Chapter 12

There had been a dull, general training class on the history of Starfleet when Jim was a cadet—stuff he'd mostly already known from days spent as a kid holed up in the barn with a PADD, with nothing else to do but avoid Frank and read for hours on end. He'd nearly washed out in his first semester for skipping the class—and would have, had he not managed to sweet-talk the instructor into letting him take the final just to show he could ace it. A few details stood out: among them, the fact that the USS Helena was one of the oldest ships in the fleet.

Which, Jim thought, staring across the tiny, white cell, explained why her brig was so goddamn tiny.

Where the Enterprise brig was a fishbowl, cells built in a ring surrounding a central security station, the cells of the Helena were in lined up in a long row, all equipped with security cameras but isolated from each other. The fourth wall of the cell was a transparent force field, the same kind as aboard the Enterprise, giving them a spectacular view of the blank wall opposite them.

Seated opposite him, knees bent, her feet on the bench, Rllan was staring at the back wall, her expression oddly flat. If Jim had to put a name to it, he'd call it a glare, but it lacked heat.

He glanced around, up at the security camera above him, then back to Rllan, who hadn't moved—or spoken—in over an hour. "So," he said, his voice deafening after the silence. "Were you ever gonna give us the coordinates? Or was the plan always to hightail it back to the motherland?'

He'd been told by more than one person that he had a sarcastic streak in him—mostly by Frank, then later as a teenager, and even still as a cadet. It felt childish, pissy—but fuck it; he was pissed.

When Rllan didn't reply, he leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and trying to catch her eye. "Come on. I want to know. They won't let me kill you, and they won't let you kill me, so let's talk. Like you've got better things to do than sit here and ignore me."

No answer.

"See," Jim continued, "I know you have the ship coordinates. You may not be who you say you are, but that much is true. So help me understand. Why is my helmsman—my friend, who just adopted a baby girl—in emergency surgery, fighting for his life?"

No answer.

"I understand that maybe for you there's a cultural rejection of halfway decent medical care, but I know you value honor. And letting a man die who'd just helped save your life? Pretty fucking honorless if you ask me."

At that, Rllan turned slowly to look at him, her eyes narrowed. "You know nothing of honor," she said coldly. Then, looking away: "And you know nothing of me."

The cell was silent again. Jim let out a resigned breath and leaned back against the wall. He glanced back at her, at the dull, flat look in her eyes. "What's your name?" he asked.

Rllan glanced back at him.

"There's more to it. I know that much."

For a moment she seemed to consider, then turned away again. "Qowon."

"Qowon," Jim repeated. "Family name?"

He wasn't expecting much of a reply, and was surprised when Rllan spoke: "Yes. A name for traitors and weaklings." Her words were quiet, but laced with a venom he hadn't heard from her before.

He blinked. "Yeah, well…trust me, there are worse names out there." He paused, staring at her, then asked, "Where are you from?"

Rllan shot him a withering look.

Jim rolled his eyes. "Where are you from on Kronos."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Ok, ok." He sat up again. "I'm from an Earth town called Riverside. It's in the middle of nowhere, but it's where they build the starships. 'Bout the only thing it's got going for it. What about you?"

There was a long silence. "I am from the Capitol," Rllan said finally.

"The Capitol have a name?" Jim asked.

"No." The Klingon shook her head, staring back at the wall. "It doesn't need one."


Qo'noS: The Capitol

2259.181

As far as Rllan knows, the Capitol has never had a name.

As a child, during one of the worst winters in living memory, she sat on the floor in front of a roaring fire and asked her father why this was. He barked a dismissive laugh over the crackle of the flames, painfully hot and leaping a meter high. Set into the back of the fireplace, the Qowon sigil, twisted out of a Praxis steel alloy, glowed white hot.

Are you a Vulcan? he asked, These questions are trivial distractions, my girl.

The Capitol had always been and—so she thought then—would always be. It wasn't as if there were other suitable planets, other suitable cities. It didn't need a name to distinguish it, only the title.

