Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [21]
CAPTAIN KLAG, SON OF M’RAQ, PROWLED THE inner decks of the I. K. S. Gorkon, unwilling to sleep.
He was walking through the soldiers’ barracks, located on the mighty vessel’s centralmost deck amid a labyrinth of corridors, each wall consisting of groups of five stacked two-meter-by-one-meter bunks, each group representing a squad. Like all the Chancellor-class vessels, the Gorkon carried a complement of over twenty-seven hundred warriors, fifteen hundred of whom were troops, divided into twenty companies. Each company was led by a QaS DevwI’, or troop commander, with fifteen five-troop squads per company.
Striding through the corridor that contained the bunks for Fourth Company, Klag came upon the fifteen empty bunks that belonged to the fiftieth, fifty-first, and fifty-second squads.
For three days, the I. K. S. Gorkon had been searching for the Kinshaya pirates who had raided an outpost in the Mempa sector and taken several Klingons prisoner—including Klag’s first officer and the soldiers from those three squads. If the warriors were dead—as Klag hoped to be the case, for no Klingon wanted to be taken prisoner—then they would be avenged. If the Kinshaya had not allowed them to die—which Klag considered likely—then they would have the first opportunity to avenge the insult once they were liberated.
Either way, he swore to the soldiers via their empty bunks, the Kinshaya petaQpu’ will pay for what they have done. This I swear.
That the Kinshaya had engaged in such daring tactics bespoke how badly things were going for them. Long an irritant to the Klingon Empire—the equivalent of a glob fly buzzing at their faces—about a year after the Dominion War’s end, the Kinshaya decided to raise their voices. First they conquered the Kreel—a minor bordering nation that, rather than actively fight the Klingons, picked away at their conquests like a kretlach hovering over a lIngta’ corpse. Adding the Kreel’s resources to their own had made the Kinshaya much more formidable—though still just an irritant.
And now they have taken my second-in-command and fifteen of my warriors.
Klag was no stranger to loss. Death was a warrior’s constant companion, and if the commander was indeed dead, it wouldn’t be the first time Klag screamed a warning to the Black Fleet that his first officer was about to join them.
But he preferred such a death to come at the hands of a worthy foe.
Continuing down the corridor, Klag came across the soldiers of the fifty-third, fifty-fourth, and fifty-fifth playing a game of grinnak. At the captain’s approach, all fifteen of them dropped their tokens and slips and stood at attention.
“Stand easy,” Klag said. Then he broke into a smile. “Who is winning?”
Leader Krytak of the fifty-fourth said, “It certainly isn’t me, sir.”
“I’ve warned you in the past, Leader, about playing too many tokens at once.”
“Krytak’s not so good at heeding warnings, Captain.” Those words were spoken by the leader of the fifty-third, whose name Klag could not remember. Indeed, he remembered Krytak only because, during a campaign a year ago, Klag had seen Krytak playing grinnak with several officers. That had surprised Klag at the time—officers and soldiers didn’t often mix like that—but one of the officers was a Housemate of Krytak’s, and so the soldier joined the game. That officer had since been killed during the retaking of a moon by a group of criminals, and Krytak’s invitation to that particular grinnak game was rescinded, leaving him to lose only to his fellow soldiers.
Putting a hand on Krytak’s shoulder, Klag said sagely, “Such is the mark of a fine warrior—and a terrible grinnak player.”
Most of the soldiers laughed at that. The leader of the fifty-third was the only one who didn’t. “Sir, permission to ask a question.”
The captain knew precisely what the question was. These three squads were on their sleep cycle, but they were obviously as unwilling to sleep—as their captain was—for the same reasons. Klag said, “We have not found the Kinshaya yet, Leader. I’ve already spoken with your QaS