Текст книги "Harbinger"

Автор книги: David Mack

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The buzzing of his intercom drew his attention. Recognizing Greenfield’s ID code, he opened the channel with a push of his thumb. “Go ahead.”

“Captain Desai to see you, sir.”

“Give me a moment, then—”

His office door swished open and Captain Rana Desai strode in. The petite, late-thirtyish Indian woman carried a sealed legal folder under her arm. Like many of her contemporaries, Desai wore her raven hair in a stylish but simple bob cut.

Behind her, Yeoman Greenfield stood, looking flustered, in the doorway. She signaled her silent apology to Reyes, then stepped away and let the door close.

Reyes leveled his stare at Desai and said, with monotonal sarcasm, “No, I’m not busy, please come in.”

Desai took the folder from under her arm and handed it to Reyes. In a voice that was no less steely for its gentle London accent, she said, “On behalf of the Starfleet Judge Advocate General, your attempted exercise of eminent domain on Kessik IV is hereby deemed improper, and your petition is rejected.”

“Excuse me,” Reyes said, his ire rising swiftly. “We laid claim to Kessik IV by the book.”

“Maybe you need to read that book again, Commodore,” Desai said. “You can’t steal a colony from its residents just because you want its dilithium mine.”

“First of all,” Reyes said, slowly rising from his chair to tower over her, “we’re not stealing it, we’re buying it. Second, we don’t want its dilithium mine, we need its dilithium mine—it’s a matter of military necessity.”

She flashed an insincere smirk that bordered on a sneer. “How unfortunate for you that the law wasn’t written solely to service your needs.”

“Actually,” he said, “that’s exactly what eminent domain is for. Ambassador Jetanien signed off on this personally.”

“Too bad he had no more authority to do this than you did,” Desai said. “Eminent-domain law, as written in the Federation Charter, applies strictly to member-worlds of the Federation and unoccupied planets within sovereign UFP territory.”

“We planted our flag. That makes Kessik IV our territory.”

“If you’d planted your flag first, maybe. But the crew of the mining ship Epimetheus staked their claim on Kessik IV before Vanguard was even half-built. They have a local government and a solid claim to independence.”

Legal semantics irritated Reyes to no end. “They’re Federation citizens—the law still applies.”

“Not on the frontier, it doesn’t,” Desai said. “Eminent domain applies only inside Federation space. And even there, the rights of the state do not trump the rights of the individual, or of free communities on previously unclaimed worlds.”

Reyes tossed the folder of legal mumbo jumbo on a stack with a host of other documents he planned to ignore for the foreseeable future. “I like high-minded ideals as much as the next guy, Captain, but I also have to face hard facts: Starfleet needs that dilithium resource. The Federation needs it.”

“Then perhaps we should have devoted more time, more ships, and more personnel to securing it before someone with civil rights came along and laid legal claim to it.” Abandoning her lecturelike tone, she continued, “As of 0830 today, I have acted on behalf of the JAG office to void the Federation’s claim to Kessik IV, and I have countermanded your order to have its residents relocated.”

A flare of temper twisted his face into an angry mask. “ ‘Countermanded’?” In long, ominous strides, he circled his desk toward Desai. Her face betrayed a fleeting sign of fear; then she hardened her features and stood her ground as he harangued her. “Captain, there’s one thing we need on the frontier even more than lawyers, and that’s a chain of command. You want to challenge me on points of law, fine—but I will not permit you to usurp my authority.”

Desai’s voice was steady, her gaze unyielding. “I didn’t usurp your authority, Commodore—you exceeded it. And it’s my job to tell you so.” She continued to stare up at him, apparently content to respond to whatever verbal tactic he chose next.

He took the easy way out: “Dismissed.”

The dark-skinned lawyer maintained her proud bearing as she acknowledged the command with a nod, turned away, and left his office. Alone once more, he remembered a not terribly clever old joke that suddenly had the ring of truth to it: What do you call a ship carrying a thousand lawyers into a black hole?

A good start.

Tim Pennington was still learning the finer points of being a journalist, but after six years as a stringer for the Federation News Service he knew that taking a confrontational attitude with a senior UFP diplomat could be risky.

