#2: Revenge is a dish best served ... hot?
“Reunion”, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season four, episode seven.
This is K'Eylar.
She is Worf's mate, and has brought onboard the Enterprise the son he did not know he had, though during the course of the episode she turns down his offer of marriage, much to his consternation and dismay. Meanwhile, K'mpec, High Chancellor of the Empire, is dying and two council members are vying for his seat. As K'mpec, impressed with his performance as Worf's second in “Sins of the father”, has chosen Picard as the arbiter of succession, the Klingons rendezvous with the Enterprise, that the choice may be made.
That choice is between Gowron and Duras. Worf knows Duras of course, as it is his father who sold out his own people at Khitomer to the Romulans, and he who framed Worf for the traitorous act, condemning him to Discommendation, meaning that Worf is looked on as a pariah in Klingon society. Nobody will even speak to him or look at him. Worf has much to hate Duras for.
During the rite of arbitration a bomb goes off, and is determined to be of Romulan origin. It is also found to have been on one of Duras's men. Researching into this, and by extension the circumstances under which Worf was tried as a traitor, K'Eylar uncovers the truth but then runs afoul of Duras.
Not about to allow his shame to be made public, much less his chances of becoming chancellor ruined, Duras kills K'Eylar.
When Worf finds her dying, and she tells him who killed her, he confronts his enemy on board his ship, demanding the Klingon "Rite of Vengeance".
Duras snarls that a traitor such as Worf
has no right of vengeance, but Worf then says four words that change everything in Klingon law: “K'Eylar was my mate.” You can immediately see the words “Oh f
uck!” in the expression that suddenly flits across the traitor's face.
He knows he is for it now. With no other choice, he engages Worf in combat but like most cowards he is a bad fighter, and at the end, tries to use what G'Kar called “enlightened self-interest” to save his life, telling Worf that if he kills him, there will be no way to prove that Worf is after all not a traitor. His efforts fail though: Worf is in a cold blood rage and kills Duras.
Understanding why he did what he did, but unable to condone it as acceptable behaviour for a Starfleet officer, Picard reprimands Worf and tells him if he cannot obey Starfleet rules he should resign. Worf chooses to remain aboard the Enterprise, but with a black mark against him.
This episode is quite pivotal in many ways. It wraps up the events of “Sins of the father” by allowing Worf to take revenge on the man who blackened his name, but it does not clear him, as he remarks to Picard: “Many of the council members shared in that lie. They will not be so willing to come forward now.”
By killing Duras, even if it is as a by-product of his revenge and not intended to benefit the other party in the contest, Worf has made a lifelong friend and ally of Gorwon, who now assumes the seat unchallenged. Worf has proven that, like most of us I think, when it comes to love all bets are off and rules be damned. This will not be the last time he puts his heart and his honour above his duty to Starfleet.
The other major thing to come out of this episode of course is that Worf is suddenly, and unexpectedly a father. He is not prepared for this, and it will create many bumps in the road ahead for him, but lead to a liaison with Deanna Troi and a better understanding of what it is to be a parent, and how hard it must have been for his own foster parents, bringing him up.
With Duras dead, you would think that would be the end of it. You would be wrong...