Honor Bound

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Not that Kalpok cared all that much. He wasn’t even sure what this fight was all about, or why they were fighting other Klingons along with these furry natives. All he knew was that Leader Tann ordered him to fight, and so he fought, and would continue to fight until he finally got to die.

  The next thing he knew, he was prone on the ground, a ringing in his ears so loud it threatened to blow his head wide open.

  After a moment, he realized that he’d been knocked to the ground by an explosion. How is that possible? The QaS DevwI’ told us that energy weapons wouldn’t work here! They hadn’t even been issued hand disruptors.

  Another explosion followed, farther away. Then a third. The noise filled his very bones, his heart slamming against his rib cage, which seemed to vibrate with the endless, all-encompassing noise. Even with the sounds of combat, San-Tarah had been pastoral and quiet until these be-damned explosions.

  Kalpok struggled to get to his feet. His knees wobbled, but he somehow managed to steady himself upright. Where did those explosions come from?

  Around him were the sights of battle. The sounds were probably there, too, but Kalpok did not hear them—his ears still rang with the aftereffects of the explosions so loudly that the noise seemed to burrow through his ears and into his brain.

  He unsheathed his tik’leth as a Klingon woman ran toward him, wielding a bat’leth. Kalpok hated bat’leth s. They were too complicated. So many different maneuvers and holds and grips—he spent so much time trying to figure out how to handle the damned thing he couldn’t fight properly with it. The tik’leth was basic—the pointed end went into the opponent. Much simpler.

  The Klingon swung down her bat’leth, which Kalpok parried fairly easily. They traded cuts for several minutes before Kalpok found an opening in the woman’s left side. He thrust his tik’leth into her flank, the tip of the blade rending her armor and tasting her blood.

  She took a swing in response, but it was weak, and Kalpok dodged it fairly easily. Before she died, she said something, but Kalpok still couldn’t hear a thing. Not that he cared what so unworthy an opponent had to say.

  Pulling out his tik’leth and kicking the woman’s body to the ground, Kalpok looked around for a fresh opponent. Smoke filled the air, and some kind of chemical stench mixed with the blood and plant life. Suddenly, Kalpok felt as though he were back on Brenlek. The explosives—they must be chemical in nature. Kalpok did not enjoy the realization; it was taking the luster off his glorious death.

  But the smoke combined with the ringing in his ears meant he couldn’t really tell what was going on. So he stood and waited for a foe to come to him. If I’m lucky, it’ll be someone more talented than this woman and I’ll finally get to Sto-Vo-Kor.

  He never saw the mek’leth that slammed into his back.

  Whirling around, he swung his tik’leth, hoping to at least put up a fight. It collided with the gauntlet of another woman, this one with auburn hair, who had raised her left arm to block his attack.

  He took another swing. The mek’leth was still in his back, and he could feel the life pouring out of him, but now he had an unarmed foe to face—if he was going to die, this was the way to do it, bringing down the enemy with him.

  Then he got a good look at the woman he faced. Her auburn tresses framed a battle-hardened face—

  —and a crest identical to Kalpok’s own.

  By the hand of Kahless, no.

  “E—Eral?”

  Kalpok could not actually hear himself say the words, but apparently the woman who might well be his mother could, as she stopped moving, her jaw hanging open. She had been about to unsheathe her d’k tahg to finish what the mek’leth started. Now, though, she just stared.

  Unfortunately, Kalpok had no idea what she said next. Nor could he focus, as the smoke was irritating his eyes, and his knees started to wobble again.

  I don’t believe this, he thought as he collapsed to the ground, suddenly unable to feel his legs at all. The ground collided with his head, dirt entering his mouth and eyes. He barely noticed. I may have finally found my mother, and she’s the one who kills me.

  On the other hand, he mused as the blackness overtook him, it seems only fitting.

  Dorrek clenched his fist and slammed it onto the arm of his chair in frustration. Nothing was going according to plan. His ground troops were being overrun by Klag’s own troops as well as those be-snouted native creatures, and they had lost four ships.

