Prologue- The Burden of Command

Klingons have a very colorful and interesting past. Klingons by nature are warriors. For thousands of years tribes battled each other, then as the population grew, nations. Their recorded history is laced with conflicting information and it is hard to find what is consistent. A significant part of their history and culture is recorded in Klingon spoken lore, which is subject to change with each iteration of the story being spoken. Klingons are known for their hyperbole, and when telling tales of battles and conquests the hyperbole distorts the historical accuracy.

Klingon opera and battle-songs do a fair justice in recollecting the past. By nature, songs and whole collections of songs strung together in opera are difficult to change over time. Klingons are known for their hearty battle-songs and their love of singing both in battle, and in reveling during the after-battle success.

Someone that diligently studies Klingon history soon finds out one name that stands out, Kah'less. Kah'less the Powerful, Kah'less the Merciless, Kah'less the Unforgettable, Kah'less the Emperor. Kah'less was the first to unite the Klingons under one ruler- him. He was all that was described about him, a legendary warrior, merciless to his enemies, so capable of leadership that he caused his followers to be absolutely fanatical, and single-minded in his vision of Klingons being united and taking place in the universe. It's not clear if first contact with aliens had been before Kahless or after, but soon after uniting the Klingons, they exploded out of their system into the galaxy.

Besides being a legendary warrior, Kah'less was also extremely intelligent and cunning. He knew that uniting the Klingons would be useless in the long-term if the Klingons did not have a common enemy. Even having a common enemy would not be enough, so Kah'less invented the Klingon Honor Code. He not only became the Klingon Emperor, he set himself up as the spiritual leader of the Klingons. Klingons to this day still regard Kah'less as the greatest Klingon ever. Kah'less' teachings are still taught and quoted by every Klingon alive. Kah'less' battle techniques, plans, philosophy, everything are extremely highly revered and followed by Klingons everywhere.

Almost.

Kah'less also knew that a system was still prone to corruption. He saw that the Klingon heart was not pure, even with the honor code Klingons would still descend into corruption. Kah'less' vision was beyond his own lifetime, he was trying to protect Klingons from themselves for as long as could possibly be done. So Kah'less came up with the Dahar Masters. He formed a small group of extremely honorable, proven Klingon warriors to be the guardians of the Honor Code. Dahar Master selection was to be done at irregular times, when the need was defined by the Code. Dahar Masters had to be minor legends in their own right. They had to first have seven generations of previous genealogy with no mark of dishonor according to the code in them. Dahar Masters also had to have proven themselves in battle, several times. They had to be proven leaders. And of course they had to be honorable. More on Dahar Masters later, for now it is important to review more recent history.

Human- Klingon first contact happened about a hundred years ago in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Earth had already been a warp civilization for about a hundred years and was about to launch its first serious deep space vessel. It was capable of Warp 5 and Earth's space exploration organization, Starfleet, saw the chance to return a wounded Klingon warrior to the Klingon homeworld, Qo'noS. Earth was eager to join the interstellar community as equals and what better way than to help a large empire with a humanitarian mission? After all, any species that makes it to space travel must be naturally peaceful because they would have destroyed themselves if they were aggressive and warlike, right?

Wrong. Earth and Starfleet were naïve. Starfleet had no idea just how unsafe space was. Klingons, Romulans, Norsicans, Orions were just the beginning. That first decade Earth found out how other species view events may not necessarily agree with how Humans look at events. Some good intentions were taken the wrong way by the Klingons, and Starfleet learned. Starfleet had a steep learning curve when dealing with the Klingons that Klingons were just itching for a fight. With anyone. For any reason. Once you got on the bad side of a Klingon, you were probably going to stay there until somebody died. The trick became whenever encountering Klingons, not to start a war by accident.

