by John M. Ford
The door opened for the officers. The Security team leader was standing in the hall, without his team; Krenn had not seen anyone summon him.
Krenn was taken back to the transporter room. Just before the underofficer energized the disc, Admiral Kezhke came into the room. “Leave us for a moment,” the Admiral said.
The Security man looked unhappy, but obeyed.
Kezhke motioned for Krenn to step off the transport stage. After he had, the Admiral pushed the transport levers halfway up. The discs flickered.
“Loose energy khests the monitors,” Kezhke said. He looked straight at Krenn. “I knew the great of your line, vestai-Rustazh.” He held out the bottle of brandy.
“This is a misapprehension I often find,” Krenn said. “The name was—”
Kezhke was shaking his head. “No error, Captain. I knew both your fathers.”
Krenn accepted the bottle, took a swallow.
“Listen to me, vestai-Rustazh, Khemara. You must bring the Federation Ambassador here, and you must bring him alive, and without any incident. No matter what you are told, or think you are ordered, you must do this.”
Krenn felt he was listening from light-years away. If this one was close to the sutai-Rustazh and the epetai-Khemara, then what was he doing alive, speaking to the one with the secret of both lines?
Krenn began to wonder if a Rom war would be such a bad thing to die for. Kahless, the greatest of all Emperors, had died so, and Kahless was known as The One Who Is Remembered.
What Krenn said was, “I understand the mission, Admiral. I do not mean to fail in it.”
“I hope so,” Kezhke said. “I hope you understand.”
Krenn held out the bottle. “Keep it,” Kezhke said, and went to the door; he let the Security transport operator in, then stood in the doorway. “Much glory, Captain Krenn,” he said, which was the last thing Krenn had expected him to say.
The homeworld faded out.
Fencer faded in.
“Did you meet the Emperor?” Akhil said, smiling.
“Not unless he goes around in clever plastic disguises.”
“What?” The Specialist’s look fell on the object in Krenn’s hands. “That isn’t really—”
“Have some,” Krenn said. “Let’s both have some, right now, ’Khil. And then I’ll really make your head spin.”
The air turned to fire above the diamond grid of the cargo transporter, and a crate materialized, displacing a small breeze. Fencer’s Cargomaster ran a coding wand over its invoice plate and registered the load on his portable computer.
“What’s that one, Keppa?” Krenn asked.
“More whitefang steaks,” the Cargomaster said, with something close to awe. “Well, if we’re captured, we can just eat ourselves to death.”
“It’s a two-year cruise, with no stops to forage.”
“That wasn’t a complaint, Captain,” Keppa said quickly. “Any time they want to load meat instead of Marines, I’ll clear the space.”
Krenn laughed. “I know how you’d do it, too. But decompression’s hard on the hull.” Akhil was approaching, making notes on a small scribe panel. “Keep the steaks coming, Keppa.”
“Affirm, Captain.” The cargo module was lifted on antigravs; Krenn turned away.
“Keppa says another quarter-day to load stores,” Krenn said to Akhil. “How are the other preparations?”
“The weapon interlocks are installed,” Akhil said.
Krenn pointed a finger, and he and Akhil passed, quite casually, between two cargo modules. Krenn said quietly, “My way or theirs?”
“Yours. Any time outbound, your personal cipher will get us disruptors.”
“Good.”
“And I got these last night.” Akhil handed Krenn a pair of cassettes.
“Where did you get them?”
“A friend in the Institutes of Research for Language. That’s their latest revision of Federation Standard, set up for dream-learning. And that’s all that’s on them.”
Krenn took the black plastic boxes. “They offered me an RNA drip, too.”
Akhil tapped his scribe on the board. “Human?”
“That’s what Meth said.”
“Do you really think they were planning to program you?”
“I know they meant to program me,” Krenn said. “I don’t know if there was anything clever on the dream-tapes.”
