Kuron remained standing, though, and Azetbur thought that the challenge to her leadership from within the upper High Council had finally come. She tightened her hand around the walking stick—it had belonged to her father—and brought her free hand up to the d’k tahgshe wore at her waist. She prepared to vault to her feet and fight—for her chancellorship, and for her life. She had fought traitors to assume and keep her position, had survived early attempts from almost all quarters to see her relinquish it, and had daily battled her own prejudices and her own instinct for violence in order to do what was best for her people. She would not step down quietly.

But then General Kaarg stood from his chair, rising slowly. When he reached his full height, he turned his gaze upon Kuron, his eyes peering intensely from the soft, slack flesh of his face. “The chancellor told you to sit,” Kaarg told the brigadier calmly, though there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. Azetbur saw Kuron flex the fingers of both hands, the material of his gloves making scraping sounds as he did so. She thought for a moment that he might actually engage Kaarg, but then he returned to his seat, fixing his eyes downward.

It would not be the last time that the soft-brained partisan would confront her, Azetbur was sure, but that assessment concerned her very little; the brigadier’s blatant and head-strong opposition called too much attention to itself to be truly dangerous. What gave her pause had been the reactions of Kest and Gorak to Kuron’s brief challenge: neither of them had moved to defend the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. She might have expected that of Gorak, considering his furtive machinations to sabotage the peace process, but that also told Azetbur something she needed to know about Kest. Public dissent for the Empire’s current relationship with the Federation must have been stronger than she thought for him to fail to come to her defense. Now more than ever, she would have to proceed with caution and vigilance. At least General Kaarg had revealed his loyalties to her.

As Azetbur pulled the walking stick from the table, returning it to its place at her side, Kest asked, “Federation treachery or no, what action will you take now, Chancellor?”

“I will have the Romulan information analyzed,” she said, dropping her hand onto the collection of data spikes. “If necessary, I will demand an explanation from the Federation.”

“An explanation,” Kuron repeated disgustedly, but he did not look up and he said nothing more.

“Will an explanation be enough?” Kest asked.

“We will see,” Azetbur said, but she already knew that an explanation would notbe enough. Fury boiled within her, and she imagined wielding her walking stick like a bludgeon, pounding the treacherous life out of whoever had put her in this position. Either the Romulans had manufactured the tale of a new Starfleet metaweapon, or the Federation had lied to her about their condemnation and repudiation of the creation of such weapons. Whichever the case, Azetbur would now be forced to react. And she would do so, but she pledged to herself that the action she would take would be of her own choosing, and not dictated by the political maneuverings of either the Romulans or the Federation. “I will do whatever I must to protect the Empire,” she concluded.

“Even if it means opposing the Federation?” Gorak asked.

Azetbur knew that she would seek to preserve the peace, because that served all sides, but she also knew that her only true loyalty was to her people. If she had to, she would fight against the Romulans or beside them, she would fight against the worlds of the Federation or beside them, as long as, in the end, the Klingon Empire remained standing. And it would matter not at all to Azetbur if that meant standing amid the dead bodies of Romulans, or the dead bodies of humans and Vulcans and Betazoids. All that mattered was Qo’noS.

“Yes,” she said, “even if it means opposing the Federation.” All eyes turned toward her then, even those of Kuron, all no doubt attempting to take the measure of her words. Azetbur did not wait for them to reach their judgments. Instead, she stood and addressed them. “I will convene a gathering of the full Council in a few days,” she told them. “We will discuss these matters and my decisions about them then.” She lifted her walking stick, turned, and walked away from the table, effectively dismissing the councillors.

Azetbur strode over to the wall opposite the door, in which a dozen tall, peaked windows stood open. As the sounds of chairs scraping along the floor and of retreating footsteps reached her from behind, she peered out from the top floor of the Great Hall at the First City, the capital of Qo’noS. In the distance, she spied the ritual flames of the Temples of Rogax and Molgar, both reaching upward like fiery fingers clutching at the sky. The spires of imperial structures dotted the urban landscape, proud and mighty symbols of a proud and mighty race. And down below the window, marking the entrance to the Great Hall, stood the great bronze statue of Kahless and Morath, depicted in their epic twelve-day battle over honor.

Azetbur gazed out of the window in silence for long moments, until she heard the door to her office open and somebody enter. She turned to see her efficient aide, Rinla, approaching.

“Chancellor,” Rinla said. “Do you require anything?”

“Yes,” Azetbur said, because she had already begun to formulate a means of dealing with the Romulans and the Federation. “Contact the Romulan space station Algeron,” she said. “I want to talk to Ambassador Kage.”

Minus Six: Smoke

Los Tirasol Mentir swam with abandon. He flexed his muscles with all of his strength, sending massive sinusoidal motion coursing through the length of his body—down from his head, through his torso, and into his tail structure and caudal fin. The walls and floor of the artificial watercourse dashed past to either side and below, a ceiling of air above. He could feel the cooling touch of the lubrication he secreted, allowing a laminar flow of water past his scales.

Inside, though, he felt only heat. His grief manifested as anger, the terrible end of Universeand its crew seeming like a betrayal by life itself. Nor had the tragedy finished its taking; Blackjack Harriman, a man Mentir had called a friend for half a century, lay comatose in the station’s infirmary, waiting helplessly for the black tides of death to envelop him and carry him away.

Mentir thrust his tail left, right, and on, channeling his rage into movement. He sliced through the water with ease, his short but limblike pectoral fins swept back along his sides and, together with his smaller dorsal and pelvic fins, keeping his body stable as he swam. Once, twice, half a dozen times around the two-hundred-meter elliptical canal, racing like a silvery torpedo, Mentir sought to exhaust himself. He spent the energy he could, attempting to starve his emotions of their force.

Finally, another half-dozen circuits at speed, and fatigue set in. His fury abated, but in its wake came a mournful emptiness. Mentir stilled his tail, and he slowed and dropped, until he floated just a few centimeters above the floor of the waterway. He closed his eyes and tried to blank his mind, but unwanted images assaulted him: he pictured the silent explosion that had torn apart Universeand its crew, envisioned the expanding shock wave that had pummeled Ad Astra, saw his friend smashing headfirst into a bulkhead.