Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [39]
“Then I’ll specify for you,” the woman said steadily, unintimidated by his presence or his size. “Because Ugulan and the other Rogues were going to let themselves be captured instead of destroying themselves as they swore to me they would. You didn’t want to be captured. But you also didn’t want to die. Isn’t that right?”
“True.” Straightening his back, Worf looked over Mrs. Khanty’s head at the sculpture of a hawk on a wall shelf and allowed himself to be honest for one flashing second. “I am not a man who will die easily.”
The governor’s wife leaned back in her chair, which with its drape of embroidered fabric looked more like a throne— and she knew that. Her neatly done hair fingered her shoulders. Her cheekbones caught the pale light.
“But you didn’t let yourself be captured either,” she said.
At her candid tone, Worf relaxed his stance and looked her in the eyes. For the first time, he felt as if he could speak as something of an equal.
“That would have been bad for both of us, Mrs. Khanty,” he said. “I am absent without leave from Starfleet, and you …”
He deliberately paused, but continued sparring with that firm gaze. He told her with that gaze that he knew what she was.
“Yes,” she murmured. “This was my chance to suck twenty percentage points away from the lieutenant governor. I could’ve handily won the election. Now, it’ll be close. I don’t like ‘close.’ I’m down to three days now. What can I do in three days? Do you know what will happen to you and all the Rogues if I lose?”
Several possible answers of varied degrees of intensity ran through his mind. Finally he plucked one. “The lieutenant governor will take action against us.”
Mrs. Khanty did not smile, nor did she in any way offer tacit approval.
“No,” she said. “I will.”
He stood before her in the amber aura of the imitation gaslights that pervaded the compound, and said nothing.
“I have an assignment for you,” she went on, “which is going to put you over the line into my complete trust. The Rogues have to pay for their cowardice.”
Worf frowned in protest, abruptly defensive about Klingons and cowardice fielding the same sentence. Right through his sudden distaste at defending the Rogues, he said, “It was not their fault that the Starfleet scout picked up the freighter.”
“Not that part,” Mrs. Khanty agreed. “It’s this other part. We had a pact. They swear allegiance to me, stay on my planet, enjoy expatriate status here, be my elite guard, gain influence and power, and in return they swore they would self-immolate before letting themselves be caught, which would cast me under suspicion. They didn’t hold up to that pact. They understand there’s a price. They will have to pay it. I want you to be the collector.”
The heat from a burning log snapping in the fireplace pressed against the back of Worf’s neck. Mrs. Khanty was completely unreadable. There was no inflection in her words, no evil gleam in her eye, no conniving enjoyment, no sultry threat. She might as well have been speaking to a chef while arranging a banquet menu.
“Choose any one of them. Make sure you don’t leave any flotsam,” she added, without waiting for him to accept the assignment. “I can’t have this kind of thing happening again.”
She paused then, and folded her hands on her lap, and crossed her legs. And waited.
He stood before her and simply could not think of a single thing to say. How did one accept a job to kill someone else just to make a point?
Since he first heard Commissioner Toledano’s claim that Klingons had inflicted torture and callous murder, he had wanted to kill. His gut had churned since that moment until this moment, and now he felt as if his innards had been pulled out. He was being handed a chance to kill a dishonorable Klingon. He could do it in the line of duty.