Hell's Heart (31 page)

Fifty-nine

T
HE
S
PILLWAY

T
HANE

T
he Unsung were out there. Their armor's characteristics had rendered the warriors invisible to the enhanced infrared vision that Worf's helmet provided—but that worked both ways. They could not easily see him, so long as he made few sudden moves.

The squads looking for him—there were at least three—were in a hurry, and the noise they made had given Worf an advantage. Every so often he deactivated the beacon for several minutes at a time while he moved to where the search teams weren't. Then he would turn it on again—and watch the teams in motion as they tried to make their way to him. Like him, they were restricted to the pathways weaving between the marshy areas, and only some of them intersected.

Only once had he actually seen his pursuers. On his trip to the compound with Valandris, he'd seen several petrified trees arched across various paths. They had been purposefully moved and shaped, he'd realized; the Unsung clearly used them as hunting stands while in the swamp. While the transponder was off, he'd climbed atop one of the larger ones and clung there, five meters above the pathway, as four Unsung warriors went right beneath him. They had disruptor rifles; weaponless, Worf wasn't likely to be able to overpower more than two, even if he landed on top of them.

So Worf had stayed, waiting until they departed. From this vantage point, he had noticed something: a dark mass just off the side of the path, half-immersed in the fens.

Alone again, he crawled down and crept over to it. It was a lesser valandris, one of the flying beasts that had attacked
during his arrival. No, he was astonished to realize—it was
the
beast that had attacked them. The hilt of a blade could just be seen, still embedded in the brute's neck.

There was no doubt: the monster was dead. But it had survived a long time with its injuries, expiring recently. The luminescent food sacs on its belly still glowed, though they were only barely connected to the mother creature's scaly skin.

Looking back up the path—and then at the petrified arch—Worf made a decision. Cautious not to shake the corpse enough to rupture the sacs, he crawled onto the giant's form, working his way toward the dagger as quickly as he dared. Every second he lingered increased the odds he would be seen—and every second the transponder was inactive meant he was not calling for help. He had to work fast.

The wound was dried, he found; it took effort to free the dagger. Then he was in the water, doing surgery with it. The next step required him to remove his breastplate, leaving only his unshielded tunic; if his idea failed, no armor would save him.

Stressful minutes later, he was finally ready. Clinging again to the top of the massive twisted arch, he removed the transponder from his back and reactivated it. Then he picked the direction opposite the one where he'd last seen the searchers and hurled the unit up the trail.

The transponder sat a dozen meters away now, half-­embedded in the muddy path. Either the durable device still worked, or it didn't; one way or another, he was committed. Worf sank back down onto the trunk and waited.

U.S.S. E
NTERPRISE
-
E

T
HE
B
RIAR
P
ATCH

“There's something,” La Forge said, seated in the first officer's seat on the bridge. “Captain, it's an emergency beacon, ema
nating from the planet up ahead. It appears to be Klingon in origin.”

Picard looked to his left. “Tell me about it, Lieutenant Chen.” Chen was in the counselor's chair at his invitation; while there was no such thing as an expert on the Unsung, she had studied the House of Kruge. Since the revelation that Potok's exiles were involved, she had been working up profiles of what assets might be available to them.

“It belongs to an escape pod from a
B'rel
-class bird-of-prey,” she said, consulting her interface. “Transmitting on a frequency the Empire retired eighty years ago.”

“Any identification code?”

“None, either current or obsolete. The pod's not on the registry the Klingon Defense Force shared with us.” Chen offered, “It has to belong to one of the Phantom Wing ships, sir.”

“I agree,” Picard said. “Red alert. Shields up. It may be a trap.” As the clarion sounded, he focused on the viewscreen and the blotchy planet, small but growing, amid the oranges and maroons of the nebula. There was still no sign of any activity in space—but the captain expected that could change soon. “Begin transmitting our findings continuously to the Klingon investigators aboard
Ghanjaq
. They may not get the message in this soup, but we have to make the effort.”

