One of Ganz’s more attentive retainers offered Zett a clean towel for his yosa. He accepted it and wiped the blade clean. Handing back the sullied linen, he was offered another, this time dampened with warm water, for his hands. A retainer held his weapon while a young woman draped the damp cloth over his hands. He cleaned them, digit by digit, with the care of a surgeon.

Morikmol and another large specimen of useful muscle wrapped Qoheela’s corpse in an old rug and ported it away to be immersed in liquid nitrogen until it crumbled into a pile of brittle, grayish dust. Zulo, the resident “cleaner,” was already pouring a small jar of chemicals on the blood puddle to break it down at the molecular level and evaporate it. Within minutes, Zett knew, the floor in front of Ganz would be pristine once more. Only the leaning, splintered obelisks remained amiss. No doubt Ganz will have those replaced by the end of the week, Zett figured.

Killing the Tarascan had been a necessity of protocol. Though Zett had no objection to the idea of someone taking a disruptor to Cervantes Quinn, there was still a right way and a wrong way to do things. Sending an assassin into Ganz’s “home base” without first asking his permission had definitely been the wrong way for Broon to proceed. And had Qoheela known what was good for him, he would have taken the painless death of the disintegrator rather than the bloody end Zett had dealt him.

Zett had no regrets save one: That it couldn’t have been Quinn’s throat that his yosa opened. Picturing Quinn’s violent demise, he smirked. Someday, he consoled himself. Sooner or later that half-wit will stop being useful. He rested his hand on the grip of his blade. Please let it be sooner.

Compartment 2842 was an as-yet unassigned Starfleet residential cabin. Most of the section in which it was located appeared to be vacant. Pennington hadn’t needed any special tricks to gain entry. Whoever had been here before him had left the door unlocked. It swished open, revealing nothing but darkness. Pennington reached in, fumbled around, and turned on the light.

It was a shell of a room. No furniture, just a thin layer of ugly carpeting and institutional-looking blue-gray bulkheads that were desperately in need of some artful touches. He stepped inside, wary of a trap. Listening for company, he heard only the ventilation system, low and muffled. Inside the compartment the air was stale, and Pennington surmised that the ventilation for these quarters probably hadn’t been activated yet.

Eager to get in and out of the compartment quickly, he moved into the bedroom and looked around for the ventilation grate. He found it along the top edge of the wall, near the low ceiling. Testing the grate, he felt that it was loose. He pulled it free and reached behind it. Probing gingerly with his fingers, he easily found something small lying on the bottom of the ventilation duct. Removing it, he saw it was a standard-issue data card.

He looked up and around, listening again to make sure he was alone and that no one had snuck into the compartment in the few moments he had spent searching. Returning to the card in his hand, he pulled his data recorder from his belt and inserted the card. A menu appeared on his device’s screen.

The volume of information on the card was amazing. Skimming its contents, he realized that it contained sensor logs, audio files of intercepted Starfleet comm traffic, official Starfleet documents, and a timeline of events…all of it related to the destruction of the Starship Bombay in orbit of Ravanar IV.

It can’t be.

Common sense told him to get out of there and find a safe place to review the contents of the data card.

Adrenaline and his instincts as a reporter told him no one would come looking for it—or him—here, so he might as well see what he had right now.

Minutes sped past as he raced through one document after another. Logs detailed the ambush of the Bombay and the Ravanar colony by six Tholian battle cruisers. Even a requisition order for the sensor screen, authorized by Commodore Reyes and classified by order of Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn, was included in the supporting documentation. Searching quickly, he found the work order for the shipment of the sensor screen, and saw that it had been carried out by a Starfleet cargo chief named Israel Medina. The same man had also been responsible for checking in the recovered debris and log buoy of the Bombay—as well as captured wreckage from four of the six Tholian ships.

Medina, Pennington repeated to himself, memorizing the name. Israel Medina. If I can find him, get him to corroborate the sensor screen and Tholian ship debris, and authenticate the Bombay’s log buoy data…

Pennington knew exactly what it would mean.

The biggest story of his career.

War with the Tholian Assembly.

And justice for Oriana and more than 220 other people who died in the Tholian sneak attack.

It was time to find Chief Petty Officer Israel Medina.

Ezekiel Fisher lumbered toward the front door of his quarters, fumbling with the belt of his bathrobe. Bad enough it was dark, but his eyes were crusty with sleep and some damned fool was sounding his door buzzer for the fourth time in a row. “I’m comin’,” he said with a hoarse croak of a voice. “Hold your horses.”

He opened the door. Standing on the other side, looking pale and shell-shocked, was Diego Reyes. “She’s dead,” he said.

“Hang on,” Fisher said, instantly sharpening to waking alertness. “Who’s dead?”

“My mother,” Reyes said, his eyes averted from Fisher, staring instead at some far-off point that seemed to be beneath the floor. “Just got the message.”

“But they said she had months—”

“They were wrong,” Reyes said. He sounded hollow. “It was more advanced than they thought…. It just ate her alive.”

“Dear God,” Fisher said. He was about to invite Reyes in, then hesitated. “Diego, I’m not saying you have to go, but why come to me?” The old doctor leaned forward to try and snag some eye contact. “It’s Rana you should be talking to.”

Reyes shook his head. “Can’t right now.”

“What? Because of all that legal mumbo jumbo she gave you the other night?” Fisher frowned. “To hell with that.”

“Bad timing,” Reyes said. “That’s all.”

“Be that as it may, she can do a lot more for you right now than I can.”

“Honestly, Zeke,” Reyes said as tears welled in his eyes, “I don’t think there’s much anyone can do for me right now.”

In the space of just a few seconds Fisher could see that his friend was on the verge of emotionally unraveling. He reached out and grasped Reyes’s shoulder and gently led him inside. “Then I guess you better come in and let me pour you a drink.” Reyes drifted forward. Fisher steered the man to a seat, then moved off to find his stash of good single-malt scotch.

Sitting quietly, Reyes rubbed the wetness from his eyes, which now were brightly bloodshot. Fisher poured two doubles of twenty-five-year-old Macallan, then carried the bottle and two glasses to the coffee table. He set one in front of Reyes, who reached out and picked it up, then the doctor sat down across from his visitor.

Reyes sipped the drink, then stared forlornly into its amber depths. “What now?”

“Sit and drink,” Fisher said. Then he added, “Slowly.”

“That’s it? No words of wisdom or comfort?”

Fisher shrugged. “What do you want me to say, Diego?” He took another sip of scotch. “When Hannah passed away a few years ago, a lot of people tried to say things they thought would help. ‘At least you had forty-nine great years together,’ or, ‘She was lucky to have had a husband like you.’ I figured out nothing anybody says makes it better. Nothing makes it hurt less. Nothing makes the person you loved any less gone.” He made a small tilting gesture with his glass. “The best thing anybody did for me was sit and share a drink and just not say anything at all.”