STAR TREK: TOS - Errand of Vengeance, Book Three - River of Blood

by Kevin Ryan

  Parrish managed to keep her composure until she heard the door close behind him.

  She remembered Jon’s last words to her, “I promise.” He had promised to return to her. She had seen something in his eyes then, however. He had wanted to return, she was sure. Just as she was sure that he had known then it would be impossible.

  He was gone.

  Then it came, the flood, the avalanche.

  She did not fight it. She felt it, his loss, his absence.

  She felt him.

  Kirk knew that the casualty report would be the most difficult part of the briefing, and he was right.

  At the moment, Spock spoke to the assembled group of department heads sitting around the briefing-room table. All except McCoy, who was tending to the injured and had logged many trips on the transporter going back and forth from the ship to the station.

  “Due to the number of disintegrations, we had to use headcounts of surviving Enterprise and starbase [253] personnel as well as eyewitness accounts to reach the total,” he said.

  One hundred and thirty-seven people, Kirk thought. Twenty-four of them members of his own crew.

  He had lost two security section chiefs and had nearly lost Giotto, according to reports of the skirmish with Klingon troops on the surface.

  The number was higher if they counted the total lost since 1324, where thirteen of the twenty-one-person team was lost.

  And of those eight survivors only two were still alive after yesterday. It had been close with Ensign Jawer but he would live. And Ensign Parrish would be back on her feet in days.

  Replacement crew was on its way.

  Kirk rejected the thought. You replaced equipment. You even replaced vessels that were lost. You did not replace people.

  “Captain?” Spock said.

  “Yes?” Kirk said, shaking himself out of his reverie. Kirk looked around the table; the others were looking to him.

  “Status of station and ship, Mr. Scott,” Kirk said.

  “The new dilithium reaction chamber is on its way, Captain,” Scotty said. “All other repairs on the Enterprise are progressing. The real challenge is going to be rebuilding the station. Not only were there large areas of destruction, but there was a lot of damage done to the station’s own manufacturing plant. Replacement components are on the way, but we have a big job ahead of us. However, we also have more volunteers from the [254] crew than we know what to do with. There will be no shortage of people for the job.”

  The captain was not surprised, but he was pleased. Rebuilding would be good for the crew right now. They had seen enough destruction in the last few weeks. It would help them to be part of some creation.

  “Of course,” Mr. Scott said, “it would help to have access to some of the resources on the surface, but we have had trouble securing ... full cooperation.”

  “I will be addressing that and a number of other issues with the prime minister and planetary senate later today,” Kirk said. “Thank you, you are dismissed.”

  As the group began to file out, the intercom beeped.

  “Kirk here,” he said.

  “I have Commodore Decker for you, sir.”

  “I’ll take it in here.” When Decker’s face appeared on the small screen, Kirk said, “Matt, you’re well.”

  Decker nodded. “How about you, Jim.”

  “We’re all better now that you and the Constellation are here, Matt,” Kirk said.

  “Glad to help. I only wish we could have been here sooner. I’m sorry for your crew, Captain,” Decker said.

  Kirk nodded.

  “Our orders are. to stay until the job is done, so whatever you need, Jim,” Decker said.

  “Thank you, Matt. Actually, there is something you can help me with immediately. I have a meeting later today with the planetary authorities. I could use some backup.”

  Decker smiled. “I am at your disposal, Captain. I will see you shortly. Decker out.”

  When the screen went dark, Kirk hit the controls to [255] show the Constellation as it approached. The captain imagined a young Lieutenant Justman seeing that sight for the first time as the U.S.S. Constitution arrived to help at the Battle of Donatu V.

  Then Kirk did not have to imagine how Justman felt. He knew.

  It was a ship of dreams.

  A moment later the intercom beeped again.

  “Captain, this is McCoy. I’m in sickbay and I think you’d better come down here.”

  “On my way, Bones,” Kirk said as he got up and headed for the door.

  In sickbay, Kirk found the doctor and Mr. Spock in McCoy’s office looking at the viewscreen on his desk.

  “Remarkable,” Spock said.

  “What is it, Bones?” Kirk said.

  McCoy looked up and said, “It’s the post-mortem report on Ensign Anderson. There were some irregularities.”

  “Irregularities?” Kirk asked.

