“Perhaps you could improve her disposition by broaching the subject somewhere other than this gray dungeon cell you absurdly call an office,” Jetanien said. “For instance, you might take Ms. Vinueza to dinner at Manón’s.”

“An excellent suggestion, Ambassador,” T’Prynn said.

The commodore leaned back in his chair and glared at Jetanien and T’Prynn.

Confused by Reyes’s reaction to the notion of dining with his former spouse, Jetanien asked, “Is there some reason you wouldn’t wish to dine with Ms. Vinueza?”

“You mean aside from our divorce?” Reyes rolled his eyes. “Can’t think of a thing.”

Sitting at the bar in Tom Walker’s place, an unpretentious drinking establishment in Stars Landing, Master Chief Petty Officer Mike “Mad Man” Ilucci had no complaints. The beer was cold, the up-tempo music from the overhead speakers was edgy and loud enough to keep other people from eavesdropping on him and his fellow engineers, and the joint was blissfully free of officers, who generally preferred to drink at Manón’s cabaret.

To his left, Petty Officer First Class Salagho Threx, the senior engineer’s mate, covered a shot glass of Martian whiskey with one beefy hand, slammed the bottom of the glass onto the bar, and dropped it into his pint of amber ale. Overflowing spirits ran down the side of the glass as the sinking whiskey foamed. Threx lifted the glass, booze sloshing over his hand, and guzzled it before the reaction ended. Suds from the ale clung to the tall, heavily muscled Denobulan’s thick dark beard.

On Ilucci’s right sat Crewman Torvin, a nerdy young Tiburonian engineer. He nursed his drink, a pale lavender concoction that Ilucci had never heard of. Bald and fragile-looking, Torvin was barely a year out of basic and still seemed intimidated by most of the universe. Ilucci gave him a friendly slap on the back. “Drink up, kid,” he said. “No telling when we’ll get shore leave again.”

Torvin glanced up toward the speakers and winced. Like most Tiburonians, he had extremely acute auditory senses. It gave him an edge during sensitive diagnostic work, but it also meant that he sometimes found loud noises overwhelming. “Isn’t there someplace quieter we can go, Master Chief?”

The chief engineer knocked back a mouthful of his beer and replied, “None that give Starfleet discounts. What’s wrong? You don’t like music?”

After a timid sip of his drink, Torvin muttered, “I like music. Are you telling me that noise is music? I thought it was a sonic pulse for scaring rodents.”

Threx wiped white froth off his chin and said, “It’s called rock and roll, Tor. You get used to it.” Pushing his long, oily hair back behind his ears, he nodded to the bartender for a refill.

“Listen to Threx,” Ilucci told Torvin. “He knows music.”

The boyish engineer sat quietly, looking pensive while Ilucci finished his beer and called for another. Staring into his drink, he said, “I wonder if Sayna likes music.”

Ilucci rolled his eyes. Threx shook his head. They had heard far too much about Torvin’s unrequited love for the ship’s pilot, a stunning young Andorian zhen named Celerasayna zh’Firro. Clasping the younger man’s shoulder in a fraternal manner, Ilucci said, “You gotta let this go, buddy.”

“I know,” Torvin said, verging dangerously close to a whine. “But it’s so hard, seeing her every day, and she’s so—”

Shaking the younger man silent, Ilucci tried to bark some sense into him. “Let! It! Go!” Hooking a thumb over his shoulder at Threx, he continued, “You think it ain’t hard for Threx to spend his days lusting after Niwara? The only female on the ship hairier than he is, and she won’t even give him the time of day.” He turned Torvin to face him. “You think I don’t wish Theriault would throw a little love my way? Sure I do. But it’s never gonna happen, Tor. They’re officers, and we’re not. To them we’re just a bunch of sweaty tool-pushers. Get used to it.”

Threx pointed at Ilucci and looked at Torvin. “What he said.” Then he let loose a rafters-shaking belch and turned back to the bar.

Ilucci watched the burly Denobulan slam another shot of whiskey onto the bar and drop it into another pint of ale, enlarging the foamy pool on the bar counter in front of them. As Threx knocked back his boilermaker, Ilucci said to him, “Maybe you oughtta slow down. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

Setting down his emptied mug, Threx replied through his sudsy whiskers, “I’m fine, Master Chief. I could take that boat apart by lunch and have it back together by dinner.”

“Yeah,” Ilucci said, picking up his beer. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Sleeving the foam from his face, Threx asked, “Any idea where we’re goin’?”

“Like they tell me anything?” Ilucci sipped his drink and set it down. “All I know is we’re scheduled for a briefing with Xiong tomorrow at 0900, and we’re supposed to clear out the cargo bay to make room for some new gear.”

Talk of work seemed to engage Torvin’s interest in a good way. “Did they mention swapping out the sensor modules?”

“Yeah,” Ilucci said. “Why?”

“I want to make some upgrades on the starboard unit,” Torvin said. “It was running a little sluggish, and I thought it sounded like a problem with the heat exchangers, so I crunched some numbers. Well, I was right, and I think I can improve—”

“Fine,” Ilucci said. “Approved. Get it done.”

“Aye, Master Chief,” Torvin said, apparently aware that the chief’s approval was also a directive to shut up.

Ilucci swiveled his chair away from the bar and tugged at his olive-drab jumpsuit to make it less snug around his portly midsection. He scratched at his beard for a moment while he surveyed the bar. Seconds later, his gaze fell upon a table where four women in civilian clothes sat together, huddled over their drinks: two humans, one a blonde, the other a brunette; a short-haired Vulcan; and a smooth-headed beauty with an inviting smile who Ilucci hoped was a Deltan.

He got up from his chair and said to Threx and Torvin, “Gents—follow my lead, and let me do the talking.”

As the trio sauntered across the bar toward the fetching foursome, Threx said under his breath to Torvin, “Take notes, kid. Nobody works an angle like the Master Chief.”

They were halfway to the table of paradise when the bar’s front door opened and Senior Chief Petty Officer Razka, the Sagittarius’s newest field scout, walked in. The wiry-looking Saurian scanned the room in one quick turn of his head and moved to intercept the three engineers. “Shore leave’s over, guys,” Razka said in his nasal rasp of a voice, scuttling Ilucci’s plans for the evening.

“How can it be over?” Ilucci protested. “We just got here.”

Razka’s vertical eyelids blinked twice in quick succession as he replied, “Captain’s orders. Back to the ship.”

Ilucci’s shoulders sagged in defeat. He heaved a tired sigh and wore his disgust openly on his scruffy face. “All right, boys,” he said. “You heard the senior chief. Back to the boat.”

As they left the bar, the Deltan woman waved at Ilucci and flashed him a pitying grin as consolation for the night that might have been. He returned her smile and fell into step beside Razka as they left the bar and hit the sidewalks of Stars Landing on their way back to the station’s core.

“I hate officers,” Ilucci muttered.

Razka glanced at Ilucci with gentle surprise. “I’m surprised to hear you say that, Master Chief. After all, the officers say such nice things about you.”

“Really?”

“No,” Razka said, and quickened his pace to leave Ilucci behind. Watching the reptilian scout’s back, Ilucci kept his next complaint to himself. I hate Saurians.

Diego Reyes stood up as Manón led his ex-wife to his table. He honestly wasn’t sure which of the two women looked more stunning to him. Manón was a member of an alien race that radiated gentle heat and possessed a delicate and preternatural beauty, at least by human standards. Jeanne, by contrast, was an athletic woman of intelligence, grace, and confidence—the exact same qualities that had attracted him to his current clandestine lover, Rana.