STAR TREK: TOS - Errand of Vengeance, Book Three - River of Blood

by Kevin Ryan

  West started to say something, but the admiral waved him off. “I can’t guarantee you the Enterprise as you originally requested, because of current circumstances, but you will get posted to one of the other eleven ships in the next month.”

  “Admiral, I don’t know what to say,” West said. Up until a month ago this was the only thing he had dreamed of—the chance to use his xenoanthropology studies on a real starship that regularly made first contact and managed tense or difficult situations with other races. It was his chance to make a real difference in the galaxy, to help use an understanding of other people to keep the differences between races erupting into petty conflicts and large-scale wars. He had always seen that mission as the opposite of his father’s own, which seemed to him to be to wage and win wars against other races.

  Now, the admiral was handing his dream to him. There was only one possible response.

  [26] “Thank you, Admiral Justman, but I cannot accept,” he said.

  Justman’s face betrayed genuine surprise, something that West had rarely seen.

  “I don’t understand, Lieutenant,” Justman said.

  “Sir, I cannot accept a scientific post when I know the threat the galaxy now faces from the Klingons,” West said. “In seven months or less, we will likely be at war, a war that it is by no means certain we will win. I cannot in good conscience satisfy my own curiosity in a scientific endeavor that may well be rendered moot by a conflict that could cause the Federation to cease to exist.”

  Justman’s face softened and he said, “And you have done everything you could to prevent that chain of events. From this point forward, it is up to the diplomats and, if they fail, our strategic planning and defensive capabilities.”

  “Sir, that is exactly where I would like to make a contribution, where I think I can make a contribution,” West said.

  “What do you propose?” Justman said.

  “Up until now, Starfleet Command’s strategic planning has been done with an emphasis on the study of past battles and successful tactics,” West said.

  “I’m surprised that you would know so much about a subject that I thought you personally disapproved of. It was my understanding that you were not a fan of Starfleet’s military history,” Justman said.

  “Sir, I have learned a lot in the time that I have been here, and I cannot deny that there are times when we are forced to fight. And if we are going to fight, we have no [27] choice but to fight to win. To that end, I think it is time that Command had a xeno-studies department to offer direct input into strategic decision-making. Anything less than a full commitment to this sort of program would be irresponsible in the extreme.”

  The admiral studied him for a moment, then smiled.

  “Mr. West, I am forced to agree with you. My assistant outside will have my head because of all the paperwork this will cause, but I will have you reassigned to my office immediately and see that you have everything you need to start that department. In the meantime, I suggest you pack what you need. We cannot afford to be late for our meeting.”

  “Our meeting, Admiral?”

  “I will have to brief you on the way. For now, pack what you need and meet me at the hangar in two hours,” Justman said.

  West shook his head, “How long will we be gone, sir?”

  “Indefinitely,” Justman said. “And while we’re gone, we’ll be making vital, life-and-death decisions with grossly insufficient information. Welcome back, Lieutenant.”

  Chapter Two

  KIRK COULD ALMOST FEEL the Enterprise struggling. Shipwide, his crew was making repairs, holding systems together, making sure their ship made it to Starbase 21. There had been many times Kirk had wondered how Scotty did what he did with repairs. This was one of those times. This ship shouldn’t be moving at all considering what it had been through—a direct hit with a stellar flare while inside the outer layer of a red supergiant star.

  Yet the ship was somehow struggling ahead at warp speed with a dilithium chamber that should not have powered a table lamp and half a dozen systems that badly needed overhauling.

  So, despite her injuries, the Enterprise was struggling for every light-year like a racer out of breath, but moving nonetheless.

  Around Kirk on the bridge the mood was more like [29] that of a wake than that of an active starship command center. Uhura had her head down, her eyes focused seemingly inside her communications panel. Sulu sat at the helm, his arms resting on the panel in front of him, his usually busy fingers not moving as he let the ship almost fly on its own. He too seemed to be staring through, not at, the forward screen as the images of the stars in warp flashed past.