  At least we now have the Taj. Talak had indicated that they might get assistance, but had not said from whom. Having the K’Vort-class vessel fighting on the side of right would prove beneficial, both in terms of evening the fight in orbit and in the additional troops the ship could provide on San-Tarah.

  Still and all, it would have been better if they’d shown their true colors sooner. They only really held two villages on the planet, and the latest reports from the QaS DevwI’ indicated that they were losing ground in Val-Goral thanks to the use of explosives.

  Dorrek shook his head. Explosives. Of course. He had let his hatred for his older brother blind him to the fact that Klag had always been resourceful. For someone who always carried on about “the way of things,” he had a remarkable ability to make the best of bad situations.

  Though Klag was a year older, they both went to officer training at the same time. At one point, they and others of their unit were brought to Rura Penthe. The frozen planet was primarily home to the Empire’s largest prison, but the bulk of the world’s surface area was unused. Each warrior was dropped into the middle of a wide expanse of ice without food or weapons and told to walk to the Defense Force outpost at the planet’s north pole. They were not told how far they had to go, or which direction north was, or what obstacles would be in their path (beyond the obvious one of the frigid temperatures). Some of the local fauna might attack a lone, defenseless warrior—though it was nothing that even an unarmed Klingon shouldn’t have been able to handle, and any who couldn’t were quickly killed and weeded out of the officer corps. Others were similarly weeded by proceeding in a direction other than north.

  As one grew closer to the pole, there was a patch of ice that was far too thin to support a person’s weight. That, in fact, was the point at which most ended their test, for the patch was six hours away from the beam-down point, and any who made it that far were unable to survive being dropped into the frigid water underneath the ice, and were beamed out and allowed to heal. Indeed, that was how far Dorrek went, after fighting off two small ursine bipeds and a winged monstrosity, and barely escaping an avalanche.

  The point of the test, Dorrek would later understand, was to see how far each warrior got. No one had ever successfully made it to the Defense Force outpost, mainly because no such outpost existed on Rura Penthe. The warriors were rated on how far they got before succumbing, by how long they continued to fight for their lives.

  Klag, however, received the top ranking in their class by virtue of making it almost to the pole. He not only survived all the planet’s hardships, but thrived in them. Though battered, frozen, and exhausted, he realized the ice would not support his weight before he fell through it. So he fashioned a raft from some of the thicker ice, and used two icicle shards as bladed weapons that he could wield to clear a path through the water, enabling his raft to sail through before it had a chance to freeze back over.

  Those efforts took their toll, of course, and Klag collapsed in the snow shortly after making that last journey past the thin ice.

  Most warriors who did well claimed shame at not completing their mission afterward, only to be assured by the trainers that they did exactly what they were supposed to do and that there was no dishonor in their performance.

  Klag, however, managed to scrape together his strength and demand that he be returned to the surface to complete his task, that he had been disgraced, not by his own collapse, but by being beamed out before he was finished. Looking back, Dorrek mused that it not only set the tone for Klag’s determin
ation, but also for his insistence on blaming others for his own failures—the trainers, M’Raq, Kargan, Dorrek himself…

  Now, Dorrek thought, he has managed to construct another raft to sail through the deadly waters. Having succeeded in mining the subspace eddies and figuring out how to fire disruptors, he also brought explosives to a world where energy weapons did not work.

  “Contact engineering,” he said to his operations officer, “and tell them that, if they cannot determine how to fire disruptors within the hour, I will have them all killed and replaced with the maintenance staff.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Klag, of course, finished ahead of Dorrek at officer training. He was promoted faster than Dorrek—until the Pagh, when Klag found himself serving as a commander for almost ten years, first officer of General Talak’s Housemate Kargan.

  And never seeing our father until after he died, and then only to befoul his shell. Klag should have been leading their House to glory, but he had abdicated that right long ago.

  “Tactical display.”

  He viewed the field of battle on the main viewer. Captain Huss’s three ships were threading their way through the eddies toward where the Gorkon faced off against the now-crippled Akua. The Taj and the Gogam had taken up position with the K’mpec in orbit. The Vidd was off sensors, probably hiding in the eddies.

