Chapter 15

Transporter Room

T'L'th's ship

M'lar paced the floor of the transporter room. She wanted to be there now, she needed to be there now and this bucket of bolts and polymer steel was going too slow. Sighing softly, she turned her gaze that had gone haunted and filled with anxiety to Bi'Anka, "The minute we get within transporter range, make sure they start with the transport and see that the medical team are on standby!"

Bi'Anka had never seen her mistress so distraught, she had always represented the epitome of calm when she was in a rage, she hid her anger well from others. The only ones that knew her well would see the flash of fire in her eyes and the tightening of her jaw. Bi'Anka knew this was her biting the inside of her mouth to avoid saying something she should not.

Bi'Anka nodded, she knew this was not the time to speak, her mistress was concentrating on locating other survivors. Tork walked through the doors seeing M'lar and Bi'Anka he stepped to Bi'Anka's and whispered in her ear. "We are nearly there, the cleric needs to find a peaceful place and meditate so she will be more beneficial to our cause."

Bi'Anka snagged Tork's arm and jerked him through the door and glared at the war proven warrior. "You should guard your tongue, she heard you and I can tell she was about to rip your head off. She is fixated on finding those survivors. She will want to be present when we transport the first recoveries to the ship. I suggest you find a place to stand and be useful."

Bi'Anka had watched the body language of M'lar as Tork was speaking with her and her eyes had flashed fire and that jaw had locked in place. Tork was not going to be much longer for consciousness if he continued in her presence. She did the next best thing she could think of for the moment and that was remove Tork from her presence. Tork turned and looked through the door and saw M'lar watching him hands on hips and eyes narrowed.

Bowing to her, he backed away. Very little made this huge warrior afraid but a small female cleric with big heaving breasts made him believe in the Dark Fleet's coming. "My pardon's cleric we will be arriving you may wish to go to the shuttle bay and await the first arrivals." He turned sharply side stepping the arrival of the transporter team. All eyes turned to the one lone female in the room.

"I have coded in the locations of the survivors. See to it now!" Her words were softly uttered but the impact of them was felt through out the room. Hands scrambled to the controls and eyes were fixed to the coordinates that were keyed into the console. In a matter of moments, M'lar heard the reports of the first survivors being on board. Closing her eyes she reached out to the others minds that were filled with panic and mayhem.

Exhaustion was beginning to set in when she heard a cry of a child, distant, filled with fear and panic. Going to the console she keyed in the coordinates and heard the words she did not want to hear. "We cannot get a lock on that location." M'lar's eyes snapped and she tried to put the lock on it. Closing her eyes she smiled, and pressed two more buttons on the control and her body shimmered from view. "Mistress!" The transport chief shouted.

Bi'Anka was following close behind her mistress. She knew as she stood where she was that M'lar was going to use her body as a locating beacon for the lock. If M'lar was hurt and it was on her watch, Bi'Anka would throw her self on her blade rather than see her mistress injured. K'Ter'r entered the transporter room and growled. "What the hell has happened?"

"Captain, I suggest we follow, it appears your cleric wishes to use her transporter pin as a way to bring out the three children trapped in a cave just below the surface of the lava covered area. The gas that is seeping into that cave is going to kill them all if they are not brought out soon."

K'Ter'r did not hesitate he looked at the transporter chief growled, "You had better be able to bring us all out or I will personally rip your head off and shit down the hole!" K'Ter'r cursed his luck with being saddled with a headstrong over endowed hot tempered cleric and muttered a prayer to Kahless as he shimmered from view.

Cave near ngech VingHam

M'lar arrived in the center of the room and saw four pairs of wide frightened eyes peer up at her from the floor. "Calm yourselves children. I am here to help." In the corner she heard the weak wail of a infant, spinning around she saw the mother holding onto her baby. "Come we have to get you out of here. This is not a healthy place." She had spoken to the female who had sat with eyes wide and now going into shock.

Walking to her side, she gently edged the baby from her arms. The female looked up into M'lar's eyes and smiled, then closed her eyes and gave up her life to Kahless. With a war cry for a brave warrior M'lar howled as Bi'Anka appeared in the room with her. The children edged towards Bi'Anka and she growled softly looking at the frightened children raging in the ages of three to six. Something she did not handle well. She moaned inwardly why could this not have been Ayesha to be here with these wormy needy little brats? Ayesha was at least the mother clan and knew how to relate to these miniature Klin.