Akhil nodded. They came out from between the crates, turned a corner; Akhil pressed for a lift car. The two Klingons got in. “Bridge,” Krenn said, and they started the long ride from the cruiser’s lowest tail deck, up the shaft of the boom to the command pod forward.
“And the crew?” Krenn said.
“They enjoyed themselves, but nobody’s dead,” Akhil said dryly. “Koplo and Aghi put in for long-term leave; they were entitled, and you said—”
“It’s all right. This trip, everyone’s a volunteer. They were replaced?”
“I’ve got the pool files on all the new crew. Krenn…there are a couple of things you’re not going to like.”
“Only a couple? What a relief.”
“Kalitta was beaten up, outside a bar. The port patrols say they ran off some Marines—”
“But no one was caught, and it was very, very dark.”
“As the void, Captain.”
“I suppose we were fortunate, and an experienced Communications officer was available?”
“Blue lights, Captain.”
“How’s Kalitta doing?”
“That’s the other thing you won’t like.”
Krenn growled deep in his throat. “They never take chances, do they.” He said suddenly, “What about Maktai?”
“He checked aboard this morning, all lights blue.”
Krenn thought about that. Imperial Intelligence could have just ordered the Security Commander replaced, and no one, least of all Mak, could have said anything. That they had not meant…
Nothing. Either Maktai belonged to II, or he did not, but they had someone else aboard. Someone unsuspected.
Someone in a good position to communicate his reports.
Krenn found himself staring at Akhil.
The Exec did not seem to notice. “I’ve got a hospital address for Kalitta, if you want to send her a tape.”
“Tape?” Krenn said absently.
“They said she’d be conscious in a few days.”
“G’dayt,” Krenn spat. “Yes, let’s do that. Let’s do it from the Bridge, and get everyone’s face on it. And let’s do it now, before the gossip link figures out what happened to her.” The lift car slowed. “Besides, we can see our new Communications expert in action.”
The car doors opened on Fencer’s Bridge. All stations were occupied, as the crew checked the ship down for cruise. Akhil and Krenn went to the Communications board.
“Captain, presenting—”
Krenn looked up, and disbelieved.
“Lieutenant Kelly, Electronics, Communications,” Akhil said, and saw Krenn’s face, and took a step backward.
“Captain Krenn,” Gelly Gensa Swift said—though of course she was no longer any of those things—and rose from her chair, a smooth motion, and saluted. The movement of her arm was somehow wrong, and Krenn could see in his mind the steel Lance coming down, and the dark-colored blood.
“Welcome aboard Fencer, Lieutenant,” Krenn said. “It has been quite some time.”
Kelly nodded slightly. Krenn thought she relaxed, but he was not certain; he had never seen her when she was not dancing with energy—except for the one time, with the blood.
“You know each other?” Akhil said, more curious than surprised. All around the Bridge, work stopped, heads turned.
“Yes,” Krenn said, wondering if it was the truth.
“But Zharn was alive after they transported you off the grid?” Krenn said. He and Kelly were alone in the Officers’Mess, talking, over warm black ale and plain pastry with pale butter.
“Alive, yes,” she said. “H
is neck was broken, and of course he couldn’t move…they put him into a frame and took him away. I was wrapped all up in something…” She touched her arm. “I remember not liking being wrapped. But the care was really very good. It took two years.” She straightened her elbow, lifted her arm; her shoulder swiveled, stopped, swiveled.
“Metal implant?” Krenn said.
Kelly nodded. “There weren’t any grafts to match my fusion, so it had to be metal. You know, before that, I used to think I was half-Romulan. But they have lots of material for Klingon-Rom fusions, since they use so many on the border now.”
Krenn had heard of that development, though of course he had been nowhere near that space.
Kelly said, “And they took samples, but…I still don’t know what I am, really. I suppose I never will.”
She drank some ale. There was still an astonishing grace to all her movements—even of her rebuilt arm—and Krenn found himself wondering if the medical geneticists had matched her against an Orion template.
He pulled back from the thought. She had been sent here, he knew, and those who sent her might have planned on exactly that reaction from him.
