Michael J. DeCicco
STAR TREK—NEXT GENERATION Short Story
THE LAST TERRORIST
by Michael J. DeCicco
The horrific view from the briefing room windows sent an intensely unique shock wave of sensations through Counselor Deanna Troi's mind.
Her mind reeled as it was hit by the dizzying, scorching-hot residue of terror from the crew that had been on the half-dozen Federation star ships that were now mangled pieces of debris floating in space. It was more anguish in one place than she had ever sensed before. Galaxy-class saucer sections were ripped into jagged edged pieces, exposing whole decks to the cold vacuum of space. Engineering nacelles blackened and burnt like discarded cigars crisscrossed each other as if marking with an X the hulls they once powered through the galaxy.
The sight also angered her. The kind of rage she had ever felt before. Her Betazoid psyche was usually able to stave off any emotional extreme. But not this time.
This action makes no sense, she thought.
"What's that, counselor?" Captain Jean-Luc Picard's polished baritone was puzzled.
She realized she had spoken the thought aloud when the Enterprise D senior staff seated around the briefing room table all turned in her direction.
The old Deanna Troi would've apologized and saved her personal feelings for later, but she didn't feel like doing that this time.
"There has to be a better way to respond to this than the usual way," she said.
The hum of the ship's engines and environmental systems became the only sound for a moment. She could sense her crewmates' puzzlement, but she knew they'd process and understand what she was talking about quickly. Star Fleet Command had sent the Enterprise D to the edge of the Alpha Quadrant in response to a report that a Klingon attack cruiser belonging to a group of Klingons who want their home world to leave the Federation had attacked a convoy of Starfleet headed to the annual peace conference at Camp Khitomer.
Over the past six months, this band of Klingons, who called themselves the Kahless Renegades, had attacked this way before. Federation starships had battled them before, and Federation diplomats had negotiated cease fires and compromises to make them stop before.
"Counselor, the only course of action open to us presently is locating the perpetrators," Captain Jean-Luc Picard said, gazing at her with a mixture of firm assuredness and sympathy.
He turned to where Commander William Riker and Chief Engineer Gordi LaForge sat together and switched his tone quickly. "We've located their ion trail?" he asked.
"Definitely the Kahless renegades, Captain," Commander Riker said curtly. "We've already plotted an intercept course."
"We also know it's them because we've detected the trail of their particle beam/antimatter hybrid weapon blasts that allows them to inflict this much damage," LaForge deadpanned. "Star Fleet is scrambling to replicate the new technology. They estimate they're a few months away from duplicating it. If Data and I tried to patch together something comparable, we'd need more time too. Who knows if we'd come up with something sooner."
"We don't have six months to spare," Captain Picard responded. "Signal the bridge, number one, to purse at maximum warp."
As Riker did so, Picard's gaze turned toward Counselor Troi again and softened. "What other options would you have in mind, Counselor?" he asked.
With sad resignation in her voice, Troi said, "Another battle with them won't stop them. Simple diplomacy hasn't stopped them. There has to be an alternative to those two options, though I don't know what that option is."
It made her even sadder to consider the irony of the convoy's intended destination versus what it encountered. "I wish they could be shown the futility of using these means to achieve their ends. The Klingon High Council has already said it's come too far as a Federation member to turn back now. And violence won't make anyone more sympathetic to their cause, only less. I wish I could talk to them."
"You'll be on the bridge when and if we contact their bridge," Commander Data said, with the usual questioning child tone in his voice. "What would you say to them differently than what's already been tried?"
"Unfortunately the counselor will have to limit her input on the bridge in front of this leader," Lieutenant Worf said. "Betazoids aren't used in the diplomatic corp. because most species, especially Klingons, object to their minds being read during diplomacy."
"And any face-to-face with them right now would be dangerous," Dr. Beverly Crusher added gently.
"Captain, I'd still like the chance to speak to them," Troi insisted.
"And say what, Deanna?" Riker said. "That their actions are illogical and won't get them anywhere near what they want? All they believe is that they should keep sending their message this way until they break us to a point where we will give them what they want, even if the reality is that won't ever happen. Not even the Klingon High Council agrees with them. But it's this leader's personal reality we are up against."
"They want to separate from the Federation because they feel it is weak and does not match the strength of the Klingon race," Worf said evenly, only a tinge of something softer in his always gruff-sounding voice. "'Diplomacy' will not work for them. In battle we can convince them of our strength."
"First we must catch up to them, then assess our options," Picard said with a tone that implied the time to debate had to end to make way for action.
Even Counselor Troi agreed.