  Kirk glanced over at his science officer. Spock had his face buried in his viewer, studying who knew what. Over the last few hours Spock had seemed, even in his unemotional appearance, to not want to talk or even meet the gaze of anyone else.

  Kirk hadn’t wanted to do much but sit and stare at the screen either, waiting for something to fail and the ship to drop out of warp, dreading what was coming next. It was as if he and the crew were as tired, as beat up as the Enterprise.

  It wasn’t often the crew of the Enterprise got like this, and at the moment Kirk knew his own mood wasn’t helping them feel better. The memorial service was hard on them; such services always were, and the Enterprise had seen too many lost in too short a period of time.

  But that wasn’t all of it. Much of the mood was shaped by what Security Chief Giotto had found on the planet’s surface, the overwhelming evidence that the Klingons had been behind the mining operation, which would have surely killed most if not all of the pretechnological Klingons who lived on that world.

  Over one hundred thousand lives. Over one hundred thousand Klingon lives.

  [30] And when the Enterprise team had arrived to try to stop them, they had tried to expel the mine’s massive warp core into the planet’s crust. Had the landing party not succeeded in stopping them, the third planet of System 7348 would be nothing but a collection of space debris and everyone on its surface would have been dead.

  Kirk had warned his senior officers weeks ago that war with the Klingon Empire was likely in the next year. Now they had a taste of what that war might mean.

  They had learned something about the Federation’s enemy.

  As if to punctuate the precariousness of the ship’s condition, the deck shook under his chair again.

  “Captain,” Uhura’s voice cut through the thick silence. The urgency in her voice broke the mood and Kirk noticed that everyone turned toward her, even Spock. “We have a short-range emergency signal coming in from an approaching high-speed shuttle.”

  “Short-range and emergency?” Kirk asked, standing and stepping toward her. Why anyone would do that was a puzzle to him. An emergency signal sent only short-range made no sense at all.

  Kirk glanced at Spock. Spock nodded and turned back to his scope, his fingers moving on his board as he scanned the approaching ship.

  “Yes, sir,” Uhura said, meeting his gaze, her hand holding her earpiece in place as she listened.

  “Message?” Kirk asked.

  “Coming in, sir,” she said.

  “Spock? What is that ship?”

  [31] “A Federation high-speed shuttle of a type recently in the experimental stage.” The Vulcan looked up at Kirk. “It is on a direct intercept course and appears to be suffering no apparent malfunction or other danger.”

  “Sir,” Uhura said, “the ship asks for immediate clearance to land in the shuttlebay.”

  “Nothing else?” Kirk asked. “No identifying names? Numbers?”

  “No sir,” Uhura said, shaking her head and looking apologetic. “Nothing.”

  Kirk glanced at Spock, who said nothing and kept his face its normal emotionless mask. “It is one of ours, right?”

  “Yes,” Spock said. “And it is using proper command codes.”

  Kirk nodded. That left no room for doubt, that was for sure.

  “They are repeating t
heir demand,” Uhura said.

  At this point Kirk could see no reason to deny them permission. Clearly something important was happening, or had happened, and someone was coming to tell him and didn’t want to announce their presence. But he still wouldn’t take any chances.

  “Give them permission,” Kirk said.

  Uhura nodded and turned to her board.

  “Mr. Spock, I want a four-man security team with highest clearance possible assembled and ready on the shuttle deck.”

  “Understood,” Spock said, and strode for the turbolift door.

  “Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said, glancing at his helmsman, [32] “drop us out of warp and stand ready for taking on the shuttle. The moment it is on board I want to be back on course.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sulu said.

  Kirk headed for the lift door. At least they weren’t sitting around licking their wounds anymore. Something big had happened somewhere, or Starfleet wouldn’t have sent out a high-speed shuttle that was observing communications silence. The question was what had happened and why had they come out here to meet a limping Enterprise?

  Back in his quarters, Kell took out his tricorder and began speaking.

