The bar does not advertise itself. It is a featureless block of concrete, one of many such in the poorer quarter of First City. There is a crude depiction of a targ on the lintel of the door, and that is all. I step inside and stop for a moment, allowing my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting.
The clientele are... the dregs of the Empire, as one might expect. Klingons in worn leathers, Orions in... very little, for both sexes. A couple of Nausicaans, engaged in what seems to be a drinking competition; at least one Lethean, lurking in the darkest corners; a scattering of less identifiable species. The bartender, behind a high counter at the end of the room, appears to be an Orion hybrid of some kind. Exactly what kind, I would probably prefer not to know.
I walk up to the bar; I waste no effort in sauntering or otherwise trying to appear casual. I reach into the cargo pocket of the bulky spacers' coveralls I am wearing - bulky, because they conceal Omega Force standard battle armour beneath them. The bartender watches me impassively.
"Saurian brandy." I put two items down on the counter. One is a square of card, blank except for a symbol - a monogram composed of tlHingan Hol characters. The other is a thousand-darsek note. The bartender's jet-black eyes widen only a little as he sweeps them both into his hand. He draws a long-necked, curving bottle from behind the bar, and pours my drink.
I sip it. It is actual Saurian brandy. I suppose that is something.
I take a seat on a stool and lean against the bar. The House symbol of the QarS should get attention, and the money sends its own message. I will see, soon enough, if the QarS will speak to me - if the Council police left any of them alive to talk.
A drunken Klingon comes up to me with... certain suggestions. I say nothing, only gaze at him coldly. Eventually, he goes away.
In the meantime, the bartender has vanished briefly through a back door, returned, and given me a dubious look. I hope he has been in touch with the QarS. This should be the right place to go - but the QarS are in disarray, at the moment -
"Shalo," a hoarse voice says behind me. I turn.
Two Klingons are standing behind me. They wear the rough leathers of workmen, but there are bulges of weapons at their hips, their shoulders. Both are bearded, with close-cropped hair, not the more common Klingon manes. One stares at me with hot, dark eyes. The other bares his teeth and says, in that hoarse voice, "I am right, am I not?"
"You are," I say. I slide off the bar stool and stand before them. "And I have the honour of addressing - ?"
"If you address us," the hoarse one says, "you lose all honour." The other gives a disquieting chuckle.
"Honour must, on occasion, give place to practicality," I say, "and it is practical matters that I wish to discuss."
"Oh, yes," says the hoarse one. "Practical matters." He points towards the doorway. "Walk with us, and we will talk."
"I will make a counter-proposal," I say. I pick up the glass from the bar. "The brandy here is... adequate. Stay and drink with me, and we will talk."
"Not here." Perhaps he is hoarse because he does all the talking; his companion does not speak. "Too many ears. Walk with us."
I have body armour, concealed weapons, tracking devices... some other little surprises, too. If things turn violent, I can cope. Probably. Though I prefer not to take foolish risks... if I terminate this interview now, I gain nothing for my troubles. "Very well. Do we walk far?"
"No, not far."
But the silent one has a nasty-looking smile on his face. Well, I must see what transpires. "Very well. Lead the way."
And the three of us walk out of the bar. I am careful to keep to the rear, to keep the backs of my - companions - very much in view. And they, it seems, are content to let me. We thread our way through a maze of alleys, moving briskly and with evident purpose in our stride. No one challenges or confronts us.
"I hope this will not take excessively long," I say to the hoarse one. "I have many duties to attend to."
"It will not be much longer now," he answers. The other one gives another unpleasant chuckle.
We cross an empty space - an abandoned construction site, I think - and a building looms up before us; square, undecorated, with broken windows and its concrete facade scarred by weapons fire. I raise one eyebrow. "You are still meeting here?" After the raid by the High Council's police, this particular QarS rendezvous should, surely, have been abandoned.
"Not usually. But today it is suitable." The hoarse one goes to where the doors were, before the Council troops blasted them off their hinges. "Inside," he says.
