Star Trek®: Excelsior: Forged in Fire

by Michael A. Martin

  It was a struggle to remain focused on her task—enabling Excelsior to locate and follow an impossibly diffuse warp trail that might or might not even exist—rather than on the certain knowledge that failure would not only enable the Korvat bomber to escape justice entirely, but might also even prevent the resumption of the nascent and interrupted Federation-Klingon peace talks.

  The odds of Commander Sulu’s blue-sky plan meeting with success seemed as remote as the uncaring stars themselves. But failure would make the death of Captain Lawrence H. Styles count for absolutely nothing.

  That was something she simply couldn’t accept.

  Because I’d be responsible for that as well.

  Cutler’s almost contrite admission, which arrived nearly six hours later, just might have been the sweetest sound to reach Sulu’s ears since he’d first come aboard Excelsior.

  “You were right, sir,” she said, punching up a stellar map on one of the bridge’s aft displays. “There’s definitely a warp trail that corresponds to the hostile ship, leading straight from Korvat and deep into the Mempa sector of Klingon space.”

  Sulu thanked her without succumbing to the temptation to gloat. Then he turned his chair forward so that he faced the helm/navigation consoles.

  “Lieutenant Lojur, plot the most efficient intercept course and bundle it with Commander Cutler’s new data set. Forward the resulting astronavigational matrix to Captains Kang, Koloth, and Kor immediately. They’ll be eager to put it to use as soon as they can get their ships under way.”

  “Aye, Captain,” said the Halkan navigator, the traditional red clan tattoo in the center of his forehead crumpling slightly as he concentrated on the task before him.

  “You want to catch him very badly,” Cutler said quietly, not asking a question. Her observation startled Sulu with its simple honesty—as did the total absence of rancor behind her words.

  “More than I’ve wanted anything for a long, long time,” he said, deciding that she deserved an equally unvarnished answer.

  She leaned toward him so as not to broadcast her next words across the entire bridge. “You can’t really believe that this…albino could really be the same man who attacked your family forty years ago.”

  He fixed her with a hard stare. “You know better?”

  “All I know is that you may have allowed some very old ghosts from your past to cloud your judgment today,” she said, not flinching from his gaze in the least. “Your white whale. Sir.”

  A tart response sprang to his lips, but the whistling tone that signaled an incoming communication interrupted it.

  “Chapel to bridge.”

  Sulu turned away from Cutler and leaned hard on the comm button at his right-hand side. “Sulu here, Doctor. Go ahead.”

  “I’ve just finished my analysis of the organic traces Ensign Akaar recovered from the surface of Korvat, Captain.”

  Sulu was impressed. Although she was still spending much of her time and energy caring directly for those who’d been injured on Korvat, she had nevertheless insisted on being kept up to date on Mr. Valtane’s investigation into the bombing, giving the matter as much priority as her other medical duties would permit.

  “What have you found?” he said.

  “A reliable DNA fingerprint of the bomber, for one thing.”

  His heart raced. “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Quite a bit, I think. So much, in fact, that I think you’re going to want to take a good, close look at this yourself.”

  “On my way.” He closed the channel and rose to his feet in a single fluid motion.

  “May I come with you, sir?” Cutler said.

  Pausing in midstep on his way to the starboard turbolift, he considered ordering her to take the conn and remain on the bridge. After all, why should he risk humiliating himself in front of her in the event that Christine Chapel presented them both with definite proof that the Korvat assassin was not the albino?

  But there was also nothing to be gained by revealing his self-doubt to her, or by becoming overly defensive. Maybe this is one of those times when valor is the better part of discretion, he thought, deciding simply to let the chips fall wherever they would.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said as he led the way into the lift. “Commander Rand, you have the bridge.”

  Sulu watched with a mixture of eagerness and trepidation as Christine Chapel activated the computer terminal on her desk. He stole a glance at Cutler, who had taken a position on the desk’s opposite side. The blue light of the quarantine field from the adjacent main area of sickbay shaded her face as she watched the screen impassively, leaning against the biolab wall with her arms crossed primly before her in a classic skeptic’s pose.

