Strike Zone Part 10

"Or ... " Riker prompted.

"Or it has some sort of internal cloaking device that's in force just inside the sh.e.l.l. So our scans penetrate just so far and no farther."

"I see."

"I wish I did."

"Are you at all clear about its power capacities?"

"Don't know. Haven't figured a way to test it yet. Not without risking blowing out the side of the engineering deck."

"Marvelous. Captain's going to love this."

"Well, let him figure out how to do it," said Geordi, that snappishness being the first indication of the frustration he was feeling. "I can't even disa.s.semble it. Look at this"- and he guided Riker over to it-"except for these settings and markings over here, it's seamless. Look ... there was an entry port over here, and the Kreel connected up some sort of jury-rigged circuitry to it. The wild thing is, it worked. Luck of the stupid. This entry port could have been anything, and instead of managing to harness its power, the Kreel could just have easily have blown themselves to bits."

"Maybe it liked them."

"Then it's got strange taste in friends."

Riker looked over his shoulder and frowned. "You said 'was' an entry port. Where is it now?"

"It sealed up."

Riker's mouth moved for a moment or two, trying to get the question out. "It ... what?"

"Sealed up. We pulled out what the Kreel had connected, and just had time to watch the hole close up."

"That's insane! What are you saying? That this thing's alive?"

"I sure hope not," said Geordi. "Because we've been poking and prodding this thing, and if it's alive, it might get mad at us. And I would not want to have Tiny mad at us."

" 'Tiny'?"

"My nickname for it."

"Wonderful. So tell me, Geordi"- and he circled the weapon, staring at it in amazement-"how did it just seal up? A little hatch just dropped down?"

"No. That I could understand. That would be normal. That would be sane. This thing, the metal just sort of s.h.i.+mmered for a moment, and then it started to ... I don't know ... "

"Reform?" put in one of the techies.

"Good a word as any. It reformed around the hole, filling it in and smoothing out. It took maybe a total of three seconds. As if the metal were malleable. And as soon as the reformation was done, it hardened right up again. Became as smooth as the rest of it."

Riker leaned against a console, shaking his head.

"So what we got here," Geordi said with almost malicious glee, "is pretty d.a.m.ned peculiar."

And Riker wondered what the captain would do with that report.

Worf entered the holodeck. The door closed behind him as he glanced around the unactivated room. It looked una.s.suming, huge and black, with a s.h.i.+mmering grid of golden squares.

Worf could have fought in some sort of elaborate scenario-anything from battling on the parapets of a fortress to fighting for his life on the plains of an alien desert. But Klingons were never much for extravagances.

He walked forward slowly and said, "Fighting ring."

Immediately a large square, marked out in s.h.i.+mmering lines, appeared on the floor. He recalled that during workouts, Tasha had always conjured up a mat. No disrespect to the memory of the Honorable Natasha Yar, but the comfort of a mat was somehow inappropriate for a Klingon.

He walked to the center of the ring and took his mark there, body relaxed and ready, eyes narrowed. "Opponents," he said. "Four."

At each corner of the box a large, burly enemy for Worf to battle appeared. He frowned. Something wasn't quite right.

Then he knew what he wanted.

"Reform," he said. "Kreel."

The four forms blinked out to be immediately replaced by four Kreel warriors. They stood there impa.s.sively, waiting to be commanded.

Klingons, as a rule, did not smile. Not outwardly. Worf honored this rule, but inwardly, he was grinning.

But there was one thing he had to do before the drill began. The computer would a.n.a.lyze the fight as it went and, if Worf were in serious danger, the computer would shut it down. A warrior could not be at his best if nothing were at stake.

Worf, however, had done some computer modification.

"Override mortality failsafe," he said.

For the first time the disembodied voice of the computer spoke. It replied, "Compliance." It meant that the computer would not stop short of deadly force, if Worf so desired.

"Attack," he said.

He waited, posing on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, hands now in front of him in a "T" formation.

When you were battling computer constructs, you were doing far more than just fighting mindless drones. The computer learned extremely quickly, and was able to compensate rapidly. For every move it developed a countermove. In short, you were fighting a device that thought as slowly as humanoids thought only if it chose to do so.

