Star Trek - [Mirror Universe 003]

by Shards

  "That's right," April replied. "Why?"

  Turning from the viewer, Simon settled into her chair. "According to our star charts, Donatu V is Class M, but my sensors say otherwise." She eyed him with a withering gaze. "Bob, what the hell kind of weapon do the Klingons have?"

  For a moment, April smiled at the slip in protocol. Easily the oldest officer on his staff, Simon also was one of the few people who could get away with addressing him in such an informal manner. She had long ago earned such latitude and was one of his most trusted confidants.

  "That's what we're here to find out," he said, seeing the genuine concern in Simon's eyes. Though she and the rest of the crew were aware that they had been ordered to investigate a possible new Klingon weapon, they did not yet know specifics. Therefore, he knew that their sense of shock would only increase in the coming minutes. "Maintain sensor sweeps, Commander."

  He said nothing more as the Constellation continued its approach, a sense of dread beginning to take hold of him as the starship entered orbit. The planet now dominated the bridge's main viewer, its distinct lack of cloud cover, swirling gases, or any discernible contrast within its atmosphere making it appear barren. Nothing in Thorpe's logs had prepared him for the sight of the bleak, dying world now displayed on the screen before him.

  Simon's voice broke the silence hanging over the bridge. "The planet's atmosphere is being deconstructed at a molecular level, Commodore. Oxygen levels are at seventeen percent of normal for a Class M planet and declining, while levels of ammonia, argon, and sulfur are on the rise. What vegetation hasn't been scrubbed away by wind and rain is being baked by unfiltered solar radiation." April glanced toward her as she stepped away from her console and looked to him. "I'm also picking up traces of other chemical compounds that I don't recognize. Whatever the Klingons have, it pretty much set fire to the atmosphere. And you're telling me this was a failed experiment?"

  "Partially successful experiment, Commander," April countered, offering the dry rebuttal before returning his attention to the viewscreen. The stark, ruddy pallor of the planet's defoliated landmasses matched that of a fresh bruise, and he likened the sight before him to a hapless living being, one beaten and bleeding and left for dead. He imagined he could hear the mortally wounded world attempting to cry for help yet silenced by the unmatched agony inflicted upon it, its suffering made all the worse by why it had happened.

  From a purely tactical viewpoint, the results were staggering. Wars, the fates of entire civilizations, the history of the very galaxy, might well be decided in seconds if a key imperial world were targeted with just one weapon such as that unleashed upon Donatu V. This planet had been subjected to its fate at the whim of those hungry for power much greater than they ever should be allowed to control.

  Does that apply to the Empire as well?

  "Any signs of life?" April asked, pushing away the unwelcome questions.

  Pausing to consult her sensor readings, Simon replied, "Here and there. Pockets of survivors in many of the major cities. Most of them are underground, probably inside survival shelters or other subterranean structures. Based on the population figures I could dig out of the computer, I'd estimate less than three percent survived whatever the hell happened, and they won't be lasting much longer, either."

  April said nothing at first, before realizing that most of the bridge crew had turned from their stations to look at him. He noted their varying expressions of puzzlement and uncertainty, perhaps not so much because of what had happened to Donatu V but rather his own obvious reaction to it. Did they sense his unease at what they had found here? Though he never had wavered in carrying out his duty to the Empire, he also had prided himself on avoiding the use of violence for its own sake in order to do so. He had conducted himself with integrity in that regard, well above most other starship commanders and Starfleet officers, including, admittedly, his own wife. Still, that he might be perceived as weakening in the face of what they now were witnessing, particularly when it involved a relatively insignificant alien species, did not sit well with him.

  "The Klingons have a weapon that's responsible for this," he said, his voice loud and forceful enough to echo across the bridge. "What you're seeing doesn't even represent this new weapon's full potential." He waved toward the viewer. "Forget this irrelevant ball of baked mud and the parasites who once called it home. Our focus is the weapon that caused their extinction. Only one force in this galaxy is worthy to wield such power, and that force is the Terran Empire. The Klingons cannot possess it, and Empress Sato has charged me with ensuring that does not happen."

  "Speaking of Klingons," Simon said, "I'm picking up Klingon life signs down on the planet. They're coming from an underground structure beneath one of the larger population centers. The area looks to be protected by a force field, and the energy signature is definitely Klingon."

  "A hidden base?" April asked.

  Simon shrugged. "That, or maybe an outpost to observe the effects of the test detonation." She shook her head. "Hell of a way to gather data, but I suppose they could have been left behind after Indomitable came calling."

  Leaving the command well, April moved to stand next to Simon at her console. "Can our sensors penetrate the field?"

  "A bit," the science officer replied, "but not enough to get any kind of conclusive look inside the structure. If we channel additional power from the warp engines to the transporter circuits, we might be able to beam through." She said nothing else, allowing the suggestion to hang in the air between them.

