Constellations (37 page)

While the Klingons had done their best—an excellent best—to cover the ship with brush and dirt, the tricorder could not be easily fooled.

“Life-signs?” Kirk asked in a whisper as he gestured for Kerby to take cover behind a craggy outcropping.

The Klingon shuttle, still visually distant, was nose-close to sensors. If someone was on board, watching a scanner, Kerby and Kirk had been made.

“No one on board,” Kerby said.

Kirk swatted away a spring gnat that was buzzing about his eyes. “We need to get on board and—”

“Ugh!” Kerby grunted loudly.

Kirk spun tightly toward his crewman. Kerby fell, collapsing into a puddle of limbs. Blood soaked his tunic where a long dagger broke through his torso.

“Aaaaarrghhh!” The guttural battle cry of a Klingon crashed down as Kirk pivoted and fired his phaser. The beam sliced forward at the wrong angle and missed the single Klingon broadly as he leapt for Kirk and knocked the weapon from the captain's hand.

Kirk felt his entire body tense into a fighting stance. The smell of Kerby's blood jabbed the air as Kirk sized up his opponent. He was young—younger than Kirk expected. Darting his glance from the phaser, which now lay several meters away, to Kerby, who lay gurgling his last breaths, and back to the Klingon boy before him, Kirk thought,
How old is he? Seventeen? Nineteen?

“You want me, why not take just me?” Kirk asked, trying to elicit some response, some distraction. “Why
do
you want me so badly?”

“I am D'kar, son of Kor, and I mean to avenge his dishonor at your hand.”

Kor. The Klingon commander Kirk
almost
battled at Organia. Before the Organians pushed their highly evolved godlike noses into Federation-Klingon matters and compelled both truce and treaty.

“I don't want to kill you, Kirk.” When D'kar said Kirk's name, it sounded almost Klingon. “Not yet.” The young man holstered his disrupter and pulled out a shorter dagger, all in one very fluid, practiced movement. He may not have wanted Kirk dead, but he obviously didn't care if he was badly injured. “And this time there is no one to help you,” D'kar said. “Not your crewmen, not your ship, not the Organians, and not your closest ally, who hates you almost as much as I.”

Kirk's brows narrowed. Who here hated him? Anders. Had it gotten to that level? Would he sell Kirk out to the Klingons?

“You don't believe it?” D'kar taunted. “He told me where you were. He wants me to kill you, but we will save that honor for my father.”

“Your father,” Kirk said with a huff as he avoided a slash at his arm from D'kar's blade, “had no special quarrel with me.” He grabbed a handful of dirt and twigs and launched a cloud at the boy as he rolled one way, and then zigged back toward Kerby to see if he could still hear the ensign breathing. He also wanted the man's phaser, but Kerby had collapsed onto it and so Kirk remained weaponless. His eyes flicked a moment at the dagger stuck in Kerby's back. He heard the ensign continue to slosh blood and air out of his mouth, and so Kirk at least knew his crewman was still alive. That was something, and it was likely because the dagger had been thrown from a distance rather than thrust in by hand and then removed. Had the ensign been dead, Kirk might have taken the knife and used it to defend himself, but he wouldn't save his own life at the risk of another's.

What Kirk needed even more than a weapon was for McCoy to attend to Kerby. Or he needed Sulu for backup. He'd decided two of them should look for the Klingon shuttle and two should stay to protect the settlement because he didn't know how many Klingons had come looking for them. Now it was clear to Kirk that D'kar was his lone pursuer.

All these pinpoints of thought prickled against the back of his neck as he focused quickly between D'kar's eyes and his dagger hand.

“The Organians stopped that fight, D'kar. If you're looking for your father's lost honor, they have it—not me.”

With Kerby's body between them, D'kar was blocked from a clean shot at Kirk, but Kerby was now in harm's way. If D'kar should knock into the crewman, shifting the position of the dagger in his chest…

Young, but hardly stupid, D'kar must have noticed the flash of concern in Kirk's expression. He slid a boot toward Kerby menacingly. “He lives still. If you want to save him, remove your communicator and drop it to the ground.”

When Kirk didn't instantly move, D'kar inched closer still.

“I am serious, Kirk. I
will
end him.”

“All right.” Left hand raised in assent, Kirk nonchalantly reached behind his back with his right hand and brought his communicator forward and then dropped it to the ground in such a way that it opened as it fell. D'kar's eyes followed it down and Kirk took his moment.

He sprang forward, one hand crashing into D'kar's throat, the other wrapping around the wrist of his dagger hand.

Up close, D'kar seemed even younger and the thought that Kirk might actually have to kill him caused a momentary hesitation that the Klingon took advantage of. He kneed Kirk hard in the ribs, then butted his head forward and hit Kirk's chin.

Grunting out a held breath, Kirk slammed D'kar's hand against the hard dirt until his fingers lost their grip on the knife and it fell away. Keeping his left hand on the Klingon's wrist, Kirk pulled up one knee and pinned it into D'kar's chest. He used his right hand to grab for the dagger, but the shift in Kirk's center of gravity allowed D'kar to roll out and over. Unable to get the knife in a firm grasp, Kirk pushed it as far away as he could. If he couldn't have it, neither of them would.

D'kar scrambled for it, but Kirk grabbed hold of his leg and twisted him around. The Klingon howled in angry pain and spat at Kirk's face, then used his own limb to pull Kirk toward him—just enough to connect a swinging fist. Kirk felt his teeth grind against his cheek and his jaw stab into his left ear. He tasted blood, spat into the dirt with a huff, and felt a trickle drip down his bruised chin.

That much delay gave D'kar enough time to find the dagger and slice side to side. Kirk backed out of the way of each swing, arching his back until he was clear of the blade's tip.

