The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 2 Page 16

  Worf glanced at Ortakin, who, despite being head down over the com board, seemed to sense the attention and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “No signal.”

  “Transporter lock still good,” Alexander reported without being asked. One of Chak’ta’s gunners got lucky and Rotarran shuddered. “Aft shields down twenty-five percent. And that was just a graze, Father.”

  Worf nodded and fed new coordinates to Leskit. Should they pick up Ezri whether or not she signaled? What could she be doing? Sightseeing? What was taking so long?

  * * *

  Someone had punched her in the stomach very, very hard. Bright red lights flashed before her half-closed eyes and someone was shouting at her in Klingonese to wake up. One of Curzon’s memories intruded: He was a young man and had gotten involved in a fistfight with a Klingon, a matter of honor over—typically—a young lady he had never met before. Curzon was down on hands and knees, his ears ringing, his nose smashed into pulp by a single punch, and Kor was shouting at him to get up, get up! A large shadow blocked out the light and Curzon sensed a large boot headed for his midsection, which would account for why his ribs already ached so badly, except, wait, no … He was Ezri now. Ezri’s midsection hurt. Someone had kicked her. Someone shouted at her.

  Ezri opened her eyes and said “Shut up” in Klingon. The angry voice stopped in midword. She was snow-blind, so she shut her eyes and tried to make sense of what had happened. Something hit me—a shock wave from an explosion. She opened her eyes, checked the status indicators on her suit. Not optimal, but at least manageable.

  Carefully, to avoid dislodging herself, Ezri waved her arms around slowly and found that she was wrapped around a long metallic object. The shock wave must have shoved her here. Then she realized what held it in place.

  The comet.

  Moving ever so slowly, fearful of slashing her suit open, Ezri traced the length of the sword. Three-quarters of the way down, she found the point embedded in the frozen surface of the comet body. Silently damning the Klingons for the lack of proper feedback circuitry in the gauntlets, she poked at the sides of the bat’leth until she found the grips. Slipping her bulky fingers inside them, Ezri twisted herself around until her feet were em-bedded in the frozen slush, then tugged.

  * * *

  “Anything?” Worf roared over the roar of frying electronics. Chak’ta’s gunners had clearly found some inspiration.

  “Nothing,” Ortakin said. A wound in his left arm bled profusely and he was applying pressure with his right arm, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off the communications console.

  “Lock is stable,” Alexander called, “but we’ll have to drop shields when it’s time to beam her in.”

  Rotarran’s deck bucked and swelled under Worf like a straw cottage in an earthquake. Ortakin leaped from his chair milliseconds before one of the panels on his console blew out. The circuit breakers kicked in before a fire could take hold.

  “Not a problem anymore,” Alexander yelled.

  “No lock?” Worf shouted.

  “No shields.”

  * * *

  “This would probably be easier if my ribs didn’t hurt so much,” Ezri hissed between clenched teeth. Her left foot skidded out from under her, but she did not release her grip on the bat’leth. If she fell off the face of the comet, she would never be able to find her way back. Resetting her foot, she tried wiggling the blade back and forth in the frozen snow. Frozen… she thought.

  “Ezri tapped her gauntlet and called up an inventory of her suit’s equipment on her HUD. “Come on,” she whispered. “I saw you here earlier … there you are!” Hitting the proper controls, a laser torch suddenly deployed from her forearm.

  Ezri reset her feet so that her legs were spread as widely as she could manage inside the suit. “Well,” she concluded as she took aim and activated the laser, “if I lose a foot, I’m sure Julian can get me a new one.”

  * * *

  “Find her, Alexander,” Worf said.

  “I have her, Father,” Alexander said. “I think.”

  “You think? For the past fifteen minutes, you had a lock, but now you think?”

  “There’s interference.”

  “From the kelbonite?”

  “Something else,” Alexander said. “High-energy source. Laser, I believe.”

  The comet body was right in front of the Rotarran, its trail of icy crystals and gray dust flowing behind. Chak’ta perched right behind them, its main gun powering up for the killing blow. Now or never, Alexander thought. Come on, Ezri. Let’s go. We have to go.

  “A laser?” Worf asked. “On a comet? If she hits a pocket of frozen oxygen …”

  A brilliant purple spike blossomed on Alexander’s sensor display. The transporter console beeped at the same second Ortakin called, “Here she comes!”

  Just before he activated the transporter, Alexander glanced up at the main monitor and saw that the comet now moved in a corkscrew spiral where once it had been moving in a smooth, straight line. Above it arched Ezri Dax, trailing a cloud of dust and debris of her own. In her hand, she grasped a metallic arc that captured and released the glory of the stars.

  * * *

  Ezri Dax disappeared in the glitter of a transporter beam and Rotarran slid into a warp space like a diver into deep water.

  Behind her, Chak’ta paused only a moment to trace her quarry’s path, set her course, and followed.

  14

  Footprints.

  If someone had reported that a ship had dropped down out of the sky, scooped up Martok, and carried him away into the clouds, she would be disturbed, but not as much as this disturbed her. If someone had witnessed Martok ascend bodily into the heavens with the aid of nothing more than tiny wings that had sprouted from his ankles, that would have disturbed her, but not as much as this.

