by Peter David
“If someone were coming at your battleship specifically because they had a grudge against you, would you tell your crew that you were leaving them behind so that you would face the risk without endangering them?”
“Of course not, but this isn’t the same thing. These people,” and he gestured toward the Xenexians out the window and the planet’s population in general, “they aren’t my crew.”
“No, but they are your people. Perhaps you’ve forgotten what that means.”
“I haven’t. It means I watch out for them. And placing them between me and whatever’s coming for me would be unconscionable.”
From above they could hear the distant roar of a ship’s engines. Something was descending toward them. Obviously it wasn’t such a large vessel that entering the atmosphere was problematic, but Calhoun could tell from the sound of it that it was sizable nonetheless. A small army could come pouring out of there, with one target in their sights: him.
“I’m not going to endanger them,” said Calhoun firmly.
D’ndai’s expression softened into one of understanding. He placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I understand,” said D’ndai.
“Good.”
Calhoun had no time to react as D’ndai’s fist lashed out, striking him across the jaw. Caught completely flat-footed, Calhoun staggered, and D’ndai swung a roundhouse that clocked Calhoun from the other side. Calhoun tried to recover, tried to jab back at D’ndai, but D’ndai blocked it effortlessly and delivered an uppercut to the point of Calhoun’s jaw. Any one of the three blows would have been enough to fell a normal man; it took the combination of all three to bring down Mackenzie Calhoun. His knees buckled as he took a determined step forward and then he collapsed, falling heavily to the ground.
“You have a lot going for you, M’k’n’zy,” said D’ndai, “but I always was the better of the two of us when it came to hand to hand. You might want to remember that for next time.”
It was the last thing Calhoun heard before the world faded to black around him.
ii.
D’ndai, for all the emotion and concern that he was displaying, could have been taking a casual walk in a pleasant forested area, as he emerged from his small, ramshackle home and strolled into the town square where hundreds of people were clustering, looking up at the vessel hovering above them.
It wasn’t as if the Xenexians had never seen a ship before; they had their own spaceport, as modest as it was. But they had never seen this particular design of vessel before, and the manner in which it was just hovering there, casting a vast shadow over the ground, was clearly intended to be intimidating.
We’re not so easily intimidated as all that, D’ndai thought grimly. The obvious proof was that, whereas other people might have fled to shelter, the Xenexians were gathering and waiting, and there might have been bewilderment in their faces, but there was also quiet defiance. If the crew of the ship was attempting to frighten them, they were going to learn quickly that it was not going to work.
“Where did it come from?” D’ndai asked one of his people.
“Don’t know. One minute it wasn’t there, the next it was.”
“A cloaking device,” said D’ndai to himself. This was puzzling to him. He’d heard that Romulans had such devices, as did Klingons, but their ships had fairly distinctive looks to them. This vessel didn’t look anything like those. This was far more blocky and utilitarian.
Suddenly a large hatch slowly irised open in the side of the vessel. There was a visible entranceway into the ship, but it was so dark within that it was impossible to discern anything inside.
And then a large armored figure appeared in the door. It stepped out and dropped the distance to the ground, landing with a thud that reverberated through the air. Then a second armored figure appeared and did the exact same thing, landing just to the right of the one before him. Then a third followed, and a fourth, and soon there were half a dozen of them gathered in the square, simply standing there, with no sign of weapons in their hands.
D’ndai had never seen anyone like them before. He made a practice of keeping himself apprised of all the major allies, and enemies, of the Federation, because as the tribal leader he felt it necessary to stay current on all potential threats. But he had no idea who these beings were. He didn’t like the fact that they were covered head to toe in armor. It was going to make them extremely difficult to battle. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he was prepared for it.
Still… six against a hundred or so, with more of D’ndai’s people arriving every moment. He had to think that the odds favored the Xenexians considerably.
The armored figures remained absolutely immobile, not even bothering to look around. The Xenexians were murmuring to themselves, questioning who these intruders might be, but no one seemed particularly afraid. A number of them were even smiling grimly, as if they were looking forward to a potential battle. It was the racial heritage of Xenexians always to anticipate a good fight.
Still, there was no reason to assume that such a fight was inevitable.
D’ndai stepped forward until his oncoming presence could not be ignored. One of the armored figures looked at him, or at least D’ndai thought they were looking at him. It was hard to tell.
“May I help you?” he asked.
He wasn’t sure if the armored figure was going to respond at all, but then a deep, rumbling voice, speaking through some manner of electronic filter, said, “You are in authority here?”
“I am,” said D’ndai. “Welcome to Xenex. Enjoy your stay.”
“We are not staying. Give us Mackenzie Calhoun.”
“There’s no one here by that name,” said D’ndai. As far as he was concerned, he was answering honestly. The man he called “brother” was named M’k’n’zy. D’ndai had always detested the bastardization of his name that “Mackenzie” had embraced, and thus saw no reason to acknowledge it, particularly under circumstances such as these.
“Lying will do you no good. We know he is here.”
“What you ‘know’ is up for debate,” said D’ndai. “I am telling you that there is no one named Mackenzie Calhoun here. So if that is the entirety of your business, you would do well to be on your way.”
