The Hall of Heroes

by John Jackson Miller

  “You will not, now,” Ykredna said. She stood—wobbly at first, and then straight and strong. “This is a new capital world, with a new church—and a circle that bears your name. Command us as you would.”

  A beat, while Niamlar considered. “I offered to destroy the Klingon devil-master Kahless when I last visited—but you failed to impress me with your offerings.”

  “You want offerings?” Yeffir asked. “Niamlar, our people are impoverished—”

  “Silence!” Niamlar’s tail pounded against the far wall. “The Klingons created a clone of Kahless—this I know. I also know he was slain by their treacherous own—as devils will do. Judgment has fallen on them; their so-called Empire writhes in agony. The seat of the enemy is beset with tribulations.”

  “’Aya,” Ykredna said, “they are distracted, weakened.”

  “This time it is you who will destroy the devils. I will accept no small rocks, no single worlds. I have foreseen that the entire frontier will be denuded, left open for liberation. If you would save your people from destruction, my new Pontifex, you will reclaim the territories taken by the infernal Commander Kruge more than a hundred years past.” Niamlar’s eyes blazed hot. “And you will level his provincial capital, as his people leveled ours.”

  Horrified, Yeffir stood. Striking the Empire now? And Ketorix, industrial arsenal of the Klingon frontier? “Forgive me, Niamlar—”

  “I will not.”

  “—but we lack the personnel for such a war.”

  Ykredna snorted. “That is what she thinks, Niamlar. Revolutionary forces loyal to me have been in hiding on Janalwa, waiting for the opportunity to serve. They simply lack the ships.”

  Yeffir gawked at Ykredna. It was an admission of something she had long suspected: the force that Picard had thwarted had indeed been Ykredna’s—and she knew how to summon them.

  The news seemed to please Niamlar. “You are wise, Ykredna—a prophet, surely, to prepare so well. I restore you as Pontifex Maxima.”

  “You cannot do that,” Yeffir said, trembling. “The Episcopate is a worldly organ, and you but one of the kingly powers.”

  “Are the others of my kind here?” Niamlar’s tremendous head looked about. “No.”

  “’Aya, Niamlar,” Ykredna said. “Your word is law.” She faced Yeffir. “You will support her too—or suffer worse than the tortures we subjected you to in the past.”

  Yeffir shook her head. None of it made any sense—but she knew one thing for certain. “There can be no strike against the Klingons. The attack fleets are too few.”

  “That is your fault,” Ykredna said. “You and your heinous movement.”

  “Ours is the common people,” Yeffir said, barely concealing her shock and misery in the moment. “Devoted to traditional worship and peace with our neighbors.”

  “You complete and utter fool. Niamlar is a god of war! Your weakness endangers us all.” Ykredna turned and beseeched the monster. “If you will spare us, O Mighty, we can build them up again in time.”

  “All our hopes, dashed,” Yeffir said. Grasping at anything, she added, “Our allies in the Typhon Pact would never support such an operation.”

  “Wrong,” Niamlar declared. “You have allies, tried and true, whom I have dispatched as sentinels to your aid. They have stood loyally with you before, on the circle that bears my name, doing the church’s work.”

  Yeffir blinked. “What—the Breen?” She couldn’t believe it. “You cannot mean they are your messengers. They do not follow our religion—or any, that I know of.”

  “I am Niamlar. Can I not use lesser beings as tools to put you on the path?” Niamlar made a circuit of the rotunda. “They have been engaged by me to help you deliver a rebuke to the Klingons. No—the Rebuke.”

  Ykredna was breathless with excitement. “What form shall this rebuke take?”

  “Walk outside. And when I return in an hour’s time, I expect to see your generals here before me.” With that, Niamlar vanished.

  Yeffir felt dizzy, winded. She barely heard when, as she was passing out of the rotunda with Ykredna, a messenger approached with news of proximity alarms from the planetary defense systems. And she was speechless when, on the balcony where she had started her day, she looked over Niamlar Circle to see the cluster of black Fervent-class warships, decloaking one after another to the astonishment of the Kinshaya below.

