[2373/Rue Penthe] "Meet Hegh taj"

February 17, 2018, 01:08:44 AM

[Lieutenant JG Gabriel Nah| Common Area| Rura Penthe| Nine Years before the flight of the USS Theurgy]

Gabriel Nah had been in some tight spots before but none as bad as the one he was in at that moment.

The Federation's War with the Klingons was starting to enter its second year of life when a cold war with the far off Dominion was still happening and now he was in the worst prison in the entire universe after his ship was defeated in combat by an imperial battle group.

Rura Penthe.

The "Aliens Graveyard".

He was wearing his prison issue heavy coat, trying to stay warm as the remains of his fellow officers from the "Chekov" attempted to stay low and try to figure out why they were there.

Suddenly a guard barked loudly with "Hoch qama' raD HoS yotlh" while motioning for everyone to start moving in a particular direction which included the group that Gabriel was in.

"Henri, you speak their language..what did he say?" Gabe asked the young man from sciences.

Henri looked over at his fellow officer and said "He wants us all to gather over at what is called the..field of forced strength for some reason." in a slightly confused tone.

Gabe simply shrugged and the group went the same way as the other prisoners but Gabe caught sight of one of the few people that had been there longer than them in the form of Lieutenant Commander Vance Krinn. "Commander, what's going on here?" Gabe asked in a hushed tone.

"The warden is wanting us to view a fight, kid." Krinn said with a bitter chuckle in his throat. "He does this with all the new arrivals, an introduction to Hegh taj."

Gabe's eyes narrowed slightly, "What's that?"

"WHO's that is the better question and you'll see soon enough, Mister Nah."[/color] Krinn said as they approached a large area with a pit in the middle of it with two energy fields up at one end. "I want you to watch this, Mister Nah, and understand the depths of what this place can do to a person."

The energy field on the left side of the pit dropped and a cardassian prisoner entered into the pit proper as the warden moved to stand on a makeshift podium. "Glinn Reshad Lang of the Cardassian Union, you have abused my kind nature one too many times by stealing food rations from those who have earned them and here on Rura Penthe, there is only one true punishment befitting such a coward!" the "ruler" of Rura Penthe roared to the assembled crowd.

"I am the strongest one here, I can take whatever I want you disgusting old fool!!" Reshad snarked up at the warden with a look of superiority. "So send your guards or your targs or whatever you want at me..I can handle them all!"

There was a complete and utter field of dead silence as Gabe looked around the assembled area, trying to figure out what was going on before the warden's chuckle started to echo throughout the room.

"Reshad..you poor and deluded fool, your punishment is my favorite fighter.." the warden said as he leaned forward to fix the cardassian with a good, solid look of superiority as he spoke his next words with a certain amount of pride; "You're to face Hegh taj."

Suddenly all of the arrogance disappeared from Reshad's face and if it was possible for the cardassian to go any more gray than Reshad was definitely doing a damned good job of it. "You're crazy..putting me up against that...that *THING*!!"

Suddenly a loud chant of "Hegh taj" started up around the arena, mostly from the klingons and more bloodthirsty of the prisoners to which Nah simply looked at the other energy field which suddenly dropped and another figure walked into the pit.

The figure was human, roughly six foot four and maybe two hundred and sixty pounds at most. His dark brown hair was shoulder length and looked like it had been cut by himself with some kind of sharp tool rather then professionally but the most startling thing about the human was his eyes;

They were a startling shade that Nah had only heard of before called "Midnight Green" and they looked like nothing more then deep pits with no light behind them.

The human, apparently the one known as "Hegh taj" was shirtless with his muscular chest bearing the marks of every fight he must have been in since his arrival on Rura Penthe because they all appeared to be too fresh to have been there for years...save for one where it looked like he'd been shot sometime before, maybe when he was a child..

The warden then said “"teH wej vaj 'oy', puqwI' cha' maqDar pujwI'!!!”

Hegh taj looked up at the warden and then when he looked back at Reshad, the cardassian had decided to try and seize the advantage of Hegh taj's temporary distraction by trying to slam him across the jaw with a powerful right hook only to have the human quickly move out of the way and follow up his dodge with a fearsome strike that drove his left knee hard into the ribs of the cardassian which made the crowd of prisoners roar with bloody approval as the guards started to sing;

Qoy qeylIS puqloD
Qoy puqbe'pu'
yoHbogh matlhbogh je SuvwI'

Reshad clutched at his ribs and backed off long enough to try and tackle Hegh taj only to have the human move quickly out of the way again before he drove his left elbow into the right side of the cardassian's neck ridges as he drove his right knee up against the other side of his rib cage, causing a loud crack to be heard..

..but from what, Nah didn't know..

Say'moHchu' may' 'Iw
maSuv manong 'ej maHoHchu'
nI'be' yInmaj 'ach wovqu'

Reshad started to struggle just a little bit as he was having some difficulty moving his head to the right which showed that the crack that Nah heard was the ridges as Reshad tried to put some room between himself and this human.

