Author's Note

I swear if people don't stop pestering me for updates for this story I'm going to delete it. I can only write when I feel inspired to write and people asking about future chapters just annoy me. I write for fun it's not like your paying me to do this.

Joe Lawyer's Co-Author's Note:

You guys can bother me a little bit about updates, lol, though my power to motivate my fellow author is limited! I read all your reviews and I'm in awe that you guys have such great ideas about the story going forward. I have several stories that I'm super excited to see an update for in my inbox and for some of you to say that Augment Gothic is one of yours, well, that just makes me super, super happy. So thank you for that. It really motivates me.

Many of you guys want us to have Gothic flying around in Gundams or technology from other universes. I've been very reluctant to do that in this fic, especially when Gothic is already so much more badass than like 98% of the enemies he faces in this dimension. Almost everything Gothic uses, like his armor and weapons and ship, have technological underpinnings that come from the Star Trek mythology. While the ideas that inspired their creation come from other mythologies, like Tony Stark's armor as seen in the Marvel films, my thought process is, could the Star Trek universe produce this technology if only they were smarter, more clever, more creative, more militant, if they had all the main series of Star Trek to draw from and all of 20th and 21st century Earth entertainment to be inspired by? IF the answer is yes, than I feel like it stays true to the Star Trek universe as experienced by an SI like Gothic who has a huge amount of metaknowledge about this dimension. As I've said over and over again, Gothic rejects the stupid/silly stuff. For example, if people are thrown around a lot on the bridge of a starship during battle, well he's not just going to accept that as a fact of life and do nothing to prevent it.

Dazmal in his review of the last chapter asked if the female Cardassian Gothic killed was Seska. When I read that I was like wow, never considered that. I'll give you a glimpse behind that curtain that hopefully doesn't diminish the experience of reading this story and say that I only wanted a situation in which Gothic would realistically freeze up in the middle of that mission. He's never killed a woman directly before and for some reason that humanity, that hesitance in that moment, just appealed to me. I've written him to be a badass of the highest order, a cold eyed killer when he has to be, but he's still human. He wants to be loved and to love. He wants to live well in this universe, but realizes that the Star Trek universe isn't the utopia the shows try to make it out to be. That said, Seska as an Obsidian Order operative makes a shit ton of sense. She was kind of a badass on Voyager with a stupid amount of skills. So it's believable to me, but I'm not even sure the timeline works for that. AT this point I think she may have already infiltrated Chakotay's ship and been tossed into the Delta quadrant, but I'll have to check on that to be sure.

Wow, this is the longest co-author's note I've ever written. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

Augment Gothic.

Part 39

Holosuite 1. Deep Space Nine.

"I thought you were focused on the Mass Effect holonovel?" Jadzia asked me, as I loaded up a holo program that was most certainly not set in a science fiction universe. "This looks more like 20th Century Earth," she guessed, while looking around at the environment.

Well, there was a reason for that.

"This is 20th Century Earth," I answered her. "But the city, which is called Sunnydale, is a fictional setting for a TV show from my time that I'm turning into a new series of holonovels. Since I'm basing this on my memory of the time, historians might even find the program's environment interesting to study."

The Mass Effect holonovel was continuing to be a huge bear of a project to finish, turning out to be a project better suited for two or more people working on it simultaneously and one of those people was a prodigious enhanced augment doing the work of five world-class holo-engineers! With all my other day-to-day responsibilities and side projects, I had thrown in the towel and admitted that it was not something I could work on alone anymore and get it done in a reasonable amount of time. And since Barclay needed to sleep far more than I did, in addition to his other duties from Starfleet, I'd decided to spend tonight working on the foundation of a new collection of holonovels set in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe.

"For now I'm just working on the environment," I explained to Jadzia, who'd been in Quark's and had come into the holosuite to see what I was getting up to. "Sunnydale is set in California, so I'm using real life towns from that era as the base for the setting, mixing them together to create something new."

There was a bit more to it than that, of course, but she understood. Developing the environment of a holonovel was a Herculean task filled with keeping endless amounts of detail together and accurate, all working in concert, something well suited for someone like me whose mind was genetically enhanced as well. Of course my memories from that time were made before I was made into an augment, but it was workable.

"I'm also using my memories of the show to give the town the right feel, something semi-historically accurate, minus the supernatural elements of course," I explained to my Trill lover as we wandered around the setting, pieces here and there still blurry or absent altogether. "Once I've got that done I'll work on building the characters. Each holo-adventure will be based on an episode I saw during my past life."

While the BTVS movie had been made in this reality, there were no copies of the TV show that to have survived to this point. In fact, despite tasking Hermione, Scarlett and Jarvis to the task, it was unclear if the TV show had ever been made in this dimension at all as nothing had survived of it, not even an indirect reference to it. Regardless, even if it had been made, any copyright protections it possessed had long since expired so there was nothing stopping me from turning each episode into a separate holo-drama and selling them as my own unique work.

"What do you do in this holo-novel?" Jadzia asked me.

I spent a moment thinking about my answer.

"The main character is Buffy Summers who has just moved to Sunnydale," I informed my lover. "She's basically a superhero, a supernatural warrior who has been chosen and empowered by fate to fight the monsters that prey on humanity, though thankfully she has the help of some close friends she makes while here in town. A lot of monsters inhabit this town, attracted to the dark energies of the Hellmouth that the town is built upon, monsters which she has to fight near constantly. Yet she does it alone, with no government help or acknowledgement, regularly saving the world from the apocalypse, all the while trying to navigate being a hormonal and confused teenager in the late 20th century."

I had more to say on this matter.

"Buffy's role can be played as either a male or female, depending on preference, though in the source material the Slayer was always a female. There will also be a chance for romance and to play as other characters, including the villains," I explained. "And of course there's someone to feed the player information as needed. And I suspect it'll be needed as this environment and time period aren't exactly well known by most."

That would be Giles's job.