The first big war that Earth had to fight however was with the Romulans. Fortunately, Earth had formed an alliance with the Vulcans, Tellarites, and Andorians to help beat the Romulans back and a neutral zone was negotiated, a treaty signed by subspace radio. These four powers later were founding members in the Federation and new worlds were joining every year. Klingons were keeping an eye on this new Federation, but there was nothing to fear from the Federation. A bunch of weak worlds light years away from Qo'noS was not worth the bother to the High Command.

As the Federation continued to grow, some fight somewhere escalated and the Klingon perception of the Federation as weak precipitated the war ten years ago. Admiral Adama started off as a Raptor Pilot and rose during the war to be in command of the USS New London. Captain Jacobs was a relatively new Raptor pilot and rose to be Executive Officer of the USS Marathon- one of the last carriers. The war from the Klingon's perspective was surprisingly difficult. Their perception that the Federation was weak was not accurate. The Federation's industrial base was able to produce enough to push the Klingons back to what was considered their own territory. The war was long and bitter, and finally when the Klingons were beaten back to their 'own' territory, the Federation leadership at the time determined the best thing was that a lesson was taught to the Klingons not to mess with us and leave us alone. Senator Jameson was a very vocal advocate of just pushing them back to the border and stopping there.

The ensuing peace was very tentative. The Klingons viewed the Federation stopping at the border as a weak choice. They did not understand why a power that was obviously winning would not press on to win a war. To the Klingons, the Federation had a reason to pull back and was biding time to invade later. As time went on, space became more and more filled with exploratory ships traveling at warp speed and kept bumping into each other. Tensions rose, and the Klingons believed the Federation was going to come and invade. The Klingon view was that while the Federation had ships roughly equivalent to their own, the Federation's will to use it was practically nonexistent. It was totally bewildering to the Klingons that the Federation Senate led by Senator Jameson would disband the Starfleet Marines. Why would a power get rid of an extremely powerful and effective military force? This made no sense to Klingons, unless there was something better that Klingons did not know about. Also, Federation politicians, namely Senator Jameson, kept stressing that Starfleet was a civilian organization, not military. They went out of their way to minimize militaristic settings. Federation Politicians were falling all over themselves saying about how peaceful space was, that space needed to be explored peacefully. This was absolute madness to the Klingons. Starfleet had military ranks similar to the Klingons, were in charge of ships that even the small ones could lay waste to an entire planet over time, why this fear of letting them be called military? Add to that the Klingons viewed the Federation as corrupt, unpredictable, incomprehensible, and without honor. This made the Federation a serious threat to the Klingons. It also exposed the fundamentally biggest myth of Klingons: that Klingons had no fear. Klingons fear that which they do not understand, and they fear it deeply.

The threat of war between the Klingons and Federation was boiling up again when the USS Enterprise ran into Kor over the planet of Organia. Starfleet and the Klingons were going to engage in a hot, shooting war until the Organians intervened. The Organians imposed a peace treaty and neutral zones around the Federation and Klingons which the opposing power could not enter without permission. This also left a vast amount of space that the Federation and Klingons could still bump into each other. The Organian treaty specifies rules for contact and that no combat should happen, but also permits self-defense. Right away, Starfleet ships would encounter Klingons and before shots were fired, Organians would intervene by making the controls feel too hot to touch. So, no combat was permitted.

Weapons were only permitted for self-defense. Why would you need self-defense if an omnipotent and omniscient power like the Organians would stop any attack? Klingon philosophers were the first to figure this out. The Organians were not Omnipotent and Omniscient. Federation Politicians assumed that 'all powerful' meant all-powerful and started making decisions on that basis. Klingons saw immediately that if the Organians saw the need for self-defense in the treaty then the Organians knew there were limits to their power. Now it was up to Klingons to find out what those limits were.

