The Vigilant
First Destiny
Part 3 - Portents
by Chad Sharpe
(chadsharpe2001@yahoo.com)

First Destiny
Part 3 - Portents

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Antonia allowed the explosion of the Solstice to blind her, steeling her eyes to the terrible devastation she witnessed from the view port of the small ship. Though space was a mute vacuum, she had imagined that her ship, her home, had met its fiery end with a rebellious screech to accompany its conversion into a sphere of fire and metal.

Though she couldn't hear her bellow, the shockwaves roiling from the starship's destruction hit the ship, who her 'savior', a fierce, battered, scarred, and braided Klingon woman had called a raptor, with hurricane force tossing it as it were a Frisbee.

Its inertial dampeners overwhelmed by the strain, Antonia had been thrown from her seat. She had looked blankly at the grayish bulkhead rushing to meet her, hoping deep in her heart that her impending rendezvous with it would end the nightmare that her life had descended into.

Steely, frigid fingers had grabbed her, staying her date with the abyss. Strong arms had cradled her again. Expecting to see the scarred, smiling face of the Klingon woman again, Antonia's heart pushed up her throat when she looked into the face of Thelar.

How could this be? She had watched him, D'Iata, Mordo, and her love Avek beamed into space, and left to die in its cold vastness by the murderous Korrin before his cowardly assault had forced her to sacrifice the Solstice. But Thelar was there, his long, tapered blue fingers saving her from oblivion, slivers of ice hanging from his shaggy man of white hair.

She had wanted to ask him so many questions: how, why, what, when, where. But only one question erupted from her cracked lips: "Avek?"

Looking squarely at her, his youthful exuberance extinguished forever, the Andorian had merely shaken his head, a frosted tear running down his cheek...

The ring of the intercom freed Museveni again from the clutches of her nightmares. Waking with a start, Antonia entangled the sheets twined around her, and rolled off of her bed.

Reaching the wall unit, she slapped the response button: "Museveni here."

A worried voice answered. Doctor Durisa, Antonia knew immediately. "Antonia," the kind woman began slowly, "something has happened to your...father. Please come down to Sickbay immediately."

Antonia paused for several seconds as rivers of coldness washed over her heart. She had wanted to retort that Paul Museveni was not her father, was merely a sperm donor, and that she didn't care anything about him. He could die for all she cared. But the evil thought had instantly activated her altruistic nature. Whatever this man had done to her mother, to her, she knew that he was a sentient being, a person, and it would serve neither him nor herself to give in to the bitterness in her heart. "I'm on my way," she said weakly.

* * * * *

Antonia ran along the corridor leading to Sickbay, ignoring the shocked, saddened, and grieving looks of the crewmates she encountered along the way. She knew that the Federation was composed of some of the most sympathetic and empathetic beings in the universe, but such an outpouring of grief couldn't be for her father. News didn't travel that fast on a starship, not of this size, especially about a man that no one onboard, including herself, knew.

So, she figured that something else must have been going on. Some other tragedy has occurred. How much more tragedy can we take? She pondered before her mind turned away from its darkening thoughts to the task at hand.

The off white doors of the Jemison's main medical facility whooshed open before she plowed through them. In a far corner of the room she saw Commodore Malenchenko, Dr. Malenchenko, and Ambassador Dax ringing the father, lying deathly still on a biobed.

Dr. Durisa turned to greet Antonia, taking her arms in her plump hands. The Napean gave a faint smile, her horseshoe shaped forehead crest crinkling with the forced reassurance. One thing Antonia had always found appealing about the Jemison Chief Medical Officer, as opposed to her former CMO Dr. Regos on the Solstice, was that Durisa could never hide her feelings. When something was bad, you knew it without having to ply through a latrine of jargon before discovering the truth. Almost in unison, the commodore and the ambassador also turned towards Antonia, but neither made a move to comfort her. Malenchenko's face remained hard as stone, but sympathy poured from the Trill.

"What happened?" Antonia asked, allowing Durisa to sweep her in a hug though she really had wanted to reach the bed to gaze at her father.

Placing Antonia's head on her shoulder, decorum an inconvenience, Durisa whispered. "Your father has gone into a deep coma, caused by some form of psionic shock."

"Coma?" Antonia meekly repeated. "Psionic shock? What? Why?" She stammered.

"I can't give you a conclusive reason at the moment," the Napean whispered, but Malenchenko's grating voice cut through her compassion. Chucking a stout thumb at Curzon Dax, the commodore replied.

"We believe it had something to do with Organia."

"Organia? I don't understand." Museveni gently dislodged herself from the doctor's embrace. "What happened on Organia?"

"You don't know what happened?" Dax asked, his incredulous tone bordering on suspicion. "It's gone." He replied, with a twinge of sadness. "It was destroyed. We don't know by whom."

Antonia's knees buckled, but Durisa quickly grabbed hold of her. Ignoring the Operations Officer distress, Malenchenko rumbled. "We know who did it. It was those damned Klingons! Your father was right. If only I had listened..."

"We can't be certain it was the Klingons at all," the ambassador replied, his face reddening as his voice filled with passion. "Our recent communiqu‚s have informed us that the Klingon High Council is blaming the Federation for the attack."

The commodore rounded on the Trill. "And you and your kind probably believe that!" He moved his bulky frame around the biobed to directly face the ambassador.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Dax thundered back, not backing down.

"Both of you get the hell out of my Sickbay!" Durisa roared with fervor that Antonia had never heard in her before. Again in her embrace, Museveni could fill the doctor's portly frame quaking with disgust. "I'll be damned if I allow you two to argue like school children over a patient of mine, whatever their condition, and especially in this man's condition."

Malenchenko looked at her, the fires in his hard eyes dimming slowly. The Napean met his glare with her own withering gaze.

Ambassador Dax made to speak, his finger waging in consternation. Malenchenko grabbed it gently, lowering the Trill's hand to rest back at his side. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." He informed the put upon diplomat. Without saying a word, Dax yanked his hand from the commodore's grasp and stormed out of the medical facility. The commodore followed seconds later. Walking by her, Commodore Malenchenko squeezed Antonia's slender shoulder with a meaty hand.

The commodore's gesture barely registered, her total attention focused on her comatose father. Even trapped between life and death, a haunted expression hung frozen on his face. "What's the prognosis?" she mumbled.

"No good I'm afraid," Dr. Malenchenko whispered, gently releasing Antonia from her embrace but leading her to the biobed where her father rested. Pointing at the blinking console above the bed, the Napean's matronly tone hardened. "The monitor," she tapped the beeping gunmetal console for emphasis, "is recording a high amount of brain activity in the patient's paracortex. Barring the unusual brain wave patterns common to telepaths, this amount of activity is extraordinary for a person in a coma. I can best liken it to when a person is in a dream state."

"Dream state? Are you saying that my father is dreaming? Is that possible? For a person in a coma to dream?"

Durisa cocked her head, a small wry smile struggling to break through her professional mien. "My darling, anything is possible. But expected, no. This level of activity is most unusual. It's as if Mr. Museveni is a dream that he can't awake from or doesn't want to wake from."

"Aren't we all," Antonia sighed as her gaze returned to her father's haunted visage.

* * * * *

Serana kneeled uncomfortably, her deference as false as her loyalty to the imbecile sitting before her on the jade throne.

"Rise Praetor Shirrin t'Serana of Rateg," Imperial Regent, Prince Nevius i-Devron tr'Rekal intoned gravely, failing in his attempt to add depth to his squeaky voice.

Stifling a chuckle, the praetor slowly stood up, instinctively batting away any dust from her lavender robe that might have been on the viridescent floor, its dark color mirroring the blood that flowed through her and all Romulan veins.

"My apologies," she quickly uttered at her unconscious faux pas. Of course, the Emperor's Jade Room would be spotless. Built by Nevius' aunt, the long-lived, long suffering, and conveniently cloistered Empress Daellona; the lesser nobility maintained its soothing, polished green contours. Even slaves were not allowed to gaze upon the room Daellona had considered to represent the lifeblood of the people, with her, and her descendents, as its heart.

"It's nothing," Nevius dismissed her fears with a wave and a broad smile. Her relief quickly overtaken by disgust at the young ruler's weakness, Serana's eyes narrowed in harsh appraisal as her body performed its expected grateful bow. "Why have you requested this audience?" The regent asked, cocking his head in interest.

Serana straightened her shoulders, and took on the mien she used whenever she addressed the Senate. "I've called this meeting my Lord to discuss the galaxy and your role in its affairs." She paused dramatically, pleased with the gleam of curiosity glazing over Nevius' eyes. Serana knew she had him.

Continuing: "The recent destruction of Organia and the Federation and Klingon delegations that had attended the peace summit there have provided us with a golden opportunity."

Pointed ears twitching with displeasure, Nevius' face took on a dark greenish shade. "I've already talked with the Admiralty about this," he said, his tone dripping with boredom. "Oh, they went on and on about invading the Klingons and the Federation, striking while both were in disarray, of wiping the vermin away, of settling our ancient blood feud with the Vulcans." He listed the various topics, each reiteration dulling the twinkle in his eyes.

"When will the military realize that the Klingons or the Federation, or even the Tholians or Gorn for that matter aren't the Remans?" The regent performed his own bit of theater, raising his arms to the heavens, his green and gold caftan shimmering with his dramatic movement.

The ancient gods of Romulus keeping their answers to themselves, Nevius glanced back at her minutes later. "I had at least hoped that the Senate would have a more realistic view of what we can and what we can't do."

Unfazed by the regent's display, or his veiled criticism, Serana merely took on a look of earnest contrition as she carefully chose her next words. "I agree with you milord. I have not come to talk of war. I have come to talk of victory. For too many in our society, victory has come to mean warfare, but they and those that think like them are vines that need to be sheared. The way to ultimate victory for our Star Empire is peace. I have a proposal, if you would care to listen?" She paused again, forcing a small, penitent smile across her lips.

"Go on," Nevius said through slitted eyes, not yet fully convinced that Serana would not present him with more of the same.

As the praetor laid out her proposal, and as the regent's countenance turned from suspicion to rapt interest, Serana couldn't help but imagine the various possibilities that were about to unfold before her. If her plan succeeded, and whether or not this pretender to the throne or the cancerous Internal Security Service survived it, she had skillfully placed herself on both sides of the fence, and would benefit from either outcome.

