The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 2 Page 10

  “SIRELLA!” he cried out as the Orantho rammed the light cruisers flanking the Chak’ta.

  On impact, a fierce explosion ripped through Orantho, torpedoes exploding in their tubes, and her bow section tearing away at the joint where it met the main hull. Now inertia’s toy, the bow section spun up against the Chak’ta’s shields and rebounded into space. Cut off from its brain, the remainder of the hull became nothing more than a careening hulk. Her engines flared, then died, and she began a slow, inexorable slide into the first cruiser’s underbelly. No shield generators or repulsion devices could withstand the kilotons of pressure, and the cruiser’s hull plating gave way in a spectacular shower of sparks and released atmosphere. A critical energy conduit was severed and the cruiser died on the spot.

  The pilot of the second cruiser must have had enough warning or preternaturally sharp reflexes, because he was able to shift the bow of his craft away from the straining Orantho, but fate was not kind to him despite his skills. A stray torpedo from one of the ships—it was impossible to say which—detonated less than a ship’s length from her bow. The force of the explosion ripped through the hull plating and surged down the superstructure into the engineering hull and out through the engine manifolds. Martok recognized the chain reaction from other battles and knew that even as he watched, the engineering section was being flooded with coolant that would race down the unshuttered ventilation system. Anyone still alive on the ship would be dead in minutes, its interior a contaminated ruin.

  But luck was with the Chak’ta and her master that day. Possibly with intent, but more likely without knowing what they were doing, the shifting courses of both the cruisers blocked the force of the explosions. Chak’ta’s engines glowed brightly as she strained to pull away and Martok watched as the ship disappeared behind a cloud of glittering dust and debris.

  Martok looked down at his hand and saw that his hand still hovered over the Engage button. If he pushed it now, he might find his way through the wreckage, might be able to pin Chak’ta on the spike of his bow like a boy spearing a fish.

  You might, a voice taunted him, but your vision isn’t what it once was, husband. If you miss, what then?

  She was dead.

  He kept waiting for something to die inside him, for his heart to harden like stone and to crash down in his chest, to crush him from inside, but the damnable thing kept pounding. Sparks danced before his eyes, then the monitor darkened as the Orantho’s engines surrendered to the inevitable and consumed themselves.

  He had always assumed, however foolishly romantic the notion, that when she died, he would know it, feel her loss within himself; his body would then die of its own volition, being severed from the very force that gave it life. But, here he stood, alive—though it was not possible that he live without her.

  “General,” the comm officer called. “The Ya’Vang hails us. Your son requests pursuit of the—”

  Martok snapped his head around. Drex, the fool. He’ll want to attack.

  “Tell him to go to warp if he can,” Martok shouted. “Darok? Has it been three minutes?”

  “As of … now, yes.”

  Martok looked back down at the Engage button. Tempting, so tempting. I can be with you this day, my lady, he thought longingly. But she would berate him for cowardice, accuse him of abandoning his duty to the empire and leave him, a lone man at the gates. He would rather endure eternity in Gre’thor than roam Sto-Vo-Kor without Sirella.

  He wiped out the command and plotted a new course. “Drex will follow us,” he ordered. “Contact the B’Moth and feed them the rendezvous coordinates, but instruct them to take a different route.” He touched the controls to engage the engines and felt the inertial compensators gasp as the engines ground up to warp nine.

  Having escaped the overload from the exploding ships, the monitor blinked on again and Martok found himself staring at a streaming tunnel of stars. “Is Ya’Vang behind us?”

  “Yes.”

  “B’Moth?”

  “As ordered,” Darok said, “but following a different course.”

  “Anyone else?”

  Darok paused long, long, too long, as if he was searching for something that wasn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t be there. Finally, he said, “No, Chancellor.” Then more quietly, barely audible above the sparking, chiming, and clattering, “Nothing. Nothing is there.”

