Surefoot 57: Cloak and Dagger

On more secure ground, nearer the part of the city that had suffered less damage in the attack, they were stacking the Klingon bodies like cordwood. He didn't judge them for that apparent callousness; he knew Klingons had no reverence for their dead.

Of more interest was the lack of hostility he sensed between the Klingons and the Starfleet officers assisting them in the recovery of survivors of the Romulan attack. It was unprecedented, in his experience; although open hostilities had ceased almost eighty years ago with the Organian intervention, and the start of the Khitomer Accords, there was still much lingering resentment, on both sides.

But now? Now there was almost respect between them.

And all it took was a starship and her crew: the Enterprise-C, under the command of Captain Rachel Garrett, who had responded to the distress call from the Klingons on Narenda III to the Romulan attack. It had cost them all their lives, but it had bought the Klingons time, time to bring in reinforcements and drive the Romulans back-

"You there!"

He stopped and turned, his hand resting on the strap of the medical shoulder bag he was carrying since beaming down from the Wyoming, one of the first of the relief ships to arrive. As he approached, he recognised her as the Wyoming's First Officer, speaking with several of the Science personnel assisting in the rescue operation. "Commander?"

Silva LaForge eyed him, her walnut-coloured skin glistening with sweat from the humidity, her gaze critical. "Is there a reason you're wandering off on your own, Doctor...?"

"Lehnsherr, Ma'am," he replied instantly to the prompt, fully immersed in his cover identity. "Erik Lehnsherr, on loan to the USS Victory from the Darwin Genetic Research Station on Gagarin IV, as part of the Starfleet Medical-"

"I didn't ask for your bio, Doctor Lehnsherr," she interrupted curtly. "Just where you thought you were going."

He nodded. "Of course, Ma'am. I was called to assist a team who have detected lifesigns trapped in a subsection of the local Klingon Hall of Justice."

"Lifesigns?" one of LaForge's team echoed. "The whole area is filled with irregular pockets of temporal energy, affecting our scans! How are they managing to detect anything?"

"For that matter, why is there temporal energy around here in the first place?" another asked.

"We're down here to save lives," LaForge snapped at them. "Not write a physics paper." She glared at Ian again. "Well? Better get going, Doctor."

Ian nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Thank you." He turned and briskly walked away, concerned about the science officer's comments about temporal energy...

He found the hidden access, a vertical hatch that had obviously been covered in debris, but from the fresh phaser burn marks around it, had since been cleared. He glanced around, ensuring no one could see him enter and descend, entering darkness and thick, musty air.

He emerged into a dark corridor, the cybernetic implants in his eyes adjusting to the darkness, as he reached for his communicator, flipping the top open and indulging in a smile. "Sorry, Sport. I beat you to it." He waited for a response; when none was forthcoming, he asked, "Léon?"

Then he saw the lights up ahead, and pocketed his communicator and quickened his pace.

He entered a windowless computer records room, its décor as stark and functional as anything else Ian had seen among Klingons... and a muscular, broad-shouldered, dark-skinned man sitting with his boots up on a console, hands folded together on his stomach, grinning, his accent with a smooth French spice to it. "Looks like I beat you to it."

Ian glared at him. "Protocol is to inform your mission partner when you acquired the target."

Captain Léon Landry looked hurt beneath the comma of sable hair hanging down over his forehead, and indicated the Starfleet data extraction devices they had brought, and were now connected to the Klingon terminals. "I was busy. Besides, the look on your face when you realised I got here first was priceless."

"You weren't present. How would you know?"

Landry stood up, rolling his neck and shoulders as if he had performed the Labours of Hercules himself to get here. "I know you, My Paladin." He drew in, beaming. "All too well..."

Ian stepped around him, setting down his case and opening up his disguised equipment. "We need to hurry. Starfleet's detected temporal energy residue planetside as well as in space. At present they'll most likely attribute it to the weapons fire in orbit, rather than a side effect of the experiments being conducted here, but I'd rather not tarry and be caught."

Landry stopped the banter and joined in, assisting in removing and planting the gravitic charges around the room, that they would set off after they got what they came for, and forever hide what was down here. "Data Extraction is at 45%, We'll be out of here before you can say Tea and Crumpets."