The baby amazingly had slept through the tribute to his brave mother who had just passed through the veil and now walked to the shore to await the Dark Fleet. M'lar turned just as K'Ter'r materialized in the cave shortly after Bi'Anka and watched Bi'Anka' flex her leg thinking she was going to kick the hands of the children from her thighs. "Come children we must be away there is a gas pocket building that will explode unless we leave." K'Ter'r lifted the oldest in his arms, turning he pushed the second oldest to Bi'Anka.

Bi'Anka looked at K'Ter'r in askance. "What?" She looked down at the pitiful look the child gave her. Sighing she rolled her eyes and lifted the child into her arms. The male child laid his head on her shoulder and spoke softly, "Thank you mommy." Bi'Anka held the growl she had started at the back of her throat and then coughed. K'Ter'r stooped to lift the last child. Turning to M'lar he ordered. "Activate the transporter lock now Malady."

Shifting the baby in her arms, she tapped her badge and spoke softly into the communicator pin. "Transport now." Bi'Anka, K'Ter'r and the baby all began to shimmer and disappeared. M'lar was the only one left behind. Frowning she looked around at the pocket of air and could taste the bad air that was now beginning to seep into the room. What had happened? Why was she not on the ship with the others?

Shuttle bay one

T'L'th's ship

K'Ter'r set his charges down. Turned to see Bi'Anka setting down the child she had held and where M'lar should have appeared there lay a small quiet bundle that now kicked its blanket off and cooed softly. "Where is M'lar?" He turned to Bi'Anka and they both bolted for the transporter room. Rushing down the corridor K'Ter'r pushed the transporter chief out of the way and with hands that flew over the control panel he tried to lock onto M'lar's signal which was growing weak.

"Captain, please allow me to use you to retrieve the cleric." Faritili spoke with calm reassuring tones wanting desperately to restore some sort of order to the frantic way he brain synapsis was firing. It was exhausting trying to sift through the mess that was being calculated in his brain.

"Do you think you could do any better?" K'Ter'r was growling low while his hands moved dexterously over the panel. "If you think you can do any better than what I am, then by all means," His voice cut off, K'Ter'r's eyes went that milky white, he stared straight a head and without looking down his hands began to manipulate the control panel.

He spoke to Bi'Anka, "This device is very outdated. We will need some power redirected to this console so that I can punch a hole in the area where the cleric is located, then we will get a better lock on her and can transport her then." Bi'Anka nodded turned to the hallway and she barked out an order to Dovka.

"Go to Engineering and have them redirect more power to this console." Dovka bowed turned smartly and was gone. In a few short minutes with the sound of a disrupter being discharged, the console that was now under the control of Faritili was fully charged and beginning to smolder. The hands that now rushed over the panel moved with lightening like speed. A smile edged the large Klingon's face and that was a frightening sight. "Do you have to make him smile, it does not look right." Bi'Anka looked away from the grimace that would have been a smile.

Faritili smiled inwardly. "I just wanted to see what it felt like and looked like." Faritili mused softly. "You are right it looks rather frightening does it not?" Far relaxed the muscles in the big Klingon's face and a soft sigh issued. "Much better. That was almost as bad as the gas." Relaxing the body of the huge Klingon Far shifted the lever up and the sound a hum from the transporter filled the room.

A figure began to shimmer into view. It was in a fetal position as the body of the cleric began to form, then disappeared and finally reform again only to disappear. "Oh dear, we really must fix that buffering system." K'Ter'r shot his hand forward and punched the button and waited. The sound of the photon torpedo's discharging rocketed the ship, at the point of impact he slid the transporter lever again. Once again the figure of M'lar shimmered into view. She lay in fetal position and unconscious.

Bi'Anka hit her communicator pin and shouted. "Medic team to transporter room." Shifting to protective mode, Bi'Anka rushed to her mistress's side and bent to check her for life signs.

"She has strong life signs, I believe once they filter the noxious gas from her system, she shall have a full recovery." Far nodded to Bi'Anka then released his hold over K'Ter'r. K'Ter'r's eyes cleared and color returned to his eyes. He shook his head and turned walking to M'lar's side. Lifting her he turned as the floating medical bed appeared with a trauma team. K'Ter'r laid her limp form on the bed.

"Take care of her." He growled and turned to push past those that now surrounded the cleric. Bi'Anka watched anxiously as they used hypo spray injecting it in her neck. M'lar's eyes fluttered open she looked blankly at the ceiling. "There are more, they are still trapped. We need to rescue them!" M'lar struggled to rise only to be pushed back down. Throwing her hand out, she commanded, "Paralyze limbs."

