Demands of Honor (30 page)

“First Officer Karel,” Duras said, surprise on his face. “Is Koloth dead? Have you come to talk? Perhaps you and I can reach an agreement.”

Karel watched the lies and treachery forming on the Klingon's face. He thought it a particularly ugly sight. “You offered me a ship; what would you offer now?”

“There are greater opportunities than a single ship. You were loyal to Koloth, and loyalty has its place, but if you help me now, there is no limit to what you can have. A ship? A battle group? A seat on the High Council? In time, anything is possible. But there are forces at work here that you do not understand. I must find a way out of here to complete my work. The empire itself is at stake.”

At last,
Karel thought,
a piece of the truth.

Karel eyed the councillor coldly. “I don't want your lies or your favors. Today, I will settle for just killing you.”

Duras studied Karel in silence for a moment, then said, “Have I harmed you?”

That made Karel smile. “You had your men try to kill me. You took my ship. And you tried to kill a planet full of my brothers. You have dishonored the whole empire. But it is not for any of these things that I will kill you.”

“What is it you want?” Duras asked, his voice high and fearful.

“I want my brother back, you bloodless and treacherous coward.” There was no understanding on the councillor's face.

“My brother was Kell of the House of Gorkon. He was
betleH 'etlh,
Blade of the
Bat'leth.
You changed his face, altered his very blood, and sent him on a mission of deceit.”

There it was, understanding. “He was
betleH 'etlh?
” Karel nodded. Duras said quickly, “I remember him. He served on the
Enterprise.
His mission was to kill Kirk … he failed, obviously. And I saw him on this world, in this mine. Your brother had joined the enemy. He may have been your brother, but he had lost his honor.”

“Honor? The word should burn the tongue out of your mouth. My brother took the only honorable path in a course you set him down.” Karel saw then that Duras would never understand, not if he lived another hundred years—not that Karel would ever allow such a travesty. There had been enough words, and he had suffered the existence of this coward long enough.

Lifting his father's blade, he advanced on Duras, who was not so big a fool that he couldn't see murder in a warrior's eyes. He reached for his own knife. Karel allowed him to hold it out in front of him, then struck, feinting once to the left and then plunging the knife into the center of Duras's chest.

For a moment, the councillor looked at him in surprise, and Karel said, “You cannot even die with honor.” Then he twisted the knife and pushed the dying man to the ground. Kneeling down, he wiped the blood on his blade onto the councillor's tunic and said, “You will never cross the River of Blood, you pathetic slime devil. To Gre'thor with you.”

Then Karel got up and turned away from Duras. He headed for the transporter and hit the button on the intercom.
“Beam me up.” He was glad when the transporter beam took him. He did not want to spend another second in Duras's presence.

Fuller could hear a loud rumbling even over the noisy hum of the ore hauler as it headed down the shaft at high speed.
Tremors,
he thought immediately. The captain had said there might be some instability at the end. That was why he had wanted Fuller to have help for this task, but that was impossible. Fuller could not and would not ask anyone else to do what he had to do. The burden and the responsibility would be his and his alone.

Even at nearly terminal velocity, the trip took minutes, and Fuller could feel the temperature rise as he got closer and closer to the planet's molten core. Checking his tricorder, Fuller confirmed that he was close. He started decelerating and saw the chamber. It was easy to find since it was large and the only one with large equipment inside it. Bringing the hauler to a stop, he jumped to the ground. Then he turned and faced the ore hauler, which hung in the air over the shaft. Taking out his phaser, he took aim at the controls and fired. There was a flash but the hauler was still. It took three shots in the end, but the hauler finally shuddered in space, then dropped like a stone.

Fuller didn't give it another thought; he had known from the beginning that this mission would be a one-way trip. Hell, he had known it as he sat at the computer terminal in his apartment where he had listened to the message of condolence from his son's captain. It was then that he had decided to reenlist.

