The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 2 Read online

  “Yeah, but those who do typically are sedated for their own protection.”

  Martok laughed and took up his bowl again, but he appeared to have lost interest in eating. He just wanted something to hold. “How much of the rest of the temple have you seen?”

  “Some,” Pharh said. “There’s a lot to see between here and my room and the kitchen. Mostly small rooms like this one and some larger ones where the katai gather to talk and exercise and eat.”

  “Have you spoken with any of them?”

  “Not much. Even for Klingons, they’re not much for chitchat.”

  “Anything more insightful you want to contribute?”

  “Not really,” Pharh said, then reconsidered. There was a lot to say about the katai, but he wasn’t sure if he possessed the correct vocabulary to describe them. He wanted to say something general like, “They’re very…,” but then he ran out of words. Very what? Calm? Reserved? Dyspeptic? Wait—was that even a word? Possibly not, and probably it didn’t make any sense in the current set of circumstances. Whatever the katai were, Pharh concluded, they were not typical Klingons.

  “Very…?” Martok prompted.

  “Very … good cooks.”

  Martok stared at the empty bowl in his hands and sighed. “Where are we precisely? How far from the other monastery?”

  “Since I’ve never been to this other monastery, it’s difficult for me to say, but I do know we’re deep under a mountain. I had to beam down outside and then be led through kilometer after kilometer of corridors. Doubt if I could make it out again if I had to.”

  “I don’t think that will be a problem,” Martok said, and threw the light blanket off him. In spite of his nakedness underneath, Martok didn’t attempt to conceal himself when he stood. Pharh, on the other hand, very definitely was modest and so almost fell off his chair in an effort to avert his eyes. In the milliseconds before he could do so, however, he was absolutely astonished by the quantity of scar tissue he saw. How can one body sustain so much abuse in one lifetime? he wondered. Martok padded around the small room, opening the few cabinets and the drawers on the single wardrobe, obviously looking for clothing, but finding nothing more than the simple garments that the katai wore.

  “Do you know what they are, Martok? The katai, I mean. I’ve never heard of anything like them before, but maybe they’re one of those Klingon things that outsiders never hear about.”

  “No,” Martok said, slipping a shirt over his head. “I mean, ‘No, they’re not something Klingons keep from outsiders.’ I only heard the word ‘katai’ for the first time a few days ago. Kahless said that my father was one of them. I believe they’ve had a bigger influence on my people’s history than is known, but they wanted their efforts to remain a secret. I’m not sure about this, but if my visions are correct, they’ve been guiding us all along. Either them or some being they serve….”

  “A god?”

  Martok smiled. “Perhaps.”

  “I thought Klingons didn’t believe in gods.”

  “We believe in them,” Martok said, searching under the bed for footwear. “We just don’t fear them and we’ll never serve them.”

  “Not even the really scary ones?”

  “Especially not the really scary ones.”

  Having finished dressing, Martok stood with his hands on his hips and regarded the door. “No one has been down to see me since they brought you here?”

  “No one,” Pharh explained. “They seemed to believe I was your—what was the word?— cratact?”

  Laughing, Martok corrected the pronunciation: “Kr’tach. An ancient word. It means ‘shieldman.’”

  “Like a servant?” Pharh said, not feeling at all uncomfortable if that was the case. There could be worse jobs, he decided.

  “More like ‘companion,’” Martok explained. “The one who carries my shield into battle.”

  “Klingons don’t use shields.”

  “Precisely. So the kr’tach would act as the shield.”

  “Ah,” Pharh said, but did not make any other comment. Inwardly, he thought, Worse job. “Where to now?”

  “Let us find our hosts.”

  “And?”

  “How long did you say we were here?”

  “Can’t be exactly sure. More than two days,” Pharh estimated. “But less than four.”

  “Then,” Martok said, holding up one finger, “in order, we have to find out why Gothmara hasn’t found us.” Second finger: “What happened to Kahless?” Final finger: “And where is Worf?”