In particular, it would be exceedingly awkward if an ill-chosen comment were to provoke a heated exchange or angry outburst here, in a public, “outdoor” café on the edge of the plaza for Stars Landing, a crescent-shaped cluster of commercial and—to a lesser extent—civilian-residential buildings that wrapped halfway around the station’s central hub. Its architecture, which evoked such natural shapes as shells and honeycombs, was as much a work of art as a marvel of engineering. Some of its structures were nearly twenty stories tall and all but scraped the simulated spring sky of Vanguard’s vast habitat shell, which was rich with transplanted flora and teeming with off-duty station personnel and transients. Dozens of people were eating at tables adjacent to Pennington’s. Several meters away, two clusters of Starfleet officers had just organized an impromptu game of Frisbee. Without a doubt, this would be a most regrettable place for an argument.

On the other hand, his instincts told him that Ambassador Jetanien was hiding something. He chose his words with caution.

“I think you’re evading the question, Your Excellency.”

His thoughts well hidden behind a leathery, unexpressive shell of a face, the alien diplomat chewed another pickled keesa beetle. “Perhaps I was distracted by the fact that I am eating breakfast…. Maybe your question was poorly worded.”

Sickly sweet and pungent odors from Jetanien’s insect-breakfast entrée mingled in Pennington’s nose as he leaned forward and feigned contrition. “May I rephrase?”

“By all means,” Jetanien said, spearing another keesa beetle with the two-tined fork clutched in his clawed hand. His movements were unhurried, graceful. The Rigellian Chelon was the sort of person who could eat the messiest meal without making a spot anywhere on his snow-white, gold-hemmed, satin-textured raiment. Even the headdress that hung from his gleaming black fez remained pristine.

“Given that the Taurus Reach is so remote from established civilian shipping lanes and Starfleet patrol routes,” Pennington said, “why has the Federation Council chosen to devote so many personnel and resources to a mission so far from home?”

Jetanien chewed slowly. His voluminous, amber-colored eyes stared past Pennington. I’ll give him credit, the young reporter thought. He certainly knows how to play up a dramatic pause.

“Exploration has always been the Federation’s most honored endeavor,” Jetanien said at last. “The imperative to make contact with new life-forms and civilizations is the key to enriching our understanding of the universe, and of ourselves.” Skewering another keesa beetle and wrapping it in a twirl of reddish Vulcan seaweed, he concluded, “Our mission requires us to dare the unknown, and few regions within our reach are as unknown—and unclaimed—as the Taurus Reach.”

With a sound that Pennington took to be a grunt of self-satisfaction, Jetanien guided another vinegar-scented forkful of his breakfast into his prodigious beak of a mouth.

Suspicion crept into Pennington’s tone. “Mr. Ambassador, with all due respect, I received almost the exact same answer from a Starfleet Command press liaison two days ago.”

“Really?” Lifting a swan-necked beverage container, Jetanien added, “Imagine that.” He downed a generous mouthful of N’v’aa, an amazingly sour fruit cocktail that Pennington had sampled the first night he arrived on Vanguard. It was a throat-clenching mistake he had vowed never to repeat. Apparently, only Chelon taste buds found the libation even remotely palatable.

Putting aside the unpleasant memory, Pennington soldiered onward with his impromptu interview. “Is it possible that the Federation’s push into the Taurus Reach is part of a broader astropolitical strategy?”

“Could you be more specific, Mr. Pennington?”

“Even a cursory review of regional star maps indicates that the region is bordered almost entirely on one side by the Klingon Empire, and on the other by the Tholian Assembly.”

“Quite correct,” Jetanien said.

“So what is the Federation’s motivation for moving so aggressively into this area?” Pennington clenched his fist as he struggled to make his thoughts coalesce. “The Tholians have consistently pushed the borders of their territory in the opposite direction of the Taurus Reach, but the Klingons are extending their frontier in as many directions as possible. If they expand to the Tholian border, the Federation would be caught in the crossfire of a Klingon-Tholian conflict. Is this station part of an interstellar firewall—a tactic to avert a Klingon-Tholian war and deny the Klingons any more territory on our border?”

Jetanien finished chewing and swallowed with a muffled croaking noise. “A very good question,” he said, then picked up his plate and extended it toward Pennington. “Would you care for a keesa beetle? They’re quite crunchy today.”

“Thank you, no.”

The ambassador took back his plate. “Suit yourself.”

Bland rehearsed answers were all that Pennington had ever heard, from anyone, whenever questions about Vanguard were broached. In press conferences last year on Earth, the president had answered queries about the project with so many euphemisms and empty platitudes that the press corps was surprised he had any rhetoric left for his reelection campaign. Regardless, the questions continued to persist: Why had Vanguard’s construction been fast-tracked? Why had three ships of the line been assigned to it on a permanent basis? What made the Taurus Reach a more viable arena for commerce and colonization than the Kalandra Sector, which was so much closer to Federation space?

