OTHER KNIGHTS ANTHOLOGY

THERE'S NO ANGELS HERE: Part Seven

  Lasalat methodically rechecked the information displayed on her tricorder.  She looked up at the end of the long tunnel.  There was an obvious outline of a door and next to it were controls that would operate the door. 

  “Well, according to my tricorder there should be a storeroom on the other side of this door,” said Lasalat.

  “Should be?” asked Darcy.  “Can’t ya just scan the other side to be sure?”

  Lasalat gave Darcy an annoyed look.  “The door is shielded, Tugg.  It wouldn’t be a good secret escape route if you could just detect the secret tunnel on the other side of the secret door.  Are you getting the theme?  Secret.”

  Darcy had been bugging her for most of the mission.  Lasalat had little time for the ex-farmer.  He was small-minded and irritating.  She was glad she rarely had to work with him.  At first she thought it was because she was not human, but she saw the way he treated Jonathan Masters and she finally understood that it was because they were not from the DMZ.  Darcy was the type of person who blamed the outside galaxy for their plight and then would reject any external help that was offered out of pure pigheaded stubbornness.

  “So there could be fifty Klingons in there?” asked Darcy.

  “Why would fifty Klingons be in a storeroom in the middle of this planet’s night cycle?” asked Masters.

  “I d’know!  We don’t even know if this is a storeroom.  It might be a bathhouse for all we know.”

  Lasalat had to admit that was a disturbing thought.  On the bright side if it was the Klingon’s would be unlikely to be armed, which would give them the advantage.

  “Only one way to find out.”  She turned to Masters.  “You take the right and open the door.  I’ll go in first, clear the room if needed and then you follow and cover me.  The rest of you hug the walls.  If there are Klingons in there any disruptor fire will be funnelled down the corridor.”

  “Oh, great!”

  Lasalat ignored Darcy and got into position.  She watched as Masters took his position.  Darcy might not, but she respected Masters because he had been in Starfleet.  She had respect for anyone who served in Starfleet, they were well trained, especially the security and command personnel.  In her career she had dealt with them as adversaries and as allies and knew those with several years of experience were very capable individuals.

  Lasalat’s drifted to their cell leader, Brendan Patol.  She had always thought that Patol had missed his calling.  He was a smart and skilled individual who see could easily imagine going far in the Federation’s Starfleet.  From what she had learnt of his past, Patol had moved from place to place and worked in a range of occupations.  Towards the end of the conflict between the Federation and Cardassian Union he had moved to the border worlds and took up a job as a communication technician on Volan III.  In the end the Maquis had probably saved his life from one of obscurity and gave him a chance to actually apply his potential and be more.  However, it did come at a price in that his life expectancy would have become shorter, but Lasalat thought it was worth the cost to avoid a life of wasted potential.

  As Masters settled and prepared himself he said, “You know if there are Klingons in there phaser fire is probably going to get noticed.”

  “Hopefully if we get the jump on any Klingons we won’t need to fire our weapons.”

  “We can’t have prisoners either.”

  Lasalat knew that Masters was correct.  They could not afford to babysit any captives and leaving any alone would give them a chance to escape and warn their comrades.

  “We’ll deal with that if we have to,” replied Lasalat, though she doubted Masters would have an issue with killing any Klingons even after they surrendered.  Operations he had been involved with in the past often had a high Klingon body count and few survivors.  He was not one to shirk the dirty work of guerrilla warfare.

  Once Masters looked settled and ready Lasalat gave him a nod and he opened her door.  She quickly moved to go through it and found her path blocked.  She barely managed to stop herself from barrelling into the obstruction.

  “Well, that’s bloody –”

  She quickly held up her hand for silence and silently cursed Darcy’s carelessness.  Just because they could not be seen did not mean they could not be heard.  Lasalat pulled out her tricorder and scanned ahead of her, hoping that now the door was open she would be able to get a usable sensor reading of the room beyond.

  “Empty,” she said finally, relaxing a bit.  “It’s the storage room,” she said shooting a look at Darcy.

  Lasalat gave the objects blocking their advance a quick inspection.  It was clear to her that they were cargo crates, of Cardassian design.

  “They’re stacked,” said Masters.  “If we push the top one out of the way we could get in.”

  Lasalat nodded and she pushed against the crate, it barely moved.  Masters added his weight to the effort.

  “Don’t rush to help,” she said to the others behind them.

  “Ya got it under control,” said Darcy.  “Look, it’s moving.”

  With effort she and Masters started shifted the crate and sent it crashing to the floor, creating a gap from around Lasalat’s mid-section to the top of the door.

  “Give me a hand up,” she asked Masters.

  With Masters’ help she climbed over the top of the crate and through the gap.  She found herself between two shelves stacked with crates.  She guessed that the shelves were probably fixed in place so to provide cover for the hidden door and anyone coming or going. 

  She turned and gave Masters a hand as he clambered after her.  She told the others to wait and she and Masters cautiously made their way forward.  They cleared the shielding shelves and split up as they checked the rows of shelves and crates make sure the room was clear.  Not that she thought anyone was there; the falling crate would have immediately drawn attention if the room was occupied.

  Lasalat did not see one crate with Klingon markings.  She guessed that this storeroom was used to store surplus Cardassian supplies from the base’s previous owners.  This would mean it would be rarely visited, which was good for them.  With the room checked they returned to the hidden tunnel entrance. 

  They started pushed the fallen crate out of the way.  “Looks like our schematics were right,” said Masters.

  “I’d feel better if we could get to a computer and access this base’s layout,” said Lasalat.  She called for Lewis and Darcy to push the bottom crate to fully clear the door.

  “The computers will be encrypted,” countered Masters as he helped by pulling the heavy crate, it seemed much heavier than the crate that had been sitting on top of it.

  “Maybe, if this was still an Obsidian Order base.  I’ll wager two slips of latinum that the Klingons stripped the Cardassian security and only bothered to re-encrypt a few important terminals in critical areas, such as the command centre.”

  “You’re on,” said Masters, breathing a bit heavier from the exertion of moving the crate.

  “Let me in on that action,” said Lewis once they had shifted the crate far enough out of the way to provide clear and easy access to the tunnel.  “I’ll back Jono.”

  “I’ll go with Lasalat,” said Darcy.  “So how do we do this?  Losers have to pay each of the winners 2 slips each?”

  Lasalat shook her head.  “We’ll go a pot with two slips from each of us.  Winners split it.”

  “You want in Tiff?” asked Lewis as the final member of the team entered the storeroom from the tunnel.

  “Ah, okay.  I’ll back –”

  “Smart money is on Jono’s and Lewis’ side,” interrupted Darcy.

  “Wait, you’re betting against us,” said Masters.

  “He just wants Tiff to side with us so that if we lose he gets a bigger pay day,” said Lewis.

  “A half is better than a third,” stated Darcy.

  Lasalat left the conversation and made her way to the door out of the room.  She checked her tricorder and it showed no life signs nearby, so she pressed the door control.  Nothing happened.  She pressed it again and got the same result.

  “This door is locked.  Ralia, can you do something about it?” called Lasalat.

  The young human woman walked up to the door’s control and started to work at it, removing the control’s cover.  Prior to the mission Lasalat was unsure about Ralia’s inclusion.  She thought it was simply Patol been sentimental, sending the girl to assassinate the person who killed her family.  However, she had been impressed with Ralia’s skills so far.  On her own Lasalat doubted she would have opened the door to the secret tunnel in twice the time it took them together.  Ralia probably would have grown up to be a good fixer in her town if it things had been different.

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Darcy.

  Lasalat swung around and pointed her rifle in Darcy’s direction.  She saw him kneeing next to the crate that had been the top crate blocking the entrance.  It was on its side and a tick liquid was flowing out of the now open lid.

  “What the hell is that?” cried Darcy stepping back from the crate he just opened.  “The smell...it’s unholy!”

  Lasalat cringed as the smell assaulted her nose.  “It’s kanar...off kanar by the smell.  Why are you opening things?”

  “I was curious.”

  “Well, what a fantastic smell you’ve discovered.  Maybe they’ll name it after you,” said Masters, his face scrunched up from the smell.

  “Yeah, the ‘stupid son-of-a-bitch stink’,” added Lewis who was talking through his hand, which covered his nose and mouth.  “You’re an idiot.”

  “What?  Seriously, was no one else thinking what was in these crates and seeing if there was anything worth taking?” said Darcy defensively.

  “Yes, but no one thought opening the one that was the most likely to have broken items in first was a good idea,” stated Lasalat, not attempting to hide her anger at Darcy’s stupidity.

  Darcy mumbled something inaudible, but Lasalat did not doubt it was insulting towards her and probably her ancestors too.

  Lasalat returned her attention to Ralia.  “How long until you get the door open?”

  The young woman appeared to be trying hard not to gag on the smell.  “This isn’t just locked, it’s sealed.  It might take me some time to open it without alerting someone,” she struggled out.

  There was nothing to do but wait.  The smell made it more unpleasant than necessary but there was nothing they could do about that.  They just had to tough it out.  Lasalat remained near Ralia playing with her tricorder to see if she could discover more about the base.  Masters and Lewis took the opportunity to relax, both taking seats on crates, while Darcy continued to go through crates.

