But before he could continue, one of the Kriosians moved forward and pointed into the shadows behind the planters. “Gattin! It’s Shero. He’s dead.”
“Ah,” said Vaughn. “Him, yeah . . . ”
“You’ve failed,” Gattin told them, her anger building. “No matter how many you kill, you can’t stop us.” She advanced a step into the room, her men following. “I know what you are. Our patrons cut through all your lies.” The woman aimed her weapon first at Vaughn, then swung it to bear on Kaj. “Federation Starfleet. Imperial Intelligence. You came to murder us . . . You should have destroyed our ship in space when you had the chance!”
Kaj’s expression shifted by degrees, almost like a mask falling away from her features. Some element of the hard-eyed Klingon warrior Vaughn had first seen aboard the Excelsior rose back to the surface. “You’re all going to die for what you have done,” she told them.
“Likely,” Gattin replied, “but you won’t be there to see it. And we will send many more of your kind to the grave before that happens. Beginning with your crew.”
Kaj snarled and slapped at the comm bead hidden in her collar. “D’iaq! GhuHmoH!”
Gattin’s face twisted in a sneer. “They won’t hear you. Tulo is leading an attack force aboard that scow of yours as we speak.”
“Then Tulo will die like the vassal he is,” Kaj retorted. She gestured around. “How many of you are there in this pitiful little band? Twenty? Less? You’ve tried to fool us into thinking there are more, but it’s all a blind, just like everything you have done. This chamber proves it. You are bok-rat vermin pretending to be targ s!”
Vaughn gave a nod. “Hydroponics for food and air . . . If you had an army here, you’d need something ten times the size of this room.”
“You think we need legions to win? You’re wrong.” Gattin spat the words. “We’re taking your ship, Klingon. I made sure Tulo has a little something to even the odds. We call it the Fell Breath, after the legend of the weapon used by Great Akadar.”
Kaj stiffened. “What is she talking about?” said Vaughn. The name meant nothing to him.
“It is a gas, a nerve agent,” said the major, glaring at the Kriosian. “Lethal to Klingons. A coward’s weapon. The Thorn have used it many times in their raids, killing soldiers and civilians alike.”
“So we have. I wish you could hear it, spy,” said Gattin. “The sound of your mongrel kindred choking to death on their own blood.”
The woman’s goading finally had the desired effect: Kaj exploded into motion, launching herself across the chamber with a feral shout of fury. She leapt over a rack of plants and dove on the nearest two Kriosians. There were blades in both her hands, as if conjured out of thin air, and she struck out, drawing blood as they all went down in a tumble.
Vaughn ducked low, scrambling to recover his phaser from where he had dropped it; but suddenly there was a shadow over him and one of Gattin’s men was dragging him back up. His fingers slipped from the fallen weapon. Elias took a hard hit across the face that brought back sickening echoes of the blow he took on the Chon’m, but this time he was ready: he turned with the strike and shook it off. Vaughn brought up his arm and slammed the heel of his hand into the Kriosian’s chest. He heard the crunch of a rib breaking and his attacker choked in pain, gasping out his breath.
The man staggered back, but Vaughn gave no quarter, stepping inside his guard to hit again. The Kriosian was bulky, and had they been wrestling, Elias would have lost—but the Starfleet officer had speed and agility, and he made them count. Vaughn lashed out with a snap-kick to the knee, and for good measure he threw a punch that cracked the other man’s nose.
“Get him!” Gattin shouted, and another of the Kriosians fired a pulse of disruptor energy in his direction. Vaughn dove as the searing heat of the beam washed over him and cut across a rack of green shoots; the plants burst into smoky flame.
He scrambled along the floor, catching glimpses of Kaj as she took on all comers, her hands a whirlwind of blades. The woman plunged both knives into the chest of one attacker, then threw him at Gattin, cursing her in Klingon. In the next second a nimbus of blue-white fire enveloped the major, and Kaj stiffened. She crashed to the deck, dragging pieces of broken planter down with her.