Fuller surveyed the equipment. The kinetic explosive
device was about ten meters high, less than half that wide. There were control circuits nearby and some sort of cooling mechanism. He knew the physics behind such a device, which turned the unimaginable energies of a warp reaction into pure, kinetic force. The charge in the duffel bag could put a stop to that process, but Fuller would never use it. The device would fulfill its deadly purpose.

Fuller was glad that the landing party would be safely on the ship. However, he found that he was troubled by what would happen to Adon and his people. He did not wish for their deaths. He understood them and saw the potential there. However, he also saw how easily they had been corrupted by the malevolent force of the Klingon Empire.

He had had a chance to stop the spread of their sickness twenty-five years ago and had failed out of his own weakness. He would not fail now. And perhaps killing the crew of the Klingon ship would not do much to change the conflict that would come, but it would accomplish one thing: it would kill the Klingons who had taken his son. These Klingons, at least, would kill no more children.

There would be civilian casualties in this operation, but war always required such sacrifices. Nevertheless, the thought still troubled him, but Fuller wondered if the concern was nothing more than habit—nothing more than training.

A tremor shook the floor and Fuller heard a deep rumbling again. The tremor quickly became a shudder, and soon the ground was pitching around him. Out of reflex, he threw himself to the ground, away from the mine shaft. Stones and earth fell around him, and the
shaking was so great that he was tossed from his stomach to his back.

Then there was the pop of an explosion, and Fuller wondered if the tremor had somehow done what the charge in his bag was supposed to do and destroyed the kinetic bomb. The shaking stopped and he saw that the device was intact. The cooling mechanism, however, was in pieces.

Fuller felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and another in his thigh. A piece of metal was in his leg. He instinctively reached down with his right hand and pulled it out. The wound bled freely.

Femoral artery,
his mind supplied with detached professionalism. It was bad. He didn't have long, but on the other hand he didn't need long. He just needed to see this mission through to the end. Working quickly, he tore a piece of cloth from his tunic and made a crude tourniquet. He pulled it as tight as he could and judged that it would slow the bleeding enough to let him last the few minutes that remained.

He crawled over to the kinetic device finally, pulling himself up and resting against it.
You can't let those people die,
a voice in his head said.

Yes, I can,
he replied, and he knew it was true. He had long since stopped worrying about his soul. His only concern was to do what was necessary for his son.

His son …

You can't …

Then Fuller recognized the voice. It was Sam's. It was asking him, was he the kind of man who would kill thousands to seek his own revenge? Whatever he had been in the past, the answer to that question was now yes.

But Sam would never do it,
he thought. His son had been a better man than him, from his earliest youth to the end of his too short life.

After bearing Sam's death, he had thought he could bear anything, but he realized that he still feared one thing. He could not stand to shame himself in the eyes of his son—eyes that had always looked on him with an admiration that he had hardly deserved.

What would those eyes think of what he was doing now?

What would his son think of him now?

Almost without conscious thought, Fuller reached around and pulled at the duffel bag he still had slung over his shoulder. His left arm wasn't working well, but he was able to manage with his right. The charge fit into the palm of his hand, and Fuller studied it for a moment. Then he quickly hit the button to start the timer and lifted it to the outside of the kinetic explosive. The magnetic surface of the charge immediately locked on the bomb, and Fuller realized it was done.

The charge would destroy the kinetic device and spare the planet … and spare the Klingons who had killed Sam. A final failure to taunt him. Well, it wouldn't taunt him for long.

Fuller felt light-headed and realized that he might not live long enough to see this mission through, after all. The circle of blood on the ground around him was growing. He started to feel a chill and knew what it meant.

Fuller had seen too many of his friends and shipmates die to think he would escape their fate. The thought of his own death had not troubled him for a long time. Since that day twenty-five years ago, he'd known
he would eventually join his many fallen shipmates on the wall of Starfleet Command. However, he had always thought that his son might visit that wall and remember him rather than him paying his respects to Sam there.

