Reap the Whirlwind

He rips hair from my scalp as I gouge his face—

There was no longer any reason for T’Pry

She loved me.

Hideous pain shot through T’Pry

She loved me…and I sacrificed her.

The truth looked back at her through the flames, its morbid grin a memento mori, its brilliant silence a scathing reproach. Love was lost, betrayed in the name of country. Hope was gone. All that remained was the fire.

She burns for me.

Grief twisted her face into a grotesque horror mask. Her cheeks were streaked with tears, her mouth contorted and agape.

Sten’s blade sinks into my chest—

Sorrow and rage combusted within her and erupted as a horrible roar, as her katra submerged into the starless night of her own, personal damnation.

Reyes walked alone through the confusion and chaos in the docking bay’s main thoroughfare. The towering emptiness of the concourse reinforced how small he felt, how powerless.

The bay three gangway was closed to everyone except pressure-suited fire-suppression teams and damage-control crews. Nonessential perso

In the hangar, a massive cleanup operation was under way. Swarms of maintenance pods moved in closely choreographed patterns, collecting wreckage and, to Reyes’s dismay, bodies. Thirty-eight enlisted crew and nine officers had perished aboard the Malacca, and five Vanguard technicians had been killed by blast effects inside maintenance bay three.

Plus one undeclared passenger aboard the Malacca, Reyes brooded. There was no doubt in his mind that the presence of Klingon double agent A

The casualty most disconcerting to Reyes, however, was lying on the deck ahead of him.

Lieutenant Commander T’Pry

Several members of the medical team looked up as Reyes neared. Fisher looked over his shoulder at him.

Reyes asked, “How badly is she hurt?”

Fisher stood and turned to meet Reyes. The elderly doctor’s gaze was hard and unforgiving. “Physically, she’s fine,” he said. “This is something else.”

M’Benga stepped forward and joined the conversation.

“She appears to have suffered a total psychological collapse.”

“Caused by?”

“We’re not sure,” Fisher said, his unblinking glare of accusation trained on Reyes. He stepped closer and blatantly intruded on Reyes’s personal space. “We’d have a better idea what happened if we’d been given her medical history.”

Equally fearless, M’Benga added, “For a Vulcan to have that kind of breakdown, she would have to have been suffering a great deal, for a very long time. Her collapse in sickbay last week—”

“All right,” Reyes snapped. “I get the point.”

“No, Diego,” Fisher said. “I don’t think you do. She came to us a week ago looking for help—and if you hadn’t tied our hands, maybe we could’ve done something.” Contempt edged into his voice. “But everything with you has to be a god-damned secret.” He turned back to the group of medics and nurses. “Put her on the stretcher! Let’s get her up to the hospital!”

Fisher turned his back on Reyes and walked away. The medical team eased T’Pry

I could have evacuated the colony. Warned Jea

Reyes turned away from the physical and metaphysical damage his decisions had wrought on the lives of those around him and tried to walk away from it, back to work and routine and duty. But there was no walking away; the consequences of his actions shadowed his every thought—just as he knew they would, today and every day, for the rest of his life.

He recalled the words of his late mentor and Academy sponsor, Captain Rymer: It’s called being in command.

Pe

“Should we go to Manón’s?” Pe

“I don’t feel much like celebrating,” Qui

He’d agreed with Qui

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Qui

Sketching with a twig in the cool, dark dirt, Pe

“No,” Qui

Pe

“What’d she say to you? Before she collapsed.”

Qui

“Free?” echoed Pe

“Everything. Debt. Ganz. Her…. Just free.”

Pe

Hunching forward against his knees, Pe