Forged in Fire Read online

  “I agree,” Koloth said. “Allow me to raise some far more relevant topics, such as the reason I am being imprisoned behind a force field. And just where I am.”

  “You mistake us, Captain,” Hurghom said. “You are not in detention.”

  Koloth raised his palm. He placed it just inside the doorway’s threshold, thereby producing a momentary but spectacular flash of amber light that made his hand feel as though it was suddenly teeming with Talarian hookspider larvae. Both scientists jumped backward slightly in startled response, forcing Koloth to suppress a smile. It was always good to be able to maintain both unpredictability and inscrutability, especially with one’s captors.

  “The presence of this force field would seem to argue otherwise,” Koloth said as he began massaging the feeling back into his left hand with his right.

  “This is only a medical quarantine field, Captain,” Hurghom said. “You are recuperating from your illness at a Klingon military facility.”

  “This facility obviously serves other functions as well,” Koloth said. “Which is no doubt why it retains the services of the former physicians to the disgraced House of Ngoj.” His eyes rolled up toward his altered brow. “Did you use the same techniques on me that you used to disguise the . . . hereditary handicap of that once-great House?”

  “Not precisely, Captain,” said Nej, shaking his head. His scowl made it clear that he did not enjoy rehashing this particular chapter of his past. “The House of Ngoj hid its shortcomings” — he cast a fleeting glare at Hurghom, who quailed slightly — “using cosmetic surgery, for the most part. You, Captain, are the beneficiary of a far more permanent treatment.”

  Pieces of the puzzle into which he had awakened were assembling themselves right before Koloth’s eyes. “You have found a means of removing the ‘Earther’ taint from the genes of QuchHa’ people.”

  Koloth had always found it ironic that some of the Earther DNA that now tainted so many Klingon bloodlines originated from genetically augmented humans, and therefore imparted to its bearers a certain strength, tenacity, and ruthlessness that even the magnificent Kahless himself may have lacked. Koloth had always been sufficiently prudent not to air such opinions aloud in the presence of the wrong company; he had learned very early in his career to rely on the tangible gifts his “bad blood” granted him, and to use those gifts to advance through the military ranks as quickly as possible. He exulted in the thought that the injustices he had faced all his life might soon become a thing of the past.

  “We still need to conduct more tests to determine whether the changes you have undergone are of a permanent nature,” Hurghom said. “But the initial signs are very encouraging. The retrovirus in your system seems to be working as planned.”

  Though the idea of being anybody’s experimental subject angered and revolted him, Koloth chose to regard this revelation as a hopeful sign; it meant that he might not have lost his entire crew after all. Still, he couldn’t deny feeling reticent about broaching that question directly with these academics, whom he assumed were unlikely to tell him anything they didn’t want him to know. And he knew there was precious little he could do for his men from behind a quarantine force field — assuming they weren’t already beyond all help anyway.

  “There had to be a delivery mechanism for this . . . treatment to which my crew and myself were evidently subjected,” he said. “It was the yIH, wasn’t it? Or perhaps the yIH-devouring glo’meH prototype we recovered from the Earthers brought your virus into our midst.”

  Nej and Hurghom looked at one another somewhat uncomfortably, confirming for Koloth that he had indeed struck his target, though he couldn’t be sure how close to the center he had come. He could see, however, how unsure both men seemed to be about how much more they ought to say.

  “Do I need to point out that my security clearance is probably a good deal higher than either of yours?” Koloth prodded, gently but with tempered bat’leth steel in his voice.

  “You have surmised correctly, for the most part, Captain,” Nej said at length. “Both the yIH and the glo’meH prototype were carrying a new variant strain of the Levodian flu. We developed it in secret for the High Council.”

  Koloth knew he was anything but an expert on the Levodian flu, but he knew enough for this revelation to raise any number of warning flags inside the back of his skull. “That virus was the source of both of the Great Qu’Vat Plagues,” he said.