  Ykredna lifted her head high to the heavens, which were quickly filling with deadly hardware. “It is truly the Rebuke,” she said. “And my people will deliver it.”

  BLACKSTONE

  ORBITING JANALWA

  Shift stepped off the transporter pad as invigorated as she had ever felt in her life. Gone was her Breen armor; she wore a jumpsuit to allow free movement. And she had needed it as she had inhabited the being of Niamlar.

  “What did I look like?” she asked as Gaw was marched in. “I could tell they were amazed. It felt amazing.”

  “It looked it,” Gaw said, still a little dazzled. “You’re inhabiting a Jilaan original. Nobody did it better than her truthcrafters.”

  “And that whole character was encoded on the bookmark,” she said, taking a towel to her face. “Astounding. The motions were just so strange—I could see the parts of my body moving. I felt like a giant!”

  “It’s the extra processors that help. Jilaan figured out a way to map four legs, wings, a head, and a tail to your physical movements—and I still don’t know how she got the whole stink-breath thing to work.” He sighed. “What great times those must have been.”

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “We’re making more,” she said.

  Chot Dayn and Thot Roje entered. She could see Dayn recoiling from her armorless appearance—but Roje paid it no mind. After altering his helmet’s output so Shift, bareheaded, could understand him, he spoke. “Sensors indicate Kinshaya are already gathering, waiting for your next appearance. There are also reports that Ykredna’s supporters are coming forward to greet our warships. The coup is real.”

  Shift smiled. “What did you think, Chot? A waste of effort?”

  Dayn squawked something incomprehensible and headed back to the bridge.

  Roje chuckled. “A good first act. You must convince them to board quickly, to escape detection—or word will get back to the Klingons.”

  “I will—after I put the other part to this in motion.”

  “I look forward to it.” Satisfied, Roje departed.

  Gaw looked around at the changes the Breen had made to his precious ship and shook his head. “I’m not sure about any of this. You’re starting a war.”

  Shift smirked. “What’s your problem? You helped Cross talk a bunch of Klingon exiles into going on a killing spree.”

  “Yeah, but that was for a fortune.”

  “And this is for freedom. Yours—and Cross’s. You’d better put aside your reservations, my friend.”

  He watched her coolly. “I’m not so sure we’re friends anymore.”

  “Believe me, you’d better keep the ones you have.” She reached into her pocket and located a handheld communicator. “We’ll send Niamlar down again in a while. I have to go make a very important call . . .”

  Twenty-six

  HOUSE OF KRUGE INDUSTRIAL COMPOUND

  KETORIX PRIME

  Tragg had worked at the palace most of the evening. As leader of planetary defense, his main command was elsewhere in the compound—but Korgh thought it important that his youngest son spend at least a few hours a day with him. It might not be too late to put a mark on the young man’s character after all.

  Korgh had set Tragg up in the first of the offices lining the long hall. It had once been assigned to the old letch Lord Udakh, whose last time in it was reportedly at the start of the century, and that for a tryst. He figured Tragg might make better use of it, if only marginally.

  Korgh had sat inside with him going over the little that needed to be done for the protection of Ketorix; mostly increases in policing to prevent
any more Unsung-inspired incidents. Korgh certainly no longer needed a pipeline of discommendated individuals; most had been arrested or sent packing. Rooting out such filth would make Tragg look good to his new underlings.

  Then their attention had turned to preparing for the chavmajta: shoring up support and finding more High Council members to join his walkout. Korgh had no intention of asking anyone who might leak his plan to Riker or Martok. Surprise was paramount.

  It appeared that Worf’s whelp had taken the responsibility for preparing for the ritual on the Federation side. Riker was on the hunt, with Titan and his other Starfleet ships, scouring the dankest corners of the Empire for any sign of what remained of the Phantom Wing. So much time had passed since Ghora Janto that Korgh began to hope that the exiles had left the Empire or immolated themselves. Either would be fine with him. If he succeeded against Martok before they resurfaced, he could make sure the general public never heard any of the facts behind their creation.

