PRIME MINISTER KINCHAWN adjusted the settings of his holographic display. The image was divided into two equal, wide rectangles. The top half showed the stern countenance of Bilok, his deputy prime minister. On the bottom was the broad, fleshy face of Koll Azernal, the chief of staff to the Federation president. Kinchawn didn’t know when, exactly, Azernal had cultivated Bilok as a secret ally, but, knowing the Zakdorn’s methods, it had likely been the same day he’d enlisted Kinchawn’s help in the Dominion War. Regardless, it justified his eavesdropping now.

“You’re quite certain this will work?” Azernal said. He sounded tense, but since he lacked nape feathers it was hard for Kinchawn to tell. It amazed the prime minister that so many humanoid species looked so much alike, yet so few shared his people’s feathering; most had hair, which struck him as a poor substitute. He found their round irises to be an equally curious difference from the Tezwan norm.

Bilok nodded, swaying the gray and white plumage that framed his age-worn face. “Kinchawn will not fire,” he said. “He will assume that if you put one of your own ships at risk, you must have withheld a secret defense against the pulse cannons.”

“And if you’re wrong?” the Zakdorn said.

Bilok paused. “He cannot declare war without majority approval in the Assembly. He will have to err on the side of caution.” Kinchawn was glad they were speaking candidly. It reassured him that they were unaware he had secretly ordered the military to intercept all of Bilok’s private transmissions.

“Perhaps,” Azernal said. “Now, how do you propose we secure a long-term solution?” Kinchawn never tired of the Zakdorn’s gift for euphemisms. By “long-term solution,” Azernal had, of course, meant the deposing of Kinchawn himself.

“The Assembly is almost evenly divided, and only the slightest plurality is aligned with Kinchawn,” Bilok said. “Once he stands down, he’ll likely lose the support of a few of his most extreme partisans. At that point it should be fairly easy to pass a vote of no confidence and demand his resignation.”

The downy, pale brown feathers at the nape of Kinchawn’s neck ruffled, betraying his rising ire. He had never trusted Bilok. Worse, he had long envied the elder statesman’s influence. Bilok was one of the trinae, the high-mountain people. They were larger, stronger, and, some Tezwans believed, smarter than Kinchawn’s people, the elininae. Power had always come easily to them. But what Kinchawn lacked in finesse he more than made up for in naked aggression, which had enabled him to soar ahead of Bilok to the top aerie of power.

“All right,” Azernal said. He seemed suspicious. “But can you keep the Assembly in line?”

“With appropriate enticements,” Bilok said. “Easily.”

Azernal scowled, bunching the overlapping folds of skin that draped his fleshy cheeks like curtains. “I ask because the cannons weren’t supposed to go online. Yet here we—”

“That was out of my hands,” Bilok said. “Kinchawn bypassed the Assembly and now issues orders directly to the army.”

Azernal raised one eyebrow, which, being composed of hair, looked as alien as anything Kinchawn had ever seen on a face.

“The Assembly doesn’t know about the cannons?”

“No,” Bilok said.

“Good. Keep it that way.”

“For how long?” Bilok said. “I fear Kinchawn plans to dissolve the Assembly and establish a military government.”

“Obviously,” Azernal said. “If we help you take Kinchawn out of play, can you control the commanders?”

Bilok frowned. “Difficult to say.”

Azernal was quiet but unyielding. “How difficult?”

“He replaced most of them over the last two years,” Bilok said. “They in turn replaced most of their immediate subordinates. I’m not sure how they’ll react to his removal.”

“What about the general population?”

“His obsession with building up the military came at their expense. They’ve been eager for his ouster for some time.”

“Good, good,” Azernal said.

“After we’ve unmade this crisis,” Bilok said, “how soon can your people get these damned cannons off my planet?”

“We’ll have to be discreet,” Azernal replied. “Perhaps a few months, assuming your military doesn’t interfere.”

“Excellent,” Bilok said. “We’ll also need your commitment to provide doctors and civic engineers, to undo the damage of Kinchawn’s misrule.”

“Of course,” the Zakdorn said with a nod.

“And our application for Federation membership?”

“Let’s get the cannons back into mothballs before we open that discussion,” Azernal said.

“I understand,” Bilok said, disappointed.

Kinchawn pitied Bilok’s misguided fantasy of adding Tezwa to the Federation. Bilok clearly was ignorant of the fact that harsh economic struggles were threatening to splinter the Federation into two factions. Worlds that had been devastated by the Dominion War had been rebuffed when they asked those that hadn’t suffered to assist in their costly reconstruction. In the midst of such a tense fiscal crisis, the last thing the Federation needed was to take responsibility for another impoverished planet, such as Tezwa.

“All right, then,” Azernal said, nodding. “We can make this work, as long as you can keep his finger off the trigger. We just ended a war—we’re in no mood for another. If Kinchawn provokes the Klingons, you’re on your own…. Azernal out.”

The display flickered and went dark as Bilok and Azernal terminated their transmission. Kinchawn stood up from his desk and strode out onto the promenade that ringed his office. He surveyed the towers, spires, and domes of Keelee-Kee, Tezwa’s ancient capital city. His dark gray eyes scanned distant features of the cityscape, some almost as far away as the horizon, which brightened with the promise of a golden dawn. The metropolis radiated out from the Ilanatava, or Prime Aerie, and spread across the plains with geometric precision.

A warm zephyr swirled around him, fluttering his purple robe and the tufts of feathers that covered his bare forearms. He drew a breath and swallowed his rage. So he plans to depose me? he mused. With the aid of a defenseless Starfleet vessel and a Federation with no stomach for bloodshed?

He locked his slender, bony fingers around the promenade’s railing. Not today, he vowed.