Honor Bound

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Yet here was Talak, marveling not at his pride, not at his foolishness, but at his triumph. My path is that of honor, whatever my motives may have been.

  The sounds of metal clanging against metal filled the air, slicing through the noises of the crowd around them. The warrior cries were indistinct, though Klag could occasionally hear specific importunings of himself and Talak both, as their loyal troops cheered on their commanders.

  Talak’s attacks became slower, sloppier. With only the use of his right arm, he had lost precision. He was of sufficient skill, and his blade of sufficient strength and reach, that this loss of precision still made him a dangerous opponent—and Klag had his own problems, as the pain of his wound slowly spread from his left stomach to his entire torso.

  Right now, he held his wound shut as best he could with his left arm and elbow. It made for slightly awkward positioning, but he did not need his left arm to fight with the mek’leth, and he preferred to slow the process of bleeding to death as much as possible.

  Slowly but surely, Klag went on the offensive, parrying then thrusting, then thrusting again, then not needing to parry at all. Talak’s defenses were strong, but Klag would not let him go back on the offensive.

  Seeing this, the Children of San-Tarah began to join the cheers of the Gorkon crew with howls to the sky. Klag swung his mek’leth down toward Talak’s head, but the general parried it, linking his blade into the area between the mek’leth’s two blades.

  “Listen to them,” Talak said with a sneer. He stood now on the edge of the circle, his right arm holding their weapons in place. “They are animals! You would die for such as them?”

  “I would die to safeguard my honor, Talak. I gave Me-Larr my word. The word of a Klingon warrior is enough to move planets, to destroy starships, to annihilate suns! But without it, we are nothing!”

  “What of the word you gave when you swore an oath to serve the Klingon Defense Force?”

  Klag smiled. “I swore to uphold the traditions of our people, Talak, as did you. And one of our oldest traditions is that when a superior officer is derelict in his duty, he is to be challenged and removed.”

  “Challenged, perhaps.” Talak laughed. “Removed? Never! Not by such as you! I am Talak, son of Yorchogh of the House of K’Tal! I have served the Empire all my life! You are the filthy son of a cowardly petaQ, a usurper of honor, and an affront to all that Klingons stand for! I will not be defeated by you!”

  The captain locked eyes with his foe even as the general screamed his curses. Though the words were laden with the venom of a wam serpent, that venom did not spread to Talak’s steely gray eyes.

  Klag saw fear.

  As far as Klag was concerned, the battle ended right there.

  Talak did not take joy in the glory of combat. His heart did not sing the song of battle. Instead, he knew only that he might lose, and could not face that reality, instead hiding behind churlish invective.

  The general had the use of only one arm because his left had been injured beyond his capacity to use. Klag had the use of only one arm because he chose to use his left arm to keep his wound closed.

  Reaching up with his left hand, he gripped the hilt of his mek’leth. Even as pain racked his torso as the wound opened further, Klag, with the added strength the second hand gave him, twisted his wrists to the right. That broke Talak’s one-handed grip on his sword, and it fell to the ground.

  Undaunted, Talak threw a punch toward Klag, but the captain intercepted the blow with his left hand, then slammed the hilt of his mek’leth into Talak’s face with his right. Talak fell backward, out of the circle. Blood ran into his brown beard from his nose and mouth.

  With a cry that echoed off the trees, Klag shoved his mek’leth into Talak’s chest.

  The light left the general’s gray eyes a moment later.

  Now there were only two sounds coming from the crowd: Klingons rhythmically chanting the name of Klag and Children of San-Tarah howling the victory to the heavens. After a moment, Klag heard one soldier begin to sing the Warrior’s Anthem, another chant the first verse of “Don’t Speak,” a third beginning the aria from some opera or other.

  Klag knelt down and pried open the eyes of his enemy.

  In that moment, he felt everything. The jealousy of Dorrek, the disappointment in M’Raq, the hatred for Kargan, the anger toward Talak, the frustration with Kurak and Kornan, the joy of battle, the sorrow of betrayal—all of it seethed and boiled and flowed in his stomachs, building into a growl.

