I.K.S. Gorkon Book Three

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “These aren’t the prisoners,” she said to Gansett. “These are some other aliens—they’re called Klingons.”

  “I am Toq,” the first alien said. “We were sent to rescue our fellow warriors from their prison—one way or the other.”

  Sanchit waved her midlegs in confusion. “That’s the second time you’ve said that. What does it mean?”

  “It means that we would either take them back to the Gorkon with us—or kill them.”

  All the Elabrej present waved their forelegs in revulsion. “You would murder them?”

  Another of the aliens spoke, the one Toq called Ensign Kallo. “No Klingon warrior ever allows himself to be taken prisoner. If they are not permitted to die, then they are denied Sto-Vo-Kor.”

  Sanchit had no idea what that meant. “I don’t see how you can—can kill like that. It’s an offense against Doane.”

  “I do not know what that means,” Toq said.

  Sanchit almost laughed at that. “There is much about you we do not understand.” She led them out of the storage sphere into the large central sphere that dominated Viralas’s home. It was decorated with an assortment of hammocks and statuary, as well as bowls containing food and drink. “I do not know if our food will be edible to you, but—”

  “You idiot!”

  The interruption came from Viralas himself, who came into the central sphere through another entrance. “Vor Viralas, we—”

  “How could you bring them here!? You’ve compromised everything this movement stands for!”

  Stunned into silence, Sanchit found herself unable to reply, but Jammit spoke in her defense. “Don’t be an idiot, Viralas, we’re—”

  But Viralas, whose forelegs were waving with great annoyance, kept going. “Have any of you seen the news? Seen what they have been saying about us?”

  “What does that matter?” Toq asked. “Do you truly allow yourselves to be influenced by such irrelevancies as reportings of news?”

  At Toq’s words, Viralas’s legs stopped moving altogether. “You—you speak our language?”

  “Not quite.” Toq’s mouth spread wide, revealing several sharp incisors. “Our communications devices come equipped with translators. It allows us to communicate with any alien we meet.”

  “Any alien?” Bantrak—who had come in with Viralas—let his legs go limp at that. “There are other species besides you?”

  Toq made a sound that Sanchit supposed, given the context, was a laugh for Klingons, though she found it a grating sound that made her entire body want to shrivel up. Then the Klingon said, “There are thousands of different species just in this part of the galaxy, and we’ve only explored a small portion of it.”

  “This is all very interesting,” Viralas said, “but it doesn’t change the fact that you should not have brought these people here.” He walked to one of the tables in the room, which had an activator. Lifting the device, he pushed a button, causing a section of the wall to light up with a news broadcast.

  “As seen in these images taken just moments ago, it has now been proven beyond a doubt that the separatist movement is responsible for the attack of these alien monsters.”

  Even as the newscaster spoke, the view changed from him to images of Toq and his people’s attack, followed by ones of Toq and Sanchit talking.

  Doane’s limbs, no. Sanchit felt all her limbs shrivel. They have images of me. They can identify me. I’m an idiot—I should never have suggested so public an attack. My career—it’s over now.

  The newscaster continued as the image changed to the same one shown during Vor Jorg’s address to the hegemony. “The despicable creatures, having already murdered Shipmaster Vor Ellis and her conveyance while on their historic mission—” Now the image was that of several military conveyances fighting Toq’s fellow Klingons in the skies. “—are now fighting against the brave and noble hegemony military in the outer reaches of Elabrej sky.”

  “This is insane,” Jammit said. “They can’t possibly—”

  “It gets worse,” Viralas said.

  The image came back to the newscaster. “But even as our valiant forces have been nobly fighting against this vile alien filth that has polluted our fine hegemony, the despicable seps have been leading these demons straight to the heart of our hegemony with a cowardly attack on the government sphere, in which more brave soldiers were mercilessly killed.”

