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Fan-Fiction: The most Foolish Klingon.
patrickngo
Member Posts: 9,954 Arc User
in Ten Forward
Ty’Gokor Training and proving grounds, sometime ago…
“They’re going to betray their word.” K’Ragh, son of D’ward, asserted, “It’s in their character.”
“You’re a fool, K’Ragh.” his friend B’Sanos, son of Kollen asserted with a shake of his head. The two struggled with the weighted pillar as they reached the mud-pits. “The Federation would never break another treaty with the Klingon Empire...uhg…” the two lifted their burden. K’Ragh was shorter than his training partner, the assignment had been a particularly cunning insult to them both-B’Sanos was the son of a second tier Starship builder or Ren’wyl, K’Ragh the ‘runt’ son of Woldan’s out-of-favour brother. He was also younger than B’Sanos, by a few years, and for a Klingon, h e was nearly a dwarf-most of the women in their class were taller.
The two lifted the pillar until K’Ragh was nearly on tip-toes, arms at full extension, holding the weight above his head. “Can you reach?” B’Sanos asked, levering his end into the support column.
“I...will…” K’Ragh grimmaced, and dug deep into his reserves, as the instructors hit him from both sides with Pain Sticks to break his focus, the Senior warmaster declared “TIme!!”
The log arced up, as the short man landed. The end of the log slammed into the pillar’s latch, the young Klingon sprawled on the rocky mud.
“Demerit. Your father would be ashamed.” the warmaster sneered, and prodded him with a boot.
“So he would.” K’Ragh got to his feet. “BUT I didn’t earn that demerit.” He pointed at the gateway.
“Are you challenging me?” Warmaster K’hoal sneered.
“Sure, why not?” K’ragh huffed, staggering with exhaustion. “My team finished our task, the demerit is not deserved...this Cadet says the task was completed, Warmaster, Sir.”
The Warmaster backhanded him hard enough that Cadet Kagran, observing with several others, flinched.
“You finished it late, Cadet.” Warmaster K’hoal sneered in explanation. “That is why you failed...now get up, before you further dishonor yourself.”
“It wasn’t late.” K’Ragh growled, getting to his feet. “Check the recording.” he could barely stand, blackish gray mud streaked his cadet leathers, blood seeped from his cheek and the cuts the Warmaster’s fist had put there.
Nobody expected what happened next.
“There is no recording.” K’hoal stated, turning to face the cadet again, “are you challenging my-”
It isn’t often, this late in a cadet cycle, that the Security Bekks have to actually use their stunners. Typically, at this point, the only targets they have to worry about, are fights and disruptions between rivals within the cadet corps.
This almost looked like an opportunity. K’Ragh had already accumulated quite a record of demerits for fights in the barracks, in public, even for a young Klingon from a Noble house, he seemed to just wind up in fights. B’Sanos had been some of the cause of that-for whatever reason the rude little fireplug decided to be his friend-to associate with a lower caste, working class student who was mocked and teased for both his reserved, bookish habits, and his ‘weak’ background..
K’hoal didn’t even flinch when the short cadet leapt at him, instead, he simply redirected the angry, raging student into the low wall with a thump, deftly blocking blows and kicks with almost negligent ease.
“You’ll have to do better than that, boy.” K’hoal barked, and knocked the cadet back down with an effortless flick of his fist “Demerit for the attempt...and extra duty, report to my work area when you have cleaned up and completed your academic work for the day.”
Even the senior students flinched at that-Warmaster K’hoal’s ‘corrective actions’ tended to be exhausting and leave scars, as such, he was often given the ‘hard cases’. Most of those, broke and dropped out, though there were rumours that some committed ritual suicide rather than return.
K’hoal turned his eye to B’Sanos, “You will accompany him this evening and until I have released you, Cadet B’Sanos-you let your comrade try to protect your honor without stepping forth, you will share his punishment.”
“Yes sir.”
“Class dismissed!”
Loremaster’s area, Ty’gokor Academy, Third day, ninth month, Earth year 2390...
“I dispute that.” K’Ragh spoke up, “The Records were shared. James Kirk never once won a direct confrontation by using his own strength-he used the strength of his foes-against them.”