  He lifted his head up to the heavens, to the clear blue sky of San-Tarah, to the subspace eddies that blotted the stars from view, to the sun that the world orbited, to the entire Kavrot Sector and the Beta Quadrant beyond it.

  And he screamed.

  The scream overwhelmed the chants, the howls, the singing.

  General Talak was on his way to Sto-Vo-Kor.

  And Captain Klag was victorious.

  Klag screamed until he no longer had the breath to scream.

  Then he screamed some more.

  Exhausted, he finally stopped, put his left arm back over his wound, and clambered to an upright position.

  “Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag! Klag!”

  The cheers were leavened only by the howls of the Children of San-Tarah. And Klag found that he saw no Klingons who were not chanting, not even those of General Talak’s fleet.

  Truly, the battle had been won.

  More or less, he thought, remembering that there were still several ships in orbit. Klag yanked his mek’leth from the chest of the shell that once contained Talak, sheathed the weapon, and activated his communicator. “Klag to Gorkon. Report.”

  “This is Toq, sir. I was about to contact you. Commander Kornan is dead—and a vessel has just decloaked outside the eddies.”

  Klag wanted to laugh. Has another member of the Order answered my summons?

  But Toq wasn’t finished. “It is the Sword of Kahless, Captain. We are being hailed by Chancellor Martok.”

  Epilogue

  Ambassador Worf stood in the large meeting room of the Sword of Kahless, at once disappointed and satisfied.

  The former was because he had missed the battle—and a glorious battle it had apparently been. Seventeen ships engaged in battle, with only seven left intact—and two of those seven, the Kreltek and the K’mpec, would need extensive repairs at a dry-dock before they were again spaceworthy.

  The latter, though, was because his own contribution was the right one. Martok had known nothing of the goings-on in the Kavrot Sector until Worf brought them to his attention. Without a moment’s hesitation, and with several choice comments regarding General Talak, the chancellor ordered his flagship to be readied. He had not been able to leave immediately, as several affairs of state needed to be dealt with or formally postponed, but he had departed Qo’noS as soon as he was able.

  He also requested that Worf join him.

  At first, Worf was going to refuse. His position as Federation ambassador gave him no real standing here. This conflict was internal to the Empire and involved territory neither claimed by nor indeed anywhere near Federation interests. He quite literally had no place on this mission.

  Then Martok had said, “I am not asking the Federation ambassador to accompany me, my friend. I am asking a member of the Order of the Bat’leth to escort his chancellor to the site where the Order is doing its work.”

  Leaving Wu in charge at the embassy, Worf joined Martok on the Sword of Kahless without another thought.

  He had, naturally, spent the entire journey to the Kavrot Sector catching up with his paperwork.

  Now he stood in the meeting room, just to Martok’s right. A small version of the Council Chambers in the Great Hall, the dark, high-ceilinged room (it took up two decks’ worth of space, an indulgence few Defense Force vessels would have, but this was the flagship) was backlit to emphasize the Klingon trefoil on the wall behind the large chair where Martok now sat. The
medal-covered cassock of office draped over the chair’s arms as the one-eyed chancellor listened to Klag—standing in the room’s center—give a full verbal report of what had happened.

  Also present, standing opposite Martok and against the far wall, were the two other surviving ship captains: Huss and Vekma. The Taj had no one in command at present. The ship had come at the behest of Commander T’vis, the first officer, but it was also he who betrayed Klag’s fleet to General Talak. T’vis then killed B’Edra and took over the Taj, then gave the order to cease hostilities with the Gogam and fire on the Qovin and the Ch’marq. When the Sword of Kahless decloaked and Klag announced that he had killed General Talak, the Taj second officer immediately challenged and killed T’vis, but also died from wounds incurred in the duel.

  Worf remembered B’Edra from the induction ceremony on Ty’Gokor and, while he was glad to know that she had not betrayed Klag, he was saddened that her death came at the hands of so unworthy a creature as T’vis.

