Chapter Twenty-four

WHEN HIS ENVIRONMENT again solidified, Kirk found himself face to face with a Klingon.

Before he could react, a familiar voice said, “Welcome aboard, Captain. Chancellor Azetbur will be pleased to see that her vow of DIS jaj je was successfully completed.”

Kirk whirled to greet Spock, noticing as he did so that Skalli, Chekov, Julius, and Scott had also made it safely to the bridge of this Klingon ship. The Vulcan stood with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, his head cocked at an angle that Kirk knew very well indeed. Kirk stifled his impulse to hug the Vulcan and instead said, “Mr. Spock. Have I ever told you that you have impeccable timing?”

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “We await your orders, Captain.” The Vulcan indicated the command chair. Kirk eyed the Klingon who was probably the real captain of the vessel, received an almost imperceptible nod, and took the proffered seat.

“We’ve got some hostages down there who—”

“We have already transported everyone in the complex, including the Falorians, to this vessel and our accompanying bird-of-prey,” Spock said.

So Spock had come riding over the figurative hill with not just one, but two Klingon ships? This DIS jaj je was obviously of great importance to Azetbur. Kirk supposed he should be grateful.

“Very good. I can assume that the Falorians are all in custody and the injured hostages are being attended to?”

“You may indeed,” Spock said.

“The rest of the colonists are hiding in the cave system. Kate Gallagher rigged up a system to block their Me signs from the Falorian tricorders, but the Klingons should—”

“We have already scanned for and located them, Captain.”

Kirk wondered if there was anything that hadn’t already been efficiently taken care of.

“That complex is the heart of the Falorian plan,” Kirk informed his former first officer. “But I don’t think it ever included mass murder.” He sought out the Klingon captain, figuring the biggest, meanest-looking of the bunch would hold that rank. “Captain … ?”

“I am Karglak,” the Klingon said. The opera singer? Here? “That is Captain Q’allock.”

Kirk turned to face the real captain. “Captain Q’allock. I need you to send down your finest crewmen to secure that complex. Mr. Scott, you will accompany them. Sanctuary is in Federation hands now.”

The Klingon saluted. “It is already done,” he said.

“What?” Kirk said, amazed.

“Not actually,” Spock said. “It is a figure of speech. A slight exaggeration.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Kirk said. “I’d like to think I had something to contribute.” He swiveled in his chair, speaking as he did so. “Communications, open a channel to—Uhura!”

The elegant, beautiful African woman gave him a slow, wide smile, positioning her long dark fingers expertly on the console. For a second, Kirk grinned stupidly, then composed himself and said, “Contact the president of the Federation. Use every encryption key in the book. This conversation needs to be completely secure.”

Turning to her console, Uhura said teasingly in her warm voice, “It is already done.” Karglak moved to stand by her side, looking at her affectionately.

“Any more surprises up your sleeve?” Kirk asked Spock. The Vulcan looked slightly nonplussed at the phrase and was about to reply when the unmistakable voice of Kirk’s favorite country doctor came through the intercom on the chair.

“Jim!”

“Bones?”

“Got my hands full here, but I wanted to make sure they’d really managed to get a hold of you.”

“We’re all fine, Bones. My nephew. …”

“We’ve got Alexander here, he’s fine.” A pause, then in a more sober tone, McCoy continued, “He keeps asking for his brother. What should I tell him?”

Kirk looked over at Julius. Julius glanced away, fidgeting, trying to hide his emotions beneath his don’t-give-a-damn exterior. But Kirk knew him better now. Come to think of it, the boy needed to see the doctor, too. “Tell him that Julius will be right down.”

“He’ll be glad to hear it.”

Kirk hoped so. “Mr. Chekov, you go with him. I’ll feel better about those burns if I know Dr. McCoy has looked at them.”

“Aye, sir.” Chekov, Scott and Julius stepped briskly toward the turbolift.

Kirk’s eyes followed Julius. “Commander Uhura, open hailing frequencies throughout both Klingon vessels.”

“Hailing frequencies open, Captain.”

“This is Captain James T. Kirk to the crew and passengers of the Klingon vessels—” Kirk suddenly realized he didn’t know their names.

“The Kol’Targh and the K’Rator,” Spock said helpfully.

Nodding his thanks, Kirk said, “—the Kol’Targh and the K’Rator. The colonists of Sanctuary and I are profoundly grateful for your assistance here today. You have quite literally saved all our lives, and we thank you. It is my understanding that many of the colonists successfully eluded capture by the Falorians. I know that many of you took with you valuable information regarding the present danger we all face. I would like for you to upload all information you have to the Klingon computer databanks, and make sure that both ships have complete copies of this information. Captain Spock was put in charge of this mission—” it was a guess, but as Spock didn’t make any move to naysay him, Kirk knew it had been a good one “—and upon my arrival, has passed command on to me. You are to take everything I have said as an order. Kirk out.”

