As a large number of Klingon youths are planning their rites of ascension in G'rah's bar (The Limits of Kholinari), one of them proclaimed he would be the first to climb "The Spire", the extremely tall mountain that reaches out of the atmosphere of the equitorial coninent of New Lhasa. Loras Veltr'a, a keen climber, was playing in the band at the time and stopped playing to object. Their disagreement became a formal challenge - a competition to climb the mountain first. Kath'lar (Diplomacy, USS Darwin) agreed to referee, and M'Kress agreed to be his "second".
Some time after the two challengers set off, a "married quartet" of Andorians arrived, claiming to be Loras Veltr'a's real parents. Kath'lar denied them permission to set off to meet Loras on the mountain, but they went anyway. M'Kress read a message from Loras' Vulcan foster mother that his foster father had been kidnapped, but it was not until security found him imprisoned in the Andorians' freighter that they realised the danger Loras was in. By the time Kath'lar's ship, the Koloth, had found him, one Andorian had fallen to his death, another was incapacitated by a rescue flare, and Loras was near death from phaser fire. After being partially restored by the Koloth's Andorian medic, Loras insisted on finishing the challenge - which he soundly won. Under questioning, the renegade Andorians told Loras only that they were trying to erase all memory of his Andorian parents and what they did. Loras also told his father he had decided to abandon the ways of Vulcan.

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