The banchory's huge shadow preceded it. Dark as the bordered path seemed to Kira's night-adjusted eyes, it washed darker still, smothering even the vestiges of detail. A figure, slim and wild-haired, perched astride the moving mountain; Kira doubted the rider would have stood out more clearly on the brightest day. She didn't even have to worry about missing the banchory's back when she leapt from the tuq'mor.
Her phaser jabbed the startled Klingon in the spine before he could do more than jerk a startled look over his shoulder. Kira used the flat of her hand to push his chin forward, then looped her arm around his throat for good measure. "Yes," she announced, very close to his ear, "this is a real weapon. No, I have no reservations about using it. You'd better hope you can tell me something I want to hear."
The Klingon spread both hands with fingers splayed -- the age-old symbol of unarmed threat. It was a youthful female's voice that told her, "A Human doctor named Bashir has sent me to find his companions so they can wait out the comets in a place of safety." K'Taran tipped just the slightest glance back at Kira's startled face. "Will that do?"
Nighttime cloaked the worst of the destruction, but a few Klingon-tended fires and a renewed blast of light in the southern sky let Kira pick out enough details to know that honor hadn't spared Rekan Vrag's encampment from Armageddon's wrath. She clung uneasily to K'Taran's middle as the banchory minced with surprising delicacy around lumps in the carpet of ash. Kira only recognized them as charred corpses with considerable use of her imagination. It wasn't worth the effort. As the beast finally slowed to a shuffling standstill in what might have once been the camp's center, Kira realized she didn't even know for sure which part of the camp they were facing. Nothing about the place looked the same; only the bottom-most rootballs of the trees were left standing.
Oh, Prophets, I want to go home!
"Major! Commander!"
Ledonne's slim, dark figure peeled away from one of the still smoldering tree hovels. Kira saw the eager relief in the young Human's movements, knew what the nurse must be thinking when she slowed abruptly and looked carefully from front to rear on the banchory again.
Still, it was Dax who announced, almost cheerfully, "We found him," as the banchory labored meticulously to its knees.
"Sort of." Kira slid to the ground, suppressing a grimace at the packed-dirt fullness in her knees and the overall anguish in the soles of her feet. "K'Taran says Dr. Bashir sent her to get us." She caught at the banchory's small, conical ear for support in the hopes none of the approaching Klingons would sense her weakness. "There are caves several kilometers west of here. They'll be protected from the explosions -- safe from anything but a direct ground strike. There's room enough there for everyone." Everyone who was left, at least. Kira could count the gathered faces on both hands. She looked around for epetai Vrag, and found her standing stiffly near the middle of the tiny crowd.
"She's lying." Rekan didn't even move her eyes toward Kira.
K'Taran, proudly matching her grandmother's glare, hopped to the ground beside Kira and lifted her chin. "An honorable Klingon does not lie."
"And I say again" -- Rekan bared teeth still sharp despite her age -- "you are lying."
Kira felt K'Taran flash with anger hot enough to reignite the foliage. Stepping quickly away from the banchory, Kira threw up one elbow to halt the girl's forward surge, and thanked the Prophets when K'Taran stopped without a protest. Kira was in no shape to reinforce the suggestion. "What possible motive does she have to lie to us?" she asked Rekan.
The old matriarch looked as though she wanted to spit. "Dishonor needs no motive."
"You have no right to question my honor! This time, K'Taran shrugged off Kira's restraining arm and lunged forward to shove aside the two adults standing between her and Rekan. "I stand here, do I not?" she snarled. "I have tied my life to this cursed planet. I held my head proudly while our ancestors' keep was burned and our family name shattered and thrown to the dust. What more would you have of me?"
"Honor does not abandon its House!" Rekan's eyes gleamed with a passion brighter than all the stars Armageddon had thrown down on them. "Honor does not bend law to whatever meaning suits it."
"Law said only that we should remain exiled on this planet," K'Taran reminded her. "Law never stated that we must necessarily die."
"The intent of a command is as important as the words."
Kira blurted a disbelieving laugh without having meant to. "That's what this is all about?" she asked, limping away from the banchory to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with K'Taran. "Because Gowron expected you to be killed here, you're not allowed to take action to prevent it?"
Rekan lifted her eyes to a place just above Kira's head, not even deigning to meet her gaze. "I will not have this House judged as being without honor," she stated grimly. "I will not have this family go to Sto-Vo-Kor and recite to Kahless how we tried to trick honor -- how we held hostages unrelated to our battle and tried to run from our duty like Ferengi picking holes in a contract of their own making."
K'Taran moved in front of her grandmother's stare. The electricity when their eyes met made Kira's stomach twist. "You do not believe I am lying." The girl's voice sounded only hurt, and not as angry as Kira had expected. "You fear I'm telling the truth -- that there actually is some chance for life."
For the first time, Kira glimpsed what might have been the love fueling this angry war between them. "I fear that you are wrong," Rekan almost whispered. "I fear we will die while fleeing, irrevocably disgraced."
"Shouldn't everyone be allowed to choose their own path?" That was a question that had gnawed at Kira since Rekan's first refusal to evacuate her clan. "Is it honorable to force your own fears on the rest of them?"
