By Nathan Warner
To avenge an attack on Chancellor Martok, Captain Kor'Ban must hunt down the traitor responsible.
The hunt had been invigorating, Captain Kor’Ban reflected, but sadly it was nearing time to swoop in for the kill. Compared to the pitched battles of the Dominion War, this quest had been tame, yet the stakes were higher where honor was concerned and the pursuit of their prey had strained him more than any battle had. He glanced warily out the viewscreen through the murk of a dust storm as his helmsman landed their Bird of Prey - the Djak’an - on a dead world under the cover of a class 5 sandstorm. Instinctively, Kor’Ban drew out Chancellor Martok’s D’k Tahg knife and gripped the handle firmly in his hand, practicing the killing blow. “It is time,” he whispered to himself. “Yes, it is time for vengeance.”
For 6 months he’d been hunting down an Orion Syndicate operative across twelve different worlds. Called the Silver Fox, Klingon intelligence believed his real name was Ja’ral. His full identity remained a mystery, but it was known that he was a Klingon. This came as no surprise as the Syndicate made an effort to recruit species from every planet where they conducted business, and the business they had conducted on Q'onoS was why Kor’Ban was landing on this dead moon.
During the Dominion War, the Orion Syndicate had stepped up their operations in the criminal underbelly on Q’onoS. Chancellor Gowron had been content to use their black-market resources to provide intelligence, weapons, and even mercenaries for the war. That all changed when General Martok became Chancellor. His anti-corruption policies had made great strides at reforming the Klingon governmental bureaucracy. But the Syndicate had other plans. Less than a month after the Dominion War came to an end, they dared supply a recovered Dominion subspace mine to a disgruntled Klingon named Kartor. He’d recently been expelled from the High Council on corruption charges, and he retaliated by delivering the subspace mine into the offices of the Corruption Task Force. Half a dozen Klingon officers were killed in the explosion including Kartor.
The investigation by Martok’s Honor Guard gathered evidence that the Syndicate had supplied the weapon with the sole intent of opening up some seats on the Corruption Task Force that they intended to fill with less-principled relics of Gowron’s government.
Martok was furious when he learned the news that Kartor was behind the attack. “Are we not Klingons?” he demanded. “In my day, there might have been just as much bloodshed – probably more – but it would have been done with Bat’leth in the open – a challenge blessed by the eyes of Elders! How have these foreign snakes slipped into our sacred halls and turned our Klingon backbones into spineless, Romulan eels?” His retaliation was swift and decisive. In the dead of night, the Honor Guard fell like a gigaton of antimatter on the underworld, arresting more than 200 suspects for interrogation.
But on his way to a briefing the next morning, the Chancellor’s shuttle was struck by a chain of subspace mines, suspended in the airspace just beyond the Capitol. The shuttle made a hard landing in the Capital Square, and ended up parking a pile of rubble through the entrance to the Department of Prey and Hunting office block. It was the first time they’d had a visit from the Chancellor since he’d come to power. Martok survived the attack, but was inches from death. Climbing from the wreckage, he gave his Honor Guard the order: “Vengeance!” He stumbled, and fell – jagged wreckage protruding from his chest. Before he slipped unconscious, Martok drew his D’k Tahg knife and put it into His Commander’s hand. “Deliver this to Captain Kor’Ban,” he gasped, “He owes me a life-debt which he desires to repay.” And then darkness took him as the ambulatory team arrived on scene. Within the hour, nine ships were pulled from the Q’onoS fleet – each was assigned a detachment of the Honor Guard with the sole task of bringing fire down on the Orion Syndicate across the Alpha Quadrant. Dubbed “The Dragon’s Vengeance”, the ship crews swore oaths upon their family honor that they would not return to Q’onoS until the task had been completed. Within hours, the Syndicate was completely eradicated on Q’onoS. However, hunting down the other tentacles of the organization through the criminal underworld, off-world, proved more difficult. Its operatives were as slippery as Romulan Eels and with a bite twice as sharp.
