He leaned back, folding his arms in front of his chest.
“The Bortas is in orbit. We expect to hear from you soon.”
Stunned, Jonah stared at the viewscreen even as the image changed and another music group appeared. Iad? The Son of the Ancient Reds? And all the fury, all the viciousness, all the fanaticism is only the result of being manipulated by a mythical being?
“Either this guy is the biggest liar among the suns,” Banuk said, “or there’s a lot more going on between Onferin and Catoumni than we ever imagined.”
Jonah nodded slowly. “Yeah, it looks that way.”
The Klingon had asked for help to stop the Purifying Flame until the Son had been defeated. Jonah remembered all those incidents in his factory. He would never have dared to investigate them on his own. But suddenly, powerful allies offered their help, and he didn’t need to be afraid with them by his side. It’s a chance, he thought. A chance for a new beginning.
Quickly, he emptied his glass of bri, before getting up to pay his bill. He urgently needed to find a public comm cabin in order to make an extremely dangerous call.
I.K.S. Bortas
“I should be granted a seat on the High Council.” With a satisfied grin, Kromm leaned back in his command chair, once the transmission to Yssab had ended. “Do you agree, Ambassador?” He looked over at Alexander Rozhenko, standing beside him.
Now that they were no longer broadcasting, the Federation’s representative to the Klingon Empire came closer. “Your performance was indeed not too bad,” he admitted. “I thank you for being benevolent enough not to threaten them with brute force, and for letting me write the draft for the speech.” Alexander had had a dispute about this with Kromm before the speech. But in the end, the impulsive Klingon captain had realized that it was more prudent to pose as someone who would help the Renao rather than someone who was their enemy. Because enemies were what the Purifying Flame needed in order to recruit soldiers for their cause.
At least he listened to me for once, Alexander thought. Apparently Adams’s words about all of them being in the same boat, and about Kromm’s chance for glory, had hit home. I wish he had said them earlier. That might have spared us near disasters like Xhehenem.
Had it been up to Alexander, he would have taken over command aboard the Bortas a long time ago. But despite being Martok’s eyes and ears during this mission, his status as Federation diplomat was no more than that of a guest. Doubtful as Kromm’s abilities as a commander might be, the majority of the crew stood behind him. That wasn’t at all surprising, as the Bortas crew—with very few exceptions—consisted of warriors whose careers had reached a dead end one way or the other. No one on Qo’noS or at high command cared much about these men and women. This blemish of being an outsider bound them together.
“Now we need to wait,” L’emka said. Although she was present, she had distanced herself so far from Kromm that she seemed to be merely an observer on the bridge.
That rift will never close again. Alexander hadn’t missed the increasing hostility between captain and first officer. If L’emka was as smart as the ambassador thought she was, she would ask for a transfer as soon as the Bortas finished this mission.
And Kromm would gladly fulfill that request.
The captain stood up from his command chair. “We can’t possibly expect these fools to pick up their comm devices straight away. I’m going to eat. Perhaps someone will have gotten in touch by the time I’ve finished my klongat leg.”
“Captain.” Klarn turned away from his communication station, looking at Kromm. “I have a Renao who claims he has important information for us.”
Stunned, Kromm stared at his communications officer. “That was fast.”
Alexander frowned. “Could it be a trap? Perhaps one of the terrorists wants access to us.”
The Klingon captain grinned menacingly. “We simply beam him aboard. If he carries weapons or explosive charges he’ll find that he won’t be able to do any harm with them here. Klarn, tell him to stand by.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Kromm returned to his chair, hitting the intercom button. “Bridge to transporter room.”
“Brukk here, Captain,” the bekk on duty responded.
“Is it possible to beam someone up from the surface of Yssab? There is no atmospheric interference?”
The bekk fell silent for a moment before replying, “No, Captain. There are heavy storms and bad weather fronts, but nothing the transporter can’t handle.”
“Very good. Lieutenant Klarn will provide you with the coordinates of a Renao man. Lock on and beam him directly to the bridge. Be sure to neutralize any weapons or explosives before he materializes.”
“Understood, Captain.”
With a grim smile, Kromm settled back into his chair. “Rooth.”
The gray-haired security chief stepped down from the tactical station in the back of the bridge. Pulling his disruptor out, he stood next to Kromm. Chumarr remained at the weapons station but also looked straight ahead. The second officer folded his arms in front of his chest. L’emka stood with her hands on her hips.
Alexander shook his head. The poor Renao would be faced with a terrifying welcoming committee. He turned to the captain. “You should leave the conversation to me.”
“Why should I?” Kromm asked.
Because you’re going to scare the poor man so much he probably won’t say anything after all. Rozhenko was not foolish enough to voice that thought, however, instead saying, “Because you’re the captain. It’s beneath you to talk to some low-life informant. That’s why you have men like me who are your voice in these situations.”
