Peering at the fragment, Ekron saw a trefoil emblem. Ekron recognized it instantly, though the design was cruder than the ones seen on modern ships.

The symbol of the Klingon Empire.

Chapter 3

I.K.S. Wo’bortas

“Enter,” Captain Qaolin of the I.K.S. Wo’bortassaid after the doorchime to his tiny office sounded.

The door rumbled open, and his first officer, Commander Narrk, entered. Qaolin immediately stood up. Narrk was older than Qaolin, and also shorter. And, while he had shown no overt signs in the ten weeks that Qaolin had been in command of the Wo’bortas,the captain found it impossible to credit that Narrk didn’t resent serving under someone younger than he was, especially given the amount of time Narrk had served at the rank of commander. There was nothing in Narrk’s service record, nor anything in his performance of duty to date, to indicate why he hadn’t been given a ship of his own.

“What do you want?” Qaolin asked by way of greeting. He walked around to the other side of his workstation, face-to-face with the commander.

Narrk looked up at the captain, his gray eyes darting and tense, his long mane of hair, which was black streaked with gray, almost quivering. “The crew grows restless. We have been following the Cardassian survey ship for over a month!”

“I am aware of the amount of time that has passed since we began following the Sontok,Commander.”

“Then why do we just sithere, hiding behind our cloaking device?” Narrk’s fists were clenched with fury.

“I understand your anger, Commander, but we shall continue to follow our orders.”

Narrk now held his fists close to his chest, as if trying to hold himself in check. “If those orders had come from Command, I would not argue with you, but since when do Defense Force vessels bow to the whims of I.I. petaQ?”

Qaolin now began to understand why Narrk was still a commander. They had been detached to Imperial Intelligence for this mission, with their specific instructions coming from an I.I. agent, Yovang, who had been placed on board. More for the benefit of the listening device that Qaolin knew was somewhere in this office, he said, “Imperial Intelligence has always had the authority to commandeer Defense Force vessels for missions they deem important. And our orders did not come from I.I., Commander, they came from General Korit. Or do you consider him a petaQ,as well?”

If anything, this seemed to incense Narrk more. “Are you questioning my loyalty?”

Moving close enough to smell the raktajinoon his first officer’s breath, Qaolin said, “I question your sanity, Commander. Our orders are to follow Yovang’s instructions, which are to observe the Sontokwhile cloaked. Until those instructions change, I will follow them—and so will you.”

For a moment, the two warriors locked eyes. Qaolin refused to back down—indeed, he dared not, for it would be a sign of weakness, and Narrk would then attempt to gain a captaincy by rightfully challenging Qaolin for the position.

Instead, Narrk looked away, snarling, and walked over to the bulkhead. “Why do we not simply attack? We can capture those Cardassian toDSaHand take the information we need about their attempts at expansion.”

“Have you ever tried to interrogate a Cardassian, Commander?”

The silence that greeted Qaolin’s question provided sufficient answer.

“Their high-ranking officers have all been conditioned against the usual interrogation techniques, and their rank-and-file have no useful intelligence. No, Commander, we must—”

“Captain Qaolin.”

The captain looked up sharply at the sound of the voice that came suddenly over the speakers. That is Yovang.“Qaolin.”

“Report to the bridge.”

The communication cut off. Narrk turned to look at his captain. “He does not even treat you with the respect of your rank. I.I. are honorless cowards who hide in shadows instead of facing their enemies head-on.”

Qaolin considered the fact that, in over two months, Narrk himself had also never referred to Qaolin as “sir” or “Captain,” avoiding any kind of respectful nomenclature. “I.I. is the scout that precedes the attack party—the swordsmith who sharpens the bat’leth.Only a fool goes into battle blindly. The Cardassians have begun an aggressive phase of exploration—but they are not like the Federation. They are not natural explorers who wish to ‘seek out new life’—they are predators. For now, they seem to be limiting themselves to lifeless planets in unclaimed space, or easily conquerable worlds like Bajor. But they have been coming ever closer to territory that interests us. It is best to know what they intend before we attack in force.”

Narrk said nothing, but instead headed to the exit—not allowing Qaolin to leave first, as was proper.

Up until now, he has not been insubordinate. I will have to deal with this soon.

Qaolin entered the Wo’bortas’s cramped bridge to see officers at all the duty stations, and one man standing in front of the raised command chair, between it and the pilot’s console: Yovang of Imperial Intelligence. Unlike the others on the bridge, he did not wear a uniform, preferring an all-black one-piece outfit that made him almost blend into the darkness of the bridge—which was, no doubt, the intended effect. He kept his black hair unusually short, and his dark green eyes never seemed to blink. His crest was fairly nondescript—Qaolin had found that, no matter how many times he looked at Yovang, he could not recall the exact pattern of the crest on the man’s forehead. The captain suspected that the crest had been surgically altered to achieve precisely that effect, since, thinking back on it, he couldn’t remember details of any of the crests of the few known I.I. agents he’d met over the years. Since the crest was a tie to family, and since I.I. claimed no allegiances to any of the Houses—in order to do their jobs, they had to be removed from mainstream Klingon aristocracy—such alterations were probably standard.

As he entered the bridge, he made it a point to look at the crest, and found that it was a fairly straightforward three-ridge pattern, with no marks that Qaolin found distinguishing. Naturally.

Without preamble, Yovang started speaking in the near-monotone he favored. “A priority-coded communication has been intercepted from the Cardassian ship. The transmission is being directed to their Central Command. It is being decoded now. Its transmission follows a party beaming to the surface of Raknal V. The obvious conclusion is that they have found something useful.”

From the operations console behind the command chair, a bekkwhose name Qaolin had never bothered to learn said, “The transmission has been decoded, Captain. Shall I transfer the message to your office?”

The bekkpointedly did not look at Yovang.

For the briefest of moments, Qaolin hesitated. Strictly speaking, of course, the decision was Yovang’s. Leaving aside any other considerations, the only reason why the ship’s computer coulddecode the transmission was because of a program Yovang had installed. And Yovang was in charge of this mission.

But Qaolin was in charge of the ship, and had only been so for a few short weeks. His first officer obviously wanted his job. He had to be careful not to seem weak, but also not to incur the wrath of I.I.