The Jackal's Trick Read online

  “But a wife? You do not care for me, nor I you. Not in that way.”

  She touched his arm. “I have been with you longer than anyone has—including your wife.”

  “Stop!” He did not strike her, but he came close—staying his hand before it reached her face. “You will not speak of Kaas again.”

  “She was a means to an end, Korgh, like everything else in your life. Like I am.” She paused. “You are near victory,” Odrok said, her chin high. “I have helped you these hundred years. I have acted without question. I have even gone to prison obtaining things you needed. I deserve more.”

  She was key to his projects’ success; Korgh had to placate her without accommodating her absurd demand. He crossed his arms and spoke more calmly. “You merely grow impatient, Odrok. I know impatience. I have waited for my revenge a hundred years. I have my house—but I have not yet won for Kruge what he always desired: supremacy for the Empire. We cannot have that while we are shackled to the Federation.” This time, he took her arm. “We must do this, my most loyal ally—for Kruge.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded. “For Kruge.”

  He opened the door and stepped forward. Standing in the aperture, he turned and looked on her, trying to put on his kindest face. “We will . . . talk again, Odrok. Once this project is complete, I will have more time to think on personal matters.” He gestured behind him. “You will find bloodwine in the cupboard just beyond the atrium.”

  Eyes back on the floor, Odrok said nothing as he departed.

  Ten

  PHANTOM WING VESSEL CHU’CHARQ

  ORION PIRATE CAMP

  Kahless wept.

  It was not a very Klingon thing to do, especially given his species’ lack of tear ducts. Yet legend had it that Kahless the Unforgettable had filled an ocean with his tears upon the death of his father—and while Kahless the clone had no father, he had a sea of troubles of his own.

  So he sat on his hands and knees and bemoaned his fate—not wailing, as one in an opera, but pounding at the deck in frustration and anger. He could not free himself. He could not fight. He could not kill himself. What else was left?

  He had tried it all before, immediately after being imprisoned here on Chu’charq, one of the Unsung’s birds-of-prey. He was not in a cell, but a storeroom on deck one, protected by a single force field. The pretend-Klingons who held him, Cross and Shift, could not place guards over him; they were hamstrung by their own treacheries. The Unsung had participated in his alleged execution. For Kahless to be seen alive and in their midst would reveal to all that the cultists’ master was neither Kruge nor Klingon.

  In those early hours, once the sedative they’d given him had worn off, he’d rifled through the storeroom looking for any possible weapon against his captors, any means of escape. But he’d been noticed—and sedated again. That time, when the emperor awoke, he found a leather manacle firmly secured around his leg. If Kahless left the room, Cross had informed him, the embedded sensor would trigger an injection causing instant and prolonged paralysis. Cross had a handheld control unit he could use to do the same, were he provoked; Kahless could feel the injector pressed against his skin. There was no chain, but he was still leashed.

  They had stopped sedating him—and that is when the real test began. No, not the incessant conversations the little Betazoid fraud kept trying to engage him in. It was something worse, something that had long since become a secret shame to him: Kahless had not had a drop of bloodwine since just before the massacre at Gamaral. And his thirst was eating him alive.

  His hosts aboard Enterprise had given him all the drink that he wanted, as their special guest—and even his bunker lounge on Gamaral had been fully stocked. Then his kidnapping changed everything. He had only taken water during his brief servitude on Thane, but he had been too tired then to even think.

  Once captive aboard Chu’charq, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, he had remembered his needs. He hated to ask his jailers for anything, but he finally swallowed his pride and asked for ale. Even that had proven futile. The cultists running the vessel had no truck with liquor, and none was available. Kahless figured it would be hard for Cross to lead such a bunch as “Kruge” and be seen replicating bloodwine.

  So he had been stone sober for the longest amount of time he could remember—and it had sorely tested him. For days in his makeshift cell he had shaken and slept, slept and shaken. The taste of water sent him retching into the portable sanitary unit provided for his relief. One night he had awakened with a pain in his gut and a terror of closing his eyes again, should the heroes of centuries past return from Sto-Vo-Kor to judge a wretch who presumed to succeed a legend.