In D'kar's eyes was such frustration, such rage and anger, that Kirk sensed he'd just won. D'kar had lost himself in the fight—lost his sense of purpose and goal and given himself over, completely, to base instinct.

Base instinct isn't why his father won battles. Training was. Cunning was. Experience was.

D'kar lunged, thrusting his knife wildly at Kirk's midsection. Kirk dodged, grabbed the boy's wrist with both hands, and twisted hard until he heard bone crack and the Klingon yelp.

A human would have been finished there. D'kar caught the dagger with his left hand as it slid from his broken right. Rage still blinding him, he tried to hit Kirk's arm with the blunt end of the handle, then plunge the blade into his stomach.

Quickly, Kirk twisted behind D'kar, bringing his broken wrist back as well, turning and lifting it until Kirk felt the Klingon's arm snap in two. A murderous scream cracked the sky. When Kirk heard the dagger fall, he knew D'kar had lost lucidity. Kirk pushed him to the dirt, rolled to the phaser he'd kept a bead on, and fired, stunning D'kar where he lay.

In two steps he was back to Kerby. The ensign groaned as Kirk touched his neck to feel his pulse strength. Blood aspirated from his nose and mouth. Kirk reached for the open communicator.

Before his fingers could make contact, the familiar hum of a transporter beam bounced around like a million insects. Three columns of sparkle coalesced, and Spock materialized before him, flanked by two security guards.

Relief washed over Kirk as he scooped up the communicator and exchanged a grateful glance with his first officer. Instead of calling McCoy and having the doctor rush to Kerby's side, now the
Enterprise
was once again at Kirk's disposal.

He held the communicator near his chin with one hand and adjusted the channel with the other, despite the phaser still clenched within it. “Kirk to
Enterprise.
”

“Enterprise.
Captain, it's good to hear your voice, sir.”
Uhura's voice—crisp, clear, and angelic.

“Uhura, emergency medical team to the transporter room. Ensign Kerby needs immediate attention. These coordinates.”

“Aye, sir.”

Kirk stepped away and watched silently as Kerby's body was beamed away.

“Your timing, Mr. Spock,” Kirk began as he allowed himself a moment to breathe again, “hopefully just saved Ensign Kerby's life.” The captain smiled a bit, noticed the feel of dried blood at the corner of his mouth, and thumbed it clean, glancing at the deep red smear before brushing it against his filthy tunic.

“Your open communicator signal in combination with your inability or unwillingness to respond to hails suggested you might be having difficulty.” Spock motioned to D'kar, who lay prostrate a few meters away. “A Klingon?”

Kirk nodded. “One source of my difficulty.”

One of Spock's brows rose in curiosity. “There is another?”

“Get this one to the brig. I'll have a word with the other.”

 

They found Anders just where Michael and Alexandria had said he would be: on a crude, handmade bench in the middle of a cave formed by thicket, draped by what in the spring would be hanging vines plush with leaves and pillared with tall, old trees. Anders said nothing as they approached, and Alexandria kneeled on the mossy carpet so she could look into his eyes.

“Captain?” When he did not respond she whispered his name. “Simon?”

“Bones.” Kirk nodded his head toward Anders, and McCoy used a small hand medical scanner for a moment, then glanced at his tricorder.

“He's in shock, Jim.”

“Shock from what?” Michael asked, looking from McCoy to Kirk. “I thought you said we were safe now. What did the Klingon do to him?”

“Nothing,” Kirk said. “It's what
I
did to him.” Some people had a natural ability to lead. The signs could be seen at an early age. Starfleet took Kirk's leadership instincts and trained them, honed them, and molded Kirk into the captain he was. Without the training working in conjunction with his innate abilities, he wouldn't be that captain. Simon Anders had the same abilities. And the man who trained him for leadership, Captain Mendez, had molded Anders into the perfect man to be the leader of these stranded people.

But just as Kirk had not been trained to lead a corporation or a nation, or even a colonial settlement, Anders had not been trained to deal with interstellar politics and alien invasions. That's what Kirk and D'kar had been to him—an alien invasion. Anders was a leader who could secure his people from a bad winter or a lover's quarrel, but he'd not been trained to deal with the crisis Kirk had thrust on him.

Anders looked up at Kirk, his expression a mixture of self-loathing, relief, and fear. “I—I told him where to find you. He made me. I—” He began to sob. “I wanted to tell him and wanted him to persuade me.” It was a cathartic admission. Michael looked at Anders with doubt and Alexandra held him in a way that she had probably never done before—as a patient.

Kirk thumbed a button on the transporter console, activating the comm. “Kirk to bridge.” D'kar was being escorted from his security cell, and just in case, Kirk had ordered the corridors cleared along the way.

“Uhura here. We have the coordinates, Captain.”

“Transmit them to Mr. Scott, Lieutenant.” Kirk nodded at Scotty, who stood to his left, ready at the controls. McCoy stood by, for reasons Kirk was not sure of, but he was glad to have him close, and Spock was at the auxiliary scanner that linked to the bridge. The science officer kept a tight eye on the energy output of the Klingon cruiser. There might be a treaty that obliged adherence to certain regulations, but no accord could compel trust. Only time would do that.

“Ready, Mr. Scott?”

“Aye, Captain,” the engineer said. “Ready as I can be, beaming Klingons aboard.”

Kirk nodded. He understood the feeling and glanced at the single security guard near the doorway. The crewman had his phaser at the ready.

“Energize.”

The transporter dais came to life; lights flashed and energy hummed through circuitous veins. A mast of sparkle appeared and congealed into flesh, bringing Commander Kor aboard the
Enterprise.