“Haven’t you had enoughwives?” Jake asked. “I think I’ve lost of track of how many times you’ve been married. Three? Four?” He caught himself before mentioning that he hadn’t been invited to several of the weddings.

Nog pondered for a moment, then grinned sheepishly. “I guess it depends on whether you count Diressa as a separate wife both times I married her.” He gestured toward the rest of the spacious house. “Speaking of which, where’s Korena?”

“She’s on Bajor,” Jake said. “The weather’s better there, and I wanted some time by myself to write. I’ve got half a dozen novels started, but nothing seems to be grabbing me and shaking itself out of my brain.” It was a bad metaphor, and one Jake never would have used with anyone who didn’t know better; a problem writers faced since the days of ink and papyrus was that non‑writers thought the creative process came to them like a visiting muse, depositing a manuscript on their desk as simply as a replicated cup of raktajino.

“I read your latest about six months ago,” Nog said, settling back onto a replicated nineteenth‑century chair. Its tall back, padded with a rich red velvet, towered over the diminutive Ferengi’s head, making him look like a child. “It was quite entertaining. I wasn’t able to figure out who the killer was before you revealed it…or them,actually.”

“Well, that’s part of the fun of writing a mystery set in the era before scanning technology,” Jake replied. “The detectives have to work a bit harder to figure out their cases.” He took another sip of his wine. “Rena was also very happy with that particular book.”

“She was surprised by the ending, too?” Nog asked.

“No. She’s happy that it got optioned. They’re supposed to be making a holoprogram out of it. On Mars.”

“Ah‑ha, profit!” Nog raised his glass in a mock toast. “I always knew that girl had a bit of Ferengi in her.”

Jake grimaced slightly, mocking his friend right back. “She couldn’t care less about the profit. She just likes seeing my credits and telling people about her famous‑but‑reclusive husband. Besides which, holo‑authors are somuch more respectable and important than book authors these days. Didn’t you know that?”

Nog rolled his eyes. “Not that old song again. I think you’ve had more than your share of fame.”

“More than I ever wanted,” Jake said, nodding.

There was a flash of movement to the side, and Nog flinched as a fat ball of gray and brown fur jumped up on the arm of the chair, and then collapsed heavily onto his lap.

“Ah, cue the cat. Odo has decided to join us,” Jake said.

Nog’s eyes widened sharply. “Odo? You mean–”

Jake almost choked on the sip of wine he had taken. He swallowed loudly and wiped his hand over his mouth. “Not Odo‑Odo. Cat‑Odo.” He laughed. “What, did you think I’ve been keeping the station’s old security chief around here as a pet all these years?”

Nog shrugged, staring peculiarly at the cat, which padded around on his lap, kneading its claws in and out against the thankfully tough fabric of his uniform pants. “I don’t know. Stranger things havehappened to us.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Not thatstrange.” He leaned across the table, making sure his elbows didn’t topple either the wine bottle or the glasses, and scooped the chubby cat off Nog’s lap. “Here, I’ll take the constable off your hands.”

Nog took a sip from his glass, and then fidgeted for a moment. “Actually, I don’t want to make it sound like I had to have a reasonto visit you, but something just came up and I thought of you.”

“So, what is it?” Jake leaned forward slightly. Odo jumped off his lap and scampered away, undoubtedly heading toward his food dish.

Nog pulled a small isolinear chip out of a pocket in his tunic. The firelight glinted off it, making it appear as though it had a firefly trapped within its slender, emerald‑colored confines.

“I discovered this when I was researching twenty‑second‑century warp mechanics,” Nog said. “I was digging around in some of the newly declassified files.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “Declassified files? From where? By who? And when?”

Jake peered at the chip, as if trying to divine its secrets just by studying its translucent surface. “The whenis part of what makes this complicated. It concerns events we’ve been toldhappened in 2161. But the realevents actually occurred years earlier, in 2155. And I can’t tell whether the whereand whoare related solely to Section 31, or whether this apparently deliberate cover‑up was something sanctioned by those in charge during the earliest days of the Federation.”

“All the answers aren’t in the declassified information?” Jake was intrigued, especially with the mention of Section 31. It hadn’t been so long ago that the secretive organization–a shadowy spy bureau as old as Starfleet–had finally been exposed and, Jake hoped, rooted out once and for all.

“I hopethey are,” Nog said, interrupting Jake’s train of thought. “But as soon as I started to get into it, I thought ‘I know onehew‑mon who would not only find this fascinating, but also might be able to write a bestselling book about it.’ So, here I am.”

Jake chuckled. “I see. Well, that certainly soundsintriguing. But do you really think this is important enough that people will care, two hundred years after all the facts and fictions have become part of dusty history?”

Nog looked surprised again, and then his features took on a conspiratorial, almost sinister, cast. “Jake, from what I’ve seen, this story involves hew‑mons, Andorians, Vulcans, Denobulans, and Romulans. It has kidnapping, assassination, slavery, death, resurrection, and cover‑ups. And it may just change everythingwe know–or everything that we’ve been told–about the founding of the Federation itself.”

Jake found himself grinning widely. It had been a long time since he and Nog had played detectives in the shadowy corridors of Deep Space 9, trying to solve the mystery behind some strange occurrence or other that they were naively certain would stump even the formidable deductive abilities of Constable Odo. And now, he felt the same surge of boyhood adrenaline rush into his system.

He held out his hand for the chip.

“So, let’s get to it.”

One

Day Five, Month of Tasmeen

Unroth III, Romulan space

DOCTOR EHREHIN I’RAMNAU TR’AVRAK stood before the research complex’s vast panoramic window, listening to the control center’s background wash of electronic chirps, beeps, and drones as he looked out over the remote firing site where the prototype would shortly thrum to life. For the past several days, every console in the cramped control center had shown reassuring shades of orange, with hardly a hint of the green hues that Romulans tended to associate with blood and danger. The only green the elderly scientist had seen since his arrival here more than ten of this world’s lengthy rotations ago was that of the carpet of forest that spread from the base of the gently rolling hillside beyond and below the control facility’s perimeter walls, all the way to Unroth III’s flat, eerily close horizon.

Unlike most of his research staff, Doctor Ehrehin was unwilling to keep his gaze perpetually averted from the sea of greenery that lay beyond the control room windows. But he also refused to allow the forest’s alarming hues to unnerve him, concentrating instead on the soothing, ruddy light of the planet’s primary star, which hugged the forest canopy as it made its preternaturally slow descent toward evening. Despite the low angle of the diffraction‑bloated sun, several long dierharemained before the wilderness outside would become fully enshrouded in darkness.

“It is time, Doctor,” said Cunaehr, Ehrehin’s most valued research assistant. “Are you ready to begin the test?”