While some captains were ordered on glorious missions hunting down rumors in Romulan and Cardassian space, the Djak’an was ordered to follow up leads within the Federation perimeter. At first, Kor’Ban felt he’d gotten the short end of the Bat’leth, but that soon changed. After several close calls on Risa and Pacifica, a sniper’s blast had finally drilled Kor’Ban through his shoulder last week while tracking down leads in the underbelly of the Klavanic Metropolis on the Braylat homeworld.
While he lay crouching in the shadows of an alleyway, nursing the blood loss from his injury, things in orbit also took a turn for the worst. A gunboat disguised as a Cardassian freighter ambushed the Djak’an with a broadside of torpedoes. Hit hard by the cowardly trick, the Djak’an was nearly knocked into the atmosphere, but Kor’Ban’s first officer, Modj, pulled a well-timed cloak with an antimatter detonation while scattering hull fragments from the cargo bay that he had stored for just a such an occasion. The result was a perfectly mimicked core breach explosion. It was an old trick, but it appeared to convince the Syndicate that they had dispatched the Klingon threat. Under cloak, Modj had been tracking the gunboat while Kor’Ban healed in the infirmary. The enemy vessel dodged through a dozen or more star systems, bouncing its warp trail off black holes and gravity wells, and trying to ditch any pursuers in asteroid belts and comet fields. Only a skilled hunter could have kept on track and Modj did not disappoint. He was patient, putting into practice his childhood experience hunting Kiber Bears in the polar regions of Rura Pente, where he’d grown up with his father who had worked in a security station there.
At long last, after a week of attempting to muddle its scent, the freighter sought rest on a lifeless moon in the largely ignored Quijas System. Kor’Ban strode onto the bridge from his quarters where he’d been resting – called up by Modj’s voice across the intercom. The first thing he noticed on entry was his first officer’s keen eyes, burning in the red light.
“Report!” he growled, rubbing his shoulder painfully.
“The good news is that our enemy has finally settled down – on the northern hemisphere of this moon,” Modj answered. “But we must move quickly. I can no longer maintain our cloak as our energy reserves are draining from that PetaQ’s treachery.” The attack had weakened a lot of the ship’s systems, and the cloak was running on a patchwork of energy that had been robbing those same systems.
“Can we route power from Engines?” Kor’Ban asked. Modj shook his head.
“As soon as we dropped out of warp, I did just that,” he said, “and it has given us a few minutes, but I can do no more.”
The planet below was painted as if by a broad brush in reddish tones, faintly obscuring its many craters – the graves of fallen stars.
“We’ll need cover if we are to corner this eel, Modj,” Kor’Ban grumbled. “He is more slippery than I gave him credit.”
“I think I know just the thing,” Modj said, pointing to his display. “A class 5 sandstorm is moving in on the last coordinates of the freighter. If we can enter the storm before our cloak falls, the ionic dust cloud in the atmosphere should conceal us from their sensors.” Kor’Ban patted his officer on the back.
“By Kahless, that is more like it!” he said through a toothy grin. “Do it, my friend! We shall skewer this eel yet!” Modj fired up the thrusters and pushed the Djak’an down into the weak atmosphere of the moon. The Bird of Prey limped, invisibly, down on its prey, concealed somewhere in the storm.
“A wounded predator adds vengeance on his hunt,” Kor’Ban smiled, sifting the motto pleasantly through his mind. “And an errand of honorable vengeance thwarted by treachery tempts Kahless himself to return for battle!”
In the center of the viewscreen, the cloudy mass grew closer, flashing from within by electrical discharges that forked out into clearer air when tempted by strong enough charges. They were approaching it at an alarming speed.
“Steady!” Kor’Ban growled, not wishing to be buried in a gravestone of Klingon wreckage on the surface of an unnamed moon. If Modj was listening, he did not heed his Captain’s words, but kept the Djak’an on the deadly dive through the atmosphere. Kor’Ban did not have time to repeat his alarm. The Bird of Prey plowed into the storm’s top layer, jostled sharply, and buffeted down under the wind shear. The sand-blasting winds sounded like rain against the hull, which groaned softly under the strain of the turbulent atmosphere. As the ship lowered deeper into the storm, the din grew as larger particles were carried aloft by the wind.