Rekan hissed at her through the darkness. "Swallow your bile. You know nothing of honor."
"I know that my people can feel right and wrong inside their own hearts," Kira shot back. Fear, anger, and fatigue stripped her of all social graces. It was all she could do not to shake the older Klingon. "We don't need a High Chancellor or anyone else to tell us how to be honorable. Are Klingons so simple that they can't decide that for themselves?"
Rekan's backhanded blow didn't surprise Kira so much as the raw force in the old woman's swing. She was on the ground, stunned and blinded with pain, before her conscious mind even identified what had smashed her down. "Be glad you are not a Klingon," the epetai's scorn rained like comet-fire from above her. "I would feed your own heart to you where I stand."
And Kira heard her own voice say groggily, "I accept."
Her vision cleared with painful slowness, seeming somehow brighter and less focused than it ought to be. But the shock and suspicion on Rekan Vrag's face was unmistakable, even through a haze of pain and rattled thinking. "Your challenge to combat," Kira continued, more carefully. "I accept."
The epetai frowned. "I did not challenge you!"
"You struck me." It was one of those moments Odo would have scoffed at as being more creative than was good for her. Some disconnected part of her kept spinning out the words, with no particular concern for the battered body still splayed out on the ground. "When one Klingon strikes another, it means you want to do combat."
"You are not a Klingon!" Rekan countered. And at last Kira's instincts let the rest of her in on what they were doing. "Batlh Jaj."
The silence that crashed down among them was almost hard enough to hurt. Certainly heavy enough to crush most of the breath from Rekan's lungs; her voice was thin when she said, "You cannot conduct Suv'batlh. There are only two of you."
"Three."
Even Kira felt the hurt that must have throbbed in Rekan when K'Taran stepped forward. The older Klingon growled and swiped at the air; Kira forced herself to crawl to all fours, then slowly to her feet.
"If we win," Kira said, moving to form a bridge between K'Taran in front of her grandmother and Dax still waiting by their banchory, "then that will mean our honor is more true. We can lead anyone who wants to follow us to
K'Taran's refuge, and you won't do anything to stop us."
Rekan didn't nod. "And if I win?"
"Then we all die." It was the answer that had been true since before the challenge was even leveled. Kira pulled herself as tall as her aching muscles would let her. "I believe the choice of battlefield is mine."
CHAPTER 10
"TEN MINUTES!"
It was a simultaneous exclamation from at least three of the Defiant's officers. Odo said the words in frustration, O'Brien in disgust, but their voices were almost completely overridden by Worf's furious roar of indignation. Sisko was the only one who remained silent, keeping his gaze locked on Kor's until the uproar on both ships subsided into uneasy silence.
"I never thought to see a day when Klingons hid like cowards behind the letter of the law," he said at last, and had the satisfaction of seeing Kor's laughter wiped abruptly from his eyes. "What does the Day of Honor really mean? That it is the only day on which Klingons will behave honorably?"
A snarl whistled between Kor's clenched teeth. "Take care what you say, Benjamin Sisko. If you were a Klingon, that would be an insult worthy of Suv'batlh on any day."
"Would it?" Worf growled, before Sisko could reply. "Then allow me to say that I, Worf, son of Mogh, never thought to see a day when Klingons hid like cowards behind the law, acting as if Batlh Jaj were the only day on which they needed to behave honorably!"
Kor crashed the mug he was holding against the arm of his chair, splashing dusky blood wine out in a violent spray. Anger had darkened his broad face to almost the same shade. "You insult my honor, Worf son of Mogh!"
"Good," said the Klingon tactical officer between his teeth. "That was my intention."
Kor fell abruptly silent, staring at them with a flicker of wariness breaking through the wine-soaked fury in his face. After a moment's pause, however, he acknowledged Worf's challenge with a stiff, ceremonial nod. "As the one whose honor has been challenged, we hold the Suv'batlh on my territory. Your party will beam over in fifteen minutes, Worf, son of Mogh, armed and ready to fight. Qapla'!"
The connection sliced off, leaving the bridge of the Defiant suspended in disbelieving silence. "You did it, Worf," O'Brien said at last, sounding dumbfounded. "You actually got Kor to accept the challenge."
Sisko let his breath trickle out, feeling his jaw muscles quiver with the release of accumulated tension. "Now all we need to do is win it. Or at least entertain Kor long enough for the Defiant to finish sweeping up that comet duster." He vaulted out of his command chair, fiercely eager to be off the bridge and accomplishing something. "Worf, Odo, you're with me. Osgood, Thornton, plot the fastest deflection course you can through that cluster, and don't worry about keeping out of sight of the Klingons. Just try not to use photon torpedoes unless you have to. O'Brien, you've got the conn. Call Clark and Nensi up to man navigations and weapons while we're gone."
His chief engineer winced, uncomfortable as always with the assumption of command, even though he was technically the highest-ranking member left of Sisko's decimated crew. He swung around at his station to watch as they headed for the turbolift. "Captain, don't you want a subcutaneous transmitter? How else will you know when we're done chasing comets?"
