Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [36]
Zaidan’s voice was controlled, his words prepared, but each sentence burned across the deck. The rehearsed explanation had obviously been cooking for three years, waiting to be spoken. Three years of Zaidan’s shame.
“Since then,” the son continued, “the empire has been the laughingstock of the galaxy. We have been pilloried by the lowest of the low, the weakest of the weak. Bateson brought his entire crew safely through to a whole new time. Bateson went through time to save his ship from Kozara. The empire has been blistered by ridicule with every celebration for Bateson and his men. A warship, an entire invasion, was turned back by a single border ship and its forty-man crew. In Starfleet, to stumble on a pebble is now called ‘a Kozara maneuver’!”
Dashed to blindness, Gaylon sank back against the helm console. Good thing it was there. If only he could speak—if only it were his place to say something—
“Your one little victory against Morgan Bateson saved me from scraping animal dung from imperial streets,” Zaidan snarled. “I was Kozara’s son, humiliated but not stripped of my rightful place. Kozara was still a warrior and I could work. I could command teams of laborers. I could design complexes and show my designs to respectable Klingons. I could do all these things … until Morgan Bateson came alive again.”
Zaidan took one—and only one—step toward his father, and tipped one brawny shoulder in that direction.
“Since he came back, do you know what life has been for me? Son of the warrior who won not a single encounter? I have borne the wretchedness that should have been yours. My career has spiraled down until I am scarcely able to build a shelter for a dog. No one wants a bridge, an outpost, a box, a sewage station built by Zaidan, son of Kozara. Perhaps they have a job for me in Starfleet!
Gaylon glanced around the bridge at the terrible faces of Veg, Zulish, and the other bridge officers. He knew that the communication lines were open throughout the ship and the entire crew was hearing this. That was simple docking procedure, so all systems could be coordinated and no one could subvert the process of entering a port or province. Now the whole crew heard all this, and indignity scrubbed their faces.
“Now, this week,” Zaidan charged, “comes the biggest embarrassment of all. The Federation is about to launch a new starship. It is the sixth Starship Enterprise. And the great Morgan Bateson is master of ceremonies. Morgan Bateson has used his rank privilege to employ his crew in the commission and building of the new starship. That mollusk Picard is to be guest of honor. For two years Starfleet has been building this starship, and when the fifth Enterprise was destroyed four months ago, the decision was made to declare this new ship the next Enterprise. Recall, o warrior, that it was the Enterprise of James Kirk who flew in after the disappearance of Bateson and finally drove you back into the Neutral Zone. Is there no relief for me? Must everything you do haunt me this way? Bateson and the Enterprise through my entire pathetic life? I should rename myself ‘Bateson, son of Enterprise.’ It would be less disgraceful than ‘Zaidan, son of Kozara’!”
Their lives were over. Gaylon’s eyes were boiling. The faces of the other crew members were dusky with hopelessness. Surely one of them would surge forward and slaughter Kozara where he stood. He even saw Veg’s hand slip back to grip his hungry dagger. Gripping his own tunic’s hem harder, Gaylon vowed not to stop the murder.
Then Zaidan stepped back a pace, straightened his stance.
“I am no longer the son of Kozara,” he proclaimed. “I will go away. I will change my name. I will be a pirate or a hired weapon. If I could scrape this degraded face off my skull, I would do it. There is no more Zaidan, son of Kozara. There is only Kozara, who could not make a single victory, who never had a good day to die, and who could not keep a son.”
The bridge