“But, my ship—” Enkoa protested, straining against the grip of the soldiers.
Hanno nodded toward Kein. “It’s the Union’s ship. It was never yours.”
Then the door closed and they were alone. The jagul gave her that same measuring stare once again. For the first time, Kein matched Hanno and met his gaze, unafraid, waiting for him to speak.
She waited for him to admit his mistakes in choosing Enkoa over her. She waited for him to acknowledge that she was the superior, that it had been her intelligence, her daring that had saved the lives of the Rekkel crew, her loyalty to Cardassia that had alerted him to Enkoa’s irresponsibility. She waited for all these things to be said.
Hanno finally broke the silence and turned away from her. “Take command of the Lakar and bring it back to Tantok Nor.” He gave nothing else, dismissing her with a flick of his hand.
When Kein rematerialized in the escort’s tiny transporter alcove, she found Glinn Lleye waiting for her. He glanced at the other, empty transport pad and then back to her.
“Where is the dal?” he asked.
She pushed past the junior officer, heading for the bridge. “You won’t see him again.”
She rose into Tantok Nor’s operations center inside the open-walled elevator, drawing a few cursory looks from the staff on duty. A Kelrabi—a trustee of some sort, she surmised—backed away from the lift platform and allowed her to exit, clutching a tricorder to its chest in an unconscious gesture of self-protection. The alien took the elevator back down as she glanced around the domed chamber. A female glinn at the main systems table in the middle of the room looked up and nodded toward the raised upper level, to the copper doors of the station gul’s office. “He’s waiting for you,” she said.
Kein had never seen the other female officer before, and for a moment she wondered how the glinn knew her identity. But then news traveled fast on any military outpost; she wondered what they were saying about her on Tantok Nor behind her back, and she wondered about the glinn.
Did she already have an understanding of how hard a road she was on? What lessons was she learning from Kein and her conduct?
The young officer looked away, but Kein wasn’t finished with her yet. “You,” she said, demanding her attention once again. “A question.”
“Yes, Dalin?”
“The refectory down on the main concourse, the one with the long booths and the open frontage.”
“By the quartermaster’s office?”
She gave a nod. “It’s closed. Every time I’ve been on this station it’s been open around the clock.”
“I never visited it.” The glinn’s brow furrowed; clearly the question wasn’t what she had expected. “I believe the facility has been shut down for refurbishment, ma’am. The storefronts down there, they’re civilian interests under contract to the Fleet. They only have short leases from the station’s support office.” She reached for a panel on her bowed console. “I could contact the chief of logistics if you wish me to. They will have details of the contractors—”
Kein shook her head. “No.” She looked away. There would be no point. Somehow, the moment she stepped through the cogwheel hatch of the airlock, she had known that the place … that he would be gone.
With swift, purposeful pace she climbed the steps to the station gul’s office and saw through the windows in the doors Tantok Nor’s commander and Jagul Hanno standing at either end of a curved desk. Hanno caught sight of her and beckoned her in. Kein entered as the two men continued their conversation, content to let her wait.
Station Gul Relaw was speaking. “Gul Matrik reports that the deployment has gone without incident. They have secured an encampment in an area known locally as the Barrica Valley, some distance from the remains of the Federation settlement. Setlik III has now formally been annexed by the Cardassian Union.”
“For the moment,” Hanno noted. “Order him to have the Fell maintain a wide patrol perimeter until reinforcements can arrive to relieve them.”
“Central Command has approved this?” Relaw’s doubt was evident.
“Of course,” said the jagul. “It’s what they were agitating for all along.” He glanced at Kein, then back to the gul. “Proceed.”
“Sir.” Relaw gave a brisk salute and shot Kein a look of his own. She sensed a faint sneer behind it. “I’ll let you have the room.” The station commander left them, the copper doors closing behind his back. Kein saw him disappear down into the command pit, calling out orders.
Hanno moved behind Relaw’s desk and took the chair there, settling into it with an air of weariness Kein hadn’t seen in him before. “Laen Enkoa has been cashiered,” he began, without preamble. “He’s on a transport back to Cardassia. When he arrives on Prime there will be proceedings. But it’s just a formality, really.”
Kein elected to say nothing.
He idly pushed a padd around the desk; Kein saw her own ident code on the small screen. She had carefully used the time it took the Lakar to return to Kelrabi, doctoring the date indices on some of her personal and duty log entries in order to firm up her assertion that Enkoa had acted alone. The sheer audacity of such an action, of doing something that so blatantly went against her oath to the Fleet, might have troubled her before. Now Kein did it with only the slightest taint of remorse, telling herself that it was a service to Cardassia to cement this one man’s fall from grace. She almost believed it.
“His career is in tatters and he has disgraced himself. Lethra will break her engagement to him by the day’s end, if she has not already done so.” Hanno looked away, and then back to her. “Did you help him along that road, Kein? Did you push him into his mistakes?”
