WHERE NO KLINGON HAS GONE BEFORE
CHAPTER 1
A WEEK AGO.
According to the Klingon/Federation officer exchange program, a Federation officer was scheduled to incorporate a Klingon ship and since the designated ship, the IKS Kahless was about to participate in war exercises regarding a specific threat "The Borg", naturally was requested that the officer in question had experience in fighting them.
Korras never understood why the Klingon High Council ever found necessary to enforce such an absurd program as for the life of him he could not imagine what a Federation officer could ever teach about war that a Klingon warrior already didn't know. In his mind, the only conceivable explanation was that in their old age the High Council members were becoming senile.
Still decided to make the best of bad situation, Korras met with the Federation starship USS Excalibur with which the exchange of First Officers was to occur, and the least he expected was that his new temporary First Officer was a strong seasoned combatant that would at the very least project some authority. However when the transporter beam faded away and he saw standing in the transporter pad a small blonde human female, his first thought was that the Federation was playing a joke on him.
"Brigadier Korras, Cmdr. Elizabeth Shelby reporting for duty, Sir." Shelby said with military precision.
"What is this? Is the Federation mocking us? We require a Borg expert but instead they send…, a weak female." Korras replied.
"I resent the implication Brigadier and my gender is irrelevant. I'm one of the most experienced Federation officers when it comes to the Borg!" Shelby shouted in perfect Klingon not resorting to any universal translator.
"Is that so?" Said Korras that meanwhile turned around began walking away."
"This is not some fancy Federation ship with all the amenities you are used to Cmdr., this is a true warship with Klingon rules." Korras sneered.
"I'm aware of that Brigadier, I'm not expecting any special treatment while aboard this vessel, and I'm perfectly aware of all Klingon regulations and duties." She said bluntly.
"AH AH AH, We shall see Cmdr." Korras replied laughing.
Minutes later all seven ships that comprised the battle group that Korras commanded, warped away and headed towards the rest of the Klingon fleet to join them in the scheduled war exercises.
-oOOo-
KLINGON SPACE; PRESENT DAY.
A week later after the completion of all military exercises during which due to a combination of hard work, proven to be an excellent strategist, and eat and drink the same things they all did without the slightest hesitation, Shelby earned the respect of the entire Kahless crew. Inclusively in the last hours having dealt effectively with a challenge made by Rodek, the ships' third in command but with aspirations of becoming the First Officer.
The IKS Kahless and its battle group were now heading towards Federation territory so that Comdr. Shelby could resume her commission aboard the USS Excalibur. However, when the group of Klingon ships was minutes away from crossing the border, a brilliant flash of light filled the entire bridge and startled everyone. Then as the flash of light started to fade away, it resolved itself into what seemed to be a Klingon figure that dressed and poised like a General of the Klingon Empire. A more nervous crewmember instinctively drew out a disruptor, but before any further action could take place, the newly arrived figure, simply gave a slight nod in his direction and a strong wind that seemingly came from nowhere hurled him against the nearest bulkhead leaving him unconscious and severely injured. Simultaneously, all other weapons on the bridge vanished. The figure then turned towards all the bridge crewmembers and announced.
"You are notified that your kind has roamed through the galaxy for far too long, you are directed to return to your own solar system immediately."
"Who dares issue orders to a Klingon?" Korras shouted.
"For your information we call ourselves "the Q", or you may call me that; it's all much the same thing. But since lesser beings as you are incapable of see my true magnificence, I decided to present myself to you in this demeaning form so that you may better understand me."
"Whoever you are, no one tell us Klingons what we can or cannot do." Korras replied with defiance.
"This arrogance is exactly what got me here in the first place and see it again just reinforces my verdict. Additionally what you recognize or not is utterly irrelevant to what I already decided that will happen." To confirm his word Q waved his hand and from nowhere an energy barrier that stretched from horizon to horizon appeared in front of the Klingon battle group.
"Brigadier, sensors are reading that barrier as solid!" K'nera at Ops and one of the few females aboard, alerted.
"Order the fleet to go to full stop!" Korras shouted.
"All ships in the fleet acknowledging and stopping." K'nera informed.
"Order all ships to power all weapons to maximum yield and target that barrier." Korras ordered.
