STAR TREK: DS9 - The Left Hand of Destiny, Book One Read online

  ... sitting on the floor of a small wooden hut that shifted back and forth under him with a gentle, swaying motion that made him feel slightly queasy. Outside, through a narrow, jagged doorway, he could see the branches of trees move back and forth, leaves fluttering. Between the branches, there was a blue sky and fluffy white clouds scudding along. He was, he realized, on Earth and he sat on the rough planking floor of the tree house his father had built him when he was eight.

  [119] They had cobbled it together over the course of a spring weekend in the branches of the large maple tree in the Rozhenkos’ backyard. It was meant, Worf realized even then, to be something of a lure for the other children in the neighborhood, a come-on, an excuse to get them to come over and see what the big Klingon boy was doing. And the ploy had been successful, too, up to a point. Several curious boys and girls had come into the yard after the nail pounding and sawing was finished, but had fled again when Worf jumped down from his hiding place brandishing a stout tree branch. His mother tried to explain the other kids’ behavior to him when he had come sulking back into the house, but nothing other children did ever made sense to Worf. He had never played in the tree house again after that and had taken a sad, sick sort of pleasure in watching it decay over the successive years. One late-autumn night when he was in his early teens, a stiff wind had sent the hut tumbling out of the tree to crash on the ground, and Worf’s mother had ordered him to break up the pieces and feed them into the recycler. He had found himself enjoying the work, enjoying the sound of snapping wood and screeching nails, until, quite suddenly, he realized just how much he was enjoying it and stoically forced himself to feel nothing at all.

  But here he was again in the hated (and beloved) tree house. He looked at his hands and found them to be absurdly small and soft-looking, but he felt like his head was exactly the same size and shape as the adult version. He started to reach up, to see how big his forehead ridges were, when he felt the thrumb, thrumb, thrumb of someone climbing the two-by-four ladder his father had pounded into the tree trunk.

  [120] K’Ehleyr, Alexander’s mother, poked her head up above the lip of the small porch, then pulled herself up over the edge. “Hi, Worf,” she said. She wore one of the flamboyant outfits she had always favored, neither completely Klingon nor Terran in design, but a subtle intermeshing of the two. Inappropriately (considering his age), Worf felt himself yearn for her. “How’ve you been?” K’Ehleyr asked as she seated herself before him.

  “I am well,” Worf said, his voice absurdly high and light.

  “No, you’re not,” K’Ehleyr said. “Don’t lie to me. You’re a terrible liar.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I am.” He hadn’t wanted to say that, but Worf found that he had little control over what he said.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And worried that you’re somehow responsible for all this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, get over it,” K’Ehleyr said, tossing her hair back over her shoulders. “You’re not. Believe it or not, this all has very little to do with you. I know that’s going to be hard for you to accept.”

  “No, it’s not ... Things are very rarely about me. Things just happen to me.”

  K’Ehleyr laughed, head thrown back, shoulders shaking. “That’s rich,” she said, wiping her eyes. “The best part is that I know you actually believe that. All those years on the Enterprise, all that time on Deep Space 9, and those things just happened to you. I love it.” She sobered suddenly and then stared at him, seemingly studying his face. “You’re such an idiot. Nothing just [121] happens to you. I doubt very much if there are ten other people in the entire quadrant who have been so often at the center of things as you have in the past, oh, decade or so. Admittedly, in galactic terms, that’s not a long time, but in a Klingon context, it’s epochal.”

  Worf bristled. He didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking.

  Then, as if she had just remembered an old mutual acquaintance, K’Ehleyr asked, “How’s Alexander?”

  Taken by surprise, Worf said the first thing that came to mind. “He’s grown, a soldier of the empire. I was supposed to see him today ... no, yesterday ... but then all this happened.”

  “Do you like him?” she asked with perfect equanimity, as if she were asking what color his eyes were.

  “I ... He ... I love him. He is my son. I am his father.”

  “Yes, well, those two things usually go together. But do you like him?”

