Negotiations, Part 3

A/N: [[Spoken Klingon]]

(_)(_)(_)

It wasn't until after the toast that Jim (admittedly somewhat belatedly) figured out another reason as to why the Councilors had been so appreciative of the tale of the Narada's defeat. It sounded silly after the fact but he'd been so busy trying to anticipate Klingon reactions and tailor his responses accordingly during the treaty negotiations that he hadn't correlated certain facts. Namely, that the Councilors were all either Heads of families, or the Head's chosen representative. Which meant every last one of them had suffered who-knew-how-many losses when the Klingon fleet got wiped out.

Jim figured that out after the toast because the Councilors had started to mingle with the crew. Which meant they'd started talking to Jim and the others about more than the treaty. After the toast, more than one Councilor had drifted Jim's way to thank him personally for avenging the death of their family members.

Which led to the realization, as they headed back to the treaty room for the last of the negotiating, of why the Klingons had insisted on Jim and the Enterprise for this. Oh, a good part of it had, yes, been that the Enterprise had been the ones to beat the Narada's ass. But Jim had a feeling that the rest of the reason had to do with him specifically. Because through what Jim knew of the lens of Klingon culture, it looked a whole hell of a lot like Jim had kicked the Narada's ass to avenge his father's death. Avenging the death of a family member was practically a pastime for Klingons.

It wasn't the truth, of course. Oh, Jim had had vengeance on his mind a bit, but more for himself than his father. That, however, hadn't been anywhere close to his primary consideration for kicking the Narada's ass. He'd been more worried about the billions of lives on Vulcan and then Earth - and after that who knew how many planets if Nero had continued his rampage unopposed. But he could see where Klingons might make that assumption.

Humans did not generally indulge in the sort of vengeful vendettas that hunting down the Narada and destroying it would have involved. Klingons would know that, if not much else. From their point of view, the utter coincidence that had been Jim's presence on the Enterprise when it went to face the Narada, and Jim's following actions were out of character for humans. From the Klingon cultural lens, it had to have looked ... rather familiar. Klingon-ish. Which had probably inclined them to hope that Jim possessed more than just that one streak of Klingon-esque behavior.

Hilariously enough, despite the erroneous assumptions that led them to that conclusion, the Klingons had been more right than they knew. Jim didn't agree with certain aspects of Klingon culture and beliefs, but he definitely agreed with more of them than the average human. He was comfortable with the loud, boisterous affect most Klingons possessed as well. It had made him uniquely suited to act as ambassador, even without the 'fuck the rules and do what works' that Jim had been employing with abandon during the negotiations.

Rather unsurprisingly, weathering the attack from the malcontents seemed to have been the final test barrier to the peace process. The last few details for the treaty were agreed upon to the satisfaction of both parties before dinnertime. Jim couldn't quite restrain a grin as Maktor signed the papers. Literally. There was an electronic copy of what they'd agreed on, of course, but acting on another of his hunches, Jim had decided to print out a copy for both sides to actually, literally sign.

Written-on-actual-paper *anything* was almost unheard of among spacegoing peoples. Virtually everything was done on computer aboard a ship. Paper copies became extremely impractical when you had to physically ship the paperwork back to your home world, versus sending a nearly instantaneous computer file. Likewise, writing a physical copy as well as a digital one got phased out pretty damn fast because of space and storage issues aboard a ship. It was only a matter of time from there before physical copies got phased out of a society completely. Of course the time it took to reach a wholly digital era varied by culture, but it would still eventually happen.

Heck, books, the last thing to have gone fully computerized on Earth, had gone that way shortly after the war with the Klingons ended. But Jim had had a hunch that the Klingons would appreciate a physical paper copy of the treaty. That was something that couldn't be altered after the fact - or not easily anyway - that they could check the computer version against in the future. It was solid and real compared to a few bytes of information and an electronic signature, which would lend it gravity and importance it otherwise might not get.

[[How long will you be permitted to remain?]] Maktor wanted to know once they'd signed the thing.

"We were given a month to work on this." Jim said. "And while we've gotten this figured out a lot faster than my superiors figured on, they won't pull us out immediately."