  Was it a fever? Withdrawal? Exhaustion? He could not know which, and it did not matter. The Unsung had nearly broken him on Thane, forcing him to do slave labor in pits filled with excrement. Another week there would have meant his death. What he was experiencing now was partially a consequence of that horrific experience.

  And yet, somehow, Kahless missed the vile pit. The Unsung, in their zeal to bring him low, had done him a favor. It was miserable work, but it was work—honest labor of the sort that the lowliest Klingons of the poorest worlds of the Empire did with honor. It was the first time he had ever done anything like that. He had been born in middle age, with memories of another man’s life—and yet he had been allowed to want for nothing. He had been created to be a legend, only to be demoted to become a mere figurehead emperor. And then he’d been allowed to retire early, to go off to a quiet world and paint pictures by a stream.

  The true Kahless was unforgettable. Kahless, clone of Kahless, was not. A side character in history who in the future might be recalled by someone with a mind for trivia. Or perhaps by a scholar, who would say he had served as living evidence of the lengths to which Klingons in his time would go to manufacture honor.

  He was supposed to serve as an example, leading his people to a better life. But even a child understood that one had to see the path to be able to lead. And he had never been a child.

  The door beyond the force field opened. Kahless rose from the deck. It was the Orion woman, carrying a tray with food and water. She paused only long enough to pick up the remote control for his manacle. Then she deactivated the force field and placed his food on the deck just inside.

  Kahless looked at it. They had done this dance several times; there was no sense rushing her, not with that controller in her hand. Instead, he simply stared at the food while she reactivated the force field again.

  “Eat,” Shift said.

  Kahless eyed the plate. It was that odd wriggly food the Unsung ate on their world. Not horrible, but not Klingon. “You eat it.”

  “I don’t eat that stuff. Believe me, if Blackstone hadn’t catered our meals on Thane, we’d have starved.”

  He believed that. Kahless couldn’t imagine the squeamish Cross touching a single piece of gagh. “Where is the little commander today?”

  “Cross?” Shift sat down in the hallway outside the force field, her back against the wall. “He is surveying the battlefield.”

  “Battlefield.” Kahless snorted as he moved over to the tray. “Cross is a ludicrous being, unable to grip a d’k tahg without wetting himself.” He picked up the metal plate, grasped a handful of food, and began to eat. He studied her. She seemed lost in thought. “So,” he said between bites, “the exiles killed Orions this time?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. “Such a shame. Did they slay any of your relations out there? Tell me they did.”

  “Okay, I will.” She looked directly at him. “They killed my father.”

  Kahless sat up. “What?”

  “Fortar, lord of the camp.” She looked at the back of her hand. “He was my father. He was also the one who sold me into slavery as a girl.” She paused. “I had Cross direct the Unsung here.”

  Kahless’s eyes bulged. He dropped the plate with a clank, scattering food. “You could do this—to your father?”
r />   “As easily as he ruined my life.” She glared at him. “I told you what he did. I was ‘too pretty,’ he said. Not to sell me would have been wrong.”

  Wrong? Kahless didn’t understand the Orions at all. “To sell a child? Such a person would be beyond reproach.” He was angry for her—but also at her. The whole thing made no sense to him. “Your father!”

  “I have not considered him my father since then.” She braided her dark hair idly. “The act was easily done. A loose strand of my life, which I was finally able to cut off.”

  “Does your man know who his thralls killed in your name?”

  “Cross? No. He believes Fortar was one of my former owners—which was true enough. I may tell him the rest. I may not.” She stood and straightened her frock. “He prefers me to remain light and joyous. This would run counter to that.”

  “No doubt.” Kahless’s eyes narrowed.

  She looked at him, smiled primly, and found a padd to work on.

  And for you it is just another day. Kahless looked down into his cup, which held water, and then back at her, going on with her business. “I think,” he said slowly, “that Cross does not know what he has in you.”

