“All right, I’ve laid in the coordinates, and we’re on a short delay.” Regent Karuw strode over to the platform and took her place beside the seeress, who was trembling.
“I thought we were told we shouldn’t use transporters,” said Jenoset.
“Don’t believe everything you’re told,” answered Marla. “I don’t. I want you to see with your own two eyes exactly what we face.” The transporter sequence began, and the two women steeled themselves as their corporeal forms became disembodied for a moment.
Freezing, foul-smelling wind assaulted them as they materialized on the planet’s surface in the middle of a snowy blizzard, with immense trees shaking all around them. Within seconds, they were surrounded by towering figures, armored from head to toe and carrying disruptor rifles. Seeress Jenoset had been trembling when they left the Darzor, and now she was shaking more than the windblown trees. It was dark, except for lanterns and the lights from several shuttlecraft, but they could still see blasted craters and pockets of fire burning on the ground and in the misty forest.
“Who goes there?” grumbled a deep voice, pointing the business end of a disruptor at Karuw’s midsection.
“The rulers of this planet,” answered the regent imperiously. “Is Ambassador Worf here?”
“You must wear headgear and environmental suits,” answered another Klingon, as if he hadn’t heard her. He motioned to a comrade, who hurried off to a waiting shuttlecraft. Karuw noticed what looked like bodies stacked outside the vessel, and she shivered.
“What if we don’t want to wear your suits?” asked Jenoset indignantly.
“Then we will transport you to the Doghjey and put you in quarantine in our brig,” answered the masked officer. “No exceptions, because there’s a dangerous fungus on this planet which can affect your mind.”
“I want to see Ambassador Worf,” demanded Regent Karuw.
“I am Worf!” barked the armed Klingon. His underling returned with suits and headgear and handed them to the women. Because she was cold, Marla Karuw didn’t argue anymore as she pulled on the overly large protective gear. Her teeth chattering, Jenoset was even quicker to obey their orders.
“Haven’t you read our dispatches?” asked Worf angrily. “The Genesis Wave also brought invaders to this planet. They killed seven of our officers and wounded fifteen others.”
“How many of them did you kill?” asked Karuw, her voice sounding muffled in the helmet she had just donned.
Worf picked up a handful of moss from the ground and held it out to the women. “That is difficult to say when this is their true appearance. However, they can take on the form of persons known to you, which is why they are so dangerous.”
“Really?” asked Karuw, trying not to let the fear show in her voice. “Have you . . . have you seen anybody else down here?”
“Any other creatures?” asked Worf, misinterpreting her question. “There are some rather large food animals—I can show you their carcasses, because they were involved in the battle.”
“That’s all right,” said Karuw, waving off the question. “Our main concern are the people stored in our transporter satellites. We have to start setting up transporter stations and beaming them down immediately.”
“That is impossible now,” answered Worf. “We have no idea how many of these creatures there are—there may be millions of them.”
“And there are millions of my people trapped in those satellites!” said Karuw heatedly. She took a deep breath, trying to control her anger. “This area is big enough to put up some shelters and start bringing down our people. Please, Ambassador, our time is extremely limited—the bioneural network in those satellites is already degrading. They’ve been through a lot.”
“I can’t guarantee their safety,” said Worf.
“Neither can I,” countered Regent Karuw, “and that’s the problem. Down here, they’ve got a fighting chance. Up there, they’ve got no chance at all if the computers fail.”
The big Klingon considered her request for a moment, then nodded. “Very well, we will speed up our timetable. We’ll start erecting shelters, and you can erect the transporter platforms you need. By daylight, we should be ready.”
“Thank you,” answered Karuw with a grateful sigh. More than ever, it seemed, they would have to terraform the planet to make it safe.
“Don’t leave this clearing,” warned Worf.
“Don’t worry, we won’t. Thank you, Ambassador.”