Now Rllan stands in her father's house. It is empty and dark. She has already been upstairs and throughout the house. The only body she found was that of a young servant, lost and left behind weeks ago in the initial confusion and flight. Since then, she has told by a cousin over a subspace video channel—one of the few lucky enough to make it off-planet—that the rest of the bodies have been burned: her mother, her sisters. Her aunt and uncle. Her young nephews. Everyone who was exposed in the first days, when she had been off-planet.

Looters have made their way through the fire room; one has tried to crack the sigil out of its place on the wall. It remains, dented and blackened by soot. As a child she might have been shocked—no, enraged—by such disrespect. But there have always been and will always be those without honor. She learned that in the months following her father's death. Former classmates and fellow sparring students would gossip to one another behind her back instead of spitting their insults to her face.

They say he died bedridden.

He had no sons, so now she's the head of house—pathetic.

They should have buried him in the ground like a human.

At this she feels a familiar rush of anger, not only at the weak-minded hypocrites who whispered abuses at her back, but at her father himself. Requm of House Qowon was a proud traditionalist. It is no surprise he said nothing about his illness until it was long too late. Once as a teenager at the dinner table she brought up the notion of private honor: a concept being thrown around more and more, by drunken, fiery-eyed students in dark Capitol taverns. He openly mocked her.

A warrior puts down his sword and opens a restaurant stand, spending his days hauling pallets in a cramped back room, he said scornfully. Private honor, indeed.

Sometime in the first year after his death, Rllan began to wonder what might have been if he had sought help—perhaps in Vulcan medicine, or even human medicine. An admission of weakness, to be sure. And over months of quiet, secretive research, she learned that his chances of survival would have been slim regardless. But there was a small chance he could have been living now. Doubtless a subject of derision, but still the head of a great House, still capable of a good fight.

Rllan has long since made peace with the fact that she can no longer recall her father's face, but now she could still hear his voice, his short bark of a laugh, as she stares at the blackened fireplace, her breath fogging the faceplate of her breathing mask.

Footsteps behind her.

She spins around and assumes a fighting stance, but it is only Vattha, her second in command. He too wears a mask strapped over his face, his brow knitted, urgent.

"We have to go now. They're coming."

Rllan gives a curt nod, and Vattha disappears outside. She turns back to the fire room.

In her hand is a fuel tank, ripped out of a flitter down the road. It's badly damaged and unlikely to fly again, so she has no qualms about taking what isn't hers. These are desperate days. The rules have changed.

She recalls her father's last days, how he once misinterpreted a passing comment about funeral proceedings, and, in a fit of delirium and rage, snarled at her that he wouldn't be denied a pyre.

From her belt she draws a short knife and jabs it into the fuel tank, tipping it out before her and pouring the pungent liquid out onto the floor.

She works her way backwards to the main entry. When she is finished she drops the tank by the door and makes her way out onto the landing. Vattha is waiting at the edge of the road, impatient.

Rllan turns back to the house. She reaches into her pocket and extracts a flashbomb. They are the weapons of the weak these days—hardly lethal, but useful for warding off looters or worse. Taking a step back, she flicks it at the trail of flitter fuel left in the main entry. After the initial blaze that illuminates the doorway, she watches the flames rip their way down the hall.

Wordlessly she rejoins Vattha at the edge of the road, where he growls into the comm at his wrist: "Now."

Gradually, she feels the pull of the transporter beam returning them to her ship. As the world begins to dematerialize around her, Rllan watches her father's house burn.


2256.164, Early Winter

After the funeral, she makes herself scarce. It is her right, after all—as the head of her House—to appear and disappear as she chooses.

She has an endless list of obligations: she must select the most trusted members of her crew—a mere twenty-four of three-hundred—to form the ranks of her new ship, the warbird SaQuy, while her former vessel will come under the command of a new captain. She must refamiliarize herself with the affairs of her House: cousins to appease, sisters, marriages and alliances… She must select aides for her work in the Council chambers and decide what to do with her father's estate.

She finds herself on the edge of the city. There is a cliff outcropping overlooking the lakes to the north: vast, artificial, and now heavily polluted after years of disuse. Flame-orange algae blooms spread beneath the surface of the thin ice. It is early winter, not yet so cold that waiting for nightfall will be dangerous. She sits on a patch of scrubby grass and dangles her legs over the cliff.

