Picard wished he could have asked Spock about it directly. The ambassador was on Romulus, working with those interested in reunification between the Romulans and Vulcan. And while he was doing so openly now, Starfleet Command had advised Picard against any attempt to contact Spock. The matter was too sensitive, too important to both the Klingon Empire and the Federation; if the Romulans intercepted the transmission, it might well give them the chance to create even more mischief.
Šmrhová studied her padd. “It looks from the records that Captain Kirk did request that Starfleet track them. But the follow-up survey missions couldn’t find them, and no one reported seeing the freighters on any worlds on the routes leaving the Briar Patch. It was assumed they’d gone to warp and headed somewhere else.”
“From what Spock’s report suggests, I wouldn’t think Potok’s freighters could have gone far,” La Forge said. “Much more likely they went back inside the Briar Patch. Considering the state of sensor technology a century ago, our survey craft could very easily have missed them in the nebula.”
Picard advanced the theory that had been forming since he’d learned of Spock’s experience. “Potok had already been contacted by an associate with a bird-of-prey, and a promise of more. I suspect that’s the Phantom Wing from Gamaral. Potok rejects it, or appears to, and enters the Briar Patch. Then there’s a hundred years during which either he or his descendants could have changed their minds.”
“And taken revenge.” La Forge’s brow furrowed. “But we’ve already had starbases and outposts scanning far and wide looking for any signs from known cloaking devices—old B’rel-class included.”
“Korgh suggested they might have advanced the technology in a direction no one has seen.” Picard shook his head. “But if we start from the assumption that they may have been operating from the Briar Patch, we might narrow down and intensify the search on a line between Gamaral and there.”
Šmrhová appeared skeptical. “They were in the Patch a century ago. They could well have moved on.”
“Granted. But we’ve done all we can here, and this is the first possible destination we’ve found.” He stood. “Set course for the Briar Patch, maximum warp.”
UNSUNG COMPOUND
THANE
The ancient prisoner’s bonds offered little resistance to one of Worf’s strength, and he had him down in moments. Carefully, he carried the old man around the corner and back up to Kahless’s stall, where the light was better. The prisoner was little more than a sack of bones, with joints that cracked noisily as Worf set him down on the ground.
Looking about, Worf found a sack of feed that he could place under the old man’s neck. The activity woke a dozing Kahless. “Who is this?”
“I think it is General Potok.” Cupping his hands, Worf drew a little water from the bucket.
Kahless squinted. “That’s not the old man who cast me into the pit. He was livelier.”
“Then I was wrong. He is not the leader here.” Or at least, not anymore. Worf carefully poured the water over Potok’s chapped lips. The motionless Klingon coughed violently, sputtering and splattering.
Then he groaned. “Put . . . me . . . back.”
Worf and Kahless looked at each other, dumbfounded.
“Do . . . not judge Potok . . . again, my lord. Put him back . . . and he will serve his sentence.”
“You are Potok?” Worf asked.
“I was.” The general started coughing again.
Worf wished desperately for a medical tricorder. Potok’s eyes were glazed with a white film. “Can you see?”
“Blind for twenty years—and perhaps much longer than that.” Potok writhed on the ground. His eyes shut tightly. “He came back. I don’t know how he did it—but he came back. To judge me.”
“Who came back?” Worf asked. But any words Potok said were lost in an agonized, insensible whimper.
Worf looked to Kahless and shook his head. He could well believe the Unsung, willing to commit murder, had treated the old man so badly. Valandris had spoken harshly of him and his rule; perhaps they had overthrown him. But the gibbering Potok seemed fearful on a whole other scale.
Kahless found the energy to edge closer to Potok. “General.”
Potok’s eyes snapped open. “Who speaks?”
“I am Kahless.”
The old man panted. “Are . . . you the Unforgettable, here from beyond?”
The clone looked at Worf and then back at Potok. “I am Kahless—in a way.”
“I cannot go to Sto-Vo-Kor, great Kahless. But I did my best.” Potok choked up before continuing. “My people fell into dishonor—but they relied upon me. All would have died, but Spock gave me another chance.”
Worf’s eyes opened wide. Spock?
“He gave me another chance—and I brought them here. I taught them what they were—and what they could not be.” Potok’s breaths became rushed—and he spoke quickly. “I made sure they would not forget how to operate our freighters. I did my best to see their distant grandchildren would become Klingons again.” He lifted a shaking hand, reaching out. “Kahless, will you see that they enter Sto-Vo-Kor?”
Kahless looked at Worf for a moment—and then turned and gripped Potok’s withered hand. “If it is in my power, General, I will.”
Potok exhaled. With a look of something like satisfaction, he went limp, falling into an exhausted sleep.
Continuing to hold Potok’s hand, the emperor sat back, staring at the general. “If he was discommendated,” he finally said, “he has certainly remained loyal to our beliefs.”
“Even if the others have not,” Worf said. He rose. “This makes things difficult. I have been looking at every turn for a way off this planet for the two of us. As three, it will be more difficult.”
“His pulse is weak. I doubt he would survive the experience.”