And even if they tried, Jim would refuse. It would look entirely too much like he and the Enterprise couldn't wait to get the heck out of there if they left right away.

"They probably won't have any idea of where they're going to send us next before the end of the week." Jim said. "And I could probably very easily argue them into letting us stay for the full month they'd planned on. Why do you ask?"

[[I thought you and your crew might enjoy more time among us. A tour of our Academy, perhaps?]] Maktor offered.

Whoah.

Jim did not mistake that for a casual, offhand offer. Maktor was up to something. Possibly wanting to see how Starfleet graduates stacked up compared to Klingon ones? Maybe. Or, maybe he was hoping some young, dumb Klingon would challenge one of the Enterprise crew. Having some of the up and coming graduates see human badassery in action with their own eyes was likely to go a lot further than just telling about it would. And even if such things weren't a consideration, the offer was a heck of a way to say 'I am serious about this peace thing. Come learn more about us!'

Jim was going to have to figure out how to reciprocate. He was reluctant to bring them to Starfleet Academy and let them have a look around in return. Not because he didn't want them learning anything about how Starfleet actually worked, but because unlike Maktor, Jim wasn't the Head Guy In Charge, and he couldn't control anything that happened on Earth, or punish anyone that stepped out of line.

Hmmm. Maybe have some graduate of theirs aboard the Enterprise for a while, to observe? An official officer exchange program wouldn't be ready for months, maybe a year, but some kid hanging around watching them, but not trying to be a part of the chain of command might work. And it would give both sides a better idea of how to structure the program, to boot. So yeah, that might work, if a suitable graduate could be found. Definitely worth discussing with Maktor.

A quick glance at Uhura's face, and in Spock's direction proved that both of them were at the very least in favor of the idea enough to not be looking displeased. Uhura, whose expression was a lot easier for Jim to read, had that 'if you don't do it, I will' sort of look to her face he'd seen a few times.

"That sounds quite interesting." Jim agreed. "I know Sulu has been hoping to see a demonstration with a bat'leth at some point. He enjoys working with bladed weapons and has yet to meet one he doesn't like. For myself, it will be interesting to see what sort of classes your graduates attend, and what they're like."

At the very least, it would allow him to put to rest the view held by a the worst of the bigoted idiots. To whit, that Klingons didn't actually have school. That they didn't prize education, and were only barely literate at best. Jim, of course, knew that was anything but the truth, but well, some people didn't have two brain cells to rub together and made very, very stupid assumptions based on their prejudices towards ... well, whatever it was they didn't like.

[[It's settled then. KaiTan will meet you outside the Great Hall at sunrise, and escort you and however many of your command crew wish to attend to the Academy, and from there to anywhere else you may wish to visit, within reason.]]

Jim nodded, then took a deep breath. "I would very much like to reciprocate, but bringing a few of your people to Earth just for a look around, then bringing them back to Q'onoS would be rather impractical. Instead, I thought perhaps one of your young graduates, if they were so inclined, could stay on the Enterprise for a few weeks to observe only? I wouldn't be able to make them an official part of the crew unfortunately - that would have to wait for the official officer exchange program, but they'd still have access to most places on the ship, and be able to interact with everyone."

Maktor thought that over a moment before nodding. [[That is acceptable, yes. I doubt there will be a dearth of volunteers. Many are quite curious about you and your ship.]]

Of that, Jim had little doubt.

After that, they said their goodbyes for the evening. As soon as they hit the Enterprise transporter room, Jim spoke up.

"Guys, we've been offered a tour of the Klingon Academy, and any other reasonable place we might want to take a peek at, tomorrow. KaiTan, the guy Maktor introduced as basically his First Officer, will be waiting for us at the Great Hall at dawn, Q'onoS time. So if you're wanting a peek at stuff planet-side, make sure you get a good night's sleep."

Sulu, as he'd figured, looked downright eager to attend the tour. Scotty also looked very interested. Actually, Jim decided after a look at everyone's faces, the only ones not visibly eager or anticipatory were Spock and Bones. And the two of them either had 'neutral' or 'grumpy' as their standard facial expressions even when they were feeling something (else).

