Forged in Fire Page 11

“That’s the sole motivation?” Styles asked. “Space is vast, Commander. If you want to get away with skullduggery, just travel another hundred light-years.”

  “We don’t know the albino’s motivation, because almost nobody has had contact with him and lived to tell about it,” Sulu argued. “But we do have the dying warning of the woman that put us on this trail, and —”

  “Commander, I think you’ve just put your finger on something,” Styles said, interrupting. “Just about everyone who has encountered this albino pirate hasn’t lived long enough to tell anyone about it. But you have. And you survived an attack that threatened your family and destroyed your home — when you were a child. That kind of trauma stays with you for a lifetime. Perhaps you’re a bit too personally involved to consider this matter objectively.” Styles’s expression softened, and Klass sensed that he was actually being serious and nonjudgmental, rather than simply trying to put Sulu down. “I can’t say that, given an opportunity to avenge something of that nature, I wouldn’t grasp at the same straws you have. But until we have something more concrete to go on, I don’t see any point in taking any further steps in this matter . . . steps that might introduce unnecessary tensions and distractions into the peace talks, or maybe even derail them altogether.”

  Klass could almost see steam rising from Sulu’s collar, but even she had to admit that Styles had a point. The facts pointed to several possible dangers, but none of them connected sufficiently to draw a complete picture.

  “I will concede that I am personally involved, Captain,” Sulu said through thin lips. “But I think that ignoring the facts that we have might be inviting a calamity.”

  Styles stood. “If it doesn’t get in the way of your duties, Commander, you can still research this. Lieutenant Schulman will assist you. Again, if it doesn’t get in the way of your duties. If you find further evidence, you can be certain that we’ll act on it.”

  He put a hand on Sulu’s shoulder and smiled in a gentle, almost fatherly way. “If you’ll excuse the expression, don’t let this become your white whale, Hikaru,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Sulu said quietly.

  Klass saw the first officer’s jaw clench, and she wondered just what plans were hatching in his head even now. She knew that Sulu had been a part of Kirk’s crew long enough that he wasn’t likely to let this matter go, no matter what the captain ultimately decided to do about it.

  She just hoped that he wouldn’t push too far, or in the wrong manner.

  • • •

  “You want me to what?” Janice Rand asked, her voice sharp.

  “Trust me on this, Janice,” Sulu said. “I know what I’m doing.” He hated the fact that he couldn’t do this alone, but at least he knew he had one good friend on board who was in an ideal position to help him.

  She shook her head, her dark blond bobbed hair moving from side to side as she did so. “If we get caught, we’ll both be in big trouble.”

  Sulu grinned. “That’s why you won’t let us get caught. You’re too good to slip up. And me, well . . . you know me.”

  “All right,” Rand said, stepping away from Sulu, toward the turbolift to the bridge. “Five minutes, though. Or less. I’ll signal you when I’m ready.”

  “Thanks, Janice.”

  Sulu turned and stalked down the corridor toward his quarters. Going around Styles was a risky move, but he knew he had to try regardless. It’s not like I’m going over his head, exactly, Sulu thought mischievously. Just changing frequencies on him.

  He was still simmering with frustration over the meeting they had had earlier, though he took some comfort in the fact that Styles had given him permission to continue researching the albino and his crimes. He was simply widening his search parameters by seeking a bit of outside help. He felt thankful that he had some history with one particular person who might prove more helpful than just about anyone else in the Federation.

  In his quarters, Sulu took a seat in front of the viewscreen of his communications console, its monitor glowing with the cool blue-and-white logo of the UFP. He entered the proper frequency and waited.

  A few minutes passed, and his wall-mounted communicator chimed three times. It was Rand’s signal that she was now preventing the capture of any record of the outgoing call from Sulu’s quarters, and scrambling the subspace frequency he was using to prevent detection or interception on this end. For the next few minutes, Sulu could communicate in complete privacy.

  He tapped the console nervously, and moments later, the viewscreen picture changed.

