One

I.K.S. Gorkon
Interstellar space

The bat'leth sliced through the air, heading straight for Captain Klag's neck.

Without even thinking, Klag turned his left wrist, flipping his own bat'leth upward, cradling the blade's curved handle in the crook of his left arm. The center of the other blade collided with the end of Klag's with a metallic clang that echoed off the walls.

Then Klag brought his own blade down, taking his adversary's bat'leth with it, and slammed his foe's jaw with his right palm heel. Pain glowed in Klag's right hand from the impact of bare hand on bone, but it sent his opponent reeling. His heart pounding faster against his ribs, Klag whipped his bat'leth up and over his head, intending to strike his foe's forehead crest.

The other bat'leth came up, blocking the strike, then pressed forward, sending Klag stumbling back a few steps. In fact, it should have sent him only one step back, but Klag took a few extra to get his bearings. Klag knew his foe well and therefore was acutely aware how difficult victory would be.

The two warriors circled each other, staring face-to-face only a body's length apart. Klag held his bat'leth at an angle, his left hand gripping it tightly at chest level; his right hand, still sore from the blow to his foe's hard jaw, cupping the curved blade around his hip. His opponent swirled his blade around in a crisscross pattern. It was a common maneuver, one ostensibly intended to protect against any frontal attack; in practice Klag always thought it was at best merely a clever distraction, and he never bothered with it.

Again, his foe swung at his left side. Again, Klag blocked the strike with ease, but this time he was unable to entangle the other blade, and his foe tried to swing the downward part up toward Klag's chest. Klag was able to deflect with the upper part. That locked their blades, giving his foe an opportunity to kick up toward Klag's groin.

Klag instinctively blocked the kick with his left hand, which worked as far as it went, but when he tightened his grip on the weapon with his right hand, that hand twinged. Wincing, Klag almost dropped the bat'leth as his fingers loosened of their own accord, but he forced himself to hang on.

That gave his foe an opportunity to try another kick, this to Klag's right side, which Klag was unable to block.

But he didn't need to. Stumbling to the left with the blow from his foe's steel boot, and ignoring the pain that shot through his ribs from the impact, Klag let loose with a short punch to his foe's exposed right side, then swung up with the bat'leth, striking his foe's shoulder.

Klag cursed himself. Klingon armor was strong in general, and on the shoulders it was particularly thick, to protect the neck. He might as well have struck the air for all the good a shoulder strike would do.

A fist came at Klag's face, and he ducked his head so his forehead crest would take the brunt of the blow. Their blades were still entangled, so Klag brought his knee up into his foe's groin. That area was well armored as well, of course, but Klag's main interest was in putting some distance between them, and most warriors would back off instinctively after receiving such a blow, regardless of its actual damage.

Again, the pair faced off. This time, Klag's foe didn't bother with the crisscross motion, simply keeping his bat'leth ready in front of him.

Then he came at Klag from the right, swinging the bat'leth in a very tight arc, leaving him very little time to parry.

In one fluid motion, he swung the bat'leth up to block the strike and bring his foe's bat'leth down.

His foe smiled. "Well done, Captain!"

Klag returned the smile.

Then he punched his foe in the face.

As he fell to the floor, Klag threw his head back and laughed. "Do not assume the battle is over just because the mission is accomplished, Kohn."

Bekk Kohn laughed with his captain. "You are correct, of course, sir."

Kohn's swing to Klag's right had been the moment of truth for the captain. During the Dominion War, Klag lost his right arm at Marcan V while serving as first officer aboard the I.K.S. Pagh, which was destroyed on that planet. The only survivor of the Pagh's crew, Klag slew one Vorta and half a dozen Jem'Hadar literally single-handedly. He was rewarded with a promotion and the captaincy of the I.K.S. Gorkon, one of the Chancellor-class vessels that were the cutting edge of the Klingon Defense Force.

At the advice of his ship's doctor, B'Oraq, Klag had a new right arm grafted on. B'Oraq, who studied to be a physician in the Federation and was on a one-woman crusade to improve the state of Klingon medicine, had wanted him to get a prosthetic, but Klag would not attach a machine to his body and call it his arm. Instead, he instructed her to transplant the limb of his father, M'Raq, who died like an old woman in his bed. Klag hoped to restore his father's honor by wearing his good right arm into battle.

But first he had to be accomplished with it. This had been a great stride in that direction.

More laughter came from the two figures standing against the wall of the workout chamber. Klag turned and saw B'Oraq along with the leader of Kohn's squad, Morr.

"Your opinion, Doctor?" Klag asked.

B'Oraq tugged on the auburn braid—bound at its base with a clasp in the shape of the emblem of her House—that sat on her right shoulder. "Your reaction time has improved tremendously, Captain, and you've adjusted to the differing lengths of the arms. A few more months and you might approach your old levels of bat'leth fighting."

Copyright © 2008 by CBS Studios Inc.