"The tricky part is accommodating the super strength that the main character has," I explained. "I have to make it so that the MC can beat the supernaturally powerful monsters while also making sure that the holographic world isn't too fragile when compared to their strength. There has to be an effect, of course, or it won't be believable, but it can't take too long to get used to it or else it gets boring. And the holo-matrix needs to adjust for the player if they choose a character that is not empowered. A regular baseline human's strength is not enough to punch through a stone wall, for example."

The bottom line was that this environment needed to be very carefully designed else people will be ripping doors off hinges and crushing any objects that they pick up the entire time they played in this world. When I did a few test runs through the program I dealt with this issue with my enhanced fine motor control, but since most players wouldn't have that, I'd have to get someone without 'super powers' to test it out. Perhaps Jadzia would agree to help me with that, but even she wasn't exactly a typical player with 8 lifetimes of memory to draw upon. I'd ask Barclay to give it a run as well.

"Let me know when you've finished," said Dax. "I'd like to give the program a run through."

As she turned to leave and walk past me, I gave that fine ass a swat with my hand, to which she responded with a smirk and a wink as she left the room. I figured that beta testing the holo-novel was just her way of getting a free copy of the program. Still, that would be a small price to pay to have another successful holosuite program out there making me money every month. My holo-novels were turning out to be a huge money maker as they were distributed throughout the quadrant and more and more people were coming to like my work, providing me with a continuous income stream. Since most of my novels were action oriented, the Klingon Empire was actually one of my best customers. Surprisingly, even the Romulan and Cardassian Union enjoyed my work.

(Line Break)

Quark's Bar. Deep Space Nine.

The bar's proprietor just wanted to go home. It had been a long and busy night, and he just wanted to go home and get some sleep, but there was a slight problem with that idea, the drunken Klingon who was still sitting at a corner table! He was the only customer left in the entire bar!

"You! Ferengi! Another blood wine! Now!" the Klingon demanded in a loud voice.

Rom, who was also feeling tired, looked at his older brother as he brought a tray over to the bar that Quark was cleaning up in preparation of closing.

"How many has he had?" the bartender asked quietly.

Rom wasn't actually sure without looking at the electronic record of the customer's purchases. He wasn't in the habit of keeping track of how much any one person drank as he typically had dozens of customers at a time. Putting up with Quark's insults and trying to make a living took up the rest of his attention.

"Uh...a dozen, maybe," he guessed.

Quark could only sigh. A Klingon intent on getting drunk could put away a lot of pricey non-replicated drinks, but as they got more and more drunk the chances for property damage rose higher and higher. A drunk Klingon was often a belligerent one and that meant they drove other paying customers away too. Good luck trying to get them to settle down. In the end, he'd be lucky if he broke even.

"I should've gone into insurance," the older brother sighed. "Better hours, more money, and far less scruples."

Pleasant daydreams about working in a nice big office somewhere with great profit margins came to an end when his sole customer started yelling again.

"Where's my blood wine?!" the drunk Klingon demanded. "You cowering little Ferengi slug, bring it now!"

The bartender put down the glass he'd just started polishing again to fill the time, letting Rom deal with the drunk Klingon. There were some perks to owning the bar and pawning off shit jobs to your subordinates was one of them.

"What's the problem?" he asked Rom. "Just serve him his drink, maybe he'll die from alcohol poisoning and we can go to bed, but make sure he pays his bill before he dies!"

"Uhh...he says he's out of money," Rom answered. "He's asking for credit."

Quark did not look at all happy upon hearing this.

"Credit?! All right, I'll handle it," he said to his younger brother. "Watch and learn."

As Quark went over to the table the Klingon sat at, who he later learned was named Kozak, the man looked like he was almost having a hard time not falling out of his seat, and as such the businessman didn't think he'd have much trouble.

"My name is Quark. I'm the manager," said the bartender. "I'm sorry, sir, but we're closing; it's time for you to leave."

Kozak obviously did not like hearing this.

"You dare speak to me like that!" he yelled while pulling out his d'k tahg, the traditional Klingon warrior's knife that all Klingons carried as a matter of course, clumsily brandishing it in a very drunken manner. Since it was such a fixture of their cultural traditions, even Odo was forced to allow them to carry it aboard the station. "You pathetic mak'dar!"

Kozak began waving his knife at Quark and before the bartender could run for his life a human arm appeared, latching onto the wrist holding the knife like a vice to keep it still. Under normal circumstances the Klingon would have been several times stronger than any Terran could hope to be, well, any Terran who'd not been genetically engineered to the peak of human genetics.

"This little one's not worth the effort, noble warrior," the augment said calmly, trying to defuse the situation. "Come, let me buy you a prune juice and see you on your way home. I have it on good authority you'll really like it."

This generous offer was refused by Kozak who decided that trying to murder General Gothic was better than getting a free drink. Spinning around, he lunged forward attempting to put his knife into the augment's heart, only to end up with his own dagger lodged through his sternum when the human caught the knife and thrust it back into its owner. From start to finish not even a full second had passed.

In Gothic's mind, years and years of mortal combat and his recent extermination of 50 Cardassians meant he hadn't even realized how he'd reacted to the attempt on his life till the knife was already sunk guard deep into the Klingon that had just tried to kill him. A knife through the heart was going to kill pretty much any human, at least those without an intelligent armor system constantly guarding him.

"Huh, well that just happened," said Gothic while staring down at the Klingon his sensors were telling him was already 100% dead. Looking to Quark now, "Better call security."

(Line Break)

Quark's Bar. Deep Space.

In short order Doctor Bashir arrived to examine the body while Odo paced around the bar looking surly as usual. There was even a large crowd gathered outside doing the 24th century version of rubber necking at the site of a car accident. This might be the future, but people were still the same. Nothing like death to bring out the gawkiness in people.

"How long are they going to leave him there?" I heard Rom ask his brother. "I wish they would hurry up and get rid of him."

The older alien didn't agree with this if his small smile was any indication.

"Maybe we could put him on display?" I heard Quark muse, obviously happy with the increased foot traffic and thus increase business this little drama was bringing him.

Rom was shocked to hear this.

"What?" he asked.

