“Diego was right about you,” Ezthene said. “You arean idealist. Most curious.”

A tight smile betrayed Gorkon’s waning patience with his guests. “I could say the same of you,” he replied. “You tried to seek asylum on Vanguard for the same reason I brought you both here. You want to find a new way forward, for all of us.”

“How noble of you,” Ezthene said. “However, did it occur to you that your method was somewhat less benign than ours? After all, this unofficial summit of yours is hardly conducive to producing any kind of lasting agreement among our respective nations. You abducted us and brought us to Klingon space, where you indubitably hold the upper hand.”

Reyes added, “He makes a good point. This is hardly what I’d call a meeting of equals, Gorkon.”

“Because I brought you to Klingon space against your will?”

“That, and the fact we’re not really playing at your level of the game anymore, if we ever were.” Reyes nodded at Ezthene. “He’s an exiled dissenter, an outcast from his people. If what he’s told me is true, they’ll try to kill him on sight. And me? For God’s sake, Gorkon, I’m a legally dead convicted military criminal. Not exactly a mover and a shaker, if you know what I mean.”

Frowning, Gorkon replied, “I am certain I do not.”

“Look,” Reyes said. “You sit on the Klingon High Council. You’ve been the chancellor’s right-hand man for years now. That puts you in a position to make a difference. Ezthene and I, on the other hand, aren’t exactly poised to make much of an impact on ourgovernments. So if you’re counting on us to bring your vision of the future to life, I think you’re in for a hell of a big letdown.”

Gorkon reclined, looked at the overhead, and chortled. “Of course,” he muttered. “How foolish of me.” He stood and planted his fingertips on the tabletop. “Please accept my apologies, gentlemen. I should have communicated my purpose more clearly when we first sat down together. I did not go to the effort and expense of bringing the two of you here so that I could send you back as envoys to your own peoples. You are not here because I believe either of you is positioned to influence the actions of your leaders or your deliberative assemblies.”

Feeling his headache getting worse the longer Gorkon talked, Reyes said, “Get to the point, will you?”

A forbidding scowl creased the Klingon’s brow as he replied, “You’re not here to sway yourgovernments. You’re here to help me sway mine.”

12

February 24, 2267

“I know it’s generally considered gauche to make comparisons between one’s former and current spouses,” Pennington said, “but I have to admit I enjoyed my first honeymoon a lot more than this one.”

T’Prynn looked up from her bowl of plomeeksoup at Tim Pennington. He had not said much during their first day aboard the civilian transport to Ajilon, preferring to sleep off the fatigue from their trek through the L-langon Mountains. Now that he was awake and facing her across their tiny dining-room table, she wondered if rather than requesting a suite with two bunks she ought to have requested separate quarters.

Without betraying her regrets regarding their travel arrangements, she replied, “If you are referring to the chaste nature of our cohabitation, I should think it would have been entirely expected.”

“Actually,” Pennington replied between bites of his pasta pesto with goschmolmushrooms from Tellar, “I was talking about the lack of fun and conversation more than the lack of sex.” He speared another forkful of food, lifted it halfway to his mouth, and stopped. “Wait a minute. What do you mean this should have been expected?”

“First, because I swore my marital vows under an assumed name, they are not legally binding. Ergo, you and I are not actually married, and no act of consummation should be expected.”

Cracking a rakish smile, Pennington asked, “Not even to maintain appearances?”

“I doubt anyone is observing our activity here in our cabin, Mister Pennington. Such a charade would in all likelihood be of no value to the preservation of our cover story.”

“Bloody match made in heaven,” he mumbled, then shoveled the forkful of pasta into his mouth.

T’Prynn added, “Also, since you seem to be unaware, I should make it clear my sexual preference is for women.”

He stared at T’Prynn as he chewed and swallowed. “Well,” he said. “That throws a wrench in things, doesn’t it? Thanks for sharing.”

The rest of dinner was quiet.

After placing his dishes outside the cabin door for the ship’s housekeeping staff to collect, Pennington said, “I’m pretty sure there’s a lounge or pub somewhere on this boat, and I mean to find it.”

“I have no doubt that your experience as an investigative journalist will serve you well in that endeavor,” T’Prynn replied as she sat down in front of the cabin’s comm terminal.

Pennington walked away, and the cabin’s door slid shut.

Emancipated from her pseudo-husband’s inane small talk, T’Prynn powered up the comm and began a methodical survey of the major news feeds available within the Federation. Before her surreptitious departure from Vulcan, she’d had no opportunity to catch herself up on events that had transpired during the year she had been in a coma. The ban on modern technologies inside her native village of Kren’than had prevented her from learning anything notable during her post-coma convalescence, and her need to move quickly and evade detection after fleeing the commune had made such prolonged research impossible until now.

She intially looked for any news related to Starbase 47 during the year of her absence. The first news items returned by the system had been published within two days of her mental collapse. At the top of the list was a story by Tim Pennington that exposed Diego Reyes as the officer responsible for issuing General Order 24 against the independent colony on Gamma Tauri IV. The resulting photon-torpedo barrage by the starships Endeavourand Lovellhad reduced the planet to a molten sphere—and claimed more than thirteen thousand lives, including those of a few thousand Klingons.

Next she read a firsthand account—also written by Pennington—of the rescue of the downed scout vessel U.S.S. Sagittariuson the planet known as Jinoteur. The story was extremely detailed, especially in its description of the shape-shifting, consciousness-transmitting aliens known as the Shedai.

T’Prynn wondered how Pennington had evaded the Starfleet censor on Vanguard when filing both stories. Then she saw the next series of linked reports. Commodore Reyes had personally facilitated the release of Pennington’s stories, bypassing the normal vetting process and transmitting the journalist’s content directly to the Federation News Service.

T’Prynn was perplexed as she skimmed through the redacted transcripts of Reyes’s court-martial. Why would Reyes compromise Operation Vanguard in such a manner? Even as she read his condemnation of Starfleet’s recent shift toward excessive secrecy, she found it difficult to accept his reasoning. Consequently, she was not surprised to read at the end of the transcript that Reyes had been convicted, stripped of his rank, dishonorably discharged from Starfleet service, and sentenced to ten years’ incarceration at a penal facility in New Zealand on Earth.

Then she read that Reyes’s transport had been destroyed by an unknown attacker while it was en route to Earth. Lost with all hands. Reduced to a cloud of gas and dust.

Diego Reyes was dead. Murdered.

The usual suspects had denied responsibility, of course. Even though the Klingons had placed a bounty on Reyes’s life after the Gamma Tauri IV incident, they insisted they had wanted him to stand trial on Qo’noS, not be granted a glorious death in battle. Figures linked with the various Orion smugglers who prowled the sector protested their innocence, claiming they were merely thieves and not murderers—as if making that distinction gave them some claim to the moral high ground. Predictably, the Tholians said nothing at all.