She arched an eyebrow. “Club soda with lime, and a good reason for why you called me down here.”

“Coming right up,” Jackson said. He grabbed a pint glass from a shelf behind the bar and filled it halfway with a scoop of ice. Then he picked up the carbonated-drink nozzle and keyed the button for club soda. Clear liquid shot from the nozzle and fizzed as it filled the glass. He grabbed a lime wedge from a bowl, garnished the drink, and gave it to Desai.

The JAG captain picked up the glass, sipped the drink, and nodded. “Thanks. And my reason for being here?”

He reached for his data slate and pushed it to Desai. “It’s all on there.”

She picked up the slate. “Does this have anything to do with the Orion I saw your men hauling away in restraints?”

“Good guess,” Jackson said. “You should be a detective.”

“I wasa detective,” she replied as she reviewed Jackson’s report. “It says here you linked Mister Syanok to Petty Officer Strout, your crooked cargo handler.”

Jackson nodded. “Comm logs show a sudden flurry of back-and-forth traffic between him and Strout in the hours before the Malaccabombing.” He reached over the counter and pointed out a detail. “Syanok initiated the exchange with a coded message a few hours after the Malaccafiled its cargo manifest with the operations center. Shortly after trading these messages with Strout, our buddy Syanok arranged for a last-second shipment to be placed on the Malacca.”

Desai stared dubiously at Jackson. “And you think that proves what, exactly?”

“Okay, I admit it’s not rock-solid proof of anything, but it definitely suggests Syanok could have seen the pre-final manifest for the Malacca.”

Putting the slate back on the bar, Desai said, “So what? None of this is damning enough to charge him with anything.” Tilting her head, she added, “Except for assault and resisting what will probably turn out to be a false arrest.”

“Are you serious? You really don’t see the link here?”

“I share your suspicions,” Desai said. “But it’s not enough for a court of law. I need evidence. We don’t know the content of Strout and Syanok’s messages, or that Syanok’s piece of cargo was the one that contained the bomb.”

Jackson picked up the slate and called up a new forensic report. “Maybe we don’t know for certain that his container held the bomb.” He handed the slate back to Desai. “But we have the cargo master’s log of where each piece of cargo was secured in the Malacca’s hold, and we have a ballistic analysis of the explosion that pinpoints its epicenter to within three meters of where Syanok’s container was placed. The only other pieces in close proximity were official Starfleet cargo—Pacifican seagrass bound for the Daystrom Institute, and an experimental grain called quintotriticale bound for Earth.”

Desai’s eyebrows arched up. “Okay,” she said. “That’s what I mean by realevidence. Why didn’t you lead with that?”

He shrugged. “Sorry.” Leaning forward, he asked, “So, can we at least hold Syanok as a material witness?”

“I’ll do more than that,” Desai said. “Consider him remanded without bail.” She frowned. “But if you’re thinking he’ll lead you to more arrests, I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

Jackson didn’t like the sound of that. “Why not?”

The JAG officer sighed. “Someone intended for Syanok to be treated as a terminal contact. Odds are you won’t be able to link him to anyone else, on or off the station, besides Strout.”

“What about the money trail?” Jackson pointed at the data slate. “Syanok had to pay for that shipment on the Malacca. It’s a good bet whatever account he uses to pay his bills is the same one where he gets his money from the people he works for. If we trace that, we take another step up the ladder.”

Desai handed back the slate to Jackson. “His accounts are with private banks on Orion.”

He understood what she was implying: that Orion financial institutions would never cooperate with Federation-issued subpoenas. It was maddening, but he knew she was right. His hands curled into fists. “We should at least try,” he said. “Serve them with warrants. If they refuse to give us his records, so be it. But I won’t just give up my best lead.”

“All right,” Desai said. “Personally, I think it’s a waste of time and effort. Getting intel from the Orions is harder than getting laughs from a Vulcan. But if you feel that strongly about it, I’ll have my staff draft subpoenas for Syanok’s financial records. If we ever get a response, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” Jackson said.

“Don’t mention it.” She pushed her half-consumed beverage to Jackson. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Any time.”

Desai walked to the door, but turned back and looked quizzically at Jackson. “Tell me, Lieutenant, how far will you go to close this case?”

“Into the pit of Hell if I have to.”

She smiled. “Good.” As she stepped out the door, she said over her shoulder, “It’ll be nice to have company for a change.”

July 15, 2267

Fewer than twenty-four hours after leaving Tom Walker’s place on a hopeful note, Rana Desai found herself saddled with the unpleasant task of delivering bad news to Lieutenant Jackson.

She stood near the back of Vanguard’s dark security center and waited for her chance to talk to the security chief. Most of the lighting in the center came from flickering images on the scores of video monitors that covered two of its four walls. Each screen switched every few seconds between multiple feeds, from both inside and outside the station. The wall to the right of the door was dominated by a single master viewscreen more than five meters wide and nearly three meters tall.

There were two dozen personnel seated at monitoring stations, which were arranged in a U shape facing the monitors.

Jackson stood on the far side of the U, beneath the main screen. At that moment, it showed an altercation between two groups of civilians near the airlock for a private freighter.

“Get a quick-response team down to the lower docking ring,” Jackson said. “Slip Four, on the double.”

The officer behind Jackson nodded and quietly relayed the orders to a security team near the scene of the disturbance.

“Load screen five, feed two,” Jackson said.

Desai had no idea who had responded to Jackson’s order, but almost instantly the image on the main viewer changed to show a man standing at a security door and tapping numbers into its access keypad. “He’s been entering numbers for over two minutes,” Jackson said. “Either he’s got the wrong door, or he’s trying to break into that room. Send a team to talk to him. If he leaves before they get there, track him.”

Another hushed acknowledgment came from the semicircle of security personnel standing between Jackson and Desai.

Sensing a possible lull in the center’s activity, Desai cleared her throat. No one except Jackson turned to look at her. He lifted his chin to greet her. As he walked toward her, he said to one of his people, “Holmgren, take over.” A blond human woman stepped forward and took his place under the main screen.

Jackson joined Desai at the back of the room and said in a quiet voice, “What brings you to the cave? Good news, I hope.”

Her lips tensed into something of a half smile, half frown. “I’m afraid not,” she said, keeping her voice as low as his. “We’ve hit a brick wall with Syanok.”

“Let me guess,” Jackson said. “The Orions.”

“Exactly.” She handed him a data card. “It’s all on there, but I can give you the highlights, if you prefer.”

He nodded. “Sure. Hit me.”

Desai folded her arms. “His comm logs gave us a partial snapshot of his financial holdings. Some were based on Tammeron, a neutral planet that has limited trade agreements with the Federation. They must want to upgrade their trade status, because they gave us everything they had on Syanok. It looks like he used his Tammeron account to make legal transactions. But most of the funds he deposited to that account came from a major private bank on Orion.”