“Captain, with all due respect.” Klarn’s voice almost broke. “The lieutenant commander would act differently in this matter. He would lack the required decisiveness. Besides, you’re the captain. The glory should be yours and yours alone.”
Kromm hesitated. “Glory?”
The lieutenant nodded gingerly. The corners of his mouth hinted at a weak smile. “Follow me down to deck twenty-four. I promise you will not regret it.”
Kromm gave it some thought. He should just kill this pathetic little worm just to blow off some steam. The glint in his eyes, though… That wasn’t fear, Kromm realized. It was the sparkle of someone who felt that victory was at hand.
“Deck twenty-four?” he asked.
Klarn nodded again. “I’ll show you.”
With a deep sigh the captain let go of Klarn, lowering his blade. “I’m warning you, Lieutenant. If you’re wasting my time, then today will have been the last time that you’ve disturbed a superior officer.”
Klarn straightened his uniform, taking a deep breath. “Don’t worry, sir,” he said with a firm voice and promising smile. “You’re going to like it.”
* * *
Kromm couldn’t believe his luck. Speechless, he stood in front of the closed door to a small equipment room on deck twenty-four. His crew didn’t frequent this deck very often, and this room was particularly difficult to find among the large freight containers and oily tools. In the door on eye level was a small hatch that could only be opened from the outside. Upon Klarn’s advice, Kromm had just opened it to peek inside the equipment room. Since then, he’d been in awe.
“Who knows about this?” he asked when he finally found his voice.
“Just Ruut and me, Captain,” Klarn answered. He stood right next to him, his shoulders squared and his eyes straight ahead. The glint in his eyes seemed brighter than the lights in the corridor. Klarn was proud—and highly satisfied.
“We picked them up on the planet’s surface only a few hours ago. We had reason to believe that they have been in contact with the Purifying Flame.”
“And?” Kromm prompted. In his mind he still pictured the two exhausted, scared, bleeding Renao—a man and a woman—held captive in that equipment room.
Klarn smiled an evil smile. “Ask them yourself, sir. As I said—you’re the captain.”
Kromm nodded. Indeed he was. And it was about time that he began acting like one. He should take matters into his own hands, instead of complying with Rozhenko, Adams, Spock, and the others. How had Grotek from the High Council put it? Qo’noS was longing for a solution to the Renao problem. One that deserved the term “solution” and didn’t base itself on idle talk. Suddenly, Kromm felt as if a huge treasure had landed in his lap. Martok had given him a chance, and now it was up to him to use it.
“So Adams doesn’t know that these two Renao are aboard the Bortas?” he asked Klarn.
“You just spoke to him, sir.” Klarn’s grin increased. “Did he ask after them?”
“No.”
“There you go. Presumably, the cat commander forgot that he had sent us to catch the couple.”
Kromm drew a sharp breath. “What are you talking about? Commander Roaas knows about this?”
“So what if he does?” The lieutenant shook his head dismissively. “They have other concerns on the Prometheus than two insignificant Renao.”
“Perhaps for the moment—but eventually, they will remember that these two have disappeared. They will quickly determine that the suspects can only be here aboard our ship!” Kromm couldn’t believe it. How could one man be so stupid?
Again, Klarn shook his head. “Not if we have answers before then.”
Irritably, Kromm stifled a curse. Answers, he repeated in his mind. Of course, Klarn was probably right! If these Renao were in the hands of Adams and his pets rather than here aboard the Bortas, they would take a lot longer to disclose what they knew, because Starfleet would treat them completely different from the way Klarn had done during the past few hours. And that meant wasting valuable time.
Klarn has done the right thing, Kromm realized. He brought them here instead of taking them to Starfleet. And to prevent them from using that against me, he had waited to see if they would ask questions of their whereabouts.
“Are they talking?”
Klarn pointed at the control panel next to the door. “Ask them. Just input the entrance code, and the door will open.”
Without taking his eyes off his lieutenant, Kromm pulled the d’k tahg from its sheath again. “Oh, I intend to do far more than that,” he snarled, grinning. Klarn grinned back.
