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Chapter Four

The doors of the sensor control room of the Okarax swished open with an almost inaudible noise. There was only one Klingon in the room at the time; there was little need of continual monitoring of the sensors at a time like this. The short burst fired from Logan's phaser struck the back of the Klingon's head and he slumped to the ground with a small thud.

"Tarses," Logan pointed to the main console. "You need to overload the sensors using that console. Just block the alignment safety programs and purposefully misalign the sensors...That should make them inoperable for a good while."

Tarses quickly did as he was told and, soon enough, the sensors of the Okarax overloaded and shut down.

"There, good work." Logan nodded. "Now let's go get your colleagues..."

* * *

"What the...?" The lieutenant suddenly exclaimed.

"What is it now?" Doksath demanded.

"The sensors have just gone down." The officer said. "Internal and external..."

Doksath stood up from his command chair: "Does this have something to do with those subspace disturbances?"

"I don't see how they could be related..." The officer said shaking his head.

Doksath punched in the comm control on his command chair: "This is Doksath calling the sensor room, what's wrong?"

Nothing...

Doksath frowned: "Send someone to investigate the sensor control room." He ordered.

* * *

The infiltration team took one of the Klingon auxiliary access tubes to get as fast as possible to the main cargo bay of the Okarax. Five members of the team stayed inside the tubes and prepared to come into the room from their position. The five other members of the team were preparing themselves at the main entrance of the cargo bay.

"I'm reading fourteen Klingons in the bay, two of them are probably the Klingon Intelligence operatives." Kaufmann said, studying the readings from his tricorder.

"That should be pretty easy to control..." Logan said confidently. "We'll throw a pressurized smoke grenade into the room...That should blind and confuse almost everyone in the room; then we go in with our thermal goggles and dispatch the Klingon guards."

Tarses sighed: "That sounds pretty easy..."

"Don't worry," Logan gave an encouraging smile. "We can make it...The Klingon life forms should be represented on the thermal goggles by green blobs...Humans are red blobs."

The marine leader communicated the plan to the five team members who were stationed in the access tubes and then they began implementing the plan.

One of the marines positioned himself in front of the door to the cargo bay with a compact stun grenade launcher brandished before him, ready to fire. Logan prepared to manually open the door and the rest of the team was preparing to storm the room, strapping the thermal scanners over their eyes.

"Ready?" Logan asked, with his goggles making him look like an oversized fly.

The rest of the team answered with nods, the leader nodded: "On my mark...We storm the room..."

There was a thick silence for a few seconds and then Logan said: "Mark!"

The double doors of the cargo-bay opened and the pressurized smoke grenade was launched into the bay. The grenade exploded and the smoke expanded at terrible speed in all directions. There were Klingon curses in the mist as the infiltration team stormed the room, their thermal goggles giving them the outline of any heat-producing body in the bay.

Tarses quickly scanned the room before taking cover behind a large crate; he had located three green 'blobs', as Logan had called them, and memorized their position.

The first Klingon disruptor blasts were obviously blind-shots, the green bursts of energy struck only air. This was comforting; it meant that the Klingons were effectively blind in the mist.

Tarses decided to act; he gestured to the rest of his team that he was going to move to the right wing of the room and attempt to take out as many targets as possible. Logan nodded and signaled that he would cover the doctor.

Tarses dashed to a middle-sized crate on the right side and raised his phaser. He located the green silhouette nearest to him and fired a precise shot. The green blob crumpled to the floor and Tarses heard the thud.

The doctor then continued to scan the room; there were dozens upon dozens of red silhouettes and two green silhouettes among them. Tarses deduced that those two blobs were the Klingon operatives.

The smoke was already starting to dissipate slightly, it was time to act. Tarses heard a few more phaser blasts and decided to come out from his covered position.

He stood up and located two green silhouettes on the far side of the room...A few more shots from his phaser brought the Klingons to the ground.

"Three left..." Tarses heard Logan whisper in his communicator.

There were a few more blasts and Davies voice said over the comm: "One left..."

Suddenly, Tarses heard a roar...

He swiveled and felt the fist slam upon his skull. Lights danced in front of his eyes but he stayed conscious, he pulled off his goggles and saw the massive Klingon towering over him, holding a menacing d'ktagh.

Tarses reached for his phaser, only to discover that it had fallen from its holster. The Klingon was preparing to kick to human in the head but Tarses grabbed the limb before it collided with his face. He pulled the leg upwards and the Klingon crashed on his back onto the ground; Tarses grabbed the knife and threw it across the room.

The Klingon roared again, this time with terrifying force and he attempted to throw the human off of him. But Tarses kept the Klingon firmly on the ground and, with two powerful punches that came in quick succession, the doctor rendered the massive Klingon unconscious...

Logan appeared a moment later followed by another marine, he helped Tarses to his feet and asked: "You all right, doc?"

Tarses nodded.

Logan glanced down at the unconscious Klingon and said: "Nice punch, doctor...He's a bulldozer..."

Tarses caressed his aching knuckles and smiled wanly: "Yes he is..."

* * *

Kline let out a sigh of relief when he saw the Starfleet marines emerge from the fog caused by the pressurized smoke grenade. He noticed doctor Tarses amongst the marines and walked towards him.

"Doctor!" Kline said and Tarses turned to face him.

"Captain?" Tarses smiled. "Good to see you again, sir...We didn't know what the Klingons had done with you."

"We're fine..." Kline nodded.

A large man approached Kline and Tarses and shook the captain's hand: "Commander Logan, sir...Happy to have been of assistance."

"Thanks, commander..." Kline said. "But I have a question, what are we going to do now?"

Tarses turned to Logan and the large marine said: "We have to take control of this vessel...The River of Blood may have many ships but they have a very small number of people on board these ships...There are only a few more dozen Klingons on board the Okarax...If we arm the rest of your crew with some weapons we can easily take control of this ship."

"And then what will we do?" Kline asked.

"Once we have control of the Okarax...We will have to get out of here as fast as we can whilst making as much damage to the River of Blood's fleet as possible." Logan explained. "Two other teams are actually on board the two Klingon carriers sabotaging the warp cores...This will be a huge disadvantage to the River of Blood and the Klingon Defense Force will certainly be able to beat them."

Kline frowned: "However...We can't be sure of the outcome of the battle..."

Logan smiled: "No, we can't...But it's the only thing we can do for now..."

Kline shook his head: "No...There must be another way to prevent these two fleets from engaging each other."

"What?" Logan blinked.

"The Klingon Defense Force may win...But the loss of life would be unacceptable...We cannot permit this to happen." Kline said.

"But, sir...With all due respect, we must..." Logan began.

"Be silent!" Gorik suddenly came towards them, glaring at Logan. "The captain is correct...Klingons dying while fighting Klingons is something unthinkable...If we can do something to prevent this battle we must!"

"A Klingon not wanting to go into battle? I thought that was known as cowardice." Logan said acidly.

Gorik turned to Logan, ready to fight.

"Stop!" Kline said firmly. "We don't have time for this; we have to find something that will prevent this battle from taking place. We need to get to Doksath."

Logan sighed and said: "Don't tell me I didn't warn you."

Kline ignored the marine's comment and said: "Give me your phaser, commander."

The marine handed Kline his hand phaser whilst keeping his own phaser rifle.

"Okay..." Kline checked the level of the phaser. "Let's get moving..."

* * *

Doksath heard the sound...

He darted out of his command chair and reached for the disruptor but the phaser beam struck a console in front of him and he froze...

He swiveled and saw the triumphant face of Captain Alan Kline looking down at him from the top of the bridge. He was with a group of humans holding phaser rifles and pointing them in the direction of the bridge crew of the Okarax.

"Well, Doksath..." Kline said. "It looks like the curtains have finally come down."

"The play is not yet over, captain..." Doksath snarled. "My fleet may not be aware that you have taken control of my ship...But it will continue to Qo'Nos and it will defeat the Klingon Defense Force!"

"Don't be so sure..." Kline said. "We have planted explosives on the warp cores of both your carriers...At my signal we will destroy them."

Doksath's eyes went wide: "You lie."

Kline shook his head: "No..."

The Klingon grunted something unintelligible.

"Let's end it here Doksath..." Kline said. "Stop this madness before thousands of Klingons die!"

"It's not madness!" Doksath said. "It is a revolution! Sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good!"

"The greater good?" Kline shook his head. "How can you be so sure what the 'greater good' is?"

Doksath said nothing.

"You can come to the Federation if you have enough of the way of life in the Empire!" Kline suggested. "You will never have to hear of honor or glory again!"

"And be considered an outcast for the rest of my life?!" Doksath demanded. "Never...Will I be exiled from my home because of this."

"Your home?!" Doksath heard a female voice say; the female Klingon operative, Kaytan walked towards him. "How can you call Qo'Nos your home after having told us time and again that your wish was to destroy it?!"

Doksath blinked: "What?!"

"You are not just bringing us into a new era, Doksath." Kaytan said. "You are crushing another era...You are crushing the way of life that the Empire has adopted for centuries...You have been raised in this way of life and yet you choose to destroy it? Why?!"

Doksath said nothing.

"You are losing, Doksath...Losing against your own madness...It's catching up with you. You must stop here and fight it!" She said firmly.

He felt dizzy.

"Well?!" She demanded.

"I...I..." He stammered.

Suddenly, a beam of green energy lashed across the bridge...It struck Doksath squarely in the chest and he was thrown onto the floor with a burn mark on his uniform.

The beam had been fired from the disruptor of general Rax.

"Rax!!!" Gorik growled.

"Doksath is dead....He was too weak." Rax said. "I am now the commander of the River of Blood...And nothing you can do will stop us."

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