  “It was,” Hurghom said. “Of course, that fact ought to surprise no one. After all, the Levodian flu virus has been used in virtually every genetic engineering project conducted within the Klingon Empire for the past century.”

  “But why were the yIH and the glo’meH carrying this particular virus?” Koloth wanted to know. “There had to be a specific purpose.”

  “There was, Captain,” Nej said again, almost guiltily. “We developed it as a means of restoring the Klingon people’s genotypic and phenotypic characteristics to the way they were before the First Qu’Vat Plague occurred. But before we risked deploying the new viral variant generally throughout the Empire, we had to start somewhere. Our first secret full-up test was to be done on the small Klingon population that has been living on SermanyuQ for the past few years, side by side with the Earthers.”

  Nej’s mention of the name of that long-contested world, which the Earthers persisted in calling “Sherman’s Planet,” made Koloth bristle. Since the disgraced spy Arne Darvin’s plot to poison the Earther grain stocks bound for that world two years earlier had been foiled — by those miserable, screaming yIH, no less — the ’orghen rojmab, the so-called Organian Peace Treaty, had forced the Empire to all but cede SermanyuQ outright to the Earthers who even now grubbed in the ground there.

  “The new virus is actually a carefully tailored retrovirus, a bioagent designed to rewrite the DNA of the test population,” Hurghom said. “We were using the internal metabolic processes of both the glo’meH prototype and the yIH to incubate the virus.”

  “We’ve concluded from your most recent log entries, Captain,” Nej said, interrupting, “that your encounter with Jones, the Earther thief who briefly stole the glo’meH, and the Federation starship on which he took refuge, must have resulted in the premature deployment of the variant Levodian flu retrovirus.”

  “And, ah, accidentally made you part of our test population,” said Hurghom. “Along with your entire crew.”

  Though he willed his face into expressionlessness, Koloth took a single quick step toward the force field barrier. He was pleased to watch both scientists instinctively back up a step, even though they must have known that they were in no danger so long as the field remained in place.

  “And did my crew share in my good fortune?” he asked, focusing his bottled anger into a hard glare aimed at them both.

  Hurghom’s face fell, and Koloth suspected that he wasn’t going to like whatever either of them was going to say next.

  “Unfortunately, only those possessed of a particular genetic profile regained their cranial ridges,” said the smooth-headed scientist. “The virus left others unchanged as it ran its course. And, unfortunately, it killed many others outright. We will furnish a list of the casualties and survivors as soon as possible.”

  Despite his own personal good fortune, Koloth could only hope that Gherud, the man he held responsible for alerting the High Command of the disease outbreak aboard the ’OghwI’— and who had also cheated him out of a chance to wreak bloody vengeance against Kirk — numbered among the dead.

  A disquieting thought suddenly occurred to him: these scientists might have been a little too forthcoming in providing answers to his many questions. Of course, that might have been because he’d managed to intimidate them into cooperating with him. Or perhaps it was because their retrovirus research had placed them at odds with the High Council, thereby forcing them to confide in him in order to cultivate an unofficial ally who might help them survive whatever consequences were certain to follow in the wake of their admit
ted failure. It was also possible that they expected him to join the ranks of the dead soon, becoming yet another victim of their botched retrovirus test.

  He decided that the only way to resolve the matter was to continue asking questions. “What will become of the survivors now?”

  “What the High Council does next will depend greatly upon the contents of our report,” Nej said. “And that will depend on the behavior of the virus.”

  “And that, in turn, will depend upon what new mutations may have arisen in the retrovirus’s genome because of its metabolic interactions with both the yIH and the glo’meH,” said Hurghom.

  “We can be thankful for at least a partial success,” said Nej, gesturing toward Koloth’s newly terraced brow.

  Hurghom adopted an emotional tone that Koloth could only interpret as sincerity. “Regardless of what happens to anyone else who’s been exposed to the virus, Captain, your transformation represents a fundamental breakthrough in the research that we’ve both been pursuing for decades.”

  “You must also look forward to . . . correcting your own condition,” Koloth said, his eyes squarely upon those of the smooth-headed scientist.