“Long-range sensors indicate dense life signs on the planet,” Elfiki said. “Animal, vegetative. I also mark artificial structures clustered in one location: in a crater on the night side. No humanoid presence detected.”

“They're down there,” Picard said. The Unsung's armor, he knew from Gamaral, made a wearer's life signs difficult to read. He had enough information to decide from the several contingency plans they'd concocted. His security chief was already off the bridge, preparing to execute whichever one he named. “Lieutenant Å mrhová,” he said into his combadge, “prepare assault option Delta.”

“Confirm Delta. Aye, aye, sir.”

“Confirm Delta,” La Forge repeated. He touched the controls at his chair's interface. “We are now using the navigational deflector to emit a wide-range tachyon spray.”

The Phantom Wing had been able to approach
Enterprise
with impunity over Gamaral, but the Briar Patch was a less friendly locale. The tachyons they were projecting had the potential to interact randomly with the metaphasic radiation of the nebula; ships might randomly uncloak, and that wasn't all. “I don't think they'd want to try to board using their transporter technology if it means going through the spray,” La Forge said. “Unless they're suicidal.”

“Are they?” Picard asked Chen.

“That message they sent us was all about trying to show off their numbers,” she replied. “They wanted us to see how strong they were. I'd think a small colony would be careful about throwing lives away.”

Perhaps,
Picard thought. The Unsung had incurred no casualties at Gamaral, departing the planet and the
Enterprise
before any could occur. He didn't know if La Forge's tactic was working, but no one had molested them so far. A narrow corridor was all
Enterprise
needed. They would hit the settlement along multiple avenues of attack: from above, with support shuttles, and transported security teams.
Overwhelm the Unsung quickly, try to bottle them up until Martok's forces arrived—while finding Worf.

“Two hundred thousand kilometers from target planet,” Flight Controller Faur reported.

“Launch shuttles. Prepare to transport away teams.” The operation was under way. If he hadn't selected the right plan, he would know soon enough.

Sixty

P
HANTOM
W
ING
V
ESSEL
C
HU
'
CHARQ

U
NSUNG
C
OMPOUND

H
ow the hell did
Enterprise
get here so fast?

Seated in the command chair aboard the bird-of-prey, Cross—as Kruge—looked in stupefaction at the information coming in. Korgh had worked out a detailed timeline for when things would happen following the release of the Kahless message. The Federation and Klingon pursuers should still be following the trail of self-destructing repeater stations into the Briar Patch; telemetry coming back from the nearer satellites that still existed suggested the pursuers were an hour away.

Somehow the
Enterprise
had skipped to the end of the trail, interfering with his big finish—and driving his illusion-generating technical support ship from orbit. “
Blackstone
has descended and is nearby,” Shift, as N'Keera, whispered to him. “
Enterprise
is emitting something that may interfere with their cloaking device while in the Briar Patch.”

“And ours.” Cross frowned.

“Such a tactic would only work in space.”

That, at least, was a comfort.
Blackstone
needed to stay relatively near to Cross and Shift to be able to project its illusions, and it needed to stay cloaked, lest the Unsung realize they were being deceived. His crack technicians had literally gone to ground.

He would have to make an on-the-spot decision. Korgh wanted him to post Unsung members at various places in the compound to serve as a lure for the authorities; there was no time to arrange that now. But even if the trap was not baited, it could still be sprung. “Order all vessels cloaked,” he commanded.

Hemtara passed the word to the Phantom Wing. “All birds-of-prey are loaded and cloaked—except for our search teams in the Spillway. Should we head for orbit, Lord Kruge, and strike the Starfleet ship?”

“No.” The information from
Blackstone
gave him a chance to look the genius tactician before his subjects. “
Enterprise
is emitting a field that will disrupt our cloaking devices if we leave the atmosphere. We should circle the planet and depart on the other side. Their particles will not reach us.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He glanced up at Shift—whose concerned expression as N'Keera certainly reflected the Orion woman's real one at the moment—and then he looked at the card in his hand. The ace of clubs, soiled and sticky; he still had no idea why Worf had purloined the cards or left this one in the mud. Cross only knew he would never be able to do tricks with this deck again.