“But his tactics were dishonorable!” across t he pebbles, the Senior Cadet, [name] insisted, looking aghast, “He used trickery and-”
“Yes.” K’Ragh said, “He did-he used the self-deception of his foes, including notable heroes of the Empire like Kor, against them. In every contest of strength, save one, he was at a disadvantage-even a disastrous disadvantage, yet pulled victory from the jaws of defeat-and there is nothing more honorable than victory.”
“You truly believe that?”
K’Ragh nodded, “I do. There is no dishonorable tactic except the one that fails the objective, the one that evne in victory leaves the victor weakened and ripe to topple. Kirk defeated the best of his generation by being unpredictable.”
“You seem to be an admirer of Federation Captains, Cadet.” Loremaster Ch’toh noted wryly.
“I study my enemies.” K’Ragh said grimly, “this peace with the Federation, it is doomed, they break their treaties frequently, and easily, the Federation…” he turned to the Starfleet exchange student, “...betrays its word as easily as a drunken man belches. They are as a nation, not to be trusted, though some among them have some honor.”
“You’re a fool, K’ragh!” another Cadet, Kagran, barked derisively.
“Because I speak the Truth? Then yes, I am a fool.” he said, “But consider this; in General Chang’s attempted coup, he had the eager and willing assistance of members of the Federation’s starfleet, their government, their assistance in the assassination of Chancellor, and commitments from them to assassinate their own president.” he crossed his arms, “A tale worthy of an Opera, the entire affair at the first Khitomer conference...but not an opera of tragedy, or of victory, it was an opera of comedy, of bumbling conspirators and washed up old men, nevertheless, they will betray us, their ideals won’t allow anything else.”
“When?” The exchange student, a slim human named Teague, asked.
K’ragh shrugged, “Could be over the Romulans, or even the Gorn situation, but soon.” he asserted, “it’s the pattern, next year, maybe, or maybe in four years, or five-sooner or later, your government will decide that war with the Klingon Empire is preferable to peace, that the word of your nation is no longer binding, and that the mutual defense pact formed in the Dominion War, is n o longer in the interest of their politics.” He kept his hands in a neutral position, circling the standing stone, “it will begin with some small incident, and the Federation’s diplomats will explain it away, and if we accept their explanations, then a larger incident will happen-something deniable, maybe.” he locked eyes, “but in no more than ten years, our peoples will be at war again-because that is how long it takes for your government to become comfortably entrenched in the idea that they are free to disregard their obligations, it’s a pattern. It goes back to Archer’s time, before your precious ‘federation’ was even founded.”
He stopped, “You don’t believe me.” he said. “Watch and see.”
Later that night, at Warmaster K’hoal’s exercise ground.
“Again!!” the ancient warrior barked, and K’Ragh steeled himself as he gained his feet, lifting the extra-weighted practice blade. Since the day six months ago that he’d challenged-and lost, the Warmaster had drilled him mercilessly every night up to, and often past, hte limits of his endurance. The old man, a veteran of the last generation to see Praxis whole, was unstoppable in his raw energy.
On these punishment nights, sometimes as many as twenty other cadets, found wanting by other instructors, joined them in the seemingly endless nightly sparring. None, save his friend B’Sanos, however, joined them every night.
“Eleventh Form!!” the warmaster barked, “Begin!!”
Warmaster K’hoal was a student and teacher of the ‘hard’ styles of Mok’bara, but he also, sometimes, would, as he was tonight, drill his ‘special cases’ in the so-called ‘soft’ styles-and somehow managed to make the aching worse than the vigorous and fast Hard styles most often favoured among the old Aristocracy.
But it wasn’t enough to drive students to-and beyond-exhaustion. The Warmaster demanded answers, sometimes to questions of philosophy, sometimes science, often mathematics.
He seemed to delight in making engineering students do differential calculus problems without benefit of computer assistance, or ballistic equations...and then, just as the student felt a surge of confidence, he would change the subject to science, or history.
And unlike the Loremaster, the Warmaster insisted on objective answers, answers stripped of poetry, romance and passion.
“Outside of our culture, only fact matters.” K’hoal added another weight to the staff K’Ragh held level. “Raise five degrees, and hold.” the tip of the practice implement wavered crazily with K’Ragh’s trembling. “Keep it Still. What is the correct matter/antimatter ratio to initiate a warp flight for a warship massing nine hundred thousand cheb, with a dilithium matrix of Ninety four percent purity whose surface area is Eighty one ‘uj, according to Ren’wyl K’Tol’s second equation, the matter portion being deuterium?”
