Star Trek: The Hand of Kahless Read Online Free PDF Page B

thought he understood. Zharn would move from Cloud, on the Lancer.
    Zharn did. He swung his thin staff in the widest possible arc; the tip struck the Gold Lancer’s right arm and wrapped around it. Zharn twisted the polarizing grip and the metal went rigid. Vrenn had seen Zharn execute this kill a hundred times: as the enemy was pulled around, he would be carried directly into Zharn’s knifing left hand, and the Gold’s own body energy would help to drop him.
    Then, impossibly, Zharn stumbled. The Fencer’s hand twitched, depolarizing his staff; the Lancer spun in the wrong direction, and shoved the Active Lance-point into Zharn’s throat. Green light flashed on green armor.
    Zharn’s head went back, far back, too far back. His eyes, very wide, looked up into Vrenn’s, and his lips moved, spasming—
    No, not just a spasm. Vrenn read them, very clearly.
    Get this one, Zharn said, and flickered silently out of existence.
     
    “Do you see that flare?” Kezhke said. “Between the Lance and the Swift’s body?”
    “That’s just a lens flare,” someone said, without force.
    “Assuming that it isn’t,” Margon said, interested, “what is it?”
    Kezhke said, “You know more of personal weapons than I, General. You are an authority on them.”
    Margon sniffed his brandy. His other hand rested, relaxed, on the grip of his dress weapon. “Are you proposing, oh, anything, Admiral?”
    A few of the others stepped quietly aside.
    Kezhke waved both his consorts away. He had no weapon visible, but of course no Klingon of rank would be unarmed in public. “Perhaps that you should examine this image, General, and a few others.”
    “Operator Sudok,” Margon said, “did you examine the equipment for this game?”
    “I did, General,” the Vulcan said.
    “And there were no irregularities?”
    “None.”
    Kezhke said nothing. No one would appear so foolish as to doubt a Vulcan’s word.
    Margon took his hand away from his sidearm, gestured toward Thought Admiral Kethas’s cubicle. “If the Naval champion wishes to stop the game, we will naturally accept a draw.”
    “Kethas,” one of the Administrators said, distracted and puzzled, “has never been drawn in tournament.”
    “There is that.” Margon went back to the viewing window. “And certainly never by a Marine Force Leader. All that, and the son of the Thought Admiral’s good dead friend playing, and the invincible Gold opposing him…I do so enjoy klin zha; nothing short of living war is so stimulating.”
    “Gold Lancer Elevated, to Eight.”
    “There is always,” Manager Akten said, “the komerex zha. ”
    “I do not acknowledge the existence of the Perpetual Game,” Margon said without turning. “Society is society, war is war. If they are games at all, surely they are not all the same game. I deny it.”
    “That is a favored tactic,” Akten said.
    “Green Lancer to Level Nine.”

    There was no Cloud at the highest level. Vrenn stood in a four-sided pyramid of clear, shimmering panels edged in black steel, and waited for the last move of the Game.
    There could only be one move now. Vrenn had carried the Goal to the Ninth Level: the enemy had his next move only to capture the disc. And only the Lancer could reach this space in one. The other Gold Flier might, of course, if she were on an edge space and still alive…but Vrenn knew it would not be the Flier. The move would be too easy, not bold enough for a game between Masters.
    He was right. A spindle of light, dazzling, soundless, appeared in a point of the space, and the Golden Lancer materialized.
    Vrenn smashed his Lance against the Gold’s almost before the transport was complete; he felt the displacement field push him back as it did the air. Then the effect died, and Vrenn shoved the enemy back, so that both the Gold’s shoulders struck wall panels. Vrenn cursed; he had been expecting shock fields, but here there was only plain matter.
    The Gold pushed back, and tried to turn his