The Hand of Kahless
Page 1
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Introduction copyright © 2004 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. Star Trek® Final Reflection copyright © 1984 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved. Star Trek® Kahless copyright © 1996 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-0001-8
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Dedication for The Final Reflection
For J.B.
after fifteen years,
the genuine article
Dedication for Kahless
For Valerie Elyse,
who was worth the wait
Introduction
Klingons—An Evolution
When Kor and his band of Klingons beamed into the Star Trek pantheon in the original series episode “Errand of Mercy,” they were contentious, arrogant, fearless, and rather smarmy—all miscreant qualities admired in adversaries for Kirk and company. Not surprisingly, these newcomers quickly claimed a prominent position among Star Trek’s most memorable villains. Yet even before that seminal episode had ended, the show’s creators hinted that the Klingons might not remain strictly adversarial. “It is true,” Ayelborne tells Kirk, “that in the future you and the Klingons will become fast friends. You will work together.” The Organian’s prediction came true, regardless of the Klingon Empire’s attempts to maintain a rocky relationship with the Federation. Two years later, in “Day of the Dove,” Kirk and Kang were able to laugh their way out of jeopardy together. And a century later, with Captain Picard in command of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, a Klingon warrior named Worf served on the bridge as a Starfleet officer.
Somewhere between Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation, Klingons had evolved from one-dimensional villains into fully-fleshed characters with a well-defined culture. Along the way, Star Trek’s staff had to develop an entire warrior society, including such diverse elements as a unique fighting style, an arsenal, and a language. The process required equal parts evolution and creation. And a touch of serendipity.
In “The Trouble with Tribbles,” Korax had bragged that, “Half the quadrant [was] learning to speak Klingonese.” While writing Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Producer Harv Bennett discovered that he needed to learn it too. He turned to Marc Okrand, the linguist who had created the Vulcan dialogue for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
“Harv knew that the best way to have a language that sounded like a real language was to actually create a real language,” Okrand recalls. “At the time, the only Klingon words that existed were names, and a few lines of dialogue that had been created by actor Jimmy Doohan (Scotty) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Harv felt that the Klingons were like Japanese samurai warriors, so I started writing with that in mind, while at the same time trying to match the sounds from the first movie. The cadence, which is kind of choppy, came from those two things.”
It was Okrand’s job to invent more sounds—and a grammatical structure to hang them on. “Klingons are not humans,” he explains, “so their language can’t be like a human language. All human languages have certain sound patterns that fall into a system. I violated those rules by picking sounds that cannot exist together in a human language. That’s why Klingonese is hard to pronounce—your tongue doesn’t want to go in that direction,” Okrand says with a laugh.
“I purposely did not model the grammar after any specific language,” he continues. “I combined grammatical structures from Burmese and Chinese and Thai, along with a couple of European languages and some American Indian languages, mostly from the West Coast. Plus a bunch of stuff I just made up.”
Okrand was satisfied with the results—and a bit surprised as well. “I figured the actors would be able to contort their mouths to say their lines that one time,” he says. “I didn’t know that people were going to carry on Klingon conversations all over the world years later!”
Star Trek: The Next Generation Visual Effects Producer Dan Curry made up stuff too, including the bat’leth, the definitive Klingon weapon, and the flowing martial art style that accommodates its use. Like Okrand, he found much of his inspiration in the Far East. Curry, an expert martial artist, and a lifelong collector of weapons, was intrigued when he read the script to the fourth season The Next Generation episode “Reunion.”
“It called for a special Klingon bladed weapon,” Curry recalls. “I’ve always been irritated when I’ve seen weapons in movies that were designed to look cool but in reality couldn’t be handled practically. I’d been imagining a curved weapon that was partially influenced by Himalayan weapons like the Gurkha kukri. [The kukri, the wickedly curved knife of the Gurkhas of Nepal, is arguably the most renowned fighting knife in the world.] I was also thinking about the Chinese double ax, Chinese fighting crescents, and the Tai Chi sword. I combined elements of all those things in order to come up with an ergonomically sound weapon.”
Curry made a foam core version of his design, an admittedly flimsy prototype of the bat’leth, and showed it to Executive Producer Rick Berman. “I told Rick that I could create a whole martial arts style too,” Curry notes. “And Rick liked it.” No one knew at the time that the weapon would become a kind of symbol for the species. “Now you seldom see a picture of a Klingon without a bat’leth in his hands,” Curry says with a smile.
Curry then began to work with Michael Dorn, the actor who plays Worf, to develop a fighting style to go with the weapon. “We didn’t want the Klingons simply to be vicious,” he says, “so I thought it would be an interesting dichotomy if they had a very subtle internal quality as well as being incredible fighters—like the samurai during Japan’s Tokagawa period, who were dedicated to poetry as well as sword-fighting. We started primarily with Tai Chi, so we could practice in ‘slow motion’ and have that meditative quality, but I made the style more claw-like and scary-looking by combining it with Hun Gar, a very aggressive Chinese style, and Tai Kwon Do, which is a Korean style.” The result: mok’bara, the ritual Klingon Martial Art.
