Thanks for all the replies everyone. Joshua walked through the hatch that opened onto the bridge of the Long Distance Runner, the slashes on his back from the Trandoshan claws now healed by MU-SO 1. Mala and Nani sat at one of the work stations watching the Federation and Klingon ships. They were amazed at the accelleration and manueverability of the ships. Ano and Melee were at the other. Melee was matching the jump coordinates supplied by the navicomputer with the figures that Ano had done in her head. They matched perfectly. "Padawan?" Ateia Marelli, his Jedi teacher called to him from where she stood with the very pregnant Pehn Orell, and Peenk Montal. "Be ready to go to the hanger bay when we make the jump to hyperspace." "Yes, Mistress Ateia." "Josh?" Mala called over her shoulder. "The big Klingon ship is calling us." "It's name is Fist Of Kahless, Mala," Kirk crossed the bridge and stood behind the pair. "Open a channel." "Do what?" Nani asked, confused. "Let me speak with him." The face of Gond appeared on one of the monitors, his wife and first officer, Zanat, behind him. "Brother! It's good to speak to you once again. We've been watching you on the holonet with great interest. You are a big deal. We especially like last nights fight with the lizards." "That was fun," Kirk said with a big grin. "It was just like my days with Ericsen. Well, except for the drinking part. I wasn't old enough to drink back then." "Then you didn't drink that bottle of Blood Wine my father sent you when you accepted command of Ericsen?" "You know I did!" Joshua laughed. "You hand delivered it, and helped me drink it! Best Blood Wine I've ever had, too." "My father felt you deserved it. He said it was the least he could do to honor such a great warrior." "Ha!" Kirk interrupted his friend. "Your father paid me the ultimate honor when he attended my graduation ceremony." "True," Gond nodded in agreement. "No Starfleet cadet had ever had a Dahar Master as a graduation guest. And you my brother, had all three there!" "I don't know who was more excited about those three being there," Zanat told Joshua. "You, or your parents." "Well, it was nothing new for my mother. They were there when she graduated." "Yes, that's true," Zanat replied. "But then again, your mother attended the Klingon Imperial War Academy, not Starfleet Academy," Peenk, who'd been listening put her hand on his shoulder. "We need to talk," The blond said sternly. "It appears your woman is not happy about something, so I'll let you go," Gond nodded with a small smile. "I just called to tell you that all ships leave when you are ready," The transmission ended. Peenk gave Melee and Ano the ok to make the jump to hyperspace. "Tell me why you lied about your mother attending Starfleet Academy," Peenk demanded. Joshua sighed. "My mother was forbidden entry to the Academy." "Why? Your mother must be very good if she's about to take command of Starfleet," The man shook his head slowly. "She was denied entry because both her parents were Followers Of Singhe." "And they felt she was not trustworthy?" Tiberious asked. "They felt she'd been contaminated by her exposure to their ideology. The same for her sister Cynthia," Joshua looked away angrily for a second before turning back to Peenk. "My mother had to fight every day to prove herself to be the best," He said. "Hell, the only reason Starfleet let her join was because the Klingons told them that if they were going to be stupid and pass her up, they would place her on the Chancellor's command ship." "That's why your mother is known as the Dictator," Melee said from where she sat. "That's right. She couldn't show any weakness." "What happened to her birth parents?" Mala asked. "Mother and her sister killed them," He said as the ships entered hyperspace to begin the return to the Federation. "I sensed a bit of a problem up on the bridge," Ateia said as Joshua jogged through the hanger bay doors. "What happened?" "Peenk found out that I'd been less than truthful with her about my mother." "You lied to her?" She asked. "About my mother attending Starfleet Academy," He told her. "She was not allowed to enter the Academy because her parents were Followers Of Singhe." "As in Khan Noonien Singhe, the dictator?" "Yes," Kirk said with a nod. "They had a little set up in Orion space. A little commune with a dozen other couples. They were going to breed the master race." "You said that defectives don't give birth to defectives, that it's just a random mutation." "That's true," Again, Joshua nodded. "But they were also unstable. They felt they could break the programming in their childrens's brains," He then shook his head. "They were wrong, of course. Everyone of those thirty one children were normal. The oldest were about ten when they admitted they'd failed. So they promptly told the children that they were going to kill all of them." "They were going to commit mass suicide?" The tall woman asked in horror. "Oh no! They viewed the children as failing them!" He said with anger. "They were going to kill them, and try again!" Kirk gave Ateia a half smile. "They locked them in a building to give them time to say goodbye to each other. But what the idiots didn't know was that the children knew the place better than any of the adults. You see, the facility where they lived used to be an Orion pirate base. And every building had at least one escape tunnel. And the kids knew where all of them were. They got out and made their way to the control center. They then made a call to Starfleet and told them what was happening." "Fortunately, the Andorians had several ships nearby patrolling for pirates. They were there in twenty minutes. By then, though, the adults had realized the kids had escaped and began to hunt them down. That's when my mother and Cynthia opened all the bases airlocks, and shut down all the gravity plates outside the room. It was soon over." "What did these Andorians do with them?" Ateia asked Joshua. "They called Starfleet and told them what had happened. Then they took them to Andoria amidst much celebration over the fact that those kids had given them an intact Orion pirate base," Kirk looked the woman in the eye, his right brow lifting. "Orions do not allow themselves, nor their ships and facilities to be captured." "Is there bad blood between the Orions and the Andorians?" "Much bad blood. They've been going at each other for thousands of years". "So that is how your mother and her sister came to be adopted by the Tanaka family?" "Yes." Ateia Marelli nodded, then turned and retrieved a box that lay on the deck under Joshua's T-65. Returning, she opened it. Inside lay Pehn's rebuilt double bladed lightsaber. "I've talked it over with Pehn, Mulk, and Skywalker. They all agree with us that you should specialize with a double bladed weapon. And Mistress Orell has agreed to let you use her old one until we can make the trip to Illum, where the Force will test you, and give you the crystals for your own weapon," The woman smiled at her Padawan. "And the Force tells me that your blades will not be a common color like blue or green."