Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [22]
Krytak said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Your loyalty does you credit.”
“It’s not just that, sir,” said the leader of the fifty-fifth. “That should’ve been us, sir.”
Klag growled. “Explain.”
The leader of the fifty-fifth grew nervous at his captain’s anger. “Last week, sir, in the mess hall, sir, we had a wager. See, there was that bad batch of bloodwine, sir, that had gone off, remember, sir?”
Klag had a vague recollection of the quartermaster mentioning something about a bad batch arriving on the ship, but Klag—who had his own private stock—hadn’t paid much attention. “Continue.”
“We had a wager, sir, to see who could drink the most before throwing up, sir.” Suddenly sounding prideful, the leader said, “We won, sir.”
Now Klag understood. “And the wager was to switch assignments.”
Krytak jumped in. “We didn’t think going to that base would be a particularly glorious task, Captain.”
Quoting Kahless, Klag said, “‘Glory comes from unexpected sources,’ Leader. If it was expected, it isn’t especially glorious.”
“I’ll remember that, sir.”
Smiling, Klag said, “Along with remembering not to play too many tokens at once, I’m sure. Continue with your game, my warriors. You will have the opportunity to reclaim your honor soon enough!”
The soldiers all cheered in response to that and went back to their game.
Klag continued down the corridor, only to hear his communicator go off. “Bridge to captain.”
It was the voice of the second-shift commander, who was new. Klag couldn’t remember her name, either. “Speak.”
“Sir, we have detected a warp trail that matches that of the Kinshaya ship, and it leads to the Trakliv system. We have changed course to intercept and will arrive in one hour.”
“Good. I will be on the bridge shortly.”
Klag strode more quickly through the corridors of his ship. Four years later, he still took immense pride in captaining this vessel, a goal that he had thought unattainable for so long, after his seemingly endless service on the Pagh under the terminally incompetent Captain Kargan.
However, Kargan was kind enough to die in the Dominion War, clearing the way for Klag at last to achieve his own command, and one of the top new vessels in the Defense Force on top of that.
As he worked his way forward through the Gorkon, Klag thought back on one of the few happy memories he had of his tour on the Pagh: the unlikely friendship he’d developed with a human Starfleeter named William Riker. When Klag was still second officer on the Pagh, an officer exchange program with the Federation had sent Riker, then the first officer of the Enterprise, to take over as second-in-command. Though his tenure had been brief, it had made a lasting impression on Klag, whose prior opinion of humans was low, to say the least.
After his transfer back to the Enterprise, he had remained in touch with Riker.
Klag was promoted to first officer. Both he and Riker retained their positions for far too long—Riker by choice, Klag by Kargan’s decision to keep his first by his side in order to cover his own pathetic inability to command.
As Klag entered the bridge of his ship, he thought proudly, Commanding this ship is where I belong.
Even as the door rumbled aside to let Klag in, the second-shift operations officer reported, “Sir, something is wrong!”
The words had been directed at the second-shift commander seated in front of him, so the young officer was rather shocked when Klag asked, “What is it, Ensign?”
Whirling around, the ensign composed himself quickly. “Sir, the warp trail of the Kinshaya vessel has come to an end very abruptly—and the Trakliv system is gone!”
The pilot said, “Confirmed. There’s…something else where the system used to be.”
“On screen,” Klag said as he walked to the front of the bridge. As with most Klingon vessels, there was an open space between the command chair and the viewscreen, with all the other bridge officers behind him. The placement of the bridge at the very front of the ship