Commander Logan had looked like he’d spit acid when Hale said where she wanted to go, but Koloth had promised some of his own guards, and reminded them that there was no way their target would end up in the truly seedy parts of the capital. Nevertheless, the former Borg officer kept close to Hale as the procession headed through the leisure district, which for Qo’noS meant less of neon lights and nightclubs, and more of bars with revelry spilling into the street, fighting arenas, and eateries on balconies overlooking the boisterous hustle and bustle of the district.

‘Don’t worry, Commander,’ Hale said to Logan in a light, reassuring tone. ‘This isn’t where the fringers of society come for trouble. This is where the people who work in and around the Great Hall come to unwind. We’re not on the Freecloud of Qo’noS. This is the Paris’s Bastille district of Qo’noS. If we were on Earth, this would be staff from the Palais schmoozing with journalists.’

Forty feet away, there was a loud shout as two Klingons threw a third out of a bar and into the street. Logan squinted at them. ‘It all seems kinda… contained.’ He nodded at the ejected warrior, who was scrambling drunkenly to his feet. ‘That guy’s armour could buy a whole street in the market the commodore took me to.’

‘Rich and powerful Klingons are still Klingons. But this is also a performance.’ She looked him up and down. ‘I’m sorry, Commander. Either your job’s made very hard by one of us taking you somewhere truly dangerous, or you’re only babysitting. I know you’d rather be with your ship.’

‘I’d rather be where I can help, ma’am.’

There was a tension to his shoulders she couldn’t place. She hadn’t granted herself more than the faintest quirk of the eyebrow when she’d seen Captain Valance request this former Borg intelligence officer be assigned to her ship. But she didn’t involve herself in such affairs. ‘You know,’ Hale said carefully, ‘you won’t be scapegoated for Commodore Rourke getting himself outwitted by an enemy and ambushed.’

‘Kind of you to say, ma’am.’ Logan’s voice was crisp, polite. ‘But if things go wrong here, the Federation’s gotta explain how they lost an ambassador and flag officer in the heart of the Empire. If they don’t want to blame the Empire, I reckon I’m front and centre of the firing line.’

She wanted to argue. Insist things were changing. Insist that Starfleet’s relationship with former drones was changing now that those former drones were everyone’s offspring, siblings. But it wasn’t as simple as that, and none of them bore implants on their face to remind people every day of what they had been, and what had happened to them.

It would be, she thought grimly, very Federation to forget about what was no longer in front of them, and to resent any reminder of it.

Instead she said nothing, and within moments they were at the bar she’d been directed to. Braziers blazed beside the main doors, and when she stepped in, it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Grey and overcast as it was outside, with drizzle staining her hood and mantle, inside, the only light came from flames of fireplaces and sconces. Long wooden tables stretched the length of the bar, crowded with warriors. Targh skins draped the walls, tapestries depicted the heroism of bygone ages, and while there was staff and a bar and coin being exchanged for drinks and food, the bar wanted for all the world to be the great hall of a great house.

It was successfully spring such a thing, at least. The central table, the biggest, had a huge chair at the head of it, wooden and broad and with a husky warrior seated there, features highlighted by the flames nearby. Hale recognised him at once and advanced, trusting her Klingon guards to read how welcome and safe this was, trusting Logan to stay close.

Their arrival wasn’t unnoticed, setting a rumble through the crowd. By the time they approached the head of the table, eyes were fixed on them, including the warrior seated there, who clasped his tankard of bloodwine firmly and waited.

Hale pulled her hood back. ‘Drex, son of Martok. I’m Ambassador Hale. I’d like for us to speak.’

The crowd did a poor job of pretending they weren’t waiting, weren’t tense. Drex looked like Martok might have a quarter-century ago if he were less battle-hardened, less worn. There was a softness to his hands, a roundness to his face. Hale knew he’d spent long years here on Qo’noS, circling the periphery of politics, not entrenched in the hardships of the Empire. But with his father gone, she could not ignore his importance.

There was a beat. Then Drex uttered a harsh instruction at a warrior seated at the table, and they abandoned their spot. Drex extended a hand. ‘Sit, Ambassador.’ As she did so, he looked up at Logan. He’d pulled his hood low, enough to hide his implant, and remained a step beside Hale. ‘Does this one sit? Talk? Or is he your dog?’

