CHAPTER 17

The Planet Qo’noS

 

THE GNARLED TOWERS of the Klingon High Council chamber rose above a smoggy yellow haze in the capital city. Inside the chambers, an ancient room of stone and wooden beams was hung with ceremonial banners and echoes of conquests stemming back through the pages of alien time. Guards stood everywhere, more for show than function, dressed in regalia and armed with archaic weapons. The Council members, seated at a serpentine table, pounded and shouted in their idea of debate.

There was great strife here today.

Jonathan Archer presented a calm demeanor, hoping his colleagues would take his cue in this shockingly alien environment. Alien, yes, but there was something hauntingly medieval about this place and these people, not really so far out of the human realm of imagination. Perhaps that was the disturbing part—the fact that they could empathize with being Klingon.

In a noble queue, Archer, T’Pol, and Hoshi moved into the enormous chamber, led by Klaang, who was so calm now as to be arguably majestic. Klaang was clearly working at both strength and dignity, despite what he had suffered physically.

He stopped before the Chancellor. “Wo’migh Qagh! Q’apla!”

Hoshi leaned toward Archer and whispered, “Something about disgracing the Empire ... he says he’s ready to die.”

Archer murmured, “That’s all we get out of this?”

The Chancellor was on his feet now, glaring in open curiosity at the humans. The wide-shouldered leader walked down the great stone steps, and as he did this, he drew a jagged dagger from its sheath.

Klaang tensed but never flinched as the Chancellor stopped in front of him.

Archer tensed also. If this thing were carried out, he would be helpless to stop it. At least he would show them that humans weren’t squeamish and would stand up beside Klaang to the last. They hadn’t brought him here just to be arbitrarily killed. The Chancellor would be forced to think about what he was doing, rather than just act by rote.

The Chancellor snatched Klaang’s wrist and drew the blade across the palm, drawing blood. Archer winced and put his hand out slightly to his side to keep Hoshi steady. T’Pol remained unfazed.

“Poq!” the Chancellor called.

An aide approached with a vial, held it up, and caught several drops of Klaang’s blood, while Klaang stood there, completely dumbfounded by all this.

The aide hurried to a large apparatus that remained undefined until he opened it and inserted the vial into a sensor padd. A large screen came to life suddenly, displaying a highly magnified cluster of lavender blood cells.

The Council members grumbled with sounds that might have been approval.

The image continued to enlarge, and became spirals of DNA. The spirals became larger and larger, until a distinctive pattern showed itself even to the untrained eye. The aide kept working the controls until individual molecules rose before the audience.

Hoshi drew a breath to speak, but Archer motioned her silent.

The molecular pattern began to rotate, revealing ... what were those? Maps!

Maps, and text! Alien script written on a molecular level!

“Phlox should see this,” Archer murmured. “He’d have a kitten.”

Text, schedules, coordinates ...

The entire chamber erupted in a rumble of approval. Then the Chancellor, purple-faced with excitement, stalked over to Archer.

He lifted the dagger to Archer’s throat. Archer remained steady, but it took some doing.

“ChugDah hegh ... volcha vay.”

Just like that, the Chancellor lowered the weapon and stalked away.

Archer let himself breathe again. “I’ll take that as a thank you. ...”

Beside him, Hoshi offered, “I don’t think they have a word for thank you.”

“Then what’d he say?”

“You don’t want to know.”

The Klingon chamber began to shuffle with activity as the meeting broke up and the Council adored its DNA treasure. Now they could move on with whatever internal conflicts they had with their neighbors, the Suliban, or they could use the contraband information to get the Suliban to leave them alone. At least they knew now that their internal structure was being tampered with. They wouldn’t turn against each other now. At least, not for a while.

Archer was willing to wait it out. Able to breathe normally for the first time in days, he turned and motioned his crew toward the door. “Ladies? Allow me to escort you to a much better place. We’ve done all we can here. Anybody got a silver bullet?”

STAR TREK: Enterprise - Broken Bow
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