[ejenk21]

Synopsis: A day in the life of a Klingon. Pretty much your father's Klingon.

Author's Notes: This is a parody. There is no intent to profit or to injure reputation.




Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Flies, Slice 17

I awaken. My dreams were of roffts, succulent intestines of the mell, so uniquely delicious that they have a name of their own. I barely escape a claw in the eye. My mate is easily aroused. When I dream, I best keep my noises to myself.

Do not mistake me. I have mated with the genuine article, an old-fashioned female whose loyalty brings phlegm to my throat. Some males (especially modern ones) do not value strength in a female. They prefer them without armor, and with their claws clipped. Idiots! But I got one of the old-fashioned kind, and I bless our mothers for it. Oh, when she was young! She could track me in her sleep!

She is a fine mother, and that is all she needs to be. The kids (strange how we have picked up that human term) mind their hupths and twongs, you bet they do, and they can smelt zinc if they have to, and it is all her doing.

Still, as this morning, I feel I have a special prize. Her passions are those of a 13-orbiter. Better! I am challenged frequently.

I prepare to leave our pelt-pile. She will not have it. Karg, she is strong when she is stimulated!



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Flies, Slice 46

Breakfast. Bloodfruit, ironnuts, chewy, crackly ptenteen smeared with hydrogenated borf fat. Coffee. Whatever you think of the Federation, you have to admit they enriched us with coffee. I take a light breakfast. No meat. My daughter Yoly laughs at me (well, she would laugh if I let her). In her circle everyone znorrs down 8000 calories of raw mell, gorak, or hamburg first thing in the rotation. Yes, it works when you're young. I ate like that too. But no sense in telling her. Her hormones are in full bloom and that burns right through the calories. Just a few orbits, and that same diet will have her looking like a -what was that thing that was bigger than six mugzeas-a whale.

Aah, she's a good kid. Let her have her fun. As long as she runs faster than any of those punks (another good word!) chasing after her. I don't like killing the youngsters.



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Hail, Slice 20

It is a good rotation to die. What a slogan. You can't help but think of it during practice. The soon, the borado, the lechatha blade. Fine. Shoot me, I'm a traditionalist. My grandpa died with a borado in his hand. Not some energy beam that vaporizes at two kilometers. I can do it. I can use a phaser, a blast rifle, a meson grenade, even an ion catapult. Don't care for them though. Well, maybe the ion catapult. Didja ever see what one of those things does to zorium alloy? Some crow over zorium, but you could build a wall 20 meters thick, and an ion catapult will chew through it in 3 slices.

Tradition again. Give me stone. Old-fashioned stone. Something that scrapes your hide when you clamber over it. Oh, I wish I was alive in the age of Lagash. Then you went straight up against it. Stone walls. Flaming, boiling borf fat. Molten zinc cascading down on you. Sulfur balls! Those were the rotations.



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Hail, Slice 71

Skinwork. I hate it. All warriors hate it. My brother Ujut doesn't mind. But he's not a warrior. I admit I am troubled whenever I think of Ujut and those like him. Let's face it, these are not the orbits of Lagash. In those times there were just three occupations: farming, weaponeering, and war. When you were too young to fight, or a female, you farmed. Weaponeers were the nearly-mature youth, supervised by the few warriors who managed to get old. Plus a few captured and blinded slaves. Everybody else fought. Oh, all right. Sometimes the females hunted. But that's not the point. It was a simpler time, a more honorable time: you killed, you drank, you stole females. No questions asked.

And no skinwork. No one cared how many lepton charges you took from stores, how many kilos of balucatherium you blew up, how much you owed civilians for expropriating their property. There were no civilians, by Karg! You were at war or preparing for war. Banner Red, Banner Black. Simple.

Not any more. Don't tell me, I don't want to hear it again: You can't fight Romulans like they fought each other. Yes, well the Romulans have no sense of honor, no real courage. They're fundamentally cowards, hiding behind gravitonic shields. You show me a Romulan with a soon in his paw, and I'll show you a shredded Romulan!

