THE COVENANT OF THE CROWN

by Howard Weinstein

  “We are entering the storm zone surrounding Sigma 1212,” Spock said to Kailyn.

  “Surrounding the planet?” repeated McCoy. “That means we’re close to it.”

  “We are approaching it, Doctor, but I’ve been forced to reduce our speed, and we have another hour ahead of us.”

  Before McCoy could say anything else, the Galileo rose up on it tail and plunged forward as the convulsive fury of the storm jerked it like a puppet. The metal hull groaned and creaked, and Spock cut back the engines again. There was a lull, for just a heartbeat, and then it began all over again. The ship seemed to be trying to twist in three directions at once.

  “Spock,” said McCoy anxiously, “are we going to hold together?”

  The Vulcan’s long fingers poised over the controls, and he did not turn to face McCoy. “I do not know, Doctor. Only time will tell.”

  The Klingon spy vessel shivered and twitched in protest as Commander Kon tried to hold it on course. Kon was short and stocky for a Klingon, but his tunic fit tightly across his barrel chest, and muscles rippled under the mail cloth. His beard was streaked with gray, a tell-tale sign that he’d been in the Empire’s service longer than most, combining skill and luck to survive battles and sidestep assassination attempts by younger officers eager to rise through the ranks. Kon had led the crew of the fiercest battle cruiser in the Imperial fleet for nearly a decade, and had managed to crush a half-dozen mutiny outbreaks to keep his ship loyal to the Emperor. For his efforts, he was rewarded with elevation to the elite Special Intelligence Group, a handful of trusted soldiers who were assigned only the most important spy missions—the dirtiest and most dangerous.

  Kon had proven he could kill when he had to, could strangle a child with his bare hands if that’s what it took. He was feared, and had no fear. The perfect Klingon.

  “Commander, sensors are impaired” said the science officer from her station. The scout ship was tiny, with too much equipment crammed into far too little space. Kera, the science officer, was close enough to touch her commander, though she didn’t dare. She was young, brilliant, ambitious—and she knew that any sort of romantic involvement with a powerful male like Kon would likely end up with one of them dead. Not that the prospect didn’t intrigue her; for among Klingons, even love was a battle, consummated only when one was victor and one vanquished. But she had time on her side—the odds told her that one day Kon would falter and die because of it. To become too closely allied with him now could cost her dearly later, so the transitory pleasures and excitement of a sexual coupling simply weren’t worth the risk.

  “We’ve hit the fringe of a Magnitude Seven disturbance, sir,” she said, her voice a businesslike monotone.

  Kon’s grizzled eyebrows lifted in unison. “Magnitude Seven? And the Federation ship?”

  “They’ve entered it, Commander. We’re losing sensor contact.”

  Cheeks puffed out, Kon thought over the possibilities. “Would they enter such a storm merely to trick us?”

  “That would be foolhardy,” said Kera. “And their unchanged course leads to the conclusion they’re unaware of our presence. In addition, they’ve exchanged no radio transmissions with any Federation outpost or ship since they left the Enterprise.”

  “So you believe that planet in the middle of these storms is where they’re headed?”

  “Yes, sir, I do. The Crown of Shad must be hidden on Sigma 1212. I propose that we maintain vigilance outside the storm zone. If they survive to reach the planet and the Crown, we’ll have no trouble taking it from them and dispatching the crew when they leave the surface to meet the starship.”

  “And if they never make it to this treasured Crown?”

  “Then,” said Kera smoothly, “I see no reason to risk our lives by following them into a Magnitude Seven disturbance.”

  Kon gave her a leering nod of approval, and as she turned back to her screens and dials, he smiled to himself. He wondered what she would be like as a sexual partner, and wished momentarily that he had her back on his warship, with his private quarters. Klingon crew members, whether male or female, had to accept as fact that a commander of the opposite sex had the right to collect carnal favors at whim. And as he looked ahead without enthusiasm to a protracted wait here at the edge of Sigma 1212’s violent veil of space storms, he regretted not being able to while away the idle hours getting to know Kera more intimately.

