Klingon Translation:
petaQ=Useless, Garbage
vav=Father
Chapter Femton!
"NOOOOO!" cried Jaylah. But it was too late. Khan was gone.
Five Mississippi...four Mississippi...three Mississippi...two Mississippi...one Mississippi...Error. Termination failure, said the computer. The battery powering the termination sequence had blown up along with Khan. The Think Tank shut down. Khan had done it! One by one, the Lanterns broke free of their bindings. Jaylah ran to the place where Khan and the battery had been.
"No...Khan Noonien..." Jaylah murmured.
In another corner, the Red Lanterns were also grief-stricken. "The Dawnbreaker..." said Joaquin. "He sacrificed himself for us."
"Not just us, he did it for everyone." said Malik.
Diana spoke up as well. "And since White Lanterns do not require a battery, I simply cannot imagine what they could have done with me had he not intervened."
"Alright, let's go get the others and regroup on Mogo, shall we?" said Kirk. "We can discuss things later."
"We still have a little light left, if we combine our powers, we can make an escape!" Hal added.
"Not so fast, Lanterns!" a voice called out, and Jem'Hadar soldiers swarmed the Think Tank. They had taken notice of the explosion and had come.
"End of the line!" said another.
But then, the unexpected happened. "Stand down. All of you." said General Luen.
"But sir..." said the leader.
"This is an order!" Luen growled. "Now go back to your posts and wait for further orders."
"Yes, sir!" the leader declared, and the soldiers scattered. Luen led everyone out of the Think Tank and to the prison where the non-Lanterns were being kept.
As they made their way to the prison, Shiarrael told Luen "Why are you helping us anyway?"
"I used to think we changelings were the most superior lifeforms in the whole entire universe, and solids as well as all other creatures were beneath us. Until that day, when I saw past the Great Link and realized my people were not what I thought they were, and every life is beautiful in its own way." replied the general. "Besides, I never thought Lord Okaia would betray me like that."
Soon, they arrived. Luen ordered the computer to open the prison gates, and the Lanterns went inside. "Monty!" Ferris cried out for her boyfriend.
The couple embraced as Sulu and McCoy also crawled out of their cells, and Carol asked her own boyfriend "Leonard, you OK?"
"I'm fine, Carol." replied McCoy. "Now let's get outta here."
"Jim!" said Spock as he rushed in his bondmate's direction, and Kirk was equally happy to see his first officer alive.
"Who's that?" asked Sulu, looking at Luen.
"Don't worry." said Shiarrael. "She's with us."
"We have emergency shuttles stationed at the West Wing in case something went wrong." said Luen. "Come on, follow me." And so they all went to the West Wing. The trip was quite eventful, but they made it. "You oughtta hurry, they're gonna be here in no time." Luen told everybody as they reached the shuttles.
"You heard her, people." said Jaylah. "Let's move!"
Everyone piled into the shuttles and they took off. But, oh, dear, they were one shuttle short! Only five people, namely Jaylah, Saint Walker, Kirk, Diana and Luen were stranded on the Capital. "What are we gonna do?" asked Kirk.
"I have an idea." said Jaylah. "Now, Walker, will you kindly put your ring against mine?"
Saint Walker knew what Jaylah was talking about. She was saying that everyone must combine their remaining light to make a getaway vehicle! He was unsure whether it would work out but one could only hope, right? The two joined hands and Kirk and Diana soon followed. They all focused on getting out, and created something that only vaguely looked like an escape pod. Luen hopped into it, followed by the four Lanterns. Up, up and away, the five of them followed the group of shuttles in the rickety mess of a construct. Diana walked over to the far end and tapped into the red part of the emotional spectrum to make a construct phaser rifle, then began firing at the Jem'Hadar fighters that were hot on their tail. The number of pursuers died down, but then, one of them managed to land a hit and the vessel was ripped apart. It seemed like everything was lost but then, Jaylah managed to think up one last construct for them to all hide in.
Hours later, all that was left of the vessel was a green double-decker couch. The cushions on it flipped open, and Jaylah, Saint Walker, Kirk, Diana and Luen(with a protective shield around her) popped up. They clambered onto the couch as it floated in deep space among debris. "Wow!" said Kirk. "This is so dumb...and pointless...but it saved us. I knew you would do something big!"
"It wasn't my idea, James T." said Jaylah. "I got it from Khan Noonien. I figured if we hid in something dumb, then the enemies would completely overlook it."
"I don't mean to spoil the party, but does anyone else notice we're stuck in the middle of who-knows-where on this couch?" Luen asked. "I mean, it's not like a great big gigantic ship is just gonna come out of nowhere and save us...Holy bagumba!"
In a flash, everyone were beamed aboard a gigantic warship. "Warlord Aldar?" asked Kirk, recognizing their savior.
"Greetings again, Captain Kirk." said the female Bolovaxian. "Now, let's get going, shall we? Everyone's waiting on Mogo. The plan's failure led to the tides turning, and now we're heavily outnumbered. And outgunned. The Dominion's sending armies everywhere, it's only a matter of time before this galaxy falls."
