I.K.S. Gorkon Book One: A Good Day to Die

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  Shaking her head, Wol said, “All of you get some sleep. The QaS DevwI’ will address us first thing in the morning, and then you’ll get your duty assignments. I expect to hear nothing but good words about the efficiency, skills, and obedience of the fifteenth from here on in. Anything less will be addressed quickly.”

  “You have nothing to concern yourself with,” Krevor said confidently.

  G’joth’s eyes rolled up toward Davok’s bunk. “Almost nothing, in any case.” Then he turned back to his padd and his composition.

  Wol climbed up to the second bunk, above Goran, who was already slumbering. It wasn’t the best she could have hoped for, but it was far from the worst. This was the greatest opportunity she’d had since her father cast her out. She would not squander it.

  The Gorkon mess hall was a loud, boisterous place. Taking up a full quarter of the ship’s seventeenth deck, it consisted of several dozen tables arranged around a central dais. On that dais sat a large food replicator as well as dishes full of nonreplicated food. How much of the latter was present depended on a variety of factors: the availability of food, the availability of replicator power, and the whim of the ship’s quartermaster. Today, there was almost nothing on the plates, which didn’t surprise Rodek as he waited in one of the six lines for the replicator. After all, this would be a long mission, one that would bring them far away from any Klingon base or repair facility. This early in the mission, they would be depending almost entirely on replicated food, holding the real thing in reserve in the mighty vessel’s cargo holds in case replicator power needed to be diverted to a more needy ship’s resource down the line.

  Rodek had always found replicated food to be a mixed blessing. By not requiring as much cargo space to store food, they were able to conserve room for other functions, and allow more crew to serve on board. In the days prior to the Federation alliance—whence derived this impressive technology—a ship this size would only have three-quarters of the same crew, if not less, owing to the storage needs for food and liquid.

  The other side was the appalling taste.

  On the Gorkon, at least, that difficulty was alleviated somewhat, thanks to the good graces of the now-departed Lieutenant Vall. An engineer without par, Vall was no warrior—yet somehow managed to survive in the Defense Force, when his prospects for survival, and service to the Empire, would have been much better placed at the Science Institute or in some other civilian post. But he had insisted on being where the glory was, and had used his superior technical skills to compensate for his woefully inadequate martial ones.

  Up to a point, anyhow. Eventually, the life of a warrior proved more than even he could handle, and he volunteered to be a puppet governor on a thrall world of the Empire called taD.

  However, Rodek thought with a smile as his turn in line came up, we were able to reap the rewards of his prowess. For the first time since he joined the Defense Force, Rodek ate well from a replicator. Vall had fine-tuned the devices to the point where even the rokeg blood pie was all but indistinguishable from homemade.

  Rodek ordered half a pie, as well as some pipius claw and half a heart of targ. The one thing the replicator could not provide was living matter, so no gagh or racht would come from it—and the quartermaster had apparently not seen fit to take any out of stasis on this night. Pity, Rodek thought. He had felt the urge to feel the wriggling of serpent worms down his gullet.

  While he stood in line, the traditional song before the meal was sung. Since the Gorkon’s shakedown, every meal had opened with a song, and tonight it was provided by one of the troops, a beardless youth whose name Rodek did not know. His rendition of “Mahk Jchi, ” an ancient song that was sung in an old dialect of the Klingon tongue, was excellent. However, Rodek preferred the recording his father, Noggra, had given him when he left to serve in the Defense Force; it included an insistent drumbeat that drove the rhythm of the song.

  After obtaining a mug of chech’tluth, he proceeded to what had quickly become known on the Gorkon as the secondary bridge: a five-person table in the aft port corner of the mess hall where Rodek and Toq had eaten virtually every meal together since the end of the ship’s shakedown. Others had come and gone from the third, fourth, and fifth seats, but the second officer and gunner had remained there, hence the nickname.

  Toq was already seated, his plate containing only a bit of zilm’kach, his mug holding a liquid with no odor that Rodek could determine.

