Hell's Heart

by John Jackson Miller

  The Hill of the Dead felt as if it held real magic now. If N’Keera was the Fallen Lord’s oracle, that made her the oracle of the Unsung too.

  “Congratulations on your hunt,” N’Keera said. “He followed your progress. You appear to have carried out the executions exactly as he desired.”

  “Justice was served.” The members of Valandris’s expedition had been provided detailed dossiers on all the Gamaral ceremony attendees, so they would know for sure whom to kill—and whom not to. “We did not harm the one he said to avoid.”

  “The gin’tak was blameless in their crimes. Our lord’s justice is not indiscriminate. I will tell him your news when he is available. For now, he is in repose.”

  Valandris had known that often to be the case, given his advanced age—but the answer still startled her. “He deserves his rest. But I was told he had called for me.” She paused, suddenly concerned. “Is he displeased?”

  “He has a question for you. He wants to know why you took Worf—when your instructions were only to deliver Kahless.”

  She was prepared for this. “Because he is like us,” Valandris said. “He belongs with the Unsung.”

  “Now you recruit? You presume much.”

  “Worf should be one of us, N’Keera. The Empire took away his name.”

  “And it gave it back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what you want, Valandris?” N’Keera focused on the burner dangling from her hand on a chain. “Is that what following our lord is about? You were cast out like a cur, and now wish to scratch at the door and be allowed in by those who passed judgment on you?”

  “I don’t . . .” As Valandris struggled to find a response, the burner N’Keera was holding suddenly burned hot and bright.

  “You could say something else to the Empire,” N’Keera said, lifting the burner high into the air by its chain. “You could say, ‘How dare they?’ You could make them pay.”

  Valandris was still nodding when N’Keera turned back inside the hut. “Return to Worf,” she said. “Our lord will rule on him soon.” The wooden door closed tightly behind her.

  • • •

  Peeking through the door into the anteroom, the other occupant of the hut smiled at the job his assistant had done and returned to his chair. No, none of the Unsung would question the word of N’Keera, High Priestess of the Fallen Lord. She represented him, and his word was law.

  In the year since his arrival on Thane, that had been his primary goal, without which nothing else would be possible. Valandris and all the other warriors of the colony would have to believe in him and in those who represented him—­completely and absolutely.

  Fortunately, he was in the belief business.

  To make them believe, he had to believe too. He was who they thought he was. He was the legend. He lived it. He lived in it. So many people in his circle failed in their enterprises because they refused to really inhabit the worlds they’d created. Not him. The room practically sang of who he was.

  While Valandris had never been inside, he was certain it was exactly the sort of place she imagined it would be: a sanctuary for a fallen Klingon whose spirit had rekindled and now burned anew, ablaze with ideas for the future.

  The only discordant note was in his hand. He manipulated the ancient playing cards with his fingers, agilely intercutting them again and again. He had obtained them from someone who had brought them from Earth; the Terrans had used them primarily for games. Some still did, he understood—but he was about more than games, and manipulating them helped him focus. Kings and queens, hearts and diamonds: power, love, and wealth. Everything important in the universe, encapsulated in paperboard.

  The woman reentered. “She is gone.”

  “I heard it all.” He didn’t know what his offworld partner would think about Valandris’s reasoning for abducting Worf, but that wasn’t his worry.

  His aide passed close enough by that she drew his attention away from the cards; she was good at that, even when dressed as his oracle. He idly tumbled the cards back and forth in his hand. “You know,” he said, “there’s only one joker in this deck.”

  She looked over his shoulder. “What’s a joker?”

  “It’s a card that can masquerade as another. Most decks have two.”

  “No mystery there, Fallen Lord.” She smirked at him. “The other’s on Qo’noS.”

  Forty-two

  From some distance away, Worf had watched Valandris heading for the hill and the small building atop it. Her cousin Tharas had told him little about the place and its occupants, other than to provide a name and evince a certain reverence toward it. “The Hill of the Dead is only for those who are called.”

  Tharas led Worf on a winding path through an intricate honeycomb of tents and wooden structures. Everywhere he attracted attention—but not so much as when he’d first arrived. The Unsung, as Valandris had called them, continued with their business.

  Training and working on weapons, yes—but also carting about heavier munitions and explosive devices. Several small torpedoes appeared to be Klingon in manufacture, but all markings had been removed. The bald one-armed male he’d seen earlier was coordinating operations; Zokar, as Tharas called him, acted every bit the sure-handed supply chief. Wherever those supplies were coming from, the Unsung clearly seemed to be preparing for war. But with whom, he did not know—and while Tharas was more gregarious than Valandris, he would say nothing on the subject.

  It was a marked contrast to when he had been to a Kling­­on exclave, separated by years and distance from the Empire. He’d visited a group of Klingons in Romulan custody who had forgotten their traditions. Worf had shared with them what it meant to be Klingon. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to do that with the Unsung. They understood some of the traditions; according to Tharas, General Potok had made sure they understood what discommendation meant. Perhaps that was the reason they seemed to define themselves in opposition to Klingons. He would not be able to win anyone over to the rightness of Klingon morality when they knew it was that code that had damned them.

