Star Trek: Vanguard: What Judgments Come

by Dayton Ward

  “I suppose you can’t even tell me where you’re going,” Fisher said, taking a seat.

  Before replying, Reyes sipped from his glass, relishing the smooth, warming sensation as the alcohol worked its way down his throat. “After drinking the watered-down bug spray that passed for booze on that ship, you have no idea how good this tastes.” He glanced over his shoulder to verify that the office doors were still closed before saying, “I’m not allowed to tell you or anyone else that I’m heading for Caldos II.”

  Fisher grunted. “Never been there, but I hear it’s nice.”

  The colony world was one of five destinations Nogura had suggested as ideal locations for Reyes to “fade away” in compliance with his agreement. Though the original settlement was well established and continuing to grow, the colonists there prided themselves on adhering to the tenets of individuality and personal privacy. It was not uncommon for families to set out on their own and build homes far away from the colony center, either deep in one of the world’s teeming forests or among the isolated mountain regions. “There’s plenty of planet for anybody looking for a nice place to retire,” Nogura had said. The offer was sweetened by the notion that in Reyes’s case, exile did not mean total isolation. He would be given a new identity, so that he could live among the other colonists and not attract undue attention.

  “I wasn’t sold on the idea at first,” Reyes said, “but the more I thought about it, the nicer it sounded. Besides, compared to prison, I think I can learn to live with anything. And who knows? I might even be happy there one day.”

  “Now there’s something I’d like to see,” Fisher replied, smiling as he took a belt from his glass. “How many people know about this?”

  Reyes shrugged. “You, me, Nogura, and two or three of his friends at Starfleet Command who made the whole thing happen.”

  “Well, it’s probably all recorded in a computer file somewhere, anyway,” Fisher said. “They still have to get your retirement pay to you, after all.”

  “True.” Nogura had also seen to it that Reyes would receive a small stipend. It was not a full restoration of the pay and benefits that would have been owed him had he officially retired from Starfleet, but it would be more than sufficient for living a quiet, anonymous life on a Federation colony world. “Other than that, though, and maybe checking up on me from time to time, they’ll probably leave me well enough alone. Ten years from now, nobody will know or care who I am, or was, or whatever, and I’m okay with that.” He had pledged to Nogura that he would accept and even embrace this generous revision of his sentence, and harbored no intentions of going back on his word, if for no other reason than to avoid dishonoring the admiral and the extraordinary effort Reyes knew he had expended on his behalf.

  Taking another drink from his glass, Fisher asked, “So, what are you planning to do with all that free time?”

  “Catch up on my leisure reading,” Reyes replied. “Got any recommendations?”

  Fisher nodded, playing his part. “I gave you a perfectly good selection of books, and you let them get blown up. I hope Caldos II has a decent library.”

  Chuckling at that, Reyes drained the contents of his glass, grimacing at the bourbon’s sting as he swallowed. “Well, I haven’t really gone fishing since I was a boy. Maybe I’ll do that.” As he poured himself another drink, a mischievous thought entered his mind. “I could buy myself some old boat, fix it up as a do-it-myself restoration project, then hire it out for fishing charters. That ought to drive some of those admirals at Starfleet nuts.” He paused, considering another idea that had just occurred to him. “You know, taking on a job like that, I could use a partner.”

  “Yeah,” Fisher said, leaning back in his chair and cradling his glass in both hands, “that’s exactly where I see myself: cutting bait on the back of some shipwreck you’ve given a fresh coat of paint. Do you even know how to sail a boat? What could possibly go wrong?”

  Both men shared a laugh, then said nothing for several moments, two old friends each so comfortable with the other that small talk to fill quiet air had long since become unnecessary. It was Reyes who finally broke the silence.

  “Thanks, Zeke, for everything.”

  His gaze remaining on his glass, Fisher asked, “What did I do?”

  “You were there,” Reyes answered. “Always. You never doubted me, not for one damned second, and you looked after Rana after I left the first time. I know we haven’t talked about it, but I’m betting it wasn’t easy for her, first thinking I was dead, then wondering what I must’ve done to end up with the Klingons or the Orions.” He sighed, at once both sad and angry that he had never been given the opportunity to talk to Desai before her abrupt departure from the station. “Thanks for taking care of her.”

  Fisher nodded, seemingly content to leave it at that. “How much time do you have?”

  Glancing to the chronometer set into the computer workstation on the corner of the doctor’s desk, Reyes replied, “Four or five hours. Nogura has a transport scheduled to take me to Caldos II, leaving in the dead of night so as to attract minimal attention.” It would take three weeks to make the journey to his new home, even at the transport’s high-warp speeds. Within a month, he would be settled into his role as just another colonist on the frontier of Federation space, making an honest go at a new, challenging life away from the buzz and static of fast-paced modern society.

  Yes, Reyes decided, he could live with that.

  “Well, then,” Fisher said, reaching once more for the bottle, “as I remember it, we said our long good-byes the last time you left on a transport. I figure there’s no reason to rehash all that again. Besides, it’s just a waste of good drinking time.”

