“Warriors, to arms!” Kylag cried as he unholstered his disruptor and ran in the direction of the battle.
For the moment, at least, the problems with Klag were set aside. Whatever Kylag’s opinion of his commanding officer, he was still a soldier of the empire, and he would not ignore the call of battle, nor would he allow his fellow warriors to face a foe alone.
Plowing through the tall grass, Kylag led the remaining troops toward the battle. Unfamiliar scents permeated the air, so much so that Kylag could barely make out his fellow Klingons, much less differentiate among the others. He doubted he could tell the difference between the flora and the fauna on this world, much less different species within those categories.
When he came in sight of the fifteen warriors he’d sent to gather wood, he found them fighting against the strangest creatures Kylag had ever seen.
Many different species served as jeghpu’wI’ within the Klingon Empire, and Kylag had encountered several of them. Indeed, a number of them served in menial positions aboard the Gorkon. But not even the many-tentacled, multiple-eyestalked Phebens were as peculiar-looking as the beings who now did battle with the warriors of the Gorkon.
They had six legs, distributed evenly about their bodies, and—based on the way they were leaping around—could stand on any of them, giving them phenomenal agility. They were dodging disruptor blasts with appalling ease, as if they had eyes in the backs of their heads.
Or rather, the backs of their bodies, for that was what shocked Kylag most of all: These beings had no heads.
Trying to keep his stomachs from regurgitating the jInjoq bread he’d had that morning, Kylag yelled, “Fire!”
Disruptor fire sizzled through the air, combined with energy discharges from the tube-shaped weapons the Elabrej—for Kylag assumed these to be the beings against whom the empire was now apparently at war.
Blood roared in Kylag’s veins. This is what we should be doing—fighting the enemy, not skulking behind our cloak or foraging for supplies. Klag is a fool for leading us to this.
“Stop! In Doane’s name, stop!”
Kylag whirled around at the voice, which did not belong to any Klingon. He saw one of the Elabrej, whose weapon was stowed in a pouch on his person. His upper legs were vibrating so quickly that watching it made the jInjoq bread start to burble up again.
“We surrender,” the Elabrej cried. “Separatists, lay down your arms! These creatures are not our enemy!”
Sure enough, most of the thirty or so Elabrej who had attacked them stopped fighting—at least, those still alive, as three were dead when Kylag arrived, and he and the remaining warriors had killed five more.
“Cease fighting.” Kylag looked right at the apparent leader of these Elabrej. “For now. Who are you?”
“My name is Jeyri. We are the strong forelegs of the separatists. You must be the aliens who are making war on our government.”
“We are Klingon warriors, and you are our enemy. Give me one reason why I should not order these soldiers to cut you down where you stand.”
“Because,” Jeyri said, “we are not your enemy. We have dedicated ourselves to the cause of overthrowing the very government who ordered your conveyance destroyed and who now fight you in the skies.”
“Leader,” Goz said, “three of our warriors are dead.”
“And they died well,” Kylag snapped, refusing to rise to the bait Goz was dangling. This, he thought quickly, is over my head. If I do not report this immediately to the QaS DevwI’, I will only be leader of the waste-extraction details. Better to follow procedure, and keep my position secure for when we finally do remove Klag. He activated his communicator. “Kylag to Grotek.”
“Grotek.”
“QaS DevwI’, we have encountered a group of natives who claim to be rebels against the Elabrej government. They have surrendered to us, and offered themselves as allies to our fight.”
“Have they, now? Bring them back to the Gorkon , Leader.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Leader? Well done.”
“Thank you, QaS DevwI’.” Kylag closed the communication and smiled. Good—if Grotek thinks me a good and loyal soldier, it can only help.
Kylag looked around to see that Leader Agkil was among the dead, as were two bekk s, neither from his own squad. He knelt down and pried Agkil’s eyes open. The two bekk s’ squad leaders did likewise to them.
Then, as one, the surviving warriors all screamed to the heavens, warning the Black Fleet that three more warriors were on their way across the River of Blood to Sto-Vo-Kor.
