All at once, the captain’s humble bearing was replaced by a steely confidence. “Admiral, my senior officers and I stand ready to help you and your team. You might not be aware of this, but three years ago we were the ones who unlocked a key part of the mystery that had the research team here completely baffled. No one told us exactly what we’d discovered, but I think we’ve proved that we can be trusted with sensitive intelligence. Let us help.”

Yes, Nogura thought, this is how I imagined Kirk the starship commander. Aggressive, direct—and in need of an ego check. “Captain, unless there’s been a radical change in Starfleet’s chain of command, starship commanders don’t get to decide for themselves when they should be read into classified operations.”

“We’ve already been read into Operation Vanguard, for the mission to Ravanar IV.”

Nogura held up one hand, palm out. “All details of which you were ordered to purge from the Enterprise’s databanks. I’m sorry, Captain, but Operation Vanguard remains on a strictly need-to-know basis, and right now there’s no reason for you or your crew to be in the loop.”

A sour frown expressed Kirk’s resignation to the inevitable. “I see.” After a calming breath, he asked, “How soon can the Enterprise depart?”

“I’m afraid we need you to linger awhile,” Nogura said. “With our other ships deployed to the far ends of the Taurus Reach, we’d all feel better with the Enterprise standing by for short-range tactical deployments.”

A curt nod. “Of course.” His shifting posture telegraphed his desire to be anywhere other than Nogura’s office at that moment.

“Dismissed.” The captain rose and strode to the door. Before he got there, Nogura called out, “You should know that one of our resident scientists is Doctor Carol Marcus.” Kirk halted shy of the door, turned back, and glared at Nogura, who added, “Your son, David, is here, too. Maybe you could pay the boy a visit before you ship out again.”

Kirk seemed on the verge of an irate reply to Nogura’s benignly intentioned suggestion, but then the captain reined in his anger and walked briskly out of the office without another word. The door slid shut behind him, leaving Nogura alone in his office. Sitting at his desk, he stared at the closed door and tried to make sense of Kirk’s reaction.

I guess he’s not much of a family man.

Spock exited the gangway from the Enterprise and joined the steady flow of pedestrian traffic in Vanguard’s main docking bay concourse. The broad thoroughfare consisted of a single, vertig-inously high-ceilinged passageway that ringed the station’s core and linked the four internal docking bays in the lower half of the station’s mushroom-cap saucer. Well lit and immaculately clean, it betrayed no evidence of the damage it had sustained in two separate incidents: a bombing inside the docking bay, three years earlier, and a Shedai attack just a few months before the Enterprise’s return visit. The latter had resulted in hull breaches to both the saucer and the core and had penetrated all the way down into the station’s most fortified areas.

The opposing currents of pedestrian traffic that slipped past each other in the wide concourse resembled a cross section of the Federation’s population. Most of the people Spock saw looked like humans, but there also were Vulcans, Tellarites, Andorians, Caitians, Arcturians, Rigelians, and Denobulans. He also noted a handful of individuals from species whose homeworlds were not yet full members of the Federation, including a Bolian and a Grazerite—the latter of which Spock had, until that moment, only ever read about.

Navigating through the flow of bodies, he made his way toward a nearby turbolift. His intention was to pay a visit to the Stars Landing establishment know as Manуn’s, located inside the station’s terrestrial enclosure, and inquire after T’Prynn. Her peculiar predicament—involuntary possession by the katra of her former fiancй, Sten, whom she had slain in the Kal-if-fee decades earlier—had made a profound impact upon him, though out of respect for her privacy he had never discussed it with anyone else. Despite their extremely brief acquaintance, he felt an obligation to seek her out and once again offer whatever succor he might be able to provide.

He had already pressed the tubolift’s call button when he noticed, at the periphery of his vision and through a brief gap in the river of pedestrians coursing past him, a lone figure standing at the towering wall of transparent aluminum in the observation lounge opposite. Looking more closely, he observed that it was a tall Vulcan woman, her jet hair pulled back in a loose ponytail that revealed the elegant upward curve of her ears. As if she sensed his attention from more than fifteen meters away, she turned her head slightly, enough for him to take in her striking, angular profile. Certain that it was T’Prynn, he slipped and dodged through the busy passageway and then crossed the empty lounge until he stood behind her shoulder.

She stared out the window into the docking bay, as if deep in thought. Several seconds later she acknowledged his presence. Her reflection looked at him. “Hello, Spock.” There was a placid quality to her manner that he did not recall from their last encounter.

“T’Prynn.”

With slow grace, she turned and faced him. “I read of your part in the capture of the Romulan cloaking device,” she said. “It would seem you took to heart my advice regarding the occasional tactical necessity of falsehood.”

He recalled their discussion about the ethics of a Starfleet officer—in particular, a Vulcan—employing lies in the line of duty, especially when doing so harmed others. They had left the matter unresolved when they last parted ways. Though her accusation was correct, in that he had misled a female Romulan starship commander so that Captain Kirk could steal the newest cloaking device prototype, he was not yet prepared to cede his entire argument. For the time being, he contented himself with a rhetorical evasion. “I did as I was ordered to do.”

“A convenient rationalization. One I know all too well.” She softened. “Forgive me. I meant no offense, and I doubt you’ve come in search of a debate. May I be of service?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “I had thought to ask you the same question.” Looking into her eyes, he could see that her once turbulent psyche had been calmed. “When last we spoke, you were a val’reth, beyond the help of the Seleyan Order.”

“Much has changed.” She averted her eyes and looked back out at the docking bay. “A few months after you left, while standing on this very spot, I suffered a psychological collapse. I nearly died.” There was no pathos in her voice, only cold truth. “I was made whole again on Vulcan, by a healer in my native village of Kren’than.”

The mention of the small, technology-free commune stoked Spock’s curiosity. “You lived among the L-langon mystics?”

“For a time. With my sister, T’Nel, when we were young.” Her gaze took on a faraway quality, as though she were peering through a needle’s eye into the distant past. “But after I slew Sten in the Kal-if-fee, maintaining my psionic defenses became too difficult in that place. So, I left Vulcan.” Shifting back into the present, she looked at Spock. “A shipmate of yours brought me to Healer Sobon. A Doctor M’Benga.”

Spock noted the coincidence with curiosity. “Then it would seem we are both in his debt. Doctor M’Benga was instrumental in saving my life on two occasions.”

“Most fortuitous.”

Shifting to an at-ease stance, Spock said, “I presume that Healer Sobon was successful in removing Sten’s katra from your mind?”

A subtle tilt of her head signaled agreement. “He was. The process was difficult and not without risk, but my liberation was more than worth the cost of those hardships.”