Pennington had made the interminable journey to Vanguard hoping to find answers to some of those questions. Instead, he was getting the same talking points as his Earth-assigned colleagues—and, just to make it worse, missing out on the Paris nightlife and press-corps gossip.

Jetanien wolfed down his last few fried beetles. Watching the Chelon diplomat eat, Pennington realized that he had a sudden hankering for waffles. Wondering if the café was still serving breakfast, he turned to summon a waiter.

Before he could shout “Garçon!” a general announcement echoed inside the vast, hollow-doughnut–shaped space of the habitat, emanating from camouflaged speakers and seeming to be everywhere at once. “Attention, all personnel,” the feminine voice said in a businesslike tone, “the Starship Bombay is on approach to main spacedock bay two. Alpha-shift maintenance and cargo crews report to bay two for priority operations.”

The message began to repeat as Pennington, suddenly energized, rose from his seat and swiftly gathered his notes off the tabletop. “Mr. Ambassador, will you excuse me? I have a pressing matter to attend to.”

Pennington was already several meters away and dodging through the Starfleeters’ Frisbee game before he realized he had left without waiting for Jetanien’s reply. As he sprinted across the wide-open green, he forgave himself. Priorities, he reminded himself as he reached the station core and boarded a turbolift. You have to have priorities.

“I don’t know what you see in this game,” said Jabilo M’Benga.

“Just watch,” said his boss, Vanguard’s gray-haired, dark-skinned, gravel-voiced chief medical officer, Dr. Ezekiel Fisher.

The two men were alone on the top row of the bleachers beside the athletic field, squinting against simulated sunlight beaming down from an artificial sky. Though the massive inner space was officially designated the “terrestrial enclosure,” most of the station’s residents called it simply “the park.”

M’Benga—a handsome, soft-spoken young attending physician—had been all that Fisher had hoped to find in a successor. His diagnostic skills were second to none, and his bedside manner was personable without being overly familiar. Though he had been on Fisher’s staff for a few months, since shortly after Vanguard became operational, M’Benga’s quirks and moods remained a mystery to him. The junior physician reminded Fisher at times of a Vulcan; he had served in a Vulcan ward before being assigned to Vanguard, prompting Fisher to wonder if the Vulcans’ inimitable stoicism had rubbed off on the young doctor.

In the distance, the skyline of Stars Landing was partly distorted by surface irregularities on the broad central core of the station, which was camouflaged with photosensors that reproduced the images in front of them on massive diodes 180 degrees away, on the other side of the core, to preserve the illusion of an unbroken pastoral vista.

Nestled out of sight, along the gently rising slope that bounded the perimeter of the circular park, were entrances to the station’s high-speed maglev tram. The automated people-mover ran a small fleet of trams on two levels, one set in each direction. The system had been designed so that the terminals, which were spaced roughly two hundred meters apart, would each be visited by one tram every two minutes.

A tight cluster of brightly uniformed athletes clashed in a haphazard pile on the grass in front of the bleachers. M’Benga eyed the scrum with detached curiosity. “What did you say this game was called?”

“Rugby.”

“And what’s the objective?”

“Don’t ask so many questions,” Fisher said, a hint of his late father’s native Tennessee drawl peeking out from behind his words. He gestured to the tray on the bench between them. “Have some chips.”

With poise and precision, M’Benga reached out and gingerly plucked a single chip from the plate on the tray, lifted it to his mouth, and ate it without dropping a single crumb.

He reminds me of Noah, Fisher thought, picturing his firstborn son. M’Benga was a bit younger than Noah, and his dark skin was a slightly richer shade of brown, but his and Noah’s mannerisms were eerily similar—so precise, so measured. Is that why I took such a shine to him?

“Do you think about your next career step?”

M’Benga shrugged. “Now and then.”

Stroking the graying whiskers of his goatee, Fisher hesitated to spell out his agenda too bluntly. Decades of experience in Starfleet had taught him that sometimes it was best not to show all of one’s cards at the same time. “What do you see for yourself? A few more years and out? Or a future in Starfleet medicine?”

“Definitely a future,” M’Benga said, his confidence apparent. “I joined Starfleet for a reason.”

“Didn’t we all,” Fisher said under his breath. More than fifty years of service in Starfleet had left him somewhat world-weary, and he was long past the point of apologizing for it. In his opinion, he had earned the right to grumble a little from time to time. He refocused his thoughts. “If you plan to make a real go of it, the best advice I can give you is this: Learn to see what people don’t show you, learn to hear what they don’t tell you, and learn to trust your gut.”