  Finally, standing in a corner was Me-Larr, the head of the Ruling Pack of San-Tarah, who managed to look overwhelmed and defiant at the same time. He had a warrior’s bearing, though, and Worf started to understand what it was that Klag saw in these people that led him to the decisions he made. His furred form and protruding snout reminded Worf of the wolves that prowled the forests in the valleys of the Ural Mountains on Earth.

  The only part of Klag’s account that gave Worf pause was personal—when Klag mentioned that Rodek had come up with a method of mining the subspace eddies in orbit around San-Tarah. According to Klag, Rodek claimed that it was something that had been done on the Hegh’ta—except Worf knew that Rodek, son of Noggra, never served on that vessel.

  Kurn, son of Mogh, however, was captain of that ship once, years ago. It was at a time before Worf was cast out of the Empire by Chancellor Gowron for opposing the latter’s invasion of Cardassia in the dark days before the Dominion War. Before Kurn was also cast out, a victim of Worf’s dishonor. Before Worf had authorized a procedure that would alter Kurn’s memories and physical appearance, making him over into Rodek. The procedure that Dr. Bashir had performed on Deep Space 9 should have erased all of Kurn’s memories.

  Yet now he was recalling missions from the Hegh’ta.

  Worf knew that this would need to be addressed sooner or later. For now, however, he chose later, hoping that fate would not decide to go against that choice.

  Finally, Klag ended his report with the part that all present already knew: The Sword of Kahless decloaked, the Taj and the Gorkon stood down, and all Klingons were beamed up from the surface of San-Tarah, with the sole exception of B’Oraq, whom Me-Larr and another of the Ruling Pack, a woman named Te-Run, had requested be left behind to tend to the wounded, along with a few Gorkon troops.

  “Your choice was the right one, Captain,” Martok said after Klag finished. “Your actions were just and honorable.”

  “Thank you, Chancellor,” Klag said with respect.

  “Me-Larr, step forward.”

  The head of the Ruling Pack did so. “You lead the Klingons’ Ruling Pack?” Me-Larr asked formally.

  “Yes. I am Martok, son of Urthog. On behalf of the Klingon Empire, I offer our regrets at what has happened here. The actions of General Talak were wholly—”

  Me-Larr interrupted. “You do not need to explain, Chancellor Martok. Captain Klag has taught us many things about your people—both directly and indirectly. You have nothing to regret. You have acted true to yourselves, and those who have acted untrue have been dealt with appropriately.”

  Martok smiled, and Worf couldn’t help but crack one of his own at that expression. Almost any other chancellor would have chafed at the interruption, at the effrontery. But Martok had no such airs, and he appreciated that Me-Larr was forged from similar metal. “In that case, Me-Larr, we will simply take our leave of you, as promised by Captain Klag. The Klingon Empire will never set foot on San-Tarah again.”

  “That is not required, Chancellor Martok.”

  Every face in the room turned toward Me-Larr in surprise then. Worf frowned. He had spent many years dealing with many different alien species, and one could not always determine what a new species’ body language indicated. However, Worf was fairly sure that Me-Larr had come to a decision, and was now implementing it. Worf saw none of the sense of being overwhelmed now, only the defiance. Not only has he made the decision, he will challenge anyone who brooks it.

  “I have consulted with Te-Run. She is the keeper of our traditions and laws. Captain Klag will vouch for the fact that she is wise, perhaps the wisest of the Children of San-Tarah.”

  Me-Larr looked to the captain for confirmation, and Klag nodded guardedly. He is as baffled as the rest of us, Worf thought.

  “We have learned a great deal since Captain Klag and his vessel appeared in our sky. We have been exposed to the universe outside our world. We have seen wonders and tools beyond our wildest imaginings. We have been in fights that make the conflicts of old seem like minor skirmishes. We have seen both the best and the worst of your people. We have had our entire way of life turned inside out, and we have triumphed. But that triumph has changed our world forever, and we would be fools to cast it aside now.”

