The Way of the Warrior

by Diane Carey

  She smiled. "I'll go easy on you."

  Woman, man, young, old. Impossible to tell. What she knew, what she could do, what she could not.

  It was not for Worf to measure.

  "Very well," he decided. "Defend yourself."

  He took up his own bat'leth and adjusted the balance in his hands. It was a good thing, this weapon. A good sensation, putting a strong weapon forward. He knew his was the superior strength, heavy of body and possessing raw power, and that would serve, but he wasn't so foolish that he didn't note her lightness of body and therefore superior speed and agility. In his years aboard the starship he had seen many adversaries in many forms and had discovered, as he had tried to tell Lourn, that power of meat and fury had found its blunt limit in advancement of technology, experience, and intelligence, which could equalize anything and anyone.

  Proof of that maneuvered before him now. She was a girl, half his weight, half his age, a feather-light humanoid without a male's upper-body strength, and yet she hid a deadly secret. The experience of—how many lifetimes? Eight? Ten? Worf knew he would never have that.

  And Dax was no fool. She knew that Curzon had made many enemies, as had the personalities before him. She probably had her own share. She had to be ready for that. Most people only dealt with the enemies of a few decades. She had to be ready for the enemies of centuries.

  The two of them began to fence. He did as best he knew, plunged at her with considered balance, and not surprisingly she parried out of his way and landed a blow on his shoulder. If they had been out to kill each other, she would've taken his head off from the back with that blow.

  His shoulder went numb down to the elbow and though he was holding the curved bat'leth in two hands, only one was any good. As the feeling trickled back into his hand he twisted to face her.

  "I see you have not forgotten all that Curzon knew about the bat'leth."

  She grinned as she fielded his swipes and thrusts. "I've even learned a few tricks of my own."

  She fell to the defensive for one instant, enough to make him step to one side and put all his balance on one leg. Then the offensive was hers, and her combination put Worf staggering. She almost scored another hit.

  "I hope you're not holding back because I'm a woman," she said. "If it makes things easier, think of me as a man. I have been one several times."

  In answer, not because he was holding back against a woman, but because the woman assumed he was, Worf blew into a whirlwind of strikes, driving her back. Finally he swept her legs from beneath her, and she struck the ground hard on her back.

  Heaving into the fabricated mist, Worf breathed, "You're right. That was easier."

  With a wince and a shuffle of her heels on the gravel, she looked up at him and smiled. "Feel better?"

  He scowled down, brows drawn. What did she mean? Every one of her sentences had something underneath.

  "I take it," she went on, "your conversation with General Martok didn't go all that well."

  Extending her hand, she reverted to her more obvious form—feminine—and waited until he got the message and drew her to her feet.

  "He was not forthcoming," Worf said. "And he is not the only one. I tried contacting Gowron, Emperor Kahless, even my own brother who sits on the High Council. No one will speak to me."

  As he said all that, he realized something about the litany of silences. At first he had thought all these people were avoiding him because of his Starfleet connections, but suddenly he realized that couldn't be all. His brother, at least, would speak to him.

  This ringing silence—was it not in its own way an answer? That all these highly placed Klingons felt unable to speak…there was something in that.

  "Maybe you're going about this the wrong way," Dax said to him.

  She seemed to be reading his expression and the jingle of awareness that had come to his eyes.

  "With so many Klingons around, there must be someone who owes your family a favor."

  "And the blood was ankle deep…

  And the River Skral ran crimson red

  On the day above all days

  When Kahless slew evil Molor dead!"

  "Hah!"

  Bloodwine, song, and the tradition of recalling the victorious past—and a butting of skulls, then laughter.

  The laughter was to hide the headache.

  With the room spinning around him, Worf reeled back and laughed very hard indeed. Beside him, his Klingon father's warrior-companion Huraga was drunk to staggering.

  That was why they were both sitting down.

  "Your father and I," the old Klingon slurred, "used to sing that song when you were just a small boy. Did I ever tell you how your father saved my family's honor during our blood feud with the House of Duras?"