“Interesting counsel,” M’Benga said. “Thank you.”

How very Vulcan of you, Fisher mused. “You’re welcome.”

On the field in front of them, the players wrestled furiously, a writhing pile of color and dirt-flecked sinew. Grunts and groans and agonized shouts were muffled inside the crush of bodies. A pained expression formed on M’Benga’s lean, impeccably shaven features as he watched. “I still fail to see the point of this game,” he said.

“What’s the point of any game?”

After thinking a moment, M’Benga said, “To win.”

“Right.” Fisher grabbed a small cluster of deep-fried chips and pushed them into his mouth. They were crisp and salty with just a slight tang of vinegar.

“So who are you rooting for?”

“No one,” Fisher said. “I just watch.”

“You have no interest in the outcome?”

“Not really.”

Now young M’Benga looked confused. “Then what do you get out of it?”

“Depends on the game,” Fisher said. He wondered if M’Benga would understand his philosophy with regard to competitive sports. “Some games, you admire the skill of certain players or the harmony of a good team. Others, the strategy has a beauty to it…. Sometimes, it’s enough just to appreciate the struggle.”

Nodding, M’Benga said, “You love the effort—regardless of the result.”

“Right.” Fisher could sense it: He’s catching on.

“That would be an apt description of the scientific method. Opposed hypotheses vie for evidentiary support—and scientists observe impartially. The result is secondary to the method.”

Fisher smiled at the young attending physician. “Not bad. It took my last attending months to work that out.”

Gesturing at the quickly intensifying scrum below, M’Benga asked, “Does rugby actually have any rules?”

A wry half-smirk tugged at Fisher’s mouth. “Sure,” he said. “No autopsy, no foul.”

“Angry? No, Your Excellency, I wouldn’t say they’re angry. I think ‘apoplectic’ might be a better term.”

Senior attaché Anna Sandesjo clutched her briefcase as she trailed close behind Ambassador Jetanien, who swept through the frantic chatter and cluttered work nooks of the Federation Embassy office, grabbing up hard-copy reports from each of the consulate case officers as he went. The towering Chelon diplomat spoke over his shoulder to Sandesjo as he reviewed his daily intelligence updates, one in each scaly, web-fingered manus. “What, exactly, did Ambassador Sesrene say?”

“The translators couldn’t parse it,” Sandesjo said, taking care not to step on the tail of Jetanien’s flowing white coat, which fluttered ethereally behind him as he strode forward. “It was more like a metallic shriek than the chiming tones they usually make. It sounded like he was in pain.”

For the sake of brevity, she had substantially understated the situation. Never before had she seen a Tholian become so unhinged without apparent cause. Sesrene’s sudden seizure and retreat had alarmed her.

Jetanien stopped her with an upraised hand and loomed over a communications supervisor. “Mr. Stotsky, did you know that the Gallonik III civil war of 2177 was sparked by a single misstatement in its first treaty of global alliance?”

“No, Your Excellency,” the supervisor said cautiously, staring up at the enormous Chelon.

“A simple error, really,” Jetanien continued, ramping up his well-known dramatic lecturing cadence. “Its articles of territorial sovereignty contained conflicting geographical coordinates for the borders demarcating areas of settlement for its two rival sentient species. Historians chalked it up to a transcription error…after seven hundred thirty-eight million Gallonikans butchered each other over one of the most picayune clerical blunders in recorded history.”

“Tragic, sir,” the supervisor said, his voice cowed.

“Indeed, it is. Now imagine how tragic it would be if you actually sent this communiqué to Qo’noS with the modifier ’pu appended to that ordinarily inoffensive noun. How do you think the chancellor will respond to such a heinous slander against his paternal grandmother? Tell me, Mr. Stotsky, do the Klingons strike you as a species inclined to laugh at our lack of facility with tlhIngan, or do you think it more likely they would demand an honor duel, pitting me in mortal combat against the leader of the Klingon Empire?”

“I’ll correct the error immediately, Ambassador.”

“Thank you,” Jetanien said, then resumed walking and tossing words over his shoulder at Sandesjo. “You were saying?”

“Ambassador Sesrene became incoherent for several minutes, then left in a hurry. He hasn’t responded to our requests for an update on his status.”

“And you didn’t see fit to advise me of this last night?”

“Well, it’s not as if he declared war,” she said.

