Seven Years Earlier...
I.
vandelia tried to conceal her astonishment when her res­cuer's face fell off.
She had not been expecting a rescuer at all, much less one whose visage suddenly 
abandoned him. Only five minutes be-fore, her situation had seemed utterly 
hopeless. Not that it was in Vandelia's nature to admit that any situation was 
hopeless or in any way outside of her control. It wasn't that she was eter-nally 
optimistic. She was just too damned stubborn, not to mention extremely 
fierce-natured.
She was a sinewy Orion woman, with thick green hair that cascaded about her 
slim, bare green shoulders. She was scanti­ly dressed, as was the custom of her 
kind, in a clinging outfit that concealed almost nothing and accentuated that 
which it hid. Orion females preferred such attire because it made them more 
formidable fighters. After all, how was an opponent ex­pected to concentrate 
fully on his own defense when there was so much exposed flesh coming at him? A 
male never quite knew where to look first, and consequently he never quite 
re­acted properly to an assault. Before he knew it, razor-sharp fin­gernails 
would be slashing across his face, or filed teeth would be ripping a chunk of 
his jugular from his throat. Even Orion men were daunted by their females. 
Indeed, it explained the se-
rious population problem that Orions were having. Granted, each new generation 
of Orions was stronger and tougher than the last That was out of necessity, 
since only the hardiest of Orion males dared to try their luck with their 
females. Survival rate of such engagements was roughly 83 percent... less if the 
female in question happened to be in heat, a biological drive that was probably 
the only reason Orions hadn't vanished from the face of the galaxy centuries 
earlier.
The sinewy Orion girl pulled with renewed determination at her bonds, but she 
had absolutely no more luck in severing them mis time than she'd had the 
previous times she had tried to muscle herself free of her imprisonment. Even 
her formida­ble fingernails were incapable of severing her restraints. More out 
of a sense of pure frustration than any true belief that suc­cess would result 
from the efforts, she strained against the bonds, her clearly defined muscles 
undulating beneath her dark green skin. Still nothing. She was held tight.
Matters might have been slightly improved if she had only had an idea of where 
"here" was. Unfortunately, she had no clue at all. She had been captured, in her 
sleep of all things. How cowardly was that? How craven on the part of her 
captors.
Vandelia was a business woman, a professional entertainer. She danced at parties 
and social functions, and not only was she very good at it, but she had been 
extremely canny in in­vesting the financial gains that her performing had 
garnered her. She had millions of credits stashed away as a result of her 
seven-plus years of playing to a crowd, plus additional activi­ties on the side.
She had been dancing this night... except she realized that she had no reason 
whatever to assume that this night was the same night. She had no idea how long 
she had been uncon­scious. One night, two, five... no clue at all, really. The 
only thing she knew was that when she had woken up, she had been ravenous. 
Nevertheless, when some flunky had shown up in her bare-bones room to bring her 
food, she had spat it back in his face. He had cleaned the food off himself 
without a word. The next time he came to her, he had two assistants along, and 
they had pried open the woman's mouth and poured the food straight down her 
throat. Obviously the actions did not endear them to her. They could not have 
cared less.
The flunky was not or a race that she recognized. He was short and squat, wider 
than he was tall, bald and jowly and with bright red skin. The assistants he 
brought with him had similar coloration, albeit different builds. But as far as 
Vandelia was concerned, if she never saw any members of the entire race again, 
she'd be the happier for it. She did, however, feel some degree of alarm when 
she started wondering what the coloration of any offspring would look like. She 
hoped like bell that she wasn't approaching her heat cycle. Being out of control 
of her mating instincts was simply not aggravation that she needed.
They (whoever they were) didn't have to keep her trussed up. There were, after 
all, various electronic devices capable of controlling her. Collars, wrist 
bracelets with shock devices, and many other options. But they had chosen none 
of those, in­stead going for something barbaric and debilitating to the spirit 
such as total immobility through heavy-duty ropes. It was as if her captors were 
almost daring her to slice her way free. If what they were trying to do was 
totally muck with her head, then they were succeeding. She was becoming angrier, 
more frustrated, more of a seething volcano with each passing day. The most 
frustrating thing of all was that she knew they were doing it just to anger 
her... and yet she couldn't help herself, couldn't do anything to fight back the 
mounting ire.
On her third day of captivity, she met her host.
He was red-skinned, like the others, but he sported a series of elaborate 
tattoos on his forehead and also at the base of his throat just above the 
collarbone. He had high cheekbones and deep set eyes that glittered fearsomely. 
He dressed primarily in loose-fitting black clothes, with a loose-sleeved tunic 
and black pants tucked into the top of knee-high black boots. He had an air 
about him, Vandelia thought, that made it seem as if he didn't care one way or 
the other whether the individual he was looking at was dead or alive. 
Furthermore, he didn't seem to care whether he was the one responsible for that 
death or not. Vandelia was most struck by his hands, which were huge in 
comparison to his admittedly muscular arms. Every so often, as he spoke to her, 
his hands.twitched slightly as if he was envisioning what it would be like to be 
crushing some­one's windpipe.
"Greetings." His voice was amazingly soft-spoken for one so large and apparently 
threatening. She had to strain to hear him, and she realized that that was 
partly his purpose for speaking so quietly. "Have you been enjoying your stay?"
She said nothing, merely snarled at him.
"You are a feisty one. That's what I like about you. There's not enough feisty 
females in the galaxy."
This time, she spoke. "Come to my home world," she said between clenched teeth. 
"You'll find more than enough feisti-ness to keep you busy."
"I daresay." He bowed slightly at the waist as he said, "My name is Zolon Darg. 
And you are Vandelia."
"And you are dead."
The smile never wavered from his thin lips, but one of his meaty hands swung 
around so fast that she never even saw it coming. One moment his arms seemed 
relaxed and at his sides, and the next the hand was smacking her in the face. 
She low­ered her head a moment, trying to compose herself and failing utterly. 
When she glared back up at him, it was from between strands of hair that lay 
upon her face, and her lips were drawn back in a snarl revealing her sharp 
teeth.
"Mind your manners," said Zolon Darg. 'This will take as long as it has to 
take."
"What is 'this'?" she asked.
"Why, to make you mine, my dear," Darg told her. "I saw you dance. I was one of 
your many customers, your many ad­mirers. But unlike others, I choose not to 
admire from afar. I wish to draw close, to be ... personal."
"Go to hell," Vandelia said.
"Yes, yes ... I'm sure you would like that," he said in a con­descending tone 
that made it sound as if he were addressing a child. "That will not be happening 
anytime soon, I'm sorry to say ... for your sake."
"So that is all that this is about?" Vandelia demanded to know. "You kidnapped 
me because you find me attractive? How pitiful. How mundane."
"You misunderstand me." He smiled, and although he did not have sharpened teeth 
as Vandelia did, his smile looked no less threatening than hers. He looked 
perfectly capable of bit­ing a piece out of her if it suited his purposes. "It 
is not simple
attraction. You are a challenge. There are few enough true chal-lenges in this 
galaxy, and I take mine where I can find them. When I saw you dance, I knew 
instinctively that you'd be im­possible to tame. But I thrive on 
impossibilities."
"Then think about some impossible things you can do with your own anatomy." Then 
she spat at him.
He hit her again. And again. The smile never wavered, his pulse never sped up. 
Three, four, five times and more, and again and again, across the face with 
those huge hands, first one cheek and then the other. The first couple of times 
she tried to voice, at the very least, a snarl of inarticulate rage, but when 
he'd slapped her die twentieth time, she'd stopped. She simply sat there, her 
head hanging, trying to breathe and labor­ing because of all the fury that had 
tightened her chest. She couldn't get a sound out. He folded his arms and stood 
there with a quietly smug expression. He had the air of someone who was utterly 
confident as to precisely who was in charge.
"I'm sorry, my dear," he told her, although he didn't sound especially sorry. "I 
very much wish that I could tell you that there is some deep, greater meaning to 
your being here. That in fact you have something I need, or that you've actually 
got a microchip with secret information hidden beneath your skin, or you're 
actually a long lost princess, or perhaps you and you alone are capable of 
finding the cure for a terrible disease. But it's none of those things. You're 
an amusement, a diversion." He crouched down then, going to one knee so that he 
could re­gard her at eye level. "A pleasant diversion, granted... but that's 
all."
"Is this what you do?" Her Ups were starting to swell up a bit from the pounding 
she'd taken, but she was determined not to acknowledge the pain. Even so, when 
she spoke her voice sounded thick and a bit uneven. "Divert yourself? Is this 
how you... pass your days?"
"Not at all," said Zolon Darg. He straightened up and then bowed slightly at the 
waist as if presenting himself in most courtly fashion. "I will have you know 
that I am one of the pre­mier weapons suppliers in the territory."
"Are you now." She didn't sound impressed. "So what. You help people kill each 
other. As if that makes you someone of consequence."
You do me a disservice, woman. You oversimplify. I have supplied freedom 
fighters who battle for their crippled rights. I have supplied governments who 
fight to protect themselves from evil and unappreciative mobs of rebellious 
ingrates. I am always, always, on the side of those who are in the right"
"And what makes one right and one wrong?"
"Money, my dear girl," he smiled.
She spat in defiance once more. But this wad didn't even manage to cover the 
distance before it splattered impotently to the floor. Darg didn't give it a 
glance. "You amoral pig," she growled.
"The moral high ground, my dear Vandelia, belongs to whomever can afford to pay 
the toll."
She said nothing, merely glowered at him. He smiled thinly, clearly finding the 
entire encounter very amusing.
Since she was seated, he naturally towered over her. But he took the opportunity 
to crouch and bring himself to eye level with her. He studied her thoughtfully, 
and then said, "Let me tell you what's going to happen. We're going to start 
putting you on a somewhat erratic eating schedule, for starters. Some­times you 
will find yourself starving, your belly aching so piti­fully that you'll feel as 
if it would gladly rip through your body and go off in search of food on its 
own. Other times we will suddenly feed you in such copious amounts that we will 
liter­ally be shoving it down your throat. The five or so gentlemen who have 
been overseeing your trips to relieve yourself in deli­cate lady-like fashion 
will be assigned other duties. We will simply leave you tied up at all times, so 
that you can wallow in your own waste products. When you begin to fall asleep, 
loud noises will be blared at you, blinding lights shined directly into your 
face. We also have one or two fairly belligerent empaths at our disposal... 
individuals who will be able to project into your mind whatever emotions it 
amuses me to have you feel. You have a very strong mind, Vandelia. At the 
outset, you'd likely be able to resist them. But that will only be at the 
outset, and we have a very long time available to us. We will, in short, do all 
that we can to disrupt you, discommode you, and utterly break you."
"And once that's done?" she asked levelly.
"Why then, at that point... you will be reeducated. Repro-
grammed. The personality, the attitude that you have now... that will be like a 
bad dream. It will go far, far away where it can never be of any harm to you 
again." As he spoke, his voice almost seemed soothing in its confidence. 
"Instead, it will be replaced by a calmer, more loving personality. Oh, but 
don't worry. You will continue to dance. But you will per­form your seductive 
dances ... only for me."
She looked at him with utter contempt. "You have no idea, do you."
"What do you mean?" His head was tilted in a curious man­ner.
"My dancing. You think somehow that's separate from who I am. That is, after 
all, what attracted you to me. You poor, pa­thetic fool, Darg. When I dance... 
that is an expression of my personality. And that personality holds you, and all 
your kind, in the utmost contempt. When I dance," and she lowered her voice to 
an almost sultry tone, "I know that you all caress me with your eyes. I know 
that you think of what you would like to do to me. How each of you envisions 
possessing me. But you're all too stupid to realize that in my gyrations, I'm 
letting you know just how little I think of your desires. I don't dance to 
seduce. I dance to let you know what you can never, ever have. Let us say," she 
continued as if wanning to the topic, "that you somehow manage to break my 
personality. Make me less than I am. Do you seriously think mat if I'm even 
capable of dancing again, it will bear the slightest resemblance to any­thing 
you saw before? You will sit there and shake your head in frustration, wondering 
what happened to the passion, the fire, the sheer raw sexuality that drew you to 
me in the first place. And when you sit there in discouragement, when you mourn 
the loss of something that you truly adored... why then, my friend, you will 
have only yourself to blame. Only yourself. And even if you manage to have your 
way with the body you see before you now..." She grinned ferally. "Even if you 
manage that... you will never have me. I will be long gone, beyond your ability 
to touch or harm or seduce or even interest Do we understand each other now, 
Zolon Darg? Have I made things sufficiently clear for, even a brainless pig such 
as yourself?"
He smiled mirthlessly. "Abundantly clear, yes."
"But it is still your intention to hold me here?" 
"Yes. You see... it doesn't particularly matter to me if you wind up being 
destroyed as part of my endeavors. At least I'll know that I was able to bring 
you down, and I will allow my­self to take some pleasure in that."
Then he slapped her several more times. There seemed to be no particular reason 
to do so. But he did it anyway. Vandelia, for her part, couldn't even muster the 
ability to spit.
That was when the alarm went off.
Vandelia was positive that that was what it was the moment she heard it. The 
loud, screeching klaxon jolted Darg, and he looked around in confusion as if he 
weren't quite certain that he was in fact hearing the noise that was threatening 
to deafen the entire place. For the first time, Vandelia saw a momentary bit of 
uncertainty pass across Darg's previously smug face. She was extremely pleased 
to see it. Her only regret was that she wasn't the cause of it.
He tapped a comm unit that he wore on his wrist and said, "Central. This is 
Darg. Report: What is the cause of the alarm?"
"We have an intruder, sir," came back a voice crisply.
"How do we know that, Kapel?"
"We found Dikson down on level three. Apparently he'd been in a fight. Someone 
broke his neck, and they did it very cleanly and very efficiently."
Clearly, it took a lot more than the discovery of a corpse to throw Zolon Darg 
off his stride. "Will you shut that damned alarm off? How is anyone supposed to 
concentrate on anything with that godawful noise howling in our ears?" A moment 
passed and then the alarm, obediently, was shut off, although the lights were 
still rapidly dimming and glowing. Vandelia viewed the flickering with grim 
amusement. Since the alarm had likely made everyone in the area deaf, dimming 
the lights was probably the only remaining means of alerting all con­cerned to 
the fact that there was a problem.
"Now then," Darg said slowly, once he seemed satisfied that the alarm was no 
longer going to assail his ears, "We don't know absolutely for certain that 
Dikson's death means that we have an intruder. He had a history of gambling, as 
I recall. Could this be retaliation of some sort for money owed?"
"Sir," came back the voice of the one who'd been addressed as Kapel, "his debts 
were his protection? Who's going to kill someone who owes them money? Rather 
difficult to collect."
"Hmm. Yes. Yes, you're right," Zolon Darg said after a mo­ment's consideration. 
"All right, then. I want everyone throughout the base on full watch. Have all 
shifts report in. I want tech teams scouring level three. Perhaps Dikson 
discov­ered this possible intruder performing some sort of sabotage act. If so, 
it has to be found and rooted out immediately. Is that clear, Kapel?"
"Yes, sir."
"I will be right up."
"Yes, sir."
He clicked off his comm unit, and then turned to Vandelia. "I have to leave, 
darling. But rest assured, we will have time together. Not only that," and he 
ran a finger along the line of her jaw, "but you will dance for me... and only 
for me."
Her head struck forward tike a serpent's, her sharp teeth clacking together, but 
he deftly moved his hand away lest he lose a finger. "Feisty," he said once more 
in approval... and men swung a vicious roundhouse punch. He connected with her 
on the point of the jaw with such force that it knocked her completely over. The 
chair crashed heavily to the floor. Van­delia's head lolled back, her eyes 
closed.
He turned and walked away from her. When he got to the door, it slid open... and 
standing there waiting for him was another of his race. The new arrival was 
slightly shorter than Darg, and summer. He seemed momentarily startled, 
apparent­ly not having expected the door to open right up. "Zolon Darg," he 
said, recovering quickly. "The... the alarm..."
"I heard it," Darg said impatiently. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the other 
Thallonian. "What is your name again?"
"Qadril, sir," said the Thallonian. "We met not long ago. I'm a friend of -- "
"Yes, yes, I remember. Qadril... attend to her."
"To her, sir?" He looked uncertainly in Vandelia's direction. "Are you sure -- ?"
"Of course I'm sure," Darg told him, his temper not becom­ing any gentler with 
the constant need for repetition. "Haul her chair upright so that she's not 
simply lying about on the floor
like that. And keep your fingers away from her teeth, would be my 
recommendation."
"Yes, sir."
With that, Darg headed out.
Qadril glanced right and left. Vandelia knew this since she was watching him 
carefully. Her eyes were narrow slits as she saw him draw closer, closer. She 
suspected that he would be of no more use in freeing her than anyone else, but 
she looked forward to sinking her teeth into him during an unwary mo­ment His 
howls of pain would bring her great pleasure, and be a further reminder to Darg 
that she was going to make every moment that he held her captive as much of a 
living hell as she could manage.
Qadril hesitated a few feet away, and then he went around her and gripped her 
chair from behind. She was mildly sur­prised when he did not grunt under the 
weight of hauling her back into an upright position. He didn't seem all that 
strong. Obviously he had some muscle, although one wouldn't have known it to 
look at him.
But, just as obviously, he was remarkably stupid, for the poor fool was actually 
in the process of exhibiting something akin to concern for her. He walked in 
front of her and took ei­ther side of her face in his hands, tilting her head 
back so that he could try and see into her eyes. "Can you hear me?"
When he said that, there was something different in his voice. He sounded 
rougher, more brusque than he had mere moments ago when speaking to Darg. Darg 
he had addressed in a manner that was fairly simpering. But not now. Now he 
sounded more dynamic, more confident and sure of himself.
It was probably, she assumed, because she was unconscious. In fact, he was 
probably trying to determine if... yessss. Yes, that was it. He wanted to see if 
she was still out cold so that he could have his way with her with impunity. Oh, 
and wouldn't that be something for him to boast to his friends about. She could 
practically hear his weasely voice bragging of how he had "tamed" her, made her 
beg for his attentions. Her fury began to bubble over the imagined liberties 
that he was about to take.
He had momentarily distracted her from her purpose with his feigned concerns as 
to her well-being. She was annoyed
with herself that she had allowed that to happen, no matter how short a time her 
determination had actually wavered. As if to make up for it, she attacked with 
speed and viciousness that would have done any Orion female proud.
Just as he was making another inquiry as to her wakeful-ness, her head whipped 
around and she sank her teeth into his left forearm. She had envisioned chomping 
through his flesh, all the way down into the bone if she were lucky. If not, 
then at least she would take some pleasure in tearing out a large, drip­ping 
hunk of the man's arm and spitting it back into his face while his blood 
trickled down the sides of her face.
But she did not come into contact with flesh or bone. In­stead her teeth bit 
through the cloth of his sleeve and hit metal.
"No!" he shouted.
What in the world? The thought flashed through her mind even as she quickly 
yanked her head back. Perhaps, she thought, he was some sort of cyborg or 
android.
Sparks flew from the section of his arm that she had mutilat­ed, and she saw a 
few quick sparks dancing along his shirt sleeve. He tore at the sleeve, pulling 
off some sort of device that had been strapped around his arm.
It was at that moment that his face fell off.
Vandelia gaped in confusion as the red skin cracked and crumbled away, cascading 
to the floor in a powdery heap. Not only was his skin color different, but the 
very shape of his vis­age had altered.
The man who only moments before that been calling him­self Qadril had gone from 
having a fairly round face to one that had a good deal more definition to it. 
His chin was cleft, his nose somewhat irregular, as if it had been broken. 
Instead of being bald, he had a thick mop of black hair. His skin was no longer 
red, but instead a paler shade that was more evoca­tive of human beings. Even 
his eyes had changed color, going from a sort of pale blue to a vivid purple. 
Most striking about him to Vandelia, however, was a scar that ran the length of 
his right cheek. Considering the skin graft and dermaplast tech­niques that were 
so readily available, Vandelia couldn't recall ever having seen a facial 
mutilation that was quite so severe.
She found it rather attractive.
"Perfect," he growled, dusting away the remains of the red
material that had been obscuring his true features. "Just per­fect. You had to 
do that. You just had to."
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"The one who was going to get you out of here. At this point, though, I'm 
half-tempted to leave you." He made an im­patient noise, blowing air from 
between his clenched teeth, and then he seemed to make up his mind. "All right," 
he sighed, "we'll just have to make the best of it If I free you, will you give 
me your word that you won't attack."
For a moment, despite the fact that he was offering her aid, she couldn't hold 
back a contemptuous sneer. "Are you that afraid of me?"
"No," he said reasonably. "But you're a splendid looking woman, and I try to 
minimize the number of splendid looking women I kill in the average day."
The words were light, the tone quite flip, but she looked into his eyes and 
there was something in there, a flat, cold stare that caused her to realize that 
there was nothing cavalier about his attitude. He really did believe that he was 
capable of killing her. Moreover, she began to get the impression that he might 
actually be able to accomplish it.
"You would take the word of an Orion?" she asked after a moment.
"Look," and it was clear from his tone that his patience was starting to wear 
thin, "I'm not interested in passing judgment on a species just now. I'm asking 
you, personally, if -- "
"Yes, yes, all right, you have my word I will not attempt to hurt you," she said 
at last.
He had a knife hanging from his right hip. He pulled it out and briskly cut 
through the ropes that bound her. "You use that knife as if you really know what 
you're about," she com­mented.
He said nothing, but instead simply slid it back into its sheath. He glanced 
around the room they were in as if he were trying to see if anything could be 
used as a weapon.
"What was that device you were using to disguise your­self?" she asked.
"A Zynterian Camouflage Field," he replied as he went to the wall and ran his 
fingers along it. He seemed to be probing for something. He had been wearing 
gloves, which one would
have thought was simply for ornamentation, but now she real­ized it had been to 
hide the true color of his hands.
"Zynterians? They're a passive race. They have no espi­onage interests that I've 
ever heard of," said Vandelia. She was busy rubbing her wrists, trying to 
restore circulation to them. She was a bit unsteady on her legs as well, but was 
determined not to let the weakness show.
'True enough. But they don't use it for espionage. It's a sex aid."
"A what?" She didn't quite think she'd heard him properly.
He cast an impatient look at her, as if he couldn't quite be­lieve that he was 
wasting time explaining it to her. "They be­lieve sex in any form is inherently 
evil, and so they use the camouflage field to disguise themselves as members of 
other races when they're... involved. That way they can pretend that they 
themselves are remaining pure. It's a sort of ritual."
"I see." She didn't, actually, but it seemed the thing to say.
"Generally Zynterians are the only ones who can use them. Other races who have 
tried to employ the device for other pur­suits -- such as espionage, as you 
mentioned -- find that the de­vice tends to sear the flesh from their bones. 
However, we Xenexians are close enough biologically to Zynterians that we can 
get away with using them. It causes considerable pain, but otherwise no lasting 
damage."
"Pain? You were in pain the entire time you were using that thing? I couldn't 
tell."
Tin very stoic," he said, never taking his eyes from the wall as he continued 
his probe of the room. "For instance, my im­pulse is to throw you to the ground 
and take you like an animal right here. But you'd never be able to tell."
His voice was so flat, so lacking in inflection, that it was im­possible for her 
to tell whether he was joking or not. She felt a headache coming on just trying 
to keep up with him. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"Call me Mac," he said over his shoulder. "Ah."
"Ah?"
He had his hand against a section of the wall that looked no different from any 
other. However, he pushed it and suddenly the wall swivelled around, revealing 
what appeared to be some sort of passage. She couldn't quite make out any 
details, al-
though she did see small, flickering lights lining the upper sec-Don.
"Come on," he told her.
"But... where does this go?"
"Away from here. For the moment, that's good enough."
She mentally shrugged as she realized she had nothing to lose. This strange 
individual, whoever he was and wherever he was from, at least seemed to have 
some idea as to what he was about. She really couldn't be much worse off than 
she'd been a few minutes ago.
They headed down the narrow passage. Moments after they'd entered, the wall had 
slid back into place on noiseless bulges. The action dimmed the corridor 
slightly, but not signif­icantly.
"How did you know that was going to be there?" she asked. That false wall, I 
mean."
"I didn't. Not for sure. But we've done a good deal of re­search on Darg, and it 
seemed a reasonable guess. He had a similar hideaway on Estarcion IV, and he'd 
laced it with cata­combs with similar entrances. He likes to get about 
unobserved and show up unexpectedly. He feels it keeps his people on their 
toes."
"It probably does." She paused and then said, "Who are 'we'? I mean, the 'we' 
who did this research?"
"You don't need to know that either," he said brusquely.
"Listen," and her temper started to flare, "I'd better start get­ting some 
answers, or -- "
"Or what?" He turned to face her there in the confines of the passage, and there 
was unmistakable danger in his tone. "Look: You weren't in the plan. I found out 
that you were here when I was already inside. You're an innocent bystander who's 
in the wrong place at the wrong time. I decided that it wouldn't be right to 
simply leave you to die. So I am risking myself to save your neck. I didn't have 
to. I still don't. If you want to go off on your own and take your chances, go 
right ahead." He flattened against the corridor wall so that she could pass by 
him. "My guess is that it branches off just ahead. You can go on and take your 
chances. I'll give you a five... no, three... minute head start. You'll go your 
way, I'll go mine, and that'll be that. Or tell me now if you're going to stick
with me but are going to continue to irritate me, because if you are, then I'll 
put you down right now and be done with it. I don't need the distraction or the 
grief. Life's too short and on the verge of getting even shorter. Your only 
other option is to shut up so I can get both of us out of here in one piece. 
Once we're out of here and safe, you can be as arrogant and irritating as you 
wish. It won't bother me then because you won't be putting us at risk. Now have 
I made myself clear?"
"Yes," she said tightly.
"Now are you going to be quiet?"
No reply.
"Good."
She took some small measure of satisfaction in the fact that he actually 
appeared surprised that she had quieted down.
As she followed him, she said softly, "May I ask a less in­flammatory question?"
"If you must."
"You've been talking as if we have a deadline. Why is that?"
That was when a massive explosion rocked them.
She stumbled against him as the passageway vibrated un­controllably around them. 
He steadied her and muttered, "Id­iots. They must have found it and tried to 
defuse it."
There was now an unmistakable rumbling all about them, and he grabbed her wrist 
and yanked. "Come on." There was urgency to his voice, but he didn't sound close 
to panic. Clear­ly this was someone who was accustomed to handling difficult 
situations with aplomb.
She picked up speed and now they were heading at a full dash down the corridor. 
There was the sound of a second ex­plosion, and a third, and they staggered as 
they ran. From a distance they could hear shouts and the sounds of running feet, 
and voices being raised in alarm.
There was a sensation of heat from directly behind them. "I wouldn't look back 
if I were you," the man called Mac warned her.
She looked back.
A gigantic ball of flame was roaring down the passage be­hind them.
She looked forward once more, suddenly wishing that she'd done as he suggested.
The seam in the wall that indicated a door barely had time to register on her 
and then Mac was pushing both of them through. They stumbled out into a main 
hallway that hardly seemed to be much better in terms of being a safe haven, for 
men were run­ning about in total panic and any one of them might notice the 
escaping prisoner. Giving no heed to the danger mat being spot­ted presented, 
Mac slammed the door back into place just as the jet of flame caught up to them. 
The wall instantly became super­heated, but Mac had blocked off the passageway 
just in time, and the flames within passed them by harmlessly.
"Come on," and he pulled her roughly. "We've got to get to our ride. This place 
doesn't have much longer."
It was the first opportunity that Vandelia had had to see any­thing of her place 
of capture aside from the one room in which she'd been imprisoned. The place was 
massive, stretching up­ward as far as she could see. There were crosswalks and 
cat­walks far overhead and then, when she looked down she saw that they 
descended to a great depth as well. Everything had been constructed so that 
everything was visible to some degree from elsewhere within the complex. It was 
all rather clever, it meant that Darg could keep his eye on just about 
everything from any point
Under ordinary circumstances, she and Mac wouldn't have had a prayer of getting 
ten feet without attracting attention. But these circumstances were far from 
ordinary. She continued to hear explosions, some further away, some closer, and 
the entire place had spiralled into chaos. "What did you do?" she cried out over 
the shouts of others who were running around without noticing them.
"I'll tell you later, provided there is one!"
"You!"
Vandelia's heart sank. She recognized the voice immediate­ly, of course.
It had come from behind mem, and they turned to see Zolon Darg. He was on a 
catwalk above them, looking down, and he had hah7 a dozen men with him. He had 
spotted Vandelia, and more, he obviously realized that it was Mac who was the 
in­truder. Perhaps it was the fact that Mac was wearing the same clothes as the 
supposed red-skinned guard had been sporting a short time earlier. "You did 
this! You! Stay where you are!"
"You don't have time for this, Darg!" Mac shot back. "These explosions you're 
hearing so far are nothing! A chain of bombs to distract you from the real 
threat: The fact that I set two of your main boomers in your central weapons 
room to overload. Once those go, you can say good-bye to this entire place! 
You've got only a couple of minutes to get clear! Are you going to waste them 
coming after me, or are you going to save your own neck?"
The choice seemed fairly straightforward to Vandelia. Un­fortunately, it was 
less clear-cut to Darg, who did not hesitate to aim a fairly lethal weapon 
squarely at Mac and fire.
Mac yanked Vandelia forward, barely getting them clear of the shot. "Get them!" 
they could hear Zolon Darg shout after them, but they didn't look back. Instead 
they bolted as quickly as they could along the catwalk. "Get back here!" Darg's 
voice came, and a disruptor blast exploded just ahead of them, miss­ing them but 
blowing the leg off a hapless individual who was trying to save his own skin. He 
hit the ground, crying out as he clutched at the stump of his knee. Mac and 
Vandelia did not slow down, but instead simply vaulted over him and kept going.
They angled left, then a quick right, and they were on a rampway that was 
heading downward. Vandelia had no idea whether Mac truly knew where they were 
going, or if he was simply guessing with sufficient confidence to allay her 
con­cerns. But she was quite certain that the source of the explo­sions which 
were wracking the entire area was below them, and heading toward that source was 
the height of folly. She yanked her hand from his. He turned and looked at her 
in con­fusion. "Come on!" he called to her.
"We're going the wrong way! We're heading towards the ex­plosions! It's 
suicide!"
"There's no time for this!"
But she wasn't listening. Instead she turned and ran.
Her legs moving like pistons, she charged back up the ramp, found another 
turn-off and took it. Someone tried to get in her way. She didn't even slow 
down, didn't take time to look at his face. She just slashed out with her 
fingernails and ripped across his face. He doubled over, blood welling up from 
be­tween his fingers, and she shoved him aside and kept going.
Suddenly she was hit from the back, a flying tackle as some­one took her down. 
She hit the floor, taking most of the impact on her elbows which sent a shock 
straight up her arms. But she did not cry out, instead keeping the pain within. 
That was how she was going to get out of it, she had decided. She would focus 
all her anger, all her agony, and it would drive her for­ward to safety. At 
least, that was the theory.
Unfortunately, the weight of the person atop her was such that, not only had the 
wind been knocked out of her, but she couldn't get the leverage to thrust upward 
and knock him off her back. She struggled, she snarled, and then rough hands 
grabbed her by either arm and hauled her to her feet. She tried to angle her 
head around to bite one of her captors, but another pair of hands came in behind 
her, grabbing her by the back of the head and snapping her skull back. Her 
attempts to pull her head forward simply resulted in her nearly tearing her hair 
out by the roots.
Zolon Darg stood in front of her. He was staring at her with enough cold fury to 
peel the skin off her face just with the force of his glare. "Where's your 
friend?" he demanded.
"What friend?" From closer than she would have liked to hear, an explosion 
sounded. Several of Darg's men flinched or looked about nervously. Darg didn't 
even glance in the direc­tion of the noise.
"I understand now," he said evenly. "Very elaborate. Very clever. You trick and 
seduce me into bringing you here so that your mysterious associate could follow 
you and track you to our hidden location."
"You idiot! I'm the victim here! You're giving me entirely too much credit. 
You've created some elaborate conspiracy the­ory where none exists!"
Darg circled her. "Then why did he stop to rescue you?"
"I don't know! Ask him!" She tried in futility to pull free. "I don't know if 
you've noticed, but this entire place is going up!"
"I have my best people on it," Darg replied confidently. "They will locate 
whatever further boobytraps your partner has laid and dispose of them. As for 
you..." And he aimed a dis­ruptor squarely at her forehead. "Call your partner. 
Summon him, right now."
"He's not my partner!"
"Call him." His tone didn't waver.
"He's probably long gone by now, because you've been too busy playing games with 
me!"
He fired a warning shot to her right. It grazed her upper thigh. To her credit, 
she still didn't cry out, as much as she wanted to. The bolt almost struck the 
man who was standing behind her, holding her immobile. Aware of the near-hit, he 
cast a nervous glance at his associates.
"Last warning." This time he aimed it straight at her face. The man who was 
holding her head steady angled around so that Darg would have a clear shot.
Realizing she had nothing to lose, Vandelia called out, "Mac!"
"That's better. Call him again."
"Maaaaac!"
"Mac what? What is his full name?"
"I have no idea."
He activated the disrupter's energy feed, preparing for an­other shot that would 
take her head off.
"Mac Morn Michelity," she said without further hesitation, reasoning that they 
likely weren't going to be around long enough for Darg to learn that she had no 
idea what she was talking about.
Suddenly there was a brief clatter from further down the rampway. Vandelia 
couldn't help but notice that Darg and his men were well-trained: Half of them 
looked in the direction of the noise, but the rest of them looked instead behind 
them, just in case the noise was a diversion to allow Mac to get in behind them.
Nothing, however, seemed to come from either direction.
Darg waited impatiently for another noise, and when none was forthcoming, turned 
back to Vandelia and said -- with very little trace of sadness -- "It appears your 
friend has deserted you. Farewell, Vandelia." He levelled the gun right at her 
face.
That was when the deafening roar sounded from behind them.
As one, they turned just in time, to see a monstrous creature, reptilian in 
aspect, with leathery skin and a huge mouth filled with teeth that seemed 
capable of rending or shredding a shut-
tlecraft. It was poised above them on its hind legs, its whip-like tail snapping 
about with such ferocity that anyone within range of it would have been crushed 
instantly. When it roared, the hot, foul vapor of its breath washed over them, 
and the sound drowned out yet another explosion in the near distance.
The response among Darg's men was instantaneous. With a collective shriek of 
terror, they broke and ran as the creature advanced on them, each stomp of its 
massive feet causing the rampway to shudder beneath it. In doing so, they 
released then-hold on Vandelia. Her immediate instinct was to try and attack 
Darg, but the shot he'd taken at her leg had done her more damage than she'd 
first realized. It went out from under her and she found herself barely able to 
walk, much less capable of lunging to the attack.
The only one who did not break and run was Darg himself. He stood precisely 
where he was, utterly paralyzed. His mouth hung open, his eyes were wide and 
looked almost lifeless as he stared at the monstrosity before them.
Suddenly Vandelia's view was blocked... by a rope which had just dropped 
directly into her line of sight. She glanced up and saw, on a rampway above her, 
Mac. He was holding the other end and mouthing the words, "Hurry up!"
She did not hesitate, but instead grabbed the rope with both hands and held on 
as tightly as she could. Mac pulled, and she was surprised how quickly and 
effortlessly he hauled her aloft. He had looked rather unprepossessing, but 
there was clearly more than ample strength in his arms if he was able to yank 
her upward so easily. He drew her upward, hand over hand, one foot braced 
against the hand railing, his mouth set and his eyes burning with a quiet 
intensity. He did not grunt, nor make any sound to give away any strain he might 
be feeling.
Darg still hadn't budged. He was indeed so frozen by what he was witnessing that 
he didn't appear to have noticed that Vandelia was no longer there. The monster 
roared once more, a particularly high-pitched shriek, and something in the 
piercing nature of the howl caused Darg's finger to tighten spasmodi­cally on 
the trigger. The disruptor ripped out a shot and it went straight through the 
creature without the monster even ac­knowledging that it had been hit.
It took a moment for Darg to register for himself what he
had just seen. Then his eyes narrowed and he fired again. Once more the creature 
was utterly unharmed by the disruptor blast.
He shouted a profanity and suddenly looked around ... and then up. He did so 
just in time to see Vandelia being pulled over the railing of the overhead 
rampway, and he caught a glimpse of Mac looking down at him. Vandelia saw the 
two of them lock eyes, two enemies truly knowing each other for the first time.
"Get back here!" bellowed Darg, and he fired. Vandelia and Mac ducked backward 
as the blast sizzled past them.
"Come on! And stick with me this time!" Mac admonished her. The last thing 
Vandelia wanted to do was admit that her thigh was throbbing, so she gritted her 
teeth and simply nod­ded. Mac grabbed her wrist and they started to run. It was 
all that Vandelia could do not to limp in a most pronounced fash­ion. "What was 
that monster?" she called out.
Without glancing behind himself to address her, Mac said, "Holo unit. Pre-set 
monster, emanating from a disk about the size of my palm."
"That was the noise we heard... you activated it on a time delay and then tossed 
it down -- "
"You're going to hear more noises than you'll want to hear if we don't hurry -- "
The rampway shook beneath their feet. There seemed to be a series of seismic 
shocks building, one upon the other, throughout the structure. Mac glanced 
around. There was a network of ramps some thirty feet away from them, and 
be­tween them was a deep well that seemed to fall away nearly into infinity. The 
ramp trembled once more.
Suddenly there was a screech of metal and the ramp started to twist at an angle. 
"Hold on," Mac said with a sort of re­signed calm. He yanked off his belt 
buckle, twisted it, and sud­denly he was holding a device that looked like a 
small gun. He tapped a button on the side and the end of the device was 
eject­ed, trailing a cord behind it. It "clacked" onto an upper ramp­way across 
the well.
At the far end of the ramp that they were upon, Darg was suddenly there. He was 
howling with fury, heedless of the chaos around him, as he charged straight 
toward them. He was firing his disruptor indiscriminately, no longer aiming but 
in-
stead just shooting in their general direction. He lurched to­ward them, 
gripping the handrail, apparently not even aware that the ramp was in danger of 
collapsing.
Mac didn't even bother to glance at him. Instead he gripped the device in his 
palm, threw an arm around Vandelia's waist, and launched off the rampway. 
Vandelia had a brief glimpse of the ground, unspeakably far below, but it was 
all a blur, and suddenly they were on the other side. Mac snagged his legs 
around the railing and shoved Vandelia onto the ramp.
Zolon Darg brought his disruptor to bear, aiming at them across the divide, and 
then with a roar of metal the rampway that he was standing upon gave way. He 
tried to clutch onto something for support, but couldn't find anything. The 
sounds of the tearing metal drowned out Darg's shrieks as he tumbled downward 
and landed with a thud on the rampway below. He had about a second's respite 
before the falling metal of the upper rampway landed on him. The last that 
Vandelia saw of him was his face twisted in fury before he was completely 
ob­scured by the mass of twisted metal that crunched down atop him.
Mac, for his part, didn't appear to give it any notice. He seemed far more 
concerned about other things, such as sur­vival. "This way," he said, and pulled 
her wrist. She limped after him.
"But we're heading toward the explosions!" she cried out to him, the same 
objection that she'd been raising before. But she was at that point somewhat 
resigned to her fate, con­vinced that she had only moments to live anyway. As if 
to un­derscore the point, there was another explosion, even louder than before.
"Here. Right here!" Mac called out to her. He hauled her over to a spot near a 
wall that was quivering from the most re­cent explosion. Then he stood perfectly 
still. "Don't worry," he said confidently.
"Don't worry!"
"That's right. Don't worry."
From deep within the well that the rampways surrounded, there was an explosion 
that was so loud Vandelia felt her teeth rattle.
Orion beliefs had one aspect in common with human theology. They shared a belief 
in an afterworld for the evil that was a scalding pit of torment. At that 
moment, Vandelia was sudden­ly convinced that she was within that very pit, for 
the air around her started to sizzle. She found it impossible to breathe, the 
air searing her very lungs. The entire area seemed bathed in light. She looked 
down into the well around which the ramp-ways hung, and she saw a massive 
fireball roaring up toward them. Within seconds it would envelop them.
Part of her wanted to scream, to curse, to agonize in loud misery over the 
hideous and unfortunate set of circumstances which had brought her to this 
pointless end of her life. Instead, somewhat to her surprise, all she did was 
turn to Mac and say, sounding remarkably casual, "Can I worry now?"
He sighed. "If you must."
And she saw a flash of amusement in his purple eyes ... at which point his eyes 
abruptly started to haze out in front of her. Then she realized mat she, too, 
was disappearing, as the entire area around them demolecularized. Considering 
the cir­cumstances, it was understandable that she didn't quite realize at first 
what was happening. So this is what death is like went through her head before 
she truly had a chance to register that she was not, in fact, dying, but that 
instead she was in the grip of a transporter beam.
Then the world reintegrated around her and she found her­self in the back of 
some sort of small transport vehicle. Some­what larger than a runabout, it 
seemed like a small freighter more than anything, designed for short runs with 
cargo that was generally contraband. The smaller the vessel, the less chance 
there was of attracting attention. Then she fell, for Mac was no longer 
supporting her. Instead he had moved quickly off the transporter pad and was at 
the helm. "Hold on!" he called.
"Hold on! To what?!" she cried out. Ultimately it didn't matter; the freighter 
suddenly leaped forward, sending Van­delia tumbling backward, her feet up and 
over her head. She clambered to her feet, her leg still throbbing but starting 
to feel improvement.
She could see that they were on the surface of a planet, but the freighter was 
already firing up and leaping skyward. Van­delia lurched to the front and 
dropped into the copilot seat next
to Mac. He barely afforded her a sidelong glance as he checked readings on the 
control dash. "How's the leg?" he asked. Con­sidering the circumstances, he 
sounded relatively calm.
"Getting better."
"Good. Let's see if we can keep the rest of you intact."
He urged the freighter forward, and it rocketed upward, faster and faster.
"That place you had us stand. It was a preprogrammed transporter point," she 
said.
"Yes," he said tersely. "I didn't know the exact layout of the place, but I knew 
they had scanners that would detect trans­porter homing beacons or comm units, 
as well as any beam-ins. So I had to sneak in on my own, and make a guess as to 
coordinates when I set a time and place for a beam-out."
"You could have explained that."
He didn't reply. The chances were that he wouldn't have done so anyway, but he 
was actually handed an excuse for not continuing the conversation as several 
explosions around them caused the freighter to rock wildly.
"Oh, now what?" demanded Vandelia.
"We have company," Mac muttered. "Computer, rear view."
A section of the screen in front of them shifted. It was only men that Vandelia 
realized they weren't looking through a win­dow, but instead through a 
computer-generated representation of what was outside. Most of that view 
remained, but now part of it had altered to present the view from behind them. 
Three small vessels were approaching them most rapidly. They were so small that 
they appeared to be one-man fighters each, but because of their diminutive size, 
they were fast and very ma­neuverable. The odds were that they would be able to 
catch up with the freighter in short order.
But that wasn't the only thing that attracted Vandelia's atten­tion. What she 
noticed in particular was a tall tower in the dis­tance. It was surrounded by 
rich and green forest, but stood high above it, almost a mile high, it seemed. 
It had a wide base, becoming progressively narrower as it got higher. It was 
silver and gleaming and would have been far more impressive if it hadn't been 
for the huge gusts of black smoke wafting out of a number of places. Then, as 
Vandelia watched, the lower third of the tower was engulfed in flame. She saw 
the upper
two thirds start to wobble, teeter, and then tumble over in ex­cruciatingly slow 
motion.
"Impressive," was all she managed to say.
Then the pursuing vessels began to fire. Mac's fingers flew over the board, 
handling the freighter's course with astonishing confidence, sending it 
zigzagging one way and then another, dodging a number of the blasts with 
facility even as he contin­ued them on their upward course. Nevertheless, the 
freighter shuddered as several of the shots got through.
"Rear deflector at eighty percent and dropping," the comput­er informed him.
"Concentrate all deflector power to rear shields. Shore it op," he ordered.
"We're not going to make it," Vandelia said.
The vote of no-confidence didn't seem to perturb him. "Then we don't make it."
"You seem rather sanguine about the prospect."
"Would you rather I started to panic?"
"No."
"Then shut up."
She opened her mouth to reply, but came to the realization mat perhaps shutting 
up would indeed be the smarter course of action.
The freighter angled down abruptly. The ground seemed to be approaching them at 
horrifying speed and Vandelia was cer­tain that there was no way, absolutely no 
way, that they were going to forestall a crash, at which point the freighter 
zoomed upward once more. Mac tapped the control board again, and Vandelia was 
surprised to see on the rear view that a suddenly great gust of white was 
billowing behind them. "Are we hit? Are we leaking something?"
"No."
For a moment she could see nothing on the rear view, and men the pursuing 
vessels burst through the mist and continued after mem. But men Vandelia noticed 
something: Their hulls were starting to change colors.
"What's happening to them?"
"Watch," he replied. He hadn't taken his eyes off the front view, but she could 
see a touch of amusement at the edges of his mouth.
The vessels that had been pursuing them were slowing, and then Vandelia looked 
on in amazement as she saw their lower hulls start to be eaten away. Huge spots 
of corrosion appeared on them and then rapidly spread. With each moment it 
spread faster and faster, eating through the exterior of the ships with the 
greed and velocity of a hungry child being handed a hand­ful of sweets. Breaking 
off the pursuit, the three vessels dove as quickly as they could for the ground, 
but they didn't quite make it in time. Within seconds the ships had fallen apart 
com­pletely, and Vandelia watched with smug delight as the erst­while pilots of 
the vessels tumbled toward the ground, waving their arms and legs in a most 
entertaining manner. She felt as much remorse and pity for them as they likely 
did for her... which was to say, of course, none.
Seconds later, the freighter tore lose completely of the plan­et's surface, 
spiralling into space. "We're clear of the planet's atmosphere and gravity," Mac 
announced. 'Taking her to Warp One."
"This ship has warp capacity?" Vandelia said in surprise. But then she reined in 
her surprise with clear amusement. "Well, why shouldn't it? Apparently it packs 
some sort of gas that eats ships."
"Only unshielded ships. We were lucky. Vessels that small don't pack enough 
power or equipment to generate anything be­yond the most minimal of shielding. 
They count on their speed to avoid attackers. Leaves them vulnerable. Warp on 
line."
Space twisted slightly around them and the ship leaped into warp space. Vandelia 
leaned back in her chair, shaking her head in amazement. "I still can't believe 
it," she said. "An hour ago, everything seemed hopeless."
"An hour ago, it was. Things change."
She turned to face him. "I owe you my life."
"Yes," he said matter-of-factly, without even looking at her.
"And what do you want."
At that point, he did afford her a glance. "Want?"
"Yes. Want." She cocked an eyebrow.
To her surprise, he seemed to laugh slightly to himself, and he shook his head. 
'It's some world you live in. People do things because they want something in 
return. Everyone's out for themselves. No one does something for the common 
good."
She seemed puzzled by what he was saying, "That's right. That's my world. Yours, 
too."
"And it's impossible that I could have helped you just be­cause it seemed the 
right thing to do at the time."
She sat back in the chair, her arms folded tightly across her breast. "Everyone 
wants something in exchange. No one does anything if it doesn't serve their 
interests, first and foremost."
"You're probably right," he said with a sigh.
"Which brings us back to what you want."
He appeared to give it a moment's thought, and then said, "There's a changing 
area and hypersonic shower in the back."
Now here was something she understood. In a way, it was almost comforting to 
her. Her entire world view was predicat­ed on the selfishness of all those 
around her, particularly males. The last thing she needed was someone coming 
along and shaking up the very foundations of her philosophy. "So... you want me 
to strip and shower, is that it?"
"Yes. You've been slapped around, tortured, shot at... you've worked up quite a 
sweat, and it's detectable. So please shower it off. And there's a jumpsuit you 
can change into."
She was stunned. There was no interest in his voice at all. He wanted her to 
stop smelling. Beginning, middle, end of in­terest.
Then, of course, she understood.
"I see. You prefer men."
Mac looked at her, and then laughed. He didn't even reply, bat instead continued 
to laugh softly to himself while shaking his head.
Without another word, Vandelia went to the shower and washed herself thoroughly. 
Even though it was merely a hyper­sonic shower, it was still a tremendous relief 
to her. It was particularly soothing for the injured thigh, the hypersonics 
ca­ressing it so that, by the time she was done, there was not the slightest 
hint of pain in her leg.
She put on the jumpsuit, and walked back into the main cabin. Mac didn't even 
appear aware that she was back. In­stead he was finishing issuing some sort of 
report as to the completion of the "mission." When he did notice she was there, 
however, he ceased the recording, or perhaps it was a transmission. Vandelia 
couldn't be sure.
"Who are you?" she asked as she dropped into the seat next to him. "Are you some 
sort of spy?"
"If you wish," he said.
"Who do you work for?"
"Myself."
"Someone must be sponsoring you. You must report to..."
"Get some sleep. We'll be at Starbase 18 before too long. I'll be dropping you 
off there. There'll be a connector flight there which will take you wherever you 
wish to go."
"I... do not know what to say."
" 'Thank you' will suffice."
She considered that a moment. Then she rose from the chair, went to his, and 
draped herself across his lap, straddling it.
"What are you doing?" he inquired.
"Saying 'thank you.' " She undid the fastenings of the jump­suit and slipped it 
off her shoulders. It dropped to her waist, leaving her nude from the waist up.
He stared at her. "Apparently it's cold in here," he said.
"We'll warm it."
"Vandelia..."
She put a finger to his lips, and grinned in a most wolfish fashion. "I'm going 
to return the favor you've done me, Mac. And when I'm through," and she put her 
hands behind her head, arching her back, "you'll never think about having sex 
with men."
"That's probably true," Mac said.
And she began to dance. And for the first time in her life, she danced only for 
one person... only for him.
It was not possible that anyone should be able to haul him­self from the 
wreckage of the tower. Not possible that anyone should have been able to 
survive. Particularly when one was considering that the candidate for survival 
had had his body crushed by falling metal.
All this, Zolon Darg was most aware of. Nonetheless, as he lay there on the 
ground, staring up at the twilight sky that was rapidly becoming night, it was 
impossible to overlook the fact that he had, in fact, survived.
It was also impossible for him to move. Sheer fury, pure force of will, had 
pulled him from the flaming wreckage that
had been his headquarters. That, and the memory of a green woman with a defiant 
gleam, and a man... a man with purple eyes and a scar on his face. A man he 
would never, ever forget.
He tried to feel something below his neck, but was unable to. Nothing would 
move, nothing would respond to the desper­ate commands that his brain was 
issuing.
He drew in a breath, and it was an agonizing effort. But it was worth it, for it 
allowed him to exhale, and when he did so, what he breathed out were the words, 
"I'll... kill them..."
Then he lay there, a sack of broken bones and bloodied meat, and wondered when 
the dark gods he worshipped would see fit to do something about his condition.
He remained that way for three days before he received his answer...

          Now...

I.
doctor elias frobisher was 43 years and one day old, and he couldn't quite 
believe he had made it When he woke up, he had to pinch himself to make certain 
that he had really man­aged to accomplish it. When someone had lived under a 
bizarre death sentence for the last decade or so, as he had, the achievement 
felt particularly noteworthy. He lay in his bed, breathing in the filtered air 
of the cone-shaped space station, but never had that air felt quite so sweet It 
felt like a glorious day. Granted, concepts such as day and night were entirely 
subjective, created and controlled by the computer core of the station. There 
was neither sunrise nor sunset, and this was something that had taken Frobisher 
some time to get used to. He had been planet-bound most of his life, and the 
curious and unusual life which existed in space was a difficult adjustment that 
Frobisher had made because he'd really had no other choice.
Quite simply, he'd had no other choice. He'd had to get away from the Guardian.
He took a long shower that morning, and felt that he had earned it. It was pure 
water rather than hypersonic, a rarity that Frobisher was revelling in that 
morning. As he did so, visions of the Guardian came to him unbidden, as they 
were wont to
do. Frobisher shuddered, thinking about the hideous shadow he had lived under 
all these years.
Then he started to tremble more and more violently. He had lathered up his 
thinning brown hair, and the shampoo dribbled down into his eyes, but it barely 
registered upon him. The soap slipped from his hands, his legs went weak, and he 
sagged to the floor, still unable to control the spasms which had seized him. 
Paradoxically, he began to laugh. It was a bizarre sound, that choked laughter, 
a combination of chuckling and sobbing that grew louder and louder, so much so 
that it could be heard hi the hallway outside his quarters. His assistant, Dr. 
David Kendrow, heard it, and started banging on the door. Normally Kendrow, a 
thin, blond man, was overly mannered and re­served in his attitudes, but one 
wouldn't have known it at that point as he was fairly shouting, "Doctor 
Frobisher? Are you all right, sir?"
"Yes! Yes," Frobisher called back to him. "Yes, I'll... I'll be fine." It was 
all that Frobisher could do to pull himself to­gether. He hadn't expected to 
react in that manner, but really, it was inevitable when one looked at it with 
hindsight. The amount of anxiety that had built up as he approached his 43rd 
birthday had been truly horrific. The knowing, and yet not knowing. That insane 
combination of certainty and doubt, war­ring within him as each passing day had 
brought him closer and closer to the inevitable ... except, maybe not.
And he had made it. He had survived his birthday. It really was true, what they 
said: Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
He emerged from the shower and, as he towelled off, looked at the gut that had 
been building up on him. As the dreaded day had approached, he hadn't been 
bothering to exercise or take care of himself. He'd had a fatalistic attitude 
about him, and that was certainly understandable. But now the joke was on him, 
as was the extra flab. He was going to have to do some­thing about working that 
off. After all, it wouldn't be particu­larly attractive to women.
Women. His face lit up as he dressed. Relationships. He had been afraid to begin 
any, because the prospect of con­demning some poor woman to become an early 
widow. Oh, certainly he could have had a string of casual relationships
that went nowhere. Love them and leave them, and rationaliz­ing that, since he 
was a walking dead man, it was the only way that he could conduct his life. But 
he was a highly moral man, was Dr. Frobisher. Highly moral, and more than that: 
He knew that one woman after another, used and tossed aside, was simply not for 
him. He wanted companionship, he wanted someone who, he knew, was going to be 
there for him. He wanted someone to wake up to, someone who would cheerfully 
kiss him in the morning and loved him so much that it wouldn't bother her if he 
hadn't had a chance to brush his teeth yet. Someone he would be able to look at 
across the breakfast and smile at. Someone who wanted to spend a life­time with 
him... a real lifetime, not the truncated thing that had been handed him.
Oh, and someone who was a brilliant engineer in the field of artificial 
intelligence and computerization, of course. That was a must as well.
There were a few likely possibilities, actually. To give him­self some vague bit 
of hope, something to cling to even though he was certain that it was hopeless, 
Frobisher had had the Omega 9 run a scan of potential mates. It was 
unbeliev­ably quaint, even absurd: Using a creation as infinitely ad­vanced as 
the Omega 9 for the purpose of, essentially, computer dating, seemed absurd on 
its face. But he had done so nonetheless, and the list that had been drawn up 
had been quite impressive. Now that the dreaded day had passed, he was looking 
forward to trying to act upon the possibilities. As he headed to the lab, having 
had his customary quick break­fast, he patted the data chip in his pocket to 
which he had copied the information that Omega 9 had obtained for him. His mind 
was already racing with possibilities. He would pick the most likely prospect, 
"likely" being derived from personality profile, shared interests, age, 
background, etcetera. He'd subtly do some checking to see if she was oth­erwise 
involved and, if not, he would find a pretense to begin a correspondence with 
her. Hopefully, he would be able to develop it into something substantive and 
sufficiently person­al that she would be prompted to come out to the Daystrom 
Station where he worked and meet with him.
And then... who knew? Who indeed knew?
"I knew," he said rather cheerfully to no one. "I knew, but I didn't know. But 
now I know, and it's great knowing and not knowing!"
He entered the lab, his lanky legs carrying him across it with a jaunty speed. 
Kendrow was already at work, but he was cast­ing a watchful eye upon Frobisher. 
"Good morning, David!" called Frobisher.
"Good... morning, sir." The surprise in his voice was un-mistakeable. He wasn't 
used to Frobisher sounding so cheerful in the morning ... or ever.
Frobisher glanced over the station log, and frowned slightly. "Some sort of 
glitch in the standard running program?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, I just noticed it. It's minor systems failures ... so minor that we 
hadn't even been noticing when they'd been going down. I'm running diagnostics 
checks on them, sir. I'm hoping to get it locked down by this afternoon."
"Oh, you'll get it sorted out, Kendrow." He patted him on the shoulder. "I have 
the utmost confidence in you."
"Th -- thank you, sir." Kendrow stared at him as if he were concerned that 
Frobisher had been replaced by a lookalike, lighthearted alien.