She licked dry lips. “Enkoa needed no assistance from me to make his errors, sir. I was almost killed by his indecision aboard the Rekkel. I am glad that he was prevented from risking more Cardassian lives.”
“You could not be more incorrect,” Hanno rumbled. “Enkoa’s actions have, if anything, put even more of our fellow soldiers in the line of fire. His foolishness has pushed the Union closer to open war, closer than it has been in years.” The jagul shook his head. “I have worked for a long time to ensure peace and stability for my people, and in one day, an inexperienced imbecile tears it all down.” He pointed a finger at her. “What I wish to know is why he did it.”
Kein’s mouth opened, then closed.
“Speak!” The word was a sudden bark. “Don’t test my patience, woman! I give you leave to speak openly. Do so!”
When she said the words she felt a little giddy with the daring of them. “The blame is yours, sir. Enkoa was not ready for the role you gave him. He lacked imagination and discipline. He wasn’t ready for command.”
“And you think you were? You think I should have chosen you?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “And I believe that you knew that when you called us both to your office on Sunzek. But you chose him regardless.” The potency of this openness, the chance to speak her mind, was seductive.
Hanno folded his arms. “I did not pass you over because of your gender, Dalin, despite what you may think.”
“No, sir,” she replied. “You passed me over because I was not the one having sex with your niece.” The more she talked, the more this freedom was running away with her. Kein found herself working to stop herself smiling.
The jagul smacked the flat of his hand on Relaw’s desk. “You understand nothing!” He rose to his feet once more. “I’ll grant you this, girl, you already have the arrogance of a starship commander. But not the foresight of a good officer, not yet.”
She backed off a step as the old warrior came closer, his voice falling back into those low, somber tones.
“You’re like Enkoa in one way. You have no vision of the larger patterns at work. In fact, you’re more dangerous than he ever could be, because he was a fool and you are not.” Hanno leaned in, and he seemed old. “I gave him rank because of who he was. For the family he was a part of. Lines of influe
nce, Kein. Need and appeasement, munificence and envy. These are the forces that act upon us all. It’s very difficult to keep them in balance. Like a tower of dry twigs … you build it tall to take you high, but it becomes fragile. Easy to catch on fire.” He turned away again.
“My family would offer you little for your tower,” she admitted. “But I would have given you everything!” Kein’s eyes flashed. “Something without price—loyalty!”
Hanno chuckled without humor. “Youth. You value yourself so high.” He glared at her. “Answer me this: How is your loyalty without price when I can buy you with just a starship?”
Her throat ran dry as he pulled a rank sigil from his pocket—the same one he had taken from Enkoa—and tossed it on the desk. She could not help but reach for it.
“You are raised in rank to dal,” he said flatly. “The Lakar is your new command. Now take it and get out of my sight.”
“What . . .” Her fingers clasped around the small metal plate of ash-dark iron, tracing over the inset etching. “What are my orders?”
“Orders?” Hanno echoed, his tolerance for her impudence now clearly at an end. “Gul Relaw will give you your orders, Dal Kein! I have no say in them. I am returning to Cardassia Prime, in the footsteps of your errant cohort. Once he has answered for his errors, I will answer for them as well.” He pushed past her toward the anteroom at the far end of the office. He kept talking. “He’s the torch to my tower of twigs.” The jagul drifted into silence; then in the next second he was glaring at her with undisguised rage. “Now get out!”
She stepped up to the command throne and settled her weight into it. The chair gave a little, but it was firm and comfortable. Automatic systems hidden in the frame adjusted it silently to conform more closely to her body shape, tilting the chair gently so she might have the best view of the Lakar’s bridge from where she sat upon the dais. For a brief moment, Kein closed her eyes and savored it.
The chair was hers now. She owned it, just as she did every bolt and rivet in this ship. Her blood rushed in her ears, and she could almost taste her captaincy. It was bitter and it was sweet, and it was exactly what she deserved.
Still, Hanno’s last words to her hung like a dark cloud at the horizon of her thoughts, threatening to blacken the fierce joy of the moment. She refused to allow herself to be shaken from the rightness of this. Here, in this chair, on this ship, this was where Sanir Kein should have been all along; and now that she had taken her place, she would not give it up.
A chime sounded from one of the consoles. “Dal?” Dalin Telso half turned to face her. “Incoming message.” Promoting the chief engineer to her former post as executive officer had been her first order of business after returning to the Lakar, and it had been worth it just to see the moment of shock and confusion on the man’s face; but he was grateful with it too, and Kein was certain he would give her the honesty and fearlessness she needed in that role, borne out of his steady aversion to her. And that was fine; he did not need to like her, he needed only to obey her.
“Origin?” she asked.
Telso hesitated. “Unknown. It’s heavily encrypted. Eyes-only security protocols. Addressed directly to you, ma’am.”
