Composure and Tangible Weapons

[KVorlag 0]

It was a move worthy of the Empire in its post-Organia days. Provocative, but not violent. Who would have thought the Ferengi had such boldness?

 

The Ferengi had declared themselves the only remaining partners in the Aegis mission, effectively surrounding the station. The captain of Sky Harbor Aegis, herself a Ferengi, had invoked "martial law" and a state of emergency. This merely had the effect of bringing them to a typical Klingon readiness level. Not a bad move. They managed to avoid a messy diplomatic incident by not holding Drankum's courier shuttle hostage. The fact that the Ferengi had an "accidental misfire" which had struck nothing still showed that they were willing and able to enforce the immunity of their ambassador.

 

The initial reaction had been strong, with salvos of sternly-worded memos. Cooler heads prevailed, reducing some tension. Bat'leths had rattled, but no declarations of war had gone out. The Ferengi had limited their incursion to pre-defined neutral routes. Starfleet had halted their ships at the border, respecting Cardassian sovereignty. The Ferengi had further agreed to move many of their ships to less-threatening positions, and the deadline had been extended to three days. These were all good, measured developments. Hopefully, the Romulan's promised response would be similarly restrained. He laughed at the thought of depending on that.

 

From what his sources indicated, the Cardassians had made no attempt to stop this convoy of Ferengi marauders at their border. Had they been fooled by flight plans claiming the usual kinds of cargo runs? Or were they complicit in the trolls' move? Certainly the Cardassians would love to see a fracturing of the already strained post-war alliance. He trusted they would prove as shrewd as ever.

 

K'Vorlag grunted at the irony of fighting battles with words. Since he had only a single B'Rel-class scout with a dozen officers and men at his immediate command, he had little else to use. He would make the best of it. He was quite capable of digging a pit with another's words.

 

He tuned into the language of the response Drankum had personally delivered to Muon:

 

- He noticed the Ferengi had not directed the surrender or evacution of any Klingon personnel. Whether this was an oversight or not, it was an opening available to him.

- The Ferengi claimed that a majority of partners had withdrawn from the treaty by default. In this, they had leapt to the voiding provisions of Article 24, Section 5 and bypassed the explicit opening statement in Section 1 which defined withdrawal as requiring "at least one year's prior written notice" to the Depositary. There were no provisions for waiver of this requirement. Section 5 itself referred to stipulations being needed in the "written withdrawal notice". At a minimum, the Klingon Empire had provided no such notice. This would be the basis of their rebuttal to the Ferengi, if it came to that.

- It left a bitter taste in his mouth that he'd had to point out Article 20, Section 4 regarding "conciliation, mediation or arbitration by a mutually agreed to neutral party". This was the very section he and Ambassador Joy had been debated. He still believed that hopes for a peaceful resolution were meaningless unless both sides agreed that they results would be binding.

Subtle nuances and turns of phrase would not address the compelling reasons behind the Ferengi's action. The Ferengi were not going to be convinced by a clever reading of some meaningless fine print. What mattered was what they meant to gain from their action. Anything that didn't address that made no difference.

 

It might yet come to battle.

 

In that event, he would throw aside words and pick up more tangible weapons.

Edited August 28, 2008 by KVorlag