"Not used to seeing me this chipper, are you, Kendrow?" asked Frobisher.
'To be blunt... no, sir. I'm not."
Frobisher laughed, and then sighed to himself. "Between my attitude now and what 
you heard earlier... you must be somewhat puzzled, eh, Kendrow?"
"Yes, sir. I am, sir."
"Sit down, Kendrow."
Kendrow looked down at himself. "I am sitting, sir. Already, I mean."
"Oh. Yes, of course." Frobisher leaned against a console and smiled broadly. 
"I'm sorry, Kendrow," he said earnestly. "The truth is, this last week, leading 
up to the day I've dreaded for so long, seemed almost to fly by. Now I know I've 
been out of sorts the past few days ... weeks ..."
'Try months," Kendrow muttered, but then looked immedi­ately apologetic.
Frobisher waved it off. " 'Months' is probably more accu-
rate, to be honest," he admitted. "And yesterday was probably the worst of all."
"Well, I have to say, your behavior was rather pensive con­sidering it was your 
birthday. I know that some people become daunted by the prospect of turning 
forty or fifty ... but forty-three." He shrugged. "It seemed... odd. You seemed 
to want to do everything you could to ignore it."
"Believe me, I did want to ignore it. Although I'm surprised that my parents 
did. Usually they send me a greeting on my birthday, but this year... nothing."
"Had you told them not to?"
"No. No, I kept my unease to myself... or at least I thought I did. But perhaps 
they picked up on unspoken signals nonetheless. Ah well... no use worrying about 
it now. You see... there's been a reason for my concerns. Do you know what I 
used to do, Kendrow? Before I joined Daystrom, I mean, to work on the Omega 9."
"You were involved in some sort of archaeology project, I think, sir."
"Not just some sort. This was THE project. The Guardian of Forever."
Kendrow bunked in surprise. "The time portal? I'd heard about that, but I'd 
almost thought it was a myth."
"Oh, it's not a myth, I assure you. It's real." Despite his newly achieved state 
of bliss, Frobisher shuddered slightly as he recalled the image of that 
cheerless place. It wasn't just the Guardian itself that so spooked him. He 
couldn't get out of his head that eerie, mournful howl of the wind that filtered 
through the remains of the ruined city around the Guardian. It was as if ghosts 
of a race long lost still haunted the place, laughing and taunting. "It's ... 
all too real."
He was silent for a moment. Prompting him, Kendrow said, "And you studied it?"
"People ... tend to come and go there," Frobisher told him. "Oh, they're excited 
at first. Word spreads, after all. And it's an irresistible proposition: 
Studying the past, seeing it un-spool before you. How can anyone pass that up? 
And yet... people burn out, very, very quickly. Six months, a year at most, and 
suddenly you see complete turnover in the staff there. I didn't understand why. 
But now I do." He
laughed softly to himself. "Now I do. It just... gets to you after a while."
Kendrow tilted his head slightly as he regarded the doctor. "What happened 
there, sir?"
"I... saw my future. At least, I thought I did."
"The future? But..." Kendrow shook his head. "I thought that the Guardian only 
shows the past, not the future."
"That was my understanding as well. That's what they told us, at any rate. But I 
will never forget it, nonetheless. I had been there two months ... well," and he 
smiled ruefully, "two months, seven days, eighteen hours. I was monitoring a 
play­back on the Guardian. No two are exactly the same, you know. Even if you 
ask for the exact same scenario to be replayed, there's always slight variances 
in the scene. Some of them can be extremely minor... but they're there. That's 
one of the things we study: The reasons for it all. It truly supports the 
no­tion that time is in a constant state of flux.
"In any event, I was monitoring... and there was a rather fearsome ion storm 
overhead. Not low enough to be of any di­rect danger to me, but I was getting 
apprehensive just the same. In fact, I was even considering packing it in for 
the day. Still, I was doing my job, my tricorder picking up the events as they 
hurtled past on the time portal's screen.
"Suddenly, overhead, there was this ... this burst of ionic energy. Despite the 
awesome artificial intelligence that the Guardian displays, it's still just a 
machine. Perhaps the most sophisticated machine that ever existed... aside from 
the Omega 9," he smiled, and then continued, "but a machine nonetheless. Perhaps 
the ion storm interfered with its working for just a moment... or perhaps it was 
my imagination all along... I couldn't be sure. But the screen flickered in a 
way I'd never seen before, and then I... saw it... or at least, thought I saw 
it..."
"Saw what?" When Frobisher didn't immediately continue, Kendrow repeated, "Saw 
what, sir?"
"A report. A news report... a printed one, actually. It flew by so fast, my eye 
barely registered it. And it said..." His mouth suddenly felt dry. He licked his 
Ups. "It said, 'Elias Fro­bisher Killed on 43rd Birthday.' "
"You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Even though the awful day was behind him, he still 
couldn't keep that feeling of dull terror completely out of his thoughts. He had 
lived with the knowl­edge for so long ... and had never shared it with anyone. 
How could he have, after all, inflicted that upon another human being?
"No, sir, you certainly don't." He let out a low whistle. "That's... truly 
awful. To be carrying that with you all this time. Are you sure of what you 
saw... ?"
"No. That's the worst part. I wasn't sure, not completely. It happened so 
quickly and then it was gone. Not only that, but no matter how many times I 
played back my tricorder record of the event, there was no trace of it My 
tricorder hadn't picked it up either. Then there was the 'knowledge' that the 
Guardian only played the past, not the future. Every credible, scientific 
measure that I had available to me only served to un­derscore the impossibility 
of what I was sure I'd witnessed. And yet..."
"You couldn't be sure."
"Could you?" he asked. Kendrow shook his head. "Well, neither could I. I 
couldn't help but wonder if I'd been given this... vision... for a purpose. 
Except what that purpose might have been, I could only guess. Was it a warning? 
A ran­dom attempt at torture? Was it something avoidable, or was I supposed to 
surrender to fate? I remember..." The recollec­tion was painful to him, even 
after all this time. "My last day mere, I stood in front of the Guardian and 
just screamed and kept on screaming, wanting to know what the purpose to all of 
it had been. And the thing just sat there, replying in one of its preprogrammed 
ways that it was there to be my guide. No man should know his fate, Kendrow, or 
the time of his de­mise ... even the possible time.
"The events that I experienced on that world shaped -- 'dis­torted,' might be a 
better word -- the way in which I handled the rest of my life up to this point I 
had no idea whether I had imagined it, whether it was to happen irrevocably, or 
whether it was one of the assorted possibilities that trickled through the 
Guardian but wound up being swept away by the rivers of time. I spent about six 
months barely functioning as a human being before I pulled myself together 
enough to carry on
with... well, with whatever it was that I was going to be left with.
"But you know what, Kendrow?"
"What, sir?"
Slowly he walked over to the interface console of Omega 9. The flashing pad 
blinked its hypnotically entrancing lights at him. The pale blue pattern was 
rather soothing to him. "If not for that experience... it's possible the Omega 9 
might not exist When your mind reaches a point where it can't function in its 
normal patterns, it seeks out new patterns. And my thoughts eventually brought 
me in the direction of the Omega 9. I saw... possibilities," he whispered the 
word. "Circuits, possibilities, revealed themselves to me, one unfolding upon 
another. And when I saw them, ignoring them was not an op­tion. That's what 
brought me to the Daystrom Institute. The years hurtled past, Kendrow. I almost 
didn't notice them, be­cause I was so busy working to produce the Omega 9."
"I just wish ..." Kendrow began to say, but then he stopped.
"No, it's all right, Kendrow." He folded his arms and leaned back against a 
console. "What's on your mind?"
"Well... the top secret turn this entire project has taken." He gestured around 
him, at the banks of computer circuitry and nannite growth technology that was 
in place. "It's... well, tius outpost is fairly remote, sir. Somewhat lonely."
"I prefer it that way, Kendrow. My theories, my work is off the beaten path. I'd 
prefer that I remain that way as well. The fortunate thing about the Daystrom 
Institute is that they under­stand and respect the concept of creative vision. 
Once they're convinced that they're dealing with a true visionary... such as 
myself, I modestly admit," and he laughed at the obvious pre­tentiousness of the 
viewpoint, "then they're willing to provide as much or as little help as 
required, as much or as little in terms of equipment as needed. And the precise 
working envi­ronment to foster the best work. I wish..." and he shook his head, 
"I wish I could have met Daystrom himself. Poor fellow. What a tortured genius 
he was. That incident with the Enter­prise a hundred years ago..."
"Sir... about this working environment..." He coughed politely. 'To be honest, I 
haven't spoken to you about it since I first came here six months ago because 
of, well... your atti-
tude, and the tension that seemed to, frankly, ooze from every pore. But since 
we're being open and straightforward now, I feel inclined to ask... doesn't our 
presence here make us something of a target, sir? The Omega 9... ?"
"Of course not." Frobisher laughed at the notion. "The work we've developed here 
is going to be made available to all. There's nothing for anyone to steal. And 
even if we did... we have enough internal defenses here to hold them off until 
help comes. And those defenses were built by very paranoid Day­strom executives 
who have the exact same mindset as you, Kendrow. You should be pleased... or 
maybe you should be afraid, I'm not quite sure." He clapped Kendrow on the 
shoul­der. "Be of good cheer, Kendrow. I feel like I have a new lease on life. 
Tell you what: Let's track down that glitch you were talking about, and then we 
can actually take the rest of the day off from work. Have you put Omega 9 on the 
trail of this glitch?'
"Oh, sir, that's kind of like using photon torpedoes to kill an insect. It's 
just some sort of elusive little bug. Why waste the O-9's time on it?"
"Kendrow, for all its advancement, for all the potential it displays... it's 
still just a machine. It's not as if we're going to hurt its feelings or insult 
it by asking."
"Sir, perhaps..."
"Kendrow, for crying out loud, cheer up! Life's too short." He walked over to 
the Interface station and placed his hand against it.
"Interface activated," came the calm tone of the Omega 9. Despite the ominous 
name of the computer itself, the ma­chine's voice was that of a young female, 
not more than ten years old. One of the scientists back at the main institute, 
in the early days of the computer's development, had patterned the voice on his 
daughter's as a sort of birthday surprise for her. He had intended to change it 
subsequently, but Frobisher felt it was so charming that he opted to retain die 
voice for the Omega 9.
"Interface prepared," said Frobisher. "Activate nannotech for link."
He felt the familiar tingling along his palm. The most diffi­cult thing he'd 
ever had to accomplish in the early days of the
Omega 9 was develop the confidence to allow the machine to work as intended. It 
had taken something of a leap of faith for him, and he still saw it as the one 
possible drawback in the widespread acceptance of the Omega 9. But he hoped that 
that, too, would pass.
"Nannotech on line," the computer informed him. Already he could sense the 
computer's voice not outside of his mind, but within. "Link established."
"Doctor..." Kendrow seemed to be trying to get bis atten­tion.
But it was too late. Frobisher's mind was already deep with­in the Omega 9. He 
felt the usual, intoxicating rush that came to him at such times. It took an act 
of will for him to steady himself, to avoid being swept away into the morass of 
the complex machine's innermost workings. The nannotech helped keep his mind 
focused, and then he turned the Omega 9's for­midable abilities to the fairly 
minor task at hand.
His mind plumbed the depths of the machine, information coming in from all over, 
giving Frobisher a link to every part of not only the computer, but the entire 
station.
At times such as this, Frobisher rarely had any true sense of time. Usually, he 
felt as if he were inside the machine for at least an hour, perhaps more. 
Invariably, though, he was there for less than a minute.
This time it was only seconds. But when he emerged from the machine, his eyes 
were wide and his face pale. Slowly he turned his gaze toward Kendrow. "What... 
have you done?" he whispered.
"Done, sir?" Kendrow appeared politely confused.
"You've... taken down our defenses. Slowly, gradually, subtly ... done it in 
such a way that the computer detected no attempt at sabotage. Rerouted systems, 
drained away energy..."
Kendrow started to voice a protest, but one look from Fro­bisher was enough to 
silence him.
"... and your work... affected the chronometers," Fro­bisher continued, as if 
speaking from a place very far away. "You probably didn't even realize it. It 
was an accident, an unexpected side effect of your tampering. It sped the 
chronometer up. That's why time seemed to fly by. It wasn't
just subjective. The computer core was actually malfunction­ing, shortening 
hours and minutes, eventually days over the past week or so. At night, while we 
were sleeping, we lost even more time. At his point, we've misplaced about 
twelve hours. Which means ..."
Kendrow's expression was one of frightened understanding. 'I'm... I'm sorry..."
"Which means ... today is still my birthday," Frobisher said tonelessly.
At that moment, the entire station shuddered as something smashed against the 
exterior. Frobisher, at one with Omega 9, felt the shock as if it had happened 
to him personally. Alarms screeched throughout the station, and the Omega 9 
registered that a group of unknown beings had just materialized in one of the 
station's upper sections. There was a ship, a massive war vessel of some sort 
with utterly unknown markings, in orbit around the station. The sensors and 
early detection devices had all been taken off line, as had communications and 
weaponry.
So... here it was. His destiny, staring him in the face.
Oddly, he had never felt more calm. He had spent so many years worrying, 
wondering, angsting over his known-but-frightening future, that now that it had 
arrived, all the fear dis­sipated. Instead he marshalled his concentration and 
dove into the Omega 9 with all the speed and precision that he could muster. All 
the damage that Kendrow had done was laid out before him, and he had only 
seconds to choose what would be the most effective thing to undo. Shields? Too 
late. Weaponry? Likewise. That was all created to deal with potential intruders 
while they were still outside, but they already had unknown enemies rampaging 
through the station.
Communications. That was the only hope. Again, seconds were what remained to 
him... but a second for a computer is quite unlike a second for anyone else. 
Frobisher envisioned himself within the Omega 9, saw his hands moving through 
the circuitry like an electronic ghost. Like a father gently kissing a scrape on 
a child's knee in order to make it feel better, Frobish­er untangled the knots 
of interference that Kendrow had tied. Kendrow, good lord, how could Kendrow 
have done this to him? He had hand-picked the man out of a field of twenty-seven 
applicants as the man who seemed most capable, most
intelligent, who had the most on the ball. And Kendrow had betrayed him to 
these... to whoever these people were.
He had allowed his mind to wander. That was pure foolish­ness, something he 
should not be permitting himself to do. He had little enough time as it was.
Using the Omega 9, he punched through the comm snarl that Kendrow had created 
and immediately sent out a distress call. He didn't have to record it, didn't 
have to speak. His mind shouted into the computer, "This is Daystrom Station, we 
are under attack, repeat, we are under attack. Any Federa­tion vessel hi the 
area, please assist. This is Doctor Elias Fro­bisher of the Daystrom Station, we 
are under attack, please assist..."
A comm message suddenly sprang into existence within the computer's program. 
That was fast, miraculously fast. Perhaps there might be a hope in hell of 
salvaging this situation yet. Frobisher's mind opened the message ...
It was from Earth. It had been sent hours ago. There was an elderly couple, 
smiling at Frobisher. The man looked like an older version of Frobisher himself.
"Elias, darling! It's Mom and Dad! Happy birthday, son! We ran a little late, 
but this should still get to you in time, and we wouldn't want you to think we 
forgot your very special day!"
And suddenly Frobisher felt himself yanked out of the Omega 9. He fancied that, 
from very far away, he heard the alarmed cry of a young girl's voice ... the 
voice of the Omega 9, pleading with him to come back, asking that she not be 
left alone.
Frobisher staggered, the nannites slipping away from him, scurrying back into 
their techno hidey-hole. The world around him appeared flat, one dimensional, as 
his senses fought to cope with reintegrating themselves with reality. The world 
snapped into two-dimensions, then three, and Frobisher found himself handled 
roughly by an alien being of undetermined origin. His skin was brown and 
leathery, and he had thick tusks jutting from beneath his upper lip.
There were several others nearby, a mixed bag of races, and one being from a 
race he did recognize, for they had been very much in the news lately. It was a 
Thallonian. He was very oddly built, however. His head seemed smaller in 
proportion to
his massive body than it should have been. Frobisher attributed it to body 
armor.
Beg for your life, the suggestion came into his head. You might still get out of 
this. Beg. Beg to live.
Frobisher was not a fighter, not a hero, and not particularly brave. But he felt 
an anger, implacable and unstoppable, bub-bling up and over. And he realized 
that all these years of living in fear, all the years of frustration, he had 
carried incredible re­sentment within him. The problem was, he had never had 
any­one to be angry with. No one had done anything to him. No one had forced the 
knowledge upon him. He had simply stum­bled upon it, like a scientist out to 
probe the secrets of the uni­verse and inadvertently finding more than he had 
bargained for.
But he resented it nonetheless. Why had the fates done this to him? What in the 
world could he have possibly done to de­serve this awful foreknowledge of the 
time of his demise? He had been a good person his entire life. Never cheated 
anyone, never tried to hurt anyone that he knew of. And yet he had been handed 
this hideously raw deal.
For years, for more years than he cared to think about, he had wanted someone, 
anyone he could strike against. A target upon which he could vent his anger, 
anger which had grown exponentially as years had passed. Wasted, wasted years 
...
The being who was leering over him was bigger, broader, in­finitely stronger 
than he. It was the kind of situation where, under normal circumstances, 
Frobisher would have put up his hands, surrendered, and prayed...
... and given over control of his life one more time.
In his mind's eye, he saw the Guardian staring at him. That thing, that monster, 
that machine had cast a long shadow over so much of his Me. Built by beings 
unknown, functioning hi ways no one knew. The Andorians had their own name for 
it: The T'Sh'Iar, which meant "God's Window."
God had looked through the window, seen Frobisher peering through, and had 
punished him for absolutely no reason at all. Taken away his destiny by 
sadistically handing it to him.
Frobisher saw the blaster hanging at the hip of the alien with the brown, 
leathery skin, the being who looked like a giant ser­pent. There was a throbbing 
in Frobisher's head. The tall red
alien nearby was addressing him, but the pounding in his head drowned it all 
out. All the rage, all the anger, everything that had ever infuriated him over 
the hopeless wreck that his Me had become as time's inexorable march had carried 
him un­willingly toward his doom, it all exploded from him at once.
There was no way that Frobisher should have been a threat to the serpent man, no 
way. The serpent man was paying so lit­tle attention to the possibility of 
Frobisher as a threat that he never even saw the trembling fist that Frobisher's 
fingers had contracted into. Furthermore, his skin was so hard that even if 
Frobisher were to land a punch, he shouldn't even have felt it
Frobisher's years of anger congealed into that fist, and with­out listening to a 
word that the red-skinned alien was saying, he spun and swung his fist into a 
powerful roundhouse. In his ' entire adult life -- for that matter, throughout his 
childhood and adolescence -- he had never thrown a punch in his life. The 
roundhouse was his very first.
It was perfect.
It caught the serpent man squarely in his lantern jaw. The impact immediately 
broke Frobisher's knuckles. It didn't mat­ter. Frobisher never even felt it. But 
the serpent man most cer­tainly felt the blow as his head snapped around and he 
let out a startled squeal that seemed totally at odds with his hulking 
de­meanor. He staggered, and that was all the opening Frobisher needed. He 
yanked the blaster out of the holster at the serpent man's side, swung it around 
and aimed it squarely at the red-skinned man who was clearly the leader.
The red-skinned man looked mildly surprised.
It was the single most exultant moment in all of Frobisher's life. Given a half 
second more, he would have fired the blaster.
He never saw the blow from the serpent man coming. The alien swung his fist like 
a club, and it caved in the side of Fro­bisher's head. His arm swung wide. His 
finger squeezed spas­modically on the trigger and the shot went wide, exploding 
harmlessly against the far wall. Frobisher collapsed, his head thudding to the 
floor. He heard a sort of distant buzzing, saw a thick liquid dripping in front 
of his eyes that he did not recog­nize as his own blood. He reached out a hand, 
and it touched something warm. He couldn't tell what it was, but a female voice 
seemed to be singing to him.
His lips puckered together. He drew in a breath with effort, and then with even 
more effort expelled it. It rattled from his throat and out through his mouth, 
and in his mind's eye he saw candles flickering in front of him. With the gust 
of breath from his lungs, the flames disappeared. All out at once.
/ hope I get my wish, thought Frobisher as he died.
Zolon Darg stared at the corpse on the floor, and then slowly levelled his gaze 
at Shunabo. Shunabo, for his part, seemed ex­tremely irritated with Kendrow. The 
brown-skinned, leathery Shunabo approached Kendrow with a stride that was an odd 
combination of swagger and sunk. "You said he wouldn't be a problem," Shunabo 
said, his irritation causing him to over enunciate every syllable. "You told 
us -- you told me -- that he was a quiet, reserved, run-of-the-mill human who wouldn't 
offer up the slightest resistance." His soft voice began to get louder. "Oddly, 
you didn't happen to mention mat he had a punch like a berserker Klingon, or 
that he was capable of com­ing within a hair of shooting Zolon Darg's head off!"
In point of fact, Zolon Darg knew that Shunabo was right. He had been caught 
completely flat-footed, and this little sci­entist, this no one, this weakling, 
this nothing, had nearly suc­ceeded in accomplishing what some of the greatest 
and most accomplished bounty hunters in two quadrants had not. Darg had gotten 
sloppy, very, very sloppy, and Shunabo had saved his ass.
It was a situation that had to be addressed immediately.
In two quick steps, Darg was directly behind Shunabo. He slapped a hand around 
Shunabo's chest, yanked him backward, grabbed the top of his head and twisted 
quickly. The sound of Shunabo's neck snapping echoed through the suddenly silent 
lab.
There was still a flickering of light hi Shunabo's eyes as Darg snarled in his 
ear, "I was in no danger. I could have han­dled him. And you were under specific 
instructions to keep Frobisher alive." That last, at least, was accurate, and 
really, in the final analysis, one point was all that was necessary. Zolon Darg 
spread wide his arms and Shunabo sank to the floor. Be­fore Shunabo even landed, 
Darg turned away from him dis­dainfully. He towered over Kendrow, and he could 
see that
Kendrow's legs were trembling. Kendrow appeared to be keep­ing himself standing 
by bracing himself against a table.
"Are you going to be able to do the job in Frobisher's place?" he demanded.
Kendrow's mouth moved, but nothing audible came forth. Darg scowled in a manner 
that seemed to suck the light right out of the lab. "Well?" continued Darg. "Are 
you capable of speech at all?"
"Probably not at the moment Zolon."
The voice behind them, in contrast to the increasing bellow of Darg, was 
remarkably mild. The individual to whom it be­longed likewise seemed mild in 
appearance. He was a Thallon­ian like Zolon, but whereas Zolon Darg was massive, 
the newcomer appeared quite slender, although it was hard to tell since he was 
wearing fairly loose black and purple robes. He had a neatly trimmed, yellowing 
beard, which indicated his age to anyone who happened to know that Thallonian 
hair tended to yellow with age rather than turn gray or white, as oc­curred with 
humans. His face was carefully inscrutable. Only his eyes seemed to burn with an 
inner light. The rest of his presence was so minimal that one's gaze could 
easily have passed right over him.
"Is that a fact, General Thul?" Darg said. But despite the de­fiant sound of the 
words, there was nothing in his tone that was challenging. It wasn't out of 
fear, of course. It was more from a sense of respect. And it was quite possible 
that General Ger­rid Thul was the one individual in the galaxy for whom Darg was 
capable of showing that sort of deference.
"Well, look at the poor man," Thul said. He crossed the room toward Kendrow, and 
didn't seem to walk so much as glide. "You seem to have scared him terribly. Am 
I correct sir?"
Kendrow slowly nodded.
"There? You see?" The General clucked sympathetically. "You know, Darg... you 
used to be a much calmer, under­standing individual. The difficulties you've 
encountered in the past years have not mellowed you. You must learn to be 
calmer. You will live longer."
Darg smiled in a rather mirthless way. "I shall be sure to re­member that"
"See that you do. Now, Mr... Kendrow, is it?" When Kendrow nodded, die one 
called Gerrid Thul continued, "Mr. Kendrow... you have been paid a significant 
amount to coop­erate with us, have you not"
"Yes, sir. I have, sir."
"Articulate speech. You are capable of articulate speech. That is good, that is 
very good. Now then, Mr. Ken­drow ... since the good Doctor here," and he tapped 
Frobish-er's corpse with the toe of his boot, "is not in any condition to 
provide assistance to us, it is important to know whether you are going to be 
able to continue in his stead."
"I'm..." He cleared his throat "Do you really want an hon­est answer?"
General Thul smiled in an almost paternal fashion. "Honesty is always to be 
preferred."
"Truthfully, I'm not sure. I tried to familiarize myself with all aspects of his 
work, but the Omega 9 was such a uniquely personal, and truly amazing, piece of 
work... I can't pretend that I know or understand all the parameters and aspects 
that he brought to it. I know and understand the basic interface op­tions, I can 
program the -- "
Thul stopped him with a casual gesture. "It is not necessary to go into details, 
Mr. Kendrow. Your honesty is appreciated. Is it safe to assume mat you can aid 
us in transporting the key components of the Omega 9 to our ship, and that you 
will, at the very least give us your best effort in adapting and under­standing 
the possibilities this amazing device provides?"
Kendrow's head bobbed so eagerly that it seemed as if it was about to tumble off 
his shoulders. "Yes. Yes, absolutely, sir."
"That is good. That is good to hear. So, to summarize," and he placed a hand on 
Kendrow's shoulder, "you will help us ... and we will allow you to live. And if 
you cease to help us, either due to lack of cooperation or lack of knowledge, 
why... you shall meet the same fate as Doctor Frobisher. Ex­cept your demise 
will be far slower, much more protracted, and will involve an impressive array 
of sharp objects. Do we un­derstand each other?"
Kendrow gulped deeply.
Zolon Darg, for his part, smiled. For a moment there, he had
been concerned that Thul was going to be entirely too sympa­thetic. He realized 
that he should have known better. After all, when someone was interested in 
obliterating almost all sen­tient life, as General Thul was, such an individual 
was not about to be concerned about sparing the feelings of one in­significant 
little scientist.
"Well, Mr. Kendrow?" General Thul prompted once more. "Do we understand each 
other?"
Kendrow nodded.
"Well, then!" Thul said, and he clapped his hands and rubbed them together 
briskly, "let's get to work, shall we?"
And as they got to work, the distress call continued to issue form, searching 
for someone... anyone... who might be able to save what was left of the day...
 
II.
 
commander william riker felt as if all the eyes hi the Ten-Forward lounge were 
upon him. He kept telling himself, how­ever, that he was probably imagining it. 
He found a table off in the corner and signalled to the bartender that he'd like 
a drink. One was quickly produced and he proceeded to sip it in rela­tive peace 
that lasted for a whole seven seconds.
He glanced up as Lieutenant Palumbo looked down at him. Palumbo was half a head 
taller than Riker, with black hair slicked back and a rather open manner that 
Riker wasn't quite sure how to react to. Palumbo clearly considered Riker 
some­thing of a curiosity; one might even have said that Palumbo came across as 
being in awe of him, as if not sure how to re­spond to the presence of the Great 
William Riker aboard the Starship U.S.S. Independence.
"So... what's it like?" asked Palumbo without preamble.
" 'It,' Lieutenant?" Despite the breach of protocol, Riker couldn't help but 
feel some amusement at Palumbo's manner.
Palumbo promptly dropped down into a chair across from Riker. "Being related to 
one of the original signers of the origi­nal Resolution."
"Well... Lieutenant," Riker felt constrained to point out, "the Resolution of 
Non-interference was signed nearly two
hundred years ago. Granted, I'm related to one of the original signers. But it's 
not as if Thaddeus Riker was someone that I spent a good deal of time with. In 
point of fact, he died more man a century before I was even conceived."
"Even so. Even so," Palumbo's head bobbed as if he were furiously agreeing and 
disagreeing simultaneously. "It must make you proud, right? Am I right?"
Actually, Riker had never given the matter all that much thought. Riker had 
always considered himself somewhat self-sufficient. He was determined to carve 
his own career and ob­tain his own notoriety, and he wasn't the type of person 
who rested upon the achievements of those who had come before him.
Still... he had to admit that there was something to be said for it He'd done a 
good deal of reading up on Thaddeus Riker as the bicentennial had approached, 
and the more he'd learned, the more impressed he'd been.
"You're right," agreed Riker.
Palumbo slapped the table. It shook from the impact. "See, I knew I was right!"
'Is this guy bothering you, Commander?"
Lieutenant Mankowski had come up behind Palumbo. Dur­ing their shift, Palumbo 
operated conn while Mankowski was at ops, so they were accustomed to working 
tightly together. When Mankowski spoke, it was with a faint southern drawl. 
Riker couldn't help but notice, to his amusement, that Mankowski was keeping one 
eye on his reflection in the obser­vation glass nearby, running his fingers 
through his wavy brown hair to make sure that it was "just so."
"No, Mankowski. No bother at all."
"Thanks for being so concerned, Joe," Palumbo said in obvi­ous irritation. 
"What, you trying to embarrass me in front of the Commander here?"
"Oh... please. You needn't concern yourself about that, Lieutenant," said Riker. 
"Really. It's not a problem. To be per­fectly honest, if I were in your 
position, I'd probably be react­ing in exactly the same way."
"Well, that's good to hear, sir. Very understanding of you." There was one other 
chair at the table, and Mankowski sat in it. Riker chuckled softly to himself as 
he saw that Mankowski
straddled the chair in the same manner that Riker habitually did. "Look... to be 
honest, sir, there's a goodly number of people on this ship who would love to 
bend your ear about all manner of things. Not just about your ancestor, but 
about you yourself. You've had a hell of a career, after all."
"It's been... interesting."
"You're being too modest, sir."
"Oh, yeah. Way too modest," echoed Palumbo.
"Now me," and Mankowski tapped his chest, "I'm not that kind of person. The 
hero-worshipping sort, I mean. I mink people have a right to be proud of their 
accomplishments, but that's no reason to elevate them to some sort of 
bigger-than-life status. In fact, I was just saying the other day to -- "
From across the lounge, a crewman called, "Hey, Joe! Joe! Got a second?"
"Hey!" Mankowski shot back, clearly annoyed. "Can't you see I'm talking to 
Commander William T. Riker here? The William Riker?"
The crewman held up his hands, palms out, in mute apology for butting in.
Riker put a hand in front of his mouth and laughed into it.
"It's just that," Palumbo jumped in during the momentary lull, "it's just mat, 
well... the truth is, I've been a fan of yours ever since I was a kid."
"A kid?" Riker couldn't quite believe bis ears as he stared at the young 
officer. "Lieutenant, for God's sake, I'm not that old."
"Well... not a little kid," Palumbo amended hastily. "Just since, well..." He 
considered it a moment "Since I was a teenager."
That still seemed a hideous age discrepancy to Riker, and he said, "That can't 
be right I haven't been at it that long... have I?" His voice trailed off on the 
last two words.
"Oh, sure," Palumbo said with a cheerfulness mat Riker couldn't help but find 
disturbing. "My dad was -- is -- in Starfleet, and he talked about officers who were 
on the fast track. He especially thought the crew of the Enterprise was 
top-notch."
Riker quickly did the math in his head and realized mat Palumbo was exactly 
right
"Those were the good old days, huh, Commander?" Palum­bo asked.
"Ohhhhh yes. The good old days." Riker was suddenly start­ing to feel as ancient 
as Thaddeus Riker.
"Mike... I think you're making the Commander uncom­fortable," Mankowski said 
cautiously, glancing from Riker back to Palumbo.
"Nah! Am I? I didn't mean to..."
"It's... all right," Riker said. He generally had a fairly ready smile and it 
didn't fail him this time either as he was able to appreciate the more amusing 
aspects of the situation. "It's just that, well..." and he tapped his chest, "in 
here I feel like I joined the Fleet only yesterday. I'm not entirely sure at 
what point I went from eager young cadet to gray eminence. It's a disconcerting 
transition, that's all."
"Do you think Captain Picard went through the same thing?"
"The captain?" Riker smiled puckishly. "Absolutely not. The truth is that 
Captain Picard was born forty years old. He didn't have the time or patience for 
child or adolescence. He simply went straight to the status of 'authority 
figure.' "
"I believe it," said Palumbo. "He came and lectured to one of our classes once. 
He scared the crap out of me. But... don't tell him that next time you see him, 
okay?"
"My lips are sealed," Riker assured him.
They chatted for a few minutes more, although Palumbo and Mankowski seemed more 
and more interested in crosstalk be­tween the two of them, leaving Riker 
serenely to his thoughts. And, naturally enough, those thoughts turned to 
Thaddeus Riker.
The truth was that the Resolution was indeed one hell of an accomplishment, and 
Thaddeus Riker had been one of the main architects. The Resolution of 
Non-interference had been a sort of United Federation Bill of Rights. It had 
pulled togeth­er a number of fractured members of the United Federation of 
Planets into a basic position paper that put forward, in lan­guage so plain and 
firm as to command their assent, die basic philosophies that the UFP hoped to 
pursue. Many historians felt that the Resolution was not only the turning point 
in the UFP's early development, but the basics for some of the Feder­ation's 
most fundamental philosophies -- including, most no-
tably, Starfleet's Prime Directive -- had its roots in the Resolu­tion of 
Non-interference.
Thaddeus Riker, one of the principal drafters of the Resolu­tion, had affixed 
his name to it along with some fifty other rep­resentatives of assorted worlds, 
outposts and colonies. That important event had occurred nearly two hundred 
years ago, and a major celebration on Earth was in the works. Indeed, that was 
the reason for Riker's presence on the Independence. The Starship was en route 
to Earth anyway, and the ship had been instructed to pick up Riker and bring him 
along. For other offi­cers, the easy assignment would have been considered 
some­thing of a paid vacation. That was not the case with Riker. He thought it a 
colossal waste of time, and tried to convince Starfleet that this endeavor was 
worth neither the time nor the effort as far as his presence was concerned. He 
could think of a hundred more constructive things he'd rather be doing than 
putting in an appearance at some high-profile function, no mat­ter how 
historically important that function might be. Unfortu­nately, as so frequently 
happened in cases like this one, Starfleet wasn't able to come up with any.
Which was how Riker had wound up aboard the Indepen­dence, being made to feel 
old by two young officers who seemed bound and determined to worship Riker to 
bits. They chatted on with Riker barely listening, and hoping against hope that 
something -- anything -- would distract them from the un­wanted attention they were 
lavishing upon him.
That was the moment that the yellow alert klaxon went off. Without hesitation, 
Mankowski and Palumbo high-tailed it out the door, as did the other patrons of 
the Ten-Forward. Within moments the place was empty, leaving a disconsolate 
Riker staring at the glass still in his hand. His very soul cried "Foul!" as he 
thought of where he was during an emergency as opposed to where he'd prefer to 
be.
On the other hand... he was a guest. Guests should be, and are, accommodated 
whenever possible. And perhaps he was a guest who could lend a hand, presuming 
the captain was inter­ested in the extra help.
Couldn't hurt to ask him, Riker reasoned. Couldn't hurt at all...
*   *   *
Captain George Garfield, a man of modest height but boom­ing authority, looked 
surprised to see Riker striding onto the bridge. Garfield's face had a craggy 
ruggedness about it, and his gray hair was so tightly curled that some felt it 
was possi­ble to slice one's ringer open on it. "Is there a problem, 
Com­mander?" he asked.
"No problem at all, sir. I just..." On the face of it, it seemed absurd to make 
the offer now that he was there. It was an insult, really, an implication that 
the captain was unable or unwilling to handle the situation on his own. First 
officer Joe Morris was watching Riker warily. He was a lean man with thinning 
hair and a foxlike face. He tended to smile a lot for a first officer, and he 
had a habit of taking pains to display his perfectly arrayed teeth whenever 
possible.
Garfield smiled grimly and nodded in apparent understand­ing. "When there's a 
red alert, you don't exactly feel comfort­able with the prospect of hiding down 
in your quarters, is that
it?"
"Exactly it, sir."
"Very well. As long as we remember whose ship this is."
There was a bit of a ribbing quality to the comment, but at the same time, a 
very clear, somewhat territorial warning. Riker didn't have to be told twice. 
"I'm just a spectator, cap­tain."
"Spectate from there," Garfield said, indicating the vacant counselor's chair. 
The ship's counselor, Lieutenant Aronin, hadn't been feeling particularly well 
as of late, and had been confined to sickbay under orders of the ship's CMO, 
Doctor DiSpigno. "And don't you worry. Once we attend to whatev-er's going on, I 
assure you we'll give you a smooth ride to your destination."
"Much obliged, sir."
Riker promptly slid easily into the chair.
"Talk to me, Mr. Palumbo," Garfield said.
Palumbo scanned the board and reported, "Distress signal, sir. I believe it's 
coming from the Daystrom Institute Outpost"
From the tactical board, Lieutenant Monastero called, "Con­firming, sir. Putting 
it on screen."
The image of a gentle-looking man appeared. But the background behind him was 
extremely strange. It didn't seem
to be an actual place so much as an environment of pulsing energy.
"Good God," said Morris. "What's that?"
"This is Daystrom Station, we are under attack, repeat, we are under attack," 
said the man on the screen. "Any Federation vessel in the area, please assist. 
This is Doctor Elias Frobisher of the Daystrom Station, we are under attack, 
please assist..."
"It appears to be computer generated," Mankowski said. "Not an actual image, but 
one composed by a computer. Ques­tion is, why?"
"No, Mr. Mankowski, that's not the question at all," Garfield told him in no 
uncertain terms. "The question is, 'How fast can we get there?'"
"At maximum warp... ?" Mankowski did some rapid-fire calculations. "Three hours, 
eighteen minutes."
Morris had stepped over to the ops station and was glancing over Palumbo's 
shoulder. "We appear to be the closest ship in the area, sir."
"Lieutenant, best speed to Daystrom."
"Aye, captain." Mankowski immediately punched in the course, and the 
Independence angled sharply away from its then-current heading and headed with 
all possible alacrity to­ward the scene of the distress call.
The captain shifted in his chair and looked at Riker with mild apology in his 
eyes. "Seems we're going to be late getting you to your appointment with fame, 
Commander. Regulations clearly state..."
"That any Starfleet vessel capable of responding to a dis­tress call must lend 
assistance whenever possible," Riker recit­ed with a smile. "Captain, there's a 
number of regs that I would be the first to dispute... but that is most 
definitely not one of mem. The only question is, is there going to be anyone or 
anything left by the time we get there."
"I don't know," Garfield admitted. "We can only do the best mat we can do, 
Commander. The thing is, a science station such as Daystrom's outpost isn't like 
a planetary treasury or some such, where you just go in, raid the riches and 
depart. Whatever these possible raiders want -- whether it's technolo­gy, files, 
information, what-have-you -- it's probably going to have to be handled with 
delicacy. That means they'll have to
take their time extracting it for fear of damaging it, and if they take enough 
time," and he nodded grimly, "then we've got them."
There was little talking for the remainder of the trip. Riker watched the crew 
of the Independence going about their busi­ness. It was an odd sensation for 
him. He was, after all, part of his surroundings and environment. And they were 
all Starfleet, after all. They might be spread out among various ships, but they 
were a unit nevertheless, each capable of helping one an­other and functioning 
as a team.
But just as he was a part, he was also apart. He had his rank, certainly, but he 
had no place on this vessel. He was simply a passenger, with no more intrinsic 
importance to the ship than cargo being carted down in the hold. It was a very, 
very strange feeling. Every so often Garfield or Morris would engage him in 
polite conversation, but it seemed to Riker that it was more a matter of form 
than any real interest in him. Then again, he might simply have been imagining 
it.
"Approaching Daystrom Station," Mankowski announced fi­nally. "Sensors indicate 
that the company hasn't left the party yet."
"Magnify," ordered Garfield.
The screen rippled briefly, and then the conical shape of Daystrom station 
appeared in front of them. Sure enough, in orbit around the station was a vessel 
the likes of which Riker had never seen before. It was low slung, built for 
speed but, at the same time, clearly heavily armed... an assessment that 
Monastero confirmed a moment later from tactical.
"Disruptors, phasers ... and some sort of plasma weapon as well. They're well 
armed, all right. Nothing our own weaponry and shield can't handle, but I don't 
think I'd care to face them in anything less than a Starship."
"Thank you, Mr. Monastero. Open a hailing frequency, please."
"Open, sir."
Garfield leaned back in his command chair, crossing his legs in a rather casual 
manner as if he were having a comfortable chat in his living room. "This is 
Captain George Garfield of the Starship Independence. Please identify yourselves 
immedi­ately and prepare to be boarded. Thank you."
"Captain," warned Mankowski, "they're powering up their weapons."
"Didn't their mothers teach them that 'please' and 'thank you' are the magic 
words?" said Morris.
"I know mine did," said Garfield. "Shields up. Maintain hailing frequency. 
Unidentified ship, please stand down your weapons immediately, or we will be 
forced to defend our­selves."
"They've opened fire!" Mankowski said. Sure enough, plas­ma torpedoes were 
hurtling across the void and spiralling straight toward the Independence.
And both Garfield and Riker called, "Evasive action!", the latter doing so by 
reflex. Immediately realizing his error, he looked with chagrin at Garfield. 
Fortunately, Garfield seemed more amused than usurped.
Mankowski spurred the mighty ship forward, and the Inde­pendence gracefully 
angled down and away from the brace of torpedoes. "Return fire," ordered 
Garfield.
"We're not yet at optimum distance for full effectiveness."
Garfield glanced over his shoulder. "Indulge me."
Monastero nodded as his hands flew over the tactical array, and the phaser banks 
flared to life. But the distance was indeed too great, and although the phasers 
scored a direct hit upon the opposing vessel, the damage done to their shields 
was virtually non-existent.
"They're moving off!" Mankowski said.
Riker realized that Garfield was faced with a dilemma. If he attended to the 
space station, took the time to send down an away team, men the delay might give 
the other vessel time to get away. But if mere were wounded or dying people at 
the sta­tion, men a chase after the attacker might delay the Indepen­dence for 
so long that no aid to the station personnel -- should there be any surviving -- would 
be possible.
An obvious solution immediately presented itself to Riker, and out of reflex he 
was about to suggest it. But as Riker opened his mouth to speak, Morris said, 
"Captain, I've readied the shuttle bay in case..."
"You read my mind, Number One. Bridge to security."
"Security. Petronella here."
"Mister Petronella, scramble a security team and med unit
and get yourselves down to the shuttle bay. Attend to whomever needs help aboard 
the station and remain here until we return."
"Aye, sir."
Garfield noticed Riker's still-open mouth out of the corner of his eye and 
asked, "Is there a problem, Commander?"
"No, sir. Obviously no problem at all."
"Good."
"Enemy vessel preparing to go to warp, sir," Mankowski an­nounced.
"Stay on her, Lieutenant," Garfield said calmly. "Mr. Monastero, fire a warning 
shot. See if we can persuade them to stay and chat."
As the Independence hurtled toward the station, closing the gap, Monastero fired 
the phasers. One blast coruscated against the enemy ship's shielding, while the 
other went across her bow, intercepting the vessel's momentary trajectory. But 
the unknown vessel spun out of the way and moved away from the station, picking 
up speed with every passing moment.
"Shuttle away!" called Palumbo.
"Chase them down, Mr. Mankowski," said Garfield.
"Aye, sir." Mankowski grinned in a slightly devilish manner. If there was one 
thing he liked, it was a pursuit.
The Independence darted straight toward the alien vessel, but the other ship 
immediately kicked into high gear. It was a burst of speed that was a bit 
surprising to those on the bridge of the Starship, for it hadn't seemed as if 
the other ship had that much power to her. But they were only momentarily 
daunted. "Looks like we're in a race," observed Riker, and no one dis­puted 
that.
The "race" continued for some minutes, and then for an hour. Every so often, the 
opposing vessel would scatter some­thing behind them: A plasma torpedo, or a 
bomb. But the Inde­pendence adroitly kept out of the way. Unfortunately, the 
Starship wasn't drawing close enough to do any serious dam­age with her own 
array of weaponry.
"Sir... we're approaching Thallonian space," said Man­kowski. "I know that she's 
been opened up ever since the col­lapse of the Thallonian Empire..."
"But there's still an 'approach with approval only' mandate on it. I know, Mr. 
Mankowski. But this is likely where they
were heading in hopes that we were going to break off pursuit. Are you 
interested in quitting the chase, Mr. Mankowski?"
"No, sir," Mankowski said with a grim smile.
"Maintain course and speed, then."
Riker found the give and take between the captain and his crew to be a bit 
amusing. Garfield was older than Picard, and yet he seemed to take a somewhat 
paternal air with his crew­men. It was a very different command style, and 
certainly not Riker's own during the times when he'd been in command, but it was 
certainly a viable one nonetheless.
"Engineering to bridge." A formal British accent came over the comm unit.
"Bridge. Garfield here," replied the captain. "Go ahead, Mr. McKean."
"Captain... may I inquire as to whether we will be reduc­ing velocity in the 
near future? I am uncertain whether I will be able to maintain maximum thrust 
for all that much longer."
"No promises, Mr. McKean."
"Sir, I'm not asking for a commitment. But I do wish to be able to provide the 
velocity you require if and when you re­quire it. As things stand, I am unable 
to guarantee said velocity will be yours for the asking. The warp core is, if 
you'll pardon my poetic language, complaining bitterly. All the velocity in the 
galaxy will be irrelevant if the ship has exploded."
"Understood, Mr. McKean."
"Captain!" Mankowski suddenly called. "The other ship is slowing down."
"Is she turning to fight?"
"Doesn't appear to be turning, no, sir. Perhaps their engines are overtaxed."
And from down in engineering, McKean could be heard muttering, "Perhaps their 
bloody captain listens to his engi­neering officer and reduces speed when 
reasonable."
It was all Riker could to do repress a grin. It was comforting to know that 
there were some universal constants, and chief engineers appeared to be one of 
them. For his part, Garfield kept a poker face as he said, "Mr. McKean, we still 
have an open channel."
"Oh." There was a pause, and then another, "Oh. Uhm... McKean out," and the 
connection was broken.
Turning back to business, Garfield said, "Bring us ahead slow, Mr. Mankowski. 
Let's see what we've got Monastero, open a channel."
"You're on, sir."
"Unidentified ship, this is the Independence. Please re­spond."
On the screen, the vessel they'd pursued all that way had come to a complete 
halt. She wasn't dead in space, but she wasn't taking any action at all. She 
just sat there.
And Riker couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Sir, I don't like this. With all 
respect..."
"No apologies necessary, Commander," Garfield said, rub­bing his chin 
thoughtfully. "I'm not sure I like it either. Smells like some sort of set-up."
"My thoughts exactly, sir."
"We can't exactly go running away from a ship we chased down this far, and which 
isn't even firing at us. But still..." He thought a moment and then said, 
"Sensors on maximum. Sweep the area."
"Sweeping, sir," said Mankowski. "Not picking up any­thing."
"Nothing on tactical sensor scans either," Monastero af­firmed.
"Checking the..." Suddenly Mankowski's voice caught. "Picking up an energy 
discharge, sir. Consistent with the pat­terns detected..." He turned and looked 
straight at the cap­tain. "... detected when a Romulan ship is decloaking, sir."
"Where?" demanded Garfield.
'To starboard, sir. At 813 Mark 2."
A moment later, everyone on the bridge saw that Mankows­ki was correct as a 
Romulan vessel shimmered into existence to the ship's starboard...
,.. and then, a moment later, to her port. In the meantime, the ship they'd been 
pursuing had come around. "Enemy ship approaching. They're weapons hot, sir," 
said Mankowski.
"Captain..." Riker said in a tone of warning.
Garfield surveyed the situation arrayed against them and nodded his head. "I 
believe it's time to make like a shepherd and get the flock out of here. Reverse 
course, Lieuten -- "
And then two more ships materialized, one forward and one
after. They were now completely surrounded by Romulan war-birds, all of them 
combat-ready with their weapons prepared to discharge.
Despite the fact mat they were overwhelmingly outnum­bered, Garfield did not 
appear the least bit perturbed. Instead, acting as if he still maintained the 
strategic advantage, he called out, "Attention all ships. This is the Starship 
Indepen­dence. The vessel we have been pursuing has illegally entered, and 
attacked, an outpost in Federation space. This is not your concern, and I 
strongly advise you to veer off before it's too late."
And then, to their surprise, a voice crackled back across the channel. It was a 
female voice, and the moment Riker heard it, a chill went down his spine. The 
voice said, hi a mocking tone, "Too late? Too late for whom? For us? Or for 
you?"
'This is Captain George Garfield. Identify yourself, please."
The image of the ships around them momentarily vanished from the screen, to be 
replaced by the face of a female Romu­lan. She had tightly cut blonde hair and 
an expression that seemed to radiate contempt. "Very well," she said. "We are 
the ones who are going to kill you. Is that sufficient identifi­cation ..."
Then her gaze flickered toward the officer seated in the counselor's chair, and 
her eyes went wide with sadistic delight. "Well, well. It's been ages, Will 
Riker."
"Sela," Riker said tersely.
Garfield didn't even pretend to understand what was going on. "Commander, do you 
know this... individual?"
"Her name is Sela. She's the half-Romulan daughter of a de­ceased woman from an 
alternate time line."
"Oh, well, that clears things up," Palumbo could be heard to mutter.
"If you know mis individual, then I suggest you advise her against any rash 
actions."
"You heard the man, Sela. Don't look for a fight where there need not be one. 
It's not as if you're in the best of relations with the Romulan government at 
the moment You can't afford any more military disasters."
"How kind of you to care about my well-being, Riker," Sela replied, "considering 
that all of my past 'disasters' can be
placed squarely at your door. But," she added thoughtfully, "you're right I 
don't need more blemishes on my record."
"As I said..."
"Instead, I need to blow you all to hell. All vessels," she called out, "you're 
tapping into this communication. Directly in the middle of us is one Will Riker. 
Let me tell you, I've been waiting to say this for ages." Her lips drew back in 
a feral smile of triumph. "Fire at Will."
And as the Romulan ships, as one, opened fire, Riker felt the world explode 
around him.
III.
it was the weekly poker game, and all the usual suspects were grouped around: 
Deanna, Data, Worf, and Geordi. As Riker studied his hand, Geordi leaned forward 
and said without pre­amble, "So there's this mighty sailing ship, a British 
frigate, cruising the Seven Seas, and one day the lookout shouts down from the 
crow's nest, 'Captain! Captain! There's two pirate ships heading our way! They 
mean to attack! What should we do?'And the captain, he says, 'Bring me my red 
shirt.' So they bring him his red shirt, he puts it on, and leads his men into 
battle. It's difficult, and there are a number of casualties, but they manage to 
beat back the pirates. That evening, after the survivors have gotten themselves 
bandaged up, they ask the captain why he called for his red shirt. And he says, 
'Because if I'm wounded and bleeding, I wouldn't want the sight of my blood to 
destroy the morale of my men. But if I'm wearing my red shin, no one will see 
it.' Well, the crew thought, 'Wow. What a captain,' "
By this point, every eye at the card table was on Geordi. He continued, "So the 
next day, another shout, even more worried, comes dawn from the crow's nest. And 
the lookout says, 'Cap­tain, my captain! There's ten pirate ships heading our 
way, and they mean to board us! What should we do?' The fright-
ened crew turns to their captain, but he doesn't flinch. He doesn't hesitate. 
And he calls out, 'Bring me ...my brown pants!' "
Laughter echoed around the worn, although Worf was natu­rally somewhat 
restrained. Even Data, thanks to his newly in­stalled emotion chip, was able to 
laugh in appreciation. Suddenly Geordi immediately stopped laughing as he looked 
at something over Riker's shoulder. Riker turned and promptly fell silent, as 
did the others.
Jean-Luc Picard was standing there. It was impossible to tell how long he'd been 
there, for he'd entered fairly quietly and everyone had been engrossed in the 
joke. It was also im­possible to tell what was going through his mind. He had a 
small, enigmatic smile, but that was no indicator. Picard had a standing 
invitation to join them for poker, but he almost never took them up on it. And 
of all times, that was the moment he had chosen to make an appearance at the 
game.
They all waited.
And at last, without the slightest change in expression, he said, "I don't think 
jokes about cowardly captains are very funny." With that observation hanging in 
the air, he turned and walked out.
Then the room jolted under Riker, tossing Troi, Worf, Data and Geordi to the 
floor, and the recollection dissolved into re­ality.
It took Riker a few more moments to sort die confusing real world from his 
recollection of times past. The jolt had been rather sudden and, when Riker had 
been thrown from his chair, he had hit his head rather severely. It had dazed 
him and sent his mind spiralling back to a time with his shipmates where, 
somehow, things had seemed simpler. But then, didn't times past always seem that 
way, no matter how complicated they were?
His lungs began to ache. He wondered why, and then the full realization of his 
situation imposed itself upon him. The bridge was thick with smoke.
The flame-retardant chemicals were already being released and were controlling 
the fire adequately enough, but that still didn't help the wreck that the bridge 
had become. It had all
happened so fast, so decisively, that it was difficult for Riker to fully grasp.
Then he saw Palumbo's unmoving body slumped backward in the chair, with half his 
scalp torn away and a huge metal shard buried in his skull, and the full reality 
of it sank in quite quickly.
His immediate impulse was to stop, to mourn, to dwell on how just hours before 
he had been chatting in relaxed and ca­sual fashion with this young man who had 
considered Riker someone to emulate. And now he was gone, just like that. No 
more aspirations, no more dreams. Nothing.
And the others, my God, the others. First Officer Morris was also gone, buried 
under a pile of debris that had broken loose from overhead.
Then Riker, from long practice, pushed such sentiments and concerns aside. There 
would be time enough later to mourn... presuming there was, in fact, a later.
Mankowski wasn't moving either, tilted back in his seat, his head slumped to one 
side. But he seemed to be breathing at least, albeit shallowly, and he was 
moaning softly. There was a streak of red down the side of his face, but 
apparently the wound was under his hair because Riker couldn't immediately 
discern it.
As for the captain... Garfield was unconscious. He was slumped over the ops 
console, and Riker realized that Garfield must have tried to take over when 
Palumbo went down. But there was only a blackened shell where the ops console 
had been. Apparently the entire thing had blown up in Garfield's face. His 
uniform was torn, his face was blackened, and there was blood everywhere. That 
Garfield was breathing at all was nothing short of miraculous.
"Commander..."
The voice came in a croak. Riker turned and saw Monastero, the security chief, 
rising from the wreckage like a ghost. "We've... got to get them out of here..."
"Report, Lieutenant," Riker said through cracked and bleed­ing lips. "Where are 
the attackers."
"We have to get out!" Monastero repeated.
"Give me an update, Mister!" Riker was starting to become irritated. Monastero 
appeared to be in shock.
"A report." Monastero pulled himself together and then fired a dark glare at 
Riker. "Sensors are down. We're dead in space. Impulse engines off line. 
Emergency distress signal has been activated. And thirty seconds ago, we got 
word from engineer­ing that there's a warp core breech."
"What? Riker to engineering." He wasn't quite sure that Monastero, who had a 
dazed look in his eye and appeared to have gone several rounds with a brick 
wall, was fully reliable. On the other hand, he was the only person still 
coherent on the bridge.
There was no response to Riker's hail. But at that moment, the computer voice of 
the Independence said with its custom­ary sang froid, "Warp core breech 
reported. Four minutes, eighteen seconds to final detonation. Evacuation of ship 
pro­ceeding ..."
Monastero spread his hands in a 'Told you so" gesture.
It was not a situation that gave Riker a warm, squooshy feel­ing. Outside the 
ship was an array of Romulan vessels, and he was quite certain that they weren't 
about to be sporting about the emergency situation. The only hope they had was 
that the Romulans had moved off upon detecting the rupture of the warp core. The 
explosion was going to be rather intense, and nobody wanted to be in the 
vicinity when it happened.
Of course, that included the crew of the Independence.
"Are the turbolifts functioning?" Riker asked. Monastero's look said it all. 
"No, of course not. That'd be too easy," Riker continued, answering his own 
question. "All right then." He hauled Mankowski out of the chair and draped him 
over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. "The captain. Get the captain."
Monastero was already ahead of him. He draped Garfield over his shoulder and 
headed for the emergency exit. Riker fol­lowed quickly, while the computer 
calmly informed them that in just four minutes, the ship they were presently 
residing in would be nothing more than a large patch of space dust.
When the Enterprise had suffered a warp breech, they had been able to separate 
the saucer section from her and make their escape that way. But that option was 
not open to the Indepen­dence. With the impulse drive down, the saucer section 
would have no means of propelling itself away from the blast area. They'd go up 
in a ball of fire the size of Topeka. The only hope
they had was the individual escape pods which would be able to hurtle away from 
the ship with sufficient speed to reach a safe distance from the explosion. At 
least, that was the theory.
