The Left Hand of Destiny, Book 1 Read online

  Her visitor had leaned slightly closer to the cage, her waist bent, the better to drink in Sirella’s pain. Just a little closer, she thought, and then we will play other games. But Morjod’s mother did not comply. Instead, she asked, “How old were you and Martok when you first met?”

  The question startled Sirella. The woman had said that she would not ask any question that had strategic value and Sirella, strangely, had believed her, but this? How was this relevant? But a promise was a promise, so she responded, “I was in my twenty-first year and Martok …” She thought for a moment, remembering the first time she had laid eyes on the man she would take as husband. It had been only a few years after he had repelled the Romulan attempt to seize Shivang’s flagship and he had become famous through the Defense Force, though just as infamous because of the lowly status of his family.

  Sirella had not cared. His proud bearing, his calm, observant nature, and the obvious high regard his crewmates held for him had instantly transfixed her. Here, she had thought, is a man of destiny. And only a woman of destiny should be permitted to claim him. And so she had. “Martok was twenty-five, almost twenty-six. It was the year …”

  “I know what year it was,” the visitor snapped, all of her forced cheer suddenly evaporated. “I know,” she said again quietly, as if to herself. She stepped back into the shadows and, raising her head, said, “Good-bye, Lady Sirella. Tomorrow you will die. Do it well or not, as your courage permits. I can say for certain that it is not a death that I would want.”

  And, with that, Sirella knew she was alone. She raised her hand and almost, almost touched the bars to steady herself, but at the last moment lowered it. They might still be watching, after all. Someone, she knew, was always watching.

  * * *

  Worf’s ribs ached, though it was not an entirely unpleasant pain. In the insulated darkness inside his own head, he tried to figure out why this might be. The most probable cause of his present condition would be injury-related. Sedation produced odd mental side effects, though he could not remember ever feeling this way when he had been under sedation in the past. The potions, pills, and powders that Starfleet doctors had used to put him under made his teeth throb and his bladder feel like it had shrunk to the size of a peanut. This sensation, this gray woolly fuzziness, felt quite pleasant in comparison with his experiences with Starfleet Medical.

  The other possibility had potential: He might be dead. If he was dead, it certainly wasn’t what he had expected death to be like. He’d painted a mental picture of a tenor choir singing jajlo’Sto-Vo-Kor, a radiant sun glinting off the glorious gates, and bloodwine gushing from stone. His wife, the magnificent Jadzia Dax, would be waiting for him, bat’leth in hand, a hint of feral seloh in her eyes.

  Death didn’t sound too bad.

  Worf tried lifting his hand to feel his way to a light of some kind, but his hand remained limp, as if the muscles were gone, at his side. He knew this sensation should concern him, but he couldn’t work up the energy to be upset.

  A voice said, “Wake up, Worf.”

  Jadzia’s voice. I am here, par’machkai! He tried snapping open his eyes, but found he could not. Or maybe he had, but the gray wool was too thick for any light to penetrate, so he murmured, “I am awake.”

  “Then open your eyes.”

  Seeing Jadzia again offered him hope. Shaking away any fuzziness lingering in his mind, he opened his eyes without hesitation, but the dreamlike quality did not lift.

  Worf stared up into a circle of blurry faces and, beyond that, into the sky. Jaroun was there and behind him and to his right was Martok’s son, Drex. Warriors, both. They must have died noble deaths. To the left, just at the edge of Worf’s field of vision, was old Darok, looking somehow simultaneously concerned and inconvenienced. Darok moved aside so another face could move into view: Alexander. He reached out to pat Worf on the shoulder. “Hello, Father,” he said.

  Perhaps I am not dead.

  Worf tried to say, “Hello, Alexander,” but the sound that emerged was something between a croak and a wheeze. Someone handed a clay cup to Alexander, who then held it to his father’s lips so he could drink. The water was warm and flat, and there were some chunks of either vegetation or wood splinters in it, and it was the most delicious thing Worf had ever drunk. He finished it all, then nodded his head. “Thank you, son,” he said, and Alexander smiled gratefully. A thought welled up from nowhere and Worf found himself asking K’Ehleyr’s question. “Are you doing what you want to do?”