  After several minutes something appeared on Lasalat’s tricorder.

  “I’ve got contacts approaching.  Looks like...two.”

  “They might just pass the room by,” said Lewis.

  “We can’t take the chance.  Back into the secret tunnel.”

  “How will we know if they’ve gone, the tunnel’s shielding will block your tricorder,” pointed out Masters.

  “I’ll stay out here.  It is easily for one of us to hide than five.  Get in there!”

  “Ya don’t have to tell me twice,” said Darcy as he rushed into the tunnel.

  Lasalat looked down at Ralia as she struggled to get the cover to the door controls back on with her shaking hands.

  “Leave it, I’ll do it,” she ordered.

  Ralia nodded sharply and jumped to her feet.  Lasalat took the cover and started to force it back on when there was a crash behind her.  Her head swung around and saw Ralia sprawling in the middle of the spilt kanar.

  Lasalat quickly swore at Darcy for creating the mess and hissed, “Get up!” at Ralia.

  Lasalat returned her attention to the control cover and with a less than delicate application of force slammed it into place.

  She turned back to check on Ralia, who was struggling to her feet and saw that Masters was moving to help her.  Lasalat checked her tricorder and saw that the Klingons were just about at the door.

  “Hide!” she ordered urgently.

  Lasalat hoped Masters could get Ralia back to the tunnel, but she had a more immediate problem as to where to conceal herself.  She saw a row of crates near the door that did not look as if they were pushed against the wall and hurried over to them.  They were stacked taller than she was.  Luckily there was just enough space for her to squeeze behind them.

  Lasalat had barely wedged herself in her hiding place when the door to the storeroom opened.  The Klingons had not just passed them by.  The top crates were not completely side by side, which gave her a small gap to peer through if she got on the tips of her toes.  Lasalat cautiously looked through and saw a male and female Klingon enter the storeroom.

  “It will be voles, it’s always voles,” said the male.

  “Shouldn’t they have been wiped out months ago?”

  “We thought we had dealt with them, twice, but they always return.  We suspect they have multiple nests throughout the base and maybe in the surrounding wilderness in which to repopulate their numbers.”

  “Disgusting creatures,” spat the woman.  She sniffed the air.  “What is that smell?”

  “There,” said the man quickly finding the source.  “It’s kanar.”

  The woman gave him a questioning look.  “How do you know?”

  “It’s written on the crate,” he replied.

  Lasalat again directed some internal unpleasant words at Darcy.  It seemed that he had not even bothered to read the label on the crate before he opened it.

  The two Klingons wandered towards it, from their stance and mannerisms Lasalat saw neither was expecting to find any threats.

  “Is it meant to smell like that?” asked the woman.

  “I don’t know.  Nor do I care.”  The male scanned the room causing Lasalat to pull her head out of view just in case he spotted her.  The Klingon did not and continued to speak, “Voles probably love it.  They might be disgusting and ugly creatures but in them beats the heart of a warrior.  We’ve captured several in the past and sent them against each other.  They battled with spirit, vigour and strength, much more than can be said for the Cardassians who shared their worlds,” commented the Klingon with a low guffaw.  “We should try to capture them for more matches.”

  “Was another team sent before us?”

  “No, why?”

  The Klingon woman did not reply but instead pointed to several spots in the slick.  Lasalat could not see the floor clearly from where she was, but she guessed that Ralia or Masters had left signs of their presence in the thick liquid.

  The two Klingons pulled out their mek’leths and headed away from the concealed tunnel, which meant either or both Masters and Ralia had not fled into the tunnel, but were also hiding amongst the crates.

  Lasalat pulled out her ushaan-tor.  The ushaan-tor was traditionally an ice miner’s tool from her homeworld, which also doubled as the weapon of choice for honour duels.  The weapon consisted of a short, but wide curved blade with a serrated edge.  The blade tapered to straight points at both ends making it just as deadly in a stabbing motion as a slicing one.

  The blade was purely a close quarter’s weapon, but she had opted for this weapon over her phaser due to the risks of using the latter, which could be detected on the base’s sensors.  If that happened they would have even more Klingons descending on them.

  Lasalat slowly and silently started to slide out of her hiding place.  She was forced into action as she could not be sure that whoever was hiding back there was aware the Klingons were heading for them.  Luckily the two Klingons had their backs to her and that presented the opportunity for her to strike them without warning and hopefully before they found their quarry.

