His voice boomed across the chamber. “You all know of the Battle of Gamaral, and the conflict between Kruge’s military partisans and the members of his family. I took no part in that and did not come forward then.”
“Why?” Martok demanded.
“My focus was sole and absolute, Chancellor: avenging Kruge. I couldn’t assert my rights while James Kirk lived. Alone I set out to do what was right—assuming that others would preserve the house in my absence. That was a mistake.” He looked down at the mek’leth. “That was my own decision. I was young, headstrong—my blood afire with anger. It got me nowhere. The Federation protected Kirk. I could no more slay him than I could pull a moon down from the sky.”
Korgh picked that moment to look angrily toward the Federation observers. Riker felt all the eyes of the room on him.
Thankfully, it only lasted a moment, as Korgh continued his tale. “When I returned, I found that there had been a battle for the house—and that Kruge’s blood kin had wrought a deal allowing them to share the spoils. The so-called may’qochvan—in truth, a license to pilfer from what Kruge had built. It was the thing he had adopted me to avoid. But I had no proof of my adoption.”
Kersh glared at him—and then down at the holographic emitter on the floor. “If you had no proof, then what’s that?”
“I had no idea this imagery existed.” Korgh leaned over long enough to pick up the emitter. “I only knew that Kruge had promised to tell the High Council of my adoption at a time that suited him—and that it had never happened.”
Even Martok seemed caught up in the story. “What did you do?”
“I cursed fate, Chancellor. I drank. I wandered for many years. I settled outside the Empire for a decade. In turning my life around, I spent some time at the Boreth Monastery. You can confirm that.”
“Much that was stored at the monastery was destroyed,” Kersh said, arms crossed.
“I met Kaas, the woman I would marry. A good woman, much younger than I; those of you lucky enough to have met her know she went ahead of me to Sto-Vo-Kor just two years ago. When she was expecting Lorath, our first child, I was reminded of the importance of heritage. I looked into the state of the House of Kruge.” His eyes scanned the councillors. “Many of you know it had fallen into wretched disrepair. It cut like a knife to see Kruge’s works in such a sorry state. The shipyards were in a shambles. Without management, the house would have fallen for certain.”
“They let you become their manager?” Kersh was incredulous. “Why?”
“The connection was made by my late wife. I didn’t know if they had ever heard of me, but I didn’t want my past to bar me from helping the house that was to have been mine. I became Galdor—a name I took from a heroic ode I discovered on a scroll at the monastery.” Korgh looked around. “You’ve all heard that tale.”
“Refresh our memories,” Martok said.
“Galdor was on a quest to slay his father’s murderer when he stopped at a town in need of a champion. He protected the city until he was too old to fight and died the day before the murderer reappeared. The citizens, who had learned from his example, went forth and defeated the killer in his name.” He looked down, solemn. “That was good enough for me. I took that name. I have toiled ever since, satisfied that I was preserving the House of Kruge.”
“But what of the recording of the adoption?” Martok asked.
“Ah. I found the record in the family archives just a year ago. Kruge had hidden it from everyone, even me. When I saw it, I was stunned. Anyone would have been. But the house was strong again. I had no desire to rule, so I ignored it.” Korgh contemplated the mek’leth. “Things have changed.”
Korgh stalked around the room, followed by the eyes of every councillor present. “Today the house is in jeopardy. Forced there by enemies unknown—and endangered by the incompetence of the allies who so miserably failed to protect our people at Gamaral.”
Attention went to Riker. He felt stung. Picard had told him that the gin’tak had not assigned blame for the massacre to Starfleet. Clearly that had changed.
Still, Riker could not let it pass. “I object, Galdor—or Korgh. We lost people at Gamaral trying to protect yours.”
“Oh, you lost people,” Korgh said, disdain dripping from his voice. “We lost everyone.” He turned his back on Riker and faced the chancellor again. “That is why I stand now before you as Korgh, ready to lead the House of Kruge—while there is still time to rebuild.”
“Sark dung!” Kersh’s tone was incredulous. “This is all a wretched lie. You served our family, Galdor. You dare make up a story like this?” She advanced toward him menacingly—but he did not flinch, and she did not strike him. Riker couldn’t see her doing otherwise; he was three times her age.
Korgh ignored her and walked toward Martok. “This is for the chancellor,” he said, handing one of Martok’s advisors the holographic emitter. “You will want to check it. I will send a copy to anyone who wants to see it, to judge its legitimacy for themselves.”
Martok took the device from his aide and turned it over in his palm. “We will examine it.”
“You should not stop there. Consult the records; you will find Korgh, son of Torav, and his service to Kruge. I served with him aboard M’raav, now in the museum on Ketorix; I suspect you will find my genetic material there. While you are there, study the history of the house. Examine its financial accounts. You will see that I have managed it soundly, and not for personal enrichment.”
“Enough,” Martok said, standing. “This meeting is ended.”
The orderly assembly of councillors collapsed into a confused mass, with some—like Kersh—trying to follow Martok, while others wanted to speak to the gin’tak. A dozen conversations broke out, with councillors and observers alike speaking on their personal communicators. While the whole Empire has not seen the proceedings, Riker thought, it will certainly know about them soon.
