As for Kravokh, he had served his purpose—to get the Empire out of the rut that Kaarg and Ditagh had mired them in—but his Ch’gran obsession proved his undoing. It was almost worth the sacrifice of four thousand lives to speed him on his way to Sto-Vo-Korwhere he would no longer ruin the Empire with his constant worrying about the past.
Klingons could not forget their past, but it was I.I.’s job to make sure that the Empire had a future. Lorgh was confident that K’mpec was the one to bring them to that future.
If he isn’t, then he too will be replaced. The river will flow onward.
He walked over to the candle and unsheathed his d’k tahg. Mogh, Kaasin, you did your work well. Your sacrifices will not go unheeded. May you join the general inSto-Vo- Kor , and may your battles continue ever onward. You deserve no less.
Using the flat of his d’k tahg,he extinguished the candle’s flame.
Then he went downstairs to speak to his new son.
“You know, if you keep that up, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
Elias Vaughn had been pacing in the corridor outside the new Klingon chancellor’s office for the better part of fifteen minutes. Curzon Dax had never considered Vaughn to be the type to have an excess of nervous energy—well, to be honest, he had never given Vaughn all that much thought at all—but he seemed to be boiling over with it today.
“Since this floor is made of rodinium, I doubt that’s an issue, Ambassador.”
Dax smiled at Vaughn’s disdain. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“The syllables spell out the word ‘ambassador,’ yet you manage to make it sound like ‘jackass’ every time.”
At that, Vaughn actually smirked. “Call it a gift.”
“I’d rather call it an irritant, but suit yourself. In any case, K’mpec will see us when he’s good and ready. He isthe newly appointed head of a massive interstellar empire.”
“It feels like we’re being stalled. I dislike being stalled.”
Dax laughed. “You have no appreciation of the Klingon mindset, Commander. Trust me, if K’mpec can’t see us, it’s because he’s too busy to see us. Klingons don’t stall. If he wanted us to sweat, he’d put us in a sauna—or just threaten to garrotte us, or some other such thing.”
“Well, you’re the expert,” Vaughn said, using that same disdainful tone.
The door to K’mpec’s office opened, and a surly looking guard stepped through it. “Inside,” he said, indicating the interior with his head.
The office, Dax noted as he entered, was spare. The desk was a small piece of metal just large enough to hold a workstation and a few padds. K’mpec’s impressive girth made him look like a full-grown adult sitting at a child’s play dining room set as he sat behind it, looking over something on the screen of that workstation. Behind him, the wall was decorated, typically, with weapons, as were two other walls, as well as a rather unfortunate painting. Dax prayed that the latter was a holdover from Kravokh’s reign that K’mpec simply hadn’t gotten around to having destroyed.
“If we were in the Federation,” Dax said as they took their places standing before K’mpec, “congratulations would be in order.”
K’mpec looked up and smiled. “But we are not in the Federation.”
“Indeed. So I will simply wish you success, Chancellor.”
“What is it you want, Ambassador?” The smile was now gone, replaced by the face of a busy man who was only having this meeting because of who Dax was.
“We have information that may be of use to you regarding your predecessor—and Ch’gran.”
That got K’mpec’s attention. “What do youknow of Ch’gran?”
Vaughn chose this moment to make his presence known. “I’m Lieutenant Commander Elias Vaughn. At Ambassador Dax’s request, I did some digging into Kravokh’s background. I found out some interesting things about his family—and why he was so obsessed with recovering Ch’gran.”
“Recovering Ch’gran is the desire of allKlingons,” K’mpec said.
“For its historical value, yes. That, however, is notwhat Kravokh was after.”
K’mpec frowned. “What, then?”
Dax had been afraid of this. “You aren’t aware of what was in the records of that Ch’gran wreck they found fifty years ago, are you?”
“There wereno records.” K’mpec spoke in a low, menacing tone, as if challenging Dax and Vaughn to prove his words wrong. Unfortunately, we’re about to.
Vaughn looked at Dax. “I did warn you that he wouldn’t know. Those records were sealed by Imperial Intelligence, notthe High Council.”
Sighing, Dax said, “Yes, Vaughn, you were actually right. I suppose the law of averages was bound to catch up with you.”
K’mpec was now smoldering. “Of what records do you speak?” he asked, enunciating every word in a manner that Dax found quite intimidating, all things considered.
Vaughn faced the chancellor. “The records on that wreck revealed the reasons why the Ch’gran colony was lost—it was because of a mutiny, led by Ch’gran’s second-in-command, a man named Klartak.”
“Klartak,” Dax added, “was a member of what was then known as the House of Boral, but is more properly known these days as the House of—”
“Kravokh.” The word sounded like wheels going over broken glass as it came out of K’mpec’s mouth.
“Yes,” Vaughn said. “The I.I. agent who decoded the records of the Ch’gran wreck was a descendant of Klartak’s, and he is the one who sealed the records. He told no one of this, save his son. It has remained a family secret, one that has been passed down through what is now the House of Kravokh. Dax’s proviso that the Cardassians could not touch Ch’gran until the dispensation of Raknal V was determined kept the truth hidden for as long as the competition continued. My personal opinion is that Kravokh’s efforts to fortify the Defense Force were primarily with an eye toward taking Raknal by force if necessary, perhaps even invading Cardassia, if Qaolin could not win the planet for them under Dax’s terms.”
“Ranh!” K’mpec stood angrily. “You mean to tell me that thousands of Klingons have died so that animal could protect his family’s dishonor?”
“Not quite,” Dax said with a smile.
That drew K’mpec up short. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s all right, Chancellor,” Dax said, “neither did I when Vaughn first explained it to me.”
Fixing Vaughn with a penetrating gaze, K’mpec said, “Then explain it to me— clearly,if you will, Commander.”
Vaughn inclined his head. “Of course. You see, Klartak did not mutiny until he was given the order to turn back.”
At that, K’mpec’s tiny eyes grew wide with shock, a reaction not dissimilar to Dax’s own when Vaughn had explained it to him back on B’Alda’ar.
“Ch’gran had no intention of colonizing space,” Vaughn continued. “His plan all along was to return here, destroy the First City from orbit, and install himself as the new emperor. His entire goal in having the fleet constructed wasn’t to pave the way to space, it was to give him a weapon by which he could take over Qo’noS. He only traveled with the fleet so far because he needed time to get the other six ship captains on his side.”
“Kravokh was not trying to preserve hishonor,” Dax said, “but that of one of the Empire’s greatest heroes. He did not wish the legacy of Ch’gran, the man who prompted your people to vault forward into space for the first time after the Hur’q invasion, to be that of a traitor.”
K’mpec snorted. “Our people can survive the tarnishing of the occasional legend, Ambassador. We are not human children who require our parents to prettify our stories to make them palatable.” He looked away. “And we have had our share of fallen heroes in our time.” Then he looked sharply at Vaughn. “How did you obtain this information?”