Reyes watched Kutal clench his fists and slowly open them. A black cloud of anger followed the captain as he returned to his chair on the bridge’s elevated center dais. He sat down. “Lieutenant Kreq, hail the rest of our squadron.”
Seconds later Kreq said, “Channel open, Captain.”
“All vessels, this is Captain Kutal. We have new orders from the High Command. Stand down. Disengage from attack formation and set course back to the Somraw Anchorage. Kutal, out.” He nodded at Kreq, who cut the channel. “Helm, lay in the course and prepare to lead the fleet home.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the helmsman.
Vanguard and the Endeavourvanished from the main viewer as the Zin’zaand its fleet broke formation and maneuvered away. In less than a minute the Klingon ships had regrouped in a traveling formation and jumped to warp speed, on a heading back to their own space. Reyes was relieved the battle had been averted, but he also felt a renewed sense of despair that he was being carried away from it still in the custody of his enemies.
BelHoQ checked the bridge’s duty stations, then made his sotto voce report to the captain, who responded with a curt nod then waved him away.
Reyes was considering asking his guards to take him to the head so he could do something productive when Kutal walked aft to confront him.
“Starfleet and the Federation will blame this travesty on Ayel-borne and the Organians,” Kutal said. “The Klingon High Command will no doubt do the same.” He stepped forward and pressed his nose against Reyes’s. “But if I find out your little summit with Gorkon had anything to do with today’s debacle, I’ll make sure you both suffer and die in disgrace.”
“Don’t look at me,” Reyes said. “I was just happy to have a front-row seat so I could watch Vanguard kick your ass.”
Kutal’s mouth stretched into a broad, evil grin. Then he said to the guards lurking nearby, “This petaQis stinking up my bridge. Take him back to his quarters.”
Brawny soldiers hauled Reyes away. He cooperated, but it made little difference to the Klingon guards, who seemed to like dragging him rather than letting him walk. He wondered how they planned to carry him down the ladder to the next deck.
Then they reached the ladderway and hurled him down through it.
He landed hard on the deck below, enduring most of the impact with his hands, elbows, and chest. Before he had a chance to assess whether he’d suffered any broken bones, his guards had descended the ladder, grabbed him, and resumed portering him to his quarters.
The door to his room hissed open, and the guards hurled him like a meaty bowling ball into the gray-green broom closet with a bunk and toilet that laughingly passed for quarters on this ship. He was grateful to come to a halt against his bunk frame without losing consciousness. The door slid shut, and he heard the gentle thump of magnetic bolts locking him inside.
Home, sweet home,he mused grimly, climbing onto his bunk.
There was something on the unpadded slab other than a threadbare blanket and a thin pillow: a book.
He picked it up. It was thick and heavy, leather-bound and embossed with gold-foil trim. Printed on its cover: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Beneath the title was a reproduction of the Bard’s signature.
Tucked inside the front cover was a note, handwritten on a scrap of parchment. Reyes plucked it out and held it to the light so he could see it better.
“I hope you approve,” it read, “though I think these plays were all better in the original Klingon.” Then he saw the signature on the note and laughed.
“Best regards, Gorkon.”
Interlude
16
May 26, 2267
Jetanien stood alone on a barren mesa in the midst of a yawning plain. Behind him sat his warp-capable diplomatic shuttle, parked and camouflaged.
Soon the sun would set. Another wasted day would draw to a close, and Jetanien would retire for the evening inside his tiny vessel, eat a reheated meal from the cache of provisions he’d brought from Vanguard, and go to sleep wondering where he had gone wrong.
Already days had passed in silence and solitude since his arrival on Nimbus III. The remote planet had seemed like an ideal setting for a clandestine political summit. Unclaimed and all but unpopulated, it was politically neutral and had little in the way of arable soil or exploitable resources. This was a rock for which no one would be willing to fight a war.
Whether that made it a good place in which to broker a lasting peace, or a good place to die in peace, remained to be seen.
Resting one clawed manus over the other in front of him, he watched a hundred shades of crimson bleed up from the horizon. He tapped his chitinous beak in amusement at one of his fleeting thoughts. Did I really call this “a remote planet”? Aren’t all planets remote, when one thinks about it?
The sky had a thousand hues and was utterly empty. The Chelon diplomat searched it for any sign of the two peers he had invited here to meet him. The limited window of time during which they had agreed to meet had begun two days earlier.
Jetanien had been there at the first appointed hour. The others had not, but that was to be expected. In moments when his pessimism got the better of him, he feared they would never come at all.
Regardless, he was not dismayed or deterred. He would wait as long as was necessary. He was committed.
Listening to the wind and the dry susurrus of sand over stone, he reflected on the countless mistakes he had made in the past two years, the deadly blunders and the sobering gaffes.
I thought I could forge a new interstellar order,he berated himself. What arrogance! What audacity!
He pictured the face of Anna Sandesjo, a Klingon spy disguised as a human woman who had finagled herself a position as his senior attaché. His staff had detected her subterfuge fairly soon after her arrival on Vanguard, but Jetanien had overruled the regulations that demanded they report her to Starfleet Intelligence and the base commander.
I thought we could tap her comms, use her to find out what the Klingons really knew.Shame as deep as an ocean welled up inside him. I gambled with her life—and she died for it.
One failure after another haunted him. Political missteps, such as letting the trilateral talks with the Klingon Empire and the Tholian Assembly degenerate into a litany of threats, made him question his wisdom. Military miscalculations, such as not doing enough to forge an agreement between Starfleet and the settlers on Gamma Tauri IV, had costs thousands of lives.
My life is a leitmotif of hubris,he brooded.
The rattling of sabers at Mirdonyae V, to rescue the captured Starfleet officer Ming Xiong from Klingon custody, had only pushed the Federation and the Klingon Empire one step closer to war. Liberating Xiong had been absolutely necessary; Jetanien had never doubted it. But an accidental triggering of the mysterious Shedai machinery on that world had led to the planet’s premature destruction, and the Klingons were making as much political hay from the tragedy as they could.
War seems inevitable,Jetanien lamented. Will history say that I was to blame? That my misjudgments paved the way?
He bowed his head until his chin almost touched the top of his chest carapace. You narcissistic fool,he chastised himself. Millions of lives are on the brink of destruction, and you’re fretting over your reputation? You’re worrying about your legacy when others are fearing for their lives? How petty you are.