Kenneth Dumaka, Section 31 agent in training, looked around the vast, gaudily adorned Hall of Light, more to detract from his increasing unease than to observe. The Hall was a perfect replica of a typical Andorran place of assemblage, with its sharply arched ceiling, and thin, spiral-faceted columns lining a transluscent perimeter. The difference lay in location. This Hall floated in space, encased in nine square miles of thick, tri-alloy superstructure.

The station was called Reserve. Located on the periphery of Andorran space, Reserve’s role was comparable to Deep Space Nine in that it was a nexus for species across the Alpha Quadrant. While the Andorrans celebrated Reserve’s diplomatic, trade and cultural standing among civilized…and not so civilized species, they envied the absence of a wormhole leading to a distant quadrant that would have opened up a tremendous wealth of new opportunities.

            Another diversion to draw Ken’s attention away from the matter at hand. Reserve’s function being immaterial to the mission, Ken forced himself to focus. For three standard days, Reserve hosted a trade conference that attracted hundreds of representatives from a varied assortment of species and worlds. He was attached to a Federation delegation, given a cover identity, a cover title, and a fabricated background. The only thing he wasn’t given was an assignment. Ken assumed his Sec 31 trainers would brief him when he boarded the station. But after days of mingling with guests, exploring other public areas of the station or just idling in his room, no one had yet contacted him.

Until now…

            Ken received an encrypted transmission on his room comm an hour before midnight.

            No video transmission. Audio. He tapped the receive function and a heavily modulated voice spoke, referring to him by his code name, Hades.

            Duke Yutis Amra of the Janden Principality is scheduled to sign an agreement with the Cardassians that will be inimical to Federation interests. You will eliminate him. You have forty two hours.

            A stream of data flashed on the comm screen. Target data, including an image and biographical profile.

            Ken froze, his mouth suddenly dry. Kill. He was being ordered to kill. This was his second training mission. Where was his handler? Surely he wasn’t expected to take lead on this assignment…to act on his own initiative.

            He rubbed his eyes, inhaling a deep breath to compose himself. Evidently, that was exactly what his superiors expected of him.

The next morning, members of the Federation delegation attended an informal gathering in one of the station’s many banquet rooms. where the duke was present. The duke was present, wrapped in a glowing raiment of charm and charisma.

            Ken surreptitiously studied his target, but refrained from meeting him. With imagers positioned above the room, Ken wanted no video footage of him interacting with the duke. Investigators in the aftermath might have drawn certain conclusions. He lifted a glass of syntale from a passing Andorran server and proceeded to mingle with a pair of Risen representatives.

            Five minutes later, two Jandens in gold and blue military uniforms entered the room, heading toward the duke. One of the Jandens whispered to the duke, while the other stood aloof, gazing at the crowd.

            Seconds later, the duke made an abrupt departure in the company of the soldiers.

            Ken watched and wondered.

During the afternoon phase, Ken returned to his room, went to his terminal and pulled up a conference schedule. His hunch had been confirmed. Where previously, Duke Amra was listed as a speaker in four events, now, his name had been deleted, the word CANCELED, emblazoned in its place. Ken frowned.

At 0130, Ken attended an economics symposium where Amra had been scheduled to speak. He sat next to a Ferengi and initiated small talk. The small talk ballooned into a lecture from the Ferengi on the finer points of the Rules of Acquisition. When Ken found a window to slip a word in, he made casual mention of the duke’s absence.

            “Oh.” The Ferengi waved an apathetic hand. “Apparently, there’s some sort of threat to the duke’s life. I heard he’s being sequestered somewhere. He won’t be seen…publicly at least… until its time to meet with the Cardassians. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone in his delegation who wanted him dead. The Jandens can be quarrelsome lot…”

            The Ferengi’s words dissolved to background babble in Ken’s awareness. How was he going to pull off an assassination now if he could not pinpoint his target? Surely his superiors would order him to abort in light of this unexpected development.

By late afternoon, Ken returned to his room. He glanced at his comm, expecting a message to come through any minute telling him how to proceed. Nothing.

            His door chimed. “Come.”

            The door slid open and an Andorran walked in bearing a small gray box.

            Ken eyed the box curiously before accepting it.

“A complimentary gift from the conference organizers,” the Andorran explained.

Ken muttered a thank you and removed the box’s lid when the Andorran departed. He reached in and pulled out a…wrist chrono? Ken held up the time piece, examine it.

