I.K.S. Gorkon Book Three

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  The class had ended after Jorg’s speech, and the students were unusually quiet. What little they did say as they climbed out of their hammocks and left the learning sphere was determination to do everything they could to help defeat the wicked aliens.

  When Sanchit and the other separatists gathered at Jammit’s home sphere for the alleged surprise gathering, Gansett wasted no time in starting the meeting. All six of his legs quivering as he sat in one of the guest hammocks, he said, “I warned you, didn’t I? My sources at the government spheres have always been reliable, and they assured me that aliens were involved.”

  “That doesn’t mean—” Altran started, but Gansett interrupted.

  “It does mean, Altran, because I was talking to one of my sources today, and he told me something. You know how Vor Jorg said that the new weapons were ‘guaranteed’ to destroy the aliens?”

  Sanchit said, “That was just his usual posturing. What I’m—”

  Gansett interrupted her this time. “It wasn’t posturing, it was truth. Those aliens who destroyed Vor Ellis’s conveyance? They headed straight here, and were engaged by a military fleet, where they used that new weapon they’ve been testing.” His forelegs waved agitatedly. “The fleet destroyed the alien conveyance, and brought ten of them back here. They’re being held in one of the government spheres.”

  Several people spoke at once.

  “There are aliens on the planet?”

  “They came here?”

  “But if we destroyed them, the threat’s over, right?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Where are they being held?”

  Gansett answered that last question: “I don’t know. I’m trying to find out, though.”

  “This is terrible.” Altran’s forelegs were waving. “What’re we going to do?”

  “We don’t have to do anything,” Viralas said. “Look, whatever else we think of the oligarchy, this has to be more important. These aliens want to destroy us.”

  “No, they don’t,” Sanchit said. “At least, we don’t know that for sure.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Altran said. “They blew Vor Ellis’s conveyance to pieces.”

  Waving her left midleg, Sanchit said, “Yes—after Vor Ellis fired on them. They were simply defending themselves. And then they came here. How do we know what their intention was? For all we know they were coming here to apologize for their actions.”

  “That’s a long leap of logic, Imparter.” Bantrak, an old-fashioned sort, always referred to people by their titles. “First Oligarch Vor Jorg did say—”

  “What we wanted to hear—what he needed to say in order to whip all hegemons into a frenzy. But since when have we ever believed what the oligarchs tell us? In the very same speech where he told us about these aliens, he also told us that we were stronger economically than we’ve ever been—which, I’m sure, is a surprise to the people living in poverty in the cities of each of the Four Worlds.”

  “What’s your point, Sanchit?” Altran asked.

  “My point is, we don’t know anything about these aliens, except what the oligarchs are telling us, and the oligarchs have no reason to tell the truth. That moon shuttle that exploded was due entirely to their own incompetence and poor maintenance, yet the first thing they did was blame us for it, even though we’ve never committed violent acts on anywhere near that level. If they were willing to do that, then why wouldn’t they use this new discovery to turn public opinion against us? It gives the hegemons a common foe to face, someone who can serve as a patriotic rallying cry that will simultaneously discredit us.”

  Bantrak let out a puff of air. “You speak like an historian, Imparter, but you are denying the possibility that what we think has happened has happened. That we are about to face a foe that wants to destroy us.”

  “Based on what evidence? We only know that they engaged our forces because Gansett found out. Vor Jorg did not mention that in his speech, did he? And, again, you assume he’s telling the truth, and I say, why would he start now? The oligarchy has always lied to us and claimed it was for the greater good when in fact it was for their own good only. The foe we face is one that may not even be a true foe, but people simply defending themselves against an unprovoked attack. Bantrak, you say I talk like an historian, but that’s because I am one, and one thing I’ve learned from history is that the time when the government is most likely to lie to its people is in times of conflict.”

  There was silence for almost a full engret before Altran spoke. “Let’s say you’re right, Sanchit—what difference does it make? We’re still going to war, and the oligarchs are going to use this opportunity to turn public opinion against us. Why doesn’t really matter so much as how we’re going to react.”

  “Assuming this is all real.”

  Sanchit blew out a puff of air. She was amazed it had taken Yannak this long to provide his own absurd theory.

  “Yannak…” Altran started.

  “Hear me out,” Yannak said, waving his forelegs. “How do we know that any of this is real? What if these aliens are all a hoax to accomplish precisely what Altran just said—a propaganda tool to be used against us. What if it’s just an excuse to use those new weapons, not on some ridiculous aliens, but on us? Those images Vor Jorg showed weren’t beyond the realm of fictional effects. Look at some of the fictions that Entertainment provide. They could easily re-create something like that.”

  “No, they couldn’t have.” Bantrak spoke quietly. “I’ve been alive more than any of you, and never—not in any fiction, not in any speculation, not anywhere have I ever seen or imagined anything as awful as that alien conveyance.”

  Once again, Sanchit felt her mouth and windpipes dry up as she remembered that terrible creature that materialized in front of Vor Ellis’s conveyance. She feared she would see the image in her mind’s eye for many ungrets to come, and that those images would deny her sleep.

