He was an inductee of the Order of the Bat’leth. It was his sworn duty to uphold the words of Kahless and keep his fellow warriors on the path of honor.
His foe was not Dorrek, though Dorrek had allied himself with his enemy. No, Dorrek was not the true heart of this battle.
Talak was.
It was Talak who put Klag in the position of going back on his word. Talak who made a mockery of Klingon honor. And Talak whom Klag needed to concern himself with now, not Dorrek. For a Klingon is his work—not his family.
“Continue to hold the line, Vok. I am beaming down to take charge.”
Everyone on the bridge turned to look at Klag in surprise.
Turning to his first officer, Klag continued: “Commander Kornan, you are in charge of the Gorkon until my return. Do everything you can to insure our victory in space.”
Kornan started to say one thing, stopped, and then said, “Yes, sir.”
Without another word, Klag turned and left the bridge, his bodyguard falling into step behind him.
It is time to end this.
Chapter Eleven
B’Oraq finished putting together the splint on the Child of San-Tarah’s arm, administered a hypospray, admonished him to be careful, secure in the knowledge that the advice would be ignored, then sent him on his way to return to battle.
It is much like treating Klingons.
She had been forced to abandon the HoSpI’tal when Vok gave the order to retreat from the Prime Village—though she would likely have lost it anyhow, since if they had not retreated, Talak’s forces would probably have overrun the place. She knew Talak’s doctor aboard the Akua—a butcher who, B’Oraq knew, used his medical knowledge to instruct warriors on how best to kill their opponents rather than to heal—and assumed that the general would not be amenable to such a facility as hers.
Then again, most Klingons aren’t. That’s why there isn’t even a word for it in the language.
They had set up camp in the same clearing in front of a cave opening where over a week ago Klag had met with the Ruling Pack and decided that San-Tarah’s fate would be determined via the martial contests. Or so everyone believed at the time, B’Oraq thought bitterly. Now the cave was her HoSpI’tal.
She could hear the sounds of explosions far away: Vok’s troops using those grenades that Bekk G’joth had put together. B’Oraq lamented the loss of so many specimen bottles, but she was hardly in a position to refuse their use, given the tactical advantage it provided. Luckily, she had not depleted her entire supply—one still sat safely in her belt with material she intended to test on behalf of Leader Wol. I wonder what she expects me to find. If Wol were male, she would assume the dead soldier to potentially be a long-lost son, but B’Oraq didn’t see how a Houseless woman could have a son and not remember it. Unless she simply did not report the birth when she enlisted. It struck B’Oraq as odd, but who truly understood how lowborn Klingons thought?
“You are the healer!”
This statement of the obvious came from a white-furred Child of San-Tarah. She was holding a black-furred male, bleeding profusely from wounds in his neck and chest.
“Put him down over here,” B’Oraq said, pointing to the ground next to one of the medikits she had assembled for use on this nightmare of a planet where only half of her electronic equipment functioned.
As she set him down—somewhat roughly—the woman said, “His name is Bo-Denn. You will save him.”
B’Oraq started to examine the wounds, which were parallel. The chest wound was smaller than the neck wound, and based on the angle and the depth of both it looked to have been made by a single bat’leth, wielded by a left-handed Klingon swiping downward. “I’ll do my best, but—”
“You must save him!” the woman cried. “He took a blow that was intended for me. I would be dead if not for him, and you must save him so I can ask him why!”
At that, B’Oraq looked up. “Why would he not?”
The woman hesitated. “I am El-Yar. When your people arrived, Bo-Denn and I were settling a dispute. He stole a keepsake of mine, then denied it. I was well on the way to defeating him in combat when you arrived to invade us.”
The chest cut was not serious—B’Oraq quickly put a field bandage on it, which was sufficient for the nonce—but the neck wound hit an artery. She would need to repair it if El-Yar’s request was to be fulfilled.
Despite herself, though, she was curious as to El-Yar’s words. “What does this have to do with what just happened?”