The distinctive electric buzz of a second flitter reaches her ears, drawing nearer and nearer until its driver cuts the engine, and footsteps approach from behind. She makes no move to leave: only one other Klingon knows this place and would choose to come here.

"You look like shit."

Tlreth sits beside her, mirroring her and dangling his feet over the edge as well .

It's been months since she's seen him, and he looks the same as ever: as short and stocky as he was when they were teenagers, bright-eyed, his hair a tangled cloud, but never worse for the wear. He elbows her in the bicep and holds out a bottle of firewine, the price label scratched out.

She glances over, raises an eyebrow. "No Romulan ale?"

"I'll never understand why you like that rat's piss." He grins. "Seemed like you could use something stronger."

She accepts the bottle and takes a swig. The firewine burns in her throat. "You're the one who introduced me to that rat's piss. You sell it to half the Council."

"Yes, and I'm forever grateful for their business."

Rllan laughs, and it's almost a foreign sound, it's been so long. She punches Tlreth's arm and hands the bottle back, watches him take a drink out of the corner of her eye.

In her periphery, she sees him glance her over, eyeing the heavy, steel, jeweled necklace that rests around her collar. She is still wearing her familial robes, the colors of the crest stitched along the seams, and the crest itself across her chest.

When he speaks again, he's more subdued: "I'm sorry."

Rllan is silent for a moment. There are light clouds clinging to the foothills on the horizon beyond the sprawl of slums and industrial factories. The mountains behind them are obscured.

She is sorry too—for the last few days, the last few weeks. The last few years. She does not say so. Instead she says: "He burned well."

"Honorably," Tlreth adds.

Rllan snorts—as if anyone could burn dishonorably.

"You know what I mean. It was…what he had left."

It's true, and she makes no attempt to argue the point. She takes another swig of firewine. "This won't be the end of it, you know. This is only the beginning."

"I know."

She glances at him and asks, dryly, "Sure you still want to be connected to the Great House of Qowon?"

Tlreth laughs, an open, raucous sound that comes from the gut and echoes off the cliff walls. "Sure you still want to be connected to the Great House of Ngon? Whose forefathers fraternize with Ferengi scum?"

"Whose forefathers wither and die, and leave their women in charge?" she fires back, quoting the broadside she saw amongst the news clippings of the funeral just that morning.

With this, they take up their favorite pastime: mocking the news reports that have mocked them all their lives, starting with the dismissal of Tlreth's father from the High Council for financing the smuggling ring his son now operates, and ending with Requm's funeral. For a few minutes, the rest of the day fades into the back of her mind. They pass the bottle back and forth until they run out of headlines to laugh at. By then Rllan is lightly buzzed, numbed to the rising winter chill, and at the same time, the conversation sobers, lapsing into silence.

Beside her, Tlreth lets out a last breath of mirth. He glances over. "Listen, I've got something to show you. Take your mind off things."

Rllan raises an eyebrow. "Romulan ale?"

He doesn't answer, but turns away to reach into his pack, turning back around with a datapad. It's plain, black, unmarked. Probably encrypted. He powers it on, taps in a code, and passes it over.

The screen is filled by a star chart, depicting a cross-section of space she doesn't recognize. It's utterly ordinary, except that nothing on it is labeled.

"What is it?" she asks.

Tlreth grins. "That, my friend, is the best-kept secret in the galaxy. It's a new distribution meetup."

"Your latest petty commercial success?"

Tlreth reaches over and puts two fingers on the screen, drawing them toward each other to zoom out on the image. Rllan begins to recognize constellations, anomalies…the dotted line crossing the center of the screen that makes her realize what she's looking at.

"This is—" she breaks off, then looks up and says flatly, "You're insane."

"Most geniuses are."

"No, you're just insane."

Tlreth shifts toward her, drawing his legs back onto the scrubby ground and crossing them. "Think about it. No more random patrols, no more worrying about birds of prey descending from on high, no more false registration IDs for my suppliers... I've cut the wait time in half. Do you have any idea how much money that saves me?"

"You've confirmed it. You are actually trying to get yourself killed."

"Please. Half the Council is buying from me, through one proxy or another. They couldn't kill me if I flew across the border in a Federation starship."

