Prologue

First City, Qo'noS, 2375

Teng'cha Jav spaceport was as always, a frantic hive of activity as ships came and went, the great battle cruisers staying up at the orbital facilities and the smaller, more versatile birds-of-prey coming down through the atmosphere to land at ground level. A variety of smaller vessels – shuttles, work pods, cargo transporters, and even antigrav sleds – flitted amongst the larger ships like swarms of insects. Everywhere, people went about their business, engineers carrying out urgent repairs to damaged ships, crews going on leave or returning to their ships, suppliers bringing in food, including an entire herd of live targs. Most of the animals would be slaughtered and put into frozen storage but a few would be kept alive to provide fresh meat for the command crews of the various ships they were intended to supply. In the meantime, their angry squeals could be heard halfway across the city. Perhaps sensing their impending fate, the targs were recalcitrant, giving their handlers a hard time and inevitably, one of the animals broke free of its confines and made a bid for freedom.

Crossing the busy thoroughfare towards his ship, Krang epetai Inigan, a lieutenant commander in Starfleet, but also temporary captain of the IKS Hegh'Ta, former security captain of Klingon Imperial Intelligence and hero of the Dominion War, stopped to watch the chaotic scene. He stifled a snort of laughter as the handlers chased the wayward targ, thankfully in a direction well away from his own destination, resulting in a chain of events that strongly resembled something in one of those old-fashioned Earth comedy shows his wife liked to watch. A loud crash and angry shouts accompanied the collision of two antigravs as one swerved to avoid the fleeing targ. Shaking his head, Krang went on his way.

He did not have far to go. Only this morning, the Hegh'Ta had been brought down to the ground to make way for the much larger Negh'Var class cruiser that had just come into the orbital facilities. The bigger vessel had no landing capabilities and parking space up there in orbit was at a premium. Actually, Krang reflected, with so many of Hegh'Ta's systems being offline, having his ship down here made it easier for him to come and go without having to either take up a shuttle or queue up for the starbase transporter.

Life for Krang had been insanely busy over the last few days as he tried to oversee the repairs to the ship, liaise with Starfleet who were still technically his employers, even if he were currently commanding a Klingon ship, prepare for his upcoming trial and still somehow find the time to be with his wife and children.

The trial. It was not something Krang wanted to think about, especially not now when he was so busy with his ship, but perhaps inevitably, the trial loomed large in his mind like some unwelcome spectre of shame and dishonour.

Over the last few weeks and months, the Hegh'Ta had been way out of communications range, hunting down and destroying Dominion ships, alongside the Federation ship USS Endeavour. His mood brightened as he thought of that ship's captain. It was hard to believe that four months ago, James Mackenzie had been a stranger to him. In that short time, the human had proved his honour over and over again, becoming a close friend and eventually, his blood-brother. James Mackenzie was someone he would trust with his life, and in a few days, when his trial began, he would do just that. He had not wanted his friend involved but the other man had insisted. It was not honourable, Mackenzie had told him, to let a friend go into battle alone.

The memory made Krang smile. It was not the first time Mackenzie had used that argument. The human captain had disobeyed orders to return home, choosing instead to take Endeavour into deep space and fight alongside his Klingon allies. There had been many battles, some of them glorious, some not so. Still, they had fought, killing their enemies with a ruthless single-mindedness that had taught the Dominion to fear the names Endeavour and Hegh'Ta.

Their last battle had been truly glorious. They had fought against overwhelming odds and had a Klingon fleet not turned up just in time to save the day then the day might have ended with their entry into Sto-vo-kor. Still, they had achieved their objectives, destroyed the Jem'Hadar base and limped back home battered but victorious.

Of course, the news channels had got hold of the story and they'd been lauded as heroes, even while they were being disciplined by their superiors for their blatant disobedience. Somehow, they'd come out of it with severe reprimands on their record but with their rank still intact and a commendation for bravery. Only the Federation, Krang thought with understandable irony, would both reprimand and commend someone for the same action.

Much had happened whilst the two ships were out of reach – the Breen had joined with the Dominion, leading to the allies losing all but one of the three hundred and twelve ships at Chintoka. It was a chance modification to its engines that led to the sole surviving ship, a Klingon bird-of-prey, changing the course of the war. Within twenty-four hours of the defeat, Martok had ordered that modification made to every ship in the Imperial Fleet. The result of that had been a string of victories that had led to Martok becoming Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. Unlike his predecessor, Martok was an honest, straightforward man who did not enjoy politics. Where Gowron, on reading Krang's file, had decided that the whole thing should be swept under the carpet as though it had never happened, Martok had come to the conclusion that it was in everyone's interest for it to be brought back into the open and dealt with once and for all.

When word had got out that Krang was being put on trial, the press and the various social networks had erupted in his defence, assuming, not unnaturally, that the charges against him related to his disobedience of orders. It was not quite that simple. The disobedience in question had happened seven years ago. Or was it a hundred or maybe even four hundred years ago? It was all of those, depending on how one chose to look at it. Whatever the time-period, the difficult truth was that Krang had committed the offences of which he stood accused. He was guilty of treason.

A word of explanation: since Captain's Honour was getting to be a very large document I've split it in two. However, I went about reposting it in the wrong way, so have started again.

Book 1: the Higher Duty, tells the first half of the story, the meeting with Endeavour and the fight against the Dominion. This part will be extensively rewritten once I've finished book 2 and will be posted seperately at the appropriate time.

Book 2: The First Heart, is essentially the story of Krang's trial and events on Earth. For anyone that's read the original version of Captain's Honour, once the earlier chapters have been removed, there will be changes only in the first couple of chapters, to make it stand alone as a story. These are not major changes and won't affect your understanding of this story if you choose not to go back and reread.

Apologies for any confusion that may occur during the reorganising period while I am moving chapters around. Please note that the reviews to this story will now refer to wrong chapter numbers and earlier reviews which, refer to events in Book 1, will remain here.

It just remains to thank Solasnagreine, JDC0 and RobertBruceScott, as well as my lovely friends Linny and Dan2. Without their insighful comments and their support, I would have given up on this story a long time ago.

Hope you all enjoy this rewrite.