Ujut's no better. He's my own brother, and he's family, so he's mine, and I'll die for him, but I don't like him, him and his ledger-crystals. So many pourgs for this, so many quands for that. I don't think his skin has seen the light of Lopo for six orbits. He doesn't dare wear armor, not even the pretend armor his kind is supposed to put on every demi-orbit. His hide is as soft as the rotation he was born. His mate is tougher than he, by a long shot. I do not know how he snared such a beauty. Females. Mysteries to us all. You'd think they'd have better taste.

If only he were at least an engineer. Making things. Cloaking devices for example. Modern, but with some point to it. Or something more basic. Copper. Just plain copper. We need copper in everything. It's an honor to sell copper.

But he does skinwork. We still call it that, though real skins haven't been used in four hundred orbits. Twiddling at the clawboard, interval after interval, rotation after rotation. And then he complains of vorpal tunnel syndrome. If my father hadn't stopped me from gutting him when he was ten....



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Frogs, Slice 5

She's so wonderful. What a blokh. An old-fashioned blokh. I don't do this that often, sneak home before Council, but she knew, somehow. She was wearing that great breenskin armor that she tanned herself. Trapped the breen, too. She is indeed a prize, my Gughkh. Took me a third of an interval to tear it off her. Bled not a little, too.

Afterward we ate imported fleeb muscle tart. Isn't any more fleeb on this continent. No surprise. But West Continent was smart enough to conserve the prey herds. Got to admit it. Sometimes us warrior types are a bit short-sighted.



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Murrain, Slice 5

I am in Council. Not the Great Council, for my family is not that exalted, but a respectable, Woolo-class council. The issue before us is conscription. I do not approve. In time of old, conscription was never necessary. In time of old. I sound like a senile bard, repeating himself endlessly.

I do not care. Real Klingons volunteer for battle. If a boy does not rise to the call of his blood, he should be pitched into vacuum, as he was once exiled to the poisoned wastelands. Or better yet, disemboweled. Aha! The majority agrees with me. There is growling and roaring in the council chamber. That moron Kthulu has ventured this idea once too often. Oh, who wants to be fair? I know it makes some sense, conscripting the doctors and whatnot, the ones too specialized to use in fighting, but it's so bloodless. Arrh! We should all fight. Everyone knows that. It's what it means to be Klingon. Kthulu knew it once, but his vurg has withered.

What a shot! A razor-edged throwing star has come swirling from the benches and sliced through that vurg-less, zux-less marmoset's throat. Serves him right for affecting a tnyykofeather cloak in Council instead of his armor. Of course it's uncomfortable. What of it?

Yay! A challenge! A duel! Kthulu's nephew does have zux. Listen to him rant at the killer! Hmph. Krobo's denunciation, Leela's treachery,--good, good; haven't heard that one since I was twelve,-- the six swords in the Forest of Mehilla, cowardice of Sethusu, Yuugla's suicide, rape of Xiruk, and--big finish--WEGRON!! Good job, Khthlas.



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Boils, Slice 32

Got to charge up. Need energy, but not to gorge and make myself logy. A diet of worms. Well, not a diet, just a meal. Fovian tubeworms. Crunch through the tip of the shell, suck out a few centimeters, then dig in with the side fangs and tear it out the rest of the way.

Same thing for the boy. I think Qwalt is big enough, now, and it will teach him a lot more than practice.

It was borderline. I asked him if he wanted to join the duel. He could have said no and I would not hold it against him. A boy is sometimes involved in a duel at this age, sometimes not. But he just quoted from the book of Karton: "The znorr leaps, and the mell bounds away. What would my father have me be -- a mell?"

Talked it over with Gugkh, although there wasn't that much time. I tell you, blood shines through. There are some mothers who cling, way past the time when clinging is normal. Not my Gugkh. You know what she said? "It is a good rotation to die." And he's only ten orbits old.