Rllan shakes her head in disbelief. "Just be careful, all right?"

Tlreth looks at her sidelong. "I will if you will."

Rllan glances back at him and nods, then takes the bottle from his loose hand. After another swig she's laughing again, punching Tlreth's arm.


2257.336, Midsummer

Chancellor Lorak looks bored.

Much of the Council does; the rest are either varying degrees of irritated or entertained. Few are actually watching her as she turns back to the young senator standing opposite her on the chamber floor.

Youth is relative in the Council: Jorwun of House Thlochav is at least ten years her senior, but he is among the youngest present, and vaguely known in the Capitol for his part in the campaigns on the outer rim.

He'd be a better statesman than he was a soldier, Rllan thinks, if he actually understood how to deliver an argument that made sense. She turns back to the senator and fixes him with a glare: "Six months ago on Krios Prime, a thousand infantry died because one was left untreated for Kriosan cholera. When his captain was asked why, he said their medics had run out of supplies. A mere twelve lightyears from Qo'noS!"

She remembers learning about the disastrous attempt to quell the Kriosan insurrection. She was briefed with the rest of the Council before it became public knowledge. Before the day's end, she had consulted Vattha and interviewed nearly every one of the battlefield medics he was still in contact with. By the following morning, she was convinced of a plan to prevent any such military disgrace from happening again.

She has been attempting to argue the point ever since, at every appropriations meeting. Without fail.

"Senator Qowon," Jorwun says, "I must remind you again that our resources are limited."

"Resources are not limited enough to justify our poor excuse for a colonial militia," she snaps back.

"Additional training for battlefield medics may be useful as a minor solution on occupied colony worlds, but the funds for such training do not exist."

"They exist when we retrain a thousand soldiers to replace those who died because the men who sit in the Council Chambers decide they are expendable."

As the words leave her mouth, Rllan feels the ripple that makes its way around the room, the glares from the upper seats. She casts her gaze around, turning in a circle and meeting the eyes of each Senator in turn. Most expressions she meets are explicitly disapproving. QuSurgh and Noluy—who have agreed with her in the past, but whose arguments rarely hold the Chamber floor—are carefully neutral. Only Loavj, among the oldest in the room, inclines his head in acknowledgement when she meets his eyes, the white cloud of his hair dipped forward.

To her left, Jorwun bristles. "You should be careful who you insult, Senator Qowon, and where you do it. You would weaken morale among our soldiers."

Rllan turns back to him, and feels the heat of spite pooling at the base of her throat. "Morale is not what wins wars, and you are a fool to assume otherwise."

Jorwun's face darkens in anger. He opens his mouth to speak, but stops when Lorak rises with the barest rustle of fabric.

"Thank you, Senator Qowon, for your observations," the Chancellor says, and it is neither thanks nor acknowledgement, but dismissal. "They are noted." He waves a gnarled hand to signal the session's end. Jorwun sends her a final scowl before turning on his heel, blending into the crowd as the rest of the Council rises and departs.

It is then, as Rllan gathers her datapad and turns to leave, that she notices the man who has been standing against the wall behind Lorak's seat. It is immediately clear he has been watching her. Paying attention.

She recognizes him only as he steps into the light and reveals his face.

He looks different from how he normally appears in the newsfeeds, wearing the light formal uniform of a soldier off-duty, rather than the heavy armor intended for shipboard combat. He looks different from most Klingons as well: bald and pale-skinned, with a diminished browridge that marks him as a descendant of those exposed to the Augment virus of nearly a century ago. It almost makes him look like a human.

Unlike some, Rllan is not stupid enough to think this diminishes his presence. If anything, it does the opposite. His reputation is earned, not given.

The captain of the imperial flagship Muqtovor ducks under the metal railing to approach her on the Chamber floor, the barest of smiles tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I hope you are as fearsome on the battlefield as you are in the Council Chambers."

She draws herself up. "I would not be here otherwise."

"You seem well-versed in the affairs of our medical corps."

"I am."

"A personal interest?"

Rllan knows the captain by reputation, and evidently, the reverse is true. She feels herself bristle. "I am interested in the success of our armies."