Captain Kromm opened the door. He had only taken one step into the room when the woman began whining. These noises were music in his ears.
33
NOVEMBER 15, 2385
Konuhbi, Onferin
“Bortas to Captain Kromm.”
“What do you want, L’emka?”
“Sir, where are you? We have a priority message for you from Captain Adams, but the computer says you’re no longer aboard the ship. And—”
Kromm interrupted his first officer with glee. “I don’t like your tone of voice, Commander. And it’s neither your nor Captain Adams’s business where I am. I’m busy.”
“With all due respect, Captain, you can’t simply—”
“What I can or can’t do is my decision, Commander! I’m the captain! And I’m telling you that I am busy with an important task.” He smiled sardonically. “So you can tell Adams, he can talk to you or to Rozhenko for all I care. That’s all he ever does, anyway.”
Silence. Two seconds later L’emka’s voice came from the communicator on his sleeve.
“Understood, sir,” she confirmed. “May I inquire nonetheless where you are?”
“Where I should be, Commander,” he answered, and a confident growl came from his throat. “Almost there. Kromm out.”
As soon as he had closed the channel, he pulled out his disruptor, turning around to face his escort. Klarn, Ruut, and three members of his security team waited a few meters behind him for his orders. Without a word, Kromm walked over to them, looked at Klarn and nodded.
“We’re ready, Lieutenant. Let’s end this.”
“With the utmost pleasure, Captain,” Klarn replied. He lifted the disruptor rifle in his hands, aimed at the opening mechanism of the inconspicuous door in front of him and fired.
Then things started to happen very fast. The door looked like all the other doors on this level of the arcology. Its simple structure could not withstand the beam of channeled energy. A few fractions of a second later, its security mechanism had been destroyed, and Ruut advanced with the three soldiers into the small house.
His people hurried from one room in the small Renao flat to the next, but they found nothing. Concerned, he shot Klarn a glance. Were they too late?
Suddenly, he heard Ruut cry out, “Here! Captain, I’ve got him.”
“Leave him alive, Ruut,” Kromm shouted back. Grinning, he clapped Klarn on the shoulder. “I’ll do the rest.”
Klarn and he entered the back room.
Joruul ak Bhedal didn’t live very comfortably, Kromm noticed at first glance. He really had imagined a hatemonger’s dwelling to be much more interesting. Not that he knew much about Renao interior furnishing—and frankly, he didn’t give a warrigul’s wet fart about it—but even to him it was more than obvious that the shabby furnishings didn’t bear witness to wealth.
Kromm followed his security detail into the back room. There was ak Bhedal flat on his back on a small bed consisting of several cushions and blankets. Ruut prevented him from getting up with a disruptor. The bland bed was next to the perma-concrete wall, on which the Purifying Flame’s emblem had been painted.
Ak Bhedal didn’t move. He was older than the two suspects Klarn had found. All he wore were wide black pants. Even the traditional facial jewelry was missing. He had raised his hands and he was pursing his lips. The expression of his violet glowing eyes w
as cold. He glared at Kromm.
“Joruul ak Bhedal?” Kromm asked, as he crouched beside the prone man. He tucked away his disruptor, smiling sardonically, and pulled out his d’k tahg. “My name is Kromm. I’m either the captain of the I.K.S. Bortas, or the deliverer of terrible pain—it’s up to you.”
The Renao didn’t say anything. They had woken him from his sleep. Only when Kromm brushed the tip of his blade across his chest, slowly moving toward his crotch, the man’s lips began to twitch.
“Yes?” Kromm prompted him. “You want to talk? Is that right? So, talk: where are my crewmembers that you have abducted?”
“You won’t hear a word from me!” the Renao whispered. Fury flickered in his eyes, and his fingers twitched. “You hear me? Not a single word.”
Kromm grinned, looking up to Klarn. “That’s interesting. Ak Busal and ak Lavoor said exactly the same thing to start with—and later, they didn’t want to stop talking at all.”
“And we didn’t even have to torture them to death, sir,” his lieutenant added.
Kromm’s grin became even bigger. “Oh well,” he said with carefully rehearsed airiness, “at least not both of them.”