Vaughn didn’t hesitate, and he went for his phaser again, reaching for it where it lay beneath a skeletal hydroponics rack. This time the lieutenant grabbed hold and worked the beam setting, dialing the dispersal to wide-angle heavy stun.
The rack shuddered and tipped over, forced from its mountings by a hard shove from the other side. Vaughn tried to leap away, but metal supports, tubs of liquid growth media, and cascades of emerald leaves bombarded him. He fired the phaser blindly, but even as he did, he knew the shot’s angle was all wrong, the energy dispersing harmlessly into the rocky ceiling. Another blow landed on the back of his knee and he stumbled.
Then there was the searing hot muzzle of a weapon being pressed into his neck and Gattin was there, her voice like thunder. “I told you to drop it,” she snarled. “You should have listened.”
“Wait!” came a shout. “Don’t kill the human!” Rein entered the lab and pointed. “I want him alive!”
Valeris came with him, observing the situation with blank detachment.
Gattin tore the phaser from Vaughn’s hand and then pushed him toward one of her men. She stalked across the chamber. “We have been invaded by spies,” she told Rein. “A conspiracy of our enemies come to kill us before we could succeed.” Gattin nodded to where Kaj lay crumpled on the ground. “The purple-skin is a Klingon assassin. The human is a Starfleet covert operative, and so is the—”
“The Vulcan, yes,” said Rein. “I know.” His calm manner was the polar opposite to Gattin’s simmering fury.
“What?” The word fell from Vaughn’s lips. He looked to Valeris, but the woman didn’t acknowledge him.
“There was a communiqué,” Gattin insisted. “Their duplicity is clear, just as I suspected. You were a fool to bring them here, Rein!”
The sound of the blow echoed like a thunderclap as Rein slapped his second across the face. Gattin was shocked into silence, but Rein’s expression remained unchanged. “Don’t forget your place,” he told her. The Kriosian glanced at Valeris and then looked around at his people. “Everything I do has a reason. Never doubt that. Yes, these people are assassins sent to destroy us. You were right to take their ship, Gattin. But you should never move without my authority.”
“How . . . did you know?” Gattin bit out the words, seething.
“Valeris has confessed the full truth to me.”
“She what?” Vaughn could scarcely believe what he was hearing. He started toward the Vulcan, but strong arms grabbed him and held him in place. “Valeris, what the hell did you do?”
Rein answered for her. “What she did, Lieutenant Junior Grade Elias Vaughn of Starfleet Intelligence, was explain to me in complete detail the exact dimensions of the mission you were on and the true identities of you and your cohorts.” He smiled slightly. “I admit, I was suspicious of you all, but I had no idea how far Starfleet would go to pursue us. And, of course, Valeris also offered to assist us in co-opting the bird-of-prey’s systems.”
“Why?” Vaughn shouted, his anger towering. “Answer me, Valeris! Answer, damn you! Why did you do this?”
And at last she looked at him. In those cool, steady eyes he saw not even the slightest glimmer of regret. “I did it as a gesture of good faith to my allies.” Valeris inclined her head toward Rein. “I share common goals with the Thorn.”
“You’ve betrayed us,” Vaughn spat. “You betrayed the Federation!”
She studied him. “I have remained true to my intentions. You and the Federation consider me a traitor to my oath as a Starfleet officer, for my part in the death of Gorkon. So tell me, how could I betray it again?”
“I gave you my trust. So did Miller—and Spock!” Mentioning the name of her mentor got Vaughn the very smalles
t of reactions. “You betrayed that.”
Valeris came closer. “You have no understanding of me. None of you do. I have listened for decades to those who thought they knew me and knew how I should behave, what I should be. Everyone has been wrong.” She sniffed. “The error was yours, Vaughn, you and Commander Miller and . . . and Spock. You want me to be something I am not. You condescendingly offer me a chance to ‘redeem’ myself, but never once did you consider that I did not wish for your redemption.” At last, Valeris turned away. “Seven years ago, I began something that would change the galaxy for the better. And now the Thorn will see it through to the end.”
“No.” Vaughn struggled against his captors. “No!”
Rein nodded toward his men. “Take Vaughn and the Klingon to confinement. We’re not done with them yet.”
