“MOST IMPRESSIVE,” Zeitsev said. “And resourceful.”

“Their efforts were adequate,” L’Haan said, clearly not as awestruck as Zeitsev by the eleventh-hour triumph of Ambassador Worf and Captain Picard. Dietz, for his own part, marveled at the joint effort, which had made a moot point of L’Haan’s invocation of an Armageddon order.

Zeitsev and L’Haan stood behind Dietz as he manipulated the data feeds to his monitor array. At Zeitsev’s request, the lights in the surveillance room had been dimmed and the rate of updates to the various monitors increased to match his heightened perceptual acuity. The swiftly changing images bathed the room in a peculiar, almost hypnotic flicker.

The two senior operatives loomed over Dietz as they studied numerous surveillance images from Tezwa, from the Enterprise, and from Earth. “Of course, the Tezwa situation is still in play,” Zeitsev said.

“Indeed,” L’Haan said. “I do not think events there will transpire as Chief of Staff Azernal expects.”

Zeitsev tapped Dietz’s shoulder. “What’s Quafina doing?”

“Back to the Orions,” Dietz said. “Looks like he’s planning on using the Caedera again.”

Zeitsev hmmphed. “Do you have someone in place this time?”

“We’ve activated the Orion Sleeper,” L’Haan said.

“Good,” Zeitsev said. “Well done. How do you see the Tezwa situation playing out?” Dietz knew that Zeitsev was talking to L’Haan, not to him. Zeitsev rarely deigned to solicit opinions from subordinates.

“Once again,” L’Haan said, “Azernal proceeds from a flawed wargame scenario. It is highly probable that his smuggling of forged evidence will be compromised by rogue political and military elements on Tezwa.”

Zeitsev nodded. “Kinchawn’s guerrilla campaign.”

“Yes,” L’Haan said. “He will target Starfleet personnel and Federation civilians, hoping to force a withdrawal. When numerous escalations of violence fail to achieve this result, he will attempt to depose Bilok by force and order Federation personnel to leave.”

“He’ll probably succeed,” Zeitsev said.

“Unless Starfleet gets involved and defends Bilok,” Dietz said. Zeitsev and L’Haan looked down at him. Their coldly dismissive stares made it perfectly clear that he should refrain from injecting himself into the conversation.

“Indeed,” L’Haan said. “However, Starfleet will likely treat the uprising as an internal matter and withdraw from the conflict. Kinchawn will easily reclaim power.”

“At which point he’ll be looking to punish the Federation,” Zeitsev said. “He’ll try to reveal Zife and Azernal’s deal to the Klingons.”

Dietz expected to be reprimanded for not minding his own business, but he decided this was worth mentioning. “Question,” he said cautiously. “What if Kinchawn reveals the plan to the Klingons right now? If we end up at war against the Klingons, we’d almost certainly have to abandon Tezwa—giving him a free hand to depose Bilok.”

“If Kinchawn could get a signal to the Klingons without giving away his own position to the Enterprise, he probably would,” Zeitsev said, apparently not upset at the query. “But right now he’s underground, probably regrouping and avoiding signal traffic that would draw attention.”

“The question remains,” L’Haan said, “how will we respond when Kinchawn returns to power?”

Zeitsev half-shrugged; he clearly thought the answer was obvious. “We kill him and blame it on the Gatni faction. Or the Klingons. Or whoever. Bottom line—that man has to die before he gets us all killed.”