“P-p-point...zero one six to one, assuming a stationary s-s-start!” K’Ragh answered.
“Correct. With the secondary reflectors out of alignment?”
“T-t-trick...question, you can not use the K’Tol equations without an aligned secondary.” K’Ragh replied.
“False.” K’hoal slid another weight on the tip of the staff, “The first warp-ships lacked secondary reflectors, and used K’Tol’s equations.”
Something about that made the fatigue in K’Ragh’s arms fade, he knew if he let the tip of the staff dip, the Warmaster wouldn’t answer the question that slid out of his mouth, “But how?”
“They did not initiate from a stationary position, and they used a far less efficient intermix-at grave risk.” K’hoal explained, “up two degrees, then assume the ninth posture, do not disturb the tip as you do so-begin.”
K’Ragh thought through the motion before he began, in the middle of his motion, “Calculate the intermix solution!” K’hoal barked, “Out loud, begin with the formula for Warp travel!”
“Dialation of space, squared equals the difference of lapse function that gives the interval of proper time between nearby hypersurfaces times itself minus the product of shift vectors between hypersurfaces, all multiplied by the dialation of time times itself…”
The recitation took most of the night, only interrupted by K’hoal’s alteration of the weight and balance of the staff, demands for a new posture, and insistence that the Cadet’s form in the stances be perfect-an insistence often punctuated by the application of a pain-stick to correct the boy’s postures and stances.
The sky was reddish-gray with sunrise before the Warmaster relented, stating, “That is enough for now, go, clean yourself, attend your normal classes, and report here to work off the demerits you have earned this night.”
“They’re going to betray their word.” K’Ragh, son of D’ward, asserted, “It’s in their character.”
“You’re a fool, K’Ragh.” his friend B’Sanos, son of Kollen asserted with a shake of his head. The two struggled with the weighted pillar as they reached the mud-pits. “The Federation would never break another treaty with the Klingon Empire...uhg…” the two lifted their burden. K’Ragh was shorter than his training partner, the assignment had been a particularly cunning insult to them both-B’Sanos was the son of a second tier Starship builder or Ren’wyl, K’Ragh the ‘runt’ son of Woldan’s out-of-favour brother. He was also younger than B’Sanos, by a few years, and for a Klingon, h e was nearly a dwarf-most of the women in their class were taller.
The two lifted the pillar until K’Ragh was nearly on tip-toes, arms at full extension, holding the weight above his head. “Can you reach?” B’Sanos asked, levering his end into the support column.
“I...will…” K’Ragh grimmaced, and dug deep into his reserves, as the instructors hit him from both sides with Pain Sticks to break his focus, the Senior warmaster declared “TIme!!”
The log arced up, as the short man landed. The end of the log slammed into the pillar’s latch, the young Klingon sprawled on the rocky mud.
“Demerit. Your father would be ashamed.” the warmaster sneered, and prodded him with a boot.
“So he would.” K’Ragh got to his feet. “BUT I didn’t earn that demerit.” He pointed at the gateway.
“Are you challenging me?” Warmaster K’hoal sneered.
“Sure, why not?” K’ragh huffed, staggering with exhaustion. “My team finished our task, the demerit is not deserved...this Cadet says the task was completed, Warmaster, Sir.”
The Warmaster backhanded him hard enough that Cadet Kagran, observing with several others, flinched.
“You finished it late, Cadet.” Warmaster K’hoal sneered in explanation. “That is why you failed...now get up, before you further dishonor yourself.”
“It wasn’t late.” K’Ragh growled, getting to his feet. “Check the recording.” he could barely stand, blackish gray mud streaked his cadet leathers, blood seeped from his cheek and the cuts the Warmaster’s fist had put there.
Nobody expected what happened next.
“There is no recording.” K’hoal stated, turning to face the cadet again, “are you challenging my-”
It isn’t often, this late in a cadet cycle, that the Security Bekks have to actually use their stunners. Typically, at this point, the only targets they have to worry about, are fights and disruptions between rivals within the cadet corps.
This almost looked like an opportunity. K’Ragh had already accumulated quite a record of demerits for fights in the barracks, in public, even for a young Klingon from a Noble house, he seemed to just wind up in fights. B’Sanos had been some of the cause of that-for whatever reason the rude little fireplug decided to be his friend-to associate with a lower caste, working class student who was mocked and teased for both his reserved, bookish habits, and his ‘weak’ background..