"All ships have weapons ready." K'nera reported.
At the center of the bridge, Q that was finding the entire situation hysterically amusing decided to share his thoughts. "Your pathetic weapons are nothing before the power of "The Q", but see you try is always hilarious."
Ignoring the Being's remark, Korras roared. "FIRE!"
In the next instant dozens of disruptor beams and volleys of torpedoes from all ships hit the barrier, resulting in explosions so massive that their blasts stretched for several kilometers around, but after all the fire dissipated, the energy barrier was still there completely unscathed.
"I told you so." Q replied with a large sneer.
Meanwhile Cmdr. Shelby called the ship's Doctor to attend the wounded Klingon, which after analyzed and secured to an antigrav stretcher, was taken into the medical center.
"Brigadier…, I recognize him. He also appeared in several Federation vessels causing much trouble and a great deal of suffering, apparently he is a near omnipotent Being that takes pleasure in playing with what he calls 'lesser Beings'." Shelby stated.
"Well, well, what do we have here?" Q said as he approached Shelby and then began to circle around her. "What is a pretty thing like you doing among these savages?"
"I know all about you, your provocations, and tricks to force people to do what you want." Shelby claimed.
"How pretentious of you to think you know me, considering everything I did in benefice of your pathetic species you humans should worship the ground I walk."
"Really? How introducing us to the Borg was for our benefit? Tens of thousands died and Earth could've being assimilated."
"Your narrow minds never cease to surprise me. You call yourselves an evolved species and yet cannot grasp the bigger picture. Before the Borg, you were full of yourselves in your little paradise and not bothering to look outside. But by introducing you to the Borg I awake you and showed you that the universe is full of dangers and that you always must be vigilant, if it wasn't for my actions then, now you all would be nothing more than servants of the shape-shifters."
"And if we had been assimilated by the Borg, would we be any better?" Shelby replied angrily.
"My dear," Q said, the patronizing smile never leaving his face. "The simple act of living is a dangerous proposition and you cannot improve yourselves without taking risks."
"And how being confined to our solar system is going to be good for us?" Korras interjected.
"Who would've known that he could speak or even ask pertinent questions, maybe this is going to be interesting after all." Q ridiculed Korras.
"I remember reading Captain Picard report from the Enterprise mission at Farpoint. You did the exactly same thing there." Shelby confronted Q.
"Yes I did, didn't I?" Q Replied.
"Then why aren't they confined to their System?" Korras asked.
"Because they passed the test I made for them, that's why." A cheerfully Q replied.
"We Klingons are capable of passing any test the Humans passes". Korras said with conviction.
"You Klingons are so predictable. I knew you were going to say that. Let the test begin then." Q stated, and then in front of the group of Klingon ships the energy barrier coalesced into an energy ball that next became a large wormhole. "Your test is in the other side of this entrance, if you pass I will not bother anymore…, at least for a while." Then in a flash of light, Q disappeared.
"Lieutenant K'nera, inform the High Council of the situation." Korras commanded.
Immediately the Ops officer complied but the answer was not a positive one. "There seems to be something blocking our long range communications."
"I'm pretty sure this is Q's doing." Shelby stated.
"Then order the Kempeth to go back to the fleet and inform the High Council of the situation, the rest of the battle group is to follow the Khaless. If the Humans were able to pass their test, so will we."
"The message to the Kempeth was sent." The Ops officer replied.
Seconds later a small Bird of Prey wheeled around 180 degrees and warped away. All ships of the battle group then engaged their cloaks and glided silently as the night through the recent created anomaly, which in less than a minute was crossed.
"I want to know where we are immediately." Korras ordered.
"According to star positions, we are on the other side of the galaxy." K'nera reported.
"Is the wormhole still there?" Korras asked.
"It isn't visible to the naked eye but our sensors are still able to detect it." K'nera informed.
Then a disembodied voice that clearly belonged to Q echoed. "Time is ticking boys and girls and no one is getting any younger. It's time for you to show what you are worth."
"Inform all captains to come aboard immediately for a council of battle." Korras ordered. Then he addressed Shelby, told her to follow him and tell him everything she knew about the Entity called Q."
