Honor Bound

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Maris,” she said, as much to see how the prisoner reacted.

  The prisoner’s eyes bulged, thus confirming Wol’s suspicion. “You—you knew? But—but how? I.I. agents are never—”

  At that, Wol whirled on the prisoner and grabbed him by the chestplate and pulled his face even closer. At this range, she revised her estimation of his breath to contain week-old raktajino. “What did you say?”

  “Your Bekk Maris is a patriot—an agent of Imperial Intelligence sent to root out dishonorable behavior. I would say that going against the chancellor’s chief of staff in battle qualifies.”

  Maris is I.I.? That cannot be…

  The prisoner wasn’t finished. “He was giving us information using a tight-beam transmitter that used an I.I. code. Our QaS DevwI’ have been receiving his reports since we arrived on this mudball. But he is no traitor, and neither am I—it is all of you who will be consigned to the Barge of the Dead for choosing to follow a dishonorable toDSaH into—”

  Wol cut off his diatribe by stabbing him in the chest with her d’k tahg. “Dispose of this filth,” she said after removing her blade. Then she activated her communicator. “Wol to G’joth. Find Trant and Maris, have them report to the command post.”

  “I’m with Trant right now, Leader,” G’joth said. “We’ll be able to come, but Maris won’t—he’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Wol felt as if the dirt was collapsing under her feet. First Maris was a traitor, then an I.I. agent, now a corpse. All this right after I finally found my son and killed him. It’s been quite a day.

  “Yes, Leader. It looks like one of—one of my grenades went off unexpectedly. He’s been ripped to pieces by shrapnel.”

  “Do not touch the body,” Wol said. “What is your position?”

  “We are behind the hut belonging to the smith.”

  “I will join you immediately.” She turned to Ch’drak. “Je-Ris is deploying troops. Coordinate with her—we may be under attack at any moment from General Talak’s forces.”

  “Of course, Leader,” Ch’drak said with an oily smile.

  I will definitely have to watch out for that one, Wol said. Like a hunter scenting a wounded targ, Ch’drak was now ready to move in for the finishing blow. She would need to remind him that a wild animal was at its most dangerous when wounded.

  Finding the smith’s hut was easy enough—just pick out the stench of smelted metal from the other odors that competed for olfactory attention and follow it. Within minutes, she found G’joth and Trant standing over a body. She looked down to see Maris covered in blood, with metal shards having ripped open parts of his arms, legs, and head. Most notably, one jagged piece of metal protruded from the remains of his right eye.

  “Search the body,” Wol said. “He may have a transmitter on him.”

  “What?”

  “Before being sent to Gre’thor where he belongs, one of the K’mpec troops informed us that they have been receiving tight-beam transmissions from an I.I. agent in our midst.”

  G’joth laughed. “Maris? With I.I.? That’s absurd.”

  Shaking his head, Trant said, “I have served with Maris for many turns, Leader. He is no agent of Imperial Intelligence. They have higher standards than that.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Trant,” Wol snapped. “Do you truly think I.I. would send an agent who was incapable of convincingly disguising his true self?”

  Trant shrugged. “I suppose not.”

  G’joth, meanwhile, had commenced searching the body. “There’s a d’k tahg, a ration pack, a few other components that probably could be assembled into a weapon on another planet—but no transmitters that I can see.”

  Wol frowned. “Keep his body under guard. I want it brought back to the Gorkon when this is over.” She turned to Trant. “How did he die?”

  Trant looked down. “Foolish happenstance. We were approaching the hut when one of these grenades went off unexpectedly. He bore the brunt of it.” He turned to G’joth. “If you had constructed weapons that worked properly, fool, then Maris would still be alive!”

  “To betray us again?” G’joth said. “Besides, these are chemical explosives. The reactants don’t always mix at the same rate—or sometimes the bottle doesn’t break open, but only crack. Had you been actually paying attention when you were instructed on the grenades’ use instead of whining like a Ferengi about—”

  “Enough!” Wol said. “Both of you, be silent!” She thought quickly. If the death was accidental, there was less of a chance of reprisals from I.I. But if he was there to sabotage the Gorkon’s mission, such reprisals were still a risk.

