“All right. I’m going in.” The chem jets fired again and Ezri moved forward, though she had no sensation of movement. To her, it seemed like the cloud of ice crystals parted before her and swallowed her up. There was a word for this, she knew, an expression she had heard in one of her lives. What was it? And then she remembered: “whiteout.”
Ezri sliced through the comet’s tail toward the Sword of Kahless. Just as the silver curtain closed behind her, she heard Worf’s voice simultaneously rise and fade. He was shouting something about a ship—“Off the starboard bow ...”—but the kelbonite consumed the signal, leaving Ezri entirely alone.
“It’s the Chak’ta,” Alexander called. “And two birds-of-prey decloaking off our stern.”
[185] Worf shouted, “Full spread of torpedoes! Fire!” The weapons officer responded instantaneously and Alexander watched the sensor displays intently.
“Two hits!” he called. “One ship has been disabled. The other ...” He watched the statistics crawl up the screen. “Damage to their secondary hull, but still functional.”
“The Chak’ta?” Worf asked.
“Is powering up her main disrupter. Should be at full power in twenty-five seconds.”
“Shields to full,” Worf said. “Evasive action, but stay between Chak’ta and Ezri.”
Leskit glanced over his shoulder at Worf in disbelief. “How can I ... ?”
“Do it!” Worf snarled, and Leskit turned back to the nav console.
Gravitational forces too great for the inertial compensators to overcome pressed Alexander first to port, then starboard as Leskit took the Rotarran through a series of severe turns. They had less than twenty seconds to disable a heavy cruiser. The only reason any of them were still alive was that the Chak’ta could not have powered her weapons before decloaking. But how had Morjod found them? A question for later, Alexander decided as he checked the sensors, assuming they survived. “Chak’ta is attempting weapons lock,” he reported.
“His escorts?”
“Neither is moving. The damage to the second ship must be more severe than I thought.”
“Or perhaps the crew is taking the opportunity to stay out of the battle,” Worf said, then turned to communications, the station manned by Ortakin. “Any sign of Ezri?”
[186] “Nothing,” Ortakin snapped.
“Disrupter lock!” Alexander shouted.
“Hard to port!” Worf ordered. Leskit obeyed instantly and the bolt only grazed their starboard port shield. “Excellent!” Worf shouted. “Bring us around for a pass.”
“We cannot damage their shields, Father,” Alexander said. “The Chak’ta is too large a prize for us.”
“I know, but we have to give them a reason to stay away from the comet.”
“Do you think they know Ezri’s out there?”
“We cannot let them stop to think about it,” Worf said, “one way or another.”
Here, her sensors told her. Right here in front of you.
But Ezri couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see anything, let alone a bat’leth. Reaching out carefully into the silver-white field, she swept her hand back and forth in slow arcs, fearful that striking the blade would send it spinning off into a new, unknown trajectory. Worse, the suit’s gauntlets had poor feedback receptors, so it was difficult to tell even when she was touching something.
She touched a control, the chem jets burped, and she moved forward half a meter. Swinging wide from the shoulder, Ezri moved more recklessly, worried about her fuel supply, worried about her air supply, worried about what was happening outside the corona of the comet. How long had she been inside?
The HUD flashed an emergency signal. Outside the corona a massive amount of energy had just been expended. The suit’s computer analyzed the energy source, estimated its current location, and suggested [187] several methods for eliminating it—dependable Klingon AI routines—then warned that a shock wave moved toward her. Before she could find the Klingon suit’s emergency controls, a gigantic hand slapped her in the back of the head and she fell forward, tumbling through the icy mix.
Rotarran rolled to port and the weapons officer released a volley of torpedoes. All of them exploded harmlessly on the Chak’ta’s shields, but, as Worf had planned, they now had the cruiser’s undivided attention. He tapped a set of coordinates into the navigational computer and instructed Leskit to make for them. Banking hard, Rotarran skipped over Chak’ta, leaving a trail of aquamarine energy emissions where their shields met. The larger ship opened fire with all of her flank guns, but Leskit maneuvered too fast and, besides, knew the cruiser’s standard firing patterns. He could dance in and out of the fire for the rest of the afternoon if he wanted to. Besides that, Worf could not escape the feeling that Chak’ta’s crew was not trying as hard as they could. Do they wish for us to escape so they can follow, or is this a subtle rebellion against Morjod?
