Chapter 13

Deep Space near Feteri

A moon close to Deep Space 12

Janae stood with the audio clip in his palm. Looking to Mara he spoke softly, "Take the command Mara, I am going to my quarters and get this transmitted to T'L'th." He walked to the turbo lift and waited for the doors to open. Stepping into the lift he commanded "Deck four." The lift started to move and stopped abruptly the door opened and he stepped into the hallway and headed to the one door on the whole of this deck, the door opened at the pressing of his hand print to the side panel.

Stepping inside he sighed deeply and was perturbed, he had wished M'lar had been left on the ship, he could have given her the clip and been done with this assignment. It had come from her father and he had no choice but to pull up his pants ditch Lalila and head out. But he knew that by not collecting her from their meeting he would be in deep crapola and he was not about to have her upset with him.

Sitting at his console he put the disc in and began to put in the code that would send his transmission in a scrambled form directly to the cleric. As the transmission began he felt the ship rock with enough of a jolt that it knocked him from his stool. "Damnit! What now?" He hit his com panel and shouted. "What the hell is going on?"

Mara had commanded Modak. "Evasive action and cloak now and drop down from our current location by three clicks to come up behind the ship behind us. Jettison the extra tank of plasma so they think we have been hit and see what happens." Hearing Janae screaming over the com she hissed back at him. "Get your scrawny ass back up here and take over!" Pressing the intercom she sent out the silent alert for everyone on the ship to go silent.

Modak ran his fingers with precision and expert ease over his command panel. Initiating the order he went to cloak immediately, dropped them to sub light speed and dropped the ship to three clicks and he felt the top of the ship flash by them still thinking they were chasing them at warp two. Everyone went to silent run. Janae knowing they were in silent mode went to manual with everything. Taking the nearest Jeffries tube up to the bridge he climbed with soft-soled shoes to open the panel near the science station.

Popping his head out he whispered, "Where is it?" He turned to his science officer Fortunato who had been manipulating his scans and now had an outline of the ship scanned into his display. Using his thieves' cant he motioned that they were about ten light years in front of them. Janae nodded walked to his chair and tapped Mara to move, turning to Modak he signaled for them to reverse and head back to the moon of Fertiri and take up position on the backside of the moon.

He knew they would need to creep back there so as to not leave a signature for the other ship to trace even in cloaked mode. Shifting his gaze to Modak he canted to him, "Did you jettison the stored plasma and leave them a wounded bird trail?" He saw Modak nod. Smiling he shot his glance to Mara as she took up her position on security. She kept her attention to the information that was being brought up on her panel as she shifted her delicate fingers over the panel and watched the information sped across her screen he saw her frown.

Janae was worried that GowRon had discovered he had managed to sit in on that meeting between him and Daedalus and was now after him to keep him from delivering the information back to T'L'th. The meeting had been tame compared to what he thought it would be and was not that impressed with the fact that Daedalus was trying to formulate an alliance with GowRon to get back at T'L'th.

Janae knew that there was no love lost between the two since T'L'th had curtailed Daedalus trafficking to Boreth and the last time had resulted in the arrest of Daedalus' wife and son where they were sentence to Rua Penthe the prison planet. The last he heard his son had been killed and his wife were not doing well. So this had brought about a quest for revenge against T'L'th and the last he had heard Daedalus was supplying the Molorites on their subversive actions against the Temple and Kahless.

This was not unexpected. Now he needed to just lay low and hide until this new predator, which he wondered if it was GowRon or Daedalus decided to give up his cat and mouse pursuit. He waited while Mara worked her wonders with what information she could get from their first encounter. He loved the way her mind worked. She could take a little information, run it through her computer and come up with what he needed and she had not failed him this time.

Feeling a tap on his shoulder she motioned him to her console. She ran her fingers over her console and filtered out the unnecessary information that was being run through her computer's memory banks and came up with what he liked the basics and one name leapt out at him and he knew who his enemy was and was glad he had gone to hide on the other side of the moon. Sighing he leaned over to place a light kiss on Mara's forehead and gave her a thumbs up sign. Canting to her to send that information to everyone on the ship, he knew that now it would b a cat and mouse game between him and Marstoq.

Mara frowned her anger was so intense she wanted to hit Janae. She shook her head and sighed deeply and sat back folding her arms over her chest. She wanted to smack him stupid but the night he seduced Marstoq's sister she knew he was already there. Now he had one hotheaded Klingon Captain of the Red Fleet hot on his tail and would not hesitate to take Janae to the Dark Fleet along with Janae's crew.

One look at her face and Janae knew what she was thinking and he shrugged sheepishly then retook his seat. At least his mission had not been compromised and he knew he would eventually have to have it out with Marstoq before that Klingon destroyed Janae's ship while seeking his vengeance. He was trying to think of a way to use M'lar or T'L'th's influence to get Marstoq off his back and allow him to do what he did best. A little devil sitting on his left shoulder was whispering. 'Seduce more women?'

