“Our influence wanes with each passing moment!” shouts an elderly Klingon man. He tosses bloodwine against the wall of his dark study.
A single window colors the floor with a bluish square.
“Father,” the old man’s son says, reviewing a computer.
1/11
“Do not speak to me unless your words will win back our fortunes and influence within the Empire,” the old Klingon growls.
“We are bleeding out finances like a whimpering—tohzah upon the battlefield,” the son says.
The old man’s eyes widens. “How?”
2/11
“I will discover who has betrayed us,” the son says. “You have my word.”
“Or, Toh’Vu, I will have your tongue,” the old man says.
Toh’Vu nods and leaves.
The old man slaps a device on his arm. “Bring them in.”
The doors open. Two Orion women enter.
3/11
The Orions’ Tellarite handler extends a PADD to the old man.
“Longer, this time,” the old man says.
“It will be—costly,” the Tellarite says.
The old man tears the PADD from the Tellarite’s hand. He scans his thumb. “Now, be gone.”
The Tellarite takes the PADD and leaves.
4/11
Korok shakes his head, sitting in the cool dirt. “And that is when my brother discovered me.”
“Discovered?” Kahless asks. “This implies that you were—hiding.”
“I was no coward,” Korok says, staring into the sky. “They just could not see what I was doing—for our house.”
5/11
“A warrior does not strengthen his family in the darkened spaces of one’s home,” Kahless says.
“That proverb of yours,” Korok says. “Is what my father said to me right before—”
6/11
“A warrior does not strengthen his family in the darkened spaces of one’s home,” Korok’s father growls.
“But, father,” Korok says. “My every step, every world I searched for resources, every slave I bought—it was all for you—and our house!”
His father closes his eyes.
7/11
“Toh’Vu! Describe this petaQ’s ‘honorable’ efforts,” the father orders.
Toh’Vu steps forward. “Siphoning off the house’s savings for months, like a Romulan, to fund—fruitless mining operations, purchasing countless slaves, including—women.”
8/11
“If I am guilty of that particular indulgence, so is father,” Korok says.
Toh’Vu drops his head. The father stands from his chair.
“You,” he growls lowly. “Are my son no more. Go.”
Korok grips the family crest on his baldric.
9/11
“Toh’Vu,” the father says. “Tear our emblem from this—this stranger.”
Toh’Vu approaches Korok. Korok removes the crest, tossing it to the floor.
“You are a cancer upon this once great house, Gol!” Korok says. “An enfeebled old man with nothing but an unquenchable hunger.”
10/11
Gol, the father, takes out his dk’tahg and rushes Korok, stabbing him in the abdomen.
Korok lies on the floor, his eyes wide.
“Go,” Gol mutters. “Die like a rodent in the streets.”
Korok stands gingerly, gripping his wound and leaves.
11/11
END PART 2
“Yeah—I did,” Reno says. “And it was fucking grueling to engineer my friends like some—cannibalized, engine parts.”
“But—again—you got to do something to save them,” Shaw says. 1/8
“You didn’t have to see hopelessness in their eyes as you crouched into the escape pod,” Shaw says.
“You tough enough for some straight talk, Captain Dirge?” Reno asks.
Shaw shrugs.
Reno leans forward. “Your friends died—frozen debris forever floating at Wolf 359.” 2/8
“A bit—cold,” Shaw says.
“Literally, my man,” Reno says. “You couldn’t save their asses. But who the hell do you think you are? You took that seat when one of them could’ve. You gonna wallow in the hopelessness of that horrific moment forever?” 3/8
Kirk, McCoy, Spock, a civilian human-Vulcan hybrid, and a civilian man enter the transporter room.
“We’re all set here, Captain,” Scotty says from behind the transporter room console.
“Thank you, Scotty,” Kirk says hesitantly.
1/14
“If you’ll step up on the pad, please,” Kirk says.
The woman cautiously nods and steps up on the pad.
Spock stands on Kirk’s right. McCoy stands on his left, holding a hypospray.
Kirk, with his palm open, says, “Bones.”
McCoy grips the hypospray.
2/14
“Now think about this, Jim,” McCoy says. “Are you really gonna trade one life for another? This—procedure—will end the life of this living, breathing being that you see standing before you.”