Home Is the Hunter Page 11

  Kral, blinded by fury, charged at the security guards. The closest of the guards immediately took aim and, just at the moment Kirk shouted "No!" the phaser whined. Kral went down, enveloped in a burst of stun energy. He hit the ground, cracking his head against the edge of the bed.

  "Sorry, Captain," said the guard apologetically.

  "It's all right," said Kirk reluctantly, going straight to the comm panel and, once again, summoning McCoy from the sickbay. Vladra was rolling the unconscious Klingon commander onto his back. It was a nasty gash, but nothing McCoy couldn't deal with.

  "He's upset," Vladra said, sounding almost apologetic.

  "It's a common mental state among Klingons," said Kirk as he turned to leave. He saw little point to remaining.

  "He appeared," Vladra said abruptly.

  Kirk turned. "He?"

  "The thing called Weyland," she said, repressing a shudder. "He made our weapons useless. We're trapped there. That's why Kral was thrown out of command. The crew wanted someone to blame our situation on."

  "Any men?" demanded Kirk. "Did he take any of your men away?"

  She frowned. "No. Why? Did he take some of yours?"

  For a moment Kirk didn't want to reply. But then, he reasoned, that was the same sort of paranoia that motivated the Klingons. The last thing he wanted to do was emulate Klingons. "Yes," he said tightly. "Three of my men vanished."

  "I can understand your anguish," she said softly. Then she glanced at Kral. "Perhaps you can understand his."

  Kirk looked at the unconscious Kral, the Klingon's chest rising and lowering irregularly.

  He thought about Garrovick dying at the hands of Klingon weaponry.

  "I wish I cared," said Kirk, and he turned and left the room as McCoy stepped past.

  He looked neither left nor right as he strode down the hallway, fists clenched. Replaying in his mind was scene upon scene of a history of Klingon violence and maliciousness, up to the most recent—Garrovick's death.

  "We can all rot together," said Kirk.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Stalingrad, 1942

  THE SS OFFICER stood to the side and called briskly, "Ready! Aim!"

  Chekov muttered to John Kirk, "This had better be a damned good plan you're working on."

  "You'll love it," said Kirk.

  "Fire!" shouted the SS man.

  Chekov braced himself, his eyes closed, and the guns went off.

  He waited for pain, for excruciating agony, for his blood to gush from perforations and his legs to collapse under him. For something!

  Nothing.

  Almost afraid to believe it, he opened one eye and then the other. Kirk was next to him, and they were looking at each other with equal befuddlement.

  They turned then, upon hearing the raucous laughter of the German soldiers.

  "Blanks," muttered Kirk. "They used blanks. The idea is to bring us out here and convince us we're going to die. They can do this any number of times, trying to soften us up."

  "Effective," said Chekov, trying to stop his voice from quavering.

  "Now," said the SS officer, approaching them briskly, "we'll bring you back to your cell. And then we'll talk. And tomorrow, well … one never knows when the real bullet will be lodged in one's chest, does one?"

  Then there was a rifle crack, and the SS officer pitched forward with a bullet lodged in his chest.

  Chekov and Kirk looked around in confusion as, all of a sudden, there was pandemonium throughout the camp.

  The firing squad swung their rifles around and automatically started firing about them, forgetting that they only had blanks in their rifles. They toppled back, twisting and writhing, crying out and shouting profanities.

  Chekov suddenly felt hands at his back, undoing the bonds. To his left he saw that Kirk was likewise being freed, and Chekov's eyes went wide when he saw who was responsible.

  "Ivan!" he said joyously.

  Ivan said briskly, as he finished undoing Chekov's bonds, "They thought I was dead, after my most recent questioning session. They dragged me out and dropped my body with a pile of unburied corpses. Then the shelling started. I came to and crawled to a farmhouse and told the farmers what happened. We ran out and pleaded with a group of Russian laborers. A few, mostly the anti-Soviet Mongols, refused to help, but the others were patriotic. Some were even partisans spying on the Germans."

  Farmers, thought Chekov. He owed his life to determined farmers, sniping from nearby. "And the Russian army?" he gasped.

  "Responsible for mortars and sharpshooting."

