After repairing the door-lock panel, Pennington hefted the duffel over his shoulder with a grunt of effort and walked slowly away from Oriana’s storage unit, in search of a garbage-disposal chute. This entire section of the station smelled mechanical, like hydraulics and ozone. In the rush to make the station operational, some of the less-visible areas, like this one, had been slap-dashed together and still weren’t quite up to Starfleet specs. Some of the lights flickered, intercoms crackled and cut out, and the ventilation system rumbled constantly, filling the corridors with a steady flood of dull white noise.

He was grateful for the roar of the air ducts, though, and for his soft-soled shoes, which enabled him to skulk along in near-silence. The last thing he wanted to deal with tonight was running into someone who would ask what he had in the bag.

Roaming for several minutes in an arbitrary left-turn, right-turn search pattern, he paused at every corner, listened for company, and peeked to make certain he wasn’t blundering into an unfortunate encounter. He glanced down a short, remote stretch of dimly lit corridor and finally saw a garbage-disposal chute large enough to accommodate his duffel. Or a body, his cynical reporter’s instincts suggested.

He entered the corridor just as he heard footsteps—and a dry scraping sound—approaching from around the far corner. Ducking quickly back the way he had come, he clutched his duffel, afraid to set it down lest something inside it settle noisily or clank against something else. He concentrated on slowing his breathing, calming himself, remaining still.

Quick footfalls echoed in the corridor, then stopped.

A woman’s voice. “This will be a suitable location for our discussion.” She spoke with the cold precision of a Vulcan.

“I hope the food’s better than the ambience,” a man said, in a voice marked by a strangely hard-to-place North American twang. Pennington’s curiosity trumped his caution. He slowly leaned sideways and turned his head for a look at the people in the corridor. Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn he knew from her occasional impromptu performances in Manón’s. The bruised, bloodied mess of a man sitting on the deck in front of her was someone he had seen around the station but hadn’t met.

T’Prynn stood over the man, her posture relaxed, her smoky-sweet voice chillingly emotionless. “Who sent you to Ravanar?”

“Where?”

“Do not make me repeat myself, Quinn.”

The man reached up, grabbed a recessed horizontal edge in the middle of the wall and pulled himself back to his feet. “Why ask at all? You talk like you already know the answer.”

“It is just as valid to interrogate in order to confirm soft intelligence as it is to obtain fresh data,” T’Prynn said. Her head tilted slightly to one side, one eyebrow raised. Her voice remained inhumanly neutral. “You were sent to Ravanar to steal something, correct?”

Smiling, he said, “You have lovely eyebrows.”

“You would fit easily down this incinerator chute.”

“Whoa!” Quinn held up his hands. “I think you’re overreacting just a little—”

“Your actions led to the loss of a starship and the deaths of hundreds of Starfleet personnel, Mr. Quinn.”

Eavesdropping from around the corner, Pennington felt his pulse quicken. In the corridor, Quinn fell silent, his demeanor refashioned from insolent apathy to one of shock and guilt. He ceased struggling in her grasp, and she released him.

Words returned slowly to Quinn. “The Bombay…?”

“Yes, Mr. Quinn,” T’Prynn said. “The Bombay was lost in orbit of Ravanar, destroyed while delivering a replacement for the component you destroyed during your botched robbery.”

“The sensor screen,” he said, his voice lower than before, making it difficult for Pennington to hear without straining.

“Correct,” T’Prynn said.

“You have to believe me, I didn’t know it was a Starfleet base. If I’d known, I never would’ve taken the job.”

“So you admit you were hired?”

Quinn froze, looking like a politician who had just made a grievous faux pas in front of a live feed. “I’m not a snitch.”

“I would not expect you to be,” T’Prynn said. “After all, Mr. Ganz is a notoriously…” She studied Quinn’s disheveled state, then finished her sentence: “…unforgiving employer.”

“Hey, lady, I’m just a simple, legitimate prospector.”

She reached forward as if to poke him for emphasis, then lightly touched her fingertip to his collarbone.

He crumpled at her touch, writhing and grimacing in agony. As his knees folded beneath him, she kept her fingertip against him. He flailed desperately to pull her hand away, but seemed unable to bend his arms or turn them enough at the elbow or shoulder to reach T’Prynn’s arm. It was one of the most bizarre and intimidating things Pennington had ever seen a Vulcan do.

“The Vulcan martial art of V’Shan features a comprehensive study of pressure points and their effect on the central nervous system,” T’Prynn said, with not a hint of effort or compassion. “I have no time for your lies, Mr. Quinn. I am well aware of your service to Mr. Ganz as a ‘clandestine procurer.’ Denying it, while perhaps a useful stratagem in a legal arena, serves only to prolong your current predicament. Do you understand?” Quinn nodded furiously, his jaw clenched too tightly shut for him to answer verbally. T’Prynn withdrew her delicate finger from Quinn’s torso. He sagged with relief to the floor. She continued, “I have no use for your apologies, nor am I interested in curtailing your activities.” With slow grace she cupped his chin in her palm and turned his gaze upward. “But I do have use for your access to Ganz’s organization, and for the places you can go without drawing suspicion or attention.”

“Lady, ain’t you ever heard the saying ‘A man can’t serve two masters’?”

“A logical notion,” T’Prynn said. “But irrelevant to our conversation.”

“I think it’s damned relevant.” Quinn pushed himself back up the wall, one half-step at a time. “I have a boss.”

“I prefer to think of myself as your handler.”

Lurking beyond the shadowy corner, Pennington shook his head out of pity for Quinn. Bloody hell, this chap is slow.

All at once, Quinn caught up with T’Prynn’s meaning. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Mr. Quinn, you owe a debt to Starfleet, and to the people whose lives have been lost because of your interference. You compromised a secret listening post, one vital to tracking the movements of Klingon ships in this sector. You can either accept your responsibility to repay this debt through service…” Her eyes turned toward the chute to the garbage incinerator.

Quinn responded with a glower of sullen surrender. “Where do we start?”

T’Prynn handed him a Federation credit chip. “Go have your drink. Have several. When I need you, I will tell you.”

Pocketing the chip, Quinn shambled away without another word. The Vulcan woman lingered behind for several seconds. Pennington continued to observe her. When she turned in his direction, he retracted his leaning posture to conceal himself. About a minute after Quinn had left, Pennington heard T’Prynn’s footfalls growing fainter as she disappeared back into the bowels of the station.

What the hell did I just hear? He dropped his duffel, snatched his data tool from his belt, and hurriedly jotted notes. Quinn. T’Prynn. Bombay. Ravanar. Listening post. He stared at the words, then added more keywords to his list: Sensor screen. Ganz. Theft. Extortion. Cover-up.

It was the sort of lucky break every investigative reporter dreamed of…and exactly the kind of sensationalistic story his editor would never run, not without independent confirmation from at least two other sources. If I could get this guy Quinn to go on the record…Immediately, he scoffed at that idea. That’s a long shot, he has a lot to lose…and T’Prynn won’t talk. But if Bombay shipped top-secret gear to Ravanar, someone in the station’s cargo division might be able to confirm that. He made a note to follow that angle. It’s a start.