Страница 35 из 81
The Chutwas now one minute from colliding with the Gratok.“Why won’t they veer off? Just a two-degree course change would do it.” Talik leaned into his comm unit. “Kater, you’ve got to abandon ship. Those Klingons aren’t moving!” Then you’ll be forced to stay on Raknal V for a while,he thought. True, she’d be left without a ship, but at least she’d be alive. And maybe she would feel predisposed toward the man who did everything he could to save her…
“My people are getting to the escape pods now,”she said.
Talik didn’t like the sound of that. “Your people? What about you?”
“Ship-master goes down with the sinking ship, Talik—besides, we don’t have enough pods for everyone. I had to cut back to make more cargo room. I’m not about to make one of my people die for a financial choiceI made.”
This was ruining a perfectly good fantasy. “You can’t just die, dammit!”
“Then get those Klingons out of my way.”
Hamnod let out a breath that whistled through his nose. “We’re trying! Chut,you are now forty seconds from a catastrophic collision with a Cardassian freighter. Veer off now!”
The next forty seconds were the longest of Talik’s life. He found himself utterly riveted by the display in front of him, as the yellow light that indicated the drifting Gratokgrew closer and closer to the red light that indicated the leisurely pace of the Chut.Some smaller yellow lights appeared—those had to be the escape pods Kater mentioned. Talik noted that there were eight of them; freighters of the Gratok’s class usually had twelve two-person pods. Hamnod continued to shout implorations to the Chut,to no avail. The Klingon ship continued forward, its course unchanging.
The collision itself was almost anticlimactic, rendered as it was by the red light and the yellow light intersecting. A moment later, both lights went out.
If the Chutwas a typical Klingon passenger ship, it had the capacity to hold a hundred people, staff included. The Gratokhad a crew complement of twenty, at least sixteen of whom probably got out in the pods, though Talik had no way of telling if the pods survived being that close to the two ships a
“Get me Prefect Monor now,” Hamnod said.
And Kater Onell was dead.
“Talik!”
The flight controller shook his head and looked up at Hamnod’s fat face. “Hm?”
“I said get me Prefect Monor now!”The supervisor sighed. “It’s going to be a very very long night.”
“This outrage will not go unanswered, Qaolin!”
Governor Qaolin had already gone through the two bottles of bloodwine in his desk drawer, and was fervently wishing for a third as he stared at the outraged face of his Cardassian counterpart. I suppose I should be grateful that he is at least speaking to me. Usually I only get to talk to that imbecile aide of his.But the destruction of the Gratokand the Chutwas the worst of the recent disasters, and Qaolin wasn’t about to stand for going through an underling. Not with a hundred dead.
“Youdare call this an outrage, Monor? At least most of your people survived! There were ninety-eight Klingon nationals on the Chutwho died because of your incompetence!”
“Our Orbital Control Center did everything they could to get theChut to veer off. They refused to respond to us!”
“Convenient, is it not, Monor, that these exhortations only occurred after the Chutentered the one orbital section we could not scan from ourOrbital Control Center. Of course, we would have been able to verify your account if you had allowed us to put the boosters in place, or even accepted our offer to cooperate…”
“Oh, no you don’t.”Monor’s face was contorted into a rage that was almost Klingon. Qaolin found himself fighting an urge to admire it. “Don’t try to make this into something that’s our fault.”
Qaolin couldn’t help but laugh in Monor’s face. “Whose fault is it, then? It was not ourship that malfunctioned and went catastrophically of course. On the contrary, the Chutwas following a standard orbital path—which got it destroyed and a hundred i
“I
Restraining himself from reacting directly to the slur, Qaolin instead forced a grin to his face. “We need commit no sabotage to make you look bad, Monor. You are accomplishing that task quite adequately on your own.”
“I will not be insulted by the likes of you! I know you sabotaged theGratok, and I’ll prove it!”
The grin became a snarl. “Are you so deluded as to think that we would murder a hundred of our citizens just to stop your rocks from getting to Cardassia?”
“Don’t try to play the i
Monor’s image faded from the viewscreen on the wall of Qaolin’s office, but the governor spoke to it anyhow. “This is victory?”
He went to take a gulp of his bloodwine, only to find the mug empty. Furious, he threw the mug across the room.
Stabbing the intercom with a finger, he summoned his aide, who entered at a dead run. “Yes, my lord!”
“My lord.” That is the true joke,Qaolin thought. “Find out if General Worf has left yet. If he has, call his ship back here. If he hasn’t, I need to see him immediately.”
“Uh…” The aide shuffled from foot to foot.
“What is it?” Qaolin prompted.
“Sir, we just received the passenger list for the Chut.”
Qaolin closed his eyes.
Then he picked up his chair and threw it against the wall containing the viewscreen. The chair broke in several places, and the screen shattered with an ear-splitting crack.
The aide stood in the doorway, unmoving.
“General Worf was on the Chut?”Qaolin asked.
“Yes, sir, he was.”
“That would mean that General Worf is dead.”
“Yes, sir.”
Qaolin smashed his fist into his desk. “Establish the insta-link to the Homeworld. Now!”
“Yes, sir.” The aide scurried out of the room.
“And fetch me another bottle of bloodwine!” Qaolin had no idea if I.I. agents went to Gre’thoror Sto-Vo-Kor,but whichever it was, the governor was quite sure that Yovang was laughing at him from there right now.
The insta-link was a tight-beam subspace system that enabled live communication between Raknal V and Qo’noS. It used an appalling amount of energy, and was only to be engaged in emergencies. As far as Qaolin was concerned, this qualified.
Ten minutes and three mugs of bloodwine later, Qaolin faced the image of Chancellor Ditagh on the small viewer on his desk’s workstation. Five minutes after that, he had finished briefing the chancellor on what had happened.
“What action do you wish me to take, sir?”