Free Diplomatic Implausibility by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Martok four years ago—was not appetizing. If the changeling had not been so publicly unmasked on Ty’Gokor as it was, Martok’s honor may never have recovered.
    “What is it you wish of me?” Worf asked.
    “I speak not as chancellor to ambassador, but as brother to brother, Worf. Help him find his own honor.”
    Worf refrained from pointing out that one cannot find something that does not exist. Instead he simply said, “I will try.”
    “That is all that I ask.” He took a sip of bloodwine. “Have you heard from Alexander?”
    Taking a bite of
bregit
lung, Worf said, “Yes, briefly—before I left for Earth. He finds his new assignment challenging. He also sends his regards.”
    Martok laughed. “A Klingon sentiment, followed by a human one. Appropriate for your son.”
    There was an awkward silence while both men ate their food and drank their bloodwine. Worf had never been comfortable talking about his son. Alexander seemed to be turning out all right, but that was through little of Worf’s own doing.
    Perhaps inspired by the mention of Alexander, Martok broke the silence with a very human question: “Are you all right, Worf?”
    Worf shook his head and almost smiled. He had hoped that his façade had remained intact, that Martok could not see the turmoil he was going through. In his life, only fourpeople had ever been able to see past it—or, at least, had done so and were willing to say so to his face—the Rozhenkos, Jadzia, and Martok. The chancellor’s ability to work past the barriers that Worf had spent a lifetime erecting was one of the many things that he admired about Martok, and why he felt so honored to be part of his House.
    “No, I am not,” he said, and then added, very reluctantly, “but I am afraid I cannot say why.”
    “Cannot, or will not?”
    “Both,” Worf said. “It is—personal.” He had been about to say it was a family matter, but that would make it Martok’s business. “I cannot discuss it, even with you.”
    “Will it affect the mission?”
    “I do not believe so,” Worf said carefully. The fact of the matter was, he had no idea what effect it would have.
    Drex’s was not the only familiar name on the
Gorkon’s
crew roster. There was the second officer, Toq, one of the children Worf had rescued from the prison camp on Carraya—Worf looked forward to seeing the young man again.
    And then there was the primary-shift gunner: Rodek, son of Noggra.
    A false name that Worf himself had given to Kurn, son of Mogh. His brother.
    When Worf had opposed Gowron’s invasion of Cardassia four years previous, Gowron had cast Worf out of the empire, seized his family’s lands, and removed Worf’s younger brother Kurn from the High Council. Kurn had come to Deep Space Nine to ask Worf to perform the
Mauk-to’Vor
on him, but Captain Sisko had forbidden it—what would be a proper ritual in the empire was murder on a Bajoran station, and Sisko would not allow one of his senior staff to kill his own brother.
    Kurn was unable to die with honor and unable to go on living. Worf found only one solution: have Dr. Bashir erase Kurn’s memory and surgically alter his crest, and then create a false record. “Rodek” was born from the ashes of Kurn.
    Now Worf was a hero of the empire, a respected member of the chancellor’s House. However, his brother unknowingly still lived the lie necessitated by a dishonor that no longer existed.
    But aside from Noggra, who took Rodek in, and Worf himself, no one in the empire could know of this. Not even Martok.
    “Worf, if you are hiding something from me that will affect what happens at taD—”
    “I will see that it does not, Chancellor,” Worf said formally. “You have my word.”
    Martok gazed upon Worf with his one good eye, and finally said, “Very well. Your word has always been more than enough. We will speak no more of it.”
    And they did not.

    “It was a glorious battle,” Klag said as he opened a third bottle of bloodwine and