T
HE
S
PILLWAY

T
HANE

In their years on Thane, the hunters had figured out some very good places to lie in wait. A recess had been hollowed into the massive natural arch, allowing Worf the ability to crouch on his hands and knees without being seen—though the space was so narrow he had reluctantly removed his helmet.

Worf suspected the four Klingons advancing up the path still had theirs on, reasoning from the lack of discussion that they were using their helmet communicators to avoid making any more noise. But no one could be entirely silent here; he could tell from their footfalls in the sopping wet path that he'd guessed correctly about the direction they'd be coming from. Their pace quickened as they came within sight of the fallen transponder, and then slowed as they grew more cautious.
Worf held his breath as he heard the clattering of disruptor rifles growing closer below.

Close enough.
Worf reached for the armored breastplate he'd removed, piled high with the bulbous sacs he'd cut from the dead avian mother's body. It had been harrowing, trying to get them up the tree without breaking any—and now, holding the breastplate like a tray, he rose to his knees and turned.

“I am Worf, son of Mogh!” Below, the four Unsung warriors looked up at him, startled to see the glimmering sacs falling toward them. They burst like balloons full of gelatin, spattering the armor of the entire party. Worf didn't look. He was back inside the rim of the hollowed area, bracing for the onslaught he was sure would follow.

It did, as one disruptor bolt after another struck the bottom of the petrified arch. Worf fumbled for the knife, hoping the structure would hold just a few more moments. He heard a worrisome crack—

—and then a series of screeches that nearly shattered his eardrums. Smaller versions of the lesser valandris tore downward through the foliage—although
smaller
completely failed to describe their size. Each beast outweighed the warriors, and from what Valandris had told him, Worf knew that the scent of their food would drive them into a frenzy.

With the sounds of chaos below—and his perch ­shaking—Worf grasped the dagger and got up. Seeing a warrior half-covered with the shiny goo below, he announced himself again and dived over the side. His target, already surprised by the avian attack, looked up at the wrong moment. The dagger smashed through his helmet's faceplate. He howled in pain as the force of Worf's landing took them both down.

The
Enterprise
's first officer yanked the blade free and rolled off as quickly as he could. Blinded and in agony, the warrior continued to clutch his disruptor rifle, blazing away. Worf rolled off into the swamp, fearful of disruptor fire—and more.
The muck, never a safe place to be on Thane, was his only refuge. He sank down low and listened.

The firing stopped. Looking back, he saw why: two massive avians had pinned the warrior he had struck, feasting on their final meal from their dead mother. Worf saw that one of the warriors was in the swamp, running for his life—while the other two were similarly collapsed. Worf waited until the avians, sated, departed. Then he rose—and quickly sank down again when he realized his tunic had been spattered with goo from the warrior's armor. He quickly ripped it off and rose shirtless from the brine.

The exile's disruptor rifle had not saved him from Worf or the creatures—but it would serve Worf if only he could pry it from the man's death grip. Breaking it free at last, Worf caused the corpse's head to roll—and there, in the bloody mess behind the shattered faceplate, he recognized Valandris's cousin Tharas.

He looked back up the path toward the transponder. He needed it, if it still worked—and there were two more teams out there, neither of which could have missed hearing the chaos from the avian attack. The creatures had completely cleaned off the odd bits of goo that had spattered on the ground, making it easier for him to cross beneath the failing arch on his way to the transponder.

He reached the transponder—and heard the characteristic noise that meant it was still sending its homing signal. He breathed in relief—

—until he heard something else. “
Wor
f
!
”

He turned back to see Valandris, helmet off and rifle in her hand, crouching over Tharas's lifeless form. Her face was twisted with anguish. “I'm going to kill you.”