STAR TREK - TNG - Kahless

Kahless

by Michael Jan Freedman

Another star trek next generation Novel

published by pocket books

copyright Paramount pictures 1996.

Acknowledgments

In some ways Kahless is a homecoming for me. You see, before I began

writing Star Trek novels almost ten years ago, I broke into the field

with a bunch of heroic fantasy books.

Most of them were based on Norse mythology, my personal favorite. They

were tales of romance and high adventure set against a backdrop of

cosmic significance.

And I don't feel the least bit guilty plugging them, because they're all

out of print.

What's more, I hadn't written anything even vaguely like them since.

Until I got the idea for Kahless, that is.

Wouldn't it be fun, I wondered, to tell a heroic fantasy story in the

Star Trek universe? And what better place to do that than on Qo'noS

(yup, that's an uppercase "S" on the end), home of those grim and

bloodthirsty Klingons?

Mind you, it wasn't the first time I'd dug into the Klingon mythos. A

couple of years ago, I wrote a four-issue set for DC Comics called

"Shadowheart," which dealt with the tension between Worfs Klingon

heritage and his upbringing among humans. And even before that, I took

aim at Klingon treachery and ambition in the original-series book Faces

of Fire.

In other words, I wasn't completely new to this. Still, I have to admit,

I wasn't quite prepared for the magnitude of the undertaking.

The thing is, I wasn't the first person to be fascinated by those

fun-loving guys with the bumps on their heads.

Certainly, Ronald D. Moore and Rene Echevarria vastly expanded our

knowledge of Klingon lore as writers for the Next Generation TV show-and

they were hardly the only ones.

So much had been written about Klingons on TV and in the movies, doing

my preproposal research made me feel like I was working toward a

doctorate. So much triumph and tragedy, so little time.

Anyway, I managed to get it all in here, or just about all-the myriad

little tidbits that shaped our understanding of Worf's race. There were

a few things that just didn't seem to fit, like the time Kahless plowed

his father's field with his bat'telh, or that business about the wind at

Quin'lat. But you'll find just about everything else.

So now comes the part where I thank everyone who helped me on my way to

Sto-Vo-Kor (or was it Gre'thor?).

Like a gumshoe in a classic mystery novel, I find myself lining up all

the usual suspects.

Kevin Ryan, editor nonpareil, had the brilliance to buy this book. That

alone would have earned him a place on this page. But on top of that, he

stretched me on the rack of editorial privilege until I creaked and

groaned and invoked the Geneva Accord ... and finally turned out

something he wasn't entirely embarrassed to publish.

John Ordover, Kevin's right-hand man, is a font of Klingon information.

If I could write one-hundredth as fast as John can read, oh how prolific

I'd be then!

As usual, Bob Greenberger did his best to distract me from my writing

with every manner of diversion known to man. But that was important too.

One needs to keep a perspective on one's work. Just ask the Jack

Nicholson character in The Shining.

Paula Block of Paramount's licensing department doesn't get nearly as

much recognition as she deserves at least, from the average reader. Of

course, we writers recognize her. A bright and personable woman, she

works hard behind the scenes to make sure what we turn out has the ring

of authenticity to it. And in all the time I've worked with her, I've

never seen her quash an idea for continuity reasons if there was even

half a chance of salvaging it.

I should also thank my friend Phillip Alder and my brother-in-law Keith

Ditkowsky for their technical support vis-a-vis my computer programs. No

computer, no writing; no writing, no books. So thanks, guys. And

remember, a mention in the acknowledgment section is always a lot nicer

than actual remuneration.

My mom and dad ... what can I say? It was nice being raised by you, but

it's kind of nice being an adult too.

Now I can tell you about all the things I put over on you all those

years. Like those stomachaches I used to get on Tuesdays and Thursdays

when it was time for Hebrew School? Faked 'em. Every last one of 'em.

Sorry about that.

