“Or until the Federation or the Romulans invade,” B’Tak added.
Kahless nodded. “Exactly. We need another kind of victory, one that will not only give us a military advantage, but will expose the depths of Gothmara and Morjod’s infamy.”
All eyes swiveled to Martok, who was staring hard into his mug. At what? Ezri found herself wondering. At his reflection? At the bloody color of the wine? Sensing their gazes, Martok looked up and stared back at each of them in turn.
Finally, he said, “Boreth. We keep coming back to Boreth. Gothmara flees there. Morjod is born there. You were created there, Emperor, as were the Hur’q. It is the knotty center of this puzzle.”
“Yes,” Kahless agreed. “And neither Gothmara nor [85] Morjod know how much we’ve learned. They will not expect a strike there because Boreth is apt a military target. If we take the planet and expose their atrocities, it will send shock waves through the empire. The people will rise up to follow your banner and the forces of the coup will crumble.”
Martok exchanged glances with Worf and Alexander, then nodded almost imperceptibly. The four captains talked among themselves, shifted in their seats, each of them grinning and making sounds of assent. Even the Ferengi smiled, though Ezri noted that Sirella’s expression remained curiously neutral, her eyes never leaving Martok. Finally, the chancellor rose and slammed the table with the flat of his hand. “Yes!” he shouted. “We will take Boreth! And when we do, then shall Morjod and all his allies tremble!”
The Klingons drew their weapons, lifted them high, and bellowed in response: “MARTOK! Kai the Chancellor!”
To Ezri, it was precisely the sort of Klingon hubbub and bluster she would have expected. Then, unexpectedly, in the middle of it all and without her willing it, she felt Jadzia’s judgment brought to bear and those more experienced ears found the cries to be strangely perfunctory, even subdued, as if each of them might have secret doubts.
Even as the cheers and shouts died down, Martok continued feeling satisfaction. At last—finally!—he had found a path that might lead them all toward victory, or, failing that, to some sort of conclusion. He was too experienced a military leader not to see that they would have only this one chance. If their attack failed or even if the battle ended in a stalemate, his small force would collapse. His core group would remain loyal—the [86] Rotarran, the Ch’Tang, possibly the Orantho—but all the others would slip away, not because they were cowards, but because they no longer saw any chance of victory.
For now, they must establish forward motion and momentum. In unity, his warriors had to set their hands to the task before them. Distraction must be avoided or they would be vulnerable to Gothmara’s wiles. Never again would he underestimate what that woman was capable of.
On all sides, the exulting continued, enabling Darok to slip back into the room, virtually unnoticed, no doubt armed with information about Hur’q. Martok did not wish to dwell on the creatures, seeing them as causing a paralyzing—not motivating—fear in his warriors, so he cut off the old man before he could speak. “How long before we meet with General Ngane and his fleet?” He already knew the answer to this question, but he wished to have the others hear the response.
“Ngane!” B’Tak shouted, surprised. “He lives?!”
Martok knew full well that Ngane had once been B’Tak’s much-revered commanding officer. He had intentionally withheld the information that the general would be joining their attack force, hoarding it as a gambler keeps his last credit in his boot, just in case he needed to tip a delicate balance.
“Lives?” Martok asked. “Of course he lives! No one in Sto-Vo-Kor wishes to see his grizzled, ugly, old face. He contacted the Rotarran as soon as he heard of our escape from Qo’noS and is meeting us with his fleet in ... how long, Darok?”
“Two hours,” Darok said. The true answer might be much more or much less, but Martok didn’t care. He and the old man had survived enough campaigns by playing [87] the odds that Martok trusted Darok to know when to keep his mouth shut and when to tell an easy lie.
“Kai, Ngane!” B’Tak bellowed and rushed from the room, the other three captains at his heels. As they receded down the hall, Martok heard him say, “We cannot fail now!” Grinning wolfishly, he saluted to Darok, who nodded wearily.
“How long really?” Martok inquired.
