Fallout 37

Shalo
The journey is almost over. As we drop out of warp, my sensors register, distantly, the approach of the KDF task force, coming to the border of the inarguably Klingon side of the Neutral Zone. They will meet with me here, take the freighter in tow, take it back home for the necessary forensic examination... necessary for form's sake, though all the important matters have already been very finally settled.

In my mind's eye, I watch the transmission from the Great Hall again. I smile, slyly, to myself. The Federation President will see that, too - and it may help, at the summit conference, if Aennik Okeg bears in mind just how forcefully the Chancellor can... express his views.

"Open a channel to the Starfleet vessels," I order.

The faces of Tylha Shohl and Ronnie Grau appear on my viewscreens. I smile. "Well," I say, "it seems our mission is now completed. I must say, for me it has been an enlightening experience, in many ways."

"Enlightening," says Shohl. "Yes. Quite." Her face is grim.

"And, in the end," I continue, "I believe we have achieved a satisfactory outcome, together."

"Oh, yes," says Shohl. She continues to glower.

"You do not agree?"

"No," she says, "no, I can't disagree...." Then her visible anger bursts out of her like the breaking of a dam. "Very satisfactory - from the Klingon point of view. It's got everything the Klingons would like, hasn't it, this story of ours? Bloodshed and gunfire, conspiracies, betrayal, severed heads rolling along the floor of the Great Hall - pride and madness, glorious battles and honourable defeats. Everything a good Klingon opera needs."

Her voice is shaking with rage. "Well, just remember something. When you stage this Klingon opera, just bear in mind you need a big chorus for it. A big, big backing chorus. Like, six hundred and fifty million, one for each of the innocents who died at Bercera IV. Personally, I don't think you've got a concert hall big enough." Her blue eyes are pure Andorian ice.

Obviously, she is right. Equally obviously, I cannot concede that.

I examine my fingernails. "I believe you two know your way back to Federation space."

Shohl glares at me. Ronnie Grau speaks for the first time. "Come on, Tylha," she says, in a voice full of weariness. "Let's go home."

Shohl spears me with one final stare, then cuts the connection. On the main screen, the Virtue and the King Estmere turn around, facing back the way we came. Their engines flare to sudden life, and then they are streaks of light, dwindling to a point in the immeasurable distance... and, they are gone.

"Your orders, sir?" K'Gan asks, carefully.

Orders. Ah, yes, orders.... One must always assert oneself before the Klingons; never show doubt, or fear, or confusion... never show anything they may see as weakness. There are times when I am so very, very tired of being Klingon.

But I cannot show that. "We return to Qo'noS and await new instructions," I say. "That was, after all, T'Jeg's order to us... I would not have it said that I disregarded a High Councillor's instructions."

And K'Gan laughs, and my Klingon mask slips comfortably back into place. It is almost a part of me, now, that mask. Perhaps, some day, it will be my real face. Perhaps.