  Martok lowered his face into his hands and counted the beats of his pulse in his ears, waiting for his breath to stop, his heart to cease pumping, but it kept going on and on. It shouldn’t be true if she’s gone, he thought, and felt the merciless bite of hope. The bridge section spun away. She might have found an EV suit before the atmosphere escaped. She could still be there. “Alert the Ya’Vang,” he called to the com officer. “Tell them I’m turning back.”

  “Belay that order,” a new voice called.

  “WHAT?!” Martok leapt out of his chair and spun around in midair to face his challenger.

  Kahless stood before him, half the hair on the right side of his head seared away and a bloody stain oozing down over his cheek. His tunic was torn and charred and he cradled his arm against his body. Behind him, Pharh stood hunched over against a bridge rail, pale and gasping for breath.

  “You dare—?” Martok shouted, arms flung wide. “Get off my bridge, old man! You do not rule here!”

  Shaking his head, then wincing in pain from the movement, Kahless said only, “No, I don’t.”

  Deflated, Martok lowered his arms, saying, still angry, “We have to return to search for survivors.”

  Kahless shook his head. “There are no survivors, Martok. I watched—everyone watched—from the engine room.”

  “Sirella might have …”

  “No,” Kahless said with finality, and suddenly Martok recognized why Worf still considered this vat-grown relic to be the emperor of the Klingon Empire. When he wanted it to, his voice had a depth, a quality that could not be denied. “No one could have survived it. Your lady died to save you. If you honor her memory, you must not throw away her sacrifice on a foolish hope.”

  “But …” Martok stammered. “But … I do not feel any different. If she was gone, I would know it. I would know….”

  Kahless reached out and touched Martok’s hand, and he felt something like a father’s gentle reassurance creep up his arm. “She isn’t gone, Martok. She is a part of you and you cannot be separated any more than I can ever be separated from my Lukara. But you will see her no more in this life. Lady Sirella is dead. Mourn her when you can, but what you would now do does not honor her memory.”

  Flicking a glance over at the comm officer, the sole functioning member of the bridge crew, Martok hissed only, “Cancel the order.” Then silence filled the bridge as Martok grappled with his seething emotions.

  “Martok?” Pharh asked quietly. “Is there anything we can do here?”

  “Check for life signs,” Martok replied. “Take the living to sickbay. The dead …” He looked around the smoky, rubble-strewn bridge and grimaced. “The dead we will mourn … when we have time.”

  * * *

  Hours later, when the bridge was cleared of casualties and the worst of the damage was addressed, Martok called his son.

  “Captain B’Tak is dead,” Drex explained. “I have assumed command.”

  Martok had already learned this from the casualty reports, but his son’s composure surprised him. He had expected to find Drex frothing at the mouth, ready to pursue Morjod with every ounce of strength left in his body. Instead, here was a calm, determined, even dignified ship’s captain. What had happened to Drex on Qo’noS after the Negh’Var had been destroyed? Martok realized he had not had the opportunity to ask and neither was he likely to anytime in the near future.

  “Very well,” Martok said. “And as captain, I have your first task ready for you.” He clicked a control on the arm of his chair and transferred a data file to Drex’s console. “Darok has tapped into one of the Defense Force networks and d
etermined what happened to Ngane’s fleet. The ships we faced were the only ones Morjod was able to find or persuade to join him. Possibly Ngane told the others to flee before he was taken.”

  “The general would do such a thing,” Drex said. “I was assigned to his ship when I was an ensign. He was a great commander.”

  “Something else to avenge, then,” Martok said coldly. “The data I transmitted indicates their last known coordinates. Once we find them, we will go to Boreth. Engage cloak and go to warp eight.”

  Drex studied the data, then nodded. “Very well, Chancellor. A worthy plan. Will the Rotarran know where to find us?”

  “We determined that whoever arrived first in the Boreth system would set a beacon and wait. Worf knows this.”

  “Then I will get under way,” Drex said, turning away from the monitor.

  “Wait! Drex!”

  The captain of the Ya’Vang turned back to look at him. “Yes, Chancellor?”

  Martok struggled to find the words. “Your mother … She died bravely….”

