Fallout 14

Councillor Darg was cursing steadily under his breath as he stormed into the First City bar. "Bloodwine!" he shouted to the barman. He caught his breath, and looked around him.

K'tag, sitting at a table with the Gorn Ambassador, raised one eyebrow at his colleague, and pointed at a vacant chair nearby. Still fuming, Darg took a seat.

"You seem distressed," said S'taass. "I take it that whatever caused you to leave the High Council meeting was... bad news?"

"Seven ships!" Darg shouted. "Three in Pi Canis sectors, and an entire squadron in Eta Eridani! Destroyed!"

"Privateers?" K'tag asked. Darg nodded. "Well, it is to be expected, I fear. The Federation has brought up substantial reinforcements behind the front lines, to prevent any immediate repetition of the Bercera... incident. As a consequence, many previously soft targets will be unexpectedly hardened." He took a sip of his own raktajino. "I foresee lean pickings for our privateers, even though the Council has not agreed to the moratorium."

"It is a sad blow to my House," grumbled Darg. "Oh, they died well enough, as Klingons... but dead men and destroyed ships bring no profits to the House's coffers. One must be realistic."

"Indeed," said K'tag. "Such was the final decision of the High Council, you may be interested to hear - since you were called away before the conclusion of the debate."

Darg scowled and took a deep pull at his bloodwine. "How much Federation insolence must we stomach?"

"Considerable," said K'tag. "If your House has commercial interests in the region protected by Dasus Prime, they must now attend to their own protection. And the Thidasians and Yll-Toricans will shortly celebrate their liberation - or what they think of as liberation. The Valtothi have, it seems, already anticipated events. The rebels' celebrations have already included mass executions among the native civil administration, and the formation of an honour guard of corvette-class starships to, as they put it, escort the Klingon governor out of free Valtothi space."

Darg snarled. "The Governor should have destroyed them rather than endure such humiliation!"

"Not a very politic move," S'taass observed, "under the guns of the Federation Sixth Fleet."

"Sixth Fleet?" Darg's eyes narrowed. "I did not realize Sixth Fleet was operating near Valtoth Alpha."

"Nobody did," said K'tag. "Admiral Gref's movements are causing considerable speculation. We have at least some idea of the disposition of most of the Feds' main forces - but Sixth Fleet constitutes a strong and highly mobile force, operating closer to our strategic centres than is comfortable. Our thinking is that Aznetkur remains his main objective, but it is only the most probable estimate of many."

"Where does the Federation find so many ships?" Darg demanded. The bloodwine was not improving his disposition.

"They are stripping their reserves in Beta Ursae," S'taass said, "hoping that their allies in Cardassian space will contain any hostile elements. A calculated risk."

"It is not right," said Darg. "We should not be expected to swallow these insults! There will come a reckoning," he muttered darkly.

"Ah, yes," said K'tag. "A reckoning. You missed the most amusing part of the meeting. The Ferengi Alliance is to calculate the approximate economic value of Bercera IV, and issue us with an appropriate financial penalty."

"What?"

"Amusing, is it not?" K'tag took another sip of raktajino.

"The Ferengi are but tools of the Federation!" Darg shouted.

"Curious, is it not?" said S'taass. "After all, the Ferengi mercantile ideology conflicts with Federation social values on so many points, one would hardly expect them to be natural allies."

"It is in the nature of things," K'tag said, ignoring Darg's sputterings. "The Federation taxes Ferengi interests where it can, and uses the resources to constructive social ends. We, on the other hand, rob them and shoot them. There are, to be sure, many Ferengi still who would prefer, on ideological grounds, to be robbed and shot... but their influence wanes, because the poor and the dead carry little weight in the councils of the Ferengi. A conundrum that I lack the wit to resolve."

"The Ferengi will mulct us of every strip of latinum in the Empire!" Darg shouted.

"Probably," said K'tag. "It is a high price, and it is but part of a greater price... but the alternative is an incalculable price, and the wise man will choose the known evil over the unknown."

"What do you mean? What price?"

"There is a story I heard from a human once," said S'taass, "of a great empire on their world that was called... Azziria? Something like that. In any case, this empire was technologically and militarily superior to its neighbours, and ruled over them with a fist of iron."

"Naturally," said Darg. "What of it?"

"Eventually, those neighbours all came to the same conclusion: that whatever differences they had among themselves, they were all united in one thing - the overwhelming need to be free from the Azzirians. So they gathered all their forces, and made total war upon the empire. The human told me," S'taass continued, "that, generations later, a conqueror whose name translates as Great Leader of Men came by the ruins of the empire's capital, and that he asked what name those ruins bore, and that no one could tell him."

"You take the point, I hope," said K'tag. "If our Empire becomes known as a state which will devastate whole worlds at will... then the paramount interest of all our neighbours will be to stop us, no matter what the cost. They will fight us, and we will fall. The battle would be glorious, and we would fight like true Klingons, and songs would be sung of it for ten thousand generations thereafter. And, at the end of it, we would all be dead." He drained his mug of raktajino and stood. "You must excuse me. I have some minor matters of business to attend to."