The Art of the Impossible

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “What? Great!” Kater’s voice was distant for those two words, then came on more clearly. “We think we’ve got the breach under control, Talik, but we still can’t change course.”

  “Dammit,” Talik muttered. Whatever relief he felt at Kater’s continued survival was leavened by the continued presence of the Chut. The Klingon passenger liner was still on its standard orbital course, which would bring it slamming into the Gratok at one-eighth impulse in about seventy-five seconds.

  “Chut, this is Cardassian Orbital Control.” Hamnod was practically shouting. “Veer off now, or you will be destroyed!” He pounded the console. “Why won’t they listen? Damned idiotic Foreheads…”

  Talik tried to run a sensor scan on the Chut, but he wasn’t able to penetrate their shields. That was typical of the Klingons—trying to protect their secrets, Talik supposed, though what secrets a passenger liner could have was beyond him—but it made it all the more frustrating in circumstances like this. What if something’s wrong with them, too? Sadly, two vessels breaking down in orbit on the same day wouldn’t be out of character on Raknal V these days…

  The Chut was now one minute from colliding with the Gratok. “Why won’t they veer off? Just a two-degree course change would do it.” Talik leaned into his comm unit. “Kater, you’ve got to abandon ship. Those Klingons aren’t moving!” Then you’ll be forced to stay on Raknal V for a while, he thought. True, she’d be left without a ship, but at least she’d be alive. And maybe she would feel predisposed toward the man who did everything he could to save her…

  “My people are getting to the escape pods now,” she said.

  Talik didn’t like the sound of that. “Your people? What about you?”

  “Ship-master goes down with the sinking ship, Talik—besides, we don’t have enough pods for everyone. I had to cut back to make more cargo room. I’m not about to make one of my people die for a financial choice I made.”

  This was ruining a perfectly good fantasy. “You can’t just die, dammit!”

  “Then get those Klingons out of my way.”

  Hamnod let out a breath that whistled through his nose. “We’re trying! Chut, you are now forty seconds from a catastrophic collision with a Cardassian freighter. Veer off now!”

  The next forty seconds were the longest of Talik’s life. He found himself utterly riveted by the display in front of him, as the yellow light that indicated the drifting Gratok grew closer and closer to the red light that indicated the leisurely pace of the Chut. Some smaller yellow lights appeared—those had to be the escape pods Kater mentioned. Talik noted that there were eight of them; freighters of the Gratok’s class usually had twelve two-person pods. Hamnod continued to shout implorations to the Chut, to no avail. The Klingon ship continued forward, its course unchanging.

  The collision itself was almost anticlimactic, rendered as it was by the red light and the yellow light intersecting. A moment later, both lights went out.

  If the Chut was a typical Klingon passenger ship, it had the capacity to hold a hundred people, staff included. The Gratok had a crew complement of twenty, at least sixteen of whom probably got out in the pods, though Talik had no way of telling if the pods survived being that close to the two ships annihilating each other. Plus, of course, the Gratok was carrying a valuable zenite shipment.

  “Get me Prefect Monor now,” Hamnod said.

  And Kater Onell was dead.

  “Talik!”

  The flight controller shook his head and looked up at Hamnod’s fat face. “Hm?”

  “I said get me Prefect Monor now!” The supervisor sighed. “It’s going to be a very very long night.”

  “This outrage will not go unanswered, Qaolin!”

  Governor Qaolin had already gone through the two bottles of bloodwine in his desk drawer, and was fervently wishing for a third as he stared at the outraged face of his Cardassian counterpart. I suppose I should be grateful that he is at least speaking to me. Usually I only get to talk to that imbecile aide of his. But the destruction of the Gratok and the Chut was the worst of the recent disasters, and Qaolin wasn’t about to stand for going through an underling. Not with a hundred dead.

  “You dare call this an outrage, Monor? At least most of your people survived! There were ninety-eight Klingon nationals on the Chut who died because of your incompetence!”

