Star Trek: ALL - Seven Deadly Sins (20 page)

Caught in shafts of pale light from the Sunzek day as they fell through the slotted windows overhead, Enkoa seemed restless and wound tight with unspent energy. The tribunal had been challenging for him, but he too had passed beneath the scrutiny of the court-martial and not been found wanting. Both of them had shown ample courage and presence of mind, and in the past few days the engineer had begun to entertain the notion that this random turn of events could be the making of them. Promotions had been granted for lesser acts, after all, and both she and Enkoa had served long enough at the rank of dalin.

The tactician stepped toward her, out of the statue’s shadow. “It’s done with, then,” he noted. “In all honesty, Sanir, I’d rather face the Talarians again than that pack of hounds.” He nodded toward the tribunal chamber.

“The Talarians owe us a ship and our crewmates,” she told him, “and three of them weren’t enough. A tenfold repayment, perhaps. That might balance the scales.”

He let out a brief bark of laughter and toyed with the bars of facial hair at his jaw. “You’d take us back to war, would you?”

She gestured at the carved granite of the prefect’s statue, depicting the figure with pistol and dagger at deceptively casual rest in his robed hands. “Look at him. We’re always at war, Laen.”

“I have heard that said,” he agreed airily, and waved the data tablet under her nose. “Perhaps you’d like to join me to discuss it further with Jagul Hanno?”

“Hanno?” repeated Kein, momentarily wrong-footed. “He’s here? On Sunzek?” Her mouth became arid. She remembered the hawkish, barrel-chested figure of a man from her ascendance day on Prime, the thunderous and impassioned speech he gave as she and the rest of her cadet class graduated into the Fleet. Kein had dared to meet the officer’s gaze as she, like all her classmates, stepped up and tore the apprentice ribbon from her duty uniform and cast it into the mud of the training quad. His stare had cut into her, those ice-hard eyes measuring her with scarcely a blink. Years past now, but the moment was still vivid in her memory.

Enkoa nodded, apparently unfazed by the jagul’s fearsome reputation. “This colony falls under his sector command.” Laen allowed himself a slight smile, as if he was holding a confidence from her. “I have been informed that he wishes to give us our next tasking orders personally.”

Kein schooled her expression carefully, betraying no emotion, but inwardly she felt her pulse race. Suddenly, the possibility of new rank and new privileges seemed just within reach. She inclined her head. “We should not keep him waiting, then.”

Enkoa swept past her. “This way.”

There was nowhere to sit in the jagul’s chambers. The officer glanced down at them from a high console before the oval window that was the room’s only decoration, and beckoned them closer without breaking off from a conversation he was having with an adjutant. There were screens on every vertical surface, and each shimmered slightly as they passed it, security protocols fogging the images and text so Kein and Enkoa, with their lower ranks and correspondingly low security clearances, would not see something beyond their pay grade.

Kein snapped to parade ground attention and gave a crisp salute, Enkoa mirroring her a heartbeat later. Once again, she was spared a look from those hard eyes. The face in which they were set had grown older and more careworn, the scalp above now shorn and hairless, but the gaze had not softened, not one iota. Kein caught a glimpse of herself in the window behind the jagul; the gentle, lined ridges of a Lakarian lineage, dark brown eyes that betrayed nothing, a cowl of hair cut tight to her head, and that fresh, darkening scar. She looked every inch the model of a Cardassian warrior; Kein wondered if Hanno was convinced by her. In contrast, Enkoa was rail- thin in almost every aspect of his appearance, the trim strips of beard he sported a vague attempt to make something of the flat lines of his face.

The jagul dismissed the other officer and crossed to the window, watching the sunset. The door closed behind them and they stood silently. Kein worked to keep her thoughts steady. Now that the initial surprise of Enkoa’s announcement had worn off, she found herself thinking beyond the moment, wondering why Hanno was actually on Sunzek. The man had a reputation as a maverick, and in the Fleet such repute could kill a career; Cardassia wanted warriors who followed the orders of the homeworld, men and women who did not question, who understood the nature of duty. She had no doubt that Jagul Hanno was a patriot who respected his oath, but he was outspoken with it. Rumor carried through the Fleet as it did through the skeins of any clan and family, and rumors about Hanno told of how he frequently came into conflict with the prefecture. His candid commentary on Cardassia’s expansionist sorties against the United Federation of Planets and the so-called progression into the Bajor Sector were well-known. Hanno’s arguments for a metered military approach stood in sharp contrast to his peers, who favored more direct conflicts. Some said it was only his family’s web of internecine fealty and obligation that kept him in command of the Eighth Order’s squadrons; that, and his sheer, bloody-minded tactical genius.