  "Many times," Worf uttered, pretending to be more drunk than he was. Well, pretending some. "Including twice this evening."

  "It is a good story."

  "You tell it well."

  "Your father was a great warrior. My family owes him everything we have. I wish there was some way I could repay him."

  Every now and then, an opportunity dropped into a person's hand which was so obvious and so easy that only the dead would fail to notice. Worf leaned closer to the old man.

  "There is," he said. "Tell me why the task force is here. The real reason…not the one Martok has given the Federation."

  Huraga regarded him with age-glazed eyes. "The real reason? I suppose you have a right to know. You are a Klingon warrior and it would be wrong to keep you away from battle. And it is going to be a glorious battle. . . ."

  The old man was dreaming old dreams, Worf could tell, yet his words were in the present well enough. He was anticipating what would come and didn't want Worf to miss it. He assumed that Worf, like he himself, lived for battle and hungered for it, found his only identity there, and his only chance for honorable death. Perhaps Huraga hoped to fight again, long enough to die with a weapon in his hand. Some Klingons would start feuds just to die that way. Peace was hard on a warrior.

  He looked at Huraga. Could the old man see his Klingon blood diluting?

  Huraga was smiling at him. He would talk in his own time, draw the truth out until it tantalized.

  "There are races in the galaxy, Worf," the old Klingon began, very slowly, speaking past the effects of the bloodwine, "who are made to conflict with each other. It is their nature. Our nature."

  Worf nodded. "Yes, others have told me this."

  He realized with a jump of his stomach that he may have made a mistake, that he should've stayed quiet. The old man was talking. Let it flow.

  But Huraga inhaled deeply and let out a smelly heave. "And so are the Cardassians. Built and bred to battle. Big. Mean. Angry. Possessive. Strong. And they know it."

  With each word Worf offered only a nod.

  "They have revolted on their world," Huraga went on. "Kicked out the rulers who have retreated from so many conquests."

  "An uprising?" Worf coughed. "On Cardassia Prime?"

  "I would rise up!" Huraga raised his hand and shook it in the air. "I would shake out the weaklings who retreat in the face of challenge!"

  "Yes, I know you would—"

  "I would pull the skulls from the necks of cowards who step back when the sword is at their necks! I would!"

  "I believe you, Huraga."

  "Fight! Fight! Kick! Bite!" The old man rattled the ceiling with his shout, then elbowed back another swig of the bloodwine while the echo fell. "Ahhhh!" he gulped out. He didn't look at Worf, but stared into the low light. "But even an uprising will not save them…they know not their enemy."

  Worf leaned toward him. "What do you mean?"

  "Their enemy…is the Dominion. Yes—I see the shock in your face. I was shocked too, but that is the truth. I spoke to Gowron himself and he told me the overthrow was puppeted by those slimy interferers from the Gamma Quadrant. They have seeped through and they are here now."

  "But how do you know this?"
Worf prodded. "Have you seen a changeling? Has Gowron seen them?"

  The old man's eyes flared. "They cannot be seen. They can melt into the wall. But they are here. You know…it is too bad."

  Before Worf's eyes, Huraga sighed as if he weren't looking forward to what was coming as much as he had pretended.

  "Too bad…" he said again.

  "What do you mean?" Worf asked.

  "Oh…only the cloud of age, Worf." He took another swig of the wine. "You know, we've been at peace a long time. These young warriors, they don't know what war really is. I'm old. I've seen it. I got a chance to live out my life in a time when we all pretended we did not wish to live it out. But we did, Worf. Anyone wants to live. You know," he said, looking up suddenly, "there's a problem with dying with honor. You have to die to do it."

  He sagged back, holding the neck of the wine bottle with one hand and clasping Worf's arm with the other.

  Abruptly he laughed. "Worf! I know what to do! They should send all us old soldiers to go and die! We're ready!" He rolled back with laughter. "An army of the old, sick, and diseased! And don't forget the ugly women! We can do without them too! Hah! Hah-hah!"