  “Sensor contact lost, Commander.”

  As if the outlying turbulence hadn’t been bad enough, entry into Sigma’s atmosphere offered no respite. Despite his best efforts, Spock was fighting a losing battle against cyclonic gales of over three hundred miles per hour as the shuttle’s outer skin began to heat up.

  McCoy had resumed his spot leaning over Spock’s shoulder, while Kailyn tried to batten down whatever might be loose inside the cabin. But the time had come to strap themselves in and hope for the best.

  “Are we on target, Spock?”

  “Difficult to say, Doctor. Instruments have yet to return to normal function. I can only judge by our heading before navigation corrections became guesswork.”

  “You’re not instilling confidence in me.”

  “You have my sincere regrets. Please secure your safety harnesses. This landing is not likely to be smooth.”

  Kailyn bit her lip nervously, and McCoy noticed.

  “Spock has a way with understatements,” he said.

  McCoy didn’t know how true that really was just then, for only Spock was aware that the whirlwinds buffeting the Galileo were making it nearly impossible to keep the heat shields properly angled. Where they landed on Sigma might never be a problem—it was quite possible they and the battered shuttlecraft wouldn’t land, but would burn up in the swirling atmosphere of this planet that seemed determined to permit no visitors.

  Chapter Nine

  Trust. If James Kirk held a value sacred, that was it. Without it, existence could never be more than a haphazard series of encounters filled with caution at best—fear at worst. A being deemed unworthy of trust by others, or unable to find fellow-creatures to rely upon completely, could never know true love, unshakable friendship, or the warming shelter of security. In his own experience, lives had been saved by trust, loves lost by the lack of it.

  In his eyes, the sin of betrayal was the worst of all. To willingly, knowingly accept someone’s trust and then turn against it was contemptible. It was that feeling deep in his heart that allowed Kirk to tolerate for the moment Star Fleet’s order to unmask the turncoat in King Stevvin’s small, ragtag band of servants.

  Four servants, no longer young, their lives given in the employ of the King for thirty years or more. These four had volunteered to leave their home world with their exiled ruler, and in the hard years that followed they had come to feel less like servants and more like members of the family. They’d shared hope and frustration, love, and finally trust—until one of them had betrayed it.

  But who? And why? The second question nagged at Kirk. Was it a loyal retainer driven to treason by some weakness of character—an offer of money, or safety—or simply a hollow despair of ever returning home? Or were they dealing with a professional spy, planted in the King’s entourage as a matter of course many years before the forced exile?

  As he sat at the briefing-room table facing the four Shaddans, Kirk wasn’t sure which answer would make him angrier, and he tried to set such emotion aside until it could be unleashed at a definite target.

  Eili, the King’s personal manservant. A little round man with the eyes of a faithful dog—once vigilant, seeing to his master’s needs even before he would be asked, now dulled by grief. His doughy face was buried in his hands as his wife Dania comforted him. They were a matched set—Dania, the royal cook for thirty years, was as plump as her husband, and as devoted to him as he had been to the King.

  Boatrey, the sturdy stable master, his leathery face etched by years of outdoor work. He had been Kailyn’s favorite, and Kirk remembered how he
would give the little girl rides on the small animals in his stable yard.

  Lastly, Nars, the once-elegant chief of the household staff. His clothing was shabby now, with small threadbare spots that had been carefully stitched to get through the lean years on Orand—but he still bore himself with the straight-backed dignity he had displayed without fail in the long-gone days of grandeur.

  An unlikely group from which to ferret an enemy agent. Kirk found himself ready to rule out the possibility that any one of them could have been a spy from the start, and he drifted back toward the human-frailty theory. That was why Lieutenant Byrnes was there—her trained eye might catch a hint that he would miss. Kirk cleared his throat.

  “Before he died, King Stevvin asked me to promise that he would have a proper Shaddan funeral. I made that promise, and I want to keep it. But we never got the chance to talk about it before the end. I know you’ve all suffered a great loss with his passing. I share your grief—but right now, I need your help in fulfilling my promise. I need to know the funeral customs of Shaddan religion.”

