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

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  So he took that as his vocation. Goran’s natural talent for banging people’s heads together proved quite useful. And when that didn’t work, he had the disruptor.

  Father had given Goran the disruptor when he reached the Age of Ascension. “This disruptor has been in our family for three generations. My grandfather served with Dahar Master Kor. He fought the legendary Kirk and Ambassador Spock in a great struggle on Organia during the last great Federation War. Grandfather said he shot several dozen Organians with this weapon, and also fired on Ambassador Spock with it, though obviously he did not kill him.”

  “Why not?” Goran had asked the top of Father’s head.

  Laughing, Father had said, “Because Ambassador Spock is still alive, boy. Don’t interrupt. Anyhow, Grandfather passed this on to my father, and he passed it on to me. I want you to have it now.”

  Goran proudly took the disruptor. He had heard many stories about Dahar Master Kor, from his campaigns at Organia and the Delta Triangle to his great victories at Klach D’Kel Brakt and the Korma Pass. To think that his own great-grandfather served with such a legend…

  Shortly after that, Goran began his career as a guard, and the same disruptor pistol that had almost killed Ambassador Spock was used to keep many a prisoner in line.

  Until the scandal, anyhow.

  To this day, Goran wasn’t sure of the details. All he knew was that his parents had done something horribly wrong involving deals with prisoners and letting people escape—or maybe it involved stealing money. The representative from the High Council who had ordered Goran’s parents to be arrested and taken away to trial tried to explain to Goran more than once, but he had never been able to fully comprehend it all, instead just staring at the top of the representative’s head with his mouth hanging open, trying not to feel foolish.

  What he did know was that they could not allow Goran to keep working at Rura Penthe—especially after his parents were sentenced to serve the rest of their lives there. Had Goran been of a turn of mind to appreciate irony, he might have laughed at that. Instead, he was just confused. All he’d known all his life was keeping prisoners in line and winning fights. What could he do elsewhere?

  The representative from the High Council proposed a simple solution: to join the Klingon Defense Force as a soldier. After all, in the Defense Force, they always needed ground troops, whose job was similar to his prison guards’ duties of banging heads together and shooting people with his disruptor.

  As an added bonus, he learned how to use edged weapons. He owned both a bat’leth and a tik’leth—he had taken them off prisoners who, after all, didn’t need them anymore—but had never been trained in their use. One of his fellow soldiers on his first posting showed him how to fight with them, though Goran had been able to put only some of the bat’leth techniques to good use, as it was, for Goran, pretty much a one-handed weapon. His hands were so much larger than average that to use both hands to grip the weapon meant a fatal sacrifice of dexterity. However, the tik’leth was something he took to fairly easily, with its single grip and long, wide blade. And he already knew how to use a disruptor. Even if it wasn’t regulation, his superiors usually didn’t mind, as long as it didn’t misfire.

  His first posting was to the I.K.S. Nipak. The ship won every campaign it fought after Goran came on, and the squads he served in always got through alive. Goran continued to never lose a fight. There were times where his shipmates were not all victorious, but his personal fights always resulted in victory. He was bigger and stronger than anyone, after all.

  Best of all, on those rare occasions where he saw people’s faces instead of the tops of their heads, they didn’t look upon him with fear. He was their comrade-in-arms, a fellow warrior who was going out to die for the Empire.

  Or, in Goran’s case, fight for the Empire. He didn’t fancy the idea of dying. Dying meant you lost, and Goran never lost. That was one of the few good things about being the biggest and the strongest.

  During the Dominion War, he was transferred to the Ki’tang. True to form, even when his crewmates lost, Goran was victorious. The Ki’tang was the only Klingon ship to survive the attack on Chin’toka, and also was the ship that found a way to resist a deadly Breen weapon. However, the Ki’tang was eventually destroyed at Nramia—but it was while the ground troops were on Nramia, so Goran once again lived, and the planet was taken from the Dominion.

