CHAPTER 18

The first place Reed checked the next morning was the docking bay. The scout ship, he found, was locked up tight.

Unlocking the hatch, he climbed in and saw that the bunk was rumpled. Apparently Tucker had spent the night aboard, but he was gone now.

Reed quickly checked the interior. Everything seem to be in order, nothing missing, nothing out of place. Sitting down in the pilot's chair, his gaze came to rest on the communications console.

It was tempting. He could make a quick, compressed communications burst to Archer. He decided against it, though, as he still had a few days before the time limit he'd given Archer was up.

There was also a chance the Klingons would pick up the transmission, then all hell would break loose. No sense angering them when he had reached the point where he was allowed to move about the Falcon without an escort. He'd have to trust to luck that Enterprise would be close enough to show up like the cavalry of the old American West if he needed help.

Tucker was probably in engineering. He and Malin seemed to be getting along well, and Reed had no doubt that the ebullient engineer was down in the bowels of the ship, tinkering with something or other to improve the Falcon's engine and passing along some expertise to the young Klingon at the same time.

He'd go check to make sure that was where Tucker had gotten off to. Climbing back out of the scout ship, he shut the hatch and initialized the locking mechanism, only to jump when a huge hand clamped down on his shoulder.

"Why do you lock it, Ma'Com?"

Reed turned around to face Kleth. "No offense, Kleth," he said, "but your engineers really don't know much. This is more to keep them from unintentionally damaging my ship than it is to keep them out, if they should become curious."

Kleth's expression told Reed that he didn't buy that story but was willing to go along with it.

"The Captain would not be pleased if something were to happen to this ship," the Klingon said, adding, "whether our engineers -- or yours -- caused it."

"Look, Kleth," Reed said, blowing out a frustrated breath of air. "We both want the same thing -- we want to get Shidak. I'm working with you on this. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize that."

"As long as you remember that, there will be no problems," Kleth said.

Reed stepped around the Klingon, intent on finding Tucker, and Kleth fell into step with him. "Where are you going now?" the Klingon asked.

"Engineering," he replied shortly, wondering if he had been wrong about being able to roam the ship freely and Kleth would dog his footsteps all day. "I want to see what Tucker is up to."

Kleth chuckled. "That one! He is what you Humans call 'skittish.' Malin seems impressed with him, however."

"Tucker knows engines," Reed assured him. "You couldn't have a better person working on the Falcon's."

"Let us hope so," Kleth said. "She will need every advantage when we confront that son of a targ Shidak."

They walked in silence until they reached the ladder that would take them to engineering. Reed has just put his foot on the top rung when Kleth's unexpected comment stopped him.

"She isn't Klingon, no matter how much she pretends to be."

Reed had been trying to push thoughts of Hoshi out of his mind all morning. That's why he was meandering around the Falcon, trying to find things to do. At least he might be able to do something productive if he wasn't near her. The things he thought of when she was close to him had nothing to do with his mission.

Drawing his foot back up to the deck, Reed resigned himself to listening to Kleth. Hoshi had told him the big Klingon was something of a philosopher, and he could see by the look on Kleth's face that he was in the mood to talk.

"I think I've figured out that she's not Klingon," Reed said with a small smile, crossing his arms as he waited for Kleth's next pronouncement.

"She does not deserve to die."

Reed's heart sped up at this statement, which sparked a flame of anger in him. "She's not going to die. Not if I can do anything about it," Reed said heatedly, dropping his hands down to his sides where they clenched into fists.

He realized as soon as he had spoken that he had fallen into a trap. The fact that is was a subtle trap sprung by a Klingon was unusual, but it was a trap nevertheless.

"I charge you to keep her safe, Ma'Com," Kleth said, his eyes glittering in the dimness of the corridor.

"I thought that was part of your job," Reed countered.

"I guard her, yes, but there may soon come a time when I am not able to do that."

Do Klingons have premonitions, Reed wondered. He didn't think Kleth was in any danger from the crew, so he must be talking about when they would reach the pirates' lair. He considered the possibility that Kleth was planning something that neither he nor Hoshi knew about, but couldn't figure out what it might be.

Reed also felt a touch of pride that Kleth, the faithful bodyguard as well as the embodiment of all that Klingons admired, had formally entrusted him with Hoshi's safety, knowing the high regard in which he held her.

"I'd give my life for hers," he told the Klingon solemnly, and saw Kleth give him a brief approving nod.

Tucker was hip-deep in schematics when Reed and Kleth strode into engineering. Three Klingons, including Malin, were gathered around the engineer as he traced a line of circuitry with his finger, showing them how to bypass a relay that had gone on the fritz.

"Report!" Kleth barked loudly as he approached the knot of engineers, causing Tucker to jump.

"The port exhaust manifold is now operating at maximum efficiency," Malin said, "and the intermix ratio is at eighty-seven per--"

His report was interrupted by the appearance of Hoshi, who clambered down a ladder from the upper level. Reed hadn't even known she was in engineering, and he watched as she gracefully stepped down and onto the deck. Striding over to them, she gave Kleth a fierce smile, then a softer one to him.

"Continue," she said, her voice taking on the inflections of a Klingon as she turned to the engineers. "I would like to know how it goes."

Awed by her attention, Malin gulped and said, "The intermix ratio is at eighty-seven percent, but Tucker believes we can improve that."

As all eyes shifted to him, Tucker swallowed and nodded. "Shouldn't be too hard to do," he said. "It'll take 'bout a day."

"Good!" Hoshi said. "Continue with your work."

As she left engineering at a brisk walk, Kleth chuckled and leaned down from his great height to comment to Reed. "She is like this all the time, showing up with no notice around the ship. It keeps the crew on their toes."

Reed wasn't paying attention to Kleth. He was glaring at Malin instead. The other engineers had gone back to work but Malin was staring off in the direction in which Hoshi had gone.

"There is another one who would die for her," Reed said to Kleth, unable to keep the jealously out of his voice.

Kleth clapped Reed on the shoulder, almost knocking him over. "Just so long as he doesn't share her bed, eh, Ma'Com?"

Reed didn't bother to dignify that remark with a reply, but couldn't keep a snarl from escaping his lips. Malin caught the snarl and hastily rejoined the group of engineers.

"Very good, Ma'Com," the big Klingon said. "That should keep him in line...and out of her cabin."