  “Our Orbital Control Center did everything they could to get the Chut to veer off. They refused to respond to us!”

  “Convenient, is it not, Monor, that these exhortations only occurred after the Chut entered the one orbital section we could not scan from our Orbital Control Center. Of course, we would have been able to verify your account if you had allowed us to put the boosters in place, or even accepted our offer to cooperate…”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Monor’s face was contorted into a rage that was almost Klingon. Qaolin found himself fighting an urge to admire it. “Don’t try to make this into something that’s our fault.”

  Qaolin couldn’t help but laugh in Monor’s face. “Whose fault is it, then? It was not our ship that malfunctioned and went catastrophically of course. On the contrary, the Chut was following a standard orbital path—which got it destroyed and a hundred innocents killed.”

  “Innocent—pfah! I know you Foreheads—you’re responsible for this! You’re trying to get in good with that damned Trill of yours, and trying to make us look bad by sabotaging our zenite shipment.”

  Restraining himself from reacting directly to the slur, Qaolin instead forced a grin to his face. “We need commit no sabotage to make you look bad, Monor. You are accomplishing that task quite adequately on your own.”

  “I will not be insulted by the likes of you! I know you sabotaged the Gratok, and I’ll prove it!”

  The grin became a snarl. “Are you so deluded as to think that we would murder a hundred of our citizens just to stop your rocks from getting to Cardassia?”

  “Don’t try to play the innocent with me, Qaolin.” Monor leaned forward into his viewer. “You Foreheads are all alike—fanatics to a man. A hundred dead? That’s nothing, as long as you can get your precious Ch’gran relic back. I know your type, and I know that you’d all jump into a black hole if it meant you could get that stupid wreck back in your hands. You’re all such fools—glorifying the past so much you forget about the future. Well, let me tell you something, ‘Governor’—the future is the Cardassian Union ruling the galaxy, and you barbarians working as slave labor and wondering where you went wrong. I’ll tell you where—thinking that being some kind of honorable warrior means something, when all it’s going to do is get you defeated.” Monor leaned back. “Enjoy your victory, Qaolin. It won’t last.”

  Monor’s image faded from the viewscreen on the wall of Qaolin’s office, but the governor spoke to it anyhow. “This is victory?”

  He went to take a gulp of his bloodwine, only to find the mug empty. Furious, he threw the mug across the room.

  Stabbing the intercom with a finger, he summoned his aide, who entered at a dead run. “Yes, my lord!”

  “My lord.” That is the true joke, Qaolin thought. “Find out if General Worf has left yet. If he has, call his ship back here. If he hasn’t, I need to see him immediately.”

  “Uh…” The aide shuffled from foot to foot.

  “What is it?” Qaolin prompted.

  “Sir, we just received the passenger list for the Chut.”

  Qaolin closed his eyes.

  Then he picked up his chair and threw it against the wall containing the viewscreen. The chair broke in several places, and the screen shattered with an ear-splitting crack.

  The aide stood in the doorway, unmoving.

  “General Worf was on the Chut?” Qaolin asked.

  “Yes, sir, he was.”

  “That would mean that General Worf is dead.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Qaolin smashed his fist into his desk. “Establish the insta-link to the Homeworld. Now!”

  �
��Yes, sir.” The aide scurried out of the room.

  “And fetch me another bottle of bloodwine!” Qaolin had no idea if I.I. agents went to Gre’thor or Sto-Vo-Kor, but whichever it was, the governor was quite sure that Yovang was laughing at him from there right now.

  The insta-link was a tight-beam subspace system that enabled live communication between Raknal V and Qo’noS. It used an appalling amount of energy, and was only to be engaged in emergencies. As far as Qaolin was concerned, this qualified.

  Ten minutes and three mugs of bloodwine later, Qaolin faced the image of Chancellor Ditagh on the small viewer on his desk’s workstation. Five minutes after that, he had finished briefing the chancellor on what had happened.

  “What action do you wish me to take, sir?”