Leskit entered the main engineering section of the Gorkon to a scene of absolute chaos. Usually the place was dead quiet—nobody dared speak out of turn for fear of incurring Kurak’s wrath. Often, the only voice that could be heard was that of the chief engineer, usually ripping into one of her subordinates—or, as she generally put it, one of her inferiors—for doing something incredibly stupid. As far as Kurak was concerned, that applied to any activity they performed, starting with breathing.
Of late, Kurak’s mode of operation had changed. She was generally too drunk and/or too hungover to keep up a constant stream of yelling, so she saved it for several concentrated outbursts throughout the shift. So far, she hadn’t killed any of her engineers, but Leskit assumed that it was only a matter of time.
Now, however, a wall of sound assaulted Leskit’s ears as he entered engineering. The place was a teeming mass of activity: bekks dashing from place to place; ensigns bellowing out readouts from their consoles to lieutenants who then claimed that that wasn’t high enough or fast enough or efficient enough; other lieutenants arguing over which method to employ.
In a corner, sitting staring at a padd, was Kurak.
“How unusual,” Leskit said.
Kurak looked up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was as pale as a Borg. “What is unusual, Leskit?”
“Usually you’re the only one talking in this area—often at a volume sufficient to shatter glass. Now you’re the only one quiet.”
“I’m adapting.” Kurak made no effort to hide the bitterness in her voice.
“So I’ve heard.” Leskit took a seat on the table perpendicular to Kurak, looking down at her over his left shoulder. “The captain asked me to get a report on your progress.”
She looked up at him. “We’re progressing. Tell Klag that the speed at which I accomplish the goal he has set for me will depend entirely upon how often he insists on interrupting me needlessly.”
Laughing, Leskit said, “I will tell him those very words.”
“Good.” Kurak looked down at her padd again. “Now go away and let me work.”
Leskit, however, did not move. “I didn’t come to your cabin last night.”
Kurak did not look up. “I noticed. It was the most pleasant night I’ve had in months.”
“Really? If you were so miserable during my previous visits, why did you not kick me out?”
“Would you have gone?”
“Yes,” Leskit said honestly. “If you ever once told me with conviction that you wanted me to leave your cabin, I would have disappeared faster than an Organian. But you never asked me to.”
“I asked you to every night.”
Grinning, Leskit said, “But not with conviction.”
Now, finally, Kurak looked back up at him. “You can gauge my conviction, can you?”
“My dear, I can read you as clearly as the sensor readings on my helm console. Ever since your enforced enrollment in the Defense Force at the start of the war, you have been bound and determined to make the absolute worst of it.”
She looked back down at her padd. “Leskit, I don’t have time—”
Leskit snatched the padd out of her hand. “You’ll make the time, Kurak. I’ve been propping you up for two months now.”
“Don’t be absurd, and give me my padd back.”
“Not until I’m through, and I’m not at all absurd.” Then he chuckled. “Actually, I�
�m absurd fairly often, but not about this. Klag would have put you to death a month ago if not for me getting you out of your cabin every morning. So you will listen to me now when I tell you that I know why you haven’t turned me away.”
“Oh really?” Kurak asked with a sneer.
“Yes, really. You see, Kurak, even though you insist on trying to make the worst of it, there is a part of you—a small part, but it is there, I see it at least once a night when we share a bunk—that knows that making the worst of it is incredibly stupid.” Leskit grinned, fingering the neckbones. “You are many things, Kurak, but stupid is not one of them. Why do this to yourself? Why do everything you can to irritate everyone around you? Why risk your life and your well-being just for the sake of being unhappy?”
“Perhaps I prefer unhappiness.”
“Nobody prefers unhappiness, Kurak—they simply take refuge in it because they don’t believe happiness is possible.”
“You know from where I derived happiness? Wind boat riding. But the Defense Force took even that from me.”
“The Defense Force doesn’t take anything, Kurak. It simply is. The only thing that matters is what you bring to it.” He slid off the table and handed Kurak her padd back. “I will see you tonight.”