  Kirk glanced furtively at each face, hoping to spot a telltale glimmer in the nervous batting of an eye or the downturned corner of a mouth. But if any such sign slipped out, he looked for it in vain.

  “We must get a m-m-memorial urn,” Eili said, jowls shaking as he tried to control his quiet sobs.

  “Is it a special urn?” Kirk asked.

  “Y-yes. It must be newly cut stone, quarried n-not more than a day before death. It . . .” Eili began to weep again, and Nars reached out to touch the little man’s shoulder. But Eili seemed not to notice.

  “Stone is symbolic of strength, Captain,” Nars said. “It must be cut and sanctified according to strict laws.”

  “I fear we shall not succeed,” Boatrey rumbled. “The King’s ashes must be set out in the urn, to be sifted and taken by the gods within two suns after the heart has stopped. Aren’t we more than two days from home?”

  “Three days,” Kirk said. “Does the urn have to be cut from Shaddan rock?”

  The servants looked at each other before Dania answered. “Not as long as the laws are followed. But who would know Shaddan laws away from home?”

  “A Shaddan,” said Nars.

  “Do you know a planet where we could get a holy urn?” asked Kirk.

  “I know of some, but I don’t know if they’re close enough to your ship, Captain Kirk.”

  “Let’s find out,” Kirk said. He reached for the computer terminal and switched it on. The machine’s lights blinked in sequence, then supplied a visual response to his query—planets within two days of the starship’s present location, with known populations of Shaddan citizens. The servants read the list, and Nars pointed to one name.

  “Zenna Four. I lived there myself many years ago.”

  “But is there a stonemason there?” asked Dania.

  “I knew of one. A neighbor.”

  “But that was long ago,” Boatrey protested. “He could have moved on, or died.”

  “He had a son, who was learning from his father.”

  “We must try,” Eili said. “Otherwise, we condemn our King to wander forever, never being taken to the bosom of the gods.”

  “But what if this stonemason can’t be found?” said Boatrey.

  Kirk raised a hand to silence the cross-discussion. “The promise was mine—and the decision will be, too.”

  The servants were escorted back to their quarters by security guards, while Kirk and Byrnes consulted the computer again. Zenna Four was almost two days distant, closer to Shad and farther from rendezvous with the Galileo at Sigma 1212. That meant the Enterprise would get back a full day late.

  “If the Klingons are still trailing the shuttle,” Byrnes said, “and the Crown is found, they could attack before we arrive, sir.”

  “Let’s hold that aside for now, Lieutenant. In your opinion, is Nars the chief suspect?”

  “Because he was the only one to step forward and point us to a particular planet? Well, if he is our spy, then he’d certainly be eager to report that the King is dead. They’d probably want to assassinate Kailyn immediately, even if the Crown stayed lost forever. Finishing the Dynasty that way could be quite enough to tip things back over to he Mohd Alliance.”

  At the same time, according to the computer, Nars was telling at least a partial truth. He had lived on Zenna briefly, as part of a diplomatic mission in a provincial capital called Treaton before he became chief of the King’s staff. Zenna had been one of the first planets to contract for tridenite delivery, and a fair-sized community of Shaddans had sprung up to administer the business. The ore trade had dried up by the second decade of the civil war, but many of those Shaddan expatriates remained rather than return home to their own embattled world. So Nars’s stonemason might very well be there. Perhaps he was only being the dutiful servant to the last, concerned solely with performing this final service for his dead master, sending him on his journey to life after death

  If that was the case, then the detour to Zenna would fulfill Kirk’s promise to Stevvin; but it might also place the Galileo in grave danger and risk losing the Crown to the Klingons. Though he wasn’t religious himself, Kirk knew the Shaddans were. And if he didn’t allow the King to be cremated according to custom, how was he to know he wouldn’t be depriving his old friend of life after death? He’d already deprived him of almost twenty years of life before death. No—that’s not fair . . . not your fault.

