Star Trek: Klingon Empire: A Burning House
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Overview
They have been the Federation's staunchest allies, and its fiercest adversaries. Cunning, ruthless, driven by an instinct for violence and defined by a complex code of honor, they must push ever outward in order to survive, defying the icy ravages of space with the fire of their hearts. They are the Klingons, and if you think you already know all there is to learn about them...think again.
From its highest echelons of power to the shocking depths of its lowest castes, from its savagely aggressive military to its humble farmers, from political machinations of galactic import to personal demons and family strife, the Klingon Empire is revealed as never before when the captain and crew of the I.K.S. Gorkon finally return to their homeworld of Qo'noS in a sweeping tale of intrigue, love, betrayal, and honor.
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Author Information
Bio of Keith R. A. DeCandido
International best-selling author Keith R.A. DeCandido was born, raised, educated, and still lives in the Bronx. His Mom and Dad fed him a steady diet of Robert A. Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, and P.G. Wodehouse, which corrupted him for life -- not only instilling in him a great love of science fiction, fantasy, and silly British humor, but also likely being responsible for his pretentious insistence on using both his middle initials all the time. Keith has published over thirty novels, most of them in the realm of media tie-ins. The majority of his work has appeared in the worlds of Star Trek: Keith has written novels, novellas, comic books, short stories, and eBooks, and also edited several anthologies that cover all five TV shows as well as several prose-only series -- one of which, the Corps of Engineers eBook series, he co-developed. Several of his Trek novels have hit the USA Today best-seller list, and received critical acclaim from all over the map, both online and in print, and Keith also continues to edit the monthly Star Trek eBook line. He has also written in the worlds of Blizzard Games -- 2006's World of Warcraft: Cycle of Hatred and Starcraft: Ghost: Nova -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- 1999's The Xander Years Volume 1, 2006's Blackout, and 2007's The Deathless -- Farscape, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, Marvel Comics -- 1998's Venom's Wrath and 2005's Down These Mean Streets -- Young Hercules, and many more. In 2004, Dragon Precinct, Keith's first non-tie-in novel, was published. It's a police procedural in a standard elves/dwarves/magic fantasy setting -- picture Law & Order meets Lord of the Rings. Stories in the same setting have appeared in the anthologies Murder by Magic and Hear Them Roar, as well as the two forthcoming volumes Pandora's Closet and Badass Faeries. Keith's editorial career started in college -- serving on Fordham University's award-winning alternative newspaper, called, simply, the paper -- and includes a stint at Library Journal magazine and five years as an editor for the late Byron Preiss and his various companies (Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Byron Preiss Multimedia, BP Books, and ibooks inc.). Among his accomplishments in the latter job were editing a highly successful line of novels based on Marvel Comics's super heroes and helping bring Alfred Bester back into print. From 1998-2006, Keith owned and operated the company Alb ' -Shiloh Inc., a provider of writing and editing services. ASI's most visible project was the Nebula Award-nominated anthology of original novelettes called Imaginings: An Anthology of Long Short Fiction. Keith has edited over a dozen anthologies since 1995, from the acclaimed OtherWere: Stories of Transformation in 1996 to the Star Trek anthologies Tales of the Dominion War and Tales from the Captain's Table in 2004-2005.
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Additional Info
Imprint
Star Trek
Filesize
678.14 KB
Number of Pages
416
eBook ISBN
1416558845
Excerpt from: Star Trek: Klingon Empire: A Burning House by Keith R. A. DeCandido
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.














