In the shopping promenade of Stars Landing, the screen on the public subspace viewer kiosk I occupied was filled with printed words on a shaking sheet of paper. The voice coming from behind the paper was unmistakably my editor’s.
“ ‘Fact-finding continues in the case against a Starfleet officer accused of publicly revealing his orders to destroy a planet in the Taurus Reach.’ This is your lead,” came the voice, which by then sounded about as unsteady as the wavering paper.
“That one’s mine, yes,” I said, my back pressed against one wall of the viewer kiosk while I sat on a thinly cushioned stool anchored to the floor. “The Federation News Service just paid for an awfully expensive call for you to confirm that.”
The paper dropped from view within my vantage point to reveal the scowling face of a clearly disgusted Frankie Libertini, the latest in my career run of editors to oversee my work for the FNS. Assigned to the Alpha Centauri bureau, there must have been a dozen other editors closer in physical proximity to me than she was. My guess is that after Arlys Warfield dumped me, my supervision became an editorial short straw that Frankie was merely the latest to draw. Frankie was a lifer in FNS terms, having covered Starfleet before I was even born. Consequently, she kept a fairly hands-off approach to how I ran my beat here. For her to request a subspace video connection with me on Vanguard meant either she wanted to check on my general well-being or she wanted to look into my eyes while scolding me. Evidently, any good grace I had earned from my Reyes story was being exhausted more quickly than I had hoped.
“How about the fact-finding mission I just finished, Tim? Would you like to ask me about that?”
“I don’t follow.”
“I found no new facts in this alleged news story you filed today.” I laughed a little, but more from the sneer that tightened Frankie’s mouth than her clever turn of phrase. It did not endear me to her. “This is a recap story at best, and even that’s a generous word for it. Did you even write this today?”
“I did. At least, I wrote the lead you liked so well.”
“This is not the follow-up I assigned, and it’s not the followup that anyone who gives a damn about this story would want to read,” she said. “You might as well have come out and said that you don’t know what’s happened in the case for a week.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s happened in a week.”
“Why the hell not?”
“As you might imagine, I am not on the best of terms with the majority of my sources right now,” I said, looking over my shoulder at a pair of passing shoppers before leaning into the viewer’s recessed microphone. “And, to be honest, this isn’t the atmosphere most conducive to this particular conversation.”
“What, are you in a public booth or something?”
“I am, actually.”
“And what were you thinking when you connected with me from there?”
“Well, until you establish a Vanguard bureau office, I pretty much have to rely on my own resources.”
“What happened to calling me from home?”
“I’ve . . . run into a bit of a situation, there,” I said, not wanting to delve into the details of how my ex-wife had relieved our apartment of every single possession we once shared, including our personal communications equipment. I still had not put together the time or the resources to return the place to anything resembling actual occupancy. Had Lora chosen to rid me of my own clothing as well, I would probably still be wearing the same outfit I had on at the moment I discovered she had left and petitioned for divorce.
Several locks of Frankie’s salt-and-pepper up-do had fallen into her line of sight. She brushed them off her forehead before speaking in what seemed to be a calmer tone. “I can help you with an advance if you need passage out of there.”
“Well, it sounds like you’re traveling pretty light right now, and you are fresh out of sources. If there ever is a time to follow the story somewhere else, this sure seems like a good one.”
The idea momentarily struck me dumb. She raised a point that I had not until then even considered. Leave Vanguard? Hell, I had just started to finally piece together Starfleet’s interest in the Taurus Reach, let alone whatever Starfleet knew—or might hope to learn—from the remains of the Shedai civilization. Just abandoning my work here did not feel right at all.
“Thanks, Frankie, but I don’t think I’m ready to pull up stakes just yet,” I said. “Besides, follow what story somewhere else? If I’m going to stay on top of Starfleet activities in the Taurus Reach, where else would I do that from?”
“Maybe the story of the Taurus Reach is over,” she said. “As my uncle used to say, ‘A fish always starts to stink at the head.’ “
“A fish always . . . what? What does that mean? I don’t even know what the hell that means.”
“You rooted out Reyes, and he hadn’t been there that long. He probably didn’t have time to corrupt things too far down in his command chain,” she said. “You seem to be able to win the confidence of Starfleet officers . . . before they get themselves arrested, anyway. Go someplace new and start over. There’s plenty more Starfleet operations that could stand some scrutiny, and plenty of officers like Reyes.”
“But there’s not.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“What?”
“Um, there’s not many officers like Reyes,” I said. “That’s another reason worth staying.”
“So,” Frankie said, leaning a little closer to the pickup on her end of the conversation. “Maybe you’re a little too close to the story then?”
Once again, she had given me pause. I did not feel any real friendship with Reyes, but something evidently had happened to change his perception of our relationship in such a way that he could allow me to work with no interference from him. He all but encouraged me to file my stories with the Federation News Service as if he decided to dare Starfleet Command to further suppress the nature of Vanguard’s mission. And what was more, I trusted him—not simply his authority or his judgment, but him as a person—and that was something I had not done since, well, since T’Prynn.
“I don’t think I’m too close, Frankie.”
“Then figure yourself out and get back to work,” she said. “I don’t want to see your face from a public booth next time. Get yourself a viewer for home. I don’t want to hear any more about your sources cooling off. I’m sure you have warmed them up before. And I don’t want to get any more stories that read like something you write ahead in case you wake up from a two-day drunk with a deadline on your back.”
“Understood,” I said as the viewscreen went dark. Sliding off the kiosk stool, I walked among the Stars Landing shoppers as I weighed my options. Getting a home communications viewer would be simple enough. Getting a decent story sent Frankie’s way would take some leg work, but I knew it could be done once I tapped a few leads. Warming up some Starfleet sources, well, that seemed the most daunting part of my task. But I had a good idea of where to start.