The muffled vibrations of the Enterprise D engines under the deck had an oddly calming effect on Counselor Deanna Troi as she kneeled in the center of her quarters under dimmed lights for her evening meditation. Her mind drifted to a different soothing sound, her favorite, the quiet rhythm of Betazed river waves. On Betazed, the water sighs as it meets the shoreline with a sound resembling the slow breathing of a man as he sleeps. The wind is always mild and warm, her people's nature generally peaceful. Thinking of her home planet was the fastest way to reminder herself that the galaxy the Enterprise travels through has as many hospitable places as troubled places.
The buzz that said someone was at her door startled her out of her trance. She immediately chided herself for being startled. Jarring occurrences, she reminded herself, were part of life in Star Fleet.
"Who is it?" she said.
"It's Commander Riker."
"Come."
She blushed then chided herself again. She meditated in only her nightgown, because it was how she dressed for sleep. But she was hardly naked, and Will Riker was a friend, and right now only a friend.
At first, smoke from the Betazoid incense burner hanging from her ceiling clouded Will Riker's appearance in the now-open doorway. When the smoke cleared, it struck her that his expression appeared usually grim and full of worry, emotions confirmed by what she sensed in his thoughts.
"Deanna, I'm concerned," he said as he stepped inside and the door swished closed behind him.
She wondered how many people realized she usually knew what they were about to say!
"Concerned about what, Will?" she said.
She decided to stay in her meditative position. She didn't want to let go of the serenity inside her. Perhaps she could answer Will Riker better from within it, she thought.
Commander Riker sat with his legs crisscrossed under him on the floor in front of her. "I'm talking about your intentions to talk to the Klingon Renegades, Deanna," he said. "It's too risky. We said it earlier in the briefing, but it bears repeating. You'd be put in too much danger for the sake of a plan that may not even work. I don't want you placed in that kind of danger needlessly. None of us do. Promise me you'll reconsider."
"Promise me you'll let me try if we get the opportunity," she said. "If a plan has never been tried before, how do we know if it will fail?"
"The Renegade leader, Commander Kdar, is a very dangerous man, with a very unstable, unpredictable personality. Terrorism is always an irrational act. His recent actions prove what we've always known about him. I've read his bio-"
"So have I, Will," she interrupted, "and there is something there I may be able to reach."
He stood, obviously agitated by her answer. She stayed in her meditative pose, though she hoped it wouldn't aggravate him more.
"Have you spoken to Worf for his thoughts on this?" he said.
"He will give me the same warnings you are giving me," she said.
Riker frowned and sat in the cushioned chair in front of her. He was perhaps the only officer in Starfleet she could render this speechless.
"Will, nearly everything I understand about Klingon ways comes from knowing him," she said. "I mean a deeper, fuller appreciation of their nature. It's why I see there are ways to reach someone like Kdar without phasers set to kill."
Finally, a smile edged the corner of Riker's face. "I hope you're right. But I also hope you realize we will still need phasers at the ready in any encounter with someone like him."
Troi finally smiled too. "Acknowledged. And thank you for not ordering me what to do. I need at least a chance with this Commander Kdar in my own way."
Kdar was the product of a failed experiment. His father was what many Klingons ridiculed as the 'Kirk Klingons'. They had been genetically altered to smooth the forehead ridges of their Klingon skulls around the time James T. Kirk was establishing his reputation as the epitome of the Federation's galactic reign while captain of the USS Enterprise.
The plan had been to integrate these 'experiments' into Federation territories, to take over those territories from within through surreptitiously gathering intelligence or spreading influence among Federation leaders who would think they were listening to the counsel of humanoid kin. When a change in leadership squashed the plan, some of the 'experiments', such as his father, became battle cruiser crew and commanders. For some, their skull ridges even grew back as they aged.
With others, the injections that accomplished the experiment drove them to insanity or, even worse, shame. Scorn from Klingon society as not true Klingons, jeered as inferior, as freaks.
This was the legacy that Kdar's mind couldn't get past as he sat in the command chair of the Renegade One, contemplating his next move. In the military his father hid from much of the scorn of being a failed experiment, but Kdar never forgave the Klingon hierarchy for what his father went through on a climb through the ranks that stopped just short of being awarded his own command.
As a child Kdar seethed when he heard about the Khitomer accords that led to peace between the Federation and Kronos. He seethed again when, while training for the military to follow in his father's footsteps, he heard about the Praxis moon energy plant being rebuilt and going back on line.
But that's when his rage burst into action, and he found Klingon colleagues who agreed with him. This memory brightened his mood now. After the Praxis refit, the Klingon Empire no longer needed the Federation. He was going to force the Klingon home world to agree or other Federation members to see they no longer need an affiliation with Klingons. True honor would return to the Klingon Empire.
