The Kriosian medic folded his arms over his chest and eyed her. “That’s the problem with turncoats, though,” he said. “You can never be sure who they really serve.”
Rein said nothing, watching her. Valeris nodded. “You are correct. I will give you no assurance, Drell. I will only say this: I serve myself, my own needs. And at this time, the needs of your group are in synchrony with mine. I want the Klingon Empire brought low.”
“Mutual goals make strong allies,” Rein said at last. He turned away, looking back at the medical pod while Drell walked away to tend to another.
Valeris came closer, and she saw the head and shoulders of a younger man through the clear observation bubble at the top of the capsule. His flesh was red, as if it had been burned, and there were lesions all over him. His hair was falling out in clumps.
“My brother, Colen,” Rein said softly, without turning. “The medicines you provided have done much to ease his pain.”
Valeris recognized the symptoms of radiation exposure and, glancing around, noted that most of the other pods were occupied by similarly affected victims.
“They paid a high price for striking the first blows,” Rein went on. “They have suffered so much, even more than the brave souls who carried the devices to our enemy. They have not even been given the mercy of a swift end.”
The Vulcan watched, evaluating the moment. The vagaries of humanoid emotional response to death had always been a difficult subject for Valeris to grasp. On Jaros II, Doctor Tancreda suggested that stemmed from her inward-looking, self-focused manner. Valeris did not agree; she simply felt that the death of others was something that happened at a distance.
“How do you wish to proceed?” she asked, folding her arms behind her.
Rein spared her a look. “The weapon is being calibrated,” he said. “Now that you have completed the primary assembly for us, the final checks are being made. And then it will be ready.”
“You have a target in mind for the third isolytic device.” It was not a question.
He gave a nod. “From the very start, Valeris. I must admit, I have had my doubts that we could reach it . . . But now, and with that ship . . . the possibility is very real. If I believed in fate, I might think it was smiling on us . . . ” Rein looked away. “I am in the process of modifying my plans,” he added, tapping a finger on his temple.
The Vulcan’s curiosity threatened to get the better of her, and she reined it in. Given the size of the third device, if triggered correctly, it had the potential to obliterate something the size of a continent—and there were many targets of opportunity well within range of the bird-of-prey. The Imperial base at Ty’Gokor, the barracks on the moons of B’Moth—even the Federation facilities at Starbase 36—could all be reached in a matter of hours. She estimated that the Thorn’s weapon of mass destruction would be able to cause a scale five subspace event, enough to consume a dozen starships or scar a planet.
“For the moment, another matter takes priority,” Rein continued. He sat gently on the chair next to his brother’s capsule.
“Colen.”
He nodded again. “I must keep watch.”
“It won’t be long now,” said Drell quietly. “Despite the medication, he was too far gone to recover. The boy will take the long sleep.”
“I was not aware—” Valeris began.
“It does not matter,” said Rein. “The fault is mine. I pushed him too hard. He did these things to impress me, to show his dedication to the cause. And now I must break my promise to my brother.”
“What promise?” asked Valeris, watching the play of emotion on the Kriosian’s face.
“I told Colen that one day we would both stand on Krios Prime and see the flag of the Klingon Empire torn down. I swore to him on the graves of our parents that our clan and our freedom would be restored, and that he would be there to witness it.” Rein gave a shuddering sigh. “My own ambition has made me a liar.”
Valeris was unsure what to say. She sensed that some words of comfort would be appropriate, but Rein was still an unknown quantity and she could not predict how he might react. It was important for her to keep him on her side. “I am certain your sibling would not blame you for this turn of events,” she said after a moment, looking at the comatose young man. “I imagine he understands the situation.”
“But do you understand?” Rein shot her a fierce look, and he was suddenly the firebrand she remembered meeting on Xand Depot seven years ago. “Can you truly know why we fight?”
“To strike back at the Klingons.”
“Let me tell you . . . ” he said.
The two prisoners sat in silence, and Vaughn stared at the bars of the cell, in his mind turning over the moments before their capture, examining them for nuance.
