A Burning House

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Ba’el, it’s Toq. We’ve come to save you.”

  Ba’el’s beautiful face was streaked with Klingon and Romulan blood both. He suspected that the majority of the latter belonged to her father, Tokath, the leader of the colony, whose body lay over hers yet had somehow survived.

  “Toq?” she said weakly. “You came back.”

  “Yes. What happened?”

  “L’Kor.”

  Toq frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “They came for…for L’Kor. Said they’d…they’d spare us if we…we gave them…him. Father re-refused. So they took…took him any…” She lapsed into unconsciousness.

  Getting back to his feet, Toq said, “We must bring them to the Gorlak medical bay!”

  “Must we?” Kuut asked. “All I see here is a righteous act. Klingons and Romulans living together—the only thing the attackers got wrong was to leave these two breathing.” Unholstering his disruptor, he bared his teeth at Toq. “I will gladly rectify that error—and the error of leaving you alive.”

  He pointed the disruptor right at Toq’s face.

  Other Star Trek® stories featuring

  the Klingon Empire by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Star Trek: The Next Generation: Diplomatic Implausibility

  Star Trek: The Brave and the Bold Book 2

  Star Trek: The Lost Era: The Art of the Impossible

  Star Trek: I.K.S. Gorkon Book 1: A Good Day to Die

  Star Trek: I.K.S. Gorkon Book 2: Honor Bound

  Star Trek: The Next Generation:

  A Time for War, A Time for Peace

  Star Trek: I.K.S. Gorkon Book 3: Enemy Territory

  “loDnI’pu’ vavpu’ je”

  (in Star Trek: Tales from the Captain’s Table)

  Star Trek: Articles of the Federation

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Cover art by Stephan Martiniere; cover design by Alan Dingman

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-5884-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-5884-5

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  Dedicated to the fond memory of

  Rabbi David M. Honigsberg, 1958–2007.

  I hope they have good Scotch in Sto-Vo-Kor.

  Historian’s Note

  This novel takes place in early November 2376 on the human calendar and at the beginning of the Year of Kahless 1002 on the Klingon calendar; shortly after the events of I.K.S. Gorkon Book 3: Enemy Territory, approximately a year after “What You Leave Behind,” the final episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, about three years prior to the feature film Star Trek Nemesis, and simultaneous with the Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Andor: Paradigm.

  And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.

  —the Gospel According to St. Mark 3:24–26

  Only a fool fights in a burning house.

  —Klingon proverb

  One

  I.K.S. Gorkon

  Interstellar space

  The bat’leth sliced through the air, heading straight for Captain Klag’s neck.

  Without even thinking, Klag turned his left wrist, flipping his own bat’leth upward, cradling the blade’s curved handle in the crook of his left arm. The center of the other blade collided with the end of Klag’s with a metallic clang that echoed off the walls.

  Then Klag brought his own blade down, taking his adversary’s bat’leth with it, and slammed his foe’s jaw with his right palm heel. Pain glowed in Klag’s right hand from the impact of bare hand on bone, but it sent his opponent reeling. His heart pounding faster against his ribs, Klag whipped his bat’leth up and over his head, intending to strike his foe’s forehead crest.

  The other bat’leth came up, blocking the strike, then pressed forward, sending Klag stumbling back a few steps. In fact, it should have sent him only one step back, but Klag took a few extra to get his bearings. Klag knew his foe well and therefore was acutely aware how difficult victory would be.

  The two warriors circled each other, staring face-to-face only a body’s length apart. Klag held his bat’leth at an angle, his left hand gripping it tightly at chest level; his right hand, still sore from the blow to his foe’s hard jaw, cupping the curved blade around his hip. His opponent swirled his blade around in a crisscross pattern. It was a common maneuver, one ostensibly intended to protect against any frontal attack; in practice Klag always thought it was at best merely a clever distraction, and he never bothered with it.

  Again, his foe swung at his left side. Again, Klag blocked the strike with ease, but this time he was unable to entangle the other blade, and his foe tried to swing the downward part up toward Klag’s chest. Klag was able to deflect with the upper part. That locked their blades, giving his foe an opportunity to kick up toward Klag’s groin.

  Klag instinctively blocked the kick with his left hand, which worked as far as it went, but when he tightened his grip on the weapon with his right hand, that hand twinged. Wincing, Klag almost dropped the bat’leth as his fingers loosened of their own accord, but he forced himself to hang on.

  That gave his foe an opportunity to try another kick, this to Klag’s right side, which Klag was unable to block.

  But he didn’t need to. Stumbling to the left with the blow from his foe’s steel boot, and ignoring the pain that shot through his ribs from the impact, Klag let loose with a short punch to his foe’s exposed right side, then swung up with the bat’leth, striking his foe’s shoulder.

  Klag cursed himself. Klingon armor was strong in general, and on the shoulders it was particularly thick, to protect the neck. He might as well have struck the air for all the good a shoulder strike would do.

  A fist came at Klag’s face, and he ducked his head so his forehead crest would take the brunt of the blow. Their blades were still entangled, so Klag brought his knee up into his foe’s groin. That area was well armored as well, of course, but Klag’s main interest was in putting some distance between them, and most warriors would back off instinctively after receiving such a blow, regardless of its actual damage.

  Again, the pair faced off. This time, Klag’s foe didn’t bother with the crisscross motion, simply keeping his bat’leth ready in front of him.

  Then he came at Klag from the right, swinging the bat’leth in a very tight arc, leaving him very little time to parry.

  In one fluid motion, he swung the bat’leth up to block the strike and bring his foe’s bat’leth down.

  His foe smiled. “Well done, Captain!
”

  Klag returned the smile.

  Then he punched his foe in the face.

  As he fell to the floor, Klag threw his head back and laughed. “Do not assume the battle is over just because the mission is accomplished, Kohn.”

  Bekk Kohn laughed with his captain. “You are correct, of course, sir.”

  Kohn’s swing to Klag’s right had been the moment of truth for the captain. During the Dominion War, Klag lost his right arm at Marcan V while serving as first officer aboard the I.K.S. Pagh, which was destroyed on that planet. The only survivor of the Pagh’s crew, Klag slew one Vorta and half a dozen Jem’Hadar literally single-handedly. He was rewarded with a promotion and the captaincy of the I.K.S. Gorkon, one of the Chancellor-class vessels that were the cutting edge of the Klingon Defense Force.

  At the advice of his ship’s doctor, B’Oraq, Klag had a new right arm grafted on. B’Oraq, who studied to be a physician in the Federation and was on a one-woman crusade to improve the state of Klingon medicine, had wanted him to get a prosthetic, but Klag would not attach a machine to his body and call it his arm. Instead, he instructed her to transplant the limb of his father, M’Raq, who died like an old woman in his bed. Klag hoped to restore his father’s honor by wearing his good right arm into battle.

  But first he had to be accomplished with it. This had been a great stride in that direction.

  More laughter came from the two figures standing against the wall of the workout chamber. Klag turned and saw B’Oraq along with the leader of Kohn’s squad, Morr.

  “Your opinion, Doctor?” Klag asked.

  B’Oraq tugged on the auburn braid—bound at its base with a clasp in the shape of the emblem of her House—that sat on her right shoulder. “Your reaction time has improved tremendously, Captain, and you’ve adjusted to the differing lengths of the arms. A few more months and you might approach your old levels of bat’leth fighting.”

  That was not what Klag wanted to hear. He felt as good as ever and resented the implication that he wasn’t as good as he was before Marcan V. But he repressed that reaction quickly. In the months he had commanded this vessel, he had learned the hard way to respect B’Oraq’s opinions, mostly by virtue of her never being wrong.

  It had been the doctor’s suggestion that Klag spar with Kohn rather than Morr. The leader of First Squad, the elite of the Gorkon’s massive complement of troops, Morr also served as Klag’s bodyguard and was one of the most accomplished bat’leth fighters on the ship. Klag and Morr had also been sparring regularly since B’Oraq performed the graft of M’Raq’s arm onto Klag, and B’Oraq was concerned that they were getting too used to each other. Morr concurred, so he assigned Kohn to this duty, with explicit instructions to continue fighting for a significant time before attacking Klag’s right to see how he reacted.

  Klag was about to tell Morr and Kohn to report back to their duty stations—Klag himself intended to return to his cabin, so he would not require Morr’s services—when he felt the organs in his body shift upward ever so slightly, and his boots were no longer planted firmly on the deck.

  With a snarl, he touched the control on his arm to contact his chief engineer. “Klag to Kurak.”

  “I know, we’ve lost gravity. We’re working on it. I did warn you this would happen.”

  “Yes, Commander, you did. What I wish to know now is how soon it will be fixed.”

  “Two seconds. I suggest you brace yourself.”

  By the time Kurak finished that sentence, gravity had reasserted itself. Klag bent his knees as he came back to the deck, as did Kohn and Morr. B’Oraq was less agile and fell on her face, barely bracing herself with her hands.

  Struggling to her feet, B’Oraq brushed herself off and said, “Well, that was embarrassing.”

  Klag grinned. “I suggest you report to yourself, Doctor. And Kurak? How much more of this must we endure?”

  “I told you before, Captain, the damage to the Gorkon is far too extensive for field repairs to be anything but temporary. Until we arrive at Praxis, these malfunctions will continue.”

  “Very well, Commander. Out.” Klag snarled again. The Gorkon had been at the forefront of a very brief campaign against the Elabrej Hegemony, an upstart power that had attacked one of the Gorkon’s brother ships, the I.K.S. Kravokh, with no provocation and taken its captain and surviving crew prisoner and not permitted them to die. The Klingons’ retaliation was swift and devastating, and now there was no Elabrej Hegemony but simply a broken world on which the empire might or might not plant its flag.

