Chapter 5

She sorely wanted to strangle the p'tahk but couldn't bring herself to touch him to do so.

Major Gemma stood on one of the transporter pads of the IKV Pagh, struggling to master the tremor that fought her for the control of her own body. "Stop that!" she grumbled to herself, unsettled by the old fear that still haunted her.

"Major," the burly transporter operator announced, "the Federation starship is ready to receive you in their transporter room."

With a snarl on her lips, she merely grunted at the young warrior. He couldn't know that the last time she'd beamed aboard a Federation starship had been to escape from a crippled D-7 battlecruiser. Back then, she'd served under then Captain Kang and Science Officer Mara, her lifelong friends. On that terrible day, they'd lost more than four hundred crewmen to radiation poisoning and before the rest of the survivors could succumb, they were all whisked off their dying ship by the infamous Federation starship, the USS Enterprise. Expecting a fate far worse than death, particularly when she'd seen that one of those Federation animals had torn Mara's uniform in an attempt to defile her friend, Gemma had never expected to leave that terrible ship in one piece.

Now, her present commander wanted her to beam into the lion's den without a weapon in hand? What in the world did he expect her to use to defend herself if it came down to it, foul language? Gemma growled as she tightened the muscles in her small, yet powerful frame as she remembered the conversation that had led to her present predicament.

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Qu'valth!

Nearly everyone within earshot of her curse raced to be somewhere else as the little chief engineer raged against the dauntless (or foolhardy, depending on one's perspective) commander of the Pagh.

"You brain-addled p'takh!" Gemma spat. "You just had to match your pet Human in a contest of idiocy, didn't you?"

Commander Klagh, a boy who'd possessed a crush on her a quarter of a century ago when she'd come to serve the House of K'naiah, simply graced her with a madman's smile. His action served to only make her even more furious than she'd been a moment ago. "It was magnificent, was it not, old woman?" Now, she growled under her breath at the young idiot who apparently did not realize how close to Sto-vo-kor he was. He knew she hated when he called her 'old.' For Kahless' sakes, fifty-one years does not make one old! As she surreptitiously scanned the engineering room for any sign of a handy batleth, the boy said, "Warp nine for nine days straight, a feat never done by anyone before!"

She snorted at him then. "Yes, and all we had to do to achieve this dubious distinction was to cripple our warp drive! Of all the brainless, incredibly reckless, egotistical stunts you've ever pulled, this definitely tops them all!"

Of course, most commanders would never have stood for a subordinate to berate them like this. Klagh, though, enjoyed her friendship and her competence. He always knew where she stood and she'd pulled their butts out of the fire on more than one occasion. Besides, she realized he thought a tiny woman like her looked charming standing up to a Klingon warrior twice her size. Now, he laughed boisterously and said, "Oh, Gemma! If you were only a few years younger, I would take you to join my house!"

She shook her head at that. "That would never happen, Klagh. It would be like having par'Mach with my male cousin."

"Perhaps we could be like the Humans from the primitive place they call 'West Virginia' in this regard and be 'kissing cousins' as it were?"

She rolled her eyes as a tiny smile broke out across her face. The man had always been quite a cad and a charmer even when he was a boy. Gemma had come to serve the House of K'naiah after Kang's and Klagh's father had died defending the empire from the Romulans. Soon after, she'd grown quite close to Mara, Kang's young and beautiful wife. As the family and their retainers had prepared their father's battlecruiser for deployment, Gemma had acted as a personal adjunct to Kang and Lady Mara. On several occasions, she'd taken the teenaged Klagh to several of the bustling entertainment venues for the young. On those wild nights, the young Klagh proved himself to be quite a rascal with an acute eye for the ladies even at his tender age.

Now, a strapping man of thirty-eight, Klagh still possessed some of that boyish charm that always brought a smile to her face.

"Klagh," she snapped with mock seriousness, "I have no time for seduction even by a boy as pretty as you." He frowned at that. Good, she mused. No self-respecting Klingon male ever wanted to be called a 'pretty boy.' Then she said, "We need to repair that port nacelle. You know as well as I that it will affect our ability to maneuver the ship even during combat at impulse speeds. I just can't believe you allowed our ship to be crippled above the homeworld of the Humans!"

He simply smirked at her and drawled, "Gemma, you know full well that the planet below us is NOT the homeworld of the Humans we know so well."

"How do you know that for certain?"

