Yet if my line should die,
  It dies with its teeth in the enemy’s throat,
  It dies with its name on the enemy’s tongue.
  For just as mere life is not victory,
  Mere death is not defeat;
  And in the next world I shall kill the foe a thousand times,
  Laughing,
  Undefeated.
Favorite song of House Gensa. About facing enemies and death
Long corridor small lamps on walls cast green light
Senior Proctor, old Khidri tai-Gensa, nearly 40, very wrinkled, had been a full Commander in the Navy until vacuum crippled his lungs
Thought Admiral Kethas epetai-Khemara, Naval officer in black tunic and gold dress sash and Commander’s insignia, with medals for ships taken. A planner for the entire Navy. A Grand Master of klin zha. Has chosen Green Team of House Gensa to play 
At attention, wrists crossed in salute, weapons at ready-arms
P29 Arena Gallery long, low-ceilinged room furnished with large soft cushions and small wooden tables with trays of succulents. One long wall entirely of dark glass. Players’ positions at either end of window-wall, small cubicles lit behind glass panels, enveloping, deeply cushioned chairs, like ship captain’s command chair, inside. Holo display show miniatures of huge Arena grid. Humidifier mist mixed with the personal incenses some of the officers carried hung at ceiling.
Servitors, in clean tan gowns of restrictive cut
More than a dozen if high ranks present, Naval and Marine, and two civilian administrators with a reputation at klin zha, also a few of their consorts, two for Admiral Kezhke, who was never moderate. Three Vulcans all tharavul.
General Margon sutai-Demma. Usually slightly unpleasant look on his face, scar at side of mouth. female consort with claws
Force Leader Mabli vestai-Galann, lowest ranking officer in the room. Administrators outrank him as well. Plays against Kethas, gold pieces. Spindles decide first move, a pair of hexagonal rods of polished white bone with numerals inlaid in gold on their faces. Double sixes.
I grant the option.
I choose first position
Thought Admiral Kethas epetai-Khemara. Deep wrinkles in knobbed forehead, hair very white at temples, 52 years old, an age at which Klingons of the Imperial Race should be dead by one means or another
Eyes clear and sharp as naked stars
Black brandy
Sudok, Game Operator, a Vulcan. Wears green and gold gown of Vulcanian cut. Wears IDIC pendant and a pendant of knight from human game chess.
metal pedestal rose from floor to support flat black case. Illuminated controls. 
Arena 50 meters across and high, six sided, long sides alternating with short, sloped inward slightly. Other viewing galleries. Ceiling hung with maze of lighting, camera and projection equipment. Floor painted with triangular emblem of three crooked arms, gold on black. Floor split into three retracting panels. Game grid rising from below floor level, a three-sided pyramid of metal struts and transparent panels, a tetrahedral frame nine four-meter pyramids on each side. The live players file out at floor level.
Fencer, Swift, Fliers, Lancer, Vanguards and Blockader for each side. Stop and look up to Gallery. Kethas waves, Mabli salutes players.
T’tain, tharavul
Shipments of kuve gladiators to Triskelion, price dropping
Price in crystals and fissionables
The gagny brains
Admiral – We’re in a g’daya box! Federation one way, Romulans another, Kinshaya one more.
Do it elsewhere.
His hand was on his dress weapon, apparently casually
Kethas and Mabli spread their arms, snarled and embraced, heads tilted back, throats exposed. The fury between them seemed to radiate; there were grunts of approval from the others.
4 Vulcans
p32 House Gensa has all the taped episodes of Battlecruiser Vengeance. All end with the same line. Humans, Romulans, Kinshaya, servitors who had managed to enter space, all asked their conqueror who he was, and the answer always
I am Captain Koth. Koth of the Vengeance. And this ship is my prize.
Without a line-name or a line Vrenn could never have a ship
Clouded Game hardest on a Blockader
Zharn was always leader-hard and leader-calm
No form of klin zha was easy for the Fencer
In the Clouded game one could not see the enemy’s pieces or the enemy
Gold pieces take their places first, then green occupied another point on the lowest level, leaving the third point empty
Exclamation – Drownfish’s teeth
Lancer Advanced – opening move
Sovin, tharavul to administrator Manager Akten
Manager Atro, administrator
Vrenn in right front space, Voloh to Vrenn’s left, Graade behind Vrenn. Beyond Voloh was Ragga, in the center was Zharn
Right front space bad for a Lancer in flat-board klin zha
The players must follow the Grand Master’s lead and be worthy of his play
The Goal, a disk half a meter across and a handbreadth thick, quite heavy
He dropped his Lance from parade to ready position
Active tip went from blue to green
In non-combat klin zha a Blockader could not be killed at all, different in klin zha kinta.
Segon Vanguard bests a Gold Vanguard
Players salute each other as panels rise to the next level
the Elevation move
Vrenn bests a Gold Flyer
Lance’s deflector shield
Kai
Lance’s charge counter down after a hit
Slapping their thighs in approval of bold play, move
Vrenn, Gensa, good House, Rustazh
Incense stick on holder on shoulder
Rustazh line thought to be extinct, seven years since all the Rustazh died
Gelly has encountered an opponent, blood on her metal gloves
Ragga has encountered an opponent, rips in his heavy leather
Gold Lancer fires a bolt at Ragga.
The Lance butt was not Null, there was something hidden in it; a contact stunner or an agonizer
Rokis Flyer hurts her leg making a grand swooping kill
Ragga falls to Gold Lancer
Gelly also falls Gold Lancer
Gelly’s blood was a very dark color
Moving the Fencer away from the Goal was the most dangerous gambit in klin zha
epetai-Khemara’s record, reputation for mild insanity
epetai-Khemara reputation for liking skinny, green, women
Zharn had executed this kill a hundred times – he swung his thin staff in wide arc, the tip struck opponent’s arm and wrapped around it. Zharn twisted the polarizing grip and the metal went rigid. As the enemy was pulled around he would be carried directly into Zharn’s knifing left hand.
Zharn stumbled at hand twitch depolarized his staff. Gold Lancer shoved the Active Lancepoint into Zharn’s throat
Kezhke had no weapon visible, but of course no Klingon of rank would be unarmed in public. 
No one would appear so foolish as to doubt a Vulcan’s word
I do so enjoy klin zha, nothing short of living war is so stimulating
There is always the komerex zha, the Perpetual Game
Flier usually female
The Gold Lancer was clearly full-Klingon, as much Imperial Race as was Vrenn, broad dark face scarred heavily, electricity in the yellow eyes. Artificial arm. A cyborg. 
Vrenn Gensa Green
Gensa, the victory! Gensa, a thousand times, undefeated.
Gensa = green??
P45 Margon pulls out his pistol
Tokhe straav’ means willing slave, the vilest name Klingon could call Klingon, an insult only death could redeem.
Margon fires at Mabli’s cubicle
Kai, Thought Admiral. Another victory with your many.
And for every victory, a loss.
There was nothing else for him. Certainly not life
What could be accepted as truth from one who would commit fraud at klin zha?
One of the Houses of Lineless Youth
Adoptions handled through Manager Akten, also transfers of residence
P48 Do not call a victory what was not
He would see it again, in the next life, when he captained a ship of the Black Fleet
Walls of smooth castrock
Machine-copy tapestries
Proctor Muros, control wand. When Muros snaps, snap back. Expression Muros’s nose
Epetai-zana, honored and exalted, an honorific so high it became absurd, an insult
Smiled faintly, showing points of teeth
Vrenn felt his liver relax
Six to a room
Zharn and Gelly don’t return from the game, Ragga did, sullen
Front common room, low light, moist air, plants and a shallow dark pool for meditation
Panels of colored glass in the ceiling formed a large Imperial trefoil, the komerex stela
Tirian, a Withiki. Transporter to Thought Admiral Kethas. Obviously kuve. Transporter’s duty to keep master safe, while aboard any vessel. If you travel by particle transporter, I will set the controls. 
zan Vrenn
kuvesa tokhesa, I serve willingly
forecourt
Teska-2, a real combat craft, able to meet a spaceship in orbit, short winged, graceful, green-backed and white-bellied. Viewports with armored shutters. Disruptors and missile pods under the wings. Tirian wrist device controls doors. Doors open and stairs swung down. Narrow passage lined with equipment of metal and plastic and rubber, alive with small lights and noises. Two large padded chairs, caged by equipment, thick front tinted glass. Left seat gunner’s seat. Tiny unenclosed waste facility, a food locker. Night vision on gunsight startling clarity. 
song The Vengeance Flies at Morning
  The guns are hot, the hull is ringing,
  The engines sing the sound of triumph;
  And every one aboard awaits
  A prize upon the high horizon.