During the ride to Mogo, Kirk asked Jaylah "What happened? Khan's plan was supposed to be the perfect plan. The better one."
"I don't know." replied the Green Lantern. "When Khan Noonien entered the light storage chamber and tried initiating a blackout, his wrist communicator shocked him. That knocked him out, and the next thing I knew, we were both captured."
Kirk checked his wrist communicator and upon seeing that it was still intact, he contacted Scotty. "Mr. Scott, can you please tell me what happened with the communicator you gave Khan?"
And what Scotty told him was truly shocking.
Spock sat alone.
Why couldn't they see it? If they followed his plan, the Federation Alliance could have triumphed by now. But instead they had to follow Khan's plan, and that ended in disaster. Soon enough, he received news that the tardy Captain Kirk had arrived with Jaylah, Diana, Saint Walker and a Dominion defect. But wait...where was Khan? He wasn't among the ones who had arrived in shuttlecraft, nor the tardy five that Warlord Aldar brought. Once the rest of the Tomorrow Knights entered the place he was in, he got up and asked Kirk "What happened to Khan?"
"He...he blew himself up only so we could escape." Kirk said. "Is it true? Did you order Scotty to install an electric shocker on his wrist communicator that would be triggered once he initiated a blackout?"
The commander nodded. "It was only logical."
It filled Jaylah with sheer anger. She punched Spock hard in the face.
"What, you have no right to..."
"SHUT UP, YOU GREEN-BLOODED FREAK, THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
Everyone stood quiet after that.
Spock knew they figured out what he did.
But why were they so mad, he did the right thing.
"Listen, everyone, I..."
"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" McCoy snapped.
"Khan's plan was perfect, it was you that ruined it!" said Sulu.
"Lieutenant Sulu is right. I compared your plan to Lantern Commander Singh's, and, truth be told, his plan was far superior to yours." Aya spoke.
"You...you screw-up!" Hal cried.
Saaya the kitten just growled and hissed wildly like a juvenile black panther, if it weren't for this man, her Master would be OK right now.
"Let me at him, let me blow his damn head off!" Guy screamed.
"This is unacceptable, even for me." said Anti-Matter Spock.
"I should kill you for your actions." Tirrok declared.
"I see a lot of myself in you." Sinestro added. "The pointy ears, the cold and calculating attitude, and the overall possessiveness over a loved one."
"But the different thing is, he's actually trying to fix his mistakes, while you do not. From what I've heard, the conflict between you and the Dawnbreaker happened five years ago. Wasn't that enough time to bury the hatchet?" Diana asked.
"What? You seriously expected me to make amends with Khan? He's a monster, I was only trying to—" Spock said, but was cut off when a golden lasso wrapped around his neck, strangling him.
"The Dawnbreaker sacrificed himself to save us. You need to put some respect on his name." the Amazonian said as she gave the Vulcan a death-glare, then released him.
"Now listen up, Commander." Kirk said as he went into captain mode. "Get this through your stupid head. Things aren't going back the way they were. This is the way things go now, and you are the only one that doesn't like them. So stop being such a blockhead and face the goddamn consequences. You screwed up way back in 2259, when you set off those torpedoes and crippled the USS Vengeance, and when I realized that, it was too late. But there's always another chance. Having a truce with someone who ruined our lives, let alone making amends with them, is a hard thing to do, but I don't expect you to do that, just admit that you messed up. AM I CLEAR?"
"No, you're the one who's being wrong, he's a dangerous criminal, he killed you, please listen to reason. You can still stop this, please, my t'hy'la..."
Suddenly, a green fist made contact with his face, with even more force than when Jaylah punched him.
"I'm ashamed to be your t'hy'la." said Kirk, and told the other Lanterns "Lock him up."
"What do we do now?" Kilowog asked his friends as Carol and Ferris took Spock away. "We're all out of ideas."
"Khan had ideas." said Uhura sadly.
"Ideas so dumb and bad that no one would ever think that they could possibly be useful." Scotty spoke. "If only there were more people in the universe like he be."
"Hang on!" cried Kirk. Scotty's words had given him an idea of his own. "Aya, you're gonna have to come with me." he said, and then dashed off with Aya.
The remaining Tomorrow Knights looked at each other in confusion, then ran after the two.
Soon, Aya made a comm-link connected to everyone in Sector 2814. Kirk began broadcasting with it. "Hey, everybody. Yeah, it's me, the Jim Kirk. For those who don't know me, I'm on TV, so you can trust me." All around the sector, everyone was watching Kirk, even as light-fueled robots swooped overhead, attacking people left and right. "I know things seem really bad right now, but there is a way out of this." Kirk went on. "Roll that footage, Aya."
Aya waved a hand, and footage of Khan was shown, from the events in 2259 to his rise as a Red Lantern, how he became the Dawnbreaker and how the Federation Alliance recruited him.