I tuned out the rest of that meaningless conversation and focused on Bashir, who apparently needed to run a series of tests in order to figure out that a stone cold corpse with a big knife sticking out of its chest was a dead person.

"You killed him?" Odo asked me.

I nodded, feeling no need to prevaricate when the facts were so clearly in my favor. This was a textbook example of self defense; I had even used the weapon the dead Klingon had tried to kill me with rather than one of my own.

"When I came out of the holosuite I saw Quark going up to a clearly drunk Klingon, and I figured that that would predictably end badly, so I went over to keep things from spiraling out of control," I explained.

My efforts were in vain, despite my best attempt to prevent violence. And I had not gone there hoping for trouble, believe me, I had plenty enough of that lately. The Klingon had still courted death, but what could you expect from the barbarians?

"I tried to stop the Klingon from making any trouble," I further explained. "But rather than settle down, he pulled his dagger and tried to kill me with it, so I was forced to put him down."

Odo frowned at me.

"You couldn't reason with him, of course," he said, knowing how Klingons could be, especially the drunk ones. "But why didn't you disable him, General, you're certainly strong and skilled enough to do that?"

Perhaps that would have been possible.

"It was an instinctive response, Constable, a reflex to someone trying to kill me. There was no thought or intention beyond that," I answered the security chief honestly. "He tried to kill me with his knife and I redirected it to stab him instead, killing him. To be honest, I'm actually rather surprised he died so easily and so quickly too. It was just a metal knife and a simple stab wound, and not even in a particularly vital spot. It wasn't an energy weapon set to kill. Klingons are a pretty tough species, their redundant organs and all that."

If it looked like my act of self defense was going to be questioned, I could offer up my holorecording of the entire event, as that would surely clear me. My armor's sensors recorded everything around me at all times and transmitted all the accumulated data on the half hour back to my island's memory banks for long-term archiving and analysis by my VIs. That had paid off a few times when Hermione's analysis of my sensor records revealed something important I had missed originally.

This was when Bashir spoke up.

"I'm not surprised," he said. "This man's liver was already in extremely poor shape before he got stabbed. His body shows signs of heavy and prolonged alcohol abuse even for a Klingon. A human would have died long ago. He was practically killing himself."

Oh, well, that explained a lot, both why the Klingon had died so quickly from a simple stab wound and why'd he been so easy to defeat, drunk or not. Klingons lacked my speed and strength, but they weren't as easy to kill as, say, humans or Cardassians. I guess that was why Bashir had spent so long doing his scans on the obviously dead body with a knife sticking out of its chest, he, like others, knew that Klingons didn't usually drop immediately dead from a single stab wound.

"Both Quark and Rom back up your account of events, General," Odo let me know. "Given the circumstances we can probably rule this as self defense, pending an autopsy. His family is unlikely to cause you much trouble given that he did technically die in honorable combat, as they define it."

Even I wasn't above the law, but this was pretty much an open and shut case for a killing in self defense. Klingons were a bunch of thugs who bullied others, only this bully had bitten off more than he could chew with me.

"Thank you, Constable. I'll be in my office if you have any further questions for me and won't be leaving the station for the next few days," I informed Odo.

Since I had nothing to hide I'd stay on the station for a few days, at least until the shape shifter had this mess sorted out to his satisfaction.

(Line Break)

Office of General Gothic. Deep Space Nine.

While Ro Laren normally did an admirable job at keeping me from being bothered by unimportant visitors, on this particular occasion she was unable to stop the surly looking Klingon who obviously wanted to waste my precious time. Sure, I could do the paperwork my position in the Bajoran Defense Force required very quickly, but I still needed to devote hours of my life every week to handling various administrative matters that Ro Laren and Jarvis could not, and now some idiot was interrupting me. This I did not like.

"You killed my brother," growled the Klingon, who came barging into my office. "My brother killed by a mere human. I would never have believed it possible."

"Believe it," I responded calmly, sub-vocalizing a growl in my tone that he reacted to unconsciously.

Say what you will about the Klingons, but they could identify predators when they saw them, though their overconfidence and racial biases often got in the way of their instincts, ones that were probably telling him that I was the true apex predator in this office.

A moment later my HUD flashed red indicating this guy had been designated a red-level threat with multiple alerts flagged for my attention. This fucker had two energy weapons hidden on him and a vial of some unidentified substance, likely a poison from its molecular makeup. The weapons were compact disrupters favored by assassins for being extremely hard to detect by most sensor technologies and were actually illegal in the Federation, though not by Bajoran law, thankfully my sensors were from a very advanced race that was not known to this quadrant so the scanning methodology couldn't be worked around easily.

He also claimed to be the brother of the Klingon I had killed, but Jarvis' report on that guy had indicated he had possessed no known siblings or living family beyond a wife. Of course the appellation 'brother' in Klingon culture was thrown around rather freely and numerous adoption rites existed, or it could even be more of an honorary thing, so I couldn't definitively say he was lying yet. Jarvis was running this dude's face, voice print, and DNA through multiple databases and would let me know immediately when he had a match, but this shit still took time, especially with the need to do all of these database lookups in a more subtle fashion. If Jarvis, Scarlett, and Hermione didn't take the time to disguise our database access by bouncing the requests thousands of times between the various galactic communication hubs and relays to make it seem like they were coming from hundreds of different worlds, well, the thousands of lookups per day would be noticed and questioned and a huge advantage of mine would be put in jeopardy.

If this meeting turned violent, this fucker would be dead in moments. I was wearing my sidearm, like always, and my vambrace's blaster ports had already formed and were primed for firing if necessary and this guy had backup waiting to attempt to kill me. My armor's transporter scattering field would also prevent any attempt at kidnapping me by transporter if he had a ship nearby.

"Listen to me, human," he growled, utterly failing to intimidate me. "I want to know exactly how Kozak died. And if I don't like what I hear, it will end very badly for you."