Rolling from the cart, she fell to the floor and crawled to the transporter panel. She pulled herself up to the console and began to weakly code in the locations of the others she could see fighting to stay alive. After a full five minutes and having placed over thirty co-ordinates into the console she slumped to the floor and said weakly, "Release."

Those that had been frozen into place were able to move. Rushing to the side of their cleric, they gently helped her to stand and led her off to sickbay. K'Ter'r leaned against the wall in the hallway. He was unsettled. Each time Far took over his body he was left with that feeling of a loss of control and he did not like it. If anything he was very upset at feeling so useless. "You need to not take this so personally Captain. I do nothing more than what you would if you have the capabilities and I don't make you do what you would not normally do."

"What about the smile?" He quipped and pushed from the wall and walked towards the cantina on the ship. He had grumbled about the smile and heard a soft chuckle.

"Oh yes, that. Well I was happy for accomplishing what I had so I smiled and unfortunately it was with the use of your body and frankly, I will keep my smiles to myself, your smile was more like a gas build up grimace and it was not as pleasant as I thought it might be."

K'Ter'r snorted, "Now you know why we don't smile." He entered the doors to the cantina and slumped into the nearest chair at the bar. "Warnog and make it a large one." He slammed his fist on the top of the bar and watched as the Norlast tender turned to peer at him with his purple cylinder shaped protrusive eyes. His skin color was a muddy orange and his mouth was a wide as his head. K'Ter'r likened him to a insectoid type species with homid intelligence. His voice was high pitched and could be thought annoying by some. For K'Ter'r it was a musical type of chirping with intelligible words thanks to the translator.

K'Ter'r watched the creature sit a long and tall mug in front of him and waited for any further instructions. "Will there be anything else Captain?"

"No, this is fine." He slid from the barstool and walked to a table by the view port. Below he could see Qo'noS and it was shrouded in a heavy layer of dust and lava particles. He sipped his mug and sighed. He knew he had to get down there and check on his family. He was already prepared to bring them back to the ship and to his quarters. Talking a big gulp, he felt a gas bubble and sighed. "You don't like the warnog either?" He waited for a response and when it came it was surprisingly a little slurred.

"Nooo, I realish likes th warnogsh." He could have sworn he heard a hiccup. "Ish realish goooods." K'Ter'r burped and the taste of the warnog was once again visiting his senses.

"Are you drunk?" K'Ter'r could not believe his symbioses was drunk on warnog.

"Jush a little." The voice was soft and giggling in his mind.

"Oh for the love of Kahless how long with this last? Maybe you need to shut down for now while I make plans to go to the planet."

"I shink yours right, night." Then the voice was gone and K'Ter'r was sighing with relief only to be annoyed with a soft snore that now echoed through his mind like a buzz saw.

"For the love of all Klin kind." K'Ter'r muttered sipped his drink and looked down at his mug and shook his head. "I hope you roll over soon so I won't have to hear that all the time." There was a soft snort and then silence. "Finally." K'Ter'r finished his drink, stood and walked from the cantina, now he had the unpleasant job of beaming down to the planet and going to those that he claimed as family.

Planet Qo'noS Home world of the Klingon Empire.

From the view port, K'Ter'r was surprised to see so many ships in orbit surrounding the planet. Mumbling about the crowded air space he walked to the transporter room and saw that they were busy fixing the console panel. "So how are we to get to the planet?" K'Ter'r was beginning to hate this ship more than his own. The transportation chief grumbled back. "I will let them know you are ready to be transported and the main transport room on Qo'noS will transport you Captain. Or you can take a shuttle."

M'lar stepped into the transport room followed by Dovka and Tork. "Tork fix the console, Captain I have a shuttle ready to take to the planet would you care to join HmfiC, Bi'Anka and myself? I believe GowRon is expecting me." K'Ter'r let his shoulders heave expressively.

"It would be better than allowing those fools on the planet to transport me. How many ships are out there." He nodded to the outer regions beyond the hull of the ship. Walking to M'lar's side he fell into step next to her as she turned and walked down the corridor headed to the shuttle bay and to the roughly one hundred seventy-five they had been able to rescue. They walked among the injured, the ambulatory and the dying. M'lar sighed noting that some were not going to be saved.

They walked to the shuttle near the bay doors and in the background there was another howl sending another soul off to the Dark Fleet. M'lar cursed softly and hung her head in sadness. "You could not save them all M'lar. You could not possibly have saved them all." HmfiC had seen the look of defeat filter across her face and she shook her head.

"We should have arrived sooner, if we had arrived sooner there were more I could have saved and those might have a chance to life to fight again some day!" She was so passionate that HmfiC was proud of her. "You gave them a chance to be here on this ship and not die alone in some hole waiting for the dark fleet to come. You gave them a chance to be with other Klin and to be sent off as they should have been."

M'lar squared her shoulders, she wore the traditional dress of a visiting dignitary to another planet. She stood in a long robe, light veil on in a circlet that surround her head and held the veil over her hair, which was pulled through the circlet. Under the open robe she wore a simple jumpsuit of black and grey, around her thighs were her knife band that held her blades in place. Strapped to her waist was a disrupter. Her boots came to below her knees and afforded her an extra four inches of height. She balanced well on her feet in the high heeled boots that were heavy and had square heels.

Feeling someone tug on her rob she turned and looked down, finally someone shorter than her. There stood the young boy that Bi'Anka had carried to safety. "My mom died?" He waited for her to respond and she nodded slowly, she watched him take a huge gulp then lift his small head and cry out for his mother's soul. Standing behind him was his older brother. He joined his brother and then little sister with a howl for their mother.

"How is your baby brother?" In her mind she knew she had saved four small warriors but was angry that she was unable to save the mother who must have been proud to have produced such a large clan of fine Klingon warriors.

"He is being cared for by the medic team. Are you the cleric?" His words were said with a hint of awe. She smiled and nodded then looked into his mind. There she saw panic, fear and uncertainty.

"Fear not little one, you will join me on Boreth and become a member of my house and my clan we will care for you and your baby brother and you will be fine warriors for the Temple of Kahless from this day forward." She had gently entered his mind to let him know she understood his fear and his uncertainty.

His eyes widen and he smiled and flushed looking up at her with reverence. "How can you do that? I thought only my sister could enter my mind and talk with me." M'lar stooped down and looked at his sister, she pushed her thoughts out to the little girl and was surprised by a block that had been put in place. It was an awkward block and M'lar easily navigated past the block to enter her mind.

"You tried to keep me out and I see that you have not learned how to properly shield your mind against those that would try to harm you or your mind. When you join me at temple, we shall teach you how to use that power and to help others and yourself."

M'lar watched her eyes sparkle with recognition of one like her. "You can talk to people in their minds too?" She watched M'lar smile and nod.

"I can do so much more but that is because I was designed to do these things. You will be trained you are still very young and your mind I am sure right now is over run with the voices of those that cried out and died." She watched the smile fade and disappear and a solemn look of fear crossed her pretty delicate features. "Do not let that hurt you any more, what is your name?"

The little girl turned as two female medics walked to the three children detaining the cleric. "Wait." M'lar stayed them from removing the children from her presence. "Your name child, give me your name." She watched the little girl turn back to M'lar and smile.

"My name is Mora." M'lar smiled and stood stepping back she held out her hand offer her a warrior's hand shake.

"My name is M'lar. It is an honor to meet you little brave warrior." She moved her hand to the child's elbow and grasped her forearm in a firm but gentle warriors handshake. "You go on with K'tel and Banaq, they will take you to my quarters and see you are fed and given a place to rest. " She knew she would be busy trying to locate any surviving family members to have permission to take this small family to her home on Boreth.

The others had boarded the shuttle and patiently for some waited for M'lar to join them. For K'Ter'r he just wanted to get planet side before Far woke up and became a boil on his butt again.

Taking her seat at the helm, M'lar expertly maneuvered the shuttle out of the docking bay and headed towards the atmosphere of the planet. Her mind was set to what exactly GowRon expected from her and her crew. She certainly was not about to take orders from him no matter what position he held, she was there as far as she was concerned on a diplomatic mission.

Setting the shuttle down at the nearest landing point near the facility that had been designated as the main council hall. She could see the area was swarming with panic and worried filled Klingons that were there to get some kind of news as to what had happened and if this was going to happen again. The shouts and the cries for attention were over powering. M'lar frowned and shook her head. The emotions being displayed by those around her was starting to wear on her and with one single word she spoke a single command. "Calm." The area felt the wave of calm fall over those that had been in a period of unrest and anxiety.

"Go home." Was her next command and she watched as the rowdy crowd began to calm, look around, and then walk off leaving a hole for her to pass through. Walking up the steps she entered the building and saw those guards that had put up a barrier between the entrance and the council chambers. "You can relax, they are going home. Where is GowRon, you may tell him M'lar is here."

From behind the tall backs of the council guard a voice floated over their shoulders. "I would know that scent and that voice anywhere my dear. Come join me in chambers your presence would be appreciated in this world of chaos."