The other angelic voice was whispering, 'Steal stuff, and information and sell it to the highest bidder.' That was more profitable and would give him a chance to seduce the women so mentally he flicked the little devil from his shoulder and set his gaze on the view screen as the star field passed less frantically in front of him. He just wanted to keep Marstoq searching for where they were and not look to the rear of Marstoq's ship. He could imagine the large angry Klingon screaming out at his crew to find that pa'taq and annihilate him.

Aboard the Klingon Vessel Tiq'Chal

Marstoq was a huge male Klingon, he stood all of six foot six and weighed a good mostly muscled two hundred seventy pounds. He watched the star field in front of him, "Did you see any debris?"

"No Commander, it appears that there has been a warp core breech there is plasma a lot of it in the area where we hit them."

"Keep scanning and when you find him lock on and hit him with everything we have and hit him until there is nothing but debris left." He growled. Every time he saw Janae or his damn ship the Tori he wanted to destroy that ship and kill Janae. He had dishonored his sister. No one brought dishonor to his family and this Bajoran should never had seduced his sister. That act had cost their family and very strategic alliance with another honorable and well placed Klingon family. Now soiled by that off worlders his sister had little prospects, she was hardly a beauty but she could bear strong sons.

"Commander it's gone." The poor beq that had the temerity to tell his commander that there was no longer any sign of his prey was the worse thing this crewmember could do. Marstoq pulled his disrupter and discharged it into his chest and watched him fall.

"Take him to sickbay." He stood and looked at the others. "What? Find that piece of targ dung and kill him!" Marstoq sat back down doing a silent fume as he watched the star field. If he did not get him today then he knew his revenge would be sweeter served up cold.

Outer Regions of Space near Boreth

Admiral Bru sat in her quarters she had been studying the very limited detailed reports on the death of the last Ambassador to Boreth from Earth and she frowned. "Admiral Bru, Admiral Tosach is requesting permission to beam aboard." QaP'a alerted her over the intercom. Bru frowned why were they asking for permission for the Admiral to be allowed on the Hos Tam?

"Of course he is allowed on board, see to his arrival and make sure he has comfortable quarters and request that he join me for dinner this evening." The Ensign was immediately contrite for asking and signed off after a barked acknowledgment. Bru wondered at her crewmembers and their inept attitude. She had left this ship for far too long if they did not realize that another Admiral had carte blanche to this ship and its compliment. "What are we coming to any more?"

Throwing the pad on the desktop she sat back and thought about how far this race had come. They had survived many battles for over thousands of years and they had been a fearsome race at one time. Now it seemed that they had adopted more off world habits. Never in her time would students form the higher form of education been allowed to come out and demonstrate like they did now. Then they would consider throwing themselves on their blades to save face if they had dishonored their family.

Now they whined and begged for leniency and hoped to negotiate for their lives and ask for forgiveness? This is what happens to a race when they intermingle with other races and bred out what it meant to be Klingon. She envisioned that in another one hundred years there would no longer be an Imperial race of Klingons. That if the science officers had their way they all would be Fusion and look more like other races.

Rubbing her fingertips over her ridge brow she closed her eyes and pinched her rippled nose. A tone alerted her that someone was requesting to enter her quarters. "Enter." The door opened and a slender Klingon male with slightly greying hair, deep blue eyes and face full of hair entered the room. He looked around and paused smiling looking to his good friend and compatriot Bru. "Tosach! What a pleasant surprise to see you. I thought you would want to rest and we could talk over dinner."

She stood and he marveled at how beautiful she was and graceful. "I wanted to find out why I was pulled from my sabbatical. I did not wish to wait for dinner to find out what is going on in my absence and to ask how well is GowRon handling his new duties?" He had not personally voted for the placement of GowRon as the head of the Council but he had given in to the majority rule and the pressure from others on the council to give him a chance to see how he would handle the new problems that were facing them all.

Bru extended her hand to the seat across from her and sat trying to exude a relaxed and happy countenance. Watching her old friend walk to the seat offered and flop down looking tired and worn. "I understand the schools of higher education are now allowed to demonstrate and vandalize public building and public officials?" He had received the report on how GowRon had shot into the crowd of students and how Bru had shot one of them that had pelted her with rocks.

"Gone are the old days Tosach. Gone are the days of mayhem and honor and dealing with mayhem in our way. Now under the new rule we have off worlders attending our schools so that they can bring their coin to the campus and finance them to keep them going." It was an unfortunate situation but so many wars had caused their economy to nearly collapse so they had sought other ways to finance their endeavors. That involved seeking financial assistance from off worlders. So was the reason their race was slowly breeding themselves out of existence.