The first Kreel lunged forward, the others holding back to see what Worf would do. More than just being a generic creation, the Kreel attacked the way the Kreel do. No art, no cleverness, no strategy. Just straight on, arms outstretched, fingers grasping and eager to get hold of an opponent's throat or arms or legs or anything else that could be broken or crushed.

Worf stood his ground, knees bent slightly, arms out and ready. At the last moment, he twisted away from the rush, grabbing the Kreel by the back of the neck and waist and using its own speed against him. With a grunt he hurled the Kreel out of the ring, where it lay immobile, out of the drill.

He waited for the next single one to attack, or perhaps two. Instead, to his surprise, the computer crossed him up. It sent all three of the remaining Kreel at him at one time.

The move caught him completely off-guard, and all three Kreel converged on him, grabbing him and bearing him to the ground. He went down beneath a flurry of fists.

He warded off the blows as best he could with his burly arms, and one of the Kreel had an arm around his leg and was about to get another arm around it, in an endeavor to break it. Worf, on the ground, twisted around, got his foot in position and slammed his boot into the Kreel's face. The Kreel fell back, its simulated nose gus.h.i.+ng simulated blood.

Worf writhed out of the grasp of the other two Kreel. One of them grabbed at him, but Worf dodged easily, kicking his attacker in the throat. The Kreel dropped, gagging, and Worf spun, delivering a reverse roundkick that broke the Kreel's jaw and knocked several of its teeth out. The ma.s.sively injured Kreel rolled out of the Klingon's way and, in so doing, rolled right out of the ring and lapsed into inactivity.

The two remaining Kreel came at him, one trying to tackle his legs, the other aiming for his torso. Worf jumped back, and the two collided. One rose to his feet quickly, but Worf was waiting. He hit the Kreel twice in the gut, and as it doubled over Worf grabbed him by the shoulders and brought a knee up hard into the point of the Kreel's chin. It was a violent, vicious maneuver. Worf gloried in it.

At that moment, the other leaped onto Worf's back, pinning one of the Klingon's arms behind him. Worf used his free arm to hurl the insensate Kreel out of the ring, and then turned his full attention to the one on his back.

He spun around, trying to shake the d.a.m.ned thing off, and it wouldn't let go. The Kreel insinuated its arms through and around and suddenly Worf found his neck creaking under the grip of a full-nelson.

He dropped to his back, bringing his full weight to bear as he slammed the Kreel down under him. And still the computer construct wouldn't let go. Worf grabbed at the arms that encircled his neck, but he couldn't break their grip.

Worf grunted, and the computer a.n.a.lyzed that noise and recalled from its memory banks that a grunt was the only sound you'd ever hear from a Klingon in distress. With death imminent a Klingon would never scream or curse or howl. Just utter a subverbal protest from the depths of its chest.

The computer instructed its construct to give Worf an option.

"Surrender," growled the Kreel.

"Death first!" Worf shouted back, and he was certain, just certain that these would be his last words, for the room was starting to blacken and it was getting difficult to breathe ...

The Kreel's hands were out of sight, clenched behind Worf's neck. Its incredibly long, gorillalike arms were fully stretched out, and suddenly, Worf saw an opening.

He stopped pounding at the Kreel's hands behind him and instead grabbed at the long forearms that were within his sight. By no longer fighting the pressure of the hands, he was permitting the Kreel to exert its full strength on him, a maneuver that within seconds, could cripple or kill.

He grabbed at the Kreel's left forearm, pulled it to his mouth, and bit down as hard as he could.

He tasted Kreel blood as his attacker shrieked in pain, and the grip on his neck lessened. He bit down harder and now the Kreel let loose all together, and Worf reached around and slammed the Kreel to the floor in a judo throw. He spat out the viscous liquid and brought both his knees down into the Kreel's chest. He heard the satisfying sound of ribs cracking as he grabbed the Kreel by its almost nonexistent neck, at the point where its bullhead met its shoulders. He dug his thumbs down and in, getting a good grip.

The Kreel made hideous, gurgling sounds, and its pig eyes widened, and then it said something very unexpected.

"Mercy." The word burbled out, amidst the constricted gaspings of the Kreel.

Worf looked down at his fallen foe in surprise. His hands were still tight around the creature's throat.

The creature. Klingons, even Klingons raised most of their lives by humans, were not brought up to think of Kreel as creatures. As fellow sentient beings. Only as jackals, as vermin to be snuffed out, as c.o.c.kroaches waiting for the fall of humanity so that they could rise up and take over.

