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Alexander, Son of Worf, stood in the doorway and wrung his hands together. Sweat coated his palms and trickled down the back of his neck. A prickly sensation crept up from the base of his spine. He looked at the door to General Martok's office and swallowed hard for about the tenth time.
Why did he call me here? What have I done? Alexander gritted his teeth and wiped his sweaty palms on the side of his trousers. His face burned in anticipation of the humiliation he would surely have to endure soon.
His father and Martok had been friends for some time now and they had performed a Klingon ritual that made them blood brothers. When Worf had told Alexander about this, he'd expected Alexander to just accept Martok. But how am I supposed to accept an uncle I hardly know? Alexander looked at the door and swallowed again. Martok was huge and intimidating and he enjoyed blood and guts and killing things. He was just like any Klingon: he'd cut Alexander down the moment Alexander said something he didn't approve of.
Alexander shuddered and tried not to dwell on the stories he'd heard about Martok. He tried not to think of all the Jem'Hadar Martok had shredded with his bat'leth. He tried not to think of the Klingons that had died at Martok's hands. Maybe, Alexander thought, I could just slink off. Maybe I can say I forgot to show up. Maybe I could get away with that. Maybe...
The door opened and there stood Martok. He towered over Alexander. He was a great, looming monster who could reach out and crush Alexander with one hand.
Ok. Ok. Alexander gritted his teeth and tried to still his pounding heart. I'm not nervous. I'm not scared. I'm not nervous. I'm not scared. Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he would start to believe it.
He drew in a long, deep breath through his nostrils and prepared himself for the battering he knew he was about to get.
“Ah!” Martok boomed down at him. “Alexander! Come in and sit down!”
Alexander started and his eyes widened. The friendly, casual tone in the general's voice threw him. He blinked up at Martok. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.
Martok whirled around and Alexander obediently followed him through the doorway. He stepped into the office and the harsh moody lighting bathed him in its deep red glow. Martok's knives and bat'leth peered down at him from the walls, glinting menacingly. The images of Kahless that decorated the furnishings seemed to glare at Alexander, judging, condemning. What are you doing here? they seemed to say. You, who have no honour, you, the imposter, you, who is no real Klingon at all.
Alexander tried not to look at them and stared instead at Martok's back.
He puzzled over the Martok's cheerfulness. Perhaps I misinterpreted it, he told himself. It wouldn't be the first time. Perhaps he's just happy that I turned up because it means he'll be able to give me a pummelling. Yes, that's it.
They reached the desk and Martok swept up a chair and heaved himself onto its thick metal seat. He indicated for Alexander to take the chair opposite. Alexander did so. The cold hard metal did not make a comfortable seat, so he perched on the edge of it. He resisted the urge to jiggle his foot and forced himself to look into Martok's formidable face.
Martok's grizzled features creased with what Alexander could only assume was disapproval. “Your father wished me to speak with you,” he said. “He's concerned about how you're doing.”
Alexander hung his head. There was no denying it: he knew he was a disappointment to his father. The knowledge was a constant weight on his heart.
“Have you been practising with the bat'leth as you were instructed?” Martok asked.
“I...” Alexander swallowed and wrung his hands. “Yes, sir.”
“What progress have you made?” Martok demanded.
“Er...” Alexander took a deep breath. “None,” he admitted. He exhaled and waited for the storm of punishment that was sure to come next.
Martok remained silent. Alexander's guts twisted. He wished a chasm would open in the ground and swallow him up. And a cold burnt indignation roiled within him. He wanted to shout out; he wanted to yell at his father. “It's not bad enough that you drill me about the bat'leth every minute of every day,” he wanted to shout. “Now you set General Martok on my back too?” But his anger had a hard time fighting it out with his anxious nerves and when he swallowed again, those nerves rose to the fore and quelled his spirit. Why, Alexander asked himself, was I born a Klingon? Of all the races in the universe why did I have to be a Klingon?! I should have been born a human, a Bolian, or a Betazoid... I would have made a good Betazoid. I could have trained to be a carer or a nurse, I'm good with emotions, I'm good at being nice to people... his eyes strayed off to the d'k tahg that hung on Martok's wall. Wasn't it just his luck to be born to a people who demanded everything of him that he could not do? He pouted and let his gaze fall to the floor.
“What's the problem?” Martok asked.
“I... I don't know,” Alexander muttered. He forced himself to look up and meet the general's stern eye. “I... I've done everything my father said, but I just can't seem to get the hang of it, sir.”
“Hrrrmmmm!” Martok said and looked away.
“I'm not meant to be a warrior!” Alexander burst out. “I've tried and I've tried, but I can't fight. I can't do it! I... I...” Martok turned his ferocious eye on him and Alexander's resolve withered. “I... I'm sorry, sir,” he mumbled. “I didn't mean...”