He was an analyst first, after all. Looking for patterns and finding data was one of his key skills. There was something that Gattin had said, a phrase she used that pushed to the front of his thoughts: “ ‘Our patrons cut through all your lies.’ “
“What did you say?” Kaj’s voice came from the adjoining chamber.
“Not me,” he replied. “It was Gattin. Before you tried to rip her head off, do you remember? She said she knew what we were.”
“The Vulcan traitor told her.”
“No,” said Vaughn. “Gattin didn’t know about Valeris until Rein arrived, after they’d stunned you. She was talking about someone else. ‘Our patrons,’ she said. Someone backing the Thorn . . . ”
“It is likely,” agreed the major. “The isolytic weapons, this facility, and the hideout at Xand Depot, along with the ships they used . . . I doubt a group like the Thorn could ever assemble all that on their own. They must have had outside assistance.”
“The question is, who?” Vaughn frowned. “There’s a phrase from Terran legal process that comes to mind: Cui bono? ‘To whose benefit?’ “
“The Klingon Empire has many enemies. It is the measure of our strength.”
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it. So we have to wonder: Who hates your race enough to see the alliance with the Federation broken? Who doesn’t care about hurting your people or mine? Who wants a Klingon Empire riddled with infighting and starvation?”
“And a Federation afraid that we will turn on them?” He heard Kaj spit. “There is only one enemy we have in common that would stoop to such treachery. Must I even say the name?”
“The Romulans.”
There was agreement in her voice. “It can be none other. Those honorless yIntagh have never abided by any treaty. I have no doubt they still possess isolytic weapons technology.”
Vaughn didn’t bother to mention that the Klingons and the Federation had probably kept copies of the same weapon specs as well. “If it’s the Thorn using the bombs, the Romulans can keep their hands clean,” Vaughn added. “The Kriosians do all the dirty work for them.”
“Our mutual adversaries were as much a part of the Gorkon conspiracy as the renegades among our own commanders . . . and the Romulans have always been masters of the patient game.”
“Nanclus,” said Vaughn, thinking back. “He was the Romulan ambassador to the Federation seven years ago. He was in it with Chang and Cartwright and all the rest . . . But the man was extradited back to Romulus.”
“Where he was tried for his crimes by tribunal and found guilty,” Kaj went on, sarcasm dripping from every word. “His punishment was death by disintegration. A most convenient way to ensure no body remained for authentication.”
“You think Nanclus is still alive? That he’s part of this?”
When Kaj spoke again, her voice was almost a whisper. “I could be executed for what I am about to reveal to you, human. But considering I have been declared a deserter, the fact is moot.” She sighed. “Imperial Intelligence believes that Nanclus was and remains to this day a key member of the Tal Shiar. We have made many attempts to track and isolate him, but none have succeeded. Before the attacks on Da’Kel, we intercepted traffic indi
cating that he was involved in some sort of ongoing operation near our borders. We had no specifics, however.”
“It fits the bill, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” She got to her feet and toyed with the bars once again. “The Tal Shiar sharpened the blade, then placed it in the hands of the Thorn to cut both our throats. It is the only explanation that rings true.”
Vaughn said nothing, letting the scope of what they had discussed sink in. If that was right—it had to be—then the scale of the mission had just grown into something far larger, and far more deadly.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he told her. “Right now.”
• • •
The bio-monitors muttered quietly to themselves, the rebreather systems working with low, mechanical sighs. Rein placed one hand on the glassy surface of the medical capsule, over Colen’s blood-streaked face, and turned to study the Vulcan. She stood stiffly, her stance at parade ground rest. Her unblinking gaze gave him little in return. There was something at once compelling and disquieting about the impassive female—but then again, he wondered if Valeris really was truly without emotion. He had heard the edge of anger in her voice when she spoke to Vaughn: there was rage there, buried deep but still present. And rage was something Rein knew very well.
“We have always been a culture at war,” he told her, stepping up to walk around the edges of the room. Being on his feet always helped him to concentrate. “Krios was born out of conflict. Our old enemies on Valt have been trying to destroy us for centuries, and the Sovereign Dynasty and the High Clans led the opposition against them. The will to resist is threaded through the soul of every Kriosian son and daughter. The tyrants understood that. They used it against us.”