  Hand and weapon! Heart and power!
  Cry it with the voice of Empire!
  Victory and prize and plunder!
  Vengeance flies at morning!
He looked up. But of course sunlight and clouds clothed the stars
A captain lent his life to the one he trusted as transporter operator, the one chosen must be of special quality. As kuve, have no ambitions.
Not express error, not to a servitor
Vrenn had seen Withiki at the Year Games
Fly on guidebeam
P53 the Khemara linehold was almost a quarter of the world away. It took half a day airborne, beam-guided around reserved airspaces, military and private.
Food of cold meat and fish and fruit nectars
Mist-cloaked hills, green lakes
Northwest Sea
Kartade Forest of knotted-trunked trees
Web of light projected on windshield, the image of landing grid invisible on the ground. 
Audio pickup hung behind ear
Center Space, this is Flier 04. Aboard, affirm. Password is Tailfeather. What is your password? Affirm, off beam and landing now.
A pathway lit up, through garden with shrubs and pools, knotted-trunked trees, heavy flower perfumes
zan a neutral word
house three stories high, V shaped roof. Huge front windows like angled eyes looking down, one vast, high-ceilinged room, wooden beams cutting across space overhead, iron-railed stairs to balconies on either side, center broad black pillar with fireplace at base, wood fire. Cushions and tables topped with wood inlay and black glass. 
Welcome Vrenn. Be welcome in your house.
Vrenn calls Kethas Father.
Vrenn, nearly nine, drinks ale
Dark ale the best when you’re tired, not the scorch of a distillate
Pheromonal shock, rush of hormones could be deadly to young Vrenn. 
Half the ships Koth of the Vengeance captured had an Orion female aboard, all green, all beautiful past imagining. All just Klingon females in makeup.
Rogaine, Kethas’s sole consort. Dark Orion female
This is Vrenn, whom we have taken into the line
Vrenn does not remember anything but the House
Your line was Rustazh, your father Squadron Leader Kovar sutai-Rustazh. The Rustazh line is extinct. Your once-father was leading a convoy of colonization; the line had received an Imperial grant of space. the ships were ambushed by Romulans. Kovar fought well, but colony ships are a handicap in combat. There were no survivors, as one expects of Romulans. How youngest son Vrenn came to be in House Twenty-four is a mystery. 
Kovar served Empire well, under Kethas. Because of certain things he did in that time I am disposed to do a thing for him. For Kovar’s sake I took you out of the Lineless’ House. One life was my debt to him.
Kethas had eight children, seven are dead in seven parts of space, the eighth has changed his name to begin a line of his own and when his last brother died it was too late to reverse this course. Kethas has spent many years in space, on old thin-hulled ships, when the power came from isotopes, has taken too much radiation, my children now are monsters, that bubble and die.
For my sake I will make you heritor of the line Khemara, and to this linehold and all its property, the price is that you will be Khemara and forget you were ever Rustazh.
There was no Cloud in his mind
In you the klin lives, this is certain
Odise, a servitor, a small being with spindly arms and legs, covered in smooth black fur. Apparently did not speak
A study with library screen and books on shelves, large bedroom, private wash-and-waste. Cylindrical closets, angular desks and chairs, tracked spotlamps. Concave bed surface. Meal slot in the wall with programming buttons. Walls covered with clearprints of stars and planets, exactly like viewports to Space. nothing overtly a monitor visible.
Restraint web on concave beds on real ships
Indoor garden, sponge-tiled pool with bright plants floating in it. 
Nine flavors, at least, of fruit nectar
House Gensa always woke before sunrise
Kethas lives midmorning to midnight
Find the time you’re best at and live there, that’s the payoff strategy, the most efficient, that is to say
Kethas does not have a tharavul.
Food – light fried anemones, crisp salt fish, sweet gel pastries
Human kafei. Mind clearing effect
Some years back Kethas was on a deep mission, taking supply by forage, and for half the voyage they had nothing to drink but a case of coffee taken as a prize. Engineer brewed up white fire. Not too bad together.
Kethas has delta ray scars on his flank
Delta ray scars caused by unshielded warpdrive or Romulan lasers
Along the walls of front room were boards and pieces for every game Vrenn had ever heard of, plus others. many sets, for all variations, of klin zha.
Ablative form – tiles fall out
Vrenn wore a long coat of gold brocade with the multicolored crest of a forest lizard sewn across the shoulders.
Kethas’s coat has an Admiral’s haloed stars on the sleeve
Chess, the human zha
latrunculo, the rom zha
kinshaya have no stylized game, though they are excellent at small-war with model soldiers
saying – less pleasant than torturing Vulcans
saying among Master of the Game – less pleasant than klin zha against a Vulcan
no kuve zha can be truly great
an obvious question is better than obvious ignorance
in the larger universe one must be cautious not to show one’s blindness
Reflective Game – the highest form of klin zha, the most difficult. In the Reflective Game there is a single group of pieces which either player may move in turn. All pieces move in the fashion of the normal, Open Game. Win by making it impossible for opponent to move legally. Begin by choosing piece and placing it any piece, any where. Each player sets a piece alternately. May not voluntarily put Goal in danger of attack. If he moved the Fencer off the Goal it would then become the enemy’s Fencer and give the enemy an instant victory.
Perpetual Game – komerex zha
He felt he had been used, to win a cheap and honorless victory.
Kethas - I am an undrawn Grand Master of the Game, and you cannot lose well against me, no matter the form.
In time you will learn to lose well, you may even learn to lose brilliantly
Kai Kassai, Klingon!
After a long and useless assault on sleep
P64 cold season, northern change of seasons, trace of real frost
Imperial Council meets in the Throne City on the other side of the world. Kethas member of Imperial Council
Klingon music has words to it, and inspires
Beyond the formal garden and flier landing was a small hexagonal pavilion, much newer than the main house. The particle transporter had been safe for Klingon use less than 30 years. Only very recently had anyone, even an Admiral, the luxury of a home station. Two banks of controls. The first dilates an opening in the deflector shield covering the estate, set to scramble any unauthorized attempt to beam in. second console the receiver. Three discs on floor, matching three on the ceiling. Column of sparkling golden light appeared, entirely without sound.
Kethas epetai-Khemara, in black silk tunic and full formal gold vest heavy with medals
The war continues, on every space of the board.
Kethas has told Tirian he will have a place on Kethas’s Black Ship
Any race may reach the Black Fleet
Withiki, a winged race, large wings
Black fleet personnel returned to perfect condition
A Force Leader of Imperial Race had his Marines pull Titian’s wings from their sockets as they were awkward in the corridors of a starship
Kuvesa tokhesa
Web ferns in the indoor garden
Overhead were stars, hard and white, all the thousand stars of the world’s sky standing naked, as they did on less than one night in a hundred. So whatever Vrenn and Kethas said here, whatever they did, would be remembered for all time to come.
He looked at the stars, stark burning naked, and knew the oath was sealed.
Age 10, choose what you will be. Navy, scientist, administrator, Marine
Navy, Academy, Path of Command. Many Admiral’s sons attend Academy. Some kuvekhestat, unfit to serve aboard a ship. Use every advantage their lines can win them.
Don’t talk like a Romulan.
Proverb – If you do not wish a thing heard, do not say it.
You will be watched, so live as if you are watched. Beds are terrible places for secrets.
Reflective Game, seldom taught.
You are not ready to count your enemy’s losses until you have learned to count your own. Remember that some enemies will never have learned to count.
Chapter 3: Gambits  [2233]
P70 plasma hit shields, power leaked through in second and third harmonics.
Vrenn Khemara on D4 cruiser Blue Fire. Schematic on screen shows yellow blocks mark hit areas.
Vrenn read off the reports in a few short phrases of Battle Language.
Captain’s starburst of rank, 5
Squadron Leader Kodon vestai-Karum, Captain of Blue Fire, Two Fingers, Death Hand, other D4 cruisers
Commander Kev, Executive officer. 
