Hell's Heart

by John Jackson Miller

  • • •

  Picard took Riker’s hail before he convened his briefing. The captain thought it best to spare the rest of his crew, already so emotionally battered, from the wider ramifications of what had happened. For the moment, anyway. He needed them to focus on their duties right now, and nothing else.

  Riker saw things the same way. He was on Qo’noS with Ambassador Rozhenko, where they had seen everything on Gamaral transpiring live—along with billions of other Kling­ons. Martok’s people had been battering down the Federation Consulate door looking for more information about what they had all seen. Riker couldn’t begin to address the implications of what had happened without a report from Enterprise, and he had wisely left them to it. But there was a postscript implicit in his remarks: work quickly.

  When the violence started, Picard had thought for a split second in the confusion that it might have been an attempt on the nobles’ behalf to silence Kahless before he criticized them. That thought was disproved as soon as the first noble was shot. No one but his senior staff and Galdor knew a diatribe was likely coming, anyway—and that only in the final hours before the event. The assassins had already made their way to the system. And then they had targeted all the family members indiscriminately.

  But what would be the rationale in taking Kahless? And Worf?

  Because of the clamor at the embassy, the captain had been spared having to explain to Alexander how his father had been abducted. Picard vowed to himself that the next time he and the ambassador spoke, Worf and Kahless would be back aboard Enterprise.

  Enterprise was the strangest piece of the puzzle. Whoever had attacked them had known just how to disrupt the starship’s defense of the ceremony—and it appeared that had been exactly the intent. There had been no attempt to destroy the Enterprise, or really to do lasting damage or inflict casualties. By firing to disable the transporter ­systems—and then beaming teams aboard to spread havoc—the masked invaders had effectively prevented La Forge from either evacuating Gamaral’s surface or sending reinforcements down for several long minutes. It was time enough to allow them to strike their targets on the planet, and with success.

  But learning how had to come before whom and why—just to make certain Enterprise couldn’t be struck in the same way again. That was the first topic of his briefing. Transporting from cloaked vessels was something the Federation had seen before. Spock and Kirk had taken advantage of the capability to keep a low profile during a mission to twentieth-century San Francisco, beaming aboard their bird-of-prey while it was cloaked in Golden Gate Park. Beaming from cloaked starships through Enterprise’s shields was on another level entirely—and he wasn’t surprised that La Forge already had a theory, which he illustrated to the senior staff with a holographic projection.

  “Milliseconds before they transported onto Enterprise,” La Forge said, “our sensors recorded rapid magnetic flux variations in the portions of our shields closest to their targeted transport sites. I believe the cloaked vessels were hitting us with pinpoint bursts of radiation—radiation of a kind we haven’t seen before. Each time it had the effect of inverting the amplitude of our shields locally just long enough to achieve a transporter lock. The return trips worked the same way.”

  “Are you saying they negated our shields?” Picard asked.

  “More like they opened holes that repaired themselves immediately after their transporter beams passed through. That’s why the shields for the whole ship didn’t go down. And their materialization effect is different than those of conventional transporters.” La Forge cued up imagery from one of the transporter rooms. “Bright halos with a vertically moving flash.”

  Šmrhová’s interest was piqued. “A signature?”

  “That’s where we’re in luck,” La Forge said. “The effect was first seen on Deep Space 9, when the Hunters transported onboard.”

  “The Hunters?” Counselor Hegol asked. “The species?”

  “The Hunters were the second race from the Gamma Quadrant to visit the station—in pursuit of a member of the first species we met, the Tosks.” La Forge projected images taken aboard Deep Space 9 years earlier. “The Hunters had a variation of transporter technology Starfleet had never seen before. They first bombarded the entire station with a kind of radiation we still don’t understand—and then beamed aboard after the shields dropped. The events were disparate, but the effect was similar, and as you can see, the materialization effect is identical.”

  Picard studied the images. “You believe our attackers merged the technologies—piercing our shields and transporting all at once?”

  “Yes, sir,” La Forge said. “The usual way to try to beam through shields is to match their frequency and modulation. A cloaked vessel has a harder time coming by that information—the physics are just messier. Marrying this radiation beam with the transporter signal addresses the problem.”

  “That could also explain how they were able to bypass our transport inhibitors on Gamaral,” Šmrhová said. “Could it have been the Hunters? They wore body armor—with helmets that hid their faces. Hunters would make natural assassins.”

  Counselor Hegol shook his head. “That doesn’t track with what we know of them. They keep to the Gamma Quadrant and to hunting Tosks. There’s never been any record of them taking on killing for hire.” He thought for a moment. “But someone could have traded for their technology.”

  It’s as good a guess as any, Picard thought. They hadn’t gotten far with learning the attackers’ identities. The suits they wore thwarted sensors.

  “Our sensors were able to pick up traces of DNA clinging onto the exteriors of their suits,” La Forge said, deactivating his projections. “Klingon, Orion, and others.”

  Picard asked, “Could they be Orion pirates?”

  Šmrhová shook her head. “The Orions working out here are a bunch of third-raters. Jenks, Leotis, Vatrobe—not a big thinker in the bunch. This is beyond them.”

