In other words, provided by the bluegills, Tuarak thought. "So, Narek," he said, "your precautions proved inadequate. How very sloppy of you."
"The Kazon-Wolva attack was significantly stronger than anticipated," Narek snarled back. "And the commando raid on the ground-side facility - that was not Kazon tactical doctrine!"
"The Kazon have no tactical doctrine. They take whatever actions enter their unkempt heads, and you should have been prepared for anything. I gave you warning, Narek."
"Your warning was insufficient!"
"Oh, no." Tuarak fixed the other with a cold glare. "No, no, no.... I see your reasoning, Narek. I warned you of a planned attack on the facility, you failed to prepare for it, so now you seek to exculpate yourself by blaming me." He vented a theatrical sigh. "It is at times like this that I regret that I no longer hold my proper rank. I can only suggest, as things stand, that you execute yourself as a disgrace to our species. What in the name of sanity possessed you to enlist the Kazon-Nirriz in the first place?"
"They could have been useful puppets. And, for propaganda reasons, it would have been better to attribute the bio-weapons to Kazon scientists -"
"Kazon scientists? Really, Narek, you should not make me laugh so much, I might hurt myself." Tuarak glanced to his right, at a command console. "Fascinating as this conversation has been, I have matters to attend to now. You may rest assured that I will continue to give warning of any... impending developments... as I did this time. Perhaps you will have the good sense to listen, next time. Screen off." The viewer blanked out on Narek's sputtering response.
Tuarak looked around the Bereit's bridge. His crew - his remaining loyal crew - were ready, poised for action. The interdictor cruiser was the one vessel left under his command. Anger flared within him. He used to command a war fleet -
And he would again, he reminded himself. "Status?" he asked Sarn, his first officer.
"On course. The Kadirian patrol vessel is on sensors, we are recording its emissions profile.... Sir, is this necessary?"
"It is preferable," Tuarak said. "Oh, we could dispatch the Temur's Hazari consort without over-much difficulty... but the Temur herself might be caught in the crossfire, and I want that ship's crew, at least, reasonably intact for interrogation. This way is... more elegant."
The Bereit cruised through the Oort cloud of a wan orange star, the sun of Kadir Secundus. The Kadirians were punctilious about security - their survey ships were accompanied by mercenary protection, but the contracts lapsed when the surveyors returned to the Kadirian home systems and their orbital patrol craft. One such patroller was in Tuarak's sights, now, inside the Bereit's superior sensor range, unaware as yet of the lurking presence of the Vaadwaur ship.
That would soon change.
"Emissions profile logged and analysed," the science officer said. "We have their comms protocols already -"
"So, we have enough," said Tuarak. "That ship ceases to interest me. Approach vector. And block its subspace channels."
Bereit surged forwards. Tuarak felt the anticipation rising in him. "Signal from the patroller," said his communications officer. "Laser beam transmission - we are jamming subspace -"
"Let us hear him," said Tuarak.
"Unidentified vessel." The Kadirian commander's voice showed signs of stress already. "You are entering a home system of the Kadirian Alliance. We request that you identify yourselves and present your credentials -"
Tuarak nodded to the weapons officer. "Announce us."
The Bereit's polaron batteries opened up in a sustained barrage; the Kadirian ship's shields flared and buckled almost immediately. The cruiser closed for the kill, polaron weapons continuing a steady hammering, torpedoes streaking from the forward tubes. The Kadirian got off some shots - a low-powered antiproton beam bank, Tuarak noted - but Bereit's shields shrugged them off easily. And then the torpedoes struck home, and the patrol craft was a blossom of fire among the stars, and was gone.
"Yes," said Tuarak, "yes, he is more interesting like that. Is our impersonation properly prepared?"
"Everything is ready, sir," said the science officer.
Tuarak smiled. "Then the Temur must be weary after her long journey. Let us welcome her home."
---
"The Hazari ship is veering off," Sarn reported.