He laughs. "You are most…discerning with your words, Senator." He turns away from her, glancing around the now empty Council Chambers. "Youth's a stuff will not endure…" he muses. "Twelfth Night. Do you know the play?"

"No."

"It is Terran." He turns to face her. "And quite ancient. One of the works of William Shakespeare. A man from a time…removed from that of humanity now. One who understood the nature of brutality."

It doesn't take a scholar to understand the implication. Rllan glares at him. "If you want something of me, then get to the point."

The captain smiles. "I admire your willingness to speak your mind. You are clearly free of the reserve that holds sway over the rest of these…politicians. If you'll permit me, Senator—and I mean no presumption when I say this—you have a warrior's bearing. This," he gestures around the empty chamber, "does not seem a fitting ambition."

"I succeeded my father on the Council," Rllan replies tightly, "as you well know."

"Of course. Duty and ambition do not always align. And you've certainly made an impression here. I was intrigued by your argument today, though for one so determined, you seem to lack confidence in our recruits."

"It is not our recruits in whom I lack confidence."

He inclines his head. "Point taken. A world of difference lies between those on the battlefield, and those who sit in the Council chambers. But as your colleague Jorwun so eloquently explained, budgets are limited. And surely you believe there are some things worth preserving."

"At the expense of our soldiers?"

He steps toward her. "Every good warrior understands the necessity of sacrifice. Without such men and women, we would not have the empire we do now."

Rllan slips her PADD and stylus into the deep pocket of her robes, and looks the captain in the eye. "The more recruits we send to die over grain disputes and colonial squabbles, eventually there won't be an empire." She turns to leave, and does not bother with a farewell.


2259.176, Early Winter

She leaves the Council chambers with a sense of grim certainty.

There are two copies of the report loaded onto her datapad. Not her official one, although the reports are copied there as well, but the unmarked, unregistered one she keeps on her person at all times.

It's a gift from Tlreth, loaded with copies of the scientists' earlier reports in minute detail, and an unmarked star chart of a cross-section of space, only half-Klingon.

She began keeping it on her person at all times a month ago, after the first attempt on her life. After her return to Kronos, and the disastrous Council meeting where she had waved the scientists' second report in Jorwun's face, demanding that they relay a message to the Federation, Terran raids on the Ketha province be damned. After the plague had begun to worm its way into her House, taking first her sisters, then her mother, aunt and uncle, and the cousins not lucky enough to have already left for other worlds.

The cohort of ten scientists have confirmed what she has thought from the beginning, and paid for it with their lives if they haven't already.

History will not remember them kindly, she thinks. History will not remember them at all.

She walks out of the Council chamber with the image of Jorwun staring directly at her, triumph in his eyes, burned into her mind's eye. Lorak above them, looking dispassionately down as he declared the report unacceptable, the scientists' work inadequate. The captain of the Muqtovor, so frequently standing at Lorak's right elbow, silently observing, this time conspicuously absent.

Rllan knows she has stood in the Council chamber for the last time.

At the end of the corridor, she sees a familiar white cloud of hair, the short-statured Klingon waiting for her, clad in plain robes. He and QuSurgh were both absent from this final meeting.

She picks up her pace to a trot, extracting her official datapad from the deep pockets of her robes, handing it over to him. "Look at this."

"I have seen it." He matches her pace as she marches down the hall.

"Then you understand what it means. They have lost all pretense of strategy. They are—"

"Rllan—"

"—weak-minded puppets of Lorak, and—"

"Rllan!"

Rllan knows that allowing authority to talk over her has never once gone in her favor. But Loavj is so unlike the others—so uncommonly soft-spoken—that when he raises his voice she listens.

He grabs her sleeve, pulls her aside with surprising force, but when he looks at her, there is no anger in his eyes. "It's time."

They've discussed it. Or—more accurately—Loavj, Noluy, and QuSurgh discussed it after the assassination attempt, while Rllan protested loudly.

She stares at the old man, shaking her head. "No."

"We have days at most."

"We can't just leave!"

"What do you propose to do, die? A martyr is a flare, Rllan. His impact lasts only a moment. Those who effect real change go unremembered. You know this."

Deep down, she does. It doesn't mean she chooses to admit it.

Loavj sighs. "What family do you have left on Kronos?"