“Approaching the drop zone,” Modj reported. “Extending landing gear.” He had selected a site with a distance of about 1km from where they’d lost the freighter on scanners. Kor’Ban did not reply. His seat had begun to shake when the landing gear extended. The viewscreen showed nothing but a brown haze, so it came as a bit of a shock when the Djak’an touched down with a jolt.
“We are landed, Captain,” Modj announced.
“A bit rough around the edges, Modj,” Kor’Ban grumbled. He stood from his chair and joined his First Officer at the consoles. “Any sign of our quarry?” he asked. Modj had bent his brow over the display where a blip was registering.
“We are picking up a faint Tritanium signature about 500 meters to port,” he said, looking up at his Captain. “We could beam a photon torpedo to that location and call it good?” Kor’Ban straightened appreciatively, but then shook his head.
“How would we know for sure that this ‘Silver Fox’ was done with and that honor had been satisfied?” he asked. “No, we must find him and deliver Martok’s message – then, and only then can we face our Chancellor proudly.” Modj nodded sharply, as if to apologize for even suggesting the torpedo. Kor’Ban stepped a foot away, rubbing his wounded shoulder absently, then he turned and pounded his fist into the console.
“We’ll go on foot,” he growled, heading off the Bridge. “We’ll meet him as in the days of old.”
Modj followed his Captain to the Armory, where the Honor Guard preferred to spend their hours, sharpening their Bat’leths and Mek’leths for battle. Their Commander, Kru’Uk, was seated leisurely, ordering the replicator to produce various Duranium alloys, which he subsequently vaporized with his disrupter, fine-tuning it for maximum effect. As Kor’Ban entered, the men looked up sharply with a dangerous hunger in their eyes.
“I hate to interrupt, gentlemen, but it is time to put those blades to good use,” he said, nodding at the D’k Tahg that Kru’Uk was simultaneously sharpening in his right hand as he vaporized another Duranium slab. At these words, Kru’Uk stood with surprising speed and pulled up to Kor’Ban, putting the Captain to shame by his height and strength. He was the embodiment of a warrior of old – precisely why he’d been selected for Martok’s Honor Guard in the first place. Tales of Kru’Uk’s feats during the Dominion War were only whispered rumors, even among the Captains of the fleet. He was the ghost of Bastage, the Undead Knight of Kahless, the Bloodletter of Betazed, and so on it went. It was said the Jem’Hadar feared him more than any other sentient alive.
“Are you saying your young wolfhound’s hunting skills have finally brought us to battle, old man?” he asked, leaning in on Kor’Ban and nodding towards Modj behind him.
“Yes, but do not let his youth, nor my gray hairs fool you,” Kor’Ban replied shortly, holding up Martok’s battle-wearied D’k Tahg knife wrapped in a swatch of Targ leather. “It is my life debt between us, and I will plunge the Chancellor’s blade into the traitor, myself.” Kru’Uk withdrew with a subtle bow in the presence of His Chancellor’s blade.
“If I thought the honor was mine, I’d plunge this blade through your chest for your impertinence,” he said. “No, the honor is yours Captain – we will pave your way with the traitor’s dead, and you shall have him brought to you alive.”
Moments later, the ramp lowered from the underbelly of the Djak’an, settling into the sand dunes beneath. Even in the weak atmosphere, the wind roared outside. And immediately the ramp-bay was filled with the smell of dust, which somehow penetrated through Kor’Ban’s respirator.
He handed a respirator to Kru’Uk, but the Klingon warrior refused it. “I and my warriors will not need them,” he said evenly. “We are trained to withstand low-oxygen environments.”
Rather than take offense or feel self-conscious, Kor’Ban was filled with a renewed respect and awe for the members of the elite Honor Guard.