  “Computer, display graphic Korvat Epsilon,” Dr. Chapel said. The screen’s star-sector-and-laurel-leaf UFP logo vanished, instantly replaced by a complex computer rendering of a long, coiled double strand of multicolored DNA.

  While he’d never laid claim to serious expertise in the biomolecular sciences, Sulu knew he had seen this exact pattern before.

  “Using DNA traces I found amid the remnants of the bomber’s biomimetic disguise,” Chapel said, “I’ve determined that the attacker is definitely Klingon. A male.”

  “Were you able to tell whether or not he was Commander Sulu’s albino?” Cutler asked in a doubtful tone that somehow stopped just short of ridicule.

  “You can both decide for yourselves after I walk you through the math,” Chapel said with a slight shrug. “Let’s start by shedding a little light on the bomber’s age.”

  “How?” Cutler asked.

  “After running the Klingon equivalent of a polymerase chain reaction, I managed to generate enough DNA from the residue left by the bomber to take precise measurements of his telomeres.”

  Cutler frowned in incomprehension. “Telomeres?”

  “They’re the portions of the DNA molecule that govern the aging process,” Sulu said, beginning to see where Chapel was heading. “In most life-forms, the telomeres shorten as the organism ages.”

  Chapel nodded, clearly pleased to hear that she wouldn’t have to conduct a comprehensive molecular biology primer just to make her report. “And Klingons appear to be no exception to that general rule. A count of the rings on this individual’s molecular tree, so to speak, yields an age range of seventy to seventy-five standard years.”

  A chill quickly crept up Sulu’s spine and crawled back down again. The Korvat bomber was certainly old enough to have participated in the Ganjitsu raid. Still, that fact alone was anything but conclusive.

  “Now back to the question about ‘Commander Sulu’s albino,’” Chapel said, glancing at Cutler. “This individual’s genome possesses some highly unusual genetic markers—markers that precisely match the Klingon gene sequences Doctor Klass found in the tailored Levodian flu samples the captain recovered from Galdonterre.”

  Suddenly, Sulu not only felt certain that he had seen these gene sequences before, he also remembered exactly where he’d encountered them: in Dr. Klass’s original forensics report, four days ago.

  “So this proves that the person who bombed the Korvat conference and the man responsible for the murder four days earlier are one and the same,” he said.

  “It proves it to a fare-thee-well, at least in my book,” Chapel said. “Given the fact that our culprit is too young to have picked up his rare retrogenetic traits directly from the mass disease outbreaks on Qu’Vat—where either vaccines or the disease itself sterilized virtually everyone who didn’t die outright, by the way—there’s only about a one-in-half-billion chance of him even existing in the first place. And on top of all that, his genome is at least circumstantially consistent with the murder victim’s description of her killer as an albino Klingon.”

  “What do you mean, Doctor?” Cutler asked.

  Chapel pointed to several specific loci on the DNA diagram displayed on the screen. “Here, here, and here are specific markers that co
rrespond to the known effects of the deadly Levodian flu outbreaks on Qu’Vat during the twenty-second century. Thanks to several papers from that time written by a Denobulan physician named Phlox, we know that this disease was catalyzed by a retrovirus that caused permanent changes to the victims’ DNA. These genetic changes caused a whole cluster of deleterious effects. Some of these were relatively minor, like albinism. But most would have been far more debilitating.”

  “What were some of the more serious effects?” Cutler asked.

  “Chronic anemia, along with numerous congenital circulatory and pulmonary problems. The Klingon equivalent of diabetes. Various metastatic cancers. A number of degenerative neurological conditions. Any one of these syndromes would likely necessitate a lifetime of heroic medical intervention.”

  Cutler cast a confident look in Sulu’s direction. “So is it really at all likely that a Klingon afflicted with these particular genetic markers would even reach his seventies, Doctor?”

  Chapel frowned. “No, it’s not, Commander. In fact, it’s highly likely that any Klingon cursed with this sort of genetic profile wouldn’t survive infancy, given that society’s attitudes toward sickness.”

