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

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “That is impossible,” Ga-Tror said, and several grumblings from around the circle indicated that the others thought this claim to be dubious as well.

  “You all saw Toq on this night,” Te-Run said. “And you saw his wounds after he brought the chera-mak to us. Was there any sign of those wounds tonight?”

  Even Ga-Tror found himself speechless.

  “Exactly. They can fight with even more passion, more skill than we because they know they can be healed. Imagine what we could do with those arts.”

  Me-Larr stood up. “We will do nothing with those arts if I am victorious tomorrow. And if you are asking me to lose deliberately—”

  “I would never make such a perverse request!” Te- Run also stood up, her claws extending in outrage. “But our actions tomorrow will have greater consequences than the immediate. And there is something else.”

  Sitting back down, Me-Larr prompted, “Yes?”

  “We have been fortunate in that the Klingons are sensible folk, who share many of our ways. But Captain Klag and his fighters have spoken of other worlds, other species, other peoples. Not all of them will be as wise as Klingons, nor have their sense of propriety and of right and wrong. We may well be vulnerable to them. If Me-Larr is victorious tomorrow, then we must turn our thoughts to how we may defend ourselves against others who may come from the sky to destroy us. These Klingons were the first. Or perhaps those who blotted out the stars were the first, but their war prevented them from taking advantage of us. Either way, though, I do not believe that they will be the last.”

  An insistent beeping sound awoke G’joth. He was awake in an instant, and, out of habit, he called up for Davok to awaken. He had done this every day for years; without that, Davok would sleep straight through and miss his morning duty.

  “Davok, you old toDSaH, wake up or—”

  He stopped himself. Davok was dead. G’joth would never have to make the idiot get up again.

  With a heavy sigh, G’joth climbed out of his bunk and down the ladder. He passed Krevor’s old bunk. She’s dead, too. G’joth and Krevor had shared bunks once, a few weeks into the mission. She was an agile lover—or as agile as possible, given the space limitations in the bunks—and G’joth wished he had asked her for a second coupling. He wasn’t entirely sure she enjoyed it as much as he did, though, and he speculated that she probably found him too old. Such speculation was enough to discourage him from making that request for more.

  Now he’d never know.

  Leader Wol was fishing out a disruptor from her belongings. “Leader,” he said out of respect.

  “G’joth. We have guard duty. Each of us has been assigned to one of the weapons lockers.”

  This didn’t surprise G’joth. When squads suffered losses in the midst of a campaign, they were often given simple shipboard duties for a day or two until soldiers were reassigned. Two others from lesser squads would eventually be given positions in the fifteenth.

  But G’joth doubted that either of them would be so entertainingly cantankerous as Davok. Or as much fun as Krevor.

  G’joth then noticed that Goran’s bunk was empty. “Where’s the big man?” G’joth asked.

  Wol shrugged. “I was discharged from the medical bay five minutes ago. He wasn’t in his bunk when I got here.” She looked up suddenly. “Do you smell something?”

  “Yes,” G’joth said, getting a whiff of some kind of incense. Then he heard footfalls—very loud footfalls that could only belong to one person on the Gorkon.

  Sure enough, Goran approached. He was carrying adanji incense in one hand, a mevak dagger in the other, and wearing a robe that was about three sizes too small for him and looked to be constricting his ability to breathe.

  “You must be joking,” G’joth said.

  “Bekk, what are you doing?” Wol asked, though she must have known.

  “I claim the right of Mauk-to’Vor. I know family is supposed to perform it, but I have no family. At least, if I do, I don’t know where they are. So I’m asking you, Leader, to kill me.”

  Through clenched teeth, Wol said, “Bekk, you will take that absurd robe off, get into uniform, and report to Armory Number Three immediately, is that clear?”

  “You don’t understand! I lost!”

  “So what?”

  G’joth shook his head. “Goran, Klingons lose all the time. It is nothing to be ashamed of if you fought your best and didn’t give in to cowardice.”

  “I—I didn’t do that.”