Kein felt the distinct passage of a cold bead of sweat down the back of her duty armor. She rose from the command chair, propelled to her feet by a sudden discomfort. “Transfer it to the duty room,” she told him. “I’ll take it there.”
She sat behind the desk and studied the screen suspended in the oval frame before her. The dull glow of the text there was the only illumination in the small office. Whereas Enkoa had made it bright in here, Kein kept the lighting low to make the space seem larger, less cramped and oppressive.
The communication transfer was awaiting an activation code word. Kein thought for a moment, dragging up the day’s briefing on the Fleet’s code protocols for that shift, and paused. The Lakar was expecting no such sealed orders today. There was no reason for a clandestine signal with such a degree of opaque encryption to be sent to so minor a vessel.
No reason. No reason other than—
Kein cleared her throat and spoke the first word that came to mind. “Rokassa.”
There was a faint chime, and the screen unfolded. No framing, no background was visible. Only a figure, head and shoulders, bland and smiling. “Ah, Dal Kein. May I be the first to congratulate you on your well-deserved promotion. I’d offer you a glass on the house to celebrate, but as you can see I’ve been called away. Other duties. You know how it goes.”
“Yes,” she managed. Belatedly, it occurred to her that she should have had Telso try to backtrack the signal origin. Was he still on Tantok Nor, perhaps on the planet below, or on one of the other ships in the area?
“A shame about Enkoa. Men like that find failure very hard to deal with. Sometimes the shame drives them to—”
“Don’t kill him.” The words slipped out of her mouth.
There was the hint of a smile. “You’re gracious in your victory. Or is it that you would find such finality distasteful?”
“Who are you?” she demanded. “I want your name.”
The bland face hardened for a moment. “Don’t be silly. You’ve crossed many lines these last few days, but don’t let it make you reckless. That’s what Enkoa did, and look what it earned him. He learned certain truths and employed that information badly.”
“You spoke to Enkoa?”
“Not I.”
Kein’s eyes narrowed. “I knew what you were,” she told him. “What you are.”
“Really?” He gave her an indulgent smile. “How perceptive of you.”
“I think I knew from the first words you spoke,” Kein continued, “but I refused to see it.”
“Envy . . .” he purred. “It is such a deep well to draw from. Not like desire or hate or avarice. It never seems to run dry.”
“I wanted Enkoa gone. But Hanno . . .”
“Ah, the estimable Jagul Hanno. He has made some poor choices, hasn’t he? There are many who feel misjudgments characterize much of his commands. And now, thanks to you, he has provided the very leverage required to push him aside. In the name of Cardassian glory.” He said the last words with a mocking lilt.
“I am not your tool!” she shouted, the muscles in her arms bunching, her hands becoming impotent fists. “You manipulated me, and I let it happen. It will not go that way again.”
“Oh?” The man on the screen fell silent for a moment. “Do you think yourself unusual in this, then? Really, Dal, are you so vain as to believe that this has never happened to anyone else?” He chuckled. “This is commonplace, my dear Sanir. This is trite and routine and done very, very often.” He leaned in, his face filling the screen. “You see, envy is what makes us Cardassian. It’s the pillar our society stands upon. We have always had too little, and we have always wanted. Cardassia has always wanted what others have. We are always hungry, you see? Always driven. It’s what makes us who we are.” That insouciant smile returned. “And perhaps, one day, it will be the path that leads us to take the whole galaxy for ourselves.”
“Or destroy us in the attempt,” she said bleakly. The new scar burned hard against her temple.
He reached for something outside the field of vision of the screen’s camera pickup, and touched a control. An icon blinked in the corner of the monitor, signifying a download in progress. “I have something for you. Something from Setlik III, from an, ah, source on the surface. A recording of the aftermath.” He seemed sad for a moment, playing at the emotion. “View it at your leisure. Look at the damage done and the dead. It will help you understand the price that was paid to assuage your jealousy.”
His voice was like a blade, patient and steady. She could almost feel it pressing into the meat of her, between the spars of her ribs, into her heart, her throat. Shakily, Kein removed an isolinear data rod from the frame of the screen and held it between her fingers, as if it were poisonous. “Why?” she husked.
“It’s importa
nt that you understand the dimensions of your responsibility,” he told her. “Clarity. It ensures there will be no misinterpretations during our future associations.”
She almost missed the inference in his words, and her head jerked up suddenly. “No. No, this is at an end—”
He chuckled again, reaching back toward the controls. “Of course it is. Enjoy your new command, Dal Kein. You have certainly earned it.”
The screen went dead, and Sanir was plunged into darkness, the ghost of a knife twisted tight in her chest.
Wrath
The Unhappy Ones
Keith R.A. DeCandido
Historian’s Note
This story takes place in 2269 (ACE), prior to the destruction of the Klingon battle cruiser at Beta XII-A (“Day of the Dove” TOS).
Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins Page 21