He had to suppress a grin. The feeling of triumph rising inside him now was much like the result of his heightened ferocity as he practiced his hunting skills along the riverbanks by the factories in the industrial section of the Capital City as a child, startling classmates who moments before the hunt had jeered him as a "weakling half-breed". He was regularly the first to catch the prey his friends had set their sights on each day.
To paraphrase his favorite Klingon proverb, revenge could be served as a colder dish than this, but both this revenge and the revenge to come will trump all other kinds possible.
"I'm scanning a Federation starship in pursuit, commander," the navigator seated below him now said.
Unexpected yet totally expected, he thought.
"Increase speed!" he commanded. "Lose them!"
He pounded his fist on his command chair's side console, which was cracked and worn from continually doing this. Unfortunately, the sight of his fist when he did this always reminded him his skin tone was much lighter than the skin of much of his crew, more 'caramel' than the dark chocolate brown of other Klingons that was almost black.
That was what some Federation infidels had once told him, he thought. He would have his revenge on them as well.
He focused on the clear outline of the Enterprise D on the sensor screen that he and the crewmen saw at the same time.
"They are definitely closing in, commander," the navigator said. "They'll be hailing us soon."
Kdar breathed in the dusty air. He liked the dark, dusty atmosphere of a Klingon battle cruiser bridge. He instantly decided to do the opposite of running away. I am a Klingon! No Klingon ever runs away!
"Come to a full stop and hail them first," he said.
The navigator half-turned as if to question the wisdom of the move, then stopped, knowing better than to question a commanding officer, especially when it was a man like Kdar.
There was no time for anyone to speak anyway as Kdar stood and shouted, "Hail them now!"
Most of the Enterprise D bridge crew caught their breath when Worf announced that the Renegade One had slowed to a stop and had hailed the ship. It was not the move anyone expected. Even Data at his Conn station console looked a bit puzzled.
The crew released their breaths when they saw Captain Picard and Commander Riker betray no anxiety. With level, determined looks on their faces, they rose together from their chairs.
Picard, without looking in Worf's direction, said, "On screen, Lieutenant."
As the pair stepped closer to the view screen, Counselor Troi also stood but stayed by her seat.
The face that appeared in the center of the view screen, surrounded by the typically dusty haze of a Klingon battle cruiser bridge, was surprisingly young. The long, straggly, mustache-less beard at his chin was almost out of place against his smooth skin and large round eyes. His body was unusually tall and lean.
"Enterprise, I am Kdar of 'Renegade One'," Kdar said curtly. "This will be a one-way communication. I will speak only to representatives of the Federation or the Klingon High Council on my group's demand that a vote to be taken to separate the Klingon Empire from the Federation. I will listen only to your immediate response to this."
Troi could sense that most officers on the bridge were suppressing the urge to make Kdar's recent murder and terrorism a more important priority discussion.
"I know you want to speak to me about 'answering for our recent actions'," Kdar admitted. "Don't bore me with details that are not my concern at the moment. My actions will continue if I do not get an audience with the Federation."
Capt. Picard paused, set his face grimly. Troi could sense the Captain was struggling to use mere diplomacy in response to the hundreds of Star Fleet deaths this Klingon commander had just caused. But he knew that opening with that topic would end the conversation.
"Very well, Commander," Picard said flatly. "Will you hold your position while we contact Star Fleet Command?"
"I despise the infidel weakness of Star Fleet Command. They do not yearn to die in battle. They are afraid to be strong. I demand a communication link with the Federation council and my home world's high council!"
"Surely, you realize Star Fleet Command is our channel for contacting the Federation," Picard said. "You must give us time to try."
From among everyone on the bridge, Troi sensed the strongest reaction from Worf. She looked up at him, but, of course, he stared straight ahead at the view screen with a blank expression. Yet she knew, without even questioning him, that his thoughts were drifting to the futility of negotiating niceties with murderers. Klingon-to-Klingon, his phaser would be set to kill or his bat'leth would be in his hands in attack position. If he commanded the Enterprise, the Renegade One would already be obliterated ship fragments floating lifelessly in front of them.
If only humanoid kind could stop thinking of violence as a response to violence, she thought. If only there could be a generation where the children ask, 'Daddy, what's a 'war'?'"
"I will give you 'time', Picard," Kdar said. "Fifteen minutes. Or I will go back to speaking my message the way I have been. The violence will stop when a response to our demands begin."
"Lieutenant," Picard said, again without looking at his chief of security. "Contact Star Fleet Command, include a recording of our exchange with Commander Kdar."
Kdar finally let a hint of a smile cross his lips. "Now we all wait," he said in an oddly taunting, condescending tone. "Patiently."