  Reyes smiled at his old friend’s gentle yet unassailable wisdom. He could live with that, too.

  EPILOGUE

  April 2270

  Pennington felt a shiver, and for the first time realized that the fire had died down to the point that it was nothing more than a bed of smoldering embers. The only other means of determining the length of his visit was the whiskey bottle on the nearby table. It was now less than half full, and Pennington noted the warm, comfortable glow enveloping his body from the homemade alcohol’s effects.

  “So,” he said after a moment, “you told him, but not me? I don’t know whether to be surprised or insulted.” As he spoke the words, Pennington regretted them in the face of the long, close friendship Reyes had shared with Ezekiel Fisher.

  “Be both,” Reyes replied, his expression growing somber, and Pennington figured the other man’s thoughts were lingering on his old friend. “Save yourself the burden of decisions.”

  Holding up his glass, Pennington eyed it with suspicion. “Has it occurred to you that a lot of your encounters with friends involve drinking in one form or another?”

  “Call it a coping mechanism,” Reyes said, rising from his chair. “How else are my visitors supposed to put up with me?” He reached for the metal poker and knelt before the fireplace, stirring the embers before adding two new logs to the withered remnants still sitting in the firebox’s soot-covered cradle. “It’s too late to call for a ride back to the mainland. I’ve got a spare bedroom. You can collapse in there if you want.”

  Lifting his glass to his lips, Pennington frowned upon noting that the vessel was empty. “Trying to run me off, are you? There’s still a lot you haven’t told me, like just what the hell you do to stay busy around here, of all the damned places. I mean, if nowhere really does have a middle, I’m pretty sure this planet sits squarely in its belly button.”

  Reyes, appearing satisfied that the fire soon would return to its former blazing glory, replaced the poker in its stand and returned to his seat, where he set about pouring more whiskey into his glass. “You know, it’s amazing what you can buy when you’ve been saving for your retirement for thirty-odd years. One of the benefits of spending most of my adult life living in Starfleet billeting aboard starships and space stations is that I never had t
o pay rent. So, I just banked those credits for a rainy day.” He gestured toward one wall and, presumably, the forest beyond the confines of his cabin. “Like I said before, we get a lot of rainy days here.”

  “So,” Pennington said, reaching for the whiskey bottle, “you had this place already picked out?”

  “Hardly,” Reyes replied, his gaze returning once more to the fire. “Caldos II was number four on a list of five planets where Starfleet was willing to authorize my ‘relocation,’ with the proviso that once I picked a place, that’s where I’d agree to stay until I died, the planet blew up, or Starfleet needed me—whichever came first.”

  Trying to imagine how that conversation might have played out, Pennington uttered a bemused grunt. “It must’ve been a hard choice.”

  “Not really,” Reyes countered, sipping his drink, “not when you remember that the alternative at the bottom of the list was prison.” He paused, glancing around the cabin. “Anyway, they helped smooth things over so far as my actually buying this place. I own the entire island, and my cover story is that I’m a retired civilian engineer who came looking for a nice, quiet corner of the galaxy to live out my golden years. It’s enough to let me move around, interact with the locals, and so on. Everyone pretty much keeps to themselves here, so I don’t get anyone nosing around looking for answers to questions that don’t even come up, anyway.” Pennington smiled as Reyes glared at him from the corner of his eye. “Well, most of the time, that is.”

  Pennington shook his head. “So this is it, then? A cabin in the woods on a lake, for the rest of your life?”

  “There are worse ways to live,” Reyes replied, shrugging. “Like I said, prison’s still there, if this ends up not working out.”

  “And Starfleet’s not worried that anyone else might come looking for you?” Pennington asked. Though he had no problem with the notion that he might be the first person to have successfully tracked down Reyes, it stood to reason that he also would not be the last.

  Waving his free hand as though to swat away the suggestion, Reyes frowned. “Even if somebody does find me, there’s nothing for me to tell that you probably haven’t already written about, right?”

  Pennington regarded him with an expression of bewilderment. “You mean you haven’t read my reports for FNS? Thanks for the loyalty.”

  “Haven’t had much use for news since I got here,” Reyes said. “Besides, as I recall, there was a news blackout around the station for a long while after I left. I’ll admit I was curious at first, and considered staying updated on the entire situation, but after a while, there didn’t seem to be much point in keeping up with all of that, along with the goings-on in the rest of a galaxy I’ll never again be a part of. Better to make a clean break from all of it, and get on with life.” Raising his glass to his lips, he stopped in mid-motion as his eyes met Pennington’s. “But I can see from the look on your face that you’ve got a story you’re dying to tell, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to hear it.”

  “You would, would you?” Pennington punctuated the question with a small, humorless smile. The events that had brought to an end the astonishing project known as Operation Vanguard were fresh enough that he imagined he still sensed a pain both physical and emotional. Several seconds passed before he realized he was recalling those events all while unconsciously rubbing his right arm at the point where his prosthetic limb joined his shoulder socket. Startled, he removed his hand and guided it back to resting in his lap, took another sip of his drink, and forced himself to enjoy the soothing warmth of the fire for an entire minute before returning his attention to Reyes. “Well, then. What do you want to know?”

