With a jerk of his wrist, he ripped away the shift-dress she wore. Ezri was naked beneath it—naked except for the torc. He reached into his pocket and removed his dominae key, aiming the small slab of plastic at the woman. Dax tensed through reflex; a single motion of his finger would activate the neural servo circuit inside the torc and send a brutal charge through her nerves, if he wished it. But instead, he touched a different switch and the necklet gave a soft click, parting to fall softly to the bed. Ezri carefully placed it on the nightstand and waited for him to come to her.
Bashir took his time and let himself get lost in the animal intimacy of the sex. When Dax was spent and he was thirsty, he left her among the snarl of bedsheets and went to the fabricator for water.
In the dimness of the blood-warm chamber, he stood at the window and watched the static vista of the starscape, his hand splayed over the transparent port. Distant suns shone between the gaps in his fingers, and for a moment he imagined reaching out into the cold void, closing his grip and holding a thousand worlds in his fist. A smile tugged at his lips. Was it any wonder he had such idle thoughts of empire, given the imperial bloodline that ran through him?
His attention shifted, finding the darkened shape of the Bajoran transport ship drifting off the starboard beam. Now and then, the actinic flash of a laser cutter blinked on the surface of the rebel craft’s hull. Defiance’s Andorian engineer Rel sh’Zenne was over there with a salvage detail and a forensics squad, gutting the vessel for data and clues that might aid Quadrant Command in stamping out the dissidents. The blue-skinned subaltern had been part of Bashir’s crew for several years; like the rest of her species, sh’Zenne had a favored status within Earthfleet. Not quite the standing of a human, of course, but with far more respect than a common bonded servile. The sons and daughters of Andoria had a complementary position to the people of Earth, as a gesture of respect dating back hundreds of years to the time when they had made themselves the first true allies of mankind in space. Bashir found much to admire about their clannish culture, their sense of destiny, their understanding of their place in the universe.
Julian felt Ezri behind him. She rested her head against his shoulder. “How long until the rebel ship has been completely scoured?”
“A few more hours,” he noted. “I will have O’Brien destroy it when sh’Zenne’s work is done.”
He sensed Dax’s moment of displeasure at the mention of the tactical officer’s name. She knew better than to voice her dislike of the optio in his presence, even here where they were alone; to do so would mean he would be compelled to discipline her, and that might ruin the mood. “I assume that Lord-Commander Sisko is very pleased with your performance here today,” she said, steering the conversation in another direction. He heard the soft click of the torc as she replaced it around her neck. Their liaison was over, and she understood she was to return to her bonded status once again.
Bashir sipped the water again. “Sisko has not yet been informed. I will wait until I have everything I can gather from Kira’s ship before I delight him with the news.” He couldn’t keep a mocking tone from his words. Julian considered his commanding officer for a moment, recalling their last conversation aboard Station D9 just before Defiance pulled out of Bajor orbit.
“Princeps Locken is making you look bad, Julian.” Sisko had said it with the usual deep, level diction. The man was a slumbering volcano, quietly rumbling away, but ready to thunder into a violent rage at a moment’s notice. He had seen it happen more than once, and it was a dangerous thing to behold.
Not for the first time, Bashir idly considered calling the other man to the arena for a duel, just to teach Sisko a lesson, mind, not to kill him. Just to instill a little respect. But such behavior would be seen as dishonorable and likely earn him censure. He wondered how far he would get in a real fight with Sisko; but then, the shape-shifter was never more than a few steps away from D9’s commander, the alien’s curiously featureless face watching him impassively from across the lord-commander’s chambers. Julian had heard the stories about Sisko’s bodyguard, but they were webs of conflicting narrative that surely couldn’t all be true. All he was sure of was that the alien could kill in a heartbeat; he had witnessed it on one occasion, when a Bajoran assassin had attempted to stab Sisko during some planetside festival. One moment the odd, unfinished man had been standing at the lord-commander’s side; the next, he had become a coil of amber fluid arcing across the room, matter shifting solid to liquid to solid, enveloping the foolish killer and crushing him to a pulp. Bashir had never heard the creature speak, and wondered if it was actually capable.