  “Of course I do,” Hurghom said, nodding. “But honor is more at stake here than vanity.”

  Koloth found it passing strange that a non-warrior should be overly concerned with matters of honor. “What are you talking about?”

  “Antaak, the man responsible for the Earther taint in the genes of us QuchHa’, was my grandfather,” Hurghom said. “I have inherited far more than his forehead, Captain — I am also heir to his enduring shame.”

  Antaak. Koloth recognized the name. Antaak had not only been responsible for curing the first outbreak of the lethally mutated Levodian flu on Qu’Vat during the last century — an act that had spawned every smooth-headed QuchHa’ alive today — but he had also inadvertently slain himself and millions of others on the very same world during a subsequent botched attempt to restore what the QuchHa’ had lost, using techniques not unlike those that Hurghom and Nej were employing now.

  “I have devoted my life to restoring Antaak’s lost honor,” Hurghom said. “Because therein lies my own.”

  “You and the survivors of your crew represent the final hope of our decades of research, Captain,” Nej said. “The High Council has grown impatient with our slow progress.”

  Hurghom nodded somberly. “And not only with us, Captain. Because of the Council’s unwillingness to risk the outbreak of another great plague, the Defense Force has already scuttled the ’OghwI’.”

  Koloth felt every muscle in his body stiffen involuntarily, though he kept his face free of any emotion. Losing a ship was something he doubted he would ever get used to, no matter how many times it happened. His previous command, the I.K.S. Gr’oth, had suffered a like fate after being overrun by yIH two years ago, in the very same sector of space where this latest encounter had occurred. Now, as then, every one of the horrific little shrieking furballs aboard his vessel had been vaporized. Along with every particle of virus they carried in their misbegotten bodies.

  “Unfortunately, the glo’meH prototype appears to have been destroyed as well,” Nej added.

  “Which is truly unfortunate,” Hurghom said. “The glo’meH could have been bred into an effective biological means of containing the yIH.”

  Nej shrugged. “There are other ways to deal with those pests, as I am sure the captain is aware. I have it on good authority that the Defense Force is diligently searching for the yIH homeworld to employ some of those alternate methods. They want to obliterate the planet’s surface, to make certain that the creatures can neither continue to endanger the ecologies of Klingon worlds, nor act as potential disease carriers.”

  Koloth found the thought of such a fate befalling the noisome fuzzballs immensely satisfying — as long as the yIH home planet was the only thing that was obliterated.

  “What about my crew?” Koloth asked. “Are they also to be summarily dispatched because of the virus they’re carrying?”

  Nej stood and studied Koloth impassively. Hurghom coughed and averted his gaze, having acquired a sudden keen interest in the toes of his boots.

  “We cannot lie to you, Captain,” the smooth-headed scientist said after a lengthy pause. “Initially, the Defense Force wanted to kill everyone aboard your vessel outright, Captain. Yourself included.”

  “Particularly you, Captain,” Nej said. “Although the High Command might conceivably take your illness at the time into account, your decision to open fire on your fellow officers did not win you any friends within the ranks of the fleet.”

  Koloth could certainly understand that; he had to admit that he himself would find such an offense rather difficult to forgive had he been on the other side of the transaction.

  “But obviously they were somehow talked out of having us all vaporized, or spaced,” he said. At least so far.

  Nej nodded. “They have stayed their hand, pending full batteries of medical tests.”

  “Which will be performed under the strictest of quarantines, of course,” Hurghom added. “We have to make certain that the virus all of you are carrying can indeed be rendered harmless and noncontagious before any of you can be released from this facility.”

  As reasonable as that sounded, something still wasn’t quite adding up precisely to Koloth’s satisfaction. Casting a hard, appraising stare first at Hurghom, and then at Nej, he said, “Surely the High Command would never have made this decision merely at the behest of the former servants of a disgraced House. And certainly not for men with whom the High Council has already grown as impatient as you claim.”