  Reyes hesitated, as though trying to decide how much of whatever Pennington might tell him he actually wanted to hear. Then, he answered, “How long did you stay on the station after I left?”

  It was now Pennington’s turn to consider his answer. He had quit counting after running out of fingers the number of nondisclosure agreements and letters of secrecy he had signed in the aftermath of Operation Vanguard. He knew that by simply being here, he had probably violated most if not all of those agreements. If he was discovered here, he faced the very real possibility of being sent to the very same penal colony Diego Reyes had managed to avoid.

  And yet, he did not care. For the first and perhaps only time in whatever might remain of his life, Tim Pennington would get to tell another living person about his final, fateful days aboard Starbase 47.

  “I was there until the end, mate,” he said after a moment. “The bitter, bloody end.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks of the first order are reserved for our editors, who exercised far more patience and compassion than we deserved. Their unwavering support and mentorship were instrumental in the completion of this book.

  To Marco Palmieri and David Mack, co-creators of Star Trek: Vanguard, we’re going to flout convention and repeat what we said in the dedication: Thanks for inviting us to the party. Writing for this series has been some of the most unqualified fun we’ve had working in the Star Trek “expanded universe,” and much of that is owed to the drive and passion you both brought to the table. To say we’re going to miss this is a criminal understatement.

  A round of heartfelt applause is directed to Doug Drexler, Oscar- and Emmy-winning art wizard whose efforts have graced the covers of all the Star Trek: Vanguard titles. His love and enthusiasm for Star Trek, particularly the original series, is infectious. If you’re reading this, Mister D., rest assured that you are a steely-eyed missile man.

  Special thanks are sent out to Eric Kristiansen, fan and artist responsible for the “Starfleet Exploration Craft: Daedalus-class” blueprints he created as part of his Jackill’s Technical Readout Data Sheets series. We purchased a set of these for six bucks years ago when we first were developing the Lovell crew for our Star Trek: Corps of Engineers stories. Though we took a few small liberties, plotting and details of the Lovell’s interior spaces were realized thanks to inspiration supplied by these data sheets. Check out a whole bunch of Eric’s awesome work at www.jackill.com.

  As this novel likely marks the last time we’ll ever write for this particular set of characters, we’d like to give our final round of thanks to the readers and fans of the Star Trek: Vanguard series. It’s been an absolute joy to work on these books over the past several years, and the response from the Star Trek fiction reader community has been nothing short of astounding. It was your enthusiasm and excitement for each new book that kept us motivated throughout our tenure on the series, and we hope we held up our end of the deal.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  DAYTON WARD. Author. Trekkie. Writing his goofy little stories and searching for a way to tap into the hidden nerdity that all humans have. Then, an accidental overdose of Mountain Dew altered his body chemistry. Now, when Dayton Ward grows excited or just downright geeky, a startling metamorphosis occurs.

  Driven by outlandish ideas and a pronounced lack of sleep, he is pursued by fans and editors as well as funny men in bright uniforms wielding stun guns, straitjackets, and medication. In addition to the numerous credits he shares with friend and co-writer Kevin Dilmore, Dayton is the author of the science fiction novels The Last World War; Counterstrike: The Last World War—Book II; and The Genesis Protocol; the Star Trek novels In the Name of Honor, Open Secrets, and Paths of Disharmony; as well as short stories in various anthologies and web-based publications. For Flying Pen Press, he was the editor of the science fiction anthology Full-Throttle Space Tales #3: Space Grunts.

  Dayton is believed to be working on his next novel, and he must let the world think that he is working on it, until he can find a way to earn back the advance check he blew on strippers and booze. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with his wife and daughters, Dayton is a Florida native and maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Visit him on the web at www.daytonward.com.

  KEVIN DILMORE is but one more proof of
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s assertion that when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. It all started in 1998 with his eight-year run as a contributing writer to Star Trek Communicator, for which he wrote news stories and personality profiles for the bimonthly publication of the Official Star Trek Fan Club. Since that time, he also has contributed to publications including Amazing Stories, Hallmark, and Star Trek magazines. Look for his essay in the forthcoming anthology Hey Kids, Comics—True Life Tales from the Spinner Rack, edited by Rob Kelly.

  Then he teamed with writing partner and heterosexual life mate Dayton Ward on Interphase, their first installment of the Star Trek: S.C.E. series in 2001. Since then, the pair has put more than one million words into print together. Among their most recent shared publications are the novella The First Peer in the anthology Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins (March 2010) and the short story “Ill Winds” in the Star Trek: Shards and Shadows anthology (January 2009).

  By day, Kevin works as a senior writer for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, MO, doing about everything but writing greeting cards, including helping to design Star Trek–themed Keepsake Ornaments. His first children’s book, Superdad and His Daring Dadventures, with illustrations by Tom Patrick, was published by Hallmark Gift Books in May 2009.

  A graduate of the University of Kansas, Kevin lives in Overland Park, Kansas. Keep up with his shameful behavior and latest projects on Facebook and Twitter.

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