  Now the image switched to several Klingons whom Sanchit did not recognize attacking soldiers inside the government sphere. They did indeed kill several soldiers—and, Sanchit noticed, some civilians. Doane’s limbs, she thought, this is disastrous.

  “First Oligarch Vor Jorg has spoken, saying that this cowardly attack demonstrates once and for all that the separatists are a plague that needs to be eliminated from our fine hegemony, and he promised that the oligarchs would not rest until the seps and the alien filth were removed from our society permanently.”

  With that, the image went dark.

  “Of course they don’t mention that it was a rescue mission,” Yannak said. “That would force them to admit that they have alien prisoners.”

  Toq’s upper appendage swiveled toward Sanchit. “Your people will believe these lies?”

  Sanchit barely registered Toq’s words. She was still in shock from seeing her own face on the news images.

  Gansett answered the question for her. “Yes, they definitely will.”

  “Your people are fools.”

  Bantrak let out a puff of air. “Impressive. He’s only been in the hegemony a few atgret s, and he’s already learned that.”

  Sanchit finally found her voice. “Who were those others?”

  “What?” Toq asked.

  “The others who were inside the government sphere.”

  “Ah. Ours was simply a holding action. The warriors inside the—the government sphere were endeavoring to free the prisoners. Unfortunately, our ship left orbit and has not returned.”

  Altran spoke up, then. “You had a conveyance in orbit of the First World?”

  “Yes. But it was engaged by several of your military ships.”

  Letting out a puff of air, Altran said, “They’re not my military, believe me. And I’m afraid I have bad news. The news report right after the one Vor Viralas just showed us was about an alien conveyance that was discovered trying to hide in orbit. It destroyed nine of our conveyances, but then plunged to its destruction on the Tenth Moon.”

  Sanchit noticed that Toq’s midleg hands clenched into a ball. “Don’t be so sure that Toq’s conveyance was destroyed, Altran.” To Toq, Sanchit said, “The Tenth Moon is where several of our fellow seps hide, in part because the planet has a strong magnetic field that makes scanning difficult.”

  Toq’s appendage bobbed up and down. “And your news reporters have already proven themselves to be honorless liars, so I will choose to believe that Captain Klag is alive until I see proof of his death. And if he is dead”—now his appendage swiveled in the direction of Kallo and the others—“then at least he took the enemy with him.”

  Viralas’s midlegs waved in annoyance. “They’ve linked us to you, and you’ve gone and destroyed over a dozen conveyances, not to mention the people inside the government sphere. Some of those were civilians, and you just killed them!”

  “They are our enemy.”

  Sanchit was not sure if she was impressed or depressed with the simplicity of Toq’s attitude.

  “This changes everything,” Viralas said.

  “What, precisely, does it change?” Toq asked.

  Rather than answer the question, Viralas posed one of his own: “Why did you come here, alien?”

  Toq moved toward Viralas. Several of his fellow Klingons—who, Sanchit had noticed, had stayed quiet, letting Toq speak for him—moved forward with him. One or two of them unsheathed their weapons.

  “You dare to ask us that, Elabrej? One of your vessels fired on the Kravokh. Then your vessels engaged the Kravokh when they came to investigate
, destroyed it, and took its surviving crew prisoner. We were attempting to free them from their captivity. Now we learn that our captain and the rest of our crew may be dead, and you have the temerity to ask me why we came here?” Toq’s voice increased in volume with each word.

  Letting out a huge puff of air, Viralas said, “You do not understand.”

  “Then enlighten me.” Now Toq folded his midlegs in front of him. His fellows kept their weapons out.

  “For many ungrets we have tried to convince the government that their way of ruling the hegemony was destroying our people. More hegemons live in poverty now than at any time in the history of our nation. Children are starving to death, people cannot get food regularly, medical benefits that are freely available to any stratad individual are unavailable to those non-strata who actually need it. Work has become more and more scarce as the wealth of our people is concentrated into the highest stratas—less than one percent of our population. Our natural resources dwindle with every passing ungret, and our leaders do nothing.” Viralas’s midlegs indicated the other seps gathered in the sphere. “We all gathered together because we have said, ‘Enough.’ We have said that the oligarchs can no longer treat us in this manner and expect the hegemony to continue. And now, when we have finally started to make some inroads, along come you—you—you creatures to give the oligarchs something with which to discredit us, and by which they can continue the abuses that led to our rise in the first place.”

