Kirk got up and took a step toward the bluff. Spock came along.
“That’s far enough,” said the foremost Klingon, pointing his weapon at the captain. “Identify yourselves.”
“I’m Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise,” the captain said, his voice echoing from rock to rock. He tilted his head to indicate the Vulcan. [171] “And this is Spock, my first officer. We’re the ones who sent you that graviton pulse.”
The Klingon regarded Kirk with dark, suspicious eyes. “You claim that you sent the signal?”
“I did,” the captain confirmed.
The Klingon shook his head. “Why?” He gestured with his weapon at the sea of Enterprise crewmen. “And what are so many of you doing down here?”
Kirk explained as briefly as he could. When he got to the part about Qadar and his warriors escaping, the Klingon’s eyes opened wide. And when he added that Qadar and his men had seized the Enterprise, the Klingon’s mouth twisted with disgust.
“You let him take your ship?” he said incredulously.
The captain met the affront without flinching. “If he had wanted yours, he would have had that as well.”
The Klingon shook his head defiantly. “You say that because you don’t know me, human.”
Kirk felt a bead of sweat trace its way down his face. He held his hands out. “Listen ... we can stand here talking all day, if you like. Or you can beam us up to your vessel and break orbit as soon as possible. Because if you don’t, you’re going to lose your quarry.”
The Klingon made no effort to hide his disdain. “Beam you up? And why should I take you?”
“Because I know my ship,” the captain replied coolly, “every inch of it. With my assistance, you’ll catch those other Klingons and stop them. Without my assistance ...” He shrugged.
The Klingon’s lips pulled back, revealing a set of [172] sharp, predatory teeth. “Very well,” he said. “You’ll come with me.” He gestured with his weapon in the direction of Spock, Phelana, Alden, Kyle, and Kelso. “These five as well. But no more.”
Then he turned to Kirk again, as if he expected a challenge. The captain wasn’t going to give him one. After all, he had gotten further with the Klingon than he had expected.
The Klingon gestured again—this time to a point just below the bluff on which he was standing. “Gather here,” he instructed Kirk and the others. “Apart from the rest of your comrades.”
The captain and his designated officers did as they were told. Then the Klingon leader removed a mechanism from his belt that looked vaguely like a Starfleet communicator.
“Eleven to beam up,” he said, speaking into the device. “Two parties—ours and theirs. Keep them separate.”
A rough acknowledgment came from the communications device. Then the Klingon put it away and gave Kirk a sidelong glance.
“Do not try any tricks,” he declared. “If you do, you’ll regret them a thousand times over.”
“We’ll be peaceful as lambs,” the captain replied, though he allowed a note of irony to creep into his voice.
A moment later, the Klingons vanished. Kirk looked at his officers. “Be ready for anything,” he told them.
After all, no Starfleet officer had ever seen the inside of a working Klingon vessel. Whenever a Klingon commander lost a battle, he would destroy [173] his ship rather than allow a conqueror to set foot in it.
Of course, Kirk and his people were hardly conquerors in this instance. To the Klingon leader and his crew, they were closer to being laughingstocks—bumblers who had lost their ship to a clever intruder.
The captain had barely completed this thought when he realized his surroundings had changed. Instead of the open, barren terrain on which he had been abandoned, he found himself in the cramped, dark atmosphere of what appeared to be a Klingon transporter room.
Getting his bearings, Kirk saw that his officers were present as well—all five that had been designated for transport. He also saw the half dozen Klingon warriors gathered in front of the hexagonal transport grid with their disrupter pistols aimed at their guests.
“Put your weapons down,” said their leader, making his way through the assembled Klingons. “Captain Kirk and his people are harmless.”
The warriors grinned and exchanged amused glances. Some even chuckled at their superior’s remark.
It was a slap in the face, Kirk knew, even if the conclusion was a reasonable one considering the circumstances. The captain didn’t know a great deal about Klingons, but he knew one thing—it was required of him to take umbrage with the Klingon’s comment.
