Kooth meets the Klingon Commodore Uklik.

 A few days after the Kzinti leave, the Klingons arrive. To be honest, I am surprised that they did not immediately take over our beloved home world, but when they do turn up it quickly becomes apparent that someone has been putting a lot of thought into their occupation.

Our military, such as it is, have decided unanimously to present ourselves in full dress uniform, massed in parade in front of the dais on which is gathered our Democratic Council. The first Klingon to set foot on the soil of Zursk is the Klingon Commodore himself, Uklik. He is followed by a seemingly unending procession of shuttles carrying an entire marine force. There must be more than two thousand of them, disembarking from several troopships in space over our heads. They are accompanied by 200 elite Klingon personnel, and I know enough to realise that this signifies the presence of one of their famous commando cruisers. We wait in silence.

Once the Klingons forces have arranged themselves into a parade ground pattern, Uklik strides up to our honour guard. He raises his arm in signal, and the assembled Klingon occupation force shouts

"QAPLA'!."

Uklik speaks directly to us according to the ancient ritual of three acclamations. "We honour your valiant defence."

QAPLA'!

"We honour your destruction of our flagship and the death of Admiral Or'ok in battle."

QAPLA'!

"We applaud the destruction of your military bases, and your denial of combat by invasion to our loyal troops!"

He then awards all of us the highest Klingon award available to non-Klingons, the Honour Medal. 

"You remind me of an old Terran legend - the sacrifice of the Three Hundred. I am delighted that you have presented yourself as befits a great enemy. You will be offered places in our military; if you do not accept, I hope to meet you once again on the field of battle. You are dismissed."

This makes me one of the very few to have been awarded medals by both the Kzinti and Klingon high commands - in fact, this is the first time it has ever happened.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jupiter IV SFB decals

Image
 I bought some of these. They took well over a month to arrive from Canada:  For the Kzinti: ship insignia to the left as you look at them, and ships' names in suitably off-looking script to the right. I've tried them out now on the model I put together as a Kzinti Starbase, and they are rather disappointing. The sheet of Kzinti names comes out very dark, too dark for use, in fact, even though I tried them on a painted stripe of white. The ship insignia are also dark, but those ones are usable. I'll probably paint a little white rectangle on the ships themselves to make the decals 'pop' a bit more. One thing to look out for is that the entire sheet is covered with transfer film, so you need to cut around the individual decals to make sure there isn't too much extra - that can become a bit awkward when you are trying to put them onto a ship panel. This reminds me of older transfer sets like the old Revo medieval ones. Overall verdict: worth getting the insignia s...
Read more

The Lyrans are coming!

Image
 Well, not quite - this is my attempt at a Battle Station. It would actually do for pretty much any of the major powers, but I gave it a base sandy color and stuck some Lyran Homeworld Clan markings on it: The Lyran decals have come out much more sharply than the Kzinti ones did, possibly because of the lighter background tones. And for some reason my stations always look manky rather than Star Trek pristine, but I like the well used look. The second photo shows more of the detail, of which there is a great deal indeed. The model is six inches across by two inches high. It came with a flight stand, but being made of resin the station was far too heavy to balance safely so I simply glued it straight onto its base. In any case its relative height means it will still fit nicely with my spaceship models. I'm getting quite a lot of painting done at the moment. Teaching has finished for this academic year, although admin and my own writing will keep me busy. Doing a colour every so often...
Read more

Fly me to the moon

Image
 And other places. These are resin pieces, 6" diameter, sold by Combat Zone Scenery in the UK, and very nice they are too. Part of their Armada scenery range, they are useful hemispherical planets of various kinds. Here's my attempt at the moon/planetoid/large asteroid one: In any tabletop space combat game the miniatures are going to be wildly out of scale when compared with model planets, but often we need something visual to do the job well. These fit the bill nicely. Jungle planet: I used gloss acrylics for the sea effect. You'll notice a couple of metallic building son the surface - the moon of Endor? In fact, the other two definitely show the Star Wars Armada theme:  Ice planet - aka Hoth. And yes, that is a representation of a dead Tonton at middle right. You can also see a destroyed At-At walker at the top of the photo. The details are fun, but they have to impressionistic. I think this one turned out well, to my surprise. Someone once told me a long time ago not ...
Read more