Concluding her spiel, to Nevius delighted approval, Serana chanced another appraising look. But this time at the emperor's jade throne. She couldn't help but imagine how good she might look sitting upon it. In due time, she thought.

* * * * *

"Antonia!" he screamed with a start, sputtering the name, his only tie to the salvation. He shot straight up on the bed, his skin crawling with a residual chill of exposure to a ravenous black void. Sweat streaming down his face, his searching eyes wild and unfocused, Museveni hopped from the bed.

"Security to Sickbay," he heard someone whisper, with forced calmness. He rounded on the voice, rubbing frenetically on his naked arms, and tearing at the thin pale green shift covering the rest of his body.

The voice belonged to an alien-not like the kind he had just traversed mind-death with, but of another species altogether. A plump, motherly figure dressed in a white lab coat, with a gentle, upswept horseshoe crest on her forehead, stood calmly by the door to the room, her arms opened wide in a non-threatening gesture.

He moved towards her, the name that had pulled him from oblivion surging through his mind. Everything was a jumble. Nothing made sense. Only seconds ago, he had been on a chill, mountainous world dying along with people he had never heard of, and now he was here, alive, in a white, sterile room, filled with shiny, metallic surfaces and smelling of antiseptics.

And the only thing he that his mind could grasp at the moment, that made sense and didn't all at the same time, was Antonia, a name of a person he couldn't fully recall.

"Antonia?" He asked, through cracked, feverish lips. He continued approaching the alien woman. He needed answers, he needed clarity, he needed something. "Antonia?" He asked again, his tone more insistent as his frustration kicked in. He reached out to the woman. By now she had become deathly still, her back pressed against the wall by the door. He grabbed her shoulders, and tried to focus his eyes to look directly at her, so that she could see his pain, his confusion, his need.

"Antonia?"

With practiced calm, the woman replied evenly, with only a hint of tension in her voice. "She's not here."

"Where?" He demanded, cutting her off, his grip on her shoulders becoming harder.

The alien woman winced in pain, and before his actions had registered, before he could apologize, he saw a swift movement to his left. Then he felt a cooling sensation washing over his burning flesh. Fingers and body numbing, he slipped to the floor, into the embrace of a much more pleasant darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"The Federation Council can't be serious," Admiral Cartwright, Starfleet's Commander-in-Chief, huffed.

"It is, and so am I," Federation President Ra-ghoratrei replied, leaning back in his high-backed leather chair, with a dazzling view of nighttime Paris as a backdrop. The white-haired, beige hued President removed his customary oval shades to look at the Admiral squarely in the eye.

Though a native of Delta VI, Ra-ghoratrei had quickly learned of the human need for physical connection. "Regent Nevius has proposed a last-ditch initiative between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, mediated by him at Nimbus III." He repeated, more so for himself than for the guests in his office: Admiral Cartwright, Admiral Morrow, and the venerable Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan. The president still found it hard to believe that the Romulans would seek peace instead of looking to exploit the current sad state of relations between the Federation and the Klingons.

"I don't trust this proposal," Cartwright remarked, his melanin-rich skin darkening even more with suspicion. "I smell a trap."

Ra-ghoratrei nodded, but didn't answer. Admiral Cartwright, a member of the more conservative element of both Starfleet and Federation life, always saw a lure where Romulans, Klingons, or the other traditional rivals or foes of the Federation were concerned.

The president looked next to Admiral Morrow from Starfleet Intelligence. "Admiral Morrow, what are your thoughts?"

A pensive expression on his face, Morrow began haltingly. "There is some cause for concern. From all of our knowledge about the Romulans, the ruling family has primarily served a ceremonial function for centuries. The Senate and the Imperial Navy have split power in the Star Empire, though that historic balance has been upset as of late by the rise of the Romulan Internal Security apparatus."

The Intelligence Director leaned back in his plush leather seat, one of three surrounding the president's mahogany desk. Ra-ghoratrei could see that Morrow had begun to warm up playing the expert. "It is my estimation that this offer is nothing more than a ploy, at best an ego-trip for the recently installed emperor, or either the young ruler is trying to reestablish eroded monarchial authority. An internal power dispute writ large, if you will.

At worst, Nimbus III is nothing more than a feint for a Romulan invasion or a trap to assassinate either you or Chancellor Gorkon, or perhaps both. We still haven't been able to ascertain the culprits behind the Organia attack. Mr. President, if you do travel to Nimbus III, I don't believe that Starfleet will be able to guarantee your safety."

"I concur," Cartwright grumbled.

Trying to hide his exasperation but failing, the president exclaimed. "You all saw the same news feeds that I did. There is no defense against what happened at Organia."

Reflexively, Morrow raised his hand as if to disagree with his assessment. His interest piqued, Ra-ghoratrei quickly asked. "Something you wish to add Admiral Morrow?"

"Ah yes Mr. President," Morrow paused, looking at Admiral Cartwright. Cartwright nodded his assent. Obviously the two admirals had discussed this idea before meeting with him, the Deltan surmised. "On the eve of the Organian summit, a former intelligence operative, Paul Museveni approached both Admiral Cartwright and myself with dire warnings that the summit would end in catastrophe."

Filled with dreadful curiosity, the president interrupted, "And how did he come across this information?"

"Through some physic mumbo-jumbo," Cartwright answered before Morrow could respond. "He said he sensed a disruption in the psionic plane, emanating from somewhere within the Klingon Empire but focusing on Organia."

"Psionic plane?" the president asked, looking to Ambassador Sarek to get his take on the new revelation. The Deltan, well aware of the telepathic abilities of Vulcans, felt that the ambassador might be able to shed some light on the subject.

"The psionic field is the universal medium through which all races with esper abilities commune." The Vulcan dryly began, his hands placed primly in his lap. "It is possible for some telepathic species, with high developed psionic abilities, far beyond those of the Deltans of Delta IV, the Betazoids, the Haliians, or my own people," Sarek reasoned.

"However, the level of telepathic ability among the human species has not displayed such a level of sophistication to rival even that of the aforementioned species. I find it highly unlikely that a human, even a human telepath, would be able to access the psionic field from such distances." The ambassador abruptly stopped, and turned his steely countenance toward Ambassador Morrow.

The Intelligence Director fidgeted slightly under the Vulcan's withering gaze. Shifting his eyes from the Vulcan to stare at the floor, Morrow spoke again. "Paul Museveni wasn't an ordinary human or human telepath for that matter. Museveni was a product of SI esper experiments on Binet V. A Betazoid paracortex was attached to his brain, drastically increasing his native esper capabilities."

"My God," Ra-ghoratrei gasped, in his horror appropriating a human phrase. Sarek remained stonily silent at the admission.

"The Binet operatives proved invaluable in our efforts against the various enemies within and without that have menaced the Federation in recent decades. They provided instrumental in breaking the strangle hold of the Orion Syndicate on commercial shipping and trade." Cartwright offered.

"So, you knew of this?" Ra-ghoratrei asked, his face darkening with anger and disgust.

"With all due respect Mr. President," Morrow interjected, in the hopes of avoiding an unnecessary confrontation. "What's done is done. Our predecessors conceived the Binet project. I am sure that they had their reasons. What is of paramount concern now, is that Museveni offered us valuable intelligence, which we chose to ignore, and through implication, the culprit behind the Organian geo-cide: Klingon interests."

The president leaned back in his chair, his cool mask back on his face. Though he struggled to keep his roiling emotions on the conversation at hand and the upcoming peace mission, he couldn't help but wonder what other dark and dirty secrets were Federation agents performing in the name of its blissfully ignorant citizens. He had hoped that Morrow would be able to get a handle on the intelligence services, to erase those kinds of black projects.

But Ra-ghoratrei could tell by Morrow's reluctance to reveal information, the defensive look of embarrassment on his face at the actions of his department; actions that he hadn't even take part in, had shown the president that Morrow served bureaucratic dictates and not him, or the will of the Federation. The Deltan had also noted how the admiral had inserted 'we' in his admission of failure to follow through on Museveni's warning, as if this tragic oversight didn't rest on his doorstep alone. Once, this crisis was over, he resolved to address that with the admiral, among other things.

"So, do you think the Klingons are behind this?"

Cartwright, nodding profusely, made to speak, but Morrow cut him off. "I don't know what to think Mr. President. All Museveni told me was that strange emanations were coming from Klingon space and that such activity boded ill for the Organian summit."

"What are you trying to get at Admiral?" the president snapped, his patience drained by Morrow's seeming comfort with the seamier aspects of intelligence work. "Could this Museveni person be involved somehow? Could he be a Klingon agent?"

"Two things: First, I wish to gather more information from Mr. Museveni. My sources have informed me that Museveni is currently aboard the Jemison. As suspected, he sought to reconnect with his estranged daughter serving aboard the ship, as well as try to convince Ambassador Dax, in route to Organia from Mordan IV, to halt the summit. Second: If Museveni and his information prove viable, I would like to authorize a mission into Klingon space to neutralize this threat before another planet, possibly Earth, falls."

Ra-ghoratrei looked at Cartwright. "Admiral Cartwright are you also in agreement?"

"Yes, I am Mr. President."

"Mr. Ambassador?"

"Well, Mr. President, everyone present is well aware of the negative consequences of an incursion into Klingon space, at such a particularly tense and delicate time," Sarek began, his hawkish features weighted with a surprising open concern. "We are faced with two dark paths, both fraught with danger, but both necessary if peace is to be won."

The Vulcan paused briefly before looking squarely at the president. "For you Mr. President, one can't be too cautious where Romulans are concerned." Shifting in his chair to gaze at the admirals. "Also, the cause of peace demands sacrifice. As I often say: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

"Well said Ambassador." Morrow breathed, his voice filled with reverence. Ra-ghoratrei realized at least there was one thing he could say he and the wayward admiral still shared: an abiding respect for the wise Vulcan diplomat.

"Admirals Cartwright and Morrow, as you well know I can't authorize such a mission. It would be in violation of the provisions of the Organian treaty," the president said, unable to catch himself before he had mentioned the Organians, he added quickly, "and established interstellar law. That is beyond my purview to grant gentlemen. If such an undertaking occurred it would unauthorized and condemned by the Federation Council."