  Tragg entered. Korgh looked up from his padd. “Did you find out what that sound was?”

  “A communicator,” Tragg said. “It was in a box, in Lord J’borr’s old office.” He scratched the side of his head. “I didn’t think he ever came here.”

  “Never mind. Do you have it?”

  “I do not.”

  “I will see to it,” Korgh said, rising. “Go and fetch me a bottle of bloodwine—one from the storeroom below. I would drink before bed.”

  “You should have servants, Father. You are lord now.”

  “I did not raise you to be a spendthrift. Go.”

  Korgh watched Tragg vanish down the hall before making his way to J’borr’s office, the former nerve center Odrok had maintained. Inside, he shut the door behind him and saw the comm unit buzzing away on the desk beside the box.

  It was one of the encrypted communicators he had used to contact Buxtus Cross. A dead man, according to the Federation.

  With trepidation, he reached for it and activated it. “Yes?”

  “There you are,” responded a female voice. It sounded familiar. “Finally!”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s your high priestess, Lord Korgh. It’s N’Keera.”

  “My—?”

  “Shift, you fool. Buxtus Cross’s apprentice.”

  The Orion? He had been told she had killed Cross, but that she had been beamed off—by the Blackstone, he presumed. A loose end that needed tying off—or cutting. “Where are you?”

  “Like I’m going to tell you. You tricked us already, remember?”

  “The Federation says you killed Cross. Why did you do that?”

  “Come on, don’t pretend you never wanted to. He got on my nerves.”

  That, Korgh could accept. “The Unsung. Do you know where they are?”

  “You mean you don’t?”

  “I asked first.”

  “What do I care about them? We did a job for you—and you rooked us,” she said. “But you’re going to pay now, or I’ll have quite the story to tell.”

  “Blackmail?” Korgh snorted. “Jilaan would never have approved of such a thing. The Circle is supposed to be beyond that.”

  “It’s beyond our honor, you mean?” Shift laughed. “That’s rich. You Klingons are all about honor—yet you hired us to deceive and slaughter. What would your fellow High Council members think of that? We’re the only reason you’re on the council in the first place!”

  Korgh’s heart pounded. “Untrue,” he said, fearful of being entrapped. He had provided the special communicator Shift was using; it should have shut down in the presence of a recording device. Still, he did not know who else was present beside her. He had to proceed slowly. “I understand you are upset. Speak reasonably, and I will try to address your concerns in a fair manner.”

  “Fair—like with the homing device you put aboard Ark of G’boj. Very clever. Then you sent that bird-of-prey after us—while it lasted.”

  Korgh’s eyes lit with rage. “It was you that destroyed Jarin? You killed my grandson?”

  “Maybe we did and maybe we didn’t.”

  “The ships of the Circle of Jilaan carry no armaments! It is against all the codes of their—”

  “Again with the honor. Try to accept that in a hundred years, things might have changed.”

  “Then you admit it!”

  “I admit nothing,” Shift said. “I know how you Klingons think. If you got it into your teeth that I killed your precious man-child, you’d never let it go—and we would never be able to make a deal.”

  Korgh smoldered. He listened for noise out in the hall. Hearing none, he checked the door to make sure it was closed. “What is this deal?”

  “I’m running Cross’s crew now—and what we do isn’t any less expensive. Prices have gone up, in fact, because of all your messing around.”

  “Your price!” His teeth clenched.

  “Two treasure ships. I want a spare Ark of G’boj for pain and suffering.”

  “Two—?” Korgh’s expression turned sour. “How did you suffer, Orion?”

  “I spent a year on safari with your crazy exiles—none of whom had ever learned how to bathe.” She paused. “You’re going to send the ships to . . . what’s the name of that place nearby? Oh, yes. Balduk.”

  “Balduk?” It was at the tip of an arm of Klingon territory curling far around the Romulan Neutral Zone—about as isolated from the center of imperial power as any subject system got. “That . . . is far away,” he said cautiously.