  Worf pondered the question for a moment, then admitted, “I do not know him well enough to like him or dislike him. He is much more like you than he is like me.”

  K’Ehleyr seemed pleased by that observation. “Good. I’m glad to hear that. If it’s true, though, why is he a soldier? Couldn’t he be doing something more constructive with his time?”

  “Alexander is serving the empire. We were, until very recently, at war.”

  “We’re always at war,” K’Ehleyr said. “Whether we acknowledged it or not is another issue entirely.”

  “He wishes to serve,” Worf said, but couldn’t help but notice the note of defensiveness in his voice.

  “He wishes to please his father, I think. Next time you see him, ask him what he wants to do to please himself.”

  [122] “I ... All right,” Worf conceded. “I will. But if he says, ‘Be a soldier,’ I will not ask him again.”

  “Fair enough,” K’Ehleyr said, and stood up, brushing nonexistent dirt from her hands. “It’s time for me to go now.”

  “Wait,” Worf said, and stood up, too. The top of his head barely came to the middle of K’Ehleyr’s abdomen. “I have to ask you ...”

  “What?”

  “Why ... why are you here?”

  She seemed surprised by the question, but then smiled and reached out her hand to stroke the hair above Worf’s forehead. “Because I wanted to see you. I wasn’t expecting to see you as a child, but I’m glad I have. You were very cute.”

  “That’s all? You’re not here to ... deliver a message or make a prophecy or offer advice?”

  “I don’t think so. Or, wait ... Maybe I am. I wanted to mention this to you, anyway.” She reached behind her back and, with a big flourish and jaunty smile, as if she were performing a magic trick, pulled a bat’leth out of thin air. She twirled it above her head in a shining arc, then tossed it from hand to hand, twirling the blade as if it were no heavier than a juggler’s tenpin. Then she grasped the blade with one hand, set the end on the point of her finger, and balanced it there while, with her now free hand, she pulled another object from behind her back. It was, Worf saw, an unadorned cup, no more than a clay or ceramic vessel. She twirled it up on her index finger and kept it there, shifting her weight lightly from side to side, both objects swaying in opposition.

  “Would you like one of these?” she asked.

  “What?” Worf asked. “Why would I ... ?”

  [123] K’Ehleyr flipped the cup into the air, kicked it out the door with the side of her foot, then grasped the bat’leth with both hands and swung it down at Worf’s neck. “Wrong answer,” she said.

  Worf woke up.

  Maapek stood before him, having just touched his shoulder with the tip of his finger. “Are you all right, Ambassador?”

  “Yes,” Worf said. “Of course. Just resting my eyes.”

  They went back to work on the communications console. The early evening after the Endless Day (Worf believed that would be the title history would bestow upon the day Morjod destroyed the Great Hall) passed uneventfully. In rotation, most of the crew was even able to rest intermittently. Worf and Maapek worked until the moon rose and Martok ordered them to stop. While Maapek ate and napped, Worf meditated, then ran through some basic mok’bara forms, just enough to work out some of the cramps in his back and neck. He grudgingly had to admit to himself that the years were beginning to catch up with him and he could no longer expect to work all night without fe
eling the effects. Even his meditation had been difficult and broken by disturbing thoughts of his son, who was supposed to have been in the First City when Morjod’s madness began. Worf was uncertain whether his son was strong enough or wily enough to weather the uncertainties and trials he would face if he stayed in the city. He hoped that Alexander would have sense enough to make it to the Federation embassy. Like Worf, Alexander held dual citizenship. His next best alternative would be to lose himself in a crowd and keep quiet about his family affiliation.

  [124] After Worf had broken his fast and cleansed himself as best he could, he joined Martok in front of a low fire where also sat Jaroun, K’Tar’s second-in-command of the Negh’Var and the ranking Defense Force officer. Worf knew little about Jaroun, except that he was large and young and his family had wielded considerable political clout. Both his father and an uncle had been on the High Council, and Worf wondered if either man had been in the Great Hall when Morjod had brought it crashing down. Perhaps Jaroun now was nursing a vendetta or perhaps they had been among the conveniently absent and Jaroun held other ambitions. One way or another, Worf decided, he would have to be watched carefully.

  Maapek also joined them, partly because of his exemplary work and partly because he had seen much of the information Worf was about to divulge and including him would be the best way to convey to him the need for discretion. Worf had few doubts about the communications officer’s loyalties, but there was no such thing as a bad time to impress upon a young officer the importance of keeping his mouth shut.

  As far as Worf knew, Martok had not slept at all, but the chancellor looked more alert than when Worf had called upon him the day before to go to the crew’s celebration. While he had been working, Worf had noticed the general circulating among the fires, working on morale. Being with his warriors was like food and strong drink to him, Worf reflected. The general could sustain himself on loyalty alone.

  “So,” Martok began, stirring the fire with a thin branch and staring into the flames, “tell me who he is. Teach me about my enemy.”

  [125] Worf glanced at Maapek, a shared moment of disquiet, then began: “I wish there were more to tell you. Morjod seems to have successfully kept much of his background off the public and military comnets. They present a general picture of a young warrior and politician who has been making his way up the ranks, but has managed to keep the spotlight shifted elsewhere. The press attributed this to modesty, which they find dull; Imperial Intelligence did not pursue his story because he did not match their model of a potential threat to the government.”

  “Then we can only hope that their leaders were in the Great Hall when it collapsed,” Jaroun grunted.

  Worf paused, pinned Jaroun to the ground with a glare, then continued without comment. “Probing deeper, however, we discovered that Morjod is quite well connected. Maapek pieced together this picture from information found in various public databases.” He turned toward the communications officer, who seemed surprised by the spotlight. It was also, Worf thought, never too late to work on your presentation skills.

  “Uh, we, that is, I found that Morjod won his seat on the High Council by winning a personal combat with one, uh ...” He flicked on his padd and looked up a reference. “... V’Tec, uh, several years ago. Since then, he has used his position to attract a core group of followers to his cause.”

  “Which is?” Martok asked.

  “That is one of the mysteries, Chancellor,” Maapek said, warming to his subject. “It is not clear how Morjod was able to capture such devotion when his cause seemed designed only to appeal to the most conservative elements of Klingon society. He promised an empire free of influence from the Federation and the [126] Romulan Empire, but offered very few specifics about how this could be achieved. He promised a stronger military and a return to ‘the Old Ways,’ though, again, he was short on particulars. In general, he was laughed at by the progressives and ignored by the moderates who were in power.”

  “Even Gowron ignored him?” Worf asked.

  “I never heard his name spoken before yesterday,” Martok said. “And Gowron was distracted by the war.” He twisted the shaft of the twig back and forth in the embers, sharpening the point. “A war we were losing when Morjod won his seat on the council. I begin to understand this man. Go on.”

  Maapek continued: “Over the next two years, Morjod managed to move allies into key positions through canny political maneuvering, reassignments, trials by combat, and assassinations.” He paused, then asked, “Chancellor, do you know the odds of any warrior defeating any other warrior in a trial by combat?”

  Any warrior with political connections knew the answer to the question. “About fifty-fifty,” he responded. “Trial by combat is a poor way to settle an argument. That’s why it is so rare these days unless honor is at stake.”

  “Precisely. And do you know how many of Morjod’s supporters have won their positions in trial by combat?”

  Martok shook his head.

  “Ninety percent,” Maapek said disbelievingly. “And the two who lost, we think perhaps he wanted them to lose. As if someone was getting too popular.”

  “Or was figuring out more than he should,” Worf added.

  “I see,” Martok said, pulling the stick from the flames and rubbing the point against the rough stone floor. “And what factions does Morjod control now?”

  [127] Worf took up that topic. “It is an impressive—and strategically compelling—list.” He handed Martok a padd with detailed specifications for him to study later. “The short answer is everything he needs: worlds, stations, fleets. While the rest of the council was fighting the Dominion War, Morjod built a power base, amassing resources, preparing for the day when he could take control.”

