by S. D. Perry
Taran’atar took up position on the side of the console opposite where the Hirogen stood. Then he stepped backward as far as he could and unsheathed his kar’takin, directing his thoughts at the Founders.
I am Taran’atar, and I am dead. I go into battle to reclaim my life. This I do gladly, for I am Jem’Hadar. Victory is life.
He ran toward the console, leapt on top of it while lifting his kar’takin over his left shoulder, unshrouding as his concentration shifted to combat mode, and brought the weapon down.
The Hirogen fell back, one hand reaching up to cover his lacerated face, the other groping for the rifle that fell clattering to the deck, its shoulder strap severed cleanly.
Little blood flowed from the wound, and Taran’atar didn’t allow his foe a chance to respond. He leapt onto the Hirogen, dragging him down and away from the fallen rifle. The pair fell to the deck, much as they had the last time Taran’atar attacked, only this time the Jem’Hadar was on top.
Again he attacked the Hirogen’s face with the blade, but this time he thrust straight downward, aiming for the alien’s right eye.
Unfortunately, the Hirogen clapped his gauntleted hands over the kar’takin, halting its downward motion. Taran’atar struggled to push the blade downward, but the Hirogen’s strength was tremendous.
The hunter swung both arms to one side, pushing Taran’atar off balance and forcing him to release his hold on the kar’takin. The blade spun away as Taran’atar tumbled off his opponent and fell into a roll. He came up to his feet as the Hirogen did likewise.
The rifle was on the far end of the bridge out of reach of both combatants. The kar’takin, however, was close enough that the Jem’Hadar was willing to take the extra second he needed to reach it and arm himself, especially given how he expected the Hirogen to respond.
Sure enough, the Hirogen got to his feet and pressed a control on his right wrist. A long, straight blade extended from the underside of his gauntlet. The part closest to the Hirogen’s palm was shaped differently—a grip, Taran’atar realized as the Hirogen’s large hand clasped around it. Clever design. The blade is still attached to his armor, so there’s no risk of him dropping it, but it has a grip that provides him with better leverage. The blade had to be either flexible or collapsible, but Taran’atar could not count on that meaning that it was weak. The Hirogen were an ancient species, that much he knew, and Taran’atar had to assume that any civilization capable of refining monotanium into hull metal could also manage comparable metallurgy in the creation of hand weapons.
Holding his kar’takin in front of him, ready to strike or parry at a moment’s notice, the Jem’Hadar focused on his primary advantage: Hirogen were more interested in the hunt than the victory—but Jem’Hadar knew better. In a hand-to-hand fight, the Hirogen’s size and armor gave him an edge over Taran’atar. Armed combat leveled the playing field to some extent—how much would depend on the Hirogen’s skill. Taran’atar had already known that the Hirogen carried an edged weapon—it was what he used to kill the owners of the tanker—and Taran’tar also knew that if he came at the Hirogen with a blade, the Hirogen was likely to respond in kind.
The two circled each other on the spacious bridge, each ready to strike at a moment’s notice, neither willing to make the first move.
“Curious prey,” the Hirogen said. “You yourself set the terms for combat with blades, yet you do not attack. Instead you wait—try to gauge my own attack even as I wait to gauge yours.”
Taran’atar said nothing. Speaking during battle was pointless unless one was giving orders to one’s troops. Taran’atar had no troops, so he remained silent.
“Do you not speak, prey?”
Again, Taran’atar said nothing. Let the hunter rant all he wants.
They continued to circle each other. Taran’atar watched for any sign in the Hirogen’s eyes that he would strike, but all the Jem’Hadar could read was curiosity.
Then the Hirogen did something unexpected: he smiled.
“Very well, prey. If you will not strike first, I will.”
In the back of his mind, Taran’atar had wondered if perhaps this hunter was simply incompetent. After all, he had lost his ship to an inferior foe. And now he announced his attack so that Taran’atar had plenty of time to parry the downward strike at his head.