  Besides, Kirk refused to believe that the Shaddan gods could be so unforgiving that they wouldn’t accept a soul whose delay had helped preserve the Dynasty they’d helped to create. He felt sure that the old King would have agreed with his judgment, and that particular worry subsided. Just one more question before he could choose a course of action. . . .

  * * *

  “Captain, someday y’re goin’ t’ ask, and my poor bairns’ll just give up the ghost. Y’can only ask them to do so much.”

  Kirk sat on the edge of his bunk and looked at the dubious face of his chief engineer on the viewscreen. “I have faith in you, Scotty. They always listen to you.”

  Scott sighed. “Aye. We’ll gi’ you what we can.”

  With the pledge of extra speed from the starship’s well-tended engine, they’d be able to arrive at the Sigma rendezvous less than twelve hours late, and Kirk knew he had to take the risk. He called Nars and informed him that the Enterprise was headed for Zenna Four. Nars assured Kirk he’d beam down himself to see to all details. With that, Kirk thanked him and switched off the intercom. He wondered how the Galileo was faring.

  There’s the rope, Nars. If you don’t string yourself up with it, I may have to take your place. Because if I’m wrong about all this, my Star Fleet record may not be worth a counterfeit credit.

  Chapter Ten

  Gingerly, McCoy moved one joint at a time, starting with the pinky on his right hand. When the right hand registered that it was fully operative, he slowly reached up and felt his head. It, too, was operative—and slightly bloody. He opened both eyes completely for the first time since they’d closed themselves up, and a backlog of impressions flooded out of his subconscious. The acceleration, the heat, the nauseous sensation that went far deeper than the pit of his stomach. The expectation of the sound of tearing metal, and quick but painful death, harshly enveloping senses already stretched to the breaking point.

  But that last part must never have happened, because he was quite certain he was alive. He gradually realized that he was alone, however, and the floor was tilted at a crazy angle, the craft’s fore tip aimed approximately skyward, the stern resting over on its left corner. Debris was scattered across the interior, pieces of equipment broken loose from their moorings and storage niches, the hammocks torn off the wall hangers. He reached for the safety release on his harness and found that it was already unlatched. Then he saw the bloodstained cloth on his lap. It had evidently been placed on his forehead and slipped off. Whoever put it there must have ha
d a good reason, so he put it back, remembering the cut he’d discovered himself a moment ago. That was when he noticed that the wound had been bandaged.

  McCoy closed his eyes again, trying to quiet the throbbing that announced itself forcefully along his right temple, slightly below the cut. Where were Spock and Kailyn?

  The shuttle door creaked—its track had been bent in the crash, and it resisted sliding back up into the hull. A blast of frigid air rushed in as the door cracked open and Kailyn clambered inside. McCoy relaxed and grinned at her as she wrestled the door closed again.

  “You wouldn’t smile if you saw what you looked like,” she said. Gently, she touched the right side of his head with the cloth. He clenched his teeth at the bolt of pain shooting through his skull and down his neck.

  “My head may be split open, but I can assure you my nervous system is working just fine.”

  “I’m sorry” She pulled her hand back. “Did it hurt?”

  “You might say that.”

  Kailyn bowed her head. “It’s my fault you got hurt, and now I’m torturing you, and then I’ll—”

  “Hold it, hold it,” he said, with as much energy as he could muster. “Now, listen here, young lady; you are the only thing that stands between me and this massive headache. Get my medikit and—”

  Kailyn held the black pouch up. “Got it already.”

  “Good girl. There’s a small vial labeled ‘Topical Anesthetic.’ Take it out and open the cap.” While she followed his instruction, he winced with another stab of pain. “Now, spray the side of my head with it.”

  Touching the nozzle with her fingertip, Kailyn lightly dusted the mist over the injured area, and McCoy displayed visible relief as the numbing substance quickly took effect.

  “Florence Nightingale would be proud, Kailyn. By the way, where’s Mr. Spock?”

  “Scouting the area.”

  “Did he take a phaser? asked McCoy with sudden concern.

  “Of course”