  “Someone was up to it,” Picard said firmly. “We are going to find out who and fast. I don’t have to tell you the gravity of this situation. There was very likely a political motive here—and the culprits found some advantage in doing it in Federation space rather than in the Klingon Empire.”

  The officers sat quietly, letting the captain’s words sink in as he gazed through the port at Gamaral. He was anxious for them to get on their way, to investigate, to find Kahless and Worf—and yet Enterprise could not leave until the cruiser the Klingons had sent arrived.

  He looked again at La Forge. The man seemed worn out; it was hard to be in the center seat when something calamitous and unexpected happened. The engineer had been working nonstop on all the various problems—including the knottiest of all.

  “I have a task force going over every bit of telemetry we recorded to try to find the cloaked ships,” La Forge said. “How they got in here, and how they left. If they left. For all we know, they’re still in the area.”

  “Let’s hope they are,” Picard said. He knew what a tall order tracking the vessels would be. Worse, there were at least ten ships involved in the raid on Enterprise. Were there to be ten trails? Which would be the right one to follow?

  “Thank you for your efforts, Commander La Forge—all of them.” La Forge nodded gently in appreciation.

  A pair of hails told Picard what his next trial would be. One, from the bridge, alerted him that V’raak, the cruiser captained by Galdor’s son, had just arrived. And then another from Crusher: Galdor was awake and asking for Picard.

  “Find the answers.” Picard took a deep breath and stood. “Dismissed.”

  Sixteen

  The words came from a darkened room. “What do you know of Klingon history, Captain?”

  “Some.” In truth, Picard had both witnessed some and made some. But as that now included the episode on Gamaral, he didn’t think it was worth saying. The captain stepped into Galdo
r’s quarters, and the door slid shut behind him. Since awakening, it was the first time the gin’tak had left his Lord Kiv’ota’s side—to pack.

  But Galdor was simply standing across the room in the shadows, looking at something Picard couldn’t see. “Have you ever heard of the vor’uv’etlh, Captain?”

  “I have not, sir.”

  “They existed long ago,” Galdor said, his voice creaky. “Klingons who wore masks.”

  “Masks?” Picard had never heard of such a thing.

  Picard saw the gin’tak was holding the ceremonial mek’leth. “I know, I know,” the older man said. “Klingons do not wear masks. The vor’uv’etlh did. They had tired of the corruption of the houses—and became vigilantes, killing those they deemed without honor. The disruptor was their weapon of choice. They left no trace of their victims. Nor did they leave any clues behind; when one of the vor’uv’etlh was injured, he turned his weapon on himself.”

  Galdor walked across the room to the observation port, where the battle cruiser V’raak now floated above Gamaral. Starlight glinted off the mek’leth. “The last act of these fanatics was to assault Emperor Skolar, whom they detested as vile and wicked. Every member of the vor’uv’etlh committed suicide that day—but only after they killed Skolar, his advisors, and his heirs.”

  “It sounds terrible.”

  “It was. And what followed was chaos, far worse than anything Skolar could have wrought. It is a cautionary tale today: and a reason why every Klingon follows Kahless the Unforgettable’s third precept: Always face your enemy.”

  Picard began to catch the drift. “Do you believe some of this group still exist?”

  “It was so long ago, it doesn’t seem possible. But no one had any idea where they came from—and the thought of the vor’uv’etlh still stalks the nightmares of my people.” Galdor ran his fingers across the engraved names on the mek’leth. “I saw a nightmare on Gamaral.”

  “Galdor, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am—”

  “No, you can’t.” He looked up. “Your wife tells me Kiv’ota has a chance.”

  “She is transferring him to your son’s ship now. We have done our best.” Federation understanding of Klingon medicine had come a long way since Chancellor Gorkon’s assassination. But the lord’s advanced age had made it impossible to say for certain whether he would recover.

  Picard advanced farther into the room. Galdor looked numb, which was entirely in keeping with his expectations. “What will happen next?”

  “I will bear Lord Kiv’ota back to Qo’noS.”

  The captain was surprised by that. “Not to his homeworld?”

  “I do not intend to bury him, Picard—not when there was no honor in how he fell. Qo’noS has the best physicians, who will do what they can for him. If they succeed, all will be well—for a time.”

  The captain nodded, inwardly wondering how much time an uninjured 150-year-old Klingon would have expected to have.

  “And if they fail,” Galdor continued, “we will have tried—and he will have fought until the end.”

  “I understand.”

  “And Qo’noS is where I will need to go, in any event. All those whom the High Council would consider viable heirs have died this day.”

  “There is no one else?”

  “No. In my drive to please those I served, I made sure everyone was invited to celebrate the may’qochvan. I forgot the basic rule of succession: Always leave one behind.”

  Picard had not heard the idea discussed in a Klingon context before, but he was certainly familiar with it. The “designated survivor” had been an American tactic centuries earlier, leaving one cabinet officer absent whenever the entire government gathered in one place.

  “Curse me for trying,” Galdor said. He cast his eyes to the deck. “I must find a way to live with that. No, I will need to settle affairs, and that will begin on Qo’noS. The house is decapitated; the High Council will want to decide how to dispose of what remains.”