She paused a moment to think about what all she had dealt with in the past six months and it was beginning to wear on her. She was happy to finally be back in space on her flagship the Hos Tam. "No more do we have just Klingons occupying our world we have off worlders and they are influencing our young. Then we have the environmentalist shouting to the tops of the mountains about the soot, ash and explosions of the lavas and how they are soiling the planet and the atmosphere and the prophets of doom saying unless we get it under control we won't have a planet any more."

Tosach nodded, "What of Boreth? How are things there?" he knew this was part of the reason he had been brought back to the Hos Tam. When Klaa on the Cloaked Vengeance had shown up and had him transported to the ship, with orders from the High Command he knew this was going to be more than a peace mission or a Ambassadorial mission. He watched her look at the pad on the table in front of her and reached for it.

Opening up the first page he saw it was a report from the Borethian Council about the death of a Federation Ambassador. "Ahh, the Federation is requesting another Ambassador be placed on Boreth again and T'L'th?" He looked up to see Bru's reaction to his summation. Just by seeing her look away from him and seeing her body tense he knew there was more to this than a simple mission to make a request.

"GowRon does not like the Cleric's he wants to put one of his people on their council and he plans to bully his way into their network so he has a foothold there. T'L'th will not stand for his interference. GowRon's nephew had already tried to embarrass the family to force a marriage between the two houses."

Tosach nodded slowly, "I suppose that went over like a darminon turd in the Nintie bowl?" His reference brought a smile to Bru's face.

"Oh it was far worse for GowRon he ended up looking like a fool because the chalice that was stolen was a fake chalice and M'lar had control over the chalice the whole time. So it made his nephew look foolish and that left a sour taste in GowRon's mouth when she used her unique gifts to disable his honor guard and refused to join the two houses."

Tosach chuckled softly, "I know only too well her temper. Remember I spent six moons in the temple and got to witness first hand her abilities and her way of handling unwanted suitors. Most never made it out in one piece, if she did not send them screaming from her chambers that honor guard of hers Bi'Anka tore them open and left them for the Frey birds in the outer reaches. I would not want to go up against either of the two."

"I know, I have not personally witnessed her gifts but the rumors make her sound like a bepa HurghtaHghach. Which is not true there is no darkness in her and as for being a daughter to darkness that is totally absurd." Bru stood and walked to the replicator and ordered warnog for both of them, bringing back the drink she handed it to him with a smile. "I remembered you like this better than Nintie." He took the mug from her hand and smiled.

"I thought that was your favorite drink as well?" He sipped and watched her retake her seat and fold her legs under her. She sipped her warnog and closed her eyes taking a deep satisfied sigh.

"I actually like the bloodwine so much more but for this night, I need the warnog for now. We have a lot of tip toeing to do to get answers and to secure another Federation Ambassador on Boreth, Tosach. My concerns are with what is happening on Qo'noS that we all may end up making an exodus from our planet and have to seek shelter on Boreth and if that happens it could cause a war between the two factions."

"Can they not figure out how to save the planet from the constant eruptions?' He sipped his drink and was beginning to worry his own family might be in danger and perhaps he needed to get back and make arrangements to have them sent to Boreth if it was as dire as Bru had said.

"Not unless we can collaborate with the Federation on how they were able to stop their volcanoes from erupting and destroying earth. Currently, GowRon does not wish to deal with the Federation and has left most of the negotiations to me. Frankly, unless we can secure another Ambassador on Boreth for them, I don't know if they would be inclined to help us with our problems on Qo'noS."

"No now there you are wrong Bru, they would gladly send in their experts just for a chance to get someone on Qo'noS." He chuckled softly. "They are so very helpful when it comes to insinuating themselves into our culture."

Bru thought a moment. "Then maybe the next time I speak with one of their Admirals, which they keep sending to talk with me. I will suggest an exchange of ideas and see what happens. It will be a matter of getting it past the council."

Tosach stood setting his empty mug on the table and laying the pad next to the mug. "Leave the council to me my dear. Now I need a hot bath and a little sleep and I will see you for dinner. We can formulate our plan of approach to T'L'th and perhaps find a happy middle ground for everyone." He turned and walked to her door paused and turned. "Are things that bad on the home world?" He had asked the vague question but knew she understood what he meant. Seeing her nod slowly he sighed.

"I will see about finding a new home among the famers of Boreth and move my family off planet." He went out the door a new worry etching itself across his features as he sought his quarters and a nice sonic shower.

Space Dock Space outside of Boreth

M'lar walked with K'Ter'r to one of his favorite hang outs the Cantina and to Grog's bar. Grog smiled seeing the High Cleric was gracing his establishment and was grateful that she had the Captain with her. "My Lady M'lar welcome to our humble establishment."