‘Commander Logan is fine.’ The last thing she needed was to derail this discussion with Logan’s identity. ‘Thank you for making time for me.’

‘Time.’ Drex grunted and shook his head. ‘Barkeep! More bloodwine for the ambassador! And her dog!’

‘There’s no need for that, Lord Drex,’ said Hale with polite amiability.

‘Pah. There’s always a need for more bloodwine.’

‘I meant being rude to my officer.’

Drex’s lip curled, and his palm slapped down on the table. He leaned forward. ‘What do you want, Ambassador?’

He was already, she realised, exceedingly drunk. She kept her smile intact. ‘Your father is missing.’

‘My father is dead,’ drawled Drex.

‘Do you know this? Or merely believe it?’

Drex rolled his eyes. ‘For all my father has given this Empire, nothing short of the gates of Sto-Vo-Kor would keep him from his duty.’ There was another faint curl of the lip there. ‘Why, you think he abandoned us?’

‘If he is dead, then how? Accident? Foul play?’

Drex shrugged. ‘The High Council can tie themselves in knots about it. I move forward.’

I can see that. Hale smothered the thought as the tray of tankards came out, one placed before Drex, one before her, and one at the edge of the table.

‘I move forward,’ Drex repeated, ‘as should you, Ambassador. The old ways are gone. Let us toast my father, and the future!’ He hefted his tankard. She hesitated before grabbing hers, and Drex looked coldly towards Logan. ‘You won’t toast my father, Commander?’

A beat. Hale gave Logan the faintest nod, and he reached for the tankard.

Drex beamed. ‘To my father. May he feast well in Sto-Vo-Kor.’ He drank. And drank. And drank.

Hale knew she was being challenged, and she knew it would be ridiculous to even attempt to meet it. She settled for a genteel sip of the fortified wine, knowing that more than a few gulps would be enough to dull her senses, and still as she lowered the tankard, there was a hum of a jeer from the gathered, onlooking Klingons, unimpressed at her restraint.

After downing over half the tankard, Drex lowered his with a satisfied grin – then looked past her, and frowned. Seconds later, Logan leaned forward, flipped his drained tankard upside down, and set it heavily on the table before them.

‘That were pretty good,’ the commander drawled. ‘S’got a kick. Better ‘n what I found on the fringes these few years.’

Hale tried to not hold her breath. In the wrong mood, Drex would want to be dissatisfied either way – angry she’d not drunk, angry Logan had outdrunk him. She tended to tackle such games by refusing to play them, rejecting the standards others tried to make her meet and doing so with grace. If this worked, it would make her life easier. If.

Then Drex kicked out another stool across from Hale and laughed. ‘Sit, Commander! I had not known the Federation brought such doubty companions.’ At the faintest nod from Hale, Logan did so, keeping his hood up, and Drex turned back to her. ‘I don’t know what you want, Ambassador. But I have no special knowledge of my father’s fate.’

‘There were many accusations in the Great Hall when we arrived,’ said Hale, leaning in. ‘Spoken and unspoken. Suggesting there was foul play, suggesting he was murdered. Do you have any insights on that?’

‘The Mo’Kai have spent years trying to kill him,’ said Drex with a shrug. ‘Look to L’kor.’

‘L’kor has only been helpful. I know this could be trickery, but aside from her reputation, nothing points at her.’

Drex shrugged again. Then he paused, picked up Hale’s tankard, and set it before Logan. ‘If you won’t appreciate it, Ambassador, your man might as well. As for L’kor… even if she didn’t kill my father, she has dozens of followers who wouldn’t need to be ordered to do it. Or it was an accident. I don’t know.’

‘But if he is gone, you are the head of your house. The House of Drex.’

He hissed. ‘I could slay a thousand foes in a single day, and for a hundred years this will still be the House of Martok.’

‘Your father’s shadow looms large,’ Hale agreed. ‘Large enough that the High Council doesn’t know if they’re planning for a future or reeling from a blow.’

‘And you think that I could steer them?’ Drex scoffed. ‘You come here with guards from Koloth. Let Koloth rule; he wants to.’

‘I’m not asking you to rule, Drex, son of Martok. But you have your father’s name. People can listen to you. This is a time of chaos; a steady voice with a clear purpose, a voice people would hear, could make the difference between disaster or survival.’

‘Disaster or survival – you sound like Toral, now.’

Hale cocked her head. ‘Do I?’