Riker just prayed they were still functioning. The escape pods were on a 
separate, emergency system from the mainline computers, just for this sort of 
emergency. Still, with every­thing else down, who knew for sure? But there was 
no other option. It was either the escape pods or blow themselves out the photon 
torpedo tubes and pray that they suddenly devel­oped the ability to breathe in a 
vacuum.
Climbing through the emergency hatchways under ordinary circumstances was 
problematic enough. Doing so with the slumped body of Mankowski over him was 
particularly chal­lenging. Every so often Mankowski would flutter on the light 
side of consciousness, muttering something incoherent -- once it was something 
about a beautiful waltz, another time it relat­ed to triangles -- before passing 
out once more.
Monastero, for his part, was utterly stoic. He hauled his cap­tain to safety 
without complaint or even the slightest grunt. One would have thought he was 
carrying a bag of katha chips for all the effort he was displaying. He was 
definitely stronger than he looked.
They arrived at the lower deck which led to the nearest set of emergency pods. 
"Let's hope there's some left," said Riker.
"Let's hope a lot of things," replied Monastero.
They stumbled down the corridor, and Mankowski had re­covered enough of his wits 
to be able to haul his own weight. Garfield was still out cold. His color -- what 
was discernable of it beneath the burns -- did not look good. Riker was no doctor, 
but he gave Garfield a fifty-fifty chance at best. Then he spot­ted the sign, 
glowing in the half-light of the hallway, pointing the way to the escape pods. 
"There! This way!"
"I know that! It's my damned ship!" shot back Monastero.
They made it to the pods. Other crewmen were hurriedly launching themselves into 
space, but when they saw the cap­tain was there, several of them stopped what 
they were doing and helped load him into a pod. It was a gesture that Riker 
couldn't help but appreciate. They were placing the survival of their commanding 
officer above their own. That was a true measure of the mettle of Starfleet 
officers, particularly in a
time of crisis. Riker wished that the remaining pods allowed for more than one 
person; in his condition, the captain could really have used someone with him. 
But it simply wasn't an option.
"Captain away!" called Monastero. But rather than jump into a pod himself, he 
helped Riker load Mankowski into an escape pod. Only after that had been fired 
off into space did Monastero turn to head for his own means of escape. He paused 
for a moment, however, turned to face Riker, and -- de­spite the fact that such 
gestures were all-but-unknown any­more -- snapped off a crisp salute to Riker. The 
commander returned the gesture and then climbed into his own pod. He ran through 
the launch protocol as fast as he could, trying not to think about the dwindling 
time left to him. The seal slid into place, and Riker engaged the "eject" 
sequence. Seconds later, die escape pod shook violently around him, and the next 
thing Riker knew, he was watching the Independence spiral away from him.
Through the small viewing porthole of the pod, he couldn't believe the damage he 
was seeing once he was outside. There was scarcely a section of the ship that 
hadn't been scored or ruptured. Warp core breech? The amazing thing was that the 
Starship had held together for as long as it had. One warp na­celle had been 
blown away completely, and was hanging like a severed limb nearby the ship's 
hull. Air was venting into space, the seals having failed. Even the ship's name, 
etched proudly on the saucer, was covered with carbon scoring and was barely 
visible.
"Bastards,'' breathed Riker.
Then he saw the ship begin to tremble violently, and he real­ized that the 
moment of total destruction was very close. Un­fortunately, so was he. The 
escape pod was moving quickly, all right, but he wasn't confident that it was 
quick enough to put enough distance between himself and the ship.
And then, with a final shudder, much like a death throe, the engineering section 
of the Independence erupted. Riker looked away, partly from the emotion involved 
in seeing such a mag­nificent vessel destroyed, and also simply because such a 
deto­nation was blinding.
The unleashed energies of the all-consuming warp core en-
veloped the remains of the Independence like a high-speed cancer, and seconds 
later the ship was gone. In its place was a massive, dazzling blast, with a 
shock wave radiating from the midst of it that was overtaking Riker's escape pod 
with horri­fying ease.
Riker braced himself, and then the wave overwhelmed the escape pod. It propelled 
him, faster and faster, and Riker set his jaw and didn't cry out. He wasn't 
entirely certain why he felt the need to keep it in. It wasn't as if there was 
anyone around. But he kept his mouth sealed just the same, closing his eyes 
against the spin of the pod.
Throughout all of it, he was struck by the silence of it all. The blast happened 
in relative silence, and as he spun about in space, caught up in the force of 
the detonation, the main sound he was able to hear was that of his own breathing 
... and pos­sibly the pounding of his own heart. He braced himself within the 
pod, grasping the grips on either side to steady himself. He felt his gorge 
rising and pushed it back down. The last thing he needed to do was vomit in the 
confined space of the escape pod.
The momentum continued to carry him as he rode me crest of the wave, tumbling 
end over end, and the incandescence was simply overwhelming. He was shoved 
along, a pebble at the edge of a wave. Images flashed before him, people he 
loved, people he'd worked with, people long gone and people he wondered if he'd 
ever see again. He realized his Me was flashing before his eyes and all he could 
think was, How terri­bly cliche.
It was only belatedly that he realized the light was fading. He peered through 
the viewport and saw that the explosion was dissipating. He had made it, had 
tumbled beyond the blast range. There were some other pods within his field of 
vision, but it was impossible to tell who it was or how many of the crew had 
survived.
Now mat he was clear, he activated the pod's propulsion system. It wasn't as if 
the escape pod had a ton of maneuver­ability. To be specific, when compared to 
the propulsion and maneuver capacities of a Starship, the pod was equipped with 
little more than a pair of oars. Then again, since the pod really was a 
glorified lifeboat, that was fairly appropriate.
The problem was, there wasn't really any place for Riker to head to. He wasn't 
situated near any planet... and even if he was, there wouldn't be any guarantee 
that it would have been hospitable. Up to that point, he'd been more reacting 
than act­ing. The idea had been to get away from the dying Starship rather man 
be concerned about getting to someplace. Now his main concern was steadying 
himself and returning to the other pods. If there were a hospitable planet in 
the area, then the smart thing to do would be to head there as quickly as 
possi­ble, touch down, and wait for rescue. But with nothing around and Riker 
uncertain precisely where they were, the only rea­sonable thing to do was keep 
together as a group and hope that a ship responded to the rescue call that had 
been sent out...
Just as we responded to a rescue call, Riker thought rueful­ly. Well, this 
rescue mission had turned out just wonderfully, hadn't it.
He saw a cluster of escape pods floating to his right, and was about to try and 
open up a comm channel so mat he could discern who it was...
... and that was when a huge burst of light detonated. Re­flexively he shielded 
his eyes. He didn't even have to look, though, to know what had just happened.
They were moving in, vultures converging on a wounded and helpless herd. Two 
Romulan cruisers were coming in. Only two, he realized. Obviously the 
Independence had not gone out without giving a good account of herself. The 
other warbirds, as well as the ship they'd been pursuing, had either been 
destroyed or else so badly shot up that they had had to re­turn to home 
base -- wherever that was -- for repairs.
Unfortunately, two warbirds were going to be more man enough to handle the life 
pods. In fact, considering that the pods were for life maintenance only and 
contained no offen­sive capacity, a single Romulan warrior with a phaser cannon 
could probably dispose of them handily. So two warbirds, in this instance, was 
overkill.
They were taking their time, the damned sadists. They began fine-tuning their 
shots; instead of disposing of a group of pods, as one of the ships had just 
done, they started picking mem off one at a time. Target practice, thought an 
infuriated Riker. They want to drag it out, have some "fun." Naturally they
weren't interested in rescuing any of them. Romulans habitual­ly did not take 
prisoners. The only time they had that Riker knew of was the imprisonment of 
Tasha Yar which had resulted in the birth of Sela, and apparently that had been 
a rather unique set of circumstances.
He wondered if Sela was aboard one of the ships now, or whether she had been on 
one of the ones that was crippled or destroyed. "She's there," Riker muttered. 
"She's definitely out there, taking her time, making us suffer. That's her 
style."
Another pod picked off, and another still. There was no way for them to know who 
was in which pod. There was no mis­sion to try and seek out particular 
individuals. It was simply an exercise in barbarism.
"Selaaaa!" Riker shouted, even though she couldn't hear. Even though no one 
could hear. "Sela... I'll find you! Even after I'm dead, I'll still find you, 
and drag you kicking and screaming to whatever hell you're destined for!"
One of the Romulan warbirds slowly started to turn in bis direction. A more 
fanciful turn of mind would have prompted Riker to mink mat Sela was hi that 
ship, and that she had heard him. And that she was about to give her reply hi 
the form of phasers aimed right down his throat. At that moment, he thought 
about the joke. About being faced with a situation where the odds were utterly 
hopeless.
Never, in all his career, had Riker been as close to death as he was at that 
moment A Romulan warbird staring at him, her weapons fully charged and ready, 
and he had no means of es­cape, no ability to defend himself. Nothing. He was a 
sitting duck. And it was just he in the pod. He was faced with the mo­ment of 
his death, and if he cried out, or sobbed, or broke down in frustration, or 
shouted out curses at the unfair universe that had left him hi such due 
straits... no one would ever know.
He levelled his gaze straight at the warbird's gunport... and then he 
straightened his uniform jacket, tugging down on the bottom to smooth it.
"Farewell... Imzadi," he said to one who was not mere. Then he tilted his chin 
slightly, like a prize fighter daring a challenger, and he said, "Take your best 
shot."
It wasn't a phaser that the warbird fired, as it tinned out ft
was a photon torpedo, and it streaked from the ship's underbel­ly straight at 
Riker. There was absolutely no way that it could miss. Through the silence it 
came at him, and within a second or two, it would blow him to bits.
At least it would have... had not a phaser blast lanced down from overhead, 
spearing the photon torpedo with surgi­cal precision and detonating it while it 
was still a good five hundred yards from the pod.
"What in the -- ?" said a confused Riker, which was no doubt what they were saying 
aboard the warbird as well. A shadow was cast over them as something blotted out 
the light from the nearest star.
Down the Starship flew, normal space twisting and roiling around it as the 
mighty vessel leaped out of warp, firing as it came.
If the warbird could have let out a shriek of surprise, like a genuine bird, it 
would have. The warbird literally back-flipped out of the way as the new arrival 
unleashed another phaser barrage that clipped the warbird's warp nacelles. Riker 
was impressed at the precision. Whoever was manning tactical aboard the Starship 
unquestionably knew what he was about.
The other warbird peeled off from its steady annihilation of the life pods and 
opened fire on the Starship. The warbird's phaser blasts danced around the 
Starship's shields, even as the Starship returned fire with a photon torpedo 
barrage that brack­eted the warbird, leaving it no where to go, keeping it in 
posi­tion for another well-placed phaser blast.
The first warbird tried to move upon the Starship, operating in tandem with its 
mate, but the Starship would have none of it. In what had to be the most insane 
maneuver that Riker had ever witnessed, the Starship actually barrel-rolled via 
thrusters. As it did so, it unleashed phaser fire that pinwheeled around it, 
tracing such a bizarre arc that the warbirds didn't know where to maneuver in 
order to avoid them.
" Who the hell is flying that thing ?! " Riker said in shock.
The first warbird moved in the wrong direction and paid dearly for it as the 
phasers sliced straight across her underbel­ly, slashing through what remained 
of the warbird's shields. A plume of flame blossomed from the ship's lower 
decks. Natu-
rally die vacuum of space quickly snuffed it out, but it didn't matter as the 
interior of the ship blew apart Pieces of warbird scattered everywhere, all in 
eerie silence.
The second warbird, seeing the fate that had overtaken the first one, apparently 
didn't need to see anymore. It whipped around and, seconds later, had leaped 
into warp space and was gone. If it had so chosen, the Starship could have gone 
after it, but much to Riker's relief, it chose to stay and attend to the 
floating life pods.
The ship slowly cruised over him, and he was finally able to make out the name 
of the vessel as it drew near enough: U.S.S. Excalibur.
"I should have known," Riker said. Indeed, he should have. The Excalibur was the 
primary Starship that had been assigned to Thallonian space. Still, considering 
they weren't that far into Thallonian territory -- indeed, that they were 
relatively close to the borders of Federation space -- the rescuer could have been 
anyone. However, it was cosmically ironic that it was the Excalibur because it 
meant that, any moment, he'd likely be hearing the voice of -- 
"All lifepods, this is Excalibur, Commander Shelby speak­ing," a familiar voice 
came over the pod's speaker system. "We'll be beaming you all aboard 
momentarily. Please be pa­tient"
"Shelby. Naturally it would be Shelby," Riker said.
To his surprise, her voice came right back at him over the comm. "Commander 
Riker... is that you?"
He blinked. He'd been unaware that the two-way was on, bat he realized somewhat 
belatedly that it was. Still, consider­ing that Shelby had likely gotten 
numerous responses to her opening hail from other escape pods, it was nothing 
short of amazing that she'd been able to single out his voice.
"It's me, Commander."
"Hold on." Clearly she was busy getting a track as to which pod his transmission 
was coming from. "My God," she said after a moment, "you're in the one mat we 
intercepted the tor­pedo for."
"That would be me, yes. Kudos to the timing of you and your CO."
"I just wish we could have gotten here sooner."
"So do I," he said regretfully, thinking about the crewmen who had been lost.
Suddenly the pod seemed to dematerialize around him, and then he found himself 
standing on a transporter pad with a number of other shaken-looking former 
crewmembers of the Independence. Elizabeth Paula Shelby, who had served under 
Riker as his second-in-command when he'd captained the En­terprise against a 
Borg invasion, was standing in the trans­porter room with her hands draped 
behind her back. "Welcome, all of you," she said briskly. "Please report to 
sick­bay immediately. We have a medteam just outside who will es­cort you down."
There were murmurs of "Thank you" as me crewmen filed out. The last one out was 
Riker, who stopped within a foot or two of Shelby. "Be certain to tell me as 
soon as you have Cap­tain Garfield's status confirmed... whatever that might 
be."
"I certainly will. It shouldn't take too long to find out. We're utilizing all 
the transporter rooms to bring the rest of them aboard even as we speak," she 
said.
He nodded.
She actually smiled. "It's good to see you again, Comman­der," and she sounded 
like she meant it. Considering that she and Riker had spent most of their time 
at each other's throats the last time they'd served together, he considered that 
a gen­uine compliment.
"Good to see you too, Commander," he replied. "For a little while there, I 
thought I wasn't going to be seeing anyone again."
"It must have been terrifying when that thing had you target­ed."
He gave it a moment's thought and then said, "Well... at least I didn't need my 
brown pants."
She stared at him. "Oh. Well... good. That would... clash with your uniform 
top."
He nodded and walked out, as Shelby stared after him and scratched her head in 
obvious confusion.
IV.
captain mackenzie calhoun was sitting behind his desk squeezing two small, green 
rubber balls together when Com­mander Shelby entered. She stared at him for a 
short time and then asked, "What are you doing?"
"Relieving tension," he said.
She watched him for a moment longer. "Squeezing those re­lieves tension?"
"Absolutely. A friend got them for me, many years ago. Would you care to try?" 
He held up his hands, and there was a green ball in either one. They were fairly 
small, but the rubber was sturdy and was able to withstand pressure with 
relative ease.
"No. Thank you."
"Because you look tense."
"I'm not tense."
"You look it."
"Mac ... I'm not tense."
"All right." He leaned back in his chair. "So... bring me up to date."
"We managed to rescue 374 crewmen. The rest either died during the initial 
Romulan attack, or else when the two ships returned and starting picking people 
off. Starfleet has been in-
formed and has told me that they'll be sending a transport. We're supposed to be 
hearing back from them once they've finned up the rendezvous point"
Calhoun shook his head. His face was fairly impassive, which was not unusual for 
him; he didn't tend to keep his emo­tions up near the surface for casual 
display. But the disgust was evident nonetheless. "Not honorable. Picking off 
helpless peo­ple. Not honorable at all."
"The Romulans don't particularly care about such things as honor."
"They used to." He put the balls down on the desk and tapped his computer 
console. "I've been doing some research. They've always been in opposition to 
the Federation... but they used to be far more honorable than they are now. It's 
very odd. The Romulans used to focus on honor, while the Klin­gons were the 
dastardly race you wouldn't dare turn your back on. But they've switched places 
in their racial conduct Curious."
"You can find it curious if you want. What I want to know," and she sat down 
opposite him, "is what they were doing out here in Thallonian space."
"So would I." He considered the question. "The Indepen­dence was lured here by 
that unknown ship they were chasing. The Romulans were waiting for mem. Which 
suggests one of two things: Either the vessel they were chasing signalled ahead, 
picked this area at random, and instructed the Romulans to rendezvous here. Or 
else..."
"Or else the Romulans have a base somewhere hereabouts, and this was a 
pre-arranged rendezvous point" finished Shel-by. "If that's the case... we 
should find it."
"Excellent idea. Considering that space is infinite in all di­rections, which 
way do you suggest we look first?"
"I never pretend to have all the answers, Mac. I leave that to captains."
He smiled thinly and then shifted gears. "Speaking of that... how is the captain 
of the Independence? Or at least what was the Independence"
"He'll live. He was one of the lucky ones, actually, to have survived that 
shooting gallery from the Romulans."
"They'll pay for that," Calhoun said with quiet conviction.
'It's not the job of the Excalibur to carry out acts of re­venge."
When he'd spoken earlier, he had been staring off into space, but now Calhoun 
swivelled his head so that the gaze from his purple eyes was squarely levelled 
upon Shelby. "Don't kid me, Eppy," using the nickname -- a collapsing of Elizabeth 
and Paula -- that he knew so irritated her. "If we find ourselves in a battle 
situation with the warbird that got away, or that ship they were chasing, you'll 
be hoping I blow them out of space. You know it. I know it"
"That's the difference between us, Mac," she said softly, even a little sadly. 
"I wouldn't revel in it Two wrongs don't make a right."
"Yes. They do."
"But -- "
"They do," he told her firmly. "Someone commits a wrong, a wrong is committed 
against them in turn... mat comes out right"
"I'm speaking from a moral point of view, Mac."
"So am I," he said mildly. "That's the joy of morals. They're not absolute."
"There are absolute standards of right and wrong, Mac."
"You should know better than mat, Eppy. Physics are ab­solute. But anything that 
man can conceive from his own skull is up for debate."
"You see, Mac... you would think that Because you're someone who thinks that 
rules apply to you when you feel like it but can be discarded when you consider 
mem an inconve­nience."
"Not always."
"No. Not always. Sometimes you have your moments. Sometimes you realize the 
importance of regs. I like to think mat I've contributed to that somewhat. But 
most of the time..." She shook her head and let out a long, exaggerated sigh. 
"Sometimes, Mac, I just don't know."
"Fortunately enough, I do. But then again, I am a captain. As you said, either I 
know, or pretend that I do." He paused and eyed her in a slightly amused manner. 
"So... getting reacquainted?"
"What?"
"With Commander Riker."
"Oh. Him." Shelby absentmindedly picked up one of the green balls and started 
squeezing it. "There's not that much to get reacquainted about."
"Really." He drummed his fingers on his desk. "From what I've heard, the two of 
you had some interesting chemistry to­gether."
"Chemistry? We didn't have chemistry, Mac. We had fights. Riker is ..." She 
shook her head and squeezed the ball tighter.
"Riker is what?"
"Oh, he's an arrogant ass. So self-satisfied, so smug. Spends his entire career 
hanging onto Jean-Luc Picard's coattails. Now Picard, there's a quality 
officer... as you well know. And Riker, he thinks he's the moon to Picard's sun, 
basking in the reflected glory."
"Very harsh, Commander. From what I've read, he handled himself in exemplary 
fashion during the Borg encounter when Picard was assimilated."
"He had his moments, I suppose. But it's..."
It's what?" He cocked an eyebrow. "Eppy?"
"He's got potential, all right? Potential. There's something there. Possible 
greatness." She was speaking all in a rush, the words tumbling one over the 
other. It was hard to tell whether she was angry or frustrated or sad or some 
combination of all those. "I can tell. I can tell these things because I've just 
got a knack for it. He could be one of the great ones, one of the truly 
legendary captains..."
"But I thought you said -- "
"He's got to come out from Picard's shadow, though!" she said in frustration, as 
if Mac hadn't spoken. "I don't know why he's so satisfied to hide there! And 
when you talk to him about it, he gets all defensive and his jaw gets so tight 
and his eyes get all hard while the edges crinkle up..."
"Oh, do they?"
"But he's just so... so... so..." Her voice became louder , and a bit more 
shrill with every word."... so... so..."
The ball popped.
Shelby jumped back in her chair, startled by the sound and reflexively her hand 
flipped the broken rubber shell away from her. It "thwapped" onto Calhoun's desk 
rather pathetically.
Calhoun stared at it and then, as if handling a rotting carcass, he picked it up 
delicately between his thumb and forefinger. "I've had the set for nine years. I 
didn't think it was possible to do this."
When Riker entered sickbay to check on Captain Garfield, he was momentarily 
surprised to see Doctor Selar checking over one of the Independence crewmembers. 
He remembered her from her time on the Enterprise, and hadn't been aware that 
her new assignment was the Excalibur. He remembered mat he'd always been quite 
impressed with her. She didn't have the most delicate bedside manner, but she 
was a superb diagnostician and extremely efficient. Plus, because she was a 
Vulcan, she had the customary Vulcan reserve.
He walked up behind her and said, by way of greeting, "Doctor Selar..."
"What do you want?!"
He had never, in his life, heard a Vulcan speak above normal conversational 
tone, much less have one bellow at him. And it had been, to put it delicately, 
completely unprovoked. And the oddest thing was probably the fact that no one in 
sickbay seemed to feel that this was behavior that was remotely unusu­al for a 
CMO, let alone a Vulcan.
Remembering the accelerated strength that Vulcans pos­sessed, to say nothing of 
such techniques as the Vulcan nerve pinch, Riker suddenly felt that it would 
probably be wiser for him to take a few steps back. He promptly did so. Selar 
had now turned to face him and was staring at him with no hint of recognition.
"Doctor... Selar? Commander Riker. Will Riker. We... worked together."
"I am aware of who you are, Commander," she said. "I am also aware that we 
served together aboard the Enterprise. I am further aware that I have been 
working steadily since the ar­rival of the survivors from the Independence. 
Fortunately I do not require rest and relaxation as humans do. Lack of sleep has 
absolutely no effect on me whatsoever. What does have an im­pact upon me is 
people engaging me in pointless discussion, social niceties, and significant 
wastes of my time. If you con­sider it a possibility that you fall into any of 
those categories,
you might want to reconsider your apparent interest in engag­ing me in extended 
social intercourse."
"Doctor," Riker said slowly, "I know this isn't my ship. I know I'm a visitor 
here. But nonetheless... I still outrank you... and that rank, to say nothing of 
simple common cour­tesy, should afford me a degree of respect. Respect that I 
don't see happening here. Now I'm not entirely sure what you think I've done to 
deserve mis sort of brusque and, frankly, rude treatment. But I suggest you 
either tell me what's going on, or -- "
"I am not interested in your ultimatums, Commander. Nor do I wish to discuss my 
personal affairs. Kindly tell me what you desire by coming here, or please 
leave."
"I'm looking for Captain Garfield."
"There." She pointed to a bed in the far corner and, sure enough, there was 
Garfield lying there, looking somewhat bat­tered and bruised but most definitely 
alive. His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling regularly.
Riker was about to say a curt "thank you" but Selar had al­ready moved off. 
Shaking his head, Riker walked over to Garfield and stood over him.
"That you, Commander?" Garfield's eyes opened to narrow slits. His voice sounded 
raspy.
"Yes, sir."
"Sony... we weren't able to give you that smooth ride I promised you."
"Don't worry, Captain. I won't hold it against you."
Garfield stared off into space.
"Captain... ?"
"I once met a captain... in a place... a special place," and he didn't quite 
smile, but it seemed to bring back pleasant memories. "A place for captains. 
Perhaps you'll go there sometime. We would sit around... tell stories... and one 
evening... me subject became losing a command. Different captains talked about 
it... but it wasn't addressed with the usual enthusiasm that usually involved 
discussions at this ... particular place. And eventually... it got rather quiet. 
Quiet throughout the entire place, as it never had been before. And someone 
turned to me... and asked me if I'd ever experi­enced ... such a loss. And I 
said I hadn't. That I was totally ig-
norant of what it was like. They looked at one another, the other captains did, 
and then they raised their glasses and, al­most as one, they chorused, To 
ignorance.' They hoped that I would never have to go through it. But I'm afraid 
that I've had to disappoint them."
"Sir, it wasn't -- "
He held up a cautionary ringer to silence him. "If the next two words out of 
your mouth are going to be 'your fault,' I would suggest you keep them to 
yourself. It's always the cap­tain's fault, commander. Always. No matter what 
boards of in­quiry may decide. No matter what others may say. Do you know why 
captains are supposed to go down with their ship? It's so we don't have to 
listen to well-meaning individuals telling us it's not our fault. Because it is 
always ... the cap­tain's ... fault."
It was as if he'd expended all his remaining energy just to get those words out. 
Then his head slumped back and he closed his eyes. For just a moment, Riker was 
about to shout an alarm, but then he glanced up at the scanner mounted on the 
wall and he saw that the readings were steady. He had simply fallen back to 
sleep.
"He appears to be resting comfortably."
Riker literally didn't recognize the voice at first as he turned to see Dr. 
Selar standing at his arm. "Yesss ..." he said cau­tiously.
"It was very traumatic for him. We have him slightly med­icated to ease him 
through... but not excessively."
He tilted his head slightly as if needing to make sure that he was talking to 
the same person he'd been addressing before. "Doctor Selar... ?"
"Yes? Is there a problem, Commander?"
Her attitude and disposition had completely changed. Gone was the edge of anger, 
the snappishness, the impatience. Now she was a standard-issue, matter-of-fact 
Vulcan.
"I... don't know. Is there a problem?"
For answer, she looked not at Riker, but at the bio-readouts over Garfield's 
bed. "No," she said after studying it a moment. "There does not appear to be. 
However," and she looked back to Riker, "if you believe there is one, please do 
not hesitate to inform me. Good day." All-business, she moved on to the next
diagnostic table, leaving an utterly perplexed Riker literally shaking his head.
The doors to the Medlab hissed open, and Commander Shel-by entered. "Commander 
Riker," she called.
"Yes, Commander?"
"I was just informed by the captain that we're receiving an incoming message 
from Starfleet, and apparently our presence has been requested."
"And you came down to get me yourself?"
"I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop by."
"I see. Very considerate of you." He headed for the door, stopping only to nod 
slightly to Doctor Selar and say, "Doc­tor."
"Commander," she nodded in acknowledgment as she went about her business.
Riker and Shelby headed down the corridor and into a turbo­lift. Waiting until 
the door had slid shut and they had privacy, Riker turned to Shelby and said, 
"Would you mind telling me what the hell is Doctor Selar's problem?"
"Problem? Oh," she said as if just realizing, "the mood swings."
"Is that what those were? It's not Bendii, is it?
"No. Pregnancy. And when the father is a slightly flighty Hermat, with whom the 
doctor has formed a close psychic bond due to their intimacy which has permeated 
her entire per­sonality, well..."
"Wait a minute. She's pregnant?"
"Yes."
"But the father is a Hermat?"
"That's right."
"Hennats ... that race that has both male and female -- "
"Correct again."
"And they've formed a psychic bond because ... ?"
"Of reasons too complicated and, frankly, delicate to go into."
"I'm afraid that's not good enough."
She had looked amused at the situation up until that point. But now she studied 
Riker as if he were a single-celled organ­ism under a microscope and said, "I'm 
afraid it's more than good enough. I remind you, Commander, that Captain Calhoun
is in charge of this vessel, and not you. You are simply a visitor... a refugee, 
if you will. Captain Calhoun obviously feels that Doctor Selar is capable of 
carrying out her duties. His judgment is not only to be respected, but 
particularly in your case, it's not to be second-guessed. Do I make myself 
clear, Commander?"
"Commander," and he folded his arms across his broad chest, "I am not about to 
try and undercut a CO. But by the same token, I will speak my mind where I see 
fit."
"You do that. And of course, if you wish to show us the best way to go about 
running a ship, you can just head back to the ship that you're commanding ... 
oh! Wait!" She slapped her forehead with her open palm as if she had just 
recalled some­thing fairly crucial. "That's right. You don't have a command of 
your own. Do you? Perhaps the next time one is offered you, it would be in your 
best interests to take it, because soon­er or later, they'll stop offering."
Riker said nothing, but he couldn't help but feel that the temperature in the 
turbolift had just dropped rather precipi­tously.
Calhoun glanced up as Riker and Shelby entered the cap­tain's ready room. They 
walked in several feet, both stopped, smiled gamely in perfect unison, and stood 
at parade rest. He looked from one to the other.
"Have a tiff, did we?" he inquired.
"Simply a spirited discussion, sir," Shelby said. Riker nod­ded slightly in 
affirmation.
"Mm hmm." Believing that it would probably be wiser not to pursue it, he called 
out, "Bridge to Lefler. We're ready. Put the comm through."
When the face of the Starfleet officer calling them came on screen, no one could 
have been more surprised than Calhoun. He hadn't been expecting anyone in 
particular, and yet, despite that, this was the last person he was expecting.
One would not, however, have had any inkling of his aston­ishment from his 
voice. Instead, without blinking an eye, he said, "Admiral Nechayev. A pleasure 
as always. I wasn't ex­pecting to hear from you. This business is a bit outside 
your normal purview, isn't it?"
Nechayev looked a bit older than when he'd last seen her. A little jowlier, a 
little grayer. He'd always been impressed how little the strains of her job 
seemed to weigh on her, but he had to assume that time caught up with 
everyone... even the Iron Woman of Starfleet. "My purview tends to expand as the 
need arises," she said drily. "Commander Riker, it's good to see you hale and 
whole. Your loss would have been a terrible blow to the public relations plans 
for the bicentennial."
Riker bowed slightly at the waist. "I appreciate your con­cern, Admiral."
"There's humanitarian concerns as well, of course, plus Starfleet's interest in 
the money they've invested in you as an officer... but those worries would 
likely be outside my purview, and I wouldn't want to tempt Captain Calhoun's 
wrath."
Calhoun noticed Shelby hiding a smile behind her hand, but he chose not to 
comment on it.
Quickly becoming all-business, Nechayev said, "And how is Captain Garfield?"
'1 believe Commander Riker was the last one to speak with him." Calhoun 
half-turned in his chair and looked to Riker.
Riker nodded briskly. "If anything, I'd say he's somewhat in shock."
"If he weren't, I'd think there's something wrong with him. Poor George. A good 
man. He, and his crew, deserved better man this." She shook her head, a grim 
expression on her face. Then she continued, "A transport is under way, Captain, 
as promised. You will leave Thallonian space and proceed to Deep Space 4, where 
you will discharge your passengers. And you, captain, will join them."
There was a brief moment of unspoken confusion in the ready room. "I'm sorry... 
say again, Admiral?" said Calhoun. "I'm joining them on Deep Space 47"
"That is correct"
"And the Excalibur is to remain on station for how long?"
"She is not to wait for you. I will be meeting with you on DS4, to discuss a 
matter of some urgency. The Excalibur is to return immediately to Thallonian 
space and continue the inves­tigation of this Romulan attack. We've put our best 
people on it, and they've come up with one or two possibilities: Either it
was random chance that the Romulans intercepted the Inde­pendence where they 
did, or else there's a secret Romulan stronghold somewhere in Thallonian space."
"Thank heavens we had the best minds in Starfleet to come up with that," Shelby 
commented. The remark was, of course, not lost on Calhoun. He knew perfectly 
well that Shelby had come to the exact same conclusions all on her own. It was 
probably Elizabeth's greatest curse, he decided, to feel that she was 
consistently undervalued as an officer. Not only was she hungry for her own 
command and feeling thwarted that she hadn't received it yet, but he knew that 
she still felt a certain degree of "exile" in her current post as 
second-in-command to Calhoun. She believed she was ready for a command of her 
own, and truth to tell, so did Calhoun. That didn't stop him from valuing her 
contributions and presence as first officer. There was probably no one else in 
Starfleet whose advice Cal­houn would readily listen to, even though he 
frequently gave Shelby the impression mat he was hardly attending to anything 
she said.
"Either way," Nechayev was saying, "we want the Excalibur to look into the 
matter and see what you can discern either way."
"How long will I be away from her?" Calhoun asked.
"Impossible to say at this point."
But Calhoun wasn't really listening to what she was saying. Instead he was 
attending to what she wasn't saying... and it spoke volumes.
Some years earlier, Calhoun had departed Starfleet under rather acrimonious 
circumstances. It had been Nechayev who had seen a potential waste of material 
and had drafted Calhoun to work freelance for The Division of Starfleet 
Intelligence, that she oversaw. Her connection to SI was not widely known. She 
had other, more prominent and promoted duties to which she attended, most of 
which simply served as cover for her SI responsibilities. After all, it wouldn't 
do for any communique' from Nechayev's office to immediately carry with it a 
likeli­hood that there was something going on with Starfleet Intelli­gence. 
Notoriety is counterproductive to secrecy.
But Calhoun, who had done a number of jobs for her on "his own," knew all too 
well. He also knew that DS4 was an out-
post station for SI, another fact that was neatly hidden from the public at 
large. If Nechayev was meeting him there, it was be­cause she wanted to assign 
him to something. He wasn't espe­cially sanguine about it, considering those 
days long behind him. But he was also aware that if Nechayev had targeted him 
for an SI assignment, then there had to be a pretty damned good reason. She 
wouldn't be removing him as captain merely on a whim. He trusted her judgment 
that much, at least. Still... he was beginning to wonder whether this might 
actu­ally be a precursor to an extended departure from the Excal-ibur, or even a 
permanent loss of command as Starfleet arbitrarily decided that his talents 
could better be served else­where than the bridge of a Starship.
As if reading his mind -- which he was convinced Nechayev was actually capable, on 
occasion, of doing -- Nechayev smiled and added, "Don't worry, captain. It won't be 
indefinite. Sim­ply a matter mat needs to be attended to. You'll be back with 
your ship as soon as possible."
"Very well." Although his next remark was addressed to Nechayev, he was looking 
at Shelby when he said it. "I have every confidence that the Excalibur will be 
in good hands dur­ing my absence." Shelby inclined her head slightly in response 
as if to say, Thank you.
"As are we," Nechayev said. "Commander Riker has proven his capability time and 
again, and we are certain he won't dis­appoint us mis time, either."
The words hung there. Of everyone in the room, it was Riker who seemed the most 
astounded. "Admiral... I as­sumed that I would be departing on DS4, to head back 
for the bicentennial..."
"Never assume, Commander. It makes an ass of 'u' and 'me.' Well... not of me, in 
this case, but you get the idea. Did they never teach you that at the Academy?"
"Yes, they did, but I..."
The simple fact, Commander, is mat we're taking advantage of your presence mere. 
You not only have more experience with Romulans man does Commander Shelby, but 
you're certainly the most familiar with the operative named Sela. You know how 
she thinks, how she plans... you can likely second-guess her strategies. You 
will receive a field promotion to 'captain' for the
duration of your stay aboard the Excalibur, and assume com­mand as soon as 
Captain Calhoun has departed."
"But Admiral, I..." He glanced at Shelby, whose face was a mask, and said, "it's 
my belief that Commander Shelby is per­fectly capable..."
"That is my belief as well. But I believe you to be more so, and intend to 
exploit that. Commander Riker," and there was just a hint of warning in her 
voice, "are you turning down a command... again?"
There was a momentary silence, and men Riker drew him­self up and said crisply, 
"No, ma'am."
"I'm glad to hear it. Captain Calhoun, I shall see you short­ly. Captain 
Riker... good luck and good hunting. And if you have any difficulties, I know we 
can count on Commander Shelby to give you full back-up."
"Absolutely, ma'am," Shelby said without hesitation.
"Starfleet out."
No one said anything for a time, and then Calhoun said, "Commander... I'm sorry, 
Captain... Riker... since appar­ently you'll be here for a time, I suggest you 
go down to ship's stores and obtain some things you might need, considering that 
whatever possessions you were travelling with were blown up. Some off-duty 
clothing, toothbrush, that sort of thing. I'll have Miss Lefler give you a more 
detailed tour of the ship at your earliest convenience, and introduce you to 
some of the key per­sonnel. We're a rather... relaxed group around here. I'm 
sure you'll fit right hi."
"I'm sure I will, sir."
"Dismissed."
Riker turned and left. Shelby didn't even glance after him. Instead her gaze was 
focused on the now-blank screen that Nechayev had been on moments later.
"Are you going to be all right, Elizabeth?" he asked with as much genuine 
concern as he could get into his voice.
"Not... immediately. In a while, perhaps... but not imme­diately."
She stopped talking and simply stood there, still staring at the screen. She 
didn't seem to show any inclination to leave, but she appeared so seized with 
contained rage that she couldn't quite figure out the best way to move.
Calhoun picked up the remaining green ball. "In point of fact," he said slowly, 
"it was Nechayev who gave me these... well... this. Would you care to... ?" He 
extended the ball to her.
She took it from him, stared at it for a moment Then, her face twisted into a 
picture of silent fury, she cocked her arm, and let fly.
The ball struck the monitor screen, ricocheted back, and Shelby had to duck to 
avoid being struck in the head. The ball bounced back from the far wall and 
landed squarely in Cal-houn's hand.
Slowly Calhoun stood up from behind his desk and stared down at Shelby, who sat, 
shaking her head. "I actually as­sumed you were simply going to squeeze it. But, 
as the lady said, never assume." He waited for response and, when he didn't get 
one immediately, ventured to add, "Not your day, is it, Eppy."
"Not my lifetime, Mac. Not my lifetime."
V.
the pubs of argelius ii were reputed to have the absolutely best dancers in the 
entire quadrant, and it was there that Zolon Darg had journeyed as part of what 
had become his eternal quest He was looking for a dancer who would expunge the 
memories of... her.
After all this time, the recollection of Vandelia still remained with him. When 
he closed his eyes, he could see the curves and tines of her body. He could see 
her breasts upthrust. He could see the saucy smile, the come-hither look in her 
eyes, the temp­tation and raw sex that radiated from her body with the clarity 
of tight from a star. And most important of all he could see his hands at her 
throat strangling her for the way that she had turned on bun, tricked him, 
brought down his entire operation in flames around his head. Her and that friend 
of hers, that "Mac."
Darg had many friends and a long reach, but Vandelia was still just one person, 
and it was a big galaxy with lots of places to hide if one was so inclined. She 
had probably changed her name, perhaps even left the quadrant entirely. Who knew 
for sure? If she'd taken it into her head, she might even have booked passage on 
a ship and gone through the Bajoran worm­hole into the Delta quadrant to explore 
new territories and pos­sibilities there. Who knew? Who cared?
He cared. She was a dangling loose end that he hoped he would one day be able to 
tie off, and he would do so by tying it off around her neck.
In the meantime, this dancer that he was now watching was a pleasant enough 
diversion.
She was not Orion, by any means. Her skin was milky white, for starters, and her 
long black hair managed to tantaliz-ingly cover her bare breasts at all times. 
It was somewhat amazing, really. She went by the name of Kat'leen, and her 
gy­rating body was a joy to behold. Her stomach was remarkably muscled, and her 
legs seemed to go on forever. She kept time in her dance with small finger 
cymbals, and an enthusiastic drummer pounded away nearby. Darg found himself 
uncon­sciously keeping time with a steady beat on the table.
He fingered the glass on the table and realized, with a dis­tant disappointment, 
that it was empty. "Shunabo, get me an­other drink," he ordered to his 
second-in-command, and then came to the hazy recollection that Shunabo wasn't 
there, most­ly due to the fact that -- in a fit of pique -- he had killed him. The 
action seemed rather harsh, in retrospect. Shunabo had served him well, and it 
was just remotely possible that he did not, in fact, deserve what had happened 
to him.
"Well... so what," Darg growled to no one after a mo­ment's thought. " 'Deserve' 
has nothing to do with it. He was becoming full of himself. A danger. If a man's 
going to watch my back, I have to be sure he's not going to stick a knife in it. 
I don't need a man who's going to openly defy me." Whether, in fact, Shunabo had 
openly defied him was a bit fuzzy in Darg's mind. The drink wasn't helping to 
keep him clear.
Kat'leen's dance drew to its enticing climax, and then she sprawled on the 
floor, her legs drawn together, her arms spread wide, her hair once again 
strategically placed in such a way that Zolon Darg began to wonder if the damned 
stuff had a life of its own. All around him, lights were clicking on and off 
furi­ously on the table tops, which was the standard Argelius means of showing 
approval.
The one exception was a human over in the corner. A heavy­set, gray-haired, 
mustached man, he was pounding on the table and whistling shrilly between his 
teeth. He had a large bottle of some liquid that appeared to be green positioned 
in front of
him, and he had clearly been at it for a while. His raucous be­havior drew 
glares from some of the more reserved patrons who liked everything "just so." 
Darg watched in amusement as the owner of the establishment approached the 
gray-haired gentleman and clearly, with some polite gestures, indicated that 
perhaps it was time he take his business elsewhere. With a growl and a burst of 
what was likely some sort of profanity --  but spoken with such a thick terran 
accent of some sort that Darg couldn't even begin to comprehend it -- the 
gray-haired man swayed out of the pub and into the street.
Darg promptly forgot about him, instead deciding that now would likely be the 
most opportune time to approach the young lady. Kat'leen was just in the process 
of drawing a type of shawl across her shoulders. Darg found it rather charming 
in a way. When she danced, it was with complete lack of inhibi­tion as she 
practically basked in her sexuality. But now that the dance was over, she seemed 
almost shy. Not in a shrinking, frightened sort of way. Just a bit more... 
modest... than she had been.
"Yes?" she said, one eyebrow raised as Darg approached.
"You dance magnificently," he told her.
"Thank you." She seemed to be looking him up and down, trying to get a feeling 
for the type of man he was.
"I have two questions for you, if you don't mind."
"Not at all."
"First... have you ever heard of another dancer... an Orion girl... named 
Vandelia?"
"Not that I can recall," she said with a smile that seemed rather mischievous. 
"Why? Wasn't I enough dancer for you?"
"Oh, yes, you were superb. The second question is, Would you do me the honor of 
accompanying me for the rest of the evening."
She sized him up once more, but before she could respond, another voice said, 
"She's mine."
Zolon Darg turned and looked up... and up. Darg was cer­tainly no slouch in the 
height department with his massive build, but the individual confronting him 
was, incredibly, a head taller and also wider. He had one .eye, having 
apparently lost the other in a fight... or, for all Darg knew, in a card game. 
His head was shaven, his nose crunched in so stylistical-
ly that it was difficult for Darg to tell whether he was an alien who normally 
sported a nose of that style, or whether an oppo­nent had simply crushed it. His 
Ups drew back in a sneer to re­veal a neatly pointed double row of sharp teeth. 
This was not an individual who appeared likely to back down.
Then again, neither was Darg.
"Calm down, Cho," Kat'leen said to me behemoth, and then looked apologetically 
at Darg. "I'm sorry. Cho is a reg­ular ... customer. And he gets a bit 
possessive sometimes."
"I understand," Darg said calmly.
"So you also understand," Cho growled, "that you better backoff."
"I will on one condition."
Cho was clearly puzzled. "Condition?"
"Yes. Condition. A simple enough word. I'm sure it's even in your vocabulary."
"What... condition."
"I will back off," Darg said calmly, "if you would be good enough to take a step 
or two back, bend over, and shove your own head up your own nether bodily 
orifice."
Kat'leen rubbed the bridge of her nose in obvious pain and took several steps 
back as if to try and get as clear of the area as possible. It was rather 
evident she didn't anticipate matters going particularly well hi the next few 
minutes.
Cho digested Darg's requested stipulation for a few mo­ments before fully 
grasping just what it was that Darg had said to him. Then, with an infuriated 
roar and no other warning, he came straight at Darg. He wielded no weapon. 
Apparently he didn't feel that he needed one.
Darg, on the other hand, was quite prepared. He extended the fingers of his 
right hand, and vicious-looking blades snapped out of the tips. Each of them 
wasn't more than an inch long, but it was not their length that was the main 
problem for Cho. Rather, it was the fact that Darg's hand moved so quickly that 
the word "blur" wouldn't even have begun to cover it. One moment his hand was at 
this side, the next it was across Cho's throat
Reflexively, Cho grabbed at his throat, and seemed quite surprised when a thick 
red liquid began to seep from between his fingers, pumped through the gaping 
wound in his neck that
Darg had just put there. Kat'leen looked from Cho to Darg and back again in 
confusion. She had blinked when the strike was made and had literally missed it 
because of that. So she didn't fully grasp what was happening at first But when 
Cho sank to his knees, his hand still at his throat and an expression of total 
bewilderment spreading across his face, that was when Kat'leen understood.
"I believe you're now free for the evening," Darg told her calmly. Hie blades 
were still in evidence on his fingers, but they were tinted with red.
Kat'leen let out a shriek, and that was when Darg came to the realization that 
Cho might have been many things, but what he was most definitely not was 
friendless.
They started coming in from all sides, bruisers big and small, advancing on 
Darg. Darg, slightly unpaired both by drink and by the headiness of a blood 
strike, wasn't quite sure where to look first.
Cho burbled something incomprehensible and then fell for­ward like a great tree, 
bitting the floor with such impact that the entire establishment shook. That was 
all mat was needed for the attackers to converge on Darg at full bore. Darg 
readied himself for the attack, and couldn't help but wonder if perhaps, just 
perhaps, he might have gotten himself into a bit more trou­ble than he could 
reasonably handle this time.
Suddenly the man was next to nun.
It was no one that Darg knew, no one that he had ever seen. It wasn't one of 
Darg's entourage, certainly. He'd made a point of leaving them behind for the 
evening, saying that he wanted some time alone. They had obediently given it to 
him, and it had seemed for a few moments there that the decision was going to 
cost him dearly. Not that he wasn't sure that he could have ultimately handled 
all comers.
The question was rapidly becoming moot, however, thanks to the newcomer. He 
appeared to be a human, but he wasn't particularly tall, not even all that 
impressive looking. But he seemed to exude a confidence, display a sort of pure 
magnet­ism and force of personality that could not be ignored. He had a neatly 
trimmed gray beard, and a head of silver hair that was smoothly combed back. His 
brow jutted forward a bit, and it was bis eyes that were the most interesting to 
Darg. They
seemed cold and pitiless. They were the eyes of a man who could easily kill you 
as soon as look at you. He was dressed mostly in black, and was sporting a long 
coat that seemed to whip around him like a cape whenever he moved.
In either hand, he was holding a disruptor. In a rather flam­boyant gesture, he 
crisscrossed his arms in front of himself, putting the disruptors at odd angles 
to one another, and then he started shooting. He did so with such precision that 
Darg couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
The instinct when a mob is bearing down upon one from all sides is to fire 
blindly into the midst of the crowd and try to take out as many as possible. But 
that wasn't the case with the newcomer. Instead he was targeting one person 
after another, blasting out precision strikes mat were taking opponents in the 
shoulder or upper arm or thigh. They weren't even being knocked unconscious. 
They were simply being incapacitated.
"Not the most elegant of weapons," said the newcomer in what seemed an almost 
conversational tone. "Very restricted settings. There's 'kill' and 'kill some 
more.' One has to be pre­cise if one doesn't feel like killing. Hold on, 
please." He fired again and another attacker went down.
The floor was now covered with moaning, groaning individ­uals who were clutching 
assorted parts of their bodies. Darg nodded, impressed with the marksmanship. 
Still, he felt the need to ask, "Why not just kill them all?"
"And leave a big mess for the owners to have to clean up? I'm a regular customer 
here. I don't need to get the owners mad at me. All right, let's go."
There were still some individuals on their feet, but they were slow to approach. 
It was hard to blame them, considering the substantial number of people who were 
scattered about, crying out in agony. No one seemed particularly interested in 
shoving their faces into the buzzsaw. In fact, a few were even looking down at 
Cho's unmoving body with what appeared to be grim assessment, as if trying to 
determine whether or not he was worth their risking their necks for.
One apparently decided that it was, and he tried to pull a weapon. But the 
silver-haired man moved so quickly that Darg didn't even see it. All he knew was 
that suddenly there was a man clutching his hand and screaming profanity, while 
his
weapon lay on the floor. He made as if to move for the weapon with his other 
hand, but the silver-haired terror simply said, "I wouldn't." The wounded man 
froze.
"As I was saying: Let's go."
Darg glanced around. Kat'leen was nowhere in sight, appar­ently having ducked 
out when the trouble started. There didn't seem to be anything to be gained by 
remaining. "I couldn't agree more," Darg said readily. They moved out 
back-to-back, the silver-haired man covering their rear while Darg watched in 
front of them. Moments later they were out the door and halfway down the street, 
the silver-baked man bolstering his disruptors with a brisk and slightly flashy 
twirl.
They put a couple more blocks between them and the place before they slowed down 
to a casual stroll. Around them were the sounds of music and laughter, people 
sauntering about and having a good time. Over just inside an alleyway, a couple 
was engaging in the galaxy's oldest pastime with lusty abandon. The 
silver-haired man modestly averted his eyes; Darg watched with unabashed glee 
for a few moments before turn­ing his attention back to his unexpected 
companion.
He stopped walking and said, "What's your name?"
"Kwint," came the reply.
"Kwint. Do I know you?"
"Not to my knowledge. Well... good evening to you." He turned and started to 
walk away.
"Wait!" Darg looked at him with open skepticism. "Why did you help me just now? 
Because I could have handled them my­self."
"I have no doubt that you could have."
"Then why?"
Kwint shrugged. "I didn't like the odds. One of you against all of them. Didn't 
seem right"
"What are you, some sort of hero?"
"No," laughed Kwint. "Just looking to enjoy myself. Get some relaxation." •
"And you do that by getting into fights."
"Sometimes, if the mood takes me."
"And it doesn't matter to you what the fight was about?"
Kwint appeared genuinely puzzled. "Should it?"
-Shouldn't it?"
"I don't see why," Kwint said reasonably. "A fight is always between two sides, 
both of whom think they're right. Usually, they both are... from their point of 
view. So it really doesn't matter which side you take, because it's never really 
about who's right. It's about who wins."
"Yes. Yes it is." He paused. "You didn't ask my name."
"You didn't offer, I didn't ask. A man introduces himself or doesn't Makes no 
difference to me."
"The name's Darg. Zolon Darg." He waited to see some flicker of recognition... 
and got it. "You've heard of me."
"Yes. I have. Weapons runner, correct?"
"Correct"
Kwint studied nun skeptically. "I'd heard you were dead. That your operation 
crashed and burned some years back, and you went with it."
"Obviously not. Whereabout did you hear my name men­tioned?"
"I worked with a fellow named Gazillo. Secondary distribu­tor. Bought a shipment 
of Tolasian night slicers off you about five years back."
"Yesss... yes, Gazillo." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I heard Gazillo died 
ugly."
"He did. Because of me."
"You killed him?"
"No," sighed Kwint. "But he wanted to deal with some peo­ple who I knew were 
going to doublecross him. I tried to con­vince him of it. But he wouldn't listen 
to me, no matter what I said. He smelled money and lots of it. When he refused 
to pay attention to what I was telling him, I walked out on him. With­in two 
days, his body turned up... or at least, what was still identifiable as his 
body. If I'd stuck with him, tried harder... hell, if I'd just shot and wounded 
him, prevented him from going to the rendezvous..." He closed his eyes for a 
moment as if reliving it and then visibly shrugged it off. "Can't change the 
past. Well... good evening to you, Darg."
Once more he started to walk away, and Darg said, "You seem to be in quite a 
hurry to leave."
"You served my purpose," Kwint said matter-of-factly. "I saw an opportunity to 
even some odds... the opportunity is done... and I'm out to enjoy the rest of 
the evening. Unless,
of course," he said, apparently struck by a sudden thought, "you intend to get 
into some more uneven fights. Then I sup­pose I could just follow you around, 
save myself some time. Not have to start from scratch every time."
"It's entirely possible." Darg had to admit it to himself: he liked this Kwint 
fellow. There was a remarkable devil-may-care attitude about him. In some ways, 
he very much mirrored Darg's own philosophies, but in others, he was clearly his 
own man. For one thing, Darg wouldn't have given a second thought to Gazillo's 
fate. If the man was fool enough to ignore sound advice, then he deserved what 
he got But Kwint still re­gretted Gazillo's loss... while at the same time, 
showing an admirable lack of interest in such niceties as the righteous high 
ground. He was a cheerful combination of morality and im­morality. In short, he 
was someone that Darg could very likely use.
Suddenly the loss of Shunabo seemed less unfortunate and more an instance of 
good timing.
He clapped a hand on Kwint's shoulder and said, "You know, Kwint There's more to 
life than fights. Let us not forget that which Argelius is most renowned for. 
Why," and he low­ered his voice conspiratorially, "I know a place around here... 
where the women are sooo ..."
He didn't have to finish. Kwint promptly nodded eagerly and said, "I know the 
place."
And they headed off into the night
VI.
"hello, mac. Ready to have the fate of the entire Federation in your hands?"
Calhoun shrugged indifferently as he sat down opposite Nechayev in her office. 
From the corner of his eye, through the large viewing window in Nechayev's 
office, he caught a glimpse of the Excalibur just before she leaped into warp 
space and vanished. Calhoun had made a practice of being self-sufficient When 
one witnessed as much death and de­struction as he had, it seemed the best way 
to go about keep­ing one's head screwed on. And yet, as his ship hurtled away 
into warp, he had the feeling of someone cut off from their family.
Family. Is that what they had become to him? How very, very odd. It was not 
something he had remotely anticipated, for some reason.
"A shrug? I ask you a question like that, and a shrug is all I get?" There was 
an element of teasing in her voice, but there was an undercurrent to her tone 
that was deadly serious.
"My apologies, Admiral. It's just that... this came out of nowhere. I simply 
never expected to be back in this situation
before." "I know, Mac," she said earnestly, "and I wish I didn't have
to put you in it. But I think you'll see that, when it comes down to options, 
you're our best shot."
"I suppose I should be flattered."
"Don't be. You may very well be sorry by the time this is done." She paused and 
then said, "You look well. Command has agreed with you."
"Well, command and I have had a few arguments along the way. But I think we've 
got mutual wrestling holds on each other by this point. So," and he leaned 
forward, attentive, "let's not dance around. What's happened. What's going on."
"Down to business. Good. You haven't changed. All right... we've received the 
findings from the Away team that the late Independence left behind at Daystrom 
Institute. It ap­pears that whoever our friends are that attacked the place made 
off with the Omega 9."
"No!"
"You've heard of it, then."
"No."
She winced slightly. "Walked into that one, I suppose." She folded her hands on 
the desk. "The Omega 9 could easily be considered the next major breakthrough in 
computerization: A computer that enables its user to interface with its data 
base through pure thought alone."
"Thought? You mean like telepathy?"
"The brain sends out electrical impulses, Captain, just like any other machine. 
The only difference between the brain and a computer is that the brain is 
generally smaller, but the com­puter is faster and has more capacity. The Omega 
9 is more than simply a computer. It's a gateway, if you will, that simpli­fies 
the communication of mind-to-computer. For all the so­phistication that we've 
brought to computers throughout the centuries, one barrier has never been truly 
broken down. We still have to talk to the damned things, and the information 
that we draw out of it is only as good as the questions we put into it"
"And with the Omega 9, that's no longer necessary?"
"Correct," she nodded. She held up her palm. "The Omega 9 bypasses conventional 
speech. Instead .the user simply puts his or her palm against an interface padd. 
Sensors, combined with Nannite technology, form a temporary bond between user 
and
data base so that the user is able to extract information literally with the 
speed of thought, and can also supply instructions to the computer in the same 
way. It's taken a long time to perfect the technology. In the initial stages, 
there was a tendency for the computer to flood its user with so much information 
that the human brain would simply collapse. Poor devils, those test subjects. 
They could barely think coherently at all after their exposure to the Omega 9. 
Eventually, we -- "
"Made them into admirals?" suggested Calhoun.
Her eyes narrowed in her best "we are not amused" expres­sion. As if he had not 
spoken, she said, "Eventually, we were able to help them recover their normal 
thinking process. But it was a near thing."
"And now the computer is gone."
"Yes. It's not as if the work is irretrievable. Daystrom has duplicate material 
at its main headquarters. But building anoth­er one would take time, and 
besides, that's only the tip of the iceberg.
"You see, the Daystrom raid was not an isolated incident. There have been a 
number of thefts in recent weeks, raids on various labs and such belonging to 
assorted members of the Federation. The common thread is that most of them have 
to do with some aspect of research on AI..."