Worf motioned to his comrades, and the Klingons dispersed, going back to their grim business. Marla turned to look at Seeress Jenoset, whose stunned face was barely visible behind the visor in her helmet. It took a great deal to keep Jenoset quiet, but she had barely said a word since setting foot on Aluwna, or what had become of it. Karuw wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw tears in the pale eyes of the seeress.
“Are you ready to go?” she asked.
“Yes,” Jenoset answered hoarsely. “I didn’t think . . . it would be so changed.”
“Rest assured, we’ll change it back to the paradise it was,” vowed Marla Karuw. “Are you going to leave it to me, or burden Tejharet with these tasks?”
Jenoset bowed her head and replied, “You are in charge, Regent. No one is going to fight you for this job.”
“I didn’t think so.” Warmly Marla Karuw wrapped an arm around the slender shoulders of her nemesis and said, “Let’s go back to the ship.”
* * *
Overseer Tejharet tossed fitfully in his sleep in the royal stateroom aboard the Darzor, hearing a babble of voices inside his head. At first, he thought they were the crew members and passengers on the crowded ship, but then he remembered that his stateroom was solidly soundproofed, as befitted a monarch. The more he drifted in and out of sleep, the more he realized that the voices were part of a nightmare—the voices of all those millions of subjects he had abandoned to their fate. They were the voices of the people in the square outside the Summer Palace, begging him to be saved. He had sat in his darkened quarters listening to them right up until the moment when his aides had come to pack him off to the yacht. They were the voices of his loyal servants, who had been locked out of the palace by his guards, because they had hounded him with pleas for mercy. They were the voices of the children who were too poor and disenfranchised to make it onto the sacrosanct list.
By leaving all the decisions up to Marla Karuw, he had abdicated his power to save anyone, including himself. The distraught overseer had turned his back on countless millions, because he was too cowardly to make the tough choices himself. There might have been other options, if he hadn’t given up so quickly. Perhaps he could have cajoled the Federation into giving Aluwna more help; perhaps he could have been more proactive, knowing that even a perfect world could be threatened with destruction. He should have built more starships during his reign—he should have reached out to more interstellar neighbors. He should have done something for all those whose voices now rang in his ears.
Shivering with the sweat of guilt and remorse, Tejharet reached across his bed for Jenoset, but his wife was no longer there. Her kisses and caresses had brought him some respite from his agony, no matter how briefly, and now she was gone, too. He knew he could get out of bed and roam the corridors of the ship like a ghost, but what good would that do? Who wanted to see him—the ghost of a former ruler? They didn’t need him anymore.
Perhaps they never did.
“Open your door,” said another voice, soft and feminine. “And turn out the lights.”
In his addled state, it took Tejharet several moments to realize that this was a real voice, one coming from the com panel outside his door. Of course, he was alone, so anyone wishing admittance to the secure stateroom had to ask for it. The lights were already out, although the darkness did nothing to help him sleep or assuage his grief. He touched the panel on the table at his bedside, and the door whispered open.
A curvaceous figure shrouded in flowing silk padded into the room, and the
door slid shut behind her. He recognized the perfume, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Jenoset had returned to him!
“My darling,” he rasped, reaching for her in the darkness. “I need you so badly.”
“I know,” she said huskily as her barely clad figure slithered into his arms. “Kiss me, my overseer.”
Eagerly seeking warmth and redemption—and a measure of forgetfulness—Tejharet probed her supple lips with his own. She tasted oddly bitter, not like before, but perhaps she had drunk something bitter. It suited his mood, this bitterness, and he momentarily lost himself in their mutual passion.
Then his chest began to constrict, as if he had been running too fast, too far. Before he could fill his lungs, the constriction in his chest turned to stabbing pain, and he couldn’t draw a breath at all. As he began to cough and gag, his lover pulled away from him and left him grasping for both her body and the air. He wanted to move, to speak, to scream—and he tried to reach for the com panel by his bed—but the muscles in his arms were frozen, just like his lungs and heart. Tejharet knew he was dying, and that no power on or off Aluwna could save him.