“Disrupters!” Kru’Uk barked, prompting three warriors to lift their disrupter rifles to the ready. “Blades,” Kru’Uk ordered next, and two of his warriors joined him in raising their Kahless-inspired Bat’leths, nastier in appearance and effect than traditional Bat’leths, and coated in a black, anti-glare coating. Kor’Ban raised his own traditional Bat’leth and followed the warriors down the ramp. Stepping into the sands, he felt his mighty Djak’an roosting overhead like a protective predator over her nest, its wings lifted high and disappearing into the storm above. Instantly, the wind pulled and tugged at Kor’Ban as the sand blasted across his face, chafing his skin. Without a moment to lose, they set out across the dunes in the direction of the faint Tritanium signature. They’d only been running for a few minutes when Kor’Ban realized he was already falling behind the Honor Guard as they pulled ahead into the gloom. Visibility was about 30 feet, and they were soon gone from his sight. He trudged along through the sand, which gave way beneath his boots, making his progress difficult.
Suddenly, he heard weapons fire ahead – distinctly Klingon disrupter blasts, cutting through the roar of the storm. He renewed his pace to catch up and take some part in the battle. Out of the gloom ahead, a shape appeared coming towards him. As it drew nearer, Kor’Ban recognized it wasn’t Klingon. “Orion!” he hissed. Fleeing the Honor-guard’s onslaught, the mercenary suddenly saw Kor’Ban and stopped short, caught in a moment of panic and surprise, but then he recovered. He raised his phaser rifle, but not before Kor’Ban reached him with his Bat’leth. One powerful stroke and the mercenary fell with a cry at his feet, cut down by Klingon steel. Before Kor’Ban could relish the taste of vengeance, two more figures panicked into view towards him. Kor’Ban braced himself and by the time the mercenaries saw him, it was too late. Two more Orions lay dead beneath him. Not waiting a moment longer, Kor’Ban trudged forward, and soon, he came upon a trail of dead Syndicate mercenaries strewn across the sand – the work of Kru’Uk and his men. A few hundred feet more and a large rectangular wall faded into sight before him. “The freighter!” he whispered.
The Cardassian design soon was apparent. Kor’Ban thought he saw an open cargo bay ahead but before he reached it, two figures appeared out of the dust beside him. He instinctively lashed out with his Bat’leth, but it was met with steel and redirected into the sand.
“Easy there, Grey-hair!” one of the figures said with a chuckle. “You might hurt yourself!” Kor’Ban could now see they were Kru’Uk’s men.
“You let a few Orions slip past you!” Kor’Ban replied with a smile, raising his blade coated with green blood.
“We didn’t want to keep all the fun to ourselves,” the Klingons laughed, good-naturedly, “so we let three of them pass unharmed to you.”
Kor’Ban nodded appreciatively. “That was kind of you,” he said. Suddenly, some commotion came from the cargo bay and Kor’Ban glanced up to see Kru’Uk approaching, dragging a whimpering figure behind in the sand. When he reached Kor’Ban, Kru’Uk tossed the figure into the growing circle of Klingons. It was the figure of a Klingon, clad, however in the disturbing black garments of a Syndicate operative. He had cut his hair short and bleached it, which gave him an “alien” appearance. This then was the “Silver Fox.” He was young – very young – probably no more than 20 years old. Kor’Ban felt a twinge of remorse. He was probably a “Lost Boy” – one of the many Klingon youths who came of age without fathers after the Dominion War, who in their youthful haste had renounced their heritage for what it had cost them.
“The traitor Ja’ral, as promised,” Kru’Uk growled, looking with scorn on the Klingon figure mewling in the sand.
“So young?” Kor’Ban whispered in Kru’Uk’s ear.
“Do not let his age fool you,” Kru’Uk replied. “He has killed many honorable warriors.” He then raised his voice in the hearing of all present. “I have already extracted Ja’ral’s confession to the attack on the Chancellor,” he said. “This spineless eel deserves no mercy.”
“And he shall have none!” Kor’Ban replied. “Save what honor requires. Get him to his feet and give him a Bat’leth.” Kru’Uk looked at Kor’Ban with surprise, but then nodded respectfully. If it had been his duty, he would already have gutted the traitor, but he respected Kor’Ban’s wish to satisfy honor – not for Ja’ral’s sake, but for Martok’s.
