Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [76]
“How do you know this?”
“Because I am still a commander in the Klingon fleet and I still have my resources.”
“You are a dishonored liar.”
“I am dishonored, but I am no liar. And while you stand aboard my vessel, I am your commander, not your father. You will treat me with respect while you are on my ship.”
Until this moment, Gaylon had been trying to avoid eye contact with either Kozara or Zaidan, but now he turned to look. Zaidan had clamped his lips, obviously surprised by the calmness with which his father had made those statements.
Kozara was acting like another man from those minutes when Zaidan had come aboard. The commander now seemed to radiate confidence and planning. This change was mystifying even to Gaylon, who knew Kozara as well as anyone ever could.
The commander folded his hands before his chest and ran one thumb along the knuckles of the other hand. “The Klingon Empire has not lain idle during the ill-advised ‘peace’ with those people. We know how to take that ship.”
“How will you and one miserable ship destroy the new Enterprise?”
“I do not mean to destroy it. I mean to possess it.”
“Possess?”
Trying desperately to keep sense in this escapade, Gaylon stepped toward Kozara and asked, “But what if he will not engage you?”
“He will engage. He is an impatient youth.” Kozara leaned forward and narrowed his eyes at the screen. “You cannot teach a young dog an old dog’s tricks. But there are obstacles … there is an android assigned to that ship. Captain Picard’s tin doll. We must be ready to incapacitate him, or he will single-handedly pull our heads off. I have researched this—the android runs on a positronic brain and neural network. We can neutralize that if we prepare.”
“How do you know,” Zaidan asked, “what he has in his head?”
“Because Starfleet is a friendly child. They keep no secrets. I accessed their library net, and there he was, with full diagnostics. They are too proud of him. That is one step of many. Plan … plan … we must have a plan for each step. We must hold back our advantage as long as possible. Listen to me, Gaylon.”
Kozara broke his commune with the screen and grasped Gaylon by the sleeve so hard that it pinched his skin under the fabric.
“I have been in contact with the spy,” Kozara said. “He is still with us.”
Baffled, Gaylon came suddenly to life and demanded, “How could you contact him?”
“With my connections in the High Council. Though they would not meet my eyes, they had to listen to me. I was right—the contact was reactivated after Bateson came from the past. And here we are today, with advantages.”
Kozara’s son, who teetered on the brink of not being his son anymore, scowled with dripping contempt. “We have one great disadvantage. We have you. Something will go wrong. You will blunder somehow.”
“I may blunder,” Kozara spat back, “but at least I have made my own mark upon the empire and not clung to pity as my crutch. I worked ninety years in hard servility, I and all these around you. Shame can be struck away, or it can be worked away. Which have you done, Zaidan? Many have overcome worse obstacles than a gloryless father. There are other kinds of warriors than those with weapons. What have you done to deserve anything other than pity … my son? If nothing, then stand back, and watch real warriors work.”
“Captain, you don’t take a brand-new ship into a demilitarized zone near hostile space with reduced shields and weapons. You just don’t. I’m sure you won’t.”
“The Nora Nicholas is already in position, waiting to trapdoor us. The arrangements have all been made. It’s all been worked out, on recommendations by Admiral Farrow and Admiral Hayes. They think, and I agree, that war games near the Neutral Zone will demonstrate to the Klingons that the Federation is not intimidated by their recent martial prancing.”
“Taking a brand-new starship out is a complicated venture,” Riker forcefully insisted. “Neither Admiral Farrow nor Hayes have ever done it. Respectfully remind the captain that you, sir, also have never done this.”
“Neither