I sighed and contemplated killing this guy right here and now, but reluctantly decided against it. Killing two Klingons in a single week would undoubtedly piss Odo off and I just couldn't be bothered explaining why this guy was so annoying it was practically a demand by the universe to shoot him in the head. What was it about this race of crinkle headed fuckers that could get under my skin? Clearly B'Elanna's human genes were powerful enough to overcome the Klingon stupidity, as she was actually easy to get along with when compared to all the Klingons I had met so far. I was crossing my fingers and hoping that General Martok was an exception. He seemed like a really cool dude in the show.

"He tried to stab me and I killed him in self defense," I told my unwelcome visitor. "He died quickly if that matters to you."

The Klingon considered my words.

"There is honor in such a death," he said, "and you are a warrior," he sneered, as if it pained him to admit it.

Even a cursory search in the public Bajoran database would have given him some information about my role in the Occupation and that I was now a General. So in a sense, I suppose that term was accurate, although I liked to think of myself more as a soldier and a freedom fighter.

"I fought and won many great battles during the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor," I told the alien, "and proved victorious again during the battle with the Hur'q fleet above Earth."

The Klingon spent a moment pondering that.

"I cannot be thankful for his death," he said. "Kozak, he was my brother! But it was honorable, and an honorable death requires no vengeance. Your life will be spared."

With that the alien turned and left, which was good as it meant that I could go back to my paperwork.

How that culture had gotten into space and survived for hundreds of years despite the constant wars and focus on petty honor-based squabbles, staggered the mind. Their's was a stupid culture. The singing, the storytelling, the religion, the pointless rituals, the obsession with honor? Nope. Having seen all of TNG and DS9 I had seen how fluid that concept of honor really was, and how often the Klingons had accepted the most egregious acts of dishonor to 'protect the Empire.' If that adherence to a code of honor was real, if they truly lived by it and refused to accept dishonorable acts by any of their race, no matter how rich or powerful, then, maybe, I could respect it. But canon Star Trek was filled with multiple instances where dishonor of the highest order was tolerated and swept under the rug by the powerful, or placed on some innocent person's shoulders instead when the dishonor couldn't be fully hidden.

For a moment I spent some time thinking about the crinkle headed morons, and I remembered that in the Enterprise episode, Judgement, Kolos, a Klingon lawyer who had a teacher and a biologist for parents, was asked by Archer about why there seemed to be so few non-warriors amongst his people.

Essentially, the Klingons used to be a much more diverse race and culture. Honor was something relevant to all jobs and fields of study, not just for the warriors. However, the warrior caste slowly gained more dominance and eventually the meaning of honor was twisted to only mean honor on the battlefield, and even that was a very transient sort of honor.

This made a lot of sense when you compared Klingon technology from ENT to TOS to TNG/DS9. Over such a large span of time there really isn't much change at all, and the biggest advancement (the cloaking device) came from their one time alliance with the Romulans. They likely kept their technology in line with the other dominant races of the alpha quadrant by acquiring/stealing it from other races.

In season 7 of DS9, Ezri Dax rather famously condemns the Klingon Empire, using Worf as an example of how dishonor was accepted at the highest levels, even by him, and suggested that the Klingon Empire was slowly falling apart, a decline which began a few hundred years ago, and that perhaps it should be allowed to fall. I didn't care either way, their culture would collapse totally or adapt, as all cultures did; it really wasn't my concern and I still had paperwork to finish.

The screen on my desk beeped at me and I answered the call. On the monitor the image of Odo appeared.

"I just received the official medical report from Doctor Bashir regarding Kozak," he said to me. "His scans found that the man you killed was already suffering from acute organ failure when you stabbed him. The organ failure was irreversible and not simply from drinking too much Blood Wine; he had been poisoned and would have almost certainly been dead in a few days, or maybe even hours, regardless of your encounter. You merely hastened his death; he was truly murdered by someone else. I will let you know if we identify any other suspects."

How interesting, and Kozak's alleged brother was just in my office with an unidentified substance on his person that was likely a poison. That was quite the coincidence.

"Thank you, Odo. Please keep me apprised of your investigation," I said to the screen before we disconnected.

My few moments of contemplation were interrupted by a soft ping and a new report showing up on my HUD.

'Sir, I have identified the red threat level Klingon who was just in your office. A report is now available for your review,' Jarvis notified me.

Mentally opening the new report I saw that the man's name was D'Ghor of the Great House of D'Ghor, and was most definitely not a brother of Kozak in any sense of the word.

(Line Break)

Office. Deep Space Nine.

I put down a padd and leaned back in my extremely comfortable, and expensive, Risian designed office chair, now happy that I'd caught up with the administrative demands of my position. This would allow me to focus on other more important and fun matters, such as writing my holonovels. But first I really should eat and get some sleep. My EMH hotties had been right, my nanites meant I no longer needed to sleep (or eat much) because of my enhanced mind and the billions of little machines constantly monitoring and correcting my body chemistry, but I really liked to sleep, especially with one or more of my girls to cuddle with naked. That was a luxury I wasn't going to give up regardless of whether or not I strictly needed it anymore.

Before I could even get up from my chair, someone else entered my office! I couldn't even blame Ro Laren this time as I'd already sent her home for the day. She was the aforementioned beautiful nude woman now waiting for me in my bed!

"Are you Gothic?" a hooded figure asked.

At this point, I wasn't even surprised when my sensors reported that there was yet another fucking Klingon bothering me today. The race seemed to have it in for me recently. I'd have preferred Romulans as they could be sneaky somewhat sexy and I could have fun outsmarting them.

Thankfully this Klingon was designated a green-level threat with only the standard Klingon knife on her person and a communicator for her ship currently in orbit of the station. My cloaked ship was also in orbit of the station and was ready to disable or destroy her ship on my command, a targeting solution already set. I even knew her name. The shadows offered by her hood were meaningless to both my eyes and my armor's sensors and didn't even need the floating green ethereal label written above her head in my HUD. This was Grilka, the now late wife of Kozak, the man I'd killed. Her face and profile were already part of the comprehensive report Jarvis had created and made available for my study only minutes after I'd killed Kozak.

Sometimes I wondered if my HUD and sensors took a lot of the fun out of things, then I mentally slapped myself upside the head. This was a dangerous fucking galaxy and every advantage I had was a good and needed one, arrogance and complacency would get me killed. I wasn't a god or any way unkillable.