And while we're on the subject of child rearing ... everyone should have

kids like mine. At an early age, both Brett and Drew learned that when

Daddy's working, he's to be left alone. Of course, they ignore that rule

every chance they get. But I find some small consolation in the fact

that they at least know which rule they're breaking.

Finally, there's my wife Joan. When I'm up against a horrific deadline,

often of my own making, I turn to her and beg for pity. And invariably,

I get it. Joan picks up the slack, taking care of everything else in our

lives, while I chain myself to my desk. And when the book is done and

people are marveling at my dedication, only Joan and I know who really

deserves the credit. (Though I guess you know it now, too.)

So there we have it. But before I go, I'll leave you with one last bit

of Klingon advice. "qaStaHvIS wa'ram loS SaD Hugh SIjlaH qetbogh Ilod. "

Translation "Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running

man."

Don't look at me. I don't know what it means either.

HISTORIAN'S NOTE

This story takes place in the eighth year of Jean-Luc Picard's command

of the Enterprise-D-after the events chronicled in All Good Things ...

and prior to those described in Star Trek Generations.

Michael Jan Friedman Port Washington, New York February 1996 PROLOGUE

In ancient times, there was a road here.

But that was more than a thousand years ago, long after the end of the

so-called heroic age. The rolling terrain had long since been claimed by

flowering brush and snaking vines and a dense forest of

gray-and-yellow-streaked micayah trees.

Which made it all the more difficult to excavate, thought Olahg, as he

watched a half-dozen workmen finish clearing a stand of micayah with

their hand tools.

They could have used disruptors, but this forest was prized by those

Klingons who lived in the vicinity, and it wouldn't be a good idea to

cut down any more of it than they absolutely had to.

The clerics of Boreth, of whom Olahg counted himself a member, had plied

the High Council for years to obtain permission to dig here. If they

hoped to excavate other sacred sites, other locations where Emperor

Kahless had walked, it was critical that they treat this place with

respect.

By the time the work crew was done with Olahg's appointed,

twelve-meter-square plot, the micayah were gone. So were the mosses and

shrubs and flowering plants that had grown in the spaces between them.

All that was left was the pungent smell of micayah sap, unraveling in

the wakening breeze to the shrill protest of distant treehens.

The foreman of the crew stood up straight. Turning to Olahg, he grinned

through his sweat and his long black beard. A Klingon's Klingon, he had

a brow heavy with thick hornlike ridges.

"How's that, Brother? Clean enough for you? Or shall I cut the rest

away with a dagger?"

The initiate swallowed, dismayed by the foreman's gravelly voice and

broad shoulders. "It is clean enough," he confirmed, and watched the

crew move to the next designated section, where another cleric awaited

them.

Olahg sighed. He had never been one for confrontation.

Nor was he built for it, with his skinny limbs and his slight, fragile

frame.

Certainly, that quality had not made his life easy. It had caused him to

fall from favor with his father rather early in his youth, and all but

ensured him a desk job in some deadly-dull Klingon bureaucracy.

Then, several months ago, Olahg had heard the Call.

He had hearkened to the small, insistent voice within, which had urged

him toward the teachings of the legendary emperor Kahless.

It was the Call that had brought him to the planet Boreth and its

shadowy mountain monastery, and placed him in the company of the other

clerics. And it was the Call that had convinced him to spurn worldly

things, embracing a life of pious contemplation instead.

Olahg had fully expected to spend the remainder of his worldly existence

that way-sitting around a smoking firepit with his brethren, seeking

visions in the scented fumes. He had grown comfortable with the

prospect. He had even convinced himself that he was happy.

However, only a few weeks after his arrival on Boreth, the wisdom of

Kahless began to lose its appeal. Or perhaps not the wisdom itself, but

the rather austere way in which it was handed down to Kahless's

disciples.