Kromm rubbed his bearded chin. “Very well,” he replied, placing his arms on the rests and leaning back in his chair. He gave the impression of a relaxed but very present sovereign on his throne.
With the characteristic reddish flicker of the air, a man materialized in front of them. He was of average height and weight with an oblong face. He wore a black hooded robe that reached down to his ankles. He appeared on the bridge slightly bent forward, the way he had been standing at the comm device.
When he saw what had happened, his eyes widened and he gasped. “What by all the spheres…?”
Alexander approached him, spreading his arms. “Welcome aboard the Bortas. I’m Ambassador Rozhenko, and this is Captain Kromm.” He made half a turn, pointing at the Klingon.
Kromm just growled, glaring at the Renao.
“I’m on the spaceship?” The Renao swayed, looking as if he was about to lose consciousness in shock.
Alexander quickly stepped toward him, supporting him before he fell. “Don’t worry, my friend. It’s all right. You called us and we thought it best to bring you here where it’s safe.” Recalling that the Renao had little experience with transporters, he added, “We have beamed you up from Yssab using our transporter. You don’t have to be scared. The process is completely safe.”
“I… I understand.” Insecure, the Renao looked around. The dark metal architecture of the Vor’cha-class cruiser seemed to spook him. Then again, it might have been the half-dozen grim-looking Klingons.
“What’s your name, my friend?”
“I… My name is Jonah ak Seresh. I’m a logistics expert in a metal processing plant in Kobheni.”
“A man with an overview. Very good.” Alexander smiled encouragingly at ak Seresh, before looking serious again. “You called us because you wanted to give us some information.”
The Renao nodded shyly. “Yes. You know, I… I’m not a traitor. But… but you said that you wanted to help us. You want to cure us from this madness, right?”
“Absolutely.” Rozhenko put his hands on the Renao’s shoulders. “And Klingons are a people who hold honor in the highest respect. Captain Kromm spoke only the truth in his broadcast. But only people who follow their conscience have honor. If your conscience tells you that your people are sick, you will not blemish your honor by helping us do something about
it. Instead, you’ll be proving that you have a vision. Because your information might help us in our campaign to end the needless violence and suffering.”
“Just talk,” Kromm said with a growl. He was obviously growing impatient with the diplomatic approach. “That’s why you’re here.”
“Yes… yes, you’re right.” Ak Seresh cleared his throat. “As I said, I’m working as a logistics expert in a metal processing plant. The owner has changed recently. The new boss is a radical, I’m sure of it. We used to produce all sorts of items in our plant before. But since he’s been there, all we produce are plates for ship hulls. That… that in itself isn’t odd. The majority is being delivered to Onferin, since our only shipyard is there. But I constantly check the cargo lists; that’s my duty. And I’ve noticed that containers keep disappearing.”
Alexander’s ears pricked up at that. “Containers with plates used for starship hulls are disappearing?”
Ak Seresh nodded. “I’m a good employee, so I pointed it out to the owner. After all, it might be organized theft. But they told me in no uncertain terms that I should keep my nose out. The… the boss even ordered me to adjust the cargo lists in case I noticed inconsistencies.”
“Now that is suspect,” L’emka said.
The Renao briefly glanced at her, nodding. “That’s what I thought as well. So I dug a little deeper and found out that Kranaals are taking those containers away at night. That happens every two or three days now. I have no idea where they’re taking their cargo, and eventually I became too scared to investigate further. I have a wife, you know. I don’t want anything to happen to her—or me.”
“Can you tell us when and where these Kranaals will be next time?” Alexander asked.
“I believe the next shipment will be loaded tonight after midnight. I can tell you where, but you have to promise me something first.”
“What?”
“You must take me and my wife away from Kobheni. We’re not safe there any longer.”
Kromm grumbled something from his command chair.
Alexander shot him a quick look of warning before focusing his attention back on ak Seresh.
“That shouldn’t be a problem. Just name a location on Yssab, and we will transport you and your wife there.”
Ak Seresh looked disappointed. “Can’t we stay under your protection while madness rules down there?”
Now Kromm leaned forward. A grim smile played around the corners of his mouth. “You don’t want to be here with us, Renao. Because if your information is worth anything, we will be going immediately into glorious battle.”
23
DECEMBER 1, 2385
I.K.S. Bortas, in orbit around Yssab
The Bortas lay in wait, invisible thanks to its cloaking device. Kromm was pacing his bridge, feeling the frustrating combination of the anticipatory thrill of glorious battle with nagging impatience for the battle to actually start. By now, it was the middle of the night on Yssab. Kromm waited with bated breath for something to finally happen on the perimeter of the container storage area outside the space port in the south of Kobheni.