“They invaded your world,” she said matter-of-factly.
“It wasn’t an invasion,” spat Drell, glaring from across the room. “Not to begin with.”
“My father was the same age I am now when the Klingons came to Krios Prime,” said Rein, recalling the stories his parents had told him. “The Valtians were becoming a greater threat with each passing season, and the Sovereign Guard were struggling to hold the line against them. We knew of the great and fearful Klingon Empire, but they had always chosen to leave us to our own devices. Until that day. They came in warships, but not to attack us. No, they came with an offer of alliance.”
“A pact against your enemies?”
He nodded. “They wanted minerals, and we wanted to beat our old foes all the way back to Valt Minor. The First Monarch accepted.”
“What else could she have done?” Drell grated. “It was negotiation at the point of a gun! They came in peace, yes, but ready for battle if we refused them!”
“But the Klingons did not keep their bargain,” said Valeris. “They cannot be trusted.”
“No,” Rein agreed, his expression turning grim. “Within a decade, through intimidation and violence, they expanded their so-called mining operations to include military facilities, and when the High Clans tried to oppose them, the tyrants suspended the monarchy and imposed martial law.”
Drell’s face soured. “They said it was for our own good.”
“Oh, they kept the Valtians away,” Rein noted, “but in return they annexed our worlds and began a systematic process of stripping them for all their resources. Dozens of vital ores. For thirty years they have been taking it from us. And in doing so, they planted the seeds of our resistance.”
“We took the name SeDveq,” said Drell. “The thorn in the hide of the stumbling, vicious beast.”
Valeris cocked her head, musing on Rein’s words as if they were some academic lecture filled with dry facts and not the blood-laced legacy that drove him and his cohorts. Her detachment began to irritate him.
“There is indeed one thing that I do not understand,” said the Vulcan. “I have seen your passion and your dedication to your cause firsthand. And yet, I find it difficult to rationalize it with one fact.”
“And that’s what?” Drell demanded.
“If your loathing for the Klingon Empire is so strong, then explain to me why you and your leader Seryl were willing to ally yourselves with General Chang. Would not a Klingon officer like the general be a sworn enemy of the Thorn?”
Drell’s expression darkened. “Don’t you ever dare accuse us of collaboration, you cold-eyed—”
“Drell!” Rein barked. “Shut your mouth! Valeris’s question is valid, and it deserves an answer.”
“Seryl made the decision,” said Valeris. “Am I correct?”
He nodded. “I’ll admit, it was a hard thing to accept. But I have learned that, to reach the final goal, one must sometimes take a path through the darkest of places.” Rein brushed his hand over Colen’s capsule as if he were stroking his brother’s face.
Rein told her how it had come to pass. Some fifteen years earlier, before Chang had ascended to the role of chief military advisor to the Klingon High Council, he had served a tour of duty on the border zone and patrolled the Krios system. Chang had been the most persistent, most dangerous adversary the Thorn rebels had ever faced. Unlike his compatriots, in his own way the tyrant commander developed a grudging respect for the tenacity of the Kriosian freedom fighters. Whereas other Klingons saw them as upstart natives fit only for slavery, Chang treated them as warriors worthy of battle.
“Chang’s attitude toward us displeased his superiors. He was dispatched back to the tyrant core worlds,” Rein went on. “And then the Praxis moon was destroyed.”
Valeris nodded. “An industrial accident inside one of their main energy production facilities.” She frowned. “It was the catalyst for so much of what would occur.”
“It was a death warrant for our homeworld, that’s what it was . . . ” muttered Drell. “Within mere days of Praxis exploding, a fleet of refinery ships and cargo barges arrived in orbit over Krios Prime!” He scowled at the Vulcan. “It was their emergency contingency. Without resources from Praxis, the tyrants needed something to fill the gap. Strip-mining quadrupled, more lands were forcibly annexed, and anyone who didn’t clear out died when they sent in the digger-mechs!”