"That's the name on the door," I replied, rather snarky in tone.

The woman looked confused.

"There is nothing written on the door," she informed me.

Really? They should mark the doors around here more clearly. Nah, then I might have even more visitors.

"My name is Grilka," said the woman. "Kozak was my husband."

Huh, I had already known her name, but hearing her say it aloud rang some bells in my memory of a canon DS9 episode. Wasn't she Quark's ex-wife, the one Worf lusts after and pursues, eventually being shot down?

This was an ongoing problem; I had watched the show when I was still a weak and normal baseline human who possessed no eidetic memory with perfect recall. All those memories were made with my weak human eyes and brain. Even with those limitations you'd think I would have immediately recognized this canon episode starting when I killed that drunk Klingon, but no. My patron had to be behind this, probably the same 'magic' that kept the Flighty Temptress from being noticed all that much was applied to my knowledge of the show until some event or condition was triggered to let me recognize what was happening. If that was how it wanted to have fun with my existence in this dimension, there was nothing I could do about it. And anyways, it was a small price to pay.

"I've been told that you are the one who killed my husband," she said next. "Was it an honorable death?"

Oh not this shit again.

"Yes, I killed him. He died fighting me," I said in a monotone. "It was self defense. He died quickly...and well."

That was all I wanted to say on the matter. I even added that last bit about him dying well for the benefit of the dude's widow. If she hadn't heard about the poisoning yet from Bashir or Odo, then it wasn't my business to inform her.

Grilka studied me for a moment before pulling out her knife.

"Defend yourself!" she shouted.

The warning was entirely unnecessary for someone like me. In fact, I didn't even bother getting up from my chair, instead waiting patiently for her to get closer to stabbing me in the chest. At the last moment my hand struck like a cobra, latching onto the wrist with a vice-like grip. Squeezing hard enough to hear the bones grinding together, I casually plucked the knife from her weakened grip and twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her down to bend over my desk. This image was so reminiscent of a recent sexy encounter in my ready room with B'Elanna that I couldn't help myself when I moved behind her and ground my cock into that firm backside, and growled in her ear. I did not imagine the shudder that went through her.

As I'd found with B'Elanna, Klingon women, or in B'Elanna's case, half Klingon women, loved being dominated sexually. In this case it was less about sexy dominance and just plain old dominance. Pure Klingon women just didn't do it for me, but this one was at least semi-ok, being a bit softer looking and less hairy than was standard. It was probably some aspect of the writers from the show making her look a bit more palatable for a non-Klingon like Quark to find attractive for the episode.

"So this is the man who killed my husband in personal combat," she said while rising from the desk I'd forced her to practically kiss. "Kozak never stood a chance."

I was starting to remember this episode more; in that episode Quark killed a Klingon accidentally, lied about it to drive up his business and ended up getting kidnapped by this woman who then married him at knifepoint to save her house from being taken over by its greatest longtime enemy, the House of D'Ghor.

"What do you want?" I asked, though already knowing the general gist of it.

The Klingon woman took a seat on the other side of my desk, acting more civilized now that she finally realized I was a powerful warrior in my own right and thus deserving of her respect.

"For now I lead what used to be known as the House of Kozak," she told me.

I didn't fail to notice that the House was no longer that of Kozak.

"What is it called now?" I asked.

"Since Kozak died without a male heir. The House no longer has a name," she answered.

"What about Kozak's brother, D'Ghor?" I asked feigning ignorance.

My real time information gathering and analysis capabilities were a tremendous advantage for me. If no one knew I had that ability, no one could properly prepare countermeasures for it. In this case, it was better to let things play out as if I didn't already know more than I should.

"He was no brother to Kozak!" Grilka growled. "His family has been a sworn enemy of our House for seven generations! He is glad that Kozak died in honorable combat as it means that no special dispensation will be granted by the High Council."

That didn't mean much to me.

"What does that mean?" I asked, preferring to hear her explanation in her own words. It'd also be useful to see how honest she could be as a partner going forward.

The nuances of Klingon politics wasn't exactly a subject of great interest to me.

"If Kozak had died in an accident and left no male heir, the High Council might have decided that this was an unusual situation and granted special dispensation as to the future of the house's leadership," the alien woman explained. "That may have allowed me to become head of the family even though I am female."

What a backwards people, not allowing a woman to run a House, as if having a penis made you better at managing the affairs of a noble family. That was some old timey archaic bullshit that you didn't see much of in the 24th century anymore.

"Because Kozak died in an honorable fight, and was simply defeated by a better opponent, then no dispensation will be granted," I was told, "and without a male heir the House will fall."

I shrugged.

"That hasn't happened yet, and there is still time to prevent it from ever happening," she continued to explain.

I was still nonplussed.

"And why are you telling me this?" I asked, my face a mask of indifference.

She couldn't realistically force me to marry her like she did with Quark, and trying to kidnap me would be a very bad idea. That little transporter trick she pulled off with Quark in canon was doomed to failure from the start and her old Bird of Prey was no match for my ultra advanced warship.

"If we were to marry by the ancient traditions of my people, as the killer of Kozak, you could inherit the House of the man you killed," Grilka explained to me. "I would run the House just as I did for my late husband, so it would be no strain upon you to be the head of the House. We would not need to live together either and you could continue your duties for Bajor."

For several silent minutes I gave this serious consideration. Without my even asking for it Jarvis interlinked with the Klingon cultural database and independently confirmed what Grilka had said about marrying her and taking the House of the man I'd killed, providing me with several historical precedents. Though none of these precedents involved an alien marrying the Klingon wife of the man he killed, Klingon law and tradition did not specifically forbid it. It had simply never happened before, especially in a situation where the Klingon woman welcomed it.

The more and more I thought about it, the more appeal this idea had. As the head of a Klingon House, albeit one of minor nobility and with no seat on the High Council, I'd have some power and influence over Klingon affairs, or at least more cachet with Klingons in general. As much as I disliked them and felt that they only paid lip service to true honor, the Klingons would play a huge role in the years ahead, from the invasion of Cardassia, to the attack on DS9, to eventually becoming the Federation's most stalwart and dependable ally against the Dominion.

