Forged in Fire Read online

  To the memory of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922–2007).

  So it goes . . .

  — M.A.M.

  This book is dedicated to my brother and sister

  and their families, who’ve always appreciated

  their wild and woolly sibling “Uncle Andy”

  (and all of whom grew up too fast)!

  For my sister, Cathleen Wilde, and her Trekkie husband,

  Doran, plus nieces and nephews Cameron, Brandon K,

  Ned, Becky, Desiré, Andy, and Shannon.

  For my brother, Ron Mangels, and his wife,

  Stacey, plus nieces and nephews Andrea,

  Katie, Jon, and Lauren.

  May you all live long and prosper!

  — A.M.

  The bulk of this story takes place late in 2289 and early 2290, approximately halfway between the time of the films Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. This places it about four years before The Captain’s Daughter and eight years before The Lost Era: The Sundered.

  We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.

  — Jean-Paul Sartre

  (1905–1980)

  PROLOGUE WA’

  2173 (the Year of Kahless 799,

  early in the month of Lo’Bral)

  Qu’Vat

  “I know you think this is the only way to reclaim your honor, Doctor Antaak,” said Quv. The younger Klingon man’s voice shook in a distressingly un-Klingon manner that strangely suited his unnaturally smooth forehead. “But what you are about to do isn’t far short of pure insanity.”

  As he continued walking briskly through the throngs in the central public transport concourse of the Klingon colony world of Qu’Vat, Antaak clutched his medical bag close to his chest and cast a weary smile at his student, who breathlessly kept pace beside him.

  “How little you truly understand of honor, Quv,” Antaak said. “And of what it means to lose it.”

  Antaak couldn’t blame Quv for his reticence; his student was far too young to truly understand or appreciate what Klingons were supposed to look like. Quv was younger than Antaak’s own adult children, and thus had no firsthand memory of the time before the Change. The time before Antaak’s own attempts to create genetically enhanced Klingon warriors had unexpectedly created the mutated Levodian flu virus that sentenced all of Qu’Vat’s millions to a horrible death — a fate that Antaak had averted only by distributing a therapeutic retrovirus suffused with specially altered Earther DNA.

  The consequence had been the creation of a new sub-race that now dwelled on Qu’Vat and far beyond, Klingons whose bodies were so free of their people’s traditional texture that even Kahless himself would doubtless have been unable to recognize them as his own folk. Although those afflicted with this mark of shame represented only a minority of the overall population of the Klingon Empire, a large generational cohort had grown up literally wearing Antaak’s failure upon their faces.

  It was an intolerable reminder, and it plagued Antaak, assailing both pride and conscience, every time he looked in the mirror. He had been determined to remedy it since it first happened, regardless of the cost. And now that both success and redemption finally lay within his grasp, he would brook no further delay.

  Antaak came to an abrupt stop beside the fire fountain in the main square, which housed an obelisk that stood as tall as three large men. Rising from the center of the stone display’s perpetual conflagration stood oversized cast duranium representations of Kahless and his brother Morath, locked in their eternal hand-to-hand struggle on the slopes of the Kri’stak Volcano, where legend had it that Kahless had fashioned the very first bat’leth out of a lock of his own hair. The complex topography of the foreheads of both brothers seemed to dance and jump in the chaotic spray of flames and sparks that framed their age-old conflict. It seemed to Antaak that the metal colossi were but pausing in their eternal combat, as though eager to watch Antaak redeem both his people and his own honor.

  He reached into his medical bag and removed a small vial, pausing to watch the preoccupied crowds as they paced to and from the maglev platforms and the tube trains that were taking most of them back to their homes for the evening, while transporting a few less fortunate others back into the business and industrial districts where the night shift was about to begin.

  The only one present who seemed to have any inkling that anything out of the ordinary might be about to occur was Quv, whose brow now appeared nearly as furrowed as those of his honored ancestors.

  “Are you really certain this is safe, Doctor?” Quv said, his voice quavering in unmistakable fear.

  Quv’s continued sniveling had finally reached the elastic limits of Antaak’s patience; Antaak thought it might soon snap, like a length of frayed cable suddenly placed under far too much tension.

  “My senior staff is satisfied with the bioagent’s preliminary tests,” Antaak said, biting off his words one at a time. “So there is no reason to delay deployment any longer — especially when our financial patrons on the High Council have grown so restive of late.”

  To say nothing of the demands of honor far too long denied, Antaak added silently. Besides, if I were to allow this research to drag on long enough to completely satisfy the fainthearted, I’d never live to see it reach its conclusion.

  And B’Etris, his wife of more than twenty years — a great beauty whose brow had retained the proud cranial topography of the warriors of old — might never see her husband finally become worthy of her again.

  Antaak’s gnarled thumbs pushed at the vial’s cap, launching the stopper skyward with an audible pop. He raised the open container over his head, trusting the vial’s preprogrammed internal mechanism to do the rest. A woman carrying a small child paused to eye him curiously for a moment before she walked on and blended into the milling, shifting crowds.

