Reap the Whirlwind

7

“What do you mean it’s gone?” raged Turag, his ire palpable even across a long-range subspace cha

Sandesjo struggled to keep her temper in check. Lambasting her Imperial Intelligence handler with vulgarities might draw attention in the Federation Embassy office, even from behind the closed door of her private office. “Starfleet normally a

“A sorry excuse, Lurqal,” Turag said, sneering through her true name as if it were a slur. “You have eyes. Couldn’t you see the ship was no longer in the hangar?”

I’m just going to throttle him, she fumed. Quieting her thoughts, she replied, “The Sagittarius is a very small ship, Turag. After it reached port, the maintenance crew covered it with scaffolding while making repairs. Apparently, the ship navigated clear of the scaffolding, which was left in place to create the illusion that the vessel was still in spacedock.”

“An answer for everything,” Turag said. “How convenient. How could the Sagittarius have left undetected by our fleet?”

“Not all our warriors are as cu

“Assuming your guess is right,” Turag said, “how much of a lead would they have?”

“Two days and nineteen hours,” Sandesjo said.

Turag pounded his fist on the tabletop in front of his monitor. “Jay’va! They could be halfway to Jinoteur by now!” He pointed an accusing finger at her. “Every week your reports grow shorter and less useful. Now you’ve let a major Starfleet deployment slip past you. This is the last time, Lurqal. Fail us again, and you’ll be making your excuses to Fek’lhr!”

A jab of his index finger cut the cha

For a few minutes she sat with her face hidden in her hands. Solid intelligence had become harder to obtain in the weeks since the death of Captain Zhao on Erilon, but Sandesjo’s privileged position still made available a great deal of useful information. During her first several months aboard Starbase 47 she had mined the Federation Embassy’s records repeatedly for items of interest that could be passed along to Turag and Lugok. Though that supply of internal memoranda was far from exhausted, she had become tired of sifting through it for material to pad out her reports. It had come to feel like busywork. More to the point, she had lost interest—in that task and in her mission.

She had tried to convince herself that she could serve her Klingon masters and T’Pry

The time for games was over. Turag could sense that she was not delivering useful intelligence. She would need to give him exclusive information of genuine value to safeguard her deep-cover assignment, lest her own people move against her.

My own people, she thought ruefully. Do I still have the right to call them that? I’ve lain down with the enemy and fallen in love…. I’m a traitor.

Accepting that as true meant letting go of a comforting lie. She had told herself for months that her loyalties had been “divided” or her motives “conflicted.” The truth of the matter, she now knew, was that she had been turned. Whether the deciding factor had been falling in love with T’Pry

Her true loyalty was to T’Pry

I will burn in Gre’thor for this, warned the faltering voice of Sandesjo’s conscience, but she paid it no heed.

Her love demanded blood, and it would not be denied.

Dr. Fisher sipped his coffee and knocked on the open door to his colleague’s office. “You asked to see me?”

Looking up from behind several orderly stacks of data slates, Dr. M’Benga’s face brightened when he recognized Fisher. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Do you have a minute? Please come in.”

M’Benga kept his office well organized and very clean. Fisher approved. He slouched into a comfortable, padded leather chair in front of M’Benga’s desk. It had been quite some time since he had been the one sitting in front of another physician. “What’s on your mind, Doctor?”

The younger man handed Fisher a data slate. “A few days ago I treated Lieutenant Commander T’Pry

Sca

“Yes, sir,” M’Benga said. “T’Pry

Fisher chuckled. “The higher the rank, the more difficult the patient.” He set down the data slate on M’Benga’s desk. “You can just request her file from Starfleet Medical, you know.”

“I’m aware of that, sir,” M’Benga said. “That’s why I called you. I requested T’Pry

That made Fisher sit up straight. “Denied?”

“Yes, sir. Starfleet Medical informed me that I don’t have sufficient security clearance to review her file.”

The older doctor put down his coffee mug on the desk and grabbed the data slate that showed T’Pry

“Yes, sir,” M’Benga said, his ma

Fisher studied the unusual bio readings taken during T’Pry

“Not that we found,” M’Benga said. “No sign of injury, either. But lots of pain response in her somatosensory cortex. My first diagnosis was premature Pon farr.”

Nodding slowly, Fisher said, “That fits with the elevated temperature and pulse. But I don’t see the pain co