Forged in Fire Read online

  Sulu took a seat between Chapel and Cutler at the meeting table. Because this room was generally regarded as a private conference space for senior officers, no one else was present.

  “You’ve described our fugitive’s DNA as ‘wandering,’ ” he said, addressing Chapel.

  She nodded. “I suppose that’s accurate enough, Captain. Without getting too technical.”

  “Then let’s get technical, Doctor. Is there any way this ‘wandering’ might be predicted?”

  Sulu watched Chapel’s thoughtful scowl appear and deepen as she considered the matter. “You mean, can we work out in advance exactly how the DNA might drift?” she said. “And see in advance what sorts of new disorders he might suffer, and which cures he might need?”

  “Sounds like forecasting a future map of the galaxy based on known stellar motion,” Cutler asked.

  “Exactly,” Sulu said, nodding. “If we can somehow calculate ahead of time in what direction the raider’s DNA might wander, we might be able to work out his future biochemical needs.”

  “And from that we could figure out which planets he might be headed toward next,” Cutler said.

  Sulu grinned. “Right again, Commander. Doctor?”

  Chapel sighed, scowled again, and shook her head. “The concept makes sense, Captain. But the progressive genetic drift we’re talking about here makes even ten billion years of stellar drift look like pretty simple stuff. I simply don’t have enough data about the exact present state of the raider’s DNA to make an accurate prediction of how it’s changing from day to day. And even if I did have that sort of information — which I don’t because he’s probably therapeutically adjusting his own DNA in ways I just can’t foresee — there probably isn’t enough computational power in the whole known universe to crunch the numbers in time to do us any good.”

  Sulu bit back a curse. “Then the short answer is ‘no.’ ”

  “So we hit yet another brick wall,” said Cutler, deflating Sulu’s spirits further.

  “I’m not sure I said that, exactly,” Chapel said, her thoughtful scowl giving way to a small, sly smile. “Maybe we should try attacking this problem from another angle.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Sulu asked, still unwilling to let his hopes gutter out entirely.

  “For starters, let’s put aside the whole matter of chronic genetic troubles for a minute and look at our man’s other motivations.”

  “All right,” Cutler said. “We know he’s something of a weapons enthusiast.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Sulu said, nodding. The raider had been partial to high-powered weapons even decades ago on Ganjitsu, when he’d destroyed the Sulu family compound from orbit.

  In fact, the albino was easily the best-armed privateer that Sulu had ever encountered; not only had he come to Korvat equipped with highly destructive plasma flares capable of crippling even well-armed Klingon warships under certain circumstances, he had also employed biomimetic compounds to attempt — and commit — assassination, and had set off organic explosives. Not to mention that he had recently murdered a woman using a weaponized retrovirus that he had tuned to his victim’s specific DNA.

  Most recently, at Mempa II, he had acquired a large supply of another commodity that might have as many applications for violence as it did for medicine.

  “Isomiotic hypos,” Sulu said.

  “Excuse me, Captain?” Chapel said.

  “Along with the retroviral vaccine materials the albino stole from the lab on Mempa II, he got away with a hefty supply of isomiotic hypos.”

  Chapel whistled, as though impressed by the raider’s achievement. “That’s pretty heavy-duty medicine. But I’m not sure how he’ll be able to apply isomiotic hypos to his particular condition.”

  “What if that’s not his plan?” Cutler said.

  Sulu nodded and reached for the computer terminal on the tabletop.

  “Computer, cross-reference isomiotic hypodermics with all known biogenic weapons applications, under my security authorization.”

  Precisely six and one-half minutes later, Sulu almost wished that Curzon Dax had never told him about the isomiotic hypos in the first place.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Early 2290 (the Year of Kahless 915,

  late in the month of Doqath)

  The freebooter ship Hegh’TlhoS, near Mempa II

  They won’t be staying down there forever, Qagh thought as he stared at the central forward viewer on his command deck. The planet was shrouded in darkness, except for the bright crescent of its eastern limb. They’ll return to their ships, sooner or later. And then the chase will continue.