  The vial moved slightly in Antaak’s hand, the mild sensation of recoil confirming that the tiny aerosol delivery device had launched itself high above the open-air plaza. Within moments, the vial’s microscopic contents would be randomly distributed throughout the transit mall before spreading swiftly beyond via the station’s efficient network of maglev trains and the prevailing winds.

  Antaak wondered if he dared hope not only for redemption, but also for immortality in the annals of Klingon history. There would be stories told at the Kot’baval festival, and songs sung, in between the celebrations of Kahless’s legendary defeat of the tyrant Molor in single combat. Perhaps an achievement such as this one — the complete restoration of the pure Klingon genome, a battle won by science rather than blades — might even rate its author a statue in the Hall of Heroes.

  Minutes passed as Antaak stood silently beside the fire fountain, watching the passage of the unwitting crowds. He could only wonder if the proud foreheads of their ancestors would begin to return immediately, even as he watched. Or would the mass metamorphosis these people were now carrying with them to home and workplace take hours or even days to manifest its full effect?

  “I don’t feel very well, Doctor,” Quv said.

  Antaak had finally had enough. “Be silent, you fool. Can’t you see that you are witnessing history?”

  Quv was indeed silent after that. He remained particularly so after he pitched forward onto the stone pathway beside the fountain, where he landed as limp and boneless as a child’s rag doll.

  “Quv?” Antaak knelt beside his student, whose breaths were now coming in rapid, shallow bursts. Perhaps this is some manner of allergic reaction, he thought, willing his jangled nerves to steadiness.

  A scream pierced the air a short distance behind him, prompting Antaak to rise quickl
y and turn in the direction of the sound. A smooth-headed woman held a toddler — Antaak wasn’t certain whether she was the same young mother he had seen watching him a few moments earlier — and the child was in obvious distress. The child, a boy who couldn’t have been more than two or three years of age, appeared to be in the grip of some sort of convulsion or seizure. Like the forehead of the panicked woman who carried him, his own was smooth, though it was growing noticeably inflamed and red even as Antaak watched.

  A familiar pattern of bumps and ridges was clearly beginning to appear on the child’s forehead.

  Then the boy screamed, vomited, and went limp. He hung apparently lifeless in the young woman’s arms even as she, too, began developing facial features similar to those displayed by her son. Two other people near the woman appeared to be having difficulty breathing. A short distance behind them, a uniformed constable tore off his helmet, displaying a badly inflamed but heavily ridged forehead before he, too, collapsed onto the transit mall’s unyielding stone floor.

  Antaak quickly lost the ability to distinguish further manifestations of the new plague he had apparently just unleashed. He saw only flashes of mortified faces, heard only pained screams and running feet, felt and tasted only terror. Antaak’s suddenly rubbery legs gave way beneath him before he came to the belated realization that he, too, could no longer breathe properly, nor even gasp. His mind flashed back to the Hall of Heroes, which he understood with resigned finality would now enshrine neither his name nor his likeness, both of which would doubtless be reviled, now and for all the ages to come.

  He realized that dull, plodding Quv had been right after all. Had he the breath for it, he would have laughed.

  Among Antaak’s last coherent thoughts before oblivion pulled him under was to hope that his wife, his grown daughters and son, and his five young grandchildren would find a place of safety before this new plague reached them.

  Along with gratitude that none of them had been immediately present to witness this final, career-defining failure.

  PROLOGUE CHA’

  2295 (the Year of Kahless 921,

  early in the month of Soo’jen)

  Qo’noS

  There was no stillness to this night. The very air itself seemed agitated, as if it could ignite at any moment into a blazing conflagration. Captain Hikaru Sulu had been to Qo’noS twice before, but never to observe so solemn a ceremony as this. And never at so damning a moment in time.

  Above those assembled here, the charred and crumbled remnants of Praxis, the Klingon moon, shone with a wan light. The satellite had been a dead place for nearly two years now, but the Klingons had refused to destroy what slivered shards of it remained, and tidal forces had yet to grind it to dust, or drag it down to Qo’noS itself. Like a wounded warrior still engaged in some legendary battle, it stood above them, reminding those under its gaze that it survived, and would continue to endure until a challenger rose to reckon with its shambling remains.

  A warm wind gusted past, and Sulu closed his eyes to keep the dust from getting into them. He was glad that Kang had chosen not to have his son’s remains cremated on a funeral pyre; despite all the cultural differences Sulu had encountered in his Starfleet career, he wasn’t certain that he could have maintained his composure while watching a child’s corpse being immolated.

  The wind calmed for the moment, and Sulu opened his eyes, even as those near him reached to retrieve their weapons. Catching the hitch in his breath before it could become noticeable to others, Sulu kept still. Despite the accords so recently signed between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, the sight of three Klingon fighting men in full warriors’ garb, brandishing polished bat’leths, was enough to make even a Vulcan’s pulse race.

  The other companion who pulled a bat’leth from a ceremonial satchel was not Klingon at all, but a member of the Trill species. Curzon Dax was fast becoming one of the most renowned and fearless diplomats working in the Federation, and his presence here was a testament not only to the trust the Klingons had placed in him, but also to the piece of himself that he had allowed to reside with them.