The Deltan stretched out the word 'my' in the hopes that the admirals caught on to his performance. Plausible deniability was one of the many necessary evils in his line of work. Realizing the reality of that, Ra-ghoratrei saw Morrow in a less harsh light again. He had never sat at the helm of SI, so could he truly judge Morrow's actions? The president knew that the conversation he intended to have with the admiral might go a bit differently than he had envisioned only seconds before. Of course, if either he or the admirals failed in their respective missions, there might not be a Federation left to reform.

The almost imperceptible nods of both admirals proved that they had both gotten his underlying message. Chancing a glance at Sarek, Ra-ghoratrei saw that the Vulcan was observing the exchange with a comically upraised steel-gray eyebrow.

"So," the Deltan began, his voice taking on a conclusive tone, "Ambassador Sarek will accompany me to Nimbus III, while I expect for you gentlemen to continue our investigations into the cause of this new threat to galactic peace."

The ambassadors and the admirals all rose from their seats, each bowing respectfully at him. They filed out, Morrow being the last to leave. Before he walked through the door portal, he looked back at the president, a hint of sorrow and pain in his eyes.

The president said or did nothing in reply. Alone again in his office, Ra-ghoratrei turned away from his desk to gaze at the Paris skyline. Normally, the spire of the Eiffel Tower gave him such delight, but the only thing he truly saw were his memories of the admiral's haunted eyes.

* * * * *

Admiral Benjamin Cartwright, dressed in civilian garb, clung to the shadows of the nearly deserted caf‚. The bustle of Parisians, born of Earth or from planets across the galaxy, had died down as the night had drawn on.

Wishing to avoid introspection, he flipped open the cover of a handheld padd, an indistinguishable device that he had picked up from a vendor after leaving the president's office. As soon as he was finished with it, he would disassemble it and scatter its components throughout the city before he beamed home to his wife Naomi.

But first, he had a mission to complete. He keyed in his encrypted code, bouncing it off of various carriers as it made its circuitous route to its destination.

The trefoil emblem of the Klingon Empire briefly blazed across the portable padd's screen before it was replaced with the image of a fierce, bald Klingon, with an eye patch screwed into the left side of his face.

The universal translator built into the device quickly converted the one-eyed man's language from Klingon to Federation standard. However, Cartwright didn't need the translator to understand Klingon. He had spoken it all of his life.

It had been engaged as a precautionary measure in case any one of the several patrons left in the eating establishment overheard any of his conversation. The weather was so warm and inviting tonight, he would hate to have to spill the blood of an unfortunate eavesdropper.

"What do you want?" the man growled in the traditional greeting.

"Glory for the empire," Cartwright whispered, restraining himself from his usual throaty response. "I have information."

"Yes?" the man asked impatiently.

Cartwright proceeded, in abbreviated fashion, to dispense the contents of his recent meeting with the Federation President, Ambassador Sarek, and Admiral Morrow.

Once he had finished, the Klingon smiled, tugged on the tips of his drooping mustache. "Excellent," he crowed. "I will do my part."

The admiral nodded with understanding. "Qapla'," he uttered, unable to the pounding in his blood, the thundering in his heart.

"It has been too long Duruk, son of Dorgah." The Klingon replied, a look of sympathy on his face. "Dhomir died well." He added. "He died in the service of our people, for the greatness of our cause."

At the mention of his son's death, a fine, proud warrior whom he hadn't seen in decades, not since the demands of Empire had forced him to shed his skin, his name, his life for that of a captive Starfleet captain, his own grief and shame forced tears out of the artificial tear ducts grafted onto his altered face.

The one-eyed Klingon gasped at the display. Surely, the sight of a Klingon weeping unnerved him. Klingons being born without tear ducts after all.

"He will be avenged." Cartwright intoned. "The Federation, the Romulans, and the Ingan'jIH will all pay for their dishonor."

Without replying, the Klingon curtly nodded before severing the connection. The screen went blank, Cartwright's only connection to his homeworld vanishing instantly.

The admiral set to work disassembling the communicator when he disturbed from his work by a fateful question. "Hey sir, what was that you just said: 'In-gan-jai'? What kind of word is that, is it Trill or Bolian?"

Cartwright looked up into the smiling, curious face of a beautiful young waitress. Propping a tray of empty glasses awkwardly against her hip, she continued her inquiry. "So, are you in Starfleet or something? We get a lot of extraterrestrial customers, but I've never heard that phrase before." She paused, reddening at her admission. "I'm sorry, but I didn't mean to eavesdrop. Really," she pleaded, "the only thing that stuck out to me was that word. Honest mister."

Cartwright gave her his most reassuring smile. "I believe you." He said. "And yes I used to serve in the Fleet. It was a long time ago. If you have sometime after your shift, and would care to accompany an old man to the transporter pads by the spaceport, I will tell you the story of how I picked up that phrase."

"Really," she gushed. "Wow, I mean, I've always wanted to join Starfleet. Maybe you can tell me something that might help me."

"I aim to please." Cartwright replied, hunger and regret struggling in his Klingon soul.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The youthful Torath, Korax's successor on the High Council in more ways than one, stood before the assemblage of dignitaries filling the vast Great Hall.

"How many more humiliations must we suffer at the hands of the Federation before we answer their transgressions with the steel of our bat'leths?"

Torath, son of Warnak, scion of the House of Duras, flared, gesticulating wildly for the audience inside the chamber and viewing the proceedings across Qo'noS, "There is no course now but war! Romulans bearing offerings of peace must not further deceive us! Why should the Romulans care if the humans and we rip out each other's throats? I say this is nothing more than a human and Romulan ploy to distract us while they plot to divide the Empire among them!" He wailed as he turned away from the councilors' podium to stare out at the spectators, arms opened wide as if he were pleading for mercy and not begging for war.

But Chancellor Gorkon knew that to the Klingon heart, war was one of nature's most precious mercies. However, it was not one that he wished to bestow on his people today. Stroking his salt and pepper beard, he replied, with raised voice. "The Federation also lost its representatives on Organia. Korrd, Korax, and C'yoar both died with honor, as did their Federation counterparts."

"Honor!" Councilor Drok screeched, bristling in his seat to the chancellor's immediate left. "The humans and their thralls know of no honor! They have lulled us with their syrupy talk of peace while building a weapon of such power that it even felled the mighty Organians. We must strike now, before Qo'noS too falls prey to their world killer!"

The wizened general's fiery declaration drew a chorus of cheering and applause. Gorkon flicked his eyes beneath, receiving at least a glimmer of pleasure at the peeved look of Torath, fidgeting with barely restrained jealousy at the scene stealing proclamations of the hoary Dahar Master.

B'tarl rushed to defend Gorkon and the peace process. "The Chancellor speaks the truth. Our records from both Kronos One and the Federation starship Calypso both reveal that the Starfleet crew was also caught by surprise by the attack." The former Imperial Overseer paused, sucking in an audible gulp of air, before continuing. "An attack conducted by Klingon ships. After the Nem'Bhora incident, some in the Federation might argue that Organia's destruction and the attack on their starship was the result of Klingon revenge, renegade or maybe even officially sanctioned." An uneasy ripple of dissent roared through the Great Hall, but B'tarl pressed on to make his point. "Despite what is said or believed about the Federation, they have yet to dishonor their treaties. And they signed a treaty with the Romulans banning their use of polaric energy development and weapons testing. As for the Romulans, we know how well they honor treaties..."

The crafty councilor left the statement hanging, allowing his fellow councilors and the audience to draw their own conclusions as to the trustworthiness of the Star Empire as opposed to Federation. Effectively securing the middle ground on the issue, the chancellor realized with an almost paternal admiration.

"And where does Starfleet Intelligence's funding of the Qui'Tu Brigade and its disruption of our weapons programs fit under honorable compliance?" Morgas said, her voice quiet, but filled with iron. Everyone in the Hall, Gorkon included, were stunned into breathless silence by the councilor's admission of classified information in a public forum.

Gorkon quickly made contact with BeqH, the Hall's security chief, stilling his men from rushing the dais and taking the general into custody. The muscled, armor-plated warrior, simmering in a pool of shadows by the base of the upraised podium beneath the chancellor, reluctantly growled his acceptance.

Nodding with approval, the chancellor looked turned his attention to Morgas, anger, sympathy, and guilt all warring within him. Whereas the general had seemed so stalwart and hearty at the last Council session, the death of her daughter C'yoar three weeks ago on Organia had pierced her heart. She was now a disheveled, unruly apparition of her former self, her medal-studded dress hanging heavily on her shrinking shoulders.

Gorkon had thought to punish her, to elicit some payback for her siding with Drok during the previous session by sending her daughter on the Organia mission after the general had sided with the obscurants on the Council. It had been a delicious riposte, a reminder that he had been Morgas' sponsor on the Council and that what Gorkon had given, with much political heat, he could also take away.

However, he had never expected the lesson to have such literal applications. Out of sympathy for her, and out of his own rattled conscience, the chancellor would let stand Morgas' outburst, knowing it came from her pain and not from a desire to harm the Empire. His eyes quickly scoured the observation posts lining the upper ring of the chamber, seeking out the strong reassurance of his daughter Azetbur.

Their gazes connecting, his whipcord thin progeny raised a slender arm, with a closed fist in support of her father. He deigned not to smile at the gesture, concerned about further reminding Morgas of her own loss. The chancellor forced himself to look away from his daughter, and return to the business at hand: Saving the Empire.

"Those are unfounded accusations," Gorkon lied, looking softly into Morgas' dulled eyes, an undercurrent of menace in his quiet tone. "We all share in your pain, but now is not the time to engage in allegations, not when galactic peace is at stake." Meeting his gaze, the general didn't blink or turn away from his glare, but she also didn't respond.

Sensing an opening, Torath smiled, flicking a gloved hand through his well coiffed, hanging tresses, as he thundered. "If not now, when Chancellor? The Organians are no longer here to stay our hand, no longer a convenient excuse for the timid among us to hold back our march across the galaxy."