The admiral had to step close to Alexander and shout to be heard. “What just happened here?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Admiral. I’ve never heard of the lord of a house secretly serving as its gin’tak.” They both studied the throng, where the man who called himself Korgh seemed to have achieved sudden popularity. “It almost sounds like the stuff of legend. Something from an opera.”
“Yeah, but a triumph or a tragedy?” Seeing the gin’tak looking through the crowd directly at him, Riker felt an icy chill—and had another thought: What part is he fitting us for?
Thirty-eight
THANE
THE BRIAR PATCH
After two more impromptu wildlife encounters, Worf’s uniform was as muddied as his captor’s—but at least he and Valandris had exited the marshy terrain. Bizarre trees resembling celery stalks climbed toward the sky on either side of the path, and for the first time, Worf saw Valandris lower her weapon.
He stopped in his tracks. “That’s enough. I refuse to go any farther until I get answers.”
“They’re right in front of you,” she said, gesturing ahead of her. “Look there.”
Worf stepped forward. Light filtered through the parting in the foliage, and the trail widened. A few steps more found the forest ending—and he beheld a wide clearing. A distant village, the source of the light, sprawled across it. Bonfires burned here and there before a network of tents and yurt-like huts—and a number of ten-meter-high structures ringed the settlement.
Harsh light flashed in his direction from the tower nearest them, and a horn blared. “It’s the watch,” Valandris said, unslinging her disruptor rifle. She fired three times into the air and waited. After a moment, the searchlight deactivated.
The action puzzled Worf. “You have a communicator.”
“That communicated just fine.” Valandris stepped up her pace. “You want answers? Walk faster.”
As Worf approached the outskirts of the vil
lage and his eyes adjusted, he saw a place abuzz with motion. People—lots of them.
And they were all, apparently, Klingon. A female face looked down from the watchtower. Up close, it was little more than a hunting stand. “Is that really him?” the woman called down.
“Yes, Weltern, it is.” Valandris smiled up at the keeper of the watch. “It is Worf.”
She strode confidently past the tower toward the village. Worf saw Klingon after Klingon, young and old. Some were dressed in combat gear, as Valandris was, others in lighter black garments.
“What is this place?”
“The settlers called the village Omegoq.”
Worf’s brow furrowed. The woman had been speaking to him in Klingon, but her accent—and that of all her companions—was strange. “’O’megqoq refers to a part of a song that fades away, without properly ending. You are pronouncing it incorrectly.”
“I don’t care.”
A pair of workers walked past, pushing a wheeled cart. Worf felt as if he had stepped into a dimension where medieval and modern coexisted side by side. Many of the residents were engaged in mock combat with one another. Others were skinning animals or working on weapons—blades, but also disruptor rifles and pistols.
Here and there amid the camp Worf made out the shapes of spacecraft. Old Klingon freighters, long since grounded, served as part of the settlement, with canvas canopies and tents attached.
What struck Worf was how quiet the villagers were. There was none of the festive atmosphere that ordinarily surrounded Klingons returning to the wild. This was normal, everyday activity—activity that he and Valandris had clearly interrupted. It reminded him of how the assassins had stared at him in the bird-of-prey brig. He struggled to remember what they had told him. “What do you call yourselves?”
“We do not call ourselves anything,” Valandris said, marching farther into the village.
“No, I remember—you gave me a name.”
“Ah,” Valandris said. “That came a year ago. The Unsung.”
“That was it.”
“It makes sense, given the name of the settlement and the curse we lived under.”
Worf’s eyes darted from villager to villager—many of them eyeing him with a mix of suspicion and amazement. An older Klingon, bald and one-armed, regarded him with something like recognition from across the crowd. “I remember now,” Worf said. “You told me you are the children and grandchildren of discommendated Klingons. I was expecting a small band. There are hundreds of people here. This—this is a colony.”
“A colony of the condemned,” Valandris said.
“I’ve never heard of discommendated Klingons forming a community. They generally . . .”
“Run and hide?” Stopping abruptly, Valandris glowered at him. “Or perhaps we should crawl into holes? That’s what your people would like, I’m sure. To not live with those they say have no honor, even before they’re born.”
Worf could not argue with that, having experienced the same shame. But the last thing he wanted back then was company. In fact, he had only accepted discommendation from Chancellor K’mpec on the condition that Worf’s brother, Kurn, not experience the same fate.
A Klingon child ran up to him—so fast, she nearly collided with Worf’s knee. The little girl looked up at him, mesmerized. “You are from outside.”
“I am. What is your name?”
The girl—no more than eight or nine—hopped from one foot to another with excitement at being asked. “Sarken,” she declared. “I didn’t have a name—but our lord said I could have one.” Sarken took another look at him. “Are you Worf, son of Mogh?”
“Yes. How do you know my name?”
“My father told me about you. We are on our way, too, just like you.”