  The man who answered the call was a male Trill of perhaps twenty-five, judging both by his smooth skin and the spots on his neck and brow, a man whose face was unfamiliar to Sulu. “May I help you, Commander?” the Trill said, clearly having read the signal Rand had sent as she’d opened the private comm channel.

  A wave of disappointment passed through Sulu, but even as he spoke, he saw movement behind the Trill man. “I need to speak with the ambassador. It’s urgent,” Sulu said. He was aware that he had now lost at least thirty seconds.

  “Very well,” the Trill said before moving out of view.

  A moment later, a dignified older Vulcan stepped into the camera’s line of sight. He was attired in simpler robes than those he’d worn during their last encounter, and his angular, upswept eyebrows now showed even more of the gray that frosted his bowl-cut hair. Still, despite the man’s stern, unemotional countenance, Sulu felt his spirits lifting, at least a little.

  “How may I help you, Commander Sulu?” the Vulcan asked.

  “I don’t have long to talk,” Sulu said, “but I have a matter of grave importance to relay to you, Ambassador Sarek.”

  • • •

  An hour later, Sulu was back up on Excelsior’s bridge, reviewing some recent duty logs with Valtane, when Lieutenant Rand called out.

  “Captain Styles, I’m receiving a message from Starfleet Command.”

  Sulu turned to see Styles step up out of his chair, straightening his tunic slightly. “On-screen,” he said.

  Fleet Admiral Lance Cartwright suddenly appeared on the main viewer, his expression grave but otherwise unreadable. Sulu had had relatively little interaction with Cartwright. But he also knew that Cartwright currently served both as Chief of Starfleet Operations and the organization’s liaison with the Federation Diplomatic Corps, and therefore chose to take the man’s appearance as a hopeful sign.

  “Greetings, Captain Styles. There’s been a change in your current orders. Because the Saratoga has been assigned to other duties, you are to immediately rendezvous with the shuttlecraft Hedford, which is carrying Ambassador Sarek and his retinue. Excelsior is to ferry them to the Korvat colony, and provide security for the peace conference there.”

  “Yes, sir,” Styles said crisply. “Is there anything in particular that we should be aware of regarding the conference’s security needs?”

  The admiral frowned slightly. “We have reason to believe that an increased security presence may be necessary. Intelligence has reached us that leads us to believe that the location and times of the talks may have been compromised. We want to make certain that hostile parties do not make the conference an opportunity to plunge the Federation and the Klingon Empire into war.”

  “Understood, sir,” Styles said.

  Sulu turned away to suppress the slight smile that had crept onto his face. Apparently his brief warning to Sarek had been enough to get the ambassador rattling some cages among the Starfleet brass. Sometimes it’s good to have connections, he thought, allowing himself to enjoy a moment of enormous satisfaction.

  “Please make certain that every courtesy is afforded the ambassador and his staff,” the admiral said. “And if any trouble does arise at Korvat, don’t hesitate to make every effort to end it as quickly and quietly as possible.” He nodded his head, and then said, “Cartwright out.”

  Sulu saw the new coordinates from Starfleet on his and Valtane’s consoles even as Styles began issu
ing orders, his voice steady and sure. “You all heard the admiral. Let’s get to the rendezvous point before Ambassador Sarek does.”

  Sneaking a look over his shoulder toward Rand, Sulu saw Styles looking his way, and rather intently at that. If he suspects anything, he’ll have a hard time proving it, Sulu thought. And either way, we’re going to be closer to the fight — if there is one — than we would have been before.

  The thought gave him some additional satisfaction, but little comfort.

  NINE

  2269 (the Year of Kahless 895,

  early in the month of Xan’lahr)

  I.K.S. ’OghwI’

  The inside of Koloth’s skull throbbed and pulsated like one of the old-style targ-hide war drums of ancient Qo’noS.

  He could no longer deny that he was succumbing to the fever that had begun its inexorable spread throughout the ’OghwI’ only four kilaans or so after the battle cruiser’s departure from yuQjIjQa’ space.