Ak Bhedal started to perspire rather profusely. “Who are you speaking of, Klingon? I don’t know these names.”
“Just as you don’t know this, presumably,” Kromm said, pulling a crumbled flyer from his uniform pocket. It showed the emblem of the Purifying Flame. “We found this in ak Busal’s quarters.” He pointed at the symbol on ak Bhedal’s wall. “It seems you have something in common with them.”
“Not just that, Captain,” Lieutenant Kroge spoke up behind Kromm. When Kromm turned around, the security man stood right behind him holding a stack of flyers in his hands. He must have found them in another room. “They all like political pamphlets. But our host here seems to be much closer to their origin than ak Busal, sir. The room next door is full of these things. Propaganda material and inflammatory pamphlets against us, against Romulus, against Earth…”
“That corroborates ak Busal’s statement,” Klarn said.
Kromm nodded. He looked at the Renao again, moving his blade another two hands’ widths further down. “Did you poison the youths’ minds, my friend?” he asked quietly. “Did you plant your wicked philosophies into their young heads? Did you tell them about the galactic harmony that people like me allegedly destroy? Did you want them to spread your twisted ideas throughout the world, just like ak Busal and ak Lavoor did out there in Massoa, so they could find more followers for you?”
The Renao stared silently at the ceiling of his sparsely furnished bedroom. Kromm knew this expression. The man knew that he was finished. He just didn’t want to give Kromm the satisfaction of admitting it.
“You know something?” Kromm continued quietly in an almost friendly tone, while the tip of his d’k tahg gently toyed with ak Bhedal’s black waistband. “Do you know what we call people like you on Qo’noS? Oh, the Federation probably has lots of names for the likes of you. They would refer to you as demagogues—radicals who are delusional and dangerous. But in my home?” He shook his head. “For us, you’re a source of information, my friend. Nothing more.”
Ak Bhedal still remained silent. Abruptly, Kromm took a swing with his free hand, hitting him hard in the face with a faint crack. Blood trickled out of the Renao’s nose, ran down his cheek and seeped on the pillow. Ak Bhedal didn’t even flinch.
“Where does your pathetic group of fanatics hold my officers captive?” Kromm snarled into ak Bhedal’s left ear.
“Burn in Aoul’s fire!” the Renao cried.
Captain Kromm smiled coldly. “Oh, I will. Without a doubt. But you first.” And he stabbed him.
Somewhere on Onferin
When their kidnappers came to take them, they were prepared—at least Lenissa thought they were. Without any equipment, Jenna Kirk wasn’t able to shut down the energy field that blocked the entrance to their subterranean prison, so they returned to their positions by the wall, put their ropes carefully back in place and pulled the sacks back over their heads—not before they had carefully cut eye slits into them, using the sharp edges of Grakk’s armor. Their hands behind their backs, they waited for the Renao, hoping to attack them when the time was right.
Finally, four Renao came. Lenissa peered through her eye slits. The men were masked with black cloth. She saw one of them shutting down the energy field. They entered and each approached one of the prisoners. None of them had drawn a weapon but they carried pistols of an unknown design in holsters on their belts.
“Who’s there?” Kirk asked, pretending to be frightened.
“Be quiet!” said the man who approached her. “Come.”
Lenissa’s captor grabbed her by her upper arm, hauling her to her feet. As soon as she stood upright, the ropes around her ankles, which were only loosely draped, fell to the ground.
The man made a surprised sound. Lenissa used this brief moment of distraction to bring her hands forward and turn sideways so that his flank was exposed to her. With her right hand, she tore the hood from her head, while she aimed at his throat with her left hand. At the same time, she yanked her leg up, kicking him in the knee from behind. The combined leverage effect made her kidnapper bend his knees while tumbling backward.
Behind her, Lenissa heard a deafening roar when Mokbar attacked his opponent. Beyond that, she didn’t pay any attention to the progress of the other fights and concentrated on her opponent. She faced her staggering kidnapper, striking at his throat for the second time. Much to her annoyance, he wore some sort of scarf around his neck, which softened her blow.