 “Quaint.” Then he remembered something every Section 31 trainer had drilled into him. There are situations where nothing is what it appears to be.

Ken ran a thumb along the top, bottom and side of the chrono, applying mild pressure each time. It was when he pressed the sides that the face of the time piece popped open, revealing a thumb size disc inside. Ken’s eyes narrowed in recognition.

A personal cloaking device. A clear signal that his superiors wanted him to proceed with the mission. But how? Cloaking device or not, he could still set off alarms if he stepped foot in the Janden quarter of the station…assuming the duke was there to being with. Ken sat in the chair by his terminal table, discouraged. He desperately needed something that he was totally lacking at the moment: a plan.

Early evening. Ken entered the lounge. He spotted the Ferengi he met at the symposium, sitting at the bar, sipping on a concoction bubbling from a long, thin glass.

Ken approached the bar, making himself conspicuous to the Ferengi, while ignoring him at the same time. “I need the strongest human drink you have,” he told the Andorran bar tender.

The bartender reached under the counter and produced a bottle of clear liquid and a glass.

“Hard day?”

Ken turned to the Ferengi and feigned surprise. “Torg…I’m sorry. I didn’t notice you. I’ve been so preoccupied.” He displayed a harried little smile. “It has been a hard day. I’m trying to interest a Gorn representative in shuttle engine brackets. I even offered him a cut-rate deal. He’s not budging.”

Torg locked a conspiratorial gaze upon the human. “Ahh. Doing a little side dealing I see.”

Ken shrugged, picking up the full shot glass provided by the bartender. “Why not? The way I see it, my delegation has completed some key trade negotiations beneficial to the Federation. I might as well take advantage of what opportunities I can to benefit myself.”

A set of jagged teeth shined in Ken’s face, accompanied by a peel of laughter. “Had I shut my eyes, I would have thought I was hearing those words coming out of the mouth of a Ferengi, not one of you clean cut Federation types.”

Ken downed his shot and slapped the glass on the table. “Some of us are not as clean as the Federation would like to think we are.” For all the deception implicit in this assignment, Ken could not have been more sincere on that point.

“That is utterly refreshing to hear,” the Ferengi announced. “So, tell me about these brackets. Perhaps we can come to an arrangement satisfying to the both of us. You see, I too am interested in making what personal profit I can out this excursion.”

“You won’t make much profit out of brackets,” Ken derided. “I was planning to make contact with Duke Amra about getting in on this deal he’s putting together with the Cardassians. From what I hear, he’s willing to do some side activity for the right price. Unfortunately for me, his seclusion has derailed my plans.”

“Perhaps not.” Torg gently sloshed the froth in his glass, generating a boil of fresh bubbles. “The duke may be in seclusion, but he’s not out of contact. He is talking to a number of persons behind closed doors. I happen to be one of them.”

Ken perked up. “Can you get me access to him?”

Torg took a generous swig from his glass. “I can mention your name to him.”

“How much will this mention cost me?”

“A bar of latnium will do. I’m not greedy.”

Ken pretended to mull over the price. “Where will we meet if he agrees to see me?”

“Most likely the third level conference room, where he’ll meet with the Cardassians.” Torg paused, looking up. “He would have invited you to his quarters were it not for, well, you know…”

Ken nodded as he took the bottle and refilled his glass. “I completely understand. He can’t compromise his security.”

Torg raised his glass. “Here’s to profit and the duke’s survival. Because if he dies there will be no profit!”

Ferengi and human chuckled amid the clinking of glasses.

Three hours after Ken left the bar, he received a message from Torg. The duke was interested in a meeting. One hour, third level conference room.

Ken had spent the last two hours studying a schematic of the station. While he was pleased to be meeting with the duke, all would be for naught if he could not put the other pieces of his plan together.

He pulled up his expense account on the screen, courtesy of Section 31. After withdrawing the equivalent of a one bar of latnium and transferring it to Torg’s account, Ken erased all evidence of his communication with the Ferengi, his searches and financial transaction, and shut down the terminal.

 He activated the mini-cloaking device and left his quarters. Having committed the station schematic to memory, Ken knew exactly where he wanted to go. Despite his invisibility, he still had to move cautiously. The light bending effects of the cloak produced a mild optic ripple that became more pronounced the faster he walked. And God forbid if should bump into someone. Needless to say, Ken gave every passing individual the widest berth. Traveling from one corridor to the next and ascending five levels, Ken stalked into the station’s East Wing security command center. Creeping deeper into the center, he came across a lone Andorran standing over a console, tapping a keypad.

