The Jackal's Trick

by John Jackson Miller

  “Could it be Object Thirteen?”

  “Not enough information.”

  “Anything cloaked is presumed a hostile,” Vale said. They were making up the rules of engagement as they went along, something Tuvok had noticed was to Sarai’s distress. “See if you can get a firing solution.”

  Titan shook. “Disruptor shot to our shields,” Tuvok said, “port quarter.” Another quake. “Second impact, directly astern.” The third blast needed no description: the screen ahead flashed with energy as fire struck the forward shields.

  “Looks like the gang’s all here,” Vale said, gripping her armrests. “Return fire!”

  SPIRITS’ FORGE

  H’ATORIA, KLINGON EMPIRE

  Reaching the terrace outside the fortress with Kersh, the admiral found Troi, Tocatra, and the Ferengi envoy waiting. All were unwilling to enter the fortress, considering the reported bomb—but neither could they find anywhere else to go. Riker looked back again. The pursuers were farther back, harried by Keru’s forces, but the admiral still worried for his team. The numbers of combatants in the firefight were evenly matched, but now that the surprise was gone, the Unsung had a better position. The Titan team was shooting while hovering with antigravs, an awkward affair.

  Trokaj, Kersh’s security chief, appeared at the door to the fortress, disruptor in hand. He looked winded. “The building is clear, General. The Sentries left before the meeting was to start—and I slew two in the yard behind the fort.”

  “What about the bomb?” Riker asked. “Our Lieutenant Kyzak told us there was one up the chimney.” The admiral didn’t even like being this close to the building.

  “I met that officer before,” Trokaj said. “I thought him insane even then. There was no one even in the hearth room when I looked. And if there was a bomb, why would they not have set it off while you were inside earlier?”

  Riker had no answer—and Troi was having no luck raising Kyzak on her combadge. Kersh seemed aggravated by the delay. “Forget that, Trokaj. You have the control mechanism?”

  Trokaj produced a small device.

  “Use it!”

  As the officer worked the controls, Kersh pulled her communicator from her belt. “My turn,” she said. “Gur’rok, this is General Kersh. The transporter inhibitor towers are deactivated. Strike team, deploy!”

  Looking back down toward the causeway, Riker saw the glow of multiple transporter effects. A dozen or more Klingon warriors materialized on the land bridge, outflanking the Unsung. More weapons fire blazed.

  “The exercise yard can be used as a landing zone for your shuttle,” Trokaj said to Riker. “But the sides of the fortress are vulnerable to attack. We must go through to reach safety.”

  Riker stared at the Klingon. “The bomb, remember?”

  “We simply need to pass through,” Kersh said. “Right now there is more danger from behind than within!”

  Riker didn’t linger to watch. He and the two Klingons stepped across the threshold, took hold of the great doors, and shut them with a slam.

  They were lowering the bar into place to seal the entrance when Troi activated her combadge. “Titan, we’re all right. I repeat, we’re all right.”

  “Understood,” Rager replied from ops. “We’ve just come under fire ourselves—from cloaked attackers.”

  That didn’t surprise anyone, sadly. “We read you, Titan. We’re passing through the fort to the exercise yard. We’ll be ready for a pickup there.”

  Riker’s combadge chirped, an incoming message arriving from someone else. “Riker.”

  “There you are!” he heard Kyzak say, relief obvious in his voice. “I’ve been down in the basement—apparently, wherever the shield generator is down here, it’s interfered with my combadge.”

  Riker rolled his eyes with impatience. “What’s your report, Lieutenant? Tell me about the bomb!”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Kyzak said. “Just whatever you do, don’t close the doors to the fort!”

  Twenty-eight

  Earlier, Xaatix had described the timer’s circular design to Kyzak; it had reminded him of the appearance of the security device in the main doorway. Remembering something he had seen in one of his reconnoiters of the basement earlier, he had headed down there, intending to broadcast a warning while searching—only to find that his combadge did not work. But he also found what he was looking for: a foundry grab hook attached via a length of heavy-duty chain to a black oblong coupler. A useful thing to have around a forge—and extremely heavy, when slung over his shoulder.