Kirk continued speaking. "This is Khan. And he was just like all of you, except better at everything. Yeah, our first impression of him wasn't so good, but soon, we realized we could benefit from having him on our side, in more than one way." The video showed Khan helping out the Green Lanterns on Oa, him saying "tribbles" and then Jaylah using Khan's idea of a double-decker couch to save herself and her friends. "Because it turns out Khan had great ideas. And even though they seemed weird, and kind of pointless, they actually came closer than anyone else to saving the universe. And now we have to finish what he started by making whatever weird thing pops into our heads. All of you have the ability inside of you to be a groundbreaker. And I mean literally, break the ground! Peel up the pieces, tear apart your walls! Do things only you could do, defend yourselves! We need to fight back against the Dominion's plans to annihilate us! Today will not be known as Taco Tuesday, it will be known as Freedom Friday!...But still on a Tuesday!"
After Kirk finished his speech, Diana walked over to him. "That was one big speech. Very inspiring."
"Thank you, Diana." said Kirk. "I don't know how far we will fare without Khan, but one can only hope, right?"
"Right." Diana replied. "And, about that conversation we had before we infiltrated the Capital...I liked it. Maybe we can talk about each other's experiences more after this war's over and we make it out alive."
"I was thinking the same!" Kirk exclaimed.
Without noticing, their lips touched, a soft kiss, the beginning of something beautiful.
After breaking apart, they looked at each other and smiled.
The future was uncertain, but they knew one thing, they will face everything together.
Hal and Sinestro watched with smiles on their faces, glad that the people they cared for so much finally found some happiness. In all honesty, they had started to think Kirk was too good for Spock.
Everyone around them also started clapping and cheering, and Kirk declared "Prepare every vessel that flies. We're going to war."
Soon, the entirety of the Federation Alliance militia were once again sailing against the Dominion. The Enterprise led the Seventh Fleet through the Stairgate back to the Alpha Quadrant, where a wild battle was under way. The species that populated the Alpha Quadrant were giving it all they've got against Jem'Hadar ships and light-fueled robots—a majority of them had converted transport vehicles into attack vehicles. "Oh. My. Gosh." said Scotty, watching the carnage in awe.
"This is even crazier than I thought it would be!" exclaimed Kirk. Then he saw in the distance what appeared to be the highest top of the Capital. The captain sent a transmission to all his allies, "Everyone, clear us a path towards that weird mother-ship thingy!"
And they did. The converted ships began firing at the enemies, diverting their attention to them from the Seventh Fleet.
"This might actually work!" exclaimed the Green Leader.
"It was your speech which roused this hearty crew." Scotty remarked.
Inside the mother-ship, Okaia realized that things were not going according to plan. "What the H-E-C-K is going on?! This is an abomination of silliness!"
Back in the stars, Kirk had left Sulu in charge of the Enterprise and had rounded up the Lanterns to take down the enemies. He looked around him with a big smile on his face. "Take that, you mechanical petaQ!" Tirrok growled as he blasted a robot, but it ended up wounding him in return.
"vav!" cried a horrified Shenara as she rushed to her father's side.
The male Klingon could say nothing as he held his daughter's hand, and sent one last message to her ring:Crazy, is it not? I never thought I'd die fighting alongside Federation goons of all the species in the universe. But still, I am honored to have you and our liege by my side. And...tell Karana that she will always be my one and only. Then he passed away, and his ring came off.
Yellow Lantern of Sector 2814 deceased. Scanning sector for replacement sentient.
"Lantern Tirrok..." sad Anti-Matter Kirk as he came over. He could clearly tell that his fellow Yellow Lantern had tears in her eyes.
"Shenara?" asked Jaylah. "You alright?"
"Klingons do not cry." said Shenara. "My father's death was honorable. I will make sure it wasn't in vain." She then used her ring's energy as a funeral pyre for her fallen father, as she recited her oath.
"In blackest day, in brightest night,
Beware your fears made into light.
Let those who try to stop what's right,
Burn like my power...Yellow Lantern's Light!"
And that was the moment Jaylah fell even harder. She said, "Um...Shenara, your dad just died, and this is a weird time and place to say this but...I think I have fallen in love with you!"
Shenara seemed to be a bit surprised at that statement, but she quickly put herself together and declared "I as well, have developed par'Mach for you, Jaylah."
"Par'Mach?" asked Jaylah. "What kind of word is that?"
"It's Klingon for love." Sinestro told her.
"With more aggressive overtones." Uhura added.
"No time for lovey-doveying, we've got other issues right now." Diana said as she flew by.
Meanwhile, the Enterprise, flanked by the rest of the Seventh Fleet, was also assisting everyone to get to the mother-ship. Saaya was restless; although she had known her Master for only a short period of time, he was nothing but kind to her and she wanted to avenge him. And the universe must have answered her best wishes, for a stray red ring had come all the way from Ysmault to rest upon her tail.
Saaya of Earth, you have great rage in your heart. You belong to the Red Lantern Corps.
The 72 Red Lanterns felt a shock, and knew a new member had joined their ranks. But still, it wasn't enough to turn the tide.
A long way from the battlefield, Khan Noonien Singh woke up in a dark, flat place with nothing around him. "Where am I?" he asked himself.
Suddenly, a feminine, slightly dark voice spoke to him.
Oh, so you're the one they call the Dawnbreaker...
And from the shadows emerged a menacing figure dressed in all black, a scythe in his hand.