About that same time, Curry noticed that the show’s writers seemed to be exploring similar inspirational territory as they developed new Klingon storylines. “The writers began to include a kind of Bushido aspect, like a Samurai code for Klingons,” he says. “I think they fed off of what they saw Michael Dorn doing onscreen, and one thing naturally evolved into the next.”
—Terry J. Erdmann
The Final Reflection
Historian’s Note
The main events in this story take place over a half century before James Kirk took command of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 in 2264, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”
Prologue
Enterprise, dormant for nearly a week now, was wakin
g up.
Captain James Kirk had stayed aboard, while the crew took leave on Starbase 12: Dr. McCoy had given him a stern lecture on the perils of overwork, and Engineer Scott a milder talk on the pleasures Kirk would be missing. Even Spock had gone stationside; something to do with new materials for the ship’s library computer.
But Kirk was all right. In fact, he felt wonderful. He had given himself a walking inspection tour of his ship, quite alone, at whatever pace he felt like at the moment. It was not work. It had been sheer play.
Now the crew was returning, making Enterprise ready for voyage, and that too was satisfactory. Kirk walked the corridors, giving salutes and greetings, feeling almost light-headed, as if he were present at a new creation.
Yeoman Janice Rand came up the corridor toward Kirk, still in a civilian tunic and loose trousers, traveling bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair was in a new, non-regulation style, upswept, quite striking and attractive; Kirk could not remember having seen the style before—
And then he knew he had seen it, once only: on Specialist Mara, the consort of the Klingon Captain Kang.
Kirk gave a clumsy gesture somewhere between a salute and a wave; Rand smiled and waved back.
She’s still off duty, Kirk thought, she has the right to wear her hair any way she pleases—but why on earth…? It surely hadn’t been that long since the Organian Peace: Kirk wondered if it could ever be that long.
He shook his head and walked on. A little farther down the corridor, he heard a crewman use a few words in a foreign language. Kirk did not know the meaning, but knew from the harsh, consonantal sound that the language must be Klingonese. He also knew that only a half-dozen of the ship’s complement spoke Klingonese, and this was not one of them.
Kirk went up a level to sickbay. Inside, Dr. McCoy was unpacking a carrier marked MEDICAL SUPPLIES. Kirk’s medical training was sufficient to identify Romulan ale, Saurian brandy in the trademark bottle, and a complete set of components for Argelian nine-layer cocktails.
“Expecting an epidemic, Bones?”
McCoy looked up. His expression was odd: slightly distant, slightly sour. “I hope to Lucius Beebe there is—” He stopped short, shook his head.
“Who?” Kirk said.
“Nothing. Something my granddaddy used to say when he got dry.” McCoy reverently held up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Black Label. “Bar’s still open, if you want, Jim.”
Something in the way McCoy made the offer made Kirk hesitate. Bones was always playing the curmudgeon, but when he was really disgruntled he was not pleasant company. “Later, Bones. Too much to do, just now.” Kirk smiled. “Promises to keep, and miles to go…”
“Uh-huh.” McCoy put the bottle down, looking a little forlorn.
“Bones,” Kirk said quietly, “what’s wrong?”
“Hm? Oh. ’Course, you don’t know.” He reached down into the carrier, clinking bottles and cans, and brought out a book. “Here you go. Read all about it.”
Kirk took the book. It was a bookstore edition, in hard covers, not a computer offprint. The Final Reflection, the cover said, above a lurid painting showing a Klingon battle cruiser. He turned it over, scanned the blurbs. “This is the one the Starfleet memos were about, isn’t it? The novel about the Klingons.”
“Novel, yeah,” McCoy said. “About the Klingons.” His voice was just slightly less tense. “You might like it…there’s some good space-battle stuff.”
“I’ll get a print—”
“Take it,” McCoy said, and at once his voice cleared, as if there had never been anything wrong at all. “I’d better get my office in order. I’m about to get four hundred cases of station leave.”
“All right, Bones. Hold that drink for me.”
“Sure, Jim.”
Kirk went on down the corridor, looking at the book, half conscious that others were saluting him or dodging out of his way. He tried to remember the texts of the Starfleet memos about the novel: their substance seemed to have been the routine disclaimers about any book not fully approved by the Public Information Office, maybe a little more strongly worded than usual.
Space battles, Bones had said. According to the cover copy, the story was set not long after first contact with the Klingons, just before Kirk himself had been born; back before dilithium, when the best ship-wrights in Starfleet thought warp 4.8 was the absolute limit. Before phasers. Before Enterprise had gone on the drawing boards. That should be interesting, Kirk thought, even if those days seemed as far away as Captain Hornblower’s sails and cannon.
But then, Kirk had always liked Horatio Hornblower.