Before he could agree, Worf heard voices from outside. He quickly reached past Kahless for Potok. “If they find him here, they will hang him from the rafters again. He would surely die.” He gently lifted the general.
“Where are you taking him?”
“To sleep on the floor of his stall. The other footprints were old—the guards rarely check on him.”
Kahless nodded. “They’re coming for me, anyway. They told me there are eight other sewer pits to be dredged.” He steeled himself. “But I would rather work than hang.”
Forty-eight
THE OLD QUARTER
QO’NOS
His cowl pulled over his head, Korgh enjoyed something he hadn’t since revealing his identity: relative anonymity. Even he had been surprised by how much celebrity he had achieved in so short a time. Klingons had always responded to great, heroic stories, and the one he had written for himself had seized the public imagination.
What he hadn’t enjoyed was his breakfast. Street vendors in the nicer part of the First City had never impressed him, and they certainly weren’t going to here, in one of the marginally safe areas of the Old Quarter. But then, he hadn’t come for the food.
The six barrels were along the side of the alley as usual, flames burning within them. People tended to set fire to things in the Old Quarter for no particular reason, but here amid the towering slums, such fixtures provided light all through the day.
These fixtures, however, were not particularly well fixed. It only took a little effort to pull one of the barrels from one side of the alleyway to the other. He repeated the action with the third barrel—and clapped a lid over the fourth, dousing the flames. Then, with a glance skyward, it was time to move on: just another doddering old man bent on redecorating the alley while on his morning walk.
It was just one of many forms of communication Korgh had established with Odrok and her associates over the years. Often, when vast distances separated them, he’d had no choice but to use subspace—but even then, the two had com
e up with creative ways to pass messages unnoticed. When in town together, they used a series of dead drops and, in this case, signals. Odrok would rise at a certain hour and check out her apartment window—and see the configuration of lit and unlit barrels.
She would know, then, that it was time for the next phase, presuming she hadn’t drunk herself into oblivion. He’d gotten the word just an hour earlier: Enterprise was making for the Briar Patch, heading for the last known location of General Potok and his refugees. Picard was taking the bait.
He’d been able to hear his heart pounding the evening before when he left the grounds of the newly expanded Federation Consulate. Coming forward with a version of the original Phantom Wing plans—with all reference to himself scrubbed, of course—had been a risky gambit, but always part of his plan. He was only ever going to be two steps ahead of Starfleet and Martok—and now it served him to help them along the trail. He already knew what waited at the end. He had been there many times. Preparing.
A long journey had begun with that first trip to the Briar Patch nearly a century before. Korgh had offered Potok’s discommendated group a chance to strike out against their common enemies with the Phantom Wing. But Potok had been unwilling to help. The great general was still bewildered, Korgh had thought, in a daze over having been wrongfully condemned. Never fully understanding the wretchedness of ambitious nobles, the ever-earnest Potok had accepted the unjust sentence as if it had been honorable. The self-serving logic of the accursed Vulcan had simply added a punctuation mark.
Korgh had left in search of quality crews elsewhere—a quest that had proved more difficult than he had ever imagined. He had wanted to only employ Klingon officers, out of deference to the members of the Twenty who were still with him; they’d been loyal to Kruge and shared his distrust of other races. But staffing a single starship with personnel found in a neutral port was one thing. Finding trustworthy people for an entire squadron was something else—especially when he needed to keep that force a secret.
In desperation, he had returned to the Briar Patch aboard Chu’charq a year later. Surely, he thought, living in that horrid place would have changed Potok’s mind. And if it had not, Korgh was prepared to challenge the general for leadership of the group. He didn’t know whether Potok would fight, or whether the exiles would follow him even if he were victorious.
He never had the chance to find out. The exiles had relocated, departing for points unknown. They could not have gone far, Korgh knew; even with the repairs that the Enterprise crew had made, Potok’s shoddy transports could not take his people far in the hostile region. But Korgh could not search forever. Disgusted, he departed—and through complicated efforts, he and Odrok had hidden the Phantom Wing where no one needed to be present to protect it.
In time, even she had left his side, though Odrok never abandoned her belief in his cause. There just wasn’t anything for her to do. Korgh’s life was a series of failed schemes and misadventures, none of which brought him any closer to wealth or power. It was only after spending time at the Boreth Monastery—another part of the biography he’d spun that was actually true—that he hit upon a key insight. That had changed everything.
The true Kahless had told Klingons they should always face their enemies, and that in combat, their true selves would be revealed. It occurred to Korgh that he could face his enemies for years—decades, if necessary—standing as close to them as possible. Then, in their defeat, he would be able to reveal his true name. It was not exactly what Kahless had meant, but why quibble?
So he decided to live openly in the Empire under an assumed name. Cautiously, he had tested his identity. He had met members of the House of Kruge in previous years when he was Kruge’s young aide; he arranged for “Galdor” to have seemingly chance encounters with several of them. No one recognized him, a fact that both delighted and infuriated him. They were completely oblivious to anyone they saw as beneath them.
