Pennington shook his head. “So this is it, then? A cabin in the woods on a lake, for the rest of your life?”

“There are worse ways to live,” Reyes replied, shrugging. “Like I said, prison’s still there, if this ends up not working out.”

“And Starfleet’s not worried that anyone else might come looking for you?” Pennington asked. Though he had no problem with the notion that he might be the first person to have successfully tracked down Reyes, it stood to reason that he also would not be the last.

Waving his free hand as though to swat away the suggestion, Reyes frowned. “Even if somebody does find me, there’s nothing for me to tell that you probably haven’t already written about, right?”

Pennington regarded him with an expression of bewilderment. “You mean you haven’t read my reports for FNS? Thanks for the loyalty.”

“Haven’t had much use for news since I got here,” Reyes said. “Besides, as I recall, there was a news blackout around the station for a long while after I left. I’ll admit I was curious at first, and considered staying updated on the entire situation, but after a while, there didn’t seem to be much point in keeping up with all of that, along with the goings-on in the rest of a galaxy I’ll never again be a part of. Better to make a clean break from all of it, and get on with life.” Raising his glass to his lips, he stopped in mid-motion as his eyes met Pennington’s. “But I can see from the look on your face that you’ve got a story you’re dying to tell, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to hear it.”

“You would, would you?” Pennington punctuated the question with a small, humorless smile. The events that had brought to an end the astonishing project known as Operation Vanguard were fresh enough that he imagined he still sensed a pain both physical and emotional. Several seconds passed before he realized he was recalling those events all while unconsciously rubbing his right arm at the point where his prosthetic limb joined his shoulder socket. Startled, he removed his hand and guided it back to resting in his lap, took another sip of his drink, and forced himself to enjoy the soothing warmth of the fire for an entire minute before returning his attention to Reyes. “Well, then. What do you want to know?”

Reyes hesitated, as though trying to decide how much of whatever Pennington might tell him he actually wanted to hear. Then, he answered, “How long did you stay on the station after I left?”

It was now Pennington’s turn to consider his answer. He had quit counting after running out of fingers the number of nondisclosure agreements and letters of secrecy he had signed in the aftermath of Operation Vanguard. He knew that by simply being here, he had probably violated most if not all of those agreements. If he was discovered here, he faced the very real possibility of being sent to the very same penal colony Diego Reyes had managed to avoid.

And yet, he did not care. For the first and perhaps only time in whatever might remain of his life, Tim Pennington would get to tell another living person about his final, fateful days aboard Starbase 47.

“I was there until the end, mate,” he said after a moment. “The bitter, bloody end.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks of the first order are reserved for our editors, who exercised far more patience and compassion than we deserved. Their unwavering support and mentorship were instrumental in the completion of this book.

To Marco Palmieri and David Mack, co-creators of Star Trek: Vanguard, we’re going to flout convention and repeat what we said in the dedication: Thanks for inviting us to the party. Writing for this series has been some of the most unqualified fun we’ve had working in the Star Trek “expanded universe,” and much of that is owed to the drive and passion you both brought to the table. To say we’re going to miss this is a criminal understatement.

A round of heartfelt applause is directed to Doug Drexler, Oscar- and Emmy-winning art wizard whose efforts have graced the covers of all the Star Trek: Vanguard titles. His love and enthusiasm for Star Trek, particularly the original series, is infectious. If you’re reading this, Mister D., rest assured that you are a steely-eyed missile man.

Special thanks are sent out to Eric Kristiansen, fan and artist responsible for the “Starfleet Exploration Craft: Daedalus-class” blueprints he created as part of his Jackill’s Technical Readout Data Sheets series. We purchased a set of these for six bucks years ago when we first were developing the Lovell crew for our Star Trek: Corps of Engineers stories. Though we took a few small liberties, plotting and details of the Lovell’s interior spaces were realized thanks to inspiration supplied by these data sheets. Check out a whole bunch of Eric’s awesome work at www.jackill.com.

As this novel likely marks the last time we’ll ever write for this particular set of characters, we’d like to give our final round of thanks to the readers and fans of the Star Trek: Vanguard series. It’s been an absolute joy to work on these books over the past several years, and the response from the Star Trek fiction reader community has been nothing short of astounding. It was your enthusiasm and excitement for each new book that kept us motivated throughout our tenure on the series, and we hope we held up our end of the deal.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

DAYTON WARD. Author. Trekkie. Writing his goofy little stories and searching for a way to tap into the hidden nerdity that all humans have. Then, an accidental overdose of Mountain Dew altered his body chemistry. Now, when Dayton Ward grows excited or just downright geeky, a startling metamorphosis occurs.

Driven by outlandish ideas and a pronounced lack of sleep, he is pursued by fans and editors as well as funny men in bright uniforms wielding stun guns, straitjackets, and medication. In addition to the numerous credits he shares with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore, Dayton is the author of the science fiction novels The Last World War; Counterstrike: The Last World War—Book II; and The Genesis Protocol; the Star Trek novels In the Name of Honor, Open Secrets, and Paths of Disharmony; as well as short stories in various anthologies and web-based publications. For Flying Pen Press, he was the editor of the science fiction anthology Full-Throttle Space Tales #3: Space Grunts.

Dayton is believed to be working on his next novel, and he must let the world think that he is working on it, until he can find a way to earn back the advance check he blew on strippers and booze. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with his wife and daughters, Dayton is a Florida native and maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Visit him on the web at www.daytonward.com.

KEVIN DILMORE is but one more proof of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s assertion that when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. It all started in 1998 with his eight-year run as a contributing writer to Star Trek Communicator, for which he wrote news stories and personality profiles for the bimonthly publication of the Official Star Trek Fan Club. Since that time, he also has contributed to publications including Amazing Stories, Hallmark, and Star Trek magazines. Look for his essay in the forthcoming anthology Hey Kids, Comics—True Life Tales from the Spinner Rack, edited by Rob Kelly.

Then he teamed with writing partner and heterosexual life mate Dayton Ward on Interphase, their first installment of the Star Trek: S.C.E. series in 2001. Since then, the pair has put more than one million words into print together. Among their most recent shared publications are the novella The First Peer in the anthology Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins (March 2010) and the short story “Ill Winds” in the Star Trek: Shards and Shadows anthology (January 2009).