A name caught his eye: Dr. Emanuel Tagore. A political scientist, Kirk recalled. He had died about a year ago, aged 120 or so; Spock had mentioned it. Spock….
Kirk got into the next turbolift.
Spock was already back in duty uniform, though he had not even unpacked. His small traveling case was on the bed, still sealed; against the wall of the cabin were two large carriers labeled COMPUTER DATA—KEEP FROM ALL RADIATION.
“Captain. I am sorry I have not reported to the bridge. I was…”
“Spock…. Welcome back.”
“Thank you, Captain, though I have not been gone in any real sense.” Spock looked down slightly, saw the book in Kirk’s hand. “I see you have…already obtained a copy of that work.”
“Yes. Bones gave it to me.”
The eyebrow went up like a flag. “Indeed. I find that…well. Perhaps not surprising.”
“I wanted to ask you about it.”
“It is a work of fiction, Captain. That is, I believe, all that needs to be said.”
It’s some kind of strange new hangover, Kirk thought, one leave and my whole crew goes crazy. “I was going to ask about Emanuel Tagore. Did you know him?”
“He was an acquaintance of my father’s. When I was a student at the Makropyrios, we had…discussions, though I was never enrolled in his classes.”
That said more than perhaps Spock had intended; there were over two million students at the Federation’s finest university, too many for anyone to casually “have discussions” outside the classroom.
Kirk said, “So then you did know him.”
“I believe that was what I said, Captain.”
Kirk almost shook his head. “Analysis, Spock,” he said, trying to sound as if he were joking. “Enhancement, please.”
“Yes, Captain, I did know Dr. Emanuel Tagore. I admired him, as did my father the ambassador, although in many ways Dr. Tagore was a most illogical man. But I knew him as a human, not a character in a novel.”
“I haven’t read the book yet.”
“Yes, I had just realized there was not time for you to have done so. Is that all you require from me at this time, Captain?” The tone was no cooler than any Vulcan might use. But this was not just any Vulcan.
“Yes, Spock,” Kirk said, too puzzled to be really hurt. “See you on the bridge.” He looked at Spock, vaguely hoping the science officer would recover as Dr. McCoy had.
But Spock did not. “Of course, Captain.” Kirk went out.
The corridor was empty, silent except for the distant chiming of an annunciator. Kirk looked at the book again, at the Klingon ship. The Final Reflection. Reflection of what? he thought. He could remember times when he had seen himself reflected in books…in Mark Twain, in the Hornblower stories. Sometimes the image was startling. But they were, after all, only stories.
Which was, sort of, what Spock had said.
Kirk went to his own quarters, changed from fatigues into duty uniform, put the book on the bedside table.
First Enterprise, he thought. Then McCoy’s drink. Then we’ll see what it has to say.
Researcher’s Note
“Be a storyteller, an embellisher, a liar; they’ll call you that and worse anyway. It hardly matters. The Tao which can be perceived is not the true Tao.”
—DR. EMANUEL TAGORE, TO THE AUTHOR
It has been sixty-five years since
U.S.S. Sentry met I.K.V. Devisor in the UFP’s first known contact with the Klingon Empire. The final events of the story which follows took place some forty years ago. Some time back we celebrated ten years of Pax Organia (of which more in a moment). There are many who are convinced that “the Klingon Phase of Federation history is over.” I first heard that phrase used in a lecture at the Makropyrios. No one even smiled.
So perhaps I may be excused a certain puzzlement at the curtains of silence that descended during the research for this work. UFP “Klingon authorities” were unavailable for extended periods, coinciding with my calls and visits. Official records of the “Dissolution Babel” are incomplete, containing little more than the “we kissed and made up” account found in children’s books. Important persons have died or dropped from sight—neither rare events, but highly concentrated in this area. While my life was not threatened, my researcher’s credentials and my computer’s memory cores were. Only one person was willing to speak freely, and that one both warned me that his memory was fallible and gave me the advice quoted above. He was too modest about his memory. But his counsels were always wise.
Thus what follows is a novelist’s reconstruction of events, rather than a history, let alone an exposé. (It would be embarrassing to admit the size of the fee I lost from Insider Illustrated for not rewriting to their specifications. Sample specification: More details on Klingon torture please.) My defenses are fictional license and absence of malice; perhaps if the Van Diemen Papers were not under DOUBLET REGAL classification (two steps higher than the Nova Weapons research files) my tale would be different.
I note in passing that I do not intend to disappear from public view in the immediate future.
An old Italian proverb runs: Traduttore, traditore: the translator is a traitor. And it is nowhere more true than when translating between races from different stars; still, I have tried to speak as little treason as possible. For clarity’s sake, certain Klingon technical terms have been translated as their Federation-Standard equivalents: thus warp drive, transporter, disruptor, instead of the more literal anticurve rider, particle displacer, vibratory destructor (most literally: the “shake-it-