Primary Bridge, Auxiliary Bridge. 
Klingons outnumbered five to three, but D4 cruisers much more powerful than Romulan warbirds.
Six disruptors fired.
Disruption – the forces holding molecules together were suppressed and restored ninety times a second. Big ships’ batteries nicknamed the Sound of Destruction.
Signal code KATEN to Squadron, when KATEN acknowledged executed, go Warp 4 at once.
There would be no boarding this time, no prizes, not even a creditable kill they could stripe on their sashes.
The Klingon cruisers had more power, which counted most in large ship maneuvers.
Bounce a Rom off shields like a small animal off a groundcar’s fender.
Triskele formation, port engines inward
You may give him one for vengeance, zan Tatell.
Klingons go three times as fast as Rom ships
He touched the phone in his ear that had sent him all the actual Captain’s orders.
Zhoka, cadet
By consensus of the Squadron Captains, Blue Fire is to be credited with one Romulan kill.
May this be a favorable sign.
Stand down to cruise stations
Vrenn roommate an Engineering cadet named Ruzhe Avell. Killed after Rom space battle when intercooler gas tubes blew
Open klin zha.
Do something with honest metal and current
Up in the front pod, away from the radiation. Up front, away from the Marines
We just keep the Drell design because it works
Klingon runs to Vulcan
Frontier captains go privateer
Gday’t
I’d like to khest just once on this trip. Got an Orion female in your closet?
Kodon’s Squadron inside Romulan claims for 78 days. Two more skirmishes. A kill for Death Hand and another for Blue Fire. No contact for 50 days now. Eating salvage from the third battle, Romulan rations, solid but dull. 
Junior Officer’s Mess.
Kotkhe, helmsman. Nickname ‘Khe. Son of Admiral.
Ensign with Medical insignia. Surgeon’s aide.
Merzhan, youngest Security officer on the ship. Nasty sense of humor
Merzhan’s smile was thin as the edge of a knife.
Dump tray down the disposal slot
Souvenirs you could buy in a leave port
Quote some text from a volume of Tales of the Privateers, every other book in the series had the same scene with Orion girl in it.
Ensigns love cadets like you love jelly pastry. They won’t talk to the crew and there’s nobody else they can damage.
Path of command, insulting remark Pathfinder
Sometimes to show teeth is enough, but if you bite, bite deep.
Kahlesste kasse.
Security enforcers in duty armor, shock clubs out and ready
Is the one well? At my last hearing. The line Khemara is not to be insulted, even ignorantly by ignorant youth. Do you wish to enter a claim of line honor?
The duel circle.
Brawling aboard a ship under cruise is a violation of regulations, as is striking a superior officer
Officer’s Gym. 
Kodon’s desktop has disposal
Salutes were exchanged.
Kodon’s inner cabin
At times like this Vrenn came close to denying the komerex zha, for the universe to be a game implied that it had knowable rules. 
Kev used his eyes as needles, he liked to watch others writhe, impaled on their points.
The g’dayt-livered Kotkhe
He can make you raw protein if he wants
Vrenn breveted Ensign for the rest of the cruise and given injured Kotkhe’s Helm position
P80 three cruisers, in Spearhead formation. A drone, too small to register, relayed image and data.
Communications Officer, drone operator. Sensor operator. 
The short syllables of Battle Language
Helm, action. Affirm, action.
Acting.
Weapons preheat
Shields attack standard
Each command was no longer than a single word. Acknowledgements just snaps of the tongue.
Kill, the same in plain or Battle language.
Triplet disruptors knifed down, blue light
zan Kandel, communications
commit?
Power to shields and weapons. We still fight.
A plasma bolt struck Death Hand’s hanger deck from the rear 
Squadron Leader, the Force Leader wants to know if you intend to land his Marines.
Flat-thinker, Kodon snarled
Death Hand sends intent to abandon and destruct. A Captain did not abandon until the gravest extreme.
As clear to him as the naked stars around them all
Felt death in his liver
Flier in klin zha has ability to leap over others
Cruiser’s narrow forward boom, broad main wing
Invitation to Naval officers aboard.
MY Ensigns are transporting now. I hope they find much glory with you. 
This need not be said.
Death Hand’s Executive officer is dead. Captain Kadi to die with ship.
Kill Roms, with your Black Ship, Kadi.
After this death, no more for them. [not going to the Black Fleet for stupid death]
Signal code TAZHAT.
Yellow lines, then green, then blue.
Engaged warp drive, the stars blazed violet
Weapons officer on Blue Fire female
Kai, it must be Captain Kadi that the Squadron leader hailed
Communications officer, Navigator, Dronesman. 
Signal them anything and I’ll have your throat out
That is what a real threat from Kodon sounds like
High heat and moister comfortable
Kurrozh
It was an old trick to threaten the one and punish the other. 
Kelag, crew from Death hand, Vrenn’s new roommate
Most ensigns have K names, ennobling the name at official promotion
Female Romulan Mission Clerk in agonizer cube, cushioned chair, runs live on ship’s entertainment channel and in the Inspirational Theatres.
Green outline of body, blue traces of major nerves, yellow crosses where agonizers were focused.
Specialist Examiner
Kodon’s Squadron stopped at an Imperial outpost, three Romulans there claimed diplomatic protection, Kodon was not interested. Outpost commander. Ambassador cut her own throat by Romulan ritual. Rom Naval Attache mis-set the controls on pistol, Kodon gave him to the surviving Marines from Death Hand. 
Thick air
Three days to Aviskie at warp 4.
Rank badges on her vest
Just until his promotion came through in cold metal
Rental room in Aviskie Column Five, Vrenn and Gunner have sex, dark, damp, fog, incense in bedside holder
Ensign Merzhan and Navy Commander Koll with silver Detached Service sash, two armed enforcers from the port complement
Vrenn’s Lt. rank marks on his sash
Commander Koll, Commander Kev and 
Captain Kessum of Two Fingers. Two fingers of right hand
Rectangular object with antenna, small flickering lights, blocks even Security’s  listening devices, sensor jammer
Secret negotiations between Komerex Romulan and a faction within the Komerex Klingon, trying to establish neutral zone between the Komerxi. Such a treaty has often been proposed in the Imperial Council and discarded, an accomplished fact might have been accepted. An excuse of destruction of Klingon frontier vessels n charting or colonization missions. Treaty conspirators identified from decrypted Romulan documents. Thought Admiral Kethas epetai-Khemara.
Kolon and Kev think Krenn ignorant of plot and offers him independent command of small frontier scout, Navy.
Khesterex thath.
Captain Kessum said formally – If the one hesitates for the breaking of the chain of duty, let certain terms of the negotiation by stated. The Roms wanted proof of the negotiators’ intent, and got information on the next frontier raid. 
Strategy, that least Klingon of sciences.
Scout Captain Krenn tai-Rustazh, The line was extinct, the name was free for use.
80 days on exploratory cruise. Tape of deaths of Kethas and Rogaine. Competent kills, as the law of assassination specified, they were taped to verify the competency of the killing. Two house kuve also killed, Odise, Tirian flung out of flier. 
It simplifies things enormously when honor claims are absent
Sciences Specialist Akhil. His oldest uncle was on a ship under a Captain of the Rustazh line.
Part Two: The Naked Stars [2239]
Negotiation may cost far less than war, or infinitely more: for war cannot cost more than one’s life.  Klingon Proverb
Zan Kafter
Captain Krenn vestai-Rustazh, Imperial Klingon Cruiser Fencer
Captures 12 th Willall boxy starship.
Willall making very serious raids into Imperial space. shooting and swooping.
Willall shorthand klingonaase for their name for themselves.
Krenn and Engineer had put on environmental suits and gone probing through one of the Willall wrecks. Found weak structural points, where low-intensity disruptor shots would break main superconducting lines to the warp engines, sever the Agaan Tubes. Now Fencer wrapped up Willall and sent them to the Emperor.
Willall, look like unbaked dough, putty sculptures, soft and colorless kuve, speech sound like bubbles in stew, some kind of group command structure.
The Willall crew flooped agreement
Krenn puts a prize crew aboard captured ships. Two had never arrived.
Ensign Kian in charge, crewmen and Marines
Win a banner in the Year Games
Portable computer goes with those in command, special set of navigational routines.