"None!" she says harshly. "I have no cause to run from this. I have no one to look after."

"Well, I do."

The old man looks up at her, soft-eyed, and Rllan falls silent.

"My daughter, and her daughters," Loavj continues, quietly. "If I die, I die. I cannot allow them to do the same."

Rllan stares at him, anger still constricting her chest, her shoulders. "And what if they need you? A martyr is a flare."

He glances up with a small smile. "Allow me this small hypocrisy, Rllan. I don't have much else left."

That same day, she calls in a favor with Tlreth, and arranges for him to smuggle Loavj's daughter and grandchildren off-planet. Tlreth has already made countless trips out of Kronos ferrying the desperate to far-flung corners of the galaxy. Three more passengers won't make much of a difference.

When the Council calls for her arrest, her ship is ready and waiting in orbit. Tlreth and the Sovjang are long gone.

You will be remembered with honor, she tells Loavj, as he prepares to receive the soldiers en route to his empty estate. By the time they've finished with him, his family will be a million kilometers to the edge of the Empire.

In his reply, he says: Ha! How kind of you. Comfort an old man in his last hours.

Rllan gives the only answer she can:

I will remember you.


Movement outside the cell drew Jim's gaze. He looked up to see Uhura being led down the corridor by a pair of red-uniformed security officers. As he shot to his feet, she looked into the cell, and their eyes met, not for the first time, through a pane of glass. Jim pushed away the ripple of discomfort in the pit of his stomach and stepped forward, banging on the transparent wall with the flat of his palm.

"Hey!"

Both officers kept walking, neither turning as they nudged Uhura along with them. Uhura turned to look over her shoulder as she passed, and then was gone. He turned back to where Rllan was watching him, the small, futile effort draining. He let out a frustrated breath and leaned against the transparent wall, his thoughts turning back to the Klingon captain's story.

Something struck him.

"Wait…" he frowned. "There were nine names on the report."

Rllan raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"You said there were ten scientists."

"There were. One died."

"How?" Jim asked.

Rllan laughed bitterly. "He was 'exposed to the virus.'"

"Why do you say it like that?"

Rllan looked at him and waited for his realization. It came moments later.

"They killed him," Jim said. "Because he opposed their plan." He frowned again. "That seems…counter to what you believe in."

"What do you mean?"

"To betray one of your own? To kill them for disagreeing with you? Seems…dishonorable."

Rllan stared at him. "Where you come from, is it always so easy to do the honorable thing?"

Jim didn't respond.

Rllan said nothing for a moment. Then: "He was an obstacle. There is no honor in an abyss."


Stardate 2259.203

Tlreth drops off the map, and it takes over two weeks to find him.

These days, crossing into the Neutral Zone is almost as large a risk as remaining in Klingon space. When it becomes clear Tlreth decided to take that risk for the sake of his passengers, it's not long before Rllan finds the Sovjang, floating not a thousand kilometers from the Neutral Zone border.

To her surprise, there is a Federation vessel floating beside it.

Both ships are running dark. There are no life signs. In the absence of quarantine gear, she and Vattha beam over wearing repair suits.

Tlreth, she finds in the cockpit, his head tilted upward, his body slouched, as if he spent his last hours staring at the stars. Loavj's granddaughters are in a dirty corner of the cargo bay, huddled in their mother's arms.

She doesn't recognize the rest.

With Jojon's aid, she beams over to the Federation ship. There, too, the entire crew is dead. It isn't hard to guess what happened.

She learns the ship is a research vessel, and that it has been transmitting to a nearby starbase—that the record of the encounter is likely already in the hands of the Federation.

She's barely been there an hour when a voice crackles over the comms, speaking in Terran Standard:

"Eratosthenes, this is the USS Beichen; we are en route to your position. Please acknowledge."

The hail—unanswered—confirms her theory: Starfleet is looking for their missing ship.

In the back of her mind form the beginnings of a plan.

They move the ships to where they won't be found, and leave before Starfleet can find them.


Stardate 2259.206

The plan is derailed three days later.

They are discovered at a smuggling depot on the outer rim of Klingon space, acquiring supplies they neglected to stock up on in their flight from Kronos.

