by David Mack
She flashed a lascivious smile, just as he had trained her to do. “Of course, master.”
“Very well, then.” He reclined on the massage table, made a pillow of his hands behind his head, and surrendered to T’Lana’s exquisite ministrations.
Minutes later, as she coaxed the last bit of tension from Damar’s body, he caught himself entertaining a deeply seditious notion: Maybe it’s not the Klingons who are the problem, but Dukat himself. It was a dangerous idea to consider, and its only possible solution was unthinkable—but also, at the same time…
Logical.
8
Trinity
Three ships converged in the endless darkness.
Prefect Zogozin stood on the bridge of the Gorn battle cruiser Shozsta, waiting for its command crew to confirm that the other two ships at the rendezvous coordinates had transmitted the proper, prearranged recognition codes. Low hisses of muted communication passed between the officers surrounding him, underscored by the feedback tones from the ship’s consoles.
On the main viewscreen, a Tholian battleship and a Breen assault vessel held station less than a tenth of a light-second from the Shozsta, and at an equal distance from each other. The Breen had come the farthest distance to join this conference, which the Tholians and the Gorn had decided would be held at a point of particular, mutual historic significance. More than a hundred cycles earlier, these coordinates had been occupied by one of the late Terran Empire’s most fearsome installations: Starbase 47, or, as it had been more commonly known, Vanguard. Under the command of the ruthless Commodore Diego “Red” Reyes, it had served as the epicenter for a reign of terror that had been excessive even by the cruelly depraved standards of the Terrans.
That starbase was long gone, destroyed by the Tholians. Today, in this place of death and destruction, Zogozin hoped to inaugurate a new order for the galaxy.
The Shozsta’s commanding officer, Rezkik, received a report from one of his officers, then looked at Zogozin. “The codes have been verified, Prefect.”
“Excellent. Hail both ships on a shared channel.”
Zogozin waited while the bridge crew opened a frequency to the Tholian ship, the Lanz’t Tholis, and the Breen vessel, the Artosk. Seconds later, two faces appeared on the split screen. On the left was Azrene, the appointed delegate of the Tholian Assembly; on the right was a snout-masked visage of a Breen that Zogozin had to accept on faith was that of Thot Gor, the Breen delegate.
“Greetings,” Zogozin said. “I come bearing the proxy of the Imperator. The Gorn Hegemony is prepared to act. What news do you bring?”
Azrene’s screech of a reply was filtered through the universal translator. “The Ruling Conclave of the Tholian Assembly has invested me with executive authority in this matter.”
Thot Gor’s helmet vocoder spewed mechanical noise that ultimately was translated as “I speak for the Breen Confederacy.”
The Gorn Prefect walked slowly toward the viewscreen as he addressed his peers. “We face uncertain times. The political dynamics of local space are in flux.”
“A poetic way of saying the Alliance is disintegrating,” Gor said.
“Quite,” Zogozin said. “Each passing moment brings the Cardassians and Klingons closer to the dissolution of their bond. If the Alliance should fall, their absence will leave a profound vacuum on the political stage.”
Azrene cut in, “One we are prepared to fill.”
“Unilaterally? I think not. Even with the Romulan Star Empire beaten and the Alliance on the brink of collapse, Tholia is in no position to exert dominance over local space. None of us is.” Zogozin nodded to Rezkik, who took the cue to transmit an annotated map of local space to the other ships. “Separately, each of us is likely to remain contained and marginalized during the coming Klingon-Cardassian conflict. United, however, we would be in a position to dictate terms.”
The Tholian delegate uttered a string of clicks and scrapes. “What of the Terran Rebellion? It appears to be a growing source of chaos and unrest.”
“The Cardassians will put it down. It is of no concern to us. Soon all of explored space will be ripe for new overlords. If we pursue our courses at odds with one another, our most reliable strategic models predict a Klingon resurgence inside of a decade, followed by total Klingon dominion within a century. But if we unite, we can master the Klingons, seize control of known space, and usher in a new age of order.” He held his clawed hands apart, palms open and facing up. “What say you? Do we part ways as rivals—or unite as equals?”
