Chapter One

The salty taste of gagh blood filled Toq's tongue as he bit down on the serpent worm that wriggled in his mouth.

It was the first thing he had enjoyed all day.

"What I find most irritating about Kallo is—"

Rodek snarled, the grapok sauce that he had put on his trigak flying out in all directions. "Not again. You have done nothing but complain about Kallo since she first came on board!"

They sat at the "secondary bridge," the table in the I.K.S. Gorkon's large mess hall that was usually occupied by members of the bridge crew. At the moment, Toq and Rodek, the ship's first and second officers, respectively, were the only ones at the table.

Toq swallowed the gagh. "She drives me mad! Every morning, when the shift begins, she has some suggestion for improving operations, or improving the warp engines, or improving the style of making reports, or—"

"I know what she does, Toq," Rodek said. "I stand right next to her on the bridge, just as you did when you were operations."

Shaking his head, Toq said, "Yes, but I did not pester Drex or Tereth or Kornan with such minutiae every waking moment."

Leskit, the primary-shift pilot, walked over to the table, carrying a plate of racht, taknar gizzards, and some trigak of his own. Before sitting, he looked at Rodek. "Is he still carrying on about Kallo?"

In a deep, dangerous voice, Rodek said, "Yes."

Shaking his head, causing the Cardassian neckbones he wore around his neck to rattle, the old pilot sat down. "I was hoping I'd get here late enough that he'd have moved on."

"I fear he will never move on from this topic."

"It is just that—" Toq hesitated. "She vexes me!"

"Women do that, Commander," Leskit said. "It's their function in the universe, to vex men. My suggestion to you is that you either ignore her or bed her."

"I can't ignore her—she is the operations officer."

"That just leaves the other option, then. Rodek, give me that grapok sauce."

As Rodek gave the container with the condiment to the pilot, Toq said, "The other problem is that her suggestions—" Again Toq hesitated.

"What of them?" Leskit asked, biting down on his gizzards.

Toq shook his head. He hated to admit this out loud. "They're good."

"So they're good," Rodek said. "As first officer, isn't it your responsibility to make use of good suggestions from your inferiors?"

Toq hesitated a third time, which was three more times than he was comfortable with doing so.

Leskit let loose with one of his papery laughs. "I believe, Rodek, that we begin to see the root of the problem."

This confused Toq. "What do you mean, Leskit?"

Rodek added, "I do not understand, either."

Copyright © 2005 by Paramount Pictures