Ken froze.

The Andorran turned away from the console and walked toward a sectioned off portion of the room, well out of view.

Ken scanned the security center, his searching gaze stopping at a bank of monitors at the far end. He wanted to hurry, but mindful of the ripple effect, he took, careful, slow strides toward the monitors. Ken decided to gamble on a possibility. What if the duke had not been moved from his quarters?

Ken worked the monitor controls and an image of a corridor in the Janden section popped on the middle screen. Janden guards in combat suits, armed with heavy disruptors lined both corridor walls leading to the elevator. A decoy detail to throw off an assassin? Ken doubted it. The Andorrans allowed a limited number of an armed party onto Reserve. Those in the duke’s entourage concerned with his safety were bound to make maximum use of the protection available to them. No. The duke was there. Ken would have bet his life on it.

He backed away from the monitors and left the security center through a different exit. Ken stepped into the corridor, pressing himself against a wall to avoid bumping into a pair of passing Andorrans. He scurried to the end of the walkway and darted into a narrow tunnel leading to the internal operations room. Laid out before him was a console five times larger than the monitor bank in the security center. It was a central control unit linking to every essential utility in the station’s East Wing. Ken doublechecked the room. No personnel in sight. He approached the console and went to work.

Ten minutes passed. He was up against the clock. His task completed, Ken returned to the security center. Standing before the monitors he watched the display he pulled up earlier and waited. A garishly attired dignitary emerged from a room in the foreground of the footage. Unmistakably the duke.

Four bodyguards detached from the wall and accompanied Amra, two in front of him, two behind. The elevator door slid open and the duke, along with his bodyguards stepped inside. The door slid shut…

The comm beeped in rapid, urgent intervals, pulling Ken out of a light slumber. He rose briskly from his bed and strode to the comm, tapping the receive button. Torg’s flustered image blinked on the screen.

“Have you heard?” The Ferengi asked, his voice as agitated as his expression.

Ken squinted, putting on a disoriented act. “Heard what?”

“The duke! Duke Amra…he’s dead!”

The human gasped, careful to project the appropriate shock. “Dead? I don’t…I don’t understand…how…when?”

“Around the time you were supposed to meet him! The elevator he was on collapsed…it dropped fifteen levels. The crash killed him and his bodyguards, on impact from what my sources tell me!”

The Ferengi gritted his teeth, balling his fists like he wanted to wail into something. “Why?!? Why did this have to happen to me? I stood to make a fortune from my dealings with the duke! A fortune!”

“That explains why he never showed up,” Ken mused, stroking his chin. “I went to the conference room, but he never showed.”

Torg went on lamenting his ill fortune as if he were the victim instead of the duke. “Bastards! If I get my hands on the culprit who did this…”

“Wait,” Ken interjected. “You don’t think this was an accident?”

Torg’s face drooped in a deadpan stare. “Seriously? I guess you Federation types are as naïve as you are idealistic. Of course it wasn’t an accident. What. You think this was some freak occurrence? Whoever was gunning for the duke succeeded. The Andorrans don’t believe it was an accident either. They have the station locked down. No  incoming ships, no departures until their investigation into this matter is completed.”

The Fernegi groaned dishearteningly. “Who knows how long that’ll be!”

“Yeah. Who knows.” Ken cut the transmission and plopped down on the edge of his bed. He felt light as a feather, as if a twelve-ton weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

The investigation lasted three standard days. After interviewing every individual who had direct contact with the duke, including his bodyguards, neither Andorrans nor Jandens could find any evidence of a plot to kill him. Station engineers pored over every inch of the shattered elevator. They examined its surrounding mechanisms and concluded that the anti-gravity field propelling the elevator had malfunctioned. Sabotage?

The investigators found no evidence of that either. Were they convinced that the duke’s death was accidental? Not entirely. But the station could not be kept on lockdown indefinitely. Reserve’s commander lifted all traffic restrictions. Normality swiftly returned, and before long, Duke Amra’s death was a fading headline in the constant whirl of station activity.

The Federation delegation departed Reserve on the starship Enterprise. Its captain had been gracious enough to ferry the delegation to and from the conference. The duke’s death had been the talk of the delegation members. Ken refrained from discussing the topic. So much conspiracy talk was tedious, when one knew the truth. When one was a central part of the very conspiracy others enjoyed speculating about.