  Ditagh blinked. “There is no action to be taken. If the families of those dead wish to claim vengeance, do not stop them. Otherwise, we have won a great victory. The Cardassians’ incompetence has led to the destruction of one of their zenite shipments and the unnecessary deaths of our people. The loss of life is regrettable—particularly that of the general—but we can use that to our advantage as well. Ch’gran will be ours—the Cardassians have already given it to us.”

  Qaolin frowned at his chancellor. “Of course, sir,” he said out of respect for the office, but he did not see that it was nearly as simple as the head of the High Council was making it out to be.

  Even as he closed the insta-link connection, he could hear Yovang’s laughter.

  Chapter 16

  I.K.S. Pu’Bekh

  “Sir, something’s wrong.”

  Captain K’mpec of the I.K.S. Pu’Bekh looked up at that report from the operations station behind him, then gave a nod to Commander Mogh, who walked over to that station. “Explain,” the first officer said.

  “We just sent out routine communications traffic, sir,” the operations officer said. “However, when I checked to see if it had been picked up by this system’s communications relay, I got no readings.”

  “None?” Mogh sounded surprised. “Do a full scan of the relay.”

  “I have already attempted to do so, sir. Sensors aren’t picking up any emissions from the relay at all. In order to do a more complete scan, we’ll need to get closer.”

  K’mpec scowled. They had come to the Donatu system on a routine patrol. Incidents with Cardassian ships along the border had increased over the past several months—ever since the destruction of the Chut at Raknal V—and Command had sent the Pu’Bekh to make sure that all was well in this particular system. It had been the flashpoint of a Federation–Klingon conflict almost a century ago, and Command thought that the Cardassians might try one of their sneak attacks here. They had already made similar assaults on bases and ships in the Archanis and Cursa systems, though the Cardassian government had, of course, denied it—or, at the very least, disavowed the attacks.

  Of course, K’mpec thought with bitter amusement, the High Council has similarly disavowed attacks in the Cuellar and Trelka systems in Cardassian space. Not to mention that skirmish between the Korvale and that Cardassian fighter last month.

  “With your permission, Captain?” Mogh said.

  K’mpec nodded.

  Mogh turned to the helm control station to the captain’s left. “Pilot, set course for the communications relay, full impulse. Operations, when we are within range, do an intensive scan. I expect a full report within the hour.”

  “Sir!” both officers said.

  Then K’mpec rose from his chair. “I would speak with you, Commander,” he said, his deep voice rumbling throughout the bridge.

  “Of course.”

  The two of them exited the bridge. Entering his office, the captain gathered his floor-length coat of office and sat his slim, athletic form down into the metal chair behind his workstation. There were no guest chairs—K’mpec had never seen any good reason to make other people more comfortable than he—and so Mogh stood.

  K’mpec regarded his first officer, who had only been on this assignment for less than a year. He had a simple, yet strong crest, with a raised middle ridge, penetrating black eyes, and wide shoulders. In battle, he had proven a crack shot with a disruptor, but awful with a bat’leth. The captain preferred that to the other way around—it was all well and good to be handy with a blade, but ultimately it was disruptors that won battles.

  Mogh also waited patiently, standing at attention. He did not fidget or show any outward sign of displeasure or worry. K’mpec admired that.

  “It has been several months since the Chut incident on Raknal V, Mogh. Yet you have said nothing.”

  “There has been nothing to say.”

  K’mpec chuckled. “I find that difficult to believe. Your father was killed in a cowardly attack. Does that matter to you?”

  “Why do you ask me this, sir?”

  “Are you questioning me, Commander?” K’mpec asked, his voice lowering.

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  At that, K’mpec laughed. “Good. I was beginning to wonder if you had any passion at all.”

  Mogh looked straight at K’mpec. “My father died in an accident caused by carelessness. The only one against whom I could possibly seek vengeance—the captain of the Cardassian cargo ship—is also dead. As far as I am concerned, the matter is closed. My father died in the line of duty. The best way to honor his memory is to continue to serve, as he did.”