At last, the jagul granted them some fraction of his attention. “I have followed the review of the
Rekkel
engagement with some mild interest,” he rumbled. “Meka Tunol was known to me. She served briefly
under my command as a gil. I saw great potential in her, if properly tempered.”

Kein considered the comment, unsure of what the senior officer meant by it. From the corner of her eye, she saw Enkoa shifting slightly.

“A pity that she will never fulfill her promise,” he concluded.

“If I may say, Jagul,” Enkoa ventured, “the gul served the Union with dignity and honor.”

“And those things are of great import to Cardassia.” Once more, Hanno’s words were curiously without weight.

Kein became aware that the man was watching her. She swallowed and fought down the urge to fill the moment of silence.

“You both performed with composure during a crisis,” he went on. “Although the
Rekkel
was lost, it was through no fault of yours. The Fleet needs officers with the wit and fortitude to handle such situations.” Hanno drifted toward a screen where a display of local space—bare of any tactical data, naturally—showed the span of the Union’s borders in rust red, ranged against the dark patches of adversary nations like the Breen, the Federation, and the Talarians. “Now, more than ever,” he added.

“Thank you, sir.” Kein spoke before she could stop herself.

He did not acknowledge her comment. Instead, his hand wandered to the map and absently traced a line along the livid border at the edge of the Dorvan Sector. “What do you know of the Federation?”

The question seemed to be directed at Enkoa. “An arrogant enemy,” said the tactical officer. “Self-assured and convinced of their own superiority.”

Hanno’s lips split in a thin smile. “They say the same of us.” He nodded to himself. “Like the Talarians, they resent us, they envy us. But for different reasons. The Republic hate us for our power, because they know we could crush them if it suited us. As for the Federation . . .” He grinned briefly and let the sentence hang there, incomplete. “The humans and their cohorts are a very uncommon foe.” The jagul glanced at Kein.

She nodded back to him. “Difficult to read, I understand.”

Hanno moved away, back across the window. “One must have wit to do so.” He stopped and laid his hands upon the console. “The
Federation have expanded their advance into the Dorvan region with vessels and colonies. There have been a few unresolved skirmishes. The situation is becoming uncomfortable, and a show of force has become necessary. To that end, I am taking a flotilla of warships to the Tantok Nor outpost. To show the banner.”

Enkoa nodded thoughtfully, playing the jagul’s equal, but Kein remained impassive, inwardly questioning. Why was the old warrior allowing them to know this? Clasped behind her back, her palms felt clammy.

Hanno continued. “Recent … events on the homeworld have forced me to adjust some of my staffing requirements.”

She did not need to guess at what those events might be; it was an open secret that Hanno was currently being challenged by a number of opponents in the Detapa Council. At the rank of jagul and beyond, the matters of command became as much political in nature as military. In many ways, that this was true of
all
things Cardassian.

“One of the vessels in my fleet is the
Lakar,
a strike escort.” He glanced at Kein, a question in his eyes.

She answered by rote; ever since she had been a girl, Sanir had absorbed the details and statistics for every type of craft in the Fleet, and the data spilled from her in a flat monotone.
“Zhoden
-class light escort. Eighty-eight
deca
s in length, thirty-six officers and crew, five spiral-wave disruptor banks, standard rated combat cruise factor nine plus.”

The jagul nodded. “The captaincy of that ship is now yours,
Dal
Enkoa.” Hanno reached into a pocket and offered Enkoa a rank tab, as informally as if he were handing him a glass of
kanar.
The other officer took the sigil stiffly, and a feral grin threatened to break out across his face.

