Vanguard,BookOne

by David Mack

  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.”

  “That was me,” Reyes said.

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what to say.”

  “It was the right choice. Now shut up and sip your drink.”

  The better part of an hour crept by while they nursed their scotch in silence. Finally, Reyes muttered quietly, “I wish I could be with Rana right now.”

  Realizing that he had no sage commentary on that subject, either, Fisher uncorked the Macallan and poured them each another double.

  Working from the information on the data card, Pennington had determined that every entry by Chief Petty Officer Medina was made during gamma shift, and that he appeared to be responsible for loading and unloading operations in salvage bay four. Putting those two details together, Pennington reasoned that if he made it down to salvage bay four before the shift change at 0800, he should be able to find Chief Medina.

  As he approached the entrance to the salvage bay, the door swished open and a distinctly metallic odor flooded out. Ozone and acetylene exhaust were thick in the air.

  Stepping insi
de, he saw that the place was packed from floor to ceiling with shipping containers, broken machines, bins of spare parts, and open-top crates of scrap metal. Somewhere in the distance, probably on the far side of the cavernous compartment, he heard the soft hum and whine of an antigrav load lifter. As in so many other areas of the starbase, the lighting was uniformly bright and flat.

  He felt like a rat in a maze as he wandered into the monotonous grid of stacked and ordered crates and bins. His footsteps echoed and reechoed, announcing his presence more clearly than he would have preferred. At each intersection he glanced to either side, seeking some sign of another sentient presence. He walked for more than two minutes before a man with a cargo tracker appeared from around a corner two intersections ahead. Pennington waved to the olive-skinned man, who wore the blue coverall jumpsuit of a Starfleet cargo handler. Within a few paces’ distance, he noticed that the man’s jumpsuit was partially unzipped to midchest, and the top of it had folded over, partly obscuring the name stenciled over the cargo handler’s left chest pocket. Only the last four letters were visible: DINA. Close enough, he decided. “Chief Medina?”

  The man had a slight Spanish accent. “Who wants to know?”

  “My name’s Tim Pennington,” he said. Laying his cards on the table, he added, “I’m with the Federation News Service.”

  Medina looked at Pennington as if he had just said he had the plague. It was a reaction to which Pennington had become accustomed. Leaning slightly away, he said, “What do you want?”

  “I just need to ask you a few questions,” Pennington said. “It can be off the record, no names. I’m not looking to put you on the spot here.”

  The man was becoming more apprehensive. “About what?”

  “I just need you to look at some orders that have your name on them,” Pennington said. “Cargo transfers, matériel receipts.” He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved printouts of the official documents he had seen on the data card. Handing them to Medina, he said, “Have you seen these before?”

  Waving his hands, Medina stepped back. “No, not here.” He looked around nervously, then grabbed Pennington’s coat sleeve and pulled him down one of the side lanes, then into a shadowy nook between two large shipping containers. Safely under cover, he plucked the papers from Pennington’s hand. “Where’d you get these?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “Yes, it is.” Medina flipped from one page to the next, growing more agitated as he went. “This is all classified.”

  “I have other sources,” Pennington said.

  “Then why do you need me?”

  “Because I never trust just one source.” Tugging on the pages, he added, “Sources lie. Documents can be faked.”

  The dismay on Medina’s face grew more obvious. His voice diminished to a horrified whisper. “Not this time,” he said. “These are my work orders.”

  Lowering his own voice, Pennington said, “So you did load a sensor screen on the Starship Bombay?” Medina nodded. “And you off-loaded the Bombay’s log buoy from the Enterprise?”

  “Sí,” Medina said.

  “Was its data intact?”

  Again Medina nodded quickly. “Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn and Lieutenant Farber recovered its memory core as soon as we brought it aboard.”

  “The logs said the Bombay was attacked by six Tholian cruisers, and your cargo receipt says you transferred wreckage from Tholian hulls into the salvage bay.”

  “Sí,” Medina said. “It’s all with the forensic team now.” Pennington jotted notes in his recorder. Medina watched him and looked very nervous. “You can’t use my name.”

  “I don’t have to,” Pennington said. “You’re a confidential source. Federation law says I don’t have to reveal your identity to anyone, no matter what.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m positive.” He switched off his recorder and tucked it safely away inside his coat. “Thanks, Chief. I owe you.”

  Pennington slipped away and walked quickly for the nearest exit. The urge to run, to sprint, was bursting inside him. He felt history waiting for him, he heard Truth and Justice summoning him back to his computer terminal. It took all his discipline to preserve a façade of calm as he made the long trek back to his quarters.

  It was the greatest feeling he knew.

  He had a story to write.

  18

  Every new sentence that Commodore Reyes read added to his furor. Filed just over a day earlier, it was the lead story on the Federation News Service’s afternoon feed, and apparently every other major news service had picked up the story with the FNS attribution: “The Ambush of the U.S.S. Bombay,” by Tim Pennington, FNS Correspondent, Starbase 47.

  Jetanien paced back and forth in Reyes’s office, reading the same report off a small handheld device. The Chelon’s tired groans occurred almost synchronously with Reyes’s, leading the commodore to conclude that they were on the verge of a collective apoplexy.

  His desk intercom buzzed, and Yeoman Greenfield said, “Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn is here, sir.”

  “Send her in!”

  The door opened and T’Prynn entered, looking crisp and unruffled and all but perfect in her pale, graceful way. As soon as the door closed, Reyes’s harangue began.

  “I thought you were going to put a lid on this!”

  Jetanien joined the dressing-down. “This is a complete fiasco, Commander. We are poised on the brink of war!”

  Without breaking her stride, she continued walking until she was directly in front of Reyes’s desk. “The situation is under control,” she said.

  Reyes held up his copy of Pennington’s feature story. “You call this ‘control’? This cocky little newshound has names, dates, sensor logs that prove that the Tholians destroyed the ship…is there something I’m missing, Commander? Because it looks to me like the worms are out of the can here.”

  Behind T’Prynn, Jetanien stormed up and loomed over her, bellowing down at her like a father castigating an unruly child. “Billions of lives are in jeopardy because of this lapse! The Federation Council is already speaking of war against the Tholian Assembly, and Ambassador Sesrene has severed diplomatic relations as a result. Our entire mission could be over in a matter of hours unless we—”

  “—remain calm, Ambassador,” T’Prynn interrupted, in her softest dulcet tone. “Unless we remain calm. Which I urge you both to do now.”

  “Give me one good reason to trust you,” Reyes said.

  The communicator on T’Prynn’s belt beeped twice. She unclipped it and flipped it open. “T’Prynn here.”

  “Commander, this is Captain Desai. I’m in the residence of reporter Tim Pennington, in Stars Landing. Could you join me here as soon as possible, please?”

  “On my way, Captain. T’Prynn out.” She closed her communicator and secured it back on her belt. Looking at Reyes, she said, “You should trust me because I am about to make one of your problems go away.” Glancing at Jetanien, she added, “And the other will soon follow.”

  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 surveye
d 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.