Without hesitation, Kirk walked up to him and looked him in the eye. “Send your guards away and [174] I’ll show you how harmless I am. Or do you only know how to make insults when you’ve got an army behind you?”
The Klingon’s eyes flashed black fire and his lips pulled back in anger. For a moment, it appeared he would reach for the weapon at his hip. Then his fury seemed to cool.
“I’ll be glad to oblige you when my duty has been discharged,” the Klingon growled at him. “Until then, you are too valuable to kill—as you yourself were quick to point out.”
Inwardly, the captain breathed a sigh of relief. But then, he didn’t want to fight any more than the Klingon did. He still had a ship to get back.
The Klingon took in his warriors with a glance. “Spread the word,” he said. “Our guests are not to be harmed.” He glanced at Kirk again. “That is the command of Kang, son of K’naiah.”
Kang, thought the captain. At least now he knew who in pity’s name he was dealing with.
Chapter Fourteen
KIRK STOOD at the broad, hexagon-shaped portal and watched the stars wheel by. “They’re coming about,” he noted.
Spock, who was standing beside him in the Klingons’ dark, brazen version of a briefing room, nodded slowly. “No doubt, their sensors have confirmed our suspicions about the Enterprises heading—perhaps from her ion trail—and they have decided to offer pursuit.”
The captain turned to Kelso. “Your observations, Lieutenant?”
The helmsman shrugged, his features caught in the yellow glare of one of the room’s few lighting sources. “Looks to me like they’re setting a course for the Klingon Neutral Zone, sir.”
“Just as I thought they would,” said Phelana.
Kirk glanced at her. “Yes. Just as you thought.”
[176] “Sir,” said Alden, “what about the others? The ones we left behind on the planet’s surface?”
“They’ll have a difficult time of it without supplies,” Kyle pointed out.
“Don’t worry,” the captain told them. “I’ll see to it that our people are taken care of.”
Suddenly, the doors to the room parted and Kang walked in accompanied by a trio of his warriors. All four of them still wore their disruptor pistols, as if they were expecting trouble.
Then again, this was a vessel full of Klingons. If the stories were true, Kirk told himself, they fought among themselves more often than they fought their enemies.
“We have identified your Enterprises heading,” Kang told the captain without preamble. “In time, we will overtake her.”
That depends on how fast she’s going, Kirk remarked inwardly. But he didn’t express the concern out loud.
“Meanwhile,” said Kang, pulling out a chair from the blood-red, hexagon-shaped table that dominated the room, “I want to know how this shameful situation came about.” He leaned forward, skewering Kirk on his gaze. “I want to know how the M’tachtar escaped.”
The captain looked at him. “The M’tachtar?”
The Klingon frowned. “Qadar and his fourteen followers.”
Kirk nodded, filing the name away. He looked to Phelana. “We’ll be glad to tell you all about it, of course. But first, we’ve got to send a message to the nearest Federation starbase, alerting the fleet to the [177] plight of my people on the prison planet. Otherwise, they may not live long enough to see the outcom
e of our pursuit.”
Kang looked at him for a moment, no doubt weighing the wisdom of complying with the captain’s wishes. Finally, he came to a decision. “Very well. One of your officers may send such a message, Captain. I will have my communications officer assist you in this.” Kirk eyed him back. “I’m grateful.” The Klingon shrugged. “As you should be.” The captain turned to Alden. “Lieutenant?” Alden rose and waited for Kang’s response. A moment later, the Klingon leader signed to one of his men, who got up and led the way out of the briefing room. The lieutenant was right behind him. Kang eyed Kirk again. “And now ... ?”
“And now we’ll tell you what we know,” the captain told the Klingon. “But after that, I want to know something also—and that’s how the M’tachtar came to be so powerful.”
Kang regarded him fiercely. For all the human knew, he had pushed the Klingon leader too far and would pay the price for it—in blood, perhaps.
Then the corners of Kang’s mouth pulled up and he grinned a wolfish grin. A grin of respect, Kirk hoped.