Rising to his full height as his booming voice commanded the attention of the audience, Torath continued. "There is nothing to debate here! This is a time for action! This is a time for battle! For glory! Will you not avenge the destruction of your own flagship?" He paused, and his voice lowered an octave, forcing everyone to lean forward to hear him. "If my father..." he began, the statement aimed to force Gorkon's hand with an implication of cowardice if war wasn't immediately declared.

However, the maneuver produced the opposite affect. Normally unfazed by insubordinate remarks that preceding Chancellors would've immediately dispelled, Gorkon shot out of his seat, his red and black robes of state swirling around his ankles. The uncharacteristic move froze the audience for the second time that day.

"Your father is dead," Gorkon spat, his rage partly authentic and partly designed to steer the Council and the audience from thoughts of war, "he fell before my blade! Be careful not to do so yourself Torath, son of Warnak." Gorkon loomed over the podium, staring down at his younger rival. He pulled a ceremonial dk'tahg from the scabbard clipped to his belt.

Torath, with a tiny gulp imperceptible to all but Gorkon, looked to his right. Responding immediately to the summons, K'Dan, the Duras' gin'tak, ambled into the chamber's center to give Torath a blade to defend himself with.

Before battle could be joined, Gorkon was surprised to hear Drok speak up. His weathered voice belying his fiery countenance, the veteran gently upbraided the chancellor and the upstart. "This is not an issue of personal honor." He began, his words tempered by wisdom and loss. "Neither one of you needs to worry about that. You each have proven it, countless times before. So, put away your weapons." Gorkon waited until K'Dan returned to recover Torath's blade, before slowly placing his back in its scabbard. The Dahar Master then motioned for Torath to resume his seat upon the dais.

Hesitating only for a few seconds, a gleam of renewed jealousy flashing in his eyes, the son of Warnak snorted before hunching his shoulders, climbing the steps to the dais and roughly retaking his seat. Gorkon, slowly and more dignified followed suit.

Once both had been seated, Drok began again. "Our very survival as a people is the issue. And it won't be decided by words alone, no matter how brave the heart they come from," he paused again, nodding in Torath's direction. The stewing Klingon didn't return the elder's acknowledgment. Drok ignored him, turning his gaze next on the chancellor. "Nor will it be solved by calculation. Words, scheming, diplomacy, those are the ways of those that wish to defeat us, that wish to enslave us just as the Hur'q did ten centuries ago. But we defeated them and we vowed to never be shackled again."

Gorkon's heart crawled into his throat at the mention of the savage raiders who had lain waste too much of Qo'noS a thousand years ago before the Klingon people had rallied to defeat them. However, as a final indignity the retreating Hur'q had stolen the Sword of Kahless, once held by the Empire's deified founder.

The chancellor was among many who felt that the Klingon people would never be whole until the sacred bat'leth once again returned to Qo'noS, to be wielded by Kahless once again upon his return to the mortal realm.

But it wasn't the disgrace of losing Kahless' sword that frightened him. The new Ingan'jIH rule had completely rewritten history, stripping away much of the Hur'q role as a civilizing agent in his people's history.

In fact the Hur'q had not merely swept through Qo'noS, raiding it for plunder before they moved on to their next pillage. Many of them had stayed, and they had intermarried with the ridge crested natives, forming a new race altogether: the Rgah'nIH.

Foolishly believing they were better than their ridged brothers, the smooth headed Rgah'nIH created a stratified society with themselves on top, mixing Hur'q culture with what had come before to forge a mighty interstellar empire.

But their ambitions removed them from the ancient ways of honor upheld by the Ingan'jIH, and their arrogant intolerance drove wedges between their people that had only been cured in the fires of internecine bloodshed.

The great civil war between the Rgah'nIH and the Ingan'jIH had resulted in the defeat of the smooth heads, and the rise of a new order. However, the new masters, he among them, had been insecure in their newfound role, and had spent the post-war years completely cleansing any vestige of Rgah'nIH rule. Even their very existence had been nearly wiped away by the ChaQ'ReH regimen of cosmetic surgery and memory engram deletion.

For the Dahar Master, the general who had led the final route of Rgah'nIH forces in the Maranga System, and whom Gorkon himself had served as his subaltern, Drok's mention of the Hur'q, and hinting at their longer oppression of the Klingons, trod on dangerous ground.

"I say that to say this," Drok intoned. "War will come. The enemy has shown their hand, on more than one occasion, and the laws of the universe will scream for a response. Some of us can hear it now, but soon all of us will be unable to ignore it."

The Dahar Master leaned back in his seat, his cryptic words ringing throughout the hushed hall. Drok then looked directly at Gorkon. "My Chancellor, go to Nimbus III with the support of all Klingons behind you. Show the galaxy that we are an honorable race, that it is against our nature to develop such terrible weapons of extinction. Go to Nimbus; show them our commitment to honorable conquest and to a hard won peace. The sinister hands who murdered our brothers Korrd and Korax will show themselves and they will be brought to justice."

Sensing a surprising victory, the chancellor replied, trying to keep the joy and relief out of his voice, "Well said Councilor Drok. You are truly a servant of the Empire." He paused, cleared his throat, and sat up even straighter in his seat. His bearing and voice taking on a regal cast, he addressed the assembled audience inside the hall and across his empire.

"I will accept the Romulan Regent's offer of a summit that will consist solely of the Regent, the Federation President, and me on Nimbus III. I have committed my administration to the cause of peace, but if I find that either the Romulans or the Federation were behind the attack on Organia, were responsible for the murders of our noble warriors, I will not hesitate to unleash the full might of our arsenal upon them." Ripples of barely restrained anticipation and excitement, tinged with dread, ran through the crowd.

Gorkon quickly motioned for B'tarl to call the chamber session to adjournment before the ripple turned into a tide of bloodlust that even he would not be able to ignore. After the crowd dispersed and the councilors each made off to inform their patrons and constituents of their take on the proceedings, the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire remained in his seat, his eyes plastered on the great trefoil splayed out on the floor beneath him, while a flag emblazoned with the symbol snapped in the artificially created breeze behind him.

* * * * *

Myriad thoughts of how to preserve the empire and avoid war twisted in Gorkon's mind like mevak daggers as he performed a mental Mauk-to'Vor. However, he hoped to maintain the empire's honor without having to further sacrifice it or its citizens.

"Movek," a voice croaked in the gathered darkness after an interminable amount of time.

"Who?" the chancellor asked, startled more from being wrested from his deep concentration than from fear.

"I lose," Drok, said, stepping out of the wall of shadows to stand in the shaft of light right in front of the chancellor's chair on the stage. He bowed in deference.

Gorkon, now fully back in the moment, returned his bow. "We will all be losers if we go to war without verifiable proof of Federation duplicity."

With his good arm, the Dahar Master swept away Gorkon's assertion. "We will never agree on the intentions of the Federation or its Starfleet. That is not what I have come here to discuss. Though my heart throbbed to join with young Torath today, I am no fool. My contacts in the Defense Force have informed me of our problems in the jev'YuQ Sector." Drok stopped, as if to prompt the chancellor to explain.

Gorkon said nothing, his eyes becoming slits, as he turned his mental acuity to researching possible leaks in the Defense Force. Unfortunately, his mind could only think of two: Chang. Or even more distressful: Morgas! Hoping that his suspicions were not correct, but vowing to find out if it was, the chancellor merely replied. "Go on."

"Contact with Bakourr Station has been lost for several months. Three ships sent to investigate-the RaKh, Kirom, and Tong Vey, have not reported back. In fact, the only communication to come out of the expanse was from its defense and supply ship, the D'Va. The garbled message precipitated the sending of the other ships." Drok paused again, looking at the chancellor, inviting him to enlighten the general or corroborate his assertions.

Gorkon remained stone-faced. Drok grunted his disapproval before continuing. "Bakourr is very important to our continued military superiority. The testing going on there is crucial, especially now that the Federation has either designed or gained possession of a weapon of incredible power. That is why I turned from the targ of war riding Torath's back today. I knew that the Empire would need the weapons being developed at Bakourr if it hoped to have a chance of defeating the Federation in open warfare.

So, I request that you allow me to lead a task force into the expanse to find out what has happened at Bakourr." The Dahar Master reasoned; a strain of pain in his voice.

Gorkon's stony fa‡ade slipped at the request. He knew how much Drok's humiliating 'victory' in the jev'YuQ Sector during the civil war, a victory that had wiped out his forces while allowing Colonel GaH'Qel and his cohorts to escape unscathed, had haunted him.

As Drok's chief aide during the war, Gorkon had personally witnessed how the jev'YuQ campaign had become a grinding, bitter obsession, driving the general beyond the strictures of honor and into Fek'lhr's bestial clutches.

Despite his demons, the chancellor was touched by the old warrior's patriotism. Plus, with Drok out of First City for several months on a wild targ chase, it would allow him to continue to pursue peace while finding out who the real culprit behind the dishonorable destruction of Organia and neutralizing them from remaining a threat.

"You are well aware of the unstable nature of the expanse. It impacts both communication and travel. Though I believe that each ship has at best run into transmission difficulties or at worst encountered one of the area's myriad subspace ruptures, I will grant your request." Gorkon said solemnly, trying to keep the glee out of his voice at his turn of good fortune. A scowl quickly darkened his features as his solemnity turned conspiratorial. "Though we do disagree about the Federation, there is an enemy with a deadly weapon that must be stopped. Bakourr station is important in those efforts."

Standing, Gorkon thumped his chest with a closed fist. "My most recent Intelligence reports attest to wildly chaotic changes rippling across the breadth of the expanse. It is not something our sensors have ever encountered or recorded on such a scale before. Be on your guard. General Chang will see to any needs you may have regarding assembling your task force. Qapla'!"

Drok's mouth twisted in a rotted grin. "Success to you as well. May we both die well my Chancellor." He bowed, and then turned sharply on his heel.

You first, Gorkon thought, looking at the Dahar Master's retreating back.

* * * * *

"It worked," Drok said, before he screamed in pleasure as the lithe masseuse reached down and bit his ear. Droplets of purplish blood splattered on General Chang's face.