“I have no idea, my chancellor. Perhaps in the future you should inform me ahead of time that I will be performing in a play so I will have time to prepare my part better.”
“You’ve never needed time before, you old fool.”
“I grow older every day and my mind begins to fail.”
“Good. You’ll be less trouble that way. Quickly—which of these five ships is the fastest and in best repair?” One of the many reasons he kept Darok as an aide was that he possessed an unrivaled fund of information about the specifications, records, and status of every ship in the fleet.
“Without question the Rotarran.”
“Agreed. Worf, she’s yours. I may not completely agree with the wisdom of this mission you’ve proposed, but I trust you to do it quickly and well. Bring Rotarran back to me, brother, for I will have need of her.”
“Fear not, my chancellor.” And, without another word, he beckoned to Ezri and Alexander, and the three of them left the room.
“Darok, when we are done here, go to the captain of the Ch’Tang and inform him that I am taking command of her.” Martok caught a glimmer of annoyance in Sirella’s eyes. Clearly, she did not approve of his choice of cruisers, but this wasn’t hers to negotiate. “I know [88] that look, Sirella. Fear not. I’ve had my flag on Ch’Tang before. I know it as well as I know Rotarran.”
His wife glared, but said nothing.
“Very good. My lady, you will board the Orantho, and Drex, go to B’Tak on Ya’Vang. Do not interfere with him, my son. He is the best captain in our fleet.”
“Except for you,” Darok offered sardonically.
Drex appeared on the verge of agreeing with Darok when Martok cut him off. “And you, my son, are neither my equal, nor B’Tak’s. Conduct yourself accordingly.”
Offering his father a curt bow, Drex turned away, scowling, and turned to bid his mother farewell. What happened between mother and son was not Martok’s concern, however, so he turned his back, granting them a modicum of privacy.
Scanning the room, he asked, “Where did Kahless go? He and I have other things to discuss.” Martok very much wanted to understand some of the more obscure points from their discussion. Kahless seemed at once both much more and much less than the man he had known before he became chancellor. He wanted to avoid any unpredictability from the emperor as they headed for what might be his last battle. Suddenly realizing he had forgotten something, he looked to his left and found Pharh standing there staring up at him.
“What do you want me to do, Martok?”
Martok considered the question. Unfortunately, there were no neutral worlds or starbases between their present location and Boreth, or he would simply drop the Ferengi off and bid him farewell. Somehow, though, he knew it would not be so simple. While he did not share any of Kahless’s faith in forces that shaped his destiny, he did have the feeling that his fate and Pharh’s were [89] bound, at least for a time. However, Pharh deserved to have a choice in the matter.
“What do you want to do?”
“What I want is to go to this little bistro on Ferenginar and have one of the massage therapists stroke my lobes while I watch a show. How does that sound to you?”
Martok snorted. “I would enjoy that, my friend, but my wife wouldn’t approve.”
“Yeah, I can tell from the look on her face.”
“What?” Martok spun around and saw that, indeed, Sirella had not left with the others and, no, she did not approve of the idea of him having his lobes stroked. She had that look on her face, the one that meant it was time to discuss something. “I see,” Martok said. “Join Darok on the Ch’Tang. Have him assign you to quarter
s and stay there. Circumstances are bad enough without you stirring up the crew.”
“Sounds good to me,” Pharh said. “I can see I’m going to be spending a lot of time with Klingons for at least a while longer.”
“If they don’t slit your throat, yes,” Darok said dryly, and gestured for Pharh to follow him.
Remembering that he wasn’t yet alone, Martok repressed the urge to follow after the Ferengi and the gin’tak as they slipped out of the conference room. He had no desire to wrestle down this last, most precious of foes.
“We need to talk, my husband.” Her tone did not promise romantic overtures, but Martok had already figured that out from her expression.