She looked at him and smiled. "Thank you Grog, it is nice to be off world for a while. So tell me what is good to drink here?" She looked around and found this was an above average bar with more than congenial surroundings. She could see why those that came to the temple from the Refit station had seemed to be content and happy. Mostly due to the congenial bar and its tender. "I have heard nothing but good about this place from most that come to temple."

Grog was smiling hearing that for once he had done a good thing and was showing a moderate profit for his efforts, much to his father's consternation. He had been pressuring Grog to raise prices and to cut back on costs so he could show a bigger profit. But Grog had refused to do as his father wanted, it was his bar and his profit and his father needed to tend to his own business.

"Well Lady M'lar might I suggest that you try the newest drink concoction. It is an old family recipe and one that I find personally exhilarating to the senses but not too over powering that you loose control and the taste is rather sweet with a hint of chocolate."

M'lar smiled, she loved chocolate. "Really? What is it called." She leaned to the bar and he got an eye full as her breasts and cleavage was exposed for his view. Avoiding the obvious of looking down her top he turned and spoke with a soft flush to his ears.

"We call it death by chocolate. But it is a jigger of warnog and a jigger of Nintie, and finally three jiggers of chocolate blended together and mixed with ice." He turned back and set the drink in front of her. M'lar smiled lifted the drink and sipped it and her face lit up and she nodded.

"This is a great drink, bring me another to our table. Captain? What will you drink, it will be my treat." She watched him sigh then began to ask the same question.

"What can you drink?" Grog looked confused but M'lar knew he was talking to Faritili awaiting his request. From the depths of his mind a sleepy voice responded.

"Drink anything you want, if you want to get inebriated I will merely go to sleep, if you drink and I am awake I will absorb your drink and you won't feel the affects of the drink, so you decide."

"Look I don't need to be inebriated. I just want something to quench my thirst." He was speaking out loud and M'lar knew exactly what was going on and hid her smile behind a sip of her drink looking at the confused and stunned look on Grog's face.

"Captain, you know what they say about talking to yourself and answering yourself." He smiled to take the edge off of the implication.

M'lar turned to Grog and spoke on his behalf. "Give him some warnog and Nintie bring it to the table. I have discovered that the Captain when he speaks to him self he is looking for intelligent conversation." She lifted her drink sipped then paused, "bring me two more of these too. They are really very good. I think you are going to have a successful drink with this one."

She passed K'Ter'r and started towards the table by the viewport when she felt a hand snake out and grabbed her wrist, jerking her to the lap of a large Klingon warrior. "Hey have my seat you lovely piece of warmth, how about a little kiss?"

K'Ter'r had turned seen the cleric manhandled and started forward when he saw M'lar do the most unexpected and highly Klingon act witnessed so far, throwing her head back she brought that boney forehead of hers forward and smacked it hard into the warrior's head. Grog reached out and stopped K'Ter'r. "Leave her, she can handle him. He is Klin."

Watching him rock back in the chair she pushed away did a backwards flip and landed on both feet. Her eyes snapping and her anger growing with each breath she took, which only made her breasts heave. Which then created a lustful desire in the male's libido. Sanding he smiled and looked at her, "Like it rough fine." He staggered towards her and she held her hand up and in one word she commanded.

"Paralyze." The male warrior twice the woman's size froze in place, he was paralyzed from the neck down. She folded her arms under her breasts which forced them up and more prominent. Walking to him, she then commanded, "On your knees." Her mind was fixed and she was now playing with him. The large warrior fell to his knees a look of shock filled his eyes and his body. "You made a big mistake with me pa'taq. Do you know who you just mishandled?" she walked around him and leaned over to whisper softly in his ear. "I am M'lar the high cleric to the sacred council of Boreth."

The wide-eyed look of absolute fear in his eyes and now flooding his brain and his thoughts made her smile. "Oh yes, I am in your mind right now you worm and this I can assure you, that with one simple thought I could make you wet and soil yourself and leave you on the floor of this bar whimpering for death. Is that what you want?"

He grunted, "No, please Lady M'lar I apologize let me go. I will not bother you any more." She stepped back from him and went to the table she had been headed for when she was rudely interrupted. Sitting calmly at the table she spoke softly, "When you get up you will pay for my drink you spilled, you will clean up the mess you made and you will apologize to Captain K'Ter'r and Grog and then I don't ever want to see you around me again. Is that clear?" She had folded her hands neatly on the table's surface.

Again there was another grunt. "Yes." He watched as she lifted her fingers with a snap of those fingers the large Klingon male felt control over his body once again. She never looked at him again and he did not let much time elapse before he was done with what she had ordered and was gone from the bar.

"See I told you Captain now go sit and I will bring your drinks to your table." Grog turned back to prepare their drinks. Leaving K'Ter'r to wonder what exactly he had bought into by agreeing to taking her on his ship.