The door opened again, and an older woman in civilian clothes entered. White-haired, wearing no makeup, it took Tain a moment to realize that this was Speaker Alnak. She looked nothing like the image of her in her file—but then, she probably had gone through a certain amount of grooming before that picture was taken. Now she looked like someone woken out of a sound sleep. Her arms were laden with half a dozen padds. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said in breathless rush of words, “but I’m afraid this business has caught me rather off guard.”

Kell grumbled something. Tain, however, said, “That’s quite all right. I only just arrived myself.”

Dropping the padds rather unceremoniously on the table, Alnak took her seat at the center. “I assume you both know what this is about. There was an incident at the Betreka Nebula. We’re facing the possibility of war with the Klingons. Now—”

“I say we live up to that possiblity,” Kell said without hesitation. “If they refuse to acknowledge our prior claim to Raknal V, let them pay for it in blood.”

“The Klingons feel that their claim is more prior than ours, Legate,” Alnak said dryly, “and not without reason.”

Kell made a noise that sounded like a chiralbreaking wind. “A thousand-year-old wreck? Please. The Klingons themselves didn’t even know it was there until wefound it.”

“And yet they thought it worth sending nine ships.”

“The Klingons do not need a reason to fight, they simply fight when the opportunity presents itself.”

Tain chose this moment to speak up. “Perhaps, Legate, but this time they dofight for a reason. According to our records—” hastily looked up and memorized by Tain on his way here “—the Klingons believe this to be the remains of the Ch’gran colony. One of their sacred legends.”

“What, some kind of spiritualistic nonsense?” Kell said disdainfully. “We get enough of that from the damned Bajorans.”

“The Klingons are a spiritual people, Legate, but not in the same way as the Bajorans.” Tain then turned to look at Alnak. “The Bajorans look to gods who guide their path; Klingons are a bit more self-determinative. According to our information, Klingon myth has it that they killed their gods. The only personage they hold in any kind of reverence is a historical figure called Kahless, who set down most of the code of honor that they claim to follow.”

Kell leaned back in his chair. “I see, Tain, that you have the tendency of most of your kind to show off your precious intelligence gathering for no good reason. What, pray tell, does any of this have to do with what happened at the Betreka Nebula?”

“That they will fight to regain something they deem sacred,” Tain said plainly, since subtlety seemed lost on the legate.

“Let them offer to obtain it from us, then. But they cannot refute our legitimate claim on Raknal V!”

Tain had nothing to say to such tiresome posturing. Alnak, however, did: “I wonder, Legate, how you would feel if a Klingon ship lay claim to a planet on which they found ruins of the First Hebitians.”

This is it,Tain thought. Kell’s answer to this question would resolve for Tain once and for all whether or not the legate had two brain cells to rub together, or was just another typical Central Command drone.

But Kell did not answer the question. He did not say, “I would react the same way as I am now,” which would serve to strengthen his position. He did not even say, “That would be a different matter—Cardassian ruins are a matter of national import,” which would be ethnocentric, but at least in character and reasonable.

Instead, he simply sat there, fuming. It was the worst possible way to respond to the speaker’s question, and it firmly lodged Kell in the “fool” column of Tain’s mental ledger.

Part of him was relieved. Such a fool would be child’s play to manipulate. Another part was disappointed that he would be denied the challenge of a worthy adversary in Central Command. Ah, well—perhaps there are some lesser legates or guls who can at least keep things interesting.

Alnak riffled through her padds, finally coming up with one. “We received a message from the Klingon High Council, saying that they wish to stake a claim to Raknal V. They are willing to negotiate, but will fight to regain the wreckage if they have to.”

“Pfah,” Kell said with a dismissive gesture. “Those imbeciles don’t negotiate. It’s a ploy to gather their forces.”

Tain tried to keep the disdain out of his voice as he responded to Kell. He had his mind made up before he came in here.However, Tain preferred to glean information before making any kind of decision—not that he ever made a decision that he couldn’t go back on if the need arose. But the news that the Klingons were willing to negotiate was telling, and fit the available data. “The Klingons are only three-and-a-half decades removed from the catastrophic destruction of their moon. Even with Federation aid and the passage of time, their resources are limited. I would surmise that they do not wish to go to war unless they have to.”

“Then let them. If they are as weak as you seem to think, Tain, then they should be easy to destroy.”

“If they were that easy to destroy,” Tain said with a small smile, “why have we not conquered them? Or the Romulans? The Federation?”

Kell sneered. “I should think that even one such as you would understand the military reasons for that, Tain. They are too distant from our current borders. To invade the Klingon Empire would mean a great commitment of resources to a distant campaign that would leave our internal defenses weakened.”

“Congratulations, Legate,” Tain said with an amiable smile. “You have just made the best case for why we should not pursue this matter militarily.”

“Tain is correct,” Alnak said before Kell could reply. “While the Betreka Sector is closer than the Klingon border, it is still too distant for us to wage a proper campaign.”

“Your military expertise tells you this?” Kell asked, turning his sneer on the speaker.

Again, Alnak riffled through her padds. “I have here a complete list of the present troop and ship deployments of the ships under the jurisdiction of Central Command. There are only two ways to divert the necessary resources to wage war in the Betreka Sector—to leave other sectors undefended and abandon our current plan of expansion, or to construct more ships and draft more troops. The former is unacceptable—Cardassia needs to expand its borders if we are to continue our food and jobs programs—and the latter would be costly.”

Just as Tain had consigned Kell to the fool column, he found himself forced to move Speaker Alnak from “irrelevant” to “worth keeping an eye on.” The Detapa Council was mostly toothless, but they served a purpose, and knowing that its First Speaker had a brain in her head was another useful nugget of information. Tain was already thinking of ways to exploit that nugget.

Even as those thoughts turned over in his mind, he said, “The Obsidian Order’s position is the same. The expansion program is far more important than getting into a protracted and distant skirmish with the Klingons—one that we are not guaranteed to win. And even if we do,” he added quickly, cutting off the wounded reply that he knew Kell would give at his show of disrespect to the Cardassian military, “the Klingons will make this a bloody and costly conflict. Few of their wars have ever been simple or quick.”

“I appreciate the concerns that you both raise,” Kell said, “but ultimately, they are irrelevant.”

The legate’s stupidity knows no bounds.“Really?”

Kell smiled. “Central Command needs no one’s permission to wage war, Tain. That is solely our purview. If we wish to fight the Klingons for Raknal V, then we shall fight them. The Cardassian people need zenite, and Raknal V has it. That is all that matters.”