Worf glanced at Ortakin, who, despite being head down over the com board, seemed to sense the attention and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “No signal.”
“Transporter lock still good,” Alexander reported without being asked. One of Chak’ta’s gunners got lucky and Rotarran shuddered. “Aft shields down twenty-five percent. And that was just a graze, Father.”
Worf nodded and fed new coordinates to Leskit. Should they pick up Ezri whether or not she signaled? [188] What could she be doing? Sightseeing? What was taking so long?
Someone had punched her in the stomach very, very hard. Bright red lights flashed before her half-closed eyes and someone was shouting at her in Klingonese to wake up. One of Curzon’s memories intruded: He was a young man and had gotten involved in a fistfight with a Klingon, a matter of honor over—typically—a young lady he had never met before. Curzon was down on hands and knees, his ears ringing, his nose smashed into pulp by a single punch, and Kor was shouting at him to get up, get up! A large shadow blocked out the light and Curzon sensed a large boot headed for his midsection, which would account for why his ribs already ached so badly, except, wait, no ... He was Ezri now. Ezri’s mid-section hurt. Someone had kicked her. Someone shouted at her.
Ezri opened her eyes and said “Shut up” in Klingon. The angry voice stopped in midword. She was snow-blind, so she shut her eyes and tried to make sense of what had happened. Something hit me—a shock wave from an explosion. She opened her eyes, checked the status indicators on her suit. Not optimal, but at least manageable.
Carefully, to avoid dislodging herself, Ezri waved her arms around slowly and found that she was wrapped around a long metallic object. The shock wave must have shoved her here. Then she realized what held it in place.
The comet.
Moving ever so slowly, fearful of slashing her suit open, Ezri traced the length of the sword. Three-quarters of the way down, she found the point [189] embedded in the frozen surface of the comet body. Silently damning the Klingons for the lack of proper feedback circuitry in the gauntlets, she poked at the sides of the bat’leth until she found the grips. Slipping her bulky fingers inside them, Ezri twisted herself around until her feet were embedded in the frozen slush, then tugged.
“Anything?” Worf roared over the roar of frying electronics. Chak’ta’s gunners had clearly found some inspiration.
“Nothing,” Ortakin said. A wound in his left arm bled profusely and he was applying pressure with his right arm, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off the communications console.
“Lock is stable,” Alexander called, “but we’ll have to drop shields when it’s time to beam her in.”
Rotarran’s deck bucked and swelled under Worf like a straw cottage in an earthquake. Ortakin leaped from his chair milliseconds before one of the panels on his console blew out. The circuit breakers kicked in before a fire could take hold.
“Not a problem anymore,” Alexander yelled.
“No lock?” Worf shouted.
“No shields.”
“This would probably be easier if my ribs didn’t hurt so much,” Ezri
hissed between clenched teeth. Her left foot skidded out from under her, but she did not release her grip on the bat’leth. If she fell off the face of the comet, she would never be able to find her way back. Resetting her foot, she tried wiggling the blade back and forth in the frozen snow. Frozen ... she thought.
[190] “Ezri tapped her gauntlet and called up an inventory of her suit’s equipment on her HUD. “Come on,” she whispered. “I saw you here earlier ... there you are!” Hitting the proper controls, a laser torch suddenly deployed from her forearm.
Ezri reset her feet so that her legs were spread as widely as she could manage inside the suit. “Well,” she concluded as she took aim and activated the laser, “if I lose a foot, I’m sure Julian can get me a new one.”
“Find her, Alexander,” Worf said.
“I have her, Father,” Alexander said. “I think.”
“You think? For the past fifteen minutes, you had a lock, but now you think?”