"Tea and Crumpets," Ian muttered.

After a moment, Landry clarified, "Okay, so maybe not that quick."

Ian allowed himself a smile. He had worked with Léon for three years now... and enjoyed every moment of it. He was intelligent, funny, strong, supportive... immensely handsome... a true professional. He was a rock.

But now, as they finalised the work, he showed a few cracks as he checked the extraction. "52 Percent."

Ian looked to him. "What is it?"

The French man stared ahead. "The recently-closed temporal rifts in orbit... the residual energy here on Narenda III... they were all caused by the experiments conducted the Klingons conducted here?"

Ian nodded. "Undoubtedly, though we can never know the full effects of what they did until we examine this data."

"We knew the Klingons were experimenting with time here. And apparently, so did the Romulans, hence their attack on Narenda."

Ian nodded again, less readily now. He had learned long ago that every government conducted experiments that no one admitted to, but which everyone knew about. It was all part of the Game. Still, he offered an ambiguous, "That... might be true. Romulans can be frustratingly inscrutable."

"Perhaps." Landry straightened up. "But the point is that we knew. And that Starfleet Intelligence ordered the Enterprise to respond to the Klingons' distress signal and assist them... at all costs. And it did cost: seven hundred men and women on that ship."

Ian regarded him. "What are you asking, Léon?"

"Did they die to defend the Klingon civilians here? Or to keep the Romulans from stealing the data, so that we could steal it instead?"

Ian breathed in, taking his hand; his lover could be charmingly guileless at times, given his profession... "The families of Captain Garrett and her crew will be informed that they died valiantly, to save innocent lives. It is not a falsehood. That we will also benefit from the work in temporal weapons research that the Klingons conducted here does not alter that fact." He indicated the computers. "If all this was not here, those seven hundred valiant men and women would still be heroes. Their sacrifices will still mean something.

And though few will ever know what we're acquiring here, or appreciate its benefits, I think we're already beginning to see something from the sacrifice of the Enterprise blossom up on the surface: Klingons and the Federation, working together to a common goal. Who knows what might be harvested from that?"

Landry took in his words, before finally smiling back. "Such a silver tongue on you, My Paladin."

Ian smiled now. "Wasted on words." He moved in to his lover's lips, pausing only to check on the Data Extraction process: 58%. Good. Enough time to remind himself that man did not live on bread alone...

*

Caitian Flagship Mother's Fury -- Present Day:

Sakuth felt the pain shooting through her skull. She tried to use her Vulcan discipline, her years of training, to suppress it, control it. But it ran through her, unchecked.

And with that pain, came fear. She tried to use those same disciplines, that same training, to suppress it, control it. It still ran through her, unchecked.

She tried to move, but couldn't feel her limbs. There was a sound of medical equipment, the smell of chemicals... and musk. Animal musk.

She opened her eyes into a burning bright light centimetres from her face overhead.

She swallowed, but it hurt. She tried to speak, but it sounded rough, raspy, barely audible even to her own ears. "F-Fleet Captain..."

The light was moved away. Ma'Sala Shall came into view, glaring down at her. "I'm here."

Sakuth ground her teeth. "Release me... I demand it- Leaving-"

Ma'Sala shook her head. "I promise you, you're in no condition to demand anything, let alone leave. I have questions for you. Trenagen keeps a secret, unregistered starship near the Antares Maelstrom, one he uses as a mobile base of operations for Section 31. How do we track it?"

Sakuth felt numbed, presumably from whatever drugs had been administered to her by the Caitian's lackeys. But she reached within, seeking her cybernetic communicator... but not finding it. Obviously the Caitian bitch had neutralised it.

She forced herself to calculate the odds of her escape or rescue.

It proved... incalculable.

So be it. She had been prepared for the possibility of dying in defence of the Federation for 28.754 years. She had no family to leave behind, no friends, no one worthy of her attention. Not even that pathetic, weak-willed T'Varik, who now chooses to couple with animals like Ma'Sala.

Without a second thought, she looked up at Ma'Sala and announced in an obscure dialect of High Vulcan, "Heh ni i tev-tor."

Ma'Sala offered no reaction.