It does not look inviting. It is dark, but not so dark that I cannot see patches of dried blood on the concrete floor, more scars of disruptor fire on the walls. Not so dark, too, that I cannot make out flashes of movement, deep in the shadows. It could be vermin, of course... but it is more likely to be other members of the QarS. So, still vermin, but vermin with disruptors.
My two - hosts - lead the way inside. A cargo crate has been positioned by one scarred wall; the hoarse one makes his way to it, clambers up on it, stands as if poised to make a speech. I slip one hand into a pocket of my coveralls.
"Daggers of QarS!" the hoarse one shouts, and there is a rustling and a whispering all about, as figures step out of the shadows. At least a dozen of them, and it is too much to expect that they should be unarmed. My fingers clasp the cold shape of my disruptor. It may well not be enough.
"We are honoured," the rasping voice drips sarcasm, "by the visit of the Chancellor's emissary today, General Shalo of the House of Sinoom. Oh, yes," he turns to me, "we know who you are."
"I have not sought to conceal it," I say. "I sought a meeting because -"
"We do not need to know," he interrupts. "The Chancellor has sent one of his lackeys to speak to us! Not even a Klingon! What shall we do with her?"
There are shouts from around the room - suggestions. None of them appeals to me.
"We will show the Chancellor what we think of his emissary! We will have retribution for our kinsmen who died, here, on this spot!" The other one, his companion, is laughing loudly now. The hoarse one glares down at me. "We have disabled your tracking devices, General! A score of our people died here - there is only one of you, so we will have to kill you a score of times over!" He leaps down from the crate, and there is a knife in his hand. "Do not fear," he sneers, "we will leave you in a fit state to be identified. They can do wonders, these days, with DNA scans."
Movement on all sides of me, now. I try to gauge where the first shot, the first blow will come from, but there are too many of them. I pull the disruptor out of my pocket. The laughing one has a weapon in his hands now, a Ferengi energy whip, crackling with blue fire. His laughter is a demoniac bellow -
Then there is a flare of sick green light, and he explodes.
I dive to one side, fire at the hoarse one. The bolt from my gun splashes off a personal shield. But there are other guns firing, now, too - heavy assault disruptors, from somewhere outside the building, and slicing lines of killing light from attack drones. The QarS are firing back, but they seem surprised, uncoordinated - they are falling -
I shoot one lurker through the head, then charge the hoarse-voiced spokesman. He roars an inarticulate challenge. The knife is in his right hand, there is a gun in his left - I drop-kick him in the chest before he can shoot, and he stumbles backwards, collides with the cargo crate, and falls. I am back on my feet and on him in an instant. Disruptor light flashes green about me - I do not know who is shooting at whom, but there are screams, and the smell of burned concrete and burned flesh.
He has dropped his gun. He still has the knife. I seize his arm with my free hand. At this range, my own disruptor beams would reflect back and incinerate me before I burned through his shield, so I let go of my gun, grab his knife arm with both hands, and twist. He is strong. We roll across the floor, writhing and struggling, his face a mask of fury. He is very strong. Desperation makes me stronger, and I force his hand back, back and down, until with a last convulsive effort I drive his blade into his own throat. Blood wells out of his mouth along with his curses as he dies.
The firing seems to be dying down too. I shelter behind the crate, and risk a peek over the top.
Flames and glare, burning bodies, a bright light shining through the open doorway, and figures moving through it - mercenary troops in armour, with heavy assault guns, advancing into the building to gun down the remaining QarS. All save one, who stands there, silhouetted against the light - there is a pistol held negligently in one hand, but she is clad only in the silks and jewels of a high-ranking Matron.
"General Shalo," says Melani D'ian. "Are you comfortable down there?"
---
"The Daggers of QarS are not disposed to be reasonable." D'ian sits down on the cargo crate as if it is a royal throne. "They have lost too much. It was only to be expected that they would take the opportunity for vengeance."
"I am the Chancellor's agent," I say, "not the Council's."
"A distinction without a difference, in their minds," says D'ian. "Yes, you are J'mpok's agent - you provide him with Orion perspectives, untainted by the views of the Syndicate. How many more such advisors does he have, I wonder?"