  “Dr. M’Benga performed the actual post-mortem and noticed some significant anatomical ... differences. The genetic test proved what he suspected.” McCoy pointed at the image on the viewscreen. Kirk recognized the double helix of DNA.

  “Proved what?” Kirk said.

  “Jim, that man was a Klingon,” McCoy said.

  “A ... what? That’s impossible,” Kirk said.

  “We ran and reran the tests, Captain. Ensign Jon Anderson was a Klingon. He was surgically altered to look like a human. Even his bone marrow was altered, with gene therapy that allowed it to make blood that still had [256] the properties of Klingon blood but had a more or less human red color,” the doctor said.

  “Captain,” Spock said, “Admiral Justman did refer to operatives working for the Klingons in Starfleet. We had been working under the assumption that those assassins and saboteurs were humans in the employ of the Klingon Empire. Now we have evidence that they were Klingons surgically altered to appear as humans.”

  “But Anderson has a family. I’ve spoken to his mother,” Kirk said.

  “Jim,” McCoy said, “I have no doubt that Jon Anderson was a real person who entered Starfleet training. I checked his medical records and found his last physical. He was human, all right.”

  “Most likely,” Spock added, “the real Jon Anderson was abducted by the Klingon Empire and replaced with a Klingon surgically altered to look like him.”

  “Then the real Jon Anderson ...” Kirk said.

  “Is certainly dead,” Spock said.

  Kirk could not believe it. He had sat with Jon Anderson, had reviewed Sam Fuller’s reports about what the young man had done in the 1324 incident. Kirk had given Anderson the medals and citations himself.

  And according to survivors’ reports, including reports from Ensign Parrish, he had fought very hard against the Klingons on the starbase.

  “I know it doesn’t make any sense, Jim,” McCoy said, sensing Kirk’s own thoughts. “I spoke to him myself right after the 7348 mission. And I’m not sure he was working for the Klingons in the end.”

  “Why?” Kirk said.

  [257] “A feeling, Captain,” McCoy said. “When I talked to him he was nearly sick with grief over the losses in the mine. I can’t give you proof, but I don’t think he was faking any of it. Plus, it is a harsh mission for the Empire to send anyone on. It’s a one-way ticket.”

  “How so?” Kirk asked.

  “The Klingon agent’s cover would be blown the first time he had to receive treatment in sickbay,” McCoy said, “or go for a routine physical. No one, least of all the Klingons, expected them to live long.”

  “Captain,” Spock said. “There is the possibility that Anderson had assistance of others to maintain his ruse. He was close to Ensign Parrish—”

  “No,” Kirk said definitively. He had just met with her and had just looked into her eyes. She was nearly drowning in her grief, but she was no Klingon collaborator. “It wouldn’t make any sense,” he said. “Klingon agents would need to operate in complete secrecy to limit their chance of exposure.”

&n
bsp; McCoy nodded. “Will you tell her the truth?”

  Kirk shook his head. “No. Even we don’t know the truth here.”

  “What about the young man’s parents?” McCoy said.

  Kirk had not considered that. He thought about it and shook his head again. “Tell them that their son was captured by the Empire and most likely died at the hands of a very skilled Klingon interrogator? No. I will tell them that their son was a highly decorated officer in Starfleet who died in the performance of his duty.”

  “That would seem to be a kindness,” Spock said.

  “We do, however,” Kirk said, “have to make an [258] immediate report to Starfleet Command. By this time tomorrow we can have all the Klingon agents in Starfleet in custody. Perhaps if we put a stop to their hidden weapons and close the security breaches they caused, the Klingon Empire will think even harder about taking on the Federation.”

  “I have already put together a simple scanning program Fleet doctors can use to detect them,” McCoy said.

  That is something else that will come from this mission, Kirk thought. They would likely never know the truth about the intentions of the Klingon who wore the face of Ensign Jon Anderson, but the truth of his biology would now help the Federation against the Empire.

  “After today, no Klingon agent will be able to infiltrate Starfleet again,” Kirk said. Yes, it was something.

  Epilogue

  KIRK WAITED FOR A MOMENT outside the door, listening.

  From inside the transporter room he heard the chief say, “There are no old Starfleet security officers,” and the laughter that followed.

  He smiled himself. That had been Sam Fuller’s joke. And before that it had been his father’s.