Everyone but Spock took off for their own quarters at that point, obviously wanting to get some sleep before they had to traipse all over Q'onoS in the morning. Jim regarded Spock for several long moments, then took a wild guess.

"You're wondering why I agreed to have one of the graduates on the Enterprise for a while?" He asked.

"Indeed. It is a controversial decision at best. The Admiralty will be unlikely to approve." Spock said. "Yet if the pattern I have observed as regards your decision making process holds true in this instance, while you have doubtlessly made this decision in part due to its being controversial, you also have a surprisingly logical reason for it as well."

Jim didn't even bother trying to restrain the grin Spock's statement caused. "Yeah, I do. It pretty much boils down to the fact that Klingons and Humans - and pretty much everyone else in the Federation - are different enough that the likelihood of problems is pretty high. The more potential problems we're aware of before they actually become problems, the better. We'll be able to find solutions before things become real issues. Having a Klingon around all day every day for a while will have the best chance of exposing those problems. Having that Klingon on the Enterprise will just make it that much easier. They obviously respect us thanks to us blowing up the Narada, which will give us a bigger margin of error than another crew. We're also adaptable enough to change things up on the fly, unlike some of the other, more ... straight-laced captains and crews."

Spock nodded. "Your position is quite logical." He agreed. "While holding grudges is illogical in the extreme, the fact remains that many of the existing captains had ancestors involved in the Klingon-Federation conflict, and may be less than willing to interact with a Klingon without prejudice as a result."

Jim nodded. "Exactly. I know a couple of the older captains and younger Admirals were ensigns when that whole mess was going on, and lost family and crewmates. They're not going to be any too happy about the Klingons joining the Federation no matter what. At least with the rest, it's a touch less personal."

A touch. Losing a grandparent was, after all, only marginally less painful than losing a parent. Or at least Jim presumed so. It wasn't like he knew - his grandparents on both sides had died before he was born.

(_)(_)(_)

It was amazing the sorts of commonalities you found in even the most diverse of societies, Jim thought the next day. Open-air markets, for instance, were nearly ubiquitous in cities near enough to farmland to make travel to and from workable for the farmers. Granted, such markets were smaller or larger depending on a number of factors, but the odds of finding one were very, very good. And where such markets existed, more than just the farmers were going to end up hawking their wares. It didn't take much, or long, for even the smallest of such markets to attract other small-time businessmen.

They'd passed such a market on their way to the Klingon Academy with KaiTan - a street choked with stalls full of who-knew-what sort of foods, drinks, and other sundries and a lot of not just Klingons but members of other races as well. Jim had been deeply tempted to get KaiTan to let them investigate, but he had a feeling they'd be able to spend all day in such a market, and he wanted a look at the Academy first.

Schools too - at least at the Academy level anyway - had a common layout, even if the buildings themselves looked radically different. The Klingon Academy was no different. It was comprised of a number of large buildings grouped around a large open space. The 'campus' was smaller than Starfleet Academy, but Jim didn't spot anything that was clearly dormitories or some other form of student housing, so that explained part of the size difference. The Klingons also seemed to prefer to build up and keep everything in the smallest number of buildings rather than have a building dedicated to the sciences, and one to engineering, and so forth - or whatever divisions they preferred.

There was also only so many ways for classes to be taught. There had to be a teacher of some description, usually a person, far more rarely a computer. There also usually had to be somewhere for the students to sit, especially if it was a long class. The exception there being the physical classes, like combat training or the like. There was also some means of displaying information for the whole class - usually some sort of projection equipment and a screen or patch of blank wall. The Klingon classrooms proved to have these as well.

Jim knew of more than a few folks back home who'd be shocked to their bones to discover that Klingons had schools at all. For those folks, the idea of Klingon schools that taught them things other than how to headbutt or shoot an enemy into submission was practically heresy. Personally, Jim didn't understand why people thought that. Klingons did, after all, run around in spaceships. Knowing how to kick someone's ass did you no good when it came to steering, or fixing something that broke, or any of a dozen other things that were necessary to the function of a ship that had nothing to do with fighting.

Sure, the Klingons seemed to have an emphasis on combat training, from shooting to various non-energy weapons to their fists. They still had all the other stuff as well. The only thing they came close to actively denigrating and/or ignoring was the medical stuff. Even then, they did have at least a few classes for medical specialists, maybe even a whole, if small, program. What had come as a surprise even to Jim was the fact that the Academy population was split almost 50/50 between men and women. That came as a surprise mostly because the Klingon fleet was crewed almost entirely by men. Jim figured the women applied the lessons they learned to other careers.

As Jim had predicted, they lost Scotty to the Klingon engineering classes. Jim didn't bother to try to figure out how Scotty was going to get his opinions across. He'd manage somehow. Probably better than some would. Engineers all seemed to talk the same language. He was the only one that actually split off for a while though. The rest of them continued on, listening in on various classes for a little bit. The class Jim found himself unexpectedly getting sucked into was their Tactics class.

The Tactics class was taught by a grizzled, scarred, positively ancient Klingon. He had a bunch of images up on the screen in the room of some sort of space battle. The shots were from several different angles, possibly stills from recordings obtained by various ships or perhaps even a nearby satellite or station that had a good view of things. The fact Jim couldn't really tell which ship was on which side told him it was one of the numerous Klingon/Romulan conflicts after the Klingon/Romulan Alliance fell apart.

It quickly becomes clear that the class was analyzing the battle. They were trying to correctly predict the next move on the part of a particular ship, pointed out flaws and mistakes and offered different options to the actions taken. They also tried to figure out what the consequences of those different actions might be. In other words, it was virtually identical to Starfleet classes of that stripe.

"Should send a ship to attack from the side and below." Jim eventually burst out. The situation on the screen had three Klingon ships in a loose semi-circle around two Romulan ships. "No weapons on the underside of a Romulan ship of that class, and their forward guns only reach so far to the sides. In order to shoot at someone coming up under them from the side, they'd have to turn, which would expose them to fire from an angle they couldn't really defend against from one of the ships in the semi-circle."

Next to him, Uhura rolled her eyes slightly but translated his comment. The Klingon instructor gave Jim a squinty-eyed look that Jim couldn't decipher.

[[Our human guest offers a viable tactic. Do any others agree?]]

Several did, of course. Actually, most of the class. The instructor nodded.

[[That is precisely what was done.]]

The scene was allowed to play out, and one of the Romulan ships got blasted into nonworking condition but not into scraps in the resultant firefight. Alone against three Klingon ships, the remaining Romulan ship didn't last much longer than its fellow.

From there, things just snowballed. Jim ended up in a (mostly playful, it had to be said) argument with the students about another battle. He was advocating one strategy, with support from two or three of the students, while the rest of the class seemed to be united in their approval and recommendation of another tactic. The argument finally got cut off by the end of the class period. Not that that really stopped them. The argument, with additional shoving and a few chest-bumps, continued out into the corridor, where one of the students challenged Jim to some sort of game of strategy. Jim was sorry to decline, but he had no clue how the game was played.

Admitting that resulted in him and the rest of the crew getting dragged into the square, where there were a number of tables and chairs along one side. Most of them were already taken by students, all of them with some sort of game or other.

It didn't take long to discover that every last game being played was one of strategy. There was a game very like chess, in that it had pieces with specific movement restrictions. Unlike chess, where the game was declared won or tied depending by who captured the King (or the fact that neither side was going to be able to), the point of this game was to get as many of the other pieces off the board with as few losses of your pieces as possible. Interestingly, winning wasn't enough. They quickly discovered that the players considered to be the best were those that either lost no pieces or only lost one or two. Like chess, the game came in a two dimensional version for beginners and a three dimensional version for the more advanced players.

There was another game very much like Go, where the point was to place your pieces so that you 'claimed' the greater amount of space on the board compared to your opponent. This too had a two dimensional and three dimensional version. There was a third game that involved cards as well as a board, moveable pieces and a *lot* of yelling and what was probably cussing. Jim couldn't quite work out what the deal was with that game in the brief look he got at it.

They spent an enjoyable half hour watching both the chess-like and Go-like games being played and talking to the students. That was when Jim discovered something interesting. Every last person there was under the age of nineteen. It was possible, of course, that their senior class had gotten wiped out when the Klingon fleet tangled with the Narada, and if that was the case Jim felt for them, because Starfleet Academy had lost almost all of their senior class the same damn way. But even if that was the case, the age was a bit odd.

