The Jackal's Trick

by John Jackson Miller

  HOUSE OF KRUGE INDUSTRIAL COMPOUND

  KETORIX PRIME, KLINGON EMPIRE

  A hundred years before, Korgh had been stranded for weeks as the only sentient being on Gamaral. He had not felt as alone then as he had during the day that just ended.

  Yes, he had interacted with many. He had communicated with his allies back on Qo’noS, making sure they spoke for him during his time of mourning. The Unsung were still at large. Starfleet had stood with the Empire in battle and both had failed. He would extract more concessions.

  Just not personally. Not now.

  He had studied the secret report Chancellor Martok had sent him: the preliminary report from Starfleet about what had happened at Cragg’s Cloud. Cross had died at the hands of his henchwoman; one deceiver killed by another. Where had she gone? Cross’s support ship had vanished. Where had they gone? He knew from his time with Jilaan that blackmail wasn’t the Circle’s style; it was too low, not theatrical enough. Did these tricksters feel the same way?

  And most importantly, who had destroyed Jarin? The report said nothing about that at all.

  He had spoken with Martok, who had mouthed halfhearted words of remorse. The chancellor would not publicize the events: bringing up the existence of someone pretending to be Kruge was folly for both of them. It would be bad publicity for Korgh’s house—and Martok definitely didn’t want it circulated that the Unsung thought they were following a leader of legend. Anything that justified their actions might create even more copycats. Or worse, it would remind Klingons that they once had leaders far more strident about the Empire’s interests than he.

  Korgh would remind them of that, in his own words and in his own time.

  Finally, he had gone to the factory floor where Jarin had been laid down. There, in the same place where he had launched the bird-of-prey not long before, he gathered with his two remaining sons and a host of factory workers in singing the songs of the glory of his house. It was no sad memorial to Lorath and Bredak; that was not the Klingon way. But none present could avoid thinking of the father and son improbably killed many light-years apart at nearly the same moment.

  Korgh had stood there, all eyes on him, trying to sing while knowing that he had sent them to their fates. And for the first time since his scheme began, his voice failed him. Those watching found it a moving demonstration of grief. He didn’t care.

  Alone at last, he crossed the threshold into the family headquarters, lit by the evening shadows. Only sleep could save him, he knew—that and a healthy amount of bloodwine.

  He was wondering whether Odrok had drunk it all when he noticed a light coming from an open door along the big corridor. Not again, he thought, his step quickening. But this time when he arrived at J’borr’s office, he saw Odrok inside. “You,” he said.

  She did not respond. She was gathering her personal items, he saw, and placing them in her housekeeper’s cart.

  “There were songs,” Korgh said, sidling into the room and leaning against the doorjamb. “It was glorious and deserved.”

  “I am sure.” She looked up at him. Her eyes were bleary, but she seemed sober. “Lorath and Bredak were honorable warriors. They did not deserve this.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She gestured to the screens in the office, all deactivated. “We can no longer track the Unsung. Cross is dead. There is nothing more for me to do.”

  “I still need your help. Some of the birds-of-prey are at large. So are Cross’s confederates.”

  “I am sure you will think of something.” She went back to her collecting, ignoring him.

  After a dreadful day, Korgh felt his ire rising. “You are giving up now?”

  “You have your house. You do not need old Odrok.”

  “Old Odrok.” He snorted. “And you thought to be my mate.”

  “Only recently, only when I thought the house was something worth winning.” She glared back at him. “I wanted the House of Kruge. You have made this the House of Korgh.”

  “What do you mean? There is no difference—”

  “You are as blind as you are vain.” She looked at him, unbelieving. “I have never loved you.” She took a deep breath. “I loved Kruge.”

  Korgh gawked. “Kruge!”

  “Kruge. He recruited me from the Science Institute of Mempa V himself. He told me I was brilliant, special above all others. He said he was not ready to take a spouse, but I was willing to wait. He told me I could serve his cause as a spy—and so I did. I hoped . . .” She trailed off.

  “He was your better,” Korgh said, mind reeling. “He was from a grand line, a great house. You were nobody.”