Picard and Riker stepped a few paces back from the screen and turned away. Troi knew they were both a little more anxious right now, and it was obvious they were about have a private conference.
"Captain," Riker whispered. "When are we going to bring up the small matter of committing mass murder and terrorism in Federation space?"
"Why do you think I made sure we are sending Star Fleet the entire record of what's happened here, number one?" he whispered back.
"I knew that's how you were thinking, Captain," Riker answered, still in a whisper, his voice brightening. "I suspect Star Fleet will respond with either diplomats or an armed fleet."
"The choice of options will be Star Fleet's, number one."
As they returned to their chairs, Troi could tell they were both calmer than only a moment before.
She was glad they were, but she couldn't feel the same. "It's never a permanent solution," she muttered, mostly to herself.
"What's that, Deanna?"
She looked over at Riker and Picard gazing at her.
"What good will a diplomatic compromise do now?" she said quietly, hoping the Klingons couldn't hear her.
And the other option, destroying the Renegade One in battle, would be sad, she thought, and maybe just as ineffective if there are others with the same philosophy to take Kdar's place.
She knew this was a comment for the conference room not the bridge, so she stopped just short of saying it. "I mean, I want us to think of a solution that will be a more permanent one," she said instead.
"If you have a concrete alternative in mind, I'd be glad to listen to it, Counselor," Picard said quietly.
Troi shook her head. No. Of course not. The question was too big to answer simply.
Worf's booming voice interrupted. "Captain, I have Star Fleet's response."
Every crew member on the bridge held their breath again as Worf continued, "Star Fleet Command wants Kdar to know the matter will go on the Federation Council's next agenda, but first the Renegades must surrender to authorities to face trial for their crimes against Federation star ships."
Picard bowed his head. Riker looked away. Neither liked what would come next.
In a quieter tone, Worf added, "Reinforcements are on their way to us, sir. But the closest starship is half a day away."
Picard turned back to the screen and said evenly and loudly, "You've heard their response, commander. What is yours?"
"Heglu' meH QaQ jayuam, Captain," Kdar said, and he disappeared from the screen.
Everyone turned anxiously to Worf, and he explained, "He just said the Klingon oath, 'Today is a good day to die.'"
"His engines are charging up for maxima warp," Data said suddenly and loudly, his hands flashing across his Conn control panel.
"Lay in an intercept course, Data, and match his speed," Riker barked, then in a quieter voice to Picard. "But when we catch him again, then what do we do?"
"We may have to stop being diplomats," Picard said grimly.
As Picard and Riker returned to their seats and the roar of the warp engines filled the bridge, Troi asked herself what she could do. She felt it more than ever since this crisis started that she had to find her own solution.
"Captain, I need to talk to him," she said.
"Deanna, I'm still waiting for a good answer to the question," Riker said, "why do you think that would help?"
"Counselor," Picard said, "the strongest bows in your quiver, if you don't mind the archery analogy, are your calm empathy, your logic. How do you think that would help here?"
"When you can't reason with someone, you destroy them?" she said. "Why not keep trying to reason. There's a soul of reason somewhere inside Kdar. How else was he able to rise to military commander? I want to try reaching him."
"Out of the question." Picard turned back to facing the view screen.
"And how, Deanna, do we arrange this talk between you and Kdar?" Riker said. "I know Klingons like to share blood wine with their enemy the night before a civil war starts, but I don't think he'll be amendable to that."
"Perhaps myself and the counselor together as a negotiation team," Worf's booming voice above them offered.
The three of them paused and appeared to ponder the possibility.
Finally, Riker said to Picard, "We've tried everything else."
Picard silently nodded. "Lieutenant, hail the Renegade One," he commanded. "I'll talk to Kdar myself."
Chief engineer Geordi LaForge met Lieutenant Worf and Counselor Troi in the transporter room, where the vibrations of the pattern buffers and other equipment rang louder than usual in Troi's ears. She attributed this to her and the entire crew's tense mood at the moment. Kdar had agreed to meet the two of them, but bluntly and without much elaboration, cutting off the communication after adding only the Renegade One coordinates where they were to be beamed.
LaForge replaced the combadges on their chests with ones that were slightly larger and heavier. "These have been reconfigured with a stronger transponder signal that we'll be better able to monitor and use if you need a quick rescue," he explained.
"Thank you, Geordi," Troi said.
"This is the best way my department knows how to protect both of you," LaForge said.
Worf was unusually quiet. She sensed that while Geordi was only slightly more anxious than usual, Worf's tension was higher than she had never sensed him being before.
But she knew Worf better than to directly ask him about it as they took their places on the transporter pads and Laforge stepped to the transporter console.
"Are we ready?" LaForge asked.
"Ready," Worf and Troi said simultaneously.
