Errand of Fury Book 1 Read online

  He acted on this thought before it had fully formed in his head. Using his knife hand, he tapped the button that switched on the room lights. As the light flashed Karel could only see for an instant as the light hit his unaccustomed eyes.

  The figure in front of him was illuminated, its position burned into his brain. Karel threw himself forward, holding his d’k tahg in front of him. He made satisfying contact with the Klingon, hitting the spot he was aiming for right under the warrior’s rib cage.

  As Karel’s eyes adjusted to the light, the assassin fell backward, unable to counterstrike. Then he hit the rear wall of the room and Karel’s body was pushed up against his, the knife driving in further. The assassin’s wild eyes looked at him for a moment, then he fell to the floor with Karel collapsing on top of him, drawing breaths in large gulps.

  Karel took a moment to make sure that the Klingon was dead, then spared a glance for the other assailant, who lay motionless in his own blood. Karel saw that his lucky blow at the first Klingon had gone straight through his rib cage and penetrated his heart.

  Karel’s own chest felt like it was on fire. Looking down, he saw that the Klingon’s knife had struck him just below the collarbone on his left side. Although the wound was bleeding freely, the weapon probably hadn’t hit anything vital.

  As he got up, Karel wondered why in Kahless’s name Faal’s two targs had attacked him. As a bridge officer, he expected challenges from members of his own staff who were looking for advancement, but why would these attack him?

  The answer came as a single word: Koloth. Faal was making a move against his commander. Letting the pain in his chest focus his thoughts and energy, Karel sprinted out the door. He hit the corridor and looked for signs of his captain. There was still a line of Klingon officers waiting for the transporter. Karel checked the transporter room quickly, then headed for Koloth’s quarters.

  Faal had no doubt seen Karel’s loyalty to his captain and wanted him out of the way before he moved against Koloth. That meant Faal’s attempt on Koloth would be neither honorable nor fair. It would, however, be well planned—as the attack on Karel had been. It had been clever to make the move when the ship was docked and the crew lax as it prepared to leave for home.

  For all Karel knew, Koloth had already been caught unawares. He sped up on his way to his captain’s quarters. Turning a corner, he saw Klingons at the end of the corridor. There were two on the ground and three with their backs to him. Karel was sure that those three Klingons had Koloth trapped at the end of the corridor.

  “Captain!” Karel shouted. Then he gave his warrior’s yell as he sprinted down the corridor. His d’k tahg had never left his hand, and he held it high. The three Klingons turned in surprise to see Karel baring down on them. It was a mistake to take their eyes off their prey, because Koloth immediately struck the one closest to him as the three Klingons turned toward this new attack.

  There was a moment of confusion as the other two turned back to the immediate threat of Koloth and tried to snatch glances back at Karel. Forgetting the pain in his chest, Karel felt his blood run hot. In a few seconds they would see how these Klingons who brought five to fight a single warrior fared when the odds were even.

  Karel whooped once and noted with satisfaction that the Klingon who had turned to face him started in surprise. Then Karel was on him, bringing his father’s knife down. The Klingon didn’t have the sense to block the blow and tried to strike out himself. Even with his injured left side, Karel was able to deflect the blow easily and drive his father’s honored blade into the chest of the cowardly, bloodless Klingon before him. The Klingon had strength enough for a single, strangled cry, then he fell to the deck.

  A kick confirmed that the Klingon was dead. Karel looked up to see Faal a few paces in front of him and Koloth standing against the wall. The captain had a few superficial wounds but looked sound. He had obviously taken two of Faal’s co-conspirators before Karel had gotten there.

  Now all of Faal’s Klingons were lying dead on the floor. The first officer shot Karel a quick glance, and Karel was tempted to end his pitiful honorless life immediately. However, he stayed his father’s blade. If he killed Faal now, the insult to Koloth would be great—and Koloth would have to answer it.