Another thirty seconds of sparring, however, disabused him at least of the notion that the Hirogen had no weapons skills. He was as good as Taran’atar with his weapon, and the Jem’Hadar found himself unable to move onto the offensive. He was able to counter each of the Hirogen’s attacks, but his foe was too fast to allow Taran’atar ever to strike back.
The weapons clanged against each other, the sound of metal colliding with metal ringing through the otherwise silent bridge. The combatants soon fell into a rhythm. The Hirogen’s thrusts were fast, strong, and powerful, but predictable. He never varied the pattern—a simple right-left-forward progression that he stuck to without deviating. Unfortunately, being able to predict the strike only meant Taran’atar could raise a defense against it. The Hirogen presented no opening to take the offensive.
Taran’atar soon realized that—collapsibility or flexibility notwithstanding—the Hirogen’s blade was as strong as the Jem’Hadar’s own weapon, and since it was attached to the armor, there was no way Taran’atar would be able to disarm him. So I must turn his unity with his sword to my advantage.
Looking around, Taran’atar saw that the Hirogen was maneuvering the fight toward the rifle. I cannot allow that. The minute one of them was able to get his hands on the rifle, the battle was over.
When the Hirogen made one of his right swings, Taran’atar overstumbled to his left after parrying, and continued backing away in that direction. This also sent Taran’atar in the direction of one of the secondary consoles against the wall. Ordinarily, backing into a wall would hardly be an optimum strategy…but this might provide me with a path to victory.
Right-left-forward, right-left-forward.
The first Vorta that Taran’atar had served under as a Sixth had been fond of dances performed by a minor Dominion species known as the Thepnossen. When he first saw them, Taran’atar had thought their movements to be foolish and wasteful, and he had been equally foolish in voicing these thoughts in the presence of the Second. He had been reduced to Seventh for the infraction—had the First or the Vorta herself heard him, he might well have been killed. He had learned that day to be more prudent when speaking his mind. Until now, he had only thought of those dances as a reminder of the discipline.
Now, however, he and the Hirogen were engaged in a dance that was eerily similar to that of the Thepnossen.
But unlike those choreographed moves, which were consistent and constant, Taran’atar was, as he was backed closer and closer to the console against the wall, noticing a change to the Hirogen’s pattern: each forward thrust was lower than the last. The lower thrusts made Taran’atar’s parry—which, on the forward thrust, required him not to just block the strike but push the sword away—more difficult, and gave him less time to mount a defense against the next, right thrust.
Right-left-forward, right-left-forward, right-left-forward, left—
Left!
Taran’atar had thrown off the forward thrust and had already raised his kar’takin to block the expected attack on the Hirogen’s right. But the Hirogen switched to a left thrust. Taran’atar attempted to switch over, hoping that the Hirogen’s enforced right-handed attack (thanks to his sword being attached to his right arm) would slow his attack to the left enough so that Taran’atar could block.
The Hirogen’s blade cut through the Jem’Hadar’s coverall and into his scaly skin, slashing his right bicep.
But, while there was pain, it was not enough to be distracting. While Jem’Hadar could, of course, feel pain—it was necessary to insure survival—the Founders had designed their nervous systems with a very high threshold for it. A cut to the arm was nothing.
So it was a simp
le matter for Taran’atar to thrust his kar’takin forward with his left hand toward the Hirogen’s face. The hunter saw the attack coming, but with his blade still embedded in Taran’atar’s arm, he could not back away in time. Taran’atar made a second gash across his foe’s face, but again, not deep enough to kill.
The Hirogen pulled his sword out of Taran’atar’s arm as if he were sawing the limb off, causing more damage, and then backed away. The arm felt sluggish, and Taran’atar knew that he could not depend on it. He switched from using the kar’takin two-handed to holding it in his left hand.
Taran’atar was now standing directly in front of the console he’d been backing toward.
They stood facing each other for a moment once again. “Clever prey,” the Hirogen said as dark blood trickled down his cheek.
He then thrust his sword forward, even lower than he had in previous strikes.