  “It is time –”

  Lasalat nearly jumped out of her skin as she froze in her place as Masters’ voice filled the storeroom.  It also startled the Klingons who turned to face the opposite direction they were heading, luckily neither turned enough to notice her, exposed and nearly free from her hiding place. 

  From the direction of the hidden tunnel Masters advanced on the Klingons, bat’leth held before him.  “– to pay the ferryman.”

  “You!” said the man, his voice shaking with fear.  He tensed up and he appeared to be rooted to the spot.

  However, the woman seemed less in awe of Masters’ appearance.  “You are just a Human.”  She grinned wildly at Masters, a look of a ravenous predator ready to devour its prey.  “But I will gain much honour by killing you.”

  Masters’ smile in return was no less wild or terrifying.  “The gates of Gre’thor are lined with Klingons that have said the same.”  He held his bat’leth before him pointing one of its points at the woman.  “I will be happy to send you to meet them.”

  Masters lunged forward and attacked, forcing the woman to defend herself with her blade.  He struck with speed and strength and his aggression saw him separate the woman from her companion.  However, in the process he placed himself so that he was effectively between them.

  The male Klingon seemed to be snapped out of his paralysis by the clashing of blades and swung his mek’leth at Masters, who was forced to parry the attack and quickly shift his weapon to deflect a blow from the woman.  The male Klingon was still visible shaken by Masters’ appearance and his attacks lacked much skill and finesse.  Despite that Lasalat knew that eventually Masters would be unable to defend both sides at and one of their attacks would get through his defences.

  Lasalat could not fathom why Masters would put himself in such a disadvantageous position.  She had been as frozen as the male Klingon by Masters’ entrance but she knew that if she did not intervene, Masters would be killed.

  Lasalat had barely freed herself when the method behind Masters’ madness became clear.  Masters had managed to keep the woman at arm’s reach but with a second opponent the woman took the advantage to lunge forward to strike him.  Masters seemed to be waiting for this move and a quick and vicious kick slammed into the female Klingon, sending her stumbling backwards – onto the kanar slick floor.  The sudden decrease in friction between the woman’s boots and the surface saw her lose her footing and crash wetly to the floor.  Masters had briefly taken one of his opponents out of the fight, the most capable one too.

  Lasalat was not going to give the woman the opportunity to rejoin the fight and spirited towards her.  She descended on the Klingon women who only saw her at the last moment.  The Klingon woman had managed to get to her knees and looked up in surprise as she heard Lasalat’s charge.  In the end that simply made it easier for Lasalat’s ushaan-tor to find the Klingon’s throat and open it wide with a savage slice.  The woman’s body toppled over in a cascade of Klingon blood that mixed with the kanar.

  Lasalat looked over to Masters and saw that he had his Klingon skewered on the end of his bat’leth.  Shock and fear was in the dying Klingon’s eyes as Masters whispered to him, no doubt condemning the Klingon’s soul to damnation.  Masters reefed his bat’leth upwards, tearing the Klingon’s organs to shreds before he ripped out the bat’leth.  The Klingon crumpled onto the floor, dead.  Masters turned to Lasalat and nodded his thanks for her assistance, which she gracefully accepted.

  Masters was a decent swordsman with a bat’leth but there was no reason why he should so often defeat Klingons who spent decades wielding them.  She had sparred with Masters many times and while he had only defeated her once he was improving.  As time went by he would get better, but he would not be able to bridge the gap that the Klingons had with growing up using these types of weapons regularly.  He would probably die on the end of a Klingon blade, but not before he sent several more Klingons to their afterlife.

  Masters skill with a blade was not his true weapon.  That was tattooed on his face and the reputation he had created.  It made him seem a far greater challenge and as the male Klingon showed, it influenced the Klingons and allowed a human, who was not as strong as they were or proficient in their weapons, to end up been the one left standing.  Of course it would not work forever.

  The Klingon woman showed the pitfall of his plan.  From what Lasalat gathered she was new to the base and Masters’ reputation had not had time to chip away at her.  By the looks of it she had been well trained and Masters was lucky she only had a mek’leth, which meant she had to get close to him.  If she had a bat’leth he would never have been able to best her alone.  His gamble of placing himself between the two Klingons probably would have seen him killed.  However, all that was just hypothetical at this point, both Klingons were dead and Masters lived on.

  Masters headed off following the trail of kanar that the Klingons had noticed and returned with Ralia.  She looked shaken and was treading lightly on her right leg, which suggested she might have hurt it in her fall but apart from that she appeared fine.  Lasalat walked over to the hidden door and opened it.  She found herself staring down the barrels of two phaser rifles, but they soon dipped as they saw she was not a Klingon.  The strike team reassembled over the bloody carnage.