  Karel wiped his father’s knife on the uniform of the Klingon at his feet and reattached it to his belt. Koloth gave him a barely perceptible nod and said, “Commander Faal, do you wish to formally challenge my command of this vessel?” Faal didn’t speak, and Karel could see uncertainty in his eyes. “Come, I am injured, strike your blow.”

  “You are weak,” Faal said, his voice uncertain. Looking at the two Klingons on the deck who had died at Koloth’s hand, Karel laughed.

  “Then you serve the empire by replacing me?” Koloth asked. “Certainly, your strength will add to the glory of our people.”

  Now Faal didn’t just look uncertain, he looked afraid. “Captain…” he muttered.

  “Enough,” Koloth said. Then the captain was a blur of action. He feinted once with his own d’k tahg. As Faal tried to parry, Koloth raised his knife and brought it down hard into the Klingon’s chest. Faal immediately dropped his own knife and looked up at Koloth in surprise. Looking down at Faal, Koloth said, “You insult me.” Then he pressed the knife deeper into the Klingon’s chest cavity and gave it a sharp twist. The ship’s soon-to-be-former second officer gave a strangled cry and went limp on the deck.

  Koloth pulled out his knife, wiped it on Faal’s uniform, and replaced it at his own side. “Lieutenant Karel.”

  “Captain,” Karel said, nodding.

  “You were dismissed. Why aren’t you on Qo’noS?”

  “I met some of Faal’s guards outside the transporter room. They attempted to…detain me, and I thought Faal might be planning a dishonorable promotion for himself.”

  “Faal was a fool, and the ship is lucky to be rid of him,” Koloth said. “I am pleased to see you, First Officer Karel.”

  Karel began to protest. “Sir, I am not—”

  “Qualified?” Koloth finished for him. “More than Faal, I would say.” Karel didn’t respond. The two Klingons had had a similar discussion when Koloth had given him his promotion to weapons officer. “Are you refusing my offer?”

  The challenge was clear in the question. If Karel refused, he would be questioning his captain’s judgment. They would fight. Both Klingons were injured. Both had training in the Mok’bara. The captain would be a worthy opponent. It would be an interesting test, yet Karel had no desire to spill honorable Klingon blood with his father’s weapon. “No.”

  “Good,” Koloth said.

  “Do you have orders for me?”

  “Do your wounds require attention?”

  “Yes,” Karel replied. The bleeding had slowed, but he was feeling weak from the amount he had already lost.

  “Tend your wounds, then visit the surface. You deserve the trip,” Koloth said.

  “I do have pressing business at home.”

  “Then go, but do not bleed to death. That is an order.” Koloth smiled. “I do not wish to replace my second-in-command twice in one day.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Karel turned to go. He headed back to the transporter room, feeling unsteady on his feet. Still, he knew that he had enough strength for his next task. After that, bleeding to death would be the least of his concerns.

  When he reached the transporter room, the operator nodded and said, “First Officer Karel.” Immediately, the Klingon waiting inside stepped away from the platform and Karel took his place. As the transport beam took him, Karel prepared himself for what he had to do next: tell his mother that despite what she had heard in the official Klingon Defense Force report, his brother had not died at the hands of Earther scum. Her son Kell had died by his own brother’s hand.

  The transporter beam deposited Karel on the path leading to the estates of the House of Gorkon. He could have used the transporter to save himself the walk, but he did not want to deny himself
the chance to look at his family’s house as he approached it from the road—as he had done countless times in the past. He had walked the same path with his brother Kell often times, once when Kell had been grievously wounded in a targ hunt but had insisted on walking up the hill unaided.

  Karel felt a stab of grief. The weeks since Kell’s death had not softened the pain of his passing. Karel was his father’s son and so had trained himself to silently endure physical pain great enough to make proud warriors cry out. Yet his brother’s death pained him in a way that he had never experienced before. He had no defenses to shield him from this loss.

