Tyworrf blinked. Tall and dark-skinned, he had his race's characteristic vertical forehead ridge but he no longer had the forearm barbs like the other Klingoneans on the bridge around his command chair; his barbs had been lost when the *Androzia* had run afoul of those tunnel aliens. He looked down at himself. Had he been somewhere else a moment ago? The command chair of the Klingonean flagship felt strange and familiar at the same time. But this had been his ship for months since he had left the *Androzia* to take control of the *Klingonean* race by masquerading as the genetic reincarnation of Dragolhess Muss'Sevini, his race's greatest hero. He knew he had done something like that…but the memories felt strange, and the names seemed wrong.
"The *Androzia* has cast off from the Ferengi station," an officer reported.
"We have them, husband," Frey'Eleyr, his wife, said from his elbow. Tall with black-and blonde hair, in a gold-trimmed hooded cloak, even humans found his Klingonean mate beautiful. "We can destroy them once and for all."
"And we will…when *I* give the order," Tyworrf said. He still couldn't shake the uncertainty he was feeling, or memories…a warrior raised by the Federation-no, sold into slavery….two lives similar yet different. Yet he knew his own life, didn't he?
He focused on the image of the *Androzia:* The last surviving capital ship of the ancient United Federated Commonwealth of Planetary Systems. Gleaming and powerful, its elliptical central hull was nestled inside flying buttresses and nacelles containing the ship's hangars and warp stream drive. He had been a part of its crew for three years before leaving it behind - and burning bridges with … the others - to pursue his destiny. Hadn't he? Why the uncertainty? And why did the Federated Commonwealth ship look familiar and odd at the same time?
"'Federated Commonwealth'?" he murmured. Why did that seem strange?
"Why delay?" Frey'Eleyr pulled back her hood and knelt by her husband's chair. "We can destroy Captain Shickunt; without his protection, the Ferengi will surrender the secrets of fighting the Dominion of the Abyss. Destroy them-"
"Tyr!?" a woman's voice called. They turned to see an elderly human woman with dark hair run onto the bridge. Tyrworrf saw the woman had bony spikes extruding from her forearms in imitation of Klingonean arm barbs.
(Or was it the other way around?)
"Seize her!" Frey'Eleyr barked.
A guard advanced on the woman; she drew a kinife from her gown and adopted a fighting stance. "I don't know where your vulnerable points are, but I am not afraid to find out. And I am not as infirm as you might think. If you wish to survive and procreate, this is your last warming."
"No one makes threats on this bridge!" Frey'Eleyr shouted. "Kill her."
"Hold!" Tyworrf ordered. He rose from his chair.
"Husband-" Frey'Eleyr started.
Tyworrf waved her to silence as he crossed to the strange human woman.
"I know you," he said. "Your name…your name is Olma. And you are…a Nietzschean."
Olma's eyes searched Tyrworrf's. "Tyr?" she said. "Is that you? Are you in there?"
Tyworrf's eyes narrowed. Then he turned to his helmsman. "Back away from the station," he ordered. "Withdraw until they are just outside weapons range."
The helmsman looked up at him.
"Do as I command." Tyworrf turned to Olma. "I fear we have a greater mystery to solve."