Chang rolled his good eye in disapproval, oblivious to the searching hands of his own masseuse. Though he wouldn't tell the Dahar Master, but no touch could rival that of his wife Torem. It was her touch that had helped sire this whole plan to start with. As it neared its conclusion, he couldn't help but give in to a feeling of satisfaction.

"With you out of First City, Gorkon will dance circles around that hapless, preening clod Torath. I knew he would jump at the opportunity to find a peaceful solution." He said with a mixture of pride and disgust.

Though Chang had fought with frenzied passion against the Ingan'jIH before bowing to the inevitable tide of history, he had felt more Ingan'jIH than the man occupying chancellor's seat for quite some time.

In fact, it was Drok's recognition of Chang's loyalty, first on the battlefields of Maranga IX, and then in the halls of power, as well as his discomfort of the growing spineless tilt of the Empire, and his once prized prot‚g‚ Gorkon, that had convinced Drok to bury his deep seated hatreds of his smooth planed brothers and the Romulans, in the interests of saving the Klingon people from themselves.

"Once you reach Bakourr, you will seize the polaric ion-fueled weaponry from the hands of the Romulans who will be too few in number, and too timid of heart to stop you, and then you will lie in wait for the Starfleet team my contact has informed me will attempt to invade the expanse in search of the weapon. Capture them, at least some of them. They will serve as all the 'proof' or 'evidence' that we need once Nimbus III falls next."

"I take it Lady Torem survived her encounters with Starfleet to provide you this information?" Drok asked;

Chang nodded tersely in response. "Yes, the Reclaw was captured by the Romulans, its crew executed, but she managed to sway them to make an alliance with her."

"What of Korrin?" Drok asked, his face suddenly overcast with concern.

"He lives."

"And you thought my plans for her were insane!" The Dahar Master guffawed, his mood instantly jovial again. "She is quite the warrior!"

Drok's gloating was cut off by a squeal. Chang couldn't be sure if his attendant's twisting of his back muscles in joy or the rapturous pain caused it. "This will be a great day for the Empire!" He croaked. His patriotism was foolishly predictable and easily exploitable, Chang realized, turning away from the doddering tool so that he couldn't see him sneer.

But in his heart Chang couldn't help agree. Despite the wrench thrown by the Romulans, perhaps in spite of it, destiny continued on its inexorable path, with the muddled list of participants shadowing his true role even more than he could've imagined.

To stand in the shadows and direct the fate of billions shook him with pleasure. "So you are not a Vulcan after all," his masseuse, an alluring ocher-skinned beauty named Firal purred.

Chang smirked before he struck her with the back of his hand. Sitting up right, his towel falling to the floor beside the crouching and smiling Firal, the general slid off of the stone table and stood before her, soaking in her silent appraisal.

Reaching down, he grabbed a head full of Firal's hair, and shoved her head violently upward to meet his ravenous lips. Ignoring Drok's growls of approval and Firal's delighted squealing, he bit hard into her full, inviting lips. No you are not Torem, he thought. But you will have to do.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

"How is your father?" Commodore Malenchenko asked, the strained look on his face telling Antonia that her father's condition was the least of her worries.

"Doctor Malenchenko informed me that my father would make a full recovery. That the psionic coma he suffered left no lasting neurological damage." She replied slowly, both happy and numb at the news, but overall she was confused about her presence in the commodore's situation room, along with First Officer Nuray and Navigation Officer Najera, both of whom were flanking the commodore behind his large desk. "He is currently sedated, his brain waves being monitored for any unusual or residual psionic spikes."

The troubled look on the commodore's face gave her the most concern. "That's good," he replied without mirth. Quickly shifting gears, though his expression remained pained, Malenchenko turned toward Lt. Najera, standing to the commodore's left. "Mr. Najera," he began slowly, with a precision that Antonia could only figure masked intense anger. "Please proceed."

Nodding at the commodore, Georg Najera smoothly stepped away from Malenchenko's side and around the desk. Approaching Museveni, he held out his hands, a sympathetic look shadowing his features. Instinctively, she placed her hands in his. Though she didn't know the Alpha-shift navigator well, Najera appearing to be one of the few introverts left in the Fleet, Antonia had worked with him long enough to judge him to be a competent, if not necessarily flashy officer.

Still grasping her hands, he sat down beside her on the small couch facing Malenchenko's desk. Museveni noticed that the commodore and his first officer looked on at the exchange with varying degrees of suspicion.

What is going on here? She asked herself. Before she could guess an answer, Najera spoke again. "I'm sorry about your father," Georg began, his voice dripping with concern. Antonia nodded slowly in response, the gleam in her eyes urging the navigator to continue.

"There is no easy way to say this," Najera paused, briefly glancing at Malenchenko and Nuray. "But I am a member of Starfleet Intelligence." He pressed on, gripping her hands harder before his statement sunk in enough to produce the quiver of questions that she would eventually fling at him. "The only reason I have been instructed to break my cover is because the very survival of the Federation is at stake."

"Wuh?" Was all Antonia could get out, the shock creeping slowly through her brain at the revelation.

Nodding empathetically, Najera continued. "I know it's a lot to take in, but I need your help. Starfleet Intelligence needs any and all information your father possesses about the Organian attack and any future attack targets."

"What are you saying?" Antonia asked, her shock receding as suspicion set in. She removed her hands from his grasp, and coiled her body around to more fully face him. "Do you think my father was involved in Organia's destruction?"

"We can't be sure of that," Najera confessed, "but we need to find out. The Jemison has been rerouted to Dytallix B where Mr. Museveni will be debriefed for further information."

"'Debriefed?'" Her eyes hardened. "Don't you mean interrogated? He just woke up from a coma for goodness sake's. Don't you think interrogating him right now might endanger his life?"

His warmth evaporating, Najera replied simply. "We need to know what he knows. I wanted this to go as smoothly as possible, and I thought your co-operation would be most beneficial."

Ignoring him, Museveni slid off of the couch and stood by the couch's armrest, creating distance between her and the revealed spy. She looked at her commanding officer. "Commodore Malenchenko is there anyway this transport can be prevented? I don't think my...father is healthy enough to withstand whatever they have in mind for him. My God, these guys were the ones who made him like he is in the first place."

A trace of warmth in his granite eyes, the commodore replied. "There isn't much I can do." He admitted, sighing loudly in disgust. Darkly regarding his navigator, he spat, "Mr. Najera operates on some pretty high authority."

"Commander Nuray?" Antonia desperately sought the council of the first officer next. The Boslic had proven to be somewhat of an enigma to Antonia during her tour on the Jemison.

But Museveni had seen more than once how the violet haired, flaxen skinned alien had used her uncanny intellect to help Malenchenko and much of the bridge crew see beyond the obvious. Antonia prayed that the commander could do it again.

Everyone waited anxiously, or so Antonia imagined, for several minutes while Nuray carefully reviewed and discarded scenarios in her mind. Eventually she regarded Antonia, her turquoise eyes darkening with sadness. "Lt. Commander Museveni, I must apologize, but there is no regulation that I could think of that might be able to arrive at a more beneficial outcome."

Museveni nodded her thanks, sucking her lower lip into her mouth.

"I don't want to do this Antonia," Georg replied, spreading his hands in a pleading fashion. "But we all have our orders."

"You're right," she replied, pleased by the navigator's open-mouthed response. "We do have orders, so long as we are in Starfleet. But private citizens have rights that are defended by the Federation Charter."

"Your father is not a private citizen," Najera protested. "He is a rogue intelligence agent whom the agency allowed to seek refuge on Talos IV so long as he stayed out of trouble."

"You might be right about my father," Antonia surmised, shaking her head with renewed confidence. "But I wasn't talking about my father. I quit." Ignoring the gasps and sharp intakes of breath, Museveni continued. "As of this moment, I resign my commission in Starfleet. Therefore, I am not subject to the rules and regulations of Starfleet as soon as my resignation is accepted."

"It's accepted." Malenchenko interrupted, any concern he might feel towards her throwing away her career momentarily swallowed in the joy of eliciting payback against the deceptive navigator.

"Furthermore, I am Paul Museveni's closest surviving kin and primary care giver. Any request to question him will have to be adjudicated by the legal counsel at the nearest Starbase."

"Starbase 21," Nuray answered, unbidden. "One week away."

"That is, if I or my father, decide to stay on the Jemison for that length of time." Antonia replied, folding her arms in triumph. She looked down at the still seated Najera, fully expecting his comeuppance to have shocked the mask off his face revealing an alien or android imposter underneath.

It was she who wound up being shocked by the spy's expression. With a beaming smile, brimming with a confidence that surpassed her rapidly fading one, he said. "I was hoping you would say something like that."

* * * * *

Hand futilely shading his eyes, Marcus Brashear looked up at the source of the shadow now blocking his sun bathing. His eyes squinted from the bright solar light surrounding the petite figure, as well as from an instinctive suspicion. Here we go, he thought, resigning himself to his fate.

Though Vega IX's sun was small compared to the colossal star of his native Sol system, it weak light gave off comforting, non-threatening rays. Often locked in the sterilized, artificial confines of a starship, he had often thrilled to be able to enjoy the simple pleasures of natural air, wind, heat, and cold that planet bound denizens usually took for granted.

Of course, his attempts to wring enjoyment from Vega IX's breathtaking ecosystem had been darkened by his impending five-year sentence to the stockade on Jaros II. Though he desired freedom as much as any sentient being did or should, he couldn't help but feel that he deserved to be punished for his actions. Though he hadn't destroyed the Nem'Bhora as many had alleged, he had wanted to. There was something dark in him, wrong with him, something vile that erupted from the core of his being, surprising him, but exciting him with its bitter vehemence. He didn't know if he could trust himself on a starship again even if he had been absolved and reinstated. Since his incursion into Klingon space, he had spent long nights walking the beach, trying to figure out what had happened, what had caused the intense, malevolent feelings to visit him, and make him betray his principles. He was afraid to admit it was love for his family, because such intensity was frightening. It meant that he might do anything to protect them. And though it was easy, and expected for a person to state such things, it was much more difficult to face such a situation.

A small bundle crashed into the leg of the figure standing over him disrupting his incessant brooding, eliciting an almost comical reaction as the person jumped backward with a start, a scream strangling in her throat.

"Aren," Brashear said, his tone filled with solemnity. "What have I told you about not watching where you are going?"