She said, “And you? How did you come to have a line, and a ship?”
She said she had not returned to the House, after the hospital released her, but had gone straight to Naval Technical School. She knew nothing of what had happened to him. She said.
“I was adopted out,” Krenn said. “But I took another linename, to start new.”
“Oh. You have consorts, then.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
She stood up. No, Krenn thought, she was not Swift any longer: there was a deliberation that she had never shown before. It was not the calculated, mind-blinding stimulation of an Orion female, either.
Though Krenn could not deny that she affected him.
“Permission to retire, Captain?”
“Muros’s nose, Kelly….”
She nodded, trying either to force or restrain a smile. “Pleasant rest, Krenn.”
“Pleasant rest, Kelly.”
Early in the following dayshift, Akhil said to Krenn, “Do you think Imperial Intelligence sent her?”
“If they did,” Krenn said, a rumble in his voice, “would we know it so soon?”
Krenn staggered out of his bed, almost falling over the loose restraint web. He felt his way to the washroom, turned on the sink, then ignored it, tumbled into the bath and hit the fill lever. Water flowed over him; his arms twitched at the stimulus, throwing water across the room.
“Is,” he said, “are, was, were, be, been, am. Excuse me, citizen, but where may currency be exchanged? Pozhalasta prishl’yiti bagazh.”
He started to sink, into the dreams that were mutually exclusive with dream-learning, into the hot water. Both felt good.
I am drowning, he thought, in Federation Standard. Please inform the UFP Consulate.
Eventually he noticed that the communicator was chiming, and managed to answer in klingonaase with only a slight Federation accent.
“Disputed Zone coming up, Captain.”
“Strategic,” Krenn said, using Battle Language automatically. The main display showed the area of space ahead in large scale, the Disputed Zone—what the Federation wanted to call a “border”—marked in white.
A set of yellow symbols appeared on the far side of the Zone: five ships in echelon.
“Kagga’s crown, Roms,” the Weapons officer said, and reached for his board; his hands hovered, shaking, above the sealed-off controls.
They were only off, not sealed, but the Gunner didn’t know that. “Not Roms,” Krenn said. “All but the kuve have five fingers. Akhil?”
Sensor schematics flashed on the display: four ships with flattened-sphere hulls, mounting Warp tubes directly aft; and one that was a saucer connected to an oblong block, the Warp engines in stand-off nacelles.
“Federation cruisers,” the Science officer said, watching his sensor telltales, calling recognition data to the displays. “Two types…four Mann-class, one unknown.”
“Human-class?” Krenn said.
“Different spelling, a Human proper name, probably. Imperial code-name HOKOT.” But Akhil was smiling; Krenn had not been the only one to give up many nights’ dreaming.
Nor just the two of them. “Signal from the lead ship, Captain, the unknown one,” Kelly said. “They’re asking our name and intentions.”
“Open the link.”
The display showed a Bridge of the circular Federation design. In the Command Chair at its center sat a broadly built Human, with red-brown skin and very black hair. His face seemed to be cut from rock.
Krenn said, “I am Krenn, Captain of I.K.V. Fencer. My intention is to enter your space, on a prearranged diplomatic mission.”
The Human’s eyes narrowed slightly; he looked for just a moment at an Andorian Krenn supposed was the Communications officer. Then the Human said, “This is Admiral Luther Whitetree, commanding Task Force K, aboard U.S.S. Glasgow. Do you have proof of your identity?”
“I have authorizations from the Klingon Imperial Council. Shall I transport them?”
“Launch anything and we’ll burn it,” said Admiral Luther—no, Krenn thought, Admiral Whitetree. Krenn wondered what in Keth’s hundred years the Human meant. Then the Admiral said, “Play your tapes.”
Krenn gestured to Kelly; she plugged the cassette into her board.
“Five khest’n cruisers,” Security Commander Maktai said. “Are they cowards of such great degree?”