"My lady, it's quite simple really. These new Humans are nothing like the ones who sent a single starship to defeat the Xindi, who stopped an all-out war between the Andorians and the Vulcans, two races even we would hesitate to wage war against, who led the charge against the Romulans and halted their pointy-eared dreams of galactic conquest, and who forged an interstellar alliance that now spans seven thousand light years. These poor cousins of the Humans we know cannot even provide the Minbari a decent challenge. They die like herd animals, penned inside their tiny area of space, weak and alone. No, Gemma, for all their pious attitudes and maddening hypocrisy, the Humans we know like Kirk, Tapin, Sulu, Mendez, and Tynen, are the brave and the bold. They and those they lead would never be as pitiable as the Humans on this side of the galaxy."

Although it pained her to do so, she had to agree with Klagh on that point. It'd been Kirk who stood against Kang as the Enterprise had hurtled toward the edge of the galaxy. If the Human hadn't disarmed himself before his enemy and convinced Kang of the malevolent entity's desire, she, and all the rest of them, would have been lost among the stars fighting a never-ending, meaningless battle all to slake the appetite of some non-corporeal thing.

The brave and the bold-indeed, the Federation Humans were certainly that and more.

Gemma sighed deeply and said, "All right, Klagh. I suppose you are correct in this regard. However, the fact remains that the warp coil in the port nacelle is completely wrecked. It has to be replaced. It'll take me at least a week to fashion a new one, and I really mean that," she hastened to make him understand this wasn't the typical chief engineering estimate padding she'd given him.

Klagh nodded. "What's the best she can do until repairs have been completed?"

She shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I'd say warp three point five, safely, maybe warp four, but you'd be pushing it. In fact, we might form an unstable wormhole if we aren't careful."

At that moment, the communication officer announced overhead, "Bridge to Klagh."

The commander crossed over to a nearby intercom wall panel and punched the button. "Klagh here."

"Sir, the Federation starship is contacting us. They have provided us the time and coordinates for beaming down your party to EarthDome. Also, she seems to be aware of the problem we're having with the warp coil. Their chief engineer claims they can modify a spare they have on hand to fit our nacelle if our engineer can go over to their ship and help with the modifications. What do you wish for me to say to them?"

Klagh smiled coyly and said, "Tell them I'm sending Major Gemma to assist them with the modification of their proffered warp coil. Tell them we appreciate their assistance. Klagh out."

As he snapped of the intercom, he turned to her with a wide grin on his face. "Suffice it to say, Major, do I need to remind you to be on your best behavior while you're off on your little field trip, hmm?"

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Struggling mightily to control her apprehension at being sent on an errand among people who'd been considered as dangerous enemies until recently, she regarded the operator with a frown. "Give me a moment, specialist."

"Aye, major."

She drew her communicator and flipped open its antenna grid. "Gemma to Lieutenant Loktan."

Another woman answered immediately. "Loktan here."

"How goes the Starkiller deployment?"

Gemma imagined she could see her assistant's smile through the communicator. "All goes well, major. We should have the device operational within the hour."

"Good, Loktan. Make certain that you program the artificial intelligence to recognize Starfleet and EarthForce vessels along with ours. It would be…unfortunate if one of our platforms blasted an allies' ship out of space."

"Understood, major. Loktan out."

After her assistant had signed off, Gemma placed her communicator back on her belt and glanced at the transporter operator. "I am ready, now. Energize," she snapped.

As the effect of the beam swept through her body, the operator and the room began to fade from her view. However, in her mind's eye, the maddening image of Klagh's grin after he'd decided to send her to the USS Valkyrie continued to linger in her mind like the ghostly smiles of the phantasmal felines on the Leonis system planet her people called Underland.

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"Sir, the Klingons are transporting their chief engineer over to us now."

Janja Rad, the Valkyrie's chief engineer nodded. "Okay, thank you, Mister Green," he said to the female transporter operator as he waited for his counterpart's arrival. He was smiling broadly at the moment. Imagine, he mused to himself, a Klingon engineer on my ship! Like his people had long before the war that had nearly annihilated the Catullan race generations ago, the Klingons had been traveling in interstellar space for centuries. Their designs were known to be quite practical yet elegant. Janja was looking forward to comparing notes with an engineer good enough to nurse her ship to keep up with the fastest, most powerful vessel in Starfleet, the Val, if Rad said so himself.

