The governor stared at the general in open-mouthed stupefaction for several seconds.

Then he threw his head back and laughed.

Even from beyond the grave, you manipulate me, Yovang.Foolishly, Qaolin had believed that he could easily deal with whatever consequences arose from killing the I.I. agent aboard the Wo’bortasfive years ago. Now, he knew what those consequences were: exile to this nightmare of a posting.

“This amuses you, Governor?”

“No. But there are times when laughter is the only rational response.” He sat back down. “Very well, General. I shall continue to see to the Klingon needs of this continent, and I will win Ch’gran for us, and I shall save the Empire, and we will survive and be strong again.”

Laughing bitterly, Worf said, “I will settle for the first two. The others will take care of themselves over time.”

“You think so?” Qaolin asked in surprise. “For one who has spoken so cynically, you seem unusually confident.”

“We are Klingons. Eventually, we willbe victorious.”

Qaolin reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of bloodwine and two mugs. “In that case, General, drink with me, to our future.” He split the bottle between the two mugs and handed one to Worf. “May it be far more glorious than our present.”

To that, they both drank heartily.

“Orbital Control, this is theGratok. We will be achieving orbit in five minutes. Please verify flight plan.”

Stifling a yawn, Talik, the traffic controller on duty touched a control. “This is Orbital Control, Gratok.Sending flight plan now.” Talik entered the standard flight plan for the zenite-bearing freighters like the Gratok.It would give them one orbit before departing for Cardassia Prime with the precious zenite shipment.

“Flight plan received, Orbital Control. Staying awake up there, Talik?”

At that, Talik smiled. “Barely. I don’t suppose you have any holovids to send over, Kater?”

“Don’t tell me you watched all the ones I sent last month?”

“All right, I won’t tell you.” In fact, Talik had traded them for a bottle of real kanar—not that swill they provided at the commissary, but the good stuff. But since he got the kanarfor when he finally worked up the courage to ask Kater Onell for an evening out, he could hardly tell her about it now. “So when’re you due back?”

“I’m not, I’m afraid. The zenite yields are too small to justify coming so far out. The company’s sending a smaller ship to do the next run.”

Panic gripped Talik. He’d spent monthsworking up his nerve. Kater, after all, was a freighter captain; he was just a lowly traffic controller. Just the fact that she was willing to talk to him beyond the confines of duty was impressive enough, and was, in fact, the only reason why he even considered the possibility of asking her to dinner. “You—you mean you’re never coming back?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to saynever , but probably not for a few months at least.”She laughed. “Don’t worry, Talik, I’m sure you’ll find someone else to send you war vids.”

Talik couldn’t give a good damn about war vids just at the moment. His love life had been in the waste extractor for years now. No woman had even been interested in talking to him, aside from Kater, and the only comfort women he could afford weren’t ones he had any interest in letting near him; he had never been partial to elderly women with strange sores on odd parts of their bodies. “It’s—it’s not th-that.” He tried not to sound like a stammering idiot. “I was kind of hoping—I mean, I was kind of—”

Before he could blunder through the rest of the sentence, he heard an explosion. After a second, he realized that it was coming over the comm line. “What the hell was that?”Kater screamed.

Talik checked his sensor display. “Kater, I’m reading an explosion in your engineering section.”

“I’m glad you’re reading that. Our internal sensors are down.”

“You’re also off course.” Immediately, Talik hit the panic button, which sent out a broad-band message on both subspace and soundwave frequencies, instructing all ships in orbit to get out immediately, either by returning to the planet’s surface or leaving orbit altogether.

The voice of Talik’s supervisor, Hamnod, sounded from behind him. “What’s happening?”

“Freighter Gratokhas experienced some kind of engine failure. They’ve lost attitude control.”

Hamnod was a large man with a belly that protruded sufficiently far in front of him that most of those in Orbital Control joked that his stomach arrived five minutes before he did. That belly was rubbing up against Talik’s console now, as the supervisor peered at the shatterframe display that gave the usual view of about eighty percent of the space around Raknal V. The only thing missing was the area on the far side of the planet—a blind spot at one hundred and eighty degrees from their position, and, not coincidentally, where the Klingons had set up their orbital control center. At present, the only bodies showing on the display were the Gratok—which was bouncing around like mad; its guidance systems and gyroscopic mechanisms were obviously completely destroyed—and Orbital Control itself. The supervisor then pointed a pudgy finger at a new item on the display. “What is that?”

Talik frowned. It wasn’t a Cardassian ship, which meant either an unregistered ship or a Klingon ship. Talik sincerely hoped it was the former. The last thing he wanted to do was get into a shouting match with a Klingon.

The new arrival just came into view from the blind spot. It was also on a course that would take it directly into the path of the Gratok,if both ships held course.

“Get that thing out of there, Talik,” Hamnod said.

Good thing you’re here, Inever would have thought of that,Talik thought as he opened a channel to the ship. He had heard a rumor that Hamnod spent most of his off-duty time with the very comfort women that Talik would never go near. Even if it wasn’t true, Talik had always taken it as gospel. It was certainly in character for the fat supervisor.

“Unidentified ship, this is Orbital Control. Please leave orbit immediately, we have a ship in distress, and we cannot guarantee your safety.”

There was no response from the ship, but Kater cut in. “Talik, our warp core’s going to go any minute, and I can’t get the ejection systems to function. I don’t think we’re gonna make it.”

“Yes, you are,” Talik said stupidly. “Just as soon as I get this ship out of the—”

“What ship? I’m blind out here.”

Hamnod had been doing a sensor check. “It’s a Forehead ship—the Chut.Passenger ship heading to Qo’noS.” The corpulent supervisor leaned into Talik’s comm unit. “Attention Chut,this is Orbital Control. If you do not change course immediately, you risk collision. Please, leave orbit now.”

“What? Great!”Kater’s voice was distant for those two words, then came on more clearly. “We think we’ve got the breach under control, Talik, but we still can’t change course.”

“Dammit,” Talik muttered. Whatever relief he felt at Kater’s continued survival was leavened by the continued presence of the Chut.The Klingon passenger liner was still on its standard orbital course, which would bring it slamming into the Gratokat one-eighth impulse in about seventy-five seconds.

“Chut,this is Cardassian Orbital Control.” Hamnod was practically shouting. “Veer off now,or you will be destroyed!” He pounded the console. “Why won’t they listen? Damned idiotic Foreheads…”

Talik tried to run a sensor scan on the Chut,but he wasn’t able to penetrate their shields. That was typical of the Klingons—trying to protect their secrets, Talik supposed, though what secrets a passenger liner could have was beyond him—but it made it all the more frustrating in circumstances like this. What if something’s wrong with them, too?Sadly, two vessels breaking down in orbit on the same day wouldn’t be out of character on Raknal V these days…