“Very well,” Kru’Uk replied, lifting Ja’ral to his feet and making him stand. Kor’Ban stared into the fearful eyes of the young Klingon. But for a twist of fate, his own wild youth could have cost him his life in this same manner.
Kru’Uk proffered the traitor one of his men’s Bat’leths. “Be sure to stain it with your blood as a memento for posterity’s sake,” he laughed. But just as Kru’Uk turned his back, Ja’ral suddenly leapt forward, locking blades with Kor’Ban. At the same moment, he struck a hidden switch in his garment and vanished in the red glow of a site-to-site transporter, taking Kor’Ban with him – wherever that was! The last thing Kor’Ban heard as he faded from the sands was Kru’Uk’s curses borne on the wind.
But even as the voice of the fearsome warrior faded from his ears, Kor’Ban’s senses returned to the storm and he found himself rematerializing on the tall spine of a stony ridge – still on the moon, of course, but probably a hundred kilometers away from the freighter – that was the usual maximum range of these small mobile devices. The first thing that touched his senses was that storm raged around them, fiercer than ever. Kor’Ban snapped alert as Ja’ral was already on his feet, standing over him, bringing his Bat’leth down on his head. With a quick twist, Kor’Ban raised his Bat’leth over his face and deflected the traitor’s blade into the rock, kicking him in the back and catapulted him over his head. He rose to his feet and struggled for a moment to find his footing. The ridge of tall, magmatic rock blades stood at least 100 meters above the plane below, like the spine of a Ragurock beast, rising out of the Q’onoS deserts. The limb of a very large geological fold, the ridge sloped shallowly to Kor’Bans right. He glanced along the ridge and saw that the blades of stone rose steadily in height, like a weathered staircase to the sky. Ja’ral stood slightly above him – he had the high ground. Kor’Ban raised his Bat’leth and stared the traitor down, who was crouching low behind his own blade.
“Do not make this hard on yourself, boy!” he cried, pointing to him with his sword. “There is only one destiny for you, but you can choose to meet it honorably!” He drew Martok’s knife. “I give you this chance to regain what honor you have and die by my hand. It is your duty as a Klingon!” Ja’ral flashed his teeth.
“Honor and duty!” he spat. “Words to rob families of fathers! The language of tyrants to make us fodder for prey animals!” He lunged with a wide swing of his Bat’leth, but Kor’Ban easily deflected it.
The boy’s words had struck him like a blow with remorse for his eldest son’s death, who had perished trying to stow away on a freighter to find his father missing in action during the Dominion War. “Life is more than living it for yourself!” he countered. “True life is sacrifice for what you love! This is a Klingon’s duty and in this duty is honor!”
“And what do you love, honorable Klingon warrior?” Ja’ral sneered. “Your Chancellor, perhaps? The honor of your family name? More than your own children I’m sure! You are all alike. Slaves of traditions that were forged to chain you to an early grave.”
He lunged and they parried blows. Sparks flew from the swords as they sparred up the rock. The sweet music of steel on steel grounded Kor’Ban – he was never more at home than with a Bat’leth in his hands. The wind howled and the storm blew sand against the rocks all around them. Kor’Ban drove the traitor on up the ridge. Minute by minute, they flitted and darted up the stone, pausing to exchange the fierce conversation of blades. With every pass of steel, Ja’ral gave way.
The sun was setting and they were bathed in a red light as deep as the fires of Gre’thor. It was as if hell itself had come for the traitor. The dust swirling in the air was now catching the sun and it looked like they were surrounded by embers. Ja’ral took a few uneasy steps up the ridge.
“Life is not worth living, if you do not live it for those you leave behind!” Kor’Ban growled as they locked swords again. Their faces were so close, Kor’Ban could smell Ja’ral’s foul breath. “My duty is to my family and my honor belongs to my race – I will endure in this world beyond the grave in my children’s memory when I take my place in Sto-vo-kor, just as your father lives in your memory of his sacrifice.” Ja’ral spat in his face.