In the space of about fifteen minutes, the depot is a cloud of fire and ash. Her crew—what remains of it—is divided. She doesn't see what happens to most of them: only that they are penned, some knocked unconscious in their attempt to resist, in the brig of the SaQuy itself, imprisoned in their own vessel as another crew takes it over and sets an autopilot course to Rura Penthe.

She and Vattha are herded to the transporter. Minutes later, she finds herself in a dark, empty cell in the brig of the IKS Muqtovor. It's not long before she receives a visit from the ship's captain.

"Senator Qowon," he says, now in gray-black military armor, looking every bit the part the newsfeeds paint him to be. "How unfortunate we should meet under these circumstances."

From her seat on the floor, she does not reply.

"Chancellor Lorak has asked me to inform you that should you wish to recant your statements of dissent against the Empire, your sentence may be commuted to imprisonment, rather than death."

It is clear the captain does not share the Chancellor's opinions. Still, Rllan does not reply. She has nothing to say to him.

The captain looks on her with something between admiration and pity. "I respect your stubbornness. You will die well. And I will mourn our Empire's loss."

The cell is empty, but it is not true there is nothing in it. Not far above her head is an overhead light, set into the ceiling. A single bulb of reinforced glass.

Her boots were taken from her when she was searched, but she has been provided what passes for a meal as a prisoner of the state: thin soup in a small metal bowl.

She drinks the soup, and as the guard is glancing over at her to take it, hurls the bowl upward and hears it ping off the glass.

"HEY!" the guard shouts.

She catches the bowl and throws it again. This time she sees cracks appear.

The guard fumbles with the magnetic key. Rllan throws the bowl again, and glass shards rain down around her.

Just as the door whirrs open, the cell goes dark.

She finds Vattha in a cell on the other side of the brig, and together they make their way to the shuttle bay. The Muqtovor, Rllan finds, is a powerful ship but a small one, run by a mere skeleton crew. The escape is almost too easy. Almost.

As countless times before, Vattha again proves himself a loyal first officer.

As Rllan cloaks the tiny jumpship and pilots it as far from the Muqtovor as she can get, there is blood on her hands again.


Caerus IX

2259.216

The energy required to maintain the cloaking device cannot be sustained by the jumpship's power capacity, and Rllan is forced to deactivate and jettison it before she is halfway to the Sol System.

No matter. The research facility she locates is isolated enough, and unlikely to be watching for unknown crafts approaching.

Rllan is alone in her consciousness. Vattha, prone and healing—barely—in the back of the ship, the human scientist curled in the fetal position by the starboard hatch.

The sedative worked, and has produced none of the ill-effects the human feared would manifest. Rllan isn't entirely sure what "hives" are—that particular Terran word has escaped her studies—but it sounds very much like something she remembers from long ago. One of her tiny cousins at the dining table, slurping stew into her mouth one moment, choking and gasping the next. Rllan remembers following, wide-eyed, as her aunt dragged the little girl into the study, where she produced a hypospray and plunged it into the little girl's thigh. In moments the girl was breathing again, her face flushed and darkened with exertion. Rllan's aunt saw her then, peering through the crack in the door. She reached through and hauled Rllan into the room, hissing: you will not speak of this. All through the rest of dinner, the cousin didn't touch a single bite of her meal. Rllan remembers the relief in the human's eyes when she selected the other cartridge.

Humans see kindness in such acts of mercy. The reality is Rllan needs her alive. She can't afford to lose her as a point of leverage—not now that a new plan is so clearly coming together.


Mars

2259.217

In person, James T. Kirk looks thinner and gaunter. Angrier. Of course, in the holovid footage of the raid in the Ketha province, he is barely a flash of movement amidst the chaos, disruptor fire and swarming patrolmen dominating the scene.

As Kirk processes what she has just told him, Rllan's eyes flick again to the human scientist. She can see the resemblance between them now. They have the same facial structure, the same eyes.

Lowering the disruptor is a tactical risk. She wasn't counting on the other human—the dark-haired, belligerent one—to show up. Humans are physically weaker than Klingons, but she is still outnumbered three to one. Still: humans also seem to respond to such gestures of good faith.

"If you help me, I will help you," she says.

