Star Trek Deep Space 9 The Left Hand of Destiny Book Two

“YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO

BETTER THAN THAT.”

Martok coughed, spitting black spots out onto the snow, though the lung puncture might be the least of

his worries. With each passing second, strength drained out of him and he felt a strange, unaccountable

pressure in his chest around his heart.

Off in the distance, another creature howled; more of Gothmara’s pets on the prowl. Almost as if it

could not control itself, the Hur’q before him threw back its head and howled in response and Martok

knew he had his chance.

When the distant voice echoed across the plain again and the last before him lifted its head to respond,

Martok struck. If not for the deep snow and his shattered leg, the blow would have been perfect, but as

it was all he did was slash the monster’s jugular. Blood jetted out as its heart pumped the Hur’q’s life out

onto the snow, but life did not flee its body. Snapping its head forward, the beast launched itself at

Martok, who was ready for it. He aimed to deflect its attack, to give its heart time to finish the job, flutter

and fall silent, but the edge of the cliff was too close and his body too battered.

The pair of them, monster and warrior, scraped to a halt at the lip of the precipice and, for a brief,

thrilling moment, Martok thought he might be able to keep the blade pressed against its nose, to hold it,

just long enough. Its eyes grew dim and he could feel its breaths coming shorter and shorter. Death

would come. Its head would drop onto the ground and Martok would climb up over the corpse, find his

communicator and Pharh would get him out of there before the other Hur’q found him. He would be

warm again and there would be medicine and food ...

... And then the ice shelf crumbled from beneath them both.

Based upon STAR TREK®created by Gene Roddenberry

and STAR TREK: DEEP SPACENINE

created by Rick Berman & MichaelPiller

POCKETBOOKS

New York London Toronto Sydney Singapore Qo’noS

The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you

should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor

the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s

imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead

is entirely coincidental.

AnOriginal Publication of POCKET BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New

York, NY 10020

STAR TREK is a registered trademark of Paramount Pictures.

This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license

from Paramount Pictures.

For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-671-78494-3

First Pocket Books printing May 2003

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information regarding special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster

Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 orbusiness@simonandschuster.com

Cover art by Cliff Nielsen

Printed in the U.S.A.

For my dad, Col J. G. Hertzler, USAF,

and my mom, teacher of Latin, French,

and life

J.G. H.

“For the Andorian Girl. She knows why.”

J.L.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.5

PART ONE.6

1.7

2.9

3.12

4.17

5.21

6.25

7.30

8.36

9.40

10.46

11.52

PART TWO..57

12.58

13.63

14.69

15.75

16.80

17.87

18.93

19.98

20.104

21.109

EPILOGUE.112

ABOUT THE AUTHORS.115

About the e-Book.116

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Firstly, I am ever thankful for the patience and talent of my editor, Marco Palmieri. I am no less grateful

for the heart and wisdom of Ira Steven Behr, Executive Producer ofDeep Space Nine; for the words of

Ronald Moore, poetic soul of the Klingon Empire; and for Gene Roddenberry, the sine quanon of this

grand adventure calledStar Trek. And most humbly, I must bow to the boundless talent and craft of my

cowriter, Jeffrey Lang.

—J. G. Hertzler

I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the producers, writers, and actors who made the Klingons into the

rich, highly nuanced culture we know today. In particular, I’d like to pay homage to the work of Gene

Roddenberry (naturally), Michael Ansara, Ira Steven Behr, Hans Beimler, William Campbell, Shannon

Cochran, John Colicos, Kevin Conway, Gene L. Coon, Michael Dorn, Ronald D. Moore, Marc

Okrand, Robert O’Reilly, and no doubt many others whom I omit only out of ignorance. Special thanks

to the good folks at the Klingon Language Institute—in particular, Lawrence M. Schoen, Alan Anderson,

Roger Cheesbro, and Lieven Lieter—for their help, and to editor supreme Marco Palmieri.

My thanks also to friends and family who have been so supportive during the “Klingon project,”

includingTristan Mayer; Joshua Macy; Helen Szigeti; Annarita Gentile; my wife,KatherineFritz, our son,

Andrew; and, yes, even the dog (hi, Buster!). More than anyone, however, I owe a debt of gratitude to

Heather Jarman—friend, advisor, sister in spirit—I literally could not have finished this one without you.

May the next one have fewer words in italics and less raw food.

Last, of course, a bent knee and a fist in the air to my comrade and collaborator, J. G. Hertzler, without

whom I wouldn’t have been on this journey.Qapla’ to the Chancellor andkai to the General.

—Jeffrey Lang

PART ONE

“Sometimes fate plays cruel tricks on us.”

