Star Trek - TNG - 61 - Diplomatic Implausibility

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  The power went out in the office. Since the office had no windows, the room was now plunged into pitch darkness. Kori hated the dark, and felt a panic well up inside him.

  The green emergency lights went on after a moment, alleviating the panic.

  But he was still frightened.

  Calm down, he told himself. What would Larok do?

  He thought a moment. Exactly what he was told: grab a weapon and abandon the refinery.

  Kori reached under the chair and grabbed the disrupter that Grul had made him keep there. Then he went to the door, opened the panel next to it, and pulled the emergency lever. The door obligingly slid open.

  The corridor, like his office, was bathed in dim green light. It had been years since Kori had actually fired a disrupter, and the weapon's weight felt odd in his hand. He would have preferred to be holding one of his blood wine bottles.

  Panic started to overtake him again when he realized that, if the bomb went off, he'd lose his blood wine He'd spent a fortune on it ... Stop it, he admonished himself again. Just get out of here. Worry about the rest of it later.

  Turning a corner, he heard a roar. He whirled to see an al'Hmatti leaping at him. Crying out in panic, he fired his disruptor--and absolutely nothing happened.

  The al'Hmatti collided with him, and they both fell to the floor. Kori couldn't breathe, as the impact had knocked the wind out of him.

  Whoever this al'Hmatti was, Kori didn't recognize him. True, most of them looked more or less alike to him, but he'd never met one with the fur on its cheek shaved like that.

  It climbed up onto all fours, straddling Kori. "Time to die, Klingon," it said.

  Then it spasmed, glowed a dark red color, and fell on top of Kori.

  The impact of its dead weight was, if anything, worse than when it attacked. "Get this thing off me!" he cried. He hoped that the person who had shot the al'Hmatti--he was pretty sure that red glow was from a disruptor blast, though the green light made it seem darker than usual could hear him. He didn't have sufficient breath to yell again.

  After a moment, when Kori was convinced he'd be trapped under this damn creature forever, someone rolled the dead al'Hmatti off his stomach.

  "Kori," said the Klingon who now stood over nun. It was one of the new security guards that the governor had appointed--Kori couldn't remember his name. "I should have known." The guard picked up Kori's disrupter and examined it. "This is out of power, you todsah!"

  No wonder it didn't work, Kori thought, yanking the disrupter out of the guard's hands. He looked down at the al'Hmatti corpse. "I've lived on this planet for a year, but I never appreciated how big they are before."

  "I'll escort you out. Move!" The guard didn't sound pleased with the idea, but Kori was relieved. He didn't relish facing crazed al'Hmatti armed only with a useless disrupter.

  They ran through the corridors, Kori trying to keep up with the thinner, younger guard.

  "Hurry up, you fat fool," the guard said, "or I'll leave you behind."

  "Hey, you're supposed to do this kind of thing. I'm supposed to sit in an office."

  "And eat all the bok-rat liver you can find," the guard said, spitting disdainfully. "You make me ill."

  They turned a corner to see another al'Hmatti. "Die, rebel!" the guard said, but Kori recognized the al'Hmatti as ge'Tvrona.

  He said, "No, don't shoot! He's all right, he works here, he's a friend."

  "A friend? He's jeghpu'wl'." But the guard did lower his disrupter.

  Getvrona loped toward them on all fours. "What's going on, Kori?"

  "Some rebels are attacking. They put a bomb somewhere. Takus and Kiln are trying to disarm it now. We've got to get out of here." "Damn," ge'Tvrona said.

  Then he turned and mauled the guard, slicing his throat open with a quick slash.

  Kori stood in shock as the guard fell to the ground, blood pouring from his neck. The guard tried to get off a disrupter shot, but it fired harmlessly into the ceiling.

  "Ge'Tvrona, what're you doing?"

  "Killing a Klingon. It seems to be the only way to get rid of you."

  There was a harshness to ge'Tvrona's voice that Kori had never heard before.

  "I don't understand."

  "Of course not. You've never understood us. You just rape our planet." "I--ge'Tvrona, I thought we were friends!"

