Hell's Heart (14 page)

Twenty-five

K
LINGON
F
REIGHTER
I (S
TARFLEET
D
ESIGNATION
)

I
NSIDE THE
B
RIAR
P
ATCH

I
f anything, Commander Scott had underestimated the damage to the Klingon spacecraft. Spock concluded that from his first moment aboard Potok's battered freighter. Except for the dozens of passengers on board, it would be considered a total derelict.

The captain had overestimated the threat the Klingons posed to Spock. Once transported aboard with Spock's party, Potok had made an announcement over the crackling internal comm system about what the Starfleet officers were there to do. After that, no one had molested or interfered with the visitors in any way; Spock's three-member security escort had had nothing to do but stand around.

Since his role in Scott's repair plan required him to work from the bridge, checking telemetry, Spock had neither asked nor been invited to tour the rest of the ship. But he did have occasion while checking interfaces to peer back into the cargo area. It had both enlightened and puzzled.

Dozens of Klingons—males, females, and children—sat in the hold. And while large gatherings of Klingons tended to be raucous, this one seemed anything but. Passengers sat on the deck, others on metal crates. Some fed themselves from small containers. But all were silent, sharing the mien Potok had displayed.

The general continued to be a mute presence, standing by as Spock moved from one bridge station to another, responding to the workers outside the hull.

“Freighter one, this is team seven. Intake manifold plate twelve cleaned. Request reading.”

Spock consulted a display. “Functioning at seventy-three point two percent.”

“Seventy-three point two percent, understood. We'll hit it again. Team seven out.”

They were making progress, if slow; eleven hours remained until Kirk's deadline, when the probes would complete their scientific work and
Enterprise
could depart. Spock speculated that, now that repairs were under way, success on the first freighter might merit an extension. But that depended on the captain, whose view had not changed. He had instead ordered additional scans of the freighters, searching for any offensive capabilities yet unseen.

The first officer had not seen any weapons aboard, although he had no idea what was in the crates the passengers were sitting on and around. But he was fairly certain the freighters posed no threat to
Enterprise
or its work teams. If any interfaces controlled external weaponry, they were not located on the bridge—at least so far as Spock had discovered.

Another reading was requested—and Spock reported improvement. He remarked on it to Potok, still lingering nearby. “Even greatly damaged, this vessel is resilient,” he said. “It is a compliment to Klingon engineering.”

“I am not a Klingon,” Potok murmured.

There was nothing wrong with Spock's hearing. But still, he asked Potok to repeat his statement. “Are you speaking genetically,” Spock asked, “or metaphorically?”

“I don't know what you mean by that.”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean.” Potok shot an uncomfortable look at the Starfleet security officers aft. He moved forward, toward the port overlooking where two of the other freighters drifted.

Kirk had accused Potok of engaging in word games earlier, and Spock had no interest in participating in one now. But he had spent enough time in Potok's company that he didn't sense
the Klingon would bother with them either. Potok said very little, and whatever he did say usually held some meaning—even when it seemed contradictory.

Then, thinking back on those he had seen in the hold, another idea occurred to Spock. “I have a theory,” he announced. “You are not fugitives, but rather outcasts of some kind. Is that accurate?”

Potok gazed through the port. “We are cast out.”

“Indeed.”

He let Potok stand and stare.
What did it mean to be a Kling­­on exile?
Their society was steeped in history and tradition, and few outsiders could claim to know them. Assuming the Klingons preferred it that way, Spock decided he would have to press ahead carefully.

He stepped forward and joined Potok at the port. “You have your freedom, but not your identity.”

“A Klingon without a name is a
targ
without a head.”

Spock gestured behind him. “Is this true for all on board?”

“It is.”

“Then when you came here, you were heading out of Kling­­on space. To resettle.”

“We were heading out of Klingon space—to nowhere.” Potok took a breath and closed his eyes. “It is . . . uncommon for so many to be in our predicament. Klingons do not have communities of the exiled. The shamed do not seek the brother­hood of others.”

“And yet, so many condemned at a swath.”