  He had just reentered the furnace room with it when he remembered to try his combadge again. Riker’s news had terrified him: the door had been shut. Kyzak looked up the chimney. “Xaatix! What’s the timer doing?”

  “I was just going to tell you. The timer has just started. If I am reading this properly, we have seven minutes.”

  Oh, crap. His heart sank, and rose again, as in that instant he heard the arrival of Handy, landing inelegantly in the narrow open area outside the back door. He tapped his combadge. “Admiral, the timer’s definitely been tripped—evacuate if you can. I’ve got a plan.” With no time to explain what it was, Kyzak signed off and yelled up the chimney. “Stay there, Xaatix!”

  “Stay with the bomb?”

  “Trust me!”

  Kyzak turned and ran for the door—catching the arrival in the room of Riker and Troi out of the corner of his eye.

  “Lieutenant,” Riker yelled. “Where are you going?”

  Kyzak couldn’t spare a second to respond. He hopped through the open doorway into the shuttlecraft hovering over the exercise yard. “Bolaji, take me up!”

  Rising in the vehicle, he only had time to catch a glimpse of Riker and the others in the back doorway of the fortress, staring at him, stunned. Kyzak had no time to worry about stealing the admiral’s ride. If his plan didn’t work, he wouldn’t live to see a court-martial.

  PHANTOM WING VESSEL CHU’CHARQ

  ABOVE H’ATORIA

  “Zokar and the rest of the squadron have engaged the enemy,” Hemtara reported. “With the transporter inhibitors down, we can evacuate our forces from the bridge as well as the island.”

  “Evacuate?” Trying to recover his lordly bearing, Cross turned and gave the Klingon woman what he imagined would be a frightening look when coming from Kruge. “The fortress still stands. Our enemies yet live.”

  “They have entered the building and closed the doors behind them, my lord. The torpedo’s timer has been activated. We must move to extract our forces, as planned.” Hemtara turned to face him, “That is why there is a timer. And with one less ship, bringing our people back will take longer.”

  Standing by his command chair, Shift nudged him. They were being paid for a job. If it was done, no one needed to twist Cross’s arm to get him to leave. He made a dismissive hand gesture, and Shift spoke. “Transport our people up. Order Bregit to do the same.”

  “Priority to the northern cape,” Cross added. They swung into action.

  As Chu’charq banked and approached the island, Cross let out a deep breath—and hoped no further bolts from the sky would strike. He wasn’t just worried about his own ship being struck; a lucky shot to Blackstone would kill his illusion.

  He fumbled in his tunic pocket for the device Korgh had given him earlier: the key to his reward. This had better be worth it.

  U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

  APPROACHING H’ATORIA

  “Titan, we are minutes away. Picard out.”

  Enterprise’s bridge bathed in the light from warp speed, Picard looked over to the engineering station. “You have your quarry, Mister La Forge. The Unsung are definitely at H’atoria—and the Phantom Wing is attacking.”

  The engineer nodded. “Sounds busy over there.”

  The captain heard the port turbolift open behind him and turned. His first officer stepped from the cab, followed by Lieutenant Šmrhová. “We have them, Number One,” Picard said.

>   “We are ready,” Worf said. Like him, Šmrhová was dressed in tactical assault gear and armed with a phaser; but where she had a blackjack strapped to her leg, Worf wore a mek’leth strapped to his back. He’d expected that quarters would be too close aboard a bird-of-prey for anything larger. “We have our tracking devices.”

  La Forge looked to Picard. “I request permission to operate the transporter, Captain.”

  “Make it so,” Picard said. “Good hunting, you two. And be careful.”

  PHANTOM WING VESSEL RODAK

  ORBITING H’ATORIA

  “Fire!”

  Zokar’s comrade at the tactical station activated a control—and twin streams of energy lanced out from Rodak’s cannons. The disruptor bursts came together at a point slightly removed from the Titan’s saucer section. The effect crackled across its shields before dissipating.