"How can you do this, you're a mere human!!" Reshad snarled at Hegh taj before he came out swinging at him, trying to hit the other fighter with a couple of wild haymakers before Hegh taj simply kept dodging him...almost like he was studying the cardassian.

"Everything up to that, Nah, was simply him testing Reshad...now comes the moment that scares me." Krinn said in a very low tone to his fellow officer as the guards' singing got even louder, more guttural and impassioned!

batlh maHeghbej 'ej yo' qIjDaq
vavpu'ma' DImuv
pa'reH maSuvtaHqu'
mamevQo'. maSuvtaH. ma'ov.

After the sixth wild swing, Hegh taj suddenly exploded into a burst of motion that Nah actually had to struggle to watch as Hegh taj blocked the seventh swing then slammed a left cross into his left cheek before blocking another haymaker before following it in with a fearsome body shot from his right elbow before landing two more shots on Reshad's jaw..weakening then fracturing it.

If Nah thought that it was over then he was wrong as Hegh tag then followed it up with two more body blows before another savage forearm shot to Reshad's jaw at the jaw hinge which made the cardassian's jaw unhinged entirely before he reared back and followed it up with a very brutal heel kick to Reshad's diaphragm which sent the other man flying across the pit.

"Finish it boy...don't toy with him." Nah heard Krinn say in a sad tone.

Hegh taj then looked up at the warden who simply nodded before Hegh taj simply walked over to the heavily beaten Reshad and then locked one of his powerful arms around the cardassian's neck before simply flexing himself once...snapping the cardassian's neck like it was nothing.

"HEGH TAJ..HEGH TAJ...HEGH TAJ...HEGH TAJ.." the chant roared up from the crowds but then came the thing that surprised Nah.

Instead of enjoying the cheers from the bloodthirsty crowds, Hegh taj simply looked at Reshad's body for a few moments before simply walking away from it and heading back to the portal from where he came.

"What could make a human do something like that?” Nah asked as the assembled prisoners went back to whatever they were doing.

“Hegh taj has been here for over a year and a half, he was captured in the Archanis system but did something that caught the attention of the the bird of prey’s captain and he was brought here along with six other people..well, five now following the death of the andorian.” Krinn explained as they walked.

“Andorian?”

Krinn nodded, “Yeah, apparently the two were close friends and towards the start of the new year, there was a riot and he was badly injured at which point Hegh taj was thrown into the arena as part of some big festival that the klingons have..and the prize was whatever the winner wanted.”

Krinn then stopped and spat on the ground, “Hegh taj survived, he killed everyone that was sent before him because it was some kind of celebration of when the ancient klingons killed their gods or some shit like that…” Krinn explained, his tone growing much more bitter as he looked over at Nah before continuing in a softer tone that was no less as angry;

“The kid won and told the warden that he wanted help in helping his friend..and the warden shot the andorian right through the heart.”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The next time that Gabriel saw Hegh taj, he was sitting in the mess hall looking at his plate of gagh like it was something else entirely and slowly started to eat it at which point Gabriel noticed that no one else sat with him, so Gabriel decided to take a chance and sat down right in front of the pit fighter. “Hey, how’s things?” he asked simply.

Hegh taj simply looked up from his food with his eyes, still green, but a different shade which made Gabe kind of confused by that. “Caught your fight the other day, I have to admit that I’ve never seen someone fight like you before..my only question is why did you kill him?”

Hegh taj didn’t say a word but simply kept eating his food, stopping only to take a drink from his tankard before setting it back down.

“Look you can sit there all day, not say a word, and I’ll just keep talking..” Gabriel said before he offered his hand to the other human. “My name is Gabriel Nah by the way, I’m from..”

That was all that he was able to get out before a burly hand grabbed him and suddenly Gabriel was on this back with a guard’s boot on his chest and disruptor pistol in his face. “What do you think that you’re doing, petaQ?!” the guard snarled.

But before Gabriel could respond, a husky sounding voice simply said something in klingon that made the guard’s expression change just a little bit;

"bIHegh mej ghaH'e' pagh vItlhapqang Dargh HIvje''"

The guard turned and looked at him for a moment before asking back in the same language with "jIHvaD ghaH pIHoH SoH … tu'lum... Human Hom QaD!? wouldn't bongIlchugh chugh vaj biHegh"

The guard raised his disruptor to Gabe’s face and his finger was about to compress the firing stud when suddenly there was a strange noise like metal grinding on metal which made the guard turn his head just at the right moment...as the tankard that Hegh taj was drinking out of suddenly was stabbed with enough force that it shattered his cranial ridges and stabbed right into the guard’s brain at which point Hegh taj simply took the disruptor from the guard’s falling body and tossed it to another guard who caught it with a surprise look on his face.

"vaj ghaHvaD HoH jIH SeH qoH jIqapruppu': noH HeS luqoplu' vaj 'e' vay' Hutlh vay' batlh qabDaj jatlh kortho." Hegh taj said to the guard whose confused expression then changed to one of understanding as he motioned for two other guards to take the body out of the room.