Troi and Worf were both startled by where they materialized. Not a dark, cramped Klingon battle cruiser transporter room but the bank of a river.
The river emitted a metallic odor, and a tint of rust-colored industrial waste streaked the dark blue and green waves. On the far side of the river bank a pale green and gray sky lit in silhouette an outline of tall, angular-shaped dark metal and concrete buildings, what Earth humanoids called skyscrapers. Definitely Klingon design, Troi thought.
On their side of the river, a row of rusted metal girders planted at the shallow edge of the water and extending as far up the river as Troi and Worf could see stood like sentinels guarding the river. Trees with thick, bent trunks accompanied them in a similarly spaced row along the grassy shore.
Troi and Worf's end of the river curved and disappeared around the corner of a two-story, oblong-shaped faded-red brick building with equally-oblong stone-framed smoky-glass windows. The building, which lay in front of a pad of cracked concrete, ended at a line of trees much taller than the ones near the riverbank.
"Definitely a holodeck hologram," Troi said. "But WHY a hologram? Are there holodecks on other Klingon battle cruisers?"
"This is a first for me as well, counselor." Worf had opened and was pressing buttons on his clamshell shaped tricorder. "I don't detect anyone else on this holodeck."
"Neither do I. What is this place?"
"I recognize it as an industrial area of Kronos I've visited before. It's in one of more temperate areas of the continent. It's where weapons and other military supplies are manufactured and where some of the warehouses have been converted into training facilities." He looked down at his tricorder as it began to beep rapidly. "Now I detect someone is in here," he said.
She felt the warm presence of another mind in the area and nodded, "I sense it too." The sensation drew her to look toward the far end of the river.
"He is that way," he said, pointing in the same direction. "We should follow the riverbank."
The grass and soil they began walking along was so damp they felt it even through their boots. They stepped through unkempt long-bladed grass that was dark green with brown underbellies, especially where humanoid or animal footsteps had obviously recently trampled them.
"You're conflicted right now, Worf, aren't you?" she said without looking at him.
"Kdar has terrorized, killed in the name of a political goal he can't possibly achieve because his tactics to get our attention elicit revulsion, not support," Worf grumbled, his eyes fixated on his tricorder readings. "He does not deserve 'diplomacy' as you call it. Yet I'm part of Star Fleet which believes in peace not revenge. So I must assist peace not revenge."
"It's a good sign that he even agreed to do this," Troi said.
"Unless it is a trap," Worf said, one hand going to the hand phaser tucked, hidden, in his belt. "Or," he added with a heightened tone of disgust in his voice, "he foolishly thinks he can convince me to join his cause."
"This is the only way to find out which it is," Troi said.
There were now trees on either side of them. The view of the factory building had disappeared. Beyond the trees, she saw river waves lapping against a narrow sandy shore.
She stopped in her tracks, and Worf halted beside her. "I sense him again," she said. "I've never felt him so calm before, which must be the reason he has this holoprogram."
Worf's combadge chirped and he tapped it open.
"Progress report, Lieutenant." It was Captain Picard.
"We are on their ship's holodeck, Captain, following Kdar's trail through a peculiar scene along a riverbank."
"Not surprisingly, sensor scans of the ship are uneven at best." This time, it was Commander Riker. His words were fading in and out. "Who's in this holodeck with you?"
"We both sense someone," Worf said, "but no visible contact as of yet."
"Return to your search, lieutenant. Picard out."
Worf and Troi continued walking, stepping through tall grass and around low bushes. Their steps rustled fallen leaves that no longer held any trace of footprints or other signs that anyone had traveled in this direction. Worf now pointed his tricorder to the treetops.
"Klingon children used to visit these riverbanks to climb these trees, practice their hunting skills and dream about being old enough to join the Klingon military," Worf said.
"Then he has sentimental reasons for wanting to be here," Troi said.
"Kdar no doubt has memories of visiting these riverbanks," Worf said. "But sentimentality is not a Klingon trait. It is not an honorable virtue."
"He will reveal himself when he wants to be revealed," she said.
"He is trying my patience," he said. "His tactic is to wait until I am significantly agitated so as to make for more ferocious combat."
"We are here to talk, Worf," she said. "Not for combat. We're here to stop combat."
"That may not be the solution, here, counselor," he said.
"I say it is," she said. "You may not believe this, but I say 'talk' is always the better, more lasting solution. It certainly kills less people."
Worf sighed. "But is it a realistic expectation, counselor?"
"I suppose that remains to be seen," she said sadly.
The riverbank now sloped down to a thicker clump of trees that were closer to the size of a forest. Here the trees trunks were straighter and taller. Abundant leaves on the upper branches darkened the ground.