“Bo-Denn is a thief.” El-Yar spoke as if B’Oraq was a fool for not understanding. “And he lies to the Ruling Pack and to me. How can one such as he then be responsible for giving his life for mine? It makes no sense.”
It does if he never stole the keepsake, B’Oraq thought, but did not say so aloud. She was far too busy trying to repair Bo-Denn’s artery without the benefit of autosuturing tools. The Starfleet Medical Academy had, of course, included training in emergency medicine that covered this sort of eventuality, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant for her to mechanically apply the bonds that would hold the artery together to facilitate the body’s natural healing ability. She opened a bottle of alcohol and poured it over the wound to sterilize it.
“So you must save him,” El-Yar said, “so I may ask him why he did this.”
“He did this because you are fighting a war,” B’Oraq said. She winced as she spread the skin and fur of Bo-Denn’s neck apart to expose the artery. As she did so, blood spurted out—the artery had a long cut of at least fifteen centimeters in length. She had to get the bleeding under control. “That supersedes any petty personal concerns.”
El-Yar stared directly at B’Oraq. “I suppose it would, but—” She turned to face the cave wall. “He has never behaved like this.”
“Your people have never faced a situation like this.” Even as she spoke, she started sealing the cut as best she could, her hands now covered in Bo-Denn’s blood up to her wrists. “Your very world is at stake. This is not the time for holding grudges.”
“It’s just another fight,” El-Yar said dismissively. “When it’s over, we must resume our combat and resolve our dispute.”
You poor fool, B’Oraq thought as she leaned back and cleaned out the blood from the wound. With any luck, that was the only bleeder.
“El-Yar,” she said without looking at the woman, “your entire world has changed irrevocably. Don’t you see it?”
“That’s stupid. Nothing has changed. We fight, then we go on with life as before.”
B’Oraq wondered how many of the Children of San-Tarah believed that, and was worried that the number was higher than those who did not. She finished cleaning the wound, saw that the bleeding had stopped, and then bandaged the wound carefully, applying a salve that would facilitate the skin’s healing.
“Centuries ago, Klingons thought we were alone in the universe. Then the Hur’q came. A vicious species, they ravaged our planet from space, stole our treasures, and were never heard from again. From that day on, we knew that the universe had changed. The world was no longer Qo’noS, it was the entire galaxy. If we were to remain strong—if we were to remain Klingons—we had to face that galaxy head-on. Now we are one of the great powers of the quadrant.”
As B’Oraq turned her attention to more properly treating the lesser chest wound, she continued. “Our arrival will have the same effect on your people, El-Yar. Everything has changed, and you can never go back to life as it was before.”
The doctor looked up to see El-Yar staring at her. B’Oraq didn’t know enough about San-Tarah body language to be sure, but she was relatively certain that El-Yar’s expression was one of incredulity. “That is absurd. Life is always as it was before. That is the way of things.”
“He must rest,” B’Oraq said, standing up and going to a water basin to clean her hands. “And if you believe that the way of things will remain constant, you may do so. But I suspect you will be surprised—if you live through
this—to find that it never will be.”
“He will recover?”
“Yes.”
El-Yar turned to leave. “Good.”
“Oh, and El-Yar?”
She turned back around.
“If you think things won’t change, why did you bring Bo-Denn to me? Healing abilities such as mine are not the way of things, after all.”
To B’Oraq’s lack of surprise, El-Yar had no response to that. Instead, she simply turned back around and left the cave.
Sighing, B’Oraq finished washing the blood from her hands and face, then went outside. The sounds of battle grew louder, though removed from the wounded in the cave, the smell of blood became less intense.
The red glow of a transporter beam heralded the arrival of Captain Klag and his bodyguard. He was, she noticed, armed with a mek’leth, a one-handed weapon that he could wield without the deleterious effects of a right arm that was still not fully integrated with the rest of the captain’s body—no matter how much the captain might wish it otherwise. Had Klag armed himself with a mek’leth instead of the bat’leth he did use when he fought Me-Larr in the deciding contest with the Children of San-Tarah, he might well have won, the Gorkon crew would have been victorious, and San-Tarah would already be part of the Klingon Empire. And El-Yar and Bo-Denn might have been able to settle their dispute.