After hours of discussion, Korras, Shelby and all the other captains decided that it was an absolute priority to gather accurate Intel of this region of space and the best way to archive it would be through contact with the locals. Nevertheless always vigilantly, just in case they turn out hostile.
Sometime later on the Khaless Bridge, Korras ordered. "Helm, go to heading 009 mark 265, warp 8. Astrometrics indicated that the system located there is a good place to start our search…, engage now!"
"Ready and engaging now." Kazj at the helm answered.
Two days had passed since the beginning of the test and despite all scanners being set to maximum, they still hadn't detect any subspace signals or warp trails, which was very disturbing as that could mean that this area of space was devoid of space faring races, but suddenly sensors pick up something.
"Sensors just detected a powerful energy surge at heading 101 by 890." K'nera called.
"Specify." Korras said.
"The energy signature is unlike anything I ever saw. Now I'm also picking up an unknown ship, it just appeared from nowhere." K'nera said.
"Distance?" Korras inquired.
"At present speed fifteen minutes. They seem to be heading to a near but deserted planetoid." Toran replied.
"Intercept them." Korras commanded and minutes later, the group of Klingon ships exit from warp and approached the unknown vessel at full impulse, however only the Kahless was uncloaked.
"Tactical." Korras commanded.
Immediately the Main viewscreen changed from the forward view to a virtual representation of the surround area with all kinds of information displayed in it like distance to target, its dimensions, speed, energy readings, weapons layout, hull composition and in this case lack of shields, warp core, and artificial gravity. The unknown ship was much taller than it was wide, almost 1 km tall and almost entirely grey except the tips of the top and bottom fins, which were yellow.
"Hail them." Korras ordered. However, several minutes went by and no answer came.
"How dare they not reply to us? We should destroy them for insulting us." An angry Tactical officer spouted.
"Relax Lieutenant we don't know if they are getting our hails." Shelby said, trying to calm down an already tense situation.
"Enough." Korras shouted. "K'nera are they receiving our hails or not?"
"Hard to confirm, I'm not even detecting a subspace receiver in that ship, wait…, in another bandwidth I'm detecting tachyon emissions coming from them."
"They are attacking us!" Toran the Tactical Officer spouted and immediately prepared himself to battle.
"I do not believe they are." K'nera replied. "The emissions are of very low intensity and with a very large bandwidth. I believe this may be their equivalent of subspace communications."
"Are you certain?" Korras demand a confirmation.
"It must be as it makes no sense being anything else. If I reconfigure our main communications array we should be able to receive those transmissions."
"Proceed." Korras ordered.
A minute or so later K'nera proudly announced success in the reconfiguration of the communications array. "I did it, but for the moment it is audio only."
"Put it on the speakers." Korras commanded.
"This is the ship Kullenbrak from the Brakiri Syndicracy, identify yourselves… this is the ship Kullenbrak from the Brakiri Syndicracy, we are not recognizing your ship, identify yourselves…."
"Brakiri ship,I'm Brigadier Korras from the House of Malok of the Klingon Empire. We approached you as we arrived here not long ago and we are in need of local charts in order to familiarize ourselves with this region."
"I never heard of your race before. Whereare you fromandwhat brings you here?"
"We come from very far away and our undertaking is not to be discussed with strangers, but it is of the utmost importance that we complete it."
"You seem to want a lot but in return not very willing to tell us much about you or why you came here. I do not know how things are from where you come from, but around here, trust must be earned and a just compensation given.
"I give you my word of honor that our intentions are peaceful and you will have the gratitude of the Klingon Empire for your help."
"Mere words are meaningless and without assurance and compensation you will not get anything."
As all Klingons, patience was not a virtue by which Korras was known and the alien unnecessary questions were stretching it to the point of rupture, but when his word of honor was deemed meaningless, that was the straw that broke the Targ's back.
"You dare questioning my honor? Then you are going to pay dearly for it. Target them, power main disruptors, and prepare to fire on my command." Korras ordered the Tactical Officer.
The Brakari captain had already seen in his instruments that the energy readings that the unknown ship was emitting were unusually high for its size, but when suddenly five more ships with also absurd high levels of energy appeared out of nowhere and all of them targeted his ship, the blood in his veins almost froze. Not to mention that apart from his ship now being outnumbered six to one, when what the alien called disruptors were activated their energy readings almost doubled and surpassed even what the big Minbari War-cruisers put out.