As the nominal Head of a Klingon noble house, I'd automatically be afforded Klingon citizenship of a sort, I'd be able to buy property in their territory, live on their planets, buy any of their technology and ships (though that held little appeal for me), and do business there as if a native. That last bit actually was quite valuable for someone like me. Upon marrying Grilka all my holonovels being sold in the Klingon Empire would now be taxed as if I was a citizen, so they would no longer be subject to import tariffs anymore. Conservatively I'd see a 20% boost in profits overnight from that alone going forward. I could also mine for unclaimed natural resources in their territory and the Empire's claimed space was large. The Klingons didn't fully exploit or chart all of their territory so there might be many opportunities on that front and my people had gotten quite good at mining lately.

Although Grilka would manage the politics and day-to-day affairs of the House, when the Klingons came to be permanently stationed on DS9 my new position would grant me a great deal more power and influence in the war. There might even be some legal protections afforded to me with multiple citizenships, and thus bodies of law, now involved. Bottom line, there were a lot of benefits and only a few drawbacks to going along with this. I'd have to inform Section 31 of all of it, but I would bet good money that they'd be happy with the new opportunities it provided them through me.

From a personal perspective, though this really shouldn't influence my decision, I was getting quite a thrill at envisioning a bit of the future. In that future I could see Worf drinking in Quark's Bar one day, staring in wonder as Grilka walked in, admiring her as the pinnacle of Klingon beauty and grace (in his opinion), and when he asked who this vision of beauty was, someone would tell him that that great lady was Grilka, Lady of the Noble Klingon House of Gothic, my wife. Oh, this would stun him, this would infuriate him, this would make him question everything he ever believed to be true about the universe!

Would he cry to the heavens at the unfairness of the universe?! Would he beg the Gods for the answer to how this could be? Would he think, why did it have to be this human who had expressed such disdain for Klingon culture back on the Enterprise to have this woman, who was stronger and faster than he was, who had made a legendary reputation for himself fighting in the Occupation, who was now a powerful and influential General, who had won victories over Earth against the Hur'q, and who now had this beautiful Klingon woman for a wife? How could that man now be the fully acknowledged head of a Noble Klingon House?!

Oh, it would be beautiful. That fucker's head was going to explode. And then I'd cut his balls off again, not literally, when he learned that the beautiful and sexy Jadzia Dax was yet another of my many lovers.

Hmm...it seemed I'd already made my decision.

(Line Break)

The Great Hall. First City. Planet Qo'noS. Klingon Homeworld.

Many important matters were brought before the High Council on a daily basis, but this really wasn't one of them. Gowron didn't much care who ended up with the lands and titles of some minor House he'd never even heard of before this day. He had an entire Empire to look after, one that spanned hundreds of worlds and controlled the fate of many billions. There were powerful men within the empire who wished to sit were he sat and could potentially achieve that someday, D'Ghor was not one of them. Even if he was head of a minor Great House, he wasn't important enough to sit on the Council and so Gowron didn't care much for him.

"There being no special circumstances in the death of Kozak, and no male heir to inherit," D'Ghor said, "I make claim to the title and property of this fallen House."

The head of the empire decided to get this over with.

"D'Ghor, the High Council has considered your petition and will grant the transfer once the final rituals have been completed," Gowron said.

This was when someone entered the chambers, someone whose presence here was going to complicate things, he just knew it.

"The petition is out of order!" Grilka shouted.

D'Ghor was understandably upset by this.

"This woman has no place here!" he declared. "Her husband is dead and her House has fallen. I ask that she be taken from the Hall."

Grilka would not simply accept her fate, which annoyed D'Ghor to no end. She should remain silent and wait for her to be called to his bedchambers to be claimed as property of his House once his petition was granted.

"I have performed the brek'tal ritual," the female loudly proclaimed to the entire High Council, "and I have chosen a new husband to lead my House. Enter, husband."

Gothic entered the room, not entirely happy about being here, but understanding that this was all leading to a desirable outcome with a lot of benefits for him in the years to come. Originally, Grilka had suggested he wear the traditional clothes and armor of the leader of a noble Klingon House, to look the part as it were, but not only did the look not really suit him, it could also be seen as insulting at worst and cultural misappropriation at best. He was human, and trying to dress like a Klingon, in some minds perhaps trying to appear as something that he was not, could easily backfire.

As his armor was capable of assuming any form he'd like, it was currently modeled after the Nightingale Armor, minus the obscuring facemask, from the Elder Scrolls universe that he'd recently come across when perusing Earth's historical database for research. Elder Scrolls wasn't something he was interested in making a holonovel out of, but for some reason it had shown up in one of his searches. The chances his patron or Q were involved in that was quite high in his opinion.

The armor was all black and intimidating in the extreme, even the three quarter cape somehow worked and made him look like a badass. As standard energy weapons were not permitted to be worn by petitioners, his power sword had undergone a reconfiguration for this event and sat on my hip, now looking like an artist's rendering of a Warhammer 40k power sword (Google image search 'Warhammer 40k Power Sword by Forest Rettig'). It was also looking extremely badass.

"A human cannot be allowed to rule a Klingon House!" D'Ghor shouted.

Grilka did not agree with this statement.

"All I have done is follow the brek'tal ritual," she said to all who listened. "If the leader of a House is slain in honorable combat, the victor may be invited to take his place and his House. You are the one who made this possible, D'Ghor. You certified before the High Council itself that Kozak died an honorable death at the hands of this man. I am simply exercising my rights as an honored widow."

Despite the legality of this D'Ghor would not simply accept defeat.

"I will have your House, your title, and you Grilka," he swore, "and when I am done, I will place your head and the head of this human outside the front gates."

Not that that would be wise to decapitate a General in the Bajoran Defense Force. While Bajor was no threat at all, militarily, to the Empire, they could deny Klingons access to the wormhole. The Federation would enforce Bajor's ruling on the matter and no one here wanted either a confrontation with the Federation or being denied easy access to the Gamma quadrant via the wormhole.

