Fallout 38

"I still can't believe I let you talk me into this," the Caitian grumbled, as he led the way through the tangle of storerooms and maintenance corridors beneath King Estmere's starboard launch bay.

Kluthli laughed. "Orion wiles." She reached up with her free hand to scratch H'Russ's ear. The Caitian responded with a throaty purr. "No... it wasn't that. I wouldn't do that to a crewmate. But... you understand, don't you?"

"Yes," said H'Russ, "yes, I guess I do. And - well, I guess the Admiral would, too, wouldn't she?"

"Andorians do understand these things," said Kluthli. "And Admiral Shohl has more reason than most to be... tolerant." She smiled. "Still - I wouldn't want to trouble her with the knowledge. This will just be our secret, all right?"

H'Russ nodded. "All right."

"And don't tell me you weren't tempted, too, just by the technical challenge."

"It was a tall order, that's for sure." The Caitian visibly swelled with pride, his whiskers twitching, his ears lifting. "Don't think anyone else could have done it."

"You guys really are the best," Kluthli breathed.

"Better believe it. Here we are." H'Russ indicated a door, a storage room like many others, indistinguishable from the dozens that lined the corridor. Kluthli shifted the weight of the big fabric-covered case in her right hand.

"Thanks, H'Russ. I owe you for this, big time."

"Better believe that, too." The Caitian laughed softly. "I'll leave you in private. Door's keyed to your combadge." And he patted Kluthli's hand, then stalked off down the corridor.

Kluthli took a deep breath. She opened the door, went in, slid it shut behind her.

Tayaira looked up sharply. She was sitting on the floor, huddled in one corner of the small, bare room. She said nothing as Kluthli dropped the fabric case onto the floor.

"Camping gear, basically," Kluthli said. "Bedroll, ration packs, portable sanitary unit. You'll need that. You can't go outside."

Tayaira eyed her warily. "When does it start?" she asked.

"When does what start?"

"The interrogation."

"What interrogation? We already know everything, Tayaira."

Tayaira shook her head. "Then... why? And, for that matter, how?"

"How? We had all your biometric data, courtesy of Shalo... and King Estmere has the best flight deck transporter operators in the fleet. Of course, I'll have to keep H'Russ sweet, to stop him talking...." Kluthli smiled. "That will be no problem. Not even a hardship, actually."

"That leaves the difficult question," Tayaira said. "Why?"

"You're family."

Tayaira shook her head firmly. "That means... less than nothing, these days."

"I'm not so sure," Kluthli said. "Shalo and I... tore into each other, about the new loyalties we'd chosen. Perhaps we shouldn't have.... In any case, it seemed to me that it wasn't your fault you chose badly. You didn't know, did you, what Klur's plans were? Who his backers were?"

"No," said Tayaira. "Naturally not. What would you expect, of a conspiracy among Klingons?"

"Yes," said Kluthli, "among Klingons. Now, I can't promise you that no such conspiracy could ever form among the Federation... but, since I joined Starfleet, I've seen them in action, and they do try. We mock their ideals, but they try to live up to them, and sometimes they succeed. And when they do, they make the galaxy a better place to live in. The Federation way is not the Klingon way... but I think, I honestly think, it's a better one. That I made the best choice, out of the three of us."

"And if the House of Sinoom should rise again?" Tayaira asked.

Kluthli shook her head. "I don't know. Perhaps I could take some of the lessons I've learned from the Federation, put them to use in an Orion setting, but... I don't know. In any case, how might that ever happen?"

"I can't answer that one," Tayaira said. "Maybe, if Shalo rises to higher prominence in the Empire... or if you do the same in Starfleet, even." She smiled wryly. "At least I know I will never ascend to any heights."

"You can do whatever you want," Kluthli said. She reached into her jacket, pulled out a PADD. "Here. Shalo gave me this, I'm giving it to you. The remains of Cysitra's computer records. There should be things there you can... work with."

Tayaira made no move to accept the PADD. Kluthli stooped down and put it on the deck. After a moment, Tayaira picked it up.

"And what is the price?" she asked. "For this... for my life, such as it is. A wanted war criminal...."

"Not wanted. You're dead, Tayaira. Vaporized in combat with the King Estmere - no surer way to get dead. As for a price -" She shook her head. "It's one thing I've... learned... from the Federation. A person's life is too big a thing to put a price on. It can only be a gift, from me to you."

"More Federation idealism," said Tayaira.

"You'd be dead without it, so don't mock it," said Kluthli.

Tayaira nodded, slowly. "So what is the next step?" she asked.

"You need to stay here, for a while. I don't know what the Tholians used this room for, but we don't use it for anything. But if you venture outside, you'll be spotted, and that would be... inconvenient. On our current course, we'll be passing by a trade hub at Lutanis Beta within a day or so. H'Russ and I will sneak you off the ship then. After that -" Kluthli shrugged. "It's up to you." She turned to the door, then looked back. "It's a gift, your new life. Given freely. I don't ask any price... but I suggest you live it well. Dead woman."

She opened the door, passed through, let it slide shut and lock behind her. Tayaira sat staring at the closed panel for a long time.

At last, she said, softly, "Maybe I will."

Fallout 37

Shalo
The journey is almost over. As we drop out of warp, my sensors register, distantly, the approach of the KDF task force, coming to the border of the inarguably Klingon side of the Neutral Zone. They will meet with me here, take the freighter in tow, take it back home for the necessary forensic examination... necessary for form's sake, though all the important matters have already been very finally settled.

In my mind's eye, I watch the transmission from the Great Hall again. I smile, slyly, to myself. The Federation President will see that, too - and it may help, at the summit conference, if Aennik Okeg bears in mind just how forcefully the Chancellor can... express his views.

"Open a channel to the Starfleet vessels," I order.

The faces of Tylha Shohl and Ronnie Grau appear on my viewscreens. I smile. "Well," I say, "it seems our mission is now completed. I must say, for me it has been an enlightening experience, in many ways."

"Enlightening," says Shohl. "Yes. Quite." Her face is grim.

"And, in the end," I continue, "I believe we have achieved a satisfactory outcome, together."

"Oh, yes," says Shohl. She continues to glower.

"You do not agree?"

"No," she says, "no, I can't disagree...." Then her visible anger bursts out of her like the breaking of a dam. "Very satisfactory - from the Klingon point of view. It's got everything the Klingons would like, hasn't it, this story of ours? Bloodshed and gunfire, conspiracies, betrayal, severed heads rolling along the floor of the Great Hall - pride and madness, glorious battles and honourable defeats. Everything a good Klingon opera needs."

Her voice is shaking with rage. "Well, just remember something. When you stage this Klingon opera, just bear in mind you need a big chorus for it. A big, big backing chorus. Like, six hundred and fifty million, one for each of the innocents who died at Bercera IV. Personally, I don't think you've got a concert hall big enough." Her blue eyes are pure Andorian ice.

Obviously, she is right. Equally obviously, I cannot concede that.

I examine my fingernails. "I believe you two know your way back to Federation space."

Shohl glares at me. Ronnie Grau speaks for the first time. "Come on, Tylha," she says, in a voice full of weariness. "Let's go home."

Shohl spears me with one final stare, then cuts the connection. On the main screen, the Virtue and the King Estmere turn around, facing back the way we came. Their engines flare to sudden life, and then they are streaks of light, dwindling to a point in the immeasurable distance... and, they are gone.

"Your orders, sir?" K'Gan asks, carefully.

Orders. Ah, yes, orders.... One must always assert oneself before the Klingons; never show doubt, or fear, or confusion... never show anything they may see as weakness. There are times when I am so very, very tired of being Klingon.

But I cannot show that. "We return to Qo'noS and await new instructions," I say. "That was, after all, T'Jeg's order to us... I would not have it said that I disregarded a High Councillor's instructions."

And K'Gan laughs, and my Klingon mask slips comfortably back into place. It is almost a part of me, now, that mask. Perhaps, some day, it will be my real face. Perhaps.

Fallout 36

The conversation in the Great Hall faded to a murmur, to a whisper, to an absolute silence in which the Chancellor's heavy footsteps made the only sound.

J'mpok mounted the steps and turned to face the assembly. "The matter is resolved," he declared. "Let us have the official wording out of the way, first. A joint task force of KDF and Starfleet vessels has engaged and destroyed the renegade Captain Klur in the Alpha Trianguli sector. The renegade's vessel was completely obliterated in the action."

There was still silence from the Councillors. J'mpok continued. "Physical evidence has been retrieved, and will be presented in due course, implicating certain persons in the... unauthorised action... at the Federation world of Bercera IV. One of those implicated is Councillor T'Jeg, who is - regrettably - unable to attend and answer these allegations." His voice dropped. "The evidence gathered by my agent, though, is enough to satisfy me. We can play this farce to the end, of course, with formal trials by the Council, examinations of records, speeches for the prosecution and the defence... but I grow tired of this business." His voice rose again. "Councillor Darg. Explain yourself."

"I -" Darg drew himself up. "I do not know what you mean, Chancellor."

J'mpok's lips pulled back from his teeth. He spoke with heavy emphasis. "Do not prevaricate with me, Councillor."

"I... reserve my rights. My rights to fair examination and fair judgment by the full Council. I admit nothing," said Darg. "But I will say, now, as I have always said. This war with the Federation is being mismanaged. It is being made an affair for dilettantes, almost a game, a patchwork, occasional, honourable, sportsmanlike war. And it should be no game! We should prosecute the war with every weapon, every stratagem, so that our enemies fear us! Total war will cow the Federation like the weaklings they are! It will bring us total victory! And if - someone - has chosen to force the Chancellor's hand, has pushed us down that path towards total victory - then so much the better!"

"Do not ever presume," J'mpok said, "that you can force my hand. Still, your position has at least one merit - that of consistency. You do not speak one thing and do another - unlike some in this Council. Is that not so, Councillor K'tag?"

"Oh," K'tag said, mildly, "I fear you do me an injustice, Chancellor. I have always spoken, to this Council, exactly what was in my heart and my mind. I concede, in private dealings with Councillor Darg, I may have dissembled, somewhat...."

"What?" Darg exclaimed.

"Dissembled," said J'mpok. His eyes flashed. "How much dissembling has there been, K'tag?"

"Oh, no," said K'tag, "no, neither Darg nor myself is of the qa'meH quv - at least as far as I know. No, this is entirely a Klingon affair... oh, be quiet, Darg. A player in a hopeless position should resign the game, that is only good manners. Was it the freighter? The freighter became a loose end.... Never mind."

"I will take your head for this slander!" Darg screeched.

