The Art of the Impossible Page 5

  Qaolin could not help it. He laughed, long and hard.

  The guest cabin where Yovang’s body still lay was on the port side. It, along with all its contents, had just been blown into the vacuum of space.

  A more fitting fate, I could not imagine. He suspected that he would not be rid of I.I. so easily. Qaolin was quite sure that a recording had been made of his assassination of Yovang, and he was equally sure that such a recording would survive a firefight, and even explosive decompression. Still, any destruction of evidence suited Qaolin just fine.

  “Approaching nebula,” the pilot said.

  “Reverse course.” A pause. “Eject the unit.”

  One second later, the viewscreen became filled with static, as the charged particles of the nebula did their work in interfering with the image translator. Three seconds later, several consoles blew apart from the impact of a nearby explosion.

  “Report!”

  “The Sontok is dead in space.” Tolkor laughed. “Your timing was perfect, sir. The Kazin’s warp core breach happened at the same time as our containment unit ignited the nebula. However, we were caught in the backwash of both. Our engines are offline.”

  “What of the other ships?”

  “Attempting to locate them, now. We’re drifting away from the nebula, so that should improve sensor resolution—Aha!” Again, Tolkor laughed. “It would seem, Captain, that we have achieved a stalemate. Only two Cardassian ships are left intact—the Sontok and the Golnor, and both are showing no power output worth mentioning.”

  “What of our forces?”

  “In Sto-Vo-Kor with the Black Fleet—except for us.” Tolkor manipulated his console. “Now getting debris readings—it would seem that the Dogal followed the Kazin’s lead and took our foes with them when their ships proved too unstable to remain intact.”

  “They died well,” Qaolin said. “Time to repair warp drive?”

  “I do not know, sir. Internal communications are down. However,” and Tolkor laughed a third time at this, “external communications are functioning normally. We can contact Command.”

  “Do so.” Qaolin turned to the viewscreen, the image on which was starting to clear up. “I will not let Ch’gran be taken from my hands now, not when we’ve come this far…”

  He stared at the Sontok as it drifted through space, powerless, its momentum carrying it slowly closer to the Betreka Nebula. You fought well, my enemy, he thought at whoever it was who commanded the Sontok. But I still draw breath, and I swear that I will never allow you to take Ch’gran from me.

  Chapter 8

  Cardassia Prime

  Enabran Tain had never been to the headquarters of the Detapa Council before. But then, before he hadn’t been the head of the Obsidian Order.

  Indeed, going to this emergency meeting—which was to be attended only by Tain, his counterpart at Central Command, and the First Speaker of the Council—was Tain’s first official act as head of the Order. It was a position he had long anticipated. He had expected to be appointed several months ago, in fact, and he no doubt would have been, had his information that his predecessor was fatally allergic to Locan powder been accurate.

  Tain straightened his dull green tunic as the doors parted to let him into the meeting room. The tunic did an adequate job of hiding the fact that Tain was putting on weight. Since his Order duties had been more administrative of late, he had let his weakness for rich food get the better of him, and without the concomitant exercise inherent in field work, he found his middle getting rounder.

  Then again, Tain had never been a particularly impressive physical specimen. Though large, he was not intimidating, and even at his slimmest, he presented a bland figure, more circular than stocky. He cultivated that, as it gave the impression that he was weak—useful for someone in his profession to convey.

  The room’s purpose was to hold meetings such as this where only one member of each body was required. Decorated in bold browns and greens, with tasteful-yet-harmless spacescape paintings on two of the walls, the room’s most prominent feature was the window on the back wall opposite the door: an etched-glass window in the shape of the Cardassian Union’s emblem. From the outside, the window looked glorious when the sun hit it, and Tain supposed that the brilliance was even more astounding in here. Sadly, this meeting was taking place in the dead of night, so all that illuminated the facets of the glass were the city lights—a woefully inadequate substitute. Tain himself would have preferred stained glass, of course, an art form that the humans of Earth had apparently perfected over the course of their history. Tain had learned of it from one of his operations. Perhaps I’ll copy this design for my own house, only using the human technique.

  Legate Kell was already seated in one of the chairs around the crescent-shaped table. The table had three large chairs, one in the center, one on each of the ends. Kell had taken the seat to the right of center, as was traditional for Central Command. Tain was expected to take the one on the left.

  The First Speaker had not yet arrived.

  Kell looked up at Tain’s arrival and grunted. He wore the gray uniform of the military, in his case decorated on the left breast with a golden version of the Cardassian emblem. Tain had always thought that the decoration that indicated a legate to be overly ostentatious—but then, the military by its nature was ostentatious. That was why the Order was necessary, to counteract that belligerent tendency.

