Most of the seats at her table were empty. The mess halls and commissaries usually were packed in the hours immediately preceding and following the shift changes, and again during the staggered mid-shift lunch breaks. This morning, however, the main commissary on level seventeen was almost deserted. The last time Sandesjo had seen this many available seats during a prime dining hour was during the station’s first week of operation, when the engineering staff—profoundly irked that their long haul up from the bowels of the station’s power-generation core always left them scrounging for seats and settling for the least-popular menu items—had sent up a team early, to fake a radiation leak and clear out the upper-decks personnel, so the engineers could enjoy their choice of entrées in peace and comfort.

The signal device on her belt beeped. She glanced down. It was from Turag. The code he’d sent her was an instruction to check in as soon as circumstances allowed. “Yes, sir,” she muttered, figuring that anyone who overheard would assume she had just been summoned by Jetanien. She downed the rest of her coffee in one scalding gulp, then stood and walked her plate to the return counter, where she abandoned it still half-full.

Turning toward the door, she collided with Lieutenant Ming Xiong, the A&A officer who seemed to be invited to an inordinate number of high-level meetings with Jetanien and Reyes.

Xiong glanced at the plate Sandesjo had turned in. “Not hungry this morning?”

“I’m on a diet,” Sandesjo said.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “The ‘drop everything for Ambassador Jetanien’ diet?”

She nodded once. “Ah…you’ve heard of it.”

“Who hasn’t?” He smiled shyly at her and shifted his weight awkwardly. Breaking eye contact, he glanced away toward the chow line. Looking back, he said, “Guess I better get on line before Farber eats all the eggs.”

“Probably a good idea.” She stepped around him. “Enjoy your breakfast, Lieutenant.”

“You too,” he said, then hastened to correct himself. “I mean, I hope you did, you know, have a nice breakfast.”

Tossing her straight, cinnamon-hued hair with a turn of her head, she cast a flirtatious look back over her shoulder at him.

He finished his farewell with a simple, “Have a nice day.”

“You too, Xiong.” As she left the commissary, she felt him watching her. Despite the brevity of their few meetings, his attraction to her had been clear from the start. Silly man. He has no idea what he’d be getting himself into.

Minutes later Sandesjo was sequestered in her office. Her secret communication device opened quietly on her desktop, and Ambassador Lugok’s flushed, angry visage filled its screen. His voice was loud enough to crackle the device’s speakers with distortion. “Was your file on Karumé a joke?”

She turned down the volume on the speaker. “I take it your first meeting did not go well?”

“She nearly cut off my loDmach.”

“I warned you she was aggressive,” Sandesjo said, an evil gleam lighting up her gaze. “Tell me, did you underestimate her because she was human or because she was a woman?”

Lugok’s face bunched with annoyance. “Don’t be stupid, Lurqal. I would never underestimate a woman.”

“Good to know.” Chilling her tone, she continued, “My time is short, Ambassador. What can I do for you?”

“What is the Federation doing to learn who destroyed its ship?”

“Enterprise is being readied for departure,” Sandesjo said. “Probably within the day.”

His brow knitted with confusion. “Today? There’s been no announcement.”

“Starfleet’s probably keeping the deployment quiet, but none of the alpha-shift spacedock crew were at breakfast today. They must have been called in during gamma shift.”

“Interesting,” Lugok said. “Do you know where the Bombay was lost?”

“Not yet.” She transmitted a data file over the secure channel. “I’ve sent you a list of six star systems that would be worth monitoring during the next few days.”

“Your selection criteria?”

“Situated within the range of the Bombay at maximum warp for seventy-eight hours, presence of M-Class planets, source of subspace radio traffic within the past three months.”

“Very good,” Lugok said. “Let me know if discussions resume with the Tholian envoy.”

“As you command.”

They traded valedictions of Qapla’, then cut the channel.

Sandesjo tucked the closed briefcase device under her desk. She activated her computer, checked her morning schedule, then walked to her door and looked for an aide who would fetch her another cup of watered-down, barely caffeinated Terran swill. It was going to be a long day, and weak human coffee would be better than none.

Her carefully laid plan was derailed by an all too familiar voice of authority. “Ms. Sandesjo,” Jetanien said from the doorway, in his favorite tone of arch superiority. “Permit me to thank you for recommending Akeylah Karumé as our new envoy to the Klingon delegation.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. The huge Chelon ignored her.

“Until now, I had been greatly vexed by the problem of how to maintain a political dialogue with the Klingons, while at the same time threatening their chief representative with forced emasculation. Fortunately, Ms. Karumé has adroitly merged these two concepts.”

“You must be very proud, sir.”

“Exquisitely,” he said. “Are you familiar with the Nemite Revolution that occurred two thousand, four hundred and twelve years ago on Tamaros III?”

“If I say yes, will it stop you from lecturing me?”

“It all began when the proconsul to the High Epopt of Tamaros appointed a Yoçarian to serve as the castellan of the capital city…”

Steeling herself for a very long history lesson whose only allegorical moral would be another iteration of “Thanks for sending me a maverick,” Sandesjo concluded that there wasn’t enough coffee in the galaxy to make this job bearable.

“We should have been prepared for this,” Councillor Torr said, his tirade inciting a low chorus of grumbles among the rest of the Klingon High Council. The sharp-featured young councillor paced like a chained targ in the dimly lit chamber ringed by statues of great warriors of ages past. Chancellor Sturka listened with waning patience as Torr continued. “One of the ships defending Vanguard has been destroyed, yet we are unable to capitalize on this opportunity. Why? Because we have been too cautious in our strategy for seizing the Gonmog Sector.”

“Save your propaganda, Torr,” Sturka said, his voice worn to a low growl after more than a decade of presiding over this increasingly fractious ruling committee. “They lost one frigate, but another battle cruiser has made port. If anything, Vanguard is better defended than it was before.”

“Enterprise is there, that’s true,” said Veselka, a woman whose peculiar charms were matched only by her cunning. “But she made port for repairs, and her captain is untested.”

Kulok, the grizzled councillor from Lankal, snorted out a derisive laugh. “Pike, untested? Ridiculous.”

“You need stronger raktajino, old man,” snapped Alakon, a warrior who had risen from commoner origins and earned his place on the council through honorable combat. “Pike commands a fleet now. His old ship is in the hands of a new commander: Kirk.”

Argashek grunted and turned toward Grozik and Glazya, his longtime allies on the council. “Kirk?…A good Klingon name.”

Councillor Narvak interjected, “Just because his name sounds Klingon, it doesn’t mean he’ll fight like one.”

“But it will be fun to see him try,” Councillor Molok said, flashing an evil grin that sent creases halfway up the sides of his bald head.

Laughter rocked the hall. Sturka rapped the end of his staff on the cold stone floor. The sharp reports and echoes muzzled the jollity. All eyes turned back to the chancellor, who leaned forward on his throne. “Before we move against Vanguard, we should make certain we know who destroyed their vessel.”