“I figure this might take a while,” Reyes said, setting the bottle on a small table positioned between the two recliners before reclaiming his seat.

Pennington shifted in his chair in order to regard the former, now-disgraced Starfleet officer. “As it happens, I have time to kill.”

“It’s not like they’ll ever let you write about it,” Reyes said, his gaze drifting to the fire before them. “You try publishing anything, and the best you can hope for is being allowed to retire gracefully to some backwater colony.”

“Maybe we could be roommates?” Pennington suggested.

“Not for nothing,” Reyes replied, “but I have a shovel and access to a lot of uninhabited forest. You won’t be missed. At least, not for a while.”

Laughing at that, Pennington said, “Noted.” He paused, watching flames lick at one of the logs burning in the fireplace, before adding, “Look, I know there’s no way a lot of what happened will be made public, certainly not within our lifetimes and perhaps not ever, but I still want as much of the story as I can pull together, for my own curiosity and maybe even for my sanity. I’d like to think that what we all experienced meant something, even if most people will never really know about it. Does that sound so crazy?”

“No, it doesn’t sound crazy at all.” Reyes sipped from his glass, saying nothing for a moment, but then he released a sigh that to Pennington’s ears sounded more than a bit like resignation.

“All right. What do you want to know?”

THE TAURUS REACH

2268

1

“What do you want to know?”

Tim Pennington had to strain in order to hear the question over the din permeating the Omari-Ekon’s main gaming floor. Even standing less than an arm’s length from the person he was talking to, he had to shout to be heard.

“I want to know what the hell you’re doing here!” Pennington said, then looked around as he realized his voice had carried above the dull roar around him, and likely to ears not belonging to his intended target, Diego Reyes. The last time Pennington had seen him—almost a year ago, now—Reyes had been wearing a Starfleet commodore’s uniform, but now the man seemed quite at home in an open-necked dark shirt and pants, over which he wore a black leather jacket. His hair, far more gray than black now, was longer on the sides, though still thinning on top. To Pennington, the former Starfleet officer appeared no different than the other civilian customers taking up space on the gaming floor.

Leaning against the bar, a thin rectangular glass held in his left hand, Reyes paused to scan the faces of nearby patrons, as though trying to verify that he and Pennington were not being overheard. He considered his glass before downing its contents in a single swallow, grimacing at its taste before returning his attention to Pennington. “It’s a long story.”

“I gathered as much,” the journalist replied, taking care now to ensure his voice did not rise above the crowd noise. Still, he tossed glances over both shoulders to check for potential eavesdroppers, but saw no sign of anyone appearing to engage in such activity. Everyone in the room appeared to be focused on the gaming tables, or their meals as they sat at tables or in booths, or the lithe figures of the Orion waitresses as they drifted around and among the patrons. A thin veil of multihued smoke lingered near the ceiling lights, a by-product of the different tobaccos and other noxious substances of which various customers were partaking. Pennington tried not to think about the potential damage being inflicted upon his own lungs at that moment.

The man now standing before Pennington seemed to possess only a superficial resemblance to the Starfleet flag officer he once had been. How much time had passed since they had last spoken? More than a year, the journalist recalled, before Reyes’s arrest by Captain Rana Desai and imprisonment while awaiting court-martial. Pennington had missed those proceedings, electing instead to travel to Vulcan with Starbase 47’s former assistant chief medical officer, Jabilo M’Benga. The doctor had made the journey while escorting his patient, T’Prynn, who at the time had fallen into a coma following a severe neurological trauma. By the time her condition was treated and she and Pennington left Vulcan on what at best could be described as a circuitous journey back to Vanguard, they had learned of Reyes’s trial and conviction, and his sentencing to ten years’ confinement at a penal colony back on Earth.

What had come as a shock was their learning of an attack on the U.S.S. Nowlan, the transport vessel carrying the disgraced officer to Earth. The ship had been reported destroyed with all hands, so it came as an even greater surprise to subsequently learn that Reyes was alive and in Klingon custody. Further, it appeared that the former Starfleet commodore had provided the captain of the Klingon vessel with sensitive information, ensuring a successful attack on Starbase 47. For reasons that remained a mystery, Reyes had found a way to trade his Klingon hosts for Orions—specifically, the merchant prince Ganz and the crew of the Omari-Ekon, where he had been for the past several months. Though the vessel was docked at Vanguard, it remained sovereign Orion territory. As such, Reyes was beyond the grasp of Starfleet regulations and Federation law.

And of course that has somebody’s innards in an unholy knot, Pennington mused, thinking of Admiral Heihachiro Nogura, Starbase 47’s current commanding officer and the one nursing the biggest headache with respect to the “Reyes situation.”

“So, what? Are you hoping to write some award-winning exposй or something?” Reyes asked, holding up his glass and signaling the bartender for a refill.

Pennington shrugged. “The thought had occurred to me, and it goes without saying that it’d be the easiest sale I ever made to my bosses at FNS.” Pausing to sip from his drink, he added, “However, I’m afraid I’m not equipped to conduct a decent interview.” Upon boarding the Omari-Ekon, the journalist was subjected to a thorough search, and as a consequence had been relieved of the handheld recording device he normally used to collect notes and his interviews. It would be returned to him upon his departure, but it was obvious that neither the guards nor their employers wanted anyone making any audio or visual recordings of the ship, its crew, or its patrons. As for his personal inspection prior to entering the gaming floor, while it had not advanced to the point where Pennington might have asked the Orion guard frisking him to at least consider buying him dinner, it had come uncomfortably close.

“Well, then,” Reyes said, accepting a new glass of some unidentified green liquor, “it was nice seeing you, Tim. Take care of yourself.” He turned as though readying to cut a swath through the crowd milling near the bar, until Pennington reached out and put a hand on his arm.

“What’s your bloody hurry, mate? I just got here. After all we’ve been through together, this is how you’re going to treat an old friend?” His comments, delivered in what he hoped were an accusatory fashion, were enough to catch the bartender’s attention, and Pennington noted how the Orion strove not to appear as though he might be eavesdropping on their conversation.

Real smooth, wanker. Still, now that he had confirmed he was under surveillance, Pennington knew he would have to be even more careful than he had been to this point.

When Reyes turned back to face Pennington once again, the first signs of irritation had begun to cloud his features. “Just for your future reference, there’s a sizable chasm separating casual or professional acquaintances from those I call friend. Now, while you’re probably closer to the latter group than the former, don’t go pushing your luck.”