  “No one ever does. Now eat. I’m not going back down into that galley today. It stinks.”

  Eleven

  “Bux, I’m glad you brought up Kahless,” Gaw said as he studied the digital files in Fortar’s warehouse office. His favorite golden pince-nez on his nose, he glanced over at Cross. “I didn’t want to call you on it in front of your sweetie—”

  “But you never . . . tell us . . . anything!” Cross said, lowering his head and baring all his teeth in a perfect impression of Gaw.

  Gaw gave a throaty sigh. Cross, lounging in the dead Orion’s chair with his feet propped on the desk, shoved his hand back inside his bag of cheesy popcorn and returned to munching. Since impersonating Kruge, Cross had been living off food transported from Blackstone; he’d been excited to discover the Orion’s warehouse included crates full of rare delicacies from faraway worlds. He’d waited impatiently to eat until the dead body had been transported away.

  “I’m serious this time,” Gaw said, manipulating the pirates’ inventory interface. “We were joking about Kahless earlier, but you really sprang this idea of keeping him alive on us. You can’t keep doing this, pal.”

  “I saw a chance, Gaw. We had to move fast.”

  Very fast. While Cross was still on Thane, Korgh had ordered Kahless’s death. As Kruge, Cross was to have ordered the Unsung to execute the emperor on a vid feed broadcast to the whole Empire; it would give Korgh an incident he could profit from politically.

  On an impulse, Cross had made a switch. A truthcrafter facsimile of Kahless had been slain, fooling even the Unsung executioners who killed him. They’d actually killed Potok, the overthrown leader of their colony, instead. Gaw and his crew knew, of course, but no one had told Korgh back on Qo’noS. Since the “execution,” Cross had kept Kahless imprisoned in a small hold away from everyone else on Chu’charq. “He’s not trying to escape anymore, if you’re wondering. The anklet idea worked like a charm. He swears at it a lot.”

  “I can imagine.” Gaw stopped working at the interface and turned toward the Betazoid. “Look, I get that you’re planning on doing something with him after this Kruge scheme is over—but we already modeled his body holographically back when we faked his assassination. His “character” is in our systems. Why do you still need him alive?”

  “Because I don’t have him yet.” Cross closed his eyes and began reciting a line in Klingon. The phrase was about as flowery as the gruff language got.

  Gaw growled in frustration. “Again with the Klingon. What the hell was that?”

  “The Fifth Precept. ‘We do not fight merely to spill blood, but to enrich the spirit.’ ” Cross took his hand out of the bag and put his thumb and forefinger together millimeters apart. “You see, I’ve just about got the pronunciation right. But when the clone says things like that, he hits different words than I do. I always stress the word enrich.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “And did you see me inhale deeply when I hit the pause? The clone does that when he takes a breath before following an infinitive with another infinitive.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Cross wiped his face. “But he doesn’t do it if the subject of the sentence is someone who offends him. Instead, his nose twitches.”

  Gaw stared blankly at him. “Fascinating.”

  “You bet it is—and I can’t get that kind of detail from watching vids. I can’t just mimic his sayings; I’ve got to get the personal interaction part down. So I’ve been talking to him every day. He tries to ignore me, but I can usually provoke him into responding.” Cross crumpled up the bag. “He also chants and sings the saddest songs you’ve ever heard when he thinks we’re not watching.”

  “So all this is why you’re keeping him locked up on Chu’charq and not in Blackstone’s imaging cell?”

  “Precisely. I need him where I’m at.” Cross gesticulated to the air, growing more excited as he spoke. “Gaw, if I want to replace Kahless, I’ll be following another act. Nobody knows what a hundred-forty-year-old Commander Kruge would look or sound like. But the clone’s been out there speechifying in front of big crowds. Not much in recent years, but the Klingon media’s kept him present. The Klingons all have an idea of what Kahless should look and sound like.”

  Finally comprehending, Gaw nodded. “Before long you’ll know what he breathes like, eats like—and how often he scratches his backside.”