1

THE FUTURE

Angry Fire from Star’s fair daughter / Scorches earth with icy fingers / Wielding flame and cold,

She hails their doom...The ancient Trill rune-verse cycled through Ezri Dax’s memory like an errant

two-year-old child in the aisles of a market on a festival day, getting in the way of unwary travelers,

pestering, nagging, demanding attention.More ...important ...things to think about, she reprimanded

herself.Focus, Ezri —Inhaling too much of the foul, smoke-choked air, Ezri hacked and retched, wishing

she could stop for a moment and slide on the helmet to her EVA suit, but those were precious seconds

she could not afford to lose. A wave of dizziness threatened to capsize her.

At least she had thought to activate the magnetic soles of her boots, which meant that she could keep her

feet under her, more than any of the others on theRotarran ’s[4]bridge could claim. She glanced over

her shoulder and saw Worf clinging to the main weapons console and Alexander right beside him,

valiantly trying—but failing—to keep his footing.

A Klaxon blared. Drawing on Dax’s memories of time spent on Klingon ships, Ezri “recalled” that the

alarms, coded by duration and intensity, helped crew members specifically identify the danger the ship

faced. This one indicated a major coolant leak in the secondary hull, the kind that would result in a

warp-core breach without quick action. More by sound than by sight, Ezri knew that the two

damage-control engineers who had come onto the bridge at the beginning of the battle had abandoned

their stations and headed for the lifts. Bridge repairs were secondary to what was happening back in the

engineering section. All Worf’s clever plans would be for naught if the core breached.

The deck slid to the left under Ezri as she lifted her left foot to take a step, toward tactical. Her right

ankle twisted and she fell hard, her right hip and shoulder crashing into the unpadded floor. The heavy

Klingon spacesuit—more like a suit of plated armor than any EVA garment she’d ever donned

before—prevented her from cracking either her collarbone or pelvis, but even as it was, Ezri knew she

would ache in the morning—assuming there was going to be a morning.

All right, then,Ezri thought, slapping on her right thigh the patch that deactivated the magnetic boots.If I

can’t walk, I’ll crawl. She slapped another patch on her left thigh and the knee magnets pulsed to life. A

limp, bleeding body she recognized as the navigator Ortakin slid past her as the deck seesawed. A

gaping wound in his chest destined him for certain death. Ezri looked on[5]helplessly, unable to attend to

the dying man. Another buck and the body vanished from view. Since the filtration units had ceased

spinning, the bridge was submerged in greasy smoke billowing from the sizzling and sparking

environmental control panels. Fire-control foam that had been gushing from a nozzle in the floor sputtered

and died and the flames guttered, then flared.As if we weren’t burning up enough atmosphere as it is,

dammit. Might need the helmet after all.

She reached around and felt to make sure the helmet remained attached to her equipment belt. It was

difficult to be sure, since she couldn’t feel it bang against her hip, but, yes, there it was. Almost as an

afterthought, she strained to extend her reach a little farther, patting along her back to make sure the

other package—the whole reason they were in this stupid situation—was there, too. She found it right

where she had strapped it on.

Leskit, the pilot, regained control of the ship, leveling out theRotarran. A throb raced through the deck

under her hands and knees and, moments later, Worf and Alexander cheered exultantly.A hit, Ezri

thought.Good for them. Now all we need is about twenty more of those and we might survive . ...

The deck bucked up underneath her and Ezri’s arms and legs collapsed. Her ears rang, tiny lights flashed

behind her eyelids, and her chest throbbed as though someone had picked up the starship and slammed it

into her ribs. She imagined she could feel the symbiont squirming inside her and pictured the new tenant

of an unexpectedly raucous hotel slamming on the ceiling to quiet the upstairs neighbors.Another one like

that, she thought, struggling to remain conscious,and Dax is going to need a new host.

[6]The cloud of gray, grimy smoke dropped lower and Ezri lost sight of Worf and Alexander, though

she could still hear them impassively discussing what to do next. Strangely, through all the background

noise and the blare of the Klaxons, it was difficult to tell when the father spoke and when the son. The

timbre of their voices was entirely different, but the pauses, the cool, gruff starts and stops, were

remarkably similar. She wondered if anyone else had noticed this, then realized that her mind was

wandering.Oxygen deprivation, she decided, and reached around behind her for her helmet, realizing

that Worf and Alexander had been speaking through breathing masks. Her fingers felt clumsy, and not

just because of the thick gauntlets.If I don’t do this soon then wielding flame and cold She hails their

doom ...STOP THAT!

“My old teachers would be thrilled I could still remember after all these years,” Ezri muttered to no one

in particular as she fumbled with the helmet’s clip. “Never mind that the distraction might get me killed.

...”