“Captain, I have the president,” Uhura said.

“Onscreen.” The image of Sanctuary slowly turning in space was replaced by the reddish skin and white hair of the Federation President.

“Captain Kirk,” he said. “It is a great pleasure to see you alive.”

“You’ll be even happier when I tell you that Sanctuary and its Palorian research facility is under Federation control,” Kirk said. “I have a group of Klingons securing it even as we speak.”

The president brightened visibly. “That is the best news I have heard in a long, long time.”

“This virus is more dangerous than we thought. The Falorians did all their testing with extremely pure crystals. Anything less pure would shatter and—”

“Yes, and cause a warp core breach. We found that out ourselves.” Kirk tried not to show his disappointment. He should have known that anything he’d been able to learn, Starfleet would have been able to learn.

“What is the status of the virus?” continued the president.

“As far as I know, it hasn’t yet been activated, and I believe that it can’t be as long as we’re in control of that facility.”

“That’s part of the problem solved, but not all of it,” the president said. “If the nanoprobes remain dormant, someone could learn how to activate them. We must find a way to render them completely useless.”

Kirk nodded his agreement. “And if they remain intact, someday someone could learn how to recreate the virus. I don’t believe it was intended to be used as a method of mass destruction, but as we’ve discovered it certainly could be. If the nanoprobes aren’t completely destroyed, the danger exists that this could happen again. What’s the status on Huan?”

The president sobered. “Not good. They’ve been bombarded for eleven hours now. So far it’s mainly infrastructure that’s been destroyed—their fleets, military bases, and so on. Minor casualties, but that could change at any minute.”

“Who’s at the perimeter of Huanni space?” Kirk asked. “You can safely give them orders to attack now.”

“Them? Kirk, the only ship close enough to do any good that we could be certain wasn’t infected was the Excelsior. We’ll of course notify every ship we can now, but it will take them hours to get there, perhaps even days.”

“Do you mean to tell me there’s only one Starfleet vessel standing ready to defend Huan?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Kirk digested the news, then said, “Inform Captain Sulu of the situation.”

“Kirk, he’s only one man with one ship.”

“Respectfully, Mr. President, I served with Hikaru Sulu. He’ll think of something. In the meantime, we’ll be doing our best to make sure this virus is obliterated.”

“Good job, Captain. Best of luck.” The image disappeared.

Kirk turned to Spock. “You said that the Falorians were all in custody?”

Spock nodded. Kirk rose. “You have the bridge. Captain Q’allock, I’m less familiar with the layout of your vessel than you might think I would be. Could you escort me to the brig?”

Q’allock snarled. “It would give me great pleasure to behold the quailing scum with my own eyes.”

Kirk took that as a yes.

The confines of a Klingon brig made those of Starfleet ships look like luxury suites. Dozens of Falorians, most of them clearly confused and frightened scientists, were crowded together so tightly that Kirk wondered how they could breathe. Dim red lighting provided little illumination. Kirk scanned the crush for Lissan and was about to give up, thinking that the Falorian leader had been transported to the other vessel, when he spied the Kal-Tor in the back.

“Him,” Kirk said, pointing. The guards looked at Q’allock for confirmation. DIS jaj je or no, Kirk wasn’t their captain. The Klingon nodded, and the guards deactivated the force field. One pointed a disrupter at the crowd while the other one shoved into the press of Falorian flesh, seized Lissan, and pulled him out roughly.

For an instant, Kirk could hardly believe that this was the selfsame being that had strutted about Sanctuary so arrogantly. He was bruised and cut, his once-crisp uniform wrinkled and soiled. Then Lissan straightened, and Kirk realized that even though everything had changed, nothing had changed.

They eyed one another for a moment, then Lissan spoke. “I suppose this is the part where you either beg me to cooperate and save your precious dilithium, or you set your hired thugs on me and bully me into submission?”

“Neither,” Kirk said shortly. “Which one of these people is your top scientist? The one who had the greatest part in creating the virus?”

Lissan folded his long, thin arms across his narrow chest and said nothing.

“If you want to play it that way,” Kirk said. He turned to the crowd of Falorians. “Which one of you is the top scientist?”

“Say nothing, any of you!” cried Lissan, and before Kirk could stop him, a Klingon had slammed the butt of his disrupter into Lissan’s gut. The Falorian doubled over. The Klingon drew back for a second blow.

“Stop it!” Kirk cried.

The Klingon shot him an angry look. “These people are dishonorable! They would see us all dead!” he spat. “They deserve far worse than this!”

“That’s not for you or me to decide,” Kirk said. “The Falorians will be tried fairly. Until then, you will treat them with care and respect.”

The Klingon reluctantly subsided. Kirk turned again to the prisoners. “I ask again—Who among you is the top scientist?”