He came to long for a more personal relationship with the object of his

admiration. He yearned for an audience with the great, glorious Kahless

himself-or, failing that, the being made from Kahless's genetic material

who had been named the Empire's ceremonial emperor a few years earlier.

But petition as he might, Olahg could not seem to win such an audience.

He was told time and again that Emperor Kahless was too busy, that his

duties kept him away from Boreth-though when that changed, he would

surely visit the monastery.

When he could find the time.

Even though it was in that monastery that the clone had been created.

Even though it was the community of clerics on Boreth to whom the

emperor owed his very existence.

The idea was a festering wound in Olahg's soul. He couldn't sleep for

the ingratitude of it, the injustice-the need he couldn't seem to fill.

And the spiritual Kahless was no more accessible.

Though Olahg sat before the prayer pit until his face grew raw with its

heat, no visions came to him. It was as if he had been abandoned,

spurned by the icon of his faith as surely as he had been spurned by

everyone else in hi s life.

Koroth, chief guardian of the monastery, had told him that Kahless was

testing him, that the emperor had something special in mind for him. But

as much as Olahg honored and respected Koroth for his insight, that was

difficult for him to believe.

More and more, he felt alone, apart. And he came to resent the very

personage he was supposed to worship.

Shaking his head, the initiate surveyed the patch of earth that had been

cleared for him. The severed ends of stray micayah roots still stung his

nostrils with their pungency. Later, the excavation teams would move

in not only here, but in all those other places the ground had been

cleared.

Then the digging would begin in earnest. For, according to the clerics'

best guess, this was the area where the historical Kahless made camp on

the long trek from his fortress to Sto-Vo-Kor.

Sto-Vo-Kor, of course, was the Klingon afterlife, to which Kahless

disappeared after his death. It was a leap of faith to believe in such a

place, but Olahg had done so wholeheartedly. At least, in the beginning.

The initiate knelt and picked up a handful of earth. It was rife with

tiny bits of rock.

Was it possible that Kahless had really stopped at this spot and laid

down his burden? That he had stretched out beneath the heavens here?

Perhaps even spent his last night on Qo'noS in this place, breathing the

fragrant air and taking in the sight of all the stars?

Allowing the loose earth to sift through his fingers, Olahg stood and

brushed off his palms. It would be difficult to find conclusive proof

that Kahless had been in this spot. After all, nearly seventy-five

generations had come and gone since. Even if such evidence had existed

once, he doubted that it would have survived intact.

That was not the way a cleric was supposed to think. It was not the way

of faith. But it was the way he felt right now.

The initiate was about to look for his colleague Divok, to see if it was

time for the midday meal yet, when he saw something glint in the rising

sunlight. He smiled at the irony. Here he had just been thinking about

what they might unearth, and an artifact had already presented itself.

No doubt, it would turn out to be a sign from Kahless that Olahg's faith

had been well-placed, and that the universe's cosmic plan would now be

revealed to him. He grunted derisively. Yes-and after that, spotted

targs would sing Klingon opera from the rooftops.

More likely, it was some piece of junk cast aside as someone strolled

through these woods. Or maybe it was the tip of some bigger piece of

garbage, discarded some years ago, when this forest wasn't quite so

large.

At any rate, Olahg wasn't going to get his hopes up. Not by a long shot.

He had done too much of that already.

Crossing the small, squared-off clearing, he saw that it was indeed a

piece of metal that had caught the light. As he had suspected, it seemed

to be the corner of something larger.

Olahg kicked at it, expecting the thing to dislodge itself from the

ground. It didn't. It was too firmly anchored.

His curiosity aroused, he knelt again and dug around it with his

fingers. It was hard work and it made his fingers hurt, but in time he

exposed a bit more of the object. It looked like part of an oblong metal

box.

Getting a grip on the box with both hands, he tried a second time to

move it, but it still wouldn't budge. So he dug some more. And some more

again, as the morning light grew hotter and more intense.

Little by little, making his hands raw and worn in the process, he came

that much closer to unearthing it. Bit by bit, it revealed itself to

him.