  Footprints.

  For the better part of the past two days, her patrols had swept the area, checked every centimeter of the cliff face searching for Martok, but all they had found was a pair of dead Hur’q and then, ten hours ago, a new report: almost-filled footprints in the snow. If the storm had lasted for another hour, two at the most, there would have been nothing, no footprints, and she would—Gothmara admitted it to herself if no one else—have felt some anxiety, some uneasiness, but would have only assumed that the body was buried. Sensors were, after all, almost useless on Boreth because of the cold.

  But this—this was much worse.

  Footprints.

  Gothmara rose from behind her desk and walked around her lab inspecting the status of various experiments. She hadn’t been here in several months and most of the projects had either gone to ruin or been put in stasis by the lab programs when interesting results started to show up. Pausing briefly to inspect each station, she glanced at the status reports without truly seeing any of them. She was glad to be back inside the Hur’q base she had found all those years ago, if only because no one knew its location. Her Klingon officers found it distressing. Too bad. She needed to be here, as did her pets.

  Where did the footprints go? There was only one way to find out for sure and so she had sent out the first patrol—a squad of Klingon soldiers—almost ten hours ago to backtrack the trail, but they had never returned. Five hours ago, she sent out the second patrol—three Klingons and three well-behaved Hur’q—and they had not returned either.

  So, a fourth patrol was dispatched: six Hur’q and twelve Klingons. Perhaps she was being overcautious, even paranoid, but these were dangerous times. After all, she was destroying an empire. Some people might be expected to resist.

  The lab computer said, “Request for access.”

  “Who?”

  “Commander Q’ratt and Hur’q number twenty-two.”

  “Together?” She had not been expecting this. The Klingons and the Hur’q would work together when she insisted, but there was no reason for number twenty-two to come up with Q’ratt.

  “Number twenty-two,” the computer explained flatly, “is
carrying Commander Q’ratt.”

  “Ah,” Gothmara said, comprehending. “Admit them.”

  The Hur’q carried the parts of Q’ratt that were still more or less contiguous into the lab’s anteroom and allowed the bits to slide onto the floor.

  “Report,” Gothmara said. “Quickly.”

  “My lady,” Q’ratt rasped. “We followed … the trail to a cavern …” He gasped and a drop of blood slid down out of his nose over his lips. “Side of the mountain.”

  “Which mountain?” Gothmara asked. She already knew the answer, but couldn’t hold her tongue. There was no other mountain, after all.

  Q’ratt knew it, too, and knew he had little time left to explain. “To the north,” he said, breath rattling in his throat. “Ten kellicams. The beast knows where.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Dead. All of them.”

  “Even the Hur’q?” She tried to keep the astonishment from her voice, but then realized, What’s the point? He’ll be dead soon and the beast doesn’t care. “Who did it? How many?”

  “One,” Q’ratt said, answering the only question that seemed to matter to him. “He was hiding under the snow. Came up when half had passed over him.”

  “One?” Gothmara shrieked. “One what?”

  “One man,” Q’ratt sighed with his final breaths. “One demon. One warrior. He was … glorious.” Then he lowered his head to the floor and died. The Hur’q sniffed Q’ratt’s remains curiously, then glanced at Gothmara.

  “Do you know where the cave is?” she asked it.

  In its fashion, it reassured her that it did. A warm meal, however, would be appreciated before it had to lead the way.

  She waved at the body. “Take it outside,” she muttered. “I don’t need to listen to you eat. Then assemble the troops. All of them.”

  The Hur’q purred, picked up the remains of Q’ratt, and lurched out through the door.

  One warrior, she mused. Astonishing.

  Later, ever so briefly, Gothmara would recall that she had not asked whether this single warrior had been killed or if Q’ratt and number twenty-two had been permitted to escape.

  * * *

  “Martok,” Kahless said, staring at the Ch’Tang’s long-distance sensor scan of Boreth. “I am here. Where are you?”

  “Is that the shuttle there?” Darok asked softly.

  “Yes.”

  “And I count—how many? Seven other ships?”

  “Yes.”

  “They will fall before us like grain before the scythe.”

  “Yes.” They had found Ngane’s fleet; all seventeen ships were prepared to lay waste to the traitors who had so ignobly murdered their general.

  “But you’re not happy.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “It means nothing if Martok is dead.”

  Darok sighed. While he agreed that this was true, he did not wish to be confronted with the fact. “Whatever fate he has found, it was his own decision.”

  Kahless glanced at him. “Thank you for stating the obvious.”

  “You’re welcome,” Darok said with a tip of his head, “though I would add that nothing is ever obvious where the general is concerned.”

  “It fascinates me,” Kahless responded, “that you speak to me, your emperor, in such a tone, while you continue to refer to Martok as ‘the general,’ despite the fact that he is, in fact, a chancellor.”

  Darok furrowed his brow. “I have served the general and his family for most of my life. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that without the general, I would probably not be alive today.”

  “And I?” Kahless asked.

  “You are someone whose picture I see on coin and whose face is frequently carved into statuary.”