  A tiny crease appeared in a fold of muscle between Drex’s eyes. “Of course she did, Father. She was incapable of less.”

  Again, Martok found himself at a loss for words and again he was surprised at his son’s composure. When did he become this man? He gathered his resources and said, “She was very proud of you, my son. She would be even more proud of you now.”

  A flicker of emotion fled across Drex’s features. He closed his eyes and touched his forehead lightly with the tip of one finger. “Thank you, Father. I will try to honor her pride in me.”

  “I know you will, Drex. Qapla’, Captain.”

  “Qapla’, Chancellor.”

  Martok turned away from the monitor, half expecting to see Kahless and Pharh there again, but they were not. Kahless’s injuries, though not life-threatening, were severe enough to require rest. Pharh had wanted only to return his room to have, he said, “a quiet nervous breakdown.” Good. Martok didn’t want anyone following him around, least of all a Ferengi.

  Darok still manned the tactical station. He hadn’t left the bridge since the battle, not even to procure a cup of bloodwine to soothe his nerves. “Find someone to take your station, old man. We both need rest, and I suspect you could use a drink.”

  “And not you?” Darok asked. “We could drink to her.”

  Martok shook his head. “I will not again drink wine until I am toasting Sirella over Gothmara’s corpse.” He sighed. “Besides, wine brings dreams. I do not wish to dream.”

  “Ever again?”

  Looking around the bridge at all the unfamiliar faces, Martok reflected that this was not the conversation to be having under the circumstances. “Not right now, in any case.”

  Nodding wearily, Darok submitted the call for a relief officer as Martok strode heavily toward the elevator. “I will be in my quarters if I am needed,” the chancellor said.

  “Of course you will,” Darok said, but it was obvious from his tone that he did not entirely believe this was true.

  * * *

  The shuttle did not have a name, because Klingons rarely named small craft. When he had been stationed on Deep Space 9, Martok had been surprised to learn that all the Federation runabouts were named and doubly surprised that they were named for anything as quixotic as rivers. Still, now that he was aboard the small ship and guiding it out the Ch’Tang’s hangar door, he found himself wishing to name it, so, in his heart, he named the shuttle after his daughter, Shen.

  Ever since she had been young enough to walk, his middle child had wanted nothing except to fly. One of the lucky few for whom a passion was also a gift, Shen had been an outstanding pilot from her first day in a craft. Martok had pushed her to make a name for herself as a pilot of high-performance experimental ships, but she had decided she could best serve the empire behind the controls of a fighter. Sirella had once told her husband that their daughter had not wanted anyone to think she had been given a prestigious assignment because of her father’s influence, which would have undoubtedly been the case if she had done as Martok wished. “She is happy if she is flying,” Sirella had said. “That is all you need to know.”

  Bowing to his wife’s superior knowledge, Martok had given in.

  And now Shen was dead, her entire wing destroyed by Morjod in the purge of Martok’s House. Then, unexpectedly, the image of a faceless young woman wearing a charred fighter pilot’s uniform flitted through his mind. The vision came on Martok so suddenly that his hands shook on the panel and the hangar’s guidance system momentarily took control of the shuttle and nudged him out the door.

  What was that? he wondered. And why was he left thinking about the last time he had celebrated a birthday with Shen? She had been little more than a child. A cadet, he thought. He remembered the cadet’s uniform.

  Clear of the hangar, Martok engaged the cloak and sped away at top speed. Sighing with relief, he fed Boreth’s coordinates into the autopilot controls and settled back into his seat. He was on his way. Come what may, once again he had no one to take care of except for himself. Drex would find Ngane’s fleet and guide them to Boreth. In the meantime, he would investigate. Prowl around. Perform reconnaissance in preparation of their arrival. He had never considered himself in the role of a spy, but there was a first time for everything.

  The door to the shuttle’s rear compartment slid open and Martok spun around in his chair. Pharh nonchalantly stepped into the pilot’s bay holding a bowl of some kind of steaming stew in one hand and a spoon in the other.

  “Hey, guess what? I finally found something Klingon I like!” He showed the bowl to Martok.