  Intrigued by the notion of seeing firsthand the effects of the experimental weapon, as well as getting an early look at any equipment or research data that might be contained within the Klingon outpost, April nodded in agreement with his friend's idea. "Meet me in the transporter room in ten minutes, along with a security detail," he said before turning to the communications station. "Lieutenant Copowycz, notify Indomitable of our status and that they are to maintain course and speed."

  Despite his presence to provide new motivation to Indomitable's engineering crew, repairs to the starship's antimatter inducer had proven more difficult and time-consuming than he had hoped. With time an issue, and rather than push the ailing vessel beyond its limits-thereby finishing the job of sacrificing Indomitable that the late Nathan Thorpe's ineptitude had initiated-April had ordered Captain Stone to trail Constellation at its fastest yet safest possible speed.

  A moment later, the dark-haired communications officer replied, "Indomitable acknowledges, sir, and estimates her arrival in one hour and seventeen minutes."

  April nodded at the report. "And have my wife join us in the transporter room." To Simon, he added, "If we do find a Klingon or two down there, her particular talents will prove rather useful."

  As he headed toward the turbolift at the rear of the bridge, April could not help stopping for one final look at the image of Donatu V displayed on the main viewer. Watching the dying world rotate slowly beneath Constellation, he sensed dread brewing deep within him.

  Will this godforsaken planet be remembered for what happened here or only that it happened here first?

  "All clear, Commodore."

  Gripping his phaser, April entered the corridor and saw that his security detail had cleared it of Klingons-there was no way to tell how many they might have disintegrated during their advance-and now were moving farther up the passageway. He waved for the rest of the landing party to follow him as he set off down the hall. Simon and Sarah, shadowing his movements, each drew their own weapons.

  "Commodore," Simon said, pointing up the corridor with her tricorder, "the concentration of life signs is twenty meters in that direction."

  Ahead of him, the security team leader, Lieutenant Elizabeth Ryckert, held up her hand, signaling a halt. The tall, leggy woman then turned and ran back to April's side, sweat already matting her closely cropped blond hair to her head.

  "They're holed up in what looks like a lab," Ryckert reported. "What's left of them, an
yway."

  "Take the lab," April ordered, "but leave at least one of them alive for interrogation."

  Ryckert nodded in acknowledgment before returning to lead the security team up the corridor. Reaching a closed door at the end of the passageway, she aimed her phaser at it and fired. The harsh blue beam lanced out, opening a hole in the door's thick metal. She kept her finger on the weapon's firing stud, widening the gap within seconds to a size large enough to allow entry. Ryckert plunged ahead, leading the way for her team to follow as the three of them rushed into the room beyond.

  Charging after them, April entered the lab in time to see one of his personal guards, a well-muscled and dark-skinned man named Malhotra, slammed into a nearby bulkhead by an attacking Klingon. The savage had shunned his disruptor in favor of the massive knife in his right hand, which he plunged into Malhotra's chest. The security guard cried in pain and shock as the blade sank into his heart, his screams growing louder as the Klingon twisted the knife within the ghastly wound. April, incensed by the brutality of the attack, aimed his phaser and fired, its burst washing over Malhotra and the Klingon. Both warriors writhed in momentary agony before they dissolved into nothingness.

  A beam of ruby-tinted energy flashed from the lab's opposite corner, missing him by a wide margin to strike a nearby computer console. Sparks and the tinge of ozone filled the air as a second disruptor burst gouged another gaping hole in an adjacent bank of electronic equipment. April saw another Klingon-this one wearing what to him looked like a lab coat-and ducked for cover, suddenly realizing that he was not at all the target.

  "Stop him!" he shouted. "He's destroying the computers!"

  With practiced ease, Ryckert drew a dagger from the sheath in her left boot and hurled it in the direction of the disruptor fire. The expert throw buried the blade in the Klingon's shoulder, and he growled in pain as he dropped his disruptor, reaching for the knife embedded in his body.

  Without waiting for orders, Ryckert and the remaining guard, Pearson, rushed to subdue the Klingon. April turned to see the rest of the landing party enter the room, which looked to him as though it might have been an emergency shelter commandeered by the Klingons as a place from which to observe the test of their deadly new missile.

  Stepping past him, Sarah looked around the room before crossing the floor on her way to an adjoining chamber. Stopping in the doorway, she turned back to him, indicating the other room with a nod of her head. "You'll want to see this."

  April followed her into what resembled a makeshift hospital ward, including the patients it now housed. On a dozen beds rested unmoving forms, natives of Donatu, he presumed, all of whom appeared to have been burned almost beyond recognition. Taking in the scene, April was struck by how the room seemed more like a hospice than a place of healing.