Before Worf could ask anything else, Valandris shooed the child away. He turned to see the girl retreating toward a crowd that had listened to his every word. Realizing just how many people were there, Worf’s eyes narrowed, and he spoke to the crowd. “How . . . long has this community been here?”
A Klingon in his sixties or seventies—the oldest Worf had seen in the village—spoke up. “Our ancestors were sentenced a little over a hundred years ago, in Federation timekeeping.”
A hundred years? “What . . . was the name of the leader who brought you here?”
“His Klingon name—when he had one—was Potok,” the villager replied. “They called him General.”
Insight struck Worf like lightning. He had not known the name before—but the rank said it all. “You are born of those who failed to defeat Kruge’s heirs at the Battle of Gamaral!”
“Guilty.” Valandris rolled her eyes. “That is all we’re guilty of.” She turned and stalked away from the gathering.
It made sense. Worf had not been able to discover the fate of the losers of the century-old battle; mass discommendation answered the question. Worf pushed through the group of onlookers and pursued Valandris. Seeing her entering a tent, Worf followed her in.
It was someone’s home. Hers, he assumed, as Valandris was shedding her soiled gear with no consideration for modesty. If she didn’t care, then he didn’t—and he had to have his say. “You are guilty of murder—of assassination. Your slaughter was revenge.”
“In part.” She pushed past him and approached a large barrel filled with water. She plunged her head and hands into it for long seconds before emerging. “No one has any regrets.”
“You should have! Attacking a public gathering? That is not the Klingon way.”
“We are not Klingons,” she said, flicking the grime from her soaked hair. “That’s what discommendation is all about! Right? Without honor, we’re not members of the species. We’re not anything.”
“You will not be to be able to undo your ancestors’ sentences with your actions. It does not work that way.”
“You regained your name,” she said, drying off with a sooty towel. “Why do you think everyone here stares at you? You’re not just an outsider, Worf—you’re a legend. We all know your story—even here. You are the one who came back from the abyss, who regained his honor.” She strode past him to a chest and drew forth a black tunic.
Worf still wondered how anyone here had heard of him, much less seen his face. But he could not let her present misapprehension pass. “Valandris, you have it all wrong. I did not deserve the stain on my name—I did not slaughter those responsible, the way you did.”
“I know the story, Worf. You slew Duras, who falsely accused you.”
“In honorable combat. I did not ambush and kill unarmed opponents. That did not restore my name. I did a service for the Empire.”
“Well, so did we.” Valandris, now dressed in black like the villagers outside, turned and faced him. “Did you even know who it was you were protecting on Gamaral? Because we did. We studied them, the way we study any creature we hunt. They were venal, cowardly men—and their families were no better.”
Worf stared at her. This much, he knew, was true. But it raised still more questions.
“Where did you come by such records—out here? And how did you get past the Enterprise?”
“There’ll be time enough for you to learn everything. You’re not going anywhere.” She looked off to the side. “At least, I don’t think so. I wasn’t supposed to bring you.”
“That is the second time you’ve said that. What—”
Before he could complete his question, a male Klingon poked his head inside the tent flap. Worf recognized him as Tharas, the member of the Unsung who had been escorting Kahless. He looked grim. “Our lord wants to see you, Valandris. Alone.”
“Is he upset?”
“You could say that. It’s about our unexpected guest.”
Valandris let out a deep breath of resignation. “Like I was saying.”
“Your lord?” Worf looked from h
er to Tharas and back again. “Who?”
She looked over at Tharas—and then put up her hands. “I really don’t have time for that one.” Then she was a whirlwind, gathering up her communicator, d’k tahg, and other items. Reaching the entrance to the tent, she looked back at Worf. “And it’s not about regaining our names, as you called it. It never was. We’re something different now. We’re free. We’re not part of your scheme of empire anymore.”
“That’s right,” Tharas said, standing beside her. “We have a leader—and he has shown us the way.”
“What leader?” Worf asked. “Does Potok yet live?” His eyes narrowed, and he remembered something Valandris had said earlier. “You said your leader wanted to see Kahless. Where is he?”
“That, I can help you with,” Tharas said. “Follow me.”
Thirty-nine
THE GREAT HALL
QO’NOS
Korgh included two special moments on the list of the most important in his life. There was the day on which he reached the Age of Ascension and became an adult by enduring the formal rite. And there was the day he witnessed his firstborn son doing the same. Many Klingons who had shared those experiences felt similarly about them.
He had just added a new one to the list, one he was pretty sure was unique. His son had just watched his father become a man—the man he was always supposed to be. This ascension rite hadn’t involved painstiks, but it had required just as much discipline and concentration.
And preparation. So many years of preparation.
Korgh saw Lorath waiting in the entry hall of the council room. They had not yet spoken; it hadn’t been easy for Korgh to escape the chamber. After getting clear of the councillors, he’d had to run another gauntlet in the hallway, passing through a seemingly endless crowd of Klingon opinion-makers who’d learned of his announcement. Nobles, scholars, clerics, and others who had good reason to be near the seat of government: all had just heard an amazing story and longed to know more.
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