USS Reykjavík, Ready Room
Trujillo had expected anger from Vice-Admiral Markopoulos, and so she found his sudden excitement at her situation report disconcerting.
“If Kang’s telling the truth and this man can derail the High Council’s war plans, this could be a blessing in disguise,” he enthused across the heavily encrypted channel.
“Sir?”
“The Federation Security Council has voted to suspend our support for the terraforming and orbital-deconfliction work on Qo’noS. Our technical and support teams on site have grown larger than the transport ship assigned there can safely evacuate. I was just cutting the orders to dispatch a task force under Menelaus to retrieve them. Instead, I’m going to substitute Reykjavík and Task Force Scythe. Task Force Archer can backfill your group’s border security detail. If you’re heading there anyway, it seems an excellent opportunity for you to deliver this important Klingon back home.”
“And the implications if opposing Klingon factions discover the ruse, sir? We might endanger the safety of our personnel already on Qo’noS.”
“That’s a possibility,” Markopoulos conceded. “But few plans worth implementing are ever without risk.”
Said from the safe comfort of an office on a starbase, Trujillo thought uncharitably.
“Understood, sir. What are our rules of engagement if we’re confronted by Klingon forces, one of these opposing factions?”
“If you’re confronted, withdraw. If you’re engaged, defend yourselves as best you’re able, and withdraw.”
Trujillo sat back slowly in her seat, not liking the sound of that one bit. “If we break and run, what happens to our people on Qo’noS?”
“We have contingencies in place,” Markopoulos said breezily. “One of our last groups of technical specialists to arrive at Qo’noS is actually a covert Special Missions Team. If your task force meets resistance, while you’re keeping that Klingon faction busy, I’ll dispatch Task Force Archer to Qo’noS in your place. Hopefully the SMT can keep the technical staff alive and well until the cavalry arrives.”
“Hope?” Trujillo echoed, unable to leach the acid from her tone. “Respectfully, sir, hope is not a recognized component of accepted strategic or tactical planning.”
“That’s going to be the plan, Commodore,” Markopoulos replied brusquely, unused to having his decisions questioned. “If you don’t approve, I can promote Captain Kiersonn to lead the task force in your stead and take all of this off your shoulders.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir,” Trujillo replied, voice equally frosty.
“Then you have your orders. Additional navigational data will be transmitted within the hour. Markopoulos, out.”
She sat back, turning slowly in her chair as she pondered the plan, or rather the sketchy outline of a plan that Markopoulos had just tossed in her lap. If Trujillo and her people somehow succeeded, Markopoulos would claim credit for that success. Should she fail, the price exacted by Command for that failure would be hers alone. The Chic Greek had a reputation for treating his subordinates like chess pieces, and right now Trujillo felt more pawn than queen.
She turned her attention back to the tablet on her desk and the half-written speech for DeSilva’s memorial service it contained. Trujillo had been stymied in her attempts to finish it, her attention diverted by the pace of recent events and by her own procrastination. She desperately wanted to complete it, so that she could give her friend and comrade the departing recognition she so deserved, but something held her back.
Trujillo picked up the data slate, looked at it for a moment, and then tossed it back on the desk as she stood and moved for the door.
* * *
Guest Quarters, Deck 6
The armored security specialists flanking the doorway snapped to attention at Trujillo’s approach.
She acknowledged them with a nod, then pressed the annunciator. The doors parted after a prolonged delay, and a hulking Klingon warrior filled the doorway, glowering down at her. “What?” he sneered.
“I am here to see General Kang,” she said simply.
“Do you have an… appointment?” the warrior asked, appearing to savor the last word a bit too much for her liking.
“The general is a guest on my ship,” Trujillo replied. “I will see him at my convenience, or he can gather his things,” she paused, looking the man up and down, “and his… people, and go.”
The warrior frowned and appeared to be trying to decide whether Trujillo was making a joke.
“Move!” she barked, surprising herself as much as the Klingon, who actually started at her eruption.
The man stepped aside, and Trujillo strode into the compartment, finding Kang eating at the dining table. The surface of the table was littered with plates, platters, and bowls holding a variety of foods from several Federation worlds.
Kang glanced up from his meal but said nothing as Trujillo approached.
“Apologies for interrupting your repast, General, but we must talk.”
The general set down a bowl of what appeared to be plomeek soup, dipped his hands into another that Trujillo hoped contained water, and washed them briefly before shaking his hands dry with exaggerated flicks of his wrists that sent droplets flying across the compartment.
Kang stood to face Trujillo. “You Humans talk far too much,” he said.
Ignoring the jibe, she announced, “My orders are to comply with your plan, General. Will you or any of your ships be accompanying us to Qo’noS?”
“I must soon resume my place at the head of my fleet, but I have authorized three Birds-of-Prey and a K’tinga-class cruiser to accompany your squadron under cloak.”
“They will move to defend us if we’re opposed by a Klingon faction?” she asked pointedly.
“Of course,” he intoned. “You will be performing a service to the Klingon people.”
“I doubt those among your pro-conquest faction would perceive it as such.”
“Their feelings on the matter are of no consequence,” Kang offered dismissively.
