Tuarak leaned back in his seat and regarded the Octanti from behind half-closed eyes. The man was edgy, agitated, pacing back and forth across the small laboratory with rapid steps. Unreliable, Tuarak thought. Definitely, unreliable.
Aloud, he said, "I am not accustomed to the idea of needing any of the lesser species."
Nessick whirled and stabbed an accusing finger at Tuarak, the antennae beside his nasal ridges quivering with emotion. "You need me," he hissed. "You need my scientific knowledge, the intelligence you gain from this listening post. Without me, what are you? What is your standing now in the Vaadwaur Supremacy? Well?"
"My... difficulties... within the Supremacy will be smoothed over, in time," said Tuarak. "I was not to know that my commanding officer was infested with one of those - creatures."
"Do you think any of your rivals cares what you did or did not know? Your name is mud among the Vaadwaur - among what remains of the Vaadwaur."
The folds beside Tuarak's throat flushed and engorged with blood as anger rose within him. "Have a care, Octanti."
"You will not kill me while you need me. And you need me. Unless you have a bluegill in you, now, to tell you how to operate my equipment? No? I thought not."
That a former Overseer of the Supremacy should have to tolerate this! - But Tuarak forced himself to swallow his anger. The damnable Octanti scientist was right... whatever influence Tuarak could gain, now, it came from the intelligence provided by Nessick's listening post.
"Very well," he ground out. "We need each other. As you say."
"As I say. As I say." Nessick resumed his nervous pacing. There was barely room to pace, among the litter of technology that filled the laboratory - Tuarak was no expert, but he recognized Hazari subspace transceivers, Hierarchy computers, among consoles and devices from worlds and cultures he had no names for. There was even, behind a constantly humming force shield, a green-glowing mass of wires and tubing that could only be a Borg device. "You need me. And I need you. This place -" he waved a hand to encompass it all "- is our ears and eyes. Your interdictor cruiser is our hands and our feet. We need both together -" he brought his hands together and interlaced his fingers "- if we are to accomplish anything."
"Accomplish what?" said Tuarak. "A little information gathering, some light commerce raiding - enough to keep my crew from outright mutiny, I grant you, but hardly what I need to regain my rightful place in the Supremacy. What are we accomplishing, Octanti?"
"We need a coup," Nessick said. "We need something big - something that will serve both our ends. You need to restore your standing. I need... something similar. A weapon against the damnable Borg."
The Octanti obsession: Tuarak sighed inwardly. But weapons... weapons were always useful. "And have you found something?"
"Perhaps... possibly... perhaps." Nessick turned to a sleek console, one whose design Tuarak didn't recognize. "They do not know I have this, yet," the Octanti almost crooned. "Until they do, and Delta Command updates its encryption protocols... until they do, I have ears to hear the Alpha Quadrant's incursion forces. A Klingon ship responded to a distress call - a Kobali colony. Too late. All were dead."
"Oh, those poor people, my heart bleeds," said Tuarak. "Who cares if the Kobali ghouls die, again?"
"Not I, certainly," said Nessick. "But the Klingon ship's commander is evidently baffled - has no idea what they died of. And Klingons are familiar with many kinds of death. One that they do not know - well." The Octanti half-smiled. "I think it is a situation that would repay careful study."
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