DIPLOMATIC IMPLAUSIBILITY Read online

  But the Gorkon’s medical ward seemed almost adequate. And Beverly suspected she knew the reason why.

  “Hello, B’Oraq,” she said to the woman presently sitting at a small desk, reading a computer screen.

  The woman—short and compact by Klingon standards, which made her close to the average height for a human woman, and with dark green eyes—looked up, and bared her teeth. She cried, “ghojmoHwI’,” the Klingon word for teacher or mentor. “I had hoped to see you when I learned we were meeting with your ship.”

  And then, in an un-Klingon-like gesture, B’Oraq got up and gave Beverly a hug.

  “It’s good to see you, too, B’Oraq,” Beverly said, returning the hug. “I see you’ve made some progress.”

  “Actually, you can thank the war,” B’Oraq said, pulling on her braid as she spoke, a nervous habit she hadn’t lost in the past decade. Her auburn hair, which had been waist-length ten years earlier, barely reached her neck now. However, she retained the braid that extended down past her right shoulder, secured at the end with a small pin in the shape of the emblem of her House. “Not only was it a glorious victory for the empire—and the rest of the quadrant,” she added quickly, “but it, more than anything, enabled me to finally make some of the advances I had been trying to put forward in Defense Force medicine.”

  Beverly, who had a hard time using the word glorious to apply to the drawn-out misery of the Dominion War, frowned and asked, “In what way?”

  “Well, it’s all well and good to insist that you can survive with an injury and that to have it treated is a sign of weakness. But when the Federation and Romulan soldiers fighting alongside you are fully recovered from more devastating injuries in less than a day, you start to learn the value of being able to knit bones in an instant and return whole warriors to the field of battle.”

  Beverly chuckled at that. The Klingon Empire had a lengthy history of warfare, but the Dominion War was the first time they’d fought for such a protracted period alongside such powerful allies. I suppose it’s bound to have an effect, she thought.

  Showing off her medical ward with a gesture, B’Oraq continued: “So they finally allowed me to design a new medical facility. Mind you, what you see here is not what I originally designed. For one thing, more or less every cosmetic application was rejected—we are too proud of our scars, it would seem.”

  Smiling, Beverly said, “This is an empire with a one-eyed chancellor.”

  B’Oraq laughed. “True, true. However, this is only the beginning. The door is open, but I am determined that by the time I die, Defense Force vessels will have sickbays to match those of Starfleet.”

  “If anyone can do it, you can.”

  Beverly had first met B’Oraq ten years ago, while serving as the head of Starfleet Medical. Sitting in her office, going over starship personnel requisitions, Beverly had been interrupted by an auburn-haired Klingon, demanding to know why she was being discriminated against.

  Knowing that the empire had appallingly bad medical standards, B’Oraq—the daughter of a physician—decided not only to follow in her father’s footsteps, but to bring better medicine to her people. To that end, she applied to the Starfleet Medical Academy. When she barged into Beverly’s office, she was in her final year, and working at Spacedock’s medical facility. Where her classmates worked with patients, sat in on surgical procedures, and gained valuable experience, B’Oraq had been given all scut work and the simplest patients to handle.

  Beverly investigated, and it turned out that B’Oraq’s supervisor had, not unreasonably, assumed that B’Oraq—who had made clear her intention to return to the Empire after graduation—would not be practicing medicine at anything near Starfleet’s standard. B’Oraq pointed out that she intended to raise that standard, but she couldn’t if she never got the diversified experience her classmates were getting.

  With Beverly’s help, she got that experience, and the two of them remained in touch for the rest of Beverly’s tenure at Starfleet Medical.

  “I even managed to get some prosthetics on board,” B’Oraq was saying, opening a storage locker that was full of an assortment of limbs and other body parts, “though they’re not officially part of our manifest. But I got them from the same Ferengi dealer who supplies Captain Klag with his bloodwine, so I doubt there will be any problems.”

  “Well, B’Oraq, I have to say, I’m impressed. I was skeptical ten years ago, but it looks like you’ve done wonders here.”

  “As I said, I have only started.” She sat back down at her desk, indicating the guest chair for Beverly. “So how have you been?”