K’hoal didn’t even flinch when the short cadet leapt at him, instead, he simply redirected the angry, raging student into the low wall with a thump, deftly blocking blows and kicks with almost negligent ease.
“You’ll have to do better than that, boy.” K’hoal barked, and knocked the cadet back down with an effortless flick of his fist “Demerit for the attempt...and extra duty, report to my work area when you have cleaned up and completed your academic work for the day.”
Even the senior students flinched at that-Warmaster K’hoal’s ‘corrective actions’ tended to be exhausting and leave scars, as such, he was often given the ‘hard cases’. Most of those, broke and dropped out, though there were rumours that some committed ritual suicide rather than return.
K’hoal turned his eye to B’Sanos, “You will accompany him this evening and until I have released you, Cadet B’Sanos-you let your comrade try to protect your honor without stepping forth, you will share his punishment.”
“Yes sir.”
“Class dismissed!”
Loremaster’s area, Ty’gokor Academy, Third day, ninth month, Earth year 2390...
“I dispute that.” K’Ragh spoke up, “The Records were shared. James Kirk never once won a direct confrontation by using his own strength-he used the strength of his foes-against them.”
“But his tactics were dishonorable!” across t he pebbles, the Senior Cadet, [name] insisted, looking aghast, “He used trickery and-”
“Yes.” K’Ragh said, “He did-he used the self-deception of his foes, including notable heroes of the Empire like Kor, against them. In every contest of strength, save one, he was at a disadvantage-even a disastrous disadvantage, yet pulled victory from the jaws of defeat-and there is nothing more honorable than victory.”
“You truly believe that?”
K’Ragh nodded, “I do. There is no dishonorable tactic except the one that fails the objective, the one that evne in victory leaves the victor weakened and ripe to topple. Kirk defeated the best of his generation by being unpredictable.”
“You seem to be an admirer of Federation Captains, Cadet.” Loremaster Ch’toh noted wryly.
“I study my enemies.” K’Ragh said grimly, “this peace with the Federation, it is doomed, they break their treaties frequently, and easily, the Federation…” he turned to the Starfleet exchange student, “...betrays its word as easily as a drunken man belches. They are as a nation, not to be trusted, though some among them have some honor.”
“You’re a fool, K’ragh!” another Cadet, Kagran, barked derisively.
“Because I speak the Truth? Then yes, I am a fool.” he said, “But consider this; in General Chang’s attempted coup, he had the eager and willing assistance of members of the Federation’s starfleet, their government, their assistance in the assassination of Chancellor, and commitments from them to assassinate their own president.” he crossed his arms, “A tale worthy of an Opera, the entire affair at the first Khitomer conference...but not an opera of tragedy, or of victory, it was an opera of comedy, of bumbling conspirators and washed up old men, nevertheless, they will betray us, their ideals won’t allow anything else.”
“When?” The exchange student, a slim human named Teague, asked.
K’ragh shrugged, “Could be over the Romulans, or even the Gorn situation, but soon.” he asserted, “it’s the pattern, next year, maybe, or maybe in four years, or five-sooner or later, your government will decide that war with the Klingon Empire is preferable to peace, that the word of your nation is no longer binding, and that the mutual defense pact formed in the Dominion War, is n o longer in the interest of their politics.” He kept his hands in a neutral position, circling the standing stone, “it will begin with some small incident, and the Federation’s diplomats will explain it away, and if we accept their explanations, then a larger incident will happen-something deniable, maybe.” he locked eyes, “but in no more than ten years, our peoples will be at war again-because that is how long it takes for your government to become comfortably entrenched in the idea that they are free to disregard their obligations, it’s a pattern. It goes back to Archer’s time, before your precious ‘federation’ was even founded.”
He stopped, “You don’t believe me.” he said. “Watch and see.”
Later that night, at Warmaster K’hoal’s exercise ground.
“Again!!” the ancient warrior barked, and K’Ragh steeled himself as he gained his feet, lifting the extra-weighted practice blade. Since the day six months ago that he’d challenged-and lost, the Warmaster had drilled him mercilessly every night up to, and often past, hte limits of his endurance. The old man, a veteran of the last generation to see Praxis whole, was unstoppable in his raw energy.
On these punishment nights, sometimes as many as twenty other cadets, found wanting by other instructors, joined them in the seemingly endless nightly sparring. None, save his friend B’Sanos, however, joined them every night.
