Desai stood in Tim Pennington’s discombobulated living room. In her hand was a tricorder. On its screen was the list of contents encoded on the data card that her security detail had found in Pennington’s possession. Her first glance at the card’s trove of information had provoked waves of professional envy; this was exactly the kind of evidence that Lieutenant Moyer had been fighting to obtain for the board of inquiry. Her second review of the data had caused a different reaction.

Pennington and his wife, Lora Brummer, were under guard in the bedroom while half a dozen security guards tore up the rest of their home. Desai had been almost irritated by the smug way Pennington had accepted the search warrant and admitted her and the guards; he seemed to regard the entire proceeding as just another ho-hum detail of his profession and evinced no concern for the fact that his exposé might hurl the Federation into a war for which it was not ready.

T’Prynn walked through the open front door. She surveyed the damage, then stepped over a toppled chair to join Desai. “How may I be of service, Captain?”

She handed T’Prynn her tricorder. Keeping her voice down, she said, “We found this data in Mr. Pennington’s possession.”

The Vulcan woman clicked and scrolled quickly through the information on the data card. “Interesting,” she said softly.

“He refuses to say how he acquired it,” Desai said. “It occurred to me that there are very few people on Vanguard who can access this kind of intelligence.” Reaching over the top of the tricorder, Desai tapped in a few simple commands, calling up some new highlighted data. “So I searched the information on the card for leads to its source. I found this.” She waited several seconds while T’Prynn looked at the highlighted name on the shipping order: Israel Medina. “I ordered him brought to my office for questioning. Of course, I probably don’t need to tell you how that worked out.”

“No, of course not.” T’Prynn handed the tricorder back to Desai. “I cannot compel you to do anything, Captain.”

“I’m going to ask you a simple question, Commander, and I am ordering you to answer me truthfully. Was the outpost on Ravanar IV part of an ongoing Starfleet Intelligence operation?”

Though Desai was unable to quantify how T’Prynn’s mien had altered, it unequivocally just had. T’Prynn’s dark eyes took on a smoldering quality. “Ask Israel Medina,” she said. On that note, she turned, walked away, and was gone.

Ask Israel Medina. Desai smirked ruefully and shook her head. If only it were that simple. She clapped her hands twice, and the security guards gathered around and gave her their full attention. “We’re finished here,” she said. “Release Mr. Pennington and his wife.” She ejected the data card from the tricorder. “Let him know I’ll be keeping this. As a souvenir.”

Zeke Fisher sat alone in his office. The monitor on his desk was showing Tim Pennington’s FNS report about the ambush of the Bombay. Fisher had watched just enough of it to get the gist, then he’d muted the audio so he could think.

His door signal sounded. “Come in,” he said. The door opened and Dr. M’Benga walked in, looking energetic and textbook-perfect. He was carrying a data slate. Fisher projected a fatherly smile toward him. “Jabilo, what can I do for you?”

“Good morning, Doctor,” M’Benga said, looking suddenly a bit nervous, like a student facing the principal. He motioned toward the chairs in front of Fisher’s desk. “May I sit down?”

“Be my guest.” Fisher leaned back and relaxed as M’Benga sat down. “What’s on your mind?”

“I need to ask a favor,” M’Benga said.

Pointing at the slate, Fisher guessed, “You need a consult?”

M’Benga handed the device across the desk to Fisher. “No, your signature.” Fisher glanced at the display and recognized the open document before M’Benga added, “For my transfer application.”

Fisher scrolled through the completed application. “Starship duty?” He looked up at M’Benga, his surprise transmuting to resentment. “Jabilo, I groomed you to run a state-of-the-art hospital, and you want to be a sawbones on a starship?”

“It’s not about Vanguard Hospital,” M’Benga said. “This is a terrific facility. It’s just that I joined Starfleet to see new worlds and meet new species. And I feel like that would be easier to do on a starship assigned to frontier duty.”

Holding up the slate, Fisher said, “You know it can take months for Starfleet to process these? Or longer?”

“All the more reason not to wait,” M’Benga said.

The weathered CMO shook his head in dismay. His carefully laid plans for retirement were unraveling, and there was nothing he could do about it. He opened his desk drawer and searched for a stylus. “A damn shame,” he mumbled. Snatching the stylus from the jumble of clutter, he reviewed the transfer request, signed it, then handed back the slate.

M’Benga accepted it with a humble nod. “Thank you, Doctor.” He stood up to leave.

“Promise me one thing,” Fisher said. M’Benga stopped and looked back. Fisher continued, “When the rest of the galaxy all starts to look the same, come back here so I can retire.”

“Fair enough,” M’Benga said with a half-grin.

Fisher shooed the younger physician away. “Go on.”

Left alone with his disappointment, Fisher checked the calendar. He was unsurprised to find that it was, in fact, a Monday.

Kirk sat at the small monitor in his quarters, reviewing Tim Pennington’s story about the ambush of the Bombay. His dinner of lamb stew and sautéed green beans sat untouched on the desk. Spock stood behind the captain, watching over his shoulder.

“His command of the facts is impressive,” Kirk said.

“Indeed.”

Arriving at the end of the article, Kirk swiveled his chair to face Spock. “The fallout from this won’t be pretty.”

“I suspect that will prove to be an understatement.”

Feeling lost in his own thoughts, Kirk stood and paced away from the desk, exhaling his anger in a low huff. “What the hell is Pennington thinking? Is he trying to start a war?”

“If I understood you correctly, Captain, you yourself advocated just such an action scarcely forty-eight hours ago.”

An angry glare was Kirk’s instinctual response. He forced himself to shed it and calm his temper. “I’ve had time to think since then. Time to consider…another point of view.” He leaned against the hexagonal-pattern screen that divided his quarters into a sleeping area and a dining area and workspace. “What do we really know about the Tholians, Spock? They’re nothing like us. Not humanoid, not interested in the same kinds of planets. Maybe there’s more we don’t understand about them…. Just because we weren’t aware of any Tholian claims in this sector doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Maybe we didn’t think our actions were provocative, but who knows how it looked to them?” He shook his head, unhappy with playing the part of devil’s advocate but nonetheless appreciating the importance of doing so. “How do we know that we aren’t the aggressors here? What if we cast the first stone, without even realizing it?”

“All valid lines of inquiry, Captain,” Spock said. “However, it is likely that the Federation Council will focus instead on one incontrovertible fact: That the Tholians destroyed the Bombay. In light of Mr. Pennington’s article, they will not be able to ignore it.”

Suspicions and doubts pushed themselves front and center in Kirk’s thoughts. He walked back to the desk and skimmed the article again. “How did Pennington get all this information?”

“Presumably, he had a confidential source.”

“It would have to be someone fairly high in the chain of command to get him this much information,” Kirk said.

“A logical assumption.”

“But Reyes runs a tight ship, one of the tightest I’ve seen. I don’t think his officers would talk to a reporter, on or off the record.” Kirk narrowed his eyes as he stared at the screen. “Lower-decks personnel wouldn’t have this kind of access.”