Reichenbach Falls
Stardate: 93199.1
If it was any other office, there would be looming wisps of cigarette smoke. If it was on Earth in a 20th century Noir film instead of a Klingon Battlecruiser it would be colored in shades of gray instead of bloodwine red. If it had been the Captain’s ready room of any other KDF officer there wouldn’t be a golden model of a Miranda Class Starfleet vessel on the wall collecting dead skin cells and errant targ fur. But because this was Kul’s wardroom, it was all of those things and more. A collective sum of all of their karmic cliches; the office of the down on their luck dick is always the same no matter the universe.
And then, on cue, the Dame walked in. She was, unimpressed.
Kul could tell. He could always tell.
“I wish you could give up on this foolish quest of yours,” Lorthu, his wife, said as she weaved her way elegantly through the clutter on the floor.
“I gave my word,” he resumed flicking through the open tabs on his console.
“I don’t see why it still matters to you, he’s gone now.”
Kul gave a low growl, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Lorthu’s soft tone hung thicker in the air than any smoke would have, “You never give me the chance to understand.”
“It’s important to me.”
“Obviously,” that tone of hers was perfect for the ancient matron of a proud Great House. Kul was right when he picked her. “But the thing I don’t understand is why it is more important than anything else.”
Kul waited, and stared; he always fared better on the reprise with Lorthu.
“You let Kargas die.”
“Kargas was dead before I even took command,” his eyes rolled.
“All the same you did nothing to stem it, or at least steal the name and resources. I know it wasn’t too hard for you, but you let it coast on its path to ruin all the same. It wasn’t like you.”
“My hearts weren’t in it.”
“And they weren’t in the ship’s assignments? When I met you you would leap at any assignment you thought had potential. Since the Undine you’ve been too cautious. Even against the Iconians. I would have thought fighting the Iconian’s would have made you a war hero.”
“Those weren’t traditional wars.”
“Traditional wars or winnable wars?”
He shot a laser glare, “It was more important to save who and what we could, if there was ever going to be anything left after the war.”
“And what happened then? There was a huge power vacuum after the war and what did you do with it?”
There was a groan as Kul knew what was coming next.
“You were caught breeding tribbles. Of all things, Tribbles. The Great Kul vav ghajbe’ brought low by a tribble farm.”
“They were fools if they didn’t expect that type of thing to start happening as soon as a bounty was placed on collecting their corpses. Besides, I find them delicious.”
“I don’t. They are too fatty and no matter how they are cooked the fur gets stuck in-between my teeth.”
“Oh, no, don’t get me wrong. They taste terrible. But their screams and the looks on the Federation Officer’s faces when you eat the tribbles right in front of them; now that’s delicious.”
Lorthu couldn’t help the momentary laps and snickered while Kul reclined in his chair, she allowed him a moment before she attempted forging on again, “Make no mistake, I don’t mind that you were doing it. I don’t mind half the things you do. What I am upset about is that you let them catch you.”
“And now I have a stain on my Honor.”
“No,” she shook her head and finally sat down on his desk, “It should have been easy for you to avoid being caught. What I don’t understand is that you all but let it happen.”
“I…” he faltered, “was careless.”
“Why, Kul? I never thought losing a rival would bring you so low. And now you spend all day trying to find motivation. Trying to find a great scheme to pull it off,” she gestured at the computer, “trying to save as many lives you took while fighting against him, all at once.”
“If I had just put my nose to the grind stone ages ago I would be finished by now…” the echoes of the phrase ‘It’s a lot harder to save a life than it is to take one,’ drifted through his convalescent mind.
“It’s not even that,” Lorthu turned her head and looked down at her husband with only honesty in her eyes. “He’s gone. Why do you even bother with it anymore. Let it go.”
“Because it is the only thing I could do that would ever mean anything to him. It’s the only thing that would matter.”
“And what good is it now, he’s not here. You are.”
Kul said nothing in response at first. He only stood up and walked over to the golden miranda model and stared for a long time with her watching.
She waited for the truth, and he knew of all people he should be able to trust her with it.
“The truth is it’s the only thing I care about any more. My promise to him, his challenge to me. All my other plans, my other schemes, they don’t mean anything to me. I had hoped that starting a house with you, regaining my Honor after the fear of losing it, would give me a goal to strive for again but… It seems pointless now, and I can’t bring children into a house with no honor.”
“If you’d really have wanted children you’d have a lot better time of it if you didn’t have a mistress,” her glare was cold as condensation.
“Point… taken. But it proves what I am saying. Despite it being something I tell myself I want, I don’t want to do anything. With Traise gone I find myself revisiting his words; beyond being more than nothing, I am bored.”
“Have you ever put any thought into what he was to you, Kul?”
“He was my rival.”
“No, Kul. You spent so long without letting anyone in, without giving any aspect of yourself to another person, trusting no one beside yourself for anything, except him. You trusted him to drive you. He may have been the closest thing you let yourself have to a friend.”
“And now he’s not here.”
“And now he’s not here,” Lorthu repeated. “Oh, Kul, don’t let yourself be beaten by a man doing nothing.”
Kul smiled, “Well, I guess that would have fit his style, wouldn’t it?”