A long pause followed Zogozin’s ultimatum.
Thot Gor answered first. “The Confederacy will join this new order.”
Chest puffed with pride, Zogozin asked, “Azrene? What say you?”
The Tholian’s countenance coruscated for several seconds, and then she responded, “The Conclave pledges its fealty and cooperation to you both.”
“History will mark this day as a turning point,” Zogozin declared. “It will be remembered as the genesis of the Taurus Pact.”
9
On the Hunt
Gamma Pavonis III had been a miserable hunk of worthless rock for eons before Duras had come there, it had continued to be a joyless mud pit every day since his arrival, and he had every reason to believe it would go on serving as the rectum of the galaxy long after he had left it behind.
It had one saving grace: It was a fine place to go targ hunting.
Decades earlier, some fool or other had loosed a handful of the coarse-furred, sharp-tusked, barrel-shaped scavengers on the planet’s surface and lost track of them. A few years later, the countryside was overrun with targs. The snorting beasts defoliated the forest floors and generally made a mess of things while growing fat on an unlimited diet of protein-rich fungus and insects.
Then the hunters came and thinned the herds, but the animals continued to multiply. Had the planet hosted more than a handful of Klingons at any given time, they might have rid this world of targs decades ago, but with only a few dozen warriors resident, there were more than enough targs to go around.
Thanks to frequent rains in the region around Duras’s outpost, the ground often was muddy and peppered with targ tracks. Whenever he got a hankering for fresh meat, he grabbed a spear and took the day off. Today was a perfect day for the hunt: cool and damp, with little wind. Wet, rotting undergrowth muffled his footfalls as he crept through the brush, tracking a fat male targ by scent alone in the gray predawn hours. Then he caught sight of it in the distance, rooting in the mud for rare and fragrant fungal blooms. A deep breath, and Duras’s heartbeat slowed, steadying his hands. With slow, fluid grace, he lifted his spear above his shoulder and visualized its trajectory through the trees.
Half a breath later the spear was aloft, sailing true.
It pierced the targ’s neck, cutting the major artery and its opposing vein in one strike, and the beast toppled onto its side, felled in a single blow. Duras bounded through the brush, heedless of his clamor now that his prey was immobilized. He dropped to his knees beside the expiring animal, plucked his spear from its neck, and drew his d’k tahg. Into the creature’s ear he growled, “Noble beast! Tonight I shall eat your heart. Go into the darkness knowing your strength shall become mine, and you shall live on within me.” He plunged his blade deep into the targ’s chest just below the sternum and twisted. The animal expired with a final rasp and rattle, and then it was still.
All was silence for a moment. Then Duras heard his pulse hammering in his ears. When it faded, all that remained was the soft patter of rain dripping through the boughs of trees and the low breath of the autumn wind.
He looked up at the pearl-gray sky and grinned as cool rain kissed his face. This is a good day to live. He trussed the slain targ, ran his spear shaft between its bound feet, and hefted it across his shoulders. He would eat heartily tonight.
Marching back to the outpost, he reveled in the nights he spent on the hunt, and in the back of his mind he knew he would miss t
hem when he left this world.
Not that his departure was at all imminent. In fact, he had every reason to believe he would remain in exile on this rock for years to come. His first sin had been an accident of birth; as the eldest son of Ja’rod, scion of the ancient and powerful House of Duras, he had inherited the everlasting enmity of the House of Mogh, one of the key players in the politics of the Empire. After Mogh’s elder son, Worf, ascended to the regency, Duras had been forced to call in every political favor owed to his House just to retain command of a starship.
Worf’s capture by the Terran Rebellion the previous year had proved briefly fortuitous for Duras. With the House of Mogh temporarily descendant, he had maneuvered his way into command of the I.K.S. Negh’Var. As the right hand of Bajor’s then-Intendant Ro Laren, Duras had wielded tremendous influence and achieved an unusual degree of notoriety within the Klingon Defense Force, despite being disliked by Regent Martok.