They simply stared at him with large, frightened eyes. Kirk sighed. He had started to turn away when a small, timid voice said, “I’m the one you want.”

Kirk glanced over to see a small, slender fellow push his way to the front. Judging by Lissan’s expression of annoyance and disgust, Kirk felt that this was indeed the man he wanted. The force field was again deactivated and the scientist stepped out.

“What is your name?” Kirk asked.

“Don’t tell him,” Lissan warned.

The scientist swallowed, and then said quietly, “I’m Kalaskar.”

“Well, Kalaskar, I have a few things I want you and Lissan to see.”

Under heavy guard, Kirk and the two Falorians entered the engineering section of the ship. While the layout was different, the huge pulsing warp core was familiar to Kirk. He asked for and was given a tricorder.

“This vessel is a Klingon K’t’inga class battle cruiser. It’s one of the finest ships in the Klingon fleet. Wouldn’t you agree that such a vessel would be equipped with the highest-grade dilithium available?”

Lissan only glowered, but the more timid Kalaskar said, “That would make sense.”

Kirk tossed him the tricorder. “Scan it,” he ordered. Hesitatingly, Kalaskar did so. He frowned. “What poor grade,” he said, with a hint of Lissan’s arrogance.

“What’s the quality?” Kirk asked.

“A mere ninety-one percent,” Kalaskar said.

The chief engineer bridled. “Ninety-one percent is excellent! Our ship is equipped with a superior grade crystal. Better than ninety-five does not exist!”

“But it does,” Kirk said. “It exists on Huan. But the rest of us have to make do with a purity rate of sometimes as low as seventy-two percent. You’re the scien tist, Kalaskar. What do you think this crystal would do if your virus was activated?”

“I—don’t know,” the Falorian stammered. “We didn’t know that a crystal this impure even existed.”

“Don’t give me that,” snapped Kirk. “You’re a spacefaring race, you’ve used dilithium crystals in your ships!”

“We have only been a spacefaring race for two centuries, Captain,” Lissan said, his tone equally as sharp. “And even for that, we have had to subsist on the charity of the Huanni. What ships we have, they gave us, along with the crystals to power them. We never examined their purity; we assumed that they were all the same. All like the single crystal we have kept since the day we were stranded on Falor.”

Kirk searched his eyes. In them he found coldness and dislike, but no lie. He nodded to himself, convinced of Lissan’s truthfulness. Kirk waved them over to a console.

“Some information about the virus was recently downloaded to your computers,” he told the chief engineer. “We ran several simulations. Call them up.”

The engineer complied. Kirk had seen the simulations before; he was more interested in watching the reactions of the two Falorians. Both of them looked upset, but Lissan continued to mingle his distress with defiance. The scientist had no such constraint.

“This is terrible!” He turned to his superior. “Kal-Tor, we never intended this. The virus was only supposed to make the dilithium useless, not destroy it!”

“I told you, I never thought you were a killer, Lissan,” Kirk said quietly. “Julius seems to think that the virus can only be activated from that site down on that planet. I’m betting that only you know the command codes. Am I right?”

Lissan didn’t answer. Finally, Kalaskar could stand it no longer. “You are right,” Kalaskar said. “There’s no way to activate the virus except from Sanctuary. And yes, only Kal-Tor Lissan has the command code.”

“Is there any way to get the nanoprobes to self-destruct?” Kirk pressed.

“Oh, yes,” Kalaskar said. “It was one of the safeguards I insisted we have, just in case the virus got tracked onto one of our own ships. It, too, can only be executed from Sanctuary, and again, Kal-Tor Lissan is the only one that knows the correct code.”

“Lissan,” Kirk said, “You see what’s at stake. If those nanoprobes aren’t destroyed, someone with less conscience than the Falorians could figure out how to activate them. What would happen if that level of technology fell into the hands of a race like the—” Kirk stopped himself. He had almost said Klingons. “The Orion Syndicate, or the Romulans, or another racist species? Someone who thinks every other species is beneath them?”

“As I see it, Captain,” Lissan said coldly, “that is your problem, not mine. We are a dead race now. You have utterly ruined our chance to gain the wealth that should have been ours from the beginning. You will halt our attack against our ancient enemies, the Huanni. The Syndicate knows that we tricked them, and do not think for a moment that we will escape their wrath. The Federation will never consider us as potential members now and will probably not permit us to conduct any kind of outside trading. We’ve lost everything. I don’t care what becomes of you.”

He folded his arms and held his head high. “I wish to return to my cell now.”

Kirk stared. “You can’t mean this,” he said. “You know that someone will figure it out. The Falorians may yet be indirectly responsible for wiping out half the galaxy!”

Lissan’s eyes glittered. “The corpse cares not who follows him, Kirk. My people and I are as good as corpses. And soon, you will be, too.”