Klingons, Romulans, Andorians would have found a way to attack their captors even if they were almost all certain to die. 
Humans and Kinshaya were almost too devious to leave alive as prisoners. 
Perhaps the geneticists were right and something in the kuve blood and flesh made kuve.
Petty officer at transporter controls.
Akhil, Captain Krenn’s own transporter operator. Nickname ‘Khil.
Authentic heroes’ sendoff
Akhil has some reasonable fake Saurian brandy.
Thought Ensign nickname follows Krenn.
Bath of hot salt water
Kalitta, Communications Officer. 
Yellow-2 priority message from Navy Command. 
Immediate recall of Fencer to Klinzhai, the homeworld.
Krenn saw him chew his tongue
Hot yellow eyes
Bring home glory
The klin is already in you
112 days to reach Klingon homeworld from far on the fringe of the spiral arm.
Warp 4.85 for the first 20 plus days
Not many of the officers and crew of Fencer had visited Klinzhai
Ultimate of leave worlds, paradise with hotel service
Three cruiser escort waits for them in high orbit.
The ship’s cone of fire, field of fire
Security team in dress armor, wearing light weapons.
Throne City
Communicator and computer were both khex, non functioning
Clearprint on the wall of a D4 cutting up a Kinshaya supercarrier
Particle Transporter signal could be relayed
Captain Koll, silver sash of Detached Service. Captain’s stars
Heavy set Admiral Kezhke zantai-Adion
Operations Master Meth of Imperial Intelligence, Tall powerfully built Security officer without badges of specific rank, which meant very high rank. Security supergrade. Answerable to no one but the Emperor. Most of his facial flesh was cosmetic plastic. Hands also surfaced with plastic.
Krenn knew Navy officers who feared Imperial Intelligence as they did not fear to die cowards. He had heard that Security feared them
Four spherical glasses and a bottle of Saurian brandy.
You’ve got a stormwalker’s dinner of a record
Saurian brandy gives a wonderful kick in the liver
How often best qualified for a special mission meant most expendable
So, bite deep
A year at warp 4 in each direction, outside Klingon holdings. To the Federation. They want to send an ambassador. A ship must travel under peace signals to bring the one. The Imperial Council has agreed to the Federation idea that a ship bearing an Ambassador must not have combat.
Komerex federazhon
Only a servitor goes blindly to the death.
I serve the Empire but I am not the Empire’s servitor
Computer cassettes, navigational tapes, a message of introduction from the Council, a dream-learning tape of the federation language, no regular dreams.
Language by RNA transfer also, human
A native fedegonaase speaker, freshly spun down
Tune and trim
Hail the mission and its success
The underofficer, operates transporter
Loose energy, from transport monitors half way up, khests the security monitors
Kahless, the greatest of all Emperors, had died in war
Kahless, known as The One Who Is Remembered
Much glory, Captain Krenn
The air turned to fire above the diamond grid of the cargo transporter
Keppa, Cargomaster, coding wand, invoice plate, registered load on portable computer
whitefang steaks
small scribe panel
Institutes of Research for Language, dream learning Fed Standard tapes, black plastic boxes
Press for a lift car, long ride from cruiser’s lowest tail deck, up the shaft of the boom to the command pod. Car doors
The crew enjoyed themselves but nobody’s dead
Koplo and Aghi, long-term leave
Kalitta badly beaten up outside a bar, port patrols ran off some Marines
Dark as the void
Blue lights = that’s right
Maktai, Security Commander
Lt. Kelly, Electronics, Communications. Two years to repair Gelly’s arm, metal implant, she is not a Klingon-Romulan. Went straight to Naval Technical school.
Officer’s Mess.
Warm black ale and plain pastry with pale butter
Zharn’s neck was broken
Pleasant rest.
Pozhalasta prishl’yiti bagazh
Disputed Zone
Using Battle Language automatically
Kagga’s crown
Imperial code name HOKOT for Fed Mann class ship.
Kelly, Akhil also learn Standard
Krenn, Captain of the IKV Fencer, my intention is to enter your space, on a prearranged diplomatic mission
Meets Admiral Luther Whitetree, commanding Task Force K, aboard USS Glasgow. Do you have proof of your identity?
What in Keth’s hundred years
Escorted to SB 6
Maktai comment overheard on open channel – Five khest’n cruisers. Are they cowards of such great degree?
P119 Fencer’s crew more than 300
If we don’t have a kherx on the staging floor
Fed doesn’t have particle transporters
Two honor guards preceded Krenn
Senior Diplomatic representative to SB 6 Takashi Onoda speaks rather good klingonaase.
Vulcan Captain Sinon, Starfleet attache
Please, Krenn had had a hard time getting used to the word
The Medical Corp would have Whitetree’s ass for antimatter if he gave Krenn prune juice
Krenn – I have killed a few who insulted me but I do not think you mean any insults.
Whitetree unaware the Empire used female officers. But they don’t command ships
Krenn – Why would we waste an intelligent one with talent?
Whitetree’s son was killed by Klingons. Rickenbacker-class Flying Fortress, a Maximum Security Transport, hijacked by pirates using a fake distress message from a fake Federation scout. A patrol was scrambled when automatic alarm sounded. The pirates fled, Krenn knows of this incident, those who fled were executed, for cowardice. Kethas planned the raid.
Kethas’ name is known to Whitetree, Starfleet. The Klingon Yamamoto.
Whitetree hates Klingons, was sent out to be firm with diplomatic mission.
The only truth about death is that it is death, and the end.
Starfleet – Klingon brawl on SB 6. 26 Klingons. The Klingons were trading Rom boarder stories with the Fed fringe-patrol. 
Like How many Roms does it take to change a transtator? One to change the ‘stator, and 150 to blow up the ship out of shame.
Feds speaking disrespectfully about Lt. Kelly. 
Krenn – Was the combat started by Klingons?
Lt. Kalim grilled by Krenn, Akhil and Maktai. Konli, Ens. Kintata, also involved in brawl. 
Admit one had been drinking with non-officers. 
Many Klingon Marines named Marks
Came to laser-locked attention
Humans can take a lot of hitting, but they’re slow. The human stunner are not effective against Klingons even after eight or nine hits. The Klingons did suffer six dislocated jaws. Humans like to punch at the jaw. 
The Exec has a punishment detail in mind for you.
The translator pipe – confined to quarters during non-duty or meal hours until the ship reaches Earth. Confined to ship during duration of earth stay.
No one’s going downside on Earth
Carry dress weapons
It isn’t the bite, it’s the showing of teeth
Krenn realizes the humans expect Klingons to show teeth, to bite, but overreacting to a single ship makes humans feel silly. This has enormous power over them.
Vulcans consent to having a piece of their brain cut out, just so they can live among Klingons, watch how they live
Krenn has seen humans after days in the agonizer cube
Dr. Emanuel Tagore speaks quite casual klingonaase.
P131 Klingons the subject of riots on earth at their arrival, many humans have lost relatives and friends to Klingon action. Admiral Marcus van Diemen had a brother killed on the frontier. That is why we must have peace. 
Land in White Sands, gravity-suspended train to Federa-Terra, in Florida, via Atlanta.
Partly through Maxwell Grandisson III’s efforts that the embassy to Klinzhai is being established. Grandisson is leader of Human movement that does not want space travel. Also Commodore Amos Blakeslee of Starfleet Exploration Command, retired, legless. Dr. Samuel Landers of the Inner Space Corporation. The Klingons are going to be told that humans have to grow in the direction of Klingon Empire, that if they don’t grow they’ll die. Grandisson wants the Klingons to know humans don’t need their space, they don’t need the space they’ve got now. All we need is earth. The earth is all we want. The homeworld Movement.
Humans don’t know the Homeworld’s name is Klinzhai.
Klingon day somewhat longer than earth
You have authentic knowledge.
Tagore knows things from Vulcan reports, books and tapes that filter from Klingon into Federation, in Orion loot and Rigellian trading hulls. A Klingon spy was captured on Argelius III and the one had dozens of books and tapes a closetful of them. Tagore was called in to read them for Starfleet Intelligence.
Krenn coming to like kafei
Battlecruiser Vengeance is still in production
Tagore knows Klingons have no tradition of ghosts or revenants, no rites for the dead. 
The Klingon Empire has been a very convenient devil for some 20 years.