  “Until I met him, yes. But then, you were nobody until you met Kruge, as well.”

  “Stop being ridiculous. I was his heir—”

  “So you say. I seem to recall we had to hire a Betazoid to fake a vid.”

  Korgh pounded the wall with his fist. “Insolence! You really think he cared about you?” Odrok looked at him, eyes wide with fright. “Kruge did love a spy. But she was not you. Her name was Valkris.”

  “Valkris!” He watched her face as her mouth formed the word. It hung open.

  “You knew her?”

  “I-I remember the name.”

  “Another agent of his. I do not know how many he had.” He walked the room, waving his hand dismissively. “I learned of her accidentally, when I was Kruge’s aide. I think she helped him on the Genesis scheme. She disappeared around the same time Kruge died.” He turned his eyes back on Odrok. “But I overheard them speaking. And if Kruge loved any woman, it was she.”

  Odrok held his gaze for a moment—and then seemed to wilt. He had wounded her.

  She reached for the cart. “I am going home.”

  “What home?”

  “That hovel, on Qo’noS. It is the only place for one such as me.”

  Korgh looked at the cart and advanced toward it. “What are you taking?”

  She sagged with exhaustion. “Personal things. From too much time working here.” She slouched toward the door. “Forget it. Keep it all.”

  He followed her into the hall, pausing only to seal the door behind him. She looked small in the corridor, shambling toward the exit. He called out. “Odrok—the things you have known, have seen. I would hate if . . .”

  She spoke without looking back. “Do not fear me. I sacrificed all the years of my life not just to a man, but to his cause. The Empire is better off without the Federation. But you will not hear the name Odrok again, nor see her face.”

  Sixty-one

  U.S.S. TITAN

  DEEP SPACE

  Admiral Akaar spoke evenly. But Riker could tell the stern Capellan was very unhappy with him. “Admiral Riker, the president has been in near-constant conference with leaders of nonaligned Beta Quadrant worlds. You can imagine what they’ve been talking about.”

  “Yes, sir.” Half of them feared the Unsung would turn up on their doorsteps. The other half suspected the Klingon Empire would use the crisis as an excuse to annex their worlds. And they were all afraid the Federation’s strained relations with the Klingon Empire meant it wouldn’t be able to act as a moderating influence. “We’ve cut the Unsung’s numbers by two-thirds, sir.”

  “It hasn’t helped. People think they’ll be desperate, lashing out against everyone.” Onscreen, Akaar sat up even straighter, nearly putting the top of his head out of the frame. “I’ll tell you whom the battle has helped: the Romulans and the Breen.”

  The vessels from the two Typhon Pact powers had joined Titan and the surviving Klingon ships in chasing the surviving Unsung birds-of-prey. “We still don’t know how the Romulans and Breen beat us to Ghora Janto,” Riker said. “General Lorath made it sound as if we were the only ones he contacted.”

  “We’ll never know.”

  Riker had developed a whole list of questions for the late general. How had he known where the Unsung were traveling? How was it that his battle cruisers had been able to target the bird
s-of-prey while cloaked? V’raak had been obliterated, and the other two battle cruisers’ bridges had both taken direct hits. The survivors had provided no answers. “Enterprise is at Ghora Janto,” Riker said. “I’m hoping they can find some more information in the wreckage.”

  “It would be good to know anything. The internal situation in the Empire is starting to unravel.”

  Riker understood. Discommendation was extremely rare. There weren’t neighborhoods of the dishonored, ready to revolt. That was what had made the Unsung, a concentrated group, so unusual. But the judgment of discommendation touched many generations, amplifying their numbers to the point where many Klingons suspected their neighbors.

  And suspicion bred hatred. Riker described for Akaar what Troi had seen on Chelvatus III. “The backlash is way out of proportion. This thing has given some Klingons an excuse to attack people they didn’t like anyway.”

  “You need to know,” Akaar said, “the Federation is suspending its expansion of the consulate on Qo’noS. The construction site is too much of a flashpoint. And there’s more. The loss of his son and grandson has generated even more support for Korgh. While he mourns, his new allies in the High Council blast us at every turn.”

