And what of Sandesjo herself? Jetanien had of course given considerable thought as to what she might be planning. Were she to somehow gain the trust and confidence of the station’s intelligence officer, it could only help to further her mission here. Would T’Prynn see through such a ploy? If she did not, what sort of damage might that cause? And if she indeed was a spy, in what way might T’Prynn use this knowledge, and who stood to benefit from her actions?
These, Jetanien decided, were problems for tomorrow, as this day already had seen its share. If even the smallest fraction of the potential represented by Operation Vanguard came to fruition, there would be all manner of new questions to answer and challenges to overcome, and much work to be done.
Much work, indeed, for all of us.
HARD NEWS
Kevin Dilmore
For Colleen, for whom a dedication is long overdue;
and for Dan, Larry, Deborah, Jane, and Paul—Star Trek
journalists without equal.
HISTORIAN’S NOTE
The events of this story take place in 2266, one week after the publication of Tim Pennington’s accounts of the disappearance of the Jinoteur system and the actions of Commodore Diego Reyes on Gamma Tauri IV ( Star Trek Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind).
THE TAURUS REACH
2266
1
“Biological perversions. That’swhat they have going on down there.”
Admittedly, I had been half listening to the Starfleet ensign at that particular point in our conversation, which was discourteous if nothing else given that he had paid for the round of drinks sitting before us. The young man had his urgent whisper to thank for snapping me back to attention. Evidently, he had reached the salient point toward which he had been steering for the twenty minutes or so that we had been there.
“Right, um, perversion,” I said. “Now, you’re not talking about unnatural monsters with a taste for human flesh or something, are you?”
The ensign’s look soured a bit. “I’m not sure you’re taking me very seriously, Mister Pennington.”
“It’s Tim, please,” I said, and smiled, hoping a little familiarity might soothe his offense. “And I apologize if I’m coming across as disinterested. Remember, it’s my role to be the skeptic here. I need to dig into this story, poke holes in it. As a reporter, I’m the advocate for all the Federation News Service readers who might have a harder time swallowing all of this than I.”
Wrinkles smoothed from his brow as he appeared to mull my words. In a moment, he nodded affirmatively. I guess he bought it—or at least enough of it to continue talking. “Like I was saying, the word is that somewhere in the lower decks, in a place that is so secret it doesn’t show up on the station’s schematics, is a research laboratory that houses specimens from across the Federation and outside it, too.”
“Okay, but consider it from my side, Ensiiign . . .” I drew out his rank long enough to fire whatever neurons in my brain would enable me to come up with his name. Damn me for messing it now.
“Um, Saura?”
“Of course, Saura. Sorry, mate,” I said, cursing myself silently. Regardless of whether I found the young man’s story credible to this point, I certainly could not rule out his offering up at least one fact or idea I’d not yet considered in this latest hunt for news. But there is no quicker way of closing up a source than to scarcely recall his identity in the middle of an interview. He appeared to shrug it aside, so I continued. “On the surface of things, it’s no surprise to anyone that Vanguard has research facilities on board. It’s the largest Federation presence in this sector. When you’re this far out from the center of civilization, it’s bound to have everything they can pack inside its hull.”
And pack the hull of Starbase 47 they did. At nearly one thousand meters tall and more than eight hundred meters wide, the place was more spaceport than Starfleet facility, housing a crew larger than five starships and half again as many private citizens—including me. Vanguard came complete with civilian residences, terrestrial green space, shopping and recreation centers, restaurants and bars such as Tom Walker’s, the one in which we sat. The station even housed hotel accommodations for deep-space passersby. Not that many people toured the Taurus Reach for the thrill of it all, but still, this was no mere way station for simply refueling and restocking a ship out of necessity. That said, I had been here more than a year, now, and there were plenty of places on Vanguard I certainly still had not seen. Secret research lab? I would not rule that out in the least.
“And you know as well as I do, Ensign, that the publicly available schematics of Starfleet facilities and equipment contain plenty of sensitive areas blacked out for security reasons. Even I can appreciate the boundary between the public’s right to know and the security of the Federation.”
“I’m a Starfleet officer, Mister Pennington,” he said. “I’m not arguing that aspect of it at all.”
“Fair enough,” I said before taking another sip of my drink. Just then, I caught the eye of an approaching server, a young and round-faced brunette I had seen here before only recently, and waved her off from interrupting us. Had I been here alone, I might have knocked back a pair of whiskeys by now. As I had simply doubled Ensign Saura’s request for some sort of foul-tasting fermented cider, a move to help instill a little camaraderie with him from the get-go, I continued to nurse the one I had rather than subject myself to more of it. And at that point, I was not going to buy us a second round, either. “So, what you’re suggesting is that it’s not the secrecy of the lab itself that alarms you, but what is happening inside it.”
“Exactly,” he said, leaning forward to me again. “From what I hear, our scientists are conducting genetic experiments on all sorts of species down there. Animals from Earth, creatures of all shapes and sizes from any number of worlds, and more.”
“What do you mean by more?”
“It’s not just animals that are being tested and experimented on,” Saura said. “It’s other races—sentient beings.”
“What?”
“That’s what I heard. There’s even a Tholian captive down there, being held against its will and having who knows what done to it by our scientists.”
The thought soured my mouth even worse than did my cider drink. In my time aboard Vanguard, there had been a number of aspects of Starfleet’s mission that I had learned on my own, and others of which I had been made aware by station personnel, including by the now-former commanding officer of the station, Commodore Diego Reyes. I knew full well the lengths that Reyes would go to fulfill Starfleet’s mission in the Taurus Reach, despite my not being privy to just precisely what that mission might fully involve. But I also knew Reyes well enough—at least I imagined so—that I believed he would not condone any such secretive inhumane actions on his watch. This was a man who just days before had all but given up his command, his career, his freedom itself not to hide but to reveal unflinching details about his role in Starfleet’s operations in this sector. Reyes not only allowed me to report on the fate of Jinoteur IV, a planet that inexplicably blinked out of existence entirely, he authorized the release of my own video from an alien city on that planet that may have been home to the Shedai, an ancient race of super-beings unlike any we have before seen. And if that were not enough, he chose me as his confessor for his decision to decimate the planet of Gamma Tauri IV, sacrificing every living thing on its entire surface in order to protect the quadrant, maybe the galaxy, from those very beings. As someone so willing to stop himself from being burdened by harbored knowledge, he did not seem the type to exploit another being without mercy. A tortured soul such as his seemed unlikely to create another, even complicitly.