  * * *

  “This isn’t an EVA suit,” Ezri Dax complained. “This is a personal, armored biosphere.” Despite warnings that she should not, Ezri kept pressing buttons and switches that activated various defensive or offensive systems. Worf and Alexander had deactivated the most destructive and unpredictable systems, but she continued to find knives, concealed disruptors, throwing weapons, grapples—the usual sort of things one might find in a potentially hostile environment. Was it the Klingon species’ fault if they had routinely discovered more hostile environments than their Federation friends? Worf thought not, and he had always considered Starfleet suits to be woefully-equipped. Recalling the encounter with the Borg on the hull of the Enterprise during their jaunt back to the twenty-first century, Worf remembered how glad he was that he had made special modifications to his suit.

  “Be glad you’ll have the protection,” Alexander said soothingly. “And don’t touch that switch. Especially if you’re going to point it at me.”

  “Why?”

  “Just don’t. You’ll regret it. I’ll regret it.”

  Worf was pleased to see that his son got along so well with Ezri. They seemed to enjoy the sort of loose, relaxed banter that Worf had seen many of his Federation colleagues share over the years, but which he had been comfortable with only on rare occasions. Briefly, during a moment of light banter, he even found himself wondering if there might be some romantic attraction between the pair (Worf still couldn’t accept that Ezri was currently involved with a man who played with toys), but then came the insight that Ezri was, in a sense, Alexander’s stepmother. Concluding that his family life was more complex than anything he could have ever possibly imagined, Worf decided to focus on saving the empire, a decidedly more straightforward task.

  Fitting the admittedly massive helmet onto the suit’s locking collar, Ezri’s knees almost buckled. “Can we lower the gravity in here?” she asked.

  “Unlike Federation craft, Klingon cruisers are built to be simple and resilient,” Alexander explained. “A ship this size does not have area gravity controls.” He said this without pride, but merely as one conveying information.

  “That’s right,” Ezri said. “You spent several years aboard the Enterprise, didn’t you?”

  “The D, yes. It was my home for almost three years.”

  “Have you seen the latest incarnation, the E?”

  Alex smiled. “Yes. She looks like a hawk, a predatory bird. My Enterprise was more like a big, friendly fish.”

  Ezri laughed, especially when she turned and saw what she had to assume was an appalled expression on Worf’s face.

  “A fish?” he asked.

  Obviously embarrassed and worried that he had hurt his father’s feelings, Alexander attempted to explain. “When I was a boy, I heard the human story of Pinocchio and the whale who swallowed the boy and his father and then they lived in his belly for many years. Is that how it goes?”

  Ezri shook her head. “I have no idea. Worf?”

  Worf had no idea either.

  “In any case, whenever I saw pictures of Enterprise, I thought she looked like a big, happy whale, and my father and I lived inside its belly.”

  “Did you like it?” Ezri asked as she lifted the helmet off and handed it to Alexander.

  “Very much. It was a fine place to live, though looking back I can hardly believe we were allowed.”

  “‘We’?” Ezri asked. “You mean you and your father?�
��

  Alexander was puzzled. “What? Oh, wait, I understand. No, not ‘we’ my father and me, but the children. All my friends. It was a different time then, a different galaxy. Can you imagine having children on a starship now, even though the war is over?”

  Ezri considered the question carefully, then replied, “No, not really, though there are plenty of families on DS9. I see children every day. But on a starship? No.” She turned to Worf and asked, “Airlock or transporter?”

  “Beaming into an area impregnated with kelbonite makes transport risky. The beam could be deflected and the signal lost.”

  “Lovely. Then airlock. Where’s the closest one?”

  “This way,” Worf said, and led them out of the prep room. Before he left, he picked up a device about the same size and shape as a walking stick with a bulbous top. “Take this with you. It’s an isolinear transponder. Using it, even in the kelbonite field we will be able to beam you back to the Rotarran.”

  “Good,” Ezri said. “Zero g was never one of my strong points at the Academy.”

  On the short walk to the airlock, Worf fell behind the pair as Ezri resumed her conversation with Alexander. “The Enterprise may visit the station someday,” she said. “You should try to arrange to be there if that happens.”

  “If the opportunity ever arises,” Alexander said. “Assuming we resolve our current difficulties. There are several people I would like to see again: Commander Data and Captain Picard, and Deanna Troi, of course.”