  Nej said nothing, though he continued to meet Koloth’s stare with an admirably inscrutable equanimity. Koloth could only wonder whether the senior scientist was contemplating the possibility that the High Council might soon turn him and his associate out of their jobs — or perhaps execute a far more precipitous and final decision.

  “It is as you say, Captain,” Hurghom said, once again minutely studying his boots.

  “Then who has intervened on my behalf?”

  As if they had been waiting for Koloth to articulate that very question, a pair of shadows abruptly crossed the floor of the vestibule a short distance beyond the doorway where Nej and Hurghom stood.

  “We did, Koloth,” intoned a deep, familiar voice. The same voice that had spoken to Koloth through his feverish delirium aboard the ’OghwI’. It sounded both imperious and slightly . . . happy?

  A moment later, the owners of the shadows stepped into full view immediately behind the scientists, both of whom stepped obligingly aside to allow the two baldric-draped, uniformed figures to approach the plane of the quarantine field.

  Koloth registered some mild surprise at the sudden entrance of Captain Kang and Captain Kor. But his surprise was supplanted somewhat by his enjoyment of the nonplussed striations that suddenly rippled across their normally smooth QuchHa’ foreheads. They stared at Koloth in silence, gaping like a pair of landed fish at his transformed but obviously still recognizable countenance.

  “My old friends,” Koloth said. “Did you rescue me out of loyalty?” Then he gestured toward his new forehead. “Or were you simply looking for a way to get one of these?”

  TWELVE

  Stardate 8998.3 (Gregorian date: December 30, 2289)

  U.S.S. Excelsior

  Captain Styles listened intently as Dr. Chapel outlined all of the results of the research that she and Dr. Klass had conducted on the DNA and protein residue of the virus that Commander Sulu had “discovered.”

  He had been unsurprised that Chapel and Klass requested the medical briefing for the start of the meeting; ever since the orders had come down from Admiral Cartwright that Excelsior was to take over unexpectedly for the Saratoga, placing Styles on a far more direct course for the Korvat conference than he had anticipated, he had suspected that Sulu had somehow been complicit in wrangling the new orders. Styles had even asked Cutler t
o check for logs that might show unofficial and unsanctioned outgoing communications from Sulu, but she had been unable to find anything.

  Maybe I’m just allowing my misgivings about Sulu to color my judgments, he thought. I could be seeing a conspiracy where there’s only a coincidence. Except that this coincidence just happens to bring Sulu a lot closer to his albino bogeyman.

  As if on cue, Chapel concluded her presentation. “And it is my belief, as well as Doctor Klass’s, that given the specific nature of the retrovirus’s tailoring, and the highly contagious nature of the original twenty-second-century Levodian flu virus upon which this modern pathogen was based, the retrovirus is clearly a bioweapon. Its ultimate purpose is as yet unknown, however.”

  Styles expected Sulu to speak up then, but it was Sarek who raised his voice first. Seated beside the Vulcan around the conference table were the other ambassador, Curzon Dax, and their Vulcan assistant, Dostara.

  “Regarding this matter, I have read the advisory message you sent earlier to the Saratoga,” Sarek said, looking to Styles, one eyebrow raised slightly. “I’ve also consulted Excelsior’s logs concerning the incident on Galdonterre. The warning from the deceased woman — combined with the related subsequent discoveries about the retrovirus — gives me pause. Logic dictates that these matters may be linked more closely than any of us may have thought before.”

  Although his doubts remained, Styles decided to give Sulu his due. “Actually, Ambassador, Commander Sulu feels very strongly that we should pursue this matter vigorously, as the woman on Galdonterre warned.” He was vaguely amused to see a flicker of surprise on Sulu’s face. “However, without further data or leads, I felt the evidence was too sketchy to justify taking any action that might jeopardize the peace talks, which are on a fragile footing at best.”

  Dax leaned forward. “An actual bioweapon attack on the peace talks would be significantly more disruptive than a false alarm. Better to die of embarrassment than from —”