Then the babble of voices sounded again, and they welcomed him to the grip of the Divine Hand, where he deserved to be. Poetic justice, he thought with the final synapses of his brain neurons before everything in his body shut down permanently.
As the door of his stateroom whooshed open and a shadow slipped out, the vaunted Overseer of Aluwna, who had ruled for three generations of peace and prosperity, collapsed in his bed and died.
Seventeen
Alexander cringed when he saw his brother, Jeremy, lying in a sickbay bed aboard the Doghjey. The burns on his face and body were very serious, although no longer life-threatening, and Dr. M’Lorik and his overburdened staff had done as much as they could for him without resorting to reconstructive surgery. Even now, the doctors were working on other patients with more urgent injuries. Warriors were lined up in the corridor, waiting to be treated for fungal infections they might have suffered during the battle, due to torn environmental suits. All in all, the medical staff on the Doghjey had not been geared up for a combat situation, but they were doing the best they could under the circumstances.
Jeremy looked up at his brother and tried to smile. His voice was a throaty crackle as he said, “They burned off all my nice blond hair. The girls back home are going to be disappointed.”
“I heard you’re going to see home very soon,” said Alexander.
The young human grunted. “I don’t want to, but a Starfleet runabout is dumping someone off here. Put in a word with Dad, will you, and tell him I’m okay—I can stay here.”
“Come on,” said Alexander gently, “you know you’ll get better treatment at Starfleet Medical.” He lowered his voice to add, “These guys are sawbones. Nobody ever accused Klingons of being great healers.”
Jeremy grunted in pain as he shifted slightly. “I know,” he rasped. “They keep asking me why I don’t have two or three of every organ, like you do.”
Alexander laughed and changed the subject. “We got reinforcements on the planet, so Dad sent a big force to march from Base Two to Base One. Now that we’re using just bladed weapons, we had a lot fewer casualties. Those things don’t stand up well to bat’leths, and they’re not very smart or organized. We need to establish a bigger perimeter and enlarge the two bases, because the Aluwnans want to start bringing their people down.”
“They’re braver and crazier than Klingons,” observed Jeremy, shaking his bandaged head. “I would just leave this place to the giant slugs and move on.”
“I guess that’s not an option,” answered Alexander. “Hey, at least you got to fight alongside Dad.”
“Yeah, that’s a blast,” agreed Jeremy, mustering a pained smile. “Is he . . . is he coming to visit me?”
“He’s meeting the specialist Starfleet is sending us, so he’ll be there to see you off.”
“Good,” croaked the injured human, slumping back in his bed. “But I don’t really want to go.”
“Orders are orders.” Alexander tapped Jeremy gently on the shoulder. “Now you’ve got to rest, brother. When I get back to Earth, I want you to be well, so I can beat you in one-on-one.”
“Basketball?” rasped Jeremy, closing his eyes. “In your dreams.”
“Yeah, in my dreams,” agreed Alexander with a smile. He stepped away from the bed and wound his way through the crowded sickbay and into the corridor, where he was met by a shuttlecraft pilot.
“Alexander Rozhenko?” asked the pilot.
“Yes, that’s me,” answered the young Klingon. “Are you here to take me back to the planet?”
“Not the planet,” answered the pilot. “Your orders have changed, and you are to report to the Aluwnan vessel Darzor.”
“Why?” asked Alexander puzzledly.
“There is some sort of emergency there,” answered the pilot.
“They have requested a Klingon representative, and you are the closest and most able, according to Ambassador Worf.”
Alexander suppressed a smile, amused that his father considered him so capable. Then he wondered what sort of emergency could be so urgent to the Aluwnans when they had been mired in the worst crisis imaginable for almost a week. “Will you take me there?” he asked.
“Yes, I am due to report to the Darzor, anyway, to pick up a work crew.”
“Lead on,” said Alexander Rozhenko.
Fifteen minutes later, a Klingon shuttlecraft slid into the shuttlebay of the Darzor, and Alexander stepped off as six Aluwnan technicians carrying equipment waited to board. He was met by the two strong-willed women he had seen the night before: the older, scholarly regent, Marla Karuw, and the regal beauty, Seeress Jenoset. Alexander had lived on Earth, fought in the Dominion War, and served with a variety of forces from different worlds—so he supposed he was qualified for this duty.
