Honor Bound

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  No, for Klag to have allowed them to escape becoming part of the Empire so easily proved that the son of M’Raq was the greatest fool of all.

  Around them, maintaining a respectful distance, was a crowd primarily made up of Klingons, with some Children of San-Tarah mixed in amid those from Klag’s crew. Talak noticed that many of the two score members of Captain Huss’s crew had joined the throng of Gorkon ground troops as well. When this is over, Captain, you will pay a thousandfold for your betrayal. Huss was a member of the House of Rozaj, a strong family that controlled several manufacturing concerns relating to communications technology—and one whose prosperity was due as much to Huss’s accomplishments as anything. Not for much longer, Talak swore, thinking about how those manufacturing concerns would benefit the House of K’Tal….

  But such thoughts were for after, for when the battle was recalled over bloodwine and racht. Now Talak needed to study his foe. The general had not been in Klag’s presence since the day on Ty’Gokor when Martok had provided the captains of the Chancellor-class vessels with their assignment to the Kavrot Sector, and then he had paid little heed to the captain. After all, Klag had built his captaincy on the grave of a worthier warrior, that of Talak’s Housemate Captain Kargan of the Pagh.

  Klag was taller and younger than Talak, and had a reputation as a fierce fighter. However, he was armed only with a mek’leth, which had a shorter primary blade than Talak’s weapon. Talak also suspected that the captain’s right arm—grafted onto Klag’s form as onto some kind of automaton—would not provide the range of motion of the one the captain was born with.

  “So,” Talak said, holding his tik’leth in a defensive posture, holding the hilt over his heart with the blade straight upward pointing toward the sky. “You believe that you can defeat me as you did those Jem’Hadar you claim to have slain on Marcan V?”

  Talak never believed the tales of Klag supposedly killing a dozen Dominion soldiers and their Vorta handler during the war. Armed only with a mek’leth after his arm had been cut off in the Pagh’s crash, the tale went, Klag slew them literally single-handedly. The general had seen many battles in his time and also seen the operas based on those selfsame battles; rarely did the events of the two intersect. Talak was quite sure that either Klag downed the Jem’Hadar with both arms, and only lost the limb afterward—or perhaps during the battle—or, more likely, that he had nothing to do with the deaths of the Jem’Hadar. Klag had been rescued by Captain Ganok of the Rokronos, and the general knew him to be an inveterate exaggerator.

  Klag, however, did not rise to the bait. “I do not claim anything, General. What deeds I have committed in the past are of no consquence to what we do today. All that matters is that you have dishonored me. Now one of us will pay the price for that dishonor.”

  “The price has already been paid,” Talak snapped angrily. “The blood of thousands of warriors has been spilled today because of your imagined dishonor. And what do you know of honor anyhow? You who sew foreign arms to your body and take credit for the deeds of greater warriors. The House of M’Raq’s gains after Marcan rightfully belonged to the House of K’Tal. That is truly the dishonor that will be righted this day, Klag—for you and your House will no longer profit on Kargan’s carcass.”

  Klag threw his head back and laughed. “You, who claim to be of the same family as that fat old toDSaH, can truly stand there and call him a greater warrior while maintaining an even composure? But then, you are one who disregards a Klingon’s word of honor as if it were of no consquence.”

  Talak smiled. “You misunderstand, Captain. I consider the word of a Klingon to be of great import. It is you who are of no consequence.”

  The captain scowled, which only made Talak’s smile grow wider.

  “Enough.” Klag moved to a defensive posture, holding the mek’leth blade horizontally over his chest. “It is time to die.”

  Talak swung his sword, but Klag parried it easily, the metal striking metal with a clanging sound that echoed off the surrounding trees. They each backed away a step. Klag then swung his mek’leth, and Talak parried just as easily. Right now, they were taking each other’s measure.

  They each made progressively bolder strokes. Talak realized that, whatever Klag’s faults, he knew how to wield a mek’leth. He used the longer blade aggressively, yet managed to use the smaller blade defensively, protecting his sword arm while keeping the general’s straighter, long single blade from getting through. Perhaps he did not truly slay a dozen Jem’Hadar, but he would probably be able to hold his own against them.

