The Hall of Heroes Read online

  Murmurs arose again. Beside Valandris, Weltern slowly sank to her knees. Kahless’s words had shaken the Unsung to their very beings.

  “That’s impossible,” Valandris repeated, clutching her hair with both hands. “All impossible. They were with us for a year—knew everything about us. We were not, could not have been tricked so completely.”

  “Is that so?” Worf strode to face her, fearing nothing from her comrades. “What is easier to believe? That a Klingon who fell into a sea of lava could return a century later?”

  “Your people believe stranger things,” Valandris said, looking up at him. She was shaking. “Like you told me, Worf, about how the true Kahless is supposed to return from the dead.” She pointed to the emperor. “You all believe that. How is what happened with us any different?”

  “Kruge was no Kahless,” the clone said, his voice dripping acid. “But let us say he was telling the truth. If someone did return from Sto-Vo-Kor, why in the stars would he visit you, over all the worthier Klingons in the universe?”

  “We are worthy,” Weltern said, rising. “It is what Kruge—” She stopped. “It is what our leader told us!”

  “And that is why you followed him,” Worf said. “Because he told you that you were worth something, after Potok convinced you of your uselessness. But deeds secure a Klingon’s honor.”

  “Correct,” Kahless said, a devilish smile forming. “Tell me, Worf, what do you think of these people’s deeds so far?”

  “They would not want to know.”

  Silence fell across the room. The commander surveyed the Unsung, who had been ready to kill him minutes earlier; confusion and grief was all he saw. Worf was uncertain what would follow—

  —and when a klaxon sounded, everyone present nearly jumped.

  “Proximity alert,” Valandris said. “Stations!”

  Klingons started quickly filing out of the room. Worf looked at the many Unsung members still present—and then at Kahless. “Come. We will follow.”

  Dublak objected. “You cannot leave!”

  “Stop us,” Kahless said, shaking the chain still clenched in his fists. “I have been living inside the skin of this vessel for too long. I would see where we have been all this time.”

  The Unsung were already at their bridge when Worf and Kahless arrived, followed closely behind by the other warriors. Outside, Worf saw a rocky, lifeless landscape—but no gun turrets port or starboard. Chu’charq was cloaked as it sat on the floor of a canyon. Looking at one of the displays, he could tell that the other three Phantom Wing vessels were parked and cloaked nearby. He looked to Kahless. “Only four of their birds-of-prey survive.”

  “I have only seen one, and too much of that,” the emperor replied.

  “Contact spotted,” announced Hemtara. “Vessel passing through the system. Likely another search party.”

  “Put it on screen,” Valandris said from the command chair. She looked to Worf and Kahless—who now stood amidst the Unsung. “Don’t try anything foolish.”

  “Would you be the judge?” Kahless asked.

  The magnified image that appeared on screen wasn’t anything Worf was expecting. “A Breen cruiser.” He looked around. “Where are we?”

  “Cabeus, in the Empire,” Valandris responded.

  “A Breen vessel—in Klingon space?” Kahless was flabbergasted. “Some nerve they have, trespassing in—”

  “New contact arriving from warp,” Hemtara said. The view on the screen adjusted. “Klingon battle cruiser, moving to intercept the Breen. Identification reads I.K.S. Gorkon.”

  Kahless nudged Worf. “Captain Klag! Now you’ll see something. He won’t suffer these cretins.”

  Worf’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t know what the Breen ship was doing here, but he hoped that Gorkon would scan for the presence of the Phantom Wing vessels. There was little chance of an Unsung ambush, as the command crews of the other ships were all aboard Chu’charq. Valandris seemed willing to wait and watch as the ships closed.

  “No shields, no weapons powered up, either side,” Hemtara said.

  “This makes no sense!” Kahless looked to Worf. “What goes on here?”

  “Listen for hails,” Worf said.

  Valandris looked back at him impatiently before nodding to her companions. “Do it.”

  “They’re on an open channel. Easy intercept,” Hemtara soon said. “Here it is.”