Hanno glanced at Kein once again and folded his arms. “A letter of commendation has been secured in both your files. Central Command will know of your fine service to the Union.”

It was then that Kein realized that the letter would be all the approbation she would receive. A nerve in her jaw jumped and she clamped her teeth together, feeling a slow heat build in her cheeks and neck as her skin darkened. That was all?
She
had saved the lives aboard the
Rekkel,
not Enkoa! It had been
her
solution that brought them
victory, not his! Enkoa’s lack of imagination would have doomed them all . . .

She glared at the jagul, who appeared to be utterly unaware of her silent fury. Hanno knew full well what had transpired on the
Rekkel.
She had no doubt of it. He had read the after-action reports. He had to know she was the better of the two.

“How is Lethra?” said the senior officer. His tone was mild, more conversational now.

“She is very well, sir,” came Enkoa’s reply. “We communicate regularly. I know she will be thrilled to hear my news.”

Kein’s thoughts were roiling.
Lethra.
The willowy rich girl Enkoa had bedded on Torros Minor, back before the start of their tour. Sanir had mocked him for falling for some fey debutante, this naïf slumming it in a starport, laughed even when he had told her they were to be engaged. Now the joke appeared to be on her. She felt her gut tighten as Hanno spoke again, casual and unhurried.

“I consider my niece quite deserving. I’m rather fond of her, you understand?” Perhaps, if one looked hard enough, one could have found the edge of a threat buried in those words; but Kein was not really listening, and the rush of blood in her ears grew from a rumble to a thunder. Her nails cut into her palms, digging little dark crescents in the white flesh. The new scar throbbed.

Hanno’s neice. Of course.
She resisted the sudden urge to spit. The jagul was merely firming the threads of his own influence, placing Enkoa like a gaming piece, ensuring a pliant new commander for his flotilla. Building bonds of familial control. Suitability and skill counted for nothing, so it seemed. A night of fumbling intercourse with a foolish civilian, by contrast, apparently earned an officer a captaincy.

Kein glared at the floor. The sheer nepotism of the act she had just witnessed filled her with disgust; but then a voice deep in her thoughts challenged her.
Why are you surprised? Did you really expect something different?
As long as the Fleet remained a patriarchy, a club for old men in which to play their games of war and power, the road to rank would always be a harder one for a female. She rocked on the edge of letting her annoyance take voice. It would be easy to
say it, to just open her mouth and let the words out. Of course, to do that would destroy any prospect of a future career in an instant. Never mind what truth she uttered, it would be insubordination. Kein thought about Gul Tunol and regretted that she had not made more effort to know the woman. Perhaps she would have had lessons to teach her, such as resisting the urge to hope when all that brought was ashes and disappointment—

“—Sanir.”

The sound of her name cut through her mental turmoil and she glanced up, barely able to return her face to its normal, neutral aspect. Enkoa was still speaking. “She is the only one I trust, Jagul. With your permission, I would like to make it my first command as captain of the
Lakar.
”

“So ordered,” said Hanno with a nod, and he spoke with formality. “I authorize Dalin Sanir Kein for the posting of executive officer of the
Starship Lakar.
”

That same sly smile played on Enkoa’s lips as he looked at her. “That’s if you want the job?”

“Of course she does,” Hanno replied.

“Of course I do,” echoed Kein, bowing slightly. “Dal.” She almost choked on Enkoa’s new rank.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled that smile a little more. She wanted to take her fist and strike him with it, scream and shout and decry the utter inequality of this farce. All this and a hundred other things she wanted to do, but she did nothing but nod, like a good soldier of the Union who knew her place.

An ember of resentment had always been deep within her; she understood that. But it was kindling now, catching fire. Burning cold and dark, as only spite could.

Tantok Nor hung in the void on the edge of the Kelrabi system, skirting the hard radiation from the red star pouring blood-colored light across its arid collection of worlds. The voyage from Sunzek was swift and without incident, and Kein used whatever excuses she could find to keep herself at arm’s length from Enkoa, although on a vessel far smaller than the
Rekkel
it was a difficulty.

She did what she always did in times of stress: she reverted back to what she knew best, and in Kein’s case that was engineering.