  Confused by the question, Alexander glanced to his left to look at someone Worf could not see. Whoever it was must have signaled the boy to answer, because he said, “I’m here with you, Father. So, yes, sure I’m doing what I want to do. Why?”

  Worf considered for a moment, then croaked, “Because if you would rather do something else, you should.”

  Alexander smiled then, grateful, and Worf thought he saw a hint of a tear in the corner of the boy’s eye. So much like his mother, he thought.

  “I’m fine, Father. For now I’m fine.”

  The person to Alexander’s left moved into view now, and it took Worf several seconds before his identity registered, so different did he look than he had the last time Worf had seen him. The figure extended his hand, and he and Worf greeted each other after the fashion of old comrades, hands locked around each other’s forearms. Then, with little apparent effort, he drew Worf up to his feet and asked warmly, “How are you, Worf?”

  Worf was surprised to find that the answer was “Fine. I am fine.” He felt none of the aches or pains he had expected to feel after having had a ceiling fall on him.

  “Have you enjoyed your dreams of late?” he asked.

  Worf regarded him curiously, but without rancor. “They have been,” he said, “illuminating.”

  “Excellent, Worf. That is excellent, but it is time to get up now, my friend. We have far to go and have a great deal of work to do.”

  And much to his own surprise, Worf felt himself grin with anticipation. “All right,” he said, and felt the weight lift from his chest. “Tell me what I must do.”

  13

  “What the hell is happening on Qo’noS?”

  Colonel Kira Nerys, commanding officer of Starbase Deep Space 9, knew that Admiral Ross must be upset; he was not a man who employed casual profanity. She could sense his frustration through the viewscreen. Unfortunately, she lacked any information that might alleviate that frustration.

  She had, of course, received and read the Starfleet Intelligence report earlier that day, but the information therein had been scanty at best. Reading between the lines of all the usual intel nonsense and conditionals, the gist of the report was “Something on Qo’noS blew up, but we don’t know what and the Klingons are saying, ‘Blew up? Nothing blew up.’” It was, Kira strongly suspected, something political, if the word could truly be said to apply to an entire species of large, armored men and women who enjoyed swinging heavy metal objects at one another’s heads. When they liked each other. She sighed. “I have nothing to add to the official report, sir.”

  Ross pursed his lips and gave her a look that eloquently conveyed his opinion of empty responses.

  In Kira’s experience, the admiral could usually be depended on to be understanding, if not sympathetic, when he didn’t receive the answer he wanted. This, apparently, was one of the rare occasions when he expected her to improvise some nonsensical suppositions to make him feel better. The Federation Council must be leaning pretty hard on Starfleet for answers, she thought. Unfortunately, she literally had nothing to offer him. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what you expect me to know that you don’t. Starfleet Intelligence has more resources than anyone on the station or on Bajor. If it means anything at all, I’ve checked our logs and we have about forty-two Klingons on board the station right now, which is, I admit, extraordinarily low in comparison to recent days, but …” And here Kira shrugged. “The war is over. Chancellor Martok went home, an
d my impression was that it was going to be one hell of a party. Can you blame them for wanting to go home?”

  Ross grimaced and settled back into his chair. “No,” he muttered. “Of course not. I wouldn’t have expected anything else. And thank you for checking the logs.” Ross rubbed his chin and asked, “Do you notice anything unusual about who was or wasn’t there?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

  “The Klingons on board the station—did anything about them catch your eye? Any common denominator?”

  “Well, sure. Most of them are from the same ship.” She punched a couple of keys on her desktop comp, checked the docking and repair records, and then tapped the commands to transmit the data to Ross. “The Kem’A, a scout ship. It lost its main deflector array in a minor argument with an asteroid. If you read between the lines of the repair report, the engineers were left with the impression that someone was taking some unapproved target practice and found himself a pocket of hydrogen or methane in a rogue comet.”

  “Ah,” Ross said, studying the report. “Boys will be boys.”