Hegh taj then moved over to Gabriel and offered his hand which the human took as he was easily pulled to his feet by the man with the green eyes who then spoke in Federation Basic for the first time;

“My name is Chris...Chris Slayton.”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Over the course of the next year, Gabriel and the other senior staff got to know the surviving crew members of the Auriga, a pact of mutual defense was formed by them to help survive in the cold dark that was Rura Penthe but in the end time and time again, Chris went back to the pit for the warden’s amusement, fighting whatever and WHOever the sadistic warden wished.

Lydea Osgood, the Auriga’s doctor, was using a piece of bone and some thread that she had gotten from somewhere to sew up a bloody gash on Chris’s back that had laid man’s skin flayed open enough that one could see pink muscle shifting under her efforts as she stitched it when Chief Petty Officer Tinya Pryde ran into the group’s section of the bunk room, her slender chest heaving heavily as she fought to catch her breath as cold air left her in great big bursts before announcing proudly “I HAVE NEWS!!!”

“What’s so important Tinya that you ran all the way here?” Krinn asked in a confused tone.

Suddenly a couple of klingon guards walked into the room followed by something even more startling..

A group of Starfleet officers!

Lydea stopped stitching long enough to look up, shrug, and then use a little bit of blood wine to clear away some of the blood on Chris’ back to continue her work.

The head of the Starfleet group stepped forward and produced a PADD, “When I call your name..please step forward.” the man said in a loud voice.

“Ensign Talia Jaast.”

The Bolian woman who had served as the Chekov’s beta shift helmswoman got up from her bunk and stepped forward, a confused look on her face.

“Lieutenant Commander Vance Krinn.”

Krinn himself couldn’t believe what he was hearing and looked over at Gabe, relief was evident on his face as this was apparently some kind of good news.

One by one, various Starfleet officers and Federation citizens that had been captured by the KDF over the last couple of years were located..even the surviving members of the Auriga but for some reason when it came to one name in particular, the Lieutenant Commander couldn’t help but have his voice hitch when he said Chris’s name.

Lydea finished up her stitching at that moment, and ran a calloused hand over the bare back of the young man. “If you need Chris, he’s right here..I think he’s still out of it from that last headshot that he took.” Lydea explained.

The Starfleet officer handed the PADD off to one of the other people in his party and walked over to where Chris was still sitting with his head down, eyes closed as if he was asleep. “Chris...is it really you?” the man asked.

Gabriel was confused, did this officer know him. “Yeah, the warden has been using him for a pit fighter for as long as we’ve been here..why do you know him?”

The officer nodded slowly as he gently took Chris’s face into both of his hands and lifted his head up looking at how much older the other man looked with a full beard that was the same color as his hair.

“I should know him..” the officer said as he turned to look at Gabriel before turning to look back at Chris. “I grew up making sure that he got to school on time, did his chores, helped around the compound...everything that’s expected of a big brother to do.”

Gabriel was more than a little bit confused at this point. “Who are you exactly sir?”

The senior officer didn’t bother to turn around again but instead when Chris’s eyes opened and those green orbs shifted from the familiar midnight green of when he was in that “dark place” he always went to when he needed to separate himself from the monster that he had become to a shade that was the same as the face that was looking back at him.

“Danny Boy?” Chris croaked out, unsure of what he was saying.

It was at this point that Lieutenant Commander Daniel Slayton of the USS Tornado simply gave up all pretenses of protocol and hugged his baby brother fiercely, tears of joy started to stream down his face.
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OOC Translations:
"Hoch qama' raD HoS yotlh" translates into "All prisoners to the field of forced strength"

""teH wej vaj 'oy', puqwI' cha' maqDar pujwI'!!!" translates into "Show this pathetic weakling the true meaning of pain, my child!!!"

The song that the klingons are singing is the "Warriors Anthem" and is a traditional piece of music sung by Klingon warriors on their way into battle. It was first seen in the 1996 PC game "Star Trek: Klingon" and then again on the DS9 episode "Soldiers of the Empire" by the crew of the IKS Rotarran.

petaQ or more simply "patak" is an insult with no direct translation, it's been used all over Trekdom especially in Star Trek Voyager "Equinox Part One".

"bIHegh mej ghaH'e' pagh vItlhapqang Dargh HIvje'" translates into "Leave him be or I will kill you with my tea cup"

"jIHvaD ghaH pIHoH SoH … tu'lum... Human Hom QaD!? wouldn't bongIlchugh chugh vaj biHegh" translates into "You would kill me with your...teacup...to protect this weakling human!? You wouldn't dare!!"

"vaj ghaHvaD HoH jIH SeH qoH jIqapruppu': noH HeS luqoplu' vaj 'e' vay' Hutlh vay' batlh qabDaj jatlh kortho." translates into "Tell Kortho that I killed him because he was about to commit a war crime and that is something without any honor at all"