Forged in Fire

by Michael A. Martin

  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 correspond 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 Korv
at 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 Federation 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.

  Dax looked worried. “Doctor, excuse me if I’m speaking out of ignorance, but haven’t many vaccines caused the very diseases they were designed to avert? And in this c
ase, you’re mixing two diseases that have been genetically spliced . . .”

  Chapel shook her head. “I’m taking great pains to make certain that this vaccine will help protect our Klingon allies rather than infect them. Kor’s own CMO, Doctor Hurghom, has aided me with the research.”

  “So, you may think you know how it works on humans and Klingons, but have no idea how it could work on a Trill?” Dax asked.

  “All the biomolecular simulations show it as safe and effective,” Chapel said, “as well as compatible with human, Trill, and Klingon physiologies.”

  “All right,” Dax said, nodding in apparent satisfaction.

  But despite Dax’s nominal acquiescence to Chapel’s inoculation plan, Sulu could tell that the young diplomat was still grappling with a real underlying fear that he wasn’t articulating clearly. He wasn’t at all certain he understood it, though he suspected it had to do with some yet-unrevealed aspect of Trill biology, a subject that the Trill people were known to be reticent about discussing with outsiders.

  “If you have this vaccine ready when our ships are prepared to leave — and Doctor Hurghom will vouch for its effectiveness and safety — we will accept it,” Kang said.

  “Very good,” Chapel said. “I’ll be certain to prepare enough vaccine for all three crews.”

  “We will return to our ships now,” Koloth said to Sulu as the trio stepped toward the door. “Perhaps if you discover further information about the albino after our vessels are sufficiently repaired to begin pursuing him, you will share it with us via the subspace bands.”

  Dax stepped forward. “Captain Kor, I’ll be accompanying you to aid in further repairs to your ship.”

  Sulu shot Dax a look that said “Are you crazy?” but the young diplomat ignored it. It wasn’t that Sulu distrusted the Klingons — after all, the majority of his own crewmen that had engineering expertise were already helping them — but he hadn’t recalled anything about engineering experience in Dax’s diplomatic dossier. And given that on Korvat, the Trill and the Klingons had nearly come to blows just prior to the explosion, allowing Dax to go with them seemed a little like lighting a match next to a barrel of gunpowder.