Now Sam would never make that trip. And there would be no one else to do it, certainly no family. A name among many to be viewed by schoolchildren as they visited Starfleet. Sam had been his only real legacy and now he was gone.

Fuller had not thought in years about the few religious beliefs that he had gotten from his mother and grandparents, but he found himself thinking about them now. Perhaps there was something after death. Perhaps there was a place of forgiveness, a place where fathers who had failed their sons might find them again. A place where people found peace even if in their hearts they knew they didn't deserve it.

In the past he would have found such thoughts silly, but they comforted him now. As a haze fell over his mind, he imagined that he would find his son again and that Sam would welcome him, not because he deserved the welcome, but because Sam was a good man … a better man.

The thought was so pleasant that he felt even the pain in his body fading away. Then he found that his doubts were replaced with certainty. He would see Sam again. Soon, he knew he would have to stop fighting and let go … of everything.

Long ago, he had locked away all those that he had lost. He could feel that breaking now. They started to come, Andrews, Caruso … too many others, and finally Sam. He felt them all, as if they had died the moment
before. The tears came, and for the first time in his career he didn't fight them.

And then it started to pass, or to fade.

The world seemed to shrink around him. Breathing.

In.

Out.

His work was done. It was time for him to see his son.

Then a light flared across his vision … so the light was real. The stories were real. Well, then, that meant that Sam would be there.

No,
a voice inside him said.
Not yet.

There was movement. Sound. Someone was near.

“Sam,” he said as he struggled to open his eyes, tried with all of his strength to open them to see his son. He opened them for a moment, long enough to see a familiar face and a red uniform.

Sam?

Then there were voices, hands on him. He felt himself fading, then he was lifted into the air. Then he was inside … but inside what he did not know. Something touched his arm, a prick of pain. Then there was movement, the floor under him was rising.

Something pressed against his shoulder and there was a hiss.
Hypospray,
his mind supplied.

A bit of the darkness lifted, then a bit more. He looked down to see a tube running into his arm, one running into
each
arm. His head cleared a bit more and he saw a face looking down on him. For a moment, he thought it was Sam, but then he realized it was Ensign Parmet.

“We've got you, sir,” Parmet said. “You're in a shuttle.”

He heard a voice—Quatrocchi's—counting down from ten. He also realized that he could feel strong vibrations
in the deck of the small craft. They were moving fast, and judging from the sound of Quatrocchi's voice, it was going to be close.

“… one, zero,” Quatrocchi said.

There was a moment of nothing, just the sound and feeling of the acceleration of the shuttle. Then the blast wave hit them. Fuller knew that even if the charge worked, the energy in the kinetic explosive would still have to be released, thought not as kinetic force.

The shuttle shook violently and Fuller felt Parmet throw himself over Fuller's body. Then the craft steadied and Quatrocchi said, “We've cleared the shaft.”

Fuller felt some of his strength returning, enough to lift his head to see his squad all around him. “You all had orders,” he whispered.

“Yes, sir, we disobeyed them,” Parmet said pleasantly. Then he pulled out his communicator. “Parmet to
Enterprise.
We need emergency transport. Please have a medical team standing by for Lieutenant Fuller.”

“Why?” Fuller asked.

Something passed over Parmet's face, something that Fuller didn't understand, and Parmet said, “Sir, I owe everything to you.”

Then the transporter took him.

“H
E'S COMING AROUND NOW,
J
IM,
” McCoy said. “You can talk to him, but not for too long.”

“Understood, Bones,” Kirk said as they entered the room. Michael Fuller was lying on the bed, just opening his eyes, when Kirk approached.

“Fuller, you're going to be fine. Just take it easy on that shoulder and stay off the leg for a few days,” McCoy said, and Fuller nodded. “Now, if you don't have any other creative ways of damaging yourself planned, I have other patients to tend to.”