  “Besides,” Altran added, “the clergy would never go along with that kind of hoax, even if it was possible. Vor Hennak was probably completely shrivel-limbed when he saw the footage and gave his blessing to this whole enterprise.”

  “Unless,” Yannak said, “they have fooled the first cleric as well.”

  “No,” Bantrak said authoritatively. “Whatever we may think of Vor Jorg, even he would never stoop to deceiving the first cleric.”

  Everyone muttered affirmative noises at that—except, Sanchit noticed, Yannak.

  Altran blew out a puff of air. “Which brings us back to the question of what our next step is.”

  Gansett spoke quickly. “I think we have to go further underground, at least for the time being.”

  Waving his midlegs in agreement, Bantrak said, “I agree. It is the prudent course of action.”

  Several others gave their consent.

  Part of Sanchit was tempted to go along with everyone. Altran was right, they were going to have a harder time of it now. Supplies for their guerrilla attacks would be harder to obtain, their methods of releasing underground publications would be curtailed if not taken away outright, and even gatherings like this would become suspect and bring them to Enforcement’s attention. Communications between the sep leaders here and their people on the Tenth Moon would be almost impossible, as most verbal traffic would be given over to military use. That last was probably the biggest reason to scale back; so much of the sep success had come from the ability of their people on the Tenth Moon to make physical attacks while keeping their redoubt on that moon a secret from Enforcement.

  But a much larger part of her felt differently.

  That part is what enabled her to speak. “I say that prudence is the worst course of action. What we need to do now is make a bold gesture, one that will show the oligarchs that we are not so easily cowed. And I think we need to let the hegemons know the truth about what is happening here.”

  “How do you propose we do that, Imparter?” Bantrak sounded incredulous, and understandably so.

>   Waving her midlegs a bit, she said, “I think we should free the aliens from their prison.”

  Chapter Five

  Kurak was drunk.

  This was not an unusual state of affairs for her of late. Being drunk was, she found, the only way to keep her life tolerable. Who she blamed for this state of affairs varied from moment to moment.

  Sometimes she blamed Kornan, the damnably attractive former first officer of the Gorkon, who managed to ruin wind-boat riding for her on San-Tarah before getting himself killed saving the ship. She liked blaming him because he was dead and unable to defend himself.

  Sometimes she blamed the Dominion. After all, it was only when war with them broke out that her father insisted that she join the Defense Force. All her life, Kurak had believed the Defense Force to be made up of incompetents and fools, and the three years she’d spent as a commander in it only served to reinforce that opinion. But—and the words were like a mantra to her and everyone in her family—the House of Palkar must always serve the empire. By the end of the war, all the qualified people in her House who could serve were dead, except her. So she remained obligated to stay in the Defense Force until her nephew, young Gevnar, came of age and enrolled.

  Sometimes she blamed her father, who insisted on enrolling her when the war started.

  Sometimes she blamed Palkar, the long-dead warrior for whom her House was still named, whose service defending Emperor Sompek led to that tiresome insistence on his House always defending the empire.

  Sometimes she blamed Moloj, the House ghIntaq, if for no other reason than she had spent most of her life blaming that tiresome old ghISnar cat for whatever might irritate her.

  Sometimes she blamed Lokor, who threatened harm to Gevnar if Kurak did not perform her duties to his and Captain Klag’s satisfaction. Never mind the fact that true engineers should not have to do their jobs under fire without proper testing facilities….

  Sometimes she blamed Kahless, simply because the existence of the empire was, for all intents and purposes, his fault.

  Sometimes she blamed Leskit, because she shared her bed with him and he therefore provided a much readier target for her wrath than any of the others.

  She didn’t understand Leskit. He made her laugh, made her feel more like a Klingon than she had since her father dragged her away from the Science Institute and her work for the great shipbuilder Makros. But Leskit was also a Defense Force officer, and one who believed in what he did. He stood for everything she despised. Yet she kept inviting him back. It confused her, which led her to drink more.

  If her drinking interfered with her duty, she wasn’t aware of it. That was primarily because she didn’t care all that much. The worst, absolute worst they could do to her was demote her—which would change nothing, as she would continue drinking—or kill her—which would put her out of her misery.

  She sat on the comforting cold metal of her bunk, a mug of warnog in her hand, with no idea of how long she’d been sitting there. Her thoughts kept running away from her—like the horizon whenever she sailed down the mighty tIq river on Qu’vat, always a certain distance away no matter how far she sailed.

  The door chime to her cabin rang. A noise came from her lips, which was apparently enough to convince the computer that she wanted the door to open, for it rumbled aside to reveal Leskit.

  “What’re you doing here?” she asked.

  Leskit sighed. “I wanted to make sure you were ready for duty. I’m glad I did—don’t you know what time it is?”

  “No.”

  The pilot pointed at the display unit on her desk. “It says so right there.”

  “I know. I looked at it before.”

  “And?”

  “There were some numbers on it, but they could mean anything.”

  Then Leskit laughed. “Well, in this case, the numbers mean that first shift starts in twenty minutes.”

  “So?”

  “You’re out of uniform.”

  Kurak looked down. For the first time, she realized that she was wearing only a nightshirt. “So I am.”