“You want to know how the M’tachtar became so powerful, Captain?” The Klingon nodded, still amused. “I believe that can be arranged.”
Kirk grinned, too. But then, he couldn’t afford not to.
* * *
[178] Gary Mitchell sat in one of the Enterprise’s gray, dimly lit cargo bays, surrounded by fifty or sixty of his fellow crewmen, and stared resentfully at the glittering energy barrier blocking their access to the corridor outside.
Beyond the barrier, there was a strapping Klingon guard in dark, leathery garb, a phaser pistol clutched in his big, scarred fist. And though he and one of his comrades had spoken at length just a few minutes earlier, he didn’t look like he was eager to speak that way with any of his captives.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Mitchell said.
“Any ideas?” asked Scotty, who was sitting beside him.
The navigator turned to him. “You’re the idea man, Mr. Scott.”
The engineer frowned. “I’ve got t’ admit, I’m at somethin’ of a loss. At least, for the time bein’.”
Sulu, who was sitting on Mitchell’s other side, said, “Maybe it would help to take stock of our situation. Tally up what we know and see if we can use any of it.”
“All right,” the navigator agreed. “So what do we know?”
Scotty shrugged. “That a bloody bastard named Qadar has taken control of our ship.”
“That some of us are captives here and some others were left on the planet,” Sulu offered.
“And that the captain was one o’ those left behind,” said the engineer, a note of bitterness in his voice.
On the other side of the cargo bay, Admiral [179] Mangione groaned and rolled over onto her side. Dr. Piper propped up the uniform shirt under her head to make her more comfortable, but without his hypospray he was limited in what he could accomplish.
“And that some of us need medical attention,” Scotty added, “the admiral foremost among ’em.”
Mitchell’s teeth ground together. He understood why the Klingons would want to keep someone like him imprisoned in a cargo bay. But Mangione ... a woman suffering from a concussion, who was clearly in no condition to undermine Qadar’s efforts? What did their captors have to gain by holding the admiral here instead of in sickbay? Was it some kind of payback for what the Klingons had endured on the planet they had left behind?
The navigator cursed beneath his breath. He felt so helpless here, and he hated feeling helpless. Unexpectedly, he felt a hand on his arm.
It was Scotty’s hand. “I know how ye feel, lad,” said the engineer. “And believe me, I feel the same way.”
It helped Mitchell to know he wasn’t alone in his anger and frustration. But to tell the truth, he thought, it doesn’t help enough.
The navigator wished he were at his friend Jim’s side, plotting to rescue both halves of the crew. He wished he were hiding somewhere on the ship where the Klingons couldn’t find him. In fact, he wished he were anywhere but behind an energy barrier.
“Hey,” he said.
Both Sulu and Scotty turned to him.
[180] Mitchell tilted his head toward the forcefield. “Remind me never to get penned behind one of these things again.”
Sulu chuckled dryly. “Whatever you say.”
The navigator thought again about his friend the captain. Of course, he had every confidence in the man. He knew Jim Kirk could beat anything the Klingons threw at him, with or without his old pal Gary.
But as he had said not so long ago, he was the captain’s rabbit’s foot, his good luck charm—and as such, he had the gall to believe Kirk was better off with him than without him.
Still marveling that he was in a Klingon briefing room, Kirk sat back in his hard, metal chair between Kelso and Phelana and listened as the Andorian provided an answer to Kang’s question.
“From what I could see,” Phelana said, “the energy storage unit in one of the graviton projectors that kept the M’tachtar incarcerated met with some malfunction—even though the devices were checked every six months, along with the M’tachtar themselves.”
The Klingon leader scowled. “Was there no backup measure?”
“There was,” the Andorian responded. “But it wouldn’t have kicked in until the projector was down for thirty seconds. Normally, that would have been little enough. Unfortunately, one of Qadar’s people must have been in the right place at the right time. Seeing the gap, he would have taken advantage of it to escape.”
[181] “And once he was free,” the captain speculated, “he must have worked on some of the other projectors, enabling his friends to get out as well.”
Kang didn’t say anything. However, his scowl had deepened.