He married a woman with connections to the family and wheedled his way into the job of gin’tak. He was a supreme arranger, after all; Kruge had seen that when he was younger. Importantly, the family resources gave him the chance to send scouts into the Briar Patch, under the guise of prospectors.
When one reported discovering a settlement on Thane, he reached out to Odrok again. The news had a rejuvenating effect on them both. With a small crew aboard Chu’charq, she had conveyed him to the planet; landing under cloak, he had secretly approached Potok.
Even though he was beginning to lose his sight, Potok easily accepted that Korgh was the person he had known decades earlier. Korgh had been his ally during the most important event in Potok’s life; the general required no convincing of his identity. But before Korgh could suggest anything, Potok reiterated his earlier refusal and ordered the younger man to depart without interacting with anyone.
Potok’s nest of dishonor appeared a foul and dangerous place to Korgh—but he also saw potential. Spying from aboard his cloaked ship every few years, Korgh had seen the residents of Thane transform from maudlin wraiths into mighty hunters. Potential warriors who had no attachment to Korgh—but who might become useful in another way.
The long game began. As Klingons with useful skills were discommendated, Korgh arranged for the individuals to emigrate to Thane. An underground pathway, it served Korgh: the technical skills of the exiles were decades old, and it was important to refresh the talent pool. Did Potok suspect Korgh was the source of the migration? Korgh imagined he did not. But it served the general’s community too.
And then—finally, critically—Korgh had found his partner, the one now living on Thane as the “Fallen Lord.” One of his first acts, at Korgh’s request, was imprisoning Potok. The general was decrepit and blind now—but he had still betrayed Korgh to Spock. That could not go unpunished.
Korgh rounded the corner of the block and looked down the familiar alleyway. His barrels were still in place, still burning—and looking up, he saw a black ribbon dangling in the breeze, caught in a window someone had opened and reclosed.
It meant Odrok had seen his signal requesting information—and had received word from Thane that all the birds-of-prey had returned from Gamaral. Finding a lid, he doused all the fires in the alley but one. Odrok would convey his message to Thane: Begin the countdown.
Enterprise was on its way. But his instructions would get there first—and in a few hours, he would speak to his actor on Thane giving the final command.
And then the whole Empire would get a message, stark and unmistakable.
Forty-nine
UNSUNG COMPOUND
THANE
Valandris had not come to see Worf the day after his discovery of Potok; he speculated she was still angry with him over their after-dinner talk. He had been allowed to walk the camp under guard, during which time his captors tried to convert him to their cause. There was no helping Potok; any mention of him might result in the old man’s further torture. Nor was there any prospect of Kahless escaping from his labors. The emperor had gamely faced them, saying it was more important that Worf have his limited freedom for reconnaissance.
Unfortunately, Worf had found that by working the freighters into the compound’s network of tents and canopies, the Unsung had made it impossible to approach the vessels without passing a dozen people first. There would be no creeping into the ships in search of a system that could communicate offworld—presuming any message sent by the ancient starships could get through the nebula in the first place. He had completely dismissed the thought of getting any of the derelicts running again.
But while the Briar Patch might have made for a terrific hiding place for the Unsung, the wildlife did not want the Klingons there, and that had become a blessing for Worf. Between aerial raiders buzzing the compound or underground creatures burrowing upward, the Unsung members were often running off on hunts. It often compromised them as jailers—and they had already been taking
a more lenient approach with Worf.
It was on a circuit of the camp late in the evening that he had seen the place Tharas called the Hill of the Dead. The hut atop it had to be the home of the so-called Fallen Lord, but his guards had told him next to nothing about it. What ended the conversation was not their reticence, but the sudden eruption of three giant burrowing beasts from the ground near one of the freighters. The guards had launched themselves into the fray against the invaders—and Worf had seen his chance.
With all eyes on the monstrosities, he dashed up the rise toward the hut. The place was unguarded, with no lock on the door. After a quick look behind to confirm that no one had yet seen him, he slipped inside.
The anteroom was spare, with no furniture at all—just fires burning in small, ornate lamps. The smell of incense was thick. Mirrors mounted on the walls reflected and magnified their lamplight. The floor was polished wood, which he thought a strange choice for a simple hut on a feral world. Worf focused on a sliding door directly ahead. Stepping up to it, he put his ear to its surface. He heard nothing, apart from the ruckus of the battle outside.
Aware he might need to defend himself, he quickly slid the door open. The room was larger, but also unoccupied. It reminded Worf of the bunker waiting area that had been prepared for Kahless on Gamaral. Torchères lit the room, with smoke wafting to vents in the thatched ceiling. Klingon tapestries hung on the walls—he could not tell their age—and there were several places for someone to recline. It looked like a place of meditation for a Klingon of some stature, with perhaps a nod to academic study suggested by small racks of scrolls and bound volumes nearby.
He saw an arras across the room; beyond the curtain, he imagined, was a bedroom—and, likely, the place’s occupant. He advanced toward it—
—and accidentally bumped a small table set near one of the chairs. He was able to grab the furnishing before it fell over, but something on it tumbled to the floor. He knelt.
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