Roje’s snout wrinkled inside his helmet. This wasn’t completely unexpected; there had to be some Klingon Defense Force ships close to the sector when the warning went out. Before he could order the ship targeted, Fervent-One received a hail.
Puzzling.
“Put it up,” he commanded, “but don’t let them see the bridge.”
His lieutenant cast the image onto one of the towering polygonal panels that doubled as a stained-glass pane when not in use. It was a Klingon woman, surrounded by others of her kind. “I am Valandris,” she declared. “I announce myself as your enemy.”
Kinshaya in the operations pits howled to see her. “Another bird-of-prey decloaking off to port!” Roje heard.
There was another hail—and the Breen controller sent the image to an adjacent pane. A Klingon male and female spoke. “We are Harch and Weltern of the Unsung—descendants of the discommendated of Gamaral. We announce ourselves as your enemy.”
The Unsung? Roje couldn’t fathom the development—and was still more startled when a third bird-of-prey decloaked to starboard.
This hail brought more Klingons on screen—including, at center, one he knew. “I am Worf, son of Mogh, of Starfleet on the Unsung ship Cob’lat.” A slight grin crossed his face. “You already know what I am.”
The announcement of a fourth bird-of-prey, to Fervent-One’s rear, found Roje numb with confusion—which only deepened when he saw the figure at the center of the fourth group. It was the Klingon emperor, the sight of whom sent the Kinshaya, already rattled, into paroxysms. Shift had told Roje that Cross had kept the alcoholic wretch alive, but under no circumstances would he have ever predicted that Kahless—or Worf for that matter—could make common cause with the exiles.
Yet there they were. Together—and surrounding FerventOne.
“These people’s forebears sought to preserve the holdings of Commander Kruge,” Kahless said, showing his teeth. “Their children have come here to complete their mission. And you have come here to die!”
Forty-five
CATHEDRAL OF STATE
JANALWA
Niamlar sat in silvery repose as Kinshaya worshippers filed past, paying their respects. Many were allies of Ykredna’s old order, most of them aged; the young had gone off to fight. Another group comprised members of the state bureaucracy, which the new Pontifex wanted to infuse with as much fear of the church as possible. Ykredna led both bodies now, and as long as Shift’s god of war was at her back, her political power was absolute.
Shift had been informed that the Devotionalists were in flight, hunted by the newly reconstituted Inquisitors. A few had gotten in long enough to get a look at her, but as far as the authorities knew, none had shared what they’d seen. The Breen expected that word would eventually go beyond Janalwa about the returned god, but by that time the military operation would be successfully concluded. She might be able to play the role indefinitely—
—which, Shift was beginning to realize, was a mixed blessing. The continuous procession of prayers, requests, and confessions of the Kinshaya increasingly made her long to be back aboard the Blackstone. Not one interesting individual had come to see her since the battle began. Shift had not tired of godhood; rather, she had begun to hope for a better class of worshippers.
But she had done her job, commanding all who came before her to commit their hearts, resources, and children to the war against the Klingons and to Niamlar’s chosen sentinels, the Breen. While the Episcopate’s taboo against broadcasting images of their gods meant that she had to work by word of mouth, that had suited the Confederacy’s plans. The domo had not wanted to show too much to the galaxy and certainly did not want the Breen’s connection known. Shift understood; Korgh, for his own reasons, had been careful not to show the fake Kruge in the Unsung’s proclamation. Sometimes it was better to keep things mysterious.
Ykredna was in the middle of introducing some sports figure of no consequence when the Pontifex suddenly screeched. Snapped to attention, Shift saw the glowing effect of three bipedal individuals being transported into this haven for the four-legged.
The three wore Starfleet uniforms. One, petite with short dark hair and the freckling of a Trill, was flanked on one side by a taller woman with longer black hair. Shift did not recognize either of them, but she remembered the male Vulcan from her near-capture aboard Ark of G’boj. He held a phaser, as did the taller woman; both appeared to be acting as guards for the Trill, who stepped forward.
“Intruders,” Ykredna yelled. “Infidels! How dare you enter this place?”