  “Not this time,” Kira said. “The gunner was a woman.”

  “All right. That accounts for … what? Twenty-six of the forty-two. What about the rest?”

  “Ten are merchants, all known, all accounted for. Two are in the brig. Too much bloodwine on an otherwise slow night at Quark’s.”

  Ross nodded. He had been in the bistro on nights like those.

  “The other four are diplomatic personnel.”

  Ross’s eyebrows shot up in question. “Do we know them?”

  “We know of them,” Kira explained. “You’ve met three of them yourself: Sor’cha, Mubarak, and Klow.”

  Ross nodded, recognizing the names. “And the fourth? Let me guess: former second-in-command on a Vor’cha-class cruiser? Communications officer at a Romulan embassy?” Kira shook her head twice. Ross searched his memory for likely candidates. “Aide to a High Council member?” Kira raised a single finger and touched the tip of her nose.

  Ross smiled grimly. “What’s his name, who did he work for, and what’s he pretending to do here?”

  “Her name is Marasa and she used to work for council member Tor’ash. Name mean anything to you?” Ross shook his head and Kira replied, “Me, either, so I asked Dax to do some research for me.” She pulled up a file on the desk comp and read, “‘Tor’ash is a key figure in a small but active coalition of conservative’—read that ‘reactionary’—‘council members around which a nucleus of several other traditional’—read that ‘xenophobic’—‘splinter groups have formed. Unlike most of the other members in this coalition, Tor’ash has seemed to make it a policy to keep a low profile; however, observers’—I think the word you want here is ‘spies’—‘have stated that council member Tor’ash does not seem to possess a natural inclination toward such self-effacing behavior.’” Kira glanced up at Ross. “It worries me how easily she falls into this kind of language.”

  Ross shrugged. “She’s a counselor. And sometime before that, an ambassador.”

  “Scary combination,” Kira muttered, then continued reading. “‘It is not known at this time who might be influencing the council member or how wide his or her activities are. There are several candidates among the best-known political infighters, but none has yet shown conclusively that he or she possesses the resources or the will to inflict significant damage on the Klingon Homeworld or, more significantly, the First City.’”

  Ross grimaced. “Dax knows what happened.”

  “Admiral, everybody knows. But no one wants to say anything about it until the Klingons come forward and either ask for help or make some sort of statement. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t directed at the Federation or its allies. Either the empire is experiencing internal strife—and it’s not like we haven’t seen that before—or they’ve got a technological disaster on their hands and they’re embarrassed about it. If so, it wouldn’t be without precedent. I know the Klingons once managed to blow up one of their moons. …”

  Ross nodded. “Yes, Praxis. Over eighty years ago … Indirectly it led to the Khitomer Accords.”

  “Right. Well, doing the same thing twice in less than a hundred years, and this time in their capital city … Maybe the Klingons want to try to settle something on their own before they announce it to the quadrant.”

  Ross rested his thumbnail against his lips, a gesture that Kira had noted usually meant he was about to make a decision he didn’t like. “In the absence of any other explanation, that’s what Starfleet Intelligence has decided is the most likely scenario.”

  “Hasn’t anyone on Qo’noS reported anything?” Kira asked. “There’s a Federation embassy, isn’t there?”

  “Unfortunately, we’ve been out of contact with the embassy since the alleged crises started,” Ross said. “It may be equipment problems related to the present circumstances …”

  “But it’s impossible to say for sure,” Kira finished for him. “Communication from Qo’noS is nothing if not erratic.”

  Ross nodded, lines of exhaustion and frustration tight around his eyes. “So, I thought I’d try a different angle and find out if Ambassador Worf has contacted anyone on Deep Space 9.”

  “Ezri, you mean.”

  Ross nodded.

  Kira knew that Ross made it a policy not to become enmeshed in the personal lives of his subordinates, but he had spent enough time on DS9 to learn a great deal about the sometimes painfully complex web of social interactions. For example, he knew that Ezri Dax and Dr. Julian Bashir were currently taking the first, tentative steps in forming a romantic relationship. He also knew that the previous Dax host had been married to Worf.