The Renao slammed into the wall. His hand jerked to the holster, drawing the pistol. Just when he wanted to lift his arm, Lenissa moved her left hand fast as lightning, grabbing the pistol’s barrel and pulling it aside. With her right hand, she hammered against the inside of his wrist, disarming the Renao. She wanted to take two steps back to put some distance between her and her opponent, so she could lift the pistol.
Right at that moment, a body slammed into her and she staggered. Hastily, she fired a shot. The glittering blue beam crackled, but missed and hit the stone wall. Taking advantage of the momentum, Lenissa dropped to the ground, rolling backward. When she came up onto her knees, she raised the pistol again.
Very quickly she assessed the situation. One of the Renao was on the ground, motionless. Mokbar had struck him down with all the might of a furious Klingon. The second Renao still wrestled with the infuriated engineer. Her opponent just pushed himself off the back wall of the room, but he was unarmed. The final kidnapper who had thrown Kirk against Lenissa posed the biggest threat. He held his beam pistol in his hands. Before Lenissa managed to pull the trigger, he fired a shot. The stun beam hissed through the room, hitting Jenna Kirk. Her body convulsed and she collapsed.
Lenissa fired a fraction of a second later, cutting down the Renao. The Renao she had been fighting lunged toward his fallen comrade, trying to seize his weapon. He rolled sideways, took aim and fired at the same time as Lenissa. His shot came too quickly, though, and since it hadn’t been properly aimed he missed the Andorian woman by an antennae’s length. Her shot, on the other hand, hit him dead center. This was why she practiced her marksmanship every day on the Prometheus’s holodeck.
We’re going to make it! Lenissa thought.
In the back of the room Mokbar head-butted his opponent who collapsed with a sigh. But at the same time three blue beams hissed into the room from the door, hitting the Klingon in the chest, stomach, and thigh. He howled in agony, threw his arms up in the air and staggered backward before collapsing unconscious.
Three additional Renao stormed into the room, pointing their weapons at Lenissa. “Put weapon down!” one of the men screamed at them in broken Federation Standard. His ruby red eyes glowed like molten lava.
Lenissa glared back at the men. Her antennae jerked forward like daggers as she raised her pistol. For the Prometheus! she thought
and fired.
One of the men fell. The other two fired back. A terrible pain jolted through Lenissa zh’Thiin’s highly strung neural pathways before everything went dark.
* * *
She was rudely awakened by a slap in her face. “Wake up!” a man with a rough voice demanded.
Lenissa squinted against the red light of a miner’s lamp.
Her head felt as if it was about to explode, and a piercing pain seemed to have settled in her chest. She probably had a few fractured ribs. She attempted to move, but soon realized that her arms and legs had been bound again.
Quickly she tried to find her bearings. They were still inside the mining tunnel, but in a more open area this time. Crates had been stacked in one corner, and the remains of some canned dinner had been left on a simple metal table. Kirk, Mokbar, and Grakk were tied up and lay next to her on the ground. More Renao woke them and pulled them to their knees. Unlike Lenissa, the other three had sacks over their heads again, though why they’d bothered with Grakk was anybody’s guess.
One man standing opposite her with a small black box in his hand caught her attention.
Her tormentor, who had masked himself with a cloth again, leaned down to her. “What you did wasn’t very smart,” he said with a noticeable accent. “One of my comrades is dead. You’re going to pay for that, I swear.”
“You also killed one of my comrades,” Lenissa snapped. “And you kidnapped us. What do you expect? That we apologize for our attempted escape?”
“Defiant shrew!” The man hit her over the head, striking one of her antennae. A terrible pain jolted through Lenissa, and she gasped. The Renao could not have known that antennae were the most sensitive body parts of an Andorian. She tried to hide her agony but wasn’t entirely successful, and her opponent noticed it. Surprised, he looked at her. His gaze wandered back to her antennae, and the menacing glow in his eyes intensified. “You’re a coward,” Lenissa spat at him, hoping to distract him. “Hitting someone who is tied up…”
Star Trek Prometheus -Fire with Fire Page 27
