"But of course we must rejoin the Empire! We are of the Empire! We are Klingons! No more, but certainly no less than they. But the Empire must be komerex [the structure which grows] or it becomes khesterex [the structure which dies]—there is nothing in between. As we rejoin the komerex, so too do we bring in new vitality! New ideas, new blood! I do not pretend to know whether the new alliance with the Komerex Federazhon is a good thing for the Empire or a bad thing—we were taught from birth that the Federazhon was a weak, effete khesterex but they stood toe to toe with the best the Komerex Klingon could offer, so they must have truly been komerex all along. We must stride boldly into the future with our eyes open and our heads held high! We must once again live under the naked stars as our ancestors did!" Aron's eyes seem to glow in the light of the oil lamps.

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 57):

"Your vision of bringing new vitality to the Empire is inspiring," says Jon. This humble warrior just fears what will come if we find that the Empire is weak, is a Federazhon puppet, is a khesterex beyond repair!"

Jon pauses, then adds with a laugh "Forgive me, my lord, my questions and doubts! My heart is beating with such conflicting emotions that I fear it will burst in two!"

At about this point in time, a babble of voices can be heard from the lower level, followed by the noise of a small explosion. A smell of burning wood and an acrid smell begin to overpower the 'aDanjI' incense.

Tony yells, "That smells like..." and stops abruptly as he realises that there is no Klingon word in the language database for what he smells.

Aron finishes for Tony, "Ngat..." This is the tlhIngan Hol word for gunpowder—apparently one of the words the two dialects have in common. He reaches for an ornate bat'leth on the wall. "Arm yourselves," he commands. "We're under attack!"

Sonam's voice echoes through the team's mastoid implants, "Warning. There appears to be some form of disturbance in your vicin—"

His voice is abruptly cut off by Commander Vaughn's, "Dammit, Sonam, it's a full-on attack on the meeting! That asshole Groën kicked must've called in some backup when the komerex the'Durgath tossed him out on his flea-bitten ass. We have an honest to God riot situation ans they blew the door with some kind of petard." A gunshot sounds in the background and Vaughn's signal cuts off in the middle of a curse.

Sonam says, his voice impassive as only a Vulcan can be, "Scanning... Cdr. Vaughn has been hit. She is unconscious but stable. Cdr. K'Pok, do you require extraction?"

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 59):

[OOC What weapons do we have available to us? Do we even have any energy weapons, while undercover like this?]

[OOC: You have a levek (Klingonaase for Dk'Tagh) with a Type I phaser (Cricket) built into the hilt, currently set on Heavy stun.]

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 61):

[OOC I take it that using the cricket will blow our cover]

Jon instinctively pulls out his levek, and then belatedly remembers he has almost no experience in edged weapon combat. He snarls audibly as this realization hits him.

Aron hears Jon's snarl and takes it as a sign of J'dik's anticipation of battle. "Kai J'dik, embrace your aetheln [a Klingon's destiny in life]!" he shouts as he brandishes his bat'leth.

A loud thumping on the door to the chamber begins, as from a battering ram. after a half dozen impacts, the door gives way and a pair of huge, heavily built Klingons muscle their way into the room carrying mek'leths and leveks. The brazier is knocked over spilling hot coals and crystals of 'aDanjI' incense onto the thick carpet, where they ignite. Within moments, a blinding pall of smoke fills the air, causing most present to cough. K'Pok pulls a mek'leth of his own from a back-scabbard beneath his jacket and attacks the intruders with a snarl, while Talja and Tony join in the brawl with their leveks. Tony in particular show a measure of skill with the blade, courtesy of a life on the streets in a gangland neighbourhood on Iotia.

In reply to Cdr. Samantha Vaughn (msg # 39):

OOC: I promise, I promise, I promise to post more regularly.  Now reading and catching up.

In reply to Lt Zedrick Sloane (msg # 64):

Zed realizes to that he must join in and like everyone else but Tony on the away team has no real skill with the leveks.   He keeps in the back of his mind that he has to access who is attacking as well. Knowing other teams are working with other surviving families of the Bortas that may have other interests from Aron’s following.

He shouts out to the away team hoping they understand his message.  “Be sure to access your appointment before attacking.”

Zed looks around and tries to determine number of attackers, what weapons they have, what the threat is to the away team.  He does want to blow their cover, but in turn he needs to keep his crew safe.

