Precipice

The only console still active aboard the Skyllawas T’Pry

I guess I should be used to this by now,Pe

The enemy ships were ostensibly on routine patrols of unclaimed regions of space, through which he and T’Pry

Pe

“Acknowledged,” T’Pry

T’Pry

Alarmed, he asked, “What? What just happened?”

“There is another vessel behind the moon,” T’Pry

She pointed at it. Pe

“Well, hello,” he said. “Who’s that, I wonder?”

“If recent news reports are accurate, it is most likely the U.S.S. Buenos Aires,presently assigned to Vanguard.” As the Skyllatumbled, they began to lose their view of the Starfleet ship. She craned her neck to study it for a few moments more. “Its ru

“Do you think they saw us?”

“It’s difficult to be certain,” T’Pry

The languid tumbling of the Skyllamomentarily returned the Buenos Airesto view outside the cockpit. Pe

“To passive sensors we should appear as a bit of random space rock or other debris,” T’Pry

Several minutes passed as the Skyllarolled slowly through space. The only sound Pe

“Looks like we’re in the clear,” he said. “Good reflexes on the kill switch, by the way.” He turned toward T’Pry

One of T’Pry

“You might wish to remember our vessel is stolen,” T’Pry

He frowned but nodded at the correction. “I guess you have a point,” he said.

“Furthermore,” she added, “you should keep in mind that I am at present a fugitive from Starfleet military justice, and you are a Federation citizen who has aided and abetted my flight from custody.”

“Say no more,” Pe

Looking out at the lazily turning cosmos, he took her meaning perfectly: for now, in the Taurus Reach, everyone was their enemy; no one was their friend.

All they had was each other.

21

June 3, 2267

“I nailed him,” Lieutenant Jackson said. “Right to the wall.”

Rana Desai looked up from the muddle of sworn affidavits, warrant applications, and defense-counsel motions littering her desk to see the chief of security leaning in her office’s open doorway. “You made an arrest already?”

“Even better,” Jackson said, walking into her office and beaming with pride. He held up a data slate. “I got a signed confession out of him.”

Desai held up one palm. “Back up: who is he, and to what has he confessed?”

Jackson handed the data slate to Desai. “Petty Officer First Class Dmitri Strout has confessed to willful breaches of this station’s operational security in exchange for monetary compensation from a third party.” He pointed to one of the guest chairs. “Mind if I … ?”

“Take a seat.”

Jackson sat down as Desai skimmed through the arrest report and Strout’s confession. It was a long file.

She looked up at Jackson. “Care to sum it up for me?”

“Glad to,” he said. “We’d received anonymous tips that Strout was accessing data for which he wasn’t cleared. He worked in the lower cargo facility, mostly handling munitions. But he was pulling entire cargo manifests, both incoming and outgoing, using his supervisor’s access code.”

“How did he acquire that?”

Jackson’s narrowed gaze telegraphed his doubts. “He claims Chief Langlois was careless and didn’t use the voiceprint safeguard, but her access logs show she did. I think it’s more likely someone helped him hack her terminal and copy her voiceprint, but I haven’t been able to get him to admit it yet.”

“I see,” Desai said. “Go on.”

“Our surveillance operative witnessed Strout accessing the terminal in Langlois’s office, copying classified manifests onto a data card, and depositing the card in some kind of a dead drop in one of the unoccupied sections on level sixteen. We recovered the data card and substituted it with one loaded with false information and marked with a tracking tag. So far, however, no one has come to check the dead drop.”

Desai chortled softly. “In other words, you got made.”

Jackson responded with a taut and long-suffering smile. “Yeah. I guess we did.” He shrugged. “Anyway, we conducted a search of his quarters and found evidence Mister Strout has been sending unauthorized transmissions to an Orion merchant vessel known as the Omari-Ekon.”

Nodding, Desai said, “I’m familiar with it. Continue.”

“We haven’t been able to break the encryption on his messages to the Omari-Ekon,but we know the cipher he used isn’t one of ours. Our liaison from Starfleet Intelligence says the most likely origin for the encryption key was Orion.”