Any ship disappearance has fallen prey to the savage Klingon. From the Galactic Bermuda Triangle to the Klingon Twilight Zone.
Klingonaase idiom of twenty-plus years.
First contact with the komerex klingon was, 22 Standard years ago, 20 years Klingon standard, as far as Tagore knows.
Krenn knows the first Federation ships had been taken by the Empire fully 30 years ago, 30 Klingon years. Obviously no prize had reported its fate for a long time.
Krenn likes the idea of a war of a thousand years, dynastic lines ruling over lines of battle, 50 generations born and dying in the pursuit of a single glory. A war like that would mark worlds deeply, so that if, a million years after, when all the warriors were dust, a new race should come upon the space, they would know what had happened there.
Tagore’s teeth were square-cornered, without points
Tagore would stand between two Empires, like waves of the sea, or colliding stars, and hold them apart. Absurd, silly, insane.
The Willall and the Tellarites were all hollow great words
Kafei not good cold
Krenn and Akhil were the only Klingons on Earth, at least the only Klingons known to be on Earth. A group of protesters burned a wooden model of a D4 cruiser. Krenn laughed, no one had told him Humans believed in primitive magic. 100,000 protestors along train route
Time display on communicator
Klingonaase, klingoneeze
The whole significance of the aase suffix,that the language is the tool for manipulating the embodiment of the klin principle.
Deeper than blood runs in the liver
It was a Vulcan calculation that a culture’s lifespan was either some fifty years after basic fission was discovered, or else indefinite.
Any Imperial officier would have hailed the trick.
You honor your craft and your line.
He understood which of the leader’s paths she had mastered, the way of greater cunning
Deceleration in a combat maneuver when the deckplates were already straining
Krenn says Aleichem shalom to Colonel Rabinowich
Klingons are on earth to make peaceful contacts. 
No one told Grandisson the Klingons spoke Standard.
It was one of the most gently delivered absolute commands Krenn had ever heard.
The carved wood chairs with leather padding were not really comfortable for Klingon anatomy.
There is probably not anyone inside of twenty parsecs with any experience of Klingon medicine.
Grits almost as bad as Romulan emergency rations
Soft-cooked eggs required mechanical mastery, but good, if bland
Peach nectar was blood-thick and incredible. The coffee was void-black and incredibly strong.
Krenn wondered, if Grandisson was so powerful, how the Fed managed to tax his wealth.
It was simpler in the Empire. One had the komerex zha, one was always safe in assuming the other player was the enemy, the next move a trap.
Krenn will take Grandisson’s message that not all humans want Klingon territory. 
Krenn – We have a word, komerex, your translator probably told you it means Empire. But what it means truly is the structure that grows. It has an opposite, khesterex, the structure that dies. We are taught, by leaders, that there are no other cultures than these. In my years as Captain I have seen nothing to indicate that my teaching was wrong. there are only Empires, and kuve. This is the change Grandisson wants to make for humans. Krenn will take the message, but there are none Klingon who will believe it.
P152 two days of opening ceremonies
Krenn discovered that Earth made some excellent black ales
Krenn meets with political and military, Akhil meets with scientists
Krenn hoped he was misunderstanding the Fed anthem’s lyrics. 
No one shot anyone else, at least while Krenn was present
Trade, peace Neutral Zone discussed. It was suggested that a true Neutral Zone in space be established, they could not, Krenn thought with distasteful irony, have known just how empty a thought that was
The komerex zha was for something
Krenn sank into a warm bath, Humans did know how to build a bath
After the 26 th Point Governing the Treatment of Federation Prisoners, Krenn stood up, excused himself in Fed-Standard, said in klingonaase that he must have time to think, and used all he knew of the Kinshaya language to curse the Humans and their riding animals
The one is well?
The one asks the wrong question
Does the one know what will happen, Krenn said feeling rage tearing at him, if this proposal is set before the Imperial Council? Orion pirates take hostages for ransom. Kuve in desperation take hostages for their lives. And now the Federation shows us more rules than a Vulcan would make about selling hostages!  I will tell you what the Klingon law of hostages is: A dead thing is without value.
Tagore – Klingons do take prizes. For the Year Games and the Thought Masters of Medicine.
Krenn – Of course, how else to supply them?
Tagore – And prizes have value
Krenn was puzzled – This need not be said
Krenn had an unsettling thought – Are many Klingons taken? He thought about the Human fondness for stunning weapons. He knew that the Fed kept its criminals in cages, for years, or their lives. The idea made him slightly sick. 
Tagore – There are not many. But it is a common belief that the Klingons take no living prizes at all. If more knew what Klingons do with prisoners, a thousand warships would be going to Klinzhai, not a diplomat. Too many are dying for fear’s sake right now, but it is nothing compared to those who will die if those fears take their true shape and if the naked stars see what we have done to one another.
There was a clear fluid running from Tagore’s eyes. Tears. Krenn vaguely recalled that pain brought them. 
A cruiser squadron escorts a convoy of freighters as a matter of course
Krenn wondered if this was a trapped move in the game
The thinness of earth air causes Klingon hearing to diminish
Krenn had been a privateer, he had never taken Fed prizes, he had killed with his hands, and his teeth.
If you drink something strong, you don’t mind losing
Akhil is an astronomer, not a geneticist
Akhil had called off incoming fire as if it concerned him not at all, the exec could tear a slacking junior officer into raw protein with his voice. It was very rare that Akhil was angry, it was not a loud effect. 
The sharpest knives are the quietest.
Sarek of Vulcan says fusion techniques were only recently perfected by Vulcan scientist. If that gets back to the Imperial Institutes of Research there are going to be some tharavul headed back to Vulcan, Warp 4, without a ship around them.
If it could be found that a Vulcan could lie, the tharavul would soon be more than just deaf telepathically.
Pleasantly dim after the Earth-level lighting
P159 there is a phrase we use at the conclusion of our game, klin zha.
Zha riest’n, teskas tal’tai-kleon. Thank you for a pleasant game
No insult was meant
None was assumed
Sa tel’ren = two out of three
Klingons do not resign.
Krenn had killed his first intelligent being when he was 7. A human starship crewman, a prize, in the Year’s Games. The human had shouted challenge into Krenn’s face even as he died. It was an honorable death and a glorious kill.
If I go to the Black Fleet, what matter that I go a little slowly?
One who serves his ship well, in the life we see, will serve on a ship of the Fleet when this life ends. In the Fleet there is the death that is not death, because not the end; there is the enemy to be killed a thousand times, and each time return; and there is the laughter.
Full name and honorific
Fed, Rom, others, without kleoni, what would be the purpose?
Kahless is not forgotten. When his ship was dying he had his hand bound to his Chair, that no one could say he left it, or that another had been in the Chair at the ship’s death. Then all his crew could escape without suspicion, because Kahless had taken on all the ship’s destiny.
Kahlesste kaase, we say. Kahless’s Hand.
Krenn – his mother was not of his father’s race.
Krenn’s liver pinched. Touching a Vulcan’s hand opened the path for the touch of their minds. And that touch could pull out thoughts that the agonizer or the Examiner’s tools could never reach. 
Amanda, wife of Sarek, looks at Krenn with intense hatred and fear.
Krenn – You would fight for your line. That is a good thing. I think that is the best honor I know. You fear the Klingon. In this is no need for apology.
Krenn believes young Spock is worthy of the starts. 
P164 the ComInt man had told Amb. Tagore that a Klingon communications set would be bugged.
Ship’s laundry doesn’t synthesize from basic fiber, as Fed ships’ do.
Krenn refers to Dr. Tagore as Thought Master.
Another gagny hologram show?
He would die spitting challenge at them, and not all of them would live to hear his last words
If I’m wrong, Akhil said coolly, kill me first.
Krenn snapped a line of Battle Language
Akhil stood, muttering – Don’t want to land on my butt. And flickered golden, and evaporated without a sound.
Krenn – Our physicists will indeed be interested. They will want very much to know why your system makes that terrible noise.
Specialist Antaan. Analyzes Fed transporter beam
Fencer had indeed had sensors trained on them the whole time. Just like home. 
You’re pointing to it, I see it – Krenn said patiently.
superheterodynes in transporter signal. 
Disrupting wave in disruptor is invisible, but the disruptor beam is blue
Fed transporter is 20 percent higher power cost than Klingon.