“I expected . . . I don't know what I expected.” Potok opened his eyes and cast them down. “No one ever thinks that this—this
thing
will happen to them. It is beyond death, Vulcan, beyond prison. Worse, when you know what I know—that the sentence is deserved.” He looked up at Spock. “It is even beyond Gre'thor, our hell, because we are all alive. It is hell's beating heart.”

Spock simply nodded, allowing Potok to continue if he
wanted to. He did. “I expected everyone would go their own ways, would separate. They still might.”

“Are there families here?”

“Our spouses and offspring are likewise condemned.”

Then separation is not so easy
, Spock thought. Individual exiles might drift apart—but there were ties binding the passengers together that transcended whatever judgment had been proclaimed against them.

One burning question remained. What had Potok's people done? And did it make them dangerous?

There was no place to work those inquiries into conversation. When Potok turned and walked aft, the Vulcan could tell the general had shared all he was going to.

Even so, there was some ray of hope Spock could give him, for whatever good it did. He turned to call after Potok. “General, I do not presume to tell you I understand your plight. But I understand your ship, and I believe our work will make a difference for your people.”

“Nothing will make a difference,” Potok said. He looked somberly back from the door to the bridge. “Not unless you know how to make this ship travel through time.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Forward or backward?”

Potok retreated into the cargo hold without answering.

U.S.S. E
NTERPRISE
-
A

I
NSIDE THE
B
RIAR
P
ATCH

“Receiving data from all the probes,” Uhura announced.

Yes
, Kirk thought, inwardly jubilant.
Time's up.

“Signal intermittent,” she added, “but the probes are designed to transmit on multiple subspace bands. Data loss appears to be minimal.”

“That's what I love to hear,” Kirk said. “Tell Scotty to be
ready to recall his teams. Hail Spock. The Klingon Empire can take it from—”

The comm beeped.
“
Enterprise
, this is Spock. We are ready to test the lead freighter's impulse engines.”

Damn.
Kirk's concern did not abate. “I don't want them ramming us as soon as they're running.”

“I have the conn of Potok's vessel for the test flight,”
Spock said.
“I have some recent experience piloting a Klingon craft.”

Kirk couldn't believe any Klingons would sit by and watch as someone from Starfleet played pilot. “What does Potok say to this?”

There was silence for several seconds. Then the
Enterprise
bridge heard the general's voice.
“It is acceptable.”

Kirk didn't like the reluctance he heard. “I'm serious about this. One false move against the
Enterprise
, and we'll blow your other ships out of the sky. You'll tell all your captains?”

“They will hear me.”

Kirk looked to Uhura. “Scan their channels. Make sure you hear the command given.”

At the engineering station, Scott addressed Spock. “I wouldn't be thinking about going too far. You'll just want to see if they can get clear of the Briar Patch.” He grinned. “Then maybe they could trade the whole fleet for one ship made in the last century.”

“Confirmed, Commander Scott. We will exit the nebula and return.”

Kirk didn't like it. The
Enterprise
would need to remain in the patch to keep watch over the other freighters—and it wasn't at all clear that they would be able to maintain contact with Potok's ship. “Turn back as quickly as you're able to, Spock.”

“Affirmative. Powering impulse engines now.”

On the viewscreen, Kirk saw Potok's freighter shudder. Portions of it looked much cleaner now, thanks to
Enterprise
's engineers—and almost imperceptibly, it began to pull away
from the shabby flotilla. It was going nowhere fast, but it was moving nonetheless.

Kirk studied the remaining half-dozen freighters. He still couldn't believe that the Klingons—
any
Klingons—would be in what had once been contested space without as much as a meteor chaser to defend them.

Then the captain had a thought. He stood and walked to the engineering station. “Scotty, you've recalled the workpods from the first freighter?”

“Aye. We'll be needin' a shift change before we apply what we've learned to the other ships.”

Kirk looked back at the Klingon spacecraft on the view­screen and then leaned over Scott's shoulder. “I'd like to get out and take a look myself. In one of the pods, with your team.”

“Sir, we're pretty sure we've seen all there is. Freighters are freighters.”

“Indulge me. I've flown around ships in spacedock a few times. Maybe a new pair of eyes will catch something.”

Scott shrugged. “I don't see any harm in it.” He looked up, keenly, at Kirk. “Are you gonna tell Mister Spock?”

Kirk flashed an innocent smile.

Scott shook his head and chuckled. “Well, one of you is going to be right. This should be interesting.”

Twenty-six

P
HANTOM
W
ING
V
ESSEL
C
HU
'
CHARQ

A
PPROACHING THE
B
RIAR
P
ATCH

“I
t is difficult to find much of anything in the nebula without entering it,” Odrok said.

“We can't find anything when we
do
enter.” Korgh sat back in his command chair, bored. “Keep scanning.”

The information from Jylarno had been worth killing for: if Potok and his associates were to be his allies, Korgh couldn't give the nobles from the House of Kruge another chance to preempt his plans. He had to make sure no one else could track Potok's freighters.

Then again, Korgh had the information, and it hadn't helped his search. The Klach D'Kel Brakt—the so-called Briar Patch—was an enormous, amorphous body encompassing countless cubic parsecs. No one on Jylarno had known Potok's exact heading.

Korgh had been making guesses based on something he'd obtained on his recent visit to Qo'noS: Kor's recorded history of the battle fought there years earlier. Potok had been present for it. But on retrieving the record, Korgh found Potok's name had already been deleted, mere weeks after the mass discommendation.

How Klingons treated their history often depended on the chancellor, and his desire to control discordant messages from the past. Stronger leaders were more lenient; the names of shamed villains lived on in certain accounts, generally where responsible historians could make cautionary tales. The current weakling chancellor, under the influence of Kruge's relations, had swiftly ordered Potok purged.

What Kor's account recorded was his stops in the nebula.
While Potok's name was absent, his presence could still be detected by someone willing to read between the lines. Very few exploitable worlds had been discovered in the Klach D'Kel Brakt, and the difficulty in travel made finding them more costly. Even after driving off the Romulans, the Klingons had chosen not to occupy the place. But the limited number of stops Kor's forces made cut down drastically the worlds Potok might have tried for.

Even so, it had been an arduous survey. Traveling under cloak the whole time,
Chu'charq
had visited the three locations Kor stopped at nearest to the nebular boundary. Korgh had found nothing but annoyance. As the historical accounts had warned, the wretched conditions made travel slow. Korgh ordered
Chu'charq
to go back out the way it came in each time. Traversing the nebula from one suspected destination to another was madness; darting in and out was the path of least resistance.

He hoped that it would have the effect of narrowing down the area he had to search. Wherever Potok's ships entered, they might not be far from the perimeter, if fortune were with them.

“Contact up ahead,” the engineer at the conn said. “Freighter.
L'chak
-class.”

Korgh sat straight up.
One of Potok's?
It had to be—no one else would be dragging around here in a vessel so old. “What is it doing?”

“Moving at impulse. It appears to be making a wide arc.”

“Entering or departing the nebula?”

“It may be reentering. It appears to be doubling back.”

Perhaps he came out for a while to remind himself what regular space looks like
, Korgh thought. “Where are the other freighters?”

“Unknown.”

“Approach. Let's get there before he goes back into that mess. Monitor transmissions.”

Korgh could barely contain his joy. He had his squadron
now; he had his crews. Better late than never. It would be the rope that would pull Potok's people out of their pits—and restore Korgh's legacy.

He could only imagine how surprised the Kruge family would be when he led his fleet to Ketorix, simultaneously unseating them and undoing Potok's sentence. J'borr, Udakh, Kiv'ota, and the whole useless lot: he longed to see the expressions on their faces.

And then he would stab them in their eyes.

K
LINGON
F
REIGHTER
I (S
TARFLEET
D
ESIGNATION
)

O
UTSIDE THE
B
RIAR
P
ATCH

Seated at a forward interface, Spock guided the freighter through open space. Here, free from the metaphasic radiation of the nebula, the ship's diagnostic sensors would give a true account of its operating condition. Approving of the readings he was receiving, Spock heard the door open behind him, at the far end of the bridge.

He looked back to see Potok passing between the two Starfleet sentries stationed on either side of the doorway. The Klingon had not returned to the command center since their earlier discussion; Spock surmised the motion of the starship had alerted him. “General, your vessel is now functioning within acceptable parameters,” he reported. “We should be able to apply the same procedure to your other freighters.”

Potok stepped forward slowly. At length, he reached Spock's side and looked out the port at the stars, now clearly visible beyond. He grunted something inaudible and said no more. His old reserve was back.

Perhaps he believes he said too much earlier
, Spock thought.

The freighter had lost contact with
Enterprise
minutes before it left the Briar Patch. Potok had managed to lead his people into one of the more hostile parts of the nebulosity; Spock now
wondered if it had been purposeful. Or perhaps it had been done mindlessly, Potok's despair overtaking care.

Whatever the reason, it would be unwise to attempt again. “In the future, I would advise against cutting through high-density debris fields. You would risk repeating the same outcome. And we would not be present to assist.”

Potok stared forward. “You will be leaving?”

“Yes.”

Potok turned his head to look at Spock directly. “Will Kirk report our presence to the Empire?”

“He is duty bound to tell his superiors at Starfleet. But since no rescue mission is required and this territory is neutral, I do not believe the Federation will contact your authorities.”

Spock heard a breath escape Potok. The general propped his hands on the console and looked out at space. “A debt owed by a nameless beggar is of no worth, Vulcan. But had I my honor, your act would bind me to—”

Potok stopped suddenly, gawking at something outside the port. Spock leaned forward in the pilot's seat to see something large shimmering into view less than a kilometer away from the freighter.

A bird-of-prey.

As he heard the signature whine of a Klingon transporter materialization effect behind him, Spock instantly knew Kirk had been correct.

It had all been a trap.

•   •   •

Korgh had decided his reunion with Potok called for a grand entrance. The general, he had reasoned, almost certainly would have blamed Korgh for failing to deliver the Phantom Wing at Gamaral months earlier; it was important to make a show that would restore his confidence.

Korgh had uncloaked the
Chu'charq
before the freighter and beamed quickly across without hailing. He was accompanied by the three engineers who could most credibly portray serious
warriors when disruptors were placed in their hands. Arriving with armed warriors would be impressive, and on the off chance the
L'chak-
class
freighter carried someone other than his allies, he would be in a position to take the bridge.

When he materialized, he saw Potok standing far forward, as he expected—but a bark from one of his companions drew his attention aftward, where two astonished Starfleet security officers stood. It was unclear who was more surprised, but the situation favored Korgh's larger force, whose disruptors were already drawn.

“Drop your weapons!” Korgh fired a warning shot that blazed over one of the human's shoulders, striking the bulkhead behind. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the other officer gamely raised his phaser.

“Stand down, Lieutenant,” came a stern command from behind the Klingons.

The voice startled Korgh; it was not Potok's. But his eyes did not leave the Starfleet officers. Hearing a repeated command, they reluctantly placed their phasers on the deck and raised their hands.

Korgh turned to see the speaker rising from the pilot's seat. A Vulcan. “I am a Starfleet officer,” he said, “on a mission of mercy. My companions pose no threat to you.”

“You're right about that.” Korgh stalked up to one of the security officers and jabbed his disruptor in the human's face. “How many more of you are here? Tell me now, or I kill him!”

“One in the hold,” the Vulcan officer said.

Korgh spotted the communicator attached to the security officer's belt. “Summon him,” he said, gesturing to the aft doorway. “Now—and no tricks.”

“Do as instructed,” the Vulcan said.

The officer complied—and thirty seconds later, a Bolian became Korgh's latest prisoner on the bridge. With two of his companions keeping their weapons trained on the security officers, Korgh sent the remaining one to check out the cargo hold.

Then he returned his attention to the Vulcan—and to Potok, who had stood at the forward port watching it all, mesmerized. The Vulcan addressed Korgh. “I was not the general's prisoner. Am I yours?”

The question astounded Korgh. “Of course.”

Snapped out of whatever trance he was in, the general spoke. “My lord?”

“I told you I would save the day, Potok. The day was simply delayed.”