Aren Brashear looked at his father, his small shoulders slumped, his face shattered. "Sorry. I was trying to catch the Frisbee." He mumbled. He then looked away from his father at the person he had run into.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

Tilting her head, she replied glacially. "I am fine." It was almost as if her composure had never left her. Marcus found himself most impressed. He knew, from his own experiences with Simus and others, how much Vulcans found physical contact unseemly and distasteful.

"Go ahead and find your Frisbee," he told his son. Brightening instantly at the reprieve, Aren nodded profusely and dashed off.

Sitting up on his beach chair, Rasheed flexed his chest muscles, and tried to smile. "Well, I didn't expect to be transported by such an attractive jailer."

Returning to her previous position, the young Vulcan woman looked down at him with a disapproving look on her face, though her cheeks colored a pale green. "Captain Brashear, I am Lt. Junior Grade Valeris. I am to escort you to Dytallix B. You must prepare to leave immediately." Her voice was clipped, precise, and controlled. She pulled a slender black padd from the folds of her brick red tunic.

Marcus grumbled. "I'm not a captain anymore." He rose from his chair to tower over the svelte Vulcan. Taking the small device from Valeris' hand, Albachir couldn't refrain from asking, "So, what is this about lieutenant?"

Despite his previous acknowledgement of his former status, he used his commanding voice when addressing the young officer: it had been a voice that brooked no debate or defiance.

"Sir, I have only been informed to escort you to Dytallix B." She replied, her dark eyes twinkling. Though he was skeptical of the old adage that Vulcans never lied, he believed her. "I was instructed to inform you that the padd would contain the information that you inquire about."

"Okay," Brashear said, trying another tack. "Who sent you to Vega IX with these instructions?"

Nodding in the direction of the rectangular unit in his hand, Valeris replied. "I was again instructed to inform you to access the padd for your mission briefing."

"Mission briefing?" Marcus asked, trying to keep both the excitement and dread out of his voice. "Excuse me lieutenant, but I am sure that you are all ready aware that I am awaiting sentencing from a court martial. I have been suspended from duty bearing the outcome of the tribunal. So, mission briefings are a thing of the past for me." He intoned, and with a pinch of reluctance, handing her the padd back, unwilling to entertain this farce any longer.

Brashear couldn't help but wonder if this young officer, who looked barely out of the Academy wasn't being put up to a practical joke by a vengeful superior. He knew that his incursion into the Neutral Zone, not to mention several other testy incidents in his career had ruffled the feathers of several of admirals and captains. Perhaps one of them had used their considerable power to make even a Vulcan susceptible to a cruel joke.

Valeris stayed his hand with a touch, her dry, warm flesh tingling on his hardened skin. Shocked by the Vulcan's seemingly uncharacteristic display, Brashear froze in his tracks.

"I do not know what that padd contains sir," she said, her voice rising slightly, "but it is my belief that its contents are very important for the survival of the Federation."

"Survival?" Brashear asked, partly feigning confusion. He had a suspicion that Valeris was alluding to the compounding tragedies that had wracked the Federation since the loss of the Solstice: the Vegan attack, his own fateful encounter with the Nem'Bhora, the destruction of Organia by some mysterious super weapon, and the girding for war between the Federation and the Klingons.

The last and he predicted similarly futile, hope rested on the Nimbus III summit being hosted by the Romulan Regent. He had learned from news feeds, as well as from some encoded transmissions from several of his old Ares officers: Grom, Cash, and Toshiro that both President Ra-ghoratrei and the Klingon leader Gorkon had accepted the Romulan's entreaties. The summit was scheduled to commence in one month's time.

"Really?" Marcus asked, his voice dripping with skepticism. "No offense lieutenant, but if the Federation's survival is at stake, then why did Starfleet send you and not an officer denoting the seriousness of the situation? No offense," he added again, not wishing to hurt the young officer's feelings, but wanting to see how she would react to pressure.

"No offense taken," she answered coolly. Leaning in close to him, a conspiratorial air to her voice, Valeris whispered, "This mission requires a degree of plausible deniability."

"Alright," Brashear said, nodding slowly as he took in the new nugget of information. Her answer made sense, he realized. If her superiors wanted to keep discreet they wouldn't send a captain or commander or anyone that would draw attention to themselves. The choice of a very junior officer, or a former captain for that matter, would serve as nice scapegoat options as well.

Marcus leaned back from her, and regarded the padd again. He pressed the activation button on the device, but was distracted by a familiar voice.

"Marcus is everything alright?"

Brashear looked to his left to see his wife Anana hobbling across the beach, their son Aren clinging to her right arm further hampered her limp gained as a result of the Ch'Vark's attack on the Vegan colony. His earnest attempts to help his recuperating mother slowing down her approach.

The assault had trapped Tonya in the catacombs beneath Pondran for two days. She had been heading a Daystrom Institute team trying to prove the revisionist theories that postulated that the artifacts discovered first on the planet by colonizers from Delta III and then succeeding Federation colonists, were indicative of a non-indigenous source, perhaps even owing their origin to an offshoot of a much more ancient, much more advanced civilization.

Anana and her team had been entombed under miles of rock. Four members of the ten person team had been killed, and the rest had all been injured, three severely. Unfortunately Tonya had been one of the three.

After the Ares had returned to Vega IX, Rasheed had immediately contacted the planetary curator and offered the assistance of his crew. He had left Simus in charge of the ship and beamed down to the surface to find his family and help as many other citizens as he could.

He had first made his way to his home on the southern continent Sessarn, with Lt. Toshiro, who had refused to leave his side. Other members of his crew had pleaded to accompany him: Cash, Grom, Terrell, Rodriguez, and even Simus, but he had made them all, except for Francine stay at their posts or instructed them to defer to the needs of the curator and relief efforts.

Toshiro and Tonya had become fast friends during his wife's brief time on the Ares, a bond that had only grown stronger in the intermittent years, and he had felt that Anana's spirits would be uplifted greatly to see another friendly face.

Coalescing in front of his beachfront home, Brashear had tried to ignore the telltale signs of devastation around him, scorched earth, disruptor sheared tree stumps, and smoldering craters.

His house had sustained little damage beyond shattered windows, which had given him cause for hope. Marcus, with Francine in his wake, had galloped toward the house, heartening as the front door burst open and Vaala, their Deltan babysitter rushed forward to meet them, a quietly calm Aren bundled tightly in her blue arms.

"Are you okay?" he had asked. "Is Aren all right?" She had nodded profusely for both questions. "Where is Tonya?"

He would never forget how his heart froze in his chest when Vaala had lowered her head at the question, her thin pale blond strains of hair reflecting off of the sunlight.

Unable to accept her silent answer, afraid of what the sadness in her countenance meant, Brashear had began to harangue the young woman, standing over her menacingly. Even Aren began to cry as he sensed the darkness seeping from his father. Through it all, Vaala had remained silent, as if grief had stolen the once talkative girl's tongue.

It had finally taken a strong, restraining grip on his forearm from Toshiro to bring him back to his senses. He had apologized profusely for his behavior. The Delta III native waved away his concern with maturity beyond her years. She had told him that Anana had gone into Pondran for the day to continue overseeing excavations.

Brashear had then contacted the Ares and had Vaala and his son transported to Sickbay for a medical check up while he ordered Transporter Chief Palmer to beam him and Toshiro to Pondran.

He had been on the rescue team, eventually pulling at the jagged slabs of rock with torn and bloody fingers, when Tonya's shattered body had been discovered.

Seeing her on her feet again, so shortly after such a catastrophic event was a testament to the human spirit, a spirit that had tamed its own dark impulses and brought warmth into the cold reaches of space.

As soon as Tonya reached him, Brashear swept her into his arms, not caring if the stoic Valeris would find the emotional display uncomfortable. He ran his hands gently along her supple, smooth bare tawny shoulders, her orange sundress melding perfectly with her honeyed complexion. Aren wrapped an arm around each of their legs, basking in warmth radiating between his parents.

"What's going on Marcus?" She asked, pulling away from him slightly, an edge of concern in her voice.

Reluctantly letting her go, Brashear looked at Valeris. The Vulcan was still standing primly, at parade rest. "They want me to go on a mission."

"You mean you've been reinstated?" Tonya said, with forced enthusiasm. Though she didn't want him to serve any time on Jaros II, her wish for her husband to leave Starfleet and live planet bound with his family had only increased in the aftermath of the Ch'Vark attack. Marcus knew the faux joy was for his benefit alone. She was not a woman that would selfishly deny the man she loved his driving passion. It was one of the many reasons that he loved her.

"Not quite," he said, unable to keep from wrapping an arm around her waist. "It's some kind of secret mission. Isn't that right Lieutenant Valeris?"

The Vulcan looked in their direction, her chin slightly upturned. "You are correct." She admitted.

Tonya pulled away from him again. "You're not seriously considering doing this are you?" She asked, fixing him with a hard stare. "Starfleet makes you a scapegoat, are threatening to put you in prison for only during your duty, for trying to save lives, my life, your son's life, and now they expect you to jump when they come calling. Screw them!"

It was at that moment that his wife noticed the padd in his left hand. With surprising swiftness, she snatched it out of his hand. Before either he or Valeris could react she tossed it toward the gently lapping waves along the beach. "No way are you bastards going to humiliate my husband, strip away his livelihood, his honor, and come back to take him away from his family before you lock him up!" She rounded on the Vulcan.

Valeris calmly stood her ground. Brashear put a large, restraining hand on his wife's shoulder. "Look," he said with his best reassuring voice. His wife kept her focus on Valeris. He placed his chin into the crown of her soft, perfumed hair. "I haven't even seen the info on that padd yet. But if there is an issue of galactic import, and I can help out, I have to. Just because I don't wear the uniform anymore doesn't mean that I'm not a Starfleet officer. You know as well as I do that it is as much a way of life as it is a profession."

For the third time, his wife freed herself from his grasp. Turning again towards him, Valeris seemingly forgotten, she looked up at him with large, tear rimmed chocolate chip eyes. He fought an urge to tap or nuzzle her cute upturned nose. "Yes I know that. That's why I resigned my commission. I didn't want to gallivant around the galaxy for decades to finally return home with souvenirs and stories, but no one to share them with."