“We could only watch,” Rein said solemnly. He thought about that day, recalling the sickening sensation as he saw his birthright ground into dust. “We tried to fight, but the tyrants put soldiers on every street corner. Not since the bloodiest battles with Valt had so many of our people perished.”
“Then Chang came back,” said Drell, a note of disbelief in his voice.
“Seryl thought it was a trick at first,” Rein remembered the moment, his mentor furious at the Klingon’s towering arrogance. “But the opportunity was too great to ignore. Somehow Chang had arranged to have a dozen of our kinsmen, prisoners taken by tyrant arrests, to be released. They brought a message. He wanted to meet with us, in private, far from the eyes of his own people.”
Valeris raised an eyebrow. “How did you know he was sincere?”
Rein shook his head. “I didn’t. I carried a concealed cluster of photon grenades wired to a trigger, and I fully intended to destroy myself and take Chang with me . . . But his offer changed everything.”
“He made a deal with Seryl.” Drell picked up the thread of the conversation. “He pledged to make good on what the Klingons had promised from the very start. Chang would make sure the Empire gave Krios back its independence, and the weapons and ships we needed to invade Valt and conquer it. In return, the Thorn would serve his plans.”
“His plans to assassinate Chancellor Gorkon,” said Valeris. “Hence our meeting on the Xand station. The Thorn became his go-betweens.”
“That was the intention.” Rein frowned. “We knew what Chang wanted. With Gorkon dead, he would have little to stop him from rising to the chancellor’s throne himself. If we helped him, he would help us.” He sighed. “We never trusted him, you realize that? We were not fools. But we understood the reality of our circumstances. The tyrants would continue to ravage our planet, and we could only harry them, n
ever defeat them. As much as we hated him, Chang’s offer was a chance for true freedom.”
“Or so Seryl told us,” Drell said bitterly.
“You selected the logical alternative,” Valeris noted.
Rein shot her a sharp look. “We had proof of Chang’s meetings with us. If he had double-crossed us, we could have ruined him. And so we made the pact . . . and it almost destroyed us.”
“How?” asked the Vulcan. “General Chang and his men were killed in orbit over Khitomer, when their ship was defeated by the Enterprise and the Excelsior. If he was dead—”
“He was a Klingon,” Drell broke in. “A killer, a deceiver to the last, just like all the rest of them! He tried to take us down with him! After his death, the entire plan unraveled. Chang’s agents, the ones on other worlds—they were hunted down by Gorkon’s daughter and interrogated for all they knew.”
“Chancellor Azetbur’s first order of business was to spare no mercy for Chang’s network of conspirators,” said Rein. “And his men willingly gave us up to save their own necks—not that it did. In the end, Krios suffered more because of the alliance we made! Half our number were executed, and the rest of us went to ground here.” He showed his teeth. “And now, all these years later, the Federation continues to play at the sham of peace with the Klingons, turning a blind eye to the plight of my people while the tyrants hold Krios in an iron grip!”
Valeris accepted this with a nod, his ire rebounding off her cool demeanor. “And as such, your will to strike back at them has grown stronger. I understand that desperation and anger can be the most powerful of motivators.”
Drell came closer, until he was almost face-to-face with the Vulcan. “But here’s you, a passionless creature from a passionless species. I look at those pointed ears and big eyes of yours and wonder what drives you.” He sneered. “I mean, if you’re not capable of hate and wrath, then what are you?” The healer waved a finger in her face. “Are you dead in there, alien?”
“Your attempts to goad me are fruitless,” she told him calmly. “I will not respond to such a simplistic attempt to engage me. Suffice to say that you are not the only ones to resent the continued ascendance of the Klingons. I believe that the Klingon Empire is a threat and it must be hobbled. If not, their violence and aggression will spill out across the galaxy, and it will not just be Krios Prime that suffers under their brutality.” Valeris turned away, and finally she came to the question that Rein had been waiting for her to utter. “Who gave you the isolytic weapons?”
Star Trek® Cast no Shadow Page 26