  “Busy,” Beverly said as she took the chair. “War is always boom-time for doctors. I’ve done more surgery in the last two years than I did in the ten years previous. But we did well. Ninety-nine percent of the people who actually made it to sickbay lived to tell about it.”

  “Excellent.”

  “I suppose,” Beverly said with a sigh. The problem, she thought, were all those who never made it to sickbay.

  “As I recall, you had a son who served on the Enterprise with you, yes? Is he well?”

  “Well enough,” Beverly said with a lopsided smile. “He’s, ah, not with Starfleet anymore. He’s—traveling.” How do I explain to B’Oraq that my son is living on another plane of existence when I don’t entirely under stand it myself?

  She was saved from having to explain further by the door to the medical ward opening on a face Beverly had never expected to see again. “Kurak?”

  Kurak—now wearing the uniform of a commander—looked at Beverly and snarled. Then again, Kurak always seemed to be snarling. Her large brown eyes always smoldered with anger, and her lips were always pursed, when they weren’t curled in a snarl. “You! What are you doing here?”

  “She is my friend, Kurak,” B’Oraq said, then looked at Beverly. “I take it you two know each other.”

  “This toDSaH invited me onto her ship,” Kurak said before Beverly could answer, “for a demonstration of a metaphasic shield. When its inventor was killed, your friend accused me of the murder.”

  “Kurak, I—” Beverly started.

  “I do not wish to hear it,” Kurak said, holding up her hand. “I have business to discuss with the doctor. You will leave—now.”

  B’Oraq snarled. “This is not engineering, Kurak. In the medical ward, I say who stays and goes.”

  “It’s all right,” Beverly said, getting up, not wanting to start a dispute between doctor and engineer. “I should probably be getting back to the Enterprise in any case. It was good seeing you again, B’Oraq.”

  Well, there’s something I never expected to come backand bite me on the rear, Beverly thought as she left the Gorkon’s medical ward. Her attempt to sponsor Dr. Reyga, a Ferengi scientist, and his metaphasic shield was not one of Beverly’s proudest moments, seeing as it cost Reyga his life and almost cost Beverly her career. To behonest, Kurak has every right to be angry with me.

  She stood in the corridor, trying to adjust her eyes. The transporter room was this way, I think. She hated trying to navigate by herself on a Klingon ship; they always kept the lights dimmed to near-darkness. Medically, she understood the reasons—Klingons were much more sensitive to bright lights than humans—but it didn’t make it easier for her to stumble her way around.

  “Excuse me?” said a surprisingly timid voice.

  Beverly turned to see a very strange sight: a well-groomed Klingon. His hair was short and combed, something Beverly had only seen on Worf—and he did so only to conform to Starfleet uniform standards. More unusually, this Klingon lieutenant had no facial hair whatsoever, his teeth were straight, and he seemed to have an athletic, swimmer’s build.

  “Uh, yes?” she said.

  “I am looking for Commander Kurak. Did she just go into the medical ward?” The voice was not only timid, but slightly nasal.

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Good.” The Klingon stared at her for a moment, then said, “You lo
ok familiar—do I know you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Beverly said, perhaps too emphatically. I would’ve remembered if I met this one before.

  Suddenly, the Klingon straightened. “You are Beverly of the House of Crusher! You are the doctor who performed the blood test on Kahless II to prove his legitimacy on the Enterprise!”

  Blinking, Beverly said, “Uh, yes—yes, that was me.”

  “It is a great honor to meet you, Doctor!” the Klingon said eagerly.

  “Uh, if you don’t mind, Lieutenant—?”

  “Vall.”

  Beverly nodded in acknowledgment. “How did you know that was me?”

  Vall blinked, as if the question was ridiculous. “It is in the song.”

  “Song?”

  “The song about Kahless’s return. You are in the fourth verse. I will sing it for you.”

  Vall took a deep breath, as if about to break into song. Holding up a hand to head off this dire possibility, Beverly said, “No, no, that’s okay. I, uh—I really have to be getting back to the Enterprise, but it was a pleasure meeting you, Vall.”

