FORTY

Early 2290 (the Year of Kahless 915, early in the month of
Xan’lahr; Gregorian date: January 13, 2290)

The freebooter ship Jevqem

Seated on one of the small lab’s narrow stools, Qagh frowned deeply at the biotechnological inventory report on the padd that Nej had just handed him. The hand that held the padd shook slightly, and he quickly switched hands to conceal his momentary weakness.

But he knew he couldn’t conceal his deeply angry and near-despondent state of mind as he considered the seriousness of the blow that his foes had dealt him.

“I had virtually everything I needed to create a weapon that could have leveraged the High Council into doing nearly anything I wanted it to do,” he said, shaking his head ruefully as he studied the grim figures on the padd for what might have been the hundredth time. “I could have threatened to wipe out whole planetary biospheres unless they let me alone. Then came my kinsman and his motley band of brothers. Now all those years of effort might as well have been deliberately thrown down Qul Tuq’s gravity well.”

“You shouldn’t lose hope, Qagh,” Nej said, his dusky face a mask of concern.

Though the albino knew Nej was merely playing his customary role of concerned physician, he found himself snarling at the man. “I would be delighted to see some justification for that spectacularly unfounded bit of reasoning. I can never gain control of the House of Ngoj. I was foolish to believe that I could, or that I even wanted to. The whole weight of a culture that rejected me—a society of which I am not overly fond to begin with—will never permit it, no matter how many weapons I develop and deploy.

“I may not survive this, Nej. Not only has my work been set back by years—including the work that keeps my…condition at bay—but the armed forces of two galactic powers have compromised some of my best sources of raw biomaterials.”

Nej lapsed into silence at this, stroking his bearded chin as he made a show of choosing his next words with extreme care. “Those two galactic powers will soon have reason to afford us both a more appropriate level of respect,” he said.

Qagh’s despair immediately yielded to irritated puzzlement. “What are you talking about, Nej?”

Nej displayed his sharpened teeth, apparently eager to ingratiate himself to the freebooter. And a strange light that Qagh saw only rarely burned behind his eyes, much more strongly than ever before.

“I speak of the blow that I have already struck, in secret, against the weaklings on the Council who would discuss capitulation with the Empire’s enemies,” Nej said, smiling beatifically. “I wasn’t going to speak of it until I was more certain of the results. But considering your present state of mind—”

“What have you done, Nej?” the albino said, interrupting, all at once feeling chilled by the madness he saw emerging from behind the elderly doctor’s eyes. He rose from his stool, set the padd down upon it, and approached Nej, studying him closely.

“I recently finished the design work and protein synthesis on another new retrovirus,” Nej said. “And I’ve already deployed it.”

The albino’s eyes grew large with astonishment. Was this Nej’s way of staging a coup, like the one Qagh himself had undertaken decades ago aboard the Jade Lady?

“You released a new retrovirus without clearing it with me first?”

Nej raised a placating hand. “It’s just a little side project—one that Hurghom and I first began working on after the Council discommendated me as punishment for the SermanyuQ grain-virus fiasco.”

Qagh swallowed hard and he closed his eyes. His head hurt, making him wonder if it was already time to medicate again. “What is the nature of this new virus?”

“It is highly contagious, and should prove most reliably lethal to members of those Houses that wronged me over the SermanyuQ affair. I trust I needn’t remind you that many of those individuals also took part in humbling the House from which you originated.”

Qagh could scarcely believe his ears. Had he been so wrapped up in the intricacies of biochemically maintaining his own existence from month to month and week to week—to say nothing of his own plans to avenge himself against his enemies—that he had missed Nej’s slide into a reckless vendetta-mania of his own?

Or perhaps the old man had simply been driven mad by his long years of exposure to so many exotic bioagents. Maybe we’re both insane after living so much of our lives out on the margins of the frontier, he thought.

“You were the one responsible for launching the small auxiliary ship,” Qagh said. “The one that disappeared the first time my kinsman came aboard the Hegh’TlhoS.”

Nej nodded enthusiastically, as though he believed he had somehow cheered his employer up. “Though the small cloaking device it carries is quite a power drain, the craft ought to reach Qo’noS quite soon, if it hasn’t done so already. Once there, it will release my virus into the atmosphere. It should take but little time thereafter for the pathogen to reach its intended targets.”

The Houses of the High Council, or their successors, won’t take this lying down, the albino thought as his surprise and bemusement swiftly metamorphosed into a hard, cold rage. He reached for his belt, and his hand landed on the butt of the small disruptor pistol he habitually kept there.

“All I wanted to do, Nej, was to stay alive with the purpose of punishing and plundering Kor’s ancestral House for abandoning me during my infancy. I wanted to hold the big bioweapons in reserve, to keep the Council at bay.

“But you, Nej, have gone too far.”

Qagh drew his weapon then and fired it into the other man’s chest in a single fluid motion. It was Nej’s turn to look astonished, at least for the instant it took for his suddenly lifeless body to fall backward to the deck. The albino looked down upon the dead man in disgust, and watched as the remnants of the strange, mad light slowly faded from his eyes.

The Council might have no choice now other than to declare total war upon me, he thought as he holstered his disruptor. He had always enjoyed the warm, comforting feel of a freshly fired disruptor when he returned it to his belt. Today, however, he almost regretted it.

Almost.

Nej may have just brought the entire power structure of the Klingon Empire right down on top of me, he thought. Unless…