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 63):

Jon hangs back momentarily, trying to learn from Tony and deciding which of the attacking Klingons looks easiest to handle. Ignoring Sloane, who is yelling something incomprehensible about appointments, Jon chooses his target: an attacker who looks younger and less inexperienced than the others.

In engaging his chosen opponent, Jon is relying more on his unarmed combat skills than his levek. His intent is to disarm or disable, not kill.

[OOC: The Type 1 phasers in the leveks issued to the team are Starfleet Intelligence specials specifically tuned so that the sound pitch is high enough to be only audible to Andorians and Caitians, and the light the beam gives off is very dim—invisible by oil lamps or torchlight.]

Jon is attacked by a huge brute of a Klingon (picture Andre the Giant) with a huge club. As the giant raises the club over his head, Jon punches him in the solar plexus, following it up with a kick to the groin (Kickboxing 2)—not a particularly sporting move but an effective one—and the Klingon drops to his knees clutching his groin and gasping for breath. a kick to the face renders him hors de combat.

Zed takes a graze to his shoulder with a mek'leth, barely scratching the skin but opening up the top of his shirt à la Kirk and he grabs the attacker's arm and pulls him off balance, dropping his levek in the process. He dispatches the Klingon with a double-handed chop to the neck. He hears a muffled crack as the neck breaks under the blow and the body tumbles at his feet.

Talja is knocked down but appears uninjured. Her assailant is the idiot who'd tried to manhandle her at the meeting, a large bruise showing on his face. Tony, who has picked up a mek'leth from a defeated Klingon, blurts out "Talja!" and brings the mek'leth down on the jerk's back in a welter of blood.

Aron beheads his opponent with his bat'leth, snarling, "Today is a good day to kill!", while K'Pok grabs a spear and plunges through the door.

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 67):

Zed looks around the room to make sure all the attackers are accounted for.  If any are not being dealt with he will determine the best way to attack them.  If they are all being dealt with he will turn and follow K’Pok through the door with the levek ready.

Yelling as he’s going “We need survivors to integrate.“ trying to put a Klingon emphasis on it, hoping his crew will make sure there is no unnecessary deaths.

[OOC: Wow, we passed 2000 posts! This'll be post 2004.]

All the attackers are engaged. Zed can hear the sounds of combat below and K'Pok hurling curses at the enemy. As Zed makes his way down the spiral staircase, he enters the chapel cavern through the heavy tapestry. Bodies lie strewn about the floor beneath a churning mass of struggling Klingons. Blades crash and blood flows. The noise from the conflict and the sounds of the woubded assails Zed's ears. The smell of the incense, gunpowder, sweat and blood mixes with the stench of sliced-open bowels. There is a blinding flash and a deafening report as one of the invaders spots Zed fling back the tapestry, and a lead projectile sends splinters of stone into Zed's face as it misses him by a handspan.

Meanwhile, in Aron's sanctum, Jon stands over his opponent facing Aron, as Tony helps Talja to her feet. All the intruders are dead or unconscious on the floor. Aron yells, "After K'Pok and VanolS. Do you want to live forever?"

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 69):

Jon, hearing the sounds of gunfire below, hurls himself down the stairs into the room below. He tries to spot Zed in the confused mass of bodies.

In reply to Lt (jg) Jonathan Clare (msg # 70):

Knowing the tapestry will not provide any protection Zed quickly looks for a spot to dive for cover in the chapel before firing back.  Zed blinks several times to clear his eyes before aiming and firing at his attacker.

Jon actually collides with Zed, who is recoiling from the near miss shot. They spot K'Pok in the melée, spear gripped in both hands as he parries a bat'leth. Aron storms past them into the writhing mass of bodies, swing his bat'leth. Tony and Talja join them immediately after.

In the dim, flickering light of the torches and braziers, vision is mostly occluded by the smoke from the incense and the explosive devices and firearms. Tony takes advantage of this to use the Type ! phaser in the hilt of his levek The Klingon who'd shot at Zed falls nerveless at the periphery of the melée. Zed, doing the same, finds that his phaser does not fire. Examining his levek, he discovers that he'd picked up the wrong one upstairs and this is just a knife.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:34, Wed 31 Oct 2018.

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 72):

Jon notices the problem Zed is having with his levek. He surreptitiously uses his own phaser to take down the Klingon Zed was aiming for. Under cover of the surrounding commotion, he says quietly to Zed "Sir, I think our cover is going to be blown real soon! We should get out of here."