  “Ah, well. There we have it.” He looked around the bridge and seemed to Darok to be able to perceive the mood of every man and woman around them. “If they learn Martok is dead, will they still fight?”

  Darok nodded. “To their last breath.”

  “And if he lives?”

  “No force in the universe will stop us until we find him.”

  Kahless grinned. “Prepare for the attack.”

  Darok rose and signaled to the communications officer. “Alert the fleet,” he said. “Assume battle formation. Prepare to drop cloaks in five minutes. We go to find Martok!”

  The bridge crew roared its approval, then erupted into a frenzy of activity. General, Darok thought. We are ready to die for you. But we would prefer to live for you.

  * * *

  Padding down the hall in his bare feet, feeling the cool slap of every step against the soles of his feet, Martok marveled at how well he felt. What had they done to him while he was unconscious? Microsurgery? Perhaps a complete nanobiological refurbishment? He had heard that these kinds of procedures were available in some systems, but did not believe they were performed on any Klingon world, let alone by a group of monks in the bowels of a mountain under an ancient monastery. But if none of these things had been done to him, then what had happened? Feeling like a boy again, the pains from his most ancient injuries, poorly knitted bones, and badly healed muscles of decades past had dissolved—as if the injuries had never happened. After walking down the long, dimly lit corridor for what seemed an eternity, Martok began running, not because he was impatient, but because he enjoyed the pure sensation of blood pumping through his veins.

  They emerged from the shadows so quickly that Martok hadn’t seen any movement. Both of them were plain-enough-looking Klingons, no larger or taller than he himself, yet as soon as they stood before him Martok was aware of their power. Seeing them, he instinctively took a step backward, nearly crashing into Pharh. Most of the way, the Ferengi had been a half-dozen steps behind him, panting heavily from the effort of keeping up. He staggered to a halt beside Martok and gasped an epithet.

  “Sorry,” Pharh said when he caught his breath. “You scared me.” Possessing a graciousness that surprised Martok, Pharh introduced the two Klingons as Starn and Angwar.

  “I am forever in your debt,” Martok said to the pair.

  “There is no debt,” Angwar said. “You are as a brother, father, and son to us.”

  “Does that mean you get three gifts for every holiday?” Pharh asked.

  “Pharh, be quiet,” Martok said, expecting a sour face from Angwar, but was surprised to see him smile.

  “I apologize,” Angwar said. “We do not mean to be cryptic. Much of what has occurred to you in recent days requires explanation. Starn and I were just coming to get you so that you could speak to Okado, our eldest brother.”

  “Then please take me to him,” Martok said. “I have many questions.”

  “Will your kr’tach accompany us?”

  “If he can correctly judge when to keep his mouth shut,” Martok said with a withering sidelong glance, “then yes.”

  “I promise to be good,” Pharh said meekly. “Especially if there’s more food.”

  “We will see what we can do,” Angwar said, then turned to lead the way.

  * * *

  “My lady?” One of her Klingon retainers stood at her lab door. He was an older man, one of the handful Gothmara had spared at the monastery, mostly because she liked the fact that he could enter and exit a room quietly.

  “Yes?” she said distractedly. The search teams were sending in reports every ten minutes and she did not wish to take her eyes off the com screens. “Quickly—tell me.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the old man said. “Ships are entering orbit. Many ships.”

  “Morjod?”

  “No, my lady. Not your son. Enemies—attacking your ships.”

  “Klingon or…?

  “Klingon.”

  Quickly and efficiently, Gothmara ran through the possibilities: Kahless, some ally of Ngane’s seeking revenge, Worf, or an alliance of all three. Mentally tallying the options, she concluded that this was not the worst of all possible outcomes. The most they could have was a thousand
warriors and likely many fewer. If she could tempt them with an offer of a swift victory, their ridiculous warrior pride would not permit them to refuse. She would instruct the captains of her ships to beam down the bulk of their troops and let the attackers destroy the nearly empty starships. Then they would land their men on the surface and she would have all her enemies in one place. If by that time she had Martok’s head in her hand, she would break their spirits and Morjod would go unopposed. And then, oh, how the empire would burn.

  A gamble, but an appealing one.

  “My lady?” the retainer interrupted.

  Irrationally, Gothmara slashed her nails across the little worm’s throat. If she had been wearing her gloves, the blow would have probably crushed his larynx (she was much stronger than she looked), but since she was not, his throat opened along a thin red line. The worm’s eyes opened wide and he clutched at his throat, but swiftly he became too weak to even raise his hands. Blood pumped out between his fingers in awkward, pirouetting sprays, and he lost consciousness, collapsing to the ground.

  Gothmara managed to avoid the worst of the deluge, but the soles of her boots quickly became sticky as she carefully stepped around the body. That was careless, she decided. I should have let him call the ships first.

  * * *

  “This is too easy,” Darok said.

  Kahless studied the reports from the attack on Gothmara’s ships and he was forced to agree. Four of the six ships were already flaming balls of plasma falling into Boreth’s atmosphere. One of the other two would be crushed soon enough and the sixth had surrendered as soon as her captain had realized who commanded their attackers. Kahless could scarcely countenance it. A Klingon surrendered.