  “That should get their attention,” Zokar said, pounding his armrest with his fist. “And stop them from bombarding our comrades.”

  The other Phantom Wing vessels were at it as well. He’d been in the same position earlier at Gamaral, firing on Enterprise—only then he’d been targeting its transporter systems in support of a boarding action. This was much simpler: there were many more targets. Titan, Kersh’s Gur’rok, and a variety of smaller Klingon support vessels. All were on the receiving end of fire from his invisible brigade, but Titan was receiving particular attention, given what it had done to Kradge.

  True to his expectations, Titan suspended its surface blasts and began firing into surrounding space. Probing, searching, chasing: all sensible tactics, but not very effective in fighting off a swarm of attackers.

  “It is working,” announced the bushy-haired Klingon at the helm station. Harch was young and headstrong, often reminding Zokar of himself. “We should be able to buy Kruge the time he needs,” Harch said.

  Zokar was satisfied with that—but he had not forgotten who was in orbit. “Report on the other contacts,” he said.

  “The Breen and the Kinshaya fled like scared children as soon as their shuttle left H’atoria,” Harch said. “The Ferengi ship’s also fled. The Romulan has moved to a higher orbit. It dispatched a shuttle to the surface a few minutes ago.”

  “Their ambassador must still be below,” Zokar said.

  “That’s it, then. They’ve probably thrown together a rescue mission of their own, thinking she was a target.”

  Zokar smiled. That was all he needed. “Cruising configuration. Plot an intercept course for D’choak.”

  The young warrior at the science station looked back at him. “Zokar, Lord Kruge said nothing about attacking the Romulans.”

  “They’re going to interfere. That’s reason enough to stop them.” Looking around and seeing concerned faces, he put on his most motivating scowl. “Lord Kruge gave me this duty! Now move!”

  The others complied with trepidation. Zokar saw Rodak break off from assaulting Titan. He smiled. There was plenty of prey to go around today.

  Twenty-nine

  SPIRITS’ FORGE

  H’ATORIA, KLINGON EMPIRE

  Kyzak wasn’t afraid of heights. If he had been, he might not have come up with this harebrained scheme. He consoled himself with the thought that falling was just one of the terrible ways he could die.

  Yes, he could tumble from his precarious perch inside the open rear cargo hatch of Handy as it hovered above the fortress at the edge of the chimney. He could also be struck by one of the many stray shots from the firefight still raging on all sides of the island. Or the shuttle could be obliterated by a blast from a bird-of-prey; there was at least one more out there, given the way combatants were transporting away. Or the seals on his quickly donned environmental suit could give way, causing him to asphyxiate in the wafts of superheated smoke from below.

  No one option seemed worse than another.

  The Unsung had rigged two heavy crossbars in an X across the chimney; four black chains descended from them, held taut by the torpedo’s weight. There was no seeing them in the smoke, but they appeared relatively cool in his helmet’s infrared filter. Had the Unsung used their shield-defeating transporter trick to put the torpedo inside the assembly or had they done it some other way?

  It was no time to wonder. His helmet’s visor helped him detect Xaatix in the uppermost section of the chimney underneath. He secured the coupler from the implement he’d discovered earlier to a clamp inside the shuttle and tossed the other end to Xaatix.

  “Difficult,” he heard her say over his combadge. She had to keep her body in position inside the chimney while at the same time lashing the grab hook to the Unsung’s brace. He worried her limbs might not be long enough.

  But what her appendages lacked in length, the Ovirian made up for in number. “Okay!” she called.

  Kyzak tested the connecting chain once before turning back to yell to Bolaji. “Pull away!”

  • • •

  Finding a portion of the shore unobstructed by lava flow, a Starfleet security officer rushed onto the island. Valandris sprang from behind a boulder, putting her bat’leth to use. The blade sliced through the female officer’s gut, killing her instantly. Valandris looked long enough at the corpse to see inside the woman’s helmet. She had blue scaly skin.

  Another kind of creature killed. It was not enough.