  The early stages of a swordfight were always the most cautious; one attempted to learn how one’s opponent fought, seeing what strokes and parries were used. Klag’s attacks and defenses were fairly standard, but executed with impressive skill.

  Soon, however, Talak found the pattern he was looking for: Klag used the mek’leth one-handed. Specifically with his right hand. I need to get him to further expose his left side.

  The general allowed Klag to back him toward the edge of the circle. A line drawn in the dirt—how prosaic. And yet, truly, no more was needed. Still, Talak saw room for improvement. When San-Tarah becomes part of the Empire, we may adapt this for our own use. Only the circle will be maintained by a lethal forcefield.

  Once he reached the edge, he pressed the attack, focusing almost entirely on Klag’s right. Klag parried each thrust, though his response time, Talak noted, lessened with each stroke. On the seventh such thrust, Klag came close to losing his footing as he thrust the mek’leth out and to his right to stop it.

  Talak took advantage of that to take a swing to Klag’s left, which was now completely exposed, especially with the captain’s momentary loss of footing. The sword sliced into Klag’s armor.

  The blood roared in Talak’s ears as the battle lust overtook him—first blood was his!

  Then he growled in agony as a sharp pain sliced into his left shoulder, right at the joint of his own uniform. It was a weak spot that only the most skilled—or the luckiest—of swordfighters could penetrate, but Klag did so, after Talak had committed to the left strike.

  “Qu’vatlh,” Talak muttered as he yanked the sword out of Klag’s side with his right hand, his left arm now hanging uselessly at his side. A fire burned in his left shoulder, yet he had no feeling in the arm below the biceps. He could not make his hand flex or his arm move.

  Klag had sacrificed first blood in order to strike a crippling blow.

  The tik’leth could still be wielded one-handed, but the strength of his strokes was greatly reduced, as was his dexterity. Angrily, Talak slashed at Klag, a blow the captain easily ducked, but Talak pressed the attack.

  “How?” the general asked as he slashed at Klag’s neck, which Klag blocked. “How have you done this?” Another slash, this time at the chest, also blocked. “You convince Martok that you are the great warrior instead of Kargan.” Another. “You perform arcane surgeries on your person and are not ostracized.” Another; this time Klag simply dodged it. “You turn one of my most loyal captains against me, and overwhelm my superior forces in space.”

  Klag blocked another stroke, but this time he did so by catching the tik’leth blade between the two blades of his own mek’leth. Snarling, Talak tried to disengage his own weapon, but Klag then redirected the blow downward, then quickly back up, slamming the hilt of his mek’leth into Talak’s face.

  Talak stumbled backward, spots dancing in front of his eyes, the glorious taste of blood filling his mouth from a tooth that had been dislodged.

  Then Klag smiled, and quoted the words of Kahless. “ ‘When honor is at your back, it matters not who your foe is. You will be victorious.’ ”

  During the war, Talak had journeyed many times to the Federation space station designated Deep Space 9. Martok, then holding what was now Talak’s position as chief of staff, had offices there, and he directed the Klingon war effort from the station. On one such visit, Talak had heard the station’s commander, a human capt
ain named Sisko, say that sometimes the devil would quote scripture to his own ends. The quote had made no sense—Klingons had no true equivalent for this human devil—but Sisko explained the metaphor.

  Hearing Kahless’s words from the filthy mouth of the son of M’Raq called that human aphorism to the general’s mind now. Talak swore he would never let those lips sully the great words of Kahless again.

  Screaming loud enough so that his dead crew could hear him in Sto-Vo-Kor, Talak ran forward to attack Klag once again.

  Kornan stood at the forefront of the Gorkon’s bridge, grinding his teeth in annoyance at having to watch the Vidd and the Gogam’s final confrontation while still being too far away to do anything about it. The battle was in a location that, thanks to the subspace eddies, was still too far away for the Gorkon to reach for another five minutes.

