Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek, The Next Generation or the Klingon Empire. I'm also not going to be making money from this. These are all my own words, nothing is plagiarized.
Chapter One
Stardate 44231.9
K'mpec heaved a sigh after another long day with the council. It never used to be this draining. In his younger days he thrived on the politics, the backstabbing, the double-talk, it had energized him, made him feel like a young blood on his first Soqmoh viq but now he was an old man, tired and fat, well, fatter, and he just couldn't care anymore. He could hardly remember the days when it all mattered to him.
People don't seem to remember, or don't want to, but back in those days The Empire was at its weakest. After the destruction of Praxis, countless wars, both internal and external had sapped The Empire's remaining strength. With no ally at its back The Empire wasn't quite losing ground but it was growing thin. It was the Federation that gave the Klingons back their bite, not that he'd ever admit it. The feds were soft, sure, but their industrial capacity was greater than the Romulan and Klingon Empires combined, perhaps even Cardassia too. It was the billions of cheap components and resources that flooded past the border year after year that were responsible for the current economic boom on Qo'noS and its holdings and was the reason that most of The Empire's civilian and merchant vessels were built or upgraded using Federation technology, using Federation parts, but not the military, oh no, no captain would ever allow Federation technology onto their ships. Klingon holotechnology had also vastly improved thanks to the Federation, allowing young warriors to test themselves against holographic opponents, but shedding simulated blood could only sate his people for so long.
Despite it all and despite the fact that he still fiercely loved his people, sometimes old K'mpec was jealous of the Federation. No Federation President ever had to deal with what K'mpec had to deal with. You see, Klingons are a prideful, passionate lot, slow to change and quick to anger. K'mpec and the Council could pass any laws they wanted but if the people didn't want to follow them, they wouldn't, it seems like half of K'mpec's job in recent years has been managing his own kind, keeping them content or at least keeping them from rioting for this or that, something that didn't seem to be a problem for the too passive Federation. At times, to the old man it resembled herding blind targ, something that seemed to be getting even harder to do: his people were getting restless. You see, today's young warriors are so obsessed with the idea of fighting a war, a real war, that they don't think about the damage it would do, they don't consider the cost, they just want the thrill of the chase, the call of battle, they want their enemies blood splattered on their faces and they don't particularly care who or what species that enemy is. There has been no war worth the name since the signing on Khitomer, since K'mpec's predecessor Azetbur brought peace to The Empire, a peace it desperately needed even if it certainly didn't want it. All it would take…
K'mpec was tired, too tired and too drunk to continue such thoughts. Pausing his dreary internal monologue, he looked around his office for the damned cup of bloodwine, then noticing it was still in his hand, empty. Lugging himself over to the bar, the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council refilled the cup and stumbled back into his chair only to gulp down the goblet's contents in seconds before tossing it in the general direction of his desk. Yes, he was drunk, as he often was after a long day spent doing this, that and the other, all in service to the glorious Klingon Empire. He just didn't have the energy to do it anymore, any of it, and he didn't know if it was the old age that was responsible, or the increased weight, or just not getting enough sleep, or maybe a combination of all three that was responsible for it.
… or perhaps it was the poison, oh he was definitely still being poisoned. How he had raged when his useless doctors told him, when the red mist descended for the first time in many years, in fact it was the first time in an age that he had felt any strong emotion. Death by poison was no honorable death, there would be no glorious afterlife for him. He had won many battles in his day, both in war and in politics, but now it seemed not that he had lost his final battle, but that it had lost him. However, this was something K'mpec had reluctantly accepted, knowing that Sto-vo-kor was forever barred to him, it had given him a sense of relief in a way the old man couldn't quite articulate, even if it also made him melancholy. He still didn't know who it was who'd killed him. Oh, he had his suspicions, but the way the councilors looked at him, they knew, either because they had all briefly put aside their animosities and collaborated to kill him, something even old K'mpec had trouble believing, or more likely, one of his doctors had told them, regardless the whole sorry lot of them now looked at him the way a targ looks when it scents blood. Either Gowron or Duras, working alone or as ringleader, it had to be one of them. One year ago, hell, even four jar ago he would have been sure it was Duras, that little p'takh, but now… Duras was different, or was he?
It had started almost a year ago after those damned logs were uncovered on that Romulan warbird Antaak had captured. When they had discovered that it was Duras' father, Ja'rod who had transmitted Khitomer's defense codes to the Romulans, despite the fact that he himself died in the following attack that killed almost all of the people there, Duras had raged, swearing to bring war to The Empire if the truth wasn't hidden, if the dishonor wasn't shifted onto another. Then he got a faraway look in his eye and seemed for a moment to be in shock before quickly excusing himself from council chambers, causing many a raised eyebrow among the council. He had returned minutes later, then calm, and recommended that the blame be placed on Mogh. Mogh, who died at Khitomer in that same attack, who had been a friend to K'mpec for many years, had but one child, a son who became a Starfleet officer and would most likely never be affected by such a declaration and would quite possibly never know of it considering how far removed from The Empire he was. That at least was Duras' reasoning and it was something that most of the council agreed with. That Mogh was a longtime rival of Ja'rod certainly wasn't the main reason behind the "recommendation", at that thought K'mpec snorted into his goblet mid-sip, having retrieved it from the floor at some point and refilled it before slumping back into his chair.