  Koloth heard the control room doors hiss open behind him. With a painful effort, he swiveled his command chair toward the noise in time to see the lift disgorge Choq, the ship’s elderly and sour-countenanced surgeon, into the command center.

  “I have come to make my report on the illness,” said Choq, halting once he’d come within slightly more than a bat’leth’s length from the command chair.

  “You could have called from the infirmary,” Koloth said.

  “Certainly. But then I wouldn’t have been able to observe how well my captain is enduring this affliction,” Choq said as he drew a handheld scanning device from the scabbard on his belt.

  Koloth leaned toward the surgeon and swatted the annoyingly noisy instrument out of his hand. The healer suppressed a wince as the device clattered against the deck, where it landed far too loudly for the captain’s taste. “My condition is unimportant. I need you to save my crew. But first, make your report.”

  Choq turned his head, regarding his fallen instrument as though thinking about retrieving it. Then he shrugged and fixed his rheumy gaze firmly back upon Koloth.

  “Very well, Captain. The illness comes from a virus — one that the yIH must have brought aboard with them.”

  “And that fool Korax no doubt spread it about when he tore that miserable vermin apart right in this very room,” Koloth said, suppressing a sudden transitory wave of nausea.

  Choq nodded. “Let us hope that Korax awakens from his coma, so that he may regret having done that. But in all fairness, Captain, the virus was probably already airborne more than a kilaan before he cast the creature’s guts to the winds, as it were.”

  Koloth suppressed a growl. “How?”

  “Some of the smaller ones must have gotten into the ventilation system almost immediately, and more than a few of those no doubt ran afoul of the circulation fans in fairly short order. The blades and the air stream would have done the rest — which is why two of the three crew members we have lost so far were already unconscious before Korax took his frustration out on that particular unfortunate yIH.”

  PujwI’. Weaklings, Koloth thought, repelled and horrified by the notion of being felled by something as lowly and insignificant as a microorganism, and an alien one at that. His chest was abruptly seized by a rapid series of wracking coughs, making him wonder whether he, too, might face a death that would deny him his rightful place among the heroes of Sto-Vo-Kor. The thought crossed his mind briefly that he needed to find a battle —any battle — in which he might die with honor, thereby avoiding a fate incalculably worse than death.

  “Have you found a cure yet?” Koloth said a few moments later, once he regained some semblance of control over his breathing.

  The healer shook his great shaggy head, his smooth brow furrowing in a fair imitation of the highly textured foreheads of his ancient ancestors. “No, and I’m not likely to do so soon enough to do us any good.”

  Koloth scowled, and the scowl hurt like a bat’leth wound. “Why?”

  “This virus incubates very quickly, Captain. And unless it burns itself out soon, we are all likely to be very dead in another few kilaans.”

  Koloth heard a heavy thump behind him, and he turned in time to see the heavy body of a young bekk finish its insensate tumble from the railing beside the astronavigation post to the deck below. The gleaming-browed, feverish-looking helm officer rushed to take the fallen man’s place. A moment later dour-visaged Gherud, the ’OghwI’’s second officer, stepped over the fallen man’s body and took over the nav station, curtly ordering the helmsman back to his own post. From the look of him, the young pilot already had one boot planted firmly on the deck of the Barge of the Dead.

  “I’d better see to that man, Captain,” Choq said, gesturing toward the unconscious crewman sprawled on the deck.

  Koloth nodded, and Choq moved to the fallen man’s side. If very many more of my men collapse, Gherud and I will end up having to run this ship all by ourselves.

  And the blame for that belonged entirely to one man.

  “Kirk,” Koloth said in a low growl as his frustration began to boil over. He stepped unsteadily down from the small dais upon which his command chair sat and stalked toward Gherud, nearly stumbling over Choq and his supine patient in the process.

  “Relieve the helmsman, Gherud,” he said. “Bring the ship about.”

  Gherud turned from his console to face Koloth, confusion creasing his brow. “Sir?”