The Klingon Chancellor and some members of the high council conspired in secret. To go against a treaty would be dishonorable, and the council would not stand for it. So they diverted resources and formed the Black Fleet: a secret collection of existing ship Captains that on occasion will perform missions to probe the weaknesses of the Organians. Someone had to organize and lead the Black Fleet and the best choice was General Chang. Chang absolutely hated the Federation and with all its incomprehensible decisions Chang was in great fear of the Federation. Chang now had to keep the Black Fleet secret. Secret from the Federation, and from the Klingon High Council. General Chang needed a top secret base somewhere he could coordinate events in as close to real time as he could. He chose a star system close to the border but far enough away to not be sensed by Starfleet's Starbase 5.

About this time, the Klingons came across the Cardassians. This was an empire that the Klingons could understand. Very militaristic, shrewd, cunning, devious, paranoid, and expansionist. The first few encounters led immediately to the war that the Klingons needed to unite behind. The Cardassians also were more powerful than originally thought and the quick war was not only dragging on, but may even be lost. That would be unthinkable to Klingons.

This is where Humans need to understand that aliens may not think the same way as humans. The war with the Cardassians made the problem of the Federation necessary to be resolved, because the Federation was a threat. General Chang could see the need to find out a way around the Organian treaty and soon. General Chang soon found that the Organians were far from all-powerful. More than that, he also found out that there was a cycle to how well the Organians could react to infractions in the treaty. The continual probing yielded that not only was there a cycle, but that the cycles were getting more and more intense. The Organians were losing their power. Soon, Chang predicted that the Organians would not be able to stop them at all.

The Organian Treaty problem was handled even better than Chang could hope for. A regularly scheduled mission for a conference with Federation diplomats coincided with one of the 'down' times of the Organians. Chang set a chain of events in place to make it look like the Federation assassinated the Klingon diplomat. It would have been perfect except for this Captain Jacobs that interfered and got the truth out. Captain Jacobs also was instrumental in exposing of the Black Fleet's existence to the High Command with the help of a Dahar Master, Kang. At least the episodes did not reveal the base or Chang's control of it. The mission of the Black Fleet was a success, the overall goal of finding a crack that an attack with the Federation could be utilized was met. There was not a crack, the whole wall was down. The Klingons could attack whenever they wanted. From Chang's position, the closest base to hit was Starbase 5. The High Council may have different ideas on that though.

Starbase 5 is the main planet on the Federation side of the neutral zone that oversaw protecting the closest and largest section of the Neutral Zone. Starbase 5 started as purely a Starfleet facility built to service ships both in orbit and on the ground. Servicing a ship on the ground is a tricky prospect but many times necessary. Economies of scale can work for you or against you, in this case the ease of working on a ship down on the surface of a M class planet also means that you expose it to the air of the planet. A ship would descend on anti-gravity units, land in a drydock berth for servicing, get serviced, then launch on anti-grav back into orbit. The larger the ship, the more a problem that moisture can be for the ship while it is on the surface. Moisture that can penetrate cracks and later expand when in the freezing shade in space. Then the expansion can create major structural problems. Moisture can also cause mold or many other problems. This is why Starbase facilities are usually located in the most arid areas of the planet.

Starbase 5 over the years grew and soon civilian contractors were needed to meet the demands of supplying the Starbase. Soon a small town, then a city sprouted beside the Starfleet facility and a sizable population grew. The planet that Starbase 5 was on was formerly known as something complicated, but is now simply known as Starbase 5, so is the city next to it. Starbase 5 the planet was declared a colony with the rights to form its own government and it grew. Soon, there were colonists living all over the planet and the colony was thriving.

Ensign Jacobs was stationed here early in his career, and under the Federation colonial rules he started claiming territory. He was very fortunate in the territory that he claimed as it led to a small fortune in minerals. Jacobs hired Sam Cogley as a lawyer and the two of them built a small empire of their own, and kept it private from others for a long time. Private and legal.

Jacobs' choice on keeping the corporations he owned private because he wanted to avoid any conflict of interest with Starfleet. He had several corporations and they did not even know about each other until recently. The choice for Jacobs to reveal himself was after his most recent mission. The mission where he found out the Klingons were coming. They were coming into the Federation. The Klingons were going to attack Starbase 5. And it was Kor, one of the Dahar Masters that inexplicably gave Jacobs the information.

