Declassified

“Shhh,” said Reyes, his eyes sca

Moments later, an alert Klaxon blared over the colony’s comm system. Klingon shouts and rapid footfalls began to sound outside the office.

Reyes moved immediately to a position near the door. Ga

Then they heard the bleat of a Klingon communicator. It was coming from one of the unconscious guards.

“Damn,” Reyes whispered.

Ga

“nuq DaneH?”she barked. “. . . HISlaH. net Sov! . . . jIyaj. latlh De’ wIloSneS.”She closed the co

“You’re full of surprises today, Commander.”

“Just doing my job, sir.”

“And then some,” Reyes acknowledged. “Keep it up, Hallie.” The noise outside the door had lessened considerably, reduced to the deep drone of the Klaxon. “Zeke, can you give me a reading?”

Fisher handed his disruptor to Latour and ran a new scan with his medical tricorder, setting the biosign range to maximum. “Corridor’s clear. No Klingons within a hundred meters.”

“What about the civilians?”

“Looks like they went for cover.” He looked up at Reyes as he closed the device. “I think this is our window, Diego.”

“All right,” Reyes said, his hand hovering over the door’s manual control. “On my mark.”

Fisher looked at Latour and nodded at the disruptor. “You want to hang on to that?” he asked hopefully.

Latour looked horrified. “I don’t know how to use one!”

“Terrific,” Fisher said, and unstrapped his tricorder. “Switch with me. Keep an eye on the screen for Klingon life signs.”

“And . . . now,” Reyes said, slapping the button. The captain went out first, verified the absence of enemy combatants, and gave the others the all-clear. “Doctor Latour, you’re with me. Which way?”

Latour pointed.

“Stay behind me,” Reyes told the civilian. “Ga

The next few corridors were as deserted as the first two, albeit riddled with abandoned tools and cases. Unfinished repair jobs marred the walls and ceiling.

“Talk to me, Latour,” Reyes whispered as they approached another bend. “Are we clear?”

Latour swallowed as he pa

“Don’t wave it around so fast,” Fisher advised. “Give it a chance to work.”

“I think we’re—”

“bIH vISam!”

— so screwed,Fisher thought as he pulled Latour into cover behind a support column. Disruptor fire burned the air. A few steps ahead of them, Reyes found shelter behind a tool crate, while several meters behind, Ga

Their attackers, firing rifles from behind a thick cross brace at the next T-junction, were two of the biggest Klingons Fisher had ever seen.

“What are you doing?” Latour yelled as Fisher fumbled to reset the disruptor. “Start firing back!”

“Son,” Fisher grated as enemy fire seared the wall between them, “I’ve gotten this far in my Starfleet career without taking another sentient life, and I’ll be damned if I’m go

“Are you crazy?” cried Latour. “They’re going to kill us!”

“Zeke!” Reyes shouted, trying to get off a shot from behind the crate and failing. The Klingons kept him pi

Fisher looked, saw what Reyes meant, and stared back at his friend in disbelief. “Are you out of your mind?”

“I can’t make the shot!” Reyes snarled. “Ga

Another blast tore into the column. Fragments flew. “I’m getting too old for this!” Fisher yelled at Reyes, blinking sweat from his eyes as he tried to take aim.

“Oh, really?” Reyes yelled back, ducking lower to escape more suppression fire. “I seem to recall you saying the same thing ten years ago back on the Artemis! Exactly when the hell were you young enough for this, Zeke?”

“Will you just shut up?!”Fisher shouted, and pressed the trigger.

The beam struck true, blasting through a severely compromised section of the rock ceiling supported by the cross brace. Chunks of rock broke free, descending on the Klingons in a cloud of dust. Fisher waited for the inevitable cave-in, or for the burly Klingons to shrug off the debris, madder than ever. But after nearly a minute of silence and slowly dissipating cloud, neither of his expectations was met.

Reyes, covered in fine gray dust, cautiously picked himself up off the floor. Fisher squinted down the corridor. The brace was still there, as was the thick rock roof that protected them from hard vacuum. The Klingons could be heard groaning under the pile of rubble.

Reyes nodded in approval. “That was nice work.”

“I want a transfer,” Fisher said.

Reyes scoffed. “No, you don’t.”

“You’re go

“You’re too ornery to die.”

“Are you gentlemen finished?” Ga

“Fine, you take point this time,” Reyes said. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

Fisher sighed and went to coax Doctor Latour to his feet. The poor fellow had gone fetal at some point during the firefight, and needed reassurance that the immediate danger was past.

They picked their way past the fallen Klingons and finally reached the entrance to the facility’s laboratory wing, but the door was sealed. Ga

Standing just beyond the threshold was Gorkon.

Tall and imposing as ever, the Klingon looked as if he were cut from stone. His elaborate baldric was emblazoned with the symbols of his rank and House, and his personal dagger—his d’k tagh,Fisher remembered—showed prominently at his hip. A pair of armed guards stood just behind each of his broad shoulders, and an all too familiar hint of derision tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“ ‘Once more unto the breach’ . . . ?” the general asked softly. “And yet you still wage war like a child, Reyes, resorting to trickery and subterfuge in order to escape confrontation.”

“I’m here now,” Reyes pointed out. “And I’m not the one hiding in a hole.”

“No, you’re simply the one covered in its dust, like a targrooting through ash,” said Gorkon. “How does it feel to know you could get this far only by taking the coward’s way—beaming biosign decoys into the mines to trick my warriors into believing Dauntlesshad deployed assault teams?”

Reyes smirked. “That really pissed you off, didn’t it?”

“I always suspected you had no true stomach for battle.” Gorkon’s eyes moved to consider the rest of the landing party. “Doctor Fisher, is it not? And you must be Commander Ga

That was when Reyes lost it, raising his captured disruptor with surprising speed and pointing it at Gorkon’s face. The general’s guards quickly raised their weapons toward Reyes, even as Fisher and Ga

There was dark amusement in Gorkon’s eyes.

Fisher knew Diego wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger on the man he held personally responsible for last year’s deaths aboard Dauntless,especially that of Rajiv Mehta. The pain of those losses had not abated, and Fisher worried it might yet blind Reyes to the consequences of indulging his need to avenge his fallen friends.