  Silently, K’mpec was impressed. It was quite possibly the longest number of sentences Mogh had strung together in all his time serving aboard the Pu’Bekh.

  “I have received many reports, Mogh. You have no doubt read them as well. Many of the family members of the Chut victims are seeking vengeance against random Cardassians.”

  With a shrug, Mogh said, “That is their prerogative. But it is a foolish endeavor. It is not true vengeance if it is against someone unrelated who happens to be of the same species.”

  Before K’mpec could pursue this further, the intercom sounded. “Bridge to captain.”

  K’mpec looked up. “Yes?”

  “We have scanned the relay, sir—or, rather, what is left of it.”

  “Mneh,” the captain grumbled, and got up from his chair. Mogh followed him back onto the bridge.

  “Report,” Mogh said as K’mpec took his seat.

  The operations officer stood at attention. “Approximately sixty percent of the relay’s surface area has been blasted away. Preliminary scan indicates phaser fire consistent with Cardassian ships.”

  “Are the relay’s security systems intact?” Mogh asked.

  “Impossible to be sure.”

  K’mpec looked at the viewscreen, which the operations officer had provided with a view of the relay. Its oblong shape was pitted, its surface broken, with wiring, circuitry, and chips all exposed to the vacuum of space.

  One of the officers sneered. “Only Cardassians would invade our space to attack a mere relay station.”

  Several other members of the bridge crew snarled and spat in assent. K’mpec had to agree with the sentiment. The relay’s sole function was to amplify and redirect communications traffic. Normal ship-to-planet communication, even via subspace, could take days, but relays such as this did much to make interstellar communication as close to instantaneous as possible. However, the machinery was also easily repaired or replaced, and could hardly be counted as a major blow against the Empire.

  “Sir,” Mogh said, “request permission to beam the relay into the cargo hold. We can examine it more thoroughly that way.”

  K’mpec nodded his affirmation. “You will supervise the examination personally, Commander. I want to know precisely what happened to that relay, and what it will take to fix it.”

  “Sir!”

  An hour later, Mogh once again stood in K’mpec’s office. “We have had success, Captain. The Cardassians showed poor aim. Though I am afraid that the unit will have to be scrapped and replaced, as it is beyond repair, they did not hit any of the security s
ystems.” Mogh then smiled. “Lieutenant J’tal was of the opinion that the Cardassians were not smart enough to realize that a communications relay would have a security system.”

  “Or, perhaps they do not think us smart enough to have constructed one.” K’mpec chuckled. “Either way, I assume that the images provided are useful?”

  “One might put it that way, yes, sir.” Mogh was still smiling as he loaded a dataspike into K’mpec’s workstation.

  K’mpec watched as the relay showed the emptiness of space. Mogh advanced the recording to the moment when a ship came out of warp. Within moments, the ship came close enough to be visually identified as a Cardassian Akril-class ship. Definitely from their military, he thought. Perfect.

  The ship, which the Pu’Bekh computer identified as the Boklar, then fired on the relay and warped back out of the system.

  “I already have the pilot charting their projected course,” Mogh said when the recording was done. “Based on the time-stamp of the relay security, this occurred less than seven hours ago.”

  At that, K’mpec looked up sharply.

  “Yes, sir—we just missed them.”

  “We will not miss them again.”

  Mogh’s smile grew wider. “No, sir, we will not.”

  “Very well then, Commander, give chase. I will alert Command of what has happened.”

  “Sir!” Mogh moved to leave K’mpec’s office.

  “Commander!”

  Mogh stopped and turned around.

  “For one who swears no vengeance against the Cardassians, you are extremely eager to pursue them.”

  Dropping the smile, Mogh said, “I merely wish to see that these Cardassians pay for their cowardly attack, Captain.”

  “And that is all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After dismissing his first officer, K’mpec ordered a communication be put through to Qo’noS. Then he called up the Defense Force records on the Boklar. The only thing they had was its class—which K’mpec knew from looking at it—and that it was most recently known to be commanded by a gul named Onell.