“Quadrant Command demands results, Julian. Locken has many victories to his credit, while you continue to bring me nothing of real value. Ferengi refugees running the blockade are hardly the best of adversaries.”
“My kinsman Ethan is only lucky,” Julian retorted, frowning. “I am thorough. I will give Quadrant Command what they want. Never doubt that.”
“I don’t, Bashir,” and he said it with a rare smile, “and that’s why you’re still at this posting and not flying make-weight missions along the rim of the Klingon Protectorate.” Then the smile went away again. “But do try to do something worthy of your noble bloodline. The swifter, the better.”
“What will happen to them?” Ezri’s question broke his reverie. “The Bajoran, Kira, and her lover, the Cardassian?”
“Dukat,” he offered. “They are enemies of the state. They will be treated as such.”
“Executed?”
“Eventually.” He couldn’t escape a sudden twinge of disgust. Bashir, like every warrior in the Bajor Sector, knew of Sisko’s reputation for cruelty toward Earth’s enemies. It was something he found distasteful. After all, when a foe was beaten, when defeat was acknowledged, it was ignoble for a victor to go on punishing the vanquished. In war, sometimes it was required for a warrior to be ruthless—that was a universal truth of battle; but there was a line a man should not cross, where the delivery of a punishment moved from the necessary to the sadistic. He imagined that the deaths of Kira Nerys and Skrain Dukat would come with neither swiftness nor principle. Even though they were aliens, they deserved a clean finish. To give them less diminishes us all.
Dax gave voice to his thoughts, and he allowed her to do so. “They will be tortured, I would imagine. One might say that was a shameful fate for two people who only did what they thought to be right. Who fought for what they believed in.”
“They opposed us,” Bashir replied. “They brought their fate upon themselves.” He was dismayed at how unconvinced he sounded.
She hesitated, and he knew she was trying to frame a response that would not anger him. “If you were defeated in battle by your enemies, what would you ask of them?”
He answered without thinking. “Little. Only a moment to pay respect to my bloodline and a quick death.”
“Kira and Dukat will not have that.”
Bashir turned and looked directly at her, realizing that he had allowed the helot to speak too freely. “I may find the lord-commander’s methods somewhat coarse, that is true, but I do not question them. Nor do I allow them to be questioned aboard my ship.”
Ezri backed away a step, toward the shadows of the room. “Forgive me, Princeps. I spoke out of turn.”
“You did,” he agreed. “If it happens again you will be punished.” Bashir sighed, wanting to let the matter drop, but unable to leave it alone. “I have no sympathy with Kira’s rebels,” he went on. “The religious militants she called to her banner are throwbacks, fearful and willfully primitive. They rejected Earth’s offers of stewardship, our gifts of genetic enhancement. Her small cadre of terrorists have ruined it for all the good, forward-looking Bajorans who willingly accept our rule.”
“As you say, lord.”
He nodded to himself. “And the Cardassians…” He made a negative noise. “Hardly worth a blade’s edge, at the end of the day. Dukat’s people are like desperate, panicked anim
als, lashing out at everything. The Cardassians do not have the intelligence to accept the inevitability of their own extinction. We would have a greater peace if they just drew back to their worlds and died quietly.” Animated by his irritation, Julian crossed the room and began to dress.
“But still they fight you,” Dax said quietly, slipping back into her duty uniform.
“Of course they do,” Bashir retorted. “As I said, they are cornered animals. But not a serious threat.” When Ezri didn’t respond, he went on. “There are no credible enemies for mankind, little that could even come close to menacing the dominions of Earth across the Alpha Quadrant.” Julian swept his hand around, as if he were taking in the galaxy ranged out all about them. “The Klingons? They are a spent force, rightfully respectful of our martial prowess. Cardassia and their satellites are slowly starving to death. The Tzenkethi, the Breen, the Tholians, all have had their faces bloodied by us and backed down into their own territories! The Romulans are a pathetic echo—they let themselves be drawn into a struggle with those cyborgs from the Delta Quadrant…And what does that leave?” He gave a dry chuckle. “None of the apathetic vassal-worlds in Human Space have the will or the courage to defy Earth. Vulcan? Tellar? Betazed?” He shot her a hard look. “Trill? Are any of them a match for us?” Bashir snorted in derision, and Ezri backed farther away, gathering up her clothes, sensing the shift in his mood. “Some may cry about lost freedoms, but the truth is, the galaxy is better for humanity’s place in it. Only we are fit to rule. I ask you, what shame is there in knowing one’s place?”
“You are correct, Princeps,” she said, but even as the words left her mouth he knew she was ready to say more.
“Tell me what you are thinking,” he told her. “Tell me, and do not even consider insulting my intelligence by pretending otherwise.”
It was a long moment before she answered him. “You are correct,” Dax repeated, “but as strong as Earth is, it cannot be eternal. Every empire crumbles eventually. The Tkon, the Shedai, the Promellians, and the Menthar…All gone. All dust now. Perhaps because they made the same choices that Earth does now.”
Julian felt a surge of anger in the balling of his fists, and he held on to it for an instant, unsure of where it had come from: Ezri’s words, or his own silent misgivings.
“You are dismissed,” he told her, at length. “Go to your duties.”
Dax bowed slightly and left without uttering another word.
He went, as he always did, to the one place aboard the Defiance where he could be sure of some clarity. Bashir entered the counsel chamber and walked the short steps to the platform in the center of the room. The black-and-yellow grid across the walls glowed as the holo-diodes inside came alive.
On the platform, there was a lectern with a sensor pad in the shape of a hand. Julian placed his fingers against the outline and a warm tingle touched his skin. The sensors inside the device probed through the flesh, taking the measure of him, looking deep into Bashir’s cellular structure. They found his DNA, patterned it, confirming his lineage and his right to be where he stood. Satisfied, the room’s walls became smoky and indistinct, gradually re-forming into a perfect simulacrum of a view familiar to every Earth-born child.
The Great Palace on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. As always, it was a perfect day, a pure sky of teal blue against the white and gold of the palace’s columns and domes. Water mumbled through the ornamental ponds, and the olfactory simulators presented him with the scent of flower blossom. Although none of it was real, it was still enough to calm Julian, to guide him back to his focus.
And then, with steady and purposeful footsteps across the gray marble, Bashir’s counsel came walking toward him. Here was the one man who had never failed to bring him perspicuity, the single person whose guidance had always left him enlightened. By reflex, the captain of the Defiance dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
“Julian Bashir,” said the familiar voice, “brother and kinsman. Stand up, my friend, stand up and tell me, what do you seek?”
“Guidance, sir,” he began, rising to his feet once more. “Answers.”
“The quest of any rational man.” There was a smile in the words that put Bashir instantly at ease.
He looked up and met the steady, cool gaze of Khan Noonien Singh, the Eternal Master, the Supreme Lord of Earth and all her dominions.
2
The sensor return glittered on Dax’s console, and she checked the data twice before daring to clear her throat. O’Brien, in de facto command of the ship while Julian was elsewhere, had spared her a cold glance as she entered the command chamber to take her station, casting an eye over her uniform in search of some minor infraction he might use to single her out; but she had been careful. Ezri was always careful. A handful of lives, all but one of them spent in service as a bonded helot to the Khanate of Earth, had taught her to be conscientious in all things. Never give them a reason, she told herself, not even the illusion of one. Of course, men like Miles O’Brien would never accept that a joined Trill was worthy of anything approaching their respect. The innate sense of ultimate superiority bred bone-deep into the Children of Khan would not allow it. She was alien, abhuman, forever marked as unworthy. It was a status she did her best to live down to.