  "Friends?" Ge'Tvrona let out a nasty laugh. "I'mjeghpu'wl'." Then ge'Tvrona grabbed the guard's disrupter, stood on his hind legs, and shot Kori.

  Every nerve in Kori's body felt like it was set on fire.

  Then he felt nothing. He knew he had collapsed to the ground because now all he could see was the green-tinged ceiling, but he felt no impact. The green light started to fade to black.

  "Oh, and one more thing," a distant voice that must have been ge'Tvrona's said. "I'm afraid the shipment's going to be late." A laugh followed. Then: "This is ge'Tvrona. The Klingons are trying to disarm the bomb. You'd better send someone down there."

  Kori heard nothing after that.

  After a moment, he saw nothing. The faint ozone smell that always lingered in the refinery faded, as did the scent of the guard's blood.

  Even the taste of the bok-rat liver faded from his tongue. His last thought was: hope I was wrong about the afterlife.

  Tiral paced agitatedly around Klag's office on the I

  Gorkon as Worf gave the governor and the captain a report of the meeting with em'Rlakun and the follow-up I

  research he and Wu had done. Actually, it was more of a waddle than a pace, given Tiral's girth. Also present was one of Tiral's guards--Klag had asked that he remain outside with Krevor and Klag's own guard, but Tiral had insisted that the guard had to be in the same room with him any time he left the confines of the satellite. To Worf's relief, Klag had at least convinced Tiral to order the guard to holster his disrupter. As Worf suspected, the prime minister had performed very few of the tasks Tiral had assigned her that directly related to dealing with the rebels. Worf handed Tiral the padd on which Wu had compiled the report. Tiral glanced at it, then snarled and threw it across the room. Worf had anticipated this action, which was why he had transferred the report to one of the Gorkon's pad ds

  "She will die immediately," Tiral said. "That would be unwise," said Worf. "Then the rebels I

  will know we are on to them, and they will go deeper into hiding. As it is, there has been no rebel activity since the Gorkon's arrival yesterday."

  "It could be a coincidence," Tiral said.

  "Possibly. But it is more likely that they are keeping a low profile as long as the Defense Force has an official presence here--and they would not wish to create a bad impression on the very Federation representative they have asked for. But as long as they think that we do not know of their inside person, they will believe they have an advantage. And they have quite a large one, as it is."

  Klag frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "I have studied the reports the governor's security staff made regarding rebel activity. The rebels have been surprisingly successful, and the governor has had great difficulty in capturing any of them." Glaring at the governor, Klag said, "Perhaps that can be attributed to poor management."

  "Watch your tone, Captain," Tiral said.

  "My tone?" Klag stood up from his desk. "When I first arrived here last week, Governor, you were more than happy to blame the High Council for your misfortunes. Since I came back, however, it seems to me that most of the blame can be laid at your feet."

  Worf stepped in. "The answer to why the rebels are so successful cannot be found so simply, Captain. No one is capable of that level of incompetence." Both men looked inquisitively at Worf. "As I said, I have studied the reports. The rebels have appeared seemingly out of nowhere and returned there when they were finished. There is no evidence of any kind of transporting technology at work--all sensor scans have turned up negative. While it is true that the governor's security force is made up primarily of Defense Force rejects and cowards, the
y are generally capable of reading a simple scanner."

  Tiral cursed. "I should have known. I appealed to your sense of honor, Captain. Instead, I get lies, insults, and slander against my staff!"

  "If I commit slander, Governor," Worf said, walking over to pick up the padd Tiral had thrown, "then so do you. I merely quoted your last report to the High Council."

  Worf thumbed the padd over to the appropriate report and handed it to Tiral. The governor regarded the padd's screen, and his own words, angrily.

  Klag sat back down at his desk. "Since you say that putting the prime minister to death is unwise, Ambassador, I assume you have an alternative? Beyond simply leaving her alive so as not to alert the rebels, that is."

  "Yes." Worf took the padd back from the scowling Tiral. "I suggest that Commander Drex be assigned temporarily to Governor Tiral, in order to aid him in putting the rebels down. It will not raise suspicions among the rebels, as it is the sort of assignment one might expect."