"With what?" Kirk's demeanor betrays nothing.

"My crew. We were attacked; they were captured. I intend to get them back."

This provokes the subtlest shift in Kirk's expression: a twitch of an eyebrow, nothing more.

Rllan is trained enough not to show her satisfaction. The Starfleet captain is a fellow tactician, yes. But hardly an infallible one.


Rura Penthe

2259.219

"I knew you would come, I knew it!"

The girl is not a member of her crew. Rllan would know, and she would hardly have chosen anyone so deliberately conspicuous.

"Who are you?"

"I am Davtargh, daughter of Qob. I served Senator Noluy. Captain, you must return to Kronos."

There is, Rllan realizes, something vaguely familiar about her. She can picture her in administrative robes, fuller and stronger than she is now, her cheeks hollowed, her eyes wide and fever-bright. That she is familiar, however, is no argument against the truth.

"Kronos is dead."

"No! There is hope. You still have allies there."

A flash of shock—and then immediate distrust. "What allies?"

"Mogh . Mogh is with you."

Rllan feels a flash of anger at the back of her neck, deep in her chest, as she thinks of him: silent and dull-eyed in the back row of the Council chambers, while she, Loavj, QuSurgh, and Noluy took the brunt of the majority's censure, and worse. She says as much, shouts it, pinning the girl to the cave wall.

The girl is weak, but she pushes back anyways: "Mogh has an unborn son! He protects his House, his legacy! Can you blame him?"

Rllan stops short. Her mind flits to Tlreth, Loavj's daughter and grandchildren. Her own family—sisters, cousins, parents—lost and burned.

When she doesn't answer right away, Davtargh wriggles slightly, and Rllan eases the pressure on her windpipe.

"You must return," the girl says.

"What makes you think anything has changed?" Rllan finds herself hissing, "Lorak still heads the Council."

"These are dark times. Turbulent times. Turbulence affords opportunity."

Rllan stares at her, silent, before saying, "You know where to find my crew."

The girl nods. "Yes."

Rllan releases her. "Take me to them."

The idea that Mogh, of all people, could prove an ally is still in the back of her mind when a guard rounds the corner and threatens all of them—Kirk's crew and hers—with exile to the surface. She tenses as her chief engineer moves to shield her, as she reaches for the disruptor at her belt, as Kirk and his Vulcan first officer step forward.

Davtargh surprises her.

Not only with her broken Standard—I help you—directed to Kirk's chief communications officer, but with her speed, her burst of strength.

The blow catches Rllan off-guard. She tastes blood as she bites down on her tongue, feels the shock through her skull up from her jaw. It leaves her open, vulnerable, for the girl to snatch at her waist. She hears her scream before she sees Davtargh disappear into the tunnels—and then, in the blink of an eye—she is gone.

A flare.

As Kirk pushes her forward to the unguarded elevators, the shock wears off.

It is then that Rllan makes her decision.


It was impossible to know how much time had passed since Rllan had started talking. There was no chronometer in sight; it could have been minutes or hours and Jim wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

The Klingon captain was leaning back against the wall now, facing him.

"That is all there is," she said.

Jim nodded. "So…up until when the Helena found us, the plan was to go back to defeat Lorak? To stage a coup, with Mogh's help?"

Rllan shook her head. "The plan changed. At first, we were only trying to run. To relocate Tlreth's passengers. When we found the ships, we thought we could use them to leverage aid from the Federation and your Starfleet, but then, without my crew…" she trailed off.

She didn't need to finish the sentence. Jim nodded again. The cell was silent, until another thought occurred to him. He glanced back at Rllan. "This captain, who tracked you down and captured your crew. Who is he?"

Rllan stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"You talk about him like it's personal."

Rllan scowled. "He took my crew."

Jim shrugged. "Fair enough, but you make it sound like he's…I don't know, well-known."

"He is a renowned warrior." She spat the next bit. "Not just for his service as Lorak's attack dog."

"What's his name?"

Rllan was silent for a moment, before answering: "You would not be able to say it."

"Well, what's the closest you can get to it in Standard?"

Another pause as Rllan frowned at a point on the floor.

"…Chang," she said finally. "His name is Chang."