"Artificial Intelligence, Calhoun said. Slowly his demeanor changed. He seemed 
harder-edged. There was something in his eyes that no one who had an affinity 
for breathing would want to see aimed at them. "All right. Go ahead," he said.
"So... there seems to be an excessive interest in artificial intelligence 
research, of which the Omega 9 might well be the most advanced. There has been 
one individual who has been spotted at the scene of several of them, however. An 
old friend of yours: Zolon Darg.
"Darg. You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?' She punched in a code on her computer and Darg's 
picture appeared on it It was clearly a picture taken by a hidden security 
camera somewhere. Appar­ently it was the last shot that particular camera had 
taken, be­cause in the picture Darg was turning and pointing straight into the 
shot No doubt a few seconds later, the observation camera had been blown to 
bits.
"No. No, I don't think you're joking at all." He couldn't take his eyes off 
Darg's massive form. Darg had hardly been a weakling when last they met, but he 
hadn't been the colossus that he was now. "There had been rumors that Darg had 
sur­vived our encounter a few years ago, but I had no idea he'd gone this active 
again." He considered the implications of the news. "So Darg is behind these 
raids -- "
"I didn't say he was behind them; merely that he's involved. We believe that the 
person who is actually behind them is this individual..."
A Thallonian whom Calhoun did not recognize appeared on the screen. It was an 
older individual, with yellowing beard and a surprisingly gentle look on his 
face.
"He is General Gerrid Thul. He's a Thallonian noble. We don't have any visual 
proof that he's connected directly to Darg. If he is, then he's been either too 
lucky or too clever to be caught on camera."
"Then why do you think he is connected?"
"Because the report came in from an intelligence officer who subsequently wound 
up dead."
"Dead." He frowned. "Who?"
"McNicol."
This prompted a gasp from Calhoun. "McNicol. He was good. He was damned good. 
He's dead? Are you sure?"
"There was barely enough left of him for a genetic trace, but yes, he's dead."
The news caused Calhoun to look even more intently at the image of General Thul 
which sat on the screen. He could al­most imagine a look of contempt in Thul's 
expression. What­ever it was that Thul was playing at, a personal face had 
suddenly been attached to it: The face of Jack McNicol, a dedi­cated and clever 
agent who had paid the ultimate price in his pursuit of keeping the Federation 
safe.
Nechayev, for her part, didn't seem to be giving McNicol any further thought It 
was as if she needed to move on to the next crisis immediately. "Thul has had a 
rather rocky career. He was imprisoned for a while on charges of treason and 
attempted murder, but served his time and was released. At the tail end of his 
tenure in prison, he managed to convince the powers that be that he was a 
changed man. It's possible he is..."
"People don't change."
"You did," she pointed out.
He fixed a gaze on her. "No, I didn't. At heart, I am as I al­ways was. I've 
simply gotten better at covering it, that's all. Watch..."
And just like that, he seemed to relax his guard. Nechayev looked into his eyes, 
and there was a world of hurt and anger and cold, calculating fury, all warring 
for dominance behind those eerie purple eyes.
Then, just as easily, he "veiled" his eyes once more. They went to half-lidded, 
and he seemed so relaxed that he might have been mistaken for a sleeping man... 
or possibly a corpse.
"You see?" he said softly. "It's all still there. M'k'n'zy of Calhoun, the 
warrior, the slayer of Danteri, the liberator of the planet Xenex. The barbarian 
who had no place in Starfleet. I keep him locked away... for when I might need 
him. So... my point remains. People don't change."
"I could still endeavor to argue that, but I don't see the need right now," she 
said diplomatically. "You see, in this instance, I happen to agree with you. I 
don't think he's changed either. From what we were able to gamer from McNicol 
before he was lost to us, Thul has some sort of personal grudge against the 
Federation. McNicol was a bit unclear on it, and didn't have the opportunity to 
clarify it before he died. But apparent­ly someone dear to Thul died under 
unfortunate circumstances which he blames the Federation for."
"And is he right to do so?" asked Calhoun. "Was the Federa­tion responsible for 
the death of this individual?"
"Considering that the whole of the Federation, every world with sentient races, 
certainly wouldn't deserve to suffer if that were the case, do you really think 
it matters?"
"It might. To him."
"And does it to you?"
Once again mat veiled look passed over his eyes. He didn't answer, but instead 
simply said, "What do you want me to do, Admiral?"
She bobbed her head slightly, as if acknowledging Cal­houn's having skipped over 
a potentially problematic part of the conversation. "Despite his being an 
outspoken critic of the
Federation in the past, Thul has now positioned himself as a supporter of the 
UFP since the thawing of relations between the Thallonian Empire and the UFP. 
He's got a good deal of personal charm; he's managed to make some rather 
high-placed friends. And that means I can't use my normal channels of support in 
investigating this. You're uniquely qualified for this situation, Mac. You've 
had more experience with Thalloni-ans than anyone else in the Fleet" She paused 
and glanced at her computer screen. "There's going to be a reception in San 
Francisco to launch a week's worth of festivities in connection with the 
bicentennial..."
"The one Riker was supposed to attend."
"Precisely. Thul is going to be there; he's on the guest list. I've arranged 
with Admiral Wattanbe -- who shares my con­cerns -- that you will be there as well. I 
want you to get close to Thul, find out what he's up to... and once you do... 
stop him."
"You're forgetting something, Admiral: There's the matter of Zolon Darg. Even if 
I do manage to work myself close in with Thul, sooner or later I'll be 
face-to-face with Darg. He'll recognize me. Perhaps I should go in some sort of 
dis­guise ..."
"Thul's too cautious. If his plans, whatever they are, are coming to fruition, 
he might not be so quick to welcome a complete stranger into his ranks. But you 
have a reputation as a maverick, Mac. You've had a publicized 'falling out' with 
Starfleet before. Dissatisfaction and a willingness to break the rules will be 
believable coming from you. The fortunate thing is, if you do run into Darg, he 
has no reason to assume that you were working with SI or had any Starfleet or 
UFP agenda."
"Meaning I can always pretend I was acting in a freelance capacity for a rival, 
so that he won't automatically assume that my presence now is part of a covert 
operation."
"Precisely."
"That's all well and good as far as it goes. But even as a 'freelancer,' I did 
happen to blow his operation to hell and gone. He might be the sort who carries 
a grudge."
"Perhaps. But I have every confidence that you'll be able to handle him."
"I'm flattered."
"Report to research and development, two decks down, room 18. The Professor will 
provide you with some special­ized tools and weaponry that might be of use to 
you."
"It's starting to seem just like old times, Admiral. Of course, we're both a 
little older..."
"But probably no wiser, else I wouldn't be sending you into this." She sighed. 
"Mac ... be careful. I'd hate to lose you."
"I'd hate to be lost," he replied, and as he started to walk out, he stopped at 
her door, turned and said, "By the way... I'll want my vehicle. And this time 
I'll want to keep it, rather than returning it to SI. Signed over to me, so no 
matter what happens in the future, it will go with me rather than being part of 
Starfleet equipment."
"That shuttle isn't your property, Captain."
"That's somewhat the point, Admiral. I want it. Think of it as an incentive 
bonus."
"Think of yourself," replied Nechayev, "as a Starfleet officer who does what 
he's told."
"I've tried that It doesn't work."
They locked gazes ... and then Nechayev fought to hide a smile as she said, 
"Fine. I'll put through the paperwork."
"Thank you, Admiral."
"In all probability," Nechayev added, "the entire question will be moot, since 
you'll probably wind up dead as a result of this mission."
"So you win either way."
"Well," and she shrugged, "being an Admiral does have its perks."
The room was empty. Calhoun checked the markings just outside to make certain 
that he'd come to die right place. There were some counters, table tops, a few 
cabinets. But nothing was laid out, and there didn't appear to be anyone around. 
"Hello?" Calhoun called out. And when no reply seemed forth­coming, he called 
once more, "Hello?"
"You don't have to shout I'm not deaf."
Calhoun turned and looked in utter confusion at the man standing behind him. He 
could have sworn that there had been no one else there, but this fellow had 
simply seemed
to show up out of nowhere. He was wearing a Starfleet uniform. He had a somewhat 
long face, and dark, curly hair, but the thing that Calhoun noticed the most 
about him was the singular air of arrogance that hung thick around him.
"I didn't see you here," Calhoun said. "Are you the Profes­sor?"
The man looked at Calhoun oddly. "Why do you want to know?" he asked.
"I'm here to get weapons. That sort of thing."
"The survival of Galactic civilization is hinging upon you, you know," the 
presumed Professor told him. He spoke in a rather strange manner, as if he were 
lecturing from a very great distance.
"So I've heard."
"Perhaps you have, but I don't think you yet fully appreciate the magnitude." He 
shook his head, seemingly amused with himself. "I must admit to being somewhat 
intrigued to see where it all winds up, providing humanity -- and the rest of the 
Federation -- is allowed to continue through to its natural con­clusion rather than 
an aborted one. That would be something to see."
'1 couldn't agree more," Calhoun said, deciding it'd be best to humor him. 
"So... what have you got?"
"Well, there's some interesting things here. There's also some things that can 
be improved upon." He started opening cabinets and pulling out an assortment of 
materials, looking each thing over and inspecting it closely. "The trick is 
going to be enabling you to avoid whatever weapons detection devices they might 
have. But such devices are only as good as their programming. That is to say, if 
they don't know what to look for, they won't find it. Here."
He held up what appeared to be a tooth, but when he tilted it, Calhoun could see 
that it was hollowed out inside. "Here. Slip this over one of your molars." 
Calhoun did as he was told, and then the Professor said, "Now press the back of 
it with your tongue."
He did so, and to his surprise, three identical replicas of himself appeared 
around him. They did not simply mirror him, however. Instead each one moved and 
reacted in its own, indi­vidual manner.
"Portable holo-generator. It generates hard-light holograms, just as you have in 
holodecks. So not only can they serve as distractions, but you also triple your 
manpower in one shot. Push it again with the back of your tongue to shut it 
off."
Calhoun did so, and then the Professor handed him a scar. Calhoun took it and 
stared down at it. It was an exact replica of the scar on his face.
"It's an explosive," said the Professor. "Hide the weapon in plain sight."
"Am I risking blowing my head off?"
"Not at all. Nothing can set it off as long as the circuit isn't completed. You 
simply take the two ends and twist them around each other. That engages it, and 
the chemicals inside it begin to interact and build toward detonation. Once the 
chemi­cal reaction has begun, there's no stopping it. You'll have about fifteen 
minutes to clear the area before it blows."
Calhoun held the scar gingerly. "Oookay," he said slowly. He lined it up with 
the scar on his face and pressed it against it. He heard a small hiss of air and 
a seal was promptly engaged, ad­hering the fake scar to his face. The metal of 
the cabinet was highly polished, and he was able to see in his reflection that 
the blend was perfect If he himself had not known, he wouldn't have been able to 
tell.
"This is almost standard issue by this point," said the profes­sor. He extended 
a fairly nondescript ring which contained a round emblem at one end. "Push it 
firmly against someone's skin, and it injects a subcutaneous transponder which 
sends out a homing signal. You'll be able to track anyone."
"Convenient. No woman will dare brush me off again."
The professor didn't seem amused. "Now ... this next thing is a pip."
"What is it?"
"It's a pip." And sure enough, he held up what appeared to be a standard-issue 
pip that indicated rank. "If you're not in uniform, you can still easily attach 
it to a collar or other article of clothing."
"What's significant about it?"
"Put it on." When Calhoun had done so, the Professor said, "Now say, 'Activate 
transporter, right."
"Activate transporter, right," Calhoun said, wondering why
he was doing so. Then, to his astonishment, he suddenly heard a familiar hum 
around him... and an instant later, he was standing on the other side of the 
room.
"Short range personal transport device. Moves you ten feet in whichever 
direction you indicate you want it to go. Just be careful, though. You wouldn't 
want to move into the middle of a solid object"
"Definitely not." He studied the pip. "I didn't think Federa­tion technology had 
anything like this."
"Officially, It doesn't. Now ... here. You can probably use an offensive weapon 
as well. He produced from a cupboard a pair of boots that were exactly Calhoun's 
size. He turned them over and, from the right one, removed the heel. He 
proffered it to Calhoun for closer examination, and Calhoun immediately saw the 
small, tell-tale barrel of some sort of phaser weapon inserted neatly into the 
inner edge of the heel. "Squeeze the middle with thumb and forefinger top and 
bottom, that'll pro­duce a stun blast. Squeeze in at the sides, that'll get you 
level two power. It will only respond to your DNA imprint, so you actually have 
to be holding it."
"You mean I don't have to worry about stepping down too hard and shooting myself 
in the foot."
"Something like that," said the Professor. "The left heel con­tains a 
communications device. I'll show you." He tapped the middle of the heel and a 
small, palm-size device slid out. He removed it and held it up. "Under normal 
circumstances it would only get you standard range, but I've improved it."
"Improved it... how?"
"Total security bypass."
'Total security bypass?"
"That's correct, yes. Plus its broadcast will piggyback on any other signals it 
detects giving it almost unlimited range."
"Oh really." He tapped the comm button and said, "Calhoun to Admiral Jellico, 
Starfleet headquarters, San Francisco. Come in please. Admiral... my men are 
under attack by a squad of berserk Amazon women and I can't get them to leave. 
Please advise."
He smiled wanly at the professor, and then the smile froze as back over the 
communicator came the unmistakable, and
clearly irritated, voice of Admiral Jellico. "This is Jellico. Amazon women? Who 
the hell is this? Calhoun, is that -- ?"
Stunned, Calhoun said hi a high-pitched voice, "Sorry," and shut down the line. 
Then he gaped at the professor.
There was no smile on the professor's face, not a hint of amusement or triumph. 
He simply stared at Calhoun impas­sively.
"That's very impressive," Calhoun said slowly.
The professor took a step toward him, and hi a low voice tinged with warning, 
said, "Yes it is, isn't it? Apparently you have been selected to be the champion 
of the galaxy. I've de­cided to give you a slight edge. The rest is up to you."
Calhoun stared into those implacable eyes for a long mo­ment. "Who are you?" he 
demanded.
"Me? I'm simply the fellow in research and development who hands out the 
weapons." With that, he turned and walked out the door. Calhoun quickly followed 
him out... but saw no sign of him.
VII.
"I will attend to it, Captain Riker," Si Cwan said with confi­dence. The 
Thallonian noble made a few more notes as he looked across the desk of the 
captain's ready room at Riker. "I have certain . . . avenues ... I can check. If 
there is a hidden Romulan base, I might very well be able to get some indication 
of where it is."
Seated next to him was Robin Lefler, who was also taking notes. In addition to 
her position at Ops, Robin had taken on the additional duty of personal aide to 
Si Cwan. Riker felt himself to be something of an aficionado of the ways in 
which the human heart moved, and as he watched Lefler try  --  perhaps a bit too 
hard  --  to be all business with Cwan, he had the funny feeling that there might 
be more motivating her than simply try­ing to be a good officer or find ways to 
fill the day. Then again, it wasn't really any of his business or his place to 
comment. So, rather wisely, he kept his opinions on the matter to himself.
"Do you want me to send out the messages?" Lefler asked
Si Cwan shook his head. "No ... no, I think it'd be best if these came directly 
from me. Thank you for the offer, though."
"And thank you, Lord Cwan, for your assistance hi this mat­er," Riker said.
" 'Lord' Cwan." He smiled slightly at the title.
"Did I miss a joke?"
"It's simply that I cannot recall the last time I was addressed with the title. 
Here on the Excalibur, they tend to address me simply by my name."
"And you tolerate that?" Riker asked in amusement.
He shrugged slightly. "I tolerate the familiarity. They, in turn, tolerate my 
presence. A philosophy of mutual tolerance, I suppose you'd say."
"I am rather pleased to hear it, Lord Cwan... particularly considering the 
rather incendiary nature of our last meeting."
"Incendiary" had hardly been the word for it, as Riker re­called. The first, and 
last time, that he had seen Si Cwan was right around me time that the Thallonian 
empire was beginning to crack apart. Si Cwan, exiled but still imperious, had 
sought out the Federation for aid, and Riker had been present at the meeting 
where that aid had been decided upon.
"I have not forgotten, Captain," Si Cwan said with a mea­sure of respect in his 
voice, "your contribution to that meeting. You not only took my side in the 
discussion... but it was you who recommended the assignment of this vessel to 
Thallonian space. If not for you none of mis would have been possible."
"Someone else might well have suggested it," Riker said, "but nonetheless, I 
appreciate the thanks. Although as I recall, your being posted to the ship was 
not part of the plan."
"There was a change of plan," Si Cwan said with a combina­tion of dignity and 
deadpan.
"Yes, and he changed it," Lefler put in with a slightly teas­ing tone.
"I was invited by Captain Calhoun to serve as a sort of guide and lead diplomat 
in Thallonian space."
"After he was caught as a stowaway."
Si Cwan turned in his chair and looked at Lefler with some­thing approaching 
disapproval. "In my opinion," he said slow­ly, "you are deriving far too much 
amusement from the situation." He turned back to Riker and said, "I admit, my 
ar­rival on this vessel was not the most... dignified. But I am here now, and 
there are no regrets." He fired Lefler a look. "Al­though I am beginning to have 
one or two in regards to certain personnel."
"This is all very interesting, and I would certainly like to hear all about it 
at some future date," Riker said readily. "How­ever, at this point, I do have 
other matters to attend to..."
"And we shall be more than happy to allow you to attend to them, sir." Si Cwan 
rose, and seemed to keep rising. Riker was impressed, not for the first time, by 
the sheer presence of the man. He seemed someone who was genuinely entitled to 
be re­ferred to by the term "noble." He bowed slightly, a gesture which the 
now-standing Riker returned, and then he turned and left. Lefler, however, 
remained where she was. "You told me earlier I should stay after the meeting?"
"Yes. There's a matter I wish to discuss with you. A matter regarding one of the 
bridge crew..."
"Shouldn't you be discussing it with Commander Shelby, sir?"
She had a perfectly valid point. In fact, Shelby was probably the person he 
should really be dealing with. The problem was, he wasn't entirely certain that 
Shelby would be anything other than defensive, no matter how diplomatically he 
tried to handle the matter.
He had no desire to say mat, though. So instead he said coolly, "Actually, I 
thought it best to speak with you first since you work with him fairly closely."
"Ahhh." She sounded as if she knew precisely what was going to be said. "You're 
talking about McHenry."
"Yes. That's right. When you and Si Cwan came in here, I caught a glimpse of 
McHenry out the door and it appeared he was ... well..."
"Sleeping. At his post"
He nodded. "Lieutenant, I admit I feel a bit like I'm walk­ing on eggshells 
here." That was no exaggeration, Riker still remembered, all too clearly, the 
time that Admiral Jellico had taken command of the Enterprise. Despite the fact 
that the assignment was purely temporary, Jellico had wasted no time not only 
imposing his command style upon others, but going head to head with the senior 
staff in a manner that was unnecessarily harsh and certainly aggravating. At 
that time, Riker had made a solemn promise to himself that if he ever found 
himself in a similar position, for whatever reason, he would do everything he 
could not to disrupt the pre-
established routines of the vessel. It was one thing when one was coming aboard 
as permanent commander, but Riker was not about to lose sight of the fact that 
he was a visitor. Still... when he saw something that so set his teeth on edge 
as a crewman displaying total lack of professionalism, he couldn't keep silent. 
Delicately, he continued, "I'm aware mat Captain Calhoun's command style is 
somewhat different than mine... or Captain Picard's ... or, in fact, anyone that 
I can think of offhand. Very much a 'live and let live' philos­ophy, a tendency 
to celebrate the little differences in people. And by all means, there is much 
to be said for that. But there is also such a thing," and his voice hardened, 
"as maintain­ing at the very least a bare minimum of acceptable prepared­ness. 
And having the helmsman asleep in his chair simply doesn't fit that criteria."
"He's not asleep," she said with the air of someone who was not explaining this 
for the first time. "It only seems that way. Actually he's just deep in thought 
but he's completely attuned to everything that's going on. One hundred percent 
alert"
"I see."
"Also, I admit.... he's probably a bit worn out. I still don't think he's 
sleeping on the job. But his exhaustion is under­standable. He's been through 
something of an emotional wringer."
"How so? Unless you feel it's none of my business."
"Well, sir... probably it's not your business, no." With that mandatory 
disclaimer out of the way, Lefler quickly and eager­ly sat down, elbows propped 
on her knees.
Riker noted with quiet amusement that she was displaying one of the oldest 
mindsets of young humans, stretching back centuries: The slightly guilty joy of 
dishing gossip. No matter how advanced humanity became, no matter how many 
hori­zons were explored, no matter how many adventures were pursued, no matter 
how great and noble the race aspired to be... there was simply something 
irresistible about chatter­ing about people behind their backs. Riker, the 
older, wiser, cooler head, was relieved that he himself was above such things 
... and then leaned forward so as not to miss any­thing.
"Okay," continued Lefler, "the fact is that for a while
McHenry and Burgoyne 172 were quite the couple, if you catch my drift"
"Not really."
"Well, Burgoyne is a Hermat"
"Hmm. A Hermat." He understood why she said it that way. Not since the Deltans 
had there been a race whose sexual mores and practices had engendered more 
interest than the Hennats. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "There aren't all 
that many in Starfleet It's somewhat amazing that two were assigned to this 
vessel."
"Two?" The tops of her eyebrows knitted together in quiet surprise and 
confusion. "What two?"
"Well, the Hermat who is involved with McHenry, and the one who is involved with 
your CMO. At least, I was told the father... mother... whatever... mat that 
individual is the fa­ther of Doctor Selar's child."
"Right. That's Burgoyne. Same person."
Riker stared at her. "The... three of them are involved..."
"No, no. You see... well, yes, kind of," and she started tick­ing off major 
elements on her fingers. "Burgoyne was interest­ed in Selar. But Selar wasn't 
interested in Burgoyne. At least she was trying to pretend that she wasn't 
interested, but she re­ally was, but part of it was as a result of this whole 
Vulcan bio­logical thing. They don't like to talk about. There's all kinds of 
different stories about it It's a personal, private cultural thing and far be it 
from me to pry.
"Anyway, Selar apparently changed her mind, but Burgoyne was involved with 
McHenry by that point. So Selar ap­proached the captain about 'accommodating' 
her. Apparently he said okay..."
"He said what?"
"He said okay. Apparently it was part of his Xenexian duty to be accommodating 
about something like that." At Riker's shocked expression, she quickly added 
"It's a life or death situ­ation."
"Apparently so." For some reason, Riker was suddenly re­lieved that Calhoun 
hadn't been in command of the Enterprise when Lwaxana Troi had shown up with a 
quadrupled sex drive. He was sure that Lwaxana would have convinced Cal­houn 
that hers was a Me and death situation as well. "You
seem to be rather up on everything that's going on around the ship, Lieutenant."
"A Starship is like a small town, Captain. Everybody hears everything. 
Fortunately enough," she said with a touch of irony, "there's some of us who 
work hard to make sure that ac­curate information is being disseminated."
"Bless you."
"Thanks," she said, with a grin. "Anyway, some other stuff happened, and Doctor 
Selar wound up with Burgoyne after all. Now she's pregnant."
"I see." He was intrigued in spite of himself. "And how does McHenry feel about 
all this?"
"Well, he was okay with it, but really stunned when he found out that Burgoyne 
was pregnant too."
"What?" He felt his head starting to spin.
"Yeah. At about the same time that Selar announced she was pregnant with 
Burgoyne's child, Burgy announced that s/he was pregnant with McHenry's child. 
Poor Mark. Passed right out Fainted dead away. Since then, he's just thrown 
himself into his work. I don't think he knows quite how to approach Burgoyne 
about it. He feels embarrassed about fainting, I know that, and I sure don't 
think he was prepared for the no­tion of being a father."
"Well, he's going to have to deal with it sooner or later."
"I think he's angling for later, sir."
"Computer... service record of Burgoyne 172. I think," Riker said slowly, "that 
I very much want to meet Burgoy -- ." His voice trailed off as he stared at the 
screen, and his eyes widened. "Burgoyne is the chief engineer?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is this individual stable enough?"
"Oh yes," Lefler said cheerfully. "S/he's as stable as the rest of us."
Riker wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not
They walked out of the Captain's ready room. Shelby was seated hi the command 
chair, and made as if to stand up and give way to Riker, but he waved her off. 
"That won't be neces­sary, Commander. Presuming everything is calm here, 
Lieu­tenant Lefler is going to help familiarize me with the ship."
"As you wish... Captain."
There was just that moment of hesitation, and Riker won­dered if something 
vaguely insubordinate was meant by it But there was nothing about Shelby's 
attitude or deportment that seemed to indicate it, and Riker chalked it off to 
his imagina­tion.
His gaze shifted to Mark McHenry. McHenry was exactly as Riker had seen nun 
before. He was tilted back in his chair, his eyes closed. He wasn't snoring. He 
didn't even quite seem alive. No one else on the bridge, however, was taking 
notice of it.
Shelby noticed what had caught his attention, and she smiled slightly. "I went 
through the same thing," she said. 'Trust me... it's fine. He's completely 
attuned to the ship. Check if you want."
Riker paused, wondering how one could possibly "check" such a thing. Then a 
thought occurred to him. He walked over to the tactical section of the bridge, 
quietly gesturing for the man on duty there to step aside. He did so and Riker 
glanced over the array. He tapped a control... and the ship's primary defense 
shields snapped on. There was no signal of an alert, al­though there was a 
slight rerouting of energy that was part of the natural defense systems process.
The effect on McHenry was instantaneous. He sat bolt up­right, glancing at his 
board and looking at the main screen at the same time. "Are we under attack?" he 
asked.
Riker couldn't believe it He looked to Shelby, who shrugged in a "told you so" 
manner.
"He'll do," Riker said after a moment and then walked out of the bridge with 
Lefler right behind him, leaving a puzzled McHenry checking his readouts.
They walked briskly down the corridor, Lefler saying, "En­sign Beth down in 
engineering said that Burgy is down in the holodeck, working out. She checked 
with Burgy, though, who said we should feel perfectly free to come by."
" 'Burgy' is what you call him?"
That's what everybody calls Mr. Hennats have (heir own pronouns. 'Hir (H,I,R)' 
and 's/he.' ".
He shook his head. "Hard to be -- "
Then he stopped as a woman headed down the hall toward
him. She was a dark-haired, older woman, with a rather aristo­cratic air about 
her. And she looked stunningly familiar.
"Hello, honey," she nodded to Robin.
Lefler kissed the woman lightly on the cheek. "Mom... this is Captain William 
Riker. He's hi temporary command of the ship while Captain Calhoun is on another 
as­signment Captain, this is my mother, Morgan Lefler."
"An honor." She shook his hand firmly and then tilted her head hi polite 
confusion. "Is something wrong, Captain?"
It's just that..." He couldn't take his eyes off her. "You just... you remind me 
of the mother of someone else I know."
"It's entirely possible, I suppose. I have gotten around quite a bit"
"Mom's very long lived," Robin said cheerfully.
"Aren't they all," Riker said. He couldn't take his eyes off her. "I'm... sorry, 
Mrs. Lefler. It's just... the resemblance is uncanny."
"Yes, I'm sure it is. Well, you go on about your business; I'm sure you have far 
more important things to do than stand­ing around, ogling me. I'll see you for 
dinner, Robin," and with that she headed off down the hallway.
"Incredible," Riker said as he watched her go. "They could be twins. It's like 
looking at the same woman. Voice, attitude, everything."
"Captain -- ?"
He shook it off. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't allow myself to get distracted by 
things that probably don't mean anything."
They chatted about assorted other matters as they walked to the holodeck. When 
they arrived, Riker leaned close to the door, frowning. He could have sworn he 
heard something that sounded like... growling. "What is Burgoyne doing hi 
there?" he asked.
"Let's find out." She tapped the control padd on the doors and they obediently 
slid open.
The sight that greeted them upon entering was a rather as­tounding one.
Burgoyne was dressed in a skintight workout suit and s/he was surrounded by a 
forest environment. There was a vista of trees as far as the eye could see. The 
ground was uneven around them, with dirt and gravel that made traction difficult
At that moment Burgoyne was perched in a tree, crouched on a branch, and s/he 
had hir mouth drawn back in a feline snarl like a cornered cat
Below her was roaring a massive creature with thick white fur, leaping up at hir 
and swinging its clawed hands, trying to get a piece of hir and drag hir down 
from the branch.
"Lieutenant Commander Burgoyne," Lefler said, "this is -- "
Burgoyne leaped from the branch, seeming not to have heard Lefler or even 
noticed her presence or that of Commander Riker. Hir speed carried hir between 
the outstretched arms of what looked to Riker like a white furred monster, and 
drove the creature flat onto its back. They rolled across the floor together, 
hissing and snarling at each other. Then the monster braced it­self and twisted, 
hurting the lighter but more agile Burgoyne back. S/he landed on hir feet and 
the way that s/he had her hands poised, s/he looked for all the world as if s/he 
had claws.
Riker had had enough. "Lieutenant Commander, I hate to break hi on your 
exercise..."
And suddenly Burgoyne was flattened from behind.
What looked to Riker's surprised eyes like a white furred creature was atop hir, 
roaring its fury. Burgoyne twisted around within its grasp and grabbed it by 
either wrist. S/he managed to get the creature's hands from around hir throat 
but apparently it was everything s/he could do to stop it from tear­ing hir to 
pieces.
"Computer, freeze program!" shouted Riker. Burgoyne, in­tent on hir opponent 
didn't seem to hear him.
The creature was straddling Burgoyne, and appeared to be doing its level best to 
kill the struggling Hermat.
Believing there to be a holodeck malfunction, Riker didn't hesitate. He charged 
toward the creature and leaped onto its back. He braced himself, putting all his 
strength into trying to haul the monster off Burgoyne. It didn't seem to be 
paying any attention to him at all, focusing all its efforts on annihilating its 
chosen prey. For mat matter, Riker wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do 
in the event that the monster actually no­ticed him, because the odds were that 
it could kill Riker with­out any great effort But Riker was. determined that he 
wasn't going down without a struggle.
He saw Lefler standing there... and she was shaking her
head, looking more bemused than anything. He couldn't un­derstand it. Here she 
was faced with a clear emergency, and she didn't seem to have a clue how to 
react. "Security! Get se­curity down here!" Riker shouted.
"Commander," Lefler began, "this is -- "
Burgoyne snarled, trying to fight back, but s/he seemed to be losing the 
struggle.
"I gave you a direct order, dammit! Now follow it!"
With a troubled frown, she tapped her comm badge. "Secu­rity, this is Lefler, in 
holodeck 4A. Get someone down here, fast" But there was absolutely no sense of 
urgency in her voice.
Is everyone around here insane? Riker wondered as he re­doubled his efforts to 
haul the creature off Burgoyne. And if he did manage to accomplish that feat, 
his only hope then was that Burgoyne would recover quickly enough to aid him in 
subduing the creature. Or at the very least, they could hold out long enough for 
security to get there. And why was Lefler just standing around? Granted, she was 
rather slight in comparison to Riker and Burgoyne, but dammit, she could 
certainly find something to do besides just watching it happen.
Hie doors slid open and a walking land mass entered. The security guard took up 
the entirety of the door frame. When he moved, it was slow and ponderous. He had 
no neck, his head apparently attached directly to his shoulders, and his skin in 
the dim lighting of the holodeck looked like solid granite.
"Hi, Zak," said Robin.
"Hello. You called?" he rumbled.
Riker couldn't believe it. They genuinely were all insane. A security officer 
had just walked into the middle of what was clearly a life-and-death holodeck 
malfunction, and he didn't seem quite clear on what had to be done.
"Stop this thing before it kills someone!" shouted Riker.
The guard called Zak stood there for a moment, taking in die situation. He 
didn't move. Instead he spoke four words:
"Janos." Zak shouted, "Janos! Knock it off." Zak's loud voice almost shook the 
moon.
The white furred creature stopped in its tracks. Then, with a sigh, it stood 
fully upright rather than in the hunched position
it had been using until that point. Riker was still hanging on its back, 
dumbfounded.
"Sir? If you don't mind?" asked the creature, and the ques­tion was clearly 
addressed to Riker. "Apparently, this exercise period is over." Riker, feeling 
as if sanity was slipping away from him, released his grip and dropped to the 
floor. Bur­goyne, for hir part, was picking hirself off the floor and dusting 
hirself off.
Zak looked back to Lefler. "Anything else?"
"No, that should about do it."
He inclined his chest slightly, which was his equivalent of nodding, and then he 
turned and walked back out the door.
VIII.
gerrid thul was eminently pleased as he looked around the room of dead men.
That might not have been the most accurate of terms, he rea­soned. Not all of 
them were men, for starters. A goodly num­ber of males of the species were 
there, yes, but there was a vast array of females as well. All equally 
deserving, equally titled, equally dead. And to be absolutely, one hundred 
percent cor­rect, he would have to admit that none of them were actually, in 
point of fact, dead.
Yet.
Never had the word "yet" been so delicious, held so much promise. Yet 
Definitely, indisputably, yet.
As he walked through the grand reception hall that hosted the first of what was 
intended to be a number of gatherings cel­ebrating the bicentennial, he couldn't 
help but be satisfied, and even amused, at the way that others within the 
Federation were reacting to him. There were nods, smiles, a polite wink or two. 
And many, ever so many requests for "just a few moments" of his time that 
invariably expanded into many minutes.
He had been careful, so very careful in making his contacts. And what had been 
so elegant about the entire matter was that those poor, benighted fools in the 
Federation had a tendency to
side with the underdog. And that was something mat Thul had very much seemed. A 
man who was once great, who had lost everything, and who was now trying to build 
himself back up to a position of strength and influence. He had come to people 
seemingly hat in hand, unprepossessing, undemanding. And he played, like a 
virtuoso, upon one of the fundamental truths of all sentient beings: Everyone 
liked to feel superior to someone else. It made them comfortable. It made them 
generous. And best of all, it made them sloppy and offered a situation that 
General Thul could capitalize upon.
Of course, Vara Syndra had helped.
"Where is Vara this fine evening?" assorted ambassadors and high muck-a-mucks in 
the Federation asked. But Thul had held her back, and not without reason. Best 
to build up antici­pation, to get them to want to see her, ask about her, look 
around and try to catch a glimpse of her. Vara knew her place, though, and also 
knew that timing was everything. She would remain secreted away until the 
appropriate time had presented itself, and then he would send for her.
He had a feeling that the time was fast approaching.
"Thul! General Thul!" came a hearty voice that Thul recog­nized instantly. He 
turned to see Admiral Edward Jellico ap­proaching.
He did not like Jellico. That, in and of itself, was nothing sur­prising; he 
didn't like any of them, really. But Jellico was a par­ticularly pompous and 
officious representative of humanity. Thul hoped against hope that he might 
somehow actually be able to see Jellico when the death throes overtook him, but 
that didn't seem tremendously likely. He would have to settle for imagining it. 
Then again, Thul had a famously vivid imagina­tion, so that probably wouldn't 
present too much of a difficulty.
"Edward!" returned Thul cheerfully, perfectly matching the pitch and enthusiasm 
of Jellico's own voice. He had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the 
noise and chatter of the packed ballroom. Furthermore, all around him the scents 
of various foods wafted toward him. Thul had a rather acute sense of smell, and 
the array was nearly overwhelming to him. Some seemed rather enticing while 
others nearly induced his gag re­flex, so it was quite an effort to keep it all 
straight within him. It is good to see you again, my friend."
"And you as well, General." He gestured to those who were accompanying them. One 
was another human, a tall and pow­erfully built human female. The other was a 
rather elegant-looking Vulcan with graying hair, and that annoying serenity that 
Vulcans seemed to carry with them at all times. "This is Admiral O'Shea," he 
said, pointing to the female, "and this is Ambassador Stonn. Admiral, 
Ambassador, General Thul of the Thallonian Empire."
"The late Thallonian Empire, I fear," said Thul. He bowed in O'Shea's direction, 
and then gave a flawless Vulcan salute to Stonn. "Peace and long life," he said.
"Live long and prosper," replied Stonn.
One of us will, thought Thul.
"I'm familiar with your good works, Thul," said O'Shea. "As I recall, you were 
working just last month to seek more humanitarian aid for refugees from 
Thallonian space."
"Actually," Thul told her, "I have been looking into expand­ing my efforts. You 
see, in exploring what needs to be done to help our own refugees, I have 
stumbled upon other races that could use aid as well. Aid... which is sometimes 
hampered by the Federation."
"Hampered? How so?" asked Stonn.
"It is ... ironic that I would bring this up now," Thul said, looking quite 
apologetic. "We are, after all, here to celebrate the signing of the Resolution 
of Non-interference, one of the keystone documents of the entire Federation."
"Yes. So?"
"So, Admiral O'Shea... it may be time to revisit the entire concept of the prime 
directive. All too often ... and I truly do not wish to offend with my 
sentiments..."
"Please, General, say what you feel," Jellico urged him.
"Very well. It seems that, all too often, the intent of the prime directive is 
corrupted. The letter is followed when the spirit is violated." He noticed that 
several other people had overheard him and were now attending his words as well. 
Su­perb. The larger audience he had, the better he liked it. "The fact is that 
the prime directive was created specifically so that more advanced races would 
not harm less developed races. But too many times, we encounter situations where 
it is specifically cited as a reason not to help those races. Starfleet
stands by, watches them fumble about, and simply takes down notes while 
observing from hidden posts. Think, my friends. Think, for example, of a small 
child," and his voice started to ache with imagined hurt, "a small boy, dying of 
a dis­ease ... the cure for which is held by those who look down from on high. 
But do they help? Do they produce a medica­tion that will save him? No... no, my 
friends, they do not. They bloodlessly watch, and take down their notes, and 
per­haps they'll log the time of death. And who knows if that child might not 
have grown up to be the greatest man, inven­tor, thinker, philosopher, leader of 
that race. The man who could bring that race into a golden age, cut off... in 
his youth. What would it have hurt... to help that child? And what tremendous 
benefit might have been gained. Who among you could endorse such a scenario ... 
and believe it to some­how serve a greater good?"
There was dead silence from those within earshot. Finally, Stonn said, "A very 
passionate observation, Thul. At its core, there may even be some valid points. 
However... interference invites abuse. It was an earthman who stated that power 
tends to corrupt... and absolute power corrupts absolutely. For all of the 
positive scenarios that you can spin, I am certain that I would easily be able 
to create plausible hypotheticals of abuse of that selfsame power."
"What Ambassador Stonn is saying," said Admiral O'Shea, "is that if the 
non-interference directive is, as you postulate, an error... isn't it better to 
err on the side of caution?"
'Two hundred years ago, perhaps. I will certainly grant you that. But of what 
use is experience if one does not learn from it," replied Thul. "There are 
people who need help and don't even know that they do. Besides, is not human 
history rife with such 'interference'? Were there not more advanced members of 
the human race who went to less-developed, undernourished or undereducated areas 
and brought them technology ... ad­vancement ... even entire belief systems?"
"And in many instances did as much harm as good," Jellico said. "There was also 
conquest, to say nothing of entire races of people who were annihilated by germs 
and strains of dis­eases that their own immune systems were completely 
un­equipped to handle."
"Ultimately, however," and Thul smiled, "things seem to have worked out for 
you."
"Yes, because we found our own way."
"Or perhaps in spite of finding your own way. Think, though. If older, wiser, 
more advanced races such as yours, and all those represented in this room were 
to use their experience, their knowledge of the mistakes that they themselves 
made to avoid mistakes in the future..." He shook his head. "Don't you see. But 
when there is want and need by other races who have never even heard of the 
Federation, and who could bene­fit so tremendously by the help ..."
"You're saying that perhaps it's time to abolish or reframe the prime 
directive?' said Jellico.
"At this time? On the anniversary the signing of the docu­ment that was its 
genesis? Yes, that is exactly what I am say­ing."
There were thoughtful nods from all around, like a sea of bob­bing heads. 
Finally it was Jellico who said, "You may... have some valid points there. 
General. Obviously I can't speak on be­half of Starfleet, and certainly not the 
Federation... but perhaps some serious study should be done as to whether it's 
time to re­think our intentions and perhaps expand upon -- "
"You hypocrite."
The voice had come completely unexpectedly, and the words were slightly slurred. 
As one, everyone within earshot turned and saw the rather remarkable sight of a 
Starfleet cap­tain, holding a drink and glaring at Admiral Jellico with as open 
a glare of contempt as Thul had ever seen.
"You are some piece of work, Admiral. You are really, truly, some piece of 
work." He took another sip of the blue liquid that was swirling about in his 
glass.
Thul couldn't quite believe the change that had come over Jellico's face. He had 
gone from thoughtful to darkly furious, practically in the space of a heartbeat. 
"Captain Cal­houn ... may I ask what you're doing here?"
"Listening to you reverse yourself," replied Captain Cal­houn. "The number of 
times I've had to listen to you pontifi­cate and talk about the sanctity of the 
prime directive... of how unbreakable the first, greatest law of Starfleet is 
... and how you've used that selfsame law to second-guess and de-
nounce some of my most important decisions. But now here you are, all dressed up 
at this extremely important gathering," and he added exaggerated emphasis to the 
last three words, "and this... person..." and he waved in a vague manner at 
Thul, "... suggests the exact same thing that I've been saying for years now... 
and suddenly you're ready to listen. You act like this is the first time you've 
heard it."
"Perhaps General Thul simply has a way of expressing his concerns that is 
superior to the belligerent tone you usually adopt, Captain," said Jellico. 
Quickly he said to the oth­ers around him, "General, Ambassador Stonn, Admiral 
O'Shea... I'm terribly sorry about this. I'm not entirely cer­tain what this 
officer is doing here..."
'I'm here because I was ordered to be here," Calhoun said. A number of other 
guests were noticing the ruckus, which wasn't difficult since Calhoun's voice 
was carrying.
"That's strange. My office should have received a memo on that," Jellico said, 
his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"Really. Perhaps someone simply forgot Or perhaps you were too busy getting 
ready for this little get-together that you didn't have a chance to stay current 
with your memos. Look, Admiral," and Calhoun swayed ever so slightly. Thul could 
tell that this rather odd individual had clearly had a bit too much to drink. 
"Make no mistake. I'd rather be on my ship. But I was ordered to be here because 
I'm supposed to be representing the Federation's interests in Thallonian space. 
One of the new frontiers that we brave individuals are exploring and 
protect­ing. Here's to us," and he knocked back more of the drink, leaving about 
a third of it in the glass.
"Of course," said Thul hi slow realization. "Captain Cal­houn ... of the 
Excalibur. Am I correct?"
"Correct."
"I am very aware of your vessel's humanitarian mission. It is also my 
understanding that Lord Si Cwan is among the person-ad of your brave ship. I met 
him once, when he was a very small child. I doubt he would remember me."
"Captain Calhoun was just leaving," said Jellico, "weren't you, Captain?"
"Oh, was I?" Calhoun smiled lopsidedly. "But Admiral, this is a party. Why are 
you so anxious to have me leave?"
"Captain," O'Shea spoke up, "I'm well aware that you have some ... issues... 
with Admiral Jellico. But I submit that this is neither the time nor the 
place..."
"Or perhaps it's the perfect time and place," Calhoun shot back. Thul quickly 
began to reassess his opinion. Calhoun wasn't a bit drunk. He was seriously 
drunk. Not in such a way that he was going to fall over, but certainly whatever 
inhibi­tions he might have about speaking the truth were gone. "The fact is that 
the good Admiral here has had it out for me for years now. Just because he got 
it into his head mat I was some sort of super officer, and then I didn't live up 
to the place that he'd set for me. I saved his Me, you know," he said in an 
off­hand manner to Thul. "This man would be standing here dead if not for me."
"And because of that, I protected you as long as I could," Jellico said, his 
body stiffening. "But you're the one who al­lowed the Grissom incident to get to 
you, Calhoun. Accidents happen, bad things happen to good people. True leaders 
man­age to rise above that."
"And leave their consciences behind?"
"I didn't say that. Look, Calhoun," said Jellico, his ire clear­ly beginning to 
rise, "you said you're here because you were ordered to be here. If you're 
actually obeying orders, it's going to be the first time that I can recall in 
ages ... perhaps ever. That being the case, here's another order: Get the hell 
out of here before you embarrass yourself further, if that's possible."
"Gentlemen," Stonn said, "perhaps you might wish to take this conversation into 
a private area..."
It seemed to Thul that, at that point, everyone hi the place was watching them. 
He also saw several men dressed in UFP security garb threading their way through 
the crowd.
"I'm sure he'd like that," Calhoun said. "That's how his kind best operates: In 
the dark, hi private, alone, like any fungus."
"That's enough," said Jellico, the veins on his temples clear­ly throbbing.
"You sway with the wind, Jellico," said Calhoun. 'To your superiors and your 
pals, you say what you think they want to hear. And to the rest of us, you step 
on us like we're bugs. That's all we are to you. And you can't stand me because 
I ac­tually stood up to you. Stood up! That's an understatement. I
flattened you. I flattened him," Calhoun said to O'Shea. "One punch. I resigned 
from Starfleet, he tried to get in my way, I warned him, and one punch, I took 
him down."
"It was not one punch." Jellico looked around, clearly em­barrassed. "Not one 
punch."
"It was. One shot to the side of the head, and you went down on your ass, right 
after you grabbed my arm..."
"All right, that's it. Security!" called Jellico ...
... and he grabbed Calhoun by the arm.
Calhoun's smile went wolfish, and to Thul it seemed as if all the inebriation, 
all the fuzziness about the man, dissolved in a second. Whatever the man might 
have had to drink, he was able to shunt it aside in a split second. His fist 
whipped around with no hesitation, and caught Jellico squarely in the side of 
the head. Jellico went down amidst gasps from everyone surrounding him.
"That will suffice," said Ambassador Stonn, stepping be­tween Jellico and 
Calhoun. At that moment, despite the superi­or strength of the Vulcan, Thul 
would not have wanted to place bets on just who would win an altercation between 
the Vulcan and Calhoun.
But Calhoun didn't display the least interest in fighting off Stonn. Instead he 
simply grinned and said, "See? Told you. One punch."
"Get out of here!" Jellico said, rubbing his head. His eyes weren't focused on 
anything; Thul could practically hear Jelli-co's head ringing right from where 
he was standing.
Calhoun seemed to be enjoying Jellico's disorientation im­mensely. "One-Punch 
Jellico, they should call you. That's all it takes," Calhoun called. "That's all 
it takes to puncture a pompous windbag."
O'Shea helped Jellico to his feet, asking after his health so-licitously, but it 
didn't seem as if Jellico even heard her. In-stead, across the room that had now 
become completely
ashed, Jellico shouted, "I'll have your rank for this, Calhoun!
Do you hear me? This is the last straw! I don't care who your
friends are! I don't care what you've accomplished! I don't
care if Picard backs you up! I don't care if the words, 'Calhoun
is my favorite captain' appears on the wall at Starfleet head-quarters in 
flaming letters twelve feet high! You are gone! You are finished! Do you hear? 
Finished!"
"I hear you, Admiral!" called Calhoun as he stormed out of the room. "And I 
heard you when you said it years ago! And I came back, didn't I? I keep coming 
back!" He turned and walked out of the room.
"Not this time, Calhoun! Not this time!" Jellico shouted after him.
There was a long silence after Calhoun left from the room. Jellico was flushed 
red in the face, clearly utterly chagrined at the turn of events. "You've 
nothing to be embarrassed about, Admiral," said Thul consolingly. "Obviously he 
was a madman."
"I could tell you horror stories, General, I really could," said Jellico. 
"Mackenzie Calhoun represents... I'm sorry, I should say 'represented'... 
everything that's wrong with the 'cow­boy' breed of captain. No respect for 
rales or for authority. No respect for the chain of command. No..."
"No respect, period?" offered Thul.
"Yes. Yes, that's exactly right He left the fleet once before... went 
freelance... did dirty work for whomever would pay him. The only reason he was 
brought back into the fleet was because he had well-placed supporters, but after 
this debacle, even they won't back him. Believe me, we're stronger without him."
"And he certainly seems to have no love for Starfleet... or even perhaps the 
Federation," Thul said slowly.
"The Mackenzie Calhoun's of this world love only them­selves and care about 
their own skins, and that's all. We were speaking of abuse of power before, 
General? He's exactly the type that the prime directive was created to ride herd 
on. Good riddance to him, I say." Jellico rubbed the side of his face. "Let him 
be someone else's problem."
"Excellent idea," said General Thul. "A most excellent idea."
Mackenzie Calhoun sat at curbside outside the great hall. From within, he could 
hear the music and voices building up to their previous levels.
He shook out his hand and squeezed it into a fist. It hurt. That was very 
annoying. His hand shouldn't be hurting. And it seemed to him that Jellico had 
fallen much faster, and bounced much harder, when he'd struck him years earlier.
"I hope I'm not losing my punch," he said to no one.
"I hope not, too," came a sultry voice, indicating that he had not quite been 
speaking to no one as he had previously thought.
He turned and looked up.
She was, quite simply, the most beautiful Thallonian woman he had ever seen. She 
had absolutely no hair, except for two delicate eyebrows that were carefully 
sculpted. Her neck was long and elegant, her bosom in perfect proportion to her 
hips. Her legs seemed to go to somewhere up around her shoulders, and when she 
smiled it was incandescent.
Calhoun automatically rose to his feet.
"Hello," she said.
"Hi. I'm..." He thought for a moment, then recalled the in­formation. "Mackenzie 
Calhoun."
"I'm Vara Syndra," she purred, displaying a remarkable fa­cility for recalling 
her own name. "Gerrid Thul is interested in speaking with you."
"Will you be merer
"Yes."
"Then so will I."
IX.
"apologize, ensign. right now. You too, Burgoyne."
They were in the conference lounge. It was Shelby who had just sternly addressed 
Burgoyne and Ensign Janos, while a somewhat chagrined-looking Robin Lefler 
looked on. Riker's face was expressionless. Janos had changed to the Starfleet 
uniform that he usually wore, albeit uncomfortably, when he was on duty.
"My apologies, Commander," Janos said sincerely. "When... exercising... my 
Hermat friend and I can get quite intense. We simply did not hear you call for 
the program to freeze. Then, when you attacked me, we thought you were joining 
us. Captain Calhoun does, on occasion."
"My apologies as well," Burgoyne put in.
"Well, then," Riker said, smiling, "a simple mistake. No hard feelings."
, "Thank you, sir," Janos said. "But... permission to speak freely?"
"Of course," Riker said.
"I am aware that my appearance can be quite startling, even frightening, to 
those unprepared for it."
"All right," Riker suddenly spoke up. His face was still in­scrutable. "I see 
where you're going, and you're right. I shouldn't have made assumptions about 
you... even a 'hologram' of you, based solely on your physical appearance. We in 
Starfleet are supposed to be above the concept of making judgments based on 
surface impressions. Therefore, Janos... I apologize for jump­ing to the 
conclusion that you were a threat and not a Starfleet of­ficer. Perhaps if you 
were wearing clothing..."
"I was, a white jumpsuit."
"I didn't notice. Again, my fault, I apologize."
"Thank you, Captain."
"Sir," Robin Leffer put in at that moment, "I apologize for not taking firmer 
control of the situation. I could have done what Zak did. I should have been 
more take-charge, instead of allowing myself to be carried away by the 
avalanche."
"Yes, you should have," Riker said. "Just try to be a little more aggressive in 
the future."
"Aggressive. Yes, sir."
"Well, that wraps that up," Riker said, smiling again. "Oh, one more thing. 
Burgoyne, I understand that you're pregnant. Is exercise of this nature a good 
idea?"
"Wait, wait a minute," Burgoyne said. "Where did you hear I was pregnant? I'm 
not pregnant."
Lefler looked utterly confused. "But you are, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not. I think I would know that."
"But... you told McHenry ..."
"What, in sickbay the other day? That was a joke! He knew I was joking."
"Uh oh."
Now both Riker and Burgoyne was staring at Lefler. In uni-son, they said, "Uh 
oh?" Janos and Shelby looked at each other in confusion.
"Well... McHenry didn't know," said Lefler. "You weren't there when he came to, 
after he passed out."
"Yes, I know that. While he was unconscious, that's when I was called down to 
engineering. Worked the eighteen straight hours, as I said. When I finally got 
back to my quarters, though there was a message from him. We got together and I 
let him know it wasn't true. That it was just intended to be a
"You told him that?"
"Yes. A few hours ago."
"Uh oh."
"Why does she keep saying 'uh oh'?" Burgoyne asked Shel­by. Shelby shook her 
head, not knowing the answer.
"Well... the thing is, you see... McHenry told me. And I sort of told, well..." 
She shifted in her seat, looking extreme­ly uncomfortable.
"You just sort of told, well... who?"
Wincing as if she were preparing to duck back from a punch, she said, "Uh... 
everybody."
"What?"
"Yeah, I'm afraid so. How the hell was I supposed to know?" she said 
defensively.
"You mean everybody on the ship?"
"No, everybody hi the quadrant," she shot back. "Yes, on the ship. And not 
really everybody. Just... a lot of people."
"Perfect. That's just perfect," moaned Burgoyne. "One casu­al remark, and 
suddenly ..."
At that moment, the doors hissed open and Si Cwan entered.
"Excellent," said the Thallonian noble. "I'm glad you're all here."
"Ambassador, could this possibly wait... ?" asked Shelby.
"Narobi II."
Shelby and Riker exchanged looks. "Pardon?" asked Riker.
"I've received word from one of my sources that the Romu­lans are going to be 
attacking Narobi II. He's reasonably sure that it's the same pack that you're 
talking about The Rene­gades we'd hoped they return to Romulus to help rebuild 
after the Dominion War."
Instantly everyone at the table was alert "How does he know this?" Riker asked.
"He's the type of individual who makes it his business to know such things. In 
this instance, someone with whom he was connected apparently aided in repairs on 
one of the ves­sels that the Independence engaged in battle. And this 
indi­vidual happened to hear about one of the next intended targets."
"I'm not sure I like this. It's too pat," said Shelby.
"I agree," Riker said.
"Perhaps. Perhaps not," said Si Cwan. "When you deal with a large operation... 
and this apparently seems to fit that de­scription ... there's large numbers of 
people who let things slip. In any event, Captain, you wanted me to try and 
bring you information. If you're going to dismiss it out of hand, then why am I 
bothering?"
Slowly Riker nodded. It was, he thought a valid enough point "Narobi II. Tell me 
about it."
"It's a rather unique world in Thallonian space. It's populat­ed entirely by a 
race who has converted itself into beings of a sort of living metal. They 
created ultra-durable bodies for themselves that last for hundreds of years. In 
essence, they've made themselves immortal. They are utterly peaceful, but fully 
capable of protecting themselves should they be under attack. I'm not entirely 
certain why the Romulans would choose to target them."
"Neither am I. But we can't afford to let the possibility go. Commander... set 
course for Narobi II."
"Aye, sir."
As they got up from the conference table, Si Cwan sud­denly turned to Burgoyne 
and, to hir surprise, placed a hand on either side of hir face. "What are you -- ?" 
s/he began to say.
Si Cwan proceeded to utter a lengthy chant, the performance of which stopped 
everyone in their tracks. Cwan had a surpris­ingly melodious voice which floated 
up and down the register. It was so lovely that no one dared to interrupt as 
Cwan contin­ued that way for about forty-five seconds, murmuring, chant­ing, and 
swaying back and forth slightly as he did so. Then he lowered his hands and 
smiled.
"What was that all about?" demanded Burgoyne.
"That" Si Cwan said in a booming voice, "was the ancient Thallonian prayer for a 
smooth and uncomplicated pregnancy, which can only be delivered by one of the 
Noble house upon an expectant mother. Congratulations, Burgoyne. May you have a 
child which brings glory to your name."
"I'm not pregnant" Burgoyne said testily, and s/he walked out of the conference 
room.
There was silence for a moment and then, non-plussed, Si Cwan decided, "Well... 
it's probably for the best. It's been a while, and I was out of practice. 
Instead of the pregnancy chant, I may have accidentally prayed for hir not to 
contract root rot."
"Smashing. So the odds of it being effective just went way up," said Janos 
cheerily.
I've got to get off this ship, thought Riker.
X.
zolon darg was rather pleased with the turnout
The place that he had chosen for the rendezvous on Argelius was somewhat out of 
the way, well off the beaten track of most of the places of entertainment and 
merriment which drew in most of the tourists. Darg, for the get-together that he 
had been busily arranging, had selected a rather disreputable place which was in 
violation of at least three Argelian health codes.
He was also drawn by the name of the place: "Kara's," in commemoration of some 
hideous event which had occurred on Argelius nearly a century ago during which a 
number of women were slaughtered... rather nastily, at that
Kwint was looking around with open curiosity. They had been out drinking much of 
the night but Kwint didn't seem particularly daunted by the amount of alcohol 
they had been patting away. Zolon Darg was impressed by that. As a Thallon­ian, 
he was more than capable of imbibing considerable mounts of alcohol without 
displaying, or even feeling, the ill effects. Kwint was obviously just a human, 
yet he didn't seem 10 be displaying any ill effects at all. Darg wondered if one 
of Kwint's limbs wasn't actually hollow, enabling him to store vast quantities 
within.