Chekov, at seventeen, was the exception to the rule where Starfleet Academy was concerned. The vast majority of the student body was over the age of twenty, regardless of species, though some races did average a bit younger than others. Most of them had at least one lesser degree from another university somewhere. Many had quite a bit more than that.

It seemed that Klingons went from their version of standard education straight into the Academy ... and that they got out of standard education a good bit earlier than humans at least did. Jim was also stunned to discover that neither standard schools nor the Academy taught certain fighting skills. These were handed down from father to son. The Academy had sparring instructors available in those arts, but their job was to help the students keep their existing skills sharp when they couldn't get home for a bit of sparring rather than teach them new skills.

Not all fighting skills fell under that umbrella, however. The Academy had instructors to teach and hone shooting, general knife and fist fighting skills. It's at the knife-fighting class that Jim lost Sulu, who all but bounced in. Jim gave an amused headshake.

"He's going to get himself killed, isn't he?" He asked Uhura in an undertone.

"Possibly." She admitted with a quiet laugh. "He looks far too happy to be tangling with these guys."

(_)(_)(_)

KaiTan had made himself as inconspicuous as it was possible for a Klingon to be. He was far more interested in watching how the Enterprise crew interacted, both with each other and with the citizens around them. If he made his presence known and felt, most of the citizens would be focused on him, as a known, very high-profile and important Councilor from a large and well-respected House.

The first thing he figured out watching them was that the female was not, as he had initially suspected, Captain Kirk's woman. Oh, she worked for him, but she didn't warm his bed. On that, KaiTan was willing to bet quite a bit of money. That said, they seemed to have a familiarity with each other similar to what was found in members of a House who were not actually siblings but closely related and friendly with each other.

Certainly, Kirk allowed a degree of informality and jocularity that no Klingon captain would ever permit. Interestingly, far from wrecking his command, it seemed to strengthen it. It was a tactic that would never work with his own people, but humans were different enough - soft enough - that Kirk could get away with it. That said, soft humans might be, and easy targets as well but Kirk had a sharp mind and a good eye for strategy and tactics. KaiTan had a feeling that Kirk would be a hell of a challenge to defeat in a fight, whether face to face or ship to ship. Not because he took the Narada on and won, though that was certainly part of it. The defeat of that ship had nearly as much to do with luck as with anything else, from the tale Kirk had told them though. No, it was the familiar edge to the man that made him dangerous. The near-Klingon edge. Kirk was enough like them to be familiar, yet enough different that he'd be able to pull strategies that a Klingon would never think of.

KaiTan knew of more than a few Klingons - himself included - that would be tempted to test their mettle against Kirk and see how they stacked up. KaiTan restrained the urge, however. There might come a time when a friendly contest wouldn't be taken wrong. That time might even be within the next year. It was, however, not now, when the ink on the treaty wasn't even dry yet.

And that was the other thing about Kirk. KaiTan's grandfather had been on the Council back when Starfleet and the Empire had first clashed. KaiTan had heard tales about those early attempts at meetings. How the humans had been dismissive of virtually everything Klingons valued. How arrogantly sure of their superiority they had been, apparently based solely on the fact they didn't get into fistfights at a moment's notice.

Kirk, on the other hand, had dived right in. He'd not just accepted Klingon culture, he'd used what he knew of it himself to meet them halfway. And he hadn't done it with an air of 'I am doing this to humor you poor savages' either.

When Maktor had proposed bringing Kirk here to talk peace, KaiTan had been ready for open war to end up breaking out. Getting along had been tried, and it hadn't worked. Nothing had changed in the interim, either. To be brutally honest, KaiTan didn't think the peace they'd forged now would last. Kirk was, after all, the exception to what KaiTan knew of the rule when it came to humans.

Then again, where there was one, there just might be more. KaiTan was prepared to admit that his ancestors had been exposed to but a limited number of humans. There were apparently billions of them out there. Among such masses, there had to be those that could get along with Klingons without looking down their noses at them at the same time.

