Glinn Va'Kust (2375)
Cardassian Glinn Zebreliy Va'Kust (Ilojan transliteration: Zebreliy Va'Koust) served as first officer on the Cardassian warship Romac under Gul Rebek. (Star Trek: Sigils and Unions)
Va'Kust is notable for a temperament that can at times appear so stoic as to seem Vulcan-like, as well as for his great height and size, and a deep voice--both of which he sometimes uses to his advantage for a dry brand of humor that often catches the unwitting target completely off guard until he lets them realize he was yanking their chain. Though this is often quite unsettling at first, Va'Kust generally means well.
Gul Macet describes Va'Kust as an "adept student of social dynamics," capable of sowing the seeds of relationships between those around him even in unfavorable conditions.
- Va'Kust's position depends on the Sigils and Unions understanding of his rank, rather than that of the Pocket Books novels.
Zebreliy Va'Kust hails from the Nevot region of Cardassia Prime from a well-to-do family of vintners who own one of Cardassia's rare areas of arable land. Though the Va'Kust wealth means he enjoys fairly high socioeconomic status, Zebreliy's statements suggest it is the cultivation itself--the ability to bring life from Cardassia's poor soil--that he values more than his family's prestige.
Career[]
Whether by conscription or voluntary service, however, he left the Va'Kust vineyards to enter the Cardassian Guard, rising through the ranks to eventually become glinn and first officer under Gul Rebek of the Romac. (Star Trek: Sigils and Unions--The Thirteenth Order)
Rebel base commander[]
His commander, along with three other guls, was one of the first to become suspicious of the Dominion presence in the Cardassian Union and laid plans to rebel. Va'Kust, in part thanks to his even-keeled disposition, became the top choice for one of the most important assigments of the soon-to-be rebels. For at least six months in 2375, Va'Kust acted as commander of what appeared to be a POW camp on the Cardassian outworld of Lessek--but was instead intended to gather captured Starfleet personnel into a place where they would ultimately be invited to join the Cardassian rebellion against the Dominion.
Even to the Starfleet prisoners interned at the Lessek camp, however, his modus operandi diverged significantly from the brutal regime typical of Cardassian prisoner camps. Instead, Va'Kust ran the camp within the bounds of the Seldonis Convention.
In addition to ensuring the basics of food, medical care, and shelter, Va'Kust also acted in his commanding role to maintain order by portioning out the camp's more undesirable tasks by means of the "rotation"--a schedule assigning teams of Starfleet soldiers with Cardassian guards to cook meals and carry out latrine duties. Most notably, however, Va'Kust enforced discipline on his own men even with the two Bajoran prisoners. Crewman Webene Grathis noted that those Cardassian guards without Va'Kust's even-handedness feared to act inappropriately towards him and Ensign Folani Jederia lest they incur the glinn's wrath.
Va'Kust was part of the group that revealed the truth of the Lessek base to ranking Starfleet officer, Lieutenant Commander Makis Spirodopoulos. When Spirodopoulos won the favor of his fellow Starfleet soldiers, Va'Kust orchestrated a Cardassian toasting ceremony to begin cementing the bonds between the Cardassian Guard and Starfleet personnel who would soon fight side-by-side.
Glinn Va'Kust made a particular effort to reach out to Bajoran ensign Folani Jederia. While his deadpan approach initially threw Folani off balance, he did at least succeed in getting her willingness to engage in a drinking contest with him. While Va'Kust declared after her acceptance no such contest would be necessary, he did seem to regard this shift from outright hostility into competitiveness as progress. (Star Trek: Sigils and Unions--The Thirteenth Order)
The Thirteenth Order[]
Following the founding of the Thirteenth Order, the original plan had been for Va'Kust to fight in the ground battle for the Lessek shipyard. During Va'Kust's time away from the Romac, however, Rebek and the rest of the ship's crew narrowly escaped the horrors of the Septimus Massacre, an event that would leave its mark on Gul Rebek and ship's engineer Serain Meray. Based on that, Rebek changed the plan at the last minute so that Va'Kust would command the Romac during the space battle, on grounds that Va'Kust had the strongest psychological reserves at the time.