“There are no permanent alliances, only permanent interests.”

Henry John Temple, 1857

“Klingon Vessel De-cloaking off the Port Bow, Sir! B’rel – class.” Kutka reported, a note of discomfort evident.

Sure enough, there on the main viewer, the unmistakable slender necked vessel shimmered into existence, it’s raptor’s sweep of deadly hooded – wings and the predatory grace of the venerable hunter competing with a fiction of visible – spectrum light waves as the Klingon vessel gave up the charade of camouflage and made no more pretense as to it’s warlike bearing and intent.

Lieutenant Bohrigm Nil frowned, twisting his already scrunched – features into a habitual mask of disgruntlement as the stocky Tellarite shifted in the Captain’s Chair and addressed the lilac – skinned Saurian that manned the Tactical Station.

Once, such an event would have signaled abject panic and a hasty Red Alert. These days were altogether stranger indeed.

“Confirm IFF Transponder handshake.” Nil ordered calmly.

Calm was a prudent state of mind when dealing with a race as volatile as the Klingon Empire, Bohrigm maintained. Their trigger fingers were notoriously itchy and it was not unknown for a  Klingon skipper to fabricate any justification to arms from the most flimsiest of provocations.

Whilst he waited for Kutka to positively identify the interloper that had crept up on the Shran – class Escort unawares, Bohrigm noted the metallic jade sheen of the B’rell’s hull plates. Battered by age and scoured by conflict – the overall effect of the Bird of Prey’s outer surface was that of patchwork.

Here, where two bulkhead plates joined, one was faded with long exposure to space, it’s neighbor darker and suggested damage control replacement. The long, dark whorl that spoke of plasma – scoring from disruptor – weapons fire told Nil that this particular Captain liked to wear his vessel’s scars like a badge of honor and pride.

Bohrigm could just about make out the remains of the markings that spoke to which particular house this ship swore fealty towards, but he waited for Ensign Kutka to return his analysis – as it did not do to issue an order and then countermand the outcome.

“IFF confirms the IKN “D’rath”, “ Kotka murmured, his nictating membranes sliding vertically over his black eyes. “Registry has her allied to House d’Ghesht, under command of Lieutenant Commander Chon’igi Vogh, Sir.”

Despite his relative youth, Bohrigm found the Ensign to possess an unhurried nature that lent well to the role of Tactical Officer. Given the state of affairs that had transpired since passage to the Shackleton Expanse had opened up, this was exactly the kind of steady quality required to stop things devolving into sudden conflict.

The tall, thin Saurian Ensign turned in his seat to address the XO directly.

“She’s one of ours, Sir.”

~”One of Ours”~ Bohrigm thought to himself wryly. ~” No matter how many times I hear that, somehow I still have difficulty believing it to be true.”~

Despite the fact that the Federation’s treaty with both the IKN and the Naval forces of the Romulan Republic having been in place for some time, Lieutenant Nil was not alone in harboring a base – level mistrust as to the long-time intentions of these former enemies – turned – allies. It was self – evident that the ‘Golden – era” of influence for the UFP had started to wane even before one weighed up the costs of Frontier Day and the Vaaduwar Invasion, but Bohrigm would bet his beard that this alliance was founded more on the basis of self – interest than mutual altruism.

“Open a hail to the “D’rath”.” Nil ordered Ensign Gaca, as the diminutive Ferengi swung her legs at the Operations console. “Contact Commander Vogh and welcome her to Framheim Station. If she’ll submit her navigational transponder codes to Station Flight Control, they’ll give her a berthing assignment and guide them in.”

“Aye Lieutenant, sending.” Gaca confirmed efficiently.

~” The enemy of my enemy is still one more enemy too many.”~ Bohrigm thought to himself as he looked around the cramped austerity of the small bridge that served the USS Kirk. He caught sight of his reflection in the shining metal of the deck plate that surrounded the tiny island that was ruled over by the Captain’s Chair and wondered if his disquiet was beginning to show on his face.

“The IKV “D’rath” is not responding to our hail, Sir.” Ensign Gaca’s frown made her ridged brow crease even more than usual and her tone bespoke displeasure.

At the same time, the Kirk’s young Helmsman reported.

“Sir, if Commander Vogh continues on her present course, the “D’rath” will intersect with our own trajectory in one minute and twelve seconds. Your orders Lieutenant?”

Bohrigm sighed inwardly. Klingons! Why did everything that involved working with Klingons have to come down to a Bat’leth measuring competition. How typically typical that the incoming Klingon skipper was choosing to make this simple navigational transaction a show of dominance.

“Helm. Come about to bearing Two, Six, Seven – Alpha and make your course at 15 degrees Starboard towards the outer marker.” Bohrigm ordered, giving Jasmine a course and bearing that would take the graceful manta-ray form of the USS Kirk under the hull of the B’rel – as it bullied it’s progress towards the Station.

Effectively this was akin to rolling the ship onto her back and making a submissive gesture to their erstwhile allies. In truth it cost neither Starfleet, or Bohrigm personally, any real loss of face. If it placated the Klingon captain, then so be it.

“Aye sir. Coming about.” Ensign Jasmine Hunter’s smooth, coffee – coloured fingers flowed over the helm controls and the young woman nodded her assent – her neat bob of night – black hair wavering only slightly as she did so and expertly coaxed the ship so that the domineering shadow of the “D’rath” flowed over their back (the implicit symbolism of this act lost on no-one) and the Bird of Prey prowled onwards towards Framheim Station.

