Kahless stared into it. “Bottles.”
“Romulan ale. Aged to perfection,” Cross said as Kahless lifted out a liquid-filled container. “We found it out in the camp warehouse—whole crates of it. I figured you might like a few bottles.”
“Felt like more than a few.” Shift looked at him. “You got the Unsung to carry this onto the ship for you?”
Cross grinned. “I told them it held ancient Klingon scrolls that I’d found in the blasphemous Orions’ sanctum.” He watched as Kahless, seemingly hypnotized, drew forth one bottle after another and placed them on the deck beside him. “I know it’s not your bloodwine—but it should do in a pinch.”
Kahless’s eyes were fixed on the bottles. “This . . . is because I refuse to talk to you—to help you in your damn fool plot to replace me.”
“Questioning my motives? I’m hurt.” Cross shrugged in innocence. “Just figured you’d like something besides water with that stuff the Unsung call food.”
It was true, of course: chats with Kahless were what he needed, and anything to loosen the Klingon’s tongue would help.
Especially now. “Our special friend’s assistant sent the message while you were out,” Shift said, gesturing to the padd in her hand. “We’re go for the last phase.”
Cross smiled at her and then at Kahless, who continued to sit spellbound. “You hear that, Emperor? You won’t be stuck here much longer. So drink up.”
Twelve
U.S.S. ENTERPRISE
NEAR THE HROMI CLUSTER
“As you were,” Jean-Luc Picard said as the door sealed shut behind him. “I should hope there is never a need for an Enterprise-F. But if there is one, they should put a conference table in stellar cartography. We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time here.”
Geordi La Forge looked back at the captain from the railing and smiled weakly. “I’m thinking of having cots brought in.”
Picard understood why. Following his receipt of a message from Qo’noS, he had thought to call three of his senior staffers to his ready room. When a quick check with the ship’s computer told him everyone he wanted to see was in stellar cartography, Picard had simply headed there himself. Since the Enterprise had departed the Briar Patch, the holographic planetarium had become a regular haunt for Worf, La Forge, and the security chief, Lieutenant Commander Aneta Šmrhová. If they weren’t due on the bridge or in other departments, the three were nowhere else.
They were hunting. Hunting the Unsung, and the dozen birds-of-prey that had so far eluded both Starfleet and the Klingon Defense Force. Of course, the regular interfaces to Enterprise’s computer systems provided every fact that needed retrieval and made all kinds of analyses possible. When it came to an interstellar search mission, however, there was something about standing amid holographic representations of the surrounding stars that helped the conscious mind. Many of the species aboard Enterprise were spatial beings; sometimes seeing elements in exact perspective provided insights unavailable from a flat panel.
Picard could see the three had been running another study looking at candidate signals, possibly emanating from a companion vessel that La Forge suspected was either escorting or trailing the twelve Phantom Wing warships. Since discovering the existence of the so-called Object Thirteen, it had gripped La Forge’s attention for days.
But finding it again had been difficult. “Any luck?” Picard asked.
“Computer, freeze analysis,” La Forge said. “It’s slow work—and harder than it has to be.”
“How so?”
“Klingon space teems with vessels traveling back and forth under cloak, using devices manufactured in many different periods. Under our agreements with the Klingons, we never look for them.” The engineer gestured toward the scatterplot of glowing points hanging in the space above their heads. “But as soon as our bogey left the nebula and started into Klingon space, our problem stopped being the size of the haystack. It’s all the other needles.”
“I have been consulting with the Defense Force,” Worf said, “trying to get a list of what they have where.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “They have not always been helpful.”
That surprised Picard. The broadcast execution of Kahless by the Unsung had led Chancellor Martok to pledge the full assets of his Empire to the search—and he had assured Starfleet that any of its vessels searching would have full cooperation. “Is it line officer paranoia—a reluctance to reveal where all their ships are, even to a friend?”
“It’s that, but more.” Šmrhová looked up from the padd she was studying. “I hate to say it, Captain, but it’s us.”
“They blame the Enterprise for what happened on Gamaral and Thane,” Picard said.
“It is not a legitimate complaint,” Worf said, frustrated. “No one could have done otherwise in this situation. And we could do more now, with their aid.”
Picard faced La Forge. “Compile a list of candidate signals that remain unexplained. I will send them directly to Martok. We will allow the Empire to distinguish between what it is legitimate traffic and what is not.”
“It would leave us with a smaller set to study,” La Forge said, weariness evident in his voice. “I appreciate it.”
“Captain, is there news from Ketorix?” Šmrhová asked.
“Chancellor Martok shared his investigators’ report,” Picard said. “The attempt on the lives of Admiral Riker and General Kersh appears to have been inspired by the Unsung, but shares no direct connection. Martok said he understands why Admiral Riker wanted Starfleet informed, but he wants the incident kept quiet.”
“He would,” Worf said. “He must keep order.”
Picard studied his officers. They were undefeated, but they were definitely beat. La Forge and Šmrhová, having been foiled at Gamaral by the Unsung both on the surface and in space, had been focused on the crisis almost exclusively in the days since. And Worf, having lived as the Unsung’s hostage, had been in perpetual motion, barely keeping his rage in check. How long, Picard wondered, could they keep driving themselves like this?