  The other problem with trying to sway the Unsung had to do with their sheer numbers.

  “How many are here?” Worf asked Tharas, hoping he’d get an answer this time.

  “Fewer than there could be.” He started to count on his fingers. “Hemtara—she’s mathematical—figured it out once. There were initially three hundred settlers here. Simply doubling the population each generation would make for a small city back on Qo’noS. Or so I’m told,” Tharas added tartly. “I’ve never been there. And we have not reached seven generations and regained our honor, under your accursed rules.”

  “But this is no metropolis.”

  “You’ve seen the dangers here,” Tharas said. “People are killed all the time. And many have refused to have offspring—Valandris among them.” His tone suggested he wasn’t surprised about that choice. “I’m not sure there’s more people now than there were a hundred years ago.”

  “You have technology,” Worf said. “You could live better.”

  “We would have—if our elders had ever let us use it.”

  “But you are using it now.”

  “Things have changed.” Tharas led him around the corner of one of the old freighters and pointed. “We’re here. You wanted him, you’ve got him.”

  Worf looked ahead—and couldn’t believe the sight. Or the smell. A large circular trench, twenty meters in diameter, sat amid a clearing: a waste ditch of some kind. A ragged figure was down in the muck, staggering ahead step by arduous step, bearing the weight of a massive grimy yoke and the heavy dredging implement it was dragging. Chains ran from the yoke to a large iron pole implanted in the center island of the pit. An older villager stood in the middle, jabbing the enslaved worker below with a painstik to keep him moving. Chattering children rushed waste pails to the edge of
the trench, where they emptied the foul contents in the unfortunate’s direction.

  “Kahless!” Worf charged forward, scaring and scattering the imps.

  Behind him, Tharas seemed delighted. “How is he doing, Ralleck?”

  “Terrible,” said the Klingon holding the prod. “Much worse than the animal he replaced. He’ll be dredging for days before we can use this pit again.”

  Kahless could only have been there for the hours since the ship had reached Thane, but the emperor looked as if he’d been toiling for days already. His neck and wrists were bloodied from where the yoke’s collar and manacles had dug into his skin. Getting a running start, Worf vaulted over the trench onto the central platform, surprising the foreman. Worf lashed out with his left hand, deflecting the painstik—while using his right to deliver a jarring cross to Ralleck’s jaw. The villager and his prod tumbled off into the trench, making a filthy splash.

  Tharas fired a disruptor blast into the air. “Stop!”

  Below, Kahless halted in the muck. Worf grabbed at the chains, yanking at them. “You will free him!”

  “No.” Tharas fired again, this time just over Worf’s head. He felt the heat and energy this time, and dropped the chain.

  Looking at Kahless—his clothes already rags—Worf felt his friend’s anguish. “You don’t understand. He is the emperor. He is the walking incarnation of Kahless the Unforgettable.”

  “Our lord told us all about him,” Tharas said, watching Ralleck scrambling out of the pit. “That Kahless is a clone. A fraud wrought on your people—some very gullible people, if you ask me.”

  “Everyone knows he is a clone. He is emperor nonetheless.”

  “Ridiculous. Our honor was stripped away at birth. His ‘honor’ is manufactured, cooked in a stew pot. He repeats the words of Kahless like a trained animal.”

  From behind Tharas, Worf saw Valandris approaching. “Something the matter?” she asked.

  “Reunion,” Tharas said, gesturing to Worf on the central platform. “Can you get him to come off of there?”

  “Not until you free Kahless,” Worf said.

  Down in the trench, he heard Kahless’s weary voice for the first time. “Don’t . . . interfere, Worf,” he said with spite. “These people . . . need my help. Filth generates filth.”

  Valandris looked tired. “Worf, it has been a long day. You must take food.”

  “The emperor eats first.”

  “Your ‘emperor’ looks as if he’s eaten enough for two ­lifetimes—but you have a deal.” She glimpsed into the pit and shook her head. “Once he’s done with today’s work, of course. He could use the exercise.”

  Forty-three

  NEAR MOUNT QEL’PEC

  GAMARAL

  When Jean-Luc Picard had first beheld Mount Qel’pec, all Gamaral was at peace—or so he’d thought. Visible from the Circle of Triumph, it had added a natural, undisturbed majesty to the setting.

  The captain hadn’t known that the mountain had already been disturbed. Now anyone could tell, thanks to the efforts of La Forge and a swiftly dispatched Starfleet Corps of Engineers team. A deep maw gaped halfway up the mountain’s height, with machinery stationed outside on recently leveled staging areas.

  There was no way to inspect the inside of the cave; the interior was a rubble pile. The Corps had been edging inward, hoping to get better readings so their industrial transporters could get a fix on items inside. Picard went to the recovery area, a reasonably flat clearing in the forest half a kilometer from the mountain’s base. There he saw La Forge and Jaero, a Tellarite ensign, apparently operating a junkyard.

  “How are the excavations going, Geordi?” The captain looked around at the mangled metal debris, much of it taller than he was. “I’d say you’ve found something.”