  “I half-expected you to be in your quarters, Toq,” Rodek said as he took his seat, dropping his plate to the table.

  “I thought I should eat something.” The second officer spoke in a subdued tone.

  Laughing, Rodek said, “That cannot have been your first all-night celebration.”

  Toq simply nodded weakly, and drank some of his liquid concoction. “I had thought myself made of sterner stuff.”

  “Well, at least you did not disgrace us too badly—and you still stood your post for the entire shift. For that, at least, you are to be commended.”

  “I would rather be commended for being conscious for the captain’s induction. I will never redeem myself in his eyes.” Toq sounded miserable.

  Rodek was about to say that he remembered his first experience with such prolonged celebration—but, of course, he didn’t. In fact, Rodek knew nothing of his life prior to four years ago. A shuttle accident near Bajor had robbed him of any recollection of his life prior to the accident. Noggra had done what he could to remind him of the life he had led, but no amount of prompting or mental therapy had been able to restore his memories to him. Though he had, by all accounts, led an honorable life as the son of an advocate, something drew him to the Defense Force. Rodek knew that Noggra had hoped his son would follow his father into the legal profession, but he had also done nothing to discourage him, especially once the war with the Dominion escalated.

  “Why am I not surprised to find the two of you here?”

  Looking up, Rodek saw the familiar face of Leskit, along with their new first officer. “Where else would we be?” Rodek asked with a grin.

  “No doubt the benches have conformed to the shape of your rear ends.” Leskit sat down, dropping a plate laden with half a heart of targ and a small piece of bokrat liver onto the table. Next to him, Kornan did likewise, his plate holding the same items.

  Rodek laughed. “No doubt.”

  “You have done well in your time on this ship,” Kornan said after a moment of silence, “both of you. It will be an honor to stand for you on this mission.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” Rodek said. Kornan’s words seemed to be sincere, but they lacked—something. Rodek wasn’t sure what it was, but Kornan rubbed Rodek entirely the wrong way.

  “This is a truly fine vessel,” Kornan added. “After years on a bird-of-prey, it will be good to serve on a warship such as this.”

  “Assuming, of course,” Leskit added, mouth full of targ heart, “that there is any war to be had.”

  His voice still weak, Toq said, “There will be war. If we must, we shall ask B’Elath to sing.”

  Leskit winced. “No one’s shoved her out an airlock yet?”

  “Who is B’Elath?” Kornan asked.

  “One of Kurak’s engineers,” Leskit said. “She has the voice of a hoarse grishnar cat, only less tuneful. She used to massacre ‘The Campaign at Kol’Vat.’ ”

  “She still does,” Toq said.

  “But every time she does,” Rodek added, “the next day we go into battle.”

  Kornan asked, “And are you victorious?”

  Grinning, Rodek said, “We are still here, aren’t we? I don’t know what kinds of ships you have served on in the past, Commander, but on this ship, victory is the order of the day.”

  “I would expect no less,” Kornan said, almost by rote.

  Rodek chewed on his pipius claw. He should not need to explain this kind of thing to his first officer—his first officer should be reminding him of it. Rodek knew that his own passion and
fire were sometimes lacking—it irritated him, and he had tried to overcome it. The Gorkon’s successes had aided in that regard, and he had hopes of someday regaining his warrior’s fire, even if he never regained his memory.

  Looking at Kornan, he started to see what others sometimes saw in Rodek himself. And it disgusted him.

  Kurak stood with her left hand gripping her right wrist while their new first officer walked through the engine room. Kornan was the third first officer Kurak had had to tolerate since the Gorkon’s launch.

  Just another year of this, she reminded herself. In a year’s time, her nephew would be of age to begin his training as an officer in the Defense Force and then, at last, she could quit this mad place. The House of Palkar must always serve the Empire, she thought bitterly; those words had been drilled into her since birth, and the deaths of her parents, brothers, and grandparents during the war had left her as the only able-bodied adult in the House who could serve.

