MIRAL TORRES

B'elanna Lives!

Today was as many are here on the Korvat colony, a level of predictable that verges on dishonour. Long ago this place was the location of talks between the great Kang, Koloth and Kor! So tense were these talks that they almost spilled out into war! But like I was only earlier today, it is a shell of its former self. Training the warriors of tomorrow is an honourable discipline, but my failing passion for it has bought me a more personal shame.

Now my fire is reignited.

I was within the QaQ jajvam hall. I stood at the edge of the mek'leth training circle observing the two young warriors sparing under the flickering glow of torchlight. The clang of steel against steel resonated through the chamber, a sound as familiar as my own heartbeat. Yet, my mind was distant, adrift in a storm of memories and regrets.

My thoughts returned to the present with the spark of a mek’leth as it made contact with the battered and worn stone floor of the training circle, leaving a fresh scar. The L'kor was disarmed and knocked out of bounds by her opponent Akhil. I picked up the fallen weapon from the ground and stared down at the young warrior.

“jaw quv, bIcheghnIS. joHwI', poH nIvqu' botlhejtaHvIS, ghaH boQapchugh, vaj pa' botlhejtaHvIS, botlhejmoHjaj Hoch.”1

Thrusting the mek’leth back into her hands I barked.

“You are done for the day, take your weapon and polish it before returning to my circle.”

The infernal sound of a computer signaling an incoming transmission cut in before I could finish.

Without a backwards glance to my aid, I yelled to him.

“Vaher, silence that thing!”

Before returning to my class, addressing my students:

“Akhil has won the previous battle, who here has the honor and courage to challenge her next?”

Before a challenger had accepted, I was rudely interrupted again by the shrill alert of the communications terminal.

“Vaher! Are you deaf or stupid petaQ? I told you to silence that thing”

“Mistress, the communication is addressed specifically to you. I am unable to terminate the alert without your biometric signature acknowledging the receipt.”

Stopping over to the console my irritation threatened to boil over into rage when I looked at the screen and saw the unmistakable insignia of Starfleet Command. The last time I had seen their seal, it had been to tell me that my daughter was lost. Likely dead. What dishonour would the Federation bestow on me now?

I pressed my thumb onto the scanner to accept the message, which I had intended to do so only to shut up the squawking machine. But before I dismissed the message, as I did with so many others, something stopped me. I do not know whether it was simple gut instinct, or perhaps the will of Kahless himself. But I chose to open it instead.

The message Starfleet played… It was news that sent ripples through my being. Against impossible odds, they had made contact with the ship that was sent after my own flesh. My puqbe'. B’Elanna. The Starfleet ship was trapped in the Delta Quadrant but my daughter’s name was among the living onboard.

For years, I had lived with the belief that B’Elanna had died with the Maquis at the hands of this Starfleet ship, or a dishonourable Cardassian. Her body was lost in the vastness of space beyond any hope of return. It was not the death I would have wished for my child. Despite her protestations, she was a Klingon warrior who deserved to perish in battle, blade in hand. Not to vanish without a trace into the void of space.

I had mourned alone, offering prayers to Kahless and the Black Fleet, hoping that wherever B’Elanna’s soul had gone, it had found its place among the honored dead.

I gawked in stunned silence; the words of the transmission were almost unreal. The warrior in me demanded I remain composed, to stoically accept the news and reply to it with a measured response. But the mother in me, the part of her that had buried a piece of my heart alongside B’Elanna’s memory, felt something break loose within my chest.

I clenched my fists, trying to still the trembling in my hands. I had lost count of how many times I had wished for this moment, yet now that it had arrived, I did not know what to do with it.

I did not notice Vaher. He had taken over for me presiding over the next match and I barely noticed when it ended, with the next challenger dropping to his knees in exhausted defeat at the hands of Akhil. While the other trainees let out victorious roars, he approached me. His brow furrowing as he took in expression etched across my face.

"Miral," he said, tilting his head in question. "You look as if you have seen a ghost."

I told him the truth. "In a way, I have"

He asked what had happened, and I told him as I tell you in this log entry now.

B’Elanna lives.

His brows lifted, surprise flashing across his scarred face. Murmurs stirred among the other warriors who had overheard. A Klingon mother mourning a lost child was a wound that never truly healed, but a Klingon mother learning that her child had defied fate itself? These are the times legends were born of. Worthy of song and story.

He simply replied

“Then Sto-Vo-Kor must wait”

Yes. The afterlife will wait. The ancestors will wait.

B’Elanna is still out there. And for the first time in many years, I feel... Hope.