"I would like to see you try, you coward!" said Gothic to D'Ghor.

The augment was not threatened at all.

"I should kill you right now," he said, a dark gleam in the man's eyes.

Gowron knew that this had to be handled carefully. A simple matter of inheritance had just become a far more complex one with the addition of this human element, if this man could even be called that, one he recognized. The larger politics aside, this was a very, very dangerous man if his intelligence reports were accurate. The Empire could have a long memory at times and they remembered just how deadly a human augment could be. If half the stories were true about this man's victories during the Occupation of Bajor, he was a very dangerous man to cross.

"Mev'yap! D'Ghor, you cannot challenge this man in Council without just cause," he reminded. "We will have to consider this matter carefully before a final decision is reached. Until then, the brek'tal will be respected. The House of Kozak is gone. For the time being it will be known as the House of..."

The augment stepped forward.

"My name is General Gothic, of the Bajoran Defense Force," he said.

The Klingon leader had some trouble with the strange word.

"Goat-sick," he said.

The augment gritted his teeth.

"Gothic!" he said more firmly.

Gowron got there before long, sounding it out in his head.

"It will be known as the House of Goth-ic!"

(Line Break)

Grilka's Home. First City. Qo'noS The Klingon Homeworld.

"So what's next?" I asked when we returned to my wife's place of residence. "What do we do now? How do we strengthen the position of your House? I mean my House. How do we keep D'Ghor from carrying out his threat? Do you have a plan?"

She didn't seem to and now that I'd seen this place I didn't think that it was worth fighting this hard for. Perhaps Klingons didn't go for needless displays of wealth and power, but this place had a few dusty shields on the walls, some tapestries illustrating glories and victories long past, and that was about it. Hopefully I didn't end up supporting this place financially as it was suppose to be an asset to me, not a drain on my resources.

Eh, even if it did cost me some money, it might still be worth it for the tax incentives alone, though I hardly lacked for wealth these days. Even setting aside my huge one-off payments for successful missions from Section 31, my long ago investments in the various businesses that would benefit from wartime spending had already risen in value since the Collectors began to attack the quadrant. Once the war with the Dominion went on for a few years, those investments would see my initial investment skyrocket and leave me probably the wealthiest individual in the entire sector.

"I'm thinking," answered my Klingon wife.

People really needed to plan things out better, sure, not many of them were as smart as me or had my various advantages, but they should at least try.

"You don't have a plan, do you?" I guessed. "You're just making this up as you go along."

If she was a typical Klingon then the species was in big trouble.

"I've managed to get us this far," Grilka pointed out.

Yes and all she'd done was delay her defeat for another day. D'Ghor could still take her House, which was now my House, and this whole affair had only been resolved in canon to her benefit based on a hail mary plan from Quark of all people, who relied, rather stupidly, on the Klingons being honorable enough to prevent an unarmed, cowering Ferengi from being executed in cold blood. It could have very, very easily gone the other way.

"Is this House even worth fighting over?" I asked. "You don't seem to be doing too well for yourselves."

So far I'd only seen one servant/advisor, an old man who'd been polite enough, but I could tell that he didn't approve of my presence here. I felt fairly sure that the High Council wasn't exactly happy about this situation either, and would come up with some reason to get me off this planet, either through some legal maneuver or good old fashioned violence.

I wasn't some nobody, weak, begging Ferengi bar owner like in the show, that was clear from my appearance alone. It was a virtual certainty that the entire High Council was at this very moment trying to learn exactly who I was, probably tapping their various intelligence agencies for information. I wouldn't even be slightly surprised if Section 31, who continuously monitored my Federation security file, caught some traitor that the Klingons had bought off or turned, trying to access it to give to them. Knowing 31 they probably wouldn't even stop this traitor, just giving them access to some phony file they'd put together for this very purpose, then begin feeding mostly false information to the traitor for years to come. Fine with me, that was another finder's fee waiting.

Bottom line, we would have to move fast in order to cement my position as head of this House. If it worked out like in the show, it would help tremendously if I didn't actually stay on the planet, then they could just pretend that I didn't exist and let my new wife, as my proxy, get on with the business of running the family, which they should have allowed from the start.

"Kozak squandered much of our family's wealth, incurred several large gambling debts, made unwise investments. As a result, the House has been weakened severely in power and in influence," my Lady wife admitted. "Much of the debt is owed to D'Ghor who is now ready to take advantage of our weakness. If he can gain title to our lands and property, his family will become a very powerful influence in the Empire. He may even earn a seat on the High Council in time."

Sounded like a good plan to me.

"That the sworn enemy of your, our, House, owns so much of your debt is telling. I'd be willing to bet that D'Ghor crippled your house on purpose so that he could take over, taking advantage of the fact that Kozak was so terrible a leader and vulnerable because of his drinking and gambling," I mentioned. "Humans in my time would often use that tactic."

Grilka was not happy to hear this.

"There is no honor in such things!" she stated. "If he wanted to challenge my House, he should've made a declaration and met our forces in battle!"

Well, sure, if he could win that way.

"I'd have to find out what kind of military resources he could bring to bear, but I'd be willing to bet that he couldn't beat you directly, or if he could, the battle would have destroyed everything of value that made the House so coveted by him. So he decided to defeat you indirectly and keep it mostly intact," I explained.

Quark would have been able to prove that just by looking at the financial records. While I might also be able to find the evidence of such actions with Jarvis' help, it would be easier to just challenge D'Ghor directly, then either kill him, or make him back down and dishonor himself before the Council.

"D'Ghor poisoned Kozak," I admitted, thinking out loud for the most part. "Dr. Bashir ran tests on your late husband and it turns out that he was poisoned. If I can provide the doctor's autopsy to the Council we can accuse D'Ghor of attempting to murder your late husband through dishonorable means. He was on the station at the same time and has a clear motive for attempted murder. It should be enough to accuse the guy in open Council, then demand trial by combat, ending this whole thing."

