Assassination Game Read Free Page B

translation.”
    Lartal grinned again and crossed to Kirk. “You’re right. I should. I didn’t mean to say she would be easy to mount. What I meant to say was, I would take this Earth woman into my bed and make her my bitch.”
    “That’s what I thought you meant,” Kirk said, and he reared back and slugged the Varkolak.

CH.03.30
The Invitation
    “I want to know who started it.”
    Admiral Barnett stared down the line of Starfleet Security officers and cadets, all of whom were battered and bruised—including Uhura, who had jumped into the fray as soon as the conference room turned into a bar fight. Kirk had seen her deliver a kick to Lartal that was going to leave him limping for a week.
    “I’m waiting,” Barnett said, but no one spoke up.
    The admiral stopped in front of one of the Starfleet Security officers. “Lieutenant Freeman, who started the fight?”
    Kirk knew what was coming. The officers would sell him out, blame it on the cadets.
    “I don’t know, sir,” the lieutenant said.
    Kirk breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Lartal was right after all. Maybe there were men of “teeth” in Starfleet. Or at least men ready to defend a woman’s honor.
    Barnett gave Freeman a look that told him just how much he believed him, and moved on.
    “Cadet Uhura,” he said. “You’re one of the Academy’s finest students. I can’t believe you would let yourself get dragged into this. Tell me who started it.”
    Uhura stood rigid. “I don’t know, sir.”
    “‘I don’t know, sir,’” Barnett repeated. “I want to know who threw the first punch, people.” No one spoke up. His eyes shifted to Kirk and lingered there for a moment, and Kirk was afraid the admiral was going to ask him point-blank if he’d thrown the first punch. Would he be able to lie to him?
    “All right,” Barnett said at last. “Officers will receive an official reprimand and cadets will be restricted to their dormitories when not in class until I find out who started it. Dismissed.”
    The cadets and officers turned and hurried out of Barnett’s office, but the admiral held back Kirk.
    “Not you, Kirk.”
    Out of the corner of his eye, Kirk saw Uhura turn and give him a look that was a cross between frustration and sympathy before the door to Barnett’s office slid closed.
    The admiral left Kirk standing where he was and picked up a PADD from his desk.
    “James Tiberius Kirk,” Admiral Barnett read. “Disciplinary record.”
    Kirk’s heart sank.
    “I see here, Mr. Kirk, that you have been involved in no less than nine fights in your short time at the Academy.”
    “That’s nine including … this one … sir,” Kirk said, trailing off as Barnett’s face told him that he was not helping his cause. The admiral laid the PADD on his desk and folded his arms.
    “Mr. Kirk, I absolutely refuse to believe you were just in the right room at the wrong time. Are you really going to let all those good men and women take a phaser for you on this one?”
    Kirk looked at his boots. Admitting what he’d done might be his proverbial last straw at the Academy and see him sent packing, and the others had made it clear they were willing to take an official reprimand to protect him. But keeping quiet wasn’t right, and he knew it.
    “No, sir.”
    “Who threw the first punch?”
    “I did, Admiral.”
    “Cadet Kirk, what in the name of Zefram Cochrane possessed you to start a fistfight with a group of Varkolak doctors in the middle of one of the most difficult and tenuous periods in the history of Varkolak–Federation relations?”
    “About that, sir. I don’t think Lartal is really a doctor. He just—”
    “Cadet Kirk! I asked you a question.”
    “He insulted us, sir.”
    “It must have been some insult!”
    “It was, sir. Cadet Leslie wanted to have a go at him, but I told him not to.”
    “You … told Leslie not to start a fight. And why did Mr. Leslie want to start a fight with the Varkolak?”
    “Is this off the record,