Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [35]
Kozara moved on once-powerful legs toward Zaidan. The two stood looking at each other, and Gaylon realized that Kozara had once been nearly that tall and brawny, but had lost bulk with the years of low activity, no battles.
The commander straightened and squared his shoulders within the armor he no longer completely filled.
“My son,” he greeted.
Zaidan’s head had been tilted to one side, and he now slowly tilted it to the other side.
“My pain.”
A shock—that was Kozara’s voice from years ago!
But the words … the contempt …
Kozara, Gaylon, the entire bridge crew visibly sank. The son shriveled the father with his glare. All became clear in that instant. All became derision.
Stunned in the truest sense of the word, Kozara stared and stared until his eyes began to water and he had to look down at the deck. With his head bowed there and one hand steadying him with a grip on the command chair, he seemed to have been punched in the heart.
Pestilent disappointment shot through the crew. Standing nearby, Gaylon closed his hands and took the same kind of grip on the hem of his tunic. There he stood, holding onto his own clothing and hoping to keep control. A gush of breath, a flinch, a tightening of his eyes—unacceptable. Zaidan would see out of the corner of his peripheral vision.
In that moment a strange and unexpected shift took place—Zaidan, the son, the skilled laborer, the lower, suddenly and quite decisively became superior to imperial trained warriors. On one finger Gaylon could count how many times in Klingon history that had happened.
Now it was happening here. Gaylon felt as if he were shriveling into the deck.
Slowly, slowly Kozara’s eyes rose again to meet his angry son’s, but they were crimped and wrinkle-fanned. He parted his lips. No sound came for several moments, through which Zaidan harshly waited without saying anything to his father. Self-control—an effective method of torture.
“Why do you say this to your father?” Kozara croaked from the depth of his misery.
“Do you know what happened while you were gone?” the son shot back. “Your one victory was snuffed out, that is what happened. That.”
Kozara blinked in confusion. His face shifted and twisted. “What is it you speak about? My victory was the destruction of the Bulldog and his crew. He is gone. They are gone. My victory stands.”
“Your victory has evaporated,” Zaidan charged. “Bateson is back!”
Back?
Gaylon heard what Zaidan said, but could make no sense of it. The Federation ship had disappeared in a place where nothing could disappear. Kozara and his crew had searched for them, to make sure there was no trick, and for certain the Bulldog and his Bozeman had disintegrated. The Federation used no cloaking device. That ship could not have disappeared. Even with a cloaking device, there were methods of detection. But there had been no trail, no residue, no distortion. Nothing.
“Back?” Kozara belched. “We drove him into a planet! He is dead!”
“He is back.” Zaidan poked his nose forward and glowered. “He did not die. He did not plow into a planet. He went not into a planet, but into a time anomaly! And he emerged three years ago, to be escorted in trumpeting victory to Starbase 12 by none less than that petrified block Jean-Luc Picard and the becursed Enterprise!”
The shock was almost too much to absorb. Gaylon’s mind rushed with protests, but he dared not say anything. This was not his time to speak, yet he wanted to blurt out arguments, insist that this could not happen, that there was some trick. But this was Kozara’s moment and Gaylon could not interfere.
And Kozara had nothing to say. The commander shuddered and sizzled in his place, but said nothing.
“Not only is Morgan Bateson back,” Zaidan continued, “but Morgan Bateson is famous. At forty-two years old, Morgan Bateson is a hero. His ship which you ‘destroyed’ is polished