  Tiral lumbered toward the door. "I expect Commander Drex to report to my office within the hour," he said, and then left, the guard following on his heels.

  As soon as the door closed, Worf said, "Drex's true function will be to locate the rebel base. In addition, I will require Lieutenant Toq's services."

  "Is the Gorkon your ship now, Ambassador?" Klag said snidely.

  "Need I remind you that I command this mission, Captain?"

  "You keep insisting on doing so."

  "You keep giving me reason."

  Klag stared at Worf for a moment, then finally said, "Why Drex?"

  "Is there any reason why I should not have chosen him? He is, after all, first officer of this vessel, and should therefore be more than capable of handling this duty."

  "In an ideal galaxy, that would be the case, Ambassador."

  "Meaning?" Worf prompted.

  Klag rose from his chair. "You know what I mean! Drex is first officer of this vessel due to his family, not his qualifications--a method of advancement you should be intimately familiar with, son of Mogh. Or should that be ' of Martok' now? After all, you do enjoy the benefits of being part of his House far more than you did from being the son of a forgotten warrior three decades dead."

  Worf snorted. "Benefits? Since boarding this vessel, Captain, I have endured slights and insults from you, and a constant flaunting of my authority, though you have been careful to stop short of undermining it. You seem to be doing this solely out of a misbegotten belief that I owe a position granted me by the Federation Council and Starfleet Command to the chancellor of an allied empire. I fail to see how that benefits me."

  Walking around his desk to face Worf directly, Klag said, "You expect me to believe that your being part of Martok's House had nothing to do with your appointment?"

  "What I expect, Captain, is for you to follow my orders for the duration of this mission. For me to expect anything else would be--optimistic."

  With that, Worf turned to leave the captain's office. As the doors parted, he turned back around to face Klag. "One other thing, Captain."

  "Yes?" Klag said.

  "If you ever speak ill of my father again, I will kill you." Klag actually smiled. "If I ever speak ill of your father again, Ambassador, I welcome you to make the attempt."

  Worf inclined his head and left, heading straight for the bridge.

  He entered to see Drex standing in front of the command chair. Alert lights flashed, but did not give off noise; Drex was obviously running a battle drill.

  "Shields!" the first officer yelled, sparing a quick glance at the door to see that Worf had entered. Drex then turned back to the viewscreen, ignoring the ambassador.

  "At maximum," Rodek said.

  "Ready disrupters."

  "Locked on target."

  "Fire!" Rodek a button on his console.

  "Direct hit," Toq said. "Enemy shields at thirty percent." "Another spread, gunner," Drex said.

  "Aye, sir," Rodek said, then added: "They're firing on us."

  "Evasive!"

  "If you insist," Leskit said, entering commands into his own console, "but it won't help."

  The lights dimmed to mimic the impact of the enemy fire. "Return fire, gunner! Operations, damage report!"

  Toq gazed at his console. "Shields at seventy-five percent. Minor damage to secondary hull."

  "Enemy taking evasive action, Warp 7," Rodek said. "Disruptors missed."

  "Pursue and overtake, pilot, Warp 9."

  Leskit manipulated his console in uncharacteristic silence, though, of course, Worf did not feel any change in the ship around him--it was simulated warp speed, after all.

  "In weapons range now, Commander," Toq said.

  "Lock quantum torpedoes and fire, gunner," Drex said.

  "Firing," Rodek said. "Direct hit. Enemy destroyed, sir."

  As always, Rodek sounded like he was giving a report on gaseous anomalies. The rest of the bridge crew, however, cheered. Worf was not sure why. As battle drills went, this was singularly uninspired.

  "Stand down from drill," Drex said. The alert lights stopped blinking at the command. Then Drex tamed to Worf. "What do you want?"

  "I wish to speak to you and Lieutenant Toq in my quarters when you are off shift. I have an assignment for each of you." "Really?" Drex said with a sneer.

  "Really," Worf replied with unconcealed annoyance. "I will see you in my quarters when the shift ends. Do not be late."

  Drex was late.

  Toq arrived right on time, saying that Drex would be along "shortly."

  Worf was not entirely displeased, as he hadn't gotten the chance to talk to Toq since beaming aboard.