He took a breath, no longer able to delay getting to the main reason for his visit. “I am glad to find you three here. Geordi told me about the plan you were working on.”
“Yes, Captain.” Worf nodded toward the engineer. “It is connected to the attack the Unsung made on the Enterprise while you and I were on the surface of Gamaral.”
Surrounded there by the cloaked birds-of-prey of the Phantom Wing, the Enterprise had taken fire from the ships. The ability to attack while cloaked was not the only modification made to the vessels: using technology stolen from the Hunters of the Gamma Quadrant, the Unsung had opened tiny rifts in the Enterprise’s shields long enough to beam boarding parties in. After they had disabled several of the ship’s transporters, they beamed out in the same manner.
While beaming through shields was nearly impossible, it was not beyond some advanced life-forms, and there had been desperate occasions where ways had been found. Those, however, usually required inside information about the shield harmonics of the other vessel. Miles O’Brien had exploited such knowledge in beaming from the Enterprise-D to the shielded Phoenix years earlier. The Phantom Wing’s demonstrated ability was so tactically disruptive that La Forge had put half his engineers on finding a counter.
La Forge had proposed to do something similar. “Your plan as I understand it,” Picard said, “involves our beaming someone—or something—aboard a Phantom Wing vessel, correct?”
“Presuming we could find one.” La Forge sighed
“Transporting onto a cloaked vessel.” Picard goggled. “Simply amazing.”
“We wouldn’t be rewriting the book on starship combat. We suspect this tactic will only work on the Phantom Wing vessels.”
“Explain.”
La Forge launched into a dissertation on how the subspace emitters aboard B’rel-class ships projected their signals with no loss, even when the vessels were cloaked. “The emitters create tiny isl
ands of stability in the spatial distortion of the cloaking field, just long enough for a confinement beam to get out. But in order to use the brute-force method the Unsung stole from the Hunters, they would have to keep the emitters in a state of constant charge—which means there’s always a rotating series of pinpricks in the cloak, so to speak, making it possible for a transport beam to travel out.”
“Or come back in,” Picard said. “Can we use this method to discover where an Unsung vessel is?”
“No. The way they’ve got their cloaking devices set up, the only way to sense the existence of the field is to prod it up close with a transporter beam—using a dynamic fractal equation to search for the holes in the field. As soon as we got a transporter lock, we could beam in.”
The captain blanched. “How would you know where you were going, without seeing the bird-of-prey?”
Šmrhová spoke up. “Knowing the shape of the cloaking field even momentarily, Captain, gives us the location of the field’s emitter—and we already have the basic schematics for the Phantom Wing vessels, which Lord Korgh provided Chancellor Martok. From that, we would direct our transporters to target a location where our team would both activate a tracking device and disable the cloak.”
“And the transporter’s safeguards would guarantee you would materialize in a safe location,” Picard said. “Have you chosen the target zone?”
“We have,” Worf said. “The catwalk over deuterium fuel storage is an isolated space—with easy access to the plasma conduits that supply the cloaking device, far forward. Both the catwalk and the room below are likely to be unattended. I do not expect any trouble.”
Picard stared at him. “Number One, you intend to go?”
“Yes, sir.”
Picard looked to his security chief and read her expression. “You too, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Captain.”
La Forge raised his hands. “I’m staying aboard. Someone has to make sure this works.”
Picard shook his head, amused at his team’s innovation and daring. Each of the three had a reason to seek redemption following the events on Gamaral and Thane—and this mission to bell an invisible cat was in line with what he expected from his crew. “As long as you’re certain it’s safe, I have no objection. Just—”
“Bridge to Captain Picard,” called Lieutenant Konya. “Message for you, sir, from Admiral Riker.”
The captain knew if Will couldn’t wait until they could hold a subspace conversation, things were going from bad to worse. “Go ahead.”
“ ‘Lord Korgh has given his consent for the H’atorian Conference to be held in a site known as Spirits’ Forge,’ ” Konya said. “The admiral said that name would mean something to Commander Worf.”
“Spirits’ Forge,” Worf said solemnly. “It means something to all Klingons. It means Korgh is sticking his finger in the eyes of the Unsung.”
Thirteen
SPIRITS’ FORGE
H’ATORIA, KLINGON EMPIRE
“The lord of the house!”
Korgh descended the stone staircase from the transport platform and squinted at the route ahead. It was a walk through fire, or so it seemed.
An elongated land bridge connected two promontories to form a dumbbell-shaped island. Every few meters along its black shores, rivulets of lava meandered to a churning sea. Now and again the resulting clouds of steam and gas parted long enough for Korgh to see more of the paved walkway stretching ahead, leading half a kellicam toward the fortress on the northern knob.
There was no chance Korgh would lose his way. Klingons in battle dress stood every so often along the length of the causeway, posted in pairs, with one at either side. Each held a bat’leth, the weapon of legend, after the first one forged in a river of lava by a single hair from the immortal Kahless. As Korgh approached the two sentries nearest him, he could only see their eyes, watchful and serious. The nose and mouth of each was covered.