“Preparing for battle, Captain?” she asked.
“Yes,” Klag said with a smile.
“Only this time with the proper tool for the job, I see.”
“I should think, Doctor, that by now you would know that I do learn from my mistakes.”
Now B’Oraq returned the smile. “Eventually, Captain, yes, you do.”
Me-Larr, Ga-Tror, and Vok approached. “What are your orders, sir?” the latter asked.
“Continue as you have. I am going to speak to Talak.”
Ga-Tror made an odd noise. “After all this, Captain Klag, in the end you call out a challenge to your enemy?”
“Yes.”
“For all your posturing, for all your ‘technology,’ you are still much like us in the end.”
Klag again said, “Yes. It is why I thought you worthy to be given my word—and why I have fought so hard to make sure that it was kept.”
“And that is appreciated, Captain Klag,” Me-Larr said. “You have done as great a service to the Children of San-Tarah as any fighter, any member of the Ruling Pack, even as any god.”
Laughing that infectious, throaty laugh of his, Klag said, “Say that when we are victorious, Me-Larr.”
The captain then stepped forward and activated his communicator. The former motion was unnecessary, but it put Klag at the forefront of the clearing in front of the cave, which was surrounded by rocks and boulders and had only one uphill approach. It made no difference to the person Klag planned to contact, but B’Oraq assumed he did it for the morale of his own soldiers.
“Klag to Talak.”
It was a moment before the general replied. “I have nothing to say to you, Captain. You have won nothing this day.”
“Perhaps not yet. But you are outnumbered here: we have superior weaponry, we know the terrain better, and we have air support. You are outnumbered in orbit as well.”
“For now, perhaps. But I have the entire fleet behind me. You and your fellow traitors will not have the advantage long.”
“I disagree—both with your conclusion and that we are traitors. And that is the heart of this conflict between you and me, is it not? I offer you a proposal.”
B’Oraq heard the contempt in the laugh that Talak gave in response. “Are you a Federation diplomat now, Klag?”
“No, I am simply giving a general in the Klingon Defense Force a chance to salvage an honorable victory from what would otherwise be an embarrassing defeat. After all, I assembled my fleet less than three days ago, and yours has been together since the heyday of the war—and now you stand on the brink of defeat, in part because you could not even keep all your own ships fighting on your side. Some might say that this is proof that honor will always win the day—but I will leave such musings to the clerics and the opera composers. For now, I offer you a choice.” Klag turned to Me-Larr and smiled. “On this world, they settle disputes by combat within a circle approximately six meters in diameter.”
“And you wish to offer this instead of continuing combat?”
“Yes. You can stay on this course, and almost surely lose—or face me alone in battle.” Klag now started to pace. “Enough warriors have died today because of our disagreements—Klingon and San-Tarah blood has flowed freely, and it has been a day worthy of song. But now it is time we ended it. What say you, General? What legacy will you leave behind?”
For many long seconds, there was no reply. Only then did B’Oraq realize that the sounds of combat were now muted—a clang of blades here, a scream there—but nearby, at least, much of the fighting had ceased. B’Oraq suspected that Klag had made sure that his challenge to Talak was heard by all the Klingons on the planet. Now they awaited the words of their respective commanding officers as to whether or not the battle was to continue.
Finally, the general spoke. “The only thing I intend to leave behind, Captain, is your corpse. We will meet in this circle of your jeghpu’wI’ friends.”
B’Oraq cheered. Vok joined in, and Me-Larr led the Children of San-Tarah in a long howl.
K’Vada could feel the heat of several console fires warming his face. The bridge seemed to be coming apart around him—a microcosm, based on the reports Yivogh had been giving him from engineering, of how the Vidd was coming apart around the bridge.
