“That’s all right,” Quinn shouted up the gangway. “Just leave my tools wherever. I’ll put ’em away later.”

After another minute of foul-mooded grumblings and the occasional ping of a kicked tool rebounding off a bulkhead, Vumelko slouched down the gangway, looking more than a little worse for wear. He initialed his inspection form, then handed the clipboard and a stylus to Quinn and pointed to a small box at the bottom. “Sign there.”

“I know where to sign.” Quinn scrawled his mark on the page, then handed back the form and stylus. “Have a nice day.”

On his way up to the park a few minutes later, Quinn was grateful that no one in Starfleet had yet thought of making people sign requisitions to use the turbolifts. He suspected, however, that it would only be a matter of time until that depressing prophecy came to fruition.

Stepping out onto the broad paved walkway that separated the core shaft from the greensward of the terrestrial enclosure, he was taken aback at the absence of…well, fun. He had grown accustomed over the past few months to the sound of music from the band shell during the artificial evenings, to the hubbub of competitive sports on the lawns, to the splashing of water in the communal swimming pools.

Tonight, however, a leaden calm lay over the park. Although the synthetic environment lacked wind, Quinn half-expected to see a lonesome tumbleweed roll across the deserted lawn. Alone in the towering vastness of the enclosure, he felt like an insect intruding on the playground of giants. He had planned to stroll across Fontana Meadow—named for the brightly lit jetting fountain plaza in its center—and treat himself to a late-night snack at the outdoor café, but he hesitated when he saw that the fountain was turned off, and the lights in the café were dark.

The obvious sunk in: Something very bad is going on. He pressed on into the central zone of Stars Landing and boarded a turbolift. A young woman rode upstairs with him. He smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.

The same pervasive mood of gloom greeted him around every corner and on every face. No music issued from Manón’s club; conversation in the recreation areas was subdued or nonexistent. People passing by in the hallways seemed to be turned inward.

When he arrived at his usual watering hole for a drink, he understood why. Adorning the huge mirror behind the bar counter was a hand-painted message on the glass—a simple outline of the Bombay’s ship emblem with a black band across its center. Above it was the Latin inscription In Memoriam. Below it, in capital letters, was stenciled U.S.S. BOMBAY.

“Sweet lord in heaven,” he muttered. The sentiment sprang from him without warning, like the shock that had provoked it. Though the ship’s crew had been strangers to him, he was overwhelmed by a sudden sense of kinship and bereavement for the fallen Starfleeters.

He sat down at the counter and nodded to the bartender.

“Tequila,” he said. “A double.”

The bartender eyed a long row of bottles on the shelf behind him, then looked at Quinn. “What kind?”

“Anythin’ cheap that ain’t green.”

Anticipation kindled on his taste buds as the aroma of agave liquor reached his nose. He imagined savoring the sweet and sour notes on the sides of his tongue and the warmth of the alcohol in the back of his throat. Memories of fine tequilas in years gone by were stoked by the promise of a new drink….

A beefy hand clamped down on Quinn’s left shoulder and clenched shut like a vise. From his right a slender, glossy black hand gently plucked the double-shot glass of tequila from his grasp. The diabolically polite voice of Zett Nilric was alarmingly close to his ear. “Welcome back, Quinn.”

Quinn remained still as Zett’s hulking Tarmelite enforcer, Morikmol—whom Quinn had once barely survived describing as a “walking life-support system for a pair of fists”—spun him around on the rotating barstool to face the white-suited thug.

Zett was grinning. That was never a good sign.

“We were beginning to think you weren’t coming back,” the archly condescending Nalori assassin said.

Fingering the man’s lapel, Quinn said, “New suit?”

Morikmol grabbed the back of Quinn’s jacket collar and hefted him several centimeters off the floor. Zett lifted the glass in a mocking toast, then downed the double in one gulp. He put the glass back on the bar. “Mr. Ganz is expecting you.” Without waiting for Quinn’s next retort, the slender man walked toward the exit. The enforcer let go of Quinn, who landed on his feet. The hulking thug gave him a push toward the door. Taking the hint, Quinn squelched his impulse to order another drink.

The Omari-Ekon’s gambling deck was just as Quinn had left it a few weeks earlier—noisy and full of losers who had yet to figure out that this house always won. Zett led the way up the curving staircase to Ganz’s oasis, and Morikmol followed close behind Quinn, his heavy footsteps sending tremors through the otherwise solid stairs. Knowing the routine by heart, he ambled to his spot between the two obelisks, which he had seen disintegrate a few people over the years, though none so far while the ship was docked at Vanguard.

“Mr. Quinn,” Ganz said. “You’re late.”

Quinn shrugged. “Complications.”

The muscular Orion boss took a pull from his hookah nozzle, savored the smoke a moment, then exhaled two thick plumes from his nostrils. He reminded Quinn of a green Brahma bull, except twisted and cruel. The lazy coils of smoke lingered, spreading an odor of burnt cherries with an acrid, metallic bite.

“Complications don’t concern me,” Ganz said after puffing out his last mouthful of smoke. “My merchandise does.”

Though Quinn couldn’t see the assassins gathered behind him, he heard the soft rub of several leather holster straps being loosened. He kept his hands steady and open at his sides. “Hence the complication,” he said.

He fully expected the next thing he felt would be a pair of disintegrator beams tearing him apart molecule by molecule.

Instead, he watched Ganz formulate a reply. Though he spoke quietly, no one ever missed a word the Orion merchant-prince said. “The explanation you are about to provide had better be phenomenally good.”

“The device was too large to move by myself,” Quinn began.

“You should have brought help.”

“So I separated the valuable part from the worthless part,” he continued, ignoring the interruption.

“Clever. Where is it?”

“I tripped and it fell…” He mustered all the contrition he was capable of emoting: “…and it broke.”

Ganz’s voice took on a dangerous edge. “You dropped it?”

Behind Quinn the crowd moved closer. The heat of their collective breath and attention was oppressive. He tuned them out. “People were shooting at me.”

That seemed to pique Ganz’s interest. “Who?”

“Judging by the phasers they were using, I’d say they were Starfleet security.”

A nervous susurrus of whispers circled the room in both directions and lapped itself. Ganz passed the moment by taking another long drag off his hookah and blowing a lazy smoke ring in Quinn’s direction. “How did they detect you?”

“Cutting the device’s power supply tripped an alarm.”

Tsk-tsking and waggling his index finger like a reproachful grandmother, Ganz said, “You should always scan before you cut.”

“I did scan,” Quinn said. “Nothing showed up—it was a sensor screen. Wouldn’t be much good if it let you scan it to see if it’s on.” That got a few stifled chuckles from the crowd.

“True,” Ganz said. “Did they identify you?”

“Considering I didn’t get arrested when I landed an hour ago, my guess would be no.”

Ganz put down his hookah nozzle and sprawled across his mountain of brightly colored cushions until he found a more leisurely pose. “Quinn,” he said, shaking his head. “What am I going to do with you? You’ve put me in quite a bind.” Having learned not to put questions to Ganz, Quinn kept his mouth shut and waited for the green man to elaborate. “The sensor screen would have fetched a nice profit on the black market. I already had inquiries from potential buyers.” Oh hell, Quinn thought. He’s going to make up some insane imaginary number, call it his lost profits, and put me in debt for the rest of my damn life. Ganz slowly folded the fingers of his right hand, one at a time, beneath his thumb and pressed down until each knuckle made a satisfying pop. “But my real disappointment is that I had big plans for that pretty little machine. Plans you just ruined.”