  “Find ’Entepray,’ ” Koloth said, using the tlhIngan pronunciation of the name that was both hated and respected across countless sectors of space inside and outside the Empire. “The Enterprise, Gherud. And Kirk.” He bared his teeth.

  “We are going to destroy them both.”

  • • •

  He has taken leave of his senses, Gherud thought, though he nodded affirmatively at his captain’s orders and gave every appearance of acting to carry them out. Although he knew that the ’OghwI’’s disease-depleted crew stood little chance of prevailing against a Federation vessel as formidably armed as the Enterprise, he also understood how unwise it would be to defy Koloth, particularly in his current frame of mind.

  Disease-addled or not, he is still Koloth.

  But Gherud knew that the captain still had to be stopped, with his own d’k tahg if necessary. Gherud could only hope that the High Command had received his covert message about the yIH pestilence in time to intervene. As the ship’s covert intelligence officer, he could not allow a rogue captain to risk spreading a lethal malady to any other part of the Empire — even the border regions in which the ’OghwI’ had last encountered the Enterprise.

  He ignored the clatterings made by the half-dead helmsman who was busy helping Choq drag the fallen crewman out of the control room. Hyperconscious of Koloth’s alert but feverish eyes boring into him, Gherud turned toward the helm console and deftly entered the commands required to put the ship on a heading for the Donatu sector.

  • • •

  “Captain, we are being challenged,” said the voice.

  It took Koloth a moment to realize that the voice belonged to his second officer. His cheeks blazed with shame. Had he actually allowed himself to doze off in the command chair?

  “On-screen, Gherud,” Koloth said, leaning forward attentively. “I want to see Kirk’s ship clearly before I blow it out of the sky.”

  But the image that replaced the black-draped starscape on the control room’s main viewer was not that of Entepray. Nor was it a single ship.

  It was a trio of Klingon battle cruisers, their forward tubes open and glowing aggressively, revealing their amber-colored internal fires.

  A gruff voice suddenly issued from the comm. “I.K.S. ’OghwI’, you are under interdiction by the Klingon Defense Force. Stand down or be fired upon.”

  They know about the illness, Koloth thought. Did that fool Choq send a medical report directly to Command without running it past me first?

  Multihued spots suddenly swam before Koloth’s eyes, forcing him to marshal
all his strength merely to remain upright in his chair. A momentary wave of vertigo washed over him, with the salutary effect of focusing all of his remaining concentration on his most immediate problem.

  Those ships out there.

  “Sir?” Gherud had turned to face Koloth, hands hovering above his console, his expression expectant.

  “Acknowledge, ’OghwI’,” said the gruff voice on the speakers. “You are outgunned three to one. Stand down. Now.”

  “Do not acknowledge,” Koloth said. “Maintain alert posture.”

  Gherud looked mildly astonished, as did the two bekks stationed at the nearby weapons consoles. But they followed their orders.

  Koloth’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the three ships that slowly grew larger on the screen. Fellow Klingon ships or not, they were standing in the way of his vengeance. They were therefore obstacles to his honor.

  The collective superior firepower of the challengers meant little to Koloth, since cleverness mattered far more than mere weaponry. Besides, he had prevailed despite far worse odds in many prior battles.

  Forcing down another wave of dizziness, he thought, They will soon learn precisely why this vessel has earned the name ’OghwI’.

  Devisor.

  Gherud’s eyes went wide with surprise, and perhaps also with fear. “The lead vessel is opening fire, Captain!”

  Sure enough, the vessel in the middle of the screen issued an intense orange blast of force. A moment later, the ’OghwI’ shook and rattled as the shields absorbed the brunt of the impact.

  “We can’t take many more hits like that, Captain,” Gherud said, his voice quavering in unmistakable terror. “Especially not if all three ships attack us in concert.”

  They mean to destroy a plague ship, Koloth thought, regarding the younger officer with silent contempt. Did you really believe they would spare you?

  Koloth realized then that Gherud might indeed have believed just that — if he had been the one who had informed Command of the outbreak of yIH plague.