  “My honored brother Karel. It is your brother Kell. When I began this mission, I had believed that I might succeed and see you once again. I now know that that will never happen. I suspect it was never meant to.

  “And while I realize that this message will likely never find you, I feel compelled to make the effort. I will not send it via the encrypted channels that Klingon intelligence has reserved for Infiltrators to make their report. My superiors would no doubt make sure that its contents never reached you, or any other Klingon ears.

  “I wonder if they have told you that I am dead. I suspect they have. So carefully do they protect their secrets and hide their deceptions and their dishonor. As fiercely as Kahless once fought his own brother to protect the family honor, they fight to keep their lies and treachery hidden—and they have much to hide, brother.

  [33] “Though you will find this hard to believe, as I speak to you, I wear the face of a human, or an Earther as we always called them. I wear this face as betleH ’etlh, or The Blade of the Bat’leth. Surgeons altered my appearance and my superiors sent me to live among humans, to strike from the shadows and weaken them for the coming battle.

  “I know now that this is not an honorable task, and yet, it is not the worst stain that I have placed on our family’s honor.”

  Kell spoke through the afternoon. He spoke of what he had learned about humans in the time he served with them and about the worst treachery of the Klingon High Command—their willingness to sacrifice a large number of Klingons to wage a battle that should never be fought. Then he spoke of his own treachery, his betrayal of an honored friend, and his betrayal of honor and the teachings of Kahless.

  When he had told his tale entire he said, “I regret, my brother, that I will not see you again, or our honored mother, but I carry your faces with me for the rest of my time in this world and I will take them to the next. Your brother, Kell.”

  The ship that touched down on the deck had a much sleeker look than the standard boxlike shape of starship shuttles. Just sitting there, the new shuttle looked built for speed, both in space and in atmosphere. On its side was the name Trager.

  Mr. Spock had spread the security team out around the shuttlebay the moment the atmosphere returned, [34] stationing them in positions to see every side of the new ship. He now stood, arms behind his back, waiting beside Kirk in front of the strange ship’s door.

  It took only a moment for the new engines of the experimental ship to power down with a finely tuned whine. Kirk had no doubt that Scotty was going to want to take a look at those engines before this was over. That is, if he could pull himself away from the Enterprise’s damaged systems.

  Then with a click the door opened upward and three stairs slipped out and down to the deck. Kirk didn’t know what or who to expect behind that door, but the sight of Admiral Justman startled him even so.

  Justman was slightly taller than Kirk himself, his body slim but firm. His gray hair revealed his age, and it might have been easy to mistake him for a civilian if you didn’t see him in uniform and did not look into his eyes. Like many high-ranking officers Kirk had met, the admiral commanded with his eyes.

  Justman’s blue eyes were alert to his surroundings and intense when their gaze was fixed on you.

  Kirk knew Justman’s record, of course. The official records of the Battle of Donatu V had fascinated Kirk as a cadet. He had often put himself in Justman’s position and wondered how he would have performed.

  Kirk had lost his own captain when he was a lieutenant on the Farragut, so he had an idea of what Justman had gone through. But Justman had seen the entire bridge crew killed and the ship damaged while facing a superior Klingon force.

  The survival of that ship and the story of what [35] followed was Starfleet legend. And now the legend was standing on the deck of the Enterprise.

  Kirk had actually served with Justman and Fleet Captain Garth at the Battle of Axanar. He had seen those men and the other commanders do things that Kirk knew that Academy cadets would study for years to come.

  But why would one of the highest-ranking admirals in all of Starfleet come out this far to meet the Enterprise? Kirk could feel his stomach twist. Whatever was going on, it wasn’t good. Admiral Justman’s presence shouted that loud and clear. And it had something to do with the Klingons, Kirk was sure.

  “Permission to come aboard?” Admiral Justman asked.

  “Granted, sir,” Kirk said and stepped forward. “Good to see you again, Admiral.”