He probably won't die. He'll be matched against another youth within an orbit of his own age. Usually the kids aren't good enough to kill each other. They talk big, but it takes some time before they have the strength and skill to cut through armor. A warrior will be watching. He'll stop things at first blood. Of course, if that first blow is fatal...

Same thing applies to me. The supporters who pick sides in a duel can stop at first blood. Other than the prime participants, honor is satisfied before death. With grownups though, grownup hormones and full-scale bloodlust, it's not that easy to quit.



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Darkness, Slice 17

Part of me wishes we had duels more often. But let's face it, they are disruptive. Everything stops for a duel. Your ordinary second-shift working ploot leaves his job for that third-of-a-rotation. The schools and academies cancel homework assignments. Bazaars shut down. Hospitals shut down. Everybody assembles at the arena.

The two sides face each other in long lines, with the kids more or less matched in size and weight. You have to get into the spirit, so many slices are spent in singing the old songs. It's a time for the females. There's a whole chorus, 15 of them, 2000 kilos in all, singing The Defilement of Kargo. Also, from the males, The Excoriation of Epetwon. Your blood starts to bubble. Then there are some stylized harangues according to old forms from the greyest members of the Great Council. Your fangs gnash. Finally, the prime participants abuse the other side's supporters with the best insults they can invent. Your veins bulge like they're flowing with liquid lead. What a feeling!



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Vermin, Slice 10

I am exhausted. Inaccurate. I am depleted, as after a good, brain-blowing chust. I won. My opponent lost his knee to my borado, but he did not yield. He had his chance. He got in an excellent swing, but I evaded and pushed my borado in one ear and out the other. One of the classic deaths. I must say I feel some pride. I love the classics, I've studied them, and I finally managed to do one exactly right.

Good thing, too. Qwalt also killed his opponent, and he's swollen up like a rotting gorak gut. His mother and his sister are raving, and his little brother is beside himself with envy. I don't mind, not in the least, I'm pleased with him too, but I don't want him thinking he can lick his old Pawpp.

Not yet, he can't.

The family of his opponent has recognized their son's quality of death. Qwalt will accept Hewwothr's soon and use it for ceremonies. I would have done the same. With eight males born for every five females, it is a fact of life that sons kill one another. We are all accustomed to it. But it is proper to acknowledge when a son dies well.



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Vermin, Slice 54

What an honor. My opponent's family has offered me his female as a second mate. Formally, that is. It has been a long time since such an offer was made without the consent of the female in question. They are fine folk, the Yush family. They treasure the old ways.

I had no idea that Hulghkh thought so well of me. With eight males born for every five females, it is not uncommon for a male to have to forego having a family. It is quite rare to have two mates. Only the greatest warriors have more than two.

I am honored beyond measure. But there are constraints.

Gughkh derides me. She will not hear of any watery concern rooted in economics. She insists I accept. She is bursting with pride. She will be First Mate. Not one in a thousand females has this title. What a blokh!



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 6 of Kluge, Interval of Blood, Slice 11

You would think I would just sleep, after so many full intervals, a fight to the death, feasting, pissing four liters of Aldebaran beer, and meeting two fisticuffs-only challenges. You would think so. But Hulghkh is clever. She brought her pelt-pile with her. It still smells of Rewgart. The most primitive parts of my nervous system react. You might as well ignite a bomb under me.



Orbit 17 of the Orbits of Kondos, Rotation 7 of Kluge, Interval of Flies, Slice 1

Oh, my aching head. And other parts. Hulghkh is no old-fashioned blokh.

Oh, no. Here comes Gughkh. I have gnawed off more than I can chew. I said there were constraints.

[ManthaStoirmeil]

aaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhh . . . . .
damn near overrode me toilet training.
But I think you got a few orcs in your breeding pool there somewhere.

[brutusshh]

You can be sure you're still funny. This piece is absolutely brilliant. It's extremely complex and very funny. I particularly liked the ending .

this is funny. this how the Klingons should have been in all those startrek movies. i liked this a lot.