"If you wish my head, esteemed colleague, you need only look atop my shoulders to find it," said K'tag. "Yes, I conspired with Darg in this matter, and together, by various means, we convinced T'Jeg and the ambitious Captain Klur to become a part of it. Darg has explained his motives, and I think you can understand mine. I have spoken nothing more than the truth to this Council."

His tone grew bleak, his face seemed to age with each word he spoke. "Darg is a fool, and it pleased me to use him. He believes this suggestion that the Federation will retreat in the face of overwhelming force. Absurd. Did they retreat at Aznetkur, to name but one example?" He looked directly at J'mpok. "But you, Chancellor, are not a fool. You are a proud man, but not a fool.... Faced with the consequences of Darg's style of unrestricted warfare, you would have drawn the natural conclusions, and ended this foolish, wasteful conflict. In simple terms; if we crammed enough deaths down your throat, you would have wisdom enough to choke on them."

He sighed. "It should have worked better than it did. I can only conclude that some in the Federation realised they were being baited, and therefore refused to take the bait. Even with my little additional provocations in Yll-Torica... If Klur had managed to survive, to carry out a second atrocity, then they might have lost their heads. But it was not to be...." He shook his head, and the glance he shot at the Chancellor was a sharp one. "Understand this, I regret very little. Not the deaths at Bercera, not the loss of Klur and T'Jeg. My one regret is that it failed. Because I fear, Chancellor, that your sportsmanlike war, of which Darg speaks so slightingly, will in the end consume many more lives, many more worlds, than the short, sharp dose of Armageddon which I tried to achieve."

Darg had subsided into an angry muttering. No one else spoke.

J'mpok turned, and went to the wall of the Great Hall. He took down a bat'leth from its ceremonial mountings, then another, then a third. He strode to the steps, laid one weapon down on them, then advanced on the Council, one bat'leth in each hand.

He stopped. He raised the weapons over his head, then drove them suddenly down. The points bit into the ancient stonework of the floor with a sudden shrieking, grating sound. When he released them, the two weapons stuck there, quivering, in the floor.

"Conspiracies," said J'mpok. "Conspiracies and counter-conspiracies... let us have no more of such machinations. You disagree with each other, you two?" He pointed to the two bat'leths. "There are your weapons. Take them, and settle your differences like Klingons!"

Darg gaped at him. K'tag smiled. "And, to the victor?" he asked.

"One of you sought discreditable war. The other, an equally discreditable peace." J'mpok turned. "Someone must uphold Klingon honour." He picked up the third bat'leth. "The victor faces me."

Fallout 35

Tylha
"Launching Alpha," says Anthi. "Launching Bravo."

I check. Everything is in place; our three ships have come through the gateway... towing the fourth... and our quarry, finally, is right there.

"Switch tractor beams to repulsor, then disengage," I order. Giving the dead freighter a shove away from the battle zone seems the safest bet. Though we've already transmitted our findings, it's still best not to give Klur a chance to destroy the physical evidence.

If that's what's in his mind. The QIb laH'e' is turning, S'kul fighters spilling from its launch bays - just as Shalo's fighters are streaking out from hers, and my Scorpions from the King Estmere.

"Sir -" Kluthli says.

"You don't have to watch this," I say to her. "Stand down."

"I - yes, sir." And she leaves the bridge at a run.

"Launching Charlie. Launching Delta," Anthi reports. Two more flights of Scorpions out there. "Three kilometres to engagement range." Not even a chance, now, for Klur to flee. Power is building up on the gateway to Klingon space, but too slowly, and he will have no time to reach it in any case.

"Try and open a channel," I say to F'hon.

"Already trying, skipper. But he's not responding."

What do I want him to say, in any case? I wonder. Surrender? He won't do that. Bluster, explanations, some attempt at justification? He can't do that. Then why do I want to speak to him? Some atavistic urge, perhaps, to look into my enemy's eyes, as I destroy him? Perhaps it's better this way... that we say what must be said with the fury of energy beams and torpedoes, not with words.

"S'kuls coming for us. Our fighters moving to intercept," Anthi reports.

"Shalo?"

"Her fighters are moving in to cover us. Virtue is heading for the QIb laH'e'." Ronnie can't guarantee her IFF system will distinguish quickly enough between Klur's S'kul fighters and Shalo's... so the Chimera's firepower will be targeted at the mother ship, instead. Both the Virtue and the Garaka are surging forward to engagement range now....

"Incoming fire! Antiprotons, and - tricobalt device!"

Tricobalt. Of course, that would be Klur's choice. "Try and kill that thing before it hits!" I order. "And if we can't - brace for impact!"

The fast-moving spot of light expands on my screen, disruptor fire crackling around it, but failing to reach it -

King Estmere rocks, and damage messages flash on my console.

"Forward shield down to thirty per cent," Anthi reports. "Minor impact damage, forward sections. Rotating shield frequencies and reinforcing forward shield."

Klur has picked us as his priority target. It makes sense; King Estmere is the strongest individual ship in our little group, and there's a lot to be said for taking out the toughest opposition first. But, while Klur sends antiproton bolts and tricobalt missiles at us, our disruptor cannons and plasma torpedoes are firing back at him - and my torpedo officers can send four or five balls of plasma out for each tricobalt warhead he can throw. And that's not counting the firepower of my two consorts, here -

On the viewer, the QIb laH'e' is haloed in multicoloured light, green from my and Shalo's disruptors, orange from Ronnie's phasers, the eldritch violet nimbus of a Hargh'peng torpedo, flashes of red as Shalo's S'kuls join the fray... Klur's first wave of fighters has been overwhelmed already; will he get a chance to launch another?

"Tricobalt warhead inbound!"

This time, a fighter from Delta flight wheels round, picks the device off two kilometers away from our forward screen. The antiproton barrage from the QIb laH'e' is not lessening, though, and that shield is weakening.

"Sir, should we come about and use the plasma hyperflux?" Anthi asks.

Tempting. But my disruptor cannons are the most powerful weapons I have, and I will keep them bearing on Klur as long as I can. "Wait. Keep hitting him. He can't keep this up too long."

"I'm not so sure we can," Anthi mutters. "QIb laH'e' launching fresh fighters."

My Scorpions spin around, sending plasma fire scorching into the new targets. Another salvo of torpedoes shrieks out of my launchers. There is no subtlety to this fight, no clever tactics - just a single immense slugging match, my ship and Klur's pounding at each other with all their titanic weaponry.

"Tricobalt warhead -"

Anthi doesn't have time to finish the warning before King Estmere's deck bucks beneath us; lights flicker, and there is a burst of sparks from some console on the bridge. "Forward shield down to eight per cent!" Anthi yells. "Sir, we can't take another hit like that."

I spit. "Come about," I order, "ready the hyperflux -"

"She's going!" a voice cries - I don't know whose.

It happens suddenly. On the screen, the QIb laH'e' is surrounded by coloured light - and then a white light glows inside her, shining through the roundels and the strange runic markings on that blackened hull, then tearing and burning that hull apart, shattering it into a myriad glowing fragments as the warp core breaches.

The QIb laH'e' burns and bursts asunder, and slowly fades, Klur and his ship and all his villainies turned to ashes and dust, to drift forever between the stars.

Fallout 34

The atmosphere aboard the QIb laH'e' was one of gloom and despair. Tayaira paced endlessly around the bridge, pausing once in a while to look at the two things no one else dared look at: the viewscreen, and the empty command chair.

A trap. Nothing but a trap. Artfully planned, with one end in view; to get them away from the freighter. By now, Starfleet and the Garaka had to have found it. And the QIb laH'e' was stuck, here... with only one way out, and that blocked by the three enemy ships.

Oh, they could flee at warp speed... and, as before, it would gain them nothing. The transwarp nexus was in clear space, their warp signature would stand out like a neon sign - no way to hide it, even if they did not blunder straight into an approaching Starfleet task force.

And no suggestions from the Captain, and that hurt morale worst of all. He had stormed, raging, off the bridge, once they had emerged from the gateway and seen -

Tayaira looked up at the screen. It made perfect sense in Starfleet terms, she thought. Machines, objects, were cheap, too cheap to be reckoned in the Federation's post-industrial economy. So destroying the transwarp gates was a perfectly logical step to take. She could see, in one corner of the viewer, the regular gleam as one broken section rotated, slowly, the light of the nearest star glinting off it as it turned.

Within hours, she thought, she herself would be wreckage revolving lifelessly in space. Or, perhaps, consigned to some Federation prison camp, to emerge in a few decades as some "rehabilitated" shadow of her former self. No other alternative, no way out. She knew it. So did everyone on the ship. The sense of defeat was overwhelming, palpable.

She resumed her pacing, stopped at her tactical console. It mocks me, she thought. Status displays still showed for the gateway network, registering all the gates at zero power. Well, of course they are, if they are destroyed, she thought.

It took another circuit of the bridge before she stopped, again, at the console, and frowned.

The twelve gates all registered the same. But eleven of them were different, surely? They were destroyed, their control circuits inoperable... how could they transmit a status code, even? All right, perhaps the control circuits remained sufficiently intact, even though the gates themselves were destroyed... but for all of them? Not one of the control computers was sufficiently badly damaged that it did not register?

She shook her head. Federation deception, perhaps? Had they rigged the gateways to register as intact, even after their destruction? It seemed likely -

Tayaira caught her breath. Or the Feds might have tried some other sort of deception -

She strode to the main science console. "Scan," she ordered.

The science officer was some junior whose name she didn't know. He stared up at her with sullen eyes. "What's the use?" he said.

"I gave you an order!" Tayaira snarled. "I want scans of that debris!"

For a moment, she thought he would still disobey; something in her face, though, must have convinced him that she would kill him if he did. He turned to the console, slow and resentful. "Setting up scan. What are we looking for?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't need you. Commence full sensor sweep. Slow and careful."

"Working." She watched over his shoulder, reading the displays. "Fragments. Metals, high durability alloys... ceramic fragments, too, looks like ablative armour from a warship hull...."

Tayaira's eyes narrowed. "Where are the high-density exotics?"

"Sir?"

"From the warp coils of the gateways! There should be hundreds of tonnes of exotic alloys out there!"

The science officer adjusted something on the console. "There are," he said. "I'm reading... twelve large concentrations. It's heavy material, it can't have drifted far from the sites of the destroyed gateways...."

Tayaira swore sulphurously. "Destroyed, hell!" She stabbed her finger down on the displays. "Everything here is consistent with destroyed ships -"

"Yes," said the science officer, "they fought off our backup here, destroyed them... blew the gates, and came after us. We know that."