He reached the door to his private office and turned to face her. “Are you sure? If I sound less than convinced of your analysis, Anna, it’s only because I find it refreshingly unburdened by the weight of evidence.” Resuming his original course, he stepped toward the door, which opened with a gentle swoosh. She followed him inside.

Sandesjo respected Jetanien’s political acumen, and at times she admired his ability to negotiate while under stress. Most of the time, however, she found that working for him was a lot like indentured servitude, with the added insult of knowing the condition was self-inflicted. He could be the grand master of tact and finesse when circumstances demanded it, but with his own staff he demonstrated a penchant for imperiousness.

Jetanien’s office was small and densely packed with display screens, all of which faced his simple, curved desk. Every screen snapped to flickering life as he entered, though none made any sound. It was Jetanien’s habit, Sandesjo had observed, to raise the volume on a channel only when it had snared his undivided attention.

The ambassador shed his coat, placed it on the ornate coat rack behind his desk, and eased himself down into a half-sitting, half-kneeling position on a piece of furniture custom designed to accommodate such a pose. “Has the Klingon ambassador deigned to join the conversation yet?”

“Not as such,” Sandesjo said. She opened her briefcase, removed a Klingon d’k tahg, and placed it on the desk. “Ambassador Lugok left this for you.”

Jetanien leaned forward and scrutinized the ceremonial dagger. “Left it? Where?”

“In Meyer’s leg.”

She was surprised that Jetanien hadn’t heard about last night’s incident in Manón’s Cabaret. The brief but profanity-laced altercation between Lugok, the Klingon Empire’s most irascible blowhard, and Dietrich Meyer, the Federation Diplomatic Corps’s most notorious drunkard, was already well on its way to becoming the stuff of legend.

“I’d express my sympathy for Meyer’s pain if I thought he’d actually felt any,” Jetanien said. “He’ll recover, I presume?”

“Dr. Fisher says he’ll be fit for duty by tomorrow.”

“ ‘Fit for duty’? That would be an improvement.”

Sandesjo struggled not to roll her eyes. So much for being diplomatic. “Regardless, it might be best to assign a new envoy to the Klingon delegation.”

Jetanien acknowledged the suggestion with a grunt. “Who do you think Lugok would hate more—Sovik or Karumé?”

“A difficult choice, sir,” Sandesjo said. “The Klingons are unlikely to respect Mr. Sovik’s logic as much as the Tholians do. Conversely, Ms. Karumé’s abrasive negotiating style, despite its resemblance to Klingon manners, might prove inflammatory.”

“Your instincts, Anna. Make a snap judgment.”

“Sovik’s reticence would be seen as weakness by the Klingons. Send them Karumé. They might hate her, but at least they’ll understand her.”

“Very well,” Jetanien said, picking up a sealed envelope from Commodore Reyes’s office and slicing it open with the deft pass of a single claw. He plucked the single-page letter from inside and scanned it. “Clear my schedule from 1300 to 1500.”

“Yes, sir. Shall I—”

“Notify Ms. Karumé of her new assignment. I want her daily briefing by 1800 hours.”

“Of course, sir.” Sandesjo didn’t know if she was asking unnecessary questions, or if Jetanien made a habit of cutting her off in midsentence as an ongoing cruel jest. “If there’s—”

“That’s all. Dismissed.”

Mustering her willpower, she left Lugok’s d’k tahg on the desktop instead of wedging it under Jetanien’s chin, then exited the ambassador’s office.

The walk back to her own miserably cramped, windowless office was brief, but she still managed to be intercepted by five different foreign-service officers with urgent diplomatic crises for Jetanien’s attention. It would be up to her to sort the true emergencies from the petty distractions before letting any of these requests reach the ambassador’s desk.

She passed through the door into her private workspace and dropped her handful of passed briefings onto her desk. Slumping into her chair, she let her briefcase slip from her hand. It landed on the thinly carpeted floor with a hollow thud. So much to do, she realized. Sandesjo’s first official item of business, without question, was to inform Akeylah Karumé that she had been named as the new envoy to the Klingon delegation on Starbase 47. Everything else scattered across her desk was, as far as she could determine, tied for second.

All of it, however, would have to wait until she had completed one very important unofficial task.

Sandesjo reached down, picked up her thin, metallic briefcase, and placed it flat on her desktop. Before she opened it, she set its digital lock to a secret combination—one different from the sequence normally used to open it. When she lifted the lid, a false panel opened in the bottom of the case, revealing a compact short-range subspace transmitter. With the flip of a switch, it hummed gently into active mode.