"It will not matter," Worf said sternly. "Suv'batlh cannot be conceded. It can only be fought to the finish."
"Oh." O'Brien looked as glum as if he'd just been condemned to a long prison sentence, Sisko noted in amusement. "Well, in that case, good luck and – er -- Qapla. "
Odo snorted his scorn at that send-off, but followed Sisko and Worf into the turbolift with no visible reluctance. The doors hissed shut, locking the three of them in tense, prebattle silence. Odo broke it at last, his voice gruff.
"I assume that, since this is a ritual combat, I won't be permitted to use my shape-shifting abilities to win it."
"No." Worf's voice was equally brusque and businesslike. "A Klingon warrior does not attack by subterfuge. Any change in shape would be considered a deceit and would disqualify you from the Suv'batlh."
"Too bad," Odo said. "I might be able to look just like a Klingon warrior, but that doesn't mean I can fight like one." Especially true, Sisko knew, because the Constable would refuse to wield any weapons.
Worf frowned across at the Changeling, but it was a thoughtful rather than an angry look. "Klingons measure their worth as warriors by the strength and valor of their enemies. The honor that accrues in ritual combat increases as the task becomes more difficult. I think it would be acceptable to ignore any blows that do not actually decapitate or dismember you."
"Good. Then I won't have to actually wear armor." Odo followed the others onto C Deck, heading not for the main transporter room but for the equipment bay next to it where they had a closet-sized clothing replicator capable of creating authentic Klingon outfits. As he went, his dun-colored Bajoran uniform swelled and shifted, turning to polished lacquer plates in gleaming shades of ebony and maroon.
Fortunately, Klingon weapons and armor were stock items in the replicator's data banks, along with most clothing items from known space. Worf was humming as he waited for his weapons to be made, a song so deep and tuneless that it had to be a Klingon battle-chant.
"Klingon armor and bat'leth, suitable for ritual combat," Sisko told the replicator when it was his turn. A moment later he was settling chest-armor over his shoulders, making sure all the side-latches were snugged tight. He'd lost count of how many times he'd done this over the last few years, sparring Dax in various holo-suite recreations. This time was different, however. This time his life really would depend upon what he was wearing.
He became acutely aware, as he hefted the shallow helmet whose curving cheek-plates had been designed more for intimidation than protection, that this was armor meant for warriors whose arteries ran deep under leather-tough ligaments and whose skeletons already made bony protective plates around their vital organs. The warm pulse of blood beneath the skin of his throat, a mammalian evolutionary quirk he'd never had cause to regret before, suddenly seemed like an invitation to disaster.
"Second thoughts, Captain?" Odo asked, when he stepped out.
Sisko glanced up at his security chief, startled, then realized he'd put on and taken off his spiked gauntlet three times, searching for a comfortable fit that just didn't exist. Worf paused on the threshold of the clothing replicator, looking dismayed.
"Only about the armor." Sisko motioned Worf into the machine, managing an almost-real smile. It was ironic that the two warriors in their party with the least mortal weaknesses were depending on him for their morale. He rubbed a hand across his exposed abdomen and sighed. "I'll just have to hope Kor went to school before the Klingons were teaching Human anatomy."
"I shall endeavor," Worf said from inside the replicator, "to make sure you do not have to face the Dahar Master personally, Captain. You are as good with a bat'leth as any Human I've seen, but Kor would have you disarmed and at his mercy within... minutes."
Sisko raised an eyebrow at him as he stepped out. "Why do I get the feeling you were about to say 'seconds," Mr. Worf?"
The Klingon's chagrinned look told him he was right.
"It is not that I doubt your skill, Captain. But to become a Dahar Master, you must have fought a hundred battles, survived a hundred Suv'batlh, and trained a hundred blooded warriors. No amount of blood wine can dull the fighting instincts of such a warrior."
"Are you sure you can survive for more than a few minutes in a fight with him, Commander?" Odo demanded, never shy about asking embarrassing questions.
"No," Worf said frankly. "But in Suv'batlh, it is the overall outcome that counts, not the individual winners and losers. If you and the captain can surprise your opponents and win your matches, then it does not matter that Kor defeats me."
"Unfortunately," Sisko said, "that is a rather big 'if.'" He slid on his helmet, then hardened his face to the expressionless mask that served him so well during space battles. "Gentlemen, let's go defend our honor."
He'd stopped being physically conscious of the pain what seemed a whole lifetime ago. K'Taran, following his instructions with stern determination, reduced the fracture with an ease Bashir almost envied; the advantages of physical strength. Then, after she left with one of the sluggish banchory trailing behind, Bashir had taken further advantage of Klingon prowess by coaxing one of the boys to carry him around the massive caverns to check on the Victoria Adams's crew and his xirri patients. Bad enough that he didn't have the proper equipment to do any of them any good -- the traumatic relocation to this damp, cool chamber wasn't helping the wounded, either. He almost felt guilty accepting blood from two hale and youthful volunteers, considering he had no such panacea to offer the xirri.
Star Trek - Day Of Honor 02 Page 19