  And continue.

  It was intolerable.

  Qagh moved toward the console where Gnara was working. “Any change in the interference coming from the Klingon ships?”

  Gnara focused her one eye on the relevant displays before her.

  The eye widened in surprise. “The landing party on the surface is receiving a tight-beam subspace signal, Captain.”

  Qagh scowled. “What of it? Can you intercept it?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. But the ‘go’ signal we tried to transmit earlier . . .” Her voice trailed off as she tried to organize her thoughts.

  “Yes?” Qagh prodded, his scowl deepening as his reservoir of patience ran nearly empty.

  “I think we can get it through the interference field,” she said, flustered. “All we have to do is piggyback the ‘go’ signal onto the subspace carrier they’re using.”

  A malicious euphoria seized him. “Do it.”

  • • •

  Mempa II

  Commander Sulu’s serious-looking face filled most of the large computer console in the alien lab, and Kor watched attentively alongside Kang, Koloth, and Dax while crew members from the Klothos, the QaD, and the Gal’tagh continued their security and cleanup operations at the site of the albino’s latest massacre.

  “Unfortunately, I have no news about Ambassador Kamarag,” the human said. “He’s still comatose, but stable.”

  Trapped between Gre’thor and Sto-Vo-Kor, Kor thought, shaking his head in glum resignation. I would not wish such a fate upon my worst enemy.

  For he intended to send that enemy to a berth aboard the Barge of the Dead, and thence to the eternal darkness of Gre’thor, as expeditiously as possible.

  “But I do have some new information about our fugitive,” Sulu continued. “I think you might find it useful.”

  Kor’s eyebrows went aloft without his volition, and he exchanged a quick glance with Curzon Dax and the other two captains.

  “Indeed,” Kor said.

  “What sort of information, Commander?” Kang asked.

  “My senior staff and I have concluded that he’s after more than just therapies for his various genetic disorders,” Sulu said.

  “It’s no revelation that our quarry seeks weaponry,” Koloth said with a dismissiveness that matched the sneer that adorned his robustly textured head.

  Already disappointed by the substance of Sulu’s latest communication, Kor said, “This Ha’DIbaH’s lust for arms is already well known to us, Commander. It explains why he has become as formidable as he is presently.”

  “Of course,” Sulu said, apparently unfazed even by such vehement Klingon skepticism. “But as far as we can tell, he’s never before had the capability of poisoning whole planetary biospheres in a single attack. We think he might soon be able to do just that, if he can’t already.”

  “What are you talking about, Commander Sulu?” said Kang, his usually smooth forehead wrinkling even more than Sulu’s.

  Sulu paused, apparently gathering his thoughts. Then he leaned forward, as though he was entering commands into a console that wasn’t visible on the screen.

  Kor noticed only then that he didn’t recognize the background that was indistinctly visible behind the human. Was he transmitting from his personal quarters rather than from the bridge of his ship?

  “I’m tra
nsmitting an information packet to the Klothos now,” Sulu said, “using our secure frequency to avoid outside interception. You’ll find that it contains a . . . recipe for a truly terrible biogenic weapon.”

  Kor frowned, not quite believing his ears, though he understood now why Sulu was evidently calling from a place of solitary secrecy. “Why would you do this? Why would you compromise the security of your own Federation in this way?”

  “I’ve done it because I trust the three of you to do the right thing with the information,” Sulu said. “And because I believe our fugitive is trying to build this very weapon, probably with the intent to use it — against one of your planets.”

  Kor saw a sly smile begin to spread itself across Kang’s face. “I imagine that you also determined before calling us that our own intelligence service already knew about this particular Federation ‘secret.’ ”

  “If our own scientists haven’t already discovered the means of creating this weapon on their own,” Koloth said, no doubt insulted at the implication that Klingons must necessarily resort to spying to advance their knowledge of weapons. “Not that true warriors would ever resort to the use of such cowardly devices.”