"I understand," Brashear began, but his wife cut him off.

"No you don't. When I was stuck beneath miles of rock, sinking in and out of consciousness, expecting to slip into the next life at any moment, all I could think about was you and Aren. That I would never get to see my son grow up, fall in and out of love, get married, and become his own person. That I would also never get to see you again: so strong and proud, so full of purpose and laughter. But I was given another chance, and so were you."

Tonya gushed. "You don't owe them anything. All they've done is taken from you. If you let them do it again, they'll keep on doing it. I've held my tongue, but I can't any longer. Life is too short not to speak your mind. Maybe everything that has occurred in the last few months has happened for a reason. Perhaps the best efforts of good people, on both sides of the Neutral Zone, can't prevent the inevitable humanoid need for blood. When the Klingons come screaming out of the Neutral Zone I don't want you to be in some starship light years away from us, I want to be in your arms, by your side. I want us to face whatever comes together." A torrent of tears poured out of her eyes as soon as she finished speaking.

Clinging now to his father's leg, Aren asked. "Mommy what's wrong?"

Brashear reached out a hand to wipe away his wife's tears, as a prelude to enfolding in his arms and telling Valeris and Starfleet to go to hell, when a metallic glint caught the corner of his eye. Marcus looked at the Vulcan, but she remained as silent as a statue.

Gently shaking his son loose, Brashear made for the glinting object, a sharp edge poking up from the golden sand. Upon reaching it, he plucked it out of the sand. It was the padd that Valeris had presented to him and that his wife had thrown away. The prerecorded message it contained was wrapping up.

"It is of vital importance that this mission succeeds. Galactic peace depends on finding and neutralizing this weapon." The dapper, brown-skinned man, with a neatly trimmed salt and pepper mustache intoned. "If everything goes as planned I will cash in any capital that I have to see your record expunged and your rank restored. Good luck to you and Godspeed. Admiral Morrow out. " The admiral's suave visage was replaced by the golden leafed Federation symbol on blue background. A tinny voice issued from the padd: "Message deleted."

Clutching the now useless padd in a meaty hand, his interest intensely piqued, Brashear looked at the placid Valeris before looking at his smoldering wife and then his son Aren, now tugging at the pants leg of the Vulcan.

Refusing to explore the ramifications of his action, Brashear focused on the young officer. "How soon can we leave?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Colonel Rotok ran a pale hand over the cold metallic paperweight, cast in the symbolic mold of a mighty avian that clutched both Romulus and Remus in her talons.

"This does not bode well for our plans," he whispered with soft menace.

"I extend this explanation to you as a courtesy, not a requirement Reman," Senator Auris glowered from the viewscreen on the colonel's desk in his private chambers aboard the Malefactor. "Don't forget your place." The withered Romulan noble snapped.

Rotok merely smiled as he regarded the senator, his baleful eyes flashing with fire. "Terrellian plague...late stages. Unfortunate." He stated emotionlessly.

"Veruul!" The Senator spat before severing the link. The Internal Security commander looked up from the blank screen to the more pleasing form sitting across from his desk. He frowned.

"Is there something wrong Sublieutenant?"

Loval, her natural beauty improved by the various greenish bruises and whelps left by their lovemaking, looked pensive. Rotok had never seen his paramour worried or doubtful before. It was not an expression that a Romulan officer should ever reveal to another, particularly a bedmate. Sex was as potent a weapon as trilithium resin, and it was to be employed as dispassionately.

He would have to punish her for her weakness later, but first: "You can confide in me Loval. There is not much more we can hide from each other," he stated, glancing briefly at the rumpled bed sheets on the bed slat attached to the far wall opposite his desk. As a child, the son of a Reman overseer in dilithium mines on Remus and Yadalla Prime, his only bed had been a cot, with no sheets, warmed only by the fiery core of the mines. But it had still been better than the stone floors that most of his Reman brothers and sisters had had to sleep on. His eyes quickly swept around the sparse room, and he couldn't help but notice its comforts, its softness. It was a room designed for a Romulan, not a hardened Reman warrior. Not for the first time in his life did he push down the gorge of disgust for the circumstances that had placed him in this position, and for his own willingness, his own ease with his Romulan accommodations, his assimilation into Romulan society, at the expense of his Reman heritage.

"No worries my commander. I have yet to recover from our session." Loval smiled naughtily, but Rotok could read through her mental shields. She's lying, he realized. Good. His sympathetic entreaty seemed to raise her suspicion back to acceptable levels. Her dark, almond shaped eyes hardened, and her posture stiffened. Though her relative inexperience showed in the verdant blush that lit her cheeks up no doubt from her display of weakness.

Rotok smiled. "I am a telepath," he stated, tapping his temple with a long, yellowed fingernail. "You can't hide the truth from me. Our new orders concern you?"

"Yes," admitted Loval, all attempts at distracting seduction now gone. "Sowing the seeds of conflict between the Klingons and the Federation is one thing, but actually attacking Nimbus III, killing our regent-prince to engulf the quadrant in war is on an entirely different level sir."

Rotok restrained himself from retorting that Nevius was "her" ruler, not "his". But of course, he didn't feel too much antipathy towards the new ruler. If anything, his short reign had led to miniscule amenities for the Remans and the other subject races in the empire. Nevius had even roiled Romulan political circles by suggesting that slave labor was no longer economically viable.

He had been quickly shouted down, and forced to retreat from the reviled premise, but Rotok had been heartened by the young ruler's courage to even suggest it in public. Nevius' death would be a blow to his people, one more blow than he was willing to inflict.

Both he and his father had done things, committed unspeakable acts upon their own kind all in the futile belief that if they behaved like good citizens of the empire, if they showed the Romulans that Remans were sentient beings and willing partners, that the Romulans would come to their senses, remove the yoke of oppression, and welcome their prodigal brothers back into the fold.

Nearing the century mark of his life, Rotok had seen little progress in that direction and he now knew that there wouldn't be any, without more forceful action. The Romulans, in their arrogance, had given him command of a weapon of unimaginable reach, that could only be powered by Remans or other telepaths, of which the Romulans most assuredly weren't.

Wild thoughts unfurled in his mind. Why serve a king when you could be one yourself? The Reman blood in his veins flooded his mind with cries of vengeance.

"Colonel? Colonel?" Loval asked, pulling him away from his fantasies, back to reality. Rotok shook his hairless head free from his dreams.

"You are wise beyond your years Sublieutenant." Rotok remarked, admiring her lovely form for the last time. "It is unfortunate that you are a Romulan. I would've loved to sire younglings with you."

Loval's face blanched, but she fought hard not to bolt from her seat. "What do you mean colonel?"

The Reman sighed. "Simply that you can't go where I must." Before she could react, Rotok had pulled a disruptor latched underneath his desk, and pointed it at her. He pulled the trigger with a brief second of hesitation, out of respect for what they had shared. Loval dissolved silently in front of him. She was the only Romulan that he had ever regretted killing. He wondered if that would remain the case in the coming days ahead.

* * * * *

Lady Torem's hand snaked across GaH'Qel's bare chest. She growled, twitching in her sleep.

The war had gone badly. It seemed to be the nature of the universe, the mind of fate to smite the perfect, to bring down the superior, and so that time had come for the Rgah'nIH.

That time had come for her. Each night for several months the sky above Maranga IX had erupted in a shower of sparks as the brave, ragtag Rgah'nIH forces had engaged the Klingon Defense Force, but each battle had drained them, taking away men and materiel that was not easily replaceable.

Starfleet Intelligence had sought to fill the void left after Romulan support for their restoration had evaporated due to the devil Kor's attacks. The race traitor along with the equally treasonous Kang and Koloth had even felled her noble father T'nag, the commander of the Rgah'nIH forces, at the bloody Battle of Korma Pass, the turning point of the war.

Since that fateful battle, a committee of generals and warlords had arisen to take the reins left by her father, the most prominent being General Chang. Despite his martial skill and nom de guerre of "The Merciless", his stewardship had revealed him to be a cautious pragmatist, a man more fit for negotiating terms of surrender than inspiring his soldiers onward in a doomed crusade.

Both she and her mate GaH'Qel had also risen in prominence; him due to his cunning in the jev'YuQ Sector, providing the Rgah'nIH's biggest victory, and she due to her revered bloodline and her own combat prowess. She had bested Commander Kraxus in honorable combat to return the planet Morska to the old order.

But now their days of glory where behind them. The new order, led by the demonic Dahar Master Drok had pushed them back first to the Maranga System, and finally to just Maranga IX, the last Rgah'nIH stronghold.

Looking up into the scalded sky of Maranga IX, she imagined that she could see the exact spark that signified the destruction of the Rurik, their flagship. But of course she knew she couldn't, not only due to the limitation of sight, but also because the Rurik's explosion had been accompanied by dozens of others, dulling the blades of their forces beyond repair.

A soft touch on her shoulder had frozen her with fear. For a few brief, horrible seconds, she had thought that Drok's forces had finally been able to land, and were rampaging through the encampment. She fully expected to be shoved around, and impaled with a bat'leth. Which she also thought would be unfortunate, and dishonorable for her to freeze up, and for her enemies to see her do so, at the moment of death.

"The war council is having an emergency session," Chang whispered. With no need for propriety around her old Ogat classmate, Torem had sighed with relief. She had merely nodded and allowed Chang to lead her to the large targ-hide tent dominating the center of the camp.

The camp was a hive of activity as soldiers rushed by, and women and children wept. By contrast, the surviving Rgah'nIH war leaders were oddly, frighteningly sedate.

Pre-dating their Hur'q fathers, the Klingons had been a race enlivened by war, and emboldened by death. Death was a worthy end, a punctuation mark on a life in pursuit of honor and an afterlife where honor and challenge would be in abundance.

But she saw none of that joy on the haunted faces of the men and women clustered together around the heavy oak table in the center of the room. The corpulent General Lorba, covered from head to toe in saber bear fur, despite the intense heat on the desert world, rolled out a large parchment map over the surface of the table.

Torem noticed as Generals Mu'rad, Ch'Pec, and TawiyH rushed to Lorba's side. As the old order's forces had been culled in repeated battles, almost everyone who had some military experience or had studied at Ogat claimed the rank of general in the depleted army.

