Star Trek - TOS - 79 - Invasion 1 - First Strike

by Diane Carey

  Kellen. For the moment, they're both quiet. While they

  are, my officers are putting the ship's considerable resources

  to work on information you've given them. Your

  party will tour the ship and with luck gain some understanding

  of us and see that we're not these conquerors

  you speak of. Meanwhile, I think you and I should

  144 FIRST STRIKE

  attempt to iron out this problem between your people

  and the Klingons."

  "General, these are your quarters. I'll be right outside

  if you need anything."

  "Thank you, but I need only this."

  With his back to the husky young Starfleet guard, and

  without even bothering to turn, Kellen used a new

  dagger and an old trick. He raised his chin and braced

  his feet for balance, locked his elbow, and thrust his arm

  straight backward. In his fist was the warm hilt, behind it

  the blade.

  Without even witnessing his own act, he felt the blade

  pop the skin of the guard's body and grate against a rib.

  The guard's breath gushed out against the back of

  Kellen's head and the boy fell forward against Kellen's

  shoulder.

  Only then did he turn to see the boy, to turn him over

  quickly so there would be no telltale blood upon the

  deck, and finally to drag the body into the quarters

  where Kellen was supposed to wait in complacence,

  which was as much his enemy as Starfleet itself and

  almost as alien to him.

  So much more alien than he expected--this compli-catory

  inaction was unexpected and he cursed it. Kirk

  was a thorough disappointment. As the door of the VIP

  quarters hissed closed behind him and hid his kill for the

  moment, he thought about how far he could push the

  Federation. It had always been in his mind, through all

  his years in the Imperial fleet. Klingons had not survived

  so long by being stupid. He knew the Federation tolerated

  much more than any Klingon would, but when

  they did turn and fight they were not a pleasant enemy.

  They would fight ruthlessly and methodically. There

  were other Kirks out there who deserved to be Kirk, and

  one disappointment would not fool Kellen. Unlike

  Klingon honor, the Federation had a sharp sense of right

  and wrong as their barometer. When they believed they

  were right, they fought with unmatched ferocity.

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  Diane Carey

  This had always been a mystery to Kellen--when the

  Federation would fight and why. Always a minefield to

  walk. He could spit in a human's face--something a

  whole Klingon family would go to war over--and the

  human might shrug and walk away. Yet step on the toe of

  something they had no interest in and the Federation

  would marshal all its forces to defend a thing it did not

  care to possess.

  Like this Kirk. Why had he refused to fight so obvious

  a threat? Certainly there were primogenial memories in the Federation of those demons, just as there were for

  the Klingons. Even time beyond recall could be recalled

  when the common danger was disclosed.

  Some predictions could work, though. He had gambled

  and won that these people were too polite to make a

  body search of a visiting dignitary, even a Klingon

  dignitary. They hadn't. He had kept his dagger hidden,

  and beside it a shielded communicator which he now

  withdrew and powered up.

  "Qul... Aragor, do you read me? Come in, QuL" Communicator shields often worked in both directions

  and impaired broadcast. He kept the signal weak,

  not sure how much of a signal would trigger this ship's

  security systems and notify them that he was attempting

  to reach out from here to his own ship.

  He started walking. No turbolifts. Too entrapping.

  There would be ladders, tubes, other ways to go down.

  "Qul... Qul..." Over and over he murmured the

  name of his ship, slowly adjusting the gain on the

  communicator until they would hear him calling.

  And here was a tube--with a ladder. He asked and

  was answered.

  He peered down the tube to be sure there was no

  technician coming up whose head he would have to

  crush, and swung his thick leg around the ladder.

  "General... this is Aragor. Where are you?" Clinging to the rungs and wedging his way into the

  tube, which barely accommodated his girth, Kellen

  paused. "I am in the starship. I believe Kirk is about to

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  FIRST STRIKE

  betray us. Call for reinforcements, as many as you can

  find. Make no obvious movements, but be ready to

  attack. Contact the Jada and tell that idiot Ruhl to

  prepare the squadron's defenses, but quietly."

  "Sir... the commanders will not be allowed to attack

  a Starfleet ship under a flag of truce without provocation

  or gain. How will we make them believe you saw?"

  "I must be believed! Or it is disaster."

  'I believe you, General, but the commanders will

  demand proof."

  Anger welled and he wanted to shout at Aragor, yet he

  knew this was not Aragor's doing. His science officer was

  neither fool nor petty stooge. A truth was a truth.

