The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [90]
Malkus was able to use his pawns’natural abilities for himself, so the Klingons he had enthralled all did what came naturally—they unholstered their weapons as they moved through the tree-lined route between the hill where Malkus had been uncovered and the shuttle. They all had at least one bladed weapon, and some had energy weapons as well.
The six continued onward to the shuttle, while J’lang and the other three held back. Spock and Worf were nearby, Malkus knew that much. But he could not pinpoint where. They were not in sight, but the trees and bushes provided plenty of cover. It had been a long time since Malkus had coordinated a ground campaign—before his rise to power, in fact, since after that, he had generals to do the work for him—but he remembered enough to know that the two ambassadors were probably hiding behind one of the larger trees or one of the bushes. It was only a matter of flushing them out.
He split the foursome up, each taking a compass point for direction. At a certain distance beyond the field in which Malkus knew Spock and Worf had to be, they would turn back.
J’lang was carrying a weapon that was apparently used for the sculpting of rock into artwork, but it would work just as well to rend flesh. He also had a dagger of some kind—apparently, most Klingons carried one; they called it a d’k tahg. Both were one-handed weapons, so Malkus had J’lang have both at the ready.
Unfortunately, a search through the bushes and trees to the west revealed nothing. He turned J’lang back. When he arrived at the starting point, he saw two of his other pawns. Making contact with them, he learned that they had found nothing, either.
So where can they—?
Before Malkus could complete the thought, a bottle of some sort flew through the air and broke apart upon impact with the ground. When it did so, it burst into flames—and the fire quickly spread around the clearing.
Spock swung down from one of the branches in a kicking motion, his feet colliding with the back of one of the other Klingons’ heads. As he fell, the other Klingon turned to fire his disruptor on the ambassador.
Before he could take the shot, however, a dark hand gripped his right shoulder. The Klingon convulsed and fell to the ground. Only then did Malkus see that the other ambassador had used the flames as cover to sneak up behind him and apply the same maneuver to the Klingon that Spock had used on Worf earlier.
I had thought that to be a Vulcan technique.
Then the fourth Klingon, who was named Roka, returned, and immediately charged Spock. He had instinctively attacked with his bat’leth—an edged weapon, but one favored by some Klingons over energy weapons. With astonishing speed, Spock grabbed one of the branches that had caught fire, and used it to hold Roka off.
Meanwhile, Malkus instructed J’lang to charge Worf. The sculpting tool could indeed be deadly, but it was not a distance weapon.
The Klingon that Spock had downed also had a bat’leth, and the halfbreed was able to keep Roka at bay with his torch long enough to grab the weapon and use it to parry.
Malkus noted that Spock was using a fighting style that he recognized from the other Klingons he’d possessed—it was based on their form of combat called mok’bara. Malkus also knew that Spock had never studied the mok’bara.
Then again, he thought as Worf calmly dodged and weaved out of the way of J’lang’s two-pronged d’k tahg and sculpting-tool attack, this Klingon ambassador had likely never learned the nerve pinch.
Malkus enjoyed a worthy foe as much as the next tyrant, but enough was enough. He needed to end this and get back to the business of rebuilding his empire.
It was then that he discovered that two ships were approaching Narendra III: a Starfleet vessel and a Klingon Defense Force vessel. Both were large—considerably more powerful than any of the eight ships Malkus had in his power. He reached out to the two new ships