Warriors that were selected to be a Dahar Master were responsible for keeping the Honor of the Empire intact. They were expected to stay within the existing chain of command until situations demanded them to take action. At those points of time, they were expected to do what was necessary to either restore or keep the Honor of the Klingons intact. Even with policing from the Dahar Masters, corruption would still creep in and the Empire would decay into disarray. Corruption like the Chancellor or General Chang. Chang had wondered how Kor ever was recruited to Black-fleet style operations, as those operations would probably have broken Klingon honor in some way. Chang knew that Kor knew of some of the High Council's support of Black Fleet operations, but Kor did not know that Chang was Black Fleet. Funny thing about the whole Black Fleet, that was specifically what Kah'less was concerned about and why Dahar Masters exist, and now there is a Dahar Master in Black Fleet ranks, sort of. A true Dahar Master would challenge and kill whoever is necessary to get rid of the Black Fleet, or die trying.

Kang was a good example of what the Dahar Masters should be. When Kang and Jacobs found out about the Black Fleet at Maghreb, Kang exposed the truth to the whole council. Another funny thing was that this cooperation between Kang and Jacobs was exactly what the Organians predicted would happen, that ultimately the Klingons and Federation would become fast friends. Of course, fast is a relative term. The existence of the Black Fleet split the council, most of the High Council didn't want a war with the Federation, but the members of the High Council could sneakily work on them to get support for an all-out attack. Time was on Chang's side.

CHANCELLOR'S OFFICE

QO'NOS

General Chang walked into the office at attention. Chancellor Bogkor and a few council members were present, all were Black Fleet.

Chang asked carefully, "You summoned me, Chancellor?" He tensed up, the Chancellor may try to kill him here.

The Chancellor stood from behind the desk and stuffed a datapad into Chang's hands. "I just got Kor's report from a High Council member."

Chang read the report, and saw it was the same report he saw yesterday. "I thought he sent this only to Black Fleet members. That is what you told me."

"I thought so too. He did not. Kor told the entire High Council that his mission to extract information from Captain Jacobs was a failure." The Chancellor said. "The Councilmember representing Kang's district is livid." Chang looked up into the Bogkor's eyes. "He said, 'what mission'."

Chang threw the pad aside. "It doesn't matter."

"It does to him. Jacobs is Jup-qorDu to house of Kang, and when Councilmember Torf told Kang's wife.."

Chang exclaimed, "Mara knows?"

The Chancellor nodded, "It is her right. She now speaks for Kang while he is gone. She was so upset she almost had her baby right there."

Chang said, "When does Kor get here?"

"He's not coming here." The Chancellor said. "He's going to Kang."

Chang could not believe his ears. "To Kang? What for? To get killed? Those two have something just short of a blood feud as it is. This will make Kang try to kill Kor. This does not make sense. Order Kor here."

The Chancellor shook his head. "I can't. Kor's citing Dahar Master Privilege. He's going to Kang, he'll arrive in about two weeks and then who knows what."

Chang asked, "Did Kor tell Kang what happened?"

The Chancellor said, "I don't know, it doesn't matter. Mara will tell Kang. Either way, Kang is going to be seriously mad that I ordered the torture of Jacobs. Kang is going to come here. I just don't know when. We are having an emergency council session tonight; I want you there."

"Why?" Chang asked suspiciously.

"I need to turn this away from me and turn it into support for the war." Bogkor said. "Now war with the Federation is even more imperative."

Chang said grudgingly, "I'll be there."

SENATOR JAMESON'S HOUSE

EARTH

Jameson just finished with a long shower. He had been taking one for the last hour and the smell of the ship was still in his nostrils. It's going to take forever to get rid of that smell. Jameson was in a foul mood already and was practically incommunicado from reality the last week it has taken to get back from Starbase 5. Jameson just found out before landing that there was a security council meeting with the President tomorrow morning, and he is going to spend the night prepping for it. All this time wasted.