  Worf noticed that, as Me-Larr paced around the center of the room, he never once made eye contact with any member of his audience. “Our contest with Captain Klag was based on who triumphed in at least three of the five contests. Captain Klag’s people defeated us in the hunt and in capturing the prize. The Children of San-Tarah were victorious in wind boat combat and in strength. That left only the final battle between myself and Captain Klag in the circle. Tradition demands that the two combatants fight until death—or until one of the combatants leaves the perimeter of the circle. As Captain Klag informed you in his report, I disarmed him and he was at my mercy. I spared his life, for truly I did not wish to kill so fine a fighter.”

  Me-Larr then stopped pacing. “Te-Run, however, has informed me of my error. As I said, the tradition of that particular fight states that the loser is the one who is killed, or who steps outside the confines of the circle. After I spared Captain Klag’s life, I stepped outside the circle.”

  Now Me-Larr looked Martok directly in the eye. His posture was seemingly relaxed, but Worf saw that the San-Tarah’s arms were positioned in such a way that he could easily reach the hilt of his curved, double-bladed sword on its back holster.

  “Therefore, as established in the terms of the agreement the Ruling Pack made with Captain Klag, I lost the fight, and the Children of San-Tarah lost the competition. I hereby cede the world of San-Tarah to the Klingon Empire.”

  Me-Larr’s words echoed off the high ceiling and faded. Then silence descended upon the meeting hall. The head of the Ruling Pack stared at Martok, who returned the favor by fixing his one eye on Me-Larr.

  After several tense seconds, the silence was broken by a hearty, throaty laugh. Worf turned to see Klag, his head back, his laughter cascading up toward the ceiling.

  A moment later, Martok joined in the laughter, as did Huss and Vekma. For his part, Worf simply smiled.

  “I accept your words, Me-Larr,” Martok said. “A planetary governor will be assigned to begin the integration of your world into our Empire.” Martok looked to Klag. “And, based on what the captain has told us, perhaps also integrate our Empire into your world. I suspect that there is much we can learn from each other.”

  “Chancellor, may I speak?”

  Worf looked up to see Captain Huss stepping forward.

  Martok nodded affirmation. Me-Larr stepped aside to stand near Klag, and Huss moved to the middle of the room.

  “I wish the assignment of planetary governor. I had expected to receive the honor at Brenlek, but General Talak chose Captain Worvag instead.”

  Again, Worf smiled. Huss’s tone indicated precisely how little she thought of this Worvag and his assignment as Brenlek’s governor. The ambassador wondered if that contributed to
Huss’s eventual betrayal of General Talak, if he denied her the post she wanted. Also her current position as part of Talak’s fleet had obviously come to an end, since her three birds-of-prey—as well as the three left behind at Brenlek—were all that remained of that fleet.

  “Besides,” Huss added, “it would be fitting to be the one who supervised the construction of a new Prime Village, since it was I who destroyed the old one.”

  Martok nodded. “Fitting indeed, Captain. Very well, you are so assigned. The Jor, Nukmay, and Khich will remain behind as support and you may request other vessels to assist you as needs be.”

  “Thank you, Chancellor.”

  “Captain Vekma,” Martok said to the dark-haired woman. “The Kreltek will be towed back to the repair base on Cambra III. I want you to take command of the Taj. There is a vacuum in leadership on that vessel, and Captain Klag has spoken highly of you.”

  Vekma shot a look at Klag and smiled, showing a mouth full of long, pointed teeth. “Has he?”

  Klag nodded at the captain—who, Worf recalled, served with Vekma on the Pagh—and smiled.

  “I wish to bring Commander Hevna with me, sir. She is the Order member who alerted me to Klag’s plight, and allowed me to remove an honorless petaQ from his unworthy position on the Kreltek.”

  “Very well,” Martok said. “I believe that concludes the business we need to attend to. Captain Klag!”

  Klag stepped forward.

  “You have done well. There are those who would question your actions, but you can be assured that I am not among them. It is exactly for this purpose that the Order of the Bat’leth was created.” Martok leaned back in his chair, the medals on his cassock rattling. “I will be assembling a new fleet. In the meantime, you will continue your mission into the Kavrot Sector.”

  “Sir, we will need crew replacements. We lost many officers and troops.”

  “Of course. You may take personnel from the Kreltek. And Captain?”