Be able to hear a boarding party a boom’s-length away.
Main ceiling struts
Captain’s chain always capitalized Chair.
Glasgow, Savannah and Hokkaido escort Fencer from earth
Tagore’s room on Fencer has clearprints on the walls, newly installed furniture, much larger than he expected. It used to be Krenn’s office. Has its own washroom and an individual lock code. Krenn will be using the Exec’s office down the corridor. Not much office work this cruise. 
Maktai, Security chief – We do not search others’ property without cause.
On this deck of the pod there are only Krenn’s office, the Exec’s office, forward transporter rooms at the corridor ends, and ship’s computers.
Mak, Akhil and Krenn living quarters three decks below in the pod.
Krenn had played a thousand games of klin zha on just such a flat black computer terminal electronic game grid.
We scanned his equipment for weapons, routine, you know the drill. Nothing. G’dayt, I’d been thinking he had something that our scanners couldn’t pick up.
Kagga’s crown, he’s not kuve.
Ten days across the Zone, in Klingon space again
gel pastry and kafei
What honor is there in playing a machine whose only function is to win?
At least the Ambassador never tried to resign from a game
Tagore gives Krenn lessons in pokher.
If you were armed, you could fight me for this
When they ask why you go unarmed like a kuve, what can the Federation be worth to you since you will not fight for it.
Perhaps he went into the Empire like a Romulan, to find his death close to the enemy’s heart.
He knew he had been beaten, by one unarmed. 
Teskas tal’tai-kleon
Vest and tunic.
Idle lights on communicator panel
Usual duty arms, heavy disruptor pistol
Communicator panel, key to access lock. Wall panel swung open, exposing a maze of components. Akhil took a rectangle of green circuit board from his sash, slipped it between two junction blocks. If one of Maktai’s crew takes a look they’ll get noise. cargo modules, invoice plate. Insulated food box. Uncoiled the cord of a coding wand. Wipe the wand over the code lines, read the terminal screen
Cold-sleep capsules
zentaar haunch for dinner. Feds consider zentaars an intelligent species
I suppose it’s an honorable debt we own him, for this
Parkhest
Rapid action. Acting
Krenn noted carefully where the Security chief put the small projectile pistol he favored for light work. 
Krenn could not order Mak to dome unarmed; the one would have known he went to arrest, if not execution, and that must not happen until Krenn knew who else was part of the mutiny. And it was possible still that they would not have to execute more than a few crewmen, as strong example. It was not necessarily a crime to consider mutiny. Kelly looked at Maktai, Mak gave a faint shake of his head.
Krenn felt his lips pull back, his liver turn to lead.
What in the name of the Nameless Emperor is this?
Whitefang and zentaar carcasses stood ranked along the inner walls of the cargo module, impaled on frost-covered rods.
Akhil’s fingers thrust into the base of Krenn’s skull, a shock ran down Krenn’s spine and he fell forward. 
G’dayt, v’kasse.
Freeze the stumps before you bleed out.
Slug-thrower, a small weapon
Light sonic, a small weapon
No Klingon would require excuses of a Captain threatened with mutiny.
Kelly - Captain, permission to speak?
Krenn - For the duration of the crisis, Kelly
Kelly – Did the Captain suspect this one from the first?
Krenn – Yes. 
The cold was in his lungs like death’s own hand now.
Mak keeps agonizer in his sash, near his pistol. 
Agonizer metal cylinder, applied to neck. Check setting. Mak’s limbs twitched.
Krenn has seen frostbite, the flesh went greenish-black and sloughed away like bark from a dead tree.
The wall communicator had been shot apart.
Boom corridor two decks up from cargo hold, then three more decks up to Tagore’s room.
It wasn’t muscle keeping Mak up, but pure klin
You’re no use to me as you are, and less use dead.
There was not enough pain in Akhil’s body to pay for all of this
Transporter, a flat plane of rhomboidal segments.
Transporter in cargo hold, also Starboard stage, Pod Deck 4. Portside transporter just out of sight around the curve of corridor.
The Unassigned pool, they must master as many skills as possible, to more often get out of the pool and on a ship.
One door along the forward wall was open, Earth-bright light spilled out
He might be a long time too late
Tagore’s game grid was shattered by a disruptor bolt, in pieces on the table.
The door to the inner room had been burned open. 
Sound of a fresh charge slide going into a weapon
Don’t force me to kill you. It isn’t necessary. Mak can be an execution. Someone has to die for killing the human, it’s not going to be me and why should it be you? The Navy won’t mind, it’s the Security chief after all. But it has to be one of us, anyone any lower and they’d fry us for incompetence. 
Tagore must not get to the Imperial Council
His midsection felt like a bowl of lumpy pudding
They dared not use weapons in the Computer Room. The heavily shielded security door moved inward, then slid aside. 
He could kill Fencer and all of them, by killing Fencer’s brain.
The pistol buzzed dry of charge.
Klingons always lock doors
Kelly is an Imperial Intelligence agent. 
Akhil was working for
The call came to announce that Akhil’s body had been transported into space at maximum beam divergence. Krenn acknowledged.
Tagore speculates that the energy, stress from not venting grief at death helps to drive Klingon culture, to expand, to conquer. Their environment is hostile, the life-cycle is short and rapid.
Nal komerx, khesterex.
Klingons do not weep as many races do. A different set of facial nerves is stimulated by stress. The Klingon in deep emotion bares his teeth, as if to say stay away until this feeling is past. 
20 days after the incident there was still a plastic splint on Krenn’s hip. He made a good deal of noise in motion
Fencer’s Surgeon had again replaced Kelly’s joint with a new metal one.
Operations Master Meth is never concerned with methods, only results.
Meth only uses those he controls.
Kelly does not know what manner of fusion she is, so that children might be created. She cannot be trusted and she is not Klingon.
Part Three: The Falling Tower [2243]
P189 26 select members of the Imperial Council sat and reclined. Large Navy faction. Some Marine officers, several political Specialists, 2 Imperial Planetary Governors. Half a dozen tharavul standing behind the Klingons they served-observed. A few servitors carried food, drink and incenses. They were tharkuve, deaf.
Audience Chamber, enormous, multisided room. Random panels of colored and reflective glass near ceiling. Imperial trefoil woven into the carpet, ten meters long. There was a throne in the Chamber but it was empty. A crown rested on it, in token of the Emperor’s presence.
Captain Krenn sutai-Rustazh, nearly 25, addresses audience, not allowed notes. Report of the Imperial Contacts Branch.
Supply of arms to the worlds Tcholin III and Wilda’s Planet has caused the dominant factions to favor the Empire as a partner in development. All inexpensive sonics. No transtator technology. Four more worlds along the Alshanai Rift have made advances of peace. They will not commit to abandoning the Federation, but they have been made to understand that the Fed cannot protect them from Orion pirates. If this technique is to be expanded, it will be necessary to simulate Orion attacks, as the cost of purchasing actual pirate attacks will become unacceptable. 
Adm. Kezhke, aging and still overindulgent. Adm. Kodon, the hero of the Romulan Frontier.
vird’dakaasei, Fed translates the word as disruptor, regardless of their actual operating mode
Emperor Kadrya had chosen iron as the substance for his crown. Nearly 60. In time he will die and the Council will fight for the crown. 
Generally a free choice of substance
Keth the Centenarian had presumed to wear imperishable gold. No one since him had chosen gold. 
General Kagga, despite that he was under sentence of death for rebellion had been granted the accession, allowed to reign for the twentieth part of one day, and executed upon the throne. Kagga’s crown had been branded on the flesh around his skull.
There were polite nods. Krenn saluted and went out of the chamber.
Home stations generally have three discs.
Klingons rarely had direct implants, wary of taps, of mind control, of feedback signals to set the mechanism burning.
Tagore addressed Council members in Audience Chamber about exchange of athletes between Year Games and Pan-Federation Olympics. This would reduce the need for prizes to fight in the Games and allow trials other than deadly combat. There are already many such events in the Year Games, and they are honorable. Prevent the passage of damaging medical data by using medical tricorders.
Dr. T’Riri, tharavul to Thought Master Ankhisek.
The assassin’s gun may believe it is a surgeon’s laser. But the assassin must know the task.
Kezhke has strong beliefs about Krenn.
Commander Maktai
Lt. Commander Kelly, Mirror communications and Executive Officer
Ranks are not difficult to obtain. Authority is rather more so.