  “Tell the Taj and the Gogam to seek out and destroy the Vidd. We will aid—”

  “Sir,” the operations officer interrupted, “a K’Vort-class ship is decloaking fifteen thousand qelI’qams off the Akua’s starboard bow.” She looked up. “It’s the Kreltek, sir.”

  Whose side are they on? Dorrek wondered, then realized that there was only one answer. “My brother has received new blood.” He thought a moment. Three birds-of-prey and a damaged Vor’cha would be sufficient against just Klag, but adding the Kreltek to the mix would give his brother an advantage that Dorrek saw no reason to provide.

  “Pilot, plot a course to the Gorkon.”

  “Sir, we cannot.”

  Dorrek snarled. “What!?”

  The pilot, an old man whom Dorrek knew had seen more campaigns than Dorrek had seen years, turned around, a defiant expression on his face. “There is no direct course to the Gorkon’s position that is not blocked by the subspace eddies or one of the six ships.”

  “Then take an indirect course, but do it.”

  “Yes, sir,” the pilot said.

  Unsurprisingly, Dorrek saw the Kreltek fire on the Akua. Definitely one of Klag’s fellow members of the Order, damn them.

  “Sir, those torpedoes are inert,” the operations officer said.

  Dorrek grinned. “Obviously, my brother has not had the opportunity to brief his allies on how to modify their weapons.”

  The operations officer wasn’t finished, however. “Sir, the Jor is firing—disruptors!”

  Whirling around to the operations station, Dorrek cried, “What!?”

  “Disruptors, sir—at half power.”

  Turning back to the viewer, Dorrek watched as Captain Huss’s lead ship’s disruptor cannons fired toward the Akua.

  This is wrong. If Captain Huss has determined how to fire disruptors, why has she not shared this intelligence?

  Then his eyes widened as he realized that they were not heading for the Akua, but two of the inert photon torpedoes that the Kreltek had fired. Good, Dorrek thought, she is destroying the torpedoes before they strike the Akua. Even inert, the torpedoes could still do physical damage, especially to the unshielded and damaged portions of the Akua’s port side, like the gaping hole where its wing used to be.

  But wait—why half power?

  The disruptors struck the torpedoes—

  —and detonated them!

  Dorrek leapt to his feet, letting out a snarl of rage. “Pilot, when will we—?”

  The pilot didn’t even wait for him to finish. “Fifteen minutes at this speed. If we go any faster,” he added before Dorrek could tell him to increase it, “we risk entry into the—”

  “I don’t give a damn what we risk! Full impulse! I want to destroy that traitor myself!”

  It is not enough that you disgrace me and our House, Klag, but now you bring down a great warrior like Huss. Dorrek had always admired Huss and was, in fact, gratified when Talak told him that she would be joining the fleet instead of Worvag’s trio of ships. Her strikes against the Dominion as part of Talak’s fleet were the stuff of song, and Dorrek had been honored to be fighting alongside her.

  Now, though, he understood why Huss had requested the change—so she could stab us in the back. He supposed that Huss was part of the Order—he had never paid especial attention to their rolls—and that accounted for her betrayal now. It will be the last thing she does, if I have anything to say about it.

  “Has engineering determined a way to fire disruptors yet?” Dorrek asked.

  “Not yet, sir.”

  Of course not. “Arm photon torpedoes, prepare to fire them as soon as the Jor is in range!”

  He turned back to the viewer. The Akua was turning about, retreating, even as the Gorkon, Kreltek, and Huss’s ships gave chase; Talak was firing multiple shots on the enemy, of course, forcing them to keep their distance.

  “In range,” the operations officer said.

  That was quick. Giving a nod of approval to the pilot for getting them to the site of battle without hitting any of the eddies, Dorrek then said, “Fire on the Jor!”

  “We’re being targeted by the Kreltek!”

  “Ignore them.” Dorrek was not about to be distracted. “Continuous fire.”

  Suddenly, half the alarms on the bridge went off, and most of the lights. Damage reports were shouted over each other—the structural-integrity field, shields, weapons, helm control, all were offline.