"They faked us out once. Why couldn't they do it again? Scan for holo-emitter signatures!"

"You think -"

"The gates register as functional on the command network. Our eyes tell us they're gone. One of the two has to be wrong. Why not our eyes?"

The science officer's eyes came alive with sudden hope. "On it," he said.

"Keep at it. I'm going to get the captain," said Tayaira grimly.

She raced off the bridge, down the corridors, into the labyrinth that was the Kar'fi carrier. She passed a number of Klingons, some of them apparently wandering, aimless, under the influence of drink or worse... that was a bad sign. But there was no time now to discipline them. She reached the captain's quarters, hammered on the door.

There was nothing but an incoherent sound from the other side. Tayaira swore again, opened the emergency panel by the side of the door, and cranked the manual override. A few furious turns of the wheel, and the door was open wide enough for her to edge through.

Klur was sitting on his bed, his face lit only by the flame from his souvenir trinket. He turned towards her and spoke, blearily, "'s you."

Drunk, again. Tayaira looked about. There was a bottle, somewhere - round red pills, she had seen him use it before -

"All gone," Klur mumbled. "Did everything they said to, an' it didn' work. Did that T'Jeg his favour -" he hissed the word. "Talakh, Kysang, they had to die clean. No questions. Bad for me too, he said, if there were questions. An' the others, they made sense. Step it up, the war, I mean. Proper victories, real victories, do enough damage to the Feds, Feds 'll run. Made sense. Only, didn' work. We ran, instead. That's wrong. Doesn' that seem wrong to you?"

A bottle of round red pills. Tayaira's hand closed over it gratefully. She shook out two of them, held them out to Klur. "Take these, sir."

"Don' wanna," Klur slurred.

"Sir. Take them."

Klur struck out, a petulant, childish gesture, knocking the pills out of Tayaira's hand. She took a deep breath. Then she slapped Klur across the face, as hard as she could.

The captain subsided onto the bed, his face a mask of astonishment and affront.

"Sir." Tayaira put as much command as she could into her voice. "I serve the captain, but I speak for the crew, and your crew needs you now." She shook another two pills out of the bottle. "Take them."

Staring at her as if hypnotized, Klur reached up, took the pills from her hand, and swallowed them. Tayaira kept her eyes on him, watched him wince as the alcohol antagonist began to work, as his eyes and his expression began to clear.

"Waste of good bloodwine," Klur said in a rasping voice.

"The Feds faked the destruction of the gateways," Tayaira said.

"What?"

"The only real wreckage is from the relief force. I have science, now, trying to pinpoint the holo-emitters -"

Klur sprang up. "Are you sure about this?"

"I -" Tayaira swallowed hard. "I believe so, sir."

"If you're wrong," Klur said, "I will kill you three times over before I die."

"If I'm wrong, sir," said Tayaira, "I'll welcome that."

Klur strode to the door, reactivated the mechanism, and was through it at a run. Tayaira followed.

On the bridge, the science officer was alternately whooping with laughter and working feverishly at his console. "I have them, sir!" he shouted as Klur charged towards him. "I have them! She was right!"

"Show me," Klur demanded.

"Emitter signatures - here, here, here -" the science officer pointed. "Every gateway has them! I've been working it out, we can channel a tetryon pulse through the main deflector and burn them out with a single energy spike -"

"Do it," Klur said.

He stalked to his command chair. Tayaira watched as the science officer's hands flew over his console, programming the sequences. "Ready, sir!" he shouted. "Energizing now!"

A deep muttering grumble came from power sources in the bowels of the QIb laH'e', and the screen cleared. Like magic, Tayaira thought. The drifting debris faded from sight, the gateways reappeared, intact, pristine.

"It's like coming back to life," she whispered, inaudible in all the joyful shouting on the bridge.

"We're not home yet," said Klur. "Bring the ship to alert status! And power up the homeward gateway!"

Tayaira turned to her console, to enter the commands, and stopped. The status display still showed the power levels for all twelve gates. Eleven were powered down, cold, inert.

One was at maximum power already. Ready for transit.

Fallout 33

Ronnie "Do you think they bought it?" Tylha asks. "Why not?" I say. "We made it look good, didn't we?" I stand up. I'm feeling restless, I've had enough of the centre seat for the moment, I want to move around. */*endocrine balance unstable---readjust---switch to regenerative mode*/* No thanks, Two of Twelve - like I said to Tylha, sleep is for tortoises. "I just hope he buys the rest of it," Tylha says. Her face is dour and pessimistic on my repeater screen. Behind her, the weird bridge of the King Estmere looks busy. And weird. Shalo's face, on another screen, is in close-up, so I can't see anything going on behind her. Typical KDF paranoia. "It doesn't matter about Klur," I say. "We're never going to get any answers from Klur, are we? And you and big-ears gave us the right way to get the answers." The freighter. Part of the freighter's job is to act as insurance for Klur - proof, if he needs proof, that he was acting on his backer's instructions; a means to drag them down with him if he's caught, so they have to make sure he doesn't get caught. Typical... not just KDF, but specifically Klingon */*species 5008*/* paranoia. */*inefficient---diverts resources to counterproductive ends---share information freely among the collective*/* - yes, and there are worse things than Klingon paranoia. "Do you have anything on scan?" I ask Shalo. Our little staged "tactical error" put her further out from the gate than the rest of us... assuming Klur came from roughly the direction of the freighter, then she should be first to spot it. Of course, when you assume, you... oh, forget it, Ronnie. "I have a contact on sensors," Shalo reports. Funny, really. It should feel weird, working with the enemy - but, so often, the KDF isn't the enemy, anyway. It's like war on alternate days of the week. Tuesdays and Thursdays, fight along side them in Orellius, Gamma Orionis and Tau Dewa; Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, blow their brains out in Pi Canis and Eta Eridani. It's a funny way to run a war. "When you think about it," I find myself musing aloud, "the mere fact that we're having this war means the Klinks have won it. They got what they wanted, honourable combat, an outlet for their warrior classes, a way to obey their martial cultural imperative. But, then, I suppose that means the Federation wins, too, because we're letting them do it, respecting their cultural values within the framework of Federation exploration and expansion. So everyone's a winner. Kind of a shame about all the dead people, but hey, at least the cultural principles win out, and that's what matters." I find a quotation to finish on. "The first thing a principle does is kill somebody." Tylha stares at me, but - unexpectedly - Shalo says, "Curiously enough, I was thinking the same myself only recently." Then her face changes. "I have the freighter. I -" She stops. Her jade-green complexion turns a much lighter shade of jade. "Tayaira told us," she says, "that Klur and Talakh did something on the freighter. And of course -" she swallows audibly "- they would have needed to make sure it did not get away from them." "What did they do?" Tylha asks. "From the readings I have here," Shalo says, "they must have overriden the safeties and turned off the internal radiation shielding." "But that freighter was loaded to the gunwhales with tricobalt," I say. "It still is," says Shalo. "The radiation levels - The crew must have died quickly, there is that, at least. But after such a death, Gre'thor must seem welcome." "All right," says Tylha. "Looks like this is my job, then. Back off to a safe distance and I'll take King Estmere in." "Hold on," I say. "Since when are Andorians immune to radiation?" "Since we got all the hazardous environment gear out for the relief mission to Bercera IV," says Tylha, "remember? I'll take a shuttle in close, space-walk the rest of the way in my EV suit. Don't worry, it's Nukara-rated." */*hazardous environment---recommendation---send disposable drones to secure beachhead---replace with other disposable assets as needed*/* No thank you, Two of Twelve. That's the bad sign. When you start thinking of people as... disposable assets... that's when you lose your soul. Oh, really, Ronnie? another voice in my head says. And how many people did you dispose of at Aznetkur? How many empty berths on the Virtue now, how many died on the Ytsay and the Adderbury and the others? Did they matter to you, Ronnie? Did you say a prayer for each one? I don't like the sound of that other voice. The worst thing is, unlike Two of Twelve, I can't tell it to shut up. Because I have a terrible feeling that it's the real me. --- Tricobalt radiation isn't visible. It's only my imagination that's making the freighter glow. It looms over Tylha's shuttle, a gaunt grey row of massive cargo modules, strung together, engines at one distant end, command module here at the other. "All right," Tylha says over the comms link. "Radiation levels within tolerances. Decon gear ready. Depressurizing shuttle and opening cargo doors. And I'm patching through my helmet camera now." Another screen comes alive, showing Tylha's viewpoint. "Good luck," I say. The side of the freighter looks even more enormous in this view. Then it expands, suddenly, vertiginously, as Tylha cuts in her suit's thrusters. "Aiming for the starboard side personnel lock," Tylha says. "You're on target," Shalo answers. She, of course, is the expert in Klingon freighter designs. Or the best we have to hand, at least. The airlock door is just another slab of grey metal; the picture bobs and wavers as Tylha finds the external control panel. "Standing by with security code overrides," Shalo says. "No need." Tylha's voice. "No security lockdown. Klur must have reckoned the radiation was enough of a 'keep out' sign. Opening the lock." Inside, the personnel lock is large enough to house a regiment. Tylha moves through it with what seems to me a nightmarish carefulness, scanning and checking as she goes. Well, of course, she's the one risking her blue hide in there.... "Cycling lock," she says, finally. I think I hear the air hissing into the chamber - but, of course, that's my imagination again. "Radiation levels... within my suit's tolerances. Nothing on volatiles scan." "Tricobalt isn't volatile," I say. "Tricobalt wasn't all they used at Bercera," says Tylha, and I decide to shut up. The inner airlock door opens, on an interior corridor of blocky metal and exposed pipes and dim reddish light. There is no one in sight. On a comms panel nearby, an alert light is flashing on and off, constant, repetitive, and futile. "Bridge is two levels up and four bulkheads forward of your current position," Shalo says. "I don't want the bridge, first," says Tylha. "For what we're looking for, the place to be is the quartermaster's or the supercargo's office." "I'm not sure I follow," says Shalo. I'm not sure I follow, either, but I'm damned if I'm admitting it. "Records," says Tylha. "Records of loading, handling, transshipment.... With the sort of stuff they're using, here, you have to know everything about it. Not just what it is - when it was made, how it was made, how it's been handled since. You have to have all the details, or it just isn't safe to touch it. This ship has got to have all the records we need, and they don't dare edit them. That is all the proof you need to take to the High Council - and that I need to take to the Federation." "I see," says Shalo. "In which case... supercargo office is ahead some fifty meters, one level down, one bulkhead aft." The view changes as Tylha plods forward. She reaches a door, opens it, goes through and turns... and there is a dark shape lying on the deck before her. The first body. There will be others, probably many others. "Klingon," Tylha says. "Looks like standard issue uniform... there's some insignia here, I don't recognize it." "House badge," says Shalo. "House of T'llan.... It may mean nothing, of course." "Might confirm with biometric ID," says Tylha. The view changes again, as she bends closer to the shrivelled face. "Might not be easy... I'll take a scan." By now, the radiation will have unravelled all that poor devil's DNA, leaving only gross physical characteristics - height, body mass, length of bone - for checking. Inconclusive, yes. Anyone could put a House badge on.... Tylha continues on, down the passageway, clambering down a ladder rather than taking any risks with a turbolift. Once more, she comes to a doorway; once more, she opens it. Beyond is a small, sparse office, with a single Klingon seated behind a desk. Tylha takes one look at his face and turns the camera away. "Terminal here," she says. "Going to need some override codes now...." "Downloading to your tricorder," says Shalo. "Get ready for a data uplink, too," says Tylha. "If I can, I'll capture all this stuff and transfer it for analysis." Red-orange tlhIngan Hol characters glow on a display screen before her; I see her gloved hands at the edge of the frame, tapping in commands with infinite care. Do your stuff, I say inside my head to Two of Twelve. */*working--- prepared for visual data capture--- translation routines online--- datarecord parsing and analysis routines on standby---*/* And nothing more to do but wait, as Tylha finishes the laborious process of accessing the records - and they scroll up the screen, to be captured instantly by the pitiless implant that covers my left eye - and Two of Twelve reads them, and digests them, and serves up their meaning to me - I tell the others. Shalo has already had time to gather some of it, to confirm it. "So," she says, "now, we know."