You understand the mission, you are ready for cruise
The Red File will be transferred aboard just before you depart
You serve the Empire, and very well. But some of your loyalty is always reserved for yourself. This is true of all Klingons. It is true of the Emperor. 
Meth – You think there is a komerex zha, but there is only the komerex.
Strong scent of herbs from pale liquid
Pleasant voyage, Captain
Fencer still exists, still Krenn’s. 
Mirror, new Class D5, most changes only visible. Interior the same, stateroom for passenger on the officers’ deck.
Maktai, three fingers on one hand, lost in freezer
It had taken a long time to teach Mak that folding was not the same as resignation, that the courage of the game pokher was not in throwing resources into a pot already lost.
Maktai has been playing pokher with Krenn, and losing
Fruit drops
Many UFP members do not want a single ambassador to represent them to the Empire. They want to make their own deals.
Savannah II meets Mirror at the far side of the Zone. Krenn wonders who had destroyed the first of that name. Douglas Tancred Shepherd younger looking than other Human Admirals Krenn had seen. Moderately pale skin by Human standards, a remarkable bushy growth of hair down the sides of his face and over his upper lip.
Captain Krenn, he said, in reasonably god klingonaase without translating machine.
Krenn wondered about that: would the Human so casually admit to a Klingon that the frontier patrols were stretched thin? Yet there were still the hunter-killer squadrons. So perhaps it was a challenge, however slight.
Krenn wanted to ask if Whitetree had died well, but Shepherd already showed discomfort, and Humans had too many ideas about death to be all comprehended.
Someday, he thought, I will meet you, Whitetree, in the Black Fleet, and kill you a thousand times laughing. And perhaps you will even kill me, for the glory of your son.
Ensign Kreg, Communications.
Lt. Klimor takes the conn.
Eight decks down in pod to the Intelligence Operations level. Interrogation room to the left. Internal Surveillance Room to the right. Security could monitor any part of the ship at will. 
Mirror did not have continuous Internal Surveillance. Special Communications instead. Three rows of consoles, cluster of displays. Only Maktai can open the door. Those within cannot leave at will. Kelly maintaining level of screens Feds expect. Guns off. Hold empty. 
Zha riest’n.
Reflective Game was Kethas’s game.
Krenn, age 25, has 20 or 30 years left.
Maktai has lost dreams, learning Federation
The Empire was asked by several Fed worlds to send an observer to the Babel conference at Federa-Terra on earth. 131 delegates have asked for interviews with the Klingon representative.
540 members of the Federation, Shepherd said, with just the right klingonaase inflection for irony.
Contacts Branch knew most of the planets. Some they knew very well indeed. Krenn mentally crossed those off at once. 
Humanai kuvest’?
Komerex Romaan
Maskan’s liver
Klingons do not believe in bribery
Krenn showed the points of his side teeth.
Children’s indoctrination tapes
News channel tape of Mak - g’dayt ugliest Klingon I’d ever seen, all fangs and scars, and were talking about him as if he was just one of the Imperial Race.
Fliers with weapon pods
Flat black display panel, small keyboard, metal box that unfolded in for stages to become a meter-wide antenna array. Cables linked all the devices together. The display screen showed first noise, then a data line.
warp-accelerated transport signal
Science officer Antaan had devised the technique to beam through shields
P208 A hand tried to touch a neural scanner to his ear, he snarled and swept it away. Same as an agonizer, only wired differently.
forward Theatre, Inspirational Theatre
Auloh, Surgeon Specialist
The Fed has won concessions from the Klingon Empire, which not 10 years ago was thought to be beyond the reach of reason
Clearprints come off printer, warm,
Sometimes death is better, death is the end.
Sickbay three decks up from Inspirational Theatre
Mastiform-D, Tri-Ox and four times the therapeutic dose of Cordrazine 
Call if he goes over the lines. Medical yellow critical ranges. Wax stylus.
Zharn’s mission record is full of glory. Zharn has a reflex to attack anyone in physical contact.
Dr. Thomas Jackson McCoy – If even some of what I hear about your culture is true, Klingon authorities won’t be any too happy at his helping Kelly.
Cargomaster Keppa – We’ll have to do a little midnight requisitioning.
Small plastic card with Carter Winston’s name on it. Flexed the card, it cracked across, the pieces glowed orange and were burning whitely before the touched the bottom of the wastebasket.
Krenn brings Red File pouch to meeting with Shepherd and Carter Winston. Unauthorized descrambles of Marcus van Diemen planning covert attacks on Klingon space.
A wide amber band stretched from one corner to the other of transparent starmap. This is the zone of space which the Federation calls the Klingon Neutral Zone.
Speaking as a Naval Officer, I would think the best way to test their validity would be to examine the pattern of skirmishes across the Neutral Zone.
Van Diemen was trying to draw the Klingons into a war. Sending crews out deliberately to be killed. We’d never dare dissolve the Federation if we thought some alien menace was waiting to gobble us up. Carter Winston was for unity because he was afraid of the Klingons.
Krenn – In this there is no need for apology.
Shepherd – Are you telling us, Captain, that the Klingon Empire has no desire for war? That every shoot-out on the frontier has been provoked by Starfleet? For that matter, are you telling us that the Klingons even minded having an excuse to attack across the Zone.
Krenn smiled, showing teeth. Winston paled slightly.
Krenn – I am telling you one thing only. I intend to release this file to the Babel conference. Being no diplomat I cannot calculate its effects. But I would expect them to be strong. The killing of van Diemen would be seen as no more than the shooting of a mad dog
Tagore knows, the Klingon who comes as a friend will always be thought a liar.
Trade with the Klingon Empire is illegal, even though it happens on a regular basis. 
Krenn wants dilithium in exchange for the original file and destruction of all copies
5 carats of dilithium worth about 80,000 credits. Need high output lasers or antimatter to cut it.
Over two years ago a geophysicist at the Lalande 8 mining complex discovered that dilithium crystals could focus and channel the energy from antimatter annihilation reactions. Carter Winston, Resources Corporation of Deneva, owns Lalande 8. Krenn wants a copy of the scientific report.
Winston agrees.
The over 500 Babel delegates are all scared of the Klingons, even the ones that weren’t scared a couple of days ago. If the Red file is released, there won’t be an Fed citizens or any Fed or any Starfleet. Just 500 tiny little Empires. And the Klingons. And the Romulans.
Zharn kills Grandisson too.
Honored, Executive Kelly. 
Thought Master Ankhisek mended Zharn’s broken neck. Ankhisek is known for his brilliance. Zharn four times as fast. Frozen between missions. Ages 64 times faster than normal. Been on a lot of missions.
Did the one die well?
In his ship. With his hand on his weapon.
Then perhaps we will meet.
Klingonaase would never do to say – You must have loved her very much, to do that.
Klingons don’t believe in Hell
P236 Serkash II, one light day out form the Disputed Zone.
Navigator Kepool.
Helmsman Klimor
Grand strategic display – large scale map, Zone no more than a streak. Ship indicated by white three armed cross. Planet Serkash a circle. Across the Zone three blue crosses, annotations read Best Estimated Position.
Parking orbit.
Signal to surface
A planetary assault squadron two hours away. Its assignment is to destroy the colony, 12 million Fed citizens. It was in the Red file, deleted before it was handed over. 
Our Admirals are not different from yours.
Krenn has evaded escort. He intends to defeat the purpose of the squadron.
The bridge crew turned almost as one, to face Maktai.
Maktai in the coldest voice Krenn had ever heard him use – The Admirals have conspired to throw away Klingon lives as if they were kuve. This is no more than mutiny, and less honorable. Security stands with the Captain.
The sound that followed was not so much a cheer as collective relief.
Referendum 72, to close the Embassy to Klinzhai and recall the Ambassador, passed after Mirror had departed with Tagore for Klingon space. 
It is a Klingon faith as well, to understand what books have to say.
He had not intended that speech for Kelly or Mak, yet he had said it, as if he wanted it heard.
Antaan’s penetration technique would not work through Mirror’s shields, nor anyone else’s soon enough.
Have Engineering rig a Flag Commander’s Chair on the Bridge
P240 Mirror hung, wrapped in electronic silence 
Hostile squadron 2000 kilometers and closing. Three D4 cruisers in echelon. 
Weapons preheats completed. All circuits show blue lights. Take pre-locks. 
Drop sensor jamming and open RF [radio frequency] link to the squadron.
The tactical display seemed to show every weld and bolt and panel. Impulse drives glowing. 
Triangles bracketed the ships on the display. Prelocks
The main display showed a cruiser’s bridge, the view sparked slightly, radio frequency communication rather than subspace.
Captain Kian of Fury. Commanding a special attack squadron. If you are a privateer you may join us. There will be high glory.
Disruptors flared from Mirror, punching through thin rear shields on all three of the cruisers at once. 
This is mutiny! Kian shouted, his teeth showing to their roots.
Countermeasures.
Three-eight, three-five, three-three
Mirror slashed across the starboard wing of the center cruiser. The scar glowed yellow, then white as the fuel plant began to burn. But the warp nacelle did not separate. Klingon cruisers were larger, stronger, than Rom Warbirds
Security Option Two. Set for automatic destruct if we lose the Bridge. Maktai pushed buttons, takes out and inserts key
Maktai. Kelly, Krenn enter passwords non verbally. Option in force.
The sound of weapon-shield harmonics and curves bent on the Engineer’s displays.
Intercooler capacity
Precision fire
The Bridge deck on the forward pod exploded in a crown of fire.
Flight decompressed already
We would all go to the Black Fleet together. Is this not an acceptable outcome?
Humans met Death too late in their lives.
Zan Kepool, pressors on the khex, before their second Bridge can assume control.
The damaged ship began to drift, slowly on pressor trust. The other ships fired past it, then through it.
Kai kassai, klingoni.
Gunner, two projections on the far cruiser. Your discretion
Violent outgassing, cargo modules released into space. bombardment ordnance. They didn’t intend to capture the colony. 
What great glory that would have been, raining bombs.
Kian’s torn-winged center cruiser fired all its disruptors at once, six blue lights at Mirror.
Fire arced around Mirror’s bridge, every light went out. Someone cursed in klingonaase, Krenn could not tell who. But it was a male voice. the consoles lit again, then the dim red emergency lighting. One of the repeater screens in the Chair near his boot had shattered, fragments ripping Krenn’s trouser leg and the skin beneath. 
Hit the pod! The Gunner acted, firing without sensor locks. The beams tore crooked paths across the curve of Fury’s pod, skipping off metal, leaving traces burning red.
The self-destruct verification cycle takes 40 seconds for Security checks.
Fury’s trying to open link, RF channel.
Accept.
The enemy Bridge was burning. Captain Kian was slumped in his Chair. The Security Commander, Commander Merzhan, came into view, pushed the dead Kian out of the Chair. He sat down.
Krenn sutai-Mutineer
Before you claim victory, I have a message for you. It was given to me by General Margon zantai-Demma.
Fury’s boom is separating from main hull, on its internal impulse engines. It can still self-destruct, but by laser link, everything else is jammed.
Without looking away from the screen, Krenn stroked his figures on the command board.
General Margon said there would be a time to tell you this. Listen well: there were no survivors of the line Rustazh. None. There was only a lineless one of certain attributes, which zantai-Demma had a use for.
Do you understand, tokhe Human-straave’? does your kuveleta consort?
Krenn – Zan Klimor; this course.
The Helmsman looked at his order repeater.
Mirror cut Fury’s command pod into scrap.
There could be no taking Kian’s prize away from him. He was filled with klin. 
I take no pleasure in his death. I destroyed Merzhan in anger and not for any war that might or might not have been.
Three cylindrical assemblies of metal and crystal, more than a meter across and several meters long, glowing from within. At the core of each cylinder was an assembly of octahedral crystals, of a deep red-gold color. Dilithium.
Mirror is an intermediate design. The ship is always on the brink of overload. The D6 will make full use of dilithium focus. 
The Willall had dilithium, but they were kuve, so the Empire took it, as was only fitting.
Now Klingon has the Fed report, and knows how little the Fed have. Think as a Klingon.
The council will read the report and assume the truth is greater by a certain factor, and finally see themselves reflected.
The corridor from the lift door to the Transporter room was lined with ship’s officers; Mak’s doing, Krenn knew.
It has been an honorable mission even if not a glorious one.
There are kinds and kinds of glory. 
That which  is done before the naked stars is remembered. That’s history enough to make.
Whatever ship I have, in the White Fleet or the Black, there will be a place for you, epetai-Tagore. Even if you do not take it.
Only the Ship’s Surgeon may order medical leave. And the Surgeon may not be ordered in matters of medicine.
The atmosphere on the Bridge was foggy and thick, the temperature luxuriously higher than normal. They had earned it, and there was power to spare.
The war faction had almost gotten its wish, against a Fed that had dilithium, almost destroying the Contacts Branch ship carrying that crucial information back to the Empire.
The Intelligence Master said he valued the Empire above all things, certainly above any faction of councilors. 
The faction that had brought about the death of Thought Admiral Kethas would themselves die of an Imperial displeasure, killed by their own squadron of ships. The last move of the Reflective Game.
Three years ago Krenn had begun searching for Kelly’s past, and Zharn’s and almost by accident found his own. 
Information was power, secrets weapons. 
That he was not the son of Rustazh made him even more the son of Khemara. Gave him the weapon which Kethas had tried to arm him. The weapon of patience, against which Klingons had no defense. 
Course of Klinzhai, direct. 
Was not revenge the final reflection of sharing?
P252 Kirk thinks of the log entries he has made referring to Klingons as vicious, heartless murderers. He did that very casually. Certainly the Klingon record has been far from gentle. But he will be more careful now.
federazhon The United Federation of Planets.
fedegonaase UFP standard language
gagny Damned.
g'daya, g'dayt Undefined adjectives, roughly equivalent to "damned," but probably stronger.
kaase Hand.
Kahlesste kaase! "Kahless' hand," an oath referring to the story of the Emperor Kahless, who died with his hand tied to the controls of his ship in a battle against Romulans.
kai Hail, or "long live".
kai kassai The same, emphasized.
khesterex Literally, "the structure which dies."
khest To screw up.
khesterex thath Screwed up situation.
kherx A screw-up.
parkhest Damn!
khest'n Apparently interchangable adjectives, roughly equal
khest't to "damned."
kleon Enemy, or opponent.
klin That which is Klingon. One can be 'full of klin,' i.e., a worthy Klingon.
Klinzhai The Klingon homeworld
klingonaase The Klingonese language.
komerex Literally, "the structure which grows."
komerex Klingon The Klingon Empire.
komerex zha See 'zha' below.
kuve Servitor; alternative translation is slave.
kuvekhestat Worthless slave(s). See 'khest' above.
kuveleta Half-slave; an insult. Klingons mix races freely, but have cultural prejudices against some.
kuvesa tokhesa "I serve willingly."
tharkuve Deaf slave
tharavul Vulcan servitor, voluntarily lobotomized to remove the Vulcan's telepathic powers. 
nal Negating word
straave, straav' Slave.
tokhe straav' Willing slave. Just about the worst insult one can call a Klingon.
tai Worthy, honored.
epetai-zana Honored and exalted one.
tai-kleon Worthy opponent. See 'kleon' above.
Various forms of 'tai' are used to separate a given name from a line name. Distinctions between these are not clear, and all are honorifics added to the name during a career. Examples:
Krenn sutai-Rustazh
Kethas epetai-Khemara
Mabli vestai-Galann
Kezhke zantai-Adion
Khidri tai-Gensa
teskas Compliments, praise.
teskas tal'tai-kleonCompliments to a worthy opponent.
tokhe Willing. See 'straave' and 'kuve' above.
vird'dakaase Disruptor. Literally, "shake-till-falls-apart tool." 
zan Neutral title of respect; roughly equal to Mister.
zha Game.
klin zha The Klingon game (in several variations).
klin zha kinta The Klingon game with living pieces.
hum zha The Human game, chess.
rom zha The Romulan game, latrunculo.
komerex zha The perpetual game -- life. See 'komerex' above.
zha riest'n [It was a] pleasant game.
sa tel'ren Two out of three. One can't assume sa=2 and ren=3.
humanai kuvest' Either "human slave" or "slave of the humans."
tokhest' From context, "if he is willing or not." 
komerex tel khesterex interjection, probably "grow or die."