“Of course,” Phelana went on, “getting past the energy barrier was only the first step. They also had to get hold of a ship. So they waited until our regularly scheduled visit and concealed themselves in the vicinity of the cliffs, which our sensors couldn’t penetrate.”
“They jumped our landing party,” Kirk noted. “And when we realized something was wrong and attempted to beam them up, the M’tachtar came along for the ride.”
The Klingon leader grunted. “Obviously, your Federation technology is untrustworthy and your technicians are sloppy. It’s a good thing my vessel was waiting in orbit as a precaution, or the M’tachtar would have gotten away without a trace.”
This time, the captain ignored the detraction. “We’ve told you what you wanted to know,” he declared. “Now tell us about the M’tachtar.”
Kang snorted. “The M’tachtar,” he said, as if it were a curse. He looked at the warriors who flanked him at the blood-red table. “As little as sixteen years ago, they did not exist. Then a scientist whose name you will recognize decided to dabble in previously forbidden arts.”
“Qadar?” Kirk suggested.
“Qadar,” the Klingon confirmed.
“It would never have been permitted,” one of the [182] other warriors said with a sneer, “except he was the emperor Grannoch’s ruustai-cousin.”
“True, Tupogh,” said Kang, taking no apparent exception to the interjection. “But whatever the reason, it was allowed. Qadar introduced certain substances into the blood of his experimental subjects, causing changes in muscle mass, perception thresholds, and reaction times. These altered Klingons, whom he selected from his house’s retainers, he named the M’tachtar ... an ancient term for the ultimate Klingon warrior. And Qadar, by his own design, became the ultimate of ultimates.”
The phrase sent a chill down the captain’s back. The ultimate of ultimates. A faster, stronger, more predatory Klingon than those the Federation had faced anytime before.
And Qadar could have repeated the process over and over again, until every warrior in the empire was on a level with the M’tachtar. Kirk couldn’t imagine anything more frightening.
“Unfortunately for Qadar,” Kang continued, “he was not a patient indi
vidual. Perhaps it was the change in his biochemistry. Perhaps it was a lust for glory he had harbored all his life.”
“Perhaps it does not matter,” Tupogh laughed, his voice echoing throughout the briefing room.
Kang laughed with him, his dark eyes flashing. “Perhaps not. In any case, Qadar thirsted for blood. And he hoped to quench that thirst by spearheading an attack on the Federation.”
“Charming,” said Kelso.
The Klingon leader glanced at him with hooded [183] eyes, then turned to Kirk again. “Qadar found it so,” he replied. “So did the emperor, for that matter. However, he had been working on a plan of his own, which hinged on his nurturing certain alliances.”
“With whom?” asked the captain.
“If I told you,” said Kang, “I would be forced to destroy you. Suffice it to say they would have been powerful alliances, had they taken place. As you can see, they did not—because your Federation still exists.”
Lucky us, Kirk thought.
The Klingon went on. “The idea of making alliances did not appeal to Qadar. So, without the emperor’s support, or even his knowledge, Qadar secured a battle cruiser—on which he hoped to take his M’tachtar into bloody battle against your Starfleet.”
Phelana looked at him. “The entire fleet?”
Kang shrugged. “If you wish to kill a serpent, you cut off its head. That is what Qadar planned to do—deprive your fleet of its head.”
The captain was stunned by the audacity of what the Klingon was suggesting. “Qadar planned to attack Starfleet Command?”
“On your human homeworld,” his host confirmed, letting the remark hang in the air.
A century earlier, thought Kirk, the Romulans had come within a hair’s breadth of invading Earth. They had fallen short of their goal, thanks to the courage and tenacity of her human defenders.
But what Kang was describing was a different threat entirely—a surgical strike at the most critical [184] and well-guarded link in the Starfleet chain of command. And judging by what Kirk had seen of the M’tachtar, he wasn’t all that confident the attack wouldn’t have worked.
STAR TREK: TOS #87 - My Brother's Keeper, Book Three - Enterprise Page 14