“Eleventh Form!!” the warmaster barked, “Begin!!”
Warmaster K’hoal was a student and teacher of the ‘hard’ styles of Mok’bara, but he also, sometimes, would, as he was tonight, drill his ‘special cases’ in the so-called ‘soft’ styles-and somehow managed to make the aching worse than the vigorous and fast Hard styles most often favoured among the old Aristocracy.
But it wasn’t enough to drive students to-and beyond-exhaustion. The Warmaster demanded answers, sometimes to questions of philosophy, sometimes science, often mathematics.
He seemed to delight in making engineering students do differential calculus problems without benefit of computer assistance, or ballistic equations...and then, just as the student felt a surge of confidence, he would change the subject to science, or history.
And unlike the Loremaster, the Warmaster insisted on objective answers, answers stripped of poetry, romance and passion.
“Outside of our culture, only fact matters.” K’hoal added another weight to the staff K’Ragh held level. “Raise five degrees, and hold.” the tip of the practice implement wavered crazily with K’Ragh’s trembling. “Keep it Still. What is the correct matter/antimatter ratio to initiate a warp flight for a warship massing nine hundred thousand cheb, with a dilithium matrix of Ninety four percent purity whose surface area is Eighty one ‘uj, according to Ren’wyl K’Tol’s second equation, the matter portion being deuterium?”
“P-p-point...zero one six to one, assuming a stationary s-s-start!” K’Ragh answered.
“Correct. With the secondary reflectors out of alignment?”
“T-t-trick...question, you can not use the K’Tol equations without an aligned secondary.” K’Ragh replied.
“False.” K’hoal slid another weight on the tip of the staff, “The first warp-ships lacked secondary reflectors, and used K’Tol’s equations.”
Something about that made the fatigue in K’Ragh’s arms fade, he knew if he let the tip of the staff dip, the Warmaster wouldn’t answer the question that slid out of his mouth, “But how?”
“They did not initiate from a stationary position, and they used a far less efficient intermix-at grave risk.” K’hoal explained, “up two degrees, then assume the ninth posture, do not disturb the tip as you do so-begin.”
K’Ragh thought through the motion before he began, in the middle of his motion, “Calculate the intermix solution!” K’hoal barked, “Out loud, begin with the formula for Warp travel!”
“Dialation of space, squared equals the difference of lapse function that gives the interval of proper time between nearby hypersurfaces times itself minus the product of shift vectors between hypersurfaces, all multiplied by the dialation of time times itself…”
The recitation took most of the night, only interrupted by K’hoal’s alteration of the weight and balance of the staff, demands for a new posture, and insistence that the Cadet’s form in the stances be perfect-an insistence often punctuated by the application of a pain-stick to correct the boy’s postures and stances.
The sky was reddish-gray with sunrise before the Warmaster relented, stating, “That is enough for now, go, clean yourself, attend your normal classes, and report here to work off the demerits you have earned this night.”
Nature doesn't HAVE to be nice, or polite.
Free Hong Kong.
Free Hong Kong.
0
Comments
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
You do have problems with being organized.
You know it is OK to organize and edit before you "publish".
Or are you just typing right onto your computer before any editing happens?
Brainstorming, as it were, on the forums?
You need your friend to brainstorm with, don't you?
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Wha? Wait..."couple of other stories" ??
You mean this is another "Masterverse" one?
I have to add it to the list!!!! Uh...tomorrow.
I have to read the rest of this story some other time because I am tired of looking at the forum today.
Searching through story after story for the one that matches obscure titles has turned me off of it.
Find: K’Ragh, son of D’ward / B’Sanos, son of Kollen
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
LOL! It is triggering my "OCD"....or whatever this need to have order in my mind is.
Though, that wouldn't be Patrickngo's problem.
But it is a problem for me to enjoy the story.
And a reason I usually stop reading his stories.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Oh, also avoid Spider Robinson's novel Mindkiller, which alternates chapters between a near-future schoolteacher whose sister has gone missing and a slightly-farther-future cat burglar with amnesia who partners with a suicidal hooker he saved. Excellent novel, but if everything has to be in chronological order for you to enjoy it that one would drive you nuts. (I mean, there's a good reason why the novel is structured that way - but I'm not sure the reason would make a real difference for you.)
And was going to list the authors I do not read including: Robert A. Heinlein. LOL!
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!