  “—Breen vessel,” called a powerful Klingon voice, “this is Captain Klag of I.K.S. Gorkon. Where is your escort?”

  Nonsensical Breen warbles came in response.

  “You know the terms,” Klag said. Worf surmised that the Gorkon captain had access to translation capabilities that the Phantom Wing ships lacked. The captain sounded enraged. “The Empire permits Breen and Romulan search parties, but you must have a Klingon escort!”

  Another meaningless reply from the Breen.

  “You’ve got an escort now. Follow us to the border—and do not return until you learn to abide by an agreement. End transmission!”

  Kahless gawked as the Breen vessel changed its heading to match the Gorkon’s. “What is this? Klingons cooperating with Romulans and Breen?”

  Worf frowned. “Things have changed, Emperor. The Unsung have struck against many different parties—including the Romulans at H’atoria. Enterprise was present when that happened.”

  “The attack on the Romulans wasn’t our intention,” Valandris protested. “That was Zokar’s doing.”

  Worf believed her. The rogue Unsung ship captain, now dead, had been following through on a grudge. “It does not matter how it happened. The result is that the Romulans and Breen were fighting alongside the Klingons and Starfleet at Ghora Janto. I take it that they have been allowed to join the search for you, as well.”

  Kahless was stunned. “I refuse to believe it. Martok would never accept aid from those fiends—not in our territory!”

  “When I was last free, the Unsung attacks had been empowering the chancellor’s enemies on the High Council,” Worf said. “It seems that was just the start.” He looked around at the Unsung bridge crew, his eyes full of disdain. “See the chaos you have wrought—all on the orders of a charlatan!”

  His listeners buzzed with words of self-defense—none of them particularly full-throated. It fell to Valandris to speak for all. “I still don’t believe this story,” she said. “If it’s true, then we really are nothings. No—we are worse than nothings. We are fools.” She shook her head. “Whoever this Cross person is, he has much to answer for.”

  Worf frowned at her. “So do you, Valandris. So do you all.”

  Seven

  BREEN WARSHIP SUSTAX

  CABEUS SYSTEM

  Aboard the Reikin-class fast-attack warship Sustax, Shift looked through her Breen helmet’s visor at the fearsome Klingon cruiser off to starboard. “So that was the great Captain Klag,” Shift said, her helmet transforming her words into a series of squawks. “When I saw him, I thought we were going to have to fight it out.”

  “There was never a need for concern.” Thot Roje stood in front of his command chair. Sustax was his flagship, the place from which he worked his mischief in the Beta Quadrant. “There are currently twenty-six Breen ships in Klingon space assisting with the search for the Unsung. It was under that cover that we were able to look for you.”

  Shift was glad to have been found. She’d had her fill of Klingons over the last months. “I was afraid Klag had found out about the Defense Force bird-of-prey you destroyed back in Cragg’s Cloud.”

  “The nebula hid our presence—and our circuitous departure route means there is nothing to connect us to that.” The armored spymaster joined her at the port. “There is no reason for concern. You have already survived far worse dangers, Chot Shift.”

  Chot. The Orion woman delighted in hearing her Breen title again. Since the onetime T’shantra had rescued Thot Roje from Dinskaar four years earlier, he had made good on his pledge to see her made into a proper
member of the Confederacy. She had returned the gesture by learning everything Roje was willing to teach her about intelligence work. Before long, Shift had become one of the Breen’s top field agents, risking execution and enduring imprisonment as she worked against her new people’s enemies.

  And why not? They were her foes too. The Orion crime lords who’d made her life miserable had worked the zone between Klingon and Federation territory for years. Either power could have eliminated the brigands with a concerted effort, but neither did. Starfleet’s obsession with exploration—who cared about that?—meant its devotion to patrolling neutral space was less than absolute. The Empire, meanwhile, saw the Orions as a nuisance; Klingon warriors were more interested in conquest than police work. Both powers had earned her disdain—and her best efforts in opposition.

  The Breen would control the entire Beta Quadrant one day. And the Orions would never enslave anyone again.

