A Time for War A Time for Peace Page 2

  “The fact that the president and his primary aide are about to resign is hardly something they want to spread around. The tightest possible security was kept on this to maintain stability and not jeopardize the president’s ability to do his job.”

  Worf nodded. “He did not want to appear to be a lame duck.”

  Ra’ch frowned. “I’m sorry?”

  Shaking his head, Worf said, “My apologies. It is a human metaphor, applying to someone in a position of power whose days in that position are known to be coming to an end.”

  “Oh.” Ra’ch was still frowning. “I don’t see what a maimed waterfowl has to do with that.”

  “It is a human metaphor. They are often abstruse.”

  “True. Is there anything else you need to know, Mr. Ambassador?”

  There were, in fact, several things, but Worf had other sources he could call upon for them, ones less busy than the person temporarily serving as president of the largest governmental body in the quadrant. “No. I will be speaking before the council at high sun.”

  “Good. I have every faith that you’ll continue to serve the Federation with honor.”

  Worf wasn’t entirely sure he had always done so up until now, but said only: “Thank you, Madam President.”

  Ra’ch winced. “For Ho’nig’s sake, don’t call me that. I’m still a councillor, and I plan to stay one. Call the poor unfortunate who wins the election that—they’re welcome to it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have about a dozen other ambassadors to talk to.” She smiled. “It’s good to see you again, Worf.”

  “Likewise, Councillor.”

  With that, the screen went blank.

  Worf turned to Wu. “Have Bey write an official statement incorporating Councillor Ra’ch’s comments. I wish to see it within the hour.” Diplomacy included a great deal of written composition, which was not Worf’s strong suit. He could write a Starfleet report that was the envy of other officers for its completeness and attention to detail, he could write decent verse if the poem’s subject was sufficiently inspiring, but the language of the official statement from the ambassador’s office continued to elude him. Thankfully, such skills were not required. Bey Toh had been a speechwriter for two first ministers of Bajor, and he joined the embassy staff shortly after that planet had joined the Federation. It hadn’t taken him long to adapt Worf’s particular style of address to the written word.

  Making notes on his padd, Wu said, “Of course, sir. Anything else?”

  “I assume the resolutions that you had for me yesterday are still needed by the end of the day?”

  Wu smiled. “It’s possible that they’ve fallen down the priority queue a bit with this morning’s events, sir, but I haven’t heard anything specific.”

  “Very well. I will review them while I wait for my son. Have someone send up some gagh from the galley.”

  Wu nodded. “Anything else?”

  “That will be all.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The aide took his leave. Worf turned back to the terminal and called up the resolutions he had mentioned. If nothing else, it was probably best to get them out of the way; with Zife resigning, there would be a great deal of new business that would require Worf’s attention. In particular he was concerned about how some on the High Council might view the fact that there was a vacuum in the Federation’s power structure, however temporary. There were many in the empire who believed that, with the Dominion War over, there was no longer a need for the Federation and the empire to remain allies, some who even believed that there should be a return to the days before Praxis, when the Federation was just one of a list of enemies the empire intended to crush under its heel.

  Tezwa would only add strength to those radicals’ positions.

  As the Federation’s representative in the empire, it was Worf’s job to ensure that the empire remained a steadfast ally. His position as a member of the chancellor’s House, and Martok’s own strong feelings about the need for the Federation alliance, would make that job easier, but that did not make said job in any way easy.

  At some point, his office chime rang. “Enter.”

  A young Klingon woman entered the room, carrying a tray. Worf glanced to see the vermicular creatures in the bowl that sat in the tray’s center. Though the replicators could provide adequate sustenance when necessary, sometimes there was just no substitute for live gagh.

  Worf did not recognize the steward. Since he prided himself on knowing the entire embassy staff by sight, he asked, “Who are you?”