Fallout 32

"Gateway is powering up, sir," Tayaira reported.

Klur stood, a faint smile appearing on his face. He had been in a better mood, Tayaira thought, ever since the signal had come in... the signal, at last, from their unknown backers. Still unknown to her, since the message had been in some private code... but Klur was confident, almost happy, and the mood aboard the ship was lighter because of that. Now, he strode across the bridge to her tactical station, observed the readings on her screen, and nodded approval.

"They will be here soon," he said. "We will hold station here, though, for the present."

"Do you anticipate any... difficulties, sir?" Tayaira asked.

"Difficulties? No. But it may be as well to remind our allies of... certain realities in our relationship."

He could only mean the freighter. Tayaira felt a chill as she considered the freighter. It lay there, silent in space, some four kilometers away.... "Do we continue preparations for loading, sir?"

"For the present. I will decide what is to be done, once our allies and I have conferred." He turned and stalked back to his command chair. "Visual on the gateway."

At this distance, the transwarp gate appeared only as a tiny hexagonal shape; Tayaira moved to step up magnification on the viewer, and then stopped as her readings changed. "Transit complete." The little hexagon on the screen flashed bright for an instant, then dimmed. "Reading... three ships."

"Three?" Klur frowned. "They promised me five.... Well, perhaps they encountered difficulties. Put them on my tactical display. Stand by hailing frequencies."

The view of the gateway vanished, to be replaced by the crisp red schematics of the tactical display. Tayaira watched as the three dots representing the ships separated themselves from the marker for the gateway. For a moment, they were simply dots, and then Tayaira's heart sank as the computer, imperturbably, made its identifications and put them on the screen.

IKS Garaka. USS King Estmere. USS Virtue.

Klur's oath echoed across the bridge. "Those fools!"

"Our allies encountered... more difficulties than they could cope with, then," Tayaira said, with a mouth suddenly dry.

"Fools," Klur spat, again.

"Sir, what are we going to do?"

Outnumbered, three to one, she thought. They could flee at warp speed... and those ships would follow, would track their warp signature to the ends of the universe... and others would come, too, Starfleet forces had to be converging on all the gateways. There was no chance, no hope -

"Wait," said Klur, softly. "Wait...."

His eyes were intent on the screen. She followed his gaze, trying to see what he saw.

"The Orion's ship is at full impulse," Klur said. "Starfleet is following at lesser speed.... There will be a gap. In... perhaps two minutes... perhaps a little more.... Sound red alert! Bring the ship to full impulse, course..." he paused, calculating "... three two seven mark three seven three. Execute!"

"What of the freighter, sir?" Tayaira asked, even as she slammed the commands into her console.

"Forget the freighter! First, we must survive! Send the code to activate the gateway!"

The QIb laH'e' surged forwards, the gonging sound from its drive reaching a deafening pitch. Tayaira saw, now, what Klur hoped to do. Their oblique course would carry them in a curve, around the approaching Garaka, and through the space between her and the Starfleet ships. There was room - just room - for them to pass outside the weapons ranges of both KDF and Starfleet. And if the Starfleet ships were too slow - if they failed to realise the full implications of Klur's maneuver - they could reach the gateway.

She checked the command codes. "Gateway powering. Backup capacitance is not engaged, sir - if we can reach the gate, there will be some time before our pursuers can power it up again."

Klur nodded. "Once we are through, send the command codes for cold shutdown. The Virtue has codes to override that, too, of course - but it will buy us more time." His tone of voice grew reflective. "Time we shall use to reach the gateway to the neutral zone... and that I shall use to compose a message for our allies." He snarled, a deep animal noise in his throat. "In payment for their incompetence, I shall demand nothing less than a seat on the High Council myself!"

Tayaira's eyes widened. "Can they grant that?"

"I think so." Klur laughed. "If our relief force has failed to arrive... then there should be a vacancy to fill!"

More icons appeared on the tactical display. "The enemy carriers have launched fighters," Tayaira said.

"That extends their radius of action," Klur said thoughtfully. "We are likely to come under fire from the fighters, even if we are out of range of the carriers themselves. Ignore it. Our shields can absorb a few hits from fighter weapons." He seemed to be counting down, inside his head. "Time to come about. One eight one mark one four. And give me everything the impulse drive has."

"Garaka is coming about!"

"Yes. She has seen her folly - but too late, my impatient Orion friend, too late." Klur's face was exultant. The QIb laH'e' swung around, her engines throbbing louder still.

An alarm sounded. "Incoming fire," Tayaira said. "Plasma weapons - King Estmere's Scorpion fighters. At extreme range... shields holding."

"Incoming hail on Starfleet frequency," the comms officer reported.

"Ignore it," said Klur. "We have heard all they have to say."

"Picking up antiproton fire from the Garaka's S'kuls," said Tayaira. "Not enough to worry about... shields at ninety-six per cent."

"At full impulse, we will lose them soon enough," said Klur.

"What concerns me," said Tayaira, "is what awaits us on the other side of the gate."

Klur shook his head. "They have committed their full force," he said. "Even at the fastest possible warp speed, no other Starfleet ships could have reached the transwarp nexus yet."

Unless they got lucky, and had ships close by already, Tayaira thought, but she said nothing. Now was not the time to contradict the captain - if there ever was a time for that.

The display changed yet again. "Virtue is turning."

"So I see. Too late." Klur's lips twitched. "I had not expected even that much good sense from the Virtue's commander... that one is unhinged. Time to gateway?"

"Three minutes at current speed and vector. Sir, the Virtue might just make it to weapons range -"

"Stand by to reinforce rear shields if necessary. We do not fight. We go."

"Yes, sir." Tayaira allowed herself to feel a fleeting moment of hope. Was it just possible that they might survive this?

The impacts on the shields stopped; they had outdistanced the fighters. The enemy carriers were turning, but too slowly, now... the more agile Virtue remained the only threat -

"Virtue has stopped! No impulse signature. Coasting on inertia only."

"Battle damage," Klur said. "That ship's emissions profile showed some odd spikes, consistent with damage to her engines... the stress must have overloaded them once again." He smiled in satisfaction. "We are certainly safe now."

"Should we stop and destroy her, sir?"

"Tempting," Klur said; then he shook his head. "Tempting, but no, not now. No delays, take no chances. We cannot risk combat with both those carriers at once. If they come up on us while we are finishing the Virtue - No. Proceed to the gate."

"Yes, sir." The gate, which had been a tiny shape on the screen, now filled it, huge and almost reassuring. "Stepping down from full impulse. Gateway is fully powered and ready for transit. Synchronizing driver coils."

They were there. And the Starfleet ships were too far distant to stop them. They had made it, Tayaira thought. She reached for her console, keyed in the command sequence, engaged it in the instant Klur yelled, "Go!"

Fallout 31

Shalo
"Status?" I demand, as I stride onto the bridge.

"Gateway is powering up," K'Gan reports. "No indication as yet who is coming through."

"Have there been any communications from the high command?"

"No, sir."

"Then we must assume the worst. Put me in contact with the Federation ships." I take my seat in the command chair, trying to project a confidence that I cannot feel.

Shohl's face appears on an ancillary display, then Grau's on a screen beside it. "I will say this," I tell them. "The Chancellor did not, does not, condone the act at Bercera IV. If this - visit - comes from those responsible for that... then my ship stands with Starfleet."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see K'Gan stiffen. Well, he is my First Officer, if he wishes to challenge, let it be now.

But he does not. Instead, he says, in almost pained tones, "That is the honourable course."

So, I muse, if we fail, he will share in my disgrace... that would be a pity. We must not fail, then.

"You'd better do the talking," Grau says. "At least, some of it. If there's going to be any talking."

I nod. "In case there is not," I say to K'Gan, "launch wings one and two." The first wave of Shohl's Scorpion fighters is already on the screen, hanging close in tight formation about the carrier. I have no doubt that the rest of her fighters are waiting on their launch rails now.

Our three ships drift at low impulse speed towards the gateway, Shohl in the centre, Grau on her starboard flank, myself on her port. The gateway is pulsating, almost shuddering, as the energy builds up.

It happens quickly. One instant, the mouth of the gate is empty; then, there is a terrific flash of light, and the ships come through.

Five ships. Four K'tinga cruisers, in two pairs, the pairs flanking the slab-sided massive shape of a VoD'Leh carrier. Fighters are already pouring out of its launch bays, taking up station in an arc ahead of it.

"We are being hailed," K'Gan reports.

"On screen. And cut in Starfleet. We need have no secrets."

On the main viewer, a glowering face appears, a face I recognize.

"Lieutenant General Shalo. This is Councillor T'Jeg of the House of Toros. You are ordered to stand down and return to Qo'noS, there to await reassignment to other duties." His eyes flicker; he, too, has ancillary screens showing my companions. "Starfleet. There is nothing for you here. Stand aside."