“Alexander,” Martok said. The weight behind that utterance struck steel bolts into Alexander. He prepared himself for the flogging he was convinced he would get in the next two seconds...
“We are all warriors,” Martok said. “Each and every one of us is born a warrior, whether we like it or not. It's in our blood.”
Alexander hung his head. “Yes, sir.”
“Don't give me that,” Martok snarled. Alexander shrunk back in his chair. Then in one sweeping movement, Martok was standing. Alexander watched Martok pull the bat'leth down from the wall. He stiffened, gritted his teeth, and braced for impact.
Martok sat down. “Look at this bat'leth,” he said and placed it in Alexander's hands.
Alexander took the weapon. “Wh-what?”
“Just look at it. Observe the craftsmanship. See how sharp the pointed tips are, how perfect the metal's curve, how sheer the edge. Feel the edge of the blade. Run your fingertips along its surface and admire its fine structure.”
Alexander did as he was told. His brow furrowed. Was this some sort of a trick?
“This blade,” Martok rumbled, “was crafted by a man I knew who lived on the outskirts of the First City.”
“I see,” said Alexander, who didn't.
“That man was a warrior,” Martok explained. “He served the Klingon Empire like every other true warrior that has ever lived. But he was no fighter. He was no soldier. No passion for battle lay within his veins. He learned this early in his life. The correct fighting moves always escaped him. In training, he would fall down and be beaten by fighters younger and smaller than himself. It didn't matter how much he practised and studied. He could not learn how to fight. Because fighting was not what he was supposed to do.
“He found his true calling in life when he put his tools to metal for the first time. What he lacked in fighting ability he found in craftsmanship. He discovered a passion for this art, a deep and powerful instinct that lay firm in his heart. With practice and hard work, he honed this marvellous talent into a formidable skill, and then he made swords like that one you within your hands now. The man was no soldier, Alexander, but he was a warrior: a warrior of artistry, of fine craft.
“Without men and women such as he, there would be no weapons for the soldiers to wield. And if every Klingon warrior was a solder, what would we fight for? What would be the point? Without artists and farmers and scholars to protect, we would just be fighting for the sake of fighting, and that would make us no different from the Jem'Hadar. We are more than this. We are a fine people, of rich diversity, and that is why we fight: to enhance ourselves as a whole, and to protect what we have.
Being a warrior does not mean that you have to be a fighter, Alexander. If all warriors were fighters, there would be nothing for us to fight for.”
Alexander gulped. “Are you saying I should become an artist?”
Martok shook his head. “I'm saying that there is no shame in deciding that a life on the battlefield is not for you. You could be an artist. You could be a builder or an architect. You could be a great songwriter, a poet, a scholar, a historian, a farmer, a scientist, a cook. There are many things you could be. You have yet to find your true calling in life, but you will find it. One day.”
Alexander looked at the bat'leth again, and for the first time in his life, he saw not just a weapon, but a thing that had been crafted by a skilled pair of hands. Those hands had taken rich raw metals from the ground and reshaped them. He touched the blade's edge with his thumb. The blade's pointed edge had stabbed the life out of many of Martok's enemies... but what had its existence been before that? Had the artist that Martok spoke of chipped away at it long into the night? Had he lain it in the workshop whilst he kissed his wife and hugged his children? Had he cut his finger on it by accident and sucked the wound until it stopped bleeding? A sudden fresh wreath of stories that Alexander had never considered now washed into his head. The bat'leth had a history that began long before Martok had claimed it. It had never occurred to Alexander to think about how these weapons were made, who made them, and why. They just existed, and he hadn't questioned it.
He glanced up and found the general looking at him. A small, knowing, almost fatherly smile had settled on Martok's wizened face. Tentatively Alexander raised the weapon and placed it back into the general's hands. “I don't think my father would like that,” he muttered sadly.
"Perhaps not at first," Martok told him. "But he will come around. You must honour your father, Alexander, but you must also walk your own path. You may yet find that you can be a soldier! Or you may find another path more suitable. The journey is ahead. It may be long and difficult, and you may get lost along the way. But do not fear the journey. Embrace it.”
As Alexander left the room, he heaved a sigh. The haze in his mind had cleared. His troubles hung over him still, but they were less the black cloud of doom they had been; Martok had reduced them to a pale fog through which he could begin to see the way forward. It would be difficult to find the right course, but he could find it.
He leaned against the wall and let out a low breath. His tangled nerves had uncoiled, his coiled anxiety had diffused. He wanted to cry and laugh and jump for joy and run across the hills and scream to the heavens, all at the same time. He'd expected Martok to yell at him and beat him. He had not expected kindness.
That night, he slept a little easier, and his dreams were less troubled than they had been in a very long time.