  This project had been her masterstroke. Shift’s infiltration of Buxtus Cross’s team of truthcrafters had taken the most time of any of her intelligence operations. She had spent well over a year working her way into the insufferable mimic’s confidences. She had played the part of his girlfriend so well he had made her his apprentice—after which she had helped him fool the discommendated Klingon exiles of Thane, portraying High Priestess N’Keera to his aged Commander Kruge.

  Both masquerades had ended, with Shift killing the sniveling Cross before he could seek immunity from the Federation. That act—accompanied by Sustax’s timely destruction of a Klingon warship threatening her—had yielded the very prize she had worked so long to acquire: Blackstone, the wondrous ship that had allowed Cross to work his illusions.

  It, too, was outside the starboard viewport, invisible to Shift and—critically—to Klag and his Klingon warriors aboard Gorkon. Her Breen comrades were aboard the illusion-generating ship, repairing battle damage to its cloaking systems from its engagement at Cragg’s Cloud. Having visited Cabeus before on one of her training missions with the Unsung, Shift knew it was a system the Klingons didn’t frequent; a safe place for repairs. It was pure luck that the cloaking device was working again when Gorkon happened by. The Klingons had yet to detect it. Sustax had already destroyed a bird-of-prey in order to acquire Blackstone, but it might not be able to succeed against the better-armed and ably crewed battle cruiser.

  “We’re supposed to be here searching for the Unsung,” she said. “Do you think Klag noticed that we weren’t scanning for cloaked vessels when he found us?”

  “The important thing is that Klag wasn’t scanning,” Roje said. “He might have noticed our prize. The cloaking device aboard Blackstone isn’t exactly state-of-the-art.”

  “We can fix that,” she said. “It’s what else the ship is capable of that makes it so valuable.”

  Roje readily agreed. Shift had already shown him some of what Blackstone could do, to the extent that she could operate the equipment. It offered the Breen intelligence community a capability it hadn’t had access to since it allied with the Changelings of the Dominion: the power to impersonate an adversary without fear of detection. For someone trained as an agent provocateur as Shift was, it was more valuable than a starship full of gold-pressed latinum. Indeed, the Breen had left latinum behind, taking Blackstone instead.

  Roje strode over to the officer at the comm station. “Contact the team aboard Blackstone and tell them to get under way, regardless of their condition. Gorkon intends to escort us to the frontier. And that is where we wanted to go all along.”

  The officer sent the message—and then beckoned for Roje’s attention again. “Coded message from Domo Pran.”

  “Send it to my helmet display.”

  The domo? Shift’s eyes widened as Roje read words only he could see. In the years since the Kinshaya revolution ruined his plans for the fleet at Jolva Ree, her mentor’s star had fallen. She’d worried during her assignment whether Roje still had his office. A call from the leader of the Breen Confederacy was a good sign.

  Or not. Roje communicated to her privately on a channel only their helmets could receive. “The domo demands an immediate conference.”

  Shift took a breath. “I hope it goes well for you, my friend.”

  “Spare some hope for yourself. The domo wants to speak to you, too.”

  PHANTOM WING VESSEL CHU’CHARQ

  CABEUS

  “The Breen and the Klingon are halfway to the system edge,” Harch said, pointing to a screen on the bridge. “We should take the other ships and strike, while we can!”

  “Strike?” Standing alongside Kahless, Worf stared with incredulity at the brash Unsung member. “Why?”

  “They killed our brothers and sisters at Ghora Janto,” Harch said, bushy black eyebrows forming an angry chevron. “They killed Zokar!”

  “Zokar killed Zokar, by slamming his bird-of-prey into a Klingon cruiser,” Worf replied. “Is that what you intend? Suicide?”

  “What else are we supposed to do?” asked the youthful Raneer from Chu’charq’s helm station. “Our home is gone, as are most of our people.”

  “Only because you struck at the Empire,” Kahless said. “At your so-called lord’s command.”

  “Yes. We struck at our lord’s command,” said Valandris, who had been standing far forward looking at the viewscreen. She turned and walked back toward the command chair, her arms sagging. “And if our lord was what you say he was, they all died for nothing.”