The colossal warrior who had spoken stood before the small guardhouse at the foot of the stairs. Identically garbed, he issued a salute.
Korgh returned it. “Qapla’, Ernor, Head of the Watch. I have come to visit, as I said I would.”
“It is good to see you, Galdor—or should I say, Lord Korgh.” Ernor offered a folded cloth. “The fumes are bad today. You may want to cover your face on the path.”
“I fear nothing. But if you insist.” Korgh took the gauzy material the sentry offered and wrapped it around his head, covering his nose and mouth. The gases created by the roiling cracks surrounding the one-time isthmus had only been a nuisance in the old days, but the planet had been angered. Now as they walked the sweltering path, a heavy, noxious cloud always hung at their feet.
When Korgh had first visited Spirits’ Forge, early in his tenure as gin’tak for the House of Kruge, everything about H’atoria had been different. Oceans covered most of the planet, with small, lushly forested continents providing a home to both the Klingon colonists and the amphibious native subject population, the Selseress. There were few resources on H’atoria worth exploiting; its principle value was its location, near several transit routes along the frontier. It thus attracted Klingons who found a certain sort of duty appealing: those who would stand sentinel, at the tip of the spear.
When the Romulans and the Kinshaya had variously attempted to test the Klingon Empire in those days, they had found the guardians of H’atoria maddeningly tough to defeat. One location served as a particular symbol of dogged Klingon defiance: an ancient walled forge on a northern peninsula nearly surrounded by volcanic rifts. Warriors had used the facility as a final redoubt—and from it, had successfully pushed their enemies back. Since then, it had served as a fortress. Over time, the title “Sentry of Spirits’ Forge” took on a certain prestige, symbolizing the willingness of a Klingon to trade fame and glory for the anonymous austere honor of defending the Empire.
The legend of the Sentries had grown when, as a group, the defenders stood their ground against the Borg Invasion. The planet had been wracked by the Borg’s bombardment; whole landforms plunged beneath the waves, isolating the ground that held Spirits’ Forge and creating a new island from the peninsula. Every Klingon on the surface perished, while undersea only a few of the native Selseress survived.
Yet the redoubt, amazingly, still stood. Unoccupied when the Kinshaya briefly invaded H’atoria three months later, the fortress was the first place Klingon forces took back. A powerful midair force field had been added to protect the main structure, while a retinue of Sentries stood, ever watchful, along the peninsular path to the smaller promontory with its shuttlepad and beam-in zone.
The haze clearing as they walked, Korgh saw that the fortress looked as he remembered; dark wafts rose from its stone chimney. The pavement below was in worse shape. “More cracks have developed.”
“H’atoria tries to rid itself of us, but we remain,” Ernor said. “Between the Borg’s handiwork and H’atoria itself, several sections have been undermined.”
“I will see that it is reinforced. That is in my power now. You have my word.”
“I need no more than that.” Ernor nodded. “News of your elevation reached us even here.”
“Did my true identity surprise you?”
“No. None of the nobles you served ever visited us. But you came, several times.”
“It was my duty.”
“Bah. You cared what happened to the holdings of the house—supporting us when they refused to commit to repairs here. It was clear even then you deserved to have the title.” Ernor shook his head. “Still, it is bad business, what happened to the others—and to our great emperor Kahless. Has anyone found the scum who killed him?”
“The so-called Unsung? No. But many are looking, including my son.” Korgh had told the truth: his firstborn, General Lorath, was leading the search, even though he had no idea that his father knew exactly where the assassins were.
“I hope the assassins come here. Had we been present at Gamaral, we
would have shown the Federation how to protect guests.”
Korgh regarded the warriors lining the way as he walked. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Ernor. You know of the H’atorian Conference?”
The giant nodded. “Everyone wants the freedom to fly through this system. There’s some sort of agreement being talked about.”
“Yes. What do you think of that?”
Ernor straightened. “I serve, my lord. It is not my place—”
“Nonsense. You must have an opinion.”
The guardian looked down at him keenly. “The treaty would make it easier to get to some of our worlds. But it puts many foreign ships in our space—and H’atoria’s never seen the visitor that wasn’t bringing a blade or a bomb.”
“And so?”
“Bring them on.” Ernor pounded the tip of his bat’leth on the stone surface. “It will give my Sentries something to do. They don’t like it when we go a year without being invaded.”
Korgh laughed. “You’re about to get visitors sooner than you think. Because I intend to hold the conference right here, in the Spirits’ Forge.” He pointed to the fortification.
“You’ve been inside, my lord. We’re not set up to entertain.”
“Your mess hall will do. The key is protecting the guests—and projecting confidence in our own defense. I can think of nobody better suited to do that than the Sentries of Spirits’ Forge.”
Korgh explained that the island offered a reasonably small zone to be secured. The shield was already present, and the shoreline’s state of volcanic upheaval made an amphibious assault unlikely. Ships in orbit could screen the rest. Transport inhibitors would be positioned along the narrow causeway to the landing area.
“It’s our honor to serve,” Ernor said. “Doing it here sends the right message. It taunts the Unsung. We represent everything the dishonorable targs despise. You show them we do not fear them.”
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