“Sirella,” he replied wearily. “I have survived countless battles, both in space and on alien worlds. I was held prisoner by the Dominion for two years and forced [90] to fight Jem’Hadar in order that they could learn how to kill Klingons. And now I am facing vicious attacks from my mad son and his mad mother. Despite all these things, nothing in the universe inspires as much dread in me as the words ‘We need to talk, my husband.’ ” Sighing, Martok sat down opposite his wife. “You wield an extraordinary power, my wife. Never abuse it.”
“I will not, my husband, if you promise to never again abandon your own.”
Suddenly weary, Martok dropped his head and rubbed his right eye and then the patch of scar tissue where his left once was. “What nonsense do you speak, Sirella?” he asked irritably.
“I know the truth,” she began icily, “of what happened after Morjod destroyed the Negh’Var. None of them, least of all your brother, speaks of it directly, but it has become clear to me that you abandoned your warriors to come search for me.”
“Not for you alone. For the children as well,” Martok added. “Do not forget about them.”
“I never forget about them, husband,” she said, her voice sharp as a needle. “You can be sure of that. I do not forget them because I know that sometimes you must. You are the chancellor and as such your first responsibility is always to the empire. And yet, when the first obstacle appeared, what did you do?”
“I rescued you,” Martok said, his face a mask of betrayal.
“You tried to rescue me,” Sirella countered. “You were caught and we were both almost executed. Kahless rescued us both, and even when we both could have left, you still insisted on fighting those creatures and risked yourself foolishly. First you put your family before the [91] empire and then you put your own pride before it.” She slapped the table with the flat of her hand, much as Martok had only a short time earlier. “What is wrong with you?!”
Feeling his face growing hot and the blood singing in his ears, Martok rose as slowly as he could and stepped away from the table. Breathing heavily, he struggled with himself, fighting down competing urges to drop down before Sirella to beg for forgiveness and to slap her in the mouth. Tiny white flashes sparked before his eyes, only slowly clearing with each deep breath. When he could clearly see her frowning face again, he pointed at the door and growled, “Leave me. Go to your ship. See that it is prepared. Your brother is still the helmsman aboard Orantho?”
She nodded.
“Good. I am pleased you will have some family with you, seeing the tattered thing that ours has become.” He thought the blow would strike her heart, but Sirella did not flinch.
As she rose, she said only, “This discussion is not finished, my husband.”
“Yes it is, Sirella. I am the chancellor and I say it is.”
This comment seemed to give her some small amount of satisfaction, so Sirella said only, “See that you continue to act like one.” Then, she left, her long cloak swirling imperiously behind her.
Watching her leave, all Martok could think to say was “That woman ...”
“She is extraordinary, isn’t she?”
Caught off guard, Martok spun around to face the speaker, only to see Kahless stepping out of a corner. Flustered, too many questions coming to his lips at [92] once, he asked, “How did I miss ... ? How dare you ... ? What did you hear?”
“Don’t worry about what I heard. I’ve been married, too, you recall. In many ways, your Sirella reminds me of Lukara.”
“You were never married,” Martok snarled. “Kahless was married. You are a copy of Kahless and you do not have the right to listen in to my private discourse with the lady of my house!”
Shrugging, Kahless said, “I am the emperor, so I have the right to do as I choose. But do not concern yourself. I am not one to gossip. I stayed only because I require a private conversation.”
“You require!?” Martok shouted, and, his anger still seething, drew his d’k’ tahg from his belt and leapt at the emperor, forcing him back against the wall. “You require? What about what I require? What of my wishes? Here I am, supposedly the leader of the greatest empire under the naked stars, and what in my life have I truly ruled? First, my father drove me to seek a commission I never truly desired and then when I got it, Kor tore it from my grasp. I was a plaything of the Dominion for two seeming endless years, but when I returned it was only so that Gowron could take advantage of my loyalty. Then, Worf manipulates me into becoming the damned chancellor only to have my office stolen by a woman I haven’t seen in decades—who forced me to sire a son who now wants to murder me and destroy everything I hold dear.” Gritting his teeth, his face so close that the whiskers on Kahless’s face prickled his skin, Martok snarled, “So, tell me, Emperor. What exactly do you require?”