  “Commander Kurak lost the naval contest, Goran,” Wol said. “She didn’t think it cause to kill herself.”

  “Well, she’s an officer, she should expect to make a targ’s ear out of real combat,” G’joth muttered.

  “G’joth!”

  He looked at Wol. “Well, it’s true! All officers are good for is getting us killed!” He turned to the oversized bekk. “Look, Goran, you fought your best. That’s all that matters. At least you’re still alive, so you have a chance to win again. Krevor and Davok are dead, and they’re not coming back. They don’t have the same chance you do.”

  “But—but I’ve never lost before.”

  G’joth blinked. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  For only the second time since he woke up in the medical bay and learned that Davok and Krevor were dead, G’joth laughed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Goran, it’s that, no matter what you’re good at, there’s always someone better. Sometimes a lot of someones. I, for example, now know that there are hundreds—no, thousands of Klingons in the Empire who are better than I am at composing an opera.”

  “Or writing a novel,” Wol added.

  G’joth laughed again. “Yes, or writing a poem or a song. However, that is hardly grounds for death.” He put a hand on Goran’s tree trunk of an arm. “It just means I need to focus on what I’m good at.”

  Goran looked confused. “But what I’m good at is fighting and being biggest and strongest. I lost at that!”

  Wol said, “Then you’ll just have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But you will not perform the Mauk-to’Vor. To request it under these circumstances is cowardly—and there will be no cowards in my squad, is that understood, Bekk? Krevor and Davok died glorious deaths. I expect you to do the same—with a weapon in your hand and a song in your heart, not hiding behind a ritual intended to restore honor to one who has lost it.”

  “Besides,” G’joth added, “it’s not like you lost at fighting. You did well at that two days ago.”

  Goran nodded. “That’s true.”

  “Now then,” Wol said, “you have one minute to get out of that robe and back into uniform. You have duties to perform.”

  “You can rely on me, Leader,” Goran said, removing the robe.

  Sighing, G’joth cast a glance up at the two empty bunks that used to belong to Krevor and Davok. It’s nice to know that we can rely on something.

  After discharging Leader Wol from the medical bay, B’Oraq had beamed straight down to San-Tarah. She had spent a great deal of time during the previous night’s feast answering questions about medicine, and she promised to return at first sunrise and give a demonstration in basic first aid. In preparation, she had dug out her old copy of The Starfleet Survival Guide—a graduation present from one of her classmates at Starfleet Medical—and used it as a reminder of the first-aid classes that the Academy gave to all first-year cadets.

  B’Oraq was appalled when she discovered that the Children of San-Tarah didn’t even know how to make a splint for a broken bone. Apparently such an injury usually led to the offending limb being cut off or simply healing badly—and eventually resulting in what they referred to as the Green Death.

  As she demonstrated on one San-Tarah volunteer using two branches from a nearby tree, she thought, Gangrene. They’re dying of gangrene. It’s an obscenity. The next time I think Klingon medicine is primitive, I’m going to remind myself of this place.

  Her demonstration came to an end just as t
he captain beamed down from the Gorkon. The timing was deliberate, as all of her students wanted to see the final contest. Indeed, dozens had arrived that morning—and were continuing to arrive—from other villages as word had spread throughout the continent of the contests, and how the fate of the world was now being decided by death-duel in the circle.

  To B’Oraq’s considerable dismay, Klag beamed down holding a bat’leth.

  She almost ran to her captain’s side. “Sir, may I have a word with you?”

  “Be quick, Doctor.” Klag spoke coldly, apparently still angry about her questioning of his motives in the medical bay days ago. “I have a battle to win.”

  “Really? Then why are you holding a bat’leth?”

  Klag snorted. “You would have me use a slingshot, perhaps? The San-Tarah swords are formidable weapons, Doctor. I will require a bat’leth.”

  “Captain, we’ve only begun the bat’leth drills. It will be months before you’re back up to your old levels.” Remembering Morr’s admonition after the holodeck session, B’Oraq thought that estimate was generous, but she was pushing her luck as it was, and wasn’t eager to have her arm broken again. “I think you’d be better off using a mek’leth.”

  “Doctor, I have the utmost respect for you as a physician. However, you are my doctor, not my qownSlor, ” he said, using the human term for a ship’s psychologist, “nor an expert in armed combat. This is the second time you have advised me in matters outside your purview. There will not be a third.”

  “There has not been a first!” B’Oraq tugged agitatedly on her braid. “Your state of mind while commanding the Gorkon is very much in my ‘purview’ as ship’s physician, Captain, and as for your choice of weapon, it is my opinion as the surgeon who performed the transplant procedure on your arm that you are not yet ready for full use of that arm. That includes a death-duel with a bat’leth. My advice to you as your doctor is to use a mek’leth—or perhaps a tik’leth.”

  Klag smoldered, and B’Oraq prepared for an attack that she suspected would result in far more than a broken arm.

  However, the attack did not come. “Your advice is noted, Doctor. But a one-handed weapon is a poor match for the San-Tarah sword. It must be a bat’leth.”

  Before B’Oraq could object further, Klag turned his back on her—a deliberate insult—and walked away.

  We will lose this planet, and our commanding officer, to your foolish pride, Captain. She looked around at the Children of San-Tarah to whom she had taught the most rudimentary of first-aid skills, and thought about how much more she could teach them. And these good people will lose their only chance to receive the benefits of our rule.

  ***

  When she came off-shift, Leader Wol entered the security office. The office was a small, cramped space occupied solely by a desk piled high with padds. Lokor sat at that desk, reading three padds at once and entering data into a terminal.

  Wol’s encounters with the security chief of the Gorkon had been minimal. She had heard the same rumors as everyone on board, of course—that Lokor was secretly a member of Imperial Intelligence. Most of the troops believed it, but Wol did not. Back in the days when she was a true highborn Klingon, she had met several agents of I.I. Wol had no doubt that there was at least one I.I. agent on board the Gorkon, and there were probably several; she had just as little doubt that they were not in positions so—well, obvious as chief of security.

  G’joth had told her his own theory, that Lokor was part of a group of Defense Force personnel who were dedicated to wiping out I.I. completely. “Fanatical devotees of Kahless,” he had said, “who find any actions taken by a covert group to be inherently dishonorable.” Right after he shared this, Davok, naturally, had declared it the most idiotic thing he’d ever heard.

  Lokor’s intense black eyes did not look up from his work as he spoke. “I assume you’re here to return the adanji that Bekk Goran stole.”

  Wol stopped short halfway through the doorway. “Well, yes, actually. How did you know—?”

  “Nothing happens on this ship that I am not aware of, Leader.” Now Lokor looked up at her. “You would do well to remember that.”

  Right there and then, Wol decided that Lokor had started the I.I. rumors himself. “If that’s the case, why didn’t you stop Goran?”

  Lokor shrugged. “I was prepared to if it became necessary. Three of my deputies were stationed near your bunk area. If you were unsuccessful in your endeavor to relieve Goran both of the adanji and of the notion that he was a candidate for Mauk-to’Vor, they would have moved in. Your actions made it unnecessary.”

  Wol walked into the office. “My actions shouldn’t have had anything to do with it, Lieutenant.” She cast about for a place to put down the pot of adanji, but found none on the cluttered desk. “If Goran did steal this adanji—” and until this moment, she hadn’t known of the theft, she simply thought Lokor was the sensible person to dispose of the incense “—then should he not be held responsible?”

  “Probably,” Lokor said with a nod that caused his intricately braided, waist-length hair to almost bounce. “But the punishment would have been to reassign him to the lowest-ranked squad and give him the lowest duties for a month. I think that’s a waste of the bekk’ s talents. Besides, the fifteenth has suffered enough losses on this campaign.” Lokor smiled, baring unusually sharp teeth. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Perhaps,” Wol said cautiously.