  The chill that had touched Sulu’s spine earlier returned as though propelled by gale-force winds. If Cutler had thought she was toppling his solidifying belief that the architect of the Korvat attack was the same man who had terrorized him as a child, she had achieved precisely the opposite result.

  Chapel had not only established sufficient proof to satisfy even the most skeptical Klingon that the Federation bore no responsibility whatsoever for the Korvat bombing, she had also demonstrated something else that Sulu found intensely disquieting.

  The albino—his albino—remained at large, and was still dealing death.

  EIGHTEEN

  Stardate 9001.1 (New Year’s Day, 2290)

  U.S.S. Excelsior

  “If we must continue to meet aboard your ship,” Kang growled, shouldering his way through the door to the conference room, “then we can at least have a barrel of bloodwine brought over.”

  Sulu smiled, realizing that despite the Klingon’s gruffness, Kang had, perhaps, just made a joke. I think.

  He decided to play it safe. “I haven’t had a good bloodwine for at least five years. I was looking forward to…I look forward to sharing some with you in the future.” He had almost said, “once we’ve celebrated the resolution of the Korvat conference,” but realized he would have been picking at a still-bloody scab that covered a wound that still afflicted everyone present.

  “What news do you have for us?” Koloth asked. None of the three Klingons was sitting, leaving Sulu, Chapel, Cutler, and Curzon Dax to stand awkwardly around the conference table.

  “Have a seat, and Doctor Chapel will tell you who our attacker was,” Sulu said, gesturing toward the chairs nearest the three warrior captains. He was grateful when they finally sat, though they looked uncomfortable in the plush chairs.

  Chapel activated the three-sided viewer built into the table’s center, and began to explain the findings of Akaar and the forensic team, and the results of her own analyses. As she spoke, Sulu scrutinized the Klingons as closely as he could, studying their reactions.

  Not surprisingly, the trio appeared genuinely shocked to learn that the Korvat bomber was a Klingon, and Sulu also noticed that Kor seemed especially shaken at the news that this particular Klingon was a seven-decade-old albino.

  Chapel finished her briefing and looked toward Sulu. It was only then that he realized that she had just given the floor to him.

  “The Federation has files on an albino Klingon and his cadre of raiders,” he said, barely missing a beat. “They’re based mostly on incomplete reports, some of which are little more than rumors. Until this week at Galdonterre, we had little more to go on than hearsay, and therefore we had no real concept of the kind of threat we now face.”

  As he spoke, he became aware of the intense gaze of Cutler boring into him. He was unable to parse the meaning of this particular look, but it somehow didn’t seem quite as overtly hostile as before. Undistracted, he related the story of his own personal experience with the albino on Ganjitsu more than forty years earlier, and laid out for the Klingons the exact sequence of recent events since the death of the alien woman on Galdonterre.

  By the time he finished, the three Klingons seemed about to burst, and yet none of them said anything for a good twenty seconds. Finally, Koloth broke the ice, if not the tension.

  “It is inconceivable that a Klingon would do these things,” he shouted. “There is no honor in piracy.”

  “He is a coward!” Kang said. “A deviant. You said yourself that the creature has genetic anomalies. He is not one of us.”

  “The albino does indeed have the anomalies I showed you, but functionally, he is Klingon,” Chapel said, pushing a wisp of stray blond hair off her forehead. “What doesn’t make sense to me is why he chose to target the Korvat conference. It seems to me that a man afflicted with such a life-threatening genetic condition would support the concept of peace; a prosperous Klingon Empire sharing technology with Federation planets would bode well for finding a cure for his condition.”

  Koloth raised his left eyebrow and regarded Chapel as if she were an annoying child. “We are not interested in ‘curing’ his condition, regardless of any agreements that may be forged between our Empire and your Federation. Freaks of nature such as this creature should simply be destroyed out of hand.”