  “Regardless of what your people may or may not know already, I’m reasonably certain that my superiors wouldn’t approve of my unilateral decision to share this information with you,” Sulu said with a wry smile of his own. “But our fugitive has forced my hand. Whether his ultimate targets are planets in the Federation or in Klingon space, I can’t in good conscience take the chance that he might succeed in deploying this biogenic weapon anywhere.”

  Kor pulled his communicator from his belt and barked a few terse orders to his communications officer, then retrieved a thick datapad from a nearby tabletop. He paused momentarily to activate the padd and link it to his communicator, to enable it to unscramble and display the secure databurst he’d just received from his ship.

  The padd displayed a list of the biogenic weapon’s various components. Kor read through it in deliberate, thoughtful silence as his three companions crowded around him to do likewise.

  Isomiotic hypos.

  Cobalt.

  Selenium.

  Rhodium nitrate.

  Kor knew, of course, that their quarry already possessed the first item on the list. Whether he had already gathered the remaining material, or how long it might take him to finish doing so if he hadn’t, had to remain subjects of uneasy conjecture for the moment.

  “Commander, do you think he already has all the necessary compounds and elements in his possession?” Kang asked, turning his eyes from the padd back to the image of Sulu’s face.

  “There’s no way to know for certain,” Sulu said. “But I don’t think so — at least not yet. This stuff isn’t all that easy to find, especially in weapons-grade form, and it’s almost never found together in the same place. It could take years, even for a dedicated, well-resourced criminal enterprise.”

  “If the materials in question were in his possession already,” Kor said, “then surely he would have used them against Korvat.”

  “There’s no way to know for certain what he may be holding in reserve,” Sulu said. “At least not until after it literally explodes in our faces.”

  “I believe you mean our faces, Commander,” Kang said acidly, clearly unhappy that Excelsior’s new captain had not seen fit to violate his own superiors’ cowardly orders or to challenge the will of the frequently temperamental High Council. Like Kor, Kang was an ill-favored QuchHa’ who naturally lacked Koloth’s HemQuch standing with the Council, and thus had cause to resent both that body’s occasional inaction and its tendency to issue arbitrary edicts; nevertheless, Kor thought it strange for Kang to expect an Earther to have the courage to do what the vast majority of Klingons would not or could not do themselves.

  “I suppose I’ll simply have to err on the side of caution and leave it at that,” Sulu said, showing no sign of having taken offense at Kang’s interjection. “I’m simply not going to assume that the albino hasn’t developed a world-ravaging biogenic weapon just because he didn’t happen to deploy it against Korvat. If he really wanted to wreak havoc in the Klingon Empire over the long haul, he wouldn’t necessarily tip his hand at this stage of the game.”

  “You think he might have this weapon, and merely be waiting for the chance to deploy it against Qo’noS itself?” Koloth demanded.

  The notion filled Kor with more dread than he thought his jaded soul had the capacity to experience.

  “Aren’t you taking a rather large leap, Commander?” he asked, though something deep in his own gut told him otherwise.

  “Perhaps. But with the stakes so high, we’d all be damned fools not to at least consider the possibility. We know our raider already has a highly advanced knowledge of genetically tailored retroviruses. With a weapon like the one we’ve been discussing to distribute those materials throughout a planet’s atmosphere, he could completely wipe out the biosphere of the Klingon Homeworld itself.”

  “Now you’re being paranoid, Earther,” Koloth said.

  Once again, Sulu remained admirably unruffled. “You sound a lot like my executive officer, Koloth. But nobody ‘just imagined’ the bombing of Korvat and the destruction of Kamarag’s ship. It’s not paranoia if someone really is out to get you.”