  Soon, though, it would be over. She could return to the Science Institute, go back to designing ships instead of coming up with idiotic methods for fixing them on the fly. How any self-respecting engineer could work under these conditions was beyond her—jury-rigged repairs and half-done reroutes was no way to operate machinery, and every day she spent in the Defense Force being forced to work with no proper time or facilities for testing tried her patience.

  That she hadn’t gone mad was, in her opinion, a testament to her mental strength.

  Her only concern now was the duration of this mission. No time frame had been specified, and they would be far from the center of the Empire. She would be trapped on this vessel until the Kavrot Sector mission was complete, even if that took her past the year she had left to her.

  She watched as Kornan checked the readouts on the various consoles. Around her, the engineering staff—a collection of unworthy fools, the lot of them, who barely comprehended the tools they wielded—stood stiffly at attention, awaiting the commander’s pleasure.

  Kornan himself, at least, was worth looking at. The Gorkon’ s original first officer, Drex, looked like a ramjep bird; as for his successor, Kurak had no aesthetic interest in females, though Tereth, unlike Drex, was at least competent to do her job. Kornan, however, had a strong presence, a fierce face, an impressive, if short, mane of black hair, a strong beard that resembled two spears pointing downward, and a powerful musk.

  Ironic, she thought, that he would come along with Leskit’s return.

  At last, Kornan finished the inspection. He walked over to Kurak, his muscular arms—exposed by his sleeveless uniform shirt—clasped behind his back.

  Kurak braced herself for the inevitable criticisms. She’d been hearing them ever since she first signed on during the war: You’re supposed to be one of the finest engineers in the fleet, why isn’t this engine room up to standards, you designed the Negh’Var , yet this is the best you can do, and so on. The captain had been particularly irritating on the subject. As if improvements to engines could ever be done in the field…

  Instead, Kornan smiled. “You’ve done well, Commander. I’m sure Makros would be proud.”

  “What?” Kurak said. Makros had been her mentor at the Science Institute. His patronage was responsible for her being given not only a commission but the field rank of commander upon enlisting. He died during the war, when a Breen ship attacked the shipyard where he’d been working. She couldn’t imagine anyone in the Defense Force who wasn’t a general or an engineer knowing who he was.

  “Makros. He was a great engineer. I’m sure he’s in Sto-Vo-Kor now, coming up with better ships for the warriors of history to use in battle.” Kornan smiled, showing impressively sharp teeth.

  “Well, I will have to disagree with you, Commander—Makros would be appalled to see me working under such obscene conditions.”

  “Perhaps, but we are lucky to have you on the Gorkon. I will provide you with the full report of my inspection by the end of the shift. I do have some changes that will need to be implemented due to the nature of our mission, particularly regarding duty shifts.”

  “I look forward to reading the report, Commander.” For the first time in her career, Kurak spoke those words and meant it.

  As he left, and Kurak ordered her subordinates back to their stations, she admonished herself, Didn’t you learn your lesson with Leskit? Form no attachments. She almost let herself go to that old razorbeast, and then he left.

  Of course, he’s back now. And it is going to be a long mission….

  The rest of the shift went as expected. The Gorkon was traveling at warp eight toward Kavrot. The battle damage from Narendra III—which had been minimal in any case—had long since been repaired. So at shift’s end, Kurak retired to her cabin. As a commander, she was entitled to her own room, which was a luxury even on a ship this size. One of many things she had to thank Makros for.

  Kurak still hated it. Her closet back home had more space than this and similar claustrophobic holes that she’d been calling home for the past few years.

  Just one more year.

  The door closed loudly behind her and she collapsed on the bunk, the hard metal a comfort. She supposed she should eat something, though she couldn’t motivate herself to get up and go to the mess hall.

  Besides, Leskit might be there. And I still haven’t figured out if I want to take him to my bed or beat him to a pulp.

  Not that the two are mutually exclusive….

  Then the door chime sounded. She wondered who it could possibly be. “Who is it?”

  “Kornan.”