He'd just have to wait and see.

(_)(_)(_)

Earth

Pike woke to a special private pre-recorded message on his comm system in among the raft of normal, everyday correspondence. To his delight, it was from Jim. A visibly ecstatic, grinning-like-a-shark Jim.

"I got it signed, Pike. The Admiralty will be getting the message in the morning, but I figured I'd let you know first so you'd know what you'd be rolling into in the meeting I just know they'll call over this. You and I both know they never expected me to pull this off."

Pike barked a laugh at look on Jim's face, even as he nodded agreement. No, the Admiralty had certainly not expected Jim to pull this off, for any of a number of reasons.

"The rest is going to be up to you and whoever you can get on your side. Just because it's signed doesn't mean they're going to want to honor it." Jim continued. "I'd really like to see a Klingon in the Academy next school year if we can possibly manage it. The sooner they start joining in on stuff in the Federation, the better. Otherwise too many people are going to be happy to have them 'over there' and the 'decent people' over here." Jim's expression twisted into distaste. I'll do what I can from this end. I already have something in mind, but I won't tell you what it is ... that way you can claim innocence and ignorance when they throw a fit and accuse you of knowing what I was up to and not telling them."

"I have no idea when they're going to send a representative to Earth. They're probably going to send them with me, whoever they pick. On that note ... I plan to stay here as the face of the Federation and Starfleet for as long as I can reasonably manage. If something big comes up, we'll go, of course, but otherwise we're staying put."

Pike laughed again. The Admiralty wasn't going to like that when they figured that out, but Jim had the right idea. Hanging around and letting the Klingons get comfortable with them was a good idea.

"We're getting a tour of their Academy in the morning. I'll send you another message with any interesting tidbits we learn, so we can start ironing out an officer exchange program. Don't have too much fun tormenting your fellow Admirals. Kirk out."

Pike gave a final amused snort and then scrolled through his other messages. Sure enough, towards the bottom, where the newest messages were displayed, there was a recorded communiqué from the Admiralty requesting his presence at a meeting in an hour's time. Just barely enough time for him to get dressed and get there. Pike quickly wheeled away from his desk and got going.

An hour later found him in the meeting room. Sadly, he got there after Komack. He was sad to have been deprived of what had probably been a rather epic entrance, if the expression of some of the other Admirals' faces and Komack's nearly puce countenance were anything to go by.

A few minutes after he arrived, the last of the Admirals took their places and the meeting was called to order.

"It is my pleasure to announce that Captain Kirk has succeeded in getting the Klingon Empire to join the Federation." Admiral Calliche said. "The treaty, as signed, is available for your perusal on your datapads. I must admit to being impressed. The treaty is remarkably balanced and fair to both sides. The Empire will retain control of its current territory, but will not seek to conquer further territory without Federation approval, as is standard. They have agreed to the basic minimums required for personal liberty - in other words, they will not permit slavery - prisoner rights and prison conditions, which will doubtlessly force some changes at Rura Penthe, which is all to the good." That penal colony was infamous in half the galaxy for its inhumane conditions and prisoner death toll. "They are requesting deliveries of certain ores to facilitate the rebuilding of their fleet, and are offering rights to one of their dilithium mines - a mine of our choice - in exchange for those materials."

"Well, we've got the ore and metal to spare, to be sure." One of the other Admirals said. "I just wish they'd managed to weasel something regarding the cloaking devices out of the Klingons. Still, that might come later, if they stay in the Federation." It was not unheard of for a race to withdraw for reasons of their own - or in one case, to be forced out for not adhering to some essential bit of Federation law.

Pike just grinned. For a miracle, Komack was silent. He'd probably been driven to the point of being incapable of speech, if his expression and attitude were anything to go by. Pike was looking forward to making it worse.

"I think." He said. "That we need to strike while the iron's hot. Let's get those metal and ores to them - or start to at least - within the week. We should also start figuring out there wheres and whyfores of an officer exchange program, so we know how to integrate them into Starfleet with the fewest problems." He'd leave the 'let's get one of them into the Academy' discussion for a day when most of the other issues as regarded the Klingons' inclusion into the Federation had been at least addressed.