  The woman stood with her arms folded in front of her. “I am Karra.” No mother, no House, which meant she was a commoner—hardly surprising, given her position as an embassy steward. Those of noble blood would not serve in such jobs, leaving them either to commoners or to jeghpu’wI’. “I began my employment here a week ago.”

  A statement that he was not aware of any changes in the kitchen staff died on Worf’s lips. He usually left such minutiae to Wu, more so in the past few months. “Very well,” he said. “You may leave.”

  Karra nodded and left the room.

  Frowning, Worf called up the embassy staff records. Karra had indeed been hired seven days earlier. In fact, fifteen members of the kitchen staff had been hired in the last month. Those positions tended to have a high turnover, so it probably wasn’t all that untoward—still, Worf made a mental note to speak with the head of personnel, a cantankerous old Klingon named Mag, about it after he got back from the Great Hall. If nothing else, that quick a staff turnover constituted a security concern, if not an out-and-out security risk.

  The intercom beeped. It was Gorjanc again. “Sir, your son has arrived. He’s coming through security at the front gate now.”

  Worf allowed himself a smile. There will be time for security concerns and politics later. “I am on my way.”

  He switched off his computer and proceeded to the narrow hallway outside his office. The embassy was shaped like an inverted pyramid, and Worf’s office was located on the second floor, taking up the entirety of the south section of that level. The north section contained Wu’s office and the embassy library, a narrow hallway between them, ending on the west side with a turbolift and on the east with an emergency stairwell. In the center of the hallway was a large desk, where Carl Murphy sat. The human handled Worf’s in-embassy appointments.

  As Worf nodded to Murphy on his way toward the turbolift, another steward ran up to him. Worf recognized him only because he had just seen the boy’s personnel record. His name was Kl’rt, and he was hired only four days previously.

  “Mr. Ambassador!”

  “What do you want?” Worf asked by way of greeting.

  “Supervisor Vark needs to see you right away, sir.” Vark was the head of the kitchen staff.

  “Regarding what?”

  “I don’t know that, sir, I only know that it’s urgent.”

  Worf turned his back on Kl’rt. “I have an appointment that is more urgent. Tell Vark to make an appointment with Mr. Murphy.”

  “Sir, Supervisor Vark told me to fetch you and not come back without you. He’ll kill me if I disobey.”

  Closing his eyes, Worf thought, I do not have time for this. He turned to face Kl’rt. “Then you will die, for I will not see Vark now.”

  Then he saw it.

  All the stewards in the embassy wore the same two-piece white outfit, a simple shirt and pants. They were generally formfitting, though Kl’rt’s was a bit loose on him. Too loose, in fact—the quartermaster was generally more competent at getting the sizes right.

  Kl’rt’s service record, which Worf had just been perusing, along with those of the other new arrivals to the kitchen staff, indicated no injuries or deformities of any kind. Such things were always listed in the records—for example, Vark’s record noted that he was missing two fingers from his left hand, which happened either in glorious battle against the Kinshaya or after an accident in the kitchen of the House of K’mpec, depending on how dr
unk the kitchen staff supervisor was when he told the story.

  Yet there was no indication in the records of the bulge Worf now saw on Kl’rt’s right hip.

  Worf hesitated for only a moment, but that was apparently enough for Kl’rt, who removed the small weapon from under his shirt and fired it at Worf. The life of a diplomat had done little to dull Worf’s reflexes, and he was able to duck to the floor to avoid the weapons fire, which he recognized as being that of a Breen disruptor.

  Murphy, to his credit, immediately pressed the panic button on his desk—one of many security procedures instituted by Worf. The panic button would alert the security forces throughout the embassy of a breach, and also set off an alarm throughout the building.

  That alarm did not sound.

  Worf reached into the pocket of his floor-length leather coat and pulled out a small Ferengi phaser and fired it on Kl’rt—

  —just as Kl’rt turned his disruptor on Murphy.

  Both men fell to the ground a moment later.

  “QI’yaH,” Worf cursed. He ran over to Murphy’s desk. Worf had stunned Kl’rt—he would need to be questioned—but the human was quite dead. Carl Murphy was a good man who had served the Federation well. Worf swore that those responsible would pay for his life.

  A quick check on Murphy’s computer revealed that the security system was down, which tracked with the malfunctioning panic button. Worf then entered the code that only he had—indeed, that only he and Wu knew about—which would reactivate the security system.

  The system obligingly came online a moment later. Before pushing the panic button a second time, Worf called up the views from the security recorders in the embassy. He needed intelligence before he proceeded further.

  In every room, he saw people in the white shirt-and-pants outfits of kitchen stewards, armed with Breen disruptors, rounding up the embassy staff.

  One member of security unholstered her Starfleet phaser and tried to fire it, only to have the weapon fail. In another part of the embassy, two more security personnel, armed with Klingon disruptors, did likewise, and their weapons also failed.

  The perpetrators of this assault not only disabled security, but must have engaged a scattering field to neutralize any Federation or Klingon weapons. Worf offered silent thanks to Nog. The first Ferengi in Starfleet, the young lieutenant had given Worf the phaser as a going-away present when Worf departed Deep Space 9 to become ambassador. Nog had promised that it was immune to most known forms of tampering and might come in handy someday. He was right.

  Growling deep in his throat, Worf examined the security monitors. As unthinkable as it may have seemed, the embassy was under siege and in imminent danger of being taken over.

  Worf assumed that the fifteen new members of the kitchen staff were the primary instigators. The security monitors revealed that a dozen Klingons were herding the staff to the large meeting room at the center of the embassy’s top floor. With Kl’rt down at his feet, that left three unaccounted for—assuming that Vark is part of this. Mag, the head of personnel, apparently was not, as he was one of the ones being walked at gunpoint to the meeting room.

  So, Worf noticed, was Alexander, currently being brought to the stairwell on the ground level.

  Then the screens all went blank again. Whoever tampered with security is keeping an eye on those systems. He attempted his personal reactivation code a second time, but it had no effect.

  I will have to make do with the intelligence I have so far.

  Running back into his office, Worf retrieved a tricorder and his Starfleet combadge from the drawer of his desk and shoved the former into his pocket. They functioned independently of the embassy systems and wouldn’t be affected by the sabotage.

  To his total lack of surprise, use of the combadge garnered no reply. If they are capable of a scattering field to neutralize weapons and of deactivating embassy security, they are equally capable of blocking communications. Still, he pocketed the combadge in case he might need it, and moved back out into the hallway.

  “Kl’rt, respond.” Worf recognized the voice as that of Vark, coming from Kl’rt’s prone form, indicating a communications device somewhere on the stunned steward’s person. “He isn’t answering.”

  “All right,” said another voice that Worf did not recognize. “Gitak, Akor, get to the second level and find out what happened to Kl’rt.”

  A third voice, that of Karra, spoke: “Why send two people to stop a mere diplomat?”

  “He’s not a mere diplomat, he’s a decorated warrior who served in Starfleet for fifteen years in security and strategic operations. He’s the most dangerous person in this embassy.”

  Vark growled. “Damn you, Rov, if you had waited until after Worf was gone like I suggested—”

  “Then we wouldn’t have our most valuable hostage, would we?”

  Worf wondered if Rov knew that they already had their most valuable hostage’s son. If he didn’t, he would soon; Vark knew Alexander from the latter’s many visits.

  The ambassador needed to get off this floor immediately.

  Checking his tricorder, he saw that the only life signs in the building that weren’t in the meeting room were the two on this level—his and Kl’rt’s—and thirteen moving about the embassy.

  This has been a very efficient operation. Worf knew he had to conceal himself in order to plan a counterattack. Fortunately, I have the perfect place to go.

  Worf took a moment to find the com unit, which was in Kl’rt’s ear. Worf inserted the device in his own ear.

  Even as he did, Rov said, “Close the channel, wait for Gitak and Akor to check in.” Then the device went dead.

  Worf kept it in his ear in any case. It might prove useful.

  The door to the stairwell opened to reveal two more Klingons. Worf snarled, leapt behind Murphy’s desk, and fired his phaser, now set to kill. I need only one prisoner.

  As he crouched behind the large metal desk, he heard the thump of a body falling to the floor, meaning his aim was true and he had only one foe to face.

  Two disruptor blasts whined as they went over Worf’s head. Then he heard a voice both in his ear and from across the room. The shrill report of the disruptor meant that Worf actually heard the Klingon’s words more clearly over his stolen com unit.

  “This is Akor. Kl’rt’s down, and the ambassador’s still here. He took out Gitak. I need backup.”

  “I’m sending B’Eko and Kralk.”

  Allowing himself the tiniest of smiles, Worf took out the tricorder even as another disruptor blast fired over his head, this one on a different trajectory. Akor was not staying in one place, keeping Worf pinned behind the desk while he moved closer. Worf would have given him credit for good tactics, save for his breaking radio silence. That meant Worf could use his tricorder to home in on the transmission.

  A moment later, he’d done so, backtracking Akor’s movements in order to predict where he’d be in a moment.

  Disruptor shots continued to fire over his head, even as Worf crawled around to behind the desk, right under the chair on which Murphy’s dead body sat. He aimed his Ferengi phaser through the legs of the chair at a spot just past the other side of the desk.

  Five, four, three, two, one.

  He fired just as Akor came into view. The shot only glanced his shoulder, unfortunately, and so Akor was able to return fire even as he fell backward. Fortunately for Worf, the shot hit harmlessly on the metal chair. The type of Breen disruptor the stewards were using affected only living tissue, doing no damage to inorganic objects.

  Worf fired again, taking advantage of the larger target presented by Akor when he fell. This time, his aim was dead-on; Akor got off one shot that fired into the ceiling before he died.

  “Akor, what happened?” Rov asked over the com unit. “Akor!”

  Climbing up from behind the desk, Worf bent over to pick up Kl’rt’s unconscious form and slung him over his shoulder in a firefighter’s carry. Rov’s voice continued to bl
are into his ear as the ambassador brought Kl’rt to the turbolift doors.

  The embassy had only one turboshaft on the lower levels, though there were two turbolifts. As the structure widened in all directions, the shaft forked, providing passage on both the east and west walls from the sixth floor up. At this second level, however, there was just the one and, according to Worf’s tricorder, both lifts were stopped at the top level and had been deactivated.

  That suited Worf fine. He needed only the shaft, not the lift itself.

  Utilizing the manual override, Worf pried the lift doors open, then picked Kl’rt back up. The shaft had emergency ladders inset into the walls on the three nondoor sides; Worf grunted from the weight of his prisoner as he clambered over to one of them and then started climbing down.

  If one inspected the plans for the Federation embassy, one would see, besides the aboveground portions, an extensive basement level. If one had security clearance above a certain level, one could see a different set of plans, which included a subbasement that wasn’t even accessible to all those who had clearance to know about it. Worf was among the latter.

  However, there was a second subbasement that almost nobody knew about and wasn’t on any plan of the building that existed. Worf suspected that the number of people who did know of it could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

  The ambassador himself was aware of its existence only because of a family connection. A high-ranking member of Imperial Intelligence named Lorgh was a friend to Worf’s now-defunct House, and had let Worf know of the secret bunker that had been placed beneath the embassy, under the control of people who seemed to be Starfleet Intelligence, but in fact had a much more shadowy agenda, and no oversight that Lorgh could determine. In order to aid Captain Picard at Tezwa, Worf had gone to that sub-subbasement to ask the commander working there for help. Shortly thereafter, the room was cleared out, with not even subatomic traces of the base that Worf had seen. It was just an empty room that nobody even knew about.

  Which made it the ideal place for Worf to begin planning to take back the Federation embassy.