  Moving to stand beside one of the beds, he looked down at the patient. It was a female, were he to hazard a guess, struggling to draw even the faintest of breaths. Her dark hair lay plastered onto a bloodied scalp, while her face, neck, and other exposed areas of skin were mottled with radiation lesions. Studying her cracked, dry lips, April found himself running a tongue across his own.

  He heard movement and turned to see Sarah strolling past the beds on the opposite side of the aisle, her expression one of clinical dispassion as she regarded the ward's hapless patients.

  "There's nothing to be done for any of them," she said. "Their lungs are seared from the superheated air, and several dermal layers suffered acute sunburn." She shook her head. "Why they're fighting the inevitable, I'll never know."

  Despite himself, April could not help feeling some measure of compassion for these beings and their plight, and his wife's words of casual dismissal gave him a chill. It was an odd sensation, one to which he was not accustomed and yet could not deny. Millions of their friends and relatives already had succumbed to conditions on the planet above, and uncounted billions across the galaxy might well follow them should the Klingons be allowed to proceed unchecked.

  Them, he reminded himself, or anyone else.

  Sarah was examining a nearby desktop computer terminal, and April noticed the frown darkening her features. "What?"

  "There's more to these patients' injuries than simple exposure to the weapon's effects," she replied. "It's almost like...a secondary experiment."

  April was puzzled. "What kind of experiment?"

  She waved one hand toward the rear of the room. "There's a decompression chamber installed back there. I think the Klingons were monitoring the effects of various levels of atmospheric exposure."

  Scowling, April asked, "Why? Surely the weapon's effects are obvious?"

  "If you really want answers, we should go to the source." Sarah offered a small, sly smile as she strode past him and back to the front room.

  The balance of the landing party was there, and April saw that Ryckert now stood next to the bound and seated Klingon. Pale pink blood streamed from the wound in his shoulder, as well as from a long gash on his head, just to the left of the prominent ridges enhancing the crown of his skull.

  "Report," he said as he moved toward the Klingon.

  The security chief shrugged. "He appears disinterested in cooperating, sir."

  From the other side of the room, Simon added, "He did a hell of a number on the computer banks. We can probably reconstruct their research data, but it'll take time."

  April glared at the Klingon researcher. "Anything you'd like to add?"

  The captive snarled in reply. "What more do you need, Earther? We now possess a weapon that will wipe the galaxy clean of your filth."

  Shrugging, April asked, "What good's a planet that you can't use? Are you planning to live inside pressure domes or bunkers on every world you conquer? You can't have an empire if you're hiding underground everywhere you go."

  "For now, it works well enough!" Gesturing toward the other room with a nod of his head, the Klingon added, "Look at those petaQ, wasting away in their beds. The Penemu's initial failure has led us to a solution even more desirable than we could imagine. We need not destroy a planet's atmosphere. With just the right manipulations of the original formula, we can poison it only to the point that it proves deadly to native life."

  April nodded in comprehension. "And leave the planet and its resources relatively intact."

  The Klingon sneered. "It's only a matter of time before we perfect the process, but even now, the weapon is more than enough to slaughter our enemies. You may well live long enough to see Klingons plant their flag on your homeworld, Earther."

  Waving his hands to indicate the room and the rows of destroyed computer consoles and other support equipment, April said, "But here you are, with all of your newfound knowledge lost." The Klingon said nothing, holding his gaze without so much as a blink. "Of course, it's not truly lost, is it?"

  Behind him, Simon said, "He wouldn't sacrifice his research and findings so easily, not without some kind of backup. I'm betting he and the rest of his team have been sending regular reports to his superiors, and wherever they are, that's where the real weapons research is being performed."

  That was when the Klingon blinked.

  April smiled, watching the prisoner squirm-if only slightly-in his seat. "Dr. April, perhaps you can persuade our new friend to pinpoint that location for us?"

  Ordering Ryckert and her team to wait outside, Sarah stepped forward. She reached to her belt, the fingers of her right hand playing across the small device that had become one of her favorite toys. "I've only just begun to experiment with physiologies that differ greatly from humans," she said, removing the device from her belt. "Tellarites usually provide excellent baselines when it comes to pain thresholds, but I think a Klingon would be even better." She leaned closer to the bound prisoner. "It's not often I encounter Klingons, so I do thank you for this opportunity." She then placed the appliance to the Klingon's neck and pressed its activation control.

  The response was somewhat surprising to April. An electrical crackle p
ierced the air, and while the prisoner obviously registered the targeted pain being inflicted by the device Sarah wielded-as evidenced by the flurry of muscle spasms and the way his eyes bulged and how his hands clenched into fists-there was no overt audible concession to the agony he must surely be feeling.