  This is more than I should have to deal with. In truth, there was no reason for her to do so. For now, there was battle. If they lived through this day, she would deal with the consequences then.

  Or, rather, her superiors would. “We will hold the body for Lieutenant Lokor. This is now a security matter, so he can deal with it. Then we will prepare for battle. General Talak’s troops will be here soon. Trant, pick up the body.”

  * * *

  The Imperial Intelligence agent who went by the name Trant bent over to pick up Maris’s body. Of course, G’joth had not found anything because Trant had already removed the stolen I.I. transmitter from Maris’s person.

  Trant breathed a sigh of relief as he did so, however. Maris’s “accidental” death meant that the Gorkon crew would think that one of the I.I. agents on board—and everyone knew that a ship the size of the Gorkon had at least a few agents in place—was no longer a problem. In particular, one who would betray them to a petaQ like Talak.

  In truth, Trant supported Klag’s actions. The general’s command to force Klag to go back on his word went against everything the Empire stood for. True, the expansion into Kavrot was important, but the Empire’s strength in the next few years would come from the return to the glory days of honor that Martok was spearheading in the wake of the Dominion War and the failed coup. In order for that movement to succeed, the Empire could not afford to cast aside the teachings of Kahless so cavalierly, not even in the name of necessary expansion.

  So he had taken the opportunity to test his fellow warriors, playing the malcontent to give them a target, someone to justify their position to, and thus reinforce it to others who might be vacillating.

  But he had not counted on Maris. Somehow—probably during the night Maris had spent in the bunks assigned to the fifteenth while Trant rotted in the medical bay—the toDSaH had gotten his hands on the I.I. transmitter Trant kept among his belongings. Since Trant had not needed it, he had not checked to see if it was present.

  He only knew Maris had stolen it when Maris came to him shortly after the howls of the Children of the San-Tarah and the victory cries of the Klingons indicated that they had taken Val-Goral.

  “We have to leave,” Maris had said then.

  Trant blinked in confusion. “What?”

  Maris repeated, “We have to leave. Come, my friend, we can go together. They’ll take us in on the K’mpec.”

  “What are you talking about?” Trant asked, though he was starting to suspect.

  “I have been providing the K’mpec’s forces with information. But with this setback, we cannot remain with that petaQ Wol anymore.”

  “How have you been providing this—information?”

  Laughing, Maris said, “With your transmitter, of course. You are I.I., yes? I found your transmitter, and I thought I would aid you in your task. General Talak will be very pleased, don’t you think?”

  Trant had never thought much of Maris. Indeed, he thought less of the bekk the more he got to know him, thinking him an ordinary soldier who was astonishingly easy to manipulate. Certainly he played along nicely when Trant had picked a fight with Maris in front of Wol a week earlier. It set in motion the chain of events that put Trant under Wol’s command. That had been Trant’s goal from the moment the former daughter of B’Etakk reported on board.

  Obviously, Trant needed to upgrade his opin
ion of Maris—or lower that of himself for letting this imbecile get his hands on an I.I. transmitter. Trant immediately injected a dose of vIHbe’ into Maris’s neck, which paralyzed him. The vIHbe’ would only last a few minutes before it broke down and became both inert and undetectable, even in an autopsy, but it was more than long enough for Trant to toss a grenade into the air and run away. When the grenade landed a meter to Maris’s left, he could not duck the blast, and was cut to pieces by the shrapnel. By the time G’joth came to see what caused the explosion, Trant had removed the transmitter from Maris’s dead body.

  Now, however, Maris was dead, as was his accuser, according to Wol. If any others made the accusation, there was no evidence to back it up one way or the other, so Trant was not in any danger from his superiors.

  He could carry out his assignment as planned.

  “Tactical report.”

  At Klag’s order, Kornan turned to the gunner station. “Lieutenant?”