  The pilot said, “We’ve hit one of the Gorkon’s mines, sir—and one of the eddies! All systems are down—we’re drifting!”

  Dorrek clenched his fist and slammed it onto the arm of his chair in frustration.

  As Goran killed his fifth Klingon since the attack on Val-Goral bagan, he decided that he was glad that G’joth and Leader Wol had talked him out of Mauk-to’Vor.

  In an entire life of being the biggest and the strongest, Goran had never lost a fight, whether during his days as a prison guard on Rura Penthe or as a soldier in the Defense Force. Then he had engaged in the contest of strength against the Children of San-Tarah and lost. A native named Fe-Ruv held a koltanium rock on her back for a full four hundred seconds longer than Gorn had.

  Losing was a feeling he did not appreciate, nor did he know if he could live with it. However, Wol and G’joth—the only survivors of his squad—convinced him to go on living.

  Now he was glad he did. They had charged down the hill the way Leader Wol had asked, and now were killing their enemies. Goran didn’t say anything, but he was glad that Wol had changed the plan. Originally, the fifteenth was supposed to remain on top of the incline and throw grenades, but Goran didn’t see the point in that. As big and strong as he was—even if he wasn’t actually biggest and strongest anymore—it seemed silly for him to just throw grenades. Anybody could do that.

  He said nothing, of course, because he obeyed Leader Wol. She was a good Leader, and Goran thought it was a great honor to serve under her.

  Instead, though, Wol changed the plan at the last minute so that the other squads threw the grenades and they got to attack in person.

  If anyone asked him, Goran would not have been able to explain why it was that they were fighting other Klingons. Wol had said that they were dishonoring the captain, which was all Goran needed to know. Captain Klag was his commander. If he had been dishonored, then Goran would do everything he could to fight back to restore that honor.

  Coughing a few times from the smoke in the air that the grenades caused, Goran sliced through three more Klingons with one swipe of his bat’leth, then grabbed a fourth by the head and snapped her neck. Then he turned and looked around.


  He could not see any other members of his squad, or of the sixteenth or seventeenth. However, he did see almost a dozen Klingons surrounding him, each holding either bat’leths or mek’leths. Or maybe it was over a dozen; Goran had always had trouble counting, especially in the heat of battle.

  “You will not take this city from us, toDSaH,” one of them said as he twirled his bat’leth in a traditional preparatory gesture. Goran noticed that he had the medallion of a squad leader on his right biceps. “And once we kill you, we will eliminate the rest of your dishonorable crew.”

  Goran said nothing. He never understood why anyone would talk in the middle of a battle. In fact, Goran rarely had anything to say even when he wasn’t fighting, and when he was, he had other things to worry about than making conversation.

  All of the Klingons ran toward him at once. For a moment, Goran wasn’t sure what to do—who did he defend against first when so many came at once from all sides?

  Several bodies collided with his hip and legs. Even as he blocked a bat’leth swipe with his own bat’leth, another one slammed into his left arm. He let out a kick that knocked two of them aside, but the blade of a d’k tahg sliced into his right hand, almost forcing him to drop his bat’leth. One Klingon leapt up onto his back and tried to choke him. Goran couldn’t do anything about that, so he ignored him, hoping that his hands would get free before the one on his back choked all the air out of him.

  More bodies collided with him, trying to tackle him about the waist. Goran quickly lost count of how many he’d knocked off him or of how many were currently trying to kill him—not that it mattered. What mattered was that there were too many.

  Both his arms were now pinned, he had dropped his bat’leth, and it was getting harder to breathe, though he wasn’t sure how much of that was because of the smoke from the grenades or the Klingon who was trying to choke him. The smoke was definitely starting to irritate his eyes. He kicked with one leg, hoping it would dislodge someone. The sound of bone snapping came a moment later, but Goran didn’t notice any change in the number of Klingons on top of him. For warriors who dishonored Captain Klag, they do fight well. Usually breaking a bone meant that a warrior would at least pause in battle or have a mild setback. But these hung on.