“Yeah, it’s, uh . . . brown,” Vale said, eyes rolled. She sighed. “Haven’t felt very creative lately.”
She shrugged and headed for the end of the bar. Except for a few red facial protrusions, Kyzak could have passed for a human—if that human was a holodeck character in an Old West program. His off-duty ensemble consisted of a replicated-suede vest over a dull burgundy striped shirt, with tan canvas trousers set off by a silver buckle. A red silk kerchief was wrapped around his neck. Odder civvies Vale had not seen—but they were for real, and so was he.
One of the newer members of the crew, the ops officer descended from a sect of Skagarans whose culture long ago had been contaminated with that of the Ancient West of Earth’s North American continent. After their discovery by Captain Jonathan Archer and the crew of Enterprise NX-01, the Skagarans had slowly integrated into the Federation. Kyzak brought a rustic outlook to Starfleet, as well as a supply of sayings Vale found idiosyncratic at best. His tendency to revert to bromides on days when he felt out of place had annoyed more than a few. He was a decent officer, which was all that mattered—but it was taking him a while to adjust to shipboard life, and his company seemed to be an acquired taste.
Vale sidled up to the bar beside him, aware that in “sidling” she was acting like a character in an Ancient Western. She was likewise surprised by the greeting that somehow came out of her mouth: “How’s the roundup going, Lieutenant?” Damn, he’s even got me doing it!
“Things are all right, ma’am. Belly up to the bar.” His lips puckered, and his eyebrows went down. “I guess I shouldn’t say belly to a captain, should I?”
“I’ll have to check the regulations.”
He sighed and ordered another bourbon and branch. He turned around and leaned his back against the bar, looking out at the wide array of species represented in the club’s patrons. Some were looking back, Vale noticed—though they were trying not to be seen doing it. “Folks still don’t know what to make of me, do they?” Kyzak asked.
“Titan has more different kinds of people from different places than any ship in the fleet. You’re this week’s curiosity. It’ll pass.”
“Except I’ve been here more than a week. And to be honest, if I was more comfortable talkin’ to people, I’d be doing a better job.”
“How so?”
“Well, there’s some stuff I don’t really get—about this mission.”
Join the club, Vale wanted to say. “What can I clear up for you?”
“Well, it’s Admiral Riker, to start with. When they transferred me here, he was a sector commander for the frontier sectors of the Alpha Quadrant.”
“He still is.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Ain’t this the Beta Quadrant?”
“This is where the Klingons live,” Vale said. “Admiral Riker has a lot of experience dealing with them. That’s why the Federation asked Starfleet to send him to set up the H’atorian Conference.”
“I guess I figured that much. But that’s another one. I’ve been to the briefings, but I’m still not sure what the thing’s even about. And I’ve asked people, but they . . .” Kyzak trailed off before turning back to the bar. “Captain, we didn’t do too much with politics where I’m from. Everything past the planet next door is kind of out of the way.”
“You went to the Academy. You studied interstellar relations.”
“I shouldn’t say it to a superior officer, but I just barely passed.”
“I know what you mean.” Vale attracted the attention of the bartender, who refilled her drink. “It’s pretty simple. It has to do with trade routes, and reciprocal access agreements, as well as establishing rules for armed vessels, and how many can travel together at once. Then there’s the availability of emergency services, which—”
Vale stopped when she saw his eyes go as cloudy as the absinthe in her glass. He was earnestly trying to follow, but another tack was necessary.
She took a deep breath. “Okay, consider your right hand.”
Kyzak held his up, and she started pointing to his digits.
“Your thumb represents the Earth and the bulk of the Federation. Your pinky finger’s all the new Beta Quadrant members that have recently joined the Federation. And the three fingers in between are the Klingon Empire.”
“I gotcha. This agreement is so we get to travel to our own.”
“No, we already have the right to cross Klingon space. That’s in the Khitomer Accords.” She was glad to see Kyzak nodding along. “No, the problem’s your other hand.”
