The Vulcan shook her head. “No, you asked if you could offer me something to drink. I merely granted your request.” Why was she acting this way? T’Prynn knew that her verbal wordplay might be seen by the other woman as being critical of her grammar, but at the same time she found she could not resist the gentle teasing afforded by the exercise.

Sandesjo’s mouth curled into a small, hesitant smile, and her green eyes bored into T’Prynn’s. “Would you like something to drink?”

“No,” T’Prynn said, and when she spoke this time she arched her right eyebrow, and Sandesjo was unable to stifle a louder laugh.

“Commander,” the aide said, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were flirting with me, but I didn’t think Vulcans flirted.”

Pausing to consider her answer, T’Prynn replied, “Vulcans do not engage in the activity with the same proclivity as humans, but we recognize it as a desirable means of discourse with a potential companion.” Having observed the behavior in her human friends over the years, she felt as though she understood how to employ the conversational tactic effectively.

Her blunt remark seemed to catch Sandesjo by surprise, and she blinked several times before offering a response. Then, leaning forward so that her elbows rested atop the table, she regarded T’Prynn with a bold, unflinching gaze. “Is that what we are? Potential companions?”

“There are always possibilities,” T’Prynn said. For the first time since entering the officers’ club, she reconsidered the course of action she had undertaken. Getting involved in any kind of personal relationship was something she had not done since Sten’s death. Given her dead fiancé’s lasting effects on her psyche thanks to their frantic mind-meld in his last moments of life, T’Prynn had long been wary of further emotional entanglements with anyone. Still, this woman fascinated her for several reasons, some of which she could not describe or even identify. This of course troubled T’Prynn, given what she now knew about the young ambassadorial aide.

Anna Sandesjo was the spy she sought.

At first unwilling to believe the conclusion to which her investigation had led her, T’Prynn had rechecked the information compiled and collated by the search algorithms she had launched into the station’s main computer and communications systems. On its own, the evidence she had found was largely circumstantial, revolving around the woman’s occasional presence in the Federation Embassy offices at odd hours of the night, each instance of which was followed in short order by the inclusion of the encrypted and purposely fragmented messages T’Prynn had found embedded in outgoing communications traffic. The gap of time between Sandesjo’s working late hours and the inclusion of the covert messages was always less than two hours. Working backward from what she knew might still be a coincidental connection, T’Prynn had performed a thorough review of Sandesjo’s background information and other personal data. The anomalies she found might be dismissed by a casual inspection as errors or oversights, but a more comprehensive analysis revealed to T’Prynn a pattern of minor, even unconnected inconsistencies, which someone skilled in counterintelligence might conclude were unavoidable gaps in an otherwise well-crafted false identity. As the recipient of the messages appeared to be someone affiliated with the Klingon Empire, T’Prynn now also had cause to wonder if Sandesjo herself might be a Klingon agent. Was she simply a traitor to the Federation, or might she be an alien—perhaps even a Klingon—surgically altered to appear human?

There may be only one way to be certain.

While it might not be enough to engage the services of the Judge Advocate General or even Starfleet Security, T’Prynn felt she had sufficient information to act on her own and determine the true nature of Anna Sandesjo’s apparent clandestine activities. In order to prove her theories without alarming either Sandesjo herself or whoever might be providing her instructions and receiving her reports, T’Prynn would have to proceed with caution.

“I have to tell you,” Sandesjo said, clasping her hands atop the table and looking down at her fingers as she interlaced them, “this isn’t the sort of thing I do very often.”

T’Prynn nodded, recognizing the attempt at erecting an emotional barrier. Sandesjo, if she was a spy, also would be leery of placing herself at risk of exposure, while at the same time endeavoring to ascertain T’Prynn’s own motivations. It would require patience on T’Prynn’s part if her scheme was to succeed, despite whatever personal feelings she might be experiencing toward Sandesjo.

The mission must come first.It was an unconvincing rebuke, T’Prynn decided.

“Nor is it something with which I have much familiarity,” she said, sensing an opportunity to perhaps put them both at ease. “Perhaps we should ‘take things slowly,’ as you humans sometimes say.”

Sandesjo smiled again. “Perhaps, but not tooslowly, I hope,” she said, holding T’Prynn’s gaze as she spoke the words. There was no mistaking the sentiment being expressed. What T’Prynn now required was a strategy for turning this evolving situation to her advantage, and to do so without alerting Sandesjo to her true agenda. That would be a challenge, she realized, given that she could not deny her own physical attraction to this mysterious young woman, which only seemed to be amplified when considering her possible true identity and affiliations.

A challenge, indeed, but one T’Prynn welcomed.

9

Jetanien always had fancied himself rather accomplished when it came to studying and deciphering the nuances of facial expressions and body language. In particular, having lived and worked in proximity to many representatives of Earth during his long diplomatic career, he considered himself more than capable of discerning much from the way humans emoted and carried themselves.

Such proficiency was not required on this evening as he stood before Diego Reyes in the commodore’s office, looking across the station commander’s desk as the human rubbed his temples and offered the latest in a series of fervent wishes that he were anywhere but here on Starbase 47.

“They told me this job would be hard when they offered it to me,” Reyes said, shaking his head as he reached for the cup of coffee sitting on the desk near his right hand. “But I had to be stupid and call their bluff.”

Amused by his friend’s penchant for self-deprecating humor, Jetanien laughed. “On the contrary, Diego, I can think of no one offhand who I believe is as suited to this assignment. You have the perfect blend of healthy skepticism and objectivity as well as the consummate leadership skills which will be required in order to guide this mission no matter what course it ends up charting.”

“Remind me to hire you if I ever need a publicist,” Reyes said, pausing to sip from his coffee. “You can write all the press releases to go with the book I’ll write when this is all over, assuming it ends up being a story worth telling.” He reached for the computer terminal positioned at one corner of his desk and swiveled the unit so Jetanien could see its display monitor. “Take a look at this. It’s a report from Starfleet Intelligence on the latest Klingon ship movements in the Taurus Reach. It seems our friends from the Empire have taken an interest in several systems besides Traelus where we’ve been poking around.”

Studying the report displayed on the monitor, Jetanien noted that it had been coded and stamped with a top-secret Starfleet Intelligence classification, no doubt sent to Reyes under heavy encryption and intended only for his eyes as well as the small number of people who were aware of Starbase 47’s true purpose in the Taurus Reach. A perusal of the systems cited in the report gave the ambassador pause.