  "There will be proof. I will find it somehow. You call

  them. Give them the facts as we know them. Show them

  the tapes. I am going to main engineering to disable this

  vessel. Make preparations to beam me back when I make

  signal No more communication."

  "Understood. Out."

  The tube was narrow but bright, and he felt closed in,

  trapped, even as he moved freely downward through the

  veins of the starship. The voices of the crew from deck to

  deck were his only contact with the Starfleeters, giving

  him reason to pause now and then to be sure no one saw

  him pass through the open hatchways and companion-ways.

  He could be easily cornered here, but his size

  forced him to move slowly, with cautious deliberation.

  To slip and tumble because of nervousness would be

  shameful.

  Tours. Guests. Open arms to demons and friends.

  Havoc embraced. A Kirk who was no Kirk. Seek out the

  unshatterable and discover only crumbs.

  The rungs were cool against his palms. Rung after

  rung, the ship peeled away beneath his hands and boots.

  Nearer and nearer he climbed down toward the pulse

  and thrum of the warp core. He felt it vibrate through

  the ladder and heard it hum in his ears. That was the

  power source he must cripple, or the starship would once

  again stand in his way.

  147

  Diane Carey When the thrum was strongest, he went one deck more

  to make sure he had indeed zeroed in on the main

  engineering deck, then climbed back up and cautiously

  extracted his bulk from the tube. This was a wide-hailed

  ship, with room to stretch his arms from bulkhead to

  bulkhead even in the passages. They wasted space, these

  people, attempting to create an environment too much

  like planetary architecture. They came into the depths of


  space, then tried to pretend they were otherwhere. They

  coddled their comforts too much in sacrifice to efficiency

  and quickness. No one needed this much room. And

  with every extra bit of indulgence, there had to be that

  much more thrust, so they wasted energy to accommodate

  their waste of space.

  That could mean they had power to spare. He would

  have to consider that in his sabotage.

  He moved slowly through the offices to the functioning

  engineering deck, keeping himself hidden from humans

  in red shirts who moved from panel to panel, reading

  and measuring what they saw, and crossed walkways

  overhead. At the far end of the deck he saw the

  cathedral-tall red glow of the warp core throbbing placidly,

  off-line as the ship lay at all-stop.

  Finding an angular elbow between three tall storage

  canisters, Kellen paused to assess what he saw and

  decide how best to inflict injury that would be hard to

  find and take time to fix.

  As he studied the movements of the engineers and

  listened to their faint conversations, wicking general

  information about these panels, he almost failed to

  notice the most important change when it came--the

  demons were here.

  There... nearly obscured by the thing he was hiding

  behind, but they were here! On their tour... doing just

  as he was doing, seeking information and scanning the

  uncovered consoles and all this technology these idiots

  kept out in the open and freely showed to any and all

  who came. Even demons could see.

  That other ensign now tagged behind. The gaggle of

  148 FIRST STRIKE

  evil was led instead by a senior engineer, who seemed

  uneasy at the creatures following him. He spoke little,

  but gestured for the creatures to disperse about the deck

  and gaze about.

  The other engineers paused in their work and stared at

  the ghastly amalgam who came here now, the long-faced

  horned beasts, the winged Shushara, the hideous Iraga

  with those white snakes in its head. Even the vaulting

  humans who spoke so large and pretended nothing

  bothered them today could not hide their disgust. They

  acted as if they did not remember these ill-biddens, did

  not recognize what they saw, but it was in their eyes and

  the tighten ing of their shoulders as they looked upon the

  erictees who now returned unasked.

  No matter how they lied to themselves, they did

  remember. It was their Havoc too.

  Kellen held his breath as the Iraga crossed the deck,

  shuffling upon its ugly limbs toward him, coming to look

  at something on this side of the high-ceilinged chamber.

  Its leprous face was more terrible than any mask,

  crowned with those arm-long snakes that moved independently,

  reaching and retracting, as if tasting the air.

  He backed into his nook and held very still. There was

  a cool and convenient shadow here, not quite big enough

  to engulf his entire body, but dark enough to obscure

  him.

  The profane thing passed by him and moved into a

  secondary chamber, passing within inches. He smelled

  its licheny body and drew his chin downward in disgust,

  wincing as the tentacles whipped toward his face and

  licked at the canister's edge. If they had eyes, the Iraga

  would know he hid here.

  What would the horror be, to be overrun by these, the

  condemned, even to survive and be forced to do their

  filthy bidding? The thought shuddered through him. He

  held his breath.

  But his shadow served him. The beast moved past.