  Usually Kirk waited until the chief was done swearing them in to make his appearance.

  Not today.

  Kirk stepped through the doors as the chief was finishing the address. Then he heard what he came early to hear.

  “Repeat after me,” the chief said. “ ‘I solemnly swear to uphold the regulations of Starfleet Command as well [260] as the laws of the United Federation of Planets, to become ambassadors of peace and goodwill, to represent the highest ideals of peace and brotherhood, to protect and serve the Federation and its member worlds, to serve the interests of peace, to respect the Prime Directive, and to offer aid to any and all beings that request it.’ ”

  Phrase by phrase the new officers repeated the oath. As they did, Kirk noted how impossibly young they all looked. Yet they were eager to begin their service, eager to be a part of the crew of a starship, on the Enterprise.

  Well, Kirk knew how they felt.

  “Captain,” the chief said, then turned to the assembled group and said, “Recruits, I present Captain James T. Kirk.”

  Kirk stepped forward and said, “Welcome to the Enterprise. I look forward to getting to know each of you in turn. For now, I’ll trust you to Lieutenant Parrish’s capable hands.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Leslie Parrish said.

  “Thank you, Chief,” Kirk said as he left the transporter room.

  Karel had waited weeks for this moment. He had haggled with the trader for appearance’s sake, but he would have paid much more for what he now held in his hand.

  His next stop was the rooming house. Again, he haggled on the price of the room so he would not arouse suspicion.

  [261] Entering the small room, he noted that it was sparely furnished, with only a bed and a small table—the people who used it had need of nothing else.

  Yet it was more than sufficient for Karel’s purposes. All he needed was some time away from the Empire’s surveillance cameras.

  Here, at liberty on a planet with nothing but illegal trade to recommend it, Karel had found what he needed.

  The Klingon took the data disk from his pocket and put it into the recently acquired Starfleet tricorder. There was equipment on the D’k tahg that he could have used to examine the contents of the disk, but there would have been too many eyes on him, and too many eyes would learn what he was about to learn.

  While Karel trusted his captain, Koloth, he was not ready to share this with even him yet.

  The device was simple to use, and Karel quickly found a file with his name on it. He hit a button and he heard his brother Kell’s voice.

  “My honored brother Karel. It is your brother Kell. When I began this mission, I had believed that I might succeed and see you once again. I now know that that will never happen. I suspect it was never meant to ...”

  Karel listened to the recording in silence until his brother’s voice concluded with, “I regret, my brother, that I will not see you again, or our honored mother, but I carry your faces with me for the rest of my time in this world and I will take them to the next. Your brother, Kell.”

  [262] Karel did not move for a long time after the recording was finished.

  His brother had served the Empire so bravely, sacrificed so much. Yet the High Command had used his honor and his loyalty to strip him of his face and send him on a mission built on lies, to help defeat a foe that the Empire could not defeat in open battle, to help defeat a foe that should not be an enemy at all.

  Lies.

  Kahless has spoken of truth as a road to honor. Where was the honor in the Empire now? Where was the honor in destroying a whole planet of Klingon brothers to kill humans?

  Where was the honor in wasting a spirit such as his brother Kell’s?

  Karel knew the answer. There was much dishonor in the Empire now. He had known it, had sensed it for some time. Yet he had chosen to remain blind to what his younger brother hand seen so clearly. His brother had had the courage to see that which Karel himself could not face.

  But now that Karel saw, he would not close his eyes again.

  There was but one path to honor. Kahless had taught them that. He would take that path and would honor his brother by ridding the Empire of its secrets and its lies, by ridding it of its dishonor, by seeing that the Empire that Kahless had begun did not waste its spirit and its blood on pointless conflict.

  He would never be the Klingon that his brother was, but he would do what he could.

  [263] From this point forward, he pledged that his family would do nothing less. There was still much that was true within the Empire. The Gorkon family would help the Klingon Empire find its honor and defend it as Kahless once defended his people against the tyrant Molor.

  Honor demanded nothing less.

  About the Author

  KEVIN RYAN is the author of two novels and the co-author of two more. He has written a bunch of comic books and has also written for television. He lives in New York with his wife and four children. He can be reached at Kryanl964@aol.com.

  About the e-Book

  (NOV, 2003)—Scanned, proofed, and formatted by Bibliophile.