“They are if those particular warriors are shooting at me and mine,” Trujillo countered.
Kang gazed at her appraisingly. “Do you fear battle so, Commodore? Perhaps I should have approached another in Starfleet?”
Her eyes narrowed at the implied challenge. “I do not fear battle, General. I dislike being used as someone’s game piece, regardless of whether the players are Klingons or Starfleet Command.”
Kang spread his arms wide in an all-encompassing gesture. “We are all expendable weapons, to be wielded or discarded as our superiors dictate. Such is the life of a soldier.”
Trujillo raised her chin. “True enough, though I still don’t have to like it.” She cocked her head and gestured out the nearest viewport. “In any event, if your fellow Klingons come calling, looking for battle, we still have plenty of room for more silhouettes on our hull.”
With that, Trujillo spun on her heel and stalked out, leaving a bemused Kang in her wake.
* * *
“How’s your patient?” Glal asked, staring through the window into the Klingon’s Sickbay recovery room.
“Hanging on,” Dr. Bennett summarized from beside him, “though whether that’s due to my skills or his ridiculously redundant biology, I can’t say.”
“They build them tough,” Glal noted with a hint of admiration.
“They’d have to,” Bennett agreed. “Their homeworld is like something from Earth’s Cretaceous period, naked savagery.” He shook his head in mock disbelief. “One wonders if they’d have ever achieved warp drive on their own if the Hurq hadn’t littered their planet with discarded spacecraft.”
Glal cast an unsavory glance in Bennett’s direction. “That sounds dangerously prejudicial, Doctor.”
“Tough,’ Bennett shot back, his candor unchecked. “I was serving aboard Callisto when Klingon raiders hit our colony on Donatu V. We were the first ship on scene. It was a goddamn bloodbath. They killed and maimed indiscriminately, same as they’re doing now to all those non-aligned worlds.”
Bennett’s face flushed with the memory of it. “Women and children with bat’leth wounds, Commander. Where’s the honor in that?”
The question was clearly rhetorical, and Glal remained silent, his attention back on the Klingon atop the biobed.
“Their government denied responsibility, of course," Bennett continued. "They were ‘unaffiliated brigands,’ operating outside Klingon jurisdiction.”
Glal replied softly, an uncommon occurrence for the Tellarite. “I won’t try and quench your hatred, Doctor, as it was fairly earned. In the here and now, however, we need every bit of your skill and knowledge to keep this man alive. Countless other lives, those of the people who may yet fall under the Klingon sword, may depend on it.”
Glal could see Bennett’s sneer in the reflection the men shared though the transparent aluminum viewport.
“Not to worry, sir. The Hippocratic Oath trumps my personal feelings on the matter, and if this Klingon bastard can help stop the slaughter, so much the better.”
“I guess that will have to do,” Glal grumbled.
* * *
* * *
“We are approaching the Klingon border, sir,” Naifeh reported from the helm station. “ETA five minutes to territorial boundary.”
Trujillo acknowledged the order, turning in her seat to gesture towards Tactical. “Mister Jarrod, coordinate with the task force and ensure we’ll be the only ship receiving or making transmissions to the Klingons.”
“Aye, sir.”
“We’re being scanned, Commodore,” Garrett noted, her attention fixed on her sensor displays. “Concurrent sweeps from multiple senor buoys along their border.”
“Incoming challenge hail from the closest Klingon border outpost, sir. Audio only.”
“Let’s hear it, Mister Shukla,” Trujillo ordered.
“Unidentified vessels, you are approaching the territory of the glorious and mighty Klingon Empire. Slow to impulse speeds and convey your intentions or you will be destroyed.”
“Always opacity and obfuscation with the Klingons,” Glal decried acerbically. “You just never know where you stand with them."
Ignoring Glal's theatrics, Trujillo instructed, “Ops, order all ships to decelerate to one-half impulse and send our transit authorization codes to the Klingons.” Trujillo looked back over her shoulder at Glal. “Here’s hoping Kang has as much pull with his government as he claims.”
“We should know in a few moments, sir,” he agreed.
Trujillo toggled a comms channel open on her chair’s armrest display.
“Klingon border defense, this is Commodore Trujillo of Starfleet. I am leading a squadron of starships to Qo’noS to collect our personnel and return them home. We have transmitted the authorization codes given us by your government for safe passage to your home system.”
The delay stretched on, and Trujillo busied herself by plotting a series of tactical deployments of her ships to thwart an attacking squadron of Klingons. It was her way of hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
Icons representing Starfleet and Klingon ships swirled around her in a holographic ballet of simulated violence.
“Federation squadron, your authorization codes are accepted. We will dispatch a ship to conducted customs inspections and then escort you to Qo’noS. Hold your current position until it arrives. Any deviation from these instructions will result in revocation of your transit permissions and your forcible expulsion from Klingon space.”
“Reykjavík acknowledges and will hold position,” Trujillo replied before closing the channel.
Glal stood from his chair and approached Trujillo. In a confidential rasp he said, “Kang told us those codes would grant us free passage to their homeworld. He never mentioned an escort or an inspection.”