  “You’ve done very well as Leader, Wol. Vok was wise to give you the position. Though I have to admit, there is little in your service record to indicate why he would think you worthy of it.”

  That immediately put Wol on edge. What does he know? She chose her words carefully. After coming so far, she would not do well to make an enemy of the chief of security. That was as dangerous in its own way as making an enemy of the captain.

  “Vok saw things not apparent in the records.” If Vok could read between the lines of what happened on Mempa IX, so perhaps could Lokor.

  The security chief leaned back in his chair and fixed Wol with a penetrating gaze. “Then there are things not in any records. At least, not any public ones. Of course, one finds all manner of interesting things in public records. For example,” he held up one of his padds, “I was reading this account from the Homeworld about the mysterious disappearance of Eral, daughter of B’Etakk, several turns past. This Eral was a member in good standing of the House of Varnak. That House no longer exists, though I understand that they had a rather large reward posted for information regarding Eral’s whereabouts for a time. She was obviously a very valued member of that House, and they missed her very much.”

  Wol started. She hadn’t known about any reward.

  After a moment’s thought, though, she realized that it didn’t surprise her. Father wanted her to disappear, after all. If anyone could find her, he would want to know about it, so he would use the reward as a way of closing any holes in her disappearance that might crop up. Anyone who tried to claim the reward would no doubt find themselves on the wrong end of Father’s hired qutluch.

  Was Lokor fishing for information? She dismissed that thought immediately. He wouldn’t be having this conversation with me if he didn’t already have all the information. He’s waiting to see how I respond to it.

  “Lieutenant, you are speaking of a highborn woman. I can assure you, I would never have dealings with such a person. That I leave to those like yourself. I am content to serve the Empire in my own way. No doubt this Eral woman is dead from one of those silly romantic intrigues that plague such foolish women. Probably made the mistake of falling in love with a man beneath her station. I understand that women of your class do that sort of thing often.”

  Again, Lokor smiled. “Not as often as you might think. In any case, Leader, it is my considered opinion that you are twice the woman that the daughter of B’Etakk was. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  Wol allowed herself to relax, if only marginally. For the time being,
at least, Lokor was not making an enemy, just providing a warning. He was armed with information about her she would probably not want made public. He would not use it against her now, but it was there if he needed it.

  Lokor cleared several padds away to make room for the box of adanji. Wol set the box down. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  With that, she turned and left, and wondered how she could turn Lokor’s knowledge to her advantage. For one thing, he might know the specifics of who from Varnak died when the House was dismantled—and, possibly even the true parentage of all of them….

  Klag stood in the circle, gripping his bat’leth with both hands.

  The circle was approximately six meters in diameter, its circumfrence marked by a simple line in the dirt drawn with a stick. Primitive, Klag thought, but effective. A crowd of many hundreds of San-Tarah had gathered, not to mention dozens of Gorkon crew. Klag had granted leave to any of the first shift who wished to observe their captain’s moment of glory, and many had taken him up on it, including Toq and Leskit. The sole exception Klag had made was Kornan, and that only because someone needed to run the ship. The commander, to his credit, understood, and further arranged with Toq to set up a communications relay that would transmit the contest to the monitors on the Gorkon for all to see.

  Te-Run stood at one edge of the circle, and as soon as she raised her arms, all the Children of San-Tarah grew silent. It took a few more seconds for the Klingons to get the hint, but they quieted as well.

  “This is the final contest. It is fitting that the fate of our world will rest upon the leader of our Ruling Pack. If Captain Klag is victorious, then we shall willingly become part of the Klingon Empire, and we will be forever changed. If Me-Larr is triumphant this day, then the Children of San-Tarah shall attempt to live on as we have always done.”

  Interesting choice of phrase, Klag thought. “Attempt” to live on? Perhaps Te-Run sees the benefits of adding her people to the Empire. Good. It will make it that much easier for them when I win.

  “The combatants will remain within the circle and fight. The fight will end when one of them is defeated or when one of them steps outside the circle—and not before. Do you both understand these conditions?”