The wait for an acknowledgment was always the most nerve-racking part of filing a report. Until the receiver locked in and finished encrypting the signal, there was an infinitesimal risk that their transmission might be detected and intercepted.

From the receiving end of the audio signal came a guttural voice, which uttered the challenge code-phrase: “bImoHqu’.”

It translated roughly as You look terrible. Sandesjo resented this cruel joke at her expense, this mockery of the pain and indignity she had endured in order to pass for a human and infiltrate the Federation’s diplomatic service. No time now for hurt feelings, she reminded herself. She swept her straight, long auburn hair from her eyes. Keying the transmitter, she spoke the prearranged response phrase: “jIwuQ.”

Translation: I have a headache. She vowed that someone in the Empire would pay dearly for these inanities.

“Report,” said Turag, the Imperial Intelligence officer embedded with the Klingon delegation aboard Vanguard.

“You’re getting a new envoy,” Sandesjo said.

“The petaQ’pu Dietrich is dead, then?”

“No. Lugok’s blade missed the human’s femoral artery.”

Over the open channel, she heard Turag spit in disgust. “Sloppy. I would not have missed.”

“And you would have been neutralized.” She transferred a data packet to Turag on the subchannel. “I am sending you Envoy Akeylah Karumé’s dossier. Lugok will need to see it before Karumé calls on him.”

“Understood. What is wrong with the Tholian delegation?”

“Unknown,” Sandesjo said. “I will continue to investigate.”

“As will we. Qapla’, Lurqal.”

Years of undercover work had left Sandesjo unaccustomed to the sound of her true Klingon name. She masked her unease with a quick farewell. “Qapla’, Turag.”

The channel clicked off. Sandesjo closed her briefcase, confident that, despite the perfect silence of its moving parts, it had reverted already to its disguised form. She tucked it beneath her desk, next to her feet. It was time to get to work.

The slender, leggy young woman reined in a bitter chuckle until it was reduced to a disgruntled huff. It’s always time to get to work when you’re a spy.

6

Tim Pennington collapsed back on his side of the bed. Blissfully spent and aglow with perspiration, he lolled his head to the right and admired Oriana D’Amato’s profile. Her wild spill of dark hair, fetchingly tinted with synthetic magenta highlights, obscured her pillow. Both of them heaved heavy breaths. Their chests rose and fell in unison. She turned her head and cast a satiated grin in his direction.

“Welcome back,” he said, and they shared a fleeting moment of conspiratorial laughter. Not a word had passed between them in the two hours since she had stepped out of the gangway surrounded by fellow Bombay personnel and saw him through the crowd, waiting for her. They had both known with a glance to come directly here, to his Stars Landing apartment, without delay. This was their fourth such liaison in three months—nowhere near frequent enough for Pennington, who had been utterly smitten with her since they met. Easygoing, optimistic, lighthearted…everything that made her his opposite had deepened his attraction. Even the contrast of her bright Roman accent and his own Edinburgh brogue—slightly softened after four years in London and six in Paris—excited him.

His fingers traced a gentle line over the alabaster curve of her shoulder and down her arm. “When do you ship out again?”

“Soon,” she said, then sighed. “Too soon.”

He glanced past her, at the golden yellow miniskirt uniform draped over the chair at his desk. Because Oriana had voiced her lack of enthusiasm for the new women’s uniform style when it was first issued, he had suppressed his desire to tell her how amazing she looked wearing it. An hour ago he had considered begging her to leave on the revealing one-piece uniform—or, at the very least, its accompanying knee-high boots—but she had shed them all so quickly once the door closed that he hadn’t had the chance. His disappointment was short-lived. Far be it from me to tell a woman not to disrobe, he had decided.

Pennington finger-combed a tumbled shock of his short, light-brown hair from his sweaty forehead. “Do you want to have dinner? I could pop over to the café.”

Oriana rolled over in his direction, onto her stomach, revealing the perfect slope of her bare back from beneath the silken bedsheets. Planting her elbows on the mattress and her chin in her cupped hands, she teased him with a coquettish batting of her eyelids. “What will you bring me?”

“Name it, my sweet.”

She squinted her eyes in mock concentration, as if she were struggling to think of something he would be hard-pressed to find on such a well-provisioned starbase as Vanguard. “Chocolate-covered Kaferian apples?”

“That can be arranged.”

Undaunted, she continued. “Deltan champagne.”

“Technically, if it doesn’t come from the Champagne region of France on Earth—”

“I don’t want to have a semantic argument about it,” she said. “I just want you to bring me bubbly stuff.”