“What do you know of my father? You know nothing, save the mind of a herd animal,” he laughed, “Prey is good for nothing but slaughter!” He threw his Bat’leth at Kor’Ban’s wounded shoulder, but the old Klingon caught his blade and flung it into the rock at his feet.
“Perhaps the others were right,” Kor’Ban said, sadly. “You are not worth the trouble of an honorable death, Ja’ral.” He raised his communicator.
“Modj?” he called. “lock onto these coordinates and beam two to the Djak’an.” Kor’Ban fixed Ja’ral in his gaze as he turned away. “You can die a traitor’s death at the hands of Martok’s men.” He took a step down the ridge, showing his back to the young Klingon. A perverse fury rippled through Ja’ral’s lips and his face turned purple with rage. He lunged, lifted his Bat’leth from the rocks and leapt into the air towards the old Klingon.
“I’d sooner kill you!” he snarled. Before he could land a blow, and while he was yet catapulting through the air, he faded into red, pulsating energy with Kor’Ban, and together they vanished, body and voice, from the surface of the moon. Moments later, Ja’ral materialized midair in the cargo bay of the Djak’an, only to fall into the blade of Martok’s D’k Tahg, which caught him straight through the chest. He collapsed into Kor’Ban and then slumped to his knees before him.
“You…you tricked me!” he wheezed.
“I anticipated you,” Kor’Ban replied, and then pointed to the knife. “This was your destiny, Ja’ral, from the moment you tried to kill another Klingon in cold-blood. There was no escaping it. All Klingons long for a death in battle, and it comes to most. Above all else, we fear the passive death of old age, disease, and the executioner’s blade. I have spared you that, and given you a proper death. Now is the time to reclaim your birthright as a warrior – it won’t come again.” As death began to take him, Ja’ral suddenly seemed very vulnerable and afraid.
“I can’t…die,” he gasped. “I must live!”
“We all die,” Kor’Ban said softly, lowering Ja’ral gently to the ground. “But it is how we die that matters for what follows in this life and the next.” He leaned down and pressed the Bat’leth in Ja’ral’s hand against his chest. As he did so, the Honor Guard had shuffled up the ramp and were gathered around watching from the shadows.
“For your sake and the sake of your family, affirm your oath to honor and I will testify of it in the halls of our people,” Kor’Ban said. “Do not let your anger of your father’s loss avert your course, nor your love of false vanity cloud your eyes. It all vaporizes now out of reach.” He gripped the young man’s head firmly and forced his eyes to look into his. “Reclaim your honor!” he said. “Renounce the Syndicate. Claim the Chancellor as your own. Choose your mother’s people.” In those moments of truth, Ja’ral slowly nodded, his eyes gleamed with a new light.
“I was just a boy,” he whispered, “when…my father, my grandfather, and my uncles died one after another in the Dominion War. I hated the Chancellor for robbing me of them…I hated our way of life for what it had done to me. I…I left.”
“Yes, you and many others,” Kor’Ban nodded. “Including my son.” A moment of understanding passed between them. Facing the end flooding quickly in on him washed Ja’ral with clarity.
“I see it now,” Ja’ral grimaced, feeling his life ebbing. “To die honorably is no small thing…it is life. I renounce the Syndicate and its ways. I renounce its leader…Opheum. He is waiting for me on Beta Twies. Bring him a message from me. Tell him that I affirmed…the traditions of my people. Tell him that my blood is required of him.”
“It will be done,” Kor’Ban replied. Ja’ral clutched at Kor’Ban’s armor.
“You will tell my mother?”
“I will,” Kor’Ban said softly. “I swear it.”
Ja’ral’s hand slipped slowly away and his body went limp. Kor’Ban let a few moments pass before leaning back and raising his voice to cry out the death ritual. The Honor Guard remained silent for a moment, until Kru’Uk stepped into the light and added his cry to Kor’Ban’s. The entire Honor Guard raised their voices into a great roar that reverberated in the cargo bay. Once they subsided, Kor’Ban looked to the sky.