  His speech finished, silence descended on the sphere. Toq’s midlegs were still folded in front of him.

  Then, at last, the Klingon spoke. “Our people were once as you. We had stripped our world of many of its resources, and so we expanded outward. For many turns, we conquered everything in our path, giving little thought to anything besides our desire to bring more planets into our empire, because without them, our people would starve. We were so focused on conquest that we did not realize what we were doing to ourselves.”

  Toq had been pacing among the various separatists, and Sanchit couldn’t help but be impressed with his oratory. She found herself prompting him. “Something changed. You said you were once as us—so something must have changed.”

  Again, Toq’s appendage bobbed up and down. “One of our moons, the source of much of our power generation, was destroyed. We found ourselves weakened. Help came from our greatest enemy. Even though they had been our foe for many turns, they offered the hand of friendship. In the decades that followed, we flourished. No one in our empire starves now. We are warriors—we do take glory in battle—but we do not do so by sacrificing our own people.”

  Bantrak waved his left midleg. “That was a very pretty speech, alien, but it does not help us.”

  “Tell me,” Toq said, “how have you done battle against your enemy?”

  “What do you mean?” Viralas asked.

  “What have you done to effect these changes you so desire among your people?”

  Viralas’s hindlegs waved slightly. “We are responsible for a variety of publications that have spoken out against the oligarchs. Occasionally, we are able to intrude upon the government broadcasts with ones of our own that speak out against the oligarchs. We—”

  Toq was making some kind of noise through his mouth, as were many other Klingons. “This is all you do?”

  “That is what we do—those of us you see here.” Viralas’s hindlegs waved more frantically now.

  Sanchit said, “We also raid medical supply houses in order to provide for those who need it. We’ve stolen money from members of the Vor strata and given it to non-stratas. And we’ve broken into jails and released political prisoners. Those operations are generally not performed by us—we have a group headquartered on the Tenth Moon for the more physical aspects of our movement.”

  For the first time since arriving at Viralas’s sphere, Kallo spoke. “You said the Tenth Moon was where the Gorkon crashed.”

  Assuming that “the Gorkon” referred to the alien conveyance, Sanchit said, “Yes.”

  “Then—if you have people there—you can contact that moon.” Her appendage swiveled toward Toq. “We can find out if the captain is alive!”

  Bantrak let out a puff of air. “I’m afraid not. Since the war with your people started, communications have become even more tightly secured. It is impossible to get a signal there.”

  “A pity,” Altran added. “If we could have consulted them, we might have had a better plan for attacking the government sphere to release the prisoners.”

  “What was your plan?” Toq asked.

  Viralas waved his forelegs dismissively. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes, alien, it does. It is obvious that, as noble as your cause may be, you are not warriors, and you were unwise to try to act like you were.” With one of his midlegs, Toq indicated the dozens of Klingons standing behind him. “We are warriors. All the Klingons standing before you live for the sole purpose of giving their lives in battle to serve the empire. One of the many species we have encountered are called humans, and they have a saying: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ ” His appendage swiveled around the sphere. “We share a common enemy—we share a common goal.” Then the appendage settled in the direction of Viralas. “You say we have changed everything, and we have—but it is not in the way you think. If your enemy wishes you destroyed, then that enemy would use any means to eliminate you. Had we not come along, they would have found something else. But only a fool worries about what might have been, and I do not believe that you are fools. Let us take on our common enemy together—and we can start by examining your plan to free our fellow Klingons, and see how we can improve on it.”