“There’s interference.”
“From the kelbonite?”
“Something else,” Alexander said. “High-energy source. Laser, I believe.”
The comet body was right in front of the Rotarran, its trail of icy crystals and gray dust flowing behind. Chak’ta perched right behind them, its main gun powering up for the killing blow. Now or never, Alexander thought. Come on, Ezri. Let’s go. We have to go.
“A laser?” Worf asked. “On a comet? If she hits a pocket of frozen oxygen ...”
A brilliant purple spike blossomed on Alexander’s sensor display. The transporter console beeped at the same second Ortakin called, “Here she comes!”
Just before he activated the transporter, Alexander glanced up at the main monitor and saw that the comet now moved in a corkscrew spiral where once it had been moving in a smooth, straight line. Above it arched Ezri Dax, trailing a cloud of dust and debris of her own. In [191] her hand, she grasped a metallic arc that captured and released the glory of the stars.
Ezri Dax disappeared in the glitter of a transporter beam and Rotarran slid into a warp space like a diver into deep water.
Behind her, Chak’ta paused only a moment to trace her quarry’s path, set her course, and followed.
14
Footprints.
If someone had reported that a ship had dropped down out of the sky, scooped up Martok, and carried him away into the clouds, she would be disturbed, but not as much as this disturbed her. If someone had “witnessed Martok ascend bodily into the heavens with the aid of nothing more than tiny wings that had sprouted from his ankles, that would have disturbed her, but not as much as this.
Footprints.
For the better part of the past two days, her patrols had swept the area, checked every centimeter of the cliff face searching for Martok, but all they had found was a pair of dead Hur’q and then, ten hours ago, a new report: almost-filled footprints in the snow. If the storm had lasted for another hour, two at the most, there would have been nothing, no footprints, and she would—Gothmara admitted it to herself if no one else—have felt [193] some anxiety, some uneasiness, but would have only assumed that the body was buried. Sensors were, after all, almost useless on Boreth because of the cold.
But this—this was much worse.
Footprints.
Gothmara rose from behind her desk and walked around her lab inspecting the status of various experiments. She hadn’t been here in several months and most of the projects had either gone to ruin or been put in stasis by the lab programs when interesting results started to show up. Pausing briefly to inspect each station, she glanced at the status reports without truly seeing any of them. She was glad to be back inside the Hur’q base she had found all those years ago, if only because no one knew its location. Her Klingon officers found it distressing. Too bad. She needed to be here, as did her pets.
Where did the footprints go? There was only one way to find out for sure and so she had sent out the first patrol—a squad of Klingon soldiers—almost ten hours ago to backtrack the trail, but they had never returned. Five hours ago, she sent out the second patrol—three Klingons and three well-behaved Hur’q—and they had not returned either.
So, a fourth patrol was dispatched: six Hur’q and twelve Klingons. Perhaps she was being overcautious, even paranoid, but these were dangerous times. After all, she was destroying an empire. Some people might be expected to resist.
The lab computer said, “Request for access.”
“Who?”
“Commander Q’ratt and Hur’q number twenty-two.”
“Together?” She had not been expecting this. The Klingons and the Hur’q would work together when she [194] insisted, but there was no reason for number twenty-two to come up with Q’ratt.
“Number twenty-two,” the computer explained flatly, “is carrying Commander Q’ratt.”
“Ah,” Gothmara said, comprehending. “Admit them.”
The Hur’q carried the parts of Q’ratt that were still more or less contiguous into the lab’s anteroom and allowed the bits to slide onto the floor.
“Report,” Gothmara said. “Quickly.”
“My lady,” Q’ratt rasped. “We followed ... the trail to a cavern ...” He gasped and a drop of blood slid down out of his nose over his lips. “Side of the mountain.”
“Which mountain?” Gothmara asked. She already knew the answer, but couldn’t hold her tongue. There was no other mountain, after all.
Q’ratt knew it, too, and knew he had little time left to explain. “To the north,” he said, breath rattling in his throat. “Ten kellicams. The beast knows where.”