OOC: are the modified levek based on Klingon or Federation energy weapons. I’m trying to determine which way to handle our potential blown cover. Can I still spin it that we are current Klingons that support their cause or not?  That will determine if we leave or not.

[OOC: The circuitry is modern Federation tech.]

Zed recalls dropping the levek upstairs when his shoulder was grazed. He'd picked up the levek he currently holds upstairs, thus meaning that his is still up there with the bodies of the intruders. The Thames crew is standing in the doorway to the spiral staircase, so nobody has gone up past them. The only problem is if any of the Klingon intruders upstairs are still alive and pick it up. Even so, the trigger on the cricket is concealed and will only be discovered by accident should it be handled by a BortaSngan.

The intruders are losing the pitched battle with the loss of their handgun user, that particular Klingon being the one Jon just stunned, and they're beginning to withdraw. The tapestries hanging on the walls have caught fire and some of the surviving attendees are using the kegs of bloodwine to extinguish the flames, adding to the stench in the chamber. J'ovinn (Cdr Vaughn) is nowhere to be seen, and K'Pok lies among the wounded on the floor. A'ron kneels over him, calling for a healer.

In reply to Relic GM (msg # 75):

"You may have missed it in the excitement, sir" Jon mutters quietly to Zed, "but Tony called Talja by name during the attacked. We may be in for some awkward questions."

[OOC: I just realized that Jon has no first aid skill. That seems unlikely. Did I miss something when rolling up the character?]
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 21:30, Sun 04 Nov 2018.

"Shit!" says Tony, "Sorry. I fucked up."

Talja, meanwhile, hurries to K'Pok at A'ron's call for a healer. She places a firm hand on K'Pok's chest as he coughs up blood. "Yjuk [damn]!" she curses. "J'koq, I need some help! He's got a sucking chest wound."

A'ron watches with approval as Talja works on K'Pok. "You are a nada [battle surgeon] Atsash?" he asks.

"No," she replies, "but my mother was the local healer in my village and a devotee of Kohl [Klingon god of medicine] as well. I learned a few things from her."

Tony hands her his belt and his wadded up leather vest to bind K'Pok's chest. "I'll get a piece of tapestry for a bandage," he says and hurries to an area of wall hangings that is not in flames.

Talja says without looking up, "A'ron, get me some bloodwine to cleanse the wound. And we need to get him to fresh air!"

Sonam's voice echoes over the team's mastoid implants, "Cdr. K'pok's life signs are thready. Cdr. Vaughn's still unconscious, but her tracking signal is moving. There are several Klingon and two Vulcanoid lifesigns in her general vicinity. Do you require beam-out?"
This message was last edited by the player at 01:29, Mon 05 Nov 2018.

In reply to Lt (jg) 'Fast Tony' Gazzo (msg # 77):

Jon puts his hand on Zed's shoulder. "Sir, they've taken J'ovinn! Shall I pursue her?"

In reply to Lt (jg) Jonathan Clare (msg # 78):

“Yes go after J’ovinn, I will be right behind after I get another Levek.”

He knells down beside Talja, and whispers “Give me your levek I dropped mine,  I will help go after J’ovinn and you beam out with Cdr K’Pol and Cdr. Vaughn

Shutting towards Tony I say, “Once you have those bandages taken care off follow me.”

Once I get Talja levek I will go after Jon and J’ovinn.  Once out of easy earshot I then respond to Sonam, “Talja will let you know when ready to beam K’Pol, Vaughn and Talja.”

"Sorry, sir, got both hands busy with saving the commander's life. If you don't mind. Sir!" She snaps at Zed. K'Pok seems to have lapsed into unconsciousness, the only sign of life being his coughing up blood.

Tiny, returning with the wine-soaked tapestry, asks, "Where's yours, Vanols?"

Talja takes the cloth from Tony and draws her levek. Before passing it to Zed, however, she uses it to cut the heavy brocade into strips. She rolls one strip into a rod ans uses it to plug the hole in K'pok's chest. He then adds a generous padding of cloth before wrapping K'pok's chest. A'ron arrives with a cup of bloodwine, which uses to wipe the blood from K'pok's face and beard.

In reply to Lt (jg) Talja Groen (msg # 80):

[OOC: Can anybody on the away team talk to Sonam? I thought the communication was only 1-way]

Jon races out, after Vaughn. He looks for clues as to which direction she has been taken.