  The image of such an army marched across the old man's face and flushed him with delight. Soon he was gasping, and the laughter faded away.

  Worf felt uncomfortable. He said nothing. There was nothing more to say.

  Huraga sighed again, and seemed less drunk than he had a moment ago.

  "So war comes," the old Klingon said. "And we are called upon to squash the changelings before their poison flows into the blood of our quadrant. The Cardassians have fallen to revolution. That wasn't easy. The Obsidian Order was ruthless. It was purposeful and dangerous. Why are they suddenly kicked out? There has been another power involved, greater than the Cardassian populace. That is the only answer. The Dominion is here, Worf…you and all the other young warriors will be Klingon against them…and you must kill them all."

  CHAPTER 12

  THE ENEMY MATERIALIZED beside him. So smooth and so silent was the enemy's approach that the warrior had not seen, smelled, or heard him coming.

  Stealth. It would be the death of Alpha Quadrant.

  And no one could master stealth like a changeling.

  "It all seems simpler from up here, doesn't it?" the changeling said.

  Worf inched a little down the railing on the upper walkways as he stood above the Promenade and watched the varied denizens of Deep Space Nine mill about below, including Klingons.

  Beside him, Constable Odo gazed down.

  Hating the efficiency with which Odo had come up on him from behind, Worf bluntly said, "If you are looking to start a conversation, look somewhere else. I prefer to be left alone."

  "Maybe," the shapeshifter said, his plasticlike face expressionless. "But you can't stay up here forever. Sooner or later you're going to have to talk to Captain Sisko. Whatever you've found out about the Klingons, he should be the first to know."

  Anger pierced Worf's layer of defensive privacy. "You have been spying on me."

  Odo wasn't intimidated. "As chief of security, it's my duty to observe the inhabitants of this station. Since your arrival, you've transmitted an average of five messages a day to the Klingon Homeworld…none of which have gotten a response."

  Feeling all this show on his face, Worf hardened his own expression, but knew he had failed to bury the facts. Odo was reading him like a computer screen.

  "Then last night," the shapeshifter went on, "you met with a Klingon officer in your quarters. And since then you haven't sent a single message. In fact, you've done nothing to further your investigation of the Klingon task force."

  "None of which is your business," Worf attempted, shifting his posture.

  "The security of this station is my business. And your behavior leads me to conclude that either you've given up your investigation, in which case it's my duty to take over…or you've found something. Something so disturbing that you're hesitant to inform Captain Sisko."

  "I am not interested in your conclusions."

  Worf tried and failed to keep control of his tone. The security chief's deductions were flawless, and there would be no keeping secret the fact that he knew the secret. Odo would go to Sisko if Worf did not, but was giving Worf the chance to take the first step as he had been assigned to do, to fulfill his responsibility as an officer of Starfleet first, and set his genetic identity second.

  Feeling his defense crumble under the weight of his terrible knowledge and Odo's perceptiveness, Worf swung around and tried to stride away. He had to go away, or let slip his innate racial propensities, which came so naturally and which were so reprehensible.

  "Commander," the shapeshifter called, and Worf turned back. "I just wanted to say that I understand what you're going through. I've also had to choose between my duty and loyalty to my people."

  Dismissively Worf said, "I have read your Starfleet security file."

  "Frankly, Mr. Worf, I don't care which choice you make. But you owe it to Captain Sisko to let him know which side you're on," the constable finished flatly, "before it's too late. Enjoy the view."

  "Mr. Worf…"

  Ben Sisko gestured the Klingon into his office after releasing the officers who had been giving him a debriefing on outer-hull integrity of the station. The hull had made it twenty-odd years. An hour or two wouldn't change much.

  So they went out and the Klingon came in, incongruous as ever with his Starfleet livery and that silver bandoleer of a warrior.

  Worf didn't want to be here. That was clear in his bearing.