Valeris watched impassively as the Kriosians dragged Elias away.
The cells were little more than extended hemispherical spaces burned out of the rock face and closed off with grids of diagonal bars. The Kriosians threw Vaughn into one and the unconscious Kaj into another. The prison bars were sealed shut with the heavy thud of magnetic bolts and the two of them were left behind, with only the unblinking eye of a monitor drone to keep watch.
Vaughn observed the drone for a few minutes to get an idea of its scan pattern, and when he knew it was tracking away from him, he began a quick survey of the cell, searching for vulnerabilities or weak points he might be able to exploit. The only furniture was a worn plas-foam cot and a stained waste disposal unit. The rock was dense and thick with lines of heavy metals: nothing short of a phaser drill would be able to cut into it. Given the direction the Kriosians had taken them, moving deeper into the asteroid’s core, it was also likely that beyond the confinement chamber there was nothing but meters and meters of inert stone.
He turned his attention to the bars and the mag-lock. Vaughn was aware that he was probably wasting his time, but he needed to do something to keep himself occupied. Otherwise the churn of anger inside him would break through.
The bars appeared to be cast rodinium, and he went from one end to the other, pulling on each one, testing the joints experimentally, looking for the smallest iota of movement. He found nothing.
With a sigh, he picked a single bar at random and gripped it. Vaughn planted his feet and angled himself, and then with all the strength he could muster he pushed and pulled, sweat beading on his face. The anger came, despite his best intentions, and he attacked the inert metal with all his might, cursing and kicking at it.
Eventually, when his rage at Valeris’s betrayal had expended itself, he let go and dropped back onto the bunk’s feculent foam mattress. His muscles sang with the effort and he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, cupping his chin.
“Egan was right: I am a fool,” he told the air. “An arrogant, stupid, unready greenhorn. I should have stayed at my desk and written a bloody memo.”
From the next cell Vaughn heard the sounds of movement. A low moan, then boots scraping on the dusty floor.
“Major?” he called. “Kaj, can you hear me? It’s Vaughn.” He went to the bars. “Hello?”
Kaj said something under her breath that he didn’t catch, but it had the tone of a gutter curse. He heard the Klingon spit. “This is not Sto’Vo’Kor,” she said. “And you are not the herald of the Black Fleet. Tell me why we are both still alive.”
“You’re not gonna like it.”
There was a long silence. When Kaj spoke again, her voice was cold. “The convict?”
“She gave us up. I don’t think she even hesitated.”
A low animal growl came from the neighboring chamber, and Vaughn instinctively backed off a step. He couldn’t see what was taking place in Kaj’s cell, but he could imagine the Klingon in there, the same stripe of anger he had felt coming to the fore in her. Suddenly Kaj let rip with a scream of pure rage and the rock wall vibrated as she pounded on it. A cacophony of metallic crashing and tearing sounds followed as she let her fury loose on the cell, ripping and smashing at everything she could get her hands on.
Finally the storm abated and Kaj dropped to the floor before taking in one last lungful of air. She tipped her head back and howled, a long, thunderous note that echoed down the length of the caverns. Vaughn recognized the cry for what it was: the Klingon death-ritual where a comrade of the honored dead would shout to the heavens—a warning that a warrior was on its way to the afterlife. Kaj gave the cry for D’iaq and all those who had served with her aboard the Chon’m. Vaughn nodded in grim appreciation.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Kaj replied. “After I tear out the convict’s throat with my teeth and put those Kriosian dogs to the sword, then perhaps so.” The Klingon paused. “She used us to bring her to the Thorn, to someone who shared her aims. She never intended to let us stop them. Her hate for my people runs deep.”
Vaughn shook his head. “I thought . . . ” He blew out a breath. “Damn it. I thought I had misjudged her.”
“As did I,” Kaj admitted.
“I gave Valeris a chance to do the right thing . . . and she threw it back in my face.”
The bars on Kaj’s cell rattled. “We are alive because Rein believes we have some value to him.”
“You think he’s going to interrogate us?”
“Perhaps,” she mused. “If they know how to operate a mind-sifter . . . We have to escape these cages.”