As she slid the helmet down into the suit’s neck ring, another shudder rumbled through the deck, but this

one didn’t feel like either a weapons strike or an internal explosion. Ezri twisted the helmet into place and

heard the connections click into their slots. Cool air rushed into the helmet and Ezri felt her head clear

almost immediately. Status lights flickered into life, no doubt signalling something important about the

suit’s status. When Ezri relaxed and concentrated, she could call on her past hosts’ extensive repository

of matters Klingon to keep up with such details, but not under the current circumstances. Instead, she

tapped the sequence Worf[7]had showed her on the gauntlet’s control set and checked the HUD on the

upper left corner of the faceplate. The reading troubled her.

Ezri learned that she had used up a considerable amount of oxygen during her spacewalk. Yes, she was

carrying a supply meant for an adult Klingon and her Trill physiology was not nearly as demanding; as she

had expected, her air supply was sufficient to last until the current crisis had played out. On the other

hand, her dangerously low battery power threatened to run out before she asphyxiated. A suit this large

and heavy would be impossible to move without servomotors and she had been relying on them—much

more than a Klingon would. Checking the status display, Ezri found she had ten, perhaps twelve minutes

left.

Damn. Not good.Oddly, this knowledge did not alarm her. In fact, she felt quite calm, much calmer than

she should have. Ezri wondered briefly which part of her many-faceted nature was responsible for that,

then realized she didn’t give a damn. She may never have planned on being joined, but she wasn’t going

to question the benefits, whether consciously utilized or not.Best get to work, then.

Having lost her orientation in the dense smoke, Ezri crawled until she ran into a console. Dragging herself

up to her feet, she found that her aim was better than she could have expected, having crashed into

tactical. The station appeared to be intact with most of the controls still functional.Where in the hell are

we, and what the hell is going on? she thought, trying to coax the console into action. A quick check

revealed that the main sensor grid was offline. If she could pull a visual reading from off of auxiliary feeds,

she might be able to ascertain the[8]Rotarran’sposition relative to their attackers. The main monitors had

gone down during the first wave of the attack, but the backup grids should be able to provide a visual ...

Yes, there we go, she thought, grateful for the time her symbiont had spent on Klingon vessels. She

tapped in the command that directed the feed to the closest functioning monitor.

The smoky gloom suddenly became brighter at one end of the bridge.The computer must have

directed the visual feed there, she thought, squinting through the haze. Ezri was too far away to make

out details, so she half hopped, half staggered the few meters to the glowing monitor, praying fervently

that it was still keyed to main exterior camera and not some useless auxiliary view. Somewhere behind

her, seemingly an eternity away, she heard Worf shout, “Torpedoes—fire!” So, at least two other people

were still alive, unless Worf was issuing himself orders.

The bottom edge of the monitor image was shot through with fine spiderwebs from one of the direct hits

to theRotarran, but it otherwise appeared to be functional, though the picture made no sense. Ezri had

expected to see either the black of space dotted through with glowing blobs when a ship decloaked and

fired or the white arc of the planet below them. But this—a crackling white rush—the visual feed must be

malfunctioning.

No. It isn’t.Ezri staggered away until she collided with the navigator’s console, then grabbed it with both

hands, as much for reassurance as to steady herself. She wasn’t looking at static, but at ice.

The flamingRotarran was plummeting toward the icy surface of the planet Boreth, and they were

already much too close for the ship to pull away.

[9]Angry fire from Star’s fair daughter,she thought, mouth agape.Scorches earth with icy fingers ...

The silver-white peaks of mountains winked in the sun as the ship spun in, down, down, and the edges of

the image reddened with the heat of their passage.Wielding flame and cold, She hails their doom.

2

THE PRESENT

Ezri Dax gave the shuttle’s thrusters a nudge, easing around the edge of a medium-sized asteroid, and

thought,This may well be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. That, in and of itself, is remarkable,

because if I add up all the stupid things I’ve done in my lives, I’d end up with a monumentally

large pile of stupid.

The shuttle was called theWardrobe and it was, well, in a word, adorable. Obviously meant to be a

vacation craft, the trim, tidy little rental was the kind of ship Ezri would have hired if she were planning a

quick run back to Trill and didn’t want to have to be at the mercy of a Starfleet ship’s schedule. When

she had asked the agent, a human named Riku, why he called it theWardrobe, the pleasant old man had

replied that he had permitted his eight-year-old daughter to name his three new ships and the other two

were named theLion and theWitch. Then,[11]laughing in a manner that suggested Ezri should understand

the joke, Riku had handed her the ship’s papers and the key card and asked that she return to the station

by Thursday next week.

Ezri hated to lie to him, hated knowing that theWardrobe would likely never return home, but she still

retained enough latinum in her personal holdings to cover the cost of replacing it, so Riku would not be

out a shuttle. Plus, his daughter would have the fun of naming a new ship something just as baffling.It’s

precisely this sort of little lie that permits us to do the things we must do, she thought, mentally

shading her words with her best counselor’s tone. Over the past few days on her journey to this remote

corner of Klingon space, she’d repeatedly used that rationalization to prevent her from changing her

mind.

