Chapter 22

IKV Pagh – C-7 Battlecruiser – Commander's Office

Local Time – 0830

"Captain Gi'ral of the IKV Malevolent reporting as ordered, sir!"

She stood in front of the man's desk and her nostrils flared when she caught the irresistible allure of his masculine scent in the air. Stifling a growl that would have been inappropriate at the moment, she waited for him to respond to her entry into his sanctum sanctorum.

In response he simply nodded to the straight back chair that was placed in front of his desk. "At ease, Lady Gi'ral. Please sit."

She seated herself, somewhat taken aback by his summons to his battlecruiser. As the second son of one of the eldest, most powerful noble families, she'd expected Klagh to be as intimidating as his elder brother was known to be. Their house had produced scions known to have been the finest warriors and explorers of the Klingon Empire.

Now she sat down in the proffered chair and he then asked, "Would you care for a cup of raktacino or would you prefer prune juice?"

As a well-bred lady of a minor noble house, she knew the proper response to give the attractive male. "I shall have what you're having, Commander Klagh."

He flashed her a grin and she struggled mightily to keep from squirming in her chair at the feelings his animal magnetism had unleashed inside her.

"Raktacino it is then!" He rose from behind his desk and poured two cups of the steaming hot brew. After he'd served both her and himself, they both took several sips of their beverages before they began to converse. "Lady Gi'ral—"

"Excuse me, my lord," she broke in. "I would be greatly honored if you chose to forego using our titles while we talk in the privacy of your office."

He nodded magnanimously to her. "Very well, Gi'ral. However, to be fair, I must insist that you call me Klagh and forego the use of my rank."

In deference, she gave him a curt bow. "I agree to your terms, Klagh. Before we go on, though, may I offer my apologies for the interruption?"

"Any apologies are both unnecessary and unrequired, Gi'ral. In fact, your directness pleases me greatly."

She shot a tiny smile at him. What she'd heard about him in various ports-of-call back home was true. He truly was a silver-tongued devil! "Thank you for your consideration, Klagh."

"You are most welcome. Now I wanted to tell you that your encounter with the Alliance Earth surveillance vessel was brought to my brother's and my attention. We were quite pleased with the way you handled the matter."

She was surprised that members of such a powerful house had offered her such a gracious complement, particularly after Koloth and Kang had practically laid down the law regarding the necessity for being…pleasant to the new humans during the war with the Minbari. Indeed, they had been told to treat the Alliance Earth humans as if they were the powerful and mysterious Gorns. "Klagh, I had no intention of blowing that primitive garbage scow out of this universe. I simply wanted these new humans to understand that it would be quite foolish to take us lightly."

"I agree wholeheartedly with you, Gi'ral. They simply could have asked to have that pitiful ship monitor the planetary shield test. Tynen and I would have allowed it. Frankly, though, they didn't surprise us whatsoever. Kang, Koloth, Tynen and I had expected them to try something like that."

"You see," he continued, "unlike the humans we deal with in the Alpha Quadrant, these people are about as subtle as a battlecruiser's disruptor banks. Their attempts at deceit lack any finesse, as Tynen would say. Actually I'd relish it if they'd offered any real challenge. However, one thing that is refreshing about them is they don't pretend to be uninterested in amassing an empire like our Federation allies do. However, the way you handled them impressed us. That human captain knew she was outclassed without the need for you energize your disruptor capacitors. Kang, Koloth and I require someone with your cunning for a mission that requires a subtle…touch."

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a feral smile. Whatever he was going to launch her way had definitely piqued her interest. Being the captain of a frigate required someone who thought outside of the box and who didn't always play by the rules. It also required someone who knew that a frigate wasn't a brawler's weapon. With her cloaking device and the proper kill slot, a Klingon frigate was a knife between the ribs, silent and deadly.

Now she leaned forward into his implied web of conspiracy. "Will this mission be dangerous?"

He grinned wickedly. "Oh, exceedingly so!" he exclaimed. "I will not mislead you. You shall run up against perhaps the most dangerous being in the known galaxy. There is no question he won't know what you are up to. He is so paranoid he can see everything in the game. The trick is doing what we require you to do without angering him to the point he decides to remove you from the board…permanently."

She blinked twice at that. "I see."

"Still interested?"

She nodded resolutely.

"We have chosen well, Lady Gi'ral," he said, the honor he felt toward her plain in his voice. "What I am about to tell you is classified at the highest security level of the Empire. You are not to discuss this matter with anyone except Koloth, Kang or me, understood?"

"Understood."

He grunted. "Good. In the Academy, you studied the Adversary's logs, did you not?"

She regarded him with a hint of annoyance in her steady gaze. Why, any warship captain worth her salt had studied the voyages of the infamous yet revered James Tiberius Kirk's starship Enterprise. Only Klagh's brother, Kang, had a similarly illustrious career as the human the warriors of the Empire had decreed was the Great Adversary. Kirk was the starship commander every warship commander would give his or her eyeteeth to engage in a confrontation either in combat or a battle of wits, it mattered not.

Now she responded to his question simply. "Of course."

"Do you recall the details of the Enterprise's survey mission of Pollux IV?"

"Yes!" she hissed, the excitement plain on her face. "The crew encountered an advanced alien being who'd identified itself as one of the old gods of the human home world from several millennia ago. The creature intended to destroy the ship and demand the crew to remain on that world to worship it."

"Very good, Gi'ral. Obviously the Adversary didn't take kindly to the entity's demand."

She shook her head vigorously. "Of course, he didn't! Kirk destroyed the thing's power source and slew it! Like our honored ancestors from long ago, he killed a god!"

"Indeed, he did. However, what wasn't released in the logs at the Academy was the fact that the entity had seduced one of the women in Kirk's crew. Despite the love she felt for the thing, Kirk crushed her feelings of devotion for the entity by sheer force of will. Then he commanded her to distract the creature's attention while he and his ship engineered the being's destruction."

She gasped out loud. "He was truly so brazen? So bold? Why was he not born a Klingon?!"

Klagh simply nodded. "He is a living legend who's been touched by greatness. Kirk fought and defeated a Gorn single-handedly without energy weapons. By himself, he destroyed a virtually indestructible doomsday machine from some intergalactic aliens' forgotten war with nothing but a wrecked starship while gambling his life on the workings of his own ship's malfunctioning transporter. On another occasion, his ship, power almost gone, found a way to destroy a single cell organism that spanned almost an entire sector of space, saving countless worlds from destruction. He saved my brother, my brother's wife and himself along with his crew from spending an eternity in the depths of space providing sustenance for some incorporeal thing that had trapped them on the Enterprise. And, yes, Gi'ral, he has killed gods." Then he gazed right through her, his sight on something far beyond his ship's bulkhead. "Why was Kirk not born a Klingon? I think because if we did not have him as the Adversary we would never have discovered that cooperation and a common purpose with someone so…alien to our sensibilities provided us the means to adapt and survive the challenges we now face in this newly expanded galaxy."

She waited patiently for his consciousness to return from where it had gone to the office they currently shared. Moments later, he smiled at her and said, "Be that as it may, let me reveal the secret that I hinted to earlier. Kirk did not return from his encounter with the Pollux entity empty-handed. You see, Gi'ral, the creature did far more than seduce Kirk's female officer. It sired a child with her! That child is now an officer assigned to the USS Valkyrie and is under the personal protection of Jason Tynen, her captain and the deadliest assassin to ever work for the Federation's ultra-secret counterintelligence agency."

"B-but, he is an acquaintance of yours, is he not?"

"Oh we're far more than that to each other, Gi'ral. We fought and destroyed an intergalactic doomsday machine of our own, a battle that started us both down the road to join my brother and the Adversary as elite starship commanders. That dark human and I are as close as brothers in some ways. Of course, that little fact doesn't stand in the way of either of us doing our duty for our respective governments. Besides, if I didn't try something like this, he'd be sorely disappointed in me!"

"I see," she said, although, in truth, she truly didn't.

"You shall meet Lt. Athena Palamas later this morning when your frigate lands at the Aerotech Corporation's spaceport to pick up and transport the Alliance Earth warp test vehicle to its launch point. Lt. Palamas is currently assigned to assist one of the Federation's propaganda purveyors who provides information about our task force's activities back to the people in both the Federation and the Empire. He's also the only propaganda purveyor the Alliance Earth government trusts to report on the warp test without revealing any information about the person who holds the license for the warp drive technology developed by that individual's ancestor. Let us just say that no one wants a certain advanced alien species in this part of the galaxy to discover this person's identity at this point in time. Gi'ral, in addition to your mission to assist the Alliance Earth people with their warp drive test, you are to observe closely the Pollux entity's offspring, Athena Palamas, as soon as she sets foot aboard your ship. Interact with her as much as possible without doing anything to arouse her suspicions. I also want you to have both your science officer and chief medical officer conduct surreptitious scans of her person continuously. However, if she gives you or your officers any sign she may be aware of their surveillance, have them immediately cease scanning her. You should know it is possible that she may be telepathic or possess other abilities that could constitute a threat to your ship and crew. Even so, you shall avoid the use or the threat of the use of force against her at any and all costs. If you don't and you manage to survive an encounter with Lt. Palamas, I assure you that you won't survive one with Tynen. He will kill you and he'll do it in such a fashion it will appear to any observer as an accident or the result of natural causes. Perhaps Palamas is a godling but you would do well to fear him far more than you should fear her."

While she pondered on the casual way Klagh had described the incredibly lethal nature of his 'friend,' the Klingon commander added, "Besides, our joint effort against the Minbari takes precedence over any espionage or intelligence operations against our allies. Even though the opportunity to study the offspring of an incredibly advanced alien being, one perhaps on the same order as the Metrons or the Organians, is quite fortuitous, our budding relationship with the Federation is more important to the Empire at the present time. So, take great care with this mission, Gi'ral. Do not do anything that leads to death or dishonor along the lines of Krudge's bitter legacy that fool had left in his wake."

The frigate captain nearly spat out an extreme obscenity at Klagh's utterance of that fool's name, her noble lady's sensibilities be damned! The brainless cur's mind had been so addled in his pursuit of the Federation's secret of Genesis, he'd destroyed nearly everything in his path. Why had Kludge decided to kill his own loyal wife to maintain a secret she would have shared with no one? No sane Klingon could ever find an answer to that question that made any sense. For Kahless' sake, the idiot only had to lock onto her with his transporter, beam her aboard his frigate and she would have lived. Even worse than that unpardonable sin against his own house, the cretin ordered the death of the Adversary's only son, not knowing or even caring who he'd had within his grasp and who could have helped him succeed with his mission! Talk about not seeing the jungle for the trees! By lashing out mindlessly at everything around him like a maddened targ, the secret of Genesis had slipped through the Empire's fingers and its honor had been stained for nearly a decade or so all due to the folly of Krudge.

Now she'd regained her composure, nodded curtly and gave Klagh her patented competent-frigate-captain's-look-of-unshakable-determination. "Klagh, thank you for giving me the honor of this assignment. I swear to you on the name of my noble house that I shall pry the secrets you require from the Pollux entity's scion."

"Thank you, Gi'ral," he said. "Oh, would you care for more raktacino?"

"Yes, I would."

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