  “You should perhaps get into uniform. I already took the liberty of stopping by the medical bay for an anti-inebriant.”

  Kurak snorted, phlegm flying out of her mouth. “Don’t want one of those.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m drunk.”

  Slowly, Leskit said, “That’s the idea, Kurak—taking the pill will make you not drunk.”

  “I want to be drunk.”

  “If you’re drunk on duty—”

  Kurak stood up from the bunk, stumbling slightly, but regaining her footing in half a second. “If I’m drunk on duty I’ll still be four times the engineer than anyone else in that group of incompetents the Defense Force has saddled me with, if you can even call them engineers, given that none of them can…” Kurak trailed off, and tried to pull her thoughts together, but they remained on the horizon, ever out of reach. “What was I talking about?”

  “You were talking about putting on your uniform, taking the anti-inebriant, and reporting to engineering.”

  The thoughts congealed, at least a little, and she found herself able to remember things. “No, that’s what you were talking about. That’s what you’re always talking about. What I’m talking about is staying here and not reporting for duty, because it means I won’t have to listen to that idiot child Kallo and watch her drool all over Toq while she tells him how to alter our cloaking shields.”

  “And why do you object to that?” Leskit asked.

  “Because you don’t alter the functioning of as sensitive a piece of equipment as the cloak based on vague theories, secondhand sensor readings, and no proper testing equipment. We don’t even have a proper laboratory.” She looked up at Leskit. Her thoughts were becoming clearer with every second, which simply meant that she needed to drink more. Unfortunately, her warnog mug was empty, and she didn’t have the where-withal to refill it. “And I have to ask something.”

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  Leskit grinned. “Why what?”

  “Why do you keep coming here? Why do you take me to your bed?”

  “I don’t—you take me to your bed. Mainly, I suppose, because your cabin is bigger than mine.”

  Kurak waved her hands in front of her face—which caused a dizzy spell, and she stumbled forward. Leskit caught her in his strong arms, and she suddenly felt the urge to rip his uniform off and take him right there.

  “Come, Kurak, let’s get you ready.”

  She grinned. “I’m ready for you now, Leskit.”

  “I meant for duty.”

  “I didn’t.” She started to take her nightshirt off.

  He stopped her. “I know you didn’t. But I did mean it.” Grabbing her by the shoulders, he straightened her up and gazed into her eyes, the Cardassian neckbones he wore rattling. “I like you, Kurak—Kahless knows why. You’re unpleasant in every possible way, but I find myself drawn to you like a glob fly to the swamp pits. Unlike that insect, however, I will not let you drown me. You will get dressed and sober up and we will both report to duty. Then, tonight, after dinner, I will come back here, you’ll be on your fourth or fifth warnog, and we will have excellent sex, then you will yell at me, blame me for your plight, and throw me out while pouring your fifth or sixth warnog, and then I’ll come back here and get you to engineering on time and sober despite your best efforts. Just as we have every day since we left San-Tarah.”

  Leskit then walked over to the corner of the cabin where Kurak had casually discarded her uniform when she came off duty the previous night. She found she couldn’t bear to wear the metal and leather uniform any longer than was absolutely required, and indeed she was often naked when Leskit arrived, as it saved time.

  He picked up her uniform.

  “This,” Kurak said as she removed her nightshirt, albeit not for the purpose she had originally intended, “is all your fault, Leskit.”

  Smiling while holding up t
he uniform, Leskit said, “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  Klag sat at the head of the wardroom table. Kurak sat perpendicular to him on the right, staring off into space blankly. Rodek sat to Kurak’s right. Toq and Kallo stood in front of the viewer, which showed a sensor schematic of some kind.

  Kallo had spent the last several minutes explaining the adjustments that needed to be made to the cloak in order to keep the Elabrej from detecting it. Every time Toq tried to make a comment, Kallo interrupted with a clarification of some kind. Toq looked like he was ready to swallow his own face, and Klag had to admit to being highly amused by it.

  Finally, before the young woman could go off on another explanation of how she extrapolated the sensor readings the Kravokh took, Klag said, “Enough! I am convinced that you believe this will work, Ensign. Commander—do you agree with the ensign’s theories?”

  The Toq who had once served confidently as Klag’s operations officer—and who had never let his captain down—came back to the fore. “I would not have wasted your time with this meeting if I did not, sir.”

  Klag turned to his gunner. “Rodek?”

  “The response time for decloaking is reduced by several seconds. That could prove fatal in combat.”

  “Not nearly as fatal,” Toq said, “as being detected while cloaked, as the Kravokh discovered.”

  “True.” Now comes the part I dread, Klag thought. “Kurak?”

  The engineer turned and looked blankly at Klag. “Hm?”

  “What are your thoughts, Commander?”

  “Oh. That this is a waste of time, of course. Ensign Kallo’s theories are supposition.”

  “All theories are supposition.” Kallo’s words sounded defensive to Klag’s ears.

  “No, infant,” Kurak snapped, “all hypotheses are supposition. Theories are actually based on facts. You have no facts here, only guesses based on interpretations of another ship’s sensor data. What you have, in fact, is nothing.”