“Sorry to barge in like this,” the Trill announced as the Kinshaya worshippers scuttled behind a concerned line of guards. “I’m Ezri Dax, captain of the Starship Aventine. This is Commander Tuvok, tactical officer from Titan—and Lieutenant T’Ryssa Chen from the Enterprise. A lot to remember, but in Starfleet, we try to get everyone involved.”
Yeffir, still chained to a pillar, asked, “Chen, my friend, is it truly you?”
“It is, Your Holiness,” Chen said. She eyed the guards. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
“She is not Pontifex,” Ykredna declared. “You should not be here! This is a holy place!”
Ezri Dax stepped up to Niamlar. “I saw a temple just like this on Yongolor. I don’t expect you’d remember that.” She smiled. “I’ve changed since then.”
The Trill gazed up at Shift’s illusory character. “But you certainly haven’t changed.” She shook her head in admiration. “Niamlar, Niamlar. Just like Curzon saw. Only your message this time was different. We heard you. You’ve been sending the Kinshaya off to war.”
Shift remembered the name Curzon from the Annals and Jilaan’s illusion, but could not recall the specifics. “You violate my sanctum,” Shift said. “Begone, vermin, lest I cast you into the abyss.”
Dax looked around. “I don’t see any abyss.”
“I think our giant friend is saying this place isn’t big enough for the two of you,” Chen said.
Tuvok looked up and around. “The dimensions of this room appear adequate.” He gestured to the opposite side of the rotunda, where a sizable clearing had opened where worshippers had been. “In fact, I calculate that the area is large enough for two beings of Niamlar’s dimensions.”
“Really?” Dax said, looking at the space. With an impish grin, she turned back to face Shift. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s find out.” She clapped her hands together. “Abracadabra!”
Light and sound erupted from the open space. Flames blossomed from the marbled floor, generating a mini–mushroom cloud that licked the ceiling above. Electricity arced back and forth across the billowing formation—which then seemed to come alive, releasing a horrific scream from a mouth that did not exist. And then it did, as the features of a colossal being took shape.
A being that looked just like Shift’s Niamlar character.
Well, maybe not just like, Shift realized as she watched the monstrosity stomp around, beating its wings. This Niamlar had more definition, more detail than her illusion did—and for a moment, Shift wondered if she had offended the real god.
And then she remembered that was crazy. “Identify yourself,” Shift demanded.
“I am Niamlar,” the new dragon replied. “Niamlar as she was meant to be seen, Niamlar as she was meant to be portrayed.”
Portrayed? Shift looked around to see that the Kinshaya who had not fled had dropped to the floor at the sound of the new Niamlar’s voice. A voice that sounded far more ethereal, far more otherworldly than Shift’s. Even Ykredna had prostrated herself.
The visiting giant swished her tail around. “Yes, you see the Great Niamlar, one of the greatest creations of Jilaan, she who worked miracles with molecules, who took light and gave it form.”
Jilaan? Shift gulped. She wanted to contact Blackstone and the truthcrafters, to find out what was going on—but that wasn’t an option. “I know this name Jilaan,” her character said cautiously. “She was mortal, and is gone.”
“Her works live on,” the other Niamlar said. “You should know. You’re one of them.”
Shift leered with suspicion—an expression, she knew, that must look odd coming from her giant doppelgänger. If this was a trick by Gaw, it surely wasn’t funny—but she couldn’t imagine that it was. Blackstone’s processors were straining just to make one Niamlar seem material. Two dragons were quite beyond its capacities.
“You speak nonsense,” Shift finally said. “My children, I created this shadow-self to teach you not to trust those who would mislead you.”
“That’s not going to work,” Dax shouted, which she needed to do in this conversation between titans. “Why don’t you tell them the truth?”
Shift froze. She considered triggering her transporter recall and vanishing back to the Blackstone—but she was terrified of what the interlopers would say, and how it might impact her scheme. She was going to have to ride this out—and hope that someone in orbit had noticed what was going on. Even a god could use guidance from above.