  “I suppose that’s a fundamental difference between the two societies,” Dax said, speaking up from further down the table. “Most Federation cultures work to overcome prejudice against those elements of their society that differ from the norm. After all, once each society reached the stars and began encountering the vast number of inhabited worlds beyond their own, the concept of ‘normal’ began to lose much of its meaning.”

  “Bah!” Kang swept his hand in front of his face dismissively. “Such egalitarian notions have made far too many races weak and soft. The culling of weaklings is why the Klingon Empire stands stronger today than ever before.”

  “Be that as it may,” Sulu said, trying not to scowl in distaste, “it appears that one of your so-called ‘weaklings’ has survived the culling. And now he’s striking back.”

  He wondered for a moment what the albino must have faced during his childhood if he had been rejected so early and so completely by his society, or if he had even had a childhood in the traditional sense. But humanizing the albino held little interest for him. Not after the outcast had caused the deaths of Captain Styles and so many others, both here and on countless other raids. Not to mention the one that nearly wiped out my family.

  Kor finally leaned forward and spoke, uttering his first words since he’d entered the room. “You say that the records of this albino and his raids on Federation border worlds center mostly around medical or scientific facilities?”

  “Those that we know of,” Sulu said. “As I witnessed on Ganjitsu, the albino was very clearly looking for biomedical technology and related information. I wonder, if you queried the proper law-enforcement agencies on Qo’noS, you might find more evidence of similar raids on the Klingon side of the border.”

  “Perhaps what this albino wants is related to his long-term survival,” Kor said. “Doctor Chapel has shown us significant evidence that his genetic code has been altered more or less continuously all his life. Perhaps the biomedical technology he seeks is in an effort to extend what would otherwise have been a very brief life by a few weeks or months at a time.”

  “That would support a motive to stop the peace talks at Korvat,” Cutler said, breaking her own silence. “Any change in the prevailing political and legal structure—or lack thereof—in the Klingon-Federation border region, could put a severe crimp in his banditry. As it is, he can raid a laboratory in Federation space and escape into Klingon territory, or attack an outpost on the Empire’s side of the border, and then escape into Federa
tion space.”

  “The motives of this jay’mu’qaD do not matter,” Koloth said, pounding his fist on the table, then rising to his feet. “What matters is punishing him for what he has done today. Talking endlessly about why he attacked us leads nowhere. It is a targ eating its own tongue. Honor demands that we act. We must track this cowardly aberration down and dispose of him—and all who serve him—to avenge those he slew on Korvat!”

  Sulu rose to his feet, followed quickly by everyone else in the room, including the Klingons. “I would be remiss in my duties not to point out that the Federation would prefer to see the albino and his raiders captured and brought before the bar of justice. But since he’s operating in Klingon jurisdiction, I understand that we can’t demand that outcome.”

  Kang grinned wolfishly and leaned toward Sulu. “He will stand trial and face justice, Commander. As he dies on the end of our blades.”

  “Captains, one more thing before you return to your ships,” Chapel said quickly, addressing the Klingons. “We know that the albino infiltrated the conference on Korvat, using either a disguise or some other method. He could have acquired samples of the DNA of anyone—or possibly even everyone—who was present. Given the kind of pharmacological and scientific ingenuity he has displayed so far—and my studies of the retrovirus Commander Sulu recovered from the alien woman on Galdonterre—it seems to me not only possible but probable that he will target others with the same kind of individually tailored retrovirus that killed the woman on Galdonterre. I can’t rule out his going after anyone—including the three of you.”

  “And?” Kor said.

  “I’ve been working on synthesizing a defensive agent as a precaution,” Chapel said. “It’s designed to block retroviruses developed from both the Levodian flu and the Omega IV viruses. Commander Sulu survived exposure to both viruses decades ago; I’ve cultured a sample of his blood to create the vaccine.”

  Sulu had known that Chapel was working on the antiretroviral agent, but not that she had used his blood. The concept was jarring; he didn’t object per se, but neither had he anticipated that elements of his own blood might be injected into the Klingons. On the other hand, they probably aren’t very keen on having “Earther” blood in their veins either.