There was a permanent layer of dirt on the walls of Kara's.
Many of the chairs seemed rickety, and the tables weren't much better. There was 
a large mirror behind the bar. It was cracked. There were also signs that there 
had been a fight in the bar not too long ago. Darg wondered absently what had 
started it, who had won... and if anyone had actually sur­vived. Behind the bar, 
a surly Tellarite bartender named Gwix poured out drinks. Gwix wasn't the type 
of bartender one poured their heart out too... at least, not unless one was a 
masochist. Gwix had little patience for anything except serving the drinks, 
getting me money, and closing up for the night. Nonetheless, even Gwix was aware 
when Darg came in, and tilted his pig-like head in acknowledgment.
"Nice place," Kwint said at length. "Come here often?"
"Often enough."
"You want to tell me what's going on?"
"You'll find out soon enough. Come here." He moved around one of the tables and 
indicated that Kwint should sit. Kwint did so. Darg, however, continued to 
stand, and as he leaned on the back of one of the chairs, it was quickly evident 
why. Just leaning on it would have been enough to break it.
Darg seemed to be assessing Kwint for a long moment, stroking his chin 
thoughtfully. Finally he said, "You have a lot on the ball, Kwint. I've seen 
that tonight. First with the way that we met. Then we went to that gambling 
place, and you im­mediately nailed the guy who was trying to cheat us. Then we 
went to the brothel, and you immediately nailed -- "
"What are you saying, Darg?" Kwint asked, cutting him off.
"I'm saying that I think you have potential in my organiza­tion. An organization 
that's only going to let larger." He glanced over Kwint's shoulder. "Ah. I see 
some of our guests have arrived."
They were filing in, one at a time, regarding each other with obvious distrust. 
Then again, that wasn't all that surprising. The dozen or so beings who had 
shown up at Kara's were not accustomed to trusting anyone or working together, 
for they were all from races who were outside of the Federation. Races who, for 
whatever reason, considered the alliance of the UFP to be suffocating to their 
own interests. There was an Orion... a Kreel... a Tan'gredi, all ooze and 
nictating mem­branes ... a Capitano, growling deep in its chest, its eyeless
face gazing around with its internal radar taking in the parame­ters of the 
room... an assortment of others.
"Thank you all for coming," Darg said once everyone was settled. He was all too 
aware of the suspicion that focused on him from every direction. That was 
perfectly fine. He could handle that "Since this is a matter of some delicacy, I 
know that I can count on all of you for your discretion."
"We're not interested in your compliments or your kudos to our discretion, gun 
runner," said the Kreel. "We all have other matters to attend to. Say what you 
have to say."
Darg didn't reply immediately. He'd learned that some ex­tended silence could 
often be more useful than simply leaping straight into discourse. So he allowed 
die quiet to hang there a short time before he said, "All of you have grudges 
and diffi­culties with the Federation. They, and the races that they repre­sent, 
have stifled you, interfered with you, operated in manners that are 
contradictory to your interests. And I'm not speaking of you as individuals, of 
course -- although that much is cer­tainly true -- but also for the races that you 
represent"
There was that slightly nauseating "slurping" sound that al­ways preceded a 
Tan'gredi before it spoke. "Races do not op­erate as whole, Darg. There are 
always different factions. Some of my people -- the radicals -- speak of joining the 
Feder­ation at some point."
"True enough," Darg said smoothly. "But let us say that I have contacted 
you -- singled you out as individuals -- because I thought that you would be most 
amenable to the cause I rep­resent"
"What cause is that?" The Orion was idly stabbing the table top at which he was 
seated with his curved dagger.
"The cause that involves... a new time to come. A new era that we mink of as the 
post-Federation era."
"Who is 'we'?" The Kreel, as quick-tempered as most of his type, clearly wasn't 
interested in vagueness. "And what exactly will make this era of yours 'post'? 
The Dominion war is over; the Federation is not going anywhere anytime soon."
"I... choose at this point not to focus on the specifics."
There was a skeptical groan.
"What I am here to tell you," continued Darg as if they had not made a sound, 
"is that there will come a time -- soon -- 
when the Federation will not be a consideration. At that point, it's going to be 
a whole new galaxy... and whoever has the greatest technology, the most 
formidable weapons, and the strongest allies ... will come out on top. What 
we -- those I represent -- are seeking are those who are interested in buying into our 
vision."
" 'Buying in.' Here it comes," said the Kreel, sneering. "And what exactly does 
that entail?"
"One hundred thousand bars of gold-pressed latinum from each of you... on behalf 
of the races that you represent."
There was a roar of mixed laughter, disbelief, and outright contempt. Through it 
all, Darg simply stood there, taking it in, his face immobile, his manner 
patient. He acted as if he had all the time in the world.
"And if we don't buy in?" asked the Capitano in that re­markable voice that 
seemed to originate from somewhere in the ground beneath his feet. "Then you 
will die."
It was not Darg who had spoken, however. It was Kwint. The attention promptly 
switched to him, and even Darg was clearly surprised to hear the relative 
newcomer speak so boldly.
"Is that a threat?" asked the Kreel quietly. Kwint half-smiled and walked in a 
slow circle around the gathering. "If someone offered you safe haven from a 
superno­va... and you displayed lack of interest... and that someone informed 
you that you were going to die... is that a threat? Or is that simply a 
prediction?"
"Does this human speak for you, Darg?" inquired the Orion. He had stopped 
sticking the knife into the table, his interest caught by the shift in the 
atmosphere.
Darg sized Kwint up for a long moment. In point of fact, he had told Kwint 
absolutely nothing about the plan. Kwint was speaking entirely from conjecture, 
bluff... and attitude. It was, however, an attitude that Darg found most 
intriguing. "He speaks for himself," Darg said slowly, "but I choose not to 
con­tradict him. Make of that what you will."
Apparently feeling that he'd been given a tacit endorsement to continue, Kwint 
promptly did so. "Yes ... I am human, as you noted. And there have been any 
number of times hi human
history where people were offered an opportunity by those who had vision... and 
the will, drive and resources to bring that vision to life. At the time that 
these visionaries presented their views of things, there were always those who 
were skep­tical or derisive. Who would gladly turn their back and walk away, not 
realizing that they were leaving greatness behind. Zolon Darg is connected to 
that vision. He has seen the dream. He sees a place where there is a galaxy that 
is unstifled by the rules of the Federation, striving ceaselessly to create a 
perfect reality that exists only in the minds of those who have an inter­est in 
maintaining the status quo. You deserve to come into your own... and Zolon Darg, 
and those he represents, are the ones who bring you there."
There was silence for a long moment. And then the Kreel representative stepped 
forward and said, 'I'm out"
"As am I," said the Orion, "although I'll have another drink first... if our 
generous host doesn't mind."
"Of course I don't mind," said Darg calmly, but his attention was focused on the 
Kreel. "My friend... I understand your concern. And I wish you well in your 
future endeavors."
He gripped the Kreel by the forearm and nodded firmly. The Kreel eyed him 
suspiciously, apparently tensing for Darg to make some sort of sudden move. But 
then Darg stepped away, nodded and said, "Good-bye," and then turned to the 
others. "I would ask you others to consider die matter a bit more careful­ly and 
deeply than our Kreel friend here."
As the Kreel headed out the door, the Capitano rumbled, "You have to at least 
meet us halfway here, Darg. At least give us some idea of just why you are so 
certain that you will be
able to dispose of the Federation in such a -- "
There was a sudden scream from just outside the bar. The voice and tone was 
unmistakable. It was the Kreel, and to say that he sounded in distress would 
have been to understate it.
There was a rush for the door. The only ones who didn't move in that direction 
were Zolon Darg and Kwint, the latter
glancing at the former in silent query. Darg simply nodded and became extremely 
engrossed in studying his fingernails.
as the others peered out the door, there were gasps of disbe-lief, a number of 
profanities, several quick prayers offered up to respective gods, and the sound 
of the Tan'gredi becoming
physically ill... although considering the somewhat disgust­ing noises they 
customarily made, it was admittedly hard to distinguish.
What they saw was the Kreel representative, collapsed on the ground and trying 
with all his might just to stand up. His skin had become a distinctive shade of 
green, and gaping pus­tules had opened up all along his body.
And then the Kreel slumped forward, hit the ground once more and fell silent. 
His body twitched spasmodically, but that was all.
There was deathly silence in Kara's. Then Darg moved among them, handing out 
small rectangles with coordinates engraved in them. "If you are interested in 
learning more of what I've said... if you are interested in participating... and 
if," and he glanced at Kwint in acknowledgment, "... if you are someone of 
vision... then show up at these coordinates precisely five Federation Standard 
Days from today. We might as well use their units of time measurement," he added 
in amusement, "for as long as they're vaguely applicable."
"What did that to the Kreel?" the Tan'gredi burbled. "I've seen fast-acting 
poisons before, but -- "
"That wasn't a poison... was it," said the Orion slowly. "That was some sort 
of... of virus. A disease. You gave it to him somehow. What was it? Have you 
passed it on to us somehow?"
"My dear fellows," Darg said soothingly, "I assure you that you are perfectly 
safe." And then he added, rather significantly, "for the time being. As Kwint 
stated, those supernovas can be rather vicious, and I would hate to see any or 
all of you incin­erated."
The Capitano looked at the coordinates and growled, "I know this section of 
space. There's nothing at these coordi­nates. Nothing at all."
"There will be," Darg said with a small smile. "There will be."
And with that, Darg made it quite clear that the meeting was over. One by one, 
the assorted representatives departed, stepping rather gingerly around the 
remains of the Kreel. "Worry not," Darg said with remarkable cheer, "he'll be 
attended to shortly enough. I wouldn't advise getting too close for the time 
being, though." The representatives took care to attend to his advice.
"Well," Darg said once he and Kwint were alone. "That went about as well as 
could be expected."
"You suspected that someone was going to doubt you... to walk out... didn't 
you," said Kwint.
Darg shrugged. "There's always one. Frankly, I was hoping it would be the Kreel. 
Insufferable race." Then he regarded Kwint more closely. "You spoke out of 
turn."
"Yes, I did. I considered your proposal intriguing, and see­ing skeptical and 
even disrespectful looks from those... indi­viduals ... was bothersome to me."
"And if something strikes you as bothersome, you feel an obligation to do 
something about it. Is that it?"
Kwint nodded slightly. "Something like that."
" 'Something like that.' I see." Darg looked Kwint up and down. "You know, 
Kwint... you have potential."
"Potential as what? You mentioned bringing me into your organization before..."
"Part of what I was doing during this meeting was keeping an eye on you. Trying 
to determine what one can expect of you. But you know... I'm still not sure. 
Your speaking up was not partic­ularly wise on your part... but on the other 
hand, it took nerve. I suppose you simply felt you had to 'equalize' things once 
more."
"In a way."
" 'In a way' is another means of saying 'something like that.' Yes, Kwint, 
definite potential. If you seem worthwhile, you might definitely be in line tor 
my number two man."
"Me?" Kwint looked like he couldn't believe it. "But we've only known each other 
for a few hours. Are you sure?"
"I work on instinct a good deal, Kwint That's how I judge people, and most of 
the time, I'm right."
"What happened to your previous number two man?"
"I killed him."
"Oh." Kwint didn't seem to know what to say. Darg, for his part, couldn't have 
cared less. "I said most of the time, I'm pretty reliable. Everyone has 
setbacks." And suddenly his hand was on Kwint's chest, and he was
lifting the smaller man up and slamming him against a wall. The pressure on 
Kwint's chest was such that, not only had the wind been knocked out of him, but 
he couldn't get any air into his lungs. He pulled in futility at Darg's 
immovable hand.
"Have a care," Darg said quite softly, "that you do not have a setback of your 
own." Then his hand opened wide and Kwint slid to the ground, coughing violently 
as he gulped down air. "Do we understand each other?"
Kwint nodded, still coughing.
"Now... you can attend to your first duty as a member of my organization." And 
he handed Kwint a large sack and a thick pair of gloves. Kwint, having managed 
to recover his breath, looked in confusion at Darg. Darg simply pointed in the 
direction of the remains of the Kreel. "Kindly clean that up. That is the first 
rule of my organization: We pick up after ourselves."
Kwint looked none too thrilled.
"Setbacks," Darg reminded him in a slightly singsong voice.
Kwint promptly did as he was told.
XI.
nice night to be seduced, thought Calhoun.
Indeed, it was a splendid night, one that seemed to be filled with promise. 
However, Calhoun couldn't be entirely sure just who was going to be seducing 
whom, or what precisely was going to be promised.
This "Vara Syndra" was unlike any woman he'd ever en­countered. She was pure 
sex. Calhoun found it difficult to con­centrate on the matter at hand, or even 
remember what the matter at hand was. But that wasn't what he needed to do at 
all. He had to stay focused, remember what his -- 
Grozit, look at those hips. The sway of them, and the arch of her back. ..the 
way she swivels when she walks...
He nearly had to slap himself across the face to try and bring himself back in 
line with what he was doing.
Vara Syndra was talking as she walked, and he came to the abrupt realization 
that he hadn't heard a word she said. At one point though, she smiled at him in 
a way that seemed to indi­cate that she not only knew the effect she was having, 
but that die was accustomed to it. He wondered why she was suddenly so much 
further ahead of him, and suddenly noticed that he'd stopped walking. He was 
just standing there and admiring her.
Stop it. This isn't funny, he snarled at himself, and forced
his feet to go back into motion. It was incredible to him that this female 
appeared to be an associate of General Thul. One wondered how in the world the 
man got any work done. Then again, she was certainly eminently capable of making 
slack­ing off appear to be the single greatest pastime known to man.
They had been strolling about, apparently aimlessly, for more man an hour. But 
now they had arrived in a section of San Francisco that had been restored to 
much of the late twen­tieth century architecture. It was an architecture which 
had made that city so unique before the massive earthquake and fire had 
practically levelled the place in the first half of the twenty-first century. 
Vara Syndra was guiding him to one of those townhouses. It had an old-world 
elegance and charm to it, but at the same time it also had an air of dark 
foreboding. Calhoun allowed the possibility that he might just be project­ing 
his own concerns upon it. There was the further possibility that, when compared 
to the vision that was Vara Syndra, every­thing had an air of dark foreboding.
"In here," she said, stopping at the door and gesturing that Calhoun should 
precede her.
Calhoun had a fairly reliable sixth sense for danger. So if there was an ambush 
of some sort waiting inside, for whatever reason, he would likely have been 
alerted to it. Then again, considering how distracted he was by Vara Syndra, it 
was pos­sible that an entire regiment of Danteri nationals, thirsting to avenge 
themselves against the fabled liberator of Xenex, were concealed within and 
Calhoun still wouldn't know the differ­ence. Still, mere was enough of the 
cautious and experienced warrior about him that he was prompted to say, as 
suavely as he could manage, "After you, Vara."
"How very gallant," she said, and entered without hesitation. Calhoun followed a 
moment later.
There wasn't a single Danteri, or other such soldier, in sight.
There was, however, a full-size portrait of Vara Syndra deco­rating the portico, 
and she was gloriously nude hi it. She was also discretely positioned, but 
still...
"Oh," said Vara Syndra in a teasing voice as she saw where his gaze was drawn. 
"That old thing. Do you really think it captures me?"
"I don't think a hundred big game hunters could adequately capture you," said 
Calhoun.
"Aren't you sweet." She ran a finger teasingly under his chin, and then sashayed 
up a long, winding flight of stairs. Calhoun took them two at a time.
At the top of the stairs she went through a door that Calhoun followed her 
through, which in turn led to a large suite of rooms. And seated rather 
comfortably in the elaborately fur­nished suite was General Thul. He was holding 
a drink, swirling the contents around casually, and he gestured to a cart nearby 
which had an assortment of beverages arrayed on it in assorted decanters. 
"Greetings, Captain Calhoun... or is it ac­curate to call you 'captain' 
anymore?"
"Simply 'Calhoun' will do for the time being."
"Really. Your friends, so I understand, address you as 'Mac.' I was hoping that 
we might become friends."
"Interesting that you should be aware of that. Been checking up on me, have 
you?"
"It wasn't all that difficult, Calhoun. After your rather uncer­emonious 
eviction from the gathering, you and your past 'an­tics' were very much the talk 
of the parry for some time afterward."
"Indeed. I'm flattered."
"You needn't be. Much of it wasn't particularly complimen­tary. Still," and he 
stroked his yellowed beard thoughtfully, "even those who were less than 
flattering clearly had a mea­sure of grudging respect for your... curious 
talents."
Calhoun said nothing.
"M'k'n'zy of Calhoun," continued General Thul. "A young Xenexian who watched his 
father beaten to death in the town square by Danteri oppressors, and was 
inspired by that inci­dent to free his home world from Danteri rule. By the age 
of twenty, he had accomplished this rather remarkable feat, achieving the rank 
of warlord and becoming possibly the most admired man on his world. All of Xenex 
was at his feet, but he instead walked a different path at the behest of one 
Jean-Luc Picard. He joined Starfleet, developed a reputation as an inde­pendent 
thinker whose sheer bravery and resourcefulness got the job done, and then 
resigned after an incident that resulted in the death of his commanding officer 
aboard the Grissom.
Spent a number of years doing whatever jobs he could for whomever he could 
before rejoining Starfleet and being as­signed command of the Excalibur, 
presently on extended as­signment to my dear Thallonian space. And now... ?" He 
waited, but Calhoun still said nothing. "Now... what, Cal­houn?"
"I don't know," Calhoun admitted. "I wasn't expecting this to happen. Then 
again, in retrospect, I suppose it was in­evitable. Starfleet and I have never 
exactly been a smooth fit."
"I've thought as much myself." General Thul rose from his chair and slowly 
walked in a circle around Calhoun. Calhoun, for his part, simply stood where he 
was, his hands draped be­hind his back. "I may be able to make use of a man like 
you."
"Give him my regards."
"Who?" Thul seemed momentarily puzzled.
"The man like me."
The confusion remained for a second longer, and then Thul allowed a smile. "Very 
witty. That was very witty, Calhoun."
"Not really. But my head's a bit foggy. Give me about three hours, I'll have 
reduced you to helpless giggles."
"What do you think of this one, Vara?" Thul said.
Vara had draped herself over a nearby chair. Calhoun sud­denly found that it was 
all he could do not to jump out of his skin. "I think a good deal of him, 
General."
"So do I. Then again," and he returned to his seat, "caution is always to be 
preferred. These are, after all, dangerous times."
"Not for you, I'd think," said Calhoun. "General Thul, doer of good works. 
Darling of the Starfleet upper rank. What dan­ger have you to fear?"
"Oh, I'd rather not speak of such things. After all, we wouldn't want to upset 
Vara. Would we, Vara?"
Vara Syndra fanned her face with her hand as if she were a southern belle 
fighting off an attack of the vapors. "I should certainly hope not," she said.
Every movement, every gesture she made, even the rising and falling of her chest 
as she breathed, was alluring to Cal­houn. / must be losing my mind. She must be 
doing something. But I have no idea what. Moreover, I don't care all that much, 
which is even more disturbing. "What things," he forced him­self back on track, 
"should we speak of, then."
Thul didn't answer immediately. Instead he strolled with slow, measured steps 
toward a skylight that provided a splen­did view of the starlit sky. He stood 
under it and gazed heaven­ward. "I have a small matter that I need attended to. 
You may very well be just the man for the job, and it would fulfill an old 
debt."
"I see," Calhoun said neutrally.
"You see, I've recently managed to track down a certain in­dividual who is a 
'guest' of the Andorian government." The contempt was evident in his tone. 
"They're holding him on trumped-up charges of espionage."
"But certainly a well-connected individual such as yourself would be able to 
have him freed through the use of your con­siderable contacts."
"I have my friends, Calhoun, but make no mistake: My in­fluence is not quite as 
wide and all-encompassing as you obvi­ously think it is. Andorians, you see, are 
members of the United Federation of Planets, and the UFP will not involve 
it­self in how member worlds conduct themselves. However," and now he turned 
back to face Calhoun, "I was hoping you might be able to aid this individual's 
... recovery."
"You want me to break him out of wherever it is the Andori­ans are holding him?"
"Nothing goes past you, I see, Calhoun. That's very com­forting to know. You 
should be aware, though, that participa­tion in this matter will likely be the 
end of your association with Starfleet, particularly if they learn of your 
involvement."
"That association doesn't appear too promising at the mo­ment anyway," said 
Calhoun.
Thul openly scoffed. "You mean that business with Jellico? Calhoun, I have 
enough contacts to know that Jellico has not earned himself quite as many 
friends as he would like to think he has. There are some who would probably 
applaud that you struck him. Although serious black marks on your record might 
appear as a result of the incident, that wouldn't neces­sarily spell complete 
doom for your career. My mission, how­ever, likely would. So the question is, do 
you worm your way back into Starfleet? Perhaps apologize to Jellico in the hopes 
of smoothing matters over? Or do you acknowledge where your talents would best 
be suited?"
"And when I accomplish this mission of yours ... 7"
" 'When.' Not 'if.' 'When.' Very confident, aren't you."
"When it seems warranted. If I didn't go into risky situations confidently, I'd 
never come out of them."
"Very well... when you accomplish the mission... then you and I shall speak 
again. We shall speak of things of... great importance. So... what say you, 
Calhoun?"
Calhoun found himself staring at Vara Syndra once more. She wasn't even looking 
at him at that point. Instead, in rather leisurely fashion, she was trailing her 
fingers along the curve of her leg.
"What does the job pay?" asked Calhoun.
"A man after my own heart," Thul said with a smile. "What would you consider to 
be adequate compensation for your time?"
Calhoun looked at Vara. Vara looked at him. Thul looked at both of them, and his 
smile widened.
"Everything," he said, "is open to negotiation."
XII.
burgoyne burst onto the bridge, which was an unusual enough event in and of 
itself since s/he didn't tend to hang about the bridge all that much. Even more 
unusual, s/he went straight to Shelby and stood in front of her, hands on hir 
hips. "May I speak with you, Commander?" s/he asked.
Shelby was a bit surprised at the urgency to Burgoyne's manner. Granted, s/he 
was one of the more flamboyant individ­uals aboard the ship, but s/he never 
displayed the sort of out­right consternation that s/he was now showing. Also, 
Shelby couldn't help but notice that McHenry was making a deter­mined effort not 
to look in Burgoyne's direction. The normally near-comatose helmsman suddenly 
seemed extremely interest­ed in checking over his instrumentation.
Riker, who'd been standing next to Zak Kebron and going over tactical relays in 
preparation for possible battle, looked up in confusion. "Is there a problem, 
Burgoyne?" he asked.
"Nothing that Commander Shelby can't handle, sir."
Riker took a step down from the upper ring of the bridge. "Indulge me. What's 
the problem?"
"All right," Burgoyne said after .a moment's consideration. "I want to know why 
I just got a reassignment."
"What?" Riker said, glancing at Shelby. Shelby shrugged,
not knowing what Burgoyne was referring to. "Are you no longer chief engineer?"
"Oh, I'm still that, yes. But I've been rotated to a desk job. Instructed to 
remain in my office or work at the engineering station here on the bridge."
"But why...?"
"I don't know why," said a clearly exasperated Burgoyne. "I got the message over 
my computer, and the computer simply said it was orders. I thought they were 
yours." Some of the ire was being replaced by simple confusion. "Because of... 
you know..."
"Payback, perhaps," suggested Riker. "For our little misun­derstanding in the 
holodeck?"
"The thought did cross my mind."
'1 don't operate that way, Lieutenant Commander. I had nothing to do with this 
reassignment."
"Lefler," Shelby called to Robin at ops, "run this one down, would you? See 
what's going on?"
It took Lefler only a few brief moments to track down the ori­gin of the orders. 
"Captain Calhoun," she said, punching up the transfer records at her station.. 
"It came from Captain Calhoun."
"What?" said a stunned Burgoyne.
"Hold on. There's a notation here... oh," Lefler said after another moment's 
checking. "According to his log, he was concerned about keeping you in 
engineering, in proximity to potentially high levels of radiation. Because of, 
well..." She cleared her throat"... you know."
"No, I don't know."
"Because of you being pregnant."
"I'm not pregnant," Burgoyne waved hir arms about in clear exasperation.
"Well, yes, but the captain didn't know that when he put in for the 
reassignment. Apparently he did it right before he left, and there hasn't been 
the opportunity to clear it up yet."
"Perfect," sighed Burgoyne. "Just perfect Mark, tell them I'm not pregnant" When 
McHenry didn't answer immediately, Burgoyne repeated, "Mark?"
Shelby couldn't help but notice how strange McHenry's voice sounded when she 
spoke. Usually the most carefree-sounding of individuals, this time he came 
across as a bit
stressed. "So you've told me, Lieutenant Commander. Then again, you also told me 
you were pregnant in the first place. I guess even in this high-speed age, it's 
hard to keep up."
Quickly Shelby stepped in. "I'll expunge the orders immedi­ately, Burgoyne. 
Sorry for the confusion."
"That... would be appreciated, Commander," said Bur­goyne, but s/he was looking 
with open curiosity at McHenry. "I hope I didn't come across as too 
belligerent."
"No, not at all."
"Mark," Burgoyne continued slowly, "is there something you wish to discuss?"
The entire bridge crew was watching, but McHenry didn't give any indication that 
he was aware of the scrutiny. If he was aware, he didn't seem to care. "No, 
Burgy. Nothing at all, thanks. If you'll excuse me ... I'm kind of busy..."
Without missing a beat, Burgoyne turned to Shelby and said, "Commander, I have a 
few navigational issues that need to be attended to. May I borrow Mr. McHenry 
for a few minutes?"
"That sounds like it might not be a bad idea," Shelby said readily.
McHenry turned in his chair, looking slightly betrayed. "Commander..."
But Shelby simply said, "Go," and her tone of voice made quite clear that no 
dispute was going to be welcomed in the matter. With a heavy sigh, McHenry rose 
from his station and headed into the turbolift.
"Commander, a moment of your time, please," Riker sud­denly said. Shelby 
frowned, because it was clear to her from his tone of voice that something was 
bothering him. She nod­ded and followed him into the ready room. Once they were 
in­side, he didn't sit, but turned to face her and said, "I don't know if you've 
noticed, but there's a tendency among the crew to speak directly to you on all 
matters."
"No, I hadn't noticed," said Shelby.
"I doubt that, Commander, although perhaps you're just being too tactful to say 
so."
"I try not to let tact stand in the way of doing my job, sir."
"In mat you succeed admirably,"iRiker said drily. "The point remains that I've 
been noticing it repeatedly, on all matters great and small. And it's something 
that you've been encouraging."
"Encouraging? You mean I've been answering questions and dealing with problems? 
Is that your definition of encourage­ment?"
"You could, on occasion, make a point of consulting me, in­stead of acting as if 
I'm not even on the bridge."
"Permission to speak freely, sir," Shelby said stiffly.
"If I said 'no,' would that stop you?"
"Probably not."
"Permission granted, then."
"This isn't about the crew, Captain. This is about your ego. You're the cock of 
the walk on the Enterprise and you feel that now, as captain here, you're 
entitled to get the same sort of treatment."
"What I am entitled to get, Commander," he said hotly, "is the respect that is 
due the rank."
"A rank you've made no effort to obtain. You've practically had to have it 
shoved down your throat," retorted Shelby. "Will Riker, the reluctant captain. 
How is anyone here supposed to take you seriously."
"You listen to me, Shelby," Riker shot back. "I've been through enough battles, 
through more life-and-death situations than you can even begin to count."
"Not with us. I've been here. You haven't. Besides, how do you expect this crew 
to warm to you? You make it clear that you think they're all vastly inferior to 
the Enterprise crew."
"I've done no such thing."
"Oh, please!" she rolled her eyes. "With gestures, with looks, with tone of 
voice. You make it clear just how second-rate you think this crew is. Well, I'll 
tell you something, 'Cap­tain,' this is one of the best crews I've ever dealt 
with. And they deserve better than to be condescended to."
"Don't tell me you've never felt separate from this crew yourself, Commander," 
Riker said. "That you weren't accept­ed, that you didn't fit in, weren't 
respected..."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Your log clearly stated -- "
"My log?" That stopped the conversation dead. "My log?" she said again. "I never 
said anything like that in my public log. Only my ... personal log ... when did 
you read my per­sonal log?"
"It..." Riker suddenly looked a bit uncomfortable. Falling back on regs, he 
said, "Captains and chief medical officers re­serve the right to review all 
records of their command staff."
"That doesn't give you the right to read my personal log." She felt her cheeks 
starting to flush.
"Actually, it does. I was trying to familiarize myself with this crew and with 
all the pertinent attitudes. If I'm going to be leading you into potentially 
hazardous situations, I want to know where everyone's mind is. So a few hours 
ago, I re­viewed entries relevant to -- "
"You bastard," said Shelby.
"Watch it. Commander," Riker said. "Speaking freely or no, you're pushing it The 
bottom line is that you've had a serious attitude problem with me for years, and 
I can't be in a position of having to tolerate..."
"Position? What do you know of positions?" she demanded. "The only position you 
know is standing in the cooling shade of Jean-Luc Picard's shadow. What is it 
with you, anyway? Getting in behind him and staying put. What are you, just 
lazy?"
"Not that it's any of your damned business, Commander, but have you considered 
that, after the Enterprise, command of an­other ship might be something of a 
come-down?"
"Nice little theory... except the Enterprise you were aboard for over half a 
decade blew up. So what's the new ex­cuse? Oh, I know, maybe it's the name. Or 
maybe it's just mat Picard fills some sort of need in your life that you didn't 
get elsewhere. What is he, some sort of father figure that you've just attached 
yourself to and can't let go, no matter what, be­cause you'll feel like you're 
abandoning him or some­thing ... ?"
Her voice trailed off as she saw Riker's face become more darkly furious than 
she'd ever seen. For a moment, just the briefest of moments, she actually 
thought he might haul off and belt her.
"At least I've been offered command of my own vessel," Riker said with barely 
contained rage. "Perhaps before you start analyzing my problems, you might want 
to turn that pierc­ing vision of yours inward and see just why it is that you 
haven't been given the same opportunity."
Then, slowly, through sheer force of will, he composed him­self. He drew himself 
up to his full height and, as if speaking from high on a mountain, he told her 
in a flat, even voice, "Until further notice, all decisions and matters that are 
put for­ward in my presence are to be addressed to me. I will not be treated as 
if I'm not there. Is that clear, Commander?"
"Crystal," said Shelby.
"Turbolift, all stop."
The turbolift that had been carrying McHenry and Burgoyne came to a halt in 
immediate compliance with Burgoyne's di­rective. McHenry looked around, mildly 
puzzled. "This is going to make it take much longer to get to engineering."
"Okay, Mark, what's going on?" Burgoyne faced him, arms folded across hir 
breast. "You've been avoiding me."
"No, I haven't."
"Yes, you have."
"No, I haven't."
"Yes, you..." S/he shook hir head. "This isn't getting us anywhere."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it isn't."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it... nyarrrh!" snarled Burgoyne. "Stop it! Just... stop it! You're trying 
to make me crazy!"
"How am I doing?"
In the question, in the attitude with which it was asked, there was a flicker of 
the puckishness that had always characterized McHenry in the past. Burgoyne was 
extremely relieved to see it, if only for an instant. "You're doing quite well," 
s/he admit­ted. "Mark... is this about Selar and me? Because you said you could 
take it in stride. Nothing fazed you, is what you said. You said you were happy 
for us."
"Yeah... I know."
"What, was that true?" .   "It was when I said it."
"But now... ?"
He leaned back against the railing of the turbolift. "I don't know."
"What don't you know?" S/he put a gentle hand on his
shoulder. "Mark, above everything else, we've always been able to communicate. I 
don't want to lose that."
"I'm just..." He sighed heavily. "Look... Burgy... the truth is that I'm not in 
touch with my feelings, okay? If you know anything about me, you should know 
that. There's just so many other things to think about, and wonder about... and 
if I have to start putting everything through the filter of how I 'feel' about 
it, I'll go kinda crazy. So I sort of like to live for the moment."
"All right. But it would be nice if, every once in a while, it was somebody 
else's moment as well. You do tend to go off into your own world, Mark... and 
it's hard for anyone to know what's going on in there."
"I know. It's ..." He seemed to steady himself, and then the words all came out 
in a rush. "It's just that... I was very angry with you. There. I said it. Don't 
hate me."
"Hate you?" s/he said, bemused. "Why would I hate you? What were you angry 
about? Because I made a joke to see if I really could throw you off kilter, and 
it worked more than I could have hoped?"
"No, that's not it. It's that... well... after I came to, I had plenty of time 
to think about the whole idea before you wound up telling me it wasn't true. And 
during that time, I just... well... I got to like the idea. It seemed fun ... 
and... I dunno... grounding, somehow. And that didn't seem to be such a bad 
thing... particularly the notion of having one with you, because you're so..."
"Maternal? Special? Intelligent?"
"I was going to say 'weird,' but those others apply too, I guess." He shook his 
head. "And you know me, I start thinking... and I just go off in my own world, 
and think of things, and I was building up this whole life together. I even had 
mis whole weird family unit built up in my head, with you and Selar and that 
baby, and me and you and that baby, and maybe even the three of us working 
together..."
"Now that would be weird."
"I know. That's what I kind of liked about it. But that's not going to happen 
anymore. I mean, when it was just you and Selar and you guys having a baby, I 
had no trouble with that. I could handle that, accept it, even step aside. But 
for a while
there, I just saw something different, and kind of liked it, and now it's gone, 
and I'm back to being an outsider again."
"Oh, Mark... you'll never be an outsider with me. You -- "
"But I'll never be her," McHenry said with a sad smile. "I'll never be Selar. I 
was always a second-place choice to her, I un­derstood that. And I thought that 
was okay. And it should be. But for a while I... Ohhhhh ... never mind."
"Mark, you keep saying 'never mind' and shutting things off..."
"Yeah, I know. That's the way I am. I kind of like me that way."
"Do you?"
They looked at each other levelly for a moment that seemed to stretch out for 
quite some time. Finally he said firmly, "Yeah. I do. Turbolift, resume."
The turbolift promptly started up once again, and the two of them rode the rest 
of the way down to the engineering deck hi silence. Burgoyne turned to McHenry. 
He didn't move. "I as­sume you didn't really need me down in engineering."
"No. Not really. But I do need you to be a friend -- "
"Always. Well, I guess this is your stop then," he said a bit too quickly to 
sound sincere.
"I guess it is."
S/he disembarked, then started to say something to him, but he put up a finger 
to shush hir. "It's okay. Relationships are like turbolifts. Sometimes you just 
have to know when to get off."
"Yellow alert," Riker ordered. "All handles, battle stations."
As the Excalibur approached Narobi II, Riker stroked his chin as he contemplated 
the scene before him and came to two conclusions: First, Si Cwan's "tip" might 
have been ground­less. And second, he really, really missed his beard.
"No Romulan vessels detected, sir," announced Zak Kebron from the tactical 
station. "But if they're cloaked, they're harder to pick up."
From the science post, science officer Soleta said, "Sensor scan to pick up 
emissions will take time."
"Understood," Riker said. "Proceed with scan. Hailing fre­quencies, Mr. Kebron?"
"Open, but we're not getting a response from Narobi."
"That could be a definite indicator of a problem," said Riker thoughtfully.
Abruptly Soleta looked up from her science station. 'Two vessels with cloaking 
devices detected uncloaking, at 352 and 367 Mark 2."
She was absolutely correct On the far side of me Narobi homeworld, two Romulan 
warbirds wavered into view.
"That," Shelby observed, "could be an even more definite indicator of a 
problem."
"Red alert. Shields up," Riker ordered crisply. "Weapons systems?"
"We are at weapons hot," Kebron said. "Good to go."
'Try to hail them. Warn them off." He leaned forward in the command chair, 
fingers interlaced, trying to determine what it was the Romulans were up to.
"Attempting to do so now, sir. No response. It is my belief that the warbirds 
are jamming transmissions from the planet."
"I suspected as much. Mr. McHenry, target bom warbirds. Report on warbird 
readiness?"
"They are running weapons hot... but they are not target-big us, sir," said 
Kebron.
Riker turned to Soleta. "Can we confirm that?"
"Confirmed," Soleta said without hesitation. "They're ready to shoot if need be, 
but they're not doing so."
"Some sort of Romulan game," Riker said thoughtfully. 'Trying to make us guess 
what they're up to."
"I don't like this," said Shelby.
"What's to like?" muttered Kebron.
"Bring us in slowly, Mr. McHenry," said Riker. "Let's get them to move off. I 
want them clear of that planet"
"Sir," Shelby said, turning to face Riker, "something's wrong here."
"Specify."
"They're just sitting there, as if they're daring us to get clos­er. Why would 
they do that?"
"Romulans are like cats, Commander. They like to arch their backs and hope that 
larger and more formidable enemies will be thrown by it," Riker told her 
confidently. "They have men-weapons on line, but they won't target us because 
they know
that'll provoke us into firing. They want to see if we'll hesitate to engage 
them. If we don't hesitate, if we don't show fear, they'll move off. If we do 
... they're that much more likely to attack. Except that most likely the ones 
they will attack will be the planet in an attempt to strong-arm us into 
surrendering. No hesitation, Commander, and no fear. It's all based on an old 
earth game called 'chicken.' "
"Captain, as much as I appreciate the assorted barnyard analogies, I maintain 
that something doesn't seem right. I sug­gest we hold our position. Make them 
come to us."
"I've had a lot more dealings with Romulans than you, com­mander, with all due 
respect," Riker said firmly. "I know how they operate."
"What if they've changed their method of operation?"
The eyes of the bridge crew were going back and forth, from Shelby to Riker and 
back, as if they were watching a tennis match. McHenry, meantime, operating on 
his last instructions, kept the Starship moving forward.
"Sir, I'm telling you, they're up to something. I can feel it," Shelby said.
"And how would you suggest we find out just what it is they're 'up to,' 
Commander?" Riker tried to keep his voice even, but it was difficult to refrain 
from sarcasm.
"For what it's worth," offered McHenry, "we may be able to ask them 
face-to-face. At this course and speed, if they don't back down, we're going to 
collide with one of them in two minutes, ten seconds."
"It won't come to that," Riker said. "Even if they open fire, it won't be with 
anything our shields can't handle. We'll do far worse damage with return fire. 
They can't afford a pitched bat­tle. They won't want to, either. It's not the 
Romulan way."
"Captain..." Shelby said, with clear exasperation in her voice.
But the more annoyed Shelby got, the calmer Riker felt. "Commander... we're not 
going to run from two Romulan ves­sels who don't even have us targeted. That 
would send a mes­sage that none of us wants to send. Understood?" he said in a 
tone that indicated no further discussion would be appreciated.
Shelby straightened up in her chair, moved her gaze solidly to the screen, and 
without looking at Riker, said, "Aye, sir."
The Excalibur drew closer, closer still. And still the Romu­lans weren't moving.
"Contact, one minute," McHenry said.
"Fire a warning shot across the lead ship's bow."
Kebron promptly did so, a phaser lancing out and narrowly missing the lead 
Romulan warbird's bow section. Still, the ves­sels didn't move.
"Attention Romulan vessels," Riker said firmly over the open hailing channels. 
"We are not turning off course, repeat, we are not turning off course. You are 
instructed to vacate the area immediately. If you do not, we will fire, repeat, 
we will fire. Reply."
"Sir!" Soleta informed him. "The ships are moving off. They are powering down 
their weapons."
McHenry, who was not particularly looking forward to the prospect of slamming 
the Excalibur into a Romulan warbird, let out an audible sigh of relief.
Riker turned to Shelby and said, "I would have to say that constitutes a reply, 
wouldn't you, Commander?" But Shelby said nothing in response. Riker could only 
chalk it up to being a poor sport. All-business, Riker turned to McHenry and 
said, "All right, Lieutenant... let's remember mat the purpose of this is to 
track them to whatever base they may be operating from. They'll likely go into 
warp, and that's when we'll have to -- "
And that was when McHenry's board shut down completely.
McHenry gaped at the sudden loss of his instrumentation. It wasn't as if he 
needed it, but nonetheless the fact that it had abruptly gone south was 
disconcerting. "Uhm, sir... we may have a problem..."
'Tactical systems down," Kebron announced.
"All sensors, all scanners down," Soleta said.
"Lefler, what the hell is going on with shipboard?" Riker de­manded.
Lefler desperately tried to make sense of it, but the answer she was coming back 
with was virtually incomprehensible. Her ringers flew over the control padds, 
but nothing was com­ing back at her. "Sir..." she said with a tone of pure 
increduli­ty, "our computer's crashed."
"What?"
The entire bridge was promptly plunged into total blackness. The front viewing 
screen went blank. Moments later, die emer­gency lights came on, giving the 
ship's command center an eerie Halloween-esque glow. Riker was on his feet, 
leaning over Lefler's ops station. He couldn't believe it "Our power is done 
...?"
"Not a power loss, sir. Power's all still there. But the com­puter routes 
everything, unless we tell it otherwise," Lefler said. "The only thing that's 
functioning at the moment is the emergency life support system. That's a bottom 
line fail safe. But otherwise we're dead in space. No guidance systems, no 
weaponry, no shields... nothing!"
"Find a way to get us out of here," Riker ordered.
"Quick, let's crack out the oars," suggested McHenry.
"Stow it, lieutenant!" Shelby said, also out of her chair. "We have got zero 
time before the Romulans move in on us. Lefler, try to reroute via manual..."
Suddenly the air in the bridge began to shimmer, and an all-too-recognizable hum 
sounded within the confined area. And Riker knew, even before they materialized, 
what he was going to see.
A Romulan raiding party, fully armed and ready to annihi­late anyone who opposed 
mem, appeared dead center of the bridge. And standing foursquare in the front, 
with her finger on a trigger and a smirk on her face, was Sela.
"Hello, Will," she purred. "Miss me? Because this time, I won't miss you." And 
she aimed her phaser straight at his face.
XIII.
lodec looked at his reflection in the polished wall and barely recognized 
himself.
Naturally he still possessed the bronze skin that marked him as one of the 
Danteri race. But his hair was dirty and matted, his beard thick and scraggly. 
Oddly enough, it may have been that, even more than his imprisonment itself, 
that was the most depressing thing with which he had to contend. For Lodec had 
once been a soldier, and his training, his very essence, cried out for a neat 
and trim presentation to the world. Servitude, lack of freedom... these he could 
handle. But being reduced to looking like a slob? It was more than he should 
have had to bear.
Somehow, though, he suspected that those who were run­ning the Andorian prison 
ship that he was being held upon weren't going to be sympathetic to his plight.
Lodec coughed again, but none of the other prisoners who were in the cramped 
barracks with him paid any attention. He felt a deep rattling about in his 
throat and would have been most grateful for some sort of medication to ease the 
conges­tion before it grew into something far worse. But nothing was forthcoming 
from the Andorians.
Gods, did he hate the Andorians.
The blue .skin was almost hurtful to his eyes, it was so glar­ing. When they 
spoke, the Andorians did so in a sort of whis­per that almost made them seem the 
most polite of races. But the ones who were running the vessel were among the 
most sadistic bastards that Lodec had ever had the opportunity of dealing with. 
They would deprive the prisoners of food for days on end, and when they did give 
them sustenance, it was so wretched that it became almost impossible to hold it 
down. In many instances it was, in fact, impossible, and the stench of the 
heaved food would hang in the air of the cells for ages until the hideously slow 
filtration system finally expunged them.
The worst thing of all was that there was really no need for the transportation 
of the prisoners to take so damned long. The transport was equipped with warp 
drive, and could easily have gotten to its destination within a few days. 
Instead, it was tak­ing its own sweet time, proceeding mostly on impulse drive, 
utilizing warp only every so often when proceeding through areas of space where 
prolonged travel might result in jeopardy to the crew (since the crew didn't 
give a damn about the cargo). There were a couple of theories among the 
prisoners as to why it was taking so damned long. One was that the prison for 
which they were bound was overcrowded, and they were waiting either for 
prisoners aboard the transport or prisoners at the receiving end to die in order 
to free up space. Another the­ory was that it was simply part of the 
softening-up process. Prison officials didn't want to have to deal with 
prisoners who might have some fight left in them. So their spirits were 
bat­tered and broken along the way, making them nice and mal­leable when they 
arrived.
And so one day stretched out into another for Lodec and the others who had been 
luckless enough to transgress against the Andorians.
He lay on his bunk in the cramped quarters that he shared with a number of other 
prisoners and murmured to himself, This is not how my life was supposed to turn 
out"
Suddenly the door to the quarters slid open, the glare of light from the hallway 
outside nearly blinding as his eyes tried to adjust Standing in the doorway was 
Macaskill, the transport commander who was exceptionally softspoken -- even for an 
Andorian -- and exceptionally ruthless -- even for an Andorian.
He was an older Andorian, his skin a more pale blue than the others, but that 
made him no less deadly.
"I'm looking for volunteers," he whispered, so much so that Lodec had to strain 
to hear him. As the prisoners blinked to get the sleep from their eyes, Lodec 
glanced around and then pointed at several in rapid succession: "You," he said, 
"and you... and you. And you." And one of the ones he chose was Lodec.
Slowly, Lodec sat up. He rubbed at his wrists which, as al­ways, had the 
electronic manacles secured to them. He let out a long, unsteady sigh, but knew 
better than to ask what was so important that they had to be rousted from bed at 
that time of night. He wasn't likely to get any sort of answer in any event, and 
far more likely that he'd simply get a major shock pound­ed through him. That 
was certainly not aggravation that he needed. Besides, when one got right down 
to it, what did it matter if he knew what was going on or not? He was still 
going to have to do what he was told anyway. His life was not his own, and had 
not been for some time.
Then, to his surprise, one of the other prisoners asked the very question that 
he hadn't seen fit to risk punishment over: "What's this all about?" It was a 
Pazinian, a very small and harmless-looking species, with a perpetually wistful 
look on its vaguely avian face. His voice was high-pitched and reedy.
To his even greater astonishment, Macaskill answered with­out hesitation. "We've 
come upon a small freighter hi distress, and will be requiring your volunteered 
aid to unload its cargo," he said. "We are not in the salvage business, of 
course. But it turns out that the pilot's carrying a shipment of gold-pressed 
latinum. Naturally, in good conscience, we could not turn away from a sentient 
being in need."
"Or from the latinum?" asked the Pazinian.
"Naturally," Macaskill said. "That goes without saying." Macaskill then tapped a 
small control device on his wrist... and energy lanced through the Pazinian, his 
arms fly­ing out to either side as if he'd been crucified. He let out a shriek 
and collapsed to the ground, quivering and spasming as Macaskill continued 
calmly, "On 'that basis, you probably should not have said it.
He then turned to another prisoner, pointed and indicated
that he should take the Pazinian's place. "The freighter is presently in our 
main bay. We're drafting you to help unload it May I safely assume there will be 
no further questions?"
It was an eminently safe assumption. And as they filed out, Lodec couldn't help 
but wonder if the Pazinian had simply been that anxious to get out of helping 
with the shipment. It seemed a rather extreme thing to do just to get out of 
some work. On the other hand, as the Pazinian lay there insensate, Lodec mused 
upon the fact that at least the Pazinian had gotten to go back to sleep.
They trudged down to the mam bay in silence, several An­dorian guards falling 
into step alongside mem. In point of fact, they weren't really needed. The 
manacles were more than enough to keep the prisoners from fighting back or even, 
ab­surdity of absurdities, escaping. But their presence helped to pile on the 
feeling of hopelessness. Talking was actively dis­couraged, under all 
circumstances. The Andorians had means of eavesdropping even when the prisoners 
were by themselves. The captors didn't want to take any chances that the 
captives might put together some sort of breakout strategy. Lodec tried at one 
point to stifle a loud yawn, but was unable to do so. This got him a fairly 
fierce scowl from one of the guards, but no further recriminations, and he 
considered himself extremely lucky.
They arrived in the main bay, and sure enough, mere it was: A reasonably small 
freighter. There was nothing particularly impressive-looking about it. In fact, 
it seemed rather old and worn out, the hull distressed and pockmarked with years 
of service hi the harsh vacuum of space. The obvious captain of the ship was 
standing just outside the main door of the freighter, engaged in what appeared 
to be a fairly animated dis­cussion with one of the Andorian guards.
The freighter captain turned and looked at Lodec with what appeared to be 
bottomless purple eyes. In a heartbeat, Lodec knew the man was a Xenexian. Then 
he saw the scar that ran • down the side of the man's face...
... and he knew exactly which Xenexian it was.
He had absolutely no idea how to react. He had heard many conflicting reports 
about the life of the rebel outlaw who had broken Xenex from the control of 
Danter. Lodec had never had
the opportunity to come face to face in battle with M'k'n'zy of Calhoun, but he 
had certainly heard enough about him. More­over, he had lost a number of friends 
to Calhoun's fabled sword, strength and resourcefulness.
Ostensibly, he had heard that Calhoun had then left Xenex once freedom was 
established and joined Starfleet. But his awareness of Calhoun had eroded over 
the years. There had been rumors that he had left Starfleet, that he had taken 
up an aimless, freelance life. It seemed a rather pathetic existence for one who 
had once been the warlord of Xenex and one of his people's greatest heroes. 
Lodec had always thought, though, that people such as M'k'n'zy were simply 
destructive types at their core. When they turned their destructive tendencies 
out­ward, they could accomplish amazing feats that left enemies stunned. But 
when they had no opponents before them, that selfsame destruction often wound up 
turning inward, and they would slowly diminish themselves until their greatness 
faded to nothing.
And now here was evidence that all that he had heard was true. The great 
M'k'n'zy of Calhoun, reduced to being a com­mon freighter pilot. Probably an 
underhanded one at that, transporting gold-pressed latinum. For all Lodec knew, 
Cal­houn was even in the process of stealing it.
Macaskill had stridden up to M'k'n'zy, and in his customar­ily soft voice, he 
said, "So... I understand your name is Cal­houn."
Calhoun nodded. Obviously he wasn't going by an assumed name. How very foolish.
"I am Macaskill... your savior."
"I appreciate the help," Calhoun told him. But there was an expression in his 
face that indicated he knew that the help would not come without a price. Sure 
enough, he said, "So... I assume that you'll be seeking some sort of finder's 
fee."
"We did find you," agreed Macaskill. "We have taken the time to expend our 
resources in aiding you. Your ship is not functioning; you will require us to 
repair it, I trust."
"How much are we talking about?" asked Calhoun, clearly resigned to the 
inevitable.
"Does ten percent seem fair to you?"
Calhoun looked surprised. "It... does indeed. I have to admit, I thought you'd 
be looking for much more than that. But a ten percent commission seems more than 
fair."
"No... you don't understand," Macaskill said. His smile displayed a perfect row 
of white teeth. "Ten percent of your cargo... is what you will be left with."
"What!" Calhoun clearly couldn't believe it. He stomped back and forth a few 
feet, shaking his head and gesticulating wildly. "What!" he said again. "Look, 
you don't understand! This isn't my latinum! I'm just transporting it! A ten 
percent loss, at least I can cover that by giving up a portion of my fee... 
grozit, probably all of my fee. But if you walk off with ninety percent of the 
cargo, the people I'm supposed to be de­livering it to aren't going to be happy! 
To be specific, they're going to be rather angry, and they'll be taking out mat 
anger on me! If you gut me that much, I'm dead!"
"No. If we toss you into space, you're dead," the Andorian politely corrected 
him. "If we fix your ship and leave you ten percent of your cargo, we are giving 
you a fighting chance. But if you do not wish to have that chance..."
And be extended a hand hi die general direction of the air­lock.
"I will give you precisely two standard minutes to make up your mind," said the 
Andorian, "although I strongly suspect what your answer will be."
Calhoun, looking stunned, walked hi the general direction of the prisoners. He 
was shaking his head in disbelief, clearly un­able to deal with what had 
happened. The pity that Lodec felt for him grew and grew. Poor devil, indeed, to 
have fallen this low.
And then, as Calhoun drew within a few feet of the prison­ers, his gaze 
shifted -- ever so slightly -- in Lodec's direction. And something seemed to come 
alive in his face, an almost fearful determination that Lodec had no idea how to 
interpret
Then Lodec saw Calhoun's mouth move silently, addressing the mute question to 
him: Lodec?
Lodec nodded imperceptibly. He had no clue as to what to expect.
Calhoun mourned two more words: Hold on.
At which point, Lodec forgot himself. Out loud, he said, "Hold on? To what?"
The confused comment drew a puzzled look from Macaskill. "Prisoner... who told 
you you could speak? Cal­houn ... it's time for you to admit the hopelessness of 
your sit­uation. If you will cooperate, perhaps we can be generous and provide 
you with an additional five percent of -- "
Calhoun turned to face Macaskill, and his attitude had com­pletely changed. He 
was standing straighter, more determined, and utterly confident And he called 
out, "Freighter! Execute offensive preprogram one!"
"What are you -- ?" Macaskill demanded.
He didn't get the entire question out as the freighter -- which had previously been 
thought dead in space -- roared to life.
From the sides of the vessel, white mist blasted out hi all di­rections. Lodec 
stared, still not grasping what hi the world was happening, and suddenly Calhoun 
was at his side. He was slap­ping some sort of unit on Lodec's face, a breathing 
device with goggles attached. Calhoun already had an identical device af­fixed 
to his own face. "Come on. We're leaving," Calhoun told him curtly.
"But -- " Lodec had no idea what to say, no clue as to what was going on. Something 
screamed a warning though in his mind, and the warning said, The deadliest 
Xenexian who ever lived is trying to make off with you. To Lodec, there could 
only be one reasonable conclusion. For whatever reason, M'k'n'zy of Calhoun had 
decided to hunt down, kidnap and murder Lodec of Danter.
It wasn't as if a prison world such as the one that Lodec was being transported 
to was any great place to be, but at least he would be alive mere, and where 
there was life, there was hope. But if Calhoun got away with him, he'd have no 
hope at all.
Blind panic seized Lodec, and as Calhoun tried to drag him forward, Lodec 
abruptly began to struggle. "What are you doing?" demanded Calhoun. "Will you 
come on!"
All around mem, people were dropping. Macaskill, who had been closed to the 
ship, went down first Others were tumbling just as fast As they lay on the 
ground, Lodec saw that they were virtually frozen hi position. They weren't 
frozen in the sense of people covered with ice. Rather, they were paralyzed, 
every muscle hi their bodies apparently completely taut.
Lodec struggled all the more, trying to claw the mask off
Calhoun's face. "You idiot!" snapped Calhoun, and he punched Lodec just once on 
the side of the head. Lodec sagged, not laps­ing into unconsciousness, but the 
fight momentarily knocked out of him. From that point on, he had no choice at 
all. Calhoun half carried, half dragged him to the freighter. The engines of the 
freighter were roaring to life; obviously the entire business about the ship 
being helpless had been a ruse.
"Let me... go ... you'll kill me ..." Lodec managed to get out, although his 
voice was muffled by the mask.
"Fool! If I wanted to kill you, I'd just do it here and now! Snap your neck and 
rip your head off as proof!" Calhoun said angrily as he approached the 
freighter. The main door automat­ically swung open and Calhoun shoved Lodec into 
the main cabin. Calhoun continued, "I wouldn't be going to all this trou­ble if 
your murder was my only concern!"
"Oh..." The panic was beginning to slip away from Lodec, even though he still 
didn't comprehend just what was going on. "That... hadn't occurred to me."
"I bet it hadn't. Hard to believe your kind ruled my world for years."
The door slammed shut as Calhoun swiftly operated the computer interface on the 
control panel. "What are you doing?" asked Lodec.
"Ordering the transport's computer to open up the bay doors.... there!"
The massive main bay doors of the transport ship began to open wide. The stars 
beckoned as the freighter lifted off.
Then Lodec heard shouting from outside, and several shots ricocheted off the 
freighter's hull. "Damn," muttered Calhoun.
The doors began to slide shut again.
"Hold on," Calhoun said, and gunned the ship forward.
Lodec gasped. The doors were closing far too fast, and there was absolutely no 
way that the freighter was going to make it. He looked to Calhoun... and saw 
what he could only describe as a demented grin on Calhoun's face. Either the man 
was ut­terly suicidal... or else he simply really loved a challenge.
With astounding dexterity, Calhoun manipulated the con­trols and the freighter 
leaped forward even faster, half-turning sideways and sliding out just before 
the bay doors slammed shut.
"You did it!" shouted Lodec. "That... that white stuff! That mist! What was 
that?"
"Gyro-mist Put them into temporary suspended anima­tion ... uh oh."
"Uh oh? What is... uh oh?" Lodec asked, scrambling to the front of the 
freighter.
Then he saw it. There, tracking on the screen, were two plasma torpedos, coming 
in fast. They'd been launched by the prisoner transport, and they were going to 
overtake the freighter in no time.
Calhoun didn't appear to be the least bit concerned. Instead he flipped open a 
panel and tapped a blue square inside.
The freighter shuddered slightly and an alarmed Lodec said, "Are we hit?!"
"If we'd been hit," snorted Calhoun, "you wouldn't be here to ask that question. 
Those were torpedo counter-measures. Watch," and he tapped another panel.
The viewscreen showed a rear view of the vessel, and me transport was clearly hi 
evidence. And then, to his astonish­ment, he saw the plasma torpedos that had 
been pursuing them... streaking straight back toward the transport. "There's 
something small... leading mem..." Lodec said after a mo­ment
"You've got good eyes," Calhoun admitted. "That's the counter-measure. It's a 
false beacon. Draws the torpedos away from the intended target and toward one 
that I far prefer. Such as..."
The torpedos slammed into the rear of the transport. The ship shuddered under 
the horrific impact The transport had shields which it had barely managed to get 
up in time, but it was not designed to be a combat vessel and the shields were 
minimal at best. The first of the torpedos didn't get through, but it did damage 
the shields sufficiently that the second one blasted into the hull. Plasma tore 
through the bulkhead, and the ship sparked furiously. All along the trans­port 
vessel, the lights went out and within seconds the entire ship was dark.
"That should take them some time to repair," Calhoun said calmly. "If it's 
repairable at all, that is. In the meantime, they'll be the ones who are 
floating in space. Let's hope that anyone
who comes upon them will be a bit more generous than they were going to be with 
me."
"There was never any latinum on this ship," Lodec said.
"That's right."
"And you were never actually crippled. This ship, I mean. It was a lure to get 
aboard the vessel."
"Also right. You pick up things quickly."
"So all of this ... was to get me out of there." He paused and then asked, with 
a sense of dread, "Why?"
"Because someone wants you out. That's all you need to know at the moment. That, 
and the fact that we rendezvous at Wrigley's Pleasure Planet."
"A desirable rendezvous point if ever I've heard one."
The freighter, under Calhoun's guidance, surged forward and leaped into warp 
space, leaving the crippled prison trans­port far behind.
Out of range of the transport, the manacles were no threat to Lodec. He looked 
around the interior of the freighter with in­terest. "Is this your ship?"
"It is now," said Calhoun. "I've used it from time to time, but it's been out of 
commission for a while. It's good to be back, though." He patted the console in 
what almost appeared to be the type of gesture that a person would use with a 
pet.
"Listen ... I suppose I should -- "
"Don't." As if reading his mind, Calhoun briskly cut him off. "Don't thank me. 
Don't give me gratitude. I don't want it, I don't need it. I know who you are. 
What you are. Just as you know who and what I am."
"M'k'n'zy the Destroyer," Lodec said softly. "M'k'n'zy the monster."
"Those and many other names," Calhoun agreed readily. "I'd like to think I 
earned them all. And I do not suggest you press me about old times, because I 
assure you the years have not made me think more kindly about your race. There's 
little forgiveness in my heart."
.    "In your heart?" scoffed Lodec. Part of him screamed a warning, that 
engaging in discourse with this man could result in a very quick and painful 
death if Calhoun were so inclined. But Calhoun was clearly operating on someone 
else's behalf, and it was obviously in Calhoun's interest to bring Lodec back
in one piece. That gave Lodec a certain amount of boldness. "In your heart? You 
were personally responsible for the deaths of friends of mine. Good friends, 
good men, who deserved bet­ter than to die on some damnable foreign planet at 
the hands of barbarian heathens. Do you think that we ..."
"What?" Calhoun cut him off, and there was danger in his eyes. "Do I think 
what?"
Lodec laughed softly to himself and shook his head. "Do you think... that we 
wanted to be there? Most of us didn't give a damn about Xenex. We did what we 
were told. We fol­lowed orders."
"The oldest excuse in the universe."
"It works for Starfleet officers."
"Yes. It does. Notice that I'm not one," Calhoun pointed out.
Lodec's back was against one of the bulkheads. Suddenly feeling all the strength 
ebbing from his legs, he allowed him­self to slide to the floor. Drained, he 
said, "It was all... a very long time ago. And I suppose none of it matters 
anymore."
"No," said Calhoun. "I suppose it doesn't."
And then, after a long pause, Lodec said, "Thank you any­way. For getting me out 
of there." And after a hesitation, he added, "You don't have to say 'you're 
welcome.' "
Calhoun didn't.
XIV.
the situation in the engineering room of the Excalibur had not come close to 
panic ... but it wasn't all that far away from it, either.
Burgoyne 172 and Ensign Beth were sorting through the isolinear chips with a 
finely controlled franticness. Throughout the engine room, the rest of 
Burgoyne's people were checking every circuit, every possible route that might 
explain what in hell had just happened to cause the ship's computers to come 
tumbling around their ears.
S/he held a stack of the thin, hard chips in hir hand. "These things are useless 
... useless," Burgoyne said, the "s" in "useless" extending to a snake-like 
hiss. "The only way we're going to get things back on line is to bypass the 
com­puter altogether. Everything's got to be done manually." S/he glanced in the 
direction of the warp core. The power em­anating from it was still comfortingly 
humming away. "At least power still exists in the ship. Thank the Great Bird for 
that. If the engines were out and we had to do a cold start..."
"If there's power, then why isn't it getting to the rest of the systems?" Beth 
said, her frustration mounting. Even as she complained, though, she was 
rerouting systems to get around
the stalled computer. "Henderson! Camboni! Punch this pulse through subsystems 
AI through A7!"
"It's like a body that's had a stroke" Burgoyne said as s/he started reracking 
the isolinear chips in hope that s/he could find some sort of short cut s/he 
hadn't spotted before. "The brain is functioning fine. The rest of the body may 
be in per­fect shape. But the connectors have been cut. If we can -- "
Suddenly they heard the sound of transporters. And there, materializing not ten 
feet away from Burgoyne, were four Ro­mulans, heavily armed and clearly ready to 
take possession of the engine room.
Burgoyne had no weapons on hir. S/he hadn't been expect­ing trouble. The 
Romulans, for their part, looked prepared to start shooting the moment they 
finished their materialization. Immediately what came to the forefront for the 
Hermat was concern about the safety of hir ship and the safety of hir peo­ple. 
Hir crew, hir engineers who looked to hir for guidance and leadership. And these 
no-good Romulans were going to show up and wreak havoc in hir engine room?
Not bloody likely.
At first glance, Burgoyne did not look particularly daunting. One would not 
readily appreciate hir strength and speed until one found oneself in a dire 
situation... which was more or less what the engineering crew of the Excalibur 
had on its hands. Burgoyne, however, did not hesitate.
S/he snatched an assortment of isolinear chips from their re­ceptacles. And the 
moment that the Romulans materialized, s/he let fly, one after the other, in 
rapid succession.
Several years ago, Burgoyne had seen a magician, a card master who billed 
himself simply as Jay, entertaining at a local pub during one of hir pubcrawling 
expeditions. His mastery of simple pasteboard cards had been nothing short of 
astounding. Claiming to be descended from a long line of master cardsmen 
stretching back centuries, the most impressive stunt mat he had pulled was 
hurling playing cards with such velocity that they had actually lodged in solid 
objects, such as fruit. Burgoyne had been incredibly fascinated by the stunt, 
and with hir long ringers and quick-snap wrists, had long felt that s/he would 
be eminently capable of imitating the act. And so s/he had taken up card 
flipping as a hobby, developing superb accuracy so
that s/he had been able to hit a target from a reasonable dis­tance away.
S/he had never, however, been able to get sufficient velocity for the cards 
actually to pierce anything... even a fruit. How­ever, s/he had never had quite 
the incentive that s/he had at that moment. Furthermore, isolinear chips were 
harder and nastier than playing cards.
Consequently, as s/he tossed the chips with a vicious sidearm snap of hir wrist, 
the things shot across the distance like bullets, and had about the same 
devastating effect. The chips were relatively harmless when they were 
stationary. When they were hurtling at high speed, however, they were 
astoundingly nasty.
One Romulan took one square in the base of the throat. He choked on his own 
blood while the second turned and got one right in the eye socket, and went 
down, shrieking. The third took a step in Burgoyne's direction while bringing up 
his gun, which proved to be a mistake... not the motion of the gun, but the 
movement toward Burgoyne, because the increased proximity resulted in the thrown 
chip literally cleaving straight into the Romulan's skull. He went down without 
a whimper. It had all happened to fast, all within split seconds, that the 
fourth Romulan's jaw dropped open in amazement. This proved to be a spectacular 
blunder as the chip sailed through his open mouth and lodged in the back of his 
throat. He went down gagging.
Four appeared, four dropped, in less time than it took for the engineering staff 
to fully comprehend that they were under at­tack. Beth turned pale as she saw 
the Romulans piled up, one atop the other on the floor. The only one who was 
still alive was the one with the chip in his eye, and then he stopped mov­ing a 
moment later, apparently dead from shock.
Burgoyne regarded them with remarkable calm and then glanced at the chips 
remaining in hir hand. "Hunh. I was wrong. These things were useful after all." 
Then, without hesi­tation, s/he shouted, "Shields and warp drive, first and 
second priorities! We want to stop these bastards from beaming on, and we want 
to get the hell out of here! Move!"
The largest raiding party, composed of about twenty Romu­lans, had materialized 
in deck 10. There had followed a furious
pitched battle with an Excalibur security team which had re­sulted in casualties 
on both sides. The security crew, which had been far outnumbered, had managed to 
whittle the Romulans down to twelve, but the Excalibur team was hurt far more 
badly, and with only three of them still alive, had gone into full retreat. The 
Romulans, sensing victory, had gone in pursuit, and the trio of badly wounded, 
barely alive security guards had been certain that their time was up.
They had rounded a corner, hearing the pounding of the Romulans right behind 
them... and then they had come upon Si Cwan. The Thallonian noble was simply 
standing there. His palms were pressed together, his eyes closed, and he looked 
as if he were delving deeply into some sort of inner strength.
"Go," he said softly. "I will hold them."
The security team was in no shape to argue. One of them tried to thrust his 
phaser into Si Cwan's hands, but Si Cwan waved it off. "I don't like weapons," 
he said. "One tends to rely on them too much. Go. I will be fine."
Moments later, the attacking Romulans came around the corner, and Si Cwan was 
still standing there, just as calm as he'd been moments ago. The fact that a 
dozen Romulans had weapons angled squarely at him did not seem to bother him 
particularly.
He put his hands over his head in complete surrender. "I'm not one of them," he 
said, walking slowly toward the Romulans. "I'm just a passenger. In fact, 
I'm..." he started to stammer. "I'm a rich passenger. Rich and influential. See? 
I've... I've no weapons. No way of hurting you. Please... don't kill me ... 
please... take me prisoner..."
"Romulans," said the foremost one in the group, "don't take prisoners." And he 
aimed his weapon at Si Cwan.
Si Cwan, hands over his head, was still several feet away. It did not, however, 
matter. He leaped straight up, swinging his legs upward as he did so. In one 
smooth movement, both of his feet caught the closest Romulans squarely in the 
pits of their stomachs. They doubled over. He had barely landed before he jumped 
again, this time nailing them squarely in the face. Both of their weapons 
flipped into the air, and Si Cwan caught them on the way down. He criss-crossed 
his arms and opened fire.
* It was true. Si Cwan generally preferred not to use weapons. However, he 
prided himself on his adaptability.
Within seconds, six more Romulans were lying strewn about the floor. The 
remaining half dozen opened fire on Si Cwan, but he grabbed up die fallen body 
of the nearest Romulan and used it as a shield. A disruptor shot disintegrated 
the top half of the Romulan, and then Si Cwan hurled the remainder of his 
carcass, knocking down two more of the Romulans.
And then Si Cwan laid into the remaining Romulans. They fired at him, point 
blank... and missed. He scrabbled across the floor, moving like a gigantic 
spider, and then forward-rolled and came up with his feet planted in their 
faces. Just that quickly he was back on his feet, and he snapped the neck of 
another without slowing down, grabbed yet another and smashed him against the 
wall with such force that his face was little more than a red smear.
Blood jetted from his opponents as Si Cwan waded into them. His hands like 
spears, his movements economical and with machine-like precision, he bobbed and 
weaved through the increasingly frantic -- to say nothing of diminishing --  crowd of 
Romulans.
When Sela aimed the phaser at William Riker, she did not for one moment think 
that there was any question of missing.
She was also under the impression that the four Romulans she had with her would 
be able to handle matters. They were, after all, heavily armed. The average 
bridge complement was usually less than a dozen, and only one of them -- the 
on-bridge security guard -- was ever armed. Plus, she was all too familiar with the 
ways of die Federation. They liked to talk, to discuss, to debate. When they 
appeared on the bridge, "What do you want!" would be die first defiant words to 
leap from the throat of the ship's commander -- in this case, as delightful luck 
would have it, Will Riker himself. After that would follow a di­alogue, a back 
and form, vituperation, sneering and cutting re­marks, and so on.
A substantial threat, though? That truly didn't cross Sela's mind. That was why 
she knew that she could execute Will Riker with impunity. The boldness, the 
viciousness of her act would be enough to completely paralyze the battle-unready
crew. As his lifeless body tumbled, so would their resistance. She was 
absolutely positive of mat.
Which was why it was all the more confusing to her when she heard the sound of 
tearing metal. She had no idea what the cause was. She didn't have long to wait 
to find out.
As hard as it was to believe, she had not noticed the Brikar when she had 
arrived on the bridge. He had been crouched be­hind his tactical board. For a 
large individual, Zak Kebron had a surprising way of coming across as less 
substantial than he truly was. Now, however, he made no such effort. He emerged 
from behind his station, gripped the hand railing that ran across the upper 
section of the bridge... and pulled.
The railing tore out of its moorings. It took the Brikar no more than an instant 
to be clutching the massive piece of metal, and the instant the Romulans were 
turning to see what in the name of the Praetor had caused that ear-splitting 
racket, Kebron was already swinging the railing like a baseball bat.
Sela saw it coming and ducked. The Romulan standing di­rectly behind her was far 
less fortunate. The railing struck him squarely in the head. The humanoid neck 
is actually one of the weakest links in the body, the flexibility of the neck 
coming at a high price. Romulans snared the same weakness as humans. 
Consequently the Romulan's head was sent flying from his shoulders. Sela jumped 
back, emitting a most un-Romulan shriek, and even as the horrified Romulans 
tried to react, Ke­bron took a step forward and shoved the jagged-ended metal 
railing squarely forward into the chest of another Romulan. A third Romulan let 
out yelp that was actually higher-pitched than Sela's as the impaled Romulan 
crashed into him.
It had all happened within seconds, and Sela had been so distracted that she had 
actually forgotten about Riker. But she had a forceful reminder as Riker lunged 
forward, grabbed her gun hand and shoved the phaser straight up.
He was strong, but she was no slouch either. Giving as good as she got, the two 
of them struggled hand-to-hand, and then with a grunt, Riker shoved Sela back. 
She tripped over one of the fallen bodies, sprawled... and that was when Riker 
spot­ted what appeared to be a small comm device on Sela's wrist. He noticed 
that all of them were wearing similar equipment. "Get that thing off her!" 
shouted Riker.
At that moment, the fourth Romulan managed to open fire with his disruptor. He 
nailed Zak Kebron squarely in the chest. Kebron rocked back on his heels and 
then announced, "Ouch," before getting the Romulan to drop the gun through the 
simple expedient of crushing his hand so that he couldn't hold it ever again.
Shelby, meantime, moving with remarkable speed, literally hurled herself atop 
the fallen Sela. With a snarl, she got a grip on Sela's arm and received a punch 
in the head for her trouble.
"Ha!" shouted Sela right in her face.
In response, Shelby slammed her fist down against Sela's head. She heard a 
satisfying crunch of bone; it would have been far less satisfying had it 
actually been her own bone.
"Ha!" Shelby shouted right back, and tore the comm device from Sela's wrist. 
"Zak!" she shouted as she tossed it in Ke-bron's direction. It landed on the 
floor at his feet, and Zak sim­ply stepped on it The Romulan communications 
device... and her locator for beaming... crunched rather pleasingly beneath the 
massive foot of the Brikar.
The other Romulan who remained alive had already hit his comm device, and he was 
shouting, "Get me out!" As Kebron tried to grab at his comm link as well, the 
other two Romulans, along with the corpses, vanished in a haze of molecules. 
Sela, without her communicator link which would have enabled them to home in on 
her, didn't go anywhere.
But she was hardly finished. From the folds of her tunic, she pulled a 
long-bladed knife and lunged straight at Riker. At that moment, a slim hand 
clamped down upon her shoulder. Sela's head snapped around, her eyes rolled up 
into the top of her head, and she sank to the floor without a sound. Standing 
di­rectly behind her, Soleta simply shook her head. "If you had simply allowed 
me to get close enough to apply the nerve pinch," she said to Shelby and Riker 
with mild reproof, "we could have terminated this violence far more quickly."
"Captain!" Lefler suddenly called from her station. To her credit, she had never 
budged from it even as chaos had un­leashed itself on the bridge. "We've got 
shields back on line... and engines, too!"
Riker, who was envisioning the warbirds moving in on the still blind and 
weaponless Starship, allowed a quick sigh of re-
lief. "Bless you, Burgy!" he called to the engineer who obvi­ously couldn't hear 
him. "McHenry, take us out of here!"
"We can't set coordinates," McHenry replied. "That's run through the computer. 
Of course, I could probably ..."
The ship suddenly shuddered under a blast to her starboard, and then another to 
port. Obviously the warbirds were moving in, and it was impossible to fire back. 
Although shields were back on line, that was hardly going to save them for an 
extend­ed period of time.
"McHenry, I know we'll be flying blind, but at this point if we wind up in the 
middle of a supernova, we won't really be much worse off than we are!" Riker 
told him.
'True enough," admitted McHenry. "Hold on."
He closed his eyes. Riker found that disconcerting for a mo­ment, and then 
realized that it didn't make all that much differ­ence. Not only did they have 
no instrumentation, they didn't even have the viewscreen.
The warp engines flared to life, and seconds later the wounded, but still 
active, Excalibur leaped into warp and was gone.
"We were set up! That's got to be what happened!" Shelby said furiously.
Shelby, Riker, Soleta, Sela, Lefler and Kebron were in the conference room. 
Kebron was there mostly to keep Sela in line, and he did so through the simple 
expedient of keeping one hand firmly on her shoulder with his hand on her. The 
handbinders were simply a formality. This was more effective than one might have 
thought, because every time Sela tried to stand or shrug Zak's hand away, she 
failed utterly. She had, by that point, given up, and was just sitting in place 
with a rather irritated expression.
"Set up," Shelby continued, and she looked angrily at Lefler. "Si Cwan should 
have known."
"We don't know that we were 'set up,' Commander, and even if we were, there was 
no way that he could have known. He's only as good as his information," Lefler 
said defensively.
"Then his information should have been better," Riker said, no happier about the 
situation than Shelby. "Mr. Kebron, where is Si Cwan?"
- "Intraship communications are still down," rumbled Kebron. "I've sent a 
security team to find him and bring him to this meeting, since you said you 
wanted to see -- "
The door slid open. Lefler's gasp could be heard immediate­ly. The others 
contained themselves, but just barely.
Si Cwan was covered with blood, and since it was for the most part green, it 
obviously wasn't his. Blood on his tunic, on his face, and on his hands. He had 
clearly been in a massive pitched battle with the Romulans. Seeing all the 
Romulan blood on him, Sela visibly paled.
Riker half rose from his chair. "Lord Cwan... are you all right?"
Si Cwan seemed puzzled that Riker would even have to ask. "Of course. Why?"
"Uhm..." Riker hesitated a moment, looked at the others in the room who nodded 
silent assent with what was clearly going through his mind. "Why don't you head 
back to your quarters... get cleaned up, relax... you've... clearly had a rough 
time..."
"You said you wished to see me. You sent a security guard to escort me here for 
that purpose."
"We'd heard that you'd been in a fight, that's all," Shelby said quickly.
"That is true. Is mat all you wished to know?"
"Yes," said Riker.
"Very well." With that, he turned and left the conference lounge.
Somewhat more sedate in her tone, but still with no less conviction, Shelby 
continued, "These Narobi natives... Si Cwan said they were machine beings. And 
our computers went down. That certainly suggests..."
"That it was not a coincidence," Soleta agreed. "I have been doing further 
research since Si Cwan brought them to my at­tention. Their cybernetic make-up 
would appear to give them some sort of affinity for computers. That would put 
the odds of their involvement, and a possible alliance with the Romulans, at 83 
percent"
"I had heard that 92 percent of all statistics are made up," Kebron observed.
This small attempt at levity actually drew smiles from sever-
al people in the conference room which, considering the cir­cumstances, was 
quite the achievement. But then, turning seri­ous once more, Riker turned to 
Sela and said, "It's more than that, isn't it, Sela. A lot more."
"Scamper back to the Enterprise, Riker," Sela said contemp­tuously. "Without 
Picard to show you how it's done, you're no threat... and certainly of no 
interest to me."
Riker didn't rise to the bait, keeping his cool. "You're going to tell us, Sela. 
You're going to tell us everything that's going on. About the Romulan 
involvement, about the raid on Day­strom ... everything."
"Over my dead body, Riker."
And there was something in Riker's voice that caught Sela's attention as he said 
very deliberately, and very menacingly, "If necessary, Sela. Only if absolutely 
necessary."
XV.
there were few worlds in the galaxy that were more of an assault on the senses 
than Wrigley's Pleasure Planet. Actually, Calhoun really couldn't think of any, 
now that he put his mind to it.
They walked through streets that were in perpetual celebra­tion. Lights garishly 
flickered on and off all day and all night, loud music blared from buildings all 
around them. Calhoun couldn't help but wonder when the natives slept, and came 
to the conclusion that the likely answer was "never."
Wrigley's Pleasure Planet was entirely a manufactured world, bought and paid for 
by one Horatio Wrigley several centuries ago and run by his family after his 
death... a pass­ing, it was rumored, that resulted from an extended stay upon 
his own world. Supposedly he went with a smile on his face. There were 
certainly, Calhoun reasoned, worse ways to go.
Ostensibly, Wrigley had taken the hedonistic lifestyle that he had found on such 
worlds as Argelius and Risa and decided to heighten it, jack the level up to an 
unprecedented degree. Wrigley's was the only world where you could see 
spotlights shining while hi orbit.
Calhoun and Lodec were not exactly allowing themselves to be swept up in the 
perpetual celebratory mood. Calhoun ob-
served the gaiety around him as if he were watching from out­side himself. It 
didn't seem to have anything to do with him or with his life. What underscored 
that the most for him was that he was walking down the street with a living 
reminder of the oppression his people had suffered under. A Danteri, right 
there, right next to him, and he himself had freed him. He would just as soon 
let him rot, and yet he had risked himself to set the man free.
It was all., .a very long time ago. And I suppose none of it matters anymore.
Those had been Lodec's words, and the thing was, Calhoun couldn't help but 
wonder if Lodec was correct Two decades. Could it have been that long? Two 
decades since he had spear­headed the liberation of Xenex. He hadn't really 
dwelt on what that passage of time meant, not really. Twenty years. There were 
Xenexians who were adults now who had absolutely no recollection of a time when 
Xenex had been anything other than free. For whom the name M'k'n'zy of Calhoun 
was sim­ply a name in a history book (plus a name attached to several statues 
which dotted the Xenexian landscape, none of which he thought looked a damned 
thing like him). Indeed, there were Xenexians to whom the Danteri meant nothing 
in any threaten­ing sense.
The fact was mat the leadership which had come in after Calhoun had itself made 
many inroads and wound up working quite closely with the Danteri -- a leadership 
that had been spearheaded by Calhoun's own brother. That alliance, mat 
willingness to work with their former oppressor, had driven a wedge between Mac 
and his brother that continued in force more or less to the present day.
Do you think... that we wanted to be there? Most of us didn't give a damn about 
Xenex. We did what we were told. We followed orders.
... And I suppose none of it matters anymore...
That wasn't how he wanted to think of the Danteri. It didn't fit into his view 
of the universe at all. The Danteri were uni­formly oppressive monsters who 
wanted nothing but to reestablish their chokehold on Xenex and hated all things 
con­nected with that world. They were heartless bastards who would just as soon 
kill Calhoun and his kind as look at them.
They weren't allowed to come across as simply... mortal. Fallible mortals, tired 
of fighting, or perhaps grateful to a Xenexian, or even friendly... it simply 
wasn't allowed.
None of it matters...
Should it? Should it matter? Was there a statute of limita­tions on hatred? Was 
Calhoun being unreasonable, intransi­gent? Truthfully, Lodec seemed a decent 
enough sort. Once he'd gotten rested, cleaned up, he actually came across as a 
man of quick wit and ready tongue, a man who took a slightly skewed view of the 
universe.
And his crime against the Andorians? If he was to be be­lieved ... and he had, 
at that point, no reason to lie... it had nothing to do with crimes of violence, 
or spying, or anything mat one would normally have expected in such a situation. 
No, Lodec had made the hideous mistake of having an affair with the wife of an 
Andorian high government official. He had not taken kindly to being cuckolded, 
and when he'd learned of the involvement, had Lodec brought up on charges of 
high crimes against the state. Lodec would have been more than happy to tell his 
side of the story, had he not had an electronic gag slapped across his mouth 
during the trial. And so a casual tryst by Lodec, who had just been passing 
through the homeworld of the Andorians, had turned out to be the beginning of a 
fifteen-year prison sentence. Granted, absconding with the af­fections of 
someone's wife was hardly an act that warranted having a medal pinned on you, 
but losing one's freedom for fifteen years because of it seemed a bit excessive. 
Even Cal­houn had to admit that. But part of him wanted to feel that any­thing 
bad which happened to any Danteri was deserved and not to be mourned. That any 
ill fortune which befell any Danteri was something he had coming to him...
Except... that didn't hold up, either. After all, if there were Xenexian adults 
who had never been the slaves of Danteri, men it was also an inevitable 
conclusion that there were Dan­teri who not only had never been party to the 
oppression of Xenex, but had no inherent interest in Calhoun's world in the 
first place. Hell, if one could believe Lodec, he never "gave a damn" about 
Xenex to begin with. Of course, he didn't know for sure just how much he could 
believe Lodec, for the Danteri had been deliberately vague about what he himself 
had done
during the war. He had basically admitted to being involved on a military level, 
but he had not gone into specifics. As near as Calhoun was able to determine, 
militarily Lodec was not much above a grunt
None of which explained why in the world he was of such interest to General 
Thul.
Then Calhoun suddenly became aware of the fact that sever­al Thallonians were 
following them.
Mentally he chided himself. That had been unforgivably sloppy. He had no idea 
how long they had been behind him. Had they just shown up? Were they there for 
several blocks? No way to tell. And he had been too wrapped up in bis own 
musings to pay attention.
His first instinct was to confront the Thallonians following him. If nothing 
else, the notion pleased his ego. The thought of anything believing that they 
could tail Mackenzie Calhoun without his knowledge was galling to him.
But then he reconsidered. The fact was that they weren't making any aggressive 
moves against him. Furthermore, Thul had given Calhoun an address to which he 
was supposed to bring Lodec. It was possible that the Thallonians were there 
simply to observe, and report any questionable behavior back to Thul.
If one were to follow that reasoning, one would also assume that anything 
construed as being on Thul's side would likewise be reported.
With that notion in mind, Calhoun abruptly draped an arm around Lodec's 
shoulders. Lodec was clearly startled, and looked at Calhoun in surprise. "Is 
something wrong?" he asked.
"You're right It was a long time ago," Calhoun said. There's no need to hold 
grudges."
Lodec let out an obvious sigh of relief. "You can't believe how glad I am to 
hear you say that," he told Calhoun. "You've seemed to be wrapped up in your own 
thoughts since we got here... I have to admit I was getting worried. I felt as 
if you were trying to figure out the best way to kill me or some such."
"No, no," and Calhoun laughed heartily. If one had looked closely, one would 
have seen that there was no touch of humor reflected in his eyes, but Lodec 
didn't look closely at all. "No,
that's just my way. I've just been considering the situation, and concluded that 
there's nothing to be gained by obsessing about the past. We should only be 
concerned about the future, cor­rect? That is, after all, where we all intend to 
live."
"I know I do," said Lodec, and he laughed. The noise was almost painful to 
Calhoun's ears, but he maintained his out­ward appearance of good humor, anyway. 
He took pains not to glance back at the Thallonians who were pacing them, since 
he didn't want to take any chance of giving away to them that he knew they were 
there.
They arrived at the prescribed address, and were promptly escorted upstairs to a 
private suite. There, in somewhat the same environment as he'd seen him on 
earth, was Thul. He was dressed far more festively than he had been on earth, 
much more in keeping with the general atmosphere of Wrigley's.
Vara Syndra was also there. Draped alluringly across a chair, winking at 
Calhoun, she was wearing an incredibly skintight yellow...
No. She wasn't. Calhoun's eyes widened. She was wearing body paint. That was it.
He promptly zoned out of the first minute and a half of the conversation, and 
only managed to re-enter it through sheer force of will as Thul was pouring 
drinks for all of them. Cal­houn, cautious as always, mimed sipping from it but 
actually left the contents intact. Thul and Lodec were seated opposite each 
other, and appeared to be catching up on old times. At mat moment, Thul was busy 
speaking directly to Calhoun. It was fortunate that he'd managed to get his head 
back on track, as it would have been rather embarrassing if Thul had asked him a 
question and Calhoun had been too busy staring at the thimbleful of paint which 
constituted the entirety of Vara Syn-dra's present wardrobe to answer.
"Lodec here was a close friend of my son, Mendan Abbis," Thul was saying. "As 
such, I had promised Mendan that Lodec would remain under my protection. Up 
until recently, that promise was merely words, as Lodec here," and he patted the 
Danteri's knee, "had always been more than capable of taking care of himself."
"Oh, yes," Lodec said with amused sarcasm. "I certainly
was doing a wonderful job of caring for myself, wasn't I. If it hadn't been for 
you and Calhoun, Thul, I'd still be en route to the Andorian prison world right 
now."
"Everyone needs assistance from time to time in their lives, my dear Lodec," 
Thul said.
"The thing is, Thul... poor Mendan is gone," Lodec said, and there seemed to be 
genuine sorrow in his voice. "If you had not assisted me... if you had left me 
to my fate... then Mendan would never have known."
"Granted," admitted Thul. "But I, General Gerrid Thul, made a promise to my son 
nonetheless, and our family name has always stood for integrity. Whether Mendan 
Abbis is alive or not, if my word is not to be trusted, then truly, what kind of 
Thul am I?"
'True. Very true." Lodec held up his glass after a moment and said with quiet 
conviction, 'To Mendan Abbis."
'To Mendan Abbis," echoed Thul, and so did Calhoun.
"So," Lodec continued, "what now? You have obtained my freedom for me. Your debt 
is fulfilled..."
"Hardly," laughed Thul, although there was an odd under­current to that laugh. 
"If my promise of protection is to be seen through, then I am personally going 
to have to attend to your safety in the times ahead."
"The times ahead? What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means, good Lodec, exactly what it means. I am going to assure that you 
survive all that is to come." He rose. "Attend, then... we will pass the night 
here, enjoying the hospitality this world has to offer. Tomorrow we will depart, 
rendezvous at my headquarters... and all will be made clear. Cal­houn ..." and 
he extended his hand. Calhoun shook it firmly as Thul continued, "You have done 
well. Extremely well. No one could have done better. Vara," and he inclined his 
head to­ward her, "will see you to your room. I can count on you to de­part with 
me tomorrow?"
"Absolutely," Calhoun said. And as he shook Thul's hand, his ring implanted a 
transponder directly into Thul's palm. Calhoun was taking no chances; the last 
thing he needed was for Thul to depart during the night, leaving Calhoun high 
and dry.
The next thing Calhoun knew, Vara Syndra was hanging on
his arm. "Come along, Mackenzie," she whispered softly in his ear. "Let me take 
you to your... room..."
At which point every hormone hi his body completely stopped paying any attention 
whatsoever to whatever it was that Thul wanted to do or had in mind. Without 
hesitation he followed Vara out the door.
The moment they were in the hallway, out of sight of Thul, she began to kiss 
Calhoun. He did nothing to stop her. It was doubtful he could have done anything 
to stop her. He returned the kisses with equal passion, and hungrily locking 
lips with one another, they sidled down the hallway to the room mat had been 
reserved for Calhoun. They eased in through the door, which obediently slid shut 
behind him.
It was a perfectly serviceable room, although nowhere near as opulent as Thul's. 
Somehow, though, opulence was not at the top of Calhoun's concerns at that 
particular moment. All he was concerned about was whether or not the place had a 
bed. Actually, it didn't matter all that much. The odds were sensa­tional mat 
the room had, at the very least, a floor, and the way he was feeling, that was 
all that he was going to need. But as luck would have it, mere was indeed a bed 
there, large enough for an entire security team to wrestle with Vara, were such 
needed.
He ran his hands along the length of her body as they tum­bled onto the bed, 
kissed her hungrily. Then he stopped long enough to look her in the eyes and 
say, "Why? Why me?"
She smiled at him. "Why not you? Don't you deserve it? Aren't you brave and 
heroic? Aren't you," and she ran her hands across his chest, "aren't you 
remarkably handsome?"
"And it doesn't have to mean more than that?"
"Of course not. Do you mink it has to?" She actually seemed amused by the 
notion.
"No. No, it doesn't." He kissed her again, and his entire body was screaming at 
him to just get on with it already, she was wearing body paint and she was 
ready, willing and eager, how long should this possibly take. She pulled his 
shirt over his head. Naked from the waist up, he pressed against her. He groaned 
as she ran her tongue under the line of his chin, and he whispered her name ...
"What's an 'Eppy'?" she asked.
He stopped, stared at her. "What?"
" 'Eppy.' Just now." There was laughter twinkling in her eyes. "You said, 
'Eppy.' "
"I... said I was... happy. I whispered the word 'happy.' "
"Oh. Okay." She shook her head and chuckled once more. "Thul said you would be 
an interesting one. He had no idea, though, did he?"
"Thul. You're... here because Thul told you to be here," Calhoun said slowly.
"I'm here because I want to be here," Vara Syndra said firm­ly. "I'm here for my 
own reasons. Thul is part of it, yes. But you," and she fondled the lobe of his 
ear, "you are the main part of it You rescued Lodec. You rescued... so many 
people, I'm sure."
"Yes. Yes, I did. I have."
She ran her fingers down his back, and he trembled from her touch. "Thul kept 
talking about how important it was to save Lodec. Kept talking about how he'd 
met Mendan Abbis, back in the days when Lodec worked for some man... Faulkner, I 
think, or Falcon, something like mat... they'd stayed so close, and when Lodec 
was captured, Thul just knew that you'd be the man to get bun out Just like I -- " 
She gasped. "You're hurting me!"
And he was. Because he'd had his hand on her wrist but suddenly he was gripping 
it tightly.
"I'm... sorry." He let go of it immediately. She sat up, looking far more 
irritated than seductive. "Falkar?"
"What?"
"The man he worked for... was his name Falkar?"
She frowned a moment concentrating, and then her eyes widened. "Yes!" she said, 
eager and cheerful, the momentary pain on her hand apparently forgotten. "Yes, 
that's right Falkar. He worked for a man called Falkar. Lodec was appar­ently 
his main lieutenant did all the tough jobs for him. That sort of thing."
His mind reeled as he sagged back onto the bed.
"Mackenzie? Are you all right?" She looked down at him with genuine concern. "Do 
you know this 'Falkar' person? What's happened? What's wrong, you seem so 
upset..."
Slowly, absently, Calhoun ran a finger down the scar on his
cheek. The scar that a Danteri general named Falkar had left there, as if it 
were a gift to wish him luck as an adult. And in his mind's eye, he called up 
images long buried, recollections of his father, strapped to a post in the 
public square, being beaten by a Danteri officer at Falkar's direction.
Twenty years unravelled in an instant, and he put a beard on the men-beardless 
youth with the whip, and he aged him in his mind's eye...
"Mackenzie!" she called loudly.
Before, it had taken him tremendous effort to focus on any­thing besides Vara 
Syndra. Now it was a formidable task to concentrate on her. "What?" he said in 
confusion.
"What's going on? Can you tell me what's going on?"
"I..." He couldn't find the words.
No. No, he knew the words. That man I rescued... that man I almost started to 
like... that man who was a friend of Thul's son... that man executed my father. 
He beat him to death in the town square, and the man who ordered the beating is 
long dead by my hand, but the man who actually did the job is right down the 
hallway, tossing back drinks with your boss and if you'll excuse me now, I've 
got to go kill him...
He started to rise from the bed.
"Mackenzie," and for the first time, there was a sound of warning in her voice. 
"I don't appreciate the notion of men walking out on me. It's never happened 
before. It had better not happen now."
He turned his attention back to her and realized that the last thing he needed 
was Vara Syndra complaining to General Thul mat the merest mention of Lodec or 
his former employer was enough to send Calhoun over the edge. He was trying to 
get himself on Thul's good side, after all. Besides, what was he going to do? 
Kill Lodec? Run in there screaming his father's name, announce that Lodec would 
pay for his deeds, rip out his beating heart and show it to him? The idea had 
some merit, granted, but ultimately it was counter-productive. Calhoun still had 
no true idea what it was that Thul was up to, and no cer­tainty of where he was 
hiding, what it was he was hiding, or who it was he was hiding it from.
The only thing he knew for sure was that if he didn't give
Vara Syndra what she wanted, it was going to look bad for him. Very, very bad.
So he looked at her for a moment as if appraising her, and then he forcibly 
rolled her onto her back and brought his mouth ruthlessly down upon hers ... and 
then proceeded to give her what she wanted.
But he didn't enjoy it.
Not especially, at any rate.
XVI.
"I WILL NOT DO IT."
There was nothing in Doctor Selar's attitude that suggested she was going to 
change her mind anytime soon. Nonetheless, Riker did not appear remotely 
prepared to back down. Stand­ing with him in Selar's office were Shelby and 
Soleta. Soleta kept her face, as always, impassive, while Shelby looked 
con­cerned and uncomfortable. She was no more happy with what Riker was 
proposing than Riker himself was, she had made that quite clear. But, to her 
credit, she was there as a sign of support for the commanding officer.
"Doctor," Riker began again, "it's not as if we have a great deal of choice 
here."
"You, Captain, may not have a choice. I, however, do." She shifted her gaze to 
Soleta, and there was a hint of disapproval in her eyes. "And you have agreed to 
this... proposal?"
"It is necessary," replied Soleta, sounding rather formal. "The Romulan woman, 
Sela, knows information that is poten­tially of great importance. The Romulans 
are not in the habit of acting in a capricious or haphazard manner. The raid on 
the Daystrom Institute, their presence in Thallonian space, their possible 
alliance with Narobi... they are pieces of a puzzle that Sela apparently knows."
"And mat gives you the right," Selar said to her, "to forcibly thrust your mind 
into hers?"
"No," Soleta admitted. "It does not give me that right. It does, however, make 
it an obligation."
"If you must do this thing, and are committed to this de­plorable course, then 
that is your own consideration," Doctor Selar said. "But to seek to involve me 
in the matter is adding insult to injury..."
"I have performed initial probes into her mind. Very mild. However, I can 
already sense that she has had training in psy­chic combat."
"So you believe that you alone cannot accomplish the job?"
"That is correct."
"And you would have me disgrace myself because you are incapable of doing so 
yourself."
"Doctor," Shelby said impatiently, "it is not a 'disgrace' to do something on 
behalf of a greater good. Furthermore, when you're in a service, such as 
Starfleet, it's your duty."
"Duty. Duty." Selar shook her head. "Command­er... throughout history there have 
been those who were pre­sented with situations where they were asked to make a 
choice that was morally repugnant to them... usually during a war when they were 
'serving' the interests of their country in some way. More often than not, they 
went ahead with those repugnant efforts, even though they knew them to be wrong. 
Even though the cost may have been the purity of their very katra... their soul. 
And the excuse they invariably fell back upon was that it was their duty. The 
duty I attend to, Commander... Captain... Soleta... is the duty to do no harm. 
As a doctor, that is not only my first priority, it is my only priority. I will 
not force myself into the female's mind. You will have to find anoth­er way, or 
Soleta will simply have to do it alone. But that is my final word on the 
subject. Now, will there be anything else?"
"Doctor," Soleta said slowly, "a moment of your time... alone? If you please?"
"Lieutenant..."
"It will be all right, Commander," she said to Shelby.
Shelby seemed no more thrilled man did Riker by the situa­tion, but finally she 
nodded and she and Riker walked out of the room, leaving Selar and Soleta alone.
"Do you desire to have me talk you out of this course?" Selar asked calmly.
"Doctor... there was a time some months ago when you needed me. I am telling you 
now that I need you."
"Soleta..."
Soleta leaned forward on the edge of Selar's desk, and the careful reserve that 
she maintained, with effort, slipped some­what. " 'I believe I am ill. Mentally 
ill. And I require your ser­vices to ascertain that.' That is what you said to 
me, Selar, when you needed my help. When you were so convinced that you could 
not possibly be undergoing Pon Farr that you asked me to help you. No... no, you 
begged me. You asked me to grant you succor, you were so wretched..."
"I know that," Selar said. "I was there. I know what I did. I know what I went 
through. And you helped me, and for that I shall be forever grateful. But this 
is a different situation..."
"It would be, to you. I'm the one asking for help this time. Selar," she said in 
a lowered voice as if someone were eaves­dropping, "I am not full Vulcan. You 
know this. I am impure, my mother Vulcan but my father a Romulan. They are 
expect­ing me to meld with a half Romulan woman, against her will, who is quite 
likely capable of resisting me. And she has had training... what if she turns it 
back against me? What if she uncovers my background? The risk to myself, the -- "
"You are scared." Selar almost sounded sympathetic.
"Yes. I admit that freely. I am afraid of what I am being asked to do."
"Then do not do it I am refusing."
"The difference is," Soleta said, "that you are refusing based upon moral 
principles. If I refused, however, it would be predi­cated purely on fear."
"Not necessarily. When you granted me succor, realized that it entailed a mind 
meld that you did not wish to perform, and further realized that I was just 
desperate enough to force you to do it anyway, you were morally and ethically 
repulsed by the notion. You felt that forcing one to perform a mind meld was 
repellant."
"Yes. I did. I still do."
"Then that is the basis upon which you can refuse. For is it not a small step 
from being forced to perform a mind meld, to
having one forced upon you. The woman, Sela, does not want to have her mind 
probed. On the basis that such matters are best left to personal choice, you can 
and should refuse."
And then, to Sela's complete astonishment, Soleta let out a low roar of fury 
and, with a sweeping gesture, knocked every­thing off Selar's desk and sent it 
scattering to the floor. The clatter grabbed the attention of everyone in 
sickbay, and what­ever anyone was doing came to a complete halt as all eyes 
turned to Selar's office.
Selar's eyes were wide with astonishment; not even her Vul­can training could 
repress that. As for Soleta, she was gripping the edge of the desk and trying to 
restore her breathing to nor­mal. "Have you lost your mind?" Selar asked her, 
recapturing her customary calm.
"I need you," she said in a low voice. "And I need Starfleet. I am an impure 
bastard offspring of a violent rape. I have nowhere else to go in this universe 
where I can be at home ex­cept Starfleet."
"You are not limited or defined as a person by the circum­stances of your birth, 
Soleta..."
"Yes. I am. And I have been asked by Starfleet, by my com­manding officers, to 
do this thing. They believe that there may be something very terrible at stake, 
and Sela holds the key. I care about Starfleet. I care about people possibly 
being hurt or killed by the machinations of this woman. I have asked for your 
help. When you asked for mine, I provided it; as much as it cost me, I provided 
it. The short-term result was your coming to terms with, and understanding, what 
was happening to you, and the long-term result is the baby you carry in your 
belly. You owe me," she said in a low and angry voice. "You owe me, Selar, and 
if you won't help me, then to hell with you."
Selar did not even hesitate. "I cannot help you. It is a ques­tion of principle. 
For what it is worth, however... I am sorry."
Soleta drew herself up, her facade of reserve firmly back in place. "No. You're 
not sorry at all. What you are... is Vulcan."
She turned and walked out of Selar's office.
Shelby and Riker were standing in the corridor just outside sickbay, and Shelby 
was saying, "I don't know about this. I'm ... uncomfortable about it."
'Truth to tell, I'm not happy with it either."
"Really?" Shelby seemed surprised. "I wouldn't have known it If you ask me, you 
seem perfectly sanguine about it."
"I know I do. If there's one thing I've learned, it's mat whether you make a 
good decision or a bad decision, what's just as important -- if not even more so -- is 
making a decision and sticking to it You can't be a commanding officer and not 
be committed to your commands."
"Yes, well... that would explain why some of the CO's I've worked with should be 
committed."
They both laughed at that and then Riker turned to Shelby with mock astonishment 
and said, "Why, Commander. Did we just have a moment mere?"
"I don't think it was a whole moment sir. Maybe half a mo­ment"
"Half."
"Three quarters at most"
"I see." He paused. "You were right about the Romulans."
"I know. But then again, in retrospect so were you."
He raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"I mean ninety-nine times out of a hundred -- hell, maybe nine hundred ninety-nine 
times out of a thousand -- the way you played it was absolutely right. Who knew 
that they had some bizarre scheme or ability to break into our entire comput­er 
system and cause the kind of havoc that they did?'
"You knew."
She shook her head. "No. I guessed. I had a gut feeling... which, I have to tell 
you, is damned peculiar for me. I've always been by-the-book, follow-the-rules."
"Perhaps you've been hanging around with Captain Calhoun too long. You're 
starting to pick up some of his seat-of-the-pants method."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps it was just with you here, my incli­nation was to 
second-guess what you were doing. May­be... that's my basic nature. I've never 
thought about it before, but maybe it's the way I operate. When Mac is here and 
being all gut-feeling, I'm all rules and regs. When you're here, doing things by 
the numbers, I'm suddenly advocating acting on impulse. Maybe..." and she sighed 
deeply. "Maybe that's why I've never gotten command. Maybe I don't have my
own command style, but instead I simply react to other people. But a captain 
needs to be a leader, to set the tone. Maybe I just don't have that in me."
"Nonsense," Riker said. "You're selling yourself short, Shel­by. Way short."
"Oh really. And why do you say that?"
He grinned readily. "Call it instinct. Hey ... even I have to go by it 
sometimes."
She returned the smile, but before she could reply, Soleta walked out into the 
corridor. She had never seen the Vulcan science officer look quite that 
deliberately stone-faced before. "Soleta... ? Are you all right?"
"I am perfectly fine, Commander... Captain," she took in both of them with a 
glance.
"Is Selar going to help you? Give you back-up?" asked Riker.
"No. And I will endeavor to respect her decision. So... let's get this over 
with." And she headed toward Sela's cell.
Soleta didn't like the look of things from the moment she got to the cell.
Sela was sitting there looking infinitely smug and infinitely composed. There 
wasn't the slightest flicker of fear in her eyes. "Well, well, little 
lieutenant... going to take a shot at visiting the dark side, are you?"
Riker and Shelby were standing on the other side of the se­curity field, as was 
Zak Kebron. But for all that their presence mattered, they could have been on 
Mars. The struggle, on all levels, was purely between Soleta and Sela.
"I will give you one last chance to cooperate," said Soleta.
"That's very gracious of you," Sela replied in a throaty voice. "Ever so 
gracious. But I don't need your chances."
"You may not have as much luck with resisting a mind probe as you think you 
will," Soleta warned her. "You are, I understand, half human. That will hamper 
you."
"And you are a fool, so that will hamper you."
Soleta did not rise to the obvious bait. Instead, she nodded her head in 
Kebron's direction as she extended her hands in preparation. "I feel it 
necessary to warn you that if you resist my making physical contact, Lieutenant 
Kebron will enter this
room and hold you down. That will be most uncomfortable for y -- "
"Resist? Why? What possible reason would I have? Do you think I'm afraid of 
you?"
"I am simply..."
Sela was on her feet, and in two quick strides she was di­rectly in front of 
Soleta. She grabbed Soleta's wrists and, with that confident grin of hers, said, 
'Take your best shot." And she slammed Soleta's hands onto either side of her 
own head.
For the briefest of moments, Soleta hesitated, but she knew mat way lay utter 
defeat So she cast away her doubts and plunged headlong into Sela's mind.
Sela had not overspoken when she talked of walking on the dark side. Soleta felt 
completely overwhelmed by darkness. Darkness all around her, impenetrable and 
chilling. Some­where deep in the distance, she was sure she heard Sela laugh­ing 
at her. The contempt irritated Soleta, fired her forward, and she plunged 
further, further on.
Run while you can, little Vulcan, came the warning, but still Soleta moved 
forward. All round her reality shifted and twist­ed, because there was no 
reality, there was only the subjective aspects of what she was perceiving within 
Sela... and within herself. For a meld was not simply a one-way connection. She 
was risking making herself as vulnerable to Sela as Sela was to her...
... except Sela didn't seem vulnerable at all.
Soleta crashed into something.
It was huge and black and unmoving, and now the laughter was coming hi from all 
around. She pulled back, withdrew her perspective, and she saw it in her 
mindscape. It was a gigantic image of Sela, a mile high it seemed, her face 
reflected in some sort of gargantuan mirror. The world twisted and turned back 
on itself around her, and still the image of Sela loomed over all. The blackness 
with which she had collided was the gaping maw of Sela's mourn, wide-open and 
laughing at her.
There was no delicacy, no finesse to Soleta's probe. She simply hurled herself 
with brute force against the image of her opponent. She slammed into it and she 
felt a painful shudder throughout her body, except of course she had no true 
body there, the pain was all in her mind and somehow mat made it
worse. But she could not go back, nor could she go around, she had to go 
through.
Having problems, Lieutenant? The image of Sela sneered at her, and then added, 
Here come a few more problems.
Black tendrils seemed to expand from all around, wrapping themselves around 
Soleta, and she did everything she could to shake them off. For a moment she was 
free and then once more she crashed into Sela's massive face, and once more 
there was the pain of collision, and once more she got nowhere, and this time 
she was a bit more tired, a bit more frustrated, and even a bit more
Frightened? Are we having problems, Lieutenant? What's frightening you? The 
prospect of failure? Or the prospect of something more? Her voice was 
everywhere, not just all around her but inside her, inside her head, there was 
nowhere to go, nowhere to escape.
Escape? Is that your concern? Why would you want to run away? Is there something 
you are concerned I'll learn? Come, come, Soleta, you wanted to find out my 
secrets. You should be willing to trade some of yours in turn. This is just girl 
talk, after all...
And the tendrils were back, and this time there was no shak­ing them off. Sela's 
training had been too thorough, and it was more than just training, she burned, 
she burned with a dark and fearsome intensity that was painful in and of itself. 
And Soleta tried to pull away, tried, but Sela was everywhere now, pene­trating 
and violating her, and she was thinking of what her mother must have suffered 
except she didn't want to think of that because mat way lay madness, and there 
was Sela's face as huge as a star, filling up everything...
... and suddenly Sela's face changed. It went from smug triumph to alarm. Soleta 
didn't understand at first, but as the tendrils slipped away from her, she saw 
the first cracks appear­ing in the mirror image of Sela.
And a voice said, Calmly, Soleta. Calmly. That is what is needed here. Calm and 
focus.
She did not see the image of Selar next to her, did not per­ceive her in that 
way. But she sensed her, sensed the steadying presence.
Sela discerned the cracks that were appearing in her image,
and a snarl of animal fury that carried psychic repercussions blasted out from 
her. Get out! Both of you! Get out while you can!
Are you with me, Selar? Soleta asked.
/ am here. My hands are upon your brow. Our minds have merged. Do as you need.
GET OUT! Sela howled, and that howl translated into winds so massive, so 
deafening, that they threatened to blast Soleta right out of the mindscape.
But she drew strength from Selar's presence, drew focus. And more, she began to 
draw upon herself. For she knew that Sela's heritage was hers too. The fires of 
fury that burned with­in Sela raged within her as well. It was that pure, raw, 
fierce emotion that she drew upon now. Not calm, Selar, she thought, not just 
calm. You bring the calm. ..but it's the calm before the storm,
And she summoned that rage, then, the rage and pure emo­tion that was part of 
the Romulan make-up, the rage that she felt over the circumstances of her own 
birth, the rage from the confusion and frustration and sense of desolation and 
separa­tion that she had carried with her for year after year. All that she 
pulled to her, clutching to herself, and then she hurled her­self forward 
straight toward the mirrored image of Sela.
Sela screamed in protest, but it was too late, far too late as Soleta smashed 
through. The image, the psychic shield that Sela had created, cracked and 
splintered and fell completely apart. And it poured out, it all poured out, 
images, awareness, facts, tumbling one over the other, and Sela was desperately 
trying to prevent the strip-mining of her thoughts; however, not only could she 
not slow it down, but Soleta was enjoying it with a primal fury that was 
terrifying to perceive.
Tell me what I want to know! Show me! You have no choice!
GET OUT!
Tell me, you Romulan bitch!
And it was there, everywhere, the Thallonian and the plan and the location and 
she just needed a few more details to help it all fit together and then she saw 
a horrible, horrible land­scape, bodies, bodies piled up in mountains stretching 
so high that they blotted out the sun hanging in the sky, except it wasn't the 
sun, it was something glistening and metal...
And men the world crashed in around Soleta.
Her body collapsed, and the only thing mat stopped her from hitting me ground 
was Selar. It wasn't that Selar caught her; Selar also collapsed, but as it 
turned out, Soleta fell on top of her so that her fall was slightly cushioned.
There was nothing to prevent Sela from hitting the ground, though, which she did 
with all the elegance of a sack of rocks.
Shelby and Riker were through the door in a heartbeat, Riker helping up Selar 
while Shelby attended to Soleta. "Sole­ta... are you all right?" she called to 
her.
Soleta stared at her, trying to focus her eyes. "You don't have to shout, 
Commander. I'm right here."
"Oh, thank God. I... I heard this shriek... and..." Shelby turned to Riker. "Did 
you hear it, too... ?"
He nodded. "In my head. Nothing spoken."
"Psychic backlash," Selar now spoke up. Riker was helping her to her feet "Even 
those who have no telepathic leanings can sense such an event"
"What happened to her?" Although Shelby was propping up Soleta, she was now 
looking at Sela. The Romulan was lying flat on her back, staring up at nothing. 
Her eyes were glazed over. "Doctor... ?"
The doctor was already tapping her comm badge. "Selar to sickbay."
"Sickbay," came Maxwell's quick response.
"We need a team up to the brig, immediately." She was checking Sela over briskly 
even as she was speaking to Maxwell. "Blood pressure, vital signs all appear 
minimal but within safety limits..."
"What's happened to her?" demanded Riker.
"Brain fried," Soleta said tonelessly. They all looked at her, and she noticed 
that Selar was nodding. She continued, 'To put it in human terms... we 
strip-mined her. Forced our way in, took what we needed. She fought... 
valiantly... but realized mat she was losing the fight. So she... burned herself 
out"
"You mean deliberately?" said Shelby, appalled.
"In a manner of speaking, yes. It wasn't that difficult really. Everything that 
she was turning outward for the purpose of re­sisting us ... she turned inward 
instead. Like burning the crops so that the attacking forces can't use the 
food."
"Will she recover?"
"I... don't know," Soleta said. "I've never actually seen this technique used. 
I've heard whispers about it, stories of people who had done it to themselves as 
a sort of mental suicide out of extreme depression ... but I've never witnessed 
it myself. I have absolutely no idea of what to expect in terms of her 
re­covery."
"And as long as she's like this ... we can't find out anything from her?" asked 
Riker.
Selar shook her head. "It would be like trying to read a book with blank pages. 
She has done to herself what her people did to us: She has crashed her 
computer."
"Which leaves us right back where we started."
"No, Commander Shelby," Soleta said. "Not quite. I... learned some things. Some 
terrible things. Saw visions of what's to come... saw those involved, or at 
least some of them..."
"Do you know where they are? Where to find them?" asked Riker.
She nodded, but then added, "What I don't know... is whether we can do a thing 
about it."
XVII.
calhoun stared our at empty space and tried to figure out what in the world it 
was that he was supposed to see.
In his freighter, he had arrived at the designated coordinates at the same time 
as General Thul, who was piloting his own vessel, a sleek mini-cruiser that 
looked as if it was more than capable of handling itself in most combat 
situations. Truth to tell, Calhoun had been concerned if, once he was out in 
space, he might be subject to some sort of sneak attack or ambush arranged by 
Thul or his minions. That was why he was some­what relieved that Vara Syndra was 
with him.
She was wearing something a bit more substantial than body paint this time, but 
the clothes were still extremely tight and rather revealing. She positioned 
herself in the co-pilot chair in such a way mat he wondered if he would ever be 
able to look at anyone else sitting there in quite the same way.
"Why are we sitting here?" Calhoun said after a brief time. "There's nothing out 
here. What's the point?"
"Oh, you'll see. The General likes to be mysterious," and she said the word 
'mysterious' in a deliberately dramatic man­ner. "That's just his way. You know" 
and she leaned forward, displaying her ample cleavage, "instead of simply 
complain­ing, I can think of ways in which we could pass the time."
He looked at her, regarded her thoughtfully. He'd had a lot of time to think 
about her. When he had woken up in the mid­dle of the night, she had been lying 
on his shoulder, snoring softly. He had studied her for some time, giving 
matters a good deal of consideration. He knew himself. He knew what others were 
capable of. And he had come to some rather interesting conclusions.
"Pheromones," he said.
He got precisely the reaction he was hoping he would get: Startled. He'd said 
something that she had not remotely antici­pated. "Wh-what?"
"Pheromones. You generate them in such a way that I, and any other male, 
couldn't help but be affected by them. You can regulate it however you wish, 
'turn on the charm,' as it were. You can crank it up to high heat, which is what 
you did with me, depending upon what it is that Thul wants you to do. Prob­lem 
is, you did too good a job on me. You made it so that I couldn't think straight. 
Except I can always think straight."
"I... don't know what you're talking -- "
"Yes, you do." When he interrupted her, he did so with no rancor. Indeed, he 
sounded a bit sad. "I don't know whether you come by it naturally, or if it's 
somehow been implanted into you. Don't know, don't care, really. The most 
depressing aspect of all is, I have absolutely no idea whether I would have been 
attracted to you just because of you yourself, or whether you need something 
Like being able to artificially stimulate male hormones in order to function. If 
I had to guess, that's probably a bit depressing for you, too. Not to know, I 
mean. Considering the way you look, it's somewhat sad to think that you would 
have to depend on something chemical. Or... do you really look that way ... ?"
She turned away from him, then. "Here's my back," she said with far more anger 
than he would have thought she was possi­ble of generating. "Just stick a knife 
into it and be done with it" . "Vara," he said softly, "listen -- "
"No," she snapped, looking back at him. "God, you're all the same. The surface 
is all that matters to you. And you know what? I thought you were different. I 
thought you'd know me. That you, of all people, would know me. But you don't 
know
anything. You know what I wanted to do after you fell asleep last night? Leave. 
That's what I usually do. But not with you, no. With you, I stayed. I totally, 
totally let down my guard with you..."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I thought I could. Because I thought we had con­nected on a deeper 
level than simply the physical. Be­cause ..." A tear trickled down her cheek and 
she wiped it away angrily. 'It doesn't matter," she said finally. "None of it 
does, I guess."
"Why are you hooked up with General Thul?" he asked. "Look what he's doing to 
you. He uses you."
She stared at him with eyes that were glistening. "And I use him. Everyone uses 
everybody else, Mackenzie. And anyone who says otherwise is probably one of the 
biggest users of all."
"Vara..."
Suddenly Calhoun's ship-to-ship comm channel flared to Me. "Calhoun. Are you 
still with us?" Thul sounded particular­ly jovial.
"I'm here, yes. Although I'm wondering why, exactly. Is there some deep, hidden 
meaning to the fact that we're sitting here?"
"Just being cautious. I generally Like to do a detailed scan of the area before 
going home, just to make sure that there's no one about who shouldn't be here. 
But I'm pleased to report that the area is clear."
"It's certainly clear of anything that could possibly be called 'home,'" Calhoun 
observed
"You should not always believe what your eyes tell you, Calhoun. First 
appearances do not necessarily mean anything."
"Yes, I think I've heard that occasionally," he said with a sidelong glance at 
Vara. She was looking resolutely away from him.
"Welcome to my home, Calhoun."
Calhoun still had absolutely no clue what Thul could possi­bly be talking about
And then, hi the near distance, space began to ripple. At first Calhoun thought 
it was something dropping out of warp space, but then he realized it was a ship 
dissolving its cloaking field. His immediate instinct was to prepare for battle, 
for when Ro-
mulan vessels dropped their cloak, it meant that they were about to open fire.
Then he realized that the dissolution field was too wide. It wasn't just one 
ship, it was a fleet of ships. A huge fleet... but... there was no space between 
the ships ... it was one, big, solid, wavering mass ...
"Grozit," whispered Calhoun.
It was a gigantic sphere, massive beyond belief. The thing could have contained 
the entirety of Starfleet within itself and had room left over for the Klingon 
fleet and a few others as well. It blotted out everything. Calhoun had his 
viewscreen on maximum reverse magnification, and he still couldn't make out the 
whole thing. He prodded the freighter into reverse.
"Don't run away, Calhoun, it won't bite," came Thul's voice.
"I'm not running away," said Calhoun, "I'm just trying to get a better view of 
the thing."
Within moments he'd backed up far enough away so that he could see it in its 
entirety. "It's a Dyson Sphere," he said.
"I believe that is what terran technology refers to such a structure as, yes. 
Call it what you will. As I mentioned, I call it home."
"But it's impossible! Cloaked? How can you possibly cloak something that big?"
"I've been working with the Romulan empire for some time now, Calhoun. You would 
truly be amazed what a few people with determination, resources, and sufficient 
hatred for the Federation can accomplish. Follow me, if you please."
Thul's ship moved toward the sphere, and Calhoun fell in behind him. The closer 
he got, the bigger it got. His instrumen­tation gave him readings as to the 
size, but knowing it intellec­tually and seeing it up close were two entirely 
different things. "How did he build it?" he asked Vara. "How long did it take? 
How -- ?"
"You can ask him," Vara Syndra replied. "I'm just here for my looks."
Calhoun rather wisely decided not to press the point
They moved through the massive entrance bay, passing through to the interior of 
the sphere itself. It was, to all intents and purposes, hollow. This hardly 
meant that it was empty, however. For starters, there were dozens, perhaps 
hundreds of
ships, parked within. Furthermore, the walls of the sphere itself were lined 
with walkways, residences, work areas. Toward the top and bottom of the spheres, 
Calhoun spotted hydroponics growing fields where fresh food was being 
cultivated. And straight down the middle of the sphere was a huge, pulsing 
de­vice that Calhoun immediately recognized as an infinitely larg­er version of 
a Romulan cloaking device. He saw that it was feeding off a core that was a 
modified version of a warp core. The Dyson sphere had no means of propulsion, 
however. It simply utilized the combination of matter and anti-matter 
ex­plosions to feed its energy needs. He also saw workers casually walking 
vertically along the outside of the core, getting from one point to the other, 
and he realized that the sphere was cre­ating an artificial gravity by the 
simple expedient of rotating on an axis.
"Incredible," he breathed.
"Follow me, please," came Thul's voice over the comm. "You'll see a docking 
beacon flashing. That will guide you in."
Calhoun did as he was told. It wasn't particularly difficult maneuvering, 
really. If it had been remotely difficult, they probably would have had a 
computer come on line and handle it for him. As it was, he followed Thul's lead 
across the vast in­terior and locked into position at a docking bay on the far 
side.
Moments later Vara and Calhoun had exited the freighter and were in what 
appeared to be a large reception area. People were walking briskly about on 
their business, but every single one of them paused in their stride to nod and 
acknowledge Thul's presence. It was an impressive variety of races repre­sented 
there... and Calhoun noticed that the vast majority of mem were not members of 
the Federation. Of those individuals who were, Calhoun recognized a number of 
them from records that had been circulated to all Starfleet captains, warning 
about individuals who posed a hazard to life and liberty.
"This way," said Thul. Lodec was next to him, and as Vara and Calhoun joined 
them, they made their way to what ap­peared to be some sort of turbolift.
As they walked, Calhoun found it more and more difficult to so much as look in 
Lodec's direction. Every time he did so, he risked betraying the depth of fury 
that the merest proximity to the Danteri provoked within him. One of the few 
things that
Calhoun had never been able to accomplish was to learn from the Danteri 
government the name of the individual who had wielded the whip that killed his 
father. Intellectually, he had al­ways known that it was Falkar who had ordered 
the deed. That gave him the responsibility, and that scale had been balanced. 
But part of Calhoun had always wanted to crush the throat of the man who had 
actually done the deed. He longed to feel that pulse beneath his ringers, 
struggling and beating its last before falling forever silent.
And now, after all these years, he had the motherless scum at arm's length. But 
he couldn't touch him. The object was to stay hi Thul's good graces, and slaying 
the best friend of Thul's late son was hardly going to accomplish that goal. 
Cal­houn was anxious to learn what it was that Thul was up to, and determined to 
stop it But now he had an additional incentive, something mat -- perhaps not 
surprisingly -- gave him some­thing more personal at stake than simply the entirety 
of the Federation's survival.
At one point, Lodec seemed to sense that Calhoun was eyeing him. He glanced in 
Calhoun's direction, but by that point Calhoun was looking off somewhere else. 
Lodec shook his head slightly, as if endeavoring to sort out his imagination 
from reality, and Calhoun simply watched him through half-lidded eyelids, like a 
great cat waiting in the high grass.
They stepped into the turbolift car. The doors hissed shut as Thul said, 
"General Thul, command level." The turbolift immediately started moving, sliding 
noiselessly toward the instructed destination. The lift was situated on the 
inside wall of the Dyson Sphere, which meant that they had a daz­zling view of 
the entirety of the place as they moved down­ward.
"What do you think of my little endeavor, Calhoun?" he asked. "I noticed you 
studying some of the other residents of my home quite carefully."
"Well... if you're really asking me..."
"Oh, I am. I am," Thul said sincerely.
"As near as I can tell, a goodly number of the individuals here are... how 
should I put this delicately..."
"Scum?"
"Yes. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for. And the
problem with filling a place with the scum of the galaxy, with some of the least 
trustworthy individuals around, is that you're going to have a hell of a time 
watching your back."
"I could not agree more, Calhoun," Thul said readily. Cal­houn could feel the 
lift slowing to a stop. "On that basis, I've taken great care to have the best 
people watching my back. Here's one of them now."
The doors slid open and Calhoun stepped out, looking around.
Zolon Darg was standing there.
Clearly he had been waiting for Thul to show up. Perhaps Thul, in a rather 
perverse bit of amusement, had requested that he show up and meet them there. 
Whatever the occasion might have been, the fact was that Darg was there and it 
took nun all of two seconds to recognize Calhoun.
For his part, Calhoun couldn't believe how massive Darg looked. Bigger, wider 
than when Calhoun had last seen him, with arms, legs and chest so thick that one 
could only conclude that he had rippling muscles beneath his clothes, the likes 
of which no one had ever seen.
"Darg, this is -- " began Thul.
That was as far as he got. With a roar of inarticulate fury, Darg charged 
forward and grabbed Calhoun by the front of the shirt. He slammed the Starfleet 
officer against the far wall with such fury that Calhoun felt every bone in his 
body rattle. His eyes felt as if they were ricocheting off his brain.
"Miss me?" he managed to get out.
Darg howled again and threw Calhoun to the floor. When Calhoun crashed into it, 
he barely managed to absorb the im­pact with his arms. If he hadn't pulled it 
off, the impact would likely have broken his neck.
Calhoun couldn't believe his strength; it surpassed under­standing. Darg would 
have given Zak Kebron a run for his money, and perhaps even beaten him. Then 
there was no time to think as Darg drove a boot straight down toward Calhoun's 
face. Calhoun barely managed to roll out of the way as Darg's foot crashed down 
where Calhoun's head had been moments before.
"I'll kill him!" Darg shouted, which was the first coherent thing he had managed 
to get out since he'd first seen Calhoun.
All things considered, it was a somewhat wasted pronounce­ment. His actions had 
already spoken far more loudly.
"Stop it, Darg. Right now," said Thul, and there was an iron sense of command in 
his voice that snagged even Darg's atten­tion.
Darg rounded on Thul, and he looked like a barely contained nuclear detonation. 
"He's mine, Thul! Mine to kill! Mine!"
"That's enough, Darg. The idea! Throwing a guest of mine around," and he helped 
the shaken Calhoun to his feet "Are you all right, Calhoun?"
Calhoun was woozy, his knees starting to buckle. "Well... fortunately, I'm still 
alive. Except... that might be a bit unfortunate, too, because I don't really 
feel like being alive at the moment."
"I'll remedy that!" snapped Darg, and he started to ad­vance on Calhoun once 
more. " 'Calhoun,' eh? So that's the name you're going by. I've never known 
it... but by God, your face has been seared into my memory long enough! And 
I'm -- "
"/ said enough!" and if there was any doubt until that mo­ment as to who 
precisely was in charge, that strident bellow more or less demolished it. Darg 
froze where he was, in mid-step, as he had been advancing on Calhoun.
"I warn you, Darg. Do not cross me on this matter. Calhoun has done me a great 
service. Because of that, he is not to be harmed."
"He nearly killed me," Darg said slowly, as if addressing a child. "He... tried 
to kill... me..."
"Yes, he did. And the only reason that you're still alive is be­cause of me," 
Thul reminded him. This appeared to be getting through, and he continued, 
"Because of Calhoun, Lodec stands with me now."
"I could have gotten Lodec for you," Darg said with con­tempt, as if the feat of 
freeing Lodec was a simple conjuring trick that could be performed by the 
average eight-year-old with a home starter magic bag.
"You were busy elsewhere. You cannot be everywhere, Darg, and I need others I 
can count upon."
"You would put... that..." and his finger quavered as he pointed in Calhoun's 
direction, "... that... thing... on the
same level with me? You would depend on both Calhoun and myself equally? That is 
madness!"
"Grow up, Darg," Thul said, and he certainly sounded as if he meant it. "What is 
past is past. Reliving grudges and offen­sive acts taken toward one another is a 
fool's errand. And I am no fool. Now... Mackenzie Calhoun... Zolon Darg ... you 
will work in tandem with each other, in a spirit of cooperation. I do not want 
to hear rumors of either of you trying to kill the other one. That would be 
unacceptable. And a mysterious mid­night poisoning... ? That would be 
unacceptable as well." Calhoun wasn't sure, but he thought perhaps that Darg had 
looked a bit crestfallen upon learning of the further edict. "You will work 
together. You will trust each other as much as can possibly be expected. If 
there are any disputes, they will be mediated through me. And gentlemen... think 
of it this way..."
"What way?" Calhoun asked, still rubbing the parts of his body that had been 
badly bruised while being tossed around.
"It will be in both your best interests to lead a long, healthy and productive 
life here in the Thul Sphere. Because if either of you dies, I will 
automatically assume that the other had something to do with it, and act 
accordingly."
"Wait a minute," Calhoun said, "you can't hold us responsi­ble in such an 
open-ended manner. What if one or the other of us dies of natural causes?"
"That might be almost impossible to determine," Thul said reasonably. "There are 
too many drugs and poisons that can simulate demise from a certain cause... and 
the poisons themselves are undetectable within minutes after doing the job. 
Therefore, we would likely err on the side of caution, decide that the means of 
death was actually murder, and act accord­ingly."
"You can't do that!" protested Darg.
"Darg... Calhoun," Thul said slowly, with tremendous warning in his voice, "this 
is my place. I cannot suggest strongly enough that you do not tell me what I can 
and cannot do. Understood?"
Calhoun and Darg looked at each other. Calhoun did not think for a moment that 
Darg was going to let it drop quite that easily, and was fully aware that he was 
going to have to watch
himself every waking minute -- and, even more importantly, those minutes when he 
was not awake. Still, he simply nodded and said, "Understood."
"Understood," muttered Darg.
"Good. That's settled then."
"Mackenzie Calhoun," Darg said slowly. "I know that name. You are with Starfleet 
I've heard your name bandied about in Thallonian space. There are some who 
worship you as a god."
Calhoun shrugged indifferently. "Some. I don't encourage it."
"You're not wearing a Starfleet uniform. What is a Starfleet man doing here, 
anyway?"
"He is late of the fleet, Darg," Thul assured him. "This is a place where new 
lives are started. All I care about is what a man brings with him, not what he 
leaves behind. Now then, Darg... the recruitment drive on Argelius. How did that 
go? We are running short on time, and are rapidly drawing to the 'now-or-never' 
moment"
"It went quite well, actually," said Darg, casting one more sidelong glance at 
Calhoun before continuing his comments to Thul. "Of the twelve representatives I 
met with, nine showed up in force several hours ago, bringing the required 
payment along with the people they represent The population of the Thul Sphere 
has increased exponentially."
"Perfectly acceptable," smiled Thul. "That is perfectly ac­ceptable. The 
resources of the sphere have been carefully built up. You see, Calhoun," he 
continued, turning back to the offi­cer, "this has hardly been an overnight 
project. I have labored many years to bring this to fruition."
"You must be very proud."
"Very, yes. And who is this?"
Calhoun didn't understand the question, and then realized it wasn't being 
addressed to him. Someone else was walking to­ward them from behind him, joining 
the group. It was Darg to whom Thul had been speaking.
"This fellow," Darg said, "was of tremendous use to me on Argelius. I have taken 
the liberty of inviting him to join our op­eration. General Thul... this is 
Kwint. Kwint, this is our glo­rious leader, the great General Thul. And this is 
Thul's glorious associate, Vara Syndra, and Lodec of Danter, and..." he
growled the name reluctantly, as if hating to acknowledge that it needed to be 
spoken, "Mackenzie Calhoun, late of Starfleet. Gentlemen, lady... this is 
Kwint."
Calhoun turned and saw a man with silver hair and beard, but a face that 
otherwise he recognized instantly. His voice caught in his throat as he found 
himself staring straight into the eyes of Jean-Luc Picard.
XVIII.
"WE were set up, Si cwan. I'm sorry, but that's one of the things I drew from 
her mind," said Soleta. She looked around a conference lounge that was occupied 
at that point by Shelby, Riker, Selar, and Burgoyne, and Si Cwan. Cwan's face, 
in par­ticular, was deathly serious. "This ostensibly 'peaceful' race you spoke 
of had actually allied itself with the Romulans. Be­cause of their machine 
make-up, they were apparently the per­fect tools to help put into place the 
final elements that were needed for Thul's plan. And they decided to test those 
ele­ments on our computers. They were simply able to take our computer system 
over with no problem, punching through all the safeguards and security codes as 
if they weren't even there."
"So their plan is to try and take over computers of star-ships?" asked Burgoyne. 
"But why? It sounds somewhat ab­stract to me."
"You mentioned Thul. That would be Gerrid Thul," Si Cwan said slowly.
"You know him, then," asked Riker.
"More by reputation, although I seem to have a vague rec­ollection of meeting 
him when I was quite young. A rather power-mad individual. At the time he was a 
second-level
Thallonian nobleman. Very eloquent, but that eloquence helped to cover a 
ferocity of ambition that was rather chilling. My father once said that Thul is 
a man who uses lies the way a surgeon uses a scalpel, and assigned him to be in 
charge of one of the farthest-flung of our outposts. But Thul craved power, and 
decided that the best way to go about it was to court the emperor's sister, my 
aunt. My father thwarted that, feeling that Thul wasn't good enough for her. 
This infuriated Thul. Then there was a rebellion ... Thul's son was killed, I 
believe... and then one thing led to another, and Thul wound up in prison."
"Well, he's out, and apparently he has no love for the Feder­ation. What I 
managed to draw from Sela's mind before she collapsed is, unfortunately, spotty 
at best," admitted Soleta. "Thul has been experimenting with some sort of 
virus... a virus that apparently is one of the most devastating that the 
Federation has ever dealt with."
"Dealt with? You mean it's surfaced before?" asked Riker.
"Apparently it has, yes," said Soleta. "The Enterprise first encountered it 
several years ago on Archaria m. It then resur­faced on Terok Nor a few years 
later. A variation was used to attack the Romulan royal family, and finally, 
just before his de­fection, Tom Riker reported dealing with the virus on a 
planet in what was then the demilitarised zone between the Federa­tion and 
Cardassia."
"But what's been the point of it all? These repeated attempts at a virus... ?" 
But then Shelby realized it. "He's planning to unleash it on the Federation, 
isn't he."
"Apparently so," said Selar. "From what I have garnered, this virus crosses 
races with the ease that we cross warp space. If Thul does manage to unleash it 
somehow, it could annihilate every living organism it comes in contact with."
"But a virus can't travel through space. How can he possibly do it?" asked Si 
Cwan.
There was dead silence for a moment as they looked at one another.
Then Riker's eyes widened. "I get it. Good lord... I get it."
"Get what?" asked Shelby. "I don't understand..."
Riker leaned forward, his fingers interlaced. "Federation races share 
technology. That's one of the fundamentals of the
alliance. That technology includes such standard items as holotech ... 
computers... and replicators."
"So?" asked Shelby... and then she understood. "Oh, my God."
Riker nodded. "Replicators work via computers. They tap into a data base and use 
that information to replicate food, clothing, whatever's needed. It's one of the 
underpinnings of our way of life, because as long as replicators exist, no one 
wants for any­thing. With the aid of the artificial intelligence equipment and 
research that Thul has stolen, via such catspaws as Zolon Darg, and the help of 
the Narobi, Thul has found a way to access any and all computers throughout the 
Federation. Because comput­ers are the connecting tissue of the entire 
Federation."
"Thul has come up with the ultimate computer virus," Soleta said, comprehending.
"That's right," said Riker. "He's going to take over the data base of every 
computer in the Federation, just as easily as he took over ours. Every 
homeworld, every colony, every Starship, everything in the shared computer 
environment. Once he's 'in,' he's going to program the replicators to produce 
this virus of his."
"But replicators can't create living things," said Shelby. "Aren't viruses 
partly alive?"
"Partly, yes. But there are ways around it," Soleta said. "I can think of 
several."
"So can I," said Riker, "And either it'll put the virus right into the food, or 
the clothing, or he might just pump it right into the air. We should consider 
ourselves damn lucky that he didn't decide to try and replicate the virus aboard 
the ship or we'd all be goners."
"We can probably thank the Romulans for that, ironically enough," Soleta said. 
"I know them, I know how they think. We did them some serious damage. They 
probably wanted to beam aboard first and obtain some personal vengeance for the 
ships of theirs that we destroyed. Once done with that, they likely would have 
started pumping their virus throughout the ship after they left..." Her voice 
trailed off.
All eyes turned toward Burgoyne. But s/he shook hir head quickly. "No. No, 
nothing like that's been done. We got out of the area fast enough to avoid any 
such stunts."
"But we might be carrying something within the computer base..."
"No, that's the problem. We're not carrying anything in me computer base. When 
they got into our mainframe, they wound up erasing all the data. Everything. 
This ship is a damnable blank slate. All of the fundamental material and 
information needed for its running is gone."
"Gone? Completely?"
"Information is never gone completely from a computer, Captain. It's mere 
somewhere. But when it's wiped clean, what basically happens is mat we can't get 
at it I'll find a way... but it'll take time."
"How much time?"
"I don't know," s/he admitted. "I have all my people work­ing on it, but I 
simply do not know. And that's not all."
"What, it gets better?"
"That's an understatement. Our preliminary probes reveal imprints of mental 
engrams left behind, like fingerprints. This wasn't simply a virus or a machine 
wipe. A mind... an actual mind... entered the computer and nearly wiped it, and 
us, from existence."
"The Narobi. It has to be," said Si Cwan.
"Perfect. So what have we got?" asked Riker. "In terms of capabilities, I mean."
"Minimal, being routed through manual control. We've got Me support systems on 
line. Warp drive is up, as you know, which is how we managed to throw ourselves 
to... wherever the hell it is that we are."
"Have we got coordinates as to our present location?" asked Riker.
Shelby nodded. "McHenry says he knows where we are. I have no reason to doubt 
him."
"We jumped blind through warp space and he knows where we came out?"
She nodded again. "He's rather talented that way."
"So I hear. All right: Life support, warp drive... what about communications?"
"Not yet," said Burgoyne. "Besides, even if we did have communications up and 
running and could get through to the Federation... what would we say? 'Excalibur 
to UFP: Shut
down everything throughout the entire Federation. We're cele­brating the 
bicentennial by reverting to the Stone Age. Cease and desist in your entire way 
of life until you hear from us again. And by the way, we have no proof.' Oh, 
that's going to go over very well, I can assure you. They'd probably shunt the 
message over into a committee which would debate about it for three weeks before 
resolving to tell us that we're idiots."
"You've made your point, Burgoyne," Riker said. "Is any­thing else functioning 
around here."
"Manual guidance control just came back on, and we've got the viewscreens up and 
running. Basically, we can move, at warp speed if we need to. But navigation is 
still off-line. It would be like trying to steer in the dark while blindfolded. 
It's impossible. Besides, we have no idea where we would go any­way."
"Yes. We do," Soleta said. "That was the one other piece of information I... 
we," she amended with a glance toward Selar, "... managed to get out of Sela. 
The coordinates of where Gerrid Thul is."
"But as Burgoyne said, trying to plot, to navigate without the computers ... 
unless these coordinates are practically next door, it's just not possible," 
Riker said.
"I wouldn't be so quick to say that," Shelby told him. "I sug­gest we run it 
past McHenry."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
She smiled thinly. 'Trust me."
"All right," he nodded slowly. "I don't see that we have much of a choice. Let's 
do it, people."
As they cleared out of the conference lounge, Soleta found herself momentarily 
alone with Selar. She moved toward her and said, "Doctor..."
But Selar shook her head. "Lieutenant... do not."
"I was just..."
"Going to thank me?"
"Yes."
. "Do not," she said again. "I do not wish to be thanked. You have done me 
service in the past. I found that I could not turn away from you when you were 
in need. But I compromised myself... my sense of ethics ... my very morality. I 
did harm, Lieutenant."
"For the greater good, Doctor. That should make it easier." "It should. I agree. 
But... it does not If you will excuse me," and she walked out of the conference 
room.
Mark McHenry stared out at the stars. So many. So many of them. Riker stood 
behind him on the bridge, as did Shelby. "They are gorgeous, you know," McHenry 
said softly. "I see them in my head last thing before I go to sleep... and first 
thing when I wake up. I know them. Know them all."
"And you know where we are in relation to them right now?"
"Yes, sir."
"And these coordinates that Soleta has given you... you know where those are, as 
well?"
"Yes, sir."
Riker found it hard to believe. He had been treading the spaceways for over half 
his life, but like virtually everyone else he knew, he required starcharts, 
computer-generated readouts, and whatever else could be provided for the purpose 
of making his way around the vastness of space. To just... know... to be able to 
look out into the galaxy and have that clear an idea in one's head of exactly 
where one was ... it was astounding.
"And you can get us mere?" Riker said.
McHenry closed his eyes a moment. It seemed as if he'd gone to sleep. Riker 
started to say something, but Shelby touched him gently on the arm and shook her 
head. Then McHenry opened his eyes once more and said, "Yes, sir. Not a 
problem."
"All right, then. Lay in a course -- " His voice trailed off, and he corrected 
himself, because it was impossible to plot a course. All the steering would have 
to be done manually. 'Take us out, Mr. McHenry. Warp factor..." He hesitated and 
then shrugged. "Whatever you feel comfortable moving at. And let's hope to hell 
that Burgoyne has the weapons on line by the time we get there."
"Aye, sir. May I ask a question, sir?" he inquired as he urged the ship forward.
"Absolutely."
"What's going on? I mean, I can get us there, but it's not without risks. 
Without navigation on line, it's going to be a bit
trickier avoiding, oh... black holes, asteroid fields and the like. I can do it, 
mind you ... but it's trickier. The smart thing to do would be to remain where 
we were until everything is back up and running. So what's the rush? What are we 
trying to do?"
"Fair enough." He glanced around the bridge and said, with sufficient graveness 
of tone to put across the gravity of the sit­uation, "A deadly virus is 
threatening to wipe out the lives of everyone we hold dear... and only the good 
ship Excalibur has a hope of stopping it. Does that answer it?"
"Yes, sir."
"You're frowning, Lieutenant. I hope you're not feeling daunted."
"No, sir," said McHenry. "Just the strangest feeling of déjà vu, that's all. 
Don't worry. It'll be gone soon enough."
XIX.
calhoun had been in his quarters for all of two minutes when Kwint showed up at 
the door. He entered without a word and they faced each other as the door slid 
closed.
"Are you out of your mind!" Calhoun fairly exploded the moment they were in 
private. "What the hell are you doing here? You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"Calm down, Mac," Picard said stiffly. "Having apoplexy is not going to help the 
situation."
"That's putting it mildly! It was everything I could do not to react when I saw 
you! Why are you here? With the hair? And me beard? And Darg?"
"I was sent hi by Jellico..."
"Jellico? But he was working with Nechayev! He helped stage an entire 
confrontation at the big diplomatic reception to make it seem as if I was 
storming out of Starfleet! It's how we got Thul's attention!"
"So it would seem. I was unaware of mat Jellico called me in, summarized the 
situation for me, and sent me on a mission to get hi good with Zolon Darg. He 
chose me because Jack Crusher and I had dealings hi the past with Thul. Jellico 
had heard the rumors that Thul was involved and wanted to make certain, one way 
or the other."
"But if he knew about -- " Then Calhoun actually half-smiled to himself. "He didn't 
trust me. He didn't trust me not to screw things up. So he sent you in as 
back-up, without telling Nechayev or me."
"Charming," said Picard.
"And this disguise," and he tugged slightly at the beard, "was supposed to fool 
him? It didn't fool me,"
"First, you've seen me far more recently than Thul. He hasn't laid eyes on me 
for a good many years, and Darg has never met me. Second, you're Xenexian. You 
have a heightened sensitivity to such things. Besides, I didn't know for sure 
that I would wind up face to face with Thul. In any event, he hasn't recognized 
me, nor has Darg. So we're safe enough... for the moment. We have to stay 
steady, though..."
"That was easy until this got personal," said Calhoun, tightly.
Picard looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Lodec ... the Danteri that you saw ... ?"
"Yes? What about him?"
"He killed my father."
Picard's eyes widened in concern. "Are you certain?"
"Absolutely. Absolutely positive." He paced the room like a caged tiger. "The 
longer this goes on, the more I think of my father crying out... think of what 
he did... Picard... there's so many people here now. It could be covered."
"What could be covered?"
"I could kill him, make it seem as if it was a random act of violence. There's 
enough disreputable individuals that the sus­picion wouldn't fall on me, and -- "
"Mac," and Picard grasped him by the shoulders, "you can't lose focus. Letting 
feelings get in the way is not a luxury we can afford."
"Laying my father's soul to rest is not a luxury, Picard. It's a mandate. It has 
to be done."
"Not here! Not now!" Picard said harshly. "If you do any­thing to jeopardize the 
mission we're on now, Mac, just out of a personal sense of vengeance, I will..."
"You will what? Have me busted in rank? Slap my wrist? Give me ten lashes? Do 
you think I seriously give a damn what happens to me?"
"Probably not. But I would hope you give a damn what hap­pens to everyone else. 
Mac... I appreciate your anger and your frustration. But you simply cannot 
indulge in those feel­ings at the moment. It could be ruinous for everyone and 
everything. We have to determine what Thul is up to and stop him. The Mackenzie 
Calhoun I know wouldn't elevate his need for vengeance over the needs of those 
who are depending upon him."
"Maybe you don't know Mackenzie Calhoun, then."
"Maybe I don't. But the brutal, simple truth, Mac, is that killing Lodec won't 
bring your father back.... and it could re­sult in the death of many more. Are 
you prepared to take that chance? Or are you going to do what's right?"
"And who knows what's right, Picard. You?"
"Not always. But in this instance... yes."
Slowly, Calhoun sat. He rubbed the lower half of his face in thought, and 
finally said, "All right For now... for now I do nothing against Lodec. But I'll 
tell you something, Picard... I never thought that doing nothing would be a 
hundred times more difficult than doing something. Do you have any idea what 
it's like, Picard? That there's someone you hate so much... that with every 
fibre of your being, all you want to do is hold their head in one hand, their 
neck hi another, and with one quick movement, break it?"
For a moment, Picard saw the skinless, gleaming skull and spine of the Borg 
queen hi his hands, and the cathartic cleans­ing that came with that glorious 
snap.
"Believe it or not... I do," said Picard.
The summons had come.
Everyone had been informed that they were to come to the grand hall, and come 
they did. The lifts were operating at peak capacity throughout the sphere as the 
entire populace con­verged on the main meeting area.
There had been those who had doubted. Even though they had shown up with the one 
hundred thousand bars of latinum as promised, still there had been doubts and 
discord. But the revelation of the sphere's existence, in and of itself, was 
enough to quell their initial concerns. They knew, beyond question, that they 
were now part of something special, some-
thing incredibly significant in the entire history of the galaxy. There were 
still questions, still worries, but there was also enough faith that Gerrid Thul 
actually had a plan. That he knew what he was doing.
And now they were going to find out. All their questions were to be finally, 
ultimately, answered
Calhoun and Heard had resolved that going together would not be the brightest 
move. There was no intrinsic reason for them to be especially friendly with one 
another, and so it was advisable that they keep their distance, at least until 
such time as it was unavoidable. So Calhoun headed toward the turbolift on his 
own upon receiving word of the summons. He stepped into the lift, and froze.
Lodec was standing there. It was just the two of mem.
Calhoun couldn't believe it What was this, some sort of per­verse joke that the 
cosmos was playing on him? He forced a smile as he stepped onto the lift and the 
doors shut behind him.
"Impressive set-up, isn't it," Lodec said after a moment
Calhoun managed a nod. He pictured himself with his sword in his hand, plunging 
it into Lodec's heart. It gave him a mi­nuscule amount of satisfaction, but not 
much.
And then Lodec said, "I'm sorry."
"Sorry." Calhoun repeated the word tonelessly. "Sor­ry ... for what?"
"You were right My saying that I was simply following or­ders ... mat was just 
an excuse. A nice, tidy way of shirking my responsibility. The things mat we 
did..." He shook his head. "Inside... I was screaming. Screaming. But Falkar --  
that's who I was connected to -- Falkar was the liege-lord of our family. Our 
patron, as he was to a number of us. So when he selected me to serve him, I had 
no choice. At least, mat's what I told myself. My family sent me off to war, and 
I'll never forget my rather looking at me so sternly, giving me the admonition, 
'Don't dishonor us, son. Don't dishonor us.' And me, young and foolish... I 
would have done anything to make my father proud Do you know what that's like?"
"No," Calhoun said hollowly.
"Oh. Well... mat's all I cared about Pleasing him, pleasing my family. But I 
hated every moment of it It got so bad... there was a time mete where we were 
posted to Xenex,
and I thought of leaving the camp and walking into the nearest Xenexian town and 
picking a fight, and then allowing myself to be killed. That way... that way it 
would have been over. I didn't have the nerve, though. I didn't want to throw my 
life away because part of me kept saying, 'Stay steady. Things will get better. 
You won't have to live this way forever.' Except the problem is... even when 
you're not living it... it stays with you for as long as you live. The things we 
did," he said again, shaking his head, looking lost. "The helpless people we 
killed... the beatings... lord... they put me in charge of whippings, can you 
believe that?"
"Indeed. Why you?" Calhoun's voice was strangled. But he saw that Lodec was so 
far in his recollections that he wasn't noticing.
"I'd practiced with whips ever since I was a kid. To me, it wasn't a weapon. It 
was a tool of skill. I could knock over a particular rock from thirty paces 
without disturbing anything around it. Falkar saw me showing off one day, and on 
the spot, stated that I was his new whip master. He had me beat people... the 
screams ... the blood..."
"Beat them to death, did you?"
"Sometimes," he whispered. "Sometimes, yes. I'd be there, torturing the poor 
devils, and hi my head I was taking myself away, somewhere far away..."
"What are you telling me this for?" demanded Calhoun abruptly. "What do you want 
from me? Absolution? You want me to tell you that it's okay, you're forgiven?"
"Perhaps. You were their warlord. If you said you under­stood ... if you..." 
Then he saw the look in Calhoun's hard purple eyes. "No. No, I suppose not My 
apologies. It was foolish of me even to try."
The door slid open and he walked out leaving Calhoun drained in the turbolift, 
his hands shaking.
The viewscreen was massive, and on it everyone could see the celebration of the 
bicentennial well under way. It was in the great plaza of the United Federation 
Headquarters, and it was a wonder to behold, a veritable sea of races and faces, 
smiling or doing whatever their respective physicality allowed them to dp when 
it came to expressing pleasure. Calhoun even
fancied that he could make out Jellico's face somewhere in all that hubbub.
Gerrid Thul was standing upon a raised platform, looking down at me assemblage 
that he had gathered. He looked stronger, more vital than he had before. "Thank 
you, my friends," he said. "Thank you for coming. Thank you for... believing. 
For many months now, you have heard the whispers... you have had revealed to 
you, in small amounts, the truth of the time to come. And you see there, now, on 
this screen, on the planet earth, the United Federation of Planets celebrating 
its own birth. As it so happens, we shall be cele­brating as well. We shall be 
celebrating... its demise.
"It is ironic somehow mat we are witnessing a celebration on earth. Earth has 
many interesting and intriguing end-of-the-world myths from its many cultures. 
The details differ, but the outcome remains the same: The old is washed away, 
while the new rises to take its rightful place.
"The time has come for a new cleansing. The Federation has become too huge, too 
insensitive, interested only in maintain­ing its own existence and status quo 
rather than attending to the true needs of various sentient beings. There is too 
much need for commonality, and there is a loss of individual identity. You see 
on that screen a dazzling array of species... but as year upon year has gone by, 
they have slowly lost that which made them unique, special. The Federation must 
pay for that loss. And the Federation must, and shall, pay for the disservice 
that it has done to you. You, the outcasts, who for whatever reason, do not fit 
in with the Federation's grand scheme of the way things should be. Rejoice, my 
friends, for the days of your living in a galaxy that attends to the 
Federation's beck and call are soon over."
Thul gestured to his right, indicating that someone should join him on the 
podium. In the meantime, Calhoun looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of 
either Picard or Vara Syn­dra or, most particularly, Zolon Darg. Darg was the 
only one he managed to spot, but that wasn't too surprising. With bis bulk, he 
towered above everyone around him. Picard might have been standing right next to 
him, but thanks to the crowd, Calhoun couldn't possibly see him.
A rather unassuming human was now standing next to Thul
on the podium. "This... is Doctor David Kendrow, one of the premier computer 
scientists in the quadrant. Wave to the good people, Kendrow." Kendrow 
obediently waved. He seemed none too thrilled to be there. "Doctor Kendrow," 
continued Thul, "has been instrumental in aiding us. He has helped us to 
coordinate an astounding amount of information about artifi­cial intelligence. 
His greatest aid has come in helping us to un­derstand a remarkably advanced 
computer called the Omega 9... a computer which sets new advances in the art of 
inter­facing with existing mainframes. Working in tandem with the Omega 9, 
assorted other research, and dissident residents of a world called Narobi II, we 
are going to accomplish what no one else in the history of the Federation has 
managed to do: We are going to connect, at one time, with every computer 
mainframe through the entire UFP.
"The very commonality which has made the UFP into such a tightly-knit 
organization is going to be used against it. But we are not simply going to use 
the Omega 9 to destroy the computers, oh no. Far from it. You see, the computers 
are tied in with, and control, food replicators which are common tech­nology on 
all the member planets. The Omega 9 is going to cause all the computers to 
replicate a virus which I call the Double Helix, which I have spent years 
perfecting. Now ... replicators are limited. They cannot create something that 
is alive. They can, however, create a string of chemicals which will replicate 
the disease, and as the disease is intro­duced into the food or textiles that 
the replicators generate, that -- I assure you -- will be more than sufficient.
"But that is too slow. Oh yes... too slow, my friends, and too inefficient So 
what will, in fact, happen, is that at the pre­cise same moment, all replicators 
everywhere will go active, and a gas will be issued by them. That gas will 
contain the Double Helix virus, and will spread as an airborne menace in no time 
at all, over every single planet.
"The Federation representatives are scheduled to re-enact the signing of the 
charter. That will be the moment when the virus will be released on all the 
Federation worlds simul­taneously .via the replicators. It will be galaxy-wide, 
and the entire Federation will be obliterated in one stroke. Those worlds which 
are not part of the Federation will naturally
survive... as will anyone who is safe within the Thul sphere." He smiled out at 
the crowd, spreading his arms wide. "And mat will be that. In one grand, 
glorious stroke, the entire United Federation of Planets will become a thing of 
the past!"
A huge buzz of conversation had been building and building as Thul had 
continued, and when he stopped and waited for a reaction, he very much got one. 
There was a gigantic cheer, a roar of approval so loud that Calhoun thought he 
was going to go deaf. The applause and huzzahs seemed to go on forever, and when 
it finally did subside, it was only at Gerrid Thul's urging as he clearly had 
more to say.
Calhoun, in the meantime, was endeavoring to drift toward the back of the room. 
He had no problem making sure that no one was watching him; every eye in the 
place was rivetted on Thul. He tapped the inside of his left heel, and the 
long-range communicator slid smoothly out of the heel and into his palm.
Thul started to speak again. His voice was amplified, and it was so loud that 
Calhoun knew he was going to have trouble getting anyone to hear him.
"Yes, my friends. The Federation has become weak," said Thul. "The Federation 
has become stupid. And the most insult­ing of all... the Federation thinks that 
we, ourselves, are so stupid, that we will easily be fooled by whatever pathetic 
plan they might come up with. See for yourself the pathetic spy that they have 
sent into our midst."
Calhoun's head snapped around... and he saw himself. To be precise, he saw his 
face on the gigantic screen behind Thul, having replaced me image of the UFP 
celebration. There he was, right in the midst of the crowd, palming the device 
that he was about to speak into.
Those who were standing around him naturally recognized him immediately and 
lunged toward him. Calhoun tried to fight bis way out, but it was hopeless 
before he even began. Innumer­able hands surrounded him, shoving him toward the 
floor, and the communicator flew out of his hand. It skidded to a halt sev­eral 
feet away and he could see it, just out of his reach.
And then it was trampled, simply crushed beneath the stam­pede that was 
converging on the spy who had been named by Gerrid Thul.
Calhoun was hauled to his feet, still struggling. Even as he
did, though, he knew that it was futile. It was almost more out of misplaced 
pride than anything else, because in point of fact, he didn't stand a chance.
"Up here, my friends! Bring him up here!"
They shoved Calhoun forward, laughing and shouting, and within moments he had 
been thrown at the feet of Gerrid Thul. He started to get to his feet, and then 
an immense foot came down on his back. He knew who it was immediately, even as 
his spine creaked under the weight
"Zolon Darg," Thul said conversationally to Calhoun, "has been asking for this 
opportunity."
"I'm not a spy -- " Calhoun began. Then he couldn't get an­other word out as Darg 
increased the pressure, chortling as he did so.
"It is possible," Thul allowed. "On the other hand, that is merely a possibility 
... whereas I consider your being a spy to fall far more into the realm of 
likelihood. Darg ... do as you like."
"As I like?" Darg said, and made as if to slam his foot com­pletely through 
Calhoun's torso. Then he paused and said, "No. Why should I keep the fun to 
myself? You know... there are many things I can do with you, Calhoun, after 
you're dead. So why not give others the opportunity to actually escort you to 
the other side." He pulled his blaster from his holster and called out, "Kwint!"
Kwint appeared at his side, his face one big sneer. "Yes, sir?"
"Here," and he handed the blaster to Kwint. "Execute him."
Calhoun, very carefully and very deliberately, did not look up at the disguised 
Picard. To do so would have come across as pleading, and that was not something 
he could risk. Calhoun was done for, he knew that. But if Picard foolishly 
attempted to save him, they would both be finished. One of diem had to complete 
the task. And if Calhoun was going to be the one to fall, then so be it.
He just prayed Picard wouldn't be so foolhardy as to try some insane rescue 
ploy. Surely Picard had to know that it was hopeless, that Calhoun had to be 
.sacrificed. That was simply the way it had played out. No offense, no foul, see 
you next lifetime.
In a way, it was almost a relief. At that point, Calhoun had absolutely no idea 
what to do about Lodec. At least dying first would resolve that quandary.
He had always understood that, when one is about to die, one's life flashes 
before one's eyes. He waited for that to hap­pen.
There was no flash. There was no life.
This made him edgy, as it seemed to indicate that he wasn't about to die. If 
that were the case, then it was most unfortunate because that meant -- 
"Nobody move!" shouted Picard.
"Oh, hell," muttered Calhoun.
Picard considered, for a moment that was in fact brief but, to him, seemed 
endless, the option of shooting Calhoun. There didn't seem to be any other 
options being presented to him.
His finger even started to squeeze the trigger... and that was when Picard knew 
that he simply couldn't do it If one was dealing with sheer numbers -- the death of 
one man, Cal­houn, versus the potential death of trillions of beings -- obvi­ously 
mere was no choice. But Picard refused to accept mat it was that simple. There 
had to be other choices.
Moving with surprising speed, Picard vaulted the distance between himself and 
Thul and put the blaster straight at Gerrid Thul's head. Darg didn't budge. 
Neither did Thul. The crowd started to converge, to surge forward, and Picard 
called out, 'Tell them to back off! We're going!"
"Are you?" Darg asked calmly. "And if you're prevented from doing so... ?"
"Then Gerrid Thul dies," Picard said firmly. "I'll kill him..."
"As you killed my son?" Gerrid Thul asked
The words froze Picard. Did Thul actually know him? What was that possible? But 
if he did, then that meant -- 
. "Go ahead," Darg was saying. "Shoot. See if I care."
That more or less clinched it for Picard. He looked down at the energy indicator 
on the blaster he was holding, but was rea­sonably certain about what he was 
going to find.
It read "empty." The blaster was completely out of power.
Picard looked up and saw that he was ringed by half a dozen blasters, all aimed 
squarely at him.
"Now these," Darg said conversationally, "all work."
Slowly Picard put up his hands, knowing there was no choice. He was grabbed from 
all sides, and he saw Calhoun being hauled to his feet as well.
"I never trusted you for a moment, 'Kwint,' " Darg told him. "So I had a DNA 
check run on you from scrapings taken off a glass at Kara's. By the time we 
arrived here, Gerrid Thul was already quite aware that the man who killed his 
son was going to be making a return visit."
"I was not responsible for the death of your son, and you know it," Picard said 
to Thul.
"You can believe that, if it pleases you to do so," Thul said. "I, however, know 
otherwise. Darg... take them away. Put them in lock-up."
"What? Why? I'll just kill them..."
"You'll do no such thing," Thul admonished him. 'I want mem in lock-up, with a 
screen mat broadcasts the Federation ceremonies. I want them to witness their 
Federation's fall. I think..." and he smiled broadly, "I think my son would have 
liked it that way."
XX.
"what did you expect me to do?" demanded Picard.
From within their cell, Calhoun glowered at him. "I expect­ed you to pull the 
damned trigger, that's what I expected you to do."
"And kill you in cold blood."
"If it meant preserving the mission, yes."
Just outside the cell, two guards were visible through the force field that was 
blocking the door. They appeared to be smirking as the two captains disagreed 
rather vocally about the direction that Picard should have followed in the given 
situa­tion.
Calhoun was sitting disconsolately on one of the hard benches that constituted 
the entirety of the furniture in the cramped cell, while Picard was standing and 
facing him. "So you expected me to shoot you down?"
"Absolutely," said Calhoun. "I knew there were hazards to this mission..."
"For God's sake, Mac, mere are hazards to any mission. But this was ..." He 
paused and then said, "If the situation were reversed, would you have shot me."
"With the safety of the entire Federation on the line?"
"Yes."
Without hesitation, Calhoun said, "In a heartbeat."
They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Pi­card said softly, "And 
if it were Shelby?"
Calhoun looked away. "This is a stupid discussion. It's all moot anyway. The 
game was up before they even handed you me blaster."
"True."
"So..." Calhoun slapped his thighs and stood. Then he walked over to the 
forcefield that barred the way and he stroked his chin thoughtfully. The guards 
outside watched him through narrowed eyes. "Here's what we have to do. We have 
to get out of here, destroy their computer system, take down Gerrid Thul and 
Zolon Darg, and do it all before they have the signing ceremony back on earth 
that's going to signal the be­ginning of the end."
The guards clearly thought this to be a hilarious proposition. They laughed out 
loud as Calhoun stared at mem. "Is some­thing funny?" he asked quietly.
"No, nothing at all," said one of the guards. "We'd be most interested in seeing 
you get out of here. Wouldn't we, Benz?" he said to the other.
"Absolutely, Zeen," said Benz.
"I just need to warn you," Calhoun said calmly, "that if I do get out of here, 
the first thing I'm going to have to do is kill the both of you. Nothing else to 
be done for it, I'm afraid. I can't take the chance of either of you recovering 
and sounding an alarm prematurely."
"Oh, we understand that perfectly. We won't hold it against you. How are you 
going to kill us, by the way? Weapons scan revealed no weapons on you."
"I'll just have to do it with my bare hands."
"Very well. You go right ahead," grinned Zeen.
"You're sure you won't be upset?"
"Not at all. We understand you have a difficult job to do. Far be it from us to 
resent you for it."
"That's very kind of you. Activate transporter, right"
The grin remained on their faces for another moment or two... and then, to their 
shock, Calhoun vanished in a burst of molecular rearrangement.
"What the hell!" the one called Benz roared.
They were both facing the cell when Calhoun rematerialized directly behind them. 
They spun, faced him.
Benz was closer. Calhoun's right hand speared out, nailed Benz in the throat, 
crushing his windpipe. It was effectively over for him at that moment as he 
collapsed to the floor, un­able to breathe.
Opening his mouth to shout out a warning, Zeen brought up his weapon at the same 
time. Calhoun didn't even slow down. Moving with incredible calm, he grabbed 
Zeen's gun, angled it backward and fired. The blast struck the forcefield, 
ricocheted, and hit Zeen in the back. Zeen's eyes went wide as his spine 
sizzled, but he didn't feel the pain for long as Calhoun grabbed either side of 
his head and twisted with brisk efficiency to the right. Zeen's neck broke with 
remarkable ease and he sagged to the floor.
As he fell, Calhoun pulled the gun from his lifeless fingers and glanced down at 
Benz, gasping on the floor, unable to draw in air. Calhoun fired off a quick 
shot into his head and Benz stopped thrashing about.
From the moment he'd reappeared outside the cell to the moment that the guards 
were dead, the entire incident had taken no more than four seconds.
Calhoun shoved the blaster into his belt, picked up Benz's, which he'd never 
even had the chance to pull out, and then tapped the controls deactivating the 
cell forcefield. Picard stepped out and looked down in astonished horror at the 
un­moving guards ... and then up at the cold purple eyes of Cal­houn.
"Let me guess," he said coolly to Picard. "You wouldn't have done it."
"I would have found another way, yes."
"I guess you're not a savage, then."
There was an element of pity in Picard's eyes that Calhoun found most annoying, 
"I guess not."
He handed one of the blasters to Picard. "That's too bad. It's a savage galaxy. 
Let's go."
Suddenly they heard a footfall behind them, someone else coming down the 
corridor. Calhoun spun, levelling his weapon and fully prepared to annihilate 
almost anyone who appeared around die corner.
Vara Syndra, however, fell into the "almost anyone" catego­ry, and so it was 
that when she came into view, she did not im­mediately die. Instead she looked 
at the fallen bodies, and up at Calhoun, with a remarkable lack of surprise.
"I should have known," she said, and for some reason her voice sounded different 
Less airy, less seductive, more hard­ened. "I show up to free you, and you're 
already out"
"Free us? Why?" demanded Picard.
"Because I owe him," she said, indicating Calhoun, "and I always pay my debts."
"You don't owe me anything," Calhoun said. "I mean, grant­ed, it was good, I 
thought, but -- "
"This isn't about sex, you idiot!" she said in exasperation. "Don't you know 
anything? Don't you -- ?"
And then, from behind Vara, came three guards. Like the fallen ones, they were 
Thallonians. Unlike the fallen ones, they had their weapons up and they were 
ready to start firing. Pi­card and Calhoun had their blasters up, but Vara was 
squarely in the way.
"Hold on a moment," she sighed, and then she spun and she was holding a knife in 
either hand. Before the guards were even aware they were under attack from her, 
they were already dead. A thick pool of blood began to spread from their fallen 
bodies as they lay on the floor, one piled atop another, dark liquid pouring 
from the vital arteries that Vara had effortlessly cut.
Vara grinned. There was nothing seductive about her. The woman who had been 
radiating sex not so long ago had changed into something completely different. 
Feral, wild, bru­tal and -- 
And Calhoun laughed.
"What," Picard asked him stiffly, "is so damned funny?"
"She knows what's so funny," said Calhoun. "Don't you, Vandelia."
"It took you long enough, you Xenexian jerk," said Vandelia of Orion.
In the main computer lab, Kendrow studied the final link­ups very carefully. The 
last thing he wanted at mis point was for something to go wrong, because he knew 
all too well mat any sort of failure at this point would be the end of him.
He kept glancing, equally nervous, at the Narobi who was standing nearby. His 
name, loosely translated, was simply Sil­ver, which was his color. He had 
another designation which was used to distinguish him from other Narobi, but 
since there were none others around at that point, he had seen no need for its 
use. When it had been made clear to him that human inter­action almost required 
that he be called something, he had chosen simply "Silver" and recommended that 
that be the end of it.
Silver was the leader of the dissidents of Narobi. Normally a peaceful people, 
it had been Silver who had felt most strongly that they were capable of so much 
more than simple peace, and he had been more than accommodating when he had been 
ap­proaching by Gerrid Thul. Silver, like all his people, was tall and 
glistening and almost entirely machine. There were some small elements of the 
mortal left within him. Those were doubtlessly the ones that made him 
dissatisfied with the Naro­bi philosophy of peace.
When he spoke, his Ups did not move, for the simple reason that he had none. No 
mouth, for standard food was not a re­quirement; he was solar powered. No nose, 
for of what interest was scent. He did, however, have eyes, not so much for 
sight as it was that the Narobi had discovered other races like to have eyes 
they could look into when they were talking.
Standing nearby, observing the final preparations, were Ger­rid Thul and Zolon 
Darg. "Everything will be ready, will it not, Kendrow?" asked Thul in that silky 
voice he had mat was half pleasantry, half warning.
"Yes, sir."
"Good, Quite good. We wouldn't want anything to go wrong, would we?"
"Definitely not, sir."
There was an observation window in the computer center that opened up onto the 
grand square. The screen was up and running, once again focused upon the events 
at the Federation gathering. Many of Thul's followers who had gathered there 
were still there, watching the drama unfold that was going to spell the end of 
the Federation. Thul smiled down at them. His people. His followers. He very 
much liked the sound of that. And Mendan Abbis would have liked the sound of it, 
too. The
thoughts of his son momentarily saddened him, and he pushed them away. Now was 
not the time for distractions.
"Darg..." he glanced around. "Have you seen Vara? She seems to have 
disappeared."
"No, sir. I have not."
"See if you can find -- "
And suddenly there was a breep that came over Darg's comm unit. "Yes. Go ahead," 
he said brusquely into it.
"Sir! The prisoners are out! We found the cell deactivated! Five guards down!"
Darg looked at Thul in a most accusing, "told you so" man­ner. "Alert the 
security force. But do it quietly. We don't need alarm bells howling, getting 
everyone upset and also letting the prisoners know that we know they're out I'll 
be right there." Then he stabbed an angry finger at Thul. "I told you this would 
happen! I told you I should have killed mem immediately!"
"I simply have endless confidence in you, Darg, that you'll be able to handle 
them. In fact, you should thank me. You see ... you made a muddle of attending 
to Calhoun last time you faced him. If I hadn't found you and... attended to you 
... you'd be long dead by now. So I'm generously giv­ing you an opportunity to 
get it right this time. Do not disap­point me, or yourself."
With an irritated growl, Darg headed out Thul, meantime, turned back to Kendrow 
and said calmly, "Don't slow in your preparations, Kendrow. Timing, after all, 
is everything."
At the site of the great Federation assemblage, Admiral Nechayev, in full formal 
dress, felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and saw Admiral Jellico behind 
her, with his customary polite-but-pained expression. "Greetings, Admiral," he 
said. "I don't usually see you at such functions, particularly at such crowded 
ones."
"I know that, Admiral. But even an office-bound old thing like me likes to get 
out every now and then. Mingle. That sort of thing."
"So," and he folded his arms, "your boy Calhoun staged quite an exit didn't he, 
Alynna?"
"You cooperated admirably, Eddie."
"Cooperated? He hit me! In the head!"
"He was simply improvising."
"In the head," repeated Jellico.
"Oh, well, Eddie, it's not as if you were using it for any­thing."
"You're a riot, Alynna. We were supposed to stage an argu­ment. Not get 
physical."
A slightly tipsy Tellarite bumped into her. He grunted an apology and moved on. 
She shook her head in annoyance, al­though she was more irritated with Jellico 
than the Tellarite. "And how convincing do you think it would have been if you 
threatened to throw him out of Starfleet after a simple argu­ment. I don't blame 
Mac for slugging you. It all serves a high­er purpose, Eddie, just remember 
that."
"So you say." He looked around. "Except I don't see him here. In fact, I don't 
see any danger of anything at the mo­ment."
"That's why he's involved, Eddie. To attend to whatever it is we don't see."
"And maybe he's not needed. Maybe there are others who are attending to it just 
fine."
She looked at him askance. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." He smiled enigmatically. "Not a thing."
Rolling her eyes, she said, "Fine, Eddie. Whatever you say. It means nothing. 
Oh," and she pointed toward the front of the room. "They're starting."
"Starting what?"
"The re-enactment of the Resolution of Non-interference. Come along, Eddie. 
We're about to see history."
XXI.
all those years ago, even after Calhoun had freed her, Van­delia had lived in 
fear of Darg. For she had heard rumors that Darg had somehow survived the 
destruction of his headquar­ters. That he was back in the business, building up 
his strength, making his connections once more. That he was more power­ful and 
nastier than ever. And that he had never, ever, given up the notion of tracking 
down Vandelia and the mysterious man who had freed her, and making them both 
pay. On at least two occasions, Vandelia had narrowly missed him, arriving at a 
performing spot mere days after Darg had been mere.
Vandelia was a brave and fierce woman, as was typical of Orions. But even she 
had her breaking point. Night after night she would lie awake, listening, 
wondering whether this would be the night that Darg tracked her down. She had no 
interest in facing him and teaching him one final lesson, nor did she de­sire to 
track him down first so she could put an end to him. For Vandelia had had the 
most uncanny feeling that she had gotten off quite luckily the first time, and 
to encounter Darg again would be to tempt fate in a manner that would ultimately 
re­bound to her detriment.
She saw only one way out... and she took it.
Vandelia disappeared ... and Vara Syndra was bom.
It had not been all that difficult, really. The changes were mostly cosmetic. 
She hadn't really been transformed into a Thallonian. Shaving her head, changing 
the pigmentation of her skin from green to red, all had been fairly simple. Her 
physicality, however, and the ability to give off waves of sex appeal in the 
same way that stars gave off light was another matter, however.
For that, she had turned to a supplier of all things exotic, questionable and, 
for the most part, illegal. His name had been Brace Carmel Mudd, and the first 
time that she had encoun­tered him, she had felt unclean. Purported to be a 
"family busi­ness," it had been his name which she had heard bandied about most 
often when she'd made inquiries as to obtaining Venus drugs. She had managed to 
track him down and, for a healthy price (not to mention a substantial loss of 
her self-respect), had obtained the drugs.
The drugs had been around for nearly two centuries, and the core suppliers -- whose 
real names were unknown to all but a handful, Mudd included -- had spent much of 
that time perfecting them. In the old days, their effects had been fairly 
temporary, and the alterations they made relatively modest. They had simply 
enhanced those features that the users felt were their strongest. But it had 
been as much in the mind as in the body.
Not anymore. The Venus drugs of the modern era were far more sophisticated. They 
had put inches on Vandelia in all the right places, reconfigured her into an 
absolute sexual magnet They had even altered the shape of her face, to the point 
where she was unrecognizable. Mudd had given her a ten-year supply and gone on 
his way, and Vandelia had used it extremely well. She had gone into Thallonian 
space, which on the surface of it seemed insane. It was, after all, the native 
territory of the one man she never wanted to encounter again. But she had 
decided to play the concept of hiding hi plain sight to the hilt If Darg was 
busy checking the far reaches of the galaxy for Vandelia, it would never occur 
to him to look in his own backyard. And even if he did, he wouldn't think at all 
about a sultry Thallon­ian woman who went by the name of Vara Syndra.
Everything had been going fine... until the drugs had run out prematurely. For 
Mudd, as it turned out, had not exactly
dealt fairly with her. The ten-year supply was, hi reality, half that, the rest 
of it simple colored gelatin. It meant that she had overpaid significantly. It 
also meant she was hi tremendous danger.
It was around then that she had fallen hi with Gerrid Thul. Thul had taken an 
immediate liking to her. He did not know her true name, or even that she was 
originally an Orion. What he did know, however, was where to obtain the Venus 
drugs which she now desperately needed as her supply of the real drugs was 
dwindling to nothing. It became an eminently workable arrangement. She became 
his full-time aide, gener­ating her considerable sex appeal whenever he needed 
it, and he kept her hi supply of the Venus drugs. It worked out rather nicely.
Nonetheless, she nearly panicked when Zolon Darg came on the scene.
At first she couldn't believe it was he when Thul 'Intro­duced" them, he had 
become so huge. Then she waited for some glimmer of recognition from him. She 
had steeled herself for this possibility for many years, but once it arrived, it 
was everything she could do not to run screaming from the room.
Darg grunted.
That was it. End of encounter. He granted. Whenever he would see her hi the 
future, it would always be the same terse acknowledgment of her. She couldn't 
believe how fortunate she had been; he had no idea who she was. In fact, at one 
point, he even asked her if she knew of an Orion dancer named Vandelia. It was 
all she could do not to scream the truth hi his face to display her contempt for 
him. That, however, would not have been a wise move, since he would then have 
killed her hi short order, so she managed to restrain herself.
"Vandelia? Never heard of her," she had said, wide-eyed, and he never inquired 
again.
He also never displayed any physical interest hi her. For the first weeks after 
encountering him, she had dreaded the day that Gerrid Thul might tell her that 
she was required to "enter­tain" the formidable Zolon Darg. But it had never 
happened. He wasn't remotely drawn to her. She couldn't quite figure out whether 
she should be relieved or insulted. Ultimately she opted for the former.
Thus had her life gone, hiding in plain sight. Living the life of Vara Syndra, 
adored by more males than she had ever known. It was artificial, it was a 
shadow, but at least she was alive and enjoying herself.
But every so often she would think about her danc­ing... and also about the 
scarred man who had rescued her back when she was another person entirely ... 
the scarred man who had, amazingly, not immediately succumbed to her charms as 
an Orion dancing girl, even though the Pheromones that she generated (as did all 
of her kind) should have made her irresistible. She was sure, though, that the 
Venus drugs en­hancing her Pheromones would prove irresistible even to Cal­houn.
She'd proven right
She was, for some reason, a little disappointed...
Calhoun, Picard and Vandelia headed down the corridor as quickly as she could. 
"Down this way," she said. "We've got to get you out of here."
"We can't," Picard said. "We have to stop Thul's plan."
She was about to try and talk them out of it, and then she mentally shrugged. 
"Yes. You would have to, wouldn't you?" Calhoun was staring at her. "Well? Any 
questions, Mac?"
"No," he said after a moment's thought. "Shaved the head, retoned the skin, 
Venus drugs, hid in plain sight. Correct?"
She blinked back her astonishment and then said in the most bored tone she could 
muster, "Wrong. Completely wrong. Now come on."
"Where's the central computer room. He must be program­ming it from somewhere," 
said Picard.
"Up," she said. "It's up at the top level. Here," and she sud­denly walked over 
to a computer station that was built into the wall. She tapped in an 
identification code and, moments later, a schematic of the sphere appeared on 
it. "Here it is," and she pointed out the location.
"Are there laboratory facilities?" asked Picard.
"Yes. Here. Two levels below the top. Why?"
"Because if we don't manage to stop the initial launch of the virus, and it does 
get loose, we need to know if there's some
sort of cure for it," Picard said. "And if he was doing research on it -- "
A blaster bolt struck the computer station and smashed it apart.
The three of them whirled, just in time to see a squadron of Thul's men charging 
toward them.
Picard and Calhoun immediately fell back, firing as they went, desperately 
trying to keep their pursuers off balance. Vandelia, who had lifted a blaster 
from one of the Thallonians who had tried to take them down earlier, was also 
firing. They picked off several of their pursuers, and the others ducked for 
cover. "Come on! This way!" shouted Picard, and they bolted down the corridor.
Blasts ricocheted off the walls around them as they ran. One of them struck an 
overhead pipe, and coolant blasted out, fill­ing up the entire walkway with 
thick, white smoke. Vandelia took a deep breath of air before it became 
impossible to do so, and then she couldn't see anything. There were forms, 
shad­ows ahead of her, and she ran after them. She went around an­other comer, 
and then another.
And suddenly she was alone.
She looked around, tried to figure out where she had be­come separated from 
Calhoun and Picard. There were no sounds of pursuit; perhaps they had decided to 
go around an­other way, she must try to catch up with them. Even so, retrac­ing 
her steps would not be the best idea. So she decided to keep going forward.
As she did, she mulled over the fact that she could easily have ducked out of 
the situation. She could have pretended that Calhoun and Picard had just now 
taken her hostage. The guards that she'd killed were dead, so they weren't going 
to talk. The Federation men would certainly have played along so that she wasn't 
at risk. She could have kept her life going...
Except it wasn't her life, not really. It was Vara Syndra's life, and she 
realized that she had grown rather tired of her. She missed the woman she was. 
She wanted Vandelia back. And this was the only way to recapture her.
She saw a figure ahead of her in the mist, turning and look­ing at her. "Mac!" 
she called. "Mac! Over here!"
The figure suddenly seemed to stand up, looming large in front of her. Zolon 
Darg emerged from the mist and looked at her as if seeing her for the very first 
tune.
"Hello, Vandelia," he said.
Then he killed her.
XXII.
picard had absolutely no idea how he had become separat­ed from Calhoun, but 
there was no time to worry about it at that point. What was of far greater 
concern were the men who were pursuing him.
He turned quickly, spotted an open lift, and charged toward it. He ducked, 
weaved, ran as fast as he could. A blast bolt singed his shoulder and he 
staggered, but he tumbled into the lift, losing his grip on his blaster as he 
did so. "Level 3A!" he called, which was how he had seen it demarcated on the 
schematic.
The doors slid closed... but just before they did, a Thallon­ian leaped the 
distance and fell into the lift car atop Picard. The car started up.
The Thallonian snarled into Picard's face, tried to bring his blaster up. Picard 
gripped his wrist and they struggled furious­ly as Picard tried to aim it away 
from himself. The blaster dis­charged, blasting through the clear backing of the 
lift that overlooked the dizzying interior of the sphere.
Picard and the Thallonian straggled to their feet, pushing and shoving against 
one another. The blaster went off again, ricocheting and striking a glancing 
blow against the Thallon-ian's heavily armored back. It wasn't sufficient to 
hurt him. It
was, however, enough to knock both the Thallonian and Picard back and out the 
gaping hole in the back of the turbolift.
For a moment, there was nothing between Picard and a drop except air, and he was 
floating in the zero-g environment. Then he snagged the shattered exterior of 
the lift. It sliced up his hand fiercely, but it held firm.
The Thallonian was less fortunate. He tumbled away from the lift, but he did so 
in extreme slow motion. He tried to make it back to die lift, looking for all 
the world as if he were swim­ming in the air. But he simply drifted backward, 
faster and faster, heading toward the core of die sphere where the massive 
cloaking device was.
Picard knew immediately what was going to happen. When he hit the gravimetric 
center of the sphere, he was going to make a fairly significant splat. And if 
Picard didn't manage to haul himself back into safety, he was going to go die 
same way.
The slicing of his hand was excruciating -- it was like mas­saging broken glass -- but 
Picard had no choice. Setting his jaw determinedly, he dragged himself into the 
lift, fighting against the zero G which seemed so buoyant but was, in fact, so 
dead­ly. In a moment he was tumbled to the floor, and then looked up as the door 
opened on the level that he had requested.
He picked up me blaster that he had dropped on the floor of the turbolift and 
staggered out. His blood-covered palms made it difficult to grip the gun 
securely, but he had to do the best he could. He looked around desperately and 
saw signs pointing to the lab. How exceptionally convenient.
He followed them quickly, got to me lab, and just as he ar­rived, ran into 
another squadron of guards. They had their weapons out, he was ten feet short of 
the door to the lab, and they absolutely had him cold.
At that point, Mackenzie Calhoun ran by.
And another. And another still.
"Get him!" the lead attacker shouted, but they had no idea which "him" to get 
"And him!" he added, and pointed at Picard.
Several of them indeed fired right at Picard, and he would have been dead if 
Calhoun had not thrown himself into the blaster's path. The shot took him down 
from die back, and Cal­houn collapsed into Picard's arms.
"Mac!" Picard cried out
At which point, Calhoun abruptly got to his feet and started running back die 
other way.
By then, everyone was so confused, that they totally missed it when Picard 
charged into the laboratory.
There were workers and people whom Picard presumed to be scientists within the 
lab. They were milling about in confu­sion, clearly concerned over the shots 
that they were hearing just outside. One of them, not realizing that Picard was 
the tar­get of those shots, demanded, "What's going on out there? Are you people 
insane! We can't have blasts flying around here! We can't -- "
Picard aimed his blaster squarely at the scientist's face. "You can't... what?"
He froze. They all did. When he spoke again, it was with a stammer. "We... there 
are dangerous chemicals... things here that can't... that mustn't..."
"Things such as the Double Helix virus?" Picard said, bis blaster never 
wavering. His hands were throbbing. It was everything he could do to hold his 
weapon steady.
There were apprehensive nods from everyone in the room.
"And mat means it would be very, very bad if something were to be broken... 
wouldn't it... because it might release something that you don't want 
released...."
At which point, he swung his blaster around in a sweep of the room. He didn't 
fire... he just aimed. But when he was pointing to one corner in particular, 
that caused an alarmed jump by nearly everyone in the room.
A-ha, he drought as he crossed quickly. Several of the scien­tists made a move 
toward lum, but he held mem back with a glance that spoke volumes.
There were vials, samples lining the wall where he was standing. "Which one?" he 
demanded. "Which one is the Dou­ble Helix? And which one is the cure?"
"There is no cure!" one of die scientists said, and die others bobbed their 
heads in agreement
It was too spontaneous a reply to be a falsehood. Picard's heart sank when he 
heard it, but then he reasoned that if the Federation got their hands on a pure 
sample of die virus, per­haps their researchers could find it "A sample, a 
sample of the virus. I need it, now."
"But..."
"Now!"
They pointed to one of the tubes, and he snatched it up.
"No, that's the wrong one! It's not the standard virus... that one's highly 
concentrated!" one of them said. 'Ten times more virulent! You -- !"
Suddenly the pursuing guards burst in through the door, their weapons ready to 
blast holes into anything and every­thing.
Considering the inflammatory nature of the moment, Picard was remarkably calm. 
He simply held the vial up and said, coolly, "You would not like me to drop 
this?"
In spite of themselves, the guards cast a glance at the scien­tists. There were 
rapid and very anxious shakings of heads from all of them, verifying the notion 
that shooting at Picard at that moment in time would be an extremely bad idea.
Slowly Picard moved toward the door, holding the vial in front of him. "That's 
it. That's fine. Everyone stay right where they are," he said. "My hands are 
slippery enough with blood, you see. Wouldn't want me to be even more clumsy, 
would you? Now, clear the way." They didn't move. His voice dropped even lower, 
so low that one would have been inclined to check and see if he still had a 
pulse. "Clear... the ... way," he said very slowly, very methodically, and very 
dangerously.
They cleared the way.
Calhoun had run to the upper levels and no one stopped him.
He had done so through a rather crafty subterfuge that he was, in fact, rather 
proud of. He had circled around to where Vandelia had dispatched the group of 
guards, torn off a piece of cloth from one of them, soaked it hi the widening 
pool of blood, and then held it up to the right side of his face. He then 
proceeded to run as fast as he could, using stairwells and lad­ders rather than 
the lifts which he felt would be watched more carefully. He kept the cloth 
pressed against his face.
The first time he encountered a squadron of guards, he said nothing, but simply 
pointed and gesticulated while groaning. What the guards saw was a man who had 
clearly been badly injured by the escaped prisoners who were somewhere behind 
him. They promptly ran right past Calhoun and, grinning to
himself, he kept on going. It happened three more times as he made his way up 
the sphere, and each time played out in exact­ly the same manner.
The fourth time, while on the third level, it didn't work.
It worked at first as they started off down the hall. But then around the corner 
came Lodec, and he and Calhoun froze, face to face. Lodec wasn't fooled for a 
second, but for a moment --  just a moment -- doubt seemed to play across his face.
Calhoun brought his blaster up, operating completely on in­stinct, ready to 
shoot Lodec down. And he, likewise, hesitated for a moment.
And then Lodec shouted, "Calhoun! He's here!"
The guards, as one, turned and charged back.
Calhoun shoved his tongue against the replicator inside his mouth, and suddenly 
multiple versions of himself sprang into existence and started running in all 
directions. The guards were frozen in confusion, and when they did start opening 
fire, it was too late. As for the real Calhoun, he paused only long enough to 
swing a roundhouse punch that flattened Lodec. He hoped he had broken his jaw, 
and would have liked to do more, but it was all he had time for.
Just ahead of him, on the uppermost floor, was the computer room. He braced 
himself, holding his blaster firmly, and then he thrust himself in, coming in 
low, getting ready to fire...
There was no one there.
That wasn't entirely true, actually. Vandelia was there, her body tilted back on 
the chair, blood trickling from her mouth. Calhoun could see from across the 
room that she was dead. God knew he had seen it enough.
Even so, he didn't want to believe it was true. He ap­proached her slowly, 
hoping against hope that somehow she would just get up, come back to life. That 
it was all some sort of a sick joke. Then he heard her voice, and she was 
whisper­ing, "I wanted to dance... for just you... Mac ... one more time..." And 
then her voice rattled in her throat.
And then she repeated it... and died again ... and again...
He turned and saw Darg's image-on the screen. He was smiling. It was not a 
pleasant expression.
"Those were her last words, Calhoun. I recorded them for
you. I knew you'd want to hear them. If you're hearing this... which I assume 
you are... I can further assume that you're in the main computer room. That's 
where you would naturally come to try and head off Thul's plan. That is 
natural­ly where we would be... if we didn't mind being easy targets for you. 
We're secured in another part of the station, I assure you, preparing for the 
great moment I'm afraid there's nothing you can do to stop it. It would be most 
appreciated, however, if you would kindly ... die."
At that moment, Calhoun had no idea where to go.
At that moment, Calhoun didn't care.
The door to the computer room slid open, as he knew it would. Darg was standing 
there, as he knew he would be. He was empty-handed, and he waggled his fingers 
toward Cal­houn. Pressing in around him, from all sides, were armed guards. They 
had their weapons trained on Calhoun. The slightest move and they could easily 
blast him to free-floating atoms.
"If you drop the weapon... you have an opportunity at me... man to man. If you 
don't drop the weapon... my men drop you." He paused and then said softly, "Come 
on, Cal­houn. You know you want it."
Calhoun allowed the blaster to drop from his fingers. At that moment, they could 
easily have killed him where he stood.
They didn't Instead, they simply watched and grinned. Clearly they were all of 
the opinion that Darg was hi absolute­ly no danger at all. But at that moment, 
Calhoun didn't give a damn what they thought. Instead he charged toward the far 
bigger man, building up speed with every moment, and he slammed into Darg with 
everything he had.
And bounced off.
His head spun around him as he hit the floor. He had no idea what had just 
happened. It had been like crashing into a bulk­head at full tilt. His eyes 
crossed and then uncrossed and he looked up at Darg who was coming right toward 
him, his fist cocked and ready to slam home. He barely managed to roll out of 
the way in time as Darg smashed the floor where he'd just been and made a hole 
in it the size of a watermelon.
Calhoun stumbled out the door. Darg's men made no effort to stop him. They 
seemed to be having too good a time. Darg
lumbered after him, coming toward him like a tidal wave, just as easy to reason 
with, just as unstoppable.
"A little different this time," he rumbled. "Come back here, Calhoun. We have 
old scores to settle."
He closed on Calhoun, swung an uppercut that could have taken off Calhoun's head 
had it connected. Calhoun barely dodged it, moved out of the way of a second 
thrust, dodged a third. "Stay still!" snarled Darg, but Calhoun did not feel 
in­clined to oblige.
Once more Darg swung, and once more Calhoun got around him, and this time Darg 
was slightly off balance. Calhoun moved quickly and drove a punch to Darg's jaw. 
Darg let out an angry yelp and staggered, and Calhoun hit him in the head a 
second time, staggering him. But then he pressed his luck and mis time Darg 
caught his hand, yanked him off his feet, and slammed him against the wall as if 
he were a beanbag.
Calhoun felt his face starting to swell from the impact of hit­ting the wall 
face-first He saw Darg advancing on him. Trying to stall for time, he pushed his 
tongue against the false tooth to activate it Nothing. Instead he felt the 
broken shards of the de­vice crumble in his mourn. The impact had shattered it 
He spit it out and made a mental note to write a memo to Nechayev about the 
durability of SI devices.
Darg extended his hands... and razor-sharp blades snapped out of the ends of his 
fingers. He swiped at Calhoun, slashing across his tunic, and Calhoun barely 
managed to avoid more serious injury. He stared at the blades uncomprehendingly.
"You still don't understand, do you," Darg said. "All right I'll make it clear 
for you." He turned the blades toward himself and slashed open his shirt. It 
fluttered to the ground in several pieces, to reveal Darg's glistening metal 
silver torso.
"Thul found me, damned near dead. He was impressed I'd survived that long on 
sheer hatred. He kept me alive and took me to Narobi. They built me this body. 
My head, my brain's all that's left. I'm not a man anymore. I'm a walking 
weapon, a machine that pretends it's vaguely alive. A freak. And it's your 
fault, Calhoun. Your fault!" Upon the last words, he suc­cumbed to total rage 
and charged at Calhoun.
Calhoun twisted loose the heel of his boot It came clear and he aimed and fired. 
The phaser blasted out, smashing Darg
squarely in the chest. It knocked him back and he fell with a startled grunt.
Calhoun did the only thing that seemed reasonable under the circumstances. He 
turned and ran.
One of Darg's men tried to fire after him, but Darg slapped the weapon from his 
hand. "No! He's mine! After all this time, he's mine!" He charged after Calhoun, 
the floor trembling under bis footfall.
In the back-up computer room to which they had been relo­cated, Kendrow was 
making the final adjustments under the watchful eyes of Silver and Gerrid Thul. 
"We're running out of time, Mr. Kendrow," Thul said. He didn't sound nearly as 
jovial as he usually did.
"I'm very aware of that, sir," said Kendrow nervously. "But I'm getting some odd 
readings off the Omega 9. Having a bit of trouble locking down some of the 
neural nets ..."
"I have far too much riding on this, Kendrow." He pointed below him at the 
masses who were watching the ceremony about to start. "When one makes the sort 
of announcements that I have made, it is incumbent upon me... for the purpose of 
my sustained credibility ... to see them through. I do not need last-minute 
glitches ruining my plans."
"Neither do I!" Kendrow shot back, sounding rather ner­vous. "Do you think I 
don't know what you'll do to me if I -- "
"Steady, Kendrow, steady," said Thul gently. "Just do your job. Silver... are 
you prepared?"
Silver was seated in front of the interface panel. He had his palm flat, 
prepared for the process to begin. "I am ready," he said in that flat and rather 
unappealing voice of his.
"Excellent." Thul's eyes glittered with anticipation.
Calhoun found an access port directly in front of him, and then he heard the 
thundering footfall of Darg coming in fast behind him. He ripped open the access 
port and dropped through.
He landed lightly on a narrow maintenance bridge and made the hideous mistake of 
looking down.
"Down," in this instance, went on forever. Because he was at the uppermost point 
of the sphere, standing on a very small
bridge which ran across the top of the gigantic column that fed energy into the 
cloaking device. It was anchored to the top of the sphere by support struts 
overhead.
Far, far below him, in the center of the great sphere, the cloaking device 
hummed powerfully.
Clutching onto the railings, Calhoun started running the length of the 
maintenance bridge. He had almost made it to the far end when he heard a tearing 
of metal, and men Zolon Darg dropped onto the bridge in front of him. Darg 
looked utterly confident. There was no reason for him not to be.
"Shoot me again," Darg challenged him. "Go ahead."
Calhoun aimed for Darg's head and fired. But Darg easily blocked the shots by 
raising his huge metal arms in front of his face and deflecting the blasts. 
Quickly, Calhoun squeezed the sides of the heel-shaped phaser instead, 
increasing the intensity of the blast. This actually caused Darg to stagger 
under the barrage, but it also seemed to anger him more. Despite the sus­tained 
assault, Darg advanced step after steady step. His arms outstretched, he was 
within five feet of Calhoun, then four and then three, and the phaser blast was 
starting to falter. Calhoun realized that he was reaching the limit of the small 
phaser's en­ergy capacity.
Calhoun backed up, further and further, and cast a desperate glance behind and 
up. He saw Darg's men clustered at die ac­cess port above and behind him. They 
didn't seem about to let him climb out. Instead they grinned and pointed and 
clearly were waiting for the inevitable moment when Darg would get his 
mechanical hands on him.
He glanced up at the support struts... levelled his phaser, and fired.
Darg's smug grin of triumph flickered and then vanished as he saw what Calhoun 
was doing. "Wait! Hold it, you idiot! Stop!"
But it was too late. The phaser blast tore through the support struts, weakened 
it sufficiently, and the entire thing tore loose. The maintenance bridge, with a 
groan of metal, angled wildly downward, affixed to the ceiling only by the 
struts behind Cal­houn. Calhoun clambered toward the, section that was still 
se­cured, holding on to the railing for dear Me as the bridge slanted wildly 
beneath him, threatening to send them both tumbling off.
Darg leaped forward and upward toward Calhoun, trying to forestall sliding down 
and off. Calhoun tried to swing his legs up and clear away from Darg's desperate 
grasp, and almost managed it. But Darg, at the last second, snagged Calhoun's 
leg. Calhoun let out a yell as he felt his leg practically being torn right out 
of its socket. Then he lost his grip on the railing and both of them slid off 
the maintenance bridge and fell.
Gerrid Thul grinned in triumph as the Narobi named Silver pressed his hand flat 
against the interface board. "Contact pro­cessing," announced Silver.
Suddenly a clipped voice called from behind him, "Discon­nect him."
He whirled, and couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
It was Picard. He was standing there with a blaster and an extremely irritated 
expression. The insensate bodies of a cou­ple of guards could be glimpsed out in 
the corridor. "You," he said, "have been a very difficult individual to locate."
"Indeed," said Thul slowly. "How did you do it?"
'1 asked around. I believe you will find that several of your guards are no 
longer functioning at full capacity. Have him back away from the computer. Shut 
it down."
"That's not going to happen, Picard," said Thul.
'1 think it will." Picard aimed the blaster and fired almost point blank at 
Silver.
The blast coruscated around Silver. He paid it no heed.
Picard couldn't quite believe it. Thul, however, didn't seem the least bit 
thrown. "Very dense material that the Narobi are made from," he said mildly. 
"Resistant to blasters, phasers, dis­ruptors ... just about anything. And you'll 
find that the exteri­or of the computer bank is coated with the same material. 
Just one of the several contributions that the Narobi provided. You see, 
Picard... I tend to think ahead. I was not expecting that some foolhardy 
Federation idiot would come charging in here at the last moment and try to 
disrupt it... but I anticipated it. I try to anticipate everything."
Picard swung the blaster around and aimed it at Thul. "You," he said sharply, 
"are not blaster proof. Shut this down, now, or I'll -- "
"You'll what? Kill me?" There was no longer any trace of
amusement in his voice. "You already killed me, Picard. You killed me years ago, 
when my son died because of you." Slow­ly he started to walk toward Picard. "You 
know ... when I considered the possibility of the Federation sending someone... 
when I contemplated, imagined that I might find myself facing a desperate 
emissary trying to stop me ... I al­ways fantasized it would be you. Isn't that 
interesting? No one else. Always. In my mind's eye, I saw it just this way, with 
the two of us race-to-face, and you standing there feeling the same sort of 
helplessness as Double Helix was unleashed that I felt when I lost my son. Lost 
him because of you. Because of your damnable Federation."
"And everyone, every man, woman and child is to suffer be­cause of your loss?"
"That's right. That is exactly right."
"You won't live to see your triumph."
"Don't you understand? / don't care! Do your worst, Picard! I assure you it will 
pale next to what I have already done to myself! But in the meantime, nothing 
you will do will matter one iota, because in the final analysis, I will still 
win! And there's absolutely nothing you can do to -- "
That was when the lights when out and the sphere was rocked by a massive 
explosion.
In other sections of the Dyson Sphere (or the Thul Sphere, as it were) the 
gravity was zero, as Picard had learned. But in the center the gravity was near 
normal. Calhoun tumbled, end over end, trying to find something that he could 
grab onto, but there was nothing. Far, terribly far away to his left, was the 
docking port where his ship was comfortably anchored. It op­erated on voice 
recognition, but it had to hear him to respond, and he was simply too far away.
Then Calhoun slammed into something. He landed badly, wrenching his shoulder, 
and he lay there a moment, stunned. He realized that he had struck the outer 
edge of the cloaking device. He could feel the power of the mighty machine 
hum­ming beneath him.
He slid a few feet but then managed to halt his skid. Slowly he tried to push 
his way back up toward the center of the cloaking device, in the meantime 
looking around and trying to
catch a glimpse of where Darg had gone to. His main hope was that Darg had not 
landed quite as fortunately as he had. That he had instead clipped an edge and 
bounced off, or perhaps missed it entirely, and was sent tumbling the rest of 
the way to the bottom of the sphere.
Suddenly he felt the surface of the cloaking device tremble beneath him in a 
manner that was in excess of the power rum­bling beneath it. He craned bis neck 
around and saw Darg charging him.
The top of the cloaking device was slightly angled down­ward, and Calhoun did 
the only thing he could: He stopped fighting the pull of gravity and allowed 
himself to skid toward the edge. Darg was right after him. Calhoun got to the 
edge of the device and saw a yawning drop beneath him. He also saw that the side 
of the device was not smooth: There were hand­holds, or at least protruding 
surfaces that could be utilized as handholds. The only hope he had was that 
Darg's metal fingers were so thick that he wouldn't be able to utilize them.
Calhoun swung his body over the edge. His toes sought and found something to 
break his fall. He started clambering down the side like a monkey scaling a 
mountain. He just couldn't help but wish mat he had some clear idea as to just 
where the hell he thought he was going.
And in the meantime, his mission was still unfulfilled. He knew that he had 
almost no time before the Double Helix was unleashed. He had to stop it, 
somehow.
There was absolutely no choice.
He reached up to his face, grabbed the fake scar that was ad­hering to his own, 
and pulled. It came loose with a soft tearing sound, and he slapped the adhesive 
against the side of the cloaking device. He twisted the edges around each other, 
and he realized that he had no idea as to whether it was actually ac­tivated or 
not. Well, within fifteen minutes, he'd know for sure... and if the thing really 
were as powerful as claimed, it would wind up being the last thing he knew. , He 
then continued his descent, and he'd made it fifteen feet, moving quickly in the 
slightly lighter-than-normal gravity when he saw Darg reach the edge and look 
down at him with cold, implacable fury. But it would still take Darg time to 
find a way to come down after him.
Darg jumped.
Son of a bitch, thought Calhoun.
Darg's hand lashed out and he snagged a crossbar, halting his fall. The bar 
held. Damned sturdy devices these Romulans designed. He was clinging, bat-like 
to the surface of the cloak­ing device, only a few feet to Calhoun's right. He 
advanced on Calhoun, and Calhoun looked around frantically, up and down, trying 
to determine if there was a direction he could go fast enough that would carry 
him out of Darg's reach. Nothing pre­sented itself.
Darg was closer, closer, and the blades were fully extended on his hand. Within 
less than a second, he would be close enough to slash out at Calhoun and cut him 
to ribbons. Be­neath Calhoun's ringers, he could feel the power of the cloak­ing 
device surging beneath him. If there were some way to disrupt it, maybe ...
Too late. Darg's fingers lashed out, trying to slice through Calhoun's grip. 
Calhoun desperately shifted handholds, swing­ing his body out of the way, buying 
himself perhaps another second or two. But Darg had him cold, they both knew it.
And then Darg spotted the explosive that Calhoun had af­fixed to the surface of 
the cloaking device. He didn't recog­nize it for what it was, clearly, but he 
didn't like what he saw. With one glance at Calhoun's expression, he could tell 
that Calhoun wasn't happy about his noticing it either. That was more than 
enough reason for him to reach for it and start to peel it off. As he did so, he 
said almost conversationally, "Any last words?"
"Actually... yes. Three, to be exact," said Calhoun. He yanked the pip off his 
shirt where he had secreted it and slapped it on Darg's arm. "Activate, 
transporter right."
Darg looked at him in confusion, and suddenly he demateri­alized. He let out a 
roar and lunged at Calhoun, but his now-phantom hands went right through him, 
and then Darg vanished. Seconds later, he materialized in the heart of the 
cloaking device.
Calhoun had no real idea what would happen when that oc­curred. The energies 
required to power a cloaking device that big were like nothing that Calhoun had 
ever encountered be­fore. He didn't know what powered it, nor did he know what
powered Darg's robotic body. All he knew was that he was combining two elements, 
and hoping for the best.
What he got was far more than he had bargained for. For he felt a violent 
rumbling beneath him, and he heard, or thought he heard, a truncated scream from 
Darg before the energies within the cloaking device ripped him apart, even his 
powerful mechanical body not impervious to the power and energy that was 
buffeting him.
And then Calhoun heard an explosion, muffled but huge, and he suddenly realized 
that the explosive adhesive had been stuck to Darg when he rematerialized, and 
he had the further flash of understanding that the explosive had been detonated 
prematurely thanks to the forces roiling within the cloaking de­vice.
He did the only thing he could. He hurled himself off the cloaking device into 
mid-air, hurtling down and away from the immediate blast area.
A split second later, the cloaking device erupted.
XXIII.
there was alarm throughout the sphere as the cloaking de­vice erupted in flame. 
The entire manufactured world trembled from the detonation.
Thul saw it from a distance and couldn't believe it. From his vantage point he 
could see the crowd that had been milling about in the great square, waiting to 
witness the signing of the document that would be the cue for the annihilation 
of the Fed­eration. Except the picture on the huge screen had disappeared as 
systems shorted out and went down all over the sphere. Not only that, but they 
could see and hear, as he just had, the terri­ble explosion that had originated 
at the very core of the sphere.
Silver stood up, gingerly pulling his hand from the surface of the computer.
"What are you doing!" said an alarmed Thul in the now-darkened room. "I need you 
to interface with the Omega 9! The job's too big for a normal human mind! You 
have to -- "
"I have to do nothing," Silver said calmly. "I have analyzed the present 
situation, including the obvious sabotage to this sphere. It is my belief that, 
within three minutes, at the present rate of destruction, this sphere will be 
'destroyed. I have no de­sire to accompany it. So... I am leaving."
And suddenly there was a fearful looking weapon in Thul's
hand, pulled from the folds of his cloak. "Get back there, Sil-ver!" he snarled.
"I am leaving," said Silver.
Thul fired.
Picard watched the entire scene unfold with a sort of distant disbelief.
Thul fired upon the being whom he called Silver. But the blast from Thul's own 
weapon was no more effective upon Sil­ver man anything that Picard might have 
wielded. The blast ricocheted harmlessly off Silver...
... and struck Kendrow.
With a howl of agony, clutching at his blackened chest, Kendrow went down. He 
flopped about on the floor like a just-landed marlin, making incoherent babbling 
noises.
Thul paid him no mind. Instead he fired once more at Silver, and had no more 
luck than he'd had the previous time. Silver walked past him, completely 
ignoring him.
Everything forgotten except his boiling rage and desperation to carry out the 
final demise of the Federation, Thul charged at Silver. All pretensions of 
dignity, all of his superiority, were gone, vanished, boiled away by pure fury. 
It made him a very easy target. Picard reversed his gun, bringing the butt-end 
around, and as Thul passed him, Picard slammed him across the side of the head. 
Thul collapsed at his feet.
Silver paused a moment to cast a glance at Picard. "I would leave here if I were 
you," he said simply, and then the silver-metal being turned and walked away.
Picard turned quickly and headed over to Kendrow. He knelt down next to him, saw 
the severity of the wound, saw the de­spair in the man's eyes. Kendrow clearly 
knew he was dying... and yet he was looking up at Picard with heartbreak­ing 
despair, silently pleading for him to help him. Picard hesi­tated, unsure of 
what he could possibly do...
And that was when Gerrid Thul leaped upon his back.
A huge piece of metal, buffeted by the shock wave, slammed into Calhoun as he 
hurtled through mid-air. His head rang from the impact, but then he quickly 
realized that it was the single luckiest thine that could have happened to him.
The shock wave from the explosion hit, radiating outward, propelling Calhoun 
toward the far edges of the sphere. He tum­bled end over end, but because he was 
clutching with all his strength at the large shard of metal, his body pressed 
flat against it, he managed to avoid losing consciousness altogeth­er. He was 
like a crazed surfer riding out a massive wave.
Before he knew it, he slammed into the interior surface of the sphere. He lost 
his grip on the metal shard and it spiralled away from him. Once again in a 
zero-G area, Calhoun hung there for a moment, dazed, banged up, barely able to 
string a coherent thought together.
Then he started to float back toward the center, toward the massive 
conflagration which was building upon itself exponen­tially.
It was at that moment that he saw his freighter, docked and waiting. It was some 
distance away and he prayed his voice would carry as he shouted at the top of 
his lungs, "Freighter! Voice response activate! Pick up!"
For a moment he was certain that it hadn't heard him, and then the running 
lights suddenly flared to life. Wasting no time, the freighter pulled away from 
its moorings and angled obediently down toward its pilot.
Another explosion roared from within the heart of the sphere as the lower half 
of the cloaking device went up in flames.
Calhoun was now plummeting toward it, and then the freighter was there, main 
door open. Calhoun tumbled into the cabin, kept rolling and slammed into the far 
wall. He lay there for a moment, stunned, muttering, "I'm not getting paid 
enough."
Then he stumbled to his feet and seized the controls of the freighter...
... and was abruptly faced with a very difficult choice.
Picard tried to stagger to his feet and barely managed to do so. Thul was on his 
back, howling in fury, and Picard barely managed to shove him off. They faced 
each other, both then-weapons fallen. Thul had a look of dementia in his eyes. 
"It's over, Thul. We have to get out of here -- !" "No." Thul was shaking his head 
like a man deep in denial.
"No... they have to die... you have to die... the Double Helix..."
"I said it's over! Snap out of it, man! Nothing is going to be accomplished by 
staying here and being incinerated!"
Thul didn't listen. He was beyond listening, beyond caring. Instead he came 
right at Picard, his attack so sudden that Pi­card barely had time to defend 
himself against it
And Picard abruptly found himself in the hands of one of the most devastating 
hand-to-hand combatants he had ever en­countered.
One wouldn't have known it to look at Thul. The Thallonian was clearly an older 
man, older than Picard. He wasn't all that tall, not especially wide. But in 
close-quarters combat, he was a terror, an absolute terror. Picard wasn't 
exactly helpless in such situations, a fair hand-to-hand combatant himself, with 
some good moves and a rather nasty right hook, if he said so himself. But he 
couldn't even begin to mount a defense against Gerrid Thul.
Thul's hands were lightning. Picard would try and block a punch, and even before 
he had time to realize it was a feint, Thul had landed two blows, a third and a 
fourth. He struck Pi­card at will, doubling him over, straightening him up with 
an uppercut. Picard never even laid a hand on him.
Thul picked him up and threw him out into the main corri­dor, advancing on him 
mercilessly. All around them, panicked residents of the sphere were running like 
mad, trying to get to whatever ships were nearest so that they could get the 
hell out of there. Thul didn't seem to notice any of them. He was fo­cused, with 
laser-like efficiency, on Picard.
Picard felt the world swimming around him, tried to get to his feet, and then 
Thul was there and he kicked Picard in the gut, causing him to curl up like a 
fetus, and he kicked him over and over, howling, "You, Picard! It's all your 
fault! You're the living symbol of everyone and everything that destroyed my 
life! But you're not going to be living much longer!"
David Kendrow's desperate, questing hand stretched out to­ward the hand padd for 
the Omega 9. His body trembled from the exertion, and he was certain that he 
wasn't going to make it. But then, at the last moment, like a gift from God, he 
had a
small surge of energy that was small, ever so small, but it was enough. He 
lunged forward and his hand came into contact with the padd.
He trembled as the nannites, careless of the environment that was crumbling 
around them, did their job. They joined with him, penetrated his mind, his body, 
and seconds later his consciousness was pulled from his body and sent hurtling 
into the depths of the Omega 9.
What he had, at that point, was a plan that could most charita­bly be called a 
long-shot. What he was hoping was that his con­sciousness would survive the 
passing of his body if it was buried deep within the Omega 9. The problem was 
that, all too soon, the Omega 9 would be dust, gone with the rest of the sphere.
But the intention had been for the Omega 9 to interface with computers on other 
worlds. Granted, it had been too massive a job for Kendrow to do himself. Silver 
was supposed to bridge that gap with his machine mind. But Kendrow was still 
capable of at least projecting himself to some other computer data base... 
earth, perhaps, or another world. And perhaps... just perhaps ... he could use 
the replicators wherever he wound up to fashion himself some sort of body. There 
were other possi­bilities as well, but before he could explore any of them, he 
had to survive.
He plunged into the heart of the Omega 9, the glistening cir­cuitry singing 
gently to him. It was the first time that he him­self had done it, and it was 
glorious, it was like nothing else. He floated there, feeling as if he had 
somehow managed to re­turn to his mother's womb. There was peace, there was 
securi­ty, there was ...
Darkness. Something was moving in around him, something that seemed alien to the 
Omega 9. Kendrow's consciousness looked around, tried to perceive, tried to 
understand...
And a voice echoed all around him, a voice that said, I'd been trying to get 
your attention, David. Causing glitches here and there, doing what I could in my 
own small way... how kind of you to finally brave the interior of the Omega 9... 
it took you quite some time, didn't it... but you always were a bit of a coward 
at heart, you know that, don't you, David... ?
Kendrow looked around frantically. It was everywhere, the dark and cold, and he 
called out, Who is it? Who's there?!?
/ brushed against the Omega 9, David... with Darg and the others standing there, 
and you, and all you bright people, and you didn't spot it. Didn't spot the 
final connection. What did you think, Dave... that you were the first person to 
hit upon the idea of putting his consciousness into the Omega 9? You al­ways 
were more of a follower than a leader...
And then he understood. Fro... Frobisher... but... but you're dead...
Yes, Dave. I was dead. But you know, Dave... I'm feeling a lot better now...
The laughter was everywhere and Kendrow screamed as the darkness enveloped him.
Picard rolled over onto his back and then Gerrid Thul was upon him. He was 
straddling Picard, his hands at Picard's throat, and he slammed the captain's 
head against the floor. Stars exploded behind Picard's eyes, and Thul wasn't 
letting up, not for a second.
"I made a son... and you destroyed him. I created the per­fect virus ... and you 
destroyed my plan to implement it," and as he spoke the pressure of his hands 
upon Picard's throat was steady and unyielding. "You call me the destroyer? It's 
you, Pi­card! You are the bringer of pain! You are the slayer of dreams! You!"
The test tube rolled out from Picard's pocket.
It made a gentle, tinkling sound as it rolled. Thul cast a con­fused glance in 
the direction of the tube...
And the distraction was all Picard needed. He broke Thul's grip and shoved as 
hard as he could, sending Thul off-balance as he gasped and drew in air. Thul 
tumbled to the side, hit the floor hard.
Picard heard something break.
He clambered to his feet and saw Thul, on his back, starting to tremble. 
Instantly Picard understood. Thul had landed atop the test tube and crushed 
it... and the Double Helix virus was rampaging through his body. But it was 
doing so in highly con­centrated form.
Gerrid Thul, creator of the Double Helix, writhed in the grasp of his own 
creation. His back arched, his tongue lolled out, and his eyes went wide with 
horror as he realized what
had happened. For all his speeches about not caring about life, about being dead 
already, he certainly seemed to have the ex­pression of someone who was suddenly 
terrified about being hurled into oblivion. Or perhaps it was simply the way 
that it was occurring.
Thul's eyes shrivelled, collapsed into their sockets, his tongue began to 
blacken even as he voicelessly screamed his terror, the skin started to pucker 
and blister, pus oozing out from sores that had appeared spontaneously all over.
Picard was transfixed, and then it suddenly occurred to him that if the damned 
thing became airborne, this was going to be the perfect time to get the hell out 
of there. He tore his gaze away from Thul and ran like mad.
His legs and arms pumping, Picard dashed down the corri­dor. He hoped that he 
remembered where the docking area was, and also prayed that he would be able to 
find a means of escape once he got there. The sphere rumbled around him and he 
knew there wasn't much time left as the systems ate them­selves, one explosion 
feeding upon another. Bleakly, he won­dered what had happened to Calhoun and 
Vara Syndra, or Vandelia, or whatever her name was. He could only pray that they 
were all right and that somehow they were going to man­age to get themselves 
clear.
He saw a sign marked for one of the docking areas, turned right, and saw huge 
double doors that were just sitting open, which led to the docking ports. He 
dashed out into the vast docking area which opened out to the interior of the 
sphere. From that viewpoint, he could see flame erupting from spots throughout 
the sphere. The far side of the sphere was already a massive wall of flame, and 
it was spreading wildly. He was witnessing the death of a technological marvel. 
From a purely scientific and even aesthetic view, it was a tremendous waste and 
tragedy.
All this he saw from where he was standing. What he did not see were any ships. 
He spotted the last of the small trans­ports moving away, and there was nothing 
left in his immedi­ate area. There were other docking ports, but they were too 
far away for him to get to in time.
He saw the firewall racing toward him from either side. There was nowhere to go.
He took a deep breath, faced his death, and thought about a book his mother had 
read to him several times in his youth: Peter Pan. He thought of the time that 
Peter was crouched on the rock, having just been stabbed by Hook, unable to fly, 
un­able to save himself, and he had looked at the rising tide and mused 
philosophically about his impending doom.
'To die," Picard whispered, "would be a great adventure."
At which point he promptly disappeared in a haze of sparkles.
Seconds later, he materialized in what appeared to be a small freighter. He 
looked around in confusion ... and then a smile broke across his face. "I should 
have known."
"Yes, you should have," Calhoun said reprovingly from the control panel. He 
hadn't even bothered to turn around. "I was on my last sweep of the place 
looking for you. You certainly took your sweet time getting somewhere that I 
could see you. Thanks to you, I've had to cut this a lot thinner than I would 
have liked."
"It's getting thinner still. Where's the woman?"
"Dead," Calhoun said tonelessly. "Darg killed her. But con­sidering there's not 
two molecules of him left to rub together, I doubt he'll be hurting anyone else. 
Where's Thul?"
"The same, but more grisly. Get us out of here."
"That's why you've been captain longer than me. You know how to make the tough 
decisions."
Even as he spoke, he was sending the freighter hurtling to­ward one of the few 
areas that was not completely aflame. The sphere was collapsing on itself, 
gigantic flaming shards smash­ing into one another. Calhoun coolly maneuvered 
the shuttle between the debris, dodging left and right as he called out, "Hold 
on. This is going to be a little tricky."
He saw an escape route and went for it, and the freighter darted forward just 
before a huge piece of debris could smash into it. Then they were clear of the 
sphere, moving away from it faster and faster as the last of the explosions 
utterly con­sumed it.
Other ships were all around, scattered, confused, unsure of where to go or what 
to do. Then, after a few moments, they slowly started to move away from the area 
of the destruction. Picard watched them go, shaking his head, and -- like an old-
time policeman -- he said, "Show's over. Nothing more to see here."
"Yes," Calhoun said slowly, "yes ... there is."
He was angling his freighter toward one particular ship. "What is it, Mac?"
"That's Thul's ship. But you said he's dead."
"He is."
"Then I'm going to take a shot in the dark," Calhoun said.
He touched several controls and Picard heard the distinctive whine of phasers 
powering up. "What are you doing?"
But Calhoun had opened up a ship-to-ship channel. "Lodec. I have you targeted. 
I'm coming in at 273 Mark 2. This is it, Lodec."
There was dead silence as Picard looked in puzzlement at Calhoun... and then 
Lodec's voice came back over the chan­nel. "Hello, Calhoun."
"Do you want an opportunity to fight back... or should I just blow you out of 
space?"
"Calhoun, back off," Picard said sharply, "this is absurd -- "
Calhoun looked at him with blazing eyes and said, "No. This is personal. Well, 
Lodec?"
Again a moment of silence, and then Lodec said, "I was going to let you go, you 
know. In the corridor. I saw you there, and I was all set to keep my silence. 
And you had to draw on me, so that I thought you were going to shoot me. You 
left me no choice. But it's all about choices, isn't it, Calhoun? So fine. I 
leave you the choice you didn't leave me. Shoot or don't It's of no conse­quence 
to me. Death will just silence the voices that have been crying out in my head 
for so many years. Do as you like."
With that, he cut the connection.
Picard said nothing. He simply watched Calhoun, who stared out at the ship that 
was hanging there, a huge target. It offered no defense. It would have been so 
easy.
And then, unmolested... the ship moved off. a moment later, it kicked into warp 
space and was gone.
Picard let out a slow, relieved breath, and he patted Calhoun on the back. "Mac 
... believe it or not... I know how difficult it is to let go of the need for 
revenge. .But -- and I don't mean to sound patronizing here -- I think you've taken a 
tremendous step forward in your personal growth and -- "
"The phaser banks are empty," Calhoun said.
"What?" Picard leaned forward and looked. It was true. The phasers had powered 
up, but had been unable to sustain it.
"They're empty. And it's not just them. Thul must have drained the ship's 
systems. Engines, life support, all going. He had quite a knack for thinking 
ahead. Here was a man who thought, Well, just in case Calhoun and/or Picard 
escape, I'll leave them just enough power to get away. To make them think 
they're safe. And then all the systems will..."
The lights in the freighter suddenly went out.
"... cut out," he concluded.
On earth, the closing ceremonies for the bicentennial went without a hitch. As 
they did, Jellico turned to Nechayev and said, "Well, well... it would appear 
that we got all concerned for nothing."
"Apparently so. Unless, of course, someone just saved the galaxy as we know it 
from total disaster and we're simply un­aware of it."
"I doubt it," Jellico replied. "I mean, I think I'd know if something like that 
had happened."
"Yes," said Nechayev. "It'd be fairly difficult to slip some­thing like that 
past you, Eddie."
Picard and Calhoun spent the next several minutes seeing what they could 
possibly do to reverse the situation, but noth­ing seemed to present itself. 
Furthermore, all the other ships had moved out by that point. Not that their 
being present would have offered any great options. Calhoun and Picard had 
already been named as traitors and enemies by Thul. Fi­nally, options expended, 
they simply sat there, looking at each other.
"Had you already decided not to kill Lodec before you saw the phasers were out? 
Or did you notice that the phasers were out and realize that the decision was 
out of your hands?"
Calhoun said nothing.
"You're not going to answer, are you."
"Picard," Calhoun said slowly, "you are probably one of the brightest men I've 
ever met. You've known me for twenty years. You know my background. You know 
what I stand for.
And you know that, ultimately -- even if there are some bumps along the way -- I'm 
going to end up doing the right thing. So I think you really know the answer to 
that question, don't you."
"Nice try, Mac."
"All right... I suppose I knew I wouldn't get away with it that easily. The 
truth, Picard... is that I was in the same situ­ation once before. The 
indecision led to my resigning from Starfleet because the universe was very 
black and white to me. This time around... I have to admit that, once again, I 
don't know what I would have done. I still might have given in to the impulse 
for vengeance. Or I might not. I'm just not sure. But at least this time, I'm 
not going to let the lack of knowledge get to me. It took me a long time and a 
lot of learning to realize that it's all right not to know everything ... 
including every aspect of oneself. That it's ac­ceptable to live within the 
shades of gray on occasion. Good enough?"
"Not really. But I suppose it will have to do."
They sat there for a time more, and then Calhoun said, "What are you thinking 
about?"
"All the people I've known. All the opportunities I've had in my life, and 
whether I would do it all the same. About Thul's son, and whether his death 
could have been pre­vented ... whether I could have done anything differently, 
for if I had, all this could have been avoided. Lives wouldn't have been wasted 
and lost, and incredible forays of ingenuity wouldn't have been dedicated to 
such a useless endeavor as a hollow need to destroy in the quest for useless 
revenge. I'm thinking about the universe in general, of free will, and of man's 
place within that universe and whether we really have a place at all, or how 
much we matter in the grand scheme of things. I'm wondering ... what the 
ultimate answers to all reality are, and whether we'll ever get to know them." 
He paused, feeling the chill of space beginning to work its way into his bones. 
"And you? What are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking about how nice it would be if the Excalibur showed up and rescued 
us."
Picard laughed softly to himself,, starting to feel a bit light­headed as the 
carbon dioxide began to build up. And at that moment, space in front of them 
rippled, a hole in the space-
time continuum opened up, and the Starship Excalibur dropped into normal space a 
mere five hundred kilometers away.
Picard gaped at the sight and then turned to Calhoun, who maintained an absolute 
deadpan as he said, "I don't know about me ultimate ones, but I guess some 
answers come more quickly than others."
XXIV.
calhoun and shelby were escorting Picard and Riker to the transporter room. 
"Sela's already been beamed aboard the En­terprise, as per your request, 
Captain," said Calhoun. "I'm afraid there's been no change in her condition."
"I'm hoping that Starfleet will be able to give her the help she needs," Picard 
said. "Perhaps even leave her better than when she started. No matter what it is 
that she's be­come ... she remains the daughter of an old, dear friend. If 
there's any way to salvage the influence of the good person that Tasha Yar was, 
then we have to take it."
"Looking for the best in people. It's comforting to know that some things about 
you don't change, Captain," Calhoun said.
"It is equally comforting, Captain, to know that some things about you do 
change," Picard replied with a carefully neutral expression, which drew a wary 
grin from Calhoun. Picard con­tinued, "Number One... how went your temporary 
assign­ment to the Excalibur?"
"Good question," seconded Calhoun. "Commander Shelby, did you two get on with 
each other? Or were there any prob­lems I should know about?"
Shelby and Riker cast a glance at each other, and then Shel­by said, 
"Actually... it went about as expected."
"It was a learning experience... for all concerned," Riker added.
"It would appear, Captain Calhoun," Picard said, "that the crew here is 
beginning to imitate your rather enigmatic way of expressing yourself. Perhaps 
you -- "
He stopped in his tracks.
A dark haired woman was approaching him. And she looked like... but... it 
couldn't possibly be...
"Leaving, Commander? I hope you enjoyed your stay. Well, have to rush. Good day 
to you," said Morgan Lefler as she breezed past.
Picard gaped after her, then looked back to Riker. "What was ... was that... 
how?"
"Captain," Riker said in a firm but understanding voice, "I've learned that 
around this ship... it's best not to ask too many questions."
"Is it finished yet?"
Burgoyne lay on the examination bed in sickbay while Doc­tor Selar studied the 
readouts. "Almost, Burgoyne. But let me see if I understand this. Medical scans 
and similar procedures are privileged information... but you want me to post 
this scan publicly? To everyone on the ship?"
"Yes. That's correct," Burgoyne confirmed. "I'm tired of everyone congratulating 
me on my pregnancy. It's gotten very old, very quickly. And some of them even 
think I'm being coy when I deny it So if I just publicize it in one shot, with 
the scan confirming that I'm not pregnant, that should put an end to it."
"That sounds like a commendable plan. I wish I could oblige."
"But Selar, I told you, I'm waiving the confidentiality -- "
"It is not a matter of that But if you wish to circulate this scan as proof of 
what you are claiming, that is not going to be possible."
"What?" Burgoyne was completely confused. "What are you talking about?"
"You are pregnant"
"What?" The blood drained from Burgoyne's face. "But... but I can't be..."
"You are. Look for yourself."
Burgoyne took one look at the readout and faulted dead away.
Selar stood there and regarded hir with very mild amuse­ment. And then McHenry 
emerged from hiding nearby and grinned down at the unconscious Hermat. "Well, 
well, Burgy. You told me you were pregnant, except you really weren't... and I 
passed out... and you teased me about it. So now, with the good doctor's help 
here, you get told you're pregnant, except you're really not... but you handled 
the un­expected fake news as well as I did. For some reason, I find that very 
comforting. Don't you think that's comforting?"
"I think you are all insane, and I think I am just as insane for cooperating," 
sniffed Selar. And she turned away to hide the slight smile that she couldn't 
quite repress.