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Precipice

Mack David (EN)

“Your medallion,” the man said, gesturing with his chin toward the mandala resting on Pe

The ma

“Odd,” the man said. “Such rarities are usually bequeathed only to family members.”

Blocking his path, the Vulcan said, “It comes from the commune at Kren’than, does it not?”

At the mention of T’Pry

“Yes, it does.”

“As I thought,” the man said.

The Vulcan handed him a scrap of fragile parchment that had been folded in half. As soon as Pe

There were three things written on it: a set of geographic coordinates, a precise time, and a date exactly three weeks in the future.

He folded it and put it in his pocket.

Other

Star Trek: Vanguardbooks

Harbinger

by David Mack

Summon the Thunder

by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

Reap the Whirlwind

by David Mack

Open Secrets

by Dayton Ward

STAR TREK ®

VANGUARD

Precipice

DAVID MACK

Based upon Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry

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Design by Alan Dingman

Art by Doug Drexler

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-1-4391-3011-7

ISBN 978-1-4391-6651-2 (ebook)

For my brother:

thanks for always being on my side.

Historian's Note

This story takes place in 2267, begi

Good and bad men are each

less so than they seem.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

Precipice

PART ONE

Such Deliberate Disguises

January 3, 2267

Disruptor pulses thundered against the unshielded hull of the Starfleet transport U.S.S. Nowlan.

On the Nowlan’s bridge, Diego Reyes clenched his jaw and winced. The forward bulkhead blasted inward. Reyes ducked behind the command chair as shrapnel flew past and pattered to the deck around him. Fine, metallic dust rained down on his shoulders and into his thi

He looked up from behind the chair and peered through bitter smoke to see the ship’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Brandon Easton, lying on the deck, his gold uniform tunic torn by jagged bits of metal and stained heavily with blood. The dull, unfixed quality of Easton’s stare was one Reyes had seen far too many times: the man was dead.

Reyes looked aft for Lieutenant Ket, the Bolian security officer who had escorted him from the brig to the bridge minutes earlier. To his dismay, Ket was also gone, the victim of a wedge of duranium lodged in his left temple.

At the forward console, two figures stirred.

The first was the female human navigator and helm officer. She had been lying on the floor, apparently stu

The two shaken officers, both dressed in black trousers and gold command shirts with lieutenant stripes on their cuffs, looked at Reyes with desperate expressions. “Sir?” said the woman, pushing her curly brown hair from her eyes. “What do we do?”

Years of command experience snapped Reyes into action. He nodded at the two officers. “Take your posts.” He brushed the grit from the seat of the command chair, then settled into it. “What’re your names, lieutenants?”

“Paul Sniadach.”

“Bronwen Hodgkinson.”

For a moment, Reyes almost forgot that just five weeks earlier he had been convicted in a Starfleet court-martial, stripped of his rank, and sentenced to ten years in a penal colony. All it had taken was a surprise attack by an unidentified and heavily armed pirate vessel to remind him of who he’d been before being branded a criminal: