by Diane Carey
That empty chalice hit him with all its contents as he looked into Gowron's wild blue eyes. To be mindlessly Klingon was not enough.
"If there is glory to be won," he said slowly, "it will have to be yours alone." His mouth went dry and the next words were a struggle as he heard ringing in his mind all that he was giving up. "I cannot come with you, Gowron."
Pure shock rolled across the chancellor's face. That anyone could disagree with him was a complete mystery to him. He saw his way, and his way was all. He had ironed out his logic and was blunted that anyone could think differently. A chance for glory embedded within a chance to trample down the Dominion—how could there be any other choice?
"Of course you can," he insisted, gesturing at the bridge around them as if it were all of Klingon. "It is where you belong!"
Worf felt at a loss having to explain that which should be clear to anyone who wore any kind of uniform, the symbol of a devotion and a cause.
"I cannot abandon my post," he said simply.
"You no longer have a post!" Gowron flashed across the bridge, waving his hands now. "You have no place on that station! And no business wearing that uniform!"
"I have sworn an oath of allegiance—"
"With the Federation!" Gowron spat the word as if it had no flavor, no substance. As if an oath to the Federation were an oath to nothing.
Worf stared at him in disbelief. "You would have me break my word?"
They stared at each other, dumbfounded at the tenor of this conversation. Worf had always considered Gowron his friend and Gowron obviously thought the same, to risk coming all the way here with no treaty just to pick Worf up for the fight. In Gowron's mind he was doing Worf a fabulous favor and couldn't imagine having it turned down.
They were realizing something bitter as they gazed at each other. Their points of view were entirely incompatible. Until war came, they hadn't found that out.
"Your word?" Gowron growled. "What good is your word when you give it to people who care nothing for honor? Who refuse to lift a finger while Klingon warriors shed blood for their protection! I tell you, they are without honor!" He bolted closer, and his tone changed to a fume. "And you do not owe them anything."
"It is not what I owe them that matters," Worf contested. "It is what I owe myself. Worf, son of Mogh, does not go against his oath."
Gowron was unimpressed, still stunned by the turn of choices. He placed a hand on his chest.
"And what of your debt to me? I gave you back your name, gave your family a seat on the High Council. And this…is how you repay me?"
Worf met his glare boldly, without flinch. "It is true I owe you a great debt. I would give my life for you. But invading Cardassia is wrong and I cannot support it."
Gowron went abruptly cold. He saw the pillar before him and knew it could not be swayed. His manner changed, though he boiled beneath the surface. He paced the bridge, catching glances with his crew, and Worf realized that Gowron had risked not only his life and his ship, but his own honor to come here into Federation space.
And now he was on the verge of losing the respect of these men who looked at him now, if he failed to bring this vagrant warrior back to the fold.
"Worf," he began again, "I have always considered you a friend and an ally. And because you are my friend, I am giving you this one last chance to redeem yourself. Come with me."
Worf stood firm. "I cannot."
With monumental strength Gowron remained calm. "Think about what you're doing," he suffered. "If you turn your back on me now, for as long as I live you will not be welcome anywhere in the Klingon Empire. Your family will be removed from the High Council, your lands seized, and your House stripped of its titles. You will be left with nothing."
If Gowron had yelled, shouted, growled, harped these threats, they would have been only that. But he spoke with resigned commitment and the stamina of knowing what was coming for his civilization. To be Klingon was all, for Gowron.
Worf envied him in that moment, to be able to rattle off such personal destruction with resolve. Distaste filled him for a culture that impales the group for the commitments of one.
He stood even straighter, and looked without shudder into Gowron's eyes.
"Nothing except my honor," he said.
He thought it would be a hard thing to say, but it wasn't. He knew more what he wanted than even he had comprehended until this moment. Redemption had been handed him on a platter, and he was turning it down.
Gowron narrowed those spooky eyes, then accepted that two strong-minded individuals had reached their impasse. He had humiliated himself before his crew and word would spread.
"So be it."
And he turned away from Worf. And he did not look at him again.
"Open fire."
The hull of the Negh'Var shuddered very slightly as full-powered disruptor energy tore away from its weapons ports and blanketed the space around the Cardassian colony below.
The feeble defense shields put up by the colony were already crumbling and the Klingon fleet had only been here five minutes. This would be easier than Martok expected.
Still, he enjoyed shouting the order to fire. There was something thrilling about that.
"Colonial shields are down," Drex reported. "Their defense runabouts are retreating. Reports are coming in from other vessels in our fleet. Similar situations. Eleven colonies already subjugated, ten more collapsing at predicted rates."
"Good, very good…send in an occupying force, no more than twenty men. And someone go and get my breakfast. Battle makes me hungry."
"Yes, General." Drex turned and made a gesture at the low-ranking officer at the engineering station, who nodded and rushed toward the turbolift.
"Drex, instruct the Lechraj, the Rok, the Vortacha, and the Mu'Gor to establish headquarters on their colonial possessions immediately and return to formation and prepare to advance on Cardassia Prime. And tell that weasel Koru that I expect a full accounting of his disruptor consumption this time. No more of his games."
"Yes, General."
"We must capture the Detepa Council members if we are to collapse the Cardassian government with any efficiency. I want to do that today. No sense waiting."
"Yes, General."
"If we take over Cardassia Prime quickly, then the Federation will be less likely to interfere. They will send diplomats and negotiators instead of fighting ships and they will try to talk us away. While they talk, we will entrench ourselves deeper and deeper into the Cardassian system and before long there will be nothing more to talk about. Then we will kick them out too."
Drex rewarded him wiht a supportive nod. "Very exciting plan, sir."
"I like long-range plans," Martok sighed hungrily. "The future is a beautiful tunnel. . . . Where are those four ships? What's taking them so long? Why were transporters invented if not to hurry up occupations?"
"They are coming now," Drex said from his position at the tactical computer. "Vortacha is lingering behind. They've taken some damage to their aft thrusters. Repairs under way."
"They can repair as we go. Come about, one-two-eight mark four, formation RoChaq'Va. Destination Cardassia Prime. Warp factor six as soon as we clear the asteroid field."
Drex nodded, and this time smiled. "Understood."
Yes, his second officer understood perfectly well. There was reason to Martok's rush. He wanted to get to Cardassia Prime and smash the government before Gowron had a chance to rendezvous with him and share the credit.
"Vortacha signals ready to advance, General," Drex reported, then added, "Asteroid field is dead ahead."
"Warp factor two around the field."
"Yes, General," the helm officer responded, and pressed the Negh'Var into motion.
The asteroid field was a shimmering wall of stones caught in the local star's and each other's gravity, and whose accompanying dust and collected debris veiled any attempt to see through it, even with sensors. Therefore it held a certain enthralling mystery, as
some things in space still did.
Martok sat back to enjoy what he was seeing, and to wallow in imaginings of what was soon to come. His fleet was strong, his conquests going as numbered, and he thought he had figured out the real future. There would now be conquest for him, for his four sons, and for the son to whom his daughter had just given birth. The Empire's destiny, so long put off by the unexpected expansion of the United Federation of Planets, would finally play out. The galaxy was shining before him, for soon it would be Klingon.
The asteroid field lowered slowly to the bottom of the main screen as the Negh'Var led the other ships over the top of the large stones and skirted the veil of shimmering dust. As they came over it they would adjust their vectors and increase speed to cover quickly the light-years between here and Cardassia Prime. And on Cardassia Prime, people were having their peaceful meals and never expecting what was about to come.
Perhaps not so peaceful for some—they had just endured a revolution, of course. Upheaval could be so inconvenient.
He was getting very hungry. What was taking so long with that breakfast?
"General…" Drex gazed into his screens, hunched over until his face was only inches from the console.
Martok tipped his head in that direction, but didn't really bother moving. "Something?"
"A distortion in subspace…I'm not sure…"
"Well? What is it?"
"The dust is causing some distortion, but I believe I'm picking up… an exhaust reading." Drex adjusted his controls, shook his head, frowned, then adjusted again. "Possibly residue from ships that passed through here in the past day…"
"Is it or isn't it?"
"I cannot be certain. The dust—"
"Is only dust, Drex. Do your job."
"Yes, sir. . . . I do read some solid shadows…beyond the asteroid field and on the lower plane." Drex raised his head to the main screen and watched as they came up over the asteroids' rim of dust. "We should be able to see in a moment if there is anything there."
"Weapons officer, put one bank on-line and prepare to wreck whatever we see. Some unlucky trader, most likely."
"Ready, General," the weapons officer said.
"Be sure you leave no recognizable debris. I want to be seen as a conqueror, not as a pirate."
"Yes, General."
Casually the Negh'Var maneuvered over the wide-girthed wall of asteroids, with the brown sea floating under it in uneven waves. Pebbles crackled on its outer hull plates, ringing through the structure of the ship and creating a strange little music.
Martok smiled at Drex as they listened to the sound. They found it pleasant to have some contact with the outside, something spacefarers cherished for they had so little of that.
As they came up over the asteroids and finally cleared the veil of dust, they leaned forward a little as the ship angled downward and prepared to set itself to the correct vector for high warp to its destination.
Martok scanned the spacescape for the ship that had been tickling their sensors, but there was nothing nearby.
Then the helmsman turned the ship deeper into the proper heading, and the main screen picked up a string of solid objects.
"What are those?" Martok snapped. "Maximum magnification—hurry up."
"Maximum magnification," the helm officer repeated, and adjusted his controls.
Martok surged out of his chair.
"Cardassians!"
Scarcely was the sound out of his throat than the row of—how many were there?—ten or twelve Cardassian Galor-class warships opened up on them, all firing at once.
The Negh'Var was blistered by a torrent of raw disruptor fire suddenly tethering the two fleets together in a hideous dance.
As the deck tilted under them, Martok and his crew were pitched on their heads. Bones cracked and blood splattered. Only six of the ten bridge crew crawled back toward their posts.
"Shields! Shields!" Martok croaked, desperate, but there was no one at the defense position to put the shields up. "Drex! Where are you?"
Through a billow of greenish electrical smoke his second's voice was shaky. "Here…here, General…"
"The shields! Put them up!"
"I'm trying to reach them."
"Return fire immediately! Tell the other ships to do the same! And call the fleet from the colonies! Bring reinforcements!"
"The Cardassians are blocking our transmissions, General." The outline of Drex shone foggily through the smoke, huddling over the defense-systems grid.
Martok pawed for the helm. "All ships, disperse! Draw them apart!"
"I can't reach the other ships in our formation either."
Reaching down, Martok found his helm officer and pulled the dazed man back into his seat. "Swing wide! They'll have to decipher our actions and make decisions for themselves."
"Yes, sir," the helm officer coughed.
"General!" Drex called over the crackling of shattered systems howling through the ship. "Our shield generator is off-line. Engineering wants your permission to sacrifice weapons power long enough to recharge."
"Yes! What choice do we have? Evasive action!"
They were hit again, cudgeled by a great hand of energy pumped from the Cardassian fleet.
During this moment, in which he could do nothing but glare in hatred at what he saw on the screen, at the row of Cardassian warships closing in on them and at his own advance fleet being grazed by strokes of disruptor power, he grasped the helm chair before him and ground his teeth.
"They knew we were coming!" he gnashed. "They were ready for us! They were ready for us!"
Another javelin of energy sliced through space and blistered the bare underside of the ship as the helm officer desperately tried to evade the onrushing Cardassians. Without shields, and unable to make a counterstrike while sacrificing weapons to recharge the shields, they would soon be shredded.
All his plans, shredded! All the golden possibilities, wrecked!
"We have to survive," he growled. "We have to get through them! Everything depends on it!"
"They're closing in, General," Drex said, then paused to cough harshly. In the middle of a cough he looked up sharply and choked, "Sir, new contact!"
"More Cardassians?"
"No—sir, it is the Prakesh! Chancellor Gowron's ship! Coming in very fast!"
"Gowron! I forgot all about him! Clear the way! Let him in!" Martok shoved his helm officer aside and clawed at the controls himself.
In a sickening maneuver the deck dropped out from under them as the pummeled ship ducked away and let Gowron's vessel plow in and take the onslaught of a half dozen Cardassian warships.
On its flickering shields Gowron's ship took the blasting meant to shatter the Negh'Var. Confronted with a full-powered ship, the Cardassian assault formation broke up and split off in several directions; then two of those ships vectored back to continue hammering Gowron.
That gave Martok a chance to skim back over the asteroid field and gain time to recharge those shields.
"Aft view!" he shouted.
Someone on the bridge complied, and the main screen shifted to show Gowron's ship being crushed between the disruptor beams of two Galor-class ships.
"Drex! Hurry with those shields! We have to go back!"
"Nearly ready, General."
"Turn back. You—get back in your seat!" He grabbed the helm officer again and stuffed him back at his post, then twisted toward the weapons station and shouted, "Prepare to open fire! We have to get them out of there! I don't want to be obliged to him!"
With its shields up but still fickle against the blasting energy from the scattered Cardassian ships, Negh'Var turned to the face of the enemy. They opened fire and at least provided some element of confusion in which the smoldering Prakesh could be protected.
One Cardassian ship angled away and bore straight at the Vortacha, which had not yet had a chance to repair its thrusters and couldn't maneuver out of the way.
In seconds, a ball of radiant energy
bloomed where there had been a ship.
Then two other Klingon vessels came in and repaid the Cardassians by turning three of their ships into fireboxes. The Cardassian assault line tried to reassemble, but by now two more Klingon ships were coming up over the asteroid field and throwing their weight into the chaotic battle. Ships began to pair off, grazing each other with superheated energy and biting at each other's power centers.
That would be how this fight would go—fleets nearly matched in numbers would pound at each other until the balance went off, and those with more ships left would be able to gain advantage.
Already the Cardassian defense fleet was being cut up. But there was a cost—the Klingon fleet was losing ships, and even more critical, they had lost their element of surprise. Cardassia Prime was suddenly out of reach.
As Martok watched the Prakesh boil with smoke, obviously heavily damaged and losing atmosphere in great silvery funnels from at least four sections, he realized how deeply their attack plans had been compromised. The surprise had been crucial, and now that was gone.
"Have you broken through the interference yet?" he snapped toward his upper deck. "Can you contact Gowron?"
"I will try, sir…" the communications officer wheezed. He had only one working arm, but he still stood his post.
In a few seconds, Gowron's wild-eyed face appeared on the crackling main screen.
"This is Gowron. . . . You will beam me and my survivors aboard. This ship's main warp core is breached."
"Very well," Martok complied, with a glance at Drex. Having Gowron on board his own ship was not particularly desirable. Then it would become Gowron's ship.
"So you let yourself be surprised, Martok. Shameful."
"It is not I who should be ashamed, Chancellor," Martok defied. "This Cardassian fleet was not out here on some kind of chance maneuvers. They were waiting for us. You ordered me to go to Deep Space Nine, and then you went there yourself. We should never have gone anywhere near that place. Sisko has found out our plan and he has betrayed us! He told the Cardassians we were coming! Starfleet is no longer our ally!"