He could see there were symbols carved into it. Ancient symbols, he

thought, though he didn't have the knowledge to confirm that. But they

certainly looked ancient.

Or was it just that he wanted them to look that way?

That he wanted this box to be of some significance?

As his fingers were cramping, he collected sticks and rocks from outside

the clearing to use as tools. Then he set to work again. It took a

while, but he finally scooped out a big enough hole to wrest the thing

from the ground.

With an effort that made his back ache and strained the muscles in his

neck, he heaved and heaved and eventually pulled it free. More curious

than ever, he laid the thing on its side and inspected it.

It was about a half-meter long, made of an alloy he had never seen

before, and covered with the markings he had noticed earlier. The metal

was discolored in some spots and badly rusted in others, but all in all

it was remarkably well preserved.

That is, if it was anywhere near as old as it looked. And, the initiate

reminded himself, there was no guarantee of that.

He picked it up and shook it. It sounded hollow. Yet there was something

inside, something that thumped about.

Turning it over, Olahg saw what might once have been a latch.

Unfortunately, over time it had rusted into an amorphous glob. He tried

to pry it open with his fingers, but without success. Finally, he picked

up one of the rocks he had gathered-the biggest and heaviest of them-and

brought it down sharply on the latch.

It crumpled. The box opened a crack.

Only then did it occur to the initiate that he might be overstepping his

bounds. After all, this excavation was to have been an organized effort.

But he had come too far to stop now. With tired, trembling fingers, he

opened the box the rest of the way.

There was a scroll inside. Like the box, it was not in the best

condition. It was brown and brittle at the edges, fading to a dark

yellow near the middle. And the thong that had held it together was

broken, little more than a few wisps of dried black leather now.

Olahg licked his lips, which had suddenly become dry.

A scroll was mentioned in the myth cycle, was it not? It was said that

Kahless had left his fortress with such a thing in his possession.

But for it to have survived the long, invasive ages since?

The seeping rainwater, the corrosive acids in the soil?

Was such a thing possible?

Then he remembered-the work crew had torn apart the surface of the

forest floor, along with the mica ' vah.

There might have been something-some rock, perhaps-protecting the box

and its contents from the elements. Still, he didn't know if that could

be an explanation or not. He was not a scientist. He was a cleric.

Carefully, ever so carefully, Olahg picked up the scroll and unrolled

it. Fortunately, it didn't go to pieces in his hands. It was still

supple enough to reveal its secrets to him.

The thing was written in a bold, flowing hand. However, it was upside

down. Turning it around, he held it close and read the words inscribed

in it.

The first few words gave him an indication of what the rest would be

like-but he couldn't stop there. He felt compelled to read more of it,

and even more than that, stuck like a fish on a particularly cruel and

vicious spear.

For what words they were! What terrible words indeed!

The initiate's heart began to pound as he realized what he had stumbled

on. His eyes began to hurt, as if pierced by what they had seen.

For if it was true-if the scroll was indeed what it purported to be-this

was the work of Kahless the Unforgettable. Yet at the same time, it was

the greatest blasphemy Olahg could imagine. He looked around, to make

sure no one had seen him reading it.

No one had. The other clerics were all tending to their own sections. He

could barely see them in their robes through the intervening forest.

He had to put the scroll back in the box. He had to make sure it was

never seen. Not by anyone, ever.

Or ... did he? The initiate swallowed, allowing his eyes to feast again

on the scroll and its contents.

Certainly, one could call it blasphemy to let this get out. But it might

be a greater blasphemy not to.

If this was the authentic word of Kahless, should it not be given a

voice? Should it not be heeded, as the emperor no doubt intended-for

why else would he have written it?

Olahg hesitated for a moment, his head feeling as if it would burst like

a caw'va melon left in the sun. He had never in his life had to make

this kind of decision. Nor was he likely to again.