On the main screens, a cloudy fireball collapsed in on itself; it was all that remained of Kira Nerys’s vessel. Once it had been wrung dry of any intelligence it could provide, O’Brien had given the order to obliterate it. Now, the optio was stalking toward her. “That noise you made. Was that an attempt to attract my attention, or are you suffering some sort of illness?” He curled his lip at the idea of being physically unwell.
“Your pardon, lord,” she began, “but the sensors have detected an object on the far side of the Ajir system.” Dax turned her screen so the tactician could see the data plot.
“A ship?” he wondered aloud.
Across the command chamber, Julian’s young adjutant got to his feet. Tall and dark, in his duty battle gear Jacob Sisko resembled his father in his intense gaze. “I will take a summons to the princeps,” he began.
O’Brien shook his head. “There is no need to jump the gun, lad. The princeps is in counsel, and he will not want you disturbing him unless it is for a damned good reason.” He leaned in toward Dax’s station. “Intensive scan,” he ordered, “show me what it is.”
“Definitely not a ghost image, lord,” she told him. “I read refined hull metals, although somewhat cruder than those of the Defiance. Low-level energy readings, faint traces of what may be life signs. No ion trail or apparent motive power in use. It is adrift.”
“A derelict, then,” offered Jacob.
The tactician’s lips thinned. “Or perhaps some sort of trap, laid by that Bajoran harpy and her spoonhead friends.”
“We should inform the princeps,” insisted the adjutant.
O’Brien scowled and finally nodded. “Do it, then. Where is sh’Zenne?”
Dax looked at her panel. “She is in main engineering, Optio.”
“Get her up here. Run a deep analysis on the data you have so far. Get me something more tangible to present to the commander. The princeps will want more information than just ‘a derelict,’ understand?” He glowered at her.
“Aye, lord.”
He stalked away. “Get to work, helot. And Khan help you if it turns out to be a Pakled barge or some other waste of time.”
The counsel was a standard fitting on every ship of the line in service to Earthfleet and the Khanate. In the years before holodecks, it had begun as an expert system, a limited artificial intelligence programmed with all the knowledge of Noonien Singh, an advanced suite of software that could mimic his personality almost exactly. As human technology advanced, so the counsel became more accurate, until now it was a true representation of the First Lord of Mankind. The device was a way for the liege lord to have his wisdom, his incredible wealth of knowledge, available to every commander who served his legacy.
; Julian had never known a time when the Great Khan was alive, having been born centuries after Noonien Singh had died at the age of 213; but the counsel made that fact irrelevant. To Bashir, Khan was as real and as vital as any other member of the ship’s crew. He was not some dusty representation of a historical figure, like the other holo-characters in Defiance’s database. The counsel called upon ten times the processing power of a typical simulation in order to perfectly emulate Noonien Singh in every detail.
Some starship commanders tailored the aspect of their counsel to their personal tastes. He knew that Ethan Locken, Princeps of the Prometheus, chose his Khan to appear as he had toward the end of his life, as the great elder statesman of Earth’s empire; William Riker of the Excalibur favored Khan as he was during the Romulan campaign of the twenty-second century, as a general and warlord. In accord with a moment of vivid personal memory, Bashir elected to have his counsel mirror the first image that the young Julian had ever seen of Khan Noonien Singh: strong and vital, only a few years his superior, from his time of ascendance during the Eugenics Wars, his dark black hair held back in a queue like ancient Japan’s samurai, the tawny aquiline jaw firm and steady, dressed in a simple red tunic and trousers with the gold chevron insignia of a princeps senior on his chest.
With an easy smile playing on his lips, Khan reached out and placed his hand on Bashir’s shoulder in a brotherly manner. “Julian, my friend, tell me what troubles you.”
“The situation with the rebels,” he began, frowning. “I have some concerns.”
There was the tiniest of pauses, as if Khan were considering something. Then his face broke into a grin. “You did well to capture them. You should be pleased!” Julian had no need to explain the Defiance’s mission or its current circumstances; the counsel holo-program could call upon full and unfettered access to all the ship’s logs and databases if it required them, all the better to provide a ship’s commander with the best advice possible in a given situation.
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