However, not everyone on the ship was excited about having a Klingon on board. Chief Stockton, a stalwart and easy-going man on Rad's alpha shift, had shared his discomfort with him once the man had found out a Klingon was coming over for a visit.

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"Janja, believe you me, I'll be happy when that Klingon is back on his own ship."

"You don't care for the Klingons, do you, Matt?"

"I like them fine. It's just that…I know them. You need eyes in the back of your head when you're around those people. You see, Janja, I was with the rescue crew from my frigate, the Rutledge, on Ajilon Prime the morning after so-called Klingon 'marauders' had massacred most of the colonists. We'd been too late, of course. Almost everyone had been killed. The only people who'd survived were in an outlying district of the settlement. I'd been sent there with a MACO squad to reinforce the district. Later that day, more Klingons had advanced on us; they'd moved through the streets, destroying, killing. I was assigned to protect a group of women and children when two Klingon warriors burst into the house. I'd stunned one of them but the other, a female, had jumped me. We'd struggled and I couldn't believe the bloody bitch had almost beat me down."

"Wow, Chief! What happened next?"

"Well, one of the kids tossed me a Phaser I and I fired. The phaser was on the maximum setting. The woman just incinerated, right before my eyes. Janja…I'd never killed anything before. When I was a kid, I couldn't even hurt a fly. So, you see," Stockton whispered as the man looked at Rad with tear-filled eyes, "it's not the Klingons I hate. I hate what I became because of them."

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The engineering chief's mind snapped back to the present as a form began to materialize inside waves of gold on one of the pads. Moments later, a mature yet attractive woman garbed in steel-gray armor and long black boots stood in the transporter alcove. She was petite and dark like most Klingons, nearly matching Captain Tynen's skin tone. As Rad studied her uniform, he noticed she appeared to be unarmed, an unusual circumstance, as far as he knew, for a Klingon. She carried nothing on her belt except for a device that appeared to be their version of a communicator and another that looked like a PADD.

Stepping forward, he smiled and said, "Welcome aboard, Major Gemma. I'm Lieutenant Commander Janja Rad, Chief Engineer."

The woman glared at him in response. "Rad. So you believe you can assist us with modifying one of your warp coils to fit our requirements." It sounded more like a statement rather than a question. Then she smirked and declared, "I think I shall be the arbiter of that."

"O-kay," Rad mumbled under his breath. Wow, he wondered inwardly, is it just me or did the temperature suddenly drop to absolute zero in here? "Follow me, major," he offered and guided her out of the transporter room.

As they walked…well, actually, as he walked while she stalked like a tigress through the ship's corridor, the Klingon engineer asked, "Where are you taking me, Rad?"

"We're heading for our Recreation Room."

"Recreation?" she snapped. "Is your mind addled, commander? My ship requires extensive repairs. I have no time for amusement!"

Rad chuckled at that. "Neither do I, major. Although the room can be used for recreation purposes, we also use it for work-related purposes, as well. Our Rec Rooms on board the Constitution and Constellation classes have holographic capability. They allow us to use photons and transporter technology to simulate real things such as trees, plants, machinery, and warp coils. So we can use it to assist us in modifying our stock design to fit your specifications and allow you to experience it in three dimensions. Once we have the modifications to your liking, we'll use our phaser drills set on their fine settings to shape the gallicite coil to fit your nacelle."

She said nothing in response to his explanation and they both were silent until they reached the entrance of the Rec Room. "We're here," Janja said as the door swept aside to allow them inside. At first the space appeared to be a box-like cubicle, with black walls and yellow grid lines on each surface. Then Rad said, "Computer, initiate program Rad 17."

Soon, a pleasant female voice sounded throughout the compartment. "Program Rad 17, initiated."

Moments later, an object that appeared to be a Federation warp coil materialized right before their very eyes.

"Astounding!" the Klingon woman said. "It looks so real."

"Unfortunately, it's only real inside this room, major."

"Rad," she sighed, "if we are to work together on this project, let us dispense with rank, shall we? Call me Gemma."

Janja nodded to her. "All right. I would like it if you called me Janja."

"Fine…Janja it is," she agreed. Then a puzzled look crossed her attractive face. "Is that a traditional Human name?"

Rad shook his head. "I'm not Human. I've never met a Human who possessed the kind of lavender-colored hair that a lot of my people, including me, possess. I'm Catullan. My homeworld is the sixth planet in the Theta Pictoris system."

For some reason, the air of wariness seemed to diminish a bit around her. "So, you are not Human?"