  She looked again out at the Kradge. Only a piece or two of smoking debris remained afloat. No survivors. There weren’t many of the Unsung remaining on the island. When she had found any corpses, she had vaporized them with her disruptor. Dead bodies were of no value in the Unsung’s culture, but she would not let the Empire have them.

  The good news was that Valandris had seen the doors to the fortress close. Soon, the heart of the island would be ripped apart in an antimatter instant, and she doubted anyone would survive it. She had asked to be transported last, to personally slay whomever else she could.

  She heard movement up and over the slope: more Starfleeters advancing inland, or perhaps Klingons charging from the causeway. Disruptor in hand, she quickly scaled the rise—

  —and saw through the clearing the Starfleet shuttle awkwardly hovering over the fortress, gingerly lifting the torpedo on its chains from the smoking chimney. Once clear, the shuttle swiveled in the air and dipped. A second later, it rose again, accelerating with the explosive trailing behind it.

  Valandris started to swear. She vanished in a transporter glow.

  • • •

  Riker had never seen anything like it. Standing well outside the back doors of the fortress with Kersh and the others, he stared as Bolaji piloted Handy low enough to clear the fortress’s force field, but high enough for the suspended torpedo to miss the petrified forest on the northern slope. A few seconds later, the shuttlecraft began to accelerate. Soon it was almost to the horizon, where the chain gave way, causing the torpedo to knife into the ocean: an impromptu depth charge.

  The observers quickly retreated back inside the fort and waited in the furnace room for the imminent blast. When it came, the whole island shook—and a sudden and pelting rain followed the shockwave.

  Veteran of many explosions, the admiral recovered quickly and tapped his combadge. “Handy, this is Riker. Status.”

  “We’re fine, sir.”

  Riker looked first to Troi, who was as exhausted as he felt—and then at the disheveled Ferengi and Romulan envoys. He imagined Tocatra was already making a mental list of the protests she would lodge.

  General Kersh and her aide were still on edge—and when a sooty figure twisted her way out of the kiln, both drew their disruptors. Troi and Riker put up their hands to stop them. “She’s with us,” Troi said.

  After shaking hot ashes from her body like a dog drying after a bath, Lieutenant Xaatix faced Riker and spoke. “We have removed the chimney obstruction, Admiral. Your meeting can commence in comfort.”

  PHANTOM WING VESSEL CHU’CHARQ

  ABOVE H’ATORIA

  Cross stared, stunned,
while the bird-of-prey’s sensors projected a departure-angle view onto the main screen. The photon torpedo blast had sent an immense geyser ballooning outward, battering the northern cape with waves. Farther south, members of the Starfleet amphibious force could be seen clinging to the shoreline, while Kersh’s Klingon warriors fought to keep their footing. One section of the causeway buckled and gave way, slipping into the sea. A sharp-nosed Romulan shuttle was soaring low over the water, looking for a place to land.

  And the Starfleet shuttlecraft responsible for the insane feat was settling, undamaged, behind the fortress.

  “What are you doing?” came an angry voice from behind. “Didn’t you see them?” Cross turned to see Valandris storming onto the bridge. “Did you not see the Federation stealing the bomb?”

  “We saw it,” Raneer said, looking sheepish.

  “Then why didn’t you stop them?” Valandris stood before the screen, jabbing at the image. “You could have destroyed the shuttle. You can bombard the fortress now!”

  “It was not our lord’s wish,” Shift said in her most forbidding N’Keera voice. “Our lord decides, Valandris, not you.”

  Damn right it wasn’t my wish, Cross thought. So the fortress and its occupants still existed. Bregit had already departed for space with a load of the Unsung—and there wasn’t a chance in hell he was sending Chu’charq back down when Titan was upstairs, taking potshots from orbit at anything on the surface that fired. Forget what Korgh or the crazed cultists wanted. “We will not compromise our location,” he said.

  Valandris outstretched her arms in indignation. “They destroyed Kradge!”

  “With one shot. Their weapons are powerful.”

  She shook her head violently. “No. I saw it—the crew was flying too low, chasing the shuttle. Their orientation was poor.” She started to shove Raneer from her seat at the helm. “We can go back and do this.”