To his credit, Kahless did not flinch. Not a muscle in [93] his face twitched and his eyes bore into Martok. He let the silence hang between them for only two, three seconds, then breathed in once deeply and released it. Martok was surprised by how sweet the emperor’s breath was. “Sometimes, Chancellor,” he said, “we have no control over our lives simply because we have not yet chosen to take it.”
Fixing his attention on a tiny drop of blood where the point of his blade touched the emperor’s neck, Martok felt the slow fury that had been building up begin to ebb. It was not that Kahless’s words relieved the pressure or even gave him insight into his situation, but the effort of untangling his pseudo-mystical nonsense had finally exhausted him. He no longer had the will to fight, no desires at all. Releasing his grip on the emperor, he said only, “I’m tired. ...”
“Of course you are, my friend,” Kahless said, straightening his tunic as if Martok had just helped him recover from an almost nasty fall. “We all are. And you should rest, but while we had a moment’s privacy, I wanted to tell you something that I didn’t think the others needed to hear.”
Despite himself, Martok felt dully curious. What else could there be? What kind of deviousness yet lurked before him? Morjod’s evil twin? An incurable plague brewed in Gothmara’s labs? A planet-killer weapon? What?
“In the archives of Boreth, I found information concerning your father that I did not understand, and I wondered if you could help me.”
“My father?” Martok looked up. He had not expected this.
Consulting his padd, Kahless said, “There was a [94] document written in an obscure dialect where I found reference to a ‘Katai Urthog.’ That was his name, wasn’t it?”
Martok nodded.
“In the context used, ‘Katai’ sounds like an honorific, like ‘Dahar master,’ but none I’ve ever heard before. Do you have any idea what a ‘katai’ might be?”
“None whatsoever,” said Martok, who realized that Kahless had actually succeeded in discovering something worse than an evil twin, a plague, or a planet killer: he had found a mystery.
8
Ezri and Alexander followed Worf down the long, narrow hall that led to the bridge of the Rotarran, but they walked slowly, much too slowly. From Alexander, Worf was used to this sort of behavior. He had been slow since he was a boy. Whenever they had gone on a class trip or a tour, his son had always been the last one in the line, the lingerer, the ... What was the word one of his teachers on the Enterprise had used? Ah, y
es: the lolly-gagger. Alexander had always been a lollygagger. Always, always, always there had been something that Alexander would find so interesting that he could not tear himself away, and the group would move along, leaving him behind, bewildered, lost, confused.
His laggardly ways had been enough to make a father despair.
And now he had to deal with Ezri too. Worf had explained the plan, told her what they must do, even attempted to impress upon her the need for haste, but still [96] she hesitated. Though he hated to find himself thinking such a thing, there was no escaping the truth of it: Jadzia would never have lingered so long. His wife had understood the necessity for swift, decisive action, but this one, Ezri, she was too much like Alexander.
“Ezri,” he pleaded. “Pick up the pace, please. Martok needs us back as soon as possible. If battle is joined on Boreth, it may not succeed without the Rotarran.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Ezri responded. “But what makes you think we can accomplish this task in the time we have? For that matter, what makes you think we can finish it before Qo’noS’s orbit decays and the planet tumbles into the sun? Or—”
“Because I have faith in you,” Worf interjected, though he wondered if she could sense the lack of sincerity in his words. Again, he knew Jadzia would have. “If anyone can do this, you can.”
“I’m touched,” she said, her tone revealing that in fact she could sense his sincerity.
“And our succeeding could spell the difference between Martok solidifying his leadership ...”
“... Or not,” she finished for him. “So, no pressure then. Great.” She glanced at Alexander, who was, naturally, bringing up the rear.
“Kahless thinks this is a good idea. He wouldn’t have sent us if he didn’t.”
“The emperor did not send us,” Worf said, correcting his son. “This was my idea.”
“Oh,” Alexander said distractedly. “Well, whatever. It’s still a good idea.”
Ezri studied the boy carefully. “He made quite an impression on you, didn’t he?” she asked.
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