed that with one well-judged entrance and a few well-judged words, Rusht had managed to take control of the proceedings, but something about her demeanor suggested that she found the behavior of her guests rather wearying. She seemed . . .  tired by their antics. Much like Jean-Luc, in fact, Crusher reflected. Still, it was true that whatever Rusht’s intention, the delegates from the Khitomer Accords were now on the defensive.
    Crusher picked up a chair and put it down behind