On the display, Whitetree’s head snapped up; Kelly at once broke the Bridge-to-Bridge link. “Captain, I—”
“No fault, Lieutenant,” Krenn said. “I’m pleased they heard it.” He turned to Maktai, who stood rigid with embarrassment. Krenn did wonder at a Security officer who was so careless of who might be listening, but that was Mak’s way. “I don’t think they’re cowards, Mak. Cautious, yes, but…” He turned back to the display, where the Human Admiral was again watching the Council’s message. Krenn said, “I think that one would make a good Klingon, don’t you?”
Kelly warned them of the end of tape in time for the laughter to fade away.
“If you are ready, Captain Krenn,” Admiral Whitetree said, less challenging than before but no less hard, “we will escort you to Starbase 6.”
The disc-and-block starship, Glasgow, came about, flashing formation lights; the four spheroid ships moved apart, to surround Fencer.
Whitetree said, “Can you cruise at Warp Factor Four, Captain?”
“Quite comfortably, Admiral,” Krenn said, thinking, Of course you knew that, just as my computers are filled with data on your ships. But we will play the game as if it were Blind, instead of only Clouded.
Thermal sinks on the Mann-class cruisers glowed dull red, and the convoy moved toward the space the Federation claimed as its own.
Five: Players
Fencer held station ten thousand meters off Federation Starbase 6. The Klingons had an excellent view of the Starbase, a dished circular hull some five hundred meters across, mounting an antenna-and-sensor cluster at its center. The web forms of work docks floated beyond the hull, marker lights flashing. The docks all seemed to be empty. Kelly had reported no subspace traffic in or out, even encrypted.
There was a squadron of small, hunter-type ships, all built for speed and firepower; Krenn supposed they could be frontier patrol on normal station leave. But there were those empty docks: ships could not need so little maintenance, else why build so many docks? And there were the five cruisers still englobing Fencer.
“You say, Captain Krenn, that your total ship’s complement is less than three hundred?” Admiral Whitetree said. The disbelief in his voice was not open, but it was there.
“Your recognition data are correct, Admiral. Our normal complement is larger. But this ship is carrying only a few Marines as honor guards for the officers. It did not seem necessary to bring more…. I believe your senso
r systems can verify the number of living organisms aboard?”
The Admiral said, “In that case, permission granted to deboard your crew. We’ll give you approach routes for your shuttlecraft.”
“From which we will not deviate. Until we meet face to face, Admiral. Krenn out.”
Kelly broke the link.
Maktai said, “Shuttlecraft?”
“The Admiral’s suggestion,” Krenn said, thinking hard.
“It’ll take eight trips with all shuttles running, if we don’t have a kherx on the staging floor. Are they afraid we’ll use the troop transporters and overrun them?” He pointed at the Starbase. “There must be thousands of troops on that thing. If the whole hold was full of frozen Marines, we—”
Akhil said, “They may just not want to drop shields, even a crack. Or there’s another possibility.” He looked at Krenn. “Are you thinking what I am, Captain?”
Maktai caught on in a moment. “They don’t have particle transporters.”
Akhil said, “We haven’t had them for so very long.”
Maktai said, “If that’s true—”
Krenn said, “If it’s true, they still have shields. And there’s another possibility: they have transporters, but they don’t know that we do…. I think we ought to avoid mentioning transporter systems while we’re on this leave. Mak, you’ll let the crew know—and tell them that they might, without attracting any notice, be looking for anything that might be a Federation transporter?”
The Security Commander grunted agreement.
Krenn’s shuttle entered a landing deck that could have held thirty such craft; tractors pulled it to a lighted square on the dark surface, and an elevator carried it down to a pressurized staging room larger than Fencer’s entire shuttle deck.
The ship’s doors opened. Two honor guards preceded Krenn out.
A small, slim Human and a Vulcan were waiting. Behind them were six beings of assorted races, all carrying sidearms. All wore dress uniforms of glossy fabric, with bright gold trim; the Human and Vulcan showed a large number of award pins on their tunics.