  For a moment, he imagined his brother walking beside him. Then for an insane moment, he felt Kell’s presence. It was impossible—a trick of the mind, he knew, but a convincing one. He did not deserve to walk with his brother’s spirit, and not simply because he had killed Kell, but because his brother had walked a path to honor that Karel had not had the courage to see, let alone follow himself. Kell had confronted the deficiencies of the empire and had chosen honor even over his own people. Kell had died defending humans because it was the only honorable choice.

  Karel had seen much dishonor in his career, yet he had not truly faced it. Instead, he had hidden behind his desire to pursue a career. Perhaps, he had told himself, if he served the empire well, he might get the command of a Klingon warship. Then he would be in a better position to help guide the empire back to a path of honor. What good would it have done to get himself arrested or killed because he questioned a policy or protested a decision by Command?

  Perhaps he had even been right, but such a course was not honorable. And now the High Council would likely lead the empire into a war that it might not win—and worse, a war that was based on lies and deception. Karel knew there was honor in fighting a battle lost from the beginning if the cause was just. This cause, however, was anything but.

  Kell had been sent to kill the human James T. Kirk and had ended up owing Kirk his life. And more important, he had seen Kirk’s honor and courage and had taken Kirk’s side in battle against Klingons—against his brother. Kell had done the impossible. He had found a path of honor on a mission that had been false from the beginning.

  The House Gorkon estate loomed large above him. Dev’ghot, his grandfather had named it when he had built it years ago. The name meant “chieftain,” and Karel’s mother had always told Karel and Kell that they had been born to lead the empire along Kahless’s path of honor. In their childish dreams, they had both believed it and had spent many nights discussing the great victories they would win for the empire.

  Then the Klingon Defense Force had rejected Kell because of his size. It was a foolish decision, because Kahless taught that a warrior’s body was merely a shell, that his strength came from his heart and his blood. And Kell had more of both than any warrior that Karel had met in the Klingon service.

  Those childish dreams were finished now. Kell was dead and Karel did not expect to survive the day. He would never take up his post as first officer on board the D’k Tahg. Koloth would have to replace his second-in-command twice in one day after all.

  As he approached the front door, he hesitated and took a deep breath, perhaps his last breath of the air outside his home. Then he opened the door. His mother had no doubt heard the noise and was coming down the hall. Karel saw surprise then pleasure register on her face at seeing him. She rushed to meet him and embraced him.

  “Karel, my son,” she said, squeezing him fiercely. The embrace put pressure on his wound and he winced, though he did not cry out. Sensing something, she pulled back and immediately spied the blood beneath his collarbone.

  “You’re injured,” she said.

  “I am fine,” he protested, but he felt lightheaded from the loss of blood and knew he was far from fine. From his mother’s expression he could see that she knew too. “Mother, there is something I need to tell you about Kell.”

  A shadow of grief crossed her face, but she held firm. “I received the message from Command,” she said.

  “I received the same message on board ship. It said he was killed—”

  “By Earthers,” she finished for him, making the word a curse.

  “Yes, that is what the message said, but it is not true,” he replied. She was immediately hyperalert. “Let us discuss this in Father’s office.”

  She nodded and led him to the office, which was near the entrance to the house. In his father’s room, Karel took a seat. His mother hesitated and said, “One moment.”

  She came back with bandages, clothing, and a few other supplies. Karel sighed, which did not escape her notice. “It will do us no good if you do not live to finish your tale,” she said brusquely.

  Karel took off his uniform tunic and saw that a large portion of his chest was covered with either dried or fresh blood. His mother shook her head. “You and your brother,” she said, clearly remembering the tusk wound that Kell had sustained in almost the same place in a targ hunt so many years ago.

  First she washed off the blood and pressed a bandage to the raw wound. “It has stopped bleeding?” he asked.

  “Yes, but from the looks of your uniform, it is only because you have so little blood left,” she said, a rebuke in her voice. Karel thought that he should stop her from treating him further, but he needed to tell his whole tale and he did not want to spend precious time arguing with her over his injury.