  “I don’t think Ezri has heard from Worf,” Kira replied. “But if she had, and what he told her had any strategic value, she would have reported it to me.”

  “I can accept that,” he reluctantly agreed. “I assume you’ll inform me if circumstances change?”

  “Immediately, Admiral.”

  “All right then. Ross out.”

  Kira turned from her viewscreen and looked out her window at the stars. In all likelihood, if Worf had contacted Ezri, there was a good chance she wouldn’t inform Kira, strategic information or not. For years, she’d watched Jadzia Dax trot off on all kinds of crazy escapades to fulfill obligations made by Curzon Dax. From what she’d seen from Ezri so far, Kira believed that Dax’s unbroken streak of unfailing loyalty to the Klingon people would continue. And honestly, knowing that someone with Dax’s abilities might ultimately help the Klingons deal with the mess they’d made for themselves made Kira feel a lot better.

  Replicating a raktajino, she raised her mug in what she hoped was the general direction of Klingon space and toasted to Martok, Worf, and the empire. Whatever they’d managed to get themselves into, Kira was confident Chancellor Martok was the one to get them out.

  * * *

  Pharh asked, “Are we going in?”

  Martok didn’t answer, but only stared through the Sporak’s windshield at an ochre glow. It was, Pharh knew, light from the First City, and it had grown larger and brighter the closer they came to its dark walls.

  First Pharh looked at Martok’s profile, the light from the dashboard casting heavy shadows in the mass of scar tissue around his eye, then glanced out the window at the tiny shack on the other side of the road. They were idled on a narrow gravel strip that served as a parking lot for the eatery or inn or whatever it was. Pharh had noticed several other places like this along the roadside in the past hour and had decided they were the Klingon equivalent of refreshment stands. After they had passed the last one, Martok had said, “Stop at the next one,” and then gone silent again. It might be nice to go inside, he thought, and have a, well, not a hot meal necessarily. Klingons didn’t go in much for hot food. They tended, he had noticed, to prefer things that were either cut into glistening chunks or served in slimy, wriggling blobs, but these were usually either cold, at room
temperature, or, at best, steaming from their own quickly dissipating body heat. Still, it was better than nothing, and if he was lucky the place would serve cranch, the green goo that Pharh had largely subsisted on for the past several weeks. He had recently learned that cranch was a kind of algae grown in large vats and was usually served to very young children and/or pets. This made Pharh wonder about Klingon parenting (and pet ownership), but it didn’t stop him from buying it by the gallon jug. The thick, gritty texture and the smell of fermented plant made him think of home and the theoretical meals that Moogie was supposed to have made if Moogie had made meals, which she hadn’t, but there he was getting into muddy wish-fulfillment waters again.

  One way or another, his stomach was tightening into little knots and making ominous noises. Pharh was startled to discover that the idea of glistening chunks or wriggling masses of alien meat was starting to sound appealing. He asked again, “Are we going in?”

  Martok didn’t answer.

  Maybe he didn’t like the look of the place, though why make Pharh stop driving if it wasn’t safe? The Sporak vibrated roughly beneath him, the throb of the engine reverberating inside Pharh’s empty gut. He was sick of the vehicle, sick of the way it didn’t so much roll as lurch along the road. He was sick of the layered-in smell of old garbage and the sharp tang of leaking coolant. He needed to get out of the damned thing, if only for a little while.

  He cast his mind back a few hours, to when he had thought to tell Martok about the fight in the bar a couple of days ago and the mob’s pursuit of the one young warrior—Alexander, a funny name for a Klingon—and the sudden appearance of the cloaked warrior. “All very dramatic,” he had said. “Just like something out of a space-adventure holo.” The only thing missing had been a swelling soundtrack, maybe a crack of punctuating lightning. Oh, and a female character. No ladies had been anywhere in sight unless you counted that one with the murderous gleam in her eye who had been carrying the big nugget of corrugated steel, which Pharh, a seasoned veteran of such scenarios, did not.