‘My father was favouring him by the end,’ Drex grumbled. ‘He was a politician, of course – both of them! It suited my father to repatriate the House of Duras, ancient and respectable – before Toral’s father, of course. But it showed a path where those who wronged the Empire could return. And what was there for him to not love about Toral? Bold, warrior Toral.’ He grabbed his tankard and drank with some vitriol.

‘I didn’t know they were close. I thought Toral disagreed with… most of your father’s policies, to be honest.’

‘What are policies to the shared hearts of warriors?’ Drex sneered. ‘Make no mistake. He may be a firebrand. But he is listened to.’

‘He does think L’kor killed Martok.’

‘She probably did.’

‘And yet you sit here with your retinue and drink, though you think your father probably murdered?’

Drex ignored that, his eyes back on Logan. ‘You stay hooded.’

Logan didn’t move. ‘I do.’

‘Cowards hide their face.’

Don’t play that game, Hale thought. But still something struck home, and Logan pulled the hood back. Firelight reflected off the implant. In the hush that followed, Logan reached for Hale’s near-untouched tankard of bloodwine, and drank deeply.

Drex laughed. ‘Ah, this is how you make humans fun!’ he boomed. ‘Perhaps more of you will be after the last attack?’ He lifted an arm to prop his elbow on the table. ‘Come, Commander, I always wanted to test my might against a Borg.’

Logan’s gaze flickered to Hale. Exhausted, she gave a faint nod. They would get nothing else useful out of Drex.

‘What did you want out of that, ma’am?’ Logan asked once they were back out in the drizzle-stained streets some hours later. He looked none the worse for wear for the copious amount of bloodwine he’d drunk for the Klingons’ amusement.

Hale made a frustrated noise. ‘The High Council is a mess. Most of them are chasing their own tails or going to ground, returning to their homeworlds and leaving paltry representatives or sending the bulk of their retinue ahead, ready to run at any moment. Others, like L’kor, smell blood in the water and want to exploit it. The likes of Toral think this is a time to air old grievances. And Koloth is too friendly to the Federation for the conservatives to like him. I had hoped that the son of Martok might bolster Koloth or at least provide a voice people would listen to. They don’t have to come together to love us. But already reports are coming in of Great Houses looking to move against each other, take advantage of the lack of leadership from Qo’noS to return to old fights. If the High Council doesn’t say something soon, I worry the Empire will degenerate into factionalism.’

Logan glanced over his shoulder at the bar they were leaving far behind. ‘An’ you thought that guy was gonna unite them?’

She sighed. ‘I did not know how much Drex, son of Martok, lived up to his reputation. I’d hoped he was a little less Prince Hal in Act 1.’ At Logan’s confused expression, she sighed. ‘Not a Shakespeare man, Commander?’

‘I know, like. Romeo and Juliet. Hamlet. “Is that a dagger I see before me,” stuff.’

That’s Macbeth, Hale thought, and decided to not be a pedant. ‘Henry IV, Part 1. Prince Hal is the heir to the throne and he’s a wastrel and layabout who eventually reforms, defeats the rebellion, ascends to the throne.’

‘Right. Drex hasn’t hit the part where he stops being in his father’s shadow, that sort of thing? He seemed more interested in being mad that Martok likes Toral, despite being his political opponent, than being his own guy or proving his old man wrong.’

‘And in Toral we have our Hotspur. So who knows, Commander. Maybe in this chaos, Drex will wake up, realise that he needs to be a better man, and be the leader everyone needs him to be.’

‘You don’t sound optimistic.’

‘I’m not.’ Hale sighed. ‘I think we have to face facts, Commander. Unless Endeavour can pull off a miracle, Martok is gone, and there’s nobody who can carry on his vision for the Empire.’

Logan winced, and dropped his voice as they continued their walk through these streets of the young and rich and influential Klingons blowing off steam far from the halls of power. ‘If the opposing vision for the Empire is hating us and going back to old ways of conquest… is it really that bad if instead they fail to get their shit together and collapse into that factionalism you were worrying about?’

‘That might be the realpolitik of the situation,’ said Hale sadly. ‘But nowhere in my heart can I hope for our oldest allies to collapse into civil war. Even if the alternative is worse for us.’

‘And I guess,’ rumbled Logan, ‘it’d be naive to assume a Klingon civil war right on our doorstep didn’t become a real problem for us real fast. We better hope like hell Endeavour finds something.’