  He silently wished Captain K’Vada well on his journey to Sto-Vo-Kor. Kornan swore he would not have died in vain.

  All that was left was the Taj, which was currently trading blows with the Kreltek. Despite having been in the fight longer, the Taj was making a better show of it. The Kreltek had lost its forward shields and had shut down half the ship to conserve power. Kornan suspected that Captain Vekma’s relative inexperience—she had been captain for less than a day, after all—was proving her undoing.

  What does that say about my joining her, when I have less than nothing in terms of such experience?

  “How soon, Leskit?” Kornan asked impatiently.

  “I’m moving as fast as I can—firing range in one minute.”

  “Rodek, train all available forward disruptors on the Taj.”

  Even as Rodek acknowledged the order, Kornan saw that the Taj was firing its disruptors on the Kreltek.

  Leskit frowned. “That isn’t good.”

  “Toq?” Kornan prompted. The Taj should not have been able to fire its disruptors, since the Gorkon did not share Kurak’s breakthrough until after that vessel’s treachery.

  The young second officer shrugged. “Kurak is not the only talented engineer in the fleet, Commander. If she could determine a way to fire disruptors, so too could the Taj’s engineers.”

  “QI’yaH,” Kornan muttered.

  Toq added, “The Kreltek has lost shields—they have hull breaches on multiple decks.” He looked up. “They’re dead in space.”

  “In range,” Rodek said.

  “Fire!” Kornan cried. “Leskit, put us between the Taj and the Kreltek. Do not allow them to apply the finishing blow.”

  The Taj fired right back, even as they took damage, then turned.

  “The Taj’s course is taking them out of orbit—into the eddies.”

  “Pursue,” Kornan said at Toq’s report. “Tactical on screen.”

  The viewer changed to a display that gave the eddies in blue. Kornan saw that the Taj was heading into a section where several eddies had converged in response to the Akua’s warp-core explosion. It was a tangle of eddies that the K’Vort-class ship would barely be able to navigate, and which the larger Gorkon would be even harder-pressed to handle.

  Kornan looked over at Leskit—his comrade from the Rotarran, his rival for Kurak’s fickle affections here on the Gorkon—and knew that if anyone could get them through it, it was him.

  “Maintain pursuit, Leskit. We will not let the traitor win the day.”

  “That would be bad, Commander,” Leskit said. “I need to reduce to one-quarter impulse.”

  “Do so.”

  The Taj flew through, missing one of Rodek’s mines, which disappointed Kornan. He had a flicker of hope that they would hit the mine—Klag had never revealed their precise location even to his allies—but they did not. That just means that we will have to finish them ourselves.

  “Sir,” Rodek said seconds later, just as the Gorkon flew close to the same mine, “Taj is firing disruptors—at the mine, sir!”

  Kornan felt the blood roar in his ears. Damn them! “Reverse course!”

  But it was too late. The disruptors set off the mine, and the explosion tore through the Gorkon’s port shields.

  “Damage report!” Kornan screamed over the dozens of alarms that suddenly went off.

  “Port shields down!” Toq said.

  “Helm control gone,” Leskit said. “We’re drifting into—”

  Kornan had no idea what the rest of Leskit’s sentence was to be, as a plasma junction exploded, sending Kornan forcibly to the deck. His ears rang as his head collided with metal, and he tasted his own blood in his mouth as he got up.

  Getting to his feet, he saw that the explosion had sent Leskit careening to the front of the bridge. The old pilot was not moving.

  Immediately, Kornan ran to helm control. He stabbed at the panels, but they would not respond. The displays still worked, however, telling him that they were inside one of the subspace eddies. Kornan was able to instruct the computer to backtrack their course, and he saw that the mine explosion had only minutely affected their course, but Leskit had been so carefully navigating the eddies that even the slightest course change would send them careening into the deadly tears in space.