He put down his drink and held up his left. “This one.”
“That one. Now, the thumb of your left hand represents the Romulan Star Empire—and the fingers include systems belonging to the Kinshaya, as well as some remote outposts maintained by the Breen, and some minor tributary systems.”
“The Typhon Pact powers. I’m following.”
“Clasp those hands together.” She watched as he interlaced his fingers.
“Like this?”
“That is what the Beta Quadrant frontier looks like, once you get right out to the edge. A lot of the best routes from the main body of the Federation to the new members—”
“From the thumb to the pinky.”
“—from the thumb to the pinky, require crossing not just Klingon space, but the territories of powers that have gone to war with the Klingons in the past. They despise each other. What Admiral Riker and the Federation are trying to do is lace a corridor right through the center of all those fingers—a free-flight corridor available to everyone to use.”
Kyzak looked at his hands and smiled. “And those House of Kruge people are making things hard on the admiral because one of these fingers belongs to them.”
“That’s right,” she said. There’s a joke I could make about which finger, but I’m not sure you’d understand it.
Kyzak unclasped his hands and slapped them on the bartop. “I sure appreciate this, Captain. I think I’ve got it.” Grinning in appreciation, he added, “I’m sure Admiral Riker will get ’em all sorted out fast.”
“If anyone can do it, he will,” Vale said. Then she lowered her voice in mock secrecy. “But between you and me, Lieutenant, I’m not sure the left hand knows what the right hand’s doing.” She finished her drink and headed for bed.
Seven
ORION PIRATE CAMP
AZURE NEBULA
Buxtus Cross was thirty-nine, nineteen years removed from his escape from the Clarence Darrow. And while he had kept himself in shape, when he looked at his hand he saw the pale, scarred palm of a hundred-forty-year-old Klingon burn victim.
The hand was allegedly that of Commander Kruge, back from the dead and a hundred years older. It was an illusion, projected by his truthcrafters: the engineers aboard his support ship, Blackstone, which sat cloaked and parked near the Orion camp. Whenever Cross stood before a mirror, he could see the holographic visual projected around his body; so could the truthcrafters, via the sensors in his contact lenses. Whenever he spoke, Blackstone’s remote force-field projections attenuated his vocal sound waves to match that heard in past recordings of Kruge’s voice.
The rest—Kruge’s mannerisms, dialogue, and intonations—came from Cross and his acting abilities. He had used them all in the past year, transforming three hundred descendants of the real Kruge’s discommendated followers into a fighting force now feared across the Empire. His Klingon patron, Korgh, had concocted and financed the scheme; the truthcrafters’ tech and Cross’s acting had made it all possible.
That, and the help of the woman walking beside him: the Klingon mystic N’Keera, in actuality a supporting character played by his lovely Orion assistant, Shift. “N’Keera” drew closer to him as they walked between the buildings of the camp. “It’s good to walk outside,” she said, gripping his arm. “We’ve been cooped up in the ship too long.”
“Feels like being born again.”
Gaw had already given Cross a new life, springing him from Clarence Dar
row years earlier. The truthcrafters had needed an actor to serve as their “practitioner,” the person who inhabited their projected illusions; Cross had needed roles and freedom. In their years of collaboration, he had learned what it meant to live the life of a true magician. His was the ultimate actor’s challenge: creating reality. Together they had fooled sophisticates and primitives alike, always escaping detection.
Their success—his success—had become the envy of their rivals in their secret world, in the shadowy places where they congregated to exchange stories. And while the practitioners of the Circle of Jilaan had honored no one with the title Illusionist Magnus since the marvelous Jilaan passed from the scene, Cross was certain he was just one or two daring feats away.
Nothing so far had compared to this: walking onto a planet of Klingon exiles and convincing them he was the famous leader who fell into a sea of lava a century earlier. The inferno had reduced the real Kruge to his component molecules in seconds; as Cross had spun it, he had been transported away in the moments before. After a year of working on the exiles and with the aid of Korgh, Cross had created a cult that threatened order everywhere, so long as he had the Unsung’s support.
Cross did have that—and he didn’t intend to give it up. Not yet, not when the payoff was near. A small part of it was up ahead. In her guise as N’Keera, Shift read the Orion markings on one of the huts. “This is it,” she said, her voice tremulous. “The countinghouse.”
“You all right, Shift? I know these were your people.”
“They’re not my people,” she said, striding forward and reaching for the door handle. She looked around to make sure the Klingons were gone. “Let’s do this.”
The door opened. There was a dead Orion youth on the dirt floor just inside, his blood already dry. The outer storage area was otherwise as Valandris had left it—except for the people rummaging around, inventorying the riches on the shelves. His people. According to plan, they had beamed into the building from Blackstone, with the Klingons of the Unsung completely unaware of their presence. A Bynar pair, 1110 and 1111, worked with a multispecies group inventorying the warehouse’s contents.
Gaw, Blackstone’s chief effects specialist, was first to address him. “Is that Kruge I see?” The Ferengi stepped out from the office. “All hail the mighty Klingon king, burned to a crisp but keeps on walking.”
“All hail!” came responses from the other workers rifling through the countinghouse’s goods.
Gaw looked much the same as when Cross had met him years earlier—after the Ferengi had stopped pretending to be a Borg drone, that is. He smiled at “N’Keera,” took her hand, and bowed. “Looking good, dearie. Are you ready to shed this guy? Trust me, I have better lobes.”
“All right, all right.” A chuckling Cross snapped his fingers. The Betazoid’s normal appearance returned, as did the lithe form of his emerald-skinned Orion companion, Shift. He much preferred this look to her N’Keera incarnation, although there had been something clouding those beautiful eyes most of the day.
He knew what it was. “This is the place?”
Shift took a deep breath. “This is where Fortar worked . . . the man who sold me.”
“Aha,” Gaw said, stepping out of the doorway he was in and gesturing inside. “I suspect that’s the gentleman in question there.”
Tentatively at first, Shift took a step forward—and then another, before arriving in the doorway. Cross approached from behind. In the back room, the corpse of a fat Orion lay sprawled out on his belly, having fallen as he went for the door. He had bled out, making the ground by his head mucky and gross. His hand still clutched a disruptor.
Gathering her courage, Shift knelt and turned the immense Orion over—and saw where Valandris had pulled her d’k tahg from the dead man’s bloody face.
“It’s him,” she whispered, recognizing something even in that mess.
Cross looked down on the scene with indifference. “Yeah. Revenge served cold, right? It just took some Klingons.”
“Right,” she said. She stood, took one more look down at Fortar, and gave his body a kick before heading back into the main room. Cross followed and closed the door behind him, hiding the gruesome scene. He was still surprised she’d been willing to touch the body.
He had met Shift in a bar he frequented between schemes. An admirer of her obvious physical charms, he’d since grown impressed with her acting skills. She’d gone from girlfriend to apprentice without sacrificing the former, which made him happy; such situations seldom worked out well. She had even helped them select targets, using her knowledge of the pirates in the region to help Cross choose strikes for the Unsung.
She’d known that Leotis, her most recent owner, trafficked in the sort of information that had helped the Unsung carry out the massacre at Gamaral. And her knowledge of the boltholes used by Fortar’s band had given the Unsung a mission while they waited on Korgh’s next command—a mission that simultaneously gave Shift her revenge while contributing to the truthcrafters’ coffers. Nothing like a little bonus action.
Cross loved efficiency. He watched as several of the other Blackstone crewmembers used practiced haste, locating and stacking bricks of gold-pressed latinum. Gaw turned to rummage around in a basket of gems, his hands wrist deep in riches. 1110 and 1111 chittered excitedly to each other in their binary language. This would be a decent haul.
Composed again after her earlier moment, Shift looked about in wonder. “Your people sure love their loot, Gaw.”
