Frankenstein’s Weapon Part 1

Posted on Tue Jan 20th, 2026 @ 10:53pm by Commodore Stephen MacCaffery

2,280 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: The Tavrik Accord: Orchestrated Chaos
Location: Provisional Science Annex, Island Chain Seven, Tavrik III

[i]0600 Hours[/i]

The storm outside was dying. Inside, the air was dead. The Provisional Science Annex clung to the caldera’s rim, a white plastic blister against volcanic stone. Federation engineers had sealed it tight, their scrubbers purging every trace of scent or warmth. The air inside was a precise sixty-eight degrees, crisp and sterile, charged enough to lift the hair on Stephen MacCaffery’s arms. Still, the storm found its way in, a ghost of ozone, metallic and thin, threading through the filters, a reminder that chaos waited just beyond the walls. It was a perfect, sterile bubble.

Beyond the transparent aluminum walls, Tavrik III was screaming. The tail end of the typhoon lashed the jungle. Palm fronds whipped against the glass. Rain sluiced down in gray sheets. But in here, the silence was absolute. The violence of the planet was reduced to a silent movie playing on a high-definition screen.

Stephen lingered by the main server bank, palm pressed to the casing. Cold. Everything here was cold. The place felt less like a laboratory than a tomb, waiting for the living to catch up.

He hadn’t slept. The caffeine in his blood had curdled into a brittle, vibrating edge. He watched the room, nerves strung tight.

In the center, the tactical holo-table glowed with a soft, steady amber light. The local grid was holding. The power was clean. The illusion of control was total.

A hush settled over the room. It was the silence of tense expectation, the kind that stretches time, sharpens senses, and tightens the coil of anticipation like a drawn bowstring. For a moment, everything paused.

“You have locked down my island, Stephen.”

Sabine Eriksson did not shout. In this room, you didn’t have to. The acoustics were designed for hushed scientific dictation. Her voice carried across the lab with razor clarity.

She stood on the opposite side of the table. She looked immaculate. Her uniform was pressed. Her hair was tight. Only her eyes betrayed the strain; they were red-rimmed, tracking the scrolling data on the wall monitors like a predator watching a herd.

“My terraformers are missing shifts,” she said. “The atmospheric processors are drifting because nobody can get to the control nodes. The bio-domes are flashing warnings I can’t clear because your security fields are jamming the maintenance frequencies. You are killing the project to solve one murder. Years of research, of our lives spent taming this world, hang by a thread. If we fail now, the colony’s future collapses into the storm.”

Stephen didn’t move. He let the words hang in the chilled air.

“If I lift the lockdown,” he said, his voice flat, “Governor Veln launches his shuttles from Ashmark Landing. If Veln launches, the Vethari ship in orbit fires. Then you don’t have a project, Sabine. You have a crater.”

“Veln is bluffing,” Eriksson said. “The Vethari wouldn’t dare fire on a diplomatic convoy. The political fallout would destroy their credit rating.”

“The Vethari just watched a man dissolve at a dinner party,” Stephen said. “They aren’t thinking about credit ratings. They’re thinking about containment. If Veln tries to run, they’ll assume he’s fleeing the crime scene. They will burn him out of the sky. The fallout will poison your precious atmosphere for a century.”

Eriksson looked at the map. She looked at the red icon of the V.C.S. Gilded Hand holding high orbit. It was scanning the surface.

“They’re painting targets,” she whispered.

“They’re waiting for a reason,” Stephen corrected.

Lieutenant Commander Anton Steerforth emerged from the back of the room. He wiped his hands on a rag. He was the only thing in the room that looked disorderly. His sleeves were rolled up. There was dielectric grease on his forearm.

“The Vethari aren’t just scanning,” Steerforth said. “They’re pinging the shuttle transponders at Ashmark. Ten times a second. That’s a targeting lock.”

Steerforth walked to the console. He tapped a key, and the audio from the orbital feed filled the room. It was a rhythmic, high-pitched chirp.

Ping. Ping. Ping.

“That’s the sound of a photon torpedo guidance system acquiring a solution,” Steerforth said. “They aren’t bluffing, Director. They’re thumbing the safety.”

The door to the Annex hissed open.

Commander Sarah Mackenzie stepped in. The perfect climate control swallowed the sound of her boots. She carried a stack of PADDs and a mug of coffee. She looked like she had slept eight hours, though Stephen knew she hadn’t slept at all.