“Beware,” he said, “a Klingon warrior is about to arrive!” Then, drawing Martok’s blade from Ja’ral’s chest, Kor’Ban carefully wrapped it in the Targ leather to keep the blood-stained knife for DNA proof of death and for the Chancellor’s honor. He tucked it back into his armor and raising the body of Ja’ral, he carried it slowly through the throng of somber Klingon warriors, down the ramp to the dunes. The wind howled a sudden lament for Ja’ral, the Lost Boy who had come home, but then the storm broke and the wind became a gentle purr as if to reassure them all that the boy was at peace. Kor’Ban cast the body in sand and returned to his ship.
The Djak’an woke from slumber. The Bird of Prey floated up from the dunes, and retracting its landing gear, it pivoted on its starboard wing, raising its head back to the stars. The thrusters kicked in and “The Dragon’s Vengeance” thundered up into the sky.
On the Bridge, Kor’Ban sat somberly meditating on the fallout of the Dominion War, which had taken so many youths from the Klingon ways. How had it happened? He knew the answer. They had failed that generation. They had been so caught up in their fanatical devotion to Gowron’s vision, rather than the teachings of Kahless, that the oppression of the war had crushed their spirits and they had given up on their children. The tragedy had begun with their betrayal of the core teachings of Kahless, which had steadied far weaker souls to weather far worse storms for thousands of years.
Of course, Ja’ral bore responsibility for his choices, and he had paid for it with his life, but no father or friend had been there to keep him from falling onto that path. So, in death, he had tried to be that friend for the boy.
“What you did was noble…foolish, but noble.” Kru’Uk interrupted. Kor’Ban had not noticed the warrior standing next to him on the Bridge. “Why did you do it?” Kor’Ban did not answer at first. He weighed the words in his mind. Perhaps he’d be feeding the pearlescent orbs of deeply personal truths to a wild targ. How would a mighty Klingon warrior who had never been compromised understand? Regardless, he felt the words begin pouring out of him.
“I was on a Dominion penal asteroid for 2 years,” Kor’Ban said, his voice very far away. “Nearly half the war. My spirit was bent by the Jem’Hadar, and they finally broke me with news that my eldest son had been killed running from home looking for me – how they knew this, I still do not know. I was ruined in body and spirit. I gave them information on our fleet capabilities just to end the daily pain. Martok ended up there with me. I was a traitor – I deserved to die, and it was Martok’s duty to kill me if I did not kill myself first. I tried to take my own life, but he stopped me. He told me that if every dishonored Klingon were to kill themselves, half the fleet would be gone. This was not the way of Kahless. Kahless taught the untested to claim honor and the dishonored to reclaim the honor they had lost – there is always a chance for redemption. Martok reminded me of my duty to my family and my place in Sto-vo-kor, and he put me under a life-debt to reclaim my honor in his service. That gesture gave me hope – his kindness to my broken spirit gave me the strength to endure the last month of torture before we were rescued. He saved my life, in the truest sense of the word. His act of friendship was my path to reclaim honor for myself. And this is why he is the greatest general that ever lived and the wisest Chancellor that has ever sat at High Council. I have lived from that day to this with the goal that I would be ready to answer his call when it came. I am released from that pledge this day, and yet, I will remain in his debt for all eternity.”
Silence rolled over them, but Kor’Ban suddenly felt Kru’Uk’s firm hand grip his shoulder. It was understanding, and it was friendship. Without a word, Kru’Uk left the Bridge for the armory. Kor’Ban straightened in his seat and turned to his First Officer.
“Modj, chart a course to Q’onoS,” he said, “maximum warp – we do not want to keep our Chancellor waiting.”
The Djak’an swiveled on its head like a dragon hunting for its lair, seeking out the Klingon home-star from the billion grains of light, burning brightly in the distant blackness. It found the way. In a sudden burst of light, it jumped to warp, forging the eternal sea of darkness on its journey from vengeance to glory and honor.