  She blinked. “Enter.”

  The door parted to reveal Kornan’s muscular form. “I said we would discuss your inspection further at the end of the shift, Commander.”

  Kurak sat up. “So you did.”

  “I’m afraid that I’ll have to perform a more detailed inspection, first.”

  She frowned. “Of what?”

  A grin formed on Kornan’s face. “Of the chief engineer.”

  At that, Kurak laughed. It felt good. She hadn’t laughed since—

  Since Leskit was last on board.

  Kornan approached her. She could smell his excitement from the moment he walked in the door. It, in turn, excited her—

  —but not as much as she’d hoped. Kornan was certainly attractive enough, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to get involved again.

  Not after the way things ended with Leskit.

  But things got out of hand with the old pilot. He’d never intended more than a romp, and she wasn’t really willing to give more than that in any case.

  And yet…

  Her hesitation obviously was coming through, as Kornan hesitated. “What is wrong?”

  “I just came off duty, Commander, and I’m not really in the mood for an inspection.” She smiled. “At the moment.”

  Kornan leaned close to her face. His scent now filled her entire body. “It will be a very long mission,” he whispered in her ear.

  She pushed him away. “Then you have plenty of time.”

  “I may grow impatient.” He smiled.

  She smiled back. “That’s your concern, Commander, not mine.” Then she guided him toward the door. As it opened, she said, “It’s up to you to determine how badly you want to make that inspection.”

  He left, a lascivious grin on his face.

  As soon as the door closed, Kurak let out a growl. Why did you let him go? He made you laugh.

  Of course, so did Leskit. And, as Kornan said, it is a long mission we have ahead of us. Let us see where things lead.

  Instead, she sat down with the intention of catching up on the technical journals she’d downloaded at Ty’Gokor. Given the distances they’d be traveling, it might be months before she saw a new one, and she wanted to be as up to date as possible.

  And in just a year, I’ll be able to write for them again….

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Nine weeks passed.

  Klag was sitting in his office,
sipping a raktajino and reading over assorted reports, when the door chime rang. Setting the padd aside, Klag grunted in acknowledgment. The door opened to Kornan.

  The first officer held two padds of his own. “We will be in sensor range of the binary star system in an hour, and we have received the latest dispatches from Command, sir.”

  Wearily regarding Kornan, Klag asked, “And what joyous tidings have we received from the Homeworld?”

  “Apparently, the K’mpec has found a planet worthy of conquest.”

  “What!?” We have spent nine weeks charting useless rocks, yet Dorrek, of all people, has found something of use?

  Kornan held out one of the padds. Klag leaned forward and snatched it. “The planet is called Brenlek,” the first officer said. “Captain Dorrek has called in General Talak’s fleet, and they anticipate subjugating the populace within the week.”

  Klag read over the dispatch, which indicated that Brenlek was rich in both uridium and dilithium, and had a native populace that Klag’s younger brother described as “easy to conquer” in his report.

  “In addition,” Kornan continued, “the Kravokh defeated an alien ship that appears to be part of a small confederation. They’re investigating further to see if they are worthy of being conquered.”

  Snorting, Klag thought, Well, it may not be Romulans, but at least you have your battle, Wirrk. And now Klag was halfway toward winning his wager with the Kravokh’ s captain.

  Though at the rate we’re going, I will never fulfill my half.

  “I have scheduled a battle drill for tomorrow,” Kornan added.

  “Good. Hold it an hour earlier.”

  Kornan blinked. “Sir?”

  “You posted the time for the battle drill, yes?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Then coordinate with Toq to have the drill commence an hour sooner—make the crew think it’s an actual attack. You’ll find the results to be more telling that way.”

  “An excellent idea, sir.”

  Klag snarled. “Dismissed.”

  As Kornan left the captain’s office, Klag thought, Tereth never announced battle drills. Then he again cast aside the thought as unworthy. Kornan needed to be judged on his own merits, or lack of them, not on the fact that he was different from his predecessor—hardly an offense he could avoid.