  Worf had first encountered the young man in the Car raya system. Worf had heard that there might be living victims of the Khitomer massacre--to which Worf had thought himself and his nurse the only survivors--in a Romulan prison camp in that system. Mogh, Worf's father, was rumored to be one of them. When he arrived, Worf had discovered that the rumors were partly true:

  several survivors of Khitomer had been taken into Romulan space and lived on the planet, in peace, with the Romulans who had taken them prisoner--though Mogh was not among them. Worf's father had truly died at Khitomer, as Worf had long believed. They had even raised families--in one case, the Romulan overseer had married a Klingon woman, and had a daughter.

  But the Klingon children that had been raised on Car raya knew nothing of their heritage--until Worf, at this point trapped in their prison, started to teach it to them. Toq had been one of those children.

  Reluctantly, the Romulans had agreed to let Worf take the children who wished to leave back to the empire, on the condition that none of them reveal the truth about Carraya. Worf had created a cover story--that they had been the only survivors of a vessel that had crashed several years earlier-and had helped them reintegrate into Klingon society.

  Now Toq, whom Worf had not seen since bringing the young man aboard the Enterprise, regaled him with tales of his exploits since joining the Defense Force, ending with his advancement to second officer of the Gorkon by challenging and defeating Lieutenant Kegren.

  Just as he finished the tale of his promotion, the door chime went off.

  "Enter," Worf said.

  Drex came in.

  "You are late," Worf said.

  "I am first officer of this ship, Ambassador. Other duties commanded my attention."

  "Those duties will have to wait. From this point forward, you will be detached to Governor Tiral's service." Worf quickly explained about Prime Minister em'Rlakun. "As far as the governor is concerned, you are simply aiding him. However, your true purpose will be to discover the whereabouts of the rebel base. Assuming, of course," he added, "that you are up to such a task."

  Drex growled. The first time Worf had heard that growl at Quark's bar on Deep Space Nine, Worf had been less than impressed. It hadn't unproved with age. He sounded more like a shuttle with engine trouble than a warrior expressing displeasure.

&n
bsp; "If you do not think me capable, Ambassador--"

  "What I think does not matter. Anyone less than the first officer would be construed as an insult by Governor Tiral. Appearances must be maintained, so I have been forced to settle for you. You will report to the governor's satellite immediately."

  Snorting, Drex turned and left Worf's quarters.

  have done what I can, Martok, Worf thought to his House head. Either Drex will excel in this task--to spite me, if for no other reason--or he will fail and prove his worthlessness. I hope for your sake that it will be the former.

  "What of me?" Toq asked.

  "I need you to search through unclaimed and Federation space in this sector for a planet similar to tad."

  Toq frowned. "May I ask why, sir?" he asked.

  "It may be necessary to relocate some or all of the al'Hmatti. I need to know if that is a viable option. Limit the search to locations no more than two weeks away at Warp 6." That was the most they could expect out of a Starfleet colonization ship--huge vessels equipped to move vast numbers of people.

  "Very well," Toq said. He sounded as if he wanted to ask why that was considered any kind of option--it was not a very Klingon solution--but he refrained from doing so. At least Toq understands the chain of command, Worf thought sourly.

  Relocation was not an ideal solution, and Worf-remembering his recent mission on the Enterprise to the Bak'u planet--certainly would only pursue it if the al'Hmatti themselves agreed. But before he could even propose it to them, he needed Toq to determine if it was even feasible.

  As Toq left, Wu entered. "Mr. Ambassador, we have a bit of a problem.

  The rebels just attacked a top aline refinery."

  Chapter Six.

  Worf observed the wreckage of a top aline refinery through the viewscreen of Governor Tkal's shuttle. Most of the roof of the massive, rectangular structure was gone, exposing the inside to the elements. Green emergency lights still lit parts of it, illuminating the shattered machinery that lay strewn about those floors that remained intact--a large hole had been made through three levels. Worf saw al'Hmatti workers scurrying back and forth trying to survey and repair the damage, many at the direction of thermal-suit-wearing Klingons. Several other shuttles flew in and out of the area, evacuating injured personnel and bringing in repair crews.