“We’ve got to have it,” the Ferengi said. “An outfit like ours eats, drinks, and breathes money.”
She shook her head, puzzled. “I’ve never understood that part of the operation.”
“That’s because you’re training to be a practitioner, not a truthcrafter,” Gaw said. He clicked his tongue. “So much to learn.”
“Don’t let this guy rib you, Shift. I was new once too.” Cross put his arm around Gaw’s shoulder. “He was looking for someone else and found me instead. But he was prettier when I met him. He was disguised as a Borg.”
Gaw rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I think I should have left him aboard that prison ship. It would work out better for our bottom line.”
“Ouch,” Cross said, withdrawing his arm. “See if we find Orion camps for you to loot again.”
The Ferengi evaluated a handful of gems disdainfully. “Half this stuff is junk. I’m more worried about the big score. Are you sure your silent partner’s going to come through for us?”
Cross waved off the concern. “With what I know about him? I’m not worried. Besides, he still has no real idea what my powers are, or how we do what we do. He knows I have a cloaked support ship, but not what it does. As far as he knows I represent a great alien technology far beyond him—and so he knows not to vex me.”
“Vex.” Gaw looked at Shift. “Who talks like that?”
She laughed.
“Trust me,” Cross said, “he’s in the dark.” Cross had been careful not to reveal to Korgh how they did what they did. The more mysterious they seemed, the greater the price they could ask.
Gaw handed a green gem to Shift. “You were asking about money. The technology the Circle of Jilaan uses is from a unique branch of holography—older than any of us, but different. Better. More versatile. The parts required to generate our illusions can’t be successfully replicated, and they can’t be bought at a local bazaar. We need hard currency to trade for it.”
“I know that,” Shift said, studying the facets of the rock. “What I meant was I don’t understand what Cross gets out of all this.” She passed the jewel to her lover. “You live well, but you don’t seem to care about the riches.”
“The story’s my reward,” Cross said, discarding the rock. “I’ve got to take you to a circle convocation one day—you can find out just how many things in history never really happened as you heard, because there was a practitioner and a truthcrafter team at work somewhere.” His eyes sparkled. “Like the time Surak ap
peared to the Vulcans on Garadius IV. That was actually Jilaan, like me playing Kruge. Or our next trick.”
“Ah, yes,” Gaw said, frowning. “I suppose you’re referring to your secret guest, back on Chu’charq. Kahless the Unforgettable—or is that Kahless the Clone?”
“Kahless the Hungry,” Shift said, suddenly reminded. “I’d better get back to him. He gets out of sorts when I miss his feedings.”
Cross gave her a squeeze. “I’ll be along after I help Gaw go through some of this stuff.” He smirked. “And besides, you’re both wrong. I call him Kahless the Genie.”
Gaw laughed. “Why?”
“Because that ancient spirit bottled up in our ship’s hold is going to make all our wildest dreams a reality. Too bad Kahless won’t live to see the results.”
Eight
HOUSE OF KRUGE INDUSTRIAL COMPOUND
KETORIX PRIME, KLINGON EMPIRE
If the way Korgh could insult him in one breath and speak kindly the next surprised Riker, something else didn’t: the speed with which life could go back to normal in the Ketorix compound after an attempted assassination.
To a degree, the latter was just how Klingons did things. Riker had seen it in action as an exchange officer: someone could die for shipboard “discipline” and everything would go on as usual. He also understood the larger reasons behind Korgh’s swiftness in clearing away the evidence of yet another attempt on a member of his house, Kersh, someone he appeared to barely tolerate. Calling attention to the attempted assassination wouldn’t shame the memories of the wrongdoers, because they had no honor left as far as other Klingons were concerned. And while making an example of Har’tok’s fate might serve as a deterrent, it also might give other discommendated Klingons ideas. It was better to keep the matter private in the name of security. The Klingons had taken aside the media representative who’d been interviewing Korgh earlier; Riker imagined the gag order had been given.
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