  “I’m not doing this any closer. You were able to involve the Klingon Defense Force in your trap for the Unsung at Ghora Janto because it was a military installation. There’s nothing like that to defend at Balduk.”

  He nodded. Whoever Shift really was, she knew the Empire.

  “I can’t see you getting the full military to come along without the chancellor asking what it’s all about. If you pretend the Unsung are there, he’ll want to know how you know.” She laughed. “No, I expect you to send some kind of muscle after us, old man. But out there, every direction but one is away from the Empire. If I don’t like what I see, we’re gone.”

  Korgh frowned and considered her statement. “You will be there personally?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. Your people are going to stand by as my people check out the ships—and make sure they have no hidden homing devices or explosives. And they’re going to watch as we warp away.”

  “What do I get in return?”

  “One year.”

  “A year?”

  “One year in which I go away, remain silent, don’t bother you at all,” Shift said. “I just spent a year working for you without pay. I’ll give you that for free. But in the future, our silence is sold by subscription.”

  Korgh nearly crushed the communicator in his hand. “You would suck my blood dry, parasite!”

  “Relax. It won’t be your money you’re spending by then, if I know you. You’ve launched yourself from obscurity to the High Council in the space of a month. I’m certain that given a year, you’ll have the assets of the whole Empire to work with . . . Chancellor.”

  Korgh froze. “Why do you call me that?”

  “Because I’m betting there’s only one way you can go to get out of the jam you’re in—and it happens to be the direction you were already going.” She chuckled. “So, Qapla’, my good friend. We are all in it for your success. See you at Balduk. And if we don’t—it’ll be a short lordship.”

  The communicator went dark. Korgh stared at it in a rage—and then dashed it against the wall. It broke to pieces.

  He was grinding the remains of it with his boot when he heard footsteps outside the door in the hallway. He quickly kicked the debris under the desk and opened the door. Tragg was outside, dutifully bearing a bottle.

  “Father, what is it? You look as though you have seen Molor himself.”

  Feeling his chest, Korgh realized for the first time how heavily he was breathing. “Something has happened.�
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  Tragg put the bottle on the floor and grasped for Korgh’s arm, to keep him standing. “What has happened?”

  Korgh struggled to find his focus—and locked eyes with his son. “Contact your brother. I need the House of Kruge’s home defense fleet mobilized immediately for an expedition.”

  “An expedition?” Tragg looked at him as if he were going mad. “Father, the fleet cannot leave our holdings.”

  “There is no time—and no choice.” Recovering, he charged up the hall, Tragg in tow. “There is a situation that needs addressing, once and for all!”

  Twenty-seven

  CABEUS

  For a group of people without a chain of command, the Unsung had always moved with a swiftness that surprised Worf. Such was the way of a community that was, at its roots, a hunting colony. He had seen how quickly the fauna could turn against the residents on Thane. As soon as the recrystallization work was done, the exiles had acted quickly to decamp from the floor of the Cabeus cavern and return to their ships. Once they decided to do something, they wasted no time.

  On several previous stops, the Unsung had made efforts to minimize traces of their presence. Not now. Something fundamental had changed with the birth of Harch and Weltern’s child. Previous infants born to the exiles had been cause for sadness. While the newborn was genealogically far from a restoration of honor—seven generations was the Klingon rule—Kahless’s discourses had put things in a new light.

  What the emperor had said was not new. Worf had even said it once to his brother, Kurn. “We cannot regain honor by acting dishonorably.” But Kahless had deconstructed that sentiment, which held within it the notion that the discommendated could act honorably—and thus their behavior mattered. Yes, fellow Klingons might consider them nonentities. The exiles might even be barred from Sto-Vo-Kor. But what they did mattered—which implied that they had to matter too.

  The Unsung had decided to reveal themselves to the Empire and accept the consequences. It was a path Kahless had favored, but the idea had come from Valandris. The surviving Unsung had endorsed it. That, Worf thought, was important. They needed to decide for themselves.