“No, but the Klingon armed forces answer to a series of regional warlords, based on great-house affiliations. That means their policies and procedures are widely disparate, depending on location.”
“Perhaps so,” Glal conceded, “but what if this is a stalling tactic to give one of the pro-invasion houses time enough to send a squadron against us?”
Trujillo nodded slowly. “That’s entirely possible. Regardless, we’ll need to let this play out first before I’m willing to force the border. An incursion by a Starfleet task force would risk a full-scale war, and I’m not prepared to do that for any one man, or his family’s honor.”
Garrett turned in her seat to face the commodore and XO. “Sirs, the customs inspection could be a cover for a Klingon faction to try and ascertain if K’mpec is aboard.”
Trujillo and Glal shared a look.
“Very likely,” Trujillo agreed. “We’ll need a contingency plan or two in place before their arrival.”
“At least on this occasion we have the luxury of planning time,” Glal observed brightly.
* * *
In Glal’s estimation, Commander K’daal was a portly, arrogant, and officious little shit. That assessment had been formed during the hour and a half that Reykjavík’s executive officer had escorted the Klingon border legion officer around the ship in a so-called ‘commercial contraband inspection.’
Given that Reykjavík was not a civilian cargo vessel and was engaged in a priority diplomatic mission for which she had already received transit authority, it was readily apparent something else was at play here.
K’daal and his two burly armed escorts had doubled-back to Sickbay after a sweep of the ship’s cargo bays, despite having already inspected the medical areas more thoroughly than any other section of the ship.
Glal stepped through the doors and moved aside, allowing the Klingon trio access to the medical facility once again. He snorted derisively, “You believe we’ve synthesized some contraband in the past twenty minutes since you last turned this place inside-out?”
K’daal, no taller than the compact Glal, came practically nose-to-nose with the XO. “We will search wherever we please, in whatever order we please!” he snarled.
“We have places to be and you are interfering with our mission!” Glal seethed in return.
“Your coward’s errand to collect your sniveling scientists and engineers?” K’daal riposted.
Glal stepped even closer, his porcine nose and tusks almost brushing the Klingon’s face. “If you’re referring to the courageous beings who’ve braved Klingon hostility and indifference to keep Qo’noS from complete destruction, then yes… them.”
“You sound as though you disapprove!”
“In fact, I do,” Glal said in a quiet hiss. “If it were up to me, I’d drink a toast with Romulan ale as I watched the shards of Praxis rain down on your damnable ridged heads!”
There was an achingly long moment which in reality lasted only seconds as the hands of the Klingon warriors and Glal’s accompanying security personnel inched towards their holstered or sheathed weapons. Violence seemed certain.
Then K’daal erupted in laughter, a sound that seemed wrenched from a dyspeptic Terran hyena. “I like you, Tellarite!” he cried.
He wiped at his eyes and collected himself. “Now, again, I must insist on speaking with your captain.”
“As I told you earlier,” Glal rasped with continued irritation, “the commodore cannot be bothered with the whims of a mere bureaucratic cog in the Klingon military machine.”
K’daal’s short-lived humor was extinguished by this remark, and he rose on his toes in a misguided effort to try and stare down Glal. “We suspect you are harboring fugitives aboard this ship, Commander Glal. Klingon fugitives.”
Glal offered an impressively genuine look of wry bemusement. “Why would we transport Klingon fugitives to Qo’noS? I could understand why some of your people might wish to flee that stinking, rock-pelted swamp, but who in the name of Kahless would want to be smuggled there?”
That proved to be K’daal’s breaking point and the rotund little Klingon roared, hand grasping at his belt as he tried to locate his blade.
K’daal’s intent was evident, but Glal beat him to the punch. Literally. The squat Tellarite swiveled like a turret to deliver a spleen-bruising strike to K’daal’s side, followed by a jab that snapped the Klingon’s head back. K’daal swayed back, then forward again, his hands still searching desperately for his d’k tahg, just in time to receive Glal’s follow-on uppercut.
The man stiffened and fell backwards onto the deck, insensate.
The Starfleet security detail had drawn their phasers on K’daal’s escorts, but neither man had made any attempt to intercede.
“I have wanted to do that for months,” confessed one of the warriors.
“Indeed,” remarked the other. The man inclined his head in Glal’s direction as if acknowledging the deed. He stooped and with his companion’s help, lifted K’daal by his arms and began dragging him back towards the doorway into the corridor. “This inspection is concluded,” the man assayed. “We will make way to the homeworld. Have your squadron match our course and speed.”
“Uh… yes,” Glal spluttered. “It will be done.”
The XO gestured for the security contingent to follow the Klingons while he held back a moment. After the doors had closed, Glal tapped his combadge. “We’re clear, Doctor.”
Multiple transporter beams deposited their Klingon patient, his Klingon physician, Dr. Bennett and his assistants in the main examination bay. It was the third time during the inspection they had been forced to move to pre-established locations via site-to-site transport.
Overlapping thoron fields had shielded the Klingon life-signs from sensor sweeps and masked the shuffling of personnel by transporter to avoid the inspection team.
Bennett directed an appreciative look at Glal, who nodded in return before stepping through the doors to see the Klingons off the ship.
* * *