"We must be more careful now, counselor," Worf said. "It will be easier for someone hidden to attack."
They came upon a thick length of rope that seemed to dangle from thin air. Looking up from the big knot at the end of the rope, they saw it was attached to the floor of a square shack of peeling wood that was lodged in the crook of a large tree limb. The door-less entrance was as tall as the average humanoid boy. Its flat roof of rotting wood was loosely nailed together and appeared ready to fall apart.
"Klingon boys had tree houses?" Troi said, trying to sound curious not condescending.
"Yes, we did," Worf said, very seriously. "As hunting lookouts."
He aimed his tricorder in the direction of the tree house and said, "No one is in there. Kdar is a fool if he thinks I will climb up and investigate."
"Curiosity could get the best of us."
"Not of me."
"Why be surprised he had a childhood?"
"I have no desire to soften my impression of him."
"Worf, this tree house could be a better vantage point for spotting where he is," Troi said.
Silently agreeing with Troi yet slightly annoyed that she had prodded him into investigating when he wanted to move on, he handed her his tricorder, turned and tugged at the rope with both hands to test its strength. Keeping a firm grip on the rope, he walked it close to the trunk, put one foot then the other on the trunk and climbed the tree the way a mountain climber would move up a cliff.
At the top of the rope, where it was tied to a wooden peg in front of the open doorway, Worf grabbed the hand phaser from his belt and extended his arm into the shack in a firing position so that both his eyes and his phaser scanned every corner and even the ceiling.
He then tucked the phaser back into his belt and slowly rotated his head and torso like a lighthouse beacon to visually search every corner of the skyline above the treetops.
"I see smoke! Perhaps from a campfire," he said in a level voice.
He slid down the rope quickly and Troi handed him his tricorder. They let the buzzing of the tricorder lead them to a clearing a quarter-mile beyond the area of the tree house, where they stopped at a shady clearing centered by a pile of smoldering ashes and charred sticks.
"He moves quickly," Worf said, scanning the area up and down with his tricorder.
"He IS here," she said simply.
Announced by a high-pitched growl and rustling leaves, a dog-like animal raced from behind a tree, across the nearly dead campfire and leaped to Worf's forearm, scattering ashes into the air and onto Worf's uniform.
Tossing his tricorder aside Worf easily ripped the animal from his forearm by grabbing by its head and throwing it to the ground.
Miraculously the animal landed on its feet and continued growling in a high pitch whine unlike any other canine Troi had ever heard. It bared teeth so long and sharp they resembled Klingon d'Ktahg knives. Its ears were half Vulcan, half Ferenigi, its forehead distinctly Kliingon-like.
Worf grimaced at his slashed uniform sleeve. Safety protocols were obviously off. He pulled his phaser from his belt, pointed it at the animal and fired. The weapon clicked meaninglessly.
"Of course it doesn't work here," Worf grumbled, dropping it the ground.
The animal leaped again. Worf kicked it back, and again it landed on its feet, still growling.
While he kept one eye on it, Worf backed to a nearby tree and grabbed a sword-length low-hanging branch. He leapt over the animal, crouched behind it. Before the animal could turn its head, Worf slipped the branch under its chin and throttled it, falling on his back onto the ground with the creature on top of him, straining with the branch against the animal's chin until it whimpered and went limp.
Troi looked away as Worf tossed its body into the woods, repulsed by the spectacle despite the knowledge the animal was a computer-generated image.
When she turned back around, he was on his feet again, his gold and black uniform covered in a mix of gray ashes and reddish-brown dirt.
"It is an animal we practice our hunting on when we are children," Worf said breathlessly. "Kdar is testing me, but with a children's game."
Worf raised his face to the sky and shouted an epithet in Klingon that made Troi think of the old Earth phrase "Is that all you got?"
As if in answer, something heavy fell from above and landed in the dirt with a thud. The glint of the steel shark tooth ends of a crescent-shaped bat'leth was barely visible before Worf's sharp reflexes went into action. His foot kicked it up into his hands and whirled to face the trees behind him.
Someone dropped to the ground, a dark silhouette that landed on its feet. Pale green sunlight from between the branches revealed Kdar's face, grinning broadly, as he lifted his bat'leth in both hands, holding it like an axe.
He lunged at Worf, who blocked the swing with the broad side of his weapon and shoved Kdar back. The sharp clink of steel against steel told her these were not computer-generated weapons. Kdar kept his footing and swung his bat'leth like an axe again. This time the two weapons met with a loud clang above their heads. It was Kdar's turn to shove Worf back, but Worf responded with a sudden horizontal swing that slashed a diagonal rip across Kdar's uniform shirt.