  Now he served on the Gorkon, and his good fortune continued. His squad held the road during the initial attack, and his squad defended the prize yesterday. Now, once again Goran was called upon.

  He liked Captain Klag. He liked the Gorkon. And he wanted to win, mainly because he didn’t know what it was like to lose and never wanted to find out.

  All he had to do was hold up a rock.

  When given the instruction to go ahead by Captain Klag—who was watching, along with several of his shipmates and several more of the natives—Goran bent over and squeezed his massive frame into the space between the two flat-top rocks, bracing his shoulders against the plank.

  Then he slowly started to stand up.

  The wood pressed against his back and shoulders, putting pressure on his spinal ridges.

  He started to straighten his knees.

  The pressure on his spine and shoulders intensified.

  The plank did not move.

  Goran refused to accept this. Once he fought off fifteen Kreel. Or maybe it was nine. Goran had always had trouble counting, but in any case, there were a lot of them. And he killed all of them without getting a scratch. During the war, he killed dozens of Jem’Hadar soldiers, and none of them had ever been able to do more than wound him.

  He could damn well lift a rock. Even a heavy one.

  Again, he started to straighten his knees.

  The plank rose into the air. Goran reached up to balance the plank with his massive arms.

  His knees were now straight, but he remained hunched over, making his back and neck as flat as possible so he could keep the plank flat.

  Then he stood still.

  For some, this might be the difficult part. Now that he had his balance, after all, it was simply a question of endurance. Physical endurance was not a problem for Goran. Mental endurance was another thing altogether. But Goran had spent his formative years as a prison guard. He was used to standing still and staring straight ahead and not doing anything. The actual number of opportunities to bang heads together or shoot people were few and far between. By the time prisoners made it to Rura Penthe, they were broken, and those who weren’t, well, the planet itself would take care of that in fairly short order. Some guards, of course, liked to pick fights with inmates, but Goran had never been one for that. If drawn into a fight, he was in it for keeps, but he never started fights. It seemed wrong, somehow, what with him being so big and strong.

  So he started to think.

  Mostly Goran thought about his friends. Who his friends were would change from time to time—lately, the number included the fellow members of Fifteenth Squad. He liked them very much. He was also sorry that Krevor and Davok had died. He wanted to help them as they fought, but Leader Wol had ordered him to stay where he was to defend the prize, and that was what he did. After the battle was over, the Leader told him that he had done the right thing. By keeping the natives from claiming the prize, he kept Krevor and Davok’s deaths from being in vain.

  Goran had been very pleased when the Leader told him that. He was still sad at the deaths of Krevor and Davok, but at least they had died well. Father had always told him that it was important to die well.

  Of course, Father died on Rura Penthe. One of the inmates didn’t like Father’s face, and so stabbed him in the eye with an icicle. Mother died of an infection a year later. That wasn’t, as far as Goran knew, dying well at all. But it was hard to die well in prison, he supposed.

  The plank pressed down on his spine. Pain started crawling through his thick neck. His arms grew heavier. Goran might have been big and
strong, but even he had his limits. So lost in his thoughts of Krevor and Davok and Mother and Father had he been that he had no idea how much time had passed.

  A wave of dizziness and nausea overcame him, and the bregit lung he’d eaten started to well up in his throat. An acidy taste filled his mouth. Goran had had a hearty meal before beaming down to participate in the contest, joined by Leader Wol and G’joth—and even QaS DevwI’ Vok had partaken of a portion of the feast, which pleased Goran greatly. Vok was a good warrior, and Goran was happy to be serving under him.

  A second dizzy spell forced Goran to lose his footing, and he almost stumbled forward. That would mean losing the rock, however, so he managed to straighten himself out, keeping the rock on the plank.

  The pressure now was like nothing Goran had ever felt. It was as if someone had placed the entire Gorkon on his back. Black spots started to form in front of his eyes. He tried to blink them away, but that just made more of them appear.