  And suddenly they looked up as they heard an incoming whistle.

  Ivan's eyes widened. "Scatter!" he shouted. The mortar did not know, apparently, who was friend and who was foe.

  Chekov dashed madly, and seconds later was hurled forward by an explosion from behind him. He glanced back, but the rising smoke didn't permit him to see anything, and he didn't have the time to go back and check things further.

  He was barreling forward when a German soldier blocked his way. Chekov drove forward, smashing his shoulder into the soldier's stomach. The soldier went down, gasping, and Chekov slammed a knee on the man's chest, fist drawn back to knock him out.

  The skinny, acne-scarred kid stared up at Chekov, terror in his eyes. Fringes of red hair were visible from under his helmet. Was this the Nazi threat, the fanatical product of the Hitler Youth? Or a scared kid who would rather be worrying about his school exams or his future with the girl down the block than fighting in an ideological war about which he neither understood nor cared?

  "Get out of here," Chekov yelled at him in Russian, but his meaning was clear. The kid stumbled to his feet and ran.

  Chekov ran into the darkness, the sounds of gunfire and screams and death all around him.

  He heard his name shouted and turned in time to see Kirk, twenty yards to his left. Kirk was gesturing to him, and Chekov dashed in his direction.

  He was supposed to be saving Captain Kirk's ancestor? Somehow it seemed that John Kirk had matters firmly in hand.

  Chekov stumbled over a still warm body of a dead German soldier. The back of the helmet was cracked open, and he saw red hair, now soaked in redder blood. He didn't turn over the body to look at the face.

  Kirk led Chekov with single-minded purpose, muttering, "It's over in this direction. I know it. I—There!" And he pointed.

  There was a runaway, and on it stood a Ju-52 transport plane.

  "It's what Ivan said he was after," said Kirk, grinning. "Let's give him an early birthday present."

  "Can you fly one of these things?" said Chekov.

  "We'll find out," the American said.

  Now that, thought Chekov, definitely sounds suspiciously like James T. Kirk.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  WHEN KRAL OPENED HIS EYES, he saw that same medical officer, in the loose blue tunic, waving some damned Federation device over his head. With a low snarl he brushed the hand away and started to sit up with a curse.

  To his amazement the apparently soft and lilylivered medical officer shoved him back down onto the bed. The Klingon looked up at him, shocked.

  "How … how dare you?" said Kral, but he was surprised at how shaky his voice sounded.

  "You injured one of your frontal vertebrae," said the doctor briskly. "I've patched up the abrasions, but you're still going to be dizzy for at least an hour."

  "I should have known," muttered Kral. "No weak, thin-blooded Federation man would be able to handle me in such an ignominious fashion if I weren't injured."

  The doctor harrumphed loudly. "You may consider us a bunch of soft-skinned cowards, but I'll have you know that my bloodlines are as good as yours. And my great-granddaddy, ten times removed, was as tough a general as ever sat a horse. And furthermore he, unlike yourself, was able to listen to reason. Which puts him a damned sight ahead of the more 'advanced' Klingons."

  Kral's eyes narrowed. Nearby sat Vladra, her hands interlaced and on her lap. "If you were
on my ship, you would be disciplined for that."

  "Really." The doctor raised an eyebrow. "My understanding is that you were found doing the backstroke in a vacuum. So what was it you said that prompted that treatment, eh?"

  Kral said nothing.

  "No answer. I wasn't expecting any." The doctor stood and addressed Vladra. "Tell your commander that he'll be fine in an hour or so. And tell him that, if it's of any consolation, he's as boneheaded as my commander."

  Kral half turned, and ignored the brief dizziness that provoked. "How dare you compare me to your weak captain!"

  "Well, this is my ship, so I get to dare a lot," said the doctor tartly. "You have your opinions about Captain Kirk. He has his opinions about you. And while the both of you are making noises at each other, we're stuck up here and might be here forever."

  "If we're that lucky," said Vladra.

  McCoy glanced at her. "What are you talking about?"

  Vladra opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  To McCoy's surprise—and to some degree, Vladra's—Kral said, "If your ship is being affected the same as ours, then the orbit is decaying. We have less than twenty-four hours to rectify that situation."