Plus Alexander had received a strange visitor from the future once, who had assured him that his destiny would be in diplomatic service. For the present, anyway, he was content to serve in engineering.
Marla Karuw scowled at him as she asked, “And you are?”
“Duty Chief Alexander Rozhenko of the Ya’Vang,” he answered. “Son of Worf, House of Martok.”
“And your father couldn’t come?” asked the regent.
“My father is busy securing the planet for your people,” he answered. “What is the emergency?”
Seeress Jenoset sniffed back a sob, and he noticed that her eyes were red. “My husband, Overseer Tejharet, is dead.”
“We fear he’s been murdered,” added Regent Karuw in a hoarse whisper.
The young Klingon frowned at this revelation, wondering what he could do to prove or disprove this serious allegation. “I’m an engineer,” he said, “not a policeman.”
The two women immediately pointed at one another and said in unison, “She did it!”
Alexander shook his head and held up his hands. “Ladies, what do you want me to do?”
“I can explain,” said a male voice behind Alexander.
He turned to see a handsome Aluwnan of middle age and fine clothing come striding toward him, followed by an entourage consisting of an even younger male and several uniformed officers. “Excuse me for being late,” said this new arrival. “I had some urgent documents to sign. I am Overseer Padrin.”
“Alexander Rozhenko, Son of Worf, House of Martok,” replied the young Klingon again. “You have succeeded the dead overseer?”
“I have,” answered Padrin, gazing pointedly at Marla Karuw.
“And I have relieved Professor Karuw of the title of regent and assumed her duties and powers.”
“You can’t do this now!” shrieked Karuw, her hands balled into fists. “You’ve got to let me finish my work. You’re condemning eight million people to death!”
“I’m doing no such thing!” snapped Padrin angrily, glaring at the former regent. “Marla, you’re lucky that you’re not in
custody. Under the circumstances, you can proceed with all the tasks you have to do—nobody wants to stop you. But you are a suspect in the overseer’s death.”
Padrin looked fondly at Seeress Jenoset. “You are also a suspect, my dear. I’m sorry, but you must be confined to quarters until the inquiry is complete, and I don’t know how long that will take . . . with everything else going on.”
He turned again to the young Klingon. “I’m sorry to burden you with this, Alexander Rozhenko, but we aren’t equipped at the moment to do any kind of proper inquiry. This death puts what’s left of our government into chaos, and our people need to know there’s still some authority and order. You Klingons represent that to us now. If your father can’t help—and I understand why he can’t—I welcome any help you can give us.”
“I see,” said the young Klingon, his mind working furiously. If I’m ever going to be a diplomat, he decided, this is a good time to start. “Can I see the body and the evidence—to understand why you think one of these esteemed ladies murdered Overseer Tejharet?”
“Absolutely,” answered Padrin with relief. He turned to the cadre of uniformed officers behind him and said, “You two constables, accompany the seeress to her quarters and make sure she stays there. You two, accompany Professor Karuw to the laboratory and make sure she stays there . . . to do her work.”
“This is preposterous,” replied Karuw, shaking her head in disbelief. “Why would I kill him, when he made me regent?” She turned on Seeress Jenoset and said, “You told me you wouldn’t do this to me, not in the middle of this nightmare.”
“I didn’t do anything!” answered Jenoset through clenched teeth.
“Marla, you don’t need to be regent to succeed,” interjected Overseer Padrin. “We’ll continue to help you, but you can’t be regent with this cloud hanging over you. Everyone, go where you’re supposed to be, and concentrate on the job at hand. We’ve lost one life, but we have eight million more to save.”
These final words ended the conversation, and the two strong-willed women and their escorts left the shuttlebay. Remaining behind were Alexander, Overseer Padrin, and the young lad who had accompanied the group.
Genesis Force Page 17