"I live to serve, Councillor," I say. "Merely transmit the confirmation codes authorizing the High Council's order, and I comply."

"Confirmation codes -?" T'Jeg seems to swell with rage.

"While you're at it," Shohl says, "you'd better transmit your diplomatic clearances. Otherwise, you are an enemy vessel outside Klingon territory, and you will be fired upon."

"I am a member of the High Council!" T'Jeg yells. "I am not to be questioned by - by underlings and Federation weaklings! Obey me now, or I will have your heads!"

On my command console, an image is taking shape: a transmission from the Virtue, sketching the tactical situation, offering a suggested battle plan. I touch the screen, trace lines with my fingertips, making my own suggestions. Shohl is doing likewise....

"With respect, Councillor," I say, almost absent-mindedly, "the Chancellor is also a member of the High Council, and it was from his own lips that I received my orders. You must show the proper authority, if you are to countermand those."

"And Starfleet," says Shohl, "has some questions for the House of Toros. On that basis, I'm ordering you to stand down your fighters, drop your shields, and transport over to the King Estmere. I give you my personal guarantee that you will be treated... appropriately."

"You order me? Your head, Andorian! I will take your head!"

Ronnie Grau laughs wildly. "It shall never be said that I doffed my head for the boast of a heathen line."

"My Starfleet colleague expresses herself poetically," I say. "Nevertheless, the House of Toros stands implicated in this affair, and the Chancellor will require answers, as well as the Federation. You must make ready to provide those answers, Councillor."

"Answers? I will give you my answers now!" T'Jeg turns to face an unseen bridge officer. "Wipe them from the skies!" And the viewer goes blank.

"Launch wings three and four," I say to K'Gan.

T'Jeg's forces are advancing in a traditional Klingon pattern, the fighters sweeping forwards in an imposing curve before the bulk of the carrier, the cruisers threatening on his flanks. It is a formation designed to impress and intimidate; it has served that purpose in many a frontier system, terrorizing many a minor power....

It is not, though, the wisest choice for facing Starfleet.

T'Jeg no doubt expects a straight fight, his carrier versus the King Estmere in the middle, while his cruisers take on the Garaka and the Virtue in pairs. It is not a plan that any of us wishes to cooperate with.

Instead, Virtue and King Estmere both heel over hard to their port sides. Shohl's carrier fires her disruptor cannons at one K'tinga, then turns even more sharply, presenting a rear arc in which a weapons hardpoint glows green, then lashes out with an eye-hurting bolt of light. A Romulan plasma hyperflux beam. It bites through the cruiser's failing screens, sears across the hull, green-white flares of plasma fires bursting out in its wake.

"Designating that cruiser Target One," I say, "and firing."

At the same time, Virtue fires her phaser lotus and forward cannons in a wide-angle spread at T'Jeg's fighters. The imposing arc dissolves at once into chaos, To'Dujs exploding in puffs of flame.

Target One's shields are down, and my disruptor beams will keep them down - at least long enough for my Hargh'peng torpedo to slam into the target's hull, and add its lurid violet radiance to the green of the plasma fires. Meanwhile, Target One's cruiser consort - now Target Two - is receiving the attentions of my S'kul fighters. Their antiproton blasts will keep that cruiser occupied while I finish his wounded consort.

Shohl's Scorpions are busy, too. Three quarters of T'Jeg's fighters are already eliminated, and the remaining To'Dujs - outclassed individually, and outnumbered three to one - last barely seconds against the Scorpions, which then turn their attention to the carrier. Their plasma weapons and torpedoes flare against its shields -

- while I attend to my two targets, and Shohl and Grau go after the cruisers on the other flank. Shohl's disruptor cannons are blazing, and her torpedo tubes are spitting globes of plasma at a frankly alarming rate; Grau is closing on the last cruiser now, her phaser cannons hammering its shields to nothing. T'Jeg's forces are firing back, of course....

"Standard disruptors only," K'Gan reports.

"Of course," I say. "They have never needed better." The House of Toros is a house of merchants, sitting safe and happy behind the lines, never having to deploy its forces for anything more than routine intimidation of minor systems. Naturally, they think themselves warriors - what Klingon does not? But thinking so does not make it so.

Still, it is never wise to underestimate one's enemy.

"Target Two launching torpedoes," K'Gan reports.

I count off, silently, in my head. "And... phase," I order. There is a slight alteration in the tone of the Fek'lhri engines, the faintest shift in the quality of the light on the bridge... and a deep, uneasy feeling inside me, as my ship and my body move out of sync with conventional reality. It is unsettling, on an intuitive and fundamental level, to have a salvo of photon torpedoes pass through us as though we were empty space.

The white light of a warp core breach banishes the spectral green and violet glows around Target One, and my ship snaps back into phase in time to launch an inarguably real Hargh'peng into Target TWo. Against all the odds, the cruiser has brought down two of my S'kuls. I check; the flight deck transporters recovered the crews in time, replacement fighters are already on the launch rails. I wonder, fleetingly, how many of T'Jeg's crews have survived. The carrier is using its weapons without discipline, alternating between swatting at Shohl's swarming Scorpions, and firing at King Estmere herself. As a result, T'Jeg has brought down no fighters, and barely succeeded in working up a glow from the Recluse's Reman-designed shields.

A row of plasma torpedoes stretches, like gleaming beads on a string, between King Estmere and the cruiser I've designated Target Three. As I watch, a torpedo strikes through the cruiser's shattered shields, burning deep into its hull. A second strike follows, then a third, then the core breaches and Target Three is gone. Shohl's remaining torpedoes realign themselves, acquiring new targets. Most of them go for Target Four, the cruiser now being cut to pieces by Grau's phasers; three, however, turn in space to aim themselves at the VoD'Leh. I check Target Two; its shields are down to nothing, my S'Kuls have nearly severed one nacelle - it is out of the fight, and will soon be dead.

"Beam arrays," I order. "Target the VoD'Leh's shield emitters."

Disruptor light flashes out from my ship, striking with remorseless precision at spots on the carrier's hull. For an instant, I fear I have failed; then the VoD'Leh's shield wavers and drops. It will be restored in minutes - if T'Jeg's crew is even minimally competent - but, in the meantime, Shohl's Scorpions strike home with their stinging blows, and the approaching plasma torpedoes proceed unimpeded to their mark. A brilliant flare announces the death of Target Four, and both King Estmere and Virtue swing around to bring their forward arcs to bear on the carrier.

The plasma torpedoes strike. Thick slabs of armour boil away, the side of the VoD'Leh's hull becomes a tangled inferno of white-hot broken metal, burning in a dozen atmosphere leaks. For a smaller vessel, that might be a mortal blow, but the VoD'Leh is so huge, its vital parts so well-defended, deep in its interior -

But it prompts a reaction, nonetheless. "Hail from the VoD'Leh!" K'Gan reports.

"Hold fire!" Shohl, Grau and I shout the order as one. Too late, I fear, for Target Two, whose broken, burning hull is drifting powerless away from my fighters... but they hold their fire, obedient, nonetheless.

T'Jeg reappears on my main viewer. There is fire behind him, but it is no more than the sparking of a transient surge along the EPS grid. Such trivia does not even distract an experienced combat commander... but T'Jeg is no combat commander. He has proved that today, that is certain.

"I wish to explain," he says, his words tumbling hastily over each other. "It pains me to admit this, but I am but the tool of others in this matter. Let me describe to you -"

And then he glows with a fiery light, and his words burn away to nothing, as does the mouth that speaks them.

Confusion erupts on T'Jeg's bridge; I hear shouts, weapons fire; I see the flash of disruptors, see people running to and fro - for an instant, there is someone on the screen, a Lethean with a gun in his hand, and I think I recognize him - then he is gone, and there is only the noise of fighting.

A voice screams, from somewhere to the side of the viewer, "No Starfleet prison camps! No dishonour! Ramming speed!" And the comms link goes suddenly dead.

The VoD'Leh springs to life, its impulse engines flaring into maximum overdrive, turning to bear straight down on the King Estmere. As a final gesture, it is a splendid one, a valiant one... a quintessentially Klingon one.

Our guns shred the carrier into white-hot ruins before it gets within three kilometers.

Fallout 30

Tylha
Outside the transparent bubble canopy of the Sphinx work pod, the metal of the transwarp gateway stretches on before me for a kilometer or more. The little ship shudders as the RCS thrusters kick in, sending it in a long spiral around the massive tube that makes up one of the gate's six sides. The tube is half a kilometer thick, and inside it are millions of kilometers of warp coils, and it is only one side of the gate, and there are twelve gates....

In all of this, I'm searching for something which might not be there, and which might be no bigger than my little finger if it is there.

It seems hopeless at first glance, but only first glance. There are only so many places where you can put sensitive circuitry on a transwarp gate; the electromagnetic surges produced when those warp coils fire up will fry any unshielded device nearby. There are, to be sure, shielded areas... and those are occupied by the control circuitry for the gate, and they are regularly inspected by maintenance crews, and any unauthorized devices will be found and removed.

But the configuration of the warp fields makes for occasional dead zones, places where the fields overlap out of phase and cancel each other out.... A competent warp theorist, which I am, can work out where those dead zones are. Of course, any illicit sensor device is going to be rigged to self-destruct if it's detected, so an active sensor scan from the King Estmere is out of the question. But against a close-up passive search - or, in simple terms, someone going out and looking for it - a sensor package has no defense.

My only problem is the sheer size of the gateways. Taking an EV suit and covering the areas on foot would take weeks; the Sphinx is an acceptable compromise, its engines capable of covering the distances easily, its passive sensors and its transparent canopy giving me all the detection capability I need. Still, there is a lot of ground to cover -

My only problem? Not quite. There are always the distractions.

"You've been out there for hours," Ronnie Grau's voice says in my ear. "Have you found anything besides micrometeorite scars yet?"

"Don't you ever sleep?" I snap back at her.

"Sleep is for tortoises!" Sounds like yet another of her quotations. I wonder, fleetingly, what a tortoise is. "Face facts, Tylha, this is a wild goose chase. A mare's nest. A mare's nest with wild geese in it."

"Stop wittering, Ronnie." There is an outraged silence from the other end of the link. I smile. I don't think Ronnie's used to people talking to her like that, and I think it might be good for her.

My eyes narrow. There is something up ahead - a faint blemish on the endless shining metal of the gateway. I nudge the Sphinx in that direction.

"If the gates power up while you're that close," Ronnie says over the link, "you're going to be spam in a can. That pod will tear open like cheap cardboard."

"Nice of you to be concerned."