Peace? Or truth? His hands clenched into fists. He pounded the ground

on either side of the open scroll, hoping for an answer, wishing one

would be handed down to him.

And then he realized ... it already had been. He had been allowed to

find the thing. He had been given a gift.

And a gift, he had been taught, should never be wasted.

Rolling up the scroll, he secreted it in the folds of his robes. Then he

walked away from the cleared patch of earth, through the still-dense

forest of micayah trees.

None of the other clerics noticed. No one stopped him.

A sign that he was doing the right thing, Olahg inferred.

If he travelled quickly, without rest, he could make it to the city by

morning.

The Modern Age The volcano shot glorious red streamers of molten rock

high into the ponderous gray heavens. But that was just the first sign

of its intentions, the first indication of its fury.

A moment later, in an angry spasm of disdain for the yellow and green

plant life that grew along its black, fissured flanks, a tide of

hissing, red lava came bubbling over the rim of the volcano's crater.

The tide separated into rivers, the rivers into a webwork of narrow

streams-each one radiating a horrible heat, each one intensely eager to

consume all in its path.

In the distance, thunder rumbled. At least, it appeared to be thunder.

In fact, it was the volcano itself, preparing to heave another load of

lava out of the scorched and tormented earth.

The name of this severe and lonely place was Kri'stak.

It was the first time the volcano had erupted in nearly a hundred years.

A Klingon warrior was making his way up the volcano's northern slope,

down where the rivers of spitting, bubbling lava were still few and far

between.

The warrior wore a dark leather tunic, belted at the waist and embossed

with sigils of Klingon virtues. The shoulders of the garment were

decorated with bright silver circlets. On his feet, he wore heavy

leather boots that reached to midthigh; on his hands, leather gloves

reinforced with an iron alloy.

The warrior's enterprise seemed insane, suicidal. This was a volcano in

full eruption, with death streaming from its every fissure. But that

didn't seem to dissuade him in the least.

Picking his way carefully over the pitted slope, remaining faithful to

the higher ridges the lava couldn't reach, he continued his progress.

When he reached a dead end, he simply leaped over the molten rock to

find a more promising route elsewhere.

At times, the figure vanished behind a curtain of smoke and cinders, or

lost his footing and slipped behind some outcropping. Yet, over and

over, he emerged from the setback unscathed, a look of renewed

determination on his face. Sweat pouring from his bright red brow, he

pushed himself from path to treacherous path, undaunted.

Unfortunately, his choices were narrowing radically as he approached the

lip of the crater. There was only one ridge that looked to give him a

chance of making it to the top-and that was guarded by a hellishly wide

channel.

It wasn't impossible for him to make the leap across.

However, as drained as he must have been by this point, and as burdened

by his heavy leather tunic, it was highly unlikely he'd survive the

attempt.

Spreading his feet apart to steady himself, the warrior raised his arms

above his head and unfastened the straps that held his tunic in place.

Then he tore it from him and flung it into the river of lava below, as

if tendering a sacrifice to some dark and ravenous demon.

In moments, the tunic was consumed, leaving little more than a thin,

greasy trail of smoke. Nor would the Klingon leave the world much more

than that, if he failed.

But he hadn't come this far to be turned away now.

Taking a few steps back until his back was to yet another brink, the

warrior put his head down and got his legs churning beneath him-. It was

difficult for his boots to find purchase on the slick, steamy rock, but

the Klingon worked up more speed than appeared possible.

At the last possible moment, he planted his right foot and launched

himself out over the channel. There was a point in time, the size and

span of a long, deep, breath, when the warrior seemed to hover over the

crackling lava flow, his legs bicycling beneath him.

Until he completed his flight by smashing into the sharp, craggy surface

of the opposite ridge. For a moment, it looked as if he had safely

avoided the lava, as if he had come away with the victory.

Then he began sliding backward into the river of fire.

STAR TREK - TNG - Kahless

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