A New Alliance

With General Rustadh occupied with the negotiations aboard the Endeavour, Ch'Tang's First Officer was in command. He and the majority of the other senior officers had remained on duty long after shift end and as time dragged on and their General did not return, the crew were growing edgy. It was standard policy for ships attached to Starbase 24 to keep an open comm channel while engaged on a mission but Kreltek had gone one step further. He had given the order for his own vessel's Ops officer to keep a constant sensor lock on Endeavour until his CO had safely returned from her mission. NOTHING was going to befall Khetara on his watch. NOTHING!

 

Seated at his console, Lt K'Vin listened idly to the chatter coming in over his earpiece via the link to Endeavour's Bridge.  Over the last few hours, there had been little of interest, not even the usual good natured banter between two sets of bridge officers who knew each other well.

 

"Commander! Endeavour's atmosphere is venting... I'm picking up debris... humanoid life.... no life-signs...!"

 

At the same moment as the Ops Officer yelled, K'Vin sat bolt upright, turning up the gain on his earpiece. "Something's wrong over there!" he reported, putting the audio on loudspeaker. "Khetara to bridge... emergency...beam..."

 

Kreltek reacted instantly.  "Lock on, beam every bio sign in that section over here. NOW!"

 

The saboteur had done his work well.  All had remained peaceful on Endeavour’s bridge, no alarms had sounded to warn the crew of the desperate fight for life in Cargo Bay One.  Khetara’s emergency transmission and the sudden panic over the comm. link from Ch’Tang was their first clue that anything was wrong. Frantically, the engineering team brought up the bay camera feeds and status indicators in an attempt to find out what was happening and to stop it before any lives were lost.

 

Temporarily in command of the bridge while Colonel Speares was otherwise engaged, Endeavour’s Romulan second officer leapt to her feet, what little Vulcan calm she had learned from her husband completely shattered by the severity of the crisis.  "Qeytok" Rhiana yelled, "Get a force-field over that door.  Sickbay, I want an emergency team down there STAT!"

 

Qeytok's angry voice snarled back at her over the speaker.  “Cargo bay force-fields are non-functional! Extending emergency bulkheads and attempting to repressurise!"  The report was followed by torrent of Thlingan hol expletives. The equipment was clearly not being cooperative.

 

"Ch'Tang to Endeavour" Kreltek's voice broke in. "We have rescued six survivors from your cargo bay and retrieved three bodies from the blow out debris"

 

For a long time the bridge was quiet as the gathered crew processed the tragedy. Eventually the silence was broken by Rhiana.    “I… We will send over a medical team to assist your surgeon" she offered awkwardly.

"Acknowledged" Kreltek answered gruffly.

 

Passing the order down to sickbay, Rhiana hesitated before voicing the question she did not want to ask, but needed to know "General Rustadh and the Ambassadors... were they among the survivors?"

 

There was a moment of cold silence on the channel. "As yet, I do not know" the Klingon confessed. Rhiana could hear the unspoken pain and even fear in his voice. Kreltek covered it well but he could not hide it from one who felt the same.

 

“Keep us informed, Ch’Tang” Rhiana requested, “We need…” 

 

She was interrupted by Colonel Speares voice.  Endeavour’s temporary captain had made his way down to the cargo bay as soon as he had become aware of the situation. “Bridge, the area is now secure and safe to enter.  Qeytok has got the emergency hull breach field in place and repressurisation is complete.  Medical teams going in now”

Tension on both bridges rose as the two crews waited quietly for more information.  It was not long in coming but to the waiting officers, every moment seemed like an eternity.  When the comm. channel opened again, the news was not good.  “We have four bodies" the medic reported. “Three Terran males, one Klingon female... unidentifiable"

 

“Imirrhlhhse!”  The expletive slipped out before Rhiana could stop herself.  She did not often use such foul language but in this case, it did not even begin to do justice to her feelings.  Nausea rose, her stomach churned, leaving her feeling as though that fabled monster of Rihannsu legend, the aehallh'evha kreldani was eating her insides and she swallowed heavily, choking back the urge to retch.   She was no stranger to death. Like most of Endeavour’s senior officers she had come through the worst of the Dominion War and during the months she had spent as a prisoner of the Jem’Hadar she had seen far too many good men and women either killed by their captors or dead of their wounds or malnutrition.  That had been during the war though.  This was a time of peace and to lose seven crew members in a stupid accident was unacceptable.  She still did not know if the Yautja ambassadors were among the casualties.  If anything had happened to them, there would very likely be a war on their hands. 

 

She stopped dead, a cold shiver running through her body and the urge to vomit intensified.  Accident?  If she’d learned anything about Starfleet it was that they were paranoid about health and safety.  Every system had multiple redundancies and safety procedures built in.  For the door mechanism to engage, the warning lights, klaxons, force-field AND emergency override to all fail at once and at a time when the transporters were known to be offline...  That was no accident.  It was she realised with mounting horror, a deliberate and cold blooded act of sabotage.

 

***************

 

Tense and distrustful in the new environment in which they so suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves and ready to defend themselves should there be even the faintest hint of a threat, the two Predators stood protectively by Khetara’s bio-bed.  She remained in a deep coma, various life-sign monitors attached to her body and a mask covering her mouth and nose, delivering precious oxygen to her severely damaged lungs.

 

The Klingon General had been unconscious, hanging limply against Kihr’yende’s body as they had materialised in Ch’Tang’s sick bay, only the arm around her waist preventing her from collapsing on the hard metallic deck.  The moment the beam released them, the huge predator bent and lifted her effortlessly into his arms, looking around him for someone to help her.  Staff had instantly rushed to assist only to be warned off by Kihr’yende’s instinctive snarl. Immediately realising they were not attacking, he checked himself, allowing them to guide him to a bio-bed where he laid her down and stepped back, allowing them to examine her.

 

As he kept watch over Khetara’s motionless form, the Yautja Elder looked thoughtfully around the room, taking in the scene of controlled chaos as, working together as one team, the medical personnel of both ships carried out their triage procedures, sorting the injured and treating them according to priority and need. Their dedication and their desire to help were evident.

 

A menacing growl rumbled through Kihr’yende’s body as a Bajoran nurse somewhat nervously approached them, a medical tricorder in one hand.  He stepped protectively in front of his father. “We do not require medical assistance”

 

To the nurse’s credit, she did not back down although the scent of fear increased.  “Sir, you have been exposed to vacuum” she persisted, “You may have lung damage”

 

Despite his own disquiet, the Elder placed a calming hand on his son’s arm, aware of Kihr’yende’s simmering temper.   “Our masks protect us” he told the young woman, his tone firm and authoritative, leaving no room for disagreement.  “We are unharmed.  You must look to your own. They need your help, we do not”

 

In truth, the Elder reflected, Kihr’yende had reason for his anger.  That the ‘accident’ on the Federation ship had been a deliberate attempt on their lives was something he did not doubt in the slightest. Da’rian had been right to fear treachery.  He bit back a sigh.  He could not allow this cowardly attack to stop the treaty he had come here to negotiate. If the Yautja were to grow and develop as a people, they had to come to terms with their galactic neighbours.  Day by day, year by year, the Federation and the Klingon Empire had expanded, coming ever closer to the territory the Yautja considered theirs.  The Elders of the various clans had come together to discuss the situation and after a series of long, hotly debated meetings, had come to the conclusion that if their way of life was to continue, they had no choice but to change and adapt.  His people were warriors.  If it came to war, every last one of them would fight to the bitter end.  The end in that situation would be bitter indeed, he knew. The peoples of the Federation seemed weak but their strength lay in sheer numbers and in their tenacity and ingenuity. Allied with the Klingon Empire, even the might of the Dominion had been unable to stand against them.  Their combined strength would overwhelm the Yautja as a swarm of tarei hsan overwhelmed rotting fruit... and the Klingons were not their only allies.

 

His ruminations were abruptly interrupted by a high pitched, mournful wail from the equipment attached to Khetara. The Klingon surgeon all but shoved the Elder aside in his haste to get to the stricken General.  "She's in De-fib!" he yelled.  That report was all the verbal command needed or given. In seconds, medics, drugs and equipment surrounded the bed and Khetara vanished from sight as they fought to save her life.