A grudging half nod. “I admit, I’m still working to resolve a few details.”

His thick, graying brows knit together as he glowered up at the statuesque Vulcan. “This is one of the most reckless, dangerous mission plans I’ve ever seen, in all my years in Starfleet.”

She met his hard, scathing gaze with one eyebrow arched in elegant mockery. “Is that a ‘yes,’ Admiral?”

He handed back the data slate. “Make it happen.”

3

There were few luxuries that were as sorely underappreciated as that of a good meal, in the opinion of Captain Kutal. He sat alone at the officers’ table in the mess hall of the I.K.S. Zin’za, savoring a mouthful of succulent gagh. The tiny worms were young and fresh, having just been stocked into the ship’s larder a few days earlier, during a brief port call at Tythor, just over the border inside the Empire. He always made a point of enjoying such delicacies while they lasted. Before long, the gagh would grow large and tough, until not even the hardiest Klingon warrior could chew them, and then they would be useless, just more raw mass consigned to the ship’s waste-processing system.

We must take our pleasures where we can, he reminded himself as he downed a long draught from his stein of warnog, a potent alcohol with a bracing kick and a sharp aftertaste.

A knot of enlisted crewmen sat on the other side of the compartment, hunched over their trays slopped with second-rate blood pies, saying little but filling the air with wet smacks of mastication. Kutal could tell they were behaving self-consciously because he was there, refraining from whatever conversation would normally fill the spaces in their midday meal. The reason for their discomfort was of no interest to Kutal. He simply enjoyed the silence.

He plucked a generous pinch of gagh from his dull gray bowl and stuffed the wriggling delicacy into his sharp-toothed maw. Biting down, he was rewarded with their frantic dying squirms and a delectable squirt of warm blood rich with salt and minerals. The delight it brought him verged on the religious, and he shut his eyes to drink in the moment free of distraction. Then he heard the heavy footfalls of his first officer, BelHoQ, and Kutal knew even before the man spoke that his perfect lunch was about to be ruined.

“We have new orders from the High Command, Captain.”

The captain shot a murderous look over his shoulder at his black-bearded, wild-maned brute of a first officer. “I’m eating, damn you!”

BelHoQ stepped around the table and sat across from Kutal. “Priority orders.”

Kutal shoved aside his tray. “If you knew good gagh from kesh, you’d have waited for me to come to the bridge.” He reached out and demanded with twitching fingers, “Give it to me.” The second-in-command reached under a fold in his tunic and pulled out a data tablet, then shoved it into Kutal’s waiting hand. Just as the captain had expected, it contained nothing but bad news. “When did this come in?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“It could have waited.” He stood, tossed the tablet back to BelHoQ, then abandoned his tray and strode toward the door. BelHoQ followed him out to the corridor and forward, toward the bridge. The two warriors walked side by side through the dim, musky passageways of the Zin’za, whose deck plates thrummed with the steady pulse of its warp engines.

BelHoQ grumbled, “Fek’lhr take those petaQpu’ at the High Command. I’d rather be whipped naked against the gate of Gre’thor than trust a Romulan to watch my back.”

“Not that we have much choice, now, do we?” They sidestepped past a pair of mechanics effecting repairs at an open bulkhead, then Kutal continued. “I get the feeling someone very high up is in league with the Romulans, and not just for the sake of spiting the Federation.”

A low grunt presaged BelHoQ’s reply. “I think the Romulans traded their cloaking secrets for safe passage through the Empire so they could gather intelligence for an invasion.”

“Maybe. But if so, that’s a long way off. Right now, I think their agenda leans more toward corruption than conquest.” The port hatch to the bridge slid open ahead of them. Kutal marched to his command chair and shouldered aside Lieutenant Krom, the ship’s second officer, along the way. “Krom, report!”

Krom had almost regained his footing when BelHoQ shoved past him and left the shorter soldier off balance and half-sitting on a deactivated gunner’s console. Straightening, the young lieutenant tried to act as if neither slight had just happened. “We’re continuing on course for the Gonmog Sector, Captain. Standing by to execute course change based on our new orders.”

Kutal turned a sour scowl on BelHoQ, silently reproaching him for failing to keep word of the ship’s new mission profile from being prematurely leaked to the rank and file. “Helm, set course for our rendezvous with the Romulan cruiser Kenestra, in the Hujok system.”

Qlar, the helm officer, keyed commands into his console. “Plotted and ready.”

“Engage.” Kutal swiveled his elevated chair toward the weapons officer. “Tonar! Make sure you read the report on Romulan tactical protocols. We’ve been ordered to conduct joint operations with our new allies, harassing Federation shipping, until further notice.” A curt nod signaled Tonar’s understanding, and he set himself to his task without speaking—a habit Kutal wished more of his crew would emulate. Turning forward, Kutal punched his left palm a few times while he pondered the shifting currents of power coursing through the Empire. Then he glanced left, toward BelHoQ, who stood, waiting on the captain’s next words. “No good will come of speaking our minds to the High Command. They won’t hear ill words spoken against the providers of the great and mighty cloaking device.”

“A cowardly invention,” BelHoQ sneered.

Waving away the criticism, Kutal replied, “A weapon is neither cowardly nor brave. What matters is how it’s used. And I think the Romulans are using it to seduce our leaders—the generals inside the High Command, the heads of the Great Houses, and who knows who else. The point is, we need to choose our friends very carefully.”

“With all respect,” BelHoQ protested, “we know who our friends are.”

“Do we? Just because we’ve trusted someone in the past doesn’t mean we should trust them now. Do some digging. See what secrets our good friends on Qo’noS have buried, and make sure they really are still our friends before we start making new enemies.”

A low growl of frustration rumbled deep inside BelHoQ’s barrel chest. “Why must we waste time while novpu’ move freely through our space? Why not take action now?”

“Because we’re not preparing for a duel, we’re preparing for a war. Which means our first action must be to prepare the battlefield. Remember the lessons of Kahless: the victorious warrior wins first and then goes to war, while the defeated warrior goes to war and only then seeks to win.” He met the first officer’s sullen gaze with a stare that brooked no dissent. “I will fight this war when I’m ready to win it, my friend—and not a moment sooner.”

The rank perfume of coitus assaulted Duras’s sensitive nose as he traversed the brothel hallway, passing one curtained partition after another on his way to a clandestine rendezvous.

It struck him as particularly ironic that, of all the possible locations for a meeting in the First City, his contact should choose this one. Normally, as a scion of a Great House, Duras would never come within a hundred qelIqams of such an establishment; if he desired companionship, it would be his for the asking, in the privacy of his own home. Only offworlders and those without honor frequented these places.