Stroking his goatee, Fisher said, “The Tholians might not have rattled their sabers as loudly as the Klingons, but I’d hardly say they welcomed us with open…well, open whatever it is they have.” He leaned forward and picked up his mug. “And ever since the Tholian delegation’s bizarre collective seizure last week…let’s just say they’ve been acting oddly.”

Reyes pointed at the coffeepot and cast an inquiring glance at Fisher, who nodded. The commodore carried the coffeepot over to Fisher and refilled the doctor’s mug.

“Thanks,” Fisher said.

“De nada.” Reyes put the coffeepot back on its warmer pad. He had just taken another modest sip of the warm, soothing beverage when Rana Desai’s voice issued from the overhead speaker.

“Captain Desai to Commodore Reyes.”

Reyes went to the intercom panel on the wall and thumbed open the channel. “Reyes here. Go ahead, Captain.”

In an effort to keep their romantic relationship private, they made a point of hailing each other formally and responding formally when third parties were present—even if, like Fisher, the person already knew about their status as a couple. Though Reyes felt awkward when using ranks to ask Desai over to his quarters for dinner, the strict observance of protocol had already averted a few potential embarrassments for them both.

“Commodore, I need to meet with you as soon as possible.”

“Of course, Captain,” Reyes said. “Shall I drop by your quarters?” He cast a wry grin at Fisher, who shook his head resignedly.

“Actually, Commodore, I need to see you in my office.”

The smirk left Reyes’s face.

“Understood,” he said, his tone turning serious. “I’ll be with you shortly. Reyes out.” He moved toward the door.

Fisher followed him and exuded sympathy. “Her office?” He shook his head. “That’s not good.” At the door, he gave Reyes a firm clasp on the shoulder. “Look on the bright side: If this is trouble, at least the JAG boss is your girlfriend.”

“Just what I always wanted,” Reyes said with a humor-less half-smirk. “A girlfriend who can court-martial me.”

Reyes’s shout was like a bullhorn. “You’re court-martialing me?”

“No. Stop overreacting, Diego.” Ensconced behind her office desk, Desai could only hope that Reyes wasn’t as angry as he looked. “It’s a board of inquiry.”

“This is the biggest load of—” Reyes caught himself, then pressed his palm over his sandpaper-stubbled chin and upper lip.

“I don’t have a choice,” Desai said. “The Bombay was lost in the line of duty. There has to be an inquiry.”

“Give me a break, Rana.” Reyes was pacing now, quickly and with mounting agitation. “This is what you do to a captain who comes home without his ship.”

“The inquiry is standard procedure.”

“Naming the ship’s captain is standard procedure,” Reyes shot back. “Not the captain’s supervising officer.”

She leaned forward and placed her fingertips on the desk. “The Starfleet JAG wants me to depose living witnesses. It’s not like you’re the only one on the list.” His sidelong glance bristled with hostility. She continued, “What did you think I was going to do? Mark the file ‘case closed’ without doing an investigation? I have my orders.”

“History’s greatest excuse,” Reyes said, rolling his eyes.

“I hope you’re not this funny with your judge. You might get that court-martial for contempt.”

A retort seemed on the verge of escaping Reyes’s mouth, when he hesitated. His indignation turned to confusion. “I thought you would be the judge.”

“No,” Desai said. “I can’t.”

He was staring hard into her eyes. “Why not?”

She looked down and moved a few random items around on her desktop. “I’ll be recusing myself.”

Reyes’s face hardened into a frown. “Because of us.”

“Yes,” she said. “It would be unethical for me to—”

“You can’t do that,” Reyes said. “Don’t recuse yourself.”

“Diego, I have to.”

“If you do, you’ll have to say why.” He shook his head with frustration. “We…us…our relationship—it’d be public.” She wondered if he had any idea how stupid that sounded. “I think that came out wrong,” he added.

“You think?”

Exasperated and exhausted, he rubbed his eyes. He folded his arms and thought for a few seconds. She kept him in her accusatory glare and waited patiently to see how he planned to dig his way out of this faux pas. “I’m just not ready to add grist to Vanguard’s rumor mill,” he said. “We’re in high-profile jobs. People will talk.” He reached down and picked up a large, polished hunk of blue volcanic glass from Desai’s desk. “I know that we’d hardly be the first or even the most glamorous couple in the officer corps…but I value our privacy.”

She couldn’t deny that she sympathized with him. Being the topic of lurid gossip was a notion that made her feel ill. And part of the thrill of their romance so far had been in the hiding of it. But this was not about their relationship. “I feel the same way, Diego. But I’d rather recuse myself than give people reason to question my ethics.”

Studying the hunk of blue glass in his palm, Reyes drew a long breath then exhaled slowly. He seemed much calmer than he had just minutes earlier. For Desai, one of the most difficult aspects of being romantically involved with him was the volcanic quality of his temperament. His fury could lay dormant for the longest time, then, without warning, boom. When he was truly angry, he frightened her a little. At the same time, once he vented his rage, it subsided quickly. Just to complicate the situation further, she was still learning which irritants were most likely to trigger his explosions.

Finally, he broke the tense hush with a dejected-sounding sigh. “I trust you to be a fair and impartial judge, no matter who’s standing in front of you.”

That makes one of us, Desai reflected.

He put the chunk of glass back on her desk. “Use your best judgment. Let my yeoman know when you need to see me.”

Reyes turned toward the door, which hissed open, letting in the soft murmur of whispered conferences between members of her JAG office staff. The commodore walked out without looking back. When the door closed, Desai eased herself into her chair. She imagined what it was going to be like, sitting at a table with her lover, watching him be deposed about his role, however peripheral, in the deaths of more than two hundred Starfleet personnel. I’m going to hate this case, she brooded.

On her desk was the report of the loss of the Starship Bombay. To her eye, the file looked very, very thin.

Starting tomorrow, she knew, that would change.

Pennington dropped his duffel on the floor. “I need a storage unit,” he said to the quartermaster, Senior Chief Petty Officer Sozlok. The dark-furred, vaguely simian-looking noncom seemed in no hurry to service the frantic journalist’s request.

Sozlok slid a data sheet on an automated pad across the counter to Pennington. “Fill this out.”

The form was long, and it was complicated, and it was everything that Pennington had no time for right now. Keeping up the pretense would be essential, however. “Could you check to see if you have any units large enough to hold a dozen cases of Loperian reelkot?”

“Reelkot?” Sozlok looked intrigued. “You’ll be needing refrigerated storage, then.”

“Yes, exactly.” Why the hell did I say reelkot? He kicked himself for mentioning something so unusual. This was the kind of visit he would prefer be forgotten. Instead, he’d made it bizarre enough for this guy to tell someone else about it tomorrow over drinks, and interesting enough that it might be repeated.

While he busied himself completing the form, Sozlok clicked through several screens of data, apparently on a search for an available refrigerated storage unit of unusual size. There was no point in falsifying the form, Pennington knew. The noncom would ask for his identification before finishing the rental. For a moment he wondered how he might avoid leaving a trace of his visit, until he remembered that there was nothing inherently suspicious about his actions. People do this all the time, he reassured himself. Nothing to worry about. Calm down.