She set the coffee next to Stephen.

“Black,” she said. “High caffeine. No morality.”

Stephen took it. The heat of the ceramic was the only real thing in the room. “Tell me you have a shield, Sarah.”

“I have better,” she said. “I have paperwork.”

She tapped her PADD. A document projected into the air. It rotated slowly, heavy with Federation seals.

“Governor Veln has filed a formal grievance with the Federation Council,” Mackenzie said. Her voice was cool, detached. “He claims ‘illegal detention,’ ‘hostage diplomacy,’ and ‘gross violation of sovereignty.’ He’s demanding we hand over the body and lift the blockade immediately. He has threatened to transmit a distress call to the Klingon Empire, claiming Federation aggression.”

Eriksson made a noise of disgust. “The Klingons won’t answer a channel from a minor colony.”

“He’s litigating,” Stephen said. “He knows we can’t hold a foreign head of state without a charge. He’s building a narrative where he’s the victim.” He looked at Mackenzie. “How long do I have before the Council orders me to release him?”

Mackenzie smiled. It was a sharp expression.

“You don’t have a clock, Commodore.”

Stephen paused. “Explain.”

“I anticipated the sovereignty argument,” Mackenzie said. “I didn’t file a detainer under diplomatic law. I filed a Rule 402 Preservation Order with the Federation Health Council.”

She swiped the PADD. A new document appeared, projecting a flickering hologram dotted with red warning icons that trembled slightly, as if caught between realities. Bright yellow bio-hazard warnings flashed on the header, painting a subtle picture of complexity and potential danger.

“The toxin that killed Kalon is unidentified,” Mackenzie said. “It’s rapid. It dissolves organic tissue. Under Rule 402, it makes it a ‘Class-1 Bio-Hazard.’ I’ve designated the entire island chain as a Quarantine Zone. Veln’s diplomatic immunity is superseded by planetary health protocols. He can scream all he wants. Legally, he’s not a prisoner. He’s a patient.”

Stephen let out a breath. It was brilliant. It was ruthless. It stripped the politics out of the equation and replaced them with biology.

“How long does the quarantine hold?” Stephen asked.

“Until the attending physician clears the site,” Mackenzie said. “Or until you solve the murder. Take your time, Stephen. Nobody is going anywhere. If Veln tries to launch his shuttles now, he’s not breaking a blockade. He’s violating a health order. We can tractor him back down and bill him for the decontamination.”

Stephen looked at her. “Remind me never to sue you.”

“Drink your coffee,” she said. “And go find me a killer.”

Stephen turned back to the room. The deadline was gone. The pressure remained. The room's artificial cold felt sharper now.

“Alright,” Stephen said. “We have the time. Now we need the truth. Sato?”

Petty Officer Yuki Sato was standing at a lab station in the corner. The blue glow of a bio-scanner illuminated her face. She looked small in the oversized lab coat. Her hands were steady.

“Ready, sir,” she said. “I’ve completed the molecular sequencing on the residue from the glass.”

“Show us.”

Sato keyed a command. The holo-emitter in the center of the table whirred. The map of the island vanished.

A molecule appeared.

It was massive. It was a complex, ugly knot of atoms rotating slowly in the air. It didn’t look like nature. It looked like architecture. It was asymmetrical. Jagged. Bonding chains defied standard chemistry. It spun with a predatory grace, like a jungle predator coiled to strike, each twist of its structure poised with latent menace.

“I couldn’t identify it alone,” Sato said. “I linked the scanner to the Valley Forge’s medical database. Dr. T’Lana is on the line.”

The air beside the table shimmered. A hologram flickered into existence. Dr. T’Lana, the Vulcan Chief Medical Officer of the Valley Forge, stood there. The image was grainy. It pixelated every few seconds as the storm static chewed on the bandwidth. Her posture was rigid.

“Commodore,” T’Lana’s voice was tinny. “This agent is… disturbing.”

“Give it to me straight, Doctor,” Stephen said.

“It is a chimera,” T’Lana said. She gestured. Sections of the molecule were highlighted in different colors. “The base structure, here, in red, is a neurotoxin. Specifically, a Romulan compound. Tal Shiar standard issue, circa 2380. It is vintage. Degraded, but lethal.”

Eriksson stepped back. “Romulan? On my planet?”