  "And how would you suggest we do that?" asked McCoy.

  Kral's head sagged back on the pillow. "I haven't the faintest idea."

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Scotland, 1764

  "MR. SCOTT, you saved me," Seamus screamed jubilantly, his voice coming in jerky spurts as the wind was knocked out of him by every pounding of the animal's hooves. By now the chaos had given way to pursuit.

  "You ride like a lord," the boy said.

  "I did'na know I had the skill, myself, but having the hounds of hell on your heels is a good incentive. Which way, boy?"

  "At the crossroad, left. There is heather and hills beyond, all the way to the highlands, sir, all the way. They'll not follow us there."

  Well and good, Scott thought, but he would need to put a few more miles between him and the pursuers before he would breathe safely.

  As the wild ride sped on, the boy muttered a prayer whose origins were as rooted in pagan antiquity as in Christian doctrine.

  "Briget and Bran, protect us,

  Wild Queen Meave, protect us,

  Mary, Virgin Mild, protect us,

  Michael, protect us,

  And Brian, steed of Michael,

  Put fire to this stallion's hooves,

  Oh, Christ, and all the saints,

  Protect us."

  The guttural rhythm of the magical poem, which the boy repeated over and over again, matched the rhythm of the horse as it galloped down the road turning north to the highlands almost by its own will.

  "By God, we've lost them," Scott pronounced with relief, daring a quick glance back. He reined in the frothing animal. "Lad, lad are ye well?"

  "I'd be more well if I'd done what I'd set out to do. A world rid of that fat oaf—"

  "You wouldn't have succeeded. Hanover—"

  Seamus looked up at him. "What? Hanover what?"

  "Hanover … was too much a veteran to have been caught like that."

  "No." Seamus's eyes narrowed. "That's not what you were going to say. You know something. Something in The Sight …"

  Scotty sighed, and then said softly, "Lad … perhaps ye should reconsider joining the prince."

  "What're ye saying? That Hanover is destined to defeat him? That the prince canna win? Is that what your sight tells you?"

  Scotty made a rude noise. "My sight. My sight can't even see where I've been. Yet somehow I know, lad … yes. The prince canna win. There are greater forces than your trembling aim in your first murder attempt working against ye. You have the weight of history on your shoulders. History that has yet to happen."

  Seamus's face was set. "If it hasn't happened, then I can make it happen the way I want."

  "I wouldn't have it any other way, lad," Scotty said.

  The boy dismounted and walked around, shaking out his legs. Scotty stayed atop the horse and looked at him with open curiosity.

  "So you are a spy, then?" he said to the lad, shaking his head in disbelief.

  "Aye, sir," Seamus said, shivering. "I was a shipwright's apprentice in Skye. But the call came, and I was sent to the lowlands to spy. I was the king's own drummer boy for a year, and I've the scars on my back to prove it. Then I deserted, following the army, taking work as I could. I sent reports to General Murray, of Prince Charles's army, by pigeon."

  They rode and walked for a time. The lemon-yellow sunlight, which had cast lovely lavender shadows on the rolling gray land, dotted with mounds of snow, was all too soon overshadowed by rolling clouds more gray than even this vast and lonely land.

  "It's warming up a bit," Scott said, sniffing the air.

  "That means more snow, Mr. Scott," Seamus said with certainty.

  True to his prediction, the big wet snowflakes began to drop gently, plopping themselves on the two men, only to melt at the first touch. But soon the snowflakes were small and hard and stuck tight to the men as they rode slowly into the wind toward safety.

  "Hungry?" the lad shouted to Scott through the windblown snow. They were riding double, huddling close for warmth.

  "Aye, Seamus, I am that."

  "I spy a cottage ahead. See, the smoke there?" Scott kicked the horse to a trot.

  "Hello," Scott shouted, dismounting and banging on the door. "Open up for two freezing travelers, will ye?"