“Gogam coming in for another attack,” Yivogh said. “Shields are now at ten percent!”
Cursing, K’Vada said, “Evasive! Have we regained targeting ability?”
“No, sir, we—”
Yivogh’s words were interrupted by another console exploding.
Even as automated fire control combined with officers wielding extinguishers to try to contain the blazes, the bridge was rapidly becoming uninhabitable, and functionally useless. None of K’Vada’s status boards were working, and the pilot was pounding furiously and futilely at the helm control.
“Shields are down,” Yivogh said from the operations console—the second officer and gunner were both dead. “Weapons are still offline—and matter-antimatter containment is failing!”
Again, K’Vada cursed—this time a very long curse in the ancient tongue of their ancestors, one that K’Vada’s great-grandmother B’Akko had taught him when he was a child. “It is a powerful curse,” the old woman had cautioned him then. “It summons one of the old gods from the dead in order to bring about misery. Only use this curse in the most dire of situations, boy, you hear me?”
I hear you, B’Akko. It doesn’t get much more dire than this….
The viewer was functioning only sporadically, but when it did work, it showed the Gogam. About two-thirds the size of the Vidd, it had only an eighth of the crew. The remaining space was given over to a massive collection of weapons arrays, cannons, and torpedo launchers. Such strike ships were an invaluable part of any fleet, and K’Vada had been grateful that two of them were taken out by Klag’s secret minefield early on, as it increased their chances of victory a hundredfold.
Unfortunately, with the Kreltek and the Taj—both K’Vort-class ships—trading blows and being more or less evenly matched, and Huss’s ships called to the surface of San-Tarah, that left the Vidd to the Gogam, and K’Vada wasn’t making nearly as good a show of it as he’d have hoped.
“Sir,” Yivogh cried, “engineering reports we cannot contain the breach! We’ll need to eject the core!”
K’Vada looked around his near-useless bridge. If they ejected the core, they’d be in the same position as the K’mpec—adrift, in danger of falling into orbit, drifting into one of the eddies, or simply being finished off by the Gogam or the Taj.
No.
He turned to the pilot. “Set coll
ision course with the Gogam, maximum impulse.” He turned to Yivogh. “Tell engineering to arm all torpedoes manually and to set the disruptor cannons to overload.”
“Containment breach in thirty seconds,” Yivogh said. “Time to intercept Gogam—” The first officer looked up and laughed. “—thirty seconds.”
Our god has risen from the dead and is about to cause the Gogam some misery. K’Vada turned to the viewer and grinned. “Today is a good day to die.”
The warp core breached, the disruptors overloaded, the Vidd collided with the Gogam, the torpedoes exploded, and they all perished. K’Vada’s last thought as the explosions took him away was amusement that—after all these years in which no foe could stop him—he had to take it upon himself to die well.
Talak stood in the circle, gripping his tik’leth with both hands.
He was starting to understand what it was that the captain saw in these creatures. The so-called Children of San-Tarah were indeed magnificent fighters, and came from sensible, if primitive, traditions like the ones he and Klag were making use of now. They engaged in combat with a fire, a passion, and a skill that put even many of his own soldiers to shame.
And this world! A lush paradise, with pure skies, verdant fields that were ripe for the hunt! This was a place to bring your children, to teach them the way of the warrior, to bring them pure combat in a way that was increasingly harder to do on other Empire worlds, especially in the wake of the war’s devastation.
To Talak’s mind, these features made it all the more imperative that San-Tarah be brought into the Empire by any means necessary. Imagine what these creatures, armed with disruptors and protected by proper armor, could have done against the Jem’Hadar. The Dominion War would have ended months sooner. Talak remembered when the Dominion retook Chin’toka: They had been outnumbered and outgunned. Captain Yovak’s troops were overrun on Chin’toka IX after successfully holding the planet for months. If she had had warriors such as these under her command, with their ferocity, their spirit…
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