  “The pleasure was mine, Doctor!”

  “Don’t mention it.” Please, don’t ever mention it. . . .

  Vall walked quickly toward the medical ward.

  Beverly stood in the corridor for a moment. Well, that was weird.

  She continued her journey to the transporter room, debating with herself whether or not to look up the song about Kahless’s return on the Enterprise computer.

  “So,” Martok said as two civilians brought trays of food for him and Worf, “how are you liking the new post so far?”

  “The honor is to serve,” Worf said as one of the trays was placed before him.

  Martok laughed. “So you hate your new role as much as I do. Good. It serves you right for forcing me into mine.”

  “Hate is too strong a word. I view it as—a challenge.”

  Scooping a handful of skull stew into his mouth, Martok said, “As well you should. I regret giving you such a vexing one to start. But we need speak no more of that. You know my feelings, and I would not wish Klag to think we were plotting behind his back. We have concluded our business. Now is a time for family.” Martok sighed. “Which reminds me of one other piece of business that perhaps we should discuss. Family business.”

  “Oh?”

  “As you may know, my son Drex is the first officer on the Gorkon.”

  “Yes.” Worf had been expecting something like this from the moment he saw Drex’s name on the ship’s crew roster.

  “I would ask a favor of you, Worf. Keep an eye on him.”

  Then again, I was not expecting that. . . . “An eye for what, precisely?”

  “My son has many flaws, as you well know. He has always preferred to let his father’s honor speak for him instead of creating his own. He grew worse during the time I was captured by the Jem’Hadar and that Lubbockian slime devil of a changeling took my place.” Martok spat on the deck. Worf could sympathize. The idea that someone had taken over your life—the way one of the shape-shifting Founders had done to Martok four years ago—was not appetizing. If the changeling had not been so publicly unmasked on Ty’Gokor as it was, Martok’s honor may never have recovered.

  “What is it you wish of me?” Worf asked.

  “I speak not as chancellor to ambassador, but as brother to brother, Worf. Help him find his own honor.”

  Worf refrained from pointing out that one cannot find something that does not exist. Instead he simply said, “I will try.”

  “That is all that I ask.” He took a sip of bloodwine. “Have you heard from Alexander?”

  Taking a bite of bregit lung, Worf said, “Yes, briefly—before I left for Earth. He finds his new assignment challenging. He also sends his regards.”

  Martok laughed. “A Klingon sentiment, followed by a human one. Appropriate for your son.”

  There was an awkward silence while both men ate their food and drank their bloodwine. Worf had never been comfortable talking about his son. Alexander seemed to be turning out all right, but that was through little of Worf’s own doing.

  Perhaps inspired by the mention of Alexander, Martok broke the silence with a very human question: “Are you all right, Worf?”

  Worf shook his head and almost smiled. He had hoped that his façade had remained intact, that Martok could not see the turmoil he was going through. In his life, only four people had ever been able to see past it—or, at least, had done so and were willing to say so to his face—the Rozhenkos, Jadzia, and Martok. The chancellor’s ability to work past the barriers that Worf had spent a lifetime erecting was one of the many things that he admired about Martok, and why he felt so honored to be part of his House.

  “No, I am not,” he said, and then added, very reluctantly, “but I am afraid I cannot say why.”

  “Cannot, or will not?”

  “Both,” Worf said. “It is—personal.” He had been about to say it was a family matter, but that would make it Martok’s business. “I cannot discuss it, even with you.”

  “Will it affect the mission?”

  “I do not believe so,” Worf said carefully. The fact of the matter was, he had no idea what effect it would have.

  Drex’s was not the only familiar name on the Gorkon’s crew roster. There was the second officer, Toq, one of the children Worf had rescued from the prison camp on Carraya—Worf looked forward to seeing the young man again.

  And then there was the primary-shift gunner: Rodek, son of Noggra.

  A false name that Worf himself had given to Kurn, son of Mogh. His brother.