"No."

She seemed to take that in stride for a moment. Then she nodded. "Very well, Janja. How do we operate your program?"

"Well, if your ship is a K'tinga class battlecruiser, you can just tell the computer to call up the specifications from its memory banks and it'll automatically modify our stock to fit."

Janja was somewhat surprised when she growled under her breath at him. "She is not a K'tinga class ship."

"She isn't?"

"No," she answered gruffly. Then she rolled her eyes and said, "If you must know, the Pagh is a C-7 heavy battlecruiser."

Janja had to bite his lip to keep from shouting for joy. "A C-7 heavy battlecruiser? his mind screamed inside. Although his engineering cronies had heard whispers about its existence, he'd never given them much credence. Designed to be the pinnacle of the cruiser design, the C7 was supposed to easily match the Kzinti Heavy Battlecruiser and the Federation Excelsior-class. Hell, one of them could probably give the Val a run for her money! Bristling with weaponry and blessed with the superior maneuverability and firing arcs that the Klingon designs were known for, Gemma's ship would be a very difficult opponent for any starship to defeat.

"The coil dimensions for her are slightly different than those for the K'tinga."

Janja blinked twice then said, "Oh, well, in that case, if you have the dimensions for a C-7 coil, just say them out loud. The computer will automatically modify the dimensions based on your input."

Gemma nodded and detached her PADD from her belt. Then before she called out the first set of numbers, she turned to her fellow engineer. "Do I need to translate our measurements into yours?"

Janja shook his head and said, "No. The computer will automatically do that for you. Just let it know you're using Klingon measurements instead of Federation standard."

"All right, then," she said. "Let us begin."

She inputted measurements from her PADD, stopping often to check her work. Her attention to detail and the discipline she wielded impressed the hell out of Rad. Meanwhile, the coil began to take shape into something that appeared to be quite different than the Federation assembly which they had at the beginning of the process.

After she'd completed shaping the coil, Rad said, "Computer, generate a cross section image of the Pagh's port warp nacelle and super impose it over the warp coil."

Almost immediately, a transparent image of the nacelle overlaid in place around the coil.

Gemma gasped and asked, "How did you do that?"

Janja gave her a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"The housing…it fits perfectly!"

He shrugged and said, "We obtained the measurements from our scans."

She shot a grudging look of respect his way. "Your sensor capabilities are most…impressive."

"Thanks," he said simply. Then he called out, "Computer, run a simulation with the new coil in place and detail performance estimations."

"Simulation complete," the computer answered.

"Impact analysis, computer," he said.

"Warp performance has increased ten percent."

"What?" Gemma snapped. "How can that be?"

"Computer, isolate reason performance has improved."

"Performance improvement is due to the purity of the gallicite used in the Federation coil assembly. The current coil in the scanned nacelle is 90 percent pure. The Federation coil is 99.999 percent pure in comparison."

There was silence in the room for several moments before Gemma whispered, "The resources you possess demonstrate how wanting my people are in relation to yours."

"Well," Janja said, "I wouldn't exactly say that. What I would say, though, is that you, me and all the rest of us in the expeditionary fleet are all in the same boat, a boat that's soon to be surrounded by a whole bunch of sharks that want nothing more than to wipe out all Humans everywhere. I don't think the Minbari will be too discriminating about whom they eradicate if they happen to be in the vicinity of said Humans. So, I believe the best way I can help myself is to help you."

She smiled and he thought it made her look really pretty. "Well, as my former captain once had said while we'd been 'guests' of another Federation starship long ago, 'Only a fool fights in a burning house.' Perhaps we should work together to extinguish the blaze that threatens to engulf us all."

"As the Humans might say, 'that works for me,'" he said with a grin. "In the meantime, let's go down to ship's stores and start work on modifying the coil. Then, we'll use one of our worker bees to transport the assembly over to your ship. I'm thinking from start to finish, we should be done in twelve standard hours." Then just before he called for the exit to the room, he asked her, "Can you can handle a phaser drill?"

"Does it handle like a weapon?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I think so."

"Then we shouldn't have any problems. I'm Klingon," she noted with a smirk. "Let's go!"

"Computer, exit Rec Room," he said, while thinking that her sneer was quite fetching. Then as the door appeared and they started for it, he called out to the room, "Save program as Rad 1-K and end program."

After they'd exited the room, the door swished closed behind them, leaving the space empty once more.

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