  That decision was for General Goluk to make. He had remained behind to deal with that, while the surviving Chancellor-class vessels were to report back to the homeworld, with the exception of the Kesh, which remained with Goluk at Elabrej.

  The Gorkon would have had to have done so in any case, for the ship suffered considerable damage at the Elabrej’s hands, necessitating a crash landing on one of their moons. Kurak estimated that it would take at least two weeks in a shipyard for the mighty vessel to be fully repaired, and Kurak was not known for being inaccurate in such judgments.

  After dismissing Morr and Kohn, Klag left the workout room, heading to his own cabin. B’Oraq followed, saying, “During your leave, I want you to continue the drills—with Morr, with Kohn, or with someone. And keep doing the exercises I prescribed.”

  Klag shot her a look as they walked down the Gorkon’s corridors. “I assumed, Doctor, that you would be present for my exercises even during my leave.”

  Tugging on her braid again, B’Oraq smiled. “I was under the impression that leave meant I was at liberty.” The smile dropped. “Besides, I won’t have the time. My presence has been requested by the Klingon Physicians Enclave to speak at their conference.”

  Frowning, Klag said, “I’m unfamiliar with that organization.”

  “That is not surprising,” B’Oraq said with some small degree of bitterness. “Few know of the KPE outside the medical profession, and few in it care enough one way or the other. In fact, this is their first conference, and they’re having it—and inviting me—only due to pressure from the High Council.”

  “Then I suppose congratulations are in order,” Klag said neutrally.

  B’Oraq, typically, saw right through it. “You don’t approve.”

  “A conference sounds very…Vulcan. Sitting around and discussing.” Klag’s face scrunched up in disgust.

  “Perhaps, but it’s also the best way for us to learn more. Klingon doctors are not much for sharing, but with luck this conference will start to change that.”

  They reached Klag’s cabin, and the captain fixed his doctor with a dubious expression. “That seems unlikely.”

  “Of course it’s unlikely. The KPE is the most hide-bound organization in the empire, and that’s against some fairly stiff competition. Still, the longest journey begins with a single step, or so one of my instructors at Starfleet Medical insisted.”

  “That certainly sounds like a Federation sentiment,” Klag said dismissively. Klag liked and respected many citizens of the Federation, in particular Picard and Riker of the Enterprise, with whom he had shared many battles, but in general he found their way of life to be repugnant.

  The door to his cabin rumbled open. “I wish you success at your conference, B’Oraq. Where is it taking place?”

  “At the Lukara Edifice in Novat.”

  Klag did not know the place, but he had also never been to the city of Novat. “When do you depart?”

  “I’m due to present a monograph two days after we arrive on Qo’noS.” She smiled and tugged her braid. “In fact, it’s about you. Or, more accurately, your right arm. I’m off to complete the paper now—assuming Kurak’s latest gravity disaster hasn’t resulted in more patients. I no longer have a nurse to fob them off on.” That last was added bitterly. B’Oraq’s nurse, Gaj, had been put to death after she was exposed as being part of a mutiny against Klag.

  “I hope you will not need me to provide a demonstr
ation?” Klag asked.

  B’Oraq shook her head. “It would probably help them pay attention, but no, that sort of thing isn’t done. Klingon doctors pride themselves on getting their patients back out into the world as fast as possible. The idea of a patient hanging around to be examined is anathema.”

  “Even were it not, I would be unavailable. All the Chancellor-class captains have been ordered to report to General Kriz at Command.”

  Frowning, B’Oraq said, “All of them?”

  “Well, except for Captain Kvaad, since the Kesh remained at Elabrej, but otherwise, yes—it will be to go over the entire Kavrot mission, not simply the war with the Elabrej.”

  “Even Dorrek?”

  The mention of his estranged younger brother brought Klag up short. “I…I do not know.”

  “If all the Chancellor-class captains are to be present, it only makes sense that the captain of the K’mpec would attend as well.”

  “Yes,” Klag said quietly. He had been hoping that he would not have to see Dorrek again so soon after Klag discommendated him from their House. “He probably will be. Kriz has never been one to pay attention to family concerns.” There would be a notation in Dorrek’s file that he had been removed from the House of M’Raq by Klag, so when Kriz made the record of the gathering, he would see it, but that didn’t mean he would necessarily pay attention to it.

  Klag shook his head. “It matters not. We are both captains in the Defense Force, and we must report to our commander. We will do so.” He looked down at B’Oraq. “Qapla’, Doctor.”

  “Captain—” B’Oraq put out an arm, then cut herself off.

  “Yes?” Klag prompted when her pause threatened to go on forever.

  “I…I wish to once again express my gratitude. My attempts to improve the state of our medicine—”

  Unable to help himself, Klag smiled. “Your crusade, you mean.”

  “Call it what you will,” B’Oraq said tartly, “I have made great strides over the past few months, and a great deal of it is due to your acceding to the transplant. Having the Hero of Marcan and Elabrej and the Conqueror of the San-Tarah undergo one of my ‘barbaric’ Federation-inspired procedures has done much to legitimize my work in the eyes of our people.”