After that Duras had been different, less combative and seemed to actually listen when others spoke to him. K'mpec at the time had hoped that the shock of his father's crime had changed the boy, how disappointed he was when he finally discovered that Duras hadn't really changed at all, he'd just become more careful, perhaps too careful to plot to kill an old man who couldn't have many years left to him anyway. It wasn't yet a day since the allegation against Mogh was made public that his spies reported to him that assassins loyal to Duras had killed a scion of the House of Lorgh as well an elderly woman in the Old Quarter of the First City. At first even the venerable Chancellor couldn't believe that Duras would hire assassins to kill some random old woman, that was until he saw the pictures of the body. Her face, aged by the decades since their last meeting but still recognizable to him: Kahlest: the woman who had once rebuffed his advances and called him fat, regardless of his position and status and she only being a poor childminder, a woman he thought long dead. After that, nothing and no one could ever convince him that Duras was truly a changed man, no matter how many times he heard people say it. After that, he thought nothing could ever surprise him again. Duras might have changed in some ways, but he was still Duras after all, no matter his actions at Wolf 359.
…then Worf, son of Mogh arrived on Qo'noS. Worf, in whose chest beat the heart of a true Klingon even after living most of his life amongst humans. That alone would have given K'mpec hope for his people if he hadn't had to do what he did next. Worf, who had challenged the accusation, challenged him, and had even brought his human captain in to be his Cha'Dlch. At that thought K'mpec finally stopped his musings. Picard! Picard was who he needed! Despite his tiredness and inebriation K'mpec shot out of his chair.
"Computer, give me the last reported location of the Federation Starship Enterprise and send an immediate summons to Ambassador K'Ehleyr!"
For the first time in a long time old K'mpec felt vital, young. Perhaps he would find his way to Sto-vo-kor after all.
.oOo.
Some Klingon terms and their meanings
Soqmoh viq – Close Battle
Qo'noS – Klingon home world, also known as Kronos
Targ – Spiked Klingon boars, treated as both a pet and a food source
Bloodwine – a strong alcoholic drink made from fermented targ blood and sugar
Sto-vo-kor – Klingon afterlife where a warrior's spirit supposedly goes after death
Jar – A Klingon month, roughly the length of two human months
P'takh – a Klingon curse word, basically means coward but doesn't really translate
Cha'Dlch – a Klingon warrior's 'second' during trial
.oOo.
So that's Chapter One! Please let me know if you prefer that I use Klingon terminology and language, even with explanations down below, or would rather I use normal English. I've found that for me when reading those fics, even though the writer is trying to engage the reader through realism it usually only serves to take me out of the fic if I have to hunt down what so-and-so means or what this translates to, even when translations are provided for below I still have to stop reading, check it out, and then find my place again so for me I'd rather it be plain English. But that's my preference for reading, I'm writing this to be read so it depends on what you guys think.
Let me know if you find any mistakes and I'll correct them, unless it's about run-on-sentences, comma over usage, lack of indentation or how I sometimes start a paragraph with an ellipsis, I've tried to stop but I'm too old to learn and now simply think of it as part of my "writing style."
My thanks to britcuppaT for beta reading, that said, I am still on the hunt for beta readers so if anyone is interested let me know.
I'm aware this chapter is less show and more tell but that's because the POV character is an old man trying to find meaning at the end of his life and is wallowing and thinking on his mistakes and fate. The next chapter will be from the perspective of a warrior mid-battle so there won't be much of an internal monologue, I just needed to get some stuff out of the way before we can get to the good stuff, I'll try to keep exposition at a minimum in the future if I can help it.
Please don't ask me where this fic is going or what'll happen next because the truth is that I have no idea. I've written fics before where I had huge outlines well laid out but got bored only a few chapters in. This way it stays interesting because even I don't know where it'll lead. That's the fun!
Lastly, I'll be cross-posting this on , AO3, Spacebattles, Sufficient Velocity, Questionable Questing, and . If you have a comment for this and future chapters and want me to respond sooner rather than later I'd recommend you do so over on alt history as that's the site I mostly use and am more likely to check daily, I'll be interacting with commenters more over there. I might also add the occasional "adult content" exclusive to QQ, I've got to get that NSFW rating somehow or no one would read it! So be on the lookout for that if you're interested.
Chapter Two will be a Klag POV!