"Worf, son of Morgh," Kdar paused and said with a grin. "You are ready to join my crew."
"I think not," Worf said breathlessly as he swung his weapon again.
They repeatedly parried and thrust their weapons, blocking each other's moves, backing each other through the trees, dropping in their wake a trail of slashed tree limbs and leaves and finally a large section of the tree house rope.
Troi raced after them, apprehensive. What was Kdar's true agenda here?
"Arghh!" In unison, almost in harmony, the two let loose the sound Klingon men exclaimed on so many occasions, from a colleague's death to the epiphany of a battle, as they raised their bat'leths high above their heads simultaneously and clinked them together in a mutual block that was more a test of strength against strength than anything else.
It was also a stare-down, Troi thought, as the two remained in that pose at the edge of a slope parallel to the sandy riverbank for more than a minute.
Worf's back was to her. She was glad. The sight of her may have caused his concentration to waiver at just the wrong moment. She decided to say nothing, quelling a desperate desire to speak rather than distract either of them, especially Worf. Let the natural result of this stand-off happen first.
Kdar shoved Worf and he tumbled onto his back on the sand as his bat'leth flew to the ground yards away. Troi gasped as Kdar lowered his bat'leth to dangle the shark-tooth edge over Worf's throat.
"Stop!" she yelled. "What does this accomplish!" she said, finally releasing part of what she had wanted to say to Kdar from the beginning.
"You are a Betazoid!" Kdar spit out the words with contempt as he stared coldly at her. "I do not listen to the counsel of a Betazoid."
His gaze went to somewhere past her shoulder. "We now have two fine hostages."
The scene surrounding them blinked out. They were in a black room half the size of the Enterprise D's holodeck with red rather than yellow grids on the walls, floor and ceiling. The crisp air rising from the riverbank became the stale, hot, dusty smell of a Klingon ship interior. Two Klingon soldiers to her right were pointing their disputer pistols at her head. One plucked the combadge from her shirt.
Two Klingon soldiers to her left were pointing their pistols at Worf on the gridded floor. The diagonal gashes on both his arm sleeves flapped as he tried to settle his heavy breathing.
Kdar unceremoniously plucked Worf's combadge from his shirt and tossed it to the soldier holding Troi's badge.
"Destroy those," Kdar said to the soldier. "A valiant rescue by Federation weaklings would turn my stomach."
"There is no honor in denying the strengths of the Federation and Star Fleet," Worf said as he dared to lift himself from the floor.
All four soldiers trained their weapons on him.
"There is also no honor in defeat in a bat'leth duel," Kdar said with a smirk, "or in allowing oneself to become a hostage."
Kdar turned to his soldiers. "Take the Betazoid woman away. I will deal with the Klingon officer alone for a moment."
A soldier on either side of her grabbed her arms. She dared to resist, tugging their hands away then boldly stepping forward.
"This is all so foolish." She had nothing to lose by releasing all that was on her mind. Indeed, it was the exact reason she had insisted on coming here.
"You dare to call me a fool!" Kdar's eyes widened in shock.
"You dare being proven a fool, Kdar," she said. "You must know a fleet of starships is on its way here."
Kdar raised his own pistol to her forehead, his face grim. She knew she dare not even flinch.
"We are ready for those starships," he said, "and the puny so-called 'might' of the Federation and Star Fleet. I will not honor your words by opening my ears to them."
"Is there no honor in using reason?" she said. "When you kill, do you honor your cause? Do you win support for your cause? Will you be able to destroy everything that stands in your way and reach your goal that way? Haven't diplomatic efforts granted your people their own territory on Kronos?"
"Do not speak of 'diplomats'," Kdar's nostrils bristled as he spit out the word. "Take them both away," he commanded over her shoulder.
Before the soldiers could move, Worf said with distain, "Are you afraid of mere words?"
Kdar twirled around and struck Worf's jaw with the barrel of his pistol. It made Worf take only a few steps back. Worf made it a point to neither flinch nor retaliate, even as purple blood seeped from the corner of his lips.
"Well, are you afraid?" Worf said.
Kdar turned to point his blaster at Troi's forehead again. "Well, Betazoid!" he barked. "Have your say! But you have only a moment."
"Or you will kill your hostages?" Troi said, her voice trembling slightly. "I would think wisdom is an honorable trait, Kdar. And harming your hostages does not sound like a wise thing to do. Neither does expecting all this destruction to lead to anything but resistance from the people it is perpetrated against and the less than honorable deaths of your colleagues because their goals will not be reached. Stop this destruction and the outcome you seek is more likely to become reality, not less likely."
Kdar's eyes still held hers, but his gun hand waivered ever so slightly. For a moment, his eyes went sad, and his youthful face grew older.
