Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.

This story has not been been beta-read, so any mistakes in it are mine.

Warning. Whilst not graphic, this story deals with adult issues and features some violence. If stories of this nature offend you, please do not read it.

OC Em Gomez used by kind permission of Chrysa.

Well. It's been a long time coming. But I'm finally here.

I've had to tread carefully, more carefully than I ever had in all my life before – a life spent surviving an environment where the weak go to the wall, unmourned and almost unnoticed. I've had to negotiate circumstances compared to which walking blindfolded through a minefield would be a walk in the park. I've lived through six assassination attempts (that I know of), and killed the man I could have loved; and I'm still here.

And at long last, I'm going to meet him.

Sato?

She's still in power. Give her her due, she's good; she wouldn't have lasted the first three months if she hadn't been. That said, she's undoubtedly been getting excellent advice. Mayweather may have been a mere sergeant when he first caught the Imperial eye, but his meteoric rise to power since hasn't gone to his head. He's still the cool chess player who used to give me a run for my money occasionally aboard Enterprise when I got bored of terrorizing people and decided to test my intellect instead; he takes care to stand behind the throne, but he's very close behind it, and he has the massive presence of a thundercloud on a hot August afternoon.

(We've encountered each other now and then. His gaze measures me and doesn't show what he makes of me. I don't like it, but since Sato is amused by our guarded neutrality that's probably how it'll stay for the present.)

Nevertheless, even the might of the all-powerful Terran Empire isn't quite as focused in one place as Empress Sato and her little pet might like. They've done good work in that direction – Defiant certainly helped in that regard – but there are still power blocs that must be taken into account. Within these, of course, are their own sets of checks and balances, and the bloc that I'm part of is one of those that Her High and Mightiness regards with some suspicion. Justifiably so, I might add. The training that goes to make a MACO produces the soldiers that built the Empire, long before Commander Archer first heard the whisper of an alien ship in Tholian territory. The Empire's moment of weakness came because those who should have known better moved too far and too fast, extending our power faster than we could consolidate the support for it. Under Sato, that's changing. Progress has been slower, but foundations are being laid that will hold instead of collapsing.

The power in the MACOs, however, has been slowly and subtly shifting in the meantime. I could admit to being surprised that I had it in me to move so stealthily for so long; certainly I enjoy the stalking part of any kill, but I knew from the start that what I wanted to achieve would take more planning and more care than anything I'd ever conceived of in my life before.

And now I'm here. Somewhere I wouldn't be if he didn't recognise my power; if he didn't want to meet me in person, and weigh me up for himself.

There are sentries on the door. They're built like brick shit-houses, of course. Each of them carries a Klingon disruptor tucked into their belt as well as a standard plasma rifle in their hands, and eyes me malevolently as I walk quietly up the corridor, Em at my back. If they didn't know full well we're authorised to be here we'd already be dead, and in my heart of hearts I'm still not even sure we'll live long enough to walk through the door between them.

But we wouldn't even be here if he wasn't interested. If it was just a matter of simply eliminating me, I prefer to believe that he could have arranged the seventh assassination attempt. And assassinations arranged in that quarter have an exceptionally low survival rate, to which I probably wouldn't have made any noticeable contribution.

Or he may simply have a sense of humour like mine. It would be singularly piquant for the door to jerk open at the last minute and his face be the last thing either of us see as we burn up in disruptor fire.

I'm hoping this won't be the case, of course, but my always temperamental internal workings admit to a certain amount of anxiety.

Rumour has never mentioned that he has a sense of humour, it has to be said.

It would be a damned inconvenient moment for him to find one.

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