  Circling around him to the other side of the desk, in a way of making this official, Sisko studied Worf and gave him time to get used to the conversation that was coming, to find words for whatever he had to say. The trouble of it showed in Worf's face. He wasn't anxious to speak. His face was stone.

  The answers, it seemed, were an arm's length away, if he didn't chase them off by pushing.

  But if Worf's didn't speak up pretty damned soon, they were both going to strangle from the suspense.

  "Captain…" The Klingon was forcing himself.

  For a flash Sisko worried that perhaps the answers weren't here after all and Worf was coming to report an utter failure.

  No, that wasn't it.

  "Yes, Commander?" he nudged patiently.

  "The news…is not good."

  Sisko offered a half nod. "I stopped expecting good news when the task force showed up under cloak, Commander. We're Starfleet officers. We take bad news well enough. Do you have a report for me?"

  Worf's rugged face flushed plum-brown. Was that embarrassment? Was it shame?

  "Go ahead, Commander," Sisko encouraged. "Whatever you found out, it's not your fault."

  "No," Worf said, suddenly meeting his eyes for the first time, "but it is the doings of my people…other Klingons. All the Klingons. All…but me."

  Something snapped. Sisko felt his charity fall away and with it went his patience. "That's racist claptrap and you know it or you wouldn't be in that uniform. Now give me my report."

  Worf snapped back to attention and seemed even more embarrassed, perhaps legitimately this time. "Sir…I regret to inform you of impending invasion by the Klingons."

  "Invasion on us, here?"

  "No, sir. By the Klingon Empire…on Cardassia."

  Sisko came out from behind his desk. "Cardassia? Why would the Klingons want to invade Cardassia!"

  Uneasily Worf gathered his thoughts and forced them into words. "According to my source, there's been an uprising on the Cardassian homeworld. The Central Command has been overthrown and power has been transferred to civilian authorities."

  "Even if your source is correct, what does that have to do with the Klingons?"

  Worf's eyes narrowed and the tight lids flinched as if he were in pain somewhere on that massive body.

  "Gowron and the High Council," he struggled on, "believe that the coup was engineered by the Dominion."


  As if he'd been slapped, Sisko was driven to ask, "Do they have any proof?"

  "None that I know of." The admittance of this, of the plain nature of his information as hearsay, made Worf flush again. "But they are convinced that civilians could not have overthrown the Central Command without help."

  "So by attacking Cardassia, they think they're protecting the Alpha Quadrant from the Dominion."

  "So they believe."

  The logic was faulty, full of holes, details sketchy and questionable. Worf didn't appear any more comfortable with giving this report than was Sisko in hearing it. Answers which made no more sense than the questions were uncomforting.

  Sisko glared at him, then keyed his comm. "Sisko to Dax. Contact General Martok. Tell him I need to meet with him immediately."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Mr. Worf, I know this hasn't been an easy assignment for you," Sisko began, without knowing what he would say next. Was it appropriate to apologize for requiring an officer to do a duty to which he was best suited, for whatever reason, at whatever cost? No.

  "No," Worf said, as if echoing Sisko's very thoughts. He seemed to relax a little. "But I knew this day would come. Ever since I joined Starfleet, I knew I might be forced to choose between the Federation and the Klingon Empire."

  Sisko straightened. "Maybe you don't have to make that decision just yet. I don't think there's any need for you to be here when I meet with Martok."

  Handed a sudden choice, Worf stared at Sisko and evidently was now torn in a third direction. He had just been given a way out, a chance to remain anonymous in the discovery of this disturbing news, rather than flag himself before Martok as the one who spilled the Klingons' guts.

  The chance to step back into the shadows showed as pure distaste on Worf's face and in his manner. He probably hadn't wanted to face Martok, but now given the opportunity to slip out, he bucked.

  "I would prefer to be there," he said. "I cannot avoid responsibility for what I have done today."

  A strange way to phrase it.

  Sisko wanted to ask him what he meant, what he felt, and why he felt that way. However, that was no more appropriate than offering apology.