  I can’t lose. I must hold the rock. I am the strongest.

  Eventually, however, his knees gave out, and he stumbled to the ground. The rock fell off the plank, and slammed into the ground, forming a wide divot in the dirt.

  “Impressive,” the head of the natives said. “You lasted longer than any other. Twenty-six thousand four hundred and two seeds passed into the basket.”

  Goran sat upright and tried to figure out what that meant.

  Dr. B’Oraq came up to him and asked him how he felt.

  “I am fine. My back and neck hurt.” He looked at the head native. “What does that mean?”

  Klag answered when the native hesitated. “It means, Bekk, that you held a koltanium rock on your back for over seven hours. Congratulations. You have served me well.”

  That was what Goran wanted to hear. He started to get up, but B’Oraq put a small hand on his big shoulder.

  “Not so fast, Bekk. You’re severely dehydrated, and there’s probably half a dozen ligaments out of alignment. I take it you don’t want to beam back to the Gorkon until after Fe-Ruv takes her turn?”

  Goran blinked. “I cannot leave until the battle is over.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She injected him with one of her devices. “This will help with the dehydration.” Then she handed him a small bottle. “So will this. Drink it.”

  Taking the bottle, Goran removed the top and started pouring the contents into his mouth. The chill of the ice-cold liquid reminded him of Rura Penthe as it washed the acid taste out of his mouth.

  It took two natives to put the plank back on the two flat-top rocks and six more of them to put the koltanium rock back on the plank.

  Then the other native—what was her name? Fe-Ruv?—bent down and stood between the rocks just as Goran had.

  Then she stood up.

  Goran was annoyed. She did not struggle as he had. She simply rose and the rock rose with her.

  As she did so, Goran saw something he had been too busy focusing on his own efforts to notice. One of the natives upended a thin-necked bottle into a harness over a thickly woven basket. The bottle was full of large seeds, but the bottle’s neck was so thin that only one seed could pass through at a time. The seeds passed through at a rate of about one per second.

  Finally Goran realized that it was a timekeeping device. The number of seeds that fell into the basket denoted the number of seconds that first Goran and now Fe-Ruv had hefted the koltanium rock.

  Goran was very proud of how he had worked that out.

  Then he glanced over at his foe and saw the expression on Fe-Ruv’s face.

  Most of the inmates of Rura Penthe were not Klingons. Goran had therefore gotten very good at reading the faces of many alien races—particularly ones who tried to appear stronger than they truly were. It was a survival skill in a place like Rura Penthe, and he had seen aliens who were very good at it and ones who were very bad at it. Goran didn’t know much, but he knew when someone was attempting to look strong.

  Fe-Ruv was trying desperately to look strong.

  She stumbled around, losing her balance more than once. Goran was sure she’d fall over within the first half-hour, and then it would all be over. The Gorkon would win the contest, and it would all be because Goran was the biggest and the strongest.

  He liked that idea very much.

  But eventually, Fe-Ruv got her bearings. Eventually, she kept her balance.

  She stood still.

  Hours passed.

  One of the San-Tarah brought some food to the spectators—some kind of dried, salted meat. Someone told him it was the remains of the san-chera that Lieutenant Toq had hunted. Goran found it rather tasty. Toq, too, had won a great victory, so Goran thought it was good that he got to feast on Toq’s triumph while waiting for his own to become a reality.

  One of the two suns was starting to disappear behind the trees. B’Oraq came over, then, to ask how Goran was doing.

  “I am fine. How much time has passed?”

  “Almost seven hours.”

  This did not make Goran happy. Fe-Ruv was no longer trying to look strong. She looked strong all on her own, in fact.

  And now it had been seven hours.

  Then he heard it.

  Fe-Ruv’s tongue had been hanging out of the side of her mouth for quite some time—at least an hour. Now Goran heard heavy panting coming from that mouth, and her tongue hung out even farther. She was starting to weaken.

  Again, she started to stumble.