  Viralas let out a puff of air. “You talk very prettily for so repugnant a creature, alien, but what possible reason do we have to agree to this? The sanctuary of my sphere is all that stands between you and death at the hands of the military.”

  “Perhaps I was wrong.” Toq moved closer to Viralas again. “Perhaps you are a fool.”

  Sanchit realized that she needed to contribute. “Vor Viralas, I believe that Toq is correct. We are not fighters, and we—”

  “Freeing these hideous creatures was your idea, Imparter,” Bantrak said testily, “and it has only served to make matters worse.”

  Altran said, “Yes, but Toq was right. If it wasn’t that, it would’ve been something else. Even if we hadn’t been seen together, do you really think Vor Jorg would have passed up the opportunity to blame us for the alien invasion?”

  “Besides which,” Jammit added, “the damage has already been done. They are here, and I saw them in action. They have skills that put even our military to shame, and they are offering to help us. The seps on the Tenth Moon are unavailable to us, so let us make use of what we have.”

  Gansett’s right foreleg and midleg waved in revulsion. “We cannot work with these things! They’re hideous.”

  Again, Toq’s mouth widened. “I was thinking the same of you.”

  That made Gansett’s legs wave faster.

  Viralas stood very still for almost a full engret. Finally: “Very well. Let us see what we can accomplish.”

  Sanchit let out a long puff of air in relief. The body language of the Klingons changed as well, though Sanchit was not sure how to interpret it.

  I hope it’s in a way that bodes well for us, because I fear that this movement may soon be a forgotten dream of an even more brutal hegemony….

  “You will no longer be part of the House of Varnak.”

  Eral’s father made the pronouncement in the sitting room of the House Varnak estates, the last time she would ever see this room. He crossed his wrists in front of his face and clenched his fists.

  “E—Eral?”

  Wol, as Eral, daughter of B’Etakk, now called herself, stood over the body of the soldier she’d stabbed in the back with her mek’leth on San-Tarah, not realizing until too late that he had her eyes, had her crest, and was the same age as the son she’d been forced to abandon.
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br />   “I do not care about what’s proper—I love you, Eral, and I want to be with you always.”

  Kylor said those words as he took her into his arms. She knew that it was foolish, knew that Kylor was not a worthy match for a daughter of the House of Varnak, but all she cared about when she was with him was being with him.

  “You will run faster, you filthy petaQ, or you will die at the end of my blade!”

  QaS DevwI’ Skragg drove her hard during her training on Ty’Gokor, but she came out of it a good soldier, finding a fulfillment as Wol that she never expected to find when she was denied the ability to remain as Eral.

  “The child is not mine!”

  Eral could not believe that Vranx had the gall to be surprised by this. She had never taken him to her bed, not having the stomachs for it. Did he think her to have conceived by parthenogenesis?

  “Did you hear? Martok’s back in the chancellor’s chair. They took care of Morjod on Boreth.”

  Wol pretended not to be moved by her fellow bekk’s words, but she knew that the House of Varnak had supported Morjod in his attempt to remove Martok from the leadership of the High Council. She soon learned that House Varnak was dissolved, and wondered if she truly was the only member of the once-noble House left alive—a bitter irony.

  “I don’t care what Krantor says, we have to attack the depot at dawn, not the hill at midday.”

  With those words, Wol officially disobeyed her commander in battle; the rest of the troops were with her, recognizing Krantor’s ineptitude, and the following day, their battle against Dominion forces was won. Best of all, Krantor died, and her insubordination died with him, since the other warriors stood by her.

  “Good-bye.”

  Even as Eral turned to leave her home for the last time, surrounded by all her family members—including the cousin who would raise her only son—she noticed that one person broke the circle, one person did not cross her wrists: Mother. B’Etakk instead whispered a farewell to her daughter, whom she would never see again.

  “Don’t think I’m doing you a favor here. You’ll have to earn the title of Leader, and if I think you haven’t, you’ll be sent to the three hundredth without a moment’s hesitation.”