“It gets worse,” T’Lana continued. “The scaffolding—the blue chains holding the toxin together—is not chemical. It is nanoscopic. Borg technology. Inert. Stripped of the collective link. Used here as a delivery mechanism to bypass standard bio-filters.”

“And the trigger?” Stephen asked.

“The green enzymes,” T’Lana said. “Vethari. A digestive enzyme found in the saliva of the Vethari upper caste. Synthesized and inverted. The toxin was inert until it came into contact with a specific biological marker. It was designed to kill only when triggered by the target’s physiology.”

The room went silent. The hum of the servers grew louder.

“A Romulan bullet,” Stephen said quietly. “Fired from a Borg gun. Triggered by a Vethari finger.”

“It’s a Frankenstein weapon,” Steerforth murmured. He stared at the rotating nightmare. “It shouldn’t exist. The Romulans wouldn’t work with the Vethari. The Borg don’t share tech. This isn’t just a murder weapon. It’s a geopolitical impossibility.”

“It’s a message,” Stephen said. “It tells us everyone is involved. And no one is responsible. It points everywhere at once.”

Lieutenant Khorev stepped out of the shadows. He was in full tactical gear. His hand rested on the phaser at his hip. He looked at the molecule with deep suspicion.

“The weapon is sophisticated,” Khorev said. His voice sounded like stones. “But the delivery was simple. Someone put it in the glass. And my sensors saw nothing.”

He walked to the wall monitors. He pointed at the security readouts. “I have reviewed the logs three times. The perimeter was green. No transport signatures. No cloaked incursions. No unauthorized personnel entered the pavilion. The sensors are absolute.”

“The sensors are blind,” Steerforth said.

Khorev turned. His eyes narrowed. “My equipment is Starfleet spec, Commander. It does not blink.”

Steerforth shook his head. He didn’t look intimidated. He looked tired. He walked over to the console. He tapped a sequence into the local interface.

“You’re reading the data like a tactician, Pavel,” Steerforth said. “You’re looking for coherent breaches. Energy spikes. Transporter beams. You’re looking for an enemy who breaks down the door.”

He brought up a schematic of the island’s sensor grid. It was a patchwork of sleek Starfleet nodes and clunky, blocky colonial hardware.

“You’re ignoring the cultural architecture of this place,” Steerforth said. He sounded like he was giving a lecture. His voice dropped into the rhythm of the anthropologist he used to be. “The Kaldari built the original grid here. Do you know the Kaldari philosophy of defense?”

“Shoot first,” Khorev said.

“Beware of Dog,” Steerforth corrected. “They don’t trust neighbors. They don’t trust the sky. Their sensors are pointed outward. They are designed to detect incoming fire, incoming ships, and incoming storms. They are paranoid about the horizon.”

He tapped the screen. The grid highlighted the external perimeter in bright red. The interior was a soft, unmonitored blue.

“They don’t monitor the inside,” Steerforth said. “Because in Kaldari culture, once you are inside the wall, you are kin. To monitor kin is an insult. It’s a blind spot built into their sociology. Whoever did this knew that. They didn’t hack the sensors. They exploited the psychology.”

Stephen looked at the map. It made perfect, terrifying sense. “So the killer didn’t cross the perimeter,” he said. “The killer was already inside.”

“Or they used a door the sensors aren’t looking for,” Steerforth said. “Let me filter the raw logs through the Colony’s maintenance protocols. The ‘back door’ that the locals use to bypass their own red tape when they need to fix a pipe without filing a permit.”

“Do it,” Stephen said. “And link it to the ship. I want Van Ness to see what you see.”

Stephen tapped his combadge. “MacCaffery to Valley Forge. Engineering.”

“Van Ness here,” the response was instant. “Commodore, I’m fighting a lot of noise up here. The Vethari ship is bleeding energy into the ionosphere. They’re trying to fuzz our passive scans.”

“I know, Rosie,” Stephen said. “I’m sending you a new filter algorithm. It’s messy. It’s going to look like garbage data. Run it anyway. Correlate the orbital feed with Steerforth’s maintenance logs.”

“Garbage is my favorite flavor,” Van Ness said. “Stand by. Syncing now.”

The Holo-Table shifted. The clean, sterile map of the island dissolved. A gritty, jagged waveform replaced it. It was ugly data. Raw. Unfiltered. Full of static and noise.

End Part 1

Commodore Stephen James MacCaffery
Federation Special Envoy
Tavrik III

 

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