“So far, only the Empire and the Federation have actively pursued the secrets of this ancient race. The Tholians have taken aggressive action to impede both our efforts, for reasons we don’t yet understand. Starfleet’s scientists seem to have surpassed our own in their understanding of the alien devices, while the Romulans have, until now, apparently been unaware of the reason for this tripartite conflict so far from our respective territories.

“I have reason to suspect Duras and his allies had already stolen a limited amount of information regarding the Shedai. Apparently, that taste merely whetted their appetite. Captain Kutal and the Zin’za had been at the forefront of the Empire’s investigation of this sector, and they had amassed a significant degree of raw intelligence about the Taurus Reach. Their involvement had been known only by myself and a few trusted contacts inside the High Command and Imperial Intelligence. But it seems Duras became aware of their role, and he took advantage of Brakk’s proximity to steal the information from the Zin’za’s computers.”

Chang’s intense focus made it clear he understood the gravity of the matter. “If Brakk has acquired that data, then it most likely has already been passed on to the Romulans.”

“Precisely. Duras and his son might not even grasp the significance of the information until they’ve already traded it for favors. But once the Romulans learn what’s at stake in the Gonmog Sector, they’ll stop at nothing to acquire its secrets—most likely by using Duras and his cronies to do their dirty work.” Gorkon clenched his fists. He wondered for a moment whether he should share his latest findings, then decided he had so few allies, especially on Qo’noS, that someone else needed to know the truth, just in case something happened to him before he could act on it. “There’s something else, Captain: I’ve gathered a great deal of disturbing intelligence from a number of sources. It seems we have underestimated our foes, and quite badly.”

“In what regard?”

He leaned closer to the screen, as if huddling to share a confidence with someone across the table. “The House of Duras has begun consolidating power in the most ruthless and efficient manner I’ve ever seen. Their operatives are moving against anyone they perceive as a rival, an enemy, or even a mere impediment, and they are using every means possible: assassination, extortion, blackmail, bribery, fraud . . . whatever it takes to make themselves unassailable.”

“Have you discussed this with Chancellor Sturka? Perhaps he can—”

“It’s too late for that.” Gorkon simmered with righteous anger toward his former ally and patron. “I’ve uncovered evidence that links many recent actions by Duras to the chancellor himself. Apparently, despite Sturka’s long hatred of the House of Duras, now that their accumulated wealth and political power has reached a critical mass, the chancellor sees more advantage in allying himself with their treachery than he does in opposing it.”

Now even Chang seemed worried. “How deep are their connections?”

“Their estates and financial holdings are in the process of merging via proxies, and my sources inside Sturka’s House suggest the chancellor and Duras have made secret betrothals for several of their respective scions, to cement the bond between their Houses.”

“This cannot be allowed to come to pass,” Chang said. “If their Houses unite, the Duras family will be like a blood tick on a targ’s back—entrenched in the highest echelons of Klingon society for generations to come. And Duras would almost certainly replace you as Sturka’s chief adviser on the High Council.”

Gorkon wondered if Chang thought him a fool who needed to be told the obvious. “I am well aware of the consequences that would attend the ascendance of Duras. That is why we can no longer wait to take action. Duras and his House are on the offensive, which is when one is always at the greatest risk of being off balance. If we can break his momentum now, and goad him and his House into a mistake when they are the focus of attention and envy, it could be enough to put them back in check for the foreseeable future.”

“Whatever service you require of me, my lord, you’ll have it. No matter what the cost to myself or my honor, I will not permit Duras to become chancellor.”

The declaration coaxed a thin smile from Gorkon. “Your loyalty honors me, Chang.”

“I have one concern, my lord, and it’s more for your sake than for mine.”

“Speak freely.”

“If the House of Duras is as powerful, ruthless, and entrenched as you say, we may find that opposing their interests could be considered the same as opposing the chancellor’s, or even the Empire’s. How do we fight such an honorless fiend without being branded as traitors?”

It was a question to which Gorkon had given a great deal of thought during many an anguished and sleepless night. Now, at the moment of decision, he divined the answer.

“By striking at him from a direction he does not expect.”

19

The Wanderer turned her thoughts to stillness, arresting her motion. Her solitary journey to the Telinaruul’s bastion in the darkness had been arduous, burdened as she was with a ponderous mass of superdense matter. Her native ability to traverse space—a talent that made her unique among the Shedai—normally entailed shifting only her consciousness and an attendant field of energy. Only a few times before then had she tried to bear physical objects across the interstellar void. Even small and relatively insignificant payloads had proved exhausting. It was a testament to her recent increase in power that she had become strong enough to bear a load such as this.

Lingering in the comfort of darkness, she attuned herself to the invisible energies that transited the ether in all directions. This was but one mystery of the great emptiness—that it was never truly empty. Space-time was abundant with unseen forces and extradimensional pockets of dark power waiting to be tapped, if only one understood how to see the universe’s true shape.

She knew she was beyond the reach of the Telinaruul’s mechanical sensing devices, ensuring that her next great labor would not attract their attention. In contrast, their presence was a clarion shattering the silence, a white-hot beacon in the dark. High-energy signals poured like a river from their space fortress. Shining brighter than all of it was the presence of the Progenitor, his essence blazing like a sun despite his imprisonment within an artifact of the Tkon.

How arrogant these Telinaruul were! Who were they to think they had the right to act as jailers for a being who had been an ancient before their kinds’ first ancestors took shape in the primordial soups of their insignificant worlds? To enslave a being who had ruled a spiral arm of the galaxy before their puny races even had language? It was an offense against the natural order.

They will all suffer, she vowed. Soon, the Progenitor will be free, and they will all know the cold fire of our vengeance. If forced to choose between emancipating the Progenitor and destroying the station, the Wanderer knew that the freedom of her people’s great sire took precedence. Pride demanded that the Telinaruul pay for their hubris, but as one of the Serrataal, her duty to the Elder One trumped all other objectives and desires.

The Wanderer focused her essence on the block of raw matter she had borne across hundreds of light-years. Her consciousness penetrated its superdense atomic structure, beheld its ultrastable atomic shells, and marveled at its furious inner storm—particles of every conceivable color, flavor, and spin. Manipulating muons and quarks, bosons and neutrinos, she reshaped the matter by will alone, transforming it into an extension of her desire, an instrument of her impending vengeance. This would be slow work, demanding the most painstaking precision and attention to subnuclear details. This was a labor the Wanderer had undertaken only twice before in her countless millennia, though neither instance had been freighted with such urgency as this. On those occasions, the continued existence of the Shedai had not been at stake.