"That'd leave me the senior Starfleet officer on this jaunt! I'd have to do all the paperwork! Don't you know how to delegate, dammit?"

"My idea, my risk." Technically, of course, she's right. Technically, as a Vice Admiral, I should sit calmly on my bridge and let my away teams take all the risks. It's one technicality I've never got the hang of. I doubt Ronnie has, either.

"Anyway," I continue, "we'd have plenty of warning if the gates powered up, right? Even in this pod, I could get clear in time." The mark on the metal is getting closer. I try to fight down a feeling of anticipation. Three times already, I've spotted little marks; three times, they've turned out to be nothing but a dent or a scar left by some passing fragment of cosmic debris.

I lean forwards in my seat and peer intently through the canopy. A faint line... a line of shadow, in the pod's spotlight... and another line, joining it.... "Yes," I say, with satisfaction. The lines meet at a right angle. Something square, sitting on the skin of the gateway, coloured to match the metal. But micrometeorite strikes don't make perfect squares.

"Yes, what?" Ronnie asks.

"Got it." The object is square, and perhaps the size of my hand. My fingers find the controls, extend one of the work pod's manipulator arms. This is one time I'd prefer to be in an EV suit, but I've used the manipulators before, I can handle the fine positioning required.

"You've what? Well, dammit, Tylha, that's - I mean, needle in a haystack's not in it, this is, what, needle in a - a hayfield, maybe. Made of other needles."

I can handle it if I'm not distracted. "Quiet, Ronnie. This is the tricky bit."

Close-up active scanning would be as bad as long-range; I need to work passive, still. The manipulator arm is carrying a sub-quantum induction probe; the minute flexings in spacetime created by the circuitry of this - object - can be read, slowly and imperfectly, through this device. Reading them, though, is one thing; interpreting them is quite another. It's something well outside my range of competence.

But not everyone's. I hit the comms panel for another channel. "Klerupiru? I'm sending a data uplink to you now."

"Ready, sir." The Ferengi cyber-warfare expert sounds fresh, brisk and cheerful. "Receiving.... Might need better, sir, can you bring in the probe to fifteen millimeters and step sensitivity range up to 2.3?"

I hold my breath as my fingers make tiny, tiny touches on the controls. The manipulator arm moves forwards and down with a nightmare slowness.

"That's better," says Klerupiru. "Resolving scan...." A pause, that seems to last several years. Then, I hear her laugh. "I know that one. It's from Quog's Discreet Surveillance and Monitoring Emporium."

"Does that mean -?"

"Every unit is enciphered with an individually tailored fractal key, guaranteed unbreakable, personalized to the customer."

I feel my antennae droop. "Doesn't sound too hopeful."

"What Quog doesn't tell his customers is that each unit also has a master key, accessible to Quog... and anyone who knows Quog, and has a talent for oomox." She laughs again. "Must admit, I scrubbed my hands for hours afterwards. Transmitting the unlock now."

On the comms display, lines suddenly dart upwards, representing an abrupt burst of data transmission across the link. Then, just as suddenly, the square package beneath the probe glows red, then white, then boils away in a puff of vapour and is gone.

"What the hell -?"

"It's all right, sir. It's meant to do that, as soon as the download's finished." There is satisfaction in Klerupiru's voice. "I have a complete image of that unit's memory in my console now. Beginning analysis."

"Good." I pull back the manipulator, and frown. The sub-quantum probe suffered in that sudden flare of energy... at the very least, I need to get back to the ship and replace it. And, with luck, my job here is done anyway. I fire the RCS arrays and bring the pod around.

The comms console flashes an urgent light at me, demanding my attention. I switch channels.

"Tylha." Ronnie's voice is flat and tense. "Get back in. Someone's powering up the Klink-side gateway."

"How long?" I ask.

"Ten minutes at best. Better move."

It's just possible it might be Starfleet, that a task force has reached the gateway in the neutral zone and is coming through to support us. It's just possible, too, that this is some random smuggler on an errand of their own. But these are outside possibilities at best. The safe bet is that whoever's using the gate is Klingon... either regular KDF, or Klur's shadowy backers. Either way, we have to be ready.

"Shohl to King Estmere. Red alert, battle stations. Pick me up when I reach transporter range, abandon the pod."

I fire up the Sphinx's micro-impulse engine, and hurtle back towards my ship.

Fallout 29

Shalo
The interior of the King Estmere is... confusing. On the one hand, it is drab and utilitarian for the most part; on the other, the internal arrangements and the surprising shifts in the artificial gravity make for an unsettling experience.

Kluthli's quarters are spacious, as is the Federation way. My cousin gives me a minimal nod of acknowledgement as I enter.

"We should not be enemies," I say to her.

"But we are," she replies.

I sigh. "It is... a part of the times we live in, I fear. We are constrained by forces greater than ourselves, and we must make whatever accommodation we can. We have both done... what seems best, to survive."

Another minimal nod, grudging, but there. "I chose not to work with the Klingons."

"That was your choice. Mine, as you see, was otherwise. But you are not Federation, and I am not Klingon. At heart, I am still of the House of Sinoom. And I think you would not feel as you do towards me, if you were not also that. At heart."

"I remember the House of Sinoom," Kluthli says. "I miss it. But I've built a life for myself, now, within Starfleet and the Federation. If everything went back - the way it was - I'm not so sure I would go back."

"Nothing will ever be as it was," I say. "This is true for all life. Should our House undergo a resurgence, I am sure you would be valued, within it. As I would be." I allow myself a wry smile. "I would suggest that I am better placed than you to create such a resurgence."

She shakes her head. "Our House as an ally of the Klingons? It would never be believed, by those who knew us."

"But those who knew us grow scarcer as the years pass. We have lost one, just recently, of course. Cysitra Cira'tenis." I hold up the datapad in my hand. "This contains what remnants I was able to obtain of her communications codes and data stores. I share it with you, freely."

"Why?" she asks, bluntly.

"In part, as a peace offering between us. And, in part, for the most urgent practical reasons. Tayaira."

Kluthli shakes her head. She crosses the room, sits down, indicates another chair to me. I sit. "Tayaira is most definitely our enemy," she says. "And there is nothing to be done about that, now."

"I disagree. Klur is our enemy... and his unknown supporters... but his crew?"

"The Federation's position is that unlawful orders cannot be accepted - and that the crew, therefore, bear criminal responsibility for accepting them. Of course, it could be argued that they were compelled, under threat of death - the matter has been tested in the Federation's courts, I think, with conflicting outcomes. But, to bring our cousin to trial, we would first have to capture her, and I doubt whether that will be possible."

"In any event," I say, "we might at least talk to her."

Kluthli smiles and shakes her head. "And how are we to manage that?"

"With the resonant pulses used for communications through these gateways," I say. "If we are careful - and if we have a thorough understanding of the internal comms network of a Kar'fi carrier - I believe we could generate a resonant pulse that would appear as if it came from within the intercom system."

Kluthli's eyes widen. "It's possible," she says. "And then -?"

"Then we send one of Cysitra's recognition codes," I say, "and wait, and hope."

"You would have to know that intercom network very well," Kluthli says.

"I believe I do. The technology in these carriers is... interesting. I have made a study of it."

"Let's see some technical specs, then," says Kluthli. "This is going to be a challenge...."

---

We work together for close on two hours, addressing ourselves to the problem at hand, absorbed in it, our differences set aside. My cousin has a quick mind and a good understanding of the principles involved; I have the specific technical knowledge to make this work. It feels... good, to work with her. It is almost a comfort.

"Well," Kluthli says, at the end, "this is as good as it's going to get. Let's try it."

I nod. There are many things - very many things - that might still go wrong, but this is our best chance. I upload the code sequence from my datapad. With luck, it will appear only as a random burst of noise, a transient fault on the system, to any eyes but Tayaira's.

"So," says Kluthli, "nothing to do but wait. If it gets through... if she sees and understands it... if she chooses to respond...." She shrugs. "An awful lot of ifs. How long do we give her?"

"How long do we have? Until the situation changes, I suppose... until Klur moves, or your admiral completes her own task, or some other force approaches."

"Starfleet's task forces will have these gateways bottled up within forty-eight hours," Kluthli says. "The ones in Romulan space will require the cooperation of Republic forces - but they'll get it."

"I doubt we will have to wait that long."

"I don't know how long Admiral Shohl is going to take on her search, either." Kluthli stares at me, a hard, direct look. "If there's anything out there, the Admiral will find it. She's... very determined."

"Yes," I say, "she strikes me as the type." I look at Kluthli's data console, a spiky shape with a holographic screen, very Tholian in its design.

And I cannot quite keep myself from jumping when the visual display goes live.

Tayaira looks at us out of the viewer. "Shalo. And Kluthli. Quite a reunion."

"You sound surprisingly unconcerned," I say.

"It comes as something of a relief," Tayaira says, dryly. "The first thing I thought was that Cysitra Cira'tenis was haunting me, via the subsidiary plasma manifold on deck seven. Neat job of infiltration, I congratulate you. That isn't a KDF uniform," she adds, looking at Kluthli.

"We're aboard the King Estmere," Kluthli says. "I'm a science officer there. Tayaira -"

"Say what you have to," Tayaira says.

"If Klur were to be handed over," I say, "either to the Federation or to me, as J'mpok's emissary, there could be forgiveness for his crew, even at this stage. You are the first officer, you serve the captain but you speak for the crew. What would the crew say?"

Tayaira shakes her head. "Captain Klur remains confident," she says. "Even now. His morale is high, and you must know how closely a Klingon crew follows its captain's lead."

"Then he must expect support from elsewhere."

"Yes." Tayaira pulls a face. "I could not tell you, even if I wished. He sent an encrypted data transmission a short while ago, on subspace frequencies... that you can find out for yourself, if you have Cysitra's records."

"Then he must be unconcerned with being discovered."

"Oh, he realizes Federation forces are converging on him. I think he expects his way home to be cleared for him." Another grimace. "If you stand in that path... it might not be the wisest place to be."

"And Klur has other resources," I say. "We know about the freighter." A flash of - something - in Tayaira's face. "We do not know everything about the freighter."

"I don't know everything about the freighter," says Tayaira. "The captain attended to the details of the... cargo transfer... last time, and he took only Talakh with him, and Talakh is dead, now." She adds, with some reluctance, "There seems to be some sort of delay, with regard to the freighter. The captain is taking things very slowly and carefully, with many precautions."

Klur is loading tricobalt munitions. He does not need those, if he only plans to return to Klingon space - a fallback plan, then? To carry out another atrocity, as Grau suspects? "If he tries to use the tricobalt, will you let him?"