  “And which hand he uses.” Cross tossed the crumpled bag away and put his feet on the floor. He hunched forward in the chair, put his elbows on the desk, and excitedly laid out his plan. “So for our Unsung job, our secret patron is going to pay through the nose, right? We can use that to refit Blackstone—”

  “I like it so far.”

  “—and several other craft, and we can also build some stationary truthcrafting equipment. With all that, I can raise the real Kahless from the dead, just like the clone was supposed to be—only we’ll do it with all the light and fire of Sto-Vo-Kor, so nobody can doubt it.”

  Cross explained that when the Clerics of Boreth staged Kahless’s return using the clone, they had chosen not to stage his big return in a public setting. “Instead, they just had him appear to Worf. But when you’re running a con built on mass belief, Gaw, big events matter. You want the audience to feel connected to the story you’re spinning from the start. That’s why when I appeared as Kruge to the exiles, I didn’t show myself to just one person. We arrived on a bird-of-prey to make sure a lot of people were watching. But according to the official story, nobody even recorded the instant of the clone Kahless’s appearance.”

  Gaw thought for a moment. “Maybe they were afraid someone would see through their effects work. It’s not their specialty, for sure.”

  “But it definitely is ours. So we’re going to pick a time and place where everyone important will be watching. Maybe in the Great Hall, in front of the High Council. I’ll make a big entrance—as the Kahless.” Cross gestured toward the port, beyond which Chu’charq and Rodak were just visible, parked decloaked on the far edge of the camp. “We’ve already practiced our Klingon legends on a bunch of lunatics. For the next show, we open wide. This one’s for all the Klingons.”

  “And then their whole empire is ours,” Gaw said. He smiled, in spite of his earlier skepticism. “You’re really too much, you know that? That sounds amazing. The sort of thing Jilaan talked about our people doing in the old days.”

  “We are the makers of miracles, my friend. And the Klingons will fight not merely for blood—”

  “But to enrich us, beyond the dreams of avarice.” Gaw smirked. “There’s your first new precept.” He removed his pince-nez and paused. “But wait. Didn’t you say earlier you were going to do away with Kahless when you were done?”

  “Of course. I don’t need an
understudy.”

  “Right. So when?”

  “Soon. Once the Unsung operation’s done.” Cross bounded up from the chair. “Speaking of that, I’d better get back into character and back to the loonies aboard Chu’charq before they start howling and rending their garments in my absence. I’m expecting our special friend to send us our next mission at any time.”

  Gaw nodded. Then he snapped his fingers. “Wait. I just saw something on Fortar’s manifest for this place. I think I can send you back with a little surprise—something that’ll make Kahless’s real final hours a little better.”

  • • •

  “Hey, Kahless, ol’ buddy.”

  Seated at the foot of a stack of boxes in the small port hold on Chu’charq’s deck one, Kahless glanced once at Cross and looked away. “I do not answer to costumed clowns.”

  “Oh.” Cross snapped his fingers and dispelled his Old Kruge incarnation. He’d needed to be in character to return to the ship, but he often forgot to signal the truthcrafters aboard Blackstone to deactivate the projection when he was in private. “How’s this?”

  “I do not answer to clowns outside of costume either.”

  “You’ll speak to me when you see what I’ve brought you.” Cross looked back. Shift was in the hallway, dressed as N’Keera and hefting a metal crate with both hands. Remembering, Cross sought for and found the controller for Kahless’s anklet. “I don’t think you will want to escape anyway when we drop the force field—not when you see what this is.”

  Kahless simply sat and watched as Cross deactivated the field and Shift brought in the crate. Setting the big box down, she stepped back and the force field reactivated. “Thanks, babe. I couldn’t have one of the Unsung bring it up the ladder. They might see him.”

  “No worries.” Shift snapped her fingers and appeared as herself once more.

  “Go ahead, Kahless. Open it.”

  The emperor sat motionless for several seconds. Curiosity outweighing defiance, Kahless finally moved over and unlatched the case. Cross watched the clone’s face with expectation as the lid creaked open.