  Ezri appeared to search her memory. “That’s right. You were all very … familial for a time, weren’t you?”

  Alexander looked away from Ezri and his voice lost some of its assurance. “Yes,” he said finally. “For a time.” He glanced over his shoulder back at Worf, then back at Ezri. “It’s not my tale to tell.”

  “Whatever you think is best …” Ezri began, but Worf interrupted.

  “Alexander,” he said. “It was your life, too. Of course it is your tale to tell.”

  “I only meant that I did not wish to presume …”

  “You have not,” Worf said. “You have never been anything less than considerate and respectful.”

  Alexander stopped in midstride and regarded Worf carefully. He remained silent for several seconds, then said, “Thank you, Father.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ezri looked up at both of them in wonder and said, “Are you sure you two are Klingons?”

  “Would you prefer that we hit each other?” Worf asked. “Because we could if it would make you feel better.”

  “We would do that for you, Ezri,” Alexander said, grinning. “If you’d like.”

  Shaking her head, Ezri continued down the hall toward the airlock. “I think I need to go outside. Everyone on this ship is losing their minds.”

  Alexander shrugged. “We’re Klingons,” he said, as if that was an explanation, which, in fact, it was.

  * * *

  “Do you see it?” Worf asked through the comlink in her helmet.

  “I see the comet’s tail,” Ezri answered, wondering how many times she was going to have to answer the same question. “Which I’m heading toward. When I get close enough, no doubt I’ll see the sword.” Part of the problem with traveling in zero g was that it was difficult to know how fast you were going without a reference point. The ship had matched the comet’s speed, about seventy-one meters per second, and had imparted that speed to her when she left the airlock, but Ezri needed to go faster still or she wouldn’t be able to cross the gap between ship and comet. She touched the control stud on her wrist, and the thruster pack punched her in the back as the chemical jets flashed.

  Flecks of ice and dirt clinked and splattered against the helmet’s faceplate as she moved in behind the comet, and Ezri suddenly felt very grateful for the heavy EVA suit. Without a forcefield, a Federation EVA suit would have been cut to ribbons by the high-speed microscopic dust.

  She steered herself toward the outer edge of the comet tail where the debris thinned out and checked her velocity. Shooting past the sword wouldn’t do any good, especially since reducing speed depleted the chem jets as much as acceleration would—and the pack had a limited fuel supply. Sensors were useless this close to the comet’s tail, so all she had to work with was her own two eyes. Sweeping the powerful wrist lamp back and forth, she looked for something shiny or glinting, but quickly discovered the problem with looking for a metal object in an ice field: everything was shiny and glinting. It was, she decided, like standing inside an avalanche that had been suspended in time; ice crystals and specks of dirt danced in formation around her, but did not tumble past. A silver-gray cloud of motion enveloped her, but nothing truly moved.

  “Ezri?” Worf’s voice boomed into her ears.

  Ezri felt herself jolt awake. “What?” she said too loudly.

  “Do you see it?”

  The trance had crept up over her so insidiously she had barely felt it. Ezri squeezed her eyes shut, but still felt sparkling lights dancing behind them. “No,” she said. “Everything is the same color and nothing has an edge. It’s like looking at a fractal diagram.” Her suit’s sensors could not be tuned to scan for metal composition, but perhaps a different index of refraction? First touching three controls on her wrist, she then moved her arm in a regular pattern before, above, and below herself. The tiny HUD on the inside of her helmet flashed and she grinned. “Found it,” she said.

  “Where?” Worf asked, his voice tense with excitement.

  “Below me about three hundred meters, very close to the main body.”

  “Good. That will help you maintain a fix.”

  “Which I’ll need because I’m going to be blind.” She fed the coordinates to the jet pack’s computer and let it calculate the optimum burn rate. “This is a one-way trip, right?”

  “We have a lock on the transponder,” Alexander said.

  “All right. I’m going in.” The chem jets fired again and Ezri moved forward, though she had no sensation of movement. To her, it seemed like the cloud of ice crystals parted before her and swallowed her up. There was a word for this, she knew, an expression she had heard in one of her lives. What was it? And then she remembered: “whiteout.”

  Ezri sliced through the comet’s tail toward the Sword of Kahless. Just as the silver curtain closed behind her, she heard Worf’s voice simultaneously rise and fade. He was shouting something about a ship— “Off the starboard bow …” —but the kelbonite consumed the signal, leaving Ezri entirely alone.

  * * *

  “It’s the Chak’ta,” Alexander called. “And two birds-of-prey decloaking off our stern.”

  Worf shouted, “Full spread of torpedoes! Fire!” The weapons officer responded instantaneously and Alexander watched the sensor displays intently.

  “Two hits!” he called. “One ship has been disabled. The other …” He watched the statistics crawl up the screen. “Damage to their secondary hull, but still functional.”

  “The Chak’ta?” Worf asked.

  “Is powering up her main disruptor. Should be at full power in twenty-five seconds.”

  “Shields to full,” Worf said. “Evasive action, but stay between Chak’ta and Ezri.”

  Leskit glanced over his shoulder at Worf in disbelief. “How can I…?”

  “Do it!” Worf snarled, and Leskit turned back to the nav console.

  Gravitational forces too great for the inertial compensators to overcome pressed Alexander first to port, then starboard as Leskit took the Rotarran through a series of severe turns. They had less than twenty seconds to disable a heavy cruiser. The only reason any of them were still alive was that the Chak’ta could not have powered her weapons before decloaking. But how had Morjod found them? A question for later, Alexander decided as he checked the sensors, assuming they survived. “Chak’ta is attempting weapons lock,” he reported.

  “His escorts?”

  “Neither is moving. The damage to the second ship must be more severe than
I thought.”

  “Or perhaps the crew is taking the opportunity to stay out of the battle,” Worf said, then turned to communications, the station manned by Ortakin. “Any sign of Ezri?”

  “Nothing,” Ortakin snapped.

  “Disruptor lock!” Alexander shouted.

  “Hard to port!” Worf ordered. Leskit obeyed instantly and the bolt only grazed their starboard port shield. “Excellent!” Worf shouted. “Bring us around for a pass.”

  “We cannot damage their shields, Father,” Alexander said. “The Chak’ta is too large a prize for us.”

  “I know, but we have to give them a reason to stay away from the comet.”

  “Do you think they know Ezri’s out there?”

  “We cannot let them stop to think about it,” Worf said, “one way or another.”

  * * *

  Here, her sensors told her. Right here in front of you.

  But Ezri couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see anything, let alone a bat’leth. Reaching out carefully into the silver-white field, she swept her hand back and forth in slow arcs, fearful that striking the blade would send it spinning off into a new, unknown trajectory. Worse, the suit’s gauntlets had poor feedback receptors, so it was difficult to tell even when she was touching something.

  She touched a control, the chem jets burped, and she moved forward half a meter. Swinging wide from the shoulder, Ezri moved more recklessly, worried about her fuel supply, worried about her air supply, worried about what was happening outside the corona of the comet. How long had she been inside?

  The HUD flashed an emergency signal. Outside the corona a massive amount of energy had just been expended. The suit’s computer analyzed the energy source, estimated its current location, and suggested several methods for eliminating it—dependable Klingon AI routines—then warned that a shock wave moved toward her. Before she could find the Klingon suit’s emergency controls, a gigantic hand slapped her in the back of the head and she fell forward, tumbling through the icy mix.

  * * *

  Rotarran rolled to port and the weapons officer released a volley of torpedoes. All of them exploded harmlessly on the Chak’ta’s shields, but, as Worf had planned, they now had the cruiser’s undivided attention. He tapped a set of coordinates into the navigational computer and instructed Leskit to make for them. Banking hard, Rotarran skipped over Chak’ta, leaving a trail of aquamarine energy emissions where their shields met. The larger ship opened fire with all of her flank guns, but Leskit maneuvered too fast and, besides, knew the cruiser’s standard firing patterns. He could dance in and out of the fire for the rest of the afternoon if he wanted to. Besides that, Worf could not escape the feeling that Chak’ta’s crew was not trying as hard as they could. Do they wish for us to escape so they can follow, or is this a subtle rebellion against Morjod?