  No example of that trust was more clear than the inscription that had been graven upon the face of the burial vault that the Klingons had erected here today. As with other such vaults, which Sulu had seen only in the form of holo-photos, the lineage of the House of Kang was delineated in the angry strokes of Klingon script, hammered masterfully into a copper-colored metal. At the bottom of the list was the name of the young child who had been entombed today within the vault: DaqS, son of Kang and Mara.

  It had been only five days since DaqS had succumbed to a mysterious disease; from what Curzon had told Sulu during their trip to Qo’noS, the illness had come on suddenly and had subjected the child to excruciating pain. DaqS was Curzon Dax’s godson, the only Klingon that Sulu had ever heard of that had been named after an offworlder. Kang’s respect for Curzon must have run very deep indeed for the Klingon to bestow such an honor upon him.

  Sulu knew that his own past with Kang, Koloth, and Kor had instilled in them a trust for the Starfleet captain as well, but even that trust could not compare with the bond the three warriors shared with Curzon. It was Sulu’s observance of that distinction that kept him from brandishing a bat’leth of his own during this somber moment, as the Trill ambassador did.

  Kang was the first to stab his bat’leth into the sky, his sharpened teeth bared, his ridged brow taut. A powerful howl issued forth from his throat, sounding as raw and intense as though they were his own death cries. Koloth, Kor, and Dax raised their bat’leths seconds later, guttural cries coming from each of them. The other mourners assembled around them raised their own bat’leths — or their fists, as did Sulu — yowling into the warm night air.

  The sound was an indescribable cacophony, and Sulu felt his pulse quicken even as a cold sweat broke out on his skin. He knew that the death ritual was usually performed in the direct presence of the fallen warrior or family member, generally with the deceased’s eyes pried open to ensure a better view of the afterlife. But DaqS had been a mere boy, barely into the earliest levels of training, and his passing had apparently convulsed, distorted, and desiccated his body so horribly that it had not been deemed fit for viewing, even by Klingons — a species not known for being squeamish. The thought made him shudder.

  So the mourning party howled to the memory of the child, whose remains were already ensconced within the vault, remembering him for what he was and for what he represented to Kang’s bloodline. Sulu had never met young DaqS; the boy had been born less than a year after the last time that he had been in the presence of Kang, Koloth, Kor, and Dax. But he could empathize with the loss, had seen it etched in the faces of those in his life whose children had preceded them into death. Despite all his bravado, James Kirk had been indelibly scarred a decade ago when a Klingon soldier had murdered his estranged son David Marcus on the Genesis Planet. Others, on board both the Enterprise and Excelsior, had faced similar traumas, which had changed each of them irrevocably.

  And then there had been the time not all that long ago when he’d thought Demora dead.

  In the angry skies overhead, Sulu saw a meteor streak by, and he wondered for a moment if it was an omen or just another piece of Praxis that had finally tumbled into Qo’noS’s atmosphere. The tumultuous cries around him continued to resound strongly for another few minutes, until Kang stopped, slashing his bat’leth through the air one-handed to silence all the others as well.

  Sulu glanced toward Mara, to see if she would join her husband near the tomb marker, but she stayed where she was, deferential to the male warriors who had assembled around Kang. Sulu had met her only once, very briefly, when they were all much, much younger.

  Kang began to sing then, his basso voice hoarse yet strong. Through his universal translator, Sulu understood the basis of the song, even as others joined in. It was part of the traditional Ak’voh rite, a mournful song intended to keep predators both physical and spirit
ual from devouring young DaqS’s spirit before it could safely reach Sto-Vo-Kor. During the shuttle ride to Qo’noS, Curzon had told Sulu of the ritual song, explaining that if it was performed, which seemed likely, it would have to be modified, since the soul of a child would face a far more perilous journey to the Klingon afterlife than would that of an experienced, blooded warrior; thus, the more strongly the voices of his family and fellow warriors sounded, the easier young DaqS’s passage into Sto-Vo-Kor would be.

  The blood on your face is that of your foe,

  The fire that burns toward you will temper your blade,

  The Halls are Waiting, the Halls are Waiting!

  Each carrion-eater that attacks shall lose an eye,

  You will wear their teeth around your neck,

  Their fur as your cloak, their spines on your boots,

  The Halls are Waiting, the Halls are Waiting!

  The serpent that bites you with poison will die itself,

  Its jaws pried apart as you force the poison from you. . . .

  For a moment, Sulu wondered precisely how the song had been altered from its original form for the child, and how much more violent the unexpurgated version could have been. But this was Klingon culture he was experiencing firsthand, and he compared it again to that of his own lineage. Many generations ago, his own clan had included a father and son who were samurai in feudal Japan; unlike Kang, however, their bloodline had survived to succeed them.

  The Ak’voh song rose toward a thunderous finish, growing so loud that it seemed as if the Klingons were trying to be heard on the remains of Praxis, or perhaps even on the bridge of Excelsior, which currently orbited Qo’noS. He now heard numerous verses being shouted by numerous people, each layering over the others indecipherably as every mourner and warrior offered their own warnings or protections on behalf of the departed spirit.