"Only J'mpok could tell you that," I say with a shrug. "It would be foolish to assume I am the only one."
"No doubt. Well, J'mpok will have his little ways, and I see no harm in indulging him." In the middle distance, there is shouting and the sound of disruptor fire. "I think my troops are finishing the last of them."
"It would be helpful," I say, "to have one or two alive, for questioning."
The head of the Orion Syndicate, the queen of Orion space - and the author of my House's ruin - smiles a dazzling smile. "You may question me," she says. "Very little happens in First City without coming to my notice. The movements of an investigating General, for instance.... And you and I, General, are on the same side, today."
"Perhaps," I say. "Today."
D'ian frowns. "I do hope you are not going to be unreasonable. The QarS were unreasonable, and look what has happened to them. I fear you would not have learned much, in any event. Their dealings with Kalevar Thrang were purely mercenary - he sold them what they wanted, that is all."
"A compact power source for their assassin drones," I say. "It seems a curiously limited transaction, from Thrang's point of view. His ambitions were - imperial."
"I have no doubt they still are," says D'ian. "He gained the confidence of the QarS, provided their materials, promised them - so I am told - a return to honour for their House. He gained their trust, General. Then he murdered them."
"He had access to their facilities? He planted the poison in their base?"
"So far as I can ascertain, from my remaining contacts with the QarS and the House of Verga. The question, of course, is why? Oh, I grant you that the QarS are no loss to the galaxy, but Thrang does not act gratuitously. He has some end in view."
I sit down on the crate, beside my enemy. "Something that requires the destruction of the QarS? That would not suffice to buy him into favour in the Empire, and I cannot imagine what other end it might serve. It is not as if he had any use for the bodies, after all."
"Quite. Though you may underestimate Thrang's ability to ingratiate himself.... You are highly placed enough to know of Thrang's involvement in the affair of the Rehanissen Archive and the aborted attack on Gimel Vessaris. The average Klingon in the street, or even in the Council hall, is... not informed of these things. Kalevar Thrang is a discreet enemy." D'ian looks away for a moment. "Possibly also an even more discreet friend, to some. His Gorn and Nausicaan tools died in that affair, but I am convinced they were not his only tools."
"Thrang retains some friends on the High Council? It would explain the Council's ham-fisted behaviour to date, I suppose." The QarS, being dead, cannot testify to Thrang's criminal acts - and it was either Thrang, or the Council police, who killed them.
"It would take a considerable upheaval on the High Council," says D'ian, "for Thrang to become... acceptable... within the Empire. But such upheavals have happened before." She turns her lustrous eyes on me. "You understand the implications, I think."
"I believe so." I will not be beguiled.
"For a new power structure to arise, the old one must fall. J'mpok would have to fall. And his agents, and his allies, would fall with him. Now do you understand why you and I are on the same side?" Icy conviction laces her voice. "I do not mean to fall."
I look at her, at this imperious beauty who has made my people... whatever they are, today. It would be better if she did fall - but how many would fall with her?
"I am of the House of Sinoom," I say. "I am not your friend."
She says nothing, but raises one exquisite eyebrow.
"But I am not a fool. Kalevar Thrang is a plausible madman. If he gains power, he will bring the Empire and perhaps the galaxy to ruin. I will not set up a greater evil to replace a lesser - no matter how much, personally, I may despise the lesser. You may have my cooperation in the matter of Kalevar Thrang."
"Wise of you," says D'ian. "And I hope you will come to appreciate, some day, the wisdom of letting go of an outmoded attachment. The House of Sinoom is gone, General."
I lean towards her. "I am still your enemy," I tell her, "and, someday, I will make you eat those words - along with your own liver."
She purses her lips. "You have been associating with J'mpok for too long. He, too, has offered to feed me my own organs.... Well. I have many enemies, General, and you would have to stand in line and wait your turn. Kalevar Thrang is among those enemies. Destroy him, and -" she smiles, now "- you may have his place in the line."
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