Ken was sitting at a table in the starship lounge nursing a glass of orange juice. He supposed when he returned to Earth, Section 31 would make contact with him. He could finally be evaluated for his handling of this assignment.

“Mind if I join you?”

Ken looked up and his eyes widened at the sight of Howard Jordan, the man who recruited him into Section 31. “Howard…”

“Dr. Franklin Graham,” Howard interrupted. “My cover name.”

“Oh.” After clearing his throat. Ken indicated the chair across from him. “Uh, yes, Dr. Graham. Please sit.”

A server came to the table.

Ken sat rigidly while Howard ordered a bowl of mushroom soup with a glass of water.

When the server left, Howard fixed Ken with a pair of grinning eyes. “You did very well.”

“I could’ve used some support on this assignment. The duke’s guard detail was in a state of alert. Someone leaked to them that his life was in danger.”

“I know,” Howard said casually. “That someone was me.”

Ken nearly hopped to his feet. “You!” Lowering his voice, Ken stared daggers at his mentor. “Why would you do that?”

“To increase the level of difficulty for you,” Howard replied non-chalantly. “Think about it. You had no idea what your task was when we sent you to that station. When we finally revealed the assignment to you, how did you feel?”

“Like…I was unprepared.”

Howard smiled knowingly. “Exactly. That is how we wanted you to feel. When the duke’s security was heightened, you undoubtedly felt even less prepared. That was a test, Kenneth. A test to evaluate your response to an unexpected circumstance during the course of a mission. The miniature cloaking device we provided tested your ability to best utilize the resources at your disposal. There are occasions when Section 31 agents are forced to operate with little more than their minds and bare hands.”

Ken looked off reflectively. “So, when I received the cloaking device, you expected me to carry out the mission.”

Howard shook his head, then expressed gratitude to the waiter who appeared and placed a steaming bowl of soup and a glass of water before him. “Actually, we had no expectations at all regarding the mission. Our only interest was evaluating your performance.”

A look of mild confusion crossed Ken’s face. “Are you saying it wouldn’t have mattered if I aborted the mission…if I didn’t kill the duke?”

Howard picked up his spoon and gently stirred the creamy soup. “Not on that particular day.” He raised a finger of emphasis. “Don’t get me wrong. Amra’s association with the Cardassians was beginning to lead to some very dangerous developments, which I won’t go into detail about. He was on our target list long before you became aware of him. We had a seasoned operative in place to eliminate him in case you opted to abort.”

“It would’ve been better if I did abort and let your operative take over.” Self recrimination burned in Ken’s eyes. “My…handiwork…was sloppy. I killed four of his bodyguards. If I had a better plan, I could’ve spared them the duke’s fate.”

“Don’t let that get to you, Kenneth. Collateral damage is the nature of our business. Mind you, we are not nearly as callous in our regard for innocents as the Obsidian Order. We try to execute missions in a manner that harms no one other than the intended target. But there are unavoidable times when innocents are caught in the line of fire.”

Howard scooped a spoonful of soup, blew on it and rather indelicately slurped loudly from the utensil. “If it’s any consolation, the duke’s bodyguards were soldiers. They served their leader and they died for him. In Janden culture, there can be no higher honor.”

Ken soaked in that little tid bit and leaned back in his chair. “What’s next for me?

“You’re going to Earth,” said Howard.

“You too?”

“No. I’m being dropped off at Star Base 12. I’m working a cover as an astro-archeologist.”

Ken decided not to ask the old man the nature of his assignment. “Am I going on another training mission?”

Howard dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “Training mission? No not at all. Your training is over. You are now a full fledge Section 31 agent.” He held out a hand. “Congratulations.”

Ken stared blank faced, not immediately processing what he just heard. So many months of physically intensive, mentally exhaustive training had congealed his focus to  an extent that he’d forgotten that there could possibly be an end to it. He didn’t know whether to jump for joy or hang his head in relief.

Ken took the other’s hand, shaking it with vigor.

“Remember what you’ve been taught,” Howard cautioned. “There will come moments when you may be tempted to solve a problem the Federation way. The Federation approach doesn’t always work. That’s where we come in.”

“What happens when I get to Earth?”

“Nothing. You’re going to relax. Have fun. Enjoy the perks of your position. When we need you, we’ll contact you.”

Howard nudged his bowl aside and rose. “Delicious. Wish I could finish it, but my schedule is rigorous. Farewell Kenneth.” After drinking a mouthful of water, Howard Jordan departed the lounge.

Ken remained behind for a few minutes, his thoughts on Earth.