“Give him to us now.”
“Listen carefully,” D’ndai said, and he could see the grim, prepared faces of the people all around him, his people, the ones who would never back down before an enemy. “You’re new here, so it’s possible you don’t understand. So let me explain: Generally speaking, Xenexians do not do well with threats.”
“The Brethren,” said the armored figure, “do not threaten.”
Whereupon the Brethren raised his gloved hand, and the next thing D’ndai knew he was being lifted off his feet, and the smell of something burning filled his nostrils, and he realized that the something burning was in him. Then the ground abruptly came up and slammed into him, and he heard an agonized scream that he recognized as that of his brother, and he thought, The little idiot just doesn’t know how to say unconscious, and then he thought nothing more.
iii.
The room was swimming around Calhoun as he came to. At first he was totally unaware of how he had wound up on the floor, and then it came back to him in a flash. He realized what his brother had done and, even more importantly, anticipated just exactly the danger that D’ndai had deliberately placed himself in.
Usually Calhoun did not awaken by degrees, as most people did: He snapped fully awake, ready for anything that could possibly be facing him. But the circumstances of his unconsciousness in this instance were artificial, and so it was that he didn’t spring to his feet so much as lurch there. He nearly stumbled over his own ankles before recovering, throwing his arms out to either side to balance himself like a tightrope walker.
Then he heard D’ndai’s booming voice outside, from not too far away judging by the reverberation. He was speaking in a challenging manner to someone whose identity was still unknown to Calhoun, bu
t he had to think that it was no one who was out to do anything positive for either the Xenexians or the captain of the Excalibur.
Calhoun pulled out his phaser and approached the door to D’ndai’s house. He didn’t know what he was going to be facing, but he had to operate on the assumption that it was going to be an enemy. So he was prepared for that. The question was: What sort of enemy was it?
Does it matter? As long as it’s the dead kind, what difference does it make?
He approached the front door, already in a crouch to present the smallest possible target. And at the exact instant that he opened it, he saw a member of what he knew to be the alien race known simply as the Brethren—the warrior race that served as the muscle to the relatively intellectual D’myurj—blasting his brother off his feet with some manner of energy pulse from his armor. D’ndai didn’t even have time to scream as his body was hurled through the air. Then D’ndai slammed to the ground with such an impact that, to Calhoun, it was as if he could feel it all the way from where he was standing.
Calhoun let out a howl of fury, and even as he did so, the fighting computer that was his mind reviewed the ways in which a member of the Brethren could be killed.
There was only one of which he knew.
Action matched thought, and barely had D’ndai’s limp body hit the ground when Calhoun charged forward, gripping his phaser tightly, targeting the small release vent on the side of the Brethren’s armor that provided the single vulnerable spot. Then he leaped through the air, firing off a single phaser blast in what should have been an utterly impossible shot.
It wasn’t.
The blast drilled into the vent, and the Brethren warrior threw wide his arms, staggered, shuddered for a few moments, and then toppled forward, hitting the ground with a resounding thud.
Calhoun performed a shoulder roll and came to his feet. Without slowing down, he continued firing, shouting, “Those vents in the side of their armor! That’s your target! But don’t get close, because the surface is superheated!”
The last part of his instructions arrived a moment too late for one woman who leaped upon the closest Brethren warrior while wielding a lengthy dagger. The Xenexian screamed as the armor seared her skin, but that didn’t deter her from driving the dagger into the vent. It stabbed deep, right up to the hilt, and the Brethren stumbled and clawed at it, trying to pull it free even as his body was racked with what would be his death spasms. The Xenexian woman released her hold, falling to the ground and rolling away, a large part of her skin red and blistered and some of her clothing burned away. And yet the cry she let out upon her release was one of triumph rather than pain.
The Brethren came after the Xenexians then, but the Xenexians fell back. Despite the fact that this was no coordinated army, the Xenexians still moved in perfect precision, scattering without banging into one another. This was no terrified group of people running over themselves to escape danger. This was an instant military unit performing a strategic retreat so that other forces could step in.
The other forces arrived in no time. There were no archers in the Federation more deadly than those on Xenex, and men and women practicing that particular trade now made their presence known. A number of them had already taken up positions on rooftops of the low buildings, just in case the new arrivals were planning some form of attack. All that they had required was a decent target, and with the shouted instructions from Calhoun, they now had it. With twangs of their bowstrings, they unleashed a volley of arrows. Ninety percent of them missed because the target was as precise as it was, and the angle of the entry point kept changing as the Brethren turned this way and that to face the new threat. But ten percent of them struck home, and that was all that was required. Within seconds after the attack upon D’ndai, all six of the Brethren lay scattered about the town square. Some of their bodies were still twitching, but otherwise they posed no threat.
The Xenexians sent up a loud, rousing cheer, and some began to chant the name “M’k’n’zy.” Soon all of them were, and for a heartbeat Mackenzie Calhoun found himself back in his youth, when armies of his own brethren were cheering him and lauding him with praise for the great battles that he, as warlord, oversaw.