  Rodek nodded and put an overlay on the viewer. Klag saw San-Tarah represented as a large red ball. Around it was a latticework of lines representing the subspace eddies. The original configuration of the eddies was in dark blue, with the eddies that were newly shifted after the Akua warp-core explosion shown in a much lighter blue. In green were the ships now on Klag’s side, with what remained of Talak’s fleet in yellow.

  Rodek reported: “The Kreltek and the Vidd have joined the Jor, Nukmay, and Khich in battle against the Taj and the Gogam.”

  Klag saw that the birds-of-prey remained mostly unscathed, but also had inflicted little damage. The Kreltek had only just joined the fray, and was in good condition, but the other three could not say the same. They were on the verge of annihilating each other.

  And Talak is on the planet, rallying his troops, no doubt.

  “Sir,” Toq said, “we are receiving a report from QaS DevwI’ Vok—and Me-Larr.”

  “On speaker.”

  Vok’s voice was barely audible, as the speakers suddenly became awash in the sounds of battle—the metal-on-metal clanging of blades and warriors screaming. “Captain, we are holding the outer villages, but the Prime Village is being overrun. General Talak has sent most of his troops here.”

  “I do not understand this strategy, Captain Klag,” Me-Larr added. “We are many—why focus the attack on one village?”

  “Symbolism, Me-Larr,” Klag said. “Plus, it is best to take the center of governmental power first. The rest of a world will fall into line after that.”

  Me-Larr seemed genuinely baffled. “Vok said the same thing. That is absurd. The Prime Village is simply a place. We live off the land. If the land is no longer useful, we find another piece of land.”

  “Sir,” Vok said urgently, “what are your orders?”

  Klag looked at the tactical display. The addition of the Kreltek was turning the battle in his favor. Neither the Taj nor the Gogam would be in any condition to fight for much longer. Captain Huss had taken her ships to the periphery. Her specialty was surgical strikes, after all, so this engagement—

  Suddenly, Klag threw his head back and laughed.

  “Sir?” Vok asked.

  “Captain,” Kornan said, “what is—”

  Waving his first officer off, Klag said, “Vok, listen to me carefully: You are to retreat from the Prime Village. All Klingons and San-Tarah are to retreat. How long will that take?”

  “Ten minutes—perhaps longer, given that some will wish to remain behind and continue the battle.”

  “If they do, they will die well.” Klag turned to Toq. “Contact Captain Huss and tell her to prepare for atmospheric entry and attack.” Then he turned to Kornan and grinned. “The Prime Village is about to become—no longer useful.”

  After a second, Vok laughed a hearty laugh, and Kornan also smiled.

  “I have Captain Huss, sir,” Toq said. “I am sounding the retreat now, Captain,” Vok said.

  “And sir—I request that we be granted twenty minutes, so we can activate the transporter blockers we took from Val-Goral. It will prevent the general from a cowardly withdrawal of his own.”

  Klag bared his teeth and rumbled his approval at this use of the general’s own weapon against him. “Twenty minutes, Vok. Qapla’.”

  “Qapla’, Captain.”

  Me-Larr added, “I thank you once again, Captain Klag. Your stories will be told in every season that is yet to come.”

  The captain took some satisfaction in the fact that, on one world at least, his deeds would be enshrined. He was half-convinced that the only song that would be composed in the Empire about this day would have a title along the lines of the “The Day Talak Faced the Traitors.”

  Huss’s face once again appeared on his viewscreen, her red hair—and the bridge behind her—in a bit more disarray than it had been when last they spoke.

  “Captain,” Klag said, “you said you were willing to fire on General Talak once again. I am now giving you that opportunity. You are to set course for the Prime Village on San-Tarah and raze it to the ground. Time your arrival so that the attack does not begin for at least twenty minutes.”

  “Talak has always had a tendency to allocate his resources poorly. Committing the bulk of his troops to the Prime Village is a weakness—you are wise to pursue this strategy, Captain.”

  “I am glad you no longer find it lacking.”

  For the first time, Klag saw the woman smile. “Not at the moment, anyhow. We are changing course and reconfiguring for atmospheric entry. I will contact you again when the Prime Village is destroyed. Out.”