"No quarter," said Worf.

He twisted so easily and the crack as the Kreel's neck broke beneath his grip was deafening and so, so satisfying. Blood trickled from the edge of the Kreel's mouth and onto Worf's hands, and Worf ignored it, relis.h.i.+ng the glory of the kill.

The Kreel lay there limply, the life that never was part of it now fleeing.

Worf stood slowly, staring down at the corpse that never lived. Then he stared at his hands, flexing them experimentally as if seeing them for the first time.

"End exercise," he said.

His foes vanished as if they'd never been there. The ring vanished. It was as if the whole thing had been a dream.

Except ...

The blood was still there. He stared at his hands, turning them over, and he couldn't understand it. There was still blood from the simulation on them, and that shouldn't be, couldn't be. Could it?

Slowly, his booted tread sounded strangely loud, he walked over to the exit and the doors opened. Stepping out into the familiar corridor of the Enterprise he looked at his hands once again, and this time, now that he was out of the holodeck, the blood had indeed vanished.

He smiled. Inwardly, of course.

"Bring on the Kreel," he said.

Chapter Seven.

THE BRIDGE OF a Klingon battlecruiser was not a place where a great deal of unnecessary chatting went on. Nevertheless, whatever free-floating discussion was in progress came to a sharp halt when Kobry walked onto the bridge of the Kliingon s.h.i.+p Kothulu.

The commander's back was to the door at that moment, so he sensed, rather than saw, the intrusion. He turned and looked down at the dwarfish Klingon.

"Yes, Honored One?" he said slowly.

Kobry seemed to look him up and down before he said, "I was curious as to when rendezvous is scheduled with the Enterprise."

"Six hours, Honored One." He paused. "Is there any other matter I can help you with?"

Obviously there were several answers that were occurring to Kobry, but he uttered none of them. Instead he simply said, "No. That will be fine, Commander." He turned and left the bridge.

The commander settled back in his chair, looking less than pleased ... a sentiment that was eagerly shared by his second-in-command.

"Commander, this is intolerable," Tron said.

The commander turned his malevolent gaze on Tron. Then, with surprising abruptness, he said, "In my quarters, Tron." He stood and left the bridge, leaving the others staring at each other in confusion. Tron, he himself, not understanding, followed his commander out.

Moments later, they were in the commander's quarters. This was a place where a private conversation could be held. Once, in the Klingon Empire, such luxuries as "privacy" were nonexistent. The cabin would have been rigged with, at the very least, a camera linked in to security. Those times were now past.

The commander turned and faced his second-in-command, arms folded. "Would you care to be more specific, Tron? What 'this' are you referring to?"

"This ... situation." He was speaking so quickly, with such barely contained outrage, that his words almost stumbled over each other. "You've ordered me to be one of the Honorable Kobry's security staff on board the Enterprise. On a s.h.i.+p with Kreel."

"That's correct."

"Kreel!"

"I have no deficiencies in my hearing, Tron."

"Commander"- and Klingons did not beg, but if they did, then Tron was coming d.a.m.ned close-"it seems that we only recently came out of drydock after repairing the damage those Kreel sc.u.m inflicted on this s.h.i.+p. Not to mention the attempts on my life, and the deaths of the two members of the landing party on DQN 1196, and the Klingon blood spilled by the Kreel since that first encounter."

"Is there some point to this, Tron?"

Tron ordinarily would never have dared to say so much, to be so outspoken. But he sensed that, for some reason, his commander was actually interested in what he had to say, and he was hardly going to pa.s.s up the opportunity.

"The point is, sir, that although the Federation and the Empire are maintaining the fiction that there is no full-scale war between ourselves and the Kreel, those animals have been continually at our throats since they discovered that weapons cache on DQN 1196. But once we began to strike back at them, everyone went running to the Federation to mediate. Where is the revenge in that? Where is the Klingon pride?"

The commander did not reply immediately. Instead, he stared out the viewing port, seeming to take some degree of comfort in the stars that arced gracefully toward them as they warped toward their rendezvous.

"You preach the old ways," he said finally. "The ways that were before the time of the Great Awakening. The ways before the forging of the Klingon-Federation alliance that has brought new prosperity, new advances to our people. And never forget that one of the key shapers of that alliance is on this very s.h.i.+p."