"They have accepted our clearance codes. Excellent," said Tuarak. He yawned and stretched. "Well, let them get out of sensor range before we commence our... dealings... with the Temur. They may have some sense of obligation to a valued customer, perhaps."
Sarn nodded. On the Bereit's tactical display, they watched the Hazari frigate streak away into deep space. The dot of the Temur stayed on course, heading into the system.
"Visual. Maximum magnification," Tuarak ordered.
The Kadirian ship was small, roughly ovoid, with warp nacelles projecting down and back from the swell of its hull. "Little weaponry," Tuarak mused, "but many sensor nodes. Only to be expected, from a scout ship. Life signs?"
"Seven registering," said the science officer, "but... I am detecting some other patterns... not alive, but -"
"Holograms," said Tuarak. He turned to Sarn. "We will use those Hierarchy EMP grenades, I think."
"Expensive," muttered Sarn.
"We bought them for use, not ornament. And their holograms are bound to include security programs. I have no desire to be shot by a projection. It would be demeaning."
Sarn nodded. "You will lead the boarding action?"
"Naturally." A Vaadwaur commander's place was in the front... if he needed to inspire his troops' loyalty. And, Tuarak reflected, he needed to keep the few loyal soldiers remaining to him. "Time to intercept?"
"Three minutes on current course and speed."
"Ah, well, I need a little exercise." Tuarak stood. "They suspect nothing?"
"They have exchanged automated clearance codes. There are no active scans, yet," the science officer said. Of course, an active sensor scan would show at once that the interdictor cruiser was no Kadirian patrol ship... but, so far, the Temur was trusting the transponder codes and the carefully doctored energy emissions profile. The deception could not last long... it need only last long enough...
"In weapons range," the tactical officer announced.
"Lock forward batteries, target their warp nacelles. Standard doctrine - cripple, board and storm. Ready tractor beams." Tuarak's smile was broad, wolfish. "We could use the transporters, of course, but... airlock to airlock, it feels so much more satisfying, somehow." He checked his sidearm. "Boarding crews to ready stations."
"Targeting solution locked."
"Sir." The communications officer. "Hail from the target ship. They want to know why we are not assuming standard escort formation."
"Tactical. Answer their question." The tactical officer was already reaching for the firing controls.
The barrage of fire from the Bereit ripped one warp nacelle completely away from the Temur's hull, left the other a sparking, shattered ruin. "Communications?" Tuarak demanded.
"Blocking all channels."
"Good. Lock tractor beams! Boarding party, with me!"
He raced from the command deck, his weapon in his fist, his eyes alight. An armourer met him at the airlock, handed him a bandolier of EMP grenades. The deck quivered slightly, the ship's swift motion overcoming the inertial dampers for an instant... then there was a solid clang that resonated through the whole of the hull.
"Locked on! Air seal confirmed!"
The airlock doors opened; wind gusted around Tuarak as pressures equalized. Behind him, his boarding troops all wore the same fixed, savage grin that he did himself. The Temur's outer airlock door was sealed, of course. Three troopers stepped forward with antiproton assault guns, firing a sustained blast that tore the metal away in flaming fragments. Beyond it -
The inner airlock door was open, and beyond was a corridor, and that corridor was full of armoured, faceless figures with guns. Security holograms. Of course, Tuarak thought. "Down!" he yelled, and he threw the first of the EMP grenades, before dropping to the deck himself.
Energy fire blistered over his head, and then there was a bright polychromatic flash, and a strangled electronic sound, somewhere between a pop and a screech. Tuarak leaped to his feet. The holograms were staggering, flickering, their bodies turning transparent and distorting out of shape. He hurled another of the Hierarchy grenades, saw the flash, saw the holograms twist and blur and disappear in a random dazzle of energies.
"Forward! Shoot out their emitters, before they can compensate!" The Kadirian holo-emitters were big, bulky, obvious things, many-lensed globes in the corridor's ceiling. They shattered very prettily in the blast of Vaadwaur guns. Fragments crunched beneath Tuarak's boots as he raced down the corridor.
At the first turning, he stopped, and lobbed another grenade around the corner before going around it himself.. the twisted, flickering shapes that confronted him showed that he had done the right thing. They vanished as he shot out more of the emitters.
"Life signs!" a man beside him shouted exultantly, a scanner in his hand. "Ahead of us! Real ones!"
"A mess hall," said Tuarak. "Assault gunners! Take out that door!"
Again, metal flared and vanished under the antiproton beams; again, Tuarak hurled grenades through the opening before leading the advance into the room. He was right about its purpose. The Kadirians had attempted to barricade the doorway with tables and chairs - another exercise in futility. He fired at the ceiling-mounted emitters. More shadowy figures disappeared -
And some solid ones remained. The Kadirians were a stocky, humanoid people, with pale blue skin and bald heads that rose to high crested domes. Two of them were holding weapons. They dropped them as the Vaadwaur advanced, raised their hands in a universal sign of surrender.
"Greetings," said Tuarak. He holstered his gun. "My name is Tuarak of the Vaadwaur. You are the crew of the Kadirian survey vessel Temur, and I have questions for you."
"You will have no answers," one of the Kadirians declared. He stepped forward. All of them wore simple clothing, tunics and trousers; this one's tunic bore stripes at shoulders and cuffs, evidently signs of rank. "And you must be the commander of this craft," said Tuarak.
"I am Captain Su'kel. And I say we will not answer to pirates and criminals!" The Kadirian squared his shoulders.
"I see," said Tuarak. "And you speak for your crew, do you?"
"My crew follows where I lead!"
"Oh, how noble," said Tuarak. "Such loyalty, it touches my very heartstrings." In a single fluid motion, he drew his gun and shot the captain through the head.
In the silence which followed the body's fall, Tuarak turned to the Kadirians and said, "So, now. Who follows, where he leads?"
"You - you - We have done you no harm!" cried one of the crewmen.
"I know. And it does not matter," said Tuarak. "I will have my answers. Who knows? Provide them, and you may yet survive. Try to thwart me, and - well, it would not be wise."
"What do you want?" one of the Kadirians wailed.
"Your survey ship visited a Kobali colony," said Tuarak. "After you left, everyone at that colony died. I am interested in killing - you may possibly have noticed that. I want to know how this killing was achieved. I can use the technique."
The Kadirians exchanged shocked and baffled glances. "But we - we did nothing - not to the Kobali," one said.
"They are dead?" another asked, aghast.
"We did not even go down among them!" said a third. "We sent a holo-probe - a photonic survey team -"
"So I gather," said Tuarak. "You will instruct me in the functions of these probes."
"You would not understand! The technology is centuries in advance of the Vaadwaur! We could never explain it - unless -" The man who was speaking swallowed, audibly. "Unless - you have a parasite -"
"A bluegill? Inside me?" Tuarak made the motions of patting his chest with his free hand. "No, no, there is nothing inside me. But what, I wonder, is inside you?" He shot the Kadirian three times in the stomach. The man fell screaming to the deck. Kadirian blood was a dark red colour. "Hmph. Nothing original, I see."
Two of the crewmen moved to help their fallen comrade. "Leave him," Tuarak snarled. "He is to die, in pain. That is why I shot him."
"You're insane," one of them whispered. "We've - we've surrendered -"
"I know," said Tuarak. "And I am glad of it. It makes aiming so much easier." He shot that one in the chest. Then he stepped forward. The four surviving Kadirians cowered.
"By now, you will have realized that I cannot simply go on shooting you, to demonstrate my ferocity," he said. "By now, you understand that once I have killed three more of you, I have to let the fourth one live, if I am to have any hope of my questions being answered. So, the question each of you must ask yourselves is simple: how do I become the fourth one?" Tuarak smiled. "You will find that the answer lies in cooperation."
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