Sakuth blinked, not feeling the expected response to her verbal trigger. "Heh ni i tev-tor."

The Caitian waited patiently.

Sakuth's heart quickened. "Heh ni i tev-tor! HEH NI I TEV-TOR!"

Finally Ma'Sala responded, crossing her arms. "In addition to stripping you of all those marvellous little spy toys, we neutralised the suicide implant in your brain. And the subspace communications device. And the transponder. Quite a lot of hardware rattling around up there, Vulcan. I'm amazed you had room for thoughts of trying to murder infants."

And unaccustomed fear raced through her. "N-No- I never- an accident- hormonal upset- misfire-"

"Liar. My granddaughter's chair contains more than shields and alert devices; it contains recorders and sensors. I saw you. I saw you deliberately aiming and firing at her with a lethal phaser charge. And I saw with my own eyes what you tried to do to the others, and to me."

She leaned in closer. "Count the last hours of your life on the fingers of one paw. Before that, though, you will tell me everything I want to know."

Her chest was rising rapidly now, as was her anxiety. She tried to move her head, to seek a weapon, escape, communications, but she couldn't even do that. "I... I will not talk... M-Mental d-disciplines..."

The Caitian reached out and grasped the Vulcan's chin between humb and forefinger. "Yes, you'll talk... since we were in your head already, we made a few modifications. The part of your brain that handles all those tricky little mental disciplines... the one that controls pain... and the one governing emotional control, too. You're feeling pain, and fear, right now. But it's only just the beginning for you."

Sakuth gritted her teeth, struggling to overcome the paralysing agents to her limbs. "N-No... I... I am in... in control... in control..."

"Maybe," Ma'Sala admitted, not sounding too convinced, letting go of her hold on Sakuth's chin. "And maybe not."

She reached for something-

AGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONY-

Sakuth couldn't remember how long she had been screaming, or when she had stopped. Swept up in the aftermath of the torrent of extreme sensation, she could barely remember herself.

But distantly, she heard Ma'Sala informed her calmly, "That was a ten-second stimulation of your pain centres. Here it is at twenty seconds-

AGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONYAGONY-

She drowned. She drowned in excruciating sensation, the likes of which she couldn't have imagined before.

And Ma'Sala continued to stand there, and demonstrate the device at thirty seconds. Forty. Fifty.

At sixty, Sakuth had a stroke, before the flanking machines revived her.

After a ninety second demonstration, Sakuth talked. And talked.

And Ma'Sala calmly listened, and sent the appropriate orders to her Bridge crew.

And Sakuth continued to look up at the Caitian, the pain now eclipsed by defiant rage, her voice a rough slurred scrape of exposed bone as she spat, "I'll... I'll kill you... your family... your whole wretched planet of animals... I swear I'll do it..."

Ma'Sala leaned in closer, fixing an unwavering gaze on the Vulcan. "Oh, I think you'll find that to be too much of a challenge, in your current physical state."

Then she stepped back, activating another control.

Overhead, a holographic mirror came to life.

And displayed to Sakuth in terrifying clarity exactly what Ma'Sala meant: the Vulcan's naked body, or what was left of it, lay there, her arms and legs partly or completely amputated, the stumps cauterised with surgical phasers, and with dozens of life support and cybernetic cables inserted into what remained of her head and torso like some hideous Borg construct.

And that was when her sanity broke.

*

In a holographic realm that didn't exist outside of subspace quanta, a number of individuals appeared from different points throughout the Alpha Quadrant, each an isomorphic projection of themselves from various secret locations, the links maintained through ancient technology unknown to the rest of the Galaxy.

The realm took the form of a medieval stone hall of intricate arches, plain black banners hanging down from infinite heights, and flickering fire torches on the walls.

Each individual appeared, looking around, barely acknowledging the others, staying quiet as expected.

Until the latest arrived: a short, elderly male Ferengi in an expensive grey suit and leaning on a latinum-topped cane glanced around, declaring loudly, "Well? Where's the food? Who's responsible for the catering at these shindigs? When I attend a secret meeting I expect at least some chilled grub worms!" He cackled to himself.

Senator Nitik, current head of the Tal'Shiar, looked at him with a mix of suspicion and disdain. "What is a Ferengi doing here?"

