Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [104]
“Good … I think we can use that. What else?”
“What else? … Well, their system, the way it was designed, what they value in their society, tends to put a whole lot of people on the front lines who all have the same talents and the same weaknesses as each other.”
With some effort, Mr. Scott climbed down out of the tube entirely and added, “You got ten Klingons—you got ten Klingons.”
“That’s right,” Bateson said. “But you got ten humans? You got ten really different methods of doing almost anything. Starfleet values all kinds of talents. These are science people, those are medical people, those are tacticians, that’s a comm specialist, these are engineers … and we’re all on the front lines. There are captains who came up from engineering, some who are historians, others out of cartography or spectroscopy—you come up against a Starfleet captain, and you don’t know what the hell you’re in for. At least, that’s the way it was ninety years ago. That’s why the Klingons were never able to beat the Federation. We’ve got them all figured out, and they can’t make sense of us. It’s a fabulous advantage.”
Feeling somewhat warmer toward this warmonger, Riker grinned again. “So that’s why it was such an insult when Kozara said you were predictable.”
Bateson groaned out his misery. “Sure was. We always took it as given that Klingons were uncooperative and uncoordinated, grim and immovable, and so bigoted they forgot to understand their enemies. And look at me, Mr. Preparedness, trapped down here like a rat. I allowed my ship to be taken. It’s unforgivable.”
“You couldn’t have known that Kozara had spent the past ninety years having the Klingon whipped out of him. He’s spent the better part of a century eating his pride for dinner every night.”
“Wait a minute … wait a minute. That still doesn’t change his general technological background.” Bateson contemplated. “He and his men have basically the same backgrounds, that of a warrior. They aren’t specialists. Kozara won’t have any scientists or tech guys with him. Even though he planned to take over a ship of the line, a mighty complicated ship with lots of labs and departments, he’ll have brought only warriors with him. They can move the ship, fire the weapons, but there are lots of things on a ship like that that can confuse the very devil out of them. That’s it! I knew I wasn’t so dumb!”
Starting to feel as if they really did have some advantages, Riker smiled. “No, sir, you’re not so dumb.”
On a roll, Bateson took the approval with a sad nod. “What Klingons have trouble understanding is that muscles don’t matter. Their hand-to-hand predeliction is silly. It’s part of evolution that muscles aren’t important unless you’re going to remain a beast. The geek in the lab shows that brains are more important. One blue-haired old lady with a phaser could hold off an army with bat’leths.”
“You’re right,” Riker said. “I never really thought about that. How do we use all this knowledge to our advantage? We have to take the ship back, or at least make it unusable to Kozara. How do we use Kozara against himself, knowing what you know?”
Bateson shook his head now, baffled. “A Klingon to whom honor means nothing? I’ve no idea.”
“Well, I do.” Proudly, Riker offered, “And you just gave it to me. We can surprise them, and I know how.”
“How?”
“By having a sense of humor.”
Bateson clapped his hands once sharply. “Oh, yes! A sense of humor can be a formidable weapon against somebody who doesn’t have one! Right?”
Riker grinned again. “I like that.”
With both arms up the tube as he made a final adjustment of some mysterious kind, Scott contributed, “We can use that to reduce their numbers. I’ve got a hell of a sense of humor. You’ll be surprised how much of one this ship has.”
“Did you get the message sent?” Riker asked.
“Aye, I did. Low-power’s the best I could do. It’ll take a while, maybe four hours, to reach starbase. Unless there’s a ship between here and there with the sense to relay.”
“Then we’ll have to get to work.”
Scott finished what he was doing and said, “I can