Star Trek: Duty, Honor, Redemption (36 page)

She slid to a stop at Tran’s cabin and raked her claws across the surface of the door, scratching the paint and the metal underneath. Like the passenger’s bleeding hand, that did not matter any more.

“What is it?” Sleep slurred Tran’s voice. Like most primates, he woke slowly. But for a primate he was all right.

“Let me in,” Farrendahl said.

The door opened, and she paced into the darkness. In a moment she could see. Tran sat in a tangle of blankets, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

“What’s the matter?”

“Get up. Hurry. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving—?”

“Do you trust me?”

“In what context?” he said, sounding more awake.

Farrendahl growled and turned on the computer terminal on the wall of Tran’s cabin.

“I have no patience for discussions of anthropoidal philosophy,” she said. She reproduced a security-breaching program she had developed long ago, tunnelled into the ship’s computer, and disabled certain alarms. “I am leaving this ship. I am leaving now. I have good reason. You may come, or you may stay. It is of no moment to me which you choose.”

Tran threw off the blankets and reached for his pants. “Then why are you bothering to tell me?”

Farrendahl did not bother to reply. She hid her tracks in the computer with a flimsy cover that would break down under any scrutiny, but she doubted anyone would have the chance even to begin an investigation.

“I guess if I’ve been promoted from pithecanthropoid to anthropoid—” Tran fastened his belt and reached for his shirt.

“No time for all that foolishness!” Farrendahl said. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of his cabin. He snatched up his shirt and his boots and carried them with him. Farrendahl raced down the corridor, pulling Tran behind her.

Valkris swept into the control room.

“We’re nearly there,” the captain said when he noticed her.

“We are there,” she said. “Kill all velocity.”

The captain frowned, then nodded to the crew member at the control console, giving assent to his passenger’s order.

“Where the hell’s Farrendahl?” he said.

The ship vibrated faintly as it decelerated to counteract the forward momentum. And—was that a slight sideways shudder, as of a small craft exiting its mother ship? Valkris could not be certain.

“We have no more need of a navigator, Captain,” she said evenly.

“Delta-vee zero.”

“Scan the area,” the captain ordered.

Valkris smiled to herself as the scanning began. It continued for some minutes. Valkris retired to shadows in the back of the chamber, rather enjoying the curious and very nervous glances of the disreputable rogues around her.

“Nothing, Captain,” the crew member said.

“Steady…steady, boys. Keep scanning.” The captain gave Valkris a poisonous glance. “I thought you people were reliable. Where the hell is he?”

“He has been here for some time. I can feel his presence.”

“Don’t give me your Klingon mumbo-jumbo! There ain’t another vessel in this whole damned sector!”

Valkris noticed the reaction among the crew to what their captain had said, and by it she understood that none but he, on this nominally Federation ship, had known till now who or what she was.

“Put me on the hailing frequency,” Valkris said, ignoring his impertinence. Nothing could affect her or offend her now.

“Sure,” the captain said, sourly and sarcastically, “whatever games you want to play.” He opened the channel for her, and nodded that it was ready.

Valkris grasped the end of her headcloth, using her uninjured right hand, and drew it slowly aside.

The crew reacted uneasily to her appearance, their recent suspicions confirmed, new fears engendered. Renegades they might be, but they were renegades within the Federation, still a part of it. Valkris’ people were their antagonists, unknown and dangerous.

Approaching the transmitter, Valkris moved from shadows into light.

“Commander Kruge, this is Valkris. I have obtained the Federation data, and I am ready to transmit.”

“Well done, Valkris. Stand by.”

Everyone in the control room, even the captain, started at the rough, powerful voice that crashed out of the speaker. The voice spoke a few words which only Valkris recognized, for they were in a Klingon language. Now knowing precisely what Kruge planned, she turned toward the viewport, watched, and waited.

“Oh, my gods,” one of the crew members whispered.

Like a ghost, like a creature of mist and fog, the Klingon fighter glowed into existence before the renegade merchant ship, very close, threatening. The Klingon craft had the same effect as its master’s powerful voice.

“What the hell…?” the merchant captain said.

Valkris herself had never seen the cloaking device in action before. It impressed and fascinated her. She watched carefully until the ship had taken complete and solid shape.

“Transmit data,”
Commander Kruge said.

Valkris withdrew the data record from an inner pocket of her robe and inserted it into the transmission enclosure. The monitor blurred with the high-speed transmission. Valkris could not resolve the images, but she knew every frame of what she was sending.

“Transmission completed, Commander. You will find it essential to your mission.”

Valkris’s hot blood streamed down her slashed wrist and palm and between her fingers, soaking the inner folds of her robe, growing cold. She was beginning to feel the effects of loss of blood.

In the language of Kruge and Valkris, which possessed an almost limitless number of forms and variations, every utterance had many layers, many meanings. When Kruge spoke again, he switched to the most formal variation. Valkris understood it, as did all well-born members of their society, but she had never spoken it, or had it spoken to her, outside the classroom. She felt honored, and she knew for certain that Kruge would keep the vows he had made to her.

“Then you have seen the transmission,”
Kruge said, implying regret and inevitability.

“I have, my lord,” Valkris replied, granting permission in the second stratum and offering forgiveness as the third.

“That is unfortunate,”
Kruge said, accepting what she gave him and affirming that it was neither frivolously given nor lightly accepted.

“I understand,” Valkris said. She made all three strata the same, for she wanted him to know that she understood what she was doing and why, that she understood what he was doing and why, and that she understood that he would make certain the promises made to her would be kept.

“Thrusters,”
Kruge said, in the form of their language used by commanders to subordinates.