“Where are the others?”
“Dead. All of them.”
“Even the Hur’q?” She tried to keep the astonishment from her voice, but then realized, What’s the point? He’ll be dead soon and the beast doesn’t care. “Who did it? How many?”
“One,” Q’ratt said, answering the only question that seemed to matter to him. “He was hiding under the snow. Came up when half had passed over him.”
“One?” Gothmara shrieked. “One what?”
“One man,” Q’ratt sighed with his final breaths. “One demon. One warrior. He was ... glorious.” Then he lowered his head to the floor and died. The Hur’q sniffed Q’ratt’s remains curiously, then glanced at Gothmara.
“Do you know where the cave is?” she asked it.
[195] In its fashion, it reassured her that it did. A warm meal, however, would be appreciated before it had to lead the way.
She waved at the body. “Take it outside,” she muttered. “I don’t need to listen to you eat. Then assemble the troops. All of them.”
The Hur’q purred, picked up the remains of Q’ratt, and lurched out through the door.
One warrior, she mused. Astonishing.
Later, ever so briefly, Gothmara would recall that she had not asked whether this single warrior had been killed or if Q’ratt and number twenty-two had been permitted to escape.
“Martok,” Kahless said, staring at the Ch’Tang’s long-distance sensor scan of Boreth. “I am here. Where are you?”
“Is that the shuttle there?” Darok asked softly.
“Yes.”
“And I count—how many? Seven other ships?”
“Yes.”
“They will fall before us like grain before the scythe.”
“Yes.” They had found Ngane’s fleet; all seventeen ships were prepared to lay waste to the traitors who had so ignobly murdered their general.
“But you’re not happy.” It was a statement, not a question.
“It means nothing if Martok is dead.”
Darok sighed. While he agreed that this was true, he did not wish to be confronted with the fact. “Whatever fate he has found, it was his own decision.”
Kahless glanced at him. “Thank you for stating the obvious.”
[196] “You’re welcome,” Darok said with a tip of his head, “though I would add that nothing is ever obvious where the general is concerne
d.”
“It fascinates me,” Kahless responded, “that you speak to me, your emperor, in such a tone, while you continue to refer to Martok as ‘the general,’ despite the fact that he is, in fact, a chancellor.”
Darok furrowed his brow. “I have served the general and his family for most of my life. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that without the general, I would probably not be alive today.”
“And I?” Kahless asked.
“You are someone whose picture I see on coin and whose face is frequently carved into statuary.”
“Ah, well. There we have it.” He looked around the bridge and seemed to Darok to be able to perceive the mood of every man and woman around them. “If they learn Martok is dead, will they still fight?”
Darok nodded. “To their last breath.”
“And if he lives?”
“No force in the universe will stop us until we find him.”
Kahless grinned. “Prepare for the attack.”
Darok rose and signaled to the communications officer. “Alert the fleet,” he said. “Assume battle formation. Prepare to drop cloaks in five minutes. We go to find Martok!”
The bridge crew roared its approval, then erupted into a frenzy of activity. General, Darok thought. We are ready to die for you. But we would prefer to live for you.
Padding down the hall in his bare feet, feeling the cool slap of every step against the soles of his feet, Martok [197] marveled at how well he felt. What had they done to him while he was unconscious? Microsurgery? Perhaps a complete nanobiological refurbishment? He had heard that these kinds of procedures were available in some systems, but did not believe they were performed on any Klingon world, let alone by a group of monks in the bowels of a mountain under an ancient monastery. But if none of these things had been done to him, then what had happened? Feeling like a boy again, the pains from his most ancient injuries, poorly knitted bones, and badly healed muscles of decades past had dissolved—as if the injuries had never happened. After walking down the long, dimly lit corridor for what seemed an eternity, Martok began running, not because he was impatient, but because he enjoyed the pure sensation of blood pumping through his veins.
STAR TREK: DS9 - The Left Hand of Destiny, Book Two Page 16