Instrument of Vengeance

"Klingon Intelligence tells you to pick anything in my collection and this is what you settle on?" Injira, the Ferengi merchant who owned the scrapyard, hissed.

Zdak shifted his gaze from the window of the inspection pod over to the middle-aged entrepreneur that stood to his left.

"You know what this is?" he asked with a grin.

"Space garbage," she answered, "a heap of Klingon slag from a war long forgotten."

Zdak tapped buttons on his left bracer with his slender clawed Reman fingers and a moment later a shimmering blue hologram popped into existence.

"This elegant form," he said, indicating the slowly rotating ship diagram, "was conceived of by a brilliant Reman engineer named Galdram Tufal. It was to be the next evolution of warship technology for ungrateful Romulan overloads to exploit.

He could see that Injira's interest was piqued.

"The design was passed over by the Imperial bureaucracy. They said that it was not cost effective but the truth was that they prefered to field inferior Romulan-designed ships rather than admit the superiority of the Reman one."

"You do know that's a Klingon ship, don't you?" the Ferengi sneared.

Zdak deactivated the hologram with a huff.

"Galdram's plans were sold off for a pittance to several of the Klingon great houses in the early 2240s."

Injira wrinkled her nose, "That stinks."

"Indeed." Zdak replied, his gaze shifting back to the floating hulk of the derelict old bird of prey outside the window, "So great was Galdram's dishonor that he threw himself upon his own sword."

"That really stinks." the Ferengi tilted her head.

Zdak looked back over at the woman and grinned, "But not before publicly exposing the names and addresses of the mistresses of every member of the Senate Arms Committee."

The little Ferengi laughed, "Not a very equitable trade...but I suppose his hands were tied."

"Quite literally." Zdak scowled, "Even those like Galdram who had been lucky enough to have been born on Romulus and that had been screened for desirable skills as children and educated were often treated as property, their continued existence allowed only so long as they provided something useful to the empire."

Zdak saw a look of realization flash across Injira's face.

"Ah! Now I understand your reason for selecting this particular craft."

The Reman stared out the window at the cold, near-black, hulk of the long-retired M'chla class bird of prey. It had been decommissioned in the aftermath of the Federation/Klingon War of the 2250s and had no doubt been gutted for everything of value in the nearly century and a half since then. Still, the spaceframe was intact and it would be a fine instrument for Zdak's revenge.

"Can you think of anything better?" he asked in his deep Reman tone, "Any better shape to sweep down like an avenging angel and reduce the remaining Tal'Shiar scum that still draw breath into ash?"

"Hmmph," Injira scoffed, "do you see yourself as a Klingon Intelligence agent Mister Zdak, or a poet?" and with that she flashed a toothy smile.

"I see myself with my hands clutched around the neck of the last Imperial verul that dares to oppress any of the children of Romulus or Remus, squeezing until there is nothing but silence, and only then will the universe be cleansed of their filth."

"Uh huh..." Injira said to herself, rolling her eyes as she turned away. She activated the communicator pin on her lapel and spoke into it, "Brog...I think our guest has made his selection."

A moment later the communicator crackled and the monotone voice of the rather dimwitted Brog came over the channel, "The insane one? The Reman?"

Injira fumbled with the communicator, attempting to shut it off as quickly as she could.

As she turned back Zdak was glaring at her, "It's quite alright."

"Really?" she said meekly, her face showing fear.

"I am crazy." he grinned.