~”At least the Klingons are predictably predictable.~” The Executive Officer reflected as the glowing orange impulse manifolds of the Bird of Prey receded into the night of space. Like most Tellarite’s, he found the prospect of trusting a Klingon (if trust was quite the right word) ultimately easier to bear than to offer the same accommodation towards the other axis of the fragile tri – partite alliance.

He turned his attention to the bustling volume of space that surrounded the Narendra – class Starbase that had so hurriedly been emplaced when the transwarp conduit that the Borg had tunneled from the Alpha Quadrant to this almost – totally unexplored region of the Beta Quadrant and was struck by the comparison between this future frontier and the old – West of the Holo – entertainments that Petty Officer Egan sometimes enjoyed in his off – duty hours.

Amongst the familiar forms of Starfleet Vessels and a cornucopia of civilian craft from a myriad of federation and non – federation species, the jagged and sinister hulls of the Klingon – vessels attached to Starfleet secondment moved with predatory grace or sat poised in docking gantries and ‘at – anchor’ beyond. A bewilderment of shuttles, worker bees and other small – craft buzzed frenetically to and from ship to station like a haze of swarming insects.

But (as if having the Borg as allies wasn’t worrisome enough) it was the sleek and shark – like lithe – green hulls of the encircling Romulan vessels that gave Lieutenant Bohrigm the most unsettling sense of consternation.

Before his people had founded the United Federation of Planets alongside the Humans, Andorian’s and Vulcans, Tellarites and the Romulan Star Empire had engaged in centuries of bitter warfare, mutually – antagonistic subterfuge and bloody reprisal. Logically Bohrigm accepted that this was all in the past and with the destruction of Romulus, the more persistently Machiavellian excesses of the Romulans had been tempered to some degree as the survivors of that fractured world devolved further still into disparate & opposing sovereign states.

Old enmities died hard from bitter experience.

The Free State and the Republic shared little love for each other, but Bohrigm could not dismiss so lightly the fact that the Romulan Free State (with its ever – present Tal Shiar denizens) had wrested control of the Artefact and the Romulan Reclamation Project – their intent to suborn the purloined Borg – cube and capitalize the cachet of accumulated technology to gain a significant bleeding – edge.

That their weaker antagonists, the Romulan Republic, lacked the initiative to take the same measure, did not mean that they would not have taken exactly the same action, had they possessed the necessary resources to do so, if given the opportunity.

To Bohrigm’s mind, it was only a matter of time until the balance of the scales of power shifted in either faction’s favour and suddenly the Federation would likely find themselves with one Romulan faction or the other at its back, poignantly pressing the Sword of Damocles into its kidneys. If that happened to be the faction that professed friendship in this marriage of convenience, then wouldn’t that just hurt all the more so?

Just because the Federation chose to ally with one faction to counter the ambitions of the other did not make either more altruistic than the other.

Yes, it surely was the ‘Wild West’ out there and the USS Kirk was ostensibly playing the role of “Sherriff”, assigned to guard duty – patrolling the space in and around Framheim station, there to keep the peace whilst the prospectors, traders, explorers, colonists, charlatans, inevitable smugglers, would – be pirates, religious zealots, sightseer’s and ambitious empire – builders all flowed through the Transwarp conduit, hungry for fortune and glory and heedless to the cost to others.

Bohrigm would take a Klingon over a Romulan every time, if given the choice, but he was quietly afraid that, given the sheer wealth of potential prizes that lay within this ‘undiscovered country’ that was the Shackleton Expanse, that even bedfellows as mismatched as these might have trouble remembering where their loyalties lay when it came down to the lure of such unchecked self – interest?

These thoughts predominated the Tellarite Officer’s uppermost thoughts as the Bird of Prey approached the station, but Bohrigm’s mind was dragged back to the here and now by the clarion of duty.

“Vessel transiting the conduit.” Ensign Kutka murmured as the powerful targeting sensors of the patrol vessel acquired another ship, this time a civilian vessel. One probably crammed to the gunnels with the naïve and hopelessly greedy, hoping to strike it rich and make a name for themselves on the knife’s- edge of the New Frontier. Bohrigm wondered if they would realize their dream or leave empty handed with only their shattered ambitions in their clutching hands?

If they were to return home alive at all.

As with Earth’s Gold Rush of the 1870’s, the colonization of Mars in the early 2100’s and the chaotic land – grabs experienced throughout the former Demilitarized Zone in the wake of the Dominion War in the mid 2370’s, it was almost impossible for a civilization, even one as advanced and well distributed as the United Federation of Planets had been back in the 24^th Century, to maintain a cohesive continuity of law and order in the face of such and explosion of persistent and immediate unchecked colonial expansionism.

Like it or not, even Bohrigm was forced to admit that it would be effectively impossible to do the same here in the Shackleton Expanse, if it was not for the support of their Klingon and Romulan allies. The sheer volume of unexplored space and unmapped star – systems represented a challenge that was almost unprecedented in this day and age.

As the IKN vessel made its way to brashly nestle amongst it’s fellow Klingon craft, closer in to the station, Bohrigm dearly hoped that he was wrong, and he commented sourly as he turned his attention to the approaching Cardassian Groumall – class Freighter.

“After all – we’re all just one big, happy fleet.”