  “That’s borscht,” Martok said. “A human dish. Worf programmed it into the replicator database the last time he served on the Ch’Tang.”

  “Oh. I figured being this color it had to be Klingon.”

  “You’re not the first to comment on that,” Martok said, sighing. “Pharh, what are you doing here?”

  “Where are we going?” Pharh asked, ignoring him.

  “I’m going to Boreth. You are about to be jettisoned.”

  “I think not,” Pharh said, picking at a beet. “You need me. I’m your lucky charm. And, besides, I wouldn’t survive a day on that ship without you there. That’s why I decided to hide here. Just in case.”

  “What about Kahless? He’d protect you.”

  Pharh shuddered. “Even for a Klingon, he’s kind of crazy. That’s why I like you. No matter what happens, I feel like I always know exactly what you’re going to do.”

  “I cannot tell you how reassuring I find that.”

  “I know. See? I’m your good-luck charm.”

  Martok saw that there was no escaping this fate. Acquiescing, he lowered the seat back and shut his eye. “I’m going to take a nap now.”

  “Okay.”

  “And you are going to be quiet.”

  “Okay.”

  “And eat with your mouth shut.”

  “O… Um, I’ll do my best.”

  The sounds of eating diminished slightly. Martok felt himself sinking into the chair, the pull of gravity on his tired muscles growing stronger with every passing second. Just as awareness faded, he heard Pharh say, “Martok?”

  “Yes, Pharh?”

  “Sorry about your wife. She was kind of scary, but … well, she wasn’t crazy, either. You two made a good couple that way.”

  Breathing in slowly, then releasing it, Martok said, “Thank you, Pharh. Now shut up.”

  And that was all he remembered until they reached Boreth.

  10

  Five heads lay in a row on the floor under Chak’ta’s main bridge monitor. Morjod had put them there to give him something to look at other than the stars hurtling past. He knew that, as captain, he could have ordered the monitor turned off, but he had somewhere formed the idea that the bridge monitor should show stars, so stars it was.

  Unfortunately, Morjod did not like stars, especially moving stars. Looking up at a stil
l night sky was fine. Moving stars were unnatural. He was no fool: he recognized that the ship moved, not the starscape, but drew no comfort from that knowledge. His distress had begun in childhood when he had frequently traveled the spaceways with his mother. One night, Morjod had formed the fancy that the little white and gold blobs of light stared down at him, as though they had a destiny planned for him. When he had told his mother of this fancy, she had replied, “Of course they have plans for you. Magnificent plans.” Morjod had not understood her meaning. Panicked, he had fled and hid in a small cupboard in their quarters for the better part of a day. Strangely enough, when his mother finally came to find him, she had seemed to know precisely where he was.

  Ever since that night, stars had made him… uneasy.

  Decapitated heads, on the other hand, made everyone else uneasy, and didn’t bother Morjod at all. It hardly seemed fair that he suffer alone. If spaceflight made him irritable and anxious, his crew would also be irritable and anxious.

  Morjod looked around the bridge at all the fearful little creatures and indulged in an idle mental game: if he were going to remove a head, whose would he take? Most of Ngane’s command crew were dead. When he had taken the Chak’ta, he had brought a squad of warriors handpicked by his mother; those should not be touched. One or two were old Defense Force hands, men and women of negotiable loyalty. A few of them were possible candidates, though, again, Morjod resisted the impulse. Alas, he’d found it necessary to keep a few of the Chak’ta’s crew alive to maintain some critical ship’s functions that none of his specially selected men understood or cared to learn. He had so longed to finish off the rest of Ngane’s warriors, especially now as he watched them skulk around his bridge.

  Martok’s escape was all the more frustrating for just this reason. Capturing his father’s ship would have given him more to choose from. Before he left to find Ngane, his mother had said he could take Sirella’s head if he wanted and, oh, how he had wanted to…. Back in the cell, back on Qo’noS, Sirella had talked to his mother about Morjod like he was a boy, like she understood him, if such a thing were possible.