As promised, they had taken their Renao informant and his mate to a hidden refuge on the other side of the planet that they both recalled from the early days of their courtship. Once he was safely there, ak Seresh had provided the exact location where the Kranaals would be loaded with stolen containers every few nights. During their next orbit, Raspin at ops had had no difficulty locating the small landing area next to the container storage area with his sensors.
If it had been up to Kromm, they would have beamed a company of troops down there in order to break up the secret loading. Rooth had argued convincingly that they would only catch the most insignificant link in the chain of smuggling. It was far better to track the Kranaals to their destination, which had to be somewhere on Yssab considering that the flying vessels were not capable of space travel.
“And if they take the containers to a ship somewhere in the wild beyond Kobheni, it would also be better to follow that ship instead of striking,” Rooth had said. “After all, we’re interested in the destination of these hull plates.”
“Why not simply capture the smugglers and torture them until they talk?” Kromm had asked.
“Why waste time and effort, and possibly only obtain false information, when we can defeat these farmers using strategy?” Rooth had replied.
His plan had convinced Kromm. First, they had sent a second planetwide transmission with Kromm complaining about the lack of cooperation. “You all will regret this!” he had thundered. “We will return!”
After that, the Bortas had left orbit and had gone into warp. Then they had dropped from warp on the periphery of the system, far away from any satellite observation by the Renao, cloaked the Bortas, and returned at full impulse speed.
And now they were in orbit again, not detectable by the Renao’s backward technology, a predator stalking its prey.
Tension lingered in the artificial atmosphere of the Bortas. All warriors were at their posts, keeping a watchful eye on the sensors and communication frequencies, so they wouldn’t miss the terrorists of the Purifying Flame when they finally appeared. Kromm was the only one who didn’t have anything specific to do, so he paced and kept glaring at the viewscreen, where a slightly blurred image showed the nocturnal container park.
But there was no movement.
“I hope this Renao didn’t lie to us,” Chumarr said from the gunnery station. “We could be watching a location with no significance while the fanatics on the other side of the planet frantically clear out their secret base.”
“If a ship leaves the planet, we will know about it,” L’emka said. “The Renao have so little space travel that every vessel should be detectable.”
“What’s more, they don’t know that the Bortas is able to cloak,” Rozhenko said. “As far as they’re concerned—and that goes for all their satellites and possible observation ships—we were furious and left their system. We want them to feel safe. Besides, ak Seresh seemed genuine.”
Kromm grinned. “He seemed to me like someone about to soil himself. Cowardly red-skin.”
Klarn, Chumarr, and Mobok, the new pilot, laughed approvingly.
“He didn’t betray us,” Rooth said. “If he did, he will spend the rest of his life in fear. When we beamed him down to the surface, I told him that I might have marked him with a radionuclide, and that we would find him, no matter where on Yssab he might hide. And if it became necessary for us to find him because he’d betrayed us, we would be very furious.” The security chief cackled. “He very hastily assured me that everything he told us was the truth and nothing but the truth.”
Now it was Kromm’s turn to laugh. It felt good to be in action again, and not having to attend any briefings and talks. Finally free from Federation restrictions, everything suddenly felt much easier, which reflected in the mood among his bridge officers. The only one who wouldn’t join the general good mood was L’emka, but that was to be expected. But her sentiments didn’t bother Kromm anymore. We will fight, and we will be victorious.
“Sir, something’s happening down there,” Raspin reported from ops.
Kromm turned to face the viewscreen. A slender vehicle that seemed to consist only of a frame of welded steel beams and a cockpit that had been placed on top appeared among the containers. The driver didn’t use any external lights, but Bortas' sensors showed him using infrared tracking lasers to maneuver his vehicle in between the containers.
He maneuvered above one of the containers, and a magnetic gripper snagged the cargo. Cautiously, the driver moved his vehicle backward. He placed the container on the flat ground a few meters away from the storage unit.
The driver repeated this process twice until the container stack had been taken down, and the three big metal boxes stood in a line with approximately a dozen meters’ distance between them. Finally, the cargo worker disappeared with his mobile crane-transporter back into the darkness of t
he night.
“There’s our stolen material,” Kromm said. “Presumably, the thieves will be here soon.”
Chumarr asked, “Why don’t we beam a signal buoy into one of those containers? We could follow it easy enough, and I really don’t think that the Renao would notice it. They won’t expect anything like that—especially since the containers will still be sealed on the outside.”
“We shouldn’t take the risk,” L’emka said. “What if their sensors pick up the subspace signal? Even if they don’t know what it means, they might become suspicious and search their containers. Also, what if they open the containers to transfer cargo to other containers? It’s best if we simply observe.”
It pained Kromm to admit that his first officer was right. “We do not need a tracking signal. Either it stays on Yssab and we watch from orbit, or they load it onto a ship and we follow. And if they use a shuttle to fly to a solar-jumper… well, then we’ll have to strike fast and hard. A solar-jumper must not escape under any circumstances.”
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