  His mother dabbed the wound with a disinfectant. Karel winced but kept silent. Then she began closing the wound with the same device that she had used on Kell years ago—and then on her two sons countless times since. Her hand was practiced and she finished quickly. Karel accepted the pain as a small measure of punishment for his crimes.

  “Here,” she said, holding out a fresh shirt. As Karel put on one of his old shirts, she disappeared with his uniform tunic and came back a moment later.

  “What is it?” she asked, sitting down behind his father’s desk. All maternal concern was gone from her face as she looked at him expectantly. Karel reached to his side and grabbed his father’s d’k tahg. Lifting up the knife, he reached for the hilt and pulled off the recording he had placed there.

  “Do you have the package I sent?” he asked. She nodded and quickly produced a small box that he had sent. As he had instructed, she had not opened it. He opened it now and pulled out the human sensor recording device. His mother was openly surprised.

  “It is an Earther…” she began.

  “Tricorder,” he said. Then he put the recording inside. “Kell made this and gave it to me before he died. It will explain his last days better than I can.” Karel hit a switch, and Kell’s voice sounded from the alien piece of equipment.

  “My honored brother Karel. It is your brother Kell. When I began this mission…” The sound of his brother’s voice made his grief fresh again, and by her face, Karel could see that it was doing the same thing to his mother. Yet they both were silent.

  Karel listened to the recording for the second time. It told of how Kell had been offered a chance to volunteer for a dangerous mission to strike a deadly blow against the greatest enemy of the empire. Stuck at a bloodless post in Imperial Intelligence, Kell had accepted, hoping to bring honor to his family and finally serve the empire as his father had done and his brother was doing on a Klingon warship.

  Kell had undergone surgery to make him look like a human Starfleet officer who had been kidnapped by Klingons. Then Kell had learned English and had received extensive training on behaving like a human.

  He had become an infiltrator, or betleH ’etlh, the Blade of the Bat’leth. He and dozens of others would live and move among humans until it was time to strike. When the time came they would hit the Earthers in Starfleet from within, meting out a thousand cuts until the Klingon fleet dealt the killing blow.

  Uncomfortable with the mission of deception, Kell had asked why the clearly superior Klingon Empire would use such tactics. The leaders of the program had told him that human treachery
made true honorable combat with them impossible. It was distasteful, but Klingons would have to use some of the Earthers’ own tactics to defeat them.

  Kell had accepted that answer and had received a post to the Enterprise, where his first orders were to kill its captain, James T. Kirk. Before very long he had found that much of what he had learned about Earthers was not true. And Kirk, in particular, was both an honorable person and a great warrior himself. Kell fought with the humans against Orions twice and realized that the coming war would be a terrible mistake. Not only was it predicated on lies, but the empire might actually lose. And then he had learned that the empire was behind an Orion mining operation that had nearly destroyed a planet full of primitive Klingons living on a world in Federation space near the border. In his last entry, Kell said that he would do whatever he could to stop the madness and reveal the truth about the empire’s dishonorable path to war.

  Karel and his mother listened to the recording in silence. When it stopped, Karel continued the story. “Kell’s ship was protecting a human starbase when it was attacked by a Klingon vessel. Kell fought with his human companions and died in that battle.”

  His mother’s face, which had been nearly unreadable since the recording began playing, was openly surprised at that. After a moment she nodded and said, “He chose honor.”

  Karel stood and went to the shelf on the wall. There he put down the adanji incense he had brought with him. After he lit the incense, he reached for the mevak dagger that his family kept on the wall. “There is something else. I know the Klingon who took Kell’s life.” Walking around the desk, he handed the mevak to his mother. Confusion was clear on her face, but she took the knife. “It was me. I killed my brother, your son, the son of my father.” Keeping his eyes on hers, Karel waited for his mother to complete the Mauk-to’Vor ritual. It might not restore his own lost honor, but perhaps it would repair some of the damage he had done to his family’s. Karel’s mother made a groaning sound as she stood up. For a moment, she could not speak.