Tayaira bites her lower lip. "I don't know -"

"You know how he would use them."

Her face is anguished. "The operations officer - the one who activated the bombs at Bercera - she killed herself, afterwards. It was a terrible thing. But he is the captain -"

"He doesn't have to be," says Kluthli. "Klingon rules -"

"You can challenge him," I say.

"Challenge him, take his command, and survive," Kluthli says. "It could be the only way to survive."

And we both know, we need her to survive. There are so few left of the House of Sinoom.

"He is still the captain," says Tayaira. "No. I owe him my loyalty." Her expression turns firm. "Do not attempt this again." And the screen goes blank.

There is a short, strained silence. Then I say, "Well. It is as I said to J'mpok: loyalty which cannot withstand adversity is not loyalty."

"We're her adversity," Kluthli says.

She is right. I find I cannot meet her eyes.

Fallout 28

Tylha
Our two ships close on the gate, weapons on standby now, sensors humming. I bite my tongue to keep from cursing freely.

So close. So very, very close. And how, and why, is a transwarp gate here, in this desolate debris field?

Well, the second part of that question is easy enough to answer - planted here for the smuggling of illicit cargoes, or to take fugitives into or out of Federation space. But who built it? And, more importantly, where might it go?

"Command interface isn't responding," Klerupiru reports. The Ferengi computer expert is sending signals, trying to probe the gateway, to establish its parameters of operation. So far, she's not having much luck. Shalo, no doubt, has her own cyber-warfare experts doing the same, aboard the Garaka. I'm pretty sure, though, that if Klerupiru can't crack the interface, the Klingons won't be able to.

Meanwhile, Zazaru is working on the routine stuff - so far as any of this could be described as routine. She is scanning the gate, trying to read its construction, the materials it's made of - the ratios of isotopes in the metal of the structure might give us a lead on the planet where it was made, for instance. And she is scanning the energy traces left by Klur's escape, though I'm pretty sure that's hopeless. If there is any quick way to determine a transwarp gate's destination, based only on the energy signatures of the jump, I haven't heard of it.

"Skipper." F'hon Tlaxx speaks up from the comms console. His pleasant Bolian face is wearing a puzzled frown. "I'm getting a signal...."

"Who from?"

"I don't know. Skipper, it seems to be coming from the gateway itself."

My lips thin in anger. If this is Klur, calling to taunt us - Well, there is only one way to find out. "Let's hear it, then."

"It's got a visual, too. Just a minute."

The image of the gate disappears from the viewer, and a human face takes its place - a human face, and a Starfleet uniform below it, and what looks like a starship bridge behind it. "Signalling to all Starfleet vessels," the ensign says, "but especially the USS King Estmere, please respond. Signalling all Starfleet vessels -"

"USS King Estmere here," I say. "Who are you, and where are you signalling from?"

"We're -" the ensign begins to speak. Then there is a shout from behind him - a voice I think I've heard before.

"Out of the way, face-ache!" The ensign steps aside, and a new face fills the viewer. "Wowie zowie, you're clear. Either this transmission rig is really good, or you're right on top of a transwarp gate."

Veronika Grau. What the hell is she doing here? "We're at a transwarp gate at Massidia Alpha. What's going on?"

"Massidia Alpha? I guess you must have chased Klur out of there, then." Her mouth twists. "We were waiting for him at the exit to Klingon space, but these gates have a sort of bolt-hole capability - backup capacitors - he ducked back to the central interchange, and I don't know which rabbit hole he ran down after that. Well, I sort of do, I know which it has to be, but I don't know which one it is. Does that make sense?"

"Not really," I say. "Vice Admiral Grau. What the hell is going on?"

"Oh, call me Ronnie. I love Andorians, you guys are so good at telling me when I don't make sense. You should meet my exec, she's made it her life's work. Listen. I'm transmitting the command codes for the gateway network along the data channels now, once you get them, you'll have the same level of control as me. Or Klur, damn him. Power up the gate, meet me at the central interchange, and we can go from there. Truth be told, I'm not too sure I can take Klur by myself. The Virtue took a pounding at Aznetkur, we repaired and refitted in a hurry, my status board is looking pretty jaundiced right now. Yellow lights everywhere, know what I mean?"

I glance at F'hon; he's already showing something on his console to Klerupiru. I look back at the screen. "I'm guessing it'll take a short time to power up this gate. Anything you want to tell me while I'm waiting?" Like, maybe, what's going on?

"Right," says Ronnie, "right. Tracked down this Ferengi guy, he has this network of off-the-record transwarp gates, well, they would, wouldn't they? Ferengi. Anyway. Klur used this network, or his backers did, to get the tricobalt he hit Bercera with. And he was going to use it to get back to Klink space in a hurry, only it's not gone according to plan."

"Because you were there to intercept him?"

"That, too. But I think the whole thing is not going according to plan, and that's what's got me worried. Have you not powered up that gate yet?"

I look questioningly at Klerupiru. "It all checks out," she says. "Sir, should we -?"

I sigh. "Transmit the data to the Garaka, yes." Tempting though it might be to cut Shalo out. I explain to Ronnie, "We're accompanied by the IKS Garaka, which is carrying J'mpok's agent under diplomatic credentials - they've been helping us track Klur."

"Right, right. Better transmit their transponder codes, then, so I can sort them out on IFF when the fur starts flying. Cripes, this gets complicated. Are you ready yet?"

"Power still building up. How do we set a destination on this thing?"

"You don't. It's a very cut-price sort of transwarp net, none of your tuneable gates like we have on starbases, each one goes to one specific destination only. Hence the central interchange. Come on, come on, I can't hang around here forever!"

I check the readings on my command console. "Still some way to go. Remember, Klur just used this gateway, it needs time to cycle - unless we can access those backup capacitors you talked about?"

"No, I think Klur must've activated them at the interchange. Damn, damn, damn. Sorry. Getting frustrated, here, I hate hanging around. Should never have gone into the military, really. Hurry up and wait."

"Signal from the Garaka, skipper," F'hon reports. "Shalo says she'll follow our lead on this one."

"OK." The gateway is easily big enough to take our two ships at once. "Then we'll meet aboard the - Virtue? - as soon as we arrive. I'll bring my exec with me, she's Andorian too." I smile. "Plenty of incentive for you to make sense."

---

The interchange point is just empty space, with a dozen hexagonal gateway scattered about. I check our position: way out in Alpha Trianguli space, in a gap between two star clusters... no reason for anyone ever to come looking here, a good place to hide something in plain sight.

Ronnie Grau's Virtue is moving in tight circles, pointing her prow at each gateway in turn. My practised eye can tell that she's right, the Chimera-class destroyer shows every sign of having taken a battering lately. Still... it's a comforting presence. Another Starfleet ship on my side... even if Shalo turns treacherous, we should still be able to win a fight, now.

Anthi and I are met in the Virtue's transporter room by a tired and harrassed-looking shen. "Commander Tallasa," she introduces herself.

Anthi - normally so cool and professional - visibly bristles at that. "Just Tallasa?" I ask, in a neutral voice.

"Just Tallasa." Her voice is equally neutral.

I think for a moment. I can't come up with anything you could do, to get disowned by your family, that wouldn't get you kicked out of Starfleet too. But, of course, it's not just the disowned who suffer, but their children, too. "Family troubles?" I ask, trying to sound sympathetic.

"You could say that."

"Well," I say, "I found out recently that one of my ancestors was an amoral genetic engineer and would-be dictator, so I guess I can't judge." Tallasa looks faintly surprised. A pleasant surprise, I hope.

Behind us, the transporter pad starts to whine. I turn around, to watch Shalo and her alien assistant Foojoy step out of columns of light. "Welcome aboard," says Tallasa, in a tone that's about as welcoming as a glacier.

"Thank you," says Shalo. "For the record, I am Lieutenant General Shalo, here under diplomatic immunity as an agent of Chancellor J'mpok in... this matter. My aide, Lieutenant Commander Foojoy."

"I hope you're not planning to pull any stunts like you did with Sutton," I say.

Shalo favours me with a flicker of a smile. "I realize I am dealing with professionals, here," she says. "In any case... for the present, we are all on the same side." She hesitates a moment, then says, "After we are done with this meeting, I would like to ask a favour of you. I wish to transport over to your ship - to confer with my cousin."

I shrug. "If it's all right with her, it's all right with me."

---

The conference room on the Virtue looks new. Either they don't use it much, or it's just been rebuilt from scratch after the battle - with Ronnie Grau, either one seems likely. She sits at the head of the conference table, grinning at us through a holographic display of the transwarp gate network.

"So here it is," she says. "Five exits into Federation territory, including Massidia Alpha - don't worry, Ronnie's been a good girl, she's sent all this stuff to Starfleet Command, and task forces are on their way to those gates right now. Four exits into Ferengi territory, all a long way from Klingon space, and can Klur afford to bribe his way home safely by those routes? I'm guessing not. Two exits in Romulan space, and both the Republic and the remains of the Empire are keen to earn brownie points with the Federation, so they'd turn Klur in as soon as look at him. And one, count 'em, one exit into the neutral zone, close enough for Klur to make a dash across the border back to his home. If they'll have him."

"The obvious move, then," says Shalo, "is to destroy the outbound gateway, here, to Klingon space."

"Yeah," says Ronnie, "obvious, but I think wrong. Psychology. Mustn't let him think there's no escape, not now, or he might do something drastic."

"What do you mean?" asks Shalo. "What could he possibly do, now?"

Ronnie grimaces. "Sorry. Should explain. Having trouble keeping things straight. Your guy there, Foojoy? His species isn't known to the Borg, and Two of Twelve - my Borg half - is going spare, trying to sort out a species number for him. It's distracting. Sorry."

"Of gratification, there is," says Foojoy, "my race, none of falling to the Borg, to know."

"Yeah, well, don't bet on it," says Ronnie. "Two of Twelve, she's not exactly reliable, you know. Anyway, yes. It all comes down to Talakh, and Kysang, and the House of Toros, and the freighter." She shakes her head. "And the theory and practice of terror."

"Talakh and Kysang were the two who spoke against Klur's action," says Shalo with a frown, "and were executed for it."

"Yeah," says Ronnie. "Sad end, really, for a Federation agent. Kysang."

Shalo's mouth drops open. "Commander Kysang was a highly respected officer!" she protests. "His record was unequalled -"

"Yeah, what a swine, huh? Probably didn't even wear his secret decoder ring or his 'I am a Federation spy' t-shirt. He was one of our agents, and Talakh was an ordinary black-market spiv, and one or other of 'em got caught. And they died noble deaths, didn't they? Klinks do like their deaths to be noble. Protesting an illegal order from their captain, upholding Klingon honour even in the face of his disruptor pistol, oh, I can hear the Klingon opera about 'em right now. Brings tears to the eyes, it does."

