AFTER HIS THIRD TANKARD of blood wine, Worf felt himself getting as plastered as the rest of his newfound Klingon friends. His tongue kept tripping over itself, but between bouts of song, fistfights, and bragging matches, he managed to piece together most of the details of what had brought Captain Krot and his men to this place.
Captain Krot had realized his ship would be caught on Archaria III as soon as the plague broke loose if he did not move quickly. Their cargo—fifty thousand tons of grain, destined for the qagh farms on Kra’togh IV—had already been delivered. They just had a few repairs to make to their warp drive.
“If we had left one day sooner,” Krot said, “we never would have known about the plague. Bah! Bad luck follows me.”
After cunningly bribing the docking clerk in charge of their vessel, they’d lifted off. “Your life will be spared if you delete our departure record!” Krot had said. He burst out laughing when he tried to describe the clerk’s horrified expression when faced with a mek’leth at his throat!
Unfortunately, their emergency warp-drive repairs had not held up. Due to primary warp-core failure, they had only gotten as far as orbit.
It was then that they picked up a transmission to the Enterprise. Immediately Krot ordered a landing on one of the moons … and they were fortunate enough to spot this old base. It already had two ships parked here—they figured they would wait out the plague while they made repairs.
“We did not know that Klingons ran the Enterprise!” Krot proclaimed. Worf silently congratulated himself on discretely returning his human away team to the Enterprise shortly after his first cup of blood wine. The captain raised his tankard. “To Klingons everywhere!”
“To Klingons!” Worf echoed.
The rest of Krot’s crew began to chant, again, and Worf drained his blood wine in two long gulps.
The world swam fuzzily before dropping back into focus.
“What will you do now?” Worf asked. “The system is under quarantine. You may not leave.”
“Why should I care about a human quarantine? This plague does not affect Klingons!”
“It is better to cooperate,” Worf said sagely.
“Have another drink!” Krot passed him a tankard. “And tell me more about this great Captain Picard of yours! Perhaps he will listen to reason—or a mek’leth, eh?”
“You must meet him! He is a great leader. Do not pull a mek’leth on him, though, or I will have to kill you!”
“Just try!”
Worf struggled to his feet. He couldn’t quite get them to work. Too much blood wine, he realized. Maybe—maybe I have said enough.
Krot was laughing.