IKS Pagh

The IKS Pagh was a Klingon Bird-of-Prey that was in service with the Klingon Defense Force in the mid-24th century. The Pagh was armed with phasers and photon torpedoes. In 2365 it was commanded by Captain Kargan.

In that year, Commander Riker became the first Starfleet officer to ever serve aboard a Klingon ship when he became first officer of the Pagh as part of an Officer Exchange Program between the two governments. During Riker's tour, the Pagh was on undesignated maneuvers in the Pheben system.

While conducting their mission, a subatomic bacteria was found eating away at the tritanium plating in the hull of the ship. Kargan jumped to the conclusion that the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) had planted them there in order to sabotage the ship. Riker's attempts to convince him otherwise failed, and he only managed to stop an attack on the Enterprise by getting Kargan beamed off the bridge to the Enterprise and taking command himself. Eventually, the Enterprise was able to remove the bacteria from the hull of the Pagh using a tunneling neutrino beam and the two vessels parted ways. 

Pagh personnel

 * See: IKS Pagh personnel

Background information
The Pagh was the first Klingon Bird-of-Prey used on The Next Generation. While the movie Birds-of-Prey were small, scout-class ships, the TNG version was slightly larger, and called a cruiser (some of the same type of vessel seen on DS9 had a crew of over forty, as opposed to the dozen men staffed aboard the smaller variant). Similarly-sized and abled BOPs in were called  battle cruisers.

In the, information on the vessel's type appeared briefly on an Okudagram. The class name was not legible. According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, the Pagh was a Bird-of-Prey. For the remastered box set of Season 2, the Pagh was classified as a B'rel-class Bird-of-Prey.

A graphic of the Pagh featured more Dirty Pair references in the form of Op Kei and Op Yuri.

Apocrypha
In Keith R.A. DeCandido's Star Trek: IKS Gorkon series of novels, the Pagh was revealed to have been attacked by the Jem'Hadar during the Dominion War and crashed on the planet Marcan V, killing Captain Kargan and most of the crew; Klag was the only survivor. This event was later depicted in Robert Greenberger's Tales of the Dominion War story "A Song Well Sung", which shows Klag fighting off the Jem'Hadar despite losing his arm in the crash, before being rescued by Klingon forces.

It is perhaps interesting to note the similarity between the name of the Pagh and the Klingon word pagh. pagh can mean "either" or "or", and is also the word for "zero" or "nothing."

IKS Pagh IKS Pagh IKS Pagh