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Unfortunately, in the confusion following the flooding of the embassy interior with anesthezine gas, Rov managed to escape.

After the tiresome recovery of Kl’rt and the others from down below, Worf had to deal with the more tiresome aftermath of the seizing of the embassy. First he had to let the High Council and the Federation know that all was safe. Then he had to argue with the Defense Force commander who had been about to take the embassy by force when Worf sounded the all-clear—he almost attacked Federation soil without Federation authorization, in direct violation of the Khitomer Accords. Then he had to deal with jurisdictional issues regarding the disposition of the surviving captured Klahb members, finally agreeing to let the empire prosecute them, but with a Federation representative present during all proceedings, a task Worf delegated to Wu. (The magistrate assigned to the case laughed derisively at this, assuming a human would not be able to handle observing Klingon interrogations, but Wu had seen worse in over a decade of service at the embassy on Qo’noS and Worf was not concerned.)

Delegating that task was necessary, as Worf had been recalled to Earth to give a full report to the council, which was understandably concerned at the embassy being taken over on the very day that the president resigned.

In addition, Worf felt it important to provide in-person condolences to the families of Carl Murphy, Damir Gorjanc, and the security personnel who were killed.

Now, a fortnight later, he was at last returning to Qo’noS aboard the U.S.S. Sugihara, eager to meet with the High Council to finally have the discussion he was supposed to have regarding Zife’s resignation.

The door chime to his guest cabin sounded. “Enter,” he said, and the doors parted to reveal Captain Janna Demitrijian.

“Am I intruding, Mr. Ambassador?”

In fact, Worf had been working on some overdue paper-work that had backed up in the last two weeks, and he relished the opportunity to take a break from it. “Not at all.”

“We’ve entered the Klingon home system—we’ll be in orbit of Qo’noS in twenty minutes. I thought you’d want to be prepared.”

Worf nodded, and got up from the desk at which he’d been working. “Good.”

Demitrijian hesitated. Worf, realizing that she had something else to say—if she hadn’t, she would have simply used the intercom from the bridge to inform him of their ETA—prompted her. “What do you wish to ask, Captain?”

“Mr. Ambassador, to be blunt, I want to know if this is the last chance I’ll get to cross the Klingon border freely.”

Walking over to the nightstand in order to pack the few personal items he’d brought with him into his duffel, Worf said, “I do not know what you mean.”

“Yeah, you do. Let’s face it, Fel Pagro has a pretty good chance of winning the election, and you must have heard his speeches. If he is elected, the alliance is in serious jeopardy. Even if he isn’t, you and I both know that Tezwa was a nasty piece of work, and that new ambassador the High Council appointed is the textbook definition of ‘hawk.’ Klingon loonies taking over the embassy isn’t helping, either. So I’m asking you, since you know Klingon politics as well as anyone: Is the alliance in jeopardy?”

By way of stalling, Worf packed his wedding photo with the late Jadzia Dax and the photo of him and Alexander taken on the EnterpriseD, when his son was much younger and Worf was a Starfleet lieutenant.

The fact of the matter was, he did not have a good answer to give Demitrijian. Before Tezwa, there would have been no doubt in Worf’s mind that the Federation-Klingon alliance was as strong as it ever was, but the time since had served as a reminder that it was never all that strong to begin with.

Choosing his words carefully—a skill with which he had had a great deal of practice in these past four years—Worf said, “I will do everything that I am able to do to keep the alliance strong, Captain. I can tell you no more than that.”

Demitrijian shook her head, her black hair bouncing with the motion. “Figures—never