But now it all rang hollow for him. All that mattered to him was the unmoving body of his brother.
Calhoun ran to him and dropped to his knees, cradling his head upon his lap. D’ndai looked up at him blankly, as if he couldn’t quite make out who or what he was seeing.
The ship continued to hover overhead, and Calhoun knew that if he could just somehow get to it, he could get off Xenex, return to the Excalibur, and then… what? Confront an out-of-control computer entity that could probably destroy the ship with a thought if she were so inclined? How the hell was that going to go? Not particularly well, he had to think.
Then he yanked his thoughts back to the here and now. This was not the time for long-term planning. He needed to find a way to save his brother. If he were on his own ship, there was every chance that the sickbay might have the means to deal with the catastrophic nerve damage that D’ndai had suffered. Here, on Xenex, where the medical facilities were still fairly primitive…
“You must be out of your mind.”
It was a soft, low female voice, one that he recognized instantly.
Many Xenexians were still cheering, but some were now watching in confused silence, unsure of where this new arrival had come from. She had simply popped into existence, out of nowhere, wearing a Starfleet uniform and a contemptuous expression. She was standing over M’k’n’zy, the hero of Xenex, and speaking in a taunting manner. That alone was enough to prompt several of them to want to kill her just on principle, but they held themselves in check.
“How dare you,” said Calhoun with a snarl, “disguise yourself as my wife.”
“We are the D’myurj. We appear as we wish.”
“Then die as we wish,” said Calhoun, and without hesitation he brought up his phaser and took aim.
“You’re just going to hit one of your own people,” said “Shelby.” “I’m not really here.”
Calhoun frowned and then saw that the being standing in front of him wasn’t casting a shadow. It was true; she was just a mirage.
“You see?” she continued. “You see how I’m being solicitous of your peoples’ safety? More than you are, I should observe. This person is mortally wounded on your behalf and that one over there,” and she indicated the woman who had been badly burned and was being carried away by several Xenexians to seek medical aid, “has only one chance in three of surviving, judging by the severity of the damage she sustained.”
Calhoun wanted to snarl at her that the mortally wounded person she so casually referred to was his brother. But he caught himself; why give her the knowledge of the emotional blow he had just sustained? Instead what he needed right then was information, something that he could conceivably use against this… this creature. “I thought you D’myurj and the Brethren had had a falling-out. That you were no longer allies.”
“That is true for many of my misbegotten race. But not I. I had the foresight to forge a different agreement with the Brethren; one that would take all of us to a more positive destiny than my weak-willed kin, who were dedicated to shepherding along the development of other races rather than taking charge as we should rightly do.”
That was when Calhoun knew who he was dealing with. Soleta had described to him the insufferably smug member of the D’myurj she had encountered back on AF1963, the one who had turned traitor against his own species and set the Brethren against them. This was his handiwork.
“Shelby” knelt near him as if she were about to give him friendly words of advice, wife to husband. “Listen to me carefully, Calhoun. You’re a smart fellow; you can’t possibly think this is going to be the end of it. The Brethren will come and they will arrive in force. And your fellow Xenexians can celebrate all they want, but ultimately, anyone who stands between the Brethren and you is going to die. Is that what you
want to bring down upon your people? Death and destruction? When the Brethren return, your only chance will be to surrender. In fact, if you tell me right now that you surrender, the ship will beam you up and you will be brought to us with no more danger to any of your people.”
And without hesitation, Calhoun was ready to agree to it. It was the simplest way to avoid any further horrors visited upon the innocent Xenexians.
But before he could speak, D’ndai’s hand suddenly gripped his forearm with astounding strength. Calhoun looked down at his brother, surprised.
D’ndai spoke with effort, gasping for every breath. He sounded as if his lungs had collapsed, which they very well might have. “They could… could beam you up… right now… now that they… know where… you are…”
Calhoun realized that his brother was right. How could something as patently obvious as that have eluded him? They had a direct sightline to him, and he knew the Brethren had transporter technology. Even if the ship was now devoid of crew and entirely computer operated, he could easily be targeted and brought up. At which point, if the plan was to dispose of him, they could reverse energize and disperse his molecules over several square miles of Xenexian territory. They didn’t need his cooperation.
There was only one answer: They wanted the Xenexians to see him surrender. The great M’k’n’zy, the enemy of oppressors, the man who would rather die than let an enemy triumph, giving up meekly to an unseen opponent.
There’s no more formidable enemy than a legend. It was a comment from one of the historical texts he had read, uttered by a Roman general, and it was as true now as it was thousands of years ago. And what better way to tear down a legend than to humiliate him in front of his own people?
It wouldn’t matter to the Xenexians that he was doing it for their own good. It would be of no relevance that he was just trying to save their lives. Granted, there were many on Xenex who, to this day, resented the hell out of Calhoun for having left them shortly after they had been liberated of their oppressors. Who felt that he should have stayed and guided them rather than go off to pursue new vistas. But that was the older generation of Xenexians, and even many of them had softened their views as the horizons of Xenex had expanded due to increased Starfleet interest. As for the younger Xenexians, they had practically elevated him to the level of god.