Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [118]
“Well put,” Bateson offered. “Kozara, you’re a man of honor no matter what anybody says.”
“Yes, yes,” Kozara drawled. “And you are better than I care to admit, human. Better than my son.”
He turned away from Zaidan, and did not look again at his son. Instead, with rather shocking direction of purpose, he poked at the comm link on the helm. “Captain Jean-Luc Picard. This is Commander Kozara of the Klingon Advance Assault Squadron. Come and take this ship. I no longer want it.” He waved at Riker and Bateson then, and said, “Tell him or he will not believe.”
Riker didn’t actually believe it himself. Was it a trap? No, couldn’t be.
Still suspicious, he slowly moved to the comm link. “Captain, this is Riker.”
“Mr. Riker, do you have control of the bridge?”
“I believe so …”
“What does that mean?”
Rather than respond immediately, Riker looked at Kozara.
Kozara looked at Zaidan. Zaidan looked at Bateson.
Reading something in his old rival’s control of the moment, Bateson turned to Riker and said, “Tell him the bridge is ours, Mr. Riker. I’d like him to beam over.”
Riker felt his face crimp in a frown, but he couldn’t figure out a reason to disobey that order. Captains. Weird.
“Captain, we have the bridge. Captain Bateson requests that you beam over immediately.”
“Acknowledged. I’ll comply. Stand by.”
“Standing by.”
Around the bridge, Kozara’s crew members stood in surreal satisfaction. Whatever they had come here to do, they didn’t want to do it on Zaidan’s behalf. They didn’t think he deserved it. Odd—they’d been willing to slaughter a planet, a civilization, at Kozara’s bidding, and now just as easily stood down at his whim.
With new respect Riker watched Kozara. There must be something in him, for his crew to do this unexpected thing.
In fact, Kozara seemed more satisfied by this surrender than embarrassed by it.
Before Riker could reflect further, a single transporter beam sizzled onto the upper forward deck, and a moment later, Jean-Luc Picard was standing there.
Was he ever! Fully armed with a phaser rifle, this was a different Jean-Luc Picard than Riker had ever seen before. His bearing was supremely confident, and from the moment the transporter beams faded away, he was undeniably in command of this bridge.
“Stand down!” he snapped to the cluster of Klingons.
“They’re stood down, Captain,” Bateson said, stepping forward with two disruptors he had collected from Gaylon and another Klingon. “Of his own choice, Kozara has decided to modify his course of action. He is not our prisoner. His men are not under guard.”
Picard didn’t believe for a moment, but when Riker stepped forward with his back to Kozara, the captain’s expression changed.
“Confirmed, sir,” Riker said, and gave him a little flare of a brow for good measure.
Just for a moment, Picard actually looked disappointed. Was that right? Riker looked again, but the moment was passed.
“Very good,” Picard said. “Number One, take tactical and run a diagnostic on the ship’s systems. Give me an overview.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Captain Bateson, your lip is bleeding.” Picard stepped down to the command arena with Bateson and Kozara. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right,” Bateson told him with a shrug that was becoming emblematic. “Sorry to spoil your fun.”
“Yes, I was rather looking forward to it,” Picard told him, still holding the phaser rifle, but pointed now at the deck. “Where’s your crew?”
“Set adrift on Kozara’s derelict ship, back in the Typhon Expanse.”
“We’ll pick them up. And the others?”
“Mostly they’re locked