BLACKSTONE
ORBITING JANALWA
Gaw took his glasses off and stared at his screen, not believing what he was seeing. He could hear a low buzz from his fellow truthcrafters—the ones who had knuckled under to the Breen’s demands.
The only people in the illusion control center who hadn’t yet noticed what was going on below were the Breen guards responsible for keeping an eye on the technicians. In what Gaw knew to be the way of guards, they had tuned out the peculiar things they’d seen on the truthcrafters’ screens. The plan belonged to Shift and Thot Roje, and one more dragon appearing made little difference to them.
What the other Niamlar had said, however, had caught Gaw’s interest. His and that of his headset-wearing colleagues.
Jilaan.
Seeing Chot Dayn enter—he only recognized the Breen because none of the other armored creatures carried themselves with such haughtiness—Gaw issued a command that moved the angle from the sensor feed on all his colleagues’ screens upward, taking the Starfleet officers out of view. Dayn appeared behind him and spoke in words that Gaw could understand. “Why are there two Niamlars on screen?”
“Shift wanted to do a trick to impress the rubes. It’s a simple mirror-image routine with a randomizer on the limb movements. It’s pretty technical.”
Dayn lingered for a moment—but then another Breen entered from the bridge, letting loose with a series of squawks. For a moment, Gaw assumed that the people up front had somehow learned about what was going on. When Chot Dayn turned purposefully away, Gaw asked, “Going so soon?”
“Spare me your babble. I have a war to check on.”
He was checking on it in a hurry, the Ferengi noted; the Breen was back on the bridge in seconds. Something must have happened, but the Breen hadn’t realized something was going on down on Janalwa.
Gaw looked to his companions and put his finger to his lips. Let’s just see where this goes . . .
Forty-six
PHANTOM WING VESSEL CHU’CHARQ
OVER KETORIX PRIME
“Fire all weapons!”
Had anyone told Valandris just weeks before that she would be orbiting the Kruge family compound, she would have assumed that she was the aggressor, going to reclaim the headquarters for her Fallen Lord. Instead, she was assaulting a massive Kinshaya battlesphere—one of two still in orbit, protecting the four descending to the factory center.
Valandris had insisted that they not attack while cloaked, a decision that Kahless and Worf endorsed in spite of the disadvantage. But the Unsung were not the rustics that the false Kruge had conned. Every exile aboard was a veteran of the conflicts over Gamaral and H’atoria, and at Ghora Janto. They knew their way around a battle. By contrast, the ungainly Kinshaya battlespheres seemed slow on the response.
“This is Cob’lat to all ships,” Worf said over the comm. His bird-of-prey had gone in first for a low-level run, just skimming the surface of the nearest battlesphere’s shields. “The shields are weakest directly beneath the ships’ south poles, where the landing thrusters are mounted. The disruptors on the surrounding ring fire outward, not down.”
“Message understood,” Valandris said, commanding Raneer to bank Chu’charq from its present course and begin an attack run on the second orbiting battlesphere. The only Kinshaya she had ever met, on H’atoria, she hadn’t liked at all. This would be a pleasure, whether she survived the attack or not.
KINSHAYA BATTLESPHERE FERVENT-ONE
OVER KETORIX PRIME
“Close with Fervent-Six,” Roje ordered. “Put the birds-of-prey in our crossfire!”
His crew belatedly complied as the battlesphere’s shields were buffeted by another photon torpedo. Facing their first real opposition, Roje realized that his team of Breen and Kinshaya personnel was performing less than optimally. The Spetzkar were more adept at individual combat than ship-to-ship warfare—and they were working a class of starship that, while not alien to them, had been designed with someone else in mind.
The Kinshaya were highly excitable and prone to mistakes. They were all over the map. It had been a concern that Chot Dayn had raised repeatedly. Moving fast to blackmail Korgh into diverting his defenses, the Breen had been obliged to accept whatever forces Ykredna sent, and there had been no time to meld them into coherent crews.
“We cannot establish a crossfire, Thot Roje,” his lieutenant reported. “The birds-of-prey are staying away from the zone between our ships.”
Worf’s influence, Roje thought. He knows better.