  Picard understood. “You have heard that Kahless was taken?”

  “You increase my shame.”

  “We will find him—and return him safely. We also have reason to believe that wherever he is, Commander Worf is with him.”

  Galdor looked up. “Worf?”

  “Yes, he was transported away in the same manner.”

  “Have you any idea where they went?”

  “We’re working on it.” Picard decided not to go into detail. “Galdor, do you have any idea who would do this? Apart from . . . from legendary vigilantes?”

  “Who profited, you mean?” Galdor looked at him with tired eyes. “Certainly the other houses would expect to.”

  It had been one of Picard’s first thoughts, though he had been reluctant to mention it. “Martok has his investigators looking at that. His intelligence people and ours are also looking to see if the attack was sponsored by the Kinshaya—or any other power from the Typhon Pact.”

  Galdor ran his finger down the blade. “It could have been someone else entirely. But I cannot see that it matters now.”

  “Our investigators are combing over Gamaral—and your son Lorath is sending a team too. We will find Kahless and Worf, and the attackers. There will be justice.”

  “Justice.” Galdor looked again at the mek’leth—and then let his arm sag, allowing the blade to touch the deck. “Picard, even if you offered revenge, it would be empty. We cannot be made whole. It no longer matters.”

  “It matters to me. It matters to all of us. We will not rest.”

  “My son is waiting,” Galdor said, stepping toward the doorway. “I thank you for your hospitality, Captain. I think you earnestly tried. But this is a stain that cannot be expunged. I can’t tell you what will happen next.”

  Picard believed him.

  THE CIRCLE OF TRIUMPH

  GAMARAL

  The first sunrise Geordi La Forge ever saw with his ocular implants had taken his breath away. He had seen daybreak on multiple worlds since then: every one different, every one miraculous. So many people took them for granted. La Forge couldn’t see himself ever doing that.

  But the sun rising over Gamaral’s Mount Qel’pec had not brought La Forge joy. Instead, its rays brought into stark relief—what? A crime scene? A battleground in a Klingon power struggle? The site of whatever it was that had happened thirty-four hours earlier at the Circle of Triumph, a location whose name would forever be ironic. So many had failed here that night. La Forge’s failure was the greatest.

  The captain had been generous during the first staff meeting; after all their shared experiences, La Forge had expected nothing different. At the same time, the engineer wondered if their years of service together had unduly colored Picard’s response. Enterprise had been attacked while La Forge was in ­command—and by assailants that he should have detected. People had died. Another captain would have chewed him out at a minimum.

  But Picard knew his chief engineer well enough to know that there was already someone who would give him hell: himself. And in the night, day, and night since the massacre, La Forge had not slept more than three hours. He was following so many leads—too many, really—and those had supplanted thoughts of anything else, even the reality that he was now the Enterprise’s first officer.

  The first mystery was whether the cloaked vessels were still in the system or not. One analysis of data from the security probes on the edge of the system suggested that while Enterprise had been engaged in rescue operations, twelve different vessels left the system—all at high speed and in different directions. If that were true, had any ships remained? And if Worf and Kahless were aboard one, which trail should they follow?

  Then there was the problem of the shield-defeating transporter technology and how it might be defended against. And finally, there was the thing that had brought La Forge down to Gamaral: one more thorou
gh scan of the surface, in the hope that the sylvan setting still held some clue about the assassins. Forensics was an applied science, a place where engineering could help. The race was on, as each hour allowed the ships to travel farther away.

  Additional reinforcements had arrived: General Lorath’s investigative team from V’raak had been on the surface for several hours, working alongside Enterprise’s investigators. The captain had ordered that the Klingons be given unlimited access to everything. Lieutenant Chen, who had assisted Lorath’s father, Galdor, had been reassigned to act as the Kling­ons’ liaison on the surface; she reported that things weren’t running smoothly. The V’raak officers La Forge had so far met on Gamaral were bewildered and outraged about what had happened: understandable. But in an investigation, that equaled poor judgment, putting evidence at risk.

  “The Klingons haven’t learned any more than we have,” Chen told him as they walked along the perimeter of the arena. “They’ve put their own trackers into the woods, trying to locate the beam-in sites—but I’m concerned. Every pair of boots on the ground runs the risk of contaminating the scene.”

  “That’s why we’ve been working overtime,” La Forge said, gesturing to the banks of equipment he’d had transported down. Enterprise had scanned as much as it could from orbit; now La Forge had a dozen technicians from various disciplines combing the landscape without actually touching anything.

  One of them beckoned to him. Jaero, a Tellarite ensign. He was here to search for any underground locations where the attackers might have hidden. But he seemed to have his sonometric scanner pointed the wrong way.

  “Can I help you, Jaero?” La Forge gestured to the unit, in operation despite the fact it was tilted horizontally and away from the crime scene. “Normally those point down.”

  The squat ensign looked suddenly self-conscious. “Oh, no, Commander. I was calibrating the instrument. I focused first on that mountain way over there. And that’s why I wanted you.”