  Then, all of a sudden, helm control functioned again. Kornan immediately instructed the engines to reverse course and take them out.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he also saw that another plasma junction was about to go. But the helm controls were far too sluggish to be put on autopilot, and the piloting necessary far too precise; once they were on course, he needed to keep them there until they caught up to the Taj and were free of this tangle of eddies. The eddies altered the very fabric of space around them, causing gravitic shifts that necessitated constant corrections just to maintain course. It could not be trusted to a computer, especially one not functioning at full capacity.

  The Gorkon was now back on the course Leskit had plotted, but Kornan still could not afford to take his eyes off the console.

  Behind him, he could hear voices, but he could not focus on them. Toq and Rodek were saying something about damage and shields and things, but Kornan ignored it. The slightest distraction would send the Gorkon back into an eddy.

  Focus.

  He heard the sound of an explosion.

  Focus.

  Pain sliced through his chest and torso. Fire seared his belly. He ignored that, too.

  We’re almost through.

  In another ten seconds they would be clear of the worst of the eddies, and also in firing range of the Taj.

  Focus.

  His vision blurred, but he refused to even blink to take his eyes off the display.

  Almost there.

  Then, at last, they were clear.

  “Sir, I said I can take over now!”

  Kornan turned to see that Ensign Koxx was standing next to him. Moving out of the ensign’s way, Kornan said, “Set course for the Taj, full impulse.” He wanted to move back to the center of the bridge, but suddenly his legs wouldn’t work. Undaunted, he continued giving orders. “Rodek, full spread of disruptors. I want that vessel annihilated. Toq—”

  Then Kornan’s legs gave out completely. All feeling left his body, so he did not actually feel himself hit the deck, though he could now only see the ceiling of the bridge, so he knew he must have fallen down.

  It was only as Toq stood over him saying something—Why can I not understand him?—that Kornan realized that the explosion had killed him. But he hung on until the ship was out of danger.

  I have died saving the ship. It was a far worthier death than he had imagined for himself, and for the first time he allowed himself to have hope that he would go to Sto-Vo-Kor after all.

  His only regret was that he never did get the opportunity to take Kurak to his bed….

  For the first time, Klag’s right arm felt comfortable.

  It wasn’t something he had ever noticed before. He assumed the discomfort he’d felt since having his father’s arm grafted on was due to his having grown accustomed to only one limb for so long. But the weeks passed, and the
discomfort remained.

  Now, though, fighting Talak with his mek’leth gripped in the right hand of his father, it felt right. As he blocked the general’s tik’leth strike, it truly felt like he was defending himself with his own arm.

  Or perhaps it was because of what Talak said to him. Until Talak had asked his plaintive query, Klag had not thought of himself as a victor here.

  For all he spoke of honor and of not allowing Talak to betray his word given to a worthy foe, the fact of the matter was they had gotten into this mess, not because of honor, but because of pride.

  No, not pride—what is the human word that Riker shared with me? Hubris. The Klingon word Hem indicated a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. But the human term had a connotation that would never occur to a Klingon: pride that blinds, pride that is out of proportion to the reality of the universe.

  Klag’s hubris brought them to this place. Dorrek had conquered a world, accomplished the mission Martok had set out for them. He had found a planet that was worthy of being brought under the Empire’s boot, and had called in Talak’s fleet to complete the job of conquering it. When Klag found a world that was even better, he could not allow himself to be satisfied with just that. So when Me-Larr proposed the contests that would provide him with the chance to conquer the world without the help of the general’s fleet—or, more to the point, without the help of the general himself—he leapt at it.

  And then, the final blow, his own foolishness in using a two-handed weapon in the final conflict against Me-Larr in a circle much like this one when his bat’leth skills were not up to the task.

  B’Oraq had warned him. She’s a sorceress, that one; she sees, where I am blind. She knew that his true motives lay in jealousy of his brother for succeeding, in hatred of Talak and what his Housemate Kargan did to Klag for all those agonizing years on the Pagh, and, ultimately, in his disdain for the way his father chose to meet his death. But Klag did not heed her words—indeed, he broke her arm for her effrontery—and it led to this. Klingon fighting Klingon and San-Tarah, the dirt of this world awash in the blood of Klingon and alien alike, and a conflict that divided warriors in their very hearts.