  “And you too, Captain,” Justman said, shaking Kirk’s hand. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

  At that the admiral nodded to Spock and glanced around at the security detail still in place. Then he stepped up even closer to Kirk. “We need to speak at once. Privately.”

  “I understand, Admiral,” Kirk said.

  At that moment a young ensign moved into the door of the shuttle and down onto the shuttle deck. Admiral Justman heard him and turned around. “This is Lieutenant West,” he said. “Lieutenant, Captain Kirk and his science officer, Spock.”

  Kirk started at the young officer. He looked very familiar and it took a moment to place it.

  “Lieutenant West is here to assist me. He is a xenoanthropologist who is working on the Klingon problem.”

  [36] Suddenly Kirk realized why this young lieutenant looked familiar. West—he saw the resemblance. “I served with your father, at the Battle of Axanar.”

  The young lieutenant nodded. “You did, sir.”

  “I don’t think I would be here if it wasn’t for him,” Kirk said.

  Something passed over the young man’s face—Kirk could not tell what—and then he said, “I’m sure my father would be pleased to hear that he is remembered well.”

  “We can catch up later,” Admiral Justman said, breaking into the conversation with a wave of the hand. “Business first.”

  “I understand, Admiral,” Kirk said.

  It took Kirk less than a minute to escort the admiral and Lieutenant West to the briefing room. Kirk poured Admiral Justman a glass of water, took one for himself, and sat, facing the admiral across the table. “The situation has deteriorated with the Klingons,” Kirk said.

  “You have no idea, Captain,” Justman said. The admiral took a long drink of water, then set the glass down and put his full attention on Kirk. “Captain, we have had serious security breaches that have begun to seriously compromise our readiness to respond to an invasion.”

  “Security breaches?” Kirk asked, stunned. “Of what sort?

  “Of every sort, Captain,” Justman said. “The Klingons are somehow replacing Starfleet personnel with operatives who are committing murder and other acts of sabotage, of which there has been a dramatic escalation recently.”

  Lieutenant West leaned forward and said, �
��The admiral recently survived an assassination attempt by [37] someone we thought was a yeoman but we have reason to believe was a Klingon-hired operative.”

  “Operative? Where would they get them?” Kirk asked.

  “We do not know for sure, since the operatives do not reveal themselves until after they perform their function, and they usually disintegrate themselves. We have yet to discover a body.”

  “Unfortunately, there are a number of vocal groups critical of Federation and Starfleet policy, The Anti-Federation League, for one,” West said.

  “The Anti-Federation League is a peaceful, political organization. The worst crimes they have been guilty of are squatting on uninhabited worlds and exercising extremely poor judgment.”

  “Yet, the Klingons are getting help from somewhere,” Justman said. “Suddenly it seems that no secret is safe. Almost before we do something the Klingons know we’re going to do it. And we can’t seem to put a plug in the leak. Or more likely leaks.”

  “Which is why you came in the way you did in the shuttle?” Kirk asked, nodding to himself.

  “Exactly,” Justman said. “No one at Starfleet headquarters knows I’m here. Or where we’re heading. At this point, it’s the only way to get anything safely done without it being known in the Klingon Empire. At first, we thought that hand-delivered code keys were the answer, but even those have been compromised.”

  “I’m shocked that things are that bad,” Kirk said.

  “Unfortunately, they are, Captain,” Admiral Justman said, shaking his head. “Maybe even worse.”

  The admiral turned and nodded to Lieutenant West, [38] who handed Kirk a data padd. Kirk recognized the document on the padd’s screen immediately—he had seen many similar ones recently. It was a decrypted Klingon transmission that read simply “The targ’s charge has begun.”

  “We received that shortly before our departure,” Justman said.

  “What does it mean?” Kirk asked, even as his instincts told him it was a very serious and very significant message.

  “It is a high-level communiqué from Klingon High Command to regional commanders. We didn’t know what it meant at first until Mr. West enlightened us,” the admiral said, nodding to West.