Part of her (the part that believed that the Klingons had brought this latest catastrophe on themselves)

thought that Admiral Ross and Colonel Kira could help far more effectively than she could. But Ezri had

known from the moment she’d read Worf’s one-word message to her that his, and therefore Martok’s,

situation was desperate. On the surface, his message had been simply “now,” but Dax had understood

what had not been said:The House of Martok has need of you. And part of her (not exclusively Jadzia

and Curzon, surprisingly) knew she would honor her obligations or die trying. Dax was nothing if not

loyal.

Sighing, Ezri popped the thruster and initiated another passive scan. She watched the panel patiently,

hoping that this time she’d obtain a different result. When the scan pinged nothing resembling a Klingon

starship, she sighed again.Worf, I’m going to throttle you . ...

* * *

[12]The conversation with Kira, predictably, had not gone well.

“I have to take emergency leave.”

“Why?” Kira had asked in her bestI’m going to be reasonable tone.

“Because there’s an emergency.”

“Where? Back home? Something we can help with?” She spun her desk viewer toward her and began

to check for debarkations in the direction of Trill or Sappora VII.

“No, not back home. Elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere? Where elsewhere? Elsewhere Earth? Elsewhere Alpha Centauri? Give me some help here,

Ezri.”

“Elsewhereelsewhere, Colonel.” Dax said, sitting straighter in her seat. “I don’t believe I’m required by

protocol to tell you my destination, only when I’ll return.”

Sinking back into her chair, Kira narrowed her eyes and replied, “No,Lieutenant. You’re not required

to tell me, but I guess I’d like to think that I’ve earned some trust.”

Ezri almost gave in then. She desperately desired to tellsomeone about the mission she was about to

embark upon, but Worf’s message—though terse, in the typical Worf style—had been clear. He needed

her to drop everything and join him immediately.Klingons. What is it with them, anyway? True, it had

been Jadzia who had sworn the oath, but as Worf had made clear, Ezri had inherited all the privileges

and responsibilities inherent in being a member of House Martok. Admittedly, Ezri would be lying to

herself if she didn’t confess a degree of curiosity and excitement, but it didn’t make the corresponding

compromises any easier.

“I ... appreciate your offer, Colonel,” she said. “But I have to respect the wishes of ... others in this

regard.”

[13]Kira puffed through her nose, which Ezri interpreted as a sign that she could go, but the sigh, it

turned out, was simply the colonel’s way of mustering her strength to bring out the big gun. “Have you

told Julian where you’re going?”

For a terrifying moment, Ezri imagined she was sixteen again. She was sitting in her mother’s office being

quizzed about who was taking her out that evening, where they were going, and did she know what time

the curfew was? It was almost enough to make her race for the door screaming, but she fought down the

urge. A fleeting image—one of Jadzia’s memories—bubbled up to the surface and she remembered a

time when she and Kira had talked late into the night about the intricacies of their respective attachments,

Jadzia’s to Worf and Kira’s to Odo. Both of those relationships were over now, the first irretrievably and

the second, well, time would tell, but they had agreed that the essential ingredient in those relationships

was trust.If Kira can use a big gun, Ezri decided,then so can I.

“Julian trusts me,” she said quietly. “As you should.”

Kira opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. She pressed her lips together, opened her

mouth again, then closed it a second time. Finally, she said, “You’ve read the latest reports coming out of

the Klingon Empire?”

“Of course,” Ezri said.

“So you know how chaotic the situation is already and how much worse it’s likely to become. They

took overembassies. Being a Starfleet officer isn’t going to carry any weight. In fact, if half of what

we’ve heard about this Morjod is true, it could work against you.”

“IfI were going anywhere near the Klingon[14]Empire—and please note the use of the

conditional—what makes you think I would even mention the fact that I’m a Starfleet officer? Being on

leave means I’m just Ezri Dax, civilian.”

Kira almost smiled at that. Almost. She appeared to have more to say on the subject, but while she had

been among those to question most stridently Jadzia’s decision to uphold Curzon’s blood oath six years

ago, if there was one thing Kira understood, it was personal necessity. “Go,” she said. “Be careful.”

Ezri rose and walked toward the opening office doors, trying hard not to move too quickly. “I will,” she

said.

“Say hello to Worf for me.”

“I will,” Ezri said, then stopped midstride on the threshold, abashed. “If I see him,” she continued, then

stepped through. The doors hissed shut before she could hear Kira’s response.

Star Trek Deep Space 9 The Left Hand of Destiny Book Two

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: