I started up a couple of small, one page little mini-stories that take place just after 'Brave New World'. I intend for them to be only one page each, and each will address a single topic or point of interest. Oddly enough, they will deal with one of the issues La'ra mentioned in a post after I finished 'BNW'. So, give 'er a lil' read. Won't take ya long.
Klingon Interlude
Part One
Captain Dath’mar, son of Kurog, pulled on the freshly oiled glove that was the final piece of his new uniform. The glove stretched into the tight places between his fingers and knuckles, and the Klingon found the stiffness of the new pair very comforting. It would take him some weeks to break this new uniform in. Till then it would creak as the new leather bent and smell of fresh oils. It felt good to be back in a true fleet uniform.
The tattered remains of his decade-old suit lay in a stinking heap on the deck of this ship. He had been glad to shed himself of that sad affair. The old armor had protected him from harm and the elements and held his blood for more than ten years as he and his men had rotted and fought on that prison world.
Now the armor had found its place, at his feet, discarded for something better. Just like his life of the last ten years. Dath’mar did not look upon those years fondly. It had not been a glorious campaign of conquest or even defense. It had been a mere battle to survive and strike back again and again for sheer revenge. So many of his former men who’d made it to that world did not leave it again with him.
For the memory those men and women, he had stained his new uniform in ash as he’d oiled it. The normally silver leather pieces were so grey as to be almost black in color. For those crewers he wore a daily reminder of what he’d left there on that jungle world to rot. Dath’mar clenched a tawny, callused fist. He would do those Klingons, those warriors, proud.
This ship he found himself aboard, Governor Ron’jar’s Toq’hiGH, had been en route back to the Governor’s title world of Goesa’vaina now for two days at moderate warp speed. Dath’mar had been left alone in his cabin for much of that time; allowed to think. This morning Ron’jar had disturbed his tranquility to bring him two things. First was news. They would reach his title world in another fourteen hours. Next was a question. Do you intend to remain in the Imperial Fleet?
For the first six years of his captivity, Dath’mar had thought of nothing else. Win freedom from the Ya’wenn, go home, and rejoin the fleet. There was nothing else to drive him. But when six years dragged into eight, then ten and beyond… Dath’mar gave up dreaming of anything more than making Over Warden Jarn hurt. Making that alien devil pay. This woke Dath’mar up in the morning. This drew him from his sleeping pallet. This made him don his armor, take up his weapons and tend to his men. It made him keep eating. Keep fighting. Raiding. Destroying. Stealing. Killing. Assassinating targets. The drive for revenge kept him warm at night when his dead mate no longer could.
Ron’jar’s question had shaken him.
The governor never spoke till he had need. He was a stern, silent man of few words. But what he spoke often had meaning. Perhaps he’d guessed Dath’mar’s state of mind. Whatever. He’d asked the right question at the right time. Dath’mar realized that he’d had no thoughts, yet, of what he was going to do once leaving this ship. It made him realize that he could do anything he so chose to do.
He could go home to Qo’noS, restart his House. He could reclaim titles and honors due him since the House of Kurog had been cast down by Kruge. He could walk away from it all and start an entirely new life, and none would blame him after the battle he’d fought and survived. His name was now an honored one. He’d come to find out since Kruge’s treachery had been uncovered, his name had accumulated a substantial amount of weight. He could do anything.
All this gave him a feeling of freedom the likes of which he’d never felt before. He was truly free of that prison. But, for him, and because all the dead souls he owed his life to, there was but a single road ahead of him. He’d opened the ship’s computer files to find the current issue of fleet uniforms. He’d passed by the new, padded and glossy types now favored by House members and higher officers. He’d selected the style most akin to the rumpled mess lying at his feet and ordered the ship’s synthesizers to make him a new set. He stood there, now, in the raiment he’d chosen. He was a member of the Klingon Imperial Fleet.
And so would he be till Sto-Vo-Kor took him.
END.
Topic: Dath'mar #1 (Read 2237 times)