"Wait, wait, I didn't mean to insult you I'm very, very sorry. Please don't fire; I will give you all the information that you want."
"Make the data available immediately and prepare to be boarded, the slightest resistance will be met with deadly force." Then Korras made a signal to cut the connection. "Cmdr., take a squad of warriors and bring me all the data you can and don't tolerate any resistance, is that understood?"
"Perfectly Sir, but may I make a small suggestion?"
"What?"
"Sir, I think the alien already realized his mistake in having questioned your honor, I think that if we make a small gesture after getting the data, that may go a long way in solidifying a positive image of the Klingon Empire among the local races and certainly make it easier completing Q's test.
Korras thought for a moment and then said. "What do you suggest?"
"They're not very advanced technologically, they don't even have artificial gravity, maybe we could give them a portable anti-gravity generator, we have plenty of those to spare."
"Make it so Cmdr."
Minutes later aboard the Brakiri ship all its crewmembers were very uneasy due not knowing what to expect from the aliens that were about to board them, or how their appearance would be, but for now the only thing that they could do was wait for the arrival of their shuttle and hope for the best.
However, before any shuttle was seen, columns of light began to appear all over the place and coalesce into humanoid creatures whose appearance was enough to strike fear into the bravest Brakiri. All of them had almost two meters tall, ridged foreheads, pointy teeth, wore thick armor and carried lots of strange hand held weapons, including huge curved blades. Still what surprised even more the already surprised Brakiri, was a small human female accompanying the creatures. Her uniform was very different, was black all over except for the shoulders where it was grey. In addition, there was also a small band of red curved around her neck with three gold circles and a strange delta shaped insignia in her chest. Amazingly, the lack of gravity aboard the ship did not seem to affect any of the newcomers. It was as if their boots were gluing them to the floor. The human female was the one to take the lead.
"I'm Commander Elisabeth Shelby, where is the Captain of this vessel?"
"From the back of the room a timid Brakiri appeared and start floating in her direction.
"I'm Captain Prim-Rehsa, I'm very sorry for the misunderstanding regarding your leader the great Brigadier Korras from the House of Malok of the Klingon Empire."
"You should be sorry," Shelby said with a slight grin. The Brigadier takes his honor deadly seriously. Now, let us move past that incident because we have no time to waste. Please take me to your computer terminal so that I can download the data we need."
"Of course please follow me."
While the Brakiri Captain floated towards the ship's main computer terminal, he noted that among the alien crowd that followed him, one was carrying a large silver plated cylindrical object of about a meter long. The word bomb flashed unbidden across his mind.
"This is it." The Brakiri Captain said pointing to a grey and yellow computer console.
With increasing anxiety, the Brakiri Captain watched the human female remove a device from her waist and open it in half. She then waved the device over the terminal for several seconds until it lit it up, then the data in the Brakiri computer begin to pass through its screen at an incredible speed, undoubtedly meaning that the strange device was downloading that data into it.
A few moments later the human closed the device and put it back on her waist. She then signaled the alien carrying the cylindrical object that put it on the floor. The Brakiri Captain's heart almost stopped. Then the Human female addressed him.
"We have finished our work here, and despite your rudeness to Brigadier Korras he decided to be magnanimous and forget the incident.
Your technology is very primitive by our standards; you are not even capable of generating artificial gravity, so as token of good faith the Brigadier decided to offer you this gravity generator. All you have to do is push this red button and regulate the level of gravity by moving this knob up or down, its maximum radius is about 500 meters.
The Brakiri Captain's jaw almost hit the floor. Only a few scant seconds before he was certain he was going to die, but now instead these strange aliens were giving him a piece of technology he could only dream about a few hours ago.
"We are amazed with the Brigadier's generosity I must thank him personally."
"That is not required or advisable, we just ask that in the future you and you people remember how generous the Klingon Empire can be and be careful how you talk to future first contacts.
Then Shelby tapped her badge. "Shelby to Kahless, we are ready to beam back."
Then as suddenly as they appeared, the aliens that called themselves Klingons and the human female, faded away in columns of light.
TBC