  “And now the day has come,” Martok said, briefly studying the list. A couple of entries made him bare his teeth. “Answer this: Would he have moved this soon if Gowron were still chancellor?”

  Worf was prepared for this question. “Probably sooner,” he said. “If Gowron had remained chancellor, Morjod would probably have destroyed the council and claimed control in the name of winning the war. The change in power probably delayed his plans. If nothing else, he had to conceive of a new tissue of lies.”

  “Ah, yes,” the general said, half smiling. “ ‘Martok the Mongrel and his puppetmaster, Worf.’ You have to admit, as tissues of lies go, it’s compelling. He speaks to people’s fears.” He slashed the glowing point of the stick through the air. “It cuts deep. And how have the people responded to Morjod’s overtures?”

  Martok would not like the answer to this question, but it looked like he already suspected the truth. “It is difficult to know for certain,” Worf began, “since most of the news feeds have been shut down or are being monitored, but it appears as if the Defense Force and Homeworld Security have accepted Morjod as their new leader.” Worf hastened to add, “It’s not clear how deep into the ranks this acceptance goes ...”

  “Stop it, Worf,” Martok said. “You do not need to be [128] concerned with my feelings. I understand what we’re facing. This sort of bold and daring action, it is ... romantic;. It appeals to a warrior’s vanity. Young men believe it is precisely the sort of thing their glorious ancestors might have done, and old men like myself, who should know better, they think it may be their last chance to recapture something they never truly had.” He sighed resignedly and once again thrust the point of the stick into the flame. “No,” he said, “I am very impressed with this strategy. It shows a depth of thinking, a slyness, that goes beyond anything even Gowron might have conceived, and that, my friends, is an accomplishment.”

  Worf was nonplussed. He hadn’t expected this response.

  Martok pulled the stick out of the flame and studied it again. Peering at the point with his one good eye, he continued, “But he is an idiot, a dangerous idiot. First, I don’t believe for a second that the young fool I saw speaking at the Great Hall is the man who arranged all this. He does not possess ... w
hat is the word? ... the genTag, the depth of character. This means someone else is doing his planning for him. Young Morjod is the true puppet, my friends, and our first task will be to find out who his puppetmaster is. Second, you must realize that whoever it is pulling the strings will not stop at taking control of the council and setting up the young fool as emperor. No, whoever it is won’t be satisfied until they’ve remade the empire in their own image. Mark my words: Within the week, Morjod will begin talking of the glory days of expansion, when the sight of a Klingon cruiser on the port bow made Starfleet captains soil their command chairs. ...”

  [129] Jaroun laughed at these words, but the laughter grew hollow when no one joined him. “The risk of his strategy, my fellows in arms, is that,” Martok continued, “the Federation and the Romulans will say, ‘The Klingons have lost their minds,’ or, perhaps, ‘The Dominion has taken control again,’ or some such excuse, and they will come here with many, many starships and when the dust settles ...” He threw the stick into the fire. “There will be no new days of glory under Morjod, my friends. No New Empire. No empire at all, in fact. He will destroy every last vestige of the Klingon soul if he has his way.”

  “Chancellor ...” Maapek began, but Martok waved him to silence.

  “I know what you wish to say,” the general said. “You were expecting me to lead you to some new beginning, weren’t you?” He studied Maapek’s face, then glanced over at Jaroun. “And you, too,” he said. “Ever it shall be when a new leader takes control. Always we say to ourselves, ‘This will be the one. He will tell us what to do, how to act, what we will need to know to be great again.” Martok shook his head. “What is true is that we will have to fight simply to save what we have. Once Morjod is disposed of, we will have much rebuilding to do. No, there will be no New Empire, no return to glory. Morjod has assured that.”

  “Perhaps this is not the best time to discuss such matters,” Worf said, worried about where this topic would take them. Martok steered dangerously close to topics that Worf knew would impact morale.