  “Well, looks like everyone made it,” said Darcy, though Lasalat was not sure he sounded particularly happy about that.

  “Should we do something with the bodies?” asked Lewis.

  “We should move,” said Lasalat.  “They might be missed pretty soon.”

  “Raltok, have you found the problem in the storage room yet?”  Everyone jumped as one of the Klingon’s communicator activated.

  “Raltok, have you discovered the problem?” repeated the Klingon over the communication channel.

  Masters pointed to the male Klingon.  Lewis, been the closest, searched the body and and removed the Klingon’s, Raltok’s, communicator.  He held it before him and looked to the rest of the team for instructions on what to do now.

  “What do we do?  If we don’t answer they’ll know something is wrong and send someone to check up on these two,” stated Darcy.

  “Raltok, answer me!”

  Lasalat had no idea how to get around this problem and was about to suggest they simply run when Lewis made a decision for them.

  “Raltok here,” answered Lewis with his best Klingon impersonation, which to Lasalat sounded terrible.

  “What took you so long?  Why do you sound strange?  What is going on down there?”

  Lewis’s mouth opened but he was lost for words as what to say to the Klingon’s demanding questions.

  Masters waved at Lewis to get his attention and mouth a single word.

  “Voles,” Lewis read out loud from Masters miming.

  “Voles?” repeated the Klingon confused.

  Masters continued to mime.

  “The Voles were drinking kanar.”

  Masters slap his forehead with a hand.  Lasalat had not fully understood what Masters was trying to tell Lewis, but she knew that it was not what Lewis had said.

  “Drinking kanar?  What is wrong with you?  I will speak with Belara.”

  Lewis reached out with the communicator to Lasalat who shook her head.  He glanced at Ralia, but the shade of white she had gone as she stared down at the bloody scene at her feet showed she was not going to be any help.

  “She’s busy,” said Lewis after a long pause.

  “Busy!  If I have to come down there and...”  There was a growling chuckle over the communication channel.  “Raltok, are you giving the new female warrior an intensive personal combat session?”

  Lewis looked unsure about where the conversation was going and just replied a hesitant, “Yes.”

  “You sly targ!”  Lewis still looked confused but he soon got the subtext of what was being said and he scrunched his face in revulsion.  “With a woman as spirited and physically endowed as her you will need much time to instruct her properly.  I will make sure you are not unduly interrupted.  Qapla’!”

With that the channel was closed.

  Lewis stared at the communicator disbelievingly.

  “I can’t believe that worked,” said Darcy breaking the silence.

  Lewis looked up.  “Neither can I!”

  “We dodged a bullet,” stated Lasalat.  “But we can’t stand around reflecting on that.  We need to move.”

  “What about the bodies?” asked Darcy.  “In case someone does come down here.”

  “We can hide them in the tunnel,” said Masters.

  “What about the blood?” asked Ralia with distaste.  “We can’t clean that up.”

  “We can disguise it,” said Masters.  Everyone looked at him.  “The kanar.”

  “That won’t fool a tricorder,” pointed out Lewis.

  “No it won’t, but if someone comes and doesn’t see any dead bodies and what looks like an expansive pool of kanar there’s no reason why they would run a tricorder scan of the room.  Even if they know these two were in here they would just think they moved on.  The smell alone would be reason enough not to linger.”

  “Fine, let’s get it done,” agreed Lasalat.  “We don’t have all day to play hide the murder scene.”

  The four of them, minus Ralia, carried the bodies into the tunnel and dumped them before sealing the entrance again.  As Masters set about emptying as much kanar as he could on the floor Lasalat went up to the still shaken Ralia and put her arm around her.

  “Are you okay, Tiffany?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied unconvincingly.  “I’ve seen dead bodies before.  Just not one that...”

  “Has been carved up,” finished Lasalat.

  Ralia just stared morbidly at every growing expanse of fluids on the floor.  “I don’t think I’ve seen so much blood.”

  “It’s not pleasant, but you get use to it.”

  Ralia did not look convinced, but Lasalat knew from experience how one could become unfazed by even the most gruesome of deaths with enough exposure.

  “It could be worse, Tiff,” added Darcy.

  “How?” asked Ralia sceptically.

  “You heard that other Klingon.  If it didn’t turn into a fight that pair might have ended up playing a little ‘hide the bat’leth’.  So if you think this is gruesome, think about what if would be like if the Klingons were going at it like –”

  “That’s enough, Darcy,” interrupted Lasalat, the harshness in her voice rebuking the ex-farmer.  She stole a look at Ralia who looked even more horrified than before and she gently rubbed her arm to sooth her.

  Darcy just shrugged in response.  “I was just trying to help.”