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The final installment in a brand-new three-part digital-first Star Trek: New Frontier e-novel from New York Times bestselling author Peter David!

Captain Mackenzie Calhoun and the crew of the U.S.S. Excalibur are back, picking up three months after the stunning events depicted in New Frontier: Blind Man’s Bluff. Calhoun's search of Xenex has failed to find any survivors, and now he is bound and determined to track down the race that killed them—the D'myurj and their associates, the Brethren—and exact vengeance upon them. His search will take the Excalibur crew into a pocket universe, where he discovers not only the homeworld of the D’myurj, but another race that shares Calhoun's determination to obliterate his opponents. But is this new race truly an ally…or an even greater threat?

Peter David is a prolific New York Times bestselling author whose career, and continued popularity, spans more than two decades. He has worked in every conceivable media&mdash;television, film, books (fiction, nonfiction, and audio), short stories, and comic books&mdash;and acquired loyal followings in all of them. In the literary field, he has had more than a hundred novels published. He lives in New York with his wife and four children.

wikipedia Peter David
Peter David website

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ISBN 978-1-4767-9095-4

Excalibur

i.

CAPTAIN MACKENZIE CALHOUN spun around the moment he materialized on the transporter platform, half expecting to see that the Visionary had not beamed up with them. But no, there he was, big as life. He was looking around in what was clearly borderline panic as he saw that he had been beamed onto a Federation starship.

Kebron was there as well, along with Meyer and Boyajian. “The others! Where are the others?” said Calhoun.

Halliwell was manipulating the controls. “I have ten people in the buffers, Captain. Step off the platform and I’ll start bringing them up.”

“Ten? Where—?”

Kebron turned to Calhoun. “We had several fatalities, Captain.”

Dammit.

He looked at the Visionary. Then, in a very low voice, he said to Halliwell, “How long can you keep them in the buffers?”

Halliwell looked somewhat surprised by the question but then said, “Indefinitely, theoretically. But I wouldn’t recommend—”

That was all Calhoun had to hear.

He strode over to the Visionary and grabbed him by the front of his clothing. The Visionary tried to push him away and, when that didn’t work, started to say his name.

He didn’t get a word out because Calhoun hit him in the face so hard that he nearly shattered the Visionary’s jaw. The blue light that suffused the Visionary flared in response to the impact. A thick liquid started to seep from his mouth.

Calhoun was just getting started.

He slammed the Visionary in the gut, doubling him over. Then he struck him again, this time in the side of the head. The Visionary would have fallen over, but Calhoun gripped his arm and kept him upright, shoving him against the wall and slugging him repeatedly in the stomach.

“Captain!” called Kebron, but Calhoun wasn’t listening. He was absolutely blind with rage. He didn’t want to hear anything the Visionary said. He just wanted to beat him and keep on beating him until he could never walk or talk again. He wanted to beat him to death. Calhoun could have simply wiped him out of existence with his phaser, but that would have been much too quick.

He would have beaten him until his skull was crushed and he had no blood left in his body because it had spilled all over the transporter room deck. It was Kebron who stopped him. The security officer grabbed Calhoun’s fist, which was covered with the blueish ooze that was seeping out of the Visionary. Calhoun tried to pull away, but he couldn’t break Kebron’s grip.

“Stop now,” Kebron said.

Calhoun didn’t listen. His mind was thick with so much rage that the rest of the world had ceased to exist. All he could think about was killing the Visionary. Gone was his concern about taking prisoners or bringing anyone to justice for their crimes. All that mattered was crushing the life from the Visionary’s body.

Calhoun tried to attack Kebron.

It did not go well.

Kebron did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed Calhoun, momentarily immobilizing the infuriated captain. Then he shook him violently.

Under other circumstances, Calhoun might have been able to mount a defense against Kebron. Perhaps in a one-on-one battle, Calhoun might even have found a way to defeat him. But at that moment, Mackenzie Calhoun was not in his right mind. A naked fury was rampaging through him, and so he was unable to think clearly. As a result he could not defend himself as Kebron continued to shake him. His head snapped back and forth and he felt himself starting to get dizzy.

“All right,” he finally said.

Kebron didn’t let go of him immediately, although he did stop shaking him. “Are you sure?” he said cautiously.

“Yes,” Calhoun managed to say.

The security officer released him. Calhoun didn’t say anything at first. Instead he simply stared at the unmoving Visionary. He was still alive; Calhoun had not succeeded in beating him to death. It wasn’t happenstance; Calhoun could have killed him instantly. He had wanted to prolong the beating for as long as possible. What was the point in simply killing him? The trick was to prolong the suffering.

The Visionary managed to focus on him long enough to whisper, “Kill me. Please . . . kill me.” Then his consciousness fled him and he slumped to one side.

“Go to hell,” Calhoun said. He did not, however, continue his attack. Instead he walked over to the Visionary and lifted him off the deck. “Halliwell, bring everyone else up here.”

“You can’t,” said Meyer. “They’re all unconscious. We managed to break them out of the tubes, but none of them have come around.”

“Beam them directly to sickbay,” said Calhoun. “Kebron, alert the doctor that she’s about to have a few new patients.”

“Yes, sir,” said Kebron.

Calhoun nodded and then headed out of the transporter room toward sickbay.

Whereupon Kebron turned to Halliwell and said, “You did not see that.”

“See what?” she asked.

ii.

CALHOUN WALKED INTO sickbay, still carrying the Visionary. Doctor Lochley was, as luck would have it, tending to the D’myurj historian whom they had found earlier on the derelict vessel. Quentis was sitting up and sipping what appeared to be some sort of broth. When he saw the Visionary, his eyes widened in surprise. Calhoun knew immediately that Quentis recognized him. Either that or he was simply astounded at the condition that the Visionary was in. “What happened?” he whispered.

The question was echoed by Doctor Kathleen Lochley as she quickly came over. “What happened to him?”

“He was beaten up,” said Calhoun as he laid the Visionary on the nearest bio-bed.

“By whom?”

“By me,” said Calhoun. He turned and stared at her. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Lochley returned his stare, and the captain could see cold fury in her eyes. She pursed her lips for a moment and then called out, “I need some help here.”

Two nurses immediately came over, bringing a cart of drugs to try to stabilize the Visionary. Lochley was studying the readouts while passing a medical tricorder over him. “Internal bleeding. Four cracked ribs. Dislocated jaw.” She glanced at Calhoun. “Tell me he posed a threat.”

“No,” said Calhoun. “He was completely helpless. I was ready to beat him to death but Kebron stopped me.”

“I’m going to have to report this, Captain,” the doctor said, the anger evident in her voice. “This is inexcusable.”

“He was responsible for wiping out all life on Xenex,” said Calhoun. “Be sure to include that in your report.”

Lochley paused a moment in her examination. She looked as if she wanted to say something but apparently didn’t have any idea specifically what that would be.

Quentis’s gaze was fixed upon the unmoving Visionary. Calhoun noticed the intensity with which the D’myurj historian was staring. “You know him.”

Quentis managed a nod. “That is Sulentus. A very rich and powerful individual. You are correct: he was the one who oversaw the destruction of your world.”

“How would you feel if I killed him?”

Quentis blinked, as if uncertain whether Calhoun was serious or not. When he realized that he was, he said, “It is not my place to feel one way or the other. If you were to kill him, I would understand. By your standards, he is evil.”

“And by yours?”

“I’ve never been one to care about good or evil,” Quentis said indifferently. “These are standards that are randomly applied by others who have their own priorities. What you consider evil, others would believe to be acceptable.”

“I’m reasonably sure that overseeing the destruction of an entire world’s population is evil by anyone’s definition.”

“Not by the people who committed the deed.”

Calhoun made a dismissive gesture. “I’m not interested in discussing this with you. Tell me that you feel outrage and, given the opportunity, you’d kill him, then we’ll have something to talk about. Until then, there isn’t anything for us to discuss.”

“You need to set aside your anger, Captain—”

Calhoun advanced on him so fast that Quentis automatically reared back in fear. Before he could draw any closer, Lochley was standing between them. “Get out,” she said tightly to Calhoun. “I have enough going on in here. I’ve just had ten unconscious patients beamed into my sickbay, and if there’s one thing I don’t need, it’s to be riding herd on a captain who might, at any point, attempt to beat another one of my patients to death.” When Calhoun didn’t budge, her voice lowered. “Captain, I swear, you may be the commander of this vessel, but this is my sickbay. If you don’t get out in the next five seconds, I will exercise my authority, call security, and have you forcibly escorted out of here. Do I make myself clear?”

Slowly Calhoun managed to nod. His hand drifted toward his phaser for a moment, still firmly affixed to his hip. Then, without another word, he turned and strode out of sickbay.

He walked briskly down the corridor, his mind roiling with concerns. As he passed his quarters, something suddenly grabbed him by the back of his uniform shirt. He yanked himself free, grabbing for his phaser, only to see at the last moment that it was Burgoyne.

“Get in,” Burgoyne said, hir teeth gritted, indicating Calhoun’s quarters.

“We don’t have time for—”

“Now!”

Calhoun was so startled by the snarl from Burgoyne that he automatically stepped into his quarters, the door having slid open to receive him. Burgoyne followed him in and, the moment the door closed, shouted, “Are you out of your mind?!”

Immediately Calhoun understood. “You heard.”

“Of course I heard! It’s a small ship! Halliwell told me. She said that Kebron told her not to say anything, but she did anyway! Because what you did scared the hell out of her. And frankly it scared the hell out of me as well! Have you forgotten who you are? Have you forgotten how a starship captain is supposed to behave?”

“He killed my—”

“I know! That doesn’t give you the right to kill him.”

“In the society that I grew up in, it does.”

“You’re not in that society now,” said Burgoyne heatedly. “And I’m not talking about the fact that that society doesn’t exist anymore. I mean that when you were a teenager, you joined Starfleet. That comes with rules and regulations that you’re supposed to follow, and I’m reasonably sure that not beating prisoners to death is on that list! If you are unable to follow those rules anymore, then you need to step down as commander of this vessel!”

“Putting who in charge? You?”

“It’s not a position that I want, and you know that. But I’ll do my duty. Your actions have terrorized one of your crew and I’m reasonably sure it’s going to disturb anyone who hears of it. What the hell were you thinking?”

“That I wanted him dead.”

“You don’t get to make that decision! You don’t! And if you believe that you do, then trust me, you won’t have to step down, because I will personally have you removed from command! And I’m reasonably sure that Doctor Lochley will give me the medical clearance I need to accomplish that!”

“You’re probably right about that,” Calhoun had to admit. He considered the situation for a moment and then said, “For someone who previously had problems approaching me about discussing your concerns, you’ve certainly managed to overcome them.”

“The situation required me to do so.”

The two of them stared at each other for what seemed a long time, then Calhoun—somewhat to his surprise—lowered his gaze. “I scared Halliwell, huh?”

“I feel reasonably certain in saying that your actions scared everyone who witnessed them. The question is: Are you going to continue to try and kill our prisoners? Because if so, I will have you kept confined to quarters.”

“I think you’d have a hard time doing that.”

“I’m willing to give it a shot.”

“Yes, I imagine you would,” said Calhoun.

He had been sitting on the edge of his bed the entire time, but now he flopped back onto the mattress and stared at the overhead. “I still want to kill him,” he said softly.

“No, you don’t. Because if you did, then you would have done it,” said Burgoyne. S/he walked over to a nearby chair and sat down. “We both know you could have. You could have snapped his neck in seconds. You could have phasered him into random atoms. Instead you just pounded on him. And I don’t put that forward as any sort of excuse. But I firmly believe that your inner conscience was preventing you from killing him.”

“Really? Because I believe that it was my desire to have his death take as long as possible—that’s what prevented me from killing him. So you can attribute it to positive attributes all you want, but I remain convinced that I was just prolonging his death. Another minute or so and he would have been gone.”

“Instead Kebron stopped you, as you knew that he would.”

“It’s ridiculous for us to keep discussing this, Burgy. We are clearly not going to agree.”

“We’d better,” said Burgoyne. “We’d better agree that you’re not going to assault him again.”

“I brought him to sickbay.”

“You could change your mind.”

I could. I could change my mind. I could storm back into sickbay, phaser in hand, and blow him to bits. That would certainly put an end to it.

Calhoun considered it. He truly did. He knew that such an action would have an irrevocable impact on how his crew perceived him. He would no longer be the reliable commander. He would be the lunatic who took justice into his own hands and assassinated another being simply because . . .

He destroyed Xenex.

Was that enough of a reason? Was that sufficient cause to just toss the entirety of his Starfleet oath and career out a photon torpedo tube?

Part of him wanted to believe that it was.

The fact of the matter was that Burgoyne was right. Deep down, Calhoun had known that Kebron would step in and stop him from committing a fatal act of battering. It was even possible that Calhoun had counted on it. And Kebron had certainly come through.

“He needs to be tried,” said Calhoun finally. “We need to bring him back to our universe and try him for genocide.”

“You realize he won’t be executed,” said Burgoyne. “Can you live with that?”

“If Starfleet manages to bury him in the worst hole we have for a prison, I suppose that will have to be sufficient.”

“All right.”

Calhoun stood, his brow furrowed. “What’s happening with the Dayan? Are they continuing their assault on the homeworld?”

“They are indeed.”

“We need to stop them.” He stared at Burgoyne. “You seem surprised that I’d say that.”

“Honestly? I am. Initially you seemed perfectly sanguine with the idea of the Dayan obliterating the entirety of their world.”

For a moment Calhoun’s mind raced back to the destruction that he had seen. All equally horrific, but the one that stayed with him was the dead mother, clutching the body of her equally dead baby to her in a protective gesture. In that moment, as much as he had wanted to avoid it, the D’myurj became more than the destructive race that had obliterated his people.

“I’ve had a change of heart,” said Calhoun. “Let’s get up to the bridge. I need to talk them out of destroying the D’myurj. Because if anyone should be trying to avoid an entire race being obliterated, it should be me.”

Burgoyne smiled at that. “Happy to hear you say that, Captain. I was concerned you’d gone away.”

“I had, but I’m back.”

iii.

WHEN CALHOUN WALKED onto the bridge, he saw the collective looks of his crew. He knew immediately that Halliwell had been rather loose tongued for someone who had told Kebron that she would keep Calhoun’s behavior between them.

He could see the uncertainty in their eyes. He wasn’t remotely concerned that he was looking at an insurrection. These were trained Starfleet officers. There was no way that they would actively turn against him. But he could see that his actions had diminished their confidence in him. He wasn’t entirely sure what, if anything, he could do to get it back.

Be the best commander you can be. Let them know, by your actions, that they can trust you.

The Dayan ship was visible on the screen, and it was still firing upon the world below them. Part of Calhoun thought that he could see the planet shuddering as the blasts hammered away. He could not even imagine the level of slaughter that the world was enduring.

And they were responsible. Excalibur had come here and obliterated the world’s defensive capabilities, allowing the Dayan free rein to annihilate every living being on the planet.

Except the Dayan ship regenerates. They should have been able to endure whatever barrage the D’myurj hurled at them. Why did they need us to destroy the defensive mechanisms? This doesn’t make any sense at all.

There was no use dwelling on it now. Calhoun had to focus on the situation that was before them. “Get the Dayan. Now,” said Calhoun briskly.

“Yes, sir,” said Tobias. A moment later: “On-screen, Captain.”

The image of Nyos appeared on the screen. He was grinning broadly. “Captain! Are you calling to congratulate us on disposing of our mutual enemies?”

“You need to stop firing on them.”

Nyos’s smile remained in place, but the expression in his eyes made it clear that he was not thrilled with what Calhoun had said. “We have been over this, Captain. You knew going in what our intention was. You thoroughly supported it. We agreed that the D’myurj did not deserve to live.”

“There are females and children down there,” said Calhoun. “To the best of our knowledge, they have done nothing to deserve a death sentence. I am asking you now to cease fire upon them.”

“And if we refuse?”

Calhoun’s response was to his crew, not Nyos: “Tobias, activate the cloaking device. Kebron, take us to red alert and bring weapons on-line.”

The red alert klaxon promptly screamed through the bridge. Since it was not a status that Calhoun tended to employ, the noise was unsettling for his crew.

If he was attempting to make an impression on Nyos, he succeeded. There was clear astonishment on Nyos’s face. “You are serious? You truly intend to engage us in battle?”

“If necessary,” said Calhoun. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to it. He hadn’t forgotten Burgoyne’s candidly negative assessment of just how slight a chance they would have in a pitched battle against the Dayan warship. But he simply couldn’t sit here and let them continue to pound away at the planet’s surface. He had to do something, and if it meant engaging in pitched battle against an opponent who would likely demolish them, so be it.

Nyos stared at him incredulously. Then Calhoun watched as one of Nyos’s men came over and whispered something into his ear. He listened for a moment and nodded. Then in a loud voice, he called, “Cease fire.”

Calhoun couldn’t quite believe it. He had been braced for a major head-to-head battle, and instead the Dayan had given in. This was enough to prompt him to become immediately suspicious. He tried to push it away but he wasn’t able to accomplish it. “Thank you,” he said formally to Nyos. “I appreciate your display of mercy.”

“What display of mercy?” Nyos asked. “I was simply informed that our job here is finished. The D’myurj are dead. We have killed each and every one of them. We are now going to survey the immediate area and see if there are any other vessels in the area. If there are, we will dispose of them as well. We shall be back shortly. Do try not to go anywhere while we’re gone.”

With that offhand comment, the Dayan ship pivoted and angled away from the planet.

For a long moment there was silence on the Excalibur bridge. Then Calhoun said, “Tobias . . .”

She was ahead of him. “Scanning the planet’s surface now, Captain. A thorough scan will take twenty minutes.”

“Tell me what you find out,” said Calhoun distantly. Slowly he got to his feet. “I’ll be back shortly.”

“Where are you going, Captain?” asked Burgoyne.

“To inform the last of the D’myurj that their people are dead.”

iv.

QUENTIS AND THE newly identified Sulentus were in adjoining beds. Sulentus was saying nothing, simply staring up at the overhead. When Calhoun entered the room, however, Sulentus took one look at him and immediately flinched, as if afraid that Calhoun was about to start pounding on him again.

Doctor Lochley immediately strode forward, her face set in a determined frown. “Do we have an issue, Captain?” she demanded.

He put up a hand to ward her off. Speaking as softly as he could, he said, “I simply need to convey some information to your patients, if I may.”

She could discern from Calhoun’s attitude that he wasn’t here to start any trouble. Nevertheless, the doctor remained where she was as she nodded to him, indicating that he should speak.

He stared at the two D’myurj and, to his surprise, found it difficult to talk for a moment. Then, finally, he spoke: “I feel obligated to inform you that the Dayan have destroyed your people. As near as we can determine so far, no members of your race remain alive. We are continuing to scan your world to see if any have managed to escape, but so far the results do not look promising.”

Sulentus screamed.

Calhoun had not been sure what sort of reaction to expect from Sulentus, but a high-pitched screech had not seemed likely. But screech he did, and Calhoun knew that it was a sound that he would take with him to his grave.

Lochley was shouting for sedatives as Sulentus continued screaming inarticulately, babbling words in some language that the Universal Translator didn’t know. Then it seemed as if Sulentus suddenly remembered where he was, and he shifted his attention to Calhoun and started shouting at him in a voice that was low and deep and sounded like an animal’s snarl. Apparently his dislocated jaw had been healed.

“Are you satisfied, Calhoun?” he demanded. “Your world is dead and now mine is dead! The fate of the Xenexians has been visited on my world as well! We are both men with no race! You must be so satisfied from this! You must be so pleased! Go ahead, Calhoun!” And he raised his voice, which was cracking with every other word. “Go ahead and laugh! Go on and bark your triumph! You have your revenge! All you had to do was kill innocents and women and children! Laugh, Calhoun! Shower me with your joy!”

Lochley was now at Sulentus’s side with a hypo. At first Sulentus took no notice of her because his ire was focused on Calhoun. But he spotted her just before she injected him and slapped the hypo out of her hand. “Come on, Calhoun!” he howled, and suddenly his hand lashed out and grabbed the startled Lochley by the throat. “Why are you standing there? Finish it! Finish me!”

Calhoun was across the room, trying to pry Sulentus’s hand from Lochley’s throat. To his astonishment, he was unable to. The D’myurj was out of his mind and his fury was giving him extraordinary strength. “Come on! Finish me! I’m giving you an excuse! Kill me to save your doctor’s life! Take out your weapon and shoot me down!”

At that moment, if Calhoun had had a phaser on his hip, he might well have done it. But he had left the weapon back in his quarters.

Lochley was becoming pale, trying to yank his hand clear of her throat. She wasn’t having any luck.

And suddenly, before Calhoun could move, Quentis was standing next to Sulentus. He was holding the hypo that Sulentus had struck out of Lochley’s hand, and before Sulentus could react, Quentis shoved the hypo into the Visionary’s upper arm and drove it home.

Sulentus arched his back and gasped, and his hand immediately fell from Lochley’s throat. The doctor staggered, and Calhoun was there to catch her before she fell. Two nurses ran up to either side of her and eased her into the nearest chair. “I’m fine,” she managed to say, but her voice was a rasp. “Thank you for intervening.”

“You’re welcome,” said Calhoun.

She fired him an annoyed glance and said, “I was talking to him,” and she indicated Quentis.

“I am very sorry that you had to be a part of that,” said Quentis. “His reaction was inappropriate.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Calhoun with grim amusement. “Losing your race can prompt some rather extreme reactions.” He paused and then looked at Quentis curiously. “Are you all right? It was your race as well. Your family, your—”

“I know,” said Quentis. He was still looking at Sulentus, but now he shifted his attention to Calhoun. “I was wondering if you could provide me a service, Captain. Bring me down to the planet’s surface, to my home . . . or at least what I assume is left of my home.”

“I very much doubt there’s anything there that you’ll want to see.”

“There are my scrolls.”

“Scrolls?” Calhoun frowned. “I’m not sure I understand . . .”

“My history. The detailed history I wrote of our people.”

“You wrote it on scrolls?”

“It was the ancient way of my people,” said Quentis with a shrug. “I felt it appropriate that if I were going to keep a history of the D’myurj, it should be done in the traditional way. It is my life’s work, and I would like to see if it survived the Dayan assault. I am not trying to trick you, Captain,” he said when he saw the suspicion on Calhoun’s face. “I have no reason to attempt any manner of trick. My family, I assume, is deceased.”

“You don’t seem especially concerned.”

“I have not fully assimilated the reality of it, I suspect. It is very likely,” he said with forced dispassion, “that once the full scope of the situation descends on me, I will have an utter breakdown. At the moment, though, I am simply focused on salvaging what may remain of my life’s work. I am, after all, a historian, now with no race of which to keep a history. At the very least, I would like to see if the record I spent so much time maintaining managed to survive.”

Slowly Calhoun nodded. “All right. But I’m going with you.”

“Of course.”

“And I’ll bring a security team.”

“I would have expected that.”

Sector 221-G

XYON HAD NEVER been so happy over the prospect of getting out of a section of space as he was at that moment. If he never returned to Sector 221-G, it would be far too soon for him.

He sat at his control board, staring at the viewscreen as space rolled past. “How long until we’re out of here, Lyla?”

His hologram aide stepped into view. Her long white dress fluttered around her knees and her blonde hair hung about her shoulders. “At present speed, three minutes, twenty-seven seconds.”

“Good. I can’t put this place behind us soon enough.”

There was a co-pilot’s chair next to him, and Lyla dropped down into it, gazing lovingly at Xyon. At least it seemed loving to him. That made sense, since that was what she was programmed for. Lyla was, in every way, a full-service assistant.

“Why?” she asked, her eyes wide with curiosity.

He shook his head. “It’s stupid.”

“It concerns you, Xyon, so therefore it cannot possibly be stupid.”

“Ohhh . . . it’s that Shintar Han guy,” Xyon said with obvious irritation. “I thought I could work with him to somehow mess up things for my father.”

“And did you?”

“Not really, no. Robin Lefler turned herself over to New Thallon, and McHenry’s with her, and Dad’s probably gone through the wormhole by now and he’s off somewhere else and I’m . . .”

His voice trailed off.

“You’re where?” she asked. When he didn’t immediately reply, she prodded him gently. “Where are you, Xyon?”

“I’m nowhere,” he said, so softly that she could scarcely hear him. “Floating in space in the middle of nowhere. Pissed off with my father, except . . .”

“Except you’re wondering why?”

Slowly he nodded. “I mean, it’s so easy to blame him for the death of our people. So damned easy. Except he really didn’t do anything to them. It was that other race, the D’myurj. They and their associates, the Brethren. They’re the monsters who showed up and destroyed everyone on Xenex. Dad wasn’t responsible. From what I understand, he was driven over the edge by it. Spent months wandering around on Xenex, long beyond the point where it made any sense, looking for someone to have survived.”

“And you are just realizing this now? You didn’t know it before?”

“Yeah, I knew it before. But I had so much anger that was threatening to eat me alive, it made it much easier to have someone to blame.”

“So what are you saying? That you regret the way in which you treated your father?”

“I don’t know, Lyla.” He slumped back in his chair. “I don’t know what I think anymore, what I believe anymore. I mean, it felt so good going onto the ship and doing something that I knew would definitely screw them up. Planting that tracing device so that their brand new cloaking device wouldn’t do a damned thing for them. But now, I don’t know. It seems pointless. Cheap. A waste of time.”

“Perhaps that’s because it was pointless, cheap, and a waste of time,” Lyla suggested, sounding entirely too chipper about it.

He glanced at her and then, despite his foul mood, actually laughed. “You certainly have a way of getting to the core of the problem, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure. What is the core of the problem?”

“The problem,” he said slowly, “is that I may well have screwed things up for my father and his ship. And I felt really good about that. But the more I think about it, and the more I think about the fact that Robin Lefler is now a prisoner on New Thallon and Shintar Han is going to do who-knows-what to her, and my father can be targeted by Thallonian vessels . . .”

“You’re beginning to feel as if you are evil?”

He turned and stared at her incredulously. “Evil? Where did you get that from?”

“You are not evil?”

“No!”

“Through your actions, you endangered hundreds of lives, including that of your own father. You caused a woman and her infant to become prisoners on New Thallon. You have caused harm to befall more or less everyone who ever counted themselves as your friend. By what definition are you not evil?”

He had no answer.

Finally, he found one.

“Damn,” he said.

D’Myurj Homeworld

THE SECURITY TEAM consisted only of Zak Kebron. Truthfully, Calhoun wasn’t really expecting there to be any trouble since the population had been effectively annihilated. He brought Kebron along simply to play it safe.

Unlike his previous sojourn to the surface, he did not see quite as much devastation as he previously had. That was because the coordinates that Quentis had provided them were not in the midst of a city but in a relatively isolated area. Nevertheless, it had not been spared the assault of the Dayan weaponry. A short distance from where the away team had materialized, there were the blasted remains of what had obviously been a house. There was nothing left of it; it had been shattered to pieces. Calhoun heard Quentis gasp when he saw it, but then he regained control of himself. He walked toward it quickly, moving surprisingly fast for someone who had been on his back in sickbay mere hours before.

Calhoun and Kebron followed him, neither of them speaking.

Quentis reached the rubble that had presumably been his home and tried to pull aside some of the debris. But his upper body strength was relatively nonexistent. Kebron stepped forward and silently gestured for Quentis to step aside, which he did, and then Kebron set to work as he tossed aside chunks as fast as he could. Quentis stood there and simply watched him.

Within thirty seconds, Kebron had uncovered a body.

Not the entirety of it at first; just an arm. Kebron hauled the rest of the rubble from it, and the body of a male D’myurj was discovered. Half of his face had been crushed by the debris that had fallen upon him.

“That is my son,” Quentis said softly. “Or what is left of him.”

“I’m sorry,” said Calhoun. “Do you want us to . . . ? Do you need a moment?”

Quentis didn’t respond at first. Instead he walked over toward the body and knelt next to it. He gripped the young man’s hand as if he were somehow capable of willing life back into his body. He whispered something under his breath that Calhoun was not able to make out, although he assumed that it was some manner of prayer. Once he was done, he released the hand and stood. Without seeming to be aware that he was doing it, he wiped his hands on the side of his clothing. Then he pointed toward the far end of the damage. “Over there,” he said. “Would you mind digging over there?”

Kebron nodded as best he could, since nodding was not exactly possible for his anatomy. He made his way over to where Quentis had instructed him and began to shove pieces to either side. It took a few minutes this time, but eventually his boot struck against something metal.

“That’s it,” said Quentis.

Kebron reached down and gripped hard the sides of whatever the metal object was that his searching had uncovered. He pulled upward, and the container caught the red light of the setting sun against it. It was a large cube, and it seemed capable of withstanding quite a lot of battering, which it obviously had. It was about a meter on each side, and Kebron walked over to Quentis with it. He held it out to Quentis, who took it from him without a word. Quentis sagged slightly under the weight of it but managed to keep it upright.

“Is that it?” asked Calhoun.

Quentis nodded. “My life’s work. You may read it if you would be interested. It might help you to know something about the race that you destroyed.”

“The Dayan destroyed you.”

“How did they overcome our defensive arrays?” asked Quentis. “The arrays that would have battered them back the moment that they were perceived. I am aware of some things, Captain. I listen to conversations in sickbay. I am aware of your cloaking device.” He was speaking in a consistent, steady voice, keeping it remarkably even. But the anger was there, bubbling just below the surface. “You were the ones who made it possible for them to destroy us.”

“They could have done it themselves,” said Calhoun.

“Yes, they could have. But they didn’t. They chose you to aid them.”

“Why? Why did they?”

Despite his inner fury, Quentis actually managed to smile at that. “Isn’t it obvious, Calhoun? They were testing you. Testing the efficacy of your cloaking device. Seeing just what manner of technology you have. There are only two reasons for it: Because they are testing the power of a tech that they think can be used against them. Or they are testing the power of a tech that they are planning to take for themselves. The simplest way for them to do that is for you to show it to them. Which, of course, you did. Very considerate of you, that was.”

Calhoun stared at him. He hated to admit it to himself, but it made sense. He was sure that the Dayan vessel should have been able to withstand the assault from the D’myurj satellites and ground weaponry. The notion that they were testing what the Excalibur was capable of was the only thing that made sense.

Quentis was extending the box to Calhoun. “Take it. Read it at your leisure. See the full details of our existence. As far as you are concerned, the major accomplishment of our existence was the destruction of your people. But we did some things that were laudable. Take it, I said.”

Calhoun took the box from him. It had a bit of weight to it; he could see why Quentis had had trouble holding it steady.

“And now,” said Quentis, “I would like you to do me the service of killing me.”

Calhoun blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“I told you, I no longer have a job. I am a historian for a race that no longer has a history. My son is dead. My wife died some years ago. The rest of my race is dead, including my fellow historians. There is, quite simply, no reason for me to go on. So if you would be so kind”—and he nodded toward Calhoun’s phaser—“I would very much appreciate it if you took that weapon of yours, aimed it at me, and fired.”

“I’m not going to do that,” said Calhoun.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not an executioner.”

“You and your crew effectively aided in the extermination of my race. How is this different? Because you have to look into my eyes as you do it?” Quentis was starting to lose control of himself, his voice rising along with his ire. “Because you actually have to look upon the result of your action while you’re doing it, rather than simply the aftermath? Or are you a coward, Calhoun? Afraid to do the job when it is your own finger on the trigger?”

Calhoun said nothing, did nothing. He simply stood there.

“You disgust me,” Quentis finally said when it became obvious that Calhoun was not about to gun him down. “If you had the courage of your convictions, you would not hesitate to grant my wish. But no, you are perfectly okay with killing my people as long as you are not the one doing it. You can give the orders and have others carry them out for you. You selfish bastard.”

“That’s right. I’m selfish,” said Calhoun, and his own anger was starting to build. “And if it’s of any help, I know exactly how you feel because your people did it to me. And the fact of the matter is that I wanted to kill myself as well. You think I didn’t go through that? That’s the real reason I stayed on Xenex for three months. Not because I thought I was going to find someone. Because that’s where I wanted to die. There are many cliffs on Xenex. All over. Hundreds, thousands of kilometers high. And at the end of every single day, I stood on the edge of a cliff and stared at the drop and kept trying to find the inner strength to jump off it. Every. Damned. Day. I wrestled with the question of whether to keep on living my lousy existence or simply putting an end to it. For three months. And every day I discovered that ending my life was not an acceptable solution.”

“I’m very happy for you, Captain,” said Quentis sarcastically. “If it is all the same to you, I am not interested in spending the next three months in a voyage of self-discovery. Are you going to shoot me? Yes or no?”

“No,” said Calhoun.

“Fine. Then if you will excuse me, I am going to see if I can find a cliff to throw myself from.”

It was at that moment that the sound of the Dayan transporter sounded from nearby. It was enough to cause Calhoun’s stomach to knot up; the Dayan were unquestionably the last individuals that he wanted to see at this point. Unfortunately, it could not be helped; they were transporting to the surface, and there wasn’t a damned thing that Calhoun could do about it.

Seconds later Nyos and several of his men had materialized. They seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood, and Calhoun could readily surmise why.

“My good captain!” said Nyos with excess cheer. “How splendid to see you! And look who you have with you! The last of the D’myurj!”

“One of the two last,” said Quentis, before Calhoun could stop him. “There is a second one in the Excalibur sickbay.”

“Is there!” Nyos sounded insufferably cheered to hear that bit of information. Calhoun was starting to regret that he had not blown Quentis to bits when he had the opportunity. “How marvelous. So which one are you?” he said to Quentis.

“I am Quentis. I am a historian.”

“Well, it seems to me that you are out of work.”

“I was just making that same point to Captain Calhoun.”

“It is a valid one. We have surveyed the area and have not uncovered any remaining vessels. It appears that we have managed to destroy the entirety of your race.”

“Except for me. And the one on the Excalibur. The one who was responsible for destroying the whole of Captain Calhoun’s race.”

“Is that a fact!” Nyos seemed insufferably pleased to have learned this particular fact. “Then it seems that we will be able to attend to your needs as well, Captain. We will destroy the last of the D’myurj and thus satisfy your desire for vengeance.”

“That would be most considerate,” said Quentis. He fired an annoyed look at Calhoun. “I asked the captain to kill me, but he seemed reluctant to fulfill my request.”

“I assure you there will be no reluctance on our end,” said Nyos.

He gestured toward his men and they immediately unslung their rifles.

Oh, this is not good, thought Calhoun.

Kebron immediately stepped between the Dayan and Calhoun, a gesture that Calhoun appreciated, even as he worried that it wouldn’t be of any help.

“Excellent!” said Quentis, which was about the worst thing he could have said. He tried to step around Kebron, but Calhoun reached out and grabbed him by the arm. Quentis turned and gaped at Calhoun. “They’re perfectly willing to do what you refused to do! What in the world is your problem, Captain?”

“The problem is that you’re my prisoner,” Calhoun said tightly. “And I am not going to let them gun you down!”

“So now you’re being possessive? Are you listening to yourself?”

“The D’myurj makes a valid point, Captain,” said Nyos. “We had an agreement. You were to hand this creature over to us once we had completed our work here.”

“I don’t remember our agreement in that way,” said Calhoun.

“You can remember it however you wish. The fact is that you are outmanned and outgunned. If you bring up your hand to activate your communications device, we will open fire before you can get a word out.” He dropped his voice from a threatening tone to one that sounded quite conversational. “Captain, this does not have to happen. The D’myurj wants to die. We want to kill it. And we want to kill the other one on your ship, the one who oversaw the crimes committed against your people. There is no need to turn this into some sort of battle. Especially since it will not work out well for you.”

“You’re the ones who are waving weapons around and trying to turn this into a battle,” Calhoun pointed out. “We just want to return to our ship.”

“With the D’myurj?”

“Yes,” said Calhoun, even as Quentis said, “No.”

“There seems to be some disagreement,” said Nyos. He sounded more amused than anything by the disagreement.

“I wish to die,” said Quentis. “If Captain Calhoun will not accommodate me, I am perfectly happy to have you attend to it. I suppose ultimately it would be poetically just. You killed the rest of my race, so why not me?”

“Because there are still things that you can accomplish!” Calhoun rounded on him. “You have no idea of the opportunities that may still present themselves. If you are as educated and worldly an individual as you present yourself to be, then you should realize that there are still many possibilities open to you. Death is not the only option left to you.”

“And if I think it is?”

“Then you’re wrong,” said Calhoun. “If nothing else, you can be the official historian of the Excalibur.”

Quentis cocked his head in curiosity. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that our ship has no historian,” said Calhoun. “No starship does, to the best of my knowledge. The captain maintains a log that discusses in broad strokes the various missions the ship undertakes. But we could use an outsider to maintain a history of our voyages. I want you to be that individual.” He nodded toward the silver box. “You can keep it on the ship’s computers so that you don’t have to write out everything by hand.”

“That might not be so bad,” Quentis said thoughtfully.

Nyos was staring at them. “I am so pleased that you seem to have worked this all out. Unfortunately, you are forgetting the fact that we have our weapons aimed at you. And yes, you have the Brikar currently in our path, but there’s half a dozen of us and two of you. We can easily spread out and shoot you from behind. Do you truly desire to engage in a firefight that you will doubtless lose?”

Calhoun was now holding his phaser and he looked ready to open fire. “I was just going to ask you the same question,” he said defiantly.

Nyos had his weapon leveled at Kebron as if ready to try and blow a hole through him to get to Calhoun. No one said anything for what seemed the longest time. Calhoun realized that he had stopped breathing, waiting to see what was going to happen.

Then, somewhat to his surprise, Nyos raised his weapon so that the muzzle was pointing straight up. He raised a finger and said, “A moment, please.”

To Calhoun’s puzzlement, Nyos stepped back and the rest of his crew clustered around him. They spoke to each other in voices so low that Calhoun couldn’t make out what they were saying.

In a quiet voice, Quentis asked, “Were you serious about that offer, Captain?”

“Absolutely.”

“You weren’t saying it simply to prevent the Dayan from opening fire?”

“If they’re determined to open fire, Quentis, there is nothing I could say that would deter them from doing so.”

Quentis nodded, realizing the truth of that.

Nyos turned back to Calhoun and said, “We are willing to offer you a deal, Captain. One that we hope you will find accommodating.”

“I’m listening,” Calhoun said cautiously.

“We will allow you to take the historian back with you to your vessel. You may keep him. And you may also keep the other D’myurj on your ship, the one who was responsible for the death of your people. We assume that it is your intention to bring him to justice?”

“That’s correct,” said Calhoun.

“Very well. You may take the both of them with our compliments.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“Quite simple, Captain. We are interested in your point of origin. We find you a fascinating species and desire to get to know the others of your kind. It is our desire that, if we allow you to take the D’myurj with you, you willingly escort us to wherever it is you originate from.”

Quentis whirled to face Calhoun, who put up a hand to silence him. The captain was reasonably sure what Quentis was going to say, but he had no desire for the Dayan to know that they were aware of the information Quentis wanted to tell them.

Thankfully, Quentis responded to Calhoun’s unspoken cue. But the concern was visible in his eyes.

“That sounds perfectly reasonable,” Calhoun said slowly. “Once we leave the area, we will guide you to where we came from. You are, of course, welcome to join us.”

“Then feel free to depart,” said Nyos.

Calhoun nodded as he tapped his combadge. “Calhoun to Excalibur. Three to beam up.”

As the away team dematerialized, Calhoun never took his eyes from Nyos’s face.

The Dayan was smiling.

And Calhoun knew beyond question that they were in serious trouble.

New Thallon

MARK MCHENRY WAS lying in bed next to the sleeping Robin Lefler. He fiddled idly with her hair and stared into her face, amazed how peaceful she looked. He supposed that was typical for a sleeping human, that look of contentment, but he nevertheless found it charming.

He heard Cwansi stirring in the cradle nearby. Tossing the blanket aside, he slid out of bed and walked over to the cradle, gazing down at the tiny inhabitant. Cwansi was staring up at him, his eyes newly awakened. He seemed fascinated by McHenry’s face, studying him fixedly and then raising his arms, clearly wanting to be picked up. This surprised McHenry because Cwansi had never seemed to express much interest in him. His focus had always been solely upon Robin; he’d never seemed to notice when McHenry was there. Now his attention was directly focused on Mark. McHenry wondered if the child had any comprehension of how his relationship with Robin had just changed.

Has it changed? Really? His mind couldn’t help but wander. I mean, her coming on to you seemed more impulsive than anything else. A spur-of-the-moment lust that probably originated as much from her mourning her late husband as anything else. It may well have less to do with you as an individual than it does with the fact that you were standing here and you are friendly and had a pulse. You have no idea how she really feels about you. You could have simply been a matter of convenience. Her true priority is her son. Maybe her only priority.

He turned away from Cwansi, who was happily burbling. He walked across the room to the window so that he could stand there and watch the sun rise. As he did, he saw Robin’s sleeping body reflected in the glass. What a beautiful woman she was.

Why are we here? The question flitted through his mind, not for the first time. Granted, we came here as part of a deal to allow the Excalibur to pass through Thallonian space. But the ship is long gone. There is nothing that the Thallonians can do to force us to stay. So why the hell haven’t we left?

Yes, Robin says that she wants to be here. That she feels that this is the best place for Cwansi to grow up. That he can be helpful to everyone on this world by picking up where his father left off.

But is that really going to happen? The damned Thallonians were responsible for executing his father. It’s entirely possible that now they regret it, but who knows if that is going to be their attitude? What if Cwansi grows up here and endeavors to take over his father’s place, only to find out that they want to kill him as well?

Why don’t we just leave?

He turned around and stared at Robin. She was still sleeping peacefully. He wondered how she’d react if she woke up and discovered she was back in her cabin on the Excalibur. Yes, it would mean breaking her word to the Thallonians, but what point was there in keeping it? Shintar Han had tried to kill her. He had hired an assassin to come in and slaughter them. What possible reason was there to worry about keeping their promise to remain on New Thallon?

Cwansi began to whimper now, and the baby’s noises awakened Robin. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and glanced over to the other side of the bed to see that McHenry was no longer there. “Hey,” he whispered, and that immediately got her attention.

She smiled at him. “Hey back,” she said. She sat up, keeping the sheet modestly in front of her naked breasts. “You sleep okay?”

“Very soundly.” He walked toward her and dropped onto the edge of the bed. He reached out toward her hand and she took it, squeezing it affectionately. “And did you? Sleep okay?”

“Oh yes. Better than I have in quite a while.”

“Was I . . .” He dropped his gaze, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

“Were you what?”

“Was I . . . okay? I mean,” he added hastily, “I don’t really have a ton of experience. So I wasn’t really sure that I was, you know, making you happy.”

“Aw, Mark,” she said and laughed. She squeezed his hand a second time. “Yes. Yes, of course. You made me very happy. What, you couldn’t tell?”

“Not really. I mean, I kind of could. Sort of. Yes. I mean, you shouted all the right things. And I mean that in only the most positive way. That is to say . . .” His voice trailed off because he saw that Robin was desperately trying not to laugh and was spectacularly failing. “What’s so funny?”

“I’ve missed this. This you. This type of you.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Ever since you returned,” said Lefler, “you’ve been this . . . this godlike being. It only seemed that you were human through happenstance. For a little while there I was having trouble relating to you as the man I used to know. But this seems more like you. Like the typical you, at least.”

“Well, thanks, I guess.”

Cwansi was becoming increasingly fussy. She glanced toward him and then said, “Would you mind?”

“Hmm? Oh, sure. No problem.” McHenry reached into the cradle and lifted the infant out of it. Then he sidled over and handed him to his mother.

Robin lowered the sheet to expose her breasts and put the baby’s eager mouth to her left one. The baby eagerly began to drink down his breakfast and she smiled down at him, stroking the side of his face as he ate.

“We could leave, you know,” he said in a low voice.

She glanced up. “What?”

“I was just thinking, we could leave. There really isn’t any reason for us to remain here.”

“We gave our word.”

“We gave our word to a murderer who tried to have us killed. I don’t see that that puts us under any obligation to remain.”

“This is Cwansi’s home. His people live here.”

“The people who killed his father. Again, not seeing the need for loyalty.”

Robin paused, gathering her thoughts. “Mark,” she said finally, “I’ve given this a lot of consideration. And here’s what I’m convinced will happen: Let’s say that we do leave here. That we return to the Excalibur. That I raise Cwansi to be his own, independent young man.”

“This all sounds fine so far.”

“Right, but here’s the thing: he’s Si Cwan’s son. Which means that, sooner or later, he is going to take an interest in the individuals of his own race. That he will want to come back here and try to lead them.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes, we do,” she replied. “I’m positive of it. It’s ingrained into his little cerebral cortex. He is going to feel the desire to come to New Thallon and do everything he can to help the citizenry. And when that happens, he’s going to be a fish out of water. An outsider whom the people here will neither understand nor support. If, on the other hand, he grows up here as one of them, then it will give him a lifetime to build up support.”

“And you will spend your life here as well? Remember, you’re an outsider here, Robin. You are, to the best of my knowledge, the only human here.”

“Aside from you.”

“Aside from me,” he admitted. “Are you prepared to sign away the next twenty years of your life supporting a destiny for your son that you can’t really be sure he’ll want to follow? I mean, what if you’re wrong? What if he grows up and can’t wait to get off this rock? Then what will you do?”

“Charter the first ship that I can.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Well, that’s nicely pragmatic of you, at least.”

She had switched Cwansi to the other breast and now he had finished his morning sustenance. His lips released her nipple and his head slumped back, his eyes starting to glaze over as they customarily did when he was done eating. She lay him gently down on the bed and he simply lay there, gazing openly at the ceiling. “I’m going to grab a shower,” she said.

“Shall I join you?” asked McHenry. For the most part, he was kidding.

Instead she stared at him and then smiled. “Yes, please.”

They made love in the shower, and it was wholly different from what had transpired the night before. It was more intimate, as they had become more used to what each other liked. There had been aggression and energy the first time around; this time it was much slower and more loving.

It gave McHenry some greater degree of confidence. He had initially been concerned that she had simply seen him as a convenient replacement for her dead husband. Now, as she whispered his name in his ear, and then shouted his name loudly, he realized that she was making love to him as he himself, not a substitute for Si Cwan.

He didn’t believe for a moment that she loved him. That was simply too much to hope for. But there sure as hell was something going through her head that was affection for him, and he was satisfied with that.

When they were done, he sagged against the wall, gasping for breath. Robin grinned broadly as she stepped outside of the shower, got a towel, and brought it into the stall. She toweled McHenry off and then he took the towel from her and rubbed her down, getting her thoroughly dry.

“You’re very slender,” she said, looking him up and down.

“Yes. Why? Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all. Although . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Although what?”

“Can you change your shape? Remake your body? I’m not saying you should or anything. I was just wondering if you can.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. Hold on.”

His face became a mask of concentration as he envisioned himself about a head taller and with a solid set of six-pack abs. Then he looked down and saw that he was unchanged. “I guess not. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s fine.” She smiled, caressing his face. “It was a stupid question. Let’s get dressed and start the day.”

They did exactly that, dressing quickly and heading downstairs. With remarkable timing, there was a knock at the door as soon as they reached the living room. McHenry opened it, and Indi Anel was standing there, looking extremely efficient and organized. “Good morning,” she said briskly as she strode in. “I trust you slept well.”

“Oh yes. Extremely,” said Robin as she prepared coffee. She smiled at McHenry and actually almost giggled.

Indi looked from her to McHenry. “Ah. I see you copulated. Excellent.”

Robin almost dropped her coffee mug. “How the hell did—I mean . . . what?”

“There are some things that it is impossible to hide, especially from someone who is trained to pay attention to the world,” Indi said briskly. “I trust it went well? No complaints?”

“None that I’d tell you,” said Robin.

McHenry’s head snapped around. “Wait, what?”

“Nothing! There’s nothing! I was just . . . there’s nothing, I swear!” Robin actually started to laugh but managed to contain herself. “There was nothing wrong, Mark. With anything. Don’t be so paranoid.”

“I’ll try not to be,” he assured her.

“I promise you, had I known this entire conversation would ensue, I never would have said a thing,” said Indi. She was studying her padd. “Your first appointment is in an hour. Will that be enough time for you to prepare yourself?”

“Yes, of course. I’m certainly well rested enough. And that’s—”

Suddenly he froze. Robin and Indi both stared at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?” asked Robin.

“He’s coming,” said McHenry. His face had gone pale for a moment, but then he mustered his willpower. “We’re about to have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Fairly big.”

Suddenly a swell of blinding light erupted in the middle of the living room. Indi cried out and stepped back, shielding her eyes. Robin stepped back as well, but she didn’t look away. Instead she gaped at it, uncertain of what was happening but positive that it wasn’t anything good. McHenry had no reaction at all. He just stood there, staring at it as if he were observing nothing out of the ordinary. It was hard to tell whether he was truly indifferent to what he was seeing or if he was simply managing to mask his genuine reactions.

A voice boomed from within the light.

“I have returned,” it bellowed. “For centuries, your ancestors worshipped me as the Awesome! And now one of my acolytes has prayed for my intervention! I have chosen to honor his request!”

Two bodies were coalescing in the midst of the glow. One of them was immediately recognizable as Shintar Han. He had a twisted grin upon his face, and it was obvious that he was the acolyte who had been mentioned by their new arrival.

The other individual looked not like a Thallonian but a human being. He had a head of curly black hair, slightly graying at the temples, and his eyes were closed as he made his pronouncements. “I have been told that there is a child here who has no business being a part of Thallonian society! And I have been summoned here to—”

“Hello, Q,” said McHenry.

Q opened his eyes and blinked in surprise. He had obviously been in the midst of his proclamation and had not expected to be interrupted. He stared at McHenry and shock registered on his face. “McHenry!” he said. “I haven’t seen you since I ran into you and your large stony companion on the planet Liten. What are you doing here?”

“Protecting the child that you came to destroy,” said Mark. He nodded his head toward Robin, who was holding Cwansi tightly in her arms. “I never thought that killing children was something you advocated.”

“It’s not, typically. But Shintar Han here told me quite the tale. I had to come and see for myself.”

Han was clearly bewildered. “You two know each other?” Then his gaze fell upon Indi Anel. “And what are you doing here?!”

“I work for them,” she said.

“You can’t work for them! You work for me!”

“You had gone off to bow and scrape before an ancient god!”

“Who is right here!” said Shintar Han, indicating Q standing next to him.

Indi looked Q up and down. “This is not a god,” she said disdainfully. “This is not the Awesome.”

“Actually, I am,” said Q. “Or at least I am the only individual who has ever shown up to claim the title. If you go into your myths of when the Awesome has chosen to intervene in the development of your race, that in fact has always been me.”

“Am I supposed to believe this?” demanded Indi. “This is a human being!”

“No, he’s not,” said McHenry. Slowly he advanced on Q. “Believe me, Indi, he is anything but normal. In fact, if I were you, I would get out of here right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Indi. “I’m not afraid of whatever tricks he might have to—”

Q snapped his fingers.

Indi disappeared. Instead there was a small rabbit where she had been standing. It was pure white with little pink ears. It immediately caught Cwansi’s attention, and he let out a little yowl of joy upon seeing it.

“What the hell?!” Robin cried out.

“That should keep her occupied for a while,” said Q with satisfaction. “Do you have any lettuce around the place?”

McHenry was furious. “Turn her back, Q! Now!”

“Or what?” said Q, sounding amused at McHenry’s ire. “What will you do to me if I don’t? Seriously, I’m interested to find out.”

McHenry’s fist was shaking. He stared at the small rabbit with a feeling of extreme helplessness.

To his astonishment, Q actually sounded sympathetic when he continued: “Come on, McHenry. See if you can transform her back. After all, you have the ability to resist the direct effect of my powers yourself. So you should be able to help her as well.” He cocked his head, looking curious. “Or is it that you can’t? Can it be that you’re able to resist my power but have no idea how you’re able to accomplish it? My, my, this is getting more fascinating by the minute.”

If there was one thing that McHenry was not remotely interested in, it was providing fascination for Q.

He stretched out his hand toward the white rabbit and focused his power.

Nothing happened.

“Oh, come now!” Q said. He sounded immensely irritated. “You can do better than that! Your grandfather was a Greek god, or at least he pretended he was. And you have the spirit and abilities of another god dwelling within you. You should be able to do this easily! I mean, is that it? Are you going to allow me to win so handily because you can’t—”

“Shut up!” McHenry snarled.

“I can shut up if you’d like,” said Q. His tone had suddenly become rather conversational, as if they were chatting over drinks in Excalibur’s Ten Forward. “Or you can listen to me and learn something. I mean, you may indeed have formidable abilities, but I’ve been around somewhat longer than you have and I might be able to impart some knowledge.” He then folded his arms and stared off into the distance as if he had just lost all interest in what was transpiring.

Meanwhile, Shintar Han was becoming increasingly upset. “Why are you waiting?” he demanded of Q. “The child and his cursed mother are standing right there! You can destroy them! Why haven’t you destroyed them?!”

“I was planning to. I still am. But I didn’t know McHenry was going to be here. That raises the situation to a different and far more intriguing level.” Q began to stroll around the living room, idly running his fingers across various surfaces, checking for dust. “Why simply blast them out of existence when we can run some interesting tests on his possibilities?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about!” said Shintar Han. “The entire purpose of your coming here was to blast them out of existence!”

Q turned to face him and there was something truly disturbing on his face. “Do not think for a moment to understand the purpose of my coming here. You cannot begin to comprehend my motivations. I go where I wish and do whatever I wish, and there are none who can gainsay me. If you have grown accustomed to breathing, I suggest you ratchet down your frustration level. Do you get what I’m saying to you?”

“But I—”

Q’s voice dropped to a low warning. “Do you get what I am saying to you?”

Something in his tone warned Shintar Han that he was suddenly in trouble. Quickly he reined himself in and nodded. “Yes. I understand, Awesome One.”

“Good.” Q shifted his attention back to McHenry. “Now you: I want you to restore this young woman to the way she was before I transformed her. It is within your powers to do so.”

McHenry desperately wanted to ask him how, but he could not bring himself to do so. So he simply stood there, staring at him.

“Focus,” said Q calmly. “Focus on what you desire. You still don’t understand the depth of your abilities. You have the power to create the world around you that you wish. All you have to do is picture it. Picture this rabbit,” and he indicated the white-furred creature on the floor that was sniffing around the carpet. “Picture it as the young woman that she was before. Imagine her transformation. Create her to be as you want her to be.”

McHenry closed his eyes, trying to conjure up the image of Indi Anel that had existed before she was changed. Slowly he put her face and body together in his mind, imagining that she was standing in front of him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and forcefully decided that she was there.

“ . . . display!” came Indi’s voice.

McHenry gasped as he opened his eyes and saw her standing there, still waving her finger angrily. She had just finished what she had been saying, but then her voice trailed off as she was about to continue shouting. She blinked and looked around in confusion. “What just happened? Something happened, didn’t it?”

“Nothing you need concern yourself about,” Q said offhandedly.

“I did it.” McHenry couldn’t quite believe it. “I actually did it.”

“Yes, you did,” said Q. “And there is much more that you can do as well. You have great potential, McHenry. But you know what?” He looked around in annoyance. “This isn’t the place for us to discuss it. You need to understand the bigger picture. The business with the baby can wait. We have matters to discuss on a cosmic scale. Come.”

Q snapped his fingers and, to Robin’s shock, McHenry and Q vanished.

Shintar Han was left standing there, looking stunned.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Robin reached around behind her back, produced a phaser, and fired it point-blank.

It struck Shintar Han squarely in the chest and blew him off his feet. He hurtled back across the living room and crashed into a couch. He hit it with such force that the couch overturned and fell partly on top of him. He lay upon the ground, his eyelids fluttering, and then he lapsed into unconsciousness.

“Nice shot,” said Indi. She still looked puzzled. “Why do I suddenly crave carrots?”

Bravo Station

ELIZABETH SHELBY WAS pacing her office. She could not recall ever pacing her office before. On the surface, it seemed to be a huge waste of time. She was walking in a circle, her arms pumping, as if she were jogging somewhere, except that she was going around and around, getting nowhere.

“Where could I go anyway?” she demanded of herself. “I’m on a damned space station. Anywhere I go, I’m going to wind up back where I started. It’s just a huge waste of time. That’s all I have these days: time to waste. Time to waste walking in circles and talking to myself. That’s the spirit.”

Shelby came to a halt and dropped into the chair behind her desk. She ran her fingers through her blonde hair and sighed deeply.

The buzzer at her door sounded. “Come,” she said, not bothering to ask who it was, since she didn’t especially care.

The door slid open and she sat up in surprise. “I’ll be damned,” she said.

Katerina Mueller, the captain of the Starship Trident, was standing there. “Greetings, Admiral,” she said.

“Admiral? Seriously? After all this time? Get your ass in here, Kat.”

Mueller strode in. Shelby came from around the desk and they embraced briskly. Briskly was how Mueller tended to do everything. She stepped back and Shelby indicated that she should sit down, which she promptly did. Shelby couldn’t help but notice that Mueller was sitting ramrod straight in the chair. No doubt a product of her German upbringing.

“What brings you here, Kat?” asked Shelby.

“Just stopping in for some brief R & R.”

“Sounds good. Happy to have you here.”

Mueller was staring at her in what seemed an odd fashion. “Is something wrong?” said Shelby.

“I’m not sure. Why don’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” Mueller said slowly. “I’m very good at reading a person’s eyes, Elizabeth. And there’s something in yours. What’s bothering you? I’d like to think that we have a close enough relationship that you can tell me when something is bothering you.”

Shelby slumped back in her chair and closed her eyes. She had no idea if she should be discussing the current situation with anyone, much less Mueller. But if it was eating at her so much that Mueller could discern it within seconds, then clearly she was having some issues.

“I tricked Mac,” she said finally.

“Tricked him? How?” Mueller was sitting forward now, looking puzzled.

“You’re aware that he effectively fell apart for a few months, yes?”

“His people were wiped out. Not a surprise.”

“Well,” said Shelby, rubbing the bridge of her nose in hopes that it would serve to negate the headache that was starting to build. “He managed to discover how to track down the race that was responsible for it. The race that not only wiped out the Xenexians but kidnapped Nechayev and who knows how many more.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Apparently they are only accessible through a wormhole in Sector 221-G.”

“Thallonian space. I see the problem,” said Mueller. She was drumming her fingers on the armrest of the chair. “How did you trick Mac?”

“Admiral Jellico and I specifically instructed him not to go. We had to; the Federation respects the Thallonians’ insistence that no one trespass in their space.”

“And you did so knowing that telling him not to go was all the urging he would need.”

Shelby nodded.

“Tell me, Elizabeth: Are you remotely under the impression that Mackenzie Calhoun is stupid?”

“What? No!”

“Because I was able to figure out what you and Jellico were up to in about five seconds, and Mac is much smarter than I am. And you did not”—she extended a finger and pointed it at her—“hear me say that, because I’ll be damned if I ever admit it. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good. So my point is, if I can figure it out, so can Mac. I’m positive he’s aware that you and Jellico put him up to it. So you don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t be concerned that my husband knows that I was trying to trick him?”

“That’s exactly right,” said Mueller. “Mac has been at this business longer than any of us. If anyone is going to understand the realities of the situation you’re in, it’s going to be him.”

“Perhaps you’re right. But that still leaves me with a difficult situation. Namely that Command sent him into Thallonian space to go up against the entirety of their fleet in order to reach the wormhole. It isn’t atypical for him to brave difficult odds, but this may be too much even for him.”

“I wouldn’t be concerned,” she said. “There hasn’t been a situation yet that Mackenzie Calhoun hasn’t been able to think his way out of.”

“You didn’t see him on Xenex, Kat.” Shelby was making no effort to hide her concern. “I’ve never seen him so lost. So vulnerable. The death of the Xenexians had a long-term impact on him, and I’m really not sure that he was up for this entire endeavor. Jellico and I may well have sent him to his death. In that regard, it really doesn’t matter whether he saw through it or not, does it?”

“I suppose it doesn’t,” said Mueller thoughtfully. “All right, then. I guess that really doesn’t leave much of a choice.”

“Choice?” Shelby wasn’t sure she understood what Mueller was talking about.

“It’s obvious,” said Mueller. “I have to take the Trident and look for him.”

Shelby’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that.”

“I’m the captain of the ship. I’m reasonably sure that if I tell them that’s where we’re going, they have to obey and take me there. I seem to recall that’s in the regs somewhere.”

“Kat, it’s incredibly dangerous.”

“I don’t see how that’s ever deterred us before,” said Mueller indifferently. “We’ve had more than a few dangerous experiences. If this is simply the last one, so be it.”

“I can’t do it, Kat. I can’t just allow you to throw yourself into the midst of this.”

“If you’re right and Mac isn’t operating at peak efficiency, then I don’t see how I can refuse. Besides, it really isn’t up to you.”

“It actually is. Last I checked, I’m an admiral and I outrank you. So if I forbid you to go, then you can’t.”

“And you’re going to enforce that how?” asked Mueller. She seemed genuinely interested in the answer. “Are you going to abandon your assignment? Set yourself up on the bridge of my ship and take charge?”

“No, of course not.”

“Are you going to arrest me for insubordination? After all, I suppose that’s what this is. What manner of aggressive action are you going to take to make sure that I don’t go off and do what—let’s face it—you are actually hoping I do? If nothing else, knowing that I’m on it will help calm your guilty conscience.”

Shelby hated to admit it, but she knew that Mueller was absolutely right. Whatever situation Mac had gotten himself into, having the Trident there as backup could improve the odds.

“You won’t make it in,” she said. “Thallonian space is too heavily guarded. You’ll certainly run afoul of Thallonian sentry vessels. You’ll have to fight your way in.”

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“Yes, we do. It is a safe assumption in a very unsafe endeavor.”

“All right,” said Mueller, “then if that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ll do.”

“You may not have to.”

“Meaning?”

Shelby quickly brought her computer on-line and called up a secure file on it. She pivoted the screen around so that Mueller could see it.

Mueller cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really,” said Shelby. “This could, at the very least, solve the immediate problem.”

“Meaning that you’re now sanguine over the prospect of our going in?”

“No, I’m not at all sanguine about it. I’m just realizing that if I don’t want to stop you, then it’s incumbent upon me to help you.”

“I’m not sure that I agree, but I appreciate your spirit.” Mueller tapped the screen. “Shall we get started?”

“Indeed we shall,” said Shelby. She hated to admit it, but for the first time in quite a while, she was starting to feel good about the situation.

Now the only question was: Were they going to be able to get to Calhoun in time?

Excalibur

i.

“YOU NEED TO do something,” Quentis said with determination.

He had been provided quarters in the Excalibur. They were very simple, designed to be neutral so that they could be used by any Federation guest. He was still moving slowly, obviously due to the pounding that he had received at the hands of the Dayan. But there was certainly no diminishing the power of his personality.

“So you say,” said Calhoun. “But I’m not entirely sure what.”

“You are leading them back to your galaxy.” Quentis could have been sitting, but he wasn’t. Instead he was standing there stiffly, and the only hint to the frustration he was feeling was his curled, trembling fists. “I have already told you that they will destroy all life in your realm. That’s what they do. That is all they do.”

“I believe you,” said Calhoun.

“Then why are you leading them to the wormhole that will provide them access to your world?”

“Because at the moment it’s the only option that I have. That doesn’t mean I won’t endeavor to come up with something else.”

Quentis looked suspicious. “Something else in what sense? Do you have some a plan?”

“I always have a plan,” said Calhoun, who in fact had no plan at all. But he hardly saw the need to share that bit of information with the D’myurj.

It was entirely possibly that Quentis was aware that Calhoun was bluffing. If he knew it for sure, he decided to keep that information to himself. Instead he simply nodded. But then he added, “I do want you to know that I appreciate your refusal to deliver me into their hands. That would have been much easier than standing up to them.”

“I’ve never been one for doing things the easy way,” Calhoun said, with an indifferent shrug. “Ask anyone who knows me.”

“If we all live long enough for me to accomplish that, then I certainly will.”

Calhoun nodded and then headed for the door. It slid open, and he was startled to see that Soleta was standing there. “Captain, a moment of your time?”

“Of course,” he said.

He stepped out into the hallway with her and they walked to his cabin. He gestured for her to enter first, which she did, and he stepped in behind her. The door hissed shut.

“I feel I need to apologize to you,” she said. “For . . .” Her voice trailed off into unaccustomed hesitation. “For what happened in the turbolift.”

“You mean when you kissed me?”

“I do, yes.”

“It was . . . unexpected. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Not really, but I feel that I have to.” She wasn’t looking directly into his eyes, he realized, but instead to his side. “The fact of the matter is that it has come to my attention that I am in love with you.”

Calhoun wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that. “And . . . may I ask . . . how long has that situation been going on?”

“I am uncertain. I am uncertain about all aspects of this. Some part of me remains convinced that something has simply gone wrong with my brain. It is certainly possible. That would explain a great deal, in fact. It is entirely likely that I am dealing with some manner of rewiring of my neural functions—”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and said softly, “Soleta . . . calm down.”

“I am calm.”

“No, you’re not. Your hands are shaking.”

She glanced downward and saw that he was right. With a great mental effort she managed to calm them until they were steady once more. “I am sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do. I need to apologize for having developed these feelings for you, however they came to be. You are married. And you are my captain. I have no right to importune you with such feelings. It is inexcusable.”

“You don’t need excuses for the directions that emotions can drive you, Soleta.”

“Emotions should not be driving me, Captain. It may be easy to forget, but I was raised in the Vulcan tradition. Emotions are anathema to me. Of all the individuals on this ship, I am the last one who should be allowing emotions to influence me.”

“You may well believe that intellectually, Soleta. But you can’t argue with the reality of it, and you can’t dispute that emotions make us what we are. In any event,” he continued, before she could get another word out, “you don’t owe me an apology. You were doing what felt right at the moment. And I am exceedingly flattered that you would feel that way toward me.”

“Flattered. Excellent.” Despite her claims to a lack of emotions, she was having a good deal of difficulty keeping the sarcasm out of her voice. “That’s what a woman always wants to hear from her object of affection. That he is flattered.”

“What else did you expect to hear from me?”

She finally stared into his eyes for a long moment and then once again lowered her gaze. “Nothing,” she said with a heavy sigh. “I was being ridiculous. I should have known that you could never feel that way toward me.”

To her obvious astonishment, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. Despite her best efforts to react in another manner, she actually sighed deeply as she felt the hardness of his chest against her head.

“Soleta,” he said softly, “of course I could feel that way toward you. At another time in my life, you would have been perfect for me. When you were thrown out of Starfleet, when you became captain of your own vessel . . . I could easily see myself joining up with you. I could have turned my back on the Federation. We could have joined forces and hurtled around the galaxy, serving the Romulans, side by side. Or, hell, maybe we could have gotten our own vessel, become freebooters, taking whatever jobs interested us. Don’t think for a moment I didn’t consider a life like that. There are definitely points in my life, Soleta, where you would have been the perfect mate for me, and I could easily have grown to love you.”

“But those points never matched up,” she said tonelessly.

He released her, and she stepped away to look up at him.

“No,” he said. “Because I became a Starfleet captain. Because I fell in love with Elizabeth. My life went off in directions that I could never have expected, and I have to honor those directions.”

“So you’re saying that you could have loved me, but our timing simply never matched up?”

He nodded.

“Oddly enough, I don’t find that especially comforting,” said Soleta.

“I was simply trying to tell you how I felt. I wasn’t trying to be comforting.”

“Then you’ve succeeded beyond your wildest dreams.”

“Soleta . . .” he started to say.

She took him by the face and kissed him passionately.

And that was when it all went to hell.

ii.

HER MIND STABBED deeply into Calhoun’s.

It was not remotely intentional. But she was so swept up with emotion at that moment that she literally had no control over what was happening.

It was the first time that she had used her mind-meld since McHenry had reached deep into her and drawn her out of her months-long coma. As such, she was not remotely prepared for the result.

The kiss was purely impulse. It was intended to be one final bit of physical contact with Calhoun before they returned to their normal status as captain and subordinate. An indulgence, she thought. But when she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his, it was far more than simply a casual physical contact. Something had happened to her mind when McHenry had entered it, something for which she was not remotely prepared. It had strengthened her mind far more than a lifetime of training. Strengthened beyond her ability to readily control it.

All she knew was that at that moment her mind was intertwined with Calhoun’s. It was not the smooth, gentle sensation that derived from a typical mind-meld. It was not even violent and penetrative, as it had been during the rare instances when she had used the mind-meld as a weapon in order to either forcibly withdraw information or strike down an enemy. Instead the power of her thoughts was overwhelming, absorbing Calhoun into them as though creating a cocoon around a butterfly.

Someone with potent mind powers might have been able to resist. Calhoun, for all the strength of his personality, was helpless. He was drawn into Soleta’s frustrated affection for him, and just like that, her thoughts supplanted his. He returned her kisses with passionate ferocity, and Soleta had spiraled so deeply into her fantasy about him that she was unable to distinguish reality from dream.

They fell onto Calhoun’s bed, tearing the clothes from each other. Soleta was gasping deeply. She was overwhelmed by her need and lust for Mackenzie Calhoun, a feeling that was far more intense than she had previously been aware of.

Calhoun responded, grabbing every part of her body that he could get his hands on. As near as Soleta could determine, there was no thought of Elizabeth Shelby in his mind. His focus, his desire, was entirely on her. He wasn’t thinking of himself as a single man or married man or anything except as a creature with the sole purpose of satisfying the desires of Soleta.

Their lovemaking was epic and passionate and violently intense. At one point Calhoun almost passed out but he managed to rally and keep himself together.

Part of Soleta’s mind was screaming at her the entire time. This is wrong! You shouldn’t be doing this. How can you betray him this way? But that was her subconscious attempting to scold her. Her conscious thoughts were squarely focused upon what was happening.

The heat built within the both of them and exploded together like twin suns going nova. Calhoun sagged against her, every drop of energy spent. He slumped to the side, his breath uneven.

Soleta fell against him and her mind began to unwrap from his. Very slowly, the reality of what had just happened began to sink into her.

What have I done? she thought silently.

She turned quickly and stared at Calhoun, knowing she should say something but having no idea what it should be. She watched his eyes carefully, her mind racing, trying to fully fathom what had just happened.

Calhoun was staring blankly at the overhead, but then his awareness began to slowly return to him. His purple eyes were empty at first, but then his personality, his consciousness, began to take hold of him. He blinked several times and then his attention shifted to Soleta.

She tried to speak but had no idea what to say. The reality of what had just happened was so overwhelming that she couldn’t think of anything. Her mouth moved but no words emerged.

Calhoun’s hand snaked up and clamped on her throat. Her eyes went wide and she reflexively grabbed at his wrist, trying to pry it off. She should have been able to do so, because physically she was stronger than Calhoun. But his fury was so intense that she wasn’t able to budge him.

And then she stopped. Her hands fell away and she ceased any attempt to save her life.

For long seconds, his grip tightened on her throat. So this is how I die. It makes sense. I deserve to die.

Suddenly his grip went slack. She fell backward onto the bed, gasping heavily, trying to draw air back into her lungs through her damaged throat.

Calhoun had clambered out of the bed and had already yanked on the trousers of his uniform. He had never looked away from her the entire time. She thought that she had seen Calhoun in every state of mind there was for a man to have, but she had never seen anything like this. His face was a combination of rage and betrayal.

“How could you?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “How could you do that?”

She was rubbing at her neck and at first she couldn’t draw in any breath. Then she managed to draw in enough to speak. “I . . . I’m sorry . . .”

“You’re sorry? What did you do to me? To my mind?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. It just . . . it happened.”

“You took over my mind and forced me to have sex with you.”

“I know I did. It wasn’t intentional—”

“The hell it wasn’t!” Calhoun said angrily. He had pulled on his uniform tunic and was now putting on his boots. “You knew exactly what you were doing. How could you? And how could I have misjudged you all this time?”

“You didn’t . . .” Soleta coughed, trying to clear her throat. “You didn’t misjudge me. I wasn’t expecting it to happen. It just . . . it did. My impulses just took control of my common sense.”

“Is that what you call it? I thought I was letting you down lightly, Soleta. I never expected that you—”

“I said I’m sorry, Captain.” Soleta’s voice rose in her frustration and mortification. “I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to say.”

“Just . . . don’t say anything,” Calhoun snapped at her. He slapped his communications badge onto his chest. “Not a word.” He leaned in toward her and waved his finger in her face. “You are not to tell anyone about this. Ever. Do you understand me? I swear, Soleta, if you do—”

“I won’t.”

“If you do, I’ll kill you. And I’m not using that term in a broad or metaphorical context. I will kill you, Soleta. Whether it’s with my bare hands or I blow you out of existence with a phaser, I haven’t decided yet. But I will kill you if you boast to anyone—”

“Boast?” Her eyes widened in incredulity. Aware of the fact that she was still naked, she grabbed a sheet off the bed and covered herself. “Do you think I’m proud of what just happened?”

“I have no idea what you are or even who you are. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that some shape-shifting alien had taken over your body and disguised itself as you.” He turned and headed for the door. “Just get out of here.”

“Should I go up to the bridge?”

He stopped and looked back at her. “No. Stay off the bridge. Head down to science and contribute there, if you can. There are still people on this ship who don’t trust you, Soleta. For the longest time, I was having trouble understanding why. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that I’ve stopped wondering.”

She dropped her gaze and stared downward, and she continued to do so as Calhoun walked out of his quarters.

Soleta felt something dripping onto the sheet covering her legs. She was so disconnected that it took her a few moments to realize that it was tears. Tears were streaming down her face. She brought her arm up to wipe them off but they kept coming. Why am I crying? I don’t cry. Stop it. Stop it this minute. You were trained better than this. Stop blubbering like an infant.

But she couldn’t. She had never felt more mortified, more ashamed of herself, and more alone than she did right then.

The Q Continuum

MARK MCHENRY STUMBLED forward and caught his breath. He looked around, trying to process exactly where he was.

He was standing on a dusty, dirty road that was desperately in need of repaving because it was littered with potholes. It stretched through a desert that surrounded him on all sides. The air was parched and it was difficult for him to breathe, but he was able to do so with some effort. Slowly he turned in a circle, trying to get some idea of where he was. The sun was high overhead, obviously in the position of high noon, and it was beating down upon him. Tall wooden poles lined the road, with long black cables that stretched between them. McHenry assumed that they were there for transmitting power somewhere, or perhaps they were a means of communicating between distances. There were no clouds in the sky; instead, a deep blueness stretched into infinity above him. He saw several birds flapping through the sky above. They were too far away for him to discern the details, but he thought they might be carrion eaters.

The heat was beating down upon him like a great invisible fist. It was odd, because normally McHenry didn’t react to any temperature extremes, so he found the heat to be disconcerting. But that wasn’t the only thing. One minute he’d been on New Thallon, and the next he was literally in the middle of nowhere.

“Q!” he shouted. “Where the hell am I?”

“You’re in the Q Continuum.”

McHenry spun and saw that Q was standing right behind him. He hadn’t been there before; this was doubtless just another case of Q showing off. “This is your home?”

“It is indeed,” said Q, glancing around. “I’m curious, though: What do you see?”

“A desert. With a road running down the middle.”

“Ah. The standard human perception.” He actually sounded a bit disappointed. “I was hoping for more from you, considering your background.”

“More? I don’t understand.”

“The Q Continuum is extremely subjective,” said Q, as he strolled in a circle around McHenry. “Different beings see different things. Some people see a vast jungle. Others perceive a busy city or some other metropolitan center. Some see their own homes and others see the vastness of space.”

“What do you see?”

“I couldn’t really describe it in terms that you would understand.” Q sounded rather cavalier about it. “It would be best if you were satisfied with what you perceive.”

“And why am I here? Or, more accurately, why did you bring me here?”

“Because this is a terrific opportunity for you, McHenry,” said Q, dropping a hand on McHenry’s shoulder. “I’ve been very impressed by you. I am, in fact, prepared to provide you a tremendous opportunity.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“I am offering you the chance . . .” He paused, doubtless for what he imagined to be for dramatic effect: “ . . . to join the Q Continuum. To become a Q.”

McHenry cocked an eyebrow. “You can do that?”

“Of course I can. I am a Q. I can do anything.”

“Can you make a rock so heavy that even you can’t lift it?”

Q raised a threatening finger. “Don’t start. I don’t need to be dragged into grade-school paradoxes.”

“All right, fine,” said McHenry impatiently. “So why do you think I would be remotely interested in joining the Q Continuum?”

Q appeared genuinely shocked. “Why would you not? I mean, let us explore the reality of the situation here. You have a god—or at least what you interpret to be a god—as a grandfather. You have the spirit of another god joined with yours. You are much closer to the omniscience and omnipotence of the Q than you are to a human being. Why in the world would you not wish to join the Continuum?”

“Because I still have firm ties to humanity.”

“What ties are those? That young woman, Robin Le Fleur?”

“Lefler.”

“And her infant son? The ones that that Thallonian wants me to wipe out of existence for the good of his people? You cannot be serious.”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“I don’t understand,” said Q. “And considering that I’m omniscient, that’s quite an accomplishment. What sort of ties . . .” Then his voice trailed off and he stared in astonishment at McHenry. It made Mark feel extremely uncomfortable. “You love her!” he said, his voice filled with astonishment. “You do, don’t you?!”

“I’m not sure what love is anymore. I’m not even sure I’m capable of it. But she . . . makes me happy. Happier than anyone else ever has.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Q.

This reaction surprised McHenry. “Why would you care if someone makes someone else feel good? That shouldn’t be of interest to you.”

“My interests have shifted in recent years,” said Q.

He started to walk down the road. Uncertain what else to do, McHenry followed him. The birds continued to circle overhead.

“My life has taken some very unusual turns,” said Q. “I mated, you know. And had a son.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I wanted to mate with Janeway, but she wasn’t interested.”

“Well . . . her loss,” said McHenry, assuming that he was referring to Katherine Janeway.

“I agree,” said Q. “But I wound up mating with a lady Q and our son, q, well . . . he has been a bit of a handful. I’m responsible for raising him, and it has been quite the challenge. Quite the challenge.”

“I’m sure it is. I was hoping, though, that we could get back to the problem with New Thallon. With you appearing and stating that you were going to destroy Robin and her son.”

“Yes, I’m very aware of that. I’m afraid I’ll have to do that. I promised what’s-his-name.”

“But you don’t have to keep that promise!” McHenry said. “You can just tell him to go screw himself! You can’t just decide to kill Robin and Cwansi!”

“I’m reasonably sure I can. Why? Are you planning to stop me?”

“If I have to,” said McHenry.

This declaration seemed to interest Q. “Do you think you can? You’re not a Q, obviously, but you were able to resist my power when we first met. Does that give you the impression that you can actually stand up to me in a full battle?”

“I will do what I have to in order to protect them.”

“I am far more powerful than you are. You have to realize that.”

“I’m not sure that I do realize that,” said McHenry. He knew he should have said this as fiercely as possible, but instead he said it in an offhand, almost indifferent manner. “I was able to resist your power, yes. And you have no idea what else I’m capable of.”

Q stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well! You’ve made this very exciting now, haven’t you? Let’s put that to the test. Do you see those mountains over there?”

He pointed into the distance, but McHenry saw nothing save for the flat, barren plain. “No.”

“Look again.”

McHenry stared and suddenly they were there. An array of jagged mountains that seemed to stretch ridiculously high. “I see them now.”

“Good,” said Q, and he snapped his fingers.

And suddenly McHenry was dangling from a cliff.

He let out a startled yell as he fully realized where he was. He almost lost his grip but was able to hold on, his fingers clinging desperately to the edge. He managed to look down and saw that a fall of several hundred meters was waiting for him.

“What the—” he muttered as he tried to pull himself up but couldn’t do so.

He brought his feet up, trying to gain traction on the cliffside, but was unable to propel himself upward. He closed his eyes and tried to transport himself down to the ground, but he found that his power was being hampered. “Q!” he shouted.

The air on the cliff from which he was hanging flared, and Q was standing there. He had an expression of total innocence. “Problem?”

“Get me off of here!”

“Why can’t you do it yourself? Oh, that’s right,” Q said, almost as an afterthought. “You can’t because you’re in the Q Continuum. You’re in a realm of my making, and that makes it much more difficult for you. So maybe you’re not quite the powerhouse that you imagine yourself to be.”

McHenry glared at Q for a long moment.

Then he released his grip on the cliff’s edge.

Mark plummeted toward the ground far below. He did not scream or cry out in any way. Instead, as if accepting his impending doom, he twisted around in midair and transformed his plunge into a dive. He pointed his hands above—or, relatively speaking, below—his head and headed straight down as if he were diving toward a swimming pool.

The ground sped toward him, and he grinned grimly at the prospect of his impending demise.

But when he struck the ground, it buckled under him, as if he had dove into a gigantic marshmallow. He sank into it and then sprang back upward, the ground bouncing beneath him.

There was a flash of light and Q appeared a meter away. “That was stupid,” he declared. “You had no idea what was going to happen. You could be dead right now.”

McHenry rolled across the stretch of bouncing ground and managed to reach the far side, scrambling to his feet. “There is no way that you would let me die,” he stated firmly. “That’s not how you operate, Q. Your idea of a good time is messing with people’s heads, not killing them.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” said Q. “I could have decided to simply be rid of you.”

“No way. The fact is that you’re just a little too predictable. Although I still don’t understand why you decided to listen to the begging of Shintar Han and show up on New Thallon in the first place.”

“I’ve always found the Thallonians a rather entertaining race.” Q was strolling in a small circle, his hands draped behind his back. “It’s why I have been their god for centuries. Manipulating them, undertaking various acts of gamesmanship. It’s fascinating to see them butt heads against each other. But now you have decided to insert yourself into my games. That could be a problem for you.”

“Or for you,” said McHenry.

Q actually laughed at that. “Do you truly believe that you could present a problem for me, McHenry? You are greatly overestimating your powers. Let me give you another demonstration.”

He snapped his fingers.

McHenry stood there and stared at him.

That caused Q to frown. He snapped his fingers a second time, but it made no difference. McHenry continued to remain exactly where he was.

“How is this possible?” Q demanded. He glanced around as if trying to discern someone else in the emptiness. “Who is doing this?”

McHenry had no idea what was happening, but he wasn’t about to let that piece of knowledge into Q’s head. “I’m doing it, Q. Remember how I stopped your power before? Well, I’m doing it again.”

“You’re lying,” Q said imperiously, but McHenry could see the doubt on his face. “It’s one thing to thwart me on some random world. But you’re in the Q Continuum now. You’re in my place of power. There’s no way that you should be able to defy me.”

“And yet I have,” McHenry pointed out. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Q shrugged. “I can leave you here. I can return to New Thallon, dispose of Robin Lefler and her son, and be done with all this. And in point of fact, there isn’t a thing you can do about it. So you remain here, McHenry, and I’ll be on my way.”

“No!” shouted McHenry. “You can’t leave me here!”

“I certainly can. Goodbye, McHenry. You hang here for a millennia or so while I go back to New Thallon and end this absurdity.”

“You can’t go. I forbid it.”

Q smiled and snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened.

Q stared at his fingers as if they were on someone else’s hand. “This isn’t possible. This simply isn’t possible. I would know if you were on par with my power level, and you’re not. There is no way you should be able to keep me here. How are you doing this?”

“I told you: I’m doing this because I’m as powerful as you,” McHenry lied. “You say this place is your place of power? Did you ever consider that it’s mine as well?”

“No, that thought never occurred to me.” Q’s eyes narrowed, and when he stared at McHenry, it was impossible for Mark to discern what was going through his mind. “It appears I may have underestimated you. May have. It is entirely possible that here in the Continuum, despite my expectations to the contrary, we may actually be evenly matched. If that is the case, I really see only one other option. We must return to New Thallon and resume our little battle there. If you wish to defend your beloved Robin Lefler and her child, then you shall be able to do so right in front of them. You can display your might for them. I’m sure they will be most impressed by you. And after that battle—or, more accurately, after I have won that battle—perhaps you will reconsider my offer of joining the Continuum.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Trust me, McHenry. There may be much that you can do, and many other things that you do not understand. But there is one thing of which I can assure you, and that is that I have lived far longer than you. You have been alive for the equivalent of how long it takes me to blink. So when I say that something is possible, I suggest you take my word for it.”

“And when I tell you that you have no power over me,” McHenry said bravely, mustering his courage as best he could, “I suggest you take my word for that.”

“Then the stage is set.” Q smiled, which McHenry found disconcerting. “Are you ready to play?”

“Born ready,” said McHenry.

“Then let’s get to it,” said Q.

They vanished.

Excalibur

i.

“TWENTY MINUTES TO the wormhole, Captain,” said Tobias.

Calhoun didn’t respond. Tobias frowned in confusion. Calhoun was simply sitting in the command chair, staring forward, resting his chin on his hand. He didn’t appear to be paying attention to anything that was going on around him. She exchanged a puzzled look with Kebron, who appeared to shrug. At least that’s what it looked like; it wasn’t always easy to discern what Kebron was doing physically. “Captain?” she said cautiously.

Calhoun seemed to force himself to focus his attention on the communications officer. “What?”

“Twenty minutes to wormhole, sir,” she said, speaking slowly. She wasn’t sure why the captain seemed so distracted, but that wasn’t her problem. She was focused on making sure that he understood the situation they were in. “The Dayan ship is still tailing us.”

“I know they are. And that’s going to present a problem.” Calhoun rose from his chair, his gaze fixed upon the screen. The Dayan ship was visible on it, easily keeping pace with the Excalibur. “We can’t lead them back to our universe. But if we lead them to the wormhole, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

“What’s the plan, sir?” said Kebron.

Calhoun continued to stare at the viewscreen for a moment, then said, “Activate long-range sensors. Give me a reading on the wormhole. Is it active?”

At the science station, Xy consulted his instruments quickly. “Yes, sir. It is.”

“Mister Xy,” said Calhoun, turning to his science officer, “how do we shut it down?”

“Shut down the wormhole? Permanently?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Well,” Xy said thoughtfully, “the nature of a wormhole is that it is fundamentally delicate. Any disruption to its core should be enough to cause it to collapse in on itself.”

“What sort of disruption?”

“An explosion of sufficient magnitude should do it.”

“Photon torpedoes, for instance?”

“I’m not sure, Captain,” Xy said reluctantly. “I have to admit, no one’s done a study on how to destroy wormholes. I’m speculating here, based on what we know of them in general. And this one seems to be defying expectations in any event. So it’s possible that it will work, but I can’t be certain.”

“We’ll just have to find out,” said Calhoun. “Tobias, prepare to bring the cloaking device on-line. We’re going to try and lose them before we get within range of the wormhole.”

“Aye, Captain,” said Tobias. She was apprehensive over what they were going to do, but she wasn’t about to display any of that worry.

“On the count of three,” said Calhoun slowly. “One . . . two . . . three. Cloak on and maximum warp for the wormhole.”

The Excalibur promptly vanished and then hurtled in the direction of the wormhole that would transport them back to their galaxy.

The Dayan did not take it well.

The ship immediately let loose with a series of blasts that hammered the entire area with extreme aggression. Calhoun hadn’t thought it possible that a ship could possess that much weaponry, but it became quickly evident that the Dayan had all that and more besides. And every blast that struck the Excalibur did so with the power of a thousand thousand hammer blows. The ship shook violently as the red alert klaxon screamed.

“Shields at twenty percent!” shouted Kebron, which was alarming. The notion that the ship had taken that degree of damage in such a short time was horrifying.

“The Dayan are hailing us, Captain!” called Tobias.

“Not now!” Calhoun told her.

But an instant later Nyos’s voice was filtering over the comm system. “Captain Calhoun, where do you think you’re going?”

Calhoun glared at Tobias, but she shook her head. “It’s not me, Captain! They’ve somehow taken over our communications system!”

“Do you truly think you can flee us, Captain?” Nyos’s voice continued mockingly. “The entire time we’ve been with you, we’ve been identifying your warp signature. We can track you no matter where you go, even if you’re hiding behind the cloak.”

Calhoun spun to face Xy. “Can he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Xy said. “Soleta would have a better handle on that. Where is she?”

Calhoun neither knew nor cared at that moment. Instead he said desperately, “Tobias! Keep us moving! Continue course to the wormhole!”

“Aye, sir!”

The Excalibur hurtled through space. The Dayan ship continued to fire at them, but now it was starting to miss. The ship deftly avoided the blasts and continued speeding toward the wormhole.

“Five minutes to entrance, Captain!” said Tobias.

Nyos’s voice was still crackling over the intercom. “You cannot flee, Captain, try as you might! We have a deal, the two of us, and I do not appreciate your endeavoring to leave us behind.”

Calhoun didn’t see any point in responding.

“Should we return fire, sir?” said Kebron.

“No. It’ll enable them to track exactly where we are.”

The ship continued to vibrate from the impact of the blasts that it was sustaining.

“Aft shields have collapsed completely,” Kebron informed him.

“Reroute power from forward shields.”

“We don’t have enough to reroute, sir. We’ve barely got enough to sustain forward shields, and those aren’t going to survive more than another blast or two.”

“Three minutes to wormhole,” Tobias spoke up.

His mind racing, Calhoun suddenly called out, “Full reverse!”

“Full reverse, aye!”

The Excalibur slammed to a halt and reversed direction. The Dayan ship blew right past them. Then it slowed, apparently aware that it had momentarily lost track of them.

“Now, warp seven!”

The Excalibur angled down and away from the Dayan ship, increasing speed with every moment. The Dayan vessel appeared to react to them and it opened fire once more, but all the blasts missed.

Seconds ticked by as the Excalibur hurtled toward the gateway home. Calhoun prayed that the wormhole would be active; he didn’t need a repeat of what had transpired in Thallonian space.

“Is it there?” he asked.

“Got it!” Tobias said triumphantly. “It blinked out a moment before, but it just flared into existence. So it’ll likely still be there for us to enter!”

“Go,” said Calhoun. “Full ahead!”

The Excalibur sped toward the wormhole. Calhoun was well aware that they had virtually no defensive capabilities. The shields had been pounded to near total ineffectiveness. He reasoned that the one thing they had going for them was that there was no point in the Dayan vessel blowing them out of existence. It was depending on them to lead them back to their galaxy, a task that the Excalibur would hardly be in a position to do if it were nothing more than floating scrap metal.

Blasts from the Dayan ship continued to explode around them, but now none of them were making contact. It was as if they were losing track of their target. “Sir,” called Tobias, “they’re falling back! I think they’re not sure where we are.”

“That’s good news,” said Calhoun. “Stay the course. Countdown to the wormhole.”

“Reaching the wormhole in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . wormhole engaged!”

Space bent and twisted around them as the wormhole enveloped them. Calhoun wanted to pump the air in triumph. They’d done it. They’d managed to leave the Dayan ship behind them and avoid having them gain access to their own galaxy. Granted, there was much about this entire expedition that Calhoun was not happy with. But at least he didn’t have to worry about—”

“Sir!” said Kebron, and there was clear concern in his voice. “The Dayan are right behind us.”

The image on the viewscreen shifted aft and, sure enough, there was the Dayan vessel in pursuit. Whether they had managed to track the Excalibur into the wormhole or had just simply detected it themselves, it was impossible to tell. All he knew was that they were right behind the Excalibur and were not about to back off.

Now Calhoun had no choice. “Photon torpedoes! Hit the sides of the wormhole! Try to bring it down!”

“If it collapses while we’re inside it, Captain—” Xy began to say.

“We don’t have a choice!”

Kebron’s hands were flying over the controls, moving much faster than Calhoun would have thought someone that size could move. “Torpedoes away!” Kebron announced.

The torpedoes exploded from the ship, slamming into the wormhole behind them. The far larger Dayan ship ignored them, continuing to speed forward and actually gaining on the Excalibur.

“No change in the wormhole,” called Xy.

“Again!”

Once more the photon torpedoes flew from the ship and struck the sides of the wormhole. Nothing happened. The wormhole remained consistent.

“The explosions aren’t sufficient, Captain,” Xy told him. “The wormhole is holding steady.”

The Excalibur, however, was not. It was shaking violently, as it had when it had first passed through the wormhole. And it was taking long minutes of time rather than seconds, just as before.

It seemed that the Dayan ship was trembling as well, but it was sturdier than the Excalibur and clearly had no intention of being shaken to pieces.

ii.

LIEUTENANT VARGAS WAS on duty in the shuttlebay when the doors opened. He was surprised to see Soleta standing there.

“What’s wrong?” he said, realizing he was unsure of what to call her. Her rank had been lieutenant when she was part of Starfleet, but she had left that aspect of her life far behind. But it didn’t feel right addressing her by her given name. “Shouldn’t you be on duty? Wherever that is?”

“I’m where I need to be,” she said, walking forward quickly. “I need you to open the shuttlebay doors.”

“I can’t do that without authorization,” he said.

“Of course. I understand,” Soleta assured him. As she spoke, she brought her hand up and rested it on Vargas’s shoulder.

A split second before she touched him, Vargas realized what was about to happen. He grabbed for the phaser that he kept routinely attached to his belt. He had never had the opportunity to use it. His hand went limp as he brought it up to aim it at her. The phaser slipped out of his grasp and clattered to the deck and, seconds later, so did Vargas.

Soleta stepped over his prone body and her hands moved quickly over the controls. She transferred the protocols from the Excalibur instrumentation to that of her own vessel. Seconds later she had managed to rig the controls so that she could trip them from within her own ship.

She nodded approvingly. “All right. Let’s pray this works,” she muttered as she exited the room and emerged into the shuttlebay.

She sprinted across the deck as fast as her legs would take her. She heard a peremptory shout of protest from an engineer who had spotted her and was now demanding that she stop.

But he was too late. She reached the side of her ship, tapped the entry code, and ran in as the door slid open. It slammed shut behind her and she got to work.

iii.

ON THE BRIDGE, Tobias looked up. “Sir! Shuttlebay doors are opening!”

“What the hell?” said Calhoun. “Who’s opening the shuttlebay?”

“It’s—” Her voice caught in confusion for a moment. “It’s Soleta.”

“Soleta? Close the shuttlebay doors and find out what she’s doing down there.”

“Too late, sir. She’s already launched.”

“Get her on. Now.”

Soleta’s voice crackled over the comlink. “I don’t have much time. I’ve set my engines to overload.”

“What?” Calhoun couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“You need an explosion of sufficient magnitude to collapse the wormhole. My engines may provide what is required.”

“Soleta, wait—”

“No time to wait. No purpose in waiting. I am sorry for anything that I may have done to humiliate you, Captain. Remain strong.”

“Soleta!”

It was too late. They watched as Soleta’s ship vibrated violently on the screen and then, seconds later, erupted. The explosion was massive against the background of the wormhole, and some part of Calhoun’s mind swore that he could actually hear the wormhole scream in pain from the blast.

“Sir! The wormhole’s collapsing!” Xy cried out.

It was indeed. For a moment, Calhoun worried what would happen if the wormhole fell apart while they were still in it. They might well be torn to shreds by it as the very fabric of space and time was ripped apart around them.

The ship was continuing to shake violently, so much so that Calhoun was sure he was feeling his teeth being shaken from out of his head.

And then, suddenly, space was restored around them. The wormhole was gone.

No one reacted at first; everyone on the bridge was clearly shocked that they had managed to survive. “All stop!” called out Calhoun. “Drop the cloak. Let’s figure out where the hell we are.”

The Excalibur shimmered into existence as Tobias quickly checked the star charts to determine their location. Calhoun, for his part, was staring at the section of space where the wormhole had previously been.

She’d done it. Soleta had sacrificed her life in order to save the Excalibur. She had done so without hesitation, perfectly sanguine about the idea of giving up her life so that the ship could survive.

No. Not the ship. Him. He knew instinctively that Soleta hadn’t actually given a damn about anyone else on the ship. Her sole concern had been to save Calhoun. And perhaps to try and make up for the horrific physical and mental crime that she had committed.

Calhoun knew he should appreciate her efforts, knew he should be grateful because he and the crew were alive. But he was still burning with anger over what she had done to him, and he couldn’t set it aside.

He resolved that when they got home, he would nominate her for a medal of achievement. Despite whatever resistance he got from Starfleet because of the way in which she had been expelled from the ranks, he would make certain that she received that commendation. It would do nothing to dampen the anger that he was feeling. But at least it would be a way of acknowledging her sacrifice.

Tobias looked up from her board. “We are exactly where we were when we first entered the wormhole, sir. We’re back in Thallonian space.”

“That’s good to hear,” said Calhoun, sighing in relief. “And at least—”

The view on the main screen suddenly exploded with light. One moment there had been nothing there, and the next the wormhole flared to life once more. The Dayan ship blew out of it, heading straight for the Excalibur.

“Hard to port!” shouted Calhoun. “Reactivate the cloaking shield imme—”

He wasn’t able to get the entire order out because his body abruptly shimmered and seconds later was reduced to nothingness. He had been beamed right off the bridge of the Excalibur.

New Thallon

i.

SHINTAR HAN BLINKED several times before he managed to shake off unconsciousness. His head was ringing and he tried automatically to reach up to touch it, but then he realized that he couldn’t move his hands. They were tied together behind him.

He looked around and saw that he was lying on the living room couch. Robin Lefler was seated across from him, cradling Cwansi in her arms. Indi Anel was just walking out of the food preparation area carrying two cups of what appeared to be tea. She noticed that he had woken up. “Well, well. Look who has rejoined the land of the living.”

“Release me immediately,” Han commanded. “I am the prime minister of New Thallon.”

“In this house, you’re nothing,” Robin retorted, clearly unimpressed by his peremptory order. “You’re lucky to still be alive. It was Indi’s idea to just cut your throat while you were out.”

“Indi’s idea!” echoed Han. “And here I thought I could count on your loyalty.”

“You could count on nothing,” Indi replied. “You insisted that Robin and her son come here and then you plotted to kill them. You deserve nothing but contempt from anyone who has the slightest bit of decency.”

“How you talk,” said Han. He sounded annoyingly amused. “Considering all that you have witnessed, that you would take that attitude with me.”

“I am done with you. I work for Robin and McHenry now.”

“McHenry!” Han chortled loudly. “McHenry is obviously gone. The Awesome has disposed of him, and he will return to dispose of you as well.”

“You don’t know anything,” Robin said angrily. “First of all, your god is no god. Second, if he disposed of McHenry, then why hasn’t he returned to take care of me as well?”

“He is obviously taking his time,” said Han.

Robin handed her son over to Indi and then strode over to Shintar Han. Her hand swung freely and smacked loudly against his face. Han let out a startled yell but then managed to compose himself. “If that is all the strength you have in your arm, then I suggest you follow your original plan and kill me now. Because I swear, when I free myself of these bonds, I will dispose of you myself.”

“Really?”

“That is correct.”

Lefler seemed to consider it a moment. Then she went to a drawer in the kitchen and slid it open. She withdrew a steak knife from the drawer, then walked to Indi and exchanged the blade for her baby. She hugged Cwansi to herself and then lay him down in his playpen. “Cut him free,” said Robin.

“What?!” Indi was unable to keep the surprise from her voice.

“You heard me. Cut the cords around his hands.”

Indi clearly had no idea why Robin was giving her the order, but she nodded and approached Han carefully. He was lying down, and she grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him upright. Within seconds she had cut loose the rope that was binding his hands.

“Give him the knife,” said Robin. She was keeping her voice flat and even, as if she was indifferent to the words she was speaking. When she saw Indi’s confusion, she repeated: “Go on. Give it to him.”

Indi extended the knife’s hilt to Shintar Han. Han stared at it as if it were an explosive that would detonate the moment he touched it. Then, very slowly, he took it from Indi’s hand. She quickly backed up, as if she were concerned that Han might try to stab her with it.

Robin pushed the coffee table aside with her foot to provide an unobstructed path at her. “Attack me.”

“Excuse me?” said Han.

“You heard me. Attack me. Come at me with the knife and try to kill me with it. I’m giving you this open shot at me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What needs to be explained?” said Robin. “You said you wanted to kill me. I’m giving you this opportunity. You’re armed. I’m not. Come at me with the knife. Try to stab me to death.”

He froze, unsure of what to do. “You think I won’t,” he said, after a moment of thought. “You think I lack the courage to try.”

“I don’t think it requires much courage for an armed man to assault an unarmed woman with a knife, but that could just be me,” she said with an indifferent shrug. “Whether it requires bravery or not, here I am. Just standing here. Waiting for the attack.”

“You truly believe that I would not dare to attack you? That I am only comfortable dispatching flunkies or gods to achieve my goals?”

Robin said nothing. She merely stood there with her arms folded and stared at him defiantly.

His charge came with no warning. Indi gasped as Shintar Han came straight at Robin, whipping the knife back and forth so that she would be unable to stop it.

Robin watched him carefully, timed the speed of the blade, and waited until he had committed himself to his blow. Then she stepped sideways, the thrust of the blade jabbing forward to where she had just been standing. Han lunged, his thrust overextended.

She caught his arm and kept it rigid. He was unable to move in either direction because she had locked him in midstride. Their faces were extremely close to each other and she neither smiled nor frowned but simply stared into his eyes. There was coldness and cruelty in her expression.

Then she twisted.

An audible snap erupted in the room, and Shintar Han let out a high-pitched, agonized shriek. His hand went limp and the knife fell out of his nerveless fingers. Pain ripped up and down his arm and he howled so loudly that his ancestors may well have heard him and scowled at his weakness.

His legs gave way and he started to sag, but he did not fall because Robin kept him standing. “Do we understand each other?” she asked in a harsh whisper. “Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes! Yes! O Awesome, yes!”

“Good,” she said, and she stepped back, throwing her hands wide and allowing Han to slip to the floor. He did so, landing heavily and groaning. He stared in horror at his right arm, which was now distended and hanging limply.

To his astonishment, Robin now knelt next to him. She gripped his arm tightly and said, “I’ve dislocated your arm. I’m going to shove it back in. Relax.”

“Are you joking?!”

“No, I’m not. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. On the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!”

She shoved on his arm in just the right manner and the arm snapped back into his shoulder. Han screamed in agony and the world seemed to swirl around him, transforming into streaks of black and white. He fell backward and this time Robin made no effort to support him. He lay on his back, thrashing around, grabbing at his right shoulder with his left hand and continuing to moan for long seconds afterward.

Robin got to her feet. She was still holding the knife, having tucked it into her belt. Now she tapped it on her open palm. “I could have killed you,” she said calmly. “Could have taken the knife and slashed it right across your throat. Instead I chose to let you live. I invite you to extend the same courtesy to me.”

At which point Indi stepped forward, shaking her head. “But I suspect he won’t. He’ll probably go right on trying to come up with ways to dispatch you. If you have any care for your life or your son’s life, you’ll cut him down right now.”

“That’s loyalty,” growled Shintar Han.

“I owe you no loyalty,” Indi said to him, making no effort to keep the snarl out of her voice. “I stood by and watched as you planned to kill a woman and her child. But it seems the woman wasn’t as helpless as you thought, was she?”

“It would seem not.” Han had managed to get to his feet and was now sitting on the edge of the couch, rubbing his shoulder. “I assume that was the point of this exercise? To show that you are not helpless.”

“The point was to show that I could have slain you but chose not to. That is the entirety of it. Now, get out of my house.”

Shintar Han simply nodded. He rose and headed for the door.

“Try to kill me again,” Robin called after him, “and you will see that you have experienced the last of my mercy.”

He walked out without saying another word, and the door slid shut behind him.

Suddenly there was a burst of light, and an instant later, McHenry was standing in the living room, looking extremely bewildered.

“What’d I miss?” he asked.

ii.

SHINTAR HAN STUMBLED into his office and came around his desk to his chair. He sank into it and let out a deep and frustrated sigh.

He had no idea what in the hell had just happened. He had walked in with a god covering his back, and suddenly the god had vanished and he had wound up in hand-to-hand combat with Robin Lefler, and she had easily demolished him. How in the world had he allowed himself to get dragged into a battle with her?

Because of pride, that’s how. He knew that she had challenged him because she’d been sure that he wouldn’t have the nerve to launch an assault. He had thought that by acting contrary to her beliefs, he would catch her off guard and strike her down. Had he managed to accomplish that, he would easily have been able to dispose of the child. He doubted that Indi would have done anything to stop him from doing so. He knew that she was, at heart, a coward, and he would have been able to bully her aside.

Instead Robin Lefler had handily disposed of him. He should have known that she had received battle training from Starfleet. He should have anticipated being outmatched. Instead he had gone into the fight convinced that he could take her down. He should have known that he was being set up to fail. He had no training in combat; he was a politician, not a warrior. Lefler had disposed of him easily because he had allowed himself to be manipulated into a situation where she could do so.

Granted, she had no protector. McHenry had been taken away by the Awesome, or Q, or whatever he was calling himself. That left Robin and her son vulnerable to attack. But Han was reluctant to take any action against her. She had disposed of him handily enough. Who knew what she might do to anyone else who attacked her?

Still . . .

“I could do it,” he muttered. “I could find someone to go in and kill her. That failed before because McHenry was there. But he’s gone and—”

“He’s back.”

Shintar Han jumped and cried out in shock, gasping and clutching at his chest while simultaneously feeling humiliated that he had overreacted in that manner. Nevertheless it took him several moments to compose himself and realize what had just happened.

The Awesome had appeared in his office. He had done so in a most casual fashion and was now seated in the chair opposite the desk. He seemed rather amused that Han was visibly startled by his unexpected return. “Are you all right?” he asked, in a tone that was meant to be conciliatory but mostly sounded sarcastic. “You seem a bit discommoded.”

“Where did you go?!”

“You raise your voice to your god?” asked the Awesome. He sounded entertained by the idea rather than angry.

Nevertheless Han reined in his frustration, aware of the fact that Q could erase him from existence with but a casual thought. “I was just wondering where you had disappeared to.”

Q seemed to give his answer some thought. “Heaven,” he said finally. “You would call it heaven. I brought McHenry there to discuss the current situation with him.”

“And you didn’t leave him there?”

“I suppose I could have,” said Q with a shrug. “I could have whipped up some manner of prison that would have kept him immobilized. But where would the fun be in that?”

“Fun?” Han was having a great deal of trouble maintaining his calm. He stopped, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Your Awesomeness, with all respect, this is not supposed to be about fun. This is supposed to be about removing a threat to the ongoing peace of New Thallon.”

“The child presents no threat to the peace. He presents a threat to your ongoing power. We both know that, so kindly do not attempt to insult me by presenting any other opinion.”

“Yes, of course, the child presents a threat, but to much more than my power . . .”

Q stared at him. That was all. Just stared at him. Han realized that he could not continue to meet that level gaze, and he lowered his eyes.

“Now that we understand each other,” said Q, “we can focus on the situation that has to be dealt with. I need to dispose of Mark McHenry. But that is not easily done. He has a considerable amount of power.”

“More than you?” asked a stunned Han.

Q snorted derisively. “Of course not. I can get rid of him with a thought.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Q, who appeared to be anything but. “But I believe that we must deal with this matter in a manner that will be satisfying for all.”

“And that would be?”

“A contest,” Q said. “A contest that McHenry cannot possibly win. When he loses the contest, he will voluntarily take himself out of the mix and leave Robin Lefler and her child to me. In doing so, we crush not only his power but his spirit. That is how you triumph over someone who can present problems.”

“All right,” said Han, starting to feel better about the entire situation. “And what will the nature of this contest be?”

“Why, combat,” Q assured him. “Something in the spirit and style of ancient Rome, I would think.”

“Ancient what?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Q said dismissively. “You needn’t concern yourself. I will arrange everything.”

“How do you know that McHenry will be willing to cooperate in this contest?”

“Oh, believe me,” Q said with a smile, “he’ll have no choice whatsoever. I can assure you of that.”

Excalibur

BURGOYNE WAS ON hir feet in an instant, eyes wide in shock. “Where is he? Where did he go?” S/he whirled to face Tobias. “Tania—”

“It’s the Dayan! It has to be,” said Tania, fighting to keep her voice even and professional. “They beamed him right off the bridge.”

“Yes, I can see that. Can we beam him back?”

She shook her head in frustration. “I’m trying to scan their ship, but I’m not getting any readings. They’re scrambling our sensors somehow.” Then she turned and looked back at Burgoyne. “We’re getting a transmission from them.”

“I’m sure we are,” said Burgoyne. “Put them on audio.”

Nyos’s voice crackled over the comm unit. “Greetings, Excalibur. As I’m sure you’ve surmised, we have your captain. Listen to us very carefully: you are to turn off your cloaking device and reveal yourself to us immediately. If you do not do so, we will kill your captain. We cannot make your situation more simple or self-evident than that. We will give you one minute to comply.” The channel closed, leaving silence on the bridge.

All eyes were on Burgoyne. S/he had not taken hir place in the command chair. Instead s/he was still in the first officer’s spot, and s/he was stroking hir chin slowly, clearly processing the situation. “They can’t see us,” s/he said slowly. “If they could, they wouldn’t require us to drop the shield.”

“But those things they said before . . .” said Tobias. “About being able to lock on to our engines.”

“A bluff,” said Xy. “It has to be. Things they made up in order to make us believe that they could fire on us at any time. They were trying to trick us.”

“Well, it worked,” admitted Tobias. “I thought they had us.”

“What they have is the captain,” said Burgoyne. “If we drop the cloak and let them know where we are, we’re as good as surrendering the ship to them.”

“And if we don’t,” said Kebron, “then we’re signing the captain’s death warrant.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” said Burgoyne. “What would be the point of it?”

“It’s a threat,” said Kebron. “The point of it is pretty much implicit in the saying of it.”

“No, seriously,” Burgoyne said thoughtfully. “What would be the point of killing Captain Calhoun? If they do that, then he’s of no use to them anymore. The Dayan don’t strike me as a race that’s inclined to just toss aside chips that easily.”

“You’re saying it’s a bluff?” said Kebron.

“I’m saying that makes more sense than just killing him.”

“And if they’re not bluffing?”

“Then they kill him,” said Burgoyne.

“Burgy—”

“What would you have me do, Zak?” Burgoyne demanded. “Give up the lives of everyone on this ship in exchange for the captain? How do you think Mac would feel about that? Do you think he’d approve? Because I sure as hell don’t. If it came down to a choice of his life against you, or me, or any other single individual on this ship versus his own, we both know what he’d say. He’d say that he’d kick my ass across this bridge before seeing me surrender to an enemy. And that’s who they are.” He pointed at the immense Dayan vessel on the screen. “They are here for one reason and one reason only: to conquer. They’ve kidnapped our captain to help facilitate that. We know what they want. They’re going to want us to give them targets. Orient them to our galaxy. Tell them who to hit first. They’ll likely want to strip-mine our computer data. Do you want to stand by while they do that? Do any of you?”

There was a slow shaking of heads.

“What do we do?” said Tobias.

“We wait and watch,” said Burgoyne. “We don’t go anywhere. We don’t activate our engines. We just remain exactly where we are. Don’t open fire on them. Don’t do anything. Let’s see what they do.”

“So it’s a waiting game?” said Tobias.

“That’s exactly right.”

“And what if, while we’re waiting here, we see them dump the captain’s body out one of their torpedo chutes?”

“We mourn him and take solace in the fact that he would rather die than see any of us die.” Burgoyne checked the chronometer. “It’s been more than a minute. So we’ve either called their bluff or doomed the captain. I guess we’re going to find out which.”

Dayan Vessel

NYOS CHECKED HIS chronometer and nodded grimly. “It’s been over a minute and we’ve heard nothing from your crew.” He turned to face Calhoun. “It appears that your crew has abandoned you.”

Calhoun was locked into a mechanism that clearly was used for alien races because it was designed for someone much smaller than the average Dayan. There were solid manacles that were holding his arms upright, and they were strapped around his feet as well. He had initially tried pulling at them but there was no slack whatsoever. He was solidly trapped.

He was in a relatively small room and was easily able to discern what its purpose was. It was there for questioning captives. Which mildly surprised Calhoun, since the Dayan did not strike him as individuals who were especially big on captives. They seemed more the search-and-destroy type.

He wanted to say, Good. You did exactly what I wanted you to do. Because I’ll be damned if my crew does anything to cooperate with you, you murdering bastards. I would rather die a hundred deaths than have my life spared so that you can go tearing across my galaxy bringing death and destruction to billions of innocent individuals.

But he said nothing. Instead he simply hung there and stared impassively at Nyos. He allowed no anger to play across his face, no emotion of any kind. He just stared.

“So now I am supposed to kill you,” said Nyos when Calhoun didn’t reply. “I said I would. What would they think of me if I failed to follow through on a threat?”

Still nothing.

“Is this your plan, Calhoun? To simply stare at me and wait for me to dispose of you? While your ship floats nearby?”

That was something that Calhoun could not resist asking about. “You said you could track us.”

“And you believed me? Am I to be held accountable for your stupidity?”

“So it was a lie?”

“Of course it was a lie,” said Nyos. He even chuckled, which was a low and distressing sound. “That is just fundamental gamesmanship. Always convince an opponent that you have an advantage, even if you have none.” He slowly circled Calhoun. “I see that you’re speaking now.”

“Seemed polite.”

“And you’re all about being polite.” He laughed softly once more. “I knew from the moment I met you that we were going to get along.”

“Get along?” Calhoun glanced at the manacles on his wrists. “Is this how you define ‘getting along’? By chaining me up?”

“I could have stripped you naked and beaten you to within an inch of your life. I would show some measure of gratitude for my restraint if I were you.”

“Thanks,” said Calhoun drily.

“Your crewmates obviously don’t think enough of you to rescue you from our clutches.”

“No, they know me well enough to know that I would not approve of them sacrificing anything on my behalf. They know I would rather die than surrender to the demands of a terrorist.”

“Terrorist? Us?” He touched his chest and managed to look genuinely astonished. “On what basis do you make that judgment?”

“We have reliable authority that tells us your intention is to destroy our galaxy.”

“Really? And who told you that? The D’myurj?”

“Yes.”

“And they convinced you of that?”

“You convinced us of that,” said Calhoun. “We saw what you did to their world. To their race.”

“Actions that you approved of.”

“Yes,” said Calhoun. “I did. But I was wrong to. I should never have assisted you. And you should never have done it.”

“It seems to me,” said Nyos, “that your true issue is not with us but with your own actions. I do not see how that should be our concern.”

“It shouldn’t. But that doesn’t explain why you felt the need to kidnap me from my ship.”

“We require leverage, obviously,” said Nyos. “It is clear that you do not trust us.”

“And you believe that the best way to encourage us to trust you is to engage in kidnapping? I’m sorry; I’m not quite following your thought process.”

“We thought that by kidnapping you, we could get your vessel to cooperate with us.”

“What manner of cooperation are you seeking?”

“Information, Captain!” said Nyos, as if it were the most absurd question in the world. “We simply want information about this place. About the various races that are residing here.”

“For targets?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Again, because of your assault on the D’myurj. Because of your attitude and cold-bloodedness. And because, yes, the D’myurj who are currently on our vessel have accused you of being an aggressive and destructive race.”

“And you believe them?”

“Prove you’re not,” Calhoun challenged him. “Release me back to my ship. Allow us to sail away. Return through the wormhole—which we obviously didn’t destroy, despite our best efforts—to your own galaxy. Leave us be. Forget that you ever met us.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t an option, Captain. Whether you like the situation or not, the fact is that we have encountered you and we know of this galaxy’s existence. We are not about to forget it.”

“Why?” demanded Calhoun. “What is there here that you could possibly need? For that matter, why did you have us destroy the D’myurj satellites? You could have assaulted them and survived the attack. You didn’t need us to do it for you.”

“Isn’t it obvious? We wanted to test your offensive and defensive capabilities. We wanted to see if you, in any way, posed a threat to us.”

So Quentis was right about that. “Really? And what conclusion did you reach?”

“That you were not remotely a threat at all, obviously.” Nyos was smiling widely as he continued walking in a slow circle around Calhoun. “One assumes that your vessel has some degree of power insofar as those who sent you to us are concerned. But there was nothing in your offense that was going to be a difficulty for us. Certainly you must know that by now, Captain. Your ship cannot compete with our vessel.”

“And you therefore assume that no other ship can do so either?”

Nyos’s smile faded. “You are not going to take my word for it? That we do not intend to harm your galaxy?”

“You’re speaking to a captive, so no. I’m not.”

Nyos nodded and then removed a staff from his belt. It was under a meter long and solid black except for a multifaceted gem on the head. He shoved it forward into Calhoun’s gut and electricity ripped through the captain. Calhoun couldn’t help himself; he screamed at the top of his lungs. The agony was far more than he would have thought possible. For a moment he thought his heart had stopped and it might well have, but then it snapped back and fought its way to life once more. The sensation only lasted for seconds but it felt as if it went on for hours. When Nyos withdrew the staff, Calhoun’s head sagged forward and he gasped repeatedly.

“Fine,” said Nyos, and he stabbed forward with the staff a second time. Once more electricity slammed through Calhoun. At least he thought it was electricity. It might have been some other sort of energy that was inflicting the same amount of pain—perhaps even more—than an electrical jolt would have provided. Calhoun clamped his teeth onto his lower lip and tried to stifle the howls, but he failed and continued to scream until Nyos removed the staff. Calhoun sank forward, hanging limply.

“You win. We intend to conquer the entirety of your galaxy. Satisfied?”

Calhoun wanted to nod but wasn’t able to move his head.

Nyos took Calhoun’s silence as an indication that he should continue. He strolled calmly back and forth, every so often tapping his open palm with the staff. “You do not truly understand, Captain. It is not simply your galaxy. It is all galaxies, all life. There is a simple truth that you do not comprehend: all life in the universe is an abomination. It was never intended that life should spread and thrive. The galaxy is perfect in its original conception. Think of life as a cancer that has spread throughout. Your doctors I’m sure went to great lengths to dispose of cancer as a threat to your lives, yes? Why would you blame us for doing the same?”

“Life isn’t like cancer,” Calhoun managed to say. “Cancer destroys life.”

“And do you think life has not destroyed the galaxy? Or at least parts of the galaxy?” Nyos snorted derisively. “Trust me, Calhoun, we have seen what life can do to worlds. We have seen worlds torn down, destroyed through the efforts of those residing on them. Atmospheres destroyed, ground strip-mined for minerals. We have seen races render their planets literally uninhabitable, and you know what they do then? They evacuate. Every one of them climbs into space vessels and goes off in search of another world where they can start over and do the whole damned thing over again. Sometimes they land on a world that is not intended to have life, and they remake it into something that can sustain them. Make that world into something it’s not. Are we supposed to simply stand by and watch that happen? Should any conscientious race? Or should the race that is powerful enough to do something about it make the effort to do so?”

“There’s one thing you’re forgetting,” Calhoun said.

“Really? What would that be?”

“You are also alive. How can you hope to get rid of all life when your race continues to exist?”

Nyos smiled at that. “Oh, believe me, we are very aware of that. I assure you that when we are finished—when we have managed to destroy all life in the galaxies—then we will destroy ourselves as well. The Dayan ship will detonate in a glorious explosion, and our lives will end. That is one of the most fundamental aspects of our belief system. We die last.”

“Why wait? You should set an example and just kill yourselves now.”

Nyos let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “You have an excellent sense of humor, Captain.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Yes, I imagine you weren’t.” He shook his head. “What to do with you, Calhoun? What to do? I could of course simply kill you now and throw your body into space. But how would that benefit us?”

“I doubt that it would.”

“But keeping you alive undercuts the threat.”

“You could, of course, keep me here until my crew rescues me.”

Nyos seemed genuinely surprised at the suggestion. “Are you under the impression that that’s going to happen?”

“Yes,” said Calhoun tightly. “I think that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Because you and your people have underestimated my people the entire time, and because you’re not expecting it. They are going to get into this ship and they are going to come and get me. So if you have any brains at all, you will do exactly what you suggested. You’ll kill me and toss my body into space so that they’ll know there’s no point.”

Nyos had been pacing the room, but now he had stopped and was just staring at Calhoun. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? Because you know that if they did indeed launch an assault on this ship, they would die. So you are attempting to save their lives by encouraging me to slay you. Your mind must be truly addled from the shocks, Captain, to embrace such an obvious attempt at saving them.”

Calhoun hated to think it, but Nyos was very likely right. It was a remarkably obvious move. He had certainly come up with far more effective stunts in his life, and he had to think that the fact Nyos could see through his attempt to safeguard his crew didn’t speak at all well of the attempt.

Nyos strolled over to him and cupped his chin in his hand. “I am not going to kill you, Captain. You will see—”

At that moment, the door slid open. Nyos turned to see who had come in, and he was mildly confused when there was no one there. This he evidently considered to be quite strange. He walked over to the door, and when he got there it slid open once more. He stuck his head out into the corridor and looked left and right. He saw nothing.

With a shrug he turned back to Calhoun. The odd moment was forgotten. “I imagine you may be of use at some later date,” he said coolly. “Perhaps you can be utilized in some manner of prisoner exchange. Or perhaps a simple assassination.”

“I’m not going to kill someone for you.”

“Your cooperation really would not be relevant. All we would have to do is place an explosive within your body. We render you unconscious and then transport you onto whatever ship we wish to destroy. It’s quite simple, really.”

Calhoun realized that Nyos was correct. They could travel all the way to Earth and destroy Starfleet headquarters if they were of a mind to. Or any major command ship. They could show up with any story that they wanted. They could claim that they had discovered Calhoun floating through space in a deserted ship somewhere, had rescued him, and now brought him safely home. Anything was possible. And if he wasn’t conscious to contradict them, he could be turned into a weapon against whomever they wanted to destroy.

Calhoun’s heart sank. He was trapped, and there was no way out of it. If his crew was smart, they were already light years from the scene, using the cloaking device to exit the area. There was no way they could mount any sort of real rescue operation. Assault on the much larger ship was unthinkable.

It was incredibly frustrating.

This is my life now. Despondency. Failure. That’s what’s hanging over every aspect of my existence.

Nyos smiled again, clearly pleased at what was going through Calhoun’s mind. “You understand the depth of your failure, yes? You realize that there is nothing you can do. That you are helpless. You are unaccustomed to that sensation. Bask in it, Captain. Wrestle with the fact that there is absolutely nothing that you can do. Not you and not your crew. I shall keep you apprised of our endeavors as we continue to sweep the area and try to determine if your vessel is still here. I am assuming that they are. I know that you would far prefer to think that they have departed the area, but we both know that they will not wish to abandon you. Their loyalty will spell their doom. You just keep thinking about that.”

He laughed as he turned and walked out of the room.

Calhoun’s head slumped forward and he closed his eyes.

I’m a failure, he thought.

That was when the clamps suddenly released from his hands.

He looked up in confusion, thinking it was some sort of trick. Then the binders came loose on the rest of him as well. He stumbled forward off the device to which he’d been attached and was so disoriented that he almost fell.

But something prevented him from doing so.

It was a hand. An invisible hand was pushed against his chest, keeping him upright.

“What the hell?” he murmured.

He stepped back and stared in confusion at the thin air in front of him.

It began to shimmer and then something appeared in front of him. It was someone wearing a suit of some sort that was skintight. It was solid silver and it reflected their surroundings. It was as if he was staring into a walking mirror; he regarded his puzzled expression staring back at him.

It was definitely a female, but he had never seen anything like what she was wearing.

Once she was satisfied that he was capable of standing on his own, she stepped back and touched her wrist. The covering on her face retracted to reveal her features.

Calhoun’s jaw dropped.

“Soleta?” he whispered.

She nodded. “Good to see you, Captain. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

New Thallon

“HE BROUGHT YOU to the Q Continuum?” Robin could scarcely believe it. “My god. What was that like?”

“Open. Very open,” said McHenry.

They were seated in the living room, and Robin was bouncing Cwansi on her knee. Indi was seated nearby, shaking her head. “I don’t understand. Is he a god or isn’t he?”

“He isn’t,” McHenry said firmly. “He’s an alien being. A very powerful alien being. And for some reason, he’s taken an interest in what’s happening on New Thallon. Trust me when I say that that isn’t a good thing.”

“What’s he going to do?” asked Robin. “Is he going to attack us?”

“I don’t know.”

“And if he does,” said Indi, “are you powerful enough to defeat him?”

“I don’t know,” McHenry said again. His frustration was palpable. “Look, there’s something you both have to realize.” He got to his feet and aimlessly walked around the room. “I haven’t had my powers for all that long. Not in the great, grand cosmic scheme of things. The truth is that I don’t know exactly what I can do and can’t do. But Q, on the other hand . . . he can pretty much do whatever occurs to him. I think . . .”

“You think what?”

He stared at her. “I think we should get the hell out of here. I think we should forget about the promise that you made. I think we should give up the dream of Cwansi growing up to lead these people.”

“You mean leave?” said Indi. She sounded genuinely concerned. She crossed the living room and walked up to McHenry. “But you have people coming this afternoon. People who have made appointments for you to . . .” Her voice trailed off as she saw his expression. She lowered her gaze. “That must have sounded very selfish. I apologize.”

He rested a hand on her shoulder. “No need for apologies—and no, it didn’t sound selfish. You came in and arranged things for us. You made order out of chaos. For that, we thank you.” He turned back to Robin. “So what do you say, Robin? Shall we blow this popsicle stand?”

“This what?”

“Old Earth saying. Don’t worry about it. Shall we get out of here?”

“Where would we go? Do you know where the Excalibur is?”

“Not at the moment. But I can bring us to Bravo Station. I’m sure Shelby will be happy to see us, and then we wait there and see if we can reconnect with the ship.”

She thought a moment and then nodded. “Okay. Okay, that makes sense.” She lifted Cwansi up and turned him around so that he was draped across her shoulder, then she walked over to McHenry. “Get us out of here.”

“What about you?” Mark said to Indi. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Me? No.” She smiled. “I am Thallonian. My place is here. Do not worry about me: I am quite sure I will find something worthwhile with which to occupy my time.”

Impulsively, Robin reached out and hugged her. Cwansi let out a small squeal as he was momentarily squished between the two women. “Thank you for everything,” Robin whispered into her ear.

“It was my honor.”

She stepped away from Indi and took her place next to McHenry. “I’m sorry, Cwansi,” she said to her son. “You would have done a wonderful job ruling this place.”

“Who knows?” said McHenry. “He’ll be around for quite some time. Anything can happen in the future. Perhaps he’ll return here when he’s an adult and wind up taking over the whole planet. Anything’s possible.”

“That would be wonderful.”

“Okay, then.” He tossed a salute to Indi. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

McHenry closed his eyes, envisioned Bravo Station, and willed them to go there.

Nothing happened.

His eyes opened to slits and he glanced around. They were still in the living room. Indi looked mildly puzzled. “Is something supposed to happen?” she said. “Should you disappear?”

“Yes, we should,” said McHenry.

“I don’t understand.” Robin was staring in confusion at McHenry. “Why are we still here? Why didn’t you transport us to Bravo?”

“I’m not sure . . . no, wait. Actually, I am,” he said grimly. “It’s Q. He’s blocking my transport ability.”

“How is he doing that?”

“He’s Q, Robin. He can do pretty much anything he conceives of. And if he wants to make sure that we stay here, then we’re stuck.”

McHenry stepped away from her and walked toward the wall. He leaned against it and then, to Robin’s surprise, slammed his fist into it as he let out a loud curse. She was astounded, since she had never seen McHenry display any sort of temper, especially in such an overt manner. It was just the single burst of anger, but once he had shouted, he then seemed to calm down. She went over to him and rested her hand on his back. “It’s all right,” she said softly.

“No. It’s not all right. It’s anything but all right. Don’t you see, Robin? If Q is forcing us to stay here, then he’s got some sort of plans for us, and we don’t have the faintest idea what they are.”

“We’ll figure it out,” insisted Robin.

“Provided we’re given the opportunity. This is Q we’re talking about. There is no reason to assume that he will give us any sort of warning before—”

It was at that moment that McHenry began to feel it. The floor beneath his feet was shaking rhythmically. For an instant he thought it was some sort of earthquake, but then he realized that the beating was too steady. Something was marching toward them. Something huge.

The closer it drew, the more distinctive and recognizable it became. It was the sound of marching feet. Hundreds of them, by the sound of it. An entire army was coming in the direction of the house, and there was no doubt in McHenry’s mind as to who exactly was overseeing it.

Robin clutched Cwansi to her, her eyes widening in alarm. “Mark, what’s happening?”

“It’s Q. It has to be.” He was heading toward the door, not the least bit thrilled by the prospect of what he would see when it opened. “Stay in here. Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.” Yet he knew that he was simply being brave. He didn’t actually have the faintest idea how he was going to “handle it.” There was no predicting what Q was sending their way, and if it was an army of a thousand soldiers, McHenry was reasonably sure he could not simply wish them away, even if his powers were functioning. Which was another major problem, because Q had divorced him from his ability to transport himself, Robin, and Cwansi off New Thallon. He assumed that Q had done so with absolutely no effort. All of this was looking extremely bad. Part of him prayed that the Excalibur would suddenly show up out of nowhere and beam them off the planet.

The front door slid open and McHenry stared outside. He blinked several times in disbelief, unable to accept what he was looking at.

It was a procession of ancient Roman soldiers.

From a fast count, they seemed to be lined up twenty across, and their ranks stretched back as far as he could see. They were marching in perfect precision, their legs matching stride. They were humans, not Thallonians—which made sense, since they were Romans. Each of them was wearing golden armor plating on his tunic and a white skirt that swirled around his upper thighs. Each also sported sandals that laced up to his knees. Each of them had a sword that slapped against his hips and a shield on his left arm. It was as if they were marching decisively into some manner of battle. McHenry wondered if, with a roar, they would charge in unison at the house and try to destroy everyone in it.

Then he saw that they were carrying something. Eight soldiers, four in front and four in back, were transporting a litter. It was extremely ornate. It had a domed roof that seemed to be carved of solid oak—or perhaps maple—which had been painted gold. At least McHenry assumed it was simply painted, since that much solid gold would have been inordinately heavy. There were curtains hanging around the entirety of it, making it impossible for him to see who was riding within it. On the other hand, he was reasonably sure he knew who it was.

The front row of soldiers came to a halt about ten feet short of the front of the house, and the ones behind them likewise stopped. The ones hauling the litter, however, continued forward. The soldiers who were in their path stepped aside so that the litter could be brought to the front. They set it down on the four legs that were beneath it.

The curtains on the left were pulled aside and Q stepped down from the litter. He was dressed in a toga, with a white undergarment and purple cloth draped over it. He had a crown of golden leaves around his head. He stood there for a moment, his arms spread to either side.

“What do you think? Too much?”

“I think the litter may be a bit over the top.”

“It’s not a ‘litter,’ ” Q said archly. “It’s called a lectica.”

“Whatever. What are you doing here?”

Q snapped his fingers, and a scroll appeared in his hand. He unrolled it and held it up, then spoke in the manner of one making an important pronouncement. “This is to inform you that you are summoned to appear in the great coliseum at sunset. There you will engage in a series of battles to prove your worth to me and to the people of New Thallon.”

“I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

Q lowered the scroll and gazed at him curiously. “Is that what you believe?”

“It is.”

“All right then. If that is your answer, we will go with the secondary plan. I will kill Robin Lefler and her child right here, right now. When you are looking for the individual to blame for their grisly fate, you will have to look no farther than the nearest mirror. Is that acceptable to you?”

McHenry froze. He had no idea how to respond. He was uncertain if he could prevent Q from simply annihilating them. He had no confidence that whatever power he had would be up to that challenge.

And then Robin was standing behind him. Very softly, she said, “Do it.”

He turned and looked at her. “What?”

“Do it,” she repeated. She clutched Cwansi tightly. “Step aside. Don’t submit to his games. If we have to die because of that, then that’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine!”

“Mark, I’m not going to do it.” She raised her voice, presumably so that Q could hear her words. “I’m not going to let you get pulled into some sort of demented Roman fight in a coliseum. Which, by the way, we don’t have. There’s no coliseum or any manner of arena on New Thallon.”

“There is now,” said Q. “I have some very nice seats for you if you’re interested in coming to watch.”

“I’m not going to watch anything because I’m not going to let him do it!”

“I’m afraid that you don’t have any say in the matter.”

“I very much do. Mark is my friend, not your plaything.” She pushed McHenry to the side and faced up to Q, who was grinning. “He has already gone far beyond anything that any person can reasonably expect in order to protect me and my son. This is as far as it goes. This is where it ends. If you’re going to kill us, then kill us.”

“You are quite brave with the safety of you and your child,” said Q. “Are you operating under the assumption that I won’t do what I say I’ll do?”

“I think you put yourself forward as some sort of advanced being. And I think that a creature that is as advanced as you claim to be isn’t simply going to kill two people—one of them a small child—for no reason. But if you believe that you have to destroy us, even though we’ve done nothing to you . . . then go ahead. Destroy us.”

“All right,” said Q.

He snapped his fingers.

Robin’s eyes went wide and she sank to her knees. Her mouth was open wide and she was trying to suck in air, but she was unable to do so. Cwansi was writhing on her shoulders. Her arms went limp and the baby slid to the floor. Cwansi was shaking violently, his hands clutching at his chest, his face masked in confusion.

“In case you’re wondering, I removed their lungs,” Q said as casually as if they were discussing the weather. “It should only require less than a minute for them to die. You can stand there and watch them, if you wish.”

Robin was flopping on the ground as if she were a fish that had just been pulled onto land. Cwansi had already stopped moving, his glassy eyes staring upward.

“All right! All right!” McHenry shouted. “Whatever you want! Just fix them!”

Q snapped his fingers a second time, and suddenly Robin was gulping in deep lungsful of air. Cwansi’s voice erupted in a hysterical cry as he gasped air greedily into his newly restored lungs. Robin crawled across the ground and scooped him up, cradling him.

The Roman soldiers did not react at all. They simply stared resolutely forward, as if they had not seen a woman and child nearly snuffed out in front of them. McHenry wasn’t even sure they were really alive.

“I’m glad you saw reason,” said Q.

“Saw reason? You were killing them while I was standing there!”

“If I’d known that was an issue, I would have invited you to walk away. Now”—Q clapped his hands together briskly—“you will be at the coliseum this evening? Just before sundown?”

“No,” Robin started to say, shaking her head.

McHenry turned on her and said angrily, “Shut up, Robin! You don’t get a vote! You don’t get to die just to save me aggravation! Just take care of Cwansi and leave this to me!”

“That’s the way to talk to her,” Q said approvingly.

“You shut up, too! I’ve no idea why you’re doing this. Why you’re knuckling under to Shintar Han—”

“Knuckling under?” Q sounded amused by the concept. “This has nothing to do with Shintar Han. I don’t care if he achieves the power he wants. I don’t care what happens to him. You could go over to his office right now and stab a knife into his chest, and it wouldn’t bother me. In fact, if you’d like, we can both go over. I’ll hold him still for you.”

McHenry actually considered it for a moment before dispensing with the idea. More blood wasn’t going to solve the problem. “Then why? Why are you doing this?”

“You keep asking me that! What answer could I give that would possibly satisfy you?”

“The truth.”

“The truth is, McHenry, that you interest me. You still have a curious attachment to your human roots. That limits you. You know that limits you. And that doesn’t seem to bother you. That’s unfathomable to me, and so I want to understand it. The only way that I can do that is to test you to the fullest extent of your abilities. If you survive—or, more important, if I allow you to survive—then you can continue your limited life alongside Miss Lefler here. If, on the other hand, you don’t survive, well, then . . .” He shrugged. “You don’t survive. But that’s going to very much be up to you.”

“But it seems you’re calling the shots, Q.”

“I always am,” said Q cheerfully.

“So where is this coliseum you’re talking about?”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be able to find it. Everyone will be able to find it. And once you have, oooh, how much fun we’re all going to have.”

And, with that, Q vanished. He didn’t even bother to climb back into the litter but instead simply disappeared. The instant he did, the Roman legions that had accompanied him likewise snapped out of existence, leaving McHenry, Lefler, and Cwansi standing there staring at nothing.

Robin had managed to calm down the hysterical Cwansi, who was naturally still shaken from almost smothering to death for reasons that he could not comprehend. McHenry turned to face her and said angrily, “You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have been willing to throw away your life just to spare me.”

“He was right. I didn’t think he’d do it.” She was still seated on the ground and she was rocking Cwansi back and forth. “I didn’t think he would murder us. And the fact is that we don’t know if he would have. I still think he’d have spared us.”

“Based on what?”

“Opinion, okay? My opinion.”

Indi had come up behind Robin, and she helped her to get up. Robin muttered her thanks as she stood.

“Well, I’m not ready to throw away your life based on opinion,” McHenry said tightly. “And if I have to go up against him in this whole coliseum scenario in order to save your lives, then that’s what I’m prepared to do. And that’s just something you’re going to have to live with.”

“And what if we don’t? What if you go along with Q on this insane thing and you wind up losing and he kills all three of us?”

“Then at least we die together.” McHenry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The anger that had been pounding through him seemed to dissipate. “That would be fine by me. Much better than just standing around and letting you die. I couldn’t live with that. Okay? I just . . . I couldn’t.”

The defensiveness that she’d been feeling toward McHenry’s obvious ire with her dissolved. “It’s okay,” she said softly, and she held out an arm toward him. He stepped in toward her, and she embraced him. “It’s all going to be okay.”

“What if I can’t beat him?”

“You’ll do your best. That’s all that matters.”

They stood there for a long moment, holding each other tightly, and the rest of the world went away as they did so. Indi watched them and smiled.

And Cwansi, balanced on his mother’s shoulder, drifted to sleep.

Then McHenry released Robin and faced Indi. “Cancel all my appointments today,” he said briskly. “I don’t want to see anyone.”

“All right. Uhm . . . why?”

“Because healing people takes physical effort. I don’t know what I’m going to be dealing with, so I’d rather rest up and save my resources. This whole thing is a huge unknown. Q can do whatever he wants, and all I’ll be able to do is react. So I’d best be at full strength.”

“Yes, all right. Of course. I will contact the people scheduled to come today.”

“Good.” He smiled grimly. “Tell them to find the coliseum and go there instead. I’m sure it’ll be a hell of a show.”

Excalibur

TIME SEEMED TO stretch out indefinitely.

Burgoyne continued to watch the Dayan ship, which was illuminated on their viewscreen. S/he was positive that s/he’d been right: that the Dayan had been bluffing about killing the captain. The lack of his body floating in space seemed to indicate that he’d been correct in guessing that.

But it did nothing to still hir concerns about what was going to happen next.

S/he had ordered the engines powered down, and now the Excalibur was simply floating in space, showing as much life signs as any derelict. Still powered up were life support, transporters (in case they were required), and the cloaking device that continued to shield them from the Dayan vessel.

Long minutes passed on the bridge without anyone saying a word. They were all equally focused on the Dayan, waiting on them. They were wondering if the ship was going to leave the area, or perhaps unleash a volley of blasts into space in hopes of striking the Excalibur through sheer dumb luck. It did neither.

It just sat there.

Finally Tobias spoke up. “What about Starfleet?” she said.

Burgoyne glanced at her. “What about it?”

“Should we contact Starfleet? Bring them up to speed? Tell them about the arrival of the Dayan and their kidnapping of the captain? This entire situation?”

Burgoyne had already considered it. “We don’t dare. We have no idea if the Dayan are capable of tapping into our communications. If they are and we transmit to Starfleet, even in the blind, they may be able to trace our location.”

“So if we break our silence,” said Tobias, “we’re risking their opening fire on us?”

“That’s right.”

“A rescue mission, then,” Kebron said firmly. He stepped from around his station, and Burgoyne stared at him. It might well have been hir imagination, but it seemed to hir as if Kebron suddenly seemed about a head higher and a half meter wider. “We put together a security strike force, beam aboard the Dayan ship, and rescue the captain.”

“You really want to go head to head with the Dayan?”

“I’ve beaten one before,” said Kebron, “in case you’ve forgotten.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. But you haven’t been up against ten, or twenty, or a hundred. One-on-one combat is different, and if I had an army of you, Kebron, I might consider it. But you’re only one individual, and I cannot in good conscience send you into the heart of enemy territory on a mission you likely won’t survive. If we had a thousand more in security, we could beam them aboard simultaneously . . . As it is, the odds are stacked against us.”

“So we continue to sit here and wait for the captain to escape by himself?”

“If anyone is capable of that, it’s Mackenzie Calhoun,” Burgoyne said firmly.

The Dayan Ship

i.

CALHOUN STARED UNCOMPREHENDINGLY at Soleta’s face. “What the hell are you doing here?” he whispered as he rubbed his sore wrists. “How did you get here? What the hell are you wearing?”

“Romulan infiltration armor,” she said briskly. “When activated, its reflective surface bounces the entire area around it. The world itself basically camouflages it.”

“But . . . how did you get here?”

“I beamed myself over here just before the ship blew up. They didn’t have shields up, so I was able to penetrate their ship.”

“Why didn’t you beam back to the Excalibur?”

She looked away from him and said softly, “Because I didn’t feel I had a place there anymore. What I did to you . . . I can’t believe I did it. I’m not sure what the hell happened. It was disgraceful, what I did. I betrayed you, and Shelby. I betrayed myself. And so I felt the only thing I could do was try to take myself somewhere else. To start over. I figured I would hide on this ship until I could find somewhere that I could depart from. I wasn’t expecting them to kidnap you off the bridge.”

“Yes, well, that makes two of us.” He cleared his throat and said, “Soleta, I was wondering . . . what happened between us. Could that have been Pon farr? Could you literally not have been in control of yourself?” Calhoun knew very little about the Vulcan mating ritual. Due to concerns over Vulcan sensitivity to such a personal and private matter, it was not discussed. Rumors tended to circulate among Academy cadets, but he’d never had the opportunity to actually discuss it with anyone who was Vulcan. Or, in Soleta’s case, half-Vulan. “I mean, I know it’s none of my business . . . although considering what happened between us, I suppose it is. Have you ever had any experience with the whole Vulcan mating ritual?”

“Could we possibly discuss this some other time, Captain?” she asked with urgency. “Perhaps after we’re dead?”

“Yes. Right. Good idea.” He glanced around the room, his mind racing. “So where do we go? You’ve been on this ship for at least a short while. Longer than I have, in any event. Is there a transporter room?”

“Not that I’ve been able to determine. As near as I can tell, they have a central point in the ship that generates transporter beams, but those beams simply pick up people from around the ship and transport them wherever they want to go. If we’re going to make use of them, we would effectively have to storm their bridge and take over the controls.”

“That doesn’t sound like a viable plan to me. Even if we could, we don’t have anywhere guaranteed that we could beam to. We have no reason to assume that the Excalibur is still out there.”

“We have every reason to assume it’s still out there, sir, with all due respect. It’s your ship. They wouldn’t abandon you if you’ve been kidnapped, as much as you might wish it otherwise.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Calhoun.

“We do have an alternative, though,” she said. “They, like us, have an auxiliary bridge. One would assume that it has the same command functions as their main bridge. If we can access their auxiliary bridge, we can tap into the same transporter commands that their main bridge would provide us.”

“All right. A reasonable plan. Do you know how to get there?”

She nodded. “I’ve been wandering the ship unhindered for a bit, and I think I have a basic idea of the layout.”

“Did you happen to spot some manner of armory?”

“I did indeed,” she said. “It’s one deck down.”

“Then that’s our first stop. We’re going to need to depend heavily on surprise, considering how vastly outnumbered we are.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right then.” He stared at her and then added softly, “Thank you for coming to rescue me.”

“It was my honor, sir.”

“Turn invisible.”

She nodded and stepped back, sliding the visor over her face. She touched her wrist and a moment later shimmered and vanished. Calhoun shook his head in wonderment. Say what you wanted about the Romulans—and he could certainly say a great deal—but one could never underestimate their technical brilliance.

He took a deep breath and then walked out into the hallway.

There was a guard standing right there.

He had a large gun of some sort strapped to his back, but he wasn’t bothering to hold it because clearly he didn’t think that Calhoun’s escaping was a possibility. So when he turned and saw the Excalibur captain simply standing there, he reacted with obvious astonishment.

“Hi,” said Calhoun.

The Dayan did not go for his weapon. Instead, his hands lashed out to grab Calhoun.

The captain backpedaled, managing to stay just clear of the guard’s hands. Because his attacker had so many, it was hard for Calhoun to keep track of where the assault was coming from. The Dayan continued to thrust and grab at him, and Calhoun dodged left and right, staying one step ahead. Then he unexpectedly bumped up against the bulkhead, which angled sharply to the right, and the Dayan grabbed his right arm. “Stay still!” he snarled.

Suddenly the Dayan’s head snapped around as he felt something disengage from behind him. He turned and his jaw dropped when he saw his weapon hanging in midair, aimed right at him.

“Smile,” came Soleta’s voice, and the weapon fired at him.

Had the Dayan been a bit faster off the mark, it would have occurred to him to use Calhoun as a shield. But he was too busy being astounded at the sight of his own weapon being aimed at him by nothing, and so he was unprepared as the blast struck him in the chest.

It did not, however, simply stun him. Instead it blew a hole right through him. The blast ripped into him and exited out his back, missing Calhoun by millimeters. Calhoun gaped at the destruction that the weapon had caused. “Grozit,” he muttered, as the remains of the towering guard slumped forward.

Quickly he caught the guard as he fell, grunting from the Dayan’s weight. This was certainly not a light individual. Calhoun hauled him forward into the room that previously had served as Calhoun’s prison and tossed him onto the floor. “One down,” he said. “About several thousand to go.”

The gun was still floating nearby, and Soleta handed it to Calhoun. He took it, sagging slightly under the weight. “Damned thing’s heavy,” he muttered.

“Do you need me to hold it for you?” she asked.

“No, it’s okay. I’ve got it. You can be far more useful as an unseen weapon. So, where’s the turbolift?”

“Near as I can tell, this ship doesn’t have any. It’s laid out in extended ramps.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

They exited into the hallway, and that was when Calhoun realized they had a problem. “I can’t follow you. I can’t see you.”

“Right. Sorry.”

He stood there a moment, and then he felt her hand resting on his shoulder. “Good enough,” he said, and she guided him down the corridor.

At first they didn’t encounter anyone, which was fine as far as Calhoun was concerned. But their luck didn’t last. Less than a minute later, two Dayan came around a corner and stopped dead in their tracks, gaping.

Calhoun didn’t hesitate, leveling the gun and firing it at the taller of the two. He was blown backward, his internal organs decorating the wall.

To his astonishment, the second of them put all his hands up. “I’m not a soldier!” he said, clearly so terrified that his voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m the ship’s cook! Please don’t hurt me!”

“All right. You’ve been promoted. You’re now my guard.” He noticed that the deceased Dayan lying there was wearing a helmet that partly obscured his face. He reached down and pulled the helmet off, handing it to the cook. “Put it on.”

“This is outside of my rank . . .” he started to say.

Calhoun trained the gun on him. “Do I seem to care overmuch?”

“Not really, no.” He pulled the helmet over his head so that it covered his features.

“Turn around,” said Calhoun. The cook did so, and Calhoun reached up and attached the gun to his armor. It clicked into place via what appeared to be some manner of magnetic lock. “That gun is there and will remain there. Try to touch it and I will break all your arms.”

“I wouldn’t want to touch it. I’ve never even fired one.”

“Good for you. Just keep your eyes forward and this should work out for you. Now, if anyone asks, you are escorting us to Nyos.”

“Us?” The cook looked around, confused. “There’s more than one of you?”

Damn. That’s right. He can’t see Soleta. That thought should have been foremost on his mind, but he was sufficiently distracted that he had allowed that bit of information to momentarily slip away. “That’s right. I have a ghost with me.”

“A what?” For a moment the cook sounded incredulous, and then suddenly he let out a startled yelp. Obviously Soleta had chosen that moment to poke him in some way that made her presence known.

“All right. Get walking,” said Calhoun.

He did so, keeping his gaze resolutely fixed straight forward. Calhoun stayed just to his right, and Soleta remained to his right as well, keeping her hand on Calhoun’s shoulder.

He was annoyed that he wanted to pull away at her touch. It was a patently ridiculous attitude for him to have. Obviously, she was not going to try and seduce him while they endeavored to escape. He had no reason to feel the least bit intimidated. He simply had to put what had happened behind them and focus on what they still had to deal with.

Another Dayan was now approaching them. He glanced at Calhoun in mild confusion, but, without the slightest prompting, the cook spoke up in a lower, gruffer voice than what he had spoken with earlier. “Nyos wishes to see them.” The other Dayan shrugged, nodded, and kept on going. Calhoun, who had his left hand resting on the gun’s butt so that he could grab it easily, let out a silent sigh of relief.

That was exactly how it went for all the other Dayan that they encountered. The cook continued to be extraordinarily cooperative as he escorted them down, down into the depths of the ship. Calhoun kept looking around, trying to get a sense of the vessel’s layout. One never knew when he might be on his own, fleeing through the ship while running for his life. This was simply a situation that demanded all his attention.

“Here,” Soleta’s voice floated to him. He stopped walking, and the cook halted as well.

“Is there a lock of some sort on it?” asked Calhoun.

The cook shook his head. “No. You can just walk in.”

“You should secure your weapons. You never know when someone will just go in and take things.”

They walked through the door, which slid open obediently. Calhoun’s eyes widened when he saw the room’s contents.

It was the single largest room that he had ever been in, and he was someone who had been in the throne rooms of planetary emperors. The room seemed to go on forever, and every square inch of it was lined with weaponry. He had never seen anything like it. “Damn,” he whispered, “are you planning to fight an entire planet?”

“Several,” said the cook. “At all times. Remember, we prefer to fight people individually when at all possible. It helps to be well armed at such times.”

Then the cook gasped in surprise as Soleta abruptly appeared out of nowhere. She was studying the weaponry carefully. “We can’t bring too much,” she said to Calhoun. “We want to be able to move.”

“Grab what you can.”

They loaded up as quickly as they could. Calhoun swapped out the large weapon on the cook’s back for one even larger and more formidable looking. The cook was clearly concerned when he saw the weapon being attached to him. “That’s one of Nyos’s favorites,” he said nervously.

“I’m sure he’ll have no trouble with our borrowing it. He seems a generous type,” said Calhoun.

He strapped several smaller weapons to his uniform. Carrying weapons was more problematic for Soleta, because if she was simply holding them, they were floating in the air and that would naturally make it quite easy to determine that she was there. She found two small round balls, however, that she was able to take in her hands that—once she closed her fists around them—also vanished. “What are those?” Calhoun asked.

“I’m reasonably sure they’re some sort of grenades.”

“All right. Just be careful you don’t set them off prematurely. I have no desire to blow us up.”

“That’s good advice.”

Satisfied that they were armored up as well as they could be under the circumstances, Calhoun nodded to Soleta. She dropped the visor over her face and disappeared again, prompting the cook to shake his head in obvious disbelief. “Nyos would love to get one of those,” he murmured.

“Let him invent his own,” said Calhoun.

They emerged from the weapons bay into the corridor, and that was when they heard the sounds of pounding feet. At the far end of the corridor, Nyos ran into view, and he had at least half a dozen men backing him up.

“Problem,” said Calhoun, even as he yanked the gun off the cook’s back. There was no longer any point in endeavoring to skulk around the ship. They had been spotted, and now it was just a question of managing to stay one step in front of their pursuers.

He pulled the trigger, and a blast of energy erupted from the muzzle of the blaster he had balanced on his shoulder. Nyos cried out in alarm as he and his men leapt to either side and the blue energy slammed between them. It crashed into the wall and blew a hole right through it, providing a view into the adjoining room.

Calhoun let out a low whistle, impressed at the power of the weapon he was wielding.

“Let’s go, Captain,” Soleta’s voice floated from nearby. “Down the corridor, to the right.”

Calhoun backed up, laying down a barrage of suppressing fire as they moved. Nyos and his people were flat on the deck. Nyos shouted, “You can’t get away, Calhoun! Surrender now and we will spare your life!”

That hardly sounded like much of an offer to Calhoun as he continued to retreat. He had no idea what the energy capacity was like in his weapon, but he didn’t see any need to hold back. He wasn’t anticipating a lengthy, sustained battle. This was his chance to get out of there, and he was going to seize it.

He was pulling the cook along with himself, using the reluctant Dayan as a shield against the return fire. Apparently it seemed to be working, because although Nyos and his people were armed, they were not shooting back, obviously in fear of hitting the cook. His services must have been truly valued on the ship.

“This way!” Soleta’s voice called. “To the right!”

Calhoun obeyed her instructions, continuing to back up with the cook as a blocker. “Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him!” the cook kept calling, although presumably he was more worried about his own safety than he was Calhoun’s.

“Keep going. Just a little farther,” Soleta instructed him.

“This is pointless!” Nyos shouted after him. “You cannot get away! There is no exit from this vessel!”

Calhoun prayed that he was wrong.

“Captain, it’s here!” Soleta said. “To your immediate left!”

Calhoun’s head snapped around and he saw a pair of doors that were closed in front of him. He moved toward them, but they didn’t open. “The hell—”

“They’re secured,” said the cook. “They must have figured out where you were going and locked it down.”

“Back away, Captain,” said Soleta. One of the balls that she’d been carrying was now visible, since she had opened her hand, and she tapped a button on it. The ball immediately turned from silver to red, and she dropped it at the base of the door. “Back away, I said!”

Calhoun did as she instructed, backing away hurriedly from the door. It occurred to him that they had no idea of the device’s range. Soleta may have just wound up blowing them up along with the door if they weren’t able to get clear of it.

The grenade exploded. The doors were instantly ripped away, and debris flew in all directions. Calhoun was blown off his feet onto his back.

The cook let out a truncated yell and fell over. There was a large chunk of metal buried in his chest. The life fled from his eyes.

“Damn,” said Calhoun, as he scrambled to his feet.

“Kill them!” howled Nyos from down the hall, and the Dayan leveled their weapons at him.

Calhoun scrambled across the deck and into the auxiliary bridge, still cradling the large blaster in one arm.

There were two Dayan on the bridge, but they were stunned. One of them saw Calhoun coming and he sat up, swinging a blaster around to open fire on him. Suddenly his head snapped around and sagged to one side. Calhoun immediately realized what had happened: an invisible Soleta had just dropped him with a neck pinch.

The bridge was relatively small but seemed quite efficient. Or at least what was left of it was; it was somewhat in disarray, since an explosion had just occurred outside the main doors. Apparently they were somewhere near the top of the ship, because there was a large dome above them that provided a magnificent view of deep space. The stars shone outside invitingly.

Soleta yanked her visor off and grabbed the other Dayan, clamping her hand around his throat. He gasped at her strength, his eyes widening. “Transport us to the Excalibur,” she ordered him.

“I . . . I have no idea where it is,” he stammered. “Anyway, I cannot. Transportation is locked down.”

“Dammit,” said Calhoun.

At that moment, Nyos’s voice came from just outside the door. “Calhoun,” he called to him. “We wanted to do this the easy way. We wanted to let you live. You are making that an impossible goal for us. You have ten seconds to throw your weapon out here and surrender. The only other alternative is death.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Calhoun. “Maybe the only alternative is death.” He looked at Soleta, whose face was floating a short distance away. She cast a glance at the dome overhead and nodded. She knew the options open to them and was perfectly happy to go along with it. An instant later her full body appeared, since she had turned off the invisibility function. “But here’s the thing, Nyos. If death is what’s left open to us, then I’ll choose the method of death. Not you.”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

Calhoun swung his blaster straight up and opened fire on the dome.

It blew a hole in it, and just like that, the stars called to them.

Soleta threw her arms around Calhoun, and both of them were yanked out into the void.

ii.

NYOS LET OUT a startled yell as all the air around him was sucked out. He started skidding along the deck, his soldiers pulled along with him. He tried to find something to grab on to but couldn’t; nothing provided him sufficient grounding.

And then, just like that, the rush of air ceased. The self-healing vessel had obviously repaired itself from whatever damage had been done to it.

Nyos ran onto the auxiliary bridge, stepping over the body of the fallen cook. He was tremendously upset about that; he liked that cook’s food preparation. Of all the people to die, it had to be him.

Not to mention the fact that the cook was his brother.

That was the worst. His kind, horrendously gentle brother who had only seemed to enjoy food preparation and had no taste for battle at all. So Nyos had assigned him to be the ship’s cook, and his brother had cheerfully fulfilled his tasks. He had never once found himself in any sort of combat situation.

Until now.

And he had barely lasted minutes.

If Calhoun wasn’t dead, Nyos was going to kill him himself, slowly, with his bare hands, and enjoy every moment of it.

He strode onto the auxiliary bridge and looked around.

It was empty.

He looked up and was startled to see one of his people floating outside. He was clearly dead, drifting in the depths of space.

Of Calhoun, there was no sign at all.

“Damnation,” he said.

New Thallon

i.

MCHENRY HAD NO idea how he knew where the coliseum was. He received no messages, nor any contact from Q. And yet suddenly, as sundown approached, the location abruptly popped into his head.

He had been lying on the bed, resting. He had been there more or less the entire day, in a vague sense of self-contemplation. Suddenly, an image appeared in his mind. He knew without question that it was the coliseum where Q would be waiting for him, and it was not an appointment to which he was eagerly looking forward. But Mark knew that he had no choice; he had to be there.

He rolled off the bed and called out, “Robin! I know where I’m supposed to go.”

There was no response. This was a little odd to him. He’d expected to hear the sound of her feet running up the stairs and coming into the bedroom. Instead there was nothing. He wondered if perhaps she had fallen asleep on the living room couch while spending time with Cwansi.

He ran down the stairs and emerged into the living room, but she wasn’t there. When he called her name, she didn’t answer.

“She’s gone,” he said. “Where the hell did she go?”

The answer naturally did not come to him out of thin air. He checked every square inch of the house just to be sure and couldn’t find her. So he decided to search for her in a different fashion.

He closed his eyes and reached out.

His inner sight carried him quickly across the surface of New Thallon, checking the entire area, keeping the idea of Robin locked into his mind. That mental picture, he knew, would guide him right to her. Assuming she was still on the planet.

It turned out that she was. An image of her leaped into his consciousness. He saw her walking across the spaceport, looking around nervously. She was carrying Cwansi in her arms. She was wearing gloves to cover her hands and a hood pulled far forward to obscure her face. That didn’t matter to McHenry. She could have been wearing a sign that said HI, I’M ROBIN! and she would have been as evident to him.

He imagined himself next to her, and then he was. Q’s power might be keeping him on the planet’s surface, but at least he could still transport himself around New Thallon.

Robin took a couple more steps and then became aware that she wasn’t alone. She turned, stepped back, and gasped when she saw him. “Where the—how did you—”

“Two excellent half-questions,” said McHenry. “Let me ask you one: Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’ve booked passage off New Thallon. You don’t have to fight for me if I’m not here.”

“What in the world makes you think you’ll be allowed to leave?”

She nodded toward the people who were briskly walking past them, paying them no mind. “No one’s noticed,” she said. “No one’s stopping me. You’d be risking yourself for no purpose.”

“It’s my decision.”

“No, it’s Q’s decision,” she said heatedly. “You’re doing what he wants you to do. All I have to do is get the hell off this world, and he won’t be able to force you to do anything.”

“It won’t be that easy.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I do,” he told her. “There’s no way it can be. Not when you’re dealing with something that has the power of Q.”

She pulled on his arm with her free hand. “Come with me.”

“We’re not going to be able to go. You don’t understand.”

She released her hold on him. “I’m going. Come with me or stay here. It’s up to you.”

“Actually it’s not,” he said, and he inclined his head behind her. “Take a look.”

She turned to see what he was staring at, and her jaw dropped.

An array of Thallonian soldiers was approaching from all sides, their weapons leveled. Various citizens, having no clue what was going on, scrambled to get out of their way.

“Told you,” he said softly.

“Robin Lefler!” one of them called. McHenry assumed that he was the ranking officer. He was certainly the largest of them, and his attention was focused on Robin. When he noticed that McHenry was standing there, he seemed to hesitate, but then he steeled himself. Clearing his throat, he said, “We have been sent by Shintar Han to collect you and escort you to the coliseum.”

“I’m leaving,” she said. “You can’t stop me.”

“You aren’t, and I’m reasonably sure we can.”

“Can you stop him?” She nodded toward McHenry.

“He can’t,” Mark told her, “but Q can. And you can bet that that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Any ship that we attempt to board is not going to go anywhere. Q can ground every ship here with just a passing thought. I swear to you, Robin, this is not the way. We can’t get off this world by just getting on a ship and going, no matter how much you may want that to be so.”

“Then what are we supposed to do? What Q wants us to?!”

Anger lines creased her face. “I can’t believe you’re just giving in to him, Mark.”

“I’m not giving in. I’m just acknowledging that he’s in a position of greater power than we are. And if you weren’t so obsessed with trying to protect me, you’d realize it, too. Here’s what’s going to happen: We’re going to go with these men, and they’re going to take us to the coliseum, and we’ll see what happens there.”

She gripped the front of his shirt tightly and pulled him close to her face. “You’ll die. That’s what’ll happen.”

“Maybe. Maybe we all will. Or maybe none of us will. But we won’t know until we go there and see how it all turns out.”

Robin slowly managed to get control of herself. “All right. Fine. We’ll do it your way. But I swear, Mark, if you die in this stupid coliseum, I’m gonna kill you.”

ii.

MCHENRY COULDN’T BELIEVE what he was gazing at. On some level, he supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. This was, after all, something that had been crafted by a being who was effectively a god. There was, to the best of McHenry’s knowledge, nothing that was beyond his abilities. Yet he couldn’t help his reaction.

He was staring at an exact replica of the Colosseum, the original Flavian Amphitheater. McHenry had actually gone to see it as a tourist many years before, but this one was not missing huge chunks of it thanks to earthquakes and the various damages that nature had inflicted upon it. This thing looked like the Caesars had just finished constructing it. The perimeter of the outer wall, constructed doubtless of thousands of tons of stone, seemed to be something like six hundred meters, and it stood around fifty meters high. From within he heard the shouting of thousands upon thousands of voices. He wondered if there were real Thallonians in there or creations that Q had conjured up from the ether in order to fill the seats. There was no way of knowing until he got in there.

They stood outside for a moment and then one of the soldiers said, with what seemed graciousness, “My lady, the Awesome desires to have you and your son seated near him.”

“Why doesn’t he just blink me up there?” said Robin.

The soldier seemed a bit surprised at the suggestion. “He could if you desired him to, I suppose. But he seemed to feel that you would be more comfortable going up there yourself.”

“Go with him, Robin,” said Mark. “Let’s play it his way for now.”

She paused for a moment, then reached up to the back of his neck and pulled his head forward. She kissed him passionately. Cwansi burbled.

“Be careful,” she said.

“I always am.”

He watched as the soldiers escorted Robin away, and then he squared his shoulders and looked at his escorts. He took quiet pleasure in the fact that they seemed quite nervous every time they looked at him. Some of them were actually making an effort to stare in another direction so that they wouldn’t have to make eye contact with him.

They were afraid of him.

Once upon a time, McHenry would have been appalled at the notion of scaring anyone. Now he found that he took deep satisfaction in it.

Be careful. Going down that path, you could wind up turning into Q. You don’t need that attitude.

Yet he couldn’t help it. Probably because of the stress of the situation that he was in, he was genuinely delighted to have at least some measure of control.

The soldiers started walking, and one of them gestured for McHenry to follow them. He did so, striding with confidence, as if he were their ruler.

They guided him not to the main entrance but rather a side entrance. This led into a series of tunnels that ran beneath the coliseum. He could hear the shouts and cheers from above and wondered yet again if this was a crowd created from scratch by Q. That was a rather intimidating notion, but since he’d already seen Q conjure up an entire Roman legion, he supposed it wasn’t all that surprising.

They were stomping their feet rhythmically. The pounding was becoming so consistent and so loud that, as McHenry walked, he saw bits of dirt falling from the ceiling overhead. The soldiers were glancing up nervously and one of them muttered, loudly enough for McHenry to hear, “I hope they don’t bring this place crashing down around us. Stupid way to die.”

“You’ll die,” said McHenry cheerfully. “I can just disappear from your midst any time I want.”

Several of them fired annoyed glances at him when he reminded them of that. He smiled at them and winked, just to anger them further. It worked, because they turned away from him and resolutely refused to stare at him.

McHenry saw the last rays of the setting sun filtering through a vast closed door ahead of them. He knew immediately what it was: the entrance to the coliseum itself. This is insane. I’m trapped in an insane nightmare, he thought grimly, his confidence abruptly dissipating. He had no idea what to expect when he passed through the gates; all he knew was that his existence, Robin’s, and Cwansi’s depend on his surviving it.

Two soldiers stepped forward and grabbed the large handles on the huge wooden double doors that were in front of him. They stepped back, yanking the doors wide. McHenry took a deep breath and let it out slowly to steady his nerves as the warm air from outside washed over him. And then he strode forward.

He was surprised at what he saw. He had expected a vast, flat plain to greet him, the standard battleground of the Flavian Ampitheater. It wasn’t there. Instead the entire area was covered in upright towers of stone, standing ten feet high. Immediately he realized what it was: a maze. There was a vast maze that covered the entirety of the coliseum’s grounds. He had no idea why that was, but he was reasonably sure he didn’t like it.

His eyes flickered to the far side and he spotted what he assumed to be the imperial seats. Q was seated there, and Robin and Cwansi were next to him. Q was wearing a toga that was swathed in purple, the color of royalty. That figured. There was no sign of Shintar Han. He likely didn’t have the nerve to show up.

McHenry stared around the interior of the coliseum at the crowds. There had to be at least fifty thousand people there, shouting and cheering. His eyes narrowed and he started seeing people he recognized. They were people whom he had helped restore to full health. When they saw him enter through the double doors, they started cheering and waving eagerly at him, obviously desperate to see him triumph in whatever it was that Q was going to inflict.

Slowly Q got to his feet. He was so far away that McHenry had originally assumed he wouldn’t be able to hear him if he spoke. But when Q started talking, his voice bounced around the interior of the coliseum, easily audible.

“My good people!” his voice boomed. “For those of you who are unaware: I am the Awesome. It is not a name that I normally adopt, but I suppose that for those of you here, it is the name that you are accustomed to hearing. So, for your benefit—because I am a generous god—I will address you using that name. Thallonians, I—the Awesome—have crafted a genuine spectacle for you. We are faced with the question of what to do with this woman, Robin Lefler, and her son, Cwansi.”

“Free them!” someone shouted, and others started taking up the call. The words “Free them!” rebounded through the interior of the coliseum.

But just as quickly a countercall started. “Kill them!” someone else shouted, and other Thallonians began repeating the words. McHenry had no idea how genuine that was. Perhaps they were people on Shintar Han’s payroll, or maybe Q was somehow compelling them to cry out for Robin’s death. Either way, the shouts ran counter to each other, and within moments—aside from the word “them”—it was impossible to distinguish how the crowd’s sentiments were playing out.

Q allowed the bellowing to continue for long moments before raising his hands, indicating that they should be quiet. Silence immediately fell upon the coliseum. “I have decided to let the fates decide what will happen to them, and those fates are to be represented in the efforts of this gentleman, Mister Mark McHenry. Mark, do you accept the challenge presented you this evening?”

“I wasn’t aware I had a choice,” said McHenry.

“You don’t,” said Q. “You see the maze before you?”

“Kind of hard to miss.”

“You are to enter the maze and defeat the challenge within.”

“And what would that challenge be?”

“You’ll have to find that out for yourself,” Q said. “Still, there is no reason to make this unduly difficult for you.”

There was a burst of light and suddenly there was a sword in McHenry’s hand. It was a gladius, an ancient style of Roman blade. It was about a meter long, sharp on either side. It had a knobbed pommel so it was fairly easy for McHenry to hold, and it weighed about a kilogram. He swung it back and forth, and it made a hissing noise in the air. He thrust forward with it experimentally. “This is good,” he said. “Wouldn’t mind a phaser, though.”

If Q heard his mumbled comment, he didn’t acknowledge it. “Enter the labyrinth, McHenry, and good luck to you.”

“Yeah. Great,” Mark said.

He walked into the labyrinth.

Immediately his ability to see any part of the coliseum vanished. Instead, all he could see were the walls of the labyrinth that towered around him.

He had no idea where he was supposed to go. He seemed to remember that when you were in a maze, you were always supposed to go to the right at any turn and that was how you worked your way through it. Or was that to the left? He couldn’t recall for sure. He stuck with right since that seemed correct, but he wished he knew more.

He remembered the old days when he never got lost. His sense of direction was so unassailable that he always knew where he was in the galaxy and could find his way around with no difficulty. But now he felt as if there was a cloud over his head, obscuring his ability to see anything. He knew that it was Q’s doing; it was extremely frustrating that Q was able to shut him down so easily.

But then he rallied. “Fine, close off my ability. I’ll still beat you.”

He kept moving, and then, as his feet crossed the dirt path beneath his feet, he became aware of a noise in the distance. It was a low growling sound, and he wondered what it was he was heading toward. A lion? A tiger? It definitely was not making human sounds. That worried McHenry, because he figured that if he had a human or Thallonian opponent, he could outthink him. If he was going up against an animal, however, that was going to present a bit more of a challenge. Animals were pure instinct, and simple dodges or sidesteps wouldn’t be enough.

That’s the wrong attitude. Stay focused on what you can accomplish. You can do this. Robin is counting on you.

Whatever he was approaching, it was getting louder. Perhaps it smelled him coming. Did it smell fear? McHenry didn’t think so. He was so focused on what he had to accomplish that fear didn’t factor in. He was nothing but determined.

The ground was starting to shake beneath him. That was disconcerting. Whatever it was he was facing, it was heavy enough that the ground trembled as it moved. McHenry stopped advancing, keeping his sword level, flattening his back against the nearest wall. His position provided him a good sight line so that nothing would be able to just spring up and attack him.

The roar grew louder and louder, and McHenry waited, fighting to maintain his patience. He saw something cast a shadow from around the corner. It wasn’t an animal, that much was sure. It was walking upright. On the other hand, it could be some sort of bear, so maybe it was an animal after all.

It stepped into view and McHenry was stunned.

Its legs and torso were fully human. It was clad only in a loincloth that was edged with gold.

But its head was a bull.

A minotaur? Is he kidding?

That’s what it was. It stood a full two meters tall, and its mouth was twisted in an animalistic snarl as it roared defiance. Its eyes were not like a cow’s but rather a shark’s, for they were black and soulless. Its head swung side to side. Some sort of mist blew out of its nose, as if it was a cold day and the heat rolled off its body. Its nostrils flared as it searched the air, trying to discern where McHenry was hiding.

Then its head snapped around. Its dark eyes settled on McHenry, who was standing only three meters away. It let out a loud snort, pawed the ground for a moment, and then charged straight at Mark.

McHenry vaulted to the side and the creature plowed directly into the wall headfirst. For a moment McHenry hoped that the impact would cause the creature to knock itself cold, but no such luck. It spun, snarling, and came at him again.

McHenry swung his sword downward, but the minotaur stopped just short, causing him to miss the creature entirely. Then it started moving again and slammed into Mark before he could swing the sword back again. It picked him up in its powerful hands and slammed him against the wall, jolting McHenry so violently that he lost his grip on his sword. In the distance, the crowd roared.

McHenry’s arms were pinned, but his feet were free. He brought his heels up and slammed them into the creature’s gut. The minotaur let out a startled gasp and McHenry drove his feet forward several more times. The repeated impact caused the minotaur to lose its grip on McHenry, and he fell to the floor. The minotaur whirled to face him and McHenry backrolled, grabbing the sword and leaping to his feet to face the thing once more.

His mind whirled back to the ancient tales. He remembered that the Athenian hero Theseus had killed the Minotaur of Crete. Some stories said that he had done it by grabbing the horns and twisting the beast’s head so that its neck snapped. Most claimed that he used a sword, but he couldn’t recall any tricks that Theseus had used in combat. He’d just employed the sword to kill the monster, end of story.

The minotaur advanced on him and McHenry backed up, swinging the sword back and forth. The blade didn’t appear to deter the creature. It wasn’t watching the blade at all; instead, all its attention was focused on McHenry, clearly trying to time his swings and determine the best moment to attack.

Suddenly the shouting of the crowd changed. There were now cries of alarm. There was much too much noise for McHenry to discern what anyone was saying, but it was clear they were genuinely upset. He instantly discerned that it wasn’t because of him. He was sure that at least some of them were worried about him, but something else was causing their reaction and he didn’t know what it was.

The minotaur abruptly charged at him. He dodged to the right and swung the sword, and this time the blade struck home. It cut across the minotaur’s right torso and the creature bellowed as flecks of blood splattered from the cut. It was nothing more than a superficial wound, but at least it was a hit. So that was something.

The minotaur was clearly upset. It grabbed at the wound, howling in fury, and charged McHenry once more. McHenry backed up, continuing to swing his sword in a desperate attempt to slow the beast in its assault.

And suddenly a young voice shouted, “Get away from him!”

The startling interruption caused the minotaur to stop in its tracks. The voice had come from behind McHenry, and he spun to see the speaker.

It was the child Blak Piro, the first Thallonian that McHenry had cured.

He was now walking perfectly normally. And he was shouting in full-throated childish fury. “Get back, you stupid monster! Get away!”

The minotaur threw his arms straight up and roared at the child, but Blak didn’t back down. Instead he stayed right where he was and he kept shouting at the beast to back away.

“Blak, get out of here!” said McHenry desperately. “You shouldn’t be here!”

“I’m here because you are! You saved me! So I’m saving you back!”

“Go back to your parents!”

“No!”

And Blak sprinted past him, directly at the minotaur. McHenry grabbed at him, but the child ducked away and Mark missed him. Blak ran straight up to the minotaur and angrily kicked him in the shin.

To McHenry’s complete shock, the monster backed up.

What the hell? McHenry thought. This isn’t making any sense. It’s a monster. Why isn’t it attacking?

Blak was giving no thought to that consideration at all. He was in full attack mode, although it wasn’t as if he possessed any offensive capabilities. He kept on the monster, pursuing it. The creature grunted and growled but did nothing to strike back. McHenry followed, keeping his sword up while still not understanding what was happening.

The creature was in full retreat and Blak continued to attack. His small fists thudded against the creature’s leg, having no possible impact, yet the creature made no response attack. This was making no sense at all . . .

Or maybe it did.

Maybe it’s not a monster at all.

“Blak, wait!” McHenry called. “Stop hitting it! Just . . . back up. Back away from it.”

Blak turned and looked over his shoulder. “But he’ll want to kill you!”

“We don’t know that for sure. In fact, there’s a lot we don’t know. Just . . . do what I’m saying.”

The boy clearly didn’t understand, but he did as he was instructed and backed up. McHenry guided the boy to stand behind him and stood facing the minotaur. The minotaur continued to glower at him but made no move against him. The reason was obvious: it was concerned that an attack would wind up injuring the child if Blak chose to interpose himself.

Very slowly, McHenry approached the beast. It was against the wall, its hands ready to attack, and it was swinging its head slowly back and forth as if determined to shove the point of its horns into McHenry’s chest. But it did not attack. Instead its black eyes glared at McHenry.

And there was something there. Some sort of recognition.

Son of a bitch.

“Han?” whispered McHenry, suddenly remembering that there had been no sign of Han in the stands. Surely he would have wanted to be there in order to see Robin Lefler’s champion put down. “Shintar Han? Is that you?”

The creature nodded, just once.

“I don’t believe it.” McHenry stepped back, and he started to shout. The people were still shouting his name, but Mark ignored them, focusing his attention instead purely on the so-called Awesome. “Q! I know what you’re up to! I know that this is Shintar Han! You wanted me to kill him because . . . I don’t know! Because you’re demented! Whatever the reason, I’m not gonna do it! I’m not going to cut down Shintar Han! You can just forget it! So change him back to what he was, and get me and Blak the hell out of here! You’ve failed, all right? Whatever your intentions were, you’ve completely failed! So end this! Now! Now!”

The minotaur let out a frustrated howl and suddenly it vanished in a burst of light, to be replaced by Shintar Han. The prime minister’s legs trembled and he fell to the ground, and when he looked up at McHenry there was pure terror on his face. “Are . . . are you going to kill me?”

“No, of course not. Go.” He nodded his head toward Blak. “And get him out of here as well.”

“I want to stay and help,” said Blak.

“You did. You helped tremendously. Now I need you to go back to your parents. Grow up and live a long and healthy life. That’s what you can do for me right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m always sure.”

Blak nodded and then turned to Han. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Han had no response. Instead he simply nodded and followed the boy away.

“It’s over, Q.” McHenry didn’t even bother to raise his voice. He was quite sure that Q could hear every word he said. “Shut this down and end this stupidity, once and for all.”

iii.

Q SAT IN his upraised seat, shaking his head in wonderment. “I never thought he’d see through that,” he said. “He wouldn’t have if that boy hadn’t run into the middle of the entire thing.”

“Are you satisfied, Q?” Robin demanded. “Are you done with us now? Is this whole ridiculous thing finished?”

Q drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the chair. Around him, the crowd was shouting, “McHenry! McHenry!” over and over. It was clear that the people of New Thallon were howling for his release.

And yet Q wasn’t quite satisfied. “No, I’m afraid this isn’t over yet,” he said. “McHenry has performed well so far, even I have to admit that. But there is still something to be done. Something that I normally would not do, but we live in interesting times.”

“And what’s that?”

Q didn’t answer, but instead slowly stood and spread his arms wide. This was enough to immediately silence the shouting from the crowd.

“McHenry”—his voice boomed across the coliseum, impossibly loud—“has acquitted himself well so far. But now he faces the final test. He must battle your god. He must battle me.”

Q vanished from his seat, and a split second later, the labyrinth spread across the ground disappeared as well. McHenry was left standing there with his sword. He looked around in confusion, and then there was a burst of light nearby. He stepped back and stared as he saw Q standing there.

No longer wearing his toga, Q was clad in the classic gladiatorial style of ancient Rome. He was wearing armor on his chest and a large helmet with a red bristle on the top. An armored skirt swirled around his legs, coming to mid-thigh. He had a shield on his left arm and was wielding a sword that appeared larger than the one McHenry had.

“You should consider yourself honored,” Q informed him. “It’s very rare that the emperor actually decides to engage in combat himself.”

“You’re no emperor,” said McHenry. “You’re just an omnipotent being with way too much time on his hands.”

“A fair point,” admitted Q. “Nevertheless, let’s get to it, shall we?”

McHenry wasn’t certain, but it seemed to him that Q looked larger than he had before. He supposed it was perfectly possible. He knew that the form Q had taken was simply to give human beings some source of reference. He had no idea what Q actually looked like.

McHenry slowly moved to the side, his sword at the ready. “Seems to me I’m a bit overmatched. You have armor and a shield. I just have this sword.”

“That is true,” Q said. “But I’m afraid you’ll just have to chalk that up to one of the unfair advantages of being in charge.”

With no further words, Q attacked.

McHenry realized that the one thing he had going for him was that, when it came to hand-to-hand combat, Q was completely incompetent. That made sense. He was omnipotent, so he didn’t have experience with close-quarter battle. McHenry backed up, studying Q’s assault. Q didn’t even seem to understand that the purpose of the sword was to try and wound his opponent. He swung the blade wildly and was having no luck coming in contact with McHenry. When his sword came anywhere within proximity of McHenry, he was able to bat it away without much difficulty.

It’s a trick. It has to be a trick. He’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

As seconds ticked by, that did not seem to be the case. Q continued to be unable to pose even the slightest threat to McHenry, who blocked Q’s attacks with relative ease. Finally McHenry decided to make an offensive move. He swung his blade and it glanced off Q’s shield, but the move put Q slightly off balance and McHenry slammed his foot forward. The blow landed squarely in Q’s gut and he was knocked backward, almost tripping over his own feet. The crowd roared a cheer.

Q blinked and seemed to notice McHenry for the first time. “You have the nerve to actually kick me? Are you out of your mind?”

“Says the man who set up a gladiatorial arena. Come on, Q, let’s just end this.”

“Yes,” said Q, nodding. “An ending seems appropriate.”

A slow smile crossed his face and Q attacked again. This time was not like the last time. This time the assault was fast and organized and brutal.

McHenry blocked blow after blow with his sword, but the thrusts were now striking home. For every five shots that he intercepted, a sixth would slip through, and in less than a minute he was bleeding from half a dozen shallow cuts. He got the feeling that they were shallow by design. That Q could have made deeper, even fatal assaults, but he was choosing not to in order to prolong it.

The crowd gasped collectively every time Q landed a blow. McHenry’s uniform tunic was becoming tattered and soaked with blood. McHenry was starting to stagger as he desperately tried to keep Q at bay, but failed.

“Did you truly think it would be that easy?” Q asked. “Did you believe that I couldn’t defeat you whenever I wanted?”

McHenry felt his legs starting to waver. He lunged at Q, bringing his blade around, but once more it rebounded off Q’s shield. Q then stepped to the side and brought the flat of his blade around, striking McHenry on the side of the head. McHenry cried out and fell. Quickly he rolled onto his back, but Q brought his foot down on McHenry’s chest, immobilizing him.

“Tell you what,” Q said as he stood over him, pointing his sword down at him. “If you give the woman and child over to me, I will let you live.”

“Go to hell,” snarled McHenry.

“Now wait a moment. Don’t be so quick to dismiss the offer. Robin Lefler already volunteered her life to save you once. Don’t you think she’d do it again if you gave her the opportunity?”

“Probably,” he said grimly. “But it’s not an option I’m going to give her.”

“Why not? Don’t you think she’s entitled to make that decision?”

“No, she’s not. She’s not thinking clearly. Besides, my life isn’t her decision to make. You want to kill me? Kill me. But spare them.”

“Or I could kill all of you. It’s what Shintar Han wants.”

“You don’t give a damn what Shintar Han wants.”

“No, I really don’t,” said Q. “I just find it endlessly interesting to see what sentient creatures will do to each other in order to gain power. But all right, McHenry. If this is what you truly want, I will kill you and allow Robin and the baby to live. Would you find that acceptable?”

“Yes, I would,” said McHenry with a sigh. He really was relieved; he had managed to accomplish his goal. Robin and her son would live. If he died, well . . . so what? One less godlike individual walking around. Robin would mourn him, but eventually she would move on, and everything would be fine.

He braced himself as Q stood over him, drawing back the sword, ready to slash it down into him.

And suddenly the world dissolved around him.

iv.

HE SAT UP, confused, as he saw that he was in a spaceship. It was relatively small, and a being that he quickly sensed was a hologram was standing over him.

“Welcome aboard the Lyla,” said the cheerful blonde. “I’m her. I need you to get off the transporter platform now.”

“The what?” He hadn’t fully processed what she was talking about, but he did what she said. He realized that, yes, he was in fact on a transporter platform, large enough for a single person only. The transporter started to hum and it activated once more. A familiar figure began to materialize, and he gasped in astonishment. It was Robin Lefler. She was holding Cwansi tightly and was clearly as confused as McHenry was. “What—” she started to say, and when her gaze fell upon McHenry, she cried out in joy. By this point he had gotten up off the deck and was embracing her eagerly.

“Well well,” came a sardonic voice. “It worked. Nice to see.”

They turned and gaped as Xyon approached them. “How was your trip?”

“You beamed us off of New Thallon?” asked Robin.

“I did indeed. Wasn’t all that difficult. Just set my sensors to locate the humans on the planet’s surface. Fortunately enough, you were the only two there. So it was rather easy to find you.”

“But why?” said Robin. “Why are you here? Why did you come for us?”

McHenry released his hold on Robin and turned to face Xyon, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Let me guess,” he said thoughtfully. “Guilty conscience.”

“What? How did you come to that conclusion?”

“It’s not all that difficult. How did you even know that we were there?”

“Word spreads quickly these days.”

“No.” McHenry shook his head. “Not word of this. Calhoun wouldn’t tell anyone. He wasn’t the least bit proud of losing Robin by taking her off the ship. He would keep that to himself. If he didn’t, how would you have picked up the Starfleet transmission?”

“I have ways.”

“No, you don’t. You’re lying, Xyon.” He approached him, his fists flexing. “I strongly suggest you do not lie to me. I don’t do especially well with being lied to. You have about five seconds to come clean to us, and if you don’t, I swear to God I will throw you off your ship. Q isn’t here suppressing my powers, so I can do pretty much anything I want.”

Xyon looked astounded. “You would do that to the man who saved your life?”

“If he was responsible for endangering it in the first place, you bet I would. I’m giving you one chance to be honest with me, and then I’m taking you for a walk outside.”

“All right, all right,” Xyon said, sounding rather annoyed at being pressured. “You want the truth? Fine, here’s the truth: I was the reason that the Thallonians were able to find Excalibur.”

“You? How?”

“I put a tracker on the ship. Then I told them the frequency so they would be able to find it.”

They stared at him, wide eyed. “Why the hell did you do that?” demanded Robin.

“Because I wanted to make things difficult for my father. Because I was hired by Shintar Han to help bring you there. Because of any one of half a dozen reasons, but mostly because I was being a creep. There. Are you happy?”

McHenry considered the question a moment and suddenly he swung his fist around and caught the unprepared Xyon on the chin. Xyon gasped and went down. McHenry stood over him, shaking out his fist. “I’m getting a little happy now.”

“Ow!” said Xyon, holding his chin. “You didn’t have to do that!”

“Actually, I pretty much did. But I could have done a lot worse. Be happy I’m not kicking you while you’re down there.”

“You’re all heart,” grumbled Xyon.

“So now what?” said Robin.

“Now? Now I bring you back to Excalibur. It shouldn’t be too hard for me to find it.”

And suddenly Q flared into existence. He was no longer dressed as a Roman emperor but was now wearing a Starfleet uniform. He looked extremely annoyed, his arms folded across his chest. “Well, that was a cheap trick,” he said.

McHenry stood protectively in front of Robin, as if he could intercede in anything that Q might want to do. “It’s over, Q. Get out of here.”

“Where the hell did he come from?” asked Xyon, clearly having no idea what was going on. “Who is this?”

“This is Q,” said Robin. “Your new best friend.”

Lyla stepped forward and put a hand on Xyon’s shoulder. “Q is an omnipotent being, Xyon. You cannot do anything against him.”

“Really?” said Xyon. “Let’s find out.”

Abruptly he had a phaser in his hand and he fired at point-blank range. The beam bounded off of Q and harmlessly exploded off the bulkhead. Q stared blandly at them and said, “Was that supposed to prove something?”

“Just . . . testing,” said Xyon, lowering the phaser.

“Well, that’s marvelous. So glad you had that opportunity. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. You, McHenry, Robin, and her little child. What to do with you?”

“Let us go. This thing is over,” said McHenry.

“You keep saying that,” said Q, “but it’s not over. Not really. Not as long as the child remains here. He’s the real issue, you see. You, Robin, remain torn. On the one hand you want to be able to wander around with him, free of any problems and responsibilities. On the other hand, you feel you have unfinished business on New Thallon. Your husband died there in his attempts to lead his people, and you feel that as long as they remain leaderless, the endeavor that cost him his life is unfulfilled. The baby remains the tipping point. Do you disagree?”

For a long moment, Robin was silent. Then, slowly, she nodded. “No. That’s pretty much right.”

“All right, then. So the solution is obvious.”

Q snapped his fingers, and suddenly Cwansi was in his arms rather than Robin’s.

Robin let out a horrified shriek and McHenry immediately charged Q. But it availed him nothing, because Q had vanished.

“Bring him back!” howled Robin.

Q’s disembodied voice boomed through the ship. “I’m afraid that really isn’t an option,” it said. “But fear not. I have somewhere else for you to be.”

And suddenly the engines roared to life and the ship started to hurtle forward.

“Lyla, are you doing this?!” shouted Xyon.

“No, Xyon,” Lyla calmly replied. “The engines came on-line by themselves, nor did I set the heading.”

The ship sped through space, and the entire time Robin was howling for Xyon to find a way to stop it. It was a bellowed request that he would happily have followed, but he had no idea how to do so. He staggered to the control console and tried to take command of his ship, but he was completely unable to. It was going through space with literally a mind of its own, and he was helpless to prevent it.

Space sped past them as the passengers in the small craft were tossed around from the ship’s headlong speed. Robin didn’t seem to notice it, though. She was too busy hysterically screaming her son’s name, and there was nothing that Mark could do to calm her down.

Abruptly the ship began to slow as the reverse thrusters flared to life. The ship’s speed decreased and Xyon desperately tried to get a fix on where they were.

Then he saw it.

“Crap.”

Deep Space

CALHOUN TUMBLED END over end as the airless, heatless depths of space slammed into his body.

He knew not to hold his breath. Holding one’s breath in airless space was a sure way to cause one’s lungs to rupture. Besides, he could hold his breath, even under the best of circumstances, for a minute or so. He felt every pore in his body contract.

Soleta was doing what she could to shield him, but he had no idea if her stealth suit would enable her to survive in space. She wrapped her arms around him, but the protection that she was able to provide him was minimal at best.

They spun through space, the suction of the vacuum having pulled them out of the Dayan ship with rather significant force. Calhoun had lost his view of the Dayan ship, even though they weren’t that far from it. He realized it was because his eyes were starting to mist over.

It wasn’t the first time in his life that he’d been stranded out in the depths of space, but it hadn’t gotten any easier. He started shivering violently, and Soleta was holding him as tightly as she could. Part of him wanted her to use her neck pinch to knock him out, so that he could succumb while unconscious. That would have been ideal. But there was no way to ask her to do that, because his words wouldn’t carry to her in airless space. Besides, Calhoun was too dedicated to the concept of living. If these were to be his last seconds, he was determined to experience them.

Then, to his shock, space around him began to dissolve. The sound of a transporter sounded in his ears, but he instinctively knew that it wasn’t the Excalibur’s. It sounded different. But he was sure that it wasn’t the Dayan transporter either. That had a totally different sound to it.

He was surprised that he was able to hear anything at all, since they were in soundless space. He had to think that it was because the transporter beam was enveloping him and therefore going directly into the molecules of his ears.

And then he rematerialized, still clutching desperately to Soleta. She had come along with him, which made sense considering how tightly they were wrapped in each other’s arms.

The moment they were solid again, they tumbled away from each other. Calhoun sat up, bewildered, and to his astonishment he was staring into the eyes of Mark McHenry. “What the—” he started to say.

He didn’t manage to get another word out because the ship banked hard to port. He saw Xyon seated at the control panel, sending the ship speeding forward. He called back to his father, “Who the hell are your friends?! They’re gigantic! I’ve never seen a ship that big!”

It took Calhoun a moment to draw breath into his tortured lungs. “They’re the Dayan. They’re here to destroy all life in the galaxy.”

“Well, that’s certainly a large enough ship to do it with!”

Explosions suddenly roared around them. Xyon sent the ship to starboard as he snarled, “They’re shooting at us! That’s rude!”

Calhoun stumbled forward, not taking the time to find out what McHenry or Lefler were doing there. She didn’t seem in the position to explain it; she was seated in a corner and sobbing to herself. He didn’t see Cwansi with her and immediately figured out why she was weeping. But this wasn’t the time to ask questions.

He grabbed the back of Xyon’s chair and held on. “Can you avoid them?”

“I don’t care how big they are,” Xyon said proudly. “Nothing can hit this ship when I’m taking evasive maneuvers.”

Xyon’s ship was dropping like a rock through space, cutting to one side and the other, as blasts from the Dayan ship continued to try and target them. But Xyon was as good as his word, staying one step ahead of the Dayan blasts.

“Where do I go?” demanded Xyon.

“Don’t you know?” said Calhoun.

“No clue. I got punted here by Q.”

“Q? What?”

“Captain, can we get into this later?” said McHenry urgently. He ran forward and jumped into the navigation seat next to Xyon. It was typically empty; McHenry grabbed hold of the controls.

“What are you doing?” said Xyon.

“Setting our course! Two twenty-seven mark eighty three! Keep us dodging but put us on that!”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m always sure,” said McHenry confidently.

Xyon obeyed, sending his ship hurtling down and away from the Dayan ship. It continued to fire on them, and now, despite Xyon’s pride in his evasive maneuvers, a couple of shots nearly tagged them. He gulped deeply but kept the ship steady.

“Almost there,” said McHenry.

“Where?”

“Almost there.”

“Stop saying that!” said an annoyed Xyon.

He cut port and starboard again, and then another blast clipped them with incredible force.

“Aft shields have collapsed, Xyon,” Lyla told him. “Forward shields cannot sustain another hit.”

Xyon couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t flying a Starfleet ship, but his shields were reasonably strong. The Dayan had only managed to hit him once, and he’d already lost his aft shields. “From one hit? What the hell are they firing at us?!”

“You don’t want to know,” said Calhoun.

The ship hurtled forward, Xyon doing everything he could to avoid being hit again.

“Let’s hope this works,” McHenry said in a low voice.

“Let’s hope what works? What are we doing?” asked an increasingly desperate Xyon.

“There! Right there!” McHenry suddenly shouted.

Calhoun looked and saw what Mark was pointing at. It was the interior of the Excalibur’s shuttlebay, and it was directly ahead of them. It was the only part of the ship that was visible. Apparently the cloaking device only covered the exterior of the ship; the interior could be seen when the shuttlebay doors were open.

“Hold on!” Xyon warned them.

The small vessel hurtled into the shuttlebay. It was not remotely a soft landing. Xyon hit the reverse thrusters but he couldn’t fully halt the ship’s forward momentum. It hit the shuttlebay deck and skidded. The sounds of screeching metal tore through Calhoun’s ears. Even Robin stopped crying, effectively shocked out of her tragedy by the roughness of the Lyla’s landing.

The speed caused it to bounce into the air and then land again. It almost flipped over, but somehow Xyon managed to keep it even. The problem was that the far end of the shuttlebay was coming up fast. Xyon was frantically trying to slow down the ship. The reverse thrusters roared more fiercely. “This is gonna be close!” Xyon shouted.

The ship continued to skid along the shuttlebay, and then, literally centimeters away from the other end of the bay, Lyla finally screeched to a halt. Calhoun could see the faces of the crew who were on duty, visible behind the large clear windows, flinching because they were fearful that the ship was going to slam into the far end.

Calhoun hit his combadge. “Calhoun to bridge! Get us the hell out of here!”

“Captain?!” came Burgoyne’s surprised voice, but then s/he immediately responded to the order. “Aye, sir!”

Excalibur

i.

“CAPTAIN?!” BURGOYNE SAID in astonishment but then quickly added: “Aye, sir!” S/he spun toward Tobias and called, “Get us out of here, Tania!”

“Heading?”

“Anywhere!”

The engines of the Excalibur came to life and the ship, still cloaked, headed off into space.

Burgoyne couldn’t quite understand what had just happened. Xyon’s ship had just dropped out of space, showing up from absolutely nowhere. This had happened almost simultaneously with an explosion occurring on the far side of the Dayan ship. The Excalibur, in passive mode, didn’t have sensors on the Dayan vessel and couldn’t tell what had caused the explosion. They knew that suddenly Xyon’s ship came hurtling from the far side of the Dayan ship. At first it had been heading away from the Excalibur, but then it course corrected and was suddenly coming straight for them. It had been Burgoyne’s notion to angle the ship around so that the shuttlebay could be opened and serve as a means of catching Xyon’s ship.

It had not been a plan that met with Tania’s approval. “Why allow him onto the ship?” she demanded. “For all we know, he’s working with the Dayan. This could be a trick.”

Burgoyne didn’t believe it. However Xyon had shown up, s/he was positive that it wasn’t some manner of deception, no matter Tobias’s conviction. She believed that Xyon might be trying some manner of trickery. But s/he didn’t have the time to question why Tobias believed it; s/he had to make a command decision.

The decision had been absolutely spot on, because apparently Calhoun was on Xyon’s ship. S/he had no idea how that had happened, but s/he wasn’t about to knock it.

The Excalibur hurtled away from the Dayan ship, which apparently was caught so flat-footed that the ship was in warp space before the Dayan had the opportunity to react. Plus, it helped that the Excalibur was still cloaked and the Dayan couldn’t see it or detect them.

“Captain, where are you?” Burgoyne said.

“We’re heading to sickbay.”

“Are you injured?”

“Well, I was just floating in space, so a fast checkup to make sure that none of my internal organs burst would seem to be the smart move.”

“On my way.”

Burgoyne got up from the chair and said briskly, “Kebron, you have the conn. If the Dayan show up, inform me immediately.”

“Aye, sir.”

S/he stepped into the turbolift and said, “Sickbay.” The doors closed and the turbolift immediately started heading toward the correct deck.

As the lift moved, Burgoyne let out a relieved sigh and sagged against the wall. S/he still had no idea what they were going to do about the Dayan, still in Thallonian space in a ship designed to destroy everything it encountered. But the one thing s/he did know was that as long as Calhoun was all right, everything would eventually work out.

The turbolift slowed, then opened, and s/he sprinted out of it and down the corridor. When s/he arrived at sickbay, s/he was stunned by what s/he saw.

Calhoun was already up and around. Standing there with him were McHenry and, of all people, Xyon. And Soleta? Wasn’t Soleta dead? The major point of confusion was that Robin Lefler was also there. She was lying on a bio-bed, plainly sedated. It was monitoring her stats, and both her pulse and heartbeat were high. Her slumber wasn’t restful; she seemed as if her mind was trapped in some awful dream that wasn’t letting up on her.

She was clutching McHenry’s hand as if it were a life preserver. She wasn’t even aware that she was doing it, obviously. He stroked her hand gently with his free one.

Doctor Lochley was studying her life signs. “She’ll be okay. Her body still needs time to adjust.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” said Burgoyne. “Soleta, how are you still alive? And McHenry, you and Robin . . . what are you doing here? Did Xyon get you from New Thallon?” Then suddenly s/he realized who was missing, and Lefler’s entire unstable physiology made sense. “Where’s Cwansi? Is he . . .”

“He was kidnapped by Q,” said McHenry.

“By Q? The Q?”

McHenry nodded. “Yeah. The Q.”

“Do we know where he took him?”

“The only thing I can think of is back to New Thallon. To deliver him to Shintar Han, the prime minister who wants to kill him.”

Burgoyne was having trouble believing it. “Kill him? Who would want to kill an infant?”

“This lunatic. Trust me.”

“We’re only an hour from New Thallon at top warp,” said Calhoun grimly. “Burgoyne, take us there. McHenry, do you want to go on ahead?”

“There’s no point,” said McHenry softly. “Either the child is alive or dead; and if he’s dead, it’s because Han killed him the moment that Q returned with him. Delaying an hour wouldn’t make a difference. Besides, I think that Robin needs me.”

“Why did you have to knock her out?” Burgoyne asked Lochley.

“I didn’t have a choice. She was hysterical,” said Lochley. “Putting her under was the simplest way to calm her down.” The doctor stared at the life readings. “Her metabolism is steadying itself. So that’s good, at least.”

“It’s steadying itself because I’m doing it,” McHenry said quietly. “She’s having a dream where she’s cradling her son and singing to him. I figured I could give her that, at least.”

“Well, that’s very considerate of you,” said Lochley.

McHenry shrugged as he continued to stroke her hand.

ii.

THE MOOD IN the observation lounge was tense. The captain was pacing the room while Burgoyne sat at the far end; also present were Xyon, Soleta, and Tobias. Tobias kept casting glares at Xyon, which Calhoun didn’t understand, but he didn’t see any need to dwell on it at the moment.

“Have we informed Starfleet of the Dayan’s presence?” asked Calhoun.

Tobias turned her attention away from Xyon and nodded. “Yes, sir. As soon as we were clear of their ship, I sent an emergency signal on all frequencies. It may take some time for it to reach Command, but the word is out. For what that’s worth.”

“It may not be worth much,” Calhoun said grimly. “Considering the power we’ve seen that ship display, I’m not sure what can stop it. How do you take down a ship that, every time you hit it, heals itself?”

“Diplomacy,” said Soleta. “That is the only way to stop them. Open up talks with them to convince them to stand down.”

“They’re not interested in talks,” said Calhoun. “All they care about is destruction. It’s their underpinning, their philosophy. We don’t have the weaponry that can stand up to them; this is going to be a hell of a problem for us.”

“One thing at a time,” said Burgoyne. “Right now we have to focus on trying to get Robin’s son back.”

“That’s assuming that we can even get near New Thallon,” said Calhoun. “They were able to penetrate our cloaking device easily enough the last time. We still have no idea how they managed to do that.”

Tobias started to lean forward to speak but was interrupted by Xyon, who said softly, “It was me.”

The crew turned and looked at him in confusion. All save Tobias, who seemed genuinely surprised. “What?” said Calhoun.

“It was me,” he said again. “I brought in a tracking device and left it in Kally’s room so that the Thallonians would be able to find you.”

For a moment there was astonished silence in the room. “Why did you do that?” asked an astonished Burgoyne.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” said Burgoyne, “if you don’t want to either be tossed into the brig or, even better, off this ship—without benefit of your ship.”

“It’s obvious why,” said Calhoun. There was no trace of emotion in his voice. “It’s because he hated me and wanted to destroy me.”

“That was part of it. And I was working with Shintar Han. But,” he added quickly, “I didn’t know he wanted to kill the child. I’d never have cooperated if I’d known that was part of his plan.”

“Why should we believe that?” said Burgoyne.

“There’s no reason you should.”

“Why are you telling us now?” said Calhoun. “That’s what I want to know.”

“Because you deserve to know the truth. Especially since it will have an impact on your strategy. I’ll go down to her quarters and get the signaling device so that they won’t be able to—”

“I’ve already destroyed it,” said Tobias.

All heads turned toward her in surprise. “You knew about this?” asked an astounded Burgoyne. “Am I the only one on the ship who didn’t?”

“Kalinda figured it out. She found the signaling device and brought it to me.”

Burgoyne was looking increasingly agitated. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Or me?” said Calhoun.

“Because she was trying to help Xyon,” said Tobias, looking in wonderment at him. “She believed that eventually he would change his mind and realize that what he’d done was wrong. She was hoping that, by covering for him, his father would never find out and they could repair their relationship.”

Despite the tension in the room, Xyon actually chuckled upon hearing that. “That sounds like her.”

“I’m thrilled that you think so,” said Calhoun grimly. “The fact of the matter is that you betrayed us.”

“And then saved your life.”

“Only because Q apparently sent you here to do so.”

“Maybe,” said Xyon, “but I didn’t have to. You were floating in space. All I had to do was absolutely nothing. Instead, I rescued you. No one made me do that. Q may have sent me here, given me the opportunity, but that was all he did. The rest was all me. I’d like to think that counts for something.”

Calhoun stared at his son for a long moment and then said, “Soleta, escort him to the brig, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The brig?!” said Xyon. “You’re—” Then his voice trailed off and his gaze drifted down. “You know what? That’s fine. That’s what I deserve.” He stood up and said, “Do what you feel you have to.”

Soleta walked toward the door and gestured for him to exit. But before he could, Calhoun said, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you change your mind?”

He thought about it a moment and then said, “Because I’ve spent pretty much my whole life hating you. And I’m not satisfied with where my life is. So I decided that maybe I should try something else and see where it takes me.”

Calhoun said nothing but simply nodded.

Soleta led him out and the crew sagged back in their chairs. Just before the doors closed, Soleta said, “I told you it wasn’t my cloaking device.” Then she was cut off from view.

Calhoun chuckled softly at that.

“No one’s told me how she’s still alive,” Burgoyne pointed out.

“She beamed onto the Dayan ship while wearing a special stealth suit that effectively rendered her invisible,” Calhoun told hir.

“Oh. Okay, well, that makes . . . no sense at all. But it seems as reasonable an explanation as any other.”

“Get us to New Thallon as quickly as possible,” said Calhoun, “and tell me when we hear back from Starfleet. Maintain long-range sensors. If the Dayan ship shows up, I want to know about it.”

“Yes, sir. And Mac . . .”

“Yes?”

“Welcome back,” said Burgoyne with a smile.

iii.

CALHOUN SAT IN his ready room, staring at deep space as it hurtled past him. It hadn’t been all that long since he had been floating out there at the mercy of the airless vacuum. He prayed he never had another opportunity to have to do that, because he didn’t like the odds of surviving a third time. It was nothing short of amazing that he had endured the experience twice.

The chime at his door sounded. “Come,” he said.

The door slid open and Soleta was standing there. She wasn’t looking him in the eyes; instead, she was gazing down fixedly. “Captain,” she said formally.

“Soleta.”

“I felt the need to apologize to you once more. For what I did.”

“For saving me from the Dayan?”

“I think you know perfectly well that isn’t what I was referring to, Captain. My assault on you was unspeakable.”

He gestured for her to sit, but she remained standing. “I want you to know that when all this is done—when we’ve left Thallonian space—I will take my leave from the ship at the first opportunity.”

“How are you going to do that? You destroyed your vessel in an attempt to try and shut down the wormhole.”

“If you could lend me a shuttlecraft, that would be more than sufficient.”

“And that’s it, then? You leave us behind?”

“I sexually assaulted you, Captain,” Soleta said. It was the first time the words had escaped her lips, and for a moment she actually looked surprised when she said it. She pulled herself together and said, “There can be no forgiveness for that.”

“Unless, as I suggested earlier, you were in the grip of Pon farr. Or whatever it is that passes for Pon farr for someone who is half-Romulan.”

“I suppose that is possible,” she allowed. “I must admit, I have never experienced Pon farr. I have no idea how it would present itself. I imagine it could be, but that doesn’t excuse my actions. I still should have had enough control not to give in to such primal urges.”

“You’re being excessively hard on yourself, Soleta. From what I understand of the Vulcan mating urge, self-control really isn’t an option.”

“From what I understand, that is true. Captain.” She seemed reluctant to ask but finally managed: “Are you saying you forgive me, Captain? Because that is very important to me. If you—”

“Yes. I forgive you.”

Soleta drew in air and then let it out very slowly. “That is good. That is very good.” A thought occurred to her. “Are you forgiving me because I saved your life? Because I wish to emphasize to you that I didn’t save your life because I hoped that it would lead to your forgiveness.”

“Yes, that’s understood.”

“That’s very good to hear. So I . . .” She pointed toward the door. “I suppose I will return to my station now.”

“Good idea,” said Calhoun.

She turned and headed for the door, but then she stopped and turned back to him. “Are you going to tell Admiral Shelby?” she asked.

“I have to,” he said. “Honesty has always been a fundamental part of our relationship.”

“Except when you seduced her on Xenex and left her to fall asleep so that you could escape and try to turn back time.”

Calhoun frowned. “She told you about that, did she?”

“She did. She was rather annoyed.”

“Yes, well . . . that was the exception.”

“Actually, according to her—”

He put up a hand. “Soleta, can we stop discussing this?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“Good.”

She walked out of his ready room, and Calhoun slumped back in his chair and stared at the overhead.

“Elizabeth’s going to love this,” he muttered.

New Thallon

i.

SHINTAR HAN WAS not the least bit surprised when Mark McHenry appeared out of nowhere in his office. However, he was rather surprised that Mackenzie Calhoun was standing next to him, as was a towering individual who seemed to be made out of solid rock.

Han tilted his chair back and moaned softly. “Now what?” he said with a sigh.

McHenry nodded toward the rock being. “Kebron,” he said.

The one called Kebron came around the desk and grabbed the prime minister by the front of his shirt. Han let out a startled cry as Kebron lifted him off his feet and held him up high. His back scraped against the ceiling.

“Guards!” howled Han.

Seconds later, three guards burst in through the doors. They stared at what was waiting for them: the captain of the Excalibur, a man whom they knew to have powers on par with some sort of god, and a creature over two meters tall that looked like a walking cliffside. Han was waving his arms frantically and shouted, “Destroy them!”

The guards, in response, backed out slowly and closed the doors behind them.

Han rolled his eyes. “Wonderful.”

McHenry stepped toward Han and stared up at him. There was murder in his eyes. “Where is he?” he demanded.

“Where is who? What are you talking about?”

Han then let out a startled cry because Kebron was shaking him violently. He was sure that his lungs were going to emerge through his throat. Kebron stopped, and McHenry repeated, “Where is he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Where is Cwansi! What did you do to him? Or at least what did you have Q do to him? If he’s dead, tell me now. You’ll be dead shortly thereafter, but if you confess, I promise to make it quick.”

“Cwansi and his mother escaped! As did you! You were all transported off of New Thallon! How am I supposed to know what happened after that?”

“Because Q was working with you,” said McHenry.

“Q, or the Awesome, or whatever you call him, was working for himself!” said Han. “He never worked for me. He just pretended to in order to amuse himself. Please, put me down!”

McHenry exchanged a look with the captain. “Is he telling the truth?” asked Calhoun. “You’re the one who’s capable of poking around in people’s brains. You should be able to tell.”

“Yeah, well . . . I’m reasonably sure he is telling the truth. I don’t need to check him from the inside out. He’s clearly too terrified to lie.”

“Kebron, put him down,” said Calhoun.

Kebron opened his fist and Shintar Han hit the ground. He missed his footing and fell on his rump. “Ow,” he muttered.

“I should still kill you,” said McHenry. He crouched so that he was face to face with Han. “Everything you did. Your attempt to have a hit man kill us. Bringing in Q to try and destroy us. You tried to kill me yourself.”

“You mean in the labyrinth? Do you think I wanted to?!” said an alarmed Han. “What, do you think I asked the Awesome to transform me into that . . . that whatever it was? I was given no option. He came to me, he said, ‘I’m going to give you an opportunity to get involved personally.’ The next thing I knew, I was standing in that labyrinth facing off against you! It wasn’t something I was at all interested in!”

McHenry nodded slowly. “All right, fine. I accept that. But everything else is on your head.”

“And if you want to take my head in punishment, go ahead! There’s nothing I can do to stop you! It’s probably best for all of us! Do you have any idea what I’ve had to deal with since you left?” He had managed to get to his feet and had now flopped back into his chair. “The public adores you! You, Lefler, and her brat! Anyone who had doubts about you, or disliked you, was turned around by your actions in the coliseum. All that the Awesome managed to do was put the populace of this world one hundred percent into your corner, which means that the entirety of New Thallon despises me! Because they know that I was responsible for bringing the Awesome here! You think that if I had the child here, I would kill him? I’d put him on the throne this very day and hope that my actions would be sufficient to turn public opinion around. So kill me if you want, because frankly I’m afraid to set foot out of my office!”

“I feel so sorry for you,” said McHenry, who didn’t actually feel the least bit sorry.

ii.

CALHOUN’S COMBADGE SUDDENLY beeped. He tapped it. “Calhoun here.”

“We have a problem, Captain,” came Burgoyne’s voice.

Somehow, from the sound of Burgy’s tone, Calhoun had a feeling that he knew what Burgoyne was going to say. He prayed that he was wrong. “What?”

“It’s the Dayan. Their ship just came up on long-range sensors, and it’s heading here fast. It’ll be here in three minutes.”

“Wonderful. But at least we have time to vacate the area.”

“If we do, everyone on New Thallon dies.”

Calhoun’s eyes widened in alarm. “How do we know that?”

“They said so. They’re transmitting, and they said that if we try to flee, then they’ll open fire on New Thallon and destroy everyone on it. We know they can, Captain. We’ve seen them do it.”

“I’ll be right there.” He turned to Kebron and McHenry. “Mark, can you get us back up to the Excalibur?”

“Easily.”

“I don’t understand,” said Shintar Han. “Who is here? Why are they going to attack us?”

“Because, believe it or not,” said Calhoun, “there are people out there who are even more ruthless than you.” He stepped in close. “If you have any battleships in the area, get them here. You’re going to need them.”

“Will they be able to help?”

I wouldn’t bet on it.

“You never know,” said Calhoun.

Excalibur

i.

CALHOUN, KEBRON, AND McHenry appeared on the bridge. Tobias gasped in surprise but quickly pulled herself together. “Dayan ETA: two minutes, Captain. They’re continuing to communicate with us.”

“Have you responded?”

“No, sir. They’re just sending what I assume is a recorded message, since it keeps repeating.”

“Let’s hear it,” said Calhoun as he took his seat in the command chair.

Seconds later Nyos’s voice was sounding on the bridge.

“Captain Calhoun. I am assuming you can hear this and are alive. We know where you are and are coming for you. If you try to flee, we will track you, but we will first destroy the planet you are currently orbiting. So you had best not be hiding behind your cloak when we arrive.”

Nyos began to repeat his warning, and Tobias shut it off.

“I don’t understand,” said Burgoyne. “How do they—”

Xy was walking across the bridge carrying a tricorder. “Hold still, Captain,” he said briskly, and he started running the instrument over Calhoun’s body. After less than a minute, he halted on Calhoun’s right forearm. “Here. It’s right here.”

“A tracker,” Burgoyne said suddenly, understanding.

Calhoun yanked up his sleeve and stared at his bare skin. “Where?”

“Under the skin. Right here,” said Xy, tapping his forearm. “They must have put it in you at some point. We need to get it out. Get Doctor Lochley up here.”

“No time,” said Calhoun. Quickly he turned away and walked into his ready room. Without hesitation he went straight to his sword and yanked it off the wall. He took the tip of the sword and jammed it into his forearm, digging around, clamping his teeth into his lower lip so that he wouldn’t cry out. Blood began to stream from the wound but he ignored it, continuing to poke and prod.

He felt the sword tip bump up against something and twisted it forcefully. A small piece of metal flew out of his arm and clinked onto the floor. He brought his foot down hard and smashed it to pieces, then he rolled his sleeve back down as he strode back to the bridge.

The sleeve was rapidly turning red, absorbing the blood. He ignored it. “Now they won’t be able to see us.”

“Yes, but it won’t matter,” said Burgoyne. “If we leave the area, we’ll be okay—they won’t be able to keep tracking us. But everyone on New Thallon will be dead.”

“We take one of them prisoner,” said McHenry. “I can do that. Once their ship is here, I transport myself over there, grab their leader, and bring him back here. We offer to release him if they turn around and leave.”

“It won’t work,” said Calhoun. “They have no regard for life, including their own. If you bring Nyos here, his ship will just open fire. Nyos might even kill himself, just to be difficult. It’s a good plan under ordinary circumstances, but it isn’t going to play out with the Dayan.”

“What do we do then?” asked Burgoyne.

“We wait for them to show up and pray that we can talk them out of their insane mission.”

“Diplomacy.” Burgoyne was not quite able to keep the sarcasm out of hir voice. “Where did you get that idea? I wonder.”

Soleta said nothing, but there was a very small smile on her face.

“Shields up,” said Calhoun. “We don’t need to give them another opportunity to beam anyone off the ship.”

“Cloaking device?” said Tobias.

“Keep us visible. Let’s play it their way for the time being.”

“Aye, sir,” said Tobias, not sounding especially enthused about the prospect of playing it the way of the Dayan.

The turbolift door slid open and Calhoun turned to see who it was. He was surprised to see Robin Lefler emerge from the turbolift. “What are you doing here, Robin?”

So softly that he could barely hear her, Lefler said, “Reporting for duty, sir.”

He exchanged glances with McHenry. Mark very slightly shook his head, indicating that he clearly didn’t feel that this was the best move for her. “Robin, are you sure?” said Calhoun.

Lefler nodded. “This is where I belong, sir.”

“All right,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Take ops.”

Without another word, she crossed the bridge to ops. No one said anything. Word of her son’s disappearance had spread very quickly through the ship, and they were all well aware of her loss. No one had the faintest idea what to say to her, so no one said anything.

The Dayan ship dropped out of warp space and slowed. It came to a halt twenty thousand kilometers away, and for a time the two ships simply floated there. Calhoun was reminded once again of just how damned big the ship was. He had the depressing feeling that every ship in Starfleet could go up against it at one time and still wouldn’t be able to make any sort of headway against it.

“They’re hailing us, Captain,” said Tobias.

Well, at least they’re not just shooting at us, he thought. “On-screen,” he told her.

The main viewscreen wavered, and then Nyos appeared. He was wearing his same customary, confident smile. “Captain Calhoun. It seems you survived your small adventure in outer space.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And apparently you managed to dispense with the tracking device we placed on you as well.”

‘That is correct.”

“You assume that you can flee from us with impunity. And who knows? Perhaps you can. But I can assure you that this planet that you leave behind will not survive. It will be dispensed with as easily as we destroyed its vessels that attempted to challenge us.”

Calhoun’s heart sank when he heard that, but he managed to keep his voice flat and even. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“I assumed you did not. Because if you did, you likely would have warned them to stay out of our way. They attempted to interfere with us, and we were forced to destroy them. Nothing else for it, really.”

“And now what? You intend to destroy this world as well?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“There’s no need for this, Nyos. Our universe is vast. There is plenty of room for everyone. Rather than simply annihilate everyone and everything, let me put together a meeting with you and the United Federation of Planets.”

“A meeting? To discuss what?”

“Somewhere for you and your people to settle. There is no need for you to just go around and destroy everything you encounter. Allow us to work with you to come to an agreement where all of us can coexist.”

“Did you not pay attention, Captain? Did you listen to nothing I told you? Such actions would run counter to the very underpinning of our people.”

“Your underpinning is ridiculous. Destroying the entirety of life simply because it exists . . . that is no way for you to lead your people.”

“I very much appreciate your concern, Captain. Nevertheless, we are now left with the situation of what to do with you. The answer is simple: We will destroy you. Then we will destroy the populace of the planet below. And then we will destroy every bit of sentient life in this galaxy. I’m afraid that there really isn’t anything you can do about it.”

“We’ll see about that,” Calhoun said.

“Captain!” Tobias suddenly shouted. “We’re under att—”

She didn’t have time to get the word out, as concentrated blasts from the Dayan ship slammed into the Excalibur. The shields held, but barely, as sparks blew out of consoles from all over the ship.

“Bring the cloak on-line! Return fire!” Calhoun called.

He knew what the problem with that response was going to be. Since they would be shooting at the enemy vessel, the Dayan would be able to determine where Excalibur was and use the origin points of the blasts to target the ship.

“Fire photon torpedoes and engage evasive maneuvers as you fire!” Calhoun ordered.

“That’ll make targeting problematic,” said Kebron.

“Look at the size of that thing,” Calhoun countered. “Shoot anything in its general direction and it’s likely to hit it.”

“Good point.”

The Excalibur was firing and moving, firing and moving, trying to stay one step ahead of the return blasts from the Dayan ship.

It did no good. Even glancing blows from the Dayan’s powerful weaponry were enough to cause the shields’ powers to skid rapidly downward. In less than a minute, the shielding was on the verge of complete collapse.

Meanwhile the offensive blows fired by the Excalibur had the impact that Calhoun had feared they would: none. Pieces of the vast ship were blown off but the ship instantly regenerated, its healing factor making it impossible for the Excalibur to achieve any long-term or even short-term damage.

“Stop firing!” Calhoun called. “Calhoun to engineering. Reroute power; try to get the shields back on-line.”

“It’ll take a few minutes,” Mitchell’s voice came back.

“We don’t have a few minutes.”

The Excalibur went dead, then the Dayan ship halted its barrage. Calhoun wondered pointlessly if perhaps they had given up their assault, but then Nyos’s voice floated over the comm channel. “This is the end for you, Calhoun. We know approximately where your ship is, and for our weaponry, ‘approximately’ is all that’s required. This has been a stimulating endeavor, and I hope that wherever your next life takes you, it . . . what the hell?”

Calhoun had no idea what Nyos was reacting to, but then he saw it: phaser blasts were erupting from nowhere, assaulting the Dayan ship.

And a new voice crackled over the comm system.

“Did you miss us?” asked Kat Mueller of the Trident.

Trident

“DESMA! BRING US around!”

Mueller’s Andorian executive officer, Commander Desma, was sitting at the flight control station. Mick Gold’s death during an attack from the Brethren had left the position unfilled; Desma started as a conn officer before being fast-tracked to second-in-command.

She angled the Trident around sharply as blasts from the massive Dayan ship sailed wide.

“Fire again, Arex,” Mueller ordered her chief of security.

Lieutenant Arex Na Eth targeted the ship, which wasn’t that difficult considering its size, and let fly with a barrage of phaser blasts.

“Hard to port!” Mueller said immediately.

Desma cut to the left, and once again the Trident evaded any blasts from the ship.

Calhoun’s voice came over the comm unit. “Kat? What the hell are you doing here? Where are you?”

“Shelby sent us.” This wasn’t strictly true, but it seemed the simplest response. “She was worried you could use some backup. She equipped us with a cloaking device as well. Apparently her people made a thorough study of it while Soleta was in a coma. Didn’t take long for us to construct one. Are you all right?”

“We’ve been better. Be careful of the Dayan vessel. It packs a lot of clout.”

“We’ve noticed.” The captain turned to Romeo Takahashi at ops. “How much damage have we inflicted on that thing?”

“None,” said Romeo.

“What?”

“It keeps repairin’ itself,” Romeo told her, with mounting frustration in his voice. “No matter how much we hit it, it’s fixed in seconds.”

“That’s unfortunate. Mac, any suggestions?”

“None, I’m afraid. Anything you do to the ship just acts as a delaying tactic. We haven’t figured out a way to destroy the thing once and for—”

“Incoming!” shouted Arex.

His warning came a second too late. Blasts erupted around the Trident with such force that Mueller was almost knocked out of her command chair as the bridge canted sideways.

“Shields at fifty percent!” Arex said.

“From one hit?” Mueller couldn’t quite believe it. How much power did the other ship’s weapons have, anyway? “Not even a direct hit?”

“Afraid so,” said Arex.

“Full reverse. Fire photon torpedoes.”

“Photon torpedoes, aye.”

The Trident hurtled backward as it simultaneously unleashed an attack of photon torpedoes. But the torpedoes encountered the same problem that the phasers had. They struck the ship directly, but seconds later it was as if they hadn’t inflicted any damage at all.

“This is becoming a problem,” said Mueller.

Once more the Dayan vessel unleashed blasts at the Trident and once more the ship shook violently. This blast was much more direct and when, seconds later, Arex told her that the shields had collapsed, she wasn’t the least bit surprised.

The voice of the Dayan ship’s commander sounded through the bridge of the Trident.

“Greetings, new vessel. We assume you are similar or identical to the Excalibur. And we believe we can safely assume that your ship is in as dire straits as that one. We suppose that whether you die now or later, in the grand scheme of things, does not make that much of a difference. Farewell, new ship. Farewell, Excalibur. This is the beginning of the end of your galaxy. A shame you will not be here to witness it.”

And then, just like that, it was all over.

Excalibur

THE DAYAN SHIP disappeared.

Calhoun gaped as the entire ship vanished from the screen. It reappeared moments later, approximately a hundred thousand kilometers from where it had been before.

However, the Dayan had not gone with it.

Every single one of the Dayan were suddenly floating in space. No one was wearing spacesuits because they had not been prepared for their ship to vanish from around them. Space was thick with thousands of Dayan, flailing about, trying to find some manner of protection that didn’t exist in the depths of the void.

Calhoun couldn’t believe it. “What the hell just happened? What caused their ship to move? Kat, are you seeing this?”

“Affirmative, but I’m not sure what it is that I’m seeing.”

“You’re seeing the death of an entire race,” said Zak Kebron, and Calhoun knew that he was correct.

Some of the Dayan were already dead. The rest of them were going fast.

“Captain,” said Burgoyne, “shall we beam any of them aboard?”

For a long moment, Calhoun said nothing. He simply stared at the Dayan as they flailed around helplessly, dying before his eyes.

Burgoyne tapped his combadge. “Bridge to transporter. Prepare to—”

“Belay that,” Calhoun said quietly.

Burgoyne and Calhoun exchanged looks, then Burgoyne said, “Forget it, Halliwell,” and clicked off.

The seconds extended and no one said anything as the entire Dayan race died helplessly in space. One of them was floating toward the Excalibur, and Calhoun immediately recognized it as Nyos. What were the odds that out of thousands of them out there, Nyos would wind up floating his way?

Calhoun watched as Nyos’s confused expression froze on his face. His eyes were wide and glossed over; he was clearly unconscious. Drops of internal fluids had frozen on his lips. His arms and legs were spread out and stiff, indicating paralysis. Calhoun had read fanciful tales written years before about people who were thrown into space and exploded, which was nonsensical.

Nyos was moving rather quickly. He drew closer to the ship until, presumably, his body ricocheted off it. It spiraled away, heading toward New Thallon where, with any luck, it would burn up upon reentry.

“They’re dead,” whispered Tobias, who seemed to still be processing what they had all just witnessed. “They’re all dead. What the hell just happened?”

That was when a golden light exploded on the bridge. It enveloped a body that seemed to be taking long seconds to compose itself and then finally managed to do so.

It was a Thallonian. His entrance was so similar to Q’s that Robin Lefler automatically assumed that it was Q wearing a Thallonian disguise. Then the light faded and he was left standing there.

He was dressed simply in what appeared to be a black unitard with gold trim on the arms and legs. His face was round and open. He seemed quite pleasant.

“Well, that worked,” he said briskly. “I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to give any of you notice on that. It just seemed the most expeditious way to deal with them. I mean, destroy New Thallon? Destroy the galaxy? We really couldn’t allow that.”

“Who are you?” asked the bewildered Calhoun.

“Oh, that’s a good question. I’m afraid I’ve been spending most of my life traveling. Seeing the multiverse, observing it in action, watching how everything comes together. I’ve had an excellent teacher. Learned so many things from him. But now I believe that it’s time to put all that aside and take up my new life. And I figured that disposing of those galaxy-destroying cretins would be a good way to announce my presence.”

“I’m glad you appreciate my question,” said Calhoun, “but you still haven’t answered it.”

“Right. Of course.” He stuck out a hand and shook Calhoun’s. “I’m Cwansi.” He turned to Robin Lefler and smiled. “Hello, Mother.”

Robin Lefler fainted dead away.

Bravo Station

SHELBY WAS SHAKING her head in disbelief. “I still can’t . . . I mean, Cwansi?! He’s an adult? Q just . . . just up-aged him somehow?”

She was lying next to Calhoun in the bed of his guest quarters. Their bodies were cooling off from the sweat that they had worked up, and now Calhoun was shaking his head. “No up-aging at all. He led a full life. Q decided to raise him from infancy and taught him all the ways of the Q.”

“Why did he do that?”

“Well, according to Cwansi,” said Calhoun, “Q felt that the Continuum needed some sort of formal link to our universe. That the job was more than Q was interested in doing on a full-time basis. So he selected Cwansi to be the Continuum’s representative.”

“And Cwansi is okay with that?”

“It’s what he was raised to become. He’s had a lifetime to adjust to the notion.”

“And Robin’s all right with this?”

Calhoun laughed at the notion. “All right with it? She wants to track down Q and kill him. He kidnapped her child. He raised him. Well, not just him: my understanding is that Q’s mate and son also participated somewhat. Apparently his mate actually had an interest in the entire business. It seems she was actively protecting McHenry while he was trapped in the Q Continuum, which Q was unaware of at the time. Anyway, Q deprived Robin of her right to raise Cwansi. But there’s nothing she can do about it now. Her son is grown and ready to take command of New Thallon. Which he immediately did.”

“Shintar Han must have loved that.”

“From what I understand, Shintar Han was so fed up with everything that had happened that he was happy to cede control of the world to Cwansi.”

Shelby’s voice darkened. “And the D’myurj?”

Calhoun was briefly silent. “Sulentus is going to stand trial. Quentis will be a witness against him, as will Admiral Nechayev and the rest of the Starfleet personnel we rescued from his castle. It won’t bring my people back, but at least they will know some justice.”

“I know that’s important to you.”

He had been propped up on his elbow, but now he dropped his head onto his pillow. “I don’t appreciate,” he said in annoyance, “you and Jellico conspiring to get me to go after Nechayev and the others. Did you truly think that you were fooling me?”

“Not really,” Shelby admitted. “But you understand the politics. We couldn’t just knowingly send you into Thallonian space.”

“No, you just bet that I would find Nechayev so that she, out of gratitude, would get Starfleet off my ass.”

“A safe assumption. I had confidence in you, Mac.”

“That’s good to know.”

There was a buzz at the door of his quarters. “Not now!” he called out.

“When would be a good time for you, Captain?” Soleta called back.

He and Shelby exchanged looks. “Hold on,” he said, and he clambered out of bed. He quickly threw on his uniform pants while Shelby grabbed a robe and draped it around herself. “All right. Come in.”

Soleta walked in but froze when she saw Shelby standing there. “Oh. Uhm. I can come back some other time, if you’d prefer.”

“No, it’s okay. Elizabeth, you remember Soleta,” he said with mock gravity.

“I do seem to recall her lying unconscious here for several months. And serving with her before that.”

“Yes, I remember that as well,” said Soleta. “Captain, truly, I can come back later. In fact, it would probably be better if I returned to the Excalibur and just waited there for—”

“She knows, Soleta,” Calhoun said softly.

She looked from Calhoun to Shelby and back. “She . . . she knows?”

“Yes, she knows. I told her all about it.”

Soleta sank into a chair that was near the door, staring down intently at her knees. “I am so sorry, Admiral.”

“You’ve had sex with my husband. I think you can call me Elizabeth.”

“Captain, I should not say what I have to say to you in front of her,” Soleta said. “It is not right. You should have the opportunity to process my words before your wife hears them.”

“I told you, Soleta,” Calhoun said firmly, “I have no secrets from Elizabeth. We are together in every respect. What you want to say to me, you can say in front of her.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, I’m certain.”

Soleta nodded and, keeping her voice even, said, “I have had myself thoroughly checked over and am forced to come to the conclusion that you were right. I was in the throes of Pon farr when I . . . assaulted you. And because of my half-Romulan makeup, the result was far more aggressive than anything that a Vulcan would experience. It is not the Vulcan way to take hold of someone’s mind in the way I did yours and force them to become sexually enamored. In that respect, I had as little control over the events as you did. I do not tell you this as any sort of rationalization for my actions, but simply an explanation that you are free to accept or not.”

“I accept it,” Calhoun said judiciously. “And as long as we can accept that there will never be a repeat of the action, I’m sure everything is going to be just fine.”

“No, sir,” Soleta said firmly. “No repeat. Ever. I appreciate your understanding, Captain—and yours as well, Admiral.”

“Not a problem,” said Shelby.

“Good. As for other matters, rest assured that I will seek out the help of a medical doctor and have it attended to. Assuming that’s what you want, I mean. That is to say, I feel you should have some input into the decision.”

Calhoun stared at her, uncomprehending. “What are you talking about? What ‘other matters’?”

“Oh. I guess I was not obvious about that. Pon farr is a mating ritual that stems from a Vulcan’s need to reproduce.”

“Okay. And?”

“It’s how I knew for certain that I was in Pon farr.” She stared at their uncomprehending faces.

“I still don’t understan—” Calhoun started to say.

That was when Shelby got it.

“Oh, shit.” She turned to Calhoun. “Mac . . . she’s pregnant.”

For a long moment, Calhoun was silent.

“Yeah. Maybe you should’ve waited until Elizabeth wasn’t here.”

About The Author

PETER DAVID is a prolific author whose career, and continued popularity, spans more than two decades. He has worked in every conceivable media—television, film, books (fiction, nonfiction, and audio), short stories, and comic books—and acquired followings in all of them.

In the literary field, Peter has had more than a hundred novels published, with numerous appearances on the New York Times bestsellers list. His novels include Fearless (with his daughter Caroline), Tigerheart, The Hidden Earth Chronicles, the Sir Apropos of Nothing trilogy, the Knight Life trilogy, Howling Mad, and the Psi-Man adventure series. He is the co-creator and author of the bestselling Star Trek: New Frontier series for Pocket Books, and has also written such Trek novels as Q-Squared, The Siege, Q-in-Law, Vendetta, I, Q (with John deLancie), A Rock and a Hard Place, and Imzadi. He produced the three Babylon 5 Centauri Prime novels and has also had his short fiction published in such collections as Shock Rock, Shock Rock II, and Otherwere, as well as Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He is the author of the recent Halo novel, Hunters in the Dark, and is also one of the participants in Crazy 8 Press (www.crazy8press.com), a self-publishing venture producing e-books and trade paperbacks available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Peter’s comic book résumé includes an award-winning twelve-year run on The Incredible Hulk, and he has also worked on such varied and popular titles as Supergirl, Young Justice, Soulsearchers and Company, Aquaman, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, X-Factor, Star Trek, Wolverine, The Phantom, Sachs & Violens, The Dark Tower, Halo: Helljumper, and many others. He has written comic book–related novels, such as The Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast, and co-edited The Ultimate Hulk short story collection. Furthermore, his opinion column, “But I Digress. . . ,” has been running in the industry trade newspaper the Comics Buyer’s Guide for nearly a decade; in that time it has consistently been the paper’s most popular feature, and his columns were also collected into a trade paperback.

Peter is the writer for two popular video games: Shadow Complex and Spider-Man: Edge of Time. He has also authored the graphic novel edition of Disney’s Epic Mickey and a series of tie-in digital comics titled Tales of Wasteland.

Peter is the co-creator, with popular science-fiction icon Bill Mumy (of Lost in Space and Babylon 5 fame) of the CableACE Award–nominated science-fiction series Space Cases, which ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon. He has written several scripts for the Hugo Award–winning TV series Babylon 5 and the sequel series Crusade. He has also written several films for Full Moon Entertainment and co-produced two of them, including two installments in the popular Trancers series, as well as the science-fiction Western spoof Oblivion, which won the Gold Award at the 1994 Houston International Film Festival for best Theatrical Feature Film, Fantasy/Horror category. He is currently working with his wife on a new series titled Headcases.

Peter’s awards and citations include the Grandmaster Award from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, 2011; the GLAAD Award, 2011; the Julie Award, 2009; the Haxtur Award (Spain), Best Comic script, 1996; the OZCon award (Australia), Favorite International Writer, 1995; the Comics Buyer’s Guide Fan Awards, Favorite Writer, 1995; the Wizard Fan Award, 1993; the Golden Duck Award for Young Adult Series (Starfleet Academy), 1994; the UK Comic Art Award, 1993; and the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, 1993. He lives in New York with his wife, Kathleen, and his four children, Shana, Gwen, Ariel, and Caroline.

Contents

Excalibur

Sector 221-G

D’Myurj Homeworld

New Thallon

Bravo Station

Excalibur

The Q Continuum

Excalibur

New Thallon

Excalibur

Dayan Vessel

New Thallon

Excalibur

The Dayan Ship

New Thallon

Deep Space

Excalibur

New Thallon

Excalibur

Trident

Excalibur

Bravo Station

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