  Goran’s heart sang. Soon she would drop the plank or fall to the ground. Then once again he would win!

  Finally, she fell.

  As she collapsed to her knees, the rock fell off the plank and embedded itself in the ground once again.

  “Twenty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven seeds passed through the screen,” the head of the natives said. “Victory belongs this day to the Children of San-Tarah.”

  Goran’s mouth fell open. He was so shocked he could not summon the energy to close it.

  He lost.

  In his entire life Goran had never lost before.

  But now some strange alien had proven herself stronger. She held the koltanium for over four hundred seconds longer than he had.

  He lost.

  “Tomorrow we will have the final contest—a swordfight in the circle.” The native leader bared his teeth. “I, Me-Larr, Head of the Ruling Pack, shall represent the Children of San-Tarah.”

  “And I, Captain Klag, son of M’Raq, shall represent the Gorkon.” The captain smiled. “As it should be.”

  Goran barely acknowledged the words. He lost.

  He did not know what to do.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Te-Run stood before the Ruling Pack on the night before the final contest. Even as Fe-Ruv was triumphing over the alien Bekk Goran, a pack had gone on the day’s hunt and brought back a fine san-rellik, which had served as the evening meal. Several members of the Gorkon crew had joined the feast, including the healer B’Oraq and the hunter Toq. The latter was asked to tell the story of his subduing of the chera-mak, a story that, Te-Run was sure, would be told at feasts for the next several generations regardless of the outcome of the contest.

  She had asked Me-Larr for permission to speak before the Pack after the feast ended and the Klingons departed, which Me-Larr had granted. In truth, asking was a formality. Te-Run had more than earned the right to speak before the Pack whenever she pleased.

  The Ruling Pack gathered in the Meeting Hut. Each of them took their place, lying on their stomachs. The heads of many san-reak decorated the walls of the hut, testament to Great Hunts of the past. Me-Larr lit a fire with the wood from the Sacred Tree, and pronounced the gathering to have commenced.

  Then Te-Run spoke.

  “Tomorrow, the fate of our world will be determined. For many generations, we have heard the stories of the beings who fought wars in our skies and blotted out the stars. For many generations we have wondered if other beings would come from the sky. Now they
have come, and they have changed everything.”

  Ga-Tror laughed and said, “Not if Me-Larr is victorious tomorrow.”

  Several of the Pack joined in the Fight Leader’s laugh, but Te-Run was not among them. Young, ignorant fool. “You are incorrect, Ga-Tror. The change has already been made, and even if Me-Larr is victorious and Captain Klag takes his ship away never to return, everything has changed. Because we know that they are there. And they are better than us.”

  “You speak madness, old woman,” Ga-Tror said.

  “Mind your place, Ga-Tror!” Me-Larr stood up as he rebuked the Fight Leader. “Te-Run is the oldest and wisest of us, and I have never known her words to be mad.”

  Respect returned to Ga-Tror’s voice. “I am sorry, Me-Larr, but these Klingons are simply beings like us.”

  “No, they are not,” Te-Run said emphatically. “I have been to their ship. I have seen what they are capable of. Whatever the beings from the sky did to blot out the stars also hampers their technology. Many of their tools do not function here. And that is all that has saved us, because without that, their weaponry could eliminate the Prime Village from the sky without their ever setting foot on our grounds.

  “And there is more. Say Me-Larr does win tomorrow and they go away. We will be denied the use of their technology.”

  “What need do we have of it?” Ga-Tror asked.

  “One of their fighters, Rodek, was on the sea. He received a grave injury to his head.”

  “So he is dead,” Ga-Tror said. “What of it?”

  Te-Run bared her teeth. “No. He is not. He lives and breathes on the Gorkon. I have seen it. I have been to a place they call a medical bay. They have healing arts far beyond anything we could imagine.”

  “She speaks the truth,” Me-Larr said. “Captain Klag told us of his right arm, which he lost in battle. It was replaced with a new one.”