Taking the proffered padd, Kurak said, “Unless I kick you out of my cabin—with conviction this time.”
Grinning, Leskit said, “We’ll see, won’t we? But I’m willing to bet all the neckbones I’m wearing against all the warnog you haven’t gotten around to drinking yet that you won’t.”
With that, Leskit turned and left engineering in order to give his report to the captain.
QaS DevwI’ Grotek stood at the top of the hill that was closest to where the foraging detail had gone. Lokor stood next to him, his massive arms folded over his equally massive chest. Grotek was a combat veteran of several decades’ standing. He’d faced Romulans, Kinshaya, Tholians, Jem’Hadar, Cardassians, Breen, and more in his time. He didn’t intimidate easily—but Lokor standing with his arms folded, his hard face framed by his waist-length, intricately braided black hair, was a sight that always made Grotek grateful that the security chief was on his side.
“You heard what Moq transmitted,” the QaS DevwI’ said. “They’re definitely mutineers—and they’ve corrupted others.”
“Yes, but we don’t know all of them yet.” Lokor bared his teeth, which only served to make him look more intimidating. “Besides, they have Elabrej prisoners, and the captain will wish to have words with them.”
“No doubt. Still, they named K’Nir and Gaj and—”
Lokor unfolded his arms and stared at Grotek. “Do not be a fool, Grotek—or do you truly believe that I would allow someone to command the second shift on the bridge who harbored mutinous thoughts?”
Grotek frowned—then smiled as realization dawned. The QaS DevwI’ knew that Lokor had many on board who served as his eyes and ears, and thinking about it, was not at all surprised to learn that K’Nir was one of them.
“As for Gaj, B’Oraq can deal with her. No, I’m more concerned with who else is part of this little conspiracy. Let Kylag bring in his prisoners and go about their business. Goz as well—it’s Tarmeth who I believe I will need to have a chat with later tonight.”
“An entertaining chat I’m sure it will be,” Grotek said with a grin. “I will tell Vok to call off his dogs for the time being, then.”
“Do so now,” Lokor said. “I will deal with Kylag’s prize myself.”
Nodding, Grotek moved back down the hill toward the airlock that would provide access to the Gorkon’s interior. He hoped that whatever Lokor had planned for the mutineers, he put it into action soon. On the one hand, Grotek was flattered that Lokor trusted him enough to put the honorless cowards in his unit for “safekeeping.” On the other hand, he preferred to have troops in his company whom he himself could trust. He looked forward to the day, soon, when Kylag, Goz, and their conspirators would be put to death like the Lubbockian slime devils they were, and Grotek could go back to leading honorable troops into battle.
He found Vok in the QaS DevwI’s office, a cramped room on deck fourteen. Just as Grotek entered, he saw Vok putting out a large candle with his d’k tahg. None of the other eighteen QaS DevwI’ were present; Klaris, of course, was back on the Elabrej’s homeworld, and the remaining seventeen were elsewhere on the ship or guarding the perimeter.
“A remembrance?” Grotek asked.
Vok looked up. The QaS DevwI’ of First Company generally carried a jovial air, but now his eyes seemed heavy, his mouth curled downward for once. “After a fashion. I fear that the fifteenth is lost to us. Without the Gorkon to extract them…”
Grotek frowned. “I thought it was Second Company who went on that mission.”
“They did. But the fifteenth went as well, for—for reasons I cannot explain.” Vok twirled his d’k tahg absently. “Wol is the best leader in my company—even better than Morr. She has good instincts, a warrior’s strength and courage, and the troops respond to her. I thought she’d be a QaS DevwI’ by the time we finished in the Kavrot Sector. Instead, it seems she is dying here.”
Grotek walked over to Vok. “Warriors die all the time, Vok. I don’t see why you’re making a fuss over this one.”