Then it all had come crashing down, thanks to Kira Nerys and Worf’s younger brother, Kurn. The pair had formed an alliance, circumnavigated Duras’s authority, and scored a major victory for the Empire against the Terran Rebellion. In the process they had exposed Ro as a traitor, Kira regained her title as Bajor’s Intendant, and, with Kira’s backing, Kurn succeeded Duras as the commanding officer of the Negh’Var—with the intended consequence that Duras was relegated to commanding the strategically unimportant outpost on this backwater rock.
As if all that had not been enough to ensure the premature demise of Duras’s career prospects, a few months later he had been forced to take the blame for a major blunder. A Terran woman who identified herself as Alynna Nechayev had been captured by one of Duras’s patrol ships and brought in for questioning as a possible member of the rebellion. During her interrogation, two other individuals—so far officially unidentified—had infiltrated the base, wreaked havoc, killed multiple Klingon warriors, including Duras’s second-in-command, Colonel Gowron, and escaped with the Nechayev woman’s personal effects. Nechayev had been found dead in a passageway beneath the shuttle platform, most of her head and face blasted into smoking goop. If not for some artful excuses and a few friends in high places, Duras might have found himself facing execution or, at the very least, incarceration on Rura Penthe. Instead, he had retained this useless command assignment on a world about which no one gave a damn.
And that was exactly as he preferred it to be.
On the Negh’Var he had been too visible, a victim of his own success. His every action and communication had been recorded and analyzed as a matter of routine counterintelligence. Under such intimate scrutiny he had been all but unable to carry out his clandestine duties as a secret asset of Memory Omega. Here on Gamma Pavonis III, however, discipline was lax and security was an afterthought. The planet had nothing of value, so Imperial Intelligence paid it no mind. It was just a bare-bones listening station and sensor outpost, a way station for secure information passing between Qo’noS and its fringe territories.
In other words, a perfect place from which to intercept communiqués and track the deployments of Alliance forces.
As he neared the outpost’s main gate, he called up to the sentries in the guard tower, “I come bearing today’s lunch. Open the gate.”
A young guard peered down through the morning fog, squinted until he recognized Duras, then nodded to his comrade, who opened the main gate. Duras marched slowly, bearing his heavy burden into the compound. He dropped the carcass unceremoniously in the dirt at the feet of his new second-in-command, J’mkor. “Have that cleaned and ready for midday,” Duras said. “And make sure the chef saves me the heart this time.”
“Yes, My Lord.” J’mkor handed him a data slate. “The morning reports.”
Duras grabbed the data device and perused it as he walked to his office. J’mkor followed him, as if expecting some manner of reward simply for doing his job. Duras ignored his sycophantic executive officer and kept his attention on the morning reports. They seemed to be the customary mix of routine data traffic, ship movements, and security advisories. Then he saw there was nothing typical about them. Just outside his office he stopped, turned, and pointed at the slate as he faced J’mkor. “Is all this confirmed?”
J’mkor stiffened. “Yes, sir. Directly from the High Command.”
Duras frowned as he reread the specifics. This was not good. Not at all. “Dismissed,” he said, and then he continued into his office and locked the door behind him, stranding the bewildered J’mkor on the other side.
Not being given to sentimentality, Duras kept his office spartan and functional. He had a work station, a chair, a desk, and a window whose smart glass he kept in an opaque “privacy” mode. No personal items adorned his desk, and the walls were as bare as they’d been the day he’d arrived.
He settled into his chair, logged into a secure channel of the base’s data network, and proceeded to verify the information brought to him by J’mkor. To his dismay, it all checked out. Massive redeployments of ships and personnel were under way throughout multiple sectors along the Klingon-Romulan border—not that such a territorial distinction meant much in the wake of the Romulan Star Empire’s collapse. Enormous convoys were being formed and dispatched at regular intervals on a route that linked H’Atoria and Celes. Though the convoy vessels had no cloaks, they were assigned several defenders that did.