In the viewport, the Klingon fighter changed. The wings of its aft armament section swung from neutral into attack. The vessel rotated, arcing around until its bulbous command chamber thrust toward the merchant ship.

The merchant captain turned on Valkris in a fury.

“What’s going on? When do we get paid off?”

“Soon, Captain,” Valkris said. “Quite soon.” She spoke again, in formal tongue, to Kruge. “Success, Commander. And my love.” She did love him, indeed, as the instrument of her bloodline’s redemption.

She felt curiously lightheaded and happy. Happiness had deserted her for far too long. She was glad to experience it this one last time.

“You will be remembered with honor,”
Kruge said. Then he switched dialects again. Valkris knew he was speaking so she would be sure to hear his command: “Fire!”

The Klingon fighter swept toward them like a hunting falcon. Valkris did not see the beams of energy, for their destructive force reached the merchant ship at the same instant as the coherent light that formed them. The ship quaked. People shouted, then screamed. Valkris smelled the acrid smoke of burning insulation and flash-burned computer circuits. She heard the terrible hiss of escaping air.

I have shown my face to the world long enough, she thought. It is time to return to the customs of my family.

Her left hand was dark with blood. It marred the whiteness of the veil as she covered her face for the last time.

“For gods’ sake!” the merchant captain cried. “Make him help us! We’ll keep your damn secrets, just don’t let him space us!”

Valkris closed her eyes.

The bulkhead imploded upon her.

The merchant ship exploded into slag. A shock wave of pure energy battered its scout ship, which Farrendahl had gentled out into space and concealed against the side of the larger craft. At the instant of the explosion, Farrendahl hit the acceleration hard, cut it just as abruptly, and fired all the steering rockets at once. The maneuver blasted the scout out of its hiding place along the merchant’s flank and put so much roll, pitch, and yaw on the scout that it would look like merely another bit of exploded debris.

Tran shouted an inarticulate curse.

The scout was far too small to carry gravity, so the spin had its full effects on the occupants. Farrendahl struggled to keep her bearings and her consciousness. When she could stand the erratic tumbling no more, she gradually engaged the steering rockets and brought the scout to a steadier course. She dared not do it quickly lest the attacker notice that this bit of the ship moved under its own power.

“So ‘we may have to just turn around and go back inside,’ huh?” Tran said, still stunned and dizzy. That had been the only explanation Farrendahl would give him, till now, and now the explanation was obvious.

She used the aft scanners. Through the expanding, thinning cloud of debris, Farrendahl saw the Klingon ship send one last blast of energy against the destroyed merchant, then turn away from its kill and head toward Federation territory.

“Where did it come from?” Tran said.

“Out of the ether,” Farrendahl said.

The scout ship carried too little fuel to reach the nearest inhabited star system. She plotted a low-fuel course toward the nearest shipping lane, where they stood an excellent chance of being picked up. It would take them a while to get there. Just as well: before they were rescued, they would need to fabricate a believable and innocuous explanation for their plight.

Commander Kruge watched the ramshackle merchant ship go violently and silently to pieces under his fire. He stroked the spiny crest of his mascot, Warrigul, who sat by his side whining and hissing with excitement.

The demise of an opponent offered more satisfaction if the death came slowly, but the merchant was too easy a catch to be treated as an opponent. Besides, Kruge deigned to give Valkris a clean finish.

He nodded to his gunner, who reacted to the unusual order without question or hesitation. He fired the beams and blew the merchant ship beyond atoms.

The few remaining bits of debris tumbled away. Kruge felt completely satisfied. His only regret was never meeting Valkris face to face. He had heard much of her, both before her bloodline came to grief and after. Her information would win for him a great triumph; her death would return her family to its previous place in their society’s hierarchy. Kruge doubted that the family had another member to choose who would be the match of the formidable Valkris. He wondered if he himself could match her. He was good, but she was renowned as a duelist. Now he would never have the chance to test himself against her.

Kruge rose and surveyed the work pit. His command chair stood at a level that put him well above the heads of the crew members. None looked at him. Each bent intently over the task at hand, fearing a charge of laziness and the resulting discipline. Kruge could find some breach of regulations under almost any circumstances, but having just asserted his dominance over the merchant ship, he felt no need to assert his complete authority over his crew.

He removed the data plaque from the recorder and slipped it under his belt.

Warrigul rubbed its head against Kruge’s knee. Its spines scraped against the heavy fabric of the commander’s trousers. Kruge reached down and scratched behind his pet’s ears. Warrigul leaned harder against him. It was the only creature on board about whose loyalty the commander had no doubt whatsoever. Everyone else might be a spy, a challenger, a traitor.

Kruge glanced at his assistant. As usual, Maltz reacted badly to ambush. The officer was deplorably sensitive to violence. Kruge kept him on because he was an excellent administrator and follower-of-orders, because Maltz seldom thought for himself, and because while he might betray Kruge—anyone might become a betrayer—he would never challenge his commander. It was inconceivable that any of their superiors would consider Maltz a suitable replacement for Kruge. Maltz not only supported Kruge’s position, he insured it. Therefore Kruge pretended never to notice behavior that some less devious commander might not have tolerated.

“I’ll be in my quarters,” Kruge said. “Execute a course to the Federation boundary.”

“Yes, my lord!” Maltz said, and hurried to do his bidding.

Kruge started away. Warrigul trotted after him, growling. One of the crew members in the work pit flinched. He glanced away from his work long enough to be certain Warrigul was not growling at him, then looked quickly down at his console again. Kruge stopped. His boots were on a level just above that of the crew member’s head. The crew member reluctantly raised his head when he realized Kruge was not going to move.