Rather than parry it, Taran’atar instead leapt into the air. The Hirogen stumbled forward, and his sword went straight into the console.
The Jem’Hadar came down from his leap onto the Hirogen’s head, using it to flip through the air and land on his feet behind his opponent. His hope that his foe’s embedded sword would carry an electrical charge through the armor was not realized—either the Hirogen missed a power junction or the metal was nonconductive. But for the moment, at least, the Hirogen was stuck.
And Taran’atar now faced the rifle on the far side of the bridge.
Knowing he only had seconds before the Hirogen pried his sword out of the console, Taran’atar ran for the energy weapon, which he estimated to be ten meters away.
At eight meters, the Hirogen growled.
At six meters, he heard a metallic snap that rang through the bridge even louder than the clashing blades had.
At four meters, the Hirogen’s armored form collided with Taran’atar’s back, sending them both sprawling.
The Hirogen grabbed Taran’atar’s good arm and twisted, forcing the Jem’Hadar around and onto his back. Taran’atar could see that the Hirogen had broken the sword off—a very short, jagged edge protruded from the hilt.
His mouth spreading into a rictus, the Hirogen started pummeling the Jem’Hadar’s face with both hands. Blood from the alien’s face dripped onto Taran’atar, mingling with his own.
Taran’atar’s vision began to blur.
Suddenly, the pummeling stopped. Through a haze, Taran’atar saw the Hirogen get up.
No.
The Hirogen was moving toward the rifle. I won’t allow that. I won’t be defeated.
Taran’atar gathered every bit of strength he had left as he forced his arms to brace himself. He gathered every millimeter of faith in the Founders and willed his legs to move. He gathered every shred of duty and made himself stand upright.
The image of the Hirogen was still blurry to his eyes, but Taran’atar could see that the alien had stopped and was regarding the Jem’Hadar with surprise. “Resourceful. But this hunt is over.”
For the first time during the battle, Taran’atar spoke. “Not…while…I…live.”
And then he leapt at the Hirogen. The attack was without grace, without subtlety. It was simply brutal.
The hunter again fell to the deck. Taran’atar punched the Hirogen at the alien’s face wound.
Taran’atar kept on, kicking the alien twice in the face and chest. Growling, the Hirogen twisted the Jem’Hadar off balance. Taran’atar toppled to the deck—
—and saw the rifle within reach.
Reaching out with his good arm, he managed to snag the broken strap in his fist. But before he could pull the weapon toward him, the Hirogen’s boot came down on his arm.
A klaxon started to blare. He had no idea what it signaled, and it hardly mattered now.
But the sound caused the Hirogen to turn, shifting his weight just enough for Taran’atar to yank his arm free and pull the rifle toward him.
But then the Hirogen knelt down hard, his knees impacting Taran’atar’s chest. The Jem’Hadar found it hard to breathe.
“I repeat,” the Hirogen said, “this hunt is over.”
With that, the Hirogen stabbed Taran’atar in the chest with the jagged edge of his broken sword.
Chapter Nineteen
Farius Prime
“I don’t like this.”
“I’m not really interested in what you like, Gen. We’ve come this far.”
“Kam, the gateways have gone offline! And I haven’t the first clue as to why.”
“Probably that sabotage they developed in System 418. Have you had any luck getting them back online?”
“No. That’s why I said I didn’t like this. I think it might be prudent if you return to the ship.”
“It would be dangerous to leave now. The Orions are a suspicious people by nature, and they’ve already been betrayed by their own negotiator. We can’t risk their discovering our deception.”
“If you say so.”
“Yes, I do. Meanwhile, get those gateways working again. Coordinate with the other pods—we can’t permit a perception of anything other than complete control.”
“Of course, Kam. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Good.”
“Sensors are picking up a Bajoran Militia craft near the gateway—pursuit ships have been dispatched. And the gateway has gone offline!”