  “Needles in a very heavy haystack. But the needles are pretty big too.” The commander checked the padd in his hand and then looked up to an engineer perched atop a battered triangular structure. “I think this one probably goes with piece forty-seven.”

  “Aye, sir.” The engineer slid to the ground in a controlled descent.

  Picard looked across the area. Some of the debris was smashed beyond recognition. But some fragments, like the one nearest him, were in better shape. All had designated spaces on the clearing; he saw another structure, a vertical beam of some kind, materializing in an empty spot.

  “We’ve transported out ten metric tons so far,” La Forge said. “We’re trying to bring out pieces in such a way that the remaining ones suffer the least damage from settling.”

  “Trying and failing,” Jaero said. The ensign stood before a sizable console that was projecting a three-dimensional model of the mountain’s innards. “The S.C.E. team is working quickly.”

  “Time is of the essence, Ensign.” Picard walked to the display. It was a cacophony of color depicting mineral deposits, air pockets, and the occasional blinking region representing a foreign object. He could tell that part of the mountain had once been artificially hollowed out. “Is there any chance the assassins were hiding in there? Using it as a staging area?”

  “I don’t think so, sir,” Jaero said. “From the settling and compression, I believe the ceiling was purposefully collapsed between fifty and two hundred years ago. That’s as close as I can get.”

  “That’s a rather large range.”

  La Forge nodded. “But the equipment pegs it at no earlier than a hundred twenty years.” He led Picard from the display through the debris identification area. “It’s this stuff—pieces of derricks, scaffolds, molding devices—everything you’d need for a graving yard. Someone was building starships in there. Klingon starships.”

  “You’d told me in your report,” Picard said. “But seeing it is something else. What do the Klingon investigators say?”

  La Forge gestured to several Klingons poring over pieces large and small. “They tell us the equipment’s at least a hundred years old. They’ve found nothing more recent.”

  “Have you found any starships?”

  “Not so far, but it’s hard to tell. Spare parts, but it’s not always clear what we’re looking at. A lot of it’s been pulverized.” La Forge led Picard to a patch of ground ringed by small red flags. “On the other hand, take a look at this, sir.”

  Picard knelt, not willing to disturb the jumble of jutting metal spokes. “This is from the inside of a computer core, correct?”

  “Isolinear chip racks—probably data support for the construction systems. The chips are destroyed, but that’s not the interesting thing.” La Forge knelt beside Picard and pointed. “The Klingon engineers say there should be a microscopic tag engraved on these plates—a control number used back then by the Defense Force. It’s been removed.”

  “Can you tell that even with this damage?”

  “It’s not just on this unit. We’ve seen enough pieces like this that it looks deliberate. Whoever was building starships here was doing it off the books. That, or they didn’t want anyone coming along later knowing whose facility this was.”

  “Possibly both.” Picard stood and looked through the trees to the mountain. “You said the ceiling was brought down on purpose. Could it have been a result of the bombing, during the Battle of Gamaral?”

  “Unlikely,” La Forge said. “There should have been impact evidence on the slopes that would be visible even now. If the forces the Kruge family sent thought there was something here, wouldn’t the family have known about it?”

  “I would assume.” Picard stared at the opening on the mountain. “I need your best guess. Could it have been a pirate’s nest at some point?”

  “Not with this much machinery made in the Klingon Empire. I don’t think too many pirates have resources like that.”

  Picard turned and looked back at the recovery area with its three-dimensional puzzle—and worked through a puzzle of his
own. Was the Battle of Gamaral the result of a desperate flight to a secret, possibly illicit Klingon shipyard? And if the mountain had produced starships, what had happened to them?

  “Well done, Commander. The S.C.E. team can continue your work. I need you back aboard Enterprise.”

  “I guess it’s time.” La Forge let out a breath of relief. “It’ll be nice to get clean again. Where are we going?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Picard said, looking back at the mountain. “But I know where I need to go to find out.”

  U.S.S. ENTERPRISE-E

  ORBITING GAMARAL

  “That . . . was less than helpful,” Picard said, stepping off the transporter pads with Chen.

  “That’s a safe way of putting it,” she replied.

  The captain had needed to pay a call on the commander of I.K.S. Daqtagh, the vessel now coordinating the Klingon investigations at Gamaral; Picard had hoped that by sharing what he had learned about the mountain below, he might get information about the defeated party at the Battle of Gamaral.

  But the commander had received him coolly, evidently not impressed by Enterprise’s inability to protect Kahless. He had certainly found a number of places to bring it up in conversation. While he had the same data Picard did about the demolished ship forge inside Mount Qel’pec, he couldn’t accept that as much as a single ship could have been built without the Klingon Defense Force’s knowledge.

  It probably would have been better if Chen had not brought up General Chang, who had managed exactly that. But it probably didn’t matter. It was as Worf had found in his earlier inquiries: Daqtagh’s database described the losers of the Battle of Gamaral only generally, naming no names.

  “I still don’t understand,” Chen said, walking with the captain into the hallway. “Klingons love their history. Yet while there are plenty of songs about the winners of the battle, not one mentions whom they defeated.”