  “Gentlemen,” Dax said, his bearing erect and businesslike as he faced the three Klingon captains and the image of the human commander. “I don’t think Commander Sulu is being paranoid in the least. I’ve read through all the relevant medical reports filed by Doctor Klass and Doctor Chapel, so I have a pretty fair idea of our fugitive’s bioweapons capabilities.”

  “I had no idea you were also an expert on biological warfare,” Koloth said with a smirk.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Captain Koloth,” Dax said, unintimidated.

  I don’t doubt that for a moment, Kor thought. He was still impressed by the surprising depth and breadth of Dax’s engineering knowledge; once again, he wondered how one so young could have amassed so much expertise.

  “Our marauder doesn’t have to wipe out an entire biosphere if it isn’t strategically necessary,” Dax continued. “According to Excelsior’s reports, he’s able to tailor his retroviral attacks so precisely that they can be genetically ‘tuned’ to kill only particular individuals. I see no reason why he couldn’t widen his focus slightly, targeting entire Klingon Houses — say, those that supported the Korvat meeting or the Houses that back Klingon-Federation détente in general.”

  “Wouldn’t he have to obtain genetic samples from members of those Houses in order to calibrate such an attack?” Koloth asked.

  Dax nodded, as did Kor.

  “That could have been accomplished easily enough on Korvat,” Kor said. “The raider was there in disguise, remember? He could have posed as one of Ambassador Kamarag’s low-level functionaries.”

  “Which means he easily could have taken DNA samples from the drinking vessels at the conference tables,” said Dax.

  Kor stood in silence, trying to digest all that he had heard. Given everything they already knew about the terrorist — and what Kor alone had discovered about the man’s unfortunate origins — Kor could not help but wonder whether his target was actually somewhat narrower than even the short list of pro-détente Klingon Houses.

  What if the killer sought specifically to punish Kor’s House — the former House of Ngoj — for abandoning him during his infancy?

  “I wish we could do more than just hand you the fugitive’s shopping list, so to speak,” Sulu said, forcing Kor to set aside his personal reverie, at least momentarily. “You have no idea how much it frustrates me to have my hands tied like this.”

  “Even if Excelsior and all her resources were here with us, Commander Sulu,” Kor said, “you would not know precisely where in Klingon space to seek the remaining items on that ‘shopping list.’ We are in a significantly better position to do that than you would be.”


  “You have served the Empire well this day, human,” Kang said, nodding toward the human’s image as if to make up for his earlier brusqueness. “And your Federation as well.”

  Even dour Koloth seemed to agree. “MajQa’, Commander Sulu,” he said. “Well done.”

  “Qapla’,” Kor said, crossing his chest with his closed fist in salute.

  “Success,” Sulu repeated in Federation Standard before the lab’s computer terminal abruptly blanked itself.

  Kor turned to face all three of his comrades-in-arms simultaneously. All of them, Klingon and Trill alike, looked toward him with expectation in their eyes.

  “You all heard the human’s words,” he said. “A great deal of work awaits us.”

  Koloth pulled out his communicator. “I will instruct my science officer to begin cross-referencing the new data from Excelsior with the Klingon Defense Force’s planetary database immediately.”

  Dax nodded grimly. “Then maybe we’ll have a fighting chance to keep him from crossing anything else off his shopping list.”

  Kor opened his communicator. “Captain Kor to the Klothos. Alert the transporter room that I am ready to beam back up. . . .”

  • • •

  The freebooter ship Hegh’TlhoS, near Mempa II

  “The subspace carrier has shut down,” Gnara said.

  “Did the ‘go’ signal get through?” Qagh said, though he already knew the answer.

  “No, sir. But the Klingon vessels have just modulated a gap in their interference field.”

  Qagh recognized the maneuver immediately. “That means they’re starting to beam personnel back up to their vessels. Transmit the ‘go’ signal through the gap. Now!”

  The trap, the albino thought, is sprung at last.

  • • •

  Mempa II

  “Transporter locked on, Captain,” said the guttural voice that issued from Kor’s communicator.