Nearby, Minister Satok of the V'Shar, the Vulcan Security Bureau, looked at his racial cousin with equal disdain. "This is Comptroller Bang, of the Ferengi Hidden Securities Commission, newly admitted to the Shadow Council. Your recent predecessor agreed to his inclusion, given the changing political structure of the Quadrant, and should have made you aware of it. Clearly Romulan administrative practices remain as efficient as ever."

"Your opinion is never welcome, Vulcan."

General Korolah, the fat, scarred Klingon leader of the Imperial Qib'leth, grunted. "So, who ordered this Emergency Session? I have better things to do than listen to you pointed-eared petaQs argue once again."

"We all have better things to do, Klingon," clarified Legate Yajac, the head of the Cardassian Obsidian Order, pacing now.

Standing near Satok, Prince Jougguh Sur, of the Orion Syndicate Overlords, sneered, his green hairless face brightening. "Like bootlicking to your new Dominion masters?"

Yajac sneered back. "The Order is not responsible for the perfidious actions of our current government. Had our own power and influence not been diminished significantly after the Battle of Orias-"

"The Massacre of Orias, you mean," Korolah corrected, grunting again. "How did you manage to keep your head after that debacle? Whose boots did you lick?"

"Mind your own business, Klingon!"

"I believe we can all agree," Satok cut in, before the rest of the Council contributed to the petty bickering. "That we are all extremely busy. Who summoned us? And where is Admiral Trenagen and Fleet Captain Shall?"

"Maybe they eloped?" Korolah quipped.

Standing apart, the projection of Bang chuckled. "Yes, I'm looking forward to meeting this Ma'Sala Shall. A furry female cat... with a tail... oh, the possibilities..." He chuckled as he reached up and stroked one of his ears.

The others looked to him, Nitik grunting, "Yes, I can clearly see his worht to this assembly now."

Then another projection joined them: Ma'Sala. She looked around them. "I'll keep this brief: The Shadow Covenant we have lived by for over a century states, among other things, that the families of those who stand here are sacrosanct, off-limits, untouchable by each other. No targeting them. Not for surveillance, not for recruitment. And especially not for assassination.

Ian Trenagen of Section 31 broke that Covenant.

My daughter... my kin-son... my grandcubs... nearly died because of him.

The price you pay for trying to harm my family is... I collect your fucking head."

Her projection reached out of view, bringing back the battered, separated head of Sakuth, holding it by the sable, blood-matted hair, and ensuring everyone present had a good, hard look at it. "Just like this fucker here. Trenagen will soon follow... along with anyone here -- anyone -- who helps him.

"Now," she roared, "If any of you sons of bitches have got anything to say, NOW'S THE FUCKING TIME!"

No one spoke.

She threw the head out of view. "I didn't think so."

Then she vanished.

The remaining Shadow Council members looked to each other.

Bang's ears twitched as he breathed out and announced, "On second thought, she might be a little too aggressive for my tastes..."

*

Starfleet Academy, Earth -- 28 Years Ago:

"Hey, you! Stringbean!"

Captain Trenagen turned, seeing Boothby trimming a brightly-coloured rosebush, looking no different than when he last saw the groundskeeper twelve years before. "May I assist you?"

"Yes! You can still stay off the grass!"

Trenagen looked and walked away without comment, remaining focused on his reason for being there, just after dawn, before classes or morning exercises. He hadn't been back on Earth for long, had left Léon asleep in their quarters in San Francisco. The Academy felt a strange, unwelcoming place, which was ironic, given how close he had come to making this his permanent place of residence-

"Captain."

Trenagen turned, straightening up formally at the approach of the older Admiral, the current Chief of Starfleet Intelligence: a gaunt elderly human male with a trimmed greying hair and beard, a man with the tongue-twisting surname of Matuschanskayasky, which prompted those who associated with him to refer to him by a more diminutive moniker: M. Trenagen, however, remained as formal as ever. "Admiral, thank you for coming at this ungodly hour."

M drew up, offering a hand. "I rarely sleep; I hate those little slices of Death." As they shook, he noted, "Congratulations on your assignment on Setlik III. Excellent work, especially under such trying circumstances at the end."