A chuckle, and the real Vok started to poke through the melancholy. “To be honest, Grotek, I do not, either. But there is something about Wol, something—special. The fifteenth performed brilliantly at San-Tarah. Her loss will be keenly felt.”
“If you say so.” Grotek was unconvinced. Warriors were, after all, quite common within the empire. They always died, and they were always replaced. It was the way of things, and Grotek saw no need to get overly sentimental about one particular leader. “In any case, Kylag is returning with some Elabrej prisoners. For that reason—and others—Lokor has ordered them to be left alone for the time being.”
Now anger clouded Vok’s round face. “Lokor’s plans sometimes are too clever for their own good. There is much to be said for simply carving out the diseased portion of the body rather than waiting to see what other parts it has infected.”
Grotek snorted. “You want to tell him that?”
The grin that Vok gave in reply to that reassured Grotek that the melancholy was definitely a temporary condition. “When I die, it will be in battle against the empire’s enemies, Grotek, not at the hands of one of Lokor’s assassins.”
Chapter Nine
The aircar—the Elabrej called it a “conveyance”—brought Toq, Kallo, Klaris, and the remaining troops to the shoreline. Sanchit herself was piloting the conveyance, mainly because no one else among the separatists would do it.
“This was your insane notion, Sanchit,” Viralas had said. “You may implement it.”
To Toq’s mind, it was the first sane thing he’d encountered since arriving on this mad planet.
With great reluctance, Viralas was willing to show Toq and Kallo the full schematics for the government sphere. If we’d had this, he had thought, we would have been able to plan the assault better.
The first thing Toq realized was that the sphere was damn near impenetrable. Sanchit had said that the reason why assaults on the sphere were so rare was because it was so hard to get at it. Their targets, she had said, were generally secondary.
Kallo’s comment was that they were tertiary, which seemed to confuse Sanchit. Toq told her Kallo didn’t know what she was talking about and silenced her with a look.
Now, Sanchit wished them well, and told them again that they were insane. “I hope this works, Toq, but I am not hopeful.”
“It is preferable to your own methods.” Toq could not keep the contempt out of his voice. “You pick at the fingers, but do not strike at the heart. A great Klingon poet once said, ‘Fortune favors the bold.’ You separatists have not been bold.”
“Perhaps.” Sanchit’s middle legs vibrated. “But boldness leads to death.”
“Everything leads to death. What matter
s is the path you take to it.” Toq smiled. “If a cause is not worth dying for, it is not worth having.”
“That same poet?” Sanchit asked.
“No, Kahless. If we survive this day, I will tell you about Kahless.”
Sanchit departed with the conveyance, leaving the Klingons standing on a rock outcropping over a calm body of water. Toq took in the smell of salt water, which was a relief after the antiseptic feel all the Elabrej structures had. They did not use wood or stonework for their spheres: it was all metal. In space, Toq understood the need for being enclosed in the firm coldness of metal, but on a planet, Toq found the practice unnatural.
While Klaris checked the area with his hand scanner, Kallo approached Toq and spoke for the first time since they left. “Why did you not rebuke her when I criticized their targets?”
“Because it is unseemly to criticize the methods of those who give you shelter.”
“They did not give us shelter—they interfered with our battle and called us monsters!”
“By their lights, we are,” Toq said. “And our battle was over—they gave us a viable retreat so we could regroup.”
Kallo threw up her hands. “If they truly wished to help us—if they truly wished to overthrow their government—they would not limit themselves to petty thievery and publications. And they would aid us in this battle.”
“Of course. But our words will not convince them of that. We are alien to them, as they are to us. It is our actions that will show them the error of their ways. All that we tell them will be lost in their revulsion for what we are.”
Kallo snorted. “They have no reason to be repulsed by us. They are the monsters, with their headless bodies.”
Toq rolled his eyes. The woman is a genius, but I will kill her if she does not stop being a fool. “As I said, Ensign, to them, we are the strange ones.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it is not. Look at it from their perspective.”
“Why would I wish to do that?” Kallo sounded genuinely confused.
I.K.S. Gorkon Book Three Page 18