But the other Unsung vessels were dealing damage too. For the past several weeks, the Phantom Wing had been the scourge of the Klingon Empire, humiliating Starfleet to boot. Roje had never expected to face them. The Unsung were always part of Korgh’s plans, according to Shift, and they were evidence that he wanted destroyed. The remains of the squadron had disappeared for days, and Roje had assumed they had gone to ground.
What were they doing here, fighting for Korgh? What wizardry could Kahless and Worf possibly have worked to make that happen? It beggared belief. The discommendated Klingons were nothing, worse than nothing. Why would they ever fight for an empire that loathed them?
Klingons make no sense, Roje thought. He looked for something to hold on to as another bird-of-prey started its attack run.
PHANTOM WING VESSEL COB’LAT
OVER KETORIX PRIME
The bird-of-prey’s disruptors spoke again, and the Kinshaya paid. The perfect shape of the battlesphere was no more, a jagged gash blazing beneath its equator.
Worf clapped the armrest of his command chair and offered his congratulations to the twin brothers. He had not known Beroc and Bardoc on Thane, but as helmsman and gunner under his tutelage they had quickly proven a lethal combination. They whooped at their success and prepared for a run on the other battlesphere in orbit.
Worf’s concerns went beyond the foes outside. Krencha, Weltern and Harch’s ship, had taken a bad hit and was venting into space as it made wider loops around the targets.
“The fires are bad,” Weltern said over the comm. The Cob’lat had lost visuals. Worf could hear the rumblings of internal explosions aboard Krencha.
“Let us beam you aboard,” Valandris called from Chu’charq.
“We will not flee from the fight,” Harch piped in. “We have something else in mind.”
That concerned Worf, who remembered that Harch had served with Zokar, who had rammed a Klingon battle cruiser in a suicide run. “Harch, their shields are still up,” he transmitted. “Do not act foolishly.”
“Do not fear, Worf. We will not end in that way,” Weltern said. “But if we face death, we do so as a family.” A pause. “Tell our son our names.”
The transmission ended.
Before Worf could establish contact with Cob’lat, he saw Klongat, where Kahless served, losing acceleration. Reduced to thrusters, it might not be much use in space—but there were other targets it could still challenge: the
four battlespheres already in Ketorix’s atmosphere, firing on the citizens below. And that was where the true need was. Only the Unsung’s lives were at risk in orbit; the real threat was on the planet.
That is where we should be, Worf thought. He hailed Chu’charq. “Valandris, we must descend,” he said. “The hunting is better.”
“You know what I like,” she said. “But Chu’charq will remain with Krencha, to protect you from these fiends in orbit during your descent. You and Kahless will have all the fun.”
Worf realized the state of Krencha must be dire. Valandris, in defending the wounded, had become the leader the Unsung so longed for.
“ghIj qet jaghmeyjaj,” Worf said. May your enemies run with fear.
HOUSE OF KRUGE INDUSTRIAL COMPOUND
KETORIX PRIME
Help had arrived!
One of the other warriors in the atrium had seen them first through the holes in the roof: two birds-of-prey rocketing downward through the clouds to engage the Kinshaya. Exultant, Korgh and Tragg hurried to his ruined office, where they hoped to have a better vantage point.
From the gaping hole that had once been the exterior wall to Korgh’s office, father and son watched the running battle between the two birds-of-prey and the battlesphere. For the longest time, they had resembled carrion birds challenging a moon—with as much chance of success.
Then the odds changed. In descent mode, the Kinshaya ship’s braking flaps folded outward like petals, increasing the surface area that was not armored. The birds-of-prey took full advantage, firing disruptors at the exposed area. The battlesphere was landing blows in response—but it was clear that the vessels were more formidable in orbit.
For a moment, it looked as though the battlesphere might try to escape to space. But several moments after ignition, a thruster shook loose from its moorings, sending the vehicle on a spiraling trip that ended in the darkness beyond the city. Flames erupted across that part of the landscape.
“Yes!” Tragg yelled over the sounds of explosion.
The Hall of Heroes Page 24