Vincam’s first sentence was the only piece of good news Malic had received since before the “final” negotiation with the Iconians had begun. He stood on the bridge of his ship, having left the Iconians and their Ferengi in the conference room under the watchful eyes of his two bodyguards. Up until they’d allowed Quark and his dabo girl (or whoever she was) to escape, the guards, Werd and Snikwah, had been Malic’s most trusted employees.
The bridge had a simple, logical layout—one would expect no less from Vulcan ship designers—with three tiers. Command was on the top tier, with primary operations on the second tier closest to the commander, secondary operations on the third—near enough to be accessible but out of the way when not needed. Vincam sat at the communications console just under the command chair next to which Malic was standing. He had chosen not to sit in the chair, as he didn’t intend to remain on the bridge for all that long.
What had started out as a simple business transaction was getting irritatingly more complicated. Quark had betrayed him. That dabo girl was either Starfleet security or Bajoran Militia—given the class of ship they’d just detected, not to mention the fact that she took Treir hostage, the latter was more likely. Hostage-taking wasn’t Starfleet’s style.
Now this.
“What do you mean the gateway has gone offline?”
Vincam finally looked up from his console and turned around to face Malic. “Just what I said. There’s no power reading from the gateway, and we’re not reading the Clarus system on the other side.” His console beeped and he looked back down at it. “Gatnir is reporting—that gateway he took to Ferenginar went offline, too.” Looking back up, he continued, “And I’ve monitored half a dozen other communiqués—Starfleet, Klingon Defense Force, Federation civilian, Ferengi Alliance, Romulan—that indicate that other gateways have gone dead. I’ve picked up one message on a Starfleet frequency—this appears to be the result of something one of their ships is attempting at Europa Nova.”
Damn them, Malic thought. No doubt this is the very same sabotage that Quark’s accursed nephew dreamed up. “It’s time I had a conversation with these Iconians. I’ll be in the conference room.”
Loga spoke up from the sensor console. “Malic? I’m getting life-form readings on the Bajoran ship—two Bajorans, one Ferengi, and one Orion. They’re also retreating into the asteroid belt.”
Snarling, Malic said, “They still have Treir.” Turning back to Vincam, he said, “Make sure the pursuit ships are told that the Bajoran ship is to be disabled—not destroyed. If any harm comes to Treir, the person responsible will be expected to compensate me for her full value, understood?”
>
Vincam nodded.
Malic turned toward the lift and reached into his pocket to make notes into his padd.
His hand felt only the fabric of his inner pocket.
For almost a hundred years, Malic had thrived. He’d started out as a simple deckhand on a ship belonging to the famed pirate Tu. Nobody there would take him seriously—he was viewed as being useless owing to his lack of height. Determined to prove himself, he quit Tu’s ship and went to Finneas XII. He started working for Zil, one of the more talented enforcers in the syndicate and the man who controlled pretty much the entire planet. Malic had made his height work for him by his ability to fit into odd places to scout and spy. What Zil had never suspected was that Malic didn’t just spy on people Zil had told him to spy on, but also on Zil himself. Soon enough, he had gathered enough information to take Zil—who had been skimming off the top of his fare to the syndicate for years—down.
Malic’s only mistake had been to trust others. Although technically he was the one who brought Zil down, others had taken the credit by altering the data he had gathered to make it appear that it had been someone else’s intelligence. Malic had been rewarded in other ways, but not with the credit he deserved.
So after that, he made sure that all the information he gathered was all in one unimpeachable source. He had spent all the money he had and more on a special padd that was genetically coded so that it could not be used by anyone but him. The information on that padd was sacrosanct, and could only be traceable to him. He upgraded the padd every chance he got, making sure that its security was the best that money could buy. And, with the information he gathered on it used to his own ends, the amount of money in question soon became considerable.
Still, no security was perfect, and Malic had been careful to guard the padd with his life. He’d never let it out of sight in the near-century that he’d owned it except when the upgrades were performed. Besides a record of all his transactions and business arrangements, the padd contained dirt on several other prominent syndicate members, half a dozen officials from virtually every major Alpha Quadrant government, most of the people Malic had done business with over the years, and Malic himself.