  There was no answer. Scott thumped the door again, hoping to rouse the householder from his slumber. In response to Scotty's insistent banging, the door creaked open, but there was no one in evidence inside. The two men cautiously stepped over the threshold. Still they saw no one, although the evidence of recent habitation was clear. There was a pitiful peat fire in the hearth, sending up more smoke than heat, and a near empty pot of thin porridge hanging over it. There were also several long, thin pieces of wood in the corner that had been part of a load used in constructing a simple lean-to that Scott noticed out back. Even though it was left over, it still remained, for poor people wasted nothing.

  "Damn it all, Seamus," Scott said, ready to turn and leave, "I cannot take the last food from this poor soul, wherever they have got to. Come, let's go."

  "Mr. Scott, I beg of you. We cannot take a night out on the heath. I tell you, man, we'll find our death out there tonight. I say we stay the night and take what we need."

  "Do as you will, lad. I'll stay indoors, but I will not eat of this poor man's food."

  Seamus grumbled, eyeing the unappetizing gruel as if it were a savory stew, but he contented himself to drink some water from a pitcher and settle down to sleep by the hearth, after stabling the horse in the crude lean-to out back.

  Scotty sat down on the packed dirt floor, leaning against the stonework of the hearth. He would try to stay awake, at least until the boy had caught some sleep. Someone had to keep watch for the return of the homeowner.

  A rustling sound caught his attention. He strained to listen. He was ready to dismiss it as mice nested in the meager stores which were stacked in a shadowy corner, but it was too … well, too purposeful, too large. Then he noticed that one particular lump among the stores moved.

  Stealthily he got up. Seamus awoke again, but Scott hushed his question with a warning gesture, first placing his finger to his lips, then pointing to the corner. Seamus nodded and rolled quietly to his knees, pretending to snore even as he moved silently to his feet. Scott circled to flank the hidden person, and then at his signal the two men swooped down, pinning the squealing prisoner.

  "Don't move or I'll be forced to kill you," Seamus said grandly. He pulled aside the sacks and clothes that hid the person.

  "Do what you will with me," the prisoner shouted defiantly.

  "A lassie!" Seamus choked, his face now only inches from her. One of his hands was clutching something rather soft. He turned beet-red, let go and leapt up. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" he stammered.
<
br />   Scotty also released her, and gallantly offered her a hand up. But she lay huddled, her eyes wide and frightened, her face smudged and her long dark hair wild and matted. Scott left his hand out reassuringly for a long time before she shyly reached for it and allowed herself to be lifted up. She was scrawny with starvation, but for it all, she was still a handsome lass, perhaps no older than Seamus. Yet she had the old eyes of someone who had been very badly hurt.

  "Forgive us if we frightened you," Scott said with stiff formality. He wasn't sure what to say to her. After all, he had trespassed on her home, and terrified her to boot. "We only came in because of the snow. Please, don't cry," he begged. But she was shaking and sobbing uncontrollably.

  "What are you going to do to me?" she wailed.

  "Nothing. Please. We'll leave, won't we, Seamus?" Scott said sincerely. "Please. Please," Seamus begged, totally unnerved by her tears. "We are being pursued by the English, and we are only trying to reach the prince in Inverness. They say the clans are gathering there. Please. Don't cry!" Seamus moved as if to catch her up in his arms to comfort her, but the shyness of any lad, coupled with the emotion of the moment, made him stop in his tracks, his mouth gaping and his hand hanging uselessly by his side.

  "There, there, lassie," Scott said, coming to the rescue and reaching out to her. He enfolded her in his arms and held her as she sobbed out the terrible story.

  "My father and brother are both dead by hanging. Fat Billy's men came through here. They …" She looked down, the pain in her face beyond endurance. "They did unspeakable things to me, and left me for dead. But the men, they hung them for being Scots. For naught else."

  Scott held her for a long time, until she finally pulled away, mopping at her face with her apron. Scott looked down at the poorly repaired rips in her shift and petticoats, but quickly looked away, ashamed of the brutality she had been forced to endure.

  "Come, please share my food," she offered, still shaking, but making a brave attempt to be the good housewife. She got bowls, Seamus scurrying to her side to help her set them out. The gruel was as tasteless as it looked, but in the cold cottage filled with sorrow, it was a feast of love and comfort, the two men offering their best cheer for what little it was worth to the girl.