There are no tears in Shalo's eyes, only calculation. "Councillor T'Jeg was particularly keen to have those two officers' actions made known in the High Council...."

"Right. Right. Dead heroes, no one asks too many questions about dead heroes. Dead but misguided, possibly, they might say later. See, whoever caught out Talakh and Kysang then had the lever they needed to push the House of Toros, and Klur himself, into this whole business. Might not have needed much pushing, of course, depends what their political views are."

"T'Jeg has been arguing loudly for total war," says Shalo.

Ronnie nods. "Total war is what our guys want. So far, the Federation's not taken them up on it. So far. No actual world-wrecking machinery deployed in retaliation for Bercera, yet. Yet."

"We're certainly considering it, though," I say. "Admiral Semok's been tasked with working out how to do - massive destructive strikes."

"Theory, yes," says Ronnie, "and my CO was threatening the practice, though mercifully he stopped at the threat. Admirals, they're all nuts. I should be an admiral, maybe I'm not nuts enough. Anyway. My good friend Daimon Prago told me how a House of Toros freighter got sent through, with all the tricobalt supplies Klur needed for his act of provocation. If we can find that freighter -"

"Can we track its movements through the gateway network?" Shalo asks. "Does the system keep records of transits?"

Ronnie shakes her head. "It's set up to be discreet," she says. "Selling point. The command codes are hard-wired into the gates, anyone who's got those codes can access them... and they have that nifty all-points communications rig I used to call you up... but any traffic through them is, you know, strictly on the q.t. No records."

"Hold on," I say. "I'm trying to think.... The sort of people who'd use a setup like this - they're also the sort of people who'd realize how valuable a record of its activities would be. For blackmail purposes, if nothing else. Surely someone would be bound to - to bug the gateway systems, somewhere, somehow." My mind is racing. "Thinking about it - you'd have to leave a low profile sensor package, something that would do a passive scan for transponder codes and comms traffic -"

"Have you seen those gateways?" Ronnie says. "They're flippin' enormous."

"But there aren't so many places you could put a package like that," I say, "where it wouldn't either be spotted during routine maintenance, or torn apart by the power surges during a transit. I can think of a few spots - it might not take such a long time to check them out -"

"Then we might be able to get a record of this freighter's travels," says Shalo, "though I am not clear how that helps us."

"Didn't I explain?" says Ronnie. "Dammit, three Andorians in the room, you should be able to keep me on track. The freighter. Prago told me, the freighter, he was expecting it back, but it never came back. Don't you see? Klur stashed it somewhere on the network. Klingon R-class freighter, twice the size of Klur's Kar'fi, could be loaded to the rafters with tricobalt munitions. That's why we need the freighter, that's why I don't want Klur backed into a corner. Because, with that freighter, he's got everything he needs to burn another Federation world."

Fallout 27

"Sensor contact!"

Klur's head snapped round. He glared at the science officer. "Report!"

"One - no, two - large vessels," the officer answered. "Details - Sir, there is much interference, I am attempting to resolve it -"

Klur gave an exasperated sigh. "No need," he said. "We know what they must be, the details are unnecessary. Damn that Jikkur to the deepest pits of Gre'thor!" He turned to Tayaira. "What is the status on the gateway?"

"Still in hot standby, sir," Tayaira replied.

"Then we can wait no longer for our allies' signals," said Klur. "We must go, and go now. Activate."

"Yes, sir." Tayaira's hand swept across her console. "Activating... confirmation codes received. Gateway will be live in three minutes."

"Let us hope we have three minutes," Klur muttered.

"I have identifications, sir," the science officer said. "Two ships - one Starfleet, one of our own. Both inbound at high impulse speeds."

"How soon?" Klur demanded.

"In weapons range in no more than five minutes, sir."

"Get us in close to the gateway," Klur ordered. "Two minutes. Close, but it should suffice."

The dull gonging sound of the QIb laH'e''s engines grew louder as the ship surged forwards. Klur paced impatiently up and down the bridge, snarling under his breath. Tayaira watched the console displays, eyes fixed on the energy readings.

"I have signals!" shouted the comms officer. "From both vessels!"

Klur stopped pacing, looked up, laughed. "Let us hear them both!" he ordered. "On screen."

Two faces appeared on the main viewer; one blue, one green, both coldly angry.

"IKS QIb laH'e'," the green one said, "I am Lieutenant General Shalo, personal emissary of Chancellor J'mpok, and I order you now to surrender and submit to questioning."

Tayaira looked up from her console. "Shalo?"

"Captain Klur," said the blue face, "this is Vice Admiral Shohl of the USS King Estmere. You are wanted for war crimes. Surrender now or be destroyed."

"Shalo?" Tayaira repeated, blankly.

Klur laughed uproariously. "Perhaps you two should fight it out between yourselves!" he said. "Let combat decide whether I face living death in a Federation penal colony, or dishonour, discommendation and Rura Penthe from our noble Chancellor! Regrettably, I must decline both your kind invitations. My vessel and I have a pressing engagement elsewhere. Screen off!"

"Shalo," Tayaira whispered.

Klur whirled round to face her. "What is wrong with you?" he demanded.

Tayaira swallowed. "Nothing, sir," she said. "Only - the KDF commander - she is of the House of Sinoom -"

"Have your family reunions on your own time! What is our status?"

"Gateway power building up smoothly. On schedule - ship is on course for intersection."

"Hostiles launching fighters, sir," the tac officer called out.

"Both of them?" Klur demanded.

"The KDF ship is a Kar'fi like ourselves. The Starfleet vessel reads as a modified Tholian Recluse. KDF have deployed standard S'kuls, Starfleet... Romulan Scorpions with a high emissions profile."

"Should we launch our own fighters, sir?" Tayaira asked.

"No," said Klur. "We would not win a fight, here and now... and this is not our day to die."

"Starfleet ship is firing, sir!" the tac officer reported.

"They cannot possibly be in effective range," Klur growled.

"No, sir. I think they may be hoping for a lucky hit on the gateway. High energy disruptor fire and plasma torpedoes."

Klur laughed. "There is too much debris in this system for that stratagem to be effective. Let them burn up as much space dust as they please, they will not touch us."

"Six kilometers to gateway," said Tayaira. "Power levels still building to threshold."

The gateway filled the main viewscreen, now. The Kar'fi carrier was huge, but it was dwarfed by the hollow hexagonal frame of the transwarp gate. To one side, green light flickered in a misty auroral display: the Starfleet ship's disruptors, diffusing to uselessness in the micrometeorite dust that flooded through Massidia Alpha.

"Power levels increasing," said Tayaira. "Three kilometers to gateway. Sir, those ships are closing rapidly -"

"Not rapidly enough." Klur's face was exultant.

"Gateway is ready. Intersecting transwarp field in... twenty seconds." Each one passed like a century before Tayaira's agonized eyes.

"In field. Synchronizing drive relays."

"Go!"

The ship lurched as the transwarp field took hold. Tayaira's stomach flipped in that vertiginous instant when the entire ship passed through the no-place that was the subspace warp, translocating almost instantly across parsecs of space.

On the viewer, the stars changed.

The QIb laH'e' now hung in a black and starry void, empty space, the nearest star some twenty light years distant. After the chaos of Massidia Alpha, it was almost a relief, Tayaira found, to see clear space on her console displays.

Clear, except for a dozen massive hexagonal bodies floating nearby. The other transwarp gates.

"Yes," Klur hissed. "Nearly there. Nearly home.... Send activation codes to all the transwarp gates. Even if those fools manage to break security on that gateway and follow us here - and that will take them many hours, if they can do it at all - they will not know which of the others we have used. Set course for the homeward gateway!"

The carrier swung around, aiming at the mouth of another gateway. Tayaira checked her readouts, and frowned. "Something is amiss," she said.

Klur was at her side in two swift strides. "Tell me."

"Power levels on the gateways are - higher than they should be, if the network has been on cold standby." Tayaira indicated the numbers on her display.

Klur grimaced. "It might mean nothing - except that the Ferengi broke his word, that he let other customers make illicit transits, instead of holding everything in shutdown while we completed our tasks. In which case... I will hang his ears in my trophy room in due course. No need for concern."

"Nonetheless, sir," said Tayaira, "I would recommend engaging the backup capacitance system, in case we need to beat a swift retreat."

Klur nodded. "A worthwhile precaution. Send the command codes to the gateways."

As she tapped in the commands, Tayaira asked, "Sir, since you have refused the order of the Chancellor's representative... what is our status now?"

"Unchanged," said Klur. "The Chancellor's representative - if that Orion truly was his representative - is not the Chancellor. And the Chancellor himself will not be displeased when we make our report to him. It is simply a matter of arranging sufficient backing when we present that report." He laughed. "Despite our hurried exit, I feel sure our backers will be ready and waiting when we return to Klingon space."

"Yes, sir." Tayaira wished, fervently, that she could share the captain's confidence. "That return will not be long delayed now, sir. Power levels already building to threshold in the outbound gateway."

"Good," said Klur, "good. Prepare for maximum warp speed once we emerge from the gateway. It is only a short way, after that, back to Imperial territory... but I would not want anything to slow us down, not at that last stage."

The gateway expanded in the viewer as the QIb laH'e' closed on it. Tayaira could see the glow from its field generators, steadily brightening.

"Power levels at threshold. Intersecting transwarp field in thirty seconds."

Klur settled himself in his command chair. "It will be good to be home," he said. Tayaira made no reply, simply watched the gateway as it drifted ever closer.

"In field," she reported. "Synchronizing drive relays."

"Engage."

Again, that moment of disorientation as the ship jumped across the light years; again, a new starscape on the viewer when Tayaira's eyes settled -

And something else. "Sensor contact!"

"What is it?" Klur demanded.

"Attempting to get a reading now -" Tayaira frowned. "Sir, there is a hail coming in on standard frequency."

"Perhaps our backers have come to welcome us," said Klur. "On screen."

The viewer flickered, and a face appeared: a deathly pale face, sharp-featured to the point of gauntness, with the dead black plastic and flashing red light of a Borg implant covering one eye. The thin lips moved in a manic smile.

"Captain Klur? Veronika Grau, call me Ronnie, everyone does... no, hang on a minute, you get to call me Vice Admiral Grau. Oh, yeah. Surrender, and all that."