The convoy deployment was unusual but not unheard of; it suggested a major project was under way in the Celes system. The first item that bothered Duras was the slipshod tactics being employed by the convoys’ protectors. Instead of deploying from multiple points, cloaking, and joining the convoy at random intervals along the start of its route, all its defenders were deploying and arriving with the convoys themselves, meaning that any reasonably observant enemy could make an accurate estimate of the convoys’ strength.
The second item in the morning report that troubled Duras was a set of military redeployments that tasked dozens of Klingon warships from a number of ports to rendezvous under cloak at a precise set of coordinates inside the Joch’chal Nebula. Though these orders were not officially related to the convoys, Duras noticed immediately that the convoys’ regular route passed within a hair’s breadth of the nebula. It stank of a trap as clearly as his hands still reeked of dried targ blood and mud. Clearly, a snare of unprecedented size was being laid, and it seemed apparent to Duras for whom it was intended.
Martok is goading the rebel Calhoun, he concluded. And if Calhoun and his Romulan allies take the bait, they’ll be walking into a slaughter.
Duras reclined his chair and fought to focus his thoughts. He needed to warn Calhoun and his fleet, but how? He had no direct line of communication to the Xenexian commander or anyone in his armada. His only option, as far as he could tell, was to send the warning to Memory Omega and trust them to relay it in time to Calhoun. Unfortunately, he had no idea how long that might take; despite his many years of covert assistance to Memory Omega, they had never seen fit to grace him with one of their remarkable quantum transceivers. Consequently, he would have to send his encrypted message to an Omega-compromised relay buoy and hope that they received it before Martok’s forces sprang their ambush.
Resigned to operating within his limitations, Duras began composing the most dire missive of warning he had ever written, and hoped to Sto-Vo-Kor that it would not prove to be in vain.
10
Eve of Destruction
Oh, bloody hell.” O’Brien shook his head, dismayed. “Are you sure?”
Eddington enlarged the sector map on the situation table between them. “Positive. The entire Ninth Order is leaving Olmerak right now.”
At the narrow end of the vaguely teardrop-shaped table, Sloan betrayed his frustration with a narrow frown. “So much for a sneak attack.”
Opposite the security chief, Keiko planted her hands on the table’s edge and leaned forward to study the map. “Can we can hit them en route?”
“Not a chance,” O’Brien sa
id. Anxiety propelled sour bile up into his throat, and he grimaced as he swallowed it back down. “If they’re deployed, it’s too late.” He thought for a moment and felt every canyonlike wrinkle in his forehead. Then he looked at Keiko. “How reliable is the source of this intel?”
“Very. He’s the captain of a Xeppolite freighter that has free passage between the Tzenkethi Coalition and the Cardassian Union.”
Suspicion gnawed at O’Brien, an occupational hazard of a life lived entirely in slavery and wartime. “How did a freighter captain come by intel like this?”
“The Cardassians forced a last-second change to his flight plan,” Keiko said. “After he diverted to the new course, he scanned his original path and picked up signs of a major fleet deployment.”
O’Brien nodded. “Uh-huh. And why would he risk telling us?”
“Officially, he’s neutral. Unofficially, he’s rooting for us.”
It sounded plausible enough to O’Brien, but it didn’t lessen his black mood. “Wonderful,” he grouched to Keiko. “Let me know when this freighter captain’s ready to pick up a gun and join the fighting.” He looked down the table at Sloan. “Have we confirmed the Cardassians’ course and speed?”
“Yes, sir. Straight for us, hell-bent for leather.”
“Of course they are.” He asked Eddington, “Why did the Cardies leave Olmerak in such a hurry?”
Eddington looked perplexed. “Probably to avoid the ion storm.”
“Hang on,” said Sloan, sounding worried. “Do you think they found out we were planning an attack? Is it possible we have a mole?”
“Stop right there,” O’Brien said. “This is no time to start rumors. It’s possible the Cardies are getting clear of the storm, but I think we need to assume the worst: They left earlier than expected for one reason—to get here sooner. They’re coming for us, which means we need to be ready.”