  “Didn’t our recovery of Ark of G’boj count for anything?”

  “It did: more ammunition. According to Ambassador Rozhenko, Qolkat, a member of Korgh’s cabal, advanced the view today that Starfleet destroyed the Jarin.”

  Riker’s jaw dropped. “What? We didn’t even have an armed ship in the area.”

  “And that, in these perilous times, is too much for many Klingons to believe. Yes, our people were just there looking for Blackstone, but we can’t tell anyone about the Kruge impersonator, so anything involving Blackstone is still classified information. Even if we could, all we’ve got is a dead Betazoid who escaped custody nineteen years ago.”

  “And even then, it wouldn’t help,” Riker said. While her race suggested how the Unsung had moved through the Orion underworld, little else was known about Cross’s murderous associate. By contrast, genetic analysis had quickly confirmed Buxtus Cross’s identity. But that had come with bad news: he had once been a Starfleet officer. Korgh had already railed at Spock and the Federation for looking the other way when the exiles settled in the Briar Patch. Conspiracy theorists would have a field day with Cross.

  “Starfleet needs to find the Unsung. But that requires access to the Empire. Ambassador Rozhenko believes Korgh’s next move will be against Starfleet’s freedom to travel. Korgh is asking for a public hearing where we list every honorable thing the Klingons and we have done together since the Accords’ inception. It’s a ploy, a way to keep you and Titan out of the search.”

  “Me, sir?”

  “Chancellor Martok gets to choose the Empire’s representative; chances are he’ll pick himself. The councillors who demanded this get to pick the other speaker. It’s a way of putting someone who’s disappointed them on the spot.”

  Riker swallowed. He didn’t like being thought of in that way. “Sir, I don’t want to pull Titan from the chase.”

  “And you shouldn’t. I just wanted to warn you now—you’re probably going back to Qo’noS.”

  The admiral took a deep breath. The last weeks had exhausted him, but the alliance had to be protected at all costs. “Very well. Captain Vale will keep Titan on the Unsung chase. I’m planning on dispatching Enterprise to rendezvous with Houdini, to see if it can help flush out Blackstone. If Cross was telling the truth about their having a way to track the Phantom Wing, maybe we can get them to cooperate.”

  “Agreed, Admiral. Let everyone know—if anyone has any real magical powers, now would be the time to put them to work.”

  Sixty-two

  U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

  GHORA JANTO

  Picard woke to the first good news he’d heard in days. Enterprise’s sensors had found a section of the superstructure of a destroyed bird-of-prey. Ejected from the blast, it contained a couple of compartments that might have remained pressurized. Beverly had already been called to sickbay, raising his hopes that some survivors had been found.

  Instead, Picard found sickbay empty of patients. He’d been about to go to the bridge when Crusher emerged from an isolation ward, wearing a sterile protective suit.

  “Did we find anyone?”

  He had done nothing to hide his hopes from her—but her expression after she removed the helmet was not encouraging. “Come with me. It’s safe.”

  Picard could hear the hum of a full-body medical scanner as he entered the ward behind her. “We didn’t find any remains in the wreckage,” Crusher said. “Everything was battered and half-melted. But there was a blast-proof chest—and we found this inside.”

  He looked through the coursing beams of the scanner at the object on the table. It was a mek’leth—and the inscription was just visible near the grip: To Worf, son of Mogh, on the honorable defeat of Unarrh.

  “It is Worf’s blade, given him by Emperor Kahless, years ago.”

  “The scan confirms it. Trace DNA as well as fingerprints.”

  Picard remembered Worf had been carrying the mek’leth. “How recent is what you’ve found?”

  “Somewhat.” Doctor Crusher pointed to the readout. “Someone else has handled the blade more recently.”

  “A Klingon?”

  “Yes. We’ll send the data to the Empire. We think the cabin with the locker came from the third or fourth decks.”