  Even as the viewer returned to the tactical display, Klag turned to Kornan. “In the meantime, we will join the battle here.”

  Kornan nodded. “Leskit, set course 111 mark 2. Time to arrival?”

  “With the new configuration of the eddies—thirty minutes.”

  “Attempt to reduce that time frame, Leskit,” Klag said.

  “I’ll do what I can, Captain, but no promises.”

  An interminable amount of time passed as they worked their way around the newly arranged subspace eddies. At one point, Rodek said, “We’ll be in weapons range in ten minutes.”

  “Prepare a disruptor barrage,” Kornan said.

  Rodek then looked up. “Sir, the K’mpec is drifting into one of the subspace eddies. They are showing minimal power. If they drift much farther in, they will be destroyed.”

  That brought Klag up short.

  Dorrek.

  Kornan asked, “How long do they have, Lieutenant?”

  Rodek studied his console for a moment. “Four minutes.”

  The first officer then fixed Klag with a look, but Klag found that he could not read it. But then, he had yet to be able to truly read Kornan. And there was nothing the commander could say at a time like this in any case.

  On this matter, Klag stood alone with his thoughts and memories….

  “Why are you here, Dorrek?”

  “Let us praise the one who allowed her captain to soil the memory of a great warrior by stitching his remains onto the shoulder of an unworthy fool.”

  “Surely, you have not come to wish your older brother well on his induction into the Order.”

  “There is blood between us, and it will not end until one of us is in Gre’thor.”

  “What do you know of a Klingon way of life, Klag? You, who mount our father’s arm to your shoulder like some kind of sick trophy?”

  “Whether you like it or not, I am head of our House, and that gives me every right to instruct you. Now, in the name of the House of M’Raq, I order you to join us. Face the general down. Remember that a Klingon’s word is his bond, and without it, we are nothing.”

  “My duty, brother, is to obey the orders of my superiors. That is something you will never be.”

  Over a decade ago, Klag told William Riker that a Klingon was his work, not his family. “That is the way of things,” he told the human. Klag used those words to justify the reasons he would not see M’Raq after
his father returned from the Romulan prison camp and awaited death on Qo’noS.

  Now he had to put those words to the test. The captain of the K’mpec was his enemy, now. Dorrek had chosen—against Klag’s direct order as older brother—to side against Klag in a matter of honor. Klag had had no compunction about seeing the Akua destroyed, of course, nor the Vornar, the Kalpak, the Gro’kan, or the Tagak. They, too, were the enemy, as were the Gogam and the Taj.

  Klag knew in his heart, his mind, his very being that his course was the right one. It was the path of honor, the one that both his father and his brother had rejected. Dorrek had disgraced their House, and deserved nothing but death.

  “We are not on our own, brother—we are together. We are the sons of M’Raq. Is there nothing we cannot do?”

  He stared at his right hand, as if it contained the spirit of his and Dorrek’s once-proud father, as if it would provide some insight to Klag now. Should I leave Dorrek to his fate—drifting lazily to his doom? Or should I move to rescue him, at least give him the opportunity to die fighting?

  “Sir,” Rodek said suddenly, “the K’mpec is firing thrusters.”

  Turning to look at the viewer, Klag saw the K’mpec no longer drifting. Its running lights had dimmed even further, but the aft thrusters now kept it at a steady distance from the eddies.

  Toq then said, “Sir, QaS DevwI’ Vok is communicating from the service.”

  “This is Klag, Vok—report.”

  The troop commander’s words were barely audible over the all-encompassing sound of metal blades slamming into each other, or into armor, or into flesh. The noise of battle seemed to fill the bridge. “Sir, the Prime Village has been razed—but General Talak still lives, as do many of his troops. There are reports of heavy fighting in the outlying villages.”

  Again, the captain looked at his father’s arm. Klag had never believed in destiny or fate or in higher beings that provided guidance. The only guidance he needed was from Kahless. But now, events had conspired to remind him of his true mission.