  “Good to meet you, Tain,” Kell said, not sounding in the least bit sincere in that sentiment. “Your record is fairly impressive.”

  Tain nodded as he took his seat. Kell would, of course, be familiar with Tain’s record, since Central Command had final approval over any appointment to the Order. Usually that approval was a formality—Central Command hadn’t exercised its right to deny an appointment in centuries—but that wouldn’t stop them from reviewing any such appointment. Not, he thought, that the opinion of a legate, even this one, is of any great interest to me.

  Kell gazed for several seconds at Tain. For his part, Tain sat in his chair, his hands folded on the table, and waited for Speaker Alnak. No doubt Kell is waiting for me to return the compliment. Well, let him wait.

  “Hmph,” Kell said, then went back to studying his padd.

  Tain had not brought such an item with him—in his position, he could hardly put his work in an unsecure portable device and view it in public. So he watched Kell, observing the older man’s body language, the way he stabbed at the display of his padd impatiently, the fact that he paid no attention to the mug he was drinking from. That, in particular, piqued Tain’s interest. Kell was, by all accounts, a patriot and a credit to his position. Unfortunately, it was a position often occupied by fools. The day may come where his foolishness will damage Cardassia. When that day comes, I must be ready to deal with it. The ease with which Kell could be poisoned was something Tain might be able to use some time in the future.

  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 mo
re prior than ours, Legate,” Alnak said dryly, “and not without reason.”

  Kell made a noise that sounded like a chiral breaking wind. “A thousand-year-old wreck? Please. The Klingons themselves didn’t even know it was there until we found 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 do fight 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.”

  Tain smiled right back. “And who will provide intelligence reports for your military?”

  Dismissively, Kell said, “We have our own intelligence resources.”

  It was all Tain could do to keep from laughing in Kell’s face at the very idea. One of the reasons why the Obsidian Order existed was because of the military’s woeful lack of “intelligence resources.” Every attempt they had made to cultivate some had met with dismal failure.

  Alnak fixed Kell with a gaze that might have been penetrating had her hair not been in such disarray. “And with what will you pay for this war, Legate?”

  That brought Kell up short, and for the second time, the speaker left the legate speechless. Two times too many, Tain thought.

  “It is true,” Alnak continued, “that the Detapa Council cannot actually stop you from waging war if it is war you wish to wage. But it is the Council that must approve of any budgetary amendments you might want to make—and you will need to make several in order to fight the Klingons. It is also the Council that is responsible for overseeing any new taxes or conscriptions that must take place. I can assure you right now, Legate, that the Council will feel no obligation to make life easy on Central Command if they choose this course of action.”

  Tain was grateful that, in this at least, Alnak was on his side. He’d hate to have to kill her.

  Whatever Ke
ll’s failings, however, he knew when he was defeated. Without the support of the Order or the Council, his ability to fight the Klingons would be severely curtailed. Leaning forward in his chair, he said, “Very well. If we are to negotiate, who is to mediate?”

  “The Federation,” Alnak said without hesitation. “It is the wish of the Council that we attempt to rehabilitate our relationship with the Federation after that unfortunate incident on Vulcan last year.”

  Tain of course made no reaction; Kell did seethe a bit, though. It had been a joint Central Command/Obsidian Order operation to disrupt the summit at Vulcan in order to sever ties between the Federation and the Legarans. Unfortunately, as with most joint operations between the two bodies, it was a disaster. Central Command had, of course, insisted that the saboteurs were renegades, but the Federation was not made up of fools. Legara IV remained under the protection of the Federation’s military arm, Starfleet, and the Federation now viewed Cardassia as a potential foe instead of a potential ally. It was, in Tain’s experience, much harder to slip a knife into the heart of an enemy than that of an ally.

  Not that Tain was too put out by the failure of that operation—it had proven that his predecessor was no longer fit to run the Order, and allowed Tain to gather support for his own candidacy for the job, once his predecessor met with his unfortunate accident.

  Still, using the Federation made sense. They had been allied with the Klingons since Praxis, and they were very good at filling the air with pointless words—the perfect diplomats.

  “Very well,” Kell said reluctantly. “However, we will be preparing for a conflict—in case the Klingons prove to be less than amenable to negotiations,” he added with an insincere smile.

  “Excellent.” Alnak sounded relieved. Tain was disappointed in her being so transparent. But then, she hadn’t been called upon to do this sort of thing often. As a general rule, Central Command and the Order looked after their own affairs, with the Detapa Council’s oversight being little more than a formality. But the potential magnitude of this crisis required the cooperation of all three organizations.