  When Worf had opposed Gowron’s invasion of Cardassia four years previous, Gowron had cast Worf out of the empire, seized his family’s lands, and removed Worf’s younger brother Kurn from the High Council. Kurn had come to Deep Space Nine to ask Worf to perform the Mauk-to’Vor on him, but Captain Sisko had forbidden it—what would be a proper ritual in the empire was murder on a Bajoran station, and Sisko would not allow one of his senior staff to kill his own brother.

  Kurn was unable to die with honor and unable to go on living. Worf found only one solution: have Dr. Bashir erase Kurn’s memory and surgically alter his crest, and then create a false record. “Rodek” was born from the ashes of Kurn.

  Now Worf was a hero of the empire, a respected member of the chancellor’s House. However, his brother unknowingly still lived the lie necessitated by a dishonor that no longer existed.

  But aside from Noggra, who took Rodek in, and Worf himself, no one in the empire could know of this. Not even Martok.

  “Worf, if you are hiding something from me that will affect what happens at taD—”

  “I will see that it does not, Chancellor,” Worf said formally. “You have my word.”

  Martok gazed upon Worf with his one good eye, and finally said, “Very well. Your word has always been more than enough. We will speak no more of it.”

  And they did not.

  “It was a glorious battle,” Klag said as he opened a third bottle of bloodwine and poured it. Most of it landed inside the mug; the rest splashed onto the table. Klag didn’t seem to notice or care. “Twelve ships against six Breen and Jem’Hadar vessels. When it was over, only two remained: the Pagh and one of the Jem’Hadar ships. But we were both severely damaged. The fifth planet was breathable, so Kargan ordered us to land there. The Jem’Hadar did the same.”

  Riker took a hearty gulp from his own mug of bloodwine, still from the first bottle. Anti-inebriant notwithstanding, he was feeling a bit woozy, while Klag—who had drunk about four times as much—showed no signs of even slowing down.

  “Our stabilizers were a thing of the past. The moment we hit the atmosphere, we were thrown across the ship like riders on a bucking mount. By the time I regained my senses, I was on the deck, my right side pinned by what was left of the command chair.” He snorted. “The chair had been sliced in half, and one of those halves was presently weighing me down.
I couldn’t feel my right arm, but I could see it sticking out from the other side of the debris. With a mighty shove, I rolled the twisted piece of metal off with my left hand—and then I stood to get a damage report.” Klag took a long gulp of bloodwine. “My right arm remained on the deck.”

  Riker let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. Even though he knew that the story would have Klag losing his arm at some point, Riker had found himself sufficiently engrossed that it still came as a surprise. He drained his mug of bloodwine. “That must’ve hurt.”

  Pouring Riker some more before the commander could stop him, Klag replied, “Actually, no. I felt only anger—which increased a hundredfold when I saw that I was the only one who had survived the crash.” Klag set down the bottle and clenched his fist. “I was furious! For such a fine crew to have survived the Jem’Hadar, only to die like that!”

  Leaning back and smiling, Klag said, “But then I saw the corpse of Captain Kargan. It was a sight I had long awaited.”

  Riker leaned forward. He had half-expected the glee with which Klag described Kargan’s death. The general impression Riker had of Kargan from his time as the latter’s first officer was that the captain would be removed due to his own ineptitude ere long. The fact that he hadn’t had always confused Riker.

  “What you did not know about the captain,” Klag said, “is that he was the son of General Talak—and the nephew of Councilor K’Tal.”

  Riker nodded. He didn’t know much about Talak, but K’Tal was one of the more respected members of the High Council. Riker had met K’Tal eight years earlier when the councilor supervised the installation of Chancellor Gowron. “Friends in high places, huh?”

  “The highest. So I was trapped under that fool. He blocked any opportunity for me to be promoted off the Pagh, keeping me firmly under his heel while he stumbled through command with the same idiocy he displayed against the Enterprise.”

  Shortly after Riker had reported to the Pagh as first officer, the vessel was afflicted with a corrosive element. Kargan made the ludicrous leap in logic that the Enterprise had sabotaged the Pagh during their rendezvous. Riker had defused the situation, but it was a close call. “Why didn’t you challenge him?” Riker asked. It was, after all, Klag’s right; indeed, Riker had invoked that right, after a fashion, during the confrontation with the Enterprise.