Hell's Heart (13 page)

Twenty-three

M
ERCANTILE
D
ISTRICT

J
YLARNO
IV

I
have got to find some real Klingons,
Korgh thought as he wiped the blood from his knuckles. A viscous orange, the fluid came from the face of a big bruiser from a species Korgh had never troubled himself enough to learn the name of. The hulking male belonged to one of many of the races of the bazaar, here on this world light-years beyond the Empire's borders. Whatever he was, he had successfully intimidated three members of the Twenty in public.

Korgh summarily broke his nose, bringing the monstrosity to his knees with a thud.

“We are Klingon,” Korgh said, grabbing the creature by one of his horns. “You will speak to us with respect.” He drew his
d'k tahg
with his other hand and put it to the alien's neck. “Understood?”

The merchant gurgled before croaking something that sounded like agreement. Now Korgh looked back to his plaintive engineers, possibly the worst landing party he had ever gone anywhere with. “And do
you
understand? Do not allow scum such as this to impugn you again.”

“Yes, my lord.” The engineers were not much older than Korgh, but they quickly deferred to him.

Too quickly
, Korgh thought.
That was the whole problem.
The
cha'maH
had spent so much time in their academic world that they had neither the skills nor the pride of a warrior. Korgh might turn some of them into well-rounded Klingons, were he willing to wait a hundred years. He wasn't—and it was that fact that had brought him to Jylarno IV. Potok and his
disgraced companions had stopped here—and
they
were the warriors he needed.

“I will now repeat the question my companions asked,” Korgh said, allowing the blade to scrape at the merchant's neck. “You met a group of Klingons in need of new dilithium crystals some time ago. Where did they go?”

“I don't know—”

“Very well.” Korgh withdrew the blade from the alien's neck—and in a swift motion, sliced off one of his horns. The creature screamed as blood gushed anew. “Now,” Korgh said, “answer again. I am sure I will find a part of you that you prefer to keep intact.”

On his hands and knees, the orange-spattered merchant begged for a chance to comply. “I fence . . . pirated crystals. I don't install them. I sent them to Buur Malat in the scrapyard north of town. He does such work.”

Korgh looked across the urbanized area. “They went to Malat?”

“They did.”

Korgh kicked the merchant in the gut, causing the creature to collapse in agony. “Pick up your horn and go. If I find you have lied, you will not see the sunset.”

He put his
d'k tahg
back into its sheath. It was a new one, replacing the one he had imbedded in one of the engineers he preemptively slew on Gamaral. He had incinerated that corpse, along with Chorl's, to hide the fact that he had been present. Looking around, he saw that the others on the street had given their encounter a wide berth. Such violence was common on Jylarno.

He glanced back at his engineers. “Follow,” Korgh said, starting north. “And try not to be mugged by any old women.”

Before his search began, Korgh had left the other eleven ships of the Phantom Wing cloaked in orbit around Aesis, each ship with a single engineer aboard. None of them would be able to depart on their own, and Odrok had installed security codes in their communication stations preventing them
from transmitting messages to the others. Korgh wasn't about to allow someone to run off with his squadron ever again. The engineers would have a sole purpose: decloak their vessels upon his return once he arrived bearing supplies and, hopefully, crews. The arrangement had left him with only Odrok and six engineers to run
Chu'charq,
but that was more than they'd had in their relay flights from Gamaral.

Chu'charq
's first stop had been Qo'noS, where the fact that Korgh was almost entirely unknown to Kruge's relatives had come in handy. In the streets of the First City, he had made contact with several people who had been familiar with the discommendated warriors. No Klingon would speak the names of the condemned aloud, and Korgh chose not to refer directly to any of them for fear that someone would suspect a connection. Rather, he had posed as a buyer looking at properties. When Potok and the rest of the discommendated had departed for parts unknown, a lot of choice real estate had become available.

Korgh's casual inquiries yielded that Potok had made use of seven Klingon freighters the general had captured years earlier from Orion pirates. The Orions, worse than Romulans, had stripped almost everything of worth from the starships—and Potok had been warehousing the hulks until they could be broken down for scrap. Once the discommendation sentence was handed down, the ships had become makeshift living quarters. Finding life on Qo'noS too much to bear, Potok's people had gotten the freighters running and departed.

For Korgh, it had then been a simple matter of hopscotching from planet to outpost, following Potok's trail on the way out of the Empire. Korgh always kept
Chu'charq
cloaked whenever he could. After all, the vessel did not exist as far as the Klingon Defense Force was concerned.

The people he met were often willing to tell him of the passage of Potok's ramshackle flotilla, even if they had no idea who was aboard. If they had not been willing, Korgh had convinced them otherwise—as in the case of the merchant.

As they crossed the bridge into the northern sector, his communicator beeped. It was Odrok, confirming that she had broken into the local authority's computers. Dozens of articles of Klingon memorabilia—sashes, medals,
d'k tahgs
—had been exchanged for local currency with several of the traders around the time Potok would have been visiting. It galled him to think of Kruge's most loyal warriors bartering their glorious pasts for necessities—and it filled him with a renewed sense of urgency.

“Find the location of these so-called dealers,” Korgh said to Odrok before signing off—and he had no doubt she would get the answers. He had come to depend on her and now understood why Kruge had such faith in her abilities.

What was more, Odrok had gathered intelligence from other houses. Posing as a member of the House of Antaak, she had obtained preliminary designs for supple, flexible body armor resistant to phasers; the concepts were far from proven, but Korgh could see the value of having the gear before it went into production for the entire Defense Force. Another piece of intel from a different house dealt with improving long-range covert communications between ships under cloak, a concept Kruge definitely would have wanted to learn more about.

In perhaps the most tantalizing thread, Odrok had learned that a number of researchers had been making preliminary inquiries into methods that would allow birds-of-prey to fire torpedoes while cloaked. Such research was not authorized by the Defense Force, and it wasn't something any house would admit to studying. Striking while invisible was a tactic worthy of a Romulan. But such a capability would have an important effect as a deterrent, and if a house did make a breakthrough, it could change history. It definitely sounded like the sort of thing Kruge would have been interested in, and while Odrok hadn't learned of any successes, what little research she had discovered was now in Korgh's hands.

The metal mountains of the scrapyard loomed ahead, set well away from the more trafficked areas. Korgh had been right to
walk, rather than beaming directly in; it had afforded him the chance to study the approaches to the place. Beyond mounds of debris, he led his companions into what had once been a hangar for the early colonists. Now it was Mount Qel'pec in reverse, holding mostly the gutted remains of starships being torn apart by a multispecies team of scavengers.

Buur Malat was what Korgh had imagined—mostly. A one-legged Orion forcibly retired from active piracy, he seemed unaccountably sunny as he directed workers around his chamber of refuse. Seeing the Klingons approaching, he laughed. “What, did your boss leave you behind?”

Korgh—who
had
been left behind in the not too distant past—had to fight the urge to reach for his disruptor. Instead, he decided to take advantage of Malat's unwelcome familiarity. “Yes, we are trying to catch up with our friend. You repaired his ships?”

Malat laughed. “Offered to buy those freighters for scrap, but they insisted on moving on.”

Korgh nodded—and looked around at the Orion's henchmen. Malat wasn't concerned by his guests, and so neither were they. Korgh reached for a pouch of local currency he had bartered for on landing. “Do you know where they went?”

“Yeah, while we were installing the crystals, one of my guys heard them say where they were headed. It was some Klingon-speak.
Clock, brock
, something like that.”

Korgh blinked. “The Klach D'Kel Brakt?”

“Oh, yeah. That's it.” Recognition appeared in the Orion's eyes. “The humans call it the Briar Patch.” He chuckled. “If those crates make it there, you shouldn't have any trouble finding them. Because that's as far as they'll get.”

Korgh nodded. Potok's choice of the Klach D'Kel Brakt made sense. Potok had assisted Kor in a battle there, and the inhospitable place was a good hole to crawl into. He looked at the money pouch and tossed it in front of the metal prosthesis that served as Malat's left foot. “How long ago did they leave?”

“Four weeks ago, I'd say.” Malat stepped back and began the awkward process of kneeling. “Hey,” he said, reaching for the pouch, “why would anyone want to go to the Briar Patch, anyway? You boys in trouble or—”

Korgh answered with his disruptor. Buur Malat vanished in a blaze of energy—and now Korgh fired again, targeting the closest worker. And then the next closest.

Caught unawares—and evidently unarmed—the other scroungers retreated into the hulls of the spacecraft they were working on. Korgh turned to face his three partners, who at least had found the fortitude to draw their weapons.

“After them,” he ordered. “I will watch you kill everyone here—and then you will go back and find that dilithium merchant and kill him too.”

One of the engineers balked. “But he told us all he knew.”

“And he will tell no one else. And you will reclaim some scrap of your dignity—while I help General Potok reclaim his.”

Twenty-four

U.S.S. E
NTERPRISE
-
A

I
NSIDE THE
B
RIAR
P
ATCH

W
hile Klingons might not show all the emotions that humans did, their feelings were usually unmistakable. Perhaps, Spock thought, narrowing the emotional spectrum to just a few colors had the effect of increasing the intensity of the moods they did show.

Experience had not prepared him for Klingons who felt nothing. Since meeting Captain Kirk—and realizing they could do nothing to harm him—the life had drained out of the younger Klingons. As each hour of imprisonment passed, they behaved more like Potok, who sat as still as a
Kolinahr
adept. Reentering the brig with Kirk and Scott, Spock found they had not moved a centimeter.

Spock wasted no time. “Commander Scott has completed his study of your freighters, Potok. The vessels are dying, in a mechanical sense. As will the people aboard, if you do not act.”

No response.

Perhaps, Spock thought, more detail would be motivating. “Commander Scott?”

“We've sent crews about the freighters in workpods,” Scott said. “They're in as rotten a shape as we've been talking about. Worse, maybe. But I think they can be repaired.”

Kirk asked the engineer, “Your people saw no weaponry attached to the ships? No hidden torpedo launchers, no disruptors?”

“Nothing obvious. But I wouldn't give odds on launch doors even opening, given the corrosion.”

“Keep looking,” Kirk said. The captain had not budged in his distrust of the Klingons.

Seeing no reaction to any of it from Potok, Spock queried the engineer. “Can you repair the freighters from the workpods?”

Scott thought for a moment. “We can try. I suspect there's quite a lot inside that needs replacin'—but just scrubbing out some of the intakes should get them moving again.” He hesitated. “Even so, it would be faster if someone on the inside was runnin' diagnostic checks as we worked.”

Kirk said, “I don't think that's happening. They're not answering our hails at all anymore.”

Scott grimaced. “And I don't suppose you want to be putting our own people inside.”

Kirk spoke abruptly. “No. Not the way they feel about us.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “And what way is that?”

The captain was incredulous. “Spock, they attacked you in the transporter room.”

It was a reaction to a stimulus, for certain.
But the situation had not changed, and Kirk's return had not even prompted so much as a muscle spasm among the Klingons. The first officer continued to watch Potok closely as Kirk and Scott talked about the freighters. And while he was no expert on the emotional states of Klingons, Spock knew plenty about the lack of emotion and what it should look like.

It occurred to him that he was seeing something after all. Potok was solemn, but not serene. There was something else going on there—something troubling the Klingons unrelated to their imprisonment by a hated enemy and their fear of being rescued by their own kind. It required more study—and there was only one way to get more information.

“Mr. Scott,” he asked, “could diagnostic evidence from a single freighter be used as proof-of-concept on your repairs?”

“Aye. The freighters are all alike. If the fix works for one, it should work for all.”

“Then I volunteer to board Potok's craft to monitor the diagnostics as it is repaired.”

Kirk put up his hand. “Spock—”

“Captain, as you have observed, we are at this stalemate because of my encouragement,” Spock said. “I believe it is my responsibility to resolve this matter and get us under way.” He paused. “I will take a security team, if you prefer.”

Exasperated, Kirk looked at Scott. “Twenty-four hours, and it's not our problem.” When the engineer shrugged, Kirk looked to the overhead. “Not a second more.”

Spock stepped close to the force field and addressed Potok. “An offer has been made. Would you accept my team aboard your vessel?”

The older Klingon sat motionless for several moments. But just as Spock was about to conclude no answer was forthcoming, the general closed his eyes and spoke. “I will.”

That snapped his companions out of their spells. The female objected louder. “General, no!”

Potok crossed his arms, refusing to entertain opposition. “I did not lead our people here to die.”

“Ah,” Kirk piped in. “Then why
did
you lead them here?”

Spock thought the question ill timed. The general simply ignored Kirk. “I guarantee your safety.”

“Very well, then.” Spock turned to Scott. “Prepare the workpod teams.” Then he glanced at Kirk. “With the captain's permission, of course.”

“Of course,” Kirk said, putting his fingers on his forehead, mimicking a headache. Taking a deep breath, he looked back at Potok. “About that guarantee—normally Klingons swear on their honor.”

Potok spoke without looking at Kirk. “That is the Klingon way.”

“But you didn't swear on your honor.”

Kirk waited for a response, but if the general said anything more, Spock did not hear it. The first officer turned and left the brig.

Walking swiftly, the captain caught up with him in the hall. Spock didn't wait for his objection. “Jim, I know you do not approve—”

“Don't approve? Why shouldn't I approve?” Kirk wore a mild expression of unconcern. “It's not like we've just crossed half the galaxy—risked everything—all to get you back.”

Seeing that sarcasm was failing to provoke Spock, Kirk dropped it. “This plan is reckless. We're not going to let them take you hostage.”

“And neither will I. While I go over with Potok, his companions will remain here, as insurance.”

“Pawns for a king. You're a better chess player than that.”

“I am no king,” Spock said. “And I am not sure Potok is either. I have found no record of him in the files supplied us by Starfleet.”

“Really. And what does that tell you?”

“Political conditions have long limited our knowledge of the players within Klingon military hierarchy.
General
is a common rank—it is entirely possible our agents simply have never heard of him.”

“That's one explanation,” Kirk responded. “Or he could be an intelligence agent himself, on a mission for the Empire.”

“That is another explanation.”

“I'll tell you—whatever happens here, as soon as we're free from this part of the nebula, I'm going to ask Starfleet to call their ambassador.” He touched Spock's arm to stop him before the turbo­lift. “I just don't want to have to tell Command we fixed the man's starship—only for him to run off with my first officer.”

Spock contemplated for a moment. “The general seems to respect the concept of parole, at least as it existed on your world as far back as the nineteenth century. He has already expressed concern for his shipmates. He will not use his liberty to put his companions at risk.”

“Playing Klingon psychologist?” Kirk shook his head and called for the turbolift. “I'm glad you're so sure about what he'll do, Spock. But there are hundreds of Klingons over there. I'm just as concerned about what
they'll
do.”