Vaughn felt ice in the pit of his gut. It was one thing to suffer treachery and failure, but the thought of being torn open to spill out every secret he knew . . . That sickened him to the core. “You get no argument from me. But they disarmed both of us, and without a beam cutter, there’s no way to slice through these bars.”
Kaj dropped to the floor of her cell. “They’ll come back. When they do, we kill them and take their weapons.”
“Just like that?” said Vaughn.
“I’ve done it quite often,” said the major. “Just follow my lead.”
“You make it sound easy.”
Kaj gave a soft grunt of amusement. “Half of any victory is finding the right moment to strike.”
“What’s the other half?” asked Vaughn.
“Surviving.”
16
Object JDEK-3246553-AKV
Ikalian Asteroid Belt
Ty’Gokor Sector, Klingon Empire
Valeris followed the terse directions the Kriosians had given her and took a spiraling tunnel into the inner spaces of the asteroid. Down here, the gravity control plates were working sporadically, and more than once she was forced to call upon her microgravity environment training to negotiate some of the lengths of the passageway. The rock was at its densest here, layers of dark strata protecting the artificial caverns cut into the structure.
She passed through a set of heavy airlock doors; beyond was the infirmary. It was a sensible location, well shielded from the outside and easily defensible in the event of an invasion.
Valeris caught a snatch of conversation echoing down the narrow tunnel.
“ . . . a mistake,” said a nasal voice. “Klingons are a handful at the best of times. This is not just some braggart soldier we’re talking about. She’s a covert operative, a hundred times more lethal. A thug with a brain!”
The reply was Rein’s. “I know what Kaj is, even if you didn’t.”
“That wasn’t my fault!” came the sharp retort. “She did something to herself! Some kind of gene-modification therapy. The bio-scanner couldn’t break through the disguise.”
Valeris was approaching the door to the infirmary, and she slowed her pace so she could listen. A monitor drone standing guard turned lazily to study her.
“You should let Gattin execute her—and the Terran!” the voice went on.
“Soon,” Rein answered. He sounded weary, as if he had gone through this conversation a dozen times already.
As the drone beeped a warning, the Vulcan stepped around it and entered the cha
mber. The walls were lined with plates of welded metal, and racks of medical capsules filled one side of the space. Each had a monitor screen displaying the status of the occupant, and Valeris saw that the majority were on life support, their bodies barely able to sustain themselves.
“What do you want?” A short Kriosian man, his face lined and heavy with age, gave her an acid glare.
“Drell, be quiet,” said Rein, getting up from a chair by one of the capsules. “She’s here because I told her to come.” He glanced at Valeris. “You have something for me?”
Valeris nodded. “I was able to assist Tulo in bypassing the lock-outs on the bridge of the Chon’m. He estimates the bird-of-prey will be ready to fly within the hour.” Despite herself, the Vulcan’s nostrils flared. Inside the infirmary, the smell of organic decay was strong, and she looked in the direction of the scent. In a shadowed corner of the chamber, long, black tripolymer bags were laid out in a row, each one containing a dead body.
Rein saw her looking. “The fallen,” he noted. “In our culture we hold the bodies for six days and nights before burning them. There hasn’t been time to say the rites for these yet.” He sighed and shook the thought away. “The ship, yes. That’s what the tyrants call it: Chon’m? What does it mean?”
“I believe it is the name of one of their warrior-poets.”
Drell snorted. “In my experience, the height of their culture is little more than mindless violence and shouting at each other.”
“Kaj’s crew,” Rein went on. “They’ve all been neutralized?”
“Gattin is conducting a final sweep of the ship as we speak,” Valeris told him. “She has a most singular focus. I imagine anyone who survived the gas attack will not remain hidden from her for long. B’rel-class scouts are quite small vessels.”
Rein nodded. “Good.” He seemed distracted. “You . . . are proving very valuable to us, Valeris. I want to believe that I can trust you.”
“I accept that you may be reticent,” she went on. “I came to the Thorn under false pretenses. But it was necessary in order to get close to you.”
Star Trek® Cast no Shadow Page 25