"Is there honor in the way you are trying to get what you seek?" she said.
The next words boomed from above like the voice of Kahless himself, barking urgent, indecipherable words, all in Klingon.
Kdar looked up at the ceiling, paused, and barked what sounded like orders to what was presumably a member of the bridge crew. He then looked over at his guards and shouted more Klingon orders. They grabbed Troi and Worf and pushed them in the direction of a section of the grids that swished open to reveal the dark, dank battle cruiser corridor.
"What's going on, Worf," Troi said under her breath.
"Star fleet reinforcements, an entire battalion, have arrived, and Capt. Picard has hailed the Renegade One," Worf said quietly. "Kdar wants us removed from here."
"Have I failed, Worf?" she whispered.
"That remains to be seen."
The soldiers stopped them at the entrance as Kdar barked more Klingon orders in their direction. The grid changed to surround them with the dark outline of jagged mountain ranges set against a green and gray sky.
Kdar stood in the center of the scene, his back to them, his head bowed. Troi winced against the cascade of conflicting emotions emanating from his mind.
The soldiers stood, gazing at him, transfixed. Troi sensed their puzzlement. She was puzzled too, by everything she was seeing right now.
She started with the simplest question. "Worf, what is this place?"
"Mount Kananga, where ritual suicides were the norm for warriors in our past," he said, puzzlement in his own voice. "Several of Kahless's adversaries came here to die by their own hand as they were about to be captured by Kahless's army."
Troi sucked in her breath. "Is suicide his intention now?"
"It is a Klingon soldier's choice over capture when he knows defeat is imminent. Here, first they must await the celebration of their leader's death."
He paused a long moment before adding, "Then they will self-destruct."
"I was not trying to convince him of his defeat but a better way of winning," Troi said, dismayed.
"It is defeat to a Klingon, counselor. I was afraid this might happen."
The combadges in the Klingon soldier's hand started chirping. The soldier tightened his grip around them as if that alone would silence them.
Kdar lifted both arms above his head, in his two hands a d'Ktahg knife, a pose that, as Troi knew from her own research, was the start of a traditional ritual suicide.
She had to stop him! "Kdar, you can still win for your people!" she shouted, taking a step forward, her words echoing off the holodeck-generated mountain cliffs. "You could fight your cause in another way!"
"You will be silent and join us in Sto-Vo-Kor!" a voice behind her blared in Federation English.
A sudden hard force at the back of her head buckled her knees, drove her to a prone position on the deck.
Though dizzy, her vision blurry, Troi turned to see Worf lunge at the soldier who had apparently just struck her with his pistol.
"Don't fire. He is mine," the soldier growled as Worf gripped the wrist of his gun hand. The soldier twisted his weight to toss Worf to the deck.
Troi cleared her cloudy mind as she heard something clatter in front of her. One of the combadges!
Though still dizzy, she knew what she had to do. "Two to beam up, Enterprise!" she said into it anxiously.
Deanna Troi was glad to see the stark reds and blacks of the battle ship holodeck evaporate and become the green and shiny metallic gray of the Enterprise D transporter room.
She and Worf were both in prone positions on the transporter pads as a blur of blue, Dr. Beverly Crusher and her nurses, rushed to them. She felt and heard the ship's warp engines revving up to full speed as tricorders trilled and buzzed around her head.
Beverly Crusher gave her a level stare. "Deanna, we're warping out of the area because the Renegade ship has announced it is about to self-destruct. What did you do down there?"
"More than I thought I could, Beverly. And perhaps too much."
The loudspeakers blared Riker's voice. "All decks brace for impact!"
They planted their hands and feet as rock-solidly as they could on the transporter room platform. A moment later the ship rocked to a jolt that she knew must have been the Klingon ship bursting into pieces. Another harder jolt shook them again. She guessed this was ship debris hitting the deflector shields.
In the sudden silence that followed, she felt hundreds of Klingon minds at peace to die. Worf stood, though his footing seemed a little shaky, and sent to the upper decks the loud, ringing cry that announced Klingon warriors were about to enter the glory of Sto-Vo-Kor.
After a pause out of respect for the Klingon ritual, Beverly Crusher grabbed Worf's arm and said, "You're doing your next singing in sickbay, Lieutenant."
Worf said as medical personnel helped both him and Counselor Troi from the platform, "Counselor, perhaps you feel your tactic succeeded too well. But what they did is the Klingon way."
Troi answered, feeling such a deep sadness and regret she felt dizzy again. "I understand, Worf. But this was a terrible way to stop what we just stopped."
"Be honored for the sake of their honor," Worf said.
"I will," she said.
She reminded herself that no matter how sad the means to the end had been she did just end a war.
END
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