  Harch appealed to her as she passed him. “Would you have us simply decloak and show ourselves? Give ourselves to their justice?” He pointed at Worf and Kahless. “Trade these two for survival? Then we might as well be in chains.”

  Valandris took her seat and looked over to Worf. “Isn’t that why you beamed yourself aboard Zokar’s ship? You wanted us to decloak.”

  “I wanted to stop your rampage,” Worf said. The Unsung needed to be prevented from further violent acts, and the deaths of their victims demanded justice. But the Unsung weren’t attacking anyone now, and he wasn’t sure of his next step—especially now that he knew of the deception involved. “I . . . am not sure revealing yourselves is wise. Captain Klag is honorable, and I believe I can reason with him. But tempers are high. His crew might think otherwise. And I cannot guarantee what the Breen will do.”

  “Decloaking could be the same as attacking,” Valandris said. “Suicide.” She thought for a moment. “Do your ancient texts talk of a ritual suicide?”

  “Yes,” Kahless said. “Hegh’bat for the warrior who can no longer stand to face his enemies. That does not apply. Mauk-to’Vor is a path open to those whose honor is irretrievably lost. But I would not give this gift to you, and neither would Worf. You never had honor in the first place.”

  “Because our families were discommendated?” someone shouted.

  “Because of how you have conducted yourselves. It does not matter what you were taught, or not taught. You have Klingon blood. You should know your actions were wrong. You feel it in your bones.”

  Worf studied Valandris. She had been wavering, questioning, since his time with her on Thane—and perhaps before. She had kidnapped him from Gamaral, against the false Kruge’s orders, in the hopes that he would join them. If the charlatan’s word was all she needed, what purpose could that have served—except to suggest to her that another path was possible?

  For the sake of those still with the squadron—especially those, like the little orphan Sarken, who were blameless, Worf had to find an answer. And that required time. “Wait,” he said. “We will find a solution.”

  Before anyone could react, Harch rushed Raneer and shoved her from her seat at the helm. “Madness!” he declared, initiating the engine startup sequence. “Our people must be avenged!”

  Chu’charq’s systems rumbled to life. Raneer rose and grabbed at Harch, even as the larger Klingon drew a dagger. Valandris bounded from her seat, enraged. “Back away, Harch! We will decide this together, or not at—”

 
; A shrill alarm interrupted her—along with a festival of flashing lights on various stations. Raneer, struggling with Harch, looked past him at the console. “Power loss. Emergency shutdown sequence!”

  At the engineering station, Hemtara called out. “Dilithium damage,” she said. “We’ll lose the cloak if we try impulse power. And I don’t think warp speed is possible at all.”

  Worf approached the engineering station. Hemtara looked at him with suspicion. Valandris, hearing her starship’s engines whine and die, gave permission for him to step in.

  “You have exhausted your dilithium crystals,” Worf said, checking the readout. “You have been running under cloak almost constantly—and Commander La Forge told me the modifications you have made to your transporter systems required significant energy.”

  Within a few moments, Chu’charq was hailed by the skeleton crew aboard Klongat, one of the other vessels on Cabeus’s surface. “They’re reporting the same thing,” Valandris said. “I will tell Cob’lat and Krencha to run checks as well.”

  “They will find the same thing,” Worf said. “If not now, then soon. Commander Kruge’s own bird-of-prey, a hundred years ago, encountered a similar problem.”

  “What did he do about it?”

  “Nothing. Montgomery Scott fixed the problem, by using particles from a primitive nuclear reactor.”

  Harch looked out at the canyon beyond. “Where are we supposed to find something like that?”

  “You will have to depend on yourselves.” Worf stepped back and crossed his arms.

  Valandris looked about the bridge—every one of her people, clueless about what to do. Then she approached Worf. “Outside,” she said gruffly.

  Worf shot a glance at Kahless before following her into the privacy of the corridor. There, she spoke to him in hushed but urgent tones. “This is real? Not a trick?”

  “I do not do tricks.”