  Kellen raised his right hand and sifted through his

  outer robe for the familiar palm-filling shape of his

  149

  Diane Carey dagger's hilt. It was a good dagger, not his family dagger,

  which he had already given to his son, but a good

  weapon that had known too little use. Now it would have

  its moment.

  The general rolled out from between the canisters,

  walking casually across the open archway because that

  would gain less attention than if he attempted to sneak

  across.

  Without changing his stride he walked up behind the

  Iraga, reached as high as he could, snatched a handful of

  the gory tentacles moving in the creature's skull, and

  drove his blade into the haze of white gauzy doth

  covering the creature's body.

  Chapter Eleven

  150 UNLIKE THE BODY of the ensign whom Kellen had just

  killed, the Iraga's wound gushed no liquid onto his fist,

  but instead puckered around it. He felt no spine, but

  assumed there was one in there somewhere, and aggravated

  the blade across the body from side to side.

  The Iraga gasped and arched backward against him.

  Its mouth stretched open and its limbs thrust outward.

  Kellen pulled it down until he could twist the tentacles

  around the creature's face and stuff them into its

  mouth and down its throat, guttering any cry it tried to

  make.

  He waited for it to die, but it would not die. It cranked

  to this side, then that side, trying to pull itself free of his

  grip and the blade digging into its back. Soon it began to

  go pliant in his arms and he let it drop.

  It slid down his legs and rolled to the deck at his feet,

  staring up at him with bitter green eyes that had no

  pupils.

  "Security to Mr. Scott. Emergency."

  Kellen looked up, and stepped to the archway. The

  senior engineer was reaching for the nearest panel.

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  Diane Carey

  "Scott here."

  "Sir, Mr. Giotto here. Captain says to notify you of

  intruder-alert status. We've had a call from deck four.

  Yeoman Tamura went to ask the Klingon general if she

  could bring him dinner and she found Ensign Brown on

  the floor of the VIP quarters. He's been killed, sir, and

  there's no sign of the general. We're attempting a bio-sweep

  for Klingon physiology, but we haven't pinpointed

  anything yet."

  The engineer's face turned stony, and for a moment he

  glared at the comm as if it had done the killing. When he

  spoke his voice was like metal grating on metal. "Acknowledged.

  Scott out." He looked up and snapped his

  fingers. "Mr. Hadley! Go to Security alert status two in

  the lower section. Double guards at every entrance. Let's

  clear this deck of all but assigned personnel. Arm the lot

  and set up in teams."

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Scott. Johnson, come with me! Elliott,

  come down here!"

  Suddenly there was confusion all over. The demons

  were rounded up and shuffled out of Kellen's sight.

  Guards with phasers jogged through, and his plans for sabotage were snuffed before his eyes.

  So the plans must be altered.

  He stepped back to the poisonous body, yanked his

  dagger clear of the Iraga's back, and quickly retracted

  the two claw extensions. Taking the hilt in both hands,

  he braced his legs wide, raise
d the heavy center blade as

  the creature looked up beseechingly at him, and brought

  it down with all the power in his thick upper body. The

  blade erunched through the Iraga's throbbing neck and

  went a tingeifs length into the deck.

  Sawing deliberately, he ignored the free flood of white

  fluid and gray organs. Finally he twisted his left hand

  into the frantically jerking tentacles and pulled as he cut.

  The eyes flared as if the demon knew what was happening

  to it. The lips moved open, closed, open, closed, as if

  trying to speak to him, and there was sound from the

  ravaged throat that soon dissolved into a froth.

  152 FIRST STRIKE

  He sawed relentlessly. In moments the beast's eyes

  began to roll and the tentacles began to coil around and

  around Kellen's hand and wrist, growing thinner as they

  tightened. He was disgusted at the greasy sensation, but

  forced himself to maintain his grip and continue to pull

  and cut.

  The neck muscles were twisted like cord and resisted

  even the razor-sharpness of his dagger blade. The bones

  of this demon's throat grated fiercely, but he gritted his

  teeth and applied his strength, and soon the Iraga's lips

  peeled back to reveal its pointed teeth, and its head

  flinched off into his hand.

  Kellen stumbled back with the force of his own pulling

  as the last of the ligaments snapped. Before him the

  Iraga's body winced and jolted, its long fingers scratching

  at the deck, air sucking with futile desperation into

  the exposed tube endings through which it had been

  breathing only moments ago. It was trying to live.

  He had no idea whether it would succeed, but he had

  its head and that was what he needed. Now there would