He'd have to answer to the charges and the way Klingon law seemed to work I could back up my accusation by challenging him to a fight to the death to prove the veracity of my claim. This guy had to die anyway, he'd come after me if I didn't, so it was much better to do it in accordance with Klingon law and tradition.

"Before that we must consummate the marriage, in order to make it truly unassailable," I was told.

Well, as a Game of Thrones character once said: 'When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is to close your eyes and get on with it.' Grilka was nowhere near B'Elanna's level of hotness, but Klingon pussy was hot, wet, tight as a vice and ribbed for my pleasure. There were worse way to gain power and influence. Would asking to put a bag over her head get me a murder attempt? Nah, I'd just close my eyes and mentally add Klingon woman to my list of alien women I'd fucked since entering this dimension.

Hopefully her bed wasn't made of spikes or something stupid like that.

(Line Break)

The Great Hall. First City. Planet Qo'noS. Klingon Homeworld.

It was time to end this. I'd gotten the evidence from Bashir, who'd been happy to send the report to Grilka, who was the next of kin to Kozak. I would present this as evidence to the High Council along with records showing that D'Ghor had been on the station at the same time. This was nowhere near enough evidence for a Federation Court to try someone for a crime, but it was enough to start an investigation at the very least. Here my accusation of a cowardly and dishonorable murder, as opposed to the honorable kinds of murder, was enough to lead to state sanctioned murder as the High Council just wanted this matter over and done with. Hence we were now going to fight to the death.

"I am Gothic, son of Joseph," I proclaimed, channelling the badass warriors I'd seen in various movies. "I have come to challenge D'Ghor, son of... Marook," I finished, Jarvis helpfully supplying me the name, while I struggled to remember what my father had been called.

I had considered just saying something snarky about D'Ghor's father, but these Klingons were already not exactly rooting for me, pissing them off further with insults to their traditions probably wasn't a great idea. Insulting Worf, though, that was practically a civic duty I'd happily do over and over and over again. Still people around here put far too much weight on names and fathers.

"So, do I kill him now?" I asked happily.

Gowron looked pretty surprised at a human happily expressing a desire to kill.

"Yes, you will fight now in ritual combat. Do you require a bat'leth, human? One can be provided for you," he offered, with a small condescending chuckle.

I had prepared for just such a question.

"No, thank you, Chancellor, for your kind offer. My understanding of Klingon law and tradition says that I may use any bladed weapon I choose in the ritual combat. Am I correct?" I asked. I already knew I was correct because Jarvis had prepared a well researched legal treatise on the subject that spanned over a hundred pages.

"That is your right," Gowron answered, looked impressed at my knowledge of their law and traditions, appreciative murmurs heard from the other Councilors.

"Then I choose to wield the sword that I made myself, the same sword I used to kill many of my enemies with, Cardassian and Hur'q alike!" I practically shouted in a bombastic style, my hand resting on the gilded hilt of my sword I could wield either one or two handed. My mention of the Hur'q was not unintentional. Their hatred for their one-time conquerors was practically written in their cultural DNA at this point and my victories over their most hated foe would win me a great deal more respect.

Creating a circle of space around us, Gowron called the beginning of the combat. "Begin!"

I had figured that D'Ghor would think me easy prey, a human unsuited to violence and wholly inexperienced in this ancient form of it, but it was still a bit of shock to me when the fool rushed in with a powerful downward swing of his bat'leth. It was unclear to me if he had expected to kill me with a single stroke or perhaps had expected me to block it with my sword in some kind of stupid contest of strength, but the fool had overcommitted to the strike so much I merely waited to the last moment and sidestepped to the left, letting the blade strike the floor of the Great Hall, then pulled my sword from its sheathe and swiftly cut off both his hands at the wrists, my sword whistling in the air, then carried that cut's momentum through to a backhand horizontal slice to sever the fool's head from his body in one clean stroke. It was over in seconds.

My sword was so preternaturally sharp (even without the anti-proton edge, which I hadn't wanted to use lest my victory be challenged) and my stroke so fast and clean, the body that didn't know it was dead yet merely stilled, the head still looking attached while resting atop the torso. Moments later the body toppled forward and the head rolled away from the body.

None of the Klingons roared to warn the afterlife a warrior was coming because by killing him in ritual combat I'd proven, somehow, the veracity of my claims, that he was both a coward and a murderer who used financial warfare and poison to defeat his enemy, a man who was without honor. In this case it was almost certainly true, but it was only my superior skill that ensured I had won this fight, rather than my claims being true.

Gowron spent a few moment making my appointment as head of the noble Klingon House of Gothic official, even going so far as to call me Gothic, son of Joseph, which he correctly pronounced, and then he left with the rest of the Council. I didn't fully understand it, but by exposing D'Ghor's crimes and dishonor against my new House, I might have even absorbed D'Ghor's House and its assets, possibly propelling the former House of Kozak into the Great House tier of families. God, I hope I didn't inherit another Klingon wife now.

"How will I ever repay you?" Grilka asked.

Well, I could ask for a divorce as Quark did, but that would just lead to her having no House at all since it was mine. Unlike in the episode, no dispensation had been granted specifically to her to lead the House; I had taken over the house fully and become its head, in full accordance with Klingon law and tradition. All her authority over the House now flowed from me. Thankfully, as head of my House, I could ask her to run the House in my name, as a proxy of sorts. I could even ask for a regular salary to be paid out of my House's accounts or live in any of the House's homes, even take some of their ships, but I had a feeling that that would be a burden the House couldn't really afford at the moment.

"Just run the House well in my name and make it worthy of me. Make it strong and prosper, and keep me apprised of its doings and the larger events going on in the Empire," I requested/ordered. "If you need my help, you may call upon me for financial assistance, or to fight, either through personal combat or through the power of my warship, the Flighty Temptress. In the years to come I may ask things of you as well, even visit you, but for now I think it's best to leave the House of Gothic in your capable hands."

The woman may not be anywhere near as hot as B'Elanna, but she was a wildcat in bed and that pussy did some shit that was almost obscenely pleasurable.

It was time to call my ship and get the hell off this planet.