A beep came from his desk computer and Jameson saw that he just got a message from Gold, his chief of staff still on Starbase 5. Jameson pressed play to watch the message.

The computer said, "Voiceprint required for decoding."

Jameson said, "Senator Charles Jameson." He looked at the clock and did some quick math. "November 1836".

"Code accepted." The computer said.

Gold's image in the hotel came onscreen. "Senator, the past few days I've tried to help our clients out here but we don't own or even have any influence in the judges out here. The colonial judges have turned all my requests down, one even laughed at me. Another said that our clients better start getting their defenses ready because he is going to take the contract cancellations by Cogley and start investigating them. Sir, I think this is backfiring on us."

"There is nothing here for me to do, and since it will take a day for you to respond once you get this message, I'm going to come back to Earth now. I'll let you know when I expect to be back, most likely it will be in a week." Gold's image faded from the screen.

Jameson pulled on a bedshirt and switched the screen off. Great. Well, it will be good to have Gold back on Earth, there's going to be a lot that needs to be done with the campaign.

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

EARTH

Sonok was a tall Vulcan and an attorney with the Department of Justice. He handed over a sheet of paper to FID Director Briggs. "Here is the preliminary report, printed out for you."

Briggs was dressed in his usual white suit, his trademark. "Yes, when Admiral Adama let me know that Commander Ressler was on that shuttle and when it would arrive, Admiral Nogura wanted you to get the results of the audits right away. I'm impressed as to how fast you digested all the data."

Sonok raised an eyebrow, "I have good people working for me. The Forensic accountants confirmed what Starfleet found and more. I believe we have cause to do some more investigating, and I intend to do that. If I may ask one question?"

Briggs looked up. "What?"

"Why printout on paper?" Sonok said.

Briggs said, "We have reason to believe that Senator Jameson has the capability to eliminate electronic data in Federation systems."

"Ours is secure." Sonok said confidently.

Briggs stood and took out his white panama hat from his jacket and popped it open. "So is Starfleet. Thank you very much for this."

Sonok raised his eyebrow again. "You're welcome. I'll let you know about any more developments." Briggs smiled and put on the hat and walked out the door.

ADMIRAL NOGURA'S OFFICE

STARFLEET COMMAND

Briggs handed over the sheet from his briefcase. "I've looked at this a few times. Sonok is developing material your accountants missed."

Nogura had a small, thin smile. "I'm glad. I thought he would."

Briggs asked, "If so, why not have him do the initial work?"

Nogura said, "Because he is here, and Starbase 5 is out there. The information was delivered to Sam Cogley quicker."

Briggs looked quizzically, "You wanted Cogley to get the information?"

Nogura nodded, "Yes, and quickly."

"You knew?"

Nogura said, "I suspected."

"So what can Cogley do?" Briggs asked.

Nogura explained, "When Cogley got the data from the accountants, the corporations he represented terminated contracts with several companies that were doing business with us."

Briggs asked, "Ok, how does that help us?"

"Starbase 5 is now getting timely support. And they are also getting it at a fraction of the cost. They need it right now with the Klingons coming. Right now, there is a transport getting a record amount of antimatter from a new experimental facility. Nobody has done this large of a load of antimatter. Ever. Eagle Transport combined with Indefatigable Industrial Fabrication, both at Starbase 5, came up with this in days." Nogura said.

Briggs looked squarely in Nogura's eyes. "There's something else you know."

Nogura looked squarely back. "Yes, I suspect something. Something that helps us. I do not want to push it though, pushing it will hurt us."

Briggs nodded and said, "I can buy that. So you are being the guardian angel for once?"

Nogura smiled, "I will not replace you, but let's say I understand a lot more of some of the things you've done. I'm helping a suspected friend. If I reveal what I suspect, it will benefit only Jameson."

Briggs nodded knowingly. "Then let this suspicion remain anonymous. And let's get ready for the Klingons."