  Picard turned away from the table. Worf—or at least his blade—had survived the transporter trip to a cloaked bird-of-prey. It was also probable that vessel was the one that had rammed Jarin. The captain knew Worf never would have abandoned the blade. “Do you think he was killed for this?”

  “There was no fresh blood on it, and given where we found it, I think it’s more likely someone took it. At best it means he was a prisoner.” She looked at him. “No escape pods had left any of the birds-of-prey. Would the Unsung have transported off a prisoner?”

  “I’ll hope for the best.” Picard quickly squeezed his wife’s hand before stepping back, returning to his professional demeanor. “I’ve received orders. We’re to wrap up our investigation and rendezvous at Cragg’s Cloud with Commanders Tuvok and La Forge.”

  A tear visible in her eye, Crusher shook her head. “Why did Worf insist on going over there?”

  “He had seen Kahless executed. The emperor could not enter Sto-Vo-Kor without an act of intercession—a heroic venture. This was what Worf chose.”

  They stood together for several moments, comforting each other in silence as they stared down at the blade.

  Then a thought occurred to the doctor. “If Worf was killed when the bird-of-prey was destroyed, is that dying in combat?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. A Klingon would want to die with a weapon in hand.” Picard gestured downward. “His is here.”

  “Then that would mean someone would have to undertake a quest to get Worf into the afterlife.”

  Picard took one more look at the blade. “We’d better get started on it.”

  BLACKSTONE

  ATOGRA SYSTEM, KLINGON SPACE

  Gaw thought that as hiding places went, a comet’s tail left a lot to be desired. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. They were still in Klingon space, and the damage to Blackstone’s cloaking device and other systems had to be repaired before they could be on their way.

  But on their way to what? He didn’t know. None of them did.

  Blackstone’s team was without a practitioner for the first time since his meeting Cross aboard Clarence Darrow nineteen years earlier. The division of labor in the Circle of Jilaan was absolute. Centuries earlier, the human illusionist Howard Thurston had been able to hire other magicians for his workshop to design his tricks. Truthcrafter technology, by contrast, was so advanced only lifers who specialized in it could figure it out. Picard’s crew had only been able to use already-programmed characters against Ardra. Anything mor
e ambitious would have been beyond them. Cross had never learned how the truthcrafters did anything because he’d never needed to know. That was what Gaw was for.

  The problem was that the division cut both ways. Fully inhabiting a truthcrafter character required acting talents most technicians didn’t have. It required someone special: an empath, such as Cross—or a prodigy, as Shift was becoming. Gaw saw no options. He couldn’t promote from within, and he didn’t think the Blackstone’s crew was up to another prison break. That left disbanding or merging into another outfit, neither of which appealed to him.

  He was on the bridge studying his files on other Circle crews when the question suddenly became moot. “Contact approaching,” Bezzal said from the helm. “Coming fast.”

  The once-somber room became busy with activity. “Can we cloak?” Gaw asked.

  “We can’t even run. We’ve got too many systems offline.”

  Gaw saw a massive warship enter the comet’s effluent. It didn’t look like a Klingon or Federation vessel. “What kind of ship is that?”

  “Breen,” the Cardassian said. A squawking hail erupted from the comm system—an angry stream of gibberish. “Damn universal translator is no help with these people.”

  “Does anybody speak that?” Gaw asked. No answer from those on Blackstone’s bridge—and outside, a disruptor warning shot sliced the space right outside the port. “Okay, I understood that. They want us to—”

  A transporter effect appeared on the bridge. A lone Breen warrior materialized, holding a disruptor. The snout-nosed helmet and padded uniform gave no indication of the wearer’s species or gender. The warrior faced Gaw and let loose with another stream of gobbledygook.

  “All right, all right! We surrender.” The Ferengi raised his hands. “What’s this about?”

  The Breen warrior squawked again—and placed the pistol in a holster. Gloved hands went to the helmet and unlatched it. Gaw stepped back, gobsmacked, when he saw the green-skinned face inside. “Shift!”

  All aboard the bridge cheered. Gaw rushed forward to embrace her. “Thank the stars you’re safe, dearie!”