Her mate GaH'Qel, the most prominent military figure left alive now that the Rurik and her commander General K'mal were now traveling the River of Blood, and the most deserving, had oddly, endearingly, retained his rank of colonel. Her father had bestowed the billet upon GaH'Qel after the jev'YuQ campaign.

Before that time, her husband had only performed the mandated military service requirement before immersing himself in studies of military history at Ogat. He had left the Defense Force with the rank of Bekk, and had considered such a meteoric elevation from Bekk to Colonel, as deemed by a 'real' war general, had been good enough for him.

Even now, at the end, she still found it amazing that for all of her suitors, Generals Chang and Ch'Pec among them, that she had given her heart, her fire to a teacher.

"With the military defeat of our orbital forces imminent, we must prepare the camp for an invasion!" Lorba rumbled. "Mu'rad and Ch'Pec, I want you to corral all the soldiers that we have to fortify the outer walls. TawiyH, I want you to make sure that our force shield generator continues to work. Now is not the time for it to go awry again. If it does that, then that mak'dar Drok can easily destroy us from orbit!"

"But that wouldn't be honorable!" Brigadier Fehta stammered, moved by the thought from the perimeter of the conversation to the forefront.

Lorba stifled a laugh as he regarded the young soldier. "Honor, as we know it, and as they claim to, has nothing to do with this. 'In war, the only honor is victory.'"

"How much time do you propose we have?" Yorak, the titular head of the Rgah'nIH government-in-exile, asked. The august Klingon statesman was the only civilian in the room.

"Surely you speak in haste General Lorba," Chang offered. "I don't think that Drok would pass up the opportunity to at least capture our military and political leadership to parade through First City. He is driven by his need for glory, of his jealousy of our blood-born Kang, Kor, and Koloth, as much as he is by his love of war and victory."

"Don't speak of those traitors, those defilers of their birthrights!" Thundered Ch'Pec as he slammed a massive hand onto the table, sending several goblets filled with bloodwine crashing to the packed sand floor.

"They did what they thought was best, they acted out of their own sense of honor." Chang offered, refusing to back down from Ch'Pec's challenge.

"There is no honor in betraying one's race, and any 'Klingon' that thinks otherwise is an enemy of the son of Bik'aht!" The hulking warrior, a strip of coal black hair running the length of his shaved head, had stepped around the table, a mek'leth already in his hand. "Chang, son of K'Bokh, prepare to meet your ancestors!"

Chang had pulled his dk'tahg from his belt, a feral smile stretching across his lips. "I accept!"

"There is no time for this," the cerebral Yorak brayed, but the burly General Mu'rad locked steely fingers around his arm to quiet him.

The two warriors had circled each other, grunting and cursing as each had sought an entry point, a weak spot to lunge at. The dance had continued for several anticipatory minutes before a rich, booming voice had stifled the bloodlust of the two warriors and their eager spectators.

"Our salvation is at hand and we snap at each other like kolar beasts?" The voice of her lover GaH'Qel had chilled her hot blood. Many of her brethren whipped their heads in the colonel's direction, stifling their displeasure at the cessation of bloodletting.

GaH'Qel stood at the entrance of the tent, his gin'tak Wo'Chil holding the flap open for the master of House ZoraQ.

Despite his malnourished frame, sunken cheeks, and hollowed eyes, her lover still carried the fire that had drawn him to her over other suitors more skilled in the arts of war.

A small man, with a long, sharp nose, and a balding pate, his voice brimmed with confidence. "Five days ago I received word from one of the few Ingan'njH that remain loyal that Brigadier Gorkon, chief adjunct to General Drok, requested a secret meeting. Unwilling to risk any lives besides my own and that of my House, I set out to meet Gorkon's emissaries on the Yarruni Plain in the northwest dune sea."

Everyone had nodded in acknowledgment of GaH'Qel hasty, mysterious exit. At the time he had told Torem that he and Wo'Chil were traveling into the wastelands to meditate and prepare for Sto-Vo-Kor, but now she and everyone else knew the truth.

The colonel strode into the midst of the assemblage, and elbowed room onto the large table dominated by the generals.

Grabbing and rapidly slogging down one of the few goblets of bloodwine left on the table, GaH'Qel began his tale.

Torem's blood, already chilled by her mate's interruption of honorable combat, froze in her veins as he told her that Drok sought to not merely defeat the Rgah'nIH holdouts, but to slaughter them.

"And this slaughter will not come from the clash of bat'leths and the clang of mek'leths, but from canisters of theragen." GaH'Qel had spoken darkly. "He plans to seed the sky of this world with enough of the nerve agent to kill every man, woman, and child a thousand times over, and then to erase our race entirely from the pages of galactic history."

"But that is beyond the pale of honorable combat, even for them!" General TawiyH, the only woman on the war council, protested.

"Is it really," Chang interjected. "Our rejection of the Ingan'nJH Vargak as Chancellor started the beginning of our ruin in the first place."

"I've had enough of your traitorous talk!" Ch'Pec roared, lunging at Chang. Without hesitation, Torem had jumped in front of the rampaging saber bear.

Baring her teeth, she had growled. "If you want battle, fight me son of Bik'aht."

The challenge had stopped Ch'Pec cold. He had regarded her for several seconds, sizing her up, his broad nostrils flaring with a desire to draw blood.

"You will have your chance for battle soon enough General," GaH'Qel said. "In fact, you and General Chang are very important to our plans for survival."

"And those plans are?" Yorak asked; the first glimmer of hope in his voice that Torem had heard in turns.

"Gorkon, his desire to see this war brought to a just conclusion, has informed me that he can arrange for a brief window in the orbital defenses to be opened on the dark side of Maranga IX. He says that he will allow several ships to transport women, children, and the infirm to Federation space. But all military and political leaders must remain on the planet. He has told me that he will continue to plead with Drok for us to meet our deaths with honor, but he admitted that the Dahar Master has become so consumed with hatred for our kind that he finds it doubtful the general will relent, even at the cost of his own honor."

"Don't you mean that Drok is consumed with hatred for you colonel?" amended Lorba.

"Perhaps," GaH'Qel had admitted, stroking his goateed chin. "But theragen gas is indiscriminate in its slaughter. Unwittingly, Gorkon, in his misguided compassion has given us an opportunity to survive Maranga and fight again."

"How is that?" Torem had asked, unable to continue to remain a mere observer of her mate's brilliance.

"We will place many of our leaders among the defenseless, while leaving the infirm to rot as is the way of nature. This will require courage and sacrifice. General Chang will rally what is left of our orbital forces and stage a blistering assault that will serve as a distraction while two transports escape, one led by General Ch'Pec and one by General TawiyH. They will take circuitous routes but rendezvous in the Vodrey Nebula at our established coordinates for contact with Starfleet Intelligence. The Tera'ngan have already been alerted to our imminent arrival."

The plan had run into a wall of stony silence. Torem had been both exhilarated and frightened by its boldness, its guile, its almost un-Klingon-like cleverness. She hadn't known what to make of it, of if she could accept it or not, even if it came from her husband, until graying Mu'rad bellowed:

"Da Hjai Suvwl'e'jlH. Tlgwlj Sa'ang NIS. Lw bl Qtlq Daq jljaH!" (Today I am a Warrior. I must show you my heart. I travel the river of blood!). The recitation of the rite of passage pledge before running the gauntlet of painstiks to ascend to the status of warrior, stripped away the fear, the doubt, circling through the room. In its place washed a resolve more molten than the fiery lake Lursor, more impregnable than Sabak's armor, and sharper than the Sword of Kahless.

Almost in unison, each Klingon in the tent, warriors, priests, statesmen, and scholar kneeled, and screamed with defiance to the ominous heavens in one voice reciting the passage from the Age of Ascension ritual until the depths of dusk...

Torem awoke with a shiver, rattled out of her fitful sleep by the force of her dreams. She instinctively reached for GaH'Qel and moaned when her hands found empty covers.

She rose up in the bed, and found her mate staring out of the observation window of their bedchambers, which had belonged to the dead Captain Valek, on Bakourr Station.

"My heart, what is wrong?" She asked, climbing out of the bed and placing her bare feet on the cold, gunmetal floor. She walked over to him, and wrapped her arms around him from behind.

The years since Maranga had not been kind to him. The weight, the fullness that had been stolen from him during the lean years on Maranga had stayed with him. His body was too lean, desiccated.

For several long moments, he ignored her. Unable to withstand his inattention any longer, Torem forced the colonel's willing arm around her waist as she stepped forward to snuggle against his chest, playfully biting his left nipple.

He continued ignoring her. Annoyed, Torem bit down hard on the nipple, causing GaH'Qel to yelp in pain and pleasure. In reaction, he slammed her head away from him, and it bounced off of the plasteel covered port window.

She snarled at him. He smiled at her. Their game of seduction was ruined by a loud crash into the door leading to the bedchambers.

Before either could react, Korrin barreled into the room, his long hair wild about his face, his large chest heaving from the frenzy of exertion or madness, or both.

His hungry eyes focused on them both, and he approached them slowly, taking his time.

The feverish gleam in his eyes revealed that he had not caught on to her hints. So, this is it, Torem realized, her inability to move so reminiscent of being surprised by Chang a lifetime ago on Maranga IX. My own son, of my flesh and blood, has come to murder us, his parents. And could she truly blame him?

She had taken everything away from him-his name, his title, his House, and what had she replaced it with? A gutted, scorch marked old armored station as a home, Romulan slaves as his masters, and a soon to be reviled name in the Empire that he had pledged his life to defend.

Torem clutched her mate's arm, prepared to give her life for the life she had taken from her son. Her only consolation being that she would die with GaH'Qel, an end that had been denied her on Maranga.

She chanced a look at her lover. His body had become rigidly still, muscles subtly tensing and coiling with each step their son made towards them. Torem wondered if